My Random Musings | Peaches Prattlings

{June 13, 2014} Taking Amtrak to…

I have a few days off after working 12-14 hour days over the past week and it is most welcome!

With this much time off I decided to take myself to Chicago! I’ve been a few times for work and an interview, but never for pleasure so I think it’s time.

Chicago is about 4 hours from Ann Arbor and after three hours sleep and twelve hours of work, who wants to drive? Yeah, not me.

I looked at flights and then I remembered Amtrak! KS and I have passed the station many times and we’ve talked about taking a trip and train travel. It always makes me nostalgic for when I was a kid and my grandma M, my dad’s mom, would Come to NYC, meet my family at Penn station and she and I would get on Amtrak and head to Philadelphia.

It was always so much fun- being on the train, going to the snack car, all of it, and I thought this would be like that, not so much.

Now, I did take the train from Buffalo to NYC when I was in college, to go home, but it’s been a long time and I was worth friends.

It’s incredibly reasonable. The roundtrip ticket was less expensive than what I would pay for parking at the hotel, if that tells you anything. Someone else gets to drive and I just sit back and relax.

Or so I thought.

There are three sections- Coach, business and quiet. Business is what it sounds like, get some work done the quiet car is just that, quiet, no talking, no cell phones and music or movies with headphones only. Guess where I am…

Let’s just say going back will be Business or the quiet car. No talking, mouthing off, obscenities, especially with kids on the train, drunks, showing off, screaming kids, parents screaming at their kids, so happy to have headphones!

I also forgot how much the train cars shake. It’s definitely been an experience and I’ve enjoyed it, no matter what the trip and fellow passengers have been like, watching the scenery go by while the sun was still up.

I have a feeling the hotel will make up for all of that. Tell you more tomorrow!

{June 12, 2014} Mmmmm cookies!

Have I told you about Insomnia Cookies?

This is a great establishment! It is a small storefront in Ann Arbor that sells three things: Warm cookies, ice cream and milk. Ok, there may have been water, so that makes it four, but three main things!

The best part is the warming tray under the counter! When you order a cookie or cookies, as you should, they pull out the warming tray to give you the cookies, Y U M! They have 10 flavors of ice cream and regular, chocolate and strawberry milk, what could be better?

To top it all off? They deliver until THREE AM!!! And guess how far they deliver, yup, out by the hotel, but to date, I have not placed an order. Could you imagine having a craving and 30 minutes later having warm cookies and milk delivered. Genius!

Tonight, after dinner, KS, KNOB and I went to Insomnia Cookie and got ourselves a treat. The peanut butter cup cookie, oh my! was warm and gooey and took me about 30 minutes to eat! i couldn’t eat it all at once! I now have two white chocolate chunk macadamia nut cookies to share tomorrow!

oh my!

https://insomniacookies.com/

{June 12, 2014} Nananananananan….

Please tell me you knew what that was from!

I just turned on the TV and it was on and you knew I had to watch! DCM and i la la la love this movie and one time watched the behind the scenes documentary and it was something, the things we learned about the cast and production. Isn’t this one of those movies you just have to watch when it comes on?

I’ll give you a few more quotes and if you didn’t know what it was, you might or I’ll just tell you, at the end of course!

Al Czervik: Oh, this your wife, huh? A lovely lady. Hey baby, you must’ve been something before electricity.

Ty Webb: Don’t be obsessed with your desires Danny. The Zen philosopher, Basho, once wrote, ‘A flute with no holes, is not a flute. A donut with no hole, is a Danish.’ He was a funny guy.

“This calls for the old Billy Baroue, oh Billy Billy Billy Billy”

Ty Webb: You take drugs, Danny?
Danny Noonan: Every day.
Ty Webb: Good. Then what’s your problem?
Danny Noonan: I don’t know.

Carl Spackler: Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac… It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!

Ty Webb: I’m going to give you a little advice. There’s a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.

Ty Webb: Just be the ball, be the ball, be the ball. You’re not being the ball Danny.
Danny Noonan: It’s hard when you’re talking like that.

Please tell me you finally got that it was Caddyshack!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O7YGQjMKNQE

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080487/?ref_=nv_sr_1

{June 10, 2014} I signed up for what?

The Star Wars Rebel Challenge!

This is an inaugural race for Disneyland and I’m in on it! Every so often Disney, either land or world launch new races. I have participated in two so far, the Everest Challenge, which was a 5k scavenger hunt that was at night and went through Animal Kingdom. It was fun, we started in the parking lot and headed into the park and a few times they had signs that said “Quiet, the animals are sleeping”.

The next race was the Disney Enchanted 10k, this was part of an inaugural race series as well, there was a 10k and half marathon that made up the Glass Slipper challenge. This one started way too early in the morning, what was i thinking? I know I told you about that one.

Well, there was a Marvel Super Hero run that i saw and didn’t sign up for this year, but when this Star Wars Rebel Challenge came up, I so had to get in on it! I had decided that I wanted to do another half marathon at some point and get in on a Disney one at that and how could I turn down this opportunity!

I am going to be running the 10k on Saturday, way too early and the Half Marathon on Sunday, way to early, but I’m going to do it! And…then I will find another half marathon because…if you do two half marathons in one year, one at Disneyworld and one at Disneyland, you get a coast to coast medal! The more bling the better!

I am also going to start training because what I really want to do is run the entire thing! I am going to do my best and I know I will finish, but what I really want to do is run the entire thing! That’s been a goal of mine for a while, to run a full 5k, so i am going to start small and get that accomplished and move on to the next and bigger and better.

I will be telling you more and more about it as I make my journey! Thanks for always being my support

http://www.rundisney.com/star-wars-half-marathon/

{June 9, 2014} It’s definitely spring…drive slow around a lake!

The hotel I am at is on Briarwood Circle and part of the road has a little lake, right near the hotel.

As anyone knows when your office is near some water or maybe your apartment complex or your home, you know spring brings new life. New growth on trees, new flowers and new two legged fuzzy things, so cute!

And, as you also have experienced, the geese, more than the ducks, will just walk across, doesn’t matter when and they saunter or waddle and you can just wait for them because they will not move out of the way or any faster!

I was coming back from my walk and as I turned the corner, I saw two families of geese, one with wee babies and another with teenagers! It’s great to see how they function together and follow their parents.

Happy Spring and good luck crossing the road!

{June 8, 2014} I slept…ahhhh

What a nice feeling! I slept for eight whole hours in a row!

As you know, I sleep about 4, maybe six hours a night, if I’m lucky. When I’m tired, I will catch up and today was one of those days.

So, you know that last night, I worked from 4pam-6am, tonight I’m on 6pm-6am. After my shift “yesterday” [until I go to sleep, it’s still technically the day before, to me] I got back to the hotel about 7, taked to Debra and Sean at the front desk, told them I was going to pass out and headed upstairs.

I got into the room,put the ‘Do Not Disturb” sign on the door!, set the alarm for 4pm, submitted my time for the week, took a quick shower to rinse the day away, got into some comfy jammies, closed the blinds and put a towel on the air conditioning unit so it would block out the light between the curtain and the unit, it was now about 7:30. Then I pulled back the covers, climbed into bed, pulled the covers up and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I woke up about 12:30pm, looked at the clock and said, no thank you! rolled over and began watching my eyelids again. It was about 3:30pm that I liesurely opened my eyes, looked at the time, stretched and smiled. I felt GREAT! Sleeping until my body said it was time to get up. I was refreshed and ready to greet the day!

Guess what I’m going to do at 6am Monday? The same thing!!!

Bottom line…don’t wake me before it’s time!

{June 7, 2014} The night shift…

Is rough, just saying.

For those of you who work the night shift and it’s your life, more power to ya! It’s not for me. Let me ‘splain.

As you know I am in Michigan on a project and Train-The-Trainer, or T3 for those ‘in the know’ is complete, train the end user is complete, of course there will be some new hire training and people who might have missed, maybe they were on vacation or out sick.

Now…it’s time for Go-Live! Flip the switch and it’s magic, new application.

Go-live started at 3am this morning, which was just before I was falling asleep last night, I was not due to be here until 4pm, and here I am, 4pam-6am, just at three hours left to my shift.

I normally work during the day, so overnight is not always the easiest when you’re not used to it. If you’ve been working nights, once you get used to it, you’re golden, but if you’re not…

I’ve done go-live implementations before and after a while you get used to the crazy hours, hospitals being 24/7. Today, you know I’m on 4p-6a, tomorrow, 6p-6a and then next week I’m on 6a-6p. I would rather be on the 6a-6p schedule, when we teach classes they are generally 7a-4p, you have to be there at 6a to prep for the class, so not a far stretch.

As we know, I have a bit of insomnia, so I am usually falling asleep somewhere between 2 and 4am, and since I’m nocturnal, it’s not too bad this overnight stuff, but the first time is a doozie, I don’t have the option of falling asleep if I want to.

It’s all good, soon I will go to the hotel, close the curtains tight, crawl under the covers and zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

If anyone even thinks about trying to wake me too soon…

{June 4, 2014} Sixteen Candles…Love!

Who doesn’t love the movie Sixteen Candles?

Well, especially if you grew up in the 80’s. And you’re a girl. Not that guys don’t watch it, but I think more girls have an attachment to this movie and I apologize if I’ve offended anyone.

If you don’t know this story, it’s about Samantha, a high schooler who starts her sixteenth birthday with not even a fizzle, everyone has forgotten because all focus is on her sister’s upcoming wedding. If it can go wrong, it will, just one thing after another.

We have Sam, played by Molly Ringwald, who feels invisible and is in love with Jake Ryan, the popular hunky guy who is dating a vapid self-centered popular girl who only like the status of the relationship. The cast is rounded out by some other great actors, Anthony Michael Hall, who plays the king of the freshman geeks, John Cusack plays one of his “back up singers”, Paul Dooley plays Sam’s dad and Joan Cusack plays a very small role that you wouldn’t know she was in it if you weren’t looking.

This is one of those movies that no matter what, if you own it, as soon as it comes on tv, you have to watch it. Speaking of owning it, there is a scene in the movie that they show when it’s on tv, but it’s not on the dvd or vhs, it’s the scene where Jake is reading a note that he found, has personal information of Sam’s, in the lunchroom, not on the dvd, what gives?

This is a great movie that makes me nostalgic and happy when I watch it and I could almost quote the movie word for word and there are some great lines in it, there are far too many for me to get started You can relate to some of the mishaps that Sam has, especially as a teenager.

And who among us hasn’t wished that Jake Ryan would come to pick us up, wherever, in his red Porsche and take us back to his house to eat ice cream cake sitting cross legged on the dining room table as he leans in and…

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088128/?ref_=nv_sr_1

{June 3, 2014} A lot to say, but…

Nothing to talk about.

Did you ever have that feeling that you want to talk about something but don’t know where to start? I know, I know, those that know me, and now you, my readers know me pretty well, you know I never seem to run out of things to say and admittedly, that is true. For example, right now, I am blathering on about having nothing to say, which, by my word count in this post is just not true.

There are some things that annoyed me today and other things made me laugh, so I guess the day evened out in the end. I’m doing fine, just don’t feel like blogging, but didn’t I just do that by rambling endlessly? [well, almost endlessly]

Drats…foiled again!

{May 31, 2014} I did it…again!

Surprise number two! I couldn’t tell you, I wasn’t sure if you’d keep a secret!

So, after last night’s surprise for my sister, today there was another! First, I got up way too early for a Saturday morning, but EJS was surprised and excited to see me and when I got out of the shower, MGS was up and confused and then excited.

I had spoken with ACS about throwing a surprise party for GES about two weeks ago and finally on Monday I sent out the e-vite and people responded like crazy! So how to keep her occupied until everyone gets there? She sort of took care of that, she was having a Silpada jewelry party from 9-11.

Not exactly keeping her out of the house, but we had everyone grouped on the front lawn at 11:30 to surprise her and surprise her we did! We really tried to keep everyone out of sight, but she saw someone she knew shouldn’t be there and thought, now why am I seeing him? Slowly she began to see everyone else and then came outside and we sang happy birthday. It really was a great surprise!

Someone said “only at the S house, could you send out an invite in Monday and have around 50 people show up with food in hand to have a party!”And it’s true! Everyone arrived about 11:30 and were gone by 2:30, it was perfect!

She really was surprised and it felt so good to feel the love and know that if the tables were reversed she’d be there first thing!

I surprised my sister! I surprised my sister!

Email Subscription

What was I thinking?