Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for March 2006

Wed Mar 01 2006 07:45 John Works Out:

Susie: Accounting burns as many calories as running. John: That's brain cells.

Thu Mar 02 2006 07:21:

Last night I went to Enrichment, the annual RS Celebration dinner. It was a lot of fun and the food was delicious. I sat with all the other young girls who came and we laughed so hard, I think I burned all the calories in the trifle dessert just from laughing.

Other than that, I've been very very busy, even at work! We have a training coming up next week, and I've still been helping in the Medical dept. Plus another trip to Bakersfield this weekend, and I've had plenty of work to do for Jamie. Being busy definitely has its advantages, especially since John is working so late.

(1) Fri Mar 03 2006 07:33:

Last night I got the February visiting teaching message and events page in the mail, with a little note: "The ward is wishing you were part of our family."

Sat Mar 04 2006 23:05:

We had a wonderful and productive day in Bakersfield. The house is still a mess, but we did lots of planning, balanced Mom's checkbook, filed taxes, etc. And took Rachel to Red Lobster for her birthday! Tomorrow maybe some tidying up will happen. I also cut Mom's fingernails.

Mom: I think you got some of my finger. Susie: That is a very polite way to say, "ow!"

Tue Mar 07 2006 07:26:

I went to a party with my friend Hasanthi last night. I got home very late because we had to take a tipsy someone home and she wouldn't tell us where she lived.

Now I am at work bright and early. I have a lot of urgent work to do, but we have company-wide training meetings all morning that want to take up my time. Luckily, we are supposed to have a temp for the front desk in three minutes, so I will train her quick (since everyone will be in the meetings anyway...) and squeeze and extra bit of work into my morning.

(4) Fri Mar 10 2006 06:51 Good Morning:

I am sick, so while I was up leaving voicemails at work, I got on to take care of some work things by email. Mostly I am forwarding stuff to Noelle.

It is a good day to be sick though, after such a LONG two weeks of craziness at work. Plus, I don't think John is feeling very well... What a coincidence!

(8) Tue Mar 14 2006 09:54:

Yesterday I called Leonard while waiting at the post office. I love my brother. I told him I didn't have enough to do at work and he said to make sure I spent my extra time learning things and looking like I'm working. When you're writing a book you don't really have time when you're at work but not working and can learn things. He told me he was starting to edit his book and I said I was proud of him.

This month I did my visiting teaching for the first time since we moved here. They have given me a different assignment every month, with a different partner. This month they gave me one girl that I actually knew and no partner, so I went to see her a few days later. Her husband is an accountant (a common occurance in our ward). Maybe since I actually went they won't change my assignment any more.

Back to the humdrum of work. I've been slowly working on my one project, stretching the time it takes. Leonard agrees: us Richardsons have some innate ability that makes us 10x more efficient than your average human. Mer.

Thu Mar 16 2006 07:52 Karma:

After all my effort of ironing my skirt, fixing my hair and dressing professionally today, my shoe broke as I got in the car. Luckily Andrea was able to fix it with a safety pin, but I think I will go shoe shopping at lunch, just in case.

Thu Mar 16 2006 08:26 Karma #2:

Noelle has the flu. I suppose if we have nothing to do, I might as well do it for both of us.

Thu Mar 16 2006 14:26 Karma #3:

In which Susie's luck turns around.

I bought a pair of shoes at Target during my lunch break. They are very cute, and like Mom's dinosaur socks, they have an adorable secret plaid lining. Hasanthi grabbed a pair of very cute, too big shoes when she went home for lunch, but they were too big for me too. So I am keeping the Target ones.

Also, I have been fairly busy today, with a few projects, a bit of actual pertinent work, and now a bit of busy work from the graphics department.

(4) Fri Mar 17 2006 14:14 Lucky Guess:

More Luck o' the Susie.

I won the "guess how many sour green ropes are in the little jar" prize at work. The good news is that I got to keep the candy (I have eaten at least 15 of the 65 (my guess!) pieces). The better news is that I also got two movie tickets! The candies are all different sizes, which I think is cheating, but since I won I won't complain.

(2) Sat Mar 18 2006 15:14 All done:

But for my mother and father, oh no, it was [John] this and [John] that, they were so proud of having a [CPA] in the family.

HP:PS, pg. 53

John got another 96!

Quotes

(2) Mon Mar 20 2006 07:33 It all looks the same from down here:

Probably my earliest memory is of running into the Wilshire Ward chapel, up to a group of High Priests and grabbing onto my dad's leg. Then I looked up, realized it wasn't my dad and ran out the side door.

When Mom was a little girl she ran up to a pant leg at church and grabbed on, only to look up and find her father and the rest of the men laughing at her for grabbing the wrong leg.

Last weekend we took Chad, Justin and Tyler to the arcade at Boomer's. Despite being 11, Justin has quite the propensity for getting lost (it's not usually the oldest child who gets lost at Disneyland...) so John and I made frequent Justin checks. Once I found him sitting and watching the horse betting. He was sidled up to a man, sitting next to him on the tiny bench. I stood behind him and watched for a while, trying to see what was so interesting about the horse betting. Justin was looking over at the man's notebook, then abruptly got up and walked right into me. "I thought that was Chad," he confided. Oh.

Memories

Wed Mar 22 2006 07:32 Dear Relatives:

We believe our visit is tomorrow (Wed.) at 6:30 p.m. + we hope that is correct. If not you will see that we are not here. Where are we? We are out for DIN DIN + then to a movie. Expect to return tonite at about 9:30 p.m. Give us a call please so we can see you another evening.

Yours Respectfully c alzirness Soprdrcoue! Justin.

Apparently Rachel and I weren't the only ones who thought Leonard was coming on Wednesday. We found this note when we went to take Uncle Justin and Aunt Barbara to dinner. I still can't figure out what the last line says, but I am posting it as a part of our family history.

Quotes

(1) Wed Mar 22 2006 07:35:

Although we missed the company of Justin and Barbara, Leonard, Rachel, John and I had quite a bit of fun at dinner last night.

Rachel: Did I just make something up? Leonard: I think you accidentally said the most boring thing ever.

John: Always the guinea pig, never the guinea.

Susie: I'm sorry I ate your cookie; it was looking at me!

Quotes

(1) Fri Mar 24 2006 07:57 What Does It All Mean?:

Ok, two weird dreams I must record. A few nights ago I had a dream that I went into someone's basement to get away from the kids and the chaos and there was Grandma trying to pack up and get ready to leave the nursing home. I was SO thrilled to see her, so I started helping her pack up. She had all these containers of leftovers and canned food in tupperwares and I thought "that's gross, these are going to spill everywhere and I'll have to clean them up."

Then last night I had a dream that we went on a trip to another planet and played a game (like laser tag, or the corn maze) where we were trying to avoid aliens that were invading. When we got out, in real life (in the dream) the planet was in some kind of war or hostage situation. John and I and several other family members were standing in a line being forced to write our names on the ground by dipping a pen in ink with our feet. Our feet and the ground and everything was covered in ink. The slave driver was yelling at me because John and I were white and the other family members were Mexican and he said "you're second cousins?" and I said, "yes, he's my mom's cousin." Then the rest of the family snuck away, so I tried to distract the guy by writing my name very well with the pen in my toes.

Dreams

Mon Mar 27 2006 16:18:

Annoyed. Noelle went home sick. Spent all day doing nothing. 3:57 P.M. - something to do. Stayed late despite 10% total productivity.

Actually, I can't complain too much because I spent all afternoon reading one of the romance novels Rachel lent me. Hah, my fax has gone through, I am going home.

Tue Mar 28 2006 08:56:

So. Bored.

Tue Mar 28 2006 15:52:

Earlier this month we had a temp cover the front desk for a morning so Noelle and I could both attend a training. The girl did not know how to play Minesweeper. Seriously. She thought you just randomly clicked. "I keep losing," she said, "I'm not very good at this."

(2) Wed Mar 29 2006 10:19 My Thesis on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride:

Disneyland visit #24 was our third in a row in the rain. A lot of rain. We stayed fairly dry, other than the usual soaked pants up to the knees, until a mad dash from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to Peter Pan in a torrential downpour. Yes, that's like 20 feet. So wet! Since it wasn't cold we had an extra sweatshirt, so I changed and we were fine, other than the giant puddle we accidentally sloshed through on the way to the car. The lines generally stayed about as long as the covered parts, so we got to go on 7 rides in just a few hours.

I was trying to explain to Leonard that I didn't understand why Mr. Toad's Wild Ride contained a journey to hell. Leonard, who is a bit more knowledgeable about the actual story, stated he didn't think that actually happened, maybe jail just felt like hell. Nope, here's what happens: Reckless behavior and smashing of things; chased by copper; sentenced by the judge; sent to jail; escapes jail; causes giant explosion; goes to hell.

I know it's hell for the following reasons: The devil is there (he looks suspiciously like the judge); the room looks like a cave; there are red flames; there is a fire breathing dragon; there are giant rats with devil horns and pointy tails dancing from the ceiling and laughing at you/Mr. Toad; The room is at least 10 degrees hotter than the rest of the ride.

Perhaps I will read the book.

John made a comment the last time we went on the ride: "It's funny that hell has a direct portal to Disneyland." It was slightly less funny this time when we were shot out into buckets of rain.

Thu Mar 30 2006 15:14 New Record:

My new record at Spider Solitaire is 15 lost games in a row, up from nine when Noelle had the flu in October. She has tonsilitis and will be back on Monday.

Fri Mar 31 2006 15:18 Insanity:

I have changed the same flight itinerary THREE times today. Are we expecting different results? Yes. Right now I am moving it to next week so we can all BREATHE. We were going to wait until Monday to change it again, but since the flight is supposed to be on Sunday, I thought that might be a bad idea.

I am soooo excited for Noelle to come back. Especially now that I'm not doing training first thing Monday morning and I can dig around for my desk some more. I'm sure it's there somewhere...

Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2006 March