Thursday, June 21, 2007
Are you talking to ME??
Today I went to Manhattan Bagel to do some work and get out of the house. Inside, I had to keep wearing my sunglasses so I could read the menu (they are rx sunglasses). I told the 30ish year old guy helping me "I promise I'm not a weirdo, I just need the prescription in my glasses to read the menu." He responded "Oh, I was hoping you were actually a weirdo, that would make for a better story." He got me my chocolate chip bagel (not nearly as good as Noah's) and my mocha freeze (delicious!), and as he's cashing me out he says, "If it makes you feel any better, you are a beautiful weirdo." It wasn't creepy or anything, just a genuine compliment. I have NEVER in my life been told by a stranger that I am beautiful. Strange that it comes on a day when I walked out of the house thinking, "man, my hair is frizzy today." But it made me smile (and blush), and it was a nice thing to hear. Gotta love the kindness of strangers. Thanks random bagel man for making me feel beautiful today.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
DO NOT buy a house, part deux
In the ongoing saga of home ownership, today the shower/tub stopped draining. Now all women know that hair is usually the culprit, but that generally gets worse over time. This was all of a sudden. Plunging did nothing, and there was no hair to be seen. A walk to the basement proved that what water was escaping was going straight into the basement in a waterfall.
Thankfully, in the 6 degrees of separation game, my friend/realtor Anthony has a wife, Kim. She used to work with Jess, and Jess has a boyfriend John. John, in one of his jobs, is a plumber. So I tracked him down, and he came over a few hours later(with a crew of 3 very entertaining trainees). Turns out the stopper in the tub had just broken, but that required putting in a new section of pipe and a new stopper. While he was here, I also had him fix the leaky faucet. MAN I'm glad I didn't try that on my own! It required lots of parts to fix, along with many statements of "why would anyone ever put XYZ together like this?" Yikes! I have yet to find out what this little escapade will cost. He said he'll let me know on Thursday at the concert. Hopefully I get the "Friends and Family" discount. Either way, I'm SO grateful he came over. John was my hero for the day, and I now have a bathtub with many new parts (that doesn't leak through the faucet, AND the bath now actually holds water!).
Despite this, it has been a good day. Bryan played hookie from his first (insanely pointless and boring) class today. In exchange, he took me out to a fab breakfast at Mt. Hope Diner. Yum-o-licious! It was just nice to spend some time together. On the way home, we stopped and got us new bikes. He got me mine for my birthday, and I didn't want to ride by myself, so part of my birthday gift was a bike for him too. I'm hoping for a fun ride this weekend!
We've had some crazy weather today. Thunder louder than I have literally ever heard in my life. This Oregon girl isn't used to crazy storms! The temperature has vacillated from 82 at 8:30am (you can imagine what a hot stuffy night it was), to 70 at 2pm, and back up to the 80's now at 8:30pm. Crazy!
I hope to get more pictures up here soon. I just realized that I've been slacking with the photos lately. We all know that those are what we really read blogs for! :)
Thankfully, in the 6 degrees of separation game, my friend/realtor Anthony has a wife, Kim. She used to work with Jess, and Jess has a boyfriend John. John, in one of his jobs, is a plumber. So I tracked him down, and he came over a few hours later(with a crew of 3 very entertaining trainees). Turns out the stopper in the tub had just broken, but that required putting in a new section of pipe and a new stopper. While he was here, I also had him fix the leaky faucet. MAN I'm glad I didn't try that on my own! It required lots of parts to fix, along with many statements of "why would anyone ever put XYZ together like this?" Yikes! I have yet to find out what this little escapade will cost. He said he'll let me know on Thursday at the concert. Hopefully I get the "Friends and Family" discount. Either way, I'm SO grateful he came over. John was my hero for the day, and I now have a bathtub with many new parts (that doesn't leak through the faucet, AND the bath now actually holds water!).
Despite this, it has been a good day. Bryan played hookie from his first (insanely pointless and boring) class today. In exchange, he took me out to a fab breakfast at Mt. Hope Diner. Yum-o-licious! It was just nice to spend some time together. On the way home, we stopped and got us new bikes. He got me mine for my birthday, and I didn't want to ride by myself, so part of my birthday gift was a bike for him too. I'm hoping for a fun ride this weekend!
We've had some crazy weather today. Thunder louder than I have literally ever heard in my life. This Oregon girl isn't used to crazy storms! The temperature has vacillated from 82 at 8:30am (you can imagine what a hot stuffy night it was), to 70 at 2pm, and back up to the 80's now at 8:30pm. Crazy!
I hope to get more pictures up here soon. I just realized that I've been slacking with the photos lately. We all know that those are what we really read blogs for! :)
Monday, June 18, 2007
Would you still love me if I were a gay bee?
Yes, I was asked that question this weekend. Yes, that about sums up the weekend! It was uneventful, but at least ended with a nice picnic at Charlotte Beach in the perfect summer weather while I quizzed Bryan about things that I couldn't even pronounce. Oh well, I learned some stuff along the way (notably that BK doesn't give himself even one iota of the credit he deserves for being SUPER SMART). I think after this year I might just do the nursing program myself. Between what I already know and what I'm learning from the roomies, I'd probably do pretty well!
Not much else to update. Psyched about the Kenny Chesney/Sugarland concert this week (in part because it's with some fun friends that I haven't hung out with in waaay too long). I will have to miss out on my new beach volleyball league this week (which is super fun, and I'm one of the better players on the team...doesn't speak very highly of our team!). It's getting hot here finally...ugh! I dislike the winters here, but I think I like them better than the hot part of summer. We're still trying to get the pool running...it looks more like an odd Jones soda color now rather than a black swamp, so I *think* I'm making progress!
Not much else to update. Psyched about the Kenny Chesney/Sugarland concert this week (in part because it's with some fun friends that I haven't hung out with in waaay too long). I will have to miss out on my new beach volleyball league this week (which is super fun, and I'm one of the better players on the team...doesn't speak very highly of our team!). It's getting hot here finally...ugh! I dislike the winters here, but I think I like them better than the hot part of summer. We're still trying to get the pool running...it looks more like an odd Jones soda color now rather than a black swamp, so I *think* I'm making progress!
Friday, June 15, 2007
DO NOT buy a house!
Okay, for all of you who don't own a house, DON'T buy one! They call it a "house," but really it should be called "Sucks away all of your money and your free time." Don't get me wrong, it's nice to own one, but I'd give everything I own to be back in a condo. Today it cost me $150 to have someone come and replace the wheels on the garage door. 45 years of wear and they had finally fallen apart to the point that the door wouldn't open anymore. Yesterday, I spent $35 fixing things on the pool, and 2+ hours repairing it and cleaning it out, with more to do today. Three weeks ago, I spent $550 getting new electricity put upstairs, since we didn't have enough power to even run a small window A/C without blowing a fuse. I guess along the way I have learned how to fix many things, or who to call to fix them, but it is just so much work. Our next place we have already agreed will be a condo or a townhouse.
A few weekends ago I spent the entire weekend watching my friend's 3 kids (who are all over this blog). They are 6, 4, and 7 months, and really good kids, but at the end I was SO glad to come home! I learned that 3 is too many. I never wanted that many anyway, and now I certainly don't! Two is more than enough, and maybe just one is plenty. We had a good time though, and stayed very busy. First, we had to make tie-dye shirts for the girls to wear to camp. Of course, I was terrified at the idea of dye and little kids, but they were so great and listened to me carefully (it helped that I threatened them beforehand by saying "If you don't listen to every word I say, we will not be doing this"). We didn't get a drop of dye on anyone! I couldn't believe it. Just in case though, we did it outside in the grass in our bathing suits. Check out the final results:
I made the one that Peter is wearing, and the girls each made the ones they are wearing. Cassie had to find out the hard way that she should have taken my advice to add more rubberbands, since those are what cause the patterns. It still came out pretty well though.
We also read this book Pinkalicious about a girl who turns pink from eating all pink foods, and made pink cupcakes to go along with it.
I thought I'd share this picture of the latest visitor to the feeder. We thought this position was pretty funny.
The rest of our free time lately has been spent with these little rugrats:
We got them last weekend at 4 weeks old, and they are still being bottle fed. It is a decent amount of work, but they are bottle champs and super fun. We're not sure what happened to their mom. They were turned in to the animal shelter alone at 3 weeks. One had a pretty severe neuro issue going on, but it seems to be improving miraculously.
That's about it in Rochester land. The weather has been beautiful. I am slowly learning to play tennis, and we have gotten to spend more time taking breaks from school/work by going out to eat, watching Planet Earth (our new obsession), and just hanging out. It has been great.
A few weekends ago I spent the entire weekend watching my friend's 3 kids (who are all over this blog). They are 6, 4, and 7 months, and really good kids, but at the end I was SO glad to come home! I learned that 3 is too many. I never wanted that many anyway, and now I certainly don't! Two is more than enough, and maybe just one is plenty. We had a good time though, and stayed very busy. First, we had to make tie-dye shirts for the girls to wear to camp. Of course, I was terrified at the idea of dye and little kids, but they were so great and listened to me carefully (it helped that I threatened them beforehand by saying "If you don't listen to every word I say, we will not be doing this"). We didn't get a drop of dye on anyone! I couldn't believe it. Just in case though, we did it outside in the grass in our bathing suits. Check out the final results:
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| From June 2007 |
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| From June 2007 |
I made the one that Peter is wearing, and the girls each made the ones they are wearing. Cassie had to find out the hard way that she should have taken my advice to add more rubberbands, since those are what cause the patterns. It still came out pretty well though.
We also read this book Pinkalicious about a girl who turns pink from eating all pink foods, and made pink cupcakes to go along with it.
 |
| From June 2007 |
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| From June 2007 |
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| From June 2007 |
I thought I'd share this picture of the latest visitor to the feeder. We thought this position was pretty funny.
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| From June 2007 |
The rest of our free time lately has been spent with these little rugrats:
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| From June 2007 |
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| From June 2007 |
We got them last weekend at 4 weeks old, and they are still being bottle fed. It is a decent amount of work, but they are bottle champs and super fun. We're not sure what happened to their mom. They were turned in to the animal shelter alone at 3 weeks. One had a pretty severe neuro issue going on, but it seems to be improving miraculously.
That's about it in Rochester land. The weather has been beautiful. I am slowly learning to play tennis, and we have gotten to spend more time taking breaks from school/work by going out to eat, watching Planet Earth (our new obsession), and just hanging out. It has been great.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Lots of catching up!
I haven't been a good blogger lately, but I have still enjoyed reading all of your blogs! I figure I'll start in reverse chronology updating everyone.
Currently, I am playing "patient" for Bryan as he practices his musculoskeletal system examination. For me, this means I get to help him learn and study, while I get something akin to a massage as he rubs my temples, checks my fingers, and sees if my spine is in line. All of this is great, until he tells me to touch my left ear to my left shoulder, then do the same with the right. I do it as best as I can, and all he says is "hm." I look at him quizzically, and he says "is that really all you can do?" and I tell him yes, I'm being a genuine patient. I guess I have extremely limited motion in my neck. When I ask "what does that mean?" he replies "I don't know. We don't ever talk about abnormal patients." Wow. Comforting. If I go see one of them as a totally healthy patient, I'll be fine. But if anything is wrong, they will have no idea what to do! I'm sure they will learn, but for now I've told him he has to go as his lab instructor what it means about my neck. So much for "helping" him. Now I'm just worried (and it helps oh-so-much when he says "I'm worried about you too.").
But before this assessment, we had a fantastic weekend. Lots of fun time, including trying out the diner by our house that we can walk to (cheap and a really yummy breakfast), trying out the local disc golf course (TONS of trees, but short fairways), getting our free ice cream cones at Friendly's, trying out the local China Buffet (can you tell we like to eat?) returning a few things at the mall, and getting some fun new products at the sale at Bath and Body Works. I love their sales!
Things are definitely calming down around here as I now work at home and Bryan is getting settled into a routine with school. Bryan makes me smile with his constant singing. You never know what song he'll bust into. It might be "Sweet Caroline" or some obscure rap song. Sometimes, when it's just he and I, it is accompanied by whatever silly little dance he makes up on the spot. If I'm standing to close to him, I get roped into the "dance." It's always a way he knows he can make me laugh. His singing reminds me so much of my dad, except my dad is a whistler. My dad constantly whistles, and even to this day, 3,000 miles away, if I hear a man whistling in the store I automatically look around to see if it's my dad. I guess Bryan sings instead though, because he can't whistle! That's right, not at all. I joined the club though when I got braces. I can no longer whistle.
Updates about my weekend with 3 kids later. Now, I really should be working!
Currently, I am playing "patient" for Bryan as he practices his musculoskeletal system examination. For me, this means I get to help him learn and study, while I get something akin to a massage as he rubs my temples, checks my fingers, and sees if my spine is in line. All of this is great, until he tells me to touch my left ear to my left shoulder, then do the same with the right. I do it as best as I can, and all he says is "hm." I look at him quizzically, and he says "is that really all you can do?" and I tell him yes, I'm being a genuine patient. I guess I have extremely limited motion in my neck. When I ask "what does that mean?" he replies "I don't know. We don't ever talk about abnormal patients." Wow. Comforting. If I go see one of them as a totally healthy patient, I'll be fine. But if anything is wrong, they will have no idea what to do! I'm sure they will learn, but for now I've told him he has to go as his lab instructor what it means about my neck. So much for "helping" him. Now I'm just worried (and it helps oh-so-much when he says "I'm worried about you too.").
But before this assessment, we had a fantastic weekend. Lots of fun time, including trying out the diner by our house that we can walk to (cheap and a really yummy breakfast), trying out the local disc golf course (TONS of trees, but short fairways), getting our free ice cream cones at Friendly's, trying out the local China Buffet (can you tell we like to eat?) returning a few things at the mall, and getting some fun new products at the sale at Bath and Body Works. I love their sales!
Things are definitely calming down around here as I now work at home and Bryan is getting settled into a routine with school. Bryan makes me smile with his constant singing. You never know what song he'll bust into. It might be "Sweet Caroline" or some obscure rap song. Sometimes, when it's just he and I, it is accompanied by whatever silly little dance he makes up on the spot. If I'm standing to close to him, I get roped into the "dance." It's always a way he knows he can make me laugh. His singing reminds me so much of my dad, except my dad is a whistler. My dad constantly whistles, and even to this day, 3,000 miles away, if I hear a man whistling in the store I automatically look around to see if it's my dad. I guess Bryan sings instead though, because he can't whistle! That's right, not at all. I joined the club though when I got braces. I can no longer whistle.
Updates about my weekend with 3 kids later. Now, I really should be working!
Thursday, June 07, 2007
One more day to freedom
I've realized that work is the equivalent of being a kid in school for an adult. Although instead of getting a summer break and looking forward to being one year older, you have to quit your job. I have one more day left at my current job, and I might, just for old times sake, sing "School's Out for Summer" when I leave tomorrow.
Life there has gotten worse and worse. I was there until 6:30 tonight, which put me at 9-10 hours today. And this isn't surfing-on-the-net-for-6-hours-and-actually-working-for-three kind of work. I'm trying to get a survey out, which requires extensive rounds of survey testing, emailing with clients, emailing with survey programmers, and emailing with project coordinators. I was so busy all day, and I'm growing more and more frustrated that my manager is nowhere to be found. This leaves just me to figure out how to do all of this stuff, with no motivation to learn since I'm leaving tomorrow. In the meantime, I have managed to piss off just about anyone in the company that I've had to deal with, because I haven't done anything on the "company approved timeline."
Today was supposed to be my first beach volleyball game. I joined a league to get to know some new people and get out of the house sometimes. I had to miss the game due to work. I was so upset by the time I left work that I had to drink when I got home. To the point of difficulty remaining erect. I NEVER do this. I rarely drank before I got this job, but it has gotten to the point of 3ish times a week. I can't be done soon enough.
I'm so excited to be back at PRE. It's familiar, it's interesting work, it's a normal pace, and I can have my life back. Sure, working from home might be isolating, but being back with a company I love is such an uplifting thought. One more day. I can do anything for a day.
Hopefully this weekend I'll get the pictures uploaded from last weekend with the kids and you can see our killer tie-dyes! For those of you who are following the exploits of the murse (since he is slacking with the witty blogging these days), he is doing fantastically. He happily declared the other day, "I finally think I'm learning something and actually understanding it." I can tell you that I've already had to start saying "what does that mean in English," so I know he is adapting well. To date he has all A's and B's, and I am super proud of him!
Life there has gotten worse and worse. I was there until 6:30 tonight, which put me at 9-10 hours today. And this isn't surfing-on-the-net-for-6-hours-and-actually-working-for-three kind of work. I'm trying to get a survey out, which requires extensive rounds of survey testing, emailing with clients, emailing with survey programmers, and emailing with project coordinators. I was so busy all day, and I'm growing more and more frustrated that my manager is nowhere to be found. This leaves just me to figure out how to do all of this stuff, with no motivation to learn since I'm leaving tomorrow. In the meantime, I have managed to piss off just about anyone in the company that I've had to deal with, because I haven't done anything on the "company approved timeline."
Today was supposed to be my first beach volleyball game. I joined a league to get to know some new people and get out of the house sometimes. I had to miss the game due to work. I was so upset by the time I left work that I had to drink when I got home. To the point of difficulty remaining erect. I NEVER do this. I rarely drank before I got this job, but it has gotten to the point of 3ish times a week. I can't be done soon enough.
I'm so excited to be back at PRE. It's familiar, it's interesting work, it's a normal pace, and I can have my life back. Sure, working from home might be isolating, but being back with a company I love is such an uplifting thought. One more day. I can do anything for a day.
Hopefully this weekend I'll get the pictures uploaded from last weekend with the kids and you can see our killer tie-dyes! For those of you who are following the exploits of the murse (since he is slacking with the witty blogging these days), he is doing fantastically. He happily declared the other day, "I finally think I'm learning something and actually understanding it." I can tell you that I've already had to start saying "what does that mean in English," so I know he is adapting well. To date he has all A's and B's, and I am super proud of him!
Friday, June 01, 2007
The 3.5 mile 5k
Yesterday, for the first time since high school, I ran a 5k. Now in any real world that would be 3.2 miles, but, we all know Rochester is messed up (see the post about li-locs), so their 5k is 3.5 miles. The run is called the Corporate Challenge and in Rochester over 10,000 people participated from 411 local companies! It was a really neat event that companies do, so I ran as a Harris employee. Although my time is an estimate (there wasn't a clock at the beginning, so we don't know how much time to shave off before we actually got to the start line), I think I finished in about 43 minutes. I'm thrilled about that, since it was 85 degrees, even at 7pm, and I hadn't trained for it at all.
While I'm thinking about the crazy way Rochestarians say lilac, here are a few others for you:
Chili - "chai-lie"
Charlotte - "shar-lot"
Denise - "duh-nice"
Portland has some too:
Couch - "cooch"
Willamette - "will-am-it"
Tigard - "tye-guard"
I think this week I'd get a solid B+ as a girlfriend, so I think I'm moving up :) I'm happy to say Bryan got an 87 on his first test, and the class average was an 83 (range of 71-95), so he did well. We're having a date night tonight (dinner and a movie) tonight, which I'm excited about. This weekend from Saturday morning to Monday morning I'll be watching the 3 little indians that are regulars on my blog (Lani, Cassie, and Peter), so I'll keep you all posted on how my first solid weekend with 3 little ones goes!
While I'm thinking about the crazy way Rochestarians say lilac, here are a few others for you:
Chili - "chai-lie"
Charlotte - "shar-lot"
Denise - "duh-nice"
Portland has some too:
Couch - "cooch"
Willamette - "will-am-it"
Tigard - "tye-guard"
I think this week I'd get a solid B+ as a girlfriend, so I think I'm moving up :) I'm happy to say Bryan got an 87 on his first test, and the class average was an 83 (range of 71-95), so he did well. We're having a date night tonight (dinner and a movie) tonight, which I'm excited about. This weekend from Saturday morning to Monday morning I'll be watching the 3 little indians that are regulars on my blog (Lani, Cassie, and Peter), so I'll keep you all posted on how my first solid weekend with 3 little ones goes!
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