Happy Day After Halloween!

Halloween is a funny holiday to me. Some people so completely over-board in their way of celebrating and others do not even acknowledge it's existence. I think that I lie in the middle. I LOVE candy, and I LOVE dressing up. When I arrived at work on Friday I parked next to a nun, rode in the elevator with a witch needless to say I was feeling the festiveness of the day. Then I walked into my office and was greeted by a coworker commenting on my Orange shirt. She asked why I was wearing Orange, because I never wear Orange. I explained that it was my way of dressing up for Halloween (no way was I going to wear a costume to work - I am not that brave) and her response was "oh, right I guess it is Halloween." And so the day passed on as any other with no Tricks and certainly no Treats.


Upon arriving home from work I went to work on my actual costume for the night. Halloween is actually my friend Michael's birthday, so each year we get to celebrate with a little costume party. I must say the ladies of the Penthouse had the most creative costumes of the evening (pictures will follow). We had a lovely non spooky evening filled with Chili, Nachos, lots of candy, games and a classic viewing of Psycho (in which Angela had a small crush on Norman Bates). Unfortunately there were no trick-or-treaters to be found, oh well all the more candy for us.

Here are some photos of the great costumes:

Rachel and Allen were a smore.

Angela was Van Gough's Starry Night.

Billy was Carlos.


Michael and Bethany were Bruins.

Carlos and Heidi were Batman and Joker.

And I was a Cereal Killer.

Thriller!

I the spirit of tomorrow’s Hallowed eve I have here one of the best music videos of all time. THRILLER. Guaranteed to get you in the Halloween spirit.

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Thriller lyrics - Michael Jackson lyrics

Thriller Video - Michael Jackson Music Videos

Music Videos by VideoCure

The Pumpking Problem

Something eerie happened in the wee hours of the night. There was a loud crash – it startled Rachel awake. Unfortunately Angela and I slept right through it. Upon hearing about the loud noises in the morning we were all left pondering it’s source. Was it a car accident outside? Did someone try to break in to our apartment? Or was it actually in Rachel’s dream? It was an unsolved mystery.

Well it was unsolved until I got to work this morning, turned on my computer and opened up the Internet. There on the front page of MSN I see Angela’s and my pumpkin staring back at me. That’s right, here is the pic:


Incredible, not only are they giving Martha all the credit for our beautiful creations, but they had the nerve to steel them off of our front stoop in the middle of the night. Of course they are very good thieves as they stole the pumpkins, put mice in mine, had a lovely photo shoot and then replaced them at our door all before we woke. They almost completed the mission without us knowing. Had they not created a small ruckus waking Rachel it would have gone unnoticed. We would have simply assumed that Martha shared our ideas, however due to the noises in the night we know what really when down.

Really Martha……Really? Next time carve your own pumpkins.

Nancy Kerrigan

Does that name ring a bell? You all remember what happened in the 1994 Olympic games right? Nancy Kerrigan was beaten and then unable to compete in the ice skating competition. I was almost the next Nancy. Please understand I am not comparing my skating abilities to hers, I am no where near that talented. I considered it a true accomplishment that I made it a whole 1.5 hours without falling onto the ice. However, while we were skating I came very close to having a near death experience on the ice.

You see a few friends and I went to a free skate session at a local ice skating rink. Since it was a free skate there were a fair amount of people there participating, all ages and abilities. One man however (who we called Brian Boitano) was there showing off his skills. Yes he was a good ice skater, yes he could do some cool tricks. No that does not mean he can cut me off and nearly blade my left are off.

I was skating peacefully along with both arms out, no this does not look pretty, but it is quite effective when trying to stay balanced. Now Brian Boitano is skating all twirly and nice in the middle of the rink. Then he makes a big loop sticking his leg out behind him. This is when I saw him approaching me. Me being naive thought oh no big deal he sees me he will steer away from me or put his leg down. He is getting closer and closer and closer........then I notice his eyes are closed. AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Yes I did scream, pulled my arms down and tried to skate further out to the side. It was a close call, but I did make it out with all appendages still in tact. Whew!

Sylvan was unfortunatley the first one to hit the ice.


Here is Tim showing off his mad skating skills.

This would be me thinking I am a great skater because I can go on one foot for about 2.5 seconds.



Minus a few close calls with the ice we had a splendid good time!

Pumpkins!

Friday evening we attended a lovely fall party and partook in the main activity of pumpkin carving. Yay! Since you only carve pumpkins once a year I think it is easy to forget how long and gruelling of a process it really is. I think the best part is the initial cutting it open and cleaning out all of the seeds. I think it tool us a totally of 2 hours to complete our masterpieces.Unfortunately none of us placed when it came to the judging round- there was some pretty tough competition out there though.

Angela created a pretty frightening skull.

Allen and Rachel headed for opposite corners of the room as to have their designs be a surprise......little did they know they were both carving palm trees. Not only did they create matching pumpkins, they were wearing matching outfits (unplanned of course)

I have come to the conclusion that I am not very good at carving pumpkins and do not like having the most sad looking pumpkin in the bunch so I like to opt for the more unconventional or creative approach to carving. And that is how we got the "Holy" pumpkin - which although was not a winner did get an honorable mention in the judging. However in the process of creating this beautiful display of art I managed to give myself many many blisters. But I suppose beauty is pain.

Movies Movies Movies

Tis the season. For really great movies that is. With the Oscars just around the corner there are many movies out and soon to be released that I am very excited to see. But I have to admit as much as I want to see Changeling that is not the movie I am dropping everything to see this weekend. This weekend is all about High School Musical Senior Year!!!!!!!!!!!

The greatly anticipated final installment of High School Musical is finally here. This time on the big screen. Some people are apposed to transition to the big screen, which does have a few pitfalls. 1) I do not believe it will be available in Karaoke format – not that you would want to sing along in a packed out movie theater. 2) You have to shell out the big bucks to see it. And finally 3) You do not have the luxury of Tivo or DVR so you can watch it over and over again before it is available on DVD. As sad as those things are I am actually very excited that it is on the big screen this time because we don’t have cable. It is always a bit dramatic when a new Disney Channel original movie debuts because I have to find a loyal friend who will either let me come over and watch the flick or Tivo it for me to watch at a later date (Thanks Billy for recording Camp Rock!). Oh the drama.

I think that you should follow in my footsteps, drop everything and go to the movies. I am pretty open about my love for HSM but I do understand that not everyone is. If you are to embarrassed to admit that you enjoy the films don’t worry you are not alone, check out this article from MSNBC. It just goes to show you are never too old to enjoy a good Disney movie. Plus if you need further encouragement to see it, read a review people are loving it(ok maybe only viewers and not critics - but really who agrees with the critics anyways); it’s evidently all about the junk yard song The Boys Are Back and of course there is also Zac Efron. Did you miss the memo that Zac Efron is so hot right now? That in it of itself is enough reason for you to see it. That’s right we in the Penthouse are Zac Efron fans, but we like to think it is simply because Angela went to high school with him (What?! Have I not told you that? It’s true, look it up he’s from Arroyo Grande).

To sum it all up I am seeing HSM3 and you should too.

Photos

Here are some photos from my weekend in Sacramento. You have probalby seen most of them on facebook, but I triend to include a few never before seen photos for my loyal blog readers. Enjoy!

Serious Suits

Today everyone at the office meant serious business. Or so it appeared when we all arrived in suits/business attire. I never really realized how casual business casual is, until I could not wear it. Thank goodness our work dress code did not change permanently; it was just a one day thing for a staff photo. Earlier in the week it was announced that we would be taking a staff photo and we were to come in suits. Problem. I don’t own a suit. After careful consideration I get the ok on wearing business attire as long as that includes a jacket, since I will be in the back that is all that will be seen.

Whew, that was a close call. I arrive at work this morning and everyone is as requested in suits. I don’t know what it is about them but I really think they make people more serious. Just the idea that you are in serious clothing means you must be serious. There were no jokes today, no laughter, basically no fun. Until lunch that is when we were treated to the Macaroni Grill. We had a lovely break ate lunch and then returned to the office to take the photo.

First off individual photos were taken of those who are not currently on the website. That would include me – I have been a little against my photo being on the website, but it looks like it is time to get over that. I just don’t like the idea of someone googleing me and my photo appearing. Yeah maybe I am a little vain to think that people would actually google stalk me but then again maybe not. I google people all the time, watch out I have probably googled each and every one of you. Scared?

Ok so back to the pictures. We successfully take all of the individual photos and then move onto the group photo. This is when the drama began. People complained that the office was too small to take the photo in so we should go outside. So we go outside and then people complain that it is too windy. You can’t win. We took some in each location. Outside we were standing on a hill, so not only was I in the back because I am taller than everyone but I was also uphill. I felt gigantic. Then inside we made 3 rows of people, some in chairs, some standing and then a back row of people standing on phone books. Ok well all the people besides me were standing on phone books. It was pretty funny I don’t think anyone actually ended up taller than me and they were standing on phone books. Oh man I am just too tall.

I know you are all dying to see the pics –I know I am. I will upload them as soon as they are available.

No Man Left Behind

Last week a knife was found in our hall closet. Naturally this was suspicious, since when did we start keeping a knife in the closet? We then tossed around our own theories as to why it was there. The coconscious was that if our apartment was broken into we would most likely not be able to enter the kitchen without encountering the intruder; therefore a knife must be kept in the hall closet where we could access it and use if to self defense in the event of a robbery.

Of course our talk of intruders brought up an ever so popular topic of escape routes from our apartment in various emergency situations. Ever since we had an earthquake a few months ago, and I found out that I was the emergency coordinator at work my roommates have been encourageing me to make an emergency evacuation plan for our apartment. Of course I have yet to do this. We like to joke about what we will do in different situations quite often. Generally the end with us climbing out the window, either shimmying down some bed sheets have tied together, or jumping into the tree outside, but no matter what the plan is they always have one thing in common. Which is me being the last one out. I don’t know how that happened, I guess I was nominated as the person to be sacrificed in case of emergency. In the bed sheet scenario we are not tying the sheets to something I am to hold them, or I am to lower them down from our window. And in case of an intruder I am to hold them off while the other two escape. Needless to say I am really feeling the love right now.

Thankfully we do not have to worry about any of these situations because all of the women of the Penthouse know RADS. That pretty much means we will be safe forever. RADS is all we need – Thank You Biola!

The Best CD EVER!

I'm back. After a fun weekend up north with some of the fam I back to work and back to bordom. Alas I shall fill my time with telling funny stories from our trip, since nothing exciting is happening at work today.

All of you loyal readers know that I got a new car about 2 months ago. I bought the car from a nice Indian man in Fullerton, it was his mother’s car. Ok so when I picked up the car there was a singe CD in the CD player. I didn’t think much of it – pulled it out and put it in the center console to be dealt with later. I figured it was some random music in another language, something I would never want to listen to.

Two weeks later Jake found the CD and felt compelled to put it in and find out what was on it. Much to our surprise the first song was a sort of home made rapish song. Very entertaining, unfortunately that song was followed up by other not so entertaining songs we could not understand, so we turned it off after 3 songs.

Now Friday, about one month later, while in the middle of our roadtrip Lindsey discovered the CD. So I told her the story about the first song and how funny it was and how Jake loved it. Naturally she wanted to hear it for herself. We listened, we laughed and we moved to the next song. We figured since we had nothing but time we might as well see what else was on the CD.

Boy were we surprised. It is officially the most random CD ever. There is the rap song, a couple Indian songs, then a little Dean Martin, Kiss the Girl (from the Little Mermaid) some more Indian music, and Indian cover of Madonna “Hey Mister DJ,” Johnny B Good, and some actual hard core rap that we had to skip over because of foul language. Quite the selection, it had something from almost every genre.

Ok seriously this CD is hysterical I am not quite sure if it lives up to it’s name “The Best CD Ever” but I think you all need to listen to it. Next time I see you make sure you ask me about it. It will change your life forever. I don’t know if it is possible, but I am going to try to figure out a way to play it on here – or link it or something, I am looking into it.

TGIF

This week has been a bit busy for me at work, with the individual tax return extension deadline and all. But now all is done and it looks like things will be a little slow until the New Year begins. On any given day this can be a good thing or a bad thing. I do enjoy having lots of time to peruse the internet and email, but it also makes time go by a little slow. Feel free to send lots of emails my way.

This weekend I am embarking on the first roadtrip in my new car. I have owned it for about 2 months now, it is about time it had a good breaking in, I have not even used the cruise control yet. I am headed up to Sacramento to visit with the fam and attend a baby shower for Lindsey and Gavin. Woot Woot I am very excited to see everyone. It seems as if my family has exploded on facebook within the last month, with many of my aunts and cousins getting profiles – it has been fun, facebook makes it a lot easier to keep in touch. But I am looking forward to seeing everyone in person this weekend.

I shall return next week with some grand stories of the weekend and some pics of the fam and the growing belly. Have a great weekend all!

Have You Voted?

I realize with the presidential debate last night you probably think I am referring to the upcoming election. But you are wrong. Instead I am posting on behalf of a coworker. Her son is currently in the final round of a radio contest – in which he could win a wedding at Wicked. So cool, I had the pleasure of seeing Wicked earlier this year and totally loved it. Anyways back to the contest there are six couples left and people are voting online to decide for the winner. Said winner gets to get married on stage before the show, Alphaba and Glenda will sing for them, they get to attend the show and then get a backstage tour.

So that brings me to the point of this post I would like all of you to go to this website and vote for couple number four, Marcelina and Gerald. I think the contest is over this weekend, so vote vote vote.

The Post Office - Love it or Hate it

If you are a working girl/guy like me chances are you have had the same frustration with the Post Office. They make it nearly impossible for one who works a normal 8-5 job to mail a package. Most locations do not open until 9 or 10 am and then close at 4pm.

Now you are probably thinking well duh just go at lunch. I have, it is no good. My office is even in a prime location for postal services, we are about 2 min from 2 different post offices. However every working person in all of Cerritos appears to have the same problem as I. Therefore we all go to the post office at lunch……..and wait in line. I have spent more than 45 minutes waiting in line when I have gone to the post office at lunch. Not only is that a ridiculous waist of time, I only get at 30 min lunch break.

Needless to say I have a few frustrations with the hours of the post office. However there are days like today when I absolutely LOVE them. Days on which I must take about 20 items to the post office to get a lovely date stamp on them. These days only come around about 8 times a year, when we have. Deadlines, which require all mailings to be certified and mailed through the post office. Today is such a day. Because of the previously discussed post office hours I have to/get to leave work early to make it to the post office before closing. Even if I have to wait in a crazy long line I still make it home earlier than I would on a normal day. Yay!

Going Green

The Ladies of the Penthouse are going Green. First we cure breast cancer and now the environment. Whatever will we do next. We recently replaced some of our light bulbs with great energy efficient bulbs, and I have faithfully been using my Susan G. Koman for the cure reusable grocery bag every time I shop. It is great, just the right size for all of my purchases - and we learned that if you bring your own bag to Trader Joes you get to enter a raffle they do each month for $25 of free grocery's. Pretty Sweet if you ask me. And finally we recycle. Unfortunately we have not kicked the habit of drinking bottled water (which I hear is not so great for planet earth, maybe that will be our next months goal) therefore we have been collecting our empty bottles for quite a while. Between those and our mass amounts of Diet Pepsi cans we had quite a bounty to take in to the recycling center.

Here is Rachel emptying out our bags of bottles.

Angela sorting out or plastic and aluminum.

The best part about recycling, I mean besides the obvious of making our planet a better place is ........you get money!!! So our total result was $14.77, not to shabby. We took ourselves out to a lovely dinner at the Macaroni Grill.

Today's Lesson: Reduce Reuse Recycle

We Found Fall!!!

Finally a place in La Habra that has trees other than Palm. Thanks to Rachel and Angela's great exploratory skills (learning from the best -after all Columbus day is tomorrow) we have a new location for walks, and enjoying the crisp fall weather. There is nothing like a little roommate bonding with nicely colored fall leaves. Naturally an impromptu photo shoot ensued, as seen below.





Twas the beginning of a lovely fall weekend.

Mandy's Movie Quote Challenge

Are you up for the Challenge? I have compiled a list of movie quotes from some of my favorite films. Your goal is to be the first person to identify all of (or the most) the correct answers. Some are hard, and some are easy.

Good Luck!

“Rock stars have kidnapped my son!”

“As you wish.”

“Well, technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but it's on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss.”

“If you were in your office right now we'd be having this conversation face-to-face.”

“Why did it have to be snakes, I hate snakes”

“Morgan honey, just because she has on a funny dress doesn't mean she's a princess. She's a seriously confused woman who's fallen into our laps”

Oh did I forget to mention there is a prize for the winner? Well guess what……..there’s a prize for the winner.

There's A New Hero In Town

It’s time for Wonder Women to retire that red cape of hers. Mandy is here to save the day. That’s right, due to my brute strength I am a hero. Or at least I was for on person last night. Don’t laugh too hard - I’ll tell you how it all went down.

There I am bench pressing in my living room, what I do in all my spare time, building up my muscles so that I can help any innocent passersby. When I hear a blood curdling scream. I flew out the door to the rescue………..ok maybe that’s not really what happened.

Really I was cleaning – per yesterdays post, mid organization when there was a light knock on the door. When I opened the door I see my neighbor standing there holding a jar of spaghetti sauce. She looks a little frustrated, and asks me if I can open her Prego for her. Mandy to the rescue……two failed attempts later with a loud grunt I break the seal on the stubborn jar. We both let out a little cheer of celebration. Wahoo! She thanks me profusely – saying she didn’t know what to do when she could not open, because she would not have been able to eat.

And there you have it, my heroic tale.

What A Mess

I have a problem. I really like to organize things, have everything in it’s place and looking nice. But don’t worry that is not my problem – I am not a super neat organized person. The problem is, I have a hard time maintaining my organization. I think it stems out of laziness. I don’t want to take the time to put things fully away, so I just put them in the cupboard, where it sits behind a closed door. Out of sight out of mind. Yes, I was definitely the child who shoved everything under the bed – in fact if you looked under my bed at my parents house it is probably still crammed full of junk.

I have by some miracle managed to keep my under the bed area organized now, but my cupboard in the hallway is a different story entirely. I just organized them about two months ago and already they look like this:

Like I said I have a hard time keeping up the organization. Which is just silly, I always end up just shoving things in there, instead of taking the time to actually putting them away. However, due to the shoving and cramming I have to completely reorganize every couple of months or so, which I am sure takes more time than just putting away things in the first place. So right now I am going to go organize my two shelves for the last time.

No more lazy cramming and shoving for me. From this point forward I am going to put things away in there proper place, and my designated area will forever look like this:

And The Winner Is......

I have become a blog enthusiast. I love reading blogs, some of my favorites are listed over there to the left. There is a group of about 10 blogs that I follow closely and check at least once a day. One of which is Anne and May’s blog. Anne and May are joint authors of a couple of books that I have read. So I read there blog everyday, and they often give away things, you know free books and what not. Now normal I have somewhat of a pessimist attitude and I just assume that I would never win, so I do not even try.

Then last week I had an attitude makeover – I decided to participate in their current give away. All you had to do was be one of the first 15 people to respond to the blog post and you win. Guess what? I WON!!!!! Ha ha, I am a winner. Unfortunately I did not win an autographed book, but I am none the less pretty excited about my prize. Here she is:



It shall be coming the mail to me soon. I do not know however what I will be doing with it once it arrives. I am not much of a button wearer myself, I mean really that is 1990’s. But have no fear I shall come up with some grand use for it or way to display it.

Happy Birthday Jake!

Today is October third
To not celebrate today would be absurd
The weather is getting colder
And someone I know is getting older
As of today he is no longer a teen
So much of his life is yet to be seen
Like a good movie he sure does
One of his favorites is entitled Hot Fuzz.
He is spending the Day at Disneyland
After which a surprise party is planned
Happy Birthday to you Jake!!!
Quite a great little brother you do make

Musical Computers

About a week ago we switched IT companies at work. Ever since the switch our computers have been nothing but problems. Seriously one will stop working, then the minute we get it fixed another one breaks down. We are gong on our 3rd one that has just up and decided to not turn on. No noise no lights no nothing. So me being the great computer person that I am immediately realize this is not a situation that I am equipped to handle so I call the pros, aka our new computer people. They come in take the non working computer fix it, bring it back. Next day rinse and repeat.

Therefore our office is short one computer. This is not a good situation; none of us can do our work without a computer. Thus we have a great game of musical computers going on it our office. It is actually quite amusing. The last person to come in the office in the morning is the person who does not get a computer. Today that happened to be the office manager. Then one of the partners went to the doctor so she took over his computer. Then he got back and she was out yet again. This is where it got somewhat comical, any time someone got up from there desk she was there in an instant taking over the computer. She developed some form of radar, because within seconds of them standing up she was there hard at work. So now I am a bit afraid of getting up, I do not want to loose my computer. What would I do without it? I have already had to get up twice and come back with her on my machine.

I am more than willing to share, that is not the issue. It is more the fact that I have no idea what to do without sitting in front of a computer. Sometimes I wander aimlessly, other times I read the newspaper, but even then I can only handle so much – I have attachment issues. I really feel lost without sitting in front of my beloved computer monitors.

Now because I was forced to spend some quality time away from my computer in my boredom I decided to put to use my mad mystery skills. In childhood I acquired so great sleuthing techniques from my mass consumption of Nancy Drew books. Well this computer situation seemed like the perfect time to brush up on those skills. In light of that I have come to the conclusion that our last computer people designed our computers (they are all individually built by our last company) to spontaneously combust or rather cease to work, if we chose to switch to new computer people. It is the only logical conclusion. We never hand any problems like this with the last guys, and the minute we switch all of the problems begin. Really, it is more than a little suspicious.

Business Meetings

This morning I had to attend quarterly meeting for the brokerage/financial planning side of work. Just my boss and I attended from our office; all other attendees were registered representatives from all over the state of California. I have been to one other meeting like this, but that did nothing to tamper my nerves or make me feel at ease. Generally I feel out of place because out of about 100 people I would say 90 percent of them are men and 95 percent of them are over the age of 45, making my the minority in every way.

Because I am a bit finicky about being on time I arrived early. So I decided to sit in my car and watch for my boss to drive in so I can walk up with him, and not have to enter into a room full of people I don’t know. So I sit and sit and sit as I am waiting my phone rings. It’s the boss he says he is running late and asks me to save him a seat. I decided I am going to have to brave in and go in alone, since his is going to be late. I wait a minute, work up the nerve and get out of my car. I walk through the hotel to the meeting room, take a deep breath and walk in the door.

I sign in, take a name tag and decide to hit the food table. (The best part about these meetings, they sever some of the best coffee, and really great fruit) Then comes the hard part, picking a seat. Since I am early basically all of them are open, do I take a seat in the back…..try to look really into the meeting and go for the front……sit next to someone as to not look like a loner……sit alone. Decisions decisions. I settle on the second from last row, close to the food table, one seat over from someone else. I sit down and try to look really into the papers that are sitting on the table in front of me – everyone else appears to be chatting it up like old friends, talking about the recent stock market drop and then rise. I sit in fear that someone will ask me a question, because I know nothing.

The man one seat over from me decides he wants to converse, I get scared. Thankfully he just wants to talk about the weather and were we are each from. Whew I got that covered. Well 10 min into the conversation I learn he is new to the company and I am actually able to answer some of the questions he has. How smart am I? Then as I we are talking a women approaches us and asks if I am Mandy. I more than a little shocked because I did not think that anyone besides my boss knew who I was. I say yes and she introduces herself to me, she works in the regional offices and I hear her name a lot at work but have no idea what she actually does. But that does not really matter, she starts telling how excited she is too meet me and how Tyler (who this is I have no idea) told her I was the tall girl, this is how she knew who I was. She went on to tell me how she is looking forward to working with me in the future because she has hear such great things about me from everyone at the Schaumburg office. WOW! I am like beyond super flattered, and encouraged because I generally feel like I have no idea what I am doing.

All in all the meeting was a little on the boring side, but I did find out that next years annual conference will be held in Orlando Florida. Last years was in Las Vegas at the Bellagio, it was so much fun! My first time to Vegas was on a business trip – that is the way to travel, all expenses paid, we even got to see The Phantom of the Opera and a Cirque de Soleil show. Anyways this year we get to stay at the Gaylord Palms Resort, which looks spectacular and my boss told me to invite a friend. Ha ha, of course I had thought about doing so, but it was kinda funny to hear my boss suggest it. Since the hotel will be paid for he said, all they have to do is get there, and then you can hand out in the evening. So anyone want to go to Orlando May 3-6? Let me know I will be there.