Shelbell's World

Stash issues

2011-10-21T16:40:00.000-04:00

So this weekend is Stitches East. In all my years in Harrisburg I never made it down to Baltimore for Stitches. But then it moved to Hartford just before I did, so I went to market place last year, and plan to go to marketplace this year.

This brings something to mind. I do believe I've failed miserably on my 2011 plans to control increases to my STASH! In 2011 there were a few large contributors to this - two of them heavily tied to Ravelry.

1. Twisted Limone on etsy. I think I first saw TL looking at a friends activity on Ravelry. Its really pretty ironic because she was talking about how she loves striping sock yarn, and I was a bit appalled. But as I looked, some of these gorgeous striping yarns, like the TL, are VERY different from the self striping yarns I would see early on in my knitting life. And they are BEAUTIFUL! I've gotten several stripes from a few different yarn companies, but the major increase in my stash in the form of self striping yarn has been Twisted Limone.

2. The Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Swap Group on Ravelry. I kind of knew about this group long before I really did...because of seeing various Rav friends magic link pretty yarns in my friend activity feed. But I noticed the pretty magic links were occuring more and more often. Finally that lead me to actually take a look at this group. We had done some swaps in our Harrisburg Sock Knitters group, but what I liked about this group - is you can see something you like and claim it - and then offer up your own swap. You don't have to agree with someone else about a direct trade. You claim something you like, you put up something you like in return. But anyone can claim, and then THEY put something up. There are tons of different threads with different rules. But most of my swapping has been in the Wollmeise/Stripey thread. Now you may ask - if its a swap group why does that increase my stash? Well..because to HAVE good stuff to trade I have made some purchases to get stuff TO trade. So..net increase in my stash.

3. Madelinetosh yarn clubs. Lord I have a lot of madelinetosh in my stash that needs knitting! I first discovered this in the form of tosh sock. I picked up a pretty skein while first exploring the CT yarn shops, and then was gifted a skein by my yarn store owner friend who wanted my opinion as she was thinking of carrying. I fell in love immediately. Then I went with a couple friends to visit Webs and found and fell in love with Madelinetosh Merino Light. I don't know what it is, other than incredible colors and amazing feeling yarn. But I do love madelinetosh. And this has lead to me joining some of their clubs (regular shipments of yarn, yes please!). Really need to attach the few sweaters worth I have......

So....what to do at Stitches this weekend....Webs will have a booth. Claudia Hand Painted will have a booth (how great would Claudias fingering be for hexapuffs?). Lisa Souza will have a booth. And hundreds more. I did pretty good last year. Just two skeins of Bugga, a pair of sock blockers, and a bag of Debbie Bliss Como. But I thinking I was doing a better job of not adding to stash in 2010 than I seem to be doing in 2011. And last year I was alone at stitches..this year I'll be there with friends. Peer pressure....oh dear.

My knitting mojo has returned!

2011-08-12T08:46:00.000-04:00

So earlier this year I was really feeling like I had lost my knitting mojo. I know if you read some current posts you may ask "really?". But really!!!! I wasn't all that motivated. I think in part its because I was working on things that were taking so much time I wasn't having much fun. Plus as much as I said I wanted to curb the casting on of new projects - that is part of what keeps me motivated!

My mojo started to return when when I knit up a couple of sweaters for Elphaba. They were small projects that I could start and finish in a matter of a few hours. That had me feeling like I could ACCOMPLISH something again!

Next, I signed up for Camp Loopy with The Loopy Ewe. Camp Loopy is a series of one month long knit alongs. The first was June 15 to July 15. We had to knit a scarf or shawl - something to keep us warm at night. I went with a heavier weight yarn because I was terrified of not finishing in time. And I decided to knit Terra by Brooklyn Tweed. Can I just say - I should not have been worried since I knocked this baby out in a week! No joke. One week! Crazy!

Here I was I'd been freaking about not finishing in a month, and I finished in a week. Which meant I had 3 weeks until I could cast on for project 2 (which I wasn't even sure what it WAS yet). Well....as you may have noticed if you've read my blog...I've been bit by the stripey sock yarn bug. One of my friends caught it first..and as I watch her favoriting of different yarns on Ravelry (gotta love that friend activity feed) I was getting intrigued. See most of my socks of late have been patterned. And I love them. But its more work to knit a patterned sock. One must learn or read the pattern and that slows me down. Part of what was intriguing me about the striped sock yarn, is getting fun, interesting to look at socks without having to worry about a pattern. So I stalked Twisted Limone on Etsy one of the stripey's I was most intrigued by, and scored 2 balls on my first try - pretty good considering she only puts up like 10 balls once a week. Problem is, Twisted Limone is in the UK. I am not. And I had 3 weeks to play with before my next Camp Loopy project. Enter Knit Picks and their Felici Self Striping Sock yarn at a FANTASTIC price! I ordered that in 4 colorways, and it arrived in lighting fast time. So I cast on. And made 2 pairs before my first order of Twisted Limone showed up.

Then my Twisted Limone arrived and I was SOOOOO excited so I got right to work on those.

In case you weren't paying attention, I only had 3 weeks, until July 15 to work on all these socks. Yes you heard me. I knit 3 pairs of socks in 3 weeks! I love this new way of knitting them, toe up, afterthought heel. It requires so little thinking you can just KNIT!

So, then July 15 rolls around and I need to start my Camp Loopy Project 2. Project 2 was from July 15 to August 15 and has to be socks or mittens or gloves and has to have cables. I went with socks (naturally!) and decided that I wanted to make sure I got myself done on time. So rather than pick a pattern that could be overly complicated, why not use my new style of sock knitting and design my own pattern! And I did!

These socks are what I call "Cabled Yumminess". My ravelry project pages is here but I've also loaded the pattern into Ravelry and once my test knitters complete it I plan to make the pattern available. Not sure yet if I'll do it for free or try to make a little money. But it sure has been fun watching the people favorite and queue up my pattern!

Okay, so finished the Camp Loopy Project 2 socks August 4. What's a girl to do? 11 more days before I can cast on for Project 3 (something with at least 800 yards). Enter Stephen West and his mystery shawl KAL which started August 1. Here's the idea - a bunch of people knit a pattern at the same time with NO idea of what the finished project will look like and we only get pieces of the pattern at a time. YIKES! I've never done a mystery KAL before - and if I had to do one, Stephen West is probably the one to do because I find most of his patterns BEAUTIFUL! He did give some suggestions early on for how to pick out your three colors. Some have gone with some solids mixed with a varigated. Some of gone with 3 different shades of a similar color. I went with three very different shades of yarn. We were told one of them should be considered the "anchor" so I went with something dark for that. Here's my yarn:

I don't want to share what the shawl is looking like because it is a mystery and don't want to spoil the surprise for someone accidentally. But if you WANT to see it, my project pages is here. I finished both Clue 1 and Clue 2 the first day I worked on them. Clue 3 just got released early, so I may try and do a little of that tonight but I'm headed out of town this weekend so we'll see. Plus this project may end up taking a back seat since I need to cast on for Camp Loopy Project 3 Monday and that is going to take me a while...the pattern I picked out is more like 1500 yards, not the required 800. Yikes!

Oh yeah, and in between all that I've started using sock yarn scraps for the Beekeepers Quilt. I think it will be fabulous for little quick things when I'm bored. Or purse knitting! And lord knows I have LOTS of sock yarn scraps!

So there it is, my mojo is back. Thank goodness I love knitting since I'm doing a LOT of it these days!

Orchid Cabled Yumminess

2011-08-08T08:18:00.000-04:00

As part of my sock craze of late, I've designed my first sock pattern! I needed something with cables for a knit a long I was in. But I still wanted something simple and quick. The answer: my Orchid Cabled Yumminess!

Okay, so the pattern itself I'm just calling Cabled Yumminess. The Orchid comes from the Sundown Orchid Dream in Color Smooshy I used.

Here's a picture. I'm hoping to get a few people to do a test knit for me and then to publish the pattern!

Socks, socks, and more socks!

2011-07-18T07:56:00.000-04:00

I've seriously been a sock knitting fool lately! I've always enjoyed socks. And did have a January back around 2007 where I made 2 pairs in a month. But now I've made three pairs in three weeks. And I need to cast on my Camp Loopy #2 project - which may well be socks (need to hurry and decide since I need to get knitting!).

So why is it I've been knitting so many socks so quickly? That crazy afterthought heel makes it super easy. And the striped yarn makes it fun looking without the added work of the cable or lace patterns I've been doing. Not much to remember on the afterthought heel. Just knit!

Here's pair number 1. These were knit up in knit picks felici in the "Goth" colorway. Less than $10 for a pair of socks! I made these a touch longer than I probably should have for my legs - at least without doing increases to accomodate my calves. But they are gorgeous. These babies are what I worked on from June 25 to July 2.

Pair number 2. Also knit up in Knit Picks Felici - this time in the "Rainbow" Colorway. Went for shorter with this pair, and ended up a little shorter than I'd like. These are just over ankle sock length. Thats the one bad thing about the afterthought heel. Since you can't try it on once you pass the heel portion, hard to really know how they are fitting. But they are gorgeous. And I have some leftover yarn to do something fun with! Worked on these babies from July 2 to July 9.

Finally, pair number 3. These are knit up in Twisted Limone Zingy in the "Summer Breeze" Colorway. This limited yarn is a little tricky to get a hold of. But the colorways are GORGEOUS and I really really loved knitting with the Zingy base yarn. I've got some of her Tangy base at home too so some socks in that will be coming up soon! Worked on these July 9 thru July 17. A day longer than some of the others since I went to Block Island, RI yesterday!

And there you have it! My sock knitting craziness. Now...what to work on for that camp loopy project. Here's the yarn....I need to do something cabled that is socks, gloves, or mittens. And needs to be done by Aug 15 so don't want it to be too hard!

Striped Socks with an Afterthought Heel

2011-07-04T08:29:00.000-04:00

Though not on my original list for this year's knitting goals, I taught myself something new! You see, one of my friends has been obsessed with knitting striped socks. And the more pictures and things I see the more intrigued I get. I'm waiting on a couple of gorgeous orders from Twisted Limone. But I was getting impatient. I was on the Knit Picks site looking for new cables to replace a few coming apart in my interchangeable set and while browsing came across the Felici. At that super affordable price I ordered enough for 4 pairs of socks. :) I cast on for my first pair about, um, 10 minutes after the mailman delivering my package on Saturday June 25. I finished Saturday July 2. That MAY be a new record for me. Though the real record is I finished 1 sock in just over 24 hours!

Anyway, here are the finished product.

I did lots of reading online to get some inspiration on how to actually go about doing this. Yarn Harlot has a blog post on this, but I wasn't sure I wanted to do it her way since I'd also seen a way using waste yarn. I was hoping to post here, but my google skills are not finding that post again.

Anyway, for my sock I used Judy Magic Cast On to cast on 32 stitches, 16 per needle. This is my go two cast on for toe up socks, and I can do it without having to look it up for reference these days.

I increased every other row until I was up to 64 stitches, 32 on the top and 32 on the bottom. Then I simply knitted a long tube. Since all my socks have been patterned lately it was refreshing to just knit a plain stockinette sock. I don't know that this would have been true if it had been a solid yarn. But watching the stripes form had me racing through to see the next stripe!

When the sock measured about 1 1/2 inches less than the length of my foot (as measured by trying on, this is why I love toe up socks) I picked up a strand of waste yarn and knitted across one half of the stitches with the waste yarn. I think picked up the main yarn again and knitted over the same stitches with it. For my socks I did this in between two stripes. I've seen many people do this in the middle of a stripe and I may do that next time, not sure. Anyway, here's the row of waste yarn. This will be pulled back out later and the heel will go here.

I continued along until sock was the length I wanted. I did the last full stripe in 2 by 2 ribbing and I bound off in the beginning of the next color.

Once finished it was time to work on the heel. I used my circular (size 1 for me) and picked up one side of each stitch along the bottom side of the waste yarn.

Then going in the same direction (because I'm going to knit in the round eventually, pick up one side of each stitch on the top side of the waste yarn.

Now its time to start working in the round. I had read that you should pick up a stitch or two on the sides to help avoid a small hole. It seemed like I had LOTS of space so I picked up three stitches on each side. I still ended up with a hole on each side so I'll need to work more on my technique here on the next pair. Oh, I also studied the yarn carefully to pick up for a new stripe that was different than the stripes I had ended on.

At this point I knit in the round, decreasing on each side every other row (4 decreases total per round). I decreased down to 12 stitches on each side. Then I did the kitchener stitch to close up the heel.

And voila, my first pair of afterthought heel stripey socks. Would you believe I cast on for my next pair already? :)

What would your Dream Disney World Trip Consist of?

2011-06-21T08:44:00.002-04:00

So 506 days from now I'll be disembarking from the Disney Dream with my WDW Radio Disney friends on our second WDW Radio Show Cruise. What is so special about this you may ask? Well, that same day will then start the beginning of my 10 day 35th birthday trip to WDW!

As I mentioned before mom and I have been wanting to get to WDW for holiday decorations for a while now. And we finally settled on doing so in 2012 in conjunction with my 35th birthday. It was a completely unexpected surprise that the second WDW Radio cruise would be immediately before we were planning on going. No seriously - if we really thought this was a possibility we would have re-booked while on the first cruise and gotten a better deal and an on board credit. But I digress!

So, 506 days from now I'll be about to hit WDW for a 10 day long birthday celebration. Mom and I had chatted about how there are so many thing we want to see/do that we haven't really done our last few trips because of money, or time. But this is a nice long stay at WDW so we have time. And its 506 days away, so there's lots of time to save! Prices will go up for 2012 from this year, but we also will qualify for DVC discounts on some things - so I'll use those two thoughts in estimating how much to save.

So I've started working on my wish list of birthday trip activities. The idea is to brainstorm a list now. Research costs, and get a plan put together for what we'll do and how much we need to save up - because we have 506 days to save! Here's what I've come up with so far:

1. Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party - We first did this YEARS ago, as we used to go down to WDW the week before Christmas. I remember it being cold, but that's about it. We had a blast at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party back in 2008, so I'm thinking this will be equally fun! I know we can get a DVC discount, but rates will go up too. I'm estimating $70 per person to stay on the safe side.

2. Backstage Magic Tour - This seven hour tour hits all four theme parks, includes lunch at Whispering Canyon Cafe, and offers some behinds the scene's peaks like visiting the utilidors. Its pricey at $224, but I think the DVC discount is 15%. And park admission is not needed. Lets say $200 each for planning purposes.

3. Holiday D-Lights - I'm not sure about this one based on the price and limited dates. But it is intriguing. This 4.5 to 5 hour tour hits Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios and includes a light holiday buffet. Nearly as expensive as the Backstage Magic tour seems a bit steep to me, but could be a GREAT way to experience the holiday decorations while at Disney. Current price is $199 with no need for theme park admission. Again, probably 15% DVC discount eligible so lets assume $175 for planning purposes.

4. Wilderness Back Trail Adventure - Mom and I are big fans of riding Segways. We did this in Chicago a few years back with friends. And have also down the Around the World tour at Epcot. This adventure is at Fort Wilderness on the off road style segways. $90 per person currently but again, DVC discount, so I'm estimating $80 for planning purposes.

5. La Nouba - Despite several Las Vegas trips under my belt, I've never seen a Cirque Du Soleil show. I wanted to do La Nouba back in 2008 but it was on break then. So its another item to add to my wish list. Looks like there are a lot of different ticket options, but I'm thinking we want awesome seats right? Lets say $150 per person when factoring in taxes and the like.

Those are my non-Dining related wishes for now. What did I miss? Any special activity you think I should be adding to my list for the great big birthday trip?

Update on my knitting related 2011 Goals

2011-06-20T11:58:00.002-04:00

Back in January I wrote on the yarn-love blog and here about my knitting challenges and goals for 2011. I thought as it is nearly mid year it was a good time for a progress report.

Goal number 1 was Lace. Although I have found a few possibly patterns I have not started knitting lace with lace weight yarn yet.

Goal number 2 was Colorwork. I'm happy to say I finished the Corrie Vest I started working quite some time ago! Of course I finished it in late spring and the weather has warmed up so I have yet to get a chance to WEAR my Corrie Vest. The two colors at one time part was easy since I am able to knit continental so I just had one color in each hand. The steeking (ie cutting my knitting, on PURPOSE) was the scary part. Until I did the reinforcement that is. My sewing machine is having issues so I went for the crocheted reinforcement for my steeks. In the process of doing this I was able to see exactly what I was catching, so my fear of my knitting running lessoned greatly. It seemed to take me HOURS to get my crocheted reinforcement done, but when I did I was so excited to whip out my scissors and start cutting. And it was FUN! Bottom line: its done and I'm already looking for other fair isle vest patterns.

Goal number 3 control my castonitiis so I have less works in process. I think I'm doing OK at this. Since January 1 I have cast on for 4 items. Two of which were small sweaters for Elphaba. One was a shawl that I admit has scarcely been touched. The fourth was a shawl as part of the Camp Loopy program that The Loopy Ewe is doing this summer. The only reason I let myself do this is because it consists of three projects, each completed start to finish in one month. I have completed 6 items since January.
-My Ruth's Entrelac Butterfly Shawl, started in Dec 2010 and finished in January.
-A granny square blanket I started making in July 2008 just to make Granny Squares. This was finished in January and gifted to a friend about to give birth to her first baby girl.
-TWO sweaters for Miss Elphaba. I was discussing making sweaters for a friends new doxie pups and realized my own little girl hadn't gotten a new sweater from me in quite a long time. So in January and February I made not one but two sweaters for my little girl.
-My Corrie Vest as mentioned above. This was originally cast on in January 2010.
-My "joy" socks, knit up in Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere in the Joy in the Morning color way that was available through the Loopy Ewe as part of a kit. These were cast on in August 2010 and finished in May 2011.

Elphaba Sweaters

So, I've cast on 4 items this year (one of which is almost done) and cast off 6. Sounds like progress right? I've also being working hard on my Flair sweater which was originally cast on in September as part of a knit along for yarn-love. I have made tremendous progress and just have about half a skein of yarn left to round out the length of the sweater and then that will be done as well. Should have plenty of time to finish this for wear this fall.

Goal number 4 was to do a non-worsted weight sweater. I have favorites plenty of options for use with some of my dk or sport weight madelinetosh. After flair my thought is to cast on for a sweater with one of those.

So there's my update! Good progress on half my goals half way through the year. I think that means I'm doing well!

Disney Dream Dissapointments

2011-05-27T08:21:00.002-04:00

Hope you enjoyed the previous post on the things I really liked about the Disney Dream. Before you think I'm just a negative nelly, I LOVED the Dream. I can't wait to sail next year on both the Fantasy and the Dream. But there were just some things I was not crazy about...so...onto the things I was a bit disappointed in.

Animators Palette Technology
I’ll preface this by saying that although I think the Turtle Talk with Crush exhibit at Epcot is kind of cool, it is not one I have gone too after the first time. So for me, although it is kind of cool that they brought this technology into Animators Palette, I didn’t find that it wildly enhanced my experience. Our table wasn’t near a screen. And the screen we were nearest, I found it hard to understand who Crush was talking to. And the random swimming of characters that you would see the exact same thing on 2-3 screens at a time was far from magical. Fingers crossed that the new technology show for the Fantasy is more entertaining!

Layout of Quiet Cove Pool
I cruise Disney without kids. And those who know me know that I’m not particularly fond of kids for the most part. And of course I know there are a kids on a Disney ship. Though I would say because of how well Disney does entertaining kids, it never feels like there are nearly as many kids on the ship as there really are. And to the people who say that you should go on a Disney Cruise if you don’t have kids – well that is just ridiculous. Is there a rule that says only people under 18 can have an incredible love of Disney? Anyway, back to my point. One of the things I love about Disney Cruise Line are the adult only spaces and activities. On the Magic and Wonder, families would sometimes walk through the adults only Quiet Cove pool – but always on the outside of the pool behind the railing. The layout of the Dream, and where the Forward elevators lets out, make this near IMPOSSIBLE. So most kids step out from the elevator bank directly into the middle of the Quiet Cove pool. Seriously, look at this post and you’ll see the door on the left letting out right into the heart of the pool deck. Although they could make a sharp turn in either direction to walk on the outside of the area – the obvious way to walk is straight. RIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THE QUIET COVE POOL. How STUPID. What were you thinking Disney? I’ve seen some parents say they tried to make their kids only go up at midship, or get off at deck 12 instead of 11 and then walk midship. And I appreciate those parents. I’ve seen many say the adults should just get over it and not sail Disney if we don’t like kids walking through their pool. Again – is there a rule that says you have to be under 18 to love Disney? But I must admit, while I appreciate the folks who do try to avoid having their kids walk through the pool – I’m not sure its reasonable to expect everyone with kids to avoid it altogether. Disney would be very well served to re-evaluate the layout/traffic flow on the Fantasy to avoid this issue.

Pink
My complaint here is very specific. Before I get into it I’ll say that the bar itself is beautiful inside. Truly lovely. And there were a great number of interesting looking cocktails on the bar menu. My complaint – is that they serve those yummy cocktails in special glasses that you cannot remove from the bar. They don’t TELL you this when you order them. So if you go into Pink without plans to stay for long, be sure to ask for your cocktail to be in a glass you can walk with. I joined a group that had been in there for a while and were thinking about moving on. I ordered a drink, received it right about when the group decided it was time to move. The waitress promptly told me I could not go with my glass and would have to have them switch it out for a different glass before I could leave. This is just ridiculous to me! In my case, I downed the cocktail and moved on. But honestly, this policy is just silly and rather annoying.

Smaller Sofa Beds
One look at the Dis Boards Cruise Line Forum will reveal several threads with people complaining about how the bed in Dream staterooms would not split into two twins – as they do on EVERY OTHER CRUISE SHIP including the Magic and Wonder. Personally, this did not bother me. In 3 of our first 4 cruises mom slept on the queen bed and I slept on the couch. Although its referred to as a sofa bed, its not a traditional sofa bed and I’ve always found it exceptionally comfortable. On one of the first 4 cruises we did ask for the beds to be set up as the two twins. I found the room very crowded this way. If we’d had a room without a balcony and the two twins were against the back wall I’m sure I wouldn’t have felt this way (that’s how Pride of Aloha was configured when I sailed and it was fine). But on the Disney classic ships one sailing this way had me back to sleeping on the sofa. So when everyone was going crazy about how the Dream beds couldn’t be split I didn’t mind – I fully planned to sleep on the sofa anyway. However, I found the sofa far less comfortable on the Dream then on the Wonder and Magic. I wasn’t thrilled with the bedding, but a request for an extra blanket helped me stay warm. But the real problem – I swear the bed was shorter in length than on the Classic ships. I thought was just me, but while we were cruising we had an opportunity to see a Deluxe Family Ocean – and the couch in that stateroom looked longer – more like the Classic ships. We have a Deluxe Family Oceanview booked on the Fantasy next April. That cabin will hopefully have the old size couch. Or better yet, there’s a chance it will have a Murphy bed. This is what I’m actually hoping for. I like the location of the Murphy bed in the pictures I’ve seen and mom likes the idea that the couch can be used even when the beds are made up for nighttime.

Virtual Portholes
I actually wrote a lengthy post about this for Dana and her website, The Dragyn’s Lair back in March so for full details go check out that post (and more of Dana’s blog while you are at it). To summarize, with Virtual Porthole cabins now costing more than Oceanview cabins – I recommend the Oceanview. Virtual Porthole is not worth the extra money.

Crowdedness of Dining Rooms
The Disney Dream is 40% larger than the Classic ships. So one would think that even though there are more passengers, there is also more room for them. This was not apparent in the dining rooms. Usually we were trying to squeeze between tables to get to all the seats at our own table. And our neighbors were just a few inches away (the fun part was that is how I met Dana in person for the first time, even though she was next to us at Animators Palette she was so close we might as have been at the same table). To make matters worse, in Enchanted Garden we were smashed up against a wall. And at Animators Palatte we were in the aisle the servers used to get the kitchen. It almost felt as though our table was placed there as an afterthought when the powers that be realized there were not enough tables in the dining room. I was in constant fear of a huge tray of plates being dropped on us as servers rushed past us that night. I’m not sure where that extra 40% is, but it does not feel as though it is in the dining rooms.

Location of Aft Elevators
Our cabin on the Dream was located behind the aft elevators. We’re typically midship, though I have been all the way forward on the Pride of Aloha and pretty far back on the Navigator of the Seas. The issue was not our cabin’s proximity to the aft elevators as much as where the aft elevators did and did not go. If you wanted to go up to deck 11 the aft elevators let you out in the middle of Cabanas. You had to walk through Cabanas to get between the pool area and the aft elevators. The doors were kept open so you could do this when the buffet was actually closed and then it wasn’t horrible. But if Cabanas was open it was generally fairly crowded and THIS was an annoying time to have to cut through the restaurant.

Additionally, if you were taking the elevators down, perhaps for dinner at Enchanted Garden on deck 2, you CAN’T! The furthest down you can go in the aft elevators is Deck 3. If you had dinner at Enchanted Garden you would need to take the elevators to deck 3 and walk over to go down one more flight of stairs, or walk to midship and then take the elevators down to 2.

Personally for me, since I spend so much time at the Quiet Cove Pool and the Buena Vista Theater, my preference on these ships in the future will be to stay midship or forward. This way I can avoid having to cut through the restaurant and be closer the venues I spend the most time in. After a couple of days I found myself often walking to midship to catch the elevators (or stairs) anyway and staying midship or forward would save some time and walking.

The New Shows
I was super excited about Believe and Villains’ Tonight. I am a huge theater fan, and have always really enjoyed Disney’s productions. I did not particularly enjoy either of these shows. I must say, in large part I believe this was because of one “actor”. I put the word actor in quotes because I don’t believe this person was a true actor. The person I’m talking about was the reporter in the theater during the Golden Mickey’s, Hades in Villains’ Tonight, and the Genie in Believe. His schtick was cute in the Golden Mickey’s – but he played the other two characters EXACTLY the same way. No matter the show, this “actor” played the character he was doing in the same way. I don’t mind actors making a role their own within reason. But I found this guy incredibly annoying and he really ruined the two new shows for me. I know not everyone felt that way, if you google it there are article saying the guy made the show. I just disagree. Maybe it was a strange week and some of the regular's were sick so this guy did all three parts and he doesn't normally. Who knows. But I was not a fan. Beyond just that the stories didn’t wow me with either show. I did still enjoy the music, as I always do. One of my past cruises one of the evening shows was just the cast singing many loved, and lessor known Disney songs. I would have rather seen that expand to the other ships!

Things I liked about the Disney Dream

2011-05-26T05:16:00.002-04:00

Having now been on 5 Disney cruises (3 Magic, 1 Wonder, 1 Dream) I thought I would take some time to talk about what I liked and didn’t like on the Disney Dream.

For now I’ll focus on the likes and I’ll post about the dislikes later!

Midship Detective Agency
This game is probably the most fun new activity on the ship. I found myself wishing for additional mysteries to solve. For those wanting to see more about what this is check out the Allears.Net site. For those who don’t want to go to Allears right now, in a nutshell Midship Detective Agency uses the ships Enchanted Art
to help you solve a mystery. There are two “cases” you can solve, one about missing puppies (Dalmatians of course) and one about missing paintings. You pick up a “map” at a sign up location as well as special card you use to activate the art. You then use the map to find the art pieces that will give you a clue. You use our card to activate the piece and then follow the directions to uncover your clue or find missing puppies/paintings. As you progress and get more clues, you are soon able to identify whom the thief is. Then it is your job to find and capture the thief.

We started the first game within hours of stepping aboard the Dream. Although there’s no reason to do a game straight thru, we were having so much fun that we finished our first game within an hour and were eagerly looking forward to our second one.

One word of advice, do this early! The days we did it we rarely had to wait, and didn’t run into many people playing. Later in the cruise we noticed frequent “traffic jams” as several groups were wanting to access a clue at the same time.

Updated Buena Vista Theater
Now I know most people are thinking I must be crazy, but I LOVE watching movies on the Disney ships. I’m a huge movie watcher in general, and I love taking the opportunity on the Disney Cruise Line to either catch new releases I’ve missed or watch old favorites on a big screen. As much as I love this, the old Buena Vista Theater on the Classic Ships was one of the most uncomfortable theaters I’ve sat in. the problem had largely to do with the complete and total lack of legroom. Although I still would have liked to see a slightly more spacious aisle, the Buena Vista Theater is much improved on the Dream. I didn’t get to see quite as many movies as I usually do on a seven day cruise, but I did get to take mom to see Tangled for the first time – and Rupunzel is her new favorite Disney Princess!

Aqua Duck
Unlike many many cruisers, I was apprehensive about the Aqua Duck. At least until the preview cruises started and I saw video of real people riding on it. I enjoy roller coasters, and I enjoy water. However, for the last several years I’ve not been able to wear my contact lenses and am instead stuck with my glasses. And my glasses are EXPENSIVE. And I’m blind as a bat without them. So I was worried the Aqua Duck would be too rough for me to ride with my glasses and that I just wouldn’t enjoy it riding blind.

As the initial videos came out it appeared that the ride was relatively tame, but enjoyable. So, while everyone else was on Castaway Cay we hoped in the very short line for the Aqua Duck. I rode twice. The first was with mom, the second by myself. Despite mom wanting us to go together the second time, I held firm, and we LOVED riding single. Both of us thought that the solo rides were a little faster and the raft bounced about a bit more. So much fun!

Animators Palette Decor
Notice how I say the “décor” here? The technology will be addressed later. Visually this restaurant was GORGEOUS! I knew I was going to love the chairs from the video flyover Disney posted on the Disney Parks Blog some time ago.

But the entire restaurant was just visually stunning. I was concerned about it being Finding Nemo themed and how limiting that would be. But really the décor is Pixar themed and I just found myself staring around the room at all the little artifacts the entire time. Loved it!

Skyline
There were many many new bars in the District on the Dream. The one I found the most interesting was Skyline. The light up menus were interesting, and I loved the comfy couch style seating. But what was really cool were the skylines themselves. And the hidden surprise that made this one of the things I liked on the Dream – is that they MOVE. I assumed it would be more or less photographs going up with each new skyline. But if you look carefully you’ll notice lights turning on and off and cars traveling down the streets. What a terrific little touch!

Cabanas
I am not against buffets by any means, but I also don’t make a habit of eating at them regularly. This changed with Cabanas on the Dream! And for that to change, it means that MOM had to want to go to. And she DID! We typically only have 1-2 meals in a 7 day cruise at the buffet, instead we stick to the dining room for breakfast and lunch. But on the Dream, we had all our breakfasts and lunches at Cabanas (well not lunch on Castaway Cay day, that was Quick Service on deck 11). Unlike a traditional buffet Cabanas is set up with “pods” and you are to just go to the pod you want to get whatever you want. There definitely was some confusion by guests earlier in the cruise who were lining up because the pods are kind of in a LINE. But with a day or two behind our belts this problem seemed to go away. We loved the quality and wide range of offerings available at Cabanas.

We also really liked that they seat your party as you come in. Part of the drag with typical cruise ship buffets is you get a big heavy tray of food and then wander around hoping to find a table (as I just did on the Navigator of the Seas). This is not an issue with Cabanas because upon arrival you check in at a desk and they ask how many in your party and bring you to a table! THEN you go get your food! The only bad thing about this was when cruising with a group of 400+ (as we were with the Lou Mongello and the fans of the WDW Radio Show )this method makes it difficult to sit with friends on the cruise. Unless you specifically planned to meet up and thus asked for an appropriate table size.

Shops
Not a whole lot here that needs saying. Those who have been on the Classic ships are aware there’s two primary stores and the duty free store. The Dream expands upon this with a series of larger shops that all kind of blend into each other. I was particularly pleased with the LARGE Vinylmation selection. In addition to more square footage, the shops seemed far less crowded then on the Classic ships so they were enjoyable to shop in even before/after show time when they are usually packed!

On Demand TV in Cabins
This goes back to the movie lover in me, but on the Classic ships in addition to catching movies in the theater I find myself also catching some movies I’ve not yet seen on the TV. But on the Classic ships you may catch them in bits and pieces because they run on a schedule. On the Dream, all the movies are available on Demand. So you pick what/when you want to watch. And if you only have 20 minutes? No problem, it remembers were you left off so you can start back up! Fantastic!

Updated Golden Mickey’s Show
Having seen it many many times, we’re big fans of the Golden Mickey’s. The performance on the Disney Dream was no exception. I was really looking forward to the updates and was not disappointed. Updates to the show included performances from my favorite Disney movie, The Little Mermaid, as well as some new songs from Tangled. The new scenes blended in beautifully and the show continues to be a favorite!

Well that’s it for my Likes ( I think! ) catch you in a day or so for some of the things I was less impressed with!

2011 Disney Trip - Day 9 - March 5

2011-05-25T08:21:00.002-04:00

Today started with another early morning at the Boardwalk Bakery so we could be at rope drop for DHS - must hit Toy Story Midway Mania first thing you know! Touring Plans Crowd Calendar had DHS as a park to avoid today. But it also had the lowest number - less than 1 for park crowds. In the future...I will do what I can to obey park to avoid suggestions. Believe it or not, I don’t think it was the Wide World of Sports weekend that was the problem, although there were definitely a lot of people there for that. But there must have been a bunch of schools in town and the damn high schoolers were outrageously obnoxious. Like the group of 30, clearly together, who got in the single rider line at Rock n Roller Coaster in front of us. Have you ever heard of a 90 minute wait in the single rider line? We would have been better off to go standby!

Anyway, we enjoyed repeat rides on all of our favorites which was great. We ended up in line behind fellow WDW Radio Cruisers (we’d not met them on the ship but they had their red lanyards on!). I was in contact with Darlene about what time she and hubby Keith would arrive so we could spend a bit more time together before heading home.

We spotted the cutest rice krispie treat:

Had loads of fun at Toy Story Midway Mania (despite the fact that I couldn’t get my iphone game to do the special thing its supposed to do when AT the ride)

We enjoyed a delicious lunch at Mama Melroses, a new favorite restaurant at DHS. I ordered the chicken parm while mom ordered the penne a la vodka and we shared both.

After lunch we headed over to One Man’s Dream, a favorite.

We actually bumped into Darlene and Keith there which was perfect because it gave us a little EXTRA time together beyond our planned meet up for Rock n Roller Coaster!

After saying goodbye to Darlene and Keith and wrapping up at DHS we stopped at Boardwalk briefly and then back into Epcot for dinner at Chef’s de France. I was disappointed by our service last time, but the service this time was excellent. Plus they got us in ahead of our ADR again which was nice! Being the picky eater that I am, I opted for the Beef Tenderloin. It was good, but I was very disappointed that we didn’t get to see Remy - the only reason I’d agreed to go again after the bad service we had last time. But we did have a lovely table by the front window so it was nice for enjoying our dinner and people watching.

After dinner we headed back to Boardwalk to pack for our trip home early the next day.

2011 Disney Trip - Day 8 - March 4

2011-05-24T07:49:00.001-04:00

Today started off with yummy yummy Boardwalk Bakery breakfast. Mom fell in love last year with their Mickey Mouse Muffins and I quite enjoy their cheese danish. Breakfast was early so we could be at the Magic Kingdom by rope drop.

We don’t usually hit Fantasyland first when in the Magic Kingdom, but we knew that we were supposed to be able to get a view of the construction from riding Dumbo so we wanted to get back there early since Fantasyland is generally busy all day except first thing. I definitely recommend getting there first! Even Peter Pan we walked on in just 5 minutes. Unheard of!

At Mickey’s Philharmagic we spotted a hidden mickey

We also accidentally caught a parade we didn’t know about....which was really exciting because Sebastian was in it! My favorite Disney character is rarely seen so this was quite possibly the highlight of my day!

Lunch was at Pecos Bills. We’d heard such good things about the Taco Salad (and how fun it is to fix it at the fixin’s bar) but didn’t get it when we were here in 2010. And having gotten the Taco Salad - YUMMY! Just make sure you ask for Sour Cream at the register because they don’t have that on the fixin’s bar.

I found my new favorite Disney sweet treat at the Main Street Confectionary (they also have these at the Boardwalk Sweet Shop).

I did a LOT of Vinylmation shopping (well Fozzie was scored in a trade) today.

We had originally planned to eat dinner at the Grand Floridian Cafe after park closing. But we were done at Magic Kingdom early, and fairly tired. And mom was hungry early ( I was full from my cupcake! ). We decided to hop on the monorail and do some resort shopping. We decided we were hungry while at the Contemporary. Mom thought we should try and get into Chef Mickey’s since we’ve only had breakfast there. Of course, that was impossible with a walk in. We ended up at the Contempo Cafe. I had a cheeseburger and fries. Fairy typical. Mom opted for the Multigrain Turkey BLT with home made chips. Both were FANTASTIC. I highly recommend.

After dinner we did a bit more shopping at the monorail resorts and then headed back to Boardwalk. I was exhausted and not feeling great so I went to bed early. Mom walked around a bit and got a little treat at the Boardwalk Sweet Shop.

2011 Disney Trip - Day 7 - March 3

2011-05-23T19:26:00.001-04:00

Our disembarkation day started off with a not so good bang for me. As we got to Royal Palace for our final breakfast, I turned on my cell phone. I had three voice mails from the PetHotel and a text message from a co-worker reading “Call me. Problem with Elphaba”. I have to say, that was the most scared I’ve been probably since 2002 when mom was sick. I left the noisy restaurant to go listen to my vm and try and call people back. The voice mails from the PetHotel indicated a problem with one of Elphaba’s eyes and tests the vet wanted to do that they needed my permission for. I tried calling the PetHotel but it was before 7am and I was getting no answer. I was also wondering why they hadn’t called me local agent (a coworker in the area). Turns out they HAD, which is how my other coworker knew something was going on and texted. I tried calling coworker but he didn’t pick up either. Called PetHotel again and that time got an answer. Turns out whatever WAS wrong seemed to work itself out. Dr hadn’t done any tests and didn’t see the need to. Elphaba was getting extra care and attention from the staff to keep and eye on her, but she seemed fine, was acting fine, and was her normal self in day camp. So that was a huge relief other than still feeling awful that all this had gone down when I wasn’t around.

After I finally got back inside and calmed mom down (who was freaking about why I was gone so long and thinking we were going to have to hop a plane home) we enjoyed our final breakfast. We were off the ship by about 7:30am and quickly grabbed our bags, made it through customs, and on our DCL transfer bus. If you’ve ever wondered the best way to spot your luggage among the thousands of bags in the cruise terminal....you may consider my method...VERY decorative luggage. I use Vera Bradley luggage, and had my Makes Me Blush suitcase. This made our luggage easy to spot from a significant distance away.

My pretty, easy to spot, Vera Suitcase

We’ve arrived!

Once on the bus it was a relatively quick ride over to the Boardwalk Villas. We really enjoyed that location when we were there in 2010 and point wise its a great value. We had a 1 bedroom booked this time and were excited about having two different rooms to sleep in and a washer/dryer. We had done online check in, but were hoping to get into a room right away so that we could drop our bags before heading into Epcot. Mom also had a request for a room close to the elevators because last year we were WAY WAY at the end of the resort. Turned out the second room off the lobby was available so that was our room. Fantastic location!!!!

After dropping our bags we headed over to the International Gateway and were passing through the gates by about 9;30am. Not quite park opening but still nice and early, which was exactly our goal!

We got to see lots and lots of the Flower and Garden Festival, including things we’d missed pre-cruise.

We had originally planned to have lunch at Biergarten that day at Germany. I’d made the reservation for 1pm in case we didn’t get into Epcot as early as we wanted after getting off the ship. But between getting in early, early breakfast, and the constant eating of 4 nights on the Dream, we were STARVING by like 11am. So we opted for sunshine seasons instead of waiting for our 1pm ADR. I had the Sweet and Sour Chicken. This was my second time getting Asian and Sunshine Seasons and it will probably be my last. I think I’ll stick to the Grill on future visits!

After lunch we tried something we hadn’t done yet at Epcot - The Sum of All Thrills. I have to say, if you haven’t done this yet...DO IT! The engineer in me of course LOVED that you had to use some engineering principals to design your ride. But just the idea of designing you ride was pretty amazing. And the riding experience itself was fantastic! I don’t know how we missed this in our 2010 visit but we won’t be skipping it again!

We made fantastic time getting through Future World and before we knew it we were crossing into the World Showcase and past Duffy’s home! Of course we had to stop.

We continued to work our way through the World Showcase and before we knew it we were happening upon Italy - but too early for our ADR. We worked through a few more Pavilions that we’d not made it to pre-cruise and then back tracked to Italy. We were famished again so we thought we would ask at Via Napoli if they could take us 45 minutes early. The girl looked skeptical but called us for a table less than 5 minutes after checking in.

More Flower and Garden Favorites

Unlike the group of WDW Radio cruisers who went pre-cruise, we did not have a hot waiter. We had a plain looking waitress. But I did enjoy the eye candy of all the hot waiters and bus boys. And the food was incredible! We ended up sitting next to a couple from Chicago and chatted our way through much of dinner. For an appetizer we shared the Prosciutto e Melone and for our dinner the Quattro Formagg pizza. We skipped dessert because we had eyes on the Funnel Cakes on the boardwalk!

After dinner we slowly made our way through the rest of the World Showcase and back out the international gateway. We hadn’t wanted to be out TOO late because we needed to do some laundry so we had clothes to where the rest of the trip. Yes, we did laundry on vacation! We decided we really liked the idea of the 1 bedroom villas because it means we don’t have to pack as much clothing. I tend to be a somewhat lean packer anyway, and I am working on getting mom to pack less (she’s doing a pretty good job compared to what she used to do!) so being able to do laundry just helps this even further. We grabbed our funnel cake, headed back to the room, started laundry, and went to bed as soon as laundry was done.

2011 Disney Trip - Day 6 - March 2

2011-03-21T12:28:00.003-04:00

Our last day on the Dream was a sea day, so we decided to sleep in a bit. Then I headed up to Deck 11 for my latte and a little reading while I waited for mom. Breakfast was of course Cabanas again. We were joined by Paul and Lisa so that was nice to visit and spend some time with them. We headed over to Quiet Cove then for the caffeine meet. While LIsa and mom socialized Paul and I chatted.

Mom went off to morning Bingo while I did some more reading and finished up our scavenger hunt. I turned in the answers and got a Dream ticket for turning them in. Tried to do some more reading but it was COLD out on deck 4! Ended up hitting up the store and finally found a vinylmation I wanted in the trader box so I got to trade in Madame Mim (villains series) for Miss Piggy (Muppets series). Yay! Ended up going to find mom at Bingo since I was too cold outside. We ran into Allison and Steve (friends from Magic in 2008 who are going on Fantasy with us in 2012). Chatted with them for a while. Then it was a bit more souvenir shopping and lunch for us. Our last meal at Cabanas, sad!

After we lunch we went to find the group at the Pin/Vinylmation trading meet. I didn’t want to trade any of my remaining Vinyls but we had to turn our Dream keys in here for the price tickets for later. Mom and I only ended up with 5 Dream Keys overall. Some people had LOTS....have no idea how they got them all. We visited for our while with Sandy and Sarah and made plans to join them for dinner that night since it was just the two of them and we knew our tablemates had made other plans.

After that, more reading for me while mom napped. Then I headed to the cabin to do a little packing. We got our gratuity tickets...and boy was I mad....remember early on in my trip reports how I said that thered been a mix up and we were NOT seated with Darlene/Keith and Paul Lisa at dinner as requested? And how we requested a correction with Mousefan at the welcome center and were told they’d call us if they could change it? Well our dining gratuities showed up and instead of having our servers Gabor and Rhys...they had the servers for Darlene and Paul’s table. I ran to guest services to try and correct but the line was too long and I had the Dream Key/tickets so I had to get to the WDW Radio farewell meet.

Meet was nice, fruit and some cheeses out. Wine being served. Was a nice fun meet. We didn’t win anything but that was okay. After that and before dinner I ran back to Guest Services about our gratuity problem. They said we had to talk to the dining room, so they walked me over there. I explain to the dining room manager what was wrong...he looks in his computer and said that Colleen from Mousefan requested we be moved to that table that first day of the cruise, and he noted we were moved. He asked me “did she not tell you that?”. I said “no”. He right away was flustered and very apologetic. Said he distinctly remembered talking to Colleen on this very issue and asking her if she wanted him to call the affected parties and she told him she would take care of it. But she never contacted us. I was NOT happy.....this is when I realized we could have enjoyed 3 lovely dinners with our friends. Not that we didn’t end up sitting with very nice people, because we did. But I feel like I barely got to see Darlene on the cruise and I was upset that the dining mistake had been corrected and no one told us so we missed the opportunity spend our meals together.

Anyway....dinner with Sarah and Sandy was lovely. We were in Royal Palace finally and it was BEAUTIFUL! Though the tables seemed VERY close together in here. For dinner I enjoyed the Double-baked Spinach Souffle, Avocado-Citrus Salad, and the Wild Boar. I wasn’t sure about the Boar but it was quite tasty...more like filet mignon than pork. For dessert I got the Grand Mariner Souffle. Which was quite yummy. But when I saw Fitz come out with a tray of Chocolate Souffle’s I knew instinctively where he was going and I was right...Chef Matthew had made Keith a special souffle because of his food allergies and the rest of the table had been brought Chocolate souffle. We very much enjoyed our dinner with Sarah and Sandy, but boy now I was REALLY upset about the dining screw up. We missed out on Chocolate Souffle because Colleen from Mousefan didn’t tell us that we actually HAD been moved to the table we’d originally requested!

A visit from Lou during dinner!

After dinner we saw our final show, Disney’s Believe. This one everyone had been saying how amazing it was and to bring tissues. But I have to say, neither of us were overly impressed with it. Don’t get me wrong...it was fine. But we’ve certainly enjoyed other shows more. After that it was back to the room to finish packing and get our bags outside since we were disembarking in the morning!

2011 Disney Trip - Day 5 - March 1

2011-03-18T12:15:00.002-04:00

We were up relatively early again today since we needed to have breakfast (Cabanas of course!) before the WDW Radio group picture. I got dressed quickly and headed up to Cove Cafe with my kindle to grab a latte and get a little reading done first. This was lovely because I got to sit in one of the fabulous round chairs at the Quiet Cove pool and enjoy the view of Cataway Cay off in the distance.

After breakfast we headed off the ship with fellow WDW Radio Cruisers Eric and Jacque from Las Vegas. We took pictures in front of the ship and then made our way to the boat beach for the picture. Boy were there a LOT of WDW Radio Cruisers there!

Mom and I with Sarah, Sandy, and Darlene waiting for the group picture

Can you see us? Towards the front about ⅓ of the way in from the right

After the group picture most people headed off to enjoy Castaway Cay. Now, mom and I love Castaway Cay just as much as the next family. But we also really love the Disney ships, and we thought this would be a great chance to enjoy a less crowded ship. Boy were we right! We were the first people at the Quiet Cove pool. Most people are complaining about how the chairs next to the pool don’t get sunlight. Mom even isn’t crazy about this. But my very fair, easily sunburned skin LOVES this about the quiet cove pool! I do NOT love the new layout and its forcing families with kids to walk right thru the middle of the pool space (what were you thinking Disney?) but fortunately since most people were off the ship it wasn’t an issue. We actually looked at the family pool as well thinking maybe we’d lay there to enjoy the sun and watch a movie on Funnelvision. But that pool, even with so many families on the island, was NOISY! So we spent the day at Quiet Cove, napping, hoping in the pool, relaxing in the hot tub, reading. You know, normal lazy pool day stuff! Because so much of the staff was on the island Cabanas was not open for lunch (the horror!) so we hit up the quick service on Deck 11. I’m happy to say the chicken fingers are just as yummy as as the Magic!

After lunch we decided to run over to the Aquaduck finally. There was NO line! Well...the were like 3 people in front of us. But yay! The only bad thing was that meant walking up all three flights of stairs without resting...a lot when you are being lazy and eating like crazy! The first trip down mom and I went together. It was fun. Since the line was short we went up a second time, and this time road separately. Mom hadn’t wanted to do this saying she heard the ride was better if you were with someone. I’m thinking she was confusion the reports of kids too small to go by themselves who were going slow and getting stuck. This was NOT an issue...we both found the ride to be a litlte more thrilling when riding individually. After the second ride I went back to enjoy the pool a bit more, and mom got back in line. We continued our afternoon of being lazy. Mom eventually took off to get cleaned up for dinner and play bingo. I made my way back to the cabin to get cleaned up myself.

Most people were excited about Pirate night that night. We enjoy the POTC movies just fine, but are not pirate fanatics like so many of our WDW Radio friends are. And this being a new ship with new restaurants we didn’t want to miss a show night in the main dining rooms. But we also didn’t want to miss Palo - so tonight was the night I made our Palo reservations for. We were impressed with how much bigger Palo is than on the Magic and Wonder. We we commented on it the waitress said that it actually only had 2 more tables than the other ships. But we noticed that unlike on the Classic ships where Palo tables were mainly for 2 people, on the Dream they were 4 person tables. And of course on both ships they can be moved together to seat more. Mom decided to try some new items off the menu but I stuck with my tried and true Palo beef tenderloin. YUMMY! We of course both ordered the chocolate souffle (our main reason for dining at Palo) but our waitress encouraged us to order a second dessert as well so I tried the apple tart. It was tasty, but not as tasty as the souffle! We enjoyed dinner, but did not find it to be as relaxed of a dinner as last year on the Wonder.

After dinner we changed into comfy clothes and decided to go to the movie rather than to see the magican/juggler in the Walt Disney Theater. The movie was I Am Number Four. It was okay, not great. Mom snuck out a few minutes early so she could get up to deck 11 to see the fireworks. Me, not loving fireworks, headed back to the cabin to read and head to bed.

2011 Disney Trip - Day 4 - February 28

2011-03-17T16:16:00.003-04:00

Monday morning we were up relatively early so we could eat breakfast before the WDW Radio Welcome party. We went up to Cabanas for breakfast (have I mentioned how much I love Cabanas yet?). Mom was in love with one of the danishes and I quite enjoyed the croissants. This sounds really silly, but I also love the little hash brown patties they serve which are delightfully crisp!

At 9am was the Welcome Party. It was incredible to walk into the Walt Disney Theater and see the WDW Radio logo up on the screen. Mom and I were among the first in the theater so we headed straight up front to sit in the first row. Lou and his family, along with the Mousefan group, were just off to the side of us. Lou took the stage, and I have to say, at least while he was standing behind the podium I couldn’t see him AT ALL! He really is quite short! Lou and Beci did lots of chatting and made some announcements. We were bummed we didn’t win the flag contest (Lou and Deanna had both raved about our flag when we turned it in, but seeing the top 5 I wasn’t surprised we didn’t make the cut!). After that was over, Beci had Lou sit down and the roast began. It was fantastic! Speakers included Lou’s brother, his wife Deanna, Tony Caggiano, and via video, Glenn Whelan. I’m sure video from this will pop up someplace but it was fantastic! Lou came into the audience and sat right next to me during Glenn’s video and it was great to see his reactions so close.

After the welcome party mom and I decided to play some Mid Ship Detective Agency and work on our WDW Radio Scavenger hunt. Mid Ship Detective Agency was a BLAST. I hope they do this on the Fantasy as well, and that they come up with more cases for us to solve. It (along with the scavenger hunt) was a great way to explore the ship and really look at details we may not have looked at otherwise.

At 11am we decided to go see Tangled in 3D in the Buena Vista Theater. I’d seen it before, but mom had not. We found the Buena Vista theater to be more comfortable than on the Magic/Wonder - but still severely lacking in leg room. I’ve never seen this theater full on any of my 5 Disney cruises so I can’t see why they don’t take out some rows and space it a little better. On the other hand, I just saw a picture of the “Screening Room” on the Navigator of the Seas which I’ll be on in about 3 weeks and I guess I should LOVE the Buena Vista theater - don’t think I’ll be spending much time in the Screening Room.

After Tangled, it was time for lunch - BACK TO CABANAS. Yes we really love Cabanas! I can’t really remember how we spent our afternoon so I’m thinking it was more work on the Scavenger hunt and a little reading of my book outside. Mom went off to play bingo at one point.

Dinner was at 6pm, this time in Enchanted Garden. The restaurant is BEAUTIFUL inside! I showed up separate from mom who was still at Bingo (turned out she won the big prize!). We were up against one of the outside walls this time so had a great view of the dining room. Here I took advantage of the childrens menu. I started with the Cream of Tomato soup off the childrens menu. I moved on the Romaine Wedge. For my entree I got the NY strip steak, mom got the pork tenderloin and we shared. The pork was the winner hands down! For dessert I got the chocolate torte. The table loved the Bananas Foster sundae. Gabor also served us with some petit fours which were quite delicious.

After dinner we had the show at 8:30, so we stopped to do some shopping. I picked up the Disney Dream inaugral vinylmation. I was thrilled to find these still available! I missed my opportunity to have friends on the maiden voyage pick a set up for me, and they were going on ebay for like $100 or more.

The evening’s show was Villains Tonight, a new one for us. I liked the concept, and enjoyed it for the most part. I did not enjoy the actor playing Hades (the obnoxious actor from the night before who plays every character the same) and Pain and Panic were a little annoying. But the show was fun.

After that mom and I decided to meet some folks out for drinks. We headed to the District and found a group hanging out in Pink. I ordered a cocktail and just after that the group decided they wanted to move to the next bar. The waitress said she’d need to pour my drink into another glass if we wanted to go. I downed my drink, she got glasses for mom and someone else, and we moved on. The next stop was Skyline. That place is incredible! I loved seeing the lights twinkle and the cars move - you really feel like you are looking out on the city! We all looked at the menu and didn’t want to order anything so we talked about moving to Evolution - but no one got up. After sitting a while I realized I was exhausted ( still wasn’t sleeping well ) so I decided to head to bed. Mom decided she was wiped too so she came back as well.

2011 Disney Trip - Day 3 - February 27

2011-03-16T08:00:00.002-04:00

At last! The day we had been waiting for since November 2009 was here! I don’t think I’ve ever had a vacation booked that far in advance..at least not since I started working since I have a weird random schedule and move a lot!

We did breakfast at Sassagoula Floatworks again, mostly because, what else would we eat for breakfast? Our meeting time for the Mousefan bus transfer to port was 8am in the French Quarter lobby. So we went to breakfast with our luggage, in our Deck 7 Cool Kids tshirts.

Duffy enjoyed his breakfast.

After breakfast we headed to the lobby to meet our group. The first people we happened upon were Greg and Gerrie from Nashville - easily identified by their Deck 7 Cool Kids button (I was so mad to realize I’d left mine on the kitchen table in Connecticut!). Having thoroughly studied my Deck 7 Cool Kids floorplan I knew that Greg and Gerrie were in the cabin next door to us. We had a nice little chat with them as more started to gather in the lobby. Before we knew it, it was time to board the bus. Our bus made a stop at Wilderness Lodge and then we were headed towards port. Michelle, from Mousefan, was our bus escort. Mom and I had front row seats and Michelle was insistent that our bus had to arrive first. Part way there we realized we were actually the second bus in our group.

We arrived at port to a LONG line of cars and buses waiting to get in...it was only about 10am. Our bus pulled up behind the first bus - and then we were told there were too many people and we had to go park and wait! We go off to park in the lot they directed us to and NO ONE else follows. Michelle calls the other buses and finds out they were BOTH allowed to drop their passengers. Both she and the bus driver are hot to hear that! The driver heads back around to the terminal - and bypasses ALLLLLLL of the now much longer line of cars and buses waiting and works his way miraculously to the curb. This is when we had our first Lou and Beci sighting. They were unloading their car right in front of us. Mom screamed!

Lou and Beci at Port

We got off the bus and waiting in a very very long line to get past the name checkers (to make sure we were on the ship), and then security. Fortunately the lines at the counter were non-existent so we got right up there to get our Key To the World Cards. We headed from there to hit up the ladies room, me frantically looking for Darlene and more Deck 7 Cool Kids T shirts...I mean I knew we should be EVERYWHERE. On the way out of the ladies room a woman calls out to me “Hi Shelley”. I must have had a blank look on my face because she quickly said “Its Sandy!”. Of course, one of my Deck 7 neighbors and facebook friends! We headed back out to look for some folks and were flagged down by someone else calling my name. I could tell this was going to be a fun trip! Turns out that was Sarah, Sandy’s daughter. Yeah, more neighbors to meet. Sarah shared with us a funny story. Upon seeing Lou for the very first time, Sandy went up to him and asked him if he knew were Darlene was. Gotta love the Disney community and the friendships we all made before even leaving for this trip!

We got in line to meet Mickey, but by the time we got up there it was Minnie. But we did get to see Lori who snapped our pic. She also had spare buttons so Duffy and I BOTH got Deck 7 Cool Kids buttons.

We waited for what seemed like an eternity to for our boarding number to be called. While we were waiting we finally found Darlene and Keith, who were with Stuart and Michelle. We compared Key to the World Cards and were disappointed to see that despite a request we’d submitted earlier, we were not at the same table with Darlene and Keith. We later found Paul (goofypal on the WDW Radio forums) and Lisa, who we had also requested to dine with. Turns out Paul and Lisa got assigned to sit with Darlene and Keith but we did not. Technogeek that I am, I’m of course checking my twitter stream often and see that Beci from Mousefan said to see the girls in the WDW Radio welcome center for any dining change requests.

We finally get on board, hit the welcome center to turn in our Flag, register for door decorating and scavenger hunt, and pick up our goodies. We also make the dining request and are told we’ll get a message on our phone if they can make the change to get us with Darlene, Keith, Paul and Lisa.

Flag

Door

We head up to Cabanas for lunch. Normally on the Magic/Wonder we got to Parrot Cay for embarkation day lunch. But every thing I’d read online said to go to Cabanas instead. Much better food offering and now that they find you a table and seat you, less hectic. Can I just say, we LOVED Cabanas! Had breakfast and lunch there every day, not a single breakfast or lunch in one of the dining rooms. I can definitely see why people are confused about the “pods” because they are all still lined up. People were definitely ticked off when you would just walk up to a pod to get your stuff after they were waiting in what they believed to be a line (it wasn’t). But people did seem to get the hang of this after a day or so. We loved the themeing. Loved the food (except the scrambled “eggs” at breakfast and lack of Mickey Waffles or an Omelet station).

After lunch it was time to drop our stuff at our stateroom. We opted for an inside deluxe this time. Partially because I was recently back at work and way stressing about money when we booked the cruise, and partially because I wanted to see the virtual porthole. Room was definitely a bit smaller than the deluxe staterooms on the Magic/Wonder. But not terribly so. Virtual Porthole was cool, though we only saw two magical things on it in 4 nights!

Virtual Porthole

After putting up our door decorations we explored a little. Then it was time for muster. We loved that you no longer have to wear life jackets to muster. Mostly because then you can head straight off to have some fun after muster rather than having to go back to your room again! After muster we headed up to Deck 11 to meet the Deck 7 Cool Kids for a group picture.

Deck 7 Cool Kids!

I think after that we did a little unpacking and changed for dinner. We had Animators Palate for our first night. At our table were Chip and Colin. Turned out Chip lives in Hershey PA, near where I used to live! Also at our table were Amanda and Brian. Oh, and at the table next to us was Dana! Great to put a face to another of my twitter friends! Our servers were Gabor and Rhys. And our table was right near the opening to the kitchen and on the walkway...so we were in constant fear of having food dumped on us by servers racing past us. I was thrilled to see that Fitz was our head waiter! he was the first head waiter we ever had (Magic, 2008) that we really thought jumped in to help his servers and help make our experience a better one. He right away asked us where the rest of our group was (Our table mates from 2008. Steve and Allison were actually on the ship with us, but on a different rotation since they weren’t a part of the WDW Radio group. Steve and Mary were on the maiden voyage and had seen him then. We’ll ALL be back together again on the Fantasy in April 2012 so I’m hoping he moves over there!). For dinner I tried the Black Truffle Pasta Pursiettes, Baked Potato and Cheddar Cheese Soup, and Marinated Angus Beef Tenderloin. I requested the sour cream mashed potatoes served with another entree rather than the Wasabi mashed potatoes that came with my dish. Gabor said they couldn’t put them on the plate, but he did ensure that my plate came without the Wasabi mashed and brought me the sour cream mashed on the side! For dessert I had the cookies and cream sundae. Yummy!

After dinner was a little shopping and our first show. The show of the evening was the Golden Mickey’s. We’ve always enjoyed it and were excited to see some of the updates we’d heard about. The “reporter” on the read carpet seemed familiar - mom and I discussed with the couple behind us and decided it was the performer from the Magic who used to do that part there. There was another performer in the audience in the theater. His shtick with the family he talked to was cute, but we’d learn over the next two shows that no matter what character he was playing his shtick stayed the same. Not really acting.....

After that, I was exhausted (I had a massive headache during most of this trip sadly, and had gotten almost no sleep so far). I went back to the cabin and crashed and mom went out to party. I think she came back around 2am!

2011 Disney Trip - Day 2 - February 26

2011-03-15T15:27:00.001-04:00

Today we woke up nice and early so we could be at Animal Kingdom close to park opening. We opted for breakfast at the Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory Food Court at French Quarter. Although we liked the decor, and the seeming abundance of things to order - we weren’t crazy with the food itself. I went for an omelet. It had been pre-cooked and sitting under a heat lamp for what seems like an eternity based on the taste. Mom wanted beignets, which meant waiting in far too long of a line. Plus, the finished product was very heavy, not light and airy like she was expecting.

Ceiling at Sassagoula Floatworks

After breakfast we made our way to Animal Kingdom and got there just as they started letting guests in. We headed straight back for the Kilimanjaro Safari (doesn’t everyone?). Usually at park open this is nearly a walk on ride. Well it got hung up as we were about 2 cars back from getting loaded. And then they allowed fast passers in, so they took the first couple of cars once it started moving again. Finally we were on our way. I’m not generally a fan of this attraction because I’ve never gotten very up close and personal with the animals on it. That was not the case today! Our first up close encounter was with a giraffe. He walked RIGHT in front of us - we worried he would block the way, but he crossed the road and walked next to us within just a couple of feet of us. As we got further down he decided to graze in the path of the cars. We were too far to see much other than the 4 vehicles caught up behind him - but everyone ended up having to stop until they got him cleared. A little further up we had our second close encounter with the white rhinos. Three decided to take a drink in the water on the roadway. Two were standing off to the side but the third was smack dab in the middle of the road and not showing any interest in moving. I think we sat there almost 10 minutes. The big guy finally started to move off just as the cast members were getting close to coming and trying to move him along. The other up close encounter was not animal related. It was with the HORRIBLE comb-over on the driver of our vehicle. Men, if you are reading this, do NOT do the comb-over. I realize it may be hard to go bald at such a young age. But it if you are that self conscious about it, SHAVE YOUR HEAD. Not only does it look better, but the confidence to walk around with your bald head is WAY sexier (at least to this girl) than your comb-over!

Rhinos

Comb Over

After the safari we hit up our other favorites. We even snuck in a trip to the Festival of the Lion King before lunch. Man is it a hike to get back to that show!

Lunch was first for us - we did table service at Yak and Yeti and it was YUMMY! Mom went for the tempura shrimp which was a nice small portion (good for her) and beautifully presented. I went for the Sweet and Sour Chicken and some wonton soup. Both were very good. Service was excellent.

After lunch we went back to French Quarter to relax for a few minutes and grab jackets for our night at Epcot. We had 6pm ADRs at Teppen Edo so we didn’t have a TON of time, but did get a quick ride on Spaceship Earth, enjoyed some of the topiaries already out for Flower and Garden, and then shopped our way over to Japan for dinner.

Teppen Edo was YUMMY as always. We spotted something new on the menu, pork! So I ordered the chicken, mom ordered the pork, and we shared. I have to say...it was a very nice addition to the menu. We were seated with a Japanese family currently living in San Jose, CA. This made for the most interesting experience I’ve had at a Japanese restaurant as they showed us some of their traditions. For example, folding the paper from the chopsticks into a little rest for your chopsticks to lay on when not in use. The father also ordered a saki sampler and then talked with us about the different saki’s and how they varied.

After dinner we shopped our way towards Italy, where we were attending the special WDW Radio / MEI Mousefan Dessert Party. Once we arrived at Italy we found some other WDW Radio people so we chatted for a while while we waited to check in and head over to the dessert party. Now, I’m not generally a huge fan of fireworks and the nighttime shows like that at WDW. Mom always is amazed by this. I think its because the centennial fireworks at my college were so amazing I just haven’t seen anything that I feel compares. But watching Illuminations from the Dessert Party was INCREDIBLE. First of all, we felt like were were IN the action since we were watching from Italy on a section basically out on the water. Second of all, it was closer than any time we’ve seen it before - so we were actually able to SEE what was on that ball in the center of the lagoon! I had no idea! Oh...and the dessert wasn’t bad either....yummy cupcakes!

After the dessert party mom and I made our way back to the park front (with a shopping stop at the Duffy store and Mouse Gears of course - had to get a Sailor suit for my new Duffy bear to wear on the cruise!) and back to the hotel to repack for the cruise the next day.

2011 Disney Trip - Day 1 - February 25

2011-03-14T18:42:00.006-04:00

Our first day of the trip started NICE and early since both of us had 6am flights. I slept like a BABY the night before. Mom didn’t sleep at all due to a major storm pending. She was terrified she wouldn’t get out. It was raining and cold when I left, so we did have a slight delay for de-icing, but nothing major.

Mom greeted me at my gate in Orlando - easy to do since we both flew Southwest this time and our gates / times were near each other. We grabbed coffee and food for me at Starbucks since I hadn’t had a bite to eat all day. Then it was off to the Magical Express!

We had just one stop before our destination of Port Orleans French Quarter. It was Old Key West. As the oldest Vacation Club Owners I know (mom bought in 1992) Old Key West holds a special place in my heart. It was fun to pull up and see it even if only for a few minutes. The stop was quick and we were off to French Quarter.

The last time we stayed at a moderate resort was probably around 1989 or 1990 when we were at WDW on the trip mom had won off a local radio station. We stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort. I remember little about the resort. After that we stayed Yacht Club concierge and since then its been DVC all the way. So this was the first experience in a moderate that I really remembered.

My initial thoughts were that the resort was very well themed and the staff was very friendly and helpful. Our room wasn’t ready - I expected that being like 10am. That said, with DVC we are used to being able to get our room even when we check in early - I mean that is part of the advantage of marking your arrival time during the online check in process right? Well, our room was not available - and we were not offered an alternative such as a different room. We had asked originally to be near transportation and ended up assigned to building 3 which was a lovely location. Nice and close to the lobby and bus transportation. A bit of a walk towards the boat transportation - however we decided the noise from the boats (and people getting on and off of them) might be annoying at night so we liked our location. We were given our room keys, pointed towards bell services to store our luggage, and told we’d get a text message when our room was ready.

Once our items were stowed at bell services we headed off for Downtown Disney. The boat took a bit longer to get to DTD then I was expecting, but it was a nice ride. It was fun to see Saratoga Springs from that vantage point. Mom added on points at Saratoga a few years back - but we haven’t stayed yet, and I haven’t been other than to the bus stop. Man is that place BIG!

We got off the ship at DTD and headed directly for the Earl of Sandwich. Somehow, May 2010 was our first time eating here...and boy were we missing out. Since the day this trip was planned I was looking forward to going back (I’m told there’s one opening up in New York City and I’ll have to make some additional trips into the city when that happens I think.... ). On our first trip we each got a sandwich and split them. I got the Caprese sandwich. We couldn’t quite remember what mom had, but we remembered liking hers more. We decided to try the Earl’s Club. And I wanted the Caprese again (I love me some tomato and mozzarella!). We also got some potato salad which I remembered enjoying. Upon first bite of my Caprese I remembered why we liked moms sandwich better the last time. While I love tomato and mozz - I am NOT a fan of balsamic - and this sandwich is loaded with it. MUST remember to ask for no balsamic next time. The Earls Club was tasty - but not as tasty as last year’s sandwich. I’m thinking last year we had the BLT.

After lunch we did some shopping. I controlled myself at Tren-D. Just purchased a pink tshirt like my green burnout one I bought there last year. This was MUCH less than what I spent there last May! We worked our way towards West End so I could go to D Street for Vinylmation. (For those not familiar with vinylmation check here ). The Nerds series had just been released and I was so excited to see them! I ended up buying 6 vinylmation total that day - four 40th anniversary vinyls (the 4 parks ) and two nerds (Mickey and Pluto ). This seemed steep $74.50, but I had $75 in a visa gift card that I was awarded from work so in the end that seemed like a great way to spend that unexpected cash!

After D Street I got the text that our room was ready so we decided to head back to the resort. One of the reasons we’d chosen French Quarter rather than Riverside for our pre-cruise stay was because we’d read that the bus stops at French Quarter single stop before going to all the stops at Riverside. For some reason this was NOT the case on the bus from Downtown Disney. So we got a bus tour of Riverside, and then ended up getting off at the main Riverside stop to explore Riverside and walk back to French Quarter. On the way I got word from Darlene (zeusywoo for my disney friends!) that she and Keith were done at Animal Kingdom and headed back to Beach Club. We had talked about meeting up for dinner so we made plans to meet up that night at Boardwalk to try out Big River Grille.

View at Riverside

Mom enjoying the view

We stopped at Bell Services to pick up our carryon items, and were told that our checked bags had arrived, but not been checked in yet so we couldn’t have them just yet. We headed up to our room. I must say, the room at FQ was bigger than I was expecting. The room itself was bigger then some DVC studio rooms when you exclude the bathroom and the DVC kitchenette. The decor was quaint. We liked the dual pedestal sinks in the bath area. The curtain dividing the bathroom area from the rest of the room - and the lack of a real closet were strange. The room with the tub and shower was SMALL and very dark. In fact overall we felt the room felt dark. But the beds seemed comfy. We were surprised to still have a giant television in the room. Amazing how much space that thing takes up. While we were relaxing for a few our bags showed up. Mom did a little organizing and then we headed off towards Boardwalk to meet Darlene.

French Quarter Building

Mickey Towel

Our plan had been to catch a bus to Downtown Disney and transfer to a Boardwalk Bus. Well....we sat..and sat...and sat...and sat...and every bus came by 2-3 times except a downtown disney bus. The third time a Hollywood Studios bus showed up I decided we should get on it..I mean...we’d been waiting over 45 minutes..and I knew we could grab a boat or walk to Boardwalk from the Studios. Mom insisted that a DTD bus probably showed up as soon as we boarded the DHS bus..but I didn’t care...I was happy to be moving!

We arrived at Boardwalk and Big River Grille to meet Darlene. SOOOOOOOOOOOO great to meet her after all the tweeting/facebook/emails/phone calls over the past 15 months. While we waited for our table we shopped a bit at Boardwalk. Our pager rang quickly and we were treated to a nice table outside. For those of you who haven’t eaten at Big River - request an outside table! Not only do you get to enjoy the ambiance of the Boardwalk and view of the Yacht and Beach Clubs, but it is much more spacious and more quiet than the strange indoor seating at this restaurant. After perusing the menu all three of us decided to try the Big Brew Cheeseburger with kettle chips. YUMMY!!!!!! I would definitely recommend this restaurant for those in the area.

After dinner we decided to walk a bit. Darlene wanted to drop of some food for Keith, who had stayed at the Beach Club resting due to a headache. We headed into the Beach Club store to do some window shopping, and after a few minutes someone asked our group “Darlene is that you”. Turns out I’m not the only one who recognizes Darlene’s voice. It was Vicki from Mousefan - who was all of our travel agent. We stood and chatted with Vicki for a LONG time. Then we continued our walk/shopping over at the yacht club. Then we decided we were exhausted so mom and I headed to the bus stop to work our way back to French Quarter. This time we decided instead of bus to bus transfers we’d take the bus to DTD and then walk to the boat launch and take the boat over to French Quarter. Not sure if this was faster than bus transfers. But we enjoyed the trip!

More Vacation Planning!

2011-01-21T12:00:00.003-05:00

What a fantastic week!

As our DREAM cruise gets closer (35 days til we fly down, and 37 til we board the Disney Dream) I have been getting more and more excited. But also a little sad since I didn't have the next trip planned. Mom has Allure of the Seas booked for later this year...so she still had something in the works.

Then on Sunday I get a text from mom "Want to go on the Fantasy with the Nelsons on 4/21/12?"

Um...HECK yeah!

See, our Dream cruise is only 4 nights. The shortest Disney cruise we've done (shortest any cruise for that matter). Being a new ship, we've really been struggling with having so little time on the new (40% larger) Disney Dream.

We'd also been kind of talking with our friends from our Magic 2008 cruise about needing to all do a 7 day together on the Fantasy in 2012. So, I promptly messaged them about our potential plans.

This was Sunday. Mom and I talked more Monday. We were both swamped this week..so she said she'd call member services on Friday. Then Tuesday morning (after a HORRIBLE 4 hour drive in terrible road conditions) I get a text that we were booked! Disney Vacation Club cabins have been getting limited since they are only allowed a certain % of each sailing and mom didn't want to miss our opportunity so she went ahead and booked.

Our first 3 DCL cruises we did a Deluxe Stateroom with Veranda, and always on Deck 7. After having chain smoking neighbors on cruise 3 prevented us from using our veranda we opted for an ocean view down on deck 2. Was nice to still see outside, and deck 2 midship was a surprisingly convenient location. Our upcoming DREAM cruise we are in a deluxe INSIDE. Because that cruise is with the WDW Radio Show Podcast it had to be booked using cash (and not DVC points like we usually do). And I was super stressed about money at the time, so we went inside Deluxe (Plus we get to have a cool virtual porthole then!). For the Fantasy our plan was to shoot for a Deluxe Ocean again. But due to DVC availability they were gone (as were the inside deluxe). So instead, we're in a FAMILY Deluxe Ocean. its going to be HUG! you know, relatively speaking.

Okay, so that is exciting Disney Vacation number 1. 456 days until that one.

Now onto Disney vacation number 2! Mom and I had been talking about trying to go to Disney late this year to see holiday decorations. See, growing up, we ALWAYS went late Nov/early Dec. But its been probably 15 years since we've been at Disney for holidays. So before the Osborne Family lights moved from residential street and the Castle got its holiday light overlay. That said, with booking Fantasy, we are using all of that use years points for the cruise - leaving nothing left for a holiday stay this year.

So mom proposed, we plan our holiday trip for 2012 instead - and then we can make it a full week (we were only going to have a few days over thanksgiving this year since she has planned all her vacation days already). We were toying with either going the week of my 35th birthday, or going down thanksgiving day. Either way staying 9-10 days. I ran the points analysis yesterday and we decided on my birthday week. So....I get to celebrate my 35th birthday at WDW. The first time I'll ever celebrate my birthday there! its way to early for us to book at this point, but we're hoping to do a 1 bedroom at Bay Lake Tower. we like the idea of it having two bathrooms and being able to do laundry so we can pack super light!

So...659 days until that trip.

Yay!!!!!!!!!! Now I have two more disney trips to plan for after the Dream!

2011 goals Report 1

2011-01-19T21:18:00.003-05:00

So, one of my goals for 2011 was to have less projects going on at one time. Which also means to finish up some works in process.

This weekend I wrapped up TWO works in process. One, newer, and one that I've been working on for a couple of years.

Item 1, is my Ruth's Entrelac Butterfly Shawl (ravelry.com log in required to see that). This I've been wanting to do since I first saw the pattern this summer. I finally cast on over break, and finished knitting it on Jan 9. This past weekend I washed and blocked it. And I wore it Monday!

My second...well...that is a gift so I can't post it until its been received by its new owner...but its something I started working on a couple of years ago not knowing for sure who it was intended for. It came out better than I could have imagined.

And I think most importantly...despite finishing two items up this weekend...I didn't cast on anything new yet! usually I cast on as SOOOOOON as I finish something! In the words of London Tipton "YAY ME!"

Zeus's Story

2011-01-17T10:29:00.006-05:00

My dear friend Darlene recently said goodbye to her beloved dog, Zeus. So many people don't understand how much love our pets bring into our lives, and how hard it is to let them go. We should all be as lucky as Darlene to have a friend like Zeus in our lives, for however long it might be.

Zeus my doggie, my son, my bestfriend, rest in Peace! By Darlene

Zeusywoo came in to our lives in the summer of 1999. We went to see him & my hubby put him in my arms. That was it Zeus put his paws around my neck & his head on my shoulder Keith said we’ll take him it’s a done deal. We choose to get a second puppy to keep my Louie (Rottweiler ) active. It worked for about a year as Lou died the next summer.

Zeus was my dogs a girls best friend. He was my alarm clock in the morning. He was my companion when hubby & daughter were out. We had an exercise schedule me in the morning with help with my sit ups LOL. Then his walks after I got home from work. Then relaxing watching tv together & then going to bed. Keith introduced him to the bed when he was with us the 1st night home. Well he still slept in bed all the way up to 11 ½ years & 92.5 lbs. Yes he was a big boy. He also listened to me when I spoke & no one was home. He was a great listener. He helped me though a lot of lonely days. He let my daughter, hubby & myself dress him up! He loved to pose for pictures like his momma.

His favorite things to do were take walks, take rides in the car anywhere, visit with people & be outside. He had a special attraction to playing with a silver bowl outside & inside. He would kick the bowl until he found a reflection. That would occupy him for hours on end. Once he had some teeth removed the bowl went bye bye, but we played with a flash light so he could chase that & he begged to have it continue even though he was tired. We even bought him a laser that played on the walls & he thought that was awesome.

My baby was an active guy even up to the day before his last. My daughter & I took him for a car ride to the bakery. My hubby & I took him for a walk in the snow storm & he found 1 deer to try & catch which he didn’t. He slept a lot after that last walk. But it was the best last day of his life. As I tear up writing this last line I know my baby boy is at peace & playing with his bowl in heaven again pain free! I will love & miss him everyday of my life as he was the best dog I could ever have!

New Knitting Challenges and Goals for 2011!

2011-01-17T08:12:00.001-05:00

I was guest blogger over at yarn-love this week and talked about my 2011 knitting goals. Thought since I need to stay accountable to these goals someplace I'd post over here too!

1. Lace - Like for REAL, not a lacy pattern in worsted weight yarn. One of the very first skeins of yarn I bought at yarn-love back in 2008 was a beautiful skein of Claudia Hand Painted Silk Laceweight. I remember fondly petting it on multiple visits. Staring at it from the table on a couple of First Fridays. Finally I broke down and bought it. I had no project in mind, and did search some on Ravelry looking for inspiration..but never came upon a project I wanted to do. I've also started to incorporate lace stitch patterns in my work. I love lace panels on socks to help keep me interested in what I'm doing. And love doing fingering weight shawls. But in setting goals for myself for this year, I've decided I finally need to knit up this gorgeous skein of yarn in a true laceweight project.

2. Colorwork - This is actually carried over from last year. I was looking for a new challenge and decided to try not just fair isle. but fair isle and STEEKING! For those of you who don't know, steeking is when you cut your knitting. ON PURPOSE! Terrifying right? I started knitting a fair isle vest last year with the intention of not only doing two handed stranded knitting, but also trying out steeking. Well.....I have made quite a bit of progress....I'm on the decreases for the arms and deep v neck. But since I tend to be a very promiscuous knitter....well.....it hasn't been touched for a while. So last year I got the colorwork part down. This year, I want to finish this vest so that I can steek it!

3. Speaking of my promiscuous knitting ways. I have a LOT of WIP (works in progress for those who are like what?). My love for yarn, and seeing all the amazing new projects on Ravelry, result in me getting cast-on-itis. Looking at my current WIP in Ravelry, I've got: one shawl, three sweaters, three pairs of socks, the aforementioned fair isle vest, a baby blanket, and a pair of fingerless mitts all in my current WIP (that ignores the 11 WIP that are "hibernating"). I need to learn to be more faithful to my knitting. But with SO many WIP ... I don't know that I can do that this year. So, for every new project I cast on, I'm also going to try and make sure I'm finishing up an OLD project. perhaps if I get good at this, then NEXT year I can have a goal of say, only 5 WIP at one time.... maybe....

4. Last but not least, I have a goal to do a NON-worsted weight sweater. Those of you that may remember me knitting Decimal last year (DK weight I think?) will remember that I was NOT so fond of how long it took me to knit up a non-worsted weight sweater. But I fell in love with the Austin Hoodie, by Connie Chang Chinchio, late last year. And have a sweaters worth of Madelinetosh that is destined for that sweater. That would be fingering weight. Yikes! And if that isn't enough, there's also a sportweight pattern I happen to be sitting on yarn for. That would be Goodale, by Cecily Glowik MacDonald. So, my goal is to knit at least one, if not both, of these non-worsted weight sweaters in 2011.

I guess I'll have to be happy with my next Disney trip....

2011-01-07T19:04:00.002-05:00

Had to use that line with one of my business partners today. See, we sponsored and incentive contest in 2010 for them where they could earn a chance to go on a cruise in April. As part of getting us reps excited, there are a few chances for some of us to go as well. Looks like all my business partners qualified....but not looking good for me. One of them asked me today when I told him it looked like he would win, if I got to go as well. When I said no he said "that sucks" (this is a VP mind you, I love the people I get to work with). I told him "You know me, I roll with the punches. Guess I'll just have to be happy with my 9 day Walt Disney World and Disney Dream Cruise coming up". Sure I had to pay for that one. And I have to take vacation time for that one (I wouldn't have for the work cruise). But.....the Disney Dream will be filled with all my Disney friends, and the work cruise would be filled with LOTS of business partners (hence why we don't have to use vacation time if we get to go). So I think I'm still doing good!

Speaking of my trip, thought I'd share our plans for the upcoming trip!!!!!

Friday - Feb 25 - Mom and I fly into Orlando.
Will probably hit up downtown Disney for some shopping.
Dinner - No ADR, we are thinking Big River Grille and Brewing Works which mom wants to try
After - hopefully meeting up lots of our WDW Radio friends at Jellyrolls!

Saturday - Feb 26
Start off at Animal Kingdom
Lunch at Yak and Yeti
Head to Epcot when done with Animal Kingdom (maybe meet up with Meet of the Month if its in the afternoon)
6pm Dinner at Teppen Edo
8pm Dessert party with WDW Radio group!!!!!!

Sunday - Feb 27 thru Thursday March 3 - DISNEY DREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday March 3 - We'll be disembarking as the earliest possible time and dropping our stuff at Boardwalk. Then...EPCOT for flower and garden (my first time!)
12:45 pm lunch at Biergarden
7:45 pm dinner at Via Napoli

Friday March 4 - Magic Kingdom!
Lunch probably at pecos bills (must do taco salad this time and not pulled port!)
8:15pm dinner at Grand Floridian Cafe

Saturday March 5 - Hollywood Studios Day
1pm lunch at Mama Melrose
Move to epcot when done at the studios
8pm Dinner at le Chefs de France (and if we don't see Remy I'm gonna be pissed!!!!!)

Sunday March 6 - Back home.

Those are the plans....who's plans overlap ours?????

Recurring Themes in Dreams

2010-08-10T08:12:00.002-04:00

Aren't recurring dreams a strange, strange thing?

I often have them where I'm in school, usually high school, but sometimes college. I'll go to the first session of a class at the beginning of a semester, and then not go back. Then as the semester ends, I start to get nervous about needing to go to class so I can take my final exam, and not remembering where my class is located.

This is a weird enough dream on its own, feels weird when I'm in it. But its also weird because its SOOO not my character. Never in high school did I ever skip a single session of a class, much less the whole semester. And I'll admit, once I got to college I did skip a class or two (or once a week in the case of my engineering statistics class - but EVERYONE skipped that class so we just tried to plan ahead that someone was there to make sure we got whatever assignments were mentioned). But never in a million years would I skip a whole semester of classes.

So I wonder why this is something I dream about with some amount of frequency.

Day 7 - Return to Port and Off to Magic Kingdom!!!!!

2010-06-11T11:36:00.001-04:00

Since we had second dinner seating we also had the later seating for breakfast at 8am in Parrot Cay. It was a fast breakfast but gave us some time to say good by to "J" as well as Nikola and Nicole. Then we were off. None of us got caught up by customs. The bummer about going to the resorts versus straight to the airport is luggage handling. When you are going to the airport they handle your luggage for you. You put it outside your room by 11pm the last night and don't see it again until you land at home (assuming you flew on a participating airline). But when you are going to the resorts you have to collect your luggage at the port terminal and bring it to the bus with you. Not a big deal for me since I had just the two smaller bags and my Get Carried Away Tote. But still not as nice as them handling it the entire way. We got over by the resort buses and were put on a shuttle van instead of a large motor coach - they told us it would be faster. It was super cramped (not sure HOW he got everyone's luggage inside!) but Boardwalk was the first stop so it probably was much faster than going on a motor couch.

We headed into Boardwalk (our first time staying there) and went to the on-line check in desk. We really wanted a room right away since I didn't want to leave my iPad and souvenirs with bell services when we left for the park. Because of this it took a little while for them to find us a room. I hit up the little shop for some OTC drugs I wanted and then bought my 1 day park pass (to be used the next day) at the Guest Services desk while mom waited at check in. Eventually mom got checked in (we did get a room). Donna got checked in, but not with a room yet. And they both got their park passes. Then we headed up to our room to drop our stuff off before heading off the Magic Kingdom.

I know some of you were interested in our thoughts on our Boardwalk Villa. We got a studio, same as at Bay Lake Tower, Beach Club (last year) and Old Key West (many years past). From a BED perspective I would rank my preference as Old Key West, Bay Lake Tower, Boardwalk, then Beach Club. Old Key West is at the top of my list because they are the only DVC that actually has two BEDS in the studio versus a bed and a sofa bed. Bay Lake Tower would be next, because as the one who has to sleep on the sofa bed - it had more of a foam type mattress, didn't seem/feel like a sofa bed at all. Boardwalk and Beach Club have the same sofa beds. Not particularly comfortable to me, but the Boardwalk one seem slightly better than Beach Club. From a space/room perspective I'd probably order my preference as Old Key West, Boardwalk, Bay Lake, then Beach Club. Old Key West has a different layout on their studios that is VERY roomy. We also were impressed with how roomy Boardwalk was. Bay Lake was smaller, but adequate. The bathroom sink in the kitchenette area didn't really bother us. Nor did the pocket door on the bathroom. Beach Club felt very small to us (plus not well maintained and rather dirty when we stayed there. From a resort LOCATION standpoint this becomes harder. But since I like being at the Epcot resort area a lot (perhaps even more so than being on the monorail) I'm going to say Boardwalk, Bay Lake, Beach Club, Old Key West. Although it seemed like our room was really far at Boardwalk - it probably wasn't any further than our Beach Club Villa was to get to Epcot, and catching the boat if need be is on the way versus at Beach Club where you would go out of your way to get the boat. I also like that you can boat or walk to DHS from Boardwalk pretty easily. Being on the monorail did seem nice...but we were only there one day so its hard to say for sure how much I liked it. And since there were many monorail issues the weekend we were here....I can't say being on the monorail was particularly convenient! Anyway...those are my thoughts on the DVC Studio Villas - now back to my report!

We headed off to Magic Kingdom after dropping our stuff in our room. Originally we were ONLY going to go to Epcot using our Give a Day free days. But when I saw that the Magic Kingdom was open until 2am this day we decided we could still get a full day in despite getting to the parks late. So off we went. I've been listening to the WDW Today podcast for some time, and am an avid reader of the Unofficial Guide. So I had a strong desire to test out the Touring Plans. Mom said she was okay with this..but she kind of mocked it the entire time and didn't really want to adhere to the plans. Donna and I tried to sneak peaks at them to move on..but she was onto us. The nice thing was, the park wasn't particularly crowded (Touringplans.com had it as a 4 out of 10). It seemed like there were a lot of people there, but none of the lines were particularly crowded. We lunched at Pecos Bills after hearing so many great things about it. Mom and I both had pulled pork. Donna had a burger. Next time I think I might try the taco salad, but everything was delicious. We also enjoyed sitting even though we'd only been in the park an hour so by then. It was SOOOOOOOO hot and humid in Florida last weekend things were really uncomfortable. We definitely found ourselves looking for ways to try and cool off.

I won't go thru the blow by blow on the rides we did during the day. I will say that every time we tried to go on Big Thunder Mountain it was broken. We finally got on that around 1am. Space Mountain also went down right when we were going to get fast passes for it. Took nearly an hour to get it up and running again. This was much later in the day (around 9-10pm I think). Once it was up and running again, the line was LONG...over 60 minutes. I wanted to wait and come back later since the park was open until 2am. I figured if we knew the line would be much shorter later we should do other stuff and come back. Mom insisted on getting in line. So we did. We waited 75 minutes. By the time we got off the ride it had a 15 minute wait. I was not pleased. By then I decided I was done and didn't want to be the parks anymore. That's when we did Big Thunder and left just after 1am. The other thing we did that we don't normally do, is spend a bit of time in ToonTown. Since ToonTown is going away we wanted one last chance to see it and say good-bye, and I took LOTS of pictures!

We did leave the parks for a while to go to the Polynesian for dinner at Ohana. I hadn't eaten there in YEARS and spotted potsickers on the menu so it was a must do for me. Mom and Donna were happy to go along. Dinner was WONDERFUL. We got seated quickly despite showing up nearly 30 minutes late due to the monorail issues that day. My favorites were the potstickers and the noodles. But the beef was also super yummy.

The BAD thing about this day, and probably contributing to my crabbiness as the day wore on were my feet. Last time we were on vacation - I wore my crocs exclusively for the 1 week at WDW and the 1 week on the Magic. I did have my socks on much of the time then, but definitely not all. So this time I went with my crocs again. But it was raining, so my socks came off before we even left the Boardwalk. And unlike last time it was super hot and super humid. I finished the day with blisters in places I didn't even know I could GET blisters. By the time I realized I was going to HAVE issues...I couldn't find socks in my size in any of the stores I went into! So by the end of the day I had a good 5 blisters in various places on my feet making it incredibly painful to walk anywhere. No fun!

We were back at Boardwalk and I was in bed by 2am.

Day 6 – Return to Castaway Cay

2010-06-10T08:48:00.001-04:00

This would be Thursday, our second trip to Castaway Cay this cruise. Since we didn’t relax on the beach at all the first time that was plan for this time.

We started with breakfast at Tritons. Hristo was greeting people, so he can and chatted with us for quite a while as we were waiting for our servers and food. Then we were off to the island!

We were greeted by Mickey and Minnie as we disembarked. Sadly, it was SOOOOO humid all our camera lens were crazy fogging up. I got a semi decent shot of us with Mickey. Minnie is very hazy. Then we grabbed our towels and headed near Pelican Plunge. Now normally, mom and I head STRAIGHT to Serenity Beach at Castaway Cay. But she wanted to go out to the Plunge, and when we’d scoped it out earlier in the week the beach seemed way less crowded down there, so I agreed. We got there while the beach was still empty, got some nice chairs under an umbrella (a must for me with my fair skin) and mom headed off to the Plunge while I read for a while. It was SUPER hot in addition to the humidity, so I did go in the water to get wet a couple of times. Mom and Donna decided to drag some chairs into the water to keep cool, but I needed to stay more shaded so I headed up to the chairs under the umbrella. I got a lot of reading done for a while. Then noticed more and more gigantic families coming to that beach and complaining about how their were no chairs. Like, complaining a LOT. Mind you, if you watch, there were lots of people dragging chairs over there from other areas – so its not like there weren’t areas with chairs, just not RIGHT there. Anyway, about the same time mom and Donna came back we got surrounded by 2 particularly noisy families making it difficut to read. So I decided it was time to head back to the ship for me. Mom can with while Donna hung out a little longer.

We headed up to the Quiet Cove pool to relax. Shortly after getting there Ducky Williams joined us in the pool. We spent a good hour to hour and a half with him chatting. It was great to hear more of his story, and he talked about the different cruises he does for Disney, the cruises he takes with his partner, what its like working in Celebration, etc. A very nice chat we had with him as we all sat in the water of the pool staying cool. As we got out, Donna came back and we all decided to grab lunch and bring it back to the pool. I think I stayed by the pool til around 3pm and then decided it was time for me to get out of the sun. So I headed to the room to clean up and relax and pack our bags since this was our last night on the ship.

That nights show was Disney Dreams, which I’ve seen several times and love. However, its also the the night Prince of Persia was playing, and I still had to watch the 2nd half of that movie. So I skipped Disney Dreams to check out the movie. I was worried towards the end that I was really NOT going to like how it ended, but it redeemed itself and I’ve decided I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Our final dinner was back in Parrot Cay. It was a new menu for them since it was the first 5 night cruise the Wonder has ever done. But it wasn’t a new menu to us – it was the Til We Meet Again menu they do on the Magic on the last night. Kind of mixed in with the International Menu they do on the Magic (waiters in vests with flags on them, and the parade with the Baked Alaska at the end of the meal). I’m sure I got beef again for dinner but I can’t remember for sure…… Our dinner went really late, so we had to get back to our rooms to put our bags out in time for pick up at 11pm. I crashed right away, and mom and Donna went to the final show that the cruise staff puts on. Mom said it was just as cute as the last time (they do the same thing on the Magic).

Day 5 - Sea Day

2010-06-10T07:59:00.000-04:00

Today was planned as another leisurely day. Because everyone was on board, it was not our plan to spend time at the pool today which I figured would be mobbed. Plus we had both brunch and tea at Palo reserved.

I woke up even earlier than normal and headed up to deck 9 for some coffee and to claim my normal reading spot outside the Cove Cafe. I did pick up a light breakfast at the Beach Blanket Buffet. Because it was so early it was not that crowded and I could hear the fun sixties music playing.

After breakfast I headed over to check out the shops again, and then down the cabin. I was surprised to find mom already gone, because normally she'd still be in bed then. I headed back up to deck 9 then and found her there. She was trying to get in some pool time today before everything else.

At 9am there was a scrap booking session. I have a vague recollection of checking this out on one of the other trips and it not being that exciting. But couldn't remember details. I figured if nothing else I'd go for my "special gift" and then take it and run. The special gift ended up being a couple of 12x12 inch scrapbook papers. They then had all kinds of cruise brochures and the like strewn on the table you could cut up and use in your book. I cut some things out and then headed for the shops yet again. Although I'd bought a couple of the scrapbook kits in the shop, I'd not bought the scrapbook pad which I assumed was just paper. Donna confirmed that in the scrap booking session and said there was now one open so you could look at it. The papers were Disney Cruise Line logo and super cute. In addition, there was a LOT in there for only $10. Therefore, I bought that along with a bunch of postcards to include in the scrapbook.

I got back to the room then and mom was there getting cleaned up for brunch. She had me run back up to Mickey's Mates with HER card to buy HER the scrapbook pad. Joseph from Canada (who has helped me pretty much every other time I've been in Mickey's Mates and on Castaway Cay) laughed when I told him mom decided she didn't have time to shop and would I buy her the scrapbook pad. He said "yeah, its not like we are open until midnight or anything". He's super cute. The other day when he heard we are knitters he said he wished he'd learned to knit. Then today he was saying he really needed to learn to scrapbook and when I mentioned my craft room he said how amazing that would be.

Next up was brunch. As I expected, there were many things there I would not want – seafood lovers would be in heaven – but that’s not me! That said, the things I did eat were fantastic and I enjoyed them thoroughly. There was caprese salad, lots of yummy cheese, delicious cheese croissants, and prosciutto and melon. I also enjoyed having the same waiter from last night, Hristo, who we also had for tea this afternoon.

We spent a good 2 hours at brunch, and then headed down to the Buena Vista Theater where Don "Ducky" Williams was talking and drawing. He's AMAZING! His story about how he came to be an animator at Disney is really inspiring. If everyone wanted things that much and worked that hard to make things happen this world would be a very different place. Plus he talks while doing the sketching because he sketches so fast! Someone asked him how many characters he can draw without the model cards and he said probably 200 but if its something important he may look just in case. At the end of his session he gave away the 19 drawings he'd done before and during his session. I didn't win one, but mom won the Sorcerer Mickey one. She was so excited she jumped up and screamed. They mentioned that he was doing private drawing sessions for a nominal fee. I went to inquire and it was $40 for a 10 minute session. So I signed up for one tonight. $40 seemed a little pricy since it was only 10 minutes, but he did draw fast and some hand drawn original art by the ONLY person still doing the official art for Disney seemed like a must do for me. I didn't know if he will only do one thing during that or if he can do two. But they said he'd draw whatever I wanted. If I only got one I decided it needed to be Mickey Mouse for my living room. If he has time for a second I would ask if he can do Sebastian. Anyway, after Ducky mom and I went on a mission to find her a poster tube to transport her drawing home (its huge) and also decided to head to the shops yet again (I've bought SOOOOOO much stuff this trip! good thing I packed extra luggage!).

While we were shopping they announced that the special 1:30pm show (Toy Story) was starting in 10 minutes. I love that on sea days they do the show in the afternoon too. We didn't really have anything else planned then so we decided to catch the show. I loved the characters/costumes, but not the new songs they wrote for it. And the Sid music/actor were particularly annoying. This didn't totally surprise me since I'm not a fan of the Finding Nemo show at Animal Kingdom either with its special – just for the show – songs. I will say, I caught some of this later in the day on the TV in the cabin..and it looked way cuter then…like I was watching an animated movie!

Next up was Tea at Palo. I loved this so much more than brunch and it will definitely be a must do for me on future Disney cruises. Hristo took great care of us again of course. But I loved the food options. Delightful little sandwiches. YUMMY scones (seriously, like sweet little biscuits with sugar on top – not dry like scones usually are) with the special cream and some nice jams. And of course little tiny pastries. Oh..and it finished up with a trifle. It was supposed to be cherry but sure tasted like strawberry to me. But the cream part was YUMMY.

Then it was back to the room for me to relax a while before my session with Ducky, and mom took off for the final jackpot bingo. Alas she did not win. She was sad, she almost always wins final jackpot bingo!

We went to my session with Ducky at 5:50pm. I told him I wasn’t sure if I wanted Sebastian or Mickey, and how my living room was Disney themed with more of an emphasis on the fab five. He said Mickey would turn out better so we went with that. Just a CLASSIC Mickey. He gave him a “formal” bow tie so that the head wasn’t just floating on the page. And he autographed it (he’s Mickey’s OFFICIAL autographer) from both Mickey Mouse and himself and signed it to me. I LOVE it. Can’t wait to get it framed and decide where to put it.

After Ducky mom went to see Toy Story again with Donna and I went back to cabin more to relax. If you are noticing a theme there you aren’t imagining it. I do tend to go back to the cabin a lot to just chill out between stuff. It’s a nice way to get away from the crowds, catch up on my journaling, and just get some alone time. Plus there’s Disney movies running on the TV all the time! I was less thrilled with the live action movies this time….though there were a couple of good ones. But I didn’t watch those over and over like I did with Iron Man on the last cruise!

Dinner this night was Animators Palette. I’ve always loved this, but at least on the Wonder I think it needs some refurb. The televisions are showing HORRIBLE color and contrast. The menu was just so so. There was a lemon thyme chicken, but I’m not a fan of lemon chicken so Nikola got me a regular chicken dish instead. Can’t remember what I got for dessert – it wasn’t memorable. I did try and get lots of pictures because I know this restaurant will be a LOT different on the Dream next year.

As with most nights, after dinner was off to bed for me and out to “party” for mom and Donna.

Day 4 - Nassau

2010-06-08T18:24:00.001-04:00

Day 4 - Nassau, Bahamas

Up early again, I dressed for the pool and headed up to Cove Cafe again. This time I watched up pull into Nassau. Not particularly impressive other than seeing the Atlantis resort for the first time. Port was overwhelmed with 3 Carnival ships already (Sensation, Fantasy, and Fascination - a fourth, the Glory showed up later). All the Carnival ships meant no good views from the Wonder while in port.

This was a LAZY day. Breakfast at Beach Blanket Buffet. We decided the themeing was much nicer here than the buffet on the Magic. The rest of the day was at the Quiet Cove pool with lunch brought back over there from Pinnochio's Pizzeria for me. The fun thing we'd not experienced before...all the characters were walking through Quiet Cove after their appearances next door and surprising people who were sleeping (or just not paying attention).

I headed back to the room to get cleaned up and relax for a while before watching the first part of Prince of Persia which is tonights "show". We have 7pm Palo reservations, so we can't watch the movie all the way through unless we got the 11pm, which will be way too late for me. So I'm going to watch the first part of it at the 5:15pm showing, go to dinner at Palo at 7pm, and then catch the 2nd part of it at the 8pm showing.

(now continuing from the next day so forgive the variation in past / present / future tense!)

I watched the first hour and fifteen minutes of Prince of Persia...not outstanding, but good action and I'm definitely interested in checking out more of it. Then I left to make my way to Palo. Dinner was AMAZING (as I expected!). I had the plum tomato and mozzarella to start with. Then the procuitto pizza. Then the "Palo" Beef Tenderloin. I'd forgotten about the stack of super thin potatoes that came with. And of course the fantastic chocolate souffle. One of only 3 food items on the trip I was really looking forward to (along with the Pluto's Dog House chicken fingers and Parrot Cay Banana Bread). To make things even better, Donna wanted a bottle of wine with dinner. She said she wanted a Cabernet. When I looked at the menu I noticed Silver Oak on the menu. My FAVORITE wine hands down. So Donna bought a bottle for the table. A generous gift at the retail price, much less the crazy marked up cruise price.

Palo took over 2 hours, so .. I missed getting back into the movie at the time I needed to pick up where I left off. That doesn't play again until Thursday so I'll have to catch the second half then. So, after Palo while Mom and Donna went up to catch the pirate party and fireworks I headed to the cabin to get ready for bed. Though I did watch fireworks from the porthole!

Day 3 - 1st day at Castaway Cay

2010-06-07T19:16:00.000-04:00

Day 3 - Castaway Cay, Stop 1

Monday, Memorial Day, was our first stop at Castaway Cay. As usual, I was up early. I dressed and headed up to the Cove Cafe with some magazines and grabbed a latte. I sat and enjoyed my latte in one of the comfy seats up there while I watched us pull into Castaway Cay. Mom found me a little before 9am, and we found Donna shortly thereafter and headed to Triton's for breakfast.

This was my first inside view of Tritons, and as I expected I absolutely loved it! The decor is beautiful, particularly the beautiful mosaic mural on the back wall of Triton, Ariel, and Sebastian. I ordered a menu item with Sebastian in the name that included French Toast, Pancakes, and a Belgian Waffle. It was YUMMY!

After breakfast we ran back to our stateroom to change for our bike rides on Castaway Cay. Mom and I have done this once before and LOVED it. We were hoping with the expansion more trails would be open now. There weren't any, but I did get some lovely photos, including some of the new things going in. After riding for a few hours we walked a bit, took lots more pictures, and ate lunch at Cookies. This was our first time at Cookie's since we normally eat out at Serenity Bay.

While at Cookies we ran into Alen. We actually thought we'd spotted him in the morning but we weren't expecting to see him, it was far away, and we couldn't sure sure. The very first time we cruised on the Magic back in 2000, Alen was our server.When we were on the Magic again in 2003, Alen was a head waiter. As we walked to our table the first night we realized it was with this incredibly obnoxious woman we'd seen at the sail-away party. We couldn't stand the idea of sitting at that table all week so we walked back up front to try and change tables and ran into Alen. Not only did he move us, but he remembered us for 2000, and he put us at a 4 top table for just the two of us for all week. When we were on the Magic again in 2008 we spotted Alen and he was a maitre de. Now, in 2010, Alen as switched over to the Wonder and he's the Dining Manager. So nice to see how well he's done for himself. He took down our info and promised to come see us at dinner that night.

After lunch we headed back on board to catch the 1pm showing of UP showing in 3D in the Buena Vista theater. I'd seen the movie, but not in 3D so we thought that would be fun. After the movie we headed up to the pool to relax, read, and rest. I stayed up there until around 5ish. Then down on deck 4 for a while - it was HOT in the sun and I wasn't ready to go back to the room and get ready just yet. I checked out the shops then and finally went back to the room to get cleaned up.

Our show was a new one for us, Once Upon a Song. As a music lover, and particularly a Disney music lover, I was excited about the idea of this show. It included lots of lessor know, less popular Disney songs. Unfortunately, the songs they picked were not the ones I would have picked. In fact some were my least favorite songs from the movies they represented. Worse than that, was the choreography. The vocal talents were excellent, just thing they could have pulled the show together better.

Dinner was at Tritons. I forgot to mention before that J has a "Pal Mickey" with her, and he wears a different outfit every night. He was dressed up in a sombrero with a little poncho on this night. The story was "he thought we were going to Cozumel". Very cute. I had tomato basil soup, the avocado and citrus salad, and the beef tenderloin for dinner. All fantastic. Desert was Grand Mariner Souffle. Our head waiter Richard from France stopped by. He spent some time working under some famous chefs (like Gordon Ramsey) and entertained us with some of those tales. Then Alen showed up to say hello and we took some pictures with him while we visited.

AFter dinner was off to bed for me. I watched the movie Dear John on the stateroom TV curled up in bed.

Day 2 - sail away

2010-06-07T17:29:00.000-04:00

Day 2 - Sail-away!!!!

Today got off to a rocky start. I woke up in the middle of the night last night violently ill. The good news is, seemed to be over by morning. But neither mom or I slept well so we were up at the CRACK of dawn this morning. We got ready so early that we had a good 45 minutes to wander around the Contemporary property and take pictures before our Chef Mickey's breakfast reservation.

I got some super cute pictures at Chef Mickey's this morning. And the pancakes were fantastic! Breakfast was short and sweet, but it allowed me a chance to make sure I had a picture with each of the fab five for this trip.

After breakfast we took the monorail over the the Poly to do a little more shopping and just kill time. Then back to Bay Lake to check out. We hung out in Donna's 1 bedroom for a little while and then headed down to the lobby for the cruise.

Seemed like the transfers took FOREVER this time. Our bus started with Bay Lake, then went to Wilderness Lodge were we sat for quite some time, then onto Saratoga where we ALSO sat for quite some time. Finally we were on our way. The nice thing was we got to watch CARS on the bus so thats always fun.

Check in was a breeze since we did online check in and are Castaway Club members - there was no line. However, we TOTALLY missed that we needed to see some other lady first for a "boarding number". Fortunately, we walked back to the lady at the Castaway Club desk and she got us one.

We got on board before Donna so we made a beeline for her room to put up her door decorations i made. She LOVED them. Said we should have come to the room with her to see her reaction. After dropping the door decorations we headed to OUR stateroom to drop our stuff. We then met Donna in WaveBands where she was trying to change get into Palo brunch with us. Then we went to cancel our spa treatments (spent too much money yesterday!) and Donna went to drop HER bags. Next was lunch at Parrot Cay. Although my beloved banana was not at lunch, they did have these yummy little banana cupcake things.

Then Donna came to check out our stateroom and we went to see hers. Mom wanted to unpack before muster then so back to our stateroom again. Her two bags were there, and only one of mine. My second bag didn't show up until just before 4pm but alas it finally did! So we were officially all unpacked JUST in time for muster!

After muster we did the first of our onboard shopping and then headed off to our first show. Opening night was the Golden Mickey's. Just as much fun the second time around as it was the first time we saw it on our last Magic voyage. After the show we wanted to go back to the room to drop our shopping goodies and hang out before dinner..but our stateroom attendant was just then doing our turndown. So instead we dropped or stuff and headed towards the first restaurant. It was nowhere near dinner time, so we hung at the Promenade Lounge. Music was entertaining. The incredibly obnoxious group cruising (the Castaway Cruisers) were less so. They were having a good time, but made it difficult for anyone else to enjoy it between crowding their entire party into a tight space and inching others out. Not to mention hooting and hollering right in my ears!

Dinner that night was Parrot Cay. Our Server is Nikola from Serbia - he's GORGEOUS (we've since learned he has a french girlfriend working onboard as well. Our assistant Server is Nicole from Germany. We teased them about "nikola and nicole" and how we'd keep them straight. Dinner was good. Though neither Nikola or Nicole caught on to our pleas for extra banana bread. Unlike our last trip on the Magic there would be no nightly banana bread on this voyage. To eat I had a salad that was kind of like a cesear but called something else. For dinner I had the ribeye of beef. Didn't taste very ribeye like but it was tasty. Dessert was the french toast banana bread. YUMMY! I had them substitute the coconut ice cream for vanilla and I thoroughly enjoyed that. We're seated at a table for 6 for dinner. There's the three of us, and then a woman traveling alone (we'll call her "J" from here on out). She mentioned that she'd been sick recently and a friend gave her his DVC points to take this cruise. The other two people at our table never showed. We told Nikola to find some single men for us. He looked up his info and said its supposed to be two women with us.

After dinner it was off to bed for me and mom and Donna went to check out Wave Bands, but said it was dead and mom came to bed soon after.

2010 Disney trip, day 1

2010-06-06T21:13:00.000-04:00

Day One - Travel and Shopping

Finally our day came! I left my house at 5:15am this morning to head to the Hartford airport. Just as the parking shuttle was pulling into the terminal I saw my first flight status notification from Delta that we were delayed approximately 35 minutes. I started to get a little worried cuz I knew big storms had come through Florida the night before. I got in past security around 6:15am and hit up McDonalds for some breakfast. It felt like I'd been up for hours already. I got to the gate a little after 6:30am. Original flight time was 7:55am with a 7:15am boarding time. New departure was 8:30am. They made an announcement that pretty much ALL the delta flights were running late that morning because all the planes had gotten in really late the night before and the crews have mandatory rest time. We took off at 8:30am as we were told and off to Orlando we went. Pilot made up a lot of the time in the air. I didn't even get the entire way through my ipad movie - Valentines Day - though I only missed the last 10 minutes or so which I watched on magical express as we headed to Bay Lake Tower.

Check in went really smoothly since we'd done the online check in. Our room, a studio, was small but nice. This sofa bed seems better than the one I had to sleep on at the Beach Club Villas. Though it wasn't easy to undo. The directions say "lift handles and walk away from bed". I did that. The bed walked away with me. I was in the room by myself at that point while mom was in her friend Donna's room checking out her pool view at nighttime. But eventually I got it figured out.

After settling in we left for Downtown Disney. In a CRAZY downpour. That kept going and going and going. Donna and I packed our umbrellas in our carryon. For some reason mom packed HERs in her checked bags. So she got wetter than we did...though we were all pretty wet.

Lunch was the Earl of Sandwich, which was OH MY GOD delicious. How have I missed this place for so long? Line was long but moved swiftly. I got the Caprese Sandwich. Mom got the BLT. We split both sandwiches and also a potato salad. The bread is fantastic. We thought we liked my Caprese Sandwich best, but we decided it was a little heavy on the balsamic so we liked the BLT better.

After lunch was the shopping...and boy did I shop. I'll have to do a whole other report on that, with pictures! I LOVED Tren-D. But of course, I pretty much knew that I would from the minute I first heard of it..I mean all of my non-work clothes are Disney!

After shopping, as it started to pour again, we headed off to WIlderness Lodge for dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe. We were early, so we did some more shopping there. Dinner was fantastic. We got a great table in the corner that overlooks the lobby. Our waitress seemed great early on..but less so as dinner wore on. Food was fantastic. We all did the all you care to eat skillet. We loved everything, but the table agreed the best parts were the corn, mashed potatoes, and corn bread. We didn't ask for ketchup, but the table next to us did so we got to see that. We also saw one of the giant drinks come out. Very cute.

After that we took the boat to Magic Kingdom and then another to Grand Floridian to do some shopping there. I think I didn't buy anything there.....then back to Bay Lake to go up to Top of the World for Wishes. Top of the World is nice. Smaller than I expected, but cute. Watching Wishes from there was great. Even though the angle isn't ideal (fireworks over space mountain rather than the castle) its totally worth it not to have to deal with the crowds...and BOY were there crowds today! After that..a little more shopping at Contemporary, and then back to the room to get ready for tomorrow! Speaking of which..time for me to go so I can re-organize my stuff for the cruise!

My May 2010 Disney Trip!!!!

2010-05-28T16:59:00.000-04:00

As I type I'm sitting on my couch, ipad in lap, typing on my blue tooth keyboard also in my lap. I'm wondering if I should bring my keyboard with on vacation....if I'm going to do a good job keeping a detailed travel log of my trip I probably should...it is tiny....

Anyway...its hard to believe its time already. If feels like its been months and months...but really..looking back at my "May 2010 Disney Vacation" folder in my email the planning for this particular trip just started in January. Quite a switch from our Disney Dream Cruise next year which we booked last November to sail in February 2011!

Anyway....the excitement has been building and building. I think part of it is all our new friends through the WDW Radio Show Dream Cruise. We've had so much fun talking Disney with all of them that it just helps build up the excitement even more.

Anyway, I decided a few months back I wanted to get back to my scrap-booking which has been nonexistent since I started knitting back around 2004. This trip was a good excuse to really start looking into this again. To get me in the mood, I decided to make a door sign for mom's friend Donna, who is traveling with us. This is her FIRST time on the Disney Cruise Line and I thought it would be fun for her to be able to partake in door decorations. Plus we get to board the ship before her since we are Castaway Club members so I'm hoping we can get it on her door before she even gets on board. Making up this door sign, which I did basically as a 12 x 12 scrapbook page figuring she could put it in her book later (she's an avid scrap-booker), got me itching to do more. Over the past two weeks I've been scouring craft stores looking for Disney scrapbook supplies. At the same time, I recently saw a Cricut presentation on HSN. I was intrigued by the idea of the Cricut machine (seemed WAY easier and way more versatile than my clunky Sizzix machine). As I started looking into it more I found all the Disney themed Cricut cartridges. All the sudden I knew I had to have it. My Cricut arrived Tuesday (thank you Amazon prime $4 one day shipping!). I proceeded to spend Tuesday and Wednesday nights playing with it. Tuesday night I made up a 12 x 12 sign for mom and my own cabin. I also made up cute little Mickey's for all three of us with our names on them. Wednesday I just decided I wanted to play some more - to explore the capabilities of the Cricut (I got the expression model) which I'm sure are far more advanced than I've figured out so far. I cut out like 6 12 x 12 pages of various shapes trying out the different features. Then as I sat there looking at them I figured why not create a few pages for my scrapbook for this trip! So...I pulled together four "starter" pages so far that I can use in this trips scrapbook.

Now...to remember to take lots of pictures FOR my scrapbook and not just stuff I think my Dream Cruise neighbors might like!

My other activity this week has been deciding how and what to pack. I got my 21inch vera bradley blue rhapsody wheel aboard packed earlier in the week. Thats the bag I plan to check and its been sitting by the front door with my Magical Express tag on it for 4 days already. I knew that I was taking my Vera Blue Rhapsody rolling duffle on the plane with me, and have been trying to decide what personal item to carry on. I know that I have a habit of coming back from vacation with more then when I left....so I have my Blue Rhapsody Get Carried Away and my Daisy Daisy Small Duffle packed away in my 21 inch suitcase already. This week Vera Bradley retired the Large Backpack...so I was really hoping to find a Blue Rhapsody backpack on sale this week (why oh why did I not just by the Frill Blue Rhapsody backpack when I was at the outlet sale in Fort Wayne last month??????). No luck. I have a Blue Rhapsody tote that I got at the outlet sale that I thought might work as my personal item. But I was worried it would be too small for the items I wanted to bring on the plane with me. So, although I didn't find a Blue Rhapsody large backpack I DID find a Blue Rhapsody Vera. And lets face it...the Vera is a great bag...so I got that.... But now that I'm all packed...I think I can actually get away with just using the Blue Rhapsody tote after all (assuming my keyboard fits too since I really think I do want to take it...though that would fit in my rolling duffle for sure ... there's still loads of room in there....

Anyway...thats my pre departure portion of my trip report! Gonna snuggle Miss Elphaba for a little bit longer before taking her to the PetHotel tonight. Then (assuming I'm not too excited) it will be early to bed for me so I can leave nice and early for the airport...I'm thinking the airport could be jammed tomorrow due to the holiday weekend. Hope you enjoyed!

Stay tuned for more!

I'm a Connecticut Resident!

2010-05-07T06:23:00.002-04:00

It has been a LONG, drawn out, relocation full of challenges. I'm too tired to recount the tales here just yet. But my closing that was supposed to be Monday May 3 - ended up not happening until Wednesday May 5. My movers arrived just about the same time as the wire transfers FINALLY came through from the bank.

I've been super lucky to have some amazing help through this move. My best friend Mandy and I made a whole trip of the move itself. The annual Vera Bradley Outlet Sale in Fort Wayne Indiana was last week. With our newfound love of Vera....we had to make that a part of the drive from IL to CT. It did not dissapoint! But in addition to the fun of the sale, and spending lots of quality time together. Dear Mandy also put up with my cranky, crying, nocturnal, climbing all over her in bed, animals for 5 days. I know I love my animals, but it takes one special person to love them like I do, and Mandy does. You are a great friend sweetie and I love you!

My next helper was my friend Mark from our Harrisburg office. Mark drove up late the night of the 4th so that he was here to help me on move in day. He patiently checked off the inventory worksheet while I directed the movers on where to put things. He tracked down lunch for us. And he helped me start unpacking boxes. He gave me explicit orders to boss him around, and he took my direction really well. There's no way so much of this house would be unpacked (and the boxes in my outside storage area!) if not for Mark. He also kept track of my Lowe's list and helped me get started on some of the little things that need to be taken care of. Thursday I sent him home to be with his family. But he's promised to spend more time up here on subsequent trips to help fix up little things here and there that I need done.

Finally, though she hasn't arrived yet - my mommy. My mom is not able to take any time off work right now between our vacation later this month and my brothers wedding in November in Mexico. But she's flying out after work tonight and home on Sunday night. Mom wants to make sure I'm properly settled into my new place so I can start enjoying life out here. So she's flying in JUST to help me unpack and organize more. I'm hoping maybe we can sneak in a showing of Iron Man 2 on a break at some point. And how exciting it is that she'll be here on Mothers Day! I hope she likes the goodies I have picked out for her!

Relocation Updates!

2010-03-26T17:21:00.002-04:00

Goodness time flies!!!!

So....on 2/11 I drove my rep car from IL back to Harrisburg, PA. This was my FUN way to break up the long drive back to CT with a visit with my knitting friends in PA. I got to enjoy a leisurely day Friday at yarn-love where in addition to knitting and shopping and visiting I also got the yarn-love facebook page up and running. Friday night was dinner out and a movie (the green zone, I don't recommend it). Saturday was a road trip to visit The Mannings (can't believe I never made it down there while living in the area!) followed by a night in with knitting, a Lost in Austen marathon, and yummy dinner with friends.

Sunday was up and at 'em early to finish the drive to CT. I had an appointment that day to look at some more places with my realtor. I had a full week of meetings planned and appointments with the realtor every day after work. Didn't find any places I liked on Sunday which was dissapointing. However, I did get a couple of interesting phone calls. One from a realtor who showed my house on Saturday and wanted to bring the people BACK to see the house again on Sunday. And one from my realtor wanting information on my HOA and my utility bills. I started to get excited. Around 9pm Sunday night my IL realtor emailed and said he had an offer and to give him a call if I was still up. I of course called immediately. I won't get into the details on the sale except to say....these buyers clearly still believe its a buyers market and didn't respect what a bargain they were already getting! We ran thru 4 rounds of negotations that night and Monday and finally came to agreement Monday afternoon. At that point, the offer goes to my relocation company - I'm not allowed to sign anything or take any money. The home sale stuff dragged on that week as apparently my relocation agent hadn't provided all the right paperwork to my IL realtor, who hasn't done relocations before (I'm assuming that he hasn't...I think my LAST blog mentioned how worthless he's been and how he probably wasn't going to BE my realtor when I got home from this trip - lucky for him we DID get an offer). Anyway....at this point...were still I think trying to get all the right paperwork in. My relocation agent wants to take possession asap, because the buyers inspections are Monday - and if the relocation company has possession at that point then anything that comes up is on them instead of me. But....my realtor was just getting the last of the papers signed today I think..and we're still trying to find out if we can give money, or drop price to handle some house and carpet cleaning the buyers wanted rather than ME needing to do it so relocation actually CAN aquire right away rather than having to wait until I've vacated and THEN we get the cleaning done and confirm to them it was done.

Sellers asked for a 4/15 closing. We got them to 4/30. My plan is to be out by 4/23 on the IL end. I talked to mom about hotel costs, and she said as long as I furminate the kitties before coming home. and THOROUGHLY clean the house once the kitties are out, we can all come stay at home until we start the drive to CT. This will save me lots of money so it makes me very happy!

Okay...back to story in process. Monday night we go see some more houses in CT. And find...THE ONE. I kid you not...its beautiful. Its actually a condo - and 3 years older than me. But its been totally remodeled inside - and really nicely done. It quickly knocked my top 3 off the list entirely and made it difficult for me to say what my 2nd and 3rd choices would be should this one not work out. We had plans to look at the last 5 possibilities Tuesday night, and this place had been on the market for about 35 days at that point. So my realtor let the other realtor know we were interested and would be making a decision later this week. Tuesday night we looked at the last 5 places...and they were NO comparison. My mind was made up! I had plans to go to NJ for the day Wed and thought I'd get back late, so my realtor agreed to pull the comps and we'd talk via email on Wed and decide on the offer and then I'd sign off on Thursday.

Wed I ended up getting back from NJ way earlier than normal. I let my realtor know and we decided to go ahead and write the offer Wed night. The comps came in WAY lower than the asking price...which made me a little nervous. Except they were without basements (mine is finished) and with only 1.5 baths ( I have 2.5 baths). Looking at the pictures they also didn't have NEARLY the updates mine does..and what updates were there weren't nearly as nice. But it was concerning none the less since the comps were between $40-50k less than what the seller was asking. In the end we decided to offer $20k below asking and we asked for his big tv hanging in the living room. This seller was much more reasonable and we settled at $11k under asking. No TV, but I do get a home warranty. Let the excitement begin!

If you haven't peaked at the pics in the sidebar, my photoalbum of the new house is here.

Inspection happened on Tuesday of this week. I was pretty concerned about a few things that popped up, but upon further review and discussion most of them weren't a big deal. Inspector is worried about age of my air conditioner and furnace, and actually thought the furnace may have a cracked heat exchanger. We got a hvac inspector in today and he gave the furance the all clear. And my home warranty will cover a failure of either so I'm not too worried. That said, there's one minor electrical concern along with the attic stairs which the inspector says should be replaced. So we're going to go back and ask for that with the buyer.

Also, I was still a bit concerned about how high even my negotiated price was compared to the comps (even tho it was well under what I was willing to pay). So...I tracked down what the seller paid when he bought the house 3 years ago...and its only about $1500 less than what we agreed on. And that was PRIOR to all the remodeling done...so I can see why he wasn't really willing to go much lower than he did...he has to be losing money on the sale.

Okay..so back to plans... outta the IL house by 4/23. Up to mom's until 4/28. BFF Mandy flies in from Nashville to Chicago that day. Lunch with mom so Mandy can say hello and I can say goodbye. Then Mandy and I head home to mom's to put everyone/thing in the car and de-hair the house (mom's super allergic). The afternoon of 4/28 Mandy and I, and the animals will drive to Fort Wayne, IN. We are staying there that night so we can hit up the annual Vera Bradley Outlet Sale first thing on 4/29. We are SOOOO excited! Don't ask me where we are going to put our purchases...we may be riding on top of vera bags the rest of the drive...but we're so excited. So we'll do that early in the morning and then spend about 8 hours in the car Thursday to get to our next stop in State College, PA. Relocation policy says we have to drive 400 miles per day...with the length of this move that means only 2 nights on the road. Our drive Thursday will be way long compared to Wed or Friday, but because of traveling with pets we are somewhat limited on where we can stop for the night. And since we'll be together it will be great fun! Friday we'll finish our drive, and end up in Southington, CT. I'm hoping we can schedule the walk thru on the CT place for Friday afternoon or Saturday so Mandy gets to see it, because she has to fly out FIRST thing Sunday to get home to her doggies since her DH is headed to California that morning.

Finally, Monday, 5/3 is the closing on the new place! I'll have my air mattress and blanket with me...so the animals and I will plan to check out of the hotel and head "home" after closing. Hopefully my delivery date for the movers is sometime that week...preferably EARLY that week so we're not living on the floor for too long!

So those are the plans....!

Vacation Planning!

2010-03-14T22:07:00.002-04:00

Okay..I promised to talk vacation plans in my last entry!!!!

So later this year the whole family is headed down to Mexico for my baby brothers wedding. And next February, mom and I are cruising the Disney Dream with the WDW Radio Show Podcast Crew (go deck 7!!).

But mom who is a member of Disney Vacation Club had a year's worth of points expiring this October with no plans to use them. So I thought....we've been on the Disney Magic three times, and will be on Dream next year....what about a cruise on the Wonder! Mom agreed...and hence our next Disney trip was born!

We booked for the first 5 night Wonder sailing this summer. The Magic is headed back to the Meditarranian this summer, so instead of its normal 3 and 4 night Bahamas itineraries - the Wonder is doing some special ones. We are due to spend 2 days at Castaway Cay, one day in Nassau, and a day at sea. I can't decide what I'm more excited about - the delicious chicken fingers up on deck 9 or eating at Tritons and getting my picture taken next to Ariel out in front of Tritons.

As we started planning, it occured to me, that if we did the Disney Give a Day, Get a Disney Day promo that we'd earn a park ticket and get into one of the parks as well. This not only was something that made us feel good, but also, helped us maintain the low cost vacation we were looking for.

Then plans expanded...one of mom's best friends also needed to use some DVC points, and hadn't been on the Disney Cruise Line yet, and we invited her to join us.

So...here are the plans so far:

Saturday, May 29

Fly to Orlando
Check into our studio at Bay Lake Tower (bay view rather than Magic Kingdom but we are still excited!)
Spend the afternoon shopping at Downtown Disney (Tren-D here I come!)
Dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe (never been!)
Watching Wishes from Top of the World Lounge

Sunday, May 30

Breakfast at Chef Mickey's
Travel to Port Canaveral and board the Wonder!

Monday, May 31 thru Friday, June 4

Cruising - planning to stay on ship in Nassau..and do lots of relaxing by the pool. Will hit up Serenity Beach on Castaway Cay and rent bikes there one of our days too. Also have dinner, brunch, and tea booked at Palo.

Friday, June 4

Disembark the Wonder and head to the Boardwalk Villas
Head over to Magic Kingdom (its open until 2am so we decided to spend 2 days in the park instead of just one).
Dinner at Ohana (I'm still having my obsession with pot stickers and can't wait to try the Ohana version).

Saturday, June 5

Head to Epcot for the day
Dinner at LeCellier (never been here before either!).

Sunday, June 6

Head home (I'm sure I'll be sad to leave, but happy to get back home to my furbabies who will still be adjusting to our new home in CT when I have to head out on this trip!)

So...thats the next vacation in a nutshell!

Quick update

2010-03-08T10:46:00.003-05:00

I'm behind in my posting again!!!!

A quick update for those wondering.... At this point I'm still living in Illinois and traveling back and forth between here and Connecticut. My CT have been more once a month this year due to weather, and other meetings. My last trip I had to DRIVE home thanks to the crazy snow storms in the Northeast in mid February. Not really looking forward to having to drive back - except of course that I'm planning the drive back to stop and PA and see my friends there for a few days! Haven't been there since June so I'm really looking forward to that!

I have so far had one househunting day in CT. I'm really not happy with the quality of the single family homes in my price range - so I'm probably looking at condos. Sadly, most of the condos in my price range are way smaller than what I have..and without garages. Which means getting rid of a bunch of stuff or renting a storage space. And in some cases both...I may not be able to use my washer dryer in CT..and I really don't want to sell them...but without a garage to store them I won't have much choice. Anyway, from my previous trip there are two strong possiblities for condos there...and next week I'm in town all week and have most nights planned with my realtor to look. Plus now that I have my buyout offer/date in Illinois - I feel confident making an offer on something in CT next week.

On the Illinois end things aren't going as well. The house was listed for sale Jan 25. We listed it higher than what I was expecting us to, based on the comps - though it was still less than what I paid. In the first 3 weeks I had about 11 showings. Since then...nothing. I realize of course that the market is not good right now. However, since I moved in about 18 months ago...there have been 4 or 5 houses on my street go on the market and all have sold within 1-2 weeks. So okay, you are thinking...things msut be worse now right? Thats what I thought. Until my next door neighbor, with EXACTLY the same house, put his house on the market 2 weeks ago - for $1000 less than me. AND SOLD IN A WEEK! My realtor hasn't said two words to me about it. Nor has he dropped off the new fliers with my now lowered price that he promised to drop off 2 weeks ago. And I'm realizing he pretty much hasn't lived up to ANY of the promises he made during our initial meeting which is why I went with him...so....I think the relocation company will be exercising our "non-performance" clause to get rid of him. Unfortunately I'm headed out of town Wed for 10 days....and in meetings all week the week after that...so not sure when we'll be able to get me relisted with someone else. Also, my buyout price SUCKS. To come up with the buyout we get two appraisals to estimate what the house will sell at and average the two. My two appraisals came in more than 5% apart so they had to order a third. Turns out...one of them SCREWED me. The first and third appraisal are within $2000 of each other and close to my current list price. The second appraisal...nearly $20,000 less. And they average all THREE to come up with the buyout price...so that took my average way down. Now before you get too upset for me....Its still within our loss protection guidelines...so I'll get back what I paid eventually. But it makes the transactions more complicated because its less than what I currently OWE on the house. And it takes some time to get the loss protection check which means I need to have the cash to close on the new house on hand. Fortunately I do..but it will wipe out my savings until that loss protection check comes. Hopefully I don't have to spend a lot of money on stuff for the new house. Anyway, I get to accept my buyout at the end of April if I so choose. So hopefully by end of April / early May I'll be headed out to CT full time.

Thats it for now folks....will try and come back later this week and post about something fun...like my upcoming trip to WDW and the Disney Wonder!

Finished Deck PIctures

2009-12-30T16:24:00.000-05:00

As I sit here staring out at the white snowy mess behind my house, I'm reminded again that I never posted my FINISHED deck pics. Oh how I wish it was warm and pretty out like in these pics!

BEFORE:

IN PROCESS:

FINISHED:

2009 In Review and a Look ahead to 2010.

2009-12-29T18:13:00.003-05:00

What a year I faced this year...

March 6 is when I found out I was going on layoff.

March 20 was my last day before burning my three weeks of vacation.

March 26 I headed to Nashville where my BFF Mandy and her husband took good care of a super depressed me.

April 9 is when I found out I was going back in temporarily to cover someone's maternity leave.

April 13 is when I started temp assignment.

May 19 was when I finished my MBA.

May 29 was my official last day before layoff.

June 1 I filed for unemployment.

The month of June saw me refinish the deck, clean out the garage, painting the kitchen, knitting furiously on Decimal for The Alpaca Yarn Co (wonder what ever happened to that....... )

June 24 I headed off to Pennsylvania for a reunion with all my dear friends there.

July 9 I started teaching the first of what has now become several knitting classes.

July 20 I found out that I was being brought in to interview for a couple of jobs I applied for at my company that were in the local area.

July 28 I found out that my old counterpart in Hartford, CT had quit the company. And my old boss called to see if I was interested in coming back to work for him to fill that spot.

August 12 I interviewed for the local jobs, and got a call to post for the Hartford job.

August 14 I headed off to California for the first time since moving away, for BFF Michelle's bachelorette/bridal shower weekend.

August 20 I interviewed for Hartford job, and got offers for both the Hartford job, and two of the local jobs. After much deliberation that day, I accepted the Hartford job.

August 31 I went back to work!

September 1 I was on a plane out to Hartford to start the new job.

September 15 I was on a plane to Seattle for BFF Michelle's wedding. This was also my first trip back to Seattle since leaving the West Coast.

The rest of September thru year end has pretty much been a blur since I spend every other week in Hartford doing the new job.

December 23 I received the first notification from the relocation company to start working on my relocation from Illinois to Connecticut.

Things I learned this year:
-Be prepared for anything, no job is safe, do everything you can to make yourself indespensible
-SAVE SAVE SAVE money! I can live without the finer things in life if it means being able to feed myself and my animals.
-Who my real friends are, the ones that stood by me and supported me thru a very difficult time in my life. Many people were uncomfortable at how to deal with me upon finding out I was out of work. The ones who were just there to listen and not tell me how this was a sign that I was meant to do something else.
-Did I mention save save save?
-Knit from stash, don't add to it! I'm only buying yarn that has a specific project need (for someone else) that I can't fulfill from my stash. Any other knitting I do will need to be from stash. Sadly this probably also means not visiting many yarn shops this year aside from stitch night. Fortunately, many of the local stitch and bitch groups around Hartford meet at local coffee spots rather than LYS's so I won't be tempted!

Going into 2010 will be a strange year. I'm still super worried about money. I burned through my savings JUST in time for me to go back to work. Because of things I'd put off spending money on while unemployed I haven't built them back up. I must also admit my debt level is far too high for my preference. The good thing is, it didn't go up much this year, just didn't go down. As I head into my relocation I know I won't be making much money on my house, and buying a much more expensive one. But its critical I work at spending less and getting out of debt.

Contrary to what it might sound like based on the last paragraph, 2010 will also show some travel for me. Mom and I are talking about taking a trip on the Disney Wonder sometime to use up her DVC points, and say we've been on the Wonder before since we've been on the Magic 3 times, and will be on the Dream in 2011 (got a FANTASTIC deal on a 4 night cruise with the WDW Radio Show group). More exciting than that, in November 2010 the whole family is heading down to Mexico for my baby brothers wedding. Originally mom and I had hoped to get to Walt Disney World to see the 2010 Christmas decorations, but between my concerns about money, and the cost of the trips planned in 2010 and 2011 this probably just won't happen this year. Perhaps in December of 2011.

Oh..and maybe I'll try to stay a little better at this blogging thing in 2010.... :)

How would you sum up 2009?

And Happy New Year to you!

Christmas Goodies

2009-12-27T11:00:00.003-05:00

Before this goes into a indulgent post where I gloat over all my goodies...I must say...for me a big part of Christmas is the fun of getting other people JUST the right gift.

My brother, sister and I all went in together on a Kindle for mom this year. Mom knew..and after MONTHS of research and debate finally decided on the Kindle versus the Nook. I've NEVER seen her so excited about a gift we got her...and we've gotten her some pretty awesome stuff in recent years. Not only did she play with it for 2 hours after present opening on Christmas Eve, but she got up early when I did on Christmas morning to ask me more questions (I already have a Kindle) before I left for my dad's house.

I also think I did really well with my dad and stepmom this year. I made a hat for my stepmom this year, the Star Crossed Slouchy Beret, using less than a full skein of Berroco Lustra. She put it on right away when she opened it and kept it on for the next hour or so til she was too hot.

For dad I made a simple scarf. I cast on a multiple of 4 stitches and do a Knit 3, Purl 1 repeat across every row. Creates kind of a garter rib stitch pattern. I used Mission Falls superwash wool, in the worsted weight. I double stranded black with dark grey. I figured it would be warm, but washable, in case he wanted to use it up in Eagle River, WI when he's up there. But figured the colors were also dressy enough to go with his nice black overcoat.

Now onto ME! Here's some of my Christmas haul this year...

From Dad and Stepmom I received a Tiffany Somerset bracelet and matching earrings. I'm told Dad went shopping and picked these out himself, I'm highly impressed! They are quite lovely.

Mom got several Disney related things off my list, including Luxury Guide to Walt Disney World, a Mickey Mouse hoodie, The Little Mermaid - Oceans of Love for You Precious Moment, and the book about bringing the Little Mermaid to broadway.

I also got...a SECOND Disney cross stitch from my mom's best friend and her husband. For my birthday they gave me "Past, Present, Forever". Now for Christmas I got "Puppy Love". I'm soooooo excited..not only for more Disney stitching..but because Puppy Love is a little SMALLER than Past, Present, Forever...which is HUMONGEOUS! I had no idea how big either of them were when I first saw them..but wow...they are BIG projects. I've been working on Past, Present, Forever off and on for a month (when I'm actually HOME since its too bit to travel with) and have about 3 by 4 inches done so far. The suggested frame size is 18 by 24 inches. So you get the magnitude of the project I'm working on!

Anyway, that was a sampling of my Christmas goodies...what about everyone else?

Does GPS go bad?????

2009-12-03T18:00:00.002-05:00

So....as all my readers probably know...I drive a lot for work...like... a LOT. I think back to my early years as a rep (pre-GPS) and wonder how I'm still alive today sometimes. I mean...the number of times I was looking at printed directions or a map while driving.... I get chills when I think about it now!

3 or 4 years ago I decided I wanted GPS finally. I asked for Christmas, but Santa didn't grant my wish that year. Someone in my office mentioned that for about $100 I could buy a software program for my laptop, that came with a little USB GPS adapter. When working, it would allow my laptop to give me turn by turn directions. I liked how affordable this option was and jumped at it. And it worked okay most of the time. But occasionally the GPS would lose signal, or the computer would lose it, and it would take a while and some rebooting to get it working. Not exactly convenient or safe while driving. I'd had a few incidents that were frustrating but not critical. Then one day when driving between Philly and Baltimore it cut out at a critical part of my drive..and got me seriously seriously lost. I decided that was it. I got home that night and promptly logged onto Newegg.com and ordered my beloved Garmin c340. It was the same model the others in the office had been getting in recent months, and the cheapest Garmin you could buy that would actually tell you the name of the street rather than just saying to turn in so many feet.

Thus began my LOVE of the GPS. If you've been in my car you've probably noticed its on most of the time. Not only does it help me find my way to locations I've not been to before, but I also like it when going places I have been - as it predicts arrival time. This means I know if I have time for that extra bathroom break or starbucks stop. And allows me to let the person I'm meeting know if I'm going to be late due to traffic issues.

Now...for around the past 12 months or so I'd been getting the friendly reminder from my Garmin periodically that my maps needed to be updated. At the time I wasn't doing my driving job, and didn't feel like I really needed to fork over the $$ for the map updates. But when I went back to work, and to a job that was going to require LOTS of driving to new places, I got my update and applied it the Garmin. I decided the Garmin would live in the car in Hartford permanently since its not like I really need it in the car in Ilinois, and if I did, we could just take mom's care that now has GPS. Plus I've got the iPhone when in a pinch.

So now to my question....Does GPS go bad??? I've noticed since applying my map update ... some funny things happening on my Garmin. For instance, its stopped showing me bodies of water or parks for the most part. There used to be blue spots for water and green spots for parks. Pretty much don't see those anymore, even when driving across rather large rivers. It did pick up the water between CT and Long Island the day I took the ferry down to the island..but that was the first time its shown me a body of water since my update.

Its also giving me odd directions. For instance, yesterday I stopped at starbucks in Farmington, CT. I knew that I typically pulled out of the parking lot and turned left to easily get back on I-84 - I've done it several times. Yesterday my trusty Garmin was telling me to turn right. I didn't look at the follow up directions and just assumed for my ultimate destination garmin was taking me on a more direct route. Turns out, it was taking me 1 mile down the road to turn around and go back, passing starbucks, and get on the interstate where I normally did. Basically taking me out of my way by 2 miles altogether for no reason. I've seen several instances like this over the past few months.

Another problem....today I'm heading to a new place. I'm going to get on I-84, and I know I am going to want CT 9 eventually. As I'm approaching the I-84 exit, I see a sign on the sign of the road that says "To CT 9" and has an arrow, but my GPS is telling me to go straight onto I-84. I follow the GPS, and then it tells me to take the exit to CT 9. Problem is....the onramp doesn't actually end before the exit ramp to CT 9. And the on ramp is coming in on the left while the exit is on the right. There's no way to MAKE the exit its telling me to make. Again...I've had several instances like this of late.

So now I'm thinking...something has just gone terribly terribly wrong with my GPS. I'm wondering if they have a short lifespan and its just time for me to get a new one. I suppose thats not a horrible thing as prices have come down dramatically from when I first got my Garmin...but it still seems weird. I remember a news story a while ago about satellites starting to fail, with no places to replace them so directions might get slightly less accurate...but I don't see why that would make the GPS send me on the wrong roads or in the wrong directions on a road just to make me back track.....

Observations from traveling the monday after thanksgiving

2009-11-30T19:18:00.003-05:00

Well...maybe they aren't necessarily related to that...but years ago I promised myself I'd never fly the Monday after thanksgiving again...it was the year that my friend Mandy and I had spent the previous week on a cruise in Hawaii. We flew from Hawaii back to LAX on a red eye Sunday night on United. Landed around 5am I think on Monday. I had a 7:30am flight from LAX to Oakland then on Southwest. I claimed my bags from United, hugged Mandy goodbye, and wandered off to find Southwest Check in. For those of you who know LAX, if member serves its kind of a big U shape, United is at one end of the U and Southwest at the other. I didn't know this at the time, or I would have just walked through parking lot to get to southwest. Instead, I dragged my heavy bags (pre-samsonite spinners days) ALL the way around the U. When I arrived at Southwest, the line was so long it stretched not only through the inside, but outside, and down past the next airlines's terminal. And this was the SECURITY checkline..... I remember a long check in line too... but nothing like the crazy security line. I remember local news was there reporting on the craziness of all the holiday travelers trying to go home. I promised myself that day I'd never fly the Monday after thanksgiving again...

Flash forward...whats probably 5 or 6 years to today. I live in IL for now, so I didn't have to travel to spend the holiday with my family. I did however, need to be in Hartford this week for work....and my regular travel schedule for work is the 6am ish flight out of Bloomington on Mondays (usually getting to Hartford between 12-1pm depending on my airline that day) and traveling back on Fridays (now always leaving at 5:55am going through Atlanta and getting home by noon). So not only did I have to fly today, but I was a rare business traveler in airports full of leisure travlers.

I arrived at Bloomington at 5am, my usual arrival time for my 5:45am departure (small 8 gate airport, easy to arrive late usually). The security line was the longest I'd ever seen for that airport. That said, one smart thing I saw was that the airport had both baggage screeners running, rather than the typical one. That said, the mens basketball team from Norfolk State University was in front of me in line. And one of their players didn't have any ID for some reason (and for some reason didn't seem to think he needed it) and that held up the line considerably.

By the time I arrived at my gate the plane was already starting to board, a first for me. As she called zone's 1 and 2 the mens basketball team lined up...they were on my flight to ATL. She looked at all of them in pity and kept calling for others to give up their exit row and bulkhead seats so the players could stretch their legs. She spent so much time chatting with the guys trying to find them other seats, that she somehow failed to account for 7 other passengers who boarded the plane. Ever been on a plane when they come on and call out someone's name and ask them to ring their flight attendent call button? Thats them checking to see if you got on the plane and somehow they just missed you. Yes, our gate agent this morning was spending so much time chatting with the ball players...she missed 7. Wonder if people could have boarded without a valid ticket and she'd even have noticed?

Finally get on the plane and the two flight attendents prompty start talking about how bad they feel for all the ball players stuck in the tiny seats. Then they go to do their safety checks, which take forever, and come back up front to gossip. Apparently the Norfolk State Men's basketball team don't like to follow instructions. Based on the gossip I overheard from the flight attendants, no one wanted to turn off their phones, didn't understnad what electronic devices were, didn't want to put their seat belts on, didn't want to stow their bags, you name it, they didn't do it. The flight attendants discussion quickly went from pitying the "poor dears" to wishing they'd never boarded the plane. I can sympathize with their frustrations of course....but I'm pretty sure everyone in the first 5 rows could hear every word...not exactly putting them in a positive light.

Get to Atlanta early (I've decided they are building lots of cushion into flight times these days so that even if you take off late you might arrive early because this seems to be happening a lot). Head from terminal C to terminal B (one of these days I'll have both flights in the same terminal...right????). Score...starbucks is RIGHT next to my gate. I'm in line at Starbucks and hear a voice I recognize behind me, but can't place. Turn around briefly...and its a Real World Brooklyn castmate (couldn't remember his name all day, but just googled it and it was Chet - and just to confirm, his twitter does talk about flying home today so I'm sure it definitely was him. After starbucks he headed to the gate next to mine - headed towards NYC - and his twitter mentions traveling home to NYC this morning).

Anyway, we're late boarding the flight to Hartford, and once they start it seems to be taking FOREVER. I'm zone 4 this time, and of course worried there's no overhead room left. Finally get most of the way down the jet bridge and see what the hold up is...they are forcing us to gate check our bags. Now mind you...I don't mind gate checking..I'm a big fan of the planeside valet. However...I like getting my bags BACK plane side. With the forced gate check, you have to claim them at baggage (You'll see why this is a problem soon). Get to my seat...and happy happy joy joy...its a middle seat for the 2.5 hour Hartford flight...okay....2 hour...those padded schedules again! Dude on the left not only hogged the arm rest the entire flight, but somehow managed to spill his arms into MY space the entire time too. Take off took forever...I got nearly 70 pages into "The Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World" book that Michelle sent for my birthday. Finally take off, and I break out the laptop to do some much needed work. But of course, dude in front of me wanted to recline is seat. Anyone notice how hard it is to use a laptop on a plane this day. If the person in front of you reclines, there's just not enough room. At least not if you actually want to TYPE anything on your laptop. Gave up on this after just 15 minutes and switched to knitting. Thank goodness I learned how to do that continental style which requires less movement since I couldn't move thanks to mister seat hog on the left.

We land in hartford only about 15 minutes late despite the long taxi time on the ground in ATL. Now I'm off to baggage claim, where I kid you not, it takes 30 minutes to get our bags. Now I get that the Hartford airport is a bit bigger than Bloomington. But its not THAT big. And I've never seen a baggage claim so crowded. I was sure I'd miss my bag because of how everyone was pushing and shoving to get in front to see if their bag was coming. Finally claim my bag and then have to call the parking shuttle.... the place I park at advertising being 5 minutes away from the airport. They have at least 4 shuttles, and are usually running 2 at a time...so explain to me if you can, why it takes 20 minutes or more every time I call?

So that was my day...long...long day. Up early...brain fried (so much I locked myself out of my hotel room within 10 minutes of getting checked in). But I've been wanting to get better about my blogging again...and I figured today's tale would fill up a blog nicely!

Oh..and yes....this really is my home away from home...even though I haven't been here in 2 weeks was greated by name at check in again...and they loaned me an umbrella (which I also forgot when leaving my room) when they ran me a new key to get back into my room.

How did you??????

2009-11-24T10:06:00.002-05:00

So during my last week in Hartford I finally had dinner with my new (old) boss. Its the first time I've seen him since he was in IL traveling for work back in like February. He asked me an interesting question at dinner "How did you keep yourself busy while on layoff". He went on right away to say that he knew how much I needed to keep myself busy, and talked about his struggles when he was just on his rolling lay off weeks. See, my boss, does NOT know the meaning of work life balance. He said that the first couple of weeks he was on rolling layoff he went home to Brazil, so that was easy, but his second two weeks were at home. He did some honey do activities the first couple of days into that first week..but after that he was going crazy not being able to look at his laptop or blackberry. Mind you, my boss normally DOES check his blackberry from the beach, in fact, he's been emailing me from his vacation THIS week. I answered, which I'll share below, but we came to the conclusion that he really need some hobbies before he retired or else he'd drive himself (and I think his wife) crazy in his retirement!

So...what did I do on my layoff this summer....

Stuff around the house:
-Refinishing the deck
-Painting the kitchen
-Cleaning out the garage
-Cleaning out / organizing the basement
-Organizing (as best as one can) the craft room

Crafty stuff:
-Taught 2 sock classes and a sweater class (therefore also knitting 2 pairs of socks and sweater along with students)
-Knit the Decimal sweater from knitty as a sample for a friend to use at this year's TNNA trade show (wonder when I'm getting that back???)
-Knit a shawl for BFF's wedding in Seattle
-Cast on a handful of other projects still in process
-Photographed lots of my stash to update Ravelry
-Photographed and loaded several of mom's knitted items to our Etsy store
-Brought out the sewing machine and made Elphaba several new harnesses in an effort to perfect my design and possible sell some on our Etsy store

Travel:
-Lots of weekends in Naperville with mom
-Trip to Nashville to stay with one BFF and hubby
-Trip to PA to visit all my dear friends there
-Trip to CA for other BFF's bridal shower/bachelorette weekend (thanks dad for the plane ticket!)
-Trip to WA for BFF's wedding (guess technically I was working again by then but it was on a rolling layoff week!)

Misc:
-Watched the entire series of the West Wing from start to finish (thanks to Bravo reruns)
-Watched the entire series of Las Vegas from start to finish (thanks to TNT reruns)
-Started watching entire ER series again (this one is still ongoing since it only airs once a day unlike the other two that aired 2-3 times a day, also thanks to TNT reruns)
-Caught up on misc premium cable shows thanks to netflix instant watch on my tivo
-Walking and bike riding, 1 1/2 hours or so a day

So in general, I found LOTS of things to do to keep myself busy. In fact, if I didn't work, and didn't have to worry about money, then I think I would enjoy my time immensly without a job. The problem is the money. Despite what it might sound like, my fears about money and how long it would last me kept me from doing much. I agonized over going to see a movie or stopping at the redbox even to pick up a $1 DVD rental. I was horrified when I needed to replace all four tires on the CR-V and how that cost more than a single car payment.

Back again...

2009-11-20T11:05:00.003-05:00

Well 2009 has turned out to be a strange and interesting year for me.

Looks like the last time I posted was in June, mid-deck refinishing...will have to dig up some "finished" pics to show off in a future post. But it looks amazing, and Elphaba and I have enjoyed spending time on the deck knitting, reading, eating, and just enjoying the summer weather.

Other summer projects included painting the kitchen finally to match the rest of my house, cleaning out the garage, cleaning out the basement, lots of knitting, a little sewing, loading up stuff on our etsy store (Like Mother Like Daughter), and spending a GREAT deal of time outside walking. Our average daily walk is between 4 and 5 miles. I also started teaching some knitting classes at my LYS, Village Stitches. I've taught 2 sock classes, both DPN and magic loop, and a tulip sweater class. Just started another sock class last night. Jennifer, the owner, has been great about working around my crazy schedule.... speaking of which....

So I spent the summer posting for jobs. I knew I could get to around October on my savings, before having to go to my dad for some help. In mid-late July I got a call that I was being brought in to interview for a job in as different part of my company than I'd ever been in before. Apparently they had 3 open jobs and were only interviewing like 4 people, so my odds were pretty good. He said it might be a few weeks before I actually got the call and got to come in, but that the call was coming. Fast forward another couple of weeks, and I woke up one morning to several calls that the person who did my OLD job, but based in our Hartford, CT office, had left the company. Within a few hours of my phone ringing, my old boss from PA (who also covered the Hartford office) was calling to see if I was interested. I told him I was, but remained skeptical that anything would materialize. More time passes, finally get interview for job number 1 set up. Don't hear anything back on job number 2. Go in for my interview on job 1, nail it. Get out to the car to a call from my old boss that job number 2 has been posted and to go apply for it. From there...everything happened pretty quickly. I got offers for 3 jobs total (2 from job 1, and 1 from job 2). In what is somewhat rare in my company, I got advance warning that multiple offers were coming, allowing me to actually CHOOSE what job I wanted to go back to work in after my summer being laid off. Job(s) number 1 would have meant staying in IL, but changing my career path and lots of uncertainty. Job number 2 means leaving IL to relocate to CT, but doing a job I have loads of experience with, working with people I love, and having a boss I know will be looking out for me. I wasn't prepared to be leaving home again so quickly so it really was a hard decision, but after some long talks with some of my old bosses and my parents, I decided to go with job number 2.

So, I went back to work on Aug 31. Immediately the next day I was on an airplane out to CT for the week. Things have been a whirlwind since then. The company is still being very conservative spending wise, so we haven't started the relocation process yet. Which means since I went back to work I've been spending half my time in CT and half my time in IL. The nice thing is my boss is cool with me working from home on the weeks I'm in IL. I do go into the office occasionally, but most of the week I stay home because it saves me on the time, gas money, daycare money, and I get to see my animals. The travel is getting a little tiring, but I'm building up those frequent flier miles again, along with hotel reward points, so its not all bad. Plus, we don't normally get to spend much time in the areas we move to before moving, so its allowed me to do some research on where I might want to live, and I think I've narrowed my preference down to West Hartford.

Anyway, so life is good. Still worried about money, since my savings are basically gone and I need to buy another house next year when I move, but I've also gotten smarter about where/how I spend my money after my experience this summer so that helps put things in persepective for me.

Thats about it for now...really will try to get better at this regular posting.... :)

Deck refinishing....

2009-06-09T17:23:00.003-04:00

So.....when I moved into my house I had a beautiful deck out back - compete with a gate so Miss E could enjoy the deck with me and I wouldn't worry about her running off. Only ONE small problem with my beautiful deck...the hideous red stain. In itself the red might not have been so awful (other then why on earth they would have chosen red is completely beyond me)...but it also was in desperate need of refinishing. The stain was peeling in many places. So....the first on my to do list of activities during layoff....refinish the deck!

To set the mood...here is a before picture.

So last week...can't remember which day...I set to work. First I got out my power sander and started sanding away some of the obvious peels. Then I headed to home depot to get paint and stain stripper. Since then I've been working 2-4 hours per day painting on the stripper, wetting everything down, and scraping it with a wire brush. Good times for sure! Slowly but surely though I'm starting to make progress. And despite how bad the stained deck looked, the wood underneath is in near perfect condition still!

Here's the same point of view as above, missing stain:

I think I have one more day of stripping to finish it up. Not sure when that will be since I think its going to rain the rest of this week and I'm going to head up to mom's this weekend. Once that is finally done then I'll clean the entire thing and decide on how I want to complete the project. Ideally, I'd just put sealer on it and let it stay natural. Unfortunately, there are some spots that I just can't seem to get all the red off of. Which leads me to believe another solid stain will be necessary (though at least I could pic a more neutral color than RED). Though I'm hopeful that if I do a good enough job with the red maybe I could do a semi transparent. Did you guys know how many options there are to choose from? Check this out:

And some additional progress pictures for you all:

Long overdue...

2009-06-02T19:31:00.002-04:00

Well I've been a horrible blogger these days! Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Plurk make it so easy to post little updates that it seems I abandoned my blog.

For my readers who haven't seen/heard already....I'm unemployed as of Monday. I was notified on March 6 that I was being affected by the first round of layoffs for my division of the company. March 20 was my last day. They were generous and let us take our vacation, so the next three weeks I was on "vacation". My last day of vacation I received a call, someone doing my old job had just had a baby, and they wanted me to come in and cover her maternity leave. Fortunately for me, she covered the local area, so it was an ideal situation to prolong my layoff. As everyone around me expressed their hopes that she would not return from maternity leave after all, I was just grateful to have a job for a bit longer and an opportunity to put a little more money away. My savings have been .... well....tiny...since moving because I wanted to be able to put more into my house than I did on the first one. Between that and buying stuff for said house...I just haven't really built back up any kind of emergency fund. Anyway....on May 26 the girl came back to work. My temporary boss got permission for me to work through Friday, but May 29 was my last day.

Yesterday marked a milestone I had hoped never to have to see when I hired on with my company - my first trip to the unemployment office. People often ask how/why I ended up where I work.....I saw my mom get laid off from too many jobs and liked the idea of how special my training program at work was, how much money the company was going to invest in my development, and the level of (now false) security it gave me. This same sense of false security also probably kept me from cutting back on things last fall when business started to turn south...because I honestly never in a million years imagined I'd be included in the group of people that were laid off. The only solace I have, is that everyone else I've talked to both within my company and at the companies I worked with, is just as shocked and horrified that the company would waste my talents. Unfortuantely...that doesn't pay the bills. So anyway.....

I got up bright and early to be at the unemployment office when the opened. I remembered horrendous lines back when my mom went when I was in high school. Unfortunately for me, although the state of Illinois lets you file online in most cases, because I lived in two states in the past 2 years, I had to go file in person so I could fill out some extra paperwork. I looked up the address for the local IDES office, checked it on the map, and hopped in the car. I circled the block it was supposedly on four times with no luck. At that point I started trying to actually look at the building numbers..and there were NO numbers even close to the address I was looking for. I dug out the GPS (in a bag in the backseat since my St. Louis trip the previous week) and plugged it in. It sent me directions to a TOTALLY different place. Drove up and down the street four times there....building numbers were impossible to read on any of the buildings. Finally I noticed a rather cryptic sign on one of the buildings and upon looking closer it turned out that was the right place (I then heard two different people inside talk about how impossible it was to find the place so I felt a little better). I headed towards the "start here" sign and looked at all the forms. One bunch said "worked in multiple states" with smaller print saying if you'd worked in 2 or more states in the last 18 months (yup..not the 2 years I saw online) to fill out those special forms. I sat down...and didn't have a CLUE how to fill out the top, multistate form. From what I could tell this was how Illinois was going to get Pennsylvania to help pay my benefits since I was there thru July of last year. I filled out all the paperwork to the best of my ability and then got in what was already a growing line...with only ONE person working. As I was next in line, someone came over to see if any of us had any quick questions to ask. I indicated I was filing a new claim, but wasn't sure about the out of state paperwork. She indicated a couple of things on the form I needed to fill out and moved on. I unfortunately had to get OUT of line, make the corrections, and get back in...now 5 people back again. Finally my time came and I got up to the counter. The man put my social security number into his computer, and said that because of how high my Illinois wages are, we don't need to worry about the multistate paperwork, and tore the paper up and tossed it. So glad I spent all the time on that one..... Anyway....it was less than 4 minutes at the counter and I was done. I get the maximum benefit for the state...not that its much. Little things one doesn't know (or maybe people but me know?)...unemployment in Illinois is no more than 47% of your previous income..but there's a cap..and sadly I'm WAY above that cap...so in my case..its like 21% of my previous income. OUCH. When I add up my necessary expenses (and I've already cut out a ton of the fat since March) there still is a gap in my income versus outgoing expenses about equal to my mortgage payment. Lucky me. Thanks to the extra few weeks working..I think I should be able to get through 4-5 months using my savings to subsidize the difference. Now my goal is to find a job..and sooner rather than later.

This brings me to a challenging situation. I know I'll get a call back from my company. I'm on what they call "temporary indefinite layoff". Meaning they can't say when I'll get called back, but I will. In the meantime, I can look for and apply for other jobs within the company - which I am doing. But there is no guarantee on when I'll go back. My company is trying to help a little (health insurance and a SMALL amount of supplemental unemployment for 12 months) but the gap between my income and expenses is still to high to wait. Of course, this has to happen when the economy is in the tank and unemployment in Illinois is over 9%. Fortunately I finished my MBA a couple of weeks back - so I'm hoping that helps...but jobs where I live are especially slim. If I don't go back to my company, I'd probably most prefer to move back home. So I'm applying for stuff up there. Unfortunately I'm not getting any bites..possible because of my address which is not local. So I may start using my mom's address on my applications for jobs up there. If I got a job up there, I'd probably be living at mom's for the foreseeable future anyway. With the economy the way it is, it doesn't really make sense to sell my house. I'd probably lose a boatload of money. Plus, I figure until I know for SURE I don't WANT to go back to my company...its better to hang onto the house. Then if I go back I don't have to start over buying something down here.

In the meantime...I'm working on my short term plans...but I've blogged enough for tonight. So...I'll leave you with that..and post again tomorrow or the next day about my plans. You know...since I have all this extra non-work, non-school free time.

But my parting thought....if you don't have one yet...PUT TOGETHER YOUR EMERGENCY FUND! This experience has taught me that it could happen to ANYONE..and anyone who doesn't think so is a fool.

Starting hanging stuff on the walls!

2009-01-02T13:52:00.001-05:00

Well I've been a busy girl this week....

2009-01-01T20:06:00.003-05:00

I decided to tackle some of the decorating around the house since I'm off both work and school this week.

Basement Before: (Before you ask - the before pics are from the previous owners taken when I was househunting).

Basement Now:

Tomorrow I'll start hanging the assorted Disney artwork I've purhased to turn this into my Disney themed basement. The paint colors are both from Disney's Behr paint collection. The black is "Cinema Star" and the grey is "Mickey's Shadow". I've got a black slipcover for the sofa, a gigantic black beanbag, with plans for a red one as well, Disney pillows for the couch, and whatever else I can come up with without going over the top. The nice thing about using the black and grey as the paint colors - it will be SUPER easy to restage this into a more elegant look when the time comes to move again.

In addition to the basement itself, I've been working on the basement powder room.
Before:

After:

This paint color is "Ariel's Song" also from the Behr Disney line. The towel and trash can I got at Meijer this week at 30% off. Glad I didn't buy it 2 months ago when mom and I first spotted it! I do have some Little Mermaid art that would work in here, but I am going to do a little more searching. I think I saw some paintings on Disney.com that would be perfect!

So..tomorrow will be straightening up down there, hanging stuff on the walls, and then perhaps enjoying my new room! Hopefully my bonus is a nice one this spring and then I can get a nice big tv to fill up that giant entertainment area in the wall (doesn't my little tv look funny there?). The only question is...with the rest of my days off before going back to work Monday, and school Wednesday..will I attempt my bedroom or finish the kitchen? I'm kinda tired of painting at the moment...but both desperately need it. Not to mention the main floor powder room I still haven't gotten around too.....

Been a while since a rant....

2008-11-24T09:58:00.001-05:00

So a co-worker told me there was an underage drinking bust at an off campus home by my alma mater this weekend. I went online to find a story, and generally enraged by some of the comments that followed. For anyone who really wants to read the story you can go here.

I didn't think about this when I decided to live in Normal rather than Peoria upon moving back here...but its another reason I'm glad I did. I dealt with this crap for years and its quite frustrating. There's a general attituide around Peoria that Bradley kids are spoiled rotten rich brats. Though I'm sure there are SOME who are, this is NOT the bulk of the campus. When I was at Bradley from 1995-1999 over 80% of students received some sort of financial aid. And personally for me, the scholarships and grants I received through Bradley, in addition to my federal stafford loan, made if FAR less expensive than any other school I looked at. I'm not saying some of those spoiled rich kids aren't probably there - I'm sure they are. But most of my friends were there on financial aid packages like me, not to mention working during school as I did. I don't understand what caused this stereotype to develop in the first place, but its infuriating it gets brought up in comment to an article about Bradley kids getting busted at a big party.

Vacation Pics

2008-10-04T13:46:00.001-04:00

First round of vacation pics now on flickr.

Disney World Update

2008-09-29T13:55:00.000-04:00

Hello blog land!

I promised princess Di a vacation blog and have not delivered. My free internet is up in a few hours as we transfer from the Disney Beach Club Villas to the Disney Magic so I thought I’d try to get something out now while I had more time!

Friday (Sept 19) I ended up taking the day off work because of the flooding which had closed my parking lot. There was another lot WAY across town (and the river) I COULD have taken…but I’d done that Thursday and decided since I was planning a half day anyway that Friday I’d just take the whole day. Elphaba and I cuddled, I ran some errands, and then by 1pm we were off to Naperville. We spend some time with mom and then I had to take her to the PetsHotel at Petsmart. None of the toys I brought for her were allowable (no internal squeakers allowed, which no one had TOLD me ahead of time), so mom and I did some looking around and picked up a few goodies and said our goodbyes. Miss E was signed up to be in doggie day camp every day from 9am-5pm, and everyone seemed to adore her (of course) and said she’d get lots of cuddle time.

Saturday we were up early as the limo was coming at 7am. We had an uneventful flight down and were at the Beach Club Villas by 3pm. Magical Express was a little slower with our luggage unfortunately. We wandered around the Yacht and Beach Clubs for a while, and then finally we gave up and I wore a dress of mom’s (who packs like a full week of clothes in her carry on) and off to dinner we went. For dinner we ate at Citricos, at the Grand Floridian. I was skeptical, but it was SOOOOOOOOOOOO good! I had, seriously, the best ribeye steak I’ve ever had in my life!

Sunday was our first day in the parks, and we selected Magic Kingdom. We didn’t have our timing worked out too well yet and were there WAY early…so we hopped on the monorial and headed to the Contemporary to shop and eat. I also found an Arial Jibbitz to replace the one that went missing out of my cotton candy colored crocs. Oh..did I mention those? The weekend before we left for vacation it was pouring rain and I threw on mom’s size 8 crocs which were WAY more comfy than my size 9 crocs. So I decided if I was bringing crocs to WDW to have water proof socks for all the rain we were supposed to get, they should be size 8s. But my store had NO size 8s in Disney themes. Or really, any size 8s in any good colors in the style I normally wear – the mary janes. So out of desperation I tried on the Cayman style (so ugly) in size 8 and they are SOOOO comfy! So I just bit the bullet and bought them…but prettied them up with some Disney jibbitz. Anyway..back to MK day….we headed to the park and it was EMPTY..seriously…we didn’t wait for anything until late in the day when we waited 25 minutes for Astro Orbiter. We had a reservation back at the Grand Floridian Garden View Lounge, for afternoon tea. Oh my goodness was that fabulous! We both got the “grand tea” and it was so relaxing and decadent feeling…but not OVERLY expensive..I think it ended up being like $60 total. After that we headed to Downtown Disney to shop a little..and walk around. I got the CUTIEST little short sleeve hoodie – covered with “cuties” which are this variation of the Disney characters that I’ve completely fallen in love with. Also – these little stuffed cutties of Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto. Then back to the hotel for an early night.

Monday we headed to Animal Kingdom. Again we were there way early, and again the park was empty. We did the Safarii, on the 3rd car so no wait! Then we headed to Expedition Everest, mom’s favorite ride. Between the empty line and the single rider line, we rode like 5 times before 9:15am that morning. At that point my head was feeling a little scrambled. Then we hit the Finding Nemo show, and Dinasaur, and decided we were done by about 11:30. We headed to lunch at Kona Café at the Polynesian. Mom was bummed because they took her favorite thing of the menu. I wasn’t overly impressed but it was okay. Then we decided to head over to Epcot early since we had a dinner reservation there that night. Like the other parks, Epcot was also empty. Though Monday the rain finally started. Not horrible, but not fun. Again – we did like everything with no wait. Then we had dinner at Teppen Edo which has been completely redone (and renamed) since my last trip to WDW. It was fabulous, and our chef was the best I’ve had at a place like that. He not only did lots of tricks but he was funny too. After dinner we wandered the World Showcase a bit more and then finally walked back to our hotel (which is just outside the International Gateway at Epcot).

Tuesday was Hollywood Studios day. Again, park was pretty empty. Mom insisted we go to Rockin Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror first, even though I’d heard you MUST got to Toy Story Mania first if you have any plans to ride it that day. Anyway, rode the roller coaster and tower of terror numerous times each and finally started heading towards Toy Story Midway Mania at 11:30. At that point, the line was 80 minutes in standby and fast passes were for 4:50pm. By noon it was OUT of fast passes for the day. We did decide to wait ONCE in standby to see the full queue theme, which was ADORABLE. But the line was SOOO slow in standby. But…Toy Story Mania is AWESOME! After that we wandered the park a bit more, and then we had 4:30 dinner reservations at Mama Melroses. I didn’t really remember, but I’d been there once before – mom never had. Food and service was fantastic. After dinner we got to use our Toy Story fast passes and ride that again, Yay! Then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom. Now….MK was beautiful with the Halloween decorations, and it was kind of cool to see what they did for the party. But as empty as the parks were this week, I don’t think it was worth the price of admission to get in – we’d pretty much done everything we wanted at the MK already and just rode some stuff a few extra times. It was fun to see all the kids (and parents) in costumes, but the trick or treating wasn’t great because all the candy was seriously melted an sticky.

Wednesday we decided to take a pool day in the morning and then headed to Epcot again in the afternoon. Rode the good stuff in Future World again, then wandered the world showcase some more before dinner at Chefs de France. Food was okay, service ther was AWFUL. Seriously bad. We stayed to watch Illuninations “Reflections” which is pretty lame, and then headed back to the hotel.

Thursday we decided to do Hollywood Studios again, in the hopes of doing Toy Story again. We were there nice and early, but seriously the ENTIRE park makes a beeline for Toy Story after the gates open. In fact, the cast members direct traffic so there’s only ONE path back there. Mom got in the standby line while I got in the fast pass line. She actually got up to the building before I got up to the fast passes and had to start over. I snagged fast passes for 10:10 and got in line. That time, the queue moved quickly, probably because people didn’t have fast passes yet so everyone had to go through the regular queue. We rode the ride, went on the Back Lot tour (which is SERIOUSLY shortened from what it once was) and then went back on Toy Story. Then we hit Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller Coaster a few more times and headed back for an afternoon at the pool before dinner at the new restaurant at the Contemproary – The Wave. Wave was okay, I had the BEST citrius and avocado salad. Service was not good. We then took a bus to downtown Disney for final shopping. I picked up some decorations for the basement which I’m planning on doing a Disney theme, and a Snow White costume for Miss E (we’ll match since I have one!) and then back to the hotel.

Friday was the day we were probably anticipating most – our Around the World tour at Epcot on Segways. Ever since we did the Segway tour in Chicago in July, mom and I have both been anxious to get back on another Segway. Though the Segways were fun as we remembered, and it was cool to get into the World Showcase while it was still closed, and cool to see the last minute prep for the Food and Wine festival which started that day, overall we had much more fun in Chicago. Disney has the Segways there governed at 6 mph…substantially less than the 10-11 we got to do in Chicago. And we weren’t really allowed to zip around much. Plus, the tour itself was only like an hour – the first hour was training. We decided Disney needs to have a certification class for Segways for guests (they do certified cast members who zip all over on them) and then set up some more advanced tours. After the tour, we walked around the world to check out the Food and Wine offerings. Originally, we didn’t schedule dinner anywhere for that day and planned to eat around the world for dinner. But a quick glance at the offerings and we both knew I would not be eating. So we scrambled and picked up a dinner reservation at the Yachtsmen Steakhouse, and old favorite of mine. We headed back to the hotel to do laundry in prep of week 2. Spent the afternoon doing that and laying at the pool. Then off to dinner, which was not nearly as good as our Saturday night dinner at Citricos. After dinner we walked the loop around the Epcot resorts visiting Swan, Dolphin, and Boardwalk. We picked up cupcakes at the Boardwalk to bring back with us, and checked out the premier of Grey’s Anatomy thanks to free internet for Disney Vacation Club guests, and my Macbook.

Saturday was lazy since we had to get the bus to port at 11:30am .We had brunch and laid around the room reading and watching part two of the Grey’s premier. Then off to port we went!

I’m on board now, and internet is expensive – I have to strategically plan to buy a package giving me JUST enough minutes for what I’ll need for class which starts up again Wednesday. But more to come on our week on the Magic!

Update on closing on for the new house...

2008-08-07T11:12:00.002-04:00

Okay..so when the saga last left off..I was in the middle of trying to figure out how the HELL I was gonna close on the new house.

My realtor called the title company and then called me back almost right away last night. They asked if we could get the check from HSBC overnighted straight to the Title company. I shared that I made that request, but 1) the dude on the phone made it sound like no way in hell would that happen, and 2) I was skeptical they'd get a check mailed out at ALL on time since I got a "well respond to your request within 48 hours" notice. We hang up for her to call the title company back. Meanwhile, I made a desperate plea....

Now..most of you don't really know much about my parents.but basically..dad is well off, but we don't have a good relationship..and I take nothing from him. Mom on the other hand...got the shaft when the split, no college degree, and struggles to make it thru. I was prepping to call dad...out of sheer desperation...but thought I'd call mom first.

Me: I know you are still at work but I have a crisis and I don't know what else to do right now.
Mom: Actually, not at work, whats going on.
Me: I think I know the answer to this, but I have to ask anyway. Any chance you can pull together $XXXX in a cashiers check by Sunday, to take with you when you go to meet the realtor for my walk thru, and I can pay you back by midweek next week.
Mom: (pauses). Actually, yeah I think so..let me check my bank balance. Whats going on?

I proceed to start telling mom about the HSBC nightmare...while I'm in process..she says yes, she'll have to shift stuff out of a couple of accounts but she has the money.

HALLELUAH!

How on earth my mom has that much in savings..I don't know. Well I do..after the last time she lost her job she finally started working on her emergency account that I'd been hounding her about. And unlike my stupid emergency account, which is where my cash to close was also sitting, its at her regular bank and she can go get it!

While I'm on the phone with mom, realtor calls back..they spoke to the sellers, they don't need the money right away, so they're okay with us doing a "dry run" closing on Monday where all the papers get signed but no money, nor possession of the house, goes right away..they can wait until I can get the money moved. I tell her thats great, but that miracle of miracle..mom has the cash and is it okay for mom to bring her the check on Sunday when they meet and she can take it to closing. My sweet realtor "Bless your mothers heart". My sentiments EXACTLY!

So I call mom back and tell her to get in the car (its nearing 5pm) and go to the bank. Give her the needed info. She goes. I start thinking about...what happens if HSBC DOES get my stupid bankmail, and now initiates this check..and does do what I don't think they could..which is make it out to the title company and send it directly...the title company doesn't need that money anymore..and if its not made out to me its not like I can cash it. But again...I can't CALL anyone about my account..bankmail is my only option. So I send another one, saying

"please disgregard my note of 1 hour ago. I've made alternative arrangements. Also, please let me know what steps I need to take to close out this account. Its become clear that this account at this bank is not meeting my needs". Still waiting for a response to either of those.

Mom calls back..she's at the bank, its 4:57pm. They close at 5pm. Except...they have locked the doors and won't let her in, nor even confirm she can get the check! Now..we don't expect there to be a problem..but given how this is gone..well..you can understand my concerns. Mom's going to call today to try and talk to someone, and won't be able to get to the bank again until Friday when they are open a little later...but again..we don't expect that to be an issue.

Meanwhile..I keep stressing about what happens if HSBC tries to send this check now..which I don't want them to do. It occurs to me..start transfering the money..enough so that they CANNOT issue the check because there's not enough money in the account to issue it. Then..if they don't see both bankmails - including the one to cancel it - they'll see there is insufficent funds..and then maybe call or look at my bankmails. So...I started that last night..and the funds are already on the way to my WF account...for which they'll arrive Monday..same day mom should get a check from me..so she's only out the money 2 days.

Mom points out... "you've had a lot of bank related problems since you first moved from IL to CA"...I realize she's right. And I still have my credit union account in IL tho its not been used in years. So....once everything else gets settled down..I'll move the rest of the money from HSBC to my credit union account..then eventually when the PA home is sold, get all my other money out of WF and into my credit union account...and go back to banking with the credit union for my company that I've never had an issue with!!!!!

HSBC Sucks

2008-08-06T17:18:00.003-04:00

Okay..Monday I call HSBC to find out how to do the wire transfer. I'm told there's an automated system and to allow 24-48 hours for the wire to go through.

This morning, I call HSBC to do the wire transfer, told to use the automated system, I need the telephone access code. If I can't find that, my only option is to go directly to a branch. (and I have NO idea what this telephone access code is).

Get home, FIND the access code. Call in, actually FIND the automated system, it tells me wire transfers are not permitted with internet banking accounts. Transfers me to the third dude.

He apologizes for all the misinformation, says my ONLY option is to log onto my account and use "bankmail" ask them to overnight me a check which I'd have by Friday morning assuming they receive my mail and process it by tomorrow morning at 11am. I ask him how I know my bankmail will be received right away so that I can actually GET the check by Friday AM, and not get a "we'll reply within 48 hours type message" and he tells me there is no delay and they reply right away. I ask is there anyway I can get someone on the phone to help me and he said no. I ask if there's a customer relations number I can call, since I'm frustrated at being told 3 different things, by 3 different people and now I'm stuck not being able to access my money in time. He tells me there's only the main number, he can forward my complaint on, but that what he's telling me is correct.

So I go online to do the "bankmail" he said, requesting a check be issued to the Title Company, and sent to me to arrive here by Friday AM, or better yet, send directly to the Title Company (which dude 3 said they won't do). Guess what message I get "we'll respond in 48 hours, if you need immediate assistance call us at..." the main fucking number!

At this point, there's not enough time to get the cash back into my Wells Fargo account so that I can do the wire transfer from there... so I think I'm totally screwed.... waiting to hear back from my realtor on what we do now...but I don't know how I'm going to be able to get the money to closing on time now...

And I'm TOTALLY closing this HSBC account when this mess is over!

Crazy Drunken Pirates

2008-07-28T14:13:00.002-04:00

So last night was the first of my going away parties...hosted by my lovely lovely ladies here. I was given NO information about the evening. I was told they'd be at my house at 3:30pm. We'd leave by 4pm. To wear casual clothes and flat shoes.

The girls start to show up and I notice everyone has a sweater or jacket. So I grab a sweater. But still I know nothing.

We get in the car and start driving towards Lancaster....I have NO idea where we are going.

We end up in Mount Joy, PA at Bube's Brewery. K tells us to go to the bar and get a drink while she "checks us in". L, D and I head to the bar, tell the hostess we just want a drink. She doesnt understand why we just want a drink and starts to ask if we're here for......L jumps in and says "no we don't want her to know why we are here". OK...what the hell is going on?

We have our drink and wander around. We're told we'll be taken for whatever is happening in the basement between 5 and 5:30. (was actually closer to 6). While we're waiting in the lobby area upstairs walks a drunken pirate asking if we've seen Bridgette. He wanders around calling after her. At nearly 6 Bridgette comes out. Apparently she's Captain Jacks' wife. Pirate and Bridgette tell us the story about how Captain Jack's baby brother was killed while the Captain was out at sea the past 6 months. Bridgette is hosting a dinner, that night and she's hoping for no bloodshed until after desert.

For those of you lost, turns out we were there for a Pirate's Feast. The group was divided up into the two ships whom one of which is responsible for the death of Captain Jack's baby brother. I won't spoil all the little details since some of you perhaps might want to go some day. What I will say...is if you are easily offended...this is NOT the event for you to go to! I was nominated "Captain" of our ship by my lovely ladies...another guest with a celebration (a 27th birthday) was nominated my First Mate. (By the way..he was a totally cutie with a smokin hot brother who sat right next to us). Anyway....drunken pirate walks up to D and asks her how much her captain (me) is worth to her and if I need a rub down. D thinks he's kidding ..but pulls out $1. Drunken pirate says now he needs just $9 more, $10 if they want to get me the "hot wax treatment". K pulls out a $5 and L pulls out a $5. Next thing I know, pirate is behind me sliding my bra straps down off my shoulders (I had a tank on) and starts giving me a massage. Once I got over the shock of it..most of it wasn't too bad. Though when you aren't really EXPECTING a massage and are in the middle of a restuarant with 25 other people in the room its a little odd. That said, the wench, Ruby, offers similar treatment to the first mate, and he gets his shirt pulled off altogether for his massage. I know little of what is actually going on at this time as pirate had pulled off my glasses when he started. After a lengthly "rub down" he tells me dinner is getting close, so he'll leave me in anticipation of the "hot wax treatment" for a while. Pirate leaves, Captain Jack comes over. FILLED with crazy sexual innuendo, and extremely touchy feely. Now...I'm not a prude by any means...but seriously..if you are the SLIGHTEST bit easily offended..or just like me had NO idea what was going on..its a bit overwhelming. Captain Jack and drunken pirate take turns showering me with highly inappropriate attention. Let me tell you...within about 40 minutes in..all of our cheeks were sore from laughing so hard. In fact, even today my cheeks still hurt!

After dinner, before desert, drunken pirate comes back and says its time for my wax treatment. He asks me if I trust L, who is sitting to my right. I tell him I do now, we'll see about tomorrow! He has me lay back across L's lap and close my eyes. Now mind you...I wore and incredible LOW cut tank..like serious boobs hanging out last night. I close my eyes...next thing I know..hot candle wax being poured ALLLLL over my chest with the pirate then breathing on it to cool it off. Now I don't know if any of you have every had any experience with hot wax....but let me tell you..its not sexy like it looks in the movies. I mean..its hot wax..it hurts like a son of a bitch! When he's done he tells me it can only be taken off with someone's lips or tongue and he's happy to oblige later if need be ( the Captain also offered his services).

Anyway...thanks to large quanties of wine, much of the other details escape me..but it was one hilarious, shocking, and highly inappropriate evening! Seriously..cheeks STILL hurt from laughing! The girls wanted to make sure my going away was memorable..and BOY was it. The guys in the office are trying to figure out how to get a hold of the girls to get pictures to use in my roast next week...I pray they don't...these are NOT the kind of pics I want out in the open!

For the first time, horribly dissapointed by Apple

2008-07-22T19:07:00.003-04:00

This Mobile Me transition has been a nightmare...first no more access to webmail since you have to have Firefox or Safari (or IE7 for SOME basic features) and like most of corporate america I'm stuck on IE6 with NO way to upgrade or install anything else. THEN MobileMe mail goes down altogether.... 5 days now... no end in sight....after trying all day finally got through to chat support tonight...but there was no point..

Transcript below..but bottom line...if you write me at my mac.com address normally...update your address books...write me at the same screen name on aol.com instead.

essica H: Hello Shelley. Thank you for your patience while waiting. What MobileMe billing, mail, or syncing issue can I assist you with today?

Shelley : I've not received any mail on my mobile mail account since last Friday. I would like to know when this issue is going to be resolved since the web site as said "ASAP" since Friday. I don't consider 5 days ASAP and am expecting several important emails regarding a home purchase I'm in the middle of.

Jessica H: Okay. I completely understand. The maintenance that the server that your account is on was not expected to take this long.

Jessica H: Right now the technicians are working around the clock to resolve this issue.

Shelley : What alternative exists? Is there a way to have mail forwarded to an alternate account?

Shelley : I've never experienced an outage like this, particularly with a service I'm paying for.

Jessica H: Not at this time. All of the mail will be present once the server is back up and running.

Jessica H: I wish that I had more information to tell you but all we know is that it should be up and running soon.

Shelley : I'm seriously questioning the value at this point, and its the first time I've ever been dissapointed by apple, but its a critical situation

Shelley : But how is "soon" defined by Apple?

Jessica H: I completely understand where you are coming from. The server is still undergoing maintenance. It could be an moment, or hour that it will be fixed.

Jessica H: We just don't have an ETA as of yet. I do apologize.

Shelley : Is that what customers have been told since Friday? A moment or hour? Because clearly that has not been accurate

Shelley : Is there an address I can use to send a formal complaint? I just don't feel like customers are being treated very well through this transition. One free month of MobileMe doesn't do me much good when I cannot access it.

Jessica H: I have a link that I can provide to you so that you can submit your comments about this situation if you would like.

Jessica H: http://www.apple.com/feedback/mac/tm.html

Shelley : I'd prefer a mailing address.

Jessica H: well, I can see if we can escalate your case.

Jessica H: You would be emailed then,

Shelley : But I can't receive email?

Jessica H: At this time. No.

Jessica H: It would be sent to an alternate email address.

Shelley : Maybe I don't understand what you are saying..what would I be emailed about?

Jessica H: I can see if we can escalate this request if you wouldn't mind waiting for a moment.

Jessica H: AS seeing that you were wanting to make a formal complaint

Jessica H: I can have a specialist contact you since we do not have an phone number or mailing address for a formal complaint.

Shelley : I have a hard time believing there is no address for a formal complaint, but go ahead and have a specialist contact me. I don't really understand what the specialist will do for me that isn't already being done.

Jessica H: I thought that would at least be an alternative since we do not have a means to provide to you for a formal complaint.

Jessica H: I submitted the request. It could take a few moments to see what can be done.

Shelley : Thank you.

Jessica H: Thank you for waiting. I'll be with you in just a moment.

Jessica H: I'll be right with you.

Jessica H: Okay

Jessica H: I have the corporate address link so that you can make a formal complaint

Jessica H: http://www.apple.com/contact/

Shelley : OK thank you.

Jessica H: You are welcome

Jessica H: Sorry that took a bit

Jessica H: I had to locate it for you.

Shelley : ok

Jessica H: That would be the link that you would use to make a formal complaint.

Jessica H: I am sorry for all of this.

Jessica H: I just wish that there was something more that we could do for you at this time.

Jessica H: Is there anything else I can assist you with?

Shelley : Me too.

Shelley : No

Jessica H: Okay. Despite the circumstances, I hope that you have a great day!

Jessica H: Please click the blue "Close" button at top left to answer a few questions about the assistance I provided during this chat, you will also have the option to request a copy of the transcript be emailed to you.

Shelley : ok

Hm...never got around to...

2008-07-21T14:24:00.002-04:00

Finishing updating everyone.

Lets see...whats the latest....

Stuff is progrssing on the new house. Pass inspection with flying colors. Home inspector described my house as "perfect".

Got the paperwork to give the attorney in IL power of attorney to do the closing for me. Have to head to get stuff notorized AGAIN...why couldn't that have come last week when I was there and had a witness with me already? Now I need to sucker another witness into coming with me.

Stuff is progressing with the loan. Apparently the appraiser from the bank came back with some screwing input like the siding falling off the house and there being a homeowners association. I think we decided she went to the wrong house and are ignoring the specific comments.

On this end..no offers yet. The only bad feedback we were getting was on the blue walls in the living room..so they are no longer blue. Up until last week I was getting 3-4 showings a week. Last week nothing until Friday when I got a call at 11am for that afternoon (far from the 24 hours I was SUPPOSED to get). Then as soon as I got the puppy out of the house and got to the yarn store to kill time..they called and rescheduled for tomorrow. Wasn't that nice....at least they are still coming I guess. Nothing else for this week yet.

Got my buyout offer from the company...which is about $5k less than what I paid for the house and about $2k over what I owe currently. Which means even though our relocation policy lets me borrow the equity to close on the new house, there will likely be NO equity to borrow after the various prorations...at least not much. Oh..and I can't TAKE the buyout offer until Sept 8. Nearly a month after the closing on the new house. Now..before you feel too bad for me....yes the company has a loss protection clause..so eventually I'll get the difference between the buyout offer and what I paid. And yes, the company helps cover dual mortgage payments for up to 30 days...so eventually I'll get that back. But both are REIMBURSEMENTS. At this point..it will likely be late Sept early Oct before I see any of that money...which means I need the cash not only to close on the new house Aug 11...but to pay both mortgages also. Should be fun!

Oh..and I'm such a dumbass....apparently I was sooooo focused on getting the fridge in the new house (it matched the other stuff too much not to get it..I'd never find anything else to coordinate so well) that in my head I decided the ONLY appliance in the whole house I wasn't getting was the fridge. So imagine my surprise as I'm reading the inspection and the section on the washer/dryer says "not tested due to not being included in sale". WHAT??????? Looked at my purchase agreement...yup..not there. Looked at the MLS listing...YUP..not included. SOOO...guess who know has to buy a new washer and dryer?? On the other hand..I don't remember the ones there being anything special..and figured I'd replace them after a year or two anyway... But I really wasn't planning on spending that money right now.... So..I figure..I'm only in the new house about a month before I leave for 2 weeks on vacation. I'll ride it out with a W/D that month. By the time I get back from vaca I should have gotten my reimbursements for the loss protection and dual mortgage..so I can put that money towards the W/D. And maybe the new big ass tv I need for the basement entertainment wall. And maybe pay off vacation. Oh..and buy whatever craft room furniture I haven't bought by then since I've got that stuff all saved in a Target list so I can see what's onsale/free shipping/etc.

Hm..guess thats about all for now..perhaps tomorrow I'll get to a knitting related post....

Realized I haven't updated in a while...

2008-07-09T13:24:00.002-04:00

At least aside my twitter feed!

I headed to IL on Friday, June 27 to do my househunting and a few days vacation. Mom, Elphaba and I arrived in Normal around 9pm that night. Hotel was a DUMP! I knew it wasn't going to be luxury because for some reason (which we found out later was a Jehovah's Witness convention)it was the only place which would allow dogs I get could a room at. I dropped a load of stuff in the room, and ran down to get more from mom who was watching it - because the hotel had no elevator and she couldn't carry stuff up the stairs. Got back upstairs..and keys didn't work. Went to front desk, they made 3 more keys. None of THEM worked. Went back to front desk, made 3 more keys. Clerk came back up with us. None of THEM worked. Master key DID work. Mom went in with stuff, Elphaba and I went outside. Room next door hadn't been checked into yet so clerk decided to move us next door. While waiting, mom finds none of the lights work in the first room. Get upstairs, mom's in the new room. None of THOSE lights work. Call front desk. While waiting for someone to come up I start fishing around...most of the lights were unplugged..desk light didn't work. We said okay. Overall cleanliness wasn't stellar..but I've seen worse. And the beds looked clean and newer so thats more important. Well...Miss Elphaba runs around 10 minutes and finds a dirty fast food sandwich wrapper someplace. YUCK! Again, not much to be done with no other hotel rooms available. Complained, had my rate reduced. I tell you this part so you'll understand why Saturday was the way it was...we were motivated to not have to stay in the hotel a second night - even if I did get stuck PAYING for the second night.

Saturday, realtor pics us up at 9am. We have 30 houses to see. She thinks we'll see most Saturday...has a couple lined up for Sunday. Many houses are in the neighborhood I really wanted to see...cute exteriors, beautiful porches, nice big sidewalks, garages in back. Adorable neighborhood. Well...every house we saw there was a dump. And we saw like 10 houses. Plus we cut out 6 we didn't look at because they were the same model as a unit I decided was way to small. There were some for sale by owner homes in the development I wanted to see that my realtor did NOT line up...I was a bit peeved about that..but overall...I decided that if all the homeowners were as careless as the ones I'd seen..I probably didn't want to live in that neighborhood afterall. Anyway...all in all we ended up seeing about 23 houses Saturday. There were really only 2 possibilities in my opinion...so we went back for second looks on both homes between 3pm and 4:30pm. The first choice was obvious for me...as it had the biggest finished square footage...including a already finished basement. Unfortunately, we'd been following the SAME realtor with some other out of town buyers ALL day..and he was coming back for a second look as well. We decided to make an offer..and because of the interest from the other buyer (and the fact that I think the sellers had priced REALLY low intending to sell fast) I offered slightly over list price while requesting appliances and a home warranty. While we were writing the offer, the sellers agent called my realtor to ask if we were making and offer and said to hurry and get it in (hinting that if we got our offer in first we'd get accepted). We did the paperwork, mom and I hit the road back to Naperville. 30 minutes down the road my realtor called and my offer was accepted!!!

Pics of the new house!

To be continued.....

2008-06-20T08:42:00.001-04:00

Must have real dr in Illinois so I can go there instead of urgent care when something like this happens.

2008-06-20T08:41:00.001-04:00

At urgent care finally for my back.

2008-06-19T20:02:00.001-04:00

Testing

No progress yet....

2008-06-17T09:32:00.003-04:00

Both my appraisels have now been done. The first dude spent like 5 minutes here looking around. The second spent almost an hour, took tons of notes, measurements and pictures. Hopefully they get their reports back quickly so I can find out my buyout offer right away on July 3, which is the earliest date they will tell me the buyout offer. I still have to market it another 30 days after that..but then I can accept around the 1st of August if need be.

Two showings so far last week. Both were quick and neither of the realtors will return my realtors call looking for feedback, so thats kind of a bummer. No takers for the open house on Sunday either. Today my agent is bringing in all the agents from her office. We'll see if that spurs anything.

So far I have about 30 houses lined up to see in Illinois later this month. Fortunately 20 of them are in the one neighborhood I really like so the odds are good I'll be able to find something there.

Interest!

2008-06-05T16:03:00.003-04:00

Got a call yesterday to set up the first showing! People coming to see the house Monday night. How awesome would that be if they fall in love and make an offer? Fingers crossed for me....

Realtor selection over!

2008-06-01T12:52:00.003-04:00

I met for the second time with both Realtors on Friday. I was super impressed with the woman, not so much with the man. He came in at a higher price than she did (which sounds nice but not if its not realistic and he was way higher than I was expecting) but he said a few things I wasn't crazy about. For instance "I always have my cell on me, so if I don't answer its because I can't or because I don't want to". Don't want to? Is he kidding? He followed that up with saying his phone is on all the time, except for 11pm to 6am. Okay....I turn my work phone off at that time too...but the OTHER realtor said leads go to her cell phone 24/7 and she returns calls 24/7. Like if someone clicks on the online listing and says "I want more information" that lead goes straight to her cell and she returns the call immediately no matter WHAT time it was. And another...he said he doesn't believe in open houses. WTF? I live across the street from the model homes.....we could get GREAT walk in traffic from an open house. Why the hell would you NOT do one? I mean...it will be a pain in the ass for ME when we do them because I'll have to get the dog AND the cats out of the house..but still! Oh..and the woman and I discussed the animals and what happens if I can't get home to get them out of the house for a showing. If that happens....we'll let the cats be because they are terrified of everyone anyway and always hide when company is here. But if I can't get home..the realtor will come and take Miss Elphaba out of the house! How sweet is that!

Anyway...so realtor selection over. She's coming back in the morning for me to sign the listing agreement and get the sign and lock box installed. We should have my listing online shortly thereafter and I'll be in next Saturday's paper under "hot new listings".

Yay! Progress!

More pics of my clean empty house...guest room and upstairs hallway

2008-05-30T14:42:00.003-04:00

More pics of my clean empty house...master bedroom

2008-05-30T14:40:00.001-04:00

Next steps...

2008-05-29T19:46:00.003-04:00

So last night the mortgage brokerage company affiliated with my relocation company emailed. Why she emailed at 10pm last night I don't understand. And I've yet to get a response to my response to her stating "yes please tell me all you have to offer, get me pre approved, and get me some rate quotes". I was less than impressed last time I was referred to the OLD affiliated mortgage company and since I had to pay all my closing costs that time anyway I didn't bother. But this time I really need to either go through them or my old bank in Peoria. Either of those ways the closing costs get direct billed to the relocation company, rather than me having to pay and get reimbursed. Which means less cash I need to have at closing..or more to put down. If the relocation company wants our mortgage business so bad why do they provide such substandard service?

Today came the first call from the moving company. This is my third time being moved with them, and its the same company that moves our big wigs..so I know I'm in good hands. The coordinator was so cute today...I called her back and she said "Is it really time for us to move you already? Didn't we just drop you off in Pennsylvania a short while ago?". She asked about any major furniture and misc purchases since I've moved here and if I thought we needed to do a full inventory teleconference again or if we should just add the new bedroom set to what we had from last time. I told her we better start fresh since they underestimate me EVERY time I move. I seem to recall running out of boxes twice last time. Of course..the shady guy they ended up contracting to do my move kept some of the boxes for himself since he had a daughter moving that weekend..but you KNOW he charged my company for them. Anyway, Monday I'll have my official phone interview with the movers to get that whole process rolling.

Tomorrow both the realtors come back in with their market analysis. Should be interesting. The women, spent over an hour here yesterday. She actually sold most of the homes in my development that are on the street behind me..she worked for the builder as the agent in the model. We talked quite a bit and then she took tons of pictures so we could get me listed as soon as possible once I choose. The man, well, he only spent like 15 minutes here...so I don't know WHAT the heck tomorrow will be like with him. I guess we'll see. But so far I'm leaning towards the women. I wish he was coming in the morning and she was in the afternoon. Then I'd know for sure when she came back I wanted to go with her and would tell her. Not that she can react immediately since I have to tell my relocation consultant who officially tells her...but still..she'd know it was coming. Oh well...wish me luck tomorrow with the realtors! (plus I have a stupid 3 hour teleconference in between those two appts!).

Wow..

2008-05-27T14:29:00.002-04:00

Mom and I were BUSY this weekend! We did sneak in a little fun at Hersheypark on Saturday, but most of the weekend was spent cleaning, decluttering, and getting the house ready for the realtors to come in. I have a few more things to get out of the hall upstairs, and need to straighten up my makeshift desk area, and take the LARGE amount of stuff too goodwill. But other than that..its ready. And not looking remotely like my house..its too empty! Here are some pics of the downstairs.

I don't think Miss Zella realizes....

2008-05-25T09:00:00.003-04:00

How hard it is to do homework when she's on top of my arms and partially on the laptop!

This would be me..sitting on the couch (thank god you don't see more of me since I've been sitting here working on schoolwork since 7am this morning...right after I got out of bed). Laptop is in my lap (it actually snapped the picture) so I can get some of this weeks assignments finished before mom wakes up and we have to work on getting the house ready for the realtors to come in. And finally...Miss Zella..who has decided she's no longer going to let Miss Elphaba push her around or scare her away...curled up on top of me. As I type she's still sitting on my arms. Of course..Elphaba is ringing her bell..so as soon as I post this Z is onto the floor!

Alrighty then...

2008-05-23T15:09:00.002-04:00

Second realtor called. Completely different than the first one. We spoke for maybe 90 seconds to schedule for him to come and do the market analysis Tuesday night. Didn't ask me any questions or tell me about himself at all. If today's conversation were the deciding factor I'd defintiely be going with the other realtor...I guess we'll see how next week goes. He's coming Tuesday at 5pm and then she comes Wednesday at 9:30am.

Funny coincidence

2008-05-22T19:40:00.001-04:00

One of the two realtors I was assigned from my reloc company to come in and do the market analysis and interview...was the agent who sold most of the units in my development when it was with the original builder. Seems like that would make her a good person to sell my place right?

Slightly less freaked...

2008-05-22T14:22:00.003-04:00

ok..talked to a co-worker who had to use the company buyout for his house and sold at a loss.

based on company relocation policy for "loss protection" support and what I owe on my mortgage...If I have to take the buyout offer from the company I need it to be at $128k or higher for me to come out even or ahead. If I'm able to find a buyer..I need to sell at $120k or higher to come out even or ahead. I think the average SELLING price in my neighboorhood is around $135k year to date. As long as that hadn't dropped much I should be okay, though not ahead which would have been nice. That said, I was told to push to get the appraisels down ASAP as they are used to come out with the buyout price - which I can be notified of 1 month after the house has been listed - assuming the appraisels are down and reports turned in.

On the other end..the Illinois realtor called me today (don't know what the hell is taking so long for the 2 in PA). We're all set up for househunting the last weekend in June. Yay! We had a nice long chat about what I'm looking for on that end and she's going to start sending me information. I'm less concerned about that end..other than how I do on this end may impact what I'm willing to spend on THAT end. Fortunately, even at the low end of my preferred price range there...I should still come out with housing fairly equal to what I have here. Plus every place there has basements and 2 car garages...versus now where I'm on a slab with a 1 car garage.

Anyway..thats all for my relocation update for today!

It begin..

2008-05-21T07:42:00.002-04:00

Personnel announcement finally went out last night. Effective date on new job is Aug 1, though training doesn't start until Sept 8. Luckily the training dates have changed from the original ones I was told so I won't miss any training for vacation like before. I do apparently get "homework" that has to be done before training..so I'll probably stil shoot for moving mid Aug.

Assuming of course I can sell my house.. well..I mean...selling it shouldn't be the problem..as long as there's not something horribly wrong with it then I should be able to SELL it because the company will buy it. Problem is at what price and where does that leave me. I'm thinking I'll be negative right now..meaning smaller house needed on the other side. That said, relocation company finally called to get stuff rolling last night...I'm completely overwhelmed...I don't know how single people go through the sell / buy move process on their own. It was complicated enough to buy while relocating without someone to help me through the process. I don't know WHAT I'm going to do with selling.. I mean...what do I do with the animals if I'm out of town that day and someone wants to show the house?

Wish me luck....I think I'm going to develop an ulcer over this....

Too cute!

2008-05-16T10:06:00.004-04:00

So its pouring cats and dogs here today..and I braved the downpour for my Friday starbucks treat. I'm sure I've been in when its been rainy before..but I've never seen this..look at the cute little stopper they put in my cup so the rain didn't get in!

Would you be disturbed???

2008-05-09T10:34:00.003-04:00

Two disturbing things this week.

First....(copied this off my ravelry post on the same subject so some of you may have seen this already).....

I live at the end of a street with relatively new construction, only 10 people living in 7 townhouses, and the rest of the street is as yet undeveloped. When you pass the two buildings the road goes up a hill into a culdisac (spelled totally wrong but you get the idea - and again totally undeveloped as of yet).

Over the past couple of months I’ve been noticing pairs of cars show up, spend 10 minutes up the hill out of site, then depart. Not necessarily the same two cars every time...but pairs of cars.

Now..again..10 people live here. Prior to this..NO ONE drove down here with 2 exceptions. 1)The few of us who live here or 2) going to the model home which is directly across the street from me on the opposite corner (there are like 4 townhouses still unsold). Usually people who are going to the model, park right in front of the model and walk in. Or park in one of the open driveways and walk in. They do NOT drive to the top of the hill and then leave after 10 minutes.

So today, get home around 4pm, walking to the mailbox when I see a Camary pull up and park and sit, not at the abandoned end of the rd but in front of the houses. A minute or so later a silver honda pulls up, they talk, they drive up the hill together. After 5 mintues they drive back down the hill, park on the opposite side of the street. She gets out of her car and gets into his car. They sit..and sit..and sit. I’m outside with the dog the entire time waiting for her to go #2. Finally, after them sitting 20 minutes in the one car not doing anything, I call the local police.

I mean…these cars are coming all hours of the day and night for 10 minutes max. What would YOU think they were doing?

Cop shows up about 10 minutes later, talks to them for 3 minutes, gets in his car for like 8 minutes and leaves. Honda and Camary still sitting. Meanwhile, model (which was open) closes and agent leaves. Cop calls me 10 minutes later (cars still there) to tell me that they say they are considering buying one of the houses, and since they don’t have any outstanding warrants, seems to check out and I shouldn’t worry.

I express to him my concern, that 1) why would they not go IN to see the house versus sit on the street for an hour which it was close to at that time, 2) its not just these 2 cars, but all sorts of cars 5-6 times a day and in the middle of the night, and 3) I’m outside with the dog every 2 hours roughly and see this all the time and can’t imagine what all these cars are doing up at the undeveloped part of the street.

I told him I felt silly calling but that this whole thing just seems weird. He said not to feel silly, they’d rather I call than not call.

What do you guys think? I’m sitting hear shaky because if there is something bad going on, its probably obvious to the people who it was and what house. Plus, aside my own personal safety which is a concern. I’m getting ready to put the house on the market. What if something funky IS going on up there and a potential buyer is also concerned by it?

Do you guys think I’m worried over nothing? Would you be calling the cops every time a strange set of cars showed up (and didnt go into the model - or anywhere near it for that matter?).

Second....
I'm in the post office yesterday to mail out a package. In front of me in line are two foreign gentlemen...I honestly couldn't tell you were from I only saw them from behind and they spoke in very broken english. The one has one of those little orange cards the mailman leaves when you have to go to the post office to pick up your package. He gives it to the clerk, she grabs his letter. She tells him she needs to see some ID before she can release the letter to him. He tells her he doesn't have ID and the letter is really for his "brother" standing next to him. She asks the "brother" for ID, but he "forgot" his ID at home. Without any hesitation, she just lets them sign for the letter and leave. Mind you...the entire time the original dude is holding his car keys...so I'm thinking..."how did he drive here and he has no ID of any kind?". I get outside, and the two men are sitting in the car, and the original one is reading the letter.

Now...two things bother me here... 1) Why was neither of these men able to produce ID and 2) WHY on earth would the post office clerk release the letter! If I was the sender of that letter and required ID I'd be furious to find out that the letter was released with out it. What do you think?

Disney Fun!

2008-05-08T19:43:00.002-04:00

So I'm headed to Walt Disney World for the first time in almost 10 years this September..followed by a week on the Disney Magic. I've been getting very much into the mood..listening to podcasts from Lou Mongello, gathering my vacation wardrobe, and reading up in my favorite Disney Travel Book.

So here's a little Disney fun to share....

Apparently I need to breakout the DVDs for a little review on this one:

I SCORED A 71%

Which Disney Princess Are You?
	You are part Jasmine. You are loyal and would visit the ends of the earth for what you believe. You would never let obstacles stand in the way of true love.
	You are part Ariel. You are beautiful but impaired. At times you are na�ve. Still, your innocence and good heart make you sought after and loved.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Disney Villain Are You?
	You are Lady Tremaine. You're the evil stepmother little girls have nightmares about. Hooray for you, who helped kids learn to love their birth parents and do everything possible to avoid stepparents. Next time, though, be careful not to get in between a girl and her dreams.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Which Disney Hero Are You?
	You are Aladdin. You don't have much in life and you couldn't be more happy. Based on your background and history people often misjudge you, but you will soon show that you are a hero in a plain man's clothing. Until then, brush up on your singing and laughing because they will get you through some hard times ahead.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Ouch!

2008-05-04T08:45:00.003-04:00

So I may or may not have written about this in the past, but my alarm clock in the morning typically consists of either Joey or Elphaba pawing, licking, or nibbling somewhere on my face. Perhaps not the most IDEAL way to wake up, but one to which I have become acustomed. And mostly enjoy as being woken up by creatures who adore me is certainly less jaring than the alarm clock.

Until this morning.

Now, when she gets really excited (which she is in the morning usually) miss Elphaba accidentally goes from nibble to bite. This morning I woke up to Elphaba fangs INSIDE my nose with a sharp bite. Little stinker. Blood of course immediately exploded out of my already sensitive inner noise area. After the initial gushing it stopped pretty quicky, and luckily I moved fast enough to avoid getting it all over my bed and floor..but damn if my noise doesn't hurt like a ...... well...use your imagination there.

Yay!

2008-04-18T18:09:00.002-04:00

Okay, it took a whole week..but I finally got my call with my official offer and I'm super excited. The person I'm assigned to for my black belt job is someone I have a TON of respect and admiration for! I feel really lucky that he's going to be my mentor and sponsor over the next two years.

Yay! Now the craziness will begin...well...once the formal announcement goes out at least..since thats when the relocation company will then contact me to get everything rolling.

I'm hoping to work things out to take a term off school from mid-aug thru end of september and then move and have my vacation during that 7 week break. We'll see how that will work out!

Gosh..now I need to get the house ready to go on the market! Yikes! I've never sold a house before!

Why twitter??

2008-04-18T16:32:00.003-04:00

Okay..so if you've seen my tweets and my post about loving the twitter..but thought to yourself "huh?". Well...the CEO at Zappos put together a great little getting started guide.

So check it out! (BTW - Zappos on twitter gives away all kinds of goodies! I keep missing out on responding in time...but there have been many cool prizes!)

Rants

2008-04-15T12:31:00.003-04:00

1. Why the heck has this dude not called with my official offer yet? I'm going nuts not knowing my effective date, when I should be moving, the craziness of selling my house. At last once I get the call we can get the ball rolling on stuff. Even my boss was surprised I'd not heard anything yet.

2. I HATE it when classmates argue with you on discussions without understanding the facts. This weeks discussion topic was ethical decisions and the internet. I posted about it being a violation of a knitwear designer's copyright for you to produce and sell items from their patterns without their permission. Everyone on in my class says what good are patterns for if you cannot sell items you make from them. They are COMPLETELY missing the fact, that the pattern is a copyrighted work. And copyright law prohibits someone from producing the copyrighted item, or a derivitaive of it (ie the knitted item) without the copyright holders permission. Though in the case of knitwears, designers accept and expect you to make items for your own personal use, or to gift them to others, but not to profit from their work. Would they copy a book or DVD and sell it? No. So why do they keep arguing with me that they should be allowed to sell the knitted item. And ONE idiot...said "well if I sold your item and lost money on it can I then sue you". I'm like SERIOUSLY? It was against copyright law for you to sell it in the first place!

3. It looks gorgeous outside today. But damn its kinda chilly!

4. I twisted my freaking ankle again Sunday. SAME one. Its feeling better already, but seriously....it just finally stopped hurting from the last time like a month ago!

5. Airfare prices are RIDICULOUS and I need to decide if I'm flying/driving home in July. Plus....if the aformentioned dude in #1 would call, then I'd know if I could combine my July trip to Chicago with househunting. And then I'd be less worried about prices!

6. Stupid wax ring on my bathroom toilet failed. Leak is between vinyl and subfloor and stained final. Which means, guess who needs to put in a new floor before putting the house on the market? I was thinking ceramic, but DAMN its expensive. May opt for the more economical vinyl tiles and do the install myself. But still a pain in the ASS!

7. Places around here want $53 a month for a 5'x10' storage space! I need to get stuff out of the house to make it presentable for selling. But this seems excessive? I know its been like 8 years since I had a storage space, but we only paid like $30 then. This seems like an awful steep increase no?

8. Zella's food does not seem to be working to regulate her digestion anymore. Joey's still good. But Zella, not so much. And she's not even using the litterbox most of the time. I swear she's leaving more mess than the dog who won't potty train still! Need to call the vet....

Guess thats all for now. I'm sure there's more, but I feel a little better after venting....

Moving on again.....

2008-04-10T16:36:00.003-04:00

So I got a call from my boss today. He said I received unanimous approval from our admin team for my next position. The move will take me back to Illinois after a long 6 years away. I'm supposed to receive the call with the "offical" job offer, my new supervisor, and details on moving in the next week or so. I start training at the end of August. I'm hoping because of my two weeks vacation scheduled the last half of September into October that they'll have me move the first part of August. Otherwise I may try and delay the move until October after I get back from vacation. I'd hate to spend a week in Illinois in training, come back and move, and then desert all the animals for 2 weeks. They'd all have nervous breakdowns!

More details to come as they work themselves out!

Good lord....I have to get the house ready to sell now....yikes!

To my PA friends: I'll miss you all! I wish I could say the same about central PA...but...well...you guys all know how I feel about that! Just remember all the places you'll get to visit me someday!

So if you hadn't noticed...

2008-04-02T17:09:00.001-04:00

Totally hooked on the twitter! Why the heck did it take me this long to jump on board with it?

I'm such a nerd!

2008-03-24T17:51:00.006-04:00

I now have Dream in Color yarn in 27 of the 32 available colorways. 25 of them are in Classy. The other two are in Smooshy. One of them I have in Smooshy and Classy in my stash. And one of them I used the Fatty for the Scotty vest, which was a nice fast knit!

I'm so addicted to this yarn! In addition to baby blankets in process, I cast on last night for a Mr. Greenjeans sweater in this too. LOVE LOVE LOVE working with Dream in Color!

Here's the finished Scotty (link only works for fellow Ravelers).

It was a super fast knit thanks to the easy pattern and Fatty yarn. Eat.Sleep.Knit has Fatty as a power boost yarn for the yarn marathon this month..so I'm SOOO tempted to buy more...but the project I have in mind requires 7 skeins..making it a $119 sweater...so we'll see. May wait for a discount code and just miss out on the power boost.

Project Updates!

2008-03-15T12:23:00.006-04:00

Well I've been a knitting fool lately. Guess it makes sense since I have no life outside school and work these days!!!

I finished my first Tulip Sweater and its GORGEOUS! Can't wait to give this baby away! I made the 12-18 month size, and used the originally recommended colors of Dream In Color Classy for this one. Will start to experiment with other colors for the next one.

I also finished my Tilted Duster finally, just need to figure out where I put the buttons I bought and sew those on. I used the recommended Berocco Peruvia for this, only took 7 skeins rather than the recommended 8. Did make the skirt a tiny bit shorter than it should be, but it still grazes the bottom of my bottom so I think its perfect. Came out a little big overall thanks to my continued weight loss, but I think it will be a warm cozy jacket. Mom is hoping I give it to her. We'll see....

And finally, my newest piece..The Scotty Vest from Dream In Color Designs. The first of its pattern on ravelry, outside the original by the designer that is! This is using Dream in Color's bulky weight yarn, Fatty. Was a super fast knit thanks to the bulk yarn, and I'm more and more in love with the feels and colorways from Dream in Color the more I work with it. I think my whole stash will soon be overrun with nothing but DIC!

Bonus!

2008-03-13T18:19:00.003-04:00

So last week was the payout of my 2007 bonus. As usual, some of the money goes to a special something I can remind myself of my bonus with..and the rest usually goes to pay for all the other special somethings I bought duringthe year (ie credit cards).

So this year I went with:
A brand new 37" LCD HDTV from Vizio

A 160GB AppleTV which I've already rented some movies from and LOVE...they start so fast! Even the movie I rented in HD was ready to watch within like a minute!

A Harmony 550 universal remote.

Having great fun with my new toys...now if only I can make the tivo work with the tv...fortunately..I have a work around for now..though its a pain in the ass...involving using tivo 2 go to get it to my macbook and then toast to get it to my apple tv... one of these days I'll fix this...but I've had a killer cold all week and just haven't had the patience.

Dang it

2008-02-26T18:00:00.002-05:00

I've been gone all day, still feel like ass, and had to drive home 2.5 hours in the pouring rain. I try to settle in for a little time on Ravelry..and I get can't the damn page to load! Now how am I going to chill?

Public Service Announcement

2008-02-22T18:56:00.002-05:00

People...if you are sick...STAY home!

This nasty flu/cold whatever the hell it is has been going around my office for nearly 3 weeks now. 3 people have been to the hospital that I'm aware of - two because their illness turned into bronchitis.... but do people stay HOME... NO. So guess what....now I'm sick! I think there's one person left in the office after me who hasn't gotten it yet. But seriously people....STAY the hell home when you are not well. Did we really need a whole office full of people feeling like death? I know I didn't need it!

Dream in LOTS of Color

2008-02-20T19:52:00.004-05:00

Hm...so I started working on the Baby Tulip Sweater from Dream In Color over the weekend as I mentioned before. What I didn't mention..is the obscene amount of this yarn I also ordered over the weekend!

4 skeins of go go grassy for Wicked
5 skeins of Pansy Go Lightly for Mr. Greenjeans
1 skein of Petal Shower
1 skein of Ruby River
1 skein of Punky Fuschia
1 skein of Wisterious
(the signal skeins will go towards a girls Rocketry blanket I think..and or more sweaters).

And thats all just from The Loopy Ewe

I also placed an order at Eat Sleep Knit for:
1 skein Dusky Aurora
1 skein of Deep Seaflower
1 skein of Nighwatch
(these will go with the blues I already have towards a boys Rocketry blanket and maybe more sweaters).

And I ordered new Dream in Color Pattern from Pick UP Sticks for the Scotty Vest, Adult Tulip Cardigan, and Dream In Color Shrug.

Oh..then I ALMOST went back to Eat Sleep Knit to order some DIC Fatty because thats what the Scotty Vest uses...but I controlled myself...for now.

I also decided to put some of my stash available for sale (located at here for those of you interested and on Ravelry).

I guess the good news is....the stuff I bought from today's Loopy Ewe sneak up was NOT dream in color. But only because Sheri finally ran out of the Butter Peeps I kept forgetting to order.

Wow...just did the math...I ordered 4000 yards of dream in color classy this weekend! Thats 12000 feet. Thats over 2 MILES of classy!

Here's the tulip baby sweater so far. Waiting for my size 7 DPNs to show up from Sonny and Shear to finish the sleeves.

Oh...and did I mention????

2008-02-17T13:38:00.002-05:00

Found another great online yarn store I love: Sonny and Shear. They are one of a few stores online that carry the Dream in Color line. (So does my favorite The Loopy Ewe). Plus Sonny and Shear carries my favorite Brittany birch needles.

Very productive lately!

2008-02-17T13:30:00.003-05:00

So Friday morning..yes...7am to be exact...I cleaned out my garage finally. And now my honda has its new home! Was soooo nice to have it in there this weekend. Shame on me for being too lazy to do this sooner! That poor car spent its first two months out in the cold on the driveway! Only problem now, I have to make SURE I'm watching behind me and don't back into the impala again! After my second time doing that, I started backing the honda up the driveway so I'd SEE the impala in front of me and not hit it. But I can't back it into the garage because of what side of the car the door inside would be in....so.....I'm being careful...and the next time the cars collide the impala is definitely getting parked on the street!I've also been getting LOTS of knitting done lately! I loaded up onDream In Color Classy yarn in a bunch of colors. And I'm well into the Tulip Baby Cardigan. And SOOOOO loving it! I can't believe how much I got done. I figured I'm going to make some girls and boys colorways for babies who are on their way since I don't know which one it will be yet! Plus..its knitting up so fast, and uses only a fraction of a skein that I figured I'd make a bunch in different sizes and colorways and Mom and Donna can sell them at this falls craft fairs.

Business Travel is a Privledge

2008-02-05T19:52:00.001-05:00

My ASS!!!

Not only did it take me 48 hours to get home from Peoria last week...but get what happened to me TODAY (taken from an email I sent to a few friends from the airport tonight. Good news is...I'm blogging on my macbook from my desk...so at least there was a happy ending! I'm thinking need to start a book on all my crazy travel problems and what I do when I'm stranded in airports. Too bad I didn't come up with that idea like 5 years ago though....Book would be done!

Yeah so....was supposed to land in charlotte at 8:48am for a 10-3 meeting. Diverted to SC and finally got to charlotte at 11:15, putting me at the office at noon. Meeting was OVER. Lunch was over (I was offered leftovers from the day before). B, who called the meeting, tells me to try and catch the 4pm flight rather than wait til my 6pm. I call my admin to try and change my flight. She emails me that u have to try for standby. She also wrote ( which I didnt see until 4:30) that I was unchecked from the 6pm and would has to check in again. I get dropped off at the airport at 2pm. Get on standby list for the 4pm-they tell me there may be a $25 fee if I get on. And I wait at the gate and don't get on. So at that point i have 2 hours to kill and start wandering. Not til I sit down to eat do I see the line from my admin about needing to checkin again. Go to the service center in a panic, and they tell me I'm not on the 6pm flight but the 4pm which was overbooked so I was on standby. They say they can book me on the 6pm for $25. I say that's fine if I am confirmed with a seat but that I never should have been pulled off in the first place if the 4pm was overbooked and I was only on standby. She says she has no choice, so I did my thing (note: original text removed cuz only the email receipents would have gotten in...but basically I was a bitch til I got my way) and finally they figure out how to rebook me without the $25 and with a confirmed seat. Now I'm waiting hoping no more issues!

Needless to say, this is the last time I fly to charlotte for a half day meeting! UGH! May be my last flight period for a while!!!!

Pretty STR!

2008-02-04T19:39:00.000-05:00

Look at the beautiful STR lightweight I got for posting on KnitMap.

Tilted Duster and Knitmap

2008-01-27T10:14:00.000-05:00

So first of all...for the knitters out there who read my blog (there must be one or two of you right?) do you know about Knit Map?? Its this great site where you can put in a zip code and get back all the local yarn stores in that area. And people go in and rate and comment on the stores. So if you are like me and just LOVE to check out a local yarn store whenever you are away from home check it out! There is even a special iPhone version. Oh...and I just won a skein of Socks that Rock Lightweight for commenting! YEAH!

And...this weekend I cast on the Tilted Duster...I've been coveting it since the Fall 2007 Interweave first came out. I bought the recommended yarn in a light gray colorway (poor Yarn Love was one skein short of the black otherwise I would have gone with that). Anyway, I scoped out the project on Ravelry and everyone said the top is going super fast and the skirt takes forever. Well..I must agree...I cast on Friday night and knit a bit Friday and then about 4 hours yesterday..and I've finished the back, both front pieces, and started the sleeves (done two at the same time to make sure they are the same length!). Now I just have to decide if there's enough space/time to bring them with me to Peoria this week....depends on if I stop goofing off and get this weeks paper started I guess since I need to pack, go to target, and leave to drop Elphaba at the kennel before my 6pm flight tonight.

My 2008 Apple Wish List

2008-01-15T20:07:00.001-05:00

Well..the keynote at MacWorld was today...and I've got lots of goodies on my wishlist....

First is of course the freakishly tiny Macbook Air. Of course I don't NEED a new laptop...and I love my Macbook. But its sooooo cool! Although this one is on my list...unless I win the lottery...it will stay on the list!

As to things I may actually BUY this year....
I wasn't that into the first AppleTV since I was turned off by the idea you had to buy your movies/tv shows and download them first to the computer and THEN move them to the AppleTV. But that problem is no more! AND when you consider that you will also be able to RENT movies and tv shows now...Apple TV seems like a no brainer. Only question is which size? I've been tivoing movies and then watching them on the laptop on the road or putting them on my ipod or burning to dvd...but deleting them when I was done with them. Perhaps I should go with the bigger AppleTV and stop deleting my movie files?

And third...the Time Capsule. My airport extreme is great. But is the original and my macbook is capable of faster wireless transmission that my airport extreme doesn't support. But with Time Capsule I'd be able to take advantage of the faster wireless speeds. Oh..and the wireless backup harddrive is freaking awesome! I only have two USB ports and a firewire port on this baby....I wouldn't have to plug the external hard drive into my firewire port if I had Time Capsule.

Hm....what to spend my tax return and bonus on....

Oh...yeah...if I get apple tv that means I need a new tv too....finally will be time to upgrade to a flat panel HDTV. Timing is probably right since when I move again (in the next six months I hope!) I hope to have more room and would be nice to have a TV in the main hang out area and then another someplace else hooked up to the wii and for playing around...... Hm....what TV to buy???? Good thing I'm getting that nice fat tax return. Better enjoy it since I finally wised up and adjusted my tax witholding now that I'm a homeowner.

Another canine addition to the family!

2007-12-19T19:46:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday mom and I went down to see my little bro's new condo. He decided we should go look at puppies. So we headed over to the new PAWS facility..and look who he brought home!

That would be Wrigley (brought home to feline brother Altoid).

He's a 7 month old mutt. And SUCH a sweetie..most of the time. He's not very socialized with other animals so he barks at other dogs and his new brother. Though yesterday when my bro tried to introduce them for the second time Altoid gave Wrigley a run for his money by giving him a good swipe - and got a claw stuck in Wrigley's head. The folks at PAWS said it would be just a few swipes from the cat before the dog would back off..so I guess we're on swipe one!

Mark says that Wrigley has been sleeping through the night in his crate without making a sound. And he's lasting all day in the crate with no accidents. And the very smart Wrigley already is shaking his paw and when he wants to go out he brings his leash to Mark. How cute right?

New Car!

2007-12-08T13:10:00.000-05:00

I decided to treat myself..... More pics: Here

To Joey, Zella, and Elphaba:

2007-12-06T07:01:00.000-05:00

Dear Furbabies,

The dishes with the paw print are yours and contain your food. The other dishes are mine and contain my food. Please note, placing a paw print in the middle of my plate and food does not stake a claim for it becoming your food and dish, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.

The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Beating me to the bottom (or top Miss Elphaba!) is not the object. Tripping me doesn't help because I fall faster than you can run.

I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep. It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out the other end to maximize space is nothing but sarcasm.

For the last time, there is not a secret exit from the bathroom. If by some miracle I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, bark, try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge and try to pull the door open. I must exit through the same door I entered Also, I have been using the bathroom for years --canine or feline attendance is not required.

The proper order is kiss me, then go smell the other dog or cat's butts. I cannot stress this enough!

To pacify you, my dear pets, I have posted the following message on our front door:

To All Non-Pet Owners Who Visit & Like to Complain About Our Pets:

They live here. You don't.
If you don't want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. That's why they call it "fur"niture.
I like my pets a lot better than I like most people.
To you, it's an animal. To me, he/she is an adopted son/daughter who is short, hairy, walks on all fours and doesn't speak clearly.

Remember...

Dogs and cats are better than kids because they:

Eat less
Don't ask for money all the time
Are easier to train
Normally come when called
Never ask to drive the car
Don't hang out with drug-using friends
Don't smoke or drink
Don't want to wear your clothes

(I don't know who deserves credit for this...I've seen it several different places...but I love it!)

Are you like me....

2007-12-02T18:00:00.000-05:00

And hate it when there is an extra scene all the way at the end of a movie??

I was just sitting here working on the laptop while X-3 was on in the background. Has anyone watched it all the way through the end of the credits? I've seen this movie several times and never saw the end of the credits. Well guess what...Charles is alive! The credits end..and you go to a scene with a nurse caring over a patient (unseen). You hear the patient (Patrick Stewarts voice) say "hello moira" and the nurse look at him started and say "charles ?" OMG....what does this mean.... He's supposed to be dead..and I didn't think there was going to be another sequel...

Reminds me of the fact I've heard there's always something special at the end of the Pirates of the Caribean credits too. I never knew this until a week after I saw the third movie. Apparently a scene comes up and you see Kiera Knightly walking the beach with a young boy...its the first time Orlando Bloom is able to come on land and see her...and their son. I still have yet to see this one for myself....but was very upset when I heard about it and realized I'd missed it.

Why do studios do this? I mean....almost no one stays and watches ALL the credits of a movie... I usually only stay if its animated to check the names and make sure I got them all right. Or if I want to see more about the music that was in the movie.. but thats it. I wonder how common it is to have a special scene after the credits... Does this mean I need to start sitting through them? How many of you watch the credits til the end?

Please go check out my uncle's blog!

2007-11-25T11:19:00.000-05:00

Hey readers! My uncle started a blog a while back, there's just a few posts, but he said something to me about no one reading it because I'm the only one commenting. So do me a favor...go check it out and give him a quick comment please!

http://chiefsworld-warner.blogspot.com/

Good News Bad News

2007-11-15T19:41:00.000-05:00

Good news
I got an A in my second class! Yeah!!!!

Bad news
Elphaba and Joey both have ear mites. Yucky!

Thats the kind of thing that makes sense for good news bad news right?? How about this.

Dad calls Saturday night..mind you..Dad NEVER calls. I'd heard from mom that Dad's father, my "Pa", was really sick. In fact, mom said my bro and dad had gone down there last week because in my brothers words "he's gonna go at any minute". Now, a normal person would think perhaps DAD would have called to tell me about this at some point in time....but no. So Saturday he calls and first chit chats about when we're going to see a Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theater. Then he tells me he has some bad news.

Me: About Pa you mean?
Dad: Yeah, how did you hear?
Me: Well I know Mark says he's sick and you guys just went down there.
Dad: So you talked to Mark?
Me: No. Mom told me.
Dad: Oh. Well, yeah, he's sick. Its really not good.

(then he goes into the explanation - he has colon, lung, and kidney cancer...and its basically everywhere now. fortunately he has no symptoms at all. we're not going to try any treatment cuz there's too much of it and it will seriously decrease his quality of life, 3-6 months to live, etc)

Now mind you, I really don't know my "pa" at all. My mom tells me when we were infants he was a doting grandfather. But I've maybe seen him 3 times in the past 20 years. So I feel kinda bad, but am feeling worse that I'm not more upset about it.

Dad moves onto other topics and starts asking me about when I get moved next. How do I think I'm gonna do selling my house, what does the market look like in Peoria, etc. Then Dad says "well the good news is you'll be coming into a lot of money when pa goes. there are some restrictions on what you are able to spend it on up to a certain age, but property is allowed so that should be a big help when you buy your next place".

Am I the only one that finds that inappropriate? Bad news, grandpa's gone in about 3-6 months, good news, you are going to inherit a bundle of money?

On the other hand, I now understand the callers who contact Suze Orman feeling guilty about money they inherited. I feel strange that this man I barely know is about to die and I'm going to profit from it. On the other hand, I could use the money, I would love to be able have way more equity in my house. Its just strange. I feel like he shouldn't have told me about the inheritance you know? Does that seem weird?

Stupid Strike!

2007-11-14T23:11:00.000-05:00

The girls and I are headed into NYC this weekend to celebrate Karen and my birthdays. And Destiny and I had tickets to see Legally Blonde...but due to the freaking stagehand strike....there will be NO Legally Blonde on Saturday.

They better get this straightened out by next week. I'm gonna be REALLY upset if mom and I don't get to see The Little Mermaid the day after Thanksgiving!

Just had my excitement for the day...week maybe?

2007-11-06T15:48:00.001-05:00

That would be coming home to find the house across the street... ON FIRE! Here's the aftermath.