It was the first week of school in my sophomore year, which was my first year in the High School at Shen. The Shen High School was a large two story building and I was nervous about finding my classes in the confusing two story building. The first few days were stressful for me and I was very glad when the first Friday of the school year rolled around. An entire weekend of freedom stretched before me and it started off that afternoon with the annual “country fair” at the Shen Methodist Church, which was right behind my house. The fair was nothing special, but it was something that we got excited to go to as kids because it was so close by and there were games (every year one of us won a goldfish) and you could buy fudge and baked goods and candy.
Beck walked home with me that day after school so that we could go to the fair together. As we walked by the football field we started to hear music – the opening chords of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” by The Beatles. There were two guys walking up ahead of us carrying a boom box (is that really what they were called?!) and blasting Beatles music. Since they couldn’t us, Beck and I started to dance to the music as we walked along. I remember I didn’t even know that it was The Beatles that were playing at that time – Beck had to tell me what we were listening to. We laughed to ourselves as we walked and danced along, and then we heard one of the guys say to the other something like, “… I think I left the batteries in my locker…” and when they turned around to head back towards the high school we immediately composed ourselves and walked normally, completely ignoring them as they walked past us.
The second they passed us and could no longer see us, we started dancing again. We were having so much fun grooving to the music as we walked along that we didn’t even realize that the music wasn’t fading away. Suddenly the two guys were walking with their arms over our shoulders introducing themselves as Doug and Doug. We were appropriately mortified. They were also heading to the country fair at the church and were apparently Beatles fans. They were listening to “the blue album” – 1967-70 (disc 2). I loved every song that I heard as we continued to walk towards the fair and my obsession with The Beatles had begun.
I bought my first Beatles recording that night in the basement tag sale at the fair at the church. Rummaging through the piles of tapes for sale for $.25, I found an extended play cassette tape of the blue album. It didn’t have a case, but the song titles were printed on the outside of the cassette. I gladly paid my quarter for it and it became my sole source of entertainment for the next few weeks. I began to notice The Beatles everywhere – songs in commercials, new albums being released, “Beatles Sundays” on the Oldies Station on the radio. I taped the songs as they came on the radio station and my collection grew. I went to the library and borrowed books on The Beatles to feed my obsession. I bought “Live at the BBC” when it was released (I vividly remember reading the booklet that came with that CD during Biology instead of paying attention to class). I wrote lyrics to Beatles songs all over my brown grocery bag textbook covers. I convinced Mr Golden one of my World Cult/World Lit teachers to let me do my term paper on The Beatles. I bought enough Beatles t-shirts for every day of the week… and pretty much wore them every day of the week. I had coffee mugs, posters, puzzles, blankets, every album on CD, a few actual vinyl albums… I was a girl obsessed.
My obsession didn’t survive much into the college years. I, of course, was always a huge fan of The Beatles, but I started to listen to other music (gasp!) and focused my obsessions elsewhere. But lately, with all of the Beatles press – the new Rock Band game, the release of the remastered albums – I can feel the tug of the obsession. They’ve become the only thing playing on my iPhone and even though I’ve never played any version of Rock Band, I want the new game. I know that I won’t become obsessed again in the way that I was in High School (there’s been something else occupying the number one obsession slot in my mind for the last year and a half or so), but I’m having fun rediscovering a band that consumed me for almost four years half a lifetime ago.
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Where I'd Rather Be...
I think it’s time to take a vacation. Or at least a day or two off. Or a few hours (which is what I did today). I think that all of us in my department could use a little time away from the office to try and relax – maybe actually release the tension in my shoulders.
Summers at my job are characterized by frantic, cranky customers, stressed out, cranky coworkers, and a stuffy, oppressive office (because the air conditioner is perpetually broken). On top of all that, I’m dealing with a new boss (again), new employees (who, thankfully are catching on quick but it’s still always a lot of work), new(ish) products, and a larger and more complex workload than ever before. My employees are all busting their butts and burnt out and I feel like I’m forever waiting for the next problem to arise. Things that seem slightly annoying during other times of the year are suddenly life or death situations. People that usually get along become short with each other and conflicts are a more common occurrence. There’s no time to get away from your desk, no time to take a break… no time to breathe. The stress and tension combined with the ceaseless heat makes for a pressure cooker like environment. Needless to say, I can’t wait for the fall!
Fifteen hellish workdays left ’till Labor Day!
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Filed under work | Comment (0)…Since I’ve posted. LIke, months. And I got yelled at for that. Sorry! 
So here’s what’s been going on:
The house
Our move into our house went smoothly – it felt like I packed for months before the move and yet I still was rushing around during the last hours before we had folks there to help us. Who am I kidding? We still weren’t totally packed when we were moving – we were throwing stuff in garbage bags and laundry baskets as usual. Sigh. At least this was the last time we’ll be moving for a long time! AND next time we’re totally hiring movers.
We’ve been here for two months now and we’ve got our kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom, and bedroom completely settled furniture wise. Our family room is mostly set up with our futon and old TV in the armoire and some bookcases. I’m thinking that room will seem in transition for a while – we don’t use it right now and it will likely become a playroom someday. The other two bedrooms are also just waiting for something. The one bedroom that has two windows and a built in dresser in the cedar lined closet is completely empty. I call that one the nursery. Alex pretends he doesn’t hear me.
The other bedroom just has some things in it that really need to get stored in the attic – which is accessed through the stairs in the back of the closet in that room. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with that room. I could put a desk/worktable up there to organize my paper crafting things. Or I could put a bed in there to make it a guest room – we’d REALLY like to get a new mattress/boxspring set (so sad that ours is totally beat after only four years) and we could set up our current mattress and boxspring in there on a metal bedframe and do something creative for a headboard (or seek out an inexpensive queen bedroom set on craigslist). It would be nice to have a queen sized bed in our guest room – but then, the room is the smallest of the bedrooms, so a queen sized bed may be too big for in there. Also, no one visits us. Ever. We could seek out a twin bed for that room (or take the spare lofted twin that the folks are trying to get rid of) instead – then I’d be able to still put a crafting type setup in there and we’ll eventually need a twin bed down the road (again, Alex pretends not to hear me when I say that…).
We haven’t started to paint yet – mostly because we’ve never taken the time to figure out what we want to do paint-wise. That’s the next project – expect posts with pictures soon – hear that Aunt Anne? 
Other Stuff
Well, I’m thirty now – which means I’m officially old. Awesome. I had an excellent birthday, involving surprise cube decorations and bagels at work, a trip to the Apple Store (yay! Apple Store!), a serenade by a gorilla while at lunch at the mall, cake from Villa Italia, watching “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” at my favorite movie theater, fireworks in the rain, and then drinks and snacks at Aperitivo.
Our two year anniversary was on Monday – we’re an old married couple now. LOL. We saw Coldplay at SPAC, which was really the first time we’d listened to Coldplay, but we’re both kind of fans now. We had a really great night – it was awesome to have a date night, especially doing something out of the ordinary.
We lost a cat for a week – our little white cat Finnegan went missing last Sunday. I’m not sure how, but the both of them got out late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. I didn’t realize it until that morning when I was making a pitcher of Cherry Lime drink (from Target – hella, hella good) at the kitchen sink and heard meowing outside. I went to the door and let Fiona in. We couldn’t find Finn at all that day – and he didn’t turn up all week. I put up posters and posted a Lost listing on Craigslist and went out looking for him but there was no sign of him. I thought he was dead or lost forever. In fact, I considered getting a kitten yesterday – but I waited because Alex wasn’t around and I didn’t want to pick out a new cat without him. I was at the computer late last night/very early this morning when Fiona went to the porch and started to hiss at something. Alex was out having a guys night with his friends and I was home alone, so Fiona going to the porch and hissing FREAKED me out. I pretended to be brave and went to the porch and shooed her inside – that’s when I heard meowing from outside the door. I opened it and Finnegan ran in. I was so happy I cried. He was so happy it sounded like he was crying. He was so skinny and he ran immediately to the food and water. Fiona was freaked out and hissed at him – she still isn’t used to him yet. I hope she recognizes him soon – it makes me sad that she’s hissing at him and apparently doesn’t remember him when he obviously remembers us since he came home to us. I’m just so glad to have him home!
There’s probably about a million other things I can write about, but I think that’s about enough of an update for now. I’m hoping to begin posting more regularly – I promise!
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Our House
Is a very very very fine house.
I actually severely dislike that song. It is so gay. Also it bothers me that the two cats are in the yard. I mean, that means they’re outdoor cats because you can’t fence in cats and so they’ll probably get diseases and die or get hit by cars and die or get eaten and die. And no one likes a dead cat.
So yeah. We’re buying a house! Yay!!! We’re actually pretty far into “the process” but I just haven’t posted yet and I figured it’s about time I get around to it as I know that a year or so from now I’m going to want to go back in the archives of my blog and read what I wrote and think, “gee, wasn’t I so naive?!” So… We picked up “house shopping” after we got back from Dubai almost a month ago and, like I expected we would after spending money on vacation and feeling guilty about it, we found our house on our first outing out.
Our Realtor had plans the first weekend after we returned from Dubai, but I was antsy in my pantsy about getting out and looking at houses again, so we decided that I’d go without Alex the following Monday night while he was at Paramedic school. Alex’s mom, Patty, came along with us (since I can’t be trusted to remember details about things or notice important house condition stuff) and we looked at 4 or 5 houses that night. The first few were pretty scary and I was beginning to feel a little hopeless about our efforts that evening, but then we walked through the house on Bradley Blvd.
The hardwood floors were gleaming. The living room was huge. The dining room was open to the kitchen where the was a breakfast bar area. The kitchen had a separate cooktop and wall oven – perfect for my bad back. There were two full bathrooms, three nice sized bedrooms, a full attic and basement, and a family room off of the kitchen. Rare for Schenectady, there was also a ginormous over-sized attached two car garage. But to top it all off, it was sitting at the top of a hill, overlooking Central Park with a view of the lake. As our Realtor put it, it was “the find of the century”. He suggested that I call Alex and tell him to meet us there after paramedic school. Alex loved it too. We made an offer the next day and had it accepted the day after that.
We’ve had the inspection already and are following up on a few things – the house has a slate roof and the section over the front of the family room appears to have been tarred at some point, so we’re getting an estimate to see how much it would be to fix that. Also, the family room is on a separate zone of heat and when we were there for the inspection we couldn’t make the heat come on, so we’re trying to figure out what’s going on there as well. The final thing that came up during the inspection was a situation with the neighbors… They put up a fence that attaches to our house and garage and fences in part of our yard. Our attorney wrote to the seller’s attorney and asked them to get the neighbors to move the fence back to the property line. So hopefully all of that goes well.
Beyond that, things are progressing with the bank and we have a quote for home owners insurance, so we’re “homework-free” for now. The target date for our closing is May 20th and I know that will come up quick. I hope that there are no bumps in the road over the next three weeks and that we’re able to close on time so that we can move in during Memorial Day weekend – that’d be ideal.
So right now we’re researching appliances and trying to make lists of all the things that we’ll need as first time home owners. It’s all very exciting. And scary. I freaked out twice this week already – first over thinking that we’ll need like three times as much as I thought for the closing (which totally turned out to not be the case) and second because a guy that works for me and just bought a house with an older furnace (like we’re doing) woke up yesterday morning to find that his central air/heat wasn’t working. Hearing about that lead me to freak out over hte fact that we’re using all of our savings towards buying the house and that we won’t have a big emergency fund for something like that. Our furnace is definitely old so that worries me – although the home inspector said that our boiler is a “cast iron beast” that, while the life expectancy is only 30 years or so usually, he’s seen some like ours that have lasted 50 years, so hopefully the odds are with us there. I’m sure that wasn’t the last of my freakouts before closing. Poor Alex – he’s a freaking saint for dealing with me.
I hope everything works out. I hope all of my calculations and projections are correct and we do fine with the monthly expenses. I hope our neighbors don’t suck. I hope the place isn’t randomly haunted… I hope the next few weeks go by quickly – I wish I could just fast forward to the part where we’re already moved in and settled in and enjoying our house.
Exciting. Scary. Exciting.
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Alex and I will constantly start asking each other a string of questions like this. Hilarious.
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Filed under random | Comment (1)Here’s a quick slideshow I made from some of our favorite pictures from Dubai: Slideshow
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Filed under family | Comment (0)I haven’t posted in a while, and that’s because I’ve been super hella freaking busy. At work, I’ve been trying to bring on 3, now 4 new people. So there have been tons of hours spent reading resumes, scheduling interviews, and performing interviews. I’ve hired 2 people so far and have an interview today that I hope works out well… but even if it does, I’ll still need to keep looking to find a 4th person. These are all Software Trainers that I’m bringing aboard for my department, since I lost 2 people at the beginning of January and since our projected sales for this year are through the roof. LOTS to do there – working on revamping the way that we train and implement and trying to bring some order to the chaos. Oh, and bringing new staff on is great, but it’s also super hella exhausting and so far I’ve been pawning off a lot of the training of the first new person who started to other people on my team, but next week I’ll go real hands on so I’m expecting to be exhausted every day.
The other thing that I’ve been up to outside of work is house hunting! This part is fun, but it’s also really stressful. We’re first time home buyers so everything about this process is new to us and buying a house, with the financial commitment and all of the unknowns is scary. I’ll have to write an entire series of posts dedicated to all that, but for now here’s a widget from my Evernote notebook with the houses that we’ve decided deserve a second look:
Exciting. Scary. Stressful. All of that.
Upcoming events: next Saturday, March 7th, we’ll be going to see Enter the Haggis at Revolution Hall in Troy. I’m really excited for that show because I’ve had us on “going out and spending money lockdown” for the past couple of months and this will be our first “big night out” in a while. The weekend after that is St Patrick’s Parade weekend, but Alex is on call for that weekend so we may not be going out (which suits me fine because I’m old and would rather not spend the money). The weekend after that, we’ll be in Dubai! Yep, we’re going to visit the family in 3 weeks – we leave the evening of the 19th and get back the afternoon of the 29th. Very exciting!! I just got my passport back in the mail after sending it out (very late) to get my name changed. It only took 2 weeks to get it back (thank God)!
I must end this post NOW because what I SHOULD be up to right now is taking a shower and getting ready for work because it’s Friday!
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Filed under random | Comment (0)Wow. It’s been FOREVER since I’ve written. It’s not like there hasn’t been things that I’ve wanted to write about – ’cause there’s been a ton – but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to share with the world. Not like I think that the whole world reads my blog, but I do publish it online so there’s definitely the potential that someone else would read it. But more on all that later. Maybe…
Today, what inspired me to write is the fact that I’m injured. Again. What’s frustrating about that, beyond the hurtiness, is the fact that yet again I’ve injured myself within the first couple of weeks of being back at Weight Watchers and/or the gym. Argh!!! As I’ve whined before, it’s like God wants me to be fat!
This time I didn’t fall down the stairs (thank God!), but it was almost equally as enbarassing. I was leaving work around the same time as three of the people who work for me: Kelley, Jaime, and Chris. They were getting into their cars while I was walking towards my car when I suddenly rolled my ankle (on flat ground). I heard the familiar “Pop! Pop! Pop!” that happens when I roll my ankle hard enough to sprain it and felt the pain pretty much immediately. I started to fall, but caught myself on a car. Kelley, Jaime and Chris saw me holding myself up on the car and realized that I’d hurt myself.
I have to say, I love the people on my team. Even though it was freezing out and dark and the end of a long work day, they stopped to help me. They wouldn’t let me drive myself home (since driving a standard would be pretty much impossible with only one good foot) and since Kelley and Jaime were carpooling and only Chris could drive stick, Chris drove me home while Jaime followed in Chris’s car and Kelley followed behind them. Luckily, I live very close to work, but I was still super embarrassed to have inexplicably hurt myself on flat ground and to need their help.
So now I’m pouty about being hurt again. I’d wanted to hit the gym hardcore this weekend since I’ve got a couple work related functions this weekend and Monday where I’m not sure if there’ll be any healthy food available. Alex thinks I’ll probably be able to be back to the gym in a few days. I hope so! I’ve let injuries derail my weight loss plans in the past and I just really don’t want that to happen again.
I’m such a freaking klutz! Ugh.
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kflott
9:20 AM