Well, Buy-A-Panda has officially made a sale.  The supplier wasn't too thrilled when I told them I wanted to break up a case, but they were kind enough to not charge me.  They were thusly even less thrilled when I said I only wanted one panda.  XD  Needless to say, if I ever buy anything from them again, I will get charged.  XD  Ah well... I will probably be shutting down the business come the end of the month.  I don't spend nearly enough time (read: none) to actually have it be lucrative.  It's more of a hobby than anything else, I guess, if a website that has stuffed pandas for sale can be called a hobby.

My other "so amazing" news is that I have officially reached a weight loss goal of 20 lbs.  Hooray!  *does a little dance*  It's taken a couple months, and it's been a bit of a struggle at times, but it's been worth it.  All of my work pants are loose on me now; it's wonderful.  I am eagerly awaiting the day when they no longer fit at all, and I must go out and buy more.  Now that would qualify as "super amazing."

Well, the plans are underway for us to get ourselves out of an apartment and into a home.  Hooray!  We are utilizing the SHIP program to get ourselves a free $10,000 towards down payment and closing costs.  First you have to be deemed "mortgage ready" by a lender.  We accomplished that on Wednesday.  Next we have to take several classes.  We had our first part of one class tonight, and the second part will be next Thursday evening.  Hence the subject line "halfway to 10k."  ^_^  I am very, very excited about this.  Before we moved into our current apartment, we had been staying at Shaun's mom's house and we looked into possibly getting a home, but at the time we just had too much debt and it just wasn't going to work out.  We have since gotten rid of all of my credit card debt so that has helped tremendously.  Our big problem currently that is holding us back is that we both have car loans.  Our lender says that we could be qualified for a mortgage of $115k with our current situation, but if we got rid of one of the car payments, that would increase our buying power to $130k, which would get us a nicer home closer to what we have in mind.  So.... that will be interesting to see if we can accomplish that.  It comes to roughly $4,000 that we would have to come up with in order to do that.  We have some ideas, but we'll see how it all works out.  If it comes down to it, we will be able to spend our savings and pay most of that, and then work on paying off the remainder, and then saving up again to get our savings back up to where it is now.  It would take a little while, but we could do it.  Once we qualify for the SHIP money, I'm not sure how long we have to use it before we would lose it.  We may still end up having to wait until next year.  I'm trying to keep myself from getting too excited, because I don't want to be disappointed if we have to wait.  I'll just keep my fingers crossed for now.  : )

I've caught a cold, and it sucks.  I used to get sick a lot, when I lived up north.  Every winter, without fail, I'd have at least one cold, usually several, and I'd often catch a cold at other random times of the year to boot.  But ever since I moved to FL, I stopped getting colds.  I've been down here 3+ years and this is only the second time I've been sick.  I'd say that's pretty darn cool.  currently my throat is a tiny bit sore, nothing major (although it hurt like crazy last night), my nose is a little runny but it's not too bothersome (yet); what's driving me crazy is the stupid sinus pressure.  It's got my right ear all plugged up so I can't hear things properly, and since it's been like that for most of the afternoon, I have a headache!  It totally sucks.  And my nose is sore, from what I call ENBS: Excessive Nose Blowing Syndrome.  It occurs when you blow your nose too often and your skin gets all red and sore.  : (  Fortunately I have the only known remedy at my disposal: Puffs Plus with lotion.  Aaaahhhh, feels so good.  (yes I know I'm strange)

So that covers the "ENBS" in the subject line.  On to the acorns!  At work, our toilet paper used to just be the "Scott" brand type; thin, rough, no pretty little patterns or anything.  A little while ago they switched on us, and we got toilet paper more along the lines of Quilted Northern; softer and thicker plus ours had cute little flowers on it.  Yesterday, I went to the restroom and discovered that our toilet paper now has acorns on it.  Acorns!  How cute!!  I was seriously tempted to rip of a single sheet to keep for some bizarre unknown reason.  I decided against, much to the sadness of the side of personality that likes to hoard things.  (yes I know, I'm even stranger now)

Also related to work, my newest pet peeve involves the public computer we have set up in the break room.  It's got its own little cubicle-like area, which is nice for privacy.  However, a lot of people like to go over there just so they can have a "private" conversation on their cell phone, and not to use the computer.  This happened one day that I really wanted to check some stuff online, but found I could not because of some rude person sitting there talking on her cell phone.  -_-;  I could - should? - have gone up to her and asked if I could use the computer and kick her out of there, but I'm afraid of confrontation (sometimes) and so tend to not do those kinds of things.  I tend to not be afraid of confrontation when it involves someone I don't know, and thus don't care what they think of me.  Example:  I told someone to get out of an Employee parking spot because there were no other spots available and I didn't want to have to drive all the way to the back of the building to the overflow parking because then I would be late getting to my desk.  The guy was backed into the parking space and had his window rolled down.  So I put my car in park, opened the door and said: "Excuse me, you're parked in an employee parking spot, and I am an employee and you are not, so would you please move your vehicle so I can park there."  And I did not phrase it as a question.  He didn't say anything, but he did pull out of the space.  ^_^  Afterwards I was feeling the rush of adrenaline, but I was proud of myself for standing up to someone, even if it was only over a parking spot.

Shaun and I have gotten addicted to House, so we've started watching it from the beginning.  I love that you can borrow DVDs for free from libraries.  ^_^  In other news, we are currently catching some of the debate currently going on tonight.  It's very interesting.  There is a lot to discuss, and so much of it is so very important.  It's rather daunting and very fascinating.

Around 8:30 tonight I was gonna get up to make our lunches for tomorrow, and I realized, "tomorrow is Friday!"  I don't have to make lunches on Friday, as Shaun is off those days and he meets me for lunch.  ^_^  YAY for Fridays!!