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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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Posted in Career, Daily, Delmarva, Stressed | 3 Comments »

Snap Happy

Monday, January 28th, 2008

It’s been a rather unproductive week, mainly because I’ve been a bit under the weather. I cleaned up the house and have been maintaining that for the bulk of the week. I got some grocery shopping done, picked up a few odds and ends for the house and basically have been floating around with odd and end jobs and that’s about it.

Lately I’ve found myself getting “click happy”, having the Mac and my digital camera is really sparking all kinds of creativity. So much so that I’m considering setting up a photoblog on my new domain but I’m not really not too sure about that. I’ve decided to pull out some PHP books and refresh my memory so I can recreate the gallery script I used to use on my site (acidGALLERY) it was created for early versions of PHP4 but now that all of my servers are running on PHP5 and a higher MySQL version, naturally a few things are going to have to change It’ll be a fairly basic script, admin panel with the standard category, description and auto-thumbnail options. I’m also going to work it into a script that Jackie sent me a few days ago. I was having trouble trying to setup a very basic gallery (where I did all of the work myself) where the popup was javascript based and had a next/previous option with descriptions. Thankfully she pointed me in the direction of one she uses and I have to say I’m pretty content with it thus far. It’s an HTML based script, you do all of the work yourself – and that was enough to spark my interest in creating a new one.

Anyway…Sean and I have been doing a lot of driving around lately to clear our heads. I’m still patiently waiting on a response from the companies I’ve submitted my resume to. It would absolutely rule if I could land the job that’s closest to my house but I’m willing to do some kind of traveling if it means a decent amount of money in return. I just got really lucky when I found positions that don’t require a Bachelors and I know that with the money coming in there’s the option of banking it all for either moving into our own place, buying a house or maybe even both of us going back to school. Right now we’re both working pretty hard because we’ll need to get some money together for taxes and considering the $8,000 loan and the paid blogging earnings from last year, something tells me I’m going to owe quite a bit of money.

I’m also unsure of where exactly it’s going to go. While I have been living in Delaware for the past year, I didn’t have my photo ID changed over until late December. Something tells me I’m going to have to pay New York taxes as opposed to the Delaware ones and I’m not too sure if I’m happy about that. I do have a few write-offs this year though, that should help me out. Between buying computers and other business related items – I’m sure I’ll break even at some point. It would be great if I could personally claim the Mac but Sean made the actual purchase of it and he’s got his own things to pay. We’re ready to get our taxes done, unfortunately we’re waiting on companies to send out the forms. I know you’re supposed to receive them by February, hopefully these companies can keep true to their word.

And since I’ve been so snap happy lately, I figure I’ll just link them up.

(more…)

Posted in Bella, Boyfriend, Daily, Pets | 8 Comments »

Busy and equally productive

Monday, January 21st, 2008

PPPI crashed around 8:30PM last night. The night before I found myself finishing “Copy Cat” because it got to the point where it was just too good to put down. Sean was a bit taken back by the fact that I not only finished the entire 450 page book in less than 5 total reading hours but he also didn’t understand why I wouldn’t go to sleep and just read it later. It’s one of those times when you’re so drawn in and taken back by everything that you have no choice but to push yourself and keep on going. I kept myself awake by avoiding laying down, which is probably why my back is bothering me – based entirely on how I was sitting. I also had a few cups of coffee and one of my Starbucks shooter things. That was more than enough caffeine to get me through the day and I really did need it.

Karen and I did a little shopping yesterday. She was heading up to Dover so she could go to Sally’s. It’s a beauty supply store and there isn’t one anywhere near us so the 40-minute drive was really the only option. I’m not complaining though. The second we walked in I was like a kid in a candy store. I’m all into the hair aspect of being a female, this may have a lot to do with having a salon-based upbringing. I floated around the shampoo, loaded up on conditioner, oil and other moisturizing leave-ins were purchased as well. I even picked up a new brush to put in my purse and later realized that there was a compass on it. I have no idea as to why they’d put it on a brush but considering it’s meant for purses and backpacks, thanks to it’s small design, I’m sure it’ll come in handy at some point.

I wound up calling my sister while I was in the store to ask her about a semi-new product called “Hemp”, put your bongs away it isn’t for glaucoma. It’s supposed to be a pretty intense moisturizing shampoo and conditioning set, and since I bought both products I was given a cute little see-through bag to match. I’m actually really happy with the bag because the second I saw it I saw myself reorganizing under the sink in the bathroom so I could easily get to all of my hair products. I swear I can’t wait for Sean and I to have a larger bathroom to work with so there’s the option for more storage. While I only have a wet/dry flat-iron and a high-watt hair dryer that doesn’t mean I don’t wish to expand. The way most women are about make-up, I am about hair product so naturally I want everything so I can mix and match and just play around as much as possible for the absolute best look.

Anyway, on our way back from Sally’s we took the long 40-minute drive back down to Rehoboth and stopped in Walmart, while entering the parking lot our female-intuition based radars picked up that someone was having a clearance sale. Rounding the corner there was a big sign on Fashion Bug that caught our eyes, “Up to 60% off”. Quickly parking the car we bolted for the door and went our separate ways, she floated into the skinny section and I pushed my way through some extra-large bbw’s in the plus sized department. Something about big girls and sales, it’s strange.

When I finally made it to the proper racks I floated around and landed myself two new robes (Buy 1 – Get 1) and the cool thing about both of them were the fact that they were already 50% in price ANYWAY. The one robe was originally about $50 and it was on sale for $25, then it was put in clearance for $12.99 when you make the purchase of a second one with equal or lesser value. So now I have a pretty pink robe with hearts on it, a nice blue robe with moons and stars and a new bed shirt that says “Lovable” on it. I almost came home with a new jacket but I really had to wonder if I was willing to spend $50 on something I can only wear a few weeks out of the year, it was also of “lesser quality” in regards to the fabric so that altered things for me as well. It’s original price was around $120, it was on sale for about $45 which is very reasonable, I have to say. I’m not a fan of olive green so I looked into the dark gold color, only next to the green it looked more like Orange than anything, so I guess it was copper. Either way it’s still sitting on the rack at the store, so I guess you can imagine how that turn out went, now can’t you?

The bitter cold made us run to the car so we could repark closer to Walmart, after going around the parking lot for about 10 minutes we finally found a spot close enough to the door where we weren’t going to freeze our butts off and proceeded to finish up our shopping day. I was done about 20 minutes before she was, but she’s known for getting lost in stores so it’s not a big deal. I stood up front for a while and waited, couldn’t see her anywhere so I went outside to load the car and have a quick cig. She’d locked the doors so I had to walk back in and wait patiently, we finally met our glances just as she was coming to the check-out line and I went to wait outside for her, not realizing that the temperature dropped about 10¬? in ten minutes. After she made her way out the door and bolted to the car we basically threw everything into the van and headed home. Upon arrival we saw that the weather channel had us listed at 3¬?F(-16¬?C) and boy does that explain a lot.

We all had dinner, I retired to the bedroom and while my original goal was to begin reading another book; within a half hour of my being in the room I crashed. Sean woke me up about 3am when he was taking Bella out for a walk and then I wound up falling back asleep around 5:30am. I slept until noon and I’ve been up ever since. I’m just now getting around to doing everything I needed to get done tonight and hopefully I’ll be able to send out a few more resumes before I get to bed.

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Posted in Daily, PPP | 12 Comments »

A book recommendation, followed by randomage.

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

Since there isn’t much going on these days, other than sending out resumes and hoping for the best, I’ve been doing a lot of reading to keep myself entertained. A few months ago I picked up a book at the grocery store. It caught my eye because the author, Erica Spindler, has been a favorite of mine for quite some time now. It’s one of her newer books, Copy Cat, and I have to say I highly recommend it to just about everyone in the mood for not only a romantic story, but a suspense thriller as well. Paperback cost me about $7 but you can find it on Amazon for as little as $1.

Erica Spindler - Copycat The Sleeping Angel Killer provides the chilling focus to Spindler’s 12th bloodcurdling romantic thriller (after Killer Takes All). Kitt Lundgren and Mary Catherine “M.C.” Riggio of the Rockford, Ill., VCB (Violent Crimes Bureau) vow to catch a serial killer who sets the suffocated bodies of 10-year-old girls in their own beds, dressed like angels in frilly white nightgowns, hair spread out on their pillows and pink lip gloss applied postmortem to their mouths. Spindler’s setting of a “meat-and-potatoes” Midwest town provides a fresh background for two believable and very cool investigators. Kitt, a recovering middle-aged alcoholic, tried and failed to catch the murderer five years earlier, during a 2001 killing spree, while her own child was dying of leukemia and her marriage was falling apart under the strain. Now, when eerily similar crimes recur, someone calls Kitt, identifying himself as the original killer and the new perp as just a copycat. M.C., an ambitious, distrustful newbie, is assigned to help Kitt with the investigation. The detectives must overcome their personal problems in order to catch the monsters, a task culminating in a breathless finale.

I’m not done with the book yet, I only started reading it before I went to sleep last night. After about an hour I was 150 pages in and found it damn near impossible to put it down. The only reason I did was based on the lack of ability to keep my eyes open. While I was enjoying the book, my head was still telling me to go to sleep and no amount of fighting it was going to keep me awake for much longer anyway.

The book has a day-to-day theme going on with it and oddly enough the story was set in the February/March time frame of 2006. A few things caught my eye, mainly because March 2006 was such a difficult month for me. I noticed that chapter 7 is the only notice of the ex-husband (thus far) and this fell on the date of March 7, 2006. The reason this caught my eye was based on the fact that the very first line of the chapter read “Hello Joe”. I found it pretty freaky, this character is talking to her ex-husband the same day I lost Joe. I know that it’s purely a coincidence but it stood out for me, and probably had a lot to do with why I sat here for so long reading as much as I could before I dozed off.

I had some pretty strange dreams last night, not sure why but all family members that have passed on came to me and started yapping about something important, what the message was – I have no idea. I just think it’s strange that I haven’t dreamt of my Grandmother since I was 8 years old and there she was standing in front of my desk with some kind of a message that I just didn’t understand. I didn’t hear her, I knew she was talking to me, you can always see someone talking to you in your dreams. I’m just unsure of what was actually being said, I just remember screaming “Speak English” because it sounded like “Womp, Womp, Womp” whenever she opened her mouth.

Another interesting dream happened just as I’d dozed off to sleep. I’m unsure of whether or not it was based on the book or not but I was walking up my stairs (the one’s in NY, not DE) and at the top of the stairs was Tony Soprano’s mother (now deceased). I could literally see right through her, she looked at me with this evil grin on her face and then her eyes rolled up in the back of her head. I went to run inside but I couldn’t get my keys out of my pocket and I stood there screaming “Wake me up!”. When I finally did wake up it had only been about 20 minutes since I’d gone to bed. It was just one of those freaky dreams that chills you to the bone and sticks with you all freaking day.

And speaking of bone chilling, according to my weather monitor it’s supposed to get down to about 3¬?F tonight. A quick snow shower came through this evening but I haven’t been outside since about 1am to see what kind of “damage” was done. Down here you don’t get much, we’re too close to the ocean and everything tends to melt within an hour because of the salt in the air. I hear NY is getting some pretty decent snow, I kind of wish I could be up there right now to enjoy it but I have to accept the fact that Delaware will never be New York and I need to move on. It sucks, but nothing I can do about it.

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Posted in Daily, Delmarva, New York, Randomage, Soul Mate | 1 Comment »

Weekly Wrap-up.

Saturday, January 19th, 2008

The carpet cleaning turned out very well.¬† At first we were a little apprehensive about having every carpeted room done in the same day but it worked out OK.¬† The bedroom is squeaky clean and the office couldn’t get much better than it currently is.¬† I was very surprised with the way the living room worked out.¬† All pet stains and most odors (thanks to their deodorizing treatment) are gone.¬† Of course we left the dogs out of the room for a while until things dried up.¬† Unfortunately Princess is still pooping on the floor but when you’re 10 years old and trained to do everything in-house, you just don’t know any better.¬† At least there hasn’t been any urine on the floor, that acid in urine really is what kills the carpet to begin with.¬† So either way it worked out well and it was nice to see what this carpet looked like in a “brand new” state.

Sean and I have done pretty good this week,¬† something has sparked in us that has brought us out of the fighting slump and closer together to the point that we’re constantly joking around with each other and there’s no major frustration between us.¬† It’s not that we were having “trouble”, it’s just that current situations have been taking their toll on us. Luckily we’re over it now and things are great.

I’ve been hitting the bricks for a job in the area, I believe I came across an absolutely perfect one today that I found while surfing the web.¬† Maybe something good will come from it.¬† My main concern is reaching my goals by the end of the year and I’m confident that’ll happen if I’m hired by this employer.¬† The loan will be paid off, a car will be purchased and maybe a shiny new apartment is in the mix as well.

While I’m itching to get back to school, I’m thinking of holding off until the end of the year.¬† Since I’m under 24 and not living at home, even though my father is no longer responsible for me financially, I’d have to include him on the financial aid forms, unless I go towards a bachelors degree.¬† Up until recently I’ve decided upon DeVry and since that’s an associates my financial aid would be based on his income and since he makes like $65,000 a year, I doubt I’d really get anything covered by FAFSA.¬† So I’ll look into other routes and hopefully something will spring up.¬† I do know that I can hold off for a while, getting bills in order is more important to me right now anyway.

With my downtime I’ve been floating around the different dealerships in the general area.¬† I’m giving myself a $10,000 max budget on a car because spending anything more than that just to get me back and forth from work would be completely absurd.¬† Naturally this means I’m looking into a used car but I also find no point in owning a brand new one either.¬† Anything I can get from a dealership down here will be covered under whatever Warranty they happen to have, and that’s all that’s important to me at this point in time.¬† I’m sticking to Chevy though, it’s kind of a family tradition.¬† My father has owned them for years (even though he currently has a Jeep), my sister has a Chevy, my mother, step-father and lord knows who else, even Sean has one.¬† So to stay with it I’ve been looking into the Malibu or the Cobalt.¬† I have to say that the 2008 Malibu is absolutely gorgeous, but the price tag isn’t that attractive to me at this point in time – heh.

Anyhoo, it’s about 1:30 and I need to get myself ready for bed.¬† Time to take a quick shower, brush my teeth and curl up in bed with any random book I pull off the shelves until I fall asleep.

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Posted in Boyfriend, Daily, School, Work | 1 Comment »

Going Crazy…

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

In about five hours my alarm is set to go off at the loudest it’s ever been. By 10am I need to be in the shower and ready to start the day because between the hours of noon and four PM I’ll be waiting on Stanley Steamer to get here and take care of the carpets. Now, when one pays a company to come in and do….say…6 rooms, you also pay a bit extra so that they can move things around. So please tell me why for the last two days Sean and I have been moving everything out of the living room, dining room, bedroom and office? Because while they claim they’ll move things for you, it only falls under certain categories and if they DO move it for you, it needs to be completely cleaned off. They don’t move plants, they don’t move bulky furniture (king bed), they won’t move wooden bookcases unless they’re cleared off and they won’t touch electronics. Guess who’s house is filled with everything they WON’T move, but were paid extra for? :: waits patiently for your guess ::

I attempted to get into bed around 3:30 because thanks to a faulty alarm clock (Sean) I didn’t wake up as early as I wanted to so I knew I was going to have to fight to get myself to sleep tonight. Who would have thought that an hour and half later listening to Sean wheezing, Bella snoring, and the different paperboys doing 80 miles an hour in a 13 mile-an-hour complex could keep me wide awake?

I’m in the kitchen because there’s so much stuff piled up on my desk (to get it off the floor for the cleaners) that I can’t even use my iMac. I’m not sure of where my laptop is at this point considering the house is in complete disarray. My DS is no where to be found but something tells me Sean had something to do with that, considering his “throw it anywhere” strategy when we started this project. He doesn’t understand that if you’re organized going into this, it’s so much easier to put everything back and get back to your regular life without having to go through bags and stacked up things where you’re unsure of their original origin, but men tend to do that.

The coffee pot is just about done brewing, Karen sets it for about 5am considering she’s up around 5:30 (most days). Today she has a doctors appointment at 9am so I’m sure her alarm is going to be beeping soon as well. I don’t know what to do to get myself to sleep. Usually staring at a screen for a little while does it for me, reading a book works if the screen remedy fails. Unfortunately, neither one is working for me right now. I guess because I feel as though there’s so much to accomplish today. I would love to just start cleaning right now but the only thing that’s really left to do before they show up is vacuum and that’s kind of rude to do at 5am. Both Karen and Sean can sleep right through it, but I doubt that’ll have the same effect on the neighbors considering how loud the Dyson is. With the window cracked I can hear it up the street.

I need to find something to do that will bore me enough to get me in bed. Maybe I’ll surf around MySpace for a while, nothing but uninteresting people there.

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Posted in Annoyed, Bella, Boyfriend, Daily | 9 Comments »

Happy New Year!

Monday, December 31st, 2007

Getting up here was interesting.¬† The car was over packed with presents for everyone.¬† For the most part, everything gift wise (including our luggage) fit nicely into the trunk.¬† The backseat was filled with a computer, monitor, a lot of booze and a gift for Karen’s sister.¬† The laptop was tucked behind the seat, it was almost the perfect placement for it considering there was no room for anything else.¬† Going home should be pretty easy considering gifts were minimal this year.¬† It’s not that they were cheap, it was mainly gift cards and other small items that can easily fit in the trunk so that we don’t have to have an overloaded car on the drive back.

There is about an hour and a half left of 2007 and Sean (as well as everyone else in the house) is fast asleep.¬† I’ll wake him up in about a half hour so we can head over to my aunts house.¬† He’s been sick and the allergy meds that he’s been taking have knocked him out.¬† I feel bad about waking him up but he also understands that I haven’t gotten to spend any time with my aunt in quite a while, so he shouldn’t be too annoyed by being woken up.

I went over to my mother’s last night, we had dinner and she cut my hair.¬† It’s way too short for me but everything she cut off of me was dead end, more than six inches worth so it’s going to take some getting used to.¬† Unfortunately my hair is so thick that it’s borderline afro unless I flat iron it, so while I once thought that shorter hair meant less maintenance, I’ve certainly been proven wrong with my new do.¬† It took about 30 minutes to get it straight with my new wet/dry iron from Remmington.¬† At first I was a little apprehensive about getting one that dries your hair while it straightens but it’s actually pretty decent.¬† It would typically take me about 45 minutes to blow my hair out and then another half hour or so to get it to the desired straightness.¬† Either way the time has dramatically been cut down, that’s all that matters.

When we got back here I wound up relaxing on the couch for a little while and passed out from about 12 to 2.¬† Then Sean woke me up to say he was going to bed, I followed and wound up sleeping until about 2 this afternoon.¬† I guess that had something to do with my lack of sleep for the last few days so catching up on things wasn’t so bad.¬† It’s not like I had any work to do today so there was no real reason for me to wake up.

The original plan for today was to go out east to see his aunt and deliver some gifts, but we decided that the traffic just wasn’t worth it on New Years Eve, so either tomorrow or Wednesday we’ll make the trip out there and that’ll be accomplished.¬† I’m probably heading downstairs to visit with my grandmother and aunt, and see how my grandfather’s doing, he has about a week left on his radiation and I heard he hasn’t been feeling very well.¬† So while it’s nice to see family, the situation kind of sucks.¬† But he’s knocking on 70’s door and people just have to accept that everyone ages, no matter how much it sucks.

So we stayed here today, had pizza for dinner¬† (which made Sean happy) and have basically been flipping through channels for the last few hours until it’s time to get out of here.¬† The only thing that seems to be on is Family Guy, and while I love the show I was hoping on seeing something interesting but no big deal.

My aunt is doing OK, thank you for all of the little notes and I’ve received.¬† She was a little shaken up and a bit sore but it’s been a few days and she seems to be doing OK.¬† I’ll know more tonight though.¬† I need to get all of my packages together, there are about 8 boxes going over to her house – plus a bottle of wine.¬† At least the car won’t be over loaded, everything should fit fine in the trunk this time.

In any event, I hope everyone has a Happy New Year.  Hopefully everyone can stick to their resolutions this year,  I know I will be.

Happy New Year!

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Posted in Boyfriend, Daily, Family, Friends | 6 Comments »

Busy with Resolutions?

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

I’ve been keeping myself busy to make up for the financial loss of the holiday season. I’ve gotten a lot of posting done, a lot of design work and even some personal things as well. I hope to be able to bring in the New Year with friends and family and not have to worry about any actual WORK until the 2nd or so. I’m heading up to New York this weekend and unfortunately got a phone call tonight that set me in a tail spin. My aunt was in a pretty bad car accident, her car is more than likely totaled. I did get in touch with her tonight though, she says that she’s fine, but she’s also a stubborn Irish woman so who knows if that’s actually the case. I know she’s a little sore from the accident but she’s assured me, a few times, that she’s absolutely fine with just a few bumps and bruises. I found out from my sister, she called me from work and told me I need to get back up to NY to see her, I’m thinking something is very wrong but a second phone call to verify information told me that I can wait until Saturday.

I went to the DMV yesterday to get my ID changed over, I’m officially a Delaware resident. I was apprehensive about surrendering my NY ID because I was unsure of the wait time for a new ID card. In NY you go through the motions and then you wait a few days and it shows up in the mail. In DE, however, the card is instantly given to you so I don’t have to worry about not having proper identification on me when I’m traveling this weekend. My next big task is to get a car and some insurance down here and the rest is cake. So that’s one goal for the year.

Another goal is heading back to school. I’ve decided on DeVry and luckily with my situation I’m eligable for full financial aid from 2-3 different resources. I just need to make sure to get all of the paperwork in around the first of the year. It’s only going to be an associates but it’ll carry over for when I’m going for my bachelors (maybe masters) somewhere down the road. So on top of an 8 hour work day, I’m adding a 3-4 hour school day. Then the other 12 hours can basically be spent relaxing and sleeping. Not too shabby – I know I can handle it.

On top of the first two goals, quitting smoking is certainly on the list this year. With a lack of health insurance and increasing lung issues, it’s time to stop beating the dead horse and moving on. I picked up “The Easy Way To Stop Smoking” because I’m a reader and figured a book could tell me more than those damn “Cold Turkey” techniques. I have to say that I can understand why so many people have read this book over the last 20 years. I completed it in about 3 hours and I’m confident that once I begin his methods I’ll succeed in quitting for good. Cold turkey and the patches and that horrible gum – none of it is worth it to me. You quit when YOU are ready to quit and you consider yourself a “Non Smoker” the second you extinguish your last cigarette. I’ll pick a day and then go from there. As of right now there’s a little too much stress in the air for me to pull this off completely. I know you’re sitting there like “Ha! Talk about another excuse” but that’s just how it is for me. I’ve got the little monster in my brain that won’t shut up and I’m going to have to slowly learn how to stop listening to him, that’s all.

And then of course there’s the weight-loss resolution that everyone has. The difference is I’m already ON a diet plan (and doing quite well, thank you) so it’s basically just keeping the concentration, continuing with my small-portion meals during the day and going on from there. Even Sean is going to get in on it with me, who knows – maybe by this summer we’ll spend more time at the beach than in the back yard – heh.

In any event, I hope everyone has a Happy New Year, I won’t be around until Tuesday afternoon so hopefully everyone has a fun weekend. Be safe!

Posted in Boyfriend, Daily, Delmarva, Dieting, Family, Friends, New York, School | 7 Comments »

Oy! Four Days Away!

Friday, December 21st, 2007

With only a few days left before Christmas, I’ve noticed quite a rise in traffic on Route-1. Everyone is getting in their last minute shopping, few think they own the store with the way they’re putzing around. I really can’t stand shoppers who wonder aimlessly around a department store and still walk out with nothing. I fully intend to do all of my shopping on Overstock and TigerDirect next year, no question about it. (more…)

Posted in Boyfriend, Daily, Delmarva | 4 Comments »

The Random Daily BS

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

I didn’t really accomplish much today as far as work is concerned but I believe that’s based on the fact that I’ve been doing A LOT of converting so I can at least have ONE computer that’s completely up and running. (more…)

Posted in Bella, Boyfriend, Daily, Family, Pets | 5 Comments »

Absolute Catastraphy

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

For quite some time now I’ve been dying my own hair. Coming from a family of beauticians you pick up on things. For years I’ve used the peroxide/color combination that is salon grade. Recently, due to lack of resources in the immediate area, I’ve been using the boxed stuff from the store. I tried Garnier for the first time and I have to say that I’m extremely disappointed.

Since my hair is as long and as thick as it is, I have to use two bottles. Both are mixed the exact same way, so I really don’t understand why only half of my hair has any visible sign of color. The left side has the red color I was looking for and the right side has a tint but none of the gray is covered, even though I put “Gray Magic” on both mixes. So basically I’m going to have to make it a point to get my hair fully taken care of when I get up to New York this holiday season. I’m going to be using a clarifying shampoo every other day until I get up there. It’ll strip my hair of most of the color to at least tone things down.

I’m also in desperate need of a hair cut, I’ve decided to hold off for a few weeks and just get everything done up in New York. My mother can more than likely do it for me. I’d like some style but even just chopping two inches off would instantly make my hair healthier looking. It’s very dull thanks to all of the dead ends that I’ve been dealing with. I was looking into places down here but the only one in my immediate price range is The Hair Cuttery. The reviews about this place are really 50/50. Many people love it, a lot of people hate it. I did float around ripoffreport.com as well and there are a few people pulling out the race card but that really doesn’t surprise me considering how often that card is pulled from the deck these days.

Anyway, I’m not even going to bother blowing out my hair because I’m afraid to see what it looks like when it’s dry if it’s already botched up while it’s wet. I just threw it up in a pony tail and strapped a headband on to cover up the most effected area and that’s that.

Karen should be home in a few minutes, hopefully she’ll grab a quick bite and then we’ll be on our way up to Walmart. We’re going to the one a few towns over and I figure while she’s doing her shopping I’ll pick up some food for the week for Sean and I. I’m trying not to spend too much money going out to dinner this week considering we’ll be in Atlantic City this weekend. I know that a few buffets are comped for us so that covers dinner for Saturday and Sunday night. On Monday I have a comp for the diner at Ceaser’s and I’ve been itching to get in there so hopefully that works out well for us. I really wish that we could have gotten a room at Ceaser’s, their casino is gorgeous – I can only imagine what their rooms look like. I’m sure we’ll be content either way.

And Jenny, why don’t you and Geoff head down to A.C. for the day with the baby?

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Posted in Annoyed, Daily, Family | 2 Comments »

Surfing Safari

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

I’m not sure why I went ahead and installed the Safari browser on my laptop but it’s actually working out pretty well so I’m happy I did. I couldn’t get it to properly work on my desktop so I’m surprised it actually works here. I’ve been floating around with it for a few hours to really test things out. I love how things morph in and out when I’m logging into secured areas on the server. Firefox gives you just a little pop up window, it kind of makes me giddy. I was poking around some more download sections on Apple.com to find some cool icons too, part of me is just itching to get onto a Mac and play with all of the customization options considering you really don’t get anything good for Windows when it comes to holiday themes.

Anyway, Sean and I are taking a little vacation this weekend. Instead of being miserable in the house while the guest is here, we’ve decided to head up to Atlantic City for the weekend. Thanks to both of us being Total Rewards members we were able to book a “last minute” room for a completely comped weekend. Originally I was just putting in my card and listing him as a guest without his number, that was going to run us about $500. The second I added his card number to the guest ID the $500 balance turned into a $0 balance and that’s just fine and dandy for us. Unfortunately we were unable to get a room at Harrah’s, so we’re stuck at Showboat but I doubt we’ll be there for anything more than sleeping anyway. I adore Harrah’s, and I absolutely love Ceaser’s, so spending more than a half hour in Showboat to gamble really just isn’t going to happen.

My laptop has been acting up A LOT lately, I don’t even think I’m going to bother to bring it with me when we go up to the casino anyway. The Internet keeps crapping out on me and it randomly stalls up. I’m not sure if the drivers are messed up or if it’s hardware based but I’m starting to get sick of it. It was much worse before I reinstalled Windows and since that reinstall I haven’t downloaded/installed anything that I shouldn’t. A few browsers and notepad are really all I use during the day. There isn’t even a photo program on here, that’s all on the desktop so I can use the dual monitors. It makes no sense but I know that somewhere way down the line I’ll be purchasing a new laptop anyway. I figure a 3-4 year life is more than enough when it comes to computers, especially with the way technology is changing. So figure I’ve had this for almost 2 years, there’s another 24 months (at most) left with it. Hell, maybe I’ll get myself a Macbook Pro for my birthday next year. No better way to turn 24, I think.

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Posted in Boyfriend, Daily | 2 Comments »

The Joy of the Holiday Season

Monday, November 26th, 2007

I should be in bed right now but I’ve got too many things going on before I can crash tonight. I had to activate Sean’s cell phone with some extra minutes and now both mine and his are charging because we’re going to need them today. I’ve had to line the entire living room with newspaper because Princess got into some stuff up in New York and she’s almost doubled in size because she’s full of so much dog food she can’t even move right now. She’s known for getting into things which is why we have a tendency to leave all food out of her reach. Up in NY, however, someone left a door open and a huge mixing bowl of food that would usually go to the two dogs in Karen’s sisters house was scafooned by Princess. Now, she’s used to a 1/2 cup of food a few times a day. One of her sisters dogs is an Akita/Saint Bernard mix so naturally he’s going to get much more than a 1/2 cup. So she managed to eat the entire bowl before anyone found her and is now feeling the effects of it. The problem is she’s allergic to Chicken and all of it’s byproducts. The food she ate was loaded with chicken so she’s having an allergic reaction on top of her bloated-ness from eating her weight in food, basically.

So the second Karen got home tonight she put Princess down and she dropped a few loads in the house. So having the living room lined with newspaper and wee-wee pads is my attempt to save the carpet. Since we have the flea stuff in the carpet, any kind of liquid will deactivate it, so having her drop a load of any kind all over the floor is just going to make things worse. Hopefully my idea helps. She’s having trouble breathing, but when you’ve doubled in size over the course of 20 minutes, naturally that’s going to have some kind of an effect on you. Since she’s an “indoor dog” 100% there’s going to be a lot of presents left everywhere. Damn I’m happy that my dog is completely trained to go outside. Any accidents in the house are one thing, but deliberately crapping wherever you please, wee-wee pad or not, while you’re sick – time for a new carpet.

Anyway – Sean is already in bed. Hopefully I’ll be able to finalize some things in here so I can wake myself up at 9am and be out of here by 10:30 at the latest. We’re taking a trip up to Dover to get some Christmas shopping done before the whole “rush” kicks in. Best Buy is a big trip, but we’re unsure of whether or not we’re going to pick up a television, depends on whether or not it’ll even fit in the car. Then we’re going up to the mall and separating for a couple of hours to do some real shopping. I’m really not sure of what I’m going to be picking up for him but that’s why floating around stores makes things much easier on me. I know that I’m going to need to stop into Spencers and Gamestop but after that – I’ve got no idea. That’s only on his gifts though, I ordered a lot of things online for him. The mall based shopping is a family thing at this point, gift certificates and clothes should cover just about everyone.

I refuse to order gift certificates online, I’ll tell you that much. I attempted to do it yesterday, ordering about $300 in Visa Debit Cards and the first time I submitted the order, nothing took. The second time it wouldn’t go through so I completely gave up. Until I took a look at my bank account and saw $650-something on hold. I called up the company and asked why I’m being charged that much when I don’t even have an invoice to show for it and they told me that the second my card number is typed in the money is held, PLUS there are the basic fees just to print the cards so that explains the $50 ($25 for each order). Either way that money should HOPEFULLY be replaced by Friday and I don’t have to worry about it. If it still goes through and I get no product from the company I’ll have to battle it out with the bank. I know that $650 really isn’t that much money but when you have nothing to show for it and it’s gone – that’s a pretty annoying situation.

I ordered a new monitor tonight so hopefully that’ll be here by this weekend. Newegg is good about getting things to you in a timely manor, considering I’m already on step 4 within 2 hours of placing the order, not bad for a midnight purchase. I picked up two monitors, one for me and one for my father. I bought him a computer for Christmas and the original monitor that I purchased just seemed to small. He’s on a 17″ CRT now and I stupidly ordered a 15″ LCD. So I’m giving the 15″ to Sean to replace his current 15″ monitor and the 17″ will go to Dad with his new system. The other will replace my dying monitor. It’s not “dying” it’s just beginning to fade and making a strange buzzing sound. Considering Karen likes the fuzzy monitors (her eye sight is horrible) maybe I’ll see if she wants to take it then we can boot her CRT as well. I swear I’m the PC queen when it comes to holidays. Everyone gets either a computer or a monitor from me – this is going on 5 years in a row.

Maybe next year I’ll just bank all of the money and buy myself a fully loaded Mac :hrm:

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Posted in Bella, Boyfriend, Daily, Family, Gadgets, Pets | 3 Comments »

Infestations SUCK!

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

So I have to say it’s been a pretty interesting couple of days.¬† Karen and I are currently working on cleaning out the house so we can drop a flea bomb.¬† There were a few crawling around on Candy, and even more floating around on Princess, we didn’t see it until they both got baths this past week and the fleas just fell off them.¬† Turns out Karen’s room is covered in them which means the rest of the house is full of them.¬† Bella has nothing on her but that’s because she’s been protected with Frontline Plus since the day I got her, but now that we’re aware of the infestation we’re all on our toes and itching like crazy when we go to certain areas of the house.

So her bedroom was cleared out yesterday and we dropped a more localized bomb that she picked up from the pet store, it came highly recommended by a few of the customers and employees in there.¬† It’s good to know that we’re not the only house down here who’s got them – lord knows who else does.¬† So she spent about 3 hours vacuuming the bedroom, dropped the bomb and basically went to sleep in the living room because she didn’t want to go back in there last night – and I don’t blame her.¬† She woke me up about 8am this morning because she was vacuuming up the bomb and now I think she’s going to start doing some laundry so she can begin moving things back into the room so we can now tackle the living room and the hallway.¬† I know that today we’ll also have to do my bedroom and the office – Sean won’t be too happy about it but he has a laptop and is perfectly capable of working in the living room for a few hours.¬† Worse case scenario he goes to the library up the block and gets some work done in the peace and quiet there.

I’ve got to go through a lot of email then get my ass in gear on cleaning up the office.¬† I did the bedroom this past weekend but obviously I’m going to need to vacuum the shit out of it again and then drop the bomb in there – this should just be HEAPS of fun.¬† I can’t even throw the dogs outside today while we’re doing all of this because it’s raining and I don’t have a good sized gate to block off the stairs from Bella charging out of here.¬† I may wind up going to the pet store with Karen to pick up some more of this bomb stuff – maybe I’ll just bite the bullet and invest in a gate to throw up when we get back.¬† I don’t like tapping into the loan money but when you’ve just transferred everything out of Paypal to the bank account you really have no choice in the matter.

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Posted in Bella, Daily, Pets, Stressed | 6 Comments »

Can’t kick the funk…

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

I’m not sure if it’s the family health issues, the lack of a new home or just life in general but I’m in a funk that I just can’t seem to kick.¬† I’ve literally done nothing over the course of the last few days and it’s been bothering the living hell out of me.¬† I still haven’t heard from my father, I was trying to call all week to find out how his colonoscopy went but no one seems to want to answer the phone.¬† I assume that if it were really bad news, I would have heard something from either my sister or my aunt telling me to get back to New York as soon as possible.

Moving down here took a lot of adjusting for me, not only was I starting my life with someone but I was also moving away from everything I’ve ever known, especially just the security of family.¬† Now with my grandfather going through radiation and battling his own cancer, and finding out that my father is 50/50 with colon cancer as well – it’s really striking a nerve.¬† I have cancer on both sides of my family, this is nothing new.¬† My grandfather (father’s dad) passed from leukemia, my grandmother (fathers mom) passed from breast cancer that kind of spread to everywhere else.¬† Now my mothers father is going through it, my mothers sister had thyroid cancer, ovarian cancer and lord knows what else.¬† It has me paranoid to even step foot into a doctors office to see where I rank with this terrible disease.¬† I’m taking the ignorance is bliss route at this point, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what’s going on with my father as soon as humanly possible.¬† I’m going to try calling again tomorrow afternoon when he’s home from work, maybe I’ll actually get an answer this time.

Sean’s “brother” showed up last night for a few hours with his wife, daughter and their new puppy.¬† It was a pretty nerve wracking visit but that’s based on the fact that I’ve never met them before and I know that he’s a big part of Sean’s life.¬† They aren’t literally “brothers” biologically but when you grow up together, and are practically joined at the hip for lord knows how many years, putting them under the title of “brother” just seems to fit, hopefully that clears up any confusion – I know there were a few questions.

But anyway, they hung out here for a few hours and we thought they were going to get a hotel room up the block and then get on the road early the following morning.¬† He decided that he wanted to get down to Florida as soon as possible so they all left (on no sleep) to take the drive.¬† Sean didn’t call him today but I assume that he made it there with out any major issues.¬† I’m sure Sean will call after a few days once they’ve settled in.¬† His brother has already stated that we’ll be going to Florida sooner than we think, I’m just not sure of that 13 hour drive, but it should be interesting.¬† Maybe after the holidays we’ll look into a mini-vacation but who knows what will happen.¬† We may be down there a lot sooner depending on how his father is doing – I just don’t like to think like that.¬† Especially considering he’s battling leukemia as well.

Since I wasn’t really up to cooking tonight Sean and I went to Applebee’s for dinner.¬† We haven’t been there in a while and he’s unhappy with a few things at the moment himself so we took a “date night” just to get out of the house and clear our heads.¬† We enjoyed our dinner then did a little shopping afterwards.

Moving along…I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.¬† UPS should be here with my duvet cover and lamps, that’ll complete the bedroom for now.¬† I bought new curtains tonight because the ones hanging up in there were so caked in dust that even machine washing them shows no hope for them being saved.¬† They also don’t match the new color scheme of the room.¬† I settled on gray/black because that’s Sean’s thing.¬† I personally can’t stand it so I’ve done some bright updating and settled on a white theme that’s turning out pretty nicely.¬† The walls are still a pale gray but it’s really just a backdrop for everything else going on.

So I’m going to hang up the new curtains, vacuum, straighten up some shelves, switch out my summer gear with my winter clothes and then vacuum pack all of the summer stuff so I can store that away.¬† Then it’s off to the market so I can pick up some food for the week and get a few more things for Thanksgiving next week.¬† At this point the only thing we really need for next Thursday is the Turkey and Potatoes, after that I’m covered for dinner.¬† The stuff I’d be loading up on tomorrow is our weekly food plus some dessert based items.¬† I didn’t have enough time to make Pumpkin Pie last year, I also couldn’t find any decent pumpkins and refused to pick up the puree.¬† Yes, I do make it completely from scratch.¬† I’m hoping that changes this year.

Guess I should get ready for bed, it’s pushing 5:30 and I don’t wanna be awake for when Princess starts waddling around looking for food.¬† I typically put on special booties over my foot lotion and Princess smells the mint so she’ll go after my toes.¬† I’m surprised I’ve got all 10 at this point, based on my little history with her.¬† She’s a good dog but OUCH MAN!

Night all (well, morning to the normal sleepers)

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Posted in Boyfriend, Daily, Family, Pets | 3 Comments »

Doot Doot Doot…

Thursday, November 1st, 2007

We still haven’t heard from his brother, at this point we’re more concerned than anything.¬† He’s either in Florida or his phone is off in Ohio, we’ve sent him a letter and left it at that.¬† Sean says he’s the kind of guy who would probably go swimming with the phone in his pocket.¬† It’s not that he’s “careless” he just doesn’t remember sometimes.¬† This should be interesting.

Sean did some cleaning up today, he got a lot of the crap out of the middle of the room in the office so I can actually get near my desk now.¬† I haven’t been feeling well for a few days thanks to aunt flo so I haven’t gotten much done.¬† However, with my laptop being in the corner of the room that’s hard to get to thanks to the placement of the bed, instead of climbing over a king sized bed I just decided to sit down in the office.¬† It’s strange working on a full sized keyboard again, it took me a while to get used to the laptop keys, now it’s switching all over again – kind of annoying but that’s what the backspace button is for.

He’s watching Smallville so I’ve got all kinds of noise going on in the background.¬† I’m looking around for my iPod chord but am unable to locate it at the moment.¬† I really do need to charge it and load some songs onto it before we take that 8 hour drive but something tells me I’m going to have at least an extra week anyway so there’s no point in rushing anything.¬† I just need to plug in my headphones and work off the shared drive at the moment – kind of hard to concentrate on anything right now.

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Posted in Boyfriend, Daily, Home Ownership | 1 Comment »

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