Here are a few shots of Ms. g enjoying more Hanukkah gifts...
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Hanukkah
Well I've been bummed out for the past few days. Last week I started having some minor cold symptoms like watery eyes and swollen glands. Finally by Sunday I have to give in admit I was really sick. I took it easy and then headed to work Monday. Well now I am on my third day home sick. Well, actually I would have gone in today but I am stuck home waiting for Lowes to delivery supplies for my bathroom remodel that were supposed to be delivered Yesterday. It's probably better anyway but really I am so sick of being home. Plus it's not like I have the place to myself, our contractor Doug is here working on the bathroom. I am sure he would rather me not be here, plus there is no way I can just go crawl in my bed for a few hours with a man working in my house. So anyway I am just hanging here and hopefully Lowes will show up soon and I can at least go in the office for a few hours.
Here are a few shots of Ms. g enjoying more Hanukkah gifts...
Here are a few shots of Ms. g enjoying more Hanukkah gifts...
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Bathroom Renovations
It's been a crazy few weeks with the holiday season descending upon us, our regular crazy schedules and in the middle of it all, the renovation of our master bathroom.
Yes, bathroom renovation. I know you are asking yourself why do this now? Shouldn't we just wait until the new year? Well I tried to get this project off the ground last February and obstacle after obstacle kept me from getting it going. Finally a plan was put in place that fit a reasonable budget and our contractor had time in his schedule so I said let's do it!
The basic plan is to take out the wall between the bathroom and the little area outside and make it all a bigger bathroom. All the fixtures will be replaced but remain in the same spot, and new tile will be put in. Right now we are in the middle of the demo process.
This first shot shows the wall that needs to be removed.
This is the area that is just a waste of space and will now be part of the bathroom.
Yes, bathroom renovation. I know you are asking yourself why do this now? Shouldn't we just wait until the new year? Well I tried to get this project off the ground last February and obstacle after obstacle kept me from getting it going. Finally a plan was put in place that fit a reasonable budget and our contractor had time in his schedule so I said let's do it!
The basic plan is to take out the wall between the bathroom and the little area outside and make it all a bigger bathroom. All the fixtures will be replaced but remain in the same spot, and new tile will be put in. Right now we are in the middle of the demo process.
This first shot shows the wall that needs to be removed.
This is the area that is just a waste of space and will now be part of the bathroom.
Just a peak inside the old bathroom with the "lovely" yellow fixtures.
Once again the wall that will be removed.
This is the best shot I could get of the shower and tub. The wall and door will come out so this will be more open. This tub is only 15 inches high. This means a miserable bath, which I don't even bother with anymore because you really can't get submerged. The new tub is 20 inches deep, I can't wait!
This is the status as of today. The wall, fixtures and flooring have come out. It's already much more open and spacious.
More to come ASAP! Now to catch up with other things that have been going on.
Hanukkah
With all the focus on Christmas, Gigi didn't realize she is very lucky because she also gets to celebrate Hanukkah. Last night was the first night so after Gigi's pageant we came home and lit the menorah, said the prayer and Gigi got her first gift. I asked her if she liked Hanukkah, she said yes! Just wait until she figures out this goes on for the next eight nights! Also let me point out her lovely blue dress, a present from Grandma.
Gigi's Pagent
Yesterday was also the date of Gigi's pageant at day care. She was a snow bunny. They had a lot of fun.
Princess Aurora
This is just a cute series of pictures of Gigi in her "Aurora" dress. This was sent to us from her Aunt Lisa and cousins Emma and Olivia. I am not sure what the dress was originally designed for, other than a princess, but Gigi calls it her Aurora dress and loves wearing it!
Thanksgiving
This year Paul's sister Karen, her fiance Rupert and son Drew came to join us for Thanksgiving. It was very nice, low key day. Sorry I didn't take many pictures but this is a nice one of Karen and G.
Corporate Holiday Party
Lastly I wanted to post some pictures from my company's holiday party. I don't put to much work stuff on here, since being in HR I really can't do posts on the day to day stuff, but this was a nice party and I was very proud because one of my staff was recognized as being an outstanding member of the company.
This is picture of the team that put the party together. Jackie, Heidy, me, and Geralda.
This a shot of the whole group to be used on our website.
And this is the announcement where Geralda received her award. :)
This is picture of the team that put the party together. Jackie, Heidy, me, and Geralda.
This a shot of the whole group to be used on our website.
And this is the announcement where Geralda received her award. :)
Ok I hope that catches everyone up...
Monday, November 27, 2006
Obsession Confession
It all started last week. I promised Ms. G if she would cooperate in all her morning activities to get ready that we could listen to her princess songs CD on the way to day care. You know the hit songs from Aladdin, Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Yes, this is what our listening habits have disintegrated to as of late. We listen to the songs over and over and when we are not listening to them, they are still playing in my head.
Well we get in the car and I insert the disk, but instead of feeding in smoothly, it goes in sluggishly and then the last little bit doesn’t go in. Now in hindsight I know I should have blessed that small bit sticking out and pulled it out right then and there, but no, I shoved it the rest of the way in. Would this have changed the outcome, probably not. Anyway it wouldn’t play, it wouldn’t switch to any other of the 5 cds also inserted in the player, it wouldn't do anything.
Later the hubby looks this issue up on the internet and we find this is a common problem with Troopers with CD changers after about 4 years. My car just hit the 4 year mark about two months ago. There is a trick with a credit card that you can use to try and ease your cd’s out of the player. Some have had luck with this and others haven’t. We didn’t. So here we are riding around without being able to play princess songs. Maybe a blessing in disguise, but really if it keeps Ms. G entertained it’s a good thing, plus she is so cute when she sings along.
So we haul ourselves down to Circuit City to buy a new car stereo. This is a good thing, I can get rid of the CD changer and have a little storage pocket put in, plus the new stereo has an iPod hook up. The only problem is that my iPod is the old shuffle version with a USB connector. So guess what I am getting for Christmas, a new iPod! I am really making out in this deal.
Now to the obsession. While at the hairdresser the other day we got to talking about iPods and CDs and Roger said he had all his CDs burned into iTunes. It got me thinking we have a bunch of CDs burned in but not all of them. Now that I am getting a new iPod, I decided I should burn them all in, except for few losers.
So I started gathering up the CDs, checking to see which ones are already burned in and which ones aren’t. I’ve got three piles going. The pile of ones needing to be burned in is growing. The pile of ones to be checked is out of control. I realize about halfway through this process which has been going on for days, that we have about 400 CDs and probably only 20 or so had been burned in before I started this process. We started out with about 11 gigs of music between what was burned in and also iTunes purchases and now we are up to 20 gigs with another 120 or so CDs to be burned in. So anyway I am obsessed about getting these songs in. I will not rest until every last CD is in my nice neat library.
Some stuff I may never listen to again, especially some of the hubby’s CDs, our musical taste is quite different. In fact out of 400 hundred CDs there are only three duplicates that we brought to the house when we moved in together. No Doubt “Tragic Kingdom”, Wallflowers “Bringing Down the Horse” and Soundgarden “Superunknown”. What is really cool is that I have found a lot of music that is great and that I never listen to anymore because disks are so cumbersome, wow can you believe I just said that! Remember records! Anyway yes, cumbersome.
Being an ex-diva I have some favorites, at the top of the list are Chris Cornell and Ella Fitzgerald. Prior to this obsessive population of my library, their presence was nil in iTunes. Now I have dozens and dozens of songs at my fingertips by these two greats. Yesterday I played Soundgarden’s “Power Trip” and wow I remember what I loved about music and singing, before princess songs ever entered the picture.
Some favorites added include:
Parliament “Tear the Roof Off 1974-1980”
New Order “Substance”
Ella Fitzgerald “Ella in Berlin”, The Best of the Songbooks” “The Legendary Decca Recordings”
Slickee Boys “Cybernetic dreams of Pi”
Fugazi “Repeater”, “In on the Kill Taker”
Ricardo Lemvo “Mambo Yo Yo”
The English Beat “Special Beat Service”
John Coltrane “Mainstream 1958”
Nirvana “Bleach”
Squirrel Nut Zippers “The Inevitable”
Soundgarden “Louder Than Love”
PJ Harvey “Rid of Me”, “To Bring you my Love”
Blackgirls “Procedure”
Black Flag “In my Head”
I could go on but won’t because I am getting behind on sorting out what needs to be burned in, so I have to go and continue with my obsession… And then burn an MP3 disk for the car to listen to until I get the new iPod!
Well we get in the car and I insert the disk, but instead of feeding in smoothly, it goes in sluggishly and then the last little bit doesn’t go in. Now in hindsight I know I should have blessed that small bit sticking out and pulled it out right then and there, but no, I shoved it the rest of the way in. Would this have changed the outcome, probably not. Anyway it wouldn’t play, it wouldn’t switch to any other of the 5 cds also inserted in the player, it wouldn't do anything.
Later the hubby looks this issue up on the internet and we find this is a common problem with Troopers with CD changers after about 4 years. My car just hit the 4 year mark about two months ago. There is a trick with a credit card that you can use to try and ease your cd’s out of the player. Some have had luck with this and others haven’t. We didn’t. So here we are riding around without being able to play princess songs. Maybe a blessing in disguise, but really if it keeps Ms. G entertained it’s a good thing, plus she is so cute when she sings along.
So we haul ourselves down to Circuit City to buy a new car stereo. This is a good thing, I can get rid of the CD changer and have a little storage pocket put in, plus the new stereo has an iPod hook up. The only problem is that my iPod is the old shuffle version with a USB connector. So guess what I am getting for Christmas, a new iPod! I am really making out in this deal.
Now to the obsession. While at the hairdresser the other day we got to talking about iPods and CDs and Roger said he had all his CDs burned into iTunes. It got me thinking we have a bunch of CDs burned in but not all of them. Now that I am getting a new iPod, I decided I should burn them all in, except for few losers.
So I started gathering up the CDs, checking to see which ones are already burned in and which ones aren’t. I’ve got three piles going. The pile of ones needing to be burned in is growing. The pile of ones to be checked is out of control. I realize about halfway through this process which has been going on for days, that we have about 400 CDs and probably only 20 or so had been burned in before I started this process. We started out with about 11 gigs of music between what was burned in and also iTunes purchases and now we are up to 20 gigs with another 120 or so CDs to be burned in. So anyway I am obsessed about getting these songs in. I will not rest until every last CD is in my nice neat library.
Some stuff I may never listen to again, especially some of the hubby’s CDs, our musical taste is quite different. In fact out of 400 hundred CDs there are only three duplicates that we brought to the house when we moved in together. No Doubt “Tragic Kingdom”, Wallflowers “Bringing Down the Horse” and Soundgarden “Superunknown”. What is really cool is that I have found a lot of music that is great and that I never listen to anymore because disks are so cumbersome, wow can you believe I just said that! Remember records! Anyway yes, cumbersome.
Being an ex-diva I have some favorites, at the top of the list are Chris Cornell and Ella Fitzgerald. Prior to this obsessive population of my library, their presence was nil in iTunes. Now I have dozens and dozens of songs at my fingertips by these two greats. Yesterday I played Soundgarden’s “Power Trip” and wow I remember what I loved about music and singing, before princess songs ever entered the picture.
Some favorites added include:
Parliament “Tear the Roof Off 1974-1980”
New Order “Substance”
Ella Fitzgerald “Ella in Berlin”, The Best of the Songbooks” “The Legendary Decca Recordings”
Slickee Boys “Cybernetic dreams of Pi”
Fugazi “Repeater”, “In on the Kill Taker”
Ricardo Lemvo “Mambo Yo Yo”
The English Beat “Special Beat Service”
John Coltrane “Mainstream 1958”
Nirvana “Bleach”
Squirrel Nut Zippers “The Inevitable”
Soundgarden “Louder Than Love”
PJ Harvey “Rid of Me”, “To Bring you my Love”
Blackgirls “Procedure”
Black Flag “In my Head”
I could go on but won’t because I am getting behind on sorting out what needs to be burned in, so I have to go and continue with my obsession… And then burn an MP3 disk for the car to listen to until I get the new iPod!
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Two Princesses
Our friends Rich and Michelle came for a quick visit in between business and Thanksgiving. They moved to Colorado three years ago so we haven't seen them since both of our little girls were babies. Gigi and Mackenzie took an immediate liking to each other. They found out that they are both very very into the Disney princesses. So they played dress up for the night. It was really cute. And it was really nice to see our friends.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Brookside Gardens
Wow! yesterday the weather was FABULOUS! I think it hit around 75 degrees. Yesterday when Gigi went down for her nap, I knew I needed to go to the gym. The weather was so great I decided to get my exercise in somewhere outdoors. So I headed over to Brookside Gardens, what a great move. I forget how close this is to our house and what great place it is. As soon as I got there I realized that Paul and Gigi were missing out. So after my workout, I went home, and we we all went back over. I thought it would be a great photo opportunity but Ms. G did not, she was not into getting her picture taken, fortunately we managed to get a few good shots anyway.
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