South Carolina!!

My brother-in-law has been very unhappy with his job. He has to make 2-3 international trips each month, and it has been very hard on him and his family. So he decided to find a new job. And he found one in South Carolina!

This means that my sister and her family will be moving. This is the family that lives in Pennsylvania, that I go to visit fairly frequently. So it's kind of happy/sad for me. I'm happy that they have a new opportunity, and that they'll probably be able to buy a bigger house, and that they're staying on the East Coast. However, it does mean about a 7-8 hour drive for me when I go to visit them (notice I did not say 'if'). This also puts them about 7-8 hours from where my brother just moved to Alabama. So I'm definitely sensing a road trip in my future, when my vacation time catches up to me.

This also means that I can try to get my sis and her family to come visit me on the way south. I mean, really. How many ways are there from PA to SC? And how many of them use I-95? And just where is my house? Less than a mile from I-95??? Maybe?? Mapquest had them driving out to Frederick and avoiding the Baltimore Beltway--I can see some logic in that, but since it's only 6 minutes longer to come through Baltimore (depending on time of day, I'll grant you that), I think I got her to consider it. I also know that if they don't stop on the way here on their move south, they never will come. Too far, too many kids (did I mention she's pregnant? Due at Thanksgiving time--this makes 4), she'll never come to see me if she doesn't do it now. I don't think I'll be able to take her kids for a weekend anymore either, it's just too far. Knowing that they wouldn't be staying here forever has pushed me into going to visit them as frequently as I could. When they were in NJ, I went once a month. In CT, I went once every other month, since Southwest flew from Baltimore to Hartford very cheaply. I'm kinda hoping I can find something similar from BWI to someplace in SC. Hmmm, I have a friend who's a pilot, maybe he can help?? Offer advice, at the least! Anyway, when they first moved to PA I went fairly frequently, but it's been tapering off for the last year or so. I'm so grateful I've had this chance to get to know my sister, my brother-in-law, and their kids. I have them for Christmas this year, so I'll be going down there for that. Unless the airline thing comes through, I probably won't be going there as much as I have to PA. I just don't drive long distance like I used to (I've started falling asleep at the wheel, not good). But maybe for the occaisional long weekend. And holidays :)

Thank you!

I did have a really nice birthday; thank you for all the well wishes :)

It was a very nice day. At work the last meeting of the day (a 2-hour mind-numbing afair) was cancelled, so I did take off a little early. Checking my email frequently I got to see all the birthday wishes everyone sent (probably a little shameless of me to advertise, but I really did enjoy all the happy thoughts sent my way). I went to a friend's for dinner and then got to play with her girls for a few minutes. Then home to find some treats had been left for me and another friend dropped by to leave some more. So lots of yummy treats for me! I got to talk to a brother (the nice, very forgiving one), and my dad (who promised me that my present was in the mail).

Thank you again, so much. Without my friends, it would once again have been just another day. Hugs to everyone!

happy birthday to me!

I have a little song running around in my head:

Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday,
Happy Birthday to me!

I bought some cake last night at the store, and I'm going to make dinner for me tonight and eat cake and ice cream (Ben and Jerry's Creme Brulee--oh, so yummy!)tempting to cut out of work early and go out to eat but I think I really should go to an HOA meeting this evening so might as well stay here).

I had a party of sorts, my friends had me over for games cookies and ice cream last Friday night (so fun!) and I got to go to the Ren Fest on Saturday with one of the same friends and her family. The 5-year old REALLY loved Fight School (I knew he would *g*) and I got to keep the 7-year-old for a while just me and her. That was very fun. We went to see Robin Hood, the Joust, and E Muzeki before wandering back towards the gate and looking through all the shops. I even bought two shirts from a Master Weaver. I'm going to have to get some more next time I go, I love them!

Sunday was normal--got up early enought, but then took a nap (I ask you, a NAP??? I AM getting old!) so I still was late to choir practice. Was starving by the end of church, but was fortunately assisting in Sunbeams and they had snacks so I didn't die. Got home (still starving) and had leftover pizza (from the night before--yum!) which is really good warmed up in the toaster oven, I must say.

Monday I had a raging headache by the time I got home so I didn't do a whole lot. I did manage to watch the three tv show premiers on NBC last night, though, and I liked them. Chuck was funny if a little predictable--loved seeing Jayne from Firelfy again (I know he has a real name but I forget it--oh yeah, he's a Baldwin). Heroes is going to be good this season, I can just tell. I love Hiro! I think he's my favorite! Journeyman was really good too--I wasn't sure if I would like this one or not, but I do. So my Monday night viewing schedule is now 'set' :)

Tonight after the meeting I'm going to come home and maybe watch Lincoln Heights. I mostly liked it last year, but I don't know about this year. It's basically a show about a family but gets a little scarey since it deals with them trying to make their neighborhood better (it's a really bad neighborhood--the dad is a cop and got a deal from the city to be able to afford a nice house there). Then I'm going to tape Eureka (sci-fi channel) and watch House. I never really know what to expect from House, but this year one of the (probably temporary) characters is supposed to be LDS, and I just want to make sure they do it right. Interesting that Mormons have been showing up on TV lately. Very. Even Gilmore Girls had a couple LDS references.

So nothing crazy, but I am in a much better mood than I expected. The Prozac musb be working *g*. I may go to dinner and a movie on Friday night, and go someplace where they sing to you for your birthday. I think that would be fun. Anyone want to come?

Something to get your mind going

a friend emailed this to me, and I though it was good enough to share... and I hereby tag everyone who reads this! :D

SCATTERGORIES...it's harder than it looks! Copy and paste into a new email.
When you are done, send it on, including to the person who sent it to you.
*Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following... *they
have to be real places, names, things...nothing made up!
Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st
initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

What is your name? Julia

4 letter word: Just

Vehicle: Jaguar

TV Show: Just shoot me

City: Jacksonville

Boy Name: Jude

Girl Name: Jamilla

Alcoholic drink: Jallepeno Schnops (I have a friend who drinks it--ugh!)

Occupation: Jet fighter pilot

Something you wear: jacket

Celebrity: Julia Roberts (that was too easy!)

Food: jicama

Something found in a bathroom: jackets on the floor

Reason for Being Late: just took one little shortcut...

Cartoon Character: Jane Jetson

Something You Shout: Just you wait!!

my Dream house!!!

How did they know???

Unfortunately I can't get blogger to display it, so you'll have to go here: http://julia0925.livejournal.com/63921.html#cutid1

I wish the dots were pink...

got bored of my old template, tried to find something new, was thinking I wanted something pink or purple-ish, but there's not a lot of selection in that color. Someday I'll have to sit down and make my own template, but until then, there are dots. I just wish that they were pink.

Been busy at work lately. Lots to do to get ready for the Big Review coming up the first week of October. We have a final flip-thru this Thurs and Fri, which shouldn't take too long since we don't have to present our slides, just flip through them and mention the things that are new. Since I have a Red Risk to present, I got to present that part at yesterday's team meeting. Silly me, I included in that presentation information that I had recieved from the instrument teams. I wanted to make sure I had understood what they had told me. Some of the teams were very instructive and helpful. One of the instrumenters--and of course he had teleconned in so I wasn't even sure who he was--started nit-picking about the slides themselves. I finally told him that I wasn't going to update those slides because they were never going to be seen again. Sigh. We were finally able to move on, and I didn't get a lot of grief when I finally threw up the graphic of the timeline. I hope I handled that appropriately. It's hard to know since my boss wasn't there (he's at a conference in California this week), and I don't think anyone else would give me input on how I did. Although, I imagine that if I really screwed up, I would be taken aside and Talked To.

In the meantime, a Yearly Event is approaching that tends to make me more crazy than usual. This year is worse because it's a Milestone Event, and I always promised myself I'd stop being smart-alec-y about my age on this particular milestone. Yes, it's my birthday. Always dificult because my family is usually far away. I have three sisters that remember me on my birthday (and I remember theirs), and if I'm lucky my Dad will send something before the end of the year, although since I did see him in July we can just count that. My brother already wished me a Happy Birthday, and I've even recieved a couple of cards (more if you count the stores that are giving me discounts if I spend my birthday money in them). It's also a reminder that it's one more year closer to the time when I will never be able to have children. In a way it's like a little death every year.

This year seems a little worse, because this year I leave the 30's behind forever. I feel like I should have a party, but I don't know when I could have it, and it's weird throwing a birthday party for oneself. I suppose it would be ok if I told everyone not to bring presents, otherwise it just seems lame. But if I did have a party, I would have two cakes. The first would be a tombstone with something like "RIP 30's" on it, and the second would be a celebration cake with lots of sprinkles and curlicues, "Forty and Fabulous". And I would invite Everyone. My poor house would be too small to hold everyone, but I'm sure only about 10 people would show up anyway. Well, maybe more. I did have quite a few people come to my open house last January.

So if I seem mopey over the next week or so, now you know why. Once I get out of my poorme stage, I'll be more cheerful again I promise. In the meantime, I'll just try to distract myself. Shouldn't be too hard this weekend, since My Friend and her three kids are braving the Renaissance Festival with me! It is Adventure Weekend, so that should be very diverting :D

And in the meantime, there are dots. Even if they're not pink.

More on Meyer

So last week book club was all about Eclipse. I mentioned this article: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20049578,00.html
(Sorry, Cami, she states that she really is writing for 12-year-old girls)
I've been passing along to my sisters and to my star wars email group that they should try reading this series (always passing along that mothers should read before daughters do).

I still feel that Eclipse wasn't as good as Twilight. Bella annoyed me, the triangle annoyed me, and I really hated that I found the pattern of the books:
1) Bella moping around feeling miserable and hating herself for 3/4 of the book
2) Mad excitement running around the country or to another country or even out in the country trying to save Bella from being eaten. (oddly enough this part always brings me back into the book--I really do like my excitement)
Twilight kept my interest, New Moon did a pretty good job, but Eclipse? Well, it was ok. I'm kinda thinking both Jacob and Edward can do better...

My sister Beckie has now read the entire set three times. I think she likes it almost as much as Harry Potter (she read OotP so many times she had to buy a new book because the old one fell apart--literally and without help from her children).

a little bit of this and that

thanks, everyone, for the support on Friday. Considering what Kellie was going through, I really have no right to complain, as Joni says. And yes, of my four sisters, the one mentioned knows who she is. My brother (who reads my blog but rarely comments) knew exactly who she was. A much kinder person than I am, I'm afraid, as he always says that she means well. Yeah, right, tell that to my ex-sis-in-law that my lovely sister tried taking her kids away from. Like I said, Mike is a much better person than I am.

My presentation went... well, at least it's over now. Sort of. It was the 'dry-run' for the 'flip-thru' that happens just before the real thing, so I only have to do it two more times. Lucky me, I get to cover one of the very few hot topics, and the only real 'red' risk that we're carrying right now. Sigh. So my presentation went longer than it should have, but mostly because we had to go over the entire commissioning timeline and make sure we really did not fit into the 45 days we've been allotted. So I get to work on the presentation some more this week and try to fix the flaws in it.

Saturday I overslept again--I'm sensing a theme here. I did make it to my RPG group before they killed all the undead that we were fighting, so that was something. We managed to destroy the Heart of Darkness that we were after, although it was so hot in my freind's sunroom my friend started being concerned I might get heat stroke or something. I used to refer to myself as a Child of the Desert, but I may have been in Maryland too long. Or maybe I just really needed to eat some salt since all I was drinking was water and I may have flushed out my system. Probably a good thing I did not go to the RenFest then. Went home and mowed my lawn--after sunset. Watched Capricorn One, which I hadn't seen before. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it was really good. Far more suspenseful than I was expecting.

Sunday I did NOT oversleep--I made it to ward council, to church, to my meeting in Germantown, and then home again where I worked over my finances and realized that I simply must not spend any money this week (I get paid on Friday). I still blame the dogs--not without good reason. The Good Dog Rescue person I was working with told me they had torn up my check. Well, they hadn't. They cashed it. I didn't have enough surplus to cover it, so my overdraft protection kicked in (there's a reason I have it set up that way). So now I have to figure that out.

So not a terribly crazy weekend, but after stepping on the scale Sunday morning and realizing I gained 10 lbs in the last 3 weeks, I have three new goals. 1) add exercise back into my life. 2) Portion control! 3) go to bed earlier! Wish me luck!

dizzy, dopey, dreamy day

Had the worst dream last night. For some unknown reason I was living at my Dad's house (still had my berry-red Saturn ION, though). My sister, the one I really don't care for, had come to visit with her kids and a new baby. Not sure it's possible for her to *have* any more babies, but this was a dream; work with me here. She kept finding the lamest reasons to not let me hold her baby. I asked politely several times. She finally wrote me a rather nasty note saying that she would never trust me with her baby, that Dad had told her how I treated new-borns, and to stop asking. I was confused. I couldn't remember a time I had been anything but careful and sweet to babies, so I had no idea what my Dad had told her. He of course wouldn't tell me, and I remember thinking I needed to have them both talk to my friend Brenda, who did trust me with *her* baby. I woke up around that time, feeling a little sick at heart and more than a little like I had been drugged. Not sure what I ate last night, but no more eating after 9:00pm. The maisma has stuck with me all day long. I have to go give a presentation soon. Maybe I'll head over there early and try to get in a nap...

Lazy, lazy weekend...

Had all these plans for this weekend. Was going to go shopping, go to the movies, go to the Renaissance Festival...

I did mow my back yard, mostly. My friend came over and we worked on Quiet books for a while. I even managed to get prepared for my SA Committee meeting tonight. For the most part, though, I read. I read one book. It was an 800+ page book. And it was quite good. "Outlander", I forget the author's name. I stayed up late Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night reading. Spent most of Saturday reading, forbade myself to read on Sunday so I'd get something else done. Spent most of Monday reading too, and finished it. Stayed up that night too, but not quite so late, and on to the 2nd book in the series by that time. You see, this poor woman had stepped through two standing stones in Scotland, in 1945, and came out, still in Scotland, but in 1743. I had to see if she got back to her century before I could put it down. Didn't actually find that out until the second book, though. Course, the love story, which was the main part of the whole story, was very intense. I got a little tired of her doing silly, 20th century things like walking off by herself, getting in trouble, and having her 18th century husband (initially a marriage of convenience) rescue her. The last time she was able to rescue her husband, though, so that was good. She was married in 1945 and had a lot of anxiety about the propriety of her being married in two centuries--she didn't want to get married but that was the only way to protect herself from the evil 6xgreat-grandfather of her 20th century husband (who was a verra nice man, but his ancestor wasn't). So yeah, I'd have to recommend this book, and thank my sister for lending it to me. whew! Luckily she leant me the second one as well, so I'm set for a little while. And speaking with a Scottish accent. Does anyone else do that? Get so involved in a book you end up talking like the characters?

Someone at church asked me how I was doing, and I said "I'm here". Given the late nights, it was a bit touch-and-go when I hadn't even gotten up at 11:30am on Sunday morning. Good thing it was Fast Sunday--didn't have to worry about eating. Kinda the same sleeping-in problem on Monday, which is why I missed out on the Renaissance Festival. Oh well. I have a few more weeks before it disappears for the winter... They're going to take away my 'rennie membership', though, if I don't stop sleeping through the festival!