Pricing Pool Party

It's all about team building at Delta and last Friday we did just that!

We planned a team cookout/pool party

hosted by SWARTZY......at his house in Peachtree City and we all brought drinks and food!
Leo, the tequila man
Mangala and Melanie chowing down...my ceviche was a hit!

Everyone Had a OO7 pic taken....

...some more convincing than others..These guns were much more effective..one squirt and you were soaked...there wasn't a dry person at the party, bathing suit or not!
This may be the jump that caused Scott to sprain his ankle....and caused me to be bringing him ice 3 times a day for the next week!!
"How the hell did I get stuck cooking??"...and serving Cindy drinks all day??" (notice in the background) Things got a little crazy in the pool for a while..the guys made up a game with a yoga ball??

I know what Modica was thinking....
"I can't believe I have to sit here with these idiots outside the office too!"

Oh NO, Bad Show !!!

I guess it had to happen....I had such high hopes for the Grant Park Summer Shade Festival . I thought for sure it would be big money for us, and I cant believe we did this, but we didnt even go back for the second day. Of course that means they will NEVER invite us back, but we made an executive decision that we would not want to do another show in Atlanta in August. It was MISERABLY hot and although grant park does have huge trees, (hence the "shade festival" name) we happened to be positioned between 2 big trees, so for the majority of the day the sun was BEATING on us.
If we would have been selling left and right we may have forgotten the heat, but it just wasn't a busy show. We only sold 6 things all day! The next day we felt a little guilty and questioned our choice....but at 4pm when it started pouring down rain, we KNEW that we did the right thing. Oh well, doing shows is really a learning process. We weren't really upset. It wasn't that people didnt like our stuff, it think the heat just kept people away from the show. That or there wasn't much advertising done?? We are doing another show in Atlanta in one month. It is the first year for the Atlanta Arts Festival, but I know it will get a lot of press. It will be in Piedmont Park September 15-17 and weather will be perfect!! Come see us!!!

The Movie"El Cantante" Reviewed

Last night Ernesto and I went to see the new movie El Cantante staring Marc Anthony and J-Lo. I must say I was expecting a lot more salsa dancing:(

I give the movie a C- but the soundtrack gets A+. I will be downloading it!!

I agree with everything in Roger Ebert's Review below:

"El Cantante," the life and death story of Hector Lavoe (Marc Anthony), the godfather of salsa, retraces the same tired footsteps of many another movie druggie before him. He lies, cheats, disappoints those who love him and finally dies, although even the movie loses patience with the dying process, and cuts out before getting to his years with AIDS (from an infected needle). All along the way, he is enabled and berated in equal measure by his wife and sometime manager Puchi (Jennifer Lopez), who is our guide to his story in black-and-white flashbacks.
The end of the movie is a foregone conclusion, and Hector's inexorable descent is depressing, although interrupted by many upbeat musical numbers. Indeed, there seem to be two films here: A musical, with Anthony doing a terrific job of covering Lavoe's music, and a drugalogue. The soundtrack album would be worth having. But there is nothing special about Lavoe's progress toward the grave: Just the same old same old.

Kathy Griffin at the FOX

Boy did I need a laugh. I was having a HORRIBLE week when Smita invited me to see Kathy Griffin at the FOX Theatre Friday night. I have only seen her on tv a few times and have always found her quite annoying. But Smita had a couple tickets given to her at work and I thought SURELY Kathy would have something funny to say during a stand-up routine.......and she did NOT dissappoint!! We were rolling! She sold out 2 shows that night, each seating over 4,000 peeps. Apparently she has a huge gay/lesbian following...and it was in midtown?! She was helarious!!

EAST LAKE GEM FOR SALE

Here is the flyer for the house....which went LIVE Monday August 13th.

check out the virtual tour

Cedar Point Weekend

What an AWESOME AWESOME weekend!! We are so sorry that you couldn't make it Brrrrrriam.....but I wanted to make sure you got some of the highlights and photos. and Even though this is posted on the Arnold Blog, I thought I would also like to feature it here.

Bill wouldnt put those damn teeth away all weekend. Barbie declared, "They aren't funny for me anymore, I hate those teeth" Courst the rest of us laughed like crazy.

Tim sported the elvis hair in the pool....t...boy oh boy!

We all had fun hanging out at the "SCHAFNOLD INN" (Schaffner and Arnold houses...get it?)

enjoying good food and lots of laughs!!

I made a DE-LISH dinner on Saturday night.....from that darn Rachel Ray..."Grrrreat! Yumm-o! EVOO! Chop-n-drop!" These "sammis" are soo good though..Ooooh I hate her!! Flank steak gilled rare, with a pear, blue cheese, proscuitto, & arugula salad as a topping for the sandwish.....DE-LISH!!!! "How good does that sound?" (I need to be stopped!)

Those little mouths!! Extree cute, they are getting so big!!

Tyler was even tall enough to ride all the big roller coasters....Noah missed the minimum height by one inch. That puckwaa did leave his "molestor mustache" for Cedar Point. Barbie ran into a future co-worker there and said she really debated even introducing Bill as her husband because of that mustache...she really didnt want to. Here we are waiting in line for our first ride Mellinium Force....Tyler had all the stats for the coasters memorized from the website. (he'd been studdying it for days) He told us that we would be going 310ft high and 90mph. I think he got a little scared looking at that first hill, but he did it!!! We stayed until 1030pm..exhausted, but we had such a great time!!

Flight Simulator

So I finally got to do the flight simulator this Thursday (that I won at the DL party back in May) and I have 3 words to say....

CRASH AND BURN

Here is what the sim looks like from the outside It was me and 3 other guys..... and the flight instructor (also a man) I was not the first to fly and when one of the otherguys was coming in for landing and ran off the runway....I screamed. They thought that was pretty funny. The instuctor said, "I have never had anyone scream before when crashing" I find that hard to believe....it was pretty darn REAL...I mean it is a SIMULATOR....so no one else ever had a natural reaction?? of course I thought we were going to be thrown around a little when we hit the ground.

And then it was my turn..........

I took off from New York's JFK airport...very smooth.........until it came time to land....lets just say, I may have taken out a few buildings:)
It was very fun!

Designed to sell......

With the 5 year anniversary of buying our house approaching, we have decided we are going to put it up for sale. Now understand this, we dont regret buying this house... although it has been a lot of damn work, and caused a lot of stress over the years...but we have definately learned what is good for us.

Main lesson learned??

We are not fixer-upper kind of people!!

We (especially me) like to spend our weekends traveling, and when we are in Atlanta, we want to have free time, not "projects" hanging over our heads. This house was a great investment. We are in a very HOT neighborhood where the houses are selling, even in a supposedly slow real estate market AND we bought this house under appraisal value...it was a forclosure. Thanks Fannie Mae!!

In the last year we have been really fixing up, not just decorating ...which is really all I wanted to do to a house in the first place. New roof, new windows, new heating/air, gorgeous deck, refinished wood floors, wainscotting in living room and kitchen, beadboard in the bathroom and laundry rooms.....it looks amazing!! ...."and then you sell? you ask.....YES....we want to be FREEEE!

Do you ever watch the show on HGTV Designed to Sell?? The homeowners are having trouble selling, and a realestate "stager" from the show comes looks at the house and tells them what needs to be changed. (why no one is buying) Homeowners then have a budget of 2-3k and they help "fix" the house with a crew from the show. Nice!! I have learned a lot about preparing our home to sell, so when Beverly, a certified "home stager" did a walk through our house last week telling us what needs to be done before listing....we listened.

Meet Beverly, our real estate agent (and friend,retired Delta)

Beverly Hanson Real Estate Consultant Keller Williams Realty Atlanta 200 Glenridge Point Parkway, Suite 100, Atlanta, GA 30342 678.480.3773 (cell/text) 404.531-5708 (fax) Beverly@BHansonHomes.com

Our goal is to put in on the market August 6. This is agressive, especially with the long "punch out" list we were given.....but we have gotten sooooooo much done this week. This is the first time in my 9 years with Delta that I have ever taken time off work and actually stayed home. It felt so weird! I do have cabin fever I must say.....I am actually ready to go back to work tomorrow for a break!

I was busy painting 3 of our rooms to neutral colors. Bye bye to my beautiful turquoise living room. Beverly said that 75% of buyers cannot look past the paint colors????? I guess there are many unimaginitive people out there.

I have also decluttered the shit out of the house. Nice write off for Goodwill!! We have to take away any personal pictures /nicknacks etc. for showing the house too, so we will probably get a storage unit. We even went to see a few houses with Beverly that are up for sale in our neighborhood for comparison in setup and pricing. It was very encouraging.....geez they are selling for A LOT!! Woo-hoo!!

The TO DO list was a long and only 5 weeks to complete........We did soooooo much painting! We enlisted the help of many....Dad power washed the screen porch and repainted it. 100% better!!A lot of work needed to be done outside with landscaping......CURB APPEAL is very important!!I did some container plantings......this one turned out so beautiful!My mom is the expert gardener, so she helped me pick out the azaleas in front, and transplant all the liriope in front of the newly finished planter box that Neto designed and built. We debated what to do around the big tree in front, it had been quite an eye sore.

And now look! It turned out beautiful! Neto did a grrrrreat job!!
He did a great job at making me laugh too!!

That's what friends are for.......

Having a bad day? How about a quick beach getaway? Ok twist my arm....Smita is such a good friend! I don't think I have ever gotten ready for a trip on such short notice.  It was Saturday morning and Smita called saying she got this Starwood hotel in Hilton Head for a deal and we could try for a flight (which was oversold) at 9:55......it was 8:30am. 

Ernesto was out of town, so I grabbed my swimsuit, hat, sunscreen (which they took at security...f$*#ers) and threw on a dress.....nope no shower this morning, and I was out the door in 10 minutes.  

Flight was full. New Plan. Fly to Charleston. (the Delta agent was busy closing the flight and still  got us on no problem...she was great!!!)  After driving 1.5 hour to HH we set our feet on the beach, and totally forgot about it. 

It is so amazing how relaxing and calming the beach can be.  A couple hours in the sun can do wonders.  I got a great start on my tan, and Smita got "black" (that's what she called it, I call it "perfect color" ...oh what i wouldnt do to have skin that tans instantly)  After hours on the beach, we enjoyed a 5 mile trail walk, dinner at a Thai restaurant called Ruans.....DELISH....and were in bed by 1030....just what i needed!! And YES, I have new sand for my collection!! 
ps.  The Westin resort is heavenly.  I highly recommend it. 

Hispanic Chamber Gala

Does it look like 4 years have gone by? Here we are, 2 amigas, going to the same gala 4 years later. We had fun both times!! I love getting dressed up....im getting so much use out of my dress. We posed the same....in front of the armoire (which still has too much crap on it)

......and now with Jorge, who was our boss and the time(4 years ago) and then we saw him this year...hes not with DL anymore....notice how much happier he is to see us this time??