Woah, another post. Slow down there, crazy.

We were rather productive this weekend. On Saturday we went with a couple friends to the Dallas zoo.  There were animals.  We took so many pictures that the camera threatened to die, at which point we switched to iPhone pics.  For the record, our camera takes much better pictures.  

Note the extra long poofy tails on these monkeys:

See you later, alligator.  In a while, albino crocodile:  

More crazy monkeys:

Blue frogs!

Those are a few of the pictures from my phone.  We only saw maybe half the zoo before Jay and I had enough, we'll have to go back to finish sometime.

In other news, we wired in and put up our fawncy massive light fixture yesterday.  Since our entryway is 19' tall, we rented some scaffolding.

The result is purty and much brighter.  The blue isn't terribly obvious when the light is on, but during the day it looks awesome, if I do say so myself:

Just the fixture:

And at night it's a lit up dandelion:

We also changed out a few other light fixtures - one replaced by a fan to cool off the upstairs living room; the one over the dining table that was just ugly; and the light portion of the fan in our bedroom that would only take a 30W non-CFL bulb.  Our bedroom was ultra-romantic before (read: very dark), now it's nice and bright.  I'm a big fan of adequate lighting.

And we did some clothes shopping, which was long overdue.  We both tend to shop in spurts, with long periods of time where we wear what we have till it's kind of shabby.  Also, most of our clothes were more suited to northern climates, we both really needed some more summery stuff.  I could still use another dress/skirt and a couple nicer work shirts, but that can wait a bit. 

I amuse me

I just caught the title of a draft post from a long time ago, in a land far far away.  It was called "We have a time clock at work where we log how much time we spend doing what.  Unfortunately, the duties are set.  How am I supposed to log my hour of Being Angry?"  This is so true, every once in a while.  It happened again the other day, where I got stressed over something that really wasn't worth it.  I'm over it now, but some days I spend a lot of time with angry thoughts.  Now that I'm in a much less stressful environment though, it's a lot easier to brush it off with some perspective.  In the words of Wil Wheaton, "It's important to be easily amused."

'Kay, so (queso), things that have happened: One, we got this car.

The one in the background.  About 2.5 months ago.  It's shiny.  I'd never owned a brand new vehicle before.  Lately, we've been leaning towards buying new, or almost new, due to trust issues.  With a used vehicle you never know where it's been.  You don't know how it's been treated, if the maintenance has been done, if things that broke were replaced in a timely fashion.  We don't want to deal with that, especially down here in the land of suing everyone and their dog for no apparent reason.  It's also a large city, where most people don't seem to know how to do things for themselves, so I kind of assume they don't know if/when to fix their cars.  I'm kind of an ass that way.

We also got the motorcycle, the one in the foreground.  It wasn't new, but it's shiny, in a matte paint sort of way.  I've even gone on a couple rides with Jay to try to tame my fear of dying.  It's definitely helped that we didn't die so far.  It's also got much better visibility than a car, seeing as how there's no outer shell, so it's easier to shoulder check.  I'm a much quieter backseat driver on the motorcycle, partly because nobody can hear my complaining, and partly because I don't want to distract the driver and die.  I'm all about the not dying.

We've been busy doing things around the house and yard (we weren't for a while, Jay had hurt his foot and I was lazy out of ... sympathy?  Something like that) the last couple days.  Jay finished the grouting (only 4 months! Although I shouldn't talk, the half painted shed outside is looking at me) and put door/drawer pulls on the kitchen cabinets.  It helps that I no longer have to maniacally claw at the sticky cutlery drawer in order to get a spoon.  Also, I get to keep some dignity.  Very important.  I trimmed the dead branches off the tree out front, cleaned the bathrooms, and spray-painted the flower-things that will go on the light fixture we got a couple months ago.  It's one of these, but with less boring white.  See?  It's a work in progress.

We also went on a quick trip to Canada over Easter.  We had fun with my family for a couple days, then Jay's Dad's 60th birthday, then extended my visa for a few more months.  That was the big point of the trip for me, so I can continue to be here legally.  It's fun not being in jail!  At least I'm assuming, never having been.  I'd like to keep it that way.