this is the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with
Mood:  down
Topic: Friends and Family
just wanted to let you all know that my father passed away last friday, 8/5... much too young, very unexpected. i'm absolutely devastated, as is the entire community that i grew up. i never thought that i'd have to do this at 25. i never really thought that i'd ever have to do it - he ate right (up until he was diagnosed with diabetes this june), exercised, volunteered... he lived life the way you're supposed to. it's tragic and i just don't have the words to describe how i feel. it's impossible. so if i don't post for a while, that's why... for those of you who don't really know me, i'm an only child so i'm responsible for pretty much everything. fortunately i've had a lot of help from family, friends and the community, but it's still hard. anyway, i have lots of things to do, so i'd better get to them. just thought you all should know.

Surprise! I'm still alive...
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Sarah McLachlan
Topic: Introspection

I made this post on my other blog today……… just thought that I'd let everyone know my innermost thoughts for once… I usually save this kind of stuff for my personal blog. I actually added some extra stuff to this post, too.

I'm eating lunch at my desk right now & thought that I'd surprise everyone and make a post. I've been thinking a lot lately about learning to fly. I wish that I had the time and resources to do it now, but I don't see it happening for a while. At least I'd have the best damn flight instructor in the world!

Speaking of that flight instructor, in the past several weeks, I've found that a) he doesn't think that people should live together before they're married and b) he doesn't think people should consider marriage until they've been together for 3 years.

Wow.

That's such a foreign concept to me, I didn't even know what to say. Granted, we've only been together for 6 months, so it's not like I'm rushing to get down the aisle, but at the same time, I'd like to be a little more on the same page as him. Three years seems a bit long to me. Maybe that's just because I feel like he's the right person for me, I don't know. He has all of the qualities that I look for in a mate, and I just think that we could be very happy together for a very long time. I'm a romantic, but I'm also a realist… I don't believe that there is one soulmate out there for each person… I think that there are plenty of people in this world that you can find that would be compatible. Relationships take a lot of work, honesty, and communication. Most of the relationships that I've been in - I'd say at least 90% of them, I start losing interest after 5 or 6 months. Not so with this one. It seems like I find new reasons every day to love him. Yeah, I'm pathetic. I'm hoping that he changes his mind on us eventually living together - I think that you should consider it at least when you get engaged. Then again, it wouldn't hurt me to live on my own for a while. I don't know. Why I'm even thinking about this so soon is beyond me. Craziness. I guess that it's just because there are a lot of people getting married and engaged around me right now and it's just making me think. This is why I need to get back to school and taking classes… so I can focus my energy on something else besides worrying about the future.

Guess that's it. Lunch is almost over.

another chapter..
Mood:  special
Topic: News
Brian got the job in NC, he starts training on August 15th. I'm happy for him, but I'm really going to miss him being around. I guess that this is the true test of our relationship! I'll use the extra time to really work on school... I may end up picking up another class or two in the spring to speed up the process. I really need to finish my degree..... my life isn't dependent on what he's doing, but I am definitely taking our relationship into account.

Sorry that this is so short, but it's the end of the day and I need to get out of here.

Man I'm a slacker!!
Mood:  special
Topic: Miscellaneous goings-on
I haven't updated this thing in sooooo freaking long! Taking my lunch now, so using this opportunity...

Here are a few pics from when I went flying with Brian & Karen a few weeks ago... the weather wasn't too great, so they just practiced touch & go's. I've decided that when I finish my degree (probably in ten years!!!) I'd like to learn how to fly... there's just too much information to take in and it's too expensive for me to do right now.

Brian took this picture right after I put the headset on.......

Karen flying, woo-hoo!

View of the icky weather that messed up our plans... this area is just east of Martin State.


The next time I go up, I'll take some decent pictures... I'm going to go with Karen when she does her cross-country hours... right now she's thinking about going to Atlantic City.

The next month is going to be sooo crazy for me... this weekend I'll be in O.C. for the 4th, will be there until Tuesday... the following weekend I'll be going to Paish's bachelorette party in O.C., that Sunday I'm going to the O's-Sox game with Tiff... the following weekend I'm getting together with my mom for lunch, the weekend of the 23rd I think there's some kind of group camping trip, the 30th is Patience's wedding, then the first weekend in August is Brian's family reunion in PA. Not to mention that I'm going to try to spend as much time with him as I can, because once he gets back from O.C., he's going to kick his job search into full-gear and he'll most likely be moving to either NC or Denver within weeks of finding the new job. I'm trying not to worry about it too much and just enjoy the time that we can spend together now, but that's proven difficult at times.

Oh well. At least I'll get to travel! :-/

Here I am!
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Miscellaneous goings-on
Thought I disappeared, didn't you? I'm updating this thing after-hours at work. I think that this may end up being my new routine is updating it at night after work, or maybe during lunch. Can't really get away with updating it during regular working hours here! Wouldn't want to screw up things at a job that I actually like anyway.

So what's new with me? The job, of course. Today marks my one month anniversary, and it also marks my completion of getting all the files here in order... it was a pain in the ass, but it's DONE!! Now I can move on to more interesting things! :) I like working in a smaller office... it's much more quiet and there are so many perks. Free soda, bottled water, etc... bigger offices can't really do that - you have to use the soda machine... but since we're so small we can get away with it. Hehe. :) Yay! The benefits here are incredible, and it looks like I'll even be able to get into their stock purchase plan this year... you buy it at a 15% discount, it's pretty nice.

Hmm... what else?? OH! I went flying with Brian last weekend... it was incredible!!! He let me fly, but I wasn't too keen on the whole thing... I'll leave the flying to him - being a passenger is much more fun. Flying in a small plane is definitely much different than being on a passenger jet!!! I might even like the small plane better... I'm not sure. I guess that it depends on who the pilot is, haha.

Well, I'm going to head home... I have some mundane domestic things to do like laundry and watering plants... Heather is in Missouri right now visiting her family, so I have to make sure that no plants die while she's gone. No small task, I assure you - I have the black thumb of death!

Hope everyone is doing well.......... updates will be more frequent, I swear. (Like I've been saying for the past two months)..... Oh, you may have noticed that I have ads now... sorry about that... I couldn't see paying the extra money a month to keep my site(s) ad-free when I wasn't even updating them.

final final tonight!
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: School
Yup, that's right! American Films final tonight and I am DONE for 3 months. Except that I have to come back on campus next Monday to be interviewed for the college website. ;-) I'm famous, ya know. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be keeping my 4.0... as long as I don't majorly screw up my final, I should be okay.

My summer is filling up quickly, I have weekends booked as far out as July - it's crazy. It just seems like I have things to do every freaking day! Here's my schedule so far (take note of this!!), plus I know I'm forgetting some things!! And I have to get together with both Stef and my dad in the next few weeks- month as well. There just aren't enough hours in the day, it seems.

Okay.

Fri 5/13 Celebrating Brian's bday in Fells
Sat 5/14 Taking Brian to dinner @ Melting Pot
Mon 5/16 Interview at AACC for their website
Tue 5/17 Saleslogix training in Wilmington
Wed 5/18 New & Lost business training in Wilmington
Wed pm Perrys for karaoke of course
Thu 5/19 Show that Brian wants to go to at Powerplant
Sat 5/21 Officially getting together w/ Kathy, but I think I already have a few things going on
Thu 5/26 Cirque de soleil event for WT
Fri 5/27 More saleslogix training and Mandy's bday
Sat 5/28 Breaking Benjamin show, AC trip (think I'm going to have to skip that), and about 3 or 4 other things
Mon 5/30 Stef's bday
Wed 6/1 Portfolio training in Wilmington
Thu 6/2 Tiff's bday
Sat 6/4 Cousin Emily in town
Mon 6/6 Fee basics training in Wilmington
Sat 6/11 Shopping w/ Emily

Need I continue? I have so much other crap going on, too. If I left you or your bday out or got the dates wrong, I'm sorry, please let me know so that I can write it down.

Well, time is running out..... more later!

pardon the lack of updates
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Work
My first week went by fairly smoothly... no major mishaps except for a wrong turn on while going in on Friday morning... I've been trying to find alternate ways into the city and ended up in the Baltimore Highlands/Brooklyn/??? area. Roxy wasn't too happy with all the potholes! I'm still getting used to my new surroundings, and although I love my new job & coworkers, it's still been stressful changing jobs.

Let's see, what else? Went to Wilmington yesterday for training... that was fun, getting up at 5 am to drive for 2 hours.... UGH! Oh well, at least I get reimbursed for my travel expenses. Woo-hoo! That's going to be a welcome check. Three weeks without getting paid kinda sucks, but at least Heather is letting me pay my rent kinda late this month - I gave her half of it, so I just give her the other half next Friday. Bleh. Damn being a grown-up! haha..... all of these bills! Once I start getting paid at WT I should be in good shape, though... I might even be able to save a little money! That would really be nice.

Well, I'm sorry that this is so short and non-indepth, between finals, final projects and my new job I don't have much time for updates. Watching movies for my film class is taking up a lot of time, too. For once in my life I'm worried about watching too many movies??!?! At least I just have one left... actually, no... I have two left because one I was supposed to watch a few weeks ago and couldn't find at the video store or library. GRR.

Okay, that's it, I still have crap to research for class. *sigh*

I'm really sorry that I'm not responding to everyone's emails right now, I'm just really friggin busy....... after next week things should be calmer.

so busy!
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Work
I'm going to copy & paste an email that I sent my friend, because I don't really have time to post right now....... my job is going great, but I've been running around like crazy this week and I'm still trying to adjust to my new schedule. Hopefully I'll have some time to catch up on my emails (I had about 50 in my inbox) and blogging this weekend... there's someone from the Capital who wants to interview me about my blog, too... and of course here I am being a bad blogger!! haha. Oh well. I'm really disappointed that my posts have been so few and far between these days... It's my goal to get a laptop before the end of the summer... I need to get one for school anyway, because using the lab at school is a pain in the ass. Anyway, here's the email (with names edited to protect the guilty):

>>Hi Honey!!!!!!
>Yes, yes we do miss you. Bizzle is such a FREAK. She’s making Mattrizzle crazy
>because she’s always muttering to herself about how gross everything is and
>so on and so on. I’ve come close to asking her if she ever gets tired of
>being so miserable.

Heheh.... I'm so sorry that she's driving you guys crazy!!! Damn, she hasn't cleaned everything up yet? I wonder how long it will take her to start bitching about McIzzle and his noises? I don't understand why she doesn't just ask Dizizzle to clean up the area if she hates it so much... I think she probably enjoys complaining... she must get some sort of satisfaction out of it. Some people just enjoy being miserable!

>Apparantly Pazzle said something to Mattrizzle about how
>the way Bizzle does proposals and how they are wrong but nobody wants to say
>anything to her.

Well Fizzle never really did anything right either, so having her train her initially probably wasn't much help! However, I did try showing her how to do things once Fizzle was no longer there to rely on, but I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks...... or something??? I don't see Bizzle ever doing anything right if no one says anything to her. It might be fun to watch her drive everyone upstairs crazy tho, hehe

> I also heard her telling Kizzle how you deleted all your
>contacts and between the two of them I wasn’t telling either one of them
>that they were in your user folder.

I'm sure that Kizzle knows where they are and how he can get them. No matter what happened between us, he knows how to do his job... he might not be giving them to her just to piss her off even more... haha! Speaking of which, he would LOVE to work at WT... their computer systems are incredible & they have an entire IT team... they have a local intranet and everything is online... it's so awesome. You can access everything from your benefits, 401k, paycheck stuff and vacation things on there... everything is completely automated. I have a shitload of software to learn, though... originally I thought there were only two new programs that I have to learn, but apparently since they're going to be 'grooming' me up into doing more of the financial type stuff, I'm going to have to learn more of the brokerage & trust side of business... it's crazy... I'm so scared that I'm going to put a decimal point in the wrong place... the amount of money that we're dealing with up there is UNBELIEVABLE... my boss said that one of our clients has recommended us to one of his friends who's worth 1.4 BILLION!!! It's definitely not anything like Harmsizzle up there!!!

> I heard her today talking to Fizzle today
>and to his face she calls him Mr. Fizzle, have I told you what a FREAK she
>is???? Mizzle doesn’t even call him that.

HAHAHA!!! The clients don't even call him Mr. Fizzle!!!

>My big thrill right now is the fact that I had a dream(that I actually
>remember) about Rob Thomas. Had to come in today and look at the internet
>just to see what he looks like(a bit too young, I would say) But a very
>nice dream, had to hold my tongue and not ask him to sing. And that old
>psychic told me there wasn’t anyone in my future, shows you what they really
>know.

Rob Thomas is a cutie! You're lucky. :) No weird dreams for me lately, other than one where me & Brian got married?? Funny. I told him about it and he said he had a dream that I got pregnant... eesh!! Let's hope that one doesn't happen anytime soon!!!

>I’m glad your job is going well. Mine of course is the same old same old.
>Ready to kill Stizzle and Brizzle but hopefully as of yesterday they never
>want to see me again either. I imagine that you heard about Mr. Ed. They
>are closing the office tomorrow for two hours so we can all go across the
>highway to church.

Still giving you trouble with the UA's? Was that what it was? No, I didn't hear about Mr. Ed... that's too bad. Wish I could go... I might have been able to if I'd known earlier. :-/

>How is everything else, job, people , Brian etc……how was your trip last
>Friday? And your party?????
>Hope to see you soon

Everything else is good --- guess where I ate for lunch today??/ hehe CHEESECAKE FACTORY!!! I'm going to start packing my lunch... it's so expensive to eat in the city... it hasn't helped that I've been trying to meet up with all of my friends now that work downtown. Karen and I met at this place called Cafe 100 in the Bank of America building and I had the most delicious cookies & cream cheesecake in my life.... MMM!! It was nice & fluffy!! Must have more! In that same building, there is a LANCOME OUTLET!!! For $15 you can buy their gift sample things! When I get paid, I'm definitely hitting them up.

Brian is still wonderful... he started playing in a soccer league on Thursdays... once class is done with I'll be able to catch a few games. We weren't able to fly on Friday because of the weather, but we're going to go sometime soon, hopefully. I was really disappointed. :( The party was a great success, I'm happy to say! :)

Well, let me know how you're doing... I miss you... give everyone a hug for me!!

Lauren

so much excitement
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Miscellaneous goings-on
Did I mention how incredibly well my life is going right now?

My friend Dyanna told me that I've just burned off all of my bad karma and only good things will happen to me from now on... haha! Yeah, I'm not so sure about that, but I'll just enjoy things as they are.

Brian is taking me flying at 3 tomorrow... I'm really excited... kind of nervous though... I don't mind flying, but I've never been in a small plane before. It'll be fun, though... :)

Sorry that this is such a lame entry, I have to get to class! More tomorrow if I get a chance.

Yup, it's my birthday
Mood:  special
Topic: Who am I, anyway?
But I don't have time to post, because I procrastinated on my research paper for my psych class until the last minute, and I'm still writing my concluding paragraph. Class is in 50 minutes, I'll be okay I think. :-P~

Anywho, happy birthday to me!

Maybe once life slows down a little I"ll be able to create some post that I actually put some thought into... my last day at Harms is tomorrow... I'm off on Thursday & Friday. So maybe one of those days I'll be able to update my blog and overhaul my webpage. Whatcha think? haha, yeah I doubt it's gonna happen either.

Okay, back to the paper......

Anyone who is interested, come to Fins in Crofton tonight to celebrate my birthday!!!