commas and ampersands

Well, I'm back. My little blog-cation has served its purpose, and it's time to re-enter the world of the communicative. It's been a full few weeks, with Esther's visit, more hours at work, the semester gearing up to the end and winding down at the same time, and the various and sundry day-to-day things that happen.

There were a thousand little things that I thought of to write about while I was away from lj-land (at least, away from the posting side; I kept up with everyone else's journals), but, of course, I didn't write them down, so they're lost in the netherworld of the space in between my brain and my keyboard, never to be recovered. Most of them. Some of the ideas will likely resurface at some point--I find that I mull over certain entries for quite some time before writing them--but many of the trivial, fleeting ideas are gone.

That's okay, though. Not everything that passes through my head needs to find a voice on the internet.

So, what's new? Well, my laptop's keyboard is pink now. I have pictures of my own computer, but they're still on my camera, so in the meantime, you can look at that and envision. My favorite is that the backspace key is now a magic wand. The stickers are removable, so the fun won't last forever, but in the meantime, it's very exciting. ;o)

Mariah and I are discussing our options for our apartment, the summer, and the fall. We need to come to a decision in the next few days, and suffice to say, I may be having to make different arrangements than I'd originally planned for.

I leave for a weekend in Calgary tomorrow morning. I'll get to see the show that Colin composed the orchestrations for (and which numerous other people that I know are in, but that's all kind of secondary for me). I'm ridiculously proud of him, and having heard the various pieces in their electronic incarnations as demos, I'm excited to hear them as done by real instruments played by real instrumentalists. It's the biggest project he's ever done, and he's certainly put the work into it and should be very, very proud of what he's done. I know I am. :)

We'll have the usual kind of holiday weekend. Colin has both Friday and Monday off work, which is absolutely fantastic, so I don't have my usual dilemma of having time while he's at work. Usually, when that happens, I try to schedule coffee with my girlfriends, but I'm completely okay with not having time for that. We'll have Easter dinners with both our families (Saturday brunch with mine, Sunday dinner with his), two performances of the Easter show, Easter Sunday morning service, and Monday to just chill and hang out. I fly out on Tuesday, but not until early evening, so since Colin's back at work, that's when I've scheduled my meetings and things to get done. Bank meeting, internship meeting, and probably coffee with my mom (y'know, since my parents paid for this flight...).

Today--my birthday!--has been pretty normal. It's a regular Thursday, with school, work, more school, more work. The girls in the Public Affairs office made me cupcakes, but that's about it. I work tonight, and I still have some packing and cleaning to do when I get home, so it'll be a short night before I head to the airport in the morning.

I'm very excited. Since our visit last month got cut short by about 6 days, I really need this weekend.

Anyway. Hopefully there'll be lots of pictures. Lori promised to have her camera on hand. :)

Well, March is definitely my month of visitors! First Dad, then Colin, and now Esther's coming for spring break, since our breaks coincide (no, she's not a student; she's a preschool teacher). She'll get here next Tuesday and leave on Sunday, so we'll have a good number of days to hang out and do fun L.A. stuff. Like the beach and Disneyland.

My work schedule seems to be just about perfect, too. After a number of weeks with very few hours (thanks to tech and the show), I have just over 20 hours this week, and I'll probably still get in an almost-full (10 hours is my usual) work week at school, and the timing fits well with Esther's trip. I work Monday, but not Tuesday (when she flies in). Wednesday and Thursday, I'm off by 4 p.m., and I'm off Friday and Saturday. Sunday morning, she leaves really early, and then I work on Sunday evening. She'll have to entertain herself for a couple of days, but I've got lots of TV on DVD, wireless internet, and a Target within walking distance of my house.

I'm not sure yet what else we'll do. She's going to do some googling and see if there's anything that really strikes her fancy. Disneyland is a must--she's been waiting her entire life to go, and it's half the reason she's coming down. I think she's only half as excited to hang out with me as she is to go to Disneyland. :)

We'll probably go to the beach, although weather will determine whether we actually hang out on the beach or just walk the boardwalk and go shopping. Hopefully it'll be warm enough to be a combination of both, but we'll see. Today was in the low 80s; hopefully it'll be around that while she's here.

Aside from those two things, we don't really have any particular plans yet. If anyone wants to offer suggestions... well, that's what the comments are for!

(Hopefully next week is an indication of the kind of hours I'll get for the rest of the school year--without the show, I have more availability, and would really like to be getting decent hours.)

I've updated some of my tags, too. I consolidated and deleted a few redundant ones and gave some of my most-used tags new names. Now I just have to remember what the new names are when I'm tagging my entries.

I kind of feel like I'm already on spring break, just because I don't work until Saturday this week (thanks to a schedule that was tailored to Colin's intended visit) and I'm not hanging around school until midnight every night (although I will be there until sometime around 2 a.m. on Saturday night). I've been home both last night and tonight, and I'm starting to get a little bored with it already. It's nice to have the break, but I need to be productive. I've got a lot to do in terms of my thesis, and I need to use this week wisely for that kind of work, but it's been nice to take a couple of days to relax and not do much of anything that wasn't absolutely necessary.

And now, I'm going to have some ice cream and read a book before I fall asleep. Shhh. Don't tell anyone that I'm being so unproductive.

So, my parents are pretty much awesome.

My dad's flying down on Monday to see my show (he'll fly in Monday morning and fly out Wednesday morning), and they're flying me to Calgary for Easter weekend as a birthday gift. Yay! I get to see Colin's show! And spend my birthday weekend with him! And Mom gets to have a family dinner! (That was what Colin told me I should use as a selling point: "Your mom likes family dinners. Tell her that she can have one for Easter and your birthday if they buy you a plane ticket.")

My mom and sister are still considering coming down for spring break, but that's still up in the air, pending my mom's permanent resident card and some decent flight prices.

I suppose I should give the addendum to the Ugly Santa debacle from the Christmas party.

That night, Esther and I were talking about going to Starbucks together so she could get the mug that she'd wanted and that Nancy had ended up with, while I was still in town and could give her my discount.

It didn't work out that week, and by Friday, when she was on her way out of town and I was leaving before she got back, I ended up at Starbucks on my own (which is another story, in which I was stood up for coffee with a friend), but I had to leave before Esther could make it over there. I offered to buy the mug for her, and she could pay me back, and she told me that I should buy two mugs because she felt so bad that I'd gotten stuck with her crappy gift at the gift exchange--not realizing that it wasn't actually a white elephant crappy gift exchange in the first place.

So, I bought two mugs, and that night, Colin and I ended up at Esther and Justin's house, where I got a Starbucks mug, purchased with my employee discount, as my replacement gift from the gift exchange. I'm very happy with it (one can never have too many good-quality travel mugs), and rather amused by the whole story.

Ugly Santa is still lying in wait for next Christmas, though...

I was at a Christmas party last night that included a gift exchange. It wasn't really a white elephant exchange; the gifts were mostly nice, useable things (a picture frame, a set of mixing bowls, a Starbucks mug, a bottle of wine, a gigantic chocolate bar, etc). This wasn't the "wrap a roll of duct tape and can of Spam" kind of gift exchange, although those are fun in their own way.¹

I was the second one to pick a gift, and the one that I happened to open was a Lindt chocolate snowman (not bad) and the ugliest Santa candle I've ever seen... and I knew as soon as I opened it that I'd be taking the ugly Santa candle home. No one would want to steal that gift from me--and I was right. My fate was determined in the first round of gifts, and that's exactly what I ended up with.

It wasn't until afterwards that I discovered that my very own sister had brought that gift, regifting some items from a gift basket, and didn't even warn me when I was about to pick it up! I didn't get a well-timed cough or a glare or anything! She just let me unwrap to my ugly-Santa-candled doom.

So guess what she's getting in her stocking next Christmas?

However, there are two ways to win at a gift exchange. One is to take home the best present (or the one you want most). The second is to have brought the most sought after gift--the one that's stolen the most often, desired by most people, and causes most disappointment for the ones who don't get it. In that part of the game, I totally won.

I took a Starbucks travel mug (one of the ones with a coupon for a free drink) and a pound of coffee, and it flew back and forth across the room a number of times before finally ending up in Colin's mom's possession.

Also sweetening our overall win of the evening, Colin came away with a brie baker, which we'd actually been wanting to get anyway. I'd seen one a week or so ago, and contemplated buying it, but didn't, and we were actually looking at it again yesterday afternoon. When someone else opened it, I knew it was pointless for me to try and steal it, because no one was going to steal my crappy gift away from me, but Colin did some clever maneuvering and managed to end up with it, so bonus points for us there.

Still. Ugly Santa is totally going in Esther's stocking next Christmas.




¹ I saw an article this Christmas with the best White Elephant gifts, and my favorite was to take an empty gift bag, and when you get to the party, take someone's purse from wherever people are storing their coats and put it in the gift bag. I have no idea where I saw that article, so if someone reading this entry linked to it, you get credit for this suggestion.

I have two stories to tell today:

Before I left for Thanksgiving, I ordered a few things off of Amazon--namely, part of Colin's Christmas gift (which I'm not going to name here, since he occasionally reads this) and a couple of books for thesis research.

I didn't figure they'd come over the weekend, but I'd forgotten that Thursday was the only day without mail service, and when I got back, the tracking said that it had been delivered on Friday. The only problem was, Friday was the day that overlapped Mariah and I both being out of town, and the package was nowhere to be found. When USPS delivers a package that doesn't need to be signed for, they usually leave it outside our apartment door, and we pick it up when we get home. No big deal. However, with both of us out of town, it went missing. I'm guessing that a neighbor took it, but I really don't know anyone in our building, so I didn't have anyone to ask, and, of course, I didn't want to go door to door accusing people of stealing my mail.

I left notes on the doors of our immediate neighbors, asking if they'd happened to notice it and pick it up for safekeeping, but didn't get a response from either, so I emailed Amazon, asking about a replacement. I figured that I'd have to spend some time on the phone with customer service and that I'd have to fight to get a replacement, or somehow prove that I hadn't actually gotten the package.

Within 12 hours, I got an email back, saying that they'd processed a replacement order for me, and that they were upgrading the shipping on the second one.

I realize that they must have policies in place and they probably deal with complaints like that all the time (and I'm sure a certain number of people use it to scam the company and get duplicates), but I was so impressed with how quickly it was dealt with and how little hassle. One email. That was it, and my replacement package is on the way and will be here well before I leave for Christmas.

Amazon FTW!


Story #2 is a random, cool, "it's a small world" story (because really, do I have any other kind of story?).

( Strange, convoluted family relations )

Goodness. I haven't posted a real summary of the weekend yet. I was too busy getting over the cold that I caught from Colin that he caught from Jakob.

It was a busy weekend (surprise, surprise), but a really good way to officially kick off the Christmas season. Thursday night, we went to Rocky Mountain College's Christmas concert (you know, with the whole "small world" thing with the director, who was the director at my church in California last year), and Friday and Saturday, Colin, Mom, and Dad sang in Ambrose's production of Messiah. Saturday afternoon, we went to a baby shower for Scott, Heather, and Martin; Sunday, we went to church in the morning, and then had two rehearsals in the afternoon before heading off to the airport. And somewhere in there (mostly after midnight), we still managed to find time to finish watching the first season of Arrested Development, which we'd started at Canadian Thanksgiving but not finished.

And, of course, there was the time with Kat, Aaron, and the kids, but that's already been well-photographed and posted about. :)

( A review of sorts of AUC's production of 'Messiah' )



Sunday, there was a rehearsal after church for Colin's cantata, which I'm going to sing in, despite only having one rehearsal with them. I've had the music longer than anyone else in the choir (I helped pick it), and I've been working on it on my own, so it'll be fine. After that, there was another rehearsal for the Christmas show at Foothills Alliance, which was my only chance to hear any of that show, since it'll close a few days before I get into town.


By Sunday afternoon, we were both well on our way to catching colds. Jakob, who was coming down with something, was all over Colin on Thursday, and then I think I got it from Colin by about Saturday. I stayed home Monday and slept, and that was helpful--it seems to be running its course really quickly.

And now, we're well into the home stretch of the pre-Christmas rush. I have five written assignments and two presentations to do in the next week, but fortunately, the presentations each correspond with a written assignment, so really, it's only five assignments. Also, a) some of them are already partially done and I just need to finish them up, and b) they're not all full-length papers. I don't think I have anything that will end up being longer than about 8 pages, which isn't bad at all.

Emmanuel Church's Christmas concerts are on the 13th and 14th, so we have our dress rehearsal next Wednesday. Colin has more in the way of rehearsals than I do (although I need to be in on some Borkman rehearsals in the next week, as well). He's finished with Messiah, obviously, but Foothills Lutheran's cantata only has a few rehearsals left, he's heading into tech for Foothills Alliance's show, and he has to finish the design for Steel Mags, which apparently is kind of a train-wreck of a show, in some ways.

I was going to try and keep this entry from being too epic, so I'll post pictures later, as well as a story about Amazon.com. In the meantime, my homework and my pillow are both calling me. The sooner I get to one, the sooner I can get to the other.

Things I've done so far this weekend, in no particular order:

• Had lunch, sans kids, with Kat.
  
• Learned (re-learned, sort of) how to drive a standard.
  
• Started watching Arrested Development (halfway through season 1 right now).
  
• Had coffee with murphy987.
  
• Visited Heather (Scott was out of town) and cuddled 10-day-old Martin for a good, long time.
  
• Gone out for dinner with Colin's parents after they picked me up from the airport.
  
• Eaten turkey dinner in High River with Colin's side of the family.
  
• Watched a movie with all three Lowe brothers and their girls... it's pretty rare that we all hang out/triple date like that.
  
• Been reamed out by my mom for not spending enough time visiting them (and for flying in on Thursday but not seeing them until Sunday).
  
  And now we're on our way out for coffee with my sister and brother-in-law, and then out to the farm for dinner with my side of the family. More later...

I still haven't gotten around to tagging or captioning these pictures (and more) in my gallery, and I also realized that I haven't actually posted a picspam of the last bit of summer yet, either. So... here we go--some pictures of August, mostly more weddings.

( This way for pictures )

How about some birthday pictures?

( Family silliness )




And then, these aren't birthday presents, but this is the new toy that I bought today. I love it so much (and it put my GST rebate check to good use...):

( My pretty, pretty new toy! )

Merry Christmas!!

(Or Merry Boxing Day. Or something.)

It's been a really, really good holiday so far. Busy, but it's busy in that good way--the "We're seeing lots of family and spending lots of time together" way, rather than the "I've got papers and projects and meetings and work" way.

Christmas Eve, Colin and I had breakfast with murphy987 (yay!) and then had a relaxing afternoon before heading to church for the 4:00 service at my church and the 7:00 service at Colin's parents' church, and then over to Grammie and Grampy's house for their annual Christmas party. Christmas Day, we started at my parents' house with stocking, breakfast, and presents; then we went to Colin's parents' house for stockings and presents; and then down to Auntie Marge's house in High River for turkey dinner with his dad's side of the family. Today, we're heading to my aunt and uncle's for my extended family's dinner, and then it's off to one more Christmas party tonight before we get a couple of days off. I think that the next family dinner that we've got (thus far) is on Saturday, so we've got a few days to just hang out.

I've discovered that doubling the family means doubling the gift haul. ;o) It also means doubling the number of presents that we have to buy, but I'm just not thinking about that part of it right now... Heh.

This was the year of the duplicate presents for us, but none of them are actually getting returned. Colin had asked me for a good set of headphones for his birthday, but I didn't end up getting them for him, so I told Esther and Justin that they should get him some. So they did, and so did his parents, but he can use a pair at home and one at work, so neither pair is getting returned. The ones from his parents are a better pair, so they're staying at home for when he's mixing audio, and the ones from Esther and Justin will be good for work.

Also, we (well, I, but really we) got two Magic Bullets. And not the dirty kind. I'd been dropping hints for ages that I wanted one for my kitchen, so Colin and my mom each picked up on the hint and got one for me. (And the funniest thing is that I was *thisclose* to getting one for Esther and Justin, but I didn't.) Colin thinks that it'll be an appliance that we can use multiples of, though, so we're hanging onto both of them. He's keeping one here for now, and I'll take one back with me, and then eventually, we'll have two in the kitchen.

Hmmm. What else did I/we get? We got a bunch of gift cards, so we're set for date nights for a while, which is nice. Kat and Aaron got us dinner at the Keg and a movie, Jay and Jillian gave us a movie, Devin and Lori gave us dinner at Earl's, and his parents got us a gift card that will probably buy a couple of dinners at Redwater Grill, which we've never tried before, but his mom really likes it.

Santa left us some car accessories in our stocking at his parents' house--a little vacuum that plugs into the cigarette lighter, a visor organizer, and a little whiteboard for the other visor. Colin's parents gave me Ratatouille, Esther and Justin got me season 7 of Gilmore Girls, and Carl gave me season 3 of Veronica Mars (because I forgot to tell people not to buy me DVDs until the writers' strike is settled).

Mom is hinting strongly that she wants me back this summer to do the breast cancer walk with her; she got me a pair of black workout pants that match the black and pink jacket I got last year. They're actually really comfortable, but the funniest thing was that she wrapped them with a huge pink tissue paper breast cancer ribbon on them, with "hint, hint" written on the ribbon. She said that she would have paid for my registration if it would guarantee that I'd be here for the walk, but we'll have to see once we decide what's actually happening this summer. Soon. We'll be making that decision sometime in the next couple of weeks, and then I can tell her. (I wonder if she'll still pay for my registration that way...)

We also got a few ornaments to start our tree with. I got Colin two ornaments (as the more sentimental/romantic/whatever part of my gift)--a little wooden airplane, and a little pewter picture frame with the word "Love" on the back. I figured that those two, as much as anything, defined this year for us. Jakob and Kayla gave us a Hallmark penguin and polar bear ornament, my mom put matching heart ornaments in our stockings, and I got a Starbucks red cup ornament in my stocking. I've got a good stash of ornaments of my own, but they're mostly generic sets of whatever Ikea ornaments I've picked up for my tree over the years--it's nice to start building a collection of ornaments that have history and meaning to us as a couple.

Oh, and from one member of Colin's choir, we got a bottle of wine. Apparently this guy's brother owns a winery in Australia (but I can't remember the name right now...), and the tradition in their family is that a bottle of their wine, given as a gift, is saved to be opened for the firstborn's birth. So, we already have a bottle of wine for when our first child is born.

So, that's been the holiday so far. It's been so good to see family and have time with them, and so good to have time with Colin. It's amazing how quickly this becomes normal again. The fact that for the past four months, "normal" has been the distance and frustration and loneliness disappears so quickly, and it's amazing how fast it's normal to be at his house, sharing the car, doing as much together as we can... which, of course, isn't normal when we do live in the same city and we're both working, but for now, it's the best kind of normal that there is.

And in there, even in the busyness and great company, there's been time for reflection and worship and celebration. Christmas Eve was nice in that way--there was the deliberate time set aside to celebrate Christ's birth in a more intentional way, and that set the tone for everything else.

And now I'm just waiting for Colin to show up so we can head over to Doug and Tammy's. We're not in any rush--we were told to show up between 12-ish and 1-ish, so I told Colin to come by at 11:30-ish. It's getting close to the 12-ish now, but I haven't done my hair or makeup yet, so I won't be ready when he gets here anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving, Part Two!

I worked this morning--it was really, really busy, but yay for time-and-a-half (and for the shift going really quickly), and I'm hanging out at Jenny's house right now, waiting for dinner tonight. Mmmm... turkey. I should keep track of how many turkey dinners I get this year. This one is number three--we had two for Canadian Thanksgiving--and I'm not sure how many we'll have at Christmas. Between Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, we'll be at five, possibly six, different dinners/parties/gatherings, and I'm not sure how many of those will involve turkey. I'm guessing two, but I could be wrong.

I haven't quite decided how much Black Friday shopping I'm going to do tomorrow. I'm picking murphy987 up at the airport at 10:30, so I may go out and try to do some shopping (but not stand in line at 3 a.m.) before that, just because I still have quite a few presents to buy, and if I can catch some of the sales (not necessarily the door-crashers, but just the weekend sales), it would probably be a good thing.

I'll do a "thankful list" when I get home tonight, but I'm really looking forward to this weekend. It's good to have some time off, awesome to get to spend some time with Heather, and so good to know that Colin has today and tomorrow off, too, and that even though he's still got work to do, he's able to relax a little. That makes me incredibly happy. And it means that I get to talk to him a little more than usual this weekend. That also makes me happy.

Anyway... more later. In the meantime, enjoy your turkey!

Picspam first, real entry later!

( Lots of pictures, right this way )

Ah, that's better. Much better day than yesterday or Monday, I have to say.

This afternoon, I drove down to Laguna Hills to have lunch with Joan and Dale, my aunt and uncle (my mom's sister and her husband), and Don and Milly, longtime family friends. Don and Milly live there; Joan and Dale were in the area for my cousin's graduation from Marine boot camp this weekend. It was supposed to be a "simple lunch", but it was ham and roast beef, mashed potatoes, a really yummy broccoli casserole, jello salad, rolls, chocolate cake, and pie (and an offer of a sandwich when I left), all served in the formal dining room on the good china. :)

( Family and so on... )

Tomorrow, I'm finished class at 12, and I work at 8, so I'm coming home in between to do laundry and pack. I probably should have been doing laundry tonight since I got home from choir, but I didn't, so it'll all have to happen tomorrow afternoon. And then, I work until midnight, and leave at 4 for the airport. Fun, fun times.

What a party weekend! Heh. Kayla's first birthday dinner was on Saturday night, and my parents' 30th anniversary party was on Sunday afternoon and evening. Lots of fun, and just a few pictures for you...


( Kayla's birthday )

( Mom and Dad's anniversary )

Ah, my Stampeding is done for 2007. Sigh. Colin and I went again last night after work, and had a bit more time than we did on Tuesday, although it would have been nice to have an entire day on the grounds. More rides, more time with the exhibition stuff, but oh well. We still had fun, and we got down to the grounds twice, so that adds up to almost a whole day, doesn't it?

The goal of last night was to make sure we ate lots of classic Stampede food. So, we got the jumbo hot dogs in Weadickville, fresh squeezed lemonade, mini donuts, cotton candy, sno-cones, and deep fried Coke. Which was actually not bad. I wouldn't have wanted a whole one to myself, and I wouldn't want it more than about once a year, but it was pretty good. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so there is no documentation of the deep fried Coke. It was really funny-looking, too--squiggles of some sort of dough that obviously had Coke syrup as a main ingredient, and then deep fried. I said it looked like calamari; Colin said it tasted like ginger beef. Without the ginger. Or the beef. There was a lot of food that we didn't get around to, but we got a pretty decent sampling. ;)

Anyway... we we went to the Round-Up Centre and wandered the exhibition stuff for a while, then we watched the Superdogs, and then we had tickets to the chucks and the grandstand show, which was fun, although our seats were way off on the side, so we saw most of the show in our peripheral vision or on the screens. I've never done rush seating for the show, but Colin has, and apparently, that's usually better seating than what we paid for, just because it's more central. We weren't too high up, so if our seats had been a bit more in the middle, it would have been perfect.

After the show, we half-heartedly hit the midway, but it was too late to go on many rides before they closed, and neither one of us was in much of a "let's hit every ride in the park" mood. We went on the ferris wheel, but that was about it--we tried to get the skyride, just for tradition's sake, but they shut the line down just as we were walking up to it. Ah well...

I didn't get to a breakfast this year, but I think this was the first time in probably 12 years or so that I was at both the grounds and the parade in the same year, and it was definitely the first time in years and years that I'd gone to the grandstand show. I'm really glad we had the chance to do it all this year. First of all, it was such a big part of both our childhoods that it's cool to do Stampede together. Second, who knows when we'll be in Calgary for Stampede again. It might happen soon, but depending on work schedules and how things go in the next few years, it might not. We just don't know, so it was really important to me that we get in there this year and do as much as we could. And we did. And now I'm kind of sad that it's over.

Anyway, a few pictures that have nothing to do with Stampede, but they're cute anyway:

( Picspam! )

And now, I've got to actually get myself in gear and get out the door--I'm driving up to Edmonton this afternoon, spending the night at murphy987's house, and then driving straight from there to Drumheller tomorrow afternoon for the last performance of the Passion Play, and meeting Colin, his mom (and hopefully dad), and my parents there. Colin, his mom, and I are all in the choir, and my parents are coming to see the show, and then we'll probably all go out for dinner afterwards--and hopefully his dad will decide to go along... first of all, so that we can all go out for dinner, and also, so that Colin can drive back with me instead of driving with his mom. Lots of driving. Which I really don't mind--I love driving and road trips, but I'm not entirely in the mood to do 8 hours of driving by myself in the next two days.

Heh. Can you tell I'm procrastinating? The more I talk about driving the more I'm not getting in the shower (to wash off all the blue raspberry sno-cone that I spilled all over myself last night...) and getting ready to go.

Okay--I'm off. To do what, I'm not sure, but I'm off. Heh.

Huh. So this is what semi-productivity feels like. I'd kind of forgotten about that, what with having random jobs to do at my last placement and all that. Today, though, I've spent almost all day researching various things, and I feel like I've gotten a lot done, but in some ways, I don't feel like I've gotten anywhere with it. Mostly because I'm trying to get things like student loans and bank accounts sorted out, and I'm starting to look at more of the details about an apartment and car and stuff. Right now, the most frustrating part is that we don't have a U.S. address yet, so there's a lot of information and/or quotes that I can't get online. I've spent half the afternoon on the phone to various CSRs, trying to get as much information as I can.

At least all the people I talked to today were as helpful as they could be, and some of them even gave me answers that I've been trying to track down for the past several weeks, so I'm happy about that. I didn't get any bad reps; I've just had bad luck trying to do certain things online because of the address issue.

Heh. My mom's got my car today, and she's picking my brother up from school right now. Well, I just got a phone call. "Hey, Alida, is it okay with you if I drive your car?" I can almost guess the conversation preceding that phone call word for word, culminating in, "It's not my car; you ask Alida if you can drive her car." Ah, teenage boys.

Ah, sigh. My internet connection is being stupidly slow, so I can't upload the rest of these pictures right now, but for the moment, here are some from the weekend.

( Pictures! )

This past weekend, we held our first fundraiser for The Weekend to End Breast Cancer, and Mom, Esther, and I each added $300 to our totals!

Esther's boss runs Books Between Friends, a used bookstore which supports Between Friends (another local charity) on an ongoing basis, and different charities can come in and run the store for a weekend, and the profits of the weekend are split between Between Friends and whichever charity is being represented--in our case, obviously, The Weekend to End Breast Cancer.  The store brought in around $1800 over the weekend, and $900 of that went directly to the cancer foundation.

Now, we didn't document the weekend nearly well enough, but we did manage to get a few pictures taken, so without further ado, look behind the cut to see some of what went on!


Now for some serious pimping.  We're running the book sale again on the May long weekend, and I'll be advertising it like crazy on here and everywhere else I can find people who love to read and want to find some great deals on books.

In the meantime, Esther's boss has offered a great incentive for donating.  Every $100 donation that we receive between now and the next book sale will receive a $25 gift certificate to Books Between Friends.  Of course we'd love for you to come spend it while we're running the store, but really, you can use it any time.  The store isn't just a weekend-long book sale; it's a full used bookstore with thousands of books in every category:  fiction, classics, bestsellers, health and wellness, religion, business, textbooks, art, food and wine, travel, children's... everything.

You can donate through my Weekend to End Breast Cancer profile page, either by credit card or by check, and all donations are tax deductible.

Whee! The office is closing at 2:45 tomorrow! There's a meeting for the entire company at one of the other buildings, but because I'm just a temp (even though I'll be with the company for another month, at least), I don't have to be there. I can if I want to, but it's not mandatory, like it is for everyone else.

And, in the bizarre... Last week, I lost the back to an earring (and it wasn't just a replacable earring back; it was part of the earring that showed, even though it's the back part), and I just opened a cupboard--one that I've opened every single day since then--and found it sitting on the edge of the shelf. I wonder if someone else found it, maybe, and put it in there? Or it was hiding further back and got pushed to the front of the shelf over the past few days? In any case: odd.

I love the kids. Yesterday, I met up with Kat and Aaron at Wal-Mart, and Jake came barrelling across the store towards me and launched himself into my arms. It was fantastic, especially because he's at that age where sometimes he's quite generous with hugs and kisses, and other times it's, "Auntie!! NO!!"