My day | Peaches Prattlings

{April 28, 2016} A new project!

I am on a new project and I’m excited about it!

I am sure I’ve told you that I’m a software trainer, I’m not sure what else I’ve told you. As a trainer, I’ve trained on a multitude of applications for different industries, soft drinks to transportation to electronic medical records, variety is the spice of life after all!

Each time I get a new project, especially when it’s for something I know nothing about, it’s a new opportunity with a new set of challenges. It can be scary and exhilarating and exhausting all at the same time!

I am coming later to the project, the other trainers have been here for several weeks, participating in T3 or Train The Trainer. This is where the experts teach the trainers what they will be training on.

Today, I arrived and hit the ground running! I was paired with a trainer that’s leaving the project and she ran through several classes in a few hours. Now, keep in mind, when I teach, these classes will last all day, they just want me to have a glimpse and understanding of the application. It was a lot to take in on 3 hours of sleep, but I think I’ve got a good start.

Tomorrow is more of the same and then Friday or Monday, at the latest, I will join the other trainers to sit through their teach backs. This is where they teach the experts what they’ve been taught, to get the opportunity to present the material, have others watch and give feedback. I’m looking forward to that, the full class in action.

I will be co-training the first week, that’s the week of May 9th and the following week I’m on my own! I have one week and two days to get ramped up! Can I do it? I’m up for the challenge!

{April 26, 2016} The day started in a tube and ended in a stadium

Or, I could say it started and ended with imaging, so to speak.

I keep hearing The Muppet Show announcer “The continuing saga” of a nauseous girl. I saw the GI yesterday who I continue to perplex, go me! She still has no idea what’s causing the nausea, so next step…gall bladder. Huh? Ok

Today, I went in for a gall bladder emptying study. I know, you’re excited and on the edge of your seat! This was similar to the gastric emptying, as in no eating four hours prior to the test and time in an open MRI machine.

What there was not…food! At least with the gastric emptying, they feed me. This one, nor so lucky. So, four plus hours after breakfast, start test, food came three hours later, what? Ok

They start with an IV, saline and then the dye, which, let me tell you, that saline is cold and felt weird going through my shoulder. A new experience. Then they lie me down and put me into the imaging machine and monitor my gall bladder as I go night night, and a hour later, what a nap! Did they see my gall bladder and intestine? Yup, no blockage.

I had to sit cross legged in the chair while I waited to go to imaging, my feet didn’t quite touch the floor. No jokes from the peanut gallery, thank you!

Next, wake up and the nurse comes in to give you the medication in your IV. Wait, wait, wait. Then she attaches, but we wait for the technician to start whatever else needs to be started. Wait, wait, wait.

Lay back down, start the machine and…no nap for this hour, unfortunately, sleep did not come, oh well, at least Netflix did!

When it was over, buh bye, that’s it. Away I went, in search of…yes, you guessed it! Food! I found a Starbucks in the lobby of the hospital, go figure, and got a cup of fruit. Go figure, the only thing I could have from there, remember, it’s Passover, was the one thing that made me more nauseous! I can have certain fruits in moderation, good apparently was too much! Oh well, tasted good!

Now that that’s over, on to the fun…spending time with my sister, just us, well us and over 100 of her closest friends. No, I’m kidding. The Dana Farber Cancer Institute, which I’ll have you know is the place that saved my sister’s life, was hosting an event for people who have done fundraising for the organization.
http://www.dana-farber.org/mobile/default.aspx

It was hosted at Fenway Park, I know, two Yankee fans in Red Sox territory, amazingly enough, we survived!

It started with a tour of the stadium, the Green Monster seating and my favorite part, the rooftop garden. It’s approximately 1800 square feet and brings in about 5000 pounds of fresh produce each year! The vegetables are used in the EMC restaurant. Now that’s green!

After the tour, there were drinks and appetizers at the club level. You could tell there were quite a few people celebrating passover because there were slider buns still in the trays and the meat was gone. They did have some black bean/quinoa burgers, little kick, but good, I was just happy to have a little something.

After the cocktail hour, we went upstairs to the EMC Restaurant for dessert and talks. There were five main speakers, the opening speaker was a three time survivor and the four who followed were doctors and researchers all giving a “Ted Talk” of sorts about exciting things happening in research and the fight or race to find a cure for cancer.

It was fascinating to hear what they had to say, how they each had a story to tell, some how they were touched by their patients and the strides and contributions not just by them but by the entire medical and research communities and Dana Farber, not just what it represents, but what it means to so many people.

After they all spoke there was a question and answer period, then discussions at our own tables.

It really was interesting and eye opening and anything that supports my sister works for me!

After the event we walked to the train station, said goodbye and went our separate ways, literally.

Here I am to tell you all about it and my day, share pictures and then get some sleep, the alarm is coming very early and I have a new project starting tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about it…tomorrow!

Goodnight!

{April 25, 2016} Mine…she’s all mine…muwahahaha

I did something awesome today!

I paid off my car! What a great feeling! I had been watching the total go down and I thought, I’ll pay it off this week and I held out, then again and again.

Finally, it was much more reasonable to pay off and I did! She is now officially all mine! I can’t wait to see her and take a drive with the top down, me and MY car!

Hmmm…what to do with the money? Put it aside every month so I can afford to visit her before I move. Oh, and PSM of course, tee hee hee. “Annie I’m coming for ya!”

A really great feeling, wahoo!

{April 24, 2016} PSM’s whirlwind weekend! Started strong and never stopped!

I know everyone wants to be me, I think PSM really tried this weekend! And what a weekend!

It started Friday morning when he arrived from Hawaii at 9am and went from there. I surprised him at the airport, a quick breakfast reunion, he went off to see his office and coworkers in Boston, then take care of something at his house, then to GES’ house to help set up and then participate in first night of Passover.

After clean up and goodnights, off to his brother’s house to spend the night and Saturday with his brother, sister-in-law and nephew, and their dog, Chelsea of course. After a nice relaxing day, there was breakfast, catching up, business, looking at photos of family and a quick nap for him, we were off to his family’s Passover seder.

Another rousing, exciting and enjoyable eveningwith family. Then…after clean up, back to my sister’s house for the night. I snuck into the girls rooms for goodnight kisses and we helped set the house back to order after the second seder at GES’ house. Then we sat down to talk and tell jokes for a while, laugh until we cried and then off to sleep, another big day ahead!

Today, we got up, said good morning and goodbyes to my family and headed towards PSM’s extended family, his crazy group of friends. G&JB had offered their place when I emailed the group about having a brunch for PSM, who they all call Boo.

Everyone came and brought something for brunch and GB was the omelet master! They even made order forms, it was great! It wad funny when they thanked me me for giving them an excuse to get the house ready for spring/summer!

There was food, drink, laughter, fun, frivolity and fire! They have a great fire pit in the backyard and since it was cold, they threw a few things, besides wood onto the fire, including some old Christmas trees, which take off like crazy!

We really had a great time, people stayed for a long time, one by one, families had to leave for soccer and softball and…what a great, fabulous and special time. They really do love “their Boo”. Someone was laughing because they tried to come up with a cute nickname putting our names together and all she cane up with was Joo, ha ha, back to the drawing board!

We left about 5pm and headed to my place to check on the cats, return the rental car and on to a hotel for hotel last night in town, just the two of us…sigh.

So, what do you think? Was he trying to be like me and have a whirlwind weekend? I was right there with him! And I loved every minute of it! Now we need a nap!

That is a burning Christmas tree.

A fabulous omelet

Our view for the night

{April 23, 2016} Chag Semeach…second night of Passover

Another rousing success.

Today we hung out with PSM’s brother’s family, then went to his aunt and uncle’s house for their family seder.

It’s great getting to experience other people’s traditions. PSM’s family was raised more conservative than my family and their seder was a little different, it followed more traditional lines, there was more Hebrew and more singing, and more singing in Hebrew. everyone read from the haggadah, something I like that we do as well, everyone participates, that is very important.

What was not different in any way was the amount of food, the noise level, the kids, both children and adults were rowdy and out of hand here and there, which, it turns out, is very common. Don’t believe me, check out people’s posts on Facebook!

Everyone is always so accommodating to my special dietary needs. PSM’s Auntie L made me special soup and a stuffed acorn squash, oh my! And thank you so very much!

Everyone there is so kind, caring and welcoming, I feel like part of the family, we had only been dating a few months last year when he invited me to be a part of hours families second night seder, I was touched and this year it was even more familiar, thank you!

Some families will celebrate the first two nights and the last two nights. We are done! We will keep kosher and follow the dietary rules, for the most part, for the next 6 nights, but our seder days are over, for this year at least. I look forward to seeing what next year holds!

{April 23, 2016} Chag Sameach…second night of Passover

Another rousing success.

Today we hung out with PSM’s brother’s family, then went to his aunt and uncle’s house for their family seder.

Everyone is always so accommodating to my special dietary needs. PSM’s Auntie L made me special soup and a stuffed acorn squash, oh my! And thank you so very much!

{April 22, 2016} A Happy Passover

Today is the first day of Passover, so mush celebrating has begun!

I know we’ve talked about Passover before, so I hope you don’t mind a little more.

Passover is the telling of the story of the Jews exodus from Egypt. It took them 40 years, only fitting the seder takes a few hours! The seder is the meal and service all rolled into one. There are symbolic foods that go with the seder and have a certain place in the seder, or service, when they are eaten.

There are certain prayers said during the seder representing different things and over different foods. There are four glasses of wine to drink, there is matzoh to represent the bread of affliction, eggs to represent new life, salt water to represent our tears, karpas, or greens represents the flourishing is Jews in Israel, maror is the mortar that held the bricks of the pyramid together, and so much more.

We gather around the table and each person has a haggadah, which is the prayer book that tells the story of the exodus, what everything means, blessings over the different foods and when to eat them, there is symbolism in everything! Maybe you were like me and had the Maxwell House haggadah when you were a kid!

There are very traditional seders and less traditional. When I was younger, they were more traditional, but still do much fun. Our seders lasted for hours because we were laughing, singing and eating. Oh, and observing of course!

After EJS came on the scene, we stated having seders in Boston at GES’ house and they became like my “orphan” thanksgiving in Atlanta. All different families coming together to celebrate and we had more and more wee tots at the table. When EJS was born, I got her Sammy Spider’s First Haggadah and GES took that and marked it to go along with the traditional haggadahs that we had so we could use them together.

This also cut the seder down quite a bit since most of the little kids, all under 8, have the attention span of a gnat, especially when you get them all together! We conver all the bases and basics but not to the level as when GES and I were kids.

When I go to PSM’s family seder tomorrow, it will definitely be more traditional..and take a lot longer! But just as much laughing and singing and food.

There is so much more to tell you, tomorrow!

{April 22, 2016} A Happy Passover

Today is the first day of Passover, so much celebrating has begun!

I know we’ve talked about Passover before, so I hope you don’t mind a little more.

When I go to PSM’s family seder tomorrow, it will definitely be more traditional..and take a lot longer! But just as much laughing and singing and food.

There is so much more to tell you, tomorrow!

{April 21, 2016} We’re home…let’s cook!

We got home from dad’s and it was time to get down to business.

Tonight is erev pesach, that means night before passover, which begins tomorrow at sundown. We’ve tales about passover before and I’ll talk more about it tomorrow, today is for cooking.

There is so much food to prep and cook, there are menus, recipes, shopping. We send out a list to people coming to see what they can make and then GES and I figure out the rest. When we were kids and my mom’s mom still had it at her house, grandma, me, mom and GES would cook up a storm the days before.

Then when it moved to my parents house, me, mom and GES would cook, grandma was still responsible for the homemade applesauce, which I always teased her was not sweet enough, she’d pretend to hit me, it was our thing.

Then, it was GES and I cooking and hosting at dad’s and then after EJS came into our lives, its been in Boston ever since, with GES and I cooking and hosting.

So, this year, as we always do, we make a plan and then away we go. This year, instead of cooking a few chickens, Costco cooked them for us! 10 rotisserie chickens, done!

We started at Costco and got most of what we needed, then the grocery store for the rest. We headed home and after some dinner, decided tonight would be desserts, the rest tomorrow. Some stuff, like the soup was made last weekend and frozen, matzoh balls tomorrow.

Since it was desserts, we made matzoh brittle, yum! Macaroons, yum! And cookie jam drops, omg, yum! I can’t wait to eat tomorrow!

I can’t wait to tell you all about tomorrow!! Better yet, come join us!

See…Y U M!!

And the plan of attack, from the planner herself, my sister!

{April 20, 2016} Going home…mmm never tasted so good!

Today we bid farewell to Washington, DC and hello to NYC.

We left Washington after a little shopping trip, loaded up the car and away we went. We were going to go to my dad’s house in NY to spend the night and then drive back to Boston tomorrow. That’s what they did going to Boston, overnight at dad’s then on to DC.

We got to dad’s house after a relatively smooth trip, a few pit stops and one for lunch. ACS had already decided where he wanted to go for dinner, Denino’s pizzeria and tavern, best pizza in NYC!

I did not partake in the fabulousness that is Denino’s, I had a salad. My thinking was that I had a slice of pizza last week in Atlanta, I wasn’t sure at that point if I would be coming with them, so there you go, they had a slice of heaven and I had a salad, yum.

Now…no boo-hoos for me! After dinner it was across the street to Ralph’s for some cremelata, I figured if I was going to knowingly eat something that was going to mess with them, it had better be worth it! Oh…it was!

It was great to be back home, feeling nostalgic and getting to enjoy a bit of our childhood.

Very sweet dreams tonight!

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