hong kong or bust

well, the job is ending this next friday. which is just as well because saturday my dad bought our tickets for hong kong! i am super excited, though apprehensive, only because my brother still doesn't have his passport yet... he got it renewed aug 11th... but when my mom tracked it, it's apparently in pittsburgh. we leave in 2 weeks, and we need to get his visa for china. not good. it's going to take 5 business days to get one, so needless to say, my dad is freaking out, which is weird to see, since he's normally so stoic.

the hurricanes this season have been crazy. when hurricane charley went through, it ripped into my parent's orchards on pine island... maybe 80-90% of their 25 acres are destroyed. not sure what they'll be doing after we come back from hong kong. i think they're looking to sell, so if anyone wants some primo real estate out on pine island... contact me! honest, hurricanes like this normally don't happen! also, as long as you build a free-standing house, you should be ok... i think it stands to reason that mobile home + island off of florida = bad.

chrysanthemum tea addictions

now becoming addicted to chrysanthemum tea. i've always gotten it at chinese restaurants for dim sum, so i finally looked for it at the local asian market. i love the fact that it's steeped from real dried chrysanthemums.

and the horror ends

quick updates:

*** quit my job! it was actually a few weeks ago. i called out and quit on a tuesday, went in to kelly services on thursday. got another job and a $1.50 pay raise that started on monday! i'm liking my new job a lot. less stress, less ridiclous responsibility (as a temp) and more cash! i'm definitely not complaining.
*** last weekend anthony and i spent some relaxing time in orlando - his sister has a timeshare and we were able to use it for an evening. we ended up staying at the disney boardwalk resort in one of their villas. the woman at the front desk was incredulous that we were staying only one night and that we weren't buying any tickets for any theme parks. ha! and get this, since our room came with a washer/dryer set, we're so ghetto we actually brought a hamper of laundry to do! our plan was to see the jealous sound show going down at the social, but we ended up scrapping that idea; we didn't want to be held down by any set times. we've become super-hermits these past few weeks and didn't want that to change, so all we did was walk around downtown disney, look into a few shops, attempted to go to the now-closed fao schwartz, had sushi, bought dirty pretty things, watched it back at the room and later played cherry pit shooting games in the huge bathtub. it was so much fun! (fyi - dirty pretty things does not involve cherry pit bathing porn. i realize that if you've never heard of this movie, that last statement could have sounded a little dubious..)
*** 4th of july weekend we went out to the beach near the airport on davis island and watched the fireworks happening at channelside. we actually met up with a few friends and later went to bennigans. note: bennigans is gross. we are never to frequent this chain ever again.
*** tonight the cold season has a second show at yeoman's (also on davis island). should be quite enjoyable now that i've napped to handle the late night entertainment.

the horror that is my job continues

haven't been here in a while... mainly because my job has been keeping me super super busy. lots of stress - to the detriment of my dermis. need... new... job...

on the upside, i'm almost done w/ amy & emily's photographs and i've finished another bag. this is the second time i've broken a needle while sewing - i think i need a needle made for thicker material like denim. having small bits of metal fly at you and get stuck in your shirt is never a good thing... good thing i wear glasses. also, at the slow rate i'm making bags, i think my first few will be sold on cutxpaste. we shall see!

saturday we had a picnic at the fortuitously named "picnic park." it's located way down on westshore and one would never have imagined it there. you have to go through a really industrial area filled with many a rusty item of vague usage and really, they should have a gate where they give out free tetanus shots - pretty scary. but the actual park was quite nice, with a beach, hot humid bathrooms (ugh), scenery of smokestacks and huge cargo ships on the water, nice shade, tables, screaming kids on slip-n-slides... it had appeal. 20 minutes of frisbee, one bottle of wine and 2 games of clue later and were happy and content.

random good things

anthony makes the most amazing puttanesca sauce ever. YUM! my tummy is still super full. so... sleepy.. ..

tonight i went out to jo-ann's and got lots o' dark brown twill. the first purse i ever made was out of brown fabric and a neat-neat blue robot lining. so i'm going to recreate a few of them. at least, until the fabric runs out.

i've been feeling really super happy these last few weeks. just in a really good place. getting paid, paying bills, not using credit cards... oh, and the trip to hong kong/china has been set for dates - oct 14th-30th. pretty exciting, really.

anthony and i went to borders to check out some travel books. even though i've been there a total of 3 times (granted, the first 2 times when i was 3 and 7) i've never really been able to do the "tourist thing." never been able to explore on my own and figure out things to do on my own. always with the family, just following along. so this time, even though the family thing will be important, i'm definitely going to be planning lots of things i would like to do. and i'll be taking TONS of photos, i'm sure.

i've also finally gotten all the photographs from the emily & amy wedding developed and put on cd. now i've just got to go through all of them and save them as tif files, make sure they all look nice and snappy. hopefully this won't take too long. i think from past experience, it takes me about... 4-5 hours per roll. so, a roll a night (approx) and i'll be done... in... 8 nights? hopefully i can keep up the pace.

and here are the pictures from the paper party! i only took a few right at the beginning. keoni took the awesome picture of me & anthony. though, um, you can sorta see the pleats in my paper skirt. look close. super close.


meaghan & erika


me & ant

the beginning of the end (of my job)

finally got a new car battery this morning!

ah, to hear that missed and now unfamiliar sound of my car starting up without a hiccup or gurgle. quite pleasant.

some will be pleased to note that i've also gotten a semi-promotion, though sans monetary raise. not quite so pleasant.

it's good in that i've more responsibility - hence "job security." of course, this also means more stress, spreadsheets that get sent to the "higher ups" and lunches eaten on the clock. granted, i've worked through lunches before, but that was when it was my CHOICE. ... actually, it's kinda scary. making decisions with influence and liability? oi.

firing - yam

haven't kept up to date for a while - tons of exciting things happening! almost got fired from my job, got a new kitten... ... ... ok, just two exciting things. still!

since i'm a temp working on a specific project - now that the project is winding down, the company just doesn't have a lot of work at present. so i got "the talk." the "it's-not-your-performance-we-just-don't-have-enough-work-for-you" talk. but then, 20 minutes later i get rehired. ha! apparently, two of my coworkers went up to my boss and told her that "firing kim is going to be the worst mistake you'll make." how's that for an ego trip?

in any case, even more exciting than that was the acquisition of yam yam into our family. she's a super cute orange tiger cat, very loving and likes to stick her tongue out all the time. it's so cute!! she's also about 15 lbs lighter tha thomas. so when we're in bed sleeping, we hardly notice her on the covers. anthony and i will move our legs and she'll bound off the bed. whereas with thomas, we'll move our legs and bump into his rear, realizing that he's on the bed before he even registers that we've touched him.

IN OTHER NEWS: the cold season is recording their debut ep tomorrow evening. it'll be an all-nite all-out indie-rockin' recording session. buy their new cd! "through these wires our words became legend."