Being Becky

A few kind words please...

2009-08-10T15:48:00.001-06:00

Let's just say that I'm currently at a compliment deficit... this may not make sense but for me, a few kind words really go far. The best thing a coworker or boss can do is to publicly praise something I do. Noticing my hard work and good results then taking the time to let me know they saw it - especially in front of others - is how I get satisfaction at work. I'll work double time just for a little notice. Bonuses and other incentives will never get me moving the way a few kind words can. Right now I'm just feeling a bit down at work because I need some acknowledgment and nothing is happening. Sounds needy right? Well, it's just how I'm motivated and I've told my team this so it's hard when nothing happens.

One of my main responsibilities at work is to plan events to help introduce current and prospective customers to what we do. They are usually Lunch and Learn formats where we take over a conference room, bring in food and have a lively (ok, usually not very exciting) presentation about our topic. I'm in charge of the guest list, invites (postcard, letter and email), coordinating follow up calls plus taking care of the logistics of where to hold it and making sure the venue and caterers are all okay. Recently we've even brought a temp on board to help with phone calls and I'm training/managing that person too. I enjoy event planning and have this pretty much down to a science.

Over the last quarters there has been an increased desire to get more attendance to events so our lists have increased (from 300 invited to 1700 invited) as have the size of our venues and need for catering because of the larger numbers.

Last quarter we did two last-minute events to get our quarterly numbers up and I pulled together two large (for us) lunches with about one month of prep. We were scrambling, especially when we were a week away and realized we'd outgrown our space and needed another ASAP! The events were very successful, the best attendance we'd had since I've been on staff. I worked a bunch of extra hours to pull off the changes. I didn't get any acknowledgment, thank yous or pats on the back from anyone I work with (accept for the receptionist who was assisting me). Nothing.

Last week was the first event of this quarter, yet again I put in the extra hours to make it a success and we had the best attendance to date at the lunch. Again, not a word from anyone I work with. Everyone is happy with the numbers so I know it was a "success" in their minds but the fact that I never even get mentioned when my boss goes down the report of the event is hurtful.

Why do I work so hard if nothing I do (especially when I know I'm going above and beyond) is acknowledged? I'm not asking for people to applaud every time I sign in to my computer, I just want my months of preparation to be noticed and appreciated.

Waking up for work this Monday was difficult to say the least. My company is not known for being employee friendly and my position in particular is overlooked in many ways. Needless to say, my job hunt for something new is in full force (as it has been for several months but there aren't a lot of openings in Marketing, Communications, PR, etc.).

The Epic Summer of 2009!

2009-08-07T14:04:00.001-06:00

I am happy to report that I've been having a fantastic summer. I'm finally doing all those fun, hip, single-person-during-the-summer things around Denver and Colorado! My blogging time had been consumed with other activities - it's nice to have so much happening but I'm sorry for anyone who actually wants to keep up with my life with more than Facebook updates! I love reading others' blogs as I start my days but I've been so bad about putting my own updates together.

So here's a quick run down of the fabulous summer. Ben and I have been experiencing the best of summer and of the wonderful place we call home. We've been bike riding, going to outdoor concerts and movies, eating on any patio I can find, walking around town for food or drinks instead of using the car, and most of all - enjoying nights and weekends full of rest and relaxation! We've hit the mountains a few times and I've discovered all kinds of fun places in old Denver (where Ben lives) that are just picturesque. I've started to do all those fun things I always wanted to do and embracing the life of the hip, 30-something in Denver. We're not spending tons of money but just enjoying all the fun that summer provides.

Highlights so far:
- Concert at Red Rocks
- Outdoor movies at Infinity Park (the outdoor Rugby park that shows free movies throughout the summer, we get to sit on the pitch and bring food and blankets to camp out for the show)
- Free concert in the park by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra (fun people watching for sure)
- Car camping at the foot of 14ers (14,000 foot peaks that Ben climbed, I stayed at the car and read)
- Driving up to Winter Park and checking out the new ski village that's really cool with great restaurants
- Riding our bikes around town and checking out all the awesome, huge, older houses in Denver (you can just imagine what it was like 100 years ago for all the high society folks that built them)
- Riding to Dazbog Coffee and feeling like a true Denverite when sitting on the patio at this neighborhood coffee shop watching folks walk dogs or frequent the local shops
- Finding a great wine bar in the foothills with a fantastic outdoor space that has a fountain and is all lit up in Christmas lights after dark (totally romantic)
- Being introduced to great local bands as we follow Ben's friends' band around town when they open for folks (we really do have a great music scene in town)
- I did a 24 mile bike ride with Ben's mom the other weekend, we didn't mean to go that far but we survived and were so proud of ourselves after we did it

That's about it for now, just felt that I needed to acknowledge what I've been up to and officially blog about all those "distractions" that keep me from sitting down to post something. Coming soon (I hope) my summer in pictures.

To the Birthday Girl!

2009-07-07T08:52:00.001-06:00

I've been needing to get back to the blog world and have a great reason to start blogging again today because I get to celebrate my friend Leslie and her 30th B'day! Today is her birthday and her very creative husband wanted her friends to help celebrate through our blogs - welcome to birthdays in the tech world!

Here are a few things about Leslie:
- I remember every time I popped in to her room our Sophomore year Titanic always seemed to be on the TV
- Being an L-House roomie for about a week but hanging out there a lot - can't get enough Christmas Vacation around the holidays
- I admire her dedication to working out, I'd be on my way to get junk food and see her out running
- Not only is she tall (which I'm jealous of) but has such awesome red hair - you can't miss her in a crowd (it helps short people like myself find her, this is very good)
- I love seeing Leslie be a mom. Her pictures and stories show how much she loves her girls and they are so blessed to have such a wonderful woman for their mom.

Happy Birthday Leslie! Enjoy the big 3-0, I'm so glad that we became friends!

Quickie

2009-04-15T17:45:00.002-06:00

I have 10 minutes before class and since I'm all ready to go I decided to do a bit of blogging. I'm loving spring, in fact I'm wearing a dress right now and enjoying the warm day before a storm rolls in tonight. I get a massage tomorrow night after work and I'm so looking forward to it. Stress at work has made it an even better idea than it was when I scheduled it.

I'm on the hunt for a new place to live and can't believe that two months from now I'll be in a new place in a new part of town - so excited about that. Get to save some money and be closer to the people and things that I spend my time with. I'm a bit addicted to Craigslist's housing stuff - trying to find just the right place with a move-in date of June. More things are appearing every day so I'm getting overwhelmed and excited.

Okay - class time, off to discuss the balance of equality and efficiency!

Pictures!

2009-04-03T08:35:00.003-06:00

So, after the novel I wrote yesterday I decided that I would post some pictures since they are easy to look at and you won't have to do much reading!

Here's Ben and I before the fund raising concert for Art From Ashes, one of the non-profits he volunteers with. (He's a pro at taking pictures of himself, that comes in handy when there's no one else around to be the photographer.)

And here we are about a month ago celebrating our birthdays a bit belated with his brother, Ed and his girlfriend/my friend (who introduced us) Julie. Happy Friday! TGIF!

Yep, I'm Still Here!

2009-04-02T12:36:00.002-06:00

Here's the funny thing about my blogging. I love reading everyone else's blogs (Google Reader is the first thing I check each morning after looking at my email) but I've become so bad about updating my own. So in case anyone is a blog stalker like me, here is some reading material for you, from me, as my contribution to the blogosphere that I keep taking from and now need to give back to.

Here's the rundown of Becky's life over the last few weeks including a new quarter at school, the misadventures of Ben and Becky, tough times on the job and some life changes in route like moving in June…

School:

I started a new quarter last week and I'm already done with week #2! 1/5 through the quarter and since I'm taking the summer off from classes I have some freedom to look forward to once this quarter is done. My first class this quarter is a "Values Based Leadership" class, an elective that fit into the time that I needed a class but I'm loving it! My professor is a total genius, author, speaker, knows everyone in the business world and really enjoys helping us to think through things. There are two other students in the class so we actually meet in my professor's office, sit around a table and it's a tutorial discussion format – not a lecture or seminar type at all. The content is all ethical and political philosophy to figure out how to see man, leadership and the formation of governing. We've talked through Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke and have some really jewels coming throughout the class. There's a lot of reading to do and with only three of us students there's really no room to slack but I absolutely enjoying how much I learn and where discussions go each night – my brain gets very full!

My other class is a Law and Public Policy class that's required for all MBA students. It's mostly students presenting briefs about important cases that are assigned throughout the class and the professor putting it all in a business context. It's interesting and I'm learning about things I knew nothing about. This class also has a lot of reading so I'm spending most of my lunches and weekends reading for my classes.

Life:

The fun thing is that I'm getting to have some fun outside of work and school which is really helpful because I have steam to let out and stress to get rid of so it's nice to have some fun to counter the daily grind. Ben and I have been all over the place recently and it's been great. We hit a few pubs the weekend before and the day of Saint Patty's Day. Got to see some Irish step dancers, eat fish and chip, corned beef and drink some beer. Ben also has a friend/client who just opened up a pub near me so we've been there to patronize his endeavor a few times already.

We attended a benefit concert for a nonprofit that Ben volunteers with – it was at a fun venue in town and featured seven local bands of different genres so there was something for everyone. Because the charity is about the healing power of creative expression (they target kids 14-24 who have major baggage that they can get out through poetry) they had a painter painting on stage while the bands performed and a live tattoo artist working on a customer's big tattoo in the back of the room. Lots of things going on at the same time around the venue but really fun for a night! We then hit a cool late night spot that has great food and drink deals for the late night crowd – I'll be going back there again!

Other fun things we've done…went up to the mountains so Ben could ski and I could sit and read in the lodge. It was a beautiful day and fun to be Ben's copilot on the drive. We also went to the home opener for the Colorado Rapids, our professional soccer team. Ben played soccer in college and has coached too so the world of soccer (he follows the European leagues religiously) is a big deal for him.

Birthday Recap

2009-02-09T09:16:00.001-07:00

Goodness! Where does the time go? Seriously, it's already the middle of February and I keep thinking that we're still in the beginning of January – time for me to get with the program!

My 3-0

The big event of the last week was my big 3-0 birthday. I'm now officially in a new decade. I really wasn't very nervous or regretful in turning 30, I'm happy with my life right now and all the panic I've heard other people going through before the big birthday just didn't apply to me. I kept it low key, sticking with my important birthday traditions. Every year I have to do Mexican food and margaritas to make up for going to Abuelo's in Abilene on my 21^st birthday with the plans for getting margaritas then being seated next to the dean of the college of bible so we ended up with iced tea instead! I've now added Italian food to my birthday routine because two years ago I was in Rome for my birthday and had a wonderful dinner in a Piazza with my brother. This year mom and I went out for Mexican for my birthday lunch (and I did have a margarita, so wild). Then that evening Ben and I met up with mom and Chrissy for some yummy Italian at a place by where I live that I've wanted to try. Ben showed up at my house in his suit and tie (looking very bankerish) with flowers – the perfect site to see when opening a door! He guessed on what flowers to bring and totally got it right by choosing beautiful red roses with greenery. Friday night capped off the week with my favorite homemade chocolate birthday cake at mom's with my family and my friend Tara. I opened presents and finished my birthday week!

School has kicked into high gear with a midterm last week and assignments starting to pile up. I am happy to say that the midterm in my Cost Accounting class (blech) went better than I'd thought. I really don't understand this class and business math is not my thing at all. This is the last business math class I have to take and so far I'm surviving it, partly because I have a great study buddy who helps me with the out of class problems – I lucked out on that one. I officially only have one more test, the final for this class, and never have to think about accounting classes again! Thank the Lord!

I've been lucky to spend much of my off time with Ben, right now our schedules seem to be working out pretty well even though we are both busy with life, work and all our commitments (mine is mostly school, his are volunteering and friends). I had a total "girl moment" over the phone last week where I just went a bit crazy, dipping into some of my insecurities and didn't make sense even to myself and especially not to him. I was a little worried what his reaction would be the next day and thought (based on my experiences with other men in my life) that I might have really messed things up. Ben was understanding, listened to my calmed down explanation and we moved on. What a relief that he's willing to figure me out and give me some slack when I need it – I've not always been that lucky (starting with my mess of a dad and adding other boys to that). I'm so lucky, Ben gets me and cares enough to wade through some of the messier stuff.

Catching Up

2009-01-26T16:07:00.001-07:00

Times flies when you're having fun (or going to school, working and dating great guy)! Here's a quick overview of the highlights from the last week and half:

- The symphony was great! It was so much fun dressing up, being downtown and listen to great music. I liked our seats because they were just over the stage and we could see the musicians play and the movement of the different sections as the songs went on. So much fun!

- School is getting a little busy with assignments coming due in my classes and lots of group stuff that I have to find time for. I like the classes but wish the workload was different.

- Friday night Ben came over for dinner with my family and met mom and Chrissy. We ended up staying for three hours just chatting away…time seems to fly with this one! Everyone seemed to get along well and there wasn't any weird awkwardness among us. Things just seemed to flow, that's good.

- Sunday I got a last minute invite to join Ben's parents for dinner at their house. I was at school, working on a group project totally in sweats and non-glamorous – just what you want for seeing his parents. We had a great time, his dad made an awesome dinner and I got hugs from both of his parents when we left.

- Tonight we're going to celebrate Chinese New Year (if the weather holds out and it's not too bad to be outside and on the roads). Since Ben was sick on New Year's Eve we're doing a do-over of sorts and celebrating a different new year with both of us well.

- I must admit that things are going well with my new beau, I would say I'm rather smitten. We have so much fun together and just suit each other so well. I find myself getting distracted easily and start thinking about him…all those sappy beginning of romance things that are so fun. He's unlike any man I've ever met before and I'm so happy for it – he's patient and kind; cares about me and can tell if I'm having a bad day based on the sound in my voice; he keeps track of what I like and finds sweet ways to do things for me; I know that he wants to take care of me and make sure I'm okay; time flies when we're together and I lose track of time; I can tell he enjoys being with me and that makes me feel so good. There's so much more but I won't bore you with too many details at a time. I'll just say he's one of a kind and just the type I've been looking for but didn't think existed. Lucky me!

Getting Older

2009-01-08T13:30:00.003-07:00

I turn 30 in four weeks. I'm not really dreading it and I'm not going through any "early life crisis" so I'm feeling good about this next big birthday. I am more content in my life, where things are and who I am then I've ever been before. I'm in a good place to usher in a new decade of my life.

The extreme irony here is that I just came from the optometrist and have to get glasses! Apparently my age is catching up with my eyes! I realized in class on Tuesday night that the overhead screen and white boards were a little blurry. After about a year of feeling like fast food menus were harder to read and that clocks across the room weren't totally legible I decided after class that it was finally time to see if my always 20/20 vision had declined. It has. Just by a little, but enough that with a slight prescription I can see distances better. Now for night driving, movies and classes I'll be styling in these new beauties:
I did have fun picking out frames and will be waiting in eager anticipation to get the call that they are in and ready for me! Pictures of my new, studious self to come!

Baggy Pants

2009-01-06T12:29:00.001-07:00

Today is a happy day...I'm wearing pants that are too loose! Awesome. Here's some context - this time last year they were snug (very snug, like the only dress pants that were fitting). It's little things like this that make me happy because I've been trying to lose some inches and control my overeating better and when there's a direct comparison to show how much I've lost I can pat myself on the back. I'm down around 10 pounds or so from where I was in late summer when I decided to take the overeating thing seriously. Fitting back into pants (and having my wardrobe opened up to me again because things fit) is great! Just wanted to share the good news!

Last night I went with Ben to a great wine bar in Denver. It's not too far from his place and we had a great time. He's a big red wine guy so it's his job to act as my personal sommelier and expose me to new wines. We each tried two wines and nibbled on a great cheese platter - just a very nice, simple evening with plenty time to talk. He started a new job yesterday so we were celebrating that and I got to hear all about his training, good times!

Tonight I'm back to school for another quarter. I'm already half way through my degree and have five quarters left. Tonight I start the first of four straight quarters in the next 11 months so it's time to buckle down and get used to no nice breaks for a while (goodbye Christmas vacation...). I'm taking a Management Consulting class which sounds pretty interesting because it covers the emergence of management in new places and we get to read cool articles and do a lot of group and class discussions. My other class frankly scares me...it's Cost Management, my second Accounting class (I didn't do very well in my first class...not my forte) and I'm just hoping to survive the quarter! We'll see what it's like after the first night - the professor has already assigned reading that's due tonight!

So there's life...just wanted to get back into the blogging rotation and keep up on the posting. Now I'm off to pull up my pants and take my lunch break!

Holiday Update - And Some Romance!

2009-01-03T11:16:00.001-07:00

Hello nearly forgotten bloggers… here's my big holiday update edition.

You've Got Mail:

I've been waiting to write about my little romance until I knew were things were going. I'm happy to say that I now have a wonderful man in my life, though we're just started dating. We met through my school friends who play trivia on Tuesday nights at a bar near campus. I hadn't been able to play because I had a class at that time but after finals I was able to tag along. My friend Julie brought her boyfriend Ed and Ed's brother Ben came too. Ben and I chatted a bit that night while playing then became friends on Facebook, I was interested in getting to know him better. Julie and our friend Stephanie and I went out for happy hour the next week and they both thought that Ben and I might make a good pair; it was nice to have encouragement from folks who knew each of us separately. We ended up playing trivia together again and sat next to each other and chatted all night then the next night I went to his brother, Ed's birthday party (a little odd because his parents were there too…"hello, I'm Becky, I think I have a crush on your son, nice to meet you?").

It's hard to start something up over the holidays, as you can guess. We ended up chatting on Facebook every day and really getting to know each other online. I really felt like the Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks romance in You've Got Mail. We went on our first date Monday night and had a great time. We talked for five hours and totally closed the place down! We were at the same New Year's party but he got the stomach flu that night so he left after about an hour and has been recovering since then. I went over to his place last night so he could have a movie buddy to watch movies with him while he's recouping. Things seem to be going well and it's been a great holiday season and beginning of a new year with him.

Here are the stats on Mr. Ben. He is 12 days younger than I am (yep, we both turn 30 within two weeks of each other), grew up in South Denver like me and went to a high school where I had a lot of friends. He speaks German, studied in Germany and traveled throughout Europe while there. He's a total Renaissance man who loves art, all kinds of music, can quote Shakespeare and knows history. He's really smart, already has his MBA and is nerdy in the same ways I am. He's a banker and just got a new job that starts on Monday. He lives near downtown with his brother and he's really athletic (bike riding, skiing, soccer). We have very similar temperaments and introvert/extravert tendencies. We can talk about baroque music, spreadsheets and South Park all in the same conversation – it's great!

Fun With Technology:

The week before Christmas my computer suddenly got very sick. One night it was fine, then I installed updates and shut it down – the next day I tried to restart it and things were corrupted. Of course I freaked out because all my school stuff is on it and so much of my life is through the computer. Thankfully I work with a bunch of computer engineers so they were able to at least make it possible to get data off it but I spent the next week with Dell and my brother helping to get it back to normal. Between wiping the hard drive and getting new memory and mother board I ended up starting from scratch on mostly everything. I'm happy it's working fine now and I'll start school this week with a happy computer.

Christmas:

My brother came home for the holiday and we had a great time. We basically stayed at mom's (I slept over for the week), ate, watched movies, ate some more, chatted and saw family. I took all of Christmas week off so I got to hang out in sweats, with no makeup and be lazy – I love that! Santa was nice enough to bring me a camera (my old digital camera was five years old and not very user friendly compared to the newer models) so now I can include more photo updates on the blog and pictures on Facebook.

New Year's:

I spent New Year's Eve with friends from school, hosted by a new friend I've made through them. It was a nice party, great food, got to meet some new people and we saw the new year in. Too bad Ben got sick early in the night and had to leave (he only lived a few blocks away from the party so made it home quickly). It's fun to see how much life has changed in a year – new friends, hanging out is a cool part of town and feeling more "grown up".

8 Things Tag

2008-12-27T12:12:00.001-07:00

Hello forgotten blog readers! My computer has been on strike for about two weeks now so I'm finally getting back into the blogosphere. To start, let's complete the Eight Things tag I recived last week!

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1. Cheesecake Factory

2. Rio Grande

3. Hacienda Colorado

4. Magianno's

5. Illegal Pete's Burritos (better than Chipotle and Qdoba)

6. Big Bill's New York Pizza

7. Jo Allen's (in Abilene)

8. Fatburger

8 Things that Happened Today:
1. Woke up to my mom, sister, and brother who are all camping out at mom's for the holidays (mom and Chrissy actually camp out here all the time as permanent residents)

2. Watched my mom's cats chase each other around the house

3. Ran to Office Max with mom to get Turbo Tax so we can do my brother's return before he goes back to London

4. Checked Facebook

5. Read the newspaper

6. Took a shower

7. Learned about a "sprint eliminator" swim meet format because my sister is swimming in one today

8. Had a pot of English Tea with cream and sugar cubes…the proper way J

8 Things I Look Forward To:
1. Starting a new quarter in school (kind of, not ready for work but ready to be back with friends)

2. Going on a date with my latest potential beau

3. Seeing my sister off to college in the fall as she starts at Azusa Pacific University

4. Seeing my mom and sister continue to become more healthy since dad is out of the house

5. Watching my mom in her new stage of life as she downsizes, finds a job and becomes more self-fulfilled

6. Reading a book by my brother or seeing him cited in journal articles or on TV as an eminent scholar in archeology (it's just a matter of time before Indiana Rob makes his debut)

7. Finding a new job with a group of people I enjoy working with and duties that fit my strengths

8. Getting married someday

8 Things I'm Scared Of:
1. That something bad will happen to a family member

2. That I will never be married

3. What will happen when one of my cats dies and the other is left alone

4. Paying off loans for graduate school

5. Slipping on ice (I hate ice, I walk like a little old lady whenever there's ice on the ground)

6. Getting in a car accident, haven't been in one before (other than a little rear ending in a parking lot – doesn't count!)

7. Choosing the wrong mate and having a bad marriage

8. Having kids, what it would be like, if I'd be a good mom…

8 Things I Wish For:
1. My sister to have as great a college experience as I did

2. My brother to find funding so he can start his doctorate when he finishes his latest master's degree

3. To work overseas in Europe for a few years, do the expatriate thing

4. To find my Price Charming and be swept off my feet

5. Not to grow old alone

6. A church home that really fits me as a single, nearly 30 year old female (slim pickings in Denver)

7. To see more of the world and get more stamps in my passport

8. To be a professional caterer/event planner

8 Things I Watch on TV:
1. The Amazing Race

2. 11^th Hour

3. Privileged

4. The Today Show

5. Gilmore Girls reruns

6. Sappy Hallmark Channel made-for-TV-movies

7. Anything on the Food Network

8. Masterpiece Theater

8 People I TAG:

Anyone who hasn't done this and wants to!

My Bum Foot

2008-12-09T14:58:00.001-07:00

So it's been four weeks since I dropped a solid oak bench on my foot and I'm still not in regular shoes. I have a lovely collection of flats that I keep wearing and my shorter pants that work with them (without dragging on the ground too much) but as a short person I'm ready to wear real shoes with some heel! This weekend I put on my bright yellow Crocs for the first time since my bench incident because they are the most roomy of my other shoes. They actually fit ok and I'm glad to have them around to cover more of my foot when needed. They are the best shoes for nasty weather that fit right now so I'm walking around in this morning's snow in my wholly Crocs that look like summer shoes! All day I'm been so embarrassed to show my feet. I'm like the guy wearing socks with sandals except I should know better! Foot, please heal!

The last week has been a bunch of boring things. I got new tires and wiper blades on my car just in time for this big snow, what a difference the right equipment makes! Over the weekend I worked on a resume site so I can use it as an online portfolio as I look for jobs. Since the market is not so stellar I've decided to start looking now so hopefully I can be out of here in the next year – knowing it's going to be a longer hiring cycle this time around. Let's just say that I'm avoiding the company party even though it's at Maggiano's because I just don't want to be around some of these work people any more than I have to.

Happy thoughts of the day:

1. I get to do trivia with some of my school friends tonight. I had a blast a few weeks ago when I went after my last final was over. We got first place that night, no thanks to me, so I'm hoping to contribute to a few answers tonight.

2. My brother comes into town a week from tomorrow! He's finished his first term in London and is enjoying the holidays there for the next week before coming home and joining us for 12 days.

3. Mom and I baked Christmas cookies this past weekend (and yes, I ate a lot of the dough) so now I have yummy cookies to look forward to when I go over and visit.

4. I only have 8 days of work after today before I get a break! I'm taking the week of Christmas off so I'm looking forward to some much deserved R&R.

Bring on the Tinsel!

2008-12-03T10:08:00.001-07:00

I just finished sending out our corporate Christmas cards and discussing office decorating with our receptionist so I'd say the holidays are in full swing. Over the weekend we put up mom's tree and strung garland down her staircase banisters. I even upgraded my copy of the movie White Christmas from VHS to DVD for more years worth of viewing in widescreen. Each year I'm more into the spirit of Christmas and enjoy the holidays and festivities more. One problem is that one of my cats is a feline garbage disposal and loves to eat random trash including anything resembling evergreen. To have a tree or any other decoration within cat access is a tragedy waiting to happen. So the inside of my house doesn't look very holiday-like and in the past that's extended into a semi-Scrooge attitude for me. I love cooking and gift giving but the whole decorating and listening to holiday music just wasn't so much on my radar for a few years though I'm happy to say that each year I seem to improve. So this year I have a great wreath on my front door and garland with lights welcoming me each night from my porch.

Of course the official holiday season for me starts with Thanksgiving and we had a great time last week. I camped over at mom's and spent some fun time with her and my sister. This is Chrissy's last Thanksgiving at home before she starts college so it was nice to spend it with her. We went to my aunt's for Thanksgiving dinner then made yummy pumpkin pies on Friday to extended our own eating extravaganza. I bought a pile of magazines to enjoy now that I'm on break from school reading and had fun flipping through them as Chrissy watched all her recorded forensic dramas (House, NCIS and CSI are her favorites). It was a nice, relaxing weekend and just the right way to usher in the next month of celebrations.

We had fun on our first web cam chat with my brother (I bought him one as a thank you/Thanksgiving gift from Amazon UK) and are so excited to now see him when we talk – what a difference that makes in helping you feel closer when you're actually a continent away! Thank you Skype.

Lastly, I updated my resume last night and will slowly work on finding a new job. Between my cube neighbor and the CEO this is just not a good place for me. Over break I noticed how tight I would get every time I thought about work – just thinking about it stresses me out. I'm not the only one in the office who is unhappy, company morale is at a total low and I know there are a few people that are exploring other options. Last week I had a ton of fun planning our gift baskets for customers, researching sites to find everything we needed, budgeting and sending a proposal to my manager. Monday afternoon I got the news that we were not going to do gift baskets any more – just another project that I get excited about, spend a lot of time on and then hear we're changing our mind! Seriously, how do we even get work done when we are in a constant state of wondering if anything will actually come to fruition? The sad thing is that my last company was a great place to work but I was in the wrong position, now I have the right job but at a company that is terrible. I just need to find the right position at the right company.

Memories - Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

2008-11-25T22:13:00.006-07:00

Five years ago I went to New York for Thanksgiving. Four friends from my church/work went on a trip to see the city during the big holiday and amoung the sites we attended the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. So much fun! I love watching the parade now because it brings back so many fun memories and I'm so glad that we did it. I wanted to share a few pictures from that trip in anticipation of this year's parade and all the holiday festivities.

Lara and I in front of Kermit the frog - one of my favorites! This picture was at my desk until I left Greenwood.

Here's Charlie Brown. On Wednesday night (the night before the parade) we got to see the ballons in the process of inflating. It was our first night in town and we hopped on the subway to go with all the other tourists to walk around the Natural History Museum and see all the balloons with giant fans filling them up - our first taste of the tradition. I think Charlie was in strange shape when we saw him that night - looks like they got him filled up in time!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello Holidays

2008-11-25T10:16:00.001-07:00

It’s a grey day in Denver and it’s really starting to feel like the holidays. Once I finished classes last week my brain was finally able to transition to the upcoming holidays and really get into the spirit. I’ve been baking all kinds of things with pumpkin and taking them to work for the office to enjoy. This weekend I took down all my summer porch things (I’d been needing to do that for a while) and put up some garland and bows on the deck. I’ll turn the lights on starting this weekend. So my porch and front door are now decked out for Christmas and that’s about as far as I can go with decorating at home because one of my cats likes to eat interesting things and I don’t trust him with a tree, garland or ribbon! I’ll just help mom out and get my fix at her house.

We are staying in town and spending Thanksgiving at my aunt’s house with mom’s side of the family. We trade off hosting duties so this means mom will host Christmas dinner. We’ll be making some yummy pumpkin pies, homemade rolls and the infamous green bean casserole to contribute to the feast. I work through Wednesday but I’m looking forward to camping out at mom’s for the weekend and spending time with her and Christine. It’s a long girls’ weekend! I went out and bought a bunch of magazines this weekend to browse through while watching TV and movies over the next few weeks. I love reading catalogs and magazines but during school there’s not much time for that so I’ll make up for it now – I was giddy standing in line to check out and holding the stack of exciting information that I get to read!

So I have a day and a half left of work (which is going to last forever) and then some much-needed rest. I’m so ready for the holiday season, not only is it just a fantastic fun-filled time but it’s also three holidays off from work within about a month – I look forward to that! Have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Bit of This, Bit of That

2008-11-21T21:12:00.002-07:00

Life has been busy the last week or so and I’m finally at home, relaxing and have some time to catch up on the blog. So here we go – the reader’s digest version of me recent life!

Life in General
My little sister applied for early admission at a few colleges and got the good news last week from Azusa Pacific University that she was accepted and awarded their presidential scholarship! Yippee! The timing was great because she was planning to be at APU for a student preview weekend later that week and got to see the campus through the eyes of a new student. She had a great time in California and is looking forward to spending time in the warm Southern California weather for the next four years. So now it’s brick and black for our family and Go Cougars!

My bruised foot (from my last post) is slowly recovering but after two full weeks of healing I’m still stuck in a few pairs of flats and it’s still black and blue – I’m really proud of that one but loving my throne in the mean time!

A big personal thing for me this week was to finally send a letter to my dad explaining how much he’d hurt me over the years, why we don’t have a relationship and why I don’t want one other than the unavoidable family events. I’d written a draft of it a month ago, revised it with my counselor and finally took the time to edit it and send it. Sadly enough it was really a break up letter for my dad – how bad are things when you are severing ties with a parent? After 29 years this is what it’s come to. And the best part, he totally didn’t “get” it (which I doubted he would because he can’t see that he ever does anything wrong and any problem is always someone else’s fault, the letter was more for my sake). I got a silly email back from him about how in time I’ll understand things (like why he’s always been so selfish, toxic and abusive to the family?). That was a bad day but I’m happy I finally laid down the line regardless of if he obeys my wishes.

School
Last week I turned in my last big projects for my class and this week I had one final and am happy to report that I am still alive, mostly sane, and ready for six weeks of break before classes start again! Amen! I’ve been basically in school for the last 11 months with one week breaks between quarters so I’m ready for some time to turn off my brain. I really liked my classes this quarter and learned a lot. I got to make a website for myself, read Freakonomics which I’d been wanting to read (and it’s great) and really dive into the psychology of consumers. Great stuff.

My study buddy and I spent some time last weekend going through the whole quarter of notes to prepare for our final but got to celebrate on Tuesday together after we finished and went across the street to a fun bar with everyone else that was finishing finals. She doesn’t have a second class like I do so she goes over every Tuesday night and plays trivia with a bunch of friends. Since I didn’t have a second final I got to join them and we got first place – no thanks to me but we had a blast and I got to meet some new people.

Work
I’m having a hard time at work. My coworker, Patty, is just really hard to sit next too and I have less patience for her every day. Add to that the fact that our last event was not a success and the CEO (who is already rude, tactless and the office tyrant) came down on my really hard. We had a meeting last week for two and a half hours basically for him to tell us what to do – no chance of changing his mind. So essentially he wants to use all the Microsoft pre-made collateral (that every partner uses, especially those that don’t have a full-time marketing person on staff like me) and stretch every possible drop out of our database. I just feel like he thinks I suck at my job because he’s always assuming or accusing me of not doing what I should (when I really am, he’s just removed from the day to day things enough not to see all the behind the scenes things that go on) and after meetings like that I wonder why I’m even there. I’m half way towards my MBA from the best school in the state, I am smart, skilled and really could run with thing if his lead fist was out of the way. It’s just been a long few weeks at work and I’m starting to question how long I really can stay there before I truly go batty.

The Throne

2008-11-10T09:03:00.001-07:00

I had a brilliant idea this weekend. Since I spend most of my weekends at my dining room table with my school work spread out I thought it made sense to bring over one of my overstuffed living room arm chairs to sit in while I work. My cats always try to snuggle while I work but there’s just not enough space in a dining chair for me and a cat and space for me to type and work too. So in essence I made a throne for myself where I could snuggle with the cats, watch TV and work on school stuff. Brilliant!

Or it was brilliant until I was readjusting the table to scoot my chair in a bit more and bumped the solid oak bench that I’d nestled under the table – the bench fell on my left foot and crushed it. Nothing is broken but it started to bruise right away. The top of my foot is all black and blue and there is one pair of shoes that work okay and don’t touch the top of my foot much. I just had to laugh as I spent the rest of the weekend working in the throne but with my foot elevated and iced while doing so!

So I’m now at work with my foot up again, icing on and off and wearing the one pair of shoes I’ll probably be wearing all week – my crocs ballet flats (at least they are a bit dressy so I’m not in tennis shoes and skirts)!

Happy Monday!

:)

2008-11-05T18:05:00.001-07:00

I'm happy to finally write this post because I've been thinking about it for a while. I am happy with the results of the election and have a few little tidbits to share. My feelings will not be hurt (and I will never know) if you stop reading here - tomorrow I'll try to come up with something nonpolitical and cleaver to share!

First, my brother Rob has spent a lot of time across the world - Europe, the Middle East, Turkey and has had the privilege to see how other governments work and also to hear about the way Americans are perceived by the world. Let's just say that our media is as biased as we accuse so many other countries of being! He gets his news from Al Jazeera which is in his feelings the most reliable - yes a surprise to most of you but I've checked it out and they tell it true. Talking politics with him really opened my mind up to a lot of ideas that I'd never thought of. One major one is that socialized health care and education can really be successful. After the McCarthy era the word socialism was a bad word but truly it's the only way (with the right parameters) to level the playing field and take care of the disadvantaged. So Obama's health care and education ideals are really exciting to me.

Another thing I learned is that world-wide people are okay with Americans but they hate our current (Bush) government. If we want to be competitive in the world and stay favorable we need a major change of policies to be well-received. In some ways we've further incited the terrorists in some of the foreign policy decisions in the last eight years. Not a good position to be in.

Here's where I expect the tomatoes - I am against abortion but I vote Pro Choice (see me ducking for you throwing things). I just don't think you can legislate morality - especially when not everyone sees the issue the same. I think that if we really want to stop abortion we need to be in relationship with those that are thinking about it and really speak into their lives. They don't see the moral issue that we do and won't even with laws in place so it's our job to help them understand where we're coming from without making laws against it. I've been reading the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt for school and I highly recommend it to anyone that's looking for a good read. The author talks a lot about poverty, abortion and how to predict child success. After reading it I am more convinced that if we made a world where the poor had better health care and education they wouldn't abort as many babies for fear of them growing up in the same desperate conditions they did. The biggest indicators of child success are their parents' education level and socioeconomic level - as Americans we have the power to do something about those levels for the disadvantaged. After reading the book I see so many needs for solutions and see so many solutions to abortion without making laws.

So it's not about black or white, it's about the issues and I'm happy that Barrack Obama will be my next president. The world is excited about it, the poor need him and my taxes will go down (that's just a bonus)! Go-Bama!

Life As Usual

2008-11-03T16:44:00.001-07:00

I’ve determined that the automatic soap dispenser in the office bathroom is gypping me and today I tried the other dispenser (I have my usual sink that I always use) and confirmed that my sink’s soap dispenser doesn’t give as much as the other. Well, that’s it – I’m switching sinks! Oh, the things that occupy my random thoughts!

Life has been fairly uneventful – just working and getting through the last few weeks of my school quarter. It’s that time of the quarter when everything is due so my weekends have been spent at home working at my kitchen table and spreading school junk all over the house! Very glamorous! My new website is up and running, check it out at www.rlhdesigns.com and I “turn it in” this Thursday for a grade in my IT class. I got to speak with my brother in London this weekend since he’s the subject for the papers I’m writing in my Buyer Behavior class, nice excuse to chat – now I just have to write the paper.

This weekend I helped mom pass out Halloween candy then spent the majority of the weekend either baking too much food or working on school. I’d been craving white cake with butter cream frosting so I made 12 cupcakes (because I only have one 12 cup pan, I need to work on that!) and with the other half of the batter tried a jello poke cake – yummy! Needless to say, I ate a lot of cake this weekend (all the cupcakes were gone by Sunday night). I also tried a few more recipes in my new kitchen gadget the GTXpress101. I made calzones on Saturday and “Stuffed Soup” on Sunday night followed by chocolate cake with a candy bar surprise center. All of them turned out well, cooked fast and were yummy. Too bad I now have lots of leftover food to eat over the week.

I turned in my Absentee ballot on Thursday and I was happy to turn off my ears and not pay attention to the campaign ads anymore. Colorado is a battleground state and we’ve had a lot of candidates and their surrogates here lately – can’t get away from it. I think we’ll turn “blue” this year for the first time in a long time. We’ll see tomorrow night. I’m excited to see how the election unfolds and I hope that we have a winner before I go to bed (very late I’m sure) Tuesday night. I still remember the 2000 election where I woke up the next morning and they had changed their mind about the election winner. I won’t get too political because I don’t want to offend friends, especially since politics is something best discussed face to face in my opinion so you can do a point – counterpoint debate.

Work has been a bit stressful the last few weeks because of my cube neighbor. She’s just been getting on my nerves more and more and I leave each night all tight and tense and have been getting tension headaches a lot too. Most recently, she was supposed to make calls to drum up attendance starting about four weeks ago for an event that I’m organizing this Friday morning. She didn’t start the calls until last week and whined the whole time about how she didn’t want to make them. Well, I have no patience for her since it’s her job to make these calls and now it’s so late that we won’t meet the target number of attendees and that reflects directly on me. Yep, I’ll be getting in trouble because my coworker slacked. Add to that how she constantly makes comments about my coworker, Scott, and I which gets others in the office suspicious about what’s going on (nothing is going on, we’re just friends and staying that way). [Insert picture of steam coming out of ears here.] Argh….let’s just say I don’t look forward to coming in to work. Other coworkers feel the same way about her but we’re too afraid of being her enemy to speak up to the powers that be (because we’ve seen her wrath on people who have crossed her and she gets mean – like middle school girl mean, conniving and underhanded). I just hope that things don’t build to the point that I explode and really act inappropriately in the office because my patience is maxed out.

So that’s life. I’m really excited to watch the SNL Election Special tonight, it’s the highlight of each Presidential season! Go Tina Fey!

Back to Work - Take 2

2008-10-27T17:03:00.001-06:00

Blogger hates me – I try to upload a picture and everything goes wild! So here’s the post without anything fancy!

It’s a Monday but thankfully it’s gone by fast! Things are busy enough at work that I don’t have to worry about projects and random things to try and keep my time occupied. It’s nice for things to breeze by quickly but it’s also more stressful with lots of things going on at the same time – pros and cons of a full plate!

I am in the last few weeks of my school quarter and starting to feel the weight of the end of quarter assignments and tests. The last few weekends I’ve spent working on a website that I am completing for my IT class. It’s been fun and I’ve learned Dreamweaver in the process so I’m happy about that. I have a few little things to tweak (I keep finding them) but later this week I will officially “launch” it and you can take a look and my weekend work. My perfectionist tendencies have shown up big time because I keep redesigning all the graphics and changing my mind about the fonts and pictures – ugh! I’m just letting it go and moving on to other school stuff!

I got to start my weekend off with a fun Friday night. My friend Tara came over and was nice enough to let me indulge my cravings for pizza. Pepperoni and Pinnapple – yum! After dinner we took a field trip to get some shopping done and I have a new toy – the GTXpress101. If you’re a fan of infomercials like I am you will recognize this product because it looks like a Foreman grill but has two wells in it and you can cook omelets, cake, meat – pretty much anything. I’m dying to try the chocolate cake with snack size candy bars in the middle and the “stuffed soup”. I’m a sucker for infomercials but I usually don’t buy anything off of them. this product hooked me and I’ve been thinking about buying one for a while, when I was on sale at Kohl’s I couldn’t say no. I’ve used it once so far and give it two thumbs up! It’s easy to use, easy to clean up and perfect for making just one or two servings of food – the single gal’s dream! More foodie updates to come as I get through the 101 recipes. Speaking of food, we finished our night with some hot, fresh Krispie Kremes and they were great! I hadn’t had one of their donuts in forever and they were GOOD. Nothing like carbs for dinner and dessert – what can I say, I’m an addict.

The rest of the weekend was mostly spent in my sweats clicking away at my computer. I like to turn on movies that I’ve already watched to give me some background noise and something for my brain to do as I’m being “creative.” The Secret of My Success (with Michael J. Fox from the 80’s) was on TV and I’d forgotten how much fun it is – when he’s changing clothes in the elevator and gets caught, priceless. I also did a little Jane Austen mini marathon and watched the BBC 5 hour version of Pride and Prejudice followed by Bride and Prejudice (one of my all time favorite movies).

That’s it for the recap – my crazy coworker is back in the office after taking last week off. I enjoyed the peace and quiet, it was nice to be productive and look forward to coming in to work. Last night I remembered that she was coming back and it made me sad. There are rumors that we may be moving in to another office space owned by our landlords and I’m crossing my fingers because I know they will try to separate her from everyone else if they can! Isn’t working fun?!

Good Jeans

2008-10-21T12:29:00.002-06:00

It is always a struggle for me to find good pairs of jeans. When I find some that I like I usually get several pairs in different washes so I'm all set. As I've been owning up to my "true" size it was time to try on all my existing jeans and get rid of those that just didn't cut it any more. With space in my closet I had an excuse to go on a quest for jeans that actually fit! On Saturday I was off...I took several sizes of each pair in to the dressing room (sorry to all those folks waiting in line behind me for the dressing room!) and started my infamous "good," "bad," and "maybe" piles. In the end five pairs made it to the check out and after trying them on again at home there are three I'm keeping. I was really excited to wear them out so Sunday I picked a pair to wear to church (I've been trying out a really casual church with some friends) and they totally started to stretch within 15 minutes! I think they will be my saggy-butt jeans because they kept riding low and I was a little embarrassed to sit down. For the afternoon I wore a different pair and they held up better - I think those are winners. The last pair is waiting to be introduced but I have high hopes!

The good thing is that since this summer when I decided that I needed to take control of my weight I'm down 10 pounds and have kept if off for several months. Just sticking to the plan of only eating when hungry and not eating more than I need to be satisfied I've managed to take the weight off. Clothes are fitting better (some are even a bit lose!) and now that I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a pear shape (and a size or two larger on my bottom half) I'm looking into larger sizes of pants that are more flattering. It's a whole new me!

Cool Kids Hang Out in the Library

2008-10-08T15:01:00.002-06:00

Ok, maybe it’s not really the cool kids that hang out in the library but I have to admit that over the last few months I’ve gotten to know my local library branch pretty well and I’m glad for it. There is a local library near my office and a few months ago I decided that I would give it a try when I had some homework to do during lunch. I like to get away from my desk at lunch and out of the office if possible. I usually run errands and sometimes meet up with people for lunch but when I don’t have something specific to do I can always find school stuff to work on. The library is great because it’s close, quiet, I have many options of places to sit and I’m really able to concentrate and use my time well. It’s actually funny how long the hour seems when I’m at the library verses running around town. The funny thing is that I didn’t spend much time in the school library in college and have only been to the DU library twice since I’m been in grad school so I didn’t think I was really a library person. I guess I just wasn’t going to the right one!

My studying paid off last night because my midterm was a breeze! He scared us last week telling us how hard it would be but I was more than prepared, finished in an hour and haven’t worried about any answers since. I love the feeling of being done with a test and confident that you did well, what a relief!

Here are a few interesting developments that are less cerebral.

- Awhile back I wrote about this mystery man from school that I’d seen in the halls a few times, had a dream about and then saw him across a restaurant near my office this summer but I’ve never really met him and don’t even know his name. I hadn’t seen him all quarter and wasn’t sure if he was still in school at DU but last night as I was roaming the halls for a study room to take up time after speeding through the midterm I saw him. He was walking out of a class with a girl and they were talking but we were about six feet away from each other and totally made eye contact. If he hadn’t kept chatting with the girl I would have contemplated going up to introduce myself. But how do you really go about doing that? “Hi, I’ve dreamed about you and stalk you outside of school so I know you like to each at Garbanzo’s in the DTC” maybe a little much! Anything I would say I think sounds like a cheesy pickup line. Maybe I’ll have a better opportunity in the future.

Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

2008-10-07T09:48:00.001-06:00

I’m eating chocolate cake for breakfast this morning. Are you jealous or disgusted? I made birthday cake for my mom’s birthday this weekend and got to take some home with me because she didn’t want to whole thing staring at her. It’s made for some good snacking these last few days! I decided that today was a good chocolate cake morning so I started my day with some birthday cake.

Work has been crazy the last few weeks. We finally got the website up and running which was a huge work in progress for a while. Unfortunately, there were a few speed bumps along the way so other projects got delayed. I’ve been working overtime to get things out. I’m also feeling a bit in over my head with the web design stuff because a lot of what I’ve been up to the last week or so are email blasts that have to be in HTML to go through our system and out to customers. The problem is that what looks okay online can get messed up when it reaches different inboxes (I test it with Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Mail.com and they all look a bit different) and I’ll spend time working on something that looks terrible when it gets sent to my inbox. Then I have to go back, figure out why there’s a communication problem and retest – mostly trial and error. I don’t know my web editing well enough to really trouble shoot very well or to know the tricks that could avoid the problem altogether. Needless to say I’ve been really tense and disappearing into my “cave” with my headphones in so I can click through all the issues (thank goodness for Pandora online radio that keeps me jammin’ while I curse the computer).

This past weekend I had to study for my midterm that I have tonight. We were warned that it’s hard and the content is a lot of definitions, lists to memorize and then we have to apply them. Yuck! When I wasn’t studying I did dinner with my dad’s parents on Friday night because they were in town for the weekend. Dinner with 4 people that have hearing aids is not easy and restaurants that I swear are quiet end up being louder than I remembered. The food was good but the conversation was a bit lacking. Saturday was mom’s birthday so I brought over her birthday cake and presents and my sister kept her Saturday night open for a girls night with the mom and I. We ate yummy food, opened presents and watched some CSI (Chrissy’s favorite drama family – the original, NY, or Miami). Sunday I checked out a new church that some friends of mine have been going to and I saw a lot of familiar faces because most of the young adults from our old church made to move to this new church after some changes that made us decide it was time to find a new church home. I’m going to try it a few more times but it was pretty good. Then I spent the next 4.5 hours at school studying for the midterm – that’s a great Sunday afternoon! Now my head is full of the buyer decision process, the three contributors to memory loss and the compensatory model of self verses social motivations. Yep, I’m a nerd!

S-U-C-C-E-S-S

2008-09-30T08:39:00.002-06:00

I am happy to announce that I still have a full head of hair and my company has a new website! It's not amazing, the CEO picked the look and template to use, but it's so much better than our previous one. Also, we have a few changes for phase 2 which will come along in a month or so but we wanted to get the new and improved site out ASAP. Now you can see the result of my stress and see more about the company I work for.
www.nexustek.com

Also, as promised, here's a picture from Homecoming this past weekend.

Website Woes

2008-09-29T17:59:00.001-06:00

As I write I am staying late after work to publish our new company website and hoping that all goes well. I have 27 minutes until it's complete so I figured it would be a good time to blog. Once I know that it's up, looks good and all the links work (my biggest fear since the folders are different than in the test version) I'll put a link up so you can be stunned by my amazing design abilities. Not really, but I'll show you what I've been stressed over for the last few months.

This weekend my sister had her Senior Homecoming and I got to do the sister thing and help zip her up and take pictures. I then showed my mom how to upload pictures online and share them so I actually have pictures to post (I’ll put one up tomorrow). After Chrissy and her group left mom's house mom and I ate some really yummy pizza and watched a Hallmark Channel mystery movie - what a Saturday night!

One of the highlights of the weekend was getting to talk with my brother. I haven't had much contact with Rob since he left for London a few weeks ago. He agreed to be interviewed for my Buyer Behavior class so that gave me an excuse to schedule a phone date with him. Thanks to Skype and a headset we talked for over an hour about his new life in London and eventually got to my class project. With the time difference there’s a nice window between morning and afternoon Denver time when it’s afternoon and evening in the UK which works well for calls. He’s having tons of fun, living in Camden near all these cool canals and an awesome park with royal gardens. I’m jealous!

Alright, time to conquer the website, wish me luck – I’ll have an update tomorrow hopefully with a link to a working site!

Branching Out - Such Fun

2008-09-26T10:18:00.001-06:00

I am typing this blog with my email opened up in Fire Fox, my new internet application. I've heard about it for a while but just today downloaded it to my work computer because my Internet Explorer kept erroring out and shutting down on me. The tech guys here told me to switch because Fire Fox is better - heck yes it is. I love that I can personalize so many parts of it and have it help manage the music I'm listening to as well. I have a lot less flipping between pages so far - nice! I just had to put a plug out for FF. I'm so glad I finally tried it (and I've spent the morning personalizing it, great way to spend a Friday morning). One of the best parts is that it has a spell check on anything you type online so emails, comment fields, feedback forms and everything else are checked - thank goodness!

It's a lovely Friday and the weather is supposed to be nice all weekend. My sister has her senior Homecoming this weekend and she's been totally into all the festivities all week. I'm glad that she's having fun. Hopefully we'll have some great sister pictures after tomorrow night.

The Happy Dance

2008-09-25T12:57:00.002-06:00

I like to do the happy dance. Maybe it’s not really a formally choreographed routine but I do sway and pump my hands in the air. Basically l like to celebrate when something good happens or just enjoy something in the moment. That’s when the happy dance comes out. Here are a few happy dance moments that are recent:

1. The never-ending website that I’ve been working on is in the last test phase until we release it – and working! The last week has been spent battling with some weird defaults that made all the links continually break when we published it to the web for testing. Now, I’ve never done the technical side of a web page before, just designed some without all the publishing and testing so this last part has been a learning experience for me. After repeatedly changing, saving, seeing something worked, two hours later seeing that it no longer worked so I now had to change, save etc. again – I nearly kicked the computer many times. I had to keep taking walks around the office because I was so fed up. Happily, I finally plowed through and have a working site plus when we tested to see how well this test site would publish to the really website URL it worked so I am happy!

2. I have three favorite foods at the moment that will certainly make me to the happy dance if I eat them.

> First, sushi. The two grocery stores by my house both have sushi chefs in-store making fresh rolls. You can get some made-to-order or grab prepackaged stuff. They taste good, are reasonably priced and so easy. I have to be careful because I could eat them every night if I let myself.

> My second favorite food of the moment is boneless buffalo wings. I like to get them with mild sauce and blue cheese and my favorite wing place also has fried zucchini (which totally makes me think of the Bean at ACU and how I loved to get fried zucchini when they made it but you kept having to come back for more because they would only give you like five pieces each time you went through the line). The best part is that mom and I can go and get one order of boneless and one order of zucchini and it’s plenty for the two of us – economically friendly, especially when you come during happy hour and get good beer deals too!

> Last comes dessert! I was at the store this weekend and ice cream was on sale so I decided to get some. There was a Dryers Slow Churned (so I can justify eating more) with cake batter, frosting and sprinkles that caught my eye. I’m always craving yummy bakery white cakes with butter cream frosting (the only cake that I just can’t replicate correctly in my own kitchen) so I decided to stray from my usual chocolate ice cream concoctions and try the cake batter. Yummmy! I will be buying it again.

Exploding Eggs - What a Monday!

2008-09-22T09:04:00.001-06:00

I had to share my funny morning with you just because it’s such a Monday. This weekend I went shopping and loaded up my refrigerator with all kinds of good breakfast stuff because that’s what I’ve been craving. I needed eggs and milk for cooking but can make yummy breakfast stuff with them too. I had this bright idea that I could use these microwave egg cookers (that are gathering dust in my cabinets) to make eggs as I’m getting ready for work then I can throw them in Tupperware with some cheese and take them to work where I’ll make some toast, warm up the eggs and have a great breakfast sandwich. In theory this is a great way to have a real breakfast without taking too much time at home to make one (I eat breakfast at work because I don’t give myself time at home before I leave).

This morning I was ahead of schedule, throw the eggs in to the “Egg waves” and come back to see a microwave full of exploded eggs –yum! This is after I spent most of Saturday cleaning house and scrubbing the microwave was part of it. There goes the clean kitchen. So I cleaned up the first mess and decided that I had just timed the eggs wrong so I used the two clean “egg waves” to try it again. This time I decreased the time and only one of them exploded but only a little so I salvaged that egg plus the one that was okay. I now have a house that smells like over-cooked egg and a sink full of “egg waves” soaking until I can take care of them tonight. The best part is that when I got in to my car to drive to work it smelled odd and I realized it was me – I’d retained some of the nasty eggness from cleaning! It’s wearing off so hopefully I don’t offend any coworkers! I must say that my breakfast sandwich was good so it wasn’t all for naught!

Have a great start to your week – hopefully no eggs will explode on you!

What A Weekend

2008-09-17T11:57:00.002-06:00

I know it’s Wednesday but I’m just now having a chance to write about the weekend. It started with drama, ended with drama and as you may guess – there was drama in between.

Friday I got to my mom’s anticipating celebrating my sister’s 18^th birthday with presents and going to a Hookah bar with my brother and her friend as we had been planning for several weeks. Nope, she was at her school’s football game but could leave early and would try to stop by the Hookah bar for a half hour then wanted to go bowling. Whatever – we quickly told her that she was squeezing too many things into her night and would be making us wait around the restaurant for her to grace us with her presence. We ended up changing our Hookah plans to Saturday night, doing it with just family but including mom and dad. I didn’t even see her on her birthday.

Saturday morning it’s time to open presents and she opened up mine, a set of pearls that I was really excited about (I’d spent a day researching them, bought them a few weeks ago, got her nicer ones than mine, all the gals in the office knew how excited I was about them). I explained that since I got all the family jewelry when I turned 18 I wanted to help her start her adult jewelry collection. Well, the next present she opened was from dad and guess what he got her – pearls. I could have cried right on the spot because I had put so much into that gift just to have it replicated. Dad doesn’t ever ask for suggestions about gifts or talk about what he’s getting – he’s usually really bad at picking gifts because he doesn’t know any of us well enough (I call them “Homer gifts” after Homer Simpson who buys gifts for himself, gives them to other people who don’t want them so they give them back to him). Not only did he get pearls but they were nicer than the ones I’d bought for Chrissy and nicer than the ones he’d given me when I turn 21 – thanks. We were surprised how much he spent for an 18 year old, plus he totally exceeded the usual “parent gift” spending limit that mom and dad try to stick to for all our birthdays through the years. His tackiness showed through in the way he included the original receipt (not a gift receipt) along with the service plan and his credit card application because he applied for the store credit card to get a discount on the purchase – she didn’t need to have all that when she opened the gift.

Chrissy went off to work and I had some time to think. In the end I decided that though I wouldn’t make her decision for her I wanted her to keep dad’s set because in my lifetime thus far there are only two gifts he’s ever given me that actually hit the mark. The first was an engraved keychain with Matthew 6:33 (yep, Siggies you’ll remember that one) for my 16^th birthday and pearls for my 21^st. Knowing the disappointment of opening all the dreadful dad gifts though the years I wanted her to have the pearls from him as her one good dad gift. So now I’m searching for a replacement gift.

The rest of Saturday and Sunday were an interesting mix. My brother, Rob, left for London Sunday night so much of the weekend was a sad pre-goodbye to him. We did Chrissy’s birthday dinner Saturday night and it was so awkward because like previous outings with dad he’s so removed from reality and what’s going on with us there isn’t a relationship to build from which ends up causing lots of silence. We ate middle-eastern food, smoked Hookah and stared at each other for two hours. Then, on Sunday dad came over to take Rob to the airport but showed up 5 hours before they needed to leave so we spent Rob’s last afternoon in more awkward silence with dad. By the time Rob left I was emotionally spent from a weekend of his impending trip (the days before he leaves are always hard) and the family drama between Chrissy throwing a few princess tantrums and dad being his normal self.

So this week I was actually looking forward to work because I wanted a break from the weekend.

Remembering

2008-09-11T15:28:00.000-06:00

I don’t know about any of you bloggers out there but when I think about powerful historical moments 9-11 is at the top for me. I vaguely recall Desert Storm but couldn’t tell you where I was when we first invaded. I do remember where I was during the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom because we had a severe blizzard that year and we were stuck at home for four days watching CNN and Fox News broadcasting live from the war zone as troops were entering. I remember thinking how cool and uncomfortable technology can be – it was neat to see what was going on across the world but it was hard for me to think that I’m in my pajamas in my cozy home and they were in tanks shooting the enemy and constantly in danger.

The moment in history I do remember most clearly is where I was when I heard about the 9-11 attacks, something I think is like the “where were you when Kennedy was shot” for our generation. It was my last semester of college, I had decided to stay an extra semester so I could add a minor in Marketing so I had four marketing classes that semester (yes, I was a 5^th year, but I could have graduated on time if I wanted to). It was about 7:50am and I was walking through the campus center on my way to class when I looked up to the TV across from the info booth and saw a tall building with smoke pouring out of it. The sound was off so I couldn’t hear what was going on and the screen was too small and too high to read the banner along the bottom so I didn’t really worry because I didn’t know what was happening. During my first class someone came in and announced what was going on so my professor turned on the cable feed and we watched it on the classroom screen for the rest of the period. We were watching in class when the second plane hit the other tower. One of the business professor’s daughter lived near ground zero and I remember all the faculty kept checking to see if he had heard from her yet (eventually he did and she was fine).

For such an important moment in history I seem to forget it too often which makes me sad. I hear about 9-11 all the time but its lost most of its impact because it’s become too commonplace for me. Yes, it’s affected much of life today – airport security, homeland security, a war we’re in the middle of and an overall feeling in the country that we really are vulnerable. When I was in New York a few years ago I went to ground zero which is pretty impactful – it’s like a living cemetery because live goes on around it but in that one place everything has stopped and is still stopped. That same trip I went to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and saw the NYPD barricades and officers and it was like déjà vu from watching coverage after the attacks – those were the same barricades and uniforms that once were all over the news. I seem to remember the ripples of 9-11 because it changed the world and I often forget the event that started it all. So today I remember seeing the smoke and watching the crashes and cringing when the towers fell, full of people at work like I am now.

Time for the Happy Dance!

2008-09-10T12:47:00.001-06:00

Today when I was looking at my news feeds there was a headline about Ikea opening a store in Denver! They held a news conference today and apparently they are building a store in my part of town, I’m so excited! Right now the closest store to us is in Utah so this will be much better. I’ve done some shopping through their online store but so many of the things I like are not available online because of shipping. Now I’ll have this awesome store nearby for all my home needs! I can’t wait to check it out. What happy, unexpected news.

More happy news comes from my first night of classes. I think this is going to be a really good quarter with fun classes and not too much class stress. First, my Buyer Behavior class is mostly reading articles and discussing the psychology and motivations behind why we do what we do – pretty interesting. The two deliverables are individual papers about someone who made a high-involvement purchase recently and how they moved through the decision process, totally easy. Next, in my IT for Business class our teacher is so cool and really into using technology instead of just talking about it. We actually get to pick what we do for our three individual projects – one is a book report on any business books we want to read, one is a technology project of our choosing (anything from being better at excel to launching a personal website) and the last is inventing something that utilizes technology (but we don’t actually have to make it work). All the assignments seem fun and we really get to tailor it to ourselves. Our class will talk about blogs, second life and all the new technology that’s coming out – I get credit for this!

Overall it’s been a good 24 hours! Now I just have to focus at work and get back to my real job – that’s the hard part!

School Supply Fun

2008-09-09T10:59:00.001-06:00

There’s just something about starting a new term in school. Each semester in K-12 and college I had a ritual of opening up new supplies, arranging my bag and taking care of needed details before new classes would start. It’s funny that I still do it! I’ve been buying bulk of the school supplies I’ll need over the next 12 months because prices are so good right now. There’s been a pile accumulating for the last few weeks and yesterday I finished my last shopping for a new academic day planner. Last night I picked out which color folders I’d use, filled them with crispy new paper and stuffed them with my class syllabi. I wrote out all my assignments in my new planner and highlighted when deliverables were due – I try to start organized even if it doesn’t carry through! It’s just funny that there are always these little back to school preparations before each new class – I like tradition! So now I’m all set for classes tonight and ready (whether I want to be or not) for another 10 weeks of living at school.

Time to Wake Up

2008-09-08T10:32:00.001-06:00

This morning I have a case of the Mondays. It was gray and rainy outside when I woke up and that it just not the way to start a Monday. Add one of my bathroom lights going out on me this morning too (equally a half-lit shower) and you’ll understand why I don’t think I actually fully woke up today. I need that bright, kick in the pants kind of greeting from the world to really jump out of bed and in to my day. Usually once I wake up I’m good to go but this morning I hit those snags and I’m still willing myself to feel like I’m not under the covers! The good thing is that I’m a quarter through the day already so bedtime is getting closer.

This weekend was pretty low-key which is nice.

~ Friday I grabbed some sushi on my way over to mom’s to spend the weekend with the family. I’ve lucked out because two grocery stores near me have sushi chefs that prepare take-out orders so the food is really fresh. There’s prepackaged stuff but you can also get it made-to-order. Yum! Add some frozen pot stickers that cook in 10 minutes and dinner is served!

~ Saturday we hung around home, watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (love the DVR) and ate at Olive Garden for dinner. It’s funny because there are better Italian places around but we often go back to Olive Garden for some reason! All of us did the “never-ending pasta bowl” but didn’t end up getting seconds. As my brother said – “it’s ended”! Here’s our feedback – make the portions smaller so we can try more combinations. It’s so hard to choose just one and if you don’t finish your first serving how can you try more?

~ Sunday my brother and sister tried a hot yoga class and really liked it. My sister has a lot of back issues and after many doctors and lots of $$ their recommendations are that she just needs to let her back heal from all the inflammation and aggravation and stretch out the muscles and knots that have taken over. Yoga is her newest solution for managing her back and the hot yoga can stretch her out even more. They were both pink when they returned! We grilled out for dinner and ate on the back porch because it was a beautiful night. So nice to enjoy the end of summer with all the flowers, green grass, birds chirping and a nice breeze.

That’s it for now. I’m sucking down some caffeine in hopes I’ll actually be productive today!

All About the Benjamins

2008-09-05T15:24:00.001-06:00

Okay, maybe not all about the Benjamins but certainly all about cash. I don’t use much cash because I charge most of my purchases. I feel funny charging small amounts on cards and sometimes let myself slide if I’m at the grocery store or doing the drive-thru but usually I try to pay in cash if it’s less than $5.00. I used my last cash last weekend and keep forgetting to grab more. There have been a few times this week when I’ve thought of running in and buying something but realize it would be a cash purchase and change my mind. This can be a good thing because I’m less tempted to hit a drive-thru or grab donuts on my way to work when I don’t want to run up my bill high enough to justify using a credit card. Too bad I ran to campus today to purchase books and decided to hit Winchell’s, home of my recent favorite glazed donut, on the way back to work. I had driven out of my way a bit to get there and then realized that “duh, Becky, you have no cash (and don’t know this part of town well enough to find an ATM)” so I had to turn around and go back to work without my greasy, sugary, yummy confection. Yes, I’ve been craving it all afternoon since I got back. I’m hitting the ATM after work! Just had to share my story of the day.

Sexy Heels are Back

2008-09-05T10:48:00.001-06:00

So I’d mentioned before that the weather is changing and it feels like fall. I’m stilling hanging on to my summer attire as long as I can because I’m not ready to wear long pants, pantyhose and real shoes. I did have a moment last night that made me somewhat okay with the weather change. I was shopping for summer sandals knowing that there are good deals at the end of the season. Last year I got a great pair of brown Steve Madden dress sandals at Off Broadway Shoes and this year I thought I’d try the same store to see what may be available. I found some great black Steve Madden dress sandals (just what I was looking for) so I left happy. Of course I can’t go to a shoe store and not try on some pretty shoes just for the fun of it. as I’ve written before, I love pointy-toed-stiletto heels! I mean, I really love them. I think they are so sexy (yep, sexy) and really dress up the lower half of an outfit. Really, most of my adult life I’ve been a high heel girl, I like wearing them and walking in them even if they sometimes kill my feet. Last night when I was trying on some really great pointy-toed-stilettos it occurred to me that the only thing I’m looking forward to about the cool-weather clothing is bringing my pumps out of the closet and back onto my feet. Ahh, a silver lining.

As I type it’s a gray Friday morning and the clouds outside don’t look like they want to go away – it’s supposed to rain most of the day. The weather would automatically make me sleepy but the ceiling light closest to me is out and the whole office seems dark. Yes, we still have plenty of light to do our work but it doesn’t help me at all when it’s gray inside and outside! This could be a long Friday.

Back to the Grind!

2008-09-02T11:52:00.001-06:00

It’s Tuesday, which feels half like Monday and half like Wednesday so I really have no idea what day it is! I think I’m going to be like that all week!

We had a good weekend, enjoying some beautiful weather, especially nice since this week apparently the temperatures will be 10 degrees cooler and really feel like fall – the seasons have changed overnight! Friday, Saturday and part of Sunday were “girls’ weekend” with just mom and Chrissy and I. We ate lots of food (I’m still stuffed) and went to see Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. I really liked it and loved the first one so I was a happy camper. We went to Texas Roadhouse after the movie because one of the few locations in Denver is not too far from the theater. I hadn’t been there in a while and had my fill of rolls! Yum!

Sunday night my brother came back from visiting grandparents (dad’s parents) and we ate dinner then watched some more of his favorite “Little Briton” which we have a few more seasons to get through before he leaves. They seem to get a bit dirtier each season but it’s still funny British humor. On Monday we had the family members that were in town over for a Labor Day party. We grilled fajitas and made homemade ice cream. Yet again, I stuffed myself! It was a good chance for my brother to spend more time with our grandmother and her sister (our great aunt) before he leaves for London in less than 2 weeks. My cousin joined us too and we got to listen to the same questions about every 15 minutes from the older ladies! The fun part was coming up with creative answers after we’d answered the same questions several times before, my brother is really good at that!

The best part about the weekend was catching up on rest. I managed to sleep in each day plus nap in the afternoon for a bit – that’s a treat for me! Especially since next week I head back to school and will not get much rest when that starts up.

I need some good ideas

2008-08-29T10:13:00.001-06:00

My little sister turns 18 in two weeks! This is crazy because I can’t believe that she’s going to be a legal adult. She’s a senior in high school which is wild enough and it’s just setting in for me that she won’t be at home forever because she’ll be off to college this time next year. Goodness!

As her birthday approaches I need some good ideas for a gift, activity or special way to celebrate the big 1-8. So, bloggers, were there any neat ways that you celebrated your 18^th birthday or any fun ideas that you may have for me? When I turned 18 I bought cigars (swisher sweets, the pretend cigars) just because I was old enough to but that was about it. I did get some family jewelry that was passed down (as the oldest grandchild on both sides of the family) and I don’t think that there is any of that for Chrissy. Any help would be appreciated.

On a different note I just want to say a few things about fast food. I don’t eat much fast food (I restricted my intact a few years ago to save money when I was in between jobs and have stuck with that policy even though I don’t have to anymore) but when I do there are a few things that are important to me. First, I think every drive thru needs to have a menu board posted a few car lengths before you get to the speaker box. I hate the pressure to order right away when you get to the speaker but haven’t been able to peruse the menu yet. Panic! I love the order screens so you can make sure that your order is correct. I like to verify that they heard me correctly and that any specials or coupons are accurately reflected in the price. The last thing I will comment on for now is that I like to know that I have the right beverage. This may seem silly, but as a diet drinker I get really upset when I take a sip after leaving a drive thru and know that I have a regular coke instead of my diet – there go 200 extra calories if I decide to finish my drink! For me, it’s major brownie points when the little buttons on the lid are pressed to show what kind of drink it is or in the case of coffee when they write the drink order on the cup. Today I got a sugar-free vanilla iced coffee from McDonald’s (my Friday treat) and I was very happy to see that they had marked SFV in two places on the cup! I feel much more confident that it’s what I ordered when I see they’ve taken the time to write on it and hopefully remember to make what they wrote.

Last thoughts for the day…do you follow the Labor Day dressing rules. The whole “no white after Labor Day” or “no sandals” after Labor Day? I have trouble with these rules because it’s still summer-ish weather for a while after Labor Day and I want to wear my sandals and show some bare legs but I wonder if it’s appropriate. There are certain social circles that care more about this then others, but overall, do you change what you wear after Labor Day?

So as I caffinate myself this fine Friday I wish you a very wonderful Labor Day weekend!

Magically Delicious and Other Ramblings

2008-08-27T09:25:00.001-06:00

As I write this I at my desk at work, eating a lovely breakfast of Lucky Charms. Yes, I brought a box of sugary-kids’ cereal to work for breakfasts and now get to enjoy a flashback to childhood at my desk. I’m a little embarrassed to be eating them in public and kind of hide the box on my way in to the kitchen each morning when I go to get a bowl and some milk. Then, when I’m at my desk I try and not show what’s in my bowl. I’ve had some interesting comments from coworkers – some that think I’m silly, some that wish they were eating the same thing. It’s just funny that there are “kids’” food that it’s not okay for adults to eat…apparently I don’t abide by those rules! I’m enjoying my breakfasts and when I need more cereal who knows what I’ll buy – maybe granola or maybe something with a prize inside!

If you happen to be in to national news or politics you know that the Democratic National Convention is in Denver this week. It’s funny because we went from the special Olympics coverage to special DNC coverage. It’s not really affecting me because I live in the suburbs and don’t have to go near the sites for the convention but it certainly is the buzz around town. If I was more brave I would go downtown and brave the crowds for some star sightings. There are tons of celebrities here and lots of big parties throughout the week. It’s funny to hear on the news all the big-wigs that are eating at our local restaurants…maybe next time I go I’ll sit at the same table as Anne Hathaway or Susan Sarandon. The DNC has been a big deal for Denver over the last year and I’m glad that it’s finally here after all the planning.

Here’s something silly…my cat can do an Elvis impression. A few months ago my cats had some teeth pulled during their dental cleaning. My tabby, Cupid, is missing one of his upper canines now but still has a lower canine on the same side. The result is that on occasion his upper lip will catch on his lower canine and give him the Elvis lip curl. It’s really funny! Since it’s not something that happens all the time it totally cracks me up when he randomly looks over at me with the Elvis look – I need to get a picture to share the fun!

Warning, bathroom talk = I have to throw in this totally random thought that just needs to be voiced to the universe – why have low-flush toilets if they don’t have enough power to get everything down in one flush? Here’s why this is on my mind. At work the toilets don’t flush well and you almost always have to double flush. I feel so bad using extra water and I’m upset that we have inadequate toilets – really, this shouldn’t be a problem. A good/bad part is that you have to wait for the toilet to refill before the second flush so you’re just waiting around in the bathroom longer. Thankfully there aren’t many women on our floor so there’s rarely anyone else in the bathroom but all the gals in the office warned me about the situation early on so it’s just an accepted practice. It just bugs me every time I have to run to the loo.

That’s about every random thing in my brain right now! Have a lovely Wednesday (even though for the last 12 hours I could have sworn that it was already Thursday, what a dissappointment)!

Bye, Bye, Beijing

2008-08-25T12:38:00.001-06:00

My Olympic obsession for the last two weeks is now over. Though I can still watching performances online (thanks to nbcolympics.com) that I may have missed, my nights are now free for other things! I’ll miss all the pageantry and stories about the games and finding new stars to be a fan of. I am happy, though, to get back the lost sleep time, evenings and web surfing that had centered around Olympics for the last few weeks. Oh well, I’m just going to have to wait until Vancouver in 2010!

Over the weekend I did actually have a chance to watch some movies and spend another nice weekend at my mom’s house with my brother and sister. Rob introduced me to “Little Britain” a really funny sketch comedy show. We have all three seasons coming on DVD and just started the first disc over the weekend. It’s a great look into everyday Britons and there are some awesome recurring characters that show up each episode. If you like British humor then you’ll like this.

We got to play cards which we haven’t done in ages and then Rob made a yummy Champagne cocktail to start off a night of wine and cheese. It’s nice having Rob around as a bartender because he knows just what we like (including Shirley Temples for Chrissy).

That’s about the highlights of the weekend – eating, drinking, playing cards, watching movies or Olympics and hanging out with family. Too bad it went too fast!

I’m ready for Labor Day weekend so I can get some nice rest and a day off of work. I’m sad to see it come, though, because it means the end of summer and I’m not ready for that to happen. I’ve enjoyed the weather and fun skirts and dresses and I’m not ready to wear jackets and bundle up again. I’d like a few more months of summer please! It also means that school is just around the corner again and back to studying and reading! It won’t be bad but I do enjoy the freedom of break! So here’s the fact that I won’t be at work this time next week thanks to Labor Day (for better or for worse).

Fore!

2008-08-22T12:31:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I spent the day on the golf course. I wasn’t actually the one golfing but I did get to hang out in the clubhouse and check out all the cute, preppy golfers. My company had a golf tournament for our customers and I got to organize it and make sure things went okay. It ended up being a hot day so my energy was zapped – I can’t imagine what the golfers felt like after being in the sun all afternoon long. The nice part was the company started a tab in the clubhouse so I got to eat and drink all afternoon on the company. I brought a book and got to read on the shaded patio and watch the golfers as they played or when they came in for a celebratory drink afterwards. It was pretty fun. Though I took golf as a class at ACU I’ve only played on a golf course twice so I’m not too used to the golfers’ world but I must say that I could get used to it. Everyone is dressed well, you get to drive golf carts and even at a public course it still feels a bit posh! I need to meet some single golfers who are willing to help me learn!

Seeing golf carts reminded me of ACU. I remember how cool it was to get to drive a golf cart – it was a sign of power among students because it was usually the security and grounds people who drove them. During welcome week and orientation before my senior year I was lucky enough to have access to a golf cart for a whole weekend. While helping in the campus center I got to fairy students to buildings and drove the cart all over the place. Yep, felt pretty special!

Another random memory that always comes around the Olympics – sophomore class Sing Song. We were police officers and one of the tunes we used was the Olympic theme by John Williams that is all over the TV right now during coverage. I can’t hear the tune without some of the Sing Song words popping in my head (but I don’t remember all of them which makes it a bit frustrating to repeat the same ones) “the donut shop will be closing, donuts with the sprinkles and cream filling, even though I’m on duty” something like that.

A Few Thoughts

2008-08-19T09:07:00.001-06:00

So here are a few things on my mind, not necessarily related….

1. I can’t believe that it’s back to school time already! My little sister starts her senior year today and this morning I had to slow down for a school zone on my way in to work – I’ve enjoyed not having to do that over the summer! I just want summer to last longer – the weather and everyone out of school. I’m not ready for fall yet.

2. I’m excited this morning because there were coupons in the paper this weekend for a free breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s with purchase of a drink. This morning I got my yummy iced coffee from McDonalds plus a free breakfast sandwich – that’s a good way to start the day!

3. Let’s talk about the new Olympic gymnastics scoring and tie-breaking. They’ve been tearing it apart on the telecasts but it’s true, this system has major flaws. First, in trying to be fair they don’t allow judges from countries represented by athletes but this leads to judges with less experience from countries that don’t have top athletes so they don’t see the little things that really separate a good performance from an outstanding one (an miss deductions that they should catch). Then, the IOC doesn’t want ties so they’ve come up with a weird math and number game to figure out tiebreakers. What? So tiebreakers are decided by math instead of gymnastics – I don’t like that! I was watching the uneven bars last night and saw how sad Nastia Liukin was when she got the silver because of the wild tiebreak rules. She kept it together but looked near tears for most of the telecast, I’m sorry for her.

4. I’m not a big fan of track and now I’ve figured out one reason why. So far in the races I’ve watched the runners (especially the shorter distance ones) seem full of themselves and not incredibly classy. I watched the 100m where the winner started celebrating before he even crossed the finish line. Seriously? I wished someone would have passed him at the end while he was already slowing down and pumping his fists. The distance runners seem to have more class but the shorter distance folks just seem cocky and not well-spoken. I do like the high lump and pole vault plus the throwing events like shot put, discus and javelin – I have no idea why I prefer those to running (maybe because I’m totally not a runner myself?).

Wet and Wild

2008-08-18T13:49:00.001-06:00

This weekend was wet. Just soggy, boggy, wet. It started Friday morning and for the next two days it was dark, cold, and rainy. On one hand it was nice because it was a nice break from our heat wave but all I wanted to do was curl up with a book or magazine, watch the Olympics and bake something! I stayed over at my mom’s house for the weekend to spend time with my brother and I thankfully packed some sweat pants because I really needed long clothes.

Saturday us kids (Rob, Chrissy and I) went to hang out with dad for the afternoon. I was a little anxious because I am really still at a place where I don’t want to spend time with my dad. He hasn’t really tried to connect with me in the month and a half since he moved out of the house and I haven’t done anything to track him down. Right there is a great example of the non-relationship that I have with my dad. Without a common thing like the family home there’s really nothing to bring us together, he doesn’t know me and I don’t enjoy being with him. Pretty sad to step back and see that he’s missed out on a relationship with his daughter for the last 29 years – it’s always been like that. Him moving out hasn’t affected our relationship because there never really was one to begin with.

I decided that it would be better for all of us if we all went to visit together in hopes that between the three of the kids we could fill up conversation and it wouldn’t be so awkward. We went to a Salvadorian place to eat lunch, then to a Mexican supermarket to check out their food (we all speak some Spanish and Rob and I have been to Mexico many times on mission trips so it’s fun to see foods that we normally don’t see in our regular stores). We ended the wet, dark day by seeing The Dark Knight (great movie) before going back to mom’s for dinner. Overall it was an okay afternoon. I always enjoy being with my brother and sister so we made it fun for each other. I can’t imagine one on one time with dad because he just is clueless about us and our lives so he doesn’t even know where to begin with questions or finding commonality.

So I’m officially over the weird first “dad outing” now that he’s moved out and know a bit more of what to expect. We got to see his new condo now that he’s moved in and settled and he seems to be establishing a new life for himself so that’s good. It’s just all these “firsts” that we have to get through so we know what to expect and can start figuring out what this new family dynamic looks like.

One

2008-08-13T14:30:00.001-06:00

One is the magic number for me right now. Why? Because I have one night of classes left before my three week “summer break” from school. One is also the number of questions left on my Finance take-home final that I have left to answer and we’ll learn that material tonight. Everything else is done and ready to turn in. I’m ready for a bit of a break and now that my brother is home I’m ready to have free time to spend with him.

Today I’m tired because I’ve been up late watching the nail-bitters in gymnasts. I’m so glad that the men got gold (the last routine on the pommel horse that clinched it for them was by someone who’s from Denver so I was cheering him on big time) and sorry the women didn’t get the gold but China just seemed to be on fire and I don’t think they really had a chance. I’ve missed some of the diving but got to see the women’s synchronized platform yesterday – what a hard sport to master but it looks beautiful when done well.

My Weekend, O-lympics and O-shaped Dough

2008-08-11T11:57:00.001-06:00

So I spent most of my weekend watching the Olympics and working on school stuff – very glamorous! I actually cleaned house which is huge because I’ve been so busy that the cat hair was taking over. Everything is vacuumed and washed plus I have a new air purifier so I’m hoping to get the upper hand!

Olympics Recap

One of my favorite moments of the games so far was watching Michael Phelps with his relay team that won gold Sunday night. He was so excited when they won and it didn’t seem like it was just because that was one more medal for him but because he was really excited that the team accomplished it. Then, during the medals ceremony he got all four of the guys to hold hands as they stepped up on the podium – a very team and unity feeling. Then, before the anthems started he actually stepped down to the French swimmers and shook all their hands – he didn’t need to do that but that was very sportsman-like of him. I just thought that he was classy and it wasn’t all about him, I like to see that.

I also liked the classy teamwork on the US Men’s Basketball team. I don’t watch much b’ball but I did watch the US-China game and our US men were very classy and represented us well. I’ve heard that was one of the big initiatives for this olympics, to have them act less like superstars. Apparently they’ve been going to watch other athletes compete and supporting Team USA – good for them.

Destination Donut

My friend Tara and I made another donut run for breakfast this weekend. After Dunkin Donuts we felt it just right to compare the other chains to really find the best. Luckily, we have some Winchell’s closer to us so we didn’t have to make a road trip out of it though we did go out of our usual way to get to one. I must say, I ate one of the yummiest glazed donuts and I wanted to buy a bunch to take home but stopped myself. Their iced coffee was good too – an overall A+ in my book! I will make another trip there before long! Now there are a few more chains (local and national) to try out before we’re finished our research but I kind of enjoy testing out all the donuts!

Homecoming

My brother, Rob, arrives back home tonight! He’s been in Israel all summer and now has about a month to rest and pack before leaving for school in London this September. I won’t be able to see him until tomorrow because I have school tonight but I’m so glad to have him home.

Olympics, Here We Come!

2008-08-09T23:04:00.001-06:00

So I watched the opening ceremonies and love them. I'm still eating leftover Chinese food today in honor of my celebration! It was like Cirque du Soleil in China. The technology was awesome, I have no idea how they did some of the cool stuff with the LED screen on the floor of the stadium but it was so fun to watch. It's the best opening ceremonies that I've seen and the news folks have been saying the same thing in today's coverage. I loved the costumes for the parade of nations - good thing I'm not from Hungary because they had terrible women's outfits. I loved that the Netherlands wore "man-pris" (like capris but for men), very European!

Good for Michale Phelps with his first gold medal. I don't know if he'll make the big goal that he's set for himself but as the sister of a competitive swimmer I can enjoy cheering him in all his races and understand how amazing he is.

The fun part of today was that I got to watch some Olympics, a Masterpiece Theater movie and more Olympics while writing a paper for school. A bunch of great things all in one day! Not bad, and one more school assignment down!

Final-ly

2008-08-08T14:01:00.001-06:00

I am happy to report that my take-home final in HR was cancelled! This is great news because I had some reading that I needed to catch up on if we’d actually had the final and that would have consumed my weekend. Happily I’ll only have a three page paper for that class over the weekend and all my other assignments are finished! The last work for the quarter will be my take-home final for Finance (which will take a bunch of time) but I’m glad it’s a take home because I can do little bits here and there and not get overwhelmed stepping in to the world of Finance!

That’s about it from my world. Just a few hours before my Chinese food and Olympic Opening Ceremonies! I’ve been reading some of the advanced reports about it and it sounds awesome! Especially since the countries come in according to alphabetical order in Mandarin Chinese so it’s like a surprise each time a team comes in because you don’t know who it’s going to be! Have a great weekend, looks like I get to make another donut run on Sunday so I’ll have another special breakfast – I’ll update on Monday.

I'm Starting to Get the Fever

2008-08-06T10:16:00.001-06:00

I’m starting to get the fever – the Olympic fever! I’m a big one for pomp and circumstance and I love having a world-wide festival that I can get in to. I’m not particularly sporty and I’m not in the loop when it comes to all the sports news so in some ways it seems silly to really get in to sports every few years when the Olympics come around. Here are a list of some of my favorites about the summer Olympics:

1. The opening ceremonies (and closing ceremonies) = these are so fun because I love to see all the athletes at the beginning when the slate is clean and anything is possible. It’s such a hopeful time and such a neat gathering of people from all over the world. I also love the entertainment and the symbolic way that the host country welcomes the world to their games and shows us about themselves and their history. As a nerd about logistics (I’m always seeing things and wondering all the steps that went in to making it work) the scale of such a show and all the details that go into each part are so cool for me to wonder about!

2. The uniforms = yes, the fashion of the games. I like to see what they wear during the opening ceremonies and what their sports uniforms are like too. who will design them, what kind of neat sports technology will be used, etc. I remember the berets from the winter games a few years back and what a big deal they were. Seeing all the countries displaying their colors is a lovely rainbow.

3. The “pretty” sports = I like the pretty, graceful sports the most. Count on me staying up late to watch diving, gymnastics, synchronized swimming and some equestrian.

4. Those other sports that pull you in = inevitably I will get into some random event like speed walking and soak in all the info from the commentators then spout it out the next day like I’m an expert. I always end up discovering a few sports that get my attention for the duration of the games.

5. The video bios = talk about tear jerkers! I’m a sucker for the personal stories they tape about the athletes. How someone’s parents died and told them to be a swimmer in their last breath before passing away or the mom with twelve foster kids who are staying up late to watch her race. You know the basic equation, insert tears here!

6. The Today Show Live = I like to see my favorite morning show folks doing the broadcast from the games and getting to meet the athletes that come to visit them. It also helps me understand the host country and the games better because of all their stories acquainting you with the event.

That’s my short list, I’ll have more to add in the coming weeks I’m sure! So if you want to find me on Friday night I’ll be eating Chinese food (yes, I’m carrying the theme into dinner) and watching the opening ceremonies.

Happy Un-Birthday to Me!

2008-08-04T08:23:00.000-06:00

Today is my official un-birthday!

I don’t know if you ever celebrate half birthdays (for anyone over the age of one) but when I was growing up one of our neighbors celebrated half birthdays and I kind of adopted it because it gave me one more day to celebrate! I don’t make a big deal of it (no presents or party) but I do like to do a little something special for myself and acknowledge that I’m half way between birthdays. This year is a big one because I am half way between b’day 29 and 30. Yep, just six months until I will be the big 3-0! I started calling half birthdays “un-birthdays” in honor of Alice in Wonderland. Even though in that story every day other than your birthday is an un-birthday, I only use the phrase on my half birthday because it sounds more fun and special that way.

And how will I celebrate? I get to go to school tonight and get a take-home final in Finance then give a presentation in HR and turn in a big group paper related to the presentation. I’m in the home stretch, only four class periods left in the summer quarter but several deliverables to turn in. Our HR group had fun on Saturday pulling together the paper and presentation. I brought breakfast (yummy Danishes that you start in a bread machine so they are really easy and can be mostly prepared the night before) and then we went to a fun neighborhood joint for lunch. I’ll be happy when we turn in the paper at the end of our presentation because that big project will be over!

I have one week before my brother comes home. He went to Petra, Jordan over the weekend and now is hanging out with friends from the dig until Saturday when he starts his trip back towards home. He said all is well and the dig actually gave him some money to help out after the break in so that’s made his travels more stress-free.

Time to work – if I get bored I’ll write about my Olympic fever (there’s a post in the making)!

Ambushed

2008-07-30T15:59:00.001-06:00

So I have to send out a quick vent so I don’t make some scene at work. Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on the first steps for our new company website. It’s with software that I’ve never used before and I’ve been teaching myself a lot as I go. I’d mapped out all the pages and figured out a basic structure for the main look based on a site the CEO really likes. I’d researched some stock picture sites and figured out the right colors. This has been my life the last few weeks and I’ve enjoyed the process and thought my product was pretty good for a first draft.

I just came back from lunch and had an email from my manager that said our CEO wanted to look at templates for websites, gave me a bunch to copy off and we went into the conference room and picked a template to buy and use as our new corporate site. What? In about an hour I went from developing a website on my own to buying something for $64 that I’ll just plop text into. Not that it looks bad and it does save me time but I was totally ambushed when I came back from lunch and still don’t really have an explanation on why things changed so fast. I’m spinning right now and even more frustrated with our CEO. This is the second time today where he’s come into something mid-process and had to halt things so he can tell us what he thinks we should have been doing all along (usually without knowing the back story on why we didn’t do it that way in the first place)!

Okay, I’m breathing again. Urgh! Just had to get a little rant into the blogger world and say that I’m a bit bummed right now.

Can I Pull a Costanza?

2008-07-30T10:53:00.001-06:00

Any of you Seinfeld fans remember the episode where George figures out how to make a bed under his desk and starts napping and sleeping at work? Brilliant! How much do I wish I could figure out how to disappear every once in a while and take a cat nap. I’m been so sleepy today that I keep dozing off while reading on the computer then do the neck snap thing when I become alert again. I would really love to take a nap right now and then be more awake for the rest of the day. Reminds me of the good ole college days where I could take mid-day naps because of my class schedule – can I reinstate that schedule at work?!

The Tortilla Quest

2008-07-29T12:52:00.001-06:00

I love homemade, fresh tortillas. I mean I really love them and crave them on a regular basis. Unfortunately, in Denver there aren’t many restaurants that make homemade tortillas and it’s really hard to find ready-to-cook tortillas at the store (Costco has some but I don’t have a membership any more). So if I can’t convince people to go to a yummy Mexican restaurant then I’m out of luck.

A few weeks ago I learned that Wal-Mart had a good tortilla mix so I’ve been on the hunt for it since then. Not all Wal-Mart’s have it, just those with a large enough Latino clientele that they can warrant it. I checked several Wal-Mart’s that I was near over the last few weeks and finally found it this weekend. I made some Sunday and they were yummy! I’ve tried recipes from scratch but they just didn’t work for me but this one did. Here’s the kicker… I was at my local grocery store this weekend and found the mix there too! yes, I’d just assumed that they wouldn’t carry it but they do and I’ve been on a needless quest to find the right Wal-Mart’s with the tortilla mix! Yep, thought I’d share how brilliant I am!

I do have to share about my Friday night, leading up to finding the tortilla mix. I met my friend Tara at her house after work and we hit this great Mexican food place (see the pattern with the Mexican food) that has a wonderful happy hour. $2.95 big, yummy margaritas and half price appetizers from 3:30-6:30pm every day. They have great food and when you get things for half price it’s even better. We split an appetizer (which was plenty for us to eat for dinner), I had two margaritas and Tara had a coke (she didn’t want to drink and I let her be the DD for the night) and the bill was $12! Really? Yes!

After dinner we went on a shopping quest. We hit the Kohl’s near her, went to another Kohl’s location about 20 minutes away, hit a Super Target down there, came back towards her house to anther Target, got sundaes from Sonic and then ended the night at Wal-Mart where I found my tortilla mix. Whew! She had returns to make and then we were searching for some clearance things which is why we hit a few stores twice. The best part is that we started about 5:30 with dinner and by 10:00 I was on my way home! Yep, we’re wild and crazy and still in bed early! It was fun and I got some great end of season deals on clothes so I’m happy.

The rest of the weekend I was pretty lazy accept for a meeting at school for an upcoming project. Not much of anything to report after my wild Friday night!

Finally an Update on Rob

2008-07-28T13:05:00.001-06:00

Hello bloggers. I hope I didn’t panic anyone when I sent out the 911 blog on Friday but it’s so hard to feel so far away from my brother, Rob, when he’s all the way in Israel. The best thing I could do is get people praying so thanks for anything that you sent up on his behalf. So here’s the rest of the story that I know…

My sister is the one who took the call Friday afternoon (and she’s not always the best message conveyer) and gave us the impression that Rob would call back later but we just received his first communication today via email since his first call. That short phone call left us with a lot of questions so now we have some answers.

While they were doing their regular Friday night cook out at the kibbutz (think lodge-type summer camp with kitchen, rooms, swimming pool and a small town nearby) someone broke into his room through the window. They took his wallet, ipod and phone and his roommate’s laptop before breaking into the room next door too. They filed a police report and Rob was able to cancel all his credit cards (he keeps a photo copy of his wallet’s contents with emergency cancelation numbers separate from his wallet when he travels). The good thing is that being the experienced traveler that he is he had his passport, more money and a backup credit card stored separately so he’ll be fine until he gets back home. I remembered that he usually doesn’t put anything in his wallet that can’t be stolen because he’s been around enough pickpockets and thieves during his travels so he packs smartly and takes advantage of secret compartments in luggage.

So he’s okay, several times in his email he said that what’s done is done and he’s not going to wallow in it and let it ruin any of his summer so I’m going to try to do the same (I tend to hold on to emotion baggage more than he ever does!).

He comes home on August 11^th which is just two weeks away! I have some school stuff that I’m determined to get done before he gets in so I can start spending time with him ASAP! Let’s hope that his few days of traveling around Israel (and apparently now Petra, Jordan as he just told us) after the dig is done goes okay, his few day layover in London is safe and that he gets back to Denver without any more complications!

Prayers ASAP

2008-07-25T16:05:00.001-06:00

Anyone who has my blog on RSS feed or blog ireaders should hopefully get this post quickly and help me pray for my brother.

I just got word that my brother, Rob, who is in Israel on an archeology dig, had his room broken into. His wallet was stolen (with his license, credit cards, ATM card, money, etc. inside) along with his ipod and phone. Thankfully he still has his passport. He only has a few weeks left on this trip before passing through London for a few days and back home for a month. He filed a police report and that’s about all I know. It’s about midnight where he is and he just called mom on someone’s phone.

Please pray for things to work out – either they’ll find whoever did this and get his things back or at least we’ll figure out how to cancel cards and send him what he needs before he leaves to come back.

When I hear more I’ll pass it on – I just wanted to mobilize any blog readers out there to help lift the situation up!

My Spidey Sense

2008-07-23T14:22:00.001-06:00

So, I really dislike spiders. I’m a little afraid to kill them because I fear they will jump on me if I miss. I have this nice struggle within myself when I see one because I want it eliminated (so it can’t reproduce and leave more spiders for me to kill) but I’m afraid for my safety if I don’t succeed. Another problem I have is that if one gets away I’m really paranoid when and where it will return. This was the problem last night…

Last night I was in bed watching TV, about to turn the lights off, when my cats started batting at something on the wall. I turned around and it was a nice, black spider. I sprung out of bed to grab something to smash it with and by the time I returned with a good weapon it had run behind a dresser. I started stalking it with my flashlight until I couldn’t see it anymore. By this time I’m not sleepy anymore so I watch more TV until I think that I can fall asleep without too much worry that the spider will make a reappearance on my bed. Within about 30 seconds of lights out I have a cat on the dresser batting around at something and I’m certain it’s my friend trying to come eat me. Though I couldn’t find the spider there was no way that I was going to fall asleep next to a dresser that it was hiding in! I grabbed my pillow and off to my couch I went. It took a bit of work to get myself comfortable with the right layers, blankets, etc. but I did fall asleep and didn’t see any spiders all night!

How ridiculous am I? I’m worried about sleeping in my bed tonight (what if it hopped in there last night and is waiting for me?)! So, I wasted about an hour of possible sleep time last night warring with a spider – and I’m not sure who actually won!

One Fit Feline!

2008-07-22T14:20:00.001-06:00

I got the news that my sweet cat, Cupid, is just fine. The sonogram didn’t pick up anything so the EKG must have just picked up a phantom signal (I don’t understand this but the vet said it was a possibility). We’ll keep checking for heart murmurs during yearly visits and hook him up to an EKG if there are every any worries but he’s fine according to the tests! I’m so glad that I won’t have to start giving him medicine or contemplate surgery. Just had to share.

I have no idea what I’d be like as a mother of a child because I worry enough about my cats that humans I know will be more intense!

I'm Not a Finance Failure!

2008-07-22T10:34:00.001-06:00

Okay, I got my Finance mid-term back last night and I’m happy to report that I did well! I had a few silly mistakes where I forgot to use the same number in places or read the equation wrong but overall I proved to myself and my professor that I actually understand the Finance topics that we’ve covered so far! After the nasty accounting class and my ego suffering from that I’m happy that I’m not totally math deficient, just not an accounting brainiac!

I’m waiting to hear how my cat, Cupid, is doing. I dropped him off this morning and he was not happy with me. I had to take food away last night because he had to fast before coming in so he was already hungry then he saw his carrier come out and absolutely hated me! Poor Paris, my other cat, is at home alone for the first time ever! Hope the place is intact when I come back!

Mismatched - Where's My Stylist?

2008-07-21T14:44:00.001-06:00

About a month ago I wrote about being a fashion don’t – today I am just mismatched. I’m wearing a new skirt for the first time and thought it had brown in it at the store then in my closet this morning it looked black so I wore a black top and shoes with it. Here’s the kicker – it’s actually a dark brown but you can’t tell unless you have really bright lighting! So indoors I look fine, by windows or outside I look like I dressed in the dark! I rarely have problems with matching things but apparently today was not the right Monday to stretch my fashion wings.

Over the weekend I survived my company picnic and got to watch my sister do her swim coach thing at their end of season banquet – lots of parties for me! The company picnic was hot (nearly 100 degrees for us mild weather Coloradoans) but we had yummy BBQ catered in including banana pudding and sweet tea – thank the Lord. Now that I know this place has some of my favorites (I can’t find decent BBQ here in Denver) I’ll have to stop by to get my fix. We lucked out by having a spot reserved in the middle of a bunch of trees so it was shady and comfortable until you ventured out in the sun and started dripping in sweat right away! Most of the group went on to the Denver Zoo (just next door) after lunch but I was off to campus to work on a paper I had to turn in today. Then, Sunday I got to hang out with a bunch of little swimming kiddos who swim for my sister and watch her give out awards and be super-cool Coach Chrissy. It was very fun and since somehow I’d miraculously gotten out of ever attending one while she swam on the team I was due to make an appearance now that she’s a coach.

That’s all the news for today – just a sleepy Monday! Tomorrow I have to take one of my cats, Cupid, into the vet for a sonogram because something is wrong with his heart. They picked up an irregularity when he was under anesthesia for his teeth cleaning so I brought him back last week to hook him up to an EKG when he wasn’t on anesthesia (apparently sometimes it can influence weird EKG results). Unfortunately the heart pattern was the same so now we go in for a sonogram to see what’s really going on. I have no idea what the problem could be and what treatment is. My vet just told me that right now he’s healthy, not losing weight and pink which are signs that it’s not affecting him yet so we’re aiming on preventing it from becoming a problem. I’ll have the full scoop tomorrow after he spends the day with them and has to be put under once again. Poor little kitty cat.

Fire drills and Fiestas

2008-07-18T12:04:00.001-06:00

I have to laugh how a fire drill has the ability to make adults feel like elementary schoolers again. Wednesday night in my first class we were an hour and a half in to class when the fire alarm went off. In my class is someone who works for the university’s crisis management team so she insisted immediately that we evacuate the building. There we were, filing out of the classroom and finding a nice curb near another building to wait for the all clear. It was a hot night because we’d been in the 90’s during the day. No one wanted to go back to class 20 minutes later when everything was turned off and we could go back. The hard part is that we knew we had a guest professor in our second class and people were already thinking about skipping but after a fire drill and social time who wants to go back to any class? There were a few of us diehards that actually went back for the last 10 minutes of our first class and then attending our second class to, but there were a lot of no-shows! It’s just funny to me how fire drills don’t change with age, we still grumble when we have to pack up and leave then we get a bit giddy waiting to go back which totally interferes with doing anything productive! Alas, there were no cute firemen to rescue me and run off into the sunset with but maybe next time!

Speaking of not really doing work…that was my Thursday! We announced a new incentive program for the next 12 months and rolled it out at a company meeting on Thursday night. My job was to plan the party elements and the big announcement. Because we’ll send folks to Mexico if they help us reach the goal everything was Mexican themed. We rented costumes (Matador, Flamenco Dancer, Mexican Lady and Sombrero man), listened to tasteful Mexican music, ate chips and salsa/guacamole/queso, and I made some mean margaritas (regular and non-alcoholic). I was a bit nervous about pulling the whole thing off because we were trying to keep it a surprise from most of the company. I used a vacant office as my staging area and hid drinks in the fridge covered in bags. I must say it turned out to be a success and everything went smoothly. I ended up having fun and I’m happy that everything was well-received.

Here’s the recipe I used to make a Gallon of Margaritas, it was a hit (even though I didn’t use fresh-squeezed juices) and really easy. I totally recommend it for any future parties! Warning, they are pretty strong and have a kick (even the bigger guys at work commented about it but really liked the taste).

From Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s mixology site (http://www.jeffreymorgenthaler.com/2006/a-gallon-of-margaritas/)

Gallon of Margaritas

6 cups tequila (you’ll need two fifths for this)
2.5 cups triple sec (just a fifth, please)
2.5 cups fresh lime juice
2.5 cups fresh lemon juice
2 cups simple syrup [1 pound (2 cups) granulated cane sugar, 2 cups boiling water – stir together until clear, let cool and pour into a clean bottle with pour spout]

Mix ingredients together in gallon container. Don’t forget to refrigerate! When ready to serve, pour mixture into a 16-ounce glass filled with ice. Salted rim is optional.

Makes 21 margaritas.

Happy Birthday Little Brother

2008-07-16T09:12:00.001-06:00

Today is my brother, Rob’s, 27^th birthday! It’s a happy day to celebrate but a bit sad because he’s not here to celebrate in person. I’m sure he’s having a blast with all his friends on the archeology dig that he’s on in Israel. Many of them have returned for several years and know each other pretty well so I know that some of his favorite people in the world happen to be with him for this birthday. It’s just hard for me because I have some great memories from birthdays past – lots of fun summer celebrations with water or at the pool. There were some great ones at Casa Bonita (a Mexican food place with indoor cliff jumpers, puppet shows and Black Bart’s spooky cave) during elementary school. Rob really loves holidays and has a knack for spreading them over several days or weeks. He’s the one that counts presents at Christmas and he’s the one that starts his birthday list months before the day. He becomes his five year old self around holidays – all giddy and excited. So I hope that today he’s having a wonderful time drinking Israeli wine or beer, eating kosher food and hopefully getting some birthday cake.

The Great Outdoors

2008-07-14T09:50:00.001-06:00

This weekend I officially have a cool back porch. I need to recharge my camera batteries so I can take some pictures (I’m so bad about taking pictures of everything – I’ve had a different hair cut from my blog profile picture for about a year and a half and still haven’t updated that, bad Becky). My super-clearance priced pictures have been re-hung and my paper lantern is happily on the wall thanks to my mom who came over will her tools yesterday to help me finish things out. She had a drill and a level that I needed for the lantern bracket and she was able to make a contraption to keep my pictures from blowing off their nails – she’s nearly a female Bob Villa. So I read my Sunday paper on my back porch and enjoyed my little escape that I’ve created for myself.

The rest of the weekend seemed busy (for me) because I wasn’t at home much. Friday night mom, Chrissy and I ate dinner at a fundraiser for Chrissy’s swim team then mom and I ran to do a little shopping. Saturday I spent all afternoon at school working on a finance project and Sunday afternoon mom, Chrissy and I went to a World Vision exhibit on the AIDS epidemic in Africa then out to dinner. I was in and out a lot and I wish things would have been more restful but I got some good family time in and was productive with school stuff.

Friday Treat

2008-07-11T09:43:00.001-06:00

I am at work, about to actually start something productive but just had to do a quick Friday post. As I write I’m sipping on a very yummy sugar free vanilla iced coffee from McDonald’s. I was a bit skeptical when the iced coffees came out but tried one this summer and really enjoyed it. Too bad it was full of extra calories because of the flavoring. When I heard that a sugar free version was out I was more than happy to taste test it! Yep, it passed with flying colors. The best part is that it’s less than half the price of the iced coffee I get at Starbucks so I can indulge on occasion without feeling like I’m overdoing it. plus, I don’t have to get out of my car, love drive thrus! Anyway, I just thought I give a big shout out to my Friday “I made it through the week” treat!

In other news I’m about to become a Master. A Web Master that is. Our company website has been in need of a serious upgrade for a while and it’s finally time for me to tackle this project. We’ve done the research, decided on our site map and now it’s time for me to put it together. Here’s the fun part (especially for you JMC alums that have probably done more of this since graduation than me) I’ve only done websites with straight HTML coding. Yep, I’ve never used any of these fancy programs or new technology even though I’ve wanted to learn. As a Microsoft Partner we use their software if possible for everything (no Photoshop for me) so I am now teaching myself web design on Microsoft Expression Web thanks to online tutorials and a lot of trial and error on the test site I’m practicing on. We’ll see how things go.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Who Is This Mystery Man?

2008-07-08T13:49:00.001-06:00

This is going to sound really strange but there’s a mystery man I keep running in to and I’m getting intrigued. Here’s the story. He’s a grad student at DU too but I’ve never had a class with him so I don’t know his name. He’s attractive and I see him in the halls or the common room every once in a while at school. Around February (I think that’s about the right time) I actually had a dream about him…strange, right? Well, today I went to lunch with my mom and he was at the front of the line when we stepped in to the restaurant. I didn’t get a chance to flag him down before he left because by the time we sat down after ordering our food he was nowhere to be seen. So he works near me, is in the same grad program and I’m dreaming about him. What is this? I’m determined that next time I see him I’ll at least figure out his name – but what a crazy story! Just had to share!

Excuse Me While I Vent

2008-07-08T11:42:00.001-06:00

Okay, here's a quick venting about work...I'm finally getting busier which is good because I work much better with a 150% workload than a 50% workload. This makes me happy because I've been worried about justifying my full-time job if I only work 15-20 hours a week on actual job stuff.

My "beef" for the day is management. My direct manager is great but our CEO is really hard to deal with. I'm in a small company of 25 people (I've learned my lesson to select larger companies in the future) and he still runs most of the show. He's just very critical, not trusting, and not open to any kind of suggestions or discourse. I'll send out emails and he'll send them right back critiquing them or accusing me of things that aren't even in the email (and they are usual non-issues but just because I haven't told him I'm doing them he assumes I'm not). He says that he's being constructive but when things are said in such a belittling way it's hard to really hear the message he's trying to get through.

I'm in an HR class this quarter and so much of what we've covered shows me that my last company, Baxa really was ahead of the curve in HR practices and my current company is back in the middle ages. The funny thing is that I work in technology and we depend on Gen X and Y folks for the majority of our positions yet our policies are not friendly to that age group. In fact, I think the CEO doesn't want to understand us or do anything to make this a place were my age group would want to work.

I'm just frustrated because there are so many silly little rules and so much unnecessary structure that drive me crazy! I want to approach our CEO about some of the things I've learned in this class and try to start a dialog with him to maybe engage in why he's made the decisions he's made and see if he can open up his mind a bit more but I'm afraid of being shot down because of the way he's always rudely critical.

Thanks for reading my venting. It's just been building over the last few months and this week for some reason it seems to be boiling over!

A Few Funny Memories

2008-07-07T10:52:00.001-06:00

Okay, so there have been a few things that jogged my memory recently that I just have to share, maybe someone else will remember them too.

1. I was looking up costumes for something we’re doing at work and came across a Big Mac costume. Any of you Siggies remember the hamburger outfit that we passed around for Bid Night? My roommate, Maddie, had it for a while and I remember seeing it in her closet once, it had seen a lot of use over its Bid Night career to that point! So if anyone wants to relive Bid Night I have just the store to help you out! (They also have fry and milkshake costumes if you’d rather have those)

2. I watched a big fireworks display on Friday night and it made me think of the summer before my senior year at ACU when I was interning on campus with the other SA officers. One of our jobs was to organize a fireworks display at the ACU baseball field for the city of Abilene. Someone had donate the money for the show and ACU had agreed to host it and organize it. we worked with KACU to have a soundtrack to go with the show, worked to get the news out around town and then had to play security guards/crew for the event. There are two things I learned from this experience. First, how expensive fireworks are (it cost $75,000 for about 30 minutes of show). Second, how crazy and low-tech the igniting of the fireworks is. Some ACU student that worked at the ACU Plant got to help light the fireworks and he said they gave him a flame thrower and told him to try and space out the fireworks a few seconds apart. Really, that’s the science of professional displays? Coincidentally, the show was 5 minutes shorter than expected because they have too much fun lighting and not spacing things out! Now when I go to professional displays I picture a bunch of giddy pyros with their flame throwers having a ball setting things on fire!

Holiday Weekend

2008-07-07T09:04:00.001-06:00

I had a very nice holiday weekend, it didn’t totally seem like a three day weekend – it went too fast! Thursday night mom and I went out for good Mexican food (I’d been craving homemade tortillas) and then we got together with the whole family on Friday to celebrate the fourth and my cousin’s birthday. She embraces her shared birthday with the holiday so we always have a fun party. The weather was in the mid-90’s so it was hot outside, the “old ladies” (my grandmother and her sister, both in their mid 80’s) were good sports as we ate on the back porch before going inside for gifts. The food was very good and the ice cream cake (a tradition) hit the spot!

We joined my sister’s friend and her family for fireworks in their neighborhood. They live really close to one of the professional shows so we just found a spot in their neighborhood park across from the show and had great seats. I got a few bug bites but I’d say they were worth it. The night was nice and warm so we didn’t have to carry extra layers around.

Saturday and Sunday I worked on some school stuff and cleaned around home. My big project was reorganizing the closet in my second bedroom. It had tons of shoe boxes or boxes from mail order things plus all kinds of odds and ends that needed better homes. I threw a bunch of stuff away, relocated some of it and reorganized what was left. Now I can actually get to my gift wrapping supplies without having to climb over pillows and baskets and I had room to move my off-season clothes in to it. it’s great to have two closets for my clothes, a luxury I know. I just had never used the second closet for clothes but realized that I would wear my spring/summer stuff more if I could see it better without the longer clothes mixed in. I’m still working on slimming down my wardrobe and taking bags to Goodwill, Clinton and Stacey from What Not to Wear would yell at me for still keeping some clothes from high school and college!

Now I get to start another work week and get into high gear with school because I have a bunch of stuff due in the next week (2 papers, a take-home mid-term and 2+2 group member assessments). Have a great week!

Happy 4th of July

2008-07-03T10:51:00.001-06:00

I’m so excited for a holiday weekend. Things in the office are pretty slow today so I have a feeling things will drag on a bit but I’ll be happy to walk out the door this afternoon and not have to be back for three days! This morning I treated myself to a breakfast burrito and iced coffee, yum!

I had a bunch of fun with my school group from my HR class on Tuesday night as we started work on a project. We have to visit three restaurants and evaluate the HR systems in them and how that shapes the customer experience. We have to talk with the wait staff, managers and others at the restaurant but mostly get to enjoy a fun meal and good food, especially since we get to choose where we go. I like the people in my group, we lucked out because the groups were assigned but 5 of the 6 of us know each other from other classes.

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about this week…this time last year I had no idea everything that would be different a year later. It was July 7^th last year that I bought a new car and found out I was accepted to DU. Within the last year I’ve changed jobs, changed churches and my family is now changing too. For me it’s holidays and big dates that make me reflect because I can clearly remember back in time on those dates (7/7/07 will stay in my memory for a long time, easy to remember). Last year I had no idea what awaited me but I’m so happy with where I am right now. School was one of the best things I could do for myself, I love my new car because I feel like it portrays me as less of a college student and more of a young professional and my job change has been an adjustment because I really loved my old company but I’m happy with the career path I’ve put myself in. I guess, looking back over the last 12 months, I can say that I’ve done a lot of growing up, learning about myself and bettering myself. What a difference a year makes!

This 4^th of July I have a lot to celebrate. Have a great holiday weekend!

Donut Run

2008-07-01T13:14:00.001-06:00

So this weekend I had a fun mini road trip down to Colorado Springs on Saturday. It was a very nice day and a great chance to get away from home. I picked up my friend about 9:00am and we drove to Dunkin Donuts. I must say the iced coffee was good (able to get skim milk and sugar free vanilla flavoring so I was very happy) and they have yummy glazed donuts – totally worth the drive to get them. We took our breakfast to go and drove up into the mountains a bit before we found a nice little picnic area. We ate under the trees, next to a stream on a nice sunny day – perfect! Then we went to a Hobby Lobby that we passed in town while driving around and managed to get a bunch of great clearance deals. We stopped by an outdoor mall on the way home and ate great Italian food and hit a few more shops. By the time we were back at her house it was Sonic happy hour time so we got a few drinks and went back to her place to read some magazines that I’d picked up for the trip. It was a very fun getaway.

I now have a door mat, some art and a fun paper lantern for the back porch. Once everything is up my serene porch will be complete and I’ll have to start inviting people over to enjoy it. It’s my little refuge to relax in. I have the string lights on a timer so they turn on when it gets dark. It was fun to come home last night from class and see my deck lights on, welcoming me home.

On Sunday I helped mom take a load of fragile stuff to dad’s new place that he moved in to over the weekend. The spilt is now official and the adjustments to the new structure in the family start. It doesn’t really affect me because I don’t live at home with them and I only pop in and out on occasion when my brother isn’t at home. My sister will be the one most affected, thankfully she has a bunch of summer plans that can keep her busy so she’s not bored and at home too much.

School is getting better, the long nights don’t seem as long as they did the first week so that’s good! Tonight I’m going with my group from the HR class to start an assignment where we have to eat at three restaurants and learn about their HR practices and see how they affect the environment and staff. I’m actually looking forward to it because I have a really fun group of people and we’re picking fun places to go. Tonight we’re going to a fun, hip place in Cherry Creek (a chee-chee part of town) that has great burgers and is laid back. I think we’ll have a great time and be able to cross our first outing off the list!

Mini Road Trip

2008-06-27T17:02:00.001-06:00

It’s almost the weekend and we are all getting antsy here in the office which means that it’s a perfect time to post on the blog! Instead of working right now I’m planning a mini road trip to Colorado Springs tomorrow with my friend Tara. She’s had a hard week and I’m ready for a change of pace so we are going to drive down to the Springs (about an hour) and make a pilgrimage to Dunkin Donuts. Why DD you may ask? Well it was my idea, basically I’ve been seeing their adds on TV for all their new coffees and goodies but we don’t have any locations in the Denver area. The closest ones are in the Springs, hence the need for the road trip. We’ll check out some different scenery, maybe hit a park and I’m bringing along some People magazines and wedding magazines to entertain us! Just a nice half day play time for us big girls!

Another goal for the weekend is finishing some decorating on my back porch. Now that my pigeon nest is gone I’ve decided to do some decorating and really make it a spot I can enjoy. I liked studying on my parent’s back porch so I’m making mine into something I’d want to spend time in too. I have a black thumb so I won’t be planting anything (besides I don’t get enough sun for much to grow) but I am hanging some fun lights and lanterns for ambiance. I have a great little metal bistro set, some citronella candles and I’m going shopping for some fun signs, wind chimes and other stuff to hang around. Hopefully I’ll have a nice retreat after this weekend.

Happy thought from the last 24 hours – I got an awesome dress at Kohl’s for $15! I love sales! It’s really comfortable, I can wear it to work (it’s on the more casual side of the dress code but still works) plus it will be perfect for running errands on weekends or changing into for fun at night. Just a comfortable, versatile sun dress with flattering empire waist and a forgiving pattern! It’s a winner!

Alright, it’s just about time to leave for the weekend so I will say adios!

Family News

2008-06-24T10:14:00.000-06:00

I have to admit that I haven’t really been myself lately. I’ve had a secret that I’ve been keeping that has really worn me down emotionally, physically and spiritually – especially since I haven’t opened up about so it’s been internal distress. The following is part informative and part just “getting it out there” for myself. Continue reading with that disclaimer.

So, I’ve been thinking how I should write this for a few days now and unfortunately there’s just not a nice or cheerful way to say that my parents are getting a divorce. Though I’ve known about it for a while and they officially announced it to family and friends last week it seems that each time I share it makes it more real and adds me as a statistic to children that are “products of divorce”. Partly, my trepidation in announcing it is that you never really know how someone will act, what questions they want to ask and how they feel about divorce. It’s like passing a grenade to someone and waiting to see how it explodes. It’s all new now and I know that I’ll get more used to it as time goes on but right now my family is in the place of the unknown as we figure out what this looks like.

My parents have been married for 30 very unhappy years. Long ago when they went for their first marriage counseling I thought they would break up but they didn’t. Now it’s to the point that there is so much unhealth between them and throughout our family that it’s not good for them to stay together. Mostly it stems from the fact that they are total opposites in everything so no matter the issue they either have to find common ground or be on opposing sides. This is complicated with the fact that my father (whom I don’t have a good relationship with and never have) is bi-polar, ADHD and very narcissistic – mostly living in his own selfish world – this is medically true. Even with all the pills he takes he’s been getting worse and is very hard to be around. Our family long ago developed a dynamic where we protect his image and cover for him or downplay how severely unhealthy he really is. We’ve also made an unspoken rule to appease him and not rock the boat when he’s concerned because we don’t want him to get mad – I’ve spent the majority of my life without the ability to be honest with my dad when he hurts my feelings or doesn’t understand me because we never know how he will react if we bring it up – we have developed in to a family of pacifists. My mom has been a wife to that for a long time, and had become such a shell of who she potentially could be based on her choices within this marriage and the toll it’s taken on her. Mom and dad both have their part in the shape of the marriage and made their own choices which bring them to this point.

So I’ve spent a lot of money in therapy (with a great counselor) to understand this family dynamic that I come from and so I can be free of many of the unhealthy effects that it can have in my life. It’s brought me to the place where even though I disagree with divorce, I think that individual health and family health is more important than staying married. I believe that God wants us to be the best individual that he created, the fullest creation possible and I see our family as held back from that realization if my parents stay together. I know this opens the door for Christians to say we just need to let God work in our lives, pray more, be patient but we’ve done that and it’s now time to end one institution (marriage) to rebuild us as individuals.

The hardest part right now is that I’m not sure what things will look like down the road. What will holidays look like? What will my relationship with my father and his side of the family look like (right now I don’t want one, I’m working through this with my therapist currently)? My dad signed a lease for a condo near his office and will be gradually moving over this week. My mom and sister will stay in the family home until my sister graduates from high school and starts college, at that time my mom will also get a job (she’s been a homemaker while the kids where in school). So far they are only separated and will continue the legal steps of filing and settlements of assets, etc. over the following months.

I’m happy to finally have this out in the open and begin sharing it. If you’ve read all of this and made it though my thoughts, thanks for reading – hopefully there won’t be many more blogs with this tone. It’s just nice to blog/journal about things sometimes.

Fashion Don't

2008-06-19T10:20:00.001-06:00

Do you ever leave the house and quickly realize that you are a fashion “don’t”? Yesterday was that kind of a day for me! The funny thing is that the night before I’d thought of a few outfits that would be really great and I like to look nice on school nights because I’m with other young professionals. Anyway, I kept changing outfits and somehow got in my mind that I needed to wear a particular shirt so I finally found a skirt that worked with it. Not long after leaving I realized that I didn’t like what I was wearing and a quick look into the bathroom mirror at work confirmed that my baby doll top and a-line skirt were not meant to be worn together! I looked very wide in the hip and thigh area and totally disproportionate. The whole day I just wanted to go home and change! Good thing I wasn’t walking the red carpet because I would have been ridiculed by Joan Rivers. Mr. Blackwell, I don’t want to end up on your worst dressed list!

Random updates:

1. My baby pigeon, Henry, has left the nest. I checked up on him last night and he was gone. No more baby birdies for me this season (I now get to clean the bird droppings off the back porch)

2. My cats are slowly forgiving me after their visit to the vet. They are taking pain meds very well (we have one more dose for tonight) and not hiding in corners so much. I hope by this weekend we’ll all be friends again.

I'm A Dork

2008-06-18T10:35:00.001-06:00

So, I write my blogs in Outlook and email them to blogger to post. I unfortunately keep forgetting to delete my signature before sending – dork! I’m working on it but forgive any random endings on my blogs before I can get online to correct them!

Nurse Becky - At the Movies

2008-06-18T10:29:00.001-06:00

First, the fun stuff. I watched the American Film Institute’s “10 Top 10” special on TV Tuesday night. They picked the top 10 movies of all time in 10 different genres and had celebrities help count them down and comment on them. Even though I didn’t agree with all the choices, I was happy that it wasn’t all contemporary films. I’m a big fan of older movies, especially the musicals from the 30’s, 40’s and early 50’s. After hearing about some movies that I’ve never seen I now have more movies to add to my Blockbuster queue.

Last night I picked up my poor cats from the vet after their long day and they were so drugged still! Both of them had to have teeth pulled and I feel really bad about that because I neglected their dental health enough that they had trouble in the long run. I have new food from the vet to keep their teeth healthy and hopefully they’ll like that and we’ll be on the road to dental health. Poor guys, they were still coming out of the anesthesia when I picked them up and they spent the night acting pretty drunk. They kept jumping up about my kitchen cabinets where they like to sit (but aren’t allowed to when I’m at home and can regulate) but I was so afraid that they would miss their landings or not get enough height because they were a little woozy still. They’ve been good about taking their pain meds and hopefully will recover quickly.

Having them at the vet yesterday really stressed me out more than I realized. Then I got home and followed them around making sure they were okay, cleaning up after them and trying to keep them out of trouble. Even though I got to bed at a pretty okay time, I am super tired at work already and I’ve only been here two hours! With 4 and a half hours of class tonight this is going to be a long day! Here comes the Diet Coke!

Feline Foray

2008-06-17T09:40:00.001-06:00

Today I was a mean feline mommy and took my cats to the vet for a full day of poking and prodding. Yes, I’m feeling guilty (and tired after a long night last night) for paying to have them made uncomfortable for the day. They are having blood work done then will be put under and get their teeth cleaned. I’m guessing that one of them may end up with some extractions too – yuck. Anyway, I know that they aren’t having fun. Unfortunately, they were already traumatized when I dropped them off this morning because I had to take food and water away last night so they spent the night whining, hopping on and off the bed trying to get my attention and batting at my face so I would attend to their needs. I ended up waking up early because they were really upset by the time the sun came up. I spent my timing getting ready this morning trying to tune out my sweet babies as they cried for food – I hate that! So I didn’t get much sleep and they were already in a bad mood when I dropped them off.

On a happier note, my first classes of the summer quarter were last night and went well. The longer summer classes do seem longer and we all started checking our watches after about an hour and a half of class when there was still a half hour left! I like my Finance professor and think that I’ll end up learning quite a bit from him. This is good because I was nervous that my bad luck with Accounting would carry over to the other math-related courses. My Human Resources class should be good too – it’s all about the HR duties of non-HR managers. I have a bunch of the same classmates as I’ve had in previous semesters and my classes are just across the hall from each other so I don’t have to walk too far. Here we go again!

I just had to put a snippet in the blog about Tim Russert who died on Friday. I watch the Today Show every morning as I get ready for work and always enjoyed Tim’s political portions of the broadcast. He was one of my favorite news personalities and I’m very sorry that he passed away. The rest of the election season will not be the same without him.

Rearranging

2008-06-16T08:51:00.001-06:00

I can’t believe how quickly Monday mornings roll around! Though I had a nice weekend it just seems that it could last longer. This morning it’s grey outside and the weather report says that we’ll have severe weather this afternoon so we’re prepared for rain, thunder, lightning and wind. Tonight I start my summer quarter of classes so hopefully I’ll not have too much weather to battle en route. It should be an interesting quarter, while usual quarters are 10 weeks long with 1 hour 50 minute classes, the summer is 9 weeks long with 2 hour 10 minute classes. Yes, I’ll start class at 5:30pm and be done at 10:00pm on Mondays and Wednesdays for the next 9 weeks. That’s a lot of class and a long night after working a full day! Another bummer is that in order to get to class by 5:30 I have to leave work early which means I have to come in earlier – I don’t like waking up early! So we’ll see how things go tonight and on Wednesday to get a feel of the summer. I’m taking Finance and HR, I hope that Finance is better than Accounting was!

The fun part of my weekend was rearranging my house. It all started when I did some major cleaning that was much overdue. I got out of bed and went straight to work. I swept, moped, picked up, vacuumed, cleaned my shower curtain and bath mat, spot cleaned a few spots on my carpet and took out a ton of trash and a few loads of giveaway stuff to my car. As I was putting my living room back in order after vacuuming (because I have to move things to get everything cleaned) I decided to rearrange my side chairs to try and open things up. It just so happened that my mom decided to bring over an extra coffee table that I’ve been interested in swapping out for my current one to make more space so when she got to my place we went crazy. We tried out the new coffee table and decided that it worked so we moved my other into my storage room. Then we took down some wall art and hung some pictures that I’d been waiting to hang for about a year (they are Jack Vettriano prints – love them!). after they were up I started looking around and realized that it was time to update the rest of the room. I’ve lived in my condo for 5 and a half years and when I moved in I was a bit like Trading Spaces goes wild. I did a lot of craft projects and ending up with rooms that were too busy. I’ve slowly been taking things off shelves and tables to minimize the clutter but on Saturday I overhauled. I took down a bunch of pictures, layers of curtains, lanterns hanging around my kitchen and odds and ends that needed to go. I love the look of things now, it feels more grown up and mature compared with the way it had been before. Now the artwork I have really pops because there’s nothing else to distract the eyes and it feels larger and more spacious because there’s less clutter. The cats like it too, they were lounging all over the chairs and couch in the living room, totally laid back! Next weekend I’ll hang a mirror over my fireplace and we’re going to put a mantel up – then the living room/dining room will be complete.

Birdie update. So it turns out that I have one chick on my deck. I’ve named him Henry and every day he looks more like a pigeon. We had to disturb him over the weekend as we moved things into my storage room which is off the deck. He tried to hide but was a good sport. I finally got to show him to mom so now she knows what I’m talking about. We kept hammering and moving things just on the other side of the wall from where he lives on the back porch and every time we’d apologize and tell him sorry for the disruption. Surprisingly, the cats aren’t too interested in the bird happenings yet, every once in a while they’ll perk up but overall they don’t care about our little friend, Henry.

Happy Friday the 13th!

2008-06-13T09:34:00.002-06:00

So the radio morning show I listen to was making a big deal about Friday the 13^th and it made me start to think about my superstitions. I’m not very superstitious – I’d say I’m more OCD but here are a few things about myself that I’ve come up what that I’ll share with you:

- I always blow into a cup when I take it off the shelf before pouring anything in to it. I think it’s my way of making sure it’s clean.

- I prefer to park my car to the left rather than to the right because I think I’m a better parker to the left. I will drive around a parking lot to get a left turn-in space rather than take the first right turn space that I find.

- I have both ceramic plates and plastic plates (Target picnic-ware I got one summer when I was living in Dallas and didn’t move all my stuff with me) but now there are some foods I’ll only eat on the ceramic and some I only eat on the plastic. I have no idea where in my mind I decided that fresh pizza belongs on plastic but microwaved pizza belongs on ceramic but that’s just the way it is. This is also true with metal flatware and plastic flatware (from the same picnic set). I prefer to eat ice cream or cereal with the plastic spoons and use the metal ones to stir drinks or mix when cooking. Yes, I’m strange!

- When I get bored or have to wait a long time for something to load at work or on the computer at home I softly “bounce” or bump my mouse up and down three times as a way to vent about the down time and hear the bump, bump, bump sound.

Okay, now that you think I’m a freak I’ll sign off with some good news – I got my final grades for the Spring quarter and it seems that my professor curved the Accounting grades so I did better than I thought I would. I really struggled in that class and I’m happy to be done with it and for it not to totally ruin my GPA! New classes start on Monday so I’ll update on how they go.

I'm Glad...

2008-06-12T10:52:00.001-06:00

I’m glad that I don’t live in the Midwest right now. With all the flooding and tornados that have pummeled the area for the last month it just seems like they can’t get a break. Goodness. I was watching the Today Show this morning and they were interviewing some of the boy scouts that had been at the camp – what a hard situation for young, teenage boys. But they were prepared better than I would have been and it sounds like their boy scout training paid off with a quick response. For an organization that’s had a bit of heat lately with the gay leader debate and the reference to God in their pledge I’m happy that they’ve shown the benefits of the program.

On a more shallow note, I’m also glad that Michael’s has a great sale on beads right now because tonight I’m going to make some new bracelets with the finds that I got yesterday during my lunch hour. I love it when there’s no school stuff to do and I can use my lunch breaks for shopping and running errands – it’s great to get out of the office and enjoy the weather plus do some “me” things.

I’m also glad that it’s one day from the weekend and I’m really excited to have some time to clean up my house and start my summer quarter off on the right foot Monday (which means reorganizing my school bag, doing some pre-reading and making sure my house is ready for bits of neglect while I’m studying)!

I'm a Chick Magnet, Too Bad I'm Wearing Fat Pants

2008-06-11T10:10:00.001-06:00

What? Chick magnet? Yep. My pigeon momma (Sadie is what I’ve nicknamed her) is now a proud mother and since they are nesting on my deck I am a proud mother/landlord for the crew. Last week I did my weekly check to see what was going on because I hadn’t heard anything and I scared Sadie away (which is why I don’t check too often – I don’t want to freak them out). What I found was a baby bird that wasn’t moving and an egg that hadn’t hatched. I thought that I had a dead bird and a dud of an egg and was really sad for Sadie. But, last night I did another check because I wasn’t sure if there was a chance the egg may still hatch. Good news! Sadie was off getting food I think because she wasn’t there but there were two bundles of feathers cuddling together and it looked like they were both breathing. I’m so happy that my little guys survived and I look forward to hearing little chirps from them as they get bigger.

So about fat pants…I had to do some shopping last night for some interim pants. Here’s the deal, I’ve gained about 10 pounds since I started school in September. Unfortunately I was also in a job where I ate out a lot with sales people so my weight wasn’t in a very safe place before school started. Anyway, fast forward to the last six months where I’ve switched jobs, been hanging out with my brother before he left, in a hard quarter at school and you have a perfect equation for some major emotional eating! It’s just gotten out of control, my clothes aren’t fitting and I’m not feeling very great about myself or my appearance right now. The funny thing is that most of my summer skirts fit (because I like the flowing 50’s style) but finding pants/capris/shorts that work in my wardrobe is not easy. Therefore, I had to go on a quest for some quick fix pants to wear while I work to get my weight down. My philosophy is that I won’t buy a new wardrobe for my new weight, instead fitting back into my clothes properly is my weight-loss incentive. But no pants for the summer? I couldn’t go that far so I’ve found some that will do for a little while and I’ll be happy to give them away when they are too loose for me!

My plan is to start working out with some great DVD’s that were recommended by Fitness magazine (love the internet) which should come in the next day or so. That will help me tone up and firm up which will make my body perception better. The big change is getting back to food discipline. I actually lost about 35 pounds between my freshmen and sophomore years of college by following the Weight Down Workshop, a program where you only eat when you’re hungry and don’t eat more than your body needs to be satisfied – essentially you eat the way our bodies were made to eat, using food for fuel and not overdoing it or eating too often. My problem my entire life is that I eat when I’m not hungry (because I’m bored, or mad, or lonely, whatever emotion is prevalent at the time) and I indulge in the yummy foods by eating more than a serving size. Now that my brother is off and I’ll be spending more time at home I have more control over my food and can take charge over my habits.

Wish me luck, I’ll update on any progress as the weeks go by.

Adios

2008-06-09T11:01:00.001-06:00

So yesterday my brother, Rob, flew off to London for a few days and then he’ll continue to Israel where he’s joining an archeology dig for the summer. It was very sad, as always to see him go. Though we spent the whole weekend as a family it had that strange feeling like we were all anticipating how soon he’d leave – almost like he was nearly gone all weekend. Does that make sense? It was very strange.

After seeing him off I went home and enjoyed some time with my cats while watching movies, took a nap and enjoyed a lazy day at my place. I’ve been looking forward to coming home instead of to my parent’s house on weekends and after work now that my brother is gone. I rearrange a lot of my plans so I can hang out while he’s at home but now I’m free to be at my home, cook and clean and spend time with my cats. Plus, I’ll get to watch those Blockbuster movies that started arriving!

I watched “P.S. I Love You” yesterday because it was waiting for me in the mail. Great movie, especially when you’re in a crying mood but man, I needed Kleenex to make it through! On my summer TV viewing list are a bunch of ABC Family Channel made-for-TV movies that are coming out on Sunday nights this summer. Yes, I’m sure they will all be predictable and very family-friendly fare but I think that movies like that are a fun change of pace. I watched “The Circuit” last night about female teen race car driver – not bad! I also watch the Disney channel because I love the funny, predictable, clean shows. So if you’re looking for something to make you smile check out their listings.

Good Friday!!

2008-06-06T14:52:00.001-06:00

It’s Friday! It’s been a long day here in the office because almost all of the management team is gone along with several or us worker bees. We guessed that because it was going to be a slow day we would probably get a visit from our President (who doesn’t work onsite but pops in for meetings or works on short projects here). He’s notorious for popping in on Friday afternoons to walk the office and see who’s here and make sure we’re not wearing jeans (apparently that was a big debate before I came on and he is enforcing his decision). Well, he sure did show up and is camped out in the break room signing checks and other odds and ends. Nice!

Anyway, I got to meet some friends from Baxa, my old company, for lunch and enjoyed catching up with them. Things seem to be a bit crazy over there so I’m more and more thankful that I bowed out when I did. Just as a way to paint the picture of my relationships over there…I’ve seen these two friends (who were in different departments then me) a few times in the two months that I’ve been gone plus emailed back and forth so I’d say we’ve kept in touch. Ironically, the HR team that I worked in hasn’t emailed me and I haven’t seen any of them. I’ve sent a few emails their direction and maybe had a reply back but it just shows me that my observations and feelings were correct when I didn’t think I fit in with them and seemed to be left out. It’s actually okay because I’m not heartbroken that I don’t hang out with them, it’s just interesting that my Baxa friends assume that I would be in the loop with the HR team just as I am with other friends.

I have about two more hours left of work which will inevitably drag on but I’m excited for the weekend. I have no homework, get to hang out with my family and spend Rob’s last days in the states with him. We’re celebrating Father’s Day early so that Rob can be a part of the festivities. When I say celebrate I mostly mean cook and eat a lot of food. I’ll be rolling home on Sunday.

Goal for the weekend = pedicure. I’ve been meaning to get my “beginning of sandal season” pedicure for a while now and it just hasn’t happened yet. If I’m lucky I may be able to steal my sister away on Sunday and get one as we’re in a sad mood from Rob leaving. Good sister bonding and nice toes as a result.

Grey Day

2008-06-05T11:42:00.001-06:00

On this lovely June day it is grey, raining and 56 degrees outside! Yep, nothing says spring like the feeling of winter! Anyway, the birds are loving it because there are lots of worms waiting for them on the grass and once the sun comes out tomorrow we’ll have a nice, green weekend thanks to the moisture. It’s one of those days when you don’t want to get out of bed because you can hear the rain outside and see that’s it’s grey outside. You just want to stay under the covers, snuggle with the cats and sleep in. Not today, had to go to work and drive in the splashy streets to get here.

The weather has put me in a movie mood and inspired me to resubscribe to Blockbuster online. I cancelled my membership about 2 years ago when I was getting too busy to watch everything that came in the mail for me. Over the last 9 months my brother had Netflix so whenever I hung out with the family we had movies to watch there. Now that he is leaving and his Netflix membership is cancelled I am at a loss for movies again. Yes, I do spend two nights a week at school but once my brother is gone I’ll spend more time at home (which I’ve been needing to do anyway but choose to be at mom and dad’s instead – I’m looking forward to more time at home).

I really like nights at home with the cats when we cook something yummy and watch a movie, maybe while surfing online. I had fun today putting movies in my queue, all kinds of stories that I can’t wait to see. If you have any good movies that I need to add please let me know. Since I hardly ever go to the movies I find myself forgetting those movies that I tell myself I want to see on DVD when they are released.

That’s it for now, I’m off to meet my family for lunch, I’ll be seeing Grandma too and get my first look at all her bumps and bruses.

Thumbs Up

2008-06-04T13:48:00.001-06:00

So today over my lunch hour I took my cats to the vet. It had been about four and half years since we’d been and I knew that one of my cats had needed a teeth cleaning back then. Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I checked out my cat’s mouth when he yawned and I saw a bunch of irritated gums and plaque all over his teeth. Yuck. It was time to go back to the vet and take care of that, plus they are both overweight and I wanted some advice on how to slim them down. I must admit I was nervous because I would feel awful if something had happened to them health-wise in the time since we’d last been to the vet. Luckily, they are both healthy and I have some new ideas for keeping the weight down. They both go in for teeth cleanings in a week (that will last all day and cost a pretty penny) and then we’ll be all done with the vet for a while.

I got good news today that I did well on the marketing final and with the end of quarter participation grade added in I managed to get a A in the class! This makes me really happy because I had resigned myself to the fact that I would receive a B in the class since the grading was 1) really hard and 2) not necessity a good reflection of our lectures and what we were actually learning. Everyone in the class had been complaining about how low all our grades were (online we can also see the class averages for the assignments and they were always in the 80-85% range, way lower than any of our other classes). Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to see the grades online and realize that I had done what I thought was impossible and end up with an A! that will help off-set my Accounting grade which I’ll get later this week – that’s going to hurt I think.

GRANDMA UPDATE

She’s healing after her fall and went to a specialist with my mom yesterday to make sure that the dislocation of her pinky (I thought it had been her wrist but I turns out it was her pinky that was dislocated and broke through the skin in the process) was clean and there weren’t any complications. They said she was fine, gave her a more manageable splint for it and she’ll be back next week to check on healing and hopefully start some therapy to starting moving it again.

Another good thing (we’ll say it’s a good thing) that we’ve realized through this is that her decision making abilities have really slipped. She wanted to go out for a walk the day after her fall – bad idea, and she keeps forgetting that she’s been hurt and does things that go against what she needs to do to heal properly (keeping things dry, bandaged and immobile). This brings us to the fact it’s time to move her from the cottage setting in the retirement community (where she is self-reliant) to an assisted living situation. We’d been planning on moving her into an apartment in the complex (which does have some caregivers available to check up on her) when the newest building is completed at the end of the summer but now it looks like she’ll bypass that and wait a few more months for the assisted living wing to be completed and move in there. In the meantime we may have to do an elder day-care for her so someone can keep an eye on her all day. It’s so sad to see her becoming more and more incapable of taking care of herself and retreating into the void of her memory. She used to be strong and smart and taught all of the grandkids to cook in her old kitchen where she and my grandpa lived for 40 something years. Now we have to make decisions about how to keep her from hurting herself or others in the decisions that she makes – growing old sucks.