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Puppy Woes

Poor Buster isn’t doing very well. The insulin testing that they’re doing on him requires that every 4 hours he has a blood draw to check his levels and an insulin shot to try to even them. That's an awful lot for a little dog.

Yesterday his blood levels went from 340 to 308 (he’s supposed to be at 80) but today he’s back up to 336. They’re going to keep him at the vet through Monday. Greg’s coming home tonight for my birthday and is going to go see him. I think I’ll make Jim go out early on Saturday before the party to visit him too.

Catchin' Up on News

First, let me brag that I have an incredibly sweet husband. Jim went out of his way yesterday to pick up a video for my marketing class AND brought me flowers home (primroses)! When he came home he mowed our whole lawn too! Tonight he’s taking me out to Palomino’s for dinner. I definitely married up.

I talked with Mom yesterday and poor Buster is not doing well. He was acting kind of funny in the last few weeks and lately had been having some nighttime bed-wetting accidents. Mom took in a urine sample to the vet when she went and they determined that he has VERY high-level diabetes. They’re keeping him at the vet for the next 3 days to figure out what dosage of insulin he needs. On Saturday the whole family has to go and learn how to give Buster injections. He’ll be getting insulin shots 2/day for the rest of his life and has to change his dog food too. Poor guy. That’s him to the right at PugFest 2004 where he was a Pugosaurus Rex.

The chair of the marketing department thinks that he has my schedule worked out for the spring. I’ll be teaching a Sales & Sales Management class Thursday nights from 6- ??. This hasn’t been set in stone yet, but looks really positive.

Lastly – we finished the Sopranos Season 4 last night. I think this was the best acted season yet and I'm excited about the 5th season which we now have a request into the library for.

Weekend of 9/23/06

Blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It’s Monday and I'm back at work.

I spent my whole work-Friday in a bad mood because of the boss conversation. Jim’s really patient with me in this regard and doesn’t mind letting me talk about more than I should. Friday night we went out to BW3’s and experienced, yet again, the slowest service humanly possible from a restaurant. Why do we torture ourselves!? We did get in about 2 episodes of The Sopranos Season 4 so we’re making very good progress there.

Saturday I had a terrible dream that Greg died (right after getting engaged to some girl) and I had a really hard time going back to sleep after that. I spent gobloads of time doing school work (redid the whole midterm exam… again) and hung out with the hubby. Dale came over for beef stew that night and we went to watch Snakes on a Plane which was one of the most ridiculous movies I’ve ever seen. You know the next hour and a half will be bad when a rattlesnake comes out of the ceiling and strikes a girl on her double-D, naked boob. Good lord.

Sunday I met Lori for brunch and then got to go to Jon & Kristi’s to see little Julia Maxine (who was born Wednesday via planned cesarean section- 7lb, 5oz). This little girl has hair like Suri Cruise. It’s crazy! I bowled like *$%! during our league bowling that evening which made me irritated.

This morning I woke up from having a dream about moving and realized I had to go to work. Horrrrrrrriddddddd. I asked Jim how long he thought we could live in this house just off our savings without working. That sounds like the best idea in the world to me right now. His guess was that with some alterations in our lifestyle we could go for a few years. WHY AREN’T WE PURSUING THIS?!

What I was afraid would happen did

Well, I talked with the boss and he was totally close-minded about me teaching in the spring. I won’t bore you with all the details or get myself all worked up for the umpteenth time but it comes down to the fact that I can not teach during regular business hours. I talked with the chair of the marketing department and he is trying to rearrange “at least two other people’s schedules” in order to accommodate me. This does not look very promising. Jim says its time for me to start approaching other colleges/universities about spots for the spring. I'm super irritated about it and it’s turning into one of those situations where I'm mad and therefore get irate about every other little annoying thing around me. I'm trying not to be rash….

Quarter Evaluations

Hooray! I don’t suck!!

Today at the end of class I had the students write a few sentences to let me know if I was going the right pace, covering subjects they wanted to know about, presenting understandably, etc. The results were overwhelmingly positive which made me feel really really good. What they suggested I change was to make quizzes announced rather than pop and to use the chalkboard more to illustrate examples (in addition to just talking them through like we do today). I feel really great right now about the whole experience!

I have to talk to my boss today and try to fight for teaching in the Spring… my direct manager forewarned me this is going to be an uphill battle…. Grrrr….

Turning a Leaf (ha!)

Well, it’s started. Fall’s here I'm pretty sure. Yesterday was about 63 degrees and today it’ll only get up to 68. Feels like Alaska without the drizzling!

I’ve worn long sleeved shirts and pants the last two days. My days of cute sundresses and sandals are gone! I even pulled out my fall/winter perfume (Chanel) that’s heavier in scent. Really though, I like fall best of all the seasons so this is not a problem. I have way more nice sweaters than I do tank tops.

Greg blogged several posts so I'm taking him off the “delisting threat” to “delisting warning”. J

My teaching semester is ¼ over as of the end of today’s class. On Tuesday they had presentations and we’ll be wrapping those up today. They went exceptionally well and I think everyone will be quite pleased with their results. So far the lowest grade in the class is a 45% and the highest is a 98% which seems reasonable for how far we are in.

Have a wonderful day!

Now, a word from our sponsor

Some notes about the last few days –
1) Jim and I watched The Sentinel two days ago. It totally sucked, don’t watch it.
2) I posted Carol’s blog on my links section – she’s a friend and ex-co-worker who’s an amazingly talented artist and writes about funny things like monkeys
3) I’ve threatened to delist Greg and sent him an official notice as such
4) I had lunch with a student yesterday to talk about sales stuff. He’s a really good guy in general and I like meeting him because he’s always sincerely appreciative of my help.
5) The XU Sales club got a green light from the administration. Now if my boss would agree to let me teach in the spring I’d be in good shape…
6) Our tub is blocked and now fills up with water when we shower. It’s super-annoying. Jim has spent LOTS of time running snakes and doing drain tests on it to no avail. Jeff our plumber is going to call us tonight about fixing it.
7) We’re back to watching the Sopranos again. We watched 3 episodes last night and drank milkshakes while doing it. I really like doing “nothing” with my husband.
8) Martha needs to start a blog.

Weekend of 9/15/06

The weekend was really nice. I think that when Jim and I have plans on Friday nights the weekend feels longer. On Friday night I got home in time to make Jim some dinner and then I went off to Jenny’s sister’s bachelorette party. Jen did a great job planning – good food, good drinks, a toy party: all the makings for a nice single-life send-off. Poor Jim was still sick and apparently went to bed around 9:30, so he was really out of it by the time I got home around 12:30.

On Saturday we got woken up at 8:00am by the Time Warner guy who was delivering our new cable. What was supposed to be a 15 minute job turned into 2.5 hours as new cable had to be run all the way from the pole. The tech wasn’t so happy but was very polite. The hi-def cable does make a huge difference in the quality of the picture. We watched a few things to test it out/stall for time as not to go out and paint more of the barn. Chuck, Kristi & Dale came over for Mexican food and to watch the Bob & Tom Comedy Special with us. Good time had by all!

Sunday we slept in a little more and got up in time to meet Jamie, Jason and Dale at King’s Island for P&G dividend day. We were there for about 2.5 hours, rode some rides, collected some free samples, and left to go get pizza for lunch. We stopped by my grandparent’s house on the way home and they were quite tickled we did which made me happy we took the time. Mom cooked us lasagna for dinner and we hung out over there until around 10.

Not terribly exciting, but a nice breather before a new work-week.

Drugs in the Bathroom

I’ve clearly been watching too many Sopranos episodes lately.

Our office restroom is a common bathroom in the hallway of our floor. Lately the timing has been such that the automatic air freshener puffs while I’ve been in there. Every blasted time that thing goes off my mind jumps to the idea that someone is snorting cocaine off the vanity.

It seriously sounds so much like that that I have to remind myself that a) my life’s not that interesting to have something like that happen b) it’s a #@!& public bathroom in Sharonville for crying out loud and c) who is dumb enough to inhale coke off a nasty public bathroom vanity? I guess the answer to c is someone who’s doing cocaine in the first place...

Casual Thursday

Dear Jim is sick with faryngitis which he seems to get once a year or so. He took the day off anyway to receive the new television and from what he reports he’s been quite busy cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. Obviously he needs extra TLC and good cooking tonight as a reward.

In about 20 minutes my company’s open house will start. It’s overall been a pretty low-key day – I had class this morning and had a guest speaker so I didn’t have to prep anything. When I got back we had pizza ordered in and the rest of the time we’ve been bumming around and trying to stay clean so we’re presentable when the guests come at 3:00. There’s food everywhere and caterers running around who aren’t polite in the slightest. The kegs are tapped and the wine is breathing. Soon we’ll be rockin!

I talked with my boss again about permission to teach in the Spring over my lunch hour. Ironically the chair wanted an answer the next day from when we emailed and he hasn’t bugged me about it at all since I told him I need more time. Hmmmmm…. I did spend quite some time corresponding with one of my students the other day about sales techniques and things of that nature. He makes me smile at his enthusiasm for the business world. I also got notice that one of my students might be called up to active duty in the next few weeks. Though I’ve only known him for 3 weeks myself, I'm disheartened by the thought of him being deployed.

Some especially good pictures have been blogged lately on Lisa’s and Sarah’s spaces. Check ‘em out if you get time.

Finally!

Last night Jim and I went to Best Buy and bought our new TV- a Toshiba DLP 50”. Between that purchase, the new HD cables, the savings we got from upgrading to HD Cable through BB and the extended warranty we had just enough money left over from that contest's winnings to buy Dairy Queen to celebrate! The TV is going to come in on Thursday and Jim’s taking the day off to receive it and make more progress on painting our barn. After 10 months of no television bigger than 19” this is going to be great! I expect we’ll overdose on movie watching all next week.

Crazy Friday

Friday was a really really long day. Work in the morning was slammed and while I did accomplish some things, I started more than I finished. Mom and Grandma W took me out to lunch which was great, but I came back to several blazing fires when I returned to the office. When my phone battery died I borrowed my boss’s phone so that I could communicate and make the most of my 45 minute drive to Dayton for an appointment.

The appointment was painful to say the least. I had to meet with one my clients I most respect about his services that have been horrid since day 1. While he is (and I appreciate that he is) a very reasonable man and he only wants the best for the company knowing this I felt even more guilty in letting him down. I left there over an hour and a half later and pouted because I was only 10 minutes from Sarah’s house (where I was going for the evening) but had to come all the way back down to Cincinnati to give my boss his phone and to meet another client to give them some promo items. That other client didn’t come until nearly 6 which meant overall Jim and I were an hour later to the Williams than initially intended. Very frustrating. Fortunately, Sarah and Danny were really cool about it and didn’t harass me at all!

We had a great time at the Williams’s, as always. Sarah let me cuddle with Alex a ton, feed him, help with his footprints for the baby book, and gush the whole night. He’s so sweet. I don’t believe her that he’s ever bad. Danny made us lamb chops, Portobello mushrooms with bleu cheese and bacon, and baby carrots for dinner. I seriously felt like I was in a restaurant.

When we left around 12:15 the night turned really bad. We watched a car turn out of Chili’s and start driving on the wrong side of the road (other side of the median from us) and ultimately turn left on a red through the major intersection of New Germany and North Fairfield Roads. Because we were shocked to see this at all we continued to watch the car as it went again on the wrong side of the median on N. Fairfield and head straight for on-coming traffic. Just a few seconds passed before we witnessed the car slam into a motorcycle and send the driver flying 25 yards up the road. Of all horrible things, the driver of the car flees the scene by getting out of her car and running away, leaving the cyclist lying in the middle of the street. It was totally unbelievable.

We called 911, talked briefly to the dispatcher and turned around to help/make a police statement. I’ll admit I was disappointed because it took police about 5 minutes from when we called to actually get there and another 5 for the ambulance to show up. Some early-20’s guys had gone to the cyclist and were asking him to wiggle his fingers, etc. The poor guy was in horrible shape – blood all over, moaning and crying and beyond words for the most part. Horrible. We stayed about a half hour so I could make a written statement and then we headed home.

I feel rather motivated to get my CPR certification up-to-date now. Maybe I’ll look into some local places we can do that…

Work, School, and the Gym

Today was a good work day. I had a meeting in the morning and one in the afternoon and both were enjoyable and hopefully eventually profitable.

I corresponded with the new chair of the marketing department and he asked if I’d teach an elective in the Spring semester. As I found out through these emails, the class I'm teaching now is actually a fall-only class and the sales class they want me to teach in the spring is a spring-only class. There goes all my hard prep work for this semester! I’ll forget it all or it’ll be void next year when a new book is picked! Further, taking on this class means taking on a bunch more hours in new class prep.

Anyway, I did say that I was interested in teaching the sales class and I asked about the book and times he had in mind. I’ll admit I found this kind of funny because the marketing department has no feedback on me as we’ve only been in session 3 times. I could totally suck and they would be hiring me back! I guess they could refuse to extend my contract if my evaluations at the end of the semester were horrid. Hopefully that won’t be an issue.

Karen reminded me of other good news I forgot to share – my gym membership expired yesterday! Hooray! Ok, I'm exaggerating my enthusiasm a little bit here… hopefully I can talk Jim into taking me to Winton Woods over the next few nights so we can walk the trails for exercise. That’s much more pleasant than biking no where.

Countdown to see Alex (oh yeah, and Sarah and Danny too): 2 DAYS

Weekend of 9/1/06

Well, the last long weekend before Thanksgiving has come and passed. I spent it

• having a date night with Jim on Friday (watched You, Me & Dupree which gets a B and got Maggie Moo smoothies)
• bumming around on Saturday afternoon and went to the Ott’s with Dale for dinner
• 5 hours of Alaska video creating (for 20 minutes of footage!) which made me late to come home, make dinner, and meet Jen & Tom for bowling and games.
• Sunday consisted of making beanbags (I was supposed to do this on Sunday!) for Greg and painting 2 sides of the shed.

Wa-hoo, I know. Anyway, today at class I'm teaching about Segmenting the Marketplace and reviewing their semester-long project with them. Should be fun!

Living in a pop music hole

I’ll admit it- I'm drawn to these dumb award shows to see what people are wearing. I DO NOT watch them but I do go through the 50 or so online pictures showing the red carpet intros of the stars. I followed this same procedure this morning looking at the MTV Music Award photos from last night and found myself totally confused.

OK, I know I'm in my mid-20’s and all but how am I so out of the loop regarding current pop culture?

Who the hell is LaLa?

Seriously, looking at these pics I think I knew like 10% of the people and they were all “old school” folks like Ludacris and JLo. Good lord I must be getting old