Life as We Know It - suzieandjon

I'm Still Here

It's been a long time. We've been busy. Jon has practice every afternoon and 2 games a week. We have spent some good quality time with the girlies. I saw my friend Elaine. I don't get to see her much.

Work is busy. It always is after the summer. Healthcare is seasonal actually. We tend to be slow in the summer and during the holiday season. But the rest of the year, look out. I've been trying to work normal hours. That's getting harder and harder each day. We did go to a workshop at Gillette stadium. It was sponsored by Oracle. Our whole data group went and, for data geeks, we are a fun group.

Jon and I went apple picking with the girlies. They really love spending time with Jon. We went to Apple Hill on Route 132. I really like that farm. We picked a few apples, went into the farm stand for cider and sweets and played on the slide. Then we went to Arnies for a little ice cream and ended up at one of the elementary schools for a little quality playground time. I am sure the girls slept well. I know I did and I mostly watched.

I went up to Tilton to see Elaine. I haven't seen her in a few months. We talked about it, but it was hard to get it scheduled. We went to the 1875 Inn. They had a tomato Margarita that was really good. They had it up as a special and I thought it sounded weird, but I figured what the heck. It was a really good choice. It was a nice night. I really need to do that more often.

I have managed to get a few cards made. It's nice to feel a bit inspired. I went through a long lull. I feel better when I use all the stuff I've collected. I do find it amazing that I occassionally can't find what I need. Does not seem possible.

Jon had a birthday. He is now 17. It was pretty low key from my perspective. He was trying to get a party together, but couldn't get it scheduled. He didn't seem to be too disappointed. Sunday I made him a nice dinner and peanut butter chocolate chip cheesecake. He really liked that. He had 2 girls make him cookies, 1 make brownies and 1 make fudge. I told him he's a chick magnet. His reply, "Oh, I know."

I posted several pics for you. I will try not to go as long before my next entry.

Break Out the Tissues

I am not a morning person. I don't like to get up and when I do, I usually do not want to talk. I like to have alone time until 9:30/10:00. Everyone at work knows this and for the most part gives me my space.

Yesterday morning I am minding my own business and my friend Lincoln sends me an email with the subject of "wow." It contains a link to an article about the Red Sox. I start reading the article and next thing I know I am crying. I responded with damn you. Just what I need at 8:20 in the morning, to be sitting at my desk blubbering like an idiot. Here's the article.

The upside is that he sent it to Matt too and they were both at my desk telling me how they were having a hard time not crying. Oh yes, I just threw them under the bus.

What was I saying?

Last week I turned a year older. My good friend decided that everyone in our meeting should know. I got the usual well wishes and then someone asked me how old I am. I am not worried about getting old. I have every intention of aging gracefully. I don't even color my hair. So when this person asked, I didn't feel the need to not tell him. I did have the sudden urge to go with the cliche and say 29. I am sad to say that I think dementia has started to set in. I am pretty sure that I thought 29 or maybe even 39 which is still younger. What actually came out was 49. When I realized what I said I made a comment about the fact that I probably shouldn't make myself older. Clearly I need to stick to using my own material. I don't do well with other people's jokes. Oh and if you see me wandering around aimlessly please point me in the direction of the nearest ice cream shop. It seems to clear my head.

Quick update

I always think I will be productive and ambitious. I think it's an only child thing. I get completely lost in things when I am at home. Before I know it, it's hours later and I have no idea what I've done. I have another friend, only child, who is the same way. I think it happens to Jon too.

Anyway, I posted vacation pics on the Places page. It is about 1/3 of what I took. It will give you an idea of what we saw. I really went with the "I have a digital camera so I can take numerous pictures and not worry about developing them." Except for my mother. I always get a full set for her. I probably won't give her every iteration of the group pictures (there's 6). I will add a vacation journal entry soon.

I created a page for Jon's senior year. I have some pictures from his first scrimmage. I just need to upload them.

I am done for today. I need to read some more of my book. It is for book club on Wednesday. It's a good one, but time is getting short.

Special Request

I try not to get crazy with my opinions here. It's difficult in a one way conversation. I can sit next to someone for an hour or more and say almost nothing. Put a text box in front of me and I become chatty Cathy. Anyway, I had a voice mail on my phone today from my friend Mike. He was looking for a parking place at the Hospital. He saw several spots with a motorcycle or a scooter, but no empty spaces for a car. He thought I should mention it. This is for you, Mike.

You need to know that parking at the Hospital is a challenge. They have added a few parking structures, but want to maintain the visual appeal of the campus so they are avoiding the larger parking garages. There is a bus system in Concord, but until recently it had a very small following. The Hospital is the largest private employer in the city. Bottom line we have a lot of employees and cars and not nearly as many parking places.

Enough history. Mike's issue is that we do not have motorcycle parking at the Hospital. Or anywhere around here that I'm aware of. In other states you see motorcycle parking. You can fit a lot of motorcycles in a small space. I realize that motorcycle season is short. 5 months or less. Some hard core folks will start as soon as the last snow in the spring and will ride up to the first snow of winter. That won't be this scooter girl. Way too cold. What do you do with motorcycle parking in the winter?? Maybe Smart cars, once there are more of them.

You would think NH, of all the New England states, would have motorcycle parking. We have Bike Week each year. It's the third largest rally and the oldest. Tens of thousands of motorcycles. One website said 300k to 400k. Even without the rally people ride as much as they can while they can. It would just make sense.

Now when I scoot to the Hospital, I don't take a space. I look for some little nook to park it in. I am not sure what the etiquette is, but I even shared a space with another 2 wheeled vehicle. I didn't have a nasty note when I got back to the scooter so I guess it was okay. I haven't tried it again. I'm a little chicken.

My point. New England needs motorcycle parking to go along with better road signs.

Vacation Countdown

Only a few more days. I can't wait. I need a vacation. I went in April, but that feels like a really long time ago. We leave on Saturday morning. Jodi is taking us to the airport. It's a nice short flight for us. Packing will be easy. No formal wear. Jon will be happy. He does look so handsome in a shirt and tie though.

I actually stamped last weekend. I had the need for a card and I wanted it to be an original. Since I seemed to be "in the mood" I made a card for a contest the local arts and crafts store is having. I will post both cards on the Hobbies page for you to see. When I turned in my contest entry, she showed me the other cards. Of course they were so cute. I wanted to take my card back and work on it some more. I can do better!

Went to lunch with Jodi and my favorite little girls. I posted some pics for you. I know I am partial, but they are pretty cute. Now I have other favorites girls, but they are now my favorite young women.

I decided to get the iPod Touch. Once I get an idea in my head, it consumes me. I think I get that from my mother. (Love you Mom!) I love it. I took it to work today. It was a geekfest. We had to see what it was like on the wifi. Lincoln took it over to show Matt how cool the Red Sox website looked on it. It's my first bookmark.

I guess now I have to go wireless at home. I tried to set it up before, but I couldn't get it. I have since googled it on the internet and am ready to try again. I know I work in IT, but that doesn't mean I know everything. If you want to query, design or maintain a database, I can probably help you. Other than that, I am just like everyone else. Maybe I have a slight edge. Just slight. I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I only half read the instructions.

I am sad to say that I bought by first pair of reading glasses. For the most part I can see pretty well. I generally read at night and by the time I get to it, my eyes are very tired. I bought the lowest magnification, 1.0. It's perfect. It's almost like having large print books. I can see fine at work and reading is not problem before 8 pm. No eyeglass chain around my neck. I don't even carry them in my purse. Yet...

Lacrosse Camp

I took Jon to camp today. It is the Player's Choice Elite Position camp. They hold several throughout the summer. It's held at UMass Dartmouth. I hadn't realized how far away it is. I printed out the directions from AAA and it said 132 miles. I couldn't believe it. Check in time was from 2:30 - 4:30. I wanted to get there early enough to check things out and not feel rushed. We had planned to leave at 12:30 with a lunch stop. When I found out just how far we had to travel we decided to leave earlier.

I am trying to reduce my speed to save a little on gas. I did pretty well sticking to 60 - 65 all the way down. We were passed a few times and we passed a few times. People are definitely slowing down.

It was a lousy travel day. We had rain most if the way in varying intensities. We decided to stop at Cracker Barrel on the way down. I am not anti-chain restaurants, but I am pro either. I do like to try new places and I have not eaten at a Cracker Barrel so we thought we would try it. They present an image of country style home cooking. Jon loves country fried steak, so I thought for sure he would get that. He opted for the meatloaf. He said it was good, but still not as good as Grandma's. One thing that I liked is that they let you order off the kids menu. I wanted a hamburger, but didn't need a half pounder. I got the kids hamburger plate. It was just enough. We got a little chuckle when she brought my drink in a kids cup.

Since it was early afternoon, I thought there wouldn't be much traffic. I should have known better. Boston always has traffic. We were stop and go just as we got to the south side of the city. I had my iPod plugged in, so at least I had decent music. Jon fell asleep before we reached the NH/MA border, so he wasn't much company. I did see this really cool truck. They had jersey barriers setup on the road. They weren't the standard barriers. They were movable barriers and they were moving them as we went by. It was pretty cool. I would have had Jon take a little video, but he was making his own movies behind his eyelids. I googled it when I got home and it's called a zipper machine or barrier transfer machine. I found this site that has some decent pictures of it.

We made it to camp in plenty of time. The directions from AAA were top-notch. I have finally come to the realization that it is a Yankee tradition to save on road signs. Why would you put a sign on a street you are traveling on? More importantly, why put a sign on a cross street? If you live in the town, you should know the street names. Luckily I looked at the odometer when I went from line to line in my directions. I turned when I got to the distance it said, even though there wasn't a street sign. I don't think I have seen another region in the country where they don't put street signs at intersections. Only New England. Anyway, we made it no problem.

Jon was suppose to have 2 roommates, but only one of kids, Ryan, came while I was there. I think they will get along pretty well. Ryan stayed in the room instead of going to check out what's going on or trying to make friends with the other kids. Definitely the same thing Jon was doing.

Jon called before I got home. He was very excited. One of the college kids working at the camp is a player Jon likes on the Johns Hopkins team. That is his favorite team. He said the third kid never showed, so it was just Jon and Ryan in the room. Food is good and they get free pizza tonight. Jon had already bought a sweatshirt and shorts. I think he will have a great weekend. The rain is suppose to ease up, so they should get plenty of playing time in.

Baaa Ring, Baaa Ring

This went around the office last week. I thought I would share it with you. It is pretty clever. Not like the puns that circulated around with the pictures.

News from the North

I'm back. I was going to update you yesterday, but I was sleeping. Before you start with all the comments, I had to work Saturday night. We have a specific time set aside each month to bring systems down for maintenance or upgrades or just to be annoying. Since it's a hospital, people don't like to let us take things down during the day. I had to go in for a couple of tasks and for some reason was unusually tired. Normally I get done around 3:30 - 4:00 am. I didn't get done until after 4:30. I actually didn't get done because I ran out of time. I usually go home sleep until about 9:30 and then stay up for the rest of the day. That was not happening yesterday. I just couldn't stay awake. I slept 3 hours, got up, went over to Jodi's to let the dog out and went to breakfast. We came home and I laid down until Jon had to go to work at 11:30. I came back from taking him to work and slept until 5. I didn't have any trouble going to sleep last night. Must be getting old.

Speaking of Jodi's dog, she has a Bernese Mountain Dog named Dakota. He is really cute. I don't have any picture of him, but go here and you can see what he looks like. Jon calls him the big fluffy puppy. He is really cute and huge. He is such a good dog. For some reason he wasn't thrilled with Jon on Sunday. He doesn't really like men. Jon did get to pet him, but Koda wasn't his usual loving self. I am sure he was lonely.

Jon needs to have his senior pictures done. Did you hear me?? I said SENIOR pictures. Good God, where did the time go. I am hoping to get an appointment for him in August. We are going on vacation for the first 2 weeks. We will be home for most of the second week. I think that will be a good time. Senior pictures. That sounds so strange to me.

I am trying to figure out the best way to get organized. I carry a phone and an iPod. Jon keeps notes, lists on his phone. I don't see myself doing that. I am extremely texting challenged. I have been putting lists on my iPod. That really helps. I have library and movie lists that I maintain. As long as I don't have to make any immediate updates, I'm fine. There is no way to enter a note from my Nano. I could have bought a smart phone and then I would have been able to do some of my organizing on it. I just got the phone, so I am not in a position to upgrade. I was looking at pocket PCs or a PDA. I really don't want to have one more thing to carry. I like to travel light with my purse. How much junk do you really need?? So now I am looking at iPod Touch. It could replace my current iPod, no additional gadgets, and it has a keyboard. It will take a little practice, but I am sure I could get the hang of it. So what do you think??

Quick little funny story

I was cleaning out my inbox today. I had sent a message to a few people with the damn cat video with the subject of cats. I also sent a message to someone about a couple of blogs that I like to frequent. Somehow they ended up on top of each other in the list. I had cats and blogs in my email. How funny is that?? I giggle every time I think about it. I shared this with Lenni and she added "It's raining cats and blogs on the internet!"

Evil plot? Possibly...

I was at the library today. I had to pick up the book I reserved. It got me thinking about something I wanted to run by you. When I borrowed Mona, I think it was one of the featured books. At our library they will display some books on the shelves with the cover facing out to attract attention. Now I had thought they did this because it was a good book, like one of the employees favorites or something. I am not so sure. I wonder if it is a book that no one has checked out in a long time. Maybe it's one being considered for storage or added to the give away pile. They just want to see if they can get someone to check it out one more time. This one got me because it had Amy Tan plugging it on the back cover and I like Amy Tan. She writes an interesting book. Let me know if you've been duped by the librarian. It would make me feel better.

Weekend over already???

This was a good weekend. I didn't do anything exciting, but I am satisfied. I went to the farmer's market. It was busy. I got there a little later. I go on my way home from the gym. I decided to get a cup of coffee, so I stopped at one of the little cafes on the Main Street. I got a coffee and muffin and sat outside to enjoy the beautiful morning.

Speaking of the gym, I got an awesome compliment on Friday. One of the instructors, whose classes I frequent, asked me how old I am. I told her and she was surprised. She thought I was only 35. Well if she hasn't moved right up to number one favorite.

I've been really good with my commitment to better food. I am buying organic milk and eggs and trying to buy organic meat. I am also trying to buy more local foods. That's the deal with the farmer's market. In all honesty, it tastes better. Jon notices if I punk out and buy regular milk. It tastes different. I've only done it once since I made the switch.

I finally finished the Mona book. It did have a nice ending, but was not worth the time it took to get there. I am now reading the 5th book in the Women's Murder Club series, by James Patterson, called the 5th Horseman. I have a reserved book at the library I need to pick up. It is the latest Stephanie Plum book, Fearless Fourteen. Yes, I've read all the other 13 books. They are one-nighters. So easy and funny. I still have to read the book for my book club too. We are reading Tell No One, by Harlen Coben. Dawn from the club told me its really good. I am looking forward to it.

I added a few new pages. I hope you like them. Let me know if you like my new shoes.

Could they be any cuter????

Wes' yellow lab had a litter of puppies about 8 weeks ago. I got a chance to see them this evening. There were 3 originally. He sold one and he is off with his new family, likely making them nuts. Here are the other 2.

Just another Sunday

It's almost time to take Jon to his job. I have to say I am very happy he is working and earning his own money. He is pretty low maintenance, but it is nice to see him take on some independence. I think it was yesterday he actually said to me, "I like having my own money." That felt really good. Even better, he isn't blowing it.

My day is going to consist of getting a birthday present for Jodi and making her a card. I really need to get back to some of the hobbies. I have so much stamping crap and it seems to keep growing. Unfortunately, I am not inspired to create anything with any of it. I am hoping to make a turn today. Or at least make one card. That isn't too much to ask.

Of course I have to some life crap, laundry, maybe clean something.

I also want to make some progress on the book I am reading, Mona in the Promised Land. It's not a hard read. I am just not sure I am interested. It's by Gish Jen. Here is the page on Amazon about it.

I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th. Jon had to work so we kept it simple. We went for a hike. I am not outdoorsy, but I wanted to get out and enjoy the good weather. There are several trails in the Concord area. They actually post them online. We did map 1. It took us just under 2 hours, just like it says. Lots of bugs. Yuck! If you are so inclined, leave me a comment and let me know what you did.