Thank You Internet!

Gotta love the internet.. it really makes things SO much easier to blow a chunk of my paycheck without really having to travel anywhere.

I was checking my yahoo mail this morning when I saw a notice from Old Navy about their winter stuff...YAY! I was just talking to Eric last night about how I really need to get some winter type clothes considering Belgium is gonna be in the mid 30's when we move there. Most of the clothes I currently have are either too big on me, or are meant for California type weather, not SNOWY / FREEZING weather. So, I decided (after combining forces with Eric) that I'd get a few outerwear pieces just to up my arsenal when it comes to battling the cold. The damage wasn't too bad, but it'll help me get by if I layer my clothes :) I'm just super stoked on the pea-coat and insulated hoody! As for the rest, I'll see how it fits once it arrives, otherwise I can just return it all when I head up to Salinas in a few weeks.

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Beast of Burden

First off..I have my brand spankin' new Skull Candy headphones on ... I LOVE 'em! Best sound quality I've had in a long time for a very reasonable price. I mean, I love BOSE and all, but for the money you gotta spend for a decent set of BOSE headset, I could put John through a semester of college. So, I'll enjoy my Skull Candy in the mean time :)

So yeah... life kinda got thrown into over-drive within the past week. Eric received a notice from our next base that they're needing him there sooner than anticipated. Rather than gracing Belgium with our presence in June, we'll be busting down their door in February. Whee!!

Since last Monday, everything has been a tad bit on the stressful side. Eric's been running around the base like a chicken with it's head off to start the whole out processing chain of events, but it seems like every freakin' snag along the way pops up. I know I know.. it's the Military and I shouldn't expect anything less, but STILL!! Fuuuuuuuuuuuck! We originally got these orders back in February of this year.. right? So, we got our passports taken care of (I already had mine & just had to update my last name) which was a process in itself considering John had to get additional paperwork done. Since Johns parents are divorced, his mother needs to give permission for him to leave the country..which involves a notary to complete the passport process. That took a little bit considering she lives out of state and was in transition to a new state/city/house. Once we got all that tied up, we were good to go. Well now we need ANOTHER type of passport called a "No Fee" passport. It's basically for John and I to live in Belgium since we'll be there with government orders. Otherwise, I'll never use that thing while we travel to the neighboring countries. Kinda stupid if you ask me. WELLLLLLLLLLLLLL now Johns mom has to sign yet another form to give permission. It's just irritating that NONE of this was mentioned to us MONTHS ago when we started all this crap! BLAH! Now we're almost 100 days out from our departure date... we still need to get the No Fee stuff dealt with (even Eric's sponsor and the 1st shirt at our new base is baffled by it), apparently there's medical stuff that has to be addressed, dental appointments because lord knows we need good teeth to fly to a foreign county, get our flight shit dealt with, figure out how we're getting the dachshunds over there, packing our house, shipping the Xterra...blah blah blah blah. I know there's tons of other Military families that's done all of this like pros, but I'm just at a loss as to what the hell I have to do since there's forms for EVERY little thing you wanna get done. Everything revolves around schedules...it's just irritating.

In the midst of all the BS we're dealing with, my job isn't making things any easier. To be more specific, the owner is a complete dick. He's still being a flat out jerk to anyone in his path..it doesn't matter how much you bust your ass, its never good enough. I finally snapped yesterday when he was nit-picking over the most trivial bullshit ( me ordering an additional movie for a store that constantly sells out of that specific title). "Is anything I do EVER good enough? HONESTLY... give me a break!" .. he basically told me that it'll never be good enough and that I'm worthless. Yay. I keep having to remind myself I "only" have four more paychecks left with them till I leave, but MAN, that feels like forever! AGH! Oh yeah, let's not forget all the interviews I had to do for my replacement. Out of all the people we interviewed, there were only two potential candidates, and one of them wasn't up to the standard my supervisor wants. The other guy is so overly qualified, there's no way he'll get paid what he's wanting. Then my supervisor tells me today that she's not really sure she wants to hire someone to take my position... SO WHY HAVE ME WASTE THE TIME INTERVIEWING PEOPLE??? Shit! So, just for the sake of keeping busy, I'm redoing my entire filing system so it'll be a little easier for the next person to find anything / everything they're gonna need for accounts / orders / everything to do with my job. I'm pretty much on the edge of saying "Fuck this" since I really have a lot to get done before we move and things with work are adding unnecessary stress.

"ONLY" 61 more days left at my shit hole job!

*Think happy thoughts* Think happy thoughts* Think happy thoughts*

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Good Things

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.... I finally got a moment to plop down and blog! Whee!!!

Lesse..the last time I posted, it was on Thursday night after I got all settled into my Aunts place. Time to fill you in on everything else that's happened in the mean time considering I'm already back in California.

*Friday*

Despite the fact I really wanted to sleep in, everyone was already up and shuffling around the house (there's wood flooring) so I can hear EVERYTHING at the grand time of 6:30am. Keep in mind, I was up till 2:30am talking to Kendall (my cousin) about his life choices, life's events and other things he wanted to talk about without catching flack from the rest of the family.

After hitting up Country Cousins for breakfast; Dad, Uncle Sonny, Uncle Tim & I were determined to go fishing! The last time we attempted fishing (5 years ago), the motor in the boat happened to die right in the middle of the lake and it was just a total nightmare. Dad was livid, threw a huge piss fit and always bitched about how the trip was a total waste. WELLLL now my Uncle Sonny has a pretty nice boat to hit the lake with so NOTHING can go wrong! YAY! When we finally made it out to the lake, it was around noonish but it was absolutely GORGEOUS out there!

There's a good / bad thing about Uncle Sonnys boat... it has a little sonar in it to determine how many fish are in the area. Pretty cool right? Well, it was cool to see how many fish there were around us, but it started to become rather irritating to see THAT many fish yet catch nothing.

The whole time we were on the lake, we were trolling. My Dad is really into bait fishing (just sitting and relaxing) but Uncle Sonny and Uncle Tim insisted on trolling since they "always" hit their limit within an hour. WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL..... 6 hours later and nothing to show for it..here's my Dad...the happy camper:

After all was said and done, Uncle Sonny ended up catching 2 little rainbow trout that we ended up bringing back with us & released into the pond that my Aunt & Uncle have on their property. Once we were back home, I HAD to take a shower considering we were in such a hurry that morning to get breakfast and hit the lake, my personal hygiene was tossed out the window (yuck).

Kendalls' girlfriend came over and I had a chance to meet her. At that point, my headache was already in full swing and I actually slinked off to bed without really saying anything. I was really tired and everyone was pretty engulfed with "Iron Man" on the mini big screen they have in the living room.

*Saturday*

Today's the day!! It's the big rumble between the hedges! The Centralia Tigers verses The Chehalis Bear Cats!! It's the 101 year rivalry game! Can you tell I'm a little excited?

Last year when we attended the game, it was flippin' freezin', raining non stop and the wind made it so much colder! This year, it was sunny, barely any clouds in the sky..still cold, but it was totally do-able compared to last time, lol. I was keeping my fingers crossed for Kendall and his team considering it's his Senior year... you wanna go out with a *BANG*, especially when it's a rivalry as massive as this. A few days prior to the game, Kendalls attitude was not really stellar..it was actually quite disappointing to hear such negativity about his teams spirit and confidence. The local news paper even dubbed the Tigers as the "under dog" considering the game they had played the weekend before was awful (offensive wise). While everyone else in the family was giving him rations of shit for being so negative, I just told him this WILL be the game he'll always remember for his highschool football "career". If anything, just have fun with it because that's really the most important part.

Well, looks like something kicked Kendall and his team in the ass considering they won the game :) They beat the Bear Cats 21-3, a few interceptions, sacks.. they were on fire and did an AMAZING job!

Once the game was done and over with, we headed back to the house since I needed to attempt to get rid of the awful headache I had. I maybe passed out for...hmm...30 minutes until my Dad, Aunty and Uncle Tim wanted to head out to the Olympic Club. I've always wanted to go there to check the place out considering my Dad always rants and raves about it. I just wished I had felt a million times better since I felt super sick to my stomach, the headache made it hard for me to hold any sort of conversation and here I am sitting in a BAR. The place was really cool and the appetizers were most excellent.. I just felt awful the whole time we were there :( When we got back to the house, I crawled right back into bed with some cold packs in hopes the headache would go away... it didn't, but it was manageable so I was able to hang out with my cousins a little more.

*Sunday*

I got up at the lovely hour of 4:30a to get ready for the flight home... MAAAAAAANNN I didn't wanna go home! Don't get me wrong, I wanted to head home because I missed Eric and John like crazy, but I just love how Washington has pretty landscapes, people are NICE..the list can go on and on. Once Dad and I said our goodbyes, Aunty rolled us out to Portland International Airport so Dad and I could do our checkin process. Luckily, I had carry-on luggage only so I didn't have to bother waiting in line to get things checked in. Not to mention, I was able to do "self" check in and managed to upgrade my seat to First Class, yay! Tell ya what...First Class is an entirely different atmosphere! The flight attendants are even more attentive to you, bigger seats, more drinks... I loved it even though I obviously stuck out like a sore thumb (everyone was dressed in business attire) all the while, I had jeans and a t-shirt.

After a 2 hour layover in San Fran, I finally made it back to San Luis Obispo by 3pm to see Eric and John pressed up against the chain linked fence to see my arrival. I missed them SO much!! I got a massive hug from John and lots of love from Eric... I guess I should go on vacation more often :)

Sorry things are so spastic in this post, but I seriously have a hard time remembering EVERYTHING that happened...besides, if I put in ALL the detail to every little thing, you'd be here forever reading and reading and I'm on the verge of carpaltunnel as is ;)

I'll post tomorrow about some of the other events that've been going on since I came back from vacation!

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And The Cradle Will Rock...

Wooo HOOOOO... it's been a LONG day!



I'm here in Centralia, Washington visiting my relatives for the next few days :)



My day started at 2:30 this morning... and man, what a day it's been! Eric drove me to San Luis Obispo (it's about an hour from where we live) since that's where my flight was departing from. I hit the flightline at 6am on the dot and caught my connecting flight by literally 3 minutes in San Francisco. I managed to entertain myself throughout the flight by rockin' out to my Zune in addition to playing some Tetris on my Nintendo DS. I think the guy that was sitting next to me was staring at my game the whole time.... ya know that feeling you get when someone's watching you? Yeah, that's the feeling I had... wasn't really a fan of it. I mean, I'm not really a fan of people being in my personal space...and airlines are definetely anti-personal space.



Once I landed in Portland, Oregon.. I gave my Aunty a heads up that I landed and was expecting to wait around a little while considering my Dad was also going to be landing within the hour ( he ewas also flying in but from San Jose airport). Well, Aunty informed me that my Dad had missed his flight. I thought she was joking since this whole week up till the day we were gonna fly out, I had kept telling Dad "Remember: San Jose. not Monterey"...last year he misunderstood and thought we were flying out of Monterey rather than San Jose...so at that time, we missed our flight. Turns out he left early in the morning to get to San Jose airport and traffic was a total nightmare, not to mention, the parking shuttle was running extremely slow so he wasn't able to make his flight...he literally missed it by 20 minutes between the shitty traffic and lack of shuttles for the parking structure. So in the mean time, I had to wait in Portland Airport for my ride since Aunty was running a lil' late and Dad wasn't going to be landing until 2pm...several hours way after I landed.

In the mean time, Aunty and I did some retail damage considering we were waiting for my Dad in a state without sales tax. WOO HOO!! I ended up getting Alexandra's birthday present in addition to a massive birthday card that sings silly stuff, picked up Johns birthday present since his is coming up on November 11th. After all that, we ventured over to the Burlington Coat Factory and I scored on a really nice wool peacoat... we really don't have those available in California considering it's really never cold enough to offer those types of jackets. Plus, I was wanting something that'd work fairly well for me in Belgium. I have one other nice winter coat, but it's white so I'm afraid I'd get it dirty. So, I got the peacoat! It's a graphite gray color, has a hoody and it's a double breasted front...LOVE it! Definetely kept me warm :)

When Dad finally arrived, we swooped back by the airport, picked him up and headed out to pick up Alexandra's birthday "cake". It was actually really cool...a ton of cupcakes formed together to look like "16" in green with black dots (her favorite colors). Once that was picked up, we gathered up Uncle Sonny and Uncle Tim & rolled off to Alexandra's volleyball game which was a little over an hour away. I gotta say... FALL / WINTER here is GORGEOUS! The leaves look so beautiful especially when it's altering every other tree (yelloweee/red/green). Then you see the colors near the lakes we passed and man... I wish we had that in California! Where we live on base, there's NOTHING like that. Just dry brush and fire hazards everywhere...really sucks :(

We ended up catching the end of Alexandra's volleyball match & surprised her with the cake. Got some pictures of that and hung out for a little while. Rolled out to some Pizza Hut in Aberdine (I think that's the town). The houses there cracked me up since you'd see some really beatiful little homes, then right next door you see one that's all run down and cracked out. Didn't make any sense to me!

After dinner, we rolled back to the house...all the while I'm hearing all these incriminating stories about the things my Aunt and Dad would do when they're kids. Half the stuff they were talking about would be highly illegal now a days, but then again, times are definetely different than how they used to be back then. After about a good hour of just constant stories, it totally gives me a different view on my Dad, Aunt Vickie and Uncle Tim, lmao.

Alexandra ended up scoring a 120g iPod Classic, $125 worth of iTune gift cards as well as some movies she was wanting. During the course of her opening her presents, I was getting blinded by the onslaught of pictures everyone was taking of her. I still see spots in my vision!!

There's more to come within the next few days... I just figured I needed to blog what's happened thus far considering I have the memory of a gold fish and won't remember half of this stuff by the time I get back to California on Sunday afternoon.

Much love!

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Oh goodness...

Lesseeeeeee...the last 24 hours has been a bit interesting for me...

Eric calls me at work yesterday with good news. I mean, it's good news and kinda not good news. We were originally scheduled to PCS (Permanent Change of Station) to Belgium in late May 2009. Weeelllllll... he called to inform me that he received an email from a personalist from USAFE stating that they're going to be short manned in January & if he'd mind being bumped up to move sooner. It's funny that this popped up considering he and I just happened to talk about trying to move sooner since he's officially been at Vandenberg for 5 years now. We just toyed with the idea of leaving sooner considering I still have stuff to deal with regarding my moms estate, I had a surgery scheduled for January 2nd and we STILL need to go through stuff that we're wanting to keep / get rid of. Now the surgery is canceled since I won't recover in time to leave, Dad has to pick up the pace on the estate probate and Eric will be bulldozing through a lot of stuff this weekend while I'm out of town. So...now the rat race begins since we had 4 months of prepping for the move taken away from us. LOTS of stuff to do... it's a little overwhelming.

Work wise... I was conducting interviews starting at 8am all the way up to 4:30pm today every 30 minutes. It's a little funny that my work is NOW scrambling for my replacement even though they've known for months that I'm leaving. By the time someone is hired, I'll have 2 months (maybe) to have them trained up to the level that I'm currently at. My job is really fast paced, A LOT of computer work is involved as well as juggling multiple things at once. Let's not forget that there's A LOT of stress. I was honestly amazed with some of the applicants I dealt with. I mean, isn't' it common sense / knowledge to "dress to impress"? Don't look as is you literally just rolled out of bed.. or give me a resume that appears as if a ten year old filled it out for you. For example, a gentleman I interviewed today wore Hawaiian board shorts, a tank top and flip flops...ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Another gentleman was upset that our dress code doesn't allow shorts. Uh..alright. ANOTHER one had massive mis-spellings throughout the entire resume yet was happy with the 2.5 GPA he maintained in high school...WHAAAAT? Out of all the applicants I interviewed today, only 1 wore a dress shirt, slacks, neck tie and dress shoes AND was prepared with an additional resume. That's the ONLY one I'm interested in hiring even though he doesn't have much of a back round affiliated with the job requirements... he still seemed more competent than the others! I swear.. it just boggles me how applicants just don't seem to care when it comes to interviewing with a potential job. AGH!

Tomorrow's my Friday and I'm EXTREMELY excited to go up to Washington to see my auntie as well as cousins :) My cousin, Kendall, is a Senior in high school and he has a really huge football game this weekend. Not to mention, October 23rd is my cousin Alexandra's birthday...which happens to be the day I'm going up there. I've been in desperate need for a vacation & this is definitely is going to appease the need to get away from work!

Ok, time for bed... my sleepy pills are kicking in!

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Days Go By

Today's one of those days where you just sit, relax, and enjoy the lazy day. Here I sit with two of my weenie dogs passed out on me and it makes me think how simple life is for them. Honestly, it really is. Wake up, eat, sleep, play, sleep some more... I wish my life was so simple, lol. I just love these little guys because they love us unconditionally. No matter how rough your day is, your pet knows how to make everything better whether it's a simple thump thump of their tail, or them scaling the couch just to sit on your lap and snuggle with you. I appreciate my dogs because they make me want to be the person they think I am :)

Earlier this morning, Eric and I flopped on our bed just taking in some of the down time we finally had. John had a friend over last night for a sleep over, so I've been making sure they have enough snacks / drinks / food that they might want. All the while, trying to keep the house in order so I don't have to invest an entire day to cleaning once again. As we were laying there, it dawned on me that he and I have been together for over 2 years now. It genuinely doesn't feel like we've been together for only 2 years... feels like a lot longer. IN A GOOD WAY! I couldn't imagine my life without Eric or John. Given the turn of events that have happened within the last 2 years, especially this last year, I'm so grateful for having them in my life. I could go on and on about them, but there really isn't enough ways for me to express my total appreciation for the simple things they do to enrich my life. So, as I laid on the bed and gazed at Eric, I just thought of all the things he's done for me and how much I truly adore him and his genuine, loving nature.

Ok, I think that's enough gushy stuff out of me for one day :)

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Phooey

I love arts & crafts, so Michaels is usually where I go hawkin' for new things. About a week ago,I got a coupon on my receipt that said "50% off a single regular priced item". I thought "HELL YEA!" because there's a particular Cricut thing I've been eye-balling.


It's called the Cricut Express Cutting Machine:




Cricut Expression Deluxe is the newest addition to the Cricut family of products. The new Cricut Expressions is a much larger unit, meant to stay on the table or in a media room. It's 24" personal electronic cutter is the latest in Cricut cutting system. It has two new cutting mats measuring 12" x 12" and 12"x 24", allowing you to cut characters from 0.25" to 23.5" you also have six new modes and several new functions which offer greater customization of cuts. The new settings allow different units of measurements and languages. The Expression machine works great with existing line of Cricut cartridges, replacing the need to collect hundreds of heavy die


Includes: Plantin School Book Font Cartridge.

Includes One 12x12 cutting mat Mix and match creative features in the same cut 24"

Personal Electronic Cutter Cut portrait or landscape Fits Mat sizes 12" x 12" and 12" x 24"

Cuts characters from 0.25" to 23.5"

Six new modes Several new functions

Use the entire library of existing Cricut cartridges

No computer necessary

New LCD screen that shows exactly what you're typing for your next cut

Includes User manual

A handle for convenient transportation.


Well...this thing isn't cheap, but I know I'd use the hell out of it. Not to mention, since my handy dandy coupon is gonna give me 50% off, it'd be way more affordable. WELLLLLLLLL.... I went to Michaels first thing this morning, picked it up, be-bopped over to the cashier to pay for it and presented my coupon. "Sorry Ma'am, this product is excluded from this coupon". NO where on this coupon does it state "Excludes Cricut products". She kept saying "I don't know what to tell you"... I understand that they don't know all the ins and outs of the freaking coupon, but shouldn't that be LISTED on the coupon itself as far as what's excluded?? I was REALLY ticked considering it would've saved me $200!!! I put it right back on the shelf and left..there's no way I'm gonna pay that much for it. Eric knows how badly I want it, but I just can't bring myself to blowing that much on myself......blah


Side rant... I was just outside spray painting a new decorative piece for the house and I accidently dropped it on the grass :( Now there's chunks of dirt and grass ALL over it...fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I have to strip it down and start all over again...


GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

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Chhhyeeaaaaaaaaaaah Boy!!

Just a quick blog!

Eric had a parent / teacher conference with Johns teachers today....

Holy cow... this time last year we were literally pulling our hair out because his grades were horrible. No matter how late we stayed up with him to help him study / correct his homework, NOTHING seemed to help. It finally hit the point where it was obvious he had something going on (chemically) that was preventing him from focusing. Turns out, he has A.D.D. Once he finished up the fifth grade, we had him see the doc regarding some sort of medication to help him. I REALLY didn't want to resort to pills to make him "better", but we were at our whits end.

Well, today pretty much validated the decision for putting him on A.D.D. medication.

At this point in time, John currently has an A in Mathematics, a B in English, B in Social Studies as well as B in Science . That just blows me away since he ALWAYS had D's and F's. He remembers EVERYTHING now without having to be prompted, he can spell without us really having to hammer him over and over again.. I mean, I'm in total awe right now. I'm SO completely proud of him since the teachers just gushed about him non-stop. He doesn't fall asleep in class like he did last year, he's in the very front row to read everything clearly, if he finishes his work early then he'll pull out a book to read. He's always been well behaved in school, but it makes you feel extra good when 4 teachers say "He's a great kid. Smart, funny & a solid student. He's accurate, efficient and he knows what he's doing". When he comes home from school he instantly hammers out his homework because he FINALLY realized that once all his schoolwork is done, he'll hav more time to play & do whatever he wants.

I'm honestly BEAMING right now because of how absolutely thrilled I am to see him improving SOOOOO much!!

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Lil' Bits

Lesse...

Georgia won today Wheee!! They beat Tennesse 26 - 14, YAY!!

John had a soccer game this morning and his team won 6-0, very awesome! So far they've been undefeated (they've tied once with one team), other than that, they're doing amazing! I'm just glad he likes playing soccer, especially since he was so resistant in the beginning.

The Coffee Shop on base pissed me off because they didn't even bother opening today. They normally open at 9. Lazy slackers. I had to settle with crappy water cappachino from the gas station *frump*

Ummmmm......

Just figured I needed to post this :)

Cole HAS to sleep on the couch otherwise he'll whimper and cry till we pick him up. Well, he scaled the couch to the top part and fell asleep. Since he's a bit on the rollie side..he kinda slips off. Well.. his ass is slipping off and landed on Eric's shoulder. He's literlly sleeping like this as I type... keeps cracking me up because he keeeeeps sliding.. His face is all smashed into the couch..hahahahaa
Poor Eric!

That's about it... yeah... boring life.

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Booyah

I've always said that the owner of the company I work for is an asshole. Which in fact, he really is an asshole, most days. Well, I think he finally grew a heart.. or stole one... who knows, but still, he actually did something nice today WITHOUT being asked.

Wednesdays are the day when it's time to make the official weekly Costco run for the company to pick up the essentials for the stores (tissue, paper towels, toilet paper, cleaners). Normally, he'll pick up a box of chocolate chip cookies for himself and that's about it when it comes to extra goodies in the break room. We're forbidden to touch those cookies because they're HIS. By taking any, it's punishable by death. Literally.

Anyway, I've metioned in passing on several occasions that I only eat Sour Skittles and how much I love 'em (I'm addicted to them) but I've never said anything to him about it. He doesn't like to hold conversations with the staff, so why would I waste my time talking about candy to him? Well, when he was getting ready to leave, he asked me if there's anything else he should pick up. I jokingly said "Candy for the main office". He gave me this look like I was a jerkoff for even suggesting it and left. Ya see... the office is full of women. We're all "syncked" up when it comes to our monthly friend..lol. So, when all of us are angry / bloated / miserable at the same time, the Corporate office is a very dangerous place. When we have chocolate or candy there, it mellows us out.


Well, a few hours ticks by and he comes back from Costco. Luckily,he picked up everythig I had listed that we needed and .... oh man.. there was candy!! Ten pounds worth to be exact. Not only that, but he bought caffiene free diet pepsi. No one in that building drinks that except me! He KNOWS I can't have caffine & he said point blank "Figured it'd be nice to have a soda once in a while". Not only did he pick the soda's up, he also got a Costco size box of Sour Skittles.



Look, I even took a picture for proof since it's VERY VERY VERY RARE for this man to do something nice. Personally, I think it's a trap & I'll have to pay for it all later down the road. Till then, I'm gonna have Sour Skittles GALORE!

Yay me!

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Picture Time!

As I'm sittin here rockin out to Forplay by Boston, I figured I should post something. Feel loved :)

In my previous post, I mentioned how I went home for the weekend...spent some time with my Dad as well as my Grandma. Yeah.. that's about it :)


This rooster kept coppin' an attitude with me whenever I walked past him... seeing how we were shopping, we walked up and down the street quite a few times. Either he was just bored and figured he'd give the tourist a hard time, or he had a lil' crush on me.











Here's a pic of me with my Dad then another one with my Grandma.




Yeah...pretty simple stuff, lol. I'm boring, what can I say?



Just for the sake of shits and giggles... I was talking to Eric yesterday about In & Out's "secret" menu. As I was reading off the description of some of the items, I was getting rather nauseated at the thought as to how large some of those burgers are. Well, Eric was up for a challenge and wanted a "4x4" burger. To clarify, a 4x4 is 4 beef patties with 4 slices of cheese... my arteries are hardening just at the thought of it. After work, I picked one up for him and the sheer size was just unbelieveable.. I mean, no wonder the obesity rates in todays society have sky rocketed.



Here's the beast...numm nuuuummmssss

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Big Wheels Keep On Turnin'

Insomnia has it's drawbacks, but at least it's giving me an opportunity to catch up on my posts :)

Yesterday was a rather long & stressful day, but at least I was able to get out of work early so I can get on the road. Once I arrived in Salinas, my Dad and I had some bonding time, informed me about some things that are still going on regarding the estate and just basically anything else that's under the sun. The best part about the bonding time: He showed me all his little WWII trinkets that he picked up recently. I always knew that my Dad was a huge WWII connoisseur, but to see everything laid out (in bits and pieces) is pretty interesting considering his collection has more than doubled in size from what I last remembered. Long story short, he's got a lot of collectibles that will never be sold. EVER.

Today was a good day :) Once my Dad & I were finally up & running this morning, we went over to Grandma's, picked her up & headed to The Queens of Heaven cemetery to visit my Mom. I just gotta love my Dad....even though the cemetery has it's own gardeners and maintenance people, he thinks the grass could look better near Moms grave. So, he brought miracle grow with us and proceeded to spray down her area, walked over to where my Grandpa's grave is and sprayed his as well. It's just funny to watch because he's just so anal about how things look; he HAS to fiddle with things just so it'll seem better because he touched it, lol. That's just how he is.

Once we were done finished visiting Mom, we then headed over to San Juan Batista. MAN, I haven't been there in YEARS! That place has changed...and not in a good way. It seems practically deserted, the town looks alot smaller and all stores I remember aren't there anymore. I gotta say though, I found a cool lil' "Welcome" sign for my house in addition to a cute little star shaped bucket, but other than that, that town has really dried up. Really, it's a shame! I remember that there used to be weekend events, antique fairs every month... apparently they don't do that stuff anymore. Lame!

After we did some retail damage, we headed on back home, dropped Grandma off at her house then rolled back to the Bat Cave. Once we got back, I headed right out again to visit with Alex and her hubby, Jake. They have this absolutely adorable lil' boy named Colton. He's SO stinkin' cute! Colton is about 2 months old now, if I remember correctly? Either way, he's friggin' adorable and I love his lil' faux hawk in addition to the grumpy faces he makes when he can't figure out if he wants to cry or smile, lol. Jake was nice enough to lite up a little bonfire and we all just sat in the backyard, shootin' the shit. Tell ya what.. with all the running around I do, it's nice to just sit and relax. I don't get to do it very often so it was completely appreciated to not do anything other than chill out, talk and listen to the totally drunk neighbors across the way screaming and bouncing on his trampolene buck ass naked. "Hey guuuuuuuuuys!!!! Wanna come over and bounce on the trampolene???" ...all the while his man meat is hangin' out in the cold, Monterey night.

Ahhh... gotta love it.

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Busy Lil' Bee

Man oh man... today really seemed to drag ass!!! AGHH!!!

This morning was super slow so I was trying to find shit to do. I was literally screwing things up so I can re-do them then hope that UPS would have a shipment. Well, I re-did the entire TopCo portion of the Warehouse, so it's so organized that NO ONE can get lost or not find anything, lol. Called my distributors and did my re-orders for the week... gawd. It was down right painful how bored I was!

On Oct 23rd, I'm flying to Washington to see my relatives who I totally adore.... it's that time of year where I have to visit! Not to mention, my cousin Kendall has a huge football game & I promised him that I'd make it to atleast 1 game this season, especially since it's his Senior year. Well, I made my flight reservations on Sept 9th and when I asked my Dad if he was going to fly as well.. he stuck his nose up to the idea and said he was just going to drive. It's understandable that he'd wanna drive considering gas was ridiculous then and it would've been cheaper to drive than fly... at that particular time. Heh. I called him during my break today to check in and see if he changed his mind. Yup, he changed his mind and now wants to fly. Did my magic and got him a great deal on his flight, so it looks like he'll be landing in Portland about an hour after me...then when we leave for our return flights home, we'll be leaving at the same time. I atleast tried getting us near the same schedule since it's a fairly far drive for my Aunty to pick us up. Anyway, I'm just super stoked to get away for a little while... I'm needing a vacation BAD! BAAAAAAAAD!!! I just wish Eric and John could join me, but in the long run, it's cheaper if it's just me going up there. I'm willing to lose 2 days worth of pay.. I bust my ass hard enough. It's play time for me! Plus, the next time I'll see my cousins again won't be till June.. and that's for Kendalls graduation THEN I'm hittin' the road to Belgium. *sigh*

Back to work..... heh..

UPS was 3 hours late with their delivery and turned out they had a shipment of 200 new DVD titles. DAAAAAAAMNIT!! I'm ok with 20, but not 200! It's really time consuming since you have to de-sleeve them all, cross reference their invoices, check to see which stores need what (all the stores have different client demand for certain types of movies), input them into the system, format and catagorize them, receive, then transfer them all right back out again. All that mess took me 4 hours to do!! My eyes were hurtin' big time when I finally finished the last title. Once those were completed, I had to work on some Bondage merchandise (whips, handcuffs, crops, rope) and get those transferred around. Basically I gotta shift alot of stuff back and forth from stores to see some sort of movement for sales. Did some additional product research to see what would be nice to add to the "New Release" gallery... by the time I was finished filling out the order, it was time to head home! Yay!

An order I placed well over a MONTH ago finally arrived today! I'm a huge...HUGE Tetris addict and I was finally able to track down Tetris DS!! Eric was already playing it by the time I got home... I was nice enough to buy 2 Tetris DS games or else he and I would've constantly been fighting over it :)

Enough rambling from me.. I still gotta clean out my truck and pack for tomorrow since I'm heading to Salinas to see my Dad and Grandma.

Much love!

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Floating Thoughts

I'm up a little too early, but then again.. it's Thursday therefor I have to be up at this hour. Ya know; contribute to society by working and all that jazz. Blah.

I was thinking about what's been going on this past year. EVERYTHING has flown by so fast, it's rather daunting. Tomorrow marks the 1 year passing of my mom, the support group I created is bordering on it's 1 year mark, John is turning 12 this year, been at my current job close to a year... there's so much more. It's just crazy to me how fast time is flying by, but then again, it's also dragging.

We're moving to Belgium in May & I'm so excited that I could POP! Seems that time slows down though whenever I think about our soon to be new home. New Years Eve is my last day at work and it seems like that day will never come. Sure, it's "only" three months away, but in all honesty, if feels like three YEARS.

In a more positive view..

I couldn't ask for a better husband. Seriously, I couldn't. Eric is the most amazing man I've ever come across in my life and I couldn't imagine sharing my days without him. He's always supportive no matter how bad my day has been, always positive about everything and best of all: loves me for me. Not once has he ever given me a reason to doubt him, not once has he ever made negative comments about my weight, physical appearence... nothing. I feel so incredibly lucky to have someone this amazing in my life. Not only is he in my life, he's sharing & experiencing things with me; together.

On that note, it's time to finish getting ready to work! I'm sure I'l have more rants later this evening since work is going to be rather busy. Yippy!

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