I made it!

Sunday marked exactly five months since I moved into the townhouse in Dearbought. Yesterday marked exactly two years since I started working at PublishAmerica. I've survived!

Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal days.

Wednesday, the fourth, I woke up around eleven, left an IM for Ryan saying "Happy Fourth!" even though by that time it was already the fifth for him, and then got ready to go to Mom & Dad's house.

Got to Mom & Dad's around 3 or 3:30-ish, and then me, Dad and Jason drove down to Grandma's house for dinner. Dad was going to be grilling, but it rained, so he just cooked hamburgers, hot dogs and bratwurst on Grandma's stove. Other than the family members who live in Grandma's house (Grandma, Aunt Tammy, Aunt Peggy, Uncle Dan, Katrina and Michael), Aunt Barbara was the only other person there. Uncle Andy's now in Utah, and CJ and Danielle were out visiting him. Tim was elsewhere. We were going to watch Independence Day when we got home, but Kimba was watching Project Runway, and Dad had a headache, so we didn't watch the movie.

As I said, yesterday marked the two-year anniversary of my hiring at PublishAmerica. I asked one of my bosses how they were going to go about scheduling my review (since I've been working in the other building for the better part of the last three weeks). She said that they have a list of people who still have to have their own reviews, so they hadn't forgotten me, and they'd contact me when they were ready to schedule my review. It's all good.

I decided to change banks. I've now got a checking and a savings account at Wachovia. I have yet to transfer more than the minimum starting deposit to either account though. I'm waiting until after July 21 to tell the HR people at work that I'm changing accounts (for my direct deposit), because that's when Amazon will take the money out of my old account for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. After that, I'll just have to fill out a new direct deposit form (I'm going to have it deposit somewhere from $50-100 every paycheck directly into savings), then change my records at Progressive so that they withdraw from the correct account. The rest, I usually pay myself, either by phone or by mail, so I won't have to worry about changing their records, just making sure I use the right checks and the right check card.

I'm on chapter twenty (out of thirty) of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I'm trying to draw it out so that I'm not tempted to read something else between books six and seven. I figure, since I'm taking off of work on the 13th (to run some errands as well as to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), that leaves nine work days. I can usually read one chapter per lunch break at work, so that's nine chapters. I'll just read the last chapter of book six on Saturday the 21st before book seven comes. That just means I'll have to find other things to read and/or do at home before then.

Movies and Stuff

I managed to get all of my movies transfered (or transfered back) to DVD. However, it turns out that I'd set the timer on the DVD-Recorder for too short a time when I recorded The Day After Tomorrow, because it cut off right as Dennis Quaid was dragging the other guy into the fast food restaurant. Bummer. That's one of my favorite movies too. I guess I'll just have to wait until it's on again though.

On Sunday, Ocean's Eleven was showing again, between two showings of Mission: Impossible II. I got both movies, so now the only empty DVD cover on my floor with a title on it already is for The Day After Tomorrow.

I have found cover images for all the movies I didn't have images for now, but I haven't printed them out, because my laptop is still up in my bedroom. I can't print unless it's in the dock on my desk, so I'm finishing up a few more projects upstairs before I finish with the movies.

I had finished recording all ten Dutch units last week, so I tried to disconnect the harddrive and take it (with an empty CD) to my parents' house on Sunday so that Dad could burn it for me. For some reason, the computer couldn't stop the USB drive, so I just got fed up and un-plugged it.

Imagine my surprise when Dad couldn't find ANY of the MP3 files I'd saved onto that harddrive from the Dutch tapes! I had saved them in a specific folder, and they were all named things like Unit One - Reading Exercises, or Unit One - Greetings (there were two files for each unit).

They were there before I disconnected the hard drive--I know, because I'd tried to record them on the DVD-R, but couldn't, since apparently my DVD-R can only play CDs, not record them. Go figure.

But anyway, now I have to record the tapes to the harddrive again. I just hope I can get them to stay on there this time, especially since I have no idea why they wouldn't have stayed the first time!

I'm hoping it won't rain on Saturday, so that I can try to time the bicycle ride to work in the morning, and then maybe go to the pool (even just to get my pool pass) after I go grocery shopping. I'm pretty sure there's no movie that I want to see this week, but I'll have to look at my calendar at home.

I'm planning on making another post either tonight or later this week, if I've had a chance to talk to Heather on AIM again.