It has been a busy week, so I haven't much time for working on my journal. Tuesday was a sad day at work, with Amy leaving on maternity leave. Below are pictures of Amy in October, one at her desk, and the other at with one of our sales reps (Jim) at Ingram.
As much as we'd like to meet her son, Ayden, ( I hope I spelled that correctly!), we're hoping that he waits until his due date in March.
It's been snowing off and on all week. I keep telling myself that I love snow..... but it's not working! I could definitely live without it!
Thanksgiving was nice and peaceful. It was just John, Kevin and I. What a difference from last year, when we were all in the middle of moving. Kevin went over to his father's apartment for dinner, and John and I had turkey tv dinners while we tried to finish getting ready to move.
After dinner, John fell asleep, and Kevin curled up on the couch to watch TV while I cleaned up. It seemed like old times!
As you can see, Tac was exhausted too, but Smokey was just too excited to sit still.
Friday, I avoided the crowded stores of "Black Friday" by shopping online before work. Sears and JC Penney's had early bird specials online. Sears even offered a rebate for the shipping charges. As expected, there was hardly anyone at work, and the parking lot was almost empty.
In between working, I took pictures of the few of us that worked that Friday. I didn't get to everyone since I did have work to do, after all! It was a peaceful day at work...with the exception of losing power twice. Fortunately, it wasn't off for very long, just long enough to have to relog back onto our PC's.
I'm missing pictures of Jeremy, Jim, Vicky, Liz, Doug, Marlene, and me, of course. But out of about 60 people in the Rochester office, this was a "skeleton staff"!
Friday night we did go out shopping, but not for long. Afterwards, we picked up a pizza at Parkside Pizza and Subs in East Bloomfield, NY. Santa and his sleigh and Rudolph were on the roof. (I wish the picture had turned out better, so you could see how big they were.) It was like a scene out of National Lampoon's Christmas vacation.
The weekend has flown by. I haven't gone anywhere (it's way too cold to go outdoors!), but I did some online shopping, and found more bargains at places like Amazon.com. John and I put up the Christmas decorations and the artificial Christmas tree. The poor tree is over ten years old, and is beginning to look like a Charlie Brown tree! John's Aunt told me about a time when her son Alex, and John were little and they went into the woods or something and found a pine tree. They climbed to the top and cut the top of the tree off and brought it home. The tree looked just like the tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon. Wasn't that sweet?
I also went crazy tring to determine how I was budgeting for the increase in health insurance premiums next year. I don't know about your area, but insurance rates are increasing at an astronomical rate in upstate New York. They've introduced new health plans that cover less and have higher deductables and co-pays, but they are still higher priced than this year's better plans. (sigh!)
The best part of the weekend had to be watching the Bills squish the fish again. It took a lot of energy to root for the Bills after 3 straight losses!
But they pulled off a 38 to 21 victory at Ralph Wilson Stadium, much to the delight of the 73,287 frozen fans! I don't know where the Bills were for the past few weeks, but they're baaaaaaaack!
If you're taking the time to read this, I welcome your feedback. Anything goes, from mispelled words to your opinions; just no porn or profanity!
Thanks for reading!
Take care!
Ann Marie
