stupid UMass

the accounts dept at the university "forgot" to pay out departments gas card bill. our fleet consists of 2 suburbans, 1 Yukon, and a cargo van.. aka gas guzzlers.

their inability to keep bills paid has made our gas cards unusable. My truck has a 1/2 tank of gas left after today jaunt to the berkshires, and I know I can do tomorrows trip okay, but not so sure about weds.

So my boss and others are saying to use MY credit card for now and I'll get reimbursed for it. ummm.. I don't think so. we use 1 credit card, which we just paid most of the way off with a loan from the bank. I'm not about to put $120 on my card to fill my work's truck which get's 15mpg.. and that's Highway driving. AND in any given week I can fill the tank in my truck about 3 times (it has a 40 gal tank!)! putting in $10-$15 isn't gonna cut it in this beast, and if my car wasn't rattling every time the engine has to work I'd consider driving my car, and then getting reimbursed for mileage.. atleast my car gets good mileage! my car has this rattle that makes me nervous everytime I go on the highway or up a hill/mountain. and now my brakes which were new last year are doing something funny, and I have a feeling there's something fishy with the bearings.. I'm getting that noise when I turn corners.. it's faint but it's there. So needless to say I need to save my credit card moeny in case I need to fix my car.. oh and the dryer is still broke.

*edited to add* my boss gave me $100 to fill the tank with in case I need it before the dingbats in accts get the cards working again. That was very nice of him

just when we think we're getting ahead...

we recieve the notice in the mail that the gas company is readjusting our payment for our budget plan. This is normal, and usually isn't that much. our payment went up nearly $50, so now it's $193. granted we have gas stove, hot water, dryer, and heat the house with it, but our usage was less last year than the year before, with exception for one month I think, and even then it was about the same!! We even got a brand new furnace, because ours was old and crappy. We also got our notice from the electric company and that payment is going up like $30 too. and Health insurance is up another $50. fan-f-ing-tastic.

This sucks, and I know we're not the only ones in this boat, but honestly when is our President going to do something to help out this country that will be more than a short term "fix". Yes I am thankful for the "free money" that is coming our way that will help pay off our furnance and the new washer we got a couple weeks ago that was a phenomanel deal, knowing that it would save us money and that the money was indeed coming by the end of next week. We'll also be saving for the vacation we've planned, and need.

Dubba needs to do something for the little guys, this is crazy. We're having a hard time paying our bills because the cost of living has skyrocketing because of gas, and the sad thing is, that under normal econimic standards (pre- $3/gal gas) we'd be fine. Thankfully our mortgage is fixed and a super duper low rate, and our second mortgage is fixed, and thank god we were able to get a loan to pay off that credit card debt that acrewed when I was pregnant/maternity leave and my boss was being a douche about my hours and pay and ended up bringing home way less money, and will now be paid off in 5 years, when there was no end in sight before. We even switched to direct tv because it's cheaper than Comcast, by about $40. Even when the new customer discount wears off it'll still be cheaper than Comcast. and Thank god we don't have to worry about car payments-that's the second mortgage which atleast the interest is deductible.

the cost of gas in beyond unbearable. Those Stupid "ANALysts" need to keep their f-ing traps shut about what they "think" gas will go to. I think they are the main reason the cost of gas has gotten so bad. They make us all freak out and crap our pants and then the gas companies just do it because now we're expecting it. why can't they say "gas is expecting to drop to $2.50/gal" Think of how grateful everyone would be, when last year we were freaking out not knowing how much more gas would be a year later! and morale in this country would start to lift! Imagine that.

/rant

"bacation"

... as Evan says it, is coming to an end. I couldn't have asked for abetter week off, really. the weather was absolutely perfect! and technically I was supposed to work this week, but with everyone else in the house off (even daycare was clsoed) I decided that I couldn't work, and needed to spend time with the family.

so on Weds we headed to Boston. we took the train from south Acton and rode in to North station. We almost missed the train due to lack of parking but made it litterally 2 seconds before they were leaving. We went to the aquarium, and had a great time there until the octopus scared Evan into wanting to leave. which was okay because it was a mad house in there! OMG. I know it was vacationbut I feel like the fire code was being broken. If you've never been to the NE Aquarium, it's a fairly tight space inside and with kids running everywhere screaming and such being surrounded by concrete, it was quite loud! After that we walked over to the Children's museum via the Harborwalk path, which was nice, but took forever (it was the way the museum suggested to go.)
The children's museum was great fun.. for evan and liam.. exhausting for us! it was 3 floors of playing! we were going to go to the swan boats after, but we were so tired we said forget it. for the alk back to the T by the aquarium, we walked along the main road, and jay commented on how it used to be the highway. I couldn't believe it.. and then I remembered not having to go under it from fanuel hall (not that we went there, but in the past I have) and It looked so nice to see the beautiful buildings with all the green space in the road.. it looked like it had always been that way. As much as the Big Dig was THE biggest financial disaster ever, Boston looks fantastic now that it's done! and if you haven't seen it I reccomend that you do. We would have taken pictures, but the batteries died after a couple were taken on the train

hope all is well

Eastertime

lots has been going on.. you could prob tell due to the lack of posting on my part. Yesterday we ventured out to Yankee Candle. We have the luxury of leaving 15 min away from the flagship store in the next town over. In case you were unaware, this candle giant's headquarters are located in the next town, and is one of the area's largest employers.

It's a fun place really, and if you've never been there, you can't even begin to think of all the crap they sell that isn't scented or made of wax. They have all these different areas in the store, and it's one of the places in the area that if you need to buy something for Christmas anytime of the year you can find it here. Except, which we found out yesterday, piece to our willowtree nativity set. oh well.

This weekend was their Easter thing they do. Remember I went last year with the boys? we had a good time, so we went again this year. the scavenger hunt was made easier, and we cheated by checking off the boxes without finding all the posters to get the prize because Jay was getting a headache from the candle scents. We got more of those pink bunny ears that I got last year.

While there we sat in the king's chair and visited with the Easter Bunny where Evan says he was a "little shy", hence the grumpy face of his when he was by himself. I like visiting with the bunny there because he's free. We just have to remember to bring our own camera if we want a picture. I think it's funny that with this Easter bunny you can see the eyes on the person inside the costume. lol.. that poor woman in there must've been boiling. Glad it wasn't me.

Liam has started walking finally, and of course I can't catch it on camera. Every time I try he reverts back to crawling or Evan jumps in the shot, like today for instance.. In his underwear and then either flashes the camera or his hand is in his underwear. lol so needless to say I don't really have any good videos safe for the internet.

Evan is really enjoying school and I had the opportunity last week to help in his class. Man I wish my school was that fun! I was there in the morning until about 10:45. We went to breakfast, attended morning meeting, went to gym and then returned for snack time where while they were getting ready we played the game we brought, Hullabaloo (by Cranium), Evan's FAVORITE game. all the kids had a great time with it, and some even wanted me to bring it back. I had told them maybe another time I would. and then we had snack (I made green cupcakes b/c it was st. patty's day) and after that was choice time, and thus time for me to head home. It was fun.

On a side note, I need to see the doctor because I'm having this weird issue with some nerve feelings in my hand feeling funny ever since my elbow popped a couple weeks back. and I think it's aggravated by all the driving that I do. On Friday it was particularly bad, but the dr's isn't open on the weekends so I'll call them tomorrow. it's been better over the weekend, but still sore. the main pain for the past couple of days feels like there's a bad bruise in my fingertip, but I know I didn't do anything to it. On Friday my whole hand hurt with pain from my wrist to my middle finger. It's more annoying today than painful. I just hope that I can see a doctor this week. And I also hope that if I like the doctor I can choose her as my primary. I hesitate to do so out of fear that she'll leave the practice like my last 2 doctors.. the latter I hadn't even met before she decided to leave.

We also had the recent oppurtunity to visit my family out in Newton and some others who were in town from Florida, whom I haven't seen since Evan was less than a year old at mycousins wedding 4 years ago. Man I miss having my family nearby. I was spoiled as a kid and didn't realize it. I'm thankful that my immediate family is within driving distance (albeit 3 hours). I jsut wish we all had the opportunities to visit each other more. But those pesky gas prices.... is a rant for another day.

I'm off for now, but I'll post again. This last picture is of Evan and his friend Ezra who lives across the street playing with rescue heroes.

a birthday in the mist

in less than a week Liam will turn 1. this time last year I was fat and miserable

and after a rapid fire delivery of a jumbo rocket, many stitches in areas I'd rather not mention, and days worth of the weird oxygen hood thing and UV light treatments, I brought home a wonderful (sorta) little guy.

and the big brother was ever so proud
of his new brother and relieved just to have me home again.

and now I have this most wonderful little boy. who is happy, lovable, and an all around great kid

Evan has also grown up this past year too! after the baby was born he took it upon himself to potty train himself! yee ha! he loves his brother soo much, that when Mimi (great gramma) threatens to keep him, Evan says "no! he's MY brother!" It's quite amazing really. only now Evan gets frustrated when Liam wants ot play with his toys or accidentally pulls his hair.

Now, the week of his first birthday he's a totally different kid than he was even a year ago. he is eating all normal foods like a giant piglet. drinking regular milk (at daycare, but not at home), standing on his own more and more, and using some sign language. it makes you wonder what is going on in their little heads as they go through life not understanding any of it, but taking it as it is becuase it's the way it is and they don't even know that things could be different and that there's so much mroe out there for them.

The love you have for your children is like no other you've experienced until you experience it. I had no idea.

Let it be known:

that I solved the great "Acetate Mystery" at work.

edited to add:
Camelia (Ph.D student) has been racking her brain trying to figure out where 70g of Acetate came from in her soil (for her research) that was dug up off of rt 25 in the basin where we have monitoring wells. They use an alternate decing agent there that is safer for the cranberry bogs, called CMA (calcium magnesium acetate) they haven't use any yet this season so there shouldn't be any in the soil. She also rinses it here at the lab. She needs that soil specifically because of the bacteria that is found there.
So for the past 2 weeks she's been testing any and everything and running soil samples to see where it's coming from. On friday we put the soil in the oven to bake it-to make sure it is dry.. we set it up to see if the shiny side of the foil had an effect different to the dull side. Today she says that the Acetate is coming from something to do with the baking, and the data from shiny vs. dull foil was the same.. hmm.. so I suggested that perhaps there is ambient acetate in the oven.. perhaps it got spilled or something.
We check the oven. Lo and behold! there is a dish of Acetate sitting in the oven drying. For it needs to be totally dry to make a standard. The oven has been cleaned, and now a test bake is in progress to see if there is any ambient evaporated acetate still in the oven.

I requested a full acknowledgement at the end of the dissertation. lol

looking back on the last year

2007... looking back So I've only been meaning to write a review of 2007 for a couple weeks now... but I'm slow and easily distracted :::shrug::: whatcha ya going to do about it. 2007 started out with a new addition to the family. Little Liam.. or not-so-little Liam depending on how you look at it seeing as how he was nearly 11lbs when he was born, and now, 10.5 months later wighs in at over 25! then a few months after that I went full-time at UMass... to a benefited position doing the same stuff and stuff around the lab.
I had a great summer with real estate business and by fall I was wiped out. At the same time I decided to leave the Century 21 office in Northampton b/c I didn't agree with my broker's businesses practices and switched to an office down the street from my house, where I'm much happier and can work at my own pace, WHEN I want to. (and I'm not forced to do open houses all the friggin' time) but because of the holidays most of my clients went dormant, so now I have to contact them and check in...
The holidays went well, and we even got down to visit with my family back home! man I miss that place.. I wish it wasn't so expensive to stay there, because I'd like to visit for more than 1 day. I hadn't seen my sister in over a year nor had we met each of our babies! It's funny how life treates you sometimes.. I grew up in a house with no guys... no dad no brothers. and now it appears as though my sister and I have come across a couple of men who can only reproduce more men. lol, and now us ladies are outnumbered!

2008 is going okay so far, except for first night where jay and I were sick throwing up and such for no good reason.

my resolution? to have a cleaner home... ha.. crazy I know, but i can try, right

That was my year, in a nutshell

how was your new years spent?

anyones had to be better than mine... I got home from work, and i got sick.. threw up many times. why? that's a good question.. i have no idea, but I do know that it sucked royally, and I couldn't keep anything down.. at the end of the night I had one of evan's gross pedialyte freeze pops.. that stayed down. yay.. and then i woke up a couple times last night to unload the water I had been drinking.

My husband was sick too for the same reasons.. bizarre. we had a few friends over too.. we were going to play d&d whcich we hadn't done in forever, but after jay was feeling ill we said nevermind.

I seem to be feeling alright this morning, although super achy from all teh yaking I did.. lets hope I feel better by tomorrow b/c I'm supposed go out in the field to do work along the highway. If I feel like crap still I'm not going in.

ugh

so I stayed late at work on monday to make up for being late due to evan's school delay. I decide to take the highway home because it's faster. well it wasn't on Monday. I'm driving along and I hear in sound of "muffler-on-pavement". Crap! so I pull over. sure enough my muffler was making sweet love to the pavement. So I go to call Jay, and I can't find my phone. I know I had my phone, I had just used it outside of Dunkins. so after 10 minutes of moving stuff frantically, I notice I'm pulled over just in front of one of those highway call boxes. so I go over and push the "service" button and return to my car. thankfully I found one that actually works. decide to continue the phone hunt. I eventually find it on the floor in the backseat under the passenger side chair. whew! so I called jay to inform him of the situation. ok.

20 minutes later I need to use tha bathroom, and still no tow truck or statie in sight. so I decide (after much debate) to call 911 to see about how long of a wait there was (ie.. did I need to head into the woods?) well the dispatcher guy transferred me to the barracks, and as it was ringing, the statie pulled up behind me. ok.. but I waited for the guy on the other end to answer and I told him nevermind that the trooper just pulled up.. I didn't want to hang up and have him think something was seriously wrong, ya know?

so of course I don't have AAA, we talked about it.. on several occasions, but never really had the extra funds at the time to get it. The trooper called the tow company, and a coat hanger and $65 later, I was on my merry way home, with instructions to get it properly fixed in the morning.
so in the morning I call the place I wanted to go to, closed. so I call meineke.. oh good they can fit me in.. while I was there I had them check out this "rattle" I've been ignoring for months b/c I had a feeling it was going to be expensive. so the tell me it's the tensioner (ya know keeps that timing belt nice and snug) well my car don't have an ordinary tensioner.. it's hydraulic.. which means it's a very costly part. Thank You Toyota... new belt and tensioner can be replaced at meineke for a whopping $533 bucks! I asked how much he charges for labor, he says $75/hr. yikes! it's cheaper to go to the dealer. so I tell him not right now, and call the husband, and tell him the scoop and that I'll ask around.

The meineke guy was nice enough to not charge me for the new bolt for my muffler support strap, and I was on my way... to the mechanic that I wanted to go to in the first place. he calls up his part place and when he talked to the guy his reaction to the price of the part was "holy shit, that's not cheap".. lol.. and from what I understand the tensioner is a pain in the ass to get to. He says he can do it for $401. woo. It's needs to get done so I schedule for next thursday. I guess my belt is all cracked too, and either way it's not really good, and I knwo I've been putting off too long anyway. so in the mean time lets hope my belt doesn't snap and my car needs a tow.. what are the chances that it's gonna snap this week? (knowing me prob very likely)

so yesterday I'm wearing a brand new shirt.. brand friggin new... I go to a clients house and return back to work with friggin bleach spots on my shirt. WTF?! so I say to my boss, "is it possible for road salt to do this?" thinking htat maybe I brushed up against my salt covered truck. he said no, which I was expecting, but I couldn't figure out where it came from.. "unless.." i say " it was from when i stopped at the Shell to use the bathroom".. he says " I could see that.. they clean it with the bleach and don't clean it up well.. " i did shake my hands after I washed them b/c they have one of those super turbo blow dryers that distorts your skin in funny ways.. I don't like it, so i shook off the excess... grr.. stupid people not cleaning up friggin belach.. I can't have anything nice.. and this time it wasn't even my own fault! (I do have a bad tendency to drop food on my clothes. lol)

there might be a snow day friday! we'll see I guess.. apparantly the storm is moving fast.. channel 5 in Boston says the snow is coming thursday afternoon.. I'll have to check our forecast though.

for crying out loud.

I got a letter in the mail today from my doctor.. she's leaving the practice and going back to working in the ER. This is the 3rd doctor I've had since I've graduated college in 2002 that left being a primary care doctor. I never even had a chance to meet this one.. I would have recently, but she was booked and I had to see a different doctor in teh practice. the doctor before that I saw once, just once.. it was the "i'ts nice to meet you" appt... and the one before that I saw twice.. she retired. The retiree's office moved and I didn't know until I showed up for an appointment and there was a sign in teh window stating they had movied 6 months prior! and I only found out she retired when I wanted to make an appointment. so then I moved my records up to greenfield and picked a new doctor. she was nice.... I only found out she left when I was sick and needed to make an appointment. Then I waited a while to pick a primary care doctor b/c I was annoyed so I picked this new doctor.. a year later.. well atleast I received a letter. I think I'll hold off on picking a new doctor.. again.. I'm doomed.

I wish I could have one of the mid-wives as my primary. I know them real well!! I saw them a bunch and they never left.