Coffeebration

Something is terribly wrong with this blog.  My archives are all broken and the individual archive pages show each entry twice.  I guess that is what I get for neglecting it for almost a year.  And sadly, I just don’t care enough to fix it. 

I have been slacking on updating like always but at least I have a reason.  I have been busy every night after work packing up all my junk because I’m moving this weekend.  I’m trying to come up with something I’m going to miss about this place but I’m drawing a blank.  Living in Lawrenceville hasn’t been a blast but it has been a lot quieter than most of the places I have lived.  It is a small dead-end street with neighbors that keep to themselves and usually don’t cause any commotion. 

So we have been really busy.  Half of my things are already there and we painted one of the rooms that is going to be the office/library/history room because Bryan probably has enough stuff to fill the whole house with it.  He is working on cleaning everything out of the bedroom so we can paint it next.

I’m really looking forward to moving to a street with yards and even fewer houses, you know like suburban living.  I didn’t even really have that when I lived in a little town with my parents because the neighbors’ houses were still literally on top of us.  I think Peppsi is going to miss Boo but I know he is excited about moving because I keep telling him how exciting it will be and he meows.  He sure is excited about all the boxes and newspaper everywhere.  He is trouble as Bryan says but we both love him and I’m really happy that Bryan is excited about welcoming him into our home because I would be sad if Bryan didn’t love him.  Bryan even bought him an awesome rolling litter box that I saw on Amazon and wanted.  I took tomorrow off to finish packing and I think we will be moving my bed on Monday morning, so thats it folks.  I’m out of here.  😉

Bryan and I went on vacation to Isle of Palms/Charleston two weeks ago.  We left on my birthday.  Since I will probably be too busy to update on it anytime soon, you can read Bryan’s really awesome recap.  His is actually much better than mine could ever be because instead of telling you that we went to see the H.L. Hunley and all its history, I would tell you we went to see a rusty old submarine …. haha

 http://www.bryanrmeyer.net/Journal/?p=35

A quick recap of the two weeks since I last posted.  Well, two Thursday’s ago Bryan had his wisdom teeth removed and he is glad it is over with and does not have to worry about his mouth bothering him on our upcoming vacation.  On Friday after work I went to his house with armed with groceries to make roast beef and lots of mashed potatoes.  We went to see Transformers that Saturday night and I am surprised to say that I really enjoyed it!  This past weekend, we stayed at his parents house because we went to Civil War Days near Erie, PA and it is only about a 45 minute drive from his parents house.  So we headed up on Friday night, checked out the Civil War extravaganza on Saturday, and chilled out on Sunday.  Since the house was just built, there are several trees behind the house that needed cut down.  The tree guy showed up on Saturday and cut down most of the trees, and then he came back on Sunday and cut down the huge tree closest to the house.  It was really entertaining to watch this guy climb the tree and hack pieces off, and it was even more fun when he cut the actual tree down, but it was also kind of scary because they are REALLY REALLY tall trees and you have to trust that he knows what he is doing and the tree doesn’t come crashing down right onto the house.  All went well though, and Bryan and his mom took some videos of the tree man chopping down the trees, fun! 

We are leaving on Friday night/Saturday morning to go on vacation.  It is a twelve hour drive from here to Isle of Palms, so we have to leave in the middle of the night!  We rented a place on Isle of Palms and we have an oceanfront condo with a balcony facing the ocean.  It is about 15 minutes from Charleston, so we have also planned some siteseeing there.  I’m really excited.  We will be there for seven days and I plan to chill on the beach and swim in the pool as much as possible!  I know we will also be spending a lot of time in Charleston.  We are definitely going to the Submarine and Fort Sumter.  We also might go on a dinner cruise, take a carriage tour, and um well Bryan sent me this huge email with 1,000 links that I am supposed to read tonight, so I should probably go do that.  I also have to pack and clean, I have to work late on Thursday night so that really only leaves what is left of tonight and then tomorrow.  So I should go!  Adios!

Yesterday was another glorious 4th of July.  Bryan dressed like a human flag, wearing some flag shirt he bought at Kohl’s.  I know he is patriotic and I usually like his taste in clothing, so I think it upset him that I did not care for his new shirt.  He claimed other people bought it because there were some missing from the rack although I wasn’t buying it until we actually saw someone wearing the same shirt later and he was like “see!”.  Whatever, shirts that look like they were made out of a flag just don’t turn me on.  I tried to be patriotic in a more subtle way.  I wore a red tank top, a blue jean skirt, painted my toes red, and took my white purse.

We visited with my grandparents and I showed Bryan a lot of old pictures of me, and then we headed to my parents house.  My dad salivated over Bryan’s car for a while and then Bryan and my mom talked about movies that they share an interest in, which I share no interest in.  We went to my hometown’s annual festival and got some food and hung out for a while, listened to my dad tell Bryan horror stories about getting his wisdom teeth removed (since Bryan is getting his out next Thursday).  I don’t think Bryan took him too seriously though.  My mom yelled at my dad and called him the king of exaggeration.  We went with my parents to watch our town’s fireworks which turned out to be quite nice.  There were also quite a few people in our area setting off their own fireworks which must have cost a fortune, but we watched them for free!  Around 11:30pm we left to come back to Pittsburgh and spent the night at my house since we were both pretty exhausted by the time we got back here.  It was a really fun day though!  We are both on vacation from work today and tomorrow so I’m taking advantage of this free afternoon with nothing much to do.  Bryan is at home getting some stuff done, and I am kind of just sitting around like a bum.  I do have a lot of cleaning and organizing I should be doing.  I’ll get to it, maybe. 

I think we are going to do something this evening.  I told Bryan I would take him out to dinner, anywhere he wants!  Tomorrow we are going to go visit his parents and spend the weekend there.  We might stop at the Grove City Outlets on the way there and do some shopping and eating though! 

That is about it, 23 days until we go to Isle of Palms/Charleston for vacation!  I’m getting very excited!  😉

I thought this post might be helpful for anyone googling how to make their old AT&T phone work with Cingular.  This is not guaranteed to work, and even though I was able to achieve it, it isn’t 100%, there are flaws!  P.S. I have no idea why this works, and maybe it only works with my phones, but you can try!

I currently have a Samsung X427 on Cingular.  It is nearly identical to the Samsung X426 I had with AT&T but I really really love the X426.  It rings louder, there are more ringtones, and it is lighter.  Plus it isn’t covered in scratches like the X427 that I bought off of Craigslist when my piece of crap Motorola that Cingular gave me died. 

Last night I was cleaning out one of my cupboards and came across my old phone.  I haven’t been able to let go of it, even though I have stuck my Cingular SIM card in it hundreds of times, hoping one day it would work.  Nope, it always just says “wrong sim card”.  Well I decided to try, just one last time before throwing it out.  I was amazed and delighted when it worked.  I was so excited until I turned the phone off, turned it back on, and I got that horrible “wrong sim card” message.  “But it worked before!” I cried.  I had even checked my voicemail, placed a call, and changed my ringtone.  Bastards!

So I turned the phone on and off a hundred times, praying it would work again.  It wouldn’t.  I was sad and determined because it DID WORK.  I have now (so far) perfected a method. 

1. Insert AT&T SIM Card into the AT&T phone and turn the phone on.
2. Wait for it to finish searching, until it says “emergency calls only” – this will only work if you have an old AT&T Sim card that is no longer active, i.e. you have no service with AT&T.
3. With phone ON, plug it into the charger (I don’t know if you have to do this but I did).
4. Remove Cingular SIM Card from your Cingular Phone, and have it close-by.
5. Ok, this is the tricky part and you have to be quick! I mean really quick!  Remove the battery from your AT&T Phone, remove AT&T card, replace with Cingular Card, replace battery.  (The trick is to do this fast enough that your phone does not shut off).
6. If you were quick enough, the phone should still be on and you will see a message that says “Please Wait”.  If you were not quick enough, the phone has shut off.

For me, if the phone did not shut off, it will say “Please Wait”, then it searches, then it synchs up with Cingular.  If the phone did shut off and I have to turn it back on, it says “wrong card”.

As I said, this technique worked for me.  It tricked the phone by switching cards really fast.  I have no clue why this works, but the phone seemingly works perfect, I can access my voicemail, make calls, send text messages, etc.  However, when I shut the phone off, and turn it back on it does not synch back up to Cingular.  Basically I can  never shut my phone off again, the battery can never die, or I must carry the AT&T card with me at all times just in case, and use that method described above.  Works for me, I never shut my phone off or let it die.  In the case that it must be restarted, I can easily carry the AT&T card around with me. 

Yay.  Maybe this will help someone.  And if anyone who is knowlegable about cell phones cares to explain why this strange method works, please feel free to comment and enlighten me!  I am somewhat confused, but happy!  Only one weird thing seems to happen.  Each time I have done this, after a few minutes a “message sent” notification shows up on my phone.  I can’t find anything in my text-messages outbox, so I have no idea what it is sending a message to.  I just hope it isn’t sending off some old text messages I had saved when I last used this phone.  So if you happen to get some odd text message from me, I probably meant to send it to you in like 2005.  Yeah.

On Friday night Bryan and I went to see “Knocked Up”. I have to admit, it made me laugh – A LOT. Go see if it you are in the mood for something mindless to watch, and you feel like you haven’t really laughed in a while. I did enjoy it a lot.

Howdy!  I’m back from blog hiatus.  I pay for this site, I might as well use it.  I can’t actually remember half the stuff that happened since the last time I wrote, so I will just recap some random things I can remember.

Bryan and I have gone geocaching a few times since the weather has gotten nice.  Back in April we went to North Park and a few weeks ago we went to Settler’s Cabin Park.  It was fun.  One day we found a headless gnome, an old oil field engine, and a cute turtle.  One day a few weeks ago we weeded around his house in hopes of planting flowers, but we still haven’t found the time to plant them yet.  We also got a membership at Sam’s Club and now we can buy everything in bulk and not have to leave the house for supplies for years at a time!  Peppsi has gotten much bigger, and right now he is sitting on my lap.  Every few seconds he decides to attack the keyboard and bite my thumb, so it is making this a bit difficult.  A couple weekends ago Bryan and I went up to visit his parents at their new house.  It was mine and Bryan’s first visit to the new house which is near Meadville, PA but way out in the wilderness.  We went to Pymatuning Lake, where the ducks walk on the fish, and we fed the fish some bread.  Unfortunately the area where the ducks actually walk on the fish was closed for renovations, so we didn’t get to see that part.  Fish are ugly.  We spent Memorial Day Weekend at his parents house too.  It is very quiet and relaxing there.  His mom cooked lots of good picnic food and one day we went to Andover to visit the Amish Furniture Store.  It was awesome and now I want to furnish the house with Amish furniture!  We also ate food on the grill and played with Dixie, their Yorkie.  I love her and I’m convincing Bryan that we are going to adopt one so Dixie has a friend when we go visit. 

 This weekend we are planning to go to a Civil War Reenactment in Butler, and maybe check out the Arts Festival.  I guess both of those are pending, based on the weather.  Right now the forecast is calling for rain, yay. 

This summer, we are leaving on my birthday to head down to South Carolina for seven days.  We rented a condo on Isle of Palms Beach which is a ten minute drive from Charleston.  We compromised – I want beach and swimming pools and Bryan wants history.  There is seriously so much to do there, but we will try to limit our activities and include plenty of relaxation time into our schedule.  I’m really excited!  We have an oceanfront condo with a balcony facing the ocean.  I can’t wait to watch the sun setting every night and take romantic walks on the beach!  I also can’t wait to see Charleston, I have heard it is a very beautiful city.  Plus there are tons of Ghost Tours there, and I definitely want to go on one of those.  Bryan told me he read that there is one that takes place on a ship – ooooh scary!

We had also planned to go to Gettysburg over the 4th of July and we both already took off work that week to go, but unfortunately we thought it would be fine to wait until May to make our hotel reservations, but everything was already full!  Our only real option is to camp out at one of the campgrounds, but camping in July might not be such a great idea.  So we might just go to my parents and check out the festival, watch fireworks there, and find some other things to do.  I definitely don’t want to go to work.  We will find something to do!

And in some of my most exciting news, which I’m sure nobody will be surprised to hear …. I’m moving, AGAIN.  Sometimes I feel like a nomad, but if I think about it, this is only my fifth move since I have lived in Pittsburgh – since 2002.  That averages out to once per year.  Hopefully it will be the last time I move, like ever – or at the least, many years.  This fall, I am moving in with Bryan who already has a very nice house equipped with mostly everything.  The only thing I’m really bringing is a bed.  I plan to fit the rest of my stuff into garbage bags, and what won’t fit into garbage bags will be tossed into the middle of the street, doused in gasoline, and ignited into a nice big bonfire, except that is probably not legal.  Despite the perks of living with him – like living in a house that isn’t falling apart for the first time like ever, living suburban life, and ALMOST not living in Pittsburgh, I’m the most excited to start our lives together.  In fact, I think I’m giddy (I know that sounds stupid).  Bryan keeps joking that I will need a second job for all the things I want to buy, he may be right!  Bryan just bought an awesome glass TV stand and a 40″ plasma TV.  I realize that when I actually move in, I am going to have to like pay for the stuff too because everything is going to be ours!  And we get to sleep in the same bed every single night, and drive each other crazy ….. it is gonna be great!  You married people are probably laughing at me, and I don’t care!

I shall end my happy rant with the most adorable picture ever – Bryan and Dixie on Memorial Day Weekend.  I can’t decide which one is cuter hehehe.

Last week I purchased two sweaters on sale at Macy’s.  I had tried them on and they fit perfectly, so when I came home I tossed the receipt.  Later that day I wanted to wear the pretty red sweater, but to my dismay I discovered the anti-theft device was still attached to it.  I went downstairs and got the receipt out of the trash but it was kind of nasty and covered in some type of liquid, eww.  Someone said I could take it back to the store and bring the receipt in a zip lock bag ….. errr. Being the lazy, impatient person I am, along with the “I can do everything myself” attitude, tonight I decided to remove it myself.  Luckily it was just a magnetic one. 

I put all the handy tools I got for Christmas to use and managed to break open the seam and wedge the pliers inside so I had access to the pin that was clamping the device to my shirt.  I needed to break the pin, but of all the tools I have, I did not have wire cutters!  So I sawed the pin apart with a metal file, and surprisingly the pin broke in half after only about thirty seconds of sawing.  Then waaa-la (well almost)…. I just had to unscrew the pin which sounds easy, but it had become bent at some point so it wasn’t as easy as I thought. So after about five minutes of twisting and muttering things under my breath, it just fell apart.  And not even a mark on the sweater.

I rock … I should go add this new skill to my resume right now! 
 

I don’t know why that is my title.  I’m not so great at coming up with witty titles for my blog entries.  I guess I haven’t updated in forever-ish, but blame it on work, laziness, and excess amounts of time I must spend with Peppsi. 

Since the last post, hmm well that was in the midst of a big snow storm in Pittsburgh which postponed my Valentines Day dinner with Bryan.  We made up for it last weekend by going out to dinner, giving each other gifts, and being cool like we always are.  Bryan wrote a good recap of our weekend here, so if you care go read it. 

I love the heart watch I got and I am going to wear it every day until Bryan buys me another watch, or until it breaks which has been the case with the last two fossil watches I have owned.  I am trying not be obsessed with the Sonic the Hedgehog mega-collection that Bryan got me for XBox, but I already told him that he is never getting his XBox back so he better marry me.  Prior to the gift of Sonic, Bryan’s XBox had been sitting in my room, neglected and sad, except when Bryan came over and played Deer Hunter and Grand Theft Auto, which don’t interest me.  Sega Genesis games on XBox rock.  See, I can use these advanced systems.  Bryan lent me the XBox in hopes of getting me into playing games with him, and he has no need for it because he has moved on to more advanced gaming systems… it never ends.  So for me, I’m happy with Sonic until we get a Wii, which Bryan is set on and so am I, ever since I learned that there is now a Sonic game for Wii that just came out yesterday.  I’m having visions of myself rolling around on the floor to make Sonic spin through tunnels of rings, ok not seriously, but that’d be kinda cool.  Anyways, they are ridiculously expensive at the moment, so we are going to wait until they are actually available in stores.  We played a few weeks ago over at Julie & Nate’s, and ever since that I think Bryan has been more in love with daydreaming about owning a Wii, than being in love with daydreaming about me.  Ah well.  I mentioned that a Wii wouldn’t go over too well in my bedroom since it is kind of small and you can’t really throw things at the television here.  But Bryan has a big living room and a whole house that isn’t ugly like mine, and plans to buy this awesome big Samsung flat screen TV.  I’ve seen it at Best Buy and it is nice!  Soon, we’ll be Wii’ing all night long, oh baby! 

My exciting Friday evening plans consist of cleaning the house, changing cat litter boxes, doing dishes, and cleaning floors so I can skip the normal Saturday morning ritual and go shopping!  I got my tax refund today, and half of it went into savings, and about half of the remaining half was sent to the evil soul-sucking credit card company …. and the other half of that half, that was also originally going to go to the evil soul-sucking credit card company is now going to go out and buy me something new to wear tomorrow, and/or a new pair of boots since the heel just broke off the sole.  Arghh, I just bought them two months ago!  Anyways, I’m really trying to be more wary about my spending, and I rarely buy things for myself, so tomorrow I’m going to go to Old Navy and buy one pair of pants, one shirt, maybe a purse (if they are on sale), and hopefully some shoes somewhere because I desperately need boots.

That’s all I have time for because I want to clean and have time to play Sonic for a little while, and I know I will be exhausted by midnight.