Skin Trade and back to work

I finished reading Skin Trade last night. I enjoyed it and I'll have to read it again once I read Blood Noir again because I don't remember everything that led up to this book. I was disappointed that Richard wasn't in the book at all though because the last book had him so much and left me wondering what was going to happen with him. Now I have to wait more. Darn.

And tonight I go back to work. I don't want to. I've enjoyed my stress free week off. And the day that I go back to work is the day that it was finally nice all day. So, I washed my car inside and out. I think I'm a little sunburned now too, but it hasn't been a vacation if I don't go back to work with a sunburn.

Outdoorsy day

A day spent outside is a day that ends with you tired. Today was no exception. We put the garden in today. Eleven tomato plants, 7 peppers, 6 watermelon mounds, weeded the raspberries (well mom did most of that, I have to finish that tomorrow), horseradish and strawberries and also planted lettuce, green beans and carrots. We'll be eating good if everything grows.

I bought two new birdfeeders today too. The finch feeder is hanging from the tree in the front yard and the other feeder is hanging above the pile of dirt that will be the new (maybe) butterfly and hummingbird garden if I get my way. I have a lot of planting to do this week while I'm off.

Death on the Docks

The docks at the State Harbor in Tawas were a sea of intrigue on Sunday morning.

Yup, while I was on my sailing trip this weekend, there was a death on the boat in the slip next to us. It was a dreary and rainy morning, and we were on the boat making coffee, I was curled up with my book, and I heard a woman screaming for someone (I thought a child and it turned out to be an adult, which I thought weird) and then I didn't see anything for a while. Then I was going to take out the trash when I saw that EMS was there. I put the trash out and headed up to the facilities. When I came back, a police officer was walking away with the two women, which I thought was strange and EMS was still at the boat, but they weren't doing anything. Now I was curious. So I crawled back into my spot on the boat and was watching out the window, and we realized that someone had died on the boat. We watched the police take pictures of the boat and a person that looked like a detective showed up, along with the harbor master. Well, it finally cleared up enough for me to head up to the showers. When I was coming back, I saw that the coroner had showed up and when I was walking back to the boat, finally having blue skies, they were wheeling the body down the dock and the cop had a box of something in his hand.

Mysteries abound.

Our sailing trip had started on Friday. I was on my aunt's boat with my other aunt and a friend of theirs. It was a long hot sail up to Tawas where I was the only one that Aunt Colleen would let take the helm on the way up. As the day wore on and I got hotter, I changed into swimwear and slathered up in sunblock. SPF 30 started it out, but as I noticed that I was changing colors (aka becoming pink) I switched to SPF 50. I'm still bright red and trying to stick to tube tops, and going to work tonight is going to be fun.

Saturday I played the "stay out of the sun" game. After breakfast, Aunt Colleen and I headed to town for a bit and I got a t-shirt to wear that covered all of my sunburned areas and a swimsuit cover up, sarong style. When we got back to the boat, I enjoyed the nice weather, by hanging out under the awning with a book and my iPod, it was totally relaxing. After a while, got some ice cream in town and did a bit more shopping, I took a nap on the beach, that was awesome.

Sunday started out with the death. We wandered around town a little more and then mom came up for the day. I was glad to see her and enjoy her company, plus she was bringing me back home since I had to be back to work today. We headed up into town and when we stopped by the kite store at the head of the harbor. The lady behind the counter asked what the heck had happened on the docks that morning. It was the talk of the harbor. Mom and I shopped around a bit, and I found a couple of things to buy, including a birthday gift for my grandma. We headed back to the kite store one more time and I bought a postcard with a picture of Jackson State Prison that said "Having a great time, wish you were here." I found out some gossip about the guy that died. It wasn't his boat and he was alone on it during the night. It turned out that the people that owned the boat stayed the night up in Oscoda and found the guy that had spent the day with them dead on the boat. It appears that things weren't all that they seemed.

All in all, it was a relaxing weekend that I totally needed. Though in a way, I would have preferred to sail on up, and then camp at the State Park because once it gets dark, the harbor was silent, and it was just eerie because there was nothing to do. No where to have a campfire or anything like that. And that's just part of the fun of going up north. That and my aunt's version of vacation includes a television and never cooking anything on your own, but instead having a $30 bottle of wine with a prime rib dinner.

But I had lots of fun with my camera. I took almost 200 pictures this weekend, just getting to learn my new camera. I can't wait to really learn how to use it. More vacation will be needed.

Ride On

Ahhhh what a fun weekend. It was so nice to get away and have some fun with the girls.

Ok, if you're totally clueless, Karen, Kelly, Age and I all went to Cedar Point this weekend. It's just like a summer right of passage. So Friday night I got out of work early because we were slow (and that's after calling in to work the two previous days because I was sick) and Karen and Kelly met me at the hospital and we dropped their car off at my grandma's house and took off for Age's place down near Detroit. Got there about midnight and talked til about 1 and then decided that if we were gonna get to Cedar Point at a decent hour that we'd better go to bed. I slept on the pull out sofa and had the company of Age's cats all night and then accidently folded one into the couch the next morning, luckily Age noticed before we left. So by the bright hour of 6:30am (what a horrid punishment for me, I forgot that time existed) we were on the road and headed for Sandusky.

Due to construction on 280 we were forced onto the Ohio Turnpike, which wasn't that bad driving wise, but has to be one of the most boring stretches of highway I've ever driven on, though it does have some good coffee shops along the way. By 9am we were at Cedar Point and waiting for the gates to open. We had a group picture taken which we later bought and had keychains made out of (most reasonably priced souvenier EVER) and headed straight for Millennium Force so that we wouldn't have to wait in line forever for that ride. After that it was smooth sailing. We went on Mean Streak, Skyhawk, Gemini, Snake River Falls, Tunder Canyon, the swings, Corkscrew (ok so we couldn't convince Karen to go on Corkscrew she refused to go upside down), Disaster Transport (we needed some inside time, it was HOTT outside), the Giant Wheel, checked out Snoopy on Ice, rode Raptor, Power Tower, Monster, Iron Dragon, Magnum, and the Scrambler.

The park is just getting too big, you can't go on it all in one day anymore, and I would have liked to go on some more of the spinning rides, but considering that I didn't have to wait in line for more than an hour on any ride it was a good trip. Snoopy on Ice was cute and needed just because the building was air conditioned. Karen, Kelly and I all went on Snake River Falls and got our picture taken dripping wet coming off of it, but that picture just wasn't one that we wanted to bring home. It was so much fun being there though. I'd been there the most so I was sort of the ring leader because I knew where most things were. We made all of the rides that everyone really wanted to go on and that was a good thing. The fireworks and fire water show at the end of the night was real cool and I actually didn't have an urge to try to win any stuffed animals in any of the games of chance, though I did spend $2 on one that had some cool pillows, but I didn't win and I was cool with that. And ya know how they take your pictures on some of the roller coasters? Kelly was so funny because on all of them except Raptor (just because she couldn't) she had her face covered, it was hilarious. I'm kinda surprised that she still had a voice today too because she screamed on most rides, except the spinny ones that she laughed all the way through.

The real trick to the trip was finding a hotel when we got out of there last night. Took us 3 tries but we finally found one that had a room available for 4 adults and even though it was overpriced, we didn't care. It had 2 beds, a shower, and a pool. Kelly, Karen and I had all brought swimwear so we hit up the outdoor pool (which was really warm, and should have been considering it was still about 80 outside at 11) for a little bit and soaked away some of the soreness and by 12:30 we were all sound asleep. And it sure was a good thing that we set the alarm clock in the room or we so would have slept through checkout.

And like any trip, there was the drive home. We made it out of Sandusky, though I got a little bit confused on the directions, we only had to turn around once, and made it back to the turnpike. Stopped for lunch and on to Age's we went. Stopped at her place for about a half hour and then it was on to my grandma's to pick up Karen and Kelly's car. The three of us stayed there about an hour and watched the Tiger's blow a 3 run lead by allowing 6 runs in the 8th inning *Rolls eyes* and then headed home.

It was a fun weekend, but it sure is good to be home.

My only wish...

That I could have found a stronger version of coppertone sport spray sunblock. SPF 30 is good, but in that heat, even reapplying ever 3-4 hours doesn't stop you from getting a little sunburned.

Going away

Ok I know it's been forever and a day since I've updated this, but I have been favoring myspace a bit lately. Maybe I need to add a link to my myspace page here.

Anyways, I'm going away this weekend. Going to Cedar Point for the first time in 4 years. I can't wait. :D

Back to the grind

Well after 10 days off, it was back to work yesterday. And of course I was back in hema and it was a freaking busy day, we didn't finish the 1400 drop off of diffs until 1700. Eesh. But there are some perks to being back at work.

Vacation was great. Over the weekend Karen, Kelly and I went to Great Wolf Lodge and just acted like kids again. We got upgraded to a jacuzzi suite and took full advantage of that with plenty of alcohol. We played in the water park and shopped. We got pedicures. Karen and Kelly went at separate times and both picked out the same color for their toes. It was all good times.

Wednesday night I decided to check out a "condo" that I saw advertised, and well, if something looks too good to be true, it is.


Said condo was advertised as 2 beds, which I interpreted as 2 bedrooms. Oh how wrong I was. When I think of a condo for rent, I think of a nice duplex type thing or townhouse like thing with a kitchen, separate dining area, a nice living area and a bedroom and bathroom. That's my definition of a condo. This one should have been called a hovel. It reminded me of one of those cheap "rent by the hour" hotels that you see in movies.

It was 2 rooms. The 2 beds really meant exactly that, 2 beds. A murphy bed that pulled out of the wall and a sleeper sofa. The stove didn't work so to make up for it, there were 2 microwaves and a George Foreman grill. The refrigerator was smaller than the one I had at college. Oh, and this entire "condo" was smaller then my bedroom and closet combined and they wanted $395/month for it.

Yeah right.

Monday night I went and played bingo with my mom and grandma. Didn't win anything but it was fun listening to all those little old ladies swear. They sure take their bingo seriously.

Sunday was shopping day with mom, grandma and Sara down in Lansing. We pushed Ella around all day in her stroller and grandma was more than content to just push the stroller around and speak gibberish to Ella.

And the rest of the time I just spent on my lazy butt. Was a nice restful vacation

Rock Boat

Must go.

Gotta make plans starting now. Must be on Rock Boat. Will rule