Bad blogger

August 24th. A cool Thursday morning for August. Almost thought about wearing a jacket, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Not just yet.

So yeah, I've been a bad blogger, not writing since NH! Almost the whole month. But I got back from NH and landed a pretty nasty cold which hung around for the better part of a few weeks! Ick. Finally have been able to free my purse from both clean and dirty tissues that were weighing me down!

Work has been insane too. Testing the CBeds application that was finally delivered to us. I was on my own, leading training for 1 week while Ryann was away. Very empowering experience, and consensus is that I did extremely well with it, so that's gratifying. But man was it a tough week. I think I worked more than 24 hours in just the first two days.... and I was dreaming in HL7 language! I've never been so glad to see Ryann's face as I was that next Monday morning. However- we've made some major progress and things are finally falling into place and we're all looking ahead towards the November roll-out which will be here before we know it!

So as summer is winding down, I've had all these thoughts running through my head... so here goes.

.... I forgot how much I look forward to seeing all of my fall/winter clothes again. I don't like them (as a whole) near as much as my summer clothes. But I'm always craving the New and my summer stuff is feeling Old after 4 months. Bring on the turtlenecks and high boots and courderoy! And scarves! And flannel pjs! mmmmm
--- I'm craving soup!
.... World Series is coming up. Hoping and praying that our 5 straight losses to the Yankees haven't completely slit our throats. I'd like to enjoy baseball for a bit longer this year
--- I'm going to miss being able to put the top down
.... I love seeing the back to school supplies in the aisles of every store. The binders and staplers and notebooks and pens... these have always been my favorite things. I love looking at them and thinking about the kids who are lucky enough to be needing them as ammo for the school year ahead.
--- Ok, its a little far off, but Christmas is coming! I love it, I crave it. And its closer now than earlier this summer... so its something to look forward to.

Silly Girls' Weekend In NH

Sunday at the Lake... we chatted, sunned ourselves, had turkey sandwiches on the beach blanket, waded in the water :) Me and Amber in the Lake!

We made good use of our 45 minute wait for dinner- and took time for a Girls Weekend Photo Shoot! We asked a nice lady to take our picture and she was great! Took a whole bunch of shots, zoomed, moved us around... told us when we looked bad and when we looked good! We got really lucky! :) Here's our best shot!

The silliness continued through dinner and into dessert. Here are Laura and Lorella sharing a chocolate and Baileys milkshake.

And the photo shoot continued when we got home...

Well... except for Lorella... the Tangeray and tonic was just a bit too much.

Welcome to Lake Sunapee

This Friday afternoon was a bit more hectic and stressful than I'd planned for... though much less so for me and moreso for Ryann. After a 1:00 conference call between MGH and Premise, I went with Ryann over the Navy Yard to load the BMD client on the computers there to be ready for training the testers on Monday. The floorplans wouldn't load and I already found about 15 mistakes they made when configuring I was very explicit about... but I'm off for 2 days and hopefully these things are quick fixes that will be resolved before I get back on Wednesday.

Beautiful and relaxing drive to NH, top down, sun shining, hair blowing in the wind (aka getting enormously tangled and there was no elastic to be found!!). I sang along with Susan Tedeschi and we had ourselves quite a drive.

I pulled into the Lake Sunapee region around 6:30. After two trips to the General Store (thankfully next door) for basic groceries and 4 bottles of wine and some nice conversation with the clerk, I settled into the cute New Hampshiresque hotel suite. I put The American President in the DVD player, booted up my lappy and enjoyed a few hours until Meg, Courtney and Laura arrived!

So great to see old friends... eight years of friendship already- who can believe that?!
Today's been lazy, reading, watching Ghost on VH1. Amber and Lorella should be here soon.
So now its back to enjoying our porch and The Devil Wears Prada! :)

Welcome to NH

Ohh! There's a sign above the couch that says Welcome to the Looney Bin! Just like the one at Camp!

Quiz Me

One of those silly quizzes... a little slice of me on this hot August day...


1. What time did you get up this morning? 5:30 {been tough lately but I'm still doing it. leaving work at 3:30 and being in my car by around 4p makes it all well worth it!}
2. Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds
3. What was the last film you saw at the movies? The Break Up {with Jennifer Aniston.. cute movie}
4. What is your favorite TV show? Gilmore Girls!
5. What did you have for breakfast? Honey Bunches of Oats with a banana
6. What is your middle name? Marie
7. What is your favorite cuisine? Italian
9. What is your favorite chip flavor? Sour Cream and Onion. mmmm :)
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? a summer mix I just made {reminds me I need some new CDs and soon. my last 3 years worth of summer mixes have 90% of the same songs on them!}
11. What type of car do you drive? 1998 Sebring Convertible {formally Mom's}
13. What characteristics do you despise? rudeness, lack of understanding of boundaries {physical and social}, dishonesty.
14. Favorite item of clothing? SKIRTS!
5. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Spain {I miss Marta}
17. Where would you like to retire to? North or South Carolina
19. What was your most memorable birthday? 25
20. Where were you born? Quincy, MA
21. Favorite sport to watch? Baseball or Nascar
22. What fabric detergent do you use? Tide
23. Coke or Pepsi? Coke (diet please, with lots of ice and lemon)
24. Are you a morning person or a night owl? morning person (but not toooo early)
25. What is your shoe size? 8 or 8 1/2
26. Do you have any pets? nope but I'm ok with that
27. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? I have my review today at work so I'll be getting a raise, albeit small, that's fun!
28. What did you want to be when you were little? A lawyer, a Marine Biologist {yes, me who's afraid of fish}, a teacher I think.. nothing realistica at all!
29. When is your birthday? June 10
*********WHAT NOW*****************
Wearing? Black linen skirt that's kinda flowy on the bottom, a black tank top striped with maroon and tan... black flip-flops... and on the back of my chair sits my khaki blazer that I can't force myself to put on in this extreme heat.
Thinking about? Scrapbooking- what else is there?!

*********THE LAST 24 HOURS**************
Cried? yes {week of my period, what do we expect?!}
Met someone new? nope
Cleaned your room? definitely not
Drove a car? Yes and rode a train
How many hours sleep? 7ish
**************DO YOU BELIEVE IN**************
God? yes
Yourself? yes
Your friends? yes
Santa Claus? no, but love the stories
Easter Bunny? no, but love the chocolate
Destiny/Fate? to a certain extent-- i think everything happens for a reason.
Ghosts/Spirits/Angels? i think so........

Remembering my Birthday Weekend

It's been a GREAT week for scrapping! Been working on some fun pictures I took the weekend of my birthday. Andrea and I got 4 tickets for the Sox game on June 10th, but it got rained out, so we went on Sunday June 11 at 1:00 instead- Andrea, Dan, Mike Jolls and me.

Here's the memories of the day:

I had sooo much fun with this last one!!! I've been wanting to do more doodling and just being creative, but I'll admit I was scared to just put that pen on the page, for fear I'd ruin things... Not too shabby for a first attempt, I'd say.

It feels very satisfying to finally put all the ideas and inspirations to good use. Right now I'm totally obsessed with Ali Edwards and Elsie Flanagan which is ironic because their styles are sooo different from each other.... however I guess each appeals to a different half of my Gemini personality... I feel like these LOs are a great blend of the inspiration I have gotten from my two favorite Life Artists :)

All Girl

I think this is my favorite Layout (to date). It just totally expresses who I am... and so simply "All Girl." How true is that?! Give me pink over blue any day of the week.... i love clothes and girly movies and flowers (and not getting dirty), arts and crafts, make-up, fun hair-do.... if its girly, chances are, its "ME."

I'm thinking about this today as I'm getting ready to go to a baby shower for a co-worker who's having a girl! I had a great time picking out these cutie pink jammies... and was thinking that I hope Debbie gets a girly girly that she can enjoy all of these fun things with! She's got a boy, and all the cuts, scrapes and dirt that goes along with her cutie little guy- but there's just something so fun about BEING A GIRL!