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Countdown III (Pictures)

/ birthday, christmas, life, meme, pictures, to do, work

Six more days!!
One more till my birthday! I’ll be &@#&@&#@. Ooops, must have missed something in the translation there….

Today, I got a a gift certificate to Amazon.com from Adam’s dad (and my future father-in-law). THAT makes me so happy. Books! This evening, I got a package from Rosa (meimeigui) and Richard, with strict instructions not to open anything early. So I have a birthday present next to me, and a Christmas present for me, and a Christmas present for Aidan, under the tree.

Janet spoiled me yesterday at work. First, there was this at my desk:

Cake!

Then, a bunch of us went to La Chatelaine for lunch, and Janet treated me. I had the lunch combo: ham sandwich, tomato basil soup, and Caesar salad. Yummmmo. I really like that place and want to go again SOON. The prices are not unreasonable, either.

Karen gave me a card and told me not to open it until tomorrow. I sat it by my computer so I can remember. If I am up at midnight tonight, I’m going to open the present from Rosa and Richard. 🙂

This morning, I came into work and found a poinsettia, two cards, candy, and two books on my desk. What a nice surprise, yes? This time of year is so awesome. One of the cards had a lottery ticket in it. I didn’t win.

E Mae treated the copy editors to lunch at Spagio. It was good. I had leftovers. It’s really rich food, so I can eat like, 1/3 of a serving at a time before my mouth says NO MORE FOR NOW, you!

I have to wrap all of Adam’s gifts tonight, as he’ll be here tomorrow. (!!!♥!!!) I don’t take him for a snooper, but I just want to have it done. Some of the boxes are soooo cute that I’m not bothering to wrap them. But the animal print ones I picked up at Marc’s—DEFINITELY getting wrapped. LoL.

Aidan’s disappointed because there are things under the tree for him and he can’t open them yet.

He’s still cute though:

My Favorite Present Ever
My Favorite Present, Always!

I took a Spending Style test on Tickle today. Here is the result:

Ronni, you’re a Bargain Hunter

In your life, you’re willing to go the extra mile in order to find a good deal. Whenever possible, you hold out until you can find the least expensive version of something you need. Your patience and persistence generally leads you to significant savings, which you likely take great pride in. While some may mistakenly think you are cheap and puzzle over why you prefer thrift stores to overpriced boutiques, you’re content to let them squander their cash while you chase down a great bargain.

When it comes to your financial state, you tend to feel like you’re about where you think you should be.

Except for that last statement, it’s pretty much right on.

To Do, Revisited:

– renew driver’s license (12/20)
– renew license plate tags (12/20)
– clean my room (that includes finally unpacking my clothes from my Atlanta and NYC trips, changing the sheets, and general tidying up)
– finish Christmas shopping
– Christmas cards
– insulate windows with some of that plastic stuff you use with a hairdryer
– hair
– clean little Lucy’s litter box (thorough cleaning, not just litter exchange)
– burn a Christmas CD
– wrap gifts
– get groceries

My computer is SO SLOW. It’s driving me nuts. Takes freakin’ Facebook forever to load, and to switch between programs… the thing acts like it’s straining to do that. I have 1.5 gigs of memory and it’s a 2.something gig processor. Web sites take ages to come up. The thing takes at least ten minutes to fully boot up. It amazes me how much Windows deteriorates after a few years, or months even. I also hate how certain programs steal focus. I’ll start something in the background and then go to something else while I am waiting for it to open. Instead of the other program blinking in the taskbar to let me know its ready, all of a sudden, whatever I’m working on disappears and a new IE window or something is in the way. Drives me bananas. But the new Flickr Uploader is awesome. I can do EVERYTHING I need to do to the photos right in the uploader, so no need to wait for the site to load to finish editing (tags, sets, etc.). Good times.

At about 11am tomorrow, I will be leaving ZB until next Friday. Can’t wait. No more Core TEs to bother with for days and days and days. *glares at vendor*

OK, gonna go finish with the gifts and trying to make Aidan giggle. Later! 🙂

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Stuffity Stuff Stuff (Pictures)

/ aidan, friends, halloween, life, pictures, work

Today was a weird day.

When I got to work, I was making myself some tea and also getting some water for my water bottle. One of my co-workers came over and asked if I’d heard about our receptionist. Now, I knew our receptionist had been very sick. This morning, I found out she’d passed away.

I haven’t worked at Zaner-Bloser long, but Ann was always a sweetheart. I’m in denial, because I can’t believe I won’t hear her say “good-niiggght” to me as I’m leaving for the day, anymore. I mean, it just doesn’t seem real. 🙁 I’m still going to be checking her desk, wondering when she’s going to get better and come back to work.

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After work, I went to the library and ran into one of my neighbors there. The nice one. He sits out back and he reads and smokes his cigar. We stood in the parking lot and talked for two hours. He is older, but funny as hell. He’s one of those naughty old men. 🙂

Although, he did give me three pounds of hamburger because he said he doesn’t want to cook it. So now I have a HUGE three-pound roll of hamburger meat that I will separate and use for spaghetti and chili and other assorted yummies.

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I went to two costume parties this weekend. Had a blast-a-rooni. Friday night’s was at a clubhouse, and with a few friends I used to go to church with. Aidan was freaked out by the creepy decorations. But he looked very cute:

See?

Spider Aidan & His Healthy Dinner

Spider Aidan!

Aidan was so cute! And this little girl came to the party and I sat there and watched him try to impress her and get all flirty and stuff. It almost make me cry, because it was like I was getting a sneak peek at teenager Aidan. Eeek!

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Saturday night, Aidan and I hit my friend Heather’s housewarming/Halloween party. It was the best party ever. EVER. Seriously. There was so much food (she had me take some home, and I have enough for lunches all week, and a few dinners, too), and there was candy and all sorts of treats and toys and favors and fun fun fun. Again, best party EVER.

Roy & Laura

Roy & Laura, who is having her baby RIGHT NOW. OMG.
Laura is on maternity leave from ZB at the moment. If she didn’t go into labor on her own, they were going to induce her at 8pm today. OMG.
I was so happy to see her.
The story is so funny. She and my mom live right around the corner from each other. Her mom is my mom’s pharmacist. But Laura and I just met this year.

Sarah
Sarah the Bling Bling Cowgirl.

Mary
Mary, the art director.
She’s really cute and she wears very nice perfume.

Heather and Aidan
This is Heather, the hostess, and Aidan!

Heather the Candy Corn
Heather again! She was Candy Corn!

Aidan & The Purple Witch!
Aidan and Heather’s Mommy. They got on really well! 🙂

Again, Heather’s party was amazing. Her house is gorgeous, and I have NEVER seen so much food at a party before. Seriously. It was incredible. And Aidan had a BLAST, running around and playing and melting everyone’s heart. People kept coming up to me with tons of compliments about him. He’s adorable, he’s a sweetheart, he is well-behaved, he has great manners. Yay! He’s just such a great kid. ♥

On top of that, Heather’s house has this amazing energy about it. I can’t describe it, but I felt so relaxed there, and happy. It’s carrying over, too. My back didn’t ache at all when I was there, nor did it ache yesterday and today. I’ve been smiling a lot since hanging out over there.

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My friend Dave works as a reporter out in Los Angeles. He was covering the fires. He was pretty much right there. Check out this picture:

Isn’t that crazy? Of course, this guy’s been blown around in hurricanes, played in the no-gravity simulator in a plane, all sorts of stuff. He loves doing this kind of work.

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The other night, I was giving Aidan a bath. He asked me to scratch his back. I did, and cracked up laughing as he went “OH YEAH OH YEAH” in this funny gruffy voice. That boy is hilarious. And his obsession with Tom and Jerry is the best thing ever. He LOVES the Zoot Suit episode. And we love to quote a part from a SpongeBob episode. The cartoon goes like this:

Sandy: I love karate!
SpongeBob: I love karaTAY!
Mr. Krabs: I love moneyAY!
Squidward: I hate all of you.

Yeah, Aidan and I quote that over and over and over. He’s so getting another SpongeBob DVD for Christmas, so I can watch it with him. 🙂 That cartoon is growing on me.

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It’s finally starting to get really cold in my apartment. I’m in running pants, a sweatshirt, and fuzzy socks and I am totally shivering. It’s about 65º F in here now. The electric blanket will feel nice tonight. I’m trying to hold off as long as I can in regards to turning on the furnace.

How early do you guys (who this applies to) turn on your furnace?

Cheers!

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An Update (Lots of Pictures/Survey)

/ adam, atlanta, family, life, pictures, recap, ronni, survey, Uncategorized, vacation, work

Hello, LJ people.

Yes, I’ve been away. Well, not exactly. I’ve been reading, just not posting. And it’s not because I haven’t had much to say. Okay, sometimes that was the case. But often, I was just too tired to sit here and write an entry.

But I am here now, so sit back and brace yourselves. It might be a long one! 🙂

Here are the things I’ve done since I last posted:

– Took my laptop to Best Buy again because the power adapter thingy was overheating and melting the cord. I mean, it was getting uncomfortably hot. It will scald you. Was told that there was liquid damage to the motherboard and they wouldn’t fix it unless I paid them more than $1200. I told them to leave the computer as is. I’ll just not touch the damn AC adapter part. It’s at Best Buy now, waiting for me to pick it up. I’ll go get it tomorrow. Seriously, who’d pay $1200 to repair a two-year old laptop when one can buy TWO NEW ones for that price?

One of these days, I’m going to get a Mac.

– I’ve subscribed to a bunch of feeds; The Bargainist, WiseBread, zen habits, The Happiness Project. I call the folder they’re in “Lifestyle” The Bargainist has lists and lists of deals, free samples, coupon codes. It’s neat. Wisebread is a money-management blog. The other two are just for me to become more at peace and happier. Good stuff, those. I have a ton of feeds on my Google Reader, actually. It’s such a convenient way to get loads of info in one place.

– Downloaded the new version of Flock. Got irritated because the pages with feeds and searches on them kept bringing up this little bar that asked me if I wanted to subscribe to them. I finally went into configurations and turned them off. Now I like Flock again. Except I can’t figure out how to turn off the media stream notification. Ugh.

– Had my one-year evaluation at work. It went really well. The copy editors are all going to start taking classes for Copy Editing certification. We wanted to start this month, but we’re waitlisted. We’ll see what happens. At any rate, work has been really good lately. The new lead copy editor is very cool. I won’t have page proofs coming in until October (sigh), so I’m doing a lot of pick up work for marketing and leftover stuff for everyone else. Plus errata. Always errata. Boo to errata. But yay to the style guide coming together!

– Became ADDICTED to enchiladas from El Vaquero. Seriously, they are SOOOOO good. I had some yesterday for lunch. Yummy.

– Started listening to the following bands a lot: Lacuna Coil, Grateful Dead, and The Crüxshadows. I also decided that I love the song Breakin’ Dishes by Rihanna. And If Tha Mood by Esthero. More songs, too.

– Went to Atlanta to meet adamselzer‘s parents and also for Dragon*Con!

Read about and see pix from Atlanta/Dragon*Con

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