Dec 20 2002
Whoops!
Yikes. Well, that was a much longer hiatus than I expected. November & December have been much more hectic than I had anticipated, and I’ve not had the time or energy to even think much about updating here. :-/
Highlights from the last month+:
— Work trip to Greensboro, NC for 4 days. Man, sometimes I really miss that place. As I told a coworker from that site, it’s a pity that Greensboro isn’t located in Massachusetts - I’d be all over it. Part of my enjoyment of the trip was, I’m sure, due to the fact that I lived there for over 2 years and was fairly familiar with the area; I knew the good restaurants near the office (the best sushi I’ve ever had is in Greensboro, believe it or not. Asahi Japanese Steak House causes *serious* happy mouth), I knew just where to find the Starbuck’s and how early I’d have to get up in order to get my Caramel Macchiato before work, and I generally had a good frame of reference when talking with coworkers there. Aside from my familiarity with the area, though, it’s one of the nicest places I’ve lived. 2.5 hours took us into the mountains, 4+ hours would get one to the coast (which was far too long, IMO, but at least the ocean was *available*). Spring in Greensboro is stunning, as it comes earlier there than here in New England, and people really take care to make their gardens and lawns look fantastic. I could go on and on, but perhaps I’ll save that until Spring, as I’m hoping to have another trip to the area (work-related or no) ’round April.
– Thanksgiving in Maine & MA. Went to Rockland Wednesday night, had Thanksgiving dinner with my family Thursday noon-ish, and were back on the road between 4 and 5pm to spend Thanksgiving evening with Husband’s brother & his in-laws. Crazy trip!
– Another brief business trip to NJ. This worked very well for me, as Husband had business in Princeton. I wasn’t scheduled to go with him, until I remembered that my company has a small design center there and that I could pitch my web application to them and stay with Husband. Turns out that it worked even better than I had expected - my company’s NJ office was only 30 minutes (once I got over getting lost and figured out how *really* to get there) from Husband’s offices. Woo!
– provided transportation for Brother J on a couple late-nite excursions to Portland in his own quest for the Ring. We went to Cross Jewelers for him to scope out the Sparkly Rings, and for me to have my own engagement ring resized to fit my right hand. More must be said about Cross later, as they deserve an entire entry to themselves.
– Took the GREs. Yuck. I may take them again in January, but might decide to hope that my recommendations and work experience more than balance out my scores.
– Ordered some reprints of our wedding pictures. More should probably be said about that ordeal, but I’m feeling somewhat more charitable towards our photographer and her lab than I was the other day.
– Thought we were squared away with Christmas gifts, until this week. Chaos reigns now, and the mad dash to finish the lists continues through the coming weekend.
A couple other snippets:
– Wow. I turn 32 next week. boggle. I can still remember a time when 30+ seemed soooooo old to me. I do not feel anywhere near as old as I once perceived 32 to be (I’ve mentioned before that I commune regularly with my inner child, right?), and I certainly don’t *act* the way I thought a 32-year-old would act. Probably just as well; as I like to say - perhaps people won’t notice so much when I actually do slip into my second childhood in another 40-50 years.
– I have 2 full weeks off from work. I think I’ve made a list of To-Do items that would take me a full month of vacation to complete. I”ll try to be happy with crossing off a third of the tasks.
Happy Holidays!
