Archive for October, 2009
Things to keep in mind for next time:
Oct 28th
- No matter how well-intentioned we are about being “quick” about eating out, if we aren’t eating fast food it will take until at least 7pm.
- When you are tired from doing the dishes for 45 minutes (because you and your husband are lazy and only do them once or twice a week instead of nightly like you should), and you are in the process of throwing together the ingredients for making candy, remember to check the containers before dumping things in. Evaporated milk is NOT the same as sweetened condensed milk (although if you add some sugar it does still taste good when mixed with chocolate – it just doesn’t set up the right way for what you are making).
- After you are done in the kitchen, if it is at all close to the time you would like to go to bed you should just go, instead of sitting down to check Facebook/read blogs/check Twitter. You will soon have wasted an hour and it will be past the time you wanted to go to bed.
Thank you
Oct 28th
Thank you to those who commented on my post yesterday. After talking to my mom and emailing back and forth with my grandma I feel a lot better. As my mom pointed out, people read things differently, and I don’t think it would ever occur to my awesome grandma that someone would read what that email said and take it as a reason to be mean or hateful toward other people. Or that it could go from her well-intentioned forward to someone she knows to other people who aren’t so well-balanced. Ahh, the beauty of the internet. Blah.
Anyway, moving on. Work is INSANE. Trying to get myself caught up enough to be gone for a week is bad enough, but then with my boss being gone for 3 weeks starting next week too…it’s made things very interesting around here. Things that people are giving us a couple weeks notice on are actually just a couple days notice because we need to get it taken care of before we both leave. Fun fun. It makes the days go by quickly though.
I had my glucose screening test this morning. The drink, while super-sweet, wasn’t as bad as I expected. It was basically 2 shot-sized glasses of the stuff, which I drank while they talked to me. I also got a regular flu shot and talked to the doctor about H1N1. She warned me that if I feel ANY flu-like symptoms that I’m to call her immediately. They don’t want to mess around with that stuff. I told her I would be extra careful while traveling, and I have a copy of my records in case something happens while we are on vacation (God forbid!).
I don’t get the results of the glucose screen until later, so I don’t know how it went. On the one hand, I feel pretty good about it because my weight gain hasn’t been crazy (from what I gather from the Dr), and I don’t ever feel like I have high or low blood sugar – I don’t even get a “sugar rush” of energy after eating candy or drinking pop, and I don’t really have a mid afternoon crash or anything. But on the other hand, from what I understand you don’t always have noticeable symptoms with Gestational Diabetes, so who knows. I guess we’ll just wait and see.
Ugh. Back to work. Only 2 days left!
Where is the line?
Oct 27th
I just did something I NEVER thought I would do. I reply-alled to an email from my grandma, disputing something she had forwarded on and chastising people for believing it and forwarding it. It was a hateful email – one deliberately made to look like you are “doing God’s work” by educating others about the evil of a certain group by spreading misinformation about them. And it was easily disproven.
I was raised to ALWAYS respect my elders, but especially my grandparents. I LOVE my grandparents. I think they are terrific people who would never hurt anyone intentionally. And I have never talked back to them. Even over an erroneous email. I usually just reply directly to my grandma and let her know that Snopes says whatever it is is false. But that’s when it’s something fairly harmless, like some weird story about…I don’t even know, but I’m sure you all know the type of emails I mean. I figure that I don’t really care whether or not she sends that kind of stuff on – people can just as easily delete it, and if they believe it without looking into it, oh well. But this was…different. For me, at least. So I replied to all. And now I’m sitting at my desk crying over it because I hate that I might have embarrassed her. Or that she might be mad at me.
And yet, I don’t regret doing it. I couldn’t let that email sit out there, possibly getting forwarded on by all those other people who probably wouldn’t go do the 5 seconds of work it took to research it and confirm what I thought – that it was a fear-mongering exaggeration of a real event. And that it took a situation that could have happened to anyone and turned it into something “evil” about this other group.
Ugh. I don’t want to reprint the email here because that’s not really what this is about, and I don’t want an argument about it. I guess I just wanted to put out there that sometimes, doing what you think is right totally sucks. And I’m sure all of you know that, and it totally sounds like a cliche (because it is). But yah. Where is the line with family? When do you say something, and when do you keep quiet? And is it different with different family members?
Just call me…um…what’s the equivalent of Betty Crocker, but for a seamstress?
Oct 25th
As I’ve mentioned, Ryan and I are going to a halloween party on Friday. The theme this year is “religious figures,” and we both had a hard time thinking of something that would fit the theme, but still be fun and recognizable. A friend suggested that I go as the Virgin Mary, and I thought it was a fabulous idea. I found a long blue dress at Goodwill, but it had short sleeves, so I tore those off and made long flowing ones. Sleeves are a pain in the butt when you don’t have a pattern. Just so you know. The only other thing I really needed was a white veil, so I bought some white fabric and I’m attaching it to a headband to get it to stay in place.
Ryan, as of yesterday, decided to go as one of the Spanish Inquisition guys from Monty Python. So I got him a red shirt and gloves, and made a tunic and the bottom part (basically a skirt). It actually turned out pretty well. The only thing he’s missing is either a red floppy hat or an aviator hat with goggles. It would also be fun (but overkill and would probably get annoying quickly) if he had a tape recorder or something that played the Spanish Inquisition music every time someone said it. I think he might also bring a dishrack (get it? the rack?).
Anyway, that’s the plan. I promise to post pictures.
And now, for your viewing pleasure:
ps. We leave on vacation in less than a week! Yay!
It’s just a matter of time.
Oct 23rd
I am almost afraid to admit this, but I can tell that I am on the verge of waddling, like a true pregnant lady. I think that so far I’ve done pretty well walking normally, but my hips and knees are a little loose, and I know it’s only a matter of time until I’m swaying back and forth as I walk. Of course, the email I got this week (23 weeks already!) said that the baby can feel when I’m dancing, so maybe it’ll feel like dancing to him. I told Ryan that the baby could tell when I’m dancing yesterday, while I did a little crazy dance in the kitchen, and he looked at me like I was insane. I have a feeling I’ll be getting that look more and more.
The little guy (no, we haven’t picked a name yet) has gotten more and more…aggressive? I guess, would be the term?…with his kicking. I haven’t really felt anything from the outside, but I’m thinking any day that should happen.
My next appointment is this coming week, and it involves the 1 hour glucose test for gestational diabetes. I hope I pass. I don’t think I’m having any problems with my blood sugar, but who knows. And I need to remember to get a copy of my medical records while we are there so I can take them with on our trip, just in case (that was the one recommendation from the Dr).
Speaking of our trip, it’s almost completely planned! We are going up to the Albany area on Saturday night and staying over until Monday morning. On Monday we will be going to Connecticut, parking the car, and taking the train into New York City to meet our friends for the afternoon/evening! I did not think that we would get to see the city at all on this trip, but these friends both work down in the city and live in CT, so they suggested we just meet them after work on Monday and check out a couple sights. One of them is going to meet us at the train station, so hopefully we don’t get lost or anything. ;-)
After that, on Tuesday, we will head down and spend a few hours in Delaware visiting friends, and then continue down to Maryland, where we will hang out with my aunt and uncle until either Thursday afternoonish or Friday morning. At some point on Friday we are going back up to Connecticut to hang out with other friends that live there, and then we fly out on Saturday.
It’s all very exciting to me, and I’m so happy this is all coming together. Luckily Ryan and I are very “go with the flow” type people, so the few things that aren’t decided yet aren’t a big deal to us (specific times/places to meet people, etc).
Well, back to work. Thank goodness it is Friday afternoon, because I am wiped out. The agenda for tonight is to do the dishes/clean up the kitchen (we had to move all our food into coolers and then into a new fridge today), and put laundry away. That’s about as productive as I can get.
Dude, you aren’t funny
Oct 22nd
I attended continuing education all day yesterday, which, if you’ve never been to insurance continuing education classes, let me tell you; they are brain draining enough on their own. The one yesterday included 2 hours of being lectured to by a weird looking guy about how we should be using social media to advertise our agency. I agree with this in principal, but first of all he said he doesn’t know how to use it, and that the solution is not to learn – it’s to hire a young person to do it for you. Because that’s going to happen. I can just see insurance agency owners running out to hire someone right out of college solely because they know how to use Facebook. Jeebus. He then allowed (and fostered) a discussion about how “young people don’t work hard.” Can I tell you how much I hate this generalization? Today’s young people work just as hard as any other generation of young people. They may work differently, and they may be in their first jobs at 22 instead of having 8 years of working under their belts, so they might need a little direction and help, but they aren’t inherently lazier than anyone else. And the implication in that statement is that people who aren’t “young” work hard all the time. Um, I’m sorry – no they don’t. I know just as many slackers over the age of 35 as I do under it. Of course I was one of 2 people in the room under 30, so that was fun awkward.
The rest of the actual class was fine – we talked about Equipment Breakdown coverage and Workers Compensation coverage (lesson of the day; don’t get hurt in California or Mississippi, or at least if you do make sure you are from another state).
However, over the lunch period they had a “box lunch” with a session on the new rules about Certificates of Insurance that the state has passed. Basically, the state passed a statute that says you can’t change the policy by writing anything on the certificate (proof of insurance), which was already technically the law, but it wasn’t spelled out very clearly. But companies requesting certificates don’t care what the law is or what the policy says; they only know that their lawyers told them they should get all this extra stuff on the certificate (long notices before the policy cancels, for instance). So they are asking for things that we can’t legally give them.
As you can imagine, this has caused a lot of questions from insurance agents. So they brought in this guy that helped get the bill passed to come talk about it. And he spent 15-20 minutes explaining EXACTLY how they went about getting the bill passed. Before he talked at all about what it meant (in fact, now that I think about it, he didn’t talk at ALL about what it meant). We have all see the School House Rock “I’m Just a Bill” thing, ok? We don’t need you to retell us. And then he finished up by telling a few jokes. Political jokes. The first one made fun of liberals (they all take other people’s money and just hand it to poor people instead of helping them help themselves). The second one was supposed to make fun of Republicans, but it didn’t really. I mean, on the surface maybe a little, but really it just said more bad things about Liberals (they teach their children to be biased against Republicans, they are stubborn and in the minority, they are only liberal because our parents are, etc). Of course he laughed and thought they were hysterical, but I wanted to raise my hand and remind him that not all insurance people are Republican, and I didn’t find either joke very funny. Also, maybe you should not tell a room full of people you do not know political jokes. Just a suggestion.
Oh, and after all that he sat and contradicted himself on what we are supposed to do about certificates. “Keep doing what you’ve been doing.” “Those people [that keep doing it the way we've been doing it] will get hung [the penalties for altering coverage on a cert include possibly losing your license and getting fined by the state].” “The state doesn’t really care right now about enforcing this law – they probably won’t worry about it for at least 6 months to a year.” Um…that was less than helpful. I was better off not listening to it at all. And I don’t think I was in the minority in that thought.
Anyway, that was the story of my day of continuing education. I did get my halloween shirt in the mail yesterday, though, and I got my haircut and I like it, so it wasn’t all bad.
Do you have to attend educational classes of some sort? Are they usually helpful or do you feel like you are wasting your time?
Football/Lazy Sunday
Oct 18th
First the Vikings win (it might have been an eked out win, but it was still a win), and now Tom Brady is breaking records with his touchdown passing (in the snow, even!), and I have him as my fantasy football quarterback. It’s a good day for football.
We are one step closer to our vacation – I rented the car today. I read up on it and used Priceline, which I’ve never done before. The websites I read suggested bidding 30% lower than the lowest price you could find. But Priceline says right on their website that you can get cars up to 40% lower than advertised. So I bid 40% lower than the lowest price I found. And we got it! According to them, I got the car for 59% lower than the lowest price their site found, but I’m even happy with my 40%. It basically paid for all the taxes and fees. So that was exciting. I’ll have to let you know how it goes once we actually go pick up the car and stuff. Saving money doesn’t do any good if the service sucks.
I baked yesterday – carrot cake and pumpkin cake, both from The Pioneer Woman’s website. I love her recipes (I really want to try the chocolate truffles on the front page right now). I used yogurt instead of oil in both of the cakes, but they still have a LOT of sugar. But they are yummy. Especially with homemade cream cheese frosting (speaking of sugar). I could eat that stuff all day. I have made the pumpkin cake with the whiskey raisins and whiskey whipped cream – I would definitely recommend it either way. But yah…we don’t need 2 cakes around here, so I cut them up and we gave some to the neighbors, I’m sending some to work with Ryan, and we kept some for ourselves.
This entry is kind of disjointed. Sorry about that.
Ryan is making dinner tonight – either meatloaf or spaghetti and meatballs. Something with the hamburger that’s been thawing in the fridge. Either one sounds yummy to me. I plan on reading my book and watching TV the rest of the evening. With maybe a quick “put laundry away” spurt somewhere in there.
And on that note…back to my book (The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny).
Baby Pictures!
Oct 13th
He was ready for his close up. hehehe. Ryan got the pictures online, and here they are:
Isn't he so cute??
You can see his skull really well in this one - and that circle is the lense of his left eye. Cool!
It's most DEFINITELY a boy!
He’s just so cute. And will probably die of embarrassment in 20 years when he realizes I posted nekkid pictures of him on the internetz.
PS. Mom, Ryan said that since you refuse to join the 20th century and get a computer with internet at home you are just going to have to miss out on photos, but I like him and don’t want you to kill him, so I’ll email them to you.
Vacation!
Oct 12th
Ryan and I have been planning a week long vacation to visit some of our friends/family on the East coast for a few months. When we first started talking about it “next fall” seemed like a long way away (that was before we even found out we were expecting a new addition). We didn’t know if it would be possible for us to go, but over the summer we saw a GREAT deal on plane tickets in and out of Boston ($300 round trip for both of us), and so we jumped on it. Even then it seemed like it was a long way away. And yet, here we are…it’s in only a few weeks! We need to book a rental car for the week (we will be visiting people all the way from upstate NY to Maryland, and so a car will be necessary). And we need to talk to all the people we want to see and figure out when they are available/warn them we are coming. I’m so excited to go out there. It’s been far too long, and we don’t get to see those friends and family nearly often enough.
Every time I look at the calendar I think about how close it is. And how fun it will be. We fly out on Halloween, and will be getting into Boston around 3:30 or so on Saturday afternoon, which should leave some time to do at least a little bit of touristy stuff. I’ve never been to Boston, and I think it would be a shame to not look around and have dinner. Any suggestions for an easy to get to place? Or somewhere we can park and walk around?
The other exciting thing about that week is that the annual Halloween party we go to is scheduled for the Friday before we leave, and even though it will make things super-busy we are planning on going. It’s a costume party, and it’s so fun every year, and who knows if we’ll be able to go next year (it’s an adults only party). So we decided we would make it work. Oh, did I mention the party is in Rochester? Yah, not really “on our way” to the cities (where we are flying out of). But still, fun! And when we get back we are going to another party – some other friends of ours have a birthday/halloween party every year, and it’ll be right before Ryan’s 30th birthday, and so we want to make sure to get to that one too. Luckily that one is in the cities, so once we fly back in we can just head over there. I’m sure we’ll be completely exhausted afterward, but it feels like we should try to do as much of this kind of stuff as we can, because God knows it’s not going to get any easier! LOL.
Anyway, that is what has been on my mind recently. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it.
Anything coming up that you all are excited about?
Pistachio commercials
Oct 10th
Do you guys get those commercials? I’m watching Good Eats right now (Alton Brown is my tv boyfriend), and they show these commercials at each break. They mostly play off of sexual innuendo (the last one I saw had a couple cracking open and feeding eachother pistachios and it said “Newlyweds do it 5 times a day). But earlier I saw one with 4 kids on bouncy balls jumping around and it said “Quadruplets do it with bounce”. Anyway, that is the ONLY one I’ve seen that isn’t some sort of sexual innuendo. And it just seems wrong to me. You need to either do a bunch of them that aren’t innuendos, or leave the kids out of it. Also, I think it’s funny how much advertising I see these days for particular foods. Pistachios, avocados, etc. Weird.
Anyway, the brownies I made are done, and Good Eats is still on. Ryan’s down at a friend’s place playing video games all night with a bunch of people (a LAN party, for you nerds out there), and so it’s just Zoa and I (we are dogsitting for Sam this weekend while he’s at a wedding). Time to get back to being lazy.
