It's official...

...I'm hooked on working out. I had to break down and upgrade my 24 Hour Fitness membership to the regular membership instead of the 4 days-a-week pass I had. I've been alternating arms and legs (after, of course, doing 15-30 minutes of cardio) and now I'm adding abs and back. My friend Kelly is my slave driver, and after working out with her last Saturday my abs hurt like a sow. Laughing even hurts. But, man, I better look good in that bridesmaid's dress!!

Everything with the house is going well so far. I had the inspection last week, and the current owner is doing almost everything we asked. I finally met my broker today and got all the loan paperwork taken care of. The appraisal was last week. I've even started packing! Right now I'm working on getting condo insurance and probably new car insurance at the same company. Less than a month and we're in! Yay!

Another entry

I also wanted to share this link to an article called "Subversive Virginity." It's a good article and reflects why I am choosing to wait until I'm married to lose that title. It's long, but full of info.

Not again! :-)

A friend has a link on her blog to the Gender Genie. You copy and paste some of your own text into it, and it tells you whether it thinks you are a man or woman. So I copied my previous entry (Decisions) and this is what the scores were:

Female Score: 442 Male Score: 562
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

AHH!!!! This is not the first time people have thought I was a guy. But most of the time it's because they've seen me from behind and my hair was up and I had a farmer coat on. It gives you key masculine and feminine words that it uses for the score. Apparently "is" and "the" are masculine. So women, don't use them anymore!!! After putting that entry in, I saw it says it works best on posts of more than 500 words, so I went back and used the "When will it end" post (it's 439 words). It finally got it right:

Female Score: 902 Male Score: 536
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

I guess it's just confused about my gender.
Here's the link: http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.html

Decisions...

This week has been so full of decisions. I had to make two of the biggest decisions in my life right now within the last two days. First, I'm nearing the end of the rotation program that I'm in and have to decide on a permanent position (well, permanent is relative in this business). I finally decided yesterday to stay with the group that I'm in now. I'll probably take one more rotation before coming back to stay, but it's pretty much final. It's such a relief to have that decision made, now I feel like I can finally start my career. Second, I had to decide if I wanted to get a house. As you know from the previous post, I made an offer on Tuesday. Yesterday they countered, so I countered back, and...they accepted!!! The price was almost exactly what I had hoped to get a place for. My closing date is the end of March, and I think I'm going to talk to my apartment complex to see if it's possible to get out of my lease early. If not, it's not a huge deal. It's only a few weeks rent that I'd be paying extra. Today has been an awesome day! Actually, the entire week has been stressful and awesome at the same time.

I did it!!

I put an offer on a townhome!! I'm all giddy now, partly from excitement and partly from nerves. Now that I found what I want, all the work finally begins! I'll probably meet with my lender tomorrow afternoon and get him what he needs. I need to set up a time for an inspector to come soon. All this stuff that has to be done...so much for all my vacation hours! But I really like the place. It was two floors plus a basement. On the second floor are two master bedrooms (which is great, because I'm tired of sharing a bathroom with my sister!) and the laundry area. The main floor has the kitchen, the living room (with nice hardwood floors), and a half bath. There is one mostly finished room in the basement and one unfinished room. The finished one could probably be another living room or office area, and the unfinished room could become a guest room. There are a few things I would fix eventually, like new carpets in the bedrooms, new linoleum in the kitchen, and new paint, but it's definitely livable right away. I'll probably close at the end of March, that way I'll have about a month to get moved and clean this apartment up. I'm so happy! :-)

When will it end...

I'm working right now...it's 2:37 a.m. I'm getting tired of these night shifts. Saturday night will be my last one, and it can't come soon enough. I didn't mind at first, but after working nights for the past almost 2 weeks (with no time off), it's starting to get old. I miss sleeping at night and miss talking to my work friends during the day. On the bright side, I have gotten rather proficient at writing emails. I think my typing skills have improved to about 150 words per minute. Ok, maybe not that much...

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. It may sound weird, but Lent is probably my favorite time of the liturgical year, even moreso than Christmas. I'm giving up pop. I've done that in the past, but I usually indulged on Sundays. This time I'm giving it up the whole time. So far the caffeine withdrawal hasn't been bad, but that's probably because I had two cups of coffee. I'm also going to try to work out at least every day that I have my 24 Hour Fitness pass, but on the off days I'm going to try to run on the treadmill at my apartment's small gym. I did legs yesterday and a couple arm exercises (since I missed Monday, which is my arm day). My thighs are really feeling it. I also had volleyball last night. It was definitely an off night for me, but I haven't touched a volleyball in two weeks so I forgive myself.

I'm going to look at townhomes on Friday...yay! I need to get on the ball with the lender, though, and get all the info I need for that. I don't want to find the perfect place and not have the loan paperwork ready. It'd be nice to have it by the time my parents come at the end of March, but then I'll end up paying double rent since my lease isn't up until the end of April. It'll work out.

We have Fox News on here at work, and there's a stupid Valentine's Day commercial for Vermont Teddy Bear that is starting to annoy the crap out of me. It has a bunch of girls oohing and ahhing over some stupid $70 teddy bear and talking about how they can't wait to give their men their presents. And no, I'm not just bitter because I won't be receiving anything for Valentine's Day. I have a nice singles party planned out for Monday night. We're all going out to eat and then going to watch the movie "Hitch." But that's besides the point. Vermont Teddy Bear commercials are stupid.

Work

I've been working nights the last few days, and will probably do so all next week. It's kind of slow at night. I did learn how to play Hearts, and I beat everyone. :) I've gone through about 5 magazines, talked with my friend Kelly all about how to flirt and whatnot, and looked at townhomes on the internet. Tonight should be interesting, I'm pretty much out of things to do. There's only so many pictures of boy bands you can hang on your guy friend's cube. :)

I did talk to a realtor and lender last week. The lender was really nice and said I'd have no trouble qualifying for the loan I would like. The realtor sent me some links to condos and townhomes that are at or a little above my price range. Hopefully I can go look at them early next week. I'm more excited now, since my lender is so nice and since I have good enough credit to get a good loan. After seeing what my friend Stefanie went though trying to get her house and hearing all the stories from the lenders she talked to, I was a little nervous. Hopefully it'll all go well. I just need to stop dragging my feet and get on this. I have to tell the office I'm moving out by the end of the month, and I would like to have a place by then.

Speaking of houses, I need to show my sister the properties my realtor sent me. So have a good night!