come out of your shell

Friday is the Halloween party and our costumes are nearly complete. I'm feeling less than stellar about it because I feel like everyone has seen it done a time or two...maybe I'm wrong. But I did overhear one of my co-workers announce to someone 'I got my costume last night! I'm going to be blank!" Which is the same thing I am!! (nope, I'm not sayin') Oh well, it's not like we're going to some ball where if someone else were to wear the same dress as me I would be completely horrified. Overall the party should be fun no matter what.

Can you believe I finally had a conversation, meaning more than just hi or hello, with our next door neighbor's? We've lived here for almost 6 months and haven't really made an effort to get to know anyone. (speaking for myself here) Wow, I feel like a hermit. So I was outside raking leaves on Saturday while my neighbor was using his handy dandy leaf vacuum and offered to help me clean up our yard. I quickly obliged, so we worked together and got it all done in just about half an hour! It probably would've taken me a few hours to complete the task myself. Then he invited me over to meet his family and gave me peppers from their garden! How nice! I even discovered a little history about the lay of the land, I think they said they moved in in '94. I think their kids range in age from high school to mid college. Then of course our other neighbors are in their 80's. Gotta love being the 'newlyweds' on the block. :)

I have my annual review at my job tomorrow. Why oh why do those things make people so nervous??? I am no exception. I'm not fearful of how much of a raise I will get because it's the same every single year, for me it's the peer reviews. What do I need to improve upon? What extraodinary things have I done within the past year that makes me a valuable employee? What do I love and hate about my job? What are my strengths? Is there anything you manager can do to support you better? These are all things I have to answer for my boss. I guess I should be thankful I got to answer them ahead of time and not put on the spot. So in an effort to boost my confidence for tomorrow- yay me. haha. :)