Suzanne Calling

This afternoon, an email arrived "Is your item still for sale?" The hinky-meter was going off, but I responded that it was. This was the email I got back: Definitely a scammer. As I'm not in the mood to deal with scammers, this is what I fired back: Ed likes the fact that I'm being extremely snarky to the scammer. So much for a sale, but it feels good to cut down a guy trying to swindle people.

Last spring and summer semesters, I took online courses in which the professors (both from the St. Pete campus) created podcasts of their lectures, which were posted to Blackboard for students to view throughout the semester. At the time, I ended up uploading them to iTunes and then to my iPod. Several times, I plugged it in to my car stereo and listened to lectures as I drove here and there. While the boys attended scout meetings, I was able to watch a lecture or three and it was great to have that resource, whether I had the laptop with me or not. Even better, by downloading these podcasts, I didn't have to deal with streaming hiccups that can happen with bandwidth. This summer, my friend Jenn decided to take both of these classes. When I realized this, I first offered her my notes. (we became friends over the many study sessions needed to imprint the Psych stats coursework.) The other night, we talked on the phone and she mentioned having Internet issues that meant she'...

As I'd mentioned in a previous entry, I need work clothes. No one is enforcing a dress code, but it's a given that when I'm greeting VIP's, I should be dressed nicely. College student apparel isn't exactly dual purpose! Yesterday, I went out to augment the few pieces I already have. The capris I'd mentioned that are considered dressy are Dockers, and I remembered where I'd purchased them. Subscribing to my philosophy of "buy it in multiple colors," I went back to Beall's in the hopes of finding the same ones in different colors. I struck out on that front, but did find two pairs of dressy capris and another pair of Dockers. Due to the pain issues with the PF and RSD, I usually don't bother with store fitting rooms, preferring to try things on at home. Of course, I run through a checklist of sorts while still in the store. You probably do, too, but there's a few extras I have to think about now. Are they my size? Are they appropr...

That is a description that people who know me would not use if they were asked to describe me. It just isn't. If I find an article of clothing I like, I go back and buy it in multiple colors, I hardly wear makeup (allergies), stick to very light fragranced body splashes (again, allergies) and wear minimal jewelery. If I ever had designs on being a shoe freak, my stupid leg cured that before it even happened. The only thing that is remotely girly about me is the love of those Vera Bradley bags. For some reason, though, I love nail polish. It's ridiculous, because my nails are impossibly soft and break easily. When I knew Ed and I were getting engaged (because it would not be a surprise with a long-distance relationship), I got acrylic nails right before he got to Maryland, so that I'd have pretty hands to show off my ring. I liked the look, but hated what it did to my already soft nails. A friend suggested gel nails a couple of years after that as a different option,...

I was sent on a mission this week (no, not from God-I'm not Jake or Elwood). A relative needed to replace a little league hat and was having some difficulty in finding the appropriate item, so I was called to secure a Seminoles hat. Mind you, this is for a kid, so the goal was to get a child sized hat. Here in the land of Sunshine, where the Gators are considered the end-all and be-all of college sports, it's hard for 'Noles fans to get an equivalent amount of gear for their team. Heck, outside of Tampa, there's my alma mater's gear, but the selection pales in comparison to the quantity of royal blue and orange items. So, I went out in search of a burgundy and tan hat, preferably with the Seminole Indian on it, preferably kid sized. Instead, I found an incredible amount of stuff that says FSU with that school's colors, one with an arrowhead and even more that just were emblazoned "Florida State" in huge type, and "Seminoles" slightly smal...

For a week and a half, I've been at work with no computer and no phone at my desk. This is because we had to wait for IT to provide me an access code and email address, but there were other things that took priority. No worries, though, because I brought my laptop to work every day. I was able to do some work related items and the past couple of days, I've been immersed in a PowerPoint presentation for my boss. The plan was to link to a YouTube video about upcoming plans for us, but I didn't want her to have to deal with the possible WiFi connectivity issues at the meeting, so I worked on embedding it with YouTube Downloader. It's a Mac native product. One of my colleagues already has a little bit of Mac envy and was asking if I liked the machine, would she have a hard time adapting to it. Yes, I love it and no, it's much easier to use. The three of us sat at a desk today and I navigated things to add to the presentation, took screen shots of the work website to...

Is this: We need to replace a part on the central air conditioner, so we've been living in a house without AC for about a month and a half. It hasn't been too bad, except for the past week. (Toughened up by growing up in houses without them as kids, I suppose). Those of you who do live in environs where central AC isn't really needed for a short period of time know what that's like. Anyway, the house doesn't cool off very well. We live in a newer neighborhood with no mature growth trees. The nightly dip in the pool is the best way to cool off enough to get to sleep. Waking up in the morning sweating like a pig, on the other hand, is getting old. The unit gets fixed this week.

I had to go over to our storage unit to get the items I'd sold on eBay to ship them out. That unit is STUFFED to the gills, mostly with Jane's crap from Move 1.0 and then the final clear out of the apartment. I want to sell it all, but it probably won't net more than the $1500 that the Estate Sale people charge to do it. It's not a pleasant proposition, thinking about trying to eBay everything that is worthwhile, then trying to figure out a way to dump find suckers match it up with people who are interested in these items, too. Then there's the stuff too big to eBay or too cumbersome to ship. I've got the Jazzy listed on Craig's list without a single contact. It *might* sell on eBay, but I have no clue. There are a bunch of Disney prints that could sell, too, but finding boxes to ship them may not be easy. I wish there was an easy way to get it gone!

With GameTeen's prom last night, I thought about how fast time flies. One day, you're bringing home a tiny infant and the next thing you know, they're in high school and going to proms. No, I'm not here thinking "My Baaahhhhbeeeeeeee", but realizing that as I get older, the time just flies by so fast. So, of course, I thought of a few songs from my youth that touch on the subject of time. The first, probably one of the first Steely Dan songs I can recall hearing (Do It Again was released first, but it didn't make as much of an impact.) At the time it came out, it was in heavy rotation and the words didn't mean much. Now I appreciate the sarcasm. A guy whose voice has always caught my attention is Al Stewart. In 1978, this one was all over the airwaves and for some reason, it seemed to be played every afternoon in the half hour drive between my junior high school and my bus stop, not that was a bad thing. Anything to cut down on Don Imus running ...

Game Teen attended his school's prom tonight. No, he didn't miraculously skip two years of school, rather, all the high school students are welcome to attend the event. About twenty of the 40 or so students in the program were there tonight. I took pictures for the school, and hope that some parents enjoy the candids of their teens (one mom forgot her camera and offered to pay me.) Of course, I had to get some pictures of my handsome boy first. As soon as I knew he was going, I had a mental image of what he'd wear. Black dress pants and a dark blue shirt. Ties and jackets were not required and honestly, with GameTeen's sensory issues, I wasn't going to even attempt them. Even so, I think he looks mighty dapper. The shirt did exactly what I'd expected-made his eyes really stand out. He had a fantastic time and even says he'll try a tie next year, but he's not guaranteeing that he'll keep it on. Post prom, I took him for a treat at Rita's ...

Considering that it's past 6pm in Australia, Japan and New Zealand, I'd say the doomsday people are wrong. Just in case, I made a really good dinner of stuffed clams tonight. (I wonder if the people who haven't paid for the auctions they won earlier today are hedging their bets before paying tomorrow-after 6pm)

The lanai has new furniture. The cat adores spending time on the lanai, running for the slider to go outside as soon as we awake in the morning, and anytime he's had to spend more than five minutes in the house. This, of course, is followed by him pawing to come in five minutes later if you haven't joined him out there. He makes this chirping noise when he observes various creatures like anoles or bugs on the screen. If they make it into the enclosure, he's relentless in hunting them down. The bad part: he's a long hair cat. He gets hairballs. In the past week, he's decided to deposit a couple of these hairballs. On the brand new furniture. Good thing it's Sunbrella fabric, but damn, it's annoying.

As the owner of an iPhone, I have quite a few free applications that I put on my phone because I was sure I'd use them, and I haven't really done so. One of those was the eBay app. To give you an idea, I've been a registered member of eBay for almost 10 years (in 2 weeks, I'll hit that mark), and I've only got 108 ratings. So, I'm not a hard core user, but it fills a need. Last week, I put some items up for auction, Disney collectibles. I did a lot of research on the pieces to get an idea of their value, but eBay's website is helpful in showing you current auctions. Google might help you find recently closed sales and the biggest resources are a few Disneyana sites. However, a friend mentioned the iPhone app will allow you to search closed auctions. Why don't they do that on the website? I launched the app on my phone today and was able to keep track of the items I'm selling AND look up some of the ones I'm about to list and closed auction...

For just over two years, I've been in college student mode. I've got my casual capris, a couple of pairs of jeans and a boatload of USF t-shirts. Until I was on that committee, where I needed to look professional, it was usual to see me in casual attire. A few months ago, Meghan went out and bought a new wardrobe thanks to her weight loss and inspired me to buy a handful of nicer tops. I'm loving the fact that peasant-style blouses are back in, so I grabbed a few of them in different colors. When I had the interview about a month ago for the GA position, I went and got a pair of dress capris. Last week, another dress shirt that was more summery than the shirts I got for the committee interviews. It was paired with those dress capris. (In black, will I ever realize I have a cream-colored cat?) I wasn't looking at the big picture, because I'd had two previous interviews and didn't get the jobs-besides, they were campus jobs where it wouldn't matter if I...

One of the cool things about living in Florida, less than 100 miles away from Cape Kennedy, is that when the shuttles are launched, we can see them. In the seven years here, I've probably seen a half dozen-and could have seen more if the work schedule or cloud cover cooperated. The last launch, I was emptying out Jane's apartment and stopped what I was doing to watch and take pictures. She had a fifth floor apartment and the windows pointed in the proper direction. Unfortunately, the cloud deck prevented us from seeing Discovery's last journey into space. If Endeavor had gone up on the original launch date, we would have been in like flint. Crystal clear blue skies with a few puffy clouds dotting the skies. Alas, that launch was scrubbed and rescheduled for this morning. At 8am, it looked like rain, but the launch was still on. Crap. Clouds. Lots of them. Just in case, I schlepped the camera and my bulky tripod to the field behind our house, hoping that either the...

I know, I know. Long time readers are scratching their heads, figuring I was done with the Sunday music posts. It's time to resurrect this topic, because I like being able to prepare what I'll write about. Especially now that there will be three classes and a job to occupy most of my time! A friend started doing the 30 Day Song Challenge on Facebook last month and well, I had to do it. It was a meme with a twist, asking participants to name a song that reminded them of an event, a song that made them happy, guilty, or a song that they listened to when angry. It inspired a lot of thought. Some of the selections were tough. I really couldn't come up with one for guilty until Ed told me what his was (he took the challenge, too). In this space, I'd mentioned that we had three songs with the designation "Our Song." I posted one, he posted another. (We selected the same song to be played at our funeral) Some of the choices might not have been so difficult...

We are sitting on a lot of stuff in this house. We downsized from a 2400 square foot house, to 1600 sf. When Jane moved into assisted living last year, she had items she wanted to keep, but they didn't fit into her ALF apartment. Into the garage and storage they went. Then, when she broke her hip and it was clear she wouldn't be able to move back into her apartment, we packed the place up, planning to get rid of a bunch of it, but knowing we couldn't do that until she'd decided what to keep and sell. It got shoved into storage and the garage until both were busting at the seams, then some of it got put into our living room and family room. Here we are, two months later, and it's just getting old, navigating around this stuff. Some of it is worth putting on eBay, some may be better off donated. I brought all of her clothes to Goodwill a while back, but there are movies out the wazoo, various collectibles, books and the like. To start off, I just printed out th...

I am returning to the workforce with a steady job. It's part time and in my career field. No benefits, but I'll take the pay and the opportunity to learn things I need to know, all the while helping others as part of the job. Even better, I'll be working with people I know. (The interview was full of laughs because I knew all but one of the interviewers.) It feels a little weird to not have to stalk my usual job-hunting sites...

**This post was written yesterday, but Blogger was down, so I'm adjusting the date to reflect the actual time it was written.** Visited a website and are so jarred by the typographical errors and out of date information that it prevents you from absorbing the material you were seeking? Tonight, on the advice of a professor in the course materials, visited a website for an association I will be expected to join when I finish my education. This professor has a quiz for us to see how much we delved into the site, so I took my time looking around and seeing what is offered. However, the section for the graduate students (who comprise 1/3 of their membership) is chock full of misspellings and links to events that ‘you can attend’-only they happened two months ago. The greetings from the Chair and Chair-elect are nice, but the chair elect’s information stated he was to hold the role from 2010-2011. Oops. I posted on Facebook how I probably should join the organization, but it’s hard t...

I'm not even Jewish, but this offends me! I'm going to put some food coloring in store bought frosting, put it on a store bought angel food cake, then I'm going to dump some jet puffed marshmallows in the middle. Seriously? At least if you want to honor your Jewish friends and you're too incompetent lazy busy to cook something from scratch, get a box of Streits Potato pancake mix and have at it.

Prior to this semester, I'd look at jobs in my intended field to see where they could be found, how much the going rate is for an instructional technologist and what skills are most commonly desired. All the while, as a member of the student association, our leader is kind enough to regularly transmit job postings he sees in academia. If you'd asked two years ago, my hope was to find a corporate job with a Fortune 100 in HR developing training materials. Now, I definitely feel that I'm a better fit for academia and as a result, I look more closely at the job postings R. has submitted to the group. At the beginning of the semester, it was fun to look at them and think "Someday, I'll know how to do those things," but now, just one semester later, I could actually apply for the jobs because I've worked with each program. Just because I've done one assignment for a class doesn't make me an expert, so I will continue refining the skills I've gai...

Tonight, I attended graduation, not as a staffer (which I'd done several times), nor as a graduate. This time, it was to cheer on some friends. At the 11th hour, though, one of the friends was able to get her application for graduation rescinded so that she could pursue a second major in foreign language. Another graduated tonight and quite a few people I'd attended classes with were among the ranks, too-so I sat in the audience and took pictures and video of the ceremonies. However, the President of the university gave his speech and it sounded familiar. Too familiar. Then he mentioned his fondness for the St. Crispin's Day speech in Henry V and extolled what it meant. Too bad I heard the same speech as I sat in the audience as a member of the December graduating class. The student government president also spoke tonight, as she did in December. Back then, I commented to another friend how her body language and facial expression said she wanted to be anywhere but at ...

As we get older, our world view changes. In my case, my world is expanding in one way, while the family ties are dwindling. We've had losses over the past few years that really change perspectives on what is important. My mom. Ed's mom. Ed's sisters. My niece's son, born too early this past October. Family by proxy is encountering an end of life journey with Hospice. (Ironically, they came to our family via Jane, who severed ties with the person who is in his last days.) Today is a day that has caused me to reflect. The moms no longer with us, the friends who want so desperately to be called 'Mom' that probably won't have that opportunity. I'm pretty darn fortunate that not just once, but twice, I was able to bring a baby to term. Healthy babies, though if they knew I wrote the word 'baby' to describe them, they'd each be annoyed, so fast they are traveling away from that moniker. While I think of the sadness that the day can bring...

Meghan is here, enjoying the cool evening on the lanai. She asks us what she should bring us back from her trip. Ed tells her Citroen CV. I laugh. She has no idea what he asked for. I don't think it'll fit in her luggage. And I was thinking a bottle of wine was too much to ask.

Oy, oy, headache. I've mentioned before that despite the suggestions, Jane ignored any advice given about how to prepare for her eventual demise. When we did the pre-paid burial for Mom, we'd suggested the same for her and we only got as far as the fact that she wanted her ashes spread (or at least some of them) at Walt Disney World. She never changed beneficiaries on things when Mom passed, in fact, she changed the beneficiaries TO Mom when she was 80 years old. Not wise thinking, and the topic was one she completely shut down on whenever it was brought up. Today, I had a brief but productive conversation with a lawyer and the headache I envisioned in getting things through probate is actually what I'd expected, though it's not as bad as it could be. We have to have intestate probate filings for both Jane and Mom, though it doesn't matter which order we do them in. That's good, because it's not going to be cheap. Once again, people. If you haven't...

Early this morning, I turned in my last assignment for the semester. An hour later, the grade came back and I secured another A for the semester and did what I accomplished something I did not expect this semester: I got a 4.0. Grad school is supposed to be more challenging. I suppose it is, but life was far more challenging than school has been this semester. It probably boils down to finally learning how to use programs that I had been exposed to for many years, but didn't have the money to invest in my own copies. With all the stuff going on with Jane, in February, I was convinced that I'd probably end the semester with two B's and an A. Definitely respectable, but not what a grade junkie really wants. By the numbers, if you're wondering, a 99, 92.2 and 100. Here and there, I run into friends who are finishing up their undergrad and they're curious. "Is grad school as hard as they make it out to be?" It definitely depends on what you're st...

Today, I had a half dozen reasons to stay home. Gas prices are insane, I still have to finish my assignments for Interactive(though I'm wrapping that up right now), there's things to attend to dealing with Jane's affairs, I'm tired and want to sleep in. Instead, I thought it was more important to go, for it's not every day that you are provided a chance to glimpse into your future. Last week, one of the professors emailed out an invitation to a dissertation proposal defense. As soon as I got the email, I said I have to go. Here's one of the all-too-rare opportunities to see the inner workings of the dissertation process. Believe me, I've asked my professors many questions about their experiences on the road to the PhD., but the nitty gritty of how they achieved it is one of those things that remained a mystery. Perhaps, like childbirth, it's something to block out? In any event, at the appointed time, I found the conference room and filed in along ...

I don't expect my fortune from Chinesr takeout to be in Spanish, but it was.

One quarter of my grade in this last class is to create a tutorial with five different software packages that are used to create presentations. The objective was to create the same educational tutorial, just modify it to use the bells and whistles of the various programs. So, there were five. SoftChalk, Articulate, Camtasia, Captivate and Lectora. I started with the SoftChalk and the time to complete the task was not extremely long, but I probably put about an hour more work into this program due to the learning curve. Then I played with Camtasia and Captivate, two programs that I had purchased for the Mac, but hadn't installed until this week. Camtasia was ridiculously easy to use and turned out a fantastic voiceover presentation that was synched with a Powerpoint slide. (If I created the project on PC, I would have been able to add a quiz.) Now that I've used three other Adobe products, Captivate made a lot of sense and I really liked it. The learning curve was crazy f...

I have allergies. Many allergies, and the majority of them are head scratchers, though this one leaves me scratching my pits (and other parts, too). Behold, the antiperspirant. Life in Florida necessitates the use of this stuff. Prior to living here, I could go most of the year without it, because I didn't sweat very much, even when active. Yeah, I know, I'm weird. However, for those few months when I needed to swipe the underarms, it was a struggle finding something that didn't result in my pits being itchy and me trying in vain not to look like a monkey. Until the stuff on the right came along. When I worked for Bath and Body Works (the first time), they introduced this product and I got one for free to test it out. Like many of their products at the time, I didn't have an issue with it, which we used in my store to great advantage (Suzanne is allergic to just about everything under the sun and has had no reactions to it!). As is typical, I stocked up on it, li...