smiling on foot

July 2nd was my last day at double J and the following week was vacation. I saw 2 sets of fireworks, a Native American Pow Wow and discovered a secret new (free) beach on the cape where the water really doesn’t get past your knees (probably won’t visit again). And that was just the beginning of the week. I then caught up with former co-workers at the Easy place’s cafeteria. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been inside that building. Weird doesn’t even describe it. Furthermore, I haven’t driven down the famed route 9 right down the “Center of the Universe” in quite sometime either. Not since I moved to Weytown – so that’s 2 1/2 years at least! I saw the Tom Cruise movie by myself that afternoon and then dinner at the Chat-a-tat-tat with Xtina and HEKD. It was a full out memory lane trip of my old haunts of 3 years ago. Vacation ended with looking at a bungalow to rent (it was awful) and a B.B. King concert with AMR. He still has a good voice, but his memory of music lyrics is not so good.

The memory lane trip was a kind of nice goodbye. Now that I’ve been hired a P-Lite and am about to complete my first 3 weeks, it’s pretty definite that I’m not leaving the south shore anytime soon. Before scoring this position, I had been entertaining the thought of moving back up to the Watch City where I once lived and visited the Center of the Universe often. Now I know that’s not happening, so goodbye west-of-Boston option. I’ll try to visit when I can. The South Shore isn’t so bad, though. I have friends and family here so it’s a good place for a single girl like myself, just in case I need help with something or perhaps in the mood for company.

P-Lite, so far, has been pretty awesome. They’ve recently combined buildings so everyone is in the newer, nicer building. To commemorate this merge, there was a re-dedication of the building on my 4th day. There was a DJ playing fun music, then a nice speech from the president and then a priest came to the podium to bless the building and everyone in it. Then the real fun began. A man dressed as the wicked witch from wizard of oz began riding around on his bike to the “witch music” from the Wizard of Oz. Glinda was running around too. It was crazy. Then the wizard himself came down the stairs and announced that we were to get into teams and do a set of tasks. Dorothy, the scarecrow, the lion and the tin man were stationed around the building (as well as many delicious food stations) to give us our tasks. They were like team building type games at each station. I didn’t realize, but we were being timed and scored at each task. My team came in last place, but we each received a $25 P-Lite gift certificate for being the “team with the most potential.” :) There were yellow candles lining the atrium area (called the “yellow WICK road”) and we were told to pick up pieces of the road with us to help clean. Every employee also received an item from the new Fall collection so I made out pretty good!

It’s encouraged to burn candles at your desk and to adorn your desk with ridiculous amounts of P-Lite product so I can’t wait to begin collecting! Customer Service conducts auctions here weekly on old product and the $ goes to a good cause so I’ll keep my eye on that. I’ll also be having a P-Lite party this fall and hope to gain some delightful hostess gifts from doing that as well. My guests will have to buy a certain amount in order for me to get the hostess gifts, so bring your checkbooks, ladies! (no pressure) So far, I’m very much enjoying the “start up” nature of my job. I choose imagery myself and write copy myself so I’m doing more creative/merchandising work than I have in the past, in addition to my fun techie projects. Since they just launched their web site last year, there’s LOTS to do. But everyone is so excited about the new technology and really supportive of everything my boss and I are trying to achieve. It’s really a great environment, the people are so nice and very friendly. People stop by my office (I love having an office, btw) all the time just to introduce themselves. So far, so good, P-Lite!  Holla!

Work has been kickin’ my butt the past couple of weeks and blogging hasn’t been top of mind. Apologies. Thanksgiving weekend is the time of year when we make more money than any other week of the year. And because it’s so important, the powers-that-be conduct many meetings discussing promotions and marketing messaging… and change the promotions and marketing messaging over and over and over again… which creates lots of work. But whatever. I’m pretty much AWESOME and get it all done and make it happen so it’s all good.

Work has also moved my desk temporarily. I used to have a really private back corner desk that was shared with my cube-mate who is currently out on short-term disability. But they’ve decided to remove our cubes, build a wall and make that back corner into a corner office. My new cubicle location is much more public and people keep talking to me a lot more. So with the increase in holiday work in addition to the influx of people talking to me… I stay late a lot and this needs to stop. I often think of an old co-worker who used to put a “go away” sign on his cube when he needed to get stuff done. I haven’t ruled it out.

In October, my boss emailed the e-comm team about PTO (Paid Time Off) that we needed to take before the end of the year or we’ll lose it. Guess who the winner was who rarely takes time off and has the most hours on her record? Oh yes, yours truly went ahead and took some days in November and December. But with every day off I take, there seems to be some people who get upset over it… which is probably why I don’t take time off very often! Oh well. I took off 11/13 and 11/16 and it was kind of nuts leading up to it and then the week when I returned, I worked so late every night to catchup and get ready for the holiday it hardly seemed worth it. But on the day of the 16th, I was able to go to Mum’s fancy gym with her using her annual free guest pass… and subsequently contract a UTI after sitting in the jacuzzi. AWESOME. That was the last time I went to the gym in November.

When gearing up for Thanksgiving week, I was telling Mum how I just feel like I’m always rushing. Rushing to get to places (always arriving late), rushing to do laundry before bed, rushing to get stuff done at work before a certain time, rushing to get to my BF’s apt. before he turns into a pumpkin at 10… I’ve just been behind on everything (especially work-related stuff) and still fitting in more and more into my schedule. So I took off Monday through Wednesday after Thanksgiving and it has done a WORLD of good. Sure, I’m still getting phone calls from work, but I’ve been able to catch up on so many things: laundry, unread emails from 2 weeks ago, learning how to use my new Droid phone (which is awesome), painted my nails and today I may actually go to the gym.

The day before Thanksgiving was a half day for the company… but this always excludes the e-comm team… especially me… especially when I’m taking off the Mon thru Wed after the holiday. So I was rushing, rushing, rushing and finally got out of there. And the plan was to go home and quickly make some lemon meringue pies and then go to NF’s place. I ran around the house looking for pie shells when Mum had put them, and all ingredients I needed, in a plastic bag on the table for me to make things easier. I don’t know why I didn’t see it. This is what happens when I’m rushing. So I separated out the 4 egg yolks and the whites into two bowls and began making the lemon filling, double the recipe. And without even thinking about what I was doing, I dumped in the egg whites into the mixture when I was supposed to put in the yolks. I was so mad. Then NF called at that moment and said he was crazy busy getting ready for his holiday and weekend away and could he just see me on Friday. Now I was mad AND disappointed. I dumped everything down the sink and started all over. Thankfully, we had two more boxes of lemon pie filling hanging around (it’s my favorite so mum always has it on hand). My sister and niece came over that night for a sleepover to “help” with Thanksgiving the next morning. Ever hear about how too many cooks spoil the broth? Yeah, things were a little chaotic on Thanksgiving, but the dinner was fantastic and the lemon meringue pie was nothing short of amazing. :)

Monday morning, I spent about 4 hours perusing Cyber Monday deals and phoning the companies with additional codes found online. I wish I could say that most of that shopping were for holiday gifts, but buying for me is just so much easier than buying gifts for others! However, there were some gifts purchased too. There will be many boxes delivered to this house over the coming weeks. I think I’ll at least take off Cyber Monday every year just to do this. So many great deals online. Then Mum and I went shopping at the local Goodwill on Tuesday. I didn’t purchase anything, but boy do I love the people watching. And when I get a place someday, I’m totally doing my furniture shopping there. They had some really cool antique-y furniture that I was falling in love with left and right. I love shopping.

Last night, I was able to see my friend, Katie Z., for our own game of catchup since the last time we visited was JULY. Holy moly. You would never know we live in the same town! We drank almost two whole bottles of red wine in a 5 hours period. :) Go us! Last Saturday, I was able to meet my friend, Xtina, for dinner after not seeing her for many weeks and then we hit up the Bykfam birthday bash where good times were had. I feel like this past week has been a good balance of friend time, family time and catching up on chores/errands time. NF went to Albany, NY and then Portland, ME this past weekend to follow his favorite live band, Phish. He had wanted me to go with him and his friend, but I’m glad I stayed back and saw some friends and got some R&R. Going back to work tomorrow is going to be way harsh. Waayyy harsh. I had originally wanted to fit in a visit with HEKD on Friday, but the reality is just that I’m going to be working late Thursday and Friday. And if I don’t work late, I’m going to start the holiday month behind, I’ll be back to square one and you Bloggos won’t hear from me for like a month. :) And no one wants that!

My trip to the ‘Cuse was a blast! But really, who thought it wouldn’t be? I haven’t had a chance to get my pics onto the internet yet (maybe tonight), but there are some good ones. RB is a great hostess and packed her party fridge with tons of beer and dt. mt. dew – even VIOLET dt. mt. dew. Who’s better than her? Our first night was game night, and once again our hostess, RB, successfully forced the game Catch Phrase onto her guests. I’ve decided that enough time has passed from when we lived together that I can let go of my hate for this game. I was just sick of it back then, but I think I can deal with a couple times a year now. See how emotionally mature I am? It was good to catch up with our hostess, SF, KW and the guy who ran 60 miles. Poor HEKD got the “Oh no” voice at least a hundred times that weekend (100 from me and 100 from her husband, easy). It just never gets old. I don’t know why, but it’s wicked funny every time. And if she gets mad at us for making fun of all her “Oh no’s,” then it’s even FUNNIER. :) Double D knows what I’m talkin’ about. Then the next day was “The Great New York State Fair.” HEKD and Double D’s baby Bateman was a good kid for Cath while we were at the fair. HEKD was amazed. We theorized that perhaps he sleeps better for people who don’t hover over him, pick at his head and change his clothes all night long. Hmm? (We love you, HEKD. You are a good sport to put up with us mean kids.)

Although the NY State Fair was indeed a great time, next year I have some improvements for myself to make it even better. 1) Wear shorts, not jeans – it was too hot for jeans as RB advised, but I ignored. What was I thinking?  2) Consume a breakfast, a small lunch and maybe even a Pepcid AC before arrival. My belly was starving when I wolfed down a delicious Hot Beef Sundae and two cups of chocolate milk. This was cause for some serious pain which seriously hindered my enjoyment for the first hour of the fair. 3) Wear inserts in my sneakers for added support. 4) A little related to #2: I need to really plan out what I’m going to eat and when. We passed so many items at night that I wanted, but felt I hadn’t had any “dinner” yet so I’d wait. My “dinner” ended up being a single baked potato while my “dessert” was a giant fried dough. You can get fried dough at any old fair – I wish I got something crazy and NY State Fair specific… like fried cheesecake or fried snickers. As you can tell, the food element was an obvious issue here which will be taken more seriously next year. I refuse to be disappointed in myself for two consecutive years! One of the best parts of the fair is the Indian Village. RB and I got in touch with our Native American heritage and purchased jewelry and learned about Sister Corn. The crafts in the Village ranged from kind of crappy jewelry to really amazing artistry. I should’ve done some Xmas shopping there for my Native American sister (my actual sister, not Sister Corn). We’ll put that on the list for next year too! All in all, a successful trip and I look forward to next year’s outing at the fair!

Click here for pics from the Labor Day Weekend Syracuse Trip of ‘09!

I started to write out a big chronological blog entry detailing all activity from the few days my friends and I stayed at Ocean City, MD… but since so much time has passed, I’ve realized there’s only one thing that matters about the OC… the beach. It was heavenly and I must put special focus on it. But I will first give a little backstory leading up to when my eyes gazed upon the best beach I’ve ever been to…

Thursday evening, the 13th, I picked up AMR and Bykfam and we hit the road around 11:30 p.m. for an overnight trip to Ocean City, MD. We were meeting KDM for a sun-filled weekend that would include a concert from her bf Joe’s band, JunkFood. I would probably of never even heard of Ocean City if it weren’t for JunkFood’s planned gig at this location. AMR and I took turns driving down while Bykfam slept and watched Transformers 2 from his laptop in the backseat. I drank a bottle of 5-hour energy drink in addition to Dt. Mt. Dew and managed to stay awake all night. AMR did it on natural adrenaline accumulated from being on vacation. We arrived at around 8 a.m. and the hotel said to come back at noon to check in. Bykfam and AMR ate breakfast while I slept in the car. I woke up after 30 min. of sleeping in a hot car and ate a banana. We then went to the beach and upon laying my weary eyes on the ocean, a certain light went on that lit up my entire insides.

It’s important that I explain what happened here with as much detail as possible to fully convey how phenomenal these next moments were. Now I have been spiritually living in the House of Woe-is-me in a dark, lonely room. It’s like a dormitory for sad girls who have pity parties once a month in the common areas. When my eyes saw the smooth sand with no rocks, shells, seaweed or other things to hurt my feet and vast, blue ocean with fairly high waves… it was like someone pulled up the shades and opened the doors and windows to the dark haven that is my mind and let the sun and ocean air inside. Nay – it was like I parachuted out the window of the House of Woe-is-me and felt so free and happy to be alive! The lack of sleep or food was no matter as I dropped my bag and went straight for the most wonderful ocean water there ever was. It was warm, but cool enough to be refreshing. It was salty, but not as bad as Mass.’s heavy amount of ocean salt. And the waves were strong, but not as scary as the Vineyard.

We went right in and frolicked and laughed in the waves like people who hadn’t just stayed up all night driving. To spot us from afar, you would never guess that we are people who live 5 min. from the ocean and look at it all the time. But this ocean was different. We were on vacation and we were in love with the OC and nothing could’ve been better. The waves sucked us in and spit us out repeatedly and we were in awe of its power over us. When we were fully winded and could barely stand, we collapsed on the beach and soaked in the rays for about 3 hours. I lied there and felt like the luckiest girl. I even exclaimed from my towel that we were “so lucky” to be there. The weather was hot, sunny and clear and remained so for the whole weekend.

The rest of the vacation went smoothly. We went to the SEAcrets bar that is an outdoor drinking wonderland of palm trees, bars and DJ booths. You have to say it like SEEEEEEEEE- crets. Seacrets has shitty drinks, but the atmosphere is very on point for a beach vacation spot. They had a couple of bands too. The place was huge. We did the beach again the next day, but mini-golfed on the 3rd day. We saw Joe’s band, JunkFood, on Saturday night and AMR and I showed EVERYONE that WE were the biggest fans there. I almost had to beat up a couple of people to prove it, but it wasn’t really necessary so we kept the peace. The band put on a great show as usual and the dance floor was ridiculously packed by the end of the night. I ate one hockey puck burger and one gourmet delicious burger over the weekend. Bykfam had something called scrapple and it was gross. We also went to an all you can eat pizza buffet where I ended the meal with TWO pieces of chocolate cake. So if the diet wasn’t already out the window at the start of my vacation, it was truly a forgotten memory by the time we went to Maryland!

Top Ten Things I Learned on my August Vacation:

10. Julia Child lived in Cambridge, MA, after living in France and wasn’t really a professional chef or anything when she wrote her cookbook. Mum and I thought the movie was really good so you should go see it!
09. I will never go back to Fire and Ice… I’m just too old to be hassled with this ‘do it yourself’ crap. Plus, it felt like a combination of a college cafeteria and a 19+ night at the Palladium.
08. Be weary of bathing suits with plastic clasps… plastic doesn’t seem to hold up so good. Also, buying a new bathing suit in August is more of a challenge than you’d think.
07. Hearing that girls at the Fager’s Island bar in Ocean City were talking about how they liked my outfit is almost as thrilling as if it were a dude’s admiration (which there was none since I probably look like a giant grandmother compared to those Ocean City girls).
06. When I go away for a few days, my Little Girl cat-baby will put a toy in my bed.
05. While at the Cape, my brother told me that they smoke actual pot in the Easy Rider movie. (AMR and I viewed this recently and decided it was the worst movie ever.) This fact does not make me like the movie any more… it actually makes me like it less. Irresponsible potheads.
04. Charlaine Harris’s vampire stories are ten times more interesting and well-written than the Twilight books… but there’s something about the pace of the story-telling in Twilight that makes them more addicting. Regardless, I’m really enjoying this series of vampire books and recommend them if you’re into that sort of thing.
03. Ignore bad weather reports pertaining to Ocean City, MD. It’s beautiful and sunny every day! I’d recommend the location for a fun beach vacation for anyone who loves being a beach bum! Of course, the people did lean on the more trashy side – but I live on the south shore of MA so it felt just like home.
02. Kerri is a skee ball master. Bykfam is a mini golf master. I am the master of getting tan. And AMR is the master of sleeping in the backseat.
01. Angela hearts the Lord.

——- >Click here for all pics of my August vacation! < -------

I’m back from Vacation and it was every bit as wonderful as I anticipated. As with the implementation of the new catbox, my vacation can be described in 3 easy phases:

1) Cape Cod Weekend
2) Wey-cation
3) Ocean City Wonderland (Where Dreams Come True)

I will have to cover #3 in a separate post since there is just so much to say about this fantastic portion of my vacation.  I also need to upload my photos to kodakgallery some night this week. I don’t have many from Ocean City, MD, because my battery was nearly dead and I forgot my charger. AMR has some so maybe she’ll share with me for the bloggo before I do the Maryland post!

So before I did the Cape thing, it really started with a Friday night dinner with Xtina, her brother and her brother’s friends at Fire and Ice. It’s always nice to hang out with Xtina but with all the comings and goings involved with getting your food at Fire and Ice, I didn’t really get to talk with her for the first hour or so! The next day, my parents and I headed to the Cape for a few days. The three of us haven’t vacationed like this together in a long time and it was a very quiet and serene weekend. There was a family gathering that Saturday for my great aunt Ethel’s birthday and I saw some relatives that I haven’t been able to see all summer. The weather wasn’t super, but I did finish my Bible Salesman book (terrible!) and Mum and I saw the Julie & Julia movie (terrific!) together so that was nice.

On Monday, I came back to Weytown for an afternoon visit with HEKD and little Nathan… the baby actually didn’t scream all day as he usually does with me! Maybe he likes me better now. Here is a photo of him and his mama with the “breck girl” hair (as mum said – who knows about Breck hair products?)…

Nathan getting burped in my bedroom

The next few days of my Wey-cation included a brief beach visit where my bikini top broke, a consultation with a gum specialist at my dentist’s where I scheduled a “scaling” and other fun upcoming dental visits, a chiropractor visit that wrecked my neck, a fun restaurant week dinner with AMR, Xtina and HEKD and some shopping excursions to prep for MD. On a particularly cloudy/drizzly day, I convinced Mum to come with me on a Duck Tour of Boston. This was my 2nd and I love them so. I learn so much about my city in a fun way (and then forget it all a few days later). My sister, my niece and my niece’s friends wanted to come too so when we arrived at the Museum of Science, I was not really surprised that the next available tour for us would not be for 3 hours. We killed time by eating some ice cream treats and then saw an Omni Theater movie. I don’t think I can handle these Omni movies anymore. It made me extremely dizzy and nauseous… I’m getting worse motion sickness with age. But the movie itself, The Greatest Places, was very informative and beautifully filmed. The Duck Tour took the normal routes through the touristy sections of the city and I realized I’d be coming up on AMR’s office location soon. So I texted her and she sent this image back to me of our purple duck!

An AMR-eye view of our Purple Duck!

Later on in the tour, we spied AMR sitting on a bench near the north end chatting on the phone. We yelled and waved at each other and my sister asked to the driver, “Isn’t she beautiful?!!!” And the driver responded by announcing to the world on his microphone that there on the bench was the most beautiful girl in Boston. :)

The Most Beautiful Girl in Boston

While I wait for my iPod to sync up to all my latest podcasts and playlists… thought I’d do a quick check of the weather down in ol’ Ocean City, MD and lookie here… CLOUDS. So I’ll be leaving two days of clouds and rain to a couple more days of clouds and rain:

Ocean City, MD Forecast

Would you like to see what I’m leaving behind here in Weytown? I knew you would because I was sure curious:

Weymouth, MA Forecast

Yeah, I have had one sunny day this entire vacation thus far. AND on said sunny day, I went to the local beach and settled down and about an hour later, my bathing top broke and I needed to cut my beach visit short since I was in danger of exposing myself to the world. I think I have bad weather Karma. But I still have one piece of hope left that this cloudy/scattered t-storm nonsense is just a lie. But if it isn’t… well… I can sit on the beach on a cloudy day, no problem.

Okay, the iPod is all synced up, now it’s time for a wee nap before hitting the road with AMR and Bykfam for a 9-hour ride to Ocean City!