Our life, our way

So a funny thing happened the other morning.

The nature of Brian and I’s work sometimes requires us to work odd hours. Early in the morning or Sat when its non-business hours. We are taking down systems that folks use to work after all. I finally had my turn at this.

I got up at 5 am to start the process. It only took about 30 minutes. I really didn’t want to stay up or go back up stairs and risk waking Brian up since he hasn’t been sleeping well. Therefore I decided to sleep on the couch and set the alarm on my phone. Sometime between that and my alarm going off, mom had come downstairs and gotten breakfast.

Later, Brian leaves for work and I start telecommuting on the couch. Mom comes down and wants to know what I did that Brian kicked me out of my room. Ummm….kick me out? Say what?!?!??! LOL

So recently, Brian and I have been in several situations in which we weren’t sure if we should speak our mind or not. I am generally a pretty blunt person. However, I know when not to speak too.

I very much enjoy hurting someone’s feelings if I don’t like them. But if they are nice and sweet, but just clueless….what do you do? I didn’t realize how much I miss some of my closest friends. I sat and thought about it the other day. How much of my day do I spend thinking about how others will take my comments. *sigh*

Why can’t people just appreciate good criticism?

So a situation has come up where we feel we are being used. Don’t get me wrong, we love helping others. We do. But ask us to help. Just say, “Can you help me?”

Last night we had another argument….what was the topic? Communication! Why is it so hard to just communicate. I’m obviously not expressing my thoughts clearly and Brian isn’t expressing his at all!

It all started with a problem I was having that I needed a sounding board for. I had to get up early this morning for work so I just wanted to talk through options so I could go to bed. I said, “Brian, what are we going to do? Help me talk this through and pick some options.” I said this a few times as I throw some ideas out there and I get nothing. Not even a nodding of the head. AHHHHHH!!!

So I escalate and say, I’d  like to talk now. Do you not care?

Thus, he slams his laptop and the arguement begins. We never got back around to the issue at hand. Thus I still have not had a chance to talk to him about the original problem. Its almost 1pm and he hasn’t even come downstairs. I guess I will decide what I think is best and do it with or without him.

All couples have issues and I know many are worst off than we are. Communication is key. We’re working on it.

Brian and I re-activated our gym accounts yesterday.  We got a pretty good price. 25/month each with no enrollment or administrative fees. We did it online and then picked up the membership cards after work. We didn’t work out though. We didn’t have the proper attire.

It’s frutrating that they already made Brian annoyed. 2 hours after his registration the training consultants called and were quite RUDE!

I was waiting for the call myself. I was ready! But nothing. I get nothing. argh…. I made it clear to the front desk upon picking up our cards that I DID NOT want any further solicitation from the trainers. When I need them, I know where they are. Its kinda hard to miss.

Back to more important things. Today will mark my first work out in a while. I’m so excited! I have 50 lbs to drop to be back to where I was when I moved to Atlanta. Let the games begin.

So in searching for a wedding photographer, we also considered who could create us a nice photobook. The one we fell in love with was produced by GraphiStudios. Its edge to edge printing and pages lay flat. We ended up with just a basic package that did not include a photobook. We could also have them do one later.

Since then I decided I should create my own photobook and go through the vendor. Zookbinders and GraphiStudio were my top choices. I would still be paying a pretty large sum of money. Then I found www.adoramapix.com. They were much cheaper so I was a bit weary. So using my engagement pics, I made an 8×8 14 page photobook. The tools online were very easy to use and I didn’t have to use a template. Which is really nice since I like to design my own layouts. Order was placed on May 31st and then I patiently waited.

The book finally arrived in the mail yesterday. First impression taking it out was that the cover looked good. I inspected the spine and all was good. Really nice hard cover. Okay, now the really test. Does it really lay flat and all the pages of good quality? YES!!!

I love it. I’m definitely going to be using this to create my wedding photobook. A great book at an affordable price.

I woke up this morning to a non-working DirecTV DVR. And it would have to be on the day I work from home too! Argh. So my dearest hubby investigates before he leaves for work. A good power cycle did the trick! So I get all comfy in the couch with laptop, cell phone and TV remote. Yay!

Then the remote doesn’t work. Great…do I even have new batteries? Hmmm….it can’t be the batteries. It is still controlling the TV. Its only the DVR that is not being responsive. ugh…. As a universal remote, as all DirecTV remotes are, you have to setup the remote to receiver with a code.  Fun. So I go through all the available options and nothing. I was not about to sit and watch TLC all day.

Moving on the the next thing, google. Google has all the answers right? Wrong!!!!!!

After finding nothing, I decided to call DirecTV. Their line was busy. It was still busy 15 minutes later. This is NOT a good sign.

So I call the installer guy that did our setup. His wife suggest I hit reset. I give it a try. After coming back I enter in the setup code to associate the remote, hit power and it turned off! OMG it worked. Or did it? It won’t come back on. Not even from the front panel. So I hit reset again. This time it was a charm. It came on and the DVR tells me that it has been updated and is now 3D ready.

After a while I discover some forums that say, DirecTV pushed out the update and pratically everyone with a HD DVR experienced the same problem. Yuck. That explains the phone line.

I work with applications and Brian works with servers. Both of us have to deal with situations in which we have to push updates out. Recently, Brian and his co-workers tested a process to find account for all possible issures before doing it on servers that effect users.

We see phone companies push out updates to small groups to see the effect before pushing it out to the masses. So what happened with DirecTV? I can’t wait to hear.

So a few weeks ago our dance instructor asked if we’d be willing to do our dance we had been practicing for our wedding at a bridal event she is involved in. We would not consider ourselves good by any means but we do enjoy dancing so we said sure!

Afterall it is pretty flattering that she would consider showcasing us as an example to potential new clients. This could be bad for business if we are really bad! Event is in less than a week. I guess be better start practicing.