Facie’s Ramblings

Well, maybe my title is not entirely accurate. I mean, I can find joy in little things. I don't need to be part of something that is big and spectacular. But yet I sometimes (maybe closer to often) find myself becoming sad because those little moments are going to end, and I focus more on the loss (and trying to capture the moments). A few hours ago, we returned home from a week at OC MD. When we went last year, we stayed only four nights, and I honestly thought we would not be back for years. But one year later, there we were, and staying longer to boot. Yet during the last couple of days, which would be more days than we had last year, I found myself almost panicking. I felt as if I had to grab a hold of the final days and fill them with as much beach and ocean as I could. I kept worrying that we were not doing enough things or that I was going to regret doing nothing. Thursday was the first bad weather day we had. Before the storm came, I managed to get a run in on the bea...

As of 12 p.m. yesterday, I am off until 1/5, without having to take any vacation days. Ah, the perks of working for a university. :-) This year, our actual Christmas Eve/Day celebration(s) will be about the least eventful I can recall. The hub's mom and grandma were to come down just this afternoon, and then we would head to 5 p.m. mass, for which J and the children's choir would be singing. But unfortunately the MIL came down with the flu or something, so here we are on Christmas Eve, with nothing much to do. My mom has been in TX visiting with my little brother and his family for almost four weeks now. She should be back this weekend, so we will celebrate, just after the fact. But it is just weird for me not to be around my family (besides my immediate family) during these few days. I am pretty sure the kid still believes in Santa, so there is that , but I am also pretty sure I will tell her what is what afterwards (or maybe tonight, if she brings up putting out milk and ...

I took a vacation day yesterday. Things have been slow at work, so I figured I might as well take the day (even though I will probably want/need that day this coming school year when J has about a dozen, somewhat random, days off). J and I were finishing up a visit to my mom's, which included my adorable, but somewhat whiny and very good storyteller, nephew. I did a little cleaning and laundry at home, nothing too exciting. Mostly I was just glad to be off on a Monday because who likes Mondays? Except by "losing" my Monday yesterday, I got punched in the gut by Monday's evil sister, appearing on a Tuesday. It started off as it had for the last week, which was with a slight pain in my back from something (cyst maybe?) that I will now most likely need to have removed. Try not to visualize that too much. After I was nearly ready, I went in J's room to wake her up. I act as her snooze, which allows her to slowly awaken over a period of 5 to 10 minutes. During th...

Once again I have slacked off with posting. I did write about/sing the praises of RiverQuest, an educational boat ride on the North Shore, so please check that out in my previous post below! Anyway, here is what has been going on in my life since last time. J is done with 5th grade. Hooray. This was a tough year for a number of reasons. She had a lot of HW up until the end; she had only one homework-free weekend the entire year, which I disagree with. She also was no longer friends with the group of friends she had been (their friendships ended at the very end of 4th. Looking on the bright side, we saved some money by missing out on birthday invites, and I did not and will not have to worry about taking time off work to get her to various gatherings held during the week. :-)  I tell J that I went to an even smaller Catholic school and also did not have a lot of friends, but high school and college were different, each better than the previous. Things are still going well at ...

I thought I would post some pics from a quick trip to Erie I took with the kid and my mom in August. I can never take or have enough pictures of the water and the sun. This is the kid in the water. The water was really cold, which I thought it might not be as bad since it was just past mid August. But that did not stop the kid from swimming. Me? I made it to thigh deep water and chickened out. This is a shot of Lake Erie from Presque Isle.   The sunset near the Bicentennial Tower Just after the sun was setting near the Bicentennial Tower My mom and kid in front of the Bicentennial Tower One of the coolest thing about the Bicentennial Tower was there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of bricks engraved with people's names, scattered along the walkway that you see in the photo above as well as in and around the Tower building. After we came back down from the top of the tower, we got ice cream. And I was sitting there eating, I happened to notice a brick...

I am super tired after my first full workweek since just before my kid was born. (Actually, I think I had a five-day sub stint last year, but this is different.) So how did it go? I think pretty well. :-) Here are some random observations before I head to bed: The work is pretty interesting overall. The teacher in me is fascinated and challenged by the units/lessons I am reviewing, and the editor/proofreader in me is full speed ahead finding typos, wording issues, and layout inconsistencies. I am happy to say that one of the woman I have been working with told me she was really impressed with all the things I questioned/found. It is nice to be complimented during the first couple of days. The people are really nice and friendly. I have not detected any egos, just people who work together and want to help one another (and me). As I was sitting with my coworkers at lunch today, I mostly felt as if I had worked there for a long time. (I also discovered I do not care much for pan-f...

For some people, 2012 was really awful. For others, 2012 brought many blessings. For me, 2012 was pretty good and mostly uneventful; there is not any one particular things that stands out for me. I had a short-term job for almost three months. But, much like my last steady/regular job, it seems like almost a lifetime ago. I also did some freelance work for the company where I used to work, and at times, I kind of felt as if I still worked there. And of course there was subbing. I won't even venture a guess as to what 2013 has in store for me job-wise. I am, however, pretty worried about my impending 2012 tax bill. Our run of getting a nice chunk of change back and putting it toward home improvement is over, at least for this year. I just hope we (I) don't owe too much money... I ran, swam, and did Zumba, but did not set the world on fire in any of those areas. Of course, I ran in the Race for Pace 5k and earned a third place medal ( albeit several weeks after the fact ), so...

Just three short weeks ago, I wrote a post about vacations . After a three-year hiatus, we were finally going to leave the Burgh to get away for three nights. We spent a lot of yesterday packing and organizing, which I actually started Friday night (how can it take so long?!). Then, while I was working on my online class, I received an email from the Stonewall Resort informing me that the resort could not accept Saturday's reservations due to a power outage. I ran downstairs to tell Brian, who was listening to the Pirates beat up on St. Louis. He was not happy. I immediately went on Facebook (where, seriously, I get a lot of my news) to the resort's page, and read some comments from people. The resort updated their page soon after. I spent a lot of yesterday evening checking FB and the resort web page, and doing internet searches to determine when power was going to be restored (someone on FB who had left the resort said that power was expected to be down for five days). I po...

What do you consider a vacation? Does your trip need to be a certain number of hours or miles away? Do you need to be gone for at least three or four days for it "to count"? Or as long as you are off work or school for more than two days, is that enough of a vacation? I was a pretty spoiled child. We went to the beach for a week pretty much every year in addition to going to another place or two for a day or more. When I was in high school, my family had a house in Ocean City, Maryland, which meant several weeks at the beach. And for about a year, my family also had a house on Indian Lake (near where Flight 93 crashed), so we had many weekend getaways there as well.Yep, rough life I had. But as an adult, I never felt the need to go away every year. And once I got married, we often went several years in between "going on vacation." In fact, during our 13-plus years of marriage, the only week-long trip we have taken was to Disney for our honeymoon. It took us 10 m...

Tomorrow, Jordan, my mom, and I will be heading to NC to visit my brother, his wife, and their kids. I am not a fan of being in the car for hours on end, and even less a fan of being the driver, which is what is about to happen. Fortunately, we are breaking our trip up, traveling about five hours tomorrow and stopping at a hotel (with a pool for Jordan) for the evening, before tackling three hours the next day. On the way back, I plan to do it all in a day. We'll see. I know a lot of people love to travel. They like checking out new places or visiting their favorites again and again. Most people appreciate getting away from the everyday stuff. Forgetting about bills for a few days or weeks. Not working (or at least not going into an office). Having someone else make their food and/or clean up. Enjoying the mountains, the woods, the sites, or the beach. Sleeping in and/or staying up late. I totally get those things. But I am a worrier, a homebody, and a frugal person who really li...

Last night I attended a local crime watch meeting. There was what I considered a decent turnout, probably about 75 people, though less than one of the first meetings, which had close to 200. Crime, for the most part, has gone down in my neck of the woods. Fortunately, the police caught a daytime burglar last year, which resulted in burglaries dropping from an average of about 31 per month to about 11 per month. What is interesting to me is how the burglar was caught. A woman came home to see a guy getting into a car in her driveway. She was fortunately able to provide a good description of the perp and the car to the 911 operator (more fortunately, the perp just wanted to get away and not hurt her). This information enabled the police to locate the car/perp, although the officer in pursuit at first did lose him. Fortunately again, another resident noticed this car speeding away, so he pulled over on the side of the road and flagged down the officer to let him know in which d...

I am still in beach vacation mode. Not vacation mode, mind you, because I have been in that mode for months. But rather stuck in the lazy, really-do-nothing state that an actual, going-somewhere vacation provides. I am so glad we went to the beach and got away. Although Jordan at first thought the ocean smelled too fishy, after a day away (we stayed on the bay), she changed her mind (or maybe the air was just better). It was truly delightful to listen to and watch her scream and laugh in the waves. And it was kind of fun for me, even when a wave knocked me down. Probably my favorite part, though, was the eating. Shocking, I know. I had seafood at every dinner. It was wonderful. Crab soup, scallops, clams, crab legs, and more. I would love to eat like that once or twice a week. I can still taste all that deliciousness. And sipping a fruity drink while overlooking the pool during happy hour the first night was a perfect way to start the vacation. That hour really was happy! And, even bet...

Yesterday, I booked a vacation at Ocean City, Maryland, for the end of June. This will be the first vacation we have taken since our honeymoon almost 10 years ago. Twice we have gone with Brian's mom and her friend for a couple of nights to a resort in Virginia, but this is our vacation, to a destination we wanted to go to, staying at a condo we picked out (and by we I mostly mean I), where we can have our own bedroom and not share it with a kid. Growing up, we went to OC a lot, but since I have been married, I have mostly avoided the sun, so it is kind of odd we picked a beach. But there is a lot to do in OC, and the place that we picked has some amenities that I am sure Jordan will like (if only Brian had someone to golf with...). Plus, one assumes it should not be as hot in June as it would be in later summer, so hopefully that will help. With all the gloom and doom going on with the economy, it is nice to have something to look forward to for the next four months. I definitely...