Okay, I am completely out of touch with technology. Miles got me a new cell phone for my birthday. I got it on Monday. I am just now figuring it out.

So last night I am watching this new show on the A & E network called "King of Cars." The show is filmed at the #1 car dealership in Nevada. This former rapper owns the dealership. This show intrigued me for many reasons.

First, the wheeling and dealing that goes on in car dealerships never ceases to amaze me. One younger couple came in with a 13 year old car that they owed $6000 on. They wanted to trade it in and get 2 cars. I didn't even know you could do that. In the end, the deal didn't work, but the poor salesman tried all day to make the deal.

Second, I realized that there is not one woman working at this dealership. There was so much testosterone floating around in this place one could drown in it. I think it might serve this dealership well to have a female presence. I know if I were walking into this dealership, I would feel extremely intimidated by the fact that no women were working there. I might even be inclined to take my business elsewhere.

Of course, the show sucked me in, like most reality television. Even though it's just dudes selling cars, something made me want to watch it. And watch it again, just to see what happens. Maybe it's the voyeuristic nature inside all of us.

Maybe I'm just bored and need to find a hobby, eh?

Well, this weekend I cleaned my house top to bottom. We are getting ready for Emily's birthday party next weekend. My parents are coming, and those of you that know my mom know that her house is spotless 24/7, so whenever she's coming I have to make sure my house is clean. I scrubbed the floors on my hands and knees. I cleaned stuff I never usually clean. It does feel pretty good to have a nice, clean house. If only it would stay that way...

So yesterday Miles said we were going to go out for dinner for my birthday. We were getting ready to leave and just as I was walking out the door, Cara B (Dan's girlfriend) showed up. She said she was "just in the neighborhood." Miles had actually called her earlier in the week to babysit. He took me to Mona Lisa's, and we had an excellent meal. I had chicken with a raspberry-chipotle glaze. It was awesome.

My birthday is tomorrow. 29. One more year until I am officially an adult. Teehee, as if I'm not an adult now. I feel like 30 is definitely the age, though, where you cannot claim immaturity any longer.

Be patient if I don't post too much this week. We have a busy week coming up. I'll see some of you on Saturday!

Wow. A lot of things have been going on lately. That's why I haven't posted lately.

For starters, the crazy girl at work has really been bothering me lately. She told another co-worker that I was mean to her. I have never been intentionally mean, but I have been short on occasion, because I just can't deal with stupidity. Because this girl and the office manager are smoking buddies, I had to deal with this before she went and told the boss. So I sat this girl down and asked her to give me specific examples of how I was mean to her. She really only could come up with one. I told her while I didn't think our personalities mesh well, we need to learn to work together. We're both adults and should be able to act that way.

Also, we are trying to get ready for Emily's birthday party next weekend. We have to clean our entire house this weekend as my parents will be coming up and the house must be CLEAN. Miles's job is to clean out the garage, which I don't think he's done since this time last year.

And of course, we have been hitting the gym hard. Miles has lost over 50 lbs. I am down 32. It sucks that it's always easier for men to lose weight. But we are both working hard so any loss is a good one.

And on a crappy note, my dad received his layoff notice today. I'm sure everything will work out fine, it just sucks that he's worked at the same place for nearly 40 years and he gets a layoff notice. Makes you feel like hard work and dedication don't really count as much as you thought.

On a good note, though, we are probably going to Vegas in September for the Knights of Columbus national softball tournament. We haven't been to Vegas in 6 years, so we are really excited to have the opportunity to go back! Viva Las Vegas baby!

Work was crap again today.

A big part of my job is making sure patients are making their payments in a timely manner. Occasionally that means I have to make a collection call. Today, I made a collection call for an 8.00 bill that was over a year old. This bill was for a child, so I needed to speak with the parents. I get the mother on the line and ask her when we can expect to receive payment. SHE. GOES. NUTS.

She starts yelling at me telling me that she paid her bill and that was it. I asked if she had been receiving the bills we had been sending for the past 10 months. She said yes, but she ignored them because she assumed it was an error on our part. So she goes on and says that we are an unethical company for sending a bill and then a couple of months later sending another bill. I tried to explain to her that nowhere on our bills does it says it is a final bill. Furthermore, she received an Explanation of Benefits from her insurance company telling her she owed the amount. She told me I should have called her to tell her the second bill was coming.

To that I said..."I send out 3000 bills every month. I cannot call every person who is going to get a bill to tell them a bill is coming."

Whatever I said, this woman had an argument. She would not listen to a thing I had to say. I started to say that as a good business practice, we would write off the 8.00 for her. She wouldn't listen to that either. So my office manager gets on the phone and tells this woman the exact same thing I had been telling her. Woman would not listen to her either. My office manager basically starts her old-school collector tactics on this woman and tells her it's her responsibility to check on her bills, not ours.

We are not writing off this 8.00. It sucks that I might have to send someone to collection for that small of an amount, but sometimes it's not really about the money, it's about the principle.

Anyway, that was my big excitement for the day. Glad tomorrow is Friday.

So Miles and I have of course been exercising a LOT. I usually do 50 minutes on the treadmill, then I will do at least another 20 minutes on the exercise bike. I do this 6 days a week.

Like I've said before, I work in a pretty small office. Because we are dieting, I usually do not go out for lunch, I will bring a salad or something else from home. Today, as I was eating my lunch, "Crazy" girl that I work with says to me...

"You know what you should do on your lunch? You should go for a walk. Every little bit helps, you know."

I looked at her and said "I do 50 minutes on the treadmill every night, so I walk almost 3 miles. I ride about 6 miles on the exercise bike. Usually I take a 15 minute walk on my break. So, if I don't walk during lunch, I think I'm still getting a fair amount of exercise."

Now, maybe I'm just being a bitch. But I never see this girl put anything healthy into her mouth. She says she's diabetic, but I see her with at least 2 large cokes each day. I also see her bringing in candy and other crap. The boss buys us pizza every Friday. I once saw her go back 4 times. Yes, I said 4 times.

Call me crazy, but I don't think I'm going to be taking any sort of exercise advice from someone who would do that to themselves.

Emily was pretty tired tonight. Usually, when it is time to go to bed, we have to set a kitchen timer. We call it "the dinger game." When the timer goes off, it's time for her to go to bed. Tonight she didn't even wait for it, she just went to bed.

People tell you before you have kids that your life will completely change. You really don't know how much until it actually happens, though. For the first time, your life is completely about someone else. Even though they drive you nuts a lot of the time, you wouldn't have it any other way.

Emily's birthday is in a couple of weeks. I cannot believe she will be three. It seems like yesterday that she was born. Time flies, doesn't it?

Okay, he gave me a shout out on his blog, so I'll reciprocate the favor. Everyone say hi to Dustin Dopps. Dustin and I went to high school together and were neighbors. He and Miles really bonded at my 10 year reunion last September...I think they may have been separated at birth.

Going to my reunion was an...interesting experience. In high school, I wasn't what anyone would call popular. I was in a lot of honors classes, so I guess I could have been classified as a brain. I was also fairly quiet, and lived in an upper class neighborhood, so that meant a lot of people thought I was a rich, stuck up b*tch. I never thought of myself that way of course. There was one girl in particular who just didn't like me. I have no idea what I ever did to her, but she always wanted to kick my a**.

Anyway, when I went to the reunion I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew who I was, 10 years later, but the thought of being back in the room with some of these people brought back a lot of feelings of insecurity. A few of these people made my life miserable between the ages of 10-13. That changed after being there for about 30 minutes. I talked to people who would have never talked to me in high school. I actually enjoyed myself quite a bit. It made me realize that I wasn't the only one who had changed.

And people should change in 10 years. You should constantly grow and change as a person. The person who you are today does not reflect on who you were 10 years ago and who you will be 10 years from now.

Oh, and the aforementioned girl who hated me? Apparently she hasn't grown in 10 years. When she walked though the door, I said to her, "Hi, how are you?" She looks at me, gets a really crappy look on her face...and walks away. I guess some people choose to remain in high school indefinitely.

Miles and I had a very exciting evening. We went to a weight loss symposium given by one of the local hospitals. The featured speaker was Matt Hoover. Matt was the winner of the "Biggest Loser" last season on NBC. For those of you that don't know, Matt is a real inspiration to both of us, Miles especially, and is a lot of the reason we decided to start on this weight loss journey. Matt was a wrestler, like Miles, and I think Miles sees a lot of himself in Matt. Matt started out weighing 339 lbs and was 182 pounds when he won. He weighs about 230 now.

He had a lot of interesting things to say. He talked about what weight loss strategies worked for him and how he stayed on track. He also had a lot of funny antecdotes. My favorite was when he was talking about a friend who came up to him in a bar not long after he was on the show. The friend says, "When are you going to be done with this show? I liked you better when you were drunk and fat!"

Matt looks at the guy and says "I liked YOU better when I was drunk and fat!"

One of the most exciting parts of the evening was before the presentation. Miles hadn't gotten there yet, and I was just sitting and waiting for him. One of the gals who was running the presentation points to me and says "Come with me." We go out into the hallway, and I see Miles. He joins us. She takes us into a smaller conference room. We actually got to meet Matt! He congratulated us on our recent weight loss and gave us a couple of diet and exercise tips. He is such a personable guy. I liked him right away and wished we could have gotten to spend more time with him.

I am really motivated now. I can't wait to get to the gym tomorrow!

Work was crap today.

I work in a very small office (there are only 10 of us). I am the youngest person in the office, at almost 29. We recently acquired a new computer system, and it has been extremely stressful trying to get that up and going while also still performing our every day functions.

One girl I work with is causing all of us even more stress. This girl is probably the most socially inept person I have ever met. She will just say things without even thinking about how it might affect the person she is saying it to. To give you a little background, for Christmas the owner of the company buys everyone dinner at a very posh restaurant. This girl, we'll call her "Crazy," orders the most expensive steak on the menu, a 32 oz. Porterhouse. She only finished about 1/2 of it. Crazy then proceeds to order dessert. Later, the boss handed out the Christmas bonus envelopes. Not everyone receives the same amount. Crazy starts to open hers right at the table.

Anyway, this girl has been driving all of us nuts. She refuses to take on any additional assignments, but gets upset with you if you don't have time to stop and answer her questions. And because she didn't pay attention when we were going through training for the new system, she has lots of questions. She's always looking for ways to get others to do her work. Today, I was diligently working when she started in with her questions. I tried to explain to her that I really didn't have time to stop, but she persisted. Of course, I end up looking like the bad guy because I didn't stop to help her. However, last time she asked me a question, I gave her the correct answer, but the correct answer made her look bad, so she snapped at me.

This is probably more frustrating because there are only 10 of us in the office. Oftentimes, we refer to ourselves as a disfunctional family. It's hard because we all have to at least get along for 8 hours a day. There isn't anywhere you can go to get away.

Dang, I need a vacation!

Also, we found out that my sister in law is in the hospital. She should be okay, but keep her in your thoughts. We are bringing her some hotdish on Saturday. GET WELL SOON ERICA!!

Today's topic: Celebrities.

I will be the first to admit that I love hearing about celebrities. I read People magazine on a regular basis, I enjoy watching E! News. Lately, though, I think I'm becoming disenchanted with celebrities. Tom Cruise used to be one of my favorite actors....then he started thinking that he needed to convert all of us to his "religion," Scientology. He was all over, jumping on couches on Oprah, and telling Matt Lauer that Matt doesn't know the history of Pysichiatry, Tom does. He had a feud with Brooke Shields because she took drugs for post partum depression. He said she should have gone out and excercised. I am fairly certain Tom Cruise has never been a woman, and post partum depression is something he will never experience.

But it's not only Tom Cruise. It is a lot of celebrities. They claim they just want to be left alone when they go out in public, that they just want to live a normal life. Here's what I think....if you choose to become an actor, you need to be prepared for the glut of fame that comes along with it. Nobody forced you to become an actor. If you are famous, and you go out in public, you have to expect a certain amount of scrutiny.

One final word....I also see a lot of celebrities pushing their political agendas onto the public. Your job is to entertain us, not to run for office. Shut up and make me laugh.

Well, all, welcome to my blog. I created this blog to give everyone an insight into my life. Most of this blog will be about my family and what is going on in our lives. Hopefully, that interests you. If not, too bad, get your own blog!

Miles and I went and worked out this morning. I walked for 50 minutes on the treadmill, which is the longest I have ever gone. I burned over 500 calories. I never thought that I would be someone who actually enjoyed working out. I actually look forward to it. I feel guilty if I miss a day. And I cannot believe how much better I feel when I do go work out. I'm just sorry I didn't figure this stuff out sooner.

I have officially lost 28 pounds. We're taking it slow, just a couple of pounds a week. I figure, I didn't become overweight instantly, so the pounds are not going to just melt off. It takes a lot of hard work...I'm ready for it.

Em is at Nana Casey's house today and tomorrow. I told Miles I would go with him and watch him bowl in a bowling tournament. Wish us luck!