Just a week

This week was just a week. Nothing real special. Monday-Friday I worked. On Friday they changed the desks around in the office, so now I sit in the back corner of the room behind Crystal. I also was told that I will be doing more dispatcher responsibilities and my hours will change to 8am-5pm. Normal hours! Whoohoo! We also found out that Sharon's not coming back to work. This was her decision, not my company's. She has a daughter that is very sick with cancer and a bacterial infection. She's bedridden, any visitors must suit up in order to visit due to the bacterial infection and has lost so much weight that the only weighs 80lbs. Sharon just can't leave her right now and sacrificed her job. Any thoughts, prayers or vibes that you can send to Sharon, her daughter and family is greatly appreciated.
Friday night, Crystal and I went to the FunnyBone and saw Gary Owen. He was alright. Definitely not the worse I've seen, but not the best either.
Saturday, I went to my brother and sister-in-law's house to help train their dog. He's a lab/pitbull mix and weighs about 60lbs (twice as much as my Lilly) and is a cutie. He's pretty smart and caught on to what we wanted him to do and was even taking voice commands by the end of the session. After that I went and picked up Crystal and we headed to Norfolk. The Lindt store is going out of business and is selling chocolate from 30-70% off. We each bought about $30 worth of chocolate that easily would have been worth $80-90. We walked around the mall, shopped and window shopped. We ate at California Pizza Kitchen (her first time) and we split the best dessert that I've had a while, White chocolate strawberry cheesecake. Yum! I drove back and we sang songs from my iPod the whole way home. Good day.
Today I ran some errands and then went to my mom's house to set up her two computers to her new wireless printer. That only took 2 hours...one hour per computer. So much fun, but at least I was able to get-er-done :) Now, it's Chinese delivery for dinner and watching the NFC Championship game. (Go Saints!) Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Yikes

It's like I forgot this thing existed. So three months later I'll play a little catchup.
Crystal, her mom, B and I went to the '09 Meadow Highland Games & Celtic Festival and here are the pictures. We had a really good time even though it was pretty chilly that day.
We went to Ocracoke for vacation with Mom and K. We had a good time. The week seemed to fly by though. We stayed in a different house this year and didn't really like the house and we'll be staying at the house next door. It's smaller, but it's nicer. When we went fishing on the charter boat, I caught 3 fish. A total of 6 were caught for the day and we were able to keep 5. They were Good Eats :) Here are the pics.
I got laid off from TG in December. I was out for three weeks. I baked and baked and baked during that time. I made 10 different types of cookies! I also made the entire Christmas Eve dinner from the turkey to the cornbread stuffing to the pumpkin pie.
Christmas was good. We went to my dad's house in the morning and then my mom's in the afternoon. B's mom was out of town. Pictures of the cookies and from Christmas are here.
It snowed in Richmond in December for the first time in FOREVER. Pics are here. Of course it did this on my birthday weekend and ruined all my plans with family and friends. So, instead of being with them, I had to stay in the house. We did finally get out on Sunday and go to lunch with my mom and K, but not where we had planned to go originally. We went by her house on the way home and picked up my awesome birthday present. I got a KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer. Words cannot explain how I feel for this machine:
I had to have a tooth removed the Monday after my birthday. That's always fun, but at least the dentist was professional, nice and handsome to boot! I have to go back for a root canal soon...boo!
I've been to two Norfolk hockey games, both with Crystal and once included B. The one where the three of us went, we stopped at the Cheeseburger in Paradise in Newport News on the way home and us girls got very drunk. That was the longest ride home, even when dozing. This past Saturday just Crystal and I went down to Norfolk. We had a good time, stayed sober and even went to Wild Rose Cafe for some karaoke before going home.
We've seen a few movies as well. The most recent are Alvin & The Chipmunks 2 with Crystal and Avatar with Crystal and Byron. Both were enjoyable and Avatar was visually stimulating.
Last weekend Dale and I went to a VCU basketball game and watched them win. We're going again on Wednesday and hopefully they'll repeat that win thing.
Well, that's not everything but it's a good overview. And until next time...keep your stick on the ice.

Say Thanks to a Soilder

What a weekend!

Well, I didn't get done everything I wanted to do and lots of stuff I hadn't planned on doing. I did get to Ace, Home Depot and WalMart on Saturday morning, but didn't get home until 12noon. I needed to switch out our satellite receiver. I did that but it's no good either, so I'm still DVR-less. *sigh* The only thing I got done in the hallway was taping the doors, doorbell and a/c register.
There was no branch meeting on Friday. It's been rescheduled, but no one knows when. I got a call on Saturday morning that told me that my hours are being changed to 9-6 starting Tuesday. The sales crew is the reason I work so late and management changed their hours, so that means my hours change too. Hooray! I'm working "normal hours" again. Hopefully, this will last for the rest of the year. I'm only working 3 days this week. I took off Thursday/Friday because Thursday is B's and mine 4 year anniversary and sometimes we'll go do things around that date and want to make sure that's possible. But, this year I'm just off to head to take Lilly for her yearly shots/checkup and do my painting that I didn't get done this weekend.
We went to Norfolk for some hockey last night. It was good to see live hockey even if I didn't care about the teams either way. I did notice that Manchester had a guy named Hickey on their team, so that who I started to root for and of course they lost. We'll be going again in December for my birthday with again I team I don't care about, but then in January we'll go and see a team where I can root against Norfolk (as usual).
Today, Crystal came over and we cleared out the flower beds of dead/dying plants & ground cover. Byron replaced the rusted out mailbox and B & I replaced the doorbell button and cleaned out a closet that needed it and took most of that to the dump. We're finally doing stuff with the house that should have been taken care of when we moved in 4 years ago.
Only 20 days to my Outer Banks vacation :)
Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Just a week

We decided that since there's no hockey in Richmond and watching it on TV just isn't the same, we're headed to Norfolk on Saturday to see the Admirals play. But, we need to continue work on the house first. So that means I have to get up and get moving much earlier than I usually do on Saturdays. I need to get to Home Depot, Ace Hardware and Wal-Mart all before 11am.
I can't believe the names that they're coming up with for the new double-A Richmond baseball team. The Hambones, Flying Squirrels, Rhinos, Flatheads and Rock Hoppers. Then CNBC gets in the mix and adds Hush Puppies. The owners said that they don't want anything normal...well they're certainly not going to get it. Teams like the Mudbugs and Jackalopes (both minor league hockey) make more money on merchandise from out of towners than people that support the team locally, so I guess that's where they're trying to go with it.
Tomorrow is the branch meeting where we might get more info about the changes coming. My guess is there will be less talk about the changes and more about how much we suck and need to improve. Nothing unusual there though. Hopefully, it'll be short and I'll be able to still got my work done despite having this "break" in the day.
Byron has stated that now that he's gotten his promotion and raise he wants to start saving and take us to Austin, TX for our 5th year anniversary (one year and one week from today). If that's the case, then I need to lose weight in order to fly in a plane without having to buy two tickets. I've started to watch my portions and stop eating extra meals (by stopping at Mickey D's before heading home for dinner). Soon, I'll start exercising by walking. Then, I'll be able to buy a bicycle and be able to exercise two ways and still get the dog moving too.
Lilly gets her yearly shots next week. And we'll be checking on her head shaking as well. It hasn't been as bad as it was, but she's still shaking. Her ears are clean and I used the drying solution after I washed her last. I'm hoping it's something little or even nothing at all.
Only 23 days till my Outer Banks vacation :)
Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Zombies!!!

We went to see Zombieland today. It was pretty funny. I'm not one for horror movies at ALL, but I did enjoy Shaun of the Dead and read a review last night that said it was very much the same type of movie. I will not spoil the best cameo in a movie in a long time, but it was awesome.
After the movie we went to TGIFridays because I was one of Woody's first 500,000 fans and got a coupon for a free Jack Daniel's burger. I'm not a big JD fan, so I gave that to Byron and I had something else. For the second weekend in a row, B did not like the burger he ordered. I feel like I'm on the quest for burger that B will enjoy. I guess we'll have to go to Five Guys next weekend. They never disappoint.
We also discovered that when flooring was bought for the kitchen that not enough was bought. I don't know if we gave the chick at Home Depot the wrong measurements, they were right and she figured them wrong or we got less boxes than recommended or a combination of any of the above, but we're about 5 boxes short. So now more flooring has to be bought. First, we need to paint the ceiling, prime and paint the hallway and paint one piece in the kitchen and the outlet/switchplates. Then we can lay the flooring. I'm hoping to be done by the second weekend in November.
Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Changes are coming!

This week wasn't horrible for a change. Monday was a bit hectic as it was my first day back after four days on vacation. I felt appreciated when I came back. My direct boss was very happy to see me and now understands I'm not just circling dots to schedule work. Tuesday though Thursday the main boss was gone and we just worked and talked and had a few good days. Friday the main boss was back and all the managers went into a meeting before I got there and didn't come out for 90mins after I arrived. The main boss had gone out of town to a meeting to get the new direction of the company. (Backstory: The company I work for and its sister companies were bought out buy a private equity investment firm early last year and they're trying to make us grow so they can sell us.) There are some major changes coming to the company at the branch level. Changes have been happening for a while in the company, but that the corporate, division or regional level. Lots of middle management and admin is gone and our help desk was closed and is handled out of India now. Now, my direct boss is losing her title (and probably some money to go with it, but that's none of my business so I didn't ask) and there are LOTS of branch level changes coming. The good news is that since my branch was working with few customer service/admin people that we should all keep our jobs...at least for now.
Byron got a promotion and raise and both went into effect this week. He's finally considered full time and can start getting paid vacation and benefits (I think). He even has someone working under him. He's very happy...at least as happy as B gets.
Hockey season started this week. Unfortunately there is no hockey in RVA this year. I'm already going through live hockey withdrawals. I think we're going to Norfolk next weekend to get a fix. Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.