Woooo! We're leaving for Huyen and Ryan's wedding! Yaaayyyyy! We'll tell you all about it when we get back.

written by Katherine at 4:55 PM | link | 0 comments

I had the strangest dream the other night. I was moving into a house and Madonna was my roommate. The room was similar to my college dorm rooms... a bit larger, but the room had concrete walls, bare floor, and a sink. Madonna wasn't turning out to be the most ideal roommate; she had a collection of dead bugs posed carefully on a shelf above the sink. She had recently added a dead fish to the collection. Anyway, I went on a trip for a few days after I moved in, and when I came back, Hannah (my dog) was nowhere around. All of a sudden (Nascar driver) Michael Waltrip showed up at my room with a little black mix puppy. It turned out that he had taken Hannah to the vet because she was sick. While they were at the vet, Hannah had a chance to play with this puppy, and the vet evaluated the two of them together. He decided that Hannah was an abnormal dog, a couch potato with no social skills and that she couldn't be returned to me. However, the vet thought it would be fine for Michael to bring me the little puppy. I was very angry at this vet for his treatment of Hannah and I felt that the puppy was some kind of "consolation prize." That's pretty much where it ended... I woke up telling Chris that someone was trying to take my dog away from me. Weird dream.

written by Katherine at 6:52 PM | link | 0 comments

Can you stand yet another entry about Road Runner? I really thought we were through after Tuesday, but I was wrong. It's a long story, but the USB connection with the cable modem quit working yesterday, causing a lot of Windows problems. I worked on it from 8 pm to 2 am last night (which means I didn't get to watch the Bristol night race), and then for another hour or two today. It's finally fixed, but I am worn out. We owe a huge thanks to Ryan, who saved us from doing a complete reinstall of Windows, which, obviously, would have caused us to lose everything on our hard drive. That wouldn't have been good since I haven't been very consistent with backups lately. The Windows reinstall, incidentally, was the bright idea of the Dell technician. Dell still ranks above Gateway in my book for tech support, but I am coming to the conclusion that tech support people are kind of useless, unless you have a very basic question or problem. Anyway, today we purchased and installed a PCI ethernet card (seeing as how I don't have any ISA slots in this computer, the ISA card provided by the cable company free of charge was kind of useless), and everything's good again. While we were at Staples for the ethernet card, we picked up House Party for the Sims. It was on sale at an unbeatable price and we couldn't pass it up. I haven't installed it yet, but maybe tomorrow night. We've been to services at North Raleigh United Methodist Church two times now. I have really enjoyed it and felt at home there. They seem to emphasize the more basic aspects of Christianity, including a personal relationship with Christ, which is what I am looking for in a church at this point in my life. I am looking forward to becoming more involved and spoke with the director of music today about handbells and sanctuary choir. Speaking of handbells, I recently realized that we've moved to the home of the Raleigh Ringers. They are a very advanced community handbell choir. I am familiar with them mainly because I have played several pieces that were originally commissioned for them. Auditions are held each year and every position is open. I don't know what the time commitment would be like, but in the back of my mind I'm turning over the idea of auditioning in January. I'm not even sure I have what it takes, but it would be a great honor to be part of the group.

written by Katherine at 7:23 PM | link | 0 comments

Tonight's been busy. We finally got the linen closet completely organized, which includes putting all of Hannah's and Jefferson's stuff away. We also took advantage of the shelving over the washer and dryer and mounted our dustbuster and spot lifter in the laundry closet. Cool. Now here it is, 10 pm, and I haven't yet packed for the business trip I'm taking tomorrow. I'll be going to a nursing shortage seminar in Asheville on Friday, and we're travelling tomorrow afternoon. I'll be back Friday night... should be a nice change of pace and an educational experience for me!

written by Katherine at 10:05 PM | link | 0 comments

Woo-hoo! Road Runner is up and running. It's really fast... just like my college days. Yay! I am a happy camper. Now, maybe it won't be too long till I get back in the habit of working on the site.

written by Katherine at 9:24 PM | link | 0 comments

Good-bye old broken down, noisy, unreliable, yucky fridge... hello new, white, shiny, clean and cold fridge. I was going to put some pictures up, but I don't have any of the new one yet and I'm too lazy to crop the shots of the old one, so you'll just have to wait. I'm sure the suspense is killing you. I am starting to think that no one in the service industry can get anything right on the first try. We have gone round and round with our bank (yeah, First-Union-soon-to-be-Wachovia whose favorite activity is gobbling up other banks and ignoring the customers... do not ask me why I bank with them) over our checks and accounts. It appears that the guy who we spent quite a bit of time with in setting up our accounts has the IQ of a rock. There's a laundry list of things that have gone wrong... the checks were supposed to be sent to us in PA before we moved, but they were sent to our Raleigh address instead. Then, of our three accounts, he had only ordered checks for the joint checking. On those checks, my middle initial is "M" instead of "H." We thought we had those re-ordered, but they never showed up, and when Chris called today he found out that the order hadn't been put through. The woman who was supposed to have placed the order no longer works there. In addition, it's been all kinds of craziness linking one check card per person to two accounts. We asked the first guy who set up our accounts if they could be given some kind of name so that we could distinguish between them more easily at the ATM and online. He said no. Today over the phone, Chris found out that it was in fact possible to assign nicknames, but when we went to the ATM tonight, it still just said "Express Chkg" and "Express Chkg 02." Yeah, that's descriptive. I guess First Union is so busy becoming Wachovia that they don't have time to deal with actual customers. In addition to our bank woes, guess what? We still do not have our Road Runner connection. We are, however, racking up freebies left and right. Our installation is going to be free (if it ever happens) and now we also have a credit on our account equal to the cost of the installation. The good news is, we got our entire security deposit back from our previous landlords, and that check came in the mail today. In addition, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania finally sent my income tax refund and were even kind enough to add eight dollars and change in interest. That check came today, too. I probably shouldn't complain too much about all of the minor mishaps... nothing really serious has happened. I keep telling myself that it's not that incompetence suddenly reached an all-time high, it's just that we're having a greater number of encounters with service people jammed into a shorter time frame. Even if the rate of mistakes remained constant, we'd be experiencing a greater number of them simply because of our increased contact with these people. Yeah, it's the researcher in me coming through loud and clear. Besides, moving wouldn't be moving without a few hassles to deal with. Our next encounter (in addition to the ongoing cable internet installation saga) is probably going to be with the people who are replacing our front door and door frame. That's supposed to happen this week. Wanna place your bet?

written by Katherine at 10:55 PM | link | 0 comments

Well, it's been a pretty good weekend. Tomorrow we get our internet connection. And, we get a new refrigerator! The one in our new house is on its last legs, and for all of today the temperature has been above 45 degrees (at one point it was 55-- for several hours). We called the landlord and he decided to get a new one, and it is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. That's good because I would not have been happy if we'd had to go out and replace all our food, particularly since we just started from scratch because of moving. You know all those perishable things you have on hand but don't have to buy on a regular basis, like mayo, mustard, a little jar of garlic, a little jar of pimento, salad dressing, etc? We had to toss all that stuff when we moved because we didn't have (and didn't want to buy) a cooler big enough to haul it all... so it's a good thing we're not going to have to toss it again. Although, I will probably give the mayo a good sniff the next time I use it! We really enjoyed our visit with Chris's mom and stepdad. Last night we drove downtown in search of some hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts. There's a KK about 3 blocks from my office, which I suppose is a mixed blessing (I am sticking my head in the sand when it comes to the nutritional information). I've been doing an informal survey... the hot sign is on every weekday at 5:30, when I had been leaving work. Friday I worked until 4:30, and lo and behold, when I left, the hot sign was not yet on. I guess they're trying to catch all those government workers who leave at 5 after doing nothing but sitting at a desk all day. Anyway, we were in luck last night... the hot sign was on when we got there around 10 pm. The place was packed. If you've never had a hot Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut, you haven't lived. I think we have a definite spot to take all out-of-town visitors. Next time, I'm taking the camera so I can get a picture of that hot sign.

written by Katherine at 10:56 PM | link | 0 comments

Yay, it's the weekend! Tonight my dad is stopping by for a few hours, and then tomorrow afternoon Chris's mom and stepdad are coming back by and spending the night with us. They already stopped in on Wednesday night and brought us some tasty veggies from their garden and a marvelous peach pie. Other than having visitors, I'm not sure what is on the agenda for the weekend... oh, yeah... we've got to finish the wedding picture order so we can send it off on Monday. Happy weekend!

written by Katherine at 5:43 PM | link | 0 comments

As you may be able to tell by the lack of blogging, we still don't have our Road Runner service. Chris waited around for them to show on Wednesday morning, and they never did, so he gave them a call. Turns out they goofed something up in the order and it never got passed on to the technician. They immediately offered free installation... but the earliest they can come is Monday. I'm trying to be patient, and the free installation satisfies me, but arrggghhh... I'd like to get on the internet knowing that I'm not paying 7 cents a minute.

written by Katherine at 7:25 AM | link | 0 comments

Well, the additions to the blog (and the entire website, for that matter) have been few and far between these last couple of weeks. I was thinking today that I haven't come up with any really thoughtful blog topics during that two week period, either (or maybe longer!). I think that so much new stuff is happening to me and with my life right now that chronicling it is about all I can do. Is chronicling a word? So in that vein, let me note that I have completed my first full week of work at a real job. After Monday and Tuesday, I figured my life was over because I was too exhausted to do anything but lie on the couch after work. I was pretty diligent about going to bed earlier, though, and by Wednesday I could actually function after 6 pm. Now that I've gotten some energy back, I am really starting to enjoy this notion of working at work and doing personal stuff at home. It really makes me value and enjoy my free time. For example, even though I've watched almost every Winston Cup race this season, I am looking forward to the race this weekend more than usual. I think it's because it will be great to just sit back and relax, knowing that I just put in a 40 hour week and that it's okay for me to take a few hours off to have fun. Of course, we still have a lot of tasks left to do from the move... we just finished putting a bunch of boxes in the attic, and we still have a ton of stuff to put away in the kitchen. All in all, it's going well, but I'll be glad when we're completely done. Maybe we'll make some good progress this weekend--when we're not watching racing stuff.

written by Katherine at 9:11 PM | link | 0 comments

Today was my first day of work at NCCN. It was a lot of information to absorb in one day, especially with my tired brain, but it was a good day overall. I think I am really going to like living and working here. However, I have to go to bed earlier tonight! Unfortunately, it'll be a week from Wednesday at the earliest before our cable internet service is hooked up. We did decide to go with Road Runner.

written by Katherine at 8:07 PM | link | 0 comments

We're here in Raleigh-- and it's taken this long for me to even get the computer out of the box. I feel sort of relieved, like I am connected to the outside world again. Things are going pretty well, although our progress on the house is slower than I'd like... but there is just so much to do and each thing takes plenty of time. Tomorrow my parents are driving down with Hannah, which is great because I miss the poocher. That's all for now...

written by Katherine at 10:54 PM | link | 0 comments