Happy 20-10 to me...

Said goodbye to my 20's... it's very weird. Had a nice day, I spent it cleaning up :) So that means it was a good one. Had a great time in Vegas. Family is always good to see, I spent all my birthday money in a camera store, shocker. Then spent even more in the Old Navy Outlet. It was great.

Let's see what marvels I can accomplish in my next decade... I look forward to the challenge and bow graciously.

Temple Art

Here is my 20-10 birthday present. It's on the back of my neck. The super sweet thing is I got it done at the Palms at Hart & Huntington - Inked.

Dinner after the Geocoinfest @ Pat and Oscars. MMM :)

Just in case you weren't feeling too old today, this will certainly change things... Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together a list to try to give the faculty a sense of the mindset of this year's incoming freshmen. Here's this year's list: The people who are starting college this past fall across the nation were born in 1987.

• They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up.
• Their lifetime has always included AIDS.
• Bottle caps have always been screw off and plastic.
• The CD was introduced the year they were born.
• They have always had an answering! machine.
• They have always had cable.
• They cannot fathom not having a remote control.
• Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.
• Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.
• They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.
• They can't imagine what hard contact lenses are.
• They don't know who Mork was or where he was from.
• They never heard: "Where's the Beef?", "I'd walk a mile for a Camel",or "de plane, Boss, de plane".
• They do not care who shot J. R. and have no idea who J. R. even is.
• McDonald's never came in Styrofoam containers.
• They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter.

Do you feel old yet? Notice the larger type, that's for those of you who have trouble reading...

"Sometimes "girl dogs" just wanna have fun"

Softball

Wow. So it's like here. So is the drama and the fundraising. Lots of fundraising. As is the candy rose "sweat shop." We made over 300 hershey kiss candy rose grams. They went over GREAT! We made some good money and will purchase some much needed shelves for our storage bin to get a little more organized. It will be so nice. We spent 4 hours Saturday with the girls turning these out and it was fun. We watched movies, ate pizza and had a few good laughs. I continue to make these till every last hershey is used. I think I have about 36 more to make, that's about 2 hours :)

We're going to attempt 2 caches later, we're having withdrawals...

Extreme Desk Makeover

Oohh... my desk is so pretty and I'm ALL done with my work from January. All the while February work has been piled in the back but who cares, I still have 22 days left this month :) So it took me 6 days into February, shut up.

Notes:

• Only one computer
• Only one email message on my desk
• No energy do-ma-hickies
• Post its are just for show now :)
• No binders of reminders

Well the rumor was close (they said, July 7th)... how exciting! Will Harry live or die...???

So this is what my desk looks like before the "Extreme Desk Makeover" YIKES!!!

Points you may or may not notice:

• There 2 computers on my desk... one you can't really see.
• An Amp - I needed to boost, yes I know how bad they are. Thank you for caring.
• Water - To keep my hydrated after the caffeine/sugar/energy boost.
• The array of post it notes across the bottom of my screen to remind me of more things to do.
• The binder on the right side of my screen of lists of reports that need to go out ASAP but aren't run yet.
• The paper taped to the monitor on the left is changes that need to be made on future reports.
• Reports on hold to the left till more samples come in, so incomplete work. :p
• Papers on the desk- 52 samples from one job order that need to be done by January 31st. Yes I know what date it is. And those can't go out till there counterparts are done and there are 49 more of those that haven't even been logged in yet in the lab...
• Papers on the right... who knows.
• Papers on the keyboard up top, need to be prepped for invoicing.
• My green highlighter so I can feel accomplished as I mark each sample off one by one (every 22 mintues because that's how long it takes for 1 to run).
• My calculator to help me convert the N2 into four parts, one part being 02.
• And so much more that you can't even see...

You say, holy (insert your favorite explicit here). I say job security. :)

What a weekend...

Friday night, some friends came over and we were going to head to Monolith, a teeny tiny work area right outside of Tehachapi, CA. There was a cache up there that still hadn't been found. It was recommended at night so we thought we'd go for it... well that story will be told in it's entirety in the caching blog, to be updated soon :) stayed tuned...

So Saturday we headed out at 8:30am and got a call at 8:50am to make sure we were on our way because lines were forming to be rated... ut oh. So we got there and there were A LOT more girls than last weekend. I was definitely going to have to keep on a tight schedule. I had my first girls pretty quickly. All I can say is thank goodness they stop taking sign-ups at noon. We were so backed up we didn't finish till 2:30pm! No lunch, no breaks and we were tired. I had to pitch a lot of balls and my back was sore.

That pretty much decided for us that we weren't geocaching. We picked up a very well, hard earned pizza and went home. We ate, fell a sleep and then laid around. We were beat and Sunday was suppose to be busier... lovely.

Sunday turned out a very big surprise.... we were done by 12:40pm. What the heck? All we had been hearing is how the busiest day is the last Sunday because so many people procrastinate. Turns out the majority came on Saturday. We were thankful for the light day.

I just wish my allergies would go away... or so I thought. I got another dang cold. I think the cold with the sweating, then cold again didn't work out so well for me. So I went to work Monday morning, then came home a couple hours later that morning and slept. I'm just now feeling back to me again. What a long past 5 days. I'm looking forward to this weekend, more geocaching... oh yeah, I'm way obsessed :)

Rating

So this weekend we are finishing up "rating" 10-15 year olds for softball, should be interesting and really busy. I like being outside though and it's suppose to be warmer than last weekend so that's great. We're also suppose to get some Geocaching in, we'll see how that goes. Looking forward to hanging out and enjoying some good ol' softball.

That's my weekend :)

Outside

Howie is about as hesitant about staying outside as we are letting him out. I think he had his scare and won't be leaving over the wall/fence for awhile. He likes to sit in the doorway while it's open. As most of you know, it's been in the upper 20's at night and low 40's during the day. Not exactly the best weather to leave the door open. I think the longest he's stayed out is about 20 mintues and that's because we were out there for 10 of those minutes and that is a-okay with us. The first 2 days he was back, he was very clingy and followed me everywhere. He still is by my side a lot and I'm so thankful he is okay. He got a clean bill of health from the vet.... phew. Oh that Howard...

Busy

Always am, always will be. So far going to bed earlier, definitely helps with all of the busy-ness. Saturday we were in Arcadia, tried some geocaching and had to Rate on Sunday. That was fun. My boss and his wife have a daughter who plays softball. Anyway, the wife is a board member of a league for girls to play in. In order for the teams to be divided fairly, they have people rate players, pitchers and catchers. Erin was rating players and I was in charge of pitchers and catchers. Ages 8 to 15. I had to give scores based on movement, speed and accuracy of pitches and for catchers, how well they catch, track the ball and throw it down to 2nd base. Pretty cool but some pressure. It's nice to see so many girls wanting to thrive in a sport. It is also worrysome to see some of the "out of control" parents badgering their children. Poor kids, I felt sorry for the girls' whose parents would comment after every play/pitch/hit/catch/throw they made. Takes all kinds I guess. We'll do that all next weekend as well. Looking forward to it.

Howard the King

I must say, all my time is going to caring for Howie. Everyone thought I babied him before...pfft. He isn't allowed outside for a few days. I'm not ready for it yet. I don't care how much he bellows about it. I took him to the vet. Coming home yesterday for lunch, I felt his cut and there was now a large lump underneath. I called the vet and explained his situation and they got me in after work. After holding him down and the vet tech pushing down on it a little, lots of puss came out. It was nasty. He barely had to touch it and lots and lots of puss. Bleah! So as that cleared out, you could see 2 very distincitve holes. Howie had been in a fight and something bit him very hard. That's why he ran away, he was scared and in hiding. They took him in the back, cleaned it out some more, injected the holes with antibiotics and he was now on a pill regimine. You could see down one of the holes, it was yucky. He has a recheck in 10 days... keeping the fingers crossed. It's a good thing we took him in when we did, it could have been much worse.

I talked to Howie and I told him I would let him out Sunday, during the day, in 15 minute blocks. He didn't like the way that sounded...

WISHES DO COME TRUE!!!

HOWIE IS HOME!!! Last night, I accused Zoey of selling Howie to the Chinese Black Market. Zoey has redeemed herself. Last night around 3:45am, she woke Erin up and was very persistant about going outside. Note** Zoey does NOT like to get up in the middle of the night in the winter because it is cold and she doesn't want to get out from under her covers.** So Erin crawled out of bed and went to let Zoey out, she walked out and sat down. Erin told her she better go pee because she didn't get up for nothing. Zoey sat there still and then looked down at a bed we put outside just in case Howie came back. Erin looked closer and thought Howie was in there but it's a dark bed and the light isn't all that bright. Zoey put her nose near the bed and then walked back inside. Erin leaned down and there was Howie curled up in the bed.

She ran into the room yelling that Howie was home! I woke up and when she set him down, he walked up to me and fell over on my chest from exhaustion. He smelled like when you come home from camping and have the campfire smell on you and all your clothes. I guess he had been out in the fields some where. He was so tired, he couldn't keep his eyes open. Upon petting him and hugging him, I found a scab/scratch on his hip about where his back leg connects on his side. Our guess was he got snagged on some barb wire somewhere. I didn't care, I was sooo glad he was home. I stayed up for 2 hours just petting him.

HOWIE IS HOME *doing a super happy dance*

Howie is Missing

He didn't come home last night. I stayed up till 1:30am and he didn't come home. I never heard his bell, he never threw himself at the door, nothing. I call for him, I've driven the neighborhood, nothing. I made some flyers and some friends came over to help put them up. We plastered the neighborhood, now we wait. I miss my Howard, I wish more than anything he would come home...

Rant: Work sucks, there is TOO much of it and I'm still sick. End Rant.

No where near the end but it is the end.

So I'm off to go home. I'm sicker than a dog, not that dogs really get all that sick and I should be home. No Beach, no fun, no nothing. I'm so sick... bleah. I'm no where near being done with my work but everyone is on vacation and no one cares, so neither do I. It will still be here next week. I'll deal with it then. So I'm no where near the end of work but the end of the year is upon me.

Happy Sneezy New Year to you *aachhoo* Sorry about the germs.

Working for the End... of the year.

Wow. I have so much work, I don't know where it starts or ends. One of my machines is down (always when I need all 3 the most) and having stock piles of samples come in, is very frustrating. I wish they wouldn't wait till the last 2 days of the month/year to bring it all in. I've had so much down time during the month, I could have had most all of this done had they brought it in earlier. End Rant... back to work.

Merry Christmas...

Wow, just like that it's come and gone. Another year of extra gifts and pounds. Although I have to say this year, I did more of a stay even, dropped a few, instead of packing on any extra insulation. I can't believe 2007 is around the corner, literally. Today we spent the day geocaching, that will be in the other blog of course.

Hope your holidays were Merry And Bright and you got everything you wanted!