What to say, what to say...

I promised myself that I would post more often, I just need to get more creative with the topics that I deem postable. With everyday being pretty much the same around here, I often think to myself that I need to remember and enjoy all of the little things in life or I will waste my entire life focusing on major events and look back and wonder where all the time has gone. And really, when you think about it, it is the little things that make life interesting and are the things that make your life unique and special. All of the major events that we wait for and anticipate can all be looked up and researched by posterity, but how much more special is it to write down and remember all of the parts of your life that made it uniquely yours.

Anthony and I drove to Merritt Island last Sunday to visit his mother for Mother's day. It was really fun and it reminded me of one of my favorite things about visits like that. Believe it or not, it is actually the drive (as long as I'm not driving! Still not a fan of the interstate driving). Anthony and I always find such interesting things to talk about in the hours spent in the car together. On the way home, we were both getting kind of sleepy so I tried extra hard to come up with questions to keep us talking and awake. I asked Anthony what his absolute ideal job would be if it paid whatever amount of money that he wanted. He didn't have to think long, he almost immediately proclaimed that he would be a fishing captain. He would get other people to pay him to take them fishing on work days, and then go fishing by himself to scout out new spots on his off days. After a few seconds I turned to him, seriously, and asked why he didn't ever pursue it. He simply said that he knew it didn't make enough money to support a family comfortably and that he always knew he wanted a family someday. Truly, how selfless to give up your dream for the sake of people you haven't met yet. Amazing.

When he asked me the same question, I was pretty stumped. I never grew up thinking about careers, because I always knew that I wanted to be a stay at home mom and I really didn't know many career paths that allowed for that. Even now, a lot of the choices I made about school and work were all centered around eventually having kids and not about career advancement. Now it is strange to find myself in a full time professional job and starting to learn about office politics, promotions, getting ahead, building up my skill set, and planning for my future career. I never thought I would really be in this position, but I am learning to embrace things as they come and learn what I can from every situation. I don't know if I ever really thought of a good answer for Anthony. In the end my dream job would be doing rewarding work with people I enjoy. What the actual tasks are really aren't that important to me.

I'll leave you with yet another tidbit from Antiques Roadshow. If you don't already watch this show every week, you need to. For real, PBS rocks my socks.

This is a collection of jade pieces that a woman brought in, given to her by her father. Her father bought them in China during the 1930's and 40's, probably only paying a maximum of 100 dollars per piece. This ended up being the most valuable appraisal in all of Antiques Roadshow history!!! One of my favorite parts of watching the show is seeing the owner's reactions. Her's was so funny to me, Anthony and I couldn't stop laughing. I guess it isn't really appropriate to include what she said, but basically nothing came to her mind but expletives when they told her that the entire collection was worth $710,000-$1,070,00!

Our new wheels

My new car (an example picture of it anyways). It is a 2003 Honda Civic with 89,000 miles on it. I have been loving driving it around! It rides so smoothly, I even didn't mind driving on the interstate, which I have always hated!! I am thinking that I always hated driving on the interstate so much largely because my old car would shake and shudder when you push it past 60 miles an hour.
Anthony's new truck, a 2002 Ford Ranger with 70,000 miles on it. (This is the actual truck). He is so excited to finally have a truck!! His boat fits perfectly on the hitch that was already on it and he has all of next week to get some serious fishing done before school starts up again. Finally he won't feel out of place hauling his boat around (since now his vehicle is actually taller than the boat).


It is so nice to have things settled down. Finals week is over, thank goodness! I was getting really tired of going in to work two hours early every day. I underestimated how many things I actually get done before work so to miss out on that on top of everything else was a bummer. This semester there wasn't too much drama. Only a few temper tantrums from students and professors and most of the snafus weren't our fault. In fact, I've been getting a lot of good feedback from some of the more notorious departments on campus about how things have been running. When ever I get things like that, I stash it away in a file so that I can put it all together when it comes time to interview for the job that I have been appointed to twice now. This time next year if I still want to stay in the position I have to go through a formal interview process with other candidates. Like they would have a chance :)

It is so nice to feel like I know what I am doing in most aspects of the office. Case in point: our assistive technology guy was out of the office on Friday, so I was able to help a student out and finished up converting her textbooks to digital files, gave them to her, and then was able to intelligently answer her questions about how she is going to view her online tests for next semester (she has some limited sight). I also like getting to know the students and some of their personality traits and quirks. The students who work for me are wonderful too, and they even surprised me with a cake and a card a few weeks ago just to thank me for being a good boss. Can you believe that? I almost cried, it was so thoughtful!!!

Not to be too one sided, I should update you on what is going on in Anthony's life too. He finished his spring semester at the end of April and without a car he hasn't been able to relax nearly as much as he wanted to. He basically has been playing video games and searching for cars until last Tuesday. He's got one more week left before school starts and now that he has a way to get his boat to the water, you can bet he is going to be fishing all day every day :) He is going to be starting clinicals at the health department in a few weeks and I am really curious to see how he handles lady exams...I think the plan is that he is going to do what is minimally required of him and then try to block out the experience and pretend that it never happened. But, I am looking forward to him learning more about women specific ailments because then I can ask him questions and he won't look at me and say, "Umm, that's not my area. I haven't learned that stuff".


Well, since we don't really have a life outside of school or work, that is about it for us. TTFN.

Car-ma (Get it?!)

As of tomorrow afternoon, all of our car problems will be completely resolved and everything will be back to normal. Can you believe that? I think that we had such a long stroke of bad luck that we got a good dose of good luck to help balance things out (car-ma :)

Monday morning started the intense car search, since now we were in the market for two cars and needed them pronto. We decided on a Honda Civic for me since they are so reliable, easy to fix and maintain, and probably won't die on me. Anthony still wanted a small truck, but he decided to be less picky on some of his requirements so that he could get something soon. I knew that finding something for me would be no problem since I am really not picky as long as the car is an automatic and runs when you start it (I know, high maintenance right?) but I was concerned about finding a truck for Anthony. He is particular. Like, really particular. You wouldn't think that he is since he is such a laid back guy, but all of this car shopping brought me back to when we were shopping for our condo when we were engaged. At least back then I had that new love glow to get me through this personality trait of his. These past few weeks I really had to exercise a lot of patience and even then, I wasn't very successful a lot of the time. When we did find a truck Anthony liked, I told him he better get so that we can stay married :)

So, Monday afternoon I found an 03 Honda Civic for sale by a private seller about an hour south of Tampa. It was a really good deal and we wanted to avoid sketchy used car salesmen as much as possible so we called the guy to set up a time to look at it. Tuesday Anthony was able to drive down with a friend to look at it, everything checked out on it, and he went ahead and bought it. He drove it back home, came and picked me up from work, and as soon as we got home we got on the computer and started looking around for trucks. Almost immediately we saw a truck that had the main specifications that Anthony wanted for a REALLY low price on craigslist. We almost blew it off, assuming that there must be something wrong with it but decided to call just in case. The truck was at a dealership an hour north of Tampa, but according to the salesman the carfax was clean and we decided it was worth looking at. He told us that quite a few people had called and said they were planning on coming to look at it so we jumped in the car and raced there. (I never know if the salesmen are just giving you a line when they say that, but I always fall for it anyway).

As soon as we got there the dealership was closing soon so we immediately jumped in the truck to take it for a test drive. While we were pulling out, a burly tatooed guy pulled in, angrily beeped his horn, rolled down his window and shouted, "What are you doing with the truck!?". When we told him we were test driving it, I thought he was going to jump out of his car and attack us! It turns out he had missed the turn to the dealership and because of it, we got to the truck before him. I felt kind of sorry for him, but at the same time I felt like it was our turn for a little bit of good luck. The truck was great, the price was great, so we wrote them a check. On the way home I couldn't quite wrap my head around how much money we had spent in one day! It made me a little sick to think about it, so I tried to put it out of mind and remember that we won't be poor students for forever...

Today I got out of work early and we drove to Wildwood to sign the title of my car over to the junkyard and to get my tags so I can transfer it to my new car. After that, we drove up to Ocala to meet up with my mom and to return her mini-van. Tomorrow on my lunch break I am going to go the tax collector office to transfer my registration and title and that will be that. Whew! I can breath normally again, yea!

To prove that we have learned from our experiences: we got a car alarm installed in my car the morning after we got it, we added comprehensive theft and collision insurance on both vehicles, and are now card carrying members of AAA. Expensive life lessons, but at least they were learned, right?

A Truly Horrific Weekend...

This past weekend shall live in infamy in the Lagana household as one of the most trying couple of days that I have had in a VERY long time. Let me break it down for you:

Friday evening: I came home from work kind of stressed, but generally happy. Finals week was coming up on Monday and I had been preparing for it nonstop for at least a month. It takes a lot of coordinating, organizing, mediating, and student and professor hand-holding to get us to a place where we can administer over 200 exams in just one week. I had an extremely busy day, the highlights of which involved excessive sweating and manual labor, and making my first ever crisis-intervention report on a troublesome student (!). I totally needed a break when I got home and instead of going to the gym Ant and I got sushi and watched TV. I went to bed early and proceeded to sleep for 12 hours straight. Seems like a pretty good start to the weekend right?

Saturday: wrong. Around 2PM I started to get one of my migraines. I usually only get them once every few months but lately they have been more frequent. I tried to suck it up, took a lot of medicine, and attempted to sleep my way through it. Four hours and at least one incident of uncontrollable vomiting later, I started to feel human again. Anthony was supposed to go to work, but his shift got cancelled so even though we really need the money he stayed home with me and fed me soup :)

Sunday: I got up early before church to prepare my lesson for primary. I was still feeling a little woozy, but I was fairly certain that I would only feel better as the day wore on. Church was great, my kids were great, and I was starting to feel hopeful that this weekend wouldn't be a total wash. After church Ant and I drove the 2 and 1/2 hours to my mom's house and right as we were pulling into the driveway I realized that I am starting to get another migraine!!!! I was beyond upset! Not only was the timing horrible, but I wasn't in my house with my own medicine, and I usually get at least a few weeks reprieve between these horrible episodes. Three hours, a series of mystery pills from my mom's medicine cabinet, and yet another bout of uncontrollable vomiting later I start to feel doped up, but human again. To catch up for lost time, we stayed late at my mom's house. But hey, I figured I could catch some sleep on the ride home. After all, I've got to be at work extra early tomorrow morning for my first official day as a full-time salaried employee and for the first day of finals (again, which I have been preparing for for a month).

We start for home around 9PM. Feeling good, talking and joking, at around 11:30PM Anthony makes a startled noise and starts pulling us over to the shoulder of I-75. That's right ladies and gents, my car died. With my dogs in the backseat, me still hung over with sickness and medication in the passenger seat, Anthony got the number of a 24 hour tow company and called them to come and get us. (I know what you are thinking, and No, we do not have AAA. Why? Because we are idiots.) We got the car and ourselves towed to an auto shop (closed for the night) but based on our description to the tow-guy, things didn't look good. He solemnly made the symbol of the cross over our car and told us that if his 16 years of experience are worth anything, he is pretty sure that my car has now passed into the great beyond.

LEST we all forget: Anthony and I are relying solely on my car for transportation because HIS GOT STOLEN three weeks ago. To quote my mom, "If we didn't have bad luck, we would have no luck at all!"

My mom and my brother came to our rescue and picked us up from the exit around 1AM, took us home, and my mom generously let us borrow her minivan for the next few weeks until we can sort out our transportation nightmare. This morning the autoshop confirmed the tow-guy's suspicion that my car is beyond saving, so we are now in the process of signing a car over to a junkyard. Again.

So the car search continues...only now we are shopping for TWO cars.

Here are the positives I have gleaned from the past days:

• I did not die or stroke out (although I could have sworn I was going to do both at multiple times)
• Anthony is alive (although still a little sad that he hasn't been able to spend any of his semester break fishing yet. Actually make that a lot sad)
• We didn't crash when our car went bad on the interstate. This really is a blessing, I know not everyone is so lucky.
• We hadn't purchased Anthony's car yet when mine died, so we were able to scale back our budget for Anthony's to accommodate it. (Instead of spending all of the replace-a-car funds and then have to replace another car)
• My mommy is awesome and has the heart and means for saving the day
• I have a full time job (officially as of today!)
• In spite of everything, Anthony did well this semester and things are on track for his graduation
• I have wonderful friends who help me laugh instead of cry and give me advice on how to play hard-ball with car dealers. (Not like I could ever do it, but I could always imagine that I could be tough one day :)

See, the list goes on and on! I refuse to let this get me down, we will get through this and since I know I will laugh about this one day I've decided why wait? Let's laugh about it now! :)