The Move

So, the big move is almost complete….at least for the people in my area. There are other people in the office who are just starting and I’m happy to not be one of them. I’m happy to be settled in my new area looking out my window at the view. Of course, at this particular moment, my view is being obstructed by a large truck who is cutting down portions of the trees that were providing shade outside my window and throwing large branches into a mulching machine. I appreciate that a lot.

Here is my new spot.
It doesn’t look to impressive from this angle, but believe me, it’s significantly larger than what I had before and much more open.

The view outside my window. (I am minus two shelves that I had in my old spot which is where I used to have all of my pictures sitting….therefore I had to put my little darling’s pictures on the window ledge….grrrr…) See the mulching truck there obstructing my view?!
My co-workers are pleased that the move is over as well…..

Marilyn

Connie (and my mother in the background who stopped by to let me use her digital camera for this post…..)

My supervisor Lea who informed me that maybe I shouldn’t post her pictures on the internet because how do I know she’s not in the witness protection program?!

Not everything is done, though. Our lobby is still a mess that looks like a tornado hit it. If I were a visitor to our campus, I wouldn’t want to walk in here….

It’s a little dark and hard to get a grasp on how messy it is. To the left outside the scope of the picture is a massive amount of desks, chairs and partitions piled all over eachother.

And that is it. Hopefully now that I have completed move number five for the year, I’ll get to stay put for awhile. Cuz that would be kind of nice.

Full Circle

Twenty-nine years ago next month, my family moved into a nice, little neighborhood that was just being developed. All of the houses were brand new and ours was the first one on the block to be finished. My mom recently did a Wordless Wednesday post showing the change in landscaping from the first summer there and this summer. I took the liberty of “stealing” the pictures from her blog for the purpose of this post:

Here is the backyard in 1978

Here is the backyard in 2007I was 3.5 years old when we moved into this neighborhood. As time went by, more and more houses were built up and more and more kids occupied the neighborhood. The summers were filled with tee-ball games, bike-riding, roller skating, and begging our parents to “please, please let us stay out a little longer”.

I lived in that house and that neighborhood until I was 22 years old (with the exception of going away to college for a year and a half and a 4 month stay in Arizona). In 1997, I moved out of my parents home for good and into an apartment in near-by college town with a girl my age. That same week, I started my brand new job, which I still have to this day.
After several more apartments and disastrous roommate situations, I eventually met and married my husband. We moved into a condominium for two years right about the time Care Bear was being born. We loved that place and we loved living in college town, but by the time Feisty was about to come around and our lease was about to run out, we decided we needed more than a two bed-room condo for us and our three kids. We began to shop around.
Three years ago, this week, we moved into the home we currently live in. On the same street that my family moved into 29 years ago. My kids run on the same sidewalks I run on, play in the same park I played in, and spend significant amounts of time in the house I grew up in.
The neighbors two doors down from my parents’ home moved in just a few weeks after we did 29 years ago. Their kids were playmates of me and my brother. They still live there… with their grown son, his wife, and their young son who is Feisty’s age. My children and his child now run the streets together and when I watch them playing I feel like I’m stepping back in time about 29 years.

This year marked the ten year anniversary for my job. When I first started here all of the people who have the same type of position I do were in several cubicles in an area right off of the reception area. The director of my office was located in the office I sit in now, her assistant was across the hall, and the mail center was downstairs. Not long after I started, our office did a major transition and we all got moved all over the place.

I recently told you about another massive overhaul our office has gone through by splitting our office up into two different buildings. And because of that, we are all being moved……again. (for those who have read me regularly and for a long time realize that this makes about five moves for me in the past six months.) This time, however, I am not complaining because….since I am now full time, I get a WINDOW. Yes that’s right. A window. The ironic thing? We are moving back to the same area we were in when I started ten years ago. The director is moving back here to where she was. Her assistant is moving back to the office across the hall where she was before. The mail center is moving back downstairs. My question to the geniuses who do the planning for all these moves is……“why don’t we look at the big picture from the beginning if we’re all going to end up back where we were ten years ago?!”

All in one week I am moving full circle in my office and celebrating three years of moving full circle back to my old ‘hood. Life can be crazy like that. Or maybe it’s what you call a rut.

Wordless Wednesday

Stuff and More Stuff

I realize that in all likelihood, very few people are reading my blog anymore. I've probably been dropped off of bloglines all over the blogosphere. But that's alright. I've gotten past the point of worrying what my sitemeter says, what blog top sites says or how many comments I get. I've decided to keep writing on my blog when I feel I have something to write about because this is how I've been keep track of things in my life. My diary. Go figure. Isn't that what blogs were originally created to be? So, when I feel like I have something to write about, I'm going to write. If you still want to read what I've written, great. If you want to comment, great. If not, that's great, too. I'm going to do this more for my own purposes now than for any other reason. That being said.....this particular post has no particular theme. It's a lot of randomness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This past weekend was one of the most pleasant, relaxing and fun weekends I've had in I don't know how long. We didn't do anything grand or expensive or even go anywhere, but I went back to work on Monday with the glow of the weekend. Mike bought the kids two inflatable pools on Friday night last week. One of them is a pretty large one that has an inflatable slide and an inflatable basketball hoop that goes over the pool and you can attach a hose to it so that water sprinkles down all over everything. The other one is just a typical, round wading pool (at the request of Feisty because she wasn't too sure about the other one.) The weather this past weekend was between 75-85 both days. There was not a cloud in the sky. We put up chairs in the backyard, ate our lunch out there, the neighbor girls put up their pool and the whole weekend was spent with those kids going back and forth to eachother's backyards playing in their pools. Mike and I? We sat in the chairs, watched them play, I read magazines. By the end of the weekend, my kids looked like perfectly cooked little golden turkeys. Yes, I put sunscreen on them, but they had perfect golden little tans and their hair even lightened up a little bit.

(Don't worry. I didn't have them rotating on a stick.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week our church is doing VBS. It's in the evening from 6 to 8:30. It's kind of a challenge to get home from work at 5:00, get them dinner and get them to the church by 6:00. But we've been doing pretty good. The exciting thing this year is that Feisty gets to be a part of Bible School. She's 3 now and gets to go. I was a little concerned about how she was going to do because I was pretty positive that the four (4) people she feels comfortable being with weren't going to be her teacher (especially since three of those people are me, my mom and her dad and I knew we weren't her teachers). She ended up doing just fine and is having a great time. My little girl is growing up. Maybe, just maybe, this means I can attempt to take her to the church for babysitting when they do the next "Parent Freedom Night". We'll see. I'm not getting my hopes up. This year's Bible School is called "Water Works Park" and every night they learn a different Bible story that has something to do with water. It's a very high energy program and it's very difficult to get my already high energy children to settle down every night. But it's OK. As long as they are having fun and learning something.

Care Bear has always had a stage fright problem. She sings and dances and performs like no other at home, but get her in front of other people and she just freezes up. I keep hoping she's going to grow out of it soon, but I'm not sure it's going to happen quite yet. I have that feeling based on this conversation last night:

Anakin: "Kristen, Care Bear doesn't sing at Bible School. I watch
her and she doesn't sing."
Care Bear: "I have stage fright Anakin!!!"

I just assured her that it's OK and she'll sing when she's ready. Feisty, on the other hand, at this point doesn't seem to be exhibiting any of that. In the car on the way there last night, I asked them to sing a song for me from Bible School. Care Bear clammed up, but Feisty jumped right in and sang (perfectly in tune I might add): "Splish, Splash! It's a Bible bash!!"

While they are there, I have been enjoying some "quiet time" at home; watching my stupid soap opera, cleaning up around the house, etc. Last night Mike and I got the house picked up, did laundry, did dishes and it was nice to come home from picking them up to a somewhat clean house.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My children all hit milestones at church a few weekends ago. They were all three promoted to different Sunday School classes. This has been a slight issue for my girls who are both very adverse to change. Especially Feisty. Feisty was to move from the nursery to the pre-school class; Care Bear from pre-school to Kindergarten; and Anakin from primary to middlers. Care Bear postponed her promotion until her buddy Chloe came back from vacation. That was last Sunday and she did fine once Chloe was back. Feisty on the other hand has to start out each Sunday, even if it's just for a few minutes, with her best friend Sandy before she feels comfortable crossing the hall to her appropriate class. Once she's there, she's fine. But she has to get her Sandy fix first. And Sandy is perfectly fine with that arrangement!

Anakin is now in the "middlers" class for 4th, 5th and 6th graders. After this year, Anakin has one more year in Elementary school. Pass the oxygen tank please....I'm too close to having a teenager in the house! I'm getting ahead of myself, but considering I remember his first day of kindergarten like it was yesterday and now he's in fourth grade and his baby sister is going into kindergarten.....it'll be tomorrow when I have a house full of teenagers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I realized today that I'm sort of a nerd. I try to be cool, but deep down I'm really just a total geek. And this is how I came to that conclusion: I took my husband's truck to work today so he could have transportation for himself and the kids. Something happened with the fuses in his truck and his radio is not working. I like my radio show in the morning, too. BJ, Howie and Jennifer start my day. So I was a little bored on my way to work and more than once found my finger reaching for the "on" button on the stereo. So, I decided to take matters into my own hand and I was my own radio show. I sang songs on the way to work to amuse myself. Now tell me that is not nerdy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I best get to work. Enjoy your Thursday!

Wordless Wednesday

Like Mother..... Like Daughter....

Celebrity News By Kristen

Volume 1: Issue (I lost track!)

Doing My Part to Keep Bloggy World Informed

**Disclaimer: I have nothing personally against any celebrities mentioned in "Celebrity News by Kristen". It is only for fun and only opinions. Please do not sue me.

I am sorry, but I just can not resist this. So princess Paris spent the evening prior to turning herself into the county jail at the MTV movie awards mingling and porking down on egg salad sandwiches at the buffet. Now, the first indication that Paris is different than other people is that first off....she had time to prepare herself and enjoy life before she checked into "greybar hotel". Another indication is that, I don't know about you, but if it were I who knew I was going to jail later on, I think I'd be pretty much freaking out. I think she knew all along that she wouldn't end up spending her full sentence in actual jail. She may look dumb, but there may actually be a brain cell or two in that head of hers. Mental anguish my back side! Yeah, maybe there is some mental anguish there.....who wants to be in jail?! But no one else there gets to be set free to go back and live in their mansion on an ankle monitor because they are suffering a mental breakdown! Just more proof that if you are rich and famous (and famous for what, I ask!) that you think you are above the law.

But sir judge is mad! He specifically placed in the court order that she is not to serve her time electronically. She must serve her time in lock up. She has to be back in court at 9:00 a.m. PST. I, of course, as your resident blog celebrity gossip queen will be keeping abreast of the situation and bring you news as it comes in. This is important stuff people. The state of our nation rests on whether or not Paris goes back to jail today. (Or, at least that's what she would like us to believe.) STAY TUNED!!

There's a poll on the side bar. Vote. If you want.

**Updated to add: She's back in jail. To serve her original 45 day sentence. Not 23 days. 45 days. Shoulda just taken what you got, eh Paris?**

Wordless Wednesday

Car Washing Beauty

'Bye for now....

I can't do this anymore right now. Just can't. Besides, I don't have computer access at home anymore. If you want to keep in touch, just email. It's been fun. I'll miss you.