Archive for the ‘Career’ Category

New Year…Same Shit…

Saturday, January 12th, 2013

I’ve wanted to be able to jump on here for a while, but as usual – life gets in the way.  I’m experiencing downtime, which isn’t normal this time of year.  Usually January is when things pick up to the point that I’m about to rip my hair out.  That’s not the case this month.  I’m hoping this low doesn’t last for too long – I do still have bills to pay.  I’m finishing up a small site, and working on some domain transfers but that’s really all that’s going on right now.  It’s driving me crazy. I’m looking at six different email accounts where the inbox is completely blank… scares me.

Usually I’d take the time to finally get the chance to work on my own things.  That’s really not the case this time and I’m not sure why.  The lack of inspiration to build something for myself concerns me a little, being as I always did better in Delaware than I did in New York on creativity coming out of my ears…. hope that funk goes away before someone comes at me with “Just run with it” template/logo request. I’ve wanted to come up with a new template for krissy.nu, agndesigns.net, acidgloss.net and even agn-solutions.net but I’ve got no inspiration at all.

The perk to today is our new bluetooth case for the tablet came in, it’s nice having a keyboard to type on, and kind of irks me that this tablet is more powerful than my actual laptop right now.  It’s the goal for this year to pick up a Macbook, and typically we like to get at least one big electronic purchase in during the year to help out on taxes. Of course it’s still upsetting to know that I’ll no longer be able to pick up the 17″ MacBook Pro, and everyone keeps telling me that the screen resolutions on the 17″ are close to the 15″ but to me it’s just not the same. I’m so used to having a 17″ that anything smaller is just not going to work out for me.  I don’t like the Retina displays, I think that’s a complete and total waste of money considering they’re supposed to be some type of super HD bull shit, but you couldn’t even load in a DVD to watch on the thing because they’re done with super drives.  I don’t know what the hell Apple is trying to do, but there’s some unhappy consumers out there right now, that’s for damn sure.

Anyhoo….

New Year’s was spent in NY with my family and a few old friends that I’ve been missing. We saw Colin almost immediately, but I’m sure that’s because he was the most vocal about missing us, I hung out with Muir for a little bit (didn’t see the munchkin ’cause he was pretty sick), I got to have dinner with Franny and see a few of the old crew of my last job, I spent some time with my sister doing some shopping, hung out at my moms a little and while I was home I floated around the kitchen to do some restocking of a very bare fridge for my dad.  They’d been eating a lot of take out for the last 6 months apparently, all I saw was a few TV dinners and a bottle of Vodka in the freezer and almost immediately began writing up my shopping list. I’ve gotten so used to regular ‘big meal’ type of cooking over the years that it’s second nature to me.  It was hard only being able to stay up there for a week though.  I really wanted to stay longer.. I feel there wasn’t enough time spent with people and when you’re away for so long it’s hard to catch up knowing that you’re on some type of a schedule.

So we went up a few days after Christmas, and returned a few days after New Years – thankfully we left late enough where there was really no one on the road and were able to get down here in pretty good time.  Bella did really well during the drives up and down.  Unfortunately we weren’t that lucky when we actually got to the house early Saturday morning (in DE).  She ran up the stairs so quick that I think she got one of her nails stuck in between the slats on the wood stairs and was then limping around barely putting any weight on her paw at all.  Since it was 4am there was really nothing I could do for her at the time, I checked her paw she had full mobility and I felt nothing in between the pads in reference to swelling or some type of a splinter.  We wound up bringing her to the vet the following afternoon to have her checked out. I was given some anti-inflammatory meds (that gave her diarrhea  but the next few days she did pretty well so thankfully I was able to stop her at the 2 pills instead of the full 6.

Since then, we’ve all just kind of been hanging out.  Sean’s got quite a bit going on and since it’s all programming based there’s really nothing I can do to help him other than handle the side-job emails, quick template updates, and even moving domains around.  There’s nothing substantial for me to work on right now and while it’s driving me nuts – it’s also telling me that I’m going to have a very easy weekend to get all of the Christmas decorations taken down and the bedroom cleaned up because things are completely out of place ever since we came back from NY and the lack of organization is another irk of mine. I’m even considering having Sean hang a few shelves up for me, but I’ll wait until I’ve fully decided upon that one since he’ll jump at the chance to hang shelves any day of the week – he’s weird like that.

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Absolutely No Inspiration!

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

I wish I knew what was wrong with me, I have no inspiration to do ANYTHING.  I’ve got sites coming at me from all angles but can’t mentally envision how anything is going to look when its completed.  When 80% of your pending work is from-scratch Framework – it really sucks.

I figured that it had a lot to do with the fact that I haven’t really gone down to the beach.  For some reason, sitting in the sand and staring at the ocean gives me more inspiration than Adobe can handle. I was hoping that today would help because Karen’s been itching to get out of the house so we headed down to Rehoboth Ave for a little while.  We browsed through a few different little stores and made our way to the boardwalk. Sat for a little while cause she was a little windy (rightly so considering she’s only got one lung and is still healing from surgery).  We ventured down the sand dunes to the water line and saw a huge family of Dolphins jumping in and out of the water. Of course by the time I got my camera to focus on them they were back under water. I did manage to get a fin, I loaded it to my Instagram account.  I wish I could have gotten a nice shot of them jumping but they’re in and out of the water so quick, the shutter speed on my cellphone just wasn’t going to pick it up.  Either way, I at least got to witness it for myself. It may not seem like some major event to most, but for someone who’s life-long dream has been to PET a dolphin, let alone SEE a dolphin – it certainly made my day.

Even with that experience, and the jolt of energy I still have absolutely no inspiration for ANYTHING.  I know I have at least 7 sites to build/rebuild and trying to get to the “Alright, lets go” mindset is proving to be more difficult than anticipated.  I’m not sure if I’m just exhausted and can’t focus or if there’s some mental shit going on behind it.  All I know is even with extra cups of coffee today, all I wanna do is curl back into bed and fall asleep.  I’m, for some unknown reason, not getting any type of a good nights sleep and wish I could figure out why.

I caught a glimpse of Dr. Oz today, they were talking about sleeping patterns and tips/techniques you can use to help you achieve a proper nights sleep.  The problem is there’s absolutely no way for that to happen in this house.  They tell you that you’re supposed to go through 4-5 rem sleep cycles per night. I thought the list was pretty interesting.

  • No alcohol/caffeine up three hours before bedtime.
  • Keep notepad near bed to jot down the ‘daily worries’, creating a problems/solutions list so you can clear your head to help you fall asleep.
  • No Lights.  Try to keep the room as dark as possible for no visual distraction.
  • No TV. The flickering lights, and sound omitted (even when on mute) can interrupt your sleep cycle.  If you like to have the TV on while falling asleep its recommended to have the “Sleep Timer” set so it shuts off soon after you fall asleep.
  • Limit pets to their own beds (if possible). The constant up and down or general movement of a dog (large or small) is enough to keep someone from properly falling into a deep sleep.  (Lord knows Bella is constantly on and off the bed all night long).
  • Silence is Golden – The quieter the room, the better the rest. Turn off cellphone, no laptops or books and figure out a way to keep your spouse/significant other as quiet as possible. (Unless Sean and I switch our office setups – this will NEVER happen).

 

It seems like a mighty long list of overall-changes, but with a few minor changes to my own life I actually see it as being 100% possible. (As strange as that sounds). Sean and I have been talking lately and figured that since I have so much trouble falling asleep while he sits there typing away – it would be easier if we changed rooms so that he could be in the spare room and I can be in complete and total silence when I need to get some rest. At the same time, I’m realizing that I did have a much better ‘rest’ when I actually kept a journal. Not a blog, a real handwritten journal because it worked to my advantage to get all of my woes out before I went to bed. Of course I’d figure out some kind of a way to make up a digital one, for ease of use and the ability to get all of my thoughts out without my hand cramping up. I found that the more I type, the less I’m able to physically write something legible. I left my Netbook up in NY, I figured after seeing Dr. Oz today that it was a mistake on my part because it would be the perfect companion to my non-existent bedside table.

The biggest thing for both Sean and I that would help EVERYTHING would be to finally upgrade our current bed to a larger one. I’ve found a few down here that are pretty comfy, and not that expensive. I’m trying to figure out if (space wise) it would be possible to get out of our Full Size and upgrade to a Queen Size. I know that we’d be really limited on space if we decided to go all the way up to a King, and while I would absolutely adore that kind of roomy sleep, I highly doubt it would happen without removing furniture from the room all together. Obviously it means that the dog would have less of a chance of sleeping on top of one of us if she’s got her own designated area, so that solves the “No Pets” rule.

Either way we’ll have to make some kind of change, but I’m sure it’ll be possible.

Funny how I have inspiration to redecorate but absolutely none to work on the sites pending on my to-do list LOL.

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I finally did it!

Sunday, April 8th, 2012

After almost a year of “I need to buckle down” mentality, I finally sat down this week and began the next chapter of Krissy.nu.  Not only is there finally a nifty new theme, but I’m also bringing on a guest blogger to keep things moving forward.  There will be no more months-on-end of absolutely no posting on my part.

So what’s been going on since NOVEMBER?! Not much really, life has been it’s usual constant up and down, things have been pretty busy – work wise – and my personal life in general isn’t really bad at all.  I’ve purged a lot of excess baggage and drama out of my life and am now moving forward with a more positive attitude, and much left aggravation in my life as well.

It’s my goal for the next couple of weeks to go full force into regular blog entries and updates, plus I’m bringing Muir on for some interesting news for all you ladies out there interested in properly taking care of your skin.  She’s not only a dear friend of mine, but a consultant for Rodan & Fields – the creators of Proactive.   I also recently hired her as a lead consultant and manager for AGn Designs.

Needless to say…things are gonna pick up 🙂

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I miss my dog and want to go home…

Monday, October 17th, 2011

Sean and I have been in Delaware for the past month. Every time we’ve tried to go home, some major account pops up that requires our complete attention. Due to this, there’s been no possible way for us to hop in the car and drive five hours north to get back to Long Island.

Initially it was the account for Dover Speedway, from there it’s trickled down to numerous small accounts popping up at once that all require some ridiculously short turn around time. To top that off there are still modifications to do on sites that were completed a few weeks ago so that we can launch them for the client.  Whatever the case has been, we’ve just been too damn busy.  I’ve been told (hopefully as a joke) that if I choose to stay down here any longer my dog will be shipped via FedEx so that I can then stay for as long as I absolutely want, as long as they don’t have to deal with her anymore.

Right now I’m trying to complete FOUR accounts at once.  The task would be much easier to manage if there weren’t so many other factors involved. The environment isn’t an issue at all, I actually find myself more focused down here. The issue I’m dealing with right now… EMAIL… each of the clients is kicking over a multitude of emails to follow for changes/tweaks, and to top that there’s a few new clients coming out of the wood work.  Whatever made me think that Sean and I couldn’t afford to purchase a house down here has gone completely out the window.  Now it’s just the matter of actually getting HOME so that we can continue to work and pay our bills and then eventually go for that oh-so-hefty mortgage to get the house that we’ve both decided upon.

I know they say to never put your eggs in one basket, but this is a home that’s been on the market for almost a year, it’s in beautiful condition and has absolutely everything we want, including a very, very large in-ground pool in a fully fenced in back yard. It’s my ultimate goal to have the keys to this house in my hands before summer of next year so I can literally take three straight days off work and just float in the pool. Meaning, I have no intent of getting OUT of the pool for three days. Who needs air conditioning when you have a float and a nice breeze?

The house itself is $250k, as it’s been on the market for so long I’m offering $175, the negotiations can begin from there.  There’s 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a Florida room, large kitchen, dining room, media room, living room, AND an in-law suite.  What do two people need all of this space for?  Simple really.  The master bedroom will contain absolutely NO computer equipment EVER.  Two of the four bedrooms will be offices. Mine will be fully customized with the same color tones as on this template (White, Black, Grey and pops of Pink). Sean’s will have the more masculine feel.  The other two rooms (in the main house) will be designated guest rooms as I’m sure we’ll have frequent visitors via either friends or family.  The in-law suit contains a small kitchen, large room and its own bathroom. We’ll use this as the ‘guest house’ for the guests staying for more than a few days so they have a bit of privacy.

Regardless, I’ve decorated everything in my head and don’t plan on giving up.  We have looked in NY, the property taxes are absolutely ridiculous so there’s no reason to even continue our search there. Yes, all of my friends and family are up there, but affordability wise – DE is the place to be.

Either way we’re going to continue to work and get our finances in order, the issue really is getting back to NY. We have every intent of leaving tomorrow morning and then working tomorrow night to get caught up. I really wanted to do some laundry and clean up before we leave here but I honestly don’t see the laundry aspect of things happening. I could have spent the last five minutes getting that in the washing machine instead of blogging, but considering I’m still three hours behind on my email – getting up from my computer just wasn’t happening.

I’ve got my fingers crossed in hopes to actually go home tomorrow.  Being in DE isn’t bad, I’m not unhappy in any way, and I absolutely love Karen (Sean’s mom), it’s got nothing to do with her. I just know that we don’t actually live in DE anymore and everything we own (including a more stable internet connection) is back in NY.  I whole heartedly believe that if we brought Bella down with us for this visit – we’d never go back to NY. Regardless, I miss my dog, I miss my friends and I really hope that things slow down long enough for us to pack up and hop in the car.

Meh… forget the emails – I’m doing laundry. :hmph:

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Slow down!!

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

I don’t think I’ve stopped in the last week.  I’m doing really well with bringing in some new clients, and in return I’ve created a few sites that I’m very, very pleased with.  Of course it also helps that the people I’ve been working for are sweet as pie and detail oriented.  I couldn’t ask for anything better!

I’m taking ten minutes to throw an update on here just to show that I’m still alive and as active as possible.  I haven’t yet been able to balance blogging and clients but I think that has a lot to do with my environment.  Unfortunately I don’t have a proper work space at this moment in time.  I’m working on a “Table Mate” in the corner of the living room until I can get a desk.  Sean has kind of taken mine over with the Mac and the other PC we have (my old Windows desktop).   As usual I’ve already designed an office in my head, everything from the desk to the color scheme (which closely resembles the current pink/grey/black/white template here heh.  For now I’ve found that throwing on headphones to cut down on the background noise is helpful.

My sleep schedule is all kinds of fucked up.  Now that I’m completely working from home I’m going to bed around 4am and waking up around noon.  For me its like I’ve wasted the day considering I got so used to waking up early and finishing my workday at 6pm at the office.  I’m working to get myself back on track but with everything required of me during the day its hard to get myself on track.

Right now I’m balancing three clients, I feel really bad because I haven’t been able to give everyone the full attention they deserve.  I really don’t like not being able to start one job and finish it, now I’m doing two different accounts a day so its screwing with me big time.  Either way I’ll work on getting things on track and should be able to then schedule the day accordingly.  I know what needs to get done, and how it needs to get done.  Its the matter of implementing it, and the sleep schedule plays a HUGE role in that.

In any event, time to get cracking in Photoshop.

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Happy New Year

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

So it’s officially 2011 and so far things haven’t been too bad. I’m working very hard to get myself on track as there are a lot of things I’m interested in doing this year that require a lot of attention to detail, and stamina to get through them. I’ve actively been searching for a new job, working hard to try to get myself up to speed with the new requirements as far as web design are concerned. Over the course of the next few days it’s my goal to have a new hand-made template up, as opposed to the freebies I’ve been using for the past year. My links list is very short, so I’m also working on finding some new interesting sites to push into a regular routine as well. Another big thing for me is to throw myself fully into the paid blogging world again as I haven’t been into it for so long that my resources are limited. Once I can regain some traffic to any of my sites I’ll work on getting the financial aspect of things back on track as well.

Sean and I are doing great, we haven’t argued and are finally in the relationship we’ve both wanted for a very long time. We veered off a little and now we’re back on track and couldn’t be happier. We went away for new years weekend and enjoyed every minute of it. It made us realize how badly we need to get into a better place with our relationship and we’re both working very hard to get there. This is exactly why I’m feverishly searching for alternate income and really working on finding a better 9-5 so I can be done with the shit hole I’ve been in for the past few years. I’m actually taking a break from searching through job sites just so I can update here since I hadn’t done it in so long.

I changed back to an older theme for the time being as the Christmas season is over. I had a wonderful Christmas, Sean picked out a gorgeous necklace for me that I’m absolutely in love with, I’m also overloaded on new clothes and DVD’s, even older items that were on my amazon list for god knows how long. The biggest YAY moment for me was unpacking my new Kureg Coffee Maker, I’m head over heals in love with it as I’ve wanted it for so long! I already picked up a 24 pack of my uber favorite French Vanilla blend and can’t wait to try out all of the other ones. I’ve been addicted to flavored coffee for quite some time now, and now I have the option of doing it all from home instead of dropping money in random coffee shops around my house, and my job. It’s great for iced coffee too by the way, there’s even iced tea mixes and the lovely hot chocolate flavors which should just be a requirement considering the weather lately. Ugh, even talking about it here is making me want a large cup of coffee lol.

I’m taking even more of a break from reality by hanging out at the train station people watching. I have my netbook in my purse and thanks to our local internet carrier, wifi is pretty much free no matter where I go, the strongest feed is down at the train station for some reason, but I’m sure that has something o do with all of the metal on the ground in front of me. A few people floating around down here are amusing the living hell out of me though. I’m amazed at how dumb teenagers have become since I was one, I know my friends were stupid, don’t get me wrong – but they were never this bad. One of these pricks watches way too much jackass and is looking to see if his tongue will freeze to the tracks, or at least boasting that he’s willing to try it. The sadistic person inside of me wants to see him get his tongue stuck and run over by a train. The “mom/cop” in me wants to zap him with a tazer and watch him squirm in the grass safely away from the rails. Damn me and my caring nature, lol!

In any event, based on my little word counter I’m up in the 750 range which means I’ve been hard-core typing for a good 10-15 minutes and have no idea what my initial point was for even starting this entry.

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday season!

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Ok…

Friday, November 19th, 2010

So things between Sean and I have gone down hill and we’ve decided to take a break to figure things out. I don’t know what the next couple of weeks are going to bring. Its either going to be a situation of both of us wanting to move on with our lives individually or move ahead with eachother. Its really up in the air right now but its equally painful for both of us. Im hopeful that things will work out but who knows what the universe has in store for us.

There’s alot that I’ve needed to work on for quite some time now and I believe this is the opportunity I need to begin getting myself in order. I need to get everything figured out with finances and school. I also need to figure out what path im even on in my life and which obstacles are in my way so I conquer them.  I would have liked to do everything with Sean by my side but I also need to be on my own for a while as this is something I haven’t done for the last ten years of my life. Im 26, working a dead end job and trying my hardest to accomplish my goals interally even though I have no physical or emotional strength to deal with it all at this moment in time. I can day dream all I want but the act of accomplishing is more rewarding. So I guess its time to truly see what I’m capable of.

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FAFSA Submitted

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

I meant to do it much, much sooner but it’s been one hell of a year so-far. I’ve finally gotten my FAFSA submitted so I can work on getting myself enrolled into the University of Phoenix. It took about 15 minutes to do, and the bulk of it was spent trying to figure out what my damn PIN was considering I’d already attempted to apply in April 2008 but by then I’d LONG passed the deadline. Hopefully my doing it towards the beginning of the year will have a decent turn around.

I’m taking a break from floating around the internet in search of grant and scholarship information to kind of clear my head a bit. It really does turn into quite a job just trying to figure out a less expensive way to walk away with your Bachelors. It’s my ultimate goal to work towards a Masters degree but for now I’ll get the Bachelors taken care of and maybe I’ll be lucky enough to get myself into a position where I can utilize what I already know, and be accepted without the degree with the understanding that I’m currently working towards one. It’s really annoying when you go in for an interview and you’re rejected on the spot due to a lack of degree when the person giving the interview doesn’t even have one themselves! The standards of people these days really has gotten to the point of being totally obnoxious. Considering the economy is as screwed up as it is, you would think that people would be more understanding to the fact that not everyone can afford to go after the minimum of a Bachelors as noted on numerous applications as a requirement. I personally think if you have 12 years of experience, that well exceeds a Masters and that should just be good enough.

But anyway, it’s been one hell of a week. I stayed home for two days due to a few medical issues and for some reason I just couldn’t really get into the flow of production for Thursday and Friday so I honestly just feel like I’m lagging. I’ve noticed that I’ve been sleeping a lot lately too. While I do know that sleep is really good for you, when you’re trying to not be a lazy ass and be more productive with your time – the fact that I’ve popped in a DVD and just lay down in bed has really proven that I’m that lazy ass of the day. Hell, Sean did more today than I did and he just sat at the computer for the past 10 hours or so. Granted, he was working, but he got up long enough to cash a check at the bank and do the dishes to get the sink cleared out. I think all I’ve really done is had a couple of cigs and got through the first two disks of the “Are you being served?” box set that Sean bought me for Christmas. hah.

In any event, it’s knocking on 11:30, I didn’t feel like plugging in my laptop so of course that pesky “Low Battery” message keeps flashing across the screen. I think it’s time to shut down and go back to doing nothing. I’m gonna have to organize the crap out of all of my new bookmarks first though. I found some really cool information, most of which was in the middle of applying for things so I’ll come up with a bunch of links at some point in case anyone else is interested.

Also – At some point when I’ve got some spare time I do intend to get back into the wonderful world of sponsored blogging again. It’s not going to be to the extreme that it was in the past, but every little bit helps when you need it.

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Not sure what’s going on…

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

This past week was a bit better than last weekend but not really by much.  September is just turning into one of those months that could probably be wiped off of the planet as far as I care.

WORK
Things have been going OK.  I’m learning a lot of new things and it’s a lot to take in but thankfully I pick up on things pretty quickly so I’ve been OK so far.  For the past week or so I’ve been in the training process by an uber-cool chick who’s had a lot of patience with me, even though I took over her desk.  Supposedly when I go in tomorrow I’ll have my own desk and computer but who knows if that’s going to happen because the one making it happen keeps changing his mind on things.  Either way I hope to be less of an inconvenience to her soon.

I know for sure that I’m going to keep this job, while I would prefer to be doing something in the design field, I guess I can handle just having a decent desk job for the time being.  The people are all nice, it’s relatively easy work (once you get the hang of it) and the downside for me is the amount of time I’m probably going to have to spend on the phone but eventually I’ll suck it up and get over it.

DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS
Everyone is sick.  A kid at work had walking Pneumonia, I had my abscess kicking my ass for a few days, colds and germs are flying around all of the schools right now thanks to whoever was incapable of covering their mouth when they coughed.  Lu got pretty sick this past week as well, but her’s was more chest pain than anything.  Sean’s allergies have been kicking his ass pretty bad this week as well.  I really hope that there’s enough medicine in the world to cover everyone else that’s sick.  Thankfully I was able to steer clear of the Pneumonia because of the antibiotics that I’ve been on.  The downside is the abscess is coming back on the other side AGAIN.  I don’t want to live on antibiotics the rest of my life so I really need to get my teeth straightened out.

I want to hold off until I have Insurance this way I’m not shelling out $2k per tooth considering the three root canals that I need as of right now.  I kind of wish everything would just fall out and then I can worry about implants or something.  At least they wouldn’t hurt as bad as the real ones.  I’ll take a screw over an infected nerve any day!

STORMS n SUCH
Alicia was in New Orleans when the hurricane hit this past week, and upon evacuation she made her way up to Mobile, AL which was currently under tornado warnings.  Thankfully after a lot of shit she was able to make it home so she’s at least safe and sound right now.

The storm that was supposed to be “oh so bad” for the Island was a total dud last night.  It moved itself further north than originally anticipated so we were hit with some minor wind but I’ll admit it was a fairly decent amount of rain.  I was soaked to the bone TWICE before I picked up an umbrella and all of the wind managed to knock that out of play within a half hour of it’s purchase.  Why can’t they make them stronger the way they used to?  Dad had a huge umbrella for the last 20 years or so that finally gave out on him, it was solid wood and never once had an issue.  I know you can get them for $3-$4 but Jesus…make them last  a little longer!?

AGN STUFFS
I’m a week behind on email, I know it’s pissing a lot of people off but the lack of time does play a major role in things right now.  I’m trying to figure out how to schedule everything so I have a few extra hours during the day so I can maintain my own business but I’m not sure how that’s going to happen if I can’t change my hours at work.  I’m doing 10-7,  I’d like to do 8-5 or even 9-6 this way I’m home at a semi-reasonable hour where I can sit down and have dinner and then work until I have to go to sleep to do it all over again for tomorrow.  I don’t personally see that happening right now though.  Maybe in the future I’ll be able to do it, but not too sure as of right now and trust me when I say that’s getting on my nerve.

I have three accounts to complete – to my knowledge – and the only REAL time I have for them is on the Weekends. I look at a computer all day long but I’m not permitted to check personal email at work. I can understand their reasons for it, most of the sites are actually blocked anyway, as far as I know.

CELL PHONES n SUCH
Within the next couple of weeks Sean and I are going to get the cell phone stuff situated.  We’re going with Verizon because they have better coverage on the Island (mainly due to the slew of cell towers, on the north shore at least.  I know for sure that I’m picking up the Voyager and slapping a data plan onto it for unlimited browsing and what not.  My second choice is the pink BlackBerry Curve (8330).  Either one would give me all of the options I need.  Sean is looking to pick up a flip phone but he does want the ability to get online so I have no idea of what choice he’s going to make.  Either way we should have all of that taken care of soon.

In any event, time to check my email. – oy!

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Keeping Busy

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

After a long talk with Sean, I’m moving back up to New York permanently.  There’s a lot going on up here as far as family is concerned and I’m at a point in my life where I’m supposed to be out on my own, but I’m also the kind of person where family always comes first.  So I’ve actively been putting in resumes to places all over Long Island in just about any industry I can find.  I’ve applied to numerous web design jobs, secretarial jobs, even to a company that just lists products on eBay.

My recent application was to the hospital here in town, it’s my mother’s old job (technically) and I know for sure that they want her back.  She’s unable to do that at this point in time so I applied and now I’ve just got my fingers crossed.  It’s per-diem work but once you have your foot in the door you’re basically set.  So I can start at per-diem (basically call you when they need you) and within a few weeks I can be full time – it really just depends on what they need and when they need it.

We’ve been in NY for much longer than we’d originally planned.  Sean doesn’t want to go back down to DE by himself, and I don’t blame him.  I know I’ll miss him too, considering we just celebrated our two-year anniversary.  So it’s been a very difficult choice to make but as soon as there’s enough money coming in, and an apartment in a reasonable price range opens up we’ll be able to get him moved up here and we can continue our life together on our own.  I know the first couple of weeks are going to be hard on us, only because we haven’t not been together for the last year and a half (considering we’re living together) but I’m completely confident that we’ll be able to handle it so I’m not too concerned in that department.

We’re staying up here for another week or so and then heading back down to either pack my stuff or go back to the drawing board.  If I know for sure that there’s no job up here than I don’t know if I’ll stay here.  I want to, I really miss everyone, I just don’t want to leave Sean and still not have any money coming in up in NY, it wouldn’t change my situation at all – in many regards it would make it worse.

So I’m crossing my fingers in hopes to hear something from someone up here.  I did apply to a place out in Brooklyn that I’m crossing just about everything for.  It’s a great salary and it’s in the web design field and that to me would be a dream-job situation.  They’re looking for a front end developer with strong HTML/CSS and Blog skills.  I guess being a one-trick-pony for the past couple of months is something to laugh about now considering I’ll be able to use that portfolio to get my foot in the door.  It’s a dream job that I’m going to have to travel for though.  Luckily it’s only a block or two from the train station so I’m not too concerned about the commute.  I can very easily get to the train here in the morning without any real issues – it’s right up the block so if I have a car or not I should be able to handle it.

In any event, I have to push some more applications and get started on some design work.  I also need to finish some work for Adam.  He has a very complicated template that needs to be coded for CSS.  I’ve had to really stretch my know-how just to get the basics done.  A lot of layers on top of layers and being able to accomplish that without absolute positioning is working out pretty well.

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Uneventful

Saturday, July 5th, 2008

This is one of those days where the truly isn’t anything going on.  I spent my fourth in house with my dog and a sleeping boyfriend.  He hasn’t been feeling very well so we decided it would be best to stay in.  The original plans were rained out anyway so it wasn’t a total loss.  I caught up on a few things, messed around in Photoshop for a few projects and now it’s knocking on 5AM but I’m not even close to being tired yet.  I know Bella’s exhausted, I can hear her snoring from here.  Considering she’s at the other end of the apartment, it’s safe to say she enjoyed her toys all day to the point that her compact little self basically just went ahead and crashed.

My father is pulling a double shift, he should be home in about 2 hours from now.  He left at 3PM this afternoon and since 7AM is rolling in – I’m sure he’ll be exhausted.  I’m tempted to just stay up for the whole day and then crash later on in the evening but I know that’s not actually going to work out.  I have to pull some stuff out of the dryer and get the beds setup so I can go to sleep.  Sean was so tired he’s sleeping on a bare mattress.  I personally can’t handle that but I’m sleeping on the floor tonight anyway so I’ll be able to get the sheet back on the aero-bed with no problems.  We alternate between the bed and the floor, it’s the only way to save our backs.  Mine isn’t doing very well at all – the lack of proper seating is taking it’s toll on me.  While I absolutely love being “home” I have to say that finding a chair that you don’t just sink into would be much better for me.  Big comfy furniture is great, but not when you have chronic back-problems, you know?

My old bed (twin) is rather comfortable, which I’ve proven for the last couple days of over sleeping.  The aero-bed, I just can’t seem to get the proper pressure set to it so no matter what I do I tend to be uncomfortable.  It’s my luck that I’ll have finally figured it out the last night that we’re here so that’s going to be annoying but I am looking forward to falling into my big comfy king bed when we get back to Delaware.

If all goes well we do hope to be moving up to New York within the next 6 months or so.  That heavily depends on a few job applications I sent in up here, as well as quite a few freelance jobs that I’ve quoted.  We know that in order to come up here we’re going to need to earn about $4,000 a month in total.  So finding a position that will bring me at least $2,000 a month shouldn’t be so hard.  I just need to get myself into an office where I’m making $15-$20 an hour.

I applied for a job on the Island that I found on some job-search site (not sure which one – considering there are like 10 of them that I surf through regularly).  I sent in my resume and hopefully I’ll hear something, starting salary is $75,000/yr.  I think that will easily bring in the $13,000 a year I’d need to find a decent apartment up here.  I’m thinking of looking into my grandmothers building (only because I know everything so well) but I may see what I can find at the Avalon – I really like their rules, even though no one else seems to.

I’m the kind of person who can’t stand chaos, and this is coming from someone whom has a rather large extended family.  But at the same time, if I’m going to be spending about $2,000 a month on rent I want to know that I’m going to be able to enjoy the experience.  The Avalon has a series of rules that would drive a few people crazy but the big ones for me really make it worth spending that kind of money.

1 – Children are to be seen and not heard.
2 – Pets are to be seen and not heard.
3 – No loud parties.
4 – Guests are to be cleared with the main desk.

All that says to me is silence, and no crazy wacko’s walking around the building at all hours of the night.  Private off-street parking which makes me feel safe considering the area that most of the Avalon’s are located on the Island aren’t the best.  Private pool and massive work-out rooms so I’ll be able to keep on track with my diet.  The in-house washer/dryer helps me a lot too, apartments can also come furnished if requested so why wouldn’t I do it?

It’s a lot to think about, either way I’ll have to wait and see what happens.  I’ll tell you now that if they hire me I’m going to take the weekend to head back down to Delaware and pack my stuff to come back up here – I’ll stay with my father for a little while until I can find an apartment of my own and once that happens Sean will come up and the rest is history.

It would be nice, it would be flat out fantastic but money talks … unfortunately.

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Jobs and Upgrades

Friday, March 28th, 2008

It’s been a pretty hectic week.  I’m still waiting on word from my Interview last Friday.  I called on Monday and was told that they’re still conducting interviews so I should try back in a few days, I just called back about 20 minutes ago and they’re still doing interviews.  I’m a very patient person so maybe if I just wait it out maybe something good will come of it.

Sunday went well, dinner turned out OK.  By Monday evening Karen’s sister had come back from her Easter trip to Atlantic City.  Minus getting lost in the casino, and having her two younger kids with her bothering just about everyone, she did at least enjoy herself.  Her and Karen are going back up there on the 3rd, just an overnight.  Sean and I would also like to go this month because I have the entire month comped but I’m not going to stress about it.  My father is supposedly going up at the end of the month when he’s done with radiation theropy, I’d like to meet up with him but I’m going up to NY in June for his 60th birthday anyway – I don’t know if I’ll be able to make those two trips with the way finances are looking right now.

The rest of the week I’ve just been putting in resumes, contacting a few leads and then going from there.  I did spend a lot of time with the Mac in the last few days.  On Monday Sean asked me if I had any kind of attachment to the keyboard that came with my iMac, I personally prefer using everything that comes standard but that’s based completely on my being anal retentive about organization and matchy-matchy things.  However, I also know he uses the Mac quite a bit now that he’s working on Flash related things so for his comfort I went to hook up my old Logitech Multimedia Keyboard.  It hasn’t been touched in about six months so it was looking pretty disgusting.  So I decided to pop out the screws, pop off all of the keys and then clean it.  I had a whole system going, all of the keys were soaking in warm water to melt off any of the caked-on dirt.  It was primarily lotion and then on top of that it was dust so they just didn’t look good.  Upon taking off the face-plate I saw more dust and grime than I’d ever had in any keyboard before – that’s what I get for leaving it under the desk for so long.  So I took about two hours to clean it out, during that process (where it now looks brand new) I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard.  The iMac came with Tiger but it had the upgrade DVD so I made it a point to process that.

My goal after I completed the upgrade was to install Parallels Desktop 3 so I can also run Windows on it.  I didn’t get that accomplished until yesterday, I was having a lot of trouble getting it moving because there’s a hack that you have to run in order for it to properly work on Leopard that they haven’t worked into the program yet.  So I gave up and Sean went ahead and did it for me when things finally worked the way they were supposed to.  I thought he crashed the Mac at some point considering it kept booting in excess for about an hour.  I wound up falling asleep in the bedroom for a few hours, well the whole night really.  He managed to get everything in working order, including the installation of Windows XP.  I then slept the rest of the night and as of 7am, I’ve been wide awake.

I haven’t gotten in there to play around yet, I’m on the laptop in the living room at the moment.  My back isn’t feeling to great so sitting in that god awful chair just isn’t a possibility at this point in time.  I’ll go in there later after I’ve had some time to stretch it out, there are quite a few programs that I’m looking to get back and you can only use them on Windows, hence the dual setup.  The thing I like about this one is the fact that it’s not a dual-boot option, I can run Windows inside of OS X by just having it boot to it’s own little window.  So basically I’m using a browser with Windows inside of it, I like that idea.  In the future I’ll install Vista, I have the serial from the other desktop in the house, I do like the fact that I can have many instances of the Parallel setup so I can run as many different operating systems as the Mac will handle.  I’m going to stop at Vista though, I see no point in running anything else.  I’m even considering setting up a second monitor so I can run Windows on one side and Mac on the other, I think that’ll work out pretty well for me.

For now I’ve got a few emails to send out and a few leads to check on.  Guess I should get my ass in gear.

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Happy Easter!

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008

It’s Easter Sunday and while I haven’t really done anything yet, I have accomplished quite a bit over the past weekend so I can sit back and relax for a while until I start all of the cooking for dinner tonight.  I’m not going too crazy with dinner.  I’m throwing a ham in the oven, and making up a few sides to have with it and that’s about it.  Yea, there’s going to be like five sides and some rolls or something.  While that may seem like a lot, I’m Italian – I’m used to large meals for a small number of people.

I’m still waiting on news about the job interview on Friday.  I assume that since they’re a Monday – Friday service that I’ll hear something tomorrow, or at least I hope.  I’m really anxious about it.  With the way money is going right now I could really use this job.  The interview itself went pretty well, at least I personally thought it did.  I like the environment, and those whom I spoke to seem pretty nice.  The drive wasn’t that bad, I’ll have to factor in summer travel in a few weeks but that just means I’d have to leave around 7am as opposed to 730ish to make it there by 8.  I figure a 20 minute drive will take about 45 minutes when it comes to the summer traffic down here.  That’s what you get living in a tourist town though.  Either way it’d be a Monday to Friday 8-5 position.  I’d get home around 6pm on the summer nights and since it’s year round I really think I could do well there.

As far as my own stuff is concerned, I managed to get the new template up on acidgloss.net, something I’m very happy about.  I really like the way things turned out.  There was a template just like it for sale for about $90 but I was able to recreate it with no real trouble.  The spacing is off on a few things depending on the browser you use but it really isn’t anything that major so it doesn’t matter too much to me.  I’m working on getting a few more link options in order there, hopefully I’ll be able to get some of my lost traffic back.  It’ll take some time but I do have a few tricks up my sleeve, you can only depend on SEO for so long before you have to get back into gear on commenting on things.

In any event, it’s now about 2:15pm and I’m hoping to relax for a few hours before I have to get in gear on the kitchen.  So a quick straighten-up around the kitchen so I have some surface area to work with and the rest is cake…literally – I think I’ll make cup-cakes to have as an after dinner treat.  We’ll see how I feel though, my stomach is already bothering me from too much coffee today anyway –  heh.

So, Happy Easter to everyone, hope you have a nice relaxing day with family and friends.  If you celebrate of course.

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Little too early…

Friday, March 21st, 2008

It’s 7am, I’ve been up for about 15 minutes.  My first interview of the day is at 9am for the full-time IT position.  I’m hoping it goes well and I get a decent hourly wage to be able to make up for the loss with the paid blogging and lack of business-based design work right now.  I’m still working on personal and weblog templates but I heavily depended upon corporate/small-business work to get the bills paid.  Let’s just hope that $2200 a month slack is able to be picked up with this position.  I’m hoping for $12-$15 an hour, based on the companies standing and the items that they sell I hope that happens on the higher end, either way I’ll take what I can get.

I didn’t get much sleep last night, I officially went to bed around midnight  but since I’d woken up so late on Thursday I had a lot of trouble falling asleep.  I also couldn’t shut my mind up for a few hours either.  I alternated between watching TV and tossing and turning.  Counting sheep doesn’t work for me, and no matter what animal I tried to substitute things with I still just couldn’t crash.  I finally fell asleep around 3:30 and hopefully the three hours of sleep I got will be more than enough to keep me awake while driving.  I’m scared about going out on such little sleep but I’ll just make sure to have the window wide open (it’s a chilly morning) and a cup of coffee in the cup holder and a focus to keep my eyes open during the interview as well.  Heavy make-up will have to hide the dark circles, that’s the only option right now.

If all goes well I’ll be home in time to make a phone call before I miss my second interview.  I don’t think I’ll be able to handle 60 hours a week from the get-go, I do still have a business to run.  I think if I get lucky enough to make enough money with the IT position, I won’t have to take the part-time position down on the boardwalk.  I’ll base my afternoon on what happens this morning.

I have to be out of here in an hour and a half so I guess I should get my butt in gear.  Time to cake on the excess layers of make-up and re-iron my hair because it’s doing a weird crinkle thing from the angle I slept last night.

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Not too much going on…

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

It’s unseasonably warm today. I went through my morning routine with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. On my way outside I bundled up not realizing the extreme weather change. The bedroom was rather chilly this morning, so that’s another reason for not thinking about it. I had on my pull-over because I tend to wear that all day and knowing the chill I put my regular coat on as well. The second I stepped out the door I felt the wind but it wasn’t a chilled wind that I’d grown accustomed to over the course of the last few months (it is Winter after all). I quickly had to come back in the house to strip down to my T-shirt because anything more than that would have been murder. The last weather check shows 68¬?F(20¬?C for Bronnie). We’re expected to get up to about 75¬?F (23¬?C). I do know this is part of the big string of storms that just hit the midwest last night. The last time I looked at the death toll it was 52. I can only imagine what the storm is going to do when it makes it’s way up here. Bella is SO going to need to learn to use some wee-wee pads today once that rain comes through, this complex floods with a half-hours worth of rain, torrential down-pours? Oh my.

Voting was yesterday, and I walked into the elementary school with a big grin on my face ready to cast my vote for Obama (yea, after carefully reading through transcripts and watching him on television – he’s my choice this term). Some have asked why I didn’t want to vote for Clinton and my main reason is she’s a republican posing as a democrat, and she’s dependent upon her husband for way too much of her exposure. She also doesn’t seem to know how to turn off “politician” mode. So naturally going with the more laid back guy who is willing to put forth changes that are good for this country, especially on topics of economy and immigration, he’s the one (for me) to choose. You’re entitled to feel different about it, that’s why we’re the country we are. I would just like to see a President in office that doesn’t base his entire choices of our country on a religious standpoint. Yes, he’s against Gay marriage, but he’s not throwing it down our throats either.

But anyway, I get to the school and wait in line, only to be told that I’m not going to be able to vote because when I registered at the DMV a few weeks back I listed myself as independent and unfortunately you can’t vote independent when there’s only Republicans and Democrats up for the primaries. So that upset me quite a bit. The lady assured me that come November I’ll be able to vote for whomever I please. Thankfully Obama won Delaware anyway, I’m just hoping that he can actually keep it up and take over as many delegates as possible. While I really do believe that it’s time for a woman to be in office, I don’t believe Hilary is that woman. There’s nothing against her personally, there are just some things about her mannerisms that really bother me.

So after all of the voting stuff was done we headed back up Route-1 and stopped into one of the Outlets on the way home. Tanger Seaside, or something like that. I had a few gifts from Christmas to return and they were purchased from the Lane Bryant outlet. I was going to return everything in New York when I went shopping up there but you can only return outlet clothes, to outlet stores. I also don’t see the point in calling it an OUTLET when it’s just as expensive as the free-standing stores or even the ones in malls. But my reason for returning everything was based on the fact that everything was huge on me. I used to enjoy swimming in clothing but that’s because I was making every effort to hide myself, even though it only made me appear larger in the long run. I’m now going smaller in sizes and while things are still a bit large on me (depending on the item, of course) it’s no where near as bad as I used to be.

But with the $50 credit from the clothing, and the $40 some-odd dollars off with the gift certificate from my father (It was $200 but I did go shopping when I was up in NY). I picked up a pair of capris, a button down pin-stripe, and a few bed shirts for the whopping total of $7. They would have owed ME money if I could have used my $10 off certificate that I got from the Lane Bryant store but unfortunately they don’t take them. Savages.

I’ve been working pretty hard on coming up with a template for my interview. A phone call on Monday with the CEO has me in full “get ‘er done” mode and I’ve made a few different logo variations for one of their partner companies and now I need to remake their current template. The pressures of February/March are beginning to take it’s toll on me though, we’re coming up to the 2-year mark with Joe and my concentration has been more like A.D.D. My sound sensitivity has come back with full force, making it even harder to concentrate. I have to get this done within the next few hours though – I just hope I’m able to design something they like and be content with it as I’m sending over files.

:: crosses fingers ::

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.: Crosses Fingers :.

Monday, January 28th, 2008

I just received an email that has me jumping for joy.¬† One of the jobs I submitted my resume to responded and are interested in setting up an interview.¬† I have to say I’m ecstatic about this because it was from one of the companies that I was really interested in working with.¬† I have to email them back and setup a meeting sometime next week.¬† I’m not sure if it’s the pizza from dinner or just my nerves but my stomach is in so many knots right now it’s unreal.¬† I’m sure I’ll have more of an update other than just the meeting itself.¬† Never know, maybe I’ll actually get this job and be well on my way to getting things back to normal.

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