Kearney Casino Night

Every year, my company has a big "All Hands" meeting where we talk about boring things like how much money we made in the previous year and stuff like that. It's really boring if you have to edit the powerpoint so you know a lot of stuff already. But they try to make it fun. And there are awards. Apparently I'm cool because I won the Presidential Award! Anyways, afterwards there is Casino Night, were we loose fake money at the craps table. Still, an awesome time.

We're too adorable sometimes.

Erica may be more excited about the award than I am...at least at this moment, I was pretty overwhelmed.

Josh also won an award!

Group fun!

It says I have ethics...and some other things. Haha

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Big Devils Stairs

I wanted to write something a little more "formal" about this hike, to practice for possible travel writing submissions. But I am just not feeling it at the moment. So maybe I will update this later. For now:

I joined a bunch of hiking groups when I first moved to Virginia but have either been too busy or too scared to actually go on any events. Well I finally made myself go since John was busy and I needed a hike so very much. Even though most of the people were older than me and will likely not become friends I see outside of this group, I am glad I went and stepped out of my comfort zone.

Big Devils Stairs is only a 5 mile moderate hike. It was a good way to get back into the swing of things. I could have done more and pushed myself but this was a good workout. And the view at the half-way point was awesome.

I almost kidnapped Cheyenne the Sheltie who was far too adorable. We had to cross a lot of water since it was early in the Spring and there was so much snow melt. Little Cheyenne was ok with most of the water but one part looked a little too deep and she would not cross. I wanted to give her a big hug.

Best part of the day that was not on the actual hike: We're about 10 miles from the park entrance and we see a guy jogging alongside the highway, towards us. As we get closer we see he is wearing a neon orange ski mask. And carrying a stick/spear pointed out as if he were jousting. Hilarious!

Outside!

It was nice outside yesterday so I actually had the chance to go out and enjoy the woods. John and I went to a park we've been to before but started on a new trail. It wasn't anything special but being out was refreshing. I am glad the weather is warming so I can get back to doing things I love. I am so not a winter person.

I also became disgruntled because I would like to join John on a trip to Yosemite in June but my job will probably not grant me vacation, since it's summer. I was told when I took the job that I could not vacation in summer because it was our busiest season. But after reviewing some numbers, it turns out that's not entirely true. July was our busiest month by far in 2010. Feb and Nov the least. But all other months were just about equal. So it's ok to vacation in January but not June, even though we had the same number of proposals in those months. In reality any week I choose throughout the year has the potential to be busy or slow. There's no way of really knowing until the week prior. So I think I should be able to take vacation any time I want.

I guess it will be good to save my vacation days until October and do something great, but I need someone to go with and somewhere to go. Alaska will be too cold by then!

My little seedlings are doing well so I will soon have a lot of herbs and salad greens. I wish I had my garden still so I could plant more.

I made pretty awesome ribs last night. Used a recipe from Top Chef. I also made honey rolls, which are delicious with strawberry rhubarb jam. I'm going to make cinnamon raisin bread next weekend. My new found bread making desire probably means I should get a bread machine. John may still one from his mom.

MIA or just lazy?

I have not written in awhile, mainly because I have not been wanting to write an emo post. I'm tired of emo posts. Seriously, I need to be more positive. But it's been hard. So since last writing, here's some stuff that has happened:

~Mom had a very serious heart attack, the day after her birthday. I went home to take care of her and the brothers. It was exhausting-physically and mentally. I don't think I have recovered from the experience.

~I have started the search for a new roommate. Kelly is moving out when our lease is up. I hope we find someone cool who wants to go hiking.

~I bought cute new hiking shoes. I have not had a chance to try them out and it's making me antsy.

~I planted some seeds so that I can have lots of herbs and salad fixings. Of course I can't plant nearly as much as I want since I don't have a real garden anymore but at least it's something.

~I decided the answer to all of my problems is to be a travel writer or an editor at Backpacker Magazine. For now I will probably settle for subscribing to said magazine and making lame attempts at writing about my hiking excursions. But I'm working on it.

~I stayed home alone while John babysat-so he could try to prove to himself that he would not be making a mistake by having kids with me. I do not know if the mission was successful but it was not a failure either.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today's my mom's 50th Birthday! I'm sad that I am not in St. Louis with her, but hopefully we'll get together in the spring and celebrate appropriately.

Working on the weekend

I have been meaning to write a post about some difficulties I've been having but just can't seem to say what I want so it's still brewing. So you get this rant instead.

I've been really frustrated with my job recently. I've never really felt like I fit in there since I work with a lot of republicans who just golf and work. But I felt my team was ok. Except for the fact that some people think I'm halfway to the looney bin since I love the outdoors. Or they feel the need to talk about how important a large diamond engagement ring is. But this is not really the problem.

Two weeks ago I worked 45 hours in 4 days. I then took off Friday, which was nice. I drove up to John's on Thursday night and had a little extra time with him. Still, worked my ass off. And really, it was for a huge project. An extra 5 years of work for our current St. Louis contract, which is ending. Quite a big deal. Everyone else worked for months on this with tons of long hours. If we win it will be so worth it. And things, though they were time consuming, went smoothly. And at the end the partner-in-charge said he wanted to steal me away and make me a tech writer on the project, since he knows I'm from STL and liked my work. My partner said "you can't just hijack my employees, I found her first." Long story short, it was hard but I felt very appreciated.

This week was slow until all hell broke loose Thursday around 3:30. I was supposed to go to a happy hour but ended up skipping because I was so stressed out and upset. It was a HH for this young ladies club I joined, so I was meeting strangers. If it had been regular happy hour I could have used the drink, but I was not in the mood to meet strangers and be very social. Which sucks because I need to make friends.

Anyway, a lot of stuff happened which basically means I will be working Sunday and probably long hours Monday and Tuesday. I know one thing is really important-actually a revision for the St. Louis proposal that basically means once we submit the requested changes we win it. So very worth it. Everything else, not so worth it. And my problem is none of the overtime is really necessary. But that's a whole other rant. What became the last straw was that I said I would make myself available to work on Sunday. There's enough stuff due in the beginning of the week that I do need to get work done Sun or we'd miss a deadline. We made a plan that seemed pretty reasonable to get all 3 of my proposals out the door by the end of Wednesday. Then as John and I are walking to dinner on Friday night I'm getting these emails basically saying I needed to have everything edited by Sunday morning. NO reason at all that this needed to be the case. So I basically said I was busy until Sunday morning and would get started then as planned. This didn't initially go over well but now I don't even have the file to edit yet so I couldn't have done it today even if I had agreed.

Anyway, long story short, I am willing to work overtime when it needs to happen. I knew that was the nature of the job. But if I make a plan for getting my work done that involves me still getting to enjoy part of my weekend, don't make me feel guilty about saying no to some ridiculous new plan. And don't make stupid new plans for no reason other than certain people are freaking paranoid and suck.

I sooo deserve a raise. And more vacation days.

Also, let me take off a week in June so I can go to Yosemite. And then again in October so I can go...somewhere that is not the United States.

When I went to John's work happy hour this woman gave me her card and said to contact her if I wanted a job. I am thinking about seeing what she has to offer.

Ghost hunting in PA

My brother, sister-in-law, and I went exploring this weekend. We went to the Twin Tunnels, which are supposedly haunted by a guy who hung himself from a wire between the two tunnels. My camera screen got a weird purple streak across it at one point but nothing actually showed up in the picture.

We also tried to find a portal to hell not too far from the tunnels. The gates that used to be there are gone, so this was kind of difficult. I did feel weird as we got close to where it should be though. Perhaps it was just eager anticipation.

With your pain, there is hope.

This is a quote from the show Brothers and Sisters. Not relevant to me today, but it fits well with the roller coaster of the last year. And it's just nice.

There are no shortcuts Sarah, in life or in love. This pain must be felt. The alternative is much worse. It's what makes us special, what makes us beautiful, what, what makes us worthy; the pain of how we love. But that pain is accompanied by something else, isn't it? Hope. With your pain, there is hope. And that is where you are. Somewhere between agony and optimism and prayer. So you're human. You're alive. And that is what we have.

A date?!

"I would like to take you out on a date. You should dress up."

I feel overwhelmed today. Work is busy; I have freelance work to do. And really the only coherent thing I can give you is that the above quote is the best way I can explain my current relationship with John. I have no idea what else is going on in my life at the moment so this blog is lame.