"A Few of My Favorite Things"

So, my mom did a list of her "favorite things" earlier...this is my retort =)

The crispness of autumn:

Family near to me and young:

Family far from me:

Family far from me and young at heart?

 Target! I have always loved shopping at Target, and can you believe it...I have been with them for over 10 years now? I still love shopping there and when the day comes that I leave Target I can honestly say that I will still shop there...

 Silliness of all kinds:

Marshall thought he was being funny, but Grandma is funnier =)

Katie thought Marshall should pay her back

for all the piggyback rides she gave him

when he was little...silly!

Food:

I love berries of all kinds, especially raspberries and strawberries!

Dessert is a great way to end a wonderful dinner...in moderation, of course ;-)

              

My newest addition: Thistle (a totally appropriate name too, she has very poky claws and teeth)...a sign of affection as many have tried to tell me! This is a photo of her when she was just a baby and sweet.

Hippos:

This one is from my mom that she picked up while in Japan visiting my sister =)

These next ones are both from Marshall: one is a magnet that he purchased the other he drew for me (he has drawn many hippos for me, but this was the first and I think my favorite)...

The last of favorite things is VACATION!!

Here's a few photos =)

 at moms for my birthday a while ago

 at the beach last month =) I hope there are more of these to come...

with Marshall at Carowind's last summer!

Hope you all have enjoyed going down my list of "favorites" as much as I enjoyed making it.

Upcoming weekend...

This coming weekend I have Marshall all to myself =) Jason is going to GA for a guys weekend and I will be left here in Charlotte all by myself without a vehicle...

I have many things planned for this weekend, but who knows what will actually happen: I bought a tie-dye kit (never done it before), two new board games to add to my ever growing collection, Katie sent me a bunch of movies she doesn't watch any more (most of which I didn't already own), bought a couple of movies myself...

Hope to premake waffles for the next week or two (have raspberries, chocolate chips and grape nuts to add in), would like to make some PB chocolate chip cookies, and hope to have the "guys" over for dinner on Saturday - want to make spicy enchilada pasta dish, vegetable and a salad...

Plan to go to Starbucks for breakfast one day and use their internet to catch up with FB and email. Definitely need to go and check out the "greenway" right next to my apartment (lived there for over 6 months and never gone to walk the 1 and a half miles). Marshall will want to go to the office and shoot some billiards on their table - will try to do that at least once =)

Will post later and let everyone know what we actually did get done...

Marshall's birthday weekend...

So, on Friday the 5th of March we picked up Marshall and took him to his birthday dinner =) There was 10 of us in attendance: Jason (boyfriend), Connor (9 year old son of Jason), Ana (7 year old daughter of Jason), Marshall (my son), Mike (former roommate), Tim (current roommate of Mike), Dan (current roommate of Mike), Amber (friend of ours), Austin (Amber's 1year old son) and myself. We arrived at Olive Garden around 6pm and got sat at 6:30 or so, in the semi-private room - calamari, chicken fingers, fried ravioli, and mozzarella wedges for appetizers. Got salads around 7 as we were still waiting on Dan (who is always late), Dan arrived and we ordered (finally)...everyone had good food and then 6+ servers arrived with the cake for Marshall and sang to him! It was great =) The look on Marshall's face was perfect - he looked surprised and confused at the same time - like he wasn't sure if they were there for him or not. Finished off the cake (not hard to do with 10 of us) and then it was off to the bookstore where Connor and Ana bought Marshall a book for his birthday "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. Took Marshall home for the night so he could get to his flag football in Lancaster, SC on Saturday (they lost by a lot, but Marshall said they had fun anyway). Picked up Marshall around noon on Saturday and straight back to pick up Jason, Connor and Ana for Connor's baseball practice (2-4). Hung out at the field for two hours and then to grocery store to buy supplies for dinner. Dinner was nuggets, corn on the cob, tater tots and mozzarella sticks - tasty =) Out to Bruster's for ice cream shortly after dinner - tasty! Got all the kids in bed by 10pm and then it was time for the adults to go to Waffle House.
Sunday morning was quiet and we went to the Sports Connection off of Johnston Rd. and Ardrey Kell Rd. The 2 younger boys played Laser Tag and the three of us went mini bowling. Then the 3 kids went to the inflatable zone for almost an hour while Jason and I got to relax for a bit. Marshall and I shot a round of billiards; Jason and Connor beat Marshall and I in air hockey twice! Got the kids in the photo booth, and everyone played some arcade games - time to turn in their tickets and get their rewards...off to Target for a snack to help tide them all over until dinner. Had dinner here and then we took Marshall home (around 7pm). What a great weekend (the first of many with the kids all together) - and the adults had a good time too =) Let's hope that next time we can do it without spending so much $$$$...

What a waste...

Monday, March 1st, 2010 our Target received a software update to our handheld scanners, portable printers and main computers...all to make our lives better, easier and more productive (of course). This update included the reconfiguring of our portable printers (which I use everyday to mark clearance items), we now have different tickets =) These tickets are easier to read (larger print on a larger ticket), making everything just hunky-dory for our guests...however, as a result of this change I had to throw away over $200 dollars in old, unusable clearance tickets (the printers will not print on the old tickets, because of the update), and our Guest Service desk also threw away well over $400 in tickets. The funny thing about this is that the information packet we got with the Spring Software Rollout states that Target as a company will save nearly $225,500 a year by switching to this new method! My question is this - if my store threw away $600 worth of tickets and other stores I'm sure had to do the same, did we break even this year, or are we in the hole to next year? The problem with this whole thing was that Target decided to release the update over 2 weeks early =( if they had waited until it was actual time to release, we would have wasted less of the old tickets and be better prepared, etc. What a load of crap! The Software Release happened yesterday and today (3-2-2010) is when I was given the book on how to use all the new functions...thank God I have a brain in my head and didn't get all confused as how to do my job yesterday, and didn't need a 8 page booklet to tell me what was pretty obvious =) Done ranting for now, will have more later as the week progresses I'm sure...

So, it's been over 6 months since I last wrote...

Well, many things have happened in the last 6 months (I would hope so)...too many things to list here - but we'll give it a shot.
Marshall played football with Ray (might as well say he's his brother), got his ears pierced, participated in wrestling with Ray and is now playing flag football with Ray - Marshall will be 11 on this March 10, 2010. So proud of him and keeping his grades up - A/B honor roll again. He has maintained his weight and grew in height, he attended his first dance last week (growing up so fast) - one of these days he'll be driving more than a bobcat!
Have been surrounding myself more with Jason's kids - Connor (he's 9) and Ana (she's 7). Connor played soccer and is now signed up for baseball. Ana also played soccer and is wanting to get back into gymnastics again. It is an integral part of my weekly routine and being a part of Jason's life means I am a part of theirs as well. I try to stay out of it, if it doesn't concern me directly and let Jason take the lead whenever possible with the parenting - I just can't help myself sometimes =)
Jason and I try to get some alone time whenever we can...we usually go to Waffle House on Tuesday or Thursday nights and once over the weekend (at least), some nights it is just us and sometimes friends show up and join us (not planned, mind you).
Currently we have the kids on opposite weekends, but all this will change starting in March when we will have the kids on the same weekends and Jason and I will both be working on the same weekends as well. Wait, did I hear that correctly? Anna will be working on the weekends? Yes, Target had a wonderful idea that the Pricing and Presentation Team Leads should work the weekends to "make us better and more rounded leaders in the building" - this is all a bunch of bull and I know it! Bottom line is Target has continued to cut payroll and as Team Leads have left Target and went other places they have not rehired anyone and now they are short on management coverage (especially on the weekends) and they have decided to exploit us who are still around...
So, I think this has been enough for now - more to come later =)

Since no one is reading...

Last weekend with Marshall was uneventful - we went to Waffle House (yes, with Marshall) on Friday night (7/3) and he slept pretty good into Saturday morning - up around 8am...he made himself some eggs (YAY! I got to lounge in bed until like 11am). We got up and went swimming for just under an hour, there were some nice kids there for Marshall to play with, I never even made it into the pool. Jason went into work at 2pm and we chilled at the house until I brought Marshall back home so he could go to a fabulous 4th of July display...I got to hear all about it the next morning when I picked him up at 10am. We did a whole bunch of nothing on Sunday either, trying to save up some $ for the upcoming trip to MN - the end of July.

Tuesday, July 7th: Today is my youngest ex-brother-in-laws 19th birthday! Happy birthday Zach =) Tonight is also game night. Again very few of us but we did get to battle. But before that we met another new character (he's a human rogue/thief, named Reggie). We traveled for almost three weeks when we finally reached our destination - no one in the town would talk to us, very strange... Jason decided to go be the curious kitty and wandered off by himself (without telling any of us where he was going) - Jason's character was watching a farmer work the soil with a hoe, when the farmer all of the sudden turned around with his arms stretched out in front of him, "Brains......." Now we all burst out into laughter - 1). it was funny to watch our DM do a zombie impersonation, 2). we all know Jason doesn't like zombies (at all), and 3). Jason responding with a resounding expletive - that I won't put into print here =) We all got out of the encounter fairly unscathed (a few points lost to psychic damage), except for me - our biggest, baddest guy got possessed and swung at me, hit me and I lost 16 of my 54 HP (hit points)! I made sure as I walked by him on my way to go kill a zombie that he got a friendly, but forceful reminder that I am his ally not his enemy. So, we killed the four zombies and one other thing (they described it as a dementor - like from Harry Potter) and now we are on our way to the crypt at the end of the grave yard. We don't wanna, but that is where some really old cleric 100's of years ago hid the cleric's relic (why a holy guy would hide a holy symbol in a grave yard is beyond us at this point in time). We also don't know why the entire town is full of zombies either - more to learn about next week....

D'n'D night (last day of June)...

Very few of us tonight - nothing exciting happened...we got introduced to Blake's new character (a Deva/Avenger). My character (Hilda) got to meet the leader of her order (Artemis, head of all clerics dealing with Avandra) - we have been told to go out and search for three different runes all in different directions. We are going to search for the holy rune first, as it will help stave off the annihilation facing my order (the bad guys found out we were helping the resistance and are coming for us strong)...then we will decide if we go east for the Elven rune or west for the Druid rune. Like I said, nothing real exciting - divided up the spoils from our last encounter, and then at 11pm called game, as it was too late to start a fight.