Catching Up

So it has again been a long time since I’ve written. I don’t really know why, I’m just not feeling it, I guess. What’s new with me? Not a whole helluva lot, but let’s see:

I got a bit of a raise! That was exciting. It’s nominal, but then again, my big raise came by taking this new job and making this big move. The mid-year raise is important though in that it is a bit of barometer as to whether my manager thinks I’m doing a good job. It’s also refreshing to have a little review mid-year. This way if anything is not on track, I have the opportunity to make adjustments.

I am proud to say that in the next week or so I am going to be completely debt free! Well, except for my car, but all of the debt that I’ve been living with for years & years & years will be completely gone. It’s a great feeling.

I received my new bed and mattress and am very happy with both. The delivery of all was rather stressful however – first, I wasn’t given any options about the delivery of the bed, they said they were coming on Thursday (2 weeks ago) and that was that. Well, of all the days of the week, Thursday is my worst and least flexible (and unfortunately, that week was particularly bad). They then called me the night before and narrowed it down to sometime from 2:00 – 7:00 PM. Of course I had to be in a meeting until 2 PM and the meeting ran over. But still, they didn’t end up showing up until around 6 PM anyway. ARGH! And then the mattress delivery was the next day: I had taken that Friday off as a vacation day because of the delivery (I had hoped to also get the bed delivered that day too) and because my father was stopping through overnight on his way home from Maine. Well, we had severe storms that morning and, just as the delivery guys were pulling up outside my building, all of our electricity went out! If they had been just a couple of minutes earlier, they would have been in my elevator when it went out and they would have been stuck, stuck, stuck! (the electricity was out for about an hour). So, these poor guys ended up having to haul the thing up three floors of stairs – still, much better than being stuck in the elevator! Anyway, I now have my new bed and I’m loving it. Sleep. Is. Good. Although, can someone please explain to me why my dog thinks that she needs to sleep practically on top of me now that we have all this additional space? Sheesh!

As I mentioned before, my father came through for a short visit. Two short visits, actually. He went up to Maine for a fishing trip with some old college fraternity buddies and so he stopped over night on his way there and on his way back. Both times we managed dinner with my various cousins who live locally. The second visit everyone managed to come, so it was a lot of fun. Even though I don’t see my cousins very often, I really like knowing that they’re close by. Anyway, on his second visit, my father got to my place earlier and since I had taken a vacation day, I was able to take the time to drive him around a bit. I showed him New Company’s campus and drove around the area some. I also drove him through a couple of condo complexes where I had looked at townhouses. He seemed to really like the area and even liked the apartment that I’m currently living in. (Surprising because he is usually extremely hard to please). Of course when he was leaving on the morning of his second visit, he somehow managed to completely back up my toilet (I don’t even want to know how THAT happened) and was all ready to just leave me with it, but I made him run up to Lowes to buy a damn plunger. SHEESH!

What else? Well, it looks like my NYC friends, Ellen & Ken, are going to stop by on Monday. They are going to be in Massachusetts on a little bike trip and so are going to plan to come this way for dinner to see me (and my place and my dog). It should be fun, I miss them.

Oh, so this is funny! Have you ever seen the movie "Office Space"? If you haven’t, you HAVE to rent it, particularly if you work in an office. It’s basically a spoof on office culture, it was done about 8 years ago, but has a bit of a cult following. ANYWAY, last week they (this department where my project is located) announced that Friday (last Friday) was going to be Hawaiian Shirt Day! I almost spit out my coffee when I heard. Anyway, come Friday and EVERYONE was wearing a Hawaiian shirt (all the guys anyway, and there are mostly guys here). People were so serious about it that the big mucky muck here sent around an email letting everyone know that he had 5 EXTRA shirts, in case anyone didn’t have one. I was laughing my ass off all day. I am so jaded, I think I lived and worked in NYC for too long.