Memories to keep from 2006

January: I was naturalized. I am now officially an American citizen. I also got to see my old friend Paul while at a meeting in Dallas. It had been a few years that we had seen each other. I had dinner with him and his girlfriend and we had a few hours of catching up. It was very nice.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

February: V-day was nice we went to my favorite restaurant the day before (we both had to work v-day of course) otherwise nothing special just work. Got to go on a business trip to San Francisco which is one of my favorite cities.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

March: mhh nothing much the AP's and I continued to write cards to recruits. The local press heard of it and came out to do an interview with all of us.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

April: I went to see Maureen graduate from Marine boot camp in South Carolina. It was something else. (the oldest of the kids whose au pair I was a long time ago)The nice part was her whole family was there so I got to see everyone. It was great. We are all so proud of her. She was 17 and a Marine so grown up. I took her back with me to Virginia since her boyfriend was at the music school near me. She would go there to after she went home for her high school graduation. She was the first person ever to walk in Dress Blues for her ceremony. I wish I could have seen that but I am sooo glad I got to at PI.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May: Oh there is too much, my 1st anniversary with Grumpy which got cut kind of short because I left for my 10 year highschool reunion in Germany that day. Due to that I missed his college graduation :(.
The 2 weeks at home were wonderful but my favorite would have to be the Saturday before I left. I had gotten in touch with a few friends including Uwe and old childhood friend, who I had not seen in 8 years.
I met my best friend Dani and her man at 3pm and we went into one of the many Ice cream parlors / cafés that you have everywhere. There we met another childhood friend of ours and celebrated her first pregnancy (it is a baby girl) and birthday.

A little while later another one of my friends and her husband joined us. After 3 hours of amazing looking Ice cream cocktails we said goodbye to the soon to be mommy and walked down the street to my favorite Chinese restaurant. [The Chinese food in Germany tastes different than it does here - so does all the other chain food].

There Uwe joined us. We had a great time. Around 9pm we said good bye to my best friend and her boyfriend as they left to go watch the German version of Dancing with Stars. The rest of us sat and chatted for a bit longer before walking down the street a bit further to a bar. There we stayed until we said good bye after midnight. Uwe and I chatted a bit longer outside my moms house until I finally go home a bit after 1 am. It was great. I got to see everyone and have a great time.

Thinking back about that night makes me homesick I do miss my friends from home a lot.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

June: Well it was Grumpy's b-day but he had to go into work. I was obsessed with the Soccer world cup since it looked like Germany had a chance. I switched my blog from myspace to the blogger. My mom came to visit so we could do her green card paper work. Since we were near Virginia Beach we went down the prominade and then hoped over the the Little Creek base where the school of music is to visit Maureen and Austin. My mom had not seen Maureen for 9 years.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

July: I got to go jet skiing as part of an Au pair meeting. This was awesome I love jet skiing. Its like riding a motorcycle on water. I also got to go to Chicago for a meeting where I saw my former host family and my friend Evelyn who was an AP with me. She and her boyfriend had flown in from Switzerland for a wedding of the niece of our host mom. Also

*drum roll*

I got to meet our very own Miss Jin and Brioche in person (well and Mister Jin and ....). Jin made lunch for Erin (she is the youngest of the kids whose AP I was) and I, then we got to sample all her goodies. OMG talk about a kid in candy land. I can't wait to go back and try the things I couldn't fit.





-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August: Mhh nothing major - I got to go to Seattle for the first time. While I was waiting to go up on the Space needle I get a call form one of my girls saying she got kicked out by her host parents. WTF. So when I got home I had to house my first AP. After I found her a new family, Grumpy and I took the puppies to the beach Mac hates the sound of the waves and will not go in the water. We don't know what it is with her and the ocean. Sassy was in the water , swimming and having a good time. We took a nap on the greens later but I couldn't read my book because people kept coming up to us to ask if they could pet the doggies. What can I say to cute for their own good.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September: Well there was Ernesto the nice little tropical storm that cost us power for a few days and caused quiet some damage. We got lucky while it snapped of a tree limb the size of most trees, the limb missed the house by inches.

There was also my first Sweetbox from Jin. It was a early b-day present so we could take it with us to our trip. MHHHHHH so good.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

October: Happy Birthday to me!!! I got my wish and Grumpy, the pups and I went to a cabin in the West Virginia mountains. It was sooo pretty. I loved it. The cabin was so isolated in one of the valleys no one would ever find it. We saw the local sights and took a drive to the Maryland side where we got to see the beautiful colors of the leaves. It was soo relaxing and the pups loved it because they got to come with us everywhere we went.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November: The house turned into Hotel Katy as I housed one AP for 2 weeks in the beginning of the month (I will see her when I go to LA next week) and then after Thanksgiving I got another AP that needed a place to stay until we found her a new family. Thanksgiving was nice and I since I was off the day after I went and did my Locks of Love donation. I think Grumpy is still getting used to the short hair. I am mean I never tell him when I do it, just show up with short hair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December: Ohhh so many things. Mhh I got a Cherry box, a Jin box and I saw the Transiberian Orchestra live. And most importantly Grumpy and I got to go out for New Years ever for the first time in 6 years. We had a ball. We went to the bar where we met and just hung out. Mhhh what a way to finish this year.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I started the post I didn't think the year was all that, but now looking at it it almost makes my life sound interesting doesn't it? Wonder what this year will hold I mean I am supposed to graduate from college with that a new job, Grumpy and I are planning on going to Germany for Christmas and New Years (I haven't been home for the holidays in 10 years!) .... Lots of potential

Hotel Katy

What a day. First the drama this morning with Sassy then when I finally had calmed down enough (plenty of tears while we talked about what to do with Sassy) and got mentally ready to attend an AP birthday party I looked out through the front door and saw someone there. When I opened the door it was my first ever AP (she for awhile was my only AP for whom I was an LCC) She had gone back to Peru in January and then came back to go to school here. So we after chatting we both went to the party and then came back here where I was preparing the food I need for tomorrows Holiday party. When I got back in the living room she was deep asleep on the couch. So I laid out fresh linens found her a pyjama and told her to crash here. I truly hope tomorrow is quieter but then the holiday party so far had 56 RSVPs and over half of them are kids. Thank god its not at my house or the community center where I had it the past two years. This way everything is decorated and I wont be stuck cleaning up by myself. Hope you are having a better weekend than me.

just because

This week is going by so fast and I can't seemed to get anything done. I worked at the restaurant Monday and Tuedays night. It was dead so I didn't make much money.

I am still trying to find a home for my little house guest I may have succeeded. Today was a nightmare in the office understaffed and too many patients and we had a pre site visit for a upcoming study. The poor lady ended up waiting for hours on our Doc. I found out I got two trips coming up in January one to LA mid January and one to Orlando the last weekend of January (click on the city to see my fancy hotels). My mom is excited about the Orlando one since my sister (who I have successfully avoided for over 4 years) is coming to her a few days prior. I will get a rental car when the meeting is over and drive to Ft. Myers stay a couple of days and then fly back from there. At least I'll have a car so I can get away if she gets to much on my nerves. I am having nightmares just thinking about being in that tiny single wide house with my mother and sister.

I did finally go online today and bought my Trans Siberian Orchestra Tickets. I love them and see them every year hier in Hampton but this years show was on November 17 which is to early for Christmas music so Grumpy and I are going to the show on the 15th that's 90min away. Without Christkindle markets and other traditional stuff like snow that puts me in a holiday mood this usually does. If you have never seen it GOOOOOOO the light show alone is worth the ticket. Make sure to get the cheap seats they are the best to see the lasers. This year will be my 5th show and it still runs chills down my spine.

I hope someday soon I can add things like a trip here and or to NYC to my Christmas traditions.

Well I got to run but first what do you do every year to get in the spirit?

X-mas decos & house guests

Okay so I thought today was the 1st advent (I was wrong its next sunday) but since Grumpy had already brought down all the Xmas stuff we still went ahead and decorated the living room.

Here is my big pyramide

Here are some close ups. This is handmade in my home state. It is only put out during the X-mas holidays. You use candels that lid will make it turn (I have not been able to find any this year)Here is my other pyramide the small bow of light and a smoker. My grandma gave us the pyramide in the middle.All of these are typical hand made decorations for the mining area where I grew up.

This one was was given to us as a wedding present by one of my friends. I had told them all I wanted things that are typical for my homestate (xmas decos and other things too). The mail man smoker was one of our presents as well.

Here is Grumpy putting up our fake tree. I was in charge of deocrating it. Last year I was so busy Grumpy had to do it all by himself. And here is the finished master piece. I put all the ornaments I didn't want the dogs and cats play with on top. I like it its pretty. And this is me after all of it taking a break. Cleo of course had to take a break with me (on me). This snowman is a fiber optic one and sits in the porch where it is seen from the street. And here are the steps coming in the house.

I will post some pictures of my big bow of lights later.

Well the extended weekend turned out to be pretty exhausting. I got up early Thursday and started cooking. Grumpy was working until 6pm so aside of a quick pit stop at my scotish friends house to drop of my famouse apple cake I was home alone. After Grumpy got home we stopped by his parents and then went home for a late dinner. Friday I got up early to get my hair cut and then I had to work at night as I had to do on Saturday. I didn't make any money either night which was pretty depressing. Today I had to go meet one of my HF where the AP could not stand to be there another minutes. So now I have a house guest again. She is nice so its not to big of an issue but my week will be super hectic trying to find her a new home. So anyhow I hope you all got more rest than I did. What does your home look like dressed up for the holidays?

oh gee where to start

What a week,

I am so ready for the Island. So the AP from the family that I wrote about (bitchy, controlling HM) has been staying with us since Monday. She is nice and not to bothersome but damn my phone is ringing non-stop. I never give out my home number so its odd to have it ring all the time. I have been trying to find her an new family and may have succeeded today. We'll see. I haven't had a quiet night in all week so after picking up the AP Monday and bringing her to the house I finished my paper just in the nick of time. Tuesday night I had to work at the restaurant. I ended up serving a funeral party that turned out to be more of an Irish wake. I got home about a quarter to midnight. Wednesday night I went a precooked some food for me to eat on my diet. Which is working in more than one way (guys you may want to skip the next line)

I am sure I am the only female that's happy about getting a P. which I did yesterday. The awesome news is that this was the first time that it happened in the time frame nature intended and without medication so there is a chance I may be getting better and who knows I may be able to be pregnant after all.


So after cooking a bunch of low carb German food I finished homework and crashed around midnight. Today was hell. It started with a call to my house phone from one of my Latinas saying her HM says she wanted a new AP. Now this is not news as they have been having problems but obviously she is still upset especially since this is her 2nd family that's not working out and it will be hard to find another one for her. I ended up putting my cell on vibrate so not to get fired. I think while at work I had/made about 50 calls trying to find the girls new homes and I have 3 families looking for new girls. TI tried to match them up with each other but that wont work so I should have a fun weekend. here is a good chance by next week I'll have two house guests. What fun! Well tomorrow night should truly be fun! It's my friend Paula's b-day today and we all are going out. So now I'll finish flipping back and forth from OC to Grey's Anatomy check my homework and then sleep. I have been trying to keep up with every ones blog but its been hard so sorry for the lack of comments.

Of Bunnies and house guests

When I pulled in the drive way tonight with an AP in tow to stay with me until I find a new HF for her, there was the Bunny. Well trained by us it stayed in place until I got a picture of it. I will finish this post later as I just got in and I have 2h and 15 min to write a essay about HIPAA.

Weekend & Monday

08-11-06_2357.jpg
Originally uploaded by dino0477.

So I just noticed the picture of me getting ready for girls night on Friday never posted. Well just as well the night wasn't all that.
So here is one of me trying to do homework while both kitties are begging for attention.

I was still talking to N., the AP that was staying with me, when my Scottish friend B. called fussing where I was. I had totally lost track of time and she HATES to wait alone. So I quick brushed my hair and ran out the door. We got a little corner table at the restaurant and our server was a buddy of ours . Mind you there are only a few people that we allow to wait on us!. She knows us well enough so B. had her Bacardi and Coke and I had my pitcher of Ice tea and soon there was yummy Garlic bread, cheese and oil. I was starving as I just had soup for lunch in anticipation of dinner. Our English friend P. was late as always. She was in dire need of a drink as she had quit her job and got it back with in 10 min. She was still shaking.
About 5 minutes later the AP (N) staying with me and another one of my German AP's walked in the door. We ended up moving to a big table. The other German AP (D.) told me Mac the Great Dane bit her. My first question to N. was did you let D in the house? Remember we told you do not let strangers in unless we are present. Luckily Mac did not break the skin and she just had a little swelling. But still WTF is there to misunderstand - no strangers in the house!
Anyhow so that pretty much dampened my mood. Dinner was great I had, what the waitress referred to on her ticket as "Katies pasta". [Bowtie pasta with onions, carrots, peas and broccoli in a parmesan cream sauce] Unfortunately B. got drunker by the minute and started arguing with me about au pair rules (in front of my au pairs) and how she thought curfews are wrong and they should get paid more. Obviously I couldn't tell her I agreed with the girls sitting there. I do however think curfews are necessary at least in the beginning until you get to know your au pair better - quite frankly I want my AP to be awake and alert while watching my kids and not sleep deprived and hung over! As for their pay that is set by the state department and considering room and board is included its not all that bad and the program is not meant for them to MAKE money. Anyhow when I finally caught B. alone I told her to cut it out - which she promised to do. Knowing her P. and I were taking bets on how long it would last.
After dinner and dessert (I had the exotic bombe again) we moved out to the patio. I ended up having to save B. from herself when she was going to drive the new waitress home. B was way past the driving stage. I decided as the new girl lives near the house I was calling it a night and head home after I dropped her off.

Saturday was pretty uneventful. I got an email from one of my host families in response to me setting up the two week interview [I have to go over the rules with everyone two weeks after the AP arrives] saying they'd be out of town. WFT I was just there a week ago and told them I'd come that week. We emailed back and forth and the Host father was really pissing me off. He finally agreed to do it on the 23rd at 4pm which mean first of all its going to be almost a week late and I will have to take or work from the office early and won’t be able to wait tables that night!!!! ARGGGGGG.
I finished up homework and worked at the restaurant. It was pretty slow so I didn't make much money. I tried to find out from N when her boyfriend would come and get her tomorrow as I really did not want him in the house without us and we were going to go to Watercountry USA where this month AP meeting was held. She told me she didn't know which quiet frankly pissed me off.

So Sunday morning rolls around and I wake her up as I needed to print of my sign in sheet for the meeting. I ask N. so when does he pick you up? She says he isn't! Excuse me!!!!! Apparently he sent her a text message saying he wasn't going to. So now we had to figure out how to get her to the family which was 3 h away. I ended up having to leave to meet the AP's for the meeting so they could sign in. Grumpy had to stay at the house to help her find a way and make sure someone is there incase the BF was showing up. I was so pissed so I drove to the water park (1h) and got everyone’s signature just to drive back (1h). When I get home the family had said they'd meet her half way and Grumpy and I said for him to driver her vs. waiting for one of her other friends to rent a car and come. We kinda hoped we could make it to the beach with the pups at least. NOPE Grumpy didn't get home till after 6pm. I was so mad. We both had taken the day off to be together and go to the water park. I rarely have a day off and that was mine for the month!!!!!!!! So we ended up just going out for some Mexican and went home.

Monday was just as bad as the weekend. It was the docs first day back so we all knew it was going to be crazy. I had 6 patients of my own to see and had made sure I was ready and prepared. When I got in the office manager said the part time nurse is MIA and if I could help out up front. Fuck I hate working up front. When I came up for some air I asked if anyone had heard from the nurse - no. I reminded the office manager that the docs schedule had changed he was originally coming back Monday and seeing patients Tuesday. Oh she goes, I wonder if he knew. Now I maybe wrong but isn't it the office managers job to ensure her employees know when they should come to work especially as they do not want that nurse in the office unless the doc is here? Anyhow I was exhausted when I left the office and I headed to the restaurant. There we had a huge party to serve, lots of running but they were pretty easy. By the time I got home at 11, I kissed Grumpy goodnight and fell into the bed. I barely got undressed I was so dead.

AP drama

Okay I am working on this hopefully I will have it posted by tonight here is another pic of my babies.

Okay so this post has been long overdue. I tried it a couple of times but I could not seem the get the writing to appear when I checked the blog.
Anyhow. One of my AP initiated her transition because she did not like the way the HF #1 was treating her and how the H. mom was treating the children. The AP told me she worked almost twice the amount of hours than what she was supposed to. She also said the H. mom #1 was totally ignoring the disabled child. So I set up the meeting were everyone had to put there issues on the table. Well it became pretty apparent that there was no way to fix the situation. The AP had now two weeks to find a new family and we would try to find a new AP for that family whilst the AP was still staying there to help out.
I thought I had a nice family for her. One of my families was looking for one as their second AP did not work out and the one that was supposed to go to them decided despite the fact that she was told repeatedly not to work - to waitress and bought herself a plane ticket home. Anyhow this AP seemed great and she had a great talk with the H. mom #2 and everything seemed peachy until she mentions who her friends are.
Luckily I did not have to look long to find another match for the AP and she is now going to a family in Northern Virginia. (The HF #2 finally found a good match this week)
So while I am in line to go up to the Space Needle in Seattle my phone rings and the AP said "She kicked me out". Apparently she and H. mom #1 got into it that afternoon. So after some back and forth to see if she needed a place to stay she said she was fine for the night. I had taken the red eye from Seattle and got back around 10 am Saturday. Grumpy picked me up. All I wanted was a nap but never did get one. I got a call from the AP saying she wasn't given enough time to pack so she'd have to go back that day. I told her to call the family first - or have me call them to be sure when its a good time. She opted for me to call and so I ended up spending an hour trying to find them. No luck I left messages everywhere. I called the AP to let her know to come by my house vs. theirs. When she came all she had was her purse and an empty bag. The wasn't given a chance to grab anything.
After 3 hours the H. father called saying its okay to come now. So we went over there to get her packed and get her stuff off the computer. It seemed to take forever. She had taken over 400 pics that we couldn't take so I uploaded them to Kodak. After leaving the their house we stopped at Best Buy for the Geek squad to take a look at my computer and find out what the problem was with my wireless modem. Then it was off to the grocery store as my fridge was not equipped for guests. We finally got home 6:30pm when best buy called saying my computer was ready. So back out I went. I had the memory upgraded as well (it was only 1 hundert some RAM) so the bill came to 360 some dollar. They did not know why the cardbus reader wasn't working and were not allowed to fix it. So no luck for wireless - he said to get an internal one from dell or a USB one. When I finally got out of there is was almost 8. Some of the other APs were having dinner near by with friends from Germany and had invited me to stop by so I went and had a quick hurricane. It was nearly 9pm when I got back to the house. Still no nap and no homework. I fixed a quick dinner and gave out to the tiredness knowing I had to work Sunday.
I ended up going in an hour late as I was showing the AP how to do laundry and stuff around the house and how to handle the dogs. Did I mention she is terrified of dogs? Getting home at 9 Grumpy had gone to get some Chinese for all of us. She was out when I called her for her order. i thought it was kinda rude that she didn't show up until 4 hours later!!!!!
Monday night I had to do homework, my essay was due the night before so I was already late. Yet my phone did not stop ringing and more AP drama to come. I spent an hour on the phone with one of the H. moms in my group is having problems with the AP. I swear there is something in the water.
So enough bitching I do love my job hell I get $22/mo/fam so I better like it right?