6 months have gone by

it is 2012. it's going to be a great year.

it has been forever

almost 3 weeks... what have I been doing?
The shore was wonderful. Can't believe it's taken me so long to get there and it is not that far away.
Every day I walked to the pool and swam. I met some really nice people. The pool looked old, but the walls and gutters made it a fast pool. Nothing like swimming a few thousand and then walking in the clean, fresh air back to a beautiful rental sitting 1/2 block from the beach. Thank you Kath, Sean and Mom and Dad for letting me come along.

And then it was back to work and swim and clean and grocery shop and teach swim lessons and sell Mary Kay and 18 days later here I am.

I'm going to for sure take another day or two at the beach in NJ before the cold days come along.
Can't believe we used to live at the beach for 12 years. Not taking that for granted anymore.

almost time for the shore

I haven't been to the shore in YEARS! I travelled back to CA in 2008 and I have been stuck on the East Coast since then. I love the water, not too much into the sand, but I know I will enjoy the AIR. I need a breeze. I would actually take the cold misty morning of the West Coast right now. I just need to be able to walk around the block without sweating. I want to swim outside and the air feels brisk, not wet and warm.
I will find the pool in Ocean City NJ next week and I will even try to swim in the ocean. Of course if there are any jellyfish, then NO. I will only put my feet in. I don't even want to imagine getting stung. I will take walks and sit in beach chairs. I will have my laptop and a book and my Mary Kay sunscreen and 15 for lips. No baby oil and no Sun-in. Sorry skin- you're gonna get some protection this year. Hopefully it won't rain next week. We are definitely praying for sunshine!
Breathe towards the sun!

3 days off and now 6 in a row- what a week!

Keeping busy between all these shifts. Busy resting, busy swimming, busy cleaning the house and doing laundry. Busy with projects at work, a baby shower to plan, a car that was in the shop and now may have a slow leaking tire.......

I've swam at a different pool every day so far this week. Today was the Sport and Health in McLean, VA. The water was warm, the sun was bright and the pool was crowded, but I got a lane right away.
My lane was next to the family play area. I was constantly on alert for balls, noodles, kids and even this one dad who actually brought his baby over to my lane. Are you serious? Worst part was, I thought that the man was a woman. Curly hair, a cap on his head and big sunglasses, swimming breaststroke with his head up. I thought he was a woman. The highlight of this swim, was afterwards I found a gas station run by Safeway. It was next to a Safeway store. I punched in my number and voila', I was rewarded with 30 cents off each gallon- so I paid $3.46/gal today! I bought a few groceries and while the checkout guy from Lebanon kept me talking, the bagger kid put all of my glass jar groceries into one cheap miserable plastic bag that was already tearing. I didn't notice until I was putting my groceries into the car. Thank goodness for the reusables!

Laundry: done. Chris' laundry: done. Now it's paperwork. Gonna clean out this desk. If this desk was clean, my living room would really look nice. I just got a matching console table for the one that dropped on my foot in April. I put it together last night and set it up on the left side of my desk. The culprit desk is to the right. I noticed that Marissa had turned the culprit console table around so that the little beads and decorations couldn't be seen. When I realized it and said something to Chris, he actually asked me, "How does that make you feel?"
"How does that make me feel?"
"Yeah, Mom, how does that make you feel that Marissa turned your table around?"

Well, now that you ask.........

Have a good Sunday!

St Jude answers prayers

I'm going to use this time and blog to publicly thank St Jude for answering all of the prayers that I have thrown at him. Thrown, hurled, piled in front of, dumped on, handed over, unloaded....You name it, I've somehow gotten to St Jude. Because everything is going really well. Every single prayer has been answered. Even if the answer was "ummmm, I don't think so..." or , "uhhhh maybe-----no, no, sorry"---well, that was for the good of everyone involved.

I can just picture St Jude with his hands over his ears and he is thinking, "Not YOU again!"

Yep, it's me St Jude and thanks for listening! You are the best.

back to work!

 Oh what a great week I've had. No complaints. Only great things to say about my week off.
First stopped up in Wilkes-Barre to visit the Slavoski's. I love my cousins and my Aunt Anne and Uncle John. I learned that they have changed their names: Aunt Anne is "Jim" and Uncle John is "Peggy". Hysterical!

Then on to Doylestown. Family dinner at Pete and Tracey's. Kara Valko was down from NYC. So sweet, so nice, I love her! Dinner was great. Fish taco night. Omgosh, the food was delicious!

The week went quickly. Too quick. I swam at the Y, shopped with Grandma. Hung out with Buz.
Anne and I walked through Dtown one night with Joey. We spent a few hours at Fanny Chapman working on our tan! The water was cold, but it felt great.

Highlight: Grandma (Mom) became an Apple convert. When Joe set up and turned on the computer I knew she was never going to go back to the PC. Andrew came over and did the internet/computery/ code and number part for Mom and she is up and running.

Yay!
For the first time ever I drove straight through back to DC. The house was clean (thank you Marissa and Chris) and the cat was good (thank you again).
Yesterday Marissa and I watched Anysia teach a microclass. She is brilliant! Today is Immigration with Andreas. And then WORK.

Thank you Liz, for doing the first 4 hours of my day so that I can go to Immigration.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Friday the 24th

So, has anyone noticed the gnats? It's like they hatched from gnat eggs and are swarming everywhere. So agnoying!

How about the young person I saw allowing her dog to poop on the apartment complex lawn, not pick it up and rush back into her apartment across the street? I made 2 signs for the fence around the lawn.

How about the brown, greasy dirty filthy windows and blinds of the apartment on the first floor.....where this chain smoking couples resides with their little cat. When I'm outside, I can see their blinds that have turned black/brown. Their windows have a nasty film now. They are such a nice couple but they are smelling up the entire building. She tells me about her hypertension. HAH!

Has anyone seen me come to a complete stop at the stop signs lately? No more rolling. I realized that if I drove carefully, I would save, on the average, $50/mo.

Did you know that if you bring back your Super Big Gulp cup to 7-11 for a refill, that it costs only $1.01? Instead of $1.83? That's for the 7-11 on Rte 29 in VA.

Marissa rescued a baby bird. I saw the nest she built for it. I hope that the mommy bird found her baby and takes care of it. Anysia made a poster filled with photos of all of us to show her class. It was awesome! Chris is in aquatics now. Yay! Eric has a beautiful new patio set for their house. Can't wait to picnic there. And Andreas is now working out at the state of the art gym right here at the complex.

Wally the dog got a haircut. Jack and Joey are next. Too hot now for hairy puppies. Skwisgaar likes a little bit of wet puppy food mixed into his cat kibble. hmmmmm.

Random news for this week....hope your week has been just as exciting!