Mom Update

My mom is out of surgery and doing well. Thanks to all of you out there in blog land that sent me your well wishes - it was very sweet.

So drove in and out of Boston today with my dad. I love him but MAN is he a lot of work. He is 69 and losing his hearing so he thinks he's muttering under his breath and believe me he's not. His way of dealing with being in an uncomfortable situation is to say inappropriate (but often funny) things. Some people take this well some don't. By the end of the trip I was exhausted - he is, as I said, a lot of work. But he's my dad and I love him.

Wrote three pages while I was in the hospital waiting room so that's good. I can't tell you how happy I am to not be at work. I'm going to make my decision about staying or going by next Friday the 16th. I'm still mulling it over.

OK kids have a good rest of your day.

24 days

Headache

I have a killer headache today so my brain doesn't seem to be able to come up with an interesting post. I stole this off Sara's site - it's kind of the easy way out but oh well.

Four things about me that you may or may not have known, in no particular order:

Four Jobs I have had in my life:
1. HR Manager
2. Office Manager
3. Bartender
4. Indie Record Company (you did everything)

Four Movies I have watched more than once:
1. An American President
2. Princess Bride
3. Love Actually
4. Dazed & Confused

Four places I have lived:
1. North Attleboro, MA
2. Kittery, ME
3. Montpelier, VT
4. Providence, RI

Four TV Shows I Watch:
1. Bones
2.
3. No other TV until school is done
4.

Four places I have been:
1. Santa Fe, New Mexico
2. San Diego, CA
3. New Orleans, LA
4. Orlando, FL

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Pizza
2. French Fries
3. Cheese
4. Chicken

Four people who email me regularly:
1. Kim
2. Pat
3. Brian
4. Amy RR

Four places I'd rather be right now:
1. curled up in bed or on the couch
2. anywhere with either Mike Lowell or Josh Beckett
3. In a recording studio with Trent Reznor
4. On an island with no phones - no computers

Things I am looking forward to this year:
1. Turning 40
2. A really low key Thanksgiving/Christmas
3. The lecture I'm going to tonight (yes headache and all)
4. Doing interviews with Veterans for my thesis

Oh, I amost forgot...

I also have an art show in January. Not working would allow me to properly get ready for this too. I need to create, mat, frame & price a bunch of stuff. I have no idea when I'm supposed to fit that in.


25 days....

Short Week

So this week I only have to work 2 days. I wish it were for a better reason (you know, like vacation) but the truth is my mom is having pretty serious surgery on Wednesday and since my father is pretty useless when it comes to this stuff I am taking 7-10 days off to stay with her during the day. The doctor does not want her left alone for the first 2 weeks. She'll be pretty drugged up and will need help getting up and walking.
It's a routine surgery, but still, anytime someone goes under anesthesia there could be trouble - and wait until my mom starts to wake up. She does not react well to anesthesia, not at all. It's going to be a long- slow recovery. 6-8 weeks. Hopefully after the first 2 weeks she'll be OK to be alone part of the day.

Even though this is going to interfere with Thanksgiving, Christmas and more importantly MY 40Th BIRTHDAY. I'm glad she is finally having it done. She's been putting off the surgery for over a year and finally her doctor said "enough! You will have this done now!!!

More selfishly this couldn't have come at a better time. I am seriously hating my job right now. So to take a week off even if it is to care for someone who is sick looks pretty good to me. It'll be a lot of sitting at her house - I'm envisioning getting a lot of school work done and that's also a bonus. So since I brought up my job I'm trying to make a big decision here and I'd love your input out there in blog land.

I currently work 4 days a week as an HR Manager at a Metals Manufacturing plant. We were bought last year by a private equity firm. We haven't seen many changes but I think we will start to see them soon as we are not producing or shipping material at a good rate. We can sell it but we can't seem to make it or get it to the customer on time...Right now we have an 86% on time delivery rate. That sucks ASS. Our goal is 99%. We have a guy running out traffic dept. who talks a good game but doesn't get anything done..I hate people like that. Just shut the hell up and do your job. Stop throwing people under the bus and take responsibility for your dept. Jackass.




Anyway - I'm also a full time student. I'm currently writing my thesis which is due on March 1, 2008 and will be presented sometime later that month. It is by far the hardest thing I've ever done. It is taking a ton of time - and I'm not getting the quality of work that I really want due to time constraints. So I started to get stressed out and said to myself "what would I have to do no to work until after graduation".
That sounded fabulous to me so I started to think about it. These are the options I came up with:


1. I can get a student loan in the amount of 10-15k (in addition to my other loans) and quit work and just do my school work. Start looking for a job in Feb in the field of mental health and just go from there.


2. Start looking for another job now while I'm trying to do my thesis and work.

3. Get another HR job until I start Graduate school in 2008. A job that pays better that this one.

4. Just stay put and see how much I get done during my mother's recovery and then go from there.

Of course my brain says take the loan you fool and do your school work. But for once in my life I'm trying to make a logical decision not an emotional one.

Any thoughts??

Question For Bloggers

Who do you guys use to track the traffic on your site? I'm currently using the free version of sitemeter. Does anyone have any other suggestions that aren't a million dollars a month?

Thanks!

Digital Music

I could take the easy way out and write about how good it is to be a New England sports fan right now. We just won the World Series - the Celtics look good- the Bruins are doing well and of course we have the game today with Indy. It should be a bastards). I'm going to watch the game with some friends - and that will be fun. But that's not what is on my mind right now...

There is a yet another big uproar about digital files being swapped and music being downloaded for free. The big record labels are fighting for all they are worth to keep the few pennies that they are making coming in. They don't seem to get it - it's OVER. Stick a fork in you - you're done, so just get over it and figure out how to deal. You've held artist's and their music captive long enough with your "recoupable" cost bullshit. Don't forget I worked in the industry for years. I saw what was charged back to the artist and it was SHAMEFUL. It's amazing any artist's make any money at all.

I remember years back when the group TLC declared bankruptcy and the whole world was like WHAT? How can they have no money? It was pretty easy actually. Massive tours, ridiculously high tech videos, management costs and a bad deal. That's all it takes.

So now artists like Trent Reznor are giving the major labels a big old "fuck you" and fulfilling their contracts and then going out on their own. Now you might say that independent artists have been doing this right along - and that's true. But to have an artist of Reznor's caliber do it - it's bound to raise a few alarms. Now not only is he doing it but he is helping other artist's sell their music without a labels backing. I've got news for you - when someone like Reznor says "buy this" - his minions buy it. I know this for sure because I bought it. Yes I'm a minion and DAMN proud of it.

You can go to www.nin.com and buy the new Saul Williams' album. You can pay $5 or you can get it for free. The difference between this and Radiohead is that Saul isn't going to sell out and sign a deal with a label after he does this. The other big difference is the quality of the digital files is far superior.

I don't know about you but the big downer for me in all of this is having all of my music in files on my computer. I miss artwork. I've missed it since the invention of the CD. Remember those great sleeves that the albums came in? Who out there had Led Zepplin's Physical Graffiti? It was so cool how the sleeve played into the album cover.







Or Houses of the Holy - artwork of all those strange naked blondish people crawling up the rocky mountain. It was strange - scary and beautiful all at the same time.

I'd like to this that digital music is just a phase - but I'd just be fooling myself. I do buy digital music - but if I like it enough I buy the CD. I want to own the music, I want to touch the case and read any little liner notes that they are able to put on there. I downloaded Year Zero on iTunes and then went and bought the actual CD and I'm glad I did. The only thing that could be better is vinyl - but I don't even have a turntable.

Here is another album cover memory. My first favorite band was Kiss. When I was in junior high they all released solo albums. The covers were completely black with just their faces in full makeup. They KICKED ASS. I immediately went out a bought Paul Stanley's and Ace Frehley's. They were my boys. I didn't care about the other two. I had them on vinyl and 8 track (for the car!). Anyway - back to modern day - this memory was brought on by "Back In The New York Groove" playing on my iTunes.




Everyone out there should buy Year Zero. It shows you in no uncertain terms where our country is headed. As I saw on another blog (I can't remember whose it was) - It's not fascism if we do it. Ain't that the truth.

26 days and counting....

Hurricane Winds - So Disappointing

As I was scurrying around my condo last night getting ready for my workshop I get a phone call. "You aren't driving to the cape tomorrow are you?" my good friend Kim asked me. Now Kim is not an overly cautious stay inside kind of person, so if she had concerns I decided I needed to look into them.

I had heard the weather was going to be lousy - remnants of Hurricane Noel and all that rot. But really hadn't given it a second thought. So I called Paul - the guy I was renting a small cottage in Provincetown from - and he agreed that traveling down there was not a good idea. Sea's are predicted to be high and the winds are supposed to be bad. So I shoot an email to the center in Truro and let them know I'm a maybe at best. You never know, sometimes these huge storms go out to sea.

This morning I wake up early and look outside. Definitely foreboding skies - the wind is picking up but it hasn't stopped raining. I wonder if I should just chance it but then remember that I no longer have a place to stay. I'm really torn - I get up make some waffles and sit down to look at the weather. Well - it didn't go out to sea and they are predicting 60-80 mph gusts. OK that makes my decision for me.

So I do what any self-respecting almost 40 year old woman does on a rainy Saturday morning (no,not THAT) - I went back to bed and didn't wake up until 11am. I haven't felt this rested in weeks. It just tells me how tired I really was.

Just to give people who aren't familiar with the area - here is an aerial map of the Cape Cod:

The place I was staying was at the very very end. It's the absolute last town on the Cape and the town where the workshop was is right before that. Here is what the radar is currently showing for the storm.





I'm disappointed to say the least. Hopefully the center will give me a credit but I couldn't find anything on their website that said anything about cancellations. Ah well, we'll just have to wait and see.

Now I have these two unexpected days. No one but Kim even is aware that I am in town. My plan is to work on my thesis - I have a ton due by Veterans Day. So I better get after it.

Tyler & George aren't you glad I didn't pick either of you to come with me?

If you live on the East Coast - stay dry!

Oh yeah....27 more days!

Friday

I like Fridays for a lot of different reasons. The obvious one is that it's the day before the weekend - duh. Now that I don't work on Thursdays, Fridays are much much easier to handle. Add to that the fact that my good friend Kim comes in and works on Fridays and it makes for a much better day.

Last night's art class was a complete bust in my opinion (for me anyway). Sometimes you just have a class where you don't have it. I didn't like anything I did and was ready to throw them in the trash - but the cool thing about watercolor is that you can use the other side of the paper. My art teacher (Kim from above) wants me to take a more direct approach in my work. Frankly I was too tired to process it last night - I'll think about it this weekend and figure out just what the heck he meant.

I'm so excited about this weekend. I'm going down to Truro which is all the way down near the tip of Cape Cod to take a workshop in Encaustic Painting. One day when I was trolling Ebay looking at original art I came across this artist. I loved her work so I sent her a quick email complimenting her. This led to a short conversation which led me to research what "encaustic" painting is. Basically it is painting with a wax based paint that is kept warm. As you can see she does all of her work on wood. I love the idea of painting on something that doesn't have any give. That's why on yesterday's to do list I had to go to Lowes and get some plywood cut up.

Now the bad news is that Saturday is supposed to be crappy weather (remnants of Hurricane Noel) and that's when I'm driving down. I'm leaving super early (like 6am) so that I can go to the place I rented first and dump my stuff. Hopefully I can get down there before the bad weather starts up. There is something cozy about being down the cape in a cottage with the wind and rain making all sorts of noise around you all night long. Now if I only had a boy to take with me...oh well that's a post for another day.

Birthday Countdown - 28 days until the big 4-0!

First Day Part II

So far I think I've hit everything on my list except studying...isn't that the way?? It took me much longer to find the frame place and find my way back to the highway than it should of. I HATE driving in Quincy. It seems like it should be so easy but it never is. So just to recap I:

1. Went to the tailors

2. Went to Lowes (forgot the hinges) but got the plywood and got it cut for free!

3. Went to Quincy and picked up my work that had been framed. Spent another $50 on supplies (more than half of that on paper) and then dropped another $200+ for the framing. It's freakin expensive. I hate having things professionally framed because then you have to charge more to cover that cost. I'm only have a few things done for my show. The rest I'll do my self.

4. Stopped at my sister's to get stuff out of my oil painting bag.

5. Went to my aunt's and got her keys.

6. Came to my parents and did laundry. Now I'm waiting for the dryer to be done so I can go to art class. I suppose I could be studying now but somehow this seemed so much more important.

Next I'm off to have dinner (never did get lunch) and then go to art class.
Hopefully I'll have some good work to share tomorrow.

Have a good evening.

First Day

So today is the first day of NaBloPoMo. When I signed up writing everyday seemed like it should be easy right? I mean sometimes I post two or three times a day. But I think it's the same old thing - when you HAVE to do it it's another whole story. So today I thought I would let you in on my super exciting life. I don't work on Thursdays (I've got a great deal of a 4 day workweek right now due to school) and usually I try to spend time at my desk working on schoolwork- but not today. Here are the things I have to do today:

First pack up laundry and art class stuff because I won't be coming back here.

1. Bring three pairs of pants to the tailors - have I mentioned I'm SHORT?

2. Go to Lowes and return extra hinges. Pick up plywood and have it cut into various size panels for my Encaustic Painting workshop (more about that later) that I'm taking down the cape this weekend.

3. Go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and pick up a better mirror

4. Stop at my sisters and pick up my oil painting art bag

5. Drive to Quincy and pick up the 5 pieces that I had framed.

6. Have lunch at some point.

7. Go to my aunt's house and pick up her keys as I'll be staying there during the first part of my mom's recovery from surgery.

8. Go to parents and do laundry and school work since it's right around the corner from my aunt's and in the same town as art class.

So in my defense I do have some school work planned! Boy do I live like a Rock Star or waht?

OK - need to start the day.

OH and I'm beginning a birthday countdown - 29 days until the big 4-0!

Have a great day everyone~