Oscar worthy movies

Its my last night of freedom so to speak!

Not that I asked to be unemployed, obviously no one does but I got used to not having to get up and whatnot.  Come tomorrow (obviously depending on the weather) I will be up at 6 during the week.  Gotta get used to being at a district now that won't close that much because its in West County.

Saturday night Keith and I decided to go see "Black Swan".

Originally he told me he wouldn't go see the movie because he figured with a name like that it would be a chick flick.  However once he read the reviews and saw it was like a psychological thriller he was all game so off we went. It was quite good!!  I haven't always been a big Natalie Portman fan (something about her bothers me) but we also just saw her in "No Strings Attached" so I'm kinda liking the girl now (can't forget her in the Walmart movie....I can't remember the name but I remember the movie).

So like everyone is doing, my quest to watch the movies before the Oscars looks a little like this:

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The King's Speech

The Kids are Alright

The Town

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter's Bone

Social Network is supposed to come this week from Netflix, as is Winter's Bone.  The Fighter and True Grit aren't out yet and the King's Speech will wait until Netflix sends it to me :)

But I did pretty good :)

Gotta get ready for my first day tomorrow - nervous, yes!!

More later!!

Job training

About to head off to day 2 of training for the job.

I am an ABA paraprofessional for the Special School District within the Parkway School District.  In regular terms that means I will be working one on one with the special needs kiddos (most likely autistic) to teach them skills in a more discreet way of learning than the norm.  Its going to take a lot of work, and its going to be draining but it will continue my education path and hopefully lead to something for the fall.

I had day 1 training yesterday at Westport - pretty much sitting in a room all day, listening to jargon.  Today is day 2 with a test that has to be passed with an 80% or higher.  Monday I start my week of observing the kiddo I'm working with.

I'm nervous, scared, excited all rolled into one.

Gotta study then get on the road :)  Have a great weekend!

An Unveiled weekend

Totally keep forgetting to blog about my weekend ~ better late than never!

It was pretty awesome!!

To keep with our tradition of trying new restaurants, we joined Alicia at Granite City Brewery for her 28th birthday.  Having never been, we had heard many people recommend it and were eager to try the supposedly famous beer dip with warm pretzels.  Uhhmazing :)  After a few apps, a few chocolate martinis and many beer selections, our main dishes arrived and were devoured immediately.  We continued on to Alicia's house for a little Just Dance on the Wii and a few more martinis courtesy of her Dad.  I'm pretty sure she had a happy birthday (esp since she was off school for the snow):

Mairi, me & Alicia on her birthday

Saturday had me running around like a chicken with her head cut off.  I started out in Chesterfield for an teaching interview then continued on to the valley to run some much needed errands and then hitting up the mall since I don't ever get to go out to that mall anymore.  I was waiting to pick something up from my cousin before heading back South so I got roped into helping my parents in their basement for a bit before wrapping the night up at Becky & Steve's to celebrate Steve Perry (from Journey)'s birthday (aka any excuse to have a party).

My cousin Jen is the head of group services at the Four Seasons and she had put me on their list to attended St. Louis magazine's Unveiled 2011 show that was happening at her hotel on Sunday.  So Alicia and I braved the snow (it was bad downtown) to get to the gorgeous hotel (I had been to the casino but not the hotel part) and had our share of mimosas, sweets and lots of yummy food prepared by the hotel while we mingled with the downtown vendors and saw a fashion show.  Got a few ideas and won an engagement session with a big print from Go! Portraits so I'm excited for the freebie there.  There was another photo company there called Laughing Penguins who had a photo booth set up and Alicia and I got this cute photo done (one of 4 but this was the best one):

Alicia & I at Unveiled 2011 at the Four Seasons

So that was my fun weekend.

The next few days are shaping up nicely as well so well see what they all have in store :)

Post It Note newbie

Snow schmo

The lines of communication with this new job aren't the best and I hope for my sake they get better.

Last week with the snow the orientation got moved to this past Tuesday.  So I get there, do what I need to do then find out that I need a physical and TB within 30 days.  Luckily my doctor's office was able to get me in yesterday - they wanted to give me more than just the TB shot but I happily declined more shots as I wasn't in the mood.  Anywho I also found out that the first trainings would be on Thursday and Friday.

Then it snowed...and snowed...oh and guess what, snowed some more.

The TV announced that the district would be closed so I waited until this morning to call the information line and found out that everything was closed for the district - yet it didn't say no training.  With my luck I knew that if I didn't show up to the training center, that the training would have happened.  So I carefully decided to go with my gut and see if it was scheduled or not and after going 20 mph all the way to Westport, it was canceled!

Of course!

So silly me thought that taking Lindbergh home would be less crowded and maybe more faster than the highway.  H to the e-ll no it was not.  I finally made it to Schuetz Rd to get back to Page to get back on the nasty highway and I made it back to my house.

So I now have faith in green honda and know that yes indeed we can!!

Oh and as for those lines of communication, I got the email once I was home that it was all pushed to next week.  Lovely huh?

GNI #1 = success!

Friday night was the start of a monthly tradition for 2011 (and beyond perhaps?).

My cousin gave me the idea for girls night in - pretty much the same basis of girls night out only we stay in and the night is just a whatever night.  Apparently my cousin Jen has been doing girls night in since she graduated high school in 2003 and its the same group of girls and they never miss a month.

So I sent emails to people to see if they were interested and for our first night we had 7 ladies show up.  I had themed it game night so they each brought something to eat/drink to share with the group, as well as a favorite game of theirs.

Everyone commented that they had an awesome time and how it was a good idea.  So February's is in the works as well as the next few months by those who have offered to host.  I'm very excited to see how this turns out :)

Monday...not funday yet!

I really don't have a lot to update on today.

I've been stuck inside for 3 days while our ceiling is being repaired.  The condo decided to replace the roof before winter, which was good until we noticed nail holes coming through the ceiling.  So we had to contact them, they finally sent a guy out who has been working on it and today should be the last day.  I really don't have anywhere to go but still I can't go anywhere anyway!

The weather map of white keeps getting bigger and bigger every time I update it.  Wonder just what its going to do to us...Keith is hoping for a snow day tomorrow.  I'm supposed to go to an orientation tomorrow pending weather so we'll see.

I have my niece's 6th birthday party tomorrow night at Bounce U.  I have never been so it'll be interesting.  Friday is the first monthly Girls Night In and if you didn't get an invite and you'd like one, let me know, we got a good bunch coming.  Saturday will be date night then Sunday Keith and I are probably going to finally use our groupon and challenge each other to dodgeball in Chesterfield.

Should be a good week!  More later...

Happy birthday

Happy birthday to my favorite angel - I love and miss you every day Mom :)

Country Strong

I was a lucky duck and got last minute sneak peek movie tickets to "Country Strong" tonight.

I grew up with country music and I'm a huge Tim McGraw fan so I jumped at the chance to see him.

My dad and sister went with me and it was a great movie.

Not going to say much except to go see it!  Oh and now I gotta get the soundtrack!

:)

Can You Top our New Year's?

An F3 tornado hit my area.........can you top that?!?

We are okay, our condo is fine but for those who may have heard here in St. Louis and across the US that an F3 tornado hit a town called Sunset Hills, which is a mere 5 minutes from us.  We had heard the sirens while we were out running some errands and decided to take cover at his parents house since they have a basement and we do not and I kid you not, it was freaky outside.  A friend and coworker of ours no longer has a house as it was sliced in half by a tree in her front yard:

Her street was really the worst hit and we drove by there today and the damage is unbelievable.  Luckily her kids were not home and she is okay.  We will find out more tomorrow when Keith heads back to work from break.

After that excitement, we headed to the Blues game to which they won, yay and then it was off to Kelly & Brian's for a mini get-together to ring in the New Year.  We made it with an hour to spare and let the world know we were ready for 2011 as soon as that ball dropped:

So that's how I rang in 2011 - can you top that? ;)