Stayin’ Alive…

Just popping in to say I’m still alive! Lot of changes around here lately- it’s been a whirlwind!

Through a series of interesting circumstances I will not go into here, I have landed my dream job!! I started work last Monday at Finger Lakes Ambulance as a full-time dispatcher,  part-time driver/EMT! I am SO excited to actually be working in EMS! The job is interesting and my co-workers (quite a few of whom I have known for 12-15 years) are great to work with. AND I wear a uniform! No more deciding what to wear to work, or if those shoes match this shirt! It’s a uniform shirt, EMT pants, leather boots, reflective coat. End of story. Once I am trained I will work overnights in dispatch. No more days! I am so not a morning/day person. I am very happy :)

I also had a great week last week because my mommy and daddy came to see me for Thanksgiving! It was SO great to see them and spend time with them! We had a blast, going wine tasting and visiting a family favorite place, The Wizard Of Clay in Honeoye, NY. They bought me a birthday present from there and it’s so beautiful…

Isn’t it amazing? The crystals grow as the piece is fired in a kiln at a set temperature and each one is unique. There is no way to control the crystal growth. I just love looking at it.

Last but not least, and mostly due to my new job, I am moving from Fairport, NY to Canandaigua, NY in January. I am excited, and it will be a LOT closer to my job. Right now I have a nearly 30 mile commute. Once I move it will be about 10.

I haven’t been crafting at all and am considering de-stashing on Etsy. I’ll let you all know if I do that since I will have good prices ;)

An Autumn Day

Today I grabbed the new camera and went out exploring! It was lovely and clear this morning… I wish it was still like that now, but this is Rochester… :)

I started very bright and early…

I stopped up at my friend Wayne’s house to get a shot of the beautiful sunrise…

Then I headed up to Harriet Hollister Spencer State Recreation Area to get some lovely photos of Honeoye Lake. The view from there is truly amazing. Even my new camera could not do it justice!

It also has a great view of the city of Rochester, which is about 40 miles away. It was a great opportunity to try out the zoom lense!

I got another (and much better!) photograph of the moon…

And then I headed to my favorite place in all of New York- Taughannock Falls State Park! This place is breathtakingly beautiful. Here are the falls from a distance.

And a little closer up…

And a close up!

In scanning around for other shots I found this lovely fall scene..

Then I drove up and around to hike the upper rim trail at Taughannock Falls State Park.

My last stop of the day was this delightful waterfall that is just on the side of the road near Watkins Glen! I love waterfalls and this is a particularly beautiful one.

Well, that is my tour of my beloved Finger Lakes region for today!

A New Toy

I have been saving for a while now, and I finally splurged- on a new camera! it’s a Canon EOS Rebel T2i SLR digital camera. The package I bought came with extra lenses and batteries and stuff. My friend Don has a similar camera and he’s been helping me learn how to use it.

I got a lovely picture of my beloved Munchkin…

I just love the resolution of the new camera! This was taken from clear across the room with a zoom lense.

I tried my hand at photographing the moon. It came out OK, but it definitely made me realize I need a tripod! I took about 50 pictures of the moon and this was the only decent shot. I guess I’m not very steady :)

Tomorrow morning is supposed to be clear (a miracle in Rochester lately!) so I am going to head to my favorite spot down in Honeoye to play with the camera some more. There is a place with a spectacular view of Honeoye Lake and the city of Rochester and I am hoping it will be clear enough to get some really great photos!

Autumn Trip, 2011

Hello all from lovely Plattsburgh, NY! Right on Lake Champlain and minutes from the Adirondack Mountains (and about 5 hours from home), it’s the perfect place for a mini-weekend vacation, and that is just what I am taking!

I drove up last night after work and this morning I headed out bright and early to get to the mountains! I wandered around a bit (intentionally) but eventually wound up in the Lake Placid area. Beautiful!

I saw lovely waterfalls… (at High Falls Gorge, near Lake Placid)

And lovely autumn foliage… (near Lake Placid)

And then I came to a T in the road. If I turned right, I would just be on some road headed somewhere. But if I turned left, I could drive my little Honda to the tip top of Whiteface Mountain! I am sure you can guess which way I turned… :)

This is about 1/2 way up the mountain…

And this is about 3/4 of the way up the mountain…

And this is from the summit of Whiteface Mountain!

Yep- I really was there!

Then I went to Little Whiteface Mountain and took a gondola ride up to the top of it…

Same lake, different mountain!

A view of Whiteface Mountain from Little Whiteface Mountain.

My favorite photo from the day (of over 250 photos!). This is from the gondola on the way back down Little Whiteface Mountain.

Tomorrow I am leaving early so I can go to Fort Ticonderoga on my way home. More photos to follow!

My Little Munchkin

I have been adopted by a cat!

Her name is Munchkin and she is 3 months old. I found her at Lollipop Farm, the Rochester area Humane Society shelter. I ♥ her so much!! I had about a dozen names picked out for when I got a cat but when she crawled on my lap and into my heart at the shelter somehow the name Munchkin came to me and I went with it. It really suits her- now. I imagine when she’s full grown it will be a bit of a joke ;)

She is settling right in to my apartment, walking around like she owns the place and playing with random things like power cords and tiny little pieces of fluff and freaking me out by cramming herself into the tiniest spaces possible (where I can’t find her) then falling asleep.

She is also a very loving little lap kitty, and even though I’ve only had her since about 6pm tonight my lap seems to be her favorite place to sleep :) I am glad. I love lap cats and none of the cats I’ve lived with in the past have really been lap cats.

She’s also not afraid to express herself ;) She actually fell asleep like this! I was laughing so hysterically I woke her up.

I love, love, love my new friend :)

Just Popping By…

To say hi! I’m still alive!

I started a new job a little over 3 weeks ago. The first one was temporary and didn’t really work out. This new one is *amazing*!! I have a great job, a great boss, and fantastic coworkers. I am so happy at this job! It has great hours, great pay and pretty much all the overtime I can handle. The only downside is having to be there at 8am- I am NOT a morning person at all! But I have a very easy commute, about 20 minutes, so it’s not too bad.

I am also finishing up my EMT class- just one more test (the NYS written exam) to go! It was a really great class. I made a lot of new friends and I am so happy to be getting back into EMS and helping people again. I will probably start working for a local agency on the weekends once I get my certification. The final exam is this Thursday. I’m feeling really good about it- I finished the class with a 97% average.

My EMT instructor and several of my friends have been encouraging me to apply for the paramedic program that starts in January 2012. I am thinking about it- I may take another year and start in January 2013 instead. But we’ll see :) I do definitely want to become a paramedic, I just think it might be better to work in EMS for a while, work my job for a while and take a break from going to school for a bit.

Other than that, not much is new! Just been going to work and spending time with my friends and hiking and biking and photography. I have really been getting into photography lately with the help of a good friend. He has an *awesome* camera and it’s been fun to play with it :)

Ta for now- here are some recent pics I’ve taken!

Unforgettable Summer Vacation :)

I spent this past week on the amazing and wonderful Isle Of Palms, SC with my whole family! It was great to see my parents, my brother, his two daughters, my sister and her boyfriend. We rented a condo right on the beach. I have never had more fun in my whole life!

I drove down from NY. On the way I passed through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. The scenery was spectacular! This is in West Virginia…

Also in West Virginia. This is the New River Gorge bridge. It is the longest arch bridge in the Western hemisphere!

The view from the back porch of our condo- it was so wonderful!

The U.S. 17 bridge in Charleston, SC. What a lovely bridge!

The U.S.S. Yorktown in Charleston.

No trip to the Charleston area would be complete without a visit to Fort Sumter! It was very small. I guess I imagined it was much bigger. Such a tiny place to have been the beginning of such an important event in our country’s history!

Part of the original tabby wall at Fort Sumter.

Most of our time, however, was spent here. In the lovely warm Atlantic ocean! This is my dad (otherwise known as PopPop) and my nieces playing in the waves.

All in all I drove 1,993 miles. I drove the 16 hours down there in one shot but on the way home I stopped in Clarksburg, WV for the night. I was tired and there were bad storms all over the place.

It was a wonderful, wonderful vacation! I can hardly wait to do it again next summer!

Busy And A Blog Hold

Hey all! Guess what? I GOT A JOB!!! I am so, so excited! I start on Monday. I will be doing medical billing and accounts receivable at a large local skilled nursing facility/rehabilitation center. The company also has independent and assisted living houses. I am sure I will be very busy at work and I can hardly wait.

I went on a major shopping trip today, using money that I’ve saved up over the last several months to buy clothes for my new job. I also bought some shorts and capris and am ecstatically happy to report that the shorts and capris I bought today are SIX SIZES SMALLER than ones I bought at the beginning of last summer!!!! I was happy dancing all through the mall, let me tell ya!!

On to the blog hold- between working full time and going to school 3 nights a week I will have little to no time to create. I also just don’t seem to have any desire to make things at all anymore and it makes me sad. I’ve been toying with the idea of selling all my quilting stuff, it’s gotten that bad. I do have one swap item (and I know I am late sending, I am sorry about that and plan to mail it by Friday) that I will be completing and after that I have no idea when I will be sewing again.

This is supposed to be a quilting blog and since I’m basically not quilting anymore I feel like it’s kinda pointless to continue writing this blog. I don’t plan to delete this blog, and if I have anything to show you I will certainly post again. I will also see some of you on Flickr and Facebook!

Hugs to all and thank you for being there for me with your thoughts and prayers!

Life Is Full (And Fun!)

Well, life continues to move at a lightning pace here at Maison de Jennie! My adult education class is wrapping up. I’m hopeful that I’ll be working soon (I’ve had several great interviews in the past week) and last but not least I’m starting another class on Monday!

From 1996 to 2002 I was a NYS Certified Emergency Medical Technician. I enjoy helping people and that was one way I could really get out and help people that really needed help. I am so excited to be taking the class again to get that certification back! The class starts on Monday and is 3 evenings a week til mid-August. I picked up my books today and have been eagerly reading them :)

Not much else. I have been decorating the walls of my home and it’s amazing the difference it makes! I am starting to feel like my apartment is “home” now, not “temporary stopping place”. I know I’ll probably be here for a few years while I work and go to school so feeling at home is nice.

And speaking of going to school, I am making plans to go to college starting in September. I plan to attend a local community college to get an Associate’s degree that will transfer to a local university to finish a Bachelor’s degree. I have chosen my major and I’m really excited about it! I will have to meet with a counselor to work out if I can actually do it and work full time, so I won’t say what it is just yet :)

Maine

This past weekend I was in Ogunquit, Maine. It’s one of my favorite spots in the whole world! There is a lovely bed and breakfast there called The Ogunquit Inn. That’s where I stayed. It was quite lovely- I had a room in the front of the house and at night I could hear the ocean… wonderful!!

This is Herbert. He was a little unhappy about how close I got. But not so unhappy that he was willing to abandon his breakfast :)

Sunrise over the Atlantic… isn’t it beautiful?

And what trip to Maine would be complete without heading to a lighthouse? This is the Portland Head light in Cape Elizabeth, ME.

Following, in no particular order, are some of my favorite pictures from my trip… :)

I ate lobster pie, lobster quiche, lobster pizza and lobster rolls. I also came home looking a bit like a lobster due to not being vigilant with the sunscreen, but it’s faded now :)

It was an unbelievable weekend- just what I needed after these past several months! I spent hours just sitting on the beach, watching the waves and listening to them crash. Add in the foghorns and the seagulls… I still hear them in my dreams :)

I am already planning to go back in September!