Archives for October 2008

Career Day

October 14, 2008 by Amy 7 Comments

Career Day. That one day in school where your teacher didn’t teach and someone from the community came in and talked about how important college was. Except tomorrow? I’m going to be one of those people from the community. Yeah, I got invited to speak at our high school’s Career Day and it has me feeling every single year of my age. It also has me feeling a little nervous. I’m just not a huge fan of public speaking. As I said in this post, my neck and chest are going to turn all red and it’ll get worse if someone points it out and wow, I just hope I can think of something to say. So to help prepare me, I’m going to make a few notes here. My career history (I had other jobs but these I think were actually somewhat related to my actual career):

I started my career in an internship at a local real estate. I really ended up being a realtor’s personal assistant but I learned about business and developed a few Access Databases that helped them perform their job. I was able to solidify my desire to become a programmer.
I was offered an official internship as a programmer at a local manufacturing company at the end of my freshman year of college. I did everything from help start the company’s Intranet to working on manufacturing programs drawing diagrams in a very cold computer room.
When I graduated college, I left there after being accepted as a contractor at a contracting company…same one I’m with now and the same one my dad used to work for and was able to give me a good recommendation.

What I learned from above:

Internships are good
College degrees are better
Connections are the best

What I do

Program computers LOL. My dad never really explained it well what he did with work growing up and now I see why. It’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t familiar with programming at all! Thankfully today’s teens are really familiar with computers.
Go to meetings and talk about what I’m going to program. A lot.
Document what I program. A lot.

I’m specifically going to talk about working from home. The advantages (obvious):

Don’t have to get ready
No commute time
Home with my kids
Don’t eat out a lot
Don’t get distracted by people pulling you into many conversations

Disadvantages

Hard to build vital relationships with coworkers
Difficult to participate during meetings
File transfers/jobs are slower
Not in the office when you have computer trouble
Can be easily distracted

Ok, and that concludes Career Day with Amy Bennett. You can wake up now.

Productive Day

October 13, 2008 by Amy Leave a Comment

Wow. Today has been a busy day! But the good kind…got a TON of stuff done around the house. The kids were up pretty early but I finally slid out of bed at 9 and quickly got the kids breakfast and all of us ready. I promised them a trip to the park and MIL was supposed to get them for the day so I wanted to fit it in first thing. It was an absolutely gorgeous day today and I enjoyed our time there. MIL came and took over about 11 and I came home and got busy!

Nothing exciting..just dishes, laundry, bills and a trip to the grocery store. But it feels great! When Emma was first born and Scott was off in police academy during the weeks, I took Mondays off and worked longer hours Tuesday through Friday just to recuperate from the weekends. I’m thinking that more Mondays like this would be FANTASTIC!

Meeting of two Bloggy Friends

October 12, 2008 by Amy 4 Comments

Lately there seems to be onslaught of meeting people I’ve met online first. Yesterday was yet another occasion. For regular readers and especially commentators, you may recognize Carolyn. She is a fellow One Tree Hill fan and has been a great supporter of this site (and me) for a few months even though she doesn’t blog herself. She lives in Canada and is currently on vacation at a local beach. Her, husband and her two children drove four hours yesterday to come visit us!

We showed them around here and visited for a time before heading out to the mall for a bit to find some Converse shoes for her daugher (you know I had to help another female looking for a pair of shoes!). After coming home, the kids played and the men chatted while I cooked dinner. We had a late, but good dinner together and then played some Wii and had a cup of coffee before they headed back to the beach.

I have to say it’s amazing meeting someone you meet online first. It’s this weird mix of being awkward at first and yet knowing that you know so much about one another. We quickly settled in and were like old friends. The girls took so well to her daugher and even Carolyn. By the end of the night, they were curled up beside her and she read books to them.

It was a lovely visit and I hope to take up their offer to visit them in Canda soon!

Disney On Ice

October 11, 2008 by Amy 3 Comments

The movies highlighted were Cars, Little Mermaid, Lion King and Tinkerbell. I’m not a huge fan of Tinkerbell and haven’t seen that movie. I already saw the Little Mermaid when we saw the princesses on ice. And the kids aren’t huge Cars fans. So honestly I don’t think I appreciated much of what we saw. BUT the kids did. They had a wonderful time. I don’t think Lexi quit clapping except for the small scary parts of Lion King. Everyone did a great job and it was done with true Disney quality.

#HBC New York Rundown

October 10, 2008 by Amy 6 Comments

I promise…last post on NY. If you want our trip in old-style journaling every second of what we did, check out Heather’s post. I particularly liked this paragraph:

The shoot was AMAZING. Everything you could imagine a dream photo shoot in NYC could be, this was. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of my sister, other than at the births of my neices. She rocked. In her gentle way that she does everything she picked out an outfit (the one I told her over and over to use) and then sat and got her makeup done. It looked flawless. Then the posing. I’ve seen some of her “home” posing pictures…I’m not sure where this came from but she nailed it. I’ve seen my BFF from school go from normal girl to model girl and it’s like a light switch gets turn on…I had never seen this with my sister and I felt like a deer caught in headlights. My sissy was HOT. and she knew it. When she had done the shoot for a magazine awhile ago this confidence wasn’t there….here, she was a superstar. I failed to get pictures that really showed off what was going on at the right angles but trust me, the pics were awesome. So with the pop of a ballon it was over and we were “free” to go but I think Amy and me didn’t want it to end.

Grey’s Anatomy and The Office Review

October 10, 2008 by Amy 3 Comments

The Office

I kept finding myself saying I love Jim and Dwight! They are hilarious together. That stopwatch was hilarious. And that look Dwight gave after his 19 minute break? Hilarious.
Michael blocking the copier? Hilarious.
Corporate okaying the discounted paper? Hilarious.
Michael taking the coffee pot from the kitchen? Hilarious.
Michael telling her at dinner that he doesn’t want his “family” to think their jobs are based on performance? Hilarious.

Great episode but where was our Pam?

Grey’s

Whew, I felt like Grey’s hit their stride and thank goodness it only took two weeks instead of like 13 episodes like last season. There were really only two scenes though that I must point out.

Meredith and Derek deciding at the end to let Izzie and Alex stay. Her asking Derek if he still loved her. And he does. And they hugged. I don’t know what better name to call him than his given McDreamy.
Alex’s “Hello.” That is Shonda Rhimes’ at her best writing (placement not really the creativity or lack thereof of “hello” LOL) and Justin Chambers’ at his best acting. Loved. it.

#HBC The leftovers

October 10, 2008 by Amy 15 Comments

OK, these are a few points I had written on my list that don’t really make up a whole post but as a listmaker, I feel as if I must post on them.

What is with all the making out? We saw more than a few couples straight up french kissing on the sidewalk. One guy had his hand down his girl’s pants in the back. Couldn’t wait to get to the room? What? Is this normal?
The talent we saw in the subway…are these scheduled? Are there rules about who gets to perform and for how long?
I couldn’t help but notice how many people there were walking around and one might think New York would be chaotic but chaotic is the very last thing it is. The people and cars move in this fluid movement with their own set of rules that I think actually would be beautiful to watch from the air.
Why can’t you touch money? People about jumped out of their skin when Heather tried to help a guy beside her at the newspaper stand and handed the lady his money he had laid down that she couldn’t quite reach. She said you did the right thing but we’re taught not to touch other people’s money unless we’re asked. Really? I’ve never heard of anything like that.
I realize families are raised in the city but there was something so odd about seeing a child..especially a baby..in the city. They seemed like polar opposites. And I don’t know how moms do it with strollers and the subway. Seriously.
Just FYI, we saw this guy with a Puggle. It’s a mix between a Pug and a Beagle and it was the cutest thing ever!
There were so many gay people. Not trying to weird about it or anything but there’s just not that many openly gay people around here. It was just odd to see two men walk hand in hand down the street. It just doesn’t happen here.
I mentioned the Apple store briefly in a tweet but let me just say the Apple store is cool. If you’re an Apple fan or even just an fan of architecture, go see it.

I think this wraps up my series on #HBC. I’m sure you’re breathing a sigh of relief. Good for you, because I’m not. Now I have absolutely nothing to write about except car lines and dirty houses again.

#HBC The Photo Shoot

October 9, 2008 by Amy 18 Comments

Alright, we’re on the home stretch, people. I promise there is an end in sight to all these #HBC posts. Now, I COULD come up with about 4 more posts if you’d like but I might just squish some random things I noticed into one last post after this. Anyway. Let’s finally talk about the reason I went — to get a picture with BusyDad the shoot.

(Let me stop here to say BusyDad definitely lives up to his hot blogger name and I really do mean I have a little bloggy crush on him but I want to be clear–mostly for my mother’s sake because she worries about my little crushes, bless her heart–that I love my husband and think he is hot as well and I know BusyDad has a wife that is super-duper gorgeous and he has absolutely no reason to pay any attention to my blogging nonsense. Just having a little fun. Except I really do mean that he’s hot. And I really did make Heather take our picture even though she didn’t want to.)

OK, so you’ve read about how long it took to get there. Sarah was waiting for us downstairs and brought us up. When we got there, BackpackingDad was getting his picture taken, his wife was sitting on the couch along with the makeup artist Jillian. BusyDad was on his laptop, Bill and Meg were working on the photos and Jane’s parents Barry and Sharon were sitting on the sidelines watching everything. Me? I walk in and while I planted a smile on my face and was truly excited to be there, my hands were shaking. I’d worked myself up into a tizzy even though I didn’t want to admit it and couldn’t really pinpoint one thing I was nervous about. I’d given myself a headache for about 24 hours and I was feeling it.

First order of business was picking out my outfit though. I laid out about half my clothes. And by the way, I took more than three outfits really. Here’s what I took:

black dress pants
white dress pants
black shorts
dark jeans
both black shirts
pink flowered shirt
green shirt
blue dress

That’s like a total of about 20 outfits if I mix and match. Do you think *I* could have actually made a decision and picked 3 or less?? NO!! I get only halfway through my selections and Bill says what’s that blue thing hanging in there? As soon as I pull it out he (and maybe Jane/Sarah) says that’s it and while I’m sure Heather was saying, “See, told ya!” Y’all, seriously. And I mean, seriously, was *this close* to leaving that dress in the hotel room. We even talked about it before I left. Heather was like, just take it in case!!

So off I went to the ba throom to change. I came back and got my hair ready with shaky hands. I dropped the top to my hair paste on the floor, literally almost burned my face with my flat-iron and Dani looked at me and said, “OK, let’s calm down and get it together.” And I think I did as soon as Jillian started doing my makeup. She says either people hate it or love it. I loved it. I love when anybody ever does anything for me (service love language anyone?). And having a makeup artist make my face look good? Well, that just takes the cake. I relaxed and got to the point where I was getting sleepy. I think the tension slowly went out right there in the makeup chair.

There are only a few times in your life that you know without a shadow of a doubt you look your best. Maybe not THE best but YOUR best.

That was one of them. I stuck on my silver high heels and said where do you want me?

I’m usually really, really nervous in front of people. My neck and face turn red and my hands shake and when people notice, it gets worse. But not then. I stood or sat where they told me and looked at the camera with a confidence I wasn’t sure quite sure I knew I had. I joked with Scott when I got home that all of our photo shoots at home had paid off LOL. No, not every photo was perfect but I didn’t expect it to be. I’m sure everyone’s supportive compliments helped put me at ease but I don’t know. I’ve never been less nervous in my life and the worst thing I heard all day was Bill saying, “OK, I think we got it.” I think I might have dropped the phrase, “I could try another outfit” one too many times. I literally could do that every day of my life. Yes, my knees hurt and my ankles hurt from standing like I was for 30 minutes but it was so worth it.

Going back to the bathroom and changing into corduroy pants and printed tee felt a lot like midnight for Cinderella. I don’t mean to be overly dramatic for the sake of the post but honestly, those 45 minutes or so were really some of the best 45 minutes of my life. I have never felt more confident, more free, more HOT than almost any other time that I can recall. Seriously.

My blog isn’t very popular and I know I’m not the hottest person ever but you know what? That calendar is going to have one of the best moments of my life captured in it. And you know, I’m not going to apologize for it.

Thank, you Sarah and Jane for coming up with this crazy idea and no matter what people might think of this whole hot blogger calendar or how many sell, you helped make a little Southern girl feel like a princess for a day. And that, my friends, is hot. (Who knew I could channel John McCain AND Paris Hilton in one sentence??)