San Francisco would be a lot cooler if I didn't feel like I was dying.

You're probably wondering why there's a sudden onslaught of posts all in one day.  This is especially odd considering my posts are typically few and far between.  Well, being alone in a hotel room, bored out of your mind will prompt you to find things to entertain yourself with...thus this post.  You'll have to forgive me if this is a bit steam of consciousness.  Being delirious with a fever will do that to you.

So let's start from the beginning, shall we?  On Thursday of last week, we flew from KC to MI for a wedding.  That weekend consisted of a lot of staying up late, a lot of eating things my body hasn't experienced in 4 months, and a lot of waking up early and forgetting to take my vitamins.  We flew back on Sunday evening and then the following day, I went to work and Sudhir and I got on a plane at 7pm to head to San Francisco.  Mind you, I had gone to work and woke up at the usual time.  We arrived in SF at 11pm Pacific Time.  That translates to 1am central time.  I couldn't fall asleep till 2am Pacific time and had to wake up at 6:30am to get ready to hit the conference.

Despite waking up a little groggy and tired (understandably so, since I barely slept), things were going great! I was super excited to attend UX Week 2010.  I'm very fortunate to be in an industry that's actually pretty cool and interesting.  In fact, when Sudhir looked at the topics and talks, he was jealous.  I got to listen to people in the design industry who are inspirational and who blaze new trails every day.  Not many people get to spend a week with a dude that designs for Facebook or the main designer of Guitar Hero or Rock Band.  Pretty awesome. 

I get to the conference center on Tuesday, register, and head to the main room to listen to a day worth of talks.  The speakers were engaging, the topics interesting, and the vibe was inspirational.  Around mid day, I started to notice a nagging tickle in the back of my throat.  By 4pm, it had turned into a full on sore throat and I started to feel pretty wiped out.

I had grand plans of meeting up with my former design partner, LZ, last night.  We'd been planning on it since the moment I registered for the conference and was stoked to catch up.  By the time I made it home, checked my work email, and got some dinner with the hubs, I felt like I could barely muster up the energy to walk back to the hotel, let alone meet someone for drinks at 9:30pm.  Instead, I rescheduled for tomorrow.  I went to bed around 8:30pm, woke up at 3am (again) and couldn't go back to sleep.  At this point, my throat is so sore, that the thought of swallowing raised my blood pressure because it was so painful.  Despite feeling like roadkill, I still got ready and headed to the conference because it was awesome and I didn't want to miss it.

However, today consisted of workshops.  Interactive workshops that required collaboration, and sticky notes, and sorting, and sketching.  All of it was fun (or should have been) but mostly, I wanted to crawl under a banquet table and curl into the fetal position and go to sleep.  I knew things were bad when we went out for the lunch break and it was 90+ degrees out and I was wearing a sweater and had goosebumps.  I opted for heading back to the hotel to try to sleep it off.  I'm super bummed I missed out on the afternoon portion of the workshop. I'm even more bummed that I couldn't find a taxi and had to walk 1.7 miles back to the hotel in 90 degree weather while feeling like I was dying.

I got home, put on my PJs, apologized profusely for ruining my husbands first trip to CA, and then went to sleep with the shakes.  I woke up in a pool of my own sweat and felt like the Sahara had taken up residence in my mouth.  Awesome.  Just then, my cousin (who I was also SO excited to hang out with) showed up from LA.  The poor guy is dead broke but flew out anyway just to hang out with us.  Here I am, laying in bed, sweating profusely, and he's just walked into a scene from Outbreak.

So now, here I am...in a hotel room in San Francisco, watching Seinfeld reruns while my husband and cousin paint the town.  Don't get me wrong, I'm so happy that Sudhir has someone to hang out with so he doesn't have to be trapped in the petrie dish also known as our hotel room...BUT, I was so excited about all of this.  Talk about anti-climactic.  Here's hoping that abuse of over the counter meds and a good night's rest will rejuvenate me for the rest of my trip.

The good news is that we get back to KC on Saturday and then immediately get back on a plane on Wednesday to go to Boston, take a bus to NJ on Thursday, and then take one back to Boston on Saturday and fly back to KC on Sunday.  Just thinking about it makes me tired.  I think I'm going to stock up on Emergen-C and Airborn.  Might as well start main-lining it now so I can try to prevent this from happening again.  I shudder to think what kind of germs I'm capable of picking up on the China Town bus.  Ack.

We're homeowners! (sorta)

As an update to those of you who didn't see my Facebook newsflash approximately 5 minutes after we found out, we're homeowners!!  Well, sorta.  The builder rejected our initial offer but accepted our second offer.  He's even throwing in fixes for some of the things I didn't like about the house (i.e exchanging the appliances for stainless steel, changing the cabinet doors, light fixtures, and paint colors on the main floor)

Our closing date is set for 10/15 so we've got plenty of time before we move.  The other nice things is that our apartment lease doesn't end until the end of November so we can move at our own pace.  I can barely stand waiting to decorate the hell out of this place.  It's gonna be epic.

Live and Learn...

They say that time heals all wounds.  They also say that life's bumps and bruises make us who we are.  This is all fine and good, but what happens if some of the mistakes you've made in the past are so disastrous that the very thought of repeating said mistake sends you into a state of panic?

Indulge me in a moment of Sophia Petrillo (a la Golden Girls):

Picture it: It's 2007, Sudhir and I have been married for about 4 months and are living in a pretty sweet apartment in Hoboken, NJ.  It's a 1 bedroom, 700 square foot place on the top floor of a high-rise building, floor to ceiling windows, and a fantastic view of the Empire State Building.  Being that we had just gotten hitched and had a bunch of money from the wedding as well as 2 of my bonuses saved, what better way to spend it than to invest in a home.

To say we had sticker shock, is an understatement.  It's downright ridonkulous how very little half a million dollars will buy you in that particular part of the country.   We ended up settling on what we thought was a fantastic deal.  a 2-story row house with a backyard (which is unheard of in that city).  It was a 2 bedroom, 2 bath and about 1240 square feet of space...all for the bargain price of $550K.  We're talking about a place that was built in the early 1900's, that had baseboard heating, and no central air.  The living room had basement sized windows and it was dark and dingy.  Be that as it may, all I saw was potential.

We immediately set out to renovate the kitchen.  We completely gutted it and installed the modern kitchen of my dreams.  See Below:

Pretty nice, right?  Anyway, to make an already long story, less long...we bought at the height of the market and basically sold at the pit of it.  The amount we lost on this place when we decided to up and leave the NYC area is more than the cost of my parents 3600 square foot home in MI.  Essentially, we had to write a check for our life savings to leave a house we had sunk so much money into already...

It's enough to scar a person.  For life.  Or so you would think.

About 2 weeks ago, we found out that our apartment may not be leased to us again because our building is going to be converted to condos on our floor.  Awesome!  This is when we first began thinking about looking at homes to buy.  Shortly thereafter, we fell head over heals in love with this place:

While it scares the bejesus out of me to consider entering into the precarious world of home ownership, I'm equally excited to start a life with greater sense of permanence in KC.  We made an offer today so we're keeping our fingers crossed till we hear back!