Posts Tagged work

Indoor cookout

23 July 2008

Well sort of indoors, it’s on the loading dock in the back of the store I work with the large doors open and a good breeze. Don’t try this at home though!!
It was Associate Appreciation day and management was treating us to a nice lunch. Just trying still to figure out how much we are appreciated when we ended up doing the cooking and cleaning and preparing? :-/ well hey it’s a free lunch and we got paid ;) a few not so good pics following this link – (more…)

Lilac – First Emotions of Love

22 April 2008

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The Lilac – First emotions of love.. I BELIEVE :)
Two years ago this photo was taken. As you can see from the blooms its a purple lilac. April 2006 was the very first time since it was planted that it bloomed. To be honest at the time it was planted I had no idea of what type of bush it even was. (more…)

Brit by association

24 February 2008

I was noticing the other evening when I was writing a mail to Alison that I now automatically seem to use the UK spelling most all the time now. Well specifically those words that here end in ‘or’ where there it’s ‘our‘ such as humour and colour. Well that in itself isnt that uncommon. But I got thinking about it more and realised I also use phrases and words now that 2 years ago I wouldn’t have ever imagined saying.. simple things really like ‘petrol’ I am often sending my love a text kiss from the petrol pumps, (the romantic man that i am!) :) Well here we say ‘gas‘ of course and even that is showing how lazy we are to shorten it from gasoline. And then not only do we use ‘gas’ for that, we call propane ‘gas’ too! And on top of that we call just about anything in a gaseous state that we use for fuel or burning, such as acetylene and such… yes ‘gas’ again! well in polite circles a fart is called ‘gas’ too but I dont want to go rambling on too much in that direction… lol

I now also ring someone instead of call. I can remember well watching those BBC sitcoms from the 60′s and 70′s and hearing them saying to ring someone and laughing at how absurd it sounded to me at the time. Now I don’t think twice about it, either writing it or saying it~ And car park… there’s another one! I dont know when that slipped in really. Well I still use parking lot often too, but its about 50-50 now. Well I don’t know when but I do know how I got to using it. Ever since Alison and I have been texting we have got into the habit of sending some at very specific times during the day, well in addtion to those off and on just to say hi. Theres the wake up text and kiss… well they all have a kiss in them! and then one when we leave the house for work, well naturally the one after that is the car park text! Well as I said I still say parking lot just as often too. It was just so funny the other day someone at work was asking me if I had an extra box cutter, and I said ‘No, but I’ll go out to the car park and get one from my car’ and it was only after I got a funny look from him that I caught what I said!

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Football Roast

9 February 2008

Super bowl hijinks in the meat department :)

Still here! :)

9 February 2008

Well looking at the dates of the last posts one would think we had forgot about the site! Well we are still here and doing better than ever! :) We do seem to spend much more time now, since this last holiday together especially, trying every chance we can to get together for a chat, or to speak on Skype, and then there is still the mails we write each day. Oh the mails we have written!! It amazes me sometimes just to realize that every single day since April 5 of 2006 we have had at least one mail every day, and many times as much as a dozen a day! They say its hard work to maintain a long distance realtionship… well maybe… yes it is hard to be that far a apart, but never once have I thought of it as work! I hate work, ask my employer! lol But seriously it has been nothing but love and desire to be ever closer to my soulmate that I have opened every new mail with a smile on my face and in my heart just to tell her I love her. And its even harder now to spend one more day aprt now that we have shared our times together and seen face to face that we are meant for each other just as we knew. That was proably one of the hardest saddest days of my life to get back on that plane in Cyrpus to come back the US, and you know we have both seen some bad days. But still our love endures and it always will! Oh I’m getting a bit sugary here arent I?! lol well you should read our chats then if you think thats sugary! OH maybe not! ;) lol

WellI admit I am totally lost (and found) in love with this Beautiful Brit, and strange as it may sound to some, I alwasy have been. From the very first time we spoke I felt I had known her all my life and she will say the same. You all know our stories, and I will always believe it was a match made in heaven by God and our angels. Some things just dont happen, I dont care what anyone says. The things we have seen and felt.. incredible… I cant reason it, or begin to explain it, but know this, God has a plan for us all! Even if we don’t believe it ourselves. Take it for what it’s worth. :)

I have to laugh sometimes when I think back to the early days after we met and how some people seemed to act so surprised that we met online, and some were even shocked! Well in truth there were more positve response than any negative ones. But it surprised me when people would ask one of us , how do you know they are who they say they are? Ok I can understand it to a degree as there are so many stories you hear of weirdos and worse online, but think about it… Even in a face to face meeting, how can you be sure the other is who they say they are either? you can’t! And God knows all you have to do is turn on the TV and see the crazy folks in the world who are described by friends and family as alwasy seeming nice and being known by them all their life, and then turning out they go on a shooting spree or some other mad horrible thing. You can still get the sense and feel of a person just as much from writing them as you can from meeting them. Maybe even more so as you are focused on their words more and listen to each other.. and it doesnt take long to see who is truthful and who isnt, Well I dont know the point I am getting to, just some things I wanted to say. Well everyone who knows me has seen the happiness in me now and the love too. And they are ALL happy fo me, for us! Most of all I am happy for us! :) ecstatically happy!! And looking forward to a future I know is going to be even more incrdeible that anything I could ever imagine. :) Oh that picture above is from a photo of us here in May that I worked on and tried to create a painting from. It is one of my favourite pictures. I look at it and it just seems to exude love and passion and a love beyond measure in that embrace and kiss. My every waking moment is spent in that sort of dreamy feel of a happiness beyond compare too. Well we all have days that things dont go right, or something happens, but you know what? Nothing can take the smile from my heart that Alison Michelle has put there, it gets me through everything! Love is all you need.. every thing else is just… fluff! I love you baby xxxx I do!

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Pepsi break

6 January 2008

Me at work :-)

Day 4 in Cyprus

1 December 2007

We decided on Saturday to take a break from the tourist thing as well and spent most of the morning just around the house taking it easy. I finally met Churchill, the now famous Cyprus tortoise appearing on YouTube (along with a short cameo appearance by Benji and Natalie’s fingers.. I think!) Well he even came out long enough to pose and fill up his tortoise belly on some very good tomatoes, he’s quite an eater! And I remember Alison saying she wasn’t sure if it was a male or a female and with a little online research the gender confusion was all cleared up! :) The weather was still hot and we decided it would be a nice day to have a trip to the beach. There was a short trip or two to the store to pick up some nibbles before we got the car loaded and then we were off to get wet. It would have been nice we said to head down to Curium, but with us traveling so much the first couple of days we settled on something maybe a bit closer and a bit more secluded, Governor’s Beach. Well we didn’t want to scare the masses with the bright white body of mine! lol

the pics for this post are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/garazon/Day4Cyprus

From the website: Governor’s Beach is located midway between Larnaca and Limassol and its sandy beach and shallow crystal water it’s ideal for families with children, but also for romantic couples. (hey, that’s us! )

The name Governor’s Beach comes from the British Colonial days when the Governor used to come for a swim.

Governor’s Beach also offers the spectacular white rocks area for those who like snorkeling, boating, fishing…or have a nice walk in one of the many nature trails on the hills near by, or on the beach watching a beautiful sunrise. There is a great selection of nice restaurants, where you can enjoy your lunch or dinner sitting under the trees… just a few meters away from the crystal water of the Mediterranean Sea.

The most memorable thing for me about Cyprus and the Mediterranean , besides Alison Michelle of course! ;), is the water! I was awestruck from my first sight of the colour and how clear it is too! I literally could stare for hours at it as the blue seems so intense and its just beyond description. Well we got there and got ourselves a bed and umbrella and laid back a while to soak up some sun and just enjoy the warmth and the sounds of the sea. This was actually where I saw the most grass I had seen in one spot in Cyprus since arriving! just above the beach is a grassy area where you can get a bed and umbrella if you don’t care to be right on the sandy beach itself. The sand is quite a bit finer than what we have here and its much darker too! I think a lot of the darker sand is caused by some many islands in the bed being formed by volcanoes so naturally its going to be different than our light coloured sand. well it doesn’t feel like our sand either, its softer in a way. We finally decided to test the water and see if it was warm enough for a swim, which as it turned out was lovely really. a little cool at first, but it didn’t take long to get used to it and the hot sun above made it feel nice. Well its shallow for a good ways out and we had to walk a bit to get shoulder deep. and that is when I had the most amazing site. Being up to my neck in the sea I could look down and see my feet through the water! Stunning! I was really amazed and had to laugh out loud! Well you would have to see the water in the sounds here in NC to appreciate it, you can’t put your hand but a few inches below the surface here and it disappears from sight! very murky looking, even more so once you have been in the clear water of the Med. It makes you wonder how a place where civilization has existed for centuries more than it has here can be so clean and clear still! Well I guess ours isn’t really dirty, just has more shallow quiet parts and a lot of vegetation and trees around which drop the leaves into the water and add more particles, sort of like a strong brewed tea if you will! Instead of tea leaves its pine and poplar and oak and maple leaf tea! Anyway we had a very nice swim and I really would be tanned by now if I lived there in Cyprus as I would live at this beach if I could! Marvelous! We went back and laid in the sun for quite a while longer before heading back home, were we laid down again and tried to take a nap! Its hard work laying in the sun don’t you know!

Well being in a lazy mood we didn’t feel to fix supper so it was out to eat. We went to a place called Pizza Express… well we have a place named that here in the States but its nothing even close to the same as it is there! Here it conjures up an image of a cheap pizza shop that has maybe a dozen different combos of pizza and beer or soft drinks, maybe a salad bar.. ;) well this place was looking like one of our fancier restaurants. It was a two story type place, the center being open and you can look down and see the crowd and tables below and they have a live band or some type of entertainment playing in the evenings. The night we were there it was trio singing a lot of various style songs, from rock ballads to reggae to soul and jazz… they were quite good and we had a very good view. The food was pretty good, but for the price I think it could have been better! Alison ordered a chef’s salad I think it was, well it was supposed to have some chicken or meat of some kind, but I think she only had two or three little bites in the whole thing! and it wasnt that big a salad either! Well they have all sorts of things on the menu, from pasta to meats to pizza.. well me not being up on the fancy names of things I just got a pizza. I can’t remember the kind of pizza I ordered as they had dozens listed, and not of the toppings we think of here! So I just ordered the one I thought would be the least surprising once it arrived! it was pretty good I guess but then we were both hungry too and would have eaten anything! lol Anyway we had a nice time and enjoyed to sit with each other and listen to the music, and of course exchange a kiss or two.. or three or four… and to be sitting so happy with each others company. well that was the best part of the evening! We really didnt stay out so late and headed on home. I think that was the night we sat to watch some dvds we hired from a local shop… guess he specializes in bootlegs as none of the three worked at all! Well one did fairly well but hung up a bit! Well that was day 4 spent… maybe it was a quiet day, but one of the most wonderful of my life as I was with my Cyprus angel again all day long! My heaven! I love you Alison Michelle! I do! :) XXXX

A Very Special Thanks~

1 November 2007

To Maureen and Jack for the wonderful engagement present! Alison’s mam and dad gave us a nice holiday within a holiday! We spent Monday through Wednesday in the Alexander the Great Hotel in Paphos. It was such a wonderful time and we both appreciate it so very much! Can’t wait to thank you in person, it’s a memory that wil last a lifetime! :)

Thanks also to Agneta and George for a wonderful lunch in Vouni, to Allyson & Marios and Thereza & Andros for making me feel welcome, to Dee and Philip for their hospitality, to Frosso for a lovely evening of chat and company, to Julie and the people at Mom’s bar on the base I met and had chance to speak to, to all of Alison’s coworkers at 3D for the welcome I received and a special thanks to JM for making me feel welcome and for getting the grill going!! lol :), can’t forget Benji either! What a wonderful time I had there and can;t wait to go back! Love and best wishes to all

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