Let's Hear Those Sleigh Bells....

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone and I have to say under the circumstances, it turned out to be a very nice day. My aunt and her boyfriend ended up doing the whole Thankgiving dinner thing since my Grandma wasn't too gung-ho for cooking this year with the loss of my Grandpa and for the most part I think we tried to make the best of the day. Dinner was excellent and now I have to work off all of the extra calories I packed in that day.
Anyway, I had to work the day after Thanksgiving, which really wasn't as bad as everyone else made it out to be. I had a ton of work to catch up on anyway so it was nice to be able to go in at least for a few hours without any major interruptions since a lot of the companies we do business with were off. I did have one customer who wasn't very happy with me and tried to call my boss because he thought I was being unreasonable, but my boss gave him the exact same answer that I did. That'll teach him...don't try to mess with me! I can be quite the bitch and he found that out!

Dealing with our customers is a new thing for me at my current job. Our general manager at another office retired and he was the one who dealt with them, well rather than replacing him my boss and I have taken over all of his duties and I am now in charge of accounts receivables as well as numerous other things. It is taking some time to get use to everything especially since I now have to balance everything I was doing and this new stuff. Even with the holiday last week I put in about 40 hours because of the deadlines that I have to meet.

I did find some time for fun though. I went out with my friends from work on Tuesday and Friday night and then Mom and I went shopping for Christmas yesterday. First time in a few weeks that I have gotten to see my mom for any length of time. We hit the mall and a few other stores to pick up a few Christmas presents and had lunch together. Most of the time though was spent browsing and really I have to say, it wasn't that bad out yesterday. I would have thought that the stores would have been busier than they were, but I guess it's still early in the season. I wanted to be on the ball this year. Last year, I waited until the weekend before Christmas to even start my shopping because I was focused on taking my finals and getting decent grades in all of my classes. Amazing what a difference a year makes!

This post is dedicated to my Grandpa

Many of you are unaware of the stress I have been faced with this week and rather than emailing everyone letting them know, I have decided to just post it on here. There is a reason why I have dedicated this post to my Grandpa. After falling earlier this year and breaking his arm, my Grandpa's health took a turn for the worse. We had been dealing with his declining health since about February and after having numerous bouts of pnuemonia, a hip replacement, a minor stroke and the start of Alzheimer's set in, my Grandpa passed away on Wednesday, November 16th in his sleep at the nursing home. This came as a complete shock to me and I have been a mess ever since I found out when I was getting ready for work that morning. The funeral was yesterday and really I don't know how I was able to make it through it. I guess just knowing that he was no longer suffering and in pain was a little bit of a help. I do have to hand it to my family, especially my Grandma who was tough as nails through all of this. She and my Grandpa were married 52 years and she was there for him every step of the way. If couples nowadays were as committed as she was to him, the divorce rates would be half as high as they are now.

Besides being the big baby I was throughout the last few days, I was also in charge of the picture memorial. I was very honored to be able to put together the photos. It brought back a lot of the good memories I had of family vacations and holidays and just regular time we got to spend together. I was also able to learn more about my family history which is one thing that I have been meaning to look into more when I had the time. It's horrible to have to put something like that off because of time constraints and really I have given a lot of thought to prioritizing everything in my life and making more time for family and friends and fun.

I do have to say that I am very appreciative for my job and all of my coworkers though too. They have lent me so much support over these last few days and I'm extremely grateful. I don't think I have ever worked at a place that has been so caring and considerate. The flowers that they sent personally to me were absolutely beautiful and I know my family was thankful to receive the plant as well. My 4 month anniversary was on Friday and to put so much effort into making sure that I was ok after such a short amount of time was very helpful.

I also have to say thanks to Josh who has been amazing as usual. I saw him last Sunday and updated him on the entire situation after going out to my Dad's and Grandma's the day before and I'm sure he figured something was coming. I called crying to him numerous times and he was able to calm me down and ease my mind a bit.
My brother was also a big help at the funeral home when I broke down, so he deserves a hug also. And Bro, I'm sure Grandpa would be proud of you as a pallbearer...you did a very honorable thing under so much stress.

So...that has been my week in a nutshell. I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to stay in touch with many people this week...hopefully the next few weeks will be better. The holidays are a time to come together as family and I hope that we are going to be able to do that this upcoming week.

One last thing - my deepest sympathy also goes out to Amanda. If you need anything, please get ahold of me. I know what you're going through right now too and I'm here for you even if we do live a few hours apart.

Wow...I feel awesome!!!!!!!

Ok...this post might not make any sense, but right now I don't really care. I thought going out last week was the best time I've had in months...well it comes in second compared to tonight....which was so awesome that really words can't explain it. Like I said in a previous post, two of us were going to take J out for his birthday this week. Well rather than go out Friday, which we found out was bad because J was leaving work early tomorrow we decided to take him to Syberg's tonight....dude, it was freaking so much fun! We were able to get a few more people to go out with us tonight and we had a heck of a time! I probably drank a little too much but I worked a lot of it off by dancing again. But this time we got J out there on the dance floor along with one of our bosses, who I would never expect to go out and kick it with us. It got a little crazy but all in good fun. I was a dancing fool...and actually being the quiet, shy girl who works in accounting seems to be just a facade I have. I don't think anyone has ever seen me have so much fun...including my friends who have known me for years. Really I could have given little thought to who saw me and what they thought of me, but overall it was the most fun I have had in forever. And wow, the guys can dance...I didn't think they could and I wouldn't have expected them to but they got out there and it was great. As some of you know, one of my favorite songs is "The Thong Song" by Sisqo and I was actually able to get both J and C (one of our bosses) out on the floor and dancing around me. One of the other girls I work with has a theory about guys that dance...and if that theory is true for these guys then I'm in deep trouble!!! I'm not going to share that theory but it's a great one. You can email me if you want details. Anyway, dancing was a very good way to work off all of those extra calories from the Smirnoff Ices I had plus the shot I did with the guys. I couldn't let them show me up...if I'm one thing...its competitive...I will fight alongside the best of them! So finally at about 10:30 we called it an evening....C had to get home and J rode with him so me and the girl I came with decided to leave also. I didn't feel bad until I made it to the parking lot...then, I don't know what happened. J offered to take me home, but it was way out of his way so I drove to our office and then had someone else follow me home. Really I don't feel that bad....I just feel the room spinning every once in awhile. I called my cousin Mary and Chris just to let them know that I made it home alright and I am in the process of making my cake for J to take into work tomorrow morning. I hope that it is still edible....I just added the ingredients that it asked for...so it shouldn't be too bad. How much can I screw up a cake mix???? Anyway, I need to get ready to ice my cake here in a few so I'll be sure to update soon! Hopefully I'll wake up in the morning and be ready for work...but I know what happened the last time we went out on a Thursday night and it wasn't pretty.

Why I love my bro

So if you happen to look at the previous entry...you may be shocked to see 25 comments. No, it's not a mistake. My bro finally checked out my blog and decided to comment a few times. Not wanting to be outdone by him, I had to reply. He got his friends involved so I commented back to them also. It was a vicious cycle of commenting. One of his main complains about my blog is that there isn't enough about him on here...so I am dedicating this entire post to him.

First off...10 reasons why I love my bro so much:
1.) He sings an awesome rendition of "Baby Got Back."
2.) He can always cheer me up (no matter how bad things are) by calling me "Linny."
3.) He's got me believing that "Junction of Axis" is an actual geography term.
4.) He makes me laugh uncontrollably by saying, "What's Crackalackin Yo?"
5.) He picks football teams to win games based on their team colors.
6.) He has a great sense of humor. (Who else would name their football teams the Biscuitmakers or the Muffin Men???)
7.) He looks adorable in camo pants, high heels and a Shamu t-shirt. (I'll never forget that one bro...even if you were only 2!)
8.) He makes delicious scrambled eggs.
9.) He still remembers all of the Spanish that I have forgotten since high school. (Yes Bro...I do now recall that Te Quiero means I love you...I just had a brain freeze.)
10.) He always rises to a challenge. For example, when I gave my Mom and Dad an ultimatium not to bring him home from the hospital when he was born unless he was a little girl or a green baby (because that was and still is my favorite color), he turned out to be a green baby by being born on St. Patrick's Day. How many other 4 year olds get their wish that way???

And because I told him I'd give him a little plug too. Check out his website that he and some of his friends have created. There are funny skits on there and they are constantly working on new material. Click here

So there we go...anyone else feel like they need more exposure on my blog? Drop me a comment and I'll see what I can do.

Why am I wide awake at 7 am on a Saturday?

I would not be pondering this question right now if it were a weekday (because I'm usually up at 5:30 or 6 am for work) or if I had gone to bed last night at like 10 or so, but I got home at almost 2 this morning and I didn't get to sleep until some time after that. I'm not sure why my body felt the need to tell me that I was ready to get up because let me tell you..it's a little rough this morning. After work last night a few of us decided to throw a happy hour. This is not unusual for us, normally about once a week or every other week a few of us go out for drinks (and sometimes dinner) after work and just to kick back and have a little fun and listen to a band of some sort. Well last night we decided to hit a bar at a local casino just to kick back because most of us have pretty stressful jobs...it was the most fun I have had in months! Usually 2 or 3 of us are the regular partiers but we were able to get one of the guys that works in the operations part of our company to go out with us too. We've heard that he is quite the partier himself and besides the one time that a few of us went bowling he hasn't gone out with us...we were starting to get complexes, but last night he agreed. What was good about that was that he's just a little older than me and I finally had someone to joke with about things. For example, because most of us are into music at work we constantly have the radio on back in my department and up in the reception area we listen to classic rock or a variety of things all day long...well, last night they played a lot of songs either from the late 70s or early 80s and some of my coworkers were reminicing about being in jr. high or high school when those songs came out and J (I won't give his real name - but its another J I know!) and I would laugh and he would say something like, "I was only 4 or 5" and I would say, "well, I wasn't even born yet or I was only 1 or 2." Always nice to make the people that you hang out with feel 10 times older than the really are. Or when the band would take a break and they would play newer stuff he was right along singing all of the words with me. What impressed me is that he actually was able to keep up with me and sing almost every word to "Baby Got Back" by SirMixAlot. I only know of two people that can sing it pretty much word for word, one being me and the other being my little bro so this was actually kind of neat to know someone else that can too.
Probably the greatest aspect of last night (and really any night that I go out with my work friends) is the looks that one of the other girls gets when we're out. She's about twice my age but she doesn't look it and there are always guys trying to buy her drinks and dance and flirt with her when we're out. Last night was no different, but J and I couldn't believe how agressive some of the guys were about it. One guy sitting at table behind us would not stop checking her out. She had her back to him and J and I were facing him and every few minutes he'd look over and do a rundown of her with his eyes. WE CRACKED UP! Because of the type of person she is, she is nice to everyone....she's bubbly and doesn't want anyone to feel bad so when the waitress came over and said to her, "the guy behind you wants to know what you're drinking and buy you a drink." She says, "oh, I'm alright right now, but maybe later" to the guy...I guess to him that meant he'd already scored and on the other side of the table, we were laughing our butts off. What makes it even more hilarious is that she always mentions her kids and husband and that she's just out to listen to the band and have fun with her friends and the guys that come by don't seem to pay attention to those facts, but she's a super sweet person and would never do anything to compromise her relationship with her husband and family.
I think we are all going to try to go out next week also....J's birthday is next Friday so that gives us an excuse to go out partying again.
So that was my Friday night...I danced my butt off and wore myself out completely and still only needed close to 5 hours of sleep. Thank goodness I'm still young! I'm sure later I will need a nap. :)

The rest of the week went pretty smooth too. I did month-end closing at work on Halloween night and just did my regular routine for the most part Tuesday through Friday. Yesterday I started the task of accruing for revenue for each month of the year in one of our companies and that will be my main task to finish on Monday. Luckily it's all just spreadsheet work and when I have all the data spliced and added, I will just have to add formulas....piece of cake! It's just time consuming having to go back and accrue the right amount to each month since January and then make adjusting journal entries. Doesn't my job sound fun??? Seriously, I do like it...this is what I went to school to do...so finally school is paying off!

I'm off to my Grandma's today to give her a birthday card and visit with her and my cousin, who is also stopping by and see how everyone is doing.
So until next time....try to digest everything I've rambled on about here. I guess that's why I named it random thoughts, right? :)