Work | Suspension of Disbelief

Mar

Well, I never thought I’d say it, but there are too MANY cats now!

It all started when we got back from Florida. AJ’s supposed to be getting central heating and air in his condo, so the guy came on Monday to do a walk through, give them a quote, etc. He said they’d start work next week, AJ said OK, we go to lunch.

Then AJ gets a phone call . . . and it’s the heating and ac people. The apartment they were supposed to start work on has water damage and they can’t do anything until the water is vacuumed out. Can they start work on AJ’s condo today?

Well, we had to do something with his three adorable kitties . . . so they came over to my apartment. Yes, your math is right, for this week I have FIVE kittens! Don’t get me wrong, I love them all dearly - they’re my babies! But they hadn’t all met each other, and it has been . . . interesting.

AJ’s kittens actually seem to be adjusting quite well. They love me, and everything smells like me, so it wasn’t too scary. And my place has carpet and his doesn’t, so they are LOVING the traction they can get while running around my apartment. My kittens are another story all together. Miles is very slowly warming up to them. He walks around them, lets them sniff him, he even doesn’t hiss at them too much. He’s just kind of confused.

Oscar is mad.

I was quite surprised by this. As I’ve had them, I’ve come to realize that Miles is the dominant cat and Oscar is submissive. So if ANYTHING, I figured Oscar would be cool with things. But noooo . . . he is mad. He has been hissing at the other cats for even entering the same room as him. He bats at them, growls constantly, and is just not happy. He even growls and hisses at Miles now! And they’ve been together since birth! They are absolutely BFF, but he’s not having it now. And he’s growled and batted at me too.

He’s getting a little better. Tuesday it was intolerable - I was afraid to leave them in the same room alone. Yesterday and last night were better. Not great, but now I’m beginning to think there is hope (where before I didn’t).

So, that’s what I’ve been up to this week! Oh, and I started back to school today. Yay?

And since I’m talking about them, I have to show them to you

They are in age order: Jazz (AJ’s, almost a year), Ninja (AJ’s, almost a year), Oscar (mine, 9ish months), Miles (mine, 9ish months), and Ana (AJ’s, 5ish months)

Jazz

Ninja

Oscar

Miles

Ana

Won’t you pray for us please? LOL, I love them all so much!

Posted at 2:14 pm in: General, My Life, Pets
Related Posts:

12/1/2007 -- My Christmas Present from Mama and Daddy!
12/1/2007 -- Storage Solutions
7/28/2007 -- Take Two

Mar

Spring Pause?

Well, it’s spring break now. I finally got all of my final papers/projects/exams turned in, and I don’t have to be back in the classroom until March 27!!! However, I very much feel like this is a pause, and not a break. Why?

Well, for starters, I will be working most of the break. The few days I won’t be working are Thursday-Sunday, and that’s because the boy and I are going to Florida to visit my parents. I’m excited about that because I get to see my parents and I will get to be at MY church for Easter (I miss my church). However, it won’t be much of a break because I have THREE doctors appointments while I’m there.

When we get back, I still have a few days off from school left, but I’ll still have work, and I think that my rotation supervisor is going to make me come in to school even though we’re on break. Sigh.

So, I’m not really going to get a whole lot of breakin’ in. Just a pause in school. I can’t wait to be done with this. I’m not even sure if I’m going to get to do any spring cleaning or get my hair cut (like I DESPERATELY need).

Anyone got spring plans or projects?

Posted at 6:30 pm in: General, My Life
Related Posts:

12/18/2005 -- 101 in 1001 - 54.46% Complete
12/1/2007 -- Storage Solutions
9/24/2006 -- Kids today . . .

Mar

Work Thoughts

I’ve been doing a bit of research into being a virtual assistant. According to Wikipedia:

A Virtual Assistant (or simply VA), is an independent contractor providing administrative, technical, or sometimes creative assistance to clients–usually to other independent entrepreneurs and solo and small business practices, such as that of a lawyer or realtor. Virtual assistants work from their own office (hence “virtual”), thus making it a fairly popular (and growing) profession. It is estimated that there are about 5,000-8,000 virtual assistants worldwide. Common modes of communication and data delivery include the Internet, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and fax machine. Although the occupation gives a degree of independence, work is on a contractual basis, and a long-lasting cooperation is standard. Typically 5 years of administrative experience in an office is expected at such positions as executive assistant, secretary, legal assistant, paralegal, legal secretary, real estate assistant, office manager, etc.

This is basically the work that I do at E. Webscapes. Even though I’m technically the Assistant Project Manager, when Lisa first started looking for someone she referred to them as a virtual assistant. In all honesty, I’d never even heard of a virtual assistant until I read Lisa’s post. I thought that it seemed like something I’d be good at and a great way to earn a little extra money.

However, I have LOVED working at E. Webscapes, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe I should look at this whole virtual assistant thing a little more seriously. There’s an intensive training course offered by AssistU - basically it’s a semester long certification. If I were to do this seriously, I would apply to AssistU. But I still don’t know if that’s what I want to do. Don’t really have any resolution on this, it’s just been on my mind, so I thought I’d post it. Thoughts?

Posted at 6:04 pm in: General, My Life
Related Posts:

8/10/2006 -- Thursday Thirteen #23
9/14/2006 -- Thursday Thirteen #27
9/5/2007 -- Works for Me: Brand Loyal Edition

Mar

101 in 1001 updates!

So I was reminded by Karen’s post that I haven’t updated my 101 in 1001 in a while. Honestly, it’s because working 2 jobs and being in grad school is VERY time consuming, so I haven’t had a whole lot of time to work on it. I’m also a little sad, because there are several things on my list that I don’t think I’ll be able to do by September. I console myself with the fact that I made this in college with no idea of where I would be in two years, so I had no way of knowing that I would only see my parents for a weekend here or there every four months or so (so how can I possibly #8 “go to concerts with Daddy?”) or that once I left Wake I would lose a lot of my ties to the school (I need the library to #25 “make the Parables DVDs,” but I have to have a current student with me to do that, and most of the people I know have graduated).

All things to keep in mind when I make my new 101 in September (yes, even if I don’t finish this one, I still intend to make a new one, and you may see me revamp some of the current items for the next time). Just because I don’t get finished by the deadline doesn’t mean that a lot of these things aren’t still important to me. And honestly, many of these goals were stretch goals to begin with (see me rationalizing?).

Anyways, back the (very) few that I have completed now!

#34 (Get a pet)- I have two of the most adorable little kittens ever sitting on my bed snuggling with each other. This one is done

Kitten Snuggle!

(Photo take 5 minutes ago.)

#62 (Switch all lightbulbs to CFLs)- I actually did this when I moved into my new apartment in July
#66 (No more plastic grocery bags - only canvas) - I started doing this last year and actually made a habit of it around New Year’s. Every once and a while I forget to bring my bags in, but not usually.
#91 (Organize recipes) - My recipes are very much more organized now, though I can tell this will be an ongoing effort for me . . .
#95 (Attend 5 year high school reunion) - I wanted to go to my 5 year high school reunion, but I couldn’t go back to FL because of school and work. This made me sad, cause I haven’t even spoken with a lot of my high school friends in YEARS. So . . . I guess I’ll try for the 10 year?

So now I’m more than halfway finished - woo hoo!!! I’ll be honest, I’ve done a lot more than I thought I would! Here’s hoping that I can achieve the rest!