I’m finding that as a parent, there is very little that is simple about having children. My original plan for Ayden was to have him officially dedicated back to the Lord before he reached six months. But instead of having it done at the church we attend, I wanted to keep the dedication in the family and have my uncle perform the ceremony. This would have required a little bit of traveling to my uncle’s church in Virginia. And again ideally, I wanted it to be during the summer, since this is when the two of us have the most time.
Let’s just say, we got two out of three of our requests: Uncle and summer. The dedication is the last possible Sunday before the start of the summer. Coincidentally, this is also the month my uncle is on vacation from his church, so the dedication will be held at our home. How many people can say that they get a personalized dedication of their child at their home? While our home isn’t entirely put together, it will satisfy the curiosity of some of my family and friends, and allow more people to come. The goal was to keep everything as simple as possible. So instead of keeping everyone here, the idea was to go to Cracker Barrel, where there is homestyle cooking with really that kind of Sunday dinner feel. In addition, for a select few, the plan was for them to return back to the house for some dessert and drinks.
The downside is that while we have more control over our guest list because of the locale, there is still the limiting factor of how many people to invite. Even at the smallest number, I was only able to whittle it down to 30 people! This is with inviting no uncles and aunts with the exception of the uncle and aunt that are helping with the ceremony. So much for simplicity. Looking at the time, I realize that it may not be realistic to invite people back for dessert since it will be kind of late, and duh! I teach that Monday, starting at 8am and not ending until 9:30 at night! What tha heck am I thinking? So in my mind, I’m thinking that perhaps I should do some kind of cocktail evening on Saturday. But there’s a snafu there too in that my youngest, newest godson’s birthday party is going to be that day. So I’m going to be EXHAUSTED by the middle of Monday night.
But is that the end of the drama? No! For his dedication, he has to be dressed in all white. And I wanted him to be in the cutest dedication outfit possible. But I have standards, and my SO (significant other) had pretty much the same idea. The criteria: no ruffles, no lace, no suspenders, and no, absolutely NO bonnets! You would not believe how hard those criteria are to meet and here’s the reason. Apparently, in the early 20th century, the only outfits available were gowns, and with gowns came bonnets. It wasn’t until late 20th century that boys started to get their gender identification from birth. So in my internet searching, I found a plethora of pantaloons, suspenders and bonnets. I wanted Ayden to have a hat, a regular hat. Finally, after searching I can’t tell you how many sites, I found what I thought to be close the perfect outfit: short pants, vest, bowtie and a jaunty newsboy hat with a brim. Ironically enough, that boy’s outfit was located on a website called Pink Princess! What tha heck! So I bookmark the page with the intent of buying it with the gift card I was to receive from the credit union for buying the car. I receive the gift card in the mail the next day, and I’m ready to rock.
As for the shoes, my SO found those on Footlocker, which is great since I acquired a Footlocker gift card from a lost-and-found item that had not been reclaimed for almost two years. The great part about the shoes is although they are white, they are essentially tennis shoes, and versatile for other outfits. So his part turned out easy.
Now back to the outfit. So when I went back to the website and added the outfit to the cart, it was nicely sold out. Again, what tha hack!? What am I supposed to do now? So it’s back to the internet drawing board. And lo and behold, I find his outfit on a site that I’ve used a few times before. Why this site didn’t show up in my original search, I have no idea, but I find two possibilities: a diamond vest and a jacquard vest. While I like the jacquard vest the best, I like the hat on the diamond outfit better. But the diamond outfit has a matching diamond cut cuff. Not feeling the cuff, I sent the choices to the SO and he felt the same. Just to be certain I couldn’t get everything I wanted on the order, I called my website and asked there could be any substitution. Of course not. So I read the reviews and the outfits run small so I decide to go 9-12 months with the jacquard, and I hit another “What tha heck?!” moment. The jacquard only came in two sizes: 3-8 months and 3T! But at least this time, I have a backup, so I order the diamond cut. C’est la vie.
Now I just have to play the waiting game as the items start to come in. Why Amazon? Why have you forsaken me and not had all these things available?
Friday, August 19, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
The Newest Obsession
I can usually blame any obsession I have on someone else. After all, it was their fault I got hooked on said obsessions in the first place. You’ve already read about my newest novel quest obsession (I’ll provide an update for that later.) “What about your obsession with strong drink?” you may think to ask and I will readily tell you 1) that is more of a hobby, and 2) my DBBF is to blame. I will however, say that it is a hobby in which I don’t frequently indulge anymore. Case in point, I have a bottle of Reisling chilling in the refrigerator, a bottle of Shiraz on the top shelf of the pantry and another bottle of Moscato Rosé on the middle shelf in the pantry. Not to mention the various assortments of liquor that is available for margaritas, rum punches, and martinis. The point is that all this has remained untouched. Two years ago, the three wines alone would have been gone within a week. The real point is that I’m a responsible mommy now who wants to be highly aware for her son in the event he wakes up in the middle of the night for any reason. I can’t do that plied with alcohol.
But the obsession that I am talking of now is with the Food Network. For years, my cousin has been telling me about Food Network and HGTV and how she watches faithfully, naming chefs like most people would sitcom characters. Up until I started watching, the only cooks I was familiar with were Paula Deen, Rachel Ray, and Julia Child. Yes, I’m telling my age with Julia Child. These cooks were only familiar because they’d made it to mainstream TV. And there was that chef that used to come on every week in a five-minute segment for local television in Virginia. I’d even heard the name Bobby Flay bandied about but I was never sure of his occupation.
This obsession is not as easy to assign blame to as any of the others, primarily because there were so many people talking about Food Network and HGTV. In addition to my cousin, I would come to work and everyone in the office would be talking about a show on one of these stations like it was The Office. “Did you see that cake?” Or “I really loved the way he laid that mosaic tile.” These phrases would be said in whispered and awed tones, and I’d sit there, wondering what in the world these people were talking about and even at times looking at them as if they were a little crazy. I mean, to get obsessed over as groundbreaking a show as Survivor was understandable, but Cake Boss? Really?
I was once relegated to watching mostly movies and select television series. I had this whole “thing” about watching too much reality TV. I figured that Survivor was the original reality show and that all the others were imitators. So, other than catching a few episodes of The Bachelor because it came on right after another of my favorite shows went off, I stayed away from reality TV.
But then a strange thing happened.
I started dating.
My significant other (and I know you’re still wondering about the whole “I’m engaged news) is a consummate channel flipper. I used to think I was such a TV junkie that I could watch a test pattern, but I came to discover that I’m rather discerning in my tastes. I don’t like crime dramas, and other than Grey’s Anatomy and now Private Practice, I try to stay away from the medical dramas. Of course the SO is a big lover of Criminal Minds, but in between, he’s always looking for something “good” to watch. It is in this spirit that I discovered the Food Network. One night, he turned it to the show Chopped. I did not know I could get so into a competitive cooking show! Now I record it, and on those days when I watch marathon sessions of it, I end up dreaming about the show; I kid you not, night before last, I kept dreaming about nopale, a cactus used in Mexican cooking, because it was one of the ingredients. The show really does not only provide some culinary knowledge, but some cultural and vocabulary knowledge as well. For you Family Guy fans, take for instance, the word Quohag: I recently found out it’s a type of clam; no wonder the bar is named the Drunken Clam. Those Family Guy people are really clever—sick, but clever.
At first, it was all about the ways in which these cooks could transform weird ingredients that were thrown at them. But after a while, it became more than the cooks or the recipes on there, because I found myself slowly but surely liking the judges. At first I didn’t want to like them because they sit there all stoic and judge people, and on the show, some of them can be downright mean. But then I figured out who the host, Ted Allen was (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy). And then, I developed a favorite: Aarón Sánchez, Latin cuisine authority. And it was all downhill from there. Next thing you knew I found myself liking the two most-frequent female judges, Alex Guarnascelli (I spelled her name right without needing the internet!) and Amanda Freitag, then Chris Santos. I’m still not a huge fan of two of the judges, but that will remain to be seen after I do my latest obsessive research. This latest obsession started because I decided to watch Aarón’s new show, Heat Seekers. Basic rundown of the show: two guys travel the country looking for the hottest foods in America. Rarely do both of them finish a meal. But the point of this is, I got to see a whole new side to Aarón: a lighter side and I got thinking, what if they all have this lovable lighter side? So now, besides watching Chopped and Heat Seekers, I have now signed up at FoodNetwork.com and saved a few recipes and read a couple bios of the judges, and will commit myself to watching at least one episode of their show to see what their personality really is.
Damn…another project!
But as for the need to watch Food Network, it must be some sort of rite of passage that goes along with being a homeowner. Or maybe parenthood. The home ownership theory would also explain why that same cousin also watches HGTV. But even though I am a proud new homeowner, I am also proud to say that my obsession has not yet taken me to HGTV, although I can see it coming because already I have been to Lowe’s one too many times this summer.
As to the other obsession of completing the series of books that my former dean belabored me with, I have made some progress. Again, this is probably going to be a SERIOUS project from here on out, so I decided to be somewhat systematic in my approach. First, I looked online to verify which books were indeed in a series (even though I didn’t exaggerate in the last blog about these when I said that almost EVERY SINGLE ONE was part of a series. Let me give you a rough idea of the volume of books my former dean has given me over the years. We found out in passing conversation that we enjoy the same specific genre of romance fiction: 18th century England. And I inadvertently mentioned that after she finished, she could pass them on to me. What I didn’t know at the time was that she reads roughly two novels per week. Of these novels, about 50% of them are period romances. Keep in mind also that when I’m working and teaching, I have NO time to do any leisurely reading and now I can rarely leisurely read at home. So I have garnered quite a collection of books to read.
Having systematically approached this project, I printed the booklists of the authors my former dean favored. This was about a 20-page generation, so I decided to consolidate those twenty pages into a Word document which now only encompasses three pages (I kept some of the some of the authors’ original pages). On those three pages alone, I have counted a total of 70+ books, and I have only read about five of them.
As I do this project, for the most part I am not reading every single book written by these authors unless it is specifically part of the series of books that I already have. There are exceptions to this. Two of the authors consistently lace characters throughout all their books. For this reason, their series will be one of the last tackled. I’ve decided to start with the smaller, easy to complete series first, and then move my way through the more complex, completing each in the series as I move forward.
A big help to my project has been Amazon.com; it is very convenient to be able to pick up books for as little as $3 and get them shipped to you free in two days. But an even better route that I have recently discovered is Google e-books. Yesterday, I’d finished the first book of one of my series and was eager to move onto the next. While I had purchased the book, it was still in the package from Amazon on my coffee table. So, just out of curiosity, I typed the title in the Google search bar and lo and behold! The entire text was there. How awesome is that! Now I don’t know how many books I’ll be able to access this way, but I am sure going to try that method before Amazon.
But the obsession that I am talking of now is with the Food Network. For years, my cousin has been telling me about Food Network and HGTV and how she watches faithfully, naming chefs like most people would sitcom characters. Up until I started watching, the only cooks I was familiar with were Paula Deen, Rachel Ray, and Julia Child. Yes, I’m telling my age with Julia Child. These cooks were only familiar because they’d made it to mainstream TV. And there was that chef that used to come on every week in a five-minute segment for local television in Virginia. I’d even heard the name Bobby Flay bandied about but I was never sure of his occupation.
This obsession is not as easy to assign blame to as any of the others, primarily because there were so many people talking about Food Network and HGTV. In addition to my cousin, I would come to work and everyone in the office would be talking about a show on one of these stations like it was The Office. “Did you see that cake?” Or “I really loved the way he laid that mosaic tile.” These phrases would be said in whispered and awed tones, and I’d sit there, wondering what in the world these people were talking about and even at times looking at them as if they were a little crazy. I mean, to get obsessed over as groundbreaking a show as Survivor was understandable, but Cake Boss? Really?
I was once relegated to watching mostly movies and select television series. I had this whole “thing” about watching too much reality TV. I figured that Survivor was the original reality show and that all the others were imitators. So, other than catching a few episodes of The Bachelor because it came on right after another of my favorite shows went off, I stayed away from reality TV.
But then a strange thing happened.
I started dating.
My significant other (and I know you’re still wondering about the whole “I’m engaged news) is a consummate channel flipper. I used to think I was such a TV junkie that I could watch a test pattern, but I came to discover that I’m rather discerning in my tastes. I don’t like crime dramas, and other than Grey’s Anatomy and now Private Practice, I try to stay away from the medical dramas. Of course the SO is a big lover of Criminal Minds, but in between, he’s always looking for something “good” to watch. It is in this spirit that I discovered the Food Network. One night, he turned it to the show Chopped. I did not know I could get so into a competitive cooking show! Now I record it, and on those days when I watch marathon sessions of it, I end up dreaming about the show; I kid you not, night before last, I kept dreaming about nopale, a cactus used in Mexican cooking, because it was one of the ingredients. The show really does not only provide some culinary knowledge, but some cultural and vocabulary knowledge as well. For you Family Guy fans, take for instance, the word Quohag: I recently found out it’s a type of clam; no wonder the bar is named the Drunken Clam. Those Family Guy people are really clever—sick, but clever.
At first, it was all about the ways in which these cooks could transform weird ingredients that were thrown at them. But after a while, it became more than the cooks or the recipes on there, because I found myself slowly but surely liking the judges. At first I didn’t want to like them because they sit there all stoic and judge people, and on the show, some of them can be downright mean. But then I figured out who the host, Ted Allen was (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy). And then, I developed a favorite: Aarón Sánchez, Latin cuisine authority. And it was all downhill from there. Next thing you knew I found myself liking the two most-frequent female judges, Alex Guarnascelli (I spelled her name right without needing the internet!) and Amanda Freitag, then Chris Santos. I’m still not a huge fan of two of the judges, but that will remain to be seen after I do my latest obsessive research. This latest obsession started because I decided to watch Aarón’s new show, Heat Seekers. Basic rundown of the show: two guys travel the country looking for the hottest foods in America. Rarely do both of them finish a meal. But the point of this is, I got to see a whole new side to Aarón: a lighter side and I got thinking, what if they all have this lovable lighter side? So now, besides watching Chopped and Heat Seekers, I have now signed up at FoodNetwork.com and saved a few recipes and read a couple bios of the judges, and will commit myself to watching at least one episode of their show to see what their personality really is.
Damn…another project!
But as for the need to watch Food Network, it must be some sort of rite of passage that goes along with being a homeowner. Or maybe parenthood. The home ownership theory would also explain why that same cousin also watches HGTV. But even though I am a proud new homeowner, I am also proud to say that my obsession has not yet taken me to HGTV, although I can see it coming because already I have been to Lowe’s one too many times this summer.
As to the other obsession of completing the series of books that my former dean belabored me with, I have made some progress. Again, this is probably going to be a SERIOUS project from here on out, so I decided to be somewhat systematic in my approach. First, I looked online to verify which books were indeed in a series (even though I didn’t exaggerate in the last blog about these when I said that almost EVERY SINGLE ONE was part of a series. Let me give you a rough idea of the volume of books my former dean has given me over the years. We found out in passing conversation that we enjoy the same specific genre of romance fiction: 18th century England. And I inadvertently mentioned that after she finished, she could pass them on to me. What I didn’t know at the time was that she reads roughly two novels per week. Of these novels, about 50% of them are period romances. Keep in mind also that when I’m working and teaching, I have NO time to do any leisurely reading and now I can rarely leisurely read at home. So I have garnered quite a collection of books to read.
Having systematically approached this project, I printed the booklists of the authors my former dean favored. This was about a 20-page generation, so I decided to consolidate those twenty pages into a Word document which now only encompasses three pages (I kept some of the some of the authors’ original pages). On those three pages alone, I have counted a total of 70+ books, and I have only read about five of them.
As I do this project, for the most part I am not reading every single book written by these authors unless it is specifically part of the series of books that I already have. There are exceptions to this. Two of the authors consistently lace characters throughout all their books. For this reason, their series will be one of the last tackled. I’ve decided to start with the smaller, easy to complete series first, and then move my way through the more complex, completing each in the series as I move forward.
A big help to my project has been Amazon.com; it is very convenient to be able to pick up books for as little as $3 and get them shipped to you free in two days. But an even better route that I have recently discovered is Google e-books. Yesterday, I’d finished the first book of one of my series and was eager to move onto the next. While I had purchased the book, it was still in the package from Amazon on my coffee table. So, just out of curiosity, I typed the title in the Google search bar and lo and behold! The entire text was there. How awesome is that! Now I don’t know how many books I’ll be able to access this way, but I am sure going to try that method before Amazon.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
It's a Reunion!
This week’s blog posting is a little early. Does that mean that you will get two in the course of this week? Quite possibly, but I won’t make any promises. It’s actually an odd thing for me to actually blog on Sunday, but I’ve been enjoying just a leisurely day of sleeping in, having a good breakfast, enjoying multiple cups of coffee, and spending some quality alone time with my son while the rest of the house slumbered. Now my son is also slumbering, I have enjoyed some leftover fried chicken, and the sound of the gently beating rain which seems to have dissipated some of the heat and feeding our newly seeded lawn. So Sunday turns out to be as good a day as any, especially in light of the fact that these leisure days will soon be far and few in between with the start of a new semester. Besides, I just had to blog about the events of yesterday.
Yesterday, I and a few select classmates celebrated our 20th year class reunion; it’s been twenty years since high school. As usual, I dragged my modern-day DBBF along as we have a pact to go to one another’s reunions (hers is always way more lively and maybe that’s because I can act up and have people wonder if I went to their school). Although only a small gathering of folks showed up, it was nonetheless a decent enough time; I ended up staying for three hours, which was about two hours longer than I thought I would after being told that only 14 people actually paid to come. Once there, I saw people that I literally had not seen in person since June 13, 1991—graduation day. Granted, there were three people I’d seen within the past five years, a few I’d seen at the ten-year, and most of whom I’d befriended on that great and wonderful world of Facebook.
I’ll admit that for the 10-year reunion, I was a bit trepidacious about attending. Prior to the first of our reunion, I associated high school with the worst time of my life. I somehow had managed to repress almost any good thing that had happened in high school. But the 10-year reunion gave me a chance to put any and all of my childhood trauma from high school behind as I realized that most of the people I graduated with were people I known since the age of five, and after you’ve known people for a period of 15+ years, they become some integral part of your subconscious dysfunctional family. So I looked forward to the 20-year, and with the advent of the social network, I just knew that there were going to be more folks at the 20 than at the 10, especially when a lot of people recently joined this year in what I assumed was anticipation of the day.
In true anticipation of the day, my DBBF and I had a drink before making our way inside, then hit the bar after we got there, and took a break to get a little more. There were some pleasant surprises. I found out that one of my classmates has been living in Bowie for about seven years, and I was totally oblivious to that fact. I found out that another found out he was a daddy after 16 years. I got to observe at least four sets of besties reunited from high school. I enjoyed some drinks with my besties past and present. I also found out I wasn’t the only one to fortify myself with alcohol beforehand.
The truth is the older I get, the more I realize that no one REALLY liked high school all THAT much. Probably one of the most shared sentiments among my classmates was, “I couldn’t stand most of the people in high school.” We all had our own particular hang-ups; the person you thought had an easy or great life thought the same thing about you. The true testament of how much people wanted to escape Lancaster and all of its claustrophobic charm is evidenced by how far most of the people moved away: although a few remained in the county, locations of some of my classmates include as close as Richmond, northern Virginian, Maryland like me, North Carolina, or as far away as New York, Georgia, Colorado, and California.
What I also realized was that the class of 1991 has a special penchant for cynicism and sarcasm. At first, I thought it was just me; then as I talked to my closer circles of friends, I thought it was just the old birds-of-a-feather-flock-together syndrome, but as I looked at more and more of my classmates, I realized that all of us had that bordering on snarky attitude. I can truly say that out of the 14 people that showed up, I could only associate two with being truly NICE and sincere. And that’s not to say that the rest of us are bad people, but we all have a toughened by the tides attitude.
But walking away from the reunion, hair so windblown that not one curl remained, I can say that I had a great time with those folks and that I look forward to our next one. Maybe we can plan ahead for a 30th reunion to be held at a place that isn’t necessarily Lancaster—a destination cruise perhaps.
Yesterday, I and a few select classmates celebrated our 20th year class reunion; it’s been twenty years since high school. As usual, I dragged my modern-day DBBF along as we have a pact to go to one another’s reunions (hers is always way more lively and maybe that’s because I can act up and have people wonder if I went to their school). Although only a small gathering of folks showed up, it was nonetheless a decent enough time; I ended up staying for three hours, which was about two hours longer than I thought I would after being told that only 14 people actually paid to come. Once there, I saw people that I literally had not seen in person since June 13, 1991—graduation day. Granted, there were three people I’d seen within the past five years, a few I’d seen at the ten-year, and most of whom I’d befriended on that great and wonderful world of Facebook.
I’ll admit that for the 10-year reunion, I was a bit trepidacious about attending. Prior to the first of our reunion, I associated high school with the worst time of my life. I somehow had managed to repress almost any good thing that had happened in high school. But the 10-year reunion gave me a chance to put any and all of my childhood trauma from high school behind as I realized that most of the people I graduated with were people I known since the age of five, and after you’ve known people for a period of 15+ years, they become some integral part of your subconscious dysfunctional family. So I looked forward to the 20-year, and with the advent of the social network, I just knew that there were going to be more folks at the 20 than at the 10, especially when a lot of people recently joined this year in what I assumed was anticipation of the day.
In true anticipation of the day, my DBBF and I had a drink before making our way inside, then hit the bar after we got there, and took a break to get a little more. There were some pleasant surprises. I found out that one of my classmates has been living in Bowie for about seven years, and I was totally oblivious to that fact. I found out that another found out he was a daddy after 16 years. I got to observe at least four sets of besties reunited from high school. I enjoyed some drinks with my besties past and present. I also found out I wasn’t the only one to fortify myself with alcohol beforehand.
The truth is the older I get, the more I realize that no one REALLY liked high school all THAT much. Probably one of the most shared sentiments among my classmates was, “I couldn’t stand most of the people in high school.” We all had our own particular hang-ups; the person you thought had an easy or great life thought the same thing about you. The true testament of how much people wanted to escape Lancaster and all of its claustrophobic charm is evidenced by how far most of the people moved away: although a few remained in the county, locations of some of my classmates include as close as Richmond, northern Virginian, Maryland like me, North Carolina, or as far away as New York, Georgia, Colorado, and California.
What I also realized was that the class of 1991 has a special penchant for cynicism and sarcasm. At first, I thought it was just me; then as I talked to my closer circles of friends, I thought it was just the old birds-of-a-feather-flock-together syndrome, but as I looked at more and more of my classmates, I realized that all of us had that bordering on snarky attitude. I can truly say that out of the 14 people that showed up, I could only associate two with being truly NICE and sincere. And that’s not to say that the rest of us are bad people, but we all have a toughened by the tides attitude.
But walking away from the reunion, hair so windblown that not one curl remained, I can say that I had a great time with those folks and that I look forward to our next one. Maybe we can plan ahead for a 30th reunion to be held at a place that isn’t necessarily Lancaster—a destination cruise perhaps.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Working Girl
In the past few weeks, it feels like I have been working harder than I did during labor. The summer is almost over and with it, the pressures of making sure I’m prepared for my foray back into the classroom are mounting. I am almost to the point where I have to give up my leisure reading, which in itself has become a daunting future project, thanks to my illustrious former dean. How, you ask? Well, let’s see, in my Declutter My Life Saga, Part II (which I will blog about later), I decided that I was going to get rid of all the romance paperbacks I accumulated during the past year that my dean donated to me. So I picked up one, only to find out that it was part of a series. Now, most of the romantic novels that are series are wonderful enough to stand on their own, but ever since reading Julia Quinn’s stories about the Bridgertons, it’s been so much more fun to read them in sequence. What started out as merely fun has now turned into some sort of obsession with order. I feel like I’m missing something if I don’t start with number one.
My former dean cared nothing about that. This is evidenced by the fact that EVERY SINGLE BOOK she gave me is PART OF A SERIES! As a result, I have #1 and #3 in one series, but #3, #4, #5 in the next; one series actually has just the 8th of 10!
So what did I do? I went to the individual websites of each of these authors and printed the pages of what I have and what I’m missing. In essence, what started off as a simple leisure project has turned into work!
I fully intend to email my former dean for these titles before I submit to Amazon, since she buys according to what author she likes. Okay, I may be partially truthful in that because if she takes too long, it’s off to the Marketplace for me; luckily, I can find paperback romance novels for as low as a penny (for more on my Amazon habit, see my “Addicted to Amazon” blog. (On a side note, I love that I have learned how to hyperlink items!) I definitely think Amazon should be paying for services since I am always touring their greatness to everyone.
In addition to my own self-imposed work, I have been working diligently trying to get a vehicle. My mate seems to think that I’ve been lollygagging in this area and being completely casual, but it’s been the opposite: I have gone into freaking RESEARCH OVERLOAD scouring the internet for vehicles with Carmax, Cars.com, Autotrader, Enterprise, United Buying Service, not to mention all the local dealerships form Ourisman to Eastern’s, where your job’s your credit (every time I say that, their stupid jingle pops into my head). Oh, and don’t forget the outside research you have to do on a car: the free Carfax report (if the dealer provides it), the Kelly Blue Book value to make sure you’re not getting ripped off, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety to make sure that you’re not basically in a piece of aluminum foil with wheels. Add to this bit of work that the credit union with whom I have an account is DRAGGING their butts like a dog with worms across a carpet. It’s been a MONTH since my collision. A colleague of mine got into an accident a week after I did and got her new car last week! All this is extremely poor timing because I’m coming up on two consecutive weekends that I am supposed to be traveling to my hometown: the 1st is for my 20-year reunion, which I have been looking forward to since last year, and the second is for my mother’s and godson’s birthday next week. I will say that in all this GEICO has been stellar and at the risk of sounding like a walking advertisement, I will encourage anyone looking for new insurance to try them.
Unfortunately, this vehicle is taking so much of my time and attention that I am finding it difficult to concentrate on the other tasks at hand, and these tasks are two monumental items. The first is seeing to my son’s formal dedication. Now, in my head when I found out about the existence of my son, I already betrothed him back to God, much the way Hannah did in I Samuel 1:21-28 (see, there goes that hyperlinking again!). But I want to do it with a pastor’s official blessing. That pastor happens to be my uncle and the dedication will be at our home, with a dinner afterward. But I have yet to send out the email invitations, or even draw up a sketchy guestlist.
The other event is my own impending nuptials. I decided to take the leap of faith and jump of the broom. More to the point, he asked and instead of my usual “not just yet” answer, I said okay. At first, to me it was only semi-official because all we did was discuss the ring; there is not currently one on my finger. What made it real is going to premarital counseling. I won’t go into great details about it right now because that is a whole other blog all to itself, but just know it’s coming soon.
On top of all this, there is my actual job. We’re doing restructuring of items, norms, and attitudes. So things are happening at a fast clip. Add to that the fact that this week, I’m subbing a class for a colleague for two and a half hours three nights this week, and you’ll see that I’ve had a pretty full agenda. I don’t talk to anyone or hang out with anyone or have the time, energy or resources to otherwise let of some steam because I am budgeting to the very last penny to free up resources. That’s why this weekend is so important; I get a chance to just BE, with the added benefit of hanging out with chicks I haven’t seen in years. By the way, 48 hours before I get to do just that.
My former dean cared nothing about that. This is evidenced by the fact that EVERY SINGLE BOOK she gave me is PART OF A SERIES! As a result, I have #1 and #3 in one series, but #3, #4, #5 in the next; one series actually has just the 8th of 10!
So what did I do? I went to the individual websites of each of these authors and printed the pages of what I have and what I’m missing. In essence, what started off as a simple leisure project has turned into work!
I fully intend to email my former dean for these titles before I submit to Amazon, since she buys according to what author she likes. Okay, I may be partially truthful in that because if she takes too long, it’s off to the Marketplace for me; luckily, I can find paperback romance novels for as low as a penny (for more on my Amazon habit, see my “Addicted to Amazon” blog. (On a side note, I love that I have learned how to hyperlink items!) I definitely think Amazon should be paying for services since I am always touring their greatness to everyone.
In addition to my own self-imposed work, I have been working diligently trying to get a vehicle. My mate seems to think that I’ve been lollygagging in this area and being completely casual, but it’s been the opposite: I have gone into freaking RESEARCH OVERLOAD scouring the internet for vehicles with Carmax, Cars.com, Autotrader, Enterprise, United Buying Service, not to mention all the local dealerships form Ourisman to Eastern’s, where your job’s your credit (every time I say that, their stupid jingle pops into my head). Oh, and don’t forget the outside research you have to do on a car: the free Carfax report (if the dealer provides it), the Kelly Blue Book value to make sure you’re not getting ripped off, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety to make sure that you’re not basically in a piece of aluminum foil with wheels. Add to this bit of work that the credit union with whom I have an account is DRAGGING their butts like a dog with worms across a carpet. It’s been a MONTH since my collision. A colleague of mine got into an accident a week after I did and got her new car last week! All this is extremely poor timing because I’m coming up on two consecutive weekends that I am supposed to be traveling to my hometown: the 1st is for my 20-year reunion, which I have been looking forward to since last year, and the second is for my mother’s and godson’s birthday next week. I will say that in all this GEICO has been stellar and at the risk of sounding like a walking advertisement, I will encourage anyone looking for new insurance to try them.
Unfortunately, this vehicle is taking so much of my time and attention that I am finding it difficult to concentrate on the other tasks at hand, and these tasks are two monumental items. The first is seeing to my son’s formal dedication. Now, in my head when I found out about the existence of my son, I already betrothed him back to God, much the way Hannah did in I Samuel 1:21-28 (see, there goes that hyperlinking again!). But I want to do it with a pastor’s official blessing. That pastor happens to be my uncle and the dedication will be at our home, with a dinner afterward. But I have yet to send out the email invitations, or even draw up a sketchy guestlist.
The other event is my own impending nuptials. I decided to take the leap of faith and jump of the broom. More to the point, he asked and instead of my usual “not just yet” answer, I said okay. At first, to me it was only semi-official because all we did was discuss the ring; there is not currently one on my finger. What made it real is going to premarital counseling. I won’t go into great details about it right now because that is a whole other blog all to itself, but just know it’s coming soon.
On top of all this, there is my actual job. We’re doing restructuring of items, norms, and attitudes. So things are happening at a fast clip. Add to that the fact that this week, I’m subbing a class for a colleague for two and a half hours three nights this week, and you’ll see that I’ve had a pretty full agenda. I don’t talk to anyone or hang out with anyone or have the time, energy or resources to otherwise let of some steam because I am budgeting to the very last penny to free up resources. That’s why this weekend is so important; I get a chance to just BE, with the added benefit of hanging out with chicks I haven’t seen in years. By the way, 48 hours before I get to do just that.
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