What Would Jen Do

Archive for January, 2009

I was not picked to sit on a trial on Monday.  I was actually pretty lucky that I didn’t have to go in until 1pm.  Some people had been there since 8am.  Every time you aren’t picked for a jury, you go back into the jury pool ALL DAY LONG.  I only had to sit around for one trial and by the time they got to picking who they wanted it was too late in the day for us to go back and wait to be called in again.     There are a lot of angry people at jury duty who will say the dumbest things to get out of it.   FYI, it doesn’t seem to work.   Also this very angry lady told someone else that if you have a valid excuse and do manage to get out of it, then the next time they call you for jury duty you are FORCED TO SERVE ON A TRIAL.   ahaha, right.   that makes perfect sense.   Of course I ended up with her in the court room and she used every excuse in the book to get out of it.  I’m sure it wasn’t her job or anything that made them not pick her, i’m sure it was the fact that she’s a massive bitch and couldn’t seem to follow simple rules.

I baked a white cake from scratch the other day, and made the frosting too.  I bet you didn’t know it takes about 13 minutes of mixing to create frosting….  It was a basic recipe and just ok, but i just wanted to see if I could do it.  White cake is rather bland.  But it turns out that I can bake a cake and I have found what is probably going to be a much tastier recipe.

first of all, new president.  YAY.  I finally picked a winner.   I was very excited to be working from home on Tuesday so that I could spend my day watching and listening to CNN.  But when the most important moment arrived, I was in a blasted telephone meeting.   ( I was still watching, let’s not pretend I wasn’t) My manager had no idea what was going on in the world and seemed really shocked when someone said “he’s swearing in RIGHT NOW”.   I hope he felt bad making everyone miss that.

Last night Icey put our smith cage up on Craigslist and within 5 minutes had sold it.  The guy is supposed to come get it today and I am very excited to get the space back. I really have no idea what i’m going to do with that area now that everything I originally bought for it has found a new and better home. Right now i’m mostly excited to be able to vacuum and clean the blinds in that room, since I haven’t been able to get to them for a couple of years.    And i’m sure voodoo will be excited about all of the new windows he can look out of.

speaking of voodoo

I have jury duty on monday and unfortunately my group has to call in again at 11am, which just means they will tell me to show up at 1.  which kind of ticks me off because i would much rather get it taken care of first thing in the A.M, but they only called 2 groups out of about 20 to be there at 8.    But i’m looking at it as a free day off work.

Friday night i fell asleep in bed around 8:45, I know i live large.   At 5:30 am on saturday i was awake and ready to start the day, as was Mojo who jumped up all excited and ran downstairs.  She’s such a morning dog.

Cat’s bridal shower was Saturday and I had a lot to do in preparation, which mostly involved a lot of last minute shopping.  I’m pretty sure she and everyone else had a good time.  We didn’t play any of the super cheesy shower games like toilet paper wedding gown.   But we did have a Passion Party, and that was preeeeetty interesting.

Sunday we woke up and went to a movie, and then I started failing miserably and laid on the couch for about 5 hours.   I never took my sneakers off or put on pajamas because that would have required energy I did not have.   I did watch most of the game and saw the Cardinals win.  I guess we’ll be watching the Superbowl this year.

I had today off work and Icey did not.   I’m kind of confused because this normally doesn’t happen where I get a day off and he doesn’t.   I am still super tired and unmotivated but managed to pick up the house and do some laundry.  The dogs were as lazy as I was.

mojo chose the bed:

Voodoo was so tired his whole body didn’t make it onto his bed.

he also wants you to know he’s not responsible for this mess, it’s his sisters handiwork.

this is really the only reason I needed to clean today…….

what is really keeping me going at this point is that I don’t have to physically go in to work tomorrow and can lay around in bed for an extra hour in the morning since my ‘office’ is 20 feet away.

Yesterday when I got home, Icey had a nice surprise for me.   Of course I didn’t notice at first and had to be prompted, but he went out after work and bought me a brand new office chair.    I was stealing his during the day because mine was old and uncomfortable and probably over 10 years old.     It’s an Aeron chair, just like his but a little smaller.   I love it, it doesn’t make your butt fall asleep and you don’t feel all stiff and achy after sitting in it for hours.

working from home = love.   I may have only done it two times, but in those two days I got more work done than I normally get done at work in a week.  It’s nice to be able to work consistently for more than 10 minutes at a time. I’m constantly interrupted at work, to the point that I have days where I don’t do any work at all.

day one at home went well.   I was actually productive.  I got more work done today than I think I did all of last week.  I even sat in on our weekly dep’t meeting via a conference call, troubleshooted (troubleshot?  troubleshat?)  a system problem over the phone and fixed a  problem I had with the help desk.   I really don’t need to go back to the office, ever!

I tried to take a picture of my work station when voodoo ran by.

and then this happened:

he’s crazy.

i am pretty sure mojo thought i stayed home to scratch her and give her cookies all day.

Here’s me at work today, that wild look in my eye is me realizing I do not have to work at work tomorrow.

Tomorrow I start working from home, and yes I am so excited I could pee.  Tonight alone I feel as if i’ve gained an hour of time since there are 100 things I do not need to do to prepare for tomorrow. I’m going to save 50 miles in driving and at least an hour on the road per day as well.  Plus I get to spend all day with these two.

We had a very nice New Years dinner, on the 1st, cooked by my husband.

my camera has a feature that will take flashless pictures in low light, the results are a little yellowy (as you can see above) but I almost always prefer a flashless picture.

no flash also means mojo doesn’t have laser eyes

Speaking of dogs,  Icey was tired of never being able to take the dogs anywhere in his car, he couldn’t even go to costco for paper towels.   After months of searching and thinking and researching he decided on a mazda speed 3.   So he is the proud owner of a brand new car.  It’s white and pretty and goes fast and looks just like mine on the inside, so of course I love it.   Now this car brings the total of Mazda 3′s in this family to 4.

OMG the lamp in our TV went BOOM the other day, literally.  and we were without TV in the living room for like 24 hours and we both almost died.   The new lamp came yesterday, thank god for overnight shipping, and Icey put it in and the picture is brighter and better than ever. The problem with rear projections is that you need a lamp in them and they just burn out (or pop) it’s what they do.   And smart people would have an extra on hand but we didn’t.  (now we do)

Last Friday i got to semi work from home since my business phone line was being installed that day inside a rather large window of time.   Everything hooked up well and I connected to the system, but the real problem started when the phone guy got here.  yadda yadda yadda, three hours later I’m completely set up.  And the best news is that I had a meeting at work yesterday to discuss working from home and it’s FINALLY a done deal and I start working from home tuesdays and thursdays next week.  my god, i am so excited I could spit.   I’m only starting this a month after everyone else……

Happy New year!  I spent mine in bed (of course) asleep until midnight on the nose when the fireworks upset mojo.   There were a lot more this year than last and they lasted about 20 min so I had a dog alternately barking her face off and jumping into bed with me.   Which is something she never does unless she’s really upset.  so I had to contort myself around her and wait for her to calm down.   I did wake up around 11:30 and my husband was already in bed with me, so happy new year to us!!!

2008 was an excellent year for me.  We started doing home improvements (patio, AC, new appliances, new furniture) we got married (no one saw that coming) and we got to fly first class to Hawaii where people are very excited about your name being Asian.   I applied for and got the work from home job, which is starting VERY SOON I SWEAR.   I did get into my first accident ever, but it was very tiny and hardly counts.   I found out I can bake almost anything, we started a vegetable garden and i don’t think the voo got sick at all this past year, did he?  If not that’s a first for my guy.

I’m also pretty excited that for the first time I voted for the guy who is going to be president.   My voting career isn’t very long, I didn’t start voting until I met Icey, because I never cared before. You can’t live in this house and not care….  But i’m also excited that America voted in a black man because i was certain we were not ‘ready’ for that.

I’m not going to make any resolutions for this year, except to be me but just a little more awesome. oh, and this one