I've scared several of my coworkers, and I like it

If my new office door knocker doesn't say "Happy Halloween and come on in," then what does :) Yes, my coworker, P, did convince me to put my Halloween decorations up already. Where is the year going? Time is flying. I'll be a married woman soon! Have an amazing weekend everyone!

Happy Friday (and early Halloween)!

Happy Friday everyone! Well, I have today off (hurray, compressed work week), and thank goodness, because this work week has been too long. I almost sent this e-mail in response to a recent meeting request:

"Hello C,

I will be attending the 11am session. I am tremendously excited and simply could not wait to share that enthusiasm with the world. P caught my enthusiasm bug and decided, after several minutes of expressing herself through the timeless art of rhythm gymnastics (ribbon twirling category), to attend the 11am session as well.

Thank you,
R"

Many of my co-workers don't share my brand of humor though, so I decided against it.

Anywho, I was supposed to go to the HitRecord Fall Formal last night with my friend K, but the event was cancelled due to a very sad and unfortunate reason. I completely understand the cancellation, and hope they decide to try and reschedule the event down the line. I mean Joseph Gordon-Levitt + awesome entertainment + (did I already mention) Joseph Gordon-Levitt = how can anyone not have fun. K and I had our outfits all picked out. Fall formal calls for full-on formal wear, right? - long red, low backed evening gown for me, cocktail length l'il black dress with sequins for her. My man was laughing about how much trouble we were going to get into as we can get pretty silly/crazy when we go out. Oh well, maybe next time.

I managed to capture two new trains of thought the other day. I've been seeing them for weeks, but I would have either forgotten my camera or the bus would simply be too crowded for picture taking. Could you please move so I can snap this quick photo? doesn't play too well on public transportation during rush hour.

1)

2)

A bit of Friday random: I also came across a great video from ideastap.com with Jeff Goldblum (my absolute favorite actor) providing advice to budding actors. Oh Jeff, you are such a ball of amazingly animated and quirky talent and I heart you :)

Happy early Halloween everyone. Hope everyone enjoys any parties they go to. Don't eat too much candy :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

The two-hundred-twenty-second, two-hundred-twenty-third, and two-hundred-and-twenty-fourth days combined...

Sorry for not posting for a couple of days. I've been so tired, and busy, and stressed, etc. Not only do I feel like I'm getting sick again, but work is kicking my butt - hard.

I don't know how it happened, as the projects that come in are supposed to be assigned on a rolling basis, but I was assigned two projects that start next week. I was assigned both projects on Monday (the 2nd). One wants to start on Monday (the 9th), and the other wants to start next Friday (the 13th). Keep in mind that the we generally need 6 to 8 weeks to complete the paperwork process, so being assigned both of these really pissed me off. Not only that, but everyone at work has known, since September, that I will be out of the office on the 6th and the 13th. The whole thing has just had me tight all week. It sucks when you feel like you're being taken advantage of at work - well, anywhere really.

I did find time to take my Halloween decorations down - and put up my Turkey Day ones, of course!

If I had captured a side view, you'd be able to tell that the big centerpiece is a turkey :)

This morning some of my co-workers and I stumbled into a serious conversation about the old ABC TGIF lineup :)

Pictures obtained here, here, here and here

It was a welcome moment of levity, and it was hilarious that the conversation went on as long as it did. It started off when J shouted out the question "What was that show...that one with LL Cool J? Not the new one - the old one." I instant shouted out my reply, "In the House?" Then P shouted back, "Hey, was that in the TGIF thing?" The conversation snowballed from there :) Unfortunately, I now have the Family Matters theme song stuck in my head. I can't believe I even remember it.

Tangent: A lot of shouting goes on in our office each day. I often wonder what people on the other ends of all the phone conversations think when they call us and are trying to discuss business only to hear things like "F*** that! I told him to get that to me now!", "She hasn't cashed her checks since June. What the h*** does she want me to do", and "I understand that you felt uncomfortable when he told you to take your bra off ma'am. We will definitely contact the company and get to the bottom of this".

Anyway, I loved the TGIF lineup when it was on. How about you? Anyone out there who used to love Perfect Strangers, Family Matters, Step by Step, Full House, Boy Meets World, Mr. Belvedere, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, etc? I have a poll to the right. Vote if you get a chance :)

Have a great day everyone!

The two-hundred-and-eighteenth through two-hundred-and-twentieth days...Halloween weekend edition :)

This turned out to be a fun Halloween weekend. Only four people actually dressed up for work on Friday (including me - I was a goth rag doll this year), but it was still a fun day.

We trick-or-treated at each of the departments. I was surprised that my department actually had the best selection.

I added the Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids, and Candy Corn to the pot :)

My department also had a dessert potluck, which went extremely well.

My contribution was the platter of peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal raisin cookies on the right.

Halloween inspired mudslides

Some more treats that my boss put out (yes, the soup was up for grabs too)

Another of my co-workers dressed as Ramses and decorated his area in an Egyptian theme. He goes all out every year and this year was no exception.

He even made a mummy...

and created a story to go along with the display.

I was a goth rag doll; picture Raggedy Ann except all black and white. It was a fun costume - a lot different from my hippie costume from last year.

I decided that I needed a pet, so I carried my mummified kitten around in my skull purse all day.

Everyone got a huge kick out of it since it dances and sings "Who Let the Dogs Out?" when it's leg is pressed.

Then on Saturday, my man and I went to a Halloween house party for a while.

That's my man on the left :) He went as a Ring Wraith (from LOTR) this year.

The party was fun, but I was exhausted when I got home - and I still am. Thank goodness for Daylight Savings Time ending. I felt that extra hour today :)

So, how did Halloween trick or treat all of you? Any interesting costumes, anyone eat too much candy (I know I did), any interesting parties?

Have a wonderful night everybody!

The two-hundred-and-sixteenth day...

Things are going from bad to worse at work - for some. My work experience is still about the same level of stressful, but tensions are on the rise for some of my co-workers; and they just scheduled a mandatory department titled 'Housekeeping Matters' for next month. I can already see, based on rumblings around the dept, that it's not going to be a pretty half an hour.

The recognition team at work is trying to get everyone into the Halloween spirit though. They handed out mini pumpkins for everyone to decorate.


I offered to help hand the pumpkins out just so I could help myself to a nicer looking one. I'm glad that I got this one as most of them were either really small gourds or they were wet and covered in dirt. I guess they opted not to wash (or even wipe) them off, so it was funny to watch them handing out dirty pumpkins to people - 'Happy Halloween! Here's a cold, dirty, wet pumpkin for you to decorate. Enjoy!'

How was your day?

Enjoy the rest of the night everyone!

The two-hundred-and-fifteenth day...

Today was an especially hard day at work. There is just way too much political nitty-gritty going on behind the scenes and it's starting to affect everyone's mood and attitudes toward one another. As if work itself isn't hard enough :) I don't need to deal with attitudes from adults who are, apparently, still stuck in high school clique mode. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Hopefully. Well either that or that the rest of the week flies by so I can enjoy my Halloween weekend :)

Sephora's got Halloween spirit :)


Nice :)

What was the most amazing today? I received my wonderful prize from the giveaway Novelista Barista had a while ago :) She gave away this lovely Twilight inspired bookmark created by Ocean Dreamer over at Ocean Dreams! Thank you both again, btw!

The picture doesn't do it justice :) It really is lovely, and I can't wait to show it to the other Twilight fans in my life :)

You all should definitely visit both blogs (i.e. Novelista Barista and Ocean Dreams) as both sites are great; and for more lovely Ocean Dreams items her Etsy shop, Ocean Dreams Studio, can be found here.

Enjoy the rest of the night everyone!

The two-hundred-and-tenth to two-hundred-and-thirteenth days combined...

Apparently, Blogger didn't want me posting anything for the last few days as it wouldn't let me do anything. It was a little sad not being able to post or reply at all :( But, thank goodness it's working now :)

The haunted house and wax museum were amazing. They were both scary - the haunted house slightly more so - but they were so good! I hate zombies - there's just something seriously wrong with the whole idea of them. This made it even scarier that every zombie in the haunted house followed me around. They didn't bother anyone else - just me. It was so freaky! One woman got so scared at the end that she almost knocked me and the rest of our group down to get to the exit. It was hilarious. It was actually made more hilarious by the fact that she left her boyfriend behind without so much as a glance or an "I'll meet you outside". She was stuck on a scream loop the entire time and then just took off at the end.

Madam Tussauds was fun, but a bit too short. The whole thing took about 25 minutes and 10 of that was a scary documentary. It was eerie though being in the wax museum when it's pitch black. Some of those figures are too realistic for my liking.


Unfortunately, flash photography was not allowed in either of the places, and it was too dark to get any good non-flash shots. My man and I took a few Times Square shots and grabbed a couple as we were leaving the wax museum though.

It was a great Halloweeny night :) I'd definitely go back to both again - especially now that I know what to expect :)

How was everyone else's weekend?

Have a wonderful night!

The two-hundred-and-eighth and two-hundred-and-ninth days combined...

Hello all :) I hope you all had a wonderful Hump Day. Mine was pretty hectic. I had to finish a paper for school that was due today. I pretty much e-mailed it to my professor in the nick of time, but at least it's done :) I stayed late at work to finish it and didn't end up getting home until 10:30 or so.


It was a long day, indeed.

Work, was work. It was hard, but that's why they call it work and not happy, fun time. My projects are all out to get me, but I have Friday off, so I am just going to head in tomorrow with a smile while I tell myself that it's my Friday and I can sleep as late as I want the next day.

Also, I am super excited about tomorrow because, after work, my man and I are getting our scary Halloween on :) First we are going to a haunted house called Nightmare: Vampires; and then we are going to the After Dark Exhibit at Madame Tussauds New York. I am so easily scared that I'm not sure how I'm going to react to all that scariness - I know that I'll definitely scream, but after reading some of the reviews I feel like I may also cry :) We got both sets of tickets from Goldstar.com, so everything came to about $50 - can't beat that :) If you ever need discount tickets, I highly recommend checking Goldstar as they have great discounts for a lot of events (feel free to click the link here if you'd like :)

This catalog was waiting for me when I got home.


It's from Heifer International. I've never heard of the organization before, but I had to check out the site as soon as I was done thumbing through the catalog.

It's so cool to think that you can give the gift of a cow, goat, pig, etc. Click here to view the catalog page from their site if you're interested.

Well, I'm off to watch Top Chef and then go to sleep. Is anyone else following the show this season? It started off a bit slow, but I'm really happy with the contestants that are left now. It's getting pretty interesting!

Enjoy the rest of the night everyone!

The two-hundred-and-seventh day...

I love Halloween. I love getting dressed up in costume and having fun. I'm still on the fence about what I'm going to be this year. I was a hippie last year, and I loved it. It helped that I have a big thing for peace signs. This year, I'm thinking something darker. We'll see...

I really love discounted Halloween candy. Rite Aid has rows and rows of it on sale this week :) I got two huge bags (one with individually wrapped packets of candy corn and one with packets of sour patch kids and Swedish fish).


I left half of each at work for my office mates to snack on (there are a lot of sweet tooth's where I work :), and took the rest home to put out for trick-or-treaters.

Some of my decorations

Some of the candy

Are any of you planning to dress up for Halloween this year?

Enjoy the rest of the night!