Good to see ya again.

It has been so long since I've posted here.. Here's what's going on in my life right now:
I do not work at Veremedy anymore (I work at Stonecliff now - wayyyyy less stress, and I get paid a helluva lot more).
I live at home.
I try to go to the gym every day with my best friend Danielle.
Um.. my life is boring. I don't do much but eat, sleep, work, go to the gym, and "window shop" online. And watch Desperate Housewives. :-D
Oh yea, and I've been teaching myself to knit and crochet!
I don't like my career choice as much as I thought that I would...
I miss being in college.
I am happily single.
I can't wait for what the future holds!

I <3 my new car. :-)

I got my new car yesterday!!! :-D I love it, it is exactly what I wanted. Here's the (long and detailed) story:
A while ago I submitted a CarFinder form on St. J Auto's website; I asked them to e-mail or call me whenever they got a Subaru Baja in. Since then they have gotten a few in, but they all had standard transmission, and I haven't learned to drive standard yet. Well last week I was browsing their website, looking for a car that I might like and I found a sage green 2006 Impreza that had very low mileage (about 12k), was automatic, and affordable (about $17,700). My mom has an Impreza and I really like the way it handles so I decided to take a look at this car and possibly buy it. I had been communicating frequently by e-mail with one of the salesmen at St. J Auto so I let him know that I would like to take a look at this car; I decided that I would take a look at it on Saturday (yesterday, the 15th) at 11am. On Friday during my lunch break I checked my e-mail and saw that he had sent me a message first thing that morning saying that 11am wouldn't be a good time, that noon would be better. I replied that noon was fine, and when I returned to my inbox I saw that he had just barely (while I was writing back to him) sent me another message - the car I wanted to look at had been sold.... I called to talk to him about another Impreza that was the same color and year but with about 64k on it, but that one was a standard. Oh well. "It wasn't meant to be" he said. I told him I would still come and check out their other cars; there was a 2005 Impreza there that I wasn't very interested in, but I decided I'd look at it anyway. That afternoon I looked at The Car Store's website to see what they had for used cars - it's closer than St. J, but because it's in Norwich it's a lot more expensive so I didn't really want to go there, but figured it wouldn't hurt to look anyway. I found about 12 cars that I wanted to look at, but none of the prices were on the website so I wasn't too confident that I could afford any of them - if I found one of them was affordable I would probably get it. So yesterday I called St. J Auto and canceled my appointment to look at the 2005 Impreza since I didn't want it that much; I decided to go to The Car Store instead. I went to The Car Store's website to print out the pages for the cars I wanted to look at so I could remember them all, and then Dad came up and suggested I check out the websites for the Subaru dealers in Berlin, Claremont and Rutland. I was kind of hesitant to look because I had checked Berlin's the week before and hadn't seen anything and the others are pretty far away, but I decided to check to see if anything new had come in anyway. Nothing I wanted in Berlin. Nothing I wanted in Claremont. I didn't see anything that I wanted in Rutland, but then dad said "There's a Baja" - I had missed it in the list, had only noticed the many Forresters listed which I don't care for very much. I put my mouse over the link and the picture came up; it was black! Getting more excited I clicked on the link to check it out - it was a 2006 (which was the last year they made them) black Subaru Baja, automatic, with tinted windows, a sunroof, and low mileage (28k)!!! Now this was basically my dream car (I have daydreamed about getting a black Baja with a sunroof and tinted windows many times lol). And I could afford it (it was about $19,900)!!! I called the store to make sure it was still there - it was! I got my parents to agree to go look at it that day, and I gave the dealer a $200 deposit over the phone so that no one else could buy it while we were on our way there. Of course I loved it, and of course I bought it. :-D I got some pretty good deals too, it's certified so I was able to get an amazing 6 year/100k mile warranty for a one time cost of $550 ($100 deductible for just about anything - even if the motor blows!). And I added into the price a Xzilon treatment which I will have done sometime next month. This is some pretty cool stuff; it is applied to the interior and exterior and will protect my car from just about anything that should get on it; spills, salt, bird shit, etc. They had one of their floor models treated with the stuff and a can of spray paint - you can spray the paint on and it wipes right off. So if you can't already tell I'm pretty excited!! I think I lucked out on the car and everything else, and it has everything I wanted it to have. :-D I love it!

Tired...

I just got home from work about 25 minutes ago.
Last night I was on call with Angela, and at about 12:30 this morning Brad called me in. We had to do emergency surgery on a dog with GDV (bloat). We were in surgery for about 2 hours, and I was finally able to go home when others came in at about quarter to 8am. Now I'm just waiting for sleepiness to kick in so I can get some sleep..

Tabby's surgery

So. A couple weeks ago we took Tabby up to the veterinary specialists in Burlington, VT for her surgery consult. The vet told us that the mass was not in the worst possible spot luckily, but that it was still a bad location. He tries to get at least a 2-3cm margin all the way around any tumor, and because Tabby's was right on top of (and possibly attached to) her spine he could only go so deep. If he has to he will remove the spiny processes of her vertebrae as well. I was a little surprised when he told us that we could leave her there and have the surgery done that very day - I had figured they would be booked for at least the next several days! But because we weren't able to discuss it with my Mom we decided to wait and talk with her, and then call back and schedule the appointment. We made it for the next Thursday, November 1st.
So Thursday Nov. 1st arrived and my Dad dropped Tabby off in Burlington. I was able to get the next day off work so that I could talk to the vet about how the surgery went when we picked her up. Before picking her up we went to the University Mall, and I got several things I had had my eye on. :-) Then we headed for the veterinary clinic. The vet said that he felt they had gotten good margins around the tumor, but that we wouldn't know for sure until the histopath results came back. The technician who brought her out said that everyone there loved her, and that she had been purring almost the whole time she was there after waking up. She's such a happy cat. :-)
A couple days later the histopath results came back, and the margins were good, they got all of the tumor! So that's a good sign. I know that fibrosarcoma is not a good cancer and can reoccur, but we are optimistic about it, and of course we hope that it never comes back.

The Break-Up

So I think this has been coming for a while now.
The same weekend that my car's exhaust broke, Matt and I split up. There was a weird feeling in the air the whole weekend, and then finally on Monday on the way back to the apartment (we had been hanging out in Matt's van and he was dropping me off at the apartment so I could go home and have my car fixed - he was planning on going back to work on his van some more) I commented on his flaws that really bother me and that I don't think I could live with. We got into this big 2-hour long discussion with tears and everything, and then in the end we decided to take a break. For months now I had been considering ending it because I wasn't happy, wasn't getting the things I need and deserve in a relationship. I was getting frustrated and depressed. It wasn't just me though, we both have flaws that the other can't stand. His smoking. My indecisiveness. His drinking habits. My lack of motivation. His refusal to do anything that I asked of him. His never having time for me. And so on. Leaving after we broke up was sad of course, but not as awful as it could have been. We hugged and said good-bye, and then we both went on our ways. We are still very good friends, and who knows, we may get back together again at some point. After some changes take place of course. But for now, may it R.I.P. 8/9/05 - 10/15/07.

Car issues.... again

So much has happened in the last several weeks... I'm going to separate the three major things into three separate posts. The first is about my car..

On my way up to the apartment several weeks ago my car's exhaust decided to break. Everything was fine until I stopped at a red light. When I hit the gas to go again I could hear very loud exhaust - I thought to myself "Is that me?!" I let off the gas for a second and sure enough it stopped. I looked in my mirror to see if my muffler had fallen off but I couldn't see anything there (however it was dark so even if it had fallen off I may not have been able to see it..). I will also comment at this time that some people had severely irritated me by tailgating me very closely - when we stopped at the red light they were so close to me that I thought they were gone; I couldn't see their headlights at all! When I looked closer I could see them in the car though. I drove the last 5 minutes to the apartment very carefully and made it there fine. When I looked under my car later I saw that the exhaust under the driver's section of the car had come apart and was hanging down, but not touching the ground. Matt had wanted me to use my car a couple times over the weekend and thank God I didn't. When I went to leave on Monday I didn't even get by the next building and I could hear the exhaust pipe scraping on the ground. A couple people came over to look and a guy broke it off for me so I could manage to get home. The piece must have been almost two feet long. He told me to drive with my windows down so carbon monoxide wouldn't build up in the car - that was one COLD drive home... I wore my hood up the whole way! And might I say it was embarrassing too? People would turn to look as I went by. And I tried to be really careful; if a car was coming I would temporarily let my foot off the gas until I was sure it wasn't a cop. :-P But I made it home and my Dad kindly used the credit card to have the parts replaced the very next day.
Now, however, I'm not sure that the water pump we replaced several weeks before my exhaust problem is the right one.. The guy at the parts store said it wasn't the same pump that was in my car before but that it should fit. But now my car will start to get hot when driving in certain conditions; for example when going slow through the stupid ass construction going on right in front of where I work... It hasn't overheated yet, but it gets pretty close. So we will see how that goes. My dad says that he's getting sick of fixing something in it every few weeks - he thinks I should just go for a new car! Which I might. :-) I set up a carfinder thing on St. J Auto's website to e-mail/call me whenever they get in a Subaru Baja that is 2004 or newer with less than 50k miles on it. So we will see!

weird.

I find it kinda funny that I never saw the customer who asked me out again.
Several months ago when I was working at Shaw's, there was this really nice guy (who looked about 10-15-20 years older than me) who I would chat with when he came through my line, and who I saw nearly every day. Before you start thinking I was being flirty I'll let you know that I would chat with any friendly person who came through my line. If he was in someone else's line he would wave and call over to me, asking how I was. One day I was clocked out and ready to head home when he rolled up in his Mustang (I was standing outside my car taking off my sweatshirt) and said "Hey, I've been wanting to ask you something".
Me: "What's that?"
Him: "I was wondering if I could get your number.. so I could call you."
Me (feeling embarrassed, and making a face): "Ehh, I don't think so, I already have a boyfriend."
Him: "You just seemed kinda nice."
I think I said "sorry", and then he put on his sunglasses with a smile and drove away. I felt so uncomfortable, not because of him, but just because I always feel uncomfortable when I know a guy would like to date me or something. I guess it's just one of my quirks. But anyway, after that I really didn't want to see him and avoided him so he wouldn't see me (again one of my quirks; I do this every time I know a guy likes me). I saw him in line once and I made sure I didn't bag for him, and another time when he was in line I went over to the CSR desk and pretended to be checking out the schedule book so he wouldn't see me (or were those both the same time? I can't remember). And then the last time I saw him he was in an express line and they told me to open up another express - I said I could take some of the express customers in my line and looked at him, but he ignored me and didn't say a word. I never saw him again. Which is weird because I worked there for several more months before I left. It made me wonder if he came there just to see me lol. I suppose it's not impossible. :-P

:-(

About a week before I started working at Veremedy my dad noticed a lump on Tabby's back (Tabby is one of our 3 cats). When I went to visit my parents I checked out the lump - it was hard and immobile, and about the size of a grape. I didn't think it was very good so after I had been back at Veremedy for a couple days I brought her in to be looked at. One of the vets examined her and another performed a fine needle aspirate (a procedure where a needle on a syringe is pushed into the mass and the syringe plunger is drawn back to pull cells into the syringe - the cells are then sprayed onto slides, stained, and examined under a microscope). When the vet later examined the slides she saw various normal cells but also some fibrocytes which would point to fibrosarcoma. Because of these and the location (on the spine a few inches back from the shoulder blades) the two vets who had looked at Tabby feared it might be a vaccine-related fibrosarcoma, and they recommended that I bring her back the next week for surgery to have a piece removed and sent out for biopsy. I brought her in for surgery on Tuesday, October 2nd and the sample was sent out to a diagnostic lab. I got the results back yesterday and they weren't good.. Tabby has a grade II fibrosarcoma of the aggressive recurrent type (in other words, cancer). The lab recommended we take her to an oncologist for consultation. My parents have already decided that they want to do the aggressive surgery needed to remove the tumor even though it will likely cost more than $1,200. So, my mom is going to get an appointment with an oncologist for Tabby as soon as she can and then we will see what happens. We will do our best to make sure that Tabby's "golden years" are happy, comfortable ones.

quick update

Ok, so it's been a while since I've updated. Long story short my car is working fine now (though I'd still love to get a new car!) and my job is going great (check us out at www.veremedy.com). It's a little weird only being at my apartment half of the time, but it's not so bad.
And I'm tired now, so... I guess that's all I have to say.

Cars, cars, cars

It turns out that my car is fixed and back to working fine now. My dad and Dan (his mechanic friend) worked on it some more yesterday and finally got the fluid to circulate through the motor. Dad took it on several "test" runs, and says it is now fine for me to use again. Yay! But I still want to go car shopping next weekend (or at least sometime soon). I want to get a Baja most of all, but a newer nicer Subaru would be fine too (mine is a '98 Subaru Outback Wagon). Mine still looks very nice and was well taken care of and I love it, but it needs several parts replaced and the motor knocks. It has about 120k miles which isn't a lot for Subaru, but a car with lower mileage would be nice. So now I'm really excited to go car shopping!
On the way back up here to my apartment last night another deer almost ran out in front of me on the interstate but stopped on the bank, maybe because I was coming? I don't know why it stopped, but I was sure glad it did - my heart just about went up my throat when I saw it running towards the road. I also saw some animal in a pull over area, but it was dark so I couldn't tell what it was. It kind of looked like it was a fox. The rest of my ride was uneventful.
And now I've got a bunch of cleaning and packing that I need/want to do, but my computer keeps distracting me. :-P