Moxie's Dragon

moxie gets a new toy every christmas. she has a number of toys we keep in a basket, and she takes care of them pretty well for a dog. her favorite toy is a stuffed pig. she usually wears it out between 8 - 12 months, so her usual christmas present is this pig. it all started on her first christmas when she shoved her head into the bag to pull out her first traditional pig toy. this year, however, we decided to change it up a bit. this always worries me because she is picky about her toys. she has a squirrel she has hardly touched, a duck and a frog that are still in good condition, multiple toy bones or actual bones that have lasted for years. the only one she likes is her pig.

so jimmy and i see this dragon at petsmart in october. he says, let's get it for her for christmas. so we buy it. in order to make sure the pig doesn't win the show, we replace it early. in fact, we give her a new pig that day. she was so happy to have the pig, it just reinforced the worry i had for her to not like her new dragon. but christmas morning comes, and she actually seems happy with her dragon. she actually seems to like it quite a bit. that and her pig are the only toys consistently out of her basket. i am so happy she got to have a new toy that isn't currently discontinued.

Moxie's first pig December 2003:

Moxie's Pig:

Moxie's Dragon:

Kitchen Update

i know it's been a while. i really don't have a lot to say lately, and not a lot of time to say it. i will say that our oven recently broke. it was difficult to live without it, but we are pretty capable of cooking on the stovetop, so we got by for a few weeks. we decided, however, that it was a necessity prior to thanksgiving. we had always told ourselves that when one of our appliances broke, we would replace it with something nice that we actually wanted. well we were definitely going to stick to that rule. after shopping around for ranges, we realized that we might as well spend the extra money to get all of the extras we wanted including an oval center burner and a double oven with convection cooking. we shopped around and wanted to make sure the rest of the appliances would easily coordinate with the gas range we decided to buy. we decided on frigidaire gallery in stainless steel.

well, we thought about how we'd feel having a kitchen that didn't match, and researched the costs, and decided to upgrade the whole kitchen while we were at it. best buy had a great deal going on, but lowe's had all of the items we wanted. so we decide to take the pricing from best buy to lowe's and got a price match with delivery. we buy it and await the call for the deliveries.

our refrigerator and oven arrive first on saturday. it was quite exciting being able to bake again. our dishwasher and microwave hood come in and are installed on tuesday. our refrigerator begins leaking water somewhere near the the filter. jimmy calls lowe's and they are going to send someone out on thursday. well on thursday, the fridge just stops working. lowe's sends a loaner after jimmy argues about how they need to provide some sort of refrigeration since it's not our fault that this one they delivered stopped working. our refrigerator is on backorder, so this is the best they can do. this fridge is smaller than our original. it takes up less of a footprint and is much shorter. it is a standard freezer on top fridge that doesn't even make ice. jimmy decides to call lowe's back friday morning. he tells them that this loaner fridge is unacceptable and by no means comparable to the brand new one we just purchased, and that we need our purchased version prior to thanksgiving. also, he says that even though ours is on backorder, there must be one available in the 17 metropolitan lowe's and they need to find one to get to us right away. they delivered it on saturday.

so please, enjoy the view of our somewhat new kitchen.

before:

after:

Sitting in Training

i get so annoyed in classes here at work. there are some people that are so knowledgeable i like to hear about what they know. then there are the ones that just don't know a thing. we have to go really slow for those slow learners. then, there are the ones that think they know everything but really don't. these people drive me crazy. quit yelling out your useless crap just because you like to hear your own smart comments. i want to leave the room to not have to witness you embarrass yourself to such an extreme.

i'm sure my extra stress right now does not help with this situation, but come on. i had to stop listening to the class and write this because i was so annoyed.

Packing

i am sitting here getting prepared for my multitude of business travel, when a thought occurred to me: how do you pack for a 2 week long trip? i am so fickle about what i want to wear that i usually don't decide until i get out of the shower. then i see what mood i'm in, and that helps to determine what color shirt i will wear with my different shades of black pants. ok, sometimes i really do wear some brown, but mostly black. it's way more versatile.

i am going to be awat for 12 days in a row (well, working days) and i don't want to wear something twice on this trip. plus, i don't really know what i want to wear when. or the shoes!!! what a dilemma! i can't be sure what i will want to wear on which day, so what do i do? take all of the clothes in my closet? temporarily transfer everything over to the hotel closet? i suppose i could do that. it just seems like an awful lot of work. so i suppose i will have to make a decision ahead of time, and pack a little extra just to be sure. i can't say i'll like pink on monday, but maybe on thursday. or maybe wednesday will warm up a little and i can wear short sleeves. why do i have to worry about planning ahead?

Book Series

there is an extreme depression and withdrawl that follows reading a book series.

i didn't read any of the harry potter books until after the last was released. i had just watched the movies beforehand, then after the order of the phoenix, i just couldn't wait to see what happened. i was also worried that someone would spoil the ending for me. so i decided to immediately begin reading them all. once i started reading them, i was done rather quickly. less than two months. but when i was finished, i couldn't find anything to fill the void i felt after finishing hp. i tried a lot of books. i read the chronicles or narnia, his dark materials trilogy, some random other single books, and even tried a wrinkle in time. nothing compared. finally, i just decided to re-read all of the hp books to prepare for the next movie. of course, it helped, but then i was sad once again when it was over. nothing was good enough! what was i supposed to do?

answer: twilight.

and i have to admit that i am obsessed with the twilight series. i enjoyed reading it so much, i read the entire four book series in less than two weeks. i just couldn't stop. it's a good thing i started reading it after they were all out and available for me to get the next one with next to no time (similar to my hp experience). although with that, i don't get the anticipation that others get waiting for the release of the next book. i wonder if i am missing out on that. unfortunately, i am now in withdrawl again. i'm really not sure where to go from here. i finally filled the void from hp, but now that twilight is done, i think the hole that is left is even bigger. all i can think about is re-reading the whole thing before new moon comes out in november.

i need a new series to try and fill my void up slowly. at least until november. help!

Where's My Hot Actor?

over the holiday break, i came to the conclusion after going to the movies, that the movies are not made for twenty-somethings. let alone one with a great lead guy to lust over the entire time. there just aren’t any twenty-something actors out there for me to drool over.

let me examine the some of the current films for this point on the most basic level.
-australia – love story w/ 40 year olds
-bedtime stories – kid movie w/ 40 year olds
-curious case of benjamin button – love story w/ 40 year olds
-four christmases – love story w/ 40 year olds (ok, reese is in her 30s)
-marley & me - love story w/ 40 year olds
-seven pounds – maybe…
-the spirit – action movie, maybe the unknown main actor could be ok
-twilight – teen movie – robert pattison is 22
-valkyrie – tom cruise…. enough said

ok, so basically that gives us love stories for the teens, or love stories for the older people. and they keep getting older and older. there are hardly any movies with people that are 30, let alone the late 20s. people magazine’s sexiest men are always around 40, I guess they are supposed to get older with age, but with my self getting older, I just don’t know what sexy actors I have to go and see anymore. it just feels wrong to look at these young boys. and the older guys are just too old for me at this time.

who does that leave us with at our age to look after on-screen? here are a few options, but they aren’t that great, or that many… ryan reynolds, jake gyllenhal, orlando bloom. can you think of anyone else? i’ll start a tally to keep up.

Crazy First Week

first week down. it was a long and tiring week. first things first, i really don't even know who i report to. well, i guess i report to my scheduling lead, but he is not technically a manager, so therefor i actually "report" to some guy who i have yet to meet. i know it's interesting, but apparently this is just the way it is run over here since there is a limited amount of upper management. that's fun though. it's almost like i'm working on my own for once. there is very little micromanagement so far, and it's like i can do what i want with my work.

on that note, i actually already have work. it was 3 days and i was given work to start on and own. i find this quite interesting being a lowly level 2 and getting all of this work already. it is exactly what i needed. i'm very excited for myself right now. though it was a little odd for people to come up to me and expect me to know a lot about the programs after 2 or 3 days. hopefully i can represent enough to be who i really am and do all of the work the way it needs to be done. it will be a challenge, but i am up to it and excited to be able to be in this position.