We've been bought... again!

As most of you who read my blog know Merrill Bank was recently bought by Chittenden Corporation (a company based out of Vermont, they own 4 other banks all of which have kept their original names). This purchase/merger just got finalized the beginning of June and some departments are still finishing up their "merging" (like mine!). Yesterday we found out that Chittenden Corporation just signed an agreement where People's United Financial (a company based in Connecticut) is purchasing the entire Chittenden Corporation! It's crazy. We went from being this small successful local bank to a 2 billion dollar bank to now a 16 billion dollar bank! It's so crazy! MMB employee's were shocked! We couldn't believe it. Obviously this was all in the works at the same time Chittenden was purchasing us. Needless to say, I'm not really all that excited about this news.

This is the press release if you're interested. Sorry I can't make it an "interesting" link, I'm not sure how. http://www.peoples.com/pressroom/article/0,8401,14328,00.html

I've been tagged...

I was tagged by Colleen. So this is how it works. I must post the rules, 7 random things about me and then tag others to do the same. Sound fair enough, right? These are the rules…. each player starts with 7 random facts about themselves on their Blog. People who are tagged need to blog 7 facts about themselves and post the rules as well. At the end of their blog list 7 people you are tagging. Let them know that they are tagged by leaving them a comment. (copy and pasted from Colleen's blog! =o) )

Here goes 7 facts... nobody said they had to be interesting right?

1. In High School I ran track all 3 seasons; indoor, outdoor and cross-country.

2. I have a tattoo on my back of a fairy. I collect fairies and I picked one that I call my "favorite" and brought it into the tattoo shop, he drew it on paper and I came back a few days later to get it done. It took about 2 hours and was actually not terribly painful (as some may say).

3. I played the Alto Saxophone from 5th Grade - 8th Grade. My Dad told me not to give it up because I'd regret it someday - guess that someday hasn't come.

4. I've never left the country - no, I haven't been to Canada.

5. I ran away once. I was 18, but living at home and I stayed in a hotel in Bangor for the night (I was living in Prospect). I paid for it with my credit card. I shut my cell off because I knew someone would obviously try to find me and clearly I didn't want to be found.

6. When I was just a few months old my parents moved to Long Island (where my Dad is from) they only lived there for a couple of months and then moved back because my Mom couldn't stand to be away from her family.

7. When I was 13-14 I wanted to do the Miss Teen pageant. I got hooked when I saw Miss Maine get 2nd place one year. But once I came of age (like 16 or 17) I lost complete interest!

And I don't have anybody to tag. =( The few people I do know that blog have been tagged by Colleen. So, it ends here. =o)

Great Pond Mountain

The hike turned into more of a nature walk. I hadn't hiked this trail for about 10 years (literally) and they have now blocked of the road that takes you to the trail. Obviously we didn't know this until we got there! So instead we found a nature trail in the same area. We ended up walking around for about an hour and half! We all still had a great time despite not getting those mountain views we were hoping for.

I said hey, let's keep going - who cares about this sign. The worst they'll do is make us leave and who would really say "hey, you can't walk here!" haha! But we all talked and said it would be best of we turned around.

This trail is called Mossy Trail! As you can see - it's very mossy.

Deep down I'm a bad ass and once'n awhile it comes out in little ways. I didn't think much of it until we got back from hiking and then I started laughing!

just some stuff

Another Friday night and Tim's in bed before 10:00! Love it! Tomorrow Karen, Trish and I are going hiking up Great Pond Mountain if it doesn't rain. It should be fun. I haven't gone hiking for many years!
Works been going okay. I'm working just a few hours each week in the mortgage dept. helping train someone. I've been spending a lot of time studying to take the Series 7. My Avon has been going fairly well.
My shoulders are pealing like crazy! The one that had all the blisters looks so gross!

Okay, I just can't keep typing. My contacts are killing me because they're so friggin' dry! And yeah, it's 10:21 and I think I'm ready for bed too.

ouch

Okay, so the little sunburn I mentioned last time turned out to be not so little. One of my shoulders has a bunch of blisters and it has been weeping the past couple of days. Yes, gross and very uncomfortable. I've been loading aloe to both shoulders because they are still very red. I'm hoping it'll start to get better soon because it really is pretty bad. If it isn't getting better within the next day or two I'm going to call the doctor. Unless someone has a suggestion. I've had sunburns before (what I thought were really bad sunburns), but I've never had them blister. Normally, I switch sides while I sleep and sometimes switch to my back. But because of these burns I haven't been able to sleep on my sides so the past 2 nights I didn't sleep well. And tonight I've felt grumpy from being over tired. so there, that's all I have for tonight.

Morgan's Beach

Went to Morgan's Beach in Enfield today with a friend of mine from work. I got a little burnt on my shoulders and arms - hopefully it'll tan right up. We brought a lunch, I took a few photos and wrote some poetry. It was fun!!

My sandals on the beach! =o)

There were lots of camps in the area.

That's my friend Trish. This was before all the people showed up. There were only a few when we first got there around 11:00. The water was a little chilly, but no colder than the ocean.

Pretend

I have a question to post, but I want you to all answer like you don't know me and you don't know Tim. <--- (that'll be easy haha) =o)

If you had a choice to purchase a piece of land now, but didn't plan to build on it for at least another year - would you? Or would you wait until you were ready to build THEN do it all at the same time?


Reasoning: reduce future mortgage payment by paying down cost of land. Land prices only seem to be increasing and land choices are becoming slim (unless you want to live in a subdivision and the people in this question do not!)

Yawn

What a wasted Saturday! I got up around 9:00 to only go back to bed around 10 and continued to sleep until 11:30 this morning. I did make it to the gym and a quick run to Wal-Mart. Despite the nice weather I just felt like doing nothin'. Tim has gone to jam with his friends so I've been watching tv by myself. 48 hours mystery. Times like these I feel the cost of getting cable would be worth it! Although, I remind myself about my trip to Vermont recently where my hotel room had cable - what did I watch? regular station stuff!! I don't even want to be bothered to flip the channels! haha! I'm so bored I don't have anything else to say....

Another blog about work and how it sucks!

I've finally got a desk to use for my new position which is nice. I have it all organized and I feel much better now. But, wait - do I feel better? NO! The mortgage dept just won't seem to let go of me!! And they still won't give me a definite date as to when I no longer work in mortgage. I feel like there are so many little details I could get into, but I won't - 1 because I don't feel like it and 2 you probably don't need those details!! But, this I will add. The mortgage dept will be hiring someone new soon and they'll want me to train her/him. This will not be a 1 week thing.. it'll be AT LEAST a month maybe more like 4 months! This is getting to be ridiculous! other bank employees are starting to recognize me as working for my new boss as his assistant so they ask me questions. and then I get the regular stuff from mortgage, but rather than it being half the day with one and half with the other it's a mix! I get questions for both departments throughout the day! I can't do it forever! I can not be working in 2 departments all day long!!! Seriously, it's going to burn me out and then I'll be no good to anyone! Whatever, it's the weekend - a time to forget about my job(s) at MMB!

And I'm back

I'm finally home! It was great being in Vermont. I really like Burlington! But the drive is miserable! It's a long ass back road and that's it!! And I swear all Vermont has through the majority of the state is farms, trees and run down houses!

This is the INSANELY comfy bed I got to sleep on all by myself! It's King size with a mattress pillow! YUM! =o) I didn't sleep well the first night, waking up every hour! Being in an unknown place and without my Timmy! =o) But the 2nd night was a little better.

The room was fairly nice. The entire hotel was going through construction so the rest of it wasn't so nice, but it will be.

This is one of the views from one side of the hotel on the sixth floor (where I was). On the other side of this lake is New York, but you can't see that because it's raining!

I'm happy to be home and I think Tim's happy I'm home too! Tomorrow night is my Lia Sophia party which was probably a bad idea to plan it the night after I get home from VT... too late now!!

Taking a Trip

This afternoon I'm leaving for Burlington, Vermont for a couple of days. I'm going down to complete some training for work. Chittenden, the company that bought Merrill Bank is located in VT. It'll be a long 6 hour drive down Route 2! I have to finishing up my packing today, but first I have to do some laundry. I'm not too excited about staying in a hotel room by myself! I always feel completely UNSAFE in hotel rooms. I'll be waking up like every 15 minutes. It's already 9:00 and I'm leaving at 2:00 - time will be flying right by today!!