No more pierogis!!!

On Saturday Dave & I went with mom to the annual "pierogi making day" for the Soroptomists to lend some help. We made 85 dozen pierogis by hand!! The proceeds go to a scholarship which will be awarded in March. It was for a great cause but after 7 or 8 hours of doing this..I don't want to see a potato for a long time. Today we were both so exhausted we didn't even go to church. It's 3pm now and I'm just waking up, while Dave is snoring so loud on the couch I can hear him in the kitchen. We just finished watching Midnight Express, one of my favorite movies. Damn I cried this time too. I am ready to admit now that I'm back to work full time I have to relearn getting everything done. I haven't had time to do anything. This past week we had company Monday, a Fat Tuesday event at church on Tuesday, Ash Wednesday service and Pierogi day on Saturday..here I sit with my house in a shambles, no homework done and no blogging. However, I must say this is the first time in YEARS I have been thrilled with my job. I love the job and the people I work with. I finally have my dream job. I do hope eventually to be more invovled with people. Right now I basically do the checks for a child care funding program and don't see any clients. I do get to do a site visit soon, so that should be pretty cool. I co-chaired a meeting this past week and was horrible at it. Nobody ever listens to me for some reason. The chair told me I was open and inviting, which was very nice, but I tried to redirect the conversation twice and people just kept talking. Maybe I need to work on getting a deeper voice or something. Through work I have to take some enrichment classes..I sense a repeat of Public Speaking coming up in my very near future. I think I am an good idea person who works well with an assertive person helping me! As an example I have a great idea for a speaker from a group which I am passioniate about, that would fit my Outreach position perfectly. The hard part..which totally chokes me up is going to the two other churches I'd like to co-sponsor the event. Cringe.......... I guess I am a progress in work after all. Okay most of us are :) Well I'm off to calendar my bills for the month...maybe I will actually use my dayplanner now. Cross your fingers we don't get hit too hard with snow in New Jersey.

Thank you mommy

My mom gave me some old pics to scan a while back. We had some scanner issues, but I did buy a new one last night and these I just had to post. The first is mom and me outside Ron Jon's surf shop. My parent's raced enduros and owned a cycle shop across from the surf shop when I was little (yes they also surfed). It reminds me of a wonderful time in my life...ah so simple. This is a picture of my Great Grandmom Soltess holding me. The first in a long line of Mary Catherine's. It's funny because my Great Grandmom, Grandmom, Aunt and a cousin (she's Mary Louise) all were Mary Catherine's. Mom decided to name my sister and I Andrea and Dannielle because she wanted us to have different names and apparently picked them from a movie she saw with French names. I really can't imagine myself as a Mary Catherine. Andrea is who I am! I do love this picture though because I think it's the only one I have of her. This is where I find the beauty in technology. The fact that I can scan an old snapshot and save it my laptop, even print a reproduction all from the comfort of my kitchen table is soooo cool! The scanner I got was on clearance too. Wahoo Staples. And check this out-there is a slide holder in the lid. I actually was able to scan negatives and upload a color copy of the photo. How awesome is that. As a side note, if you need a portable hard drive, Staples has an awesome one I also grabbed last night. Its a 120GB WD Passport; it is the size of a video ipod and was only $99. The best part is that it doesn't have to be partitioned or anything. Its totally plug and play and comes with Google software that lets you search your files! Does that rock or what. I think the sale is over today though; 150 regular price. I also checked it against Zip Zoom Fly, Tiger Direct and New Egg that always have the best prices so it really is a good deal. Today I have a couple of projects to finish. First I have to finish editing 50 or so photos that I scanned from my church directory so my pastor can upload them on our site. After that I have to do the same to the rest of the pics mom gave me. I also have to work on a mock survey for my next meeting at the community group I'm meeting with on the 22nd of February. Then its: Back up my laptop onto the new hard drive; We have major gbs of music that we've collected (bye bye jewel cases) and have offered to let someone listen to, so that has to be done; Find a site that lists causes by month so I can outline a plan for my Outreach group; Do at least one chapter in my Tort Law book; Clean the house (I forgot how little time there is working full time and going to meetings at night lol); If possible since I'm off Monday redesign the blog so it has 2 colums and TOP TABS! Whew...oh and minus out game night tonight at my Aunt's, Date dinner with my hubby afterwards and Sunday from 11-2 or 3pm for Church and of course the diner after :) I'm hoping to get a lot done Monday. I can tell you right now most of that probably won't get done but that's okay too because it is a three day weekend and because in my new 9-5 Monday through Friday life I get to do all of this stuff with my family. Isn't that what it's all about anyway? Now that is not just cool but UBER COOL. Peace out and spread a little love around if you can.

Apathy

ap·a·thy n. 1. Lack of interest or concern, especially regarding matters of general importance or appeal; indifference. 2. Lack of emotion or feeling; impassiveness. A discussion last night has me thinking and a bit riled up. The gist of the coversation was as follows: The question I posed to the group was, "If you know someone is being wronged or slighted and do nothing aren't you just as bad as the wrongdoer?". I got some blank looks and the conversation continued in another direction. Mind you this was a meeting at church. Now I'm not talking about running off to another county or meeting with the president. All I meant was speaking up or lending time, making a small donation if you can or redirecting readers to worthwhile sites if you have a virtual presence. Buying from socially responsible companies is another way to lend support. If you know a particular company treats their employees horribly or uses sweatshop labor, don't give them your money. There are a lot of people who do conduct themselves in this way....but why do so many of us see something, say its a shame and change the channel or go on without a second thought to the rest of their day? It takes so little to show support for something you believe in. CARE dammit is what I guess I am saying. Maybe I am guilty as well because I always feel like I am not doing enough. Tonight I am going to a neighborhood group meeting. Maybe I will pose the question to them as well and see what kind of response I get. I have been charged with chairing a community outreach group at my church. Do they know what they've done hehe. My next step is to try to find a calendar of monthly awareness. If anyone reading knows a good site please let me know. I'd like to base our activities around such a list. Oh and a lesson I'd like to pass on from a terrible personal experience. Make sure that when a garage tops off your fluids in your car that they don't cut the windshield fluid with water to save money. I had to pull over on the way to work yesterday because I was suffering from a salty windshield. I discovered that there was a large chunk of ice in my washer tank. Now I don't know about you but that kind of makes my truck undrivable, not being able to see while I'm driving. I take Rte. 130 to work which is a busy road. My dealer wasn't responsible because they said it wasn't a vehicle problem and the place that I last had my oil changed at said they were closing..bring it in tomorrow and we'll see what we can do. I ended up sitting in my Element for about a half hour to see if the heat would help. We finally got it squirting and did so until it ran out, refilling it with 100% de-icing fluid. What a saga from someone trying to save money while servicing my car. It's not something you would normally even be concerned about. Well me and my squirters are off to another wonderfull day at my dream job! Peace out! and please give a poop about something today. p.s. in my blog links you have just got to visit Matt's site and watch the video about the amazing child prodigy. I've already passed it on to scads of people.....thanks Matt!

I feel whole once again!

You may or may not have noticed my absence in January. This was due to a lot of factors. The first being a major depression which mostly arose from my work situation. I was really crushed when I learned about my new hours. It's hard enough to make yourself go to a job you detest, let alone go when your family is at home and give up everything you do together. This was the situation the "paycheck" put me in. I had been working in a call center for almost 7 years at this point. The mistreatment of the customers was getting deplorable. The level of service was and is bad from this company. Having to hear someone cry because they can't get service after we missed several appointments was more than I could bear. Couple with that the fact that after being in our present community for about two years and finally becoming involved in our local community taken away suddently unbearable. Dave and I were going to cooking classes, community meetings and church during the week. This was my only respite from an otherwise horrible week at work. I was asking friends to cross their fingers, pray, keep me in their thoughts that I would get a new job. I was sending the resumes, posting on job boards...everything I could. It was either that or I was going to end up quitting. Now I am not independantly wealthy so this could pose a huge problem in our household. Well what I am about to tell you can only be described as divine intervention. It also proves that someone is listening when you pray. I saw an ad for an admin position at a nonprofit. It was perfect, so I sent off my resume after talking to someone. I was thrilled when I was contacted by someone telling me about the position. The only thing they were unsure about was the salary. It was a lot lower than what I was used to making. She said she wanted to let me know up front. I told her I wanted to set up the interview and would call and cancel if it was a problem..after talking to my husband. Here's where the fun begins. I get to the interview and she thought I was calling if I was coming..oh boy ..I feel like I'm going to throw up. She says she will see me anyway. Next...do you have a copy of your resume with you....oh boy..um no because I thought she would have it. At this point I feel like a total ass....I'm going to have to put the old headset back on. Well she says we will see you anyway...WE! oh boy..have you ever been interviewed by three people at once? Not me...I talked too fast, felt like I gave dumb answers and couldn't produce a lick of spit from being nervous so my mouth was dry the whole time. Now comes the ride home mentally yelling at myself for screwing up the interview for the job I really wanted. YEARS and YEARS ago I was offered a job at a nonprofit, but couldn't afford to take it. It became one of those things I always regretted. Right up there with the dig I didn't go on in Mexico that a professor invited me on. My ex didn't want me to go...aargh. Here's where the divine intervention part comes in. I get a phone message regarding a different position at the same company. It pays more and is 9-5 Monday through Friday. It is casual dress...it's working with accounting, checking documentation and filing. HEAVEN. I met with the supervisor and almost fainted when she said, "When can you start?". I kept waiting for Allen Funt to pop out and start laughing at me. Monday was my first day and I love the job! A friend at work told me that I wouldn't have appreciated the job so much if I had gotten it at an earlier time in my life. She said I had to have a job I really didn't like (a dehumanizing one), I had to have met Dave and been really involved in things I love as a volunteer. If there had been no threat of losing all of this..it wouldn't mean so much to me NOW. That everything comes when it is meant to come. She is right. The organization I am working for is BCCAP. You can read about it here. I work with the Abbott program. It is so cool to not have to lie about where I work for fear of being pelted with stones. I will be posting regularly now PROMISE. Here comes the sun da da da da............ My rainbow