Reassurance

Have you ever had one of those experiences when you felt like something was happening specifically to you or because of you? One of our PT's is leaving at work so we have been interviewing for her position. Last week I had the opportunity to interview this truly amazing person. She has over 20 years of experience as a PT and most recently spent 3 years doing volunteer/mission PT in the Middle East. Not only were her stories amazing, but her whole demeanor and attitude were refreshingly familiar.

When I was interviewing her, and asking her the standard questions in one of our interview packets, I felt like she was answering every question directly to me. Every answer she gave addressed something I have been struggling with or thoughts I have had in the back of my head (both career-related and in my personal life).

Unfortunately, I don't think she is going to accept the position, which is a shame because I would love to have her in my life, both personally and professionally. I've never met someone before who gave me such a sense of peace and reassurance that I am making the right decisions for my future.

I only hope someday I can have the same affect on someone that she had on me. That's what it's all about.

It's Birthday Week!!!

I officially declare it BIRTHDAY WEEK! It started yesterday (I decided after the fact) when I met a friend at the mall to do a little shopping. You can read about that here. I had wanted to go shopping on my actual birthday but I think I did enough yesterday that I don't need to spend more money on my birthday :) Last night my friend Paige came over for a couple drinks and some good conversation. Today I'm spending the day getting caught up on stuff around the house, but if I can achieve some level of organization before this week starts it will significantly decrease my stress level (since it seems to be inversely related to my "To Do" list.....and I love to make lists!)

I'm not sure what else this week will hold but I'm very much looking forward to my day off on Friday....and my first ever massage (for free)!!!

Boston Recap

I was in Boston for PT Annual Conference last Wednesday through Saturday. It was such a great trip, I don't even know where to begin! The programming was pretty good, although most of it was more of a review than brand new information, but regardless it was still good to hear. I ran into an old co-worker from CHOP and an old PT school classmate as well. We may have had a little too much fun outside of the actual courses as I'm exhausted and trying really hard to will away my sore throat and stuffy nose!

I traveled and roomed with a co-worker (Hi Penny!) so that made things a lot more fun. We arrived Wednesday night, after a little scare on the airplane. We were literally about to land and all of the sudden the plane took off at a 70 degree angle toward the sky, then we heard the landing gear come back up, and they didn't come on the loudspeaker and tell us anything for a full 2-3 minutes (it seemed like 10). They said they were "re-routed" and I think that "re-routed" is code for "PULL UP RIGHT NOW THERE IS ANOTHER PLANE ON THE RUNWAY!!!" After we successfully landed we rode the shuttle to the hotel with some interesting characters (one of whom got into a heated argument with the shuttle driver at the first stop....I thought there was going to be blood but thankfully everything worked out).

We finally arrived at the hotel only to find out our room wasn't ready (4.5 hours after official check-in). The lady didn't seem too concerned that we had been traveling all day so I asked her if we could at least get a drink ticket or something to make up for them not having the room ready (go me!) She said she could give us 1 free breakfast. We were planning on just throwing our bags in the room and going out to dinner anyways so we checked them in the lobby and met another co-worker for some grub. We returned to the hotel at 9:30 and they still had not called my phone to let me know the room was ready, so I decided to be "stern but polite" and make sure they knew I wasn't satisfied. I barely had to say anything and the guy apologized, said it was ridiculous we had to wait so long, and comped us free breakfast every morning we were there!

So we finally get up to our room, open our door, and see a big pile of sheets/towels/linen sitting on the chair. I called our new friend "Owen" at the front desk and politely asked him to send someone up to clean it up and get us new linens. Housekeeping came and took care of it. As we were getting ready for bed, we heard a knock at the door.......roomservice! Owen and the "Front Desk Staff" sent us a nice hand-written apology for all of our "troubles" and a bottle of wine with cheese, crackers, and fruit!

Our luck continued well into the next day. We had planned on going to the Red Sox game Thursday night, so when we saw some girls at a booth at the exhibit hall wearing Red Sox jerseys, we went up to ask them if they had any tips for going to the game or getting tickets. Turns out they were wearing the jerseys because they were having a raffle to win tickets to Thursday night's game......and guess what??? We won!!!! We got two $52 tickets for free!!

Our seats were behind home plate. It worked out perfect, because we happened to have an extra seat next to us, so our friend from work was able to buy a cheap ticket outside and enjoy the game with us!

After the game we headed over to Boston Beer Works to watch the NBA championship game. As it became evident that the Celtics were going to lose, we decided to head out and avoid the angry mobs. And I'm glad we did, we were the only people on the streets.....except for the couple hundred police decked out in their riot gear (think Arts Fest at Penn State).

Friday night I was able to meet up with a couple friends from college....my friend Sarah lives in Boston and joined us for dinner and a drink and my friend Matt lives in Rhode Island and drove up for a drink. It was so great to catch up with them!

Luckily we had a decent amount of time in between courses during the day so we were able to go for a run along the Charles River and walk downtown to the Boston Common & Public Garden. Being in Boston made me sooooo "citysick" (think homesick but craving a city instead of home). I am really, really, really keeping my fingers crossed that our next move is to a certain Windy City but if not, I know it will all work out.

A few more wedding pics.....

One of the bridesmaids gifts were these bad ass green heels (which we all wore in the wedding) custom "graffiti-ed" by a local Erie graffiti artist. Everybody's designs were different - specific to that person. Here is a pic of Sarah's shoes. I can't wait to see the one the photographer took of everyone's shoes!

One of Sarah's bridesmaids, Renee, made her cake. She also went to art school with Sarah. It looked and tasted amazing!

I loved, loved, loved my hair! Sarah's hairstylist, Gretchen, did a great job! Especially since my only requirements were "up" and "back!"

Instead of a guestbook, Sarah & Pat collected sea rocks from the beach and had everyone sign them/write a message on them with sharpies. They turned out so great!

Also, this, apparently, is NOT a frying pan.

Congrats Mr. & Mrs. Mazzone!!

My cousin Sarah got married this weekend! We made the trip up to Erie to see her and Pat tie the knot (hence the lack of blogging). It was a great trip, we were able to spend a lot of time with family, and as with any wedding trip, I am now completely exhausted! (And I leave in 60 hours to go to Boston for a work trip!!)

We got into Erie super late Thursday night and crashed at the hotel. Friday morning we went to Dominick's Diner to enjoy some diner grub....it's been a while since either Tom or I were at a diner. I spent Friday afternoon at the hair salon with Sarah (who else would have the guts to put bright red and copper highlights in their hair the day before their wedding??? love it) while Tom helped set things up at Aunt Judy's for the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal went off without a hitch and we enjoyed an amazing dinner with good company afterwards.

Saturday morning it was off to the salon to get our hair did, and then we were able to grab a quick bite to eat before getting ready for the wedding. Sarah & Pat got married on the Erie bay right outside of the Maritime Musuem. It was beautiful!!

Immediately after they said their "I Do's" the bridal party piled in some cars and headed over to Rum Runners for some, well, rum runners, and to take a few quirky pictures right on the bay.

The wedding was a blast and it was so good to catch up with family! As always it went by too quickly! (I love the pic below of Willow & Jacob fighting with the styrofoam weapons....and Kim and Joe each have a hand on their arms to keep them from slaying the neighboring tables!)

June Goals

Yikes! It's June already! When did that happen? So, I tried to accomplish May's goal. I think I did a decent job at picking up clutter and getting rid of extra crap. I loaded up 3 + bags for Goodwill, I sold a PT school book on Amazon.com, I'm about to get rid of 2 more textbooks. I cleaned out our extra closet (well, just put stuff away), and kept things relatively clean as we had a friend visit from out of town and had some people over.

I have about 18,000,000 things on my "To Do" list at work that are due this month and next, so I think I'm going to let my personal goals slide again and just try not to get too stressed out at work getting everything done!

I have some exciting events coming up in the next few weeks so stay tuned for updates! I'm not sure how often I'll be able to blog but rest assure there will be some good stories!

I heart weekends!

We had a very productive, yet relaxing weekend. It was really hot all weekend, but oddly it was cool enough in the mornings and evenings to enjoy some quality time on the balcony. The puppies enjoyed the balcony too, they were able to bask in the sun and watch as other puppies walked around the neighborhood. Saturday was a ridiculously productive day. You can read about it here. Sunday I enjoyed some relaxing time by the pool to try to even out my "tan" for Sarah's wedding. I ended up getting a wee bit burnt :/ Hopefully it will fade from hot pink to slightly pink by Saturday! At least my tanlines from our Destin trip should be gone!! Nothing like a little GTL to end a weekend!! (Ha!)

And so it begins.....

Puppy sleepover! We're keeping Jack for a few days while Paige goes on a mountain-biking/camping trip with a few friends! It should be an interesting weekend for the puppies! They've been going non-stop since Jack got here!!

Speak English, it makes sense to me.

Believe it or not, that is the main advertising campaign of one of the candidates for Alabama Governor. We've actually gotten some enjoyment out of the ridiculous ads for republican candidates in Alabama. Here are a few of our favorite quotes:

• "Driver license tests should only be given in English. We speak English in Alabama, learn it. It makes sense to me, does it make sense to you?"
• "Those liberals are trying to trick us."
• "I've been a farmer, a businessman, a cop, a marine. So listen up, Alabama Ag commissioner is one of the most powerful positions in Alabama, responsible for over 5 million dollars. I bet you didn't know that. Ya know why? Thugs and criminals!"
• "He's not a conservative, he's a liberal!"

Unbelievable.

First, watch this to see the ridiculousness that we have to watch during commercials, then, watch this spoof for a good laugh.

Yohanabama

Our good friend Mike from Philly came to visit this weekend. Tom and Mike originally met at Penn State and were roommates for a couple of years. We hung out a lot when we all lived in Philadelphia after college, but we had not seen him in quite some time. Friday evening we went to Jim 'n Nick's for a quick dinner before heading home for our High Gravity sampling party. We enjoyed spending time with some good friends and Bailey had fun running around playing Twilight with Casper.

Saturday we slept in and then headed to Surin to enjoy some Thai food for lunch. After lunch we drove out to Morgan Creek Vineyards so Mike could sample some southern muscadine wine. Then we stopped by the Mountain Brook Creamery and the Botanical Gardens and then headed home to relax a little bit before the unfortunate excuse of a hockey game.

Sunday we woke up and headed to the Original Pancake House for a yummy Southern breakfast. Then we went to the Birmingham Civil Rights Musuem and then hit up Pete's Famous for some pretty gross hot dogs but an awesome Birmingham experience. Later on in the evening we went to the Mill for some Good People brews (Birmingham's own) and then our final stop was the Vulcan. What a great weekend!

Currently

Excited about Yohanabama, High Gravity night, Tom's birthday
Worried about Tom getting mad that I posted about his birthday ;)
Reading All You & Taste of Home magazines
Creating frugal tips for Frugal Made Fun
Loving weekends with nothing to do, Bailey
Hating busy busy busy work weeks
Wondering how things will go on Tom's next interview
Craving buffalo chicken dip
Hoping I can somehow get caught up on all of my paperwork
Watching on TV the FLYERS in the Stanley Cup FINALS!
Listening to Oceanship
Looking forward to weekends, my birthday, Sarah & Pat's wedding, Boston trip for work, not having a car payment

Awesome Weekend Part 2

Sunday our friends Tara and Wes invited us to go tubing with them down the Cahaba River. My first thoughts were "That sounds awesome!" but then my 2nd thoughts were "I have so much work to do, I really need to go into work and get caught up and I need to get caught up around the apartment too with Yohanabama* happening next weekend." Then my 3rd thoughts were "There are water moccasins in the Cahaba River and I don't want to die." Then I proceeded to have 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th thoughts and by Sunday morning when our friend Paige finally convinced me to go, I think Tom was pretty fed up with my indecisiveness.

Anyways, we were invited by our friends Wes and Tara, who were invited by their friend Dixon, who also happened to invite about 60 of his closest friends. So there was a massive amount of people floating down the river.

We drove down some serious country roads to get to this tiny little shack that doesn't even have any signs. You pay the $10 for your tube, sign your life away, and then hop on the back of a pick-up truck and hang on for dear life as you ride through cow pastures and pass Rosie, the BIGGEST wild pig I have ever seen in my whole life! Then without warning the truck stops and you're on your own!

I quickly scanned the bank for snakes and then launched onto my tube for the journey down the river. All in all it was pretty successful, I made it down the whole river without getting bitten by a snake (although we did see quite a few turtles) or thrown out of my tube (although I did have to walk down the waterfall as far as I could and then dive belly first onto my tube and hope I didn't flip over) without getting majorly sunburnt (although I ended up with a tiny patch on my left leg...I'll take it considering how burnt I could have been) and my right foot got tangled in a rock only once with some minor bruising. Tom has a pretty nasty scrape on his back from a few of the rocks. One lady had 2 sweet little puppies with her...they were hanging onto her for dear life. I think Bailey would have liked the river but she didn't get to make the trip. And we all decided to pass on any attempts to swing off of the rope swing halfway down the river. Our cooler survived the trip, but sadly there was no floating hot dog stand like there was the last time we went tubing back in PA. Still some good times. Good times were had by all.

*Yohanabama: Our friend Mike is coming to visit this weekend!

Awesome Weekend, Part 1

Yeah, that's right, this weekend was so awesome it requires 2 seperate blog posts! Friday night seems like so long ago I seriously can't even remember what we did! Oh, that's right, we made sushi, watched Friday Night Lights, and drank cheap Aldi wine. Perfection.

Saturday started out pretty productive. Thankfully, because nothing else got accomplished the whole rest of the weekend (I had big plans to be productive too). Saturday afternoon we watched the Flyers kick some Canadian butt in Montreal. So awesome. I wish they would play the whole rest of the series like they played in the 2nd period. After the game we drove downtown to the 1st Annual Rogue Tavern Music Fest. Since Live 100.5 went off the air, there hasn't been a whole lot of advertising for cool events like this, so there were hardly any people there...which was awesome for us, but kind of crappy for all of the musicians. We grabbed a few drinks and enjoyed dinner with some friends while listening to some of Birmingham's finest musicians including one of my favs, Matthew Mayfield. Then we went outside for a practically private concert with Oceanship. So awesome.



Stay tuned for Part 2 of Awesome Weekend!!

May goals?

Is it too late to do May goals? How about I do just one. Stay on top of everything at home and don't let clutter accumulate. I was on a role the other night after reading this post over at Org Junkie. I went through my closet and cleaned out 3 big bags worth of stuff.

I'm soooo not good at the "one year" rule. Another thing that I rarely do when I am going through old clothes is try them on. I did that the other night and it helped me to get rid of so many more clothes! There were quite a few sweaters, pants, and shirts that I have just been holding onto because they are "cute." Well, let's just say they're not so cute anymore. I'm glad I was able to get rid of some "stuff" and hope I continue this mindset in other areas of the house!

Do Dah Day

Yikes! Sorry it's been OVER A WEEK since my last blog update! We've been slightly busy. This weekend we got to slow down for a bit and take Bailey out to enjoy her 2nd Do Dah Day. We had a good time and Bailey had a blast playing with all of her friends!! We got there early enough to watch the parade. We saw an 8 year old tortoise, named Franklin, who weighs 65 pounds and can live to be as old as 80 years old! And apparently Bailey doesn't like brown horses. She never barks, like ever, and when she does it is usually just one "bark." Well, she was hanging out, watching the parade, ready to pounce on the next treat that someone threw to her, when all of the sudden she started going crazy and would not stop barking at this big horse! She finally calmed down, but I've never seen her like that before. Maybe she had a bad experience with horses before she came to live with us? Who knows. Enjoy the pics. I promise to update more often!

Franklin the Tortoise

Bailey's enemy

Jack and Bailey

Bailey's not so sure about Briar

Taking a break in the shade

Me & Paige

Remmy & Wynn

This little puppy kept trying to climb on Bailey! He was so cute but Bailey wanted nothing to do with him!

Casper and his new lady friend