What it's all about...

I'm a 39 year old wife, mom, daughter, sister, aunt & friend. That should tell you who I'll be writing about most of the time.







Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Day 8

So before I tackle today's topic, an update on my life currently. If I just say BUSY, would that explain it?
My job responsibilities have grown and where I used to have a pretty sizable amount of down time if I planned my day well, now I have very little. Oh and all this with no extra pay, of course. Ugh!
The end of the semester is 3 weeks away and I am still getting caught up on some assignments that I should have done weeks ago. They aren't technically "late" because this very odd instructor only puts deadlines as a suggestion and the assignments are accepted through the end of the semester. I work better with concrete deadlines as it's too easy to put aside the ones that aren't "due" in favor of working on everything else. I'm getting there, but 3 weeks isn't really all that long. The biggest and most delightful surprise of this semester is how well I've done/am doing in my math class. I love it and have gotten A's on all the tests and really, really hope that my teacher teaches the class I'll be taking in the Fall. Fingers are crossed in a big way for that! Registration for fall classes is on Monday and I'm 98% sure of what I'm taking. Hopefully I get what I want!
Then summer...aaaaaahhhh summer. I am really looking forward to getting some stuff done around my house and enjoying the time off of school. There are discussions of Shell's mom possibly coming to live with us and it might happen as early as June. I think it's an awful idea, but she simply can't live alone right now and there is no one volunteering to take her in. If this happens, we have to move one of the kids, and it'll probably be my boy, to the basement which is unfinished and basically used for storage and laundry since the washer and dryer are there. It's going to take a little work to make it livable, so I may be tackling that project here pretty soon. Joy. This clouds my excitement about summer a bit, but at least I know that regardless of juggling everything else, school won't be added to the mix until August.

Oh and the Janet concert? Awesome. Our seats were fantastic, although we stood and danced through the majority of it. She looks so amazing and moves like no one's business. Although, I most certainly made it my business. What? She's f*cking hot! So. Moving on...

30 Days: Day 8-A place you’ve traveled to

Well, there aren't many to be honest. I grew up in Southern California and the most traveling we did when I was a kid was to visit my grandparents near San Francisco every summer. They actually lived in San Lorenzo, but we'd always drive or take the BART into the city for a day whenever we went. We used to go camping a lot too, but that was always in California too. We used to drive to visit my parents' friends in Nevada when I was about 4 or 5, but I don't remember. When I was in 7th grade, I went with my grandma to Missouri for the 50th wedding anniversary celebration of her sister and brother-in-law. It was the first time I'd met any of the people who lived there and I had a really great time. When I was 14 we drove to Utah for the wedding of my mom's second cousin and again I got to know family that I had had limited contact with before. Then we moved to Colorado when I was 21 years old. And we had our ceremony in Las Vegas in 2003. Other than driving through parts of Arizona and New Mexico on our way to and from California, that was all the traveling I had done outside of California. Until 2006 when we got the opportunity of a lifetime.

Every year, Shell's work has a big appreciation event for the top sales people in the company, but they also include employees who are voted on by their coworkers for exceptional service. In 2005, Shell was chosen. The prize was a trip to the Bahamas in January 2006 where we stayed at the Atlantis resort in Nassau. All the other "winners" stayed there as well and each day was up to you as to what you wanted to do then each night everyone got together for dinner and festivities. The first night it was a buffet dinner and cocktails followed by dancing. Another night we had dinner while an amazing costumed parade wound its way throughout the crowd. That night ended in fireworks over the water. The second to last night was the recognition of all the employees during dinner and ended with drinks and dancing. We spent our days wandering around the resort shops, hanging out on the beach (although we couldn't go in the water due to the high wind warnings), soaking in the sun at the pool, and even left the resort one day to shop and have lunch and sightsee in downtown Nassau. There were pools all throughout the resort with marine life swimming in them and the pool that was directly under our room had rays in it that I would sit and watch. It was beautiful and magical and I am so thankful that we had the opportunity to do something so amazing together. And for free! The only thing we spent money on were our souvenirs.

Unfortunately, this trip was prior to our ownership of a digital camera and the 35mm that we took was nearing the end of its life. Plus, I lost a roll of film (we took several) that had pictures from the big appreciation night and the fireworks and parade dinner. :( The pictures we have are not great, and not digital, but I grabbed a couple on my way out the door this morning so I could scan them in for this post.
Shell in the waters of the Bahamas. Due to the winds, she wasn't supposed to be in the water at all and right after I snapped this shot they yelled at her to get back. But it was worth it. :)
Beautiful!
Us on the throne at the Atlantis.

1 comment:

StephLove said...

That sounds like a lovely trip. Good luck with registration for fall classes and I hope the situation with Shell's mother works out for the best, whatever that is.