Funny stories for the day

I dont have a lot to really write about but I had two quick stories that were amusing to me at least.
First up....Today I went to get my car inspected during lunch (a little longer than regular lunch). In NJ you have to do it every two years and mine will expire at the end of the month. So, I took a drive over, was there for about an hour total (drive, wait, them looking, more waiting) and my car was REJECTED!!! Now it is quite common to fail for emissions but that is not what I failed for....I failed a head light being out! Now the good news is that is a quick easy fix but it annoyed me because as far as I knew my headlights were fine! So I drove over to ben's shop and looked, and they were fine! I went in to get ben and have him look at my headlights (on my car!) and he did then he told me to put the high beams on and then said one of those was out. How was I suppossed to know I had a HIGH BEAM out??? I don't use them!!!

So, Ben fixed it and I went back to the inspection station, went right to the front of the "re-inspection" line, gave the guy my stuff and told him I was just back for a headlight and he looked at me and said "You were just here?" and I said yes, turned my lights on and off, he was happy but I still had to wait 20min because there were two cars ahead of me BUT ultimately I left with my car now inspected and passed and good for two more years!!

So back at work, I had looked up the electric company in our area to get the number for Jay (my friend who is moving into an apt this weekend)and while I was looking for the number to call I saw some info for "Special Services" so I checked it out and found this:

Blind or Visually Impaired Customers

PSE&G offers free services to help blind or visually impaired customers ... Give us a call at 1-800-436-PSEG (7734) and we’ll start sending your electric and gas bills in extra-large type for easier reading. We can even produce bills in Braille, the touch-alphabet for the blind. And, at your request, Braille-like markings can be placed on standard oven regulator knobs, at no charge.


I told Jay about this (he is blind) and he called up and set up his electric for friday and at the end of the call he asked about the large print bill and getting his stove marked. The woman had NO CLUE what Jay was talking about. So he asked her if he could give the phone to me because I was the one who read it online so I got on the phone to talk to her. She put me on hold a few minutes to talk to her supervisor and eventually came back and said they couldn't find it on the website so I walked her through the links to get it. Then I hear two men in the background, one saying they don't do it anymore and one saying they do. She asked for my number and name to call me back when they figured it out since they didn't seem to have a clue. I then mentioned to her that I work in a building with the commission for the blind and that I would really like to know the conclusion so we can pass the information to others since we work with blind/visually impaired daily. I also told her it would surprise me if they stopped offering the services, especially with all the ADA regulations and stuff. So we will see what they come up with. Its almost a fun prject now. I will give it a week and if I don't hear from her I will try to call back. I should have gotten her name but who knows...maybe we will hit the lottery and get someone who HAS heard of it next time! Its not really an issue for Jay since we can help him mark anything he needs and help him with his bill, he could bring it to work and use the scanners to read it if he needs

Other than that the day was pretty uneventful. I am hoping to get to bed a little earlier tonight since I didn't really sleep last night. Hope everyone has a great night!!!

Lots and lots of photos here! It's party time!

Hello all! Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Mine went by way too quickly this weekend. Yesterday was the birthday celebration for my grandfather and niece (and my cousin too!) and today I was really tired and didn't feel 100% so I took it easy, uploaded some photos and took a nap and I am still not feeling perferct but I think it was just being so busy yesterday. Back to work tomorrow so I better feel ok!!!

Back to the goodies-photos of course! Yesterday we celebrated my grandfather's 85th birthday and my niece's 8th birthday along with my cousin's birthday too (Which was DEcember.) It's also when me and my cousin exchange christmas stockings and her kids get their gifts from me. It is always a fun time and the biggest gathering of the family each year. Last year we brought back the tradition of taking a family photo of everyone who is in attendance. This year Ben and I were there along with my cousin and her kids, my siter and her kids, my grandfather, my dad and his wife. Ben's cousin stopped in to give Tara gift and we got him to stay for dinner as well. It was weird without my brother there and my other cousin and his wife and their daughter were not there either although I don't know that we could have handled another child-there were so many!!!LOL

It was a long night but a good one. Had dinner that my grandfather made, then dessert, gift openings and then we talked to my brother on the computer for a little bit. I was annoyed because I could not get my laptop to connect to my grandfather's internet for some reason which was really weird and annoying but we just used my grandfathers computer instead. The only problem with that is something always seems to happen with his video cam, and I think I just need to update the software but we were already running late to meet Shaun online I didn't want to mess with it. We were not able to see him but he was able to see us and he got to see the new baby and how big all the other kids got. We could hear him and talk to him and Dylan had quite a kick out of hearing shaun through the computer but not seeing him. It was so funny. After that, it was late and so we all pretty much packed up headed home. It was a long day but full of excitement. There were so many kids there we were almost out numbered! It is funny to think that just two years ago there were only two (Tara and Dylan) and now there are 5 (technically 6 but one wasn't there!) It seemed like everytime we turned around there was a little kid at our feet. The good thing was that Dylan is old enough now to be able to play with Tara and she has no problem playing with younger kids. They were playing and occuping themselves pretty good. Peyton just sort of wanders around and follows them, stays pretty quite and if Dylan isn't in sight then mom is! Luke, has no care in the world and just walks around playing by himself although he does seem to have a knack for throwing things onto the ground. He is all boy and just sort of gets into anything he can and climbs up on EVERYTHING he can. At one point he was standing on a chair at the table, reaching for something and as he did that, the chair moved out from under his feet and I looked over at the right moment and grabbed him before he tried to put his feet back on the chair that wasn't there. It was all quite comical actually and I am convinced he would have just fallen down, laughed and gotten back up again! And Samantha, she pretty much slept or ate the whole time!

Here are some photos from the party:

Newest addition to the family, sleeping soundly-Samantha:


Dylan and his "air guitar"

Tara and Peyton

Tara playing "shutterbug" again. I let her shoot some photos for fun:
(My dad is the one making the silly face!)








Here is Tara and Josh when he came by with gift for her. He is just like another uncle to her-and she adores him as much as he adores her!

Josh and Tara

All the kids on the couch-quite a cute bunch if you ask me!


This is probably the best "family shot" we could get which sort of sucked b/c we couldn't really see Dylan in any but his head shows in this one!


And this is grandpa with all the kids who were there.


We also started the old tradition of marking the height of the kids on the doorway to the kitchen, "the next generation" and we started on a new wall:) It was cute to see them all standing up against the wall for their markings!



Luke and my dad aka "grandpop"



Dylan laughing at the computer


Here is Dylan and Tara having fun with Ben. They decided it was fun to clapse onto ben's legs and have him walk around the room. They had quite a good time!


Me and my cousin Laura


Cake Time!





It's all about the icing!




There was this moment where Peyton and my grandfather were "playing" and she was laughing at him-I just thought they were cute.



Present Time!


I loved watching Luke open his gift from Laura. I was glad she had something for him b/c all I had for him was a small stuffed alligator and I knew the other kids would all be opening things. He was SOO excited and happy when he opened his gift and saw it was a truck. It was a priceless moment.







I got my grandfather a creme brulee kit b/c he loves desserts and trying to make new things but I think he liked the torch best!


Like I said...all boy!


And my dad got my grandfather a book on Ebay. I think he will be interested in selling stuff-he asked me about it before and said one of these days he wanted to check it out. Hopefully with the book he can do some reading then we can check it out:)


Laura and I opening our stockings:
(A LOT of my stuff was from her work, all the "goodies" they have to give out.This bag is one of my gifts [i love bags!] and what was funny was when i saw it in the hallway, i meant to tell her it was nice and then when it was gift time I realized it was for me!)



One of Laura's gifts from my work!


And my gift to laura, Peanut Butter! Its a joke between us from YEARS ago-we were in hysterics and everyone else thought we were crazy.


I think that is enough eye candy for tonight. I also took photos of Dylan and Peyton by themselves to try and get a good brother-sister dressed up photo and I will make a post with those photos later. For now, I say good night!

Weekend Recap 1-21-08

Hello all! Sorry things have been weak this past week with my postings. I know I started out good in 2008 but work was busy this week. A good friend of mine from work also lost her Aunt who she was very close with and we have all been sort of distracted and thinking of her. Its been a rough few months for her especially with losing her grandmother, then our friend Larry and now her aunt all in a matter of 4 months. Needless to say, posting was not my #1 priority this past week.

I think I mentioned before Ben's cousin asked me to take some headshots of him and so I did that on saturday after the funeral and all for my friend's aunt. I will post some highlights of that when I am done sorting through them.

So Saturday was event filled with the funeral stuff in the morning, then i stopped to visit a friend of my dad's who is like an aunt and we chatted for a little over an hour.She has been sick for a while so I dont get to see her much so it was a great chance to spend some time with her. After that I went over to Ben's cousin Josh's house to do the big "photo shoot". After that we went to dinner at one of my face places were I got some good south jersey cheese fries and panzarottis! I had been hoping my sister would have the baby on saturday to sneak in seeing her before heading home but no such luck.

So sunday morning I woke up to a text message let me know she had finally had the baby. Its a girl, Samantha, born at 9:36am weighing in at 9lbs, 5oz, 20in! So, instead of sitting around all day playing online or with my photos, I drove back down to south jersey to see the baby. When I got there, my sister's friends were there with her other kids so it was a full room. Tara was getting a little restless so I let her try taking some photos with my good camera which was a big deal b/c usually she is only allowed to play with my pocket point and shoot. But, she is 8 now and has always been good with my other camera I thought it would be good treat to let her try it with the good camera. And I can say, she did really well. I wasn't worried about her handling it, she knows how to treat a camera but I wasn't sure how she would do with the focus and stuff but she did well. She was having a lot fun so I let her play.She took more photos than me!

Anyway, here is what I am sure you are waiting for, the eye candy!

New baby Samantha:


Me, Sami and Tara


Mom, Sami and Tara


Tara holding her sister



Me and Luke (tara took the photo)


So after I finished visiting, I snagged a few hoagies and headed home to be there in time for the big football game. While I can say I had originally been hoping for Green Bay, I really didn't have a favorite either way although I can honestly say I am not disappointed that Giants are in the Superbowl. Both teams played well and overtime is tough with a first score. For me, the Giants being in the superbowl just means I will hear about it a lot more b/c I Have friends who are fans given the area I live in but I will have no trouble rooting for them in the big game either. It would be amazing for NE to get that "PERFECT SEASON" but I still would not be upset to see Giants win. For me, the Giants are like the Eagles in that most of the time, they have their fans but are never one of the top teams that EVERYONE roots for so its nice to see them do well.

I also watched the Amazing Race last night and I was happy with the outcome. I had really wanted either of the top two teams to win so I was happy and looking forward to the next season!

Today, Monday, I have off work and Ben had work. I had planned to do a lot of cleaning and finally take down all my christmas stuff that I have not had time to put away. BUT, ben came home early and interrupted that b/c they finished all the cars early so needless to say, my decorations are still up. Oh well-they arent in the way!LOL I start making meatbals which is the thing I usually make when I am home and Ben is working-so that will be good for dinner. Plus this way I have left overs for lunch tomorrow too.

This coming weekend is Tara and my grandfather's birthday party along with celebrating my cousin's birthday and my other cousin's daughters birthday. AND we have ben's brothers son Owen's bithday too. I need to hit Target before the weekend! Plus, I have to finish shopping for my cousin's stocking since we exchange them for christmas but havent' seen each other yet. All that fun should be on saturday so sunday maybe I will rest!

I didn't go to the Zumba class I had mentioned before b/c my friend who was going with mee was the same one whose aunt died. We are going to try again this week.

My brother is doing ok in Japan. He loves it there but is not happy with the company so if you can all keep your fingers crossed he finds a better job in Japan that would be great.He seems happy otherwise and even met a girl so on a whole things are going ok.

I have been a little slow on my creative memoreis stuff this month.Besides being behind on some projects I haven't really done anything to help the "business" side but I am going to try and get an email out about having a "catalog party" where basically I just send some catalogs to people and they can gather whatever sales possible in a certain time frame and it will count as a party so they can get credit towards free stuff. I want to see what the host incentives are and if anything is coming up.I am also hoping for some new templates being available for the software soon too!

I did finish scanning in all my holiday cards and I am going to try and make those pages soon too. I am trying to get in the habit of using the Memory Manager software too for organizing but I have so much in so many places its been a process.

Other than that, I think things are going ok. I hope everyone else is doing well and I will be back again soon!!