Sunday, August 20, 2006
MOVIN ON UP!
After narrowing it down to three really nice places, I decided where I'm moving to:
Want to see more pix? Go to my Flickr Page to see the condo pix and the street and area I'll be living in. The photos are a little out of order because I'm a dope and haven't figured out how to re-order the photos in Flickr.
I love, love, love this condo! It's an artist's loft and it's in Downtown Lowell - which is fast becoming a cultural mecca. The area is BEAUTIFUL, it's all cobblestone roads and funky latern-lined streets. Everyone who lives in the building is either an artist, musician, or arts lover and they all know each other and regularly have showings in the lobby/gallery area of each floor.
All of these things are either right in my neighborhood, or just steps away: Cafe Paradiso / Fortunato's Steak House / Life Alive Health foods-deli/ The Coffee Mill / Bombay Mahal Indian Cuisine / The old Court Irish Pub and Grill / The Dubliner Pub and Grill / Viet Thai -Vietnamese+Thai food (Sooo Goood) Haus (Unique Gifts) / Barns and Nobel books / Brazilian bakery / Many Authentic Diners / RRR Records (Great Vinyl Selection) / Revolving Museum / Quilt Museum / Lowell Telecommunications (Free Mulit-Media Classes for Lowell residents!)/River walk park (long walking area) / the new Tsongas arena.
I'm just really excited because I think it's such a funky and cool space, and I also think I'll meet a lot of new people and actually be involved in the community I live in.
Now the problem I run into is furniture! Since living at Suzanne's house, the only furniture I have is my bed, a butcher's block, and a kitchen table. I need to buy a living room set and a bunch of other things. But *that* is why I LOVE Craigslist. I am a Craigslist WHORE, and I'm sure I'll find a lot of what I need there. My big items:
*living room set
*bedframe
*console table
*ocassional and end tables
*funky lamps
*art for the walls (I'm actually considering investing in REAL art)
I'm in a whole new world here where I'm going to be renting a nice condo and I'll be doing fairly well financially. And it's all thanks to my kick-ass new job.
I'll be moving in on 9/2...yay!!!
Monday, August 14, 2006
HOW COOL IS MY JOB (AND TECHNOLOGY?)
I've realized that one of the things that I love the most about my job is that I'm brushing up on my Spanish - which I haven't used for YEARS.I took Spanish for about 5 years through middle school and high school. I always loved the language and used to be somewhat fluent in it. I went to college and from that point forward, I rarely used it, so my proficiency became less and less. Until now.
Most of my support work happens via email and live chat. Today I got a dude from Ecuador who spoke ZERO english, so we had to have the conversation in spanish. I opened up babelfish translator, but realized halfway into the conversation that I didn't even need to use it. I understood 90% of what he was saying. I only referenced babelfish when I wasn't sure how to grammatically respond back to him. And that, my friends, was a pretty cool revelation. My spanish is getting better and better through this job!
Of course, all I talk about is money and domain names, but hey...it's a good start!
Adios!
Sunday, August 13, 2006
IT CAN TURN ON A DIME
My friend Susan always says that. She's usually referring to the "love life" dilemma, because she met her husband when she least expected it, got married fairly quickly, and couldn't be happier. Her husband Habib is one of the kindest, sweetest, and most honorable men I've ever met. Everywhere he goes, people just adore him.Sue always says she thought she'd be single forever and BAM! they met and fell instantly in love. And believe me, he ADORES her. They have such a great relationship, and they encourage and challenge each other to be better and that makes them even stronger as a couple. So as Sue says, "It can turn on a dime!"
And it really can. My last entry was a "poor me" sad one, and I deserved to feel sad for a while because a lot of crappy stuff has happened. I know people who suffer from chronic depression, and I feel for them. For me, I get REALLY depressed, and then just need about a week or so to pull myself out of it. I'm lucky that I *can* pull myself out of it. Luckily for me, I'm able to see when the good in life happens - such as it did this week. It did turn on a time. Not the love life, but lots of other great things:
Lots of really great things are happening for the band. We got our first official CD review, and it was pretty damn good! You can read it HERE if you're interested. In addition to that, we're being featured on the front page of a brand new a cappella website: www.acatunes.com along with some big names like The House Jacks. Pretty darn cool!
We've also been agressively pursued by a Canadian Cruise Ship agency. They want us NOW, and they're paying big money. We had to throw together a quick cover-tune CD for them to shop us around with, but it looks pretty exciting. We would do short-run gigs, and they'd fly us to whatever destination the cruise ships were leaving from. We'll see what happens!
I've also been looking for a new place to live. Suzanne is doing lots of construction on the house, and I just need my own living space now. I decided that now that I'm making more money, I can afford to get a *nice* place. It seemed like most nice places were *way* out of my price range, OR they wouldn't accept dogs, OR my credit score wasn't high enough. Then I ended up finding two really great places, and both are interested in having me rent from them. There's one in Lowell that's an artist loft that I'm absolutely in love with, and another in North Andover that's a condo and feels like home to me - just from looking at the photos:
The gal who owns this condo has exchanged some emails with me and she's super-nice. I'm going to look at it when she gets back from camping(!) this week. Fingers crossed, because I love it.
I also got a fat raise from work. I've been working in tech support now for 3 months. I have to say, I thought I'd hate this job because it's, well, technical. But I don't, I LOVE it. And I'm really good at it. AND I work from home, make my own hours, and get paid a very goodly sum of money. This job is allowing for me to pay off my debt AND find a nice place to live. Yay!
So, things always DO turn around. My friend Christopher told me the other day that he always thought I was one of the luckiest people he knows, and you know what? I think he's right.
Friday, August 04, 2006
2006=200SUCK
Ok, I'm about to be all Debbie Downer, on y'all, so there's your warning.I'm pretty spiritual, and I do believe that sometimes we're tested to make us better and stronger people, but I have to say 2006 is just a bit out of control. Sort of the LSAT'S of emotional karma. I do my best to remain positive and upbeat, but it gets tough sometimes. Over the past year:
-Breast Cancer Scare
-Very messy meltdown of my relationship with Bob
-My dad's very scary accident that he's STILL recovering from
-Colon Cancer Scare
-My grandmother died
Looking at the list, it doesn't look like much, but it's had a really huge effect on me emotionally. Now add to that: I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor yesterday and they've now referred me to G.I. where I'm going to have to go through another battery of unpleasant testing. They have to do upper GI (digestive, etc) testing now since I'm still experiencing serious vertigo and other unpleasantries. I feel like I should be on that show "House," because the things that are happening to me are serious, but no one can figure out what's going on.
It's times like these that I'm reminded how much it sucks not to have someone to lean on. Don't get me wrong, I have amazing friends who are very good to me, and of course my parents are unbelievably supportive and loving, but it's not the same as having a companion that you can feel comforted by. Generally I'm pretty ok about being single, but it would be nice to have a boyfriend who could give me a hug in times like these.
Sometimes I just need to vent about it so I don't go crazy. Because seriously, this year will not go down in history for me as one of the best. This too shall pass.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
I SAID MY GOODBYES
My grandmother died today. Not my Auntie Nora/Auntie Gram. If that had happened, I wouldn't be typing this right now because I'd be a complete mess. The only emotion I'm really feeling right now is guilt.This was my dad's mother. He and my grandmother hadn't spoken for over 30 years because some pretty horrible things went down between them. I don't know much about her, except that it's pretty much confirmed by everyone in the family that she was an awful woman. I feel bad saying that because she just passed and she deserves to rest in peace, but that's the truth and the unfortunate legacy she's left behind.
In college, I decided that I wanted to meet and try to get to know the grandmother I never knew. I'm not exactly sure why I wanted to do that, but I guess I just felt a need for it. I didn't tell anyone - most especially my grandmother Nora or my father. I met her a few times and she seemed fairly normal and sweet to me. After a few months, my father found out I had been talking to her, and I felt enormously guilty, and starting pulling away. My father never discouraged me from speaking to her, and he never made me feel guilty, I just did. She and I never had a really close relationship, and she moved quite a bit and wasn't great about keeping in touch either, so the relationship just faded away.
I found out last week that she was very ill with pneumonia and that she didn't have long to live. I took Aunt Evie up to see her, and I went so that I could say my final goodbyes. Even still, I feel guilty. I'm not exactly sure why, but I do. And I'm sad, but not because she's gone. I'm sad more that my father never got to have a loving relationship with his mother, and that there wasn't room for reconciliation in the end. She didn't ask for forgiveness, and I'm not sure she even wanted it.
Still, I think there's something positive in all of us, and for the few moments within her life that I spent with her, she was kind and cheerful. I hope she rests peacefully now. Goodbye, Florence.