Karen's Journal

Time:	8:46 pm.
Mood:	stressed.

I'm supposed to be in the middle of a temp job right now - that's right, I said supposed to be. It's a data entry job where we're (there are 6 temps) supposed to set it up so that people can take courses in Word, Excel and PowerPoint online, but the problem is that the company has been waiting since Tuesday for additional data so I haven't been to the job since Monday, and of course that means for last week I only get paid for 8 hours, not 40. The kicker? Well, actually there's two. First, the job is supposed to be completed by the end of the month. (It was supposed to be a three week assignment, but the company is already 4 days behind because they haven't gotten the necessary info.) Second, the data is coming from the state. Nice, huh? The state contracted with this company to do this project, wanted it finished by the end of the month, but can't provide the info that's needed to complete the project in time. I know this is Illinois, but this is ridiculous.

I've been debating what to do when this assignment is over. I've been considering applying for a seasonal job at Target or something like that, since it would by nature be temporary and it would sure as hell pay more than unemployment. What I'm concerned about though, is the fear that the temp agency could come up something that would pay better, and I'm sure I would feel awkward quitting a job I'd just gotten, although that of course would assume that I would actually get the job. I suppose though that it would be better to try and get the seasonal job than sit around waiting for a temp job that might not come right away. Unemployment sucks.

Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.

Time:	3:27 pm.
Mood:	grumpy.

I am not happy right now, and that is putting it mildly. I pre-ordered Harry Potter from Amazon, which guaranteed delivery today. This morning I got up early and went out for a walk. When I got back I debated about whether or not to take a shower right away because I was afraid the book might be delivered while I was in the bathroom and that I would need to sign for it since I live in an apartment ( I just recently found out that this is UPS's policy). Well, at 1:00 I finally decided to go ahead and get in the shower, and guess what? You guessed it - the mailman came while I was in there! (I live in a building with a security door where a visitor has to buzz you, and it comes through the phone, so there was a message on my machine.) Well, I went down to the mailboxes, and there was a card in mine that said it could be picked up at the post office, and it indicated that the post office was open until 4:00 today. So I drove over and just as I got in line, I looked at the card and only then noticed that it won't be available for pick-up until Monday! Fortunately, they're open til 8:00 on Monday, but that still means I have to wait 2 more days! All I can say is, I better not hear any spoilers at work!

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

Time:	8:23 pm.
Mood:	hopeful.

Note to self:

The advantage of having your own computer (rather than having to go to the local junior college's computer lab) is that you can go online and do things like, oh, say, update your LJ more than once every four months, especially now that you've updated from Windows 98 to XP and replaced dial-up with DSL.

Three words you don't want to hear when you work for a bank:

"We've been bought."

Actually, we heard these words three months ago (see above), but we're going to find out by the end of the month if we'll still have jobs once the conversion takes place, which is apparently going to be in February. I work in loss prevention, and I just found out recently that at least one other person in the department shares my opinion that a bank can't expand by some 85 branches and not expand loss prevention, so I'm somewhat hopeful, especially when I walk past other departments and see people who apparently have time to go online, which, trust me, I don't.

In better news, my sister is expecting her first child (a girl!) around Thanksgiving!

A little background...

My sister is 42 years old and has been married for almost 10 years, but only decided about 3½ to try and have a baby. Unfortunately, she had 2 miscarriages in 7 months and I was beginning to wonder if maybe she had given up when more than a year had passed since the second one and I hadn't heard anything. Well, on Mother's Day (appropriately enough), my mother announced that my sister was not only pregnant but 13 weeks along! (The first 2 has lasted about 13 weeks combined.) And let me tell you, the fact that my mother had kept it a secret for several weeks was a miracle in and of itself!

Now I'll have a niece and a nephew to spoil!

Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

Time:	7:15 pm.
Mood:	grumpy.

I am not a happy camper right now.

I decided about a week ago to switch from cable to satellite when I found out that I could get more channels for, initially less (due to a 12 month promo price), then for about the same, and in particular, that I could get SciFi, which the cable company took away. I really wanted SciFi in particular because I've been wanting to see The Dresden Files (even though I haven't finished the one novel I have), and also because I found out that SciFi is showing Jake 2.0, which was on UPN a few years ago, and which, like a lot of shows I get into, didn't last long.

Well, the problem is, I don't know how to get my VCR to work with the satellite. (Silly me, I figured it wouldn't be any different than cable, that I'd basically just have to change the channels on some of the shows I recored every day.) I managed - sheerly through dumb luck - to figure out how to watch a tape, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the channels to come through the VCR, which I would assume is necessary to record, since that was the case with the cable.

And, yeah. I know there are more serious things to worry about. Like, say, the fact that I haven't even started my taxes yet. (It was so easy when I didn't have deductions and could just fill in the blanks on the EZ form.) But darn it - I need my daily Jeopardy! fix. And Friday Night Lights and Bones are on at the same time. I e-mailed the satellite company to see if they can help, but if that doesn't work, I'm not sure what to do. Maybe a new VCR (mine's about 7 years old) would be easier to figure out how to hook up. At least they're not too expensive.

Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.

Time:	1:59 pm.
Mood:	annoyed.
Music:	Carrie Underwood - "Before He Cheats".

I've been wanting an Ipod for a long time, but until I got my computer, I figured it was pointless to consider. Well, since I got my compter, I've been thinking about it more, and last week when I saw that Meijer was giving away a $25 Itunes card with the purchase of the 4G Nano (which was the one I was interested in anyway), I decided it was finally time to do it. But when I got it home, I saw that it requires at least Windows 2000, and my computer has '98. I tried to download Itunes anyway, just to see what would happen. Well, after about 2 hours, it finally finished downloading, but when I clicked on it, I got an error message that send something about the file being corrupted. Damn. I was at Target yesterday, and saw that they had the XP upgrade for $99 (I think I'd go with that rather than Vista, since Vista just came out and probably still has bugs in it), which isn't as bad as I was afraid it would be, but I'm going to wait until I can talk to my dad to see what he thinks. In the meantime, I am not a happy camper.

On a completely unrelated note, I thought I would post a few pictures of my nephew.

This is me with him at Christmas.

These two were taken at his christening a couple weeks ago. In the top one he's being held by daddy (he likes being held up on the shoulder like that), and in the bottom one, he's being held by my sister.

Proud auntie? Whatever gave you that idea? ;)

Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

Time:

8:05 pm.

I finally got to see my nephew in the flesh the weekend before Halloween. We were going to go the weekend after he was born, but the little bugger had to go and come down with jaundice and go back to the hospital for a little bit. (And yes, I know that jaundice is not unusual for newborns, but it was torture having to wait another week to see him.) It's interesting - my sister-in-law is Chinese, and Kevin definitely has the almond eyes (my one sister says they're blue, but I didn't get a good look at them), but otherwise, I'd say he's all my brother. (Even has his big feet. *snerk*) It was very sweet seeing my brother with him because I saw a side of him that I don't think I've ever seen before. (He even kissed him on the top of his head. Aw...) My brother is far from being the big, macho guy, but still, who usually fusses over babies? Girls (women), not guys. I was really surprised when I finally got to see him unwrapped from clothes and blankets and such when he needed a change because his legs are so spindly - I mean, I could get my thumb and forefinger around his leg with room to spare. I took a bunch of pictures and immediately got my favorite developed to put on my desk at work so I can just stare at him. I'm going to Disney World in a few weeks, and I'm already plotting what to get him. (Maybe baby-sized mouse ears?)

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	"Memories, like the corner of my mind..."
Time:	6:49 pm.
Mood:	contemplative.

I went to my 25th high school reunion a few weeks ago. It was a two-part thing - part one was a get-together at a local watering hole. There was one guy whom I'm not sure I ever spoke to who remembered me as "the one who got into all the smart classes, while I got in the dumb ones", which kind of blew me away. There were a lot of people whom I easily recognized (including 2 women whom I would never have guessed each had 3 kids), some who looked familiar, but whose names I couldn't recall, and then there were the ones who made me go, "That's So-and-so?! (Including a guy I remembered as being tall and slender with a head full of hair who's now put on more than a few pounds and lost a lot of hair.)

Part two was a picnic at a local forest preserve that for some reason had a much lower turnout than the night before, although maybe it had something to do with the fact that the temperature that day pushed 100 degrees. One thing that was rather funny was when the sky started getting ugly shortly after the guy who teaches meterology at the local junior college showed up. He got on the phone and told us that we should get under the canopy that the park district (or whoever operates the forest preserve) had set up for us, and sure enough, within minutes, there was a pretty good rain coming down. Fortunately, it didn't last long, and actually helped cool things off.

A few of the things that stick out in my mind:

Our sophomore-year English teacher stopping by for a while. (Thanks to that man, I will always remember that there's "a rat" in separate.)

The meterology guy playing guitar and singing "Dust in the Wind".

The sixteen-year-old daughter of one classmate (families were invited) helping the two-year-old daughter of another classmate make and eat s'mores.

It's funny - I wasn't one of the in crowd in high school (not by any stretch of the imagination), but I really enjoyed seeing everyone again. Maybe because after 25 years, cliques just don't mean anything anymore?

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Who told Kermit he could take up residence in my throat?
Time:	4:01 pm.
Mood:	annoyed.

And I'm not talking a few days, here - it's at 4 weeks and counting.

It started out as a bad cough that, naturally, started right when I was starting a week's vacation. By the time I went back, the hoarseness had settled in. By the following Monday, I finally gave in to the nagging of a co-worker (as well as my own annoyance with the situtation) and went to a walk-in clinic to see a doctor. The doctor prescribed Prednisone, which kind of suprised me, as I know it's a steroid, but he only gave me enough for a week, and told me I could stop taking it if my voice got better.

It seemed like it was, but when I finished the prescription, my voice was still not back to normal, and after a couple days it just seemed like it was back to the way it had been before, so, since I had the day off, I decided to go back to the clinic.

I saw a different doctor this time, who gave me the number for the ear, nose, throat department and told me to make an appointment. The ENT guy stuck thin tube thingy with a light on the end in my nose (yeah, gross) so that he could look at my vocal chords. He said there were a couple of nodules on them, but that there was no infection, and that my voice just needed some time to come back. He did have me make an appointment to see him again in three weeks, but this is really driving me nuts. I have to use the phone as part of my job, and it really seems to be an effort just to say "hello" sometimes, not to mention that my voice will sometimes crack like a 13 year old boy's. Plus the doctor told me not to strain my voice, which I took to mean no yelling, but there are times when it seems like just regular talking is straining it. I'm just hoping this 3 day weekend, which shouldn't involve much talking, will help.

Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.

Time:	6:47 pm.
Mood:	excited.

It was a very good Easter.

I was at my parents' house, downstairs watching TV when I heard my brother and sister-in-law arrive. I was feeling a bit lazy, so I didn't go up right away. When I did, my mom said, "Here, take a look at this picture your brother brought over." (or words to that effect.) Well, my mouth must've dropped open when I saw that what my mom was handing to me was a strip of ultrasound pictures! And what's really cool is the little one is due around my birthday (mid-October)!

I have kind of mixed emotions about it, though. I didn't tell you guys before, but my sister had another miscarriage in January. It's making me kind of guilty being excited for my brother (and especially my mom, who's finally going to get to be a grandmother at 70) when I know that my sister has lost 2 pregnancies. I'm really hoping more than ever now that she'll get pregnant again and that the third time will be the charm.

Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.

Time:	7:27 pm.
Mood:	hungry.

Wow, I didn't realize it's been a month since I posted. With any luck, that'll be changing soon (I'll explain later).

I had a homeowner first last week - my first time calling a repairman. I went to turn on the dishwasher Tuesday night and nothing happened. I tried numerous times and still nothing. I wondered if the power outage we'd had the previous Thursday had anything to do with it, but knowing nothing about electricity or dishwashers, I didn't know how to test that theory (nor did it occur to me to check the fuse box). Well, at least the timing was good because I had Wednesday off, so I checked the phone book and found a place that's been in business for 50 years, so I figured they'd be a safe bet. I was told it would be $50 just for the guy to come out, and $30 just to look at it, which made me wonder - do people call repairmen, but then figure out the problem themselves, but forget to cancel the repairmen? Fortunately, the problem wasn't too significant (I think he just replaced a wire or maybe it was loose and he reconnected it - I couldn't really make out what he wrote on the bill; all I could read was "wire"), but in total it cost me $120. Oh, well, beats washing dishes by hand. What annoyed me though, was that I totally forgot until after he left that I should've had him look at my stove, since one of the burners hasn't worked since I've been here. I can manage with three, but since he was already there it would've been nice to have him look at it, because there's no way I'm going to pay $80 for another service call for an appliance that basically works fine.

And as for my comment at the top? I found out from my mom last night that my dad bought himself a laptop, and he had told me when I first moved into my condo that he was planning on buying a new computer and that he'd let me have his old one. So hopefully I'll soon be able to go online whenever I want, rather then when I feel like making the detour to the computer lab on the way home from work.

Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.

Time:	7:21 pm.
Mood:	geeky.

I bought a couple of things recently - one I was seriously doubting I would ever buy, and the other I've been wanting to buy for some time and finally decided to go ahead and do it.

The thing I bought that I thought I might never buy was a cell phone. I know that if nothing else, it's a good idea to have one for emergencies, but until just before Christmas, it just hadn't come up.

See, I was driving home from work the Thursday before Christmas when I noticed that my airbag light was on. It's supposed to go on when you first start up the car, but then turn off after a few seconds, so when I saw it on while I was driving, I figured, "Hmm, probably not good, I'll have to have it checked out." Then, I went to use my windshield wipers (it wasn't raining or snowing, but the windshield was a bit smeared) and they seemed a bit sluggish. Then my CD player cut out. Then the speedometer stopped working, which needless to say, really made me nervous, since I no longer knew how fast I was going, although I figured that if I just kept the same pressure on the gas pedal, I'd be OK. Then the car started losing power. At first, I thought about trying to pull over to the side, but I was getting close to a Target, and I thought it would be safer to get into the parking lot rather than still technically being on the road. Unfortunately, the car completely died just as I was getting into the left turn lane for the parking lot, but fortunately, the lane was rather long, so that other cars could still get into it.

The problem now then was what to do. As I said, I didn't have a cell phone, and while I did think about going into the Target and using the pay phone, I wasn't keen on leaving my car out in the road, even locked up. I was probably sitting there for a few minutes when someone knocked on my window. It was another driver who offered me the use of his cell phone, which, needless to say, I accepted, although I did feel a little silly having to ask him how to use it, since I'd never owned one. Anyway, while we were talking, trying to figure out what to do, an employee from Target came out with one of those jump start devices that doesn't need to be hooked up to another car. I told my dad what was going on, we managed to get the car re-started (it took 2 or 3 tries) and I told my dad I'd call him when I got home.

So anyway, the next day, when I try to start the car to go to work, nothing. I call my dad, he comes over and jumpstarts my car, then follows me to the mechanic's (which isn't far from where I work), then drives me to work. While he was helping me get the car started, he told me that it would probably be a good idea for me to get a cell phone for emergencies like that and that in fact, Target had a really good sale price on a pay-as-you-go one (it was only $37!) which I did do after work that night. (I've activated it, but as yet have only made one test call to my landline. *g*)

The item I bought that I've been wanting to buy for a long time now and finally took the plunge and did is a digital camera. A few days before the car incident, my dad had called me to have me stop over at the house on my way home from work (my parents' house is closer to my job than my condo is) to pick up a digital camera that he had bought for my mom for Christmas so that I could wrap it. Well, when I saw which one it was, I was quite surprised because it was the same model I'd been looking at (the Canon Powershot 520 I think it's called). He told me he'd gotten from a website for $160, but he'd seen it in a Radio Shack ad for $200 but with a free 256MB memory card that was worth $40. When I got home, I looked through the Sunday ads and saw that not only did Radio Shack have the free memory card offer, but so did Office Max, so I decided to check out both places Friday night after work. Turned out that the Radio Shack I went to only had the display model left, but the Office Max had plenty, so I bought myself an early Christmas present. *g* I took a lot of close-up pictures of ornaments on my tree as well as some of my place to show at Christmas, and I can't wait to have fun with it on my next vacation.

Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.

Time:	7:55 pm.
Mood:	good.

Now that I've got my own place, I've been able to do something I've always wanted to do - put up the tree on Thanksgiving weekend.

I ordered the tree from Penney's because I couldn't find much in the way of 6 1/2 foot pre-lit trees in the stores (7 1/2 foot is way more common, but with my ceilings being 8 feet, I thought that was too tall). I've been buying ornaments for years (mostly Disney), and I have bought some this year, but where I really splurged was on a tree skirt from a local craft show. It was $68 dollars but it's a flannel patchwork (wouldn't mind using it as a blanket) and absolutely beautiful and I justified it by the fact that a)it's handmade and b)it's a one-time purchase. I also bought some lights to put on my balcony even though I have no outlet out there and have to have the cord come through the small gap between the door and the frame.

The one thing I'm a little worried about is what I'm going to do with the tree after Christmas. I have no garage and no basement, although before I set the tree up, I tested it to see if the pieces (there are three) would fit on the floor in my linen closet. The middle and top pieces fit fine (well, the branches have to be folded up, but that's the way it came in the box), but I don't think the bottom piece can fit because of the length of the trunk, so it looks like that may have to go in my walk-in closet (my mom has already told me I can't store it at their place). Oh, well, I guess that's the price I have to pay to not have to futz with putting lights on myself every year, which was a main motivator for going artificial.

In other news, last Thursday we had our first major snowstorm of the season. Now, I'm a Midwesterner born and raised, so you'd think I'd be used to this sort of thing, but I don't recall traffic ever being that bad during a snowstorm. It took me 2 hours to get home when it normally takes 30 minutes, and in fact, in the half hour it normally takes me, I had gone all of a mile and a half. And it's only December. Yay.

Comments: Read 7 or Add Your Own.

Time:	7:19 pm.
Mood:	shocked.

I am in shock here.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from my boss saying she wanted to meet with me today. Well, needless to say, my imagination could only conjur up worst-case scenarios, and I was on edge all last night. But when I went into her office today she smiled, assured me it was nothing bad, and then told me that I was being underpaid! Then when she told me what my pay was being raised to, I'm sure my eyes must have damn near bugged out, because the amount (I figured out later) was almost 21 percent higher! Now I feel like I can actually afford to pay someone to paint my condo, although I'm going to wait until after the holidays.

And speaking of shock, I still can't believe the Sox won the World Series, and in a sweep, to boot. I mean, Chicago teams don't win the Series; they have weird karma that makes weird things happen, although this time the weird things happened in Chicago's favor. For instance, in game 4, in the ninth inning, when the Houston batter hit a foul ball that headed for the stands, I thought, "Uh, oh, here we go - another Bartman incident." But Uribe dove into the stands and then the umpire signaled it was a fair catch, and I couldn't believe it. And even though I still consider myself a die hard Cubs fan, I couldn't help but get caught up in the excitement - even bought a T-shirt commemorating the event. In fact, I consider it to be a bit of a sign. If the Red Sox can win their first title in 86 years in 2004, and the Sox can win their first title in 88 years in 2005, then it's got to be the Cubs' turn in 2006, right? Right?

Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.

LiveJournal for Karen.

View:	User Info.
View:	Friends.
View:	Calendar.
View:	Memories.
You're looking at the latest 20 entries. Missed some entries? Then simply jump back 20 entries.