Randomness

1. Do you really make wishes when you blow out the candles on your cake?
Yes.

2. Have any of the wishes ever come true, if yes?
Yes, they absolutely have!

3. How do you feel about birthdays? (e.g., love the attention, just another day, don't want anyone to know my real age, etc.)
I love having the attention, but at the same time, I hate having a big deal made of it. It makes me sad when I don't hear from people though. So thanks to all you who sent me happy birthday wishes!

4. Tell us a favorite gift you've received, or something you'd really like for your next birthday.
John gave me a hammock for the back yard this year! Fucking dog...

5. What flavor cake?
I like marble personally

And from [info]fortysomething The Friday Four:
1. How far back can you trace your roots? Does your family tree have any tales to tell?
Umm, Great grandparents on my moms side, and not really... Except that I am distantly related to the guy who said "Don't shoot until you see the white's of their eyes" in the Revolutionary war.

2. Who in your family are you most like? For example, do you have your father's big nose and your grandmother's lovely singing voice?
Not sure, I'm adopted.

3. Is blood thicker than water? Have you ever severed contact or drifted apart from anyone in your immediate family?
Well, having been adopted, not really. I think it's a personal thing.

4. How would you react if you learned you had a sibling (or close relative) you didn't know about? If you have experienced this, how did you react?
Been there, done that, and it's a very surreal thing. Not bad, and not necessarily good (I hope none of them take this the wrong way!), just surreal. I kind of don't aknolwedge that we're even really related until well after the fact.

Random Thoughts

I must be quite the site to see when I get out of my car in the morning at work. Especially on the days after I have a late home visit the previous day. I'm like... manuvering myself into unnatural positions just so I can fit out the door because the cars are all parked too close together. I realized just how amusing it must be when I do that when I pulled in this morning and there was a couple of women standing outside staring at me while I was doing my morning exercise routine of getting out of my car.

On a happier note, I finished the Poisonwood Bible finally! It only took me almost a year. Not because it was a bad book, but because I didn't discipline myself to sit down and really read it. So maybe in a year or two I'll re-read it. Now I've moved on to Dreams of Trespass, it's about a girl who grew up in a harem. One of my coworkers said it was a good read, so I bought it at this cute bookstore/cafe in Berwick. All the books are used, and the hot chocolate is amazing. I love shops like that. I could live in one. I should open one some day. Maybe I will. Kim could come work at it with me. It would be a piece of cake for her! How's that sound Kim? We can run our robotic kitchenware business out of the back room.

Camping this weekend - w00p w00p! We're bringing Kane with us, and I've spent a lot of the night getting ready to go, preparing food that can be cooked over an open fire and getting all sorts of other stuff ready too. Especially Kane's stuff. I just realized that I haven't packed any of his cookies in his bag, but I've got just about everything else! Tomorrow we'll just need to remember his water bowl, because I have a travel food dish for him. I'm so excited to go - I haven't been camping in a long time!

Saturday is my birthday too, so that will be fun. 25 years old - quarter of a century. Wow. It's also Hancock Old Home Days, which means parades, craft fairs and the thrift shop! Saturday night brings with it Kimballs and the Jaffrey Fireworks. Yeah Jaffrey Fireworks!!! It should be a cool one, I guess they're doing classical music this year. Who can miss a show called "Classically Pyro?" Dave T, this one's for you!

Toronto!

Toronto was a ton of fun! I posted all of the photos on my Yahoo photos website. It was a lot of driving and I am pretty sure I hate riding in a car now though. Friday we drove to just outside of Syracuse to stay in a hotel. Then the next morning we headed up to Niagara Falls (the Canada side) and had lunch and got to see the falls. It was really neat! We took a lot of pictures and movies there. Then we headed up to Toronto. That was good - the place we stayed, Casa Loma Inn, was really pretty. In John's words, though, the service was lacking. It was just one woman running the place and we never saw her except to check in. It was a little less personable than the other places we'd stayed on our honeymoon, which is kind of unfortunate. But our room was beautiful - made me kind of feel like a princess! It was strange to be sleeping in a king size bed - John and I could toss and turn all we want and we never smashed into each other! Not to mention, having an air conditioner in the bedroom was a welcome change also. Saturday night we went to Medieval Times. I love that place. Love it, love it, love it! Oh my goodness. I've been three times now, and every time I just love it! I told John that if there was a Medieval Times in NH, I would quit my job in a heartbeat! I am so fascinated by medieval stuff. I should really start researching it and becoming more familiar with it.
Sunday we took a tour of Casa Loma and that was so cool! There's a bunch of pictures of that in the photos too. That afternoon, we went back to Niagara Falls and did the Maid of the Mist tour, which is when you go on a boat and they actually take you out into the falls. We got soaked, but it was so much fun! Then we did the Journey Behind the Falls, which was a fun too, but the Maid of the Mist was much better. It was a really neat place to be at night, they shine colored lights on the falls which makes them look so pretty. It's a really cool natural wonder that we learned a bunch about. Monday we just drove home. It was a long drive, but fortunately we didn't kill each other! We definitely got snippy a few times, but it happens.
The bummer all weekend was that I had a wicked sore throat. So we got home and I felt like I had a fever and that I was really getting sick. I didn't even sleep at all last night and I called out from work at 3:30am today. I went to the doctors and the nurse practitioner thinks that it's either a serious case of strep or mono. My glands are super swollen and I have all these white spots in my throat and all kinds of good stuff. The ARNP was like "How can you even swallow?!" and I was like "Very carefully!" I have a fever, which has been making this really hot weather really interesting. My body feels hot, but internally I feel really cold. Does that even make sense??
I hope it's not something that makes me be out of work a lot. I don't have the time available to be sick!
As I started to mention briefly in my last entry, I'm taking a family to court. The very first one in almost 8 months. I can't believe it took this long for me to file on a family. Not complaining though! I'm a nervous wreck about it though. I have to face the family in court on Wednesday on the CHINS petition that was filed on the kid, who has his own issues.

Now is the hour of our discontent...

I couldn't tell you what that's from. Mainly because I can't remember. But it pretty well sums up how I've been feeling about my job lately. Distressed and discontent. Work has got me really stressed out. And I'm starting to take all of the major illnesses I've had this year as signs that this may not be the job for me. There has to be some reason why I've been hospitalized for a kidney infection that actually wasn't, not to mention the pain in my side and now this last bout of strep/mono/we-don't-know-what's-wrong-wi

th-you that lasted just about a week and had me flat on my back from Tuesday through Friday. Odd that I happened to catch that on the same week that I was supposed to go to court and file on my first family.

I tried to talk to John about it last night. I don't know if it was that he didn't hear me or if it was that I don't really know how to describe how I've been feeling about it. I tried to explain to him that it just doesn't feel right. The job doesn't feel like a good fit for me. That despite being passionate about who the Division is and what the Division does, I'm just kind of mediocre at it, and that I'm never going to get much better at it. He tried to tel me I might want to get out of assessement and into family service. Well, I knew from day one that I did not want to be a family service worker, and now I'm not sure assessment is where I want to be. I think I missed my calling. Everyone I knew kept saying I should be a teacher, I should be a teacher. And I always said that I wouldn't have the patience to be a teacher. Now I can say that I don't have the patience to deal with stupid parents. And I know that even though I'd have to do that as a teacher, I don't have to try to tell them how to be better parents, when I don't even know the first thing about rasing children myself.

I don't feel like I connect with my supervisor at all, so I'm going to keep my eyes open and see if I can transfer into the Rochester office if they get an opening. Maybe that will help with some of it. But I don't think that will be the final fix. I keep trying to look into geting my M.Ed. but it just seems like such an expensive and tedious plan for someone who can only go part time. If I go the M.Ed. route, I can become a guidance counselor or something along those lines, and I know I would enjoy that much more. The other thing I think I would enjoy is working for an agency that helps people apply for jobs. You know what I mean? Teaching someone how to write a résumé and fill out a job application seems like it would be such a rewarding thing - and then when they get hired?! How exciting!

My biggest problem is that I have so many interests in so many things that there is just no way to tie them all together. I could probably bounce from job to job for the rest of my life and never be completely happy with one of them, but always really enjoying the idea behind the job.

But like I said - I think I'd be happiest working in a school. John and I would be on similar schedules, which would be REALLY nice when we get around to having kids. If we could afford the pay cut, I would become a sub in January and start taking some classes to work towards an M.Ed, but I know we couldn't afford that. If I made $70/day working all five days, I'd only be grossing $350/week. That's before taxes, and then with the mortgage on top of that, it would never work.

Anyway, I'm sure you're all really bored with reading about the fact that I'm pretty sure I want a new job come January, so I'm going to stop bitching about it and get outside to enjoy the weather.

Oh, and it was from Richard III.

Feelin' hot, hot, hot!

Today John and I went out with Chris and Kim to go to the movies, we saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest. It was wicked good! I love Orlando Bloom. Johnny Depp is a good actor too, but I LOVE Orlando Bloom. Overall, I thought the movie was pretty good, but at the same time, I still liked the first one better.

John and I have been camping out in our basement the last two nights, and probably will be for the next few nights too. We have a futon down there, so we pulled it out, threw a couple of sheets on it it and boom, new bedroom. It won't be a permanent change for us, but it's definitely been nice being cool when we go to bed.

Anyway, that's all the news here...

A day in the life of the mundane

Not much really exciting going on - I'm just trying to get better at posting on a more regular basis! Work is still work, I am still enjoying it for the most part... I guess it's not a good thing when the highlight of your week is that you get a new desk though... Kane is doing well, and the cats are doing pretty well. Stuff at the house is alright. I still really love having the house and having this huge space that is ours. It's a really nice feeling to know that I am HOME. We can paint stuff, change stuff, do pretty much whatever we want to the house, and it's cool. Of course, that also means we have to fix stuff, like John is trying to do right now... He's not entirely sure what it is, but he managed to blow half of the upstairs power. But the circuit breaker didn't get tripped. So now he's taking apart some of the light fixtures upstairs to find out what's going on, and he keeps going up and down and up and down... I told him to call his dad 45 minutes ago, but he was finally able to get it.

I'm debating making my LJ a friends only place to read... I feel like I don't get the freedom to write everything I want in here. So, post your thoughts and comments about this being switched to a friends only space. If you don't have an LJ account, but still want to read this - you can always get one and never have to post anything.

Thoughts?

Happy 4th of July, everyone! Hope everyone has something fun planned - I know I do. It's called "a day off from work!" So this morning I slept in a tiny bit (not too late though) and then got up and started just doin some stuff around the house. The main reason I didn't sleep too late is because of Kane - the handsome dog you see pictured. He is the newest addition to the Cardin household, we got him last Tuesday! I hadn't posted anything about him yet, because we wanted to surprise people with him at our cookout (and boy was my mother-in-law surprised!) so I had to wait to post anything. Now I have the time to do it!

So yes, we now have Kane, along with our two cats, Molly and Maggie, and we have quite a busy little household, considering we don't have any kids! That's okay, we're not complaining about the not having kids part - pets are expensive enough for us right now! Kane came to us from the Freecycle listserv I'm on, his old family wasn't able to take care of him anymore, so we happily agreed to take him. He'll be a year old in about a week, and we're pretty sure he has separation anxiety - we can't go anywhere without him following! Don't even think about trying to put him in the back yard while we're in the house - all he'll do is jump on the slider and try to come back in. We're going to build a gate on our deck to make sure he actually stays in the YARD so he'll go to the bathroom on his own. We've had a few accidents with him, but mostly we attribute that to two things: 1) we don't know what all his indications are that he needs to pee, and 2) That he doesn't realize he's not done when he DOES pee outside and forgets that he has to poop too. That's been fun.

So anyway, over all, he's a good boy, and we've really enjoyed having him. Good thing too, were going to have him for the next 14 + years, I would guess.

So thanks to everyone who was able to make it to our cookout on Sunday, it was nice to have so many people there! I wish more of our college friends had been able to make it, but we figured that was the luck of the draw with the weekend we chose. Maybe we'll do another one around Labor Day or something, to officially end the summer. And in case anyone is wondering, Kim is feeling much better now.

That's really about all the news from here though. Not a very exciting post, I know. But if you're interested in coming over and meeting Kane, please e-mail me or something!