TechGirl's Little Blog

When I was little, my parents would sometimes take us to Sidney to visit dad's parents. Granted, my memories may be hazy but I do remember being expected to sit still and be patient while mom and dad visited. We mostly entertained ourselves by petting Grandma's poodles. I also remember that occasionally my parents would give my sisters and I a couple dollars and we'd walk up the street about a half mile to Lawsons and get ourselves some ice-cream. I can't remember the last time we did that.

Grandma passed away yesterday evening at the local hospital in her town. After we had said our goodbyes, the family went to my grandparents house to console my grandpa and begin making plans. While we were there, my sisters' boyfriend discovered he had a flat tire and set out to repair it. I said to my sister "hey, let's walk to Lawsons". Granted, Lawsons is long gone, but it wasn't about the ice-cream. It was about a last walk down a childhood memory lane. So, there we were, two children of 35 and 40 walking up the street talking over old times with grandma and wishing our other sister could be with us (She's in FL). We walked up to what used to be Lawsons and began walking back. On the way back, we noticed there was an ice-cream shop on a nearby street corner. It was after 9pm, but they were still open, contradicting the hours-of-operation sign in the window.

The first thing I noticed on walking into the ice-cream shop was the Bible on the counter next to the register. I couldn't help but think we were guided there. We ordered two huge ice-cream cones and toasted grandma and talked to the attendant for a while about her. She offered her condolences and off we went on our way back to grandmas. It was almost like being a kid again, though loaded with a debit card rather than a couple bucks in the pocket.

I wasn't the ideal grandchild, and I don't claim to be. Nor was she the warm and fuzzy grandma stereotype. I feel like we could have had a better relationship if we had both tried more, but the family is massive and life gets in the way as it often does. I regret that I don't have a lot, if any, photos of her. I can't slap together a memorial dvd for her like I did with my other grandma. I suppose if the family is interested, perhaps they could pool their photos together and I could put something together. The one I did for Grandma Catherine is beautiful and I will always cherish it.

So...here's to Grandma, the epitome of a matriarch if there ever was one.

One of my most favorite things that I own are my great-grandma's diaries. She was my whole world until she died when I was 11. I kept my own handwritten journal through some of my teen years, then went back through them in my 20s and realized what a retard I was. It's funny the things that teens think are important. "OMG _____ likes _____ and doesn't like me, my world is ending". HA. I have no idea where those journals are now. They seem to have disappeared along with my collection of vinyl records. I remember having them when JR and I moved into our first apartment, but after that it's a blur. This is also the point where a lot of my extensive CD collection vanished, too. Anyway, I'm getting off the point. The reason I started a blog in the first place was to have something for my kids to read later or maybe pass along to my grandkids. I've always planned on printing the pages out and forming them into some type of binded book form but never really got around to it. I think maybe I'll start working on that, though I really don't know if I'll be keeping up on the whole blogging thing anymore. It seems lately that life just gets in the way and it's impossible to find but a few minutes to spare to do anything between work, kids, taking care of the house, and spending time with JR.

So, I haven't updated since Beth and I put up the trampoline back in March. Since then, I've been hired full time at The Bank, we've had a stray cat give birth in our garage (anyone want a male 7wk old kitten?), we've taken in a 3mo Beagle named Roscoe, and registered Roo for Kindergarten. The rest is pretty much filler that I can't remember.

The weight loss thing is pretty much the same, though I've been trying to add a few pounds back. I got down to 139.5 and really didn't like the way I looked, so I began to add more carbs and sugar to my diet and right now I'm maintaining around 145-147 and am pretty happy there. I'm still in size 4 jeans and M/L shirts depending on the make. I like a little wiggle room, so I tend to go for a large.

Work has been pretty good. The project that I was brought in on is pretty much done. There are only about 21 people in the company left to be migrated to the new corporate image, but I've given up on nagging them and threatening to turn off their accounts. When they one day realize that they can't log in to the old domain anymore, they can try to track me down. I've been hired into the company and am working on other projects now and am really enjoying the job. I'm starting to get some really good tone in my arms from lifting PC's to and from the desks in our build room. I'm thinking of joining a local gym or maybe going to the Y and starting up strength training again to get the rest of me toned up. I really enjoyed working out the last time I was into it. Except now I won't feel like the awkward fat slob in a room full of freakin' barbie dolls.

So, that's it for now. It's 1am and I need to crash. I'm driving up to Lake Erie in the morning to meet JR and the girls who are up there camping.

:)

I really should post more. I will try harder, really.
It looks like we're down to about 30 more desktop machines until my project is over and I can start the real job I came in for. I'm going to miss sitting in the build room. It's warm and cozy in there. Work has been fun lately, but it usually is. I got to take a break earlier this week from configuring laptops for shipping out to deploying a few machines on campus. It's been a while since I've been in front of a user but it was all good. One lady told me "i'm scared. Everyone who's been migrated has told me how horrible it's been." I told her it's nowhere near as bad as people are making it out to be. I got her done in about 45 minutes, showed her how to do some stuff, and left. I haven't heard anything from her so I'm guessing she's operating with no problems. I love proving the naysayers wrong. My partner and I have really perfected the process the past few months and it goes very smoothly now. :)

Today was interesting. I was chowin' at City BBQ like I do every day when one of my old friends came in with his wife. I haven't seen them in 5yrs. They walked by me and sat down without even a hint of recognition. Well, 5yrs ago I was pretty hefty. So, I went up to them as I was about to leave and said hello and chatted for a minute. It was nice to see them.

Last weekend, my friend, Beth and I put a trampoline together for my girls. I've wanted them to have one for the longest time - since they took tumbling class. Here is a pic of us after the project is done. I have a bunch more pics here of the kids jumping.

Work is getting dull. It looks like we have about 60 more machines to configure and deploy and they are for campus users. So, that means loading up the configured machines and personally delivering and setting them up for people. Gone are the days of configuring and shipping them out across the country to branch employees. No big deal, we were doing campus users when I first started the job. I just got used to staying in the office all the time. Now that it's starting to warm up again, it'll be nice to get out and walk around campus for a while.
Warmer weather means one more thing....scooter time!! I'm looking forward to donning the helmet and heading off to work on the bike again. I have to take it down to Cinci first, though, and have the steering column looked at. It's got a shake sometimes that I'm not really comfortable with. I talked to the guys at Omni Motor Sports and they told me that they'll take a look at it for me as long as the bike is street legal. It'll be really sweet if they can fix the shake.
Here's something new. I'm taking a couple days off in April and heading down to KS to visit Bev and her family. I haven't seen them since Bev's wedding in '06. Her little brother has since had a little girl that I'd like to meet, she's cute as a button. It'll be nice to have some girl time with my friend, too. I plan to take oodles of pictures since this one is the last I have of us together. I'm going to stop by and see Mike and his partner, Tony, too, in Missouri. Yay!

I was out with Beth at City BBQ Friday and had her snap a picture of me for my 22 month surgiversary. I'm still sitting between 140 and 145 lbs depending on the time of day and wearing a size 4 and usually a Medium top, though I'm finding that a lot of Mediums are too short. Do I need to buy a size large just to have a longer shirt?

So, I'm going to Tim Horton's on SR73 yesterday to get some oatmeal to eat at work. There's two entrances, one in the front and one in the back. The one in the back delivers you straight into the drive thru line. If you come in the front entrance, you must drive around the building and curve into the drive thru. So if you curve around fast, you may just bump into someone making the straight line from the back entrance into the line. Sooo, yesterday, I pull into the back entrance and there is NO ONE in front of me and I begin to drive into the drive thru lane. There is one car in front of me already in the lane so I have just enough room, when this dumbass in a huge minivan speeds up and jumps right in front of me and I damn near hit her. I saw her mouth the word "bitch". My car is directly perpendicular to her and only a few inches from her passenger door, thats how close she cut me off. And she calls ME a bitch. The nice guy behind her stays behind a little so that I can move into the line when minivan moves up. By the way, her license plate is Ohio plate ORTH 5, so she's probably some uppity orthodontist bitch that thinks she's superior for going to dental school. Sorry, sweetheart, you bleed red just like me.

Fast forward a couple minutes and I'm in line directly behind this dumbass. My phone goes off with a text message, so I pick it up and I'm holding it in landscape position with both hands just above my steering wheel, with my wrists resting on top of the steering wheel. I read my text, I reply, I put the phone back on the passenger seat beside me and look up just in time to see OrthoBitch turned around in her seat with a camera pointed at me. WTF. I see a little red blinky light when the camera goes off. But apparently that's not good enough because not two minutes later, OrthoBitch takes another picture with the flash on. Ummm...Okay. I guess the dipshit thought that when I was reading my text, that I was actually taking a picture of her car? Whatever. Like I give a crap about some uppity snot-nosed bitch with the driving skills of Helen Keller. I take that back, HK could probably drive a mean horse and buggy using the vibrations of the hooves on the dirt road.

I hate people like this.

Then...THEN...I get back on 75N and head to the 675 on-ramp, which starts out as a two lane ramp and merges to one. I'm cruising along at probably 80 when this fucktard in a BMW comes whipping up behind me and swerves around. If he passes me, he's going to have maybe 5 inches in which to pass from the car in front of him to the position in front of me. Not wanting to be forced to slam on my breaks on the highway, I floored it and closed the gap between me and the car in front of him thus nixing his attempt to cut me off. Then the little prick has the audacity to ride my ass all the way onto 675 until I hop off onto 725. ARGHHH!!!

I got to work, slammed my door, stormed into the build room, yelled at Mark "why to people have to drive like ASSHOLES!??" and plopped down in my chair. He just said "I guess you had a bad drive in?". Ughhh....At least I like my job. And I practically count down the minutes til I go to lunch at my favorite restaurant. So, the day did get better from there.

The oatmeal at Tim Horton's is well worth putting up with some snobby doctor's bad manners in the drive-thru. I do hope she's a regular customer and I get the chance to run into her again. Maybe I'll bring my own camera.

Thank Dog tomorrow is Friday. Another day of 8am road rage and I'm about ready to plow someone over. And I'm not even the one raging. I just want to get my oatmeal, go to work, get some chicken, talk to some cool people, work some more, and go the hell home.

Ok, I'm done.

I think I'm getting sick. My throat hurts and it feels like there's a burnt path from the back of my nose down to my throat. And my nose is runny. Ughhh. I hate colds of any sort. And I feel a headache coming on. This is not a good time to get sick. I'm really tired today, too. I think I had maybe 3 hours of sleep last night due to some funky dreams about chicken and my mp3 player.

Work is going good as always..still working on the data migration project that was due to be finished in December. Every time we think we're getting close to being done, they throw more computers at us. I'm ready to be done already.

The DS group had big party on Saturday that went really, really well. We had a crasher from Indy and a couple people from the Col's area come out and play with us. Pics are here.

Not much else going on. I'm really tired so I may just take a drive out to Walgreens for a few minutes.

later!

I really like The Cheesecake Factory, especially their Thai Chicken. It's really good! Two times now, JR and I have tried to go there on a date, and twice the wait has been truly outrageous. Actually, to be fair, the first time we went, we had just eaten a bunch of bad popcorn at the movies and it made me feel really sick. By the time we'd given our name to the lady at the CF, I was really starting to feel awful and we left. This past Friday evening, we tried again. We dropped the kids off with mom and dad around 7 and were hoping to have a nice evening at a nice restaurant by ourselves. We got there and the wait was 90 minutes. HA! Screw that. Meanwhile, my nephew called me to tell me he was driving down route 42 and thought he may stop by since we live off that road. I informed him that route 42 is nowhere near my house. Silly boy. So, anyway we bought mom a piece of turtle cheesecake and we decided to head to the Commons to eat at the food court and do some shopping. I texted Joey to tell him we were headed there and he called and said he had just arrived there with his new gf, Breanna. My friend Beth had texted me, too, that she was hanging out at her mom's house in B'Creek, so I texted her to meet us at the Commons for dinner. It was a pretty nice time. All of us met up there and had various dinners and JR and I interviewed the new gf. She seems really nice and she can carry a conversation. I was really leery of meeting her because I really adored the previous gf. She's a sweetie. Fortunately they're staying friends. After dinner, the kids headed out to a movie and JR, Beth, and I went shopping. We bought a bunch of stuff for the girls at one of those girly shops. Then we all went over to Best Buy and JR picked up a new hard drive and I played some GH on a huge ass flat screen. I want one now. While JR and I were out, Mom and her sister took my girls out shopping and bought them some clothes, new shoes for Roo, Hello Kitty sunglasses and lip gloss, and a bunch of hair stuff. :)

Saturday was pretty sucky for Valentine's Day. It was the 1yr anniv. of JR's mom's death and both of us were in pretty shitty moods. We went and bought flowers and took them to the grave. Then we drove out to see my two younger stepsons so JR could give them their inheritance checks. We met John's new girlfriend, she seems pretty nice. JR says I say that about everyone so for all I know she may torture cats in her spare time. The girls got thrown around and chased by their brothers for a while and then we headed home. JR made pork ribs and sauerkraut for dinner and gave me a heart-shaped pillow that says "i love you" on it with a bunch of hearts all over it. He had told me we weren't celebrating so I didn't have anything to give him. I was on my way to Beerman's to buy new perfume, so I stopped and got him a movie and a picture frame and insert to put a picture of his mom in. It has a poem about remembering someone after their death and a slot for the picture. I know it's not romantic, but we don't have any framed pics of her, so I thought it'd be nice. He liked it.

Sunday was pretty lame. Neither JR nor I felt very good but the sun was shining so we made the kids get dressed and we went out for a while. We weren't out long when I started feeling really light-headed so we stopped and bought some steaks and came back home, cooked them, and just vegged out the rest of the night.

Tomorrow is a bank holiday so I'm off work. Roo is thrilled. She counts the days til I'm off work now. Josie would be off school but they have to use it as a make-up day due to all the time off they've had. I never did tell her that it was supposed to be a day off. It would only make her sad.

Anyway, here's a couple pics from the weekend...my mil's grave with the flowers we put down, and my kids with the new shirts and sunglasses, and hair bands my mom bought them.

I woke up feeling like crap today. Now I'm at work feeling like crap today. And I'm really, really tired. And nauseous. I hate being nauseous. What sucks about feeling like crap is the fact that I really HAVE to eat even though I don't feel like it. I'll put it off as long as I can, but I should really put some chicken into my tummy. Either that or drink a protein shake and I'm really not up for that right now. At least I'm leaving work early today.

I volunteered to take my mom to her kidney doctor this afternoon because my sister has a really bad head cold. I thought I'd take a long lunch, but found out that the appointment lasts from 1pm-4 or 5pm so I'm going to work a half-day instead. I'm so not in the mood to be at work today anyway.

I had a self-confidence talk with Jo yesterday. Apparently there is a rule at school that states "treat others like you want to be treated" and she takes that very seriously. If someone is mean to her, she is deeply hurt and upset. She won't stand up for herself or say anything back because she doesn't want to violate the rule. However, when she is at home and her sister picks on her, she is mean right back to her. They fight like cats and dogs, fists and feet fly and everything. So, I sat her down and said to her..."you don't take shit off your sister, why would you take it from some kid you barely know?" She gave me some shit about the school rule. I said "look, if someone is mean to you, you need to stand up for yourself and say something. Don't just stand there looking like you got your feelings hurt." Apparently she keeps trying to talk to some girl at school and the girl always says something like "it's none of your business". I told Josie to just give the girl a nasty look and say "whatEVER, Taliya" and walk off. Who the fuck names their kid Taliya anyway. That's almost as bad as Shaniqua. I have got to get Josie to grow a backbone.

Ironically, JR has given me the same speech about people in my life who walk on me. He says "you don't hesitate to get mad and yell at me, why won't you do it to anyone else?" and he is right. I've always been way too nice to people and have been a doormat for a long time. Fortunately, with the weight loss, my self-esteem and confidence have grown tremendously and it's easier to take that advice now. Now I just gotta get my daughter to do the same thing. Roo's already got it down...she'll get right in your face and tell you how it is. I got no worries there...til she starts getting in fights in Kindergarten next year. Can't wait!

In case some generous millionaire is out there and reading this, I want this..please buy it for me. Maybe sometime in the next few months..it sure is nice.

Not much has been going on lately...We had a bunch of snow and school was closed for 4 days last week. JoJo was really thrilled about that and I was thrilled to sleep later since I didn't have to get her up for school. Unfortunately, school is back in session tomorrow.

Friday night my friends and I got together out at the base for a small party. My friend, Val, had a birthday last week and my other friend, Sheila, had an upcoming birthday for her son, J, who usually tags along with us when we go somewhere. He's a cute little guy. So, we jumped on those two birthdays as an excuse to get everyone together and hang out. It was pretty much just our little gang: Beth, Brandy and her kids, Sheila and her family, Val, Lloyd, Jeannie and her husband, and me with my family. Val also brought her friend, Deana, who is going to be having surgery in a few weeks. She fit in with us really well which is good. We're kind of a close-knit goofy bunch. There were a lot of recent local post-ops who were invited but for some reason didn't come but no biggie. Some of you who read this also know Val, so here's a link to the pics I took. She still looks fabulous and is still maintaining her weight loss. We're having a larger all-day party on Feb 21st that should have a bigger turn-out. We've got road-trippers from all over Ohio and from our wild and crazy Indy group coming out. Our Indy group is awesome and we always have a blast when we crash each other's parties. Throw in the Chicago road-trippers and it's really a great time. I absolutely love these people!

Work is still going good. My teammate, M, and I are just about finished with our migration project and hopefully we'll be moving out to be part of the Deskside Support team soon. I'm really looking forward to that, even if I am going to be the only chick on the team. My boss said I could keep my space heater, so I'm on cloud nine there. It gets chilly in there.

I watched a couple movies the other day: Juno and Martian Child. I saw Juno was going to be on HBO so I DVR'd it since I'd never seen it. It was a pretty good movie and I just loved the soundtrack. Martian Child was really good, too. I admit I only wanted to see it because John Cusack was in it cuz I see all of his movies at some point, but the story was really good, too. I've got Oceans 13 DVR'd too but I haven't watched it yet and I DVR'd Foul Play, too, just because I haven't seen it in eons. I love old Chevy Chase movies. :)

I've been spending a lot of time on Facebook lately, too. Old friends started finding me, then people from the DS board started finding me, then family started finding me, so I've been talking to people on there a lot and doing stupid quizzes. It's kinda fun.

Anywho, I'm exhausted and still need a shower. Later!

You could say that Minnie is a real mouser!