matt

Tomorrow is the big day and I can't wait to get onboard that cruise ship. We're doing everything we've put off until now to do today. This morning we signed our new lease for our apartment, which will keep us here until January 2010. We managed to keep the rent cost the same as well as get them to come by this week while we are gone to clean the carpets. I will say that this apartment complex has been great about upkeep of their facility and anytime we ask for something to be replaced or whatnot, they do it.

Earlier this afternoon we went to LA Fitness to try out the gym. After a dumb sales pitch about how fat we are, we got a solid hour work out and it felt good. Well, it didn't feel good at the time but afterwords I love that feeling of accomplishment. The gym was simply okay. The equipment wasn't as new as other gyms and the cardio equipment didn't have televisions for each machine. Considering how much LA Fitness costs, we may look at some other alternatives. Again, it's not bad, just not as good as I would have liked.

We still need to pack for our cruise tonight and clean the apartment up. It's not going to be fun by any means but it has to be done and we've procrastinated enough as it is. To be honest, I'm really looking forward to going on the cruise that the work I need to finish up today isn't a big deal.

Song of the Day: Robbie Williams - Beyond the sea

It's Friday!! I'm excited not just because it's the end of the work week but because after work today, there will be nothing between me and my cruise on Sunday! I'm excited to start my week long vacation. I've taken all of next week off from work for the cruise and for some post-cruise fun at Disney. I'm really looking forward to this cruise, a lot more so than my honeymoon cruise if only because the wedding was what I was focused on with that last cruise. Weather should be nice for the cruise and I think we're going to have a genuinely good time and this will be Marissa's first Disney cruise so I'm excited to show her everything on the ship.

Today at work we had some people from L.A. Fitness come in and talk to us about gym membership. They are having an open house tomorrow so I'd like to go there with Marissa for a workout since we it's our workout day anyway and their gym is way better than our dumb apartment complex gym. If we sign up is going to depend on how much, if any, work will be covering for the registration costs. I'd like to join a gym, but money is very tight so it's hard to say if we can afford it or not. While I'd much rather work out at a real gym, I'll settle for our crappy apartment gym since the price is free. While the L.A. Fitness people were here, they took our percentage of body fat and BMI and evidently I have 15% body fat (which is fine for my height and weight and age) but my BMI is off by like 2 or 3 points.

Since it is December and Hanukkah is right around the corner, here is a live version of one of my favorite songs by the LeeVees. Definietly listen for the part where the mom comes up to sing her part.

Song of the Day: The LeeVee's - At the timeshare (Live)

We currently have plans to get out of town for a few days and take advantage of my "time off" by driving up to Atlanta to stay with Marissa's parents for a few days. It occured to me earlier this week that with this built in time off, we should take advantage of it and if I didn't have anything planned, we should drive up to her folks place and spend a long weekend there. I think it will be good to get out of our apartment and take a break from the job searching routine. Well, I'll still be searching for jobs but at least there we can sort of mellow out. It'll be fun and I know Marissa can't wait to see her folks and her puppies so just to see her ecstatic about the trip is worth it to me.

The original plan was to leave tonight after Marissa was done with work and drive 2 or 3 hours and sleep at a hotel for the night but we basically decided spending $50 on a hotel isn't the smartest use of our limited financial resources so we're just going to wake up early tomorrow morning and gun it and arrive hopefully around lunch time.

As I was writing this blog entry for today, I was about to report no new job hunting news but then I received a phone call as I was typing and now I have what I think is a promising job interview for this afternoon. Wish me luck!

Song of the Day: Journey - Don't Stop Believing

The weekend is over and I'm disappointed that it is because I really had a great time in the vacation home we had because it was fabulous. It had a private pool and hot tub, game room, movie theater and wonderful accommodations. It was so nice that we didn't want to go to the parks and would prefer to stay at the house. When we did peel ourselves away from the vacation home, we went to Epcot for Food & Wine festival. This was my second year at Food & Wine and the food was good, but not terrific. I tasted some interesting dishes (including more escargot!) and it was a nice time. In addition we went to the Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom, which was pretty crowded. Evidently these parties are not great for Saturday nights but we all had a good time there. I'd post photos, but we have none because we forgot our camera at the vacation home. Evidently the vacation home was messing with my memory. Along with a lot of chocolate and candy, I also came home with a large blister on my right foot which still hurts.

This week should finally be slow and I'm excited. For the past 3-4 weeks, I've been super busy with wedding, honeymoon and friends over these past few weeks so I'm actually looking forward to doing, well, nothing. I just want to go home, turn on the TV or computer and veg out! Speaking of veg out, I am so unmotivated to go work out. I am really forcing myself to keep at it because I'm happy with the progress I had made with working out and I need to get back into the swing of it because since the wedding, I haven't exercised as much as I would have liked and I really like fitting into anything in my closet.

So evidently while I was on my honeymoon, the car dealer we bought our car from went out of business. Should I be worried?

As promised, here is our honeymoon photos!

This makes me giggle.

Song of the Day: Jimmy Wayne - Do You Believe Me Now