Day 148 - May 28, 2012 - Herbie in the parade!

I covered the Memorial Day parade for the Beacon. I like my assignments where I get to cover hokey festivities better then my school board meeting assignments, but I do enjoy all the writing assignments I get, and I'm glad to actually be paid for some of my work, and to have the luck to be working as a journalist without a degree only a few years after I decided I wanted to write (hopefully one day I'll actually get to do it for a living),  I'm grateful though, some writers don't get work published anywhere during their whole career so at least I have some articles actually being published. The parade featured a bunch of classic cars at one point including this Herbie replica.

Day 147 - May 27, 2012 - It's Bob

My cousin's children are pretty hysterical and adorable. John and Rosie are actually about 5 years apart, but John is short and Rosie is tall for her age so people think they are twins. Right now they tend to get along pretty well and they play together. Apparently during the night when they were supposed to be sleeping they had a little party and played with their kinnect toys to create Bob.

Day 146 - May 26, 2012 - Red Eye!

I went to Delaware with Shawn on an overnight trip to visit my cousins who moved there a few years ago. They live on seven acres of land. They have a chicken coop which used to have 10 birds, now because of birds escaping or being eaten by predators Red Eye is the only surviving rooster. He hangs around their house and craps on the deck which infuriates my cousin's husband. Red Eye became my favorite subject to photograph in Delaware, he liked me until I told him I was obsessed with him then he ran off.

Day 145 - May 25, 2012 - 6 PM come as fast as possible, please!

Worked a 10 to 6 shift before the Memorial Day weekend officially kicked off for me. The library was still open on Saturday but it wasn't my Saturday to work, so I lucked out this time and got in a 3 day weekend.

Day 144 - May 24, 2012 - The gloomiest May

So I thought at some point in April that New York would get off easy this year and bypass what has happened in past years which I refer to as the gloomy month. Surprisingly there were hardly any rain showers in April, we had sunny days, some were warm, I thought we were going to smooth sail into Summer weather. I was wrong. I'm barely tanned, I still have sweaters on when I'm outside, NY should now be renamed Seattle because we've seen the sun maybe 5 times this whole month. I'm now an expert on driving in the rain and my umbrella has become my best friend. My only solace is that I'm at least driving and I don't have to trek around in this shit in between bus and train stops. I have to stop bitching after I'm done with this entry. I believe very strongly that when you keep bitching you invite negative energy into your life and bad things seem to happen more and more, but at the same time sometimes a bitch fest is needed so I'm going on one more daily blog rant before I calm myself down a little. So this morning apparently wasn't my morning either. I woke up early as I normally do on a Thursday only to find out that little Vincent wasn't going to be around this morning. I wanted to go back to bed because I was a little tired, but I was also really sad, maybe it's stress, maybe it's fatigue but I was very emotional this morning and as soon as Shawn left to go to work I started crying, the worst part is I can't really put a finger on what's wrong, there is nothing that is seriously wrong I was just sad. I got myself together and started to write in my digital journal because writing helps me cope when I'm sad or troubled, my computer froze and I lost the entry for this morning. I talked to Shawn's mom a little bit before going to work, she woke up and I always end up talking to her about what's bothering me. I headed to work (I thought it was early enough) but there ended up being a considerable amount of traffic for late Thursday morning, early afternoon, when I stopped at Starbucks for coffee it also started to rain, so I ended up late to work. When I got to work there was no parking because the library employees have maybe 15 designated spots to park in and sometimes the patrons that are in the know will use our spots in the school district parking lot as well instead of parking in the main lot, so I ended up having to park on one of the side streets and walk to work. There are visitor parking spaces in the school district lot but I've heard mixed things about being allowed to park in a visitor space and I'm not taking my chances. I'd rather walk a little further and have peace of mind knowing my car won't get towed. Driving is great but it's made me realize how truly overpopulated Long Island really is right now. More and more homes are being chopped up into apartments, children are still sharing homes with their parents because they can't get out on their own because of this economy, there are many more cars on the road then ever before because mostly anyone who is driving age, has a license and can afford it has a car. At times when I used to bike ride and notice less traffic on the road I now notice more traffic on the road. There really shouldn't be that much traffic when I am coming to work on a Thursday morning for my night shift but there is, and there are still many people on the road at 9 PM when I leave work.

Day 143 - May 23, 2012 - Not my best night

Wasn't a good night at all after work. I even had to settle for using a photo I took on my cell phone (I prefer to actually shoot with my camera for these daily photos, but in a pinch if I didn't get a moment to shoot with my camera I will use a cell phone camera photo). I left work and had to get to Avis Lube in Farmingdale for an oil change. Shawn normally goes there so I didn't want to go to a different place just because it was close to work. I needed an oil change, I still had around 250 to 300 miles to go before it was actually due but we are planning to go to Delaware this weekend and if we take my car the oil change needed to be done or I would go over the miles I had left before it was due. So naturally I got myself a little lost going to Avis Lube (even though I've driven through Farmingdale before and am a little bit familiar with the roads) because almost every new place I end up driving too I get lost going to because I miss a turn or something. I had to make some u-turns on route 109 to get back to Avis Lube because it turned out to be on the corner of Main and Fulton and I ended up missing it. I was really scared to make the U-turns I really don't like to make U-turns on busy roads. I got to Avis right on time before they closed. Then I followed Shawn to a diner for dinner, then he explained how I could get back to the Middle School for the board meeting I had to cover. His directions were good after the poor guy gave them to me like 5 times I was able to remember what to look for, only problem, when I got to the middle school there was no board meeting. I ended up finding out there was a board recognition program going on at the high school. So I drove to the high school after getting two sets of directions and using the GPS on my phone, only to get there as the recognition program was over and my story was missed. Then I went to go home to meet Shawn because I was too scared to drive down main street, turn on Carmens Road and end up on Sunrise Highway to get to the movie theatre in Merrick where he was going to see Dark Shadows with Dave. I am such a pansie about Sunrise Highway I haven't driven much on it and for some reason I'm really afraid every time I might have to go on it. It took me longer to get home from Farmingdale then it took Shawn to drive back and meet me from Baldwin. I ended up going out to the wrong parking lot when I left the high school, then I ended up going the wrong way on Main Street and had to turn around to go back home. I was really upset during the movie so I only half paid attention to it when we got back to Merrick to go to the movie.

Day 142 - May 22, 2012 - Fifty shades of madness

In keeping up with the masses, I've succumbed to reading the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. This was the last book in the trilogy, I've been toting it back and forth to and from work desperate to finish it.

Day 141- May 21, 2012 - My virtual child

This is baby Giry. She's my virtually adopted african american daughter. Now I can be like Angelina Jolie. I got her through a baby adopter application offered for free through amazon. Currently she's three days old and very happy to be with me lol. She also has a different outfit then the shirt and diaper she was wearing here.

Day 140 - May 20, 2012 - 2 NEW ITEMS!

So I've been trying to curb my shopping because I feel like I spend too much money in regards to shopping. My new method that has been working since a few weeks ago....well maybe sort of working, is to only allow myself to buy one new item each week if it's for me (presents are different). This method actually does help because now I find myself being picky in the stores if I wander in to look at items instead of grabbing a couple of things off the shelves and wanting to buy them. Today I went to Barnes and Noble with Janell after picking up my maid of honor dresses at David's bridal with her. I actually picked up two new items, but the price was pretty good and one item is sort of a technicality. They had a special where you can get a tote bag they were offering for $10 if you bought any two items in the store. So I was careful, I picked out a bargain book and so did Janell. We wanted the price of the items to equal less then $25 which was the normal price of the bag if you bought it by itself. I am going to give the book to Janell after I read it so technically the book is ultimately for her and I can keep the bag for beach outings this summer.

Day 139 - May 19, 2012 - I'm addicted to you!

Okay so coffee is an inanimate object (drink), but I'm still addicted so I stole my title from Britney Spear's song toxic (even though I hate her). This is my newest coffee drink love from Dunkin Donuts. In honor of MIB3 coming out they've created the black cocoa creme iced coffee. I always ask them to add a tiny bit of milk into mine even though it's supposed to be completely black. I'm chugging this until their promotion is over, I'm sure I'm going to cry when that happens.

Day 138 - May 18, 2012 - Clean Desk!

Despite a day off full of minor adventures the only thing I have to show for it is a photo of my eclectic semi-cleaned desk at home. I inherited this desk and computer shortly after I began to go out with Shawn. His ex had it before I did, but I don't mind using it, it's a perfectly good computer and a lovely desk and it was paid for and set up by Shawn so technically in monetary terms it was his in the first place. It kind of still is, I don't see myself ever leaving him (unless he cheats, he smacks me, or we get miserably unhappy) hopefully none of those three will happen, but if that day every happened God Forbid this desk and computer would be his again. It was a real bad mess, I had receipts and papers all over it. I finally cleaned it up again so that I could actually sit at it and use the computer.

Day 137 - May 17, 2012 - I'm ready for no one!

I had to give a presentation at work. The librarians got together and put together something called May Madness to demonstrate our databases to the patrons. I did art and antiques since I'm now the quasi art librarian. Despite our efforts barely anyone seemed interested in our presentations. I ended up not getting very far in mine, I actually thought no one would show up, I am now eternally grateful to the man who looks like he could be very poor but from what I heard has a lot of money in the bank, and since he sat down and let me actually kick start my presentation I will be nicer to him instead of basically ignoring his existence. I did have another couple sit down for a few minutes, another woman and two little children.

Day 136 - May 16, 2012 - The library hop plus my favorite pair of shoes

I wore one of my newer pairs of shoes, also my favorite pair for now. Unfortunately they leave my toes in much danger and when I was walking around the library with a book cart I ended up stubbing my pinky toe and doing a dance of pain that I dubbed the library hop. Luckily the toe was only slightly red, there wasn't too much pain, and no bleeding so I didn't seriously injure myself.

Day 135 - May 15, 2012 - Nostalgia

When I went to see Avengers with Janell I ended up buying a whole bunch of candy that was on sale at Pathmark. Now some of it is in our apartment because despite my snack smuggling I did buy pretzel bites when we saw the movie and Janell wasn't interested in candy so I was a pig and ate the box of raisinets by myself and saved the other boxes of candy for another time. Among the candy was a box of Gobstoppers. I ate a few before I went to get the school budget results from West Islip for the paper.

Day 134 - May 14, 2012 - The front seat in my car!

Most of the time I'm only driving around by myself to wear I have to go. Occasionally I'll give someone a ride if they need it. When I'm by myself the front seat of my car resembles this. Usually I keep my purse, and a phantom tote I bought from etsy with some extra CDs that I can't fit in my CD visor in the front seat. Added today was my kindle and a sweater.

Day 133 - May 13, 2012 - What a Relief!

This photo is a little dark. I lost Phantom, I panicked I thought she was lost for a little while or for good. It turns out she was just stuck in the neighbor's garage thankfully, that was the second time she's been stuck in their garage. Shawn finally heard her meowing after we called for her all day, after I reported her lost through the company she's micro chipped with, after I made up some fliers, and after I e-mailed my boss to ask if I could leave work to pick her up if someone ended up finding her.

Day 132 - May 12, 2012 - MJ

I've been listening to much Michael Jackson music in my car lately. Some Green Day and Joan Jett as well. I've found lots of their music through the library and am listening to it while driving before I decide if I want to rip the MP3s for my phone or not.

Day 131 - May 11, 2012 - lost

Now blogging a post for my dailies if I only used my cell for photos on one particular day just got easier with the Blogger app. I tend to get lost my first time going someplace new occasionally I am fine most times I'm not. I got lost going to my friend's house so I pulled over at best buy so she can come find me and lead me to her house

*apparently posting this entry didn't work out on my phone as well as I thought I did so I apologize if you viewed this entry without a photo

Day 130 - May 10, 2012 - My newest purse also comes with much guilt!

Although this purse was pretty cheap I really need to curb my shopping. I've been terrible recently in regards to shopping. I thought when I started driving on a regular basis I might actually shop less, apparently I was wrong! I think the giving up shopping for lent thing made me kind of crazy, once I was able to shop again I was hitting the stores big time. Today I made a trip to Victoria's Secret before work in order to get a free beach towel if I spent a certain amount of money in the store. I need to be done for awhile now. Or at least come up with some kind of balance. I feel terrible because I have debts to pay off and I really should be focused on saving money because I'm going to need it for the wedding and the honeymoon. I bought this purse at DOTs yesterday, along with three pairs of shoes and a shirt. Everything was pretty cheap, DOTs is a great store because most of their merchandise is under $20 or less. The bag was $14. It's not a designer bag but it's still cute and it's bright pink. They gave me a coupon to come back next week and get $10 off a $50 purchase. I must not do this as cool as the store is. The only way I can do it is if I go to the store with Terry and we both pick out $25 worth of merchandise, because that's reasonable. Or if I go there to pick out some gifts. I need to be disciplined and have some kind of balance with this shopping. I need to train myself to go into stores again and just look around I managed to do it when I gave up shopping for lent, I had to do it when I was poor and had no money. I definitely have too many things and really don't need anything more. Reselling some designer stuff is no longer profitable either, eBay sucks now. The days of making money on eBay are long gone IMO.

Day 129 - May 9, 2012 - Pouch Crazy!

My friend loves pouches, or at least she did for awhile I'm not sure if she does anymore. I kind of wish I didn't hear her say she loved pouches for extra storage inside her purse. After that fateful day of meeting her for coffee and hearing her talk about pouches I've become a pouch queen. My bags are filled with pouches to help store and organize various items that would be all over the place inside my bag. This collection is currently inside of whatever purse du jour I happen to be toting. The black and white striped one has coupons, the floral one has various important papers, the pink coach one (technically a wristlet) has extra credit cards and membership cards that can't fit inside my wallet, the colored tribal looking one holds a storage of quarters for parking meters, and the sparkly one has peppermints. I don't remember what I put inside the big pink one I'll find out next time I open it lol.

Day 128 - May 8, 2012 - I hate this!

So every year I get very excited for Spring and Summer to come. I love the warm weather. To me a perfect day is a nice bright sunny day, no wind, 80 degrees or higher outside. I can ditch my tights, throw on a pair of shorts underneath my dress, wear a cute pair of sandals or flip flops and prance around in the sun. To me this is one of the best feelings. Spring is here, but we're getting gloom and doom and apparently May showers. It's cold and yucky outside. This photo was taken in my car before I started driving to Plainedge to cover a school district meeting. I had on my sweater and a pair of tights even though by this point I was hoping I could ditch the tights for the season.

Day 127 - May 7, 2012 - After 2 and a half years this bottle is almost finished

I love this body spray. Obviously from reading the bottle you can tell it's a scent Victoria's Secret put out around Christmas Time. I bought 3 bottles when it came out (2 as gifts and 1 for myself). It's lasted me a long time and I've sprayed it on myself almost every morning too and before a few dates when I was dating in between breaking up with my ex and getting together with Shawn. I have other body sprays but they won't be the same, I hope this year I can find this scent again around Christmas time but since it will be 3 years since I've bought it I don't know if VS will still be selling it. 

Day 126 - May 6, 2012 - This is what I do when Shawn goes out with the guys

Shawn and I went with Nonny to buy a new TV for her. Well we didn't buy the TV but we helped her select it. At Best Buy they had a bunch of Barry CDs so I bought this one which came with a DVD as well. After Shawn left to go out with the guys to see Avengers I eagerly worked on some chores so I could pop the DVD in and watch it, I also wanted to spare Shawn I had a feeling seeing Barry Manilow, unfortunately slightly decrepit singing wasn't going to be his thing.

Day 125 - May 5, 2012 - Happy Birthday Uncle John!

After work we had my Uncle John over the house. We've been trying to foster some good relationships with members of my family who aren't suffering from dementia. My Uncle is pretty cool so we invited him over for some cake, coffee and presents after I got home from work. This yummy red velvet cake came from Patsy's.

Day 124 - May 4, 2012 - Jared the human statue

Jared is my best friend Janell's nephew. I love to see him (it's a bonus of hanging out with Janell - even though hanging with her is awesome by itself). Today he came home from school in a fancy shirt because he had to dress like a teacher, then he did one of his new 9 year old tricks, becoming a human statue, he's pretty good at standing still for extended periods of time.

Day 123 - May 3, 2012 - A sleeping man + a bonus photo of Nancy Pearl!

Today I went to the Long Island Library Conference. It was my first time attending this conference, in years past I opted for going to book expo because I could take the train in and get there fairly easily, now that I've been driving I figured I could drive to the conference since it's on Long Island but it's a pain in the ass to get to if you don't drive. Apparently one librarian was bored out of his mind because he fell asleep during a speaking session.

I've never posted two photos in a daily entry before but I felt this entry warranted two photographs. I went to this conference because I was really excited to see Nancy Pearl. She's pretty big and amazing in the library world. That blurb at the podium (because I didn't have my zoom lens) that's Nancy Pearl speaking to the crowd!

Day 122 - May 2, 2012 - Grizz and Phantom enjoying their digs

So it's been almost a year since Grizz and Phantom came with me to live with Shawn. I was trying to decide what to photograph for the day and figured this would be good since they were together within the same vicinity. My cats like it here and so do I.

Day 121 - May 1, 2012 - Gearing up for my drive!

I'm driving everywhere again! I had doubts this would happen, I was pretty scared after we got this car and after the accident. Then we had complications with this car and we were debating whether or not to keep it or trade it in, but after a pricy repair and deciding that I really do like this car a lot we decided to keep the car. Now I hope it lasts me at least a year hopefully longer. This photo was taken right after work before I started driving home. 

Day 120 - April 30, 2012 - *Sigh* hopefully I'll sell you!

The gears in my head are always turning out new or old ideas to possibly make some money for myself in addition to my work income and to possibly create something that does well enough for me to work part time hours only. Currently I've got an idea floating around to be a traveling barista, my friend wants to hire me to do an actual paid gig this summer - last summer I did two jobs but they were for free - one at my engagement party and one at my friend's birthday party, the same friend who's looking to actually hire me out this summer. The other idea I always have in my head, an idea I probably should really not act upon - or if I do I should be smarter about it, is to resell designer items. I know some ways to get designer purses and duds for below retail value, and I can also sell designer items I own that I'm tired of to bring some bucks back to me from the purchase. I've always tried eBay to resell something, although it sometimes brings me a chunk of money there are listing fees and final value fees that take some of that money away. I'm also a retard I list my item at a low starting price and sometimes it takes off sometimes I have to end up selling it for a low price. So I picked up this coach wristlet in Loehmann's to hopefully resell. I think I can bring it back (Loehmann's actually gives you a very long time to return an unused or unwanted item) if I can't successfully sell it. It was fairly cheap for a coach item so I can also give it away to my godmother or someone I really care about. I'm going to try to list it on craigslist first. Craigslist doesn't get much exposure but there's no fees and there's cash in hand after the purchase is complete. I'm going to list at a high price but be open to some negotiations. If I'm lucky I'll bring in a small profit and can either put the money away or use it to purchase more deisgner items to resell. I really like to shop, I really like to find good deals, but I also don't really need anything at times so this reselling of the designer items thing could be useful for me to get my shopping in and to make money on it. I just need to be more careful, I need to buy clearance items and use coupons, or hunt around in thrift stores, or find items wholesale in order to make a good buck on this reselling of designer items dream I have going on.

Day 119 - April 29, 2012 - This is the dress!

I went shopping with Joanna and Janell for their maid of honor dresses. Our wedding party is very small and untraditional. I have no bridesmaids just two maid of honors. First we hit up Estelle's and found this classy number (I'm being sarcastic) plus many other crazy dresses even worse then this. We only went to Estelle's because surprisingly David's Bridal didn't open the store until 12 PM. The result of our dress shopping, Shawn's mom found a dress to wear to the wedding from Estelle's, Janell and Joanna found red dresses to wear from David's Bridal. They are also wearing different dresses but the same color, they both have different body types and I was not forcing them to wear something they would feel didn't look good. I want them both to be happy, to be comfortable and to like the dress they are wearing so they feel confident and perhaps sexy as well.