2011 Year in Review – Part Three

July/August/September

Because my position had been eliminated (but I still had a notice period, where I was considered a FTE, but didn’t have to work) I had June and the first half of July off work.  I totally took advantage of this by taking the aforementioned vacation in June.  The first two weeks of July I went all out crossing Chesapeake Bay and Cape May off MY LIST before Independence Day, and then hitting everything on The List in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island the week after the 4^th.  After all that adventure I landed a temporary assignment with my employer that has been quite a blessing.  It prolongs my benefits and will carry me through until I move later this year.  The rest of my summer was spent settling in to the new job and just hanging in there with normal life.

2011 Year in Review – Part Two

April

A lot went on in April, actually.  I crossed off another item from MY LIST, The Barnes Foundation.  They have some amazing paintings, and a fabulous all around, though confusing, collection.  They are also moving from their current locations on Latches Lane to Center City.  Given that The List specifies the current location, and that the Foundation was going to shut down the current Foundation in May to prepare for the move I figure if I was gonna go see it then the time was now.

It was a rainy spring day, but that actually worked out well because by the time I got to the garden the rain had stopped, but everything was still dewy and gorgeous.

April was also a source of a lot of change and turmoil at work.  The retail conversion was completed in Pennsylvania, and my line of business was completely overhauled and reorganized.  This also meant that I was told at the end of the month that my position was being eliminated.  Oddly enough, I wasn’t too upset by this news.  Although I had moved across the country for this job, it certainly wasn’t a dream job, I was getting a generous severance package, and I had a lot of opportunities that were perfect for the next year or so of my life. 

May

In May I ended up in the emergency room with what was diagnosed as a kidney infection.  This seemingly small event would have big complications for the end of 2011/beginning of 2012.

June

In June the Calls and Cortney came to visit.  We went everywhere and had a super fantastic time that is waaaay to super fantastic to recount here.  Suffice it to say that we hit like 9 states and crossed a ton of stuff off The List.  Oh, also, I live here…

You can’t miss it, it’s the last one on the left, with the gate…

2011 Year in Review – Part One

Yeah, so I’m a little late in getting year in review done, but you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.  Kita has told me that several times. 

January/February

I was living through my first Philadelphia winter, and I was amazed by how different it is back east.  First of all, we had basically no snow until the day after Christmas and then we had a small storm about once a week all through January.  Now during this time we did have at least one whopper of a storm that dropped a couple of feet, but mostly they were little 1 – 3 inch storms.  No big deal, right?  Wrong!

In Philly any snowflake is cause for the “end of the world” mentality to grip the population.  Cars lining up into the streets at gas stations, grocery stores shelves stripped bare, and the weirdest part (to a girl who never had a single snow day in her life) everything shuts down.  For every, single snow flake work would either be started late, let off early, or closed completely. 

The other east coast winter weather phenomenon I was unprepared for is the ice storm.  This happened twice over the course of the season and the first time I walked outside and was instantly hit with, “This is the craziest shit I’ve ever seen!”  Every single thing was encased in a thin layer of ice.  Every branch, every leaf, the ENTIRE car.  Once the ice cracked on the car it would come crashing down in big sheets.  I was really grateful for the snow day when we had ice.  It would be like driving on the ice at the E (or whatever it’s called these days) Center.

But by February, no more snow fell.  None.  Nada. Zip.  We did have giant mountains of snow (like 10 feet tall) lining all the roads because the streets here are just too narrow and lacking in proper shoulders for it to go anywhere but up.  This was all accompanied by significant whining by the natives about what a terrible winter we were having.  Ha!

March

In March I was able to cross another item of MY LIST (aka The List).  I attended the Philadelphia Flower Show. The theme was Paris and it was incredible.  It’s going on right now and the theme this year is Hawaii.  I almost went, but my friends and co-workers are all saying it isn’t very good this year so I’m passing.  Last year however, there was a mock Eiffel Tower, carousel animals made of topiary, and so many different flowers.