Yourself or Someone Like You

I'm hopping on the iTunes bandwagon a bit late, to say the least. I had a Sony MP3 player until about a year ago when I lost the cord that charges it. I was pretty devastated, but made do with the radio and my favorite CDs. For Christmas, Mike got me and iPod and, not knowing what songs to put on it, I have yet to take it out of it's box. It's not that I don't like it ... quite the opposite really. I love that I have it, and quite a bit of money available on iTunes to load it with a couple hundred of my favorite songs. I just want it to be perfect!

I tried logging on to iTunes a few times before I learned how to (easily) redeem my cards without putting my credit card information into the iTunes store (I don't want to buy so much music I go into debt). Low and behold, there is a "none" button in line with all of the credit cards you can select. But it doesn't have a cute little icon, and I completely overlooked it the first few times. Yes, few. And I'm a pretty observant person. ... maybe that option is new ... that must be it, right? ;)

But after a month or two of admiring the gadget and another month or two trying to figure out iTunes fairly late at night, I've returned to my music-loving self.... and chuckle when I feel like I'm back in the good ol' days when Napster wasn't yet illegal. I'm definitely back in that frame of mind.

My favorite download of the night is Matchbox Twenty's breakthrough album, Yourself or Someone Like You. It's one of those CDs I played continuously back in high school ... along with Goo Goo Dolls, Vertical Horizon, Third Eye Blind and the like. It is not one of those albums where I like a few songs and the rest are alright. I love EVERY song, and am reminded of some great times when I hear them. I lost this CD when I went on a camping trip back in 2001 (yes, I remember the date!) I probably could have found it for next to nothing in a used CD shop somewhere ... but for some reason I never did. Now all those songs are back on my computer and playing on repeat; I'm in my happy place ;)

Other downloads so far include the Red Hot Chili Pepper's song "Snow (Hey Oh)", a few Fall Out Boy singles, "Low" by Flo Rida (how could I not!?), and Usher's "Love in this Club" for Mike. I also downloaded Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" because I like the way it sounds --- I'm a closet hip hop / R&B fan because of the rhythm, but I rarely, if ever, take the time to actually listen to the lyrics. Definitely should have done that with this song, because I turned it on and Mike said "JES. Do you even know what that song is about?!" I didn't -- because I'd never REALLY listened to it. He had me restart it and let me just say I won't nonchalantly sing "... like a lollipop..." anywhere in public. Talk about a major blonde moment. I should probably stick with my alternative and ska bands ...

I'm planning to fill the iPod with some good travel tunes before our house-hunting trip to Texas and our eventual 13 hour trek to Ohio and 24 hour drive to Texas. Let me know if you have any recommendations!

And for the standard update on what we've been up to: cleaning, lots and lots of cleaning. We've gone through all but two closets (one being Mike's, and he's finishing that tomorrow) and organized our storage unit. We're donating lots of clothes and furniture to Habitat, something that's been long overdue. I still had clothes from high school ... and I'm not entirely sure how that's possible. They traveled here with me from Ohio?! Did I really think I'd be that small again!? ;)

We booked our rental car and hotel in the Houston area last Thursday, and we've got our fingers crossed that Northwest doesn't hop on the plane-grounding bandwagon between now and the end of April.

Our home loan process is going well ... we have our pre-approval letter and we're finishing up as much as we can this week. I should say Mike's finishing most of it up tomorrow; I can't really help too much because the loan is just in his name. I needed to have a job lined up in Texas at the time of application to be included. It works though, because we wanted to stay under the housing allotment he receives. It's totally do-able in Texas--yeah for that! We've been looking at lots of houses online and tomorrow night we're going through our bookmarks and some options sent to us by our real estate agent to organize our favorites.

I'm also planning on sending out a couple of job applications --- to the Museum of Fine Arts and a social service organization called Bo's Place. If the job doesn't work out I would love to volunteer at Bo's Place; they have a great mission--I definitely could have used an organization like this when my grandma passed. Maybe their process could help me find the closure I'm still lacking in that respect. At the moment, they're looking for someone to manage grants, send donor acknowledgments, and coordinate publications like newsletters and an annual report. I love writing grants, sending letters and desktop publishing. The staff looks like it's right around the size of CAC, maybe a little smaller; they currently have four development staff, including a Director (this alone really excites me!) It seems like a great fit, but we'll see how it goes! I've said a few prayers and had my fingers crossed that I would find a good opportunity, so now it's time to jazz up the ol' resume and send my application on its way.

All of that, plus keeping up with my job at CAC, is making life a bit crazy and chaotic. I function best under pressure, when my calendar is full and I don't have time to realize how stressed I am, so it seems to be working out pretty well. Racing deadlines for a few years has definitely helped with that, I'm sure! I hope the energy sticks around and that I have exciting news to share with everyone as our moving adventure continues. :)

PS. Our spring allergies are definitely here. The puppies have had "eye boogers" for about a week and a half, Mike's nose is runny and my eyes are watering like crazy. This better mean the warm weather is here to stay!

PPS. Tiff --- any more news on when you might be headed our way?! I want to seeeee yoooou! :)