matt

I'm back from Atlanta and I was greeted this morning by my car which refused to start. The battery was dead and I had no AAA coverage and my insurance policy didn't cover that sort of thing and I nearly gave into paying some garage who knows how much money to come give me a jump when my last chance of hope, a friend who lives in town, was around and drove by and gave me a jump. In the end I was only like 45 minutes late to work but thank god for him.

Speaking of cars, I have officially ruled Atlanta out as a city I could live in. I have nothing against the city or the people, but the traffic is absolutely horrid. I spent 1.5 hours commuting across town on Friday and 30 minutes on Thursday (and that commute was only 6 miles!). No thanks, I'll stick with the fake traffic we have on I-4.

I have a new gym plan, which consists of 30 minute workouts on Tuesday and Thursday and then a longer 60+ minute workout on the weekend. I'm going to try it this week and I'm glad I decided on that because today I'm totally not feeling 100% motivated to do anything. I need to gradually get my ass back in gear about nearly everything.

On our drive back home yesterday, we made a pit stop at the Apple store at the Florida Mall and bought Marissa the new iPhone. Normally I'm jealous when it comes to others getting geeky toys but honestly I was okay with Marissa getting it and not me. Sure, I'd love to have one but for whatever reason I wasn't overly jealous. Perhaps I'm finally maturing (yea right!).

After nearly a week of looking at the facts and comparing and contrasting, yesterday, Marissa and I signed the contract to buy our first house. We stopped by the realtor's office yesterday and signed all 3000 papers and we've begun the process of formally buying our first home. It's really exciting to be buying the house, but it's so anti-climactic because all we have now is a pile of dirt in front of us. It will still be another 6-9 months or so before we actually have a house but that's okay because I'm sure we could use the time to save a little more money for a down payment and make some decisions.

We ended up getting $1000 for free to use at the home studio (it's the place where you can choose what upgrades to have in your home) and we go for our first appointment there a week from Saturday. The whole process of buying a new house is very interesting and I'm excited to see what options we can get and plan literally from the ground up, what our house will be like. Tomorrow Marissa and I are driving out to another KB Homes community to check out a model home with the same floor plan as ours.

Click here to see our pile of dirt

This weekend ought to be fun, as we're going to dinner with Len and Newell tonight at the Turf Club, then it's Hoop Dee Doo for dinner on Saturday night.

This past weekend was mostly spent by the pool at Orange Lake. On Friday and Saturday we spent most of the daylight hours at the pool by Orange Lake relaxing and it was great. Being at Orange Lake makes me feel like I'm on vacation while still being in Orlando. It was great seeing both of our parents and a welcome visit. I only wish we had more time to spend, but that's usually how any visit goes.

Today I had my tires changed on my car. My parents brought me down 4 tires and I had them put on my car so I only had to pay for them to be mounted and balanced, which is a far cry from the cost of buying 4 tires. That alone was worth my parents visit, nevermind the other fun we had. With that, I still need to get new brakes in about 5000 miles or so and get a tune-up.

The American Idol event last Thursday was crazy good. I met stars like Carrie Underwood, David Cook, Rubben Studdard, Jordin Sparx and a slew of other Idolists. It was a really well done event and I was sad that I had to bow out early to get to dinner.

I'm leaving work today at 3 to go to Disney to cover the American Idol press event there and that will begin a very early weekend for me. I took tomorrow off from work to spend with my parents and Marissa's parents so it will be a nice change for me. Tonight I'm meeting my parents at Epcot for dinner most likely and tomorrow I think we are going to Orange Lake to hang out. Beyond that, I'm not sure what we'll be doing this weekend really. Likely going out to eat and various activities thrown in for good measure. Should be a good time though having family around, because the last time we did, I was getting married so it was just a little nerve wracking.

I had a pretty busy weekend and I did everything I had planned, which is unusual. On Saturday morning I went to the driving range at Disney and had fun, even though I didn't drive the balls as well as I had hoped. We were there for a solid hour but I'd have gone longer, if not for the fact that I developed two nasty blisters on my hands. I also tweaked a muscle in my left lower back but I'm eager to get back and play again. I also signed up for Planet Fitness gym, which isn't as nice as Lifestyle was, but the price at Planet Fitness is much more affordable.

This week will mostly consist of cleaning our apartment since Marissa's parents are coming to stay with us for the weekend. Things are generally clean, we just need to put a lot of stuff away and cleaning up on the scale that is needed is never fun to do at all. I'm very good at putting away but in terms of actually cleaning something, I'm bad at.