virginia and jon . com

Yup the end of a HUGE year for me.  At the beginning of last year I was single, working full time as a waitress at chilis in NY.  Now at the end of the year I am in Washington state, attempting to pursue radio again and working in a fine dining restaurant.  Oh did I forget to mention I am engaged? Yea a huge year.

Tonight I will be working at midnight in the restaurant, which is fine because if Jon is not here I would rather be at work than home alone.  I hope that everyone important to us East coast and west coast alike has a wonderful night and New Year!

~V~

Haven’t really been blogging alot lately, and I apologize.  There is a very good reason for this.  I made a trip home to Ny, and it was a surprise.  so in the days/weeks leading up to it all I wanted to talk about was my trip, and not a whole lot else was on my mind.  I left on December 17th and just returned on the 27th.  Both trips were very long(especially by myself).  Overall my trip home was awesome.  I got to surprise everyone from my brothers, cousins,aunts,uncles to my grandparents.  It was so fun to have a secret!

Let me tell you what was not fun. . . My trip home yesterday.  I arrived at the airport at 5:30 am for my 7am flight.  Check in and everything went fine.  As I am waiting I hear that the flight is overbooked and they need a volunteer to catch another plane.  They were going to refund the cost of your one way ticket plus $200.  Good deal right?  I thought so and went to the ticket counter to volunteer and see when I could catch another flight.  They said they had one going at 11:35 so I agreed.  The good thing is here I made $600 all e for future flights home, the bad thing is I had to wait 5 more hours.  I pulled out my blanket and sat in a corner and slept.  Atleast until a french family sat next to me and their children started climbing on me. . . seriously HOW RUDE!  I boarded my plane and go the seat I wanted. . . popped a nyquil and went to sleep.  When I woke I felt terribly nauseous and ended up vomiting on the plane.  Thankfully I did manage to do it in a bag. . . I am so glad they still have those!  The poor flight attendant saw me and came and took my . . . uh. . . trash.  That right there made me feel sorry for all the flight attendants. . . I have a new found respect for them.  I arrived in Vegas to find out that I had a 3 hour layover.  At this point I felt so sick I just wanted to be home in bed.  After playing $2 in slots(high roller I know) I sat and waited for my plane to arrive.  I has A2 boarding position which is the 2nd person to board. . . very good, but when I got on I realized that this was a continued flight from somewhere else and all the good seats were taken!

Needless to say I arrived ok in seattle, my bags that was  another story.  I had to go to the baggage claim office for my bags since they were on the first set of flights I was supposed to take before the bump.  That was nice since I didn’t have to wait for them on the turnstyle. However someone had cut off the strap that connects my small bag to the top of my large bag.  Trying to walk with 3 larger bags and a book bag was not fun.  To make matters worse I had to walk the entire length of the concourse to get to where the airporter was picking me up and I had 10 minutes to do it.  It took some major running and balancing to make it and I BARELY made it.  Ofcourse since I had to do all that I couldn’t make a claim about my brand new luggage being ruined.  So I called today and got the run around about how I needed to go back to the airport and bring the luggage, and should have made a claim yesterday.  After finally calling 4 different numbers for southwest I managed to get someone who cared.  He gave me another $100 voucher for future flights, so in the end I have $700 in flights to be used by 2009.  Was it worth all the pain and vomiting?  I do not know, but I know I am happy I can go home about 3 times, round trip for all my troubles!

P.s. Jon comes home in less than 4 weeks!

~V~

Since Jon has gone there is not a whole lot for me to do.  So I have been working alot.  This week was the first time that they let me put in a full 40 hours, unfortunately I couldn’t work today seeing as though I am still sick.  Yes apparently my strep throat and bronchitis has not gone way, and I have had this for almost 2 weeks now.  Today it literally feels like someone is sitting on my chest, there is so much pressure on my chest.  I guess I should look at the bright side, it keeps me out of the rain.  Although I am glad that I am not in NY as they are getting pounded with almost a foot of snow as we speak.

Communication with Jon has come to a hault as he told me he can’t email me until after the new year.  He did say he has been working in the kitchen as a dishwasher for a few weeks and that his hands prune very badly after he is done.  Good thing I sent him out with lotion!  It sounds like his spirits are pretty high and will be home (hopefully) in about 4 weeks.

Thank you for your prayers

~V~

I am so sorry for the lack of well. . . me on the site.  I have been laid up in bed all week with bronchitis and strep throat.  May I just say those are like to 2 worst things to have at the same time.  Everytime I coughed it made my throat hurt more.  Then everytime I had to try to swallow it made me cough. . . and so on and so on.  I had to call in to work one day this week and finally went back on friday.  After geting sucked into working a full day(11-9:30) I had to go home and catch some z’s to get back to work at 6:30 am.   Now don’t get me wrong I was happy to work a busier breakfast shift, but man was I tired!  They ended up sending me home around 10:30 and giving me the night off.  I was supposed to work tonight at 6 but they took pity on me. . . something that restaurants rarely do.

I have been emailing with jon  on and off.  He still sounds really busy and sleep deprived but his spirits are being kept up.  He has shown that he knows what he is doing to his superiors which is something that is amazing since he is the new kid on the block.  I think he is gonna be just fine.  He is just eagerly counting down the days until he can come home, as am I.

Well first I should say that it has been snowing icky slushy snow for about 2 days in Bremerton.  Apparently when all the power goes out everyone comes to the hotel to stay, which means there is no chance of calling out because of the road conditions.  Having Jon’s truck I thought I would have no problem driving in since I live about 3 miles away from work.  Well I was right about me not having a problem, what I didn’t realize is that most people FREAK out when it snows here.  Everyone was sliding all over the road and literally driving 5 mph in a 45 mph zone!  It was so frustrating and dangerous. After arriving to work I was informed that there  was a reservation in my name for a free night , so I didn’t have to drive home.  I will say that  is one good thing about my job, they do care (kinda) about our safety.

Now we get into the kind of people we have dining in the restaurant.  I will say that I have found that New Yorkers seem to tip alt better than Washintoneers(is that right).   Working at chilis I was making more in tip and the bills were about half of what they are here.  I mean people can have a $200 bill easily for 3-4 people and they will tip me maybe $25-$25 if I am lucky.  It is a good thing that I make good money per hour or else I may be working in retail again, and we all know how much I liked that!  On top of tipping terribly, people are also rude and shout at me while I am at other tables, and change their drink and food orders alot.  Even when the food or drink is already made, they don’t want it any more!  Can you imagine!  Needless to say I am getting used to it all.

Ok now a bit about Jon.  He needs alot of prayer right now, as they are working him about  19 hours a day.  Leaving him only a little to sleep.  I have not heard alot from him because of this schedule but I will keep you all posted!

~V~