Happy Halloween!

Look What I Did Today

Today I baked the absolute best loaf of bread ever, from scratch! I baked two loaves last week, and for the first loaves I had ever made, they came out good. This one, however, is PERFECT. I want to eat the whole thing.

I also took a really cute picture of J's dogs last night. Check it out:

Rosebud is sleeping, and Duff is curled up behind her, with his head on her shoulder. So cute!

And that's all I have today. Remember that starting Thursday, I'll be updating every day for the months of November and probably December, too! Oh, the joy. :) I hope you had a good weekend!

Halloween Duckies

J's mother bought him a couple bags of little rubber duckies, all dressed up for Halloween. There were duplicates of each kind, so I brought some in to work with me. And I took pictures, to share with you. :) They're too cute to keep to myself.

Frankenstein and a ghost.

A Jack-o-lantern and a vampire.

Mummy and a witch.

The witch has a broom tucked under its wing. :)

And three glow in the dark ones - a Frankenstein, a cat and a vampire.

Too freaking cute. :)

News and Other Stuff

I signed up for NabLoPoMo, which means I have to update every day in November. I also plan on signing up for Holidailies, which means I'll have to update every day in December, as well. Get ready to hear a LOT from me in the next couple of months. :)

I've had a livejournal account for a long time, so that I could read the blogs of people who keep their entries on livejournal private, but I've never written in it msyelf. Well, I decided today to start writing in it about all things Sims related. I know most of the people who read this blog don't have any interest in the Sims at all (with the exception of a couple of you that I know of), but sometimes I want to talk about them and share pictures that I took in my game. So if any of you are interested in that kind of stuff, add this to your links: My Sims Journal. If any of you do go there from here, I'd love it if you'd comment and tell me. Just because I'm a curious individual. If you do go check it out, keep in mind that I just made this decision today, so there isn't really anything there yet except for an initial post. The real Sims talk and pictures will all come later.

(Also, I am a smiley face addict - I was going to add one to the end of that last paragraph, but I already put one on the end of the paragraph before it. Is there some sort of 9 step program for smiley faces?)

So. Now that the business-y stuff is out of the way, let's get down to a real entry! Not that I have much to say, but I feel like writing. Lucky you.

I don't think I mentioned that I went to the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago and had blood drawn for the regular annual blood tests that doctors like to do. I went last week for my annual check-up and talked to my doctor about my results. I'm perfectly healthy as far as my sugar level goes (which is a great thing, since my mother was a diabetic), my blood pressure was normal and my good cholesterol level is in a normal range, but my bad cholesterol is borderline high. Oops. So I got the scoop from the doctor on what I need to do, which basically consists of eating less fat and more fiber. Which I already knew I needed to do, but now I have a handy dandy doctor's order (suggestion, really) to do so. Fun! I have to go back in four months for a recheck, so I'm starting to behave a little better in regards to my eating. I'd kind of like to get that number back down to a normal level and avoid something pesky like a heart attack or stroke, so it seems like the thing to do.

So I'm reintroducing some things into my diet which really never should have left it in the first place - like apples. I ate one yesterday at work, and it was so good that I really wondered why I ever stopped eating them in the first place. What the heck? And I'm trying to eat lower fat meals and such, too. I'll keep you updated on how I do with that.

And just like that, my urge to write has left me, so this is all you're getting today. :) (See, I need the 9 step program.) Later, taters!

One Year Ago Today

One year ago tonight J and I had our very first date. We met in the parking lot of the local grocery store, both of us nervous, but at the same time happy to meet. We said hi and hugged and he said nice things and I might have done the same, then we went to dinner followed by a movie.

I drove home after our date with the best feeling. I was so happy I couldn't stop smiling, because it had just gone so well, and I was looking forward to seeing him again just a week later. One year later, I still have that same smile on my face whenever I'm looking forward to seeing him. I can't wait to see him pull into the driveway after he gets out of work. Looking at his face makes me feel all mushy and full of love. I fought my relationship fears for him back in November, and I'm so glad that I did. It was worth every second of fear and fighting to get to where we are now.

I love you, J. I'm very happy that you contacted me on eharmony last year, and even happier that I responded. I love seeing you every day, I love living with you - I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in my life.

I am yours forever.

New Favorite Word

J came up with a new word last night, by mixing together two words by accident or something, and it's my new favorite word of all time. I'm going to share it with you, and you're going to love it. Are you ready?

ASSHUT

Don't you love it? Say it out loud a few times, believe me, it sounds great. We said it a lot last night.

What is an asshut, you may ask? Well, obviously it's a great name to call people. You might use it when greeting a friend. "Hey asshut, what's up?" Or you might use it on someone you don't like or who has done something to upset you. "You are such an asshut!" But it's even more versatile than that. "That pizza I just had has given me total asshut." Use it. You'll love it.

(Also, centering that text and making it larger has made blogger screw up my spacing for the rest of the entry. Blogger is an asshut.) :)

80s Aerobic Tape Flashback

Oh, the mind works in mysterious ways, but it sure does bring up some fun topics, sometimes. I was just in the bathroom, getting rid of water, so to speak, and for no reason whatsoever this line from the old Jane Fonda workout tape that I used to do popped into my head.

"Muscles don't work as well if they're dehydrated."

Weird, huh? But it made me think about this aerobics tape, that I haven't done in years, but I did it so many times in my 20s that I know the whole thing by heart, pretty much. And I remembered this girl who was in it, who used to annoy the everloving fuck out of me. Her name was Leslie Lillian (already annoying, right?), and she was skinny and short and oh so cute, so I automatically hated her. And then during the part of the routine where Jane would have us all doing the higher impact stuff, she'd say, "...and Leslie Lillian's going to sing for us while we do it!" (I really do have all of the speaking stuff on this tape memorized, just about. Well, the beginner's class, anyway. I only did the advanced part of the tape for a short while when I lost a bunch of weight, back when I was like 23 or 24.) And this skinny little chick, in the 80s leotard, belt and hairband (but her hair wasn't tied back, like a normal woman who is exercising would have it - oh no, it's flowing free and pretty, because she wasn't sweating, so why tie it up?), would start belting out this song, and she would keep it up during the whole high impact part of the tape. She might as well have been walking through a field of flowers, instead of working out.

Meanwhile, I'd be gasping for air, sweating like a pig, while singing along inside my head, because I didn't have enough air to do it out loud. Hate.

And there is no point to this story at all. It just popped into my head, and I thought I'd share. You're welcome. :)

Decorations, We Have 'Em :)

I promised you pictures of the Halloween decorations around our house, so yesterday I went around and took a bunch of pictures. So, let's go on a tour!

First, approaching the house from the outside, you're faced with these oh so evil skulls (and a cheerful Happy Halloween) in the front picture window. This is your first hint of the evil to be found in our house. Mua ha ha!

Then you come up to the front porch, and you're greeted by the sight of two skeletons hanging from nooses, plus lots of skull lights and a black flag that says the obvious - boo! You might want to turn back now. But if you choose to go on, then let's look at the next thing you'll see.

Walking straight up the porch stairs, you'll see a banner showing a haunted house, skeletons and the again cheerful statement, "Happy Halloween." At least they're happy evil skeletons.

Coming inside, you're greeted by a slightly less scary stairway lit with Halloween colored lights. Your heartbeat might begin to slow back down after the fright of the front porch, until you see the skull hanging from the light string. All may not be well in here after all.

To the left of the stairway you'll see a ghost, which is seemingly lit from within, and it's flanked by more small ghosts surrounding a jack-o-lantern and stuffed M&M toys dressed in costumes. Scary or cute? You decide.

Turning to the left to face the living room, your eye might be caught by something that makes you look towards the front door, only to be greeted with a warning that you might have been better off seeing outside - beware!

You swallow your fear and turn back to the living room, and see a grinning skeleton, with its arm around the picture of a high school girl. Well, at least she looks happy to be in the arms of a dead person.

Looking up, you notice that the ceiling is lined with small lights - skulls and Frankenstein heads look back down at your with their empty, soulless, evil eyes. You shudder.

You look at the top of the dresser in the living room and see two more skulls, and an evil jack-o-lantern that seems to be hanging out with them. Is there no end to the death and evil here?

You turn your head to the right and see that the answer is apparently no. Another evil jack-o-lantern is watching you.

You leave the living room and walk into the dining room, and after you've walked under the hanging cauldron, skull and various bones that hang from the doorway, you see something out of the corner of your eye, and turn to see a ghost hanging from the ceiling, grinning at you. It knows what you're in for, it seems to be saying.

You walk forward and turn your head to the left, and jump as you see not only more skulls (these arranged artfully on top of each other), but - you almost scream - spiders! The most evil thing yet!

Straight ahead of you there is a dining table, covered with a seemingly cheerful holiday display. Upon closer inspection, though, you notice spiderwebs, witches, even more skeletons and is that death himself holding a candle in the middle? You think it might be.

You look away from the table only to be faced with another skeleton dangling from the dining room curtain rod, peeking over the curtains in a playful manner. In front of him are lights that spell out "Happy Halloween," and to his left is a lit-up, evil grinning skull. Oh, what a frightening display.

You decide that since you've faced the evils of the downstairs and survived, you should see what's upstairs. You walk up the stairs, throwing off what seems to be a black shroud that settles on your shoulders as you ascend, only to turn around and see this staring back at you. How did you ever make it by that in one piece? You have no idea.

You get to the top of the stairs, and see a door with this hanging on it. Is the skeleton welcoming you in, or waving to its next meal? You have no idea.

You walk down the hall to see another sign on another door, warning you to keep out, because the place is condemned. You can't take any more - you've seen enough. You run from the house screaming, your heart racing as you go back past the ghoul hanging over the stairs, and you know one thing is true.

It really is batty in here!

And that's your tour! I hope you enjoyed it, and that you managed to escape in one piece. Happy Halloween!

Halloween and Wrist and Dinner, Yum

This entry brought to you by the Halloween bracelets that J gave me. Thanks, babe! Today I'm wearing the one that says "Trick or Treat," and has the bats on the sides (see the other picture below). I love these things - they're so fun.

I've never been a person to get too into Halloween, really. I loved going trick or treating, of course, and getting a big bag of candy that I wouldn't even finish eating (I seem to remember running across a big bag of the stuff in a dresser drawer months after Halloween once when I was a kid - I must have hidden it from my Mom, because she never would have let it sit around that long), but I never decorated for it, and I haven't dressed up for it since the last time I went trick or treating when I was 11 or so. But now that J is in my life, my house is filled with skulls and scary jack-o-lanterns and ghosts, and there is even a Freddy Krueger image in the front window. And you know what? I like it. I love that he is someone who gets so into holidays. It's fun. (And I'll share some pictures with you before Halloween, or at least I'll try.)

So, it's been almost a week since my last update, I think, and I've watched a ton of TV since then. I'm watching all of the most interesting new shows, and so far the only one I won't watch again is Chuck. It was okay, but it didn't quite work right, in my opinion, so I'm not wasting time on it. I haven't watched all of the new stuff yet - I have Moonlight or whatever it was called on my DVR but haven't watched it yet, and I think there's something else on there that I haven't seen yet, too, but I can't remember what. The new stuff has been surprisingly good, though, I think. I loved Big Bang Theory, which I already wrote about, and I also really liked Reaper. And I wasn't even going to watch Bionic Woman, because it had already been done, but I'm glad I did, because it was nothing like the 70s version. I liked it a lot. I wasn't sure about Private Practice - it was pretty boring, but I'll give it another week or two to improve before I stop watching it. All in all, though, I'm loving having so much TV to watch, and I'm happy with almost all of it, so I consider the 2007 fall TV season to be a success.

I think I wrote in an earlier entry that I was thinking about making a baby blanket for my soon to be great-niece. Well, I got the yarn for it on Saturday, and started making it. I'm having fun crocheting again. I haven't done anything crafty in a long time, so it's fun. One thing I did forget about, though - I can't crochet for too long before my right wrist starts to hurt. I have a repetitive motion injury in that wrist (I've never had it diagnosed, so I don't know what it is for sure - I only know it started when I worked as a bank teller, and it hurts if I do anything with that hand for too long without having the wrist supported), and it doesn't like the crocheting motions much. So I crocheted for a little bit Saturday night and a little bit more on Sunday morning, and then had to take the rest of the day off from it. I'll do a little tonight, and will keep working on it every day, but I'm going to have to limit my time because of the wrist. Which is fine, but I only have two weeks until the baby shower, so I hope I have enough time to get it finished before then. I might actually try using a wrist brace to see if that helps with the pain. It can't hurt, right? Yeah, maybe I'll talk to my pharmacist before I buy one, to get their opinion.

And now I only have ten minutes until it's time to leave work, woo! J and I are going to my sister's house for dinner, which should be fun. I love seeing her every week, and I really love it when J can come with me, which he can't very often because of work. So it's a special night. My favorite sibling and my favorite man, all at the same time! :) Anyway, I better publish this and get ready to go. Bye!

Oh, So Much TV!

I am going to have a TV heavy night, and I'm going to almost love it. (I would love it completely, but J is going to be at work, so I'm going to be solo watching all of this TV. Sigh.) Thanks to the fact that NBC is airing episodes of their series online after they've aired on TV, I am going to watch the following online tonight: Chuck, Journeyman and Heroes. And I'm going to record on my DVR the following: Bones, House, Law & Order: SVU and The Reaper. Ahh, I love having that much TV to watch. Some of the new ones may suck, but I'm hoping to find some good new shoes to watch.

I did find a good one last night. I watch CBS on Monday nights, because I love How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men. And sandwiched between those shows was Big Bang Theory, which could have been horrible, but instead was charming and funny! I think Johnny Galecki needs to get more into his character, but the show itself was surprisingly good. I'll be watching next week for sure.

And that's all I have for now. I just wanted to write about all of the good TV I'm looking forward to tonight. And just think, it's only Tuesday! There are quite a few more shows to look forward to. Oh how I love the new fall TV season. :)

Anniversary and Fall!

One year ago today, I got an e-mail from eHarmony that J from (his hometown) wanted to communicate with me. After a short time debating on whether or not I wanted to spend the money to sign up, I got an offer for three months for $60, so I paid it and started writing J back. And I'm so glad I did. One year later, we're living together, our dogs are almost fully integrated (Willow still has issues with Rosebud, but we're getting there), and I couldn't be happier. That was the best $60 I ever spent. I love you, J.

And now it's fall, which has always been my favorite time of the year. The evenings are getting cooler, the leaves are starting to turn, and ambition is starting to return. After a summer of sitting around not wanting to do anything because of the great potental for sweat if I moved at all, I am now finding myself not wanting to sit still. If I'm at work, I'm wanting to walk around campus. And at home, I'm taking down curtains and washing them and cleaning the filthy windows behind them. And also? I'm kind of getting the urge to crochet. I want to make something with my hands. I happen to have another great-niece or nephew on the way, so something tells me I'll be making up a little sweater or blanket sometime soon. The baby is due on December 31st, so I have plenty of time to make up my mind and start working on it. (Although I really should have it done before the baby shower, which is next month. Hmm.)

And TV season has started! Last night were J's shows' premieres - The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Family Guy. He had a great time. Shark also started last night - we recorded that. And tonight is all of the CBS shows, plus Heroes, which I don't watch, but now that Kristen Bell (formerly of Veronica Mars) has joined the cast, I just might have to check out the previous season (seasons? I'm not sure how long it's been on the air) to catch up. Maybe. I haven't heard too much about any of the new shows, but I look forward to finding out about them and giving some of them a chance to catch my interest. I love TV.

And now it's almost time for me to go to my sister's house for dinner. Our brother showed up at my house with his new girlfriend yesterday, and he was headed to her house after he left, so I'm interested to get her opinion. :) I hope you all are having a great Monday!

ZZ Top!

Last night J took me to see ZZ Top in concert. And it was so amazing! I had seen them in about 1986 or thereabouts, and loved them then, but that was so long ago that I didn't really remember too much about the concert, and wondered if I would still love them so much. Well, the decision is in. I still love them just as much.

We got to the venue a bit early, so we sat down before too many people got there, and watched them come in while we talked to each other. People watching is great at concerts. Of course, different bands draw different types of crowds, and ZZ Top had some grizzled, bearded biker types there, to be sure. But what kind of surprised me is that the majority of the people who attended the show were middle aged couples. There were lots of polo shirts and bald spots and men and women alike who looked like they probably worked in offices all day. The last time I saw them, the crowd was almost all teenagers, so it was a bit bizarre, like I had landed in a twilight zone land.

While we were sitting there, a couple came in who seemed to think we were in one of their seats, but it turned out they were in the wrong row - they were supposed to be in the row ahead of us. Well, imagine my surprise when the woman turned out to be someone who I used to work with at Syracuse University, and hadn't seen since I left there in 2003. This is a woman in her 50s, I would guess, and is a typical wife and Mom of children who have all grown up and moved out of the house. She is NOT the type of woman you would expect to see at a ZZ Top concert. But there she was, and really, given the type of person the crowd was composed of, she fit right in. She didn't recognize me at first, so I said hi and we talked about the old office while J talked to her husband about musicians. She caught me up on all of the goings on, and I told her to say hi to everyone who was still around. It was nice to see her. It's strange - when you work in an office day after day for years, you get to be almost friends with everyone who works with you (or most of them, anyway). You get involved with their lives, and you hear all of the stories, and you tell them all of yours. And then you leave, and you try to keep in touch, but if they're people you only really saw at the office, then the friendship eventually fades away, and before long they're just memories. It's too bad in some cases. But then you run into one of them somewhere, and you catch up and suddenly you miss all of those people. That's what happened to me last night. I don't miss some of the people there at all, and I still see the woman I shared my office with from time to time, but there are a few of those people who I would really love to see and catch up with.

Anyway. So we talked until too many people sat in the seats around us, and then they turned to the front and we waited for the band to come on. Which they did at about 8:20, and oh man did they ever rock. Everyone stood up when they first came out, but partway through the first song everyone sat down again, and can I ask when this started to happen? I don't know if it's because the groups I've gone to see recently have been older groups who don't draw the teenagers, and have those audiences filled with middle-aged people, or if it's unique to the venue we've gone to for these concerts or what, but everyone sits down after the first song has started, and stays seated for most of the rest of the concert. In a way that's good, because when everyone was standing, I couldn't see over their heads to see the band, and when we were sitting, I could see them fine. But it just felt wrong to be sitting down while ZZ Top was on stage playing. We should have been on our feet and dancing! So instead we danced in our seats. Which is fine, but it's just not the same. And the crowd did stand back up for the last couple of numbers, so at least that was good.

So they played through their set, including a bunch of their popular songs and a couple of older ones. They played a blues number, and they played a Jimi Hendrix song which they frankly blew me away with, they were so good. And all too soon they played their last song (Tush), and left the stage, and we fought our way out of the building and walked to our car and drove home. Although it didn't seem right to go home - I wanted to go back and watch another concert! I didn't want it to end, it was so much fun. And J had a great time, too. He liked ZZ, but was never as much of a fan as I am, but he said last night that they were great, and he wants to go see them again if they come back around. So I was happy about that. Of course, I knew he was having a good time when he was playing the air guitar (or bass, since that's what he plays) on my leg for most of the songs. :)

And then before I knew it we were home, and climbing into bed, because we both had to work today. And I had a bad dream and didn't feel like I slept well, and I woke up this morning exhausted and wanting only to sleep for another four hours, but I don't even care. The concert was so much fun that it's worth every second of exhaustion I feel today. I loved it.

Thank you, J. I had a great time. And I love the t-shirt you bought me. :)

(Side note - for some reason blogger isn't wanting to add spaces between my paragraphs under the pictures, so I apologize if the entry is hard to read. And now that I've said that, it'll probably add extra spaces and you'll wonder what in the heck I'm talking about and why there are two spaces between each paragraph. Sigh. Just know that I tried to get it to look right, and it wasn't working, and that blogger sucks sometimes when you're doing entries with pictures in them.)

Why I Love Pepsi

You already know that over the summer I won $50 (not to mention quite a few free sodas) in Pepsi's Transform Your Summer promotion. Now they have a football promotion going, and even though there isn't the chance to win money with that one, I've been entering codes online anyway. And last night, when J and I were sitting there "calling our play," we won! J will soon be the proud owner of a free NFL knit cap (they called it a beanie, I think)! We put in the Dolphins as his first choice and the Jets as his second choice, so depending on availability, probably, he'll be receiving his hat, bearing the logo of one of those teams, in the mail soon.

I love these Pepsi promotions! (And the Diet Pepsi isn't bad, either. :)

Apology and repairs and fall and J :)

Wow, sorry it's been so long since I updated last. I didn't mean to make anyone worry about me or anything. Life just got a little crazy.

Since I wrote last, the water pump at our house died, or started to die, and we had to have it replaced, and then there was a broken pipe between the house and the well, which ended up meaning replacing all of the pipes between the house and the well, which further meant rerouting them around the garage, instead of under it, which put them under the front of the driveway (close to the garage - would that be the front or the back?). And of course it all meant lots of money, and lots of freaking out and worrying and me not wanting to write because I didn't know how to write without freaking out more. Stupid house repairs.

But I do have to say that J was great throughout the whole thing, and I owe my current ability to shower and do laundry and have water for the animals to him, and by the way? I fall more in love with him every single day. He's the greatest.

So anyway, drama aside, life has been good. This weekend I didn't do too much, really. Just the normal household chores like laundry and vacuuming and things like that. And J and I took a couple of trips to Lowe's yesterday to get stones to fill in the strip of driveway that was removed, so that we could park in the garage, which J completely cleaned out! It looks fantastic in there. And football season has started, so we're settling into a new routine of him watching or listening to his football games while I Sim and watch DVDs on my laptop with the headphones on. It's a companiable way to spend time, even if we aren't doing anything active together, so I like it. He gets his football, I get my Sims, and we still get time together, so it's all win.

Also, fall has officially hit central New York. I wore a long sleeve t-shirt on Saturday and a sweatshirt yesterday, and needed them. Of course, now it's going to get warmer every day for the rest of the week, but the chill has hit the air, the leaves are turning and the fall/Halloween decorations are coming out at our house, so yeah, it's fall. And that's fine with me, because I always did love fall the most. Even if it is followed a little too closely by winter.

Oh, and one more thing - J has turned out to be a fantastic cook. He has made a few different dishes now, and they've all been fantastic. I don't know how it happened, but I found my perfect man - he loves me for who I am, he finds all of my little quirks to be adorable, AND he cooks! And even does dishes! I'm lucky to have him.

And I guess that's all I have to say for now. I'm sorry about the long break between updates - I'll try to be better about that from now on.

Great Holiday Weekend

An open letter to employers everywhere:

Do you have problems with employee morale? Do you want to have the happiest, most motivated employees around? I have the secret for you - four day weekends. Seriously, that gives them two days to get things done and two days to have fun, and they'll be very happy to work hard for you on the remaining three days of the week.

Think about it - it can't fail.

Yours truly,

A very happy person who is on day four of a four day weekend.


So. Yup, four day weekend, because here in the US, yesterday was Labor Day, so I had the weekend plus that. Oh, that's only three days? Yeah, I took today off, too. Not for fun, but because we're getting a new water pump after our old one finally broke down, and I had to be here to let the plumber into the basement and find out how to reset it if necessary and, well, to play the Sims while he's outside doing his thing. :)

I really did have a great weekend, though. Saturday J had to work, so I was home alone most of the day. I played the Sims and did laundry and mostly relaxed. Which is a good thing, because on Sunday J and I both kicked into high gear. After we got groceries, we came back and he worked on cleaning out the garage and I mowed the lawn. Then it was pizza time, baby! Pizza Hut pizza and breadsticks, which I love.

And then he wanted to move his desk into our bedroom, and his dresser out into the living room (that sounds backward, but believe me, it makes sense for him with his work schedule and all), and in order to do that, we had to move my bookcase in the bedroom. Which we did and we put his desk where it needed to be, and then I dusted my books and the shelf and rearranged them and made it all pretty. I sorted the books by color, like I've seen people doing online, and it came out nicely, I think.

Then, well, I couldn't have a clean bookshelf and a dirty room, so I dusted the furniture and put away clothes and vacuumed and made the room all pretty. Then it was bedtime, and I was exhausted, so I collapsed. Whew, that was a lot of work for a Sunday night.

Monday I woke up and had a little trouble walking - I think I broke something in my butt doing all of that cleaning. Ha! No, really, I pulled a muscle or something. It was fine once I moved around a bit, but seriously - who hurts their butt cleaning a bookshelf? Sigh.

Once J got up and around, we ended up doing even more work during the day. He fixed up his desk and worked in his room upstairs and cleaned out the mudroom, and I cleaned and rearranged the living room. And now the house looks so nice! Wow, it was totally worth all of that work.

And somehow in the middle of doing all of that work, we managed to have some good time together, too. It was a nice weekend.

And today he's back to work, and I would be, but instead I'm sitting here babysitting the house while we get a new water pump. Woo! I can't wait to take a shower without having to shut the water off in the middle because the pressure has dropped so low that I can't even rinse the conditioner out of my hair.

Oh, and I got chapter 13 of my Sims story online, for anyone who's following along. :)

Okay, I'm going back to enjoying my day at home and watching for the plumber to need to come inside. Have a great Tuesday!

Tagged

Sarah tagged me on her blog.

The Rules: I have to post these rules before I give you the facts. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules. (**if you’re a non-blogger, you can email them!) At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Okay, so, here goes. Eight random things about me.

1. I am ever so slightly pigeon toed. It's not so bad now, but it was more noticeable when I was a kid.

2. I thought I would never be able to live with anyone ever again, because I had lived alone too long, but I'm happy to say I was wrong. I love having J live with me. It's like I get to room with my best friend, which is just cooler than words can say.

3. I must think about the Sims 2 as many times per day as a horny 18-year-old boy thinks about sex. Seriously, the game and the characters I'm playing in it are always in my head. I'm obsessed.

4. I love Nelson from the Simpsons. His laugh is the best ever.

5. I used to love winter - it was my favorite season. And then I moved back to Central New York, and now I hate it. I wish we could have the following seasonal rotation: spring/fall/spring/fall. Sounds good, right? (I don't hate summer, I just hate being hot, so we could put summer back in the rotation, as long as the days never got over 80 degrees. Then it could be spring/summer/fall/spring. So, two springs in a row. Or two falls in a row, either way and I would be happy.)

6. If I spend too much time with no background noise (no TV, no music, no Sims sounds), random songs or theme songs from my childhood will pop into my head. Most often it's The Muppet Show theme.

7. I will pick up and take outside almost any bug that gets into my house. The only exceptions to this are, of course, spiders and flies. Because I hate them both. Spiders are creepy, and flies are just annoying as hell, and I have no patience for them.

8. In thinking about it, I shouldn't really say I hate winter, because I don't mind the cold weather - I kind of like a little bit of a chill in the air. I just don't like the snow, and the wind, and the ice and the shoveling and the driving in dangerous conditions and the fuel oil bills. we need to figure out how to have winter lite - a few monhts of temperatures between 30 and 50 degrees, with only slight dustings of snow and really, you never even need to wear a coat, jackets will do fine. Okay, so I want the winters I used to have in Virginia, only without having to move back south, and without the accompanying 100 degree/high humidity summers. Hmm.

And okay, it was incredibly hard to come up with these eight things. I think I once did a list of 50 or more random things - how in the heck did I do it? As for tagging anyone else, I'm not going to do it. Because I'm a rebel, ha! But if you're reading this, and you have a blog, you can do it, and I'll happily read it. :)

Bored Now

I'm sitting in the gym at the college where I work. Today is the day the freshman are coming to school, so I'm sitting here to sell laptops to anyone who hadn't already set up to buy one. Only it's been pretty slow for me - I've mostly directed people to other places, although I sold about six laptops, so being here hasn't been completely pointless. Still, I've done all of my Internet surfing between customers, and I've done what bit of work I could do while not being physically at my desk, and now I'm bored. So I'm sharing my boredom with you all. Aren't you lucky? :)

So. What's going on? Anything new in your life? You look fabulous!

And yes, I'm stalling because I don't really have anything in mind to say here. Oh, the perils of boredom. But feel free to answer those questions in my comments, if you would like. And you really do look fabulous. :)

So I seem to have gotten into the bad habit of going to bed at 9:30 and waking up at 5:30. What the heck? I don't have to get up for work until 6:40, for goodness sake. I just get so tired at night that I wimp out and go to bed early. I'm going to try to crank that back, though. There's just no point in being awake that early and then laying in bed for an hour kind of sort of dozing. No point, I say!

And okay, this is completely boring to read, I'm sure, because it's boring me to write, so I'll just end our agony here. Thanks for checking in, and I hope your day is going well. Ciao!

Good Tuesday

I had a good Tuesday yesterday. :) Work was okay - nothing special, just okay. But then I got home, and I got the mail, and I had another $25 check from Pepsi! Woo! I love their transform your summer promotion! I am now $50 richer, thanks to them, which J and I are going to use to pay for a trip to the Outback for dinner. Thanks, Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew!

Then I was relaxing at home, waiting for J to get home from work, and when he got there, the dogs and I went out to greet him at the car (yes, we're sickeningly sweet like that). He got out of the car, told me to close my eyes, and presented me with the special collector's edition of Serenity! How cool is that? He was sitting next to me earlier this week when I saw online that this new edition was being released, and heard me exclaim over it, and then say that I wasn't going to buy it, because I couldn't justify spending $20 on a DVD when I already own the movie. So for our ten month anniversary of our first date (which was yesterday), he picked it up for me before he came home. Is it any wonder why I love this guy?

Now I'm at work, and I'm not looking forward to tomorrow, because I have to sit in the gym all day selling laptops, but no one is going to come buy them from me, so really I'll just be sitting there in a hot gym, bored off my ass and wishing I could just go home and play the Sims. Sigh. I'll be glad when this week is over. But! I did find out this morning that I don't have to sit in the gym on Friday, so another good thing has happened. Woo! I like this trend I have going.

Now, maybe I should finally buy a lottery ticket - if my luck continues, I could be a winner! Because hey, you never know. :)

(And now I feel the need to tell all non-New York people that the above line is the slogan they use when advertising the lottery. Okay, morality session over.)

And now I need to go get to work, because I have to somehow write, layout, print and fold the entire company newsletter today, so that it can be distributed with checks on Friday. Although, now that I think about it, the folding could be done while I'm sitting in the gym doing nothing tomorrow. Hmm. So, thanks for reading! I hope your week is going well.

p.s. Blogger's spacing is all fucked up, so please ignore the weird paragraph breaks I have going on up there. I've tried to fix them five times, and I either end up with no spaces between paragraphs or two many spaces between them. Sometimes Blogger sucks. Thank you, that is all.

Quiet Weekend, and Ow!

It's been a fairly quiet weekend so far. J had to work yesterday, so I was home alone. And since he's been working almost around the clock for the last two weeks while his boss has been gone (and has to be back in at Midnight tonight), he's been sleeping for a good chunk of today, so it's still been quiet around here. Or as quiet as a house with four dogs and five cats can be at any one time (the cats are quiet, but the dogs sure aren't, except for during the rare times when they're all sleeping, which thankfully they all are now).

And yesterday afternoon, after J got home from work, I was attempting to walk up the steps to the front porch, and I tripped and landed hard with my left thigh on one of the bottom steps. It hurt like a mother fucker (excuse the language, but it's true), let me tell you. I iced it down with a bag of frozen peas (we don't have any ice), and I thought I was going to avoid a bruise, but really all I did was make the color wait a day to come in. It's turning a nice vivid shade of dark pink as I write this. Plus it still hurts to walk or if anything touches it. I'm so graceful. Don't you wish you were me?

Today hasn't been all watching my leg bruise up and trying to keep the animals quiet so that J can sleep, though. We did manage to have pancakes and sausage for breakfast, which was very good (although I didn't eat the sausage - he's welcome to all of that), and then I made some chocolate drop cookies and some peanut butter cookies (the former for me, the latter for him). And of course I've been playing the Sims.

So there is my weekend so far. Exciting, no? Now I'm going to go replace my pajama pants with some jeans, call in an order for some Chinese food, and go pick it up. Yum, sweet and sour chicken! Deal me in. Have a great Sunday afternoon (if yours hasn't already gone by when you read this, that is.)

And hey, it's only two weeks until Labor Day (if you're in the US, that is)! So when you get up tomorrow morning for work, just remember, that two weeks from then, you'll still be sleeping. Ah, I love holidays. :)

Hank and Sims and a Picture

So, it feels like it's time for me to write a real update - posting that video of Willow probably doesn't count. :) Here goes. I have no idea what I'm going to say, so let's just see what comes out as I type.

I'm sorry to say that our neighbor dog Hank has started to wear out his welcome at our house. You remember Hank, don't you? He belongs to our drunken neighbor, and we have always felt sorry for him, because he just doesn't seem to get any love at all. He's locked in a crate a lot of the time when we drive by, and he just is so starved for affection that we feel his owner doesn't pay any attention to him at all. So we've always been nice to Hank, petting him and letting him play with our dogs.

And then a few days ago he was outside with our dogs, and Rosebud had decided she didn't want him anywhere around - she doesn't like him, and she doesn't care if he knows it. So he came up and was smelling her back end, and she started growling at him, and then she went after him, and instead of backing off, he went after her too. SO not good. We got them separated and said good-bye to Hank. No one was injured, and all was well. He was just defending himself, right? And then yesterday afternoon he came down again while the dogs were outside. I ushered Rosebud inside before anything could happen between the two of them, so we thought all would be fine. And then Hank went after Duff, because Duff was getting the attention he wanted (well, I assume that's why he did it). Duff wasn't hurt either, but we were pretty upset at Hank. And, well, Bernie decided to defend his brother Duff, and he went after Hank. That part was actually pretty funny. Bernie had always been friendly to Hank, but as soon as he went after Duff, Bernie got all defensive and chased him off. Go Bernie!

So I'm thinking Hank isn't so welcome at our house anymore, at least not when the dogs are outside. Poor Hank.

Let's see, what else? J and I watched the last episode of Hell's Kitchen last night (we recorded it on Monday night). I liked that show so much! I liked Julia the best, but she got kicked off a couple of weeks ago. Last night we saw the final two chefs competing, and Rock won. He deserved to, based on the way they did on that last night of service, so it was fair. It was a really fun show to watch - if you haven't seen it before, you should catch it next summer. Chef Ramsey is hilarious, in a dirty-mouthed, abusive kind of way.

Chapter 12 of my Sim story went up on Saturday. Are you reading? If so, tell me what you think! I would love to hear. Of course, if you have no interest in the Sims at all, I understand. You should, though - they're a great obsession. :)

Not much else has been going on in my life, I guess. J has been working non-stop because his co-worker was on vacation last week, and is in training this week, so I haven't seen as much of him as I would like. We had a good night together last night, but overall I just miss him a lot. I'll be glad when he gets a semi-normal schedule back. Well, as normal as it can be while he's in that job, anyway.

And now I'm pretty much out of things to say, so that's all I'll write for now. Oh! Except I have a picture to leave you with. When I'm not sitting in my desk chair at home, I put my foot stool in it, to keep the cats from laying in my chair and getting it all furry. As you can see, Zelda didn't let that stool stop her from laying there the other day. :) Later, gators!