Muddy Flood

When I got home from work today, it wasn't even raining, but it started downpouring a little while later. Now, outside of my window, I have this going on:

I've lived in this house since November, 1999, and this is only the second time this has happened. It isn't much of a flood as floods go - I'm not in any danger here, it's not even coming up on the lawn, much less into my house - but it's pretty messy and dramatic for this house. I guess I'm lucky that I can look at all that muddy water running down out of the field and think how cool it is, instead of having to see it as a reason to worry about my house and myself and my animals. It is pretty freaking neat, though.

Also going on in my life right now, there is work, work and more work. I am back to my full-time job this week, and it is keeping me busy just about every minute of every day so far, and in addition I am also beginning to work on an editing job for my good friend Sally (Hi Sally!), so my evenings are full of work, too, and this weekend will be as well, because I want to get the job done before the 4th. I plan on enjoying the 4th to the fullest. For most people here in the states, the 4th is just a random day off, but it's my favorite holiday, and here is why.

First: I spend the whole day with my sister and as much of her family that is around. Second: we go to the green in Hamilton in the morning (a green is basically a town square, for those unfamiliar with the term - a large grassy area for public use) and look at all the stuff that is set up there for sale. There are plants and veggies/fruit, and lots of crafts, as well as a few different kinds of food tents. Third: after we walk around the green, we stand on the side of the road and watch the parade. I love parades - I think I inherited that from my mother and grandmother. They both loved them too, so I come by it honestly. Fourth: after the parade, we go back to my sister's house, and hang out and have a barbecue. Always a fun time. Fifth: if they aren't rained out, there are fireworks to go to that night, and they are always cool. And sixth: it's a great family day, in the summer, so the weather is guaranteed not to be snowy and horrible (although it's not guaranteed to be hot or even warm), and best of all there isn't the pressure of gift buying that there is at Christmas. See? There you have six reasons why it is my favorite holiday.

And I didn't even plan on writing that, but I guess it's what was in my head. And now I'm out of here. I'm going to go back to listening to the rain and watching the dirty water washing down my road (although it's already receding, just since I have been writing this). I hope you are all having great Tuesday nights.

Bored Now

Okay, one week of vacation, and I am totally ruined. I am so bored! Give me one day where I don't have anything fun planned to do, and I sit here at my computer with the TV on, completely bored and not knowing what to do to occupy myself. Even the Sims didn't draw my attention. Help! I have forgotten how to be alone!

On the other hand, Days of Our Lives is on Soap Net right now, and I know almost everyone on the show - and I haven't watched it since like 1989. Cool. Plus? I had it on for roughly 20 seconds, and saw three bare chested, 6-pack ab having men. Bonus!

But, really? Bored now! (Anyone who recognizes that reference is an instant friend of mine. Jamie? You know, right?)

Sigh

My vacation week is just about over - it's back to work tomorrow. And just when I've actually managed to sleep until 8:00 for two days in a row! It took me a whole week to get myself to be able to do that, and now I am going to have to go back to getting up at 6:30. Yuck. Oh well. I only have to work one full week and then it's July 4th, so I'll get one or two extra days off there.

And of course, my birthday is exactly two weeks from the 4th, on the 18th. Fair warning for anyone who reads this and knows me and might want to buy me something. :)

Well, I just had a little bit of excitement. First, so that you can picture this - I'm still in my pajamas, which today means a pair of Jimmy Hendrix pajama pants (I like men's pajama pants, and they didn't have much of a selection - this is not a statement on any kind of fanship or anything) and a Santa Fe t-shirt (no bra), with flip-flops on my feet and very flat, uncombed bedhead. Super attractive. I hear a knock on my door, and I look out and see an animal control truck, so I answer the door. There is a lady out there (and a man in the truck), asking me if I have a ladder, because there is a fledgling bird (grackel, she said) that she just took out of the road - it was apparently trying to take its first flight, and it isn't quite ready. She wanted to put it back into the tree. So I go into my (horribly messy, very spider filled and therefore usually off limits to me except for the part where my lawn mower is stored) garage and get my ladder, and they put the fledgling in the crook of the tree, and it promptly flies right back out onto my lawn. Silly bird. Meanwhile, the parent birds are chirping like mad, yelling at us for messing with their baby. The lady picks the fledgling back up and puts it on my side lawn, where it will hopefully calm down and figure out how to stay in the air and out of the road so that it doesn't get hit.

And I'm sure the animal control people enjoyed the sight of me outside in my PJs. Score!

Anyway, back to my end of vacation entry that was interrupted by bird craziness. I had a really great vacation week. I got to go to Maine and fall in love with a coastline, I got to spend a lot of time with my sister and her husband (although I would have loved a little bit more alone time with my sister, but I am very glad that her husband was with us too), I got to go on a whale watch and see a finback whale, and I even had a few days once I got back to hang out and relax and get the dogs settled back in and used to our usual routine. And I got to see Sarah for a little while and I got to hang out with Jamie for a while, and basically have a great time.

And Jamie gave me a Superman lunchbox, for no reason other than that he saw it and knew I would love it. Yay! Unexpected gifts rock, especially super cool ones like that. Thanks Jamie! Okay, I'm off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday. Later gators!

Photo Link

In case you missed it, there is a new post below - my last vacation post from Maine (posted a day late). I couldn't get blogger to upload my pictures, and since I have that problem a lot, I decided to be like the cool kids and get a flickr account. If I have the correct link, you can go here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36112851@N00/

to view my pictures. If that doesn't work, because I am an idiot when it comes to these things, my username there is avidreader2466. The pictures are all public, so you should be able to see them. Now, go! Enjoy! Pictures of water and rocks and beautiful scenery never get old, right? Right. :)

And entry a day late

I tried to post this yesterday, but the wireless connection wasn't strong enough to load the pictures, so I'm trying again today.

******

Our day was started today with a whale watching cruise. We sailed out from Bar Harbor at about 9:00 in the morning. We had a nice cruise out about 25 miles out to sea. Along the way we saw puffins, seals and a couple of lighthouses. It was a nice, leisurely cruise. But one thing is for sure - it may be nice on land, but when you get out to sea and get moving at up to 30 miles per hour? It gets pretty stinking cold. I had on a t-shirt, a zip-up hoodie and by the time we got going, I was wearing a coat that I bought here too, and I was still cold. And the wind! Oh man, my eyes almost couldn't take it. I was beginning to wonder if it was worth it, and then suddenly it was.

The whale that we saw was a finback. He (or she) surfaced plenty of times, so we got some pretty good looks at him (or her). My pictures didn't come out great - a small digital camera isn't quite up to this kind of situation. It didn't matter, though. The experience is one I'll always remember.

Thsi afternoon we hung out for a while, and then we went to play some mini golf. I had made a bad choice and had a piece of chocolate cake for dessert at lunchtime, and it was a little too moussy and milky for me - my lactose problems acted up. I felt pretty crappy. But we left to go back to the shore where we went yesterday. And I'm so glad we did.

By the time we got there, I was feeling much better, but even if I hadn't, I think that I would have once we were there. High tide was at just about 8:00 tonight, and we got there a little after 7:00 to watch the show. Nature puts on one heck of a display, too, let me tell you. The surf came crashing in to the rocks on the shore (the rocks that Jamie loves my pictures of oh so much), smelling of salt and fish, and splashing anyone who ventured too close to the tide line as it moved. As we were there, the sun was setting and the light was amazing. It was the most calming, relaxing place we could have been at that moment. And it is officially my new favorite location on earth.

Tomorrow our trip is over, and I have to say I am a little sad. I will be happy to see the critters again, and to see Sarah and Jamie and give them their souvenirs (I'm not telling you what I bought - ha), but I will miss being able to drive just 20 minutes or so to get to that beach.

*******

Okay, the pictures won't load on my home network either (I got home an hour and a half ago or so), so I'll just post this and load the pictures up later.

Vacation Post

Hello from Maine! We have had such a great day. We started out this morning going for a ride to see a lighthouse, and stopping along the way at a couple of places on the coast - the pictures I posted earlier are from those places. The scenery here is absolutely gorgeous. I seriously would love to pack up the critters and move here for at least a few months out of the year. It's just fantastic. We saw the lighthouse at Bass Harbor, which you saw below. We had to climb down some steep wooden stairs and across a rocky area to get a good view. My brother-in-law climbed out for that picture in the entry below - I wasn't about to climb out there myself. I like my neck in one piece, thanks.

This afternoon my brother-in-law went golfing and my sister and I went shopping in Bar Harbor. I spent way too much money, but it was a lot of fun. We even spent half an hour or so browsing through a bookstore, so you know we had fun. After we were shopped out, we went and sat on a bench by the harbor. And as if that wasn't enough sightseeing fun for one day, we then drove up to the summit of Cadillac Mountain. The clouds were rolling in and fogging it up a bit, but it was still pretty amazing. And now we're relaxing for tonight.

Okay, enough talking - here are some more pictures.

This is the harbor where we sat and relaxed after our strenuous day of shopping. Very pretty.

This is on the way up the hill in Acadia National Park.

From the summit of Cadillac Mountain. The white spots on land in the distance are Bar Harbor. The above picture was taken from the shore in front of those islands.

Another view of the town spread out below. It is indescribably beautiful here. Tomorrow we're going to take a whale/puffin watching cruise, if the boats go out. The water was too choppy for them to go out today, so cross your fingers for us. We also might go out on a beautiful four masted boat. More pictures tomorrow, if this crappy wireless connection holds out!

Wish You Were Here

Beautiful, gorgeous - wish you were here.

Getting ready to go

About 20 1/2 hours from now, I will be on my way to Maine. Yay! I'm so excited. We're going to have a lot of fun on our trip.

I've been spending this weekend getting ready to go. I went shopping yesterday and got some new socks and pajama pants (which I really only got because I needed them, not just for the trip), some new sandals (they were for the trip) and I don't know what all else, but I spent a ton of money. I also got some groceries for my nephew for while he's here and of course for the animals so that they have everything they need while I'm gone.

And the best purchase of the day - I got a quart of the juiciest, sweetest, freshest strawberries ever, directly from the farm stand. Yum. I love fresh June strawberries. I refuse to buy the ones from the grocery store, because they are horrible in comparison.

And today I've been cleaning up a storm, and sweating like a madwoman doing it. I've got about half of the house cleaned, and still have the other half to do, and then it will be presentable for my nephew when he comes to watch the critters. I have also started to pack up what I don't need between now and tomorrow morning - by the time I go to bed tonight, all I will have left to do in the morning is all my regular morning stuff to take care of the critters, I'll have to get myself ready to go, and I'll have to pack up my bathroom stuff and my laptop. Everything else will be done.

I can't wait to pull out of that driveway tomorrow morning and hit the road. Woo! If the wireless card that I borrowed from Jamie works in the hotel we're staying in, I'll be posting while we're there, so watch this space - I'll share some of my pictures with you. I hope you're having a great weekend!

"Cuddles Bit Me" la la la

I was outside with the dogs last night, and we lingered for a while, because it was absolutely beautiful out. When we came back in, I had a message on my machine, and it was from my Aunt - my father's sister. I've probably mentioned that my Dad died when I was two, but I may not have mentioned that I haven't really known any of his family since, because of a falling out between my Mom and my Dad's Mother. Anyway, I couldn't remember the last time I saw or spoke to this woman, so it was strange.

We had a nice conversation. She had called because her mother died last winter, and in her will she had left all of what she had (which wasn't much, I'm sure, since our family has never been what you'd call well off) to her ex-son-in-law (my Aunt's ex-husband). But there was a life insurance policy that was apparently left from when my grandfather died, which wasn't named in the will - all of her descendents would have been owed a portion of it. It apparently isn't for much money, though, and once it was divided among my Aunt, my four siblings and myself, it would have amounted to a few hundred bucks or so for each of us. The ex-son-in-law had papers sent out to everyone asking them to sign off their share so that it could go to him for his expenses in taking care of her estate.

Anyway, everyone signed off except for her, because she's thinking of fighting for her share, and me, because I'm a lame-o and I forgot to send the papers back. Since we didn't sign off, we were sent a summons to come to a court date next week if we wanted to contest it. She called me to see if I was going to fight it. Of course I told her no - I didn't even know the woman, I'm not going to fight to get any of her money. Once that talk was over, we had a nice little conversation, and just before she hung up, she told me that the last time she saw my father before he died, he had come to the house where she was living with her parents, and he had me with him. I was two years and 10 months old, and she said I was singing a song about Cuddles biting me. (Cuddles was my Mom's Pekingnese dog at the time.) So just like that, she gave me a little snippet of my toddlerhood that I would otherwise have never known about, and she let me know that sometimes I got to go places with my Dad all by myself - the other kids must have been in school. It was very cool. I just wish I could hear what my almost three year old self sounded like, and what kind of song I made up.

Ready too early

I got up too early this morning, and can't leave for work for another half an hour, so I thought I would check in here. Do you like the rubber duckies? I bought them this weekend at Bath & Body Works. Two dollars each! What a bargain. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them - I don't have much surface space in my bathroom. For right now they're sitting on my desk.

I only have five days to go before I leave on vacation. It's so exciting! I'm going to have a lot of work to finish up this week so that I'm not leaving a ton of unfinished projects on my desk while I'm gone, but that's okay. It'll just make the rest of the week go more quickly. I hope. Although yesterday felt like it would never end.

Anyway, every day since Monday I've gotten up and thought of where I would be a week from that moment. Monday it was in the car on our way there, and yesterday and today it's just "there." Because I don't know what we'll actually be doing at what time. I can't wait to go, though. I need a break. The hotel we're staying in has wireless Internet, so I'll probably be posting while I'm gone. And I'll take plenty of pictures!

Woo! Vacation is almost here!

Okay, I guess that's all for now. I should go finish getting dressed and let the dogs out again. They never finish their business in one trip, because they're too anxious to get their breakfast. Silly dogs. Have a great Wednesday!

Thinking...

...How great it is to spend a day with friends.
...How lucky I am to have found two great friends through work.
...How lucky I am to have found another great friend through a previous job.
...How great it is to have a house full of critters (even though I'm kind of looking forward to a vacation from them in a week and a half - a few days away is sometimes a good thing).
...How great it is to have a sister that I can be close to and share things with (like our upcoming trip).
...How much I regret having forgotten about and missed my niece's party last night.
...How much I love being in the middle of a great book and having seven more sitting on my desk waiting for me.
...How I have everything in my life right now that I could ask for, not counting material things, with the one exception of that someone to share my life with in a romantic, spend the rest of my life with my best friend kind of way.
...That I shouldn't complain about the weather, because I'd rather have it cold instead of blistering hot, but that I also would like to not have to run space heaters in June to get my house above 60 degrees.
...That a certain person in my life has no idea how attractive he is, how great he is, and how important he is to the people around him - myself most definitely included.
...That a certain other person in my life has turned out to be a very funny, fantastic person to spend time with, despite the fact that when I first met her, she never said a single word the whole first day that we spent sitting next to each other at work. :)
...That a cat's purr might just be the best sound in the world, especially when the cat in question is sitting on my shouler, purring right into my ear, at a time when there isn't any other sound in the house but for the sound of the space heater by my desk, the computer fan on my desktop, and the clicking of my keys on my laptop.
...That weekends need to last forever, because they fucking rule. Especially when they include Chinese food for dinner and the possibility of yummy soft serve ice cream on Sunday.
...That I'm really happy that I haven't taken the flannel sheets off my bed yet (yay, warm toasty bed on a cold summer night).
...How much I love the fact that I bought two rubber duckies today - one yellow, one pearly white.
...That Sarah is going to love what I bought her today, and how much I love teasing her by mentioning it here but not telling her what it is. :P

I'm a Bad Aunt :(

When I was at my sister's house on Monday afternoon, her oldest daughter was there, and she mentioned that she was having a party tonight for all of the family (my sister has six kids, three of whom are married, so they have a LOT of family), and she invited me too. She just moved here from Colorado a month or so ago, and she just got an apartment that I haven't been to yet, so I don't know where it is. See a problem here?

Well, the problem could have been avoided if I had called my sister and asked where my niece lives and what time the party was going to be, but by the time I got through the week of work, I had forgotten about the party. So I didn't think to call her. I had been home for a couple of hours when the phone rang. I let the machine pick up, because I always do (I get a lot of calls from solicitors) - it was my brother-in-law on the phone. I could hear the party in the background, so I smiled and got up to answer the phone. One more problem? He hung up just as I was getting to the phone. And he didn't tell me where her apartment is. Sigh. Oh well. I called and left a message on my sister's phone. If they call me back, I'll find out where she lives and go. Otherwise? Well, next time I'll have to make sure that I know where the party is and when to be there! And maybe they better call and remind me at some point the day before the party. :)

Numbers thingy

9 lasts (taken from Sarah's myspace blog)

9. Last place you were: outside with the dogs
8. Last cigarette: Never in my life
7. Last beverage: water
6. Last kind of candy: Brach's malted milk balls. Yum, yum, yummy
5. Last phone call: Jamie, at work
4. Last CD played: Barenaked Ladies, on my mp3 player
3. Last bubble bath: I have no idea. I used to take a lot of them when I was a teen - not so much since
2. Last time you cried: I honestly don't remember. I may have teared up at a book or movie or something.
1. Last alcoholic drink: I don't remember when, but it would have been something mixed that masked the taste of alcohol, because I hate that taste. I seem to remember something green, that tasted like a Sweet Tart, but I don't remember it's name.

8 Have you evers

8. Have you ever dated someone twice. No
7. Have you ever been cheated on? Not that I know of
6. Have you ever cheated on someone? No
5. Have you ever kissed someone and regretted it? No, I don't think so
4. Have you ever fallen in love? Yes, and got my heart stomped for my trouble
3. Have you ever lost someone? Sadly, yes. Too many
2. Have you ever been depressed? Yes, because of the above
1. Have you ever dumped someone? Yes. Everyone I've ever dated except for the one I fell in love with and one other guy.

7 States you've been to

7. NY
6. HI
5. VA
4. TN
3. FL
2. IL
1. NM
And I could go on to add more.

6 Things you've done today

6. Had dinner with my sister
5. Hired my nephew to watch my dogs and my house while I'm on vacation. Yay!
4. Read a little of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
3. Skated during lunch
2. Hugged my dogs
1. Cleaned out Willow's disgustingly dirty ears

People you can tell pretty much anything to

5. my sister
4. Sally
3. Sarah
2. Jamie
1. Um, I guess I only have four

4 places you want to go

4. Maine (in two weeks, yay!)
3. Italy
2. France
1. Hawaii (already been, but want to go back)

3 favorite colors

3. Dark green
2. Blue
1. Red

2 things you want to do before you die

2. pay off my bills (although if number one never happens, they won't have anyone to get the money from after I die, so screw 'em)
1. Get married, or at the very least fall in love with someone who actually falls in love with me, too, and live together until we get old and decrepit.

1 thing you wish you could change?

1. I would go back in time and go to college right after high school.

Maine Pics, not taken by me

Well, blogger still won't let me add more pictures to my last post, but for some reason I was able to add them to a new post, so here they are. Sigh. Blogger, you make my life difficult sometimes.

This is a view of a Bar Harbor street. I'll be walking down this street in about two weeks! I hope the shops have some cute stuff.

A Maine lighthouse. We hope to get to tour one of these while we're there.

Views of the beauty that is Acadia National Park. It's pictures like these that made me fall in love with Maine in the first place. I couldn't care less about lobster, but give me a rocky sea coast and I'm in love. I am so looking forward to this vacation.

All of these pictures were taken from a brochure that is available in PDF form from www.downeastregion.com.

Vacation!

My sister just came over, and we did the beginning stages of planning our vacation. We booked a room at a motel in Bar Harbor, Maine...and wait, it occurs to me that I never told anyone who reads this and doesn't know me in real life that our trip to Virginia is off. My sister couldn't afford the whole Busch Gardens trip, so we decided that instead of going away for a week to Virginia we'd go for a couple of days someplace else, and we've decided on Maine.

We're going to Mt. Desert Island, and staying in Bar Harbor, right close to Acadia National Park. We looked up some information online, and so far we've planned on going on a puffin and whale watching tour one day that we're there, my brother-in-law will go golfing one day while my sister and I go shopping, and we're of course going to go into Acadia and do some hiking/sightseeing. There is a 27 mile loop somewhere that you can drive that goes up a mountain, and we want to do that. We also want to go and watch the sunrise over the ocean one morning. It's going to be a great trip.

I haven't had a real vacation in a while. I went to Tennessee to visit my brother last year, but that was staying with him and just seeing a few things around his area. It was great, but it wasn't a going away, staying in a hotel and sightseeing all the time kind of trip. So this will be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to the trip. I've always wanted to see Maine. I feel like I've fallen in love with it just from pictures - it'll be great to see it in person. And my sister has been very stressed out from the family stuff that has been going on, so I know she needs the trip. It will be good for her and her husband to get away. And we're going in two weeks! Woo!

The only down part is that I am going to probably have to board my dogs, and I absolutely hate HATE the idea. I just don't have anyone to watch them at the house for me, though. Jamie doesn't want to stay here because he has cats of his own, and he doesn't want to leave them alone for that many days. Sarah has a dog of her own, and doesn't seem sure that my dogs would be okay with her staying with them in my absence (although I'm sure they'd be fine Sarah, and I'll pay you! I gave my nephew $150 last year!), and my niece is already dog/house sitting for someone else. My nephew who has done this in the past for me is living with someone now, and old enough that he probably doesn't want to house/dog sit for me, and my other nephew is allergic to cats. Sigh. I hate boarding my dogs. I know they're okay while they're there, but I always worry about them wondering why they're in such a strange, loud, uncomfortable place, and wondering where I am and if I'm abandoning them. And now I need to quit talking about it.

Anyway, short of the dog boarding stress, this is going to be a very fun trip, and it's going to be here in just two short weeks! I'm so excited!

Also: I had two more pictures that were supposed to be in this entry, but for some reason blogger isn't uploading them. It tells me it did, but they don't show up. What's up with that? How are you people going to be jealous about where I'm going if you can't see where I'm going? Sigh.

Ice Show

Tonight I went to an ice show with my sister, her husband, Jamie, my boss, her husband and two of their kids. The show was to benefit the Freedom Guide Dogs organization, which raises and trains guide dogs for vision impaired people. They had a bunch of local skaters of all ages, and four professional skaters. It was a fun show, made even more fun because I got these tickets as a gift for doing the ad layout for the program, and we got to sit in the expensive seats on the ice. These people were skating inches in front of me. It was fun.

Wanna see pictures? You know you do. I had to take the camera to get some pictures for work, so I might as well post a few here. Before I show them, though, you should be aware that I was taking them with a digital camera that does not handle action well, so any movements come out blurry. Have you ever been to an ice show? Skaters don't stand still very often. Also, of course we couldn't use flash, so the lighting isn't the best (not that a flash would have done much good in these circumstances, but still).

Jozef Sabovcik did some amazing moves on the ice, and you could tell that he is a fun guy to be around. He was up dancing on the ice at the end when all of the kid skaters were going out to get their applause.

Steven Cousins was pretty amazing too. It's incredible the moves these guys can do with apparently no effort.

John Zimmerman and (a blurry) Kyoko Ina. They did some breathtaking moves. I've seen things like the death spiral on TV, but it's so different seeing it in person somehow. I mean, if her head had crashed into the ice, it would have been so close to me when it happened! Scary. I was most excited to see John, because I watched Skating with Celebrities, so I actually knew who he was. The rest of the skaters I had never heard of, really (sorry guys, if you ever google yourselves and find this). They were all amazing to watch, though.

And this little guy I'm only putting on here because you can't really see his face, otherwise I wouldn't post his picture on the Internet. This kid stole the show! Since the benefit was for the guide dog organization, they had a bunch of their smaller skaters dress up in dog outfits, complete with doggy face make-up, and skate around the ice. They were extremely cute and funny to watch, but this little black doggy here stole the attention from everyone else. He was such a ham, mugging for the crowd. And he never fell once! Way to go, little kid!

Okay, and now it's past my bedtime, so I'm going to post this and hit the hay. I just had to share the good time that I had with everyone. The only thing missing was Sarah. Sarah? They had black lab puppies there. You would have fallen in love! You should have skipped your cousin's wedding and come with us instead. :) Good night everyone!

Update to Naps and Sims etc.

Okay, I just got back from the library, and first: I shouldn't have gone, because I am now exhausted and need to lie down (stupid cold). Second: I got SO MANY books. I started piling them into my arms and I got greedy - I wanted all of the books! But I settled for the following (no links to them on Amazon, because I'm too tired): Digging to America by Anne Tyler, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Getting Over Jack Wagner by Elise Juska, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

I'm never going to get all of those read in one month. But I don't care - I'm just happy to once again have a stack of library books waiting for me. And now I'm going to go lay down in my marginally cooler room and read.

Naps, and Sims and Books and Sickness

I called in sick today. That cold I started to get on Saturday hit a new peak of horribleness this morning. I woke up with a sore throat and a headache and feeling awful, so I called in. It's a good thing I did, too, because I'm still feeling very crappy and the day is more than half over. Sigh. Stupid cold.

I also went in and took a nap this morning. I've said before that I don't nap unless I'm sick, and that is true, and even when I'm sick, I'm not very good at it. I laid in bed for over two hours, and I slept for a good portion of that, but I was in and out of consciousness, my mind racing almost the whole time. I was lying there trying to rest and feel better, and I was thinking about my Sims game, and about writing an entry in here (I think I composed an entry while I was in bed, and I think it sounded a lot different than this one does. I hope it wasn't better), and I was thinking about something that I got into right before I went to lay down.

I was reading an entry of Mopie's book blog, and she linked to her escapades list, which is a list of things that she wants to do. In that list is reading all of the books on four or five best books lists, and I searched online and found some of those lists and some different ones, and suddenly I want to read them all too! I bookmarked a few of them (the BBC's list, Time's list, the Modern Library list and the Radcliffe Publishing Course's list), and I want to go to the library right now and start getting books. If I feel well enough later to get showered and dressed and go, I will be.

I reserve the right to change my mind on which ones I want to get before I go (especially if I don't go today), but right now these are the ones I've got written down: The Assistant by Bernard Malamud, The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow, All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren (one of the lists was in alphabetical order - Time's, I think. And it includes Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret, which I loved), His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (which is apparently a whole trilogy), To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. It's a fun list, isn't it? Okay, now I really have to go to the library today.

And now I'm way too hot to keep working on this laptop (the temperatures are in the 80s, yuck), so that's it for this entry. If you have any other good reading suggestions, or if you loved or hated anything I've listed, write me a comment! I love talking about reading.

Feels like freedom to me

It's Monday - my last day off for this weekend, but somehow it doesn't feel like it. It feels more like a vacation to me - almost like I'll never have to go back to work. Tomorrow morning is so not going to be fun.

My cold didn't really hit me very hard - nowhere near as hard as it hit my boss or Jamie. I got a little stuffy, but not too bad because I'm always on a nose spray for allergies anyway, so it tends to keep my nose open even when I'm sick. I'm a little snotty, but mostly I'm just very low energy and kind of fuzzy headed. I don't ever nap, but when I'm sick, sometimes it just feels very good to go lay down in or on my bed and just rest. Especially on days like today, when the windows are open because it's nice out, and I can hear the wind blowing and the birds singing. It's very peaceful. I love holiday Mondays. I kind of wish that I could win the lottery so that I could quit working (because that or marrying rich is the only way I'm ever going to be able to stop working, and the lottery thing is much more likely, even though I don't even play it).

Jamie, Sarah and I are probably going to go roller skating in the gym at work today, and maybe out to lunch too. I'm not sure how much skating I'll be able to do, what with the low energy thing, but I want to go anyway. I may have to keep sitting down, but how often do I get the chance to do something fun with my two good friends on a holiday Monday? Not all that often, and I'm looking forward to it. If we go. Which I think we probably will, as long as everyone can get up and going and decide on when and all that.

And I guess that's all I have to write for right now. I hope you all are having fabulous holidays out there (if you're in the U.S. - otherwise, um, happy Monday! I hope your work doesn't suck!).

Currently watching: the season finale of Medium, which I recorded last week. I also just finished watching House.

Currently reading: nothing, because I just finished Marley & Me, which was an enjoyable read about a family and their hyper, incorrigible, but lovable and loyal dog Marley. Very sweet, and made me miss my Bo a lot, for some reason, even though he was neither hyper nor incorrigible. He was, however, very lovable and loyal, and he very much had a piece of my heart.

Currently listening: to the sound of my college Sims writing their term papers and complaining because they're tired or hungry or whatever. They're on free will and can therefore do whatever they want, so I don't know why they're yelling at me.

Currently eating: an English muffin. And I have two very interested dogs watching me and waiting for their pieces, which I'm about to give them. Willow is a drooler, in case you wondered. They both had baths yesterday. I didn't really have enough energy to give them both baths, and yet I did it anyway, and now they are both clean and pretty. Especially Bernie - the bath really brought out a beautiful shine in his coat. And now I really have typed enough for one day so that's all. Happy Monday!

Illness shouldn't be allowed on holiday weekends

Okay, so a tip for all of you workaholics out there - if you're sick, and may be contagious - STAY HOME! You may have a lot of work to do, but you know what? It will still be there when you feel better, and staying home has the wonderful benefit of making you someone who is sparing his or her colleagues from catching the dread disease that has you feeling so low.

And as you may have guessed, someone at my work (my boss) was sick last week, and instead of staying home, she came in anyway because she - you guessed it - had too much to do! And that's all well and good if she was the only one to suffer, but when I wake up on Saturday morning, which happens to be the first day of a three day holiday weekend, and have a sore throat which quickly turns into the beginning of a beauty of a cold, then suddenly I'm suffering too, and I'm not happy about it. She is SO going to hear about this on Tuesday morning.

Of course, Jamie was sick, too, but he only worked half a day in his sick state, and he stayed home the next day, so I don't blame him. :)

Anyway, I got up this morning and went to the grocery store right away and got drugs (and groceries), so I'm currently medicated. My Dayquil is wearing off, although it didn't seem to do much to begin with, and my Advil are kicking in, so I'm not feeling too bad at this moment. I'm well enough to play my Sims, but not well enough to go to my sister's cookout today. Oh well. Maybe I'll feel well enough by Monday to go roller skating with Jamie and Sarah on our day off.

Oh, and one more thing. I think someone needs to remind me from time to time that when I get up at 12:45 to use the bathroom, I am going to be far too fuzzy headed to think clearly. Especially when my throat was already hurting then. 'Cause I got up this morning at 12:45, and used the bathroom, washed my hands and was getting ready to stumble back to bed when I heard water running, and it sounded like it was in the basement. So I put on my boots (my basement is not finished, and the first half has a dirt floor) and my jacket with the hood up (to shield me from spiders, of course), and I go downstairs to investigate. I was worried that I had pipes leaking, or that the water pump was broken again, and was wondering what in the world I was going to do about it at 1:00 in the morning. Well. It was just the water softener backwashing, like it does every night about that time, only I'm usually asleep and can't hear it. I absolutely hate my basement, and don't even like to go down there in the daylight, much less at 1:00 in the morning. I put some salt in the water softener while I was down there, because it was almost empty, and since I was there, why not? Then I came back upstairs, washed my hands again to get the basement yuck off of them, and went to bed, where I laid in bed for half an hour imagining that there were crawly things on me from the basement before I finally went back to sleep.

Sigh. My vacation is not starting well. And now I need to get back to playing my Sims. I hope you are having a much better Saturday than I am.

Holiday Weekend...Almost

It's the Friday before a holiday weekend! Monday is Memorial Day, and we get it off, and I am very happy about that. Of course, most of the people who work on campus seem to have taken today off in order to get a jump start on the weekend, so it's like a ghost town around here. But that's okay. I'll only miss one of them (Sarah, I'm giving you a big exaggerated Dale sigh complete with puppy dog droopy eyes over here). And my weekend gets to start at 4:00 today, so that isn't too bad.

* * *

So I think Bernie is teaching Willow some new tricks. I've had her for 9 months now, and for the first time in all of those months she rolled on her back in the grass yesterday. Bernie does that at least twice every single time I take the dogs out, but Willow never had. But yesterday she did it twice. And of course I didn't have my camera with me either time, dangit. I took the camera out with me the third time, and she didn't do it. Of course. Anyway, it was very cute. She was a very insecure, neurotic dog when I got her (and okay, she still is a bit neurotic), but it seems like she is finally starting to relax and figure out what it's like to be a happy, well cared for dog who can sometimes enjoy life, and I love that. Now if only Bernie could teach her to be a bit quieter. I'll have to get him working on that.

* * *

Sarah and I started roller skating during lunch again. Yay! It's a very fun way to get some exercise and I'm very happy that she likes it as much as I do. And, even more good news, Jamie finally got himself some skates too! Sarah called in sick today (still sad about that, by the way), but Jamie is here, so we'll be skating around the gym today without her. And it's his first day on these skates, so she's missing some serious comedic potential. Sigh. I think we'll manage to have fun without her, though. :)

* * *

Okay, I should get back to work. I hope you all have a great holiday weekend! I'll be spending part of it at my sister's house for a picnic, and will of course be spending a large chunk of it playing my Sims, so I'll love every minute of it.

* * *

Currently reading: Marley & Me, by John Grogan (borrowed from Sarah)
Currently listening: Yahoo radio. They're playing "Bad" by U2 at this second
Current watch (you know I'm still excited about those): I'm wearing a Tigger watch today. It is very cute.
Currently watching: nothing, 'cause I'm at work, but I got to start watching this last season of Smallville last night, which was very exciting. Clark is such a cutie
Last webpage visited: www.boolprop.com, the best Sims forum around

Why it's crazy to live in central NY

Central New York. May 21st. It's snowing - see the photographic evidence below.


It isn't sticking to the grass in my yard, but it is sticking to the plowed fields across the street. And then, according to the weather channel website, it's supposed to be in the high 70s or low 80s by mid-week. It's weather insanity! And a typical spring for us here in central New York. Sigh.

I am a lost cause with money

So, you know when I told you (I think I told you) that when I got the money for my first editing job a couple of months ago, I saved out the money for the trip my sister and I are going to take in June, and I gave it to her to hold for me? I was a smart woman for doing that. I got paid for a second editing job a week or so ago, and I've been good with the money up to now (all of my May bills are paid, and the rest is in my checking account). And then I went to Walmart yesterday to get groceries. And I took about half of my dead watches with me. I don't think I've ever mentioned in here that I collect watches, so you may not know that about me unless you're someone who knows me in real life, but I do. I have 39 of them (it was 40, but I left my Tazmanian Devil watch in class a couple of weeks ago, and someone took it. Bastard. I hope it dies on them), and before yesterday, only four of them had working batteries. Now 21 of them have working batteries. And I bought a new watch while I was waiting for the good jewelry people at Walmart to put in all of those batteries. I'm not mentioning any dollar amounts here, but you can do the math. The batteries cost about $3 a piece. The watch cost $22. Yup. I have a serious problem. But my watches are pretty, and I can't wait until I get to choose one to wear tomorrow.

See? Pretty, right? Okay, you may have to be a watch loving person like me to appreciate them. But trust me, they're making me happy. And I don't just collect watches, I collect fun watches, so mixed in there you will see (if you look closely enough) Sylvester the cat, Tigger, Spiderman, Bugs Bunny, Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola and lots of other fun most likely cartoon characters. The new one I bought yesterday is the red banded one on the bottom left - next to the butterfly. It's an antinque looking Mickey Mouse, and very cool (it might win the contest for which one I wear tomorrow).

Okay, and now that I have completely bored you, I'll move on past the watch obsession. I am having a great weekend, even though all of that oldness stuff that I've been talking about apparently comes with an inability to sleep in (which probably goes along with the inability to stay up late). I have gotten up both yesterday and today at 6:30. Sigh. I used to be able to sleep in, I swear I did. Oh well. Getting up early just means I get to start playing my Sims earlier. And doing my laundry earlier. So it's not all bad.

And now I guess that's all I have to say for today. So since I forgot to do this last entry, I'll tell you the following:

Watching: Re-runs of the Gilmore Girls that I tape everyday on ABC Family Channel. I am currently watching the episode that was shown on Monday. I'm a little behind.

Playing: the Sims, of course. The house I'm playing has two teenagers in it (twins), and the girl went on a date the other night, and her date came and brought her a poker table in the middle of the night as a gift. Why didn't any of my dates ever do that for me? Sigh. Also, the guy is - okay, this is hard to explain to any non-Sim playing people, but I'll do it anyway because I know at least two people reading this play the Sims. I created a family in my game that is my family from when I was a kid. My Mom, Dad and my four older siblings. My siblings and I are all currently teens in the game. The teenage girl in the family I'm playing went on a date with the Sim patterned after the brother closest to me in age. In real life he's a bit of an ass, and I could never see him buying a poker table for a girl, so it made me laugh. Okay, I'm ending the Sims talk now.

Reading: Just finished reading Child of My Heart, which was decent. I would rate it 3.5 out of 5 stars. I was going to read a book called Marley and Me (I think is the title) that Sarah lent me, but it's at work. So I'm just starting Good Faith by Jane Smiley. I may switch to the other one when I get to work tomorrow though. Maybe.

And that's all I'm doing right now (unless you want to know that I am drinking a Diet Pepsi, and am therefore a little wired - yes, you can blame this entry on the caffeine), so that's all I'm writing. I hope you all are having a great Sunday!

Friday! Woo!

Remember when I posted that entry about my new glasses, and how they were a sign of me being old? Well, sign number two came last night, when I went to bed at...ready for this?...8:30! What the heck? I have two excuses: 1, I was still tired from earlier this week when I stayed up too late watching the Grey's Anatomy season finale; and 2, I had a wicked headache, and going to bed brought the possibility of it going away before I woke up (which it did).

Also, I didn't actually go to sleep at 8:30. I watched the end of the Will & Grace retrospective thing first. Then I shut the TV off and went to sleep at 9:00. Ahem.

Anyway. Today is Friday! Woo! I have big plans of doing nothing this weekend, which I am very happy about. Also, I might go to Pizza Hut and get pizza and breadsticks one of the two days, because I've been wanting some Pizza Hut for a couple of weeks now. And I need to get groceries. I sure do live an exciting life, huh? :)

It is also my first entirely school free weekend, because my last exam was this last Wednesday, and I got my grades today. I did exactly as I figured in my accounting class (which was well) and as good as I hoped in my Flash class. They both could have been better, but you know what? I just overextended myself. There are only so many hours in the week, and between work and attending classes and doing my freelance copyediting work, there wasn't much left for homework. So oh well. And it's not like I did bad - just not as good as I could have done. And the money that I took in working all that time was absolutely needed, so I'm okay with the trade-off.

And now I must leave work and go home and start all that relaxing that I have scheduled, so see you later! I hope you have a great weekend! I might pop in this weekend and update again. If the mood strikes.

Why I don't stay up late watching TV

I stayed up until 11:00 last night to watch the Grey's Anatomy season finale. I say stayed up, but I was in bed watching it, so really I mean stayed awake. And this is why I don't do that normally - I am the walking dead this morning. I need to go back to bed and get at least another hour or two of sleep. But I can't, because I'm at work. Sigh.

The show was kind of worth it, though. If you watch the show and haven't done so yet, come back and read me after you watch it, because I'm going to talk about what happened. Okay? Did you leave? If not, then I hope you watched it! Cause here we go.

I knew Denny was going to die. He had to. I didn't know it was going to make me cry big fat headache inducing tears, though (yes, I am a sap). And I didn't know that Alex was going to make me kind of like him again by picking Izzie (or however you would spell her name) up off Denny's bed and holding her while she cried. Bastard, making me like him again. Also? When they got to the whole Meredith/Dr. McDreamy sex scene, I really couldn't have cared less. Why is the character that the show is named after the least interesting one on the whole show? I love Patrick Dempsey, but I really couldn't care less if he and Meredith get together.

As for the rest of the show, I wanted to hit Yang for not being strong enough to be there for Burke, but I was happy when she went in at the end and held his hand. I'm glad she realized before it was too late what she was doing.

And I guess that's enough talking about a TV show. It's really good, though, and I'm going to miss it until next season. And now I may need to go get a soda to wake me up.

Sleeping Bernie

I took this picture of Bernie last night. My school bookbag is laying on the floor next to my desk, and I looked down to see that he was sleeping with his head on it. Awww. He's so sweet. A bit of a dufus head sometimes, but so sweet.

I just got done mowing my back and side yards for the first time this year. Man, were they high! I had a regular hay field going out there. I would have had them cut last weekend, but my mower blades were rusted in place and wouldn't turn. The mower got left outside for a while last year, and it rusted. Oops. But my brother-in-law came over Wednesday night and got it fixed up for me, so it's all good to go now. Thrilling story, right? I knew you'd love it. lol. I did keep finding things in the yard as I was mowing, though. Weird things, too. I found a dog dish under the tree. Not too weird - I must have had one of the dogs out there at the end of the year. Then I found a beach towel in the side grass. That was weird. Then I found the top of my propane tank (the lid of it, I mean) in the back. It's a good thing I look around while I'm mowing.

So this is my first mostly school free weekend. Yay! I have to do a little bit of studying tomorrow for my accounting final, which is on Monday, but mostly I have the whole weekend to do whatever I want. Which will of course involve a lot of Sim playing, plus I need to sweep up the Bernie hair that is everywhere. Yuck. You know what? I'm going to show you a picture of that, too, just so you can feel my pain (you lucky people). This picture is TWO DAYS worth of hair, just from my living room floor. This doesn't include what was on my dining room, kitchen, bathroom or bedroom floors. TWO DAYS! Look at this humongous pile of hair:

The broom I put there for scale, and Zelda walked up as I was taking the picture. Isn't that horrible? That's just two days of hair - imagine what he could do to this house if I left it any longer than that between sweepings! **shudder**

And that's all I have for now, I guess. I am going to start a new little section at the bottom of my entries for a while, I think. I'm not saying I'll do it every time I post, but if I feel like it I will. :) I hope you all are having wonderful weekends!

Currently reading: Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott

Currently listening: nothing but my Sim humming along with his mp3 player

Currently watching: nothing. My TV is off right now.

Last talked to: Sarah, on IM right now.

Wrap it up

You may as well wrap this semester up, because it's all done for me. Well, technically I have two exams left to take, but I'm not stressing over those. I was stressing over my final project for my flash class. Let me emphasize that more: STRESSING. There, that's better. I worked on it for 8 1/2 hours over the last two days (that's in addition to working both days and spending four hours in my classes), and there were still two things that I couldn't get to work. I shut it down at 10:30 last night because my brain was fried - I just couldn't think straight anymore. This morning I did a few things that I had to do to it (small cosmetic things) and then I e-mailed my professor to see if he could help me with the two problems that I couldn't fix. I went to his office, and it took him, no lie, ten minutes to help me fix what I had spent 8 1/2 hours trying to fix on my own. Sigh. And then he gave me chocolate! So I officially love him.

And now that the stress is gone from my life, I will once again have free time! It's so exciting I can barely stand it. Imagine, time to spend doing whatever I want. Even if that will need to include a lot of sweeping to get rid of the explosion of hair that Bernie is sending all over my house, not to mention the rest of the housework that I have been neglecting lately, it will still be fantastic. I see a lot of Simming in my future.

A stress free life is a wonderful thing, oh yes it is.

And since the stress of this project and the release of it today are all that I have on my mind, I guess this is all I have for an entry today. I hope you all are enjoying stress free days too!

p.s. Cathy? If you're still reading me, would you mind e-mailing me with the link to your blog? I can't find it, and gmail has cleared your previous e-mails out of my mailbox, so I can't go through there to find it. Thanks!

Poll Pics

Okay, here are the pictures of my three B generation girls, along with descriptions (if you missed it, the entry below this one gives the background of the family leading up to these three, along with pics of their parents and grandparents). You can vote by e-mailing me at avidreader7@gmail.com or by going to boolprop.com and voting in the heir poll that I (will) have posted there. Also, I apologize for the picture quality. I couldn't get the pictures that I had saved in the game to show up large enough to really show the girls' faces, so I took pictures of the monitor with my digital camera. Anyway, here they are.

First up, the first born, Bella.

Bella is an Aries, with the following personality points: 6 neat, 9 outgoing, 8 active, 3 serious and 7 nice. She is a popularity Sim with the wish to be a celebrity chef. She recently was asked on a date by a new OFB townie named Jake Danaher, who I had no idea she even knew, and they fell in love. They have two bolt chemistry. Whether she is the heiress or not, she will end up marrying him, because he's cute and he was a big help to the founders of the family when they were having their ten kids, so I already loved him before they went on their date.

Next up is second born, Brinly.

Brinly is a Gemini, with the following personality: 1 sloppy, 10 outgoing, 10 active, 7 playful and 2 grouchy. She is a family Sim who wants to be Captain Hero. Brinly has not found love yet, even though we've been looking all over campus. I like my Sims to have at least two lightning bolt chemistry, and the only people she's liked have only been one bolt. So we're still looking.

Next is the youngest of the family, Beckett.

Beckett is an Aries, with the following personality: 6 neat, 9 outgoing, 8 active, 3 serious and 7 nice. She is a pleasure Sim who wants to be Celebrity Chef. She has just fallen in love with one of her professors, but I don't think they have a future - he has a very large nose and he's a romance Sim. Which might make them a good match, and I wouldn't mind playing it, but I really don't want his nose in the family. So if she becomes heiress, we might find a different guy for her.

Anyway, those are the three girls. I can't choose between them, because I love them all, so I'll be happy whoever you choose. And the other two will get played anyway, because I want to see all of their genetics play out.

Okay, now vote! E-mail me at avidreader7@gmail.com with your pick or go to boolprop.com and vote there in the heir poll (I think you have to be registered there to do that, but if you play the Sims you should do that anyway, because it's a great place to hang out online). Thank you for helping me pick my heiress!

Help me pick my heiress

Hello! I am having a little trouble picking the next heiress of my Sims 2 legacy family, so I'm enlisting the help of my readers here and the good people at boolprop. Hi boolpropians! Thanks for stopping by to check out my Sim's pictures.

Okay, so for those of you who are just here to read me, and don't know about Sims, or if you know about Sims and don't know about legacies, then here's the deal. The Sims, of course, is the best computer game ever, that steals many, many hours of my life. Managing the life of simulated people is surprisingly fun. Legacies are a challenge invented by someone on the Sims 2 website, where you have to play a family, without cheats, for ten generations. In another twist on this challenge, someone else came up with the concept of an alphabet legacy, which is the same as a legacy, only you go for 26 generations, not counting the founder, naming the first generation with A names, the second with B names and so on. I am doing an alphabet legacy, and am currently on the B generation. One of the three children from this family needs to move back into the family house and conceive generation C, and I can't pick which one should do it. So I'm asking you to help me.

First I'm going to show you pictures of the founders and their heiress, and then I'll show you the three girls you have to choose between (this way you can make a more informed choice for me).

This is the founding Sim, Mary Rhodes. She was a family Sim who along with her husband raised ten children.

This is her husband, Samuel. He's chugging some elixir of life - having ten kids takes a long time! A little help is necessary.

This is their daughter, Ainsley. She was their fifth born and one of the most attractive (quite a few of the ten kids inherited their Dad's unfortunate brow ridge/mouth combo, poor things). She is a knowledge Sim who achieved her lifetime aspiration of becoming a mad scientist. She met and fell in love with a college student named Christopher during her years at Sim State. His picture is below.

I don't know why his picture came in so little - sorry about that. Anyway, he is a fortune Sim who achieved his lifetime aspiration of becoming chief of staff on the day that he turned elder. There is a red faux-hawk under that graduation cap. And here are their three kids, in order of birth!

Okay, blogger isn't letting me load anymore pictures in this entry, so please see the next one for the girls' pics. Thanks!

Hi Sis!

I sent the link to this journal to my sister today. She's the only family I've told about it. Hi sister whose name I won't use unless you tell me its okay to do so! I hope you enjoy reading what I've written here, and don't think I'm too weird for posting this stuff online.

My classes will be over in one week and one day, and I CANNOT WAIT. I am so looking forward to not having classes to take for a while. I need the break so desperately, I can't even tell you. Although of course, I might be giving that free time right back away, because I'm up for an editing job for a quarterly journal. But that would only be about 20 or 30 hours per issue, so that's not bad. And the money I would make would cover my fuel oil bills for the year, so cross your fingers for me on it. Also, thank you, Sally, for putting my name in for it! I appreciate it so much. You rule.

So, my water pump broke the other night. I have had problems with it before (that I may have written about here, I'm not sure), and I'm getting so sick of it! I have been showering at my sister's house for the last couple of days, and I've been using bottled water to fill the animals' water dishes, and it is just so inconvient not to have water for two days! I mean, I just want to turn on the tap and have water come out. Is that too much to ask? Also, I'm pretty broke right now (at least until I get my editing money, but that's already earmarked for home improvements of other kinds, like a roof and/or windows), so I'm not looking forward to seeing this repair bill. I love my house, but I would love it a lot more if I didn't need to keep putting money into it.

In fact, just for fun, I'm going to list out what I've done to my house already, and what still needs to be done. Feel free to zone out if you don't care.

What I've done: replaced the water softener, replaced the pool liner, had insulation blown in to the walls, replaced the floor in the living room, replaced four windows and done general painting/cleaning up.

What still needs to be done, in order of importance: new roof on the living room extension and the porch, replace the porch, replace the rest of the windows, replace the main roof, replace the siding, re-replace the living room floor and level it first this time, remove the panelling in the living room and dining room and put up wallboard, replace the flooring in the kitchen/dining room/bathroom, replace the carpet in my bedroom, gut and re-do the room that I used to sleep in upstairs, remove the paneling in the upstairs hallway and put in wallboard and redecorate/clean out the storage room at the top of the stairs.

Whew, that's quite a list. And I could also include: insulate the garage, have the stump removed from the front yard, have the half dead trees taken down out front, before they fall on my house, and clean up and beautify the area around my pool. And open the pool. And add a second bathroom upstairs.

Yeah, that might all be done sometime before I die. Or if I ever (start to play and then) win the lottery. But I love my house! Really, I do!

Ducks

Picture of the day, taken late last week. A mallard and his girl hang out in my (disgustingly dirty, hasn't been opened in a couple of years) pool. They are very pretty, and I was happy to get a shot of them. Also, I'm hoping to get that pool open this year. Somehow. If I can find the money to do it. (Must win that lottery.) The black and blue things floating in the pool are the water bags that once held the cover on the pool. The dark shape under the water is the cover. The bags did their job well, didn't they? Oh, the sarcasm. Also, there's a new post under this one, about my weekend. For some reason blogger wouldn't let me upload a picture at the bottom of the entry. I tried three times and then quit. So scroll there once you're done here. :)

The Other Side of the Weekend

I had a very relaxing weekend for a change. I finished my editing job on Friday night, and while I have some homework deadlines looming, none of them were close enough to make me work on them all weekend. So I didn't. Well, that's not completely true - I did some research on my Flash project, and figured out how I might be able to do parts of it, but the actual execution is going to wait until probably tonight. The rough draft is due Wednesday.

So, with no editing work to do and no homework that absolutely had to be done, I decided to - big surprise coming here - relax and play the Sims. It's not even funny how addicted I am to that game. The hours it eats up! Simming took pretty much all of my Saturday, but it didn't get to take all of it, because when I went to bed on Friday night, I remembered that I had forgotten to print some advertising table tents for the dining hall, and since the event they were advertising is on Tuesday, they kind of needed to be on the tables all weekend. So I went in to work about lunchtime, printed them out, cut them out, and delivered them to the dining hall. And I didn't even clock in to do it, because I had plenty of time to do them on Friday, if I had only remembered.

Going in on a Saturday sucked a bit of ass, but it was something that was quick to do, so I was in and out in 20 minutes or so, so it wasn't too bad. And I was right back to Simming afterward, so that's all good. :)

Sunday I woke up early and relaxed for a couple of hours, and then Jamie came over and picked me up. He got a new (to him) Chevy Malibu on Friday, and we had made plans to go out on Sunday so that he could show it off and I could get a ride. We went shopping. I was supposed to get a vacuum cleaner and two dog beds. I got the dog beds, but instead of the vacuum, I ended up with Quantum Leap season four and The Sweetest Thing. I still need the vacuum, but I love my DVDs, so it all balances out somehow.

I needed the dog beds, though, because...I kicked the dogs off my bed! I had been letting them sleep on my bed at night, but I was just getting sick of it. They take up most of the room, Willow gets jealous of Bernie and growls most of the night when they're both up there, and to top it all off, Bernie has decided that he doesn't need that winter coat anymore, and he's going to shed it all. All over my house, all over my lawn, all over my bedroom floor (hence the need for the new vacuum cleaner) and all over my bed. Only not on the bed anymore, because he's sleeping on his own not-so-little dog bed. Ha! I foiled that one.

And then the weekend was over, all too quickly, and it is once again Monday. Sarah called in sick today, so I'm chat buddy-less, but the day is going pretty quickly anyway. Every Monday morning, though, without fail, I wish that I could win the lottery and never have to work again. I think this whole two days off, five days of working thing is backwards. I wouldn't mind working two days a week, but five? With only two days to relax and do what you want/need to do in your off time? It's a horrible system. And yet I need the money, so I continue to show up. Sigh.

And now that my blog has been updated, I once again feel better. I also just went and bought a Diet Pepsi, so hopefully I'll be waking up for good soon, and then this week can really get started. Oh, have I mentioned lately that school is almost over? Yup, this week and next week, and then classes are over. I have two finals in the beginning of the following week (two weeks from right now), and then I'm done. I SOOOOO can't wait. And now I need to go do some work to keep the boss happy, so that's all from me for now. I hope everyone out there is having (had) a great Monday!

Smustle Face

Hello! I just spent the evening playing Sims and had to share the smustle face, for all of you who aren't Sims people. Because it's funny. And because everyone should be a Sims person, and if a Smustle face can't help to convince you to be one, then nothing will.

Isn't that a fantastic face? That's Ainsley Rhodes, who is currently in college studying something science related. She's super shy, but even she can't resist a good smustle (which is a group line dance kind of thing. Think the dance from Michael Jackson's Thriller video and you won't be far off). Ah, I love the Sims.

Anyway, for all of you who don't care about the Sims, I apologize for this boring post. And shame on you, because you should play it - it's fun. Also, it's almost 10:00 and I am still up and on the computer, which Sarah could tell you is very unusual for me on a weeknight (because I'm a wuss who needs at least 8 hours of sleep a night), and that probably explains this weird mood I'm in. Don't worry - I'll be back to normal tomorrow. Whew!

Also, before I go, my friend Jamie is getting a new car this week. Yay! And I get to receive one of the first rides. Fun!

Okay, I'm off to bed now. Next time I'll post something when I'm not feeling all weird from impending sleep deprivation. Later!

Six Years Ago

Six years ago last night, at about 11:55 p.m., I was woken up to the phone ringing. It was the pastor (or reverend or whatever he was called) from the nursing home where my Mom was living, telling me that she had died. This wasn't unexpected, because she had brain tumors and she had slipped out of consciousness, so we knew it was coming - otherwise my phone would have been downstairs, instead of upstairs on my end table. I held it together long enough to call my sister and tell her (actually, I spoke to her husband), and then my oldest brother, and when I hung up, I remember doubling over like someone had just stabbed me in the gut. About ten minutes later, my sister and her husband, and my oldest brother and his daughter, showed up at my house, because I was alone and they didn't want me to be. To this day, that remains the one thing that they have done that I will always remember. They didn't let me be alone on the night our mother died.

That whole next week was seven kinds of hell, from going to the funeral home and talking about the service and the casket and the whole arrangment deal, to the days between then and the actual funeral to, of course, the funeral itself on Thursday, followed by the internment of her ashes (she wanted to be cremated, and had picked out her urn herself - a green marble one) on Friday. She died on a Saturday night, and that hellish week lasted until Friday. I don't know how I made it through.

Also, the Sunday after she died was Easter, so you can imagine the rotten associations I had with that day for a while. But Easter moves around every year, and even though the 22nd was again on a Saturday this year, Easter was the week before. So I have mostly lost my bad associations with the holiday. I can go to my sister's house for dinner now without feeling like I need to hide in my house and grieve instead, so that's good.

Anyway, it's the first thing in the morning and I'm writing this before I'm fully awake, which is not a good thing, so I'm just going to wrap it up here and say: I love you Mom. I think about you every single day of my life, and although the pain finally lessened enough where I can live with your loss, there isn't a moment that goes by that I don't wish my phone could ring with you on the other end, or that I could go pick you up on a Saturday, like I used to, and bring you home to spend the day with me. You were my mother and my best friend, and I feel your loss always.

And since I don't have a more recent picture of her in electronic form, here is her graduation picture, which you already saw on her birthday.

Old Now

A concrete sign that I am officially old:

I have to wear these all the time. I had glasses before, but I'm near sighted and it wasn't bad last time I was at the eye doctor, so I only had to wear them for distance things - mostly driving. These I have to wear ALL THE TIME! Sigh. And I already have gray hair, and greasy things make me burp - what's next?

Being old is going to suck, huh.

Flowers

Apparently blogger just wanted me to split my pictures up into two posts. Ooookay. So here, for your enjoyment, are my confused Christmas cactus and my pretty yellow Daffodils.

Pictures of Now

Here are pictures of some things that I did today or that are making me happy today:

I gave blood today, so be nice to me. The Red Cross says you have to!

It's a good thing these are only around at Easter, because yum. But wow, are they fattening.

My flannel pajama pants have monkey heads on them. I love my monkey head pajamas.

I got the Sims 2 family fun stuff pack today. Fun!

And I immediately set to redecorating my Sims' kids' rooms. First up - the castle theme for their little boy's room. Cute!

Next up, an underwater themed nursery. Aww! I love the waves and the fish.

I want a jellyfish lamp. I wonder if they make them for real people?

How did my Sims repay me for buying all the cool stuff for their kids' rooms? They had twins. Sigh. And now they both want to have TEN kids. And I think I'm going to let them try. I am insane.

Okay, I also wanted to show you pictures of my daffodils (of which there are more than there were last time I posted pictures), because they make me happy, and of my Christmas cactus, which is confused and blooming, even though it is four months past Christmas, but blogger isn't actually uploading pictures anymore. So you'll have to imagine those.

And now I'm off. I have Sims to play and papers to edit. Happy Tuesday!

Way Too Busy

I'm sorry I haven't been updating here lately. I've just been so busy, I can't even describe. Working, editing, going to class, doing a metric ton of homework - yuck. It's taking all of my time, and none of it is fun (but at least the editing, when I somehow manage to get it done by next Friday, will bring me some extra money). And I have a large project to do for my animation class that is due on Monday, and I haven't even started it yet, so guess what I'm going to be doing the rest of the day? Sigh. And I can tell how much I don't want to do it, because suddenly I would rather do so many other things, such as...cleaning. Yuck. I am the queen of procrastinators.

Anyway, since this entry could be considered another thing that I am doing to put off my homework, I am going to end this sorry excuse for an entry with a few pictures from the last couple of days. Enjoy! And think of me, when you're off doing your fun Saturday things, and I'm sitting here doing my horrible homework.

Daffodils are my favorite spring flower. These are sitting on my desk, and they smell heavenly.

The weeds in front of my porch are being taken over by ladybugs. There are a ton of them out there!

Bernie, laying in the grass next to my house (next to a piece of siding that fell down over the winter and needs to be put back on the house).

Willow standing on the side lawn, looking gorgeous (this is my new favorite picture of her).

Oddities

Sarah and I were talking before we finished our lunch break today, and the conversation turned to strange things we do, and I thought it might be interesting to list some of my oddities here. You can read them and maybe go, "Hey, I do that too!" Or "Wow, she's weird." Whichever. Enjoy!

I count stairs whever I'm going up or down them. It's not a conscious thing, it just happens. Sometimes it'll get worse than that and I'll start counting all of the steps that I take on the ground or floor once I'm off the stairs. Then I have to make myself think of something else so that I'll stop.

This started when I was a kid: I thought for some reason that it was bad luck to turn the light out at night if the (digital) clock was on an odd number. Except if it ended in a 5 - that was safe. So if I was going to bed and the time was 9:03, I'd have to wait until 9:04 before I could shut the light off. For some reason I still do that, even though I know it's not bad luck. (Yes, I know I'm weird.)

I trace things in my mind. Not everything - only certain shapes. The worst are jackets or shirt collars. For jackets I'll trace the line of the lapel from one side of the jacket to the other, then down to the bottom of the jacket and back around to the front, where I'll start again. For shirt collars (like a dress shirt collar), I'll trace it from the top of the front, down to the corner, around the back and back up to the other side. Again, once I start, I have to make myself stop. It's not just those things that I trace in my mind, but those are the worst. I'll also trace rectangles and odd shapes.

Not as odd as those, but the next one I thought of is that I twirl my hair with my left hand, usually only when I'm bored or stressed. I've also been known to bite my bottom lip when I'm nervous.

I also can't stand to have the windshield wipers going faster than they need to be. The wipers scraping against a mostly dry windshield drive me nuts.

And those are all I can think of right now, although I'm sure there are more! If anyone reading this wants to share their own oddities with me, or tell me, hey! They do that too! I'd love to hear about it - comment away! (Please comment? Your silence is deafening out there. And when you're done, go read Sarah's blog and comment to her. She's getting a deafening silence on her site too.)

Happy Birthday Wayne

Today is (would be) my step-father's birthday. He would have been 70 years old today. Man, I can't believe that. I also can't believe that he's been gone since 1993. I love you Wayne, and I miss you everyday.

Biggest Loser

One of my coworkers had a brain storm a couple weeks ago. She thought it would be a good idea to have a weight loss challenge at work, modeled after the biggest loser TV show, modified for office use. Basically, people would pay $5 to enter, they would weigh in with the receptionist in our office, and would set a goal for how much they want to lose over a two month period. At the end of that time, the person who loses the highest percentage of their goal (including going over, so if you set a goal to lose 10 pounds and lose more than that, than your percentage would be over 100%) will win the money. We had 17 people sign up, so the pot is at $70. Not bad.

I signed up.

I went back and forth on whether or not I wanted to. I want to lose weight, for sure - for those of you who don't know me, I won't post a before picture (unless maybe I get brave when I'm done losing the weight), but know that I want to lose somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 pounds (maybe more) (oh, and not in two months - overall. In two months, I set a goal of 18 pounds). Fun.

So yes, I wanted to lose the weight, and I wasn't doing very well at it on my own (the call of junk food was much more powerful than the desire to once again be thin). But if I joined this challenge I would have to weigh in with someone I work with. Meaning they would know how much I currently weigh. (shudder) But I thought about it for a few days, and I finally bit the bullet, paid my $5 and joined. Whew. The first weigh in is done, and that one is the worst - from here on out the number will only get smaller.

And I'm one day into the challenge, and so far I'm doing great. Here's hoping I keep it up.

And don't worry - this isn't going to become a weight loss blog. It is in the forefront of my mind, though, so I will mention it from time to time. And for some reason now I feel compelled to tell you how I gained all this weight in the first place.

I've always had to fight to keep a reasonable weight. When I was in high school, I was a slim 135 or so (only about ten pounds over my ideal), but I thought I was oh so fat. The dramatics of teenager-dom. Once I got out of school and started working for a living, the weight went up a bit, peaking at 165. When I got there I joined Nutri-System, paid a small fortune and lost 40 pounds to get to my ideal of 125. I was a size 4! It was great. And I managed to maintain for a while - not 125, but I stayed at or under 140 for a long while, which was fine with me.

Then my mother started getting sick, and eventually she developed brain tumors and was going to die. Stress is not a friend to weight loss, let me tell you. Neither is depression, and when my Mom died, I went into a depression that it took me 2 1/2 years to climb out of. And I ate my way through it, so woo! That 140 didn't stay for long, and it hasn't been seen in about seven years.

Well, the bad stuff is in the past, and I am happier now than I have been since my Mom started getting sick in about 1996. There is no longer any reason to hold on to the weight, no longer any stress or depression reason to keep overeating. Now it's just habit. And that habit is going to be broken. I have a ways to go, and I'm going to do it right, so it's going to take a while to get back to that comfortable 125-140 range. Like I said, this is not going to become a weight loss blog, but I will probably be posting small updates from time to time (hopefully one of those posts won't be that I quit working toward my goal). I did great yesterday (and lost two pounds overnight, woo! I know that was just water weight and that I won't continue to lose something everyday, but it was great to see it this morning), and I am going to work hard to do great most everyday from here on out, and if Jamie and Sarah don't mind, I will be bugging them to tell me no when I want to eat something I shouldn't. They saved me from scarfing a bunch of angel food cake last night, for which I am very grateful.

And when the weight is all off, maybe I'll post an after picture. I can't promise a before, though. We'll see. And if any of my three or four readers (I love you all! Thanks for reading me!) want to give me support through my comments from time to time, I would appreciate it more than you know.