Where have I been.. hmm cruise..electrocution..and a new job on the horizon?

Wow and it hasn't even been a month since the last entry. SEE!! I said I'd write. Actually had some interesting occurrences to warrant an entry so there.

Firstly I went on my cruise. It was quite nice indeed. The first day was just chaos. Getting there and all the mess at the port and then the hurry up an wait. Plus the lovely fact that I am extremely scared of tunnels. Big phobia of mine I've had for a long time, the one I'm scared of most is the Lincoln Tunnel...guess what our bus drove through? Yeah it wasn't pretty. I was crying and shaking and hyperventilating. Just thought I'd mention it. Once we were on the boat we wandered around taking pictures before it got crazy. It was so beautiful and there was so much to see. We got our lunch and unfortunately we dressed for morning, jeans and a tshirt were no fun on a hot day in NYC. Our bags weren't delivered to our rooms until that night. So we had lunch and amused ourselves until the boat moved. Then we spent a long time taking pictures as we left NYC. Statue, Ellis Island, bridges. I have a lot of pictures. After a late dinner we watched part of Harry Potter on the big outdoor theater. It was a beautiful night and before long we turned in. The next day it was hazy all day, very foggy, couldn't see much of the ocean. Everyday they delivered a newsletter to us so we could find things to do. There was an endless supply of entertainment and food. Had a good time at the Hairy Chest Contest. It was a decent day. The following day we were in Canada. Saint John, New Brunswick actually. We had ordered a tour and went on it around 1ish. It was alright. It's a bit of a manufacturing town so there really wasn't much touristy. Went to a couple shops and got a couple pictures. It was also raining for the majority of our time off the boat. We did manage to get one geocache as well. I was really glad to drop off a TB and to get my stamp from a whole other country! Then we were back on the boat. The next day we were at see again and it was GORGEOUS! We spent ALL DAY out on the deck in the sun. I got a bit of a burn and Rachel.. well she turned to bacon. It was wonderful. Seriously the most perfect day of the trip. Had a delicious raspberry peach daiquiri while tanning. (i gotta learn to make them..err have Shane learn to make them so he can bring them to me). And while we were eating dinner I saw dolphins.. and got them on video. It was the highlight of the trip for me. Finally we arrived back in NYC. And they started the debarkation. We waited as long as we could to get off the boat. And then we were back in the chaos. And lastly back on the bus and homeward (and the tunnel....again). It was a really good trip. I definitely recommend taking a cruise. It was so nice and everyone was friendly and interesting and from different countries. And everything is taken care of for you. Even the food (we went to a buffet every night) was amazingly good. There was such variety everyone could be happy. Part of me wishes it was longer but I think it was just right for the first one. Next time I'd want to go to a better place and probably for longer.. and with Shane. Rachel was decent company, we fought a couple times. But the whole time I wished Shane was there to experience it all with me.

So now I'm home, not much new here. Although I did just have an incident. On Monday I was running laundry and the dryer seemed to be spilling hot air into the house so I noticed the vent had fallen out of the hole in the wall. So I turned it off and climbed back. When I grabbed the hose I rippling shock ran through my body and I screamed...alot. I finally realized I was being electrocuted but my mind was saying "drop the hose!!!" and I couldn't I had muscle paralysis in my hand. After a good ten seconds I somehow let go and commenced to bawling a lot, wide mouth drool pouring on the washer. It was the scariest thing that has happened to me. I thought I was gonna die it hurt so bad. After regaining myself a minute or two later I called home. My mom came and checked on me and my dad checked the dryer over and fixed it all for me. Everything is fine now but it was terrifying. All I could think was how I could have been really really hurt and no one would have known. No one heard me screaming.. I don't like living alone. We don't really know how it happened because there is apparently no electricity that should flow through that. The only answer I've gotten was static electricity. But when I think static i think that little zap that you get when you rub your feet on the carpet. This was no zap. This was level 3 electrical shock (theres 5 levels.. 5 being death). But maybe because it's a dryer the static electricity builds up a lot more. I don't know. I'm alive and fine so whatever.

Oh yeah my other news. The whole reason I wrote an entry. I am very excited because I have a job opportunity I am really hoping is going to pan out. It's for Bank of America as a Sales and Service Specialist. The one I applied for is in Greenville. I did a little evaluation test that was really interactive and actually quite fun and yesterday got an email to call the woman. She did a little preliminary interview and asked me to fill out a background form before my phone interview which was today. Did all that and had the phone interview. It was really good. I feel my answers were spot on (and actually honest) and I'm really really really hoping I get the job. Actually the Greenville spot had been filled but there was another available in East Greenbush. I wasn't looking forward to traveling even as much as I currently am but now its more. BUT the pay is significantly better. It's 28,500 which averages to around 13.70 an hr. That would make me very very happy. Plus all benefits and 3 weeks vacation time plus bank holidays. I know I could do an excellent job there!! I won't hear anything for about a week so they can do their background check. And then it would be an interview with the bank manager but I'm really really hoping for it. I also got a call this morning about a receptionist spot at Boat and RV Warehouse. I'm not as excited for it but I have an interview there on Sat. Maybe if I hear the pay and such I'll be interested but hey.. two leads is better than Ive been doing for a long time. Anything to get out of back to school madness!! lol

So anyway that's the round up. I am missing Shane a lot. I get really really lonely and miss human contact. I spent this evening at Kane and Randi's and I had a lot of fun playing with the twins (even if I can't remember which is which.)It was just nice to have personal contact. Babies are good for that. And then I dropped in on my parents who took me out for ice cream. It was a good night. Now I should probably do some cleaning because I feel like a sad shmuck letting this place got to ruin. And then work in the morning.. oi.

Take a look its in a book

As some may know I had found a high school summer reading list from when I was in 10th grade long ago. I could have thrown it out but when I found it I thought, there must be a reason they wanted us to read these. And I am not shy with books. So I decided to keep it and read them... all of them. Considering I hardly ever did the summer reading (I was really good at googling info and making it seem like I read them..I might have read 1 of the 8 required in my entire high school span). I had a long way to go. I believe I started by reading the ones that I had written the reading journals about. Turns out the Internet was pretty useful and it was no wonder I was graded well. However it was no match to actually reading the books. I started with I believe The Bell Jar, Angelas Ashes, All The Kinds Men, Inherit The Wind, 1984 and some others. And wouldn't you know it I liked all of them! So I continued.

My goal of reading 12 books a year certainly pushes along the overall goal of reading the entire list.. which consists of 153 books. I do however, stray from the list. This year ... if I can remember I have read...
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency ~ Adams
The Turn Of The Screw ~ James
A Dolls House ~ Ibsen
The Call of The Wild ~ London
Dubliners ~ Joyce
The Awakening ~ Chopin
The Search

I don't think That was everything... but I don't remember what else there was. Of those I recommend Dirk Gently, The Call of The Wild, The Awakening and The Search. I am currently reading Candide by Voltaire. So far I like it.

Its surprisingly to me how many of the listed books I actually like particularly the ones I neglected to read but did the journal of anyway. OR if i would have liked them at all if I did read them them.. I hate being forced to read something. I was requested to read a few books last year. OF 4 I liked only 2. The 2 I liked were Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe which is now my favorite book and led me to read everything Douglas Adams has written (move over Hemingway!) And I remain extremely grieved that he has passed away and will not be writing more. And the Life and Death of Superman. I don't know how I liked it but I did lol. The other two were both Chronicles Of Narnia books and I think may have been below my level. If I read them when I was much much younger I could have liked them but I made fun of them most of the time.

I have 4 books left that I had purchased before getting my kindle that are all from the list. On my Kindle I have a good 4 or more as well (only 1 from the list). Shane likes to say that I am a bookworm and once that that my dream house would be a big library. Sometimes I agree. I hope I can transfer this passion to my children. And maybe one day the book someone can't put down is one that I wrote.

Errr.. 3 months later

So I have an excuse kinda.. The page wouldn't loud every time I tried to write something. Furthermore I couldn't remember my password for forever. So.. yeah. Still.. there is so much. The quick ugly version to catch up...

Cut my hair.. love it.

Shane and I had our anniversary.. the week before we went to Thatcher park to geocache. After a little caching and a bit of a temper tantrum bc i was hungry we went to the overlook and Shane used the sight seeing goggles. When I looked through I turned them towards him and when I looked at him he was holding a ring in one hand and a note asking me to marry him in the other.. I said yes.

Planning like a fiend since then. Actually have a lot accomplish such as basic song list and songs for special dances, color scheme (maybe), theme, i have a great idea for our save the date. we have a date picked ummm.. might have a place.. well we have one top of the list currently. chose the wedding party (even after some large uproars about it.. its my choice damn it!) AND I went to davids bridal and do believe i found THE dress.

The bad news.. Shane left this past Sunday for Romania. haven't really been able to talk to him since  couple facebook updates told me he was in Spain but that was sometime yesterday so yeah. it was really hard and i have my little drops of sadness which I'm sure will occur all summer but I'm managing.

umm the cat has been fixed and is less annoying already.. what else ummmm. i still work in my hell hole. today our district manager told us all if one of the higher ups so what a shit hole our store was wed all be fired. thus i busted my ass all day (he didn't say it to me.. i missed him.. if he had i woulda told him to do it.. put me out of my misery.) i spent the majority of the day moving desks around.. heavy desk.. glass desks..me.. they had set up a back to school display all wrong (and i don't know why it seemed for the most part pretty simple when i did it). so i rearranged all the furniture to fit it and then had to move the flimsy cardboard displays and only broke them a little.. and only broke one full length mirror (well I'm getting married on Friday the 13th.. must as well have 7 yrs bad luck too) it was ridiculous! i came home and fully relaxed myself then wrote Shane a letter.

that certainly about sums it up. umm next week i will actually going on a cruise from NYC to Canada. short cruise but I'm soo ready for a little escape. i promise ill try to update this again soon and more often. for now i have work at 9am in that hell hole yet again... yay

Zumba and Geocaching and Haircuts OH MY



fuzzy picture of us after zumba!

Well. It's been a little while. Its been a busy week. Worked a lot. Thursday I was very excited to not only have the day off but also be able to see my beloved Brookles and Miss Mim.  It had been a rough week with Shane. We hadn't been able to spend much time together in the past couple weeks and it was straining us. It made us bitter and fight. I was just glad to have a day with some friends. When the only person you get to hang out with you don't really get to hang out with and end up fighting with its no happy time. Anyway, so Thursday the 3 of us spent a few hours just catching up before Amanda got there. We then travelled into Albany (and Brooke did amazing navigating/driving) to a Zumba class. I haven't done any Zumba since that one class months ago. It wasn't pretty. While I loved the company I think the class I went to before was more upbeat and better music. Kinda made me want to get back into it too. We had so much fun together though! After the class (I was nearly died) we drove Mim to her friends salon where she got a facial. We came back to Brookes (got some delicious ice cream first).We rested for a while and chatted with the VanAlstyne parentals. They then very kindly took us to dinner. Mmm pizza and wings. It was a fantastic day. I had missed my girls so very very much and sadly now they are back down south. I miss them.

beautiful waterfall in onesquethaw creek

Friday I was supposed to work (all weekend actually.. and practically completely miss Shane). but I decided to take a mental health day and spend time with Shane before we ended up killing each other. We made up and went geocaching!!! It was so much fun. We couldn't find the first but I did take some fun pictures at that site (we'll have to go back.. the page said it was super tricky). We also revisited one that had alluded us in the past and this time got it. In all for the day we ended up with 9! We also forgot to bring the coordinates I had solved for the two mystery caches on our list. None the less the day was a success. I snagged a Travel Bug too! And on one of our caches for the day we got to sign the log right under our friends Matt and Kate!! We went out to dinner that night to Mercatos. We just wanted to try something different. We ended up none too impressed though. The salad was pathetic, a couple cucumbers and a ton of lettuce that wasn't cut up enough with no croutons. The wings had hardly no sauce and we went for medium instead of mild, no heat to them. The sauce seemed more like the oily butter they put on popcorn at the theaters. And the pizza was decent but pretty damned greasy. We probly won't be back there. We grabbed a redbox and headed home. We ended up getting Inceptions and succeeded in getting our minds blown. WHAT! No really... WHAT?! I'm still confused but I definitely did like it.

Saturday I had to work. Nothing interesting there EXCEPT that the manager that no one likes and we filed complaints against.. yeah he's transferring stores. I can't say that my action to send official complaints against him had anything to do with it but I think it might. And the even better news.. to fill the sales manager position that he will leave we are getting Mark back! My favorite manager of all time!! I'm pretty excited. My job might be getting slightly less terrible!



FOUND IT!
Yeah.. pretty sure that's a bottle of urine
oh the geocaching treasures.

Sunday Shane headed off to a dirt bike race crazy early. I headed to work pretty early too. Victor (aforementioned sales manager) called out sick.. Yeah managers aren't supposed to do that except extreme circumstances.. especially when no full fledged manager will be on, only key holders. But what can I say.. he's a professional..something..ahem. So I spent my day updating price tags. I ended up getting home before Shane. So I spent a couple hours getting really dirty in my garden. SO many roots to pull out. Exhausting! Shane got home utterly exhausted too but he did pretty good and had a lot of fun. I'm glad he got some racing in this year.

TODAY was my day off. And Shane didn't have to go back until this afternoon (he has to stay an extra day at the end of the week). So we spent the morning together. After he left I spent even more time in the garden. I got all of it tilled up. There's still some old plants against the house that I don't know if I can get out. But I can officially start planting new stuff. I still have to move all the bricks around but it's looking really good. So much work though!

How I want my hair to look! I'll bring this photo.


So the rest of my week is work filled except for Thursday. I was able to get ahold of my sister and she gave me the number for the salon she goes to in Coxsackie. So I called them today but they were closed. I left a message saying I'd like to set up an appointment for Thursday. I might get my hair chopped this weekend. I'm really excited! That sums up all the time I've missed I think. Until next time.

These Weekends Aren't Long Enough

Hi there. I is in sad mood. Shane just left to go back to base. I had to work all weekend except for today. So while he was home I was at work. I completely exhausted myself by trying to stay up later so we could have more time to actually be together. In the end it equalled about 15hours of time together for the whole weekend. And I know many people have it worse and that this summer is gonna be sooo much worse because we won't even have the weekends. But this is just draining on me a lot. And I don't really need anyone trying to make me feel better because the only thing that would make me feel better is not having to watch him leave again. *sigh*... I'm sorry.. Pity Party over.


the marinade



My eyes are doing very well. The blood spots are very very much faded. I went to a follow up exam on Wednesday and they were a little blurry then but it was just a dry patch on the eye. I asked the doctor how much my vision had changed since I never really knew what my vision was before other than 1 point away from legally blind but never knew the 20/20 perspective on it. My eyes are now 20/20-20/30 ish depending on certain things (but they'll end up 20/20 once thy level out.) and they used to be....20/400 and 20/800 in either eye... CRAZY. Definitely worth a fix.

I've been working a lot lately. Same old same old. Being worn out by it. Still looking for my escape.



already looks good

I decided to make Shane a fancy dinner for Friday night. I learned about flank steak watching Chopped and wanted to try it because it seemed quick. So i looked up a Marinade recipe and had it out for a day to soak in. Shane did the grilling on it (with my instructions) and it came out perfect. The flavor of the marinade was sooo delicious. It was a little expensive because flank steak was like $8 a lb. But the marinade was really the important part. And all in all it was like a 30minute meal between making the marinade and cooking it. We had a good Friday night. I made jello too YAY!



the finished product





Saturday after work I came home and enjoyed the sun for a little while ate some yogurt (I've decided to start eating it.. just strawberry banana) and read. And then I worked on the garden a little. I have to rearrange all the bricks as the edging. I'm cutting it's size in half so moving the bricks is a ton of work. But they look so nice all straightened up. Shane road up with Kane on their dirt bike/4wheelers. Guess they enjoyed the sunshine too. Shane and I decided to go to the movies that night. We got a late head out so We didn't have much choice. After a delicious dinner at Ruby Tuesday (omg ribs) we went to see Your Highness. It was...okay. Gross humor, stupid jokes. It wasn't all I thought it would but.. but it did have Natalie Portman damn near naked (AWESOME) and Zooey Deschanel.. so that was cool. There wasn't a late showing of Paul which probably woulda been a better pick in my opinion (but we had no clue before anyway). We came home and passed out. Didn't do much this morning. I'm about to head over to my mothers house. They've started work on my old room. So I have to pick up the rest of the mess and maybe I'll help sand or something. (and yet I still see soooo much I don't even remotely have time to do here.) Oh and Shane's sister invited me to combine my garage sale with theirs at their house so I'll be doing that. It makes it harder and easier at the same time. Easier because they have a big even lawn with parking space and harder bc i have to bring all my stuff there early in the morning and that the kids are gonna be trying to help all day.Anyway.. I guess I should get dressed and ready to head out now.

delicious



The Eye's Have It

So everyone knows, I did have some bruising with my surgery that should go away and I also have what appears to be a blood spot I'm assuming from the snipping with scissors. I'm a big fan of grossing people out so fair warning the following pictures are not for the squeamish.



my left eye.. the one she had to snip



and my right eye just has slight bruising.

And now for fun pictures of me in my "protective goggles"ugh.. im having trouble placing these pictures so whatever i dont care. they land where they land 



Terminator..what they sent me home in



Naughty librarian



these are the "regular ones"



normal librarian.. somehow



and the super fun rainbows!!!



So I See

My Lasik is done. That was by far the most horrifying experience of my life. I know everyone says that in a little while when my vision stops being cloudy and I'm all healed I will never regret it etc. Right now I don't say I regret it but I never want to do it again and if I were able to experience how it would feel before hand I never would have done it. But I am alright and I can in fact see right now. There was a slight problem with cutting the flap. The laser wasn't able to cut the flap completely so when they went to do my left eye the Dr. had to manually cut it with surgical scissors. It was the most painful horrifying thing I have ever gone through. I couldn't see but I could feel the scissors snip and I could hear them. I was never more afraid and there was nothing I could do. I moaned in pain a few times and the Dr (who I am not in the least bit fond of) said I was making it more difficult. But they cut through. The laser itself didn't hurt at all. When I sat up I didn't stop crying like a baby until I got home. It was just too much for my nerves. But it's over and I'm okay. My poor mother had to watch it on the screen. Her maternal instincts wanted to save me because she could tell it hurt, but she wanted them to finish and get it right. I'm sure I scared the hell out of all the people in the waiting room. I came out bawling. I didn't want to. I hate crying in public but I couldn't help it. I was so overcome by my fear and pain. I came home to my mothers and took a nap. I'm doing alright really. A little shook up when I think about it. And it really hasn't hit me yet that I can see. I'm still wearing glasses (protective non prescription..they're extreme cat eyes with gems.. ridiculous and hilarious there will be  picture soon.) and everything is still a little foggy. I have the follow up tomorrow morning and then work. So yeah... Things are.. alright. That's all I can really say. I don't think anyone I know had the same flap issue so no one could warn me for that. If it hadn't been for that I'm sure it would have been a better experience. In time I'll forget all about it. Right now, scary as hell.