I just decided that the most overused phrase at my company is "let me".
"let me go back and check with Bob"
"let me look into that"
"let me do some research and get back to you"
"let me take a couple of days to think about"
I literally just overheard THREE different phone conversations around me that were all asking the person on the other end of the line to "let me". And when I thought about it, I realize I DEFINITELY say it too. In an email I wrote earlier today: "Let me give Tanya a call to see how her group allocates that in their systems and we'll go from there."
We need a new phrase.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Randoms
Couple of things I've been thinking about...
Sunday after Easter lunch at Geoff's parents, Geoff drove me by the school where he plays basketball on Monday nights. We saw a house for sale in the neighborhood and he pulled over and asked me to get the little flyer so we could see how much houses in that neighborhood cost. Then he kept pulling over to every house he saw... once we cleaned that neighorhood out of flyers, he went to a neighborhood nearby to look there... and that basically turned into a whole tour of neighborhoods. It was actually pretty fun, a lot of those neighborhoods I didn't even know existed. We ended up in the "country" which is about 10 minutes north of where we live. All of these beautiful properties with 1 - 10 acres each. Of course those homes are all $600K - $1.4M. It's fun to dream though! Yesterday I was browsing Craigslist home listings (which I do probably twice a week anyway) and searched for that neighborhood... well a $215K home popped up. I figured it was probably using that neighborhood as a key word but wasn't IN that neighborhood... but it was! Problem is it's very close to Hwy 26, which is a major freeway (connects Portland to the coast - it is PACKED on sunny nice weekends!). That's good and bad... it's nice for freeway access but not nice for freeway noise. We drove past it anyway after work... we actually loved the property! It is .45 acres, which is a good size for us. It would let us do some of the things we want to do (have a shop, park our RV on our property, have a hot tub, have a garden, entertain outdoors, etc.) without having a giant space to maintain. The house was built in the 40's and I'm quite sure isn't in the greatest condition, considering all of the pictures are of the property itself and NONE of the inside. I think the idea is that you'd buy the house for the property and either do massive renovations to the home or else tear it down and rebuild. Geoff says it's "teeny tiny" but really it's almost 1600 square feet which isn't bad at all (it is smaller than our current house but very reasonable I think). A nice property and a nice price, but it just isn't the right time! Such is life. :) Other properties will come along.
When you get a bonus, do you ever "allocate" it to multiple things? Like, oh, I got $100, I can go out to a really nice dinner. Then a week later "gosh I need some new jeans and a couple of new sweaters... oh, remember I just got that $100, perfect!" Then you find out your insurance doesn't cover the full cost of the procedure you just had at the doctor and you owe another $150, and you think "oh well that's good timing with this bonus". I have caught myself starting to do that before I realized "hello dummy you already planned on doing X with your bonus" (X is usually saving it...), you can't be trying to spend it on other things. If I really did that I'd use my bonuses 5 times over I think!
This morning on the radio I heard a commercial for getting 20,000 bonus miles when you apply for a new Alaska Airlines credit card. That's nothing special, all of the airline credit cards give you that pretty much all the time. I use my Costco Amex for 95% of my purchases. The only exception is when a place won't take Amex and I have to use a Visa, then I use my United College Plus Visa (I pay no annual fee but only get a mile for every $2 I spend instead of every $1). Actually I don't know why that's relevant... anyway, a couple of years ago American Airlines was having their 25th anniversary and they were doing all of these special things. One day they had a promo where if you got their credit card you got like 25,000 miles and two free companion tickets, plus no annual fee and whatever else. I thought "THERE is a deal I can get behind" and applied for the card. A few weeks later I got a note saying that they couldn't give me the card because they "couldn't verify my home phone number". Well that's because I have no home phone you fools. Oh well. No big deal. But now Geoff and I both get letters from American Airlines at least once a month asking us to get their credit card. I TRIED people, you wouldn't give it to me, remember? Now stop sending me mail.
I got my roster for softball today! So I guess we're "official". Unfortunately, that's ALL I got - a list of names and phone numbers. I emailed the guy back and I'm waiting on information like is their a coaches meeting? What about emergency forms and waivers and things like that. When do I start practice? He gave me a list of fields I could use that are in "various states of repair" and said I could use them as I find space... well that's just sketchy! So we'll see what happens with that... yikes. I hate a lack of organization! I'm sure it will work out, and that's fine, but I'm not going to just start calling parents and saying "well I got your name... how about we set up a caravan of our cars on Thursday at 5:30 PM and drive around until we find an empty field... and I'll just have you sign your name on a piece of paper for a medical release form... yeah...." No, that won't work. I'll just wait on more information. :)
Sunday after Easter lunch at Geoff's parents, Geoff drove me by the school where he plays basketball on Monday nights. We saw a house for sale in the neighborhood and he pulled over and asked me to get the little flyer so we could see how much houses in that neighborhood cost. Then he kept pulling over to every house he saw... once we cleaned that neighorhood out of flyers, he went to a neighborhood nearby to look there... and that basically turned into a whole tour of neighborhoods. It was actually pretty fun, a lot of those neighborhoods I didn't even know existed. We ended up in the "country" which is about 10 minutes north of where we live. All of these beautiful properties with 1 - 10 acres each. Of course those homes are all $600K - $1.4M. It's fun to dream though! Yesterday I was browsing Craigslist home listings (which I do probably twice a week anyway) and searched for that neighborhood... well a $215K home popped up. I figured it was probably using that neighborhood as a key word but wasn't IN that neighborhood... but it was! Problem is it's very close to Hwy 26, which is a major freeway (connects Portland to the coast - it is PACKED on sunny nice weekends!). That's good and bad... it's nice for freeway access but not nice for freeway noise. We drove past it anyway after work... we actually loved the property! It is .45 acres, which is a good size for us. It would let us do some of the things we want to do (have a shop, park our RV on our property, have a hot tub, have a garden, entertain outdoors, etc.) without having a giant space to maintain. The house was built in the 40's and I'm quite sure isn't in the greatest condition, considering all of the pictures are of the property itself and NONE of the inside. I think the idea is that you'd buy the house for the property and either do massive renovations to the home or else tear it down and rebuild. Geoff says it's "teeny tiny" but really it's almost 1600 square feet which isn't bad at all (it is smaller than our current house but very reasonable I think). A nice property and a nice price, but it just isn't the right time! Such is life. :) Other properties will come along.
When you get a bonus, do you ever "allocate" it to multiple things? Like, oh, I got $100, I can go out to a really nice dinner. Then a week later "gosh I need some new jeans and a couple of new sweaters... oh, remember I just got that $100, perfect!" Then you find out your insurance doesn't cover the full cost of the procedure you just had at the doctor and you owe another $150, and you think "oh well that's good timing with this bonus". I have caught myself starting to do that before I realized "hello dummy you already planned on doing X with your bonus" (X is usually saving it...), you can't be trying to spend it on other things. If I really did that I'd use my bonuses 5 times over I think!
This morning on the radio I heard a commercial for getting 20,000 bonus miles when you apply for a new Alaska Airlines credit card. That's nothing special, all of the airline credit cards give you that pretty much all the time. I use my Costco Amex for 95% of my purchases. The only exception is when a place won't take Amex and I have to use a Visa, then I use my United College Plus Visa (I pay no annual fee but only get a mile for every $2 I spend instead of every $1). Actually I don't know why that's relevant... anyway, a couple of years ago American Airlines was having their 25th anniversary and they were doing all of these special things. One day they had a promo where if you got their credit card you got like 25,000 miles and two free companion tickets, plus no annual fee and whatever else. I thought "THERE is a deal I can get behind" and applied for the card. A few weeks later I got a note saying that they couldn't give me the card because they "couldn't verify my home phone number". Well that's because I have no home phone you fools. Oh well. No big deal. But now Geoff and I both get letters from American Airlines at least once a month asking us to get their credit card. I TRIED people, you wouldn't give it to me, remember? Now stop sending me mail.
I got my roster for softball today! So I guess we're "official". Unfortunately, that's ALL I got - a list of names and phone numbers. I emailed the guy back and I'm waiting on information like is their a coaches meeting? What about emergency forms and waivers and things like that. When do I start practice? He gave me a list of fields I could use that are in "various states of repair" and said I could use them as I find space... well that's just sketchy! So we'll see what happens with that... yikes. I hate a lack of organization! I'm sure it will work out, and that's fine, but I'm not going to just start calling parents and saying "well I got your name... how about we set up a caravan of our cars on Thursday at 5:30 PM and drive around until we find an empty field... and I'll just have you sign your name on a piece of paper for a medical release form... yeah...." No, that won't work. I'll just wait on more information. :)
Friday, March 21, 2008
Quote from an anonymous source
Based on my previous entry (and apparently stemming from the excessive detail that I tell my stories with):
"you need to have like 34983248 kids so you can have 409584095845048 grandkids to tell your stories to"
"you need to have like 34983248 kids so you can have 409584095845048 grandkids to tell your stories to"
Why I'm an "engineer"
My first memory of "what do you want to be when you grow up?" was a teacher. There is no specific memory of it, I just know that's what I wanted to be. After that, for the longest time, it was a lawyer. My grandfather and three uncles are all lawyers. It kind of runs in the family, it seemed like a fun job, and everyone thought I was very observant so I would be a great lawyer. I remember specifically in 4th grade my teacher, Mrs. Francis, asked us all what we wanted to be. I said lawyer, but I remember a handful of kids saying they wanted to be an engineer. I thought about how odd it was that such a high proportion of kids in the class would want to be driving a train (see, even then I was mentally collecting and analyzing data). I had only ever heard of an engineer in that context - a train engineer. I can no longer clearly recall if I went home and mentioned it to my parents that night and they explained about electrical engineers and chemical engineers, or what. The event is specific in my mind, but I don't know if it was immediate or at some time in the future that I figured out "oh! those kids don't want to be train engineers, they want to be civil engineers or mechanical engineers!"
I'm not quite sure when I decided I didn't want to be a lawyer. By junior high, I LOVED computers - I had my first one, a TI-99/4A, when I was very young, but my first "real" computer, an Intel 386, when I was in 5th grade (1992). We got an Intel 133 Mhz Pentium in 1995 - that was the computer that probably made me fall in love with computers, most likely because it had the internet! I first signed onto AOL version 2.0 in October of 1995, early in the morning before school. I tried to pick the screenname Kelly (taken), and then Kelly13 (I was 13 at the time, that was taken too). It then suggested "Kelly94942", which I quickly accepted because I just wanted to get on and see the internet for a few minutes before school. Little did I know that 13 years later I would have the same screenname for nearly everything I use today. Oh well. :) That was still in the time when AOL cost $9.99 a month and every precious minute you were online had an additional fee - YIKES. I quickly became a chat room host... it was a chat room for kids and I was in charge of monitoring it and also providing games for the kids to play. One of our favorites was a movie initials game... you'd say initials of a movie, and someone else would guess what the movie was. Like you'd say HA - they'd guess Home Alone. One of the best ones we'd use was TWFTFEJN (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar). No one could ever get that one... hehe. I got a certain number of minutes for each hour or so that I hosted. I actually to this day have friends on Facebook that were my co-hosts in that chat room (called KidsBiz). If people started swearing or anything, I had the power to boot them offline! How cool is that? This was even before AOL introduced instant messages - I remember when they came online, and when BUDDY LISTS were invented... that was really fun! Later on, KidsBiz went away and I became a tutor in another AOL area - I'd help kids with their homework. It was great because it paid for all of the internet which I loved so much. Kind of funny that I was "working" online at 13, 14, and 15 years old though. Anyway my work history is a subject for another day... this is just how I fell in love with computers, and I think those early AOL days had a big part of it. I'm a champion at getting off topic in my blog. ;-)
Junior year of high school, I took an AP computer programming class. I was awful at it! So many people were so much better than I was. My mind just didn't really think that way. But I loved the internet, and I was decent at fixing computer problems and understanding the basics of a computer, so I still thought I should do it. Senior year, since there were no more advanced computer programming classes, I took an independent study computer programming class. This consisted of me writing a Jeopardy program that was ridiculously easy. I guess somewhere along the line there I applied for college, and I determined that since I liked computers, I should be a computer engineer or computer scientist. Since at most of the schools I applied to (especially University of Illinois), it was more difficult to get into the engineering schools than the College of Arts and Sciences, I applied to the engineering school and decided to go with computer engineering instead of computer science. I figured I could always switch from engineering to CAS, but I thought it might be more difficult to switch into engineering. Actually at Northwestern (where I actually ended up going) it was probably easier to get into engineering than CAS because engineering is certainly not Northwestern's strength, but whatever.
So freshman year, there I was, taking engineering classes. At that point, those days of Matlab, physics, chemistry, and calculus, it didn't really matter what sort of engineer I was going to be. Every engineer has to suffer through those same horrendous intro classes! (same as every pre-med student has to suffer through organic chemistry, and so on) One day that winter, my roommate (who was a political science major and didn't want anything to do with math or science) came home laughing because she'd been to some event where some "freak" was trying to convince her to be some crazy kind of engineer. They said it wasn't really even very engineer-ish, it was more like business, making things more efficient, statistics, etc. I was like "Wait, what? Tell me more! This sounds fascinating!" She laughed and said she thought that it might be called Industrial Engineering - I looked it up and in fact there was some crazy kind of engineering called Industrial Engineering that sounded completely like all of the things she'd described - all things I loved! Northwestern offered IE and I went to talk to the undergraduate IE coordinator - Ann, a woman we all eventually knew and loved. :) I also made a note on my resume that I was a computer engineering major but that there would be a "probable" switch to industrial engineering (I guess I knew right away that it was going to be that great). I distributed that same resume to probably 40 companies at a job fair January of my freshman year. UPS was one of the companies that called me about an internship, and it was going to be for industrial, not computer, engineering. I remember riding the train all the way to the south side of Chicago for an interview and talking to the IE district manager of the Metro Chicago district of UPS... it was a scary train ride, followed by an equally scary bus ride! I asked them "are you really going to want me? I'm a freshman, I know nothing!" - they replied that at least I'd have fresh new ideas, which were valuable. When he found out I was from Palatine, which was the site of another major UPS hub (about 5 or 10 minutes from my house!) he called his counterpart and arranged for me to have a job interview in Palatine! Excellent. I had the interview over spring break and they called soon after to offer me the job for that summer.
On to Spring Quarter of my freshman year (after quite an exciting Winter Quarter - finding a new major existed, doing a tiny bit of exploration, changing my resume, and getting an internship in a major I wasn't even sure I wanted yet) - I visited Ann, the undergrad IE coordinator again. I said that I still wasn't sure on my major, but I had ended up with this internship... but now I had to pick out my sophomore Fall Quarter classes and didn't know if I should pick computer or industrial engineering classes! Awesome Ann saved me - she pointed out that I had to take the final quarter of Engineering Analysis either way, I could take Introduction to Computer Engineering and use it as one of my electives if I didn't want it, and I could take a couple of other basic engineering classes that would be used in either class. So I signed up for those classes and off I went to my IE internship.
I LOVED working at UPS. That job was awesome - I worked 1 AM to 9 AM Monday through Friday, had a great boss who I learned a TON from, got to spend a day with a UPS package car driver on his route, got to do a re-routing project, etc. It was great. I was hooked - it was going to be industrial engineering for sure! I took my Fall Quarter classes - the computer engineering class was interesting, but it just didn't click in my mind the way IE did... everything IE-related, I got! I just loved it, it made so much sense to me and was so fascinating! So I took the plunge and Winter Quarter of my sophomore year I was a full fledged IE and took 3 out of my 4 classes as IE specific classes (we only took 4 classes per quarter since we had quarters instead fo semesters). Next to no one at Northwestern had come into school with the intention to be an IE, and in fact it was a big joke about "where we came from" (oh she was EE, I was computer engineering, etc.). But we all loved it - we were a tight knit group who had great professors, a computer lab that we all practically lived in (I once spent 13 hours in a single day in that lab), etc. "IE Love" was our slogan.
So I certainly never planned to be an engineer and didn't even realize that it was happening before it did, but I'm really happy that some random person decided to tell my roommate she should be an IE freshman year of college. :)
I'm not quite sure when I decided I didn't want to be a lawyer. By junior high, I LOVED computers - I had my first one, a TI-99/4A, when I was very young, but my first "real" computer, an Intel 386, when I was in 5th grade (1992). We got an Intel 133 Mhz Pentium in 1995 - that was the computer that probably made me fall in love with computers, most likely because it had the internet! I first signed onto AOL version 2.0 in October of 1995, early in the morning before school. I tried to pick the screenname Kelly (taken), and then Kelly13 (I was 13 at the time, that was taken too). It then suggested "Kelly94942", which I quickly accepted because I just wanted to get on and see the internet for a few minutes before school. Little did I know that 13 years later I would have the same screenname for nearly everything I use today. Oh well. :) That was still in the time when AOL cost $9.99 a month and every precious minute you were online had an additional fee - YIKES. I quickly became a chat room host... it was a chat room for kids and I was in charge of monitoring it and also providing games for the kids to play. One of our favorites was a movie initials game... you'd say initials of a movie, and someone else would guess what the movie was. Like you'd say HA - they'd guess Home Alone. One of the best ones we'd use was TWFTFEJN (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar). No one could ever get that one... hehe. I got a certain number of minutes for each hour or so that I hosted. I actually to this day have friends on Facebook that were my co-hosts in that chat room (called KidsBiz). If people started swearing or anything, I had the power to boot them offline! How cool is that? This was even before AOL introduced instant messages - I remember when they came online, and when BUDDY LISTS were invented... that was really fun! Later on, KidsBiz went away and I became a tutor in another AOL area - I'd help kids with their homework. It was great because it paid for all of the internet which I loved so much. Kind of funny that I was "working" online at 13, 14, and 15 years old though. Anyway my work history is a subject for another day... this is just how I fell in love with computers, and I think those early AOL days had a big part of it. I'm a champion at getting off topic in my blog. ;-)
Junior year of high school, I took an AP computer programming class. I was awful at it! So many people were so much better than I was. My mind just didn't really think that way. But I loved the internet, and I was decent at fixing computer problems and understanding the basics of a computer, so I still thought I should do it. Senior year, since there were no more advanced computer programming classes, I took an independent study computer programming class. This consisted of me writing a Jeopardy program that was ridiculously easy. I guess somewhere along the line there I applied for college, and I determined that since I liked computers, I should be a computer engineer or computer scientist. Since at most of the schools I applied to (especially University of Illinois), it was more difficult to get into the engineering schools than the College of Arts and Sciences, I applied to the engineering school and decided to go with computer engineering instead of computer science. I figured I could always switch from engineering to CAS, but I thought it might be more difficult to switch into engineering. Actually at Northwestern (where I actually ended up going) it was probably easier to get into engineering than CAS because engineering is certainly not Northwestern's strength, but whatever.
So freshman year, there I was, taking engineering classes. At that point, those days of Matlab, physics, chemistry, and calculus, it didn't really matter what sort of engineer I was going to be. Every engineer has to suffer through those same horrendous intro classes! (same as every pre-med student has to suffer through organic chemistry, and so on) One day that winter, my roommate (who was a political science major and didn't want anything to do with math or science) came home laughing because she'd been to some event where some "freak" was trying to convince her to be some crazy kind of engineer. They said it wasn't really even very engineer-ish, it was more like business, making things more efficient, statistics, etc. I was like "Wait, what? Tell me more! This sounds fascinating!" She laughed and said she thought that it might be called Industrial Engineering - I looked it up and in fact there was some crazy kind of engineering called Industrial Engineering that sounded completely like all of the things she'd described - all things I loved! Northwestern offered IE and I went to talk to the undergraduate IE coordinator - Ann, a woman we all eventually knew and loved. :) I also made a note on my resume that I was a computer engineering major but that there would be a "probable" switch to industrial engineering (I guess I knew right away that it was going to be that great). I distributed that same resume to probably 40 companies at a job fair January of my freshman year. UPS was one of the companies that called me about an internship, and it was going to be for industrial, not computer, engineering. I remember riding the train all the way to the south side of Chicago for an interview and talking to the IE district manager of the Metro Chicago district of UPS... it was a scary train ride, followed by an equally scary bus ride! I asked them "are you really going to want me? I'm a freshman, I know nothing!" - they replied that at least I'd have fresh new ideas, which were valuable. When he found out I was from Palatine, which was the site of another major UPS hub (about 5 or 10 minutes from my house!) he called his counterpart and arranged for me to have a job interview in Palatine! Excellent. I had the interview over spring break and they called soon after to offer me the job for that summer.
On to Spring Quarter of my freshman year (after quite an exciting Winter Quarter - finding a new major existed, doing a tiny bit of exploration, changing my resume, and getting an internship in a major I wasn't even sure I wanted yet) - I visited Ann, the undergrad IE coordinator again. I said that I still wasn't sure on my major, but I had ended up with this internship... but now I had to pick out my sophomore Fall Quarter classes and didn't know if I should pick computer or industrial engineering classes! Awesome Ann saved me - she pointed out that I had to take the final quarter of Engineering Analysis either way, I could take Introduction to Computer Engineering and use it as one of my electives if I didn't want it, and I could take a couple of other basic engineering classes that would be used in either class. So I signed up for those classes and off I went to my IE internship.
I LOVED working at UPS. That job was awesome - I worked 1 AM to 9 AM Monday through Friday, had a great boss who I learned a TON from, got to spend a day with a UPS package car driver on his route, got to do a re-routing project, etc. It was great. I was hooked - it was going to be industrial engineering for sure! I took my Fall Quarter classes - the computer engineering class was interesting, but it just didn't click in my mind the way IE did... everything IE-related, I got! I just loved it, it made so much sense to me and was so fascinating! So I took the plunge and Winter Quarter of my sophomore year I was a full fledged IE and took 3 out of my 4 classes as IE specific classes (we only took 4 classes per quarter since we had quarters instead fo semesters). Next to no one at Northwestern had come into school with the intention to be an IE, and in fact it was a big joke about "where we came from" (oh she was EE, I was computer engineering, etc.). But we all loved it - we were a tight knit group who had great professors, a computer lab that we all practically lived in (I once spent 13 hours in a single day in that lab), etc. "IE Love" was our slogan.
So I certainly never planned to be an engineer and didn't even realize that it was happening before it did, but I'm really happy that some random person decided to tell my roommate she should be an IE freshman year of college. :)
Status update
This is just a copy/paste from an email I wrote to my family:
Yesterday I got some Glade Flameless Scented Candles (3) from Walgreens, they paid me $1.01 each to take them out of the store. This weekend I am planning on getting a new sink scrub brush - I will have to pay for that but it's 50% off, and I'm going to get more free Excedrin and some free oven cleaner. I'm especially excited about the oven cleaner, my oven seriously needs help. That's all the free stuff I know of so far, we'll see what else pops up. Something usually does! Let's see... tonight if the rain holds off Geoff is gonna mow the lawn and then we're both going to work on getting the yard cleaned up... with all the rain you just have to weed constantly in the spring. The front and back and side yards all need to be weeded. I'm going to plant some basil inside - I will keep it inside for a month or so then move it outside to a big half barrel planter we have. Did you know that in the US it is illegal to make more than one batch of whiskey in a barrel? That's why there are so many half whiskey barrel planters. I learned that this week - although didn't check any reliable sources so it may just be heresay. They are pefect for herbs, because they keep them contained. Tomorrow I am going to have a big organize a roo... I'm going to try to find some little storage container with seperate little drawers for light bulbs, batteries, etc. Household things that we have a few little storage places for that are starting to get junky - yuck. Might make a run to Goodwill too, depending on what I come up with. I already have a small stack for Goodwill. Tomorrow night we're going to go to a 7 PM Easter service with Julie, Rebecca, and Gary. Then Sunday I will do my Walgreens, Rite Aid, and grocery shopping and then have lunch or dinner with those peeps too. Maybe some more organizing and/or cleaning then as well. We shall see!
Yesterday I got some Glade Flameless Scented Candles (3) from Walgreens, they paid me $1.01 each to take them out of the store. This weekend I am planning on getting a new sink scrub brush - I will have to pay for that but it's 50% off, and I'm going to get more free Excedrin and some free oven cleaner. I'm especially excited about the oven cleaner, my oven seriously needs help. That's all the free stuff I know of so far, we'll see what else pops up. Something usually does! Let's see... tonight if the rain holds off Geoff is gonna mow the lawn and then we're both going to work on getting the yard cleaned up... with all the rain you just have to weed constantly in the spring. The front and back and side yards all need to be weeded. I'm going to plant some basil inside - I will keep it inside for a month or so then move it outside to a big half barrel planter we have. Did you know that in the US it is illegal to make more than one batch of whiskey in a barrel? That's why there are so many half whiskey barrel planters. I learned that this week - although didn't check any reliable sources so it may just be heresay. They are pefect for herbs, because they keep them contained. Tomorrow I am going to have a big organize a roo... I'm going to try to find some little storage container with seperate little drawers for light bulbs, batteries, etc. Household things that we have a few little storage places for that are starting to get junky - yuck. Might make a run to Goodwill too, depending on what I come up with. I already have a small stack for Goodwill. Tomorrow night we're going to go to a 7 PM Easter service with Julie, Rebecca, and Gary. Then Sunday I will do my Walgreens, Rite Aid, and grocery shopping and then have lunch or dinner with those peeps too. Maybe some more organizing and/or cleaning then as well. We shall see!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Just call me Coach!
Monday morning during our team meeting at work, everyone was kinda doing the typical "ugh, it's Monday again". And I was like "yay, Monday!" They looked at me like I was crazy... and I said I get a little bored over the weekend, I don't have enough to do. They were like man, we ran this kid to baseball practice and this one had swimming lessons, and then we had to meet with the guy who's re-doing our kitchen and then the tax guy needed some stuff faxed over and then the toilet broke so we had to find a replacement... the weekend goes way too fast! (okay I just combined like 4 people's weekends, but that was the gist). Then one guy was like "hey, if you want something to do, you can coach my daughter's softball team. They're at the point right now where if they don't get a coach they're not going to have a team." I obviously don't know a thing about softball, but I was like "okay".
A couple of days go by, and then yesterday he asked if I would seriously consider coaching it, because they haven't found anyone. He couldn't do it because he was coaching his son's team, and it sounded like some other parents were in similar situations. So I said yes... especially if I could convince Geoff to help me with the actual "skills" part, since I'm lacking in that department. Geoff was VERY skeptical at first - "I've never played softball!" - but then once we talked about it more he actually got pretty excited about it. He also said "I better help because I don't want you misguiding all of these poor girls on how to throw a ball." Probably half of these girls have never played before and they just want to go out there and have fun. They're 9 years old, and according to the league president the goal is "to be able to catch the ball and get someone out at first base". They don't keep score, and the coaches often meet before the games to determine the exact rules of that game - for example one team may be used to coach pitch and another team is used to using a tee, so even during the game they will use different pitching methods. They just want all of the kids to be able to make some contact with the ball and be involved. I'm so excited! The head dude is going to call me today to tell me about practices, the coaches meeting, how we get our gear, etc. Should be a grand adventure. :)
A couple of days go by, and then yesterday he asked if I would seriously consider coaching it, because they haven't found anyone. He couldn't do it because he was coaching his son's team, and it sounded like some other parents were in similar situations. So I said yes... especially if I could convince Geoff to help me with the actual "skills" part, since I'm lacking in that department. Geoff was VERY skeptical at first - "I've never played softball!" - but then once we talked about it more he actually got pretty excited about it. He also said "I better help because I don't want you misguiding all of these poor girls on how to throw a ball." Probably half of these girls have never played before and they just want to go out there and have fun. They're 9 years old, and according to the league president the goal is "to be able to catch the ball and get someone out at first base". They don't keep score, and the coaches often meet before the games to determine the exact rules of that game - for example one team may be used to coach pitch and another team is used to using a tee, so even during the game they will use different pitching methods. They just want all of the kids to be able to make some contact with the ball and be involved. I'm so excited! The head dude is going to call me today to tell me about practices, the coaches meeting, how we get our gear, etc. Should be a grand adventure. :)
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
His and hers
Geoff's mom just emailed me to see if Geoff and I have a copy of a movie. I knew I didn't, so I checked with Geoff to see if he did. He didn't either - but it made me think about how even though we think of everything as ours, there are some pre-marriage items that to me are either Geoff's or mine - not "ours". Another example happened on Sunday when we were talking about The DaVinci Code, which I hadn't read. I thought I remembered seeing it when I was organizing our bookshelf - so I asked Geoff if he/we had it (I can't remember now which I said). He said yes. Stuff like books, CDs, DVDs, and other little things is especially hard to keep track of... I don't even know everything "we" have because not all of it is something that I was there for the purchase or gift of. They just all of the sudden appeared in my (our!) house. :) We both call our house our house 100% of the time (unless I am referring to it in the past, then sometimes I will say my house... like "oh, when I bought my house it was such a seller's market"). We call Jake my car and the Tahoe his car - but I think that is quite common, most people seem to designate a car as one person's or the other. Everything we received for our wedding or bought post-wedding is always "ours". We have 2 guest bedrooms, and it's kind of funny because they are set up kind of like his old bedroom and my old bedroom - one has my bed, my bedding, etc. and one has his bed, his bedding, his dresser, etc. Although our old TVs are swapped in the rooms (mine is in the room with his bed and his is in the room with my bed) - just realized that, interesting. In our master bedroom, we actually have a new bed, new TV, and new bookshelf. Geoff said those things really helped him to feeling like it was HIS house (his meaning ours, in this case) because we weren't just living in my bedroom with my bed and my bedding in my house - we had new stuff that was ours. We both have desks that we bought post-wedding, and even though they have designations of whose desk they are, they still seem to be more "ours" than Geoff's TV that he had in college. That's still "Geoff's TV".
I imagine everyone sees this phenomenon to a certain extent - it's probably minimized for a couple who was married right out of school, and amplified for a couple who got married in their 30's or 40's. I imagine it also becomes minimized as you have more years together - you have a smaller percentage of "pre-marriage stuff", due to just accumulating more things, replacing things, selling/donating/throwing away things, etc.
Another interesting point I thought of is that as a child/teenager, I never saw this. There were a few things I can think of, like my dad's old college textbooks and speakers he had in college, that were his. But I never even saw anything as being "my parents", it was all just "ours". Like it just existed in the house and it had always been there and it was all I ever knew.
This is off topic, but many times in my young adulthood I have thought about things that just always existed around the house growing up that I actually had to go out and PURCHASE. Like recently, a heating pad. What house doesn't have a heating pad? But mine didn't for a whopping 2 or 3 years... you actually need to acquire one at some point to have that. Things like rubbing alcohol (have), hydrogen peroxide (don't have), bleach (have because a roommate abandoned it in the laundry room), etc. Household stuff that you don't need very often but when you need you normally think of it as being in your house. Every time I realize I don't have one of these things and I need to go purchase it, I think of it as an "investment" - I won't need to buy it the next time it inevitably comes up that I need it (in 5 years). These things are becoming more and more rare but I am always amused when one comes up. I suppose by the time you have children you have acquired most of these things, or else when the child suddenly needs it you buy it. To the child it just always existed... they don't necessarily see the process of going out and purchasing it. Many of these things are so interesting to me because I can still remember very clearly my viewpoint as a child/teenager but am starting to be able to see the adult viewpoint as well.
No real point to this blog... just some random thoughts... :) This did however give me the desire to go home and study our book, DVD, and CD collections. They are all combined on shelves together, but I don't know what they all are. I went through and merged our office supplies recently so I have a pretty good idea in my mind of what we have and what we don't. We have a box of Geoff's mementos and a box of mine, and then a box of wedding stuff (to be scrapbooked). Toiletries are all merged. Luckily, I like to organize so that helped me combine everything and also make a mental note of what we have and don't. I had a GRAND time going through and combining and organizing all of our things! Garage stuff is all merged (yes, we both came into this marriage with tools!). I think that's about it... there's nothing else I can think of! Those are my thoughts for the day... comment away!
I imagine everyone sees this phenomenon to a certain extent - it's probably minimized for a couple who was married right out of school, and amplified for a couple who got married in their 30's or 40's. I imagine it also becomes minimized as you have more years together - you have a smaller percentage of "pre-marriage stuff", due to just accumulating more things, replacing things, selling/donating/throwing away things, etc.
Another interesting point I thought of is that as a child/teenager, I never saw this. There were a few things I can think of, like my dad's old college textbooks and speakers he had in college, that were his. But I never even saw anything as being "my parents", it was all just "ours". Like it just existed in the house and it had always been there and it was all I ever knew.
This is off topic, but many times in my young adulthood I have thought about things that just always existed around the house growing up that I actually had to go out and PURCHASE. Like recently, a heating pad. What house doesn't have a heating pad? But mine didn't for a whopping 2 or 3 years... you actually need to acquire one at some point to have that. Things like rubbing alcohol (have), hydrogen peroxide (don't have), bleach (have because a roommate abandoned it in the laundry room), etc. Household stuff that you don't need very often but when you need you normally think of it as being in your house. Every time I realize I don't have one of these things and I need to go purchase it, I think of it as an "investment" - I won't need to buy it the next time it inevitably comes up that I need it (in 5 years). These things are becoming more and more rare but I am always amused when one comes up. I suppose by the time you have children you have acquired most of these things, or else when the child suddenly needs it you buy it. To the child it just always existed... they don't necessarily see the process of going out and purchasing it. Many of these things are so interesting to me because I can still remember very clearly my viewpoint as a child/teenager but am starting to be able to see the adult viewpoint as well.
No real point to this blog... just some random thoughts... :) This did however give me the desire to go home and study our book, DVD, and CD collections. They are all combined on shelves together, but I don't know what they all are. I went through and merged our office supplies recently so I have a pretty good idea in my mind of what we have and what we don't. We have a box of Geoff's mementos and a box of mine, and then a box of wedding stuff (to be scrapbooked). Toiletries are all merged. Luckily, I like to organize so that helped me combine everything and also make a mental note of what we have and don't. I had a GRAND time going through and combining and organizing all of our things! Garage stuff is all merged (yes, we both came into this marriage with tools!). I think that's about it... there's nothing else I can think of! Those are my thoughts for the day... comment away!
Monday, March 17, 2008
Another funny
I don't know why I post all of my embarassing stories for the world to see... ahh the things I do to entertain you.
For the past month or so our kitchen light has been dying (just needs a new bulb). Every time we'd turn it on, it'd take a few seconds to actually turn on, or sometimes flicker before it came to life. We knew it was only a matter of time. Yesterday, it bit the dust. It wouldn't turn on at all anymore. We played with it a few times - and then eventually didn't even know if the switch was on or off (we have two switches in our kitchen, so they can be up or down and the light can be on or off... no real pattern).
Fast forward to last night... I couldn't sleep (although FINALLY not because I was coughing, just because I couldn't sleep) so I got up around 11 to go downstairs and clean or something. Well I opened the door to our bedroom and saw LIGHT downstairs (you can see where this is going). We never forget to turn the lights off when we go to bed, so I immediately yelled (well, whispered loudly) "GEOFF!!! Someone is down there! Someone is in our house!" and FLEW back into bed and burrowed under Geoff. No sooner was in safely under Geoff when I calmly said "Oh, I bet the light in the kitchen just finally came on". Geoff (half asleep) just sort of started at me like "yeah, you THINK?" Haha... oops... :)
For the past month or so our kitchen light has been dying (just needs a new bulb). Every time we'd turn it on, it'd take a few seconds to actually turn on, or sometimes flicker before it came to life. We knew it was only a matter of time. Yesterday, it bit the dust. It wouldn't turn on at all anymore. We played with it a few times - and then eventually didn't even know if the switch was on or off (we have two switches in our kitchen, so they can be up or down and the light can be on or off... no real pattern).
Fast forward to last night... I couldn't sleep (although FINALLY not because I was coughing, just because I couldn't sleep) so I got up around 11 to go downstairs and clean or something. Well I opened the door to our bedroom and saw LIGHT downstairs (you can see where this is going). We never forget to turn the lights off when we go to bed, so I immediately yelled (well, whispered loudly) "GEOFF!!! Someone is down there! Someone is in our house!" and FLEW back into bed and burrowed under Geoff. No sooner was in safely under Geoff when I calmly said "Oh, I bet the light in the kitchen just finally came on". Geoff (half asleep) just sort of started at me like "yeah, you THINK?" Haha... oops... :)
Sunday, March 16, 2008
A funny
I have a terrible habit which I am ashamed to admit but will anyway because it's necessary to get to the funny here. I fake being dead. I don't know why, you'd think I was attention starved or something, but I think it's so fun. I like the reaction I get from Geoff, he's so funny about it. And I asked him, he said it's okay. It's just kind of like a game - I'll cough or something and then collapse as though "dead". Geoff usually pokes me until I stop and occasionally will say something like "dead people don't breathe". But tonight was the best - he said "dead people don't adjust themselves so they're more comfortable while they fake being dead!" (I moved a couple of times very slightly... I was hoping he wouldn't notice!) Hahahahaha... I couldn't stop laughing. I hope you think this is funny and not just weird...
A fun weekend!
I'm still sick... ugh! But I have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow morning, so that is good. The only bad time really is night, when I'm trying to go to sleep. It takes about 3 hours for my coughing to settle down so I can finally get to sleep. Annoying!
Geoff's stepsister Rebecca is in town, so yesterday his parents called us to see if we wanted to go over to their house for a bit. We were thinking about it, and then I suggested than maybe they could come to our house, so that I wouldn't have to go out. And I suggested Geoff make fried chicken, because he loves cooking it and everyone loves eating it. Geoff thought that was a good plan, so he invited them over and they agreed. It was such a wonderful evening... the chicken always takes a long time to cook (10 - 13 minutes per batch and you can only do very small batches) so we just sat and chatted for hours. I had soooo much fun. It was just a lovely and perfect evening.
I don't know if I have mentioned this before or not, but Geoff and I are church-hunting with Geoff's parents. Now that Geoff is working a regular Monday - Friday schedule and can go to church with me, we could finally really look for a church together, and his parents said that they would love to go to church with us. So this week since Rebecca was in town we let her choose the church (I made a list in Excel with names, location, service times, and web links of churches that either (a) I've been to before and liked, (b) have had referred to me, or (c) came up in my random Google search). This church was my favorite of all of the churches we've "officially" visited together, but is not my favorite of churches I've been to in Oregon. The church that I would rate as my favorite has not been "officially" visited yet. We have a grand time talking about the church afterwards - we all rate on a scale of 1 to 10, say what we liked or didn't like, talk about the atmosphere, talk about the sermon, talk about the pastor, talk about the worship (music), talk about if others were friendly to us, etc. It is interesting because we all notice different things and have different priorities for what we're really looking for in a church.
After the church visit, we went back to Geoff's parent's house for brunch. Rebecca's aunt and uncle and cousins and grandmother and great aunt came too - it's so fun to have them around. The grandmother and great aunt in particular are quite funny... they are leaving for a week in Hawaii so it was so fun to see how excited they were about their trip!
I had another paragraph I was going to write but it didn't turn out how I hoped. My blog is typically not very thought out - it's usually just my spew, and you get what you get. I have actually come back to this twice (I started it about 5 PM, then went back to it about 7 PM, it's now 8:42 PM). I keep thinking that I'm going to have some better way to express what I was going to say, but I don't. It was perfect when I was originally thinking about it but didn't get to my computer to write it in time. That happens somewhat often - I think of something I want to blog about but don't actually do it while I still have the original emotion so it doesn't turn out as well. Maybe I will write it tomorrow if I can get a better semblance of words together.
Geoff's stepsister Rebecca is in town, so yesterday his parents called us to see if we wanted to go over to their house for a bit. We were thinking about it, and then I suggested than maybe they could come to our house, so that I wouldn't have to go out. And I suggested Geoff make fried chicken, because he loves cooking it and everyone loves eating it. Geoff thought that was a good plan, so he invited them over and they agreed. It was such a wonderful evening... the chicken always takes a long time to cook (10 - 13 minutes per batch and you can only do very small batches) so we just sat and chatted for hours. I had soooo much fun. It was just a lovely and perfect evening.
I don't know if I have mentioned this before or not, but Geoff and I are church-hunting with Geoff's parents. Now that Geoff is working a regular Monday - Friday schedule and can go to church with me, we could finally really look for a church together, and his parents said that they would love to go to church with us. So this week since Rebecca was in town we let her choose the church (I made a list in Excel with names, location, service times, and web links of churches that either (a) I've been to before and liked, (b) have had referred to me, or (c) came up in my random Google search). This church was my favorite of all of the churches we've "officially" visited together, but is not my favorite of churches I've been to in Oregon. The church that I would rate as my favorite has not been "officially" visited yet. We have a grand time talking about the church afterwards - we all rate on a scale of 1 to 10, say what we liked or didn't like, talk about the atmosphere, talk about the sermon, talk about the pastor, talk about the worship (music), talk about if others were friendly to us, etc. It is interesting because we all notice different things and have different priorities for what we're really looking for in a church.
After the church visit, we went back to Geoff's parent's house for brunch. Rebecca's aunt and uncle and cousins and grandmother and great aunt came too - it's so fun to have them around. The grandmother and great aunt in particular are quite funny... they are leaving for a week in Hawaii so it was so fun to see how excited they were about their trip!
I had another paragraph I was going to write but it didn't turn out how I hoped. My blog is typically not very thought out - it's usually just my spew, and you get what you get. I have actually come back to this twice (I started it about 5 PM, then went back to it about 7 PM, it's now 8:42 PM). I keep thinking that I'm going to have some better way to express what I was going to say, but I don't. It was perfect when I was originally thinking about it but didn't get to my computer to write it in time. That happens somewhat often - I think of something I want to blog about but don't actually do it while I still have the original emotion so it doesn't turn out as well. Maybe I will write it tomorrow if I can get a better semblance of words together.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
At Oma and Opa's
This weekend Geoff and I are at Oma and Opa's north of Seattle. Also here are Gary and Julie (Geoff's parents) and Jeff and Hannah (Geoff's uncle and cousin). We're here in visiting for the weekend and then tomorrow morning we are going to Nora's (Geoff's cousin) baptism at Peter's (Geoff's uncle) church south of Seattle. We got here last night and I taught everyone SET - it has been so fun to have a big group of people to play with all weekend, and the cards keep coming out... people keep practicing, playing solitare, and playing with a group, etc. This morning we went to a Rotary/YMCA pancake breakfast and then I got my eyes checked by Opa! (he's an eye doctor, don't worry, I didn't just have my eyes checked by some random guy). I have 20/15 vision, although he wrote me a prescription for slight far-sightedness, +.25 in each eye. And I have a problem with vertical alignment or some such business that requires a prism prescription - I already had that from about 6 or 7 years ago, but he made some slight adjustments in the new prescription he wrote me. It was the first time I had my eyes checked since then, and it was really fun. It was very interesting and Opa explained a lot of stuff to me about eyes. It was quite fun. After that we came home, played some SET, went to Costco, I rested (I've been sick for days - I didn't go to work Thursday or Friday) and then we had dinner. Now we are watching The Blues Brothers... it is somewhat interesting because it is filmed in Chicago - like I just saw a Jewel (grocery store)... haven't seen one of those in 3 or 4 years. I can't believe it's been so long since I've been to Chicago, but I haven't been since Labor Day 2005. Crazy to think you haven't been to the city you're FROM in that long. Anyway, it's pretty fun to have a bunch of people around and be watching (not that I'm doing so much watching... but whatever).
I'm also Grocery Gaming (preparing my lists for shopping tomorrow) and obviously blogging... later Geoff and I might go out to get a newspaper so I can have my coupons! I think that is all... my life isn't very exciting. OH!!! I am writing a book. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with it, but I have started it and we'll see where it goes. If I decide to do anything with it, then I'll tell you more.
I'm also Grocery Gaming (preparing my lists for shopping tomorrow) and obviously blogging... later Geoff and I might go out to get a newspaper so I can have my coupons! I think that is all... my life isn't very exciting. OH!!! I am writing a book. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with it, but I have started it and we'll see where it goes. If I decide to do anything with it, then I'll tell you more.
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