Since my life is more than shoes...

I thought I'd share it with you

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Down with Standard Time

I have to get up pretty early to go to work, since my commute ranges from 20 to 25 minutes, and I usually have to be there at 8, so I appreciate driving in the morning light, now that the time has changed. However, I'd much rather it still be light outside when I go home. It feels like I never see the sun, since I really never do. The children's dept of the lovely Brier Creek Barnes & Noble (near the intersection of 70 & 540 - go buy books!!) is hidden in the windowless back corner of the store. Sometimes I forget to look out the window when I make an excuse to go to the front of the store, which means I never see the sun. I know that many of you working people are in the same boat... let's revolt and keep Daylight Savings Time - those kids can wear glow necklaces in the morning while they're waiting for the bus in the dark. They'll think it's cool, and I'll still see the sun. Besides, elementary kids aren't waiting for the bus until at least 8am, when it would be light. If I was capable of walking uphill both ways on the way to elementary school (I'm actually serious about that), those high school kids can wait for the bus in the dark. That's just my idea. Their parents might see it a little bit differently.

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Trees

I guess you have to have some tradeoffs to not wear a jacket through the month of October. The NC tradeoff is that the leaves on the trees just turn brown and fall off. There are a few that turn a little yellowy, but that's about it. I drive on a little country road on the way to work (that's another story in itself), and I thought it would be great during the fall. So many trees to look at - well, it's starting to get a little depressing. At least when the leaves in VT fall off, they look pretty before the do it. I suppose that's the tradeoff for living in VT - once the leaves fall off you'd better have a parka ready because it's going to be COOOLLLDD! (And that's how you'd say it when your teeth were chattering because you weren't wearing a parka)

So this country road that I drive on.... In case you didn't know, we live in Raleigh, NC, which is a pretty big city. The whole "Triangle" region (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and the Contained Area for Relocated Yankees known as Cary) has a lot of people. I listen to traffic reports on the way to work and think, where are all these people, because they certainly don't drive on the roads I take. The highways are so congested that they often close multiple lanes of traffic, or at least make you sit there for a few hours. However, as I drive from southwest Raleigh to Northwest Raleigh, I hardly see any of it. One of my coworkers has lived in north Raleigh for about 15 years. She said that when she first moved there, goats and cows would sometimes escape from nearby farms and wander through her yard. Now, I'm not talking 1950 here, that would be about 1980, and this suburb is not far from the center of the city. Yet once you get outside city limits, the people disappear. I guess NC is more like VT than a certain someone likes to admit. Towns, and then no people is similar to cities and then no people. Except of course for the Cary Crossroads shopping center. You could live in there, and it doesn't even have a WalMart.

Wedding Photos

So we're still working on chosing photos for the "free" wedding album we get from the photographer. Let me tell you, this is an excrutiating experience. While it is nice to look at pictures of yourself and your friends and family, trying to decide which ones you want to look at for the rest of your life and in which order is more difficult than I would have thought. So, needless to say that while I hurried my mom and Andy's parents to make decisions about which photos they wanted, they probably won't come in time for Christmas because we have been sitting on these photos for about a month now, and I probably won't get the order mailed out until tomorrow. Oops. You can put IOU's inside cards or, even better, draw your own pictures with the caption, "If you liked these pictures, just wait until you see the real ones!" I can picture my mom doing that. (Ok, not really, but I think it would be funny if each member of my family got a card like that. Maybe I'll get some of my friends to help...)

Sunday, October 26, 2003

It's been a little while

But I'm still alive. I think I'm going to be a lady bug for Halloween. The kids will like it, and it's one of the easiest costumes I've ever seen. If I was at home, this whole costume would have cost me about $1, but I had to buy the pipe cleaners, poster board and elastic, so it was closer to $3. Here's how it works, according to a website I found: dress all in black, including shoes (duh). Then, cut a piece of posterboard into an oval (I cheated and bought a red piece rather than painting it). Add black spots, staple some elastic into arm holes, make antennae out of pipe cleaners and a headband, and voila! You are a ladybug. I haven't actually done this yet, but it sounds easy, and, heck, when I was about 10 I made my own Pepsi bottle costume complete with a cap, and this is way easier. I think I'll get creative and add an extra set of legs to be realistic. We can dress up for next Tuesday's RUF, too, so if I don't have to work, this'll be a great costume. Maybe Andy can be a man bug.

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

I've been told that we talk about "Ed" at this time

So I guess I will - briefly at least. I'm glad that this week's Ed was more like the old school Eds before the weird "America's Romance" between Ed and Carol began this season. Good ole Mike and Nancy being kooky, and Warren even got a little bit of screen time (albeit not enough - what's the deal with that?) I guess next week we're going back to Ed and Carol. I thought it would be great once they got together, but now I'm not so sure.

On another note, we're allowed to dress up for Halloween at the store. I can't wear masks or anything trashy, and I have to have closed toed shoes. Any suggestions?

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Oreos

People here in Raleigh must love their Oreos, because there is a sale at one of the grocery stores, or, oddly enough, Eckerd, every week. So either Raleighites love their Oreos, or I never noticed the frequency of Oreo sales when I lived in other states. In any case, as a good citizen of Raleigh, I bought Oreos today. They were the peanut butter/chocolate creme kind that are absolutely divine. And besides, when you can buy cookies for about 1.75 each, why bother to make them? Chocolate chips alone cost that much, not to mention all that butter. So until we get tired of Oreos, there won't be too many batches of homemade cookies for a while. (Although those cookies that Katie's mom made were beyond fantastic, so maybe I'll be inspired...)

P.S. For those of you who are concerned about trans fats, especially since we eat so many cookies in this apartment, Kraft foods (ie Nabisco, ie Oreo), as a little something to say about that here. And for those of you who don't know about trans fats, where have you been?

Won't somebody PLEASE shop at our store?

Ok, I'm starting to get desperate here. When we don't have any customers, then I have to do icky things like "zone maintenence" (scan every book's barcode and make sure that it's in the right place, then alphabetize it all). You'd think this wouldn't be a big deal, I mean, sometimes I even get to sit down while "zoning," but have you ever tried to scan about 200 paperback picture books that have been squished into about 1/2 as much shelf space as they should have? Each of these books is quite narrow, and the barcode, since they are paperbacks, is on the inside cover. Therefore, zoning invovles pulling the book out, opening the cover, scanning the barcode, and shoving the book back in its place. However, this becomes quite difficult when there are a few too many books on the shelf, since those books bend like a wet noodle when you try to put them away. It says, "nooooo! don't put me back in there! no one will see me and I'll be trapped forever!" This fear is, in fact, warranted, since I discovered quite a few books that had been missed by the inventory people. I scanned a book, thereby holding it in my hand, and the PDT (Personal book Detection Thingie), told me that we didn't actually have any in the store.

So, I am begging you, if you live in the Triangle, please please please come to the Brier Creek Barnes and Noble and buy lots and lots of books. Bring your friends, bring your children, bring Grandma from the nursing home. I really don't care, as long as you buy some books. Preferably big hardcover books, or sets of hardcover books. We have lots of those, just in time for the holidays. Or, heck, if you're feeling crazy, you can buy 2 Halloween books. We give you a free trick-or-treat bag if you do that...

Monday, October 20, 2003

Oooh now I get titles

After reading everyone's blogs (ok, just Andy's, Jimmy's, and Vikki's), I've decided that these things are the best invention ever. Since we can't sit around on the green couch watching the World Series with no sound, these blogs are the next best thing. Of course, without Liz and Katie getting in on the action, it's just not the same (hint hint).

On a different note, I'm going to cut this entry short so that I can continue my quest to find the perfect job (or at least one that doesn't involve working every holiday but Thanksgiving and Christmas). I'm hoping for something at the NC State Library or The North Carolina Museum of History, but the pickings are pretty slim. If anyone has suggestions for my new career, just let me know. I'm trying to find some direction that doesn't involve more than 3 more years of school, and that's about as far as it gets.

Sunday, October 19, 2003

The Yankees are ugly

In our apartment, the World Series isn't on too much. Not only do we not like the Yankees, but frankly, they are unattractive. Coupled with the fact that the announcers just love them, their ugliness just makes it too painful to watch. There's David Wells, who looks pretty scary if you ask me, and Roger Clemens, who can look good if he wants to, but he tries to come across as scary, and he ends up being ugly. And of course, my favorite, Jorge Posada, who definitely looks like he needs jaw surgery to fix that nasty little overbite. Jimmy, Amy and I have all had it - it's not that bad. Ok, yes it is, and I'm not sure I'd do it again, if given the chance, but I didn't look like Posada, either.

I'm not saying that any other team has a higher percentage of attractive people, but since Fox has their "I can see your nosehairs" camera, we've just gotten to see far more of those icky Yankees than I, or most people, care to see. So I hope that the Marlins sweep the Yankees so that we won't have to see them again until the spring. And they'll stop running those dumb ads with Derek Jeter and George Steinbrenner. I know that Yankees fans think Jeter is second only to God, but Andy's blog sheds some light on what real people think of him.

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Two days in a row. I'm amazing :)

Yay Red Sox!!! They won tonight, which means we're going to game 7 of the ALCS, the World Series is only one win away. I thought that the Rally Monkey shirts were only good for the Angels, but everytime I wear mine, the Red Sox win, so James, Tim, Amy, Andy, put on your shirts tomorrow and help the Red Sox Cowboy Up!

On top of that, it was a beautiful day in Raleigh today, and my plants from Liz are doing splendidly. That Martha Stewart sure knows how to make plastic pots look like terra cotta, and my plants look great. Perhaps our apartment will eventually become a jungle, just like everyone else's in my family.

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Ok, so I'm REALLY bad at this, but I'll keep trying...

One thing I've been meaning to talk about is dirt. Yes, that's right, dirt. Where I come from, dirt is brown. The trees and plants grow in brown dirt, and that's just the way it works. Here, as you can see by the picture below, the dirt is not brown, it's red.

This is the scene of a construction site near our apartment. When I saw all this red dirt, I thought to myself, "wow, red dirt, I thought they only had strange colored dirt out west." Anyway, I guess when Scarlett O'Hara's father talked about the red earth of Tara he was serious. However, I still find it strange because if you look at the dirt around the trees, it's brown. So, does anything actually grow where the dirt is red, or does it need that healthy layer of brown dirt first? I was reminded of this when I used (brown) dirt to repot some plants that Liz gave us. So far they're not dead. Maybe I should have experiemtented with red dirt.