If you're interested.....
It's funny how I'd had the best of intentions to update my lj LAST weekend after I had FINALLY made my first post in months, and yet it took another week to actually follow through.
So what's been going on since Christmas, you ask? Hmmmm...
I went to Paris for New Years! It was the first time I'd ever traveled out of the US (besides the Bahamas, but when you're from Miami I don't think that 1 hour flight to another beach really counts as going anywhere!) and I had a really, really amazing time. It snowed the first day we were there (again, Florida girl here. SNOW! WOOOOOW!) and going up a mountain to visit Sacre Coeur a few hours later gave us the most breathtaking view as we were looking down on a snow covered Paris. Simply gorgeous. All of the sites were *so* exciting to me: The Louvre, Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower... (of course!) Just....everything. I decided when I got home that this was something I wanted to do every year or two, pick a place and just go experience it, go see the world. Screw that whole "budget" thing, heh. I will make it work!
Speaking of coming home, the day after the gf and I got back from Paris my Aunt called to say that my little brother had been bitten in the face by her dog. In the FACE, which is the worst, since he was born with cleft palate and has already had 6 surgeries in his 7 years of life to correct it. Oy. Needless to say, his plastic surgeon was NOT happy to see us there in the Emergency room once we finally got a hold of him. The little brother ended up getting 27 stitches that day and a few weeks later he went in for surgery again to fix the damage. Just one of many that he'll have throughout his life, but still. He didn't need more to add on to it. Anyway, during that whole ordeal I moved my mother in with us to help me take care of him and she's been here ever since. It's been hard, the three of us living in my little one bedroom apartment, but we've managed. In that time she's gotten her life back together (for the most part...) and it's given me a chance to watch over both her and the little brother, which is a good thing because I always worry about what is going on with them when I'm not around. A little crazy, I know, but I can't help. She hasn't had the best of track records these last eight years or so. On the positive side, having her here means that I don't have to be home every single night playing "mom" and can go be with my friends or the gf or whatever more than I could before. Plus, she cooks, and that's exciting (when I'm not looking at the scale, ahem.) It's been a relief in a few ways, I guess, minus the CRAMPED space we're in here. It seems to be working out.
Which brings me to the current project at hand: I'm looking for a house! It's so stressful too, because everything that is nice and new and modern is either too small or out of my price range, and everything that is spacious inside and in a pretty good neighborhood is older and needs work. Plus, the real estate here is SO lucrative that if you find a house and don't put in a bid on it that day or the next, someone else has already snatched it up. Can you say OVERCROWDED? Because, yes, very. My lease is up here on 8/31, so I'm hoping we find something before then. We should, though, now that school's out I'm thinking there will be more on the market to choose from.
On a different note, work has been so busy this season, which is a large part of why I haven't been around here. :-( We just seem to be getting bigger and bigger, which is a good thing, I suppose, but we need more people to help us run things. I think there was a 6 week stretch where I had to work every. single. saturday. Which completely sucks ass, but you gotta do what ya gotta do, I guess. Now that we've slowed down a little we're really working on restructuring a lot of things, and I have finally convinced my boss to hire some more qualified people (we do *have* people in the office, just not too many who actually have BRAINS!) so I'm hoping that within the next few months we will all be reassigning some of the overload we have and it will allow more free time to completely follow through with projects since we won't have 1 BILLION of them per person. *sigh* Let's hope!
Besides all of that, it just seems that every second I'm NOT at work I'm either getting an evening in with the gf (around her school schedule too, which makes it even more of a juggle..) or I have some family function. There's been some sort of *something* almost EVERY weekend this year. Birthdays, holidays, graduations, Christenings, you get the picture. In fact, my nephew is being Christened tomorrow so there you go. It seems that my schedule is always jam-packed and between all of my obligations, spending time with the gf, and spending time with the little brother, my love for fandom got put on the back burner. I'm sorry to the few fandom friends that I used to actually *keep* in touch with on a more regular basis...I miss you guys and I'm going to try and make more of an effort to not be such a slacker. No more, I say! I *will* make time for myself...time to sit down and see what's going on, time to catch up, time to take an hour and relax with pretty naked boys having hot naked sex. Or in love with each other, whatever the case may be. I need it for my sanity! ;-) In fact, my friends, I revel in the fact that after this is posted, I'm actually going to go and read. READ! Right now!
shinyandnew, here I come! Whooooo!
So what's been going on since Christmas, you ask? Hmmmm...
I went to Paris for New Years! It was the first time I'd ever traveled out of the US (besides the Bahamas, but when you're from Miami I don't think that 1 hour flight to another beach really counts as going anywhere!) and I had a really, really amazing time. It snowed the first day we were there (again, Florida girl here. SNOW! WOOOOOW!) and going up a mountain to visit Sacre Coeur a few hours later gave us the most breathtaking view as we were looking down on a snow covered Paris. Simply gorgeous. All of the sites were *so* exciting to me: The Louvre, Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower... (of course!) Just....everything. I decided when I got home that this was something I wanted to do every year or two, pick a place and just go experience it, go see the world. Screw that whole "budget" thing, heh. I will make it work!
Speaking of coming home, the day after the gf and I got back from Paris my Aunt called to say that my little brother had been bitten in the face by her dog. In the FACE, which is the worst, since he was born with cleft palate and has already had 6 surgeries in his 7 years of life to correct it. Oy. Needless to say, his plastic surgeon was NOT happy to see us there in the Emergency room once we finally got a hold of him. The little brother ended up getting 27 stitches that day and a few weeks later he went in for surgery again to fix the damage. Just one of many that he'll have throughout his life, but still. He didn't need more to add on to it. Anyway, during that whole ordeal I moved my mother in with us to help me take care of him and she's been here ever since. It's been hard, the three of us living in my little one bedroom apartment, but we've managed. In that time she's gotten her life back together (for the most part...) and it's given me a chance to watch over both her and the little brother, which is a good thing because I always worry about what is going on with them when I'm not around. A little crazy, I know, but I can't help. She hasn't had the best of track records these last eight years or so. On the positive side, having her here means that I don't have to be home every single night playing "mom" and can go be with my friends or the gf or whatever more than I could before. Plus, she cooks, and that's exciting (when I'm not looking at the scale, ahem.) It's been a relief in a few ways, I guess, minus the CRAMPED space we're in here. It seems to be working out.
Which brings me to the current project at hand: I'm looking for a house! It's so stressful too, because everything that is nice and new and modern is either too small or out of my price range, and everything that is spacious inside and in a pretty good neighborhood is older and needs work. Plus, the real estate here is SO lucrative that if you find a house and don't put in a bid on it that day or the next, someone else has already snatched it up. Can you say OVERCROWDED? Because, yes, very. My lease is up here on 8/31, so I'm hoping we find something before then. We should, though, now that school's out I'm thinking there will be more on the market to choose from.
On a different note, work has been so busy this season, which is a large part of why I haven't been around here. :-( We just seem to be getting bigger and bigger, which is a good thing, I suppose, but we need more people to help us run things. I think there was a 6 week stretch where I had to work every. single. saturday. Which completely sucks ass, but you gotta do what ya gotta do, I guess. Now that we've slowed down a little we're really working on restructuring a lot of things, and I have finally convinced my boss to hire some more qualified people (we do *have* people in the office, just not too many who actually have BRAINS!) so I'm hoping that within the next few months we will all be reassigning some of the overload we have and it will allow more free time to completely follow through with projects since we won't have 1 BILLION of them per person. *sigh* Let's hope!
Besides all of that, it just seems that every second I'm NOT at work I'm either getting an evening in with the gf (around her school schedule too, which makes it even more of a juggle..) or I have some family function. There's been some sort of *something* almost EVERY weekend this year. Birthdays, holidays, graduations, Christenings, you get the picture. In fact, my nephew is being Christened tomorrow so there you go. It seems that my schedule is always jam-packed and between all of my obligations, spending time with the gf, and spending time with the little brother, my love for fandom got put on the back burner. I'm sorry to the few fandom friends that I used to actually *keep* in touch with on a more regular basis...I miss you guys and I'm going to try and make more of an effort to not be such a slacker. No more, I say! I *will* make time for myself...time to sit down and see what's going on, time to catch up, time to take an hour and relax with pretty naked boys having hot naked sex. Or in love with each other, whatever the case may be. I need it for my sanity! ;-) In fact, my friends, I revel in the fact that after this is posted, I'm actually going to go and read. READ! Right now!
shinyandnew, here I come! Whooooo!