So I am thinking I should try to share some photos, get some views, some feed back, yada yada.

I guess I should give a brief life update for those who read this: Still employed, still in Albany, still taking belly dancing, still taking assorted other classes, still baking like a fiend, still playing WoW, and oh yeah, engaged to Trysten. :-D

In other news, the photos!:
My favorite:


Posies:




More here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/midnyghtchilde/

So I went dreaded bathing suit shopping this weekend. The last I did this was freshman year of college, in order to have suits for VA beach. Those ones are actually too loose now, despite being barely worn since that trip, and we're going to Disneyworld in May so I need a new one.

It actually wasn't bad, except that way too many suits now have annoying little plastic clips that are A: going to break and B: get totally twisted and tangled. I found a brown and pink (OMG PINK?! ME?! I must be ill) that is cute, so I just went ahead and bought it. Surprisingly, its a 16, despite my pants normally being 18s. But in retrospec,  my summer dresses are a 14w and a 16, so I guess it's not far off. Seeing the bajillion high schoolers prom dress shopping in the mall this weekend also reminded me I need to get rid of my old prom dresses, since they're way too big as well. This disappoints me, as I really adored my burgundy prom dress >.> I may yet try to get it taken in sometime.

Now I need to find some sort of hat for sun cover for my poor pasty Irishness. Sunscreen is my best friend, but I'd love a hat. I generally look retarded in hats though, so this may take some creativity on my part. I may settle for a bandana of some sort, just something to cover my scalp and part which are guaranteed to end up burned.

I saw the chipmunk who lives in the wall today, which means it must be summer. Now I am planning touse my contest winning 50$ gift card at Lowe's to get patio gardening supplies for my many veggies. We'll also need some room for the bikes we are bringing back, since Trysten wants to get into biking once more. And I have to learn to ride one. >.> Yeah ok, there's my big dark secret, I never learned to ride a bike. Kiss my ass, I didn't have a drive way (it was loose stone) or friends in neighborhoods to do it with. And my balance sucks. And I really, really really like my knees, although they hate me, and don't want them any more scarred then they are. I think we'll do some string beans, and two tomato plants, and something else this year. I already have herbs out the ass - my two basils are over a year old and still going nuts, my parsley I had to murder one so I could reclaim a pot but the other one is gigantic, and now I have planted dill from seed which is merrily sprouting in the spring sunshine. My jesuspepper plant staged its come back after 2 weeks of no watering after I <i>cut the entire thing off at the base</i> and now has a few inches of growth, new leaves, and a possible bud. Go figure.


I am so glad that spring is here and I don't have to be locked up inside anymore!

The BBC reports that most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
ONLY SIX!!!

Bold the ones you've read, italic ones only partially read

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30, The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafo
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

hmm...read 16 and partially read a few more.

Silly list though, since sometimes the series is listed as one and sometimes a particular book of that series is also listed....

I also hate Dickens, a lot. He really did get paid by the word. The story lines may be great, but I just cant force my way past his blithering to read the whole book.

Dune is really awesome though, just finished it actually.

So yes, it's been a while. Even though the holidays ended and January is usually kind of quiet, this year it has not been.

Work has been busy. Not as crazy busy as last year I suppose, but busy enough. Most of this is because we are down 4 people from this time last night. The good new is, we are technically hiring, and my job is most definitely secure. As a matter of fact I've saved the group a few times and got recognition and a reward check from my boss for it. I've been researching heavily into laser diffraction and particle size since I am now the administrator on the instrument, we're having problems, and nobody else knows it >.> I have quite literally RTFMnoob. I've also been put in charge of installing and learning a brand new instrument in a relatively new field of study, a powder rheometer. Some days I feel overwhelmed with new information in fields that I never even remotely touched on in college, but I am managing to stay afloat. By boss trusts my judgment and seems to believe that I can handle it all, so all in all it is good.

Trysten and I are taking a ceramics class for the next 8 weeks or so through the school, which should be fun. I am looking forward to some painting and molding and what have you. I still dance every Thursday and my teacher is talking about getting us on stage at some point (cue silent screaming inside).

When not working or taking classes we've been bouncing amongst get-togethers with friends and coworkers. I've finally 'befriended' a few coworkers and we go out to lunch/free hockey games/etc on occasion. I've begun working to redo some of my wardrobe, finally tossing things which aren't flattering and spending a little more for things that are. We're raiding in WoW again, casually this time and no responsibilities.

I've been trying to take more pictures, I uploading some from the course of the winter here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/midnyghtchilde/

Otherwise things have been bleh as winter drags on. I am looking forward to spring and planning what to pot in our patio garden already. We are going to Disneyworld in May :-D WOOO DISNEYWORLD! which has me perpetually excited. It'll be a whole week with my Mom and Brother and Trysten. It will be awesome.

In general I find myself using email and facebook pretty much exclusively for keeping in touch. I almost forgot my log-on for AIM, truth be told, when I had to re-enter it on my new computer. I did break down and get a new, Vista gaming system as I was sick of my game looking like shit on my 4 year + old system.

In the last year, on the person front, I:
-learned to bellydance
-learned to bake bread, from scratch, with yeast.
-learned to make applesauce, from scratch.
-learned a few new cookie recipes, and pumpkin bread recipes
-taught myself to knit and made two hats
-took an art class for drawing
-started a garden of plants and herbs and what not in the summer
-made a network of friends, branching off of one friend
-hosted a sit down Thanksgiving dinner for 8 without any problems
-connected with my second cousins and started regular dinner parties

at work I
-got a promotion
-developd and wrote a method for analytical testing
-had blood wok done and got clearance for highly potent materials
-became system admin and trainer for two instruments (raman and particle size)
-learned most of the equipment inside and out including daily calibrations for over a dozen different instruments


I think over all I have developed quite a life on my own two feet. I'm proud of myself and Tristen that we are on our own and without any loss in quality of life from what we were raised with. We did not have to live on ramen or sleep on futons or suffer bad roommates and dirty run down apartments in order to transition from "college student" to "work adult," and for this I am thankful and wonderfully proud. We live in a nice area, have good jobs at least somewhat tangentially related to our degrees, have nice new cars, lovely new furniture, and most important to me, no real consumer debt, beyond car payments, both of which could be paid off tomorrow with what we have in savings, if need be. We are frugal and creative and if we had to, could live on one salary or the other (I did the math, as I freaked out about the new NYS budget proposals, and despite my lower salary it would be tight, but doable, without touching our savings on my salary alone). My annual review is upcoming and hopefully will entail and a nice raise. I'd love a promotion but given how HR acts I doubt it, but possibly at mid-year "review" time, so around June/July.

I am also dang glad to have developed a real social circle in Albany which includes friends from all over and my cousins, alongside friends across the state and the country who I continue to keep in touch with. I'm still working on crossing a coworker or two into friends territory, but maybe in the new year.

I honestly don't think I would have done it if I hadn't taken the leap to be on "my own" in the dorm several hours from home a and from anyone I knew. I'm especially thankful to have escaped Rochester, even if I have yet to escape NYS.

So looking back, despite a few bumps in the road, 2008 has been far far better than 2007 was. Looking foward I think 2009 may be a litte questionable, given the economy and all, but since we have a solid foundation we will make it through just fine. And hopefully things continue smoothly and I will continue to aim to return to school for a conservation masters in fall 2010, simply because I want to, and I know now I won't be doing it just because I am afraid of standing on my own two or because I can't get a job.

So here's to 2008, a few days ahead of our New Years Party at Our Place!

I asked for a skirt for Christmas. I have my veiled made thanks to my mom, and hopefully soon I will pick up some kind of top. Unfortunately classes dont start for af ew weeks after the holidays, which makes me sad.

But I saw this and laughed and just had to share.

Twas a belly-dance miracle

With my large fleshy limbs, so lively and quick,

I flew through my routine, my hips shaking: Chic!

More rapid than eagles my dance moves they came,

And I smiled, and twisted, and called them by name;

“Now Maya! Now, Snake Arms! Now, Belly-Roll Shimmy!

On, Hip-drop! On Chest-lift! On, Slow Undulation!

Spin across to the wall! To the front of the mat!

Now Shimmy Fast! Shimmy Fast! Shimmy Fast, FAT!”

This is a meme from Odd One Out. Bold the things you’ve done.

1. Started my own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world (Disney World, 3 times now)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis (and many other bugs and toads and creepy crawlies)
10. Sung a solo (I was a cantor at mass for a while...aka the person who leads the entire church in song from the podium, as well as a choir girl and soloist in the school plays....once upon a time)
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched lightning at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch (I just taught myself to knit from the internet)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France (No, but I did see Pablo Piccasso's original pieces in Madrid)
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Skied a marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset (many times, over Lake Ontario, gorgeous)
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person (many many times, its only an hour and a half away)
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors (not yet but soon)
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had my portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class - And a dance class!
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching (Off Mass. Coast, went to Gloucester too, where the events in A Perfect Storm happened)
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi concentration camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury (Unfortunately.)
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee (nope, despite smacking them)
100. Ridden an elephant (And the Renn Faire!)

So after a nice long holiday it's back to the grind and the slip and slide into Christmas and the new year. So currently my list in no real order is:

-Start the baking and party prep for Saturday's Thanksgiving dinner for 7
-Christmas shopping - which is about half done
-Complete second knitting project to give as a gift. My first hat is done and looks like a hat but is lumpy from taking it in (it was way too big)
-Put together gift baskets, which means baking 5 loaves of wheat raisin bread and making icing to go with candles in an eco-friendly reusable bag plus maybe some cookies for coworkers/neighbors/friends
-Decorate for Christmas
-Plan for a New Years Eve party, the first in many years, since we will be here, and I want to blend some coworkers with my cousins (who is technically a coworker too, lol) and friends.
-Make Christmas cookies, maybe gingerbread cookies this year with my much-loved cut outs
-Get back to the WiiFit Yoga, since Tuesday dance classes are over for a few months
-Car insurance shopping, since its renewal time again
-Read over my 401k info and adjust accordingly
-Back up my photos to a jump drive and my files to the portable hard drive

Hmmm that should be about everything, too bad there are not enough weekends for all the baking and cookies and what not.

Otherwise, Thanksgiving was a nice, but being "home" for so long is starting to feel awkward. I love seeing my family, but its weird to be staying at home, its not my home anymore really, my home is here in my apartment. My brother had many friends over Fri. and Sat. nights for much drinking, and I was amazing to learn that most of his "popular rich boy" Pittsford friends are unemployed and at home...despite their hoity toity private college degrees. It was so weird to hear comments like "yeah my mom will kill me" and "my parents let me sleep all day at least"....and admittedly it was darkly delicious to hear them talk like that and realize how well I am doing on my own two feet. It's that evil nerd revenge delight. Life is good.

Oh yeah, and Foster's home for Imaginary Friends RickRolled the Nation at the macy's parade...it was fucking hilarious.

Really, the article title says it all:

Walmart worker trampled, 2 shot at toy store

Seriously.

The economy is tanking, people are dying in India, and retarded ass Americans are TRAMPLING PEOPLEa TO BUY A FUCKING TV.

"We're so broke waaah but we can run out an buy tvs and shit we don't need cuz its on SALE cuz its CHRISTMAS!! But pity us we cant afford the heat next month or to send our kids to college or to retire! Waah!"

Good fucking lord.

And the fact that they had the gall to complain when made to leave the store because someone DIED???!!! Despicable. Disgusting. Not enough words in the goddamn dictionary to describe it. Not surprising, considering the driving I saw today and the cutting people off and what not just to "get there first!" and spend more money.

I am so disappointed with most of humanity.

So I think I broke my toe. Its only my baby toe, and its my left foot, and it hurts like a bitch, but I cant *do* anything about it. Argh. The only thing I can do is keep popping tylenol and advil and try to stay off it...which is virtually impossible since my two labs are at opposite ends of the hallway, and being the do-all go-getter of the team means I inevitably spend half of my day dashing back and forth across the building.

Anyways...I baked two loaves of bread this weekend which turned out delish. Homemade bread + homemade corn chowder = win on a cold fall day. I also finally dried some parsley and basil from my going-apeshit plants that threaten to take over the kitchen. Then I made a batch of white chocolate chip cranberry oatmeal cookies tonight. I've just been in a baking mood. It's cold and it keeps the apartment warm (and my bills down, lol)

So despite the fact that my toe hurts like hell, things are good. I have a solid job, my company is doing really well despite the economy, so hopefully that holds, and I realized today I had about 3k more in my savings account than I realized, which is the good kind of realization.

Im also really excited to be having a great big thanksgiving dinner at our apartment on dec. 6th for our friends. I love Thanksgiving, its my favorite holiday, I think it surpassed Halloween. Its all about food and friends and family and no stupid gift giving crap. We are planning the whole shebang, so it should be a great time. Even better it turns out Tom will be around Thanksgiving week/weekend, so we will have a chance to catch up.

But this is the last update for at least a week or two since WOTLK is out Thursday :-D