Karen’s Place

Wow I really haven’t written much this summer, I suppose that’s because really there hasn’t been much new going on.

Let’s see, I really hate my new job.  That sucks!  So far the director of my department has yet to come through on any of the promises he made me while recruiting me for the position.  I’m stuck there until November, then I can transfer out-granted there is/are positions available within the office that tickle my fancy.  I’m still doing side work for my old department, I know I should dump it all back on my old boss but we are going through an extremely important audit and I just can’t do that to her.  The only upside to the job, other than actually having one (I always remind myself it could be worse, I may be jobless) is that I get to work from home on Thursdays.  That is so nice.  We’re working on getting to be able to work from home two days a week, which would be so nice.

I really haven’t done anything new this summer.  I’m going back to North Carolina in a few weeks that will be so fun.  This time I’m not going to fly solo (literally and figuratively); I’m taking my friend Tricia with me.  Tricia is a single mom to four daughters and hasn’t had a vacation since before her oldest, who is 16 years old was born.  I think she may be looking forward to more than me if that’s possible.  Tricia works for the school district, so we had to plan this little vacation for when the kids were out of school, needless to say our options were very limited.  Luck was really in our favor as round-trip airline tickets were barely $200 and that was only booking like six weeks in advance.  Yay!  Then I found out that was my friend Paddy’s birthday weekend, his 40th birthday.  How cool is that?  We’ve been invited to a big blow out at his pub.  Then there’s my friend Bill, Paddy’s music partner; Bill is the concertmaster for the symphony.  Opening night of the symphony will take place while we’re there and we’ve been invited to that as well.  I’ve only heard Bill’s pub music and on a rare occasion, one or two classical pieces; it will be great to see an entire performance – although I do have a fear of falling asleep.  I will for sure be upping my caffeine intake prior to the concert.

So we’ll be there for a five day weekend and with Fayetteville not being far from the coast, we for sure have a trip to the beach planned.  I realize we can’t go swimming in October, but it will be a great drive (with the help of my trusty GPS) and no matter what anytime you get to see the ocean it’s a good day.

Let’s see anything else new??  Tuesday was beautiful outside.  When I got home from work I let the dog out and she was as frisky as a puppy, she just wanted to play and play.  How could I not pack her up in the car and take her to the lake for a romp and swim.  I’m so lucky I can take her off leash wherever we go she has so much fun and can swim wherever she wants without being tied to a leash.  You know I had to take some pictures:

I love this picture, I think she’s completely airborne!

She climbed down a pretty steep cliff to get here, she was determined!

She’s got a strange look on her face, but really she was all smiles!

One last thought, remember October is breast cancer awareness month.  Coming from someone who lost a Grandmother to breast cancer, please remember to have your mammograms, also don’t forget if you’re girls are even a little dense you should ask your doctor if a sonogram may be in order instead.

I finally had to do that photo job.  Ugh!  The day of reckoning was here.  Last Saturday I met my friend and her kids at a local park and we spent the next two hours taking pictures.  Wouldn’t you know it, it had to be at least 95 degrees outside!  Or at least it felt like it!  Actually, it was a lot of fun.  She’s a good friend, and I would do it again for her in a minute.  Her daughter is going off to college in a couple of weeks, so that made these all the more special.

Here’s how they turned out:

You can also see them here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/harmmonyphoto/Adrienne?authkey=luR6YDV69Yk

Still not professional quality by any means, and I’ll never claim to be.  However, I’m still happy with how they turned out for the most part.

I just added the photos I took in Virginia. You can find them under the photos tab. I think some of them turned out pretty good. The slide show goes fairly quick, so if you want-pause it and go through each of them individually. I’m hoping to have my North Carolina pictures up in the next couple days. Oh, if you aren’t enjoying the music you can find the music player at the bottom of the page.

It looks like I learned how to load my photos in here.  Yeah me!  Well, with the help of Picasa.  Really, what did we do before Google?  Is Google going to take over the world one day?  I digress…

Anyway, I loaded some slide-shows onto a separate page, however even I didn’t notice the second page at first with this layout.  Look in the top right corner and you will see where it says “My Photos” click there and it will take you to the slide shows.  As I load more pages, I’m guessing it will add the names along side that one.  Feel free to leave comments or even critiques…