outlook is being a poopy-head
apparently i never am able to close outlook on my computer without coming in the next morning and getting a "the data file 'archive current' was not closed properly. this file is being checked for problems." normally it doesn't take that long, but this morning it's taken about 15 minutes and it's not done yet... so, i'll take advantage of this time and update.
yikes, just realized i haven't posted anything since halloween!
+_+_+
i'll start with the obvious...halloween was fun, although my work sucks and everyone here is stupid. i was the only one who dressed up this year. i suppose because halloween was on a saturday they didn't feel like doing anything. no party or costume contest or anything, just people coming into work like any other friday. it was a good thing my costume looked like a normal work-day uniform: skirt, heels, white button-up and a red trench coat. the only thing different was that i didn't wear my classes and i wore a "press badge" around my neck with a picture of lois lane and the logo of the daily planet printed on it. no one understood my costume, which has become pretty standard around here. unfortunately, without standing next to marshall, who seriously looked like he stepped from the pages of a DC comic, my look didn't make much sense. marshall was awesome as clark kent. he shaved his goatee and wore a suit with a superman t-shirt underneath. i advised him to keep his shirt unbuttoned so he could display the S on his chest more easily. so yeah, his costume turned out better than mine.
that was merely friday BEFORE halloween, though. for actual halloween, marshall and i were invited to a south park theme party, hosted by nicole and jesse and their friends. turned out to be a pretty quiet halloween, but fun was had by all. i decided to be a raisins girl, while marshall took on the more challenging role of ms. choksondik. just like with the clark kent costume, he was scarily similar to the south park character. we spent that afternoon at target and found a blue cotton dress (a tube-top style), a large red sweater, and these super long red socks (which were filled with a tennis ball each and pinned to the outside of the sweater). he wore knee-highs and brown shoes and totally looked the part. it was a little eerie. the rest of the group did well, too. nicole and jesse were paris hilton and butters as her teddy bear, respectively. we also had stan and wendy, evil cartman, ANOTHER raisins girl, and jimmy. we all had a great time standing around drinking beer and chatting. before the party, marshall and i stopped at my sister's house to see how their halloween was going. they also invited us for dinner, which was cool. my sister's brother-in-law and his wife were there with their son, who was the most adorable fireman i had ever seen. my niece was, convincingly, cinderella, and my nephew was batman. my brother-in-law was happily dressed as robin and my sister made an attempt at turning an incomplete angel costume from the store into something not quite resembling cinderella's fairy godmother. i'm not sure if it was the black leggings underneath a white choir-like robe, the brown uggs, or the wings borrowed from my niece, which broke the illusion... :P by the time we stopped off at my parents house to say hi, they had already been wiped out of candy and preparing to hole up in the kitchen with all the lights off. we enjoyed a glass of wine and everyone agreed that marshall's costume was completely ridiculous and hilarious.
+_+_+
the rest of last week went better than the week before. halloween weekend seemed to snap me out of my funk. i greeted monday with a gym workout and tuesday with a run. my energy and discipline petered out and i slept in the rest of the week. i'm determined to do better this week, even though it's supposed to be freezing every morning. work last week went well, even though the project i'm currently working on (outside of my individual book projects) is going to be delayed. our schedule for completion was rather aggressive, but it's better we get OUR stuff in order before we try to train and teach our vendors what they should be doing. nothing really stood out from last week, so i'm thinking nothing much else happened.
+_+_+
friday night marshall and i were originally going to have dinner with my cousin, but he told me earlier in the week that he and his girlfriend had plans, but we should reschedule and get together another time. marshall and i were eager to go out, but we wanted to get together with other people. i suggested we call up spitemeat and his Lovely Wife™ and see if they were available. turned out to be a great choice, too, since we had a great time with them! we were originally going to go to pizza antica, but by the time we got there the wait was over an hour long. oh, and guess who we ran into while we were there? my cousin and his girlfriend, having dinner with a few of their coworkers. oh well! anyway, we had The Boy™ with us and he was starving, so we decided to go to the counter instead. this turned out to be a much better choice. our table was ready within 10 minutes of arriving, even if it WAS right next to the bathrooms (com'on, - we asked for first-available and there were TONS of tables available to accommodate 5 people, but they stuck us near the bathroom...). we were all pretty hungry, so we quickly put in an order of 50/50 fries/sweet potato fries, 50/50 fries/onion strings, AND an order of fried pickle chips. E and his family had never been to the counter and they were perplexed by the options available to create his burger, but they all managed to put something delicious together and enjoyed their burgers. mine was delicious as well and included bacon, bleu cheese, sauteed onions, tomatoes, lettuce and pickles with spicy sour cream on the side, all on an english muffin. yum! of course, by the time the last fry was devoured, we were totally and completely stuffed. they had a long drive ahead of them back home, so they dropped us off at home and headed back up the peninsula. it was great hanging out with them and we definitely need to do it more often. perhaps next time we can stay in and cook! :D
+_+_+
this weekend went well. saturday, after breakfast, marshall and i came home so i could be home for my shift manning the text reference services offered by my info quest. it was part of my service learning project for my class where i got to answer reference questions submitted via text message. it was an interesting experience, but one that lacked any questions! i logged into the gmail account and readied myself for questions and none came. luckily, i was chatting with one of my classmates at the time (secretfanofu) and he helped me by texting a couple of questions my way (from different numbers). i should've pressed other friends to text me while i was working, because i came short of the number of questions i needed to reference in my write-up report. oh well, there's a list of very stupid questions i can pick from and answer. i really wish, though, that the list of questions didn't already INCLUDE the answers! anyway, that went well and it went by quickly.
marshall was out looking at his new bike while i was working, but came back in time for us to go to the rental office and renew our lease. this is the second time we were asked to renew our lease 3 months in advance AND with no change in our rent. this year they also offered a choice between a free "accent" wall or a free carpet cleaning. we chose the carpet cleaning, which we'll have available to us once our new lease starts. there wasn't much else to do that afternoon, so we stayed in until dinner and then after dinner came home to change and head out again, but this time to san francisco. it was my friend kathleen's birthday and the plan was to meet up for drinks and socializing at a bar called john colins. it's this tiny little bar on this equally tiny side street in the shadow of the bay bridge, just shy of downtown. it turned out to be a really cool place to go and certainly was a hot spot that night. marshall and i ended up not noticing the change in the time, so we got there right at 9pm. we're dorks, but we were able to snag an area of the bar and by the time everyone arrived, they had a place to put their coat and rest their drinks. the vibe was great and it certainly helped that everyone there was in their late 20s, early 30s. i'm becoming very picky with bars and clubs as i've gotten a little older. i simply cannot stand going to a place crowded with newly-turned 21-year-olds. most of the girls are trashy and the guys are total douchebags. everyone is there to just get drunk, while i want to sip my top shelf gin and tonic and chit-chat. the other thing that was GREAT at this place was the DJ. there wasn't any dancing, but he was spinning the best mix of new and "old" hip-hop. we got to listen to new jay-z AND old-school snoop dog and dr. dre. it was awesome. we all had a wonderful time and i'm really hoping kathleen had a great birthday! :D
+_+_+
i learned early yesterday morning that mexican food and gin do NOT mix and i was plagued by horrible post-drinking stomach issues. luckily, it all subsided once we got up before 10 and marshall was a wonderful fiance and went out to buy and MAKE breakfast of eggs, potatoes, and sausage. it was glorious and a perfect post-late-night breakfast. we couldn't veg all morning long because we had an appointment to meet with the managing baker at gayle's bakery to finalize our wedding cake. we finalized the design and how the cake toppers should be. we also gave our final decision for the flavors and which tiers our flavors should be (2 tiers of the flourless chocolate souffle with grand marnier buttercream and 1 tier of the double-layer hazelnut cake with 1 layer of devil's food chocolate with hazelnut buttercream). so yeah, we're all set with the cake. next up will be picking the menu with our caterer. now THAT'S gonna be fun!
we headed back over the hill and bought a new lamp for the living room. our office lamp broke and instead of finding a replacement for the office we found a great lamp to put in the living room and we'll simply put the lamp currently in the living room into the office. of course, it's one of those paper lantern-type column lamps and after being up for a minute, wash tore one of the corners. *sigh* oh well, we'll put that corner against he couch. after that it was on to the next errand to sports basement to finally pick up marshall's new bike. they noticed some clicking when marshall test rode it yesterday and so they kept it to fix whatever was causing it. they also had to put the pedals on and marshall had to pick out bike shoes, as well. i busied myself in the fitness clothing area and found a new sports bra, long-sleeve workout shirt and a short-sleeve workout shirt, full-fingered running and cycling gloves and a new $5 beanie for running. sports basement really does have some awesome deals on sports clothing, which is great because that kind of clothing is usually SUPER expensive. we got marshall all squared away, put the bike on the back of the car and headed home. only to leave again for grocery shopping and finally to my sister's house for dinner. we enjoyed a large spread of broiled lamb chops, fresh pasta pesto with green beans, salad and garlic bread. it was all very delicious and we had a fun time hanging out with my niece and nephew. we're watching them all day this coming saturday, so we'll see how that goes. the times we've watched them before, they've been really good, so i'm hoping that pattern persists. i'm thinking, if the weather is good enough, to go to a park for a picnic and pack sandwiches and snacks. i think that would be fun.
+_+_+
anyway, i think that's it for now. my email is working, so i should probably follow suit.
yikes, just realized i haven't posted anything since halloween!
+_+_+
i'll start with the obvious...halloween was fun, although my work sucks and everyone here is stupid. i was the only one who dressed up this year. i suppose because halloween was on a saturday they didn't feel like doing anything. no party or costume contest or anything, just people coming into work like any other friday. it was a good thing my costume looked like a normal work-day uniform: skirt, heels, white button-up and a red trench coat. the only thing different was that i didn't wear my classes and i wore a "press badge" around my neck with a picture of lois lane and the logo of the daily planet printed on it. no one understood my costume, which has become pretty standard around here. unfortunately, without standing next to marshall, who seriously looked like he stepped from the pages of a DC comic, my look didn't make much sense. marshall was awesome as clark kent. he shaved his goatee and wore a suit with a superman t-shirt underneath. i advised him to keep his shirt unbuttoned so he could display the S on his chest more easily. so yeah, his costume turned out better than mine.
that was merely friday BEFORE halloween, though. for actual halloween, marshall and i were invited to a south park theme party, hosted by nicole and jesse and their friends. turned out to be a pretty quiet halloween, but fun was had by all. i decided to be a raisins girl, while marshall took on the more challenging role of ms. choksondik. just like with the clark kent costume, he was scarily similar to the south park character. we spent that afternoon at target and found a blue cotton dress (a tube-top style), a large red sweater, and these super long red socks (which were filled with a tennis ball each and pinned to the outside of the sweater). he wore knee-highs and brown shoes and totally looked the part. it was a little eerie. the rest of the group did well, too. nicole and jesse were paris hilton and butters as her teddy bear, respectively. we also had stan and wendy, evil cartman, ANOTHER raisins girl, and jimmy. we all had a great time standing around drinking beer and chatting. before the party, marshall and i stopped at my sister's house to see how their halloween was going. they also invited us for dinner, which was cool. my sister's brother-in-law and his wife were there with their son, who was the most adorable fireman i had ever seen. my niece was, convincingly, cinderella, and my nephew was batman. my brother-in-law was happily dressed as robin and my sister made an attempt at turning an incomplete angel costume from the store into something not quite resembling cinderella's fairy godmother. i'm not sure if it was the black leggings underneath a white choir-like robe, the brown uggs, or the wings borrowed from my niece, which broke the illusion... :P by the time we stopped off at my parents house to say hi, they had already been wiped out of candy and preparing to hole up in the kitchen with all the lights off. we enjoyed a glass of wine and everyone agreed that marshall's costume was completely ridiculous and hilarious.
+_+_+
the rest of last week went better than the week before. halloween weekend seemed to snap me out of my funk. i greeted monday with a gym workout and tuesday with a run. my energy and discipline petered out and i slept in the rest of the week. i'm determined to do better this week, even though it's supposed to be freezing every morning. work last week went well, even though the project i'm currently working on (outside of my individual book projects) is going to be delayed. our schedule for completion was rather aggressive, but it's better we get OUR stuff in order before we try to train and teach our vendors what they should be doing. nothing really stood out from last week, so i'm thinking nothing much else happened.
+_+_+
friday night marshall and i were originally going to have dinner with my cousin, but he told me earlier in the week that he and his girlfriend had plans, but we should reschedule and get together another time. marshall and i were eager to go out, but we wanted to get together with other people. i suggested we call up spitemeat and his Lovely Wife™ and see if they were available. turned out to be a great choice, too, since we had a great time with them! we were originally going to go to pizza antica, but by the time we got there the wait was over an hour long. oh, and guess who we ran into while we were there? my cousin and his girlfriend, having dinner with a few of their coworkers. oh well! anyway, we had The Boy™ with us and he was starving, so we decided to go to the counter instead. this turned out to be a much better choice. our table was ready within 10 minutes of arriving, even if it WAS right next to the bathrooms (com'on, - we asked for first-available and there were TONS of tables available to accommodate 5 people, but they stuck us near the bathroom...). we were all pretty hungry, so we quickly put in an order of 50/50 fries/sweet potato fries, 50/50 fries/onion strings, AND an order of fried pickle chips. E and his family had never been to the counter and they were perplexed by the options available to create his burger, but they all managed to put something delicious together and enjoyed their burgers. mine was delicious as well and included bacon, bleu cheese, sauteed onions, tomatoes, lettuce and pickles with spicy sour cream on the side, all on an english muffin. yum! of course, by the time the last fry was devoured, we were totally and completely stuffed. they had a long drive ahead of them back home, so they dropped us off at home and headed back up the peninsula. it was great hanging out with them and we definitely need to do it more often. perhaps next time we can stay in and cook! :D
+_+_+
this weekend went well. saturday, after breakfast, marshall and i came home so i could be home for my shift manning the text reference services offered by my info quest. it was part of my service learning project for my class where i got to answer reference questions submitted via text message. it was an interesting experience, but one that lacked any questions! i logged into the gmail account and readied myself for questions and none came. luckily, i was chatting with one of my classmates at the time (secretfanofu) and he helped me by texting a couple of questions my way (from different numbers). i should've pressed other friends to text me while i was working, because i came short of the number of questions i needed to reference in my write-up report. oh well, there's a list of very stupid questions i can pick from and answer. i really wish, though, that the list of questions didn't already INCLUDE the answers! anyway, that went well and it went by quickly.
marshall was out looking at his new bike while i was working, but came back in time for us to go to the rental office and renew our lease. this is the second time we were asked to renew our lease 3 months in advance AND with no change in our rent. this year they also offered a choice between a free "accent" wall or a free carpet cleaning. we chose the carpet cleaning, which we'll have available to us once our new lease starts. there wasn't much else to do that afternoon, so we stayed in until dinner and then after dinner came home to change and head out again, but this time to san francisco. it was my friend kathleen's birthday and the plan was to meet up for drinks and socializing at a bar called john colins. it's this tiny little bar on this equally tiny side street in the shadow of the bay bridge, just shy of downtown. it turned out to be a really cool place to go and certainly was a hot spot that night. marshall and i ended up not noticing the change in the time, so we got there right at 9pm. we're dorks, but we were able to snag an area of the bar and by the time everyone arrived, they had a place to put their coat and rest their drinks. the vibe was great and it certainly helped that everyone there was in their late 20s, early 30s. i'm becoming very picky with bars and clubs as i've gotten a little older. i simply cannot stand going to a place crowded with newly-turned 21-year-olds. most of the girls are trashy and the guys are total douchebags. everyone is there to just get drunk, while i want to sip my top shelf gin and tonic and chit-chat. the other thing that was GREAT at this place was the DJ. there wasn't any dancing, but he was spinning the best mix of new and "old" hip-hop. we got to listen to new jay-z AND old-school snoop dog and dr. dre. it was awesome. we all had a wonderful time and i'm really hoping kathleen had a great birthday! :D
+_+_+
i learned early yesterday morning that mexican food and gin do NOT mix and i was plagued by horrible post-drinking stomach issues. luckily, it all subsided once we got up before 10 and marshall was a wonderful fiance and went out to buy and MAKE breakfast of eggs, potatoes, and sausage. it was glorious and a perfect post-late-night breakfast. we couldn't veg all morning long because we had an appointment to meet with the managing baker at gayle's bakery to finalize our wedding cake. we finalized the design and how the cake toppers should be. we also gave our final decision for the flavors and which tiers our flavors should be (2 tiers of the flourless chocolate souffle with grand marnier buttercream and 1 tier of the double-layer hazelnut cake with 1 layer of devil's food chocolate with hazelnut buttercream). so yeah, we're all set with the cake. next up will be picking the menu with our caterer. now THAT'S gonna be fun!
we headed back over the hill and bought a new lamp for the living room. our office lamp broke and instead of finding a replacement for the office we found a great lamp to put in the living room and we'll simply put the lamp currently in the living room into the office. of course, it's one of those paper lantern-type column lamps and after being up for a minute, wash tore one of the corners. *sigh* oh well, we'll put that corner against he couch. after that it was on to the next errand to sports basement to finally pick up marshall's new bike. they noticed some clicking when marshall test rode it yesterday and so they kept it to fix whatever was causing it. they also had to put the pedals on and marshall had to pick out bike shoes, as well. i busied myself in the fitness clothing area and found a new sports bra, long-sleeve workout shirt and a short-sleeve workout shirt, full-fingered running and cycling gloves and a new $5 beanie for running. sports basement really does have some awesome deals on sports clothing, which is great because that kind of clothing is usually SUPER expensive. we got marshall all squared away, put the bike on the back of the car and headed home. only to leave again for grocery shopping and finally to my sister's house for dinner. we enjoyed a large spread of broiled lamb chops, fresh pasta pesto with green beans, salad and garlic bread. it was all very delicious and we had a fun time hanging out with my niece and nephew. we're watching them all day this coming saturday, so we'll see how that goes. the times we've watched them before, they've been really good, so i'm hoping that pattern persists. i'm thinking, if the weather is good enough, to go to a park for a picnic and pack sandwiches and snacks. i think that would be fun.
+_+_+
anyway, i think that's it for now. my email is working, so i should probably follow suit.