Hooray!

My car problem turned out to be a coolant leak, which was easily fixed and only cost me $175.

This is why I love Frank's Automotive!

My car is bleeding!

Or, it's leaking transmission fluid. One of the two.

I took my car in to Frank's Automotive on Folsom Boulevard tonight (awesome place, by the way - they never overcharge people and are completely honest) and left it there to be worked on tomorrow. Even though I knew it was in good hands, I still felt weird walking away and leaving my car behind. It always feels like I'm leaving a piece of myself.

So I'll be driving my husband's car to work tomorrow and crossing my fingers all day that I don't need a new transmission.

Please send some good car-ma my way!

Shark Week is back!

I am terrified of sharks. They are the number one reason why I will never set foot in the ocean. I occasionally have nightmares about being attacked, and I can safely say that running into one is my greatest fear. Hands down.

However, I am also fascinated by them (I think because I'm afraid of them). One of my favorite movies is Jaws (got it on DVD), and I also own Open Water on DVD. So you can imagine how excited I get during the last week of July when Shark Week returns to the Discovery Channel.
Seven days of shark shows and so awesome.

This is one of the things that makes me happy about coming home from vacation.

I really need help.

Mystery solved.

Every year during our family vacation, my aunt and I take morning walks before most of my family is even up. It's quiet, there's beautiful scenery, and I'm getting my exercise in for the day. It's wonderful.

Except for the last couple of years while we were on our walks, I noticed that I would break out in hives when my skin got too cold and was wearing shorts or a short sleeved shirt. It was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen. They'd only last as long as I was chilled - as soon as I'd take a shower and warm up, they'd go away. So this year, I prepared by bringing long pants and long sleeved shirts for our walks so I wouldn't get cold, and it seemed to work fine. But I still wondered what it was that was causing the weird outbreaks. I figured it was related to the cold, but I just thought it was me and found a way around it.

Until today when I was reading one of my regular websites and noticed that the blogger said she had the exact same ailment as me, and it has a name. It's called cold urticaria (click here for more information) and it's a chronic reactive skin disorder that's characterized by abnormal reddening of the skin, hives and itching after exposure to cold temperatures. It's basically an allergic reaction to cold. There are two types: familial (hereditary) and acquired. The familial type is extremely rare, and I don't know of anyone else in my family that has it, so I'm thinking I've got the acquired type. The only way to treat it is to avoid cold temperatures (duh) or take an allergy pill right before exposure to cold to prevent hives. And, there are more severe cases where a person can go into shock from the exposure, which I don't need to worry about.

I'm just glad to finally know there's an actual name to what I have, and that there's a way to treat it.

Gotta love the internets.

Zzzzzzz......

It's 5am and I've been up since 4:30. Tired doesn't even begin to describe it. The concert was amazing and totally worth only getting 4 hours of sleep - more to come later.

What I wouldn't give to go back to bed right now.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease...and helps a country.

My husband and I watched Gandhi last weekend - neither of us have seen it before, so we TiVoed it and watched it on Saturday night. All I have to say is - wow. What an amazing man. He went to incredible lengths (all non-violent) to free India from British rule. He faced an astonishing amount of adversity and opposition and fear and everything else that comes with trying to make a change. It was an incredibly powerful film and I'm still thinking about it 4 days later. He eventually succeeded but unfortunately was assasinated by a Muslim who was against a peaceful pact between the Hindus and Muslims (another issue he was trying to help the country overcome). It was such an awful way for a peaceful man's life to end.

Like everyone, I've got issues to overcome in my life, and they seem so small in comparison to what he accomplished. I wish I had even half of the bravery and courage he possessed - it would sure help me out a lot. Of course, I do have moments where I surprise myself with my courageousness, but they aren't as often as I'd like. He inspired me to push myself a little further and speak up against injustice, no matter how small it might be; to be brave when opposition is staring you right in the face and forcing you to back down.

The film also made me wonder - how am I making a difference in the lives of others? Is my existence helping mankind? (I know, I'm getting really deep here.) Thankfully, I work for an organization that saves people's lives, so I definitely feel like I'm contributing to the greater good and helping those in need. But I still think I should be doing more to help people - as I get older, I'm discovering how rewarding it really is to help others when they need it most. I don't know how I'm going to accomplish that yet, but I intend to figure it out.

So although I may never reach Gandhi level when it comes to making a difference, I can reach for my own personal goal of trying to make a difference wherever possible.

And honestly, I think that'll be enough for me.

Project Runway enthusiasts, rejoice!

The show returns tomorrow night and I am so excited! Thank goodness for TiVo so I won't miss next week's episode. This may be the last quality season, as the show moves to the Lifetime network next season (yuck) and also moves locations to Los Angeles (also yuck). How can they take it out of New York City, the hub of all that is great in fashion? And what's going to happen to Tim Gunn? I'll officially boycott the show if he leaves.

Also, one of the contestants this time around is from Sacramento (there's an article about her in today's paper). Let's hope she does us proud.

So, in the meantime, in the words of Tim Gunn: "Carry on!"

The idiocy of some people is astounding.

I went to Togo's yesterday afternoon to pick up lunch, and as I pulled up, I noticed a cocker spaniel walking around outside. I didn't think anything of it until I saw that he was tied to the door handle by his leash. I was instantly annoyed and felt bad for the dog for having an imbecile for an owner. So because I didn't feel like opening the door he was tied to and risk being jumped on or bitten (strange dogs make me nervous), I went around to the back door to enter. When I got inside, I soon figured out who the dog belonged to. I gave her the stink eye a couple of times and overheard her say, "It's just too hot to leave him in the car alone." At that point, it was 11:00 and honestly not that hot at all, and she was probably only in the restaurant for about 15 minutes. I'm sorry, but have you ever heard of that glass thing in your car that rolls down so you can get air? I think it's called a WINDOW? Apparently, it was easier to inconvenience every single person who walked in rather than inconvenience herself or her dog for just a few minutes.

Like I said: the idiocy of some people is just amazing to me. People like that make me want to move to Canada.

I'm getting goosebumps.

A week from tomorrow starts our family vacation here and I CANNOT WAIT.

I honestly can't put into words just how excited I am. I still feel the same way I did as a child: the almost intolerable anticipation is getting more and more intense every day. I usually have a hard time sleeping the night before we leave due to the excitement, and when we wake up the morning we leave, it's the same feeling I used to get on Christmas morning. Yes, it's that exciting.

On the 4th of July, I overheard someone in my family say that this will be our family's 50th year of going to Russian River. Can you believe it? Half a century of going to the same place on vacation. It's become so much a part of us as a family - we always have the best time and get the opportunity to slow down a little and reconnect with each other (which includes eating Oma's delicious food, of course).

None of this would be possible without my grandparents, who are by far the best grandparents in the world.

Here's to another 50 years!

I'm going to see Elvis next week!

Costello, not Presley.

For a second there, you thought I was a few clowns short of a circus, didn't you?

My mom and stepdad got us tickets to see The Police and Elvis Costello next Thursday night for R's birthday! I'm a big Police fan, R is a big Elvis Costello fan. So it should be a win-win night for everyone.

More important is that R has fun, since it's for his birthday. And based on the look on his face after he found out tonight, I'm sure he will.

Thanks, Mom and Paul!

The power of Safeway.

I had to stop at Safeway on my way to work this morning, and as weird as it is to say this, nothing makes me happier than Safeway in the morning.

Why, you ask?

In the town of Guerneville where my family and I go on vacation every year, the only grocery store in town is Safeway. We make I-don't-know-how-many-trips a day over there for anything and everything. On our very first trip there after we get settled, my particular purchases include mostly junk food and gossip and girlie magazines. Just being in the store reminds me of being on vacation - I'm happy, relaxed and free.

So it was a nice start to a Monday and a wonderful reminder of where I'll be 2 weeks from today.
I'm going to start making my Safeway list this week.

I think I'm getting old.

This weekend wore me out.

Thursday night after work we went to my mom's house for her birthday dinner and didn't get home until a little after 11:00. (REALLY late for me, as I'm usually in bed by 9:30). On 4th of July, we went to my grandparent's house for the entire day and didn't get home until about the same time again. Yesterday was my aunt's birthday, and since Kim and Nick hadn't opened their wedding gifts yet, we all went over to my aunt's house for dinner and watched Kim and Nick open all of their loot. My cousin Corey recently got Rock Band for his PlayStation, so I ended up playing that with them until 11:30. So today, I'm feeling...well...less than normal. 3 nights of staying up well past my bedtime has zonked me out.

That aside, it was a great, long weekend full of food and family.

But I still feel old. And tired.

Change is hard.

This past week was a very challenging one. Monday was our first day in the new building, which was as chaotic as I expected it to be. We had all the typical move problems: file cabinet doors stuck, no locks or keys for anything, everyone completely lost and not knowing where anyone's office was, lost or missing boxes, etc. It was all very unsettling.

I am not a person who deals with change very easily. I thrive on routine and normalcy - I like waking up in the morning and having a pretty good idea of what's in front of me. So when everything was turned upside down on me this week (new commute, new desk, new building), I had kind of a hard time dealing with it. On top of all the other changes, we're not allowed to eat at our desks anymore and our department is about 4 degrees below zero for most of the day. And I don't have a space heater anymore. So I spent most of every day of this week freezing my behind off and being pretty miserable. Yesterday morning was almost unbearable for me - all the stress of the week came crashing down on me and I had a mini breakdown at my desk (in private, of course).

Until I heard something that made it all a little better. I heard the birds singing - something that I can now hear from my desk every day. How awesome is that?

I realized that all of this stress is temporary and that eventually, we'll all settle in and everything will get back to normal again. So I am trying to keep perspective on all of this and just remember that this is not permanent.

All of that aside, I really do like everything about our new digs. I love the fact that I sit next to a friend and that the sun shines into my area every morning. I like that I have a whiteboard built in to the wall of my cubicle (there's a vacation countdown on it right now). I like that I can park my car right next to the window where my desk is. And most of all, I love that I'm getting to interact with more people than ever before, which means I'm becoming more visible and that makes me happy.

So although change is hard, sometimes it's for the best. And in this case, I think it will be.

Happy birthday, Mom!

You're the best mom a girl could hope for. I hope you have a day that's as wonderful as you are.










Love,
Nicole

A-ha! moment.

No, not like the Swedish band from the 80's with the hit song "Take On Me."

I was told at work today that I may have up to 8 people in the new hire orientation I'm conducting on Monday. My initial reaction was to panic (internally, of course - gotta hold all that neuroses inside), but then I realized that I was panicking for no reason because I knew I could handle it. And that was a great feeling.

Next week will be a year that I've been in my current job. And today was yet another sign that the confidence I have in myself at work is growing every day.

It's a pretty awesome feeling to have, I must say.