Poker Face

Though you might think this blog is going to be about our current home negotiation, you are wrong. This blog is all about Michael - who by the way, has a much better poker face than I do, if we were to be talking about negotiation.

I mentioned a while back in "That's what husbands do...." that Michael enjoys talking in quotes and lyrics, etc. Sometimes I get a "yaaa-daaaa dahhh dee da..." in place of words of a song, but the BEST is when he gets the lyrics in songs wrong because his alternative words are usually hilarious.

On the way back from San Antonio last weekend I got excited when I heard Lady Gaga's Poker Face come on and turned it up. Michael got excited because he thought it was the "pump up the bass song"... For those of you who know the song you know that she says "p-p-p-poker face, p-p-p-poker face..." and he thought she was saying "p-p-p-pump up the bass..." It was pretty funny and I have to say, I guess it does kinda sound like that. Even better was that after Poker Face ended the DJ put on a version the station had made that was "Butter Face".

Good times! Love you guys.

Natasha

The Green Gate House

Alas, we have fallen in love again. There is another home that we've made an offer on as of yesterday as a matter of fact, three offers on yesterday (long story for later). The back and forth is emotionally exhausting and because the home is new to the market, the seller is especially ornery.

This house doesn't really have a color that I can assign to the brick and when I told Michael it was like a cottage he said "no". Indisputable (unlike an opinion such as 'it makes me think of .....') is the fact that this home has a green deck and fence, so for now, that is how we will refer to it. That is, until we can hopefully refer to it as 'our house'.

We countered last night and supposedly our counter was never received, so we resent today at 5pm and are anxiously awaiting a response by 9pm tonight. We still know God's plans are better than ours, but Michael's been better at reminding us of that than I have lately. I'm just so ready to begin mentally arranging my furniture and planning a barbeque and I refuse to do that again without knowing a home is ours...

Skip Bo

Michael and I aren't really big fighters. In fact, before we were married the only thing we ever really 'fought' about was getting married. Mixed in with the advice and snippets of information that people gave us about marriage, we repeatedly heard "if you're in a relationship and never have fights, be concerned". ha!


Fact is, we're just not big arguers and we generally resolve things without a hitch. However, though we are not argumentative, we are pretty competitive and as much as I love games, we have a hard time playing together! If we're on the same team we're usually safe, but if we're on opposite teams, or playing an every-man-for-himself game like Scattegories, forget it!

Anyway, it came out on our recent ski trip that Michael has a love for Skip-Bo and so, once we were home from the trip, I made sure to pick it up while out on a grocery run. Last Saturday when there was no one to hang out with and nothing to do, we busted it out and played for hours in spite of Michael's "Is this such a good idea?" Last night we played again after dinner. So far, though there have been sighs of frustration, there has yet to be any yelling or tears shed. ha! Perhaps this is part of our first year of marriage - learning to play together..... nicely.

I can successfully cross another item off my "must do before I die" list...NASCAR. Thanks to Uncle Mike, who while down in Texas doing business was able to win tickets to the Samsung 500, Natasha and I were able to go. (Uncle Mike conveniently lives in Oregon).

This being a first for both Natasha and me, I contact my good buddy and nascar guru, Josh for some words of advice. His family frequents these events and is a wealth of knowledge on all things country. "Don't wear cut-off jeans...and it may cost you $50 - $75 but rent a scanner so you can hear the control tower, drivers, pit-crews, etc. The headsphones from the scanner will serve as your earplugs as well, eventhough Texas [Motor Speedway] is so big, you prolly won't need'um".

We leave the house about 10AM, Sunday morning for the 45min drive out to Roanoke, TX to the Texas Motor Speedway. About 6-7 miles from the track traffic comes to a dead stop on a 2 lane highway. 30 mins later we arrive at the mecca of the Nascar Nation. We promptly find our parking space nearest our entrance and start unfolding the chairs to do a little pre-race tailgating. I don't think we ever even got the chairs set up before we had the back of the 4Runner laid flat and we were huddled inside. The 30+ mph winds and temps in the 50's were not ideal for such leisurely enjoyment. Not able to hold it any longer, we were forced to exit our cozy cave and brave the cold so I could use the restroom. This accomplished, we find our seats, which I must say were more than steller...3rd row on the backside stretch. While probably not the most desirable seats in the place, they were perfect for us. We were out among our people...the commoners, thus able to relax and have a good ol' time.

After about 5 minutes of teeth chattering manliness, I breakdown and go on a search for sleeves (I was wearing a cut-off sleeved shirt...forgive me for thinking it would be warm in Dallas in the middle of April on a perfectly sunny day!). The cheapest thing I could find was an enviable Texas Motor Speedway sweatshirt. Best $35 I've ever spent.

The race starts...well, the cars start and are taking their first lap. Natasha's comment "Wow!...those cars sure are going fast!". It is at this point I inform her this is simply the warm-up lap (60mph or so I would guess) and to just wait till the race starts. I must say, it truely was incredible and more than even I had expected, when those cars came around the track for the first time at full throttle...30' away from 50 cars going 200mph will wake you up in a hurry.

Josh's prediction that earplugs would not be necessary was far from correct. By about the 3rd lap we are fervently stuffing papertowels in our ears to ease the pain. It was about lap 60 that the gentleman beside us offered us earplugs. "You mean to tell me you've had an extra set of 'earplugs' this whole time?!" "Yeah, we're at a NASCAR race!" (Dumb and Dumber reference...just had to throw it in)

So the race is fairly uneventful. Probably the most entertaining part was the gentleman infront of us that would follow his car the entire length of the back stretch with his finger then "sling" it around the rest of the way as if the force of his finger were propelling his car that much faster...I don't know. He did it every time his car came around and it was hilarious. This is the same gentleman that ultimatly offered me a beer about 3/4 of the way through the race eventhough we had not exchanged a single word or glance...nothin. He just reached in his cooler and turned around and handed me one. Guess he thought I wasn't having a good enough time. Not wanting to be rude, I politly accepted and that was the extent of our relationship. Nicest people in the world I tell ya.

We left with several laps to go. Got our picture on the way out. I've heard some people will stay an extra night out at the track just to avoid traffic.

Thanks again to Uncle Mike for sending us the tickets. We had a blast.