My Random Musings | Peaches Prattlings

{June 24, 2014} More holiday shopping done!

I love finding deals on things I know people will like.

This helps my gift closet grow and when it comes time for the holidays, I am either done or very close to being done. This makes me very happy and it’s something my mom was great at and she passed that skill down to GES and I. I have accomplished a lot, gotten gifts for people and when November/December rolls around, I don’t have to spend a lot of money all at once! Score!

When I moved to Colorado and got a storage unit, guess what went into the storage unit first, as in the back of the unit? DUH! So, that means starting over and I think I told you how I did that one day at Tuesday Morning, it was a great start!

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been going into a few stores when I needed something and found some great deals and I am so excited about them! I get tickled when I see something that screams “ooh, ___ would love that!”

So, now I have things for my gift closet, but I’m in a hotel! Um…any ideas what I should do with this stuff!? Who cares! I’m ahead of the game! Go me!

{June 23, 2014} Friends in pain

It’s hard when your friends are in pain.

You want to be there for them, help them through whatever it is, take the pain away and make it right again for them, even tell them it’s going to be ok, maybe even want to tell them what they should do.

Unfortunately, all we can do is be there, listen, be a sounding board, let them talk through the issues and their concerns and if they want our opinions or advice, we give it, otherwise, we stay silent. I know that is something that I am not great at, but want to be better at, staying silent, it’s not easy, I’m a fixer, I want to make everyone happy and take the pain away.

To all my friends who are experiencing something unpleasant, making them unhappy, please know that you have friends who care about you and no matter how much you think you’re alone in what you’re going through, you’re not, we love you and will be here when you’re ready to talk to us.

{June 20, 2014} Rain Rain Go Away…Didn’t stop us though!

As the saying goes…”Come again some other day”! There are things we want to do and you are ruining them! Not completely, but still.

Wednesday night there was a huge storm, it rained all day and well into the evening. It was so bad that when I went to pick up KS to go to work, from the front door of the hotel to the car I got soaked. I was wearing khaki pants and when I got in the car, I was so wet, they were dark brown in front! Apparently it’s the rainy season, why? We’ve had snow, now rain? How about some nice even keeled weather?

Today it rained most of the day, which was fine for me, I was at the hospital working, but for CKM, she was running in between the raindrops! She decided she was going to go to the Archaeological Museum, Art Museum and Science Museum, she’s a museum kind of girl. It was easy to find parking, but dodging the rain drops is not that easy.

After work, we met back at the hotel to change and head out. There is an arts festival going on right now in Ann Arbor and we were going to go to hear a band play, but they got rained out, so we decided to go grab some food and Irish Pub fare it was! We went to Conner O’Neills for some futball [it was on, Honduras was playing Ecuador, Ecuador won, go Ecuador! Boy those fans are fanatic! We went for futball, good food and best of all, good company. it was yummy! http://www.conoroneills.com/annarbor/

After dinner we walked around town, did some window shopping, found some fun treats for ourselves and CKM found lots of goodies to take home with her.One of the places was Cherry Republic, nothing but things made with cherries, for miles! And tastings, chocolate covered cherries, cherry soda, cherry wine, cherry tea, you name it, it was probably made with cherries!

After shopping, we decided it was time for dessert so we got in the car and headed for…you guessed it, Insomnia Cookies! I have been talking enough about this place that CKM had to try it for herself. We got a few cookies and some ice cream, sat and enjoyed our dessert.

Now we’re at the hotel relaxing, checking email and talking to you! Who knows what tomorrow holds, I am done work at 6pm and CKM is going exploring until then! Then we are doing something fun together. Can’t tell you what that is yet [I don’t know to tell the truth!] but I will tell you all about it tomorrow!

Until tomorrow, have a great night!

http://a2sf.org/desktop/

{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…

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