I know... I haven't posted in like a week.

I have a few posts that are coming together.  I will do a giveaway, and I will be doing a fantastic update on how I am transforming my home office (which Boyfriend had taken over with trash) into an office/crafting studio. 

It's all in the works.

I promise.

In the meantime, I've been up to a lot latley:

- A little bit of "fall madness" cleaning/reordering.  I don't know why, but I've been sort of "nesting" latley trying to make the apartment more homey ( I think it's because I've finally resolved that we aren't going to be buying a house for quite some time now)

- Lots of crafting.  I have several greeting cards in the works (including some halloween cards I'm sending to a few besties this year).  Some wedding DIYs.  And several pieces of beaded jewelry.

- I took up playing "Magic: The Gathering" (now, before you go calling me an uber-dork, hear me out!)  Boyfriend has been having trouble making friends, and recently we found a place where he could make some friends through playing Magic.  HOWEVER, due to his social anxiety and hermit-like ways he doesn't want to go alone.  Also, he hasn't played in over 10 years and is afraid of being laughed at by the other boys because he doesn't know the new rules.  So, I decided that I will be his buffer.  I took up the game in hopes that I could ask all of the dumb questions, and make him feel more comfortable. 

-I am also organizing and creating a catologue system for my DVDs.  They have taken over the living room.  I'm removing them from boxes, putting them in sleves, assigning numbers and ordering them.  Then I put the movies in my catologue system (which I'm using Google Docs for, so that it can be accessed on my iPhone) which can be sorted alphabetically, by genre, by year of release, or on a scale of 1 to 10 based on the like of either me, or boyfriend.  So far I have processed over 100 movies, and am about 1/3 done with the movies.  Then I will start with the TV shows, then workout videos.  I still haven't decided where to put all of the boxes (which I naturally want to keep)

Anyway, This has gotten too long.  more updates to come!

XOXO,
Miss Rachel-Ann

Accomlishments

In the spirit of bogging about getting things done, I've accomplished quite a bit at work today. Though my list doesn't look as impressive as Amber's list, it's a lot for my job:

-Got to work, and waded through several e-mails full of information for the day's calculations
-Sized a Process Safety Valve based on Liquid Thermal Expansion for a heat exchanger, complete from start to finish in a mere 3 hours (this normally takes all day)
-Had a nice lunch of veggie burgers with carrots and celery on the side.
-Sized another PSV in about 2 hours, and even ANOTHER in another 2 hours. They both need more info before I can call them complete, because I need to look at drawings and decide if these pieces of equipment are at risk for overpressure due to fire, so they are either 90% done or 50 % done. I also need to look at the same drawings and calculate some pressure drops.
-wrote design summaries for all the PSVs with plans to go bakc and edit the two later ones with a line or two once I have more info.

And now here I am, accomplishing roughly 2 days worth of work since 7:30 am. I got to work about a half an hour late today, so I have to stay until six. If I had work I could be working on, this wouldn't be so bad, but, alas, I've used up all my given information for this project, and must await another batch of Information from Texas before I can press on. So, I blog.

I know that a workday in my life seems dull to most; a 10 hour shift of math, chemistry, process simulations, and excel. But to me, well, I can't think of anything I'd like to do as a career more. I come in every morning, and make this plant a safer place, I prevent major plant explosions with these calculations, and that makes me feel so important. It gives me a sence of worth that few other things can.

Plus, it helps that I'm a total dork for this stuff. Seriously. I like math. And I really enjoy the time I spend working on these projects.

So, here's the thing about me. I'm kind of a nerd. I know that's hard to believe, because I am after all so utterly fabulous. But I'm actually totally a closet geek.

Evidence:

1) I'm a Chemical Engineer, and work in a Chemical Refinery. I think chemicals are totally neat, and I've decided to make a living by making them.

2) I enjoy video games. I can easily waste an entire Saturday playing Super Mario Galaxy, Dr. Mario, or Altered Beast.

3) I totally love Star Trek. Because, I mean, honestly, William Shatner is amazing.

4) I watch the Science Chanel, History Chanel (but only the engineering shows, and history of engineering type shows), and Discovery more often than I watch HBO, ABC and the others.

5) I'm a master of Microsoft Excel, and organization. I use spreadsheets for everything, I keep track of bills, Sephora Purchases, food eaten, all in neatly organized spreadsheets.

6) I get almost every single joke on The Big Bang Theory. They pepper in jokes that relate to people who know physics, engineering, and math in a depth that most of America just hasn't studied (i.e.: Leonard's spherical chickens in a vacuum joke)

7) And the most recent development: I love comic books. This one I've been hiding for some time, but I'm ready to admit it. I love them. I actually spent 60 dollars on them last night, because, well, I'm a huge nerd.

The reasons I'm blogging about this are:

1) I recently decided I was going to be me. I'm too old to be hiding who I am. And the fact is that I'm a smart, comic book loving, designer bag carrying, Star Trek watching, make-up loving, stiletto wearing, fabulous woman.

2) I have nothing exciting going on right now. My life is boring. But I'm trying to fill up my last two hours of the workday, and I wanted to blog.

3) That's it. Those are all of the reasons.

I hope everyone is having a great day!

New Computer = YAY

I've been considering getting a new computer for about a year now. Mine is 6 years old, and I can't play Peggle and listen to music at the same time without problems. So, I looked into the employee discount I get through my company with Dell... turns out, I can get this super awesome laptop that's about 4 times as powerful as my home computer for 500 dollars off. Plus, and this is the important part, I can order it in pink. So, I ordered it this morning after about 2 full weeks of flippy-flopping about whither or not I want to wait for Windows 7 to come out.

I'm super excited, because I bought a computer, outright, for cash, with my own money, AFTER I paid all of the neccesary bills (and above the minimums). It's a nice feeling.

The only downside, is now I have to wait for dell to build it, and ship it, and all in all I wont get it for another 2-3 weeks.

Anyway, i got put on two more projects at work, and I'm super busy today, so, I need to run.

So, I had to make my blog protected for a few days. I let it slip to the Boyfriend that I was blogging again, and I didn't want him discovering what his present is, should he go looking for my blog. I'll unprotected it after the weekend.

So, this weekend is exciting for me. Not only is it valentines day, but, Hello Kitty Online (which i guess is like World of Warcraft, but pink-er) is having a trial run from Saturday until the 17th, and I've been excited to play this game for a while now.

I placed an order from Sephora.com (because, clearly, my Sephora embargo applies only to the physical store, right?) last night for some eyeshadows. I only got two sets, both from Bare Minerals, and they should be arriving anyday now. The store has been out of these two sets for sometime now, and they don't sell the colors individually, so when i recieved an email about getting a free ten day supply of BareMinerals foundation with any purchase i said "well, where's the link to the website?!"

I'm a big fan of BareMinerals foundation. It really covers well, and balances my skintone in a way that I've never had anything balance my face before. It's light enough that I don't even feel like I'm wearing make-up, but can be layered heavy enough to cover the most problematic of my blemishes. I recomend it to ANYONE. And Right now Sephora is giving away samples (along with a free "mini kabuki" brush) to anyone who types in "FreeLove" at the checkout online or asks for a 10day sample in stores. I thought getting the 10 day sample in my shade would be a great way to save room while traveling. The container is more than likely refillable, and so this could also end up being a good way to cary my foundation in my purse for touchups and such.

Well, I should be marking up drawings and organizing my walk-downs for next week. So, TaTa!

you know you love me. XOXO.