zerofour

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:44:08 GMT

Group may have tried to sell tigers in Wal-Mart parking lot

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:36:47 GMT

you can add that to the list of funniest news headlines ever....

to pick up from last week....

i had lunch with my dad on thursday...and managed to get pizza sauce all over my dress....freakin brilliant. but it was nice to get out of the office for an hour, and catch up with my dad. it was nice to see him...but i know he's much much happier in maine...and that's a good thing :-) him and his horses

thursday night i didn't end up working on the father's day gift with the boys cause i wanted another day to figure out how i was going to put it together, and its tough to get kids to work on things like that as it is, but if you try to work on something with them without the foggiest idea of what you're doing....then it makes it even more difficult. it's like teaching...kids can sense insecurity....and they know when you have no idea what you're talking about.

anyway

friday work sucked...well...work sucked all week...it was a sucky work week all around. and i was about ready to quit by the end of it all...but....i have pictures of the boys taped to my computer monitor at work (which looks kind of silly cause i have a 17 inch flat panel monitor, so the pictures make it look like my monitor has ears :-P) to remind me why i'm here, and why i continue to come in.

anyway

classes were good...and after class iselle met me at the dojo and we drove over to our house. we were fatties and had lots of fried oreos...and talked for a long time...it was lots of fun....i miss hangin with my squeaky...hopefully we'll be able to hang out more now...

saturday....we met my dad at d&d and drove up to peter's game....last game of the season.... after the game we took the boys to the diner for peter's soccer team's trophy party deal....we had second breakfast and peter got his trophy.   afterwards we went to evan's game, and then to the park for his team's pizza/trophy party. They were both very proud of their trophies...as were we.

we went home and got them changed and headed out to go visit marc for a few hours....the boys drew pictures for him to make him feel better...both of them drew a picture of his car....too funny.

after that we went to friendly's for dinner, and then home. Pete cleaned and took out trash and such, and i worked with the boys on their father's day gift. and then read them horton hear's a who to get them to calm down afterwards....unfortunately having never read horton hears a who, and being a person who loves to do voices when i read....it resulted in them cracking up the whole time (i put on a tiny squeaky voice for the who mayor) and making them more wired before bed. shoulda stuck to goodnight moon.

once they were in bed, i worked on putting the video together, it took me about 2-2 and a half hours...cause i had to track down pictures, and download music, and then put it all together, and you get things put together in movie maker and realize you didn't put a transition in a certain part, so you put a transition in and that throws off the music and title cards....blah...

but the video came out awesome...i was crying and laughing the whole time (crying at the old pictures of evan from three years ago...and thinking about how much he's grown, and that he's not a little toddler/baby anymore, and laughing at the boys being silly in the videos i took of them that night). I would post it, but there is a scene where they are dancing around in their underwear, and unfortunately it would not be appropriate or safe to post it online. Anyone who really wants to see it, send me and email and i can send it to you (via yousendit.com)

sunday....father's day! i got up and showed the boys their finished project...they loved it! they loved watching themselves, when they weren't embarrased about what they said of course :-P and pete got up, so they gave him the stuff they made in school, and the dvd. he watched the dvd and bawled his eyes out the whole time...that's how i know i did a good job ;-) nah...that makes him a good father :-)

then i made some cinnamon rolls for breakfast...pete had 8....freakin fattie

we did some cleaning (he actually requested to clean on father's day), and him and the boys played video games together for a while, at one point i ran out to grab lunch and brought it back.

we went to go see indiana jones in the afternoon...and other than the whole alien thing (i agree carolyn), i thought it was very good. it was incredibly well done to match the film/effects quality of the first 3....good ol' george lucas.

we grabbed some mickey d's and headed home to eat and shower the boys.

last night we went to the gym after classes....and we worked out for a good hour...we did arms, legs, and ran for 2 miles on some kind of apparatus of some sort, and finished off with some sit ups for good measure.   we're probably gonna go 3 times a week, and do the same thing (namely circuit training). i really expected to be sore today, especially after running (i don't think i've ever run 2 miles in my life), but i'm actually in good shape. my shoulder's been twinging a little...but that's to be expected. but other than that...no soreness whatsoever....i've got a headache...but i suspect that's a combo of allergies and clenching my teeth while i was sleeping last night (must have been having weird dreams)...

anyway...we really enjoyed working out..and i'm glad we went together, cause i always feel like a freakin doofus in the gym....especially when there's some seriously jacked girls walking around...man oh man.

with my membership i got a free t-shirt (i signed up, and the plan i signed up for allows me to bring a guest whenever i want...so i figured that pete would just be my guest everytime) and the guy said they only come in extra large.....i thought that was kind of silly. not that it matters i don't think i'd wear it even if it came smaller than that....:-P so pete got himself a new jammy t-shirt.

after working out we grabbed some subway and headed home and watched some of the freshman, and headed to bed.

tonight we're talking the kids to the community center to swim at 8pm....figured we'd celebrate their last day of school by letting them stay up late to swim. not sure what we're doing prior to that though.....

tomorrow night we cancelled classes and we're going up to new haven to go to the zen center....

thursday i'm taking a half day cause i'm going to have my hair done at 1...i know its kind of silly and not like me to take a half day to get my hair done...but apparently these things take a while, and they couldn't make a later appointment....plus i'm not happy with my place of employment as it is...and i'm coming in on sunday as it is to figure out the cable switch over....that should more than make up for it.

emily is taking the boys on thursday night...which ironically turns out to be our 2 month anniversary...so we're gonna probably have a nice dinner at home or something....something cheap...to signify our cheap wedding :-D ( i love that we spent under 5k on it)....maybe go to the gym after or something....

friday we're having the adult class for 2 hours to make up for wednesday...so we'll be at the dojo late....

saturday morning we have the kids make up class, then black top....and then at night we have the board breaking seminar. not sure what we're doing in the interim....it'd be nice to go out on the motorcycle for awhile...

sunday we're coming here (work/hell) to do the internet switchover...hopefully we can go to the zen center in the morning beforehand though....

and i think that's it....

weekend after next we're leaving for maine...yay!

bye!

"stay cool!"

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:33:34 GMT

if one more person tells me to stay cool, or talks to me about gas prices...i might scream.

YES...i KNOW its very hot out...YES i will keep cool, as opposed to laying out on the hot gravel in the hot sun....

and YES...i know gas is redonkulously expensive...know how i know? i buy it atleast once a week....and it now costs $50 to fill my tiny 12 gallon tank....my blessings to those with SUVs :-P

anyway

it's been pretty hectic lately...i feel that since last April all we've been doing is planning one event to the next....after the wedding we had a tournament to prepare for....then movie night at the dojo...and then the huge event of Relay for LIfe....next we're going to maine in 2 weeks (YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)....we're possibly moving to the apartment next door in august.....between all that, the wedding, everything that led up the wedding, and christmas, our house as not been properly clean since october, and at that point we had just moved in.....UGH....i hate it.

anyway

enough ranting

relay for life was this past weekend, and it was awesome...we stayed for the full 24 hours again...had lots of fun, in total our team raised (including our onsite fundraiser) over $1,200, which is AMAZING...i was so proud *tear*

I'll get pics up somewhere at some point.....including pictures of jordan as a woman

i still have to post honeymoon pics....blah....

i'm working on our wedding album now....well not RIGHT now....it's taking a really long time....i hope to have it done before we go away...but i doubt that'll happen.

not too much else is going on...the boys are good...they're getting out of school on tuesday....

my poor brother is in the hospital again....he went in on monday night (we sat with him in the ER on monday night from like 10 to 3am), and ended up admitted to the peds unit. He should be out over the weekend....hopefully :-) Hopefully his doctors can continue working to find a way to keep his crohn's under control (no cure for crohn's, sadly :-( ). The good part about that is my dad came down from maine....gonna go meet him for lunch soon...much to my coworkers chagrin...mwahaha

i'm so tired of this job...i really am. i don't mind working here....but i'm tired of the drama....i work with 6 people, all age 51 and above...and there is more drama here than in freakin high school........i'm so done with it all....unfortunately i don't really want to quit and look for another stupid desk job....so just gotta hurry and get my degree so i can get a job in a preschool....ugh.........sucks

anyway

next wednesday we're gonna go to the zen temple in new haven for an orientation, and hopefully go on sunday for a meditation session....that'll be cool :-D

also...we signed up at planet fitness cause we really wanna get back into shape, and having a hard time doing so at home with the few ab exercises we know and with the free weights we have....plus the one in shelton is open 24 hours, so we can go after classes...that'll be really cool....so hopefully we'll be able to go monday night....

hmm

not much else is really happening.....i'm pretty tired....between relay, and being at the hospital for hours on monday, i'm not sure we ever caught up on sleep :-P

tonight the boys and i are gonna finish up their father's day gift for their dad (well...their portion of it anyway....their tech savvy stepmom will put together a rockin video :-P).

tomorow night....FRIED OREOS!! yay!!! iselle is comin over for some fattie fun....can't wait!!!!!!!

saturday is the last day of soccer, and both boys have a party after their game....peter's is at the diner, and then we'll go to evan's game, and then evan's party is at a playground (evan's favorite one!!), and then i think we might be doing something with jordan??? not really sure....

sunday is obviously father's day....and we're gonna go see indiana jones (i figured it'd be appropriate for the kids to see their dad's childhood movie with him), and do whatever else 'daddy' wants to do! i'm sure quiznos will somehow be involved, as well as video games :-P

hmm

think that's it for now.....

bye!

and i'll be calling you to see....

Thu, 29 May 2008 17:43:34 GMT

....if you're sleeping, are you dreaming? if you're dreaming, are dreaming of me? i can't believe you actually picked...me...

i felt like journal-ing today...but not sure i have much to say :-P so typical

hmm

nothing is really new...cause i obviously just updated yesterday

i have to listen in on a 1.5 hour conference call at the end of the day....i'm so not looking forward to that...it goes from 3-4:30...and 4:30 is when i leave, so i have to scramble to make sure everything is done by 3.

it's so stupid that i have to do this....i have so much stuff to do......they keep pilin on the work...and they aren't taking any away...they recently dumped a crapload of stuff they want me to do on the website....and as much as i'd prefer to do that than everything else....i just don't have the time. nor am i ambitious enough to do it at home on my free time....

anyway

work sucks....that's just life...

hmm

tonight we have the boys' share fair...that should be fun :-)

at some point in the next few weeks we're gonna go pick up Pete's new bike...we're buying an '08 kawasaki ex500 (ninja)...it's pretty sweet...black and red. we're excited to get it...but having some logistical issues picking it up....we were gonna get it tonight, but then remembered that the share fair was tonight....

hmmmmmmmm

i guess that's really it

not much else to say :-(

bye!

holy moly jumping jack

Wed, 28 May 2008 15:01:32 GMT

so the weekend was good....nice and long...just the way i like it :-)

friday night i worked with jess for a bit with the fans, and then pete and i went to stop and shop to get stuff for evan's game.   we got home, and i made dinner while talkin to my dad....although halfway through the conversation one or both of our phones lost connection, but i didn't know, and i was literally talking for like 2 minutes, while thinking to myself...i wonder why he isn't saying anything.........i called him back and we got a good chuckle out of it

saturday we had peter's game, and then a class at the dojo, we're getting ready for the relay demo. it's coming along well...considering saturday is our last practice....yikes

after the class we had evan's game....which was obnoxious cause we were sitting next to a mother of the opposing team who kept screaming at her son to 'slam it baby, slam it!'    5 year old son, btw...

after evan's game we headed home for lunch, and took the boys outside to play for awhile. then we headed back in and watched indiana jones, and had some pizza for dinner.

sunday we had waffles with the kids, and then dropped them off at their mom's. we headed to walmart to get candy for the parade the next day.   my darling husband also found the Sims 2 for ps2....i've been looking for a sims game for a long time...and i can never find one. for a while i was playing one on my phone, but it got kind of lame.

we went home and relaxed and had lunch and headed to the dojo to work out and get stuff together for the parade. afterwards we headed to orange to coldstone and got ice cream....so good...

monday we were up bright and early for the parade...it went well...the weather was gorgeous, and there were no major problems. we ended up way ahead of our enemy school in the parade line (we were supposed to be behind them *evil snicker*) because no one knew what was going on. so that was sweet.

after the parade we went home to wash our feet (pete and i went barefoot), and change. We took the boys to subway to grab sandwiches, and headed to the riverwalk. it was a little windy...but still very nice out. after eating we all kicked a soccer ball around for awhile, looked at the river, and attempted to fly the planes we got them in north carolina.   the combined factors of the wind, and the boys playing with them at home all week long, led to the inevitable destruction and inablitly to fly...so it didn't go well :-P

we took them to get ice cream, and while we were headed to bring them to their mother's house, we found out that she was going to the mall, and wanted us to meet her in milford...haha...as if.   so we brought them home and hung out for awhile, tried to teach peter the importance of playing with his little brother...but that didn't go over well :-P

They were picked up, and we just hung out and played video games and had dinner later in the day. it was a very relaxing day....

yesterday we skipped practice cause of the thunderstorms....

the boys played legos for awhile, and we had dinner and put them to bed.

tonight....we have classes of course...not sure if anything is going on afterwards....

tomorrow night is the boys' share fair at school (when we get to go see all the work they've done all year)

hmm

that's all for now!

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:21:12 GMT

yay for three day weekends!! haha....i love it :-D

i woke up this morning and i was so excited...even though i still had to go to work...i went to work knowing that i wouldn't be back till tuesday!!!!!!! sweeeeeeet

anyway

backtrackin a bit...

this past weekend was good....

saturday we skipped peter's game to give his lungs time to strengthen up (he was having allergy/asthma issues), and we went to the art show at the intermediate school because they had a piece of peter's artwork there. it was pretty cool..it was art from the entire school district...and some of the stuff was really very good.

after that we went to evan's soccer game...and he conquered the soccer field :-p    he had the ball more than any of the other kids there...he didn't succeed in scoring a goal, but he didn't really pass the ball too much either...so he's gotta work on team work a bit...

after the game we grabbed lunch and went home to watch the golden compass....freakin awesome movie.

afterwards we took the kids to what evan has deemed 'shelton park', which is actually riverview park :-P silly kid....and they played on the playground a bit...i got some good pics...haven't had time to look at them yet sadly :-(

After playing for awhile we headed home and gave the boys a quick sandwich and went to the high school for the chinese culture thing they did...and we saw a chinese shadow puppet show which was really really cool...the kids loved it.   we dropped them off at their mom's and we headed to target to grab some things.

SUnday was the tournament...i didn't place well, but my form felt really good. (i didn't go there for first place anyway...i knew i wouldn't place :-P). My form rocked, considering i ended up doing half of it backwards, BUT never hesitated so the judges never knew that i screwed up :-P   not really sure how i ended up facing the wrong way, i think i did the same section twice which would of course have me facing 90 degrees in the wrong direction. But it worked to my advantage cause some of the cooler moves of the form ended up being so i was facing the judges when i did them.

watching all of the competitors was fun though....so much different from the smaller tournaments we do...this was KRANE tournament (i don't remember what KRANE stands for...), if you get bored, youtube 'krane tournament", you'll see some amazing stuff. As much as i would love to be as good as those other girls, and i know i could be, i just don't have the time to train for hours on end every single day. Someday when i win the jackpot, maybe :-P Tournaments are starting to tire me really....the attitudes of competitors and judges wear on you after awhile, and for the past year i've really only been competing to show my stuff to the audience....but it's not really worth the moeny in the long run....so not sure if i'll continue competing after 2008....maybe just one every so often.... i'm not skilled enough at point sparring to continue sparring even after my shoulder heals...i'd rather fight to fight, not fight for points

anyway

now that i've bored you all ('all' being like...3 people) to tears..........

after the tournie, which ended miraculously around noonish, we went home (pete's mom was with us as well) to change and take potty breaks, and then we took pete's mom out to chili's for her b-day. The food was good....we had a good time :-)

pete's mom went home, and we relaxed for a bit....like 10 minutes :-P and i got up and worked on my fan form for a few hours...i wanted to get my little section that i'm doing at the demo a little more crisp than it was earlier in the week....and so i just changed the whole thing :-P i worked on this one release and catch for like half an hour...and finally got it down pretty good....just gotta keep practicing. it's so much more difficult throwing fans than it is throwing any other weapon, cause you never know where they're gonna go...

i don't really remember what else we did....i know we went grocery shopping at night....hmm...i got a new lunch box...it's awesome...it's got built in ice packs so you just stick the whole thing in the freezer....sweet

monday......nothing interesting happened as far as i know....oh wait!! haha...it was our one month anniversary :-D   so we went to olive garden to celebrate :-D

my shoulder's been killin me all week...so i iced it for a few days, and started heating it last night....it's affecting my neck now which freakin sucks....so i can't move my head all the way, or too fast

anyway

tuesday soccer practice ended up being cancelled cause of the rain, so we hung out at home...the men put together the airplanes we got for the kids in north carolina, and i knitted for a bit.

wednesday....david cook won american idol!!!!!!! yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i was so excited....i so did not want david a. to win....can't wait till david c. releases an album :-)

yesterday we just bummed around at home....evan was strangely snuggly :-P  both kids played on webkinz for awhile...we had chocolate chip pancakes...yum...and pete and i watched the premiere of so you think you can dance....the underwear guy looked like kevin :-P

tonight...classes like usual....it's freakin carnival week at st. joes, so it'll be a nightmare of course...wednesday wasn't too bad cause it rained.... hey kels...now you'll be able to visualize what i've complained about every year at this time....the church has 3 parking lots, but thats where all the rides go....so guess where all the carnival goers park.....

anyway

we have to hit the store after classes, it's our week to bring snacks to evan's game tomorrow.

we've got peter's game at 9, then a class at the dojo, and then evan's game at 12...then who knows what we'll do afterwards....

sunday...not sure what the plans are yet....maybe we'll go work out for a bit...

monday is memorial day, so we have the parade in the morning...and we're not sure what the plans are for the rest of the day...as far as when we have the kids and whatnot. i'm hoping maybe a picnic at the riverwalk :-) that'd be fun...we'll see though.....

anyway

that's all for now!

you may say i'm a dreamer...

Fri, 16 May 2008 18:20:32 GMT

i so can't wait for this day to end....yet i've got so much crap to do before 4:30...yet...here i am slackin off :-P

it's been INSANE in the membrane at work this week....

i came in on tuesday to switch over our internet at work (we're switching from DSL to cable), and i figured it'd be a simple matter of switching some plugs around, punchin in some new numbers on the router....no....of course not. i get everything undone and hooked up to the new 'modem' and rekey everything in the router, and it doesn't work. so i fiddle with it for awhile...nothing...so i hook the DSL modem back up just so the 'net wouldn't be down all day, and it doesn't work. as i'm sitting and waiting for something to happen, i look over and see the instruction manuals and setup disk for the new cable internet shove in a shelf..........sigh

long story short, i spent 3.5 hours working on it and got nowhere, we still have DSL.

that threw me off for the rest of the week...i'm still catching up from tuesday, and it's now friday

blah

i hate work.

anytime i get discouraged about the whole school thing, i'm like, ya work sucks, just get the school thing done and over with :-P

anyway

the week's been good so far....we had soccer on tuesday....and watched half of the golden compass, it's a really good movie....

wednesday, after class pete worked with brian on some sets, and jess and i worked on our fan form, ya it's gonna be awesome...i can't wait to piece more of it together tonight

then we went out to the diner with brian for dinner....talked for a long time...it was good fun :-)

yesterday we went over jordan's for a ride in his "new" 1968 VW bug....the kids loved it :-) and we had some pizza and then he took them on the tractor while pete and i sat and watched them have a blast, we got them home for some much needed showers and bed.

tonight we're keeping the boys all night at the dojo....tomorrow we have soccer, then an art show at the intermediate school where peter's artwork is being feature...quite the artist he is :-D we're excited to see his art. then out for lunch and home for a bit, and then to the high school for a chinese culture thing, and then we're gonna drop the boys off at their mom's for the rest of the weekend.

sunday we have a tournament in shelton, and not sure what else we're doing yet....

oh i registered for fall semester...only taking one class this time, this semester was too crazy with 2 classes....the class i signed up for is online as well.....not too many of the others i need are online...so that's gonna suck :-(

oh well

anyway

that's all for now

Mon, 12 May 2008 19:34:48 GMT

man oh man...three weeks since i posted

sorry...life's been crazy!

as everyone knows i'm sure, the wedding went great...we all had a wonderful time....those of us who stayed for the whole thing anyway ;-)

the honeymoon was AMAZING...we had tons of fun, it was beautiful, and we did not want to leave!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we're still 'catching up' from being away...at home, at work, at the dojo and me at school...everytime you get close to 'catching up' life 'catches' you up :-P

other than that, it's business as usual, work, dojo, soccer, school....life goes on.

spring semester is almost over...finals are this/next week...still deciding what to do next semester

soccer will be done in a few weeks...thank god. i love watching the boys have a good time and whatnot...but it's been nothing but hassle. the ex wanted them to play, and now she wants nothing to do with it....peter doesn't really try, because he's just not an athletic kid, but keeps being forced to play.....not by us....personally i think he would fare better in the arts than in soccer....whether it be musical arts, dramatic arts, or just art art...

mother's day was yesterday....it was a nice day...i ddin't get to see the boys till 7:30, but peter ran up and gave me a huge hug and said 'happy mother's day!'....too cute

pete woke up yesterday morning, rolled over and said 'happy mother's day baby, you're the best mom i know' and then fell back asleep...hahaha....and apparently was unaware that he said it until later in the day :-P   silly boy

we did the usualy mom visiting rounds...and went to the mall cause i wanted to smell for a new perfume...i wasn't expecting to purchase anything, but the sales lady must have seen the word 'sucker' written across my forehead...and so i left with a whole kit as well as a free purse and bracelet (only $60 for the perfume though.....pretty good deal), i gave the purse away, but i like the bracelet :-)

anyway

from there we went to pick up our table camera pics from walmart...oh man oh man...HA...they came out horrible (no offense people!), most of the people who used them forgot to use the flash, BUT the people at walmart were extremely nice, and only charged me for the pictures i wanted to keep. meanwhile asked about the wedding and the honeymoon :-P

then we went for a hot cocoa date at d&d, and went to pick up the boys, whose mother conviniently forgot to have them call her mother until we walked in the door, so yet again, another late night because we couldn't get them home in time...and they desperately needed a shower...so up late again! *sigh*

we started working on the relay for life demo this past weekend...i'm excited...i like demos....i'm doing a fan form with jess, that should be awesome, she picked up on the fan techniques extremely fast.... we hope to do some other cool things with the adult students...only time will tell

hmm

almost time to leave...another hour...then on to the dojo

i finished my first scarf today, it looks ok....gonna finish pete's next, and do the boys as well, plus some scarves for other people (cough cough squeaky cough cough)

then i'm gonna work on a blanket for peter...he really likes the way the yarn i used for my scarf feels, so i'm gonna make him a blanket out of the same type of yarn (different color)...haha...goooooood luck to me!! :-P

tonight...classes..then HOME i hope....i hope i hope!! i'm so tired...and i have a psych test to take...she set three tests for us to take before tomorrow night, ya guess who waited until last night to start that :-P

BUT

guess who got a NINETY-SEVEN on the first one!!!!!!!!!!! BAM!

but that one was easy...i didn't even study...it was about physical growth in middle childhood...ya...i have two stepsons who are in middle childhood :-P

tonight i think is cognitive development, and tomorrow is emotional development...again...stepsons....rock :-P

haha

anyway

tomorrow we have evan's practice, then home for dinner and we're gonna watch the golden compass. we picked that up for them this weekend, we were at walmart looking at movies, and i said 'hmm...we haven't gotten a movie for the boys in awhile...'   yes...we spoil them so.....can't help it, they're so freakin cute ;-)

anyway

i think we're going to jordan's on thursday, he wants to take the boys on the tractor :-P he's so funny. he's recently discovered the awesome power of email...haha

this weekend we have soccer games, and a tournament on sunday.   lookin forward to that.... i'm only doing forms this time cause it was just to stressful to have to work on an open hand form and a weapons form right after the wedding....so i'm doing a form i've been working on forever, and got 1st place with at the last tournament....not saying that'll happen again....but just trying to show that i'm fairly comfortable with it.   not doing sparring cause of my shoulder...it's killing me as i type....once all the insurance and name changes go through i'm gonna get a referral for an ortho. and get it taken care of....but there's no way in hell i'm goin under the knife....i'll suffer instead.    and that has nothing to do with fear....i just know that it'll never be the same again if they cut it open, and my martial arts will suffer because of it.    but i'm not stubborn ;-)

in other news...

hmm

i guess that's really all...not much else going on.

oh

i miss my dad! can't wait to see him in June :-D 8 more weeks....but who's counting? ;-)

anyway

i think that's it...nothing else crazy to babble about.........................life is good....i've got my family and my health :-D and i sound old

haha

bye!!!!!!!!

knitting

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:50:04 GMT

so i decided that i wanted to start knitting. and everyone thinks it's because i'm pregnant...hahah (which i'm NOT of course :-P)...i think it's funny... 'oh hey i started knitting' 'oh are you having a baby?' NO and then tonight i was knitting (at the dojo) and a parent walked in and pete was standing next to me, and the parent said 'hey pete is she trying to tell you something?'

first of all....the yarn i'm using is not the right yarn for babies, and second of all...no. i'm not.

i wanted to start knitting because someone at pete's work made this awesome blanket for us, so i decided that i wanted to knit. SOME DAY when we DO have a baby, i will of course want to make a blanket, but it's not the reason for starting :-P

anyway

it's a lot of fun, i'm working on my first scarf.....it was going good until i dropped a stitch and now there's a little hole in it :-(

but its very very soft yarn, so it'll be a nice scarf

not sure yet who i'm making it for....it doesn't look all that great so i may just keep it and make nicer ones for pete and the boys......

anyway

that's it

bye!!

Godfarter

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:05:21 GMT

I know it's been forever...and i'm only here to say that...it'll be forever before i update again!! life is crazy crazy right now...

At work they decided to essentially give me an entire new job position on top of what i'm already doing...so by the time i get home i'm just ready to sleep.......and the past few weeks have been NUTS because of all the billing that Pat tried to cram in to meet his 1st quarter goal....which with the economy the way it is, we haven't been making as much sales as we normally do....but i'm sure we'll pull right out...the first quarter is always slow with tax season and budgets not really being ready yet....

school's been nuts too....tons of papers....tests...etc. for my child pysch class i had to do 3 hours of observation at the early childhood lab school at housatonic...which isn't exactly on my way home, being that i could only observe after work (and the lab school closes at 5:30...blah)...so after three visits and many wrong turns in downtown bridgeport...i got the observation portion completed...now i just have to do the paper!! :-P it's only 5-6 pages...and due on thursday :-P not a problem, i've banged out bigger papers in shorter periods of time

then i have an 80 question pysch test to complete by thursday as well...

i spent most of the weekend working on my ECE classroom environment (had to design a preschool classroom...it was a fun paper...but time consuming)

and i have an observation paper due for ECE the day we get back from vacay....i was hoping to not have to work on it over vacation....but i also don't see where there will be room to get it done this week....

oh and lets not forget the 7 discussion questions i have to answer, and respond to 2 of each students.......

oh

and

haha

then there's the wedding....as if life wasn't already fun-filled :-P

this past weekend was so busy....between soccer games on saturday morning....enjoying our last saturday with the boys....homework up the wazoo....shopping all day yesterday...prepping the dojo for saturday.....more homework....organizing wedding crap into some knid of logical way..........and there's still tons to do....but will be worth it in the end

anyway

that's just a SLIVER of how crazy life has been....so don't expect too many more updates at least until school is done :-P

Later!!!!!!

:-D

sweet :-)

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:39:24 GMT

Sat
Apr 19

Partly Cloudy

62°
48°

bathtub washin'

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:55:31 GMT

hellooooooo

don't know where i left off last time...nor does it matter i guess :-P

we had our shower last week, it was lots of fun...melissa did a great job :-) we got some good stuff...2 blenders though :-P gonna return one...eventually....and i can't tell you how many target gift cards we got...awesome :-D made for fun shopping (we FINALLY got a new monitor for the desktop, so that we can get rid of the beast...it's a nice widescreen 19" sweet)

i got a bunch of new books, one of them being 'the other boleyn girl', which i'm sure most of you have seen the trailers for the movie...

i read it this weekend...the whole thing...all 700 pages of it...it was so good. i couldn't beleive i finished it! i haven't been able to do that in years cause i just don't have the time anymore...i want to see the movie soon...though i think the movie plays off of only a very small portion of the book...we'll see i guess

anyway

we haven't had water in our kitchen (i.e. kitchen sink and washing machine) since wednesday...kevin's replacing the main line in the house....we hope to have water back tomorrow, wed, at the latest. i hope so...both pete and i have sore backs from washing dishes in the bathtub :-P and we'll need clean clothes soon :-P

easter was good....our 'commercial' version of it anyway....we don't do church so we just do candy :-P

the boys got a movie and gameboy game each...evan was so excited to get his first very own gameboy game...he's been borrowing peter's games since brianna gave him her old gameboy. they also got lots of candy that daddy and jaimee will be more than happy to help (the easter bunny was smart this year, and only got hershey and mars candy :-P)

we had a good weekend...i had friday off so i went grocery shopping and cleaned out the fridge and freezer (which sounds so minor...but there was so much junk in there...i found grapefruit from i don't even wanna know when, cause i don't buy grapefruit...) and the pantry as well (the pantry is always a mess, i think cause we're always rushing in the morning to get breakfast to the kids and make 4 lunches, so things just get shoved on random shelves...

pete came home a little early and we ate lunch together and relaxed....then went to pick up the boys...got them home and had dinner and they went to bed...

saturday we had a class at the dojo and then spent the day at home...the boys played and we cleaned and stuff. they were picked up at 4:30 and pete put a wax finish on the bathroom floor and i made dinner...homemade mannicotti...my first, and very successful, attempt. i must say it was stressfull cause i was so afraid of first the uncooked manicotti breaking, and then the cooked manicotti breaking :-P but it was all good....topped off with a chocolate creme pie i made the day before....

sunday we had hoped to sleep late...but my phone went off at like 8:30....blah....so we got up and had breakfast and literally bummed on the couch until 1 when we determined it was time to take a shower so we could get the boys at 2...haha

we got them home and they did their egg hunt and got their baskets....and played playstation the rest of the day....i made dinner (another new, and successful, recipe, chicken breasts & potatoes baked (well the potatoes are roasted technically i guess) with onion and garlic...it was good), and we ate, had dessert and the boys went to bed.

tonight we have classes....and life goes on... :-P

adios!

do not play

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:14:30 GMT

hello.......

i know it's been a while (i don't know why i say that though...)

We took the boys to mystic this weekend, we had fun...it was freakin cold, but fun all the same. i'm thinkin of getting a membership to the seaport, cause it's pretty inexpensive, and the kids really had fun there, especially with all the old ships...

evan loved the beluga whales at the aquarium...omg...it was funny.

and i have a cold now...cause some irresponsible person at work has had a cold and probably never washes her hands. meanwhile everytime i have a sneezing fit, or blow my nose excessively or cough, i break out the hand sanitizer...

anyway

last night steve and marci came over for wedding talk...that was fun. we ran through the flow of the ceremony, solved some logistical issues, and have it all planned out now. Marci showed us all the stuff she got because she's a JP now, or, officially, High Priestess Marci...haha...she even has a parking pass...too cool

then we moved on to the reception, they helped us figure out which songs to play for which things. we did the 'do NOT play list' (which included some of the lame-o love songs that are played over and over, and of course BON JOVI...blech...no bon jovi at a mansfield wedding...least not this one anyway...haha...so other than that our must not play list was fairly short i must say), and the 'must play' list, which didn't include anything :-P haha...we're too easy. and talked about the line dances and crap...apparently there's a country version to the macerena (spelling)...and there's an alternative to the hokey pokey called the hookey kooky? weird :-P

But...it sounds like it's gonna be a fun time, and steve's friend who's going to help steve DJ (steve doesn't want to DJ the whole time cause he wants to enjoy the wedding, which is understandable) sounds like he'll do a good job. DJ's are so much more fun than bands...they have a better handle on modern music (i mean...come on, how would a band cover music by like...i dunno, kanye west, or whatever? ya know? plus they never make the songs sound like the originals), and they're just plan fun :-P

but we spent like 4 hours going over the whole thing (and of course "branching" off onto other topics...), and got a lot accomplished. 5.5 weeks :-)

i started working on the wedding programs, so i should be able to finish it up now...gotta get them printed!

anyway...that's all for now :-)

gotta use yer choppers

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:00:08 GMT

kelsey informs me that she hasn't known what i've been up to :-P so i suppose i should update :-P

the jeep is officially at our local garage now, waiting for an adjuster to come out, and then they'll fix it...

pete stopped by last night to look at it and took a picture of the hole on the door...there's a hole that's about half inch wide right below the lock on the passeger side door....the guy said it's an easy fix but the paint won't match when it's repainted...and i'm like....and thats supposed to bother me because........why?? haha...who cares! we have it back...that's all that counts....oh and the jerks were nice enough to leave the car seats in there...so we don't have to get another set....though at this point peter's getting close to tall enough to not have to use one....

not much has been going on...not much i can remember anyway......i really don't remember when i last gave a good update......

hmm

well the weekend was good

brian came over on friday night to watch fight quest with us (show on discovery channel) and have chinese....saturday we had a tournament training class, and then went home and pete and the boys shoveled outside while i made lunch, they came in and ate...and i worked on my veil a little bit, and the minature version for hailey to wear. i'm going for a fitting on saturday so i figured i should get that sucker done eventually....pete and i showered and then took the boys to the rinks for a birthday party for one of evan's friends...it was a 'funbowl' party....so they bowled for a bit...pete and i watched, and peter played gameboy...then the kids had pizza (they invited peter to join which was nice) and we had some cake, and hung for a bit while the kids ran around and blew bubbles at each other...then took the boys home. peter and i had a piano lesson, and we gave them a little snack (they ate pizza at 5, so they really didn't need dinner) and then took them to their mom's house.

we went to olive garden for dinner, but there was an hour and 20 minute wait....olive garden is good.......but not that good. so we went to pasta fair instead...i got fettucine alfredo but i wasn't fond of the sauce....

we stopped at the store and then went home and watched the karate kid (obligatory night before a tournament movie), and went to bed.

we got up bright and early sunday morning...and fell back asleep :-P haha...we were bums. Finally dragged ourselves out of bed at quarter to 7 and got ready to go.

they changed teh start time for the tournaments this year to 8:30, so i wanted to get there early enough to walk through my fan form a few times...i still wasn't all that comfortable with it...i hadn't worked on it long enough (in my opinion)....and so of course that got to me when i went up to do it....i know i can do it well, cause i've done it so many times...but that fear of screwing up always slows you down even more. i think i took last in weapons cause of that....i was excited though cause now i have a mini trophy to use as a paper weight....last time i got a mini trophy evan took it....not that i minded of course :-P   so after that i was determined to rock my open hand form...and when i saw who the center judge was for that division i knew i had to pull out all the stops...he was the guy that's always had some kind of 'remark' about the forms i've done...mostly negative...and the form i did on sunday was a very vey very tradtional japanese form that pete changed to make it better (in our eyes...) and he's a trad. japanese shotokan practicioner (that means nothing to you, huh? :-P i know i've lost half of my readers by now :-P)....so....

i went up....did my form....omg...it was the best i've ever done ANY form...any form under the sun...it was so good....i made noises i didn't think i was capable of making....it felt so good....and every single judge told me afterwards (as well as the owner of the school who runs the tournaments who stopped to watch my form) how good it was, one offered tips about slowing it down a bit, which has been an issue since the start of my martial arts career....but i don't htink i ever realize how fast i'm going :-P   anyway

the center judge, the one who typically doesn't like my forms, gave me the highest score...wowee! and so i took first place in that division...the first time in a long time...and the last time i took first it was because i had much more emotion than the other 2 in my division did, but i didn't feel my form (a sai form i had done...way back when...like 3 years ago now) was deserving of 1st place....anyway....had i not received 1st place for the form, i would have felt like i received 1st place in my mind, cause i know that was my best performance yet....and i hate giving myself a pat on the back...

i didn't spar though because of my shoulder....though it's still killing me anyway just from doing forms....but i knew there was too much of a risk in sparring cause you never know what'll happen... you know? like, i could have fallen (which is easy to do in sparring gear on a dirty gym floor...so slippery) and fell on my shoulder...or i could have hyperextended my arm for a punch...and yes i know thats a possibility everytime i spar....but i'd really like my 4 month old injury to heal...........one of these days i'll see a doctor about it :-P

anyway

the tournament was good, the other two students did well too...and i had some good conversations which some of the other competitors and judges.."shop talk' is always fun around fellow martial artists...and it's fun to hear how other schools do things...

after the tournament we stopped and grabbed lunch and went home..originally i wanted to go to the dojo (yes MORE martial arts) and work out for a bit....but i ended having this nasty headache from the sheer exhaustion of the day so we snuggled and watched tv and napped. we got the boys at 7:30 and took them home and i gave them showers....well gave evan a shower...peter showered himself.   after they went to bed we had dinner (mac and cheese) and watched something....don't remember what...and went to bed........

last night we had classes obviously....after classes we headed home and watched the end of the terminator series...it was pretty good...i hope they bring it back for another season. i worked for a few minutes on a new weapons form (double broadsword...type it in on youtube...)...i obviously didn't use the swords in the house cause they're too long, i brought home foam escrima sticks and practiced with those......

oh we finished the parents room at the dojo last weekend....it looks really good.........i'll have to take pics.

tonight...no plans...looks like it's gonna pour though :-( which is too bad cause it's finally starting to warm up (50s today!)...would have been nice to take the boys outside for a little while....

tomorrow night....classes.....and home....no plans for most of the week as far as i know....saturday i have a fitting and we're picking up the boys later in the day and keeping them for the rest of the weekend....so we'll have to do something fun with them :-)

anyway....that's all for now....i should get back to workin... ;-)

OH!!! you lazy people!!! get your RSVPs in!!!!!!!!!!! i don't care if you're coming or not.... i want them back !!! :-P i'll sic my grandma on you if i don't get them back, and trust me, you don't want to mess with grandma! ;-)   (right grandma? :-P)  it's prestamped....no excuses!!

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:55:17 GMT

so on the night of tuesday february 12th, a bunch of brainless turds robbed BJ's in wallingford, and then drove their crime committing vehicle down to shelton, set it on FIRE (as if the police are stupid enough not to find that suspicious) and stole the jeep as a getaway car....atleast that's what the cops have determined at this point. whether or not that's the case has yet to be established. note the used of the word 'turd' in reference to det. sipowitz from NYPD blue...ya i'm a dork

anyway

that's the latest news....the New Haven PD gave pete a brief rundown of the damages, the ignition was popped (obviously) and there was damage done to the passenger side door. the shelton police or whoever (at this point i'm totally lost) have yet to fingerprint it, so we have to wait for them to do that befpre they can release it to us, and then the insurance company will have to have it towed to a 'storage free' lot where they can send out an adjuster to look at it.

but boy did those guys get what was coming to them....we figure that they stole it cause it has 4 wheel drive (or so they thought) and it has a hatch (i imagine they stole a lot of 'goods' from BJ's {that's a wholesale club for those 'not in the know' similar to sam's club and costco} and needed something they could easily load their crap into)....well...only pete and i (namely myself) know how to get the jeep in and out of 4 wheel drive, there's a special trick to it, and the hatch hasn't worked in well over a year...HAHAHAHA!! that's what you get you theiving bastards!!!! mwahhahahaha....anyway...i hope they find these guys and prosecute their butts....and rot in jail forever...though on charges of robbery and grand theft auto, they'll get what? 25 years at most? damn justice system...i think victims of crimes should dictate the punishments....pete already came up with theirs....he wants them to come take classes *evil snicker* can we say, pressure points, joint locking, and full contact sparring? haha...haha..hahaha...i'm done

anyway

that's all for now....HOPEFULLY the shelton PD will get off their butts and out of D&D and out to finish up our car tomorrow!!!!!!

bye!

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:40:28 GMT

they found the jeep...yay!!! well....not sure if it should be a 'yay' to be honest....

pete just called me to say that the shelton police called him, they located the jeep in new haven (abandoned for several days apparently)...we don't know what kind of condition it's in, the shelton police are sending people over tomorrow to fingerprint and assess it...and they'll call us afterwards....hopefully they'll call tomorrow....we'll be on pins and needles until then...

we're hopin for near perfect condition or total loss....i don't want to have to pay to have it fixed :-( we know that at least the ignition was popped (good ol dad...knows so much about car theives ;-) )...and hopefully they didn't do damage getting into it, though anything that could cause damage (breaking the window, drilling out the lock) would have made a lot of noise and a lot of mess....

anyway...that's all i know....hopefully the thing isn't a wreck...pete's hoping that no one peed in it....i told him that pee can be cleaned, but physical damage will cost money.....if anything, hopefully we can atleast get all our crap back....the car seats...tool box (pete has been lamenting about that)...jumper cables...etc......

pete said if it's in good condition then it's an omen that we need to get rid of it and get something new....i guess we could use it as a trade in?

right now it may as well still be missing until we find out what happened to it....

anyway....

that is all.

we'll keep you posted.

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:56:30 GMT

so most of you probably know by now due to the power of the grapevine, that our jeep was stolen last week :-(

no we have not found it.

no there is no news.

i think it was stolen for parts, cause there's like 8 other cars in the driveway (inclucing a celica and an audi), and it was parked in the hardest spot to get out of....the cops think it was brought to bridgeport...and i agree...i think it's in a chop shop now...well....no...at this point they've finished stripping it and it was probably dumped somewhere at this point....

the insurance company will give us what they feel it's worth 30 days afterwards if it is not found (that's when they declare it a total loss).

for now we're going to borrow jordan's extra car until we get the jeep back or get a new (used...new to us) car. pete wants a honda....works for me :-) as long as he's happy....all he's been talking about for the past few years is how bad he wants a standard car, specifically a honda or toyota....

there's not much we can do about it at this point...we took a small ride around bridgeport on saturday night...pete pushed the panic button on his remote....haha...didn't find anything...but he tried hard :-P

anyway

so the wedding is coming fast!!! two months!!!! wowie....

i was telling pete yesterday that in 8 weeks (from yesterday) we'll be on our honeymoon...saaaawheeeeeeeet...

and we're well on our way to having the dojo finished!!! we have 6 more sets of mats to buy, and i just bought new cubbies so we can get rid of the freakin eyesore in here...and also bought a 'literature organizer' for 'parent mail', to put contracts, invoices, notices, etc in. should be sweet...we're excited to get this place freshened up....

anyway....don't feel like typing anymore......

bye!

i hate shoe shopping

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:23:05 GMT

i'm not really sure where this left off...and i'm not entirely concerned either :-P

last week was ok...nothin crazy happened. the boys got their report cards, and did very well.

on thursday pete met me at work and we went to go see the accountant (he's down the hall from me) about our taxes. he was able to give us a moderatly accurate rough estimate of what we're getting back...we're gonna get about twice more than we did last year, i think only because i was working for 12 months rather than 3 (in 2006), and because the dojo didn't bring in as much as it did last year (i know that sounds bad, but it's a good thing....i'd rather have a business that only feeds itself and is of no economical use to us then to have to pay taxes). but next year it'll be different since we'll be filing jointly...blah....oh well...the sacrifices you make for marriage ;-) j/k

we headed to walmart afterwards and got the boys Snow Buddies (odd Disney movie), and a poster each for doing well on their report cards. Pete's mom was over, as she was watching the boys for us, so she stayed for dinner.

she left after the boys went to bed, and we relaxed for a bit.

around 11:30 pete was getting ready to go to bed, doing a final cleanup, checking on the boys, etc...and after he closed the boys door and went into the kitchen i heard evan coughing....so i went to see what was up, and as i turned the light in the playroom on i heard him crying...i figured he was having a bad dream or something, and when we went in there, he had thrown up all over his bed.   the poor kid was so upset...so while pete was cleaning off his sheets so that he could wash them, i gave him a shower, and once he was cleaned off he seemed to be just fine, no fever, said his tummy felt ok...

well evan usually never throws up just once, unless it's because he choked on something. so we kept him up for a little bit, and sure enough...20 minutes later he threw up again....and again...and again...every 15-20 minutes until 10am. so basically he threw up non-stop from 11:30pm on thursday, until 10am on friday...and we never went to bed, cause we stayed out in the living room with him. we calculated it afterwards and figured that he threw up, give or take, 36 times. the poor kid....he did ok until about 4-5am...he was happy and watchin movies...but by 4-5am he was so exhausted and kept falling asleep and evertime he was asleep for a few minutes he threw up again. we took a few cat naps ourselves....but again...every 20 minutes he was throwing up again, and he was so out of it that most of the time he didn't sit up, so pete had to be there to pick him up and hold him over the bowl.

so the three of us obviously stayed home...and it wasn't until about 12pm-1pm that we figured he was done throwing up and at that point it was too late for us to take a nap, cause we had to leave at 3:30 to get peter. but we put him down for a nap at 1 and he slept and slept. emily picked him up just after 3, and we couldn't get him out of bed for nothin....then once he was dressed and had his jacket and shoes on he didn't want to move. the poor kid couldn't even stand....so pete carried him down to her car and she kept him for hte night.

so we had peter all night at the dojo, and he was very well behaved, which made things easier for us. after classes we took him with us to Big Y to get stuff for the next night.

when evan was dropped off on saturday morning he was a completely different kid....he came runnin up the stairs like it was nothing...and he was so hyper all day long....we were really happy to see him feeling better...cause even when we talked to him on friday night before bed he sounded awful.

we had one class saturday morning and hten took the kids to grab lunch and then came home to watch snow buddies...it was an ok movie...typical disney. evan went down for a nap right afterwards, and he slept for a very long time...we only wanted him to sleep for an hour, but he was out for probably 2.5. in the meantime i gave peter a piano lesson, taught him his first 'song' (which consists of two bars of music, but he did really well with it), he's gotta work on slowing down and having patience with it, but i think he'll be decent.

jordan came over later in the evening for dinner, that was nice. he brought stockbridge cheesecake, which peter didn't like (what kid likes cheesecake? :-P), and we didn't even offer evan (who wouldn't have eaten it anyway cause of how picky he is) cause we didn't want him having dairy after thursday/friday's events.

jordan hung out for a bit after the boys went to bed, and then we just relaxed and watched tv and such...i did some work on wedding stuff on saturday too...started getting the invitations together, as they have to go out this week. i got 5 done, only cause i ran out of postcard stamps.....i also worked on a rough idea of a seating arrangement...and that was really tough...my brain was numb after that....

sunday emily picked up the boys and we went to stockbridge (yes the cheesecake place) for breakfast...it was our second time going, and it was really good...and very inexpensive too.

afterwards we went to the bank, and then the mall.

we had to go to target to get a pillow for evan, we had to throw his other one away for obvious reasons...and to look at shoes for me for the wedding...blah...i HATE shoes...

and i didn't find anything in target

or in payless

or in jc penny's

or in macy's

or in the shoe store near the christmas tree shop

or in the shoe store on rt. 34.....

no shoes for me :-(

we did however go to ac moore and get stuff for the centerpieces....that was fun.

we went home and had lunch and worked on the centerpieces a bit and of course discovered that we needed more stuff....

we picked up the kids and brought them home for showers and bed, and i set to work on my first psych. exam...that was tough...man oh man will i be reading more than i have been. i think i did decently...thanks to the book (which YES we are allowed to use because of the online format....but the test is timed and there's no way to pause it...so you can only rely on the book so much)...since i was already on a role i did the first ECE paper too...which ended up being twice as long as necessary (supposed to be 2-3 pages, mine was 5pages so i changed it to single space so that it was just over 2 pages), and then answered a bunch of discussion questions and called it a night.....at midnight....ouch

tonight........no plans!! yay! poor pete has missed three weeks of his terminator show, so he'll be able to see it tonight! yay!

tomorrow nothing planned yet...i don't think we're doing anything and that's a good thing! i will be putting the invitations together though cause ideally i'd like to have them ready to be mailed on wednesday.

not much else going on this week....obviously thursday is valentine's day...we're going to outback and then maybe a movie afterwards....my mom is gonna watch the boys.....

this weekend seems calm so far....brian's coming over on friday night...that's about as far as i know........

anyway

that's all for now...........

where'd ya go....i miss you so..

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:26:42 GMT

* laments for car *

my poor car is till not home...the warranty company didn't approve the repairs until wednesday.......so tuesday night we drove out to milford and the dealership gave us a loaner (that only pete can drive...damn age restrictions) car...toyota corolla...it's pretty nice...

anyway....it SHOULD be done tonight....if not...there'll be hell to pay........i may have to borrow the sweeney todd chair from work........

so hopefully we'll be able to pick it up after class * sigh *

the week has been going ok...the laptop is still functional (i get this terrible feeling that it's gonna not work one day...i guess im just paranoid from the last two we had...)...though it's got some quirky things that i gotta figure out...like why it won't display the battery meter, volume symbol or network connection icon in the task bar when it's not plugged in......weeeeeeird. i was trying to show pete's mom last night the video of the 'we are brothers forever' guy from american idol and the computer shut off cause the battery died...but i didnt know that....but the cool thing is is that when i plugged it in and turned it back on it went right back to where i was, and even had the youtube video paused where it cut off....now that's good service.

not much else to say i guess....the weekend will be tame....no classes tomorrow...peter's got his piano lesson and he's got a big project for school to start working on....tomorrow night the boys are going to their mom's house and we're gonna grab some dinner...

sunday i'm havin breakfast with my second favorite man :-D my daddy...that'll be nice :-)

and i think we're going to the mall to look at shoes...i called the bridal shop the other day about fittings and she told me i need to get shoes...BLAH....i...hate...shoes...and i HATE shoe shopping even more than i hate shoes...my feet look horrible in everything....my big freakin monkey toes....and my feet are perpetually red...ugh

and we have to go to the dojo...cause we couldn't go on this past sunday....

anyway........that's really all for now.....i think.... * ponders *

yes

that is all.

blah

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:39:00 GMT

so i still don't have my car...yes, that's right, a week later...no freakin car.

they found more things wrong with it on thursday, so when i talked to the guy (john) on friday, he said it would be ready on monday (yesterday) at the earliest. so i called him twice yesterday and left voicemails saying that we would be there at 9pm to pick up the car, and to call ASAP if it was not ready. so come 8:30 when classes ended and i had not heard from him, we drove out to milford and wouldn't you know it? the car was not ready. i was so ticked...ANOTHER day of being late for work. i think i've missed a total of 5-6 hours of work...and i'm really getting tired of it. so i called as soon as i got in this morning and asked to talk to john, and the woman told me that he no longer works for the company...WHAT?!?! so i said 'since when? he was just wokring on my car yesterday' she said 'as of this morning'....wowee...guess i'm not the only one that got screwed over.

so my ticket was given to some other guy who needed time to look it over and talk to the technicians and figured out what's going on, and he's going to get back to me.

bah...i hope i get it back tonight...i miss my car. i like driving the jeep, but it's huge and loud and wastes gas. but if i don't, i'm demanding a loaner car, cause this is just ridiculous. my car has never been gone for this long.

anyway

on a lighter note......

i got my laptop yesterday!!! it's so pretty...and fast!! OMG soooooo freakin fast...it's crazy....and Vista isn't as bad as everyone's said, so far anyway. i haven't had any problems yet, other than symantec not being compatible with it (but bri's gonna get me a vista-comp. version of it)...

but it's very nice, the GUI (graphical user interface....how it looks) is easy on the eyes...looks a lot like the mac's GUI...it makes fun noises too...haha...noises... oh and the window's media center thing ROCKS...and it came with a media remote control to do like slideshows, and show videos and play music and junk.

it'll take time for the vista issues to pop up anyway...but...so far so good...no major issues. i was able to get office installed easily (and it's the 03 version)...i hope to purchase office 07 in the next few monhts, cause i can get it dirt cheap with my student discount (90 bucks!! sweeeeeet)...but gonna stick with 03 for now cause of the backwards compatibility issues...i want to make sure i'll still be able to access all of my documents before switching (i know that the office 07 programs now have weird file name extensions... it's not .doc, .xcl, etc...its like .xdoc or something like that.)

so i had fun loading it up yesterday...got some software installed, and put all my stuff on it (btw...it took me 2.5 hours to move all of my documents, music, photos, videos, etc onto my ext. hard drive on sunday night, and took me 20 minutes to move it onto the laptop yesterday...saaaaaaaa-weeeet). it's got tons of cool features...i think i'm in love :-P

though i haven't gotten the finger print reader to work yet...i did the tutorial and the 'test swipes' but it kept saying 'bad quality'...but i'll keep working on it, cause i'm sure it'll be a useful feature to have operational.

and what's really cool, is it truly is 'plug & play'...didn't have install drivers for anything i plugged in, it did it on it's own...i plugged in the all-in-one HP printer we have at the dojo, and typically i have to search for the software disc or go on the HP site to get the drivers, but it installed everything by itself....it's like it has a brain or something :-P

i did have a hard time trying to figure out how to turn it off...cause when i thought i turned it off, i actually put it to sleep instead...haha...whoops. but i figured it out last night.

and pete loves the fact that it came with Lo-Jack (in case it gets stolen, the police can find it....it's a year subscription)...i find that pretty comical...but i certainly hope it never gets stolen...cause that would suck majorly.

anyway....i'm highly impressed with this machine, and hope that it lasts me a long long long time....cause i don't want to spend that kind of money again!!!!!!!!! haha

anyway

not much else interesting has happened.... oh i started teaching peter how to play piano on saturday...though he didn't actually play music...cause i started out really slow, just going over how to count beats and such...this weekend we'll start on reading music....that's gonna be really tough...but he's a smart kid :-)

ah well

that's all for now i guess :-P

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:06:03 GMT

so

the laptop stopped working on monday

yesterday my car stopped working

what's going to stop working today?

monday night i was working on the laptop, and the thing started bugging out...to the point where it stopped working. it wasn't the greatest piece of equipment as it was, and i knew that it was only a matter of time before it stopped working, and i had every intention of purchasing a new one when we got our tax refund......but had to do so much earlier than i wanted to....

so yesterday i went on to the dell website and bought a brand spankin new laptop

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1530?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~tab=bundlestab

i ended up spending almost $1200 on it (to those who are wondering...NO we do not have that kind of money...we had to dip into a savings account that we didn't want to have to do, but we knew that i really needed this for the dojo and mostly for school)...i know i could have gone for the cheaper inspiron models, but this one seems like it's built to last, and that's what i need...something that will last A LONG TIME and can withstand traveling everyday. for $1200 this thing better do freakin cartwheels.

so...all was good, i bought a new computer...day was going well. i left early cause we taught a girls scout troop martial arts last night. and just as i'm turning of the exit ramp into shelton the car started doing weird things. the engine was chugging really bad when i stepped on the gas...and by the time i got to the dojo the check engine light was on. when i got in the dojo i called the dealership to let them know that it needed to come in and that it would most likely be towed as i did not want to drive it the 15 miles out to milford. so after the class (which went well), pete drove it home and followed him in his jeep, and there was a whole lot of smoke coming out of the muffler.........so it was towed away (AGAIN!!!!!!!! twice in 4 freakin months) to be fixed....thank god it's under warranty cause pete said it sounds like a serious problem...i just hope it's nothing crazy....

so after dinner i wrote a 2 page letter to the attorney general (blumenthal), because he was the one who brought the claims against crabtree (aka, craptree, the bastards who sold me a piece of poop car), stating that i think i was ripped off based on the price they sold it to me for ($15k for that thing?!?!), and the fact that something major is wrong with it every 4 months...first the engine coolant tank and the brakes, then the fuel pump, then the battery and now whatever this is. and stated that if the dealership was still open i would be returning that piece of crap regardless of the 30 day return policy or whatever. it's like clockwork, every 4 months something goes on it. i think i was set up.....

i am never buying an american car again...i was telling pete last night that his car is almost 10 years old and has never had any major issues...and my car is only 4-5 years old and the thing is about to freakin die....

once this is all over and we know what's wrong i'm gonna mail the letter to blumenthal and to the dept. of consumer protection. i don't know what they can do for me...but hopefully something. cause this is ridiculous.

anyway...so i blew $1200 on a laptop yesterday and then my car stopped working....figured. hopefully everything they need to do to it is under warranty and i only have to pay the deductible.......even the timing chain is covered....which i think may be one of the issues cause it sounded like the cavalier did when the timing chain started to go......UGHHHHHHHHH

i HATE cars. i want a freakin llama.

American Idol 08 Dallas

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:32:16 GMT

This guy is seriously my hero...

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:09:07 GMT

see the green dot? that's where we're staying in april....see the big white waves on the right? ya that's the atlantic ocean...and see the body of water on the left? ya...don't know what body of water that is...but it's big.

yea yea, sure sure, whatever you want

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:47:37 GMT

hellooooooooooooooo

according to livejournal i haven't posted in 3 weeks....

well...it's been a freakin busy 3 weeks.

obviously the holidays were mass chaos like always...nothing really crazy happened though...peter had a good birthday, he got a spiderman digital camera...you can see the pics from his b-day and some from christmas on my facebook....

new years was good too...we watched high school musical 2 (again) with the boys, and transformers....they both made it to midnight and we had some celebratory sparkling cider, gave good ol' grandpa mike (who was SLEEPING!! on new years eve, of all things to bed doing :-P) a call to wish him a happy new year...evan didn't want to talk though...he wsa fairly miserable.....

they both slept very late the next day, evan was finally forced out of bed (literally picked up out of bed and plopped on the floor) at 11:15...we grabbed breakfast and brought them to their mom's...

the night before (well...morning anyway) i had more dreams about the wedding not working out, nothing being ready, etc...and i've had a whole bunch of those dreams in the past...so i decided on new years day to get down to work now that the holidays are over and school is starting soon....so i got a lot done on new years day...got the guest list finalized (or so i think...i don't think guest lists are ever finalized) and typed up in a cool little excel spreadsheet (riiiiiiight...cause i'm not my father's daughter :-P), ordered some more stuff that we needed (i feel like i'm constantly googling, searching for and buying things for this wedding...haha), and worked out some of the major details that can be worked out at this stage in the game. we also went to the mall to go to FYE so i checked out claires and found some nice hair clips for the girls, so got some of those. claires is a scary place to go if you're not a pre-pubescent girl...man oh man

i FINALLY got a hold of the manager of the hall where the reception is last week...and made an appointment to meet with him and pay the deposit and sign stuff and junk.

saturday we took the kids to see high school musical on ice, that was their big gift from their dad and i (we decided last year that santa would do most of the gift giving, and we would just get them one large-ish gift...). it was good...i don't know that the kids enjoyed it as much as we expected...i think evan was a little bugged out...he didn't like the lights going off or the pyrotechnics...peter just looked confused....but when we got in the car it was non stop chatter and singing of HSM songs...so...maybe they were just so enraptured during the show that they simply had nothing to say then...:-P

we went to friendly's for dinner...and it was freakin crazy in there! i love friendly's but they gotta work on their wait staff...get them better trained or something....they're all really friendly, but they don't seem to communicate with each other or the rest of the employees very well....

sunday we dropped the kids off at their mom's and we went to the AM club (where the reception will be) to meet Joco (jock-oh) and check the place out. i really thought that it was going to be a glorified VFW post type place, so basically, a hole in the wall, but it's also only 500 bucks so i wasn't expecting much. it was really very nice though! it had carpet which shocked me...haha...i'm a terrible person :-P...and a nice sized dance floor and a stage....it was very very clean, and didn't smell bad (i don't do bad smells), and the bathrooms were decent too (small...but clean). so not only was it great looking, BUT we also found out that they do soda and ice, on the house!!!!!! i was like WHOA!! that's freakin SWEET! cause we were looking to spend probbaly close to 300 bucks getting soda from BJs...not to mention how much that much ice would cost...granted it's only 5 basic sodas (the sodas you get on the tap at any bar...), but hey...who can say no to free stuff? not me...i'm freakin cheap. we also found out that they set up all the tables and chairs and whatnot...which is great, cause as we were walking around waiting for Joco to come i was like...omg...how the hell are we gonna pack up that many tables (there were probably 12-13 tables out) and chairs and then reposition them in only a few short hours?? but he gave us a 'planogram'...sheet of paper with the layout drawn out on it, and we draw in where we want the tables to go...aaaaaaaaaaweosome. they'll also rent table cloths to us, $4 a table...which is really cheap...cause, again, that's something else we were going to have to purchase ourselves....so we were pretty excited when we left....

we grabbed some lunch and went home and went over our guest list to determine what we had, and how many tables we'd need...and i came up with a rough seating...list? it wasn't really a chart, cuase i just wrote table numbers w/ names underneath....and again, it just a rough draft really, cause i already need to make changes to it!! haha...weddings....it is so hard to figure out how to seat people...but we also can't NOT have seating arrangements because then it just becomes a free for all...not that we have that many people coming...we're inviting 56 and figure that about 44-48 will actually come...so it's not a huge huge deal...it'll be nice though, to have a small gathering. i really liked my uncle eddie's wedding...he invited 30 people, and that was really nice....very quiet and intimate. we originally thought our number was gonna be higher, but were glad to see it wasn't, cause our poor little dojo can only handle so many people at once...lets just pray the fire marshall doesn't show up :-P...haha.

what i worry about though is parking....with that many people coming? ugh...it's gonna be hellish....but...whatever...that'll work itself out...elm street's a long street :-P

anyway...we spent the rest of the day at home playing guitar hero, we decided to do the career, and alternated turns, when it was pete's turns i worked on more wedding stuff...we had fun...we also played ddr...i'm getting tired of the songs though...i want to get a new game i think. we went to the dojo to clean up and worked out a little bit, and then ran to pete's work quickly to pick something up and then to get the boys...got them home and showered and put to bed, and we continued playing guitar hero...and ALMOST beat the freakin game, but couldn't get past the last challenge, so with some tips from brian we're gonna try again tonight.....

not much else happening now.....got classes tonight....tomorrow we have no plans...nor wednesday...friday brian's coming over to play guitar hero with us (but we're not nerds)...nothing in store for saturday as of yet....that could change at the drop of a hat though...never know....sunday melissa is coming over so i can bring her up to speed on wedding junk...annnnnnnd that's it!

bye!

grr

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:57:58 GMT

venting time............

so yesterday we obviously got hit with "Winter Storm Alexander" (apparently we name winter storms now...maybe the winter storms were feeling neglected because hurricanes get all the glory...)...all the schools were shut down, the boys daycare was open till 1pm, but i came into work and told joe that i had to leave early cause the boys didn't have school (neglecting to tell him that they were in daycare, and assuming he'd be riding on the idea that i had to get home so pete could go to work :-P). The snow started here in fairfield around 11:45 or so, and i left at noon. Well in that fifteen minutes all hell broke loose. The roads were a mess!

i'm driving up tunxis hill and i'm all over the freakin place, i put my car in first...(after almost hitting a light pole :-P) and still sliding around...so i pulled into a parking lot to call pete (not that he could do much from shelton :-P) and he didn't answer so i called work to tell joe that the roads were terrible (so that he would have a soul and close the office), and he said i probably should have left later and waited for the worst to end (yea....right........so NOT going to be stranded at work...don't think so), well as i was getting off the phone with him a plow went by...so i called pete again and left him a voicemail saying the roads were bad and to leave his phone on in case i got stuck....

i took it really slow, only slipping after coming to complete stops (stop signs...red lights). i stopped for gas in bridgeport (woo! freedom fuels! haha..i love that gas station) and to clean off my car again...all the snow was sliding down my back window and was just sitting there so i literally could not see out the window...

i got back on the road...heading down north ave, and saw an SUV up on the center island...haha...it would have been more amusing then if i wasn't afraid of the same thing happening to me....

anywyay

all in all it took me an hour to get from work to the highway...normally takes 15 minutes...maybe 10 with no traffic. and of course Rt 8 was slow too...so it took me another 1.5 hours to get down rt. 8....so i got home around 2:30....my poor chief waited for me to eat his lunch!!! so sweet... oh speaking of him being sweet (sorry..i know we're so lame and cheesy)... but a couple days ago i left my book that i'm reading at home (Dracula) (i read on my lunch break)...and i sent him a message saying i forgot it...and first off he took a pic of one of hte pages and sent it too me so i could read it :-P and then later in teh day i was able to find the free 'ebook' version online, so i was set...and i told him and he said that he brought my book to work with him and was gonna make copies of some of the pages and fax them to me :-)   he's too nice.....but i guess the copier was down, so he was happy that i found it online :-)

anyway

way of track now....

well joe had called while i was driving so i called him back (he wanted to verify my hours for the last paycheck of the year), and he said 'you didn't just get home did you?' and i was like 'ya...i did...'   'oh well you should have waited to leave...'   grr

of course he's the one with the fancy schmancy nissan murano with the fancy schmancy 4 wheel drive...and lord knows whatever other safety features...here i am i driving an american death trap....i wanted to get the freak out of there as soon as the snow started!!!

anyway

mary didn't end up coming in (she comes in at 12:30 on thurs.), so this morning when i came in we were talking about how bad it got and how joe and althea just don't understand....althea made some kind of comment yesterday about mary being paranoid about the snow and that we shouldn't listen to her...meanwhile i'm thinking....ya well she's not the only one who's paranoid!   of course althea isn't worried...she didn't drive her own freakin car to work, she came with joe in his SUV...so not only do they have the 4wd, but they'd be together as well (mary made a pretty good point about that...that they drive together and me and dawn and mary drive by ourselves...so it's a little different...)

anyway

althea came in this morning while we were talking and said oh well you should get snow tires or a car with 4 wheel drive if you need the peace of mind...and i said ya well we've got other things that need to be paid for...and we've got one car with 4wd.......ugh...she just pisses me off sometimes...she has no compassion... dawn's daughter (who's 20 and lives with dawn) had a baby back in october and of course dawn took some time off to take care of her daughter and granddaughter and althea made some nasty comment about how lauren (dawn's daughter) needs to learn to grow up and take care of herself now that she has a baby....ugh...so freakin insensitive...she's never had kids herself...how would she know?

anyway....enough about that...

bye!