The perils of working with relatives

It’s a very small world. We all know that. But my world gets smaller and smaller every day. In fact, I work with one of my relatives: my step-aunt (my Dad married her sister), if you will. Well, she was over at my Dad’s for Thanksgiving and apparently some of my childhood pictures surfaced. So she brought them in. An entire album! She put one of the pictures of me (my kindergarten school picture) up in the break room at my office with, “Who in the world is this???” written above the picture. Thankfully, one of my co-workers figured out who it was and notified me of the picture. I concluded she was behind it.

Luckily I found out about the picture in time too, because she said she was going to put up a new picture each day until everyone figured out it was me! Oy vey!

Well, in case you were curious, here is the incriminating evidence:

Thanksgiving 2004

Well, I survived the Thanksgiving weekend. And it was actually very pleasant. There were no food fights, no major dysfunction, and no one throwing up in the front yard (a story for another time). In case you needed some pictorial proof, here you go:

Where Credit is Due

I wanted to congratulate my good friend Ally on becoming a Mommy. She gave birth to Daemien James Tapia Rooks-Joya on November 19th at 6:57 pm. He was 8lbs, 5 1/2 ounces and 21 1/2″ long. I saw the picture the hospital puts up on-line and he is a doll! He has lots of dark hair and the most adorable face you have ever seen. (I miss you girlie! I am so proud of you! Good luck!)

I also want to congratulate my friend Lisa M. on passing her Series 6 exam. One down, one to go, sweetie! I knew you could do it! Now we can get past the holidays and focus on 63. Girl power!

Now I am going to be out of town for a couple days for Thanksgiving (bring on the tryptophan, baby!), so things are gonna be quiet over here. But when I get back, get ready for the Mother Load of family pictures. Just a warning….

The yin to his yang.

Simeon and I balance each other in so many ways. I like to think I bring order to his chaos. He helps me to have fun and lighten up. In a way, I am the yin to his yang. We cannot exist without each other. And this is only further proof:

If you must know, the Mac is Sim’s latest edition (its a really sweet G4) and I inherited his old Dell, which was secretly my plan all along.

And Simeon is not the only one with something new. I finally convinced Sim that our old pots and pans needed to be thrown out. Contrary to popular believe, it is not a good idea to eat small flecks of Teflon in your food. So I did some research (how could I not?) and found these great stainless steel, copper-bottomed pots and pans. I love ’em, love ’em, love ’em. Oh and they were on SALE! You can see pics of them in the new “Misc.” category in the photo gallery.

Speaking of the photo gallery, I added some more pictures to My Cats and a couple more new categories: A Typical Wednesday Night, Canning Applesauce, and Grandpa’s 75th Birthday. See, I do things.

Hormonally Charged Rant

Ok, I know I have been quiet over here lately (and I have already been lectured for that. Sorry ladies!) but things have been so chaotic at work that when I finally get home I am wiped out. That and I figured no one wanted to hear me complaining (God knows there is enough of that out there!) so I kept quiet. Well I have held my tongue long enough. Watch yourself:

Work has been insane. To keep from being “Dooced“, I try not to talk too much about work, but lately I feel like I am surrounded by morons. For the most part, I am not talking about anyone that works in my local office, but the Home Office. I swear they just stopped processing things, let alone on time! Jeez! And of course, I am the first one to deal with the clients when they realize their accounts are messed up. So I have been a tad on the annoyed side. Oh and if I hear, “We are working on it” one more time…

On top of that, we have started the expansion in our office and the doorway/hallway to the new area is right next to my desk. Like 6 inches away. So not only am I the first one to get nauseous from the chemical smells, the first one to jump out of my seat when they drop a metal beam, and the only one to get totally distracted from everyone in my office peaking into the new area and asking me if I know anything about it, but they took my desk neighbor away! I was all alone up here for a few months, but then I got a desk neighbor! And she was great! We talked and had a great time. We have tons in common and she actually gets me. Me! But now she is gone. They had to move her desk to cut through the wall and she was moved to the very back of the office. Sadness. I hope when all is complete they will allow her to come back and keep me company again.

On top of all that, (and being hormonal, blech!) my hair is being very weird today. For some reason one side insists on flipping out and the other side flips under. Can I have no consistency in my life? Ever?!? I happily look forward to the day that my hair will once again be able to be pulled back into a low ponytail. Ah the good ol’ days.

Ok, go back about your day now. The ranting has ceased. 🙂

Here I am!

Oh my goodness. How did it get to be November 9th already? Where did all the time go? I mean I know we had Halloween already and now its like everyone is skipping over Thanksgiving and going right to Christmas. At work we are even signing up for the Christmas party and everything (the date was picked ages ago, so don’t worry about that). But I am just in total shock how fast this year is going. I even catch myself from time to time almost writing the date as 2003! And here it is practically 2005!

Anyway, enough of my ranting. I apologize for not posting but I have been very busy these last few days. I picked Simeon up at the airport Friday night and we had some quality couch time to catch up on. Over the weekend we watched some of the shows I recorded for him while he was at his conference, viewed our latest DVD addition, and played the newly released Spyro video game. It was wonderful. Then we started back to work on Monday and fully planned to go to the gym after work, since my foot is (finally!) healed. But we were both so very tired yesterday we grabbed take-out and went to bed super early (Sim was snoring by 8:30pm and I followed awhile later). Tonight, however, I do plan to get my butt to the gym.

I guess we’ll see how that goes…

The Door is Open

I have mentioned in the past, I love Harry Potter. For those who have been sucked into Pottermania and have found J.K. Rowling’s site, you will be pleased to know that the “Do Not Disturb” sign is off the door! After playing around with the site for quite some time (and a little bit of help from the forums), I finally got in and found the latest tidbit of information about the upcoming book, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. JK announced the titles of three chapters in the new book. It is all very exciting!

Oh and I am up to 7 items in my “scrapbook” for anyone who wants to know!

Movie review: Saw

Since a few of you asked me to let you know how the movie was, I thought I’d do my own little movie review. But I have to warn you, I love movies. It takes a pretty horrible movie for me to not like it. That said, here it is:

I have to admit, I went into the movie yesterday expecting the worst. However, I was pleasantly surprised. I tend to lean toward the psychological thrillers, as opposed to cheesy gore/slasher flicks, when it comes to scary movies, and this one delivered. Without giving anything away in case you decide to watch it, it was well thought out and ended with a very unexpected twist. It wasn’t the make-you-jump kind of scary, but more like some-twisted person-actually-thought-of-this scary. Overall, I thought it was entertaining and worth the money (a matinee is six freaking bucks these days!) to see. Plus, I had to go home to an empty house (except my fur-babies) and I wasn’t the least bit scared. Oh and thanks for not calling me in the middle of the night to scary me, Lisa P!!

All by myself!!

The lyrics to “All By Myself” have been playing in my head all day today, because that’s me for the next week. All by myself. (And for those of you who are wondering, it’s in a “Celine Dion” way and not in a “Green Day” way. Perv.) Simeon is in New Orleans til Friday night. He left rain and gloom early Sunday morning and headed for humid and heat. Silly man. He knows we don’t do well in humidity thats why we live in Oregon! You can read all about his adventures while he is away over on his blog. In the mean time, I’m going out with the ladies tonight. We are going to see Saw and then hit Olive Garden for dinner. Gonna get me some Ravioli di Portobello. Yum!