Advents Corner

I am so excited Matt got me a eee PC for our anniversary and I got it in yesterday.  It is so cool.  I threw it in my bag this morning and took it to work with me today.  I played a couple of games on my lunch break.  I really like how small it is.  The keyboard of course is a little small but I will get use to it.  You have to press the keys a little harder than a regular one but I will get use to that over time too.  I have not figured out how to turn off the finger pad so my thumb hits it sometimes and sends my cursor flying.  It is perfect, however for my 2 year old daughter’s fingers.  It does not get that hot so I just keep it in my lap with no problems.

When you tilt the screen back it gets a little top heavy so you have to angle it right to get it to stay upright on your lap but when it is on a flat surface that is not an issue.  The start up time is fast but the power down is a little slow.  I have only had it for about 24 hours and I seem to be adapting very well.  All in all it is a very good buy for the price so I am very happy.

One of my co-workers is going to a wedding this weekend so she has been doing a quick weight loss diet because she bought a dress a little small because it was the only size but it was the perfect dress. She is doing great she is down 10 pounds and she is so excited about seeing all of her friends now that she is “skinny”. She is so funny because I did not think she needed to lose any weight but now that she has dropped those pounds she really looks nice.

My department moves to a new building on September 15th. I am really excited because we just had one of those commercial collection agencies move into our building and parking is getting so crazy. Beside I love moving to a new space because if feels like you are changing jobs without having to start all over again. Our new offices will have pods in them instead of cubes. So you will be in a pod with 3 other people with an island in the center of the room. You will have one person in each corner so I am very excited to see how that all works.

I think we need to get one more stroller. Right now we have two strollers, one in Matt’s car because that is what we take on the weekends and one in Michaela’s car for when she takes Lani somewhere but that is rare. Well the other day Lani and I ran out to get her a pair of shoes in the van and when we got to the mall and I opened the back of the van…..no stroller. I was not a happy camper because we had to get one of the strollers from the mall. I know that is not a bad thing but you have to walk half way through the mall to get to the center where the strollers  are and they were out of strollers. Oh well, I guess I will make sure I have one in the van next time.

One of my friends at work found out she was pregnant and because had her tubes tied and then untied they started running test on her early and noticed her progesterone was dropping so the put her on the oral supplements. We had the same thing happen to us when we were trying to have Lani but with us after 3 miscarriages they decided to go that route. We were lucky that it worked with Lani and she was healthy and we carried her almost to term. Amy told me the other day that she was not so fortunate and lost the baby. She is going to call the USF Physicians Group where we had Lani so we will pray she has some positive results like we did. My heart goes out to her because I know how heart breaking it can be to lose a pregnancy.

I know that is the furthest thing from most of our minds but it is getting so easy to get an auto insurance online quote. You just punch in your information and before you know it you have a quote and most of the time you can sign up right there without talking to anyone if you chose not too. I like to find all of the information I need then confirm it with a live person but that is just me. I know a lot of people choose not to speak to anyone at all and that is fine too. So take a moment and find out if you can get insurance a little cheaper.

As most of you know my Matty works with a lot of computers. One of the things he just did was write a widget for Vista that shows you all of the funny t-shirts that are currently on the market. It is too cool because if you know Vista and the widget they just sit on your sidebar as you work away. Well image, as you are working all of these shirts come up and you don’t have to scroll through all of them to find one you like. Just work away and when one strikes your funny bone just click on it.

Our 10th anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks and I on a mission to find Matt something special. I can’t believe we have been together for 10 years and it seems like it was just yesterday. I was looking at getting him a Zero Halliburton briefcase. With all of Matt’s trips to LA coming up I want it to be as quick as possible for him to get through security and get out of the airport. She is suppose to start traveling the second week in September and be gone for 2 weeks at a time. It is going to be tough especially on the girls but I am sure we will make it through and maybe I will get to make a trip out to LA for the weekend or something.

We decided to open a second Checking Account so we can have one to hopefully save some money for Christmas and hopefully a trip to Hawaii this summer. We try to go every other summer and because we were in Asia this past summer it is time to go back to Hawaii. Matt’s family leaves there so when we go we do not have the expense of a hotel and things like that. I love Hawaii, it is the only place I have been where my soul feels happy and if you have never experienced that, I hope one time if your life you feel the joy of it.

It is so hard to decide to find a new job. You find yourself not wanting to leave friends you have made and in some cases you feel a sense of loyalty to the company you are currently at. If you are currently at a job and do not need to find a job right away why not send your resume out to places you never thought you would be. For instance send out some Boston resumes or another state you are not currently living in and see what comes of it. If you are in a position to move…why not try it? You never know what you will find until you start looking. I was living in Alabama when I found my job in Florida and packed up to move down here.

When we were preparing to go to Asia we looked on Amazon books and found two really good guides for Bangkok and Singapore. Now we are in search of some good guides for Los Angeles, you know the kind that tell you what locals like and not just tourist traps. We are looking to move in the Glendale or Sherman Oaks vicinity.  I know I have readers all over the place and if any of you live in LA and would like to share something with us please do, we would love to hear from you.

Matt is going to start going back and forth to Los Angeles and we are not looking forward to that. His company is moving out there so we will make the move out there eventually but Matt is going to go out there 2 weeks at a time until we move out there permanently. We are going to get him a Garmin GPS so that he does not get lost until he learns the city. It should be fun and it is just one more adventure in our lives.

We all love our pets but the simple fact is they all get old just like us. Our Great Dane, Breeze, will be 12 in October which by all standards is very old for a Dane. She still has her moments were she plays like a puppy but the moments are few and they do not last as long as they did before. We are going to start her on pet supplements to hopefully raise her energy level so she is a little more active. We want the amount of time she has left to have quality to it, not her just laying around.

We had thought about laptop rentals for our trip because we were worried about taking our laptops with us. With rentals you can get insurance and all kinds of good stuff in case something happens to them. I know Matt was looking into it a couple of weeks ago I just don’t think he has made a decision yet. Time is a ticking we better come up with something fast.

Now that we are in the countdown phase of the trip planning we are getting the cameras ready and making sure we have enough memory for all of the cameras because I know we are going to be taking so many pictures. I am going to try and download pictures every night so I do not have to worry about running out of room on my camera.

We are getting ready for our trip to Asia and we are getting so excited. I can not believe it is only about 2 1/2 weeks away. I love classic jewelry like pearls and such I think they are so beautiful and timeless. I am of course going to do some shopping while we are over there and I want to look for Akoya pearls. They are just so beautiful. I love the ones with the silver undertones. Hopefully I come back with some great finds.

We just opened a new checking account. Well we are looking at it more like a savings account because we have no intensions of taking the money out of it. We just wanted a place to sock away some money that is not too easy for us to spend. You know out of sight out of mind. At least that is what we hope.

Our oldest daughter’s last day of school was today. She is already talking about moving in with “friends” and then in the next breath she says with tears in her eyes “Mom, I am so not ready to grow up”. We all need to spread our wings and until we do we do not realize how well we had it at Mommy and Daddy’s house. So I guess we will be shopping for some discount furniture some time in the future, but until she packs her stuff, loads it in the car and drives away I am not going to let myself believe that she is moving.

I walked into Lani’s room yesterday with her sitting on the floor pulling out all of the baby wipes from the container. She is so funny she just looked at me and said UH OH. Oh well I guess we all desire our moments of fun and that was hers. She is starting to talk a lot more so we are very happy about that.