Friday, August 29, 2008

My Life is Changing

I got a teaching job! At a local high school, teaching social studies. :) It's exactly what I went to school for, and I'm really excited to start. I have my hands full because class starts next week. So it's going to be a super busy weekend, but I'm ready for it.

Today's my last day at the university. It's hard to leave this job because it has been awesome, but I'm following my original dreams. Hey, they're coming true!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The camp!!

It's the end of August and I have spent virtually no time at the camp this month. How sad is that. Seriously. It's making me really sad. When I'm so busy with work I don't think about it, but I just saw someone's photos of b-e-a-utiful days out there and now it's hard... but maybe Sunday I can get out there. Everyday until then is BUSYYYYY and my friends are probably going camping. But I might just have my last end-of-summer fling at the camp. relaxing. If I have time.
ack.

But I love my job!

Can you tell I'm torn?
And on that note, it's after 8:00pm and I'm just leaving work ("signed out" a few minutes ago so I could check this before I leave). g'night y'all :)

Monday, August 25, 2008

73 Hours

I worked 73 hours last week. That's a personal best! and I was still excited to come to work this morning. (Even after getting home after a 13 hour day last night at 9:00pm.)

I feel like I must be doing something right. Right?

So to my friends and family -- especially sisters... Sorry I've been MIA for so many days. I'm looking forward to seeing you all again soon!!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Haha, here they are!

So I just wrote about how lame I am that I don't have any photos up from my trip. Well, I realized that David had some of his up on f so I'm "borrowing" them from him... Here they are, in bad (chronological) order

We saw the Jonas Brothers' Bus at MSG. Covered in girls names and phone numbers and things like "I LOVE YOU JOE!" (is that one of their names?)


Brother and sister at GCT


The Olympics were going on... I think it was Michael Phelps' first gold medal of these games. (In Times Square)


It's the last year for SHEA.


You can see Citi Field just beyond right field. It looks really nice!


One of my favorite things of the day (besides seeing my "big" little brother). the NYPD doing a drill on the Brooklyn Bridge! (You can see their commander in the foreground watching them...) Weak knees anyone?


David riding the bull :) Everyone else was going up to it, standing by it, putting their arms around, etc. Not Dave! He jumped right up! (When we were walking away, I saw a couple of people try to jump up there, but it's higher than it looks. They didn't make it.)

LAME!

I'm lame... I STILL don't have photos up here from my trip or the wedding or August or anything. Geeee whiz Karen! This blog's getting so boring without some visuals.

Anyway, it's thursday 8:14pm and I've already worked 42 hours this week. and I still work tomorrow all day, Saturday, and Sunday. Then all next week..... 12 or 13 days in a row without a break. Impressive, hey? It's that time of year, and I'm loving it!!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Some more

I'll finish my travel day real quick-like:
Arrive to second airport, procede to run about 2 miles to another terminal (underground, up, down escalators, etc), to find that I missed my original flight. So I had a couple of hours to spare...

Made it back to the home-area airport, with two hours of driving time left. And that's really where I got into the deep thinking. Things like:
what were my goals for myself when I was in high school/college?
Are they coming true?
way back to elementary/middle school -- what were my dreams?
Are any of my dreams coming true?

What have I accomplished?
What are my goals for the next few years?
Should I set goals for my personal or professional life? (or both?)

Made it home in one piece, but it was rough emotionally.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

People, travels, headaches

I had another dandy of a travel day the other day. Compared to past experiences, it wasn't that bad, but still...

1:20 Arrive to LaGuardia (Flight is supposed to leave at 2:28pm)
Check-in and security didn't take too long (Yea!!)
I bought a couple of things in one of the shops (usually I don't do this, but there was a sweet sale and I realized that even after all of my time in the city, I had nothing that said "New York" on it... so I broke down and got something).

1:45 check out gate 8... tons of people sitting around, hardly an empty seat. (Shoot! This usually means delays.) The screen says "Delayed" but that's all for now. Sit down in the one empty seat in the area. Start conversation with the woman next to me.

She was really surprised that I was NYC alone. I told her that as long as you make smart choices, you will be safe. It's when you aren't thinking about consequences when you might get hurt. She thought this "quote" was very interesting, and started talking about choices in general. Like if she had made any dumb choices in her life. She couldn't think of any off the top of her head, but after thinking for awhile, she said that maybe she had one. She is dating someone 16 years older than her, and they've been together for 24 years. Dating.

Hmmm on that one. I don't really understand it, but then again, I'm not in a relationship so how can I judge?

More interesting tidbits from that conversation: she's from northern Minnesota, has been a milkmaid, a bar maid, and an old maid all at one time. Sometimes at weddings in her town they roast a pig. She and her boyfriend are good with money -- they haven't had any problems in that area. (Not sure how she came to tell me all of these things....)

2:00 -- It says our plane is delayed until 3:00, so I talked to the agent and got booked on a later flight at the next airport, so I wouldn't be stuck halfway home.
2:30 -- They make an announcement that all planes leaving at 4:00 or later are cancelled. (apparently some nasty weather was on its way)
2:45 -- We still aren't boarding. Our plane is delayed until 3:20. It's getting close to the 4:00 cutoff....
3:00 -- We board. The attendants are encouraging everyone to move quickly so that we can get in the plane and up in the air before 4:00.
3:15 -- On the plane, away from the gate... there are about ten planes ahead of us...
3:45 -- still on the ground. Should I call someone to stay at their house (back in CT)? Nope, they already said to shut off cell phones.
3:55 -- still on the ground. I have a bad feeling I'm going to be sleeping in an airport
4:00 we took off! (YES!) And only one plane took off after us, so we were the second-to-last to make it. Whew!

The people sitting in the row next to me on this flight were interesting. The mom had bribed her 10 year old daughter with $15 to make her sit 10 rows back from where she was with her 8 year old daughter. Said she didn't want to sit by herself way back there... (and the 10 year old did??!) Lots more about them, but this is getting way too long.

One last thought. There's something about spending almost an entire day alone. You start thinking, and get into some really deep thinking. No one is there to interrupt your thoughts... I'll leave on that note, perhaps to be continued later.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Mets 8 - Marlins 6, The Jonas Brothers, LaGuardia

I don't have the energy to form paragraphs (or sentences for that matter), but I want to update on my sweet trip, so here goes (in no particular order):
  • David met Marcy and my boys!
  • and he got to see where I lived for a year
  • and my favorite places around town :)
  • We walked all over midtown and up into Central Park
  • Took a taxi back to Grand Central
  • Boarded the 7 train to SHEA to watch the Mets beat the Marlins :). On our way there (we were going to be late), David remembered that it was the "free fleece blanket to the first 10,000 fans" day. DARN! They looked really cool!! (and they were free!)
  • We saw a few home runs, a pitcher's debut (don't even remember his name anymore), a sweet sunset
  • Left early to get back into the city early-ish (10:30)
  • Ate at ESPN Zone where the Tigers were on -- Yea!! We figured no way would they be on, but alas, there they were. and on the tv right by us!
  • Took a LATE train and got back to Connecticut even later
  • Stayed with Gillian -- THANKS hon!
  • Got about 4 hours of sleep (3 for DJH), woke up early and just barely made a pre-8:00am train.
  • Downtown for City Hall, the Brooklyn Bridge (where we saw NYPD men climbing to the top on the cables -- wow!!), Ground Zero and the fireman's memorial (it still gets me, even after seeing it 11 or 12 times. I still get tears in my eyes)
  • Wall St., the famous bull (D. jumped on for a photo!)
  • Saw the Jonas Brothers' bus at MSG. They had a concert there that night. the bus was completely covered with writing. girls saying "I LOVE JB! love, Samantha" and nonsense like that
  • Walked around midtown some more, had some delish Mexican food for lunch, then parted ways at Grand Central. He took the train back and I hopped on a bus to La Guardia. I thought I'd write about that in this post, but it's going to have to wait. I'm just so exhausted.

That's all for now...........

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Having a wonderful time

A few quick things:
Fun day yesterday hanging out with the boys. Went out for dinner and ice cream, met Gillian and a couple of her friends for coffee (at our favorite Starbucks!!).

David's coming down to see me! We're thinking about going to the Mets game tonight (they play the Marlins). Not sure what else we're going to do, but he's going to meet my boys and I'll show him a few things here in town (so he can see where I lived for a year!).

Gotta go!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

YEA :) Back in CT!

I wasn't going to come on here at all, but I have a few minutes on the computer so I decided to make a post from Connecticut. Especially since this is where my blog originated, it's supposed to be about my life here (from the title and web address), and the whole reason I got one was to keep home updated on life here.

NYC was so so awesome yesterday! Sarah and I met on the steps of the public library (just a couple of blocks from grand central), immediately went to Starbucks (of course!!), got lunch at one of the popular NYC delis (yum!), and just walked around midtown. We ended up in Central Park (looking for shade -- it was roasting and sweaty!), just walking around, looking for different places to sit and catch up. It was great because it felt like it was last summer -- like no time had passed. We just picked up where we left off and enjoyed each other's company. We were up by the Bethesda Fountain (in Central Park), and decided to do something neither of us have done before. So we rented a row boat and went all over The Lake for about an hour. We struggled a little with the steering, but it was a lot of fun and a lot of laughs! :)


One of the views from our lovely rowboat.
We then ate a late lunch at the Central Park Boathouse (very cool atmosphere, but the food wasn't the best) -- it's in "P.S. I Love You" and about a million other movies.


Whew! Then I got on the train out to CT, and this portion is for another day. I'm running out of time...

Until then ~~ have a wonderful week!

Monday, August 4, 2008

Camping, the beach, vacation

Some of my friends and I headed north to camp for the weekend. Jill did a triathalon on Saturday morning (YEA Jill!!!! She beat her time by 13 minutes from last year, and was second in her age group 20 - 29.) We had perfect weather -- sun, sun, sun, warm water, clear warm nights, etc. It was awesome! Thanks girls!!

Then I spent yesterday at the camp with the H side of the family. All 11 (oops! 12!) great-grandchildren were there -- for the first time ever, so of course we got a picture of them... four or five of the eleven were crying at the time (ages 3.5 weeks to 7 years), but they're all IN the picture, so that's good, right?!

This was followed by a get-together on the L side of the fam... at the house where my grandparents lived before they died. Lots of memories, especially being there with so many aunts, uncles, and cousins. My cousin Kristine is home from Iraq for about three weeks, and it was great to catch up with her! I saw some of her photos from her daily life at Camp Victory (in Baghdad). Hard to image that they're taken in Iraq -- this far-off place we hear about in the news. She'll still be in town when I get back from my vacation, so we're going to get together for lunch and to show each other some more photos. (Hers from life in Iraq, mine from Michelle and Ed's wedding.)

Vacation: tomorrow! I'm driving two hours to stay with a friend who lives near the airport I'm leaving from at 6am on Wednesday... so my vacation officially begins tomorrow evening!

I talked to Sarah on the phone today and we're both really hoping it works out to see each other.