I'm feeling Self-Made

For the first time since my divorce, I have real, honest-to-goodness, actual healthcare and dental insurance. Hooray! I can go to the dentist! I can go to the doctor! I can get shots! I can have uncomfortable "procedures"! I can fall down and break various parts! Whoooooo-hooooo!

I've been paying for Chris to be covered, and I am going to continue to do so. It seems that my "group coverage" is actually MORE EXPENSIVE than what I was able to get on my own through Blue Cross. Filed in "things that make you go hmm."

BOO!

Halloween is my favorite holiday. It isn't much when Chris is gone though.

I had thought about running off to get married over the weekend. NIN is playing in Nashville tonight. How cool would it have been to end a short honeymoon with another concert? But it didn't happen, and that's ok.

Chris is trick-or-treating with his Dad this year. They should be back soon though. He is "Lord Voldemort" this year. We don't know exactly what he should look like, and the new Harry Potter movie doesn't come out for a few weeks, so we're improvising! (It looks a lot better when he is wearing pants).

Jack (Sparrow) O'Lantern

We had to carve our pumpkins before Chris left for the weekend. Chris is very good at doing this all by himself. He's very creative, and amazingly, he doesn't get too frustrated with the whole process. Of course he loves sticking his hand in pumpkin goo. Who doesn't?

Dennis made a very cool pirate for this year's jack o'lantern. *sigh* If it really was Jack Sparrow... *sigh*


Here's the whole family:


(Mine is the scaredy-cat on the left, and Chris's is the robot on the right.)

I've had the same job for...

Ninety days!

Frost on the Pumpkins

We went to Eckert's Farm in Grafton yesterday to pick our own pumpkins. It was still damn cold, and running around the pumpkin patch was slightly uncomfortable when the sun peeked behind a cloud.



We also bought apples so that I can bake a pie. Yum!

Cub Scout Camp

We spent Friday night freezing at Cub Scout Family Camp. It was held at Beaumont Scout Reservation. Chris had a good time, played with the kids, hiked, learned to identify several local trees, struck a match and helped start a fire (in a fire pit, with supervision!) and other scouty things.

He got to participate in the Flag Ceremony Saturday afternoon:


We stayed until after the campfire and skits Saturday night, then headed home to sleep in our very own warm beds! (Yeah, yeah, we're total pussies, but at least we didn't have to sleep in the rain.)

I have uploaded a Photobucket Album of the whole trip.

Reading

I read something!

I haven't taken anything from the reading list lately, but did pick up Jeff Shaara's Of God's and Generals and The Last Full Measure. I just finshed the latter. I do not think they were as good as his father's book, The Killer Angels, but I did enjoy them.

NIN

WOW!

I haven't been to a big concert in a while. Dennis and I went to see Nine Inch Nails last night. Strangely enough, it was almost 10 years to the day since the last time I saw them live. (October 11, 1995) It was so good. I had a really great time. Dennis is "not a concert person," but he seemed to enjoy himself.

I have a friend from work who was on the list, and decided not to go at the last minute. Of course I think my friend from work is officially mental. I get weak in the knees thinking of going backstage, and she is able to casually blow it off like it just isn't a big deal. She has the luxury of having been socially snubbed by Trent Reznor quite a few years ago, and she is irritated that the lineup of the Queens of the Stone Age has changed, and no longer includes a close personal friend of hers. It is probably a good thing that she did not go and did not invite me, because I would not have been able to play it cool in front of, like, real famous people. I'm sure I would have been Queen Retard.

The grapes are sour, I'm telling you. S-O-U-R.

Not that it ruined my concert experience. I felt 18 again, and that is not a bad thing.

Highland Games

We (Chris included) went to the St. Louis Highland Games today to watch my sister dance.

It was a good time! The weather could not have been any better. I did get a sunburn though :)

Fish are Friends, not Food

Well, that's backwards. People at work are not friends. Not even the friendly ones.

I have been feverish on and off all week. I was miserable at work yesterday, either freezing to death or sweating through my shirt. I was miserable last night. My glands are swollen out to my jawbone. In short, I'm sick. If I somehow manage to hold on to this God-forsaken job for that long, I will have full health insurance and a few hours worth of sick time in less than three weeks. I am doing my level best to deal with this on my own, and to keep my paycheck out of the red along the way. I muddled through yesterday, but I just couldn't make it today. I got dressed, took some extra medicine, and made my way in like a trooper, but I just couldn't do it today. I worked for an hour, and then I came home. This is all coming straight out of my pocket, mind you, and wiping out any overtime I may have had built up as well.

The bitches in my department wouldn't even acknowledge me as I made my apologies and made my way out the door today. I'm feeling like a bit of a loose cannon because of my fever, so I came straight home and sent this email:

******,

I was just wondering if you were not speaking to me because I came TO work sick this morning, or because I came home FROM work sick.

I certainly didn't plan this either way, and I am most definitely not enjoying it.

Shannon

Perhaps they feel that I planned to miss work today because they had a big drama-filled meeting scheduled for 10:00 A.M. and I lit out at 9:55. Yeah, because that is how I roll. In truth, I was looking forward to the ridiculousness of the entire situation, and I was hoping for some Blog-worthy bullshit from the whole thing. I'm sad to be missing it.

I have to do more work because you're stupid.

Isn't that the way it goes when we cater to the lowest common denominator?

I got in trouble at work today for knowing too much geography. If I can look at the UPS map and see that our transit time is going to be three days, I won't go to the time and trouble of running the transit time on UPS.com and printing it out. I wasn't running transit times on shipments that other people could not tell by looking would make it, because they "don't know the map that well."

Of course I am not to be trusted! So I am running transit times on every single thing now. Forget it. I am not even going to try to convince them that I know anything. I'll just dumb it down.

Dumb it down.

And that's what makes America so damn great!

Bling

I have my engagement ring! I am wearing it right now. After all of the daydreaming and showing internet pictures of the other set, I wound up with a plainly set solitare on a white gold band.



As soon as she set the loose stone in the ring at the store, I knew that I had it right. In truth, I could have opted for a larger stone, because I came in under budget, but I am extremely pleased with this one. It felt right, and I was not about to fight that. We have our wedding rings as well. I have a 2mm white gold band to set next to mine, and Dennis has a 4mm white gold band.

I've also sorted out my feelings about marrying again, and I am not nervous anymore. I'm just plain old in love now :-D

Every Day is Exacty the Same

Nothing ever happens during the week. Every day is the same routine, and there is very little spare time to do anything. This is a big change from a few months ago when I had unlimited free time.

Chris had his first Cub Scout Pack meeting last night. He looks so cute in his uniform, but he refuses to let me take his picture in it.

I do not have fuzzy feelings about my new job, and I am putting my resume out there in a very real way now. I like the people I work with directly, but that is about as far as it goes. I do not know how to work with backstabbing, double talking, busy body women. I am not like that, and I do not relate to it. One of the women who has been there for about eight years has decided that she does not like me. I don't figure I'll be sticking around for too long, even if I wanted to. I believe it's time for me to fly.

I am ignoring the fact that Dennis and I are engaged for right now. I think it needs to simmer. I'm not pregnant (I know you were thinking it) and we're not in any kind of hurry, so I'm not going to stress over it. We always do our best when we let things take their course. So I'm just going to sit and wait for a while. Nothing is going to change, and we can save up for that ring I want ;) *giggle*

Ring Shopping

I am still very bug-eyed about the engagement. I am very glad that there is no date set. I did not feel this agitated when the discussion was hypothetical. Now that it is real, all kinds of memories, anxieties, and fears are being dredged up. I didn't know that I would feel so uneasy about it. I know that I love Dennis, and I know that he is the guy I am supposed to wind up with, and I am not afraid of our relationship getting ruined. I am scared of that M word though. I don't think that I believe in marrying for love anymore. I don't know what a second marriage means for me. I don't know what marriage means to Dennis. We're talking about it. We're playing around with the idea. We'll get it sorted out, I know, but right now I am a little uncomfortable.

So we went ring shopping today.

I walked straight out of The Shane Co. Too crowded, too stuffy, and it was freezing cold in there too. Nevermind. It felt just like a crypt.

I looked at rings in Sears while Dennis tried on work pants.

I took Dennis to Kay Jewelers and let him take the full heat of the high-pressure sales people while I acted disinterested. Then I told the salesman who would not leave me alone that the last ring I got there broke, but I didn't bring it back because the marriage failed anyway. He still tried to sell around that. I got up and walked right out of the store. Dennis wasn't far behind, but he did get talked into taking a card and a Kay's special bridal magazine. He won't have to go through a lot of the traditional wedding experiences, but I thought that he should at least get a taste. I was amused.

We wound up at Jared at the Mills. I liked it there. I like a ring they have there. I know that I want this style. We looked at it with a center stone we can't afford, but I know that this is the general idea that I'm after.

Uh, yeah, I guess so...

Dennis asked me to marry him!

Last night we discussed the general idea of marriage, and I got on a tangent about expectations, and tax breaks enticing people to "do the right thing" and had myself in quite a negative frame of mind about the entire idea of marriage, when he said, "So, will you marry me?"

Silence.

"Are you being serious?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Really!"

"THIS is what I get? Well, since you are half-assing me, here's my answer, 'uh, yeah, I guess so'."

Followed immediately by a huge case of cold feet and self-doubt, and eventually I said, "This isn't fair! You can't get me all negative about a subject like this and then expect an overwhelmingly positive answer. I can't even see your face it's so dark in here! Are you serious?"


Then this afternoon, he asked me again. This time, he was getting ready to put on his socks, gave me a hug with a sock in each hand beind my back, and said, "Will you marry me?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yes!"

Again, a little pause, and finally, "Yeah, I will."




Yeah, I know, it is the most romantic story ever.

LOL

So apparently I am engaged. It isn't real yet. I don't have any thoughts yet. I am freaked out. I feel very bug-eyed.

Anniversary

It's been a year since I quit smoking.

My last cigarette was before bed on September 12, 2004. The first cigarette I didn't smoke was first thing in the morning on Monday, September 13, 2004.

Hooray!

That's something like 7300 cigarettes that I haven't smoked, and something like $1300 I didn't spend on the damn things.

Nobody remembered or said anything to me, but that's ok. I know. :-D

Tied-Arch

We went for a hike across the Missouri River Bridge on the Page Avenue Extension / Route 364 the other evening. Now, of course, I am curious about the bridge.

According to MoDot,

The bridge over the Missouri River connecting St. Louis and St. Charles counties and is actually two separate bridges. The structure itself is called a "tied arch" bridge because each arch is tied together with many steel cables. Each tied arch bridge was erected on bridge piers near the banks of the Missouri River. Four barges then floated each structure to their permanent position over the Missouri River. Each bridge will carry five lanes of traffic across the Missouri River, and the westbound bridge has a separate bike trail.

*Each tied arch structure is 616 feet long, 125 feet high and 90 feet wide
*90,000 cubic yards of concrete were used for the driving surface and bridge piers
*The structures contain 16 ½ million pounds of reinforcing steel
*78,000 feet of piling (beams drilled into the ground to support the bridge)
*3,000 feet of drilled shafts (the actual holes drilled into the ground)
*The steel girders and the two arches are comprised of 33 million pounds of structural steel
*The tied arches are held together by 444,000 bolts
*If the cables of the two tied arches were all connected, they would stretch 3 ½ miles
*It is 3,244 feet from the abutment on the St. Louis side to the abutment on the St. Charles side

Here it comes, that funny feeling again...

I can have selective amnesia when it comes to learning from my past. I am hearing sirens and seeing flashing lights at my job. I do not want to go through another fiasco on the scale of Miller Certified Air, ever again. Here I go again, my resume on Monster.com is updated, and I'm actively looking for work.

Why?

I do not want to be treated like a statistic. I do not want to feel my imminent replacablilty every single day. I do not want to live in fear of someone with some seniority who has decided that she will not like me. I do not want to have to fight tooth and nail for every penny of overtime that I am due. I do not want to have the fact that I know someone who got fired on her 82nd day hanging over my head. I don't want an unapproachable, two faced boss. (Another unapproachable, two faced boss...)

I know, that is a lot to ask, but for Christ's sake, I have a very expensive degree from and highly regarded University. So I'm going to take my happy little entitled ass elsewhere as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

Birthday Bash

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you. You look like a monkey, and you act like one too...



We held Chris's birthday party yesterday in DuSable Park, along the Katy Trail, just north of Historic Main Street in St. Charles.

Paul's Family, my Ex-In-Laws, came out for the weekend. It was nice to see them, and yet somehow every strange at the same time. It is also always strange to hang out with Chris's Dad all day. Especially lately, since we haven't seen him for weeks. Pictures have been edited and uploaded to a Photobucket Album.

After the party, we all went for a browse around Historic Main Street. Paul Sr. bought us all a round of ice cream, we walked down to the river, and just hung out. All in all, it was a pretty good day.

The Times-Picayune

The New Orleans daily has been running an incredible web based version of itself since they lost the ability to print actual newspapers.

Nola.com has traditionally been a site that I've turned to for Mardi Gras webcams, New Orleans weather, and good hotel deals. Now it has become something entirely different. It is one of the few sources for very local coverage - right down to individual Parish reports. I've been reading it over my lunch hour at work every day this week.