[Electra]

Oh don't you jsut hate it when you work hard on something then it all goes cur-pluck....I have done that too many times. You have my sympathy...

[erikavanhuis]

Yeah, I hate it when that happens. Fortunately, I was able to get everything fixed though. Now, I have another project to work on that should take me most of the day to finish. We got an order yesterday before I left for some of our safety training CD's that we sell. My job is to get them all finished, put interactive menus on them, burn them, and package them. And of course it's for one of the CD's that I didn't already have done. Oh well, it gives me something to do other than waste time online all day . So, that said, I should probably get to work. If I get done in time, I may stop in later this afternoon.
Until then...

[erikavanhuis]

Ok, so I got the CD's done in about 2 hours yesterday...much sooner that I thought I would BUT...then I spent the rest of the day tweaking with our website. I feel like nothing that I do my boss is completely satisfied with. I'll get it all fixed up and then he'll be like "I like it, but can you make it do this?" Some of the stuff was easy, but then there's other stuff that I just can't do because I don't have control over it, and he just doesn't seem to understand that. Grrrrrr... Oh well, I think I've finally got it done now. It was just sort of frustrating yesterday, and this morning trying to get things fixed. I guess that's just part of the frustrating annoyance of trying to get a website all set up...nothing is ever perfect. I'm always having to either fix something, or having to call our web host to have him tweak with something else that I have no control over (i.e. taking an indented line out of a paragraph), but even he can't do that without doing a major upgrade to our company website, which costs money...oh well, it's a job, and I make money working here so I can't complain too much. Fortunately, I got the website done when I did because the week after next we have a huge contract job that will take a month to finish...lots of paperwork for that one!
Well, I should probably get back to work now! That's my rant for the day. Gee, I don't do that very often. I'm usually in a good mood. Thank goodness I get a 3 day weekend!
Well, more later...

[erikavanhuis]

Well, back from a nice long weekend. I'm back at work now after 3 days off! It was actually a pretty busy weekend. Mark did his first wedding photo shoot on Saturday. Boy, was that an interesting wedding...a Jewish/Mormon wedding. Talk about two extremes! Actually, she was Jewish, and he converted her to Mormonism. Oh my gosh, there was so much tension there. Neither of their families wanted this wedding to happen. On a positive note though, the pictures turned out good. 13 rolls of film!!! Now my work begins...putting them all in an album for them. I have to meet with them when they get back to find out which pictures they want in the album. Then, on Sunday, we went to church. It was so good to be back! We missed everyone while we were on vacation. That, and we just love our church and being there. We felt bad that we couldn't stay very long after service like we usually do because we had another photo shoot! This time, we did senior pictures. This one was only 5 rolls though, so it didn't take as long. We're getting those ones developed today. I'm excited to see how those turned out. Actually, it ended up being more of a family shoot because we did the brother and sister also. After those get developed, I get to put those in an album too because we're offering albums to our customers and both the photo shoots we did this weekend wanted albums. We figured we could put my love of scrapbooking to good use! So, now I have to find time this week to put these albums together! Yesterday was about our only relaxing day! We spent it cleaning house and doing laundry before Mark's mom came over to spend the evening with us. We hadn't seen her since before we left for England, so it was a good visit. She bought dinner, so I didn't have to cook! I still have a sink full of dishes to do and clothes to put away that never got done yesterday though... Oh well, I'll get to it this week sometime!
So, all that being said, I should probably get back to work now! I'll write more later. Until then...

[Electra]

Good grief, erika! Talk about busy days! Well, I hope you're able to get some off time...and I think having a morman and jewish wedding is like mixing black and white, it ain't pretty that's for sure....

[erikavanhuis]

Ha ha, yeah busy days...the story of my life! Fortunately I was able to get some time off on our vacation! Actually, most of the time, my job isn't too stressful, so that makes it nice. Some days are actually like a break when there's not much to do. Of course, I'd never be able to get away with say bringing in all of my scrapbooking stuff into the office and pass the time that way...books however are a different story. Unfortunately, we're coming in to our busy time of year...so none of that for a couple months or so. In fact, today I'm spending the day getting paperwork put together for a huge contract job that we do every year that lasts for about a month. I'll just put it this way...I have to put together paperwork for 150 cranes that will be inspected, plus keep up on any other jobs that may come in. Then, after that job gets done, I have to update everything in the database and print out a huge report for everything! I feel like I actually EARN my pay on these days!
Anyway, that said, time to get to work! I'll drop in later when I get a break. Until then...

[erikavanhuis]

Well, I got everything done for that huge job yesterday. Now, I'm just sort of sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. My boss called yesterday and said they made it safely to England, after their flight on Monday got cancelled, and they ended up flying the same airline that Mark and I flew. Which reminds me...don't ever fly Air Canada. They are terrible! Between late flights, lost luggage, and no food...oh well, I won't start on that again!
I feel pretty confident about how I've done so far with the accounting stuff here at work, which is what my boss takes care of. It really intimidates me...billing, entering in bills to pay, printing checks...aargh! The program is all in DOS too, which makes it even more intimidating. The sad thing is, I grew up working with DOS. I guess I got used to the windows program I use at home. I like looking at graphs...I think I'm more of a picture person than a stare-at-numbers-and-try-to-make-sense-of-them person.
Other than that, the day has been pretty slow!! Yeah!!! I'm not sure what I'm going to do tonight though...I'm thinking about not swimming because I have 2 albums to put together from the photo shoots this last weekend. However, I could probably work on them on Saturday or after church on Sunday. I just don't have much time during the week in the evening because as soon as I get home from the pool, I start on dinner and Mark gets home by 9, so I don't have much time to get much else done. Oh well! I guess I'll just start staying up later at night!
Wow, that was just some random babble! I'm going to go eat lunch now! More later...

[erikavanhuis]

Yeah!!! We had a pretty low-key weekend this weekend! It was sort of relaxing. On Saturday, we went to a suprise birthday party for one of Mark's friends. We found a really cool state park close to where we live. Now we have another place to take people for photo shoots! Sunday we spent most of the day at church. Boy, did we have an awesome service yesterday!! When I have more time later, I'll have to tell about it. Hey, that's an idea...I can start writing what I remember from church on Sundays so that I can always have a refrence to what I learned...I'll have to start taking better notes, or just listen to the CD's of the sermon again! Anyway, when I remember I'll write it down. Mark and I are starting to get more involved in the ministries at our church. We've been helping with the coffee stand once a month for a while now. Then, Mark was asked to help run sound. He's going to step down from doing coffee now and that's okay because we still need to go to church to go and be fed...not just to be there to serve in every ministry that's going on and miss out on the teaching. I was asked yesterday to work in the nursery. I wouldn't mind that, but it would be a huge sacrifice on my part...I don't want to miss the sermons. That, and we don't have any kids yet so it would be kind of wierd. So, I'm going to turn that down for now and just continue to do the coffee thing. I figure that I'll do the nursery thing in a couple of years when we actually have kids...then I'll probably be in there anyway and I wouldn't mind helping. Don't get me wrong, I love babies but I just don't feel that it is where I should be right now.
Oh well, something more to pray about. Anyway, I should probably be getting back to work now. However, my computer is being backed up and I can't get into anything on it anyway. Well, more next time then...

[erikavanhuis]

Hmm...I don't seem to have anyone to interested in writing to me in my journal...oh well. I'll just keep writing to myself. Yeah for me, I got the first of 4 albums done last night!!! Now, I get to put together the photos from the wedding we did in an album. After that's done, I have 2 portfolio albums to put together for Mark. When I finally get that done, then I get to scrapbook our England trip! I can't wait. Hopefully, I'll get done with the one from the wedding by this weekend, and then Mark's albums should go quickly since they're going to be a continuous work in progress.
So, right now it's raining outside...that's okay it feels like fall now, and we needed the rain. Everything was dead...now it's all green again. Praise God our roof doesn't leak anymore. That was our project last spring was to get the roof fixed because we had a leak right over our computer...bad stuff! So, yeah we spent an entire day in May getting that fixed. I felt skeptical about my roofing job, but it has held up so far! Thanks to my parents, I got some of that experience when I was 14 and we were building a garage. I learned all sorts of construction stuff...stuff that I learned I never want to do again...especially roofing! I paid for that for a week afterwords! Anyway, another day in the office by myself. That's okay though. The phone's been ringing enough to keep me busy. I think I may leave a couple minutes early today though so I can go to the bank to make the deposit. I really feel uncomfortable leaving when I'm the only one here...I don't know call me silly but I do.
Well, I should probably get going. I think I'll call my parents and my sisters tonight. I haven't talked to them in a while, so that would be a good thing to do. So anyway, more later...

[erikavanhuis]

Oh my goodness! What a long and boring day today!!! I've spent entirely too much time online. But, I guess when there's nothing else to do... There has been absolutely nothing to do at work today, and I'm the only one here! I'm looking forward to when things pick up again in the next couple of weeks. Oh well! At least I can turn my radio up as loud as I want and no one complains about it. The phone has been absolutely dead today too. So far today I've accomplished reading the entire latest Reader's Digest, and lots of interesting stuff online.
Actually, I guess it hasn't been too bad. I did get to leave this morning for about an hour and a half...our company had some shirts silk screened with our logo on it, so I got to go pick those up. Other than that, not much else...at least I get to go home soon! Well, I did get to talk to my mom and sisters on the phone today, so at least I didn't do nothing today! I should probably get going. More later...

[erikavanhuis]

I am bound and determined to make today not a boring day!!! I actually think I have some things to do today. I've got some billing from a job that I think got done yesterday...I'll have to check on that and then there's a couple of jobs today.
Anyway, it's sort of nice outside today...it was cloudy and sort of dreary looking yesterday. Maybe that is partly why the day went so slow. It's starting to get much cooler out though. Which reminds me...I've got to call and schedule a propane delivery so we can heat our house this winter! We've been procrastinating on getting that done because it's not exactly cheap. They came and filled our tank last year in the middle of winter without letting us know, and the bill came to $288!!! We weren't exactly expecting that...so we called and told them we'd let them know when we needed to have our tank filled the next time! This time, we'll be expecting the big bill!
Other than that, I'm almost done putting one of Mark's portfolio albums together. I should finish it today. Then, I've only got two more left to do and I can finally get our England stuff done!!!
So, that's my update for today. I hope anyone who reads this has an absolutely wonderful day! Until later....

[erikavanhuis]

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!! Yeah, I made it through the week, and didn't screw anything up at work! One more week until my boss comes back. I'm looking forward to this weekend. It should be a fun one. Mark and I are going to the fair tomorrow. We've gone every year since we've been together, so it's sort of become a tradition. It's funny, there really isn't anything in particular that we go to see...after going so many times, it's sort of gotten boring, but we still go nonetheless. We might meet up with my sister there tomorrow too, so that should be fun. I hope it doesn't rain on us. If it does though, there's enough to do inside. I wish that the concerts that we want to go to were on the weekend. This last Tuesday night, Newsboys were there, and now in the middle of next week, Audio Adrenaline and Jeremy Camp are coming. It would be fun to go...the tickets are cheap...free actually if you sit in the grandstand, and $15 for reserved seats. Not bad for a concert. Oh well, maybe one of these times Mark will be able to get a weeknight off. Actually what would be more fun would be being able to go to Creation Fest. I went the very first time it was in Washington back in '98, but haven't been back to it since, and Mark has never been to it. His boss always goes, which is why we can't ever make it. Someone's got to stay back and make sure the pool runs the way it should. I heard from my family though that this year wasn't as great as previous years, so I don't feel so bad for missing it.
So, where was I...oh yeah, this weekend...then after the fair on Saturday, we go to church on Sunday. We've got to get there early this week because Mark's been recruited to run sound. Then, we're staying late after because there's a ministers in training class, and then we're going out to lunch with a couple of friends that we've been trying to get together with for a while now. I have a feeling this weekend will go by fast, but it will be fun. I'm looking forward to it. Oh my gosh...last Sunday we helped in the espresso stand at church and it was nuts!! I'm glad we don't do that every week. We went through 4 gallons of milk in a little over half an hour! Actually, we ended up running out of milk, so we ended up having to mix things...it was rather interesting, but no one complained about how their coffee tasted, si I guess it wasn't too bad.
Ok, so that was kind of random! Oh well! Only an hour left of work today. I think I might actually swim tonight. I've taken the week off because it's breaststroke week, and I've been having problems with my knee lately. So, breaststroke doesn't exactly feel too great...we think it might be water on the knee or something because I've got some sort of pressure under my kneecap, and it pops when I walk. Wearing a knee brace helps though, and it's feeling pretty good, so I think I'll try my luck tonight. Next week it butterfly week...I'm going to die!!! My fly's okay...at least I've been told it looks pretty good, but I get so dang tired doing it!! I was happy last week when we were doing backstroke...that's my specialty.
Well, I think this is a long enough entry for today. To anyone who reads this, have a fantastic weekend! God bless you all! More to come later...

[erikavanhuis]

Monday again...but what a great weekend I had!!! On Saturday, Mark and I spent the day at the fair, and we had so much fun. We found out that Bill Cosby was there that day, so we went to see him. He is just dang funny!! Then, yesterday church was great again. We had a guest speaker and it was pretty good. He taught on the book of Habakkuk and some of the stuff he said was pretty interesting. Then, after church, we went out with a couple of friends and had lunch and then just hung out at Starbucks for a while. So, yeah, it was just a good weekend. Then, we found out yesterday that we will be able to go see Audio Adrenaline and Jeremy Camp perform at the fair on Tuesday!! Mark was able to get the night off work. We're so excited! So, that should be fun. We'll have to hurry to get there after I get off work though. Hopefully we won't hit any traffic getting over there. Anyway, I should probably get to work now. More later...

[erikavanhuis]

Hooray for having a gym so close to our house!!! We've decided to start working out in the morning before I go to work. Mark wants to start getting in shape again, and he needed some motivation to get going, so I'm going with him. It was actually fun this morning. It was quite a change from swimming. It took forever to get my heart rate up to where I was actually working hard. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. Usually when I swim, I get it up to 160-170 by the time I'm done with my warm up. I was almost done this morning by the time it finally got up that high. Anyway, I feel great right now, and Mark said he does too. I guess we'll see how we feel tomorrow morning! That will be the true test! I'm glad we both went together though, because it's no fun to do that sort of thing by yourself.
Anyway, this is a short entry, but that's all for now! Oooh...we get to go see Audio Adrenaline and Jeremy Camp tonight. I'm excited. It should be fun!
Ok, now I'm done. Time to get to work. More later...

[Icerose]

Originally Posted by erikavanhuis

Hooray for having a gym so close to our house!!! We've decided to start working out in the morning before I go to work.

You are so lucky! I have really wanted to go to the gym, but as there is not one in my area(to my knowledge) so I just jog a mile in the morning. And that is only good for your legs, and endurance, which is good, but I want to do some strength training. Have fun!

Icerose