3 years

I'm not going to write some long, weepy blog about how much I feel my family has been wronged about my Dad's death. So I shall take a cue from Andrea . . . .

Three years ago today (October 29th, 2004), my father passed away. Sad as it was, it wouldn't have lead me to where I am today. Not that my life is any better or worse than it was then, but I'm here aren't I?

I never wanted to ever live in Milwaukee (or surrounding areas). Moving down here was almost a constant reminder of WHY I was here. But I didn't get real comfortable living here until August of last year. I had taken a vacation with all my stuff (ha.), and realized what I had down here. I have family down here. I have a place I can always run to when I want to feel comfort. I have my life here. I wanted to escape this area because I felt that there was nothing left for me here. But I was SO wrong.

I firmly believe that everything in life happens for a reason. While I don't want to agree with that reasoning 100% of the time...I still think it rings true. There is something to be taken away from every situation. Whether the lesson shows its face 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years down the line...something is to be learned from three years ago today. Now I don't know what the lesson is just yet...or maybe I have learned from it already, but whatever it is, its only for the better.

But I still miss him terribly, as anyone would. I get glimpses of him through other males all the time. (Sounds strange, I know) It could be a gesture, a sound, a laugh, a point ...whatever it is. Since I can't have him, I am happy to see him through other people. Perhaps that's the "big man upstairs" way of still letting me see/remember him.

Zzzz....

16 hour work day. Its building character, right?

Stop!

More and more lately I am finding the urge to quit smoking. Until not too recently, I've never really wanted to quit. I understood/understand that smoking is not good for you (how many times has everyone on the planet heard this?) But when does it really start to sink in?

For the past week or so, I've been picturing my life without the addiction. I am fearful of putting on weight (lame excuse, I know) and I'm also fearful of going out to a bar and drinking. While I rarely go out, I can see how I would light up while drinking and try to justify it. I'm not good with addictions and I seem to find the ones that are most detrimental to my health.

I also see that both my parents smoked. While I can only remember seeing my Dad smoke once, it echos through my head. I'm super glad they quit (they just don't seem to be the type of people who were smokers?) ....but I can't help but wonder if it was something I unconsciously picked up when I was younger?

While I was working at Disney, I had stopped for three days. (I did put "quit" instead of stopped, but that wouldn't be correct). One of the guys who lived upstairs from me said his Mom gave him a bunch of patches so that he could stop smoking. Didn't work for him, but it did for me! I didn't have an urge to smoke at all. I started up again because I was just bored. I lived with three Mormons. Enough said.

I guess the next step is figuring out how I want to go about this. I took a quiz online and this is what it said:

You do not have a strong physical dependence on nicotine, so you could consider quitting cold turkey—or without a medication to help you manage withdrawal symptoms. You can pick a day convenient for you to stop smoking on your own. Even without a physical need, you could still have strong urges to smoke. That’s because smoking is both an addiction and a habit.

*sigh*

FIRE!!!!!!!!!!

Hrm. The fire alarm here has been going off for about 10 minutes now. We heard some emergency vehicles come this way.....So there may be a fire in the building....


*grabs glass of wine and bolts*




***Edit**** There was no fire. Apparently the alarms go off quite often due to kids who like to touch things.

Taken from an e-mail.....

....between Andrea and I today about changing my hair color:

Me: Darker? Maybe with some red low lights? Not "red head" color ...but a deep deep red?

Andrea: i don't know why people keep thinking they should go redder. red heads are going to be extinct for a reason, keep it that way.

Blue October

I'm here at work (DoubleTree) a little bit early today. I met with Andrea for lunch today at Guss's downtown. Great food. But I haven't seen Andrea in over a week (ACK!) and it was nice to finally catch up. I've been super busy with working both places. I guess I should feel blessed with the hours I'm getting because I do need the money. I'll be working 10 straight days here before I have a day off from here. And even then I'm not going to even really have it "off". We're heading to Kentucky for the TEAM seminar.

As I was driving by the DoubleTree on my way to meet Andrea, I noticed a bus. I love seeing a bus here and wondering exactly who is staying here. When I got in here I, of course, had to ask. And it was just the group I was hoping for.......Blue October. Nice. The front desk was like, " They're sleeping right now ....but if you catch them, I'm sure they'll put you on the list for the show tonight. " Hahaha. If only.

Well, its 2:27 right now and the "business center" here is getting a bit warm and a little full. I shouldn't really be on here anyway, but they were nice enough to let me....so I shouldn't take advantage of it. I can atleast go outside and cool off and take my sweet time getting ready.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoys the cool weather!

Prostitution

Ha. Totally saw a bust go down tonight. 4 undercover cops and a sting "girl". Totally worth going to work tonight. Totally.

Tomorrow I work 12 hours. 12hrs!!!! I close the bar and then I'm up 4 hours later. Oi. Can't wait! ............NOT! (Trying to bring back "not!"...is it working?)


PS. No misspelled words! Not that it was incredibly arduous to spell what I did....but whatever.

So here is a question

Alright. We all agree I need money, correct? Let's just say that its a known fact across the board. So I have two jobs right now and they are both going really well. I have the steady, mindless job at National Premium that is part time mornings. Then I have the night job at Double Tree. We recently had a bartender quit, leaving 3 bartenders which means more hours for me. I have been on the schedule at Double Tree as just opening shifts on the weekdays since I have to get up early. But that just leaves the other two bartenders (Nick and Corey) with pretty much all closing shifts. So I'm getting a lot of pressure to quit my morning job at National Premium so that I can work more closing and relieve Nick and Corey. I guess I'm just in a pickle. What do I do? Do I quit my morning job so that when I work the closing shifts and I get home at 1:30am, I'm not waking up 5 hours later to go to my part time job? Or do I pick up those closing shifts and quit my other job and hope that the tips involved in closing makes up for my pay at National Premium?

I hope this all makes sense and ANY advice will be welcomed!!

The battle

So I weigh myself today and the scale hasn't moved. While I'm glad it hasn't moved in one direction, I am saddened that it hasn't moved in the other direction. I've been really good lately by eating smaller portions and just less food period. But what gives? My clothes are fitting a lot better (I think?), but the scale isn't saying so. Why is the scale not showing my 2 months of eating less?

Oh and...

...last night Aaron and I were doing laundry (12 loads. No joke.) and we counted how many towels we have for the both of us.



18 towels.




*sigh*

Since when...

Since when did The Today Show run until noon?

Anyshaboo, Andrea so kindly reminded me that I should probably post a new blog. So here it goes:

This past weekend was a lot of fun! I worked Friday night but got off pretty eerily since we don't have a huge weekend crowd at the hotel. When I got home I went to the liqour store to get fixings for a Ro-Jo (Raspberry Stoli, Tonic, Orange Juice) and some beer for Beaky. Ended up having to take two trips to my car due to the two boxes of alcohol. I'm just glad I was lazy enough to not walk over to Discount Liquor. I don't know what I would have done.

Anyhoo, called Kary to see if she wanted to come over and meet Mikey, who flew in at 10PM. She came over and we managed to play a half a game of Uno because we were chatting for the longest time. Around 10:30 Mikey and Andrea finally came here and Aaron and Tivis shortly followed. (They were playing video games at Tivis's place).

Managed to get pretty drunk that night. I guess I was making Ro-Jo's for Andrea, Mikey, and myself ...but I only remember making one for Andrea and one for Mikey. (They said that had at least 4 each.) *scratches head*. Whatever. It was fun.

Saturday I had to work. I got off again pretty early. Went to Andrea's straight after work and she said that they were going to go to Port Washington to Beanie's. So I called Aaron to tell him and he arrived to Andrea's just as Harry, Brooke, and Tina arrived. Perfect timing. So we caravan up to Port Washington and meet Ryan Harrigan up there as well. It was a nice little restaurant (poor service, though).

Sunday we all met over at Kathie's for lunch. She had made ribs and BBQ chicken with all the fixings. Its was SO.GOOD. I'm sorry, but I just haven't tasted a better set of ribs than Kathie's. I challenge anyone to make them better!!! Anyhoo, after the ice cream cake I had to head off to work. I thought that it was going to be SUPER busy in there due to the Packer game, but alas, I didn't get anyone in there until around 6 o'clock. I was there at 2PM. Oi. But I pretty much came home and passed out. I guess working two jobs is a lot more tiring than I thought it would be.

But that's about all she wrote. Not the most exciting posts ever...but it's fulfilling the wants of Andrea.