Day off report

Posted on January 9, 2008 by erin

So I was especially happy to have the unexpected day off because Rand has been sick, and I’m feeling a bit under-the-weather myself…not full-blown sickness, but like it’s trying to get me. I broke out the Zicam and bought some Airborne upon the recommendation of a friend. Here’s hoping.

I had originally thought I’d get all kinds of things done today, but my body told me it needed to rest, and so rest I did. Rand and I watched some TV…finished season 2 of My name is Earl and watched some more Buffy. Oh, and I napped a little. And drank a lot of water. Exciting life, huh?

The bad thing is, I had a whole stack of papers I had planned to tackle during my planning periods today. I’m leaving early tomorrow to go to the doctor (not illness related…I’ve had this appointment scheduled for months) AND I need to prepare sub plans for Friday. Meh.

I’ve been away from the computer for most of the day, and I expect that trend to continue…the next couple of weeks are going to be pretty busy for me. Hope everyone’s doing well!

Wedding books

Posted on January 9, 2008 by erin

Thanks to a very sweet and recently married friend who sent me ALL of her wedding planning books, I now have duplicate copies of Bridal Bargains and Easy Wedding Planning Plus.

Give me a holler if you’d like one or both of these. 🙂

Rain day?

Posted on January 9, 2008 by erin

School is canceled today. I’m assuming it has something to do with the power. I’m going back to bed. 😉

Gifted

Posted on January 7, 2008 by erin

Rockin’ handmade scarf!

Gorgeous ornament.

Yoga tote! (actually bought for myself with a gift card I received for Christmas)

Movie fun package!

By all means, not an exhaustive list…but I do appreciate everything! 😀

Where not to buy a car in WNY

Posted on January 7, 2008 by erin

Stay away from Joe Cecconi Chrysler.

Kelly wrote an excellent post in response to Buffalo Geek’s post about his horrible customer service experience, and he suggested that we Buffalo bloggers pitch in to help. Since Kelly’s post was teh awesome, here it is in its entirety:

BuffaloGeek recently made a vehicle purchase at Joe Cecconi Chrysler, and the resulting transaction with Joe Cecconi Chrysler did not go well. It seems that the people at Joe Cecconi Chrysler consider customer service to have ended as soon as the vehicle is off the lot, and that any attempt by a customer to procure more service from Joe Cecconi Chrysler constitutes attempted theft of services or something similar. It appears that lying and refusing to talk to customers is the way things are done at Joe Cecconi Chrysler, which is a shame. It’s not like there are lots of other Chrysler dealerships in the region; why, Joe Cecconi Chrysler is just about the only place to by a Chrysler for a fifty-mile radius, so it’s not like the guys at Joe Cecconi Chrysler will miss out on commissions if word of the abysmal, combative, and downright rude customer service at Joe Cecconi Chrysler should get out.

So shop at Joe Cecconi Chrysler if you must, folks, but hold on to your wallets, and make sure you get all the service you think you’ll ever need before you sign the dotted line with the salespeople at Joe Cecconi Chrysler.

Remember that name: Joe Cecconi Chrysler. That’s a name you can trust.

Joe Cecconi Chrysler.

Do read the whole story if you haven’t already…

Literature nerd

Posted on January 5, 2008 by erin

No surprises here…

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it’s eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today’s society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It’s okay. I understand.
Drama Nerd
Social Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Musician
Anime Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

Friday photo(s)-crafty

Posted on January 4, 2008 by erin

I got in the crafty spirit before the holidays…here are some photos:

This bag and binder were gifts for my SIL, who is an advisor for the ADPi chapter at Pitt. I actually went and bought puffy paints! Fun! 🙂

I made these for my co-teacher and my mentor at school. They were a big hit!

This was a gift for vixy, just ’cause. 🙂 (anyone wondering if I do commissions…the answer is yes!)

I also bought some more of those journals (can be seen in this set) and as soon as I make a run to the craft store, I’ll do some more!

That’s it for today…I started a post yesterday, but I never got around to finishing it. It wasn’t that important anyway. Happy first Friday of 2008! 🙂

Wedding Wednesday–the blogs

Posted on January 2, 2008 by erin

I have a love-hate relationship with wedding blogs. Well, it’s mostly hate, but for some strange reason, I cannot seem to look away.

I don’t even read that many of them…I saved a couple in Bloglines so that I could come back to them every now and then. Every once in a while, I see something cute or clever or fun, which is apparently enough to keep me coming back.

Mostly though, they’re just symptoms of this all-pervasive bride culture I’ve complained about before. Girls going on and on and on about their dream weddings and dream photographers and dream cakes and so on. Making it seem as if it’s altogether reasonable to spend $200 on shoes. (I guess for some people $200 for shoes is entirely reasonable. I am not one of those people…)

*Speaking of shoes, I was recently chided for not updating the masses on my shoe decision. That would be because there hasn’t been a shoe decision. I didn’t send the Skechers back. I’ve decided that I’ll wait and see how they look with the dress, and if I don’t end up wearing them, I’ll just have a cute pair of summery shoes.

Anyway, some of the things that bridey bride brides agonize over just make me roll my eyes. Shall I (gasp!) print my envelopes, or must I hand address? Who cares? I’m of the “do what makes you happy” camp (unless, of course, what makes you happy is being a bridezilla and making everyone you love hate you). I suppose there are etiquette sticklers who do care, but really…have you ever changed your opinion of someone because of the way their wedding invitation was addressed? I know I haven’t…and what’s more, if anyone I knew changed their opinion of ME over something so trivial, well, I’d kind of prefer they stayed home anyway.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

I have lots of bloggy catching up to do…and I will get to it, eventually. I want to write about some of my Christmas loot, and some of the crafty things I did, and New Year’s Eve. I hope you all were able to ring in the new year in a way that made you happy. I know I did!

(pssst…guess what? We’re getting married this year! Whee!)

Reading, watching, listening (Happy New Year edition!)

Posted on January 1, 2008 by erin

Reading: This has been fairly well covered, but I did sneak in one more (short) book in the past few days–Abadazad-The Road to Inconcievable by JM DeMatteis and Mike Ploog. It’s the first in a series, and I found it very enjoyable.

Watching: It’s been a busy week!

In the theater: Juno, Charlie Wilson’s War, and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Three very different movies, but I enjoyed them all.

I adored Juno. Precious? Yes, but also smart and funny and very well done. I loved the cast. I first encountered screenwriter Diablo Cody through Eden’s blog, and I was a semi-regular reader of her blog for a while.

I have three words to say about Charlie Wilson’s War–Philip. Seymour. Hoffman. He was fantastic. The story was interesting, and I was entertained by the type of dialog I’ve come to expect from Aaron Sorkin. Rand and I both noted, though, that it wasn’t particularly dramatic…the story had very little drama or tension. Tom Hanks was likable as the title character (duh), and Julia Roberts did a fine job in her role as well.

And Walk Hard was simply hilarious. The songs (many of which were written by Dan Bern) were great. In fact, we downloaded the complete soundtrack from iTunes. The cast was great, too.

What else? Slums of Beverly Hills, season 1 of Buffy (not quite finished), more season 2 of Earl, random episodes of The Office, Styx: Caught in the Act (HEE! awesome.), random bits of various New Year’s Eve countdowns. Probably some other stuff that I’ve forgotten…

Listening: Walk Hard, the soundtrack. Styx (discovering some songs that I didn’t previously know…). Looking forward to listening to some of the CDs that I got for Christmas, including Veronica Mars (whee! thanks, Stephanie!!) and the mix I got from Samantha.

Happy 2008, everyone!