It's June 29

I'm gonna go ahead and tell you what that means...

possibly against my better judgement...

lest I be judged.

Today is the release of Lego Harry Potter for PS3.

For some ridiculous reason, I set my alarm clock back a half hour (based on a discussion Jerry and I had last night and not because of Lego Harry Potter). So on a day where I could afford to be running a bit later than usual, I was running a half hour early. I quickly showered, ate breakfast, and styled my hair with more than just mousse (an easy hair fix for days when I have to wash my hair but have no time/energy to style it). By 7:28, I was ready to walk out the door.

I decided that I would take Ridge today to kill some time. It is easily the slowest way to work because of the plethora of stop lights, stop signs,a nd construction. Except today. When I could afford to be running a little later, I hit every green light and I typically rolled right up to each stop sign instead of waiting for the 40 cars before me to stop and go. No construction at Ridge/Highland. And after the railroad tracks, everyone was in the right lane - meaning the left lane (that I would be taking) was wide open. So a drive that normally took 20 minutes, today only took 10.

Target doesn't open until 8:00 (gift cards!).

Meijer was open, so I did some quick pricing of the things I need to make cupcakes on Friday and perused the KitchenAid attachments (I <3 my KitchenAid). Then I hopped in my car and moved it over to the Target parking lot, watching for the guy to come around and unlock the doors.

I should have been able to pick up the game and go, but they hadn't put them out yet. Seven minutes later they finally got one out of the back and I was out the door.

By the time that I arrived at work, parked the car, gathered my things, and gott settled into the office, it was 8:19. Typically, I get to work no later than 8. This gives me time to settle in for the day and knock out a few things before my co-workers begin showing up at 8:25ish. So today, I had a mere 5 minutes to myself before the AAe showed up to falsify her time. My boss even showed up on time. And he was immediately in my office requesting that I make the exact changes on a project that the client and I have already discussed.

This is going to be a slow day since the game will sit in my car until I can get home and have dinner. Why can't I win the lottery, quit my job, and play PS3 all day? Huh? Why?

Tax time

Somebody's tax return FINALLY came this past week! Yay for finally being able to finish some projects around the house!!!

No offense to Dadu, but I think that it's time to start working with a pro so as to avoid missing paperwork.

Yay... money!

(Or rather, yay return of money that the IRS has held hostage for at least 6 months! Yes-hostage because the money wanted to be with me all along!)

Right now...

Things that are bugging me:

I am ridiculously tired. I had plenty of sleep last night and tons of coffee this morning. Ok, maybe not tons. I am so close to napping on my desk right now.

My co-worker is a big-ol' lying liar. I just don't understand how you can clock 45 minutes for a conference call when everyone else on the call clocked 30. Or how you can go home sick from work but manage to go out for pizza, a reds game, and a night of bar-hopping. Or how you can work from home without the convenience of your work computer (not having an exchange server means that you cannot remotely check your email from a home computer).

Why is the "H" key on my keyboard temperamental?

How does "I actually needed that yesterday, so can you please get it completed as soon as possible" lead you to believe that "I will try to get to it today" is an acceptable response?

Why has it taken over 4 hours to get a file converted to a PDF? If I had the ability to convert your design file (that my computer can't even read) into a PDF (a plug-in option that my computer never wants to recognize when Ineed it most), I would have done it in 5 minutes.

"I had a kid, what's your excuse?" loses it's validity as an argument when your kid is 7 years old and you still weigh at least 50 pounds more than before the kid. By the way, just how much did you gain during that pregnancy?!?! Also, not argument friendly: when the "you" of your question refers to someone who has recently become very ill and lost over 30 lbs.

Illegally copying a proof of your graduation photo and posting it on Facebook with the word "Proof" and the photog's name watermarked on it is tacky.

In the beginning...

Jerry and I have been married for almost seven weeks.

Here are some of the facts about our marriage (but you probably already know these):
- We were married in Las Vegas at the Planet Hollywood Chapel.
- We were NOT married in any sort of religious ceremony (though there were some spiritual remarks and the officiant is in fact a Reverend)
- As we did not have a religious ceremony, we had no pre-marriage requirement such as pre-cana.

But I think that we did pretty well in preparing for marriage. We talk about EVERYTHING! And prior to walking down the aisle, we had a few discussions of things that we need in our marriage in order to be successful and happy.

One thing that we decided to do was create a list of items that we would like to do within the first year of marriage and before we consider having kids. I am happy to report that we are making decent progress on our one year list. So far we have...

- Attended a Cincinnati Commandos game
- Attended a Cincinnati Cyclones game (the final game of the Kelly Cup finals, I might add)
- On Saturday, we will hit up Taste of Cincinnati, VIP style

Still to come...
- Getting a puppy
- Finishing projects around the house
- Attending a Bengals game
- VIP at Oktoberfest

And much much more.

A dumb reason to love my job today

Last week, I had a meeting with one of my clients in which they asked me and my boss if we knew the meaning of one of their industry acronyms. We had NO idea. She learned of the acronym being used for a speaking opportunity by one of her team members, but was too embarrassed to tell him that she had no idea what it meant. Afterall, she should know - it's her industry!

So this morning as I was following up on my notes from that meeting, I find a random note in the sidebar that says, "What is LSS?"

So, I quickly searched Google to find that the most probable answer is "Lean Six Sigma" - a term that could be used in her industry.

So I emailed her to find out if they ever got an answer from the team that approved the speaker, and no one knew. So, she was completely impressed with me finding it. All with a few clicks of a keyboard.

LOVE IT!

It's what time?

Almost 4 am.  I have been awake since just before 3.

My stomach is very upset, as it has been just about every night since about the beginning of the year. It's been particularly bad lately and I just hope that it's related to the ridiculous changes in weather around here and my corresponding allergy issues. I won't get into the disgusting details of how having allergy issues = upset stomach.

Anyway, the other thing that is bothering me is that I keep thinking about my Cincinnati reception that occurred this past Friday. Yes folks, it was this past Friday. I just want to go ahead and thank all the people that did show as well as the people who did not show up, yet had a valid excuse and took the time to let me know.

It's rally kinda playing on my mind as to how some people can be so rude as to RSVP to an event where the host is paying for food/drinks/etc. per head... and then not show! We did have some last minute cancellations and I can certainly forgive those people because they had good reasons. And honestly, I didn't notice some of the no-shows until I was thinking about it later and the next day.

But these rude people have made me realize something... never will I RSVP to an event where it is likely that my presence is individually paid for, unless I am damn sure that I can make it.

As a side note, the following reasons are acceptable excuses for not showing Friday night (post-RSVP)...
- Babysitter issues arising at the last minute (although your kid would have totally been welcome)
- Being 9 months pregnant, due within a week, and starting your work day in the wee hours of the morning (specifically judging a pregnant bikini contest)
- Developing a nasty infection in your eye (we don't want to see that!)
- Switching jobs soon before the date and not being able to get the time off work (though, advanced notice would have still been nice since we had until the week before the reception to give a final head count)

So, in the end, this is what I have also learned: I know who my true friends are now. I will stop including people who bitch and moan that I don't spend enough time with them when they can't follow through on a simple RSVP. I will stop making certain people a priority to whom I am clearly not a priority. I thought about sending certain insensitive people a "Guess we missed you Friday night" message... but why waste the energy?

I'm gonna go ahead and call that the end of this rant and hope that I have vented enough frustrations to officially get this off my mind and fall peacefully asleep for the next 2 hours or so before I have to get moving for work. That's assuming that this stomach issue subsides as well. Looks like I'm gonna be propping up on the couch. Yay.

That's insane!

It's absolutely crazy how my office works. I have been here at 7:30 every mornign this week because I have some huge projects that I want to make sure I get finished before taking Friday off to celebrate my wedding - Cincinnati Reception Style!

Ok, on Monday, I got here at 7:30 and got all the way into the building and realized that I grabbed the wrong set of keys (no office key) and had to turn around to get the right keys.

So, here's what's crazy though... I have a co-worker who gets here at 7:30 am as well - only that only happens on days when I am not running so early. When I am here at 7:30, I have never seen her roll in earlier than 8:20. (We technically start at 8:30.) It's only on days that I roll in closer to 8:25 (because come on, I'm never gonna be late), that she gets here around 7:30... so she says.

Yes, that's right, I'm accusing her of lying. I don't really have any proof, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that she doesn't tell the truth about when she gets here. And sometimes, she tries to leave between 4 and 4:30 - on days when she gets here at 7:30 of course.

In fact, she says that she was here at 7:30 on Monday morning. It was at 7:35 that I sent Jerry a message that said "I grabbed the wrong [expletive deleted] keys." and walked back out to my car. So the absolute earliest that might have gotten here would be 7:40ish. yet when I returned from retrieving the proper keys at my house, she told me that she was here at 7:30.

Fascinating how our schedules coordinate like that.

End of rant! Thank you for listening.