Let it snow? Make it stop!!

It's is still snowing. We thought it would only be a 'small' storm, but it's filling in the gaps that were made by our footprints already. I used to love snow. I remember wishing for snow all of the time in elementary school and hoping school would be canceled. I would sit in front of the TV early in the morning to see if 501 would cancel school and I'd get to sleep in. Or I would go out and play in it for hours and go sledding on Quinton Heights hill in Topeka. Now, I dread it. It sucks how things like that slowly lose their fun as you grow up. I remember buying all the fireworks my allowance could handle when I was a kid, and I'd spend hours putting on shows for the next door neighbors. Now I think of it as literally burning your money. Growing up is tough.

Casey and I just watched a movie, and now I'm knitting and baking chocolate chip cookies. We've had a pretty relaxed weekend. Casey got his truck back today- now the heater works and the brakes aren't making strange noises, yay! Not really what we thought we'd spend money on right before Christmas, but since we're taking the truck to Topeka this week, I'm glad to know it'll be in good shape. :) We got a few more Christmas presents taken care of tonight, too, so we are almost ready to head back. We're going to try to leave Tuesday evening and make it as far as we can so we can have more time on Wednesday at home. I can't wait!!

I'll probably write again before we head back to Topeka. I shoulod hopefully have more interesting things to write about! (Let's hope!)

-Ashley

Dang IL Drivers!!!!!!

Well, I made it to the weekend. It's snowing again, though, and I can't tell you how thrilled I am. Riiiiight. We have to go pick up Casey's truck from Firestone (it's getting some brake work done, along with a few other things) and I'm really not excited about going out in the weather again. Yesterday I almost got rear-ended; I looked in my rear-view mirror to see a guy swerving out of the way to avoid hitting me. I sat through 3 traffic lights because people weren't watching what was going on. I was at Blockbuster returning a movie, and was pulling out of the parking spot when an older man turned into the parking lot... apparently he got pissed because he had to wait for me to turn (which honestly didn't take long at all) and he gave me a dirty look and sped past me like I'd made him wait an hour or something. Rude drivers in Illinois!!!! So yeah, I'm not really looking forward to getting back out in it anytime soon. Sorry for the complaints. I never thought I'd miss SC drivers, but at least they were a little more polite!

I can't wait to go home for Christmas! We got about 95% of our Christmas shopping done now... yay!! So I'm just rambling now. I feel like writing but I don't really have much of a topic. That makes for a pretty boring blog, I would think.

I'll write more later when I have something to actually say. Thanks for reading anyway! :-D

-Ashley

From 70 degrees in SC to 7 degrees in IL....

I don't know if I'm going to make it to the weekend.
They are predicting up to a foot of snow here tonight. We just got back from sunny SC on Monday after Casey's graduation (yay Dr. Hetrick!!!!). We came back to 7 degree temps and a frozen truck. It was a freaking cold ride back to Plainfield from O'Hare, but luckily we made it back fine and the house was intact. We got around 4 inches of snow on Tuesday (it took Casey around 1.5 hours to get home from work that night), and not much of it has melted, so tomorrow's going to be terrible. There's no sense in sugar-coating it... it's going to suck.
Being in SC again was great. We got to see a ton of people and although it was a quick trip, it felt like 'home' again. It just hit me harder when we came back because I miss it so much. But I know that this is another chapter in my life, and it was time for us to move on. Casey's home more now, and actually gets a decent night's sleep. I'm thankful for that.
I'll post some pictures from graduation. I'm so proud of Casey!!! It was nice to see him achieve something he worked so hard for... and now he'll let me refer to him as Dr. Hetrick! :-D
I'll write more later... glad I got my oil changed today and some Christmas shopping done before the storm hits tonight. Help me Lord.

Love,

Ash


Breakfast at Cafe Strudel



Dr. Hetrick & Dr. Amiridis



Group picture after graduation

If you could leave me alone, that would be greeeat.

The freaking company called me again just now to tell me about the 'opportunity' they would like me to be a part of... so I called them back to tell them I'm not interested. Apparently they don't talk to each other, because they didn't mention the fact that I had an interview scheduled for this morning which I had canceled yesterday. Curse you people!!! Apparently it was partially my fault for not setting my resume to 'private', but they shouldn't keep calling to harass you after you've deleted your profile AND called them directly to tell them you aren't interested. Kick me while I'm down, why don't you? Okay, so that's a bit dramatic, but I honestly was disappointed when I found out that they didn't really want me to interview because of something from my resume, they just wanted a body to fill their position. Oh well... I'm just glad that I saw the red flags and checked it out before I went to interview. Alas, I'm repeating my previous entry... but I'm still ticked off.

Today will be spent getting the house in order and packing for our trip to South Carolina tomorrow afternoon. I can't wait to get there!! I'm sad to leave Charley behind, but I'm certain he'll have fun at the PetsHotel. I can't wait to see all our friends in SC!!! I miss them so much... and a big part of me wishes I was still there sometimes, but I know that I need to move on to the next chapter in our lives. I just need to get myself in a comfortable place here, get a job, and go back to school. I'm tired of being a hermit. I've allowed myself to get into bad habits (sleeping too much, being lazy, not doing housework, etc. etc. etc.) so I need to change to make our situation a better one. I'm not doing myself any favors right now. Anyway, enough of that. I'm excited for a fun weekend, and it'll be great to be able to call Casey "DOCTOR HETRICK" without making him embarrassed. (I'm not sure if he thought it would jinx him or something, but I think until he actually graduates, he didn't want anyone to call him that... maybe he thought they'd change their minds or something?? I'm not sure... but either way it'll be nice to have it official!!) I probably won't get to update until Tuesday of next week, but by then I should have some pictures of the Doc! :-D Yaaaaayyyy!!

-Ash

Things that make you go hmmmmm...

Here are some more things I've been thinking about lately that don't make sense to me.

What the heck is up with inverted Christmas trees? No offense to anyone reading this who may have purchased one, but I just don't understand the concept of having a tree that is upside-down. Do you hang it from the ceiling? Is it so you could put more presents underneath it? Will someone please explain this to me? These are just as expensive as trees that go the 'normal' direction, so I just want to know what the deal is.

Why is Firefox coming up in KOREAN!? Whenever I open Firefox for the past week, everything is in Korean. Today, when I initially opened the Blogger website, it was in Korean, too. I have updated anti-virus software, so that shouldn't be an issue- I just really wonder what the heck's going on. It's pretty annoying.

I recently met a woman who dyed her poodle's hair pink and purple. This is another thing I don't really understand. Nuff said.

Charley is going to stay at the PetsHotel at PetsMart while we're in Columbia this weekend. Banfield, which is located in the store, is his new vet. For some reason, they had me walk back and forth to try and coordinate a vet appointment for Charley while he stays at the pet hotel. Something in their contract says that someone cannot walk him from the hotel to the vet, or vice versa. So, I guess I will be making a separate appointment for him at the vet when we get back from SC. I'm sure it's all legal stuff so they can't get sued if Charley and another animal get in a fight or get hurt between the hotel and the vet... but still... it has not been an easy process.

There are plenty more things I don't understand (the CareerBuilder/job scam being one of them) but I will leave it at this for now. I think that's enough of a b*tchfest for one day. :-)

-Ashley

I'm slightly pissed right now...

I am looking for a job right now, so I recently signed up on CareerBuilder.com to see what I could find in our area. Things were going fairly well- I applied for about 6 or 7 jobs, but didn't get much feedback. I then started recieving e-mails from random businesses that obviously had not read my resume, and they wanted to set up interviews with me. The e-mails were generic, at best. I figured that if they were legit, they would call me.
This morning, I received a phone call from a company in Woodridge. I applied for a receptionist job in that area this morning, so I thought it was the same company calling me back. They said they would like to set up an interview with me tomorrow morning. I spoke with the lady for a few minutes and got the location information, etc. When I hung up, I Googled the address so I could know where to go, and looked back at the application I sent in this morning for the receptionist position. The details didn't match up. I decided to investigate the company. When I put the info into Google, instead of getting a website with the company information, the links were about scam alerts for this company. Apparently they go on websites like CareerBuilder and Monster, and select people to interview to become insurance agents. According to the scam sites (and there were quite a few of them), they make you pay a fee to start, and then cheat you out of any bonuses you may get. The ridiculous turn-over rate was something that almost every single article talked about. I also checked out the phone numbers I received (both from the woman who called about the interview, and the number from our caller ID) and BOTH came up on scam alert-type websites. I just called them back to tell them that I was not interested in coming for an interview tomorrow.
It pisses me off, mainly because I was excited to finally get another interview, only to find out that it was not for a job I had applied for in the first place. I deleted my information on CareerBuilder.com just now so I can try to find jobs on my own... that way if I get into a scam, it'll be my fault for sending them information, and it won't be someone finding my information on the website and trying to screw me over.
Anyway, other than that, things are going well around here. Casey and I are excited to be in South Carolina in a few days! I look forward to seeing everyone again. I think I'll try to focus on that more than the jerks that are trying to fool me into interviews. I don't think I'd be a very good insurance agent as it is... so I'm glad that didn't work out. Grrrrr!!!!!

-Ashley

Photos- finally!!

Here are some pictures of Thanksgiving and decorating our tree for Christmas. Enjoy!


De & Casey stuffing the turkey with apples and sage, and marinating it in apple cider!! Mmmm...


Charley waiting on food to fall on the floor...


Food, glorious food!


Charley plays in the snow...

Take 2...


Decorating the (fake) tree...


Decorated tree...


Charley gets a "puppy latte" (whipped cream...)


Charley's favorite pose... he thinks he wants to go play in the snow.

-Ashley

Thanksgiving and such

Wow, I can't believe that a week ago today, the Hetricks were coming to town. Their time here went so fast, it's going to take me a moment or two to remember all that we did last week... but here goes.

Thanksgiving went well. De made an amazing turkey stuffed with apples and sage, along with a ton of other items that were delicious. The meal was really good (esp the Mac & Cheese!!!) and we are still working on leftovers as I write this. :)

Friday, Leslie, Keith, and Casey all woke up at 4:30 am to go shopping. I'm glad I had the chance to stay in bed, because there really wasn't much I wanted to buy that was worth getting involved in the mad rush of crazy people at the local Best Buy, etc. They were out for about 3 hours, and got some good stuff. Casey got Guitar Hero III at a very good price. Leslie got a ton of movies, and Keith got tools. It sounds like it was worth the trip (even though the Wii Fit had sold out by the time it was their turn to get one... bummer!).
Once they got home, everyone slept until about 10, and then we all got ready to head downtown. We shopped for a few hours, had an AMAZING dinner at Weber Grill, and then shopped a little bit more before we went to see Wicked at the Oriental Theatre. It was fabulous!!! The ladies that played the lead roles had terrific voices, and the visual effects were pretty awesome. I highly recommend it to anyone who may be able to see it before it leaves in January!

Saturday, the weather wasn't looking so great for the Hetricks to fly back to Topeka, so they decided to try to leave as early as possible to avoid the rain and snow that were coming in. They were able to make it back to Topeka without any problems, which was great. Casey and I tried to spend some time outside on Saturday figuring out what we were going to do with our Christmas lights... unfortunately our roof is too slanted and we aren't able to put them up the way we wanted to. We're still looking into Plan B, but it will all depend on the weather...

Sunday, it snowed almost all day. We ended up getting almost 3 inches between Sunday morning and Monday afternoon. Charley has gotten to play in it a little, although he doesn't seem to like stepping in the snow very much and chews on his paws a lot afterward. Looks like we may look into getting him some booties or something so he doesn't chew on himself too much. I got a few pics of him playing in the snow this weekend, but I'll try to take more this week as it's supposed to snow every single day until the weekend. Blah!!!! I miss South Carolina right now!!!!! Luckily, we get to go there next week for Casey's graduation. :-D

Casey and I have been a little sick since Sunday (we think we may have caught what Val had while she was here) so he stayed home from work yesterday. He was able to work from home most of the day, but was suffering from a headache and sinus issues most of the day, as I am now. I feel a little better today, though. He does too- I'm waiting for him to get home from work anytime now. We put up our (fake) Chirstmas tree last night, but realized we didn't have enough lights, so I went out to get some today. We don't really have any ornaments to put on it, so I may head out tomorrow and get some before I get my hair cut. Casey didn't like getting a fake tree, but it makes more sense for us right now because we will be in Kansas over Christmas. Next year, if we stay here, I'm sure we'll be able to get a real one. The one we got isn't bad, though, and we'll be able to take it anywhere we go in the future. I'll take pictures of that too, once we get it decorated.

I guess that's about it since I wrote last. I'll try to take more pictures around here soon and post them. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and I'll probably write more before the week is over.

Love,

Ash