stuff

i've got a new addition to the bird feeder. it's a nuthatch. mom says i'll get some bright birds come spring. i found another photo job on craigslist tonight. it's for a sports photography assistant. i never heard from the last one. hope i hear from this one. it pays. we saw another great movie in theaters this week. the wrestler. it's not just about wrestling. but it was a little gruesome during those parts. the boys in the house are excited about watching the super bowl on the big screen tomorrow. maybe i'll get them to turn it to the puppy bowl a time or two. we start our new hours at bbuster this week. open two hours later and close an hour earlier during the week. the mailman told me they were getting ready to cut one of their delivery days. and our ups guy was just laid off. it's a scary time for a lot of people out there...

parrots

http://10000birds. com/interview- with-karen- windsor-foster- parrots-ltd. htm

foggy

scott's bday was a lot of fun. i always enjoy the time i get to spend with my family. i took this with amy's camera. got my flash but haven't gotten to use it yet. i read today that they got a new puppy. she looks adorable. i can't wait to meet her. i got to hang out with another family member yesterday. i had the day off and took a trip out to harrisonburg to pick up michael and head to massanutten for some snowboarding. since school was cancelled we pretended to be jmu students and got the "school's out special." twenty five bucks for eight hours. we only lasted three though. it was freezing rain/snow/sleet mixed with fog and frigid temperatures. we had fun on our few runs though.
the roads weren't bad but there was talk of them freezing over night so i headed home. a few hours later i was sitting in front of gareth's new forty seven inch hd television watching zack and miri on blu ray.

future

i just read that my sister ran over her dog today. i feel so bad for their family. gareth always says he doesn't know what he'll do when one of my pets goes. i love them so much. and i know shelby was a part of their family. i hope seeing everyone tomorrow will help them heal. today was my second day of class. i always find a friend in each class i take. it's usually the guy i'm sitting next to. i think i have another friend for this class. he has a pretty sweet canon and his dad does the sports photography for fluvanna county. we talked about cameras and looked at pictures while the professor showed everyone how to use their equiptment. i enjoy now knowing more than the average student. and my professor knows i do more than average work. even two years ago. she went on today about the great photo essay i did for my final in her class. i'm looking forward to showing her my latest projects. the twigs in the bird feeder were her idea. i applied to an photo internship position tonight on craigslist. it's non paying but they're looking for someone for future employment. i don't know what my future holds. gareth's decided to graduate this spring. and he has the opportunity to go to grad school. but he hasn't really looked into anything yet. he wants to take some time off. and i completly understand. after five years of college. he needs a break. but where that leaves us until then and then when that happens is really up to him. and if he has any clue what that entails he hasn't shared it with me. here's to the unknown.

better

premonition

i got a voicemail from mom today. i'd told her the other day that i may take a trip home to pick up my flash today. she was just making sure i was still coming by and wanted to see if i could take her by the doctor's to get an x-ray. she'd hurt her knee yesterday and could barely walk. by the time i got the message she'd already found a neighbor to take her. i'd decided not to come since i'm going to louisa saturday to see everyone for my brother in law's bday party. but i feel pretty bad about mom being home alone now. she's had a lot of health issues lately and i think she's having a tough time handling it all. she said today when i finally got to talk to her that she got a "premonition of being old" from today. i put branches out on our bird feeder the other day. so the shots look more natural. there's two chickadees that have been coming the past few days. i haven't gotten a great shot of them yet but hopefully i will soon. this one's alright : ]

issues

i've had some issues occure at blockbuster lately. i got a call from my old manager (who's also our district training manager and helping our new manager get settled at my store) earlier this week. she wanted to know where the deposit from new year's eve was. i opened new year's day and had dropped off a very large deposit from the very busy night before. but it was nowhere to be found. i was pretty upset about it. seemed to be my word against theirs. so gareth decided to finally report the my old manager doing something pretty sketchy herself last month. as it turns out the deposit was stuck in the bank's drop box. but i'm glad we did the report. except now i'm worried about any retaliation. i had another issue this week with my paycheck. my old manager had run the report to close the pay week at my store and clocked me out at three in the afternoon on the day i did the double. luckily i noticed my hours were short and looked into it. when i called to ask about it she didn't really have an excuse but sounded annoyed telling me she'd get it on my next paycheck. i should report this too. how can people be like this?

dove

discoveries

it's been a busy week. but mostly a good one. except i had to work a double shift yesterday. my schedule got a little mixed up when one girl really wanted tuesday night off so i took her shift and another girl really wanted sunday off so i took her shift. it worked out well for me as well because i got friday and saturday off. but after thirteen hours yesterday my legs were and still are killing me. we have another manager starting at our store today. one of the reasons i went back to my old store was because we had this great manager working there. but hopefully this new guy will be great too. i trained him when i was still at the training store. but he says i taught him more than anyone there so that scares me because i certainly don't know how to run the whole store. we'll see what happens. i applied for another job last week. at the va department of game and inland fisheries. just a secretary position but it pays as much as i'm getting paid now. another we'll see situation. i got to hang out with mom on friday. we went to see yes man. it was amusing but nothing spectacular. we went to friendly's after. reminded me of being a kid. on saturday gareth and i went for a walk and found an interesting path near our house. it went between the river and a giant graveyard. started raining near the end but it was worth the discoveries. then we went to see slumdog millionaire. i've been asked if gareth likes any movies and the answer is yes. we both loved this one. it's really brilliant if anyone gets to a theater that's playing it. these are some pics of the birds that have been coming to the new feeder mom got us. make sure she sees them and knows i'm thankful : ]

yesterday

http://www.nationalbirdday.org/

happy bird day : ]

malfunctioning

my computer crashed. the laptop. i've set up my desktop to get online now. it's a good thing i had it here. i don't know if the laptop is fixable. or how long that will take. why are my machines always malfunctioning? the new year hasn't been all bad though. we had yesterday off and went to see a movie with some friends. benjamin button. it was long but interesting. and gareth really tore into it afterwards. it was legitimate. there were a lot of faults with it as a film. but me and the girl we were with enjoyed it. she almost didn't get to go. she'd shown up late and they were sold out. but the other guy we'd invited gave her his ticket. what a gentlemen. i'm sure he would have enjoyed telling us how terrible it was too. i wathced the movie the wackenss tonight. comes out tuesday. i really liked it. it was a pretty heartfelt and humorous film. i watch a lot of those : ]