odds and ends

First of all, there are no pictures in this post. Alfred said that was ok.

Luckily my parents and sister are camping this weekend, otherwise I'm sure I would have gotten a text message or 2 from my mom, wondering where my posts were. Between not being able to use the internet at work and house sitting (which means I have a longer drive, unfortunately, but only by about 10 minutes) I just haven't had time. But I probably have a few minutes before I crash, so here are a few little things from the last couple of days.

• I discovered that my last day last year was July 27. My first day this year was July 28. I thought that was kind of funny.
• I got drug tested on Monday! Good thing I've been laying off the crack pipe lately. It was a good way to kill a couple of hours, because the clinic was closed for an extra hour for lunch.
  
• Lindsay and Jeff moved this morning. It's not like we hung out all that often, but we did talk on the phone or email every now and then. I feel like them moving a few hours away is so far away and I'll never see them again. But once I get my free pass to attractions we can always plan a weekend out that way!
• Oh yeah, I'm definitely getting my free attraction pass again. Ilya is pumped.
  
• Tomorrow after work we're going to look at a car to buy. It's a Hyundai Elantra. Hopefully it looks and runs as good as the pictures look (and the seller says it does) cause I want a car! And it's like a 2 hour drive, so it would suck to do all that driving and come back without a car. But we'll see, if we don't like it there's always another car out there.
• I get to listen to the radio all day now. I listened to a top 40 station on Monday. Rihanna has a lot of goddamn songs. I've been listening to classic rock since then. Much better.
• Mike just got his birthday gift today. It was shipped June 23 and was priority mail. Stupid Hawaiian post office.

I can't really think of anything else. I feel like all day I think of little things and I'm like oh I should blog about that, but then when I actually sit here and type I forget it all. Oh well. Have a good Friday!

so, how's the new/old job?

First off, the obligatory weekend recap. We went for our long walk on a different beach this weekend, and check out what I found!

It totally looks like I just found this picture on line and posted it, but I swear I really found it on the beach. There were tons of starfish too, but I decided not to take any home because I didn't want it to smell or anything. Also, I meant to mention it last week, but for the last couple of weeks Alfred has gone for a walk by himself on the days I didn't go. He walked a total of about 45 miles over the course of 9 days. The man's insane. Well, we all suspected it, I mean he did marry me, right? :)

We also made a super fancy dinner for Sunday night: roast leg of lamb, cucumber salad, Mexican avocado salad, and wine from one of the wineries we visited in Napa (we get an order of 3 bottles from them every year, it's great wine). It was delicious.

Onto the new/old job report. It's been going ok so far. Lots of people have mentioned how happy they are that I'm back, so that's nice to hear. It's been a little tough to remember all the little details of what I'm supposed to be doing, and I've had to hunt for some supplies and things. Hopefully it will all come back to me.

I even have a cute kid story already. A boy maybe 9 years old came in to buy a couple of whips, because the one he had bought several months ago was frayed from being used so much. He was all decked out, with an Indiana Jones hat and everything. When he first held the whips he was like "wow, these are really nice whips!" I said that he must be getting pretty good with the whip, and he said "yeah, and I have all the clothes too, see? My hat, my belt, and this clip to attach the whip to my belt." Then, all serious, he said "can I ask you a question? Why is there this loop on the handle?" I explained that he could put it around his wrist, or hang the whip up when he was done with it. He nodded very seriously and thanked me. He was just so darn cute.

So that's that. Hopefully it will get easier, and hopefully I can figure out enough stuff to do to keep me busy. I'm sure there's stuff I can be doing, I'm just not entirely sure what. I could always ask my boss, I guess...

my second first day

Today is my first day back at the museum. Unfortunately I'm not so sure I'm going to be able to blog from work anymore, because I'm not supposed to use the internet for personal use there. More importantly I won't be able to attach pictures. So I guess from now on I'm going to blog in the evening. Consider yourself warned.

We haven't found a car for me yet, but we're going to borrow a car from Billy (the guy we house sit for). He wants Alfred's help in selling it, so while he works on selling it we'll just use it. Alfred has found a couple of cars that we're going to look at, so hopefully I'll have my own soon.

I'll let you all know how it went tomorrow. Wish me luck!

batman!

We saw The Dark Knight last night. I really liked it. I was trying not to expect too much because of all the hype, so that I wouldn't be disappointed, and I really did enjoy it. It was 2 and a half hours long and I was actually a little disappointed when it ended. Good action scenes, no slow parts where you wonder why they kept it in the movie. Batman's voice is kind of annoying, and there were a few parts that were just completely unbelievable, but overall it was good. As I was walking out and checking my phone, I had a text from Mike saying "if you haven't seen the dark knight yet go see it."

It did make me sad to see Heath Ledger. He was just so vibrant and alive, it's so sad that he was so stupid. Yeah, they said that he died from an accidental overdose, but he did have quite a few drugs in his body, and from what I had read prior to his death he was no stranger to illegal drugs, either. Too bad, cause he was damn good looking (well, and talented, and a father, and all that. It's not too bad just because he was hot). I don't know about the whole Oscar thing, but he did play a very good psychopath. I thought he did a great job.

My mind was apparently very invested in the movie, because I had multiple dreams involving Batman last night. One of them was that I was buying a car that was connected to Batman somehow, like it had special Batman mileage I think, and I actually got up out of bed because I had to do something at the foot of the bed. It woke both me and Alfred up, at the time I knew exactly what I was doing and I think I tried to explain it to him, but gradually realized it was a dream and that it made no sense. Weird.

happy (very belated) birthday, Steph!

I'm a terrible friend. Every year I think Steph's birthday is on July 23 or 24, then every year when it gets to those dates I think wait, wasn't her birthday July 16? And it was. July 16. Too bad I can't remember the right date before it happens. It's like I have a mental block. Last year I even put it into my computer to remind myself to remember in time, but of course my computer crashed and so my thinking ahead did me no good. Steph is currently off making the world a better place with the Peace Corps. What a good person. Happy Birthday!

I miss having girl friends nearby. There were 5 of us who became friends my sophomore year when we lived in the same dorm, and then we all lived together my senior year. The last time we were all together was for Rosemary's wedding last year. That's where this second picture is from, a few of us went wine tasting the day after the wedding. Someone else needs to get married or something soon so we all have an excuse to get together! We're scattered almost as far apart as possible right now, although we were farther apart when Katie was in Australia. Now she's only in Germany. I keep hinting for guests, but no one has taken me up on it yet!

In other news, we're staying at Ilya and Mercedes' house for a couple days while they're out of town for Ilya's job. Last night Alfred and I played super Mario brothers 1 and 3 on whatever game system they have that Ilya got from his brother. I was pretty terrible, but Alfred has some mad skills, at least on 3. Man, we're cool.

it's official

I'm going back to the museum. (I had big plans to post a picture of myself in my costume today, but this morning Alfred's computer wasn't on so I couldn't get to our pictures to copy one onto my laptop. Like how I blame him? Instead you get this awesome picture of me getting eaten by a hippo at Busch Gardens, please enjoy my pasty white legs.) I met with my former/future bosses last night and worked out all the details. I got everything I wanted, with the slight exception of my old company car. So now we have to buy a car. As soon as I have transportation though I can start. I'll be heading over to Craig's list shortly, even though Alfred said he doesn't want to buy a car from there or ebay again. We'll see what happens, I guess.

So I wasn't too excited about having to go back to work today. I had such a nice couple of days at home, being housewifely and reading and playing video games and such. I rode my bike to the post office and grocery store yesterday. It was just so nice. But this morning I had to go run some errands after dropping Alfred off at the office, which meant I didn't get here until about 11:15. My favorite radio station was playing some really good songs, and I stopped at Starbucks, which I love. I ordered my favorite delicious hot drink (tall skinny caffe mocha) and they gave me a little sample of their new banana chocolate smoothie, which was really good, and healthy of course (you know, the banana). Then they gave me some special receipt that I can take to a Starbucks after 2 today and get a free drink! I'm going to be hopped up on caffeine all day long, I'll be up till midnight again. It'll be great, until I have to wake up early tomorrow morning. Anyway, my little morning jaunt cheered me up a bit. Now I'm waiting to see if I'm ditched for lunch, in which case I will head across the street to my little Mexican place to say goodbye to my friend, the owner. I haven't been there in a month or so, I hope he's not mad at me. He totally recognized me the last few times I was in there, he even remembered that I had a regular table! We have to make the most of these last few lunches I get to eat up here, I have to choose wisely. And of course, then I get to have lunch at some of my old places once I go back to the museum. Grilled cheese and tofu, here I come!

confession

I'm playing hooky today; I didn't go to work. I had told Alfred that I was hoping for some time off before going back to the museum, because last year I didn't have any break when switching jobs and I felt like that would have been nice. So, lovely husband that he is, he made it his mission to make sure I had a couple of days off this week. I get to stay home today and tomorrow, yay! I've even been productive: I cleaned this morning, played some Legend of Zelda (I beat levels 6, 7 and 8 on the second quest, almost done), exercised, and then baked some cookies.

I'm going to send them to Cathy as a belated birthday gift. Her birthday was July 1. I'm a terrible person. Hopefully the cookies make up for it. They're peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip, by the way. I've decided that those are going to be my signature cookie, so I tried out my first recipe today. They came out pretty well, but I think they could be more peanut buttery. I'll be making more, and since I can't eat dozens of cookies on my own (well, I could, but I shouldn't) I may have to send some to others to taste test. Just a warning.

Dinner Saturday night was pretty tasty - gazpacho, which we made from nice fresh veggies from the farmers market, along with some bread and a Bloody Mary.

And just as I was in the middle of writing this, our lamb meat was delivered!

# 100!

Today's a big day! This is my

How exciting! And Alfred didn't think I'd last more than a couple weeks. Ha!

Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot to say today. I need to talk to Bud and tell I'm leaving within the next couple of weeks. I'm kind of nervous about it, for some reason. But, the good news is, I'm going out for chocolate and champagne tonight!

That's what's in store for me. Mmm, yeah. I think I'm gonna get a dark chocolate passion fruit, a coffee, maybe a truffle... I can't wait!

yeah, she's cute

Xyla and I had lots of fun yesterday. We went to the park, rode the merry go round, went to the library, played on the swings for almost half an hour, then she passed out on the ride home

napped for awhile, then after she had lunch we played played played outside, drawing all over the porch with sidewalk chalk, jumping up and down in the back of their Jeep, swinging some more on the swingset in their backyard, climbing up and down the slide, going up and down the porch stairs a million times. Girl's a daredevil: she's on the swing in their backyard and keeps leaning all the way back, trying to give me a heart attack. I was waiting for her to fall backwards and crack her little head open on the ground. Not that she was swinging very high, but still.

Then I got to hang out with Lindsay when she got home. I stayed for dinner (pizza with pineapple, pepperoni, and green peppers, mmm so good) and we chatted into the night. It was great. It's so nice having a girl friend to talk to. Sucks that they're moving!

Today feels like a Friday. I don't know why, I haven't exactly had the most exhausting week. I worked half a day Tuesday, not at all yesterday, didn't get in until 11 today and haven't even done anything yet. Alfred got a bag of fresh limes from a tenant in the office building, so I'm looking forward to a margarita tonight.

house pictures!

I'm not at work today! I'm babysitting for Xyla all day so her mom (Lindsay) can work. Lindsay's husband, Jeff, already started his new job in St. Pete, so he's out there for the week and Lindsay's still working, so I got to volunteer for Xyla duty for a day! Hopefully I'll have a cute picture or two to show off tomorrow, and maybe my baby fever will be appeased for awhile (Alfred's crossing his fingers!)

In the meantime, here are the house elevations to go along with the plans I posted last week. The picture on the left is the front and back view, the picture on the right are the side views. I'm pretty happy with how it looks, we had to add a bunch of windows so it looked nicer (and it didn't feel like we were living in a cave) and I like how it came out. The stem wall at the bottom is (probably) going to be brick, and the rest is siding like our house now. I don't know what color yet, maybe we'll go with pink and blue like these pictures.

goats and sheep and cows, oh my!

Ha, I'm so original.

We finished our homemade goat cheese this morning. It took an awfully long time for not a whole lot of cheese. It wasn't much work at least, it just had to sit in a pot and then hang in some cheese cloth. It made a big mess, which of course was all my fault because I folded the cheese cloth too many times. But hey, it tasted good. We'll have to come up with some cool recipe to use it in.

Alfred's also been working on arranging to pick up our lamb meat. I never did put the pictures I took in this post, so I'll just put them up today. Two posts for the price of one! Or something.

So when we first got to the sheep area, they were all chilling in the shade and ignoring us. Then once they heard the feed bag rustling they all came charging over the hill. It was kind of crazy, like something out of a movie.

Then Alfred got to feed them. Talk about crazy! There were a lot of damn sheep, and they wanted their food 5 minutes ago. He almost got knocked over a couple of times. They'll get their comeuppance when we're eating one of them next week!


The trough in the back was supposed to be for the babies, because it was lower to the ground, but a bunch of older ones followed them. They were nuts. There was actually a sheep in the trough at the front of this picture, but you can't see it because of all the other ones knocking her down to get to the food.

We also had some pictures of the male sheep (rams, I guess) but I must not have copied any onto this computer. Too bad, because you can see their balls in the picture, and they are freaking huge.

We also got to see the cattle, one of these will be in our freezer in another month or so. Unfortunately my camera battery died right after I took this picture, so it's the only one I have of the cows.

And that's that. Come to Florida, we'll feed you and then show you a picture of what you're eating!

The Return of the Hippies

That's right, get us back home and we're all hippie, all the time! This morning we had yogurt and granola for breakfast, as we often do, but the yogurt we had today was homemade from fresh goat's milk (that we purchased, no we do not have a goat). It was a little runnier than store bought yogurt, but it tasted better. We stirred in some of the blueberry jam and granola we made on Saturday and man, was it tasty! And purple! We also had some roasted red pepper and crab soup for dinner last night, and on Saturday we had these venison burgers:

They were so good. Complete with homemade rolls, I might add. I found a new, super delicious recipe. I love being able to cook again!

Yesterday Alfred went all sorts of crazy and did a bunch of yard work, including cutting down a palm tree. We have approximately 47,000 trees in our yard, and a good portion of them are palms, which drop their fronds and make a mess and block all the sunlight so we can't grow anything. Alfred's planning to cut down several of them so we can try putting down sod and can actually have a yard. Just in time to move! Figures. Anyway he went all crazy with the chain saw while I was working on dinner, I ran outside with the camera (and my cell phone in case I needed to dial 911) just in time to catch this action shot (to the left). Not the way Alfred had intended it to fall, of course. The picture to the right is what it looked like from the dock. He cut it up into a few pieces and managed to haul most of it back up, he just left the top for when I could help him. I managed to take a shower right before he started working, so I was exempt from helping. I didn't even plan it that way, I swear!

It's always amazing how different and nice the yard looks after it's mowed. Here's the before:

If you can see it, there's a weed (helpfully identified by my red arrow) that was about 6 feet tall. And the after:

Much better! He did the front yard too, but I forgot to take an after picture, so you'll just have to imagine how nice it looks. Maybe I'll post a picture after I weed between the bricks in the walkway. Then it will look even nicer.

Alfred also talked to our neighbor for awhile (the one with the immaculate lawn, as you can see above). His son was supposed to get married in his backyard on Alfred's birthday, but - surprise! - she's pregnant. They wanted to have kids right away after the wedding, so she went off her birth control a little early, thinking it would take awhile. Ha! And get this - she doesn't have insurance. Um, duh. Might be a good idea to get some health insurance before actively trying to get pregnant. But hey, what do I know.

a new me, and a blast from the past

It is freaking boiling in the office this morning. The air conditioner isn't working again. I swear, we keep the maintenance company in business, they're out here at least once a week. One of the compressors on the roof got hit by lightening a couple of weeks ago, so they got a nice big check from that. You'd think they'd just fix it and let us be comfortable for awhile, but I guess they have bills to pay.

So I got a hair cut yesterday. Alfred did too, but he's a boy, he always gets it cut the same. His does look nice, though. See?

Anyway, my hair had gotten kind of long, and unless I took the time to dry and straighten it in the morning (which didn't happen very often, since I'd rather sleep for those extra 15-20 minutes) it looked like crap and just ended up in a ponytail. Which gets old. When I did have time to straighten it, it actually looked kind of cute and I actually liked how my hair looked, like this (from last Friday):

I told the girl I wanted it cut to my shoulders, with a couple of layers. I ended up with above my shoulders, no layers, and angled in front. Last night I thought I might like it, but this morning I'm not so sure. This is from last night, I was in a bad mood and full of beer and pie. I look ghastly, and not just from the haircut. I can't believe I'm posting this. The things I do for this blog.

In general I like it shorter because my hair has a few funky little waves in it, not enough to really be wavy but enough to not be straight, and when it's short it looks better with the waves I think. It also looks better with layers, which is why I asked for them. The crazy part is that my cut took almost an hour and a half! And it was just a Hair Cuttery, not anywhere fancy! I've gotten it cut in 10 minutes at a place like that before! She was very slow, very methodical, although I did find a few little pieces that she missed that I hacked off myself. She took so long she actually had to spray my hair down again (she washed it to start) because it was drying.

Now onto the blast from the past. Katherine, you're not going to like this. I talked to my old boss. I'm meeting with him next Tuesday to discuss possibilities. I also talked to Lindsay, and she told me that my former co-worker, Cathy, will definitely not be returning. So that's good. I'm going to come up with a list of demands, because I'm not going back without good incentive. But really, it will be really helpful if I could make more money again, especially if I can use the car again. So we'll see. I can take one for the team for a year if it means getting to a point financially where we're ready to start a family faster. Yup, it all comes down to babies!

At least Ilya will be excited if I go back to work there. I told them about it last weekend and he was all fired up, he just wants to be able to go to theme parks for free again! Which was a nice perk, I admit, and one I would definitely take advantage of more. Come visit me, I'll take you to Disney World!

on the wagon

So I write the checks for work every week. I noticed a couple of months ago that whenever I wrote a check to Alfred for reimbursement, I made them out to "Alfred," his middle name, instead of "Max," his legal first name, and the name that is on our account. You'd think I'd know how to write a check to my own husband, but apparently not. Luckily our bank takes it anyway, so I always just write them to Alfred so they don't get mixed up and go to his dad somehow.

I had dinner last night with some girls from my book club. One of the girls brought her 6 month old son, who was so cute - he was smiling at everyone, and kept staring and smiling at the girl next to him and trying to hold her hand. I had a giant, delicious burger with bleu cheese, and loved every bite. However, I am currently back on the wagon (the eating healthy and exercising wagon - I fell off for a week or so, skipping workouts, eating lots of delicious bad things like cheesecake, cookies, m&ms, ice cream) which is a good thing, because it meant I was able to resist a) the chips with bleu cheese b) the fries (got fruit instead), c) the Oreo milkshake, and d) the bakery a few doors away that a couple of girls went to after dinner, which features giant Oreo cupcakes, for one thing. Mmm, oreo based desserts. I felt very virtuous. Dang, I've been looking for food pictures for like 10 minutes and now I'm hungry. I want a cupcake. Good thing I'm back on the wagon.

I had left the office at about 5:30 for my dinner, Alfred was planning on going to his parents' house for dinner. When I called him at 7:40 as I was leaving the restaurant, they were still at the damn office! Crazy people! So I got to sit and watch TV while he ate with his family.

Also: rich people have roaches, too. There was one in the kitchen last night. I poisoned it with some Clorox cleaning spray, and Alfred squashed it. Little bastard.

two stories and a link

This happened last week as we were driving to the office. Alfred was driving, and all of a sudden slammed on the brakes and went from about 40mph to about 20.

me: What are you doing?
Alfred: It's a school zone.
me: Um, school's not in...
Alfred: Oh yeah, it's the weekend.
me: No, it's Wednesday.
(we laugh)
Alfred: Right, I forgot. I guess I got confused because they just put that flashing light in at that intersection.
me: (laughing) No they didn't, it's always been there!


The other funny thing is my dream the other night. I was dreaming that I was in the car and Alfred was loading a tray of food in at my feet. The food started to slide off the tray, so I leaned forward really fast to catch it before it hit the floor. I also apparently leaned forward in real life, because I woke myself up and was sitting straight up in bed. It took me a good 10 seconds to figure out where the hell I was. It was like something out of a movie, except I wasn't having a nightmare. Weird.

And 1 last thing. This video is funny, especially to an old married woman like me.

sorry!

I just got a text from my mom, heckling me about my lack of posts. We were out of the office all day yesterday, we were actually out of the house from 7:45am until about 9:30pm, except for about 15 minutes around 7pm when we came back to shower and change. Alfred found a tenant to rent a house that Max's company owns, so we were cleaning it out and getting it ready for them to move in, which they are probably going to do today or tomorrow. This happens to be the house that we were planning on living in, if/when we rent our house until our new house is done, so we now have nowhere to live if/when we do rent our house. Which is now listed on Craig's list, and which Alfred has gotten 2 calls about already. So things are chugging along in that department, sort of, although now that we have nowhere to move to I guess it's ok if nothing happens right away.

Speaking of the new house, I don't think I mentioned it yet but we met with a drafts person a couple of weeks ago to work on our plans. We had drawn up a plan a couple of months ago, but Alfred decided he didn't like it (you like how I throw him under the bus?) so he got a bunch of books out of the library, found a new plan we liked, drew it up with some changes to fit what we want/need, and then the drafts person got to work on it. Here's what we have so far (first floor on the left, second floor on the right):


I'm happy with how it's coming along so far. She's still working on the elevation, so when she gets that finished up I'll post that so you can see how it will look from the outside. Now if we ever get all our permits, at least we'll be ready to get started.

We had a good weekend, very busy. We went blueberry picking with Ilya and Mercedes on Saturday,
then had dinner (including a blueberry pie) and a power hour at their house. Sunday we went swimming at our temporary house,
had a delicious pizza lunch,
and then hung out at their house in the afternoon/evening. Whew!

Now that I have fulfilled my obligations and (hopefully) satisfied my legions of loyal readers, I need to get back to work. The job search continues!

happy 4th of july!

Let's take a look back through time, to the Independence Days of T&A's past...

2002: our first 4th of July as a couple. We were living in DC that summer, Alfred had just graduated. We walked around the mall and watched the fireworks from the base of the Lincoln Memorial. It was packed, and CNN was set up right next to us to record the fireworks. It was awesome.



2005: We were on our honeymoon in Spain, after Ilya and Mercedes' wedding. These pictures may not actually be from the 4th, but they're pretty close. We saw a lot of fireworks there, there were all these festivals going on and they had fireworks for every one. It was really fun. On this particular evening we joined a few of Mercedes' friends for dinner and a parade/fireworks, which actually took place right in front of the church that their wedding was in. Funny story about the alcohol I'm drinking in the first picture: it's a wine made locally called mistela, we ordered a bottle of it one afternoon with lunch and the waitress sort of looked at us funny. Turns out it's very sweet, almost syrupy, and way more alcoholic than wine. People usually have very small glasses or shots of it. And we drank a whole damn bottle.



2007: Katie was visiting, having come down to get some things taken care of in preparation of her moving down here for school. We spent the day with Alfred's parents and some friends. We got to dress up, have a watermelon seed spitting contest, and take turns trying to hit me, a moving target, with little patriotic footballs. Alfred won the seed spitting contest and was awarded a prize by Max.


Good times. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

and she's back

We were out of the office yesterday and Tuesday helping to inspect some apartments that Max's company is looking at buying. Which wasn't so bad, because it got me out of the office for 2 days and I got to wear jeans. But we saw some interesting stuff. We saw all types of apartments, from the good: a grandmothery looking place, complete with a jar of cookies on the kitchen counter, to the bad:


That's mold covering that wall, and the ceiling has caved in at the left side of the picture. If you look at the right side you can see where more of the ceiling collapsed in the hallway. We saw about 3 that were this bad, but luckily no one was living in them. It was gross.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to call my old boss about going back to the museum. I don't want to miss out on a new job opportunity by committing to the museum, but then again, I don't want to miss the opportunity to go back there either. Knowing them, though, they're probably not in any hurry to fill the position at the moment. They probably don't mind not having to pay that salary for a little while, especially with the cost of the new museum. I need to make the decision really soon though, as in today if possible. I just don't know yet.

Most people are probably excited about the 3 day weekend starting tomorrow because of the fourth. It'll be nice to not have to work tomorrow (this week was pretty awesome, really) but it's not like I get to hang out at home or anything. We're going home tonight, but coming back up tomorrow to celebrate with Alfred's parents, then spending the night again since Billy's still out of town. Their grandson was just born yesterday, so we don't know when they're coming back yet. We're going to try to go blueberry picking again on Saturday, but the farm we went to last time is out of berries for the season, so we'll see.

I don't even get to make anything fun for tomorrow. Too bad, cause that's my favorite part. I found a recipe for these frozen cheesecake cupcakes that I wanted to try, but Robyn's making the presidential candidates' wives' cookie recipes, and I think we're making ice cream during the day. Oh well. I tried on the t-shirt and shorts Robyn bought me last night (we get festive clothing for every single holiday known to man, I have socks for every holiday you can imagine) and she gave me way too much credit, they're both size extra small. They might have fit me back before I grew hips or boobs or weighed more than 100 pounds, but not now. It's a nice compliment, though!

I feel like this is kind of a grouchy post. I'm not in a grouchy mood, I just don't like having my social life dictated to me. I don't mind not being home for a long weekend if it's something I get to choose to do, but when I have no choice in the matter, it sucks.

Happy Birthday Cathy! and, a new job question

Cathy's turning old today! Well, she's already been old, but she's even older today! No, I will not reveal her age. I don't think she reads this, but I don't need her kicking my ass if she ever does. She was pretty good at Wii boxing. I of course have not sent her card and gift yet, mostly because I do not have her gift yet. I have the card at least! I'm a terrible sister in law. Sorry Cathy. Happy Birthday slaw!!

So anyway. (I use both of those words here a lot, I've noticed). I mentioned last week that I need to find a new job, hopefully sometime soon. Well, Alfred and I have been talking a bit about the possibility of me going back to the museum. I talked to Lindsay yesterday (who took over my job when I left) and it turns out she just gave her notice because her husband got a new job and they're moving. I knew she was giving her notice sometime soon, so this wasn't a surprise to me. In other words, this leaves my old job open again.

My old bosses own 3 other tourism businesses in addition to the museum, and have lost all of the office staff for one of the other businesses (other than the book keeper, who works for all 4 companies) within the last couple of months. They pulled my former coworker, Cathy, back over to that company, where she worked before coming to the museum (to replace Lindsay when she left to have Xyla), (are you following all of this?) and apparently plan to keep her over there since she wasn't doing a very good job at the museum. Ok, she sucked. She made my last year there even worse, she just was not cut out for that job. And she has a bit of an abrasive personality. So after talking to Lindsay yesterday, and finding out that Cathy would (most likely) be gone, I'm thinking more seriously about calling my old bosses and talking to them about the possibility of me coming back. I figure I can phrase it more as me coming back to help them out, rather than needing a paycheck and not being able to get another job.

The pros:

• I knew that place inside and out. It would probably be very easy to slip back into the routine and feel comfortable again.
• It would pay more than what I make now, assuming I started back up at what I made when I left (I make about 40% less now than I did then, plus I had more benefits then, including a car)
• Especially during my last year there, I was in charge. I really liked feeling important and being able to make decisions. I liked feeling competent and needed, which I don't really feel at my job now.
  
• I was burned out. Being away from it for a year, I can look back and remember enjoying my job and the museum in general. I even miss it sometimes. Maybe coming back after having some time away will give me a fresh perspective and I'll enjoy it again.
• They're building a new, larger museum across the street from the existing one. New programs are being created, old ones are being revamped, lots of new exciting stuff going on.
• I liked and miss a lot of the people I worked with. Not all of them, but a lot of them.
  

(This is getting long. (That's what she said!) Here, have a doofy looking picture of me to break it up.)
Ok, back to work. The cons:

• My former bosses can be difficult to work with. They're a married couple; one micromanages things to death, the other is so hands-off and changes his mind so frequently that it's hard to keep track of what you're supposed to be doing. Things changed a lot over the years I worked there, becoming much more rigid and adding a lot more procedures, making things more complicated than they needed to be. They've apparently become more controlling over the past year.
  
• Lots going on with a new location means lots of potential stress. Not the least of which would be finding and training enough new guides to staff all the programs. That's tough.
• If in fact Cathy does not return, that would mean I would have to train someone new to replace her. Which I don't mind doing, but it would mean longer hours and more work for me as they're learning and I'm having to do both jobs for awhile.
• There are some people that I would supervise that are difficult to work with. As in, incredibly annoying and demanding and just difficult. Part of the reason I was burnt out.
• If we do move sometime in the next year, traffic would be a bitch.
  

Another thing is that I left a year ago planning to go on to bigger and better things. I feel kind of, I don't know, I guess pathetic, like I'm coming crawling back with my tail between my legs and admitting failure. Like I couldn't make it doing something else after all. I feel a little foolish, I guess.

I just don't know how I feel about it. Maybe if I go into it assuming it's only a temporary thing, it'll be ok. Of course, I don't know how temporary it would be - the rest of the summer? The full school year? And what if I do stay a full year, do I plan to leave after that? I just don't know! Anyone care to give me some advice??

(By the way, I'm writing this Monday at about 6:30 as I wait for Alfred to finish up so we can leave. I'm going to be out of the office all day tomorrow so I'm setting this up to automatically post Tuesday. Cool, huh?)