Pages

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Busy weekend!

After another very busy week at work, I'm going to have a really busy weekend! Fortunately a busy weekend is a good thing, so it will offset the busy week at work, which isn't so great (but it's really OK and it will be much less busy after next week).

Start off with Friday night grabbing dinner and going to see a play at her school, after which I wouldn't be surprised if Paul and I end up hanging out with Vince.

Saturday during the day I'll either knit, read, clean, paint, or some combination of those, and I will definitely make King Cake and fresh rolls for Sarah's party; that night Paul and I are going on a bar tour in Harrisburg for my co-worker Aimee's 31st birthday. The bar tour doesn't start until 9:00, but we won't stay out late, because Sunday is the busiest day of all!

Sunday starts out with Bell choir playing at 8:15 and 11:00 (gotta be at church by 7:30!) with new member's class in between. At 11:00 bells are only the prelude, which is good because Paul and I have to leave as soon as the bells are done playing so that we make it to Nawakwa by noon to help Kathy make chicken and waffles! I'm super excited that Kathy called Paul to come help with a fun winter Nawakwa event. Once all the chicken & waffles have been eaten, Paul and I will leave from camp and go directly to Sarah's condo in Ashburn, VA for her super bowl party with Ginny, Jeneane, and Chris! It's a long way to go on a Sunday night, but worth it to see the VA crew. Luckily Paul and I don't care much about the actual game, so we'll probably leave before it's over to make it home by, say, midnight.

Other fun things in the near future: a visit from cousin Katy on Friday 8 Feb so she can see our apartment, Valentine's day, Nawakwa book group Feb 22-23, Juniata Central PA alumni winter gathering on Feb 23 in the evening, and going with my Mom to visit Hannah in Mansfield to finally see her apartment Feb 29 - Mar 1. So much to look forward to!!

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

workin' hard

I was at work from 7:15 Tuesday morning until 6:00 in the evening. I only have to work 3 hours a day for the rest of the week to get in my 80 hours this pay period. I also worked about 5 hours over the long weekend (from home). *whew*

When I got home last night, after catching up on comics online, I made dinner from scratch in our newly-functional kitchen! I even did dishes. This is why I want to get into a class at HACC or something - when I'm super-busy, I'm more motivated to do everything, including housework.

Then Paul and I watched this bizarre and very B movie called "Existenz." It had Jude Law in it, and Willem Dafoe, and yet it was one of the most awkwardly acted movies I've ever seen. The plot was also hilariously uneven and contrived - Paul and I kept looking at each other like, "WTF???!?!!?" Plus, I totally called the ending about 10 minutes into the movie: I said "It'll be that they were inside the computer game from the beginning," and Paul said, "Yeah, probably." And they were. It was pretty ridiculous.

Got up at 8:15 this morning and took a shower. Now it's 9:15 and I guess I'll head into work, and stay until 3:00 or so, depending on how much work I have to do...there is a lot, but I got the big thing that was due done yesterday. I'm certainly going to end up with probably more overtime this pay period than I've ever had before...too bad I don't get overtime pay any more. Ah, well.

Going to Ashburn, VA for the super bowl to visit Sarah and Jeneane. Looking forward to that! Ginny will have moved in with Sarah by then, so they'll have Ginny's big screen TV (since I care about actually watching the game so much), and also Ginny's 2 cats and Sarah's cat - they're merging "families," which in this case means their cats. I said it was like the Brady Bunch, but updated for the 21st century! Tee hee. Now that I have a kitchen, I can bring something yummy to eat. I think I'll also crack out the 1-gallon plastic pitcher and come up with something yummy to drink.

Is anyone in the Lebanon clan free this weekend? I want to visit. Or be visited. Altho I guess I should really paint the trim in the dining room...and finish putting stuff away in the kitchen...yeah. Whatever.

Alrighty, for real now, getting dressed and going to work. Seriously. OK, bye.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Relief

Many things going on.

Chia slideshow from a few posts back has one more picture at the end; he's fully-grown now.

More exciting: our kitchen base cabinets are installed, countertop and all! Last thing to do is vacuum and clean them out, install handles on doors and drawers, and fill them up! Paul also put the door on the front of one of the two cabinets hung on the dining room wall, but the other he put together upside down, so he has to un-hang it and flip it around before the door will fit on (whoops). It's also added to the slideshow, but here is a picture of the finished cabinets:



And finally, the biggest news of all: I have my wedding photos.

If you haven't heard the story, it's pretty long, so give me a call sometime. Suffice to say, our apparently chronically depressed photographer hadn't been returning our calls or e-mails, but today my dad went and found him at his studio, and the photographer gave him a DVD with all the full-sized raw files and a written release of his rights to the photos. So we still have no album, but now we at least have the "negatives," so we'll be able to make ourselves anything we want. The contract we signed says he will maintain rights to the photos, so this is important. We've paid him in full and hasn't delivered the albums etc. we bought from him, but at least now we have the files. Next task is to have them looked at by a professional photographer who will be able to balance things - it was a sunny day, so a lot of the outdoor photos look overexposed, but it's OK because we have the raw image files, which is like having the negative if it wasn't digital, so all the info is there.

I'm still trying to think of a humane way to get the word out that this is not someone you want to hire as a photographer without being really mean to this guy. On one hand I'm totally pissed that he gave us the one-over and didn't deliver on our contract, but on the other hand I don't want to ruin the guy's livelihood, I just want to teach him a lesson. You can read all about his pathetic life on his myspace page, so you gotta feel a little bit sorry for him, but on the other hand he signed a contract with us, knowing that he had these problems, and thus sucking us into his problems. I want to teach him a lesson, but on the other hand I want to show some pity to a guy with these personal problems, but on the OTHER hand Paul pointed out that it's because everyone he's screwed over in the past has felt too sorry for him to do anything about it that lets him keep doing it to more and more people. But what if we speak out, and it makes him commit suicide or something? There's just no way to win. I'm open to suggestions. Seriously, the guy is a nut job. I deleted my myspace account a while back, but I might get a new one just so I can comment on his and tell him how underhandedly misleading, selfish, and inconsiderate I think he is to his clients.

There's multiple complaints against him with the Better Business Bureau, so I want to go at least one step beyond that and put a complaint in a more public area that I feel is more likely to be seen by prospective customers of his - we sure didn't check out his history at the BBB before we signed the contract, or I'm sure we wouldn't have hired him!!

So that's my story for tonight, and if you want any specific pictures from the wedding, I can now send you the full-sized file for yourself and it's perfectly legal. I'm going to scan the release letter tomorrow at work, so I can send that to anyone too.

Just because I can and it's legal now, here's one of my favorite pictures:

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Yes, I'd love some cheese to go with my whine.

This morning after my eye doctor appointment, my shoulders and butt were still sore from riding my bike to work Tuesday, my upper left arm was REALLY sore from the tetanus shot I got at my doctor's appointment Wednesday afternoon, and I couldn't see my keyboard or computer screen because of my dilated eyes. It was a weird day. Never thought I'd need that magnifier thing that comes with Windows.

This evening my back hurts again, I think from sitting weird at work all day because of my butt being sore.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Woo hoo!!

I rode my bike to work today, and I feel great. It's a nice ride - relatively flat, with a few small hills (none steep) and plenty of pedaling because there are not many significant down hills. A good, steady cardio workout. Once it's lighter for more hours a day, I am going to ride my bike so much! I definitely want to get the clipless pedals and shoes tho - Corey, hook me up! As long as you're not way more expensive than a commercial place, I'd much rather buy them from you.

The best part was just getting to be outside today - it was around 65 degrees on my way home this afternoon. My fingers were a bit chilly on the way to work when it was only around 45 degrees, but this afternoon was amazingly gorgeous - the kind of weather I could be happy with most of the year! As long as I got a few snow days and a few hot pool/beach days, it could be 65 degrees the rest of the time and I'd be quite happy.

Hopefully I can get some bike pedals and shoes before it's next warm enough to ride!

Monday, January 07, 2008

Baby, it's warm outside!

It's supposed to be in the mid-40's before the sun even rises tomorrow morning, so I'm going to ride my bike to work.

I brought it up from the basement and sat it on the back porch and I have my biking clothes & gear laid out and my work clothes packed, so all I have to do is roll out of bed, get dressed, grab a bite to eat, hop on my bike, and go! I'm hoping to be out the door by sunrise at 7:30 AM (at which point I figure it will be light enough to ride safely). Work is about 5 miles, and it's mostly quite flat, so I'm thinking no more than 40 minutes and I should easily be on time for my 8:30 conference call.

One more day of Chia pics added to the slideshow in the previous post! I know you're all on the edge of your collective seats to see the miniscule change from Sunday to Monday.

Also exciting: the base cabinets are installed! Now Paul just has to carefully cut the counter to size and install that. He bought a special new blade for his circular saw and everything. It's going to be SO nice to have counter in our kitchen!!

Wish me luck!!

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Ch-ch-ch-Chia!

My Chia Pet is grown! Watch its growth, just like a real Chia commercial:



And even tho it's not finished yet, here's the home improvement album, with new pics at the end of our soon-to-be-finished base cabinets - then our kitchen will finally be fully functional!! Real countertop, I can hardly wait. I am going to go crazy with the Kitchen Aid mixer!!



Picasa has this "embed slideshow" feature that I've been wanting to try, but if it doesn't work well or you don't want to sit thru the whole home-improvement slideshow, you can always see my Picasa pictures here and just look at the last few in the "Home Improvement in New Cumberland" album to see the kitchen cabinets.