The Impossible Dream

2007-08-23T11:21:00.001-04:00

Woot!

I wish I understood html. But I pasted the fix and Voila!

2007-08-22T14:54:00.000-04:00

Wow long time no post! I guess I really like the Live Journal features much better. Still, I'm trying to get my archives up and so far no luck. Oh, I hope I haven't lost them!

2007-07-09T14:57:00.000-04:00

I haven't really felt much like writing lately. Which is sad. But the morning sickness has subsided to a once or twice a week extravaganza, mostly when I forget the rules. I can't eat a lot or eat too fast or eat anything with a hint of garlic. I need to have my big meal at lunch because I can't eat late at night. Fun stuff like that.

The latest in the pregnancy pains is my back. I've lost 15 lbs since the start of my pregnancy so it's not the added weight. I think having the mattress and box spring on the floor started to bother it, then walking around Ikea for about an hour put the final nail in the coffin.

The bedroom looks awesome though. While Purge put together the new headboard and bed frame, I put all the summer clothes in the closet and tidied up the corners of the room.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60109422 In the oak veneer. I wanted the medium brown but it was out of stock. These bookshelves are "hidden" by the headboard and the sides slide out to reveal the shelves. I can't wait to stock it with all my "to be read" paperbacks!

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S99839354 - the bed frame. Not too exciting, but the cats can fit under the bed again. Unfortunately, it's too narrow for any drawers or baskets, but I *think* a rhoomba can get under there.

And since Purge moved the furniture and put the computer armoire from the nursery to the bedroom, I also get to bring back my writing stuff to the bedroom. I'll probably do that while he's working on the walls in the spare room. The chair that goes with the armoire is an assbuster, so I'm going to knit a cover on an old pillow and use that for a pillow pad. I wonder what happened to my nasty, but comfy fabric chair that I used to use. It doubled as a cat bed and scratching post. I typed many a night away with a cat on the back of the head rest.

2007-06-28T11:36:00.000-04:00

I'm tired. I can't wait for this weekend when I can sleep in late. Of course, sleeping in late is 10 a.m. now instead of noon, but whatcha gonna do? Sleeeeepy. All I want to do is take a nap, but it's WAY to hot in the car for that. I'm not leaving here until 5 p.m., which is only in another 4 hours.

I requested seven books from inter library loan and 4 of them are in transit to the Guilford Library. I'm hoping to get some for the weekend.

Tonight's my last night with Purge before he goes away for three whole days! I'm afraid I'm going to be lonely, which is why I'm making sure I'm stocked with books! Jacknife is working all weekend and I've decided not to chase her. She knows my schedule and my number. So tonight over dinner, I'm hoping Purge and I will play a rousing game of Mille Bourne or something like that, just to get some play time in. I'm bummed I left my Phase 10 game at Irish's, that's an easy rummy like game that's quick to teach people. Maybe my Grandfather or Mom would be interested in playing.

Things are going good at work. Tomorrow will be "release" Friday. Where I'll spend all day trying to track down old releases. I'm hoping to at least have 2006 done by the time I leave for maternity in December.

So among the many things I hope to accomplish this weekend, I'd like to do some writing. I'm hoping there's a Virtual Lulu's going on this Sunday. Maybe if I'm feeling up to it, I'll take a road trip to somewhere there is wireless and give it a go.

2007-06-14T11:53:00.000-04:00

Mmmm C is for cookie -- Or rather O is for Oreo - double stuffed! I found three in the lunch that Purge packed me today. Makes me happy. As did the burger patties smothered in Grey Poupon mustard.

2007-06-12T16:16:00.000-04:00

The Global Village Idiot?

My ipod is giving me agida and my digital camera is a pain.

I'm feeling MU-UCH better these past two days and I'm hoping that the morning sickness is finally over.

2007-06-06T10:21:00.000-04:00

The pregnancy is plodding along. I'm 14 weeks and officially out of my first trimester. 1/3 down! 2/3 to go! I can't wait for this to be over. I'm constantly sick and very tired. ::shrug:: It is what it is.

Purge took down the futon and brought it downstairs last night, which was a HUGE portion of the baby's room. Next up is the misc crap on the floor and the bureau and we're done done donesky. Then it's a good vacuum and floor washing. Move the furniture into a better location to paint. Measure the room. And start painting. Then we'll put the room's measurements into our CAD program and plan out the baby's room. After that it's time to buy the crib, changing table, new futon, and shelves from Ikea and put them together. OK so maybe we're not done yet!

I bought a "C" shaped pregnancy pillow from Baby's R Us this weekend. It's about 6' long and it's very comfortable. It acts like a head pillow, it supports your tummy and back, and I really liked using it. It's going to be my bedtime companion from now on I think.

I've decided to definitely not do the Dudley Farm this summer. In fact, they haven't even called me, which is strange. The lady in charge was supposed to contact me after the pot luck supper that I wasn't feeling up to attending, but she never did. I'm pretty sure that the farmer's market starts this month some time. I know it's in full swing by the 4th of July because it's always a decision whether or not for me to go on that Saturday or not. But the good news is that I no longer have to feel guilty about the Scone lady's scones! Full cream and buttery goodness! And I can almost taste her ginger peach! ::happy sigh::

I finished the book Valentine's Exile last night. The ending was most dissatisfying. Mostly since the new book won't be out for another month. And I want to know what happens next! Especially, since the new book takes place at least 2-3 years later.

Did some writing organization today at work on the Dread Queen and Dark Match. It felt good to get my hands in it again. The Dread Queen needs a lot more work than I thought. But the second draft is about 1/2 done and then the final draft can be polished up and ready to be sent out.

Yuck, my raspberries from yesterday went bad already! I forgot to put them in the fridge and I guess the humidity at work just killed them. They got all moldy and the ones that didn't got tainted by the taste. $5 down the drain. ::pout:: Luckily, one of the girls at work went to M&M Farms and I've asked her to get me an Asian pear. It's a cross between and apple and a pear. They're really freakin' good! I'm trying to get more fruits and veggies in my diet. But it hasn't been easy. Fresh stuff goes so bad so quickly, so I have to buy it and eat it the same day and sometimes I just don't feel like eating it.

I just checked the library account and it shows that I still have a book on tape that I'm almost positive I returned. I have to check around the house for a bit first before I go in and make a fuss. :/ I'm pretty sure I returned it when I got the new batch of books inter-library loan got for me. Hmmm. I hate feeling all spacy and unsure. Oh well, I have to return VE and another audio book anyway. Maybe I'll go tonight. They don't close until 8 p.m. I cleaned up the dining room table and didn't see it this morning. Ah pits!

The house is still a bit of a disaster. I'm hoping to get some of the kitchen cleaned up because I want to bake a chicken pot pie for dinner tonight. The problem is that I have zero energy by the time I drive home. Last night there was a turtle in our driveway. He was really pretty. I got some shots of him with my mother's digital camera because my new one's batteries are dead already. (Something else to do tonight LOL)

2007-05-24T13:08:00.000-04:00

OK, so my "go to" meal, when I'm absolutely blood sugar freaking out is a McDonald's cheeseburger happy meal. (My Obgyn said not to eat anything white: white bread, pasta, rice or potatoes, but fuck her if she thinks I'm going to give up eating a small fries.) Anyway, Purge and I always get the toy for the child under three years old. And they're cute. Baby Ronald on a turtle, etc.

Now, with the new Shrek movie out -- OMG! The toys!

I just got a baby girl ogre that cries, burps and says "Da Da". I have her at my desk at work. I love her. I'm hoping the whole set is safe for under three, because there is the dragon/donkey baby, the gingerbread man, puss in boots, the whole gang! (Tempest you have to give the baby the toys! That's the story anyway and I'm sticking to it.)

I'm hoping to see a Pirates of the Carribean 3 / Shrek 3 marathon at some point this weekend. Definitely matinees, though because I'm too cheap to pay full price for a movie.

2007-05-15T12:57:00.001-04:00

Here's a link to the tests I'm doing today and on Monday. Obviously, not with this group. But it's the best description of what they're looking for that I've found:

http://www.muschealth.com/women/firsttrimester.htm

2007-05-14T14:15:00.000-04:00

Madeleine McMann - How come no one has said if her stupid parents hadn't left a 3 year old girl ALONE IN A HOTEL ROOM, this would never have happened? The parents are bitching that the police didn't respond fast enough? Fuck them. I hope the baby is with people who will take care of her better than her parents did. Unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way.

To quote Keanu Reeves in Parenthood: "You need a license to go fishing, you need a license to drive, but any butt-reaming asshole can be a father." I'll paraphase it to say parents.

2007-05-10T13:07:00.000-04:00

The subway club I just ate was the best sex I've had since Valentine's Day.

Just thought I'd share.

I love my job. Although, the past few weeks I just wanted to stay home and sleep. But my mother put it best. That it was better that I got up and went to work, that way I wouldn't stay home and mope and overthink. Basically, if I was going to be sick and miserable I might as well be at work. And thankfully, we've been so slow that on the days that I just couldn't lift my head up and all I wanted to do was cry, I was able to just sit at my desk and sip Vitamin water and surf the web to take my mind off things. So I feel very fortunate that I'm not in a pressure cooker of a job or in a really bad place like the previous positions I held. And when I'm too sick to make it in on time, I can call in and no one has a problem with it. It really means a lot to me to be able to have a job this understanding.

On the other hand, I'm jonesing for something to read while I'm work. That's pretty much all I've been doing lately while I'm home. Of course, all my favorite authors are coming out with something in June! But that seems so far away.

2007-05-03T14:01:00.000-04:00

So the egg and hashbrown was a bad idea for breakfast this morning. But at least it got some unpleasantness out of the way early. And I wasn't driving at the time which is always a plus. Not much else going on except puking and sleeping. I've found Vitamin water and the "Revive" has B vitamins, which reduce nausea. I'm craving pinwheel cookies. (chocolate covered marshmallows on a cookie) I don't even like them.

Purge started his new job. He says it's very hard. He's learning SQL.

I've been watching "American Idol," "Dancing With the Stars," and "Notes from the Underbelly" because those are the only shows I can stay awake for. Thank God ABC let's you download "LOST" and watch it during the week. I haven't felt like playing Warcraft lately, truthfully I haven't felt like doing much lately. I get very brief spurts of energy in a pool of general tired feelings really. I've been reading a lot, although not at my usual speed.

Tomorrow is Purge and my 11 year anniversary. We have nothing planned. I'm too tired to care or even try and think of something.

This weekend is the last of the paralegal classes! Whoo! We don't have to be in until 2:30 on Saturday and Sunday is our final exam. She basically told us it would be a vocabulary exam, so I'm pretty sure we'll ace it. Maybe I'll do the reading. That would be novel. LOL.

My nails are growing really long. I should file them and slap a coat of paint on them. But I just can't be arsed. My hands are super dry. I keep forgetting to put Lubriderm on them. Luckily the cream at work doesn't smell bad and I've been trying to use it a few times a day. I've got all these cracks in them.

I downloaded a book reader at work so I could read some books while I close files and do other mindless things, but unfortunately I can't find a book I want to read. Nothing in the public domain thrills me and the ebooks are more expensive than their hardcopy counterparts. Isn't that weird? I would have thought it would be the other way around.

2007-04-24T13:37:00.000-04:00

So I'm working on my first memorandum of law regarding the dram shop act ::snore:: but hopefully I'll finish it today and that will be one down and one to go.

I headed out to lunch today, after going to the bank for the office. I decided to get my special sandwich at the Whitneyville Food Center in Hamden. The guy behind the deli counter calls me "Coz" and I'm not sure if it's because we're actually related or not. ::shrug:: I'm notoriously bad about recognizing people from my extended family. It could be that I've been in there at least once a week for the past three years. Anyway, my special sandwich is their chicken cutlet (smashing!) with lettuce, tomato, mayo and provolone on a hard roll. The. Best. Ever. And a birch beer. Then I walked over to the used bookstore to get something to read while I ate my sandwich. I also picked up some almonds because I heard that almonds help with morning sickness. (I'll try anything) I swear my richer twin must live in the area because I keep finding books from my Amazon wish list. Today, there was "Blue Shoes and Happiness" by Alexander McCall, which is the nearly latest book in his Precious Ramotswe detective series that takes place in Botswana. The series is subtitled "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency". So I snagged that along with a Chelsea Yarbro book that I wanted to read. So I ate half my sandwich and most of my birch beer as I read the first two chapters of the novel. I really like the characters and it was so nice to sit in the sun and relax. I felt like a sunflower straining towards the sun.

It's funny, I've got a ton of half read books scattered around the house. I'm currently reading: "Lost in a Good Book" a Tuesday Next novel by Jasper Fforde (Love the puns in this series!), "Best New Paranormal Romances" edited by Paula Guan, "Blue Shoes and Happiness", "A Feast of Crows" by R.R. Martin (I skipped to the end to see if we find out what the hell was the one word Brienne of Tarth said as she was being hanged. We don't know and I'm fed up until Dances with Dragons comes out. LOL) and a few others I opened up and them discarded, not feeling the story.

OK back to the memo :P

I want another birch beer and another hour in the sun to read.

2007-04-23T14:08:00.000-04:00

I would like to whine to you about my paralegal homework. *ahem* WHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNE

OK I'm over it. I have two legal memos to write, 6 chapters to read and answer workbook questions for and I don't want to do them. I suppose, I should just shut up and do it. I did all the research for it on Friday. It's just a matter of writing the buggers up. I don't wanna! ::stamps foot like a three year old::

Luckily, we're really slow at work so I can get this done. Today and tomorrow are dead-dead-deadski. I suppose if I finish my homework I can work on my writing tomorrow. Wouldn't that be novel? Novel -- get it? I slay me.

So this weekend was a waste of clean underwear. I can't remember what we did Friday night. But I was probably in bed by nine p.m. Then we had the Wills, Trusts and Estate module on Saturday. I like the Stamford Hospital -- where the class is held -- because they have vending machines and a cafeteria. Priorities. The class went long and pretty much had a ton of information. I went to sleep at 7 pm that night. Sunday, the class reviewed the previous day. We brought in our lap tops and got to play on the web during class. I opted to stay inside and play Warcraft for lunch instead of hanging outside in the 75 degree weather. We got out around 3 and Purge and I went to the CT Post Mall to look for "Grandma" pendants for mother's day, but we didn't find anything that we liked. It was nice to get out of the house for something other than work and school. I got to munch out on some bourbon chicken (awesome) and fried rice (mediocre). So that was also a change of pace. I was wearing my uncomfortable sandals though so that put a damper in the mall walking. And I left my Easter money in Buddha (We have a psuedo porcelain buddha that came with a drink special in our room that I stash my money in), so I couldn't treat myself to the book I wanted. But it was still nice to get out and mingle with people. I still couldn't stay up to watch The Dresden Files on SciFi, so I'm going to watch it on the Internet tonight during dinner. I lubes me the interweb. Since I can't stay up for Lost anymore either, I watch it the next day or so at my leisure. Best idea ever!

On a brighter note, I can drink cold beverages and not be in agony. I had a cavity. The first one in eight years. But it was between the back tooth and my molar so it was tricksy.

I think I need another nap. It's so tempting to just lay my head on my desk and take a snooze.

2007-04-20T13:52:00.000-04:00

Guess what?

I'm pregnant and Purge found a job!

I will be eight weeks on Tuesday. Purge went with me to get the sonogram today. So we have a picture of the baby. She or He is only 1/2" long and shaped like a kidney bean. But we saw the heart beat today. It was so amazing.

I've known four about seven weeks now. I've been going through the most terrible morning/noon/night sickness and I can't stay awake past 9 a.m. The hardest part has been keeping it a secret so I just stopped talking to everyone. LOL! There are more details on my livejournal. I also started a pregancy live journal called CTNEWMOM. But that's only if you're hardcore into bodily functions because I talk about everything.

Purge accepted a position today in Madison. He starts out a little less than what he was making before. But after 90 days, they'll give him a pay raise and that will match what he was making at his last job. And at 6 months, he'll get a $3K raise and then a yearly review every year thereafter. So we're very happy about that.

Tonight we're celebrating with steaks on the grill and tater tots -- because I've been craving them!

2007-04-11T10:58:00.000-04:00

So it's real slow at work today. Actually, it's been real slow for awhile. The good news is everyone is clearing off their desks and I've got tons of files to close. The bad news is that's not real scintillating work, but at least it's work. For example, our last closing is at noon today and then that's it for the rest of the day. My plan is to clear off my desk of all files and then start working on my paralegal homework. I'd like to get at least the summons and the complaint done, if we're here until 5.

2007-04-09T14:14:00.000-04:00

Everybody's heating up their Easter left overs for lunch and it smells so good in here. OMFG someone dropped off cannolis from a New York bakery. ::must . . . be . . .strong:: Everytime someone opens the box, I get a great whiff of cannoli. Yankee Candle should make a candle out of that scent. OK I peeked in the box. It's assorted Italian patries -- including chocolate cannolis. Can you even imagine?

I had a great long weekend. But as always, I'm glad to be back at work. For one, there's a paycheck and insurance benefits. But also there's a nice structure to my day. I feel like I'm accomplishing something. And it really helps to get my mind working and getting organized. We're still slow here, so it gives me time to get my household stuff in order as well as catch up on my life.

We haven't heard that our Stamford law class next week is cancelled, so I think it's still a go. Or perhaps they're waiting until the absolute last gong to shut it down. This weekend we're off to the law library in Hartford. Joy. The only good part about that day is that we'll be having dinner that night with Beekeeper R and M and get to see little V. Otherwise, I have an assload of homework to do and unfortunately a lot of questions that I might have to ask one of the attornies here for because god forbid the instructors return an e-mail. I also have an assload of reading to do, but I'm not worried about that so much.

2007-04-03T11:56:00.000-04:00

Blah. I feel so achy and tired. I could not get out of bed this morning. I feel like there's this haze of fog in my head. I'm going to the bank for the office at lunch, but I forgot my book. Grrrr. So I'm eating my chicken noodle soup with saltines dunked in before I go out so I'm not tempted to buy crap. Although I'm really getting sick of ginger ale and soup. As it is, I can only eat half a can of soup before I start to feel ill.

I put all four pieces of my sweater together last night. Now I just have to sew up the arm seams and the sides. Then I've got to knit the collar and it will be all done. My teacher said she doesn't think it's going to fit me and that kinda sucks. But it's not going to stop me from wearing it. (Oh, I'll make it fit . . .) It's so toasty warm and soft. I'm not sure how it can't fit. I was on gauge (I think anyway) and it's long on me. Oh well, I'll lock the cats up in the bedroom tonight and spread it out on the kitchen table to finish it. Or at least finish sewing it.

I saw a really yummy salad on 30 Minute meals the other night. It's chopped escarole with red onions tossed in a homemade vinagrette and topped with cannolini beans. I'm also addicted to baked garbanzo beans. You basically drain some canned chickpeas, then mix them with your favorite flavoring spice (Mine is Dulce paprika), then bake them until their crunchy. Good Stuff! Low fat, high protein.

Purge was driving us home from work last night. He had a temp job down the street from my office. Sadly it was only one day, and he finished really early. But he did a great job and they were really impressed with him. So while he was waiting for me to get out of work, he went to Lowes and got some paint sample cards so we can decide on what color to paint the spare room. Anyway, I got really hungry on the drive home and since I hadn't eaten much (since Friday when we both got sick), I needed to have one of those Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes of death. You know the ones they advertise with pretty much one of everything? Nightskye calls it a heart attack in a box. Well, Purge decides that's probably not the best thing to have with our delicate constitutions at the moment. I'm so glad he's the brains of the outfit. He talked me into the salad bar at the A&P to keep me from crying in the car. All was well.

2007-04-02T10:35:00.000-04:00

I'll be so happy when this civil litigation class is over. I so totally don't give a shit about it anymore. The good news is I got a 90 and Purge got a 100 on the quiz on Saturday. Boring. Boring. Boring. And Bullshit too. It didn't help that the both of us had terrible stomach issues this weekend. I'd almost say food poisoning, but I can't remember what the crap the both of us ate. Anyway, at least the homework for the class makes sense. We have two more sessions. The next session will be at the law library. We're going on Saturday, but I've already told Purge I'm not going in on Sunday. Unless, of course, I don't finish my research project, but I'm considering doing it at work. One of the attornies here was nice enough to give me his passwords for Casemaker, which has all the online legal research that the library has in books. Then the last weekend is our final exam. Can't. Wait. Until. It's. Over!

We have this weekend completely off. I have Friday off from work and then there are no classes or anything. I'm very excited to have three whole days to myself.

We got back from class on Saturday night and found that my Dad repainted the red door, black. It looks really nice. Then when we got inside, my Mom cleaned my kitchen, dining, and living room and vacuumed and mopped the floors. She did the dishes and everything. I nearly burst into tears I was so happy. Now, we've just got to keep it that way. It was so nice of her. She said, she had to wait because they took the door off the hinges and it had to dry. I told her she could have just lay on the couch and read a book, but she said "I just couldn't stand it!" LOL.

Purge has a temp job today, doing some access database work for the lawfirm down the road from us. So we rode in together and will get to have lunch together, which is really nice. So far nothing permanent, but there have been a couple of nibbles so keep your fingers crossed for us. It is nice to have him home, though. He's Mr. Project around the house when he's not looking for a job. We've decided the next big project is the spare room. So after he checks the want ads and follows up on all his temp agencies and any other leads, his mission this week is to clear everything out of there. After much deliberation, we're going to keep the corner unit in there, but everything else is O.U.T. out of there. Then I think we're going to paint the room, with Nightskye's help, but he doesn't know it yet. Purge and I will probably go to Home Depot or Lowes this week/weekend and check out paint. Then we can start thinking furniture. There will definitely be a new futon with a wooden frame from IKEA, (the old one is going downstairs -- but that's another project) but that's the only definite thing I've come up with.

In other news, all our animals are safe from that awful pet food tampering. Although Purge bought Meow Mix dry and Tish is refusing to eat it, so I'm a little nervous about that. But then again, she's always been a picky eater.

I've got my knitting class tonight and I'm finally completely done with my sweater. I'm going to be sewing the pieces together tonight and I'm so very excited. I'm going to bring this sweater everywhere because all of a sudden, I'm always cold.

I've read a ton of books in the past week. I guess I've just been in the mood. I'll probably post them to the Live Journal, 50 book challenge later today. I'm halfway there at 25.

I've got to put a grocery order in to Peapod before this weekend. I don't want to waste free time at the grocery store. Although, instead of just point and click buying, I want to have some meals planned. But I just can't be arsed to do it. I don't have the energy to think or plan. I just want to open up the fridge and voila! Dinner! Which probably means more frozen dinners. Heh!

2007-03-27T10:50:00.000-04:00

When I was in kindergarten, my teacher had us make a time capsule. In it, we would draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wanted to be a ballerina.

But dance lessons were too expensive and my mother didn't think, at five, I had a ballerina's physique or drive. I was told I was athlethic. And I was allowed to play sports. I was a good softball player, although not at the high school level. But I was a Varsity field hockey goalie and my coach thought I could be an Olympian. But my parents K'boshed that too. They didn't want me to give up my childhood working for a sport.

But this isn't a rant about how my parents might have held me back from the gold medal or dancing with Barysknikov. They did what they thought was right and I'm learning that they weren't perfect beings, but humans who made mistakes.

This is about taking back a dream. I love the arts. I love to paint (although I'm not very good). I love to write (in which I think I am very good). I love museums, and music and dance.

I was told I was awkward and clumsy and would be referred to sarcastically as "grace." And I am. I don't have any rhythm, but fortunately I also don't have any blues either.

But I do need to exercise more and I become bored very quickly. So I decided one way to solve both problems is to take belly dancing lessons at the local high school adult education program. I figure it would be entertaining at the least.

I love it. I need to work on my shimmy and my hip rolls/figure eights. But we did a dance called the "Gypsy King" which allowed us to use a bunch of dance moves and arm motions (snake hands, temple arms) that we had learned. She let us borrow "veils" (2 yards of chiffon-like fabric) to dance with and it was fun and natural. Without sounding like a new age head case, I felt that it's a very "woman" and "empowering" thing to do, especially with a bunch of other women. I'd be interested in researching SCA period garb for belly dancers, because it's not the sequined "I dream of Jeannie" outfits you're thinking of. The teacher told us that belly dancers weren't for the sultan, but they were a fertility ritual dance for the women of the tribe.

So I bought a hip skirt. This is the one I bought, but I went for the silver coins instead. I'm going to go to either Walmart or Joann fabrics today at lunch and buy my 'veil'. I'm very excited because FitTV on demand offers belly dancing programs that I can put on anytime I want.

But most of all, it feels good to dance. Even if I'm clumsy and awkward.

2007-03-21T15:55:00.000-04:00

Gleeful good news: (and slightly guilty) I got my hands on an ARC (Advanced Reader's Copy) of a hardcover that's not going to be out for a few months from one of my favorite authors. Guilty because I bought it at a used book store for the price of a paperback (they're not supposed to resell them!) But I didn't buy another ARC that I saw there because I don't think I could stand the guilt. (And it wasn't an author I knew, but the book sounded interesting).

Morose news: My car is sick! The check engine light came on on Friday and it didn't go off. (Every now and then it flickers). That and I had gotten a safety recall notice for the power steering so I decided to bring it it. Whelp, the check engine light was because my gas cap was faulty (who knew?). $84 for diagnostic and replacement. I had them look at my windshield sprayer (the driver's side wasn't working) $84 to repair and replace. And then the gem? My brakes were metal on metal (who knew?). $375 to fix. And that was just what they found at first glance. So I authorized them to take care of it (bleah!) but it's still not ready to be picked up.

So Purge is going to drop me off at my belly dancing class and then I'll hang around the school for an hour and wait for him to come pick me up. Or maybe I'll stay home and read my contraband!

2007-03-21T11:13:00.001-04:00

Participating Dunkin Donuts are giving away free iced coffe -- while supplies last --today to celebrate the first day of Spring. I don't know if the stores in your area are participating or not, but I figure it's worth a look. I mean who doesn't like free iced coffee?

2007-03-19T10:01:00.000-04:00

To give you an idea of my weekend, here is are two e-mails I sent to UConn's continuing education department:

Saturday's e-mail
Dear Ms. P.,

I'm writing this e-mail to let you know how disappointed and frustrated I am with UConn's Continuing Studies paralegal litigation certificate program at Avery Point Campus in New London.

The first week, Attorney C. ended class at 3:00 p.m. both days. During that time, he read from the workbook and text verbatim. I feel that the text is outdated and the workbook is rife with typos.

The second week, Attorney P., thankfully, didn't read word for word out of the books. However, she let also let us out at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday and then at 11:00 a.m. the following Sunday. I live in Guilford. It's at least a 45 minute drive each way to get to campus. If Sunday's quiz and review were only going to be 2 hours long, why didn't we take it on Saturday and leave at the scheduled time of 5:00 p.m.? That way, when your office failed to give Attorney P. the class materials for Sunday, (She said it was a movie.) -- the reason why we were let go at 11:00 a.m. --, we could have just stayed home on Sunday if there were no other materials to go over.

Now, it is the third week and there was bad weather. Both the UConn website and the telephone hotline stated that there were classes on Saturday. We called Avery Point campus, and their message was still playing for Friday, March 16th. We called several times. As of 9:30 a.m., Avery Point's message hadn't changed. The entire class showed up, but not the teacher. There wasn't an e-mail message nor a message on my answering machine when I got home explaining why the attorney never came to class. I drove all the way up to campus and back for nothing.

At this point, I have invested a great deal of time and effort in this class. I've also paid for 84 hours of classwork and instruction, which I am not getting. What are my recourses? Am I even able to get my money back at this point? I don't want to drop out of the program, but quite frankly I feel cheated and aggravated.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter.

Sincerely,

Sunday's e-mail
Dear Ms. P.,

I'm following up on yesterday's e-mail regarding the class cancellation on Saturday. Apparently, the correct number to dial was on the order confirmations we received in the mail and you had decided to cancel Saturday's course on Friday afternoon. I had not realized this.

Attorney P. did a good job of covering Saturday and Sunday's coursework today and generously offered her time on Thursday night for anyone who needed extra help.

However, we rushed through the last two chapters and she let us go at 4:00 p.m. I felt that we could have completely finished the chapters if we stayed until five.

Now, I realize that the attorneys are very busy. If it's better suited for them to teach 9-3, perhaps just adding an extra weekend to the certicate program would be the way around this.
In any event, that's my two cents.

Sincerely,

***

So I feel a little chagrined about the first e-mail, but being completely rushed over Chapter 15 and 16 (the chapters Purge and I were having trouble with) because she really wanted to let the class out at 3 and we all *forced* her to finish, made me feel OK with the whole e-mail process. Especially since, two other people from class agreed with us. I'm not the flamer/hate e-mailer type. But I'm paying for this class to be taught how to do this. Anything I don't know at the end of this, works against me at my job. And certainly works against Purge who will be thrown in cold.

Oh and she told us on Sunday that the movie Uconn never gave her was The Rainmaker with Matt Damon. (Hmmm that would have only have been 2 out of the 8 hours on Sunday . . . ) Now, when I did training or teaching I made sure I was prepared. If she knew on Saturday night she didn't have the Rainmaker, why didn't she go out and rent it? Or at least tell us, hey tonight or sometime in the next two weeks watch The Rainmaker and we can discuss it in class. (She also let slip that the day before our final, they want us to watch A Civil Action with John Travolta.) As Purge put it, "That's one hell of a rental fee." I put them on my Netflix list.

The bottom line is we read eight or so chapters and the corresponding workbook sheets in two weeks and then go over them on Saturday and Sunday and then are tested on them the next week. If I have the wrong information on my workbook answers, then I'm studying and reinforcing the wrong information. And the workbook has poorly worded questions and the text is NINE years old. It's a joke. I suppose you get what you pay for though and this was the cheapest I've seen a basic paralegal course.

So we have three more weekends. Next weekend is the quiz on the chapters we went over. The weekend after that we're in the law library. We have to go to West Hartford, but I'm not sure where. She also tells us that West Hartford doesn't open until noon on Sunday. And actually, if it's the UConn library on Elizabeth Street in Hartford, it doesn't open until one. I can't find confirmation that the West Hartford campus has a law library. The Quinnipiac law library in Hamden opens at 9 a.m. both days. But she said she didn't want to drive there. (*sigh*) I'm trying to broker a deal that we can just do our law research in Quinnipiac on that Sunday so we don't have to drive an hour both ways for some bullshit two hour class. And then the last weekend is our final exam. I can't wait for this to be over.

The good news is this weekend is our final Corporate Law class. We really like the attorney teaching this module and our final exam is on Sunday. I feel comfortable with the material. We had a great two days of classes. The bad news is I still have half a book to read for it. (We spent most of our time and energy on the civil ligation course work last week) ::shrug:: Whatcha gonna do?

2007-03-12T13:57:00.000-04:00

So it's pretty weird when I've got to come into work to relax and have a good time. These all day weekends are killing me. The good news is that we generally don't go to 5 p.m., but the drive is outrageous. Both campuses are about an hour one way. It's getting really nuts and these next two weeks are going to be crazy. Knowing that, I took next Friday off from work so I could recharge.

We really like our Corporate law class. The attorney is a great teacher. She let us out early both days, but unlike the attornies in the litigation class, we felt like we finished the day's work and actually learned something. Aside from that, as a treat on Sunday, we bought the new American Idol Edy's slow churned birthday cake with sprinkles ice cream. It's AMAZING!!! And the best part is it's low fat! 3 points for a 1/2 cup -- baseball size serving. I'm looking forward to a bowl of that after knitting class tonight.

Purge quit his job and this Friday is his last day. I'm thrilled, even though as of yet he doesn't have anything else lined up. This job had been deteriorating for the nine years that he's been there. The management has blinders on and it's really not a nice place to work. He's had to work on Christmas and most weekends and because he was "on salary" -- which I have doubts as to the legality of that -- he wasn't compensated. In fact, they took him for granted. We would have to cut our holidays and often weekends short so he could baby sit a report while it ran. In recent years, technology enabled him to do this from his lap top at home. But it has still been hard.

We worked it out and we're fortunate enough to have a good savings account to fall back on and we should be OK for a few months. I really hope he finds something good and doesn't have to settle for what he can get so that we can pay bills. Of course, this means our week in Napa is going to be used to pay taxes in July and our anniversary and my birthday celebrations will be postponed. So that's kind of a bummer. But I guess that's what being an adult is all about.

So in order to keep my sanity, I've tried to segment my week so I'm not going off to have a panic attack in the corner or letting everything slip away from me so I feel like I don't have control of anything. (Us control freaks really don't like unknowns). I came up with this weekly schedule to get me through until May when all our classes are over. I call it my "Don't Think" schedule. Based off the line from Bull Durham:

Crash Davis: You just got lesson number one: don't think; it can only hurt the ball club.

Monday: Financial Day. Pay all bills. Check all bank accounts. Double check budget.
Knitting Class.

Tuesday: Domestic Day. Or to use the Flylady's term "House Blessing" (snort). In which the house gets a "good enough" go over. Vacuum, etc.
Fencing Class.

Wednesday: Writing Day. Catch up on Wordweft critiques. Search Ralan's etc for markets.
Belly Dancing Class.

Thursday: Play Day! This is the day off in all senses of the word. I can read, watch movies, play Warcraft all without guilt. Heck, even go to sleep at 7:30 p.m.

Friday: Study! This is the day / night (on alternate D&D weeks) where the books are cracked open and homework is completed.

Saturday & Sunday: Paralegal Class

Of course, through all of this I'm alternating studying and writing on my lunch hour. I really also should throw exercising into the mix too. But I'm procrastinating that because the eliptical trainer downstairs in our gym at work hurts my knees and I can't ride the bike until I figure out the TV schedule so I can watch TV while I'm pedaling (how's that for justification?).

I'm also doing the Flylady's evening routines. Basically, mine are to shower, get my clothes ready for the next day, feed & water the pets, make my lunch, and do a load of laundry (wash, dry and fold) and a load of dishes every other day. I swear we're only two people but the mess we make. . . !

So everytime I feel myself starting to lose it. I look at this schedule and I can breathe a little easier. Everything will get done on it's designated day.

Of course, I could also be wearing a strait jacket by May too. You never know.

2007-03-05T11:16:00.000-05:00

I'm so disappointed in UConn's continuing education program. This week, we did have another attorney and Purge and I both found her engaging and a much better instructor than her law partner. Unfortunately, the text is 9 years old and out of date. The workbook that UConn puts together is rife with confusing typos. As we figured out, the attornies teaching the class were only selected/given the materials the week before the first class. And our Sunday quiz was given to the attorney on Thursday for that Sunday's session.

Now, gaming on Friday went fine and didn't interfere with our learning on the Saturday course . We had been worried that we would have to stop playing on the Friday nights we had class because of the late night. But so far so good. The class isn't challenging at all. And as long as you read the book and do the homework/workbook questions, the lectures don't really add anything to the learning experience except for being mildly entertaining. And you have to *force* the attornies to go over the workbook answers. Which is frustrating because if I put something wrong as my answer in the workbook, that's how I study. I read the book, my notes and the workbook. If I'm wrong, then I learn and reinforce it wrong. So the classes are really poorly planned and executed and I will never again take another UConn continuing education course. Nor would I recommend them to anyone either.

Anyway, Purge and I were very confident in our knowledge for our Sunday quiz, that Saturday night we went to dinner at Nightskye's house and he and TheOne cooked us a beautiful dinner and dessert. Well, after two bottles of wine, a glass of margarita and a cordial class of Chambord, it was well past midnight when we had to cut the conversation short. And we could have talked for hours more. The next morning, I quizzed Purge on all 7 chapters on the way up to class. We knew it was multiple choice so I dug around and found some obscure terms just in case we saw them, we would recognize them.

I will start out by saying I got an 80 on the quiz and Purge got a 90. One question we both missed was bullshit. It wanted you tell list what county Vernon was in. What the fuzzy hell does that have to do with anything? I have a book that tells you where all the counties are. The concept was if the defendant resides in Vernon and the Marshall serves him, where does the marshall need to be from. He needed to be from the county that Vernon's in. I put down Hartford County. It's Tolland. Purge put down Vernon because the question was poorly worded that he figured that was the "close enough" answer. He also knew that the Marshall needed to be from Vernon county. So the quiz wasn't really testing knowledge as much as it was testing how you interpret some idiot secretary's idea of what the quiz should be.

The other question I genuinely missed because I didn't know it. The appearance has to be filed within 2 days of the return date. I thought it was two days after the defendant receives the summons.

But what was absolute bullshit was the questions, that Purge and I got right -- only because we both had to (and we did the quiz separately) reverse engineer the answers by applying logic to the future questions and crossing off anything that couldn't fit. Picture pulling high school algebra out of your ass at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning after a night of drinking. It was painful. So, I can now say that high school algebra, for the first time in twenty years has proven useful. If X=A+B, then A-12 is X2.

The answers that the questions were seeking were: (1) The marshall has 12 days from the return date to deliver the summons. (2.) Once the paralegal gets the documents back, they have to file it in the court 6 days from the return date, on a Tuesday. We were never given the return date or a calander. So we had no idea which date was a Tuesday and how far into the 12 days did the marshall deliver the summons.

We were so livid by this quiz. It wasn't testing knowledge. Hell, even though it did, it wasn't testing problem solving. It was rushed and poorly written and again -- rife with typos. It pushed all the wrong buttons with us. We drove 1 hour to Uconn at Avery Point. We were given this asinine quiz. We didn't even go over the answers. Luckily the attorney agreed with the class that this was nonsense. She assigned extra assignments that make sense! So we can bring our grade up. (One person in the class got a 100, but the Bullshit questions were 4 out of the 10, so if you missed one, you missed all of them, so that would be a 60). The attorney said in previous years, the quiz was to fill out a summons and an appearance sheet, in addition to ten questions. So if we do that, we'll get 10 points for the summons sheet and 10 points for an appearance sheet. I'll do that and raise my grade up to 100. I'll also do the other extra credit which was to look up one of her court cases that she mentioned in class. (I was actually going to do that anyway because it was interesting.) Anyway, 1 hour drive up. 1 hour class -- and she lets us go home for the day. 1 hour drive back. Second Sunday class in a row we were let out early. She also let us out two hours early on Saturday. I was pissed only because, if the quiz was only going to take an hour, why not do it Saturday and not have us come in at all on Sunday?

Now, I'm thrilled to have my Sunday back. I had good intentions to use the time I would have been in class to read the 8 chapters of homework (100 pages) and do the related work book assignments (I didn't count the pages but it was a sizable chunk). But I was so aggravated and the two late nights were taking it's toll, I made myself a sandwich and played WoW for the rest of the day, in bed under my covers, with the animals all around me. Lest you think we were total slugs, Purge and I folded the week's laundry as well. I set out my clothes for the rest of this week. And I went to bed early. So I'm going to study on lunch all this week. I should have stayed up the extra half hour and made myself lunch, but I had reached a wall and I plunked into bed and was asleep before Purge turned the light out.

2007-03-01T11:35:00.000-05:00

I was a tv slug last night. Sci-Fi was running all five episodes of the Dresden Files in order. So I got to watch them from the beginning. Very interesting stuff. Not as good as Supernatural, but entertaining nonetheless. I just wish Sci-Fi would rotate their commercials. The spooky Asian chick in the Quizno's commercial made me want to jab an icepick in my ear everytime she laughed. Five hours of the same commercial makes me never want to eat Subway or Quiznos ever again. EVER.

The good news is I finished the loop scarf! I'm going to block it tonight and post pictures on my LJ, so stay tuned for that. Next project is my sweater. I want to have it done to the neckline for my knitting class so my instructor can teach me how to seam it up and get the neckline done. I figure I can work on the sleeves while she shows everyone else how to knit and get them started.

The Dudley Farm is having a potluck supper soon to discuss this season's craft fairs. I'm not sure if I'm going to do it this year. I may take a year off. On the one hand, it's nice to sit in the sun and enjoy seeing the people come and go and on the very rare occassion sell something. But on the other hand, the scarf trend has passed and I need to come up with something different. I was thinking of making knitted troll dolls, to use up all that fun fur I bought. I've got some sketches done but I want them to be more rounded dolls than flat and I'm not sure how to shape them. So that's puttering around in my mind. Also I'm trying to see how I can recycle the felted bowls that never sold. I was also thinking about selling felted hats (as most people liked the bowls as hats). I need to also put the tassel on Purge's gaming fez. I should do that tonight too while I'm thinking of it. It's so nice to finish a long term project!

Also tonight Purge and I are going to study for our paralegal classes this weekend. I rocked the homework. So now we just have to compare answers and maybe re-read the chapters again. I might even read ahead because I'm a little brown noser, but that's just me. Then Dr. G and I are going to rock the Hellfire Pennisula group quests. Maybe we'll bring a little Cerveza with us -- if he gets his homework done.

2007-02-27T22:04:00.000-05:00

Ow
Ow
OW!

I had my first fencing class today. I liked it. The warm up was great, not too intense so you got fatigued, but not too easy so your muscles didn't get used. The footwork drills were reminescent of Tae Kwon Do. En guarde is a modified horse / side stance. I kept wanting to switch front and back legs. It's weird how your body remembers things. It's been over ten years since I've been in a dojo, but my legs got right into position. When we had a water break I used the wall to do side kicks to stretch out my back. He taught us lunging. I unfortunately drag my back foot like I'm Quasimodo, but I think I did OK for a first night. My inner thighs are killing me! But weirdly enough it's a good ache.

The absolute worst part of the night was when we got dressed. I didn't mind wearing the plastic boobies. I minded putting on someone elses sweaty and stinky arm/shoulder guard. I understand that when you borrow equipment for a class that you're not getting the best stuff. I expected it to be at least washed! If I wanted to be covered in someone else sweat and b.o. there are a lot more enjoyable activities to do that in. I was so squicked, I almost walked out. That and the fencing jacket I got had a broken zipper and it was the only XL, so that was embarrassing. Luckily, the instructor's jacket fit me. Still I felt bad. One of these days I'll never have to worry about not fitting in a roller coaster seat or an airplane seat. (The former has happened the latter hasn't happened yet)

2007-02-13T12:18:00.001-05:00

I cut my hair! You can see the pictures at my live journal.

Have you ever had a day that defined you as a person? That's pretty much how my day went yesterday. It started off weird and then ended nicely. As Monday's go it was a really great day.

It all started at 8:21 a.m. when A-1 Gutters woke us up by ringing the bell. (Yes, I now have gutters. Scratch that off the New Year's Resolution list) Gus freaked out. I hopped into the bathroom to shower (Purge put a towel up over our bathroom window for privacy). As I was in the shower, I hear the dog go ass over teakettle down the stairs. Get up. Run back up the stairs and then preceded to fall down the stairs again, this time peeing all the way down. (a 70 pound dog makes a lot of noise falling down the stairs -- twice) Purge, who threw on pants and a sweater got the gutter guys started and mopped up the mess. (Eh, the floor needed washing anyway) and Klutzo the dog seemed fine after his spills (literally).

Then, the work day positively flew by. Since Purge and I were sloths the entire weekend, raising only from Warcraft and bed to do laundry and make food, I decided that I would use our workout facilities in the basement at work. I would go down at 2 p.m. because that's when Knitty Gritty is on the DIY network and that day they were making felted Princess Hats. However, it turns out that we don't get the DIY network here. So instead of working out, I went shopping for purses at TJ Maxx.

The reason behind this is the zipper broke in my Dooney and Burke purse and nothing says class like trying to zip up a $300 purse with a paperclip. (Which works rather nicely, BTW). I suppose it would have been more personality defining if I went book shopping, but I already did that last week. I spent an hour and a half reading Brenda Joyce's The Prize in the used bookstore. God, she's a gripping writer. I didn't buy the book because the male protagonist, while well hung (which was described several times in graphic detail) was a, pardon the expression, a huge prick. Verbal and emotionally abusive and not a redeeming character trait except for his massive cock. Meh. Still, I read it and skipped the boring parts. I don't think he redeemed himself in the end. But as I had run out of lunch time in spades and didn't like him to begin with, I'll never know. Lest you think I was using the used bookstore as a library (I was. But some yuppie fucks commandeered the couch.), I bought Augusten Burrough's "Runs With Scissors", which they just made a movie out of. At first, I agreed with the book blurb that it was "David Sedaris meets the Hotel New Hampshire" and not as funny as David Sedaris. However, the book was impossible to put down and I finished it over the weekend and gave it to my mother. Who will either love it or hate it. I'll say one thing it addressed Pedophilia without making me squick too much or bringing the novel to a screeching halt. The utter casualty of it was chilling. It was an amazing book. So amazing that I don't want to see the movie.

At TJ Maxx, I came to several conclusions. One is that I don't like Tommy Hilfiger's designs. I don't see what the BFD is with Harajuko Lovers (and this is coming from a Hello Kitty fan). That I refrained from buying a super cheap Dooney and Burke round backpack because I'm not 21 anymore. I did see a lovely Etienne Aigner straw purse that would definitely fit in with my "Guilford Matron" summer persona. However, that lovely straw would be shredded by midseason and I just couldn't do that to an unsuspecting purse. So I went back to the office after a brief stop at Stop and Shop for some bread and snacks and surfed Macy's because I have a gift card. (Thank you Boogie Shoes and Redsox!) However, the Dooney and Burke's didn't thrill me and the new Coach's while nice didn't move me either way. I'll probably check out the Clinton outlets this Friday on the way up to Wryan's for D&D.

Then it occured to me that I didn't know where my Coach bag was. Surely that would do in a pinch? Or at least until I can get to Manhattan and buy a $20 Louis Vuitton rip off. This is the bag I purchased after working a Christmas season at PCD after they laid me off. Purge had been working 12 hour shifts and I wanted to be with him. I used the money I made in that season to buy this Coach bag. Huh, you'd think I'd keep better track of it. I think it's either in the attic (I always want to spell that attack, and if you'd seen my attic you would understand) or in one of the downstairs closets.

When I got home, I dropped off the groceries and then went over to my Mom's house. She had made me dinner of Meatloaf (with bacon on top), Mashed potatoes and baked beans. I brought over a cranberry and pecan loaf of bread I had bought. After dinner (There's nothing like your mom's meatloaf is there?), she cut my hair and styled it.

Then I was back home by 7:30 and Metrocake and I rocked Elwyn forest with our baby druids until we were almost level 9. Of course it was also 1 a.m. when we finished. Then Purge and I went to bed.

The alarm came a bit early this morning.

2007-02-05T10:41:00.000-05:00

For the weekend update, especially how the Mega Meal Marathon went, check out my livejournal.

So, it was a busy and fun weekend. Friday, we played D&D at Wryan's and I got to play with Hotdish's puppy! He's so cute. I love fat and furry little puppies. I wouldn't leave him alone. Just adorable. Saturday, we devoted mostly to cooking. Our modem worked for all of five minutes several times that day. It was so frustrating! I made the best of it, though, and popped in two of my Pirate DVD's from Netflix and took some really good notes. The National Geographic one on Blackbeard was excellent, the other one that looked like it was produced by high school students was less so. Although I did get a few names to search on and leads to follow up with. I was too exhausted from the cooking and aggravated from the modem to do any writing or reading. But I also watched 2/3 of a DVD on Windsor castle which was fascinating. Sunday, we were still having modem problems. We cooked some more to prepare for the big game and but still managed to get some Warcraft time in. I wanted the Colts to win because I've got a bit of a crush on Peyton Manning. So I was happy to see them pull it off. What a quirky game though. When the Bears scored on the opening kick off, I thought that would set the tone of the game. But with all that crazy rain and the fumbling, it did make things interesting.

I'm a little sad to be back at work today. Only because there wasn't a lot of play time this weekend. But that being said, I usually get a lot of free time at work. So I guess it will even out. Looking ahead, this week is again the quiet before the storm. Tonight, we're finishing up on laundry. Seriously, how do two people generate so much dirty clothes???? Nightskye is coming over to watch Raw and help with the Superbowl leftovers. I think I'm going to watch some DVDs in the bedroom and have an early night. Tuesday, we're D&Ding with Cans and crew. Wednesday and Thursday, hopefully, our modem will be fixed and we can play a little in Azeroth, but even if it's not, we're going to do some tidying around the house. The kitchen isn't as wrecked as I thought it would be after the cooking marathon, but it could use some loving attention. The spare room has become cluttered again, so that's a small project and the bedroom definitely needs a shovel. But all in all, not a daunting task. The basement. Now that's a daunting task and probably on hold until May or June. Then Friday, we go to get our taxes done. I don't think we owe -- but I don't think we're going to get a nice refund either. I'll be happy if we break even. And at least if we do have to pay out, we're doing this nice and early so we've got time to get the money together.

No weekend plans yet. If my modem isn't fixed, I think I'm going to be a fixture at the library for their free wireless. Gaming aside, I like the freedom to be able to look up things at my leisure. Of course, I should probably bring back those overdue library books. I really should know better not to bring research books home. I *never* return them in time. Although, now that I'm thinking about it I do have "The Kite Runner", which was fiction. I should read that one before it goes back. It looked really interesting.

I've got tons of plans and preparations swirling through my mind. I'm really worried about our tough schedule in the next two months. On the one hand, I'm sure I'm over thinking all of this. But on the other hand, I don't want to be caught stressed out and not able to do well on the paralegal courses. The good news is that I'm on my second cup of tea and my head is clearing up for organization.

2007-02-02T14:46:00.000-05:00

I'm reading three books at the same time:

Nora Roberts "Visions in Death" Her futuristic cop Eve Dallas
Isabel Allende "Zorro"
Barb and J.C. Hendee "Traitor to the Blood"

I don't mean to start one without finishing, but the book is never around when I need it.

For example, Zorro, is in my car. It should *not* be my bank book. The storytelling is too rich and the writing too beautiful to only read in 15 minute intervals.

That's where "Visions of Death" should be. Mind candy and non stop action. However, for some reason, that's in my bookshelf where I picked it up while I was waiting for my modem to restart. I think it's time for a new modem! It keeps refusing to let me log into Warcraft at inconvenient times. Like when I told someone I'd meet them or in the middle of helping out a guildmate.

And I'm not even sure where I left "Traitor to the Blood". It was supposed to be in my purse. I hope it didn't fall out and is sitting on the kitchen table because I just couldn't cram one more thing into my purse. It was my bank book, but I found I was skimming to get to the good parts. And while not as lyrical as "Zorro" this wasn't a book I wanted to rush through.

But I'll probably finish all three this weekend and then I'll do a live journal post for my novel reading challenge. I believe this would bring it up to 15 out of 50.
Especially, if my modem won't let me in during the superbowl. Nightskye is coming up and we're going to mock the commercials and eat stuff from BJ's that I'm going to pick up on Saturday because I really can't be arsed to cook this year. LOL.
Although, we'll see. There were some really yummy looking Weight Watchers recipes kicking around the interweb this week. And it wouldn't kill me to eat healthy. And I do have a turkey defrosting in the fridge that will probably be ready to make on Sunday. So maybe I'll do a Thanksgiving type of spread with stovetop stuffing and those Shea's Spread tubs of mashed potatoes. For ha-ha's I think I'm going to make Paula Dean's Green Bean Bundles, because the three of us were watching her Christmas special and thought it was a hoot that she couldn't make anything without butter or bacon.

2007-01-29T11:31:00.000-05:00

The Quiet Before the Storm . . .

The next three months are going to be super busy at the Schmidt house. Or rather not at the Schmidt house. Purge and I decided to take a bunch of adult education classes, and then more recently a paralegal course at UCONN at Avery Point in New London.

I've always said that spending like 15 grand on a paralegal course was bullshit because at the end of it, you're out the money and you're not guaranteed a job. And to top it all off, you're not a real paralegal until you've worked at a law firm for two years. However, UCONN came up with this super affordable certificate course that in 148 hours gives you a nice background/base in litigation, corporate law, trusts and wills. Something that I sorely need in my day to day job if I want to better apply myself and really understand what's going on. I was bummed that there wasn't a real estate law course, because that's the main thrust of our law firm, but maybe they'll have one in the coming semesters. I mentioned it in passing to Purge and not only was he on board with me taking it, he is going to take it with me and hopefully use it to spring board into a law office. Whoot! So now I've got someone to drive with me, eat lunch with me, study with me and keep me focused! Also I don't have to spend every weekend from now until May without my husband. He'll be right beside me! Whoot again!

So starting in February, our classes kick in and March is the month from hell, schedule wise. The worst is two weeks towards the end of March that works out like this:

Monday: Tempest Knitting Class
Tuesday: Purge Tai Chi/KungFu Class- Tempest Belly Dancing Class
Wednesday: Both: Fencing Class
Thursday: FREE
Friday: Alternate week's D&D
Saturday: 9-5 Paralegal course
Sunday: 9-5 Paralegal course

So we're going to be low on the socializing with friends radar until May. When I'm thinking we'll probably deserve a nice vacation. I'm tentatively *very tentatively* thinking about a cruise or something easy the week of my birthday. Something along the lines of I want to sit in the sun and read, preferably with my toe in the water. I figure the third week in May will give us a few weeks to play catch up on house work and everything. However, just taking a week off and spending it at home doing nothing has its merits too. And has the built in benefit of not costing a dime. Still, we decided to use our tax refund for a vacation this year. On the other hand, I'm not sure if we're going to get enough back!

The H&R block guy that's been doing our taxes since we've moved to Guilford is no longer doing it. He told us last year. So that's a bummer, we've got to break in a whole new guy. It almost makes we want to file myself, but I think that would drive my anal retentive side crazy. It's much easier to get the "Peace of Mind" H&R block thing.

The one thing I don't want to do is gain weight because Purge and I are eating on the go with fast food. So I ordered the "Mega Mailer Freezer Meals" from Leanne Ely. This is the one where you make 22 dinners and freeze them. The cool thing is they make dinner for 4 people. So Purge and I spend 3 hours this weekend and we'll have 44 meals. I figure that will go a long way to helping us eat healthy over the next three months. Especially, if we're too tired to cook when we get home from class.

2007-01-26T14:38:00.000-05:00

Been doing lots and lots of editing on The Dread Queen. I'm starting to nitpick and get a little frustrated so I'm moving on to Chapter Three and posting it for my writing group. And then I'm going on to Chapter Four, which I think is my strongest chapter.

I'm avoiding a conumdrum in Chapter Four though, I introduce two really great characters from another novel in this chapter and they don't come back until the next book. Part of me wants to cut the scene they're in, but it's so fun and it saves the heroine's bacon. ::must think some more on this::

And yes, it's still super slow at work. The good news is that I'm getting a ton of writing work done. I find it's easier to edit at work and write at home, rather than try and write in between phone calls. The editing is good because I could use the ringing phone as a break to pop me out of my own writing. Sometimes I've read a line over so much I can't see the mistakes or typos because I read what's in my head and not what I've put down on paper.

To paraphrase Captain Jack Sparrow, "Why is the tea always gone?" I'm down to my last few "Paris" sachets for Harney and Sons and will be forced to go back to my Republic of Tea Passion Fruit Papaya and Mago Ceylon. Both, while tasty, are not as enjoyable as Harney.

So I'm a bachlorette tonight. Or at least until Purge loses his poker money. Which means he'll be home around eight. I'm going to make myself some hummus and Tzaziki (I'm pretty sure I spelled that wrong) burritos! And plop in some Inu Yashi while I finish up a present for baby Nicky.

I'm knitting a new pattern for a baby blanket and since it's a new pattern I'm not sure I'm doing it correctly. Is there supposed to be these big holes on the ends? But it's consistent. So it's a pattern, even if it's not what was written. I'm deeply disappointed in the yarn. It's Lion's Brand, which generally I don't have a problem with. A lot of yarn snobs do, but I'm like it's yarn -- for the most part I don't need to spend $15 a skein. I *appreciate* the expensive yarn, but Lion's Brand makes a pretty good product. Well, this is my first experience with their homespun. It's corkscrew curly and I dislike knitting with it. If I was using smaller needles, I would be weeping in a corner. Knitted up the blanket looks nice (except for the big holes on the end, but I'm holding out that the finished product will look fine after blocking) I hope anyway. The colors and the fabric look great, just working with it isn't a joy. But I know Nicky and his Mom and Dad will like the finished product.

2007-01-18T14:33:00.000-05:00

Funny thing happened to me today.

My job description is "Answer the phone. I don't care what you do in between times."
Now, I will do filing, mailing, typing, organizing, open files, close them, talk to customers, track releases, etc. etc.

However, I am also pretty much on my own for time frame. I try to do a little bit of everything every day.

Anyway, today most of my work-work is done and the phones aren't ringing. So I decide to work on The Dread Queen revisions a bit. I pull up my draft and the critiques of my writing group so I can address the issues. I got nailed on a "show don't tell" portion, so I'm trying to think of a way to show instead of tell.

My boss comes down and looks at me and says, "Are you OK?"

I blink and come out of the novel and say, confused "Yeah, why?"

"Do you have a headache?"

"No. . . uh . . was I scowling?"

"Yeah," he said.

I was going to tell him what I was doing but instead I just laughed and switched screens to the daily calander. I made sure I sounded "extra friendly" on the phone the next time it rang. LOL

2007-01-03T14:43:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday Jacknife. 37. God, you're old!

I've still got a recurring cough, but I think I've recovered from my lamest New Year's ever. Don't get me wrong, it was fun to completely remove my brain and immerse myself in Final Fantasy 12. It makes the boring time, grinding for gil, license points and experience go by faster when you're bombed on DayQuil.

So I joined a live journal communite called 50 Book Challenge. Not because I think I need to be challenged to read 50 books in one year, but because I'm curious as to how many books I do read. I'm already ahead of the curve having read five books in three days. I wonder if I can average 365? LOL, that's just ridiculous -- but not out of the question. Hmmmm.

The eating healthy resolution would have gone much more smoother today if my chiropractor didn't give the office a 2 gallon popcorn tin from Garretts. This is seriously the best popcorn I ever had. He gave us the cheese and caramel corn split. OMG! The cheese is the cheesiest and the caramel is light and sweet and so good! I promised Purge if there was any left I would try and bring him some home. Too good to be believed!

2007-01-02T10:05:00.000-05:00

Well, it wasn't a good year for Resolutions, it looks like. I had a bit of a mix up in my holiday rememberances. You can read more about it on my live journal. As much as I love being involved in all the communities and my flist on Live Journal. I'll never give up on blogger. I mean six years of my life have been documented on this journal.

So here are last year's resolutions and how they resolved in 2006:

1. Actively work on the Flylady's housecleaning and body clutter steps

Housecleaning 100%. Body Clutter 10%. I'm not zealotly about Flylady, but using her methods, my house is only about an hour away from being "company ready." I don't read her e-mails regularly, but I do get them in digest form and whenever I've feeling overwhelmed or need a lift, I read them and they help. There are still hot spots in my house. The spare room is a nightmare, but not in a messy way, just in a "I don't know what to do with this room" way. The bedroom closet, while no longer the pit of despair, really needs a good overhaul and I have to finish putting in the winter clothes. Although when it's going to be 60 degrees on Saturday, I'm not very motivated to do that. The big problem areas are the basement and the garage. I think I'm going to take advantage of the 60 degree weather on Saturday to tackle the garage. I read the Body Clutter book, but I didn't find anything I could relate too. The best thing I took from it was that she has you weigh yourself everyday. The reason behind this is not so much to get an accurate weight but to take the fear and importance away from getting on the scale. It also shows you the fluctuations that happen on a day to day basis and that you really can't rely on the scale to be your motivation to lose weight. I think Weight Watchers misses this important mark. I had fantastic weeks on WW where I did everything right and exercised, only to lose a tenth of a lb. That would destroy my motivation and self esteem. Intellectually, I knew that it could be a plethora of reasons why the scale was not moving. But emotionally, I thought to myself "Why bother?" for just a tenth of a lb. But the scale does eventually catch up if you do keep "bothering". Weighing yourself every day won't give you your "true" weight but it will let you see how not drinking enough water or intaking too much sodium fluctuates the scale. And unless you take in 3500 calories (6 Big Macs) in one day, you haven't really gained a lb. And on the flip side unless you burn 3500 calories in one day (4-1/2 hours of jogging), you haven't really lost a lb. So your true weight is probably the "once a week" one, provided that it's done at the same time, wearing the same clothes and even then the fluctuations can put that off a day or so. However, with all the ups and downs, I'm still 10 lbs lighter than I was last year and 19 lbs lighter than the year before so I'm making progress . . . slooooooowly. Still it's better than a gain.

2. Walk 15 minutes every day

Bwa-ha-ha-ha! This is really embarrassing. I mean how hard is that really? I guess the problem is I just don't want to do it. I find walking boring. And even though it's good for me and I should do it, I find a hard time getting motivated for it. But this is definitely an area that I want to improve on. I have a very sedidentary lifestyle and I would like to change that.

3. Keep a food journal

Eh, not so much. I did for a few months at Weight Watchers online and truth be told, that's how I lost about 20 lbs in two and a half months. Not doing it is pure laziness.

4. Get published in 12 new ezines/print magazines and maintain a presence in my regular publications.

Toe digging in the sand. I don't even want to look this up. Courage! Heh, it's not on my work computer anymore. But I'm pretty sure it's on one of the two disks I have with me in my briefcase. *sigh* Well, I've got an old version. I'm pretty sure the new version on my laptop doesn't have any new markets. It looks like I got published in one new ezine: Static Movement Online in February 2006 with "Gonna Get Close to You." So 1/12 isn't so good, huh? But I did still have stories published in Anotherealm and placed in a few of the contests, so I'm proud of that. I also joined an online writing group that has had a tremendous impact on my writing. The group of writers are extremely professional and helpful and it's equally helpful to give critiques as well as receive them because you are constantly faced with what works and what doesn't. Aside from the fact, I've read some excellent fiction and watched works develop over drafts which is invaluable experience.

5. Add 30,000 words to the next draft of Dead Man Stalking and send it out to another agent / publisher.

Bzzzt Nope. But I did write 50,000 words on a new novel called The Dread Queen which I think -- along with Dead Man Stalking are publishable novels. They need some more meat and some polish and then I'll be looking for an agent. I did send a 250 word hook into Miss Snark (a fellow blogger who is also a NYC agent) for her Crap-0-meter to get some feedback and out of 700 entries she received, she picked me and 47 other people to send her in 750 words for more feedback. So I'm really looking forward to her comments.

6. Finally buy slip covers and drapes for the living room and dining room.

Done. Checkerooni!

7. There was also a secret resolution that I was going to let you in on. It didn't happen. ::shrug:: All day, I was trying to figure out what it was, because I had forgotten. However, it just hit me what it was. LOL. I'm going to keep you in the dark for yet another year because I'll keep it as a resolution this year too. Heh!

So that leaves me with this year's resolutions. I heard on the radio today that a resolution shouldn't be a Things to Do list, but I disagree. Sure it's nice to have ones that represent long lasting change for the better, but sometimes just crossing off that one thing that was bothering you on your "Must Get Done List" that you've been putting off forever and the one thing that's going to keep you honest and get it done is to put it down on paper.

That being said, here are my New Year's Resolutions for 2007:

1. Print out the 6 years of Blogger so if Blogger's servers ever go ass over teakettle, I have a record of the last half decade of my life. (I'll look into if I can download them and save them on my hard drive or a CD so I can save a few trees/toners). And maintain the back up on a weekly basis.

2. Remodel the spare room so that I'm finally happy with it and can shut up already about it. I've been putting it off because if it was going to be a nursery I didn't want to remodel it twice. But I think that's silly. I've been unhappy with the room for seven years. If and when there's a baby on the way, then I'll redo it. So I think it's going to become a spare bedroom with office accoutrements. Or maybe an office with a pull out sofa. I'll get back to you on it next year.

3. Write every day for at least an hour. I'm toying with adding a word count caveat on that as well, but Nanowrimo taught me that's not necessarily a good thing. I know that I can write 1000 really good words in an hour. I know that if I'm pressed I can write really crappy to hit a word count. I think I'll save the word count goals for when I'm stuck. Then I'll give myself permission to write crappy to bridge the gap between good writing and bad writing. So what am I going to do with all this writing? Here are goals, not necessarily resolutions, to accomplish in this writing time:

a. Finish Dead Man Stalking. I want to break the book down scene by scene (chapter / chapter) so see where I can add more plot and suspense, dialogue and description. I want to target that at a polished 80,000 words. I want to get a query letter written and a summary.

b. Finish The Dread Queen. I want a draft of 70,000 to 80,000 words.

c. Continue to submit to Anotherealm's and Static Movement Online's contests.

d. Submit to 12 new magazines and ezines this year -- half of which must be paying venues. (Not that I don't love the non-paying ones, exposure is just as good as payment some time, but I find the paying markets have more of a prestige for building reputation)

e. Research five agents to whom I would like to represent me in case my first choice, Writer's House, decides not to accept me.

4. Eat healthy and get in weekly exercise. I'm leaving this one deliberately vague. Of course, I'd still like to drop 100 lbs, but I'm going to become satisfied with drinking more water (2 glasses for every 1 glass of soda), and sticking to the food pyramid (more veggies and fruit). I also, absolutely, want to not go crazy between Thanksgiving and New Year's! During that time, I resolve to only eat one treat a day. And eat three meals a day instead of grazing all day and night long. I want to do some fun exercise too like roller blading or sword fighting or belly dancing and yoga. I want to build up some wind and some upper body strength.

5. Put gutters on the house. (Like the curtains and slipcovers resolution of last year, I have a feeling this one will be scheduled if not completed by the end of this month.) I'd also like this to be the year of house renovations. But I'm not going to get too crazy. I'd like to get three quotes on black topping my driveway -- even though my father and cousin scared me with a $8,000.00 estimate. Ya know, gravel works. I don't want to roller blade and play basketball that badly. At least I don't think I do. Landscape the front yard would be nice, if we can decide on what we'd like. Redo our back decks. I hate what we have now. Landscape the back yard would be nice. Although I don't think the swimming pool or the horse barn are in the immediate future. Wire the basement and sheetrock that room.

2006-12-28T13:48:00.000-05:00

Must . . . stop . . . eating . . . chocolate.

I have no willpower when it comes to chocolate. You would think I was a 10 year old kid. I have a cold and I feel icky. I've been drinking lots of tea and I had chicken soup for lunch. I've been sucking down Dayquil caplets and airborne gummy lozenges and I still feel yucky. Bleah.

The good news is that HarleyMom and Robspierre are coming over tonight for dinner and they're bringing the sprogs too. We're making Rachel Ray's Christmas Pasta, romaine salad and garlic bread! YUM-O!

They asked the Food Network stars what they stocked in their holiday fridge. Here's what they said:

Paula Deen
"Butter, ham, cream cheese, bacon and mayo." -- LOL big surprise there

• Ellie Krieger
"Marinated olives, a garlicky bean dip, frozen shrimp (for a quick shrimp cocktail), red grapes and sparkling wine: all for an impromptu holiday party." -- That sounds awesome doesn't it?

• Guy Fieri
"Cold cuts (prosciutto, capicolla, Columbus dry salame, sopressata, and hot coppa), killer cheeses, five different mustards, a big ole prime rib, a couple bottles of Korbel champagne and some pizza for holiday cooking nourishment." -- Wow!

• Michael Chiarello
"I always stock prosciutto, salame, mozzarella, Parmigiano-Reggiano and Locatelli, Italy's most famous (and incredibly addictive) pecorino cheese." -- He did a great show where he had a holiday party where all his guests helped cook presents for people on their Christmas list. They did a group project to make Canned Antipasto, Spicy & Sweet roasted walnuts, Flavored oils and Italian cookies. It gave me a grain of an idea for next Christmas.

• Nigella Lawson
"Pancetta for frying and adding to vegetables, walnuts in the shell, beautiful pomegranates to add red-jewel sparkle, lychees and red grapes for gorgeous fruit displays, and vine leaves, when available, for fruit garnish." -- Neat!

Giada De Laurentiis (Purge's Girlfriend)
"A bottle of Proseco, panettone and frozen cookie dough for impromptu holiday gifts."

George Duran
"Fruit cake made with Gummy Bears, Gummy Worms, Twizzlers, and jelly beans." -- I don't like fruit cake, but this recipe might just work.

The Hearty Boys
"Organic whole milk for the baby, lots of champagne and a bottle of Bailey's for us (it's our tradition to drink Baileys and eat warm chocolate chip cookies when we decorate our Christmas tree), some really fine imported cheeses for drop-in guests and, if you catch us on December 23rd, at least seven different types of seafood for the Christmas Eve seafood feast." -- Nice tradition with the Bailey's.

Emeril Lagasse
"Artisinal cheeses, assorted salamis and sausages, Champagne and lots of wine and all the ingredients for a family holiday dinner." -- Everyone has mentioned salami pretty much. Gus ate the salami off my parents dinner table on Christmas Eve. LOL.

Purge and I decided that we were going to have a quiet, low key New Year's just ourselves and the animals. I don't want to cook. I just want to have appetizers and gnoshies all weekend. So far I came up with Deviled eggs and some frozen hors d'oeuvres from BJ's, but looking at the chef's ideas I think I might have to add some red grapes, marinated olives, fresh mozzarella & tomatoes with basil, hummus, baby carrots, celery and roasted red peppers.

2006-12-08T12:06:00.000-05:00

Warcraft thoughts . . .
I don't think I like my new Protection spec talent tree for my 58 warrior, Irideane. Dr. G and I (He was playing his 59 Shadow Priest, Caerlon) were grinding in the Eastern Plaguelands last night and I couldn't hold aggro from his mind flay spell or his vampiric embrace spell -- His two main attacks. Now granted, he wasn't letting me get in a few solid hits first, but I also couldn't steal the aggro away from him either. Since this is the whole idea why I switched from Arms to Protection, I'm feeling a little disgruntled. The other thing I'm going to try before spending the 10 gold I really don't have to respec is to play around with the different battle stances. As an arms warrior, I *never* got out of the Battle Stance. However, I'm finding with the protection warrior, I need to start out in Battle to do damage and switch to Protection to keep aggro. It still doesn't work with the priest, but it did work with Purge's 60 rogue. So maybe it's that clothies hit harder and there's nothing you can do about it. ::shrug:: It's also because I just got a kick ass one handed sword and I'm still training in it. I thought 200 - 250 would be good enough but I was still causing glancing blows. Little Iri used to wield twin axes until I protection specc'd and had to give up an axe for a shield. Like I said, I'll probably play around with it some more. I did make 2 gold grinding last night and went up from 58-1/4 to 58-1/2, so that's something. I might take her out of the plaguelands and bring her back to Sithilus to gain some Cenarion Circle reputation.

For Niennanessa, my 60 mage, I'm excited about building her up to level 70. I can't wait for Burning Crusade to come out, although I'll probably be more focused with my blood elf mage named Lore (from Dread Queen heh heh heh ::insert nerd sounds here::)
I took Nien into a Battle Ground for the first time in forever and was appalled by the mass chaos in Warsong Gulch. First of all, the Alliance never talked anyway, but now that there's not even a raid channel because of the cross realms patch anymore, NO ONE says anything. We lost, of course, and I had to redo my keyboard hot keys to put my Battle Ground spells back in. Still it was disturbing. I may have lost my taste for it. Part of what I liked about it was chatting with a strategy on the channel. *sigh*

Xiomarrah is still plugging away through the late 40's and the 50's are on the Horizon. I'm running out of places to have her go. Because she grinding a lot of the 40's with a group, there's not a lot of quests still open to her. I may have to go to the UnGoro Crater with a buddy. I'm liking her imp's improved fireblast, though. Just got to avoid the big mean dinosaur that stealths around there. Maybe I should try Morgan's Vigil to see if that's more level appropriate.

Betzaida the 24 priest is still waiting for Kaimeo to join her in Ashenvale so they can do some questing. Although, I'm a bit sick of the area, I want to clear out my quest log with the easy quests and go on back to Redridge. Then it's on to the Shimmering Flats and Blasted lands, both areas that are nowhere near each other but I've never gotten to do the quest chains there.

Knitting thoughts . . .
I wish I had four hands. That way I could finish all my projects. Purge and I are going into Manhattan this weekend. Metrocake and BytrTKD are having a holiday open house and we're going to take the train in. So I'm going to bring one skein of yarn and my hat that I'm making my Dad for Christmas. He actually asked me to make him one in hunter's orange because he lost his!

Christmas thoughts . . .
The tree and lights are up but not decorated yet. (Sunday and this time I mean it.) However, it is a happy little tree and I did enjoy eating dinner watching the pretty lights twinkle. Although, I was an ass hat and left the ground beef I bought for dinner in the fridge at work. So we had sausage and pancakes for dinner instead. The Christmas presents are all purchased but not wrapped. They're currently stacked in the dining room in their unopened shipping boxes. (Sunday -- maybe tonight before Nightskye comes over). No Christmas baking or cooking has been done, mostly because of the kitchen nightmare. And I keep changing my mind on what I want to do. Speaking of which, I haven't received my copy of Food Network's 12 cookies of Christmas in awhile. I'll have to go poke around on their site. It was so cold today! It snowed a bit in New Haven and it was very pretty to see. I was glad that Purge found my leather gloves to wear. Not only do they match my new jacket, but it kept me nice and warm.

Housecleaning thoughts . . .
My house is a disaster area! The closet still needs to be done and there is several piles of clean clothes to be either donated, put away in the closet or put away in the attic. I hate the fact that I can't find outfits to wear! Grrr! Something will definitely have to be done and soon. Then the bathroom floor needs to be disenfected and washed because the white cat still uses it as a litter box. Purge thinks it's because she's too lazy to get her fluffy white butt downstairs. I think it's because she scent marked it. The spare room is a gigglefest too. I have no strength to even look at it. I just close the door and hope that the cleaning fairies will visit us in the middle of the night. Last night while waiting for the Battlegrounds to pop, just like old times, I did a RL (real life) quest. I managed to clean off most of the island. It needs to be washed, but at least I'll feel comfortable assembling dinner and serving off of it tonight. Nightskye's coming over and I'm making Steak and Veggie Pie. I was going to make that last night, but forgot the ingredients at work. Derrrr! I'm going to quarter up some baby red potatoes and bake them with a little drizzle of olive oil and serve it up with a salad. We're going to eat on snack tables. I'm probably going to work on my Shadowrun adventure for next Wednesday while Purge helps Nightskye roll up a character for the adventure. If there's time, I'll run them through a mini adventure so Nightskye can get comfortable or at least introduced to the new rules.

Writing thoughts . . .

To commence after lunch. .

2006-12-06T10:55:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry Blogger, I've been neglecting you for Live Journal! Don't worry, you'll always have a place in my heart.

So today, I got the new Ralan's e-mail. I love this e-mail. I get so excited and start planning projects around which magazines I'd like to submit too. It makes me feel like a writer. So far I've got four short stories to get out and a Crapometer submission to Miss Snark. I guess it's back to the daily writing again.

I had an epiphany today. I was a bit drag assing it this morning. I think part of it was being food stoned from last night's HUGE dinner. See the LJ for more details on that. I got in to work and sat down at my desk and felt more energized and organized for the day. I think I need to set up a work station at home. During Nano I tried writing at the dining room table, which works except the chairs aren't all that comfortable. Towards the end, I'd be propped up in bed which leads itself to its own distractions or snuggled up on the couch watching TV and writing half heartedly. Not once, did I enter the spare room and sit at the desk. Oh egads, the horror of what that nightmare looks like. To give you an idea when we have to clean the crap off the dining room table to eat or if there's company coming over, it goes on the desk in the spare room. However, now that the armoire in there has been stripped of yarn, I can start passing the buck into that. I've decided to call that the hobby armoire. So I can start putting the soap making supplies in there along with the D&D and Shadowrun stuff when they're not in use. This should help out a bit with real estate in that matter. Then what I hope to do is have a desk that I feel comfortable sitting at and working. Unfortunately, I'm not too comfortable with the computer desk. It's a corner unit and impossible to sit at unless you pull the drawer way out and even then my chair makes me feel like a two year old sitting in it. I think it needs to be emptied and moved to the free corner in the dining room. Planning ahead this would be a nice "media area" for family computing. Although I'm pretty sure Purge wants to move this unit as much as he wants a sharp stick in his eye. I'm also not sure if putting it in "that" corner would block our windows or the sliding glass door. So there should be some measuring going on. However, it's not a surprise that the whole room bothers me, but especially because I need a real desk. Not a table. Not a computer armoire. A desk desk. Which leads me to Ikea. Is there anything it can't do? I'm kinda eyeballin the Galant series, but I think I need to look at my trusty catalog for better ideas. I'm feeling an overhaul coming on. ::cracks knuckles::

I also found several boxes of crap in my closet that Purge and I decided we'd go through "a box a day" until it was cleared up. I have high hopes that my two leather portfolios are stuffed inside there. The weird thing is I can't remember if I bought them or not. I know that sounds a little psychotic. But whenever we go to the Renaissance Fair in Tuxedo New York, there is a leather vendor that sells 10x13 and 6x9 artist notebooks (Black covers with bound white paper) that have leather portfolio covers in cool designs in colored leather. I bought a purple dragon 6x9 and I know where that one is. Ironically enough, it's on the desk in the spare room. Here's where it gets tricky. I can picture in my mind a 10x13 in a rust colored with Celtic tooling on it. I can also picture a red leather one with a rose pattern (Put I'm pretty sure that's all in my head and the one I was going to buy next) and a Forest Green on with a dragon on it. I know for a fact I have one 10x13. I used it to write "Jewels of Power" when I was unemployed. I'm pretty sure I have a second large one that I endulged in. I can find neither big one. The one with my writing in it pisses me off because I hope I didn't leave it at the library one day when I was researching something. Because that's the last place I remember having it in hand.

Work is same ole same ole. Christmas is rapidly approaching and it's down to decorating, wrapping and knitting. More updates later, on a more regular schedule too!

2006-11-29T19:40:00.000-05:00

Conversations on the ride up to D&D last night:

Purge: "Do we want Burger King or should we hold out for MckyD's up ahead?"
Nightskye: "I don't care."
Tempest: "Me neither."
Purge missing the entrance to Burger King and pulling in to Dunkin Donuts.
Tempest: "Dunkin Donuts it is."

Nightskye: "To bad there's not a Kentucky Fried Chicken around here."
Purge: "Ugh, I have to eat KFC on the toilet."
Nightskye: "That's the way I am with Taco Bell. It doesn't even stay in my system long enough to digest. Which is really tough with the hard tacos. The sound of shredding anus.
Tempest: I've got to e-mail UIM that with that for a band name.

2006-11-10T11:33:00.000-05:00

So my diet of all candy bars (fun size) and Chinese food hasn't been going so well. I don't know why. Maybe I need to add pizza into the mix. Yeah, I'm having a (fat) girls gone wild couple of weeks. Goddamn Halloween. My ass feels like it's a billboard from all the chocolate I've eaten. Aren't you glad I shared?

The good news is that our HELOC came through and we can do some home improvement projects that have been bothering the heck out of me. I'm going to call the gutters guy on Monday and I'm shopping around for driveway / blacktop guys. Because we never put on gutters when the house was built -- (why you ask? I don't know ask our general contractor. He'll tell you that it's because I wanted Italian marble in the bathroom and a hot tub.) the weather has totally ruined our front door. So once the door is in place, out comes the door and in goes another one. I'm not sure how/who will handle the removal or replacement, but it's not going to be my husband nor my father, I'll tell you that. As for the driveway, I'm sick and flippin' tired of hitting that god damned pot hole every night. No matter how many times we fill it, boom, she's a puddle the next time it rains. Besides ever since I was a little girl, I wanted a black top driveway instead of a gravel one. (Because you can roller skate and bounce a basketball on it). Then there's the garage doors situation. They don't work. I'm not sure why, but I think it's got something to do with the dog chewing on the wires and Purge jury rigging them back together. I am not cleaning snow off my car in the morning. That's why I have a garage. Then there's the microwave. The one that works and the one that doesn't. I want the one that works out of the kitchen because it's too fucking big for the counter and the one that doesn't work, that's over the stove, to be fixed or removed and replaced with a new one. Then *something* has to be done with the spare room. I'm not sure just what that something is. But it's time is nigh.

After that, it will be time to sit down and think about which big project is going to attract our attention. Do we want to repaint the interior of the house or resand the hardwood floors? Or can that wait a few more years? Will it be the landscaping of the front yard? Will it be the basement room? Or will it be the backyard and the building of a new deck system. Our decks are awful and pretty soon are going to collapse. I'm hoping its not going to be at one of our parties. Actually, one of my dreams is to have a horse barn and a riding pen in our back yard, but that's going to take a lot more work and planning and probably more money than is currently in the HELOC. Still, it's nice to dream and to plan.

I'm leaning towards the basement. My grandfather has had an unfinished room in his house for over 50 years. My parents have an unfinished basement for the past 36 years. When we built this house I swore that we would finish that room and we haven't. I wanted to finish it at the time of construction, but apparently my need for the hot tub is what threw us all off budget. Yeah. And it was worth every friggin penny.

2006-11-03T09:53:00.000-05:00

I feel so accomplished. I'm sitting down promptly at seven every night and finishing my Nano word count by nine. That gives me time after I come home from work to relax, maybe take a tub bath or just wander around the house checking for kitties and eating fun size candy. (Will the candies just DIE already???) Then after nine, I can get ready for the next day do a little post party cleaning (Will the dishes and laundry just DIE already???) And then I can do whatever I want until bedtime.

On lunch yesterday, I went to McDonalds, not for the stunning cuisine but so I could sit in a booth for some peace and quiet. Instead of working on my Nano novel like I had expected to, I wrote a 250 hook for the new Miss Snark Crap-o-meter that's coming December 15th and wrote down ideas on how to start the 750 word sample she may request if I don't suck it on the hook. I also wrote a four column things to do list of all the little things that have been nagging at me. Two of them were to 1. Figure out (again) how to use Double Pointed Knitting Needles (DPNs) so I could finish my mitten and 2. Find the pattern for the scarf my SIL saw and loved. After googling my little head off, I finally posed in Live Journal's Punk Knitter forum (Knitta please!) and immediately -- as in as soon as I could refresh the screen, I had two answers. So not only did I figure out the DPNs, I found the loop stitch and learned how to do that last night. So I did a couple of rows on my mittens and a couple of rows on the loop stitch. I was doing the loop stitch every other row on the scarf and it doesn't look quite right so I may frog it and do it every row and see if that looks better. The sample my SIL saw was so neat and even. My loops are all over the place and twisted. But I figured the pattern out with a little help from LJ. Ah LJ is there anything it can't do?????

I'm so happy today is Friday! We forgot to set the alarm this morning so instead of getting up at 7:30, I got up at 8, but I had everything laid out so I just grabbed everything and headed out the door. Today I'm meeting my Mom for lunch at Ruby Tuesday's in North Haven. I'm not a big fan, I'd rather go to Panera Breads but she loves the place so I figure I'd suck it up and have the salad bar. I'm hoping to eat fast and perhaps check out Michael's a bit before going back to work. Now that I'm the DPN queen, I want to try a couple of Knitty patterns, Fetching I need to pick up size 6 DPN's and a cable needle, but I hear that you can use the extra DPN for a place holder. That's what I'm doing with my mitten. But I don't want to get confused. This would be my first cable pattern and Thuja. These would be my first socks!

Also on the horizon, is Clapotis, Bobbilicious and the Knecklace. I'm having a hard time finding a substitute for the Clapotis yearn. 4 skeins at $30.85 a skein. Yeah no. How about no. That would be over $120 for a scarf. Are you serious? I'm sure it's gorgeous yarn. I'm sure it's a lovely drape. 120 frikkin dollars? I could buy 10 skeins of Malabringo and make 10 scarves! However, as I also don't want to use the "cheap stuff" on this pattern, I'm going to have to search around some more for some type of compromise.

I'm trying to think how I'm going to set up my 5 foot table for the Christmas fair in December. I think I'm going to put all my scarves in a big basket and have people paw through them with a big sign that says "Scarves $20" Keep the scrunchie basket with a big sign that says "Scrunchies $3" and I'm going to nest all the felted bowls and have a sign that says "Bowls $10". Then have the rest of the table for knitted toys. My mother has some really cute granny square clowns. And I'm going to try and get started on my kitty toys. They're resembling this knitty pattern Kitty Dim Sum, but with my own twists. I've got my own catnip to add to the stuffing. I also want to do a few dolls but I'm not sure how my time is going to be between now and the first week of November. I'd also like to make some washcloths, as that seems to be the hot new thing, but ::shrugs:: there's only so much time in the day.

Good news! I just found out that Catty New Year, where my short story "The Tiger Strikes at Midnight" is #17 on Lulu's Best Seller List this week. Check it out!

2006-11-02T11:17:00.000-05:00

Is it just me or does the third season of LOST suck? I mean there's a few "Oooooooh" moments, but in general not a lot happens. Or at least happens for a logical reason.

I can't wait for next week though. The previews have two people gettin' it on that I'm oh so interested in.

So it's day two of nano and I'm write on target. This almost never happens. I'm never disciplined. I'm always half hazardly writing when the "mood" hits me and always making up time on the weekend. So it's fun to be "staying the course" and putting in the required wordage. Of course, it's only been one day, LOL, but still.

I definitely could have written more last night. But I wanted to pace myself. I wanted to be able to read my book and surf the internet and watch LOST. What I'm really trying to do is use this month to build a habit. 7 p.m. I sit my butt down and write for two hours. The word count should be unimportant, but I find that keeping to the 1667 keeps me honest about not slacking off.

You can read the prologue I did yesterday that counts around 777 words or so on my live journal, although you have to be on my "friends" list to read it. If you want, I can just e-mail it to you too if you don't feel like signing up for live journal. Oh! It's also on my nanowrimo page too. My author name is Jamie_Schmidt. If you view my profile the prologue and the first part of the first chapter is up there. I'm giddily excited about the whole thing. I think the major thing is getting back into the swing of writing and making it a daily priority.

The funny part about Nano, is all the excuses my brain comes up with not to write. I started feeling badly about short stories that aren't written yet and "Dead Man Stalking" that needs another 50K to it and all the other writing projects that have been on the back burner for the past 10 months. I had to tell myself that it's only 30 days and then I'd have all the time I wanted to finish those projects. So my brain being thwarted started throwing knitting projects at me and Christmas shopping and books I wanted to read and things I needed to do around the house. To that I merely replied that once the 1667 words were done each day, I was free to do whatever I wanted. Well, my subconscious had NO idea what to do about that. I like keeping it on it's toes.

2006-10-26T11:32:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling invisible today. And not in the good "invinsible" way either. More along the lines of small and insignificant. I'm in a mushy mood. For some reason, I'm sad and a little lonely. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm a little tired. The more probable answer is that I'm a lot bored.

My mother house sat for us last night because I had forgotten Peapod was coming. (derrr) And we were out getting the last touches of our Dog and Beth costumes for the Friday D&D game. P.S. my house is still a mess so tonight will be cleaning :P.

Ash peed on my cotton rug that I made for the bathroom. Which, I guess is her opinion on it. I'm so glad that she's feeling better. Last night's LOST was good, although not as good as the trailor led us to believe. Still very interesting stuff. Ash cuddled on my lap and Tish cuddled on Purge's so it was a dueling kitty TV night. It's nice to be loved. The dog hogged the entire bed last night though. God, I hate that stinky mutt.

Bored Bored Bored.

I ate my two fun size candy bars and am halfway through my 100 calorie pack of Chips Ahoy and it still hasn't brightened my day up any. You know you're in trouble when the power of chocolate can't heal you. I feel like a drooping flower that needs to be watered.

I want to sit and read my book. Well, almost 20 minutes until lunch. Then I can pop outside and devour book 4 of my Stephanie Plum series. I suppose I can actually do work to make the time go by.

Blah

2006-10-17T10:17:00.000-04:00

I feel so relieved.

We finally took Ash to the vet because while she hasn't been hacking anymore since we used the furball cream, she's been acting really funny lately. She's usually right next to me at all possible moments. For the past few days, she's been hiding in a dark corner in the basement in between the wall and a cabinet. When she only ate a little wet food last night and after I picked her up and found something swollen under her jaw, we brought her in first thing this morning.

I had all sorts of horror stories going through my brain. The vet couldn't see her until much later so we dropped her off. She called a few minutes ago and it's an abcess full of pus. They have to shave her neck, give her anaesthia, lance it and put a soft collar on her. But she's probably going to come home tonight or tomorrow and she'll be fine. This is such a big relief. I was horrified that we hadn't taken her in for three years. She's an indoor cat so it's not that big of a deal, but still that is a long time and she's behind on her shots. So we need to make appointments for Gus and Tish too even though they're peachy keen.

Yesterday, Fil and I went to see "The Departed." Wow. Just Wow. I hadn't heard a bad thing from *anyone* who saw this movie. That and the cast is amazing, so I knew it was going to be pretty good. I think I'm in love with Leonardo DiCaprio! As a man, not the little "I won't let go" boy. His new movie about the diamond trade looks awful, but he looks fantastic. He's so handsome! ::twirly dreamy dance::

We saw a trailer for "300" which is based on a Frank Miller graphic novel about the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. This looks amazing! The visuals are stunning. I can't wait to see this.

I'm hoping we get a chance this weekend to see Fearless in the theatre. Our plans for Saturday fell through, so we may go to North Haven. However this Saturday is the last Dudley farm of the season and they're having a big Harvest Faire there. So I'll be there from 7:30 a.m. until about 3 or so. I might be too tired to go. But we'll see.

2006-10-16T13:15:00.000-04:00

Do we have plans on Thursday 10/19 or Friday 10/20?

I have it in my mind that I'm booked everyday this week, but can't for the life of me figure out what's going on those two days. Please e-mail me if we do.

2006-10-11T11:05:00.000-04:00

I've been watching a lot more television than normal lately. Last night, Purge and I watched the Ultimate Fighting Championship for the Ortiz vs. Shamrock fight #3. Ortiz kicked the shit out of him in 2:23 minutes of the first round. This time it was more decisive.

I saw the South Park episode send off on World of Warcraft and I thought it was really funny -- uncomfortably close to my life, but really funny. The best lines for me was when Cartman asked Stan to pyroblast -- an eight second casting time. Cartman said, "What's taking so long?" and Stan said, "I'm an arcane/fire spec'd mage." (So's my main chararacter, Niennanessa) and Cartman just said, "Christ."

Totally inside geek joke, but I'm still chuckling over it.

I saw the LOST premiere and the commercials in between the action kill me. As does the waiting a whole week to see what the heck happens next, instead of just switching the disk. I also have the first season of Supernatural from Netflix, that I'm looking forward to watching. Although, that has to wait until next week. I've got a Shadowrun adventure to write for Saturday. I pretty much have it all in my head, but since I'm not as familiar with the 4th edition rules as I was with the previous edition, I like to spell it all out on paper and have all my antagonist dice rolls down so I can concentrate on story telling rather than game mechanics. It's anal retentive, but it works.

I keep trying to get organized, but everytime I attempt it my brain shuts down and starts to shudder :: too much , tooo much!:: So I'm keeping one project at a time in my head in each category. For example, tonight I'm doing laundry, Purge is doing dishes (that's the housekeeping category), I need to find the mitten pattern (it's the one with the man looking really unhappy about wearing the dipshit hat with the pom pom on it.) and wind the two skeins of home spun mohair that I've been wanting to make a shawl out of. (OK so that's two in the knitting category but they're quick)and the writing category is finishing the short story for the Writer's Digest Popular Fiction awards, which is due on November 1st.

Work is going good. There's a lot of work piling up though. We're not as busy as we usually are. However, that means we're spending a lot more time "cleaning up" files. So I've got a ton of files to close (three boxes worth!) Which is time consuming and not at all mind consuming. I usually read blogs and surf while I do it. I manage to do a box a day in between everything else, but lately it seems like I'm just treading water. It's repetitive, but I like that I can forget about it at 5:00 p.m. until the next morning.

Dudley Farm is winding down too. Our last Saturday is the 21st and there's a huge harvest festival going on. It should be a lot of fun. It'll be long, because we're there from 8 to 3, but most of that is just sitting down and gabbing with people and unlike last year if it's raining, I will *not* be attending. The scarves aren't selling that well. LOL. I've got an order for a doll though for the Christmas fair, so I think the knitted and stuffed toys are the way to go, especially for Christmas. I was also invited to another fair in November. I have to give the woman a call for that as well.

I haven't done much Christmas shopping so I'm not sure I'm going to make my Halloween deadline of finishing up everyone by then. But we'll see. I haven't really had the inclination to just sit down and flip through the catalogs. I've been a bit tired too, though I can't imagine why.

Weight Watchers is going steady. I've stayed the same weight for the past two weeks but I really haven't been trying to hard. I've lost my motivation for writing everything down and I haven't excercised at all. I've got to figure out some way of putting exercise in my schedule. It's really just a matter of making sure I pack a gym bag, but I find walking boring. Maybe I should invest in a better MP3 player (or heck find my pirates of the caribbean one, that's been missing since before Texas. It's so tiny, I'm sure it's just shoved in a pocket or a corner somewhere :/)

2006-10-02T10:09:00.000-04:00

So, I've lost a total of 20.2 lbs since March, even though I've only seriously been trying since July! (Whoo Hooo!) However, I'm more pleased with the fact that I'm now back to my pre Texas weight (har har). Those pounds do come back on so fast. Three lbs a week. Jeeez! I guess Sonic's will do that for you. Anyway, it's kind of motivating to see it come off as fast as it came on. It appeals to my "fairness law of the universe." Although in the three months I had wanted to lose 30 lbs instead of 20, but I really hadn't been on plan for a bit so it's my own fault really.

Speaking of back on track. I can finally lay both elbows on my desk again. I was so bogged down with paperwork and files when I got back that I thought I would never get caught up. But I'm doing good. There's still a lot of work to do, but all the pressing stuff is done, which is a relief because then I can just slough through it at my own pace.

This weekend was fun I made $15 at the Dudley farm. I sold a scarf/hat set. My Mom made the hat and I made the scarf so we split the difference of the set price. It's getting to be that time of the year again. And everyone is using my bowls as hats, so I think I'm just going to turn them upside down and sell them that way. LOL. They're more beanie than a hat though. After the farm, we went to the annual Guilford Library book sale. There were over 25,000 books. I only came home with 7 or so. One of them was Laurell K. Hamilton's "Stroke of Midnight" which I'm so glad I didn't pay full price for. It was good. I read it all Sunday morning lying around in bed listening to the rain. I still miss her plots and character interactions, but the sex is wild so I guess that's what sells. ::shrugs:: It does get kind of ridiculous after awhile and she does lose track of the story and there's plot holes as vast as the sea, but that's why you suspend your disbelief. I will never buy her in hardcover at the bookstore but for $4 to benefit the library, that's aces. Then my buddies from FD came over for dinner. Tom made a Moroccan Tangine and we played Phase 10 (A card game that Pookie's Mom got us addicted to) until about midnight. I fell asleep almost before their cars left the driveway.

Sunday was a bit of a disappointment. We were going to the Connecticut Renaissance Faire, which I was really excited about since we missed the one in Tuxedo NY this year. But not only was it pouring rain, but Purge had to work 12 hours that day because of a computer emergency. So Nightskye and I watched the second season of LOST on DVD for 6 hours straight. I'm on my last skein of my cat mat. (My thick cotton rug that I'm going to put in front of my shower) That will guarantee that I'm tripping over a cat at least twice in the morning. Once into the shower and once out of the shower. It's such a nasty yarn to work with. It's got the consistency and thickness of rope and I've got a blister on my finger from it. I have to wear a bandaid to work with it (boo hoo, right?). But it's making up to be a nice luscious cotton rug. One of these days I'll post pix on LJ.

So, I can't believe it's October already. I'm hanging on to summer, kicking and screaming. Although it's almost time for the bi-annual changing of the closet. *blech* But for today, I'm still in my flowy skirt and t-shirt with sandals. I did have the heater going on full blast this a.m. as it was 45 degrees out. However, it is a constant 76 degrees in my office so I'm actually dressed appropriately. I do have to get a new "mid season" jacket. All I have are winter coats. I actually wore my father's black motorcycle leather jacket that I used to wear when I was 16, to the Dudley Farm this weekend (No, I don't throw anything out.). I couldn't zipper it up back then either (boobs), but I made him try it on and it fits him perfectly. Unfortunately, I didn't notice until later that the shoulder gussett has been blown out and it's ripped.

I guess I can't fight that it's officially football season. My goal this year is to finish Christmas shopping by Halloween. A tradition is that I sit with my catalogs and the internet and shop while Purge watches the Giants play really poorly. I definitely want to hit this date because then in November, it's Nanowrimo! I'm committed to finishing 50,000 words in one month. I didn't make it last year and I was so disappointed with myself. The hardest part for me, for pre-Nano is decided what I want to do.

On the one hand, I could do a "complete" story. Harlequin romance novels are only 50,000 words. But that's not really my schtick. They have a paranormal line which is 70,000 to 75,000 which has my interest.

I could write 50K more words on "Dead Man Stalking" which would give me a nice 100K words, which is about the length of what a trade paperback novel is. However, that's going to be a little difficult to track because it all has to be "new" stuff.

2006-09-26T10:34:00.000-04:00

OK, the idea to go to Atlantic City the weekend after coming back to Texas was not necessarily the brightest ideas on the planet.

I'm still exhausted. But dammit, I want to watch my DVDs and play WoW. Unfortunately, the DVDs have won out. I'm going to try and get into bed before eleven p.m. tonight. Actually, I was in bed at nine last night. I want to be in bed with the computer off by nine tonight. Unless of course there's a WoW guild thing going on and in that case all bets are off.

So I dread long car rides. I get psychotic after 4 hours in the car unless I've got something distracting me. The good news is going down to Jersey on Friday night, I slept for two of the four hour ride. I started out good. I had a goal to finish at least two of the many knitting projects I had started. We were delayed leaving a half hour because Gus was being an asshole. He knew we were going away and would not come in. He stayed out there from 5 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. We tried the car ride trick. No dice. We had Purge get into the SUV and drive away. That *almost* worked. Then Purge decided to chase him around the lawn with the car and that *almost* worked. But my Aunt drove in to see just what the *heck* was going on and then my parents were outside. I'm yelling at my father to "Grab the pipe!" Which is an old joke because when we first got Gus, my father thought Gus was going to attack him. So he squared off against him with a big white Pvp (pcp? Psomething) pipe. He didn't hit him, but Gus sat down and became docile. So my mother sweetly calls the asshole -- I mean dog over -- AND HE COMES TO HER!!! ::head swiveling on my neck like Linda Blair::

So we get in the car and I start working on my scarf. This one's all mine. Made with Malabringo hand dyed alpaca. I spent a pretty penny on this skein. It's soft and a dream to work with. I did a pattern I yoinked from Webs. Cast on 23 stitches, slip the first stitch and then do K2P2 all the way to the end. It does a pretty ribbed pattern. I'll post pictures on my live journal later, if I can be arsed to do it that is. Heh! Anyway, I did that one until it got dark and then I switched over to my bathmat that I'm making for our bathroom (but mostly for our cats to lie on). That's just a straight garter stitch that I can do with my eyes literally closed. The yarn self patterns so it looks really neat. Unfortunately, the yarn is so thick it feels like rope but ::shrug:: I bought a lot of it because it was cheap so I better use it up.

Purge puts on some Pirate sea shanties and my eyes start to drift, but I'm fighting it because I've got projects to finish damnit. I make it all the way until he puts on his Renaissance Faire music and then it was "Goodnight Irene". Fell asleep with my neck pillow -- which was the best $10 I've ever spent. We bought it in the Texas airport waiting for the plane -- asleep with my knitting needles still in hand. I was out like a light for a solid two hours. Weird thing is, I knew I was sleeping, so if I felt myself start to surface to awaken my subconsious started "meditating". By that I mean, there was a roaring candle flame and my head started chanting "Om Madi Padre" or something like that. It only goes to show me that I really am WEIRD.

So we arrived at Tom's sister's house and chatted with my SIL and BIL until about midnight when we went to bed. We got up early on Saturday. I watched TV with the boys. I saw "Avatar" on Nickleodeon, which I think was the show Beekeeper M was telling me about. I thought it was really smart kid's television and I liked the characters, although I was a little lost because a. It was 9 am on a Saturday and b. I wasn't paying too much attention to it. Then my SIL and I had a girl's morning out. We went to Starbucks. I totally cheated on Weight Watchers and got a white chocolate Mocha and a pumpkin cheesecake muffin. YUM! Then we went to a craft fair and a tag sale. I've come to the conclusion that no one is selling any knitted items. LOL. I picked up a hardcover collection of horror greats for a quarter. It's got everything from Poe to King in it. So I was happy about that. When we got back to the house, we played a little video games. I got to take some pix of my nephews. I'll do a pic spam of really cute kids on the live journal sometime before the weekend. (But don't hold your breath.)

So we head off to Atlantic City and make it there in about an hour. The first glance is kinda exciting. It reminded me at first like Key West, then as we passed into the city, it was more like Jamaica. The poverty just slapped you in the face. On one street you see Ralph Lauren and Polo stores and on the street where our hotel was it was hookers and junkies and pimps OH MY! We were only a block off the boardwalk. In fact, you could see the ocean from our balcony. The hotel was nothing what I expected to get for what we paid. It was the "Comfort Inn". It was nice (not thrilling). There was a whirlpool tub in the room that really came in handy after the rock concert. Once we checked in, we walked the mile or so on the boardwalk to get to the Showboat Casino. We were starving at that point so we stopped into the House of Blues for lunch/dinner. Then we walked around the casino a bit and then got in line for the show. Since we were in line for two hours, when the doors finally opened -- it was general admission -- we made it to the stage and we were very close. Queensryche came on and absolutely ROCKED Operation Mindcrime I. We were so close that I could have reached out to touch Geoff Tate if he reached out for me. As it was I made serious eye contact with the guitar player. However, after the intermission, I was really tired of being jostled and groped and pushed so we watched most of Operation Mindcrime II from the back. Which was much nicer on my ears. However, standing on the concrete floor for four hours was playing hell on my back. I'm way too old for general admission, I've decided. I need a seat. So we left before the concert was over and paid a guy with a cart to push us the mile down the boardwalk back to our hotel. That was really nice. Then it was into the hot tub with a bottle of wine. We finally cracked the 1999 V.Suttui muscat that Beekeeper R & M brought us back from Napa. It was wonderful!

Sunday, we left really early. It would have been nice to walk around a bit, but we just wanted to get home. We made excellent time and the weather was fine and we stopped off for lunch at TGI Friday's in Orange. Before storming in on Nightskye and TheOne to watch the Giants Game. What an ugly game. We turned it off and watched Trey Parker's "Orgazmo" on Nightskye's Netflix DVD. That was sorta funny in a weird way. After the Giants game we finally went home where I was reaquainted with my bed.

I'm a little worried about my cat Ash. She's been hacking and wheezing and she's not the puker that Tish is. It all started when she came back inside after eating some grass last week. I'm just worried that she's got something caught in her throat. I'm reminded by the dental floss horror story that Nightskye went through with his cats. She's acting perfectly normal. She's eating fine. She ate a packet of wet food last night. I made sure and watched her. She stinks though and that's not like her. She's fastidiously clean. When I pick her up, her head smells funny. But that could be me making up symptoms. I wanted to take her to the vet's today, but Purge thinks she's fine. She still sleeps on the bed with me and follows me around and demands to be petted. So I guess she's OK. I'm just a little worried about her.

So this week, I've got a dinner party Saturday night and the Dudley Farm on Saturday morning. I've got a two bowls and a purse to add to the table's wares. I've got to fix the big green bowl though. It's got a hole in it. Grrrr. It's my fault for screwing up the pattern, but I thought it would close the hole in felting. Nope. But other than that, we're just cleaning the house for the dinner party. We finished the living room and dining room yesterday and made a HUGE dent in the kitchen. Tonight, we're finishing the kitchen and taking care of the bathrooms. Wednesday is the spare room and Thursday is my bedroom, which is almost back to pit of despair. Mostly because my knitting crap is all over the place. It's all because I had a bug up my ass to finish undone projects.

The good news is I finished Purge's fez (I'm felting it tonight) and my ribbed scarf. I'm still plugging away at the cat's bathmat during my Inu Yasha DVD time at night. Then I think I'm going to pick up my wool sweater from last year and finish that. Although, I've got a couple of ideas for the Dudley farm. There's this sweet necklace pattern I've been kicking around . . . .

2006-09-20T12:29:00.001-04:00

Slowly getting caught up on my sleep. The house is still a mess, but tonight is cleaning night. Purge gets the cat boxes and I get the refridgerator. Both are full of a lot of crap. Then, Peapod is delivering our monthly grocery order. I know it's probably a bit lazy to get food delivered. But it saves us about 2 hours and instead of getting aggravated at the store, I can be home doing fun things. In theory anyway. Tonight, I'm bound and determined to vacuum and wash the floors before bed! So more productive than fun I guess.

I can't believe that summer's over! Wah! We went to Bath and Bodyworks with Obi2 and Disney and all the autumn scents were out. They have an apple decanter with "Poison Apple" fragrance that smells like candy corn and apples. I broke down and bought some essential oils and the free oil warmer. I didn't go with the fall scents because it's still too early for me. But I fell in love with the "Moonlit Path" and "Coconut" combination, so I'll be lighting them.

Since I'm doing fairly mindless work in the office, (today it's title policies whooo! :P), I've been letting my mind wander and plot and plan. Yesterday I did monetary budgeting for the bills and Christmas. And for those who were losing sleep, the October bills are away (Empire Strikes Back cheer "The convoys are away!) I started my Christmas shopping, taking advantage of the sale e-mails that I usually just ignore. So far by doing that and by flipping through some catalogs, my Grandfather and my cousin Mike are done. My Aunt is partially done. My goal is Christmas shopping down by Halloween. (Har Har -- we'll see how long that lasts)

2006-09-20T12:29:00.000-04:00

2006-09-19T12:31:00.000-04:00

Today is Purge's birthday as well as talk like a pirate day, ahargh. I still be up to me arse in legal files. I managed to go through two weeks worth of scurvy mail yesterday. Ahargh do we get a lot of catalogs! Prolly 'cause I do all me Christmas shopping from them. All the bills for the cursed month o' September came in, shiver me timbers. Iffin' I don't get them out by this weekend I'll be made to walk the plank!

The house is still unvaccuumed and the floors still unwashed and I'm trying not to give a shit. My sink is shining though, so the Flylady should be happy. Of course, I have Jacknife to thank for that. We left it that way and she kept it that way.

2006-09-18T15:12:00.000-04:00

I spent 20 years tryin' to get out of this place
I was looking for something I couldn't replace
I was running away from the only thing I've ever known
And like a blind dog without a bone
I was a gypsy lost in the twilight zone
I hijacked a rainbow and crashed into a pot of gold

I've been there, done that, I ain't looking back
The seeds I've sown, saving dimes,
spending too much time on the telephone...
Who Says You Can't Go Home

Bon Jovi
"Have a Nice Day" 2005

So, I'm feeling a little less like a zombie since I've put food in my mouth and drank two cups of coffee. I will never be a daily coffee drinker because when I need the "wake up" jolt, I want the caffeine to hit me like I stuck my finger in a light socket.

We spent TWELVE hours in airport hell yesterday and didn't arrive home until 2 a.m. I felt an overwhelming urge to vacuum my house and wash the floors, but my body failed me and I crashed to sleep. It's still teh yuck though. I did put a load of laundry into the wash before work today.

I was seriously afraid for my life this a.m. driving in. I was that tired. I was thisclose to calling in a half day at least, but I was seriously afraid of what I would find on my desk. I figured it could have gone either way. Either "We didn't miss you at all" or "You can never take vacation again." As with most things, it was right down the middle. Someone (I think it was Perfectionist) was nice enough to sort the mail for me and put all the files in nice little piles. I was really touched by that. As foggy headed and cranky I was, it really helped. Grenade told me that I looked fantastic. I swear I thought I looked half dead, but hey a compliment's a compliment. I've got a boatload of stuff to do still, but I was able to finish two week's worth of mail and correspondance. I'm now opening up new files and I doubt I'll get to the stack of legal files on my desk today, but at least I know what's in store for me.

The reason why we got in so late is because there were tornado and thunderstorms around Dallas Fort Worth so our flight was delayed and we sat on the runway for two hours before we could take off. Which, of course, meant we missed our connecting flight in Atlanta. However, we were lucky enough to get the next flight out at 9:35 p.m. and touched down in Bradley around Midnight. It took until 1 a.m. to sort out just where the hell our luggage was. It stayed behind in Atlanta -- I almost wish we did too. I could have been in bed by 10 p.m. if we did. And we arrived home around 2 a.m. I was so tired and upset I could barely speak or move.

5.5 hours later the alarm went off and I came in to work. My boss put me in charge of the Office Christmas Party. I reordered all the office supplies: toner, paper, paper towels and coffee and that pretty much spent me for the morning. I did the banking for the office and made sure to have a ton of protein for lunch and that combined with the coffee made me feel human again.

It was a rotten end to an otherwise great vacation. After we left Pookie's Mom and DrE, we were in computer/internet heaven at Obi2 and Disney's house. We ate like Kings, played lots of games and got to really enjoy watching Jade. There is a planned pic spam of Jade on live journal later, but I'm just to tired to code it in.

To make matters worse, my boss was kind enough to buy us all tickets to a pricey fundraiser in New Haven. Of course it's tonight. I reeeeeeeeeealy don't want to go, but I kinda feel obligated because he spent so much money. I'm going to follow the rest of the office there, have a club soda with lime, maybe a noshy or two (I only have 8 points left for the day -- yes, I'm back on Weight Watchers. I gained 6 pounds back in Texas, but that's because I wasn't even bothering to be good. Too much yummy food.) Then I'll vo-de-o-do before the caffeine leaves my system. I plan to face plant right into bed around 8 p.m. tonight. (And damn my floors again!)

2006-09-09T13:23:00.000-04:00

I love Texas! The weather is SO gorgeous! It was 98 degrees yesterday and it wasn't unbearable. It was actually pleasant. It's so nice to be warm. We had a lazy morning, and then headed out to lunch at the Blue Mesa. I had a yummy shrimp and avocado salad. Then we headed over to the IMAX theater and saw "Ride around the World", which was all about horses and the cowboy life. I found it really interesting and the horses were beautiful.

Then we headed over to the Kimbell art museum for a look at the Egyptian display. It was about Hatshepsut, a woman pharaoh and had spinxes, scarabs, jewelry and other artifacts from her reign.

Fascinating stuff. Then we walked around the gallery for a bit. My two favorite paintings were "The Cardsharps" by Caravaggio and La Tour's "The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs"

I loved the style of the fashion in the LaTour's painting and the looks on everyone's faces. Apparently there was a lot of cheating at cards during the Italian Renaissance.

After the museum, we decided a return trip to The Flying Saucer was necessary. I had a peche (pear) pale ale in a champagne glass that was delightful. It was sweet and light and refreshing. I'm not sure it was $12 worth of delightful, but I enjoyed it and I'm on vacation so what the heck. I followed it up with a 22 oz Pear Hard Cider. We sat outside to enjoy the nice weather. We were only going to get a snack with the beers, but it turned out into a munchie fest.

We headed over to World Market. They had a band playing! It's foodie paradise there. There's a whole wall of cheeses! Not to mention tons of bulk bins filled with candy, treats and best of all TEA!

I got a peach, vanilla, mint tea and a mango raspberry tea. The mango raspberry is delish. I'm drinking that now along with the yummy pineapple banana smoothie Pookie's Mom made for us for breakfast.

Then it was home for movie night. DrE picked out a neat Russian Vampire movie called "The Night Watch".
It was a bit confusing at first, but I really liked the action and the concept behind it and I'm looking forward to seeing the sequel, "The Day Watch."
It's out in Russia called Dnevoy Dozor

I'm not sure when it's coming to America, but they're making a third movie too. We were going to watch the latest Final Fantasy movie, but Purge was kinda sleepy, so we went off to bed. I finally finished the second book in the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin (just in time for the release of the 4th book in paperback. I just checked the hardcover is out but the paperback isn't out until 9/26/06. I thought that would mean that the 5th book would be out in hardcover soon, but it's called "Dance of Dragons" and I don't see a release date). I really liked where "Clash of Kings" ended. Everybody either died or is on a new step of their adventure. So it tied up a lot of loose ends. I've heard a lot of negative things about the third book -- mostly that it was 1/2 a book (at 1100 pages LOL). That they chopped the next installment into the 3rd and 4th book. So at least now I can read the work as the author intended instead of waiting 2 years for the rest of the book.

So today is a lazy day at home and then tonight we're going to Billy Bob's Honky Tonk to see Chris Isaak in concert and to see a bull riding event. They've got their own bull riding arena there. I want to be up front and get mud all over me! Yeee HA!

I'll post some pictures on my LiveJournal later!

2006-09-08T00:57:00.000-04:00

Vacation post and pix on my Livejournal:

2006-08-30T12:13:00.000-04:00

TEA Glorious TEA!

Or actually, Gloria Jean's tea. I was putting away the coffee order for this week. And I noticed one little lonely K-cup of Chai just sitting there throwing off my Feng Shui of the cabinet. So I quickly downed my Republic of Tea Vanilla Almond(YUM-O!) and concentrated on my new hot cup of tea.

It's funny, chai reminds me of October and crispy Autumn leaves and warm sweaters. So it was comforting to have it after all that yucky rain.

I think I'm coming down with a cold. I WILL NOT be sick for Texas! I popped a couple of Dayquill's and I'm hoping that keeps it at bay. It all started last night when I was working on the Shadowrun characters for Friday's game. I'm going to post them on Live Journal later. I was burning a new candle and my throat was getting sore and my head stuffed up. So I figured I was having an allergic reaction. So I blew out the candle and opened the window. But that was damp and yucky and got the corner by my bed all wet. So I tanked a bunch of iced tea, then I had a horrible thought that since I left the iced tea out on the counter last night, even though it was covered, that it had mold in it. And I was drinking mold! I'm not sure if that was even remotely true but that's what my hypochonriac voices in my head were saying. So then I decided to just go to bed and lying down was worse. I couldn't sleep. At that point I decided that both my pillow and the evil corner of the bedroom was a breeding ground for mold. So I gave my pillow to the dawg and washed the floor by my bed and slept with my head at the opposite end of the bed. That and the Dayquil I think helped.

So today, I've had a zinc lollipop. Drank two cups of tea and had a Healthy Valley Fat Free chicken noodle soup.

I WILL NOT BE SICK!!!

2006-08-28T22:58:00.000-04:00

SOS critique request!

I'd like some feedback on a 4,000 word short story I wrote for a New Year's anthology called, "Catty New Year". The caveat is the story has to be submitted by September first. E-mail me or comment if you'd like to read it and rip it apart. Thanks! Jamie

2006-08-28T11:46:00.000-04:00

"I love Mondays even though I gained a pound this week or why I'm so glad I'm not in Pennsylvania"

I couldn't figure out how to bold the title of this post. ::shrugs:: Oh well. This week hasn't been going so good with Weight Watchers, but I only gained back a pound. It all started when we went out to dinner at Zinc in New Haven. The food is amazing, but I probably shouldn't have had the two drinks. I figured we were OK because we didn't have dessert and we probably would have been OK had not the weekend happened. ::insert ominous music here::

So Friday night, we were super awesome, giving up pizza and brownies for a spicy chicken and mesclun green salad. Saturday also started out good when Purge spied gas for 2.93 a gallon in the truck stop right by Stop and Shop. I popped in while he was filling up to get some South Beach meals (5 points), cliff bars (5 points) and Kashi bars (2 points) and some water.

Then the car ride from hell began. Apparently, it was back to college weekend and we hit a lot of traffic. We were in the car from 11 a.m. until about 4 p.m. when we arrived at his Aunt's house in Pennsylvania. The weather didn't help much anyway. The good news is that I almost finished "The Tiger Strikes at Midnight" until the laptop battery geeked. And then almost finished Purge's fez.

It was very nice to see his entire family. We saw cousins, we haven't seen since a funeral or a wedding. So it was really great to have the family together. The kids, who have all gotten so big, were in the front room playing video games. Purge said, "It was like a sea of Game Boys". The enclosed deck, which was decorated with old family pictures and pretty tropical lights, had the "oldsters" in there, playing salsa music and talking. And the next generation was in the kitchen and dining room, chatting, drinking Pina Coladas and looking through pictures making fun of haircuts and 70's and 80's clothing. Since we arrived so late, we missed the food. Purge and I were able to grab a plate of salad and some chicken, which was good. But we were just in time for the dessert tray.

And I could NOT stop shoving the peanut butter cookies with the mini peanut butter cups baked into them into my mouth. And it went down hill from there. Two pina coladas later and some potato chips, the party broke up and we returned to our hotel. Now, I will say that I was really worried about the Best Western Pocono Inn. There were no moderate reviews. Either everyone loved it for the price, or they hated it because it was run down, dirty and the staff was from hell. Luckily, it is a decent hotel. It is a bit shabby, but clean and the staff was indifferent, which is really OK with me. As long as it's clean, that's all I'm looking for. It was about 10 p.m. by the time we got back to our hotel and we decided we were hungry and we went across the street to Siamsai:

http://www.siamsairishpub.com/

(Again, I couldn't find the HTML link blogger has)

This is a really nice Irish pub. $3 Guinesses during Happy Hour and between 10 p.m. and midnight. The food was excellent. We started out with the bacon wrapped shrimp and the fresh mozzarella and pesto. Purge had the Irish breakfast with bangers, and rashers and fries and I had the corn beef sandwich with fries.

FRIES! FRIES! OH FRIED POTATOES IN SALT AND KETCHUP HOW I LOVE THEE!!! FRIES!

This would be my favorite Irish pub in the world except when I asked what type of hot tea they had, they said "Liptons." I said, "No Bewleys? Barrys? Taylors of Harrogate?" Nope Lipton. Pass. (tea snob)

Back at the hotel, Purge wasn't feeling so well and I slept like the dead. We had a nice leisurely breakfast of bagels with butter and then off home. We left around 10:30 a.m. We arrived home around twelve hours later. Due to the weather and bad directions, around 2:30 p.m. I started having a psychotic episode.

I don't like car travel. I have to amuse myself otherwise I go bonkers. Now, for this car ride, I predicted we'd be home by 2:30. However because of the torrential downpours and heavy traffic. We were in Trumbul at 2:30, which is about an hour and a half from home. Being in the car, with only a cliff bar to keep away hungries, four hours I began to lose it. This is after I've slept for about two hours off and on, tried to write but couldn't wrap my head around the words and am so sick of knitting I could spit. I'm talking, snapping, crying, ready to jump out of the car and dash across the street in the ran. We. Are. Never. Getting. HOME.

So Purge, being the smart man that he is and having a healthy sense of self preservation, veered into the Trumbull shopping mall with two things on his mind. Probably, "I have to pee." and "Get this crazy bitch out of my car." I get out of the car and it's raining like Noah should build an ark. And I'm in a t-shirt and shorts. So I'm cold, tired and hungry. Bennigans is the only sit down restaurant, so I order a brewed iced tea and the fajita plate.

I'm nearly weeping because all I want is a decent hot cup of tea. Maybe a nice wool shawl/blankie and a book that I can lose myself in. And I have to sit in a freezing cold faux Irish pub eating fajitas.

Luckily, even teh suck of cheap tea tastes OK to me with some splenda and ice and I crammed two advil down my throat. The protein hits my system like electric shock therapy and suddenly, deep breath, the evil Tempest has been banished and I'm myself again. ::deep satisfied sigh:: I eat all the fatty refried beans, full fat cheese, sour cream and guacamole and non-non fat tortillas until I'm fat, dumb and happy. I'm still cold, but we can deal with that. I have another iced tea, but there's no way Purge is getting me in the car. I saw a Bath and Body and a Yankee Candle when we came in.

So we did some shopping. I bought a pedicure treatment from Bath and Body so I could treat myself to a nice foot soak and scrub and lather on the cream and stick my feet inside these gel booties -- when we got home. Home? What's that? I bought some lovely candles, because we were out. Then Purge thought he was being left out so we went into the Gourmet Chef. I stopped by Godiva for two roasted almond truffles. I mean, fuck it, really. Purge bought some chickory coffee from a brand that makes the best New Orleans beignets and some Cinnamon Viennese beans (doesn't THAT sound good?) I pet the teas, but Purge reminded me that we had some at home. Home? What's that? And as a last minute impulse purchase, we buy the Magic Bullet blender.

http://www.buythebullet.com/

It was only like $60 and we needed a new blender. So after one last stop at Starbucks. TEA! I had a green TEA. (I wanted Passion, but it would take five minutes to brew and my patience was only so so at that point.)

Driving home, I distract myself by putting my feet on Purge's windshield and talking on the phone to Nightskye, My father, and Jacknife. Wherein, Jacknife tells me that Gus, our dog, decided to knock over the trash at 2:30 a.m. last night and drag it throughout the house. She cleaned up as best as she could, but thanked me for leaving the vacuum out. Thank ME? Thank YOU! ::mental note to give Jacknife one of the candles for being such a sport::

We get home.

Really. It's no dream.

We get home. I nearly kiss our overgrown lawn in sheer happiness. HOME!

And the dog had dragged shit into my bedroom closet. Coffee grounds EVERYWHERE. After we finished beating the dog, cleaning up the closet and washing the clothes that were unlucky enough to be on the floor at the time of garbage event 2006 ::another mental note - Empty the trash before Texas or kill dog one of the two::

I do my feet and put on the squicky little booties. (No shit, it works but I couldn't sleep the night with them on) Then we played Warcraft until midnight. And yes, Purge did make me a big ole mug of tea and some vegan chik'n nuggets.

My husband is a Saint.

So this a.m., I get on the scale and after checking the calander where I wrote last week's a.m. poundage, Purge and I both gained a little over a pound. So I'm thinking instead of going to Weight Watchers tonight to pay $12 to let them document our little gains, we should go to the gym and use the time more effectively.

Or we could go out for pizza or Chinese. I'm still deciding. It's hard to rebound back from "fuckitall" especially when I'm still tired and all I've got for lunch is an icky old sandwich. I'm thinking I need something better for lunch. Except I don't want to go out in this weather. But Purge did make me a Weight Watcher's shake in the Magic bullet this morning, so that might just save me. And it is Monday, which is a new week with new points.

2006-08-22T10:35:00.000-04:00

Pro-craaas-tin-A-shun! Pro-craaas-tin-A-shun! (sung to the tune of Disney's dragon, Figment, singing "Imagination". You know, I don't even know if they still have that ride anymore.)

I have two work projects to complete. One more duller than the other. The first, is a stack of twenty requests for the front and back of our checks that we used to pay off mortgages. This is to file an affadavit on the land records because the mortgage company couldn't be arsed to record a release nor provide one to us to record as proof of payment. Unfortunately, we do not have electronic checks. So that means me and the accountant will have to pull from literally thousands of individual checks that are probably not in order to find these twenty. For the record, the banks are primarily Novastar and Countrywide. You would think the little banks would be the culprits. And while we're on the subject, Washington Mutual, never escrows taxes correctly. Banks to avoid. You heard it here first.

Then, the other, is an on-going stack of accounts that I have to call up and transfer funds from one ledger to another. Really easy, no brainer stuff. But teeeedious.

And then there's the third project that I usually reserve Fridays for. But lately, Fridays haven't enabled me to do this. I've got a closet full of law files waiting for the mortgage releases. Mostly we're waiting for the seller to provide us with the release. Unlike the first project, we can't file the affadavits to clear the land records because we didn't pay off the mortgage. The other side did. And they put the same amount of priority on it that I've giving the first project. There really isn't any hurry to get the land records cleared. It *only* (heh) becomes a problem/priority if the home owner is looking to sell or refinance.

Then in between, I've got new files to open, old files to close out, title policies to be done and, of course, answer the phones.

The trials and tribulations of a post closing secretary. Actually, I think I'm a paralegal now. (Contrary to popular belief, one doesn't have to go to school to become a paralegal or pay thousands of dollars for a certificate. In fact, even if you do, you need to log in two years with an attorney and *then* you're officially a paralegal. At least that's what my boss' say. Again, I can't be arsed to look it up.) It will be three years, unofficially, in January 2007. But officially (I temped. Then left for three months.), It was a full two years in July.

And even though I wrote a totally tongue in cheek rant on my LiveJournal about this place, I love it here. The money's good, the work is easily confined to a 9ish to 5 day, my boss is amazing and generally the people are good too. I gets all the soda and coffee I can drink, usually all bank holidays off, unlimited sick days, two weeks paid vacation, frequent bonuses and quite often we get to close the office early and go home. I love my job.

2006-08-21T13:17:00.000-04:00

It's getting to be vacation time!

This weekend Purge and I are staying over Saturday night at the Best Western Pocono Inn in Pennsylvania. I'm really excited to see his whole family. They're going to have a reunion. I've got to come up with a Weight Watchers friendly dessert that will travel well. I'm thinking it's going to be some "No Pudge Brownies". Those things are wonderful. But I still have my thinking cap on. The problem is that if it rains on Saturday, they'll postpone it to Sunday -- which is one of the reasons why we got the hotel room. So if it rains, the dish I make has to keep the extra day in a cooler. I suppose we could bring it to his Aunt's house but I'm sure she doesn't have a lot of refridgerator room. I wanted to go to some craft fairs and do some sight seeing and tourist shopping after the reunion, but Purge didn't seem to be too keen on that so we'll probably go straight home.

It's a long car ride. I think around 4.5 hours. So that's a lot of knitting time. I'm bringing along my bathmat and hope to finish it. I think I'll also bring all my cotton yarn and work on patterned washcloths. This should work out OK because unlike knitting in front of the TV, you can lose your space in the pattern because you're not paying attention. However in the car, no one can hear you scream -- err I mean I can count rows better. LOL there's an exercise in concentration. Luckily, the bath mat is self patterning so I can do it at night or when I just want to not think. I should also bring my doll yarn because I'm making Baby Jade a dollie (Shh! Don't tell her!). Hmmm, I think I'll need a bigger bag. I also have to get a smaller crochet hook before we go. Maybe I'll head up to Walmart and see what they got cheap.

Then after this weekend, Purge works one more week before he's on vacation for two weeks. I've got a long Labor Day weekend, then have to work on Tuesday and then we're off to Texas! Whoooo!!! I can't believe it's almost here! I'm really hoping that we'll be allowed to take our laptops on the plane. According to the TSA, however, that they are allowing laptops and cell phones on carryons. The only thing it looks like I have to make sure is not in my purse is lipgloss. Aside from that, we're good to go. They have a mandatory shoe inspection, so I'm going to wear my sandals and just kick them off. You have to put them through the X-ray machine. Hmmm, maybe I should wear sneakers and socks. Can you imagine the bacteria on that floor? Ewwwwww.

Then, the

2006-08-18T19:22:00.000-04:00

Friday meme!

1. Grab the nearest book.

George R.R. Martin's "A Clash of Kings"

2. Open the book to page 123.

That's not even 1/10th of the book

3. Find the fifth sentence.

Check.

4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.

"Tyrion covered his mouth and belched politely. Unlike Lord Janos he had gone easy on the wine, but he was very full. The first thing he had done after taking up residence in the Tower of the Hand was inquire after the finest cook in the city and take her into his service. This evening they had supped on oxtail soup, summer greens tossed with pecans, grapes, red fennel, and crumbled cheese, hot crab pie, spiced squash, and quails drowned in butter."

Um, truly the book is much more interesting than this.

5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

6. Tag five people.

Tagging: Metrocake, UIM (that means you), Obi2, Disney and Wryan.

More Meme-age at my livejournal.

2006-08-15T21:22:00.000-04:00

Hullo!

::Blows dust off the furniture::

I think this is the longest I've been away since I started this journal. I wish I could say that I've been busy, but the truth is I couldn't be arsed to blog. I love that word. That and "twee" are my two favorite Anglophile felonies. To use twee in a sentence. . .ahem . . .

"Jamie's newest story disapoints with honeysuckle romance and twee characters."

Basically, insipid but with utterly British contempt. And for the record, no one said that to me. You would have heard about it by now and I would have cried.

Let's see in the time it's been since last we talked, I have finished the Wally Lamb book. It was wonderful. I left it for my MIL and SIL to read. I watched the Mets win a game in Shea stadium. You can see the pictures over at my livejournal. I finished Uncanny X-men by Joss Whedon and Wryan was right, I did not feel the urge to murder the man. It was pretty good, in fact. I also finished Phoenix: End Song and thought the art was stunning. Very pretty book. The story was satisfying too.

My first LOST fan fiction is recommended for "Outstanding First Fic" at Lost Fan Fiction Awards. I'm ridiculously pleased by that.

I took a "sick" day on Monday to stay at home and write. I cleaned the house for four hours and reading a dippy romance book whose hero was Vin Diesel only the writer called him Dante (He wore Green Diesel cologne ::rolls eyes::), but then I sat my ass at the table and cranked out some wordage. It felt good. I got my settlement for my personal injury case from when I was rear ended in October and it came quite in handy to pay for those "after property taxes" bills. Especially since, we're estimating the central air costs us about $10 a day to run. Needless to say, that's the reason I'm sitting here sweating with all the doors and windows open.

Lost 13.8 lbs on Weight Watchers total of five weeks, after having quite the meltdown one week when the scale didn't move AT ALL. Luckily, the LJ'ers on WW_users and _Weight Watchers and Purge, pulled me through. I'm hoping to hit the fifteen lb mark next Monday.

I joined two writers groups, one is an offshoot of my World of Warcraft guild and the other is a bunch of online writers from all over the world. There's just ten of us in the second group, but I'm looking forward to working with all of them.

Scrunchies seem to be the best sellers at the Dudley Farm. I sold 7 of them last Saturday. So far no bites on my bowls, scarves or flip flops. I've got to whip up a cotton soap holder for soap lady for ha-has this week. It shouldn't take me too long. If I've got the time, I'll embroider her product line name "Cheeky" in red. She wants me to mass produce them for a buck each. LOL!! That would cover my material cost. But not my labor unfortunately. However, I can teach her how to do it and she can do it herself. I'm no longer happy with my table design, but that just might be because I need to iron my table cloth.

Work is going super slow. I wrote the LOST fanfiction at work. It's funny, but I can't seem to work on "real" stuff at work. The distractions bother me (like when the phone rings or my boss wants something). But if I'm farting around with a journal entry or fan fic, it doesn't Weird.

I bought a new scent at Bath and Body works. It's called Japanese Blossom. It's super sexy! I got the body spray so I can "layer" the scent on.

Nightskye took Purge and I out to Mango's in Branford. Oh Yum! I can't say a bad thing about this restaurant. I had the grilled chicken mango salad. Purge had the mahi mahi and Nightskye had the scallops.

This Thursday, we're making it a foursome and going to Siam Orchids. I'm already calculating my points!

2006-08-04T12:43:00.000-04:00

These are absolutely awesome!

http://www.llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/page_01.htm

Thanks to UIM who found them.

2006-08-03T14:56:00.000-04:00

So I really got into the Wally Lamb book I'm reading at lunch. It's very moving and I haven't even gotten to the inmates stories yet. The inmates are from the Niantic correctional facility and he mentions going to the Crystal Mall, so it's weird to have that type of familiar connection. I love the way he writes.

Weight Watchers is going good, no great challenges except in how expensive good/healthy food is. I went to Trader Joe's the other day and spluged a bit on TVP meatballs. 12 meatballs was 5 points and they were really yummy. I gave Purge his with a 1/2 cup of spagetti sauce and I dipped mine in 1 tbs of BBQ sauce.

My new best friend is The Hungry Girl. I found her website on one of the LJ communities and she's chock full of recipes and healthy eating tips. I signed up for her daily e-mail and there's a lot of good stuff in there. I like that she has the Weight Watchers point values on everything and she does comparisons showing low fat substitions for stuff that you crave for.

As usual, I'm bored at work. The internet connection is very slow so it makes surfin' so much more difficult. Yeah, I know. Tough life. I did not make it to the gym last night. I farted around with my MP3 player -- that needed to be loaded and charged and then I got hungry so I had dinner and then Men In Black was on. So I watched that and then we had to throw in some popcorn and watch MIB2. It was a rather fun night and I finished one ball of yarn on my bathmat. As I told Purge, "I know you've been losing sleep over this, so I want to assure you I did find three more balls of this stuff so I will have enough to make the rug as long as I want." He just gave me a "Whatever" look. I'm trying to figure out what project to take to the Mets game on Saturday. I'd like to take the bathmat, but it's getting pretty big and I don't want to spook the gate guards with the size 11 pointy needles. I'd like to bring in my warshcloth but you change colors every two rows and that's a pain in the ass to cut the ends and weave them in. So I think I'm going to bring some wool and do some bowls. Actually, I'll finish my green fez and work on Purge's red one. C'est parfait! Those are both small projects that will fit in my hand bag and my needles are thick and blunt! Yay! So now I can be part of the "Stitch and Pitch" movement. Go Mets!

I'm in a bit of a conundrum. I want to go to the gym tonight (Well want is a bit of a stretch. How about I SHOULD go to the gym tonight?), however, the library is open until 8 p.m. and I want to go to check out some craft books --- er I mean work diligently on my writing projects that are swiftly coming up to deadline.

I was so bummed that they're not showing Lost reruns on ABC on Wednesdays. I need my fix man! I decided that once I reach my first goal weight (10% of my starting weight), I'm going to buy $10 worth of season two on itunes. At $1.99 that will give me five episodes. I'm just under a 1/3 of the way there, although I probably can buy the dumb things on DVD by the time it takes me to lose the weight. LOL

2006-08-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

So I almost posted last night with a blog entitled: WTF? OMFG!

I lost 1.5 lbs this week.

::blinks in astonishment::

Poor Purge had to deal with my rotten attitude all the weigh (get it?) to the scale. I can not BE-LEEVE I did so well. I'm going to have to be extra special good this week, just in case my body decided to give me a break. I'm probably going to go to the gym *gasp* this week. It's lookin' like tomorrow.

Anyway jaunt on over to my Livejournal for more of my musings, if you're interested.

2006-07-31T09:27:00.000-04:00

Busy weekend!

And it's a full go straight through August. I don't think we have a weekend free until late September!

The weekend started a bit early with Beekeeper M and R coming over for a sleep over and some D&D. I was GM'ing. We almost had a character death, but the Dodge feat saved the day. Friday, we gamed at Wryan's and Saturday I went to the Dudley Farm. I sold another felted bowl -- to the same lady! She said she gave the first one to her friend, who loved it. So she bought another one for her other friend. She said that next time she would buy one for herself! Too bad I'll be at the Met game this Saturday! After the farm, ChynnaKatt and Blixx & Nightskye and TheOne came over so we could car pool to Boogie Shoes and Redsox's par-tay.

What a lot of fun! I got to see all my friends and hang out and chat and drink beers. It was HOT though, like Africa HOT. So that did put a damper on the drunken volleyball game. I met one of the wrestlers in Purge and Nightskye's fantasy wrestling league. His name was Parcival. He burned me a CD of really cool songs. Two of which were Alvin and the Chipmunks doing "The Time Warp" from Rocky Horror Picture Show and "Because I got high" by someone I've never heard of. It's a catchy song though. And weird enough to blow your mind. It's really VERY funny. I also got to see the three kittens that they adopted. Piggy is a grey tiger. Emma is a black kitty with white markings. I saw her play. She's got big eyes and she's SO cute. Frodo is the grey tiger and he was so sweet too. They're these cute little guys!

I drank a lot. I ate a lot. I smoked a lot (I'm bummed because Purge bought me what he thought were chocolate cigars and they turned out to be chocolate cigarettes. They were really tasty. Only I'm not a smoker and my throat was all scratchy and raw and yucky the next day. I don't think I could ever be a smoker. My breath alone! ACK! It took forever to get day old smoke taste out of my mouth.)I'm really dreading weighing in tonight. I don't want to gain back the little weight that I just lost. I'm hoping for one of those bullshit weigh ins where you lose two tenths of a lb or something like that -- or even if I stay the same. Wah! I don't want to be discouraged. I'm wondering if I should just take the "Don't weigh me" option or if I should be an adult and own up to the weight gain. From a motivational stand point, I don't want to see a gain. I'm afraid it will send me into a "Fuck it all" mentality. And I really don't need the "Rah Rah Bullshit" of the meeting tonight. ::impending Bad Attitude warning::

Sunday was spent recovering from Saturday and doing some driving. I stopped over my mother's house to show her the new "warshcloth" that I'm working on and she helped me weave in the loose ends. I'm doing really well on my bathmat. It's easy going on the 11" needles. I'm not sure if three balls will be enough though. I'm afraid as it's going, it will be more of a square instead of a rectangle. I cast on 50 stitches, which seemed to be the correct width. ::Shrugs:: Maybe I have another bag of the black and white cotton. I don't think so, though.

2006-07-26T09:47:00.000-04:00

I visited my Grandmother's grave yesterday.

Not the one in the cemetary, her bedroom. My Mom told me to go over my Grandfather's house because he had a bunch of yellow squash. So I stopped over after work. He was just about ready to start planting some cabbage. He told me to go in the house and take as many as I wanted. They were in the refridgerator.

I knew I was going to go into her room the moment he said they were in the house. Now, just so you know I wasn't trespassing or anything. My grandfather allows all of us free run of the house. I just don't like to go in there when there's people around. I'd rather be in there alone. It's weird, if my mother or aunt were to be there, I'd feel uncomfortable -- like I was intruding. But when it's just me, I feel like I belong there. Like I did when she was alive. She's been dead almost ten years.

The excuse I gave myself is that I wanted her button tin. She collected buttons in a tin to use in various projects. Now, I had already scavenged my mother's button tin for the buttons I needed. In fact, I still have one of my mom's tins on the dining room table that I need to go through, so that really wasn't the reason. (And again just so you don't think I was grave robbing, my grandfather has also said take whatever you want.)

I walked in and right through a cobweb, just like one of those rooms in a haunted house. I turned on the light because it was hard to see in the twilight. The button tin was on top of her bureau. I opened it and flicked through the buttons before setting it down. I opened up her drawers and found tons of old zippers that she either bought at a store, got at a tag sale, or just recycled from an old piece of clothing. There was a little notebook in there, without any writing. In her other bureau, I found the Christmas troll earrings I gave her. Back when those ugly trolls with the funky hair were popular, must've been the 80's, I bought her these. The troll has chartreuse green hair sticking straight up and he's wearing a Santa suit. Every Christmas, she pinned them to her dress and wore them. Her ears were pierced but I guess they were too heavy or the dangling bothered her. In another drawer was the hats she knitted. I reached in and touched her brown "coup a leek" she used to call it. I'm not sure if that's Italian for hat or not or even how it's spelled. But it's a little brown tam with a jaunty tassel dangling from it. She wore it every year. There was also a few shawls that I'm not sure if she made or if they were given to her, but I touched them anyway and left them folded.

My aunt, most likely, has cleaned up the room a lot. Although, that damn cat still poops on the bed! My grandmother would skin it!

I left after another look around. My cousin's baby picture is in a frame atop yet a third bureau. The Christmas picture he and I took one year, is stuck on the lamp for some reason. I didn't look in the mirror above her dresser, now that I'm thinking of it. I don't remember why. I usually do, because when I was a little girl, I used to stand on a chair and try on her RED lipstick in the mirror. She would be standing behind me with her hand on my back making sure I didn't fall off the chair. I always look because I hope I'll see her in the mirror's reflection. I never have, but there's a chance right? Ectoplasmic residue or some ghostbusters thing like that. Maybe the one time I didn't look, she was there?

2006-07-24T09:47:00.000-04:00

It's flowy skirt day!

Or I'm not wearing any pants day. Your choice. It's all interpretation, like the song goes. ("We never walked on the moon / Elvis ain't dead / . . . ?/ It's all in your head")

Lots of good stuff happened this weekend. First of all on Friday, I got my "Pirates of the Carribbean" Mp3 player from Disney.com. This is good because since we've got a Disney Mastercard we get "points" for every dollar spent. So I got this cute lil' player for .49 cents. Whoo!

Then I stayed up real late finishing the Pirates of the Carribbean doll for DebBee. you can see pix of it on my Live Journal. Purge had to work most of the weekend doing another computer upgrade and installation for work. So he was asleep. I got to watch "Sahara" and "Walk the Line" while working on the doll. Sahara was really forgettable and the very last scene where Matthew Mahonihey (spelled wrong but I'm too lazy to look it up) and Penelope Cruz are talking on the beach was unplayable because of the Netflix disk. I swear more and more disks are in bad condition. It's usually maddening, but I found with this one I really didn't give a fuck. However, if you saw the movie and if something other than sexual bantering happened, let me know. The really bright spot of the movie was the sidekick Al. Steve Zahn played him. He is usually very funny. I was actually hoping that it was somehow a remake of the 1983 Brooke Shields Sahara. The review on imdb says it all:

"Ludicrous bodice-ripper starring the wooden Brook Shields as the kind of plucky romantic heroine who can change outfits in mid-kidnapping. Features such silliness as nomadic Bedouin chiefs who keep stone dungeons on hand, other Bedouin who have frosted lipstick and gold lame party outfits lying around, more Bedouin going on a human hunt using leopards instead of hounds (the leopards are kept on leashes where they can't chase anything), hairstyles that range from 1910 to 1983 (story set in the 1920's)"

I loved it when I was 13. That's when desert shieks were exotic and exciting, before all this Taliban stuff. Or rather before we KNEW about the Taliban stuff. LOL.

"Walk the Line" was a much better movie than I expected it to be. I really liked Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix. I was also surprised that I liked the songs as much as I did. I'm really not into honkytonk or old school country, but it was toe tappin'.

But now they're back to Netflix and I will continue my Inu Yasha marathon. The new knitting project is going to be coasters for Nightskye. If that doesn't turn me off the thick cotton yarn I got cheap because it was discontinued (It is a BEAR to work with! It bent my metal needles, nearly snapped my wooden ones and the yarn slipped off my plastic), then I'll start on the bathmat. Or as I like to call it, the kitty rug. The bathmat has a very simple intarsia so I'm going to attempt it. If all goes well, can finally finish that Giant's scarf for Tom. Oh yeah, him. I've got to finish the green bowl on my needles in order to stitch up the felted gaming fez. OK that first then the bathmat. I need the coasters for something easy and mindless. (My eyes are all googly from the doll!)

So back to the weekend, Saturday, under the threat of rain, I hauled two tables up to the Dudley Farm in my car and set up. It was my best day of the year. My Mom sold $14 worth of scrunchies and butterflies and I sold my felted fluted bowl (I shoved it in the Tupperware fresh n' cool while it was drying to get the form - whoo!) Yeah, I still haven't sewn on the buttons on the other two. My living room is an absolute stye from the POTC-dress-a-thon. Thank God my mother was able to help me with the finished details. She's an excellent sewer and I'm just all thumbs. I really thought about getting one of those $20 sewing machines, just to stitch up the doll clothes. (I have a full size, but have no idea how to thread the bobbin. I mean I sorta do, but I've long since lost the directions and I'm pretty sure I'll fuck it up. I think the machine also needs a good oiling too. The last time I used it I could smell the motor overheating. I suppose I could go online for the directions. Hmmm, add it to my things to do list.) After the Dudley Farm, I got out of there just before it started to downpour, Jacknife and I switched cars with Purge and we went to pick up stuff for the party. We got the balloons and the food just in time. I hung out for the party for a bit, but Jacknife was busy and I missed Purge, so I went home and took a nap, ate dinner and played Warcraft until he got home. We leveled little Iri up to 53, but when she went to buy her Valor Belt, it had been sold! So now she's got 30 gold burning a hole in her pocket. Oh well maybe another will pop up this weekend.

Sunday, I had Purge all to myself. We played Warcraft, took naps and then decided we had to get out of the house. We brought the lap tops to Panera bread where I farted around online instead of writing the two stories I had promised myself I should have. (I knew I should've gone to the library -- where there's no wireless, but there's also no free refills on diet pepsi or yummy black bean soup (3 points!) Then we went for a walk around Michael's and on our way to walking to Target, I see a familiar shape. It's Jacknife! So we catch up to her and walk around Target for a bit before she had to go to her store meeting at Petco. Then Purge and I went to Barnes and Noble for an iced coffee. I read two knitting magazines while I drank my iced coffee, a bit guiltily because I always hear Obi2 saying, "The bookstore isn't a library." But I put him out of my mind. Heh!

Then we shopped hungry, but bought enough food to keep us on Weight Watchers for the next week or so. I really love the flame grilled Boca Burgers. Isn't that weird? I think I liked them better than hamburger. We weigh in tonight. Keep your fingers crossed. Purge didn't write anything down this week, but he thinks he did OK. I'm hoping to lose three lbs. I didn't eat all my points this week, so I hope my body didn't go into "Starvation Mode" (I swear that's what they call it) and my metabolism slowed down and held on to the fat. I dunno. Sounds like BS to me, but we'll see. I'll be disappointed if I didn't lose at least 2, but I didn't sacrifice or want for anything so I won't be too unhappy.

2006-07-20T11:10:00.000-04:00

I had such a great time last night! At home with my honey! Purge comes home with a dozen red roses for me!!!! (I forgot to take a picture! D'oh! Camera phone! Speaking of pictars, I've got a bunch on my livejournal) For no reason except the flowers were on sale and it was Wednesday! They're beautiful! Then he preceeded to make me dinner while I finished the back of the doll. I got one arm done, so three more appendages to go (Good thing I'm not making the octopus!) For dinner, he made chicken on the barbie! YUM! And then he sauteed up some onion and mushrooms and added them to the brown rice. It really added a boatload of flavor to it. DOUBLE YUM! I got me some leftovers for lunch that I'm just dying to dive into!

Then we did some laundry (4 buckets of laundry) and while that wasn't the fun part, we were rocking out to some cool tunage via my Yahoo launch. Then it was dessert time. Purge has been experimenting with a Weight Watcher friendly fruit mousse. He used a bag of frozen mixed fruit and two cups of fat free cool whip. It was wonderful, but more ice creamy than moussey. So back to the drawing board, but mmm! mmm! is it fun to eat the mistakes.

And the best part of all? It's all good on the "diet" front! We weigh in again on Monday, and I'm hoping for some pool time during the party on Saturday. I'm sure all the kiddos will be in the pool so I'll have to swim around them!

2006-07-18T10:21:00.000-04:00

So I lost 5.6 lbs the first week and Purge lost 6 lbs. I'm happy. I know not to expect that type of weight loss every week, but I was happy to get the jump start. My goal is 10lbs a month, which is a little over 2lbs a week. It is what it is.

Last night after the meeting, we stopped by Wendy's for dinner and had our "special" Weight Watchers dinner: Small chili (4 points), side salad (0 points), baked potato (5 points) and a large diet coke. We called up Nightskye, who was just chillin' and dropped in on him. We stayed to watch wrestling and I got to finish (just about) knitting the back of the doll.

I'm going to see Superman with Fil in Westbrook tonight, so I doubt if I'll be able to finish the back tonight, but who knows. I blocked the front and the back on my needles so it's lying flat.

I'm very excited about doing the face. I think that's the easiest part. I've got a black paint pen so I can outline his eyes and a gold paint pen so I can rim his teeth with gold. I'm going to do his braided goatee before stuffing too because I think it will be easier. After the face is done, I'm going to stuff him and add the arms and legs. Then I'm going to do the hair. I've got some wonderful black yarn that will look like his dreadlocks and I've got to fish around for that scrap of material we bought when Purge went as him for a pirate party we had for Jacknife's birthday for his headband. I've got my beads lined up to accent his headband and braid. Then comes the hard part. I've got to dress our bonnie pirate lad. The white shirt should be easy. The pants I'm not going to go crazy about. I think I'm just going to use felt. I've got some leather scraps for his boots and belt. I'm going to embroider a red "P" on one hand and a blue sparrow on the other (although I think in the movie they were on the same arm). Then it's the hat. We bought a tiny black cowboy hat, that I think is probably too small for the doll, but if it works, I can primp it so it looks like his admiral hat. If that doesn't work I'm not sure what I'll do. I might have enough black scraps left over to make it. But his long coat is probably going to take all of my leather. I'm pretty sure I'll have him done by Saturday. Once he's done, he goes into a treasure chest box that Purge picked out when we were at Michael's last weekend. And there will be pictures this time! Yay new camera phone.

I also want to make an pink octopus. Why? I don't know. Probably because the head and arms on the doll remind me of one. I bought large googly eyes to stick on it although thinking about it, if it's going to a child, I really should sew on the eyes -- choking hazard and all. I've got all these knitting projects in my head. I want to make coasters for Nightskye from that thick cotton I bought a ton of. And a bathmat for our bathroom. And I still need to sew on the buttons for the felted bowls.

2006-07-17T10:16:00.000-04:00

Hey, long time no post! I've been tooling around more on my LiveJournal because I like the interactiveness (is that even a word?) of the comments and my "friend's list".

So Purge and I joined Weight Watchers. Tonight's our first weigh in and I'm pretty excited. I hope to be near to my goal weight by my birthday next year.

This past week has been chock full of adventure. I went to see Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest on Tuesday. It was OK. I loved the costumes and the make-up, but I thought the characterization and the plot was substandard. It was like a 2 hour promo to the third movie.

Friday was our game night and we had a cool picnic while playing. BZ's bagel dip ROCKED! Then Saturday we had another picnic with the FD people. OMG what fantastic cooks! Bener made London Broil and Chicken Breasts on the grill that made your mouth water from the savory spice rubs and marinades. Then Irish made dessert. I will see if I can recreate it here:

Mix a cup of Lemon curd with two packages of softened cream cheese.
Take two pizelle cookies as a base, spread two tablespoons of the lemony cream cheese mixture on the cookie, then using a pastry bag with the mixture pipe two turns around the cookie so the cream cheese mixture builds a wall on the cookie. Fill the "basket" that the cream cheese made with fresh blueberries and raspberries and top with a mint leaf sprig.

::clutches heart:: OMG so good on a hot day. So cool and lemony and refreshing. YUM!

We did the sides: Beet and onion salad (I know. It's a classic. And suddenly I'm into beets. I don't know why.) My world famous (in Poland) black bean and corn salsa side dish, and sauteed green and yellow squash with carmelized onions.

Tamsan made a kickin' salad too that I made sure I filled up on so I wouldn't blow my Weight Watchers Points!

Sunday, Purge and I got new cell phones. His display had been really bad and I drenched mine in a cup of milk on Friday, so we were due. I lost all my phone numbers, though, so please e-mail me your numbers again. Or call me on my cell (the number stayed the same) and I'll save you in my phone. It's a really cool phone. Finally, I can take didgital pictures. It costs a quarter, but if I e-mail it to myself after hours, that part at least is free. I'm such a geek. I'm so excited that I'll be able to take pictures of my knitting projects and post them. LOL!

The Dudley Farm had a lot of traffic. I was surprised since the handcraft expo was this weekend. I had wanted to get down there and see the artists, but there wasn't enough time in the weekend. There's this vendor who made bell pendants similar to these, but much prettier. That I wanted to get. Oh well, next year, I suppose.

Anyway, I still didn't sell any of my stuff. But people are looking, so that's positive. And I sold three of my mother's scrunchies and she told me to keep the money so at least the table was paid for. I decided to use two tables instead of one and I thought it presented very well. However, like a dummy, I forgot my table signs so had to rely on handwritten ones. Grrr. Amateur hour. I hate when I do stuff like that.

I'm working on sewing some buttons around a purple bowl and a pretty pink bowl that I made to jazz them up a bit. I'm trying to set them apart from being ordinary, and while I love the plain look, I think I'll have more success if they're eye catching.

The project I'm working on right now is a Captain Jack Sparrow doll for DebBee's 50th birthday this Saturday. I'm using the "Knitted Babes" book's pattern, but the rest of his outfit I'm making myself. He's going to be campy looking, but a lot of fun. I'm nearly done with the back. Once that's done I can do the face before sewing him up.

Sunday we went to the Renaissance Faire in Ansonia in the 101 degree weather. It was fun, if a trifle forced. One minstrel group was absolutely miserable. The other pirate group was fun. But it was really too hot to enjoy anything. We walked around for a bit. Marveled at the stuff. The vendors really didn't have anything out of the ordinary. Tuxedo NY's Faire blows them away. However, Purge saw a scimitar with a bone handle and I saw a gorgeous recurve bow, that was handmade, but both were outside of our budget at this time.

I was going to pick up a jingly bell cuff from a belly dancer booth. But as I was looking at her merchandise, a mother and two kids came up to her booth. The mother said, "OK girls what do you want?" One of the little girls picked up a belly dancer belt. The vendor snatched it out of her hand and said, in a rude voice, "No, honey, don't touch." The mother said in a surprised tone, "Oh! sorry! C'mon girls let's go." Not only did that vendor lose that sale. But she lost mine for being a bitch. I know it was hot out. I know you probably weren't selling a damned thing. Trust me, I know how that is. The belt was made out of tarnished metal. The child couldn't have harmed anything by touching it. The mother was going to buy something. There was no need to be rude. So I left without a jingly bracelet. I'd complain to the place about her, but I didn't bother getting the booth number and she didn't say anthing to me.

2006-07-10T10:57:00.000-04:00

There's a quickie weekend review at my live journal.

So the Dudley Farm is going not so good. I need some help on my table design. Since I've shifted the focus away from scarves and on to felted bowls, I need something eye catching. I still have the scarves, but they're displayed on the clothesline behind me. I was thinking of getting an etagee shelving unit (Open on all four sides with four support columns on each shelf.) Then I've got to redo my signage. It sucks being graphically challenged and not being able to get your fingers on a decent color printer. I've got a color printer, but the reds are pinks, etc. etc. What can I say? It was free with the laptop.

2006-07-07T12:01:00.000-04:00

Static Movement online will be publishing my novel "Jewels of Power", one chapter each month on their website. I'm very excited about this. There is about 20 chapters in all.

Please check out Chapter One

Some of you might remember this novel as being on Obi2's site for a while. Obi2 was nice enough to host it for awhile. This is my online novel that I've been playing around with for awhile.

Jewels of Power is a story about two sisters who were raised as street thieves. One fateful night, they steal two objects of power that allow them to escape their predatory master. Unfortunately, what hunts the jewels is an even bigger threat. The two sisters, stalked by dark forces, scrabble to build a future that allows them to shed their previous lives and live up to the reputation that their pilfered magic items have provided.

2006-07-06T10:28:00.000-04:00

For the past two mornings, I have woken up with some pretty awful dreams. I wouldn't call them nightmares but they've been rather unpleasant. Wednesday morning I dreamed that a friend of mine's husband was put in jail and a mental institute and she went off to her beach house in Virginia, but the floor there had rotted away. This morning, I dreamed that I was stuck in my parent's house during a hurricane and I couldn't find my cat Ash and my parents kept telling me to fill my washer with water so we can flush the toilets and I was peeved because that meant I couldn't felt my bowls for the craft fair. And then I was a Shadowrunner that my parents contracted me to change all the light bulbs in their basement during the hurricane and they were really on my back to get it done, but I could neither find the light bulbs nor figure out how to remove their fixtures to put the bulbs in. So I kept telling them, "I said I'll do it. I'll do it." Then during the eye of the storm, I looked out the window and saw two cats and a bunny, but not Ash and then a tortoise shell kitten streaked in the house and started to eat.

Dream interpretations:

"Seeing a hurricane in your dream indicates sudden and/or unexpected changes occurring in your life. You may be experiencing some destructive and powerful emotions. Dreaming that you are swept up the hurricane, suggests that both your mental and emotional forces are building up inside and making themselves known. You may be literally consumed by your emotions."

"Seeing a light bulb in your dream, suggests that you are ready to accept and/or face reality. It refers to your consciousness. The dream also symbolizes spiritual enlightenment, hope, new ideas and visions. You are approaching a situation in a new direction."

"Seeing a white kitten in your dream means deceit and trouble. Seeing non-white or soiled kittens, indicates trouble ahead for you."

HO-KAY, I guess I'm fucked. I've got some powerful and destructive emotions and I can't find spiritual enlightenment and there's trouble ahead for me. Jeeez.

Then from this website:

Dream symbol: floor

Interpretation: Base (1st) chakra, survival issues
A need to ground, root or anchor yourself. Your impression of your foundation in life - the condition of the floor will provide further interpretational clues. A damaged foundation may indicate being poorly prepared, starting off a weak base, or needing to address a problem at a root level

And the hits just keep on coming, don't they? Unfortunately, I have NO idea what any of this means in relation to me. But it doesn't sound good, does it? Weird huh?

Speaking of weird, I got hit on today at 9:03 a.m. It was from a very nice sounding man named Scott. Scott works for the courts and I've spoken to him before. He says, "How's the most beautiful woman in New Haven today?" and I said, "I dunno. If I see her, I'll ask her." So then he tells me that he's referring to me. I tell him that my boss is in court. He says "Oh good now I can talk to you." And then proceeds to tell me about a long and complicated problem that I wished he left in my boss's voice mail in case my short hand missed something. So at the very end, he gives me his number to have my boss call him back and I'm about to get off the phone when he says, "You forgot the most important thing." Grrrreat! "OK?" "My cell phone number." So he gives it to me. I write it down and I'm about to get off the phone and he says, "The cell phone number's for you." There's a shocked pause. "I'm sorry, Scott I'm married for ten years now." So he says, "Are you bored yet?" And I tell him, "No, not yet. But I'll keep you in mind in case I do." Because certainly any man who wants a woman who will cheat on her husband is obviously grade A prime. Gah! It's 9 o clock in the friggin' morning people. I haven't had my diet coke yet.

2006-07-05T11:01:00.000-04:00

Whoo! Static Movement online posted my story The Rescue. Please check it out.

I'll post more later, got the Mondays at work today!

Purge and I slept the entire day yesterday -- literally. I think I got out of bed twice and both times it was to go to the fridge for some leftovers. I feel like a gigantic engorged tick! LOL nice image, huh? The worst part of sleeping so long is my back -- which always gives me problems -- really stiffened up, so I'm trying to keep moving today and loosen it up. Unfortunately, it's muggy and rainy out -- urgh! I bought some "Tahitian Cardio" DVD to do some hula dancing workouts and my cable company has intro to belly dancing so maybe that will help. I feel so silly doing them, but it's a lot of fun. I smeared some Bio Freeze on my back (Kinda like a super Ben Gay only not as stinky) and two Tylenol and that seemed to work.

I haven't seen Superman yet. I'm not sure if I'm going to. I loved Christopher Reeve so much. But I've never seen Smallville and the people I've talked to who have seen Smallville hated it and those that hadn't seen the show loved it. I'm thinking Kevin Spacey might be worth the ticket price.

What I am looking forward to is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, coming out Friday! I'll probably wait until after the weekend rush to see it because I'm hosting "Estrogen Weekend" at my house. If you've got two X chromosomes, feel free to come on down! We're going to watch the first season of "Lost" and eat lots of popcorn, do our hair, manicures, pedicures, etc. So I don't think we're going to get out of the house much. I'm hoping to con them into going to Vera Wolf -- my favorite jewlery store, with me. That was one of the activities for this weekend and I'm jonesing for a fix. I want to get a pretty pendant, but I'm not sure which one I want. Her prices are super reasonable for the size of the stones.

2006-07-05T10:39:00.000-04:00

LOL - posted this on Wryan's blog by mistake *snicker*

Monday Monday!

God, it's nice to get back to work so I can relax! My house is sqeaky clean! I'm so tired, though, I can barely stand up. We had a fantastic visit with Purge's family on Saturday and Sunday. I felt so bad, they got caught in some terrible traffic, but they finally made it and it was so great to see everyone. I really wished they could have stayed longer, but we had to work today. And I know they were eager to get home so they wouldn't be stuck in another traffic jam. It took them 4 hours from Long Island and 6 hours from Jersey to get to us. They made it home in 2 hours and 3 hours, respectively yesterday, which is a little quicker than normal travel time.

Last night, my parents took me, Purge, Nightskye and my cousin Burp on the boat over to Madison to watch the fireworks. It was very pretty, but I nearly fell asleep on the way back. I wanted to stay up and read, but my head hit the pillow and I was out like a light. I feel really bad for Purge because he had to be in at 7:00 a.m. this morning. I was able to sleep until 8:00 a.m.

I'm pretty sure my boss is going to let us go early today. So I'm making sure my desk is cleaned off so I don't get hammered on Wednesday with stuff. The phones are really slow. We had a Hello Kitty moment that you can read about at my Live Journal I'm going to go home and read my book for the rest of the day with a soda and a couple of cats. Then I'm going to watch my Inu Yashi DVDS and knit. Tomorrow, I'm going to sleep as late as I want. We bought new sheets. They're 600 thread count so they're just this shy of sateen -- which I hate. To tell you the truth, I like my 400 count Eyptian cotton better, but these are still pretty nice. I'd love to get my hands on the sheets at the Sheriden by the Airport. Those sheets are amazing. Everytime, we fly out for an early flight, we try to stay there the night before. It's always a good sleep.

So the summer is finally upon us. I'm hoping to spend a lot of time in Jacknife's pool. I want to drop some pounds and I love to swim. Of course, this means I should probably not have "Funny Bones" for breakfast either, but I was in a fog this morning and they were the first things I grabbed.

2006-06-28T15:19:00.000-04:00

To quote Alanis Morrissette, "I hate the world today."

People just suck. To quote Purge: "Just when I thought I couldn't despise her any more than I previously had - then again, she's always been an overachiever."

::shiver:: So glad he's on my side.

To quote the dread Pirate Wesley -- er I mean Roberts, "Life is pain."

Not even Burger King for lunch could make things better. Which leads me to a point I was going to make last Friday when I got back from the dentist. Food controls me. I eat when I'm happy to celebrate. I eat when I'm sad to feel better. Food just isn't fuel to keep my body going, it's my therapist, my friend. That's pretty fucked up, yo.

Take the dentist de Sade for example. Afterwards, the first thing I did was to go to the Big Y and buy food. I wasn't hungry, but the thought of being hungry and in too much pain to eat was frightening. So I bought myself a smoothie, two yogurts, two cottage cheeses, a chocolate muffin and a pasta salad. I bought Purge a 6 pack of tapioca pudding, a pint of egg salad, a muffin and a smoothie, because he was in pain too. That's a lot of food. That's more food than I normally eat in a work day. Especially one that started at 11:00 a.m. I ate it. All of it with the exception of the muffin. My mouth hurt too much to eat a muffin! (I had it on Monday) So I apparently seek comfort in food. This really doesn't come as a shock to me, but I never have seen in illustrated in such a way. I'm not sure how I'll be able to swing this into helping me, but it's an interesting observation.

Let's see my poopy mood is because of the weather. I woke up to torrential downpours and now it's just nasty humid. I got yelled at by an arrogant attorney. I work with such sweethearts that it always shocks me when I come across a bad one. Even though I suppose the jerks are more prevalent than the nice guys. This bitch was a woman, which makes me even madder because as a rule, it's the women attornies who are the worst! It's like they've got to prove they're not a paralegal by being irrational fuckheads. She was bitching that I responded yesterday to a letter she wrote last week. P.S. she faxed it on Friday. I got her her answer on Tuesday. It wasn't the answer she wanted so she told me I didn't know what I was doing and demanded to speak to my boss. I said, "He's in with a client (He was) and if I put you to his voice mail, he's just going to give me your message and tell me to handle it." So while screaming that I didn't know what I was doing because I was a receptionist ::scathing tone that one reserves for pediphiles:: she explained to me why I wrong. Now, she was right and I learned something today. And the situation is very easily solved. I need to order a file from our archives. Check to see if the document she's looking for is there. If it's not, I need to contact another attorney's office for a duplicate release. She was so bad, I talked over her. Hung up on her. And then said "bitch!" So naturally, she followed up our conversation with a fax to my boss. He read the first line of the two page fax, handed it to me and said, "Pull the purchase file from archives." I told him I was already on it and what a bitch this woman was -- which I never do. He said, "So don't talk to her. Just fax it over to her when it's done." Totally not at all concerned. See what I mean about being a sweetheart?

Then a couple of my friends are going through some rough times. Times that I really can't help with and that's frustrating.

I did have one bright spot in the day. I'm reading "Jirel of Joiry" by C.L. Moore. It was published back in the day when paperbacks were $2.75. I got the book because I heard the song "Jirel of Joiry" on Mercedes Lackey's filk CD "Magic Moondust and Melancholy" -- an absolute hoot of a CD! I highly recommend it. (Scroll down on the link's page) Anyway, I was on line at the bank and was enchanted by:

"They brought in Joiry's tall commander, struggling between the men-at-arms, who tightly gripped the ropes which bound their captive's mailed arms. They picked their way between mounds of dead as they crossed the great hall towards the dais where the conquerors sat, and twice they slipped a little in the blood that splattered the flags. When they came to a halt before the mailed figure on the dais, Joiry's commander was breathing hard, and the voice that echoed hollowly under the helmet's confines was hoarse with fury and despair.

Guillaume the conqueror leaned on his mighty sword . . "Unshell me this lobster," said Guillaume in his deep, lazy voice. "We'll see what sort of face the fellow has who gave us such a battle. Off with his helmet, you."

The helmet rolled on the flagstones. Guillaume's white teeth clicked on a startled oath. He stared. Joiry's lady glared back at him from between her captors, wild red hair tousled, wild lion-yellow eyes ablaze.

"God curse you," snarled the lady of Joiry between clenched teeth. "God blast your black heart"

LOL! What putrid overwriting and I love every foul purple prose minute of it.

"God blast your black heart!"

Indeed.

Indeed.

2006-06-26T09:58:00.000-04:00

I forgot to post Friday's blog. Oh well, it was me just bitching about my Dentist appointment. You can catch the skinny on my live journal if interested. I think I worked a total of four hours on Friday. I came in at 11. Went to the bank for about an hour and he let us go at 3:30. Wikked! I love my job. I stopped over my mother's house and she painted my nails this pretty mauve and put a glitter top coat over it. So I *sparkle*. Then we chatted about yarn for a bit and she came over my house so I could teach her how to make the felted bowls. They came out really cute! I can't wait to display them. I'm still not sure what to charge for them. I was thinking $5 for the little ones (which aren't so little. You can wear them as hats) and $10 for the big ones. I've only made one big one so far and Purge has claimed it for a gaming fez. (No shit, it really looks like this!) So now I've got to attach a black tassle to it.

So this weekend, Purge and I spent about 8 hours in the basement. It had become a crap collection room. There were bags of recyclables and cardboard boxes, etc. We did a two trips to the dump on Saturday and it looks like we've got another two trips left in us as well. But the room looks like a normal basement now. Sure we still have the shitty rug that the cats have defiled, but it's better than a concrete floor. Sure there's an infestation of things that I'm hoping are only ants, but I beat them back with my mighty vacuum cleaner of wrath. We lit some pretty neroli and rose tarts from a discontinued line of Yankee candles from the found stash of candle swag, so it no longer smells like dust and funk down there. We went through piles of boxes and while we're not yet done, we've filtered out most of the junk. We put all our holiday pots and pans in a plastic shelving unit, so our turkey roasting pan and our induction griddle are out of the way and in one place. I narrowed down my tupperware to one box instead of two. (Anybody want any bowls?) There are still three bookshelves to go through where we just tossed shit so it wasn't on the floor, but that's a project for another day. It's actually quite a nice looking room. Purge set up our old computer so everytime we need something on it now, it's not a project and a half. It even has a printer attached to it. So it was a very productive weekend.

Also on Saturday, we went to Ikea in the rain to look at some futons. The one we wanted turned out not to be in stock. But it was nice to get out of the house for a bit. I reeeeelly like Ikea. But I have no idea how to fit their furniture into my house. I would love to have someone come into my spare room and say BOOM! And have it redone. I have a few idea, mostly that would require a lot of heavy lifting and I'm pretty sure I used up all my heavy lifting points from Purge this weekend. But the good news is I believe they refresh at the beginning of the month.

Sunday Wryan and BZ stopped by and chatted for a bit. BZ went home with one of my bowls on her head. She looked so cute in it! Last night, Nightskye rented the pay per view for WWE Vengeance. We hung out in the bachelor pad and he made us a yummy dinner of porkchops and veggies. We had a bottle of pinot noir from Francis Ford Coppolla's vineyards and it was really good. Then we tried this blueberry port from a Long Island winery that I can't remember . . Duck something. That was also good. I was slurring my words by the end of the night. But I did manage to knit another bowl while watching TV. But I dropped a stitch that I had to pull all the way up about 17 rows. eh, it's going to get felted anyway. I was also able to put together a Peapod order to be delivered tonight, so the week's shopping is done. Purge had a dessert jones and went out for twinkees, hostess cup cakes and chex mix because luckily Wal*mart is open until 10 p.m. on a Sunday. *mental note* Bring some flour to Nightskye's house. We were butt rooted to the couch and trying to figure out what dessert to make with just sugar and eggs. We came up with Zabaglione, but he didn't have a copper bowl -- and meringue.

So it's really nice to sit on my desk here at the law firm and not have to lift anything heavier than a file or two. I have my soda and my tea and if I get a little sleepy, some coffee to wake me up. It's strange when you look forward to work so you can relax and take a break. LOL!

Purge's family is coming up this coming weekend and it should be a really good time. It's his parents' 40th wedding anniversary and since it's the "Ruby" anniversary, we've got a theme for the weekend.

The main meal Saturday night will be:

Appetizers: Mesclun greens with ruby grapefruit sections
Main meal: London Broil spice rubbed on the grill
Side dishes: Stuffed Red peppers, roasted Red potatoes, Beet Salad
Dessert: Red Velvet Cake

We've got some fun activities planned. On Saturday, we're going to go to downtown Guilford and shop at all the shops and maybe go to Jacob's Beach for a swim. Saturday night after dinner, we've got some cool movies for the boys to watch while the adults play games, either Texas Hold 'Em or Cranium or something. And maybe a trip to the Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun for the adults if everyone is not too tired. I'd stay home and babysit my darling nephews. (I'd make sure Purge set up Gauntlet Legends so the three of us could play together)

Then Sunday, my family will be joining us for a picnic and I'm not sure what time everyone wants to leave to go back to New Jersey or Long Island, but if it's not too early, we may get a chance to see the outlet shops in Westbrook or Old Saybrook or if anyone is feeling adventurous the Mystic Aquarium and shops. Maybe do a soap making project with the boys. Do boys even like making soap? Maybe do a soap making project with the girls! :D

2006-06-23T13:10:00.000-04:00

Eating cottage cheese and yogurt because my mouth is so sore. I was hoping to be able to chew solid foods by lunch time but it doesn't look good for the good guys. A note of advice, if your normal dental hygenist isn't in, don't go through with the appointment. Run, don't walk! Thank God for extra strength Tylenol. Owie. BIG TIME.

Debbie Downer even called her "The tooth Nazi."

Anyway, I'm super psyched that it's Friday. Unfortunately because of the imminent rain forcast, my picnic with the FD peeps was postponed.

2006-06-21T11:02:00.000-04:00

*Yawn* Had a couple of late game nights this week and I'm feeling it a bit today. Would like to cuddle up and take a nice nap.

Monday night, we had a nice BBQ. First grill party of the year! Purge couldn't locate the charcoal, so he had to run out to the store. LOL! Luckily, everything timed perfectly and we had burgers and corn on the cob and chips and carrot sticks and some rather rubbery jicama. Oh and salad. I used the last of my special olive oil and basalmic vinegar mix. I swear if I ever see that stuff in the store again I'm going to snag a bottle or two. PCD used to carry it, so I figure I'd never have any worries about restocking it. Oh well, live and learn. Beekeeper R & M were there before their France trip and Nightskye was there rolling dice for the first time in about 10 years. Fun times. Although, my house was a little buggy! We have had some problem with ants, but that doesn't bother me. And moths and mosquitoes always fly in. Tish was tormenting a wolf spider -- again they amuse me more than anything else. The little ones jump right atcha! They're so tiny and fierce. It's the big ones I'm scared of. Because they have the same attitude only not so tiny. Anyway, this one was little. Then, Beekeeper R, killed a bug and said it was a cockroach! That was enough to send me screaming for the Raid. I didn't see it so I can not confirm nor deny. I've never seen one before and we've got some water bugs, but we also have lots of wet leaves and stuff. ::shudder:: Cockroaches are the one thing I CAN'T handle. I will FRRRRRREAAAAK if I see one.

Last night, we headed on over to Cans house. Nightskye just bought a convertible, so we made him drive. OMG that was so much fun! We stopped at Wendy's for dinner and then off we went. There was some great tunes and the weather was beautiful. There is nothing like tooling down the highway with the top down! My hair was totally trashed! I had to put conditioner, detangler and relaxer all to get a brush through it this morning. But I'd do it again in a heart beat!

2006-06-19T10:52:00.000-04:00

The pile is slightly less today. I managed to close a stack by Friday, but there was another one waiting for me this a.m. I ran out of room on my desk, so now I'm piling the files to be closed in old paper cartons. I hate being backed up. I'm determined to finish the title policies today if it kills me!

Anyway, the weekend was very nice. Tiring but nice. I'll start out reviewing the wonderful dinner I had on Thursday. I was a little worried because the wine was about $20 and I hate paying more than $10 on a wine I've never tried. But needless to say it was one of the best bottles of wine I had ever had. However, when Purge first opened it, he said, "I'd rather have a case of the clap than a case of this wine." He said it was tart and vinegary smelling. But after it breathed for about a half hour it was nice and it was even better an hour later when we drank it with dinner. It even tasted different in my glass than in Purge's. He was using a red wine glass and I was using a tasting glass. Anyway, we had a few bumps in the dinner. I got thighs with bones instead of boneless so that added to the cooking time. I couldn't get pancetta so I used bacon and I forgot to add the chives to the gnocci. But all in all, it was absolutely wonderful. The wine reduction sauce was flavorful and savory. The meat fell off the bone. The bacon added a smokiness to the dish and we stuffed ourselves. There was enough left over so Purge had that for lunch the next day. It, however, didn't take 30 minutes. It took 90. However, some of that was because I had used meat on the bones instead of boneless. Still, for all of the goodness of her recipes, Rachel Ray, is full of shit when it comes to timing the meal.

The next meal I'm going to try of hers is a chicken pot pie without the "pie" that looked really good. Maybe for Wednesday.

Friday, Purge worked and I went to D&D with Redsox. We used 100 or so NPC's to get out of the death dealing fight and managed to survive with out next quest objective. I had taco bell (BZ rocks!!!) and Dunkin' Donots iced coffee for dinner. Needless to say, I'm not 18 anymore and perhaps should think about eating more healthy. . . . Nah.

Saturday was the first day of my craft fair season at the Dudley Farm. I was up early and got there an hour before it opened so I was able to set up my table. I seriously need to get one of those folding camp chairs with the canvas bottoms. The steel folding chair I use seriously numbs my butt. I didn't sell a dang thing. My mother sold a scrunchie. I packed up at 11:30 a.m. because it was starting to rain. I'm working on some felted bowls for next week to see how they'll sell. I broke down and bought the Galway yarn by Plymouth to see if I would have better felting results. I joined two knitting communities on Live Journal and learned that the reason the other stuff wasn't felting so well was because it was superwash wool and even though it was 100% wool, it had fibers in it so you can toss it in the wash. Who knew? Anyway, after the craft fair it was in the car to do some errands, one of which was tracking down an artist portfolio for my father's Masonic apron. That's what he wanted for Father's Day. I'm still looking for a 20x20 zippered bag/folder for him. I haven't had time to use my internet powers for good in this search yet though. Then, I went home and had some lunch and relaxed a bit because Purge was able to get out of work around 2:30 p.m. and he drove me up to Woostah so I could go to Baby Cass's party. For the record, the bar was Ugly Coyote (I should be able to remember that name.) As for the other landmarks, they were a mobil and a dunkin donots so that wasn't as helpful. But Purge knew the way so we were golden. Baby Cass was so cute! She was playing with all her friends and picking mint and getting dirty. It was great. It was nice to see Chynakatt and Blixx and the gang too. Baby Cass opened up presents under the pavilion while it was thundering and raining. The pavilion held all of us and we didn't get wet at all. We left while it was still daylight so I could get my bearings going home. And I fell asleep as soon as i tumbled into bed, even though it was only around 9:30 a.m.

Sunday, my father wanted to go out on the boat for Father's Day, so my mother packed a picnic lunch and I grabbed the iced coffee at DuDo's and we were off. We went by Faulkner's Island and had a lovely day. They were fishing out by half acre and Kimberly reef, but no one was catching anything. We took a ride down to Clinton and in the marina saw this huge yacht out of George Town Grand Caymen. It was gorgeous looking. That's the way to travel man! Even though it was 95 out, you didn't feel it on the water. We had the top up and we were enjoying the salt spray and sea breeze. I started the book "The Devil Wore Prada" that they just made a movie out of. It's a mindless fun bit of fluff. When we got home I, again, went face first in the mattress for a three hour nap. I roused myself with difficulty but I did some laundry and some cleaning and got ready for the week. I had to pass on Nightskye's offer to watch some wrestling pay per view at his pad and was happily surfing the internet until I fell asleep.

So that was the weekend in a nutshell. Tonight Beekeeper R & M are coming over for a pic nic and some dungeon action. Tomorrow, the D&D will continue at Cans house and then the rest of the week is free. I may try some World of Warcraft, if the mood hits me, but I'm into a writing groove and I don't want to mess it up.

2006-06-15T15:01:00.000-04:00

::swimming::

I have literally over 100 files on my desk in various degrees of completion. I'm hoping to be only up to my ass in files at the end of the day. Of course, typing here doesn't help the piles, but it's such mindless work that if I don't get a diversion I will go crazy.

Vegan got fired yesterday. It was such a surprise being mid-week and first thing in the morning. I'm going to miss her. She was one of the nice ones. I wish I had thought to get her home e-mail so we could keep in touch. I still have some of her books and she has some of mine. Oh well, I suppose we'll get in contact again. Maybe we can do a book swap over lunch.

But that's why the paperwork keeps piling up. Everyone's got a split of her work, so it's been pretty busy.

But what I'm going through is nothing compared to poor Purge. His company, after at least 7 years of working on an antiquated database / system called 4D, has now decided to upgrade, if not into the 21st century, than at least up to where the 4D technical support will be trained and able to help them. In theory anyway. So his putting in a new structure and for the last six months has been testing and retesting and putting things through the wringer. And now that it's done to the finish line, things are blowing up. Luckily, the programmer that they hired as a consultant was there when the worst of it happened. But he didn't get in until 9 p.m. last night and it looks like it's another late night tonight and a possible all nighter on Friday. My poor love is going to be twisted wreckage by Sunday. But I'm hoping Sunday will be a "day of rest" for him, the poor dear.

So tonight I'm going to clean up the house and make him a nice dinner. I saw two great recipes that Rachel Ray did on her show 30 minute meals last night. If you click on the link, scroll down to the 14th to see both shows. I put in an order for Peapod so I have the ingredients. It'll be nice to have food in the house again. I was on a clean out the pantry and fridge kick. That's all well in good, but when dinner conversation goes like this:

"What do you want for dinner?"
"I dunno what do we have?"
"Hmmm, there's chick peas, canned tomatoes, peanut butter and Jello."
"What's in the fridge?"
"Condiments and some old yogurt."
"Freezer?"
"Frozen veggies and an old packet of veggie burgers."
"Let's order a pizza."
"We did that yesterday."
"No, we had chex mix and popcorn for dinner yesterday."
"Oh yeah I had the worst heartburn."
"Do you want to go to Panera?"
"I don't want to drive that far."
"How about Rocko's in Branford."
"OK."

So I'm going to be a domestic goddess tonight. Here's the plan: I'm going to tidy up the house and vacuum. I don't know what it is but we've had to vacuum every other day because of all the cat hair! What's up with the shedding? Get your summer coats already. Then I'm going to make a 30 minute meal, but because I'm kitchenly-challenged and Rachel Ray cheats, it will be more like a 60 minute meal. Then I've got to write out some checks to pay the bills. I usually do this at work but I have no time/desk space. Then, I'm going to sit down and relax and watch my Inu Yashi DVDs -- if they came from Netflix today. If not, then I'll probably pop in one of Wryan / BZ's DVDs most likely Shaun of the Dead or Napoleon Dynamite.

And thanks to one of the girls in the office, I now have a jones for iced coffee. I don't even like coffee and we don't have a coffee pot at home. We've got a perculator and I have no idea how that works. ::Mental note: Buy a cheap coffee maker::

2006-06-13T09:22:00.000-04:00

OK long time no post. Mostly because blogger's been having the fitsies. You can catch up on my live journal if you're interested.

Anotherealm posted my "Garage Sale" contest entry. Check it out here.

And WHOOO! Terror in the Mirror took first place in their "Ghost Story" contest. Happy! Happy! Happy!

I'm wikked tired today. I went to bed relatively early for me (Was busy playin' on the Internet) but woke up around 4:45 a.m. with the most painful heartburn. Oh, my back is fine now. A much put off trip to the Chiropractor and some exercise to keep it limber and I was as good as new. Damn, but being in that much pain scared me. I'm so glad it's over. Anyway, I couldn't get back to sleep this a.m. after popping two Pepcid AC, so I ironed a couple of shirts before my back started twinging and I thought "eff it" and curled up on the futon with my book "Broken" by Kelley Armstrong. The book was so good, I wanted to go back to bed and nap and read all day. But it's such a nice day and I was feeling better so I decided to go into work. I bribed myself with blueberry waffles (Aunt Jemima but I never eat breakfast so it was a treat.) Unfortunately, I had to play the "What Stinks?" game in the kitchen. I got it narrowed down to the trash or the dishes, but neither seems the likely culprit. *sigh* I also think the white kitty is peeing on my bedroom drapes again, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm taking that as a sign that I should buy new drapes. 63" instead of 84" Heh. Although with the first half of my property taxes due, I'm like "Stop the Insanity!" with the spending. My damn bank doesn't escrow the taxes out each month, so I have to sock the cash away in a savings account each month. It's not a Greek Tragedy, but let's say I've been dipping into the savings so I'm a tad short come August 1st. But still barring major catastrophe, everything should even out in the wash. I was actually hoping for a small windfall from my accident claim (Love working for lawyers!) but the statue of limitations is two years and I'll probably not see anything for another year -- if that.

I almost fell asleep driving in, damn soft music channel. I switched to the 80's at eight and was treated to Joan Jett's "I Hate Myself for Loving You" and Scandal's "The Warrior." That kept me awake until I got into work and had a cup of Gloria Jean's "Mudslide" coffee. We have the Keurig machine that takes the little K-cups and brews one cup at a time, so it's always fresh and the Mudslide is my favorite.

2006-06-06T09:38:00.000-04:00

Night of Agony

So I get home last night and I hop into the hot tub, with Purge's help and soak for a good two hours. I felt great! So I sat up for a bit, ate dinner and then went to lie down.

Yeah.

I forgot the heat.

I had tightened up so bad, I couldn't even stand. So Purge heated up the herb pack thingie a few times and as soon as my back hit the heat it started spasming. He tried to find an all night drug store, but had to settle for Stop and Shop. Nightskye was nice enough to stay with me while Purge went out so I wouldn't be alone. Purge came back with liquid heat, the wrap around heating pads, and Doan's pills. He slathered some of the Ben Gaylike gel on my back, stuck the heating pads on and rolled me over on the new age heating thingee. It was passed midnight and four times the new age thing had to go into the microwave and I was able to slowly roll out of bed and using furniture as my walker go to the bathroom.

I slept all night on the heat, sleeping fitfully really. And this morning I can stand upright and move with just a few twinges and pain. I still have the heat on it and another heating pad in my purse for when this one gives out and as soon as my tea cools down I'm popping two advil and two Doan's pills (magnesium).

Ow.

This morning Purge helped me into my clothes and I'm at work. It was $50 worth of pain last night, but I think I can hold off on the chiropractor today. I'm not a clumsy person, but I've been dropping things today and since it really hurts to bend I'm just leaving them on the floor. I never drop anything when I'm feeling fine.

It was really scary last night. Everytime something like this happens, I flashback to the first time it happened. It was ten years ago. I was recently married. Purge and I both worked 2 jobs. Purge, two full time and me a part time and a full time. We were in our first apartment in Guilford and Purge was working his overnight shift at Trav's mobil. My back locked so bad that I had to crawl on my hands and knees to the bathroom. It was either that or pee the bed. I woke up passed out on the floor of the bathroom. My mind has added that Tish, the cat was sitting next to me when I came to. But the reality is, I was alone because I remember thinking "At least if we had a cat, I wouldn't have been all alone." So it's weird that I know we hadn't brought her home yet, but my memory has put in that detail so it was less scary. I remember that when I came to, I was happy because there wasn't any more pain and I started to drift to sleep but my mind doesn't accept things. It started thinking, "Why is my pillow so rough?" and when I opened my eyes I was face down on the carpet. I had to crawl back to bed. It was so frightening to be all alone. I know why I didn't call Purge to come home. We needed the money. I know why I didn't call my parents. Because it was about 3 a.m. and I wanted to be independant and not run to them with any problems. But looking back on it now ten years later, I should have called someone.

So as I was laying in bed, back spasming and tears running down my face, all I could think about was how in the morning, Purge would go to work and I would be all alone again. I asked him if he could work from home and he said he would try. Even a half day would have been OK. I was planning on not coming into work today. I was going to ask my mother to sit with me. But she'd probably want to clean or do something. And all I would need is a babysitter, someone just to be there. But as it turns out, I was OK enough to go to work.

As a post script to this.

I just got back from the chirapractor! I was going to tough it out, but I felt it getting worse. So they were able to squeeze me in for a 10:30 appointment. They're right down the street from us, walking distance if I wasn't in such pain.

I feel wonderful. Almost 100%. Very slight pain. He did the electro stim, which I absolutely adore. Hot compress. Massage and stretching. And he put the freezing gel on as well. *sigh*

This is a request: When I'm hemming and hawing over whether or not to go to the Doctor's, please encourage me to go. There's no need to tough it out!

2006-06-05T16:09:00.000-04:00

World of Warcraft update

There isn't one. I played once in seven days. Got so bored/fed up, I shut the game off to watch two movies. One was "Equilibrium" and the other was an old favorite of mine, Mel Brook's "To Be or Not to Be."

I don't know what's causing the ennui with the game. Maybe because I couldn't advance in rank beyond Lt. Commander without devoting 50+ hours a week to the grind -- I mean game. Plus, in order to get the armor I need and to fill in my quest log, I have to do dungeons which require at least four other people. I tried waiting around the meeting stones (You wait in queue for a dungeon) but that didn't work, so I logged off. I suppose I could have gone on as one of my alts, but it all seemed rather pointless.

I'm not sure if this disenchantment will last. I tend to doubt it as Nightskye will probably log on as a new character and maybe I'll level up with him or bring my hordie Xhakollari out of Thunder Bluff. ::shrugs::

2006-06-05T15:27:00.000-04:00

Ow my aching back
Oy my overflowing desk

I really should get some work done, but I'm in too much pain. It's easier to sit here and type because at least that gets my mind off of it.

Last week, Purge and I were flipping through the channels and we caught Flash Gordon just as it started. We turned up the surround sound and the sub woofer and blasted Queen's awesome title song. (Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum Flash AH AH) Then we stayed for the whole movie and made Mystery Science Theatre comments at the screen. I especially liked all the 60's acid trip special effects and saying some lines along with the characters.

"Klytus, I'm bored"
"This Ming's a psycho"
"Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!"
"Bring me the bore worms." -- "NO! Not the bore worms!"
"Long live Flash! You've saved your Earth. Have a nice day." -- "Yeah" -- Queen Riff: "He's for everyone of us / Stand for everyone of us / He saved with a mighty hand (ahhh, ah) / Every man every woman (ahh, ah) /Every child - he's a mighty flash (ahh, ahh, ah)"

Is it wrong to want to have Princess Aura's outfits? Prince Barin has a potty mouth. His lines are all like "Lying Bitch" and "Bastard". Why do Hawkmen have rocket cycles? They have wings. Aside from the obvious, what exactly do the bore worms do?

Deep thoughts.

2006-06-01T15:42:00.000-04:00

Another hour and a half of boredom left in the work day!

I can't take it. Boooooored!

And of course the phone is busy so I can't do any writing and of course I've got plenty to do, but I'm just so sick and tired of breaking down files for scanning. My mind feels like it's melting away.

Last night, I got my yarn needles and patterns organized. I was up until midnight putting all the patterns into sleeves and getting stuff ready to knit. I'm going to do my version of Knitty's Kitty Dim Sum to sell at the craft fair.

I also decided to treat myself to a mid week bubble bath in the hot tub. I almost didn't because I needed to wash my hair and there's not enough hot water for both. But then I decided aw the hell with it and sat in the tub with my head under the faucet and washed it in the tub. It was great because I then slathered on the conditioner and gave myself a full spa treatment. By the time I was dome exfoliating and masking and just having a nice old soak, the hot water was up again and I was able to rinse out the conditioner and leaving it on my hair for so long did my hair a load of good. After I was done, I should have made the dog go in and gave him a bath too, but that would have re-stressed my relaxation. He's a filthy boy though, so it's going to happen sooner rather than later.

I also made a bunch of salads for lunch,(tuna,egg and brocoli slaw). I was bummed that we only had miracle whip but whatcha gonna do? I also made some hummus for snacking too.

2006-05-31T16:27:00.000-04:00

I made soap last night. Learned a few things. Well, learned isn't actually the right word. I already knew these truths about myself but always fail to apply them until it's too late.

1. I can't follow directions. I read/skim them and then make it up as I go along.
2. I have no patience.

While following the directions for my first batch (mostly) I came up with a nice purple glycerine soap with a purple flower in it. I didn't let it fill 1/3 of the way and let sit a bit (like the directions said) before adding the flower and hence a few pieces, when I cut the soap, cracked with the flower poking out. ::shrugs::

I poured the next batch with the cucumber melon scent. Either I didn't use enough of it or it smells like cantaloupe feet normally. I sorta followed the directions. They wanted 6-8 drops per soap. There were three soaps in the mold, I put in about 40 drops. ::shrugs:: I also got bubbles on top of the soap, which is ugly since they're supposed to be clear green. Not clear green with bubbles and froth. I need to look up on the internet how I got the bubbles and how to stop them.

The next batch I went hog wild and did my own thing. Luckily, I was smart enough to do one bar just complete white. The other two I tried to do a funky tie dye swirl that did. not. work. at. all. The complete white one I'm going to chunk up into squares and position them in the mold and pour red or blue soap over it to give it an avant garde look. Getting tricksie!

So the girls at work got some soap samples and I'll probably give out some to my sisters-in-law and Jacknife and Chynakatt. They're OK looking but not anything anyone would buy. I'm no Soap Lady. That's for sure. But I had a lot of fun doing them. She renders her own fat and lye and I so don't want to get involved with that. I think the closest I'll get involved is buying that cheap goats milk soap I saw online for 1/2 the price AC Moore is selling their coconut oil soap.

Purge and I cleaned the house a bit, kicking and screaming all the way. But it's a marked improvement. I still didn't go food shopping, so it's been a raid the cabinet/refridgerator/freezer night. I just don't feel like cooking. I can't wait until we're more into summer so all we have to do is throw meat on fire and serve up with fresh veggies from the garden drizzled with olive oil and basalmic vinegar. Voila dinner is served!

I'm sticking to my resolution of no Warcraft until the weekend. Well, not really, I did check my honor and wasn't surprised to see that even though I had 20K honor, since I didn't have 40K, I almost deranked. I think I have officially reached the point of no longer giving a shit. Which is interesting and sad all at once. I really love the mage character. But now that I'm not grinding for rank, I'm only going to use her for dungeons. I'll probably complete my tier two armor quests, as much as I can anyway. I don't have the full set because the pieces I'm missing are bind on pick up treasure drops from dungeons I've never been in. But there's no need for an epic mount now, so I don't need to grind for gold or reputation. I'll get my war kitty with Betzaida if she ever reaches 40. So when I do play, it'll be leveling up Irideane (my 52 gnome warrior) and Xiomarrah (my 32 warlock) and if I'm still interested, my 16 priest Betzaida.

It's interesting having all this free time at night. Maybe now I can make some headway with my writing.

2006-05-30T12:30:00.000-04:00

Spent the morning composing my X-men Rant. You can read UIM's comments about the movie below the rant there. He e-mailed them to me, but I thought they were too good to miss. I was nearly screaming, "YES! YES! YES!" at my desk and for all the wrong reasons too.

Ash came back! She was gone almost 24 hours, but she came to the back door when I called for her at the front. I had refused to cry, but I was convinced she was gone for good. Purge put the liquid flea stuff on her and she ran into the basement and sulked. I was so worried. I had nightmares that she was dying in convulsions because the medicine was too strong. So Purge fed her some wet food and things seemed to be better. That cat will be the death of me! On another note, Jacknife said there was an orange tiger kitten to be adopted, but Purge would kill me.

I had a great long weekend. I didn't want to come into work today because I was having so much fun. Friday night, I read Charlaine Harris's newest Dead book. (Thanks to UIM) Yay Were tigers! It was such a treat. Saturday, we went out for breakfast, saw the new X-men movie and then came home and did chores and played Warcraft. Sunday we went up to Beekeeper R & M's mom's house to celebrate R's birthday, play D&D and just enjoy the company. His Mom made a wonderful lamb on the grill and the next morning made us pancakes the size of the skillet that we put homemade cherry sauce on. YUM! Monday, we came on home and got ready for the week. There's always so much boring stuff to do around the house! The kitchen's a pit and I have to swap out the summer clothes with the winter clothes. Plus vacuuming is in order, chores bleargh!

Even though thre was a long weekend, I don't have that much pressing to do at work. After I get done here, I'll have to do the bank deposit but that's about it. I was hoping to get a Peapod order in today but I don't think I'll have the time. I might just have to go to the store myself ::shudder::

2006-05-26T13:49:00.000-04:00

Bad news.

My kitty, Ash, decided to take a walk about. We think she snuck outside last night around midnight when we let the dog out. I remember her snaking around my legs before I got into the shower. But I haven't seen her since. This morning Purge told me that he looked all over for her. Since she's usually in the bedroom with us and when he put out the wet food, she didn't come out.

We both searched inside and out. My mother came in and searched while we're at work. Purge came home from lunch but the food and water we left outside wasn't even touched. She's fluffy white and grey with big blue eyes. She's a Siamese / Himalayan mix that we got as a stray. She's very friendly and will come to most anyone who's talking nice to her, if it's on her terms. She had come right up to me when I first saw her. Of course, she thought I was going to feed her. Beekeeper M had been feeding her chicken bits. Her and her little kitten.

Oh Wah!

I'm hoping the honking big racoon didn't tear her to shreds or that she didn't get run over by a car on the busy street. I also hope she's not lost and scared.

I'm not going to cry yet though. The last time I bawled my eyes out. She turned up around dark looking to come back inside.

2006-05-25T13:01:00.000-04:00

Rats.

I didn't get the Boondock Saints poster with my birthday on it. I even checked on Ebay, but they're not selling it. Bummer.

Oh well.

I went to AC Moore on my lunch hour yesterday because the gift certificate Kiddo gave me was burning a hole in my pocket. I bought two soap making kits and now I'm addicted! It looks like so much fun. I would have started it last night, but you need to use a measuring cup and I want to get one that's just for melting soap so I don't mix it up with my baking one! LOL I'm going to Walmart today to pick one up. The kits come with Pearberry scent and I picked up Cucumber Melon scent also, but I think I'm going to make some without scent because I know several people who are allergic/don't care for the scents. So that's the weekend project I think. The funny part is I can't do the soap on the dining room table because of the cats. They always have their noses and paws in everything. That's all I need to make is cat hair soap! Mmmm organicy goodness!

2006-05-23T11:37:00.000-04:00

Wow, a whole week since I last posted. It's definitely a laziness thang.

This past week has been a haze. I can't really tell you exactly what was going on. It was more of the same ole same ole, though. I took Friday and Monday off so I could have a long birthday weekend. What's really cool is with Memorial Day coming up next week, that means I've worked 4 day weeks for the past three weeks.

Friday, I had to get my new Driver's License and I went to go see The DaVinci Code with my mother and father during a matinee. My mother really wanted to see it, so I went with them. My mother made me put three cans of diet coke in my purse and then made me put the empties back in to smuggle them out again. I told her I'd give her the fifteen cents so soda wouldn't drip into my $200 purse, but she was having none of that. That night I whipped up a caesar salad with pre-cooked chicken strips for dinner and Purge and I watched The Producers with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. It was nice. I bet they really brought the house down with those songs on Broadway. Somethings really don't translate well to the small screen.

Saturday was my craft fair and I was a little disorganized for it. We forgot the tablecloth. But luckily, we were only five minutes from home so I was able to go back and get it. It was a gorgeous day. For the first two hours we were set up next to the Dudley Farm String Band and they are amazing. They did all my favorites, including "Midnight Special." And they surprised me with a version of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." My mother also bought me a strawberry scone from the scone lady. The first of the year! But although it was nice to see a sheep shearing demonstration and to see all the kids from last year, I didn't sell a damned thing. We weren't charged anything for the table because this was a special event, so I didn't lose anything. But, I really wanted the extra cash to spoil myself for the weekend. Anyway, we spent all day Saturday and Sunday playing Warcraft. It really wasn't how I wanted to spend my birthday weekend, but at least it was inexpensive and we didn't have to pay for gas. And I didn't have any other ideas so it was what it was. I had a good time, but it wasn't anything special.

Monday was my birthday and that was fun and special. Purge started the day off by giving me a beautiful card and a gift card with the Disney princesses on it. He put on the gift card cover "You'll always be my Princess". So that was really sweet. I didn't get it at first because it was a Walmart gift card and I couldn't figure out why in the world he would get me a card from Walmart. He said the look on my face was priceless. But after I got the importance of the princesses, I thought it was really sweet. And since it started burning a hole in my pocket, we went out to the Walmart so I could spend it. I got a pretty shirt and a necklace and earring set. Then we were off to Milford to pick up my cake. It was a cherry cannoli cake from Julia's bakery. OH BOY! Was that good. There were two slices left over that we're going to have for dessert tonight. Then Purge took me to Olive Garden for lunch. I wanted the soup and salad and breadstick combo where it's all you can shove in your face. OH YUM! The soup was a spicy Italian sausage with potato and it was a really enjoyable lunch. Then we went to M&M produce in Milford because they have cheap really good fruits and vegetables. Purge bought me asparagus and Asian pears. Then he treated me to a pedicure before going home and cleaning the house for me while I surfed around on the Internet. My family came over around 5 and we celebrated my birthday with the cannoli cake and ice cream. I got to show my Grandfather the computer and with my headphones on, he could listen to my radio station and watch news clips from Comcast. I even showed him Bookworm and World of Warcraft. I had brought out my lap top so I could show my aunt "The daily kitten" and he became interested from there. After they left, we had tickets to the sold out screening of "Boondock Saints". It was a special release to promote buzz for the extra special edition that's releasing today. All it is is more blood. Nothing that I'd pay another $20 for. I was hoping that they would add in the deleted scenes, but they didn't. Still it was nice to see it on the big screen and hear the audience laugh at the jokes a few seconds before they happened. I think everyone in the theatre could recite the words by heart.

When we left the theatre, I asked the manager on duty for the poster, because it had my birthday date as well as the boys on there and he said to leave my name and number and the other manager will call me tonight. I hope I get it. I'll have it framed and put in the bedroom! Heh!

Other than that, things are back to normal. I came into work today after being out for the two days and all I can say is Holy Paperwork, Batman! It always takes a good day to sort through everything. But I made a pretty good dent today.

I'm hoping my chicken breast defrosted in the fridge. I'm going to cook them up for dinner tonight with that asparagus.

2006-05-15T13:04:00.000-04:00

Had an interesting weekend. Game on Friday was good. I didn't die and I don't think anyone else did either. But Cans got captured and he wasn't even there. LOL. I don't think anyone broke the news to him yet. I was a little bummed because I left my knitting scissors and notions at home so I couldn't work on the bracers. I haven't given up on them yet. God, I just read that back. Bracers should be bracelets! ::rolls eyes::

Jacknife leaves me a message on my answering machine that she's going to be a mother.
. . . to a three legged lizard. I wish I could find my cell phone so I could yell at her but I've looked everywhere but it's gone baby gone. Luckily, we can re-up our plan in June at Verizon and that's only a few weeks away.

Saturday was spent in its entirety playing Warcraft and doing household chores. But it wasn't until Sunday that we got serious and finally finished the closet by 10:30 p.m. What a relief that was. It's so nice to have a walk in closet again. The bedroom got slightly messy, but it's managable. I don't know how two people can have so much clothes. I donated two big bags of clothes to Goodwill. Purge dropped them off when he returned the cans: $16 worth baybeee!!

I baked a strawberry cake for my mother for Mother's Day. I used strawberry icing and topped it with sliced strawberries. Then we went out to Barnes and Noble. I love bookstores, but I got so angry walking through the racks. First of all, I didn't feel comfortable buying anything so close to my birthday so that put me in an off mood. I saw some really cute knitting books too. And Charlaine Harris has a new book out and I saw Isabel Allende's Zorro and Rachel Ray's Express Lane meals and Kelley Armstrong has a new book out. You get the picture. But that's not what made me angry.

My original thought to go to the bookstore was to spend some time with my mother on Mother's Day and she likes bookstores as much as I do only when she goes with my father he rushes her. I was also reading a magazine back at her house. I found out later it was from October 2004, but it was about this *new* diet that combines the best of all the celebrity diets like Atkins and South Beach and all of that. It guarantees a weight lost of 6 lbs a week, more at first. It was called something like fit for life or body for life, but it wasn't either one of them. I wrote down the name of the "Dr" who wrote it and the title but promptly lost the scrap of paper. They had diet clinics in California under a different name that started with "L" but I couldn't recall that either. So as I was perusing the shelves of all the diet and nutrition books, I found myself filling with rage. How dare all these people make billions of dollars off fat people's need and hope to lose weight. I had always refused to go that route, yet here I was searching the book aisles for that "Miracle Diet." You don't get to be my age and weight without knowing how to lose weight. At it's simplest you burn more than you consume. I just wanted something fast so I can fit more comfortably in my clothes and have more energy and I was feeling really down about myself. And I was mad I couldn't find the book. Because two years later, (remember the article I read was that old) if it wasn't still on the shelf, it obviously didn't work. And I was even more mad that I would have fallen for it and bought it.

So I was pissed and then I meandered over to the science fiction and fantasy section and got even more pissed that my book wasn't on the shelves. Heck, it wasn't even in the bargain rack and then I wondered how I would feel about seeing my book in the bargain rack for $5.

Anyway, my mom wanted to go to Costco/BJ's wholesale club to pick up some food. So we went there. She then said she wanted to pick up flowers and drop them off on my Grandmother's grave. So we went there too. I hate cemetaries and I hate going to them, but it was mother's day so I sucked it up.

2006-05-12T12:10:00.000-04:00

Thought this was cute today:

A Dog's Diary

7am - Oh Boy! Breakfast! My favorite!
9am - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite!
10am - Oh Boy! A walk! My favorite!
11am - Oh Boy! A car ride! My favorite! Noon - Oh Boy! A nap! My favorite!
1pm - Oh Boy! The yard! My favorite!
3pm - Oh Boy! A treat! My favorite!
4pm - Oh Boy! Dinner! My favorite!
5pm - Oh Boy! Grandma! My favorite!
7pm - Oh Boy! Playing with my toy! My favorite!
9pm - Oh Boy! Sleeping in Daddy's bed! My favorite!

A Cat's Diary

Day 183 of my captivity....My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another houseplant.

Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded; must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair; must try this on their bed.

Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in an attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and commented about what a good little kitty I was. Hmmm, not working according to plan. There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary confinement throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the food. More importantly I overheard that my confinement was because of my power of "allergies."

Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.

I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously an idiot. The bird, on the other hand, has got to be an informant and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room, his safety is assured. But I can wait; it is only a matter of time...

2006-05-11T11:03:00.000-04:00

There is no reason I should be tired. I'm yawning my ass off over here! I was asleep by 8:30 p.m. last night, just ask Purge. I have no idea why other than my walk with Gus really kicked my ass for some reason. It was our usual route and aside from him stopping to pee on every single pole, we were fine. I had to rest at the Baldwin School because my calves were on fire, which was strange. And then I had to stop at my Aunt's and rest in her garden chair until she got home from taking my Grandfather out to play cards. It was really weird. I do this jaunt all the time and it never strains or fatigues me like this.

Anyway, I got home to take a tub bath that I've been promising myself and I filled it with ice cold water - D'oh! -- instead of the hot. I was so upset because I was already freezing from my walk. But I drained half of it and filled the other half with hot and had an OK tepid bath. I was still freezing. I read a few magazines and then I was out like a light.

Thrilling, isn't it?

I'm sure it's a nutrition thing or something like that. Blergh.

2006-05-10T09:40:00.000-04:00

This meme brought to you by jeNN

If you comment on this entry, (you'll have to go over to the duplicate post in the Live Journal), I'll give you a letter so you can come up with ten words starting with that letter, plus explanations of what each word means to you.

10 Words beginning with the letter N

1. Nonsense - This is the stuff in my head. The dribbles and the drabbles that I make up for my own amusement that sometimes, if I'm very lucky, will emerge into a short story or a novel.

2. Non Sequitor - I like cabbage. Can you swim?

3. Notorious - It's a Duran Duran song! It's an Alfred Hitchcock film! Duran Duran reminds me of my highschool years. I remember Amy McIntyre (Why is it you can always remember the first and last names of bullies?) asked me why Duran Duran was my favorite band if I only knew one of their songs. (I think it was "Hungry Like the Wolf" at the time) And I said, "Because that song's enough." And she rolled her snotty eyes at me and crushed my youthful enthusiasm. As for the film, I love old movies because the scripts and the actors were so well done. As much as I like watching movies with great special effects on the big screen, I really miss the characterization and drama that a small sound stage can provide. And why isn't there another Cary Grant, Ingrid Berman or Claude Rains working today. Does anyone even come close? Hmmm Samuel Jackson definitely. I can't think of a female actress. Sure Meryl Streep, but she hasn't done much lately. Nicole Kidman? Maybe. I really liked her in that creepy film Dead Calm.

4. Neverland - J.M. Barrie enchanted me with this place. One of my short stories is entitled "Neverland Lost." I used to wish I had a window looking over London so I could think happy thoughts and follow the second star to the right straight on until morning. "Hook" was the only movie adaption that I have wanted to see and I loved it because Robin Williams, Bob Hoskins and Dustin Hoffman were wonderful. The quotes were especially funny. My favorite:

Smee: I've just had an apostrophe.
Captain Hook: I think you mean an epiphany.
Smee: No... lightning has just struck my brain.
Captain Hook: Well, that must've hurt.

5. Nintendo - Or "No-friend-o" as we used to call it. I've long had a crush on the Mario Brothers and that stupid dragon Yoshi. In college, Chynakatt would bring up her set and we would spend hours hopping on Koopas and playing volleyball. Then on the night Jacknife and I were to set off on our first cruise, we stayed up all night playing SUPER Nintendo. That game was wretched in that if you died on the last screen, you had to do the ENTIRE level all over again. Well, Jacknife had the clue book out and we finally maneuvered ourselves up where we could grab the key and warp out of there. Jacknife goes to grab it while mounted on Yoshi, hits the wrong button and punts the key into the abyss -- ruining about five hours worth of work. But giving birth to the phrase "STUPID DRAGON"

6. Niennanessa - My level 60 Warcraft character. Of Whom, I believe at last count, I've played 48 days and a smattering of hours and minutes. That's total time. She is an acane spec'd mage and is ranked #76 on the server in PvP combat. Her rank, which is slipping because I can't put in the hours to maintain 40K a week, is still Lt. Commander. I know if I can log 100K for four weeks straight, I have a chance of getting her to Commander and thus buying an epic mount at 80% off the cost. However, I can't see that happening any time soon. Especially since my 52 character and my 32 character are becoming more fun to play.

7. Nevermore - Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" was one of the first poems that I memorized. The rhyme scheme and the alliteration of the words, making it easy. I've always wanted to try a more dramatic reading of it where you don't sing the words, but it's about as easy as trying to recite the preamble without doing the school house rock beat. "We the people in order to form a more perfect union. Establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility -ee -ee -eee" Gettin' loud now. "PRO-vide for the common defense, PRO-mote the general welfare and HENCE, secure the blessings of Lib-er-tee to ourselves and our posterity DO ORDAIN and est-ah-ah-blish this Constitut-SHU-UHN for the United States of AH-Mer-i-CAH!" Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal. Anyway, "The Raven" had such delicious words that tripped off your tongue and the creepy intoned "Nevermore" of the raven always brought a chill up my spine and a delge of pity for the lost and "the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore / Nameless here forevermore." I still think it's terrifying to be nameless. Again, I'm finding a loss in modern day writers to impact with just a few stanzas. Is it that I'm no longer a child to be frightened by mere words? I can't tell if the creepiness that I feel is remembered from childhood or an hommage to Poe's words who can still impact after 150 years.

8. New Orleans - We went to New Orleans on our "Cruise from Hell." This was the cruise that taught us no more cheap cruises in September / hurricane season and never EVER sail with Carnival again. This was our last port of call and I was so happy to have cell phone coverage so I could call home and talk to people. It was nice to sit on deck as we glided up the Mississippi River. I was astounding that the river was so wide and yet so curvy. At times we couldn't see shore and at other times I wasn't sure how the big boat was going to manage it. It teleported you back to times when more commerce was done by river boats. By the time we docked at the port of New Orleans, we were more than ready to be off that boat. First thing I insisted on was cafe au lait and a beignet. Then we could go exploring the city. We didn't have much time, so we passed on seeing Jim Morrison's grave and the old cemetary and the garden district, because we knew we would come back one day. We walked along bourbon street and the air was full of magic. I pressed my nose against Emeril Lagasse's restaurant NOLA and I'm still kicking myself for not stopping in. We bought beads and pralines and reveled in the fact that we were drinking in the streets. I had a hurricane and a mint julep at Pat O'briens, while listening to a live piano player. We still have the hurricane glass, but I dropped the mint julep one. We were hustled back on the boat before sundown, because, like a few of the Caribean countries we visited, it really wasn't safe for tourists to wander around after dark. When the real hurricane hit, I wasn't surprised about the amount of people who didn't evacuate. I was surprised at our response time. While the federal government may have had some responsibility, I firmly believe Louisiana's state government mainly was at fault. They've lived in the shadow of this type of catastrophe and got caught with their pants down. I'm happy to say that they are now working on a more viable escape path from the city. I'm just sorry it had to take a tragedy to get them moving on it. I'd like to go back to New Orleans someday after they rebuild.

9. Neuroses - Of which, I have several. I will get up in the middle of the night to make sure the oven is turned off, even if I know that I've turned it off. I have to sleep with a blanket covering my neck to protect me from vampire bites. I am compulsive about buying yarn and books. I spend WAY too much time playing games and reading. I eat when I'm bored or depressed. Nothing says comfort like fresh made bread or sweet cookies. I procrastinate -- a lot. I do my best work under deadline and pressure. I have abhorrent taste in music. I think that the four bags of can deposits in my garage will net me a cool "C" note. I crack my knuckles.

10. Nerf Herder - No, not the punk rock band. The: "Why you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder!" Actually, that's the segue into the real number 10: Nerd. I'm a nerd. Overweight, glasses wearing, would rather be reading than playing sports, intelligent, the whole stereotype. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Well, Ok maybe the overweight part. But everything else, I'm standing firm on.

2006-05-08T15:41:00.000-04:00

Up to my ass in legal files, how about you?

Check out my live journal for a very important question.

2006-05-08T11:43:00.000-04:00

For Beekeeper M.:

width="240" height="180"
alt="Transforming Electronic Machine Programmed for Efficient Sabotage and Troubleshooting"
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2006-05-05T15:19:00.000-04:00

I have video proof of UIM and Nightskye doing the chicken dance and Nightskye doing YMCA and the electric slide. Yup. The electric slide.

It's electric.

Boogie oogie oogie ooh.

UIM doing the chicken dance.

First you do like this. Then you do like this. Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah.

::snicker::

2006-05-04T14:21:00.000-04:00

I have the Macarena playing in my head thanks to Obi2.

So the lunch writing has been going really poorly. I just start to gear up and it's time to go back to work. I guess my brain needs a half hour of dumping before it can get into the groove. I did some nice work today, but it's just a vignette at the moment. Still, it makes me feel good to have something more concrete. The other two short stories I'm working on I'm having the "so whats" about. "Trip 6" is showing not telling and there's not much of a story. And with "So Mote it be" I'm having a hard time finding the twist that makes this story different from every other witch story. On a lighter note, "So Mote It Be" has nothing to do with this, but that link gave me the giggles anyway. My problem is I tend to believe everything I read. So I think these guys are serious. Although their "Fat-Lesbian-Witchcraft and its Origins Amongst the Cult of Shubb-Niggurath" by Lord K'rinseth tend to make me think it's all tongue in cheek, but as I can't be bothered reading in more detail, I'll take it with a grain of salt. All praise Cthululu!

UIM told me that they're making a graphic novel from Laurel K. Hamilton's Guilty Pleasures and we've been going back and forth deciding should they make a movie, who should play Anita Blake. I originally said Angelina Jolie, but I wasn't happy with that choice. Then I remembered that Anita is part Hispanic, so I changed my mind to Eva Mendes. UIM seemed to think she was more Spanish/Italian/Mediterranean, but unfortunately real life and work pulled him away from our important discussion. I'll keep you updated. Anyone have any casting ideas?

Other interesting sayings I got from e-mails today:

Some people are like slinkies. Basically useless, but they bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

"Be who you are, say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
~ Dr. Seuss ~

And it's my ten year anniversary today. I give you my formal portrait with Geherond and Niennanessa, Purge's and my level 60 World of Warcraft characters:

and our gnomes, who are hovering in the mid to low fifties if I remember correctly.

We don't have any specific plans but my mother mentioned that she wanted us to come over for a hot dog tonight to celebrate. LOL! Ten years, here's your hot dog. So it looks like we'll have a cookout with the family. That will be nice because the weather is beautiful out today. The UPS man told me to play hookey. I said, "Too late, they already saw me." I think I'll try and dig up our wedding video and the rehearsal dinner video. That way I can see all my friends and family tonight. Wow, this was pre-Jade and pre-Matty and pre Chynakatt's and Nightskye's marriages. My Grandmother was still alive and my other little nephew was just a baby! A decade. It does seem like only yesterday. I can picture our first apartment where I would throw a beach towel over the sink to hide the dirty dishes in them. We didn't have a dishwasher so we had to wash them by hand, and you can imagine how often we did that. We had a laminated poster of Bruce Lee in our bathroom. I don't even remember where we put the shower that's how small our bathroom was. I remember getting Tish as a kitten and Purge calling me up in a panic because "the cat was vibrating". And then losing her for a whole day because she decided to sleep deep inside the pull-out sofa. Having to play "Kitten? What Kitten?" when my father came over to help us put in the air conditioner unit because we weren't supposed to have her. Then Cinqo De Maio, we were on our cruise. I wore a man's rugby shirt that I had since high school and we decided that we would "stay up all night" on our wedding night and sleep on the plane. So we looked like death warmed over when we embarked on our honeymoon. But, boy, did we have a good time. We were in this little inside cabin without a porthole so with the lights out, it was pitch black. But we were never in the room except to sleep and it didn't matter that it was a small room because we had each other. I'll tell you though, once you have a balcony room, you'll never go back. I remember being on deck in Miami waving good bye and the jet skier's would ride the wake of the big boat and cars would stop on the highway to watch the big boats go by. Now, after 9-11 the coast guard tugs take you out of the harbor. But it's still nice to wave goodbye to the beautiful Miami skyline with a funship special in your hand. I really wish tomorrow I could step aboard a cruise ship in a tropical paradise. I miss the blue ocean. I could stare at it for hours as we rushed through the waters.

I'm also having the severe "boreds" at work lately. As always, there's plenty to do. But it's same ole, same ole. Thank God for the internet. I think if I wasn't able to surf and read to my heart's content I would go mad. MAD I SAY!

Hopped up on soda. Peapod.com had a special on soder so I bought 2 12-packs each of Coke Zero and Fresca. (My two favorites). I also snagged a diet coke here at work and got a large diet on lunch today.

2006-05-02T16:56:00.000-04:00

Spellsword
51% Combativeness, 23% Sneakiness, 94% Intellect, 33% Spirituality

Aggressive, but with the brains to back it up: You are a Spellsword!
Score! You have a prestige class. A prestige class can only be taken after you’ve fulfilled certain requirements. This may mean that you're an exceptionally talented person, but it probably doesn't.
Spellswords combine arcane might with combat know-how. They're much tougher than mages, like to wear armor, and can cast spells through their weapons. They're very, very, good at doing lots of damage to a single target very quickly, and while not quite as tough as most fighters, are still pretty hard to kill.
You're both smart and aggressive, which means that you're probably pretty dangerous when pissed off. You also tend to be somewhat straightforward, which is nice, and don’t have much use for spirituality or mysticism.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 39% on Combativeness

You scored higher than 24% on Sneakiness

You scored higher than 92% on Intellect

You scored higher than 28% on Spirituality

Link: The RPG Class Test written by MFlowers on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test