Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

I can't believe how long it has been since I have posted. I have just been super busy lately with a lot of different things but mostly work.

I have officially moved my desk but my role does not seemed to have changed like it was supposed to. My boss informed me that he needs me to manage his calendar still (hopefully at the end of this week coming up that will end, he said it will but we shall see). I have a gazillion (ok not that many but it feels like it!) interview candidates coming in for different positions right now. I am really pretty sick of doing it at this point and i was just given more to do, both first and second round. Not really happy about it. I am just through with all of it. Plus, I am getting so many things to for my new job which I love but I can't get around to them and I hate telling my new boss that but it's the truth. Now I also have goals to start working on for next year that I need to work on and I just don't know how I will find the time until the hire someone. But then there will be trianing and learning so it will probably be another month and a half before I finally get a break....I'm hoping for sooner but doubt it. Alright enough of the complaining...

I have been doing a ton of cleaning lately and that is making me feel better about things around here but I still have plenty left to do! Everything just looks a mess to me! Hopefully this winter I will get motivated to get more things cleaned up and out.

I can't believe this week is Thanksgiving already! I have to say that I have much to be thankful for this year, my husband, my family, my friends, my home, my puppies and kitty, my job, and so many more things.

Manual Labor...what's that?

So today I took a trip to our "Soap Mines". For those that don't know...I work at GOJO. So as part of my Individual Development Plan (fancy huh?) I decided to do the Manufacturing Work Day Experience. And that's what it was...an experience!

First we got a tour of the whole building basically with a kind of deep dive into our receiving dept where we get in our raw chemicals. Learned about the Boom Room...too funny.

Then we got to go to our mix room where they make our formulas. We had to go to the top of the mix tanks and we got to help make one of the formulas which was fun. You gotta do A LOT of matching though to make sure you get the right stuff in there. It was so dang hot up there though but a good experience.

Then we went to lunch....I had Subway :)

When we came back we got to go work on the actual lines...this is where that manual labor part came in. And now i remember why I got a 4 year degree. To not do that. I'm not knocking that and I give those people a lot of credit but I worked those lines for 2 1/2 hrs and I wanted to fall over. I was hot...sweaty... my back hurt like the dickens. Oh, and my hand got scratched up from the pumps on the bottles. I only worked two of the lines but I was def over it but the time I was done. The people on the second line were very nice and easy to talk to. Learned a lot from them!

Then we were supposed to learn about shipping but I didn't learn a whole lot about it really. Just toured our distribution center. I wish we would have actually seen them ship something out from start to finish but oh well.

Overall it was a great experience because I really didn't think about everything that goes in to it before (although I knew...didn't know a lot about it). I'm glad i did it but man was it not easy or fun. I think I walked about 12 miles today....


And in other news...Obama is our president. I was not confident in either candidate and yes I know it has made history now that he is our president. I just hope he does what he has said. I am not sure what direction it will go but I do hope it's a good one. I just don't know about it though. Good luck to all of us and him.

Voting

I voted today - not gonna say who for because I don't need opinions or anything and I don't care what they are so I'm just gonna keep my peace :) I did have to wait in line for 40 minutes though which I wasn't happy about. Glad I went before work though because I came home and had no electricity!! It's back on now but still....

Update on work - I am starting to work on transitioning to my new job. Geez it felt like this day was never going to come! I reviewed my work with my boss and I think we have come to an agreement on what I will keep until the new person comes. I'm happy that he pretty much agreed with everying :) We are doing interviews this week though so I think that we should be able to get someone in there pretty quick after I move - I'm hoping no more then 2-3 weeks after my move. I think my boss would go crazy with too much longer :)

Other then that I really don't have a ton going on right now. I feel like I need more to occupy my time, I think I am going to start scrapbooking again. I get in moods where I work and catch up everything from 4-6 months and I'm current and then I stop. So the last time I updated right now is right before the wedding because we had them out. So now it's time to do everything since. I have about 200 pictures to get printed though so I need to get some bucks to do that first :) Wish me luck!

Wow

I can't believe how long it's been since I wrote last! Time has just flown these last few weeks, I have had both good and bad things going on.

As far as my job,I'm still doing the old position. We should be starting to interview for my position soon...we shall see. My boss has been pretty busy and he is the one who needs to be there! I know I'm movin' come hell or high water on Nov. 15 though so tomorrow is the day I talk to him and lay the boundry lines for what I will/will not take when I move. Hopefully he will agree...maybe... :)

Everything else has been pretty mundane besides that. We did go to a Halloween Party this past Saturday and Tim and Christina's (we know them through our friend's Melanie and Brian). Unfortunately I was colder then anything and we were outside. Even though I was in a kind of warm costume I was still frozen to death. I don't know how the others with outfits with a little less on did it! I was literally in front of the warmer thing they had in the tent and I was still freezing. It was a good time and most of our friends did a great job of dressing up this year. Maybe when I lose my 30 lbs I will wear one of those cute costumes too *wink wink*. So here are some pictures from this past weekend.

Cycles

Soooo it’s been a little while since I have posted but things have just been kind of crazy in my neck of the woods. And with the seasons changing I’m tired ALL the time…I hate it! So what’s new and exciting in my world right now…

I have found out that I am officially moving positions 11/15 now. Yep that’s 2 months after my original date. We have had quite a few people leaving our department though so they are staggering them. I was told whether or not they have someone in my current role I am going to be able to move (not sure if that’s really going to happen but it’s what I’m hopin’ for!). I am excited as nothing to move though! I can’t wait to be doing my new responsibilities!!

Our dryer broke. Yep, that’s right. My dryer broke – kinda. Some thingy on the inside that keeps the clothes from bawling up came off and stripped some holes that would allow us to actually put it back on. So we got a new one. We have used the ones from Ben’s old house for the last few years and they were kind of old when we got them. So we went to HH Gregg and picked a new one out. I’m kinda excited because it’s bigger inside and I tend to wait until I have a full load to do laundry (read: I can be lazy :) ) So having a bigger capacity dryer will help with that situation because it seemed to take forever to get them dry in our old one. So Friday is the day of the dryer. We have to go pick it up cuz I’m not payin’ no 70 bucks to get it delivered!

Went out last Saturday – we didn’t stay out very late. We were going to go to the club and dance but Liz wanted to go home once she found out Kyle was home so we didn’t go. I really wanted to go dancin’ too so that kinda sucked.

This Saturday I have a wedding to go to with my friend Diana. Her hubby isn’t able to go to the wedding so I am going with her instead. I feel like a wedding crasher because I do know the bride (we worked at Target together) but it’s been years since I have seen her. I knew she was engaged and the guy she is marrying she meet at Target and I knew him also but not well. So it shall be in interesting day I’m sure I will have plenty of pictures to share as usual. I am a freak when it comes to picture takin’, especially when it comes to weddings!

I am not sure I have anything else exciting to add to this….nope I got nothin’.

Recipe blog

Stay tuned...I'm starting a recipe blog. Now I am not the best cook and I have to admit I do get my recipes online and from others but I need a place to start keeping them just in case. Most of my recipes are good for 2-3 people and my husband likes them :) So check them out if you would like....

http://recipesofann.blogspot.com

Where to begin

This will most likely be a longer update, I've been MIA this week but for a good reason...work. This week has been soooo stressful at work, we have someone leaving our department kind of unexpectedly (meaning I knew she would leave but just not this soon). Plus we had a department review with senior leadership this week and guess who gets the be the lucky one to make the copies of almost 200 pages about 14 times? Bet you can never guess. Trust me there are plenty of other things I would find more enjoyable then that...like stabbing my self in the eye with a pencil. Then our whole team was in for a meeting this week so that cut two days out of both work time and home basically. We did have dinner at Bricco on Weds night with the team and that was really good. Over it was a fun time, the meeting was pointless as usual and it's finally the weekend....

But now for a recap of last weekend since I haven't been around...
Saturday - went to the bar to celebrate me and Liz's birthday. We did go out the weekend before to kind of celebrate mine but we decided to do it over again. It just started out as me, Ben, Kyle and Liz and then Melanie, Racheal, Brian, Tim, and Mandy showed. Liz's mom and her friend Ashley came also. We went to the Basement which is our normal Saturday spot anyways and just stayed there since me and Liz are the only ones who like to dance anyways. It was a VERY drunken night. I don't get drunk very often but I was SMASHED. So below are some pictures from that...we didn't get home until about 3. There was also a fight at the bar and some glass got shattered kinda scary...

Before getting drunk

Me and Mel

Me and Liz completely smashed

These are the boys....yes we love them, yes they are dorks

Sunday - After being out all night we had to go to my god daughter's 1st birthday party, she is so adorable. I can't believe it's been a year! She had a luau themed party, her mom did a great job of decorating for it. Very good food too.

Can you tell we were tired?

The birthday girl - Olivia

Eating her smash cake, she was pretty good about it...

Olivia and Mom

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to...

So Thursday was my birthday...and yes I know you must ask (because everyone does), it was 9/11 and yes it does suck and no it was not a good day when it happened. No it is not a fun birthday really because it's all we hear about on that day and it makes me truly sad that so many people lost their lives on my birthday. But trust me I didn't ask for it but everyone sure does remember my birthday (not that it's a good thing, they just do.)

Soooo...let's recap this year's wonderful birthday! Thursday I got to work and my whole group signed a card for me. Loved it! Then for lunch we went shopping (lol no one was in the office this week because of a huge tradeshow in Las Vegas) and then we went to Swensons...yum love that place. A little bit later they suprised me with a cake...so good! Cake is really a weakness of mine even though I'm on this diet I did indulge! It was a great day at work (with little work actually being done...:P)

So when I got home my friend Liz decided to come over and visit because we were both bored waiting for our boys...so then we went to the store because I wanted dog bones and we thought we might cook but soon realized that would be too much work and decided to order pizza instead. So we preceeded to order said pizza (and the new pasta from Pizza Hut...can we say delicious!?) Ben took forever to get home because his demo from work broke down after he left work...then he still had to go get my present (just like him to wait until last minute...). Finally he got home and we had just picked up the pizza...he told me to go get in the living room and then he gave me my present...this....I love it...I've wanted this blue denim baby for a looong time and i'm so excited! I'm not one to spend money on a purse AT ALL but this was such a good suprise and I had no idea (well some because my old one was falling apart and he said we should wait a bit before going to get a new one...). I'm in love :)

So we ate dinner with Kyle and Liz and then my sister wouldn't stop calling me to come out and get a drink. So I decided I would go for a bit...it's such a long drive though so that's not fun but oh well. I had 1 shot and 1 drink. Her husband has the same birthday as us so he was drinking too. My sister was pretty drunk but gotta love her. Here we are...


All in all a great 23rd birthday....:)

Lazy, lazy

So today is definitely a lazy day. I haven't even finished all my laundry from this weekend...so in that respect I guess you could say that it is a lazy weekend. Although I do have an excuse - an asthma attack and subsequent panic attack last night about just did me in. For some reason it's made me very tired today too. I'm lucky my parents took me to lunch and got me out of the house but then I came home and slept for 2 1/2 hours!!

This week should be good at work! My boss and many other people from our company are gone at the biggest tradeshow of the year...ISSA. Don't ask, I don't really know, don't really care. I am also determined I am moving to my new desk on Weds. I might still be splitting time between there and my old desk for a while but I am actually going to spend time there starting Weds. There was some talks that even though my new position should be effective Sept 10 that they might not hire any one to replace me until January - WTF? Sorry I'm not doing 2 jobs for the price of one for the next 4 months, and I would be doing 2 because there is a lot that will continue to need to be done that will not be able to stop until someone is hired. Unless they are going to pay me more then I would be glad to do it! :)

Then Thursday is my BIRTHDAY!!! The big 2-3. Haha not such a big deal though, just another year older. Friday my parents are taking me (and Ben of course) to Twin Lakes Tavern. Yuuummmm! I can't wait to go there :) They have the best chicken dinner ever! It's a seafood place which I hate seafood but these seafood places always seem to have the best chicken. So I'm excited!

Before I go, I want to send 2 congratulations out: 1 to Tiffany and Paul on the birth of their baby boy Mason last week and another to Anson and Tamara on their newly announced pregnancy! Congrats to you all!!!

Gravy Ladle Joke

I just have to post this...my mom sent me this a while back and I still laugh so hard everytime I read it so I must share with all my cyber friends :)

Michael invited his mother over for dinner. During the meal, his mother couldn't help noticing how beautiful Michael's roommate was. She had long been suspicious of a relationship between Michael and his roommate and this only made her more curious.

Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between Michael and the roommate than met the eye. Reading his mom's thoughts, Michael volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Joanne and I are just roommates."

About a week later, Joanne came to Michael and said, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the beautiful silver gravy ladle. "You don't suppose she took it, do you?" Joanne said, "Well, I doubt it, but I'll write her a letter just to be sure."

So he sat down and wrote: "Dear Mother, I'm not saying you 'did' take a gravy ladle from my house, and I'm not saying you 'did not' take a gravy ladle. But the fact remains that one has been missing ever since you were here for dinner."

Several days later, Michael received a letter from his mother which read: "Dear Son, I'm not saying that you 'do' sleep with Joanne, and I'm not saying that you 'do not' sleep with Joanne. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the gravy ladle by now. Love, Mom"

Labor Day Weekend

So lets review my recap of the weekend...much more exciting then I expected it to be...

Friday - out of work early...what could be better?! Maybe an exciting night on the town?? Haha yeah right...stayed home and watched TV. Oh how exciting my life is.

Saturday - cleaned, and cleaned, and more cleaning. I don't know what was up with me but I was cleaning anything and everything I could. Much organizing ensued. My traditional Saturday night included Liz, The Basement, Downtown Akron bars and to my surprise, my buddy Willie. There were way to many cops to count (as if I could really count them at that point anyways...) so we took the safe route and called Ben to have him and Liz's b/f Kyle come get us. They were none to pleased that we interrupted their pow wow with their friend Chris but came anyways. All in all a good and early night by our terms.




Sunday - cleaning and cleaning more. Still don't know what got into me but it produced good results and a full trashcan. Sunday afternoon when Ben got off work we went over to his grandpa's brother's grandchildren's birthday party. Now I must inform you that i had no knowledge of this birthday (and I guess Ben didn't either). We knew a cousin that we had seen in Arizona was in town for some training as mentioned before (and I was wrong, it was the one we met not the other one we didn't meet!) and that we were going to visit and have a picnic. What I had no idea about was the aforementioned birthday party with about 30 kids.

Definitely a shocker when we walked up to the house with homemade guitars strewn about, a pool blown up by the garage, a slide on the hill in the backyard and jammin' music. Needless to say we kept our butts in the basement most of the time with his cousin and the rest of the family. It really was a great time though and good food. Got bit up by some lovely mosquitoes though when they were starting the fire.

The Girls (Ava and Maria) with their homemade guitar cake

Me and Ben at the lovely affair

Monday - now really we didn't have any plans. Ben (again as previous mentioned in my last post) thought we might go to his uncle's house but we hadn't heard anything. We worked in the yard a bit but it was mighty warm outside and we were both spent after cleaning up the flower beds. Ben did go out for a little bit of mowing. I went to the grocery store thinking we would be cookin' out at home and don't you just know it that when I got home we got a call saying to come on over. It just has to work like that you know. So we went - hey free yummy food for a second day, bring it on. So we went, nothing exciting to report. No pictures either (yes, shocking I know).

So if you have gotten through this long update I applaud you. It was definitely a LABOR Day for us (too bad that's not really funny...)

This week...

Was a long one. I felt like I didn't really get anything done at work until Friday.

Monday I was preparing for a training that took place Tues afternoon and Weds morning. The Weds afternoon and Thurs morning I spent in a management meeting taking minutes (can you hear the joy in my voice!). So then I had to clean up after all that and the training that I never got to really clean up after on Thurs afternoon. And Friday was catch up day. So all in all a very busy and long week at work. I did get a nice dinner Tues night out of it though so I was happy because I wasn't going to go :)

And in job news, I officially have the job. I have been reluctant to say anything because I haven't been able to announce it at work yet. They had to notify the other internal candidates that they didn't get it as a courtesy and I was told that wouldn't really be able to be done until Friday. So I am hoping on Tuesday they make the announcement. A few people do know for sure because they knew i was interviewing and that they were making an offer. I so can't wait!! It isn't effective until Sept 10 and even then I will still be doing a cross of what I am doing now with my new position because a lot of stuff I do now just can't go by the wayside. So hopefully my boss gets his butt in gear and gets the position hired for. He did congratulate me Thurs before he left for a business trip. He then asked me what I was most excited about with the new position and of course I couldn't give him the real answer :P So I just said everything that comes with the new position - different responsibilities, working with different people. So now I'm very excited to start this new position. I do need to move a bunch of stuff though to a new desk...

This afternoon we are going to Ben's families house to see one of his cousin's from Arizona that we didn't get to meet while we were out there because she lives in CA. I am excited to meet her and see the rest of the family. I have no clue what we will be doing tomorrow - Ben mentioned something about going to his Uncle's house but I don't know if that's for sure yet.

So I guess that's enough of my rambling boring update!

A few pictures..

Just wanted to post a few pictures from recent times that I haven't gotten to post yet...

Birthday Girl, Tiffany (Ben's cousin) blowing out the candles on her cake.

The "Boyd Boys" singing karaoke (don't know who the dude in front in the white shirt is...)

Now this should be a good laugh...my co worker and I (excuse my mess lookin self) in "bunny suits" in the hospital that we were checking dispensers in Chicago. Couldn't go into surgery areas without these lovely lookin suits, very fun though hence the picture. Good times.

Me and the lovely Liz out on the town...yes, we were plastered.

Another night on the town, again...plastered.

7 things about me

Again, to enjoy being cool like my fellow online friends I will now tell you 7 things you may or may not want to know about me...

1. I love my dogs...like seriously I do. My puppy Duke (see page right) sleeps with me every night. I know this may sound weird and most people tell me once I have kids he will be just a dog to me but he seriously has a way of always making me feel better and knows when I need a pick me up. Oh..and he doesn't talk back :P

2. I have a phobia of touching things when my fingers are water logged. Strange but true. It is especially true with paper. I can't touch paper without wanting to throw up when my fingers are water logged. I sit there and wait for about 10 mins after I take a shower before I do anything, slightly annoying. Don't ask me where this came from since I used to be a swimmer...but my friend Liz also has this phobia which I recently discovered so I don't feel like a weirdo anymore.

3. From previous post, I'm a twin. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it.

4. If I could afford it I would start my own photography business. I love taking pictures period. I probably have over 15,000 pictures on my computer and yes I have taken all of them mostly. I take my camera everywhere I go. Just a few thousand dollars and some practice away from my dream :)

5. I love to scrapbook - I have about 4 albums...it's just too darn expensive between printing the pictures and buying all the stuff. But I still get in my moods where I do it for a while and get all caught up, like right before the wedding.

6. I love Coldstone Creamery Ice Cream and Chipotle. I miss my days of living at my old house where the two were within walking distance of each other and it was so easy to go to both....

7. I could live in sweat pants and flip flops no matter what time of year it is.