Happy Dance Time

I just had to say that I am doing the happy dance tonight because I got my car back!!! I Love having my car!!!!

In other news....not really anything going on here. Work is work. There was a bit of a personal announcement this morning but I cant talk about it here right now-will when I can! Nothing bad to me just surprising. I am so looking forward to next week when I don't have to work for a week-yeah! I have some ambitious things I want to do but I am sure I will only get a fraction of them done!

I can't believe its almost the end of October and I REALLY need to get a start on my holiday photo gifts or I will never get them done. I am hoping to get started next week and that should motivate me to get moving!

This weekend will be busy. Saturday is the Philadelphia Eagles Kid Club Halloween party. Its a lot of fun and I am looking forward to it. Sunday it sounds like we are going to some Halloween thing with Ben's dad too which will be fun b/c we havent' seen them in a few months as well as with Ben's brother , SIL and kids so it should be a fun filled-photo packed-weekend! Part of why I have been putting things off with my gifts getting started is because I know I will have some photo ops this weekend and this is the last big weekend before the holidays that I can take and use photos for the gifts.

I guess that is about it for now. I realized I haven't blogged about my TV thoughts in a while but I will try to get on that! Hope all is well!

Ta ta for now!!

Update on my car (and life!)

Hi All! I just wanted to update on the car situation. The dealer people called back yesterday and told us that they got the approval from the Honda Customer Service Rep guy and they will be replacing my transmission at their expense! All I have to pay for is the labor!!! I am SOOOO happy about this b/c even though I will be without a car for about another week, I will be saving $$$$! So Honda has come through for us on this-and kept to their word on wanting to provide a good product and good customer service. I understand what happened to my car was a bit of a fluke and the fact that they took responsibility and made good on it, it shows me the kind of company they are and I am happy to support them!

Lesson learned....it never hurts to try!!

Other than that not too much exciting going on this week. Health wise things have been pretty good. My BP numbers are back to just a little above where I consider "normal for me" and I can honestly say I feel great. I had one bad day this week where my BP spiked for some reason on Thursday and I ended up taking the "as needed pill" he recommeneded and it helped but I still had a lingering headache and took some excedrine but that was the first time I had to take anything OTC since sunday. It might not sound like a lot but for me its great. I could even say I truly FELT better since I started this BP meds. I am not feeling as sluggish and have had virtually no headaches. I dont think I really knew til now how bad I was feeling. The only side effects I have noticed from the BP meds are a little dry mouth (which he said to expect-just means more water for me!) and a little fatigue about halfway through the day but its not so bad I feel I need to go to sleep and evne with the fatigue I feel better than I have. It has helped me to sleep better at night too. I have probably had the best nights sleep this past week than I have had in I don't know how long. Like I said, Thursday was the only bad day and I can say that when I took the "as needed" med, that one made me EXHAUSTED that I thought I was going to fall asleep at work so I was thankfully the end of the day students I had were out so I didn't have to concetrate! And by the time the Rutgers game was on I was functional.

Speaking of the Rutgers game-YEAH, WE WON!!! It was a great game with some awesome plays and it was good for our record and our conference record most importantly. We also beat the #2 team in the nation (this week-there are SO many upsets this year the numbers don't mean as much to me as they did last year!) but it was a huge win and now we have to gear up for our game against WV next week. Go RU!!!!

This weekend is all about me working on my photos and getting some christmas gifts started and getting my christmas card made. I have been organizing photos on my external hard drives to eliminate duplicates and get what I need handy for the photo gifts and I plan to continue with it tomorrow and monday! I am off of work on monday (yeah!) so part of that will be photos and part will be cleaning the apt since I have slacked this week. Tomorrow I have to get ben to take me over to the laundry mat for a bit but I may take my laptop with me to work on stuff there, or I might just bring paper to plot things out which is more likely. I also have to finished cleaning off our porch tomorrow but that shouldn't take more than a half hour or so.

Next week will be busy at work as usual.I should hopefully have my car back by friday at the latest or I will have to take a train to south jersey for the eagles thing and get ben's cousin to drive but I am not worried yet. We have the Eagles Kid Club Halloween Party next weekend so that will be big excitement but then I am off of work for a week the end of the month (yeah!). We are going to Washington DC for the day on Oct 30 which I am looking forward to. We are going to take the train down and meet my friend and spend the day doing tourist stuff! I can't wait. Then on Halloween ben is off on Wed too so we will have all day to really set up for trick or treaters! Then that week I have a follow up with the dr for BP stuff so it looks like my week off will be busy but hopefully productive.

Anyway...I am done rambling for now. Have a great weekend all!
Ta ta for now!

Weekend in Review-not what I expected!

Hello All! How was everyone's weekend? Mine was not at all like I had expected. Friday was nothing fancy, just work and home trying to prepare for the weekend and doing my first creative memories "party". In preparation I made I made these 3 4x6 cards in the Storybook Plus software on friday night in less than an hour! I LOVE it!

Here is what I made:

I am SOOOO making my own christmas card this year-it will save on buying cards and allI will need is envelopes which I think I have plenty of (and stamps of course!).

Anyway....so on Saturday I headed down to delaware to my friend Jai's house..its about a 2 hour drive give or take on traffic of course. I was enjoying my drive, started off listening to the training cds that creative memories has for the "parties" since I hadn't listend yet! And then I listened to some of Harry Potter 3 since I have them all on my ipod and started listening from the begining. And then I reach the Delaware Memorial Bridge, and that is where my weekend "excitement" started off.So as I start to drive UP the hill of the bridge...my car stopped excelarating, the check engine light came on and my odometer started to DECLINE!

I was in the middle lane on the bridge so I tried my best to get over to the far right lane while I was flipping out with fear the car would stop ON the bridge. I got to the top of the hill and then I was able to coast down the hill towards the toll booth. I stopped at a toll booth behind two cars, meanwhile I had called ben and told him what was happening, started sobbing insanely b/c I was all freaked out about the idea of my car stopping on the bridge where there really is no shoulder or anything and so once my car stopped I knew I wasn't going to move again. I got out of my car and asked the man in the truck in front of me to help move me to the shoulder so he did that.Then I called my friend's husband and told him what had happened so he said he was on his way over to help me.

The toll booth guy came over to check and see if I was ok. He told me next time that happens I don't need to move my car that I can just stop there and they will help me b/c he watched me get moved over to the side and he was worried I might get hit or something. He was really nice. He said he called the police too to help me and I told him I called AAA and that my friend was coming to help me. He said I was ok on the shoulder and if I needed to move forward I could.I called AAA and they asked if I was in NJ or DE and I told them "where do you want me?I am literally AT the toll booth!" They said if I could get through to the other side it would be easier to get someone b/c it gets complicated if you haven't passed through the toll so I told them I would get through! I asked the toll guy if I could pay him for my toll and then when my friend gets there he could help me push past the toll. The guy told me not to worry about paying the toll and that I had had "enough grief to deal with today" so then he and another toll guy actually helped to push me through the toll on the shoulder where I could wait a little more out of the way and the tow could get me easily.At this point Ben was on his way, AAA was on its way and my friend was on his way. The police showed up and I told him what was going on and he said ok and that he would check back later to see if I was still ok and was on his way.

My friend got there next and waited with me for the tow truck. I moved all my stuff to his car and was able to get some trash out of it too!I have AAA plus so I get towing the first 100miles free. According to my milage I was 98 miles away so should have no problems. When the guy came I told him that and asked if I had to go with him and he said no. I gave him money for tolls and told him if it was over a 100 miles the shell station it was going to would take care of him there (its where ben works so they were happy to help to get the car there). So he took my car and off to my friends house we went. Here is my car on the flatbed:

So Ben met us at Jai and John's house. He hung out for a while then went to try and find a place to watch the Rutgers game when the other women started to arrive for the party. The party itsself was not bad. Ben had "pre-approved" things in the catalogs before he left and I ended up getting them. I got 2 ceral storage containers from tupperware and 1 small and 1 medium bar roll pan and the apple core remover from Pampered Chef. When it was my turn I think the spchpeal went ok. I sold a few items and some people took the catalogs to *hopefully* order directly on my website later. I left the party "open" to give my friend a chance to get some extra orders to count towards her party so she can get some goodies.

Just as an FYI-if anyone ever wants to have a "catalog party" I could mail you some catalogs or you could have people look online at my site (www.mycmsite.com/colleenf ) and then orders from that can be put into a "party" to be used toward host credits and stuff like you would if you hosted in house but without the hassle of an actual in house party-did that make sense? Anyway, if anyone is ever interested just email me or leave me a comment!

So after all the parties were over we cleaned up, Ben came back and we left. I had planned to stop at my dad's to get the BP monitor he had for me so we did that. That worked out well too b/c the one they gave me is the brand/model the dr recommended, just a slightly older model than what is out currently, but it works! We eventually got home and I sacked out-went right to bed and it was barely 9pm! The whole day took a lot out of me!

Today was pretty mellow. Spent most of it uploading some photos and things and took a nap in the afternoon. Tried to catch up on some tivo but I am still behind. I am off tomorrow b/c I had taken a vacation day every monday this month so that worked out well for me because I will be able to make an early call to Honda to inquire about the fact that my transmission below with no warning, barely over 100,000 miles/5 years when one would expect it to last twice as long. I did a lot of looking online today and it seems to be a problem they are aware of and in some cases it looks like they help a bit even if you are slightly out of warranty b/c they know it is a problem so please cross your fingers. I would be happy if they just offer to cover the transmission cost. I don't mind paying the labor if they cover the cost of the trans but I am not expecting anything, just crossing my fingers. So at this point I don't know when I will have my car back. Looks like the week is shaping up to being a long one.

Oh, and while at the party, I broke my watch band too! What a day!!!So that is what has been going on in my world. Hope everyone else had a better weekend! ta ta for now!!!

Ipod update....

Just wanted to post really fast that my experience at the Apple store was much more pleasant than the last time. My appointment was for 5:15 and I arrived at 5pm and started hanging around the Genius Bar to wait my turn. One guy talked to me, asked me the problem and I explained to him how I had my original Ipod for a year and a half before I had any problems and that I brought it in in June and the guy replaced it b/c he said it seemed like the hard drive was failing. I had been ok with that and went on my merri way and then a few weeks later i started to have problems again so I came in and that was when I had the worst experience of my life with the Genius Bar rep and how I left with nothing having been done, I went home and restored it and now 2 months later I am having trouble again. I told him how I had even been nervous about going to the store today because I was afraid of seeing the same guy as last time. So I explained the problems and told him how now it seemed to be working. I had made the appt when it was still frozen but later I had been able to reset it and it seemed ok but I wanted to come in anyway since my warranty expires next month and I didn't want to wait for it to happen again AFTER it expired. He was very nice and said that since it seemed to be a problem and its not something they can just re-create to test, he would recommend to the tech who will be out in a few to just replace my ipod. This made me very happy.So I had to wait about another 15-20 min or so but when the tech guy came out he was very nice and started the process of swapping it for another one. He said I was lucky b/c there was only one in the store! I told him also of my previous experience woes and he was asking me if I remembered his name or what he looked like. Sounded to me like they might have had other complaints and he was trying to see if it was the same person from the questions he was asking. I told him I didn't remember much b/c I tried to block him out of my memory it was that bad! So he gave me a fresh ipod, I thanked him for his help and a much better experience. He told me I had til Dec 31 for this ipod in case anything happens b/c even though my original warranty expires next month, the "part" aka the ipod he gave me today is covered for 90 days. I told him I hope and think that the one I was exchanging was problably just a dud and that this one will work as well as my original! At least that is what I hope!So...tonight I will be importing all my music, videos, etc back onto my new ipod!!!

Weekend in Review

Hi all! (I hope I am not talking to myself but you never know... Hi me!!)LOL

Anyway-I am just being a little silly so back to normal now!

This past weekend we went to Long Beach Island to see Ben's mom and stepdad. We went to Barnegate Lighthouse. I walked to the top of the lighthouse with ben's stepdad, 217 steps up! It was not easy and boy was I feeling it yesterday! I was able to get some nice shots from the top of the lighthouse and some from the rocks looking at the lighthouse. After the lighthouse we stopped for a drink and snacks and I caught a butterfly with my camera too! Here are few highlights:

Going up!

From outside looking up!
A view of the Lighthouse from the top:
Views from the top of the surrounding area:


Ben and his mom standing at the end of the walkway on the rocks. I took this photo from the top of the lighthouse. Ben is in the bright red shirt.
This is the lighthouse from where Ben and his mom were standing. After we finished we walked to them and I took pics from that point looking at the lighthouse.

US with the Lighthouse in the background
Ben's mom and stepdad Bill
A friend of mine does this shadow photo with all her vacations and I always think its a cute idea so I used it! Here we are looking at the ocean!
The Butterfly

And if anyone wants to see the rest of the photos (pretty much just the same stuff I posted with a few odds and ends) You can see them here: http://cb-morningglory.smugmug.com/gallery/3575233/11/202950866 no password is needed. After we got back to the house we watched a little football in the background and played Tri-Ominoes. It turned out I was pretty good at the game. I won both times! I liked that game! In between we had some dinner and then left right before the Eagles-Giants game started. We were able to hear the first quarter but by the time it was over we were out of range for the Philly sports radio channel and apparently NY does not have a radio channel that they broadcast the games on. And by the time we got home it was the second half and well, you all know how well THAT went! Philadelphia really disappointed this week but I guess it was to be expected with half they decent players out on injuries! Of course in other sports news, the PHILLIES did pull it out for the fans and win the division which hasn't happened since I was a senior in high school! Oh course it was also a rough weekend for our Rutgers football but hopefully they will pick it back up this weekend and get a win!Speaking of sports, I didn't win the football pool this week at work. Ben came down to the finals, but lost it in points on the monday night game but it was a rough week for everyone. A lot of games didn't go as people planned. I did stay alive in the survival football pool so that is good and I still need to check how I did in my fantasy football that I am starting to understand I think!In other TV news I did enjoy Heroes again last night! And I still like Chuck! We also watched Journeyman and that still has my interest for now. I was also able to catch up on Tim Gunn's Guide to style last night on my Tivo-I really do like that show! Its like a "queer eye" for girls since their real "queer eye for the straight girl" didn't work out! I did watch Desparate Housewives and it looks to me like its shaping up to be an interesting season-at least that is what I hope! Tonight we watched LIFE because we had it saved on the Tivo and I really like it. It has some of the same humor you see in House MD but with a cop not a doctor. Its an NBC show but also airing on USA I think so if you get a shot to watch-check it out. I have only seen the pilot so far but I am looking forward to seeing what happens next! ight now we are watching Reaper (on the CW) and then we will watch House MD. So far the seasons shows are shaping up pretty good and and keeping our Tivo nice and active. Thank god we have the dual tuner in the living room so we can get some of these shows that are on at the same time.I am also loving all the free pilots and premieres on itunes this week and last week so I can even catch some of the other shows I didn't think to tape. I did watch the pilot for Kitchen Nightmares and seriously got a kick out of that one! I think we need Gordan Ramsey to come to my work and put people in line, even if it has nothing to do with cooking! Oh And Thursday will be good....Survivor (of course) then Supernatural is back and then ER!! I LOVE my Thursdays again. Of course I still have Private Practice and Grey's Anatomy on the tivo to watch but I might just wait til this weekend and watch last week's and this week's episodes together!

Work is the same. This week is a little more hectic because one co-worker is on vacation and then my supervisor got sick today and tomorrow and we have the most people we have had in almost a year, plus we got two new clients this week so its been pretty busy. This coming weekend shouldn't be too bad I hope. I am planning to go to see my grandfather on saturday, do some laundry and some more computer lessons. Sunday I can relax and since monday is a holiday (Columbus Day) I am going to the pumpkin farm with my cousin and her kids. Its a tradition we started a few years ago and I can't wait to go. Both the kids are big enough to enjoy it (and make great photos!) so I am sure it will be a great day.

My ipod is acting goofy again too so I am going to take it over to the apple store tomorrow after work and see if they have anything they can do for me. I got it working fine again but since my warranty expires next month, I am not taking any chances and going to get the most from the ability to use the warranty while I still have it! Hope it goes better than the last time I had to deal with them!

Ok, I have rambled on enough for one post! Hope everyone is having a fantastic week!!!

Last Week Stuff to get up to date!

Ok, so I am a little behind here but I wanted to post about some of the things I did last week and in a separate post how the weekend went.

Last Wed I went into NYC with a friend from work to attend a Canisius College NYC Alumni event. It was a nice time. I think I mentioned it a bit already but I forget so I am covering myself. I did win a shirt and here is a photo of it:

Some other things we saw when we were in NYC were the R2-D2 Mailbox, the fancy McDonalds and even the wax statue of Samuel L Jackson!

Thursday was nothing exciting-just work. I did get to watch Survivor, Reaper and ER so that was nice. I was happy with who went home on Survivor although I thought the other guy on the chopping block should have gone first!Reaper was an encore presentation of a show that came out on Tuesday on the CW. It was quite entertaining! And then ER was back and I was very happy about that-always a good show!!

Friday I took off of work to go to the Digital Life Expo in NYC. I had gotten a coupon for free tickets and so I was suppossed to go with Ben's cousin but last minute he wasn't able to come up and go with me but thankfully it worked out ok because I was able to go with two of our other friends who were going too.

Overall the whole Expo wasn't all that or as interesting as I was expecting or hoping. We got there right before it officially opened and once we got our badges to enter we started walking around. It wasn't as crowded as I expected which was nice in not having to walk through big crowds. Based on what I had heard about the Expo I had expected to see more new toys and gadgets but all I really saw were some people standing at booths hoping to answer your questions. A few of the highlights:

We attempted to play with the HP print station. They had this booth that was suppossed to work with Bluetooth to be able to get prints from people's phones or PDAs or simliar items if people wanted to get prints from it. We couldn't get it to work at all-there were plenty of other bluetooth items to connect to but their machince never showed up. They didn't understand why either but we think its bluetooth wasn't actually turned on since we were picking up items across the room but not right in front of us. We did each end up getting a few prints of pics we had on memory cards on our pdas though so that was fun. Too bad I didn't have more pics on my PDA!

Oh, one exciting thing was I did sign up to join the Entertainment Consumers Association (http://www.theeca.com/) And in signing up I got this awesome T-shirt:

In case you have trouble reading the shirt, it has images of various gaming controllers and it says "Contrary to popular opinion, these do not make me a killer". I LOVE it. Seriously, one of my pet peeves is when people blame everything that goes bad or people who go wrong on the media and gaming and other related items. I stopped to talk to the woman at this booth and as soon as I realized what they stood for I knew I wanted to support it so I signed up-and got my new T-shirt! It cost $15 and I got a pin, a year membership and my shirt so basically, I figure I "bought" my shirt and get the bonus of getting information on their cause throughout the year.
So that was probably the most exciting thing from the day!

We walked around for about 2 hours before we headed out. There were a few fun looking toys but nothing that was too new and interesting. I did enjoying seeing the idog display:

(Seriously,I want to get me that Penguin one!) I have a white idog...now I need an ipenguin!)

After we left the expo we had lunch at some small place where I had some pizza and then headed back to Penn Station to catch the train home. I got home earlier than expected which was nice b/c I was able to do a little photo stuff when I got home.

Oh, here is a photo of all my goodies from the day. A bunch of flyers/infomarion, a couple magazines, a free writable DVD and markers to label CDs/DVDs, a nylon bag, sticker, thumb pick, a mouse pad and other randomness.

I honestly don't remember doing anything else exciting on Friday night. So I will close with that and work on my weekend update! ta ta for now!