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Monday, October 31, 2005

Happy Halloween !

Fagankitten May I present this cute little kitty called Fagan. :) Kristina, Mike's sister, adopted a little kitten from a shelter and of course we are all really excited. He is originally from Indiana and was brought to CT when Kristina adopted him. He's such a sweetie, so playful and cute. Definitely going to be a handful though as he already seems to get into everything.

So we decided not to hand out candy but instead went out to dinner at Ciao's since we still had a $20 coupon that expired tonight (good excuse) and then headed home to play with the kitty.

He's the sweetes thing and so lucky to be alive. He was in a "high kill" shelter and if nobody had adopted him they would have had to put him to sleep, simply because they had no room. I'm glad he found a good home. :) I'll update with more pics soon.

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Sunday, October 30, 2005

Perfect Fall Day

Anifall1 We changed our clocks today and it's a little past 4 pm right now but definitely feels a lot later. An hour shouldn't make that much difference but somehow it always messes me up for a few days. At least in the fall you get an extra hour of sleep so that's good. :)

Went to New Canaan to the Bruegger's bagel shop there. Never been to the downtown area of New Canaan but it's really pretty. A great New England-y kind of town with loads of shops to look at and walk around. Maybe I'll go and check it out on my day off some day. The train goes there which is nice.

Afterwards we went to Blue Jay Orchards to get some apple cider and apple cider donuts. You can pick your own apples and go on hay rides there. The store they have is really neat as well.

I am going to make some pumpkin spice tea now and write some letters. A nice conclusion to a perfect fall day. :)

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Another year older

Birthdaycake_2 Had a very nice birthday yesterday. :) Went to work for 1/2 a day and then went shopping for the rest of the afternoon. I bought a nice sweater at Sears and some other shirts at Old Navy. Also bought a new house for my Christmas village. I love those little houses and started my own little Christmas village last year. I have the Department 56 "Dickens Village" collection and so far have two houses now. Very cool. :)

Then for dinner we went to our favorite local bar TK's. They give you free wings on your birthday so that's good. I had so much food. Free wings, garlic fries, then chips & chilli and when we got home I had a piece of cake.

The dinner on Saturday at the Hopkins Inn was really yummy by the way. It was definitely the most expensive schnitzel I have ever eaten but it was absolutely DELICIOUS. Our trip to Yankee Candle on Sunday was tons of fun as well. Ended up buying three new candles (Hazelnut Coffee, White Chocolate Mint and Cinnamon Cranberry Apple I think) and a neat Christmas ornament.

Well, guess that's all the news for now. I am still at work hoping to get out fairly soon. I am starving so can't wait for dinner. :)

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Saturday, October 22, 2005

Pre-Birthday Feast

Wiener_schnitzel And the birthday bash weekend has begun. :) My birthday (I'll be turning 26 ... god I am getting old) is on Monday so we decided to make the previous weekend special.

I am actually at work right now, just for a few hours, but once I get out we will head to Shaw's. It's a big grocery store in New Fairfield that I have been wanting to go to forever. They apparently have a huge aisle full of cool tea and a big organic section. I don't know if it's sad to be excited about a grocery store visit but hey, whatever makes me happy right ? :)

For dinner we are going to the Hopkins Inn in New Preston. The inn is owned by an Austrian couple and they serve some super yummy Austrian dishes. So I am very much looking forward to a special birthday dinner.

Tomorrow we are off to a visit at the Yankee Candle Flagshipstore in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. I love scented candles and Yankee Candle is just the best. Their flagship store is HUGE and they have a ton of other things besides candles as well.

And Monday, on my actual birthday, I will work 1/2 a day and treat myself to a shopping afternoon at the mall with the money my parents and my aunt sent. Isn't life great ? :)

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Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Mousehunting, Grouchy Maintenance Men and more

It's my day off today which all in all seems pretty nice. So far the day hasn't really been all that great though. We got woken up by a 2 am phone call because one of my employees didn't complete the day-end paperwork correctly and there were some things that needed to be re-printed in order for the trucks to go out. So Mike had to go in (luckily we only live about 15 min from work) and fix it.

Couldn't sleep in either because we had two different maintenance people scheduled to come today. The furnace guy (they need to do a furnace cleaning every fall before the heating season starts) and the water meter guy (we got a notice a while back that the city needed to replace our water meter) were both scheduled to show up between 8-12.

The water meter guy showed up around 9:30 or so. He was fairly easy to deal with and quick. The furnace guy didn't show up until about noon. I always hate having to wait for these people because I feel like I can't really start anything or do anything in case they show up and I don't hear their knocking.

So the furnace guy showed up around noon and was in a really grouchy mood. He complained about the kitty litter downstairs even though I just cleaned it last night so it really wasn't smelling bad at all. Plus it's in the basement -- which basement smells all that great ? He stayed for almost 1 1/2 hours banging around downstairs, just being grouchy in general.

The weather is really miserable as well. It's pouring outside and looks really dreary. What a day ! Soon after the furnace guy left my cat Oliver walked into the room with a mouse in his mouth. God, why does he have to do this stuff ? So I yelled at him, unsure of what to do if he dropped the mouse and it started running all over the place. Luckily he dropped it near the bathroom door and it ran underneath the door inside the bathroom. So I was able to walk into the bathroom and catch it. Poor little frightened thing. I brought it to the front door and released it outside. I don't think it was very happy being out in the pouring rain ... but I guess anything is better than being almost eaten by a cat.

Well, that's all my adventures for today. Should be writing letters this afternoon as I received 6 letters in the mail yesterday. Well, maybe I'll make some more tea, play some more Sims and then write some letters. :)

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Sunday, October 09, 2005

Another week gone by

Tigercats “In the middle of a world that has always been a bit mad, the cat walks with confidence.”

ROSEANNE AMBERSON


The weeks just seem to fly these days. I can't believe another week has already passed again.

Work has been super busy as always. Lots of holidays coming up all at once (Roshashana, Yom Kippur, Columbus Day) which always means a huge amount of planning due to schools being closed, arranging alternate delivery days and trying to make everything work out. I think I have it somehwhat under control now so we will see what happens next week. :)

On top of that big changes for the company are also coming on the horizon.
We are shutting down our plant operations and won't be producing/packaging our milk anymore.
(click on the link if you want to read the related newspaper article http://news.newstimeslive.com/story.php?id=75252&channel=Local)
They have signed a contract with Dean Foods which is a huge dairy company (they have locations all over the country)
They will be producing and packaging our milk for us starting at the end of October.
So the people in the plant are going to be laid off.
The company is trying to be as helpful as possible, re-training anyone that is willing to work in other areas and trying to place people with other companies wherever possible. 
It doesn't affect me directly and all in all it's a very good thing for the company.
It's just more change coming and I don't always like change.
Plus change usually seems to mean more work.
But then again more work also might mean more responsibilty and that usually means a raise. So we'll see how all this plays out in the long run. :)
A little part of me is also excited about it. I do like new challenges and look forward to see the new products we will be able to carry. It will be a good thing for our customers.

Managed to answer a bunch of my emails today but still need to write quite a few letters.
Yesterday I received two early birthday presents in the mail which made me very happy. My parents sent me the new Kuschelrock CD. It's a 2-CD compilation of love songs/soft rock. I am listening to it right now and enjoying it very much. Also sent along some money which will be fun to spend. Trying to figure out what I want the most and what to spend it on. Choices, choices. :)
The other package came from my long-time pen pal Charmaine in Malta. She sent me some sweet things. Will have to write her a thank-you note shortly.
Well, that's all for today. Hope you're all. Will try and post more often. :)

Posted by Hanna at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Whirlwind Week

Countryapplebskt This week has just zipped by without me even being able to stop and catch my breath.

Work has been crazy with lots of things going on. People calling out on me, having to replace people and finding their replacements, plus our distribution department is still barely existent for the most part so a lot of issues have to be dealt with by Mike and me. We don't have a Distribution Manager as of yet. We do have two route supervisors that are very nice and are learning the business as the days go by. It's a matter-in-progress for the time being. Loads more going on that I don't want to bore you with. All in all it's just been a long week with possibly everything that could happen happening.

I am hoping for a better week next week but am not so sure about that yet. Gonna have to spend time training and also trying to figure out scheduling (the schools having days off due to Rosh Hashanah, Columbus Day and Yom Kippur). I have a feeling it will be one of those "trying to be in 10 places at once" weeks.

Being lazy today. I have about 10 letters sitting here that need to be answered. I am hoping to get to at least a few later. Time just flies so fast these days. Can't believe that it's October already. The only good thing is: I love AUTUMN. :)

Posted by Hanna at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack