I must be maturing...

I'm going to say I'm getting "more mature". That sounds better than saying I'm getting old, right? I say this based on an event that happened this weekend. Wait for it... I listened to NPR. Again, I listened to NPR.

I have NPR as a pre-set station on my radio in the car because I like "Car Talk" if I'm out and about on a Saturday morning. Well, Friday night I was coming home and they had a program playing songs from 2007's best Blues albums. I like the blues and the music they were playing was so good. That's all fine and good. What shocked me into thinking I'm getting "more mature" is that I got in the car first thing on Saturday morning and I continued to listen to NPR between all my stops between 6:45 and 10. This time it was the current events talk radio and it interested me. Not interested me in the sense that I could tell you what the topics were now, but it's a major step for me. I must be hanging out with my husband too much! Just kidding, honey.

Christmas Time is Here...

Happiness and Cheer...

Last year Mike and I started the tradition of going to the Naro Cinema down in Ghent to watch "A Christmas Story" on the big screen. This year we made it to the double feature of that movie and "It's a Wonderful Life". It was such a great afternoon. Believe it or not, it was the first time I'd ever seen "It's a Wonderful Life". We enjoyed ourselves greatly.

Mike and I had a wonderful Christmas! Probably the best one yet. I love all the gifts I received and I enjoyed the time spent with family and friends. Thank you very much! Mike and I had a great Christmas morning. We got up early and had Mom's special sour cream coffee cake while we opened our presents. (It goes without saying that "A Christmas Story" was on TV in the background! We watch it as many times as possible during the TBS 24 hour marathon!). Our family, friends, and Santa were very good to us.

Little baby Nate received lots of goodies in anticipation of his arrival in March. We are thrilled and now feel the need to hurry up and get his room together so we have a place to store everything! The room is mostly cleaned out and we have the plan in our heads on how we are going to decorate. I can't wait to see it myself and I'm even more excited for Nate to get here!

Merry Christmas to all!

Is it time for bed yet?

Wow. I'm getting a taste of my life to come. My last full time day with BAE is on Friday, 1/4/08. Starting the next day, I'm full time owner/operator of Prissy Paws Pet Sitting. I'm excited for the change of pace. In addition to my business, I've opted to stay part-time as a travel coordinator working 10 hours/week. It doesn't sound like much to me now, but I'm sure it'll be a challenge getting everything done.

Back to my "taste of my life to come"- so Thursday I stayed till 8 p.m. working OT. Then I had a P.M. client visit. So with travel time, a quick dinner, and a post office trip for stamps, I didn't get home for the night till 10. Then I had to wind down, prepare for the next day and start it early to do a client visit at 6:20 a.m. Since Friday, I've done12 client visits, some Christmas shopping, went to a movie and dinner with a friend, baked banana bread, made 3 batches of my world famous toffee, and had a visit from my parents. I am worn out! I'm happy to have the night to myself so I can snooze, watch a Christmas movie, and relax. I'll probably only get to the snooze portion of the evening - to heck with everything else. Then back at it again tomorrow morning for an A.M. client. Working "part-time" isn't going to be so part-time, I can tell already!

Calgon, take me away...

Christmas Party

Last night was the BAE Christmas Party at the Doubletree Hotel in VB. As always, we had a great time. Mike and I were the hottest couple there. We were in good company with our friends, we had good food, an open bar all night long and we had our favorite DJ- Boston Frank. As usual Mike, Matt, Amanda, and I rocked out on the dance floor and shook our asses all night long. Good times, indeed!

Adulthood

I officially feel like a grown up. Mike and I finalized our wills on Wednesday. The favorite part of the process for me (besides knowing that we have wills should something happen to us) was learning a new word. I found out that I'm a "Testatrix". It feels so saucy! So, don't be surprised if I try to slip that word into conversations for the next few days. Testatrix, testatrix, testatrix. There. Maybe it's out of my system now.

Sickie

Man, I feel like poo today. My throat still hurts, it feels like I have a lump of phlegm in my throat, I've slept for about 15 hours, and I still feel tired. I had every intent of going to work today. I even got up and showered at 6 a.m. By the time I got out of the shower, I just kept thinking "why am I going in when I feel this miserable?". The rational part of me took over and I went back to bed for another 6 hours. Here's hoping that this passes quickly and I'll be able to shake my ass at the Christmas Party on Saturday.

Back to the Blog

Gosh, since Mike now has a blog I feel compelled to keep mine up to date too. I don't come here often, but wow - lots of things have happened since my last post. I'm almost a full-fledged pet sitter now... working on making this a business. Will post more about that later in the week. But here's a pet sitting scare story from this past weekend. I came in to my client's house and the smell of natural gas almost knocked me down and gave me an instant headache. I was thinking WTF? I put the collars on the dogs and sent them outside. I opened all the doors and windows and when I went into the kitchen, I realized that one of the burners on the stove had been left on low. There was no flame and the burner wasn't hot, but the gas had been left on low emitting gas vapors since the clients left the house the day before. Holy Crap! The whole place could've gone up if there was a spark of some sort. Thank goodness that didn't happen. The doggies were fine and after 20 minutes of fresh air, the smell in the house had dissipated and the crisis was averted. Go Amy - Super Pet Sitter! Wait - did I just refer to myself in the 3rd person? Ugh, I hate when people do that.

Here I go...

So, I've recently decided I want to start pet-sitting. It came to me while Mike and I were on vacation in the Outer Banks. We hired a pet-sitter to come to our house twice a day to take care of Bosco while we were gone. So we were sitting on the beach one night and I told Mike that I wanted to start dog-sitting because I thought it was a great part-time job. I'd have extra money and get to meet new people and take care of their pets. It was just one of those random thoughts that crossed my mind so I blurted it out. To my surprise, Mike said "Do it". Once he said that I thought to myself, hmmm... I really could do that.

So when I got home from vacation, I called Sallie (our dog-sitter) and talked to her like a long lost friend. She totally got me psyched for this. She was more than happy that I called and said she always needs a back-up. She also got me in contact with another pet-sitter who lives just about a mile from me.

So, long story a little shorter - I met with Diane. She's a retired nurse who got into pet-sitting about 6 years ago. She works in about a 5 mile radius of her house and is so busy she hardly gets any time away and she's no longer accepting any new dog clients. She's going to show me the ropes and start recommending me to some newbies and I'll also do some fill-ins with her clients if she's not available.

So I'm going to accompany Diane this Saturday with a cat client and Sallie called me tonight and I have 2 jobs lined up for the weekend of Sept 8th. So cool! I don't want to jinx anything, but if all goes well and I totally love this, this could be a new career for me. Wow! All this from a random statement on a relaxing beach night.

Jill's 7 year old feet

Jill turned 7 on August 15th. In the morning she asked Michelle what time she was born and Michelle told her 11:43 a.m. Through the course of the morning, Jill and Michelle got distracted and didn't pay attention to the time. Later in the day Jill was lying on the bed watching t.v. and asked, "Mom, what time is it?". Michelle told her the time (it was well after the "birth time") and said oops - we missed 11:43. Jill looked down at feet and said "Yep, I knew it. They're bigger. I now have 7 year old feet".

Picasa Web Albums - Amy - 2007 Relay Fo...

Last Friday the Cancer Sucks team participated at the Chesapeake Relay. It was flippin' hot, but we had a good time. Here are the pictures.
Picasa Web Albums - Amy - 2007 Relay Fo...

Funny

Mommy! Boodgie!!

Things that make me laugh

I talked to Jill on the phone the other day and we were talking about jibbitz. She asked me what other jibbitz there were b/c she needs more for her Crocs. I was looking online and telling her what cute jibbitz they had and she asked me what "dot com" I was on. It struck me funny.

I am always amazed by what comes out of the mouths of kids . In the same conversation, Jill asked if there was a guitar jibbit. When I found them, I told her there was a pink one, a yellow one, and a brown one. Then she said "do they have an acoustic guitar because that's the one I want". I don't think that I knew what an acoustic guitar was when I was 6.