Sunday, October 28, 2007

Costumed Weekend

My last day at work was Friday (yay!). We celebrated by going to a couple of parties over the weekend.
Friday night we went to the 5th annual WAABI Bourbon Tasting. It was an enjoyable night and it was really great to see all of the folks I used to work with at Beam. They were are very nice and seemed genuinely glad to re-unite. They had a great turn out at the event and based on the prices of the bids on the silent auction I think they did very well for the two charities they support. Last year Chris and I came home with two baskets of goodies from the auction, this year everything was out of our price range which means great news for them.

Then Saturday night we decided to take a chance and go to a stranger's costume party. I ate lunch with a group of programmers at my now old job. A friend of theirs and a previous co-worker had a costume party and invited the whole crew. They said that I should come and bring Chris and we decided to go for it. We shopped for costumes that afternoon and were able to throw some pretty great ones together for a very affordable price.

The couple (Brandon and Carrie) hosting the party were awesome and made us feel right at home. When Carrie realized that neither of us had ever met her or her husband she was thrilled and excited to meet new people. The party doubled as a house warming party for them so we got the grand tour. Their home was gorgeous. As the night wore on Brandon (who is in a band) provided us with an impromptu guitar sing-a-long. Over-all the company was great and the costumes creative. The guy in the plaid is the BudLight hitch-hiker - his axe isn't a weapon, it's a bottle opener - he actually afixxed an opener to it. We're glad we crashed. More pictures here.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Career Changes

I realized that I never really posted here about the big changes coming up in my life. Chris and I did an analysis of our financial situation and decided that we could make it on one income. Knowing this we agreed that it wouldn't be irresponsible for me to quit the corporate world and give my business a shot full time.


I've become increasingly frustrated with corporate jobs and I've always felt I had it in me to be my own boss. In addition to getting the opportunity to test out my theory, working from home will give me more flexibility to travel and enjoy life with Chris now while we're munchkin free. If things go really well (fingers crossed, breath held) I can turn my little side business into something that can serve as our backup plan and allow me to work from home on my own terms indefinitely.


So, I did it.


Only two and a half more days and I will officially be free of my repressing, boring corporate job. Yay! I received calls/e-mail from 6 new potential clients for The PCoach in the past week alone so I am very encouraged.


We already have all sorts of plans to take advantage of my new-found freedom. The WAABI Bourbon Tasting is this Friday so I'll get to see all my old Jim Beam homies. Then Tuesday I'm finally going to ride on a flight where Chris is flying (which I've never yet been able to do because of work), we're going to St. Louis and back. Then we get to run across the airport to catch the last flight out to Seattle. We'll spend Halloween with Chris's cousin and her kids then the rest of the week and weekend with his parents, friends etc. We'll get to have (early) Thanksgiving with his parents. Once we get back I will be hitting The PCoach advertising hard and hopefully working 20-30 hours a week for a client that I'm still working the details out with.


The weekend of 11/10 is my family's traditional Pre-Thanksgiving celebration so I'll be down in FL for a long weekend. Then our whole family, both sides (!), will converge in Orlando for Christmas so I'll be spending almost two weeks down there for that.



Lots of fun and exciting changes for me. Now you know!

Monday, October 22, 2007

Movie Review - Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her

Watched Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her with Roger tonight and we give it four thumbs up. I don't even know how it wound up on my Flix List but I'm glad it did. It was a pleasant little surprise.

It reminds me mildly of Magnolia meets Playing by Heart only more real. It's one of those plots where everything intertwinces, only in this one they're clear about it. It's broken into several stories that are clearly defined. When I reached the end I found myself caring about the characters, feeling like I knew them and wanting to know more about their stories - a fairly amazing feat considering the short time in which each story and character is preseented. The shots are smooth throughout the film and some creative angles used. None of those cheesey scene transitions I always hate.

The casting is superb. I don't necessarily like Calista Flockhart but she was perfect for the role of Christine. Her monologues were well done. Glen Close is normally too stern for me but she was a perfect fit for Dr. Keener and her facial reactions during her scenes are so subtle and suitable.

Overall I was very impressed. I'm adding it to my wishlist, it's one I think I'll re-watch.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Road Trip!

Chris and I have the whole weekend off together (yay!) and fall suddenly hit our area. The leaves are rich tones of gold, auburn, red and orange. There is a nip in the area and today the sky was clear blue.

We went for a two hour drive through the windy backroads of the "tri-state" area. We wandered over to Madison, Indiana - a quaint little town that Chris discovered via the internet. The drive was amazing, Chris's M3 hugged the roads perfectly and the farms and forests were great scenery. About half way there we started seeing barns full of drying tabacco and signs to "watch horse drawn carriages, next 4 miles" etc.


We started off at the park along the river where I accidentally got some of the river water on my shoes. Chris is now monitoring my feet for contagious infection ^_-. With the changing leaves and the cloudless sky it was actually a pretty sight.
We then secured a parking spot on Main Street and hit the antique shops and at the first one we found a spice rack for $12. The owner was a sweetheart who interupted her lunch to ring us up (all the while trying not to stare at my nose ring - it was cute). I know it seems backwards but I am going to paint it fun colors and then paint the names of the spices on the jars. We went to the Madison Mercantile and bought a Veggi Soup mix and two Veggie Dip mixes. The owner recommended stufing peppers with the dips which we plan to try next time we entertain.

After we had made our way up one side of the street we had worked up a hunger so we stopped at the Downtowner Cafe for some fuel. We hit it right after the lunch rush so the service was great. Chris enjoyed a Frisco Melt and I had a "Duo Combo" with a BLT and a garden salad. We people watched as we ate and marveled at the Biker Dudes sitting outside, with perfect posture both devouring supper healthy salads - it was a slight contradiction :)


After lunch we bought some Fudge at the Toy Shop and then finished making our way back down the other side of Main Street. The drive home was just as enjoyable and we saw proof behind the "horse drawn carriage" warnings when an Amish family pulled out in front of us.
Over all it was a very pleasant day. The rest of the pictures are here.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Remembering

Only one person in this picture has passed, but I feel like two of them are gone...

Sometimes I miss them.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

CoNair

It was SOO vital for the Comair pilots to take paycuts that Delta pushed the issue with the pilots for a year. The pay cut got Delta around 2 million in savings per year.

As soon as Delta came out of bankruptsy what did they do? Re-brand. Spending $10 million!

Delta has been out of bankruptsy for a couple of quarters now. Yesterday they announced their third quarter standings. $2.4 billion in cash lying around? Why not give some of it back to the employs then huh?

I know he loves his job, but the industry sucks!

Monday, October 15, 2007

Finally! The Saga Continues

My all time favorite book is Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. An odd choice, I know, but I just love it. I love how epic it is, how you really get to know and love or hate the characters. I also have always like the time period. This book was assigned as the summer reading at the end of my junior year of highschool to be studied when we returned as seniors. When we received our copies of the paperback from our English teachers they already had huge chunks of text blacked out with a sharpie. I was furious - how dare they require reading and then censor it. I raised a fuss, encouraging everyone to fight and go to at least go out and buy an uncensored version. In the end I didn't go back for my senior year, I finished my required credits that summer, but I still read the book. I've re-read it every summer since. I'm oh so familiar with Prior Philip, the Evil Lord William, gorgeous Aliena and the quirky carrot-head Jack.

Chris knows this and he apparently got wind some time ago that Follett was releasing a sequal, which I had no clue about. It was released on Tuesday and on Wednesday he stopped by the book store to buy me a copy - they were already sold out! He wound up surprising me with a copy in the airport when we were heading town to Orlando this weekend.

I am already about 200 pages into World Without End and I already love it though I don't yet know if it will compare to it's predecesor. It takes place about 200 years afer Pillars of the Earth and so far is chronicalling the continued life at Kingsbridge and following many of the decendants from the first novel. So far the characters are just as dymanic and fabulous.

I just wish that Chris could get into the first one so he could be excited with me about the new one. I do wish I had a fellow admirer to share it with...
PS - for the record I have read every single one of Follett's books and there are few I didn't thoroughly enjoy so if you haven't read anything by him I highly recommend that you give him a shot. He tends to do extensive research on topic before writing about them so most of his books include amazing and accurate details.
PPS - I do wish he wouldn't insist on putting his picture on the back of every book - he's so weird looking!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Wow - Look at Me Ma!

Sometimes when I look around my house, at my cat, my husband, our things, accomplishments and the life we've created together I think to myself, how did I ever end up here? What did I do to deserve all of this?

If you had asked me five years ago where I would be now, this is the last thing I would have come up with. I never would have thought my best friends would be members of my family, that I would be married, with my own business and living in a house...

I need to dream bigger. :)

For those who are curious this tangent of thought was triggered by our upcoming anniversary - 4 years since our first date. Nothing compared to my parent's recent celebration of 35 years, but it's still a lot to us.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Movie Review - The Guardian

The Guardian - 3 1/2 out of 4 thumbs down

I know, I know - what were we thinking right? Chris and I watched The Guardian a few nights ago. It wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be, it was worse. The script was so incredibly cheesey, the acting was mediocre at best and the graphics were laugable. The entire movie we could so easily predict what was going to happen next that it wasn't even fun to tear it apart.

I am glad to say though that this particular bad movie is Chris's reponsibility as it was on HIS Flix list.

The only reason it gets half of a thumb is because it still wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen.

I got a chuckle yesterday because based on my current movie ratings Netflix recommended The Guardian as something I might like. Shows you how accurate their recommendations are!