So I've survived my office move - telephones are back up, email is working on the new server, people are working again, and I get today off as a comp day. YAY. There are days I realize I should have been a librarian instead of becoming an IT person.

The only real issues are backups aren't working and people are complaining that "things are different". My reaction to teh second is "you put in a couple 16 hour days and then we'll talk". Oh, and the new guy we hired 4 weeks ago quit THE DAY BEFORE THE OFFICE MOVE. I haven't been that angry in a while. How sleazy can you get, I mean really. And our intern backed out at the last minute. The only reason we got it done is that my husband volunteered and worked with my boss and I on Friday night, Saturday all day and Sunday all day. And he doesn't get comp days this week. My company owes him big time.

ON a lighter note, I finally have time to excercise and cross-stitch again now. Which is good, as I've got a 5-year college reunion coming up and I'm determined to look good again.

Here's something to make you laugh courtesy of my cousin, mijan
10. Life is sexually transmitted.

9. Good health is merely the slowest rate at which one can die.

8. Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

7. Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.

6. Some people are like a slinky... Not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

5. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospital dying of nothing.

4. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

3. Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars, and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?

2. In the 60's, people took LSD to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

1. We know exactly where one cow with mad-cow-disease is located among the millions and millions of cows in America, but we haven't a clue as to where thousands of Illegal immigrants and Terrorists are located. Maybe we should put the Department of Agriculture in charge of immigration.

So, I've got great news, "ack" news and bad news.

great - lots of tax refund money back from the government thanks to buying my hubby's hybrid last year. :-)

"ack" - looks like I'm jumping back into consulting! I'm taking on one of my husband's company's clients to maintain their website. They've been abandoned by their old web person. Which means in addition to my 8-5 job, I'm starting my own consulting company! Exciting and frightening at the same time!

bad - i nearly sliced 1/4 of my fingernail off cooking moroccan food for supper. I'm being quite literal here - it took a while to stop the bleeding. Should be interesting, what with the office moved this week and me trying to exercise more... :-) Not to mentiont the wedding gift cross-stitch i'm already behind on. Ice and ibuprofen are my friends right now.

Oh my gods, I can't believe I haven't posted in nearly three months. Wow. A lot has happened since then - I turnded 27, completed a server move at work, hired a new co-worker, and am working on an office move for next Friday.

Also, I sort of took a break from my religion/spirituality for a while. It wasn't a time to sit back and think - I kind of ignored nearly everything excelt Yule. But suddenly, I feel it's time.

I've been reading again, listening to podcasts, doing a bit of thinking again. I've had children on the brain - maybe that's why. My hubby and I have sort of settled on sending our kids to the loacal UU church's Sunday school - they teach all the major faiths, not just Christianity. I think it would be really health, spiritually speaking, for me to go there too sometimes. I practice alone and I miss having religious discussions and dibates. Our only good friend I talk about that stuff with lives 4 hours away and is trying to finish his graduate degree in history. :-)

So. It is time.

Thanks to emdeepwater for finding this one! Long live the Browncoats!

Your results:
You are Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)

Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 90% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 75% Wash (Ship Pilot) 70% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 70% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 65% Inara Serra (Companion) 55% River (Stowaway) 50% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 30% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 20% Alliance 15% A Reaver (Cannibal) 5%

You are good at fixing things. You are usually cheerful. You appreciate being treated with delicacy and specialness.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz


In other news, I have to work all day tomorrow completing a server move that's pretty well drained of of energy and interest in aynthing over the past two weeks. At least I get a comp day for it. Wish me luck, this could get interesting...

"You had me at Tortuga"
~Nathan Rose of the Mouse Tunes podcast, a Pirates of the Carribbean fanatic, upon hearing about a new 1-time-only experience at Disney World in May, where guests can visit Tortuga and various other places from the movie.

"Duct-tape is like 'The Force' - it has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together."
~Jeff from Houston, Meandering Mouse podcast

tipsylovegood inspired me for this post today, from a comment she left. Thanks!!
My husband and I used this as a reading at our wedding last year. Originally a commencement speech by Mary Schich of the Chicago Tribune, Baz Luhrman turned into a top-10 hit in the 90s.

Everybody's Free(to wear sunscreen)


Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97... wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT.

The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

”People tell you to be yourself — like yourself is some defined thing”

Angela Chase, My So-Called Life

So my husband and I are finally having "the talk" - home buying! Yay....

Our lease is up in May, we've got some $$ put away and we're starting to informally look at the houses in our town. We want to stay here, as it's perfect for commuting South, North, or West (not too much east of here), plus the schools are fantastics, it's got a good grocery store and some greta restuarants and shops. Pretty much your stereotypical New England town.

This should be interesting - what we want (BIG yard) versus what we can afford (crappy house on a big lot). :-)

On the work front, we're moving servers and testing applications on our new servers. Sounds easy, but they're applications written by our staff - if they break, we have to fix them - no calling up the vendor here! ;-) Luckily, we're doing really good with bugs so far. Going to make one site live at the end of the week, we think. Wish us luck - there'll be several late night and/or working all weekends to get this done.

And once that's done, we're moving to new offices March 1st, which opens a whole other can of worms... The life of the IT staff is never boring.

With thanks to firesign10

You scored as Judge. You are a Judge Empath, one who is a "truthsayer". You can tell truth from lies, good from evil. You do not tolerate wrong doing. You are a defender of the good and the innocent. You are kind and merciful but do not play foolish games. (from "The Book of Storms" by Jad Alexander at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Empaths/) </td> Judge 75% Healer 70% Traveler 70% Shaman 65% Fallen Angel 65% Universal 60% Precog 55% Artist 45% What Kind of Empath Are You? created with QuizFarm.com

I had to post this quote today - i love hearing it every week on th e Secrets in Plain Sight podcast:

"Religion is like underwear - what works well for me might me innappropriate for you."

~Aidan Odinson

It's been a crazy last few days. Friday night my husband and I went out with a nother couple to see the latest Warren Miller film, 'Off the Grid'. Good film, but not as good as others I've seen by him. Got home around 1am.

Next day - Saturday - had 13 people over for our annual Friend's Thanksgiving, which went SOOOOOO well, I was thrilled.

Yesterday, had parents over, they wanted to help finish the leftovers.

I'm tired now. :-)

So I've been VERY bad at stitching the past 3 weeks. I got soooooooo much done when we were in VT visiting my in-laws, and literally have not touch any of my three big WIPs since then.

A big part of it is I hate the shirt I'm stitching for my grandmother. Stitching on jean is a roal pain-in-the-arse!!

But I need to finish that to work on the tree skirt and Corner of the Villa from Golden Kite. Unfortunately, time is not a big motivation right now. :-)

On a sad note, one of my favorite restaurants ins closing this Sunday - La Donna's in Mansfield, MA. GREAT Italian food, gourmet and more traditional. There are two parts to it, a restaurant (fancy and more gourmet) and a cafe, a little more casual. They server the world's best lobster ravioli. But it all ends Sunday. :-(

I can't believe I haven't posted in two weeks. It's been a nutty two weeks - new boss at work to train, in-laws coming to visit, dad throwing his back out, parents buying a house in Florida.

Good two weeks but absolutely bonkers!!!!

Looking forward to Halloween - I've got a great costume this year, courtesy of the Connecitcut Renaissance Faire - a Beer Wench! :-)

I got to do something great this week - give away someone else's money FREE!! I'm running a new site for work called ScholarshipPoints.com, where you register and do small things to earn points (like logging in each day gives you one point). Each point is one more chance for you to win the quarterly scholarship drawing, and it's totally free to join.

Every quarter we give out 3 scholarships - $1000, $500 and $250 - in a random drawing. The more points you have, the bigger chance you've got, it's that simple. The money is given to your financial aid office, so there are no worries about getting it applied to your student account correctly.

This week, I got to award our first three scholarships!!! Congrats to the winners Alesia, Paul and Leah, I'm so happy for you all! We'll have their bios up on the site soon.

In other news, OH my gods work is nuts this week. I'd pared my to-do list down to 20 items last Friday, it's creping back up towards 40 at the moment. I had a bit of shock when I looked at the clock and it was nearly noon! and i hadn't nearly gotten done what i'd planned to do by noon, because of more little things added to my list.