I can't deal with stupid people

I hate my bank - as is well documented. But it's such a pain in the ass to transfer banks, expecially when your direct deposit is finally straightened out, your bills are debited automatically, you've memorized your account numbers.... so out of sheer laziness and unwillingness to do all that again, I stick with Stupid Bank.

To make a long story short, I don't have a debit card to the account where 95% of our money is. I know, I know, I should, but that would require calling Stupid Bank. I can get around this problem with relative ease, so I really have no incentive to get myself another debit card. But, that means I take Andrew's debit card when I will need it - for instance when I am going food shopping by myself. Which I did on Sunday - and when I went to pay, I accidently took out my own debit card, but thought I had Andrew's so I was using his PIN. Well, that froze my debit card, but I didn't realize it until yesterday when I tried to fill up at a gas station and my own debit card kept getting rejected. So I called Stupid Bank to explain that my card was probably froen or something and I realized it when I was at the gas station. The following conversation happened, with a very Dumb Woman at Stupid Bank.

Dumb Woman: "how much did you want to charge when you last used your card?".
Meghan: "well, I was at a gas station, swiping it to pump gas"
DW: " But how much did you want to charge?
Meghan: "I was at a gas station. At a gas station, first you swipe the card, and then you pump, so you really don't know how much the end amount wil be"
DW: "Well how much did you want to charge?"
Meghan: "You see the thing is, I was at a gas station. You know when you use a debit card or credit card at a gas station to pump gas, and you swipe the card first, and then you pump the amount of gas you want, and then at the end you know how much you have spent? It was that situation"
DW: "But how much did you want to charge?"
Meghan: "Ten Dollars"

SAD

Before I get into the post, those of you who pray, please keep the current Young Ladies of the Academy in your prayers. Another student has died in a car crash - NDA is cursed, I'm pretty sure of it. Anyway, those girls are going through hell right now and could probably use any help they can get.

Seasonal Affective Disorder exists. I believe it hits people differently, but it hits all of us in the Northern US hard. I will say some years it knocks me on my ass, some years it just makes me have a countdown until daylight savings comes back. I always say that March is the worst month of the year for me - I'm my palest (which is saying something for me) and usually at my most depressed. There is no reason for the depression, it just stems from it being too dark for too long. The sun is now out when I get home from work - which is a good sign. And daylight savings is early this year. So there's hope - there is literally light at the end of the tunnel. I just need to get there.

I think I want to rollerblade more this spring. I miss it - I couldn't rollerblade while they were digging up Quincy Shore Drive, but I think they are done with that now. Whatever I do, I need to Get. Out. Of. The. House. And in to the freaking sunlight!

everybody's working for the weekend!

We actually had a weekend that we didn't have to travel anywhere for any reason. It was really great - but as all weekends are, it was way too fast. My boss let my office go home at 2:30 on Friday to make up for the fact that the last time it snowed during the day it took the majority of the office over 5 hours to get home. That was really nice of him and I went home early and played another hour of Mario 3. I'm just getting through the levels, I know I'm missing hidden stuff, but hey it's been well over 10 years since I have played this game!

Then at 5, I met Michelle at Blue Hills and Andrew joined us when he got out of work and the 3 of us skiied for a few hours. It was actually really fun. I mean it was Blue Hills so it wasn't very big and it takes about 50 seconds to ski down Big Blue, but it was still really fun. I hadn't gone night skiing in years and it was snowing, and just really pretty.

Saturday was just errands and cleaning and relaxing and doing nothing. Then at night I met up with Val and we met up with a bunch of people to hang out at Hennesy's. There was a cool band and I was a dancing fool all night! It had been awhile since I had a night like that and it was very long overdue and really fun :)

Today is homework, laundry, dinner at my parents, and I believe we'll be seeing Miss Molly later. We better, as my mother made me put a seat together for her and it was hard! Those directions don't always make sense. But I am the world's best handyman and I got it done.

So yeah... really fun weekend :)

My vice

I love shoes. Love them. I can't get enough of them.

I have a modest shoe collection. My husband might disagree with that statement, but I really do. I do have significantly more summer shoes than I do winter shoes, I'll admit that. But as a whole I'm no Imelda Marcos.

I can't really say when my love of shoes started. It was definitely after college, as soon as I had the funds to truly appreciate footwear. In college if I wasn't wearing gym sneakers then I was wearing my one pair of brown shoes or my one pair of black shoes. And I don't feel great about admitting this, but they probably came from Payless. *sigh* Well, my distinct lack of shoe fashion sense in college cannot be helped. I suppose college was phenomenal enough without having super cute shoes to go along with the memories.

Don't get me wrong, I still don't buy my shoes at expensive places. In fact, most of my shoes came from DSW or Off Broadway or Marshalls (omg, I so scored a child's size 5 baby blue gazelles there for like $20) or The Maxx (before it went out of business) or if I'm super lucky, Macy's shoe department. But if I ever get fired it will be because I spent way too long on zappos.com dreaming about all those shoes.

In fact, I have shopping bags full of outfits at every major retailer designed around an incredible shoe I found. I don't buy anything - hey I might have shoegasms, but I know that the mortgage comes first. Right now my fantasy shoe is a nice yellow flat - I don't know if I want patent leather or plain leather... but I want it YELLOW. Like buttercup yellow. And then I want khaki pants (petite of course, if I am going to wear them with flats) with yellow cotton twinset from JCrew (I did mention this outfit was for work, right?). Yellow isn't really my color, I don't think it's any Irish girl's color. But that's what my current mission is. I like to think about work clothes because I get to wear them more often than non work clothes. So that's where my shoe fantasies tend to wander. I can't tell you how much I want those yellow shoes. I just can't find what I want - I've looked everywhere.

So yeah.... I love shoes. I can't afford Manolo Blahnik, but I still love them

I need racoon power!

I now have Super Mario 1 and 3 on my computer. Along with Tetris and some other games, but let's face it. It doesn't get much better than Super Mario 3. I just played for about a half hour and made it to 2-1. I almost lost my final life on the Pirate Ship, but I was triumphant the second attempt. I didn't make it through 2-1 though. That might happen on Thursday. Or maybe even later tonight.



When I think of the countless hours my friend Erin and I used to waste on that game, it makes me cringe. Was there nothing better we could have done with our time? And to make matters worse, we never beat it. Oh, we came really close. We made it to 8-8, but could never kill the last dragon or whatever he is.

It's pretty hard playing it on a keyboard. If I could invent an original nintendo controller to plug into a USB port, I'm pretty sure I would be a billionaire.

Thy Word

Most people wouldn't think "Christian music" when they think of me. But I just voluntary paid 99 cents for Amy Grant's recording of Thy Word. Why? Because it reminds me of being young, being in high school, being bored out of my mind at Liturgy but extremely excited that classes were short that day, 200 teenage girls singing songs with gusto because they were all excited classes were short that day, 200 teenage girls hoping "We Are One Body" was coming up, and many many other reasons.

It just makes me happy and a little sad at the same time.

On my knees...

My favorite part of my wedding was the last dance. Andrew and I completely ripped off Ian and Bree and stole their song (well it was their first dance song, we didn't rip them off that badly...) and chose Nickelback's "Far Away". Also, my favorite pictures were taken during that dance. Though we weren't as far away from each other as Ian and Bree were during their engagement, it was still frustrating to not even live in the same state after we graduated college. I lived on my phone during that time.

Too long,
Too late
Who was I to make you wait?

Should I have stood up to my parents when they asked us to wait so long? We both understood their point - but it was a long time. Looking back I probably should have stood up for myself a little bit more. Though I honestly don't know what we could have done about it.

That I love you
That I have loved you all along
And I miss you
From far away for far too long

It just sucked. 3 years of it sucked. I don't we spent a birthday together until we were married. No, actually, my 25th birthday (3 weeks before the wedding) we were together.

On my knees, I'll ask Last chance for one last dance

I looked forward to that last dance for sooooo long. I don't regret for a minute not having a videographer, but I think if I had one this is the part of the wedding I would actually watch.

I have loved you all along
And I forgive you
For being away for far too long

I'm not forgiving anyone, because it was mostly my fault we were apart for those years. Mostly :) But maybe I've been forgiven?

Keep breathing
'Cause I'm not leaving you anymore

The wedding might be over, but our lives had finally begun!

Where you lead...

I have the Gilmore Girls soundtrack running through my head. Not because it's my ringtone either. I've popped the 5th season in so I can finish it already and move on to season 6. It's more or less playing in the background right now, because I've seen this particular episode recently. So now I'm just singing the theme song... damn it's catchy.

I heart nights that I don't have to go to school. In 16 months this will be my life every day. Day in... day out... no class. I'm pretty sure I'll just be a walking ball of euphoria.

We're going up to Loon this weekend for a nice old fashioned ski weekend. I'm pretty excited, Andrew's never skiied Loon, and I only have once so it should be fun. Not as expensive as Okemo and hopefully less crowded, though it is school vacation week, so we'll see. I hope people don't laugh at me when I display my mediocrity when it comes to skiing.

It took two weeks of Molly being alive before I had to change a poopy diaper. Lucky me. I hadn't changed a diaper in a good 6 or 7 years so at first I was all like "hey, this sounds like a good job for Nana!" but then Mr. Bill was holding Molly and although he does dote on her to the point where I'm all "hello!! I'm the daughter here!! Look at me!!!" changing smelly diapers wasn't something he was willing to do again. So it was either take Molly and change her or wait until Nana came to get her. So I took her and performed my First Diaper Change in a Long Time. Thankfully my mother, who has vastly more experience than I do with such matters, helped out to fill in where my memory lapsed. So yeah. Two weeks. I made two weeks before I had to change a diaper. I wonder if I can last longer with my own children...

I now pronounce you...

Andrew grabbed I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry from Red Box tonight. Freaking hysterical. Definately the best 99 cents he's ever spent. And also the best $9.99 he's ever spend on some pinot noir. Good bottle of wine :)

Anyway, getting back to the movie. Loved it. I haven't actually laughed out loud at a movie in a long time. And I haven't drank that much red wine in a longer time.

I might actually have to buy that movie to add to our collection of random movies to put on when there's nothing else on.

I suppose I should go watch the Grammy's. Andrew was intrigued by Carrie Underwood... now it's Rhianna (personally I think it's the name -- anyone with me on that one???).

Greetings!

Well we are in Keene for the day. Lots to do in Keene. Like.... well we got the oil changed in my car today.... and we went to Target. That was fun. And... well... we played Gin and Andrew won (barely) and then we played Mankala and I won. '


So yeah.. that's Keene for you. We did take some nice pictures though. Here they are:

buh bye

Good bye Mitt! I have never liked you and I won't miss your face plastered all over the TV. Good riddance to you.

I wish I could say good bye to other people and things in my life. A few examples:
UMass. In 16 months, I will be rid of UMB for the rest of my natural life. And unlike my other alma maters, I won't be sending you a yearly check. I've paid you more than enough money already for the hassle you have put me through and I still have 3 more semesters to pay for. I've imagined walking out of UMB for the last time. I might cry from the sheer joy. I'm not sure yet.

Andrew's car. I despise that car (it's a 03 Nissan Sentra - you know, BEFORE they made them cute. And roomier). It's a low rider, it's ugly, the sap from the tree in the yard has destroyed the paint job, and you can't really fit more than 2 adults in it. I can't imagine the hell we will go through trying to get a car seat into it. I hope that car is a distant memory when we are no longer childless.

My bathroom. The proof is in the pudding.

My camera (Sony Cybershot DSC - W90). I cannot figure out how to take a picture of something that is not 2 feet away from me and have the picture not be grainy. Can anyone help me? Anyone? If there is anyone who can help, you will be rewarded! I'm about a week away from throwing the thing against the wall and letting Best Buy make me whole with another camera. Please help me save my wall if you can. Tell me what setting will not take grainy/blury photos!

back to the grind

So I'm back to my life as a grad student. Which means I'm short on time and patience. I have been very bad about my c25k. I took a week off. I have to go back on Thursday and Friday to finish week 3, and by now I should be done with week 4. I've got to figure out a good schedule for it. It's just extremely hard since I'm hardly ever home on weekends. The next two weekends I will be away. It's just hard.

But I'm going to try to remain positive about school for the next semester. I think my classes will be easier than they have been in awhile, or at least one of them will be. So I'm going to try my hardest to remain as positive as I can for as long as I can. I'm drawing close to the end.... 16 months to go. 16 months. I was very sad when I was holding Molly in the hospital and I realized that she will be running around and speaking well enough to get her point across by the time I graduate. And she was only a few hours old at the time!

agony of defeat

It's okay, we're all Sox fans up here. Up until 2004, this was our life. There's always next year. So congratulations to the Giants and the Mannings.

We'll meet again next year.