Make Me Smile

I LOVE I Love Lucy. This article is motivation like no other. I definitely am going to do that audition at the end of August! There is a marathon on Hallmark Channel this weekend, I totally plan on watching it.


I also love Bloopers. This one definitely made me giggle.

This quote made me actually laugh at work... Fred is one of my favorite characters in the Harry Potter series.. and if you have not read book seven you may want to skip this part!

"(When Book 7 Deathly Hallows came out) We were in Japan actually, when it was released. And the Japanese version hadn’t come out, but the English version was out there. So, I got it, and ‘cause I was on holiday, I turned my phone off so nobody could tell me what happened. I blitzed through it in like two days. I couldn’t put it down. I remember I was on the bullet train and the part what happens to Fred, and I was like [makes distressed sound]… and literally at that second the ticket guy came around, asking for my ticket and I was like, ‘I just died, mate. Leave me alone!’"
— James Phelps aka Fred Weasley


I finally got my VA tax return check in the mail. This week. Plane ticket fund has grown!

Our company newsletter had this to say...

One large movement is the Power IT Down
initiative which asks all of us to power
down our PCs, monitors, printers and other
peripherals for one day on August 26th. For
those who sign up, the sponsors will make
a donation to the Wounded Warrior Project
which supports injured service men and
women. What a wonderful way to commit to
reducing energy while supporting a fabulous
cause that reinforces the fact that we should
slow down just a bit and relax. If you run into a
client who will be on vacation on August 26th,
ask them to visit http://poweritdown.org. Although
Carr Workplaces can’t participate
fully and shut down on that day, we will
employ some measures to reduce the energy
load from our network and servers.

We cannot do it, but we are encouraging our clients to! You should too!



Last night I was outside and my neighbor Brittanie came out with Mollie. Mollie charged at me and said hi and jumped in my lap and smothered me with kisses. Britt said I needed a snuggle buddy and gave me Molly for the night. And she did snuggle with me! But she came in and ran all over the place whining and looking for Ryan. How do I know? Because she ended up stopping outside of his closet, sitting, whining and looking at me like, "I smell him in there, let him out!" I opened the door and she sniffed around and looked at me again before just jumping into our bed and curling up on Ryan's pillow. But she did snuggle with me all night!



Sadly... not much else.

My manager is off today and my coworker left at 2 for a doctors appointment... so I am alone in the office. Just what I need right? I have plans with Carrie tomorrow, maybe Mount Vernon. For the first time in a long time I am dreading a weekend. It will be a lot of empty space and time that I just am not looking forward to trying to fill.

At least Ryan has a room now and can settle. Maybe we can try and skype this weekend, if he can get it to work on my old lap top!

Family Weekend

Friday night Ryan and I went to the 9:55pm showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Oh my goodness did I love it! Yes I cried, twice, and yes I think certain aspects could have been truer (or more in depth) to the book, but overall a darn good movie. Sometimes watching a movie, especially one based on a book, I think Oh man they are only at this part and there is a lot more to go! no matter how good the movie is! I didn't think that once.

I do wish certain scenes were longer, like the pensieve scene, or that more histories were revealed, but I'll take it. Sorry I don't want to say too much for those who haven't seen it, but if you want to go nerdy like me and analyze it and talk it over, shoot me an email! I am dying to, Ryan doesn't read the books so he doesn't get the conversations I want to get into. We can talk about the movie, but if I start mentioning the book he gets that glazed look in his eyes... :P

So needless to say we went to bed pretty late, but we were up early and on the road to New Jersey by 10am the next morning. We arrived around 2:30 or so, not bad, and had a huge bbq lunch with my family. After I went around the house and took pictures like crazy. My family is moving to North Carolina in about three weeks so it was my last time in my childhood home! Then we went to mass and after the church threw a party for my mom. She has been the parish secretary there for eight years, and it was a great time!

This is the cake they had made for my mom, very cool! Our whole family is on it thanks to one of my wedding pictures!
I got to talk with my dear friend and email buddy Joan for awhile, it was good to see her and talk face to face for a bit rather than online!
Father Tom and Deacon Paul said some sweet things and my mom got teary of course. Then the presented her with a crystal cross inscribed with her favorite bible verse, Luke 29:12, "...don't worry."
And then they blessed it.
My family and Nicole... I do love this picture!
Ryan and Miss Fran 2.
Mom and Ruth and Joan, all the church ladies!
Stefan and Father Tom
I really wish I remember what we were talking about, I look quite obstinate!
Mom and her girls! She cried after this one was taken.

There was a ton of food, tears, hugs and laughter as well. I got to say goodbye to my Church Family and see a lot of wonderful people again. The party was just proof of how awesome my mom is at her job and how she will definitely be missed!! I was so glad Ryan and I were there to see it all.

After we headed back to the house and Sam was there! We got some definite quality girl time and even hung out with the boys in the pool a bit before retreating to the hot tub to chat. We were up pretty late once again and then out of bed early. My family had an anniversary to go to for my mom's cousin and Ryan and I had to get back on the road (after a huge breakfast of course). I definitely cried leaving my house. I know it is just a house, but I grew up there from the age of six on. I got ready there for school dances, dates, shows, prom, my wedding... I had sleepovers and family parties, graduation parties... so many amazing memories. I know those will always be with me, but I definitely struggled walking away.

We zoomed back to Virginia, getting pulled over once in Delaware but not gettign a ticket as Ryan managed to get a military loving cop! Lucky duck! I did give him a big I told you so and he did the speed limit again. At least until we hit Maryland.

Luckily we made it to Virginia before my mother in law and sister in law arrived! We did a speedy cleaning of the house and just as we finished they pulled in. Sunday night was mainly hanging out until we were hungry, then walking up the street for dinner. Hannah, my sister in law, has a birthday verrrrry soon so we got the restaurant to surprise her with a dessert! She is six shades of adorable!





They all got to hang out yesterday but I had to work :( After work more wine was enjoyed and then we walked up to King Street for a nice dinner together. We got home kind of late and I just passed out in bed shortly thereafter! After not sleeping in all weekend and being up so late I am exhauuuuusted!

Thursday Link Up

I feel like this song is oddly appropriate for this week.

I started reading Harry Potter when I was barely 11 years old (fitting huh?). I was off to another summer at Girl Scout sleep away camp and my mom told me she found this book about a boy who was a wizard and a detective. I was so not interested. But my mom sneaked Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets into my trunk. I heard for some reason that the second book at first was more available in America, hence the reason I started on number 2. Number 1 wasn't here yet!

Needless today I read it three times those few weeks. I was addicted. Sure I was a little confused at first but I soon was immersed in the story and totally did not care about the missing piece or two. I realized then it was the second book and my mom and I hunted to find the first one. I read that, then the second, then again and again. Each book release I was there. A few I was at Borders at midnight ready to go.

Then the movies happened. By this point my best friend Sam was just as immersed in the books as I was. When I heard they were making a movie I scoffed at the idea. Why ruin such a great book by turning it into a movie? (pretentious little pre-teen, wasn't I?) Sam and I were at the movies seeing something when the preview first played. It was one of those theatre's with big screens in the lobby that plays previews while you get popcorn, and I remember we were walking under it and we stopped, backed up, and watched the preview in silence. We then looked at one another when it was over and said, "Ok maybe we'll see it."

I became hooked on the movies too. I learned very on not to compare them too much to the books. I know every movie could not be eight hours long (a girl could dream) so I just learned to love them in their own right, separately from the books. I went to midnight premiere after midnight premiere. Sam and I skipped school to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and even made tshirts to wear! It had Sirius Black's prisioner number on the front with the name and date on the back. I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when I was in Rome (it had been out two days since all the English shows sold out fast!) and we saw it with Italian subtitles. I have the US versions of all 7 books plus the British ones of One, Three, Five and Seven... coincidence all them being odd numbered. I also have the third one in Greek (because I was there and wanted it!) and the first one in Spanish... which I have tried hard to read.

The seventh book came out when I was studying in Greece, actually on the island of Crete. I went to five bookstores on the island before I found the one that carried the book. I sat with my nose burried in that thing for nearly 48 hours straight (between sleep and study abroad and a test). I cried in the Starbucks when one of my favorite characters died and I cried a bit (for a different reason) when I finished the book.

For the past twelve years this story has been in my life. I cannot believe it is ending so soon. Ryan and I have tickets to the 9:55pm Friday night show (since midnight showings are not ideal when you have to be up for work at 7) and I am both overly excited and slightly dreading it. What will we all do now? :P

I guess there is always Pottermore...

OMG SO EXCITED!

Busy Week!

Work was killer this week!

First on Wednesday our phones died for two hours. When your job primarily revolves around answering and transfering calls that is a big problem. It wasn't just our phones at the front desk though, all of our clients had no phone access either. Bad news bears indeed.

So Thursday has to be better right? You would think. Our internet was out. All day until 4:20pm. Man oh man were people pissed, and rightly so! How can a company not have a back up system??? In all fairness it was not our company's fault but the provider losing a giant server in Atlanta that we were somehow linked in with, but people were not too concerned with the reasoning, just the results! Ugh. We could do our job too well either. Our schedule for booking meeting rooms? Online. Our billing? Online. Luckily we had our outlook email up and running since it is operating on the server at our headquarters. Emailing clients, cancelling appointments... oh it was brutal.

Friday I thought had to be better! We came in early Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to set up a beverage service (aka coffee) for a client, so I got some overtime doing that, but Friday I came in at normal time and had phone and internet! Then around 10am one of our clients came in with a project for me, also known as an Admin project. They pay the company for it, I do the work. He is a lawyer and just inherited a bunch of cases from another lawyer who just retired. He needed the papers relating to each case organized and re-filed. Man. Oh. Man. I had to divert from the phones to just do this project. I worked from 10am until 5:30pm finishing it. Loooong day. He was very nice and appreciative so I honestly did not mind doing the work, but it was Harry Potter Day! I had to get to the theatre!

I flew out of work and to the theatre, glad I got tickets ahead of time, and met Ryan, Russell, and Lauren. Russell and Lauren got their before us so they were in line and got us some good seats with them. The movie? Fantastic. I won't spoil anything, but I enjoyed it. Some things were left out but it could have been worse. I cried once. And now I cannot believe I have to wait until July for the next one!!!! Oy.

We're at the barracks now doing laundry. Being the adult I am I woke up at 8:30am and couldn't go back to sleep. So I watched the rest of one of my favorite movies (Under the Tuscan Sun), ran to the bank, and then grocery shopping. Go me.

Happy weekend!!!

SO EXCITED

Harry Potter tomorrow at 7pm! (Because being an adult means no midnight showings with work... lame).

More update tomorrow. Rough two days.

This made me laugh though...

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Oh what a weekend...

My brain is fried right now. Work was super busy yesterday and the weekend was jam packed with happenings and today the phones went down at work so blogging definitely hopped into the backseat! I don't even know where to begin. The only think keeping me sane right now is that I am listening to Josh Groban's new album Illuminations and it is of course fabulous (and has the same name as the EPCOT fireworks show, which I love!).

Where to begin?

Let's start with this:


That is my car. Remember my car accident a few weeks ago? Well Saturday I go to Geico to get an estimate done. Well Ryan decides to meet me there because we are going to go to Great Falls after. Long story short we decide to leave my car there and come back for it later, but my husband apparently does not know how to back out of a garage and my driver's side is now banged up. I have no door handle. To get in my car I have to open my back door or passenger door!

And what is his reaction?

He laughs. It is soooo ironic. The door I am claiming damages on gets more damages... at the claims place! Needless to say I punched him. In the arm. Hard. I was so mad at him! More so that he kept laughing at it, he eventually apologized, but this is my car! If it had been his I doubt he would have laughed. He keeps saying this is why I need to learn how to drive stick (NO) so I can use his car. UGH.


We had a blast at Great Falls with Russell and Lauren. I will post pictures later as I have something else important to mention.



The D-Word has arisen.

Deployment. It is still something he is looking in to, but he wants to go. Again. 8th and I is a nondeployable unit. The way to deploy from there is on a Security Task Force, which is what Ryan did last year when he went to Iraq. It is not a fleet deployment (with him being infantry I SO do not want) but a security task force. Basically they stand post on the FOBs and Bases and do relocations and maneuvers outside the wire in MRAPPS.

When Ryan was on duty and I visited him his friend Randy was there. He was like, "Hey did you hear about the task force starting to train up?" I turned around with my massiva bag of laundry and looked Ryan dead in the eye and said, "No. No. No No No."

"But I didn't even get to talk to you about it yet!"

Ugh.

So we've talked. It is a good time for him to go. No kids. No pets even. We're in an area that is close to family (ish) and I wouldn't have to move. We love the area we are in. I have a good, steady job. His re-enlistment bonus could be tax free if he does it in Afghanistan. He can pick up Sgt quickly. He has done this Security Task Force before. He knows the protocols and what to do and when to do it. We would help out our savings quite a bit. He wouldn't be fighting with a fleet unit right up front.

All the positives.

The negative?

He will be gone seven ish months and I will miss him and don't want him to go.

Can't compare right? I am a military wife. This is what I agreed to. It is almost petty to try and talk him out of this, that is not what we do. I just didn't think it would be happening again so soon. He was going to re-enlist, go to CID (six months on the job training then five months at school) .. then maybe deploy. I had over a year just to be with him and start our lives. By the time he deployed, in my mind, we'd have been married nearly two years. Now it may not even be a year. Or just barely.

Nothing is definite yet. He is still looking into it, investigating. Then there will be a work up for however many months then he could go.

Gosh, even the possibility just makes my stomach hurt.

Ugh.

See why the brain has been fried? I will keep you all posted, as per usual.


On a brighter note, we watched all six Harry Potter movies and are all caught up for Friday. I am bummed being a working adult means I cannot go to a midnight showing, but we are all going right after work Friday. Have tickets already too! SO excited!

Incidentally Enough...

First... can I just mention I am SO flippin excited for this!?!?




Second. I finally heard back from the doctor last night. Now it turns out the spot was there, but it is still an incidental finding. On the phone he was throwing out a lot of big words I didn't quite catch (like enterior portion, limbus fetibra etc) but here is the gist. As a kid your bones fuse together, well apparently one part of my spine didn't want to cooperate and an extra piece of bone fused to the outside of my spine on my L3. I think it is called having a secondary osefication center. Whatever it is, it makes the part of my spine have a different density. He said a lot of people have them, most commonly in their feet or even chest, but it is rarely ever a problem. Where mine is it is not located near any nerves or my actual center spinal column so we are just going to leave it.

If I start getting really bad pain or pins and needles again we may investigate further. Until then I am still waiting on my referrals to a physical therapist and a plastic surgeon (yay thanks for being prompt TriCare!). If I don't get it Friday I am calling and harassing them again on Monday.

But thank you all for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. At least it all wasn't for sh...crap. We now know one more thing that is not causing my pain. That tends to be the trend with me whenever I am sick... we eliminate everything it is NOT but rarely get around to what it is. Oh well. Next step ahoy!