February 29, 2008

Food

To help beat the winter blues, we decided here at the office to have food days once a week. We have a team of 5 and each Friday one person is responsible for bringing lunch for everyone. Its been working really well and it sure beats having to come up with something to bring every week.

We've had salad, chili, clam chowder, pasta alfredo, and sub sandwiches. Now its time for round 2.

So what are you doing to beat the winter blues?

February 27, 2008

Fun with Silkie Chicks

My sisters really like them. They like to play house....
....or should I say horse?
Lacy likes to watch them play.
Lacy will even nap with a silkie chick
but, she has to keep one eye open. Just in case.

February 23, 2008

How I Almost Met Phyllis from The Office

So this story begins back in early June. My husband (who was my fiance at the time) and I were at the hotel, where we decided to have our wedding reception. We were meeting with the wedding coordinator to sign papers and make plans. Our meeting went well and we were on our way out the door. Thats when it happened.

I saw a woman that looked exactly like Phyllis Lapin from The Office. I really thought it was her, but my husband wasn't so sure. I took my MP3 / Video player out of my purse. Luckily, I had a few episodes of the show stored there (Yes, I'm a super fan). We started watching an episode fast forwarding, scanning for scenes with her in it. When we found one, we paused, looked at the screen, then looked at the lady in the lobby. I thought we had a match. I mean she looked just like the Phyllis in the episode, except perhaps a little bit thinner in real life. My husband disagreed and stated it wasn't her. Since he didn't think it was her and I was too shy to go up and ask without his support; we left without making contact.

Fast Forward to February. We were getting ready to make a fire in the fire place. He pulls out some old newspaper and guess who is on the cover section.
Phyllis. The paper is from June when they had a special about people from Missouri and the influence their Fathers had on their lives. Turns out she's from Missouri. Her father still lives in the St. Louis area. She had her picture taken for the paper with her dad for an article that was published in June. We saw a lady at a hotel, in early June that looked like Phyllis.

I bet it was her. Next time, I'm getting a picture.

February 19, 2008

Silkie Chicks

We just hatched 4 new chicks and I wanted to show them off. They're so tiny, you can hold it in just one hand. Each one weighs a little less than an ounce.

You can see that they have to go all the way around the egg, so they can break it open. This is called Zipping.


Hatching is hard work and requires many naps.

The sponges kept in the incubator to keep up the humidity level, make great pillows.

This is what the Blue Splash chick looks like when its all dried and fluffed.

Here you can see the Buff Silkie Chick.

These are the two blacks.

Here are all four of our new chicks together. Don't they make a cute family?

February 11, 2008

Blog Tagged

It finally happened. I got blog-tagged by Ron. Here it goes. At least he didn't threaten me with 10 years of bad luck if I don't do it.

The Rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

1. I must have my windows open in a certain order.
Work - Left to right. For work it is Compass, XiPay for refund (they are side by side), next is XiPay for research, Personal e-mail, then any other work-related windows. If Compass gets closed, I will close everything to reopen in the right order.
Home I have firefox with tabs. Tab 1 Meebo, Tab 2 Gmail, Tab 3 Facebook, any remaining tabs are for browsing.

2. I have never used an ATM.
I don't like them, I waitress, so I always have cash. When I do manage to go to the bank, I go see a teller. Usually I mention that I waitress, so nobody questions why I have a big stack of $1 dollar bills.

3. I have almost 200 hours of Paid Time Off.
Yet I will probably drive to work on icy roads tomorrow morning, because I feel guilty calling in. I have only called into work for bad weather one time in my entire life. Plus, I like to use my time off for something fun.

4. I hate Debit cards.
I am constantly dealing with the problems that arise when people put their debit card on file, then get mad when we charge it for their order and it causes overdraft charges. Then people want my company to pay for the charges.
Debit cards also don't offer much protection when it comes to fraud. If someone were going to steal it, they could clean out your account. Credit cards are so much safer.

5. I don't use bookmarks.
I could be reading the longest book in the world and I still would not feel it necessary to mark my page. I don't bend the corner either. I just open the book and flip until I reach the spot I left off.

6. My biggest pet peeve is when people misspell my name.

I can be understanding if people do not see it written out and have to guess. It really bothers me at work, when my first and last name are spelled out, that people write TanJa or TOnya.

I'm not tagging anyone. If you want to do it pretend I told you to.

February 8, 2008

Shootings

I don't often get very political or comment on un-happy world events. Its not that I don't care about them, its just that I'd rather focus on the happy things in life.

Last night I was watching the newest season of Survivor (yay for Fans vs. Favorites) when the news interrupted to state there was a shooting at city hall of a local town. I was a bit annoyed, because that was all the information they gave at the time. Later it came out that they had a town hall meeting that night. One angry businessman decided to "war" with the city council and ended up murdering 5 people before cops killed him. (Note there is a different between murder and kill). Its a sad story. One of the people in the room said they tried to stop the murderer by throwing chairs at him. What an uneven battle, chair vs. pistol.

I was online on Fox News today. Several of the stories were about shootings- a college, city hall. One was about a man who was going to cause havoc at the super bowl (he changed his mind). Recently, I can remember a couple other school shootings and church shootings. Its sad that this keeps happening in our country. The places may seem random, but if you think about it, most of them are places you are not allowed to carry a concealed weapon. No law-abiding citizen is allowed to take a gun into city hall or their school. Its a shame, because police can't be everywhere all the time.

Most people probably think we should have tighter laws on gun ownership, becuase of this. I think the opposite is true. Criminals are criminals they don't follow the law. It doesn't matter to them if they can't purchase one legally, they will find one in illegal ways. I think we should level the playing field a bit.

In Missouri, citizens are allowed to get a license (after taking a class and spending time at the shooting range) to carry a concealed weapon. The people who chose to do this are being responsible. They are the people who follow safety procedures, they are willing to obey the law. I wish more responsible people would feel a duty to serve the general public as protectors. People who go on murdering sprees might be stopped sooner if more people were able to stop them, before they ruined many many lives.

February 6, 2008

Super

Since this week started with Super-bowl Sunday then a Super Tuesday, I can't wait for what other super things are in store.

Sunday, I had to work and since we have to wear our hair up, I do a ponytail with hair ribbons. I try to match them to whatever is going on. Example: At Christmas time I wear red and green. I looked up the team colors so I could cheer for "my favorite sports team" (which was the Giants for that day. I wanted the underdogs to win, because thats what us Americans do). Both teams use red, blue and white. That didn't work so well.
We went to a super bowl party at church, had a keg of root beer, laughed at a couple commercials and that was about it.

Super Tuesday was fun. I L-O-V-E to vote. I've voted in every election since I turned 18 except for one. Cause I vote, I can gripe about the state of our country all I want. If you don't vote, you aren't allowed to whine. I am not so happy with the MO results. Supposedly Missouri is a state where whoever wins tends to be the one to win the election in November