New job coming soon

As of December 1, I will no longer be an accountant at Caterpillar. Instead, I will be a salary administration analyst. I'm pretty darn excited about the new position. I love the people I work with now - I really honestly do, but I don't love the actual work part so much. And Cat always says it's a great place to work because it's big enough that you can change professions if you want so I'm going to give it a try. I'm not exactly sure what all I'll be doing in HR, but I know I'll still be analyzing numbers and be part of the group that calculates the new salary grades each year. I also know that I won't have closing anymore. However, I'm sure there is another calendar that I'll be following. Just looking forward to something new, but I'm sure I've got lots to learn too.

I'm amazed

Happy Halloween!

Tonight I was at a friends house for a Halloween party. It was awesome. I can't believe what a great day today was. For some reason I remember Halloween being rainy and cold when I was growing up. Anyway, I was kinda bummed about not being home to hand out candy. And I was a little afraid my house would get egged or tp'd. I decided I would put a big bowl of candy out on my front step and let the kiddies take whatever they wanted. Now in my opinion, I had some good candy...reeses, butterfinger, heath, crunch bars, and some tootsie roll pops. I just got home from the party and I still have a nearly full bowl left. I had thought about putting a sign by the candy that said "just take a few, God is watching", but apparently kids these days are a little more trustworthy than I thought. At least the ones in this neighborhood. I am soooo amazed. Now off to bed I go. I've got the Disney Halloween parade song stuck in my head "Boo happy halloween, happy halloween." I hope it gets out of there soon!

I need to vent

Here I am, upstairs in the dining room reading the comments on a USA Today blog biting my tongue so I don't yell at my roommate. I'm so ready to live on my own again. He's totally taken over my basement. I miss my basement and my tv. I haven't gotten to watch tv down there in sooo long. And if that makes me selfish than I'll admit it - I'm selfish, but it's the big screen and I paid for it and I miss being down there. Especially this time of year because I used to sit down there all cuddled up by the fire. And I swear my roommate must have a hearing problem. I can't seem to think of another reason the tv needs to be up so loud. It is so loud that I can tell he's switching channels between Iron Chef and football. So loud the other night I could hear it in my bedroom. One time I went down there when he wasn't here and the volume on the tv was on 18. I listen to it on 6. That's 3 times as loud. Why does it have to be that friggin' loud?!? Now I do understand that this is my house and I can kick him out, but I am trying to be nice because I know he is looking for a house. I know it's a pain to box your stuff up and move and don't want to make him to do that two times in a short while. And the rent income is nice too. I just really miss having a clean, non-vitamin smelling, quiet house. I do think the end is in sight though because I know he went and looked at a few houses yesterday and has plans to look some more this week. Keep your fingers crossed that he finds one he likes!

We're back

We got back from Florida on Saturday morning somewhere between 4 & 5 in the morning. Man that is a long drive. I hope to post some pics soon. Jake loved the rollercoasters. Thursday night he actually dreamt of them. He had fallen asleep in the living room so I carried him into his room. As I put him down he had a smile from ear to ear and said "I was dreaming we were on rocking rollercoaster and we had a joystick we could make it go ANYWHERE." The next day he told me the coaster was in the sky and didn't have any tracks. Jenna loved her princess makeover and meeting all the princesses. And Jack - I was so impressed with him. He's only 1, but he loved the characters - as long as they didn't touch him. I think most of the time he was pointing at stuff saying "oh oh dis dis". Pretty cute. Unfortunately Jordan got sick Monday and is still sick today. He did have lots of fun at the waterpark on Sunday though. I feel so bad for him. I mean I know Disney World may not have been his first choice of a vacation, but in my heart I still think he at least wanted to see it. Poor kid was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia on Sat but he did get out yesterday.

As for me - Besides seeing the kids have fun my favorite parts were finally getting to go on Splash Mountain and Toy Story Mania. I have been to WDW two other times and Disneyland once and never went on Splash Mountain. Man that is a great ride. I'm kicking myself I didn't have my camera with me on that ride because there are sooo many cool things to look at on that ride. Jake and I rode it at night too so the part where you're outside way high up was absolutely stunning. Toy Story Mania was awesome as well. This ride is for children of all heights. You sit in these little cars (kinda reminded me of a tilt a whirl) and you have a laser gun. I believe there are five rooms and each room the gun shoots out something different. You might have to pop balloons with darts or throw a ring on a clowns head. It was very cool. And a big thank you to Liz for telling me to make sure I got fast passes early. I stood in line for about 10 minutes just to get a fast pass....crazy! I can't wait to go back. There is just so much to see and do you can't possibly get it done in 4 days. We did try though.

I am loving Dish Network

Ooops - didn't spell check this one before I posted. How funny that I would misspell grammar as Julie pointed out.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I got rid of Comcast and am now with DishNetwork. I am really liking it a lot. It did go out on me a few times during the storms we had a few weeks ago, but that is to be expected. I have a dual tuner dvr so the tv in the basement and my bedroom share a receiver. I can record on either tv and watch the shows on either tv. I totally LOVE this. Although it's not good for my sleeping habits. I find that I am watching lots more tv now that I can watch the shows I've recorded while lying in bed or is it laying in bed. I never was very good at grammar. I also found out that I have gameshow network. That channel is extremely dangerous for me to have. I remember when I was growing up I watched game shows all the time. I loved staying home sick from school because I knew I'd get my fill of Price is Right and Press Your Luck. Last night I caught an episode of a new show (at least new to me) of Lingo. Chuck Woolrey is the host. This is the guy that hosted Love Connection. He looks exactly the same....even does the same "see ya in 2 and 2".

On anther note, I'm a little happy to see the Cubbies got swept by the Dodgers. I will admit that I cheered them on back in 2003. I am a Cardinal fan so that was a little hard to do. Anyway, after the Steve Bartman incident and seeing how cruel the fans are, I don't feel too sorry for them that it's been 100 years since they won.

Alrighty - must say TTFN and start packing. We leave for WDW in 4 more wake ups!

Back on the fat wagon

Holy Cow - I have gained like 50 pounds since working at Cat (a whole 6 years.) Now during this time I've been on and off a whole crapload of diets. And I've even been to the gym. My problem is sticking to the dern thing and making lifestyle changes instead of just dieting. I usually do really good for a couple weeks and then life gets in the way and the 10 pounds I lost turn into a 15 pound gain. I've got to STOP NOW!!! I don't really feel that unhealthy. I mean I can still do stuff well prolly not run, but I've never been a runner. I did make it through a spinning class on Monday though and that is one hard class. Anywho, I'm totally going to need all of your help. If you see me eating or drinking things that aren't healthy, please start making pig noises at me - I promise I won't get mad. I have really bad willpower and need your help! I even bought a swim suit 3 sizes too small with the hopes of fitting into it for the Feb trip to Turks & Caicos. Man do I want to wear it then. I took a picture of it and printed it off and took to work so hopefully I won't be tempted to snack all day. Also, if anyone has any advice on how they've lost weight and kept it off, please let me know.

Did you know......

It takes about 3400-3500 apples to make 27 gallons of cider.

I love when I'm able to spend some good quality time with my friends, but today we were working. And on a Sunday of all days. It wasn't that bad (I say that now, but I bet tomorrow my back will be telling me something different). I headed over to Pat and Randy's to make some cider. Randy has a old fashioned cider press - I was actually pretty amazed at how well it works for being over 100 years old. Makes me wonder if I could buy anything today and it would still be around 100 years from now. Anywho, there were 6 of us that were washing, cutting, & cleaning the apples. I was mostly in charge of throwing the apples into the hopper and pressing them a couple of times. At one point in time Linda said something about me counting all the apples. I decided I would count at least once cause I was kinda curious to know how many apples we were really going through. Well it took 160 to fill the barrel and one barrel was 1.25 gallons so that's somewhere between 3400-3500. That's a crapload of apples. I took home 3 gallons. I'm freezing two of them. I figure this winter I can take it out and have some nice warm apple cider to warm me up when it's cold outside. I just gotta be careful about how fast I drink the other gallon. I don't wanna have an upset tummy!

I do feel kinda bad. I should have gone to Jordan's football game today. Hopefully I'll make it next week!

TTFN!