Billy, Elton, and Wertz!

Today I'm going to tell you about some of the fun things happening this month and one not so fun thing....

I'll get the not so fun thing out of the way so that I can hurry up and get to the fun stuff. My whole condo thing is currently up in the air which makes me very nervous.... and I don't like it! The sellers are being less than friendly and honest about the whole thing and although I may get all the things I'm asking for (in a roundabout kind of a way that lets the sellers off the hook) a huge part of me doesn't want to give in and give the sellers what they want. I want this to work out for me, but not for them.... is that wrong?! Probably, but that's how I feel about the whole thing right now. I've talked the whole deal to death and all I can do right now is sit and wait, so I won't bore myself by typing out all the details right now. Instead we'll talk about happier things :)

Last week I saw probably the most legendary concerts that I will ever see, Billy Joel and Elton John... TOGETHER! I am not a super fan of either one of them but it was just amazing to see them live. They sang all their hits, some together and some solo. We had good seats up in the first section of seats off the floor (right next to Joe Buck) and as luck would have it, someone we were with knew the usher who was checking the tickets of those trying to go down to the floor. She let a few of us sneak down there and we walked right down the middle isle of the floor seats right up to the front, about 40 ft. from Elton as he sang "Rocketman". I will tell my grand kids that I went to this show and since they have such a hip grandma they'll know all about Elton and Billy and be super impressed.

As a single girl one of the things I look for is handsome, talented and funny single men. Enter - MATT WERTZ! He's one of my favorite musicians, he's funny, good looking, talented, and is from Missouri (the wrong side of it, but I can forgive him this fault)! Oh, and did I mention he's single??? This Friday night he'll be in St. Louis doing a small show and I will be there! Even better.... the tickets were FREE from the radio station! Oh the Joy! I have seen him in concert a couple of times before but it's been almost 2 years since he's been in St. Louis and I just can't wait! He puts on such an entertaining show that even if he's not my boyfriend at the end of the night I will still have fun :) Also, the concert is at a casino so I can hit up the penny slots after the show and win me some money! (ps, I just read this paragraph again after I finished writing it and realized that I used an exclamation point at the end of every single sentence... this may be overkill but I feel it necessary to express my excitement very dramatically on this topic)

The other exciting news is that I will be going on my first vacation in about 4 years! I'll be in Florida for a whole wonderful week and I couldn't be more excited about it. I plan to do nothing but sit on the beach, sit by the pool, read, sleep (a lot) and eat (also a lot). *repeat every day for 7 days* Oh, and I'll also be spending large amounts of time making fun of my parents wearing water shoes and my mom wearing a visor... trust me, it's funny! Also, I hope to avoid the sunburn and instead skip right to the bronze glow... but I don't have a good feeling about that. I almost always burn on the first day of vacation, get sun poisoning, and spend the next 2 days with my bottle of aloe alone in the hotel while everyone else has fun outside. Sunscreen will be my friend on this trip. Really the only thing I'm not looking forward to is the plane rides to and from. I almost always get motion sick and end up sitting by smelly guy. Say a little prayer for me mmmkay?

Money, Spending and Budgets = Yay, Hooray, and BOO!

This weekend started bright and early on Saturday morning with some garage sale shopping and let me tell you, it was WORTH IT! Kelly and I got up waaay too early for a weekend and drove out to the St. Charles Family Arena where a few hundred people had brought car loads of their crap to sell at rock bottom prices... it was a sight. Kelly and I got lucky and found some great stuff (we know it was great because about 15 people stopped us to tell us how much they liked the items we were carrying around.... especially Kelly who had bought a lamp shaped like the Eiffel Tower. The people were amazed)! There was so much to look at that we spent about an hour and a half there and oh my was there some funny stuff that people were trying to unload. The girl who sold Kelly the Eiffel Tower lamp also had 2 life sized cardboard cutouts that I was sooo tempted by... one was Legolas and the other was Will Turner from the Pirates of the Caribbean. Now in case you don't get the connection... they're both my lovely pretend boyfriend Orlando Bloom. Ooh, how tempted I was! I immediately felt a bond with the girl selling the items and told her that I think we would get along just fine. She laughed but was then disappointed when I didn't buy her stuff... I don't think she wanted to be friends anymore. The other item that I was super tempted by was this marionette doll of JC from N'Sync http://www.amazon.com/NSync-Collectible-Marionette-JC-Chasez/dp/B000O1EWJK ! It even came with it's own stand to store the doll when you're not making it dance along to "Bye Bye Bye". It was only $4 and I'm sure I could have gotten it for less... well, Kelly could have gotten it for less. I'm no good at bargaining. I feel bad about haggling over $2 and she's much tougher than me! I am having some buyers remorse on that one, it would have made a lovely gift for any number of my friends. Anyway, I got some good stuff for my new condo and I think I may be a reformed shopper. Now I kind of feel like I've been missing out on these great deals all along, so I may have a reason to get up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays... cheap crap!

So about that new condo... I am starting to freak out a little. I have looked at my budget over and over again and honestly... I HATE having a budget! I've been fortunate enough that I haven't had to keep a close eye on my spending because I've always been pretty reasonable with my money. Let me tell you, nothing is worse that sitting down and figuring out what you spend your money on every month! It was the worst! I apparently spend a lot of money on stuff that I really don't need and even though it sounds like it would be easy to cut that stuff out, I am used to being able to buy that stupid stuff when I want it! Ugh... I hate feeling like an adult. Why doesn't money grow on trees? That would make me oh so happy! I would grow a whole grove of money trees and spend my days spending the fruits of my harvest on important things.... like shirts. And Subway. Ooh, and pants. Until my money tree arrives I guess I'll have to just suck it up and follow a budget even though the idea makes me want to cry a little. Especially when I factor in all of the things that the new condo needs, like new upstairs carpet, a little paint, a flat screen TV (for reals, it's the only way that a TV will fit in my living room!), Oh, and some decorations. These things are not included in the numbers that I keep crunching, so that is a whole other ball of fun for me to worry about. So basically, what I'm trying to say is... Home Ownership! I could be more excited.