Val-isms

Pierced ears, sorority reunions & wedding expos, oh my!

No excuses.  But here I am.  So just read and try and forget how infrequently I'm posting, ok?!

The week was full of the normal stuff... too boring to mention except for seeing the new Harry Potter movie last night (it was eh, the affects were great, but the books are SO much better!) with Sophie & Linda.

With my ex just back from her business trip late last night, I dropped Sophie off to her early this morning and am looking forward to a busy, but kid-free weekend ahead!

Tonight, aside from going to services, will be spent at home relaxing.

Sophie has been asking to get her ears pierced for a couple of years and after being told she was too young, this summer it became an all out NAGGING CAMPAIGN, since most of her buddies at camp had pierced ears!  I have seen a lot of growth on Sophie's part as far as responsibility goes, so I pushed the cause with my ex and we agreed that she'd be able to have them done before her 9th birthday in August.

The past few weeks has had Sophie either coming up to me, my ex or Linda and pinching our earlobes and then asking if getting your ears pierced feels like that or asking us to pinch her ears to show her how it will feel!  It sounds funny, but after the first 50 times, it gets a bit annoying!  Trust me on this!

So, what she knows that it'll happen sometime before Aug 7th, but not a specific date. 

Well, it's going to happen tomorrow!

I'm going to meet them at the place at 10am when they open.  That should provide good blog material! (This is a child who hates needles and pain!  Perfect candidate for ear piercing, right?!)

From there, Linda & I are heading up to Massachusetts for her college sorority reunion picnic!  )No I don't know which one!)  She hasn't seen any of these people since college graduation, but has recently caught up with some of them in F*CEB*OK.

On Sunday afternoon, we're going to check out the GBLT Wedding expo up in the Hartford area.  Kind of looking forward to talking to some vendors and getting some ideas and contacts for our big day.

Shabbat Shalom.

The Contendah!

The day started early. 

Up at 5:15am.  On a Sunday.

The weather was cloudy, with a mild warm breeze. Temps in the 70's.

We arrived at the beach, after stopping for bagels and coffee.  We followed a long line of cars (other crazy runners and their fans!) into the parking lot.

After getting signed in and obtaining the bib and 'timing chip', we headed back to the car to hang out until the 8:30am start.

I started thinking, "Hell, it's only 13 miles.  Maybe I should sign up and run with Linda..."  (yeah, right!)

We went up to the starting line about 7:45 and after they all (4000 runner/walkers!) took off, I headed back to the car, my coffee and my Sunday NY Times!

After about an hour of reading, I fell asleep in the mini with the sunroof and side windows open!  Nice!

I slept for about an hour and then headed up to the finish line and watched Linda come running strongly across the line at 2 hours and 38 minutes!  (Not a hair out of place and no sweat glistening her brow!)

Here she is crossing the line: (she's the gal in the center of the screen in the light blue sleeveless shirt and navy blue shorts!)

 

And here she is with her finisher's medal:

 

Seriously, this picture was taken within 3-4 minutes of her finishing.  Does she look like she's just finished running 13.1 miles???!?!!

While waiting for Linda to finish, I kept getting updates on my phone from my friends (via Fac*bo*k) that they were stuck on a MetroNorth train on their way to Pride.  I wondered if perhaps Linda coulda run to Manhattan faster than the train was getting them there!

I'm very proud of my honey!  When she puts her mind to something, she follows thru.  She sets some pretty high goals for herself.  Very inspirational.  Great job, hon.

The life...

Sophie & her friend Amelia - lounging in the pool earlier this afternoon:

We're so darn excited to have the sun out...

Merging projects

In addition to training for a ½ marathon, which she’ll be running on Sunday 6/28/09 locally, my fiancé has also been taking an online Master’s Certificate program in Internet Marketing since April.  This program will make her more marketable (pun intended!) in her current job, but also will be a nice thing to add to her resume in the event that she finds herself in the unfortunate position of job searching.  In this day of job insecurity, it’s not a bad thing to do.

 

Anyway, as part of her coursework, the program encourages their students to either create a website or find a website where they can apply the things being learned.  “Hands on” learning, especially with this type of material, can be more beneficial.

 

As you know, I’ve been involved in my Temple for a few years and recently finished my first year as a member of the Board.  My project for the past year was to get that youth group reunion put together, but after that, I was just kind of there hearing all about the financial woes and brain-storming ideas for getting more congregants ‘connected’ and more involved with the Temple.

 

So when Linda was looking around for a site, she thought that she could use the Temple website as her case study. 

 

It’s been eye-opening to go thru this process with Linda.  First of all, it’s kind of fun. 

 

The Temple's website is well meaning and has an abundance of information, but it's not as effective or organized as it should be.  Some things are outdated and other pages are in need of a make-over.

 

Once ‘tags’ are put on the various pages within the site, all kinds of reports can be generated showing all kinds of tracking information like where people are coming from geographically, as well as how long they stayed, where they went, and what search criteria got them there.

 

What it comes down to, is that our Temple website could use a little make-over.  Both from a functional stand-point and it’s appearance.   I decided to take it one step further and asked the Temple President if we could get together with her and some other board members to see about making this a project.  She was thrilled and and we’ve been given a green flag!

 

Linda has been driving all the behind the scenes techy stuff that has to do with tagging things as I mentioned before, and I’ve been focusing on doing descriptive write-ups for the descriptive tags and also working on a ‘pitch’ to present to the board members when we meet with them in July.  This pitch will contain what the reports have shown us (with the 3 months of data that we’ll have in the reports as well as some contructive suggestions for improvements for the near future and some long-range plans, as well. 

 

In addition to all of this, Linda e-mailed the Instructor about our Temple’s website last week, asking for some advice.  She told him all that she had done so far, what she was planning on doing in the future, and asked him if she was on the right track and if he had any suggestions for her. 

 

She didn’t hear back from him right away and thought that perhaps with all the mail that he must get, who knows when she'd hear back from him.

 

Each week, there is an online class, where they go over various topics to do with the chapters being discussed.  And at times, they’ll take a look at a specific website as a case study exercise for the class.

 

The Instructor replied back to Linda yesterday.  It seems that our Temple website will be the case study for tonight’s class!  So I’ll be sitting in with Linda to hear what is being said.  How cool is that?!!!

 

This whole Internet Marketing is turning out to be a win-win for Linda and our Temple!

 

In the meantime, there’s a lot of work to be done, but it’s all for a good cause.

 

Nice job, honey.

 

Curvy blogging

I'm blogging from my phone tonight. Cool. It's a little slower typing with just my thumbs... But it's kind of fun! Today was Sophie's last day of school. She's a little nervous about going to camp tomorrow (even though she's gone there for all of the summers in her short life!!!) I'm confident that by the time I pick her up, not only will she bursting with stories about all fun things she did, she'll have a new best friend. First days are always tough for her and these are the tough times for me, as well.

Gotcha Day celebrated & Father's Day weekend

Tough making time to blog.  Everything is going well.  Sophie's last day of school is tomorrow!  She's excited!

Busy weekend.

Synopsis:

50th birthday party of a friend Sat night.  Saw friends who I 'lost in the divorce' (and whom I've realized I'm better off without) and had to play that surface b.s. crap with, but we still had a good time at the party.

Father's day breakfast at my ex's for my Dad.  My sister's kids had a sleepover there on Sat night with Sophie so I got to see them.  Everyone had a great time.

Sunday afternoon, my ex, Sophie & I went to Broadway to see "Wicked".  Was the best show. LOVED it.  We all had a great time and it only rained while we were in the show, so we got to walk from Grand Central to the restaurant and to the theatre and back to Grand Central.  Sophie had a great "Gotcha Day".*  Was the 8th one!

* - anniversary of the day that we 'got' Sophie (adopted).  Though the date is actually in May, we couldn't find good tickets for any dates in May!  We go to the theatre every year to see a different show to celebrate.

How did I ever function before?

I, like most people, did not grow up with a cell phone.  Yet, if I leave my home without it, I feel like my arm is cut off and in most cases, will turn around to get it.  MUST.HAVE.IT.WITH.ME. 

Over the years, the added features like calendar and a few modest games were nice to have, but nothing that I required.  I had my computer for that stuff.

I'm not a video games kind of gal.  Never have been. 

We upgraded to the Blackberry Storm phone  (yes, Linda & I got matching phones via a buy 1 get one free deal!) over the weekend.  I'll admit it.  My life has been changed.  I'm not sure it's changed in a good way.  But it's changed.  No going back.

I'm connected.  Fully.  (well, not tied to my work e-mail - unless they want to fork over the additional cost of having THAT connection)

Not only am I connected.  I can touch it... all the time.  And things on the screen move when I touch it.  It's mesmerizing.  Sometimes I just touch to move things.  Not really DO anything, but just to drag my finger over the soft screen and watch all those lovely colorful icons move.  nice.

It's utterly amazing how quickly something can become part of your life.  Oooh.. a little vibration on my hip... must see what e-mail might have come in or who updated on Facebook or hey, did someone IM me? 

But seriously, the best thing is that no more will I ever get annoyed by waiting (unless, of course it causes me to be late myself for something following).

I can go online and read on my phone.  The news.  Sports.  What Angelina is up to.  It's all there at my fingertips.

I hope I can manage to continue my other everyday things, like working.  or conversing with my partner.  As for parenting, it's the ultimate in placating a bored child in the car! :)

Everybody is happy.  oh and there's this game "Brick breaker"... kept me up til almost 1am last night...

A bad beginning turns out to be a good ending

What a week. 

Spent $100 to tow car to Stamford - Mini Dealer (30 miles away)  PS - free towing for more than 3 miles is only with the AAA+, not just AAA.  sigh.

Dealer diagnosed 'needs new clutch, shifter cables and possibly a fly-wheel (like how I rattle those terms off like a real mechanic??!) - bottom line, $2,800.  yeah.... mmm... look for Plan B.

Called my local mechanic who kept my Volvo running and within my budget and he said to have it sent to him.  Even if it was what Mini said it was, the most he'd charge me would be $1,500.

Spent $60 to have it towed to Fairfield.  (oh and Mini charged me $130 for diagnostics!) - - can you say, "bend over, Ms Bogner??!!"

So my cute Mini that wouldn't run, arrived in Fairfield Wednesday at 5pm, where I was told that they wouldn't be able to look at it til Thursday.

They called me Thursday morning to tell me that it wasn't the clutch.  That was the good news.  The bad news, is that the shifter cables were on back order in Germany and wouldn't be arriving for at least 10 days, possible a month. (um 1 car family?  No, that won't make for a pleasant time...) 

However, the shifter cables had slipped of some ball thing and they were going to try and fix it so at least the car would be drivable.  Friday afternoon, I got a call that said the car was ready and that most likely no more work would be necessary.  He had done some sort of magic and creative fixing and things should be fine.  And the bill was $800.  Love those guys.

Because of work schedules, and having to carpool, it meant that Sophie had to sleep at my ex's all week, but we saw her for dinner every night.

Last night, Linda & I went to services and this morning, we went out for a local bike ride up into Trumbull (very hilly!) for about 10 miles.  It was beautiful out.

We did errands the rest of the afternoon and tonight, we're taking Sophie and my parents to see the movie "UP in Digital 3D" - - should be good.

Tomorrow, Linda has to do a 12 mile run in the morning, while Sophie (and maybe a friend) & I hang out at the pool. 

In the afternoon, the 3 of us are going to the 10th grade Confirmation service.  I've never been to one and I've heard that they're very moving.  Many of my fellow board members have kids in this years' class, so I've seen these kids around over the past few years.

Loving the summer so far.

Interesting ride to work this morning

I decided to get into the office early this morning to catch up on some work.   Aiming for a 6am arrival, I was up at 5 and out of the house at 5:30am.

I discovered that I had forgotten to give my ex the turkey pepperoni that Sophie likes to take for lunch, last night when she picked up Sophie.  So I figured I had some extra time to run over there before heading to work.  (her place is 6 miles in the opposite direction from work)

I arrived there about 5:45, scared the bejeezus out of her woke her up when I tipped toed into the house and said a quick hello to a sleepy Sophie.

Jumped onto I-95 north and just as I approached the 27A exit (huge loop and uphill ramp to Rt 8 north), I reach for the stick shift and it literally wobbles in my hand as if it's not connected to anything in the car!  uh oh.    (I'm in the Mini, by the way!)

I fight to remain calm and figure if I keep the momentum up, I'll make it onto Rt 8 and I find that I can accelerate, so it's apparently in 5th gear.

Remaining calm, I do the mental mapquest to determine if it's better for me to head home (and drive in with Linda) or just proceed to work.  Determining I'll never make it home, as there are too many lights and stop signs that I'd never be able to get started in 5th gear and I'd be stuck, I headed to the office.

The only issues were 2 lights - 1 at the end of the ramp of Exit 11 and the light crossing Bridgeport Avenue.

Fortunately, there was very little traffic at 6am. I coasted thru the first intersection without any cars in view. But a slight incline caused the car to almost stall out, as I was not even close to going fast enough for 5th. 

I talked and coaxed and begged the car to just make it the office.

At the 2nd intersection, the road leveled off and there was a car coming from the right, but I proceeded through.  whew!

It was all smooth sailing for the next 2 miles, as I coasted thru stop signs and a few turns and coasted into the parking lot at work.  There was a lovely smell surrounding the car, but no smoke or anything.

I called A*A and within an hour, they were taking my car to the Mini dealer.

I called Mini to warn them and they said it sounds like the clutch, but they'll take a look and let me know later today.  sigh.

It sure was a pretty nice morning up til then.

But I got a lot of work done this morning!