One says to the other, "You actually bought that? No way!"
I turn, thinking he's holding a cool souvenier, and lo and behold, it's a box of condoms. This kid had just come from the convenience "nook" across from the elevators where basic toiletries, food and snacks are sold by the front desk staff. I had to laugh because I realized I was witnessing probably a pivotal moment in this kid's life. Will he remember 20 years from now where he was when he bought his first box of condoms? Guys, do you remember when and where you were when you bought your first pack? And do you remember reading every word on the box with the silliest, smuggest grin on your face while waiting for the elevator standing in a large crowd of people who are also waiting for the elevator?
LOL!
At the beginning of every marriage (or now-a-days cohabitation), every couple has to sit down and make some difficult decisions... in the form of chores. How do you divy up the housework and maintain order in something that's so new to both of you? Here's how our conversation went:
Me: I hate to empty the dishwasher. I don't want to do it.
Hubby: I hate to load the dishwasher. I don't want to do it.
Me: Wow, we truly are a match made in heaven, huh??
This arragement lasted four years.
What's the flaw in this design???
If Ronnie doesn't empty the dishwasher quickly enough, the dishes start piling up in the sink because I don't have an empty dishwasher in which to put the dirty dishes. And then I have to remind him .... honey, can you PLEASE empty the dishwasher? And of course at the point I break down and truly nag him, there's enough for two loads of dishes, so then he has to empty the dishwasher twice in one day.
Yes, we're both stubborn. I could have emptied the dishwasher myself instead of waiting on him to do it. But if it's not on my pre-defined list of chores, I won't do it. Don't get me wrong, I'll do some of his chores due to special cirdcumstances, like having friends/guests over, etc. I even did many of Ronnie's chores the week that his company laid off 15% of the work force. It was a stressful time for him at work and I wanted to keep his home life as stress free as possible. I even mowed the grass when he sprained his ankle recently. But other than that, his chores are his, mine are mine. :-)
I finally decided that I've had enough of this arrangement because I'm tired of having a dirty kitchen. So I made a deal... I'll take over emptying the dishwasher if Ronnie concentrates on cooking more, thus, leading to us eating out less. He's extremely motivated to cook when he's got a clean kitchen at his disposal. It's been a week into this arrangement and it's going well so far.
I have an inkling that Ronnie purposely hasn't emptied the dishwasher in a timely manner just so he could get out of doing it permanently. Don't guys do that? If that was his goal, whether conciously or subconciously, it finally worked.
- Mood:
motivated
( Dreams Lost )
( soap box )
OK, off my soap box now. There are so many things I could say about the miscarriage that I think I could bore you to death with them. My whole point is that I'm over it and ready to move on. I'm looking forward now at the positive things that could occur, not at the negative aspect of my dreams lost with my unborn child.
Here are some tidbits of news going on in our lives:
( tidbits... )
I'll unlock some of those old posts so that at least my "LJ Friends" can read them. If you're a lurker reading this through RSS and you don't have an LJ login, ask me and I can share with you, too, if you're that curious.
I look forward to posting more!
- Mood:
optimistic
Following
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jackieduv and jenbarbiedoll11 's leads, I'll fill out the New Year's Meme as well.( New Year's meme )
- Mood: cheerful
It's been forever since I've posted a blog, I know... While I actually haven't typed anything out for you to read, I blog in my head all the time. I think in blogs. Ronnie thinks in headlines. Every now and then he'll tell me what would have been a better headline for some sporting event in the paper.
I really think that the main reason that I haven't blogged in a while is because Yahoo changed their RSS feature on their mail page. It used to be that I could have all these RSS feeds listed, and they would turn orange when a new entry was posted. It was extremely convenient because I didn't have to make any extra effort to see if a blog was updated recently. But for whatever reason, that feature is no longer available. Now I have to use the my.yahoo page, which lists the top 5 entries of each blog, but it doesn't highlight them when they're new or anything. So now I have to scroll through each individual blog's listing to see if I've read them all or not. It's a pain. I need a better system. How does everybody else use their RSS feeds?
But I digress...
I really just wanted to share with you a nickname given to me by a few folks at work... not that I'm called this directly, but it's more like I'm referred as this when I'm not around. The person who finally told me that I had this nickname was a little hesitant before dishing on what my actual nickname was. I urged this person on by telling him/her that I've had a different nickname in the past: JLo. This person laughed and said that my new nickname is along those lines... here's the word:
culona
Urban dictionary defines it as "Spanish for woman with a big ass."
How appropriate! I'm not offended in anyway by this nickname. I view it as more of a term of endearment.
<big grin>
- Mood:
excited
Did you?
An update for Cane's count:
birds: 1 live, 1 dead, 1 half-dead
mice: 1 dead, 1 that got away, 2 live
lizard: 1 live
I'm not feeling well right now, so I went to sleep last night at 10:30 p.m. (Side bar: Isn't it sad I can go to sleep earlier on a weekend than I can on a week night?) I woke up at 1:00 a.m. when Ronnie got home from work because he was questioning why I didn't pick up the half-dead bird that Cane left for me. What? I finally got out of bed to look at it, and sure enough, there was the bird in front of the washing machine with feathers all over the place. We both wondered if Bruno got a hold of it, too. Who knows. Bruno was asleep in bed with me, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have gotten out of bed without me noticing because apparently I slept through Cane coming home with his gift. I do remember at one point waking up and staring at the clock trying to comprehend what time it was. My semi-conscious state finally figured it out I had only been asleep for a short while, so I rolled over and fell back to sleep. Now I wonder if the scuffle of the bird woke me up. Either way, I know Cane loves me.
I'm just glad Cane didn't bring the half-dead bird to me in bed.
I found out today that I passed the CISSP!!! It was such a relief to open up that email and find the word Congratulations sitting in it. Whew!
Howdy!
It's been almost a month since I've last posted anything, and my last one didn't have any real meat to it either. It was really just to brag that I beat my husband in NCAA football on the XBOX 360!
Sorry, had to bring that up again. I love you, Ronnie!
Anyway, a lot has happened in the last month, yet at the same time, not a lot.
( CISSP exam )
( Missing Ronnie... )
( Poor Bruno )
( Recruiting )
( School )
( Upcoming Vacation )
So that's it for now. I realized I hadn't posted in a while when
jackieduv called me a couple of weeks ago saying she felt like she was out of touch. Thanks for that small kick in the rear so I could keep every one else updated as well! I've written so many blog entries in my head, but never got to the computer to capture them. I hope this has been an enlightening journey into the past month of my life.Hello Everyone!
Ronnie and I have an announcement to make. Well... really, I'm the only one with the announcement....
Thank you, thank you!!
I told myself I wouldn't do this. I would NOT write some sort of cheesy Olympics-related post about whatever.
But then this happened...
Earlier today I missed the first 15 minutes of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, then watched 45 minutes before recording it so I could run errands. I got back home with a shelving unit for the garage from Home Depot to assemble while watching the remainder of the opening ceremonies. So I turned the ceremonies back on and worked on my task. After the shelf was assembled I moved it out of the way and then sat on the floor to take a break. There I was, minding my own business watching the acrobats doing flips and tricks sideways around the world while Phantom of the Opera Lady sang when Cane took that as his cue to partake in his own Olympics event -- catching field mice and bringing them into the house alive!!
Check it out:
As of right now, the video is unprocessed, but that's my first upload to You Tube, so I have no idea how long it takes to post. Sorry that the lighting was so poor... the shelving-unit-halfway-to-the-garage blocked the main light, and it didn't occur to me to turn on the hallway light above my head while my heart was pounding away trying to figure out how to get this live mouse out of my house when all my shoe boxes are in the garage. I would have to WALK PAST the mouse to get a box! Egads! (My new favorite word, thanks
jenbarbiedoll11!) And sorry for the abruptness of the ending of the video... the mouse decided to take a run for it. If you listen really carefully at the very end of the video, the mouse sqeaks right before Cane & Bruno pounced on it. At least I can hear it on my computer, and I hope it comes through on the You Tube video.
I'm starting to get calmer about the whole thing, and this time it was fun watching Cane play with his catch. He purred the entire time (you might be able to hear that, too.) With the last mouse, Bruno pounced on it so quickly that he flattened it within 10 seconds. This time I was able to get 3 pictures and 2 separate 30-second videos before that happeend. The video posted above is the better of the two.
Cane's count:
birds: 1 live, 1 dead
mice: 1 dead, 1 that got away , 2 live
lizard: 1 live
What official name would you give this First Time Richard Olympic Event??
- Mood: calm
Some of you have asked about R's work buying out 500 people. Here's a little more info.
It equates to about 14% of the workforce of the entire company, which means about 9 people in the sports department (including writers) at the DMN. Of course if some other departments have more than 14% take the buyouts, then fewer have to come from other departments, but the opposite is also true. Potentially more than 9 may have to come from the sports department.
Additionally, if too many from one department take the buyouts, and those departments need extra people to backfill some of those spots, they can choose to shift people around to provide support as needed. So R could potentially not work in the sports department anymore and get shifted to say, business, or metro, etc. If that happens, he will be pretty unhappy. R has diversified his skills and is pretty valuable to the company, but now I think he's wondering if he's too diversified to fall into the group of people who get shifted around to other departments. Only time will tell.
Those folks who choose to take the buyouts have between Aug. 11th and Aug. 20th to put their names on the list. It's a first-come, first-serve deal so that if more than 500 people put their name on the list, the company only has to honor the first 500. Additionally, the company has the option of denying your request to be bought out. For instance, last time this happened (2004? 2005?) one of the sports writers (to remain nameless) who has been there for a while put his name on the list, but the company refused him. R and his coworkers heavily suspect that he will try again this time. For the folks who take the buyouts, September 12th will be their last day.
So that's the deal. No rumors or speculations (except for the aforementioned Nameless Sports Writer) about who will or will not put their name on the list. With August 20th being the deadline, it gives folks a chance to potentially find another job before deciding to take the plunge and take that lump sum of money. Of course with the econonmy now-a-days, finding another job can be quite a daunting task, espeically in such a specialized field.
- Mood: calm
1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning:
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
I was so out of it I had no idea how long the beeps lasted. But I think it was only about 3 to 5 seconds. Ronnie came running in the room (he hadn't gone to bed yet) to survey the scene, but could find nothing wrong. Ugh! There's another smoke detector about 4 feet from it that did NOT go off. (We have one detector in the master bedroom, and then one in the hallway that leads to the master bedroom, but the hallway is so short that the detectors end up about 4 feet from one another.) The green light on the smoke detector was on, which indicated it had battery power AND power from the house.
Perplexed and a little worn out, I fell back to sleep.
2:00 a.m. Wednesday morning:
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
I think this time it lasted 15-20 seconds -- about the time it took Ronnie to run to the garage, grab the step ladder, and yank the detector from the ceiling. Then ALL of the detectors in the house let out one beep (they're all connected somehow). The smoke detector 4 feet away, again, did not go off. We're both still perplexed. Poor Bruno was wimpering in his cage. Ronnie said Cane tried to hide in the corner of the living room and ended up underneath the coffee table somehow. After yanking the detector from the ceiling, Ronnie left the battery in (so it wouldn't chirp) and placed the detector in the study by the front door so we could sleep in peace.
3:00 a.m. Wednesday morning:
I'm still laying in bed wide awake staring at the ceiling wondering if the attic was smoldering, or if the roof was going to cave in on us, or if I sent Ronnie to check on the attic if the increase of oxygen would cause the house to combust, etc. I could NOT fall back to sleep. I got out of bed, got a drink of water, looked for the green light on all of the other detectors in the house, paced around for a bit, etc. So many "what if" scenarios ran through my head. I got back in bed and tried to settle down. Just staring around the room again I saw this faint orange glow coming from the corner behind the TV unit. So I jumped out of bed again and slowly walked toward the wall, feeling my way to see if the wall was hot, imagining it is glowing orange from the fire between the walls... NOPE. Just the surge protector light glowing like it does every night.
I finally fell back to sleep when Ronnie told me that if anything was wrong, we would have heard something by now since it was well over an hour since the smoke detector freaked out on us. How comforting... but it worked. I fell back to sleep and only freaked out a little bit when the alarm clock went off.
What if the smoke detector was truly trying to tell us something? Have we now hit the scenario where the detector cried wolf too many times?? Arg! It's driving me crazy!
And in case the link doesn't work, here is the text of the article:
The severance packages go out tomorrow for the employees to review.
Yikes!
Speaking of TV shows, I'm still keeping up with Last Comic Standing. Kick-ass that the girl's still in it! Even if Iliza wasn't from Dallas, I'd still cheer for her. I'm also rooting for Jim Tabare, the celloist. Oh, and the guy who won immunity this week - Jim Dyer? Is that his name? I'm bad with TV reality names.
Anyway, we're headed back to New Orleans this weekend for Ronnie's 10 year high school reunion this time. I'm taking Monday off from work, too, so we've got the last flight out Monday night. For once, I got ahead in my hours at work, so I won't have to spend all my time catching up in my hours. I can work an almost normal schedule next week.
- Mood:
sleepy
bored"Doing what you like is freedom.
Liking what you do is happiness."
It seems like a very profound thing to say so I wanted to share it with all of you.
And the other side of the fortune says this:
Salt
huh?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shellir/
I've already missed one day, but I'm kind of new to this, so don't shoot me. It's hard to remember to take my camera with me everywhere. Maybe that will get easier as I get used to this.
- Mood:
creative
mice: 1 dead, 1 that got away , 1 live
lizard: 1 live
My worst nightmare came true. Luckily, the pets chased it down, cornered it and then squished it somehow so that it lay dead for me to scoop into a shoe box. Cane then tried to paw at it while it was still in the shoebox. I almost cried. It's time to go talk to the neighbors to see if they're having mice problems. I'm going to doubt it since they don't have a cat who roams the neighborhood. Why can't he drop them on the door mat outside??
- Mood:
disgusted
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