the only constant is change

lazy/productive

2009-02-05T05:13:45Z

Finally getting around to organizing my recovered pictures and music. I started with the music first because that was slightly easier and not nearly as many files. Most of it came back intact, though I did find one entire folder where the music did not match the files... not just that they were named wrong, but it was like the files shifted how. In one file there would be the last half of one song and the first half of another song. Very annoying. I'll probably be asking for help soon in getting some of the files replaced.

In going through the picture folders, I'm missing a few pictures here and there, most of which is replaceable from other people's computers or CDs of pictures I'd previously burned. One picture I'm missing though is from last month, when I was still doing Project 365. It was the only picture I took on December 18th, and I can't for the life of me figure out what I took a picture of that day. It really sucks. But nothing I can do about it now :(

Today I slept til nearly 2pm... felt so nice to turn off the alarm and wake up whenever I felt like it. I was highly productive this afternoon though! I did the dishes, washed my sheets, did two loads of laundry and took out the trash (which is officially my least favorite chore). I also finally mailed out my camera to Canon for repair... the dead pixels that appeared last month have been spreading, and it was starting to look like the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I should have done it much sooner, but I kept forgetting. Finally Matt reminded me yesterday and I called them today. It will probably take a week or two for it to be repaired and sent back to me, which sucks because then I won't have it for when dad and I go to Daytona next weekend... but I'd rather have a fixed camera than deal with the big splotch of dead pixels, and it's my own fault for waiting so long. Plus, I only had a month left in the warranty, so better late than never.

LOVING this cold weather... and adding another blanket to my bed tonight :)

in working order

2009-01-23T05:10:23Z

Finally have a working computer again, hooray!!! I was able to get most all of my data back, even if most of it is all jumbled and out of order. It'll take quite a while to sort through everything and get it all organized again, but as long as it's there I don't mind. And it's good to have a fully functioning keyboard again :) Once I can get a copy of Photoshop (anyone have CS2 that I can snag from them???) I'll be able to start uploading photos again. My flickr is over a month behind again, eek. Anyway, I've had a severe lack of sleep this week, and I've done 6 hours of overtime too. Not a good combination. Off to bed now to get some much-needed shut-eye.

p.s. I LOVE this cold weather, but it makes it SO much harder to get up in the morning. ugh.

crap-top

2009-01-08T06:46:59Z

found the connector cable for my laptop!! forgot how slow and crappy ths thng s especally consderng some of the eys on my eyboard don't wor... as you can tell. please forgve the lac of certan letters and pretend le ths entry s an epsode of wheel of fortune :) except you can't buy any vowels. Lucly my passwords to log nto webpages such as lvejournal and faceeboo don't use any of the letters that can't type.

my laptop has Frefox verson 1.0.7 wow. tred to download the latest verson... the download too nearly 5 mnutes. Then tred to open the fle and an error message says the fle s corrupt. What the crap?? oh well. verson 1 s better than nothng at all.

Anyway off to bed go. more cryptc updates to come later probably... just because ths amuses me so :)

the first week of 2009

2009-01-08T03:55:00Z

I'm still alive. Sadly I can't say the same for my computer. But I'll get to that in a minute.

Had a pretty good New Year's Eve... spent the evening with Yeny, KC, Kris, Keith and Tera. We played board games and ate a ton of chips and dip. Went to sleep around 7am and slept in til nearly 2pm. After we dragged ourselves out of bed, Yeny and KC went furniture-shopping with me to pick out a new couch (as my Christmas present from my parents). I ended up finding a huge, cushy corner couch. Black leather bottom and arms with tan suede cushions. Soooo awesome. And I picked out the matching black leather cocktail ottoman to go with it. Came back home to my computer, which had crashed earlier in the day and gave me the blue screen of death. I got so mad that I broke the keyboard drawer on my desk... knocked it completely off both sliders and now it's stuck. But that was the least of my worries at the time. KC tried to fix it and unfortunately didn't help much. Luckily Keith came over to look at it the next day. I thought I lost all my files, but they are recoverable... it will just take a few more days to rescue everything. Anyway...

My new couch got delivered today. It just fits in my living room, and it looks so nice. I had to do a bit of re-arranging, but in the end I think I really like how my living room looks now. I still have to work on re-arranging the stuff on the walls though. That'll be a project for this weekend maybe.

Before the couch got delivered today, I had to get rid of the love seat and two couches that previously occupied my living room. I planned on just giving them all to Goodwill this morning. The other day I mentioned this to Simon and he asked to take one of the couches and the love seat. He came over yesterday and helped me get them in the truck and over to his house. Afterward he took me out to dinner to say thanks. We went to this adorable little Italian restaurant. Wonderful food and great conversation... one of the best nights I've had in a long while :)

I love random little moments... Sitting here at my computer, I heard my cell phone (out in the living room) receive a text message. Usually when this happens I'll check the twitter home page to see if someone tweeted so I know whether or not to get up and check it (I'm so lazy). and sure enough, it was Adam, as usual. that just made me laugh :) btw Adam, I figured out the problem from yesterday with me not getting the messages... every once in a while Twitter will disable the texts to my phone because it says it hasn't heard from me. It's done this a few times now and it's annoying, especially since I can't even re-enable it from the mobile site, I have to do it from my computer. Annoying, but oh well.

That's about it for now. Keith is taking my hard drive with him to finish recovering all my data, so it'll be a few more days before I have a fully functioning computer again. I apologize if anyone has made any important updates lately... I haven't read anything since new year's and probably won't get to for a few more days. Hopefully I can find my connector cable for my laptop though, then I can still have internet here *crosses fingers* If not, at least my cell phone has media net, mobile e-mail and aim. I will survive. haha!

Christmas 2008

2008-12-27T07:49:46Z

Where did December go? How is Christmas already here and gone? 5 days until a whole new year.

This year was a pretty good Christmas. Didn't get to go home, but I spent it with friends and still had a great time.

I did most of my Christmas shopping early since I had to mail my parents their presents. Shopped for their presents first and shipped off the package last week. Finished the last of my shopping by Saturday so I could take my time wrapping everything (which is my favorite part). Actually, I think it took more time for me to find boxes for everything than it did to wrap them. Luckily I have a whole stash of boxes in my storage closet outside.

Had Wednesday off from work so I slept in and relaxed most of the day. Spent the evening hanging out at Simon and George's house. Kathy and Michelle came over, and two of Simon's friends. We watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. My first time seeing it, and it was hilarious. I'm sad that it took me this long to see it. Hung out for a while then went back home and picked up all the presents and headed to Yeny's place around 1:30am. Helped Yeny and KC put together photo frames and wrap presents for the morning. Finally went to bed around 4:30am, and we got up around 8:30am.

Yeny, KC and I headed off to KC's parents' house in Ocoee for a few hours, then we all went to Groveland to his grandparents' house for Christmas with the extended family. He has three cousins that are all around our age, and us "young'uns" hung out together most of the day. Everyone opened presents, then it was time for the big meal, which had some awesome food as always. The "old people" sat at the formal dining room table and us "kids" ate at the kitchen table. A few people napped after lunch... most of us sat around the living room and the porch half-asleep.

Eventually we cleared the tables and got some people together to play Apples to Apples, which i had recently aquired. Such a fun game! But playing with 10 people takes for-ever, especially if the older people don't get the idea right away. But it was still a lot of fun. We headed back to the apartment around 8pm and opened the last of the presents. I gave KC the classic edition of the board game Risk, which we played until I finally was half-passed out at the table by 2am. Finally went home and passed out in my bed.

Didn't get many presents this year, but I wasn't asking for or expecting very many anyway. My best present is a new couch and love seat for my living room from my parents. I will have to go pick them out soon. I can't wait to get rid of my old, itchy, lumpy floral couches!

Work today was pretty slow in the morning, and got really busy around mid-day, then slacked off again by the end of the night. All my customers were in much better moods than the ones I had the day after Thanksgiving, so that was good. Anyway, it's late and I have slept about 12 hours in the last 3 days so I'm off to bed. Hope everyone else had a great holiday as well, even if they just spent the holiday eating Chinese food and playing video games ;)

December is National Stress Free Family Holiday Month

2008-12-18T06:12:33Z

Can't believe I haven't updated yet this month... but December has been pretty boring so far. Work, home, sleep, repeat... that's about it.

Got almost all my Christmas shopping done last week, and shipped off all the presents for my parents this afternoon. I only have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, which isn't much time to go home. So I'm staying in Orlando again, like I did last year. Sucks... but at least I did get to go home three times earlier this year. I also mailed off a bunch of Christmas cards, so I feel pretty productive lately.

That's about it for now... I seriously need to work on my bedtime, because my current sleep schedule sucks.

Did you know there's a School for Santas?

food, football, friends and fun

2008-11-29T05:41:09Z

I've slept about 14 hours in the past 3 days... don't know how I'm this awake at the moment. But it's been a fun few days. I worked Monday and Tuesday, then had Wednesday off. Went to see Twilight for a second time with my co-worker Reena. So worth it. and it was much nicer to see it without a million screaming girls in the theater. We chatted for a while after then I headed home to clean stuff up and get ready to head across town.

Spent the night at Simon's house Wednesday night so we could all be up early Thursday to get cooking early for Thanksgiving dinner. Didn't go to sleep til about 4am, and was up by 8am. Everyone else slowly started showing up around 11am, and pretty soon the kitchen was packed with food and people. We had lots of appetizers and started getting full from them! Luckily the cooking took longer than expected so we were hungry again by the time dinner was ready. George smoked the turkey for about 10 hours, and put it on the grill to finish off. It ended up catching on fire (I'm behind on Flickr, but check out facebook for pictures!) but he rescued it pretty quickly. It still turned out amazing... the best turkey I think I've ever had. We had a TON of awesome food, and more leftovers than we knew what to do with. After dinner we all hung out and played Rock Band for a few hours. Then it was time for a suger overload with dessert. Someone bought a caramel apple pie with pecans on top... it was soooo gooood :) and my pecan pie tarts pretty much disappeared. We hung out for a while longer, and finally everyone was gone around midnight. I was so tired I crashed on the couch again.

Had to work today, which kinda sucked. Everyone else that had to work was cranky about having to be there too. But, we get double time and a half because today was considered a holiday as well, so that made us feel a little better at least. My co-workers Mari and Alice were practically alone in their section so I sat at Chris's desk and kept them company for the day, which was fun.

That's about it for now. I need sleep... still need to make it through another 8 hours tomorrow! blegh.

sittin' there like a bump on a log

2008-11-21T04:38:15Z

A few of my co-workers like to get a little loud and crazy once in a while (well, more like every day). Two in particular that sit right behind me are a big source of entertainment for the rest of us. They always get into discussions about the strangest things. and one of them is a total backwoods country boy. He comes up with the funniest sayings sometimes. Here's a conversation I overheard tonight...
(imagine S talking with a very strong southern accent)

S: Dag dabbit!
J: *sigh* What's wrong now? [S is always complaining about something]
S: My screen was stuck like a knot on a log!
J: Huh?
S: You know, a knot on a log!
J: I've never heard that before.
me: I've heard that before. Not for a long while though. But think about it, it's true.
S: Yeah, stuck like a knot on a log. You don't see the knot movin' nowhere.
J: That's true I guess... Though it would probably move if you were drunk...
me: haha, I bet it would!
J: Come to think of it, I've seen a lot of inanimate objects move after I start drinkin... hah!
me: *dies laughing*

my co-workers crack me up sometimes :)

race weekend in the rear view

2008-11-20T05:33:28Z

Back in Orlando... had so much fun this weekend. I drove home Friday afternoon; got some stuff done around town and visited some old co-workers. Had dinner with the parents. Went to bed late and got up way too early (5:30am!). Got to the track before 7am and parked in the second row, which was perfect. It was so hot on Saturday... we tried to stay in the shade as much as possible. We went to the grandstands for a while to watch practice, and I had to go downstairs after only 20 minutes before I passed out. I drank lots of water and we had some lunch and a quick nap, then headed back to the stands for the race. Yay Carl! and yay Clint on getting the championship! Headed home and went to bed late and got up early again, 5am this time!

Got the same parking spot again on Sunday morning, this time setting everything up in the chilly air and gusty winds! That was an adventure. We had pit passes for Sunday so we spent about 2 hours walking up and down pit road, taking tons of pictures. Didn't get any autographs or run into any drivers (but Bob Osborne walked right by us!). Went back to the truck and ate lunch and took another power nap then headed back to the grandstands. Broke my camera (knocked the lens crooked as it was turning off) and finally fixed it about an hour later (yay!) The chilly air was great, but I was only wearing a t-shirt and jacket, and by the end of the race was pretty damn cold from the strong winds. Went back to the truck and grilled hot dogs for dinner while waiting for the traffic to clear. Got even more cold, and was practically running circles around my truck trying to keep warm. Finally drove home and passed out pretty early.

Monday morning we all had breakfast at home, then dad and I headed back to Orlando. I took him to dinner at High Tide Harry's and he loved it. I love that place more and more every time I go there! Tuesday I had the day off again so we went to breakfast then shopped for a while (well, did more looking and planning than actual shopping). He headed north in the afternoon; he's spending the week with his mom in Lake City. He'll be back Saturday night to spend the night with me again, and I have to take him to Smokey Bones... no complaining here! :)

So after 2 straight days of walking all around at the racetrack, I decided my sneakers had just about had it. They're about 2-3 years old so they had a pretty good run. I decided to go shoe-shopping tonight... and couldn't find anything. I've only worn Adidas for the past 10 years or so. But tonight, between two different shoe stores, I barely found any Adidas, and the ones they did have I didn't really like. Well, I really liked one pair but of course they didn't have my size. I finally found an awesome pair of black and tweed skate shoes though, so I'm happy. and it was buy one get one half off, so I got another pair of skate shoes in white and blue. score! :)

After my extended weekend of vacation it was hard to go back to work today. Usually I don't even feel like I was gone when I come back from vacation, but this trip was so long and jam-packed and exhausting I felt like I was gone for a month. I'm so glad I took an extra day off yesterday so I could relax and have a vacation from my vacation! haha

That's it for now. I'm still recovering from this weekend and I feel dead right now. Off to bed!

random thoughts on november so far

2008-11-13T23:23:24Z

I cannot believe Thanksgiving is in two weeks. There is no way that's possible.

Earlier this month I went to Adam & Liz's wedding, my second wedding in as many months. At least I didn't have to help plan anything with this one, I just had to show up and have fun. And take lots of pictures. They had the ceremony at Cypress Grove Park... what a gorgeous place! It was so much fun. and I loved taking pictures of everything and everyone there... over 300 by the end of the day!

This weekend I'm taking my last few vacation days of the year... Yesterday was my last day of work until next Wednesday. I'm heading home this weekend. Dad and I will be spending all day Saturday and Sunday at the track for the last races of the season. After this weekend I won't have anything to watch on Sundays until February! haha.

Finally got the Twilight soundtrack... Amazon sent me the wrong thing the first time around. First time I ever had a problem with them. They shipped out the correct album pretty fast though, so that was good. and speaking of Twlight, I've gotten three other people at work to read the books after me. We're trying to make plans for everyone to go see the movie the Friday evening that it comes out after everyone gets out of work. Hopefully I can get everyone organized and buy them online before it gets sold out for the time that we can all go. I can't wait!!!

My digital camera has a bunch of dead pixels on the screen. Sooo annoyed!!!

My high school physics teacher just added me on facebook. wow.

That's it for now. Probably won't get a chance to update again until I get back to Orlando. If I even remember then. I've totally sucked at updating lj lately. But you can always keep up with me on Twitter! :)

Happy Halloween

2008-11-01T03:59:14Z

Yliana asked me today if I was happy. Not just at that moment, but in general. It caught me off guard, but after a minute I said "yeah, I think I am." She said "it shows." and it just made me feel even better. I have been in a pretty good mood this week... this cooler weather really helps! and I've been burning my mistletoe-scented candle lately... getting into the holiday mood. and this week I (finally!) went back to the dermatologist. The peeling on my face has gotten out of control, and the cooler, dryer air just makes it worse. In the three days I've used the lotion she prescribed, I've noted a big difference already, which is awesome. My face is still peeling a little in the most problematic areas, but for the most part it looks a little better, and feels a lot better. I hate having to wash my face twice a day, but I'm making myself do it so it'll be worth it in the end.

Even though I ended up getting pretty much everything I needed for my tourist custome, I finally decided not to dress up, because everyone else I talked to wasn't going to, and I'm glad I didn't. Chris and my manager were the only ones on my side of the building that I saw all day that were dressed up. Chris came as Wolverine, and David was Elvis (see below for pictures!) which was so cool. My manager is seriously made of awesome. At any rate, it was a pretty slow day at work, which was nice. Came home just in time to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. Had maybe 20 kids show up. There were a few vampires and ghosts, one or two Frankensteins, one pretty princess, and the cutest little firefighter (about 3 years old) who practically tried to tak the entire bowl of candy, haha.

In other news... I can't get over how much I love Paramore. I have listened to Riot nearly non-stop for most of this week. Perfect music to get me through a work day. and to drive home. and to just sit here and relax.

that's it for now. busy day tomorrow, and I need sleep!!

thankyaverymuch

My manager David as Elvis

Wolverine's day job

Chris as Wolverine

let's duke it out

Elvis and Wolverine get ready to duel! Of course this is work and they can't really kill each other. There will be no bloodshed... today. Afterward, I asked David who he thought would have won if they really did fight. He said Wolverine would have won, but Elvis would have gotten style points. haha!

i want to be dazzled

2008-10-27T06:20:28Z

No excuse for not updating these past few weeks... I've just been lazy lately. It's been a welcome change of pace from the craziness of August and September.

Today's weather was absolutely gorgeous! I so love fall. I opened my front door and the sliding glass door to the patio, and it made a nice little breeze through my living room :) Watched a fairly decent Atlanta race (yay Carl!) and spent some time making sunlight prints with my latest purchase. So fun. My first attempt didn't come out too good, but the next two came out pretty awesome. see here and here.

I read all four books of the Twilight series in 8 days. They were that good. I used to laugh at the obsessive nature of Harry Potter fans... but now I understand. I guess vampires are just more my thing, haha. Besides, Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen is oh so HOT. A few of my co-workers just finished reading the series as well, and it's nearly all we've talked about for the past two weeks or so. I haven't been this into a set of books since I read The Secret Circle trilogy in middle school. It's kind of ridiculous. I could go on and on about it but it's late and I'm tired and planned on going to bed 2 hours ago.

But before I go, I want to metion that this past week I discovered Sixx:AM, my newest musical obsession besides Paramore (how did I not listen to them before now??!). I've hardly listened to anything besides The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack the past few days. It's fantastic. After hearing "Life Is Beautiful" a few times on the radio I decided I had to find the album. I had no idea of the backstory of the group or the album but it was really interesting when I read about it, and made me listen to the album in a whole new way. Awesome stuff.

and one more thought... Halloween is this Friday, and I'll be working that day. I'm debating if I'm going to dress up or not. If I do, I have no idea what I'll be. I thought about doing my usual cowgirl outfit, but my plaid shirt doesn't really fit anymore :( Last year I wanted to be a tacky tourist but never found a hawaiian shirt, and still haven't. I dunno if I even want to dress up. Anyone have any suggestions?

and it's now nearly 2:30am and my alarm will be going off in 5 hours. blegh. goodnight.

wedding in review

2008-10-08T05:21:48Z

On October 1st I went to change my wall calendar and realized that it was still on August. September sure flew by...

Anyway, so the wedding is finally here and gone. We threw together this backyard wedding on a shoestring budget in about 2 months. We hoped for the best, and counted on the worst. In the end it all came together better than we expected... a beautiful ceremony with its share of memorable moments, and a fun reception. It was a long and stressful road, but we all survived, and the amazing couple is now happily married.

There were so many funny moments during the ceremony that I'm really glad we had two video cameras. Nobody fell at least, which was good (and we were worred about). We were supposed to start at 4pm, and finally started around 5:15pm. The groom and his groomsmen walked out, then it was time for the co-maids of honor (since she couldn't give just one of us the title). We were all lined up and ready to go when I realized I didn't have my shoes on! and I'm at the head of the line. Luckily I knew where they were. Threw my shoes on and off we went. Then the flower girl, who is concentrating so hard on making sure she evenly throws the flower petals everywhere that she never looks up. Then the one-year-old ring bearer... who was promptly distracted by the flower petals left by the flower girl. Grandma tries to hurry him down the aisle to no luck, and the groom finally meets him halfway and carries him down to the front. While KC was handing off Kylan to his dad, we can hear Holly whispering to Yeny to start walking out the back door... then we hear Yeny practically yell "but he's not looking at me yet!" Everyone had a good laugh at that :) Just before that, someone had yelled (loudly) for Beth our makeshift DJ to start playing the wedding march music when the ring bearer first came out, so we had to wait for her to start the music over. Yeny finally makes it down the aisle. The preacher pronounced her name mostly right, but said KC's name wrong 2 out of 3 times. They both got choked up during the vows, and nearly everyone got teary-eyed. Then the kiss! Then they take their first steps as husband and wife. yay!

After taking lots of pictures, we can eat and the fun can begin! Everyone there had a great time. We danced til the evening... most everyone left around 9pm and we start cleaning up. All the grandparents are relaxing in the air-conditioned house by now... so the entire wedding party is left to clean everything up and lug all the tables and chairs back to the garage. In the hot and muggy weather, after we've already been outside all afternoon/evening. While still in our suits and dresses. Definitley not fun. The girls finally changed about half-way through and came back to finish cleaning. We managed to pack most everything into my truck and Jeff's, and headed back home about 11pm. After unloading everything at their apartment, it was time for presents! They got some really nice gifts, and lots of gift cards. I finally went home around 3am and collapsed into my bed. Luckily we all had Monday off of work to recover.

After that whole crazy week, and especially the weekend, I needed a lot of ME time, and sleep. Of course, no rest for the weary... KC's mom and sister were still in town until this past Saturday so most of last week was spent with them before they left. And still not getting a lot of sleep. Finally on Sunday I slept in til 2pm... nearly 12 hours of sleep! and I slept like a rock too, which doesn't happen often. But I guess that's what happens when I'm finally tired enough.

now, for pictures!

bridal party

Not the best picture of all of us, but the only one I had at the time that I started uploading the pictures from my camera.

Clicking the picture will take you to the whole set of pictures on flickr. Enjoy!

and now it's time for me to go enjoy my bed! :)

wedding countdown: 4 days

2008-09-24T07:41:46Z

I keep meaning to update and never have time to sit down and just type. 3am seems as good a time as any since I don't have to work tomorrow... though I still have a packed day planned. But first, let's backtrack...

Sunday was Yeny's batchelorette party. Yeny, me, Kris, Sony (the third bridesmaid), Caroline (Yeny's friend from high school), Tera (Keith's gf) and Holly (KC's step-mom)... We had dinner and drinks at Chili's, then went bowling at Semoran Lanes. Never been there before but it was nice, and the place was nearly empty! I think I like it better than Aloma Bowl. Anyway... Holly and Tera left after one game. The rest of us bowled and drank some more. After a while, someone mentioned going downtown, and off we went. Ended up at Tabu (and had even more drinks)... my first time there, and I originally thought probably my last. But it really wasn't that bad, though I probably would have had more fun if I hadn't had cramps from hell. We got back to Yeny's around 2am, and I finally got home at 5:30am. I so did not make it to work on Monday. Got about 5 hours of sleep then met Yeny, KC and Kris (who also called out of work, probably only because I didn't go in) for lunch. After lunch I planned on going back home for a nap but we ended shopping for about 3 hours instead. Yeny found a dress to wear after the wedding and I got a new pair of shoes. Went to George and Simon's to hang out and celebrate George's birthday, and Simon's dad's last week in the states before he leaves to start his new job in Dubai this weekend. George made the best ribs ever. I enjoyed them, even if my stomach didn't enjoy them later. I finally passed out around 2am.

Still felt like crap this morning but forced myself to go to work anyway. My second call of the day was a very mean old lady who yelled at me for a while, and yelled at me some more when I didn't have a manager available, and eventually hung up on me. I got so mad I threw my headset on the desk and one of the earpieces popped out, hanging by a wire (luckily it popped right back in place later). I eventually calmed down, and the rest of the day passed by uneventfully. Went shopping after work to find gel insoles for the high heels I have to wear this weekend. Was planning on going to bed early tonight but had to drop off some stuff for Yeny when she got out of work at 11, and ended up getting home at 3am. oh well.

Tomorrow I'm meeting Sony to get our nails done (I'm getting acrylics for the first time in 12 years), then getting Yeny from work so we can pick up her dress and the bridesmaids dresses from the seamstress. Then we'll be picking up KC's mom and sister from the airport late at night. I can't wait to meet them. and I can't wait for this week (and weekend) to be over. If I don't fall apart first.

How I wish I could just go to sleep until Sunday.

shop 'til I drop

2008-09-19T02:52:30Z

I never thought I'd say I was tired of shopping... actually, I'm just tired of shopping for this damn wedding. I've been to Waterford Lakes more time in the past two weeks than I think I've been all year. But we really got soooooo much stuff done this weekend. We crossed nearly everything off our list, which was awesome. Yeny got her dress on Monday, we ordered the flowers for the bouquets yesterday, and the bridesmaid dresses arrived this afternoon. Since I get out of work the earliest I was the first to see the dresses. They're prettier than I was expecting, which is nice. The pale pink color is pretty, but it looks icky against my skin color... but oh well.

We have to wait until Sunday to get an appointment with the seamstress that will do the alterations because none of us have a day off until then. All three of us have to get our dresses hemmed (I'm 5'3" and I'm the tallest of the three of us!) and I also have to get about 2 inches of material taken in at the top of the dress. It's frustrating being different sizes on the top and bottom :(

I can't believe I'm nearly 2 months behind in posting pictures here. I go on vacation and get thrown all out of whack. Of course, going crazy with this wedding isn't helping either. I can't wait until next Sunday then it'll be over. Thank goodness I have Monday off, I'll just collapse in a heap and die. or something.

Enough of an update for now. I leave with a picture of the roses we picked out for the bouquets. The pink one is for Yeny's bouquet, and the light pink one in the back is for the bridesmaids.

This has just not been my week...

2008-09-12T02:05:31Z

...for work, at least.

Monday I didn't feel good so I called out from work. Tuesday I forgot I'd switched schedules with a co-worker and came to work an hour and a half late. Luckily it got really slow around mid-day and they asked for volunteers to go home early. I happily obliged. My paycheck will look like crap, but I didn't care at the time.

Wednesday was my scheduled day off, yay. Kris and I finally found and ordered bridesmaids dresses for Yeny's wedding. Not what we had originally planned to get, which sucked. The lady taking our measurements said I had hispanic hips, haha. That was putting it nicely. We ended up picking out a decent dress, but I was still upset about not getting the dress we wanted. After Kris and I did more shopping we went back to Yeny's place and I watched Drillbit Taylor. Funnier than I was expecting, and I needed a good laugh.

Today I worked 8-5, because of the schedule switch I did with my co-worker. It was weird getting up before sunrise and I was pretty tired, but I didn't mind it actually. I got to work feeling good, and happy because it was slow. But of course I forgot to log in to the phone for 16 minutes, which just killed my stats for the rest of the day. *sigh* But the rest of the day was pretty good. After work, I went home and made soup for dinner. Chicken, mushrooms, peppers, corn, diced tomatos and chicken stock. With some rotini pasta thrown in too :) Pretty tasty, and gives me TONS of leftovers.

I just downloaded the soundtrack to Good Morning Vietnam and it makes me smile :)

I promise I'll catch up on pictures soon!!!

"I don't need any blinker fluid!"

2008-08-29T04:25:46Z

11:57pm - I'm not gonna make it to bed by midnight tonight, but I had the urge to update so bedtime will have to wait a little while. Besides, I was in bed by midnight last night but I didn't fall asleep until after 1am. I really hate my brain sometimes... it just doesn't ever turn off. Too bad it doesn't have an on/off switch so I can easily turn it off when I want (and NEED) sleep. Of course, my overactive and paranoid imagination doesn't help things any, what with all the creaks and pops that my apartment makes. Aaaanyway...

I had two training classes and a team meeting today at work, so I ended up only working for 3.5 hours, which was nice. and it was slow! Even better. The first training was 3 hours long, but it was with my favorite trainer. She has some terrible jokes but she always makes me laughs and keeps things interesting. Plus Jason was in the class with me, so it was good to see him and talk to him for a bit. I miss that kid a whole lot.

Two more days of work then I get a 2-day weekend! For someone that's stuck working Saturdays, that's exciting. I'm off on Labor Day... I finally have enough seniority in my department that I don't get scheduled for holidays unless I sign up to work for them, which is nice. I probably should, cause if I work on the holiday it's double pay... but I'd rather take the day off thankyouverymuch. Anyway, Simon asked me tonight if I wanted to go out to Wekiwa with some of our friends on Monday, which made me think of the Wekiwa trip we did back in 2002. I went back to read some of my old entries around that time and man did I update a LOT! about ridiculous things too. Like people had to know every minute of my life or something... and now I can hardly find time to write one paragraph about the last two weeks or so that I didn't update. How times change...

I'm starting to lose the enthusiasm i had for my picture project... and that scares me a little. I don't have any thoughts of quitting, but it is getting harder lately. I try not to repeat pictures, but after 8 months it's getting a bit difficult. The first few months of this year I had no shortage of exciting happenings to photograph, and plenty of willing subjects. But now life isn't quite so exciting... there's only so much that happens at work, and I'm starting to run out of interesting things to take pictures of around my apartment. I'm determined to see this thing through to the end... but it'll be a struggle in the mean-time.

Well that killed about 25 minutes... and now I'm off to bed. Goodnight!

ahhh, sleeeep

2008-08-28T04:00:55Z

I originally planned to go on a cleaning spree around the house on my day off today, but that didn't happen... I ended up sleeping the day away instead. I didn't get up until 12:30 or so and watched tv for a little bit then fell asleep on the couch for nearly three hours. I ended up doing absolutely nothing all day. Kinda mad at myself, but I needed to catch up on sleep I guess so I can't be that upset. Speaking of sleep, now that I have my new schedule for work, by goal is to go to bed by midnight on weekdays. Let's see how long I can keep this up :)

august is almost over

2008-08-27T06:30:31Z

Started my new shift at work today... I'm now working 9:30-6:30 with Wed/Sun off. It feels good to be back on a more "normal" schedule. It's tough to get up in the mornings, but not as hard as I thought it would be. and I like leaving while it's still daylight. It's really only a 2-hour difference from my previous schedule, but it just feels so different. Anyway...

Over the weekend, the a/c broke at work and it was practically a sauna on my side of the building. We moved to the other side temporarily but when the people on that side started coming in we moved back to our own desks and sweated it out. Luckily I have a little fan on my desk that I set up on top of my radio pointing right at my face. That helped a lot. It was still pretty warm today, but got a little cooler by the end of the day.

I'll catch up on my pictures posts soon, promise. I'm off work tomorrow and I plan on doing a lot of cleaning, but hopefully I can get around to posting pictures as well. In the meantime, here's a picture from tonight's crazy thunderstorm...

16 years ago...

2008-08-25T03:57:12Z

...everything changed.

Yesterday I finished scanning in the first of four photo albums from Hurricane Andrew (before, aftermath, rebuilding). I haven't seen some of these pictures in a long time. Many things I still remember vividly; other things I had forgotten about over the years.

Sometimes it seems like it's been just a few years... and sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago.

Fay, Fay, go away

2008-08-23T17:42:32Z

Headed for Homestead last Saturday, just in time to get ready for Tropical Storm Fay! Ruined most of the plans my parents and I had, but we still had a good time anyway. Went to my favorite seafood restaurant for my birthday dinner on Saturday since we knew the storm would be coming on Sunday, my actual birthday. We went out to breakfast on Sunday morning then spent the rest of the day in the house, and pretty much all of Monday as well while it just rained and rained, and rained some more. Tuesday the rain finally let up some, and we had dinner at the best Italian restaurant in town, which apparently got a makeover while I was gone. Just the building though; the food was as good as ever :)

Wednesday I had planned to drive back to Orlando, but Fay was still just sitting there covering most of the state, so I decided to stay another day. Went driving all over town, seeing some of the old and the new. Everytime I go home another building is closed, and another new development has popped up somewhere. It's crazy. Went to the local produce stand and got a strawberry key lime shake (whoever thought up that combination is a genius) and sat around enjoying the breezy afternoon.

Fay was still sitting over most of the state on Thursday, but I couldn't stay in Homestead forever so I headed north anyway. Stayed away from the coast where most of the flooding was and took the turnpike all the way up. It was a wild drive but I made it in one piece.

Once I finally got home, I had to make quite a few trips up my stairs because I brought so much stuff back with me. I aquired 3 boxes of pots, pans, silverware and tupperware that my mom had cleaned out from my grandma's house. Some of the tupperware is "harvest" colors (brown, orange, yellow and avocado green) which tells you how old it is, haha. I also brought back two boxes of photo albums so I can scan a bunch of pictures. That will be my mission for a while. I've got baby albums, birthdays, family vacations, Hurricane Andrew, all kinds of stuff. and out of the... *stops to count everything* 17 albums that I have, this won't even make a dent in the amount of pictures that are still at the house that haven't been scanned yet.

Anyway, that's enough for now. Back to scanning for a while. I'll try to catch up on pictures soon, although I took about 400 while I was gone so it might take a while.

Oh look, it's raining again. What a surprise. So glad I don't have to go back to work until Monday :)

Project 366, week 31

2008-08-07T06:37:01Z

Ok so I promised an update last night but I didn't get home until 3am and just went straight to bed. It was an impromptu night of good food and lots of fun. Anyway, here's last week's pictures. Enjoy.

red markers

Monday, July 28 -

new headset

Tuesday, July 29 - After my old headset finally went out, I got a new one (well, Chris's old one. but it works soo much better). I can finally hear customers again! I'm not sure that's such a good thing though... haha :)

workin' hard

Wednesday, July 30 - It was a slow night, for once.

keys to imagination

Thursday, July 31 - on the road to anywhere life takes me

what's up spidey?

Friday, August 1 - Spidey's just hangin' out over on Chris's desk.

pepper

Saturday, August 2 - My turn to dog-sit! I had to watch KC's parents' house and their dog this weekend.

away from the sun

Sunday, August 3 - Driving east on 408, watching the sun set in my rear view.

monday, monday

2008-08-05T05:10:06Z

Tonight, I took picture number 5,000 with my new camera. I've had it less than 5 months. Wow.

How apropos that this song comes up on my playlist just now... haha :)

Watched Without A Paddle and Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle over the weekend... hadn't seen either one before. Both were pretty hilarious. Especially Harold and Kumar... kinda sad it took me this long to see them!

Went bowling tonight for the first time in... forever. The last time I wrote about it here was October of last year. That's definitely a while ago. But I did pretty good! 117, 101 and 121. My goal was to at least break 100 each time, which I did, so I was happy :) Dinner at Chili's afterward... yummm.

Picture post coming tomorrow. I would do it tonight but my goal is to be asleep before 2am today, and I'm going to try hard to accomplish that. Walking away from the computer before I spend 3 more hours sitting here without realizing it.

what's a question?

2008-08-02T06:58:07Z

Today at work, I had to attend a two-hour training class on how to ask questions. Are you kidding me?? Now sometimes our training classes are useful and informative, especially if we learn about new phones or system updates. Others are pointless, and I'm glad to have the time off the phones. Today, the training was so ridiculous I would have gladly gone back upstairs, I didn't care how busy it was. This new trainer sucks, the topic was ridiculous, and we had to do all these "interactive role-playing" scenarios. I don't need a two-hour class to tell me how to ask the right questions to my customers. But I guess some people do, so they make us all suffer. *sigh*

Aaanyway, enough about work. I get to house- and dog-sit for a family across town this weekend. Should be fun. I may bring my PS2 with me so I can play on their big-screen TV :)

On a music note... I was never a huge fan of Coldplay. I liked their singles, but (to me) they got overplayed fairly quickly, and I was never interested enough to listen to any of their albums. When "Viva La Vida" came out, I was intrigued. I couldn't wait to get ahold of the new album. I finally got it last week, and have listened to it over and over and over again. It's definitely gotten me through the last few days of work. It doesn't get old, and there aren't any tracks I want to skip. For me, that's very rare. and exciting.

P.S. - I finally joined Twitter! :) If I haven't already found you, go find me!

Project 366, week 30

2008-08-01T06:02:52Z

Sometimes I'm late posting these because I don't upload my pictures to flickr right away, or maybe I don't have time to sit here and format my weekly post, or I just plain forget. Sometimes I take so many pictures it's hard to decide which one will represent that entire day. At any rate, I'm late once again. I'd say that I'll work on getting these up on time, but it probably won't happen, so I won't make promises I can't keep :) On to the pictures!

incongruous

Monday, July 21 - it seems that every week the meeting room loses another chair. This week Chris and I ended up sitting (and laying) on the floor. Ignore my hand that got in the way.

chocolate rice cake!

Tuesday, July 22 - Wiwin made a cake. Nicola made rice. Someone spilled rice on top of the cake. That makes it a rice cake! Does that make it healthy though? :)

do you want fries with that?

Wednesday, July 23 - golden crispy and delicious :)

end of the rainbow

Thursday, July 24 - Today was the first time it didn't rain here since... I don't even know. It's rained every afternoon for nearly the last month or so.

a farewell to farewell shows

Friday, July 25 - "The next time I strum these chords it'll be like the first time all over again." -Adam J. Cohen

no more work weekends!

Saturday, July 26 - This is what working on Saturdays does to us... it makes us want to hurt ourselves!

anyone for some frisbee?

Sunday, July 27 - Yeny, Keith, KC, Kris and I had a cook-out and pool party all afternoon :)

two bonus pictures...

fire!

the fire from our cook-out Sunday afternoon

stina and I at Adam's farewell show