Happy New Year!

Hoping for some changes this year :) Good changes. The biggest change will hopefully be change in my job situation. I'm still hoping for that promotion, but it looks like it may be sooner rather than later. The woman I would be replacing will be leaving (if all goes well) at the end of January, rather than waiting until March. Which means hopefully by the end of January I will have a new job, a higher wage, paid vacation, better benefits, etc. *Crossing fingers*

I wish you all a happy, healthy 2010.

Knitting again

I've really slacked on the knitting front lately. Mostly in favour of reading. I've read a ton this year. When last I left my reading blog I was at 98 books on May 20th. By now I have easily hit the 200 mark.

But now the weather has turned colder and I'm actually wearing my wool socks and wanting another pair. So today I turned the bedroom upside down trying to find the Monkey Socks I cast on in 2008 (lol). In the process I broke a light bulb in my lamp, shelved numerous books that had been piled on the floor and found a stash of candy wrappers in the bed that I believe the dear daughter stashed there after surreptitiously obtaining them from the Halloween stash.

I did, or rather the hubby did, find yarn and needles and I found my pattern binder. But I think I shall have to frog, since I've no idea where I left off in the pattern! Luckily, I've only really done the cuff ;) So that's my plan for the evening. See y'all later :)

Just a reminder...

With the New Year coming, why not start it off with a faster computer? Run your defrag program (windows has one built in). It may take a while, so start it before you go to bed. Fragmented files take up a lot of space on a computer and if that's something you don't have a lot of any way, reclaiming that space will help your computer run faster. (My defrag is STILL running, at 84%. I had 35 gigs of fragmented space, eek!).

While you are at it, download all the recommended updates for your system. And make sure your anti-virus is up to date. If it's expired, go buy a new one. I hear so many people grumble about how anti-virus is a money sink, but it's amazing how much worse that grumble is when they find they've a virus and that it's going to take 72 hours to clean their computer and a whopping $110. Buy the anti-virus. Most software comes with multi-computer licenses. Split the cost with another family member or a good friend. When the subscription comes up for renewal at the end of the year, you only have to renew it once, so you can split the cost again ;) It really is a wise investment.

And don't forget to back everything up! External and portable hard drives are cheap now, if you don't have one go get one. I can personally tell you how heartbreaking it is to have your hard drive fail and lose every photo you've taken over the last 5 years! I was lucky, most of them had been copied to a disk for the grandparents, but some of them are lost forever :( Not to mention if you move some of those photos off your computer you can open up some valuable free space on your computer again :)

Happy Holidays!

Happy Christmas to all and a very Merry New Year :)

I have to work Christmas Eve, but only until 6 PM and honestly, I'm not really convinced it will be all that busy. I mean really, who needs copies or stuff printed on Christmas Eve?? Maybe last minute photos as gifts, I suppose.

We are mostly done with Christmas shopping. Just have to wrap our little bounty now. Thinking about nagging the hubby to help me with that in a moment, whilst the kiddo is still at school. (Last day before break, bet the teachers had a great day, lol).

We are rolling out and cutting our cookies tonight and I made Peppermint Patties to take in to work with me. Yum!

Anyway, have a lovely holiday and I will see you in the New Year!

PS Lesson learned: No matter how tempting the idea to use powdered sugar instead of flour when rolling out cut out cookies, DON'T. Even if a television cook says it is a good idea!

Glaring!

Typos that is. I get most of my news from the internet. I have a journalism degree and it really makes me crazy when I find typos in an article. Today I've found at least three.

This is the headline I just found, "No school! Alabama calls of classes for title game"

And then this one, "Different courts have came down on different sides on what exactly should be said, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said." from an article on Miranda Rights.

This one was at least caught and fixed at some point, but a note was left at the bottom of the article saying, "[Editor’s note: The original version cited the wrong year twice.]"

There was at least one more that I found this morning but can't remember which article it was from.

All I can say is, why is no one editing these articles? Why is there no proof reading, no fact checking? Why is grammar not important to internet news? Grrrrr.

Glad it's over for another year

Black Friday is over and done, and I believe we all survived pretty much in one piece! It was a bit hectic, when they put me on the schedule as "runner" they weren't kidding! I'd start off to get something for a register and a customer would grab me on the way. And since we had a line all the way to the back of the store, the register could not wait. So unless the customer asked for an item in the same area I was heading to I had to ask them to wait.

The good news is, most people were very good about it. In order to keep the cashiers from getting too stressed and to keep an aisle clear we actually formed a single line about 5 feet before the registers, then funneled people to the cashiers as we could. We only had one woman (that I know of) try to bogart her way into line. I politely informed her that the end of the line was toward the back of the store, she turned around, looked at the line, looked at the one item in her and and said, "You've got to be kidding me." But she went to the end of the line and still only waited about 5 minutes 'cause we rock ;) We had every register in the store running.

We sold a crap ton of computers and would have sold a crap ton more if we'd had them. In fact most of our computers were sold before we even opened the doors (Yay for the voucher system!). We sold a crap ton of GPS systems too. And software. And... a whole heck of a lot of other stuff lol.

The one regret I have is that our system was down so we couldn't pre-ring transactions. We have a system kind of like Sam's where we zap everything, stick all on a little card and all the cashier has to do is zap the card at the register. Very handy with long lines, but I'm guessing that due to high volume, the system crashed, just when we needed it. *Sigh* But like I said, we still rocked it without it. And our lines we done by 7:30 AM. After that it was just a steady flow all day, enough to let us breathe again lol.

Frankly, the days after Black Friday were worse! Mostly because that's when people come in expecting to get the items we had on sale on B.F. and of course we sold out of them.

Here's a tip for you bargain shoppers out there: At Christmas time, go the day the ad comes out! Supplies are limited. After the debacle of being stuck with too much stuff last year stores ordered lower volumes this year. And when you come in 3 days after the ad (when sales have changed over completely!) and someone tells you they are out of that item, please don't yell at the employees. We have no say in the matter. We don't do the ordering. We would like to have the product as much as you would like us to have the product because we can't sell what we don't have and that hurts us too! We will do what we can to get you the item, but it may be that it's just not out there to get.

Wish me luck!

I've applied for a promotion at work and I am interviewing for it today. This would make me full time, better benefits etc. It also would add more responsibility. Honestly, there are three of us applying for the position, 2 of us whom I really think actually have a shot at it. Although the 3rd person could surprise me and interview very well. He has a charm about him (don't get me wrong, I like him for the most part but the man is a snake oil salesman and would do very well selling used cars...) that could be in his favour. But, I think that he would be the most disadvantaged if he got the job, because frankly I think the others would have a hard time working for him... Then again, they may have problems working for me, as I am not a proven entity in sales.

Honestly, if I don't get the position I won't be crushed. It's basically sales leader, and my sales skill are rusty and I've never played team sports so my coaching skills are non-existent! But then again, the other two have zero coaching experience either, lol. I've applied because I need the sales experience if I am going to get anywhere within this company. And well, full time/better benies, you know.

If I don't get the spot, in a few months another position opens up and my boss has already told me he wants me training with the woman now. I'd still have to interview for it, but being trained for it already would give me a huge jump on anyone else who might apply within the company, and already being in the location and part of the team is huge ;)

I've huge shoes to fill with either position. But like I told my boss, I don't want to be a cashier forever. Of course, he told me I was selling myself short, 'cause I'm not just a cashier, and that made me feel really good. I have had a minor promotion to internal key carrier (no extra cash, just a lot of trust and again, that makes me feel good) so my time as cashier is actually quite limited lately. And I don't have to run a register on Black Friday, yay! But I digress...

Seriously though. If I don't get the spot I'm interviewing today and the one guy gets it, I will be thrilled for him and wait my turn in February ;) And since I at least have that option and the other two don't, I consider myself pretty lucky.

Anyway. I had better get moving as I need to finish my coffee and get ready for work still, and I'm down to 10 minutes, lol. Ciao!

Update: Little bit pissed off still. The guy that was doing the interviews decided to do phone interviews and between he and my boss (who just days before told me he thought I would be good for the spot) decided that I would be better suited to the second spot that would be opening up and therefore decided not to interview me. But a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and the future job opening is still unsettled. The woman who is leaving may decide not to leave or something. So that bothers me. I'm glad to know the job is mine if it happens, but...

At the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month

On this day in history...

Veteran's Day is no longer just about remembering the dead of WWI, but about remembering all our veterans who have served our country and protected our freedom, especially those who have died.

No inspiration

After Halloween I needed a new design for the blog. And I just can't find anything that inspires me to design something myself. My creativity is at an all time low. Part of this is a lack of decent free image sites. Years ago, I used to make a bit of extra money by designing Moveable Type websites. Back then there were wonderful sites, run by talented photographers and artists who just wanted to share their art with others. I still have images from some of those sites tucked away, and I have over 100 old blog designs saved (not all designed by me, I had a partner at the time and I still have all her designs as well).

Out of all those designs can I find anything that grabs me and makes me want to use it? Heck no. Mind you, part of that is pure laziness on my part. They are all coded for old MT, not the new Blogger. So there would be a bit of work involved to redo them for this blog. And I just can't seem to find the drive to do so.

Especially not when there are some amazing premade templates out there. In fact, I've not designed my own blog for ages, because I have found so many fun templates out there already.

I do know I need to get out of this creative funk. I knit for a bit the other night on the bag that will not end. Got bored. So no knitting. No writing in years. Now no design. (Which is especially bad when someone asks me to design something at work! Oops.).

Anyhoo. Guess I'll stop whinging and go take advantage of someone else's creativity and read ;)

Boo!

I love Hallowe'en! The kiddo and I had a crazy day. We went downtown for the safe trick or treat, then out to the area where I work, for the Halloween Hullabaloo.

Then it was home for some lunch and a nap for me, lol.

Tonight we trick or treated all over our neighborhood and even went back to our old neighborhood. I'm pooped, lol.

Sweet 16

Or maybe not. We've had a bit of snow 'round here lately. Hubby just measured the snow on the car and there's 16 inches of snow on the roof. In the back yard there's a snow drift that is probably 4 feet deep! It started snowing Tuesday night, and snowed all day yesterday. Luckily, the main roads were mostly just wet, a little slushy in places, by the time I got off work. We shall see what they are like going into work later today.

The kiddo is happy though, because we decided to keep her home yesterday, rather than have to take a chance on crummy roads in the afternoon. She didn't get to play in it til later in the day tho. She's off school today and tomorrow too, so she will have plenty of snow time.

Windows 7 is here!

I installed Win 7 nearly two months ago, and I have to say I love it. My computer is snappier, it seems a lot more stable (*knock wood*) and it's got some cool new things without the weird and annoying things Vista had. And the good news is, if you have more than one user on your computer or if you let a guest log on, your data doesn't all disappear! Sorry, just my little dig at the holier than thou Mac users out there ;) There are a few ugly bugs on Mac's Snow Leopard, lol.

And with Microsoft offering a 3 computer version of 7 for only $149.99, it's a pretty good deal. Which is why no one can keep it in stock! Hopefully more will be coming soon, 'cause I want it for 3 more of my computers, too.

Snow!

Forget fall, we've headed straight into winter, lol. Tomorrow we're looking at a high of 34 degrees! And yet the analysts are saying we're going to have a milder than normal winter. Ski areas in Colorado are already opening.

I think they've last year's data mixed up with this year's, lol.

Update: It's snowing pretty good right now. Hubby asked if I thought we should cover my geraniums, and since we moved them right up close to the house under a covered porch I said no. But then I said, "Really they should just come in." So I went off to make room for them and when he brought them in they were literally covered in snow. Poor things, I hope they survive :(

Meanwhile I have to be at work at 8 tomorrow so I guess I'd best set my alarm a bit early just in case. It's sticking to the road out front, so I may need to leave a bit early.

Er, um, well...

Woot! It's Autumn! And wow things got hectic. We've lost our assistant manager at work, she's been given her own store now. Which is great for her, but boy it's weird at work. So our keyholder is picking up some of the slack, but there's still too much to do. So I've been made an internal keyholder now, along with one of the guys I work with. Our GM comes in, lets us in the building, hands out keys and goes home so he can mostly have a day off.

We'll be getting a replacement, but the person is coming from California, so needless to say it'll take a bit for him to get things worked out.

So anyhoo. I'll be around sporadically. I haven't even bothered much with WoW lately.

Take care y'all!

A touch of autumn

Fall is certainly in the air today. A cold front settled in over us last night so we turned on the heat before we went to bed. Just in case. And since the high today is only going to be 51, I'm glad we did. I love the cool weather, but the kiddo freezes at night so...

And this morning I went to search out my slippers (anyone seen the left one by any chance??) Instead I grabbed my lovely hand knit wool socks ;) Hmmm. Might be time to dig out the Monkey socks that have been languishing for over a year now and attempt to actually complete them, lol.

In other knitting news, I cast on for a new scarf in my lovely Brooks Farm Solo Silk. I'm going with Feather and Fan (this version).

Now I am going to go spend this rainy autumn day being a bum (waiting for FedEx to bring me my new phone. They picked the one half hour I was out on Friday to attempt to deliver, dammit). I see some WoW, reading and knitting in my future ;)

Getting into the spirit of things...

Since September 19th is once again International Talk Like a Pirate Day:

My pirate name is:

Bloody Morgan Vane

"Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. You tend to blend into the background occasionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!"

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network.

Last year I was Pirate Val the Staggering Drunk. Umm. I like this one better, lol.

Remember the Dread Pirate Alas from last year? This year it'll be Morticia partying with the Cap'n in Booty Bay, lol.

This fall is packed with things to do if you're into WoW. The Harvest Festival is just around the corner, followed bu Brewfest, then Hallow's End and Day of the Dead. Then comes The Pilgrim's Bounty and finally Winter Veil. Lol.

Just wonderin'

Anyone seen any good knitting pattern books lately? I love browsing Ravelry, but there's so much there it makes my head pop, lol.

Windows 7

Woot! Working for a place that sells and repairs computers has its perks! Windows 7, 64 bit Home Premium, release version, which is actually an upgrade for me as my computer runs 32 bit at the moment (really stupid, since my comp has 4 gigs of ram and 32 bit maxes at 3 gigs! WTF was Dell thinking??). Thank you, thank you, thank you, Boss Man!!!! I'm trying to decide if I should install it today or wait until I am off on Sunday.

I'm thinking Sunday, just in case anything goes wrong, so we will have more time to deal with it (hubby is raiding in WoW tonight, lol). The good thing is, coming off a fresh install of Vista, there's nothing to lose on this puter ;) At some point we will have to put 7 on our XP machine, but for now it's fine.

Anyhoo. I'm going to go check my laundry and get some breakfast. Ciao!

Things that make you say, "Really??"

Wildlife Detected!

While we were on vacation this year we drove through an area near Durango that kind of made us scratch our heads and say, "Really??" There's this stretch of road and as you enter it you see a sign warning you that it's a wildlife detection zone. And along the road are signs that light up when they detect wildlife.

So of course we had to look it up when we got home. (Ok, it took us a while to remember to look it up, we saw a lot of cool stuff on vacation and this one slipped our minds for a bit, lol). Apparently that is a stretch of highway where the majority of accidents that occur are car v. wildlife accidents. So they installed this system. But what they didn't do was provide any kind of explanation. A sign mentioning heavy wildlife migration at the start of the zone might have made us take the whole thing more seriously. So it may be dandy for the folks that live in the area and know the reasoning behind the zone, but to random tourists like us.... Especially when all the signs are lit because they are being worked on and there's not a glimpse of wildlife anywhere except for a few birds flying above, lol. We certainly didn't notice a big slow down in traffic through there.

Which makes the zone, in my opinion, a $1.2 million FAIL! But who knows, maybe their numbers will prove me wrong in a few years....

Another sleepless night

Ok, not completely sleepless, yet. It's only 11 PM, but I went to bed around 9:30. I turned out the lights a while later and immediately got the sensation that I was forgetting something. But I can't find anything. And then I noticed that Yahoo had tips for insomniacs and had to read them, lol.

Now I am wide awake again. Crap. I thought it was interesting that one of the tips I read was not to think of anything that required brain power. One of my favorite ways to fall asleep is to count backwards (Don't laugh, but 99 bottles of beer on the wall works really well, lol). Or I imagine myself walking down a steep flight of stairs, and count down from 100 that way.

Counting up in Spanish works well for me too. For me it's not as much about taxing my brain as it is about refocusing my brain. There are so many nights that I just can't turn my thoughts off. Thoughts of work wander through, along with so many other things. Things I did that day, could have done, wish I had done. Concentrating on the numbers gives me a focus and wears my little brain out enough that I can finally fall asleep, lol.

And of course, sometimes blogging about things that are bugging me helps ;)

Insomnia has been an issue off and on since my daughter was born. After a while I found myself sliding into depression. The lack of sleep made me grumpy and short with my child, which made me feel like a bad mom, which made my thoughts go 'round and 'round at bedtime. It was a vicious cycle.

I finally mentioned it to my doctor. He diagnosed depression and put me on a very low dose of anti-depressant. A bonus was that the anti-depressant he put me on had a sleep aid as well.

When I lost my long-time job due to location closure, with the company who shall not be named but is going down the toilet now, I also lost my insurance. And that meant good-bye to the "happy" pills. By that point I was down to one a few nights a week instead of every night, so it wasn't a total hardship. I do sleep much better now, once I fall asleep I pretty much am dead. It's the getting there that can be hard.

I do all the wrong things. I watch TV in bed, I knit in bed, I surf the web in bed. All the things that sleep specialists tell you not to do if you have trouble falling asleep. The bed is supposed to be about sleep. But our house is little. There's no where else to stretch out and relax, if the kiddo or the hubby is watching TV in the living room. So the bedroom is it. And I pay the price for it at bedtime. But there's just no alternative.

Anyhoo. I guess I am off to count steps ;) Good night!

*YAWN*

I foolishly offered to go in to work at 6 AM today. The alternative was staying until 8 last night and I was tired. And 2 hours before we open is not a bad thing. No one to deal with, just do my thing.

But that doesn't make me any less tired right now, lol. I had a very rough night last night, couldn't fall asleep until late, and then tossed and turned and woke up every hour or so. I think I finally fell into a sound sleep around 3 AM, 'cause when that alarm went off at 5 it startled the heck outta me.

And it doesn't help that I was supposed to have the day off, so when I ran out of breakfast food yesterday it was no big deal. Until this morning when I went to grab breakfast and remembered. *Sigh*

Anyhoo. Off to work. Have a lovely day. I'll be counting down the hours until nap time ;)

Colorado Vacation

Click on all pictures to see them at 100%

Four Corners National Monument

We started out by going to the Four Corners National Monument. This is the only place in the U.S. where four states meet: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. The kiddo thought (and ok, let's be honest, I thought so too!) it was cool that you could be in four places at once. The monument is on the Navajo reservation, and around the edges you can buy goods from Navajo sellers. It was very cool, because while they all spoke to us in English, when they conversed with each other, they spoke their native language. It's neat to hear, since so many Native American languages are on the brink of dying out.

Cliff Dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park

Next we headed into Mesa Verde National Park. Very cool place. Totally mind-boggling as to why anyone would settle there though! The thought of having to climb down the cliff face for water and game, etc. just amazes me. And there is clear evidence that the Ancestral Puebloans farmed as well. Where they farmed is unclear to me, since I don't like to look over the edge so I didn't see what was in the valley, and the mesas didn't look real fertile to me.

One interesting thing I learned was that these peoples used to used human hair to make knotless netting, using a looping technique. This technique was later replaced by knitting and crochet. ;)

Durango Silverton Railroad

After spending a few days in the Four Corners region, we headed to Durango, Colorado. Durango was founded by the Denver & Rio Grande Railway in 1880 and initially existed as something of a base camp to the gold and silver mines of the San Juan Mountains. It's still a lovely town and the steam train is very cool to see. Next time we go we are riding the train from Durango to Silverton, which is supposed to be a fantastic scenic ride.

I really liked Durango (part of that had to do with the fact that they had a Starbucks and I'd had horrid coffee that morning, lol) it was a nice, pretty town. Very obviously a tourist destination, but it didn't have the junky stores a lot of tourist traps have. And some of the buildings are absolutely gorgeous!

Great Sand Dunes National Park

From Durango we headed to Alamosa, CO. Just outside of Alamosa is Great Sand Dunes National Park, one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. Sand dunes is like a desert in the middle of Colorado. To suddenly see this sandy beach-like stretch and then huge dunes at the base of the mountains is very amazing. The tallest dune rises 750 feet from the plains below.

I must say, I could never live out there. It is so incredibly desolate. You go for miles and miles seeing only scrub. The amount of work it must have taken the few farmers to clear enough land to grow crops on is astounding. Even cattle would have a hard time living out there.

There's no place like home

We are heading home today and I am ready to be home. I've had a great time, seen some cool stuff, and some stuff that makes you shake your head and say, "WHY??" I'll post pics later, once I am home and at the good computer, rather than this pokey laptop with a sticky spacebar, lol.

Seriously, I miss home already. I miss my bed, I miss my down comforter, I miss air conditioning that keeps everything a steady temp instead of freezing my arse in the middle of the night, lol. And I really miss my espresso maker, lol.

And my poor old cat is probably missing me terribly. He will yowl for a day straight when we get home, yelling at us for leaving him.

Free sheep??

Saw this sign in Cortez, CO and just had to share it, lol.

Goin' down to Southpark....

Gonna have ourselves a time!

Wow. Southpark, the real Southpark is absolutely lovely. It's this wonderful bowl-like valley that surprises the heck outta you as you come 'round a bend in the road. One minute you are on the mountain in the trees and the next... Whoa!

We were actually on our way to Durango, and Mesa Verde National Park. Tomorrow we head into the park, tonight we played in the pool, lol.

Blah, Blah, Blah

The hubby is on the phone with Dell tech support at the moment. I took the big comp, affectionately known as The Beast, into work the other day after it started being seriously slow to respond. Big monster machine, 4 gigs of ram, quad-core processor, SLI graphics cards. Not supposed to be slow. In fact, at one point it was too fast and we had to dumb down the SLI settings, lol.

So The Beast sat at work from Monday until today, with our awesome techs trying to figure out what was going on. We'd already ruled out virus (I'd run scans with Trend Micro, Malware Bytes and Super-Anti Spyware before I even took it in), so the first thing we did was test the hard drive. It passed all the tests. So then we looked at graphics cards. WOW. They were toasting. But then, just to check, they stuck a different graphics card in and it was toasting too.

So then they installed my SLI on a different drive and they were fine. Hmmm. It was stump the tech week, lol. So then we waffled back to hard drive. Woot, warranty has 37 days left on it. So last night the bossman left it running the in depth diagnostic and 13 hours later it failed. YAY! This is a good thing, lol. Because now we have an error code to take to Dell. It's memory issue, though whether it's ram or the graphics card memory, the code didn't tell us.

And this is why hubby has been on the phone with them for an hour. I'm pretty sure they are going to reformat as he came out a few minutes ago asking if we had operating system disks. But that's ok. Everything is backed up to an external hard drive.

Although, reinstalling WoW will take an entire damned day, lol.

UH-OH. Apparently the phone went dead or he lost the tech, 'cause hubby is pissed now. And trying to call again. Yikes.

Son of...!

I have shit luck with phones :( I just went to put my laundry in the dryer and saw my keys peaking out at the bottom and immediately thought, "Oh crap, my phone's in there too." Sure 'nuff. So I am trying the rice trick that worked for Iron Needles. I don't hold out that much hope though, since the thing went thru the entire cycle instead of being quickly fished out. I haven't even had this phone a month now, dammit.

I'm thinking someone is trying to tell me something...

And on top of that we played in the pool today and I didn't even think to suncreen my legs. So now they are fried. Huh. Just like my phone.

On a funnier note, this is spoof is better than the original, lol.

Crap!

A while back at the Estes Wool Market we bought a needle felting kit. My idea was to make the flowers to give the never ending knitting bag some pizazz. I thought the kiddo and I could do it together but the kiddo decided to try it all by herself, messing the entire lot off and pissing me off royally.

I took what I thought were the remains of the kit away from her and stuck it away in the hopes of salvaging something. Well come to find out, the kiddo had dropped a needle and it never made it back to the kit. Apparently hubby had asked her several times to put the needle away, picking it up from the floor and putting it on the coffee table each time.

You know where I am going with this don't you?

Yeah. Tonight as we were putting the kiddo to bed hubby went to grab something for her and stepped on the damned thing. Luckily he had a tetanus shot fairly recently so that's good but crap! He's lucky it didn't go straight thru his foot!

Too cool!

When I was a teenager I loved Converse All-Star high top tennis shoes. "Chucks" came in so many different colors that you could always find a pair that appealed. My two best friends and I had them. Karleen had green, Janet had red and mine were bright yellow. I truly loved those shoes, lol.

I see Chucks all over the place now. Some are fun, but I missed being able to get them in every color of the rainbow (and then some!). And they certainly aren't the cheap shoes they once were. (Though they are still incredibly cheap compared to regular name-brand shoes now). A basic pair will cost you about $50.

But why go basic when you can now CUSTOMIZE your own pair of Chucks?? In just two to four weeks you could have a pair of Chuck's in whatever color you want, patterned, solid, multi color.... So the purple shoes I've wanted for years are now within my reach. And not only are they purple, they are now mostly white and black animal print, with a purple tongue and heel stripe, with lighter purple laces. The inside of the shoes is Sweet Lavendar. Woot!

My daughter created a pair of multi-pink ones, with blue heel stripe and laces, lol. And did I mention you can can your name on them?? She loves them so much she's actually willing to pay for them herself. I told her we need to go try some on in store so we know what size first and so she can find out for herself that the main drawback to Chucks is that they aren't really comfy.

Laugh out loud

Now I grew up in the 70s, with an older sister who danced professionally (get yer mind outta the gutter, lol), she taught jazz and tap for a local studio and being a dancer, she totally loved disco. The very first 8 Track I ever owned was Abba. I still love Abba, (the rest of disco on the other hand can go away forever, lol) even though I came of age in the 80s and love that music as well.

So when I saw the adverts for Mamma Mia I really wanted to see it. So when I found it at the library the other day I snatched it quickly. I didn't expect to giggle my butt off, lol. All three men were thick as a whale omelet! Hahaha. Pierce Brosnan can not sing, but it was funny as heck. Part of it was the music, but it all was too cute. About halfway through the kiddo decided to sit and watch as well. Now she wants to watch the whole movie too.

Even the hubby was in the other room singing along, utterly horrified to realize just how many words he knew to the songs ;)

I've dug out my Abba Gold CD and we're having a sing-a-long, lol. ;)

Over-rated?

A recent survey by a travel site found Paris to be the most over-rated city in Europe. And tourism has fallen drastically this year due to the economy. So now Paris is trying to win back tourists with a smile.

It's been years since we went to Paris. My overall impression of Paris then was that it was a beautiful but dirty city. People take their dogs every where but don't clean up after them. (And so far everything I've seen about the city leads me to believe that it's still this way in 2009). I found that absolutely disgusting. It's quite hard to enjoy the view when you have to constantly watch where you step! London was that way the first few times I visited, but since then people have learned to pick up after their pets and it's much nicer.

But it is truly a beautiful city. The Louvre is absolutely a splendid building from the exterior (well, except for the garish glass pyramid out by the entrance, lol) and spectacular on the inside. It's been many things through the years, once a fortress protecting the city and most notably the palace of Louis XIV. After the French Revolution the Louvre was dedicated to becoming a monument to the arts and science and the museum was born. I could have wandered there all day, between looking at the art on display and the architectural details of the building itself (Unfortunately we were with my in-laws and my f-i-l had a bad hip at the time so our trip was much shorter than I'd have preferred).

As to the French themselves, I honestly didn't get the rude vibe that so many people associate with the French. Well, except maybe at the chemists when I stopped in for cold tablets. But the restaurants and the hotel we stayed at had friendly people. One little restaurant all but dragged us in off the street they were so happy to see us, lol. We didn't do a lot of shopping, so I can't speak for most of the shops ;)

And oh my, but the bakeries are to die for! Everywhere we went there was a bakery on the corner with mouth-watering treats in the windows. The pastries we were offered for breakfast were absolutely lovely and the bread! Yum! Strangely though, I think other than the bread and cheese, none of us ate a "typical" French meal. Picky eaters all us of, so no snails for us, lol.

Would I go again? Yes, someday I would love to go with my daughter. I'll be the one on the ground holding my breath as she gets too close to the railing on the Eiffel Tower, and waves at me lol.

So much drama

Once again I am fed up with WoW. This time it's got nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the people who play. I'm in a large guild. Most of the time, that's a good thing, but there are a few members who are inconsiderate and only interested in themselves. Such was the case last week when we were scheduled to raid. It's always a pain in the ass getting 25 people together and takes forever, but most of the time the fun out-weighs the hassle.

Not so that night. There were other issues and we were late getting started. Then a few people who were signed up to go showed up 20 minutes late and still expected to go. After arguing about that and deciding who could go and who couldn't I lost all patience, burst into tears and begged my hubby to sub me out.

He had been arguing with one of the late people because he thought it was rude of them to be late and expect everyone to wait. So I left, obviously upset, and he then left to calm me down. So a bitchy post ended up on the message board about people "logging out when shit doesn't go their way." Obviously directed at hubby, since he was the one openly opposed to letting the late person go. Good-fucking-grief! I started to write a bitchy mail to the poster, someone I used to like. But what's the freakin' point?

The whole experience has soured me on raiding now. Hell, honestly it's soured me on the guild in general. There are a few people in there I like and if it wasn't for them I'd have left that night. So from now on I shall chat with the people I like and ignore everyone else. Who needs a freakin' game that stresses you out enough to bawl your head off?

Anyhoo. I am having a massive bout of insomnia tonight, so I'm going to go surf the web for a bit.

Crappy news

Just got the crappiest news. My friend, A from the previous post, got notice today that he's being let go. I think he has two months and then a month of severance. If in the next two months our other assistant manager leaves, he gets to stay. I'm holding on to a bit of hope that that happens. See, the other assistant has been in a different store running it while the manager's been sick. And from the sounds of things, he may not be ready to come back right now (which is probably why A gets to stay for 2 months instead of being let go now).

Dammit. Yesterday we were all happy about the fact that the other assistant would be coming back soon so everything would go back to normal and everyone could relax a bit. Instead we are losing two people that I genuinely like, A. and another guy who always has a smile on his face and is truly a nice person.

And of course, corporate timing sucks, since just 4 days ago A. and his wife were all excited and happy because they've just bought a house and are moving in soon. They rented all this time because they weren't sure where they would stay until A. got transferred to our location :( I hurt for them, I really do, because I remember the kick to the head it was when I was told that my previous employer was closing.

And you know what the worst thing was? They told him and then expected him to be fine with working the rest of the day. Arseholes.

Oh rats!

Remember this post? (Read more to get actual link, lol). It was a bit over a month ago when I posted about my dead phone. Well, last night the display on my new phone (a month exactly to the day I got it!) just died. I tried to answer it and I had a blank white screen and I couldn't answer it when I pushed the talk button. I can send and receive calls with it now, but no texting again.

So I called customer service, in non-English speaking country of course, and after 20 minutes of, "Can you at this time turn your phone off then back on, please?" and "At this time I am entering more information into my system." I was promised a new phone and more minutes. I can continue to use (lol) my phone until the new one comes and I don't have to return it. I can expect to receive my new phone in 5 - 10 days (!!). At that time I must call the customer service center to activate my new phone and transfer my minutes. I also plan on asking for a credit for the ringtone I purchased a month ago and will now lose :(

And a good time was had by all

For a bit there it seemed the 4th of July was going to be washed out. It rained like crazy for ages and all I could think was" Ewwww, I don't want go sit out in the rain." Of course, the kiddo hated the idea of missing the fireworks and around 8 PM the rain finally stopped. But it was still wet, lol. Then a friend from work invited us over to his house to watch the fireworks. So off we trooped, and we had a great time. We walked a bit up to the lake and watched the fireworks, then went back to his family's house and the kids all played with sparklers and Pop-its, while the neighbors shot off more fireworks.

It was a lot of fun, and the hubby got to meet A and his wife, so that was cool. Now he really knows who I am talking about when I mention A, or when we are playing WoW and A does something silly ('cause he is a silly man, lol) that makes me grumble and call him a doof ;)

Surprise!

As Neil says in my favorite The Young Ones episode, "Well Mike, it's my birthday."

Of course then Mike says, "Now you knew that already, and we don't care, so where's the surprise?"

But someone does care that it's my birthday. My LYS offers 15% off anything during my birthday week, so guess where I am going tomorrow?! My mother sent me money so I think I shall head there to spend it ;)

Ummm.

Hello! I'm such a slacker lately, lol. There's been some reading going on, and some knitting on the giant Booga/yarn bag. When I started that I wanted something easy to travel with. Now I have to say it's just tedious, lol.

The Estes Wool Market was lovely. As usual the vendors were friendly and helpful. The yak yarn was scrumptious as was the Brooks Farm Yarn and the Plain and Fancy Sheep and Wool Co. wool. I handled a lot of yarn, lusted after several skeins. But in the end, I went home with only a dry felting kit. Honestly, I still have P & F from two years ago, and BFY from last year. Not to mention skeins and skeins of cotton, and the miles of green Cascade being turned into the giant Booga (the dry felting kit made flowers, which will eventually adorn the Green Giant, making it not so totally green, lol!).

I have sock yarn, enough for two pair, one for me and one for the kiddo. And a gorgeous skein of lace weight. Really, as much as I lusted for the red BFY, I couldn't justify spending the money on something that would sit in my yarn bag :(

Oh! Hello there.

Didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. Oops.

The Estes Park Wool Market is tomorrow! Woot. I actually did a print job for the alpaca folks yesterday, they'll have a few cria there so I'll be sure to take the kiddo to the alpaca tent :) (Like I would miss it, the alpaca tent is one of my favorite places because I love alpaca yarn, lol). I need to print out my coupon today for Bijou Basin Ranch's yak yarn. I can't wait to get some of that lovely soft stuff under my fingers :)

So. I read the new Anita Blake book. Not the worst one I've read, not the best. But I do think that LKH is trying. I got to the last third of the book before she popped any graphic carnal scenes in, and honestly, the bit of the book that everyone's been bitching about was presented as a fait accompli, rather than a detailed scene. It's still a bit icky to think about but I was waiting for a play by play and cringing at the thought of that. This book was not nearly the train wreck the last several have been, so I'll keep reading, though I'll continue to borrow them from he library.

Just finished book 3 in the Twilight series. I keep reading out of stubborness now. I do not at all see the fascination that these books have for so many people. I thought the first one okay, the second boring and the third a bit better but still not great. I honestly don't really care much for Bella. She's very unappreciative of the nice things other try to do for her and that bugs me. I find her rather self-absorbed as well. And the thought that the author has now decided that she killed off the cash cow too early and feels the need to retell things through Edward's eyes, well I find that absolutely ridiculous.

Right now I need to go shower and go get my hair cut, it's making me nuts, lol.

Bored

I'm feeling very blasé about everything lately. I've read two decent books in the last few weeks, one a non-fiction book about life in Utah during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The other was the most recent Nora Roberts book and now I'm just annoyed that I have to wait another 6 months to get the next installment, lol.

World of Warcraft is making me crazy. I think I've geared my druid about as well as I can for the moment and I am heartily sick of running the same damned instance over and over. I'd like to gear my alt, but honestly see no chance at that as death knights are so damned common now. and doing the same damned dailies all the time isn't helping either. None of the recent content is doing anything for my general boredom with the game. I hate jousting with a passion. And now I hear that they are expanding the tournament. Oh goodie.

Even the guild I'm in is making me nuts. They go on and on about gearing mains and every time I turn around someone's whinging because they want to gear an alt. And it's ever so cliquey. But the stupid thing is, if I go play on the other realm that I have a character on I get annoyed because my guild there is so small it's too quiet, lol.

I think I am just going to step back for a bit. I'm not signed up for anything until Friday, I think I'll just take a break until then. Maybe I'll knit a bit again. I actually knit on my big Booga the other night. It was nice. And Estes is coming. I can hardly expect my hubby to be happy about me spending money on wool if I never knit anymore, lol.

People make me crazy

I support freedom of speech, I really do. But for crying out loud some people just need to remember back to what mama told them, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Why do some people seem to get off on flaming? LKH's new book comes out today. And there are already nasty flames on Amazon about LKH herself and the book. Most of which come from people who haven't even read the book yet. They are basing their remarks on one person's rant. Maybe you should read the book before you make up your mind? Then again, I think most of the people that post are just determined to hate on LKH because she took Anita on a different route than they wanted.

Yes, I think that the last several books were not to my taste, I do think they've turned into erotica more than the AB books we used to know and love, but at least I'm willing to read the new book for myself before I decide about it. And really, if these people hate LKH and AB so much now, why do they waste their time on them?? Just shut up and don't buy the book.

I gots luck!

But it's all bad, lol. At least where cell phones are concerned. My first cell was a cheap little Nokia phone, it was brilliant. But when my hubby's phone was stolen out of our car (we use Net10, so this wasn't as bad as it could have been!) I decided that I wanted something new and gave him my phone and got a new LG phone. I lasted 3 months with that one. The reception was awful, if I moved at all while talking it would lose the call. I finally ordered one online and got a Motorola, which I loved.

Then came "the swim". One day at work it slid out of my pocket and into a place no phone should ever go. I rescued it, pulled it all apart and let it all dry out and a few days later it was fine again. Except the battery needed charging every night. If I forgot I would end up with a dead phone. So I bought a new battery. Unfortunately, the new battery somehow fried my phone! It still works but I have no display, which of course means no texts, and no ringer, since I last put it on vibrate at work, lol.

So today I ordered a new phone. I got another Motorola because until mine went swimming it was a great phone. This time I will make darned sure it stays where it belongs, lol.

Teachers

As the school year winds down again I think about my daughter and her teacher, and how much she will miss her dear teacher. Last year on the last day of school I picked my kiddo up and she was in tears. All of the kids were. They were a family you see, and they were being split up. For two years the kids had the exact same classmates and the same teacher. My daughter still talks about how much she misses Mrs B.

I expect some tears again this year, but not so bad. The kiddo actually had two teachers this year, so I don't know if the attachment is quite so strong. We shall see.

Anyway. It's made me a bit reflective on my old teachers, teachers who meant a lot to me or just were memorable.

There's Mrs. Mock, who was probably a nice lady, but we got off on a bad foot in third grade and never quite recovered. My fourth grade teacher was nice enough, but I've blocked a lot of that year out as my dad had recently died and it wasn't such a hot year.

Then there was Mrs. Carter in 5th grade. From her I gained a love of all things piggy. Mrs. C collected pigs and her classroom was full of them. But what made every kid want her for their teacher was that every one of her 5th grade classes had a class piglet. Yep, we had an orphan piglet that we fed and cleaned and played with all year long 'til it was strong enough to go back to the farm it was born on. To heck with hamsters and guinea pigs lol.

In 6th grade it was Mrs. Rauschenburger. She was the teacher who finally realized just how deep my love of reading was and she fostered it, recommending books and allowing me to stay in from recess and read.

After that my memory gets hazy. Starting with high school, I switched schools three times in 4 years. And you spend less time with each teacher, so while I had favorites each year they were never really special.

There was the junior high teacher who had dated my sister in high school. Weirdness.

And the first English teacher I ever had who didn't consider me his pet and yelled at me for talking all the time, lol.

And the algebra teacher who told everyone the first day of class that there was no such thing as a stupid question. Then several days later when I asked him to repeat something he gave me a death stare and told me, "I just went over that, I will not repeat myself, again!" I dropped that class that day.

The next teacher I had that made an impact on me was a college prof. He was passionate about his subject and a tough teacher. You either loved him or hated him. I loved him, his passion for the field, his ability to make us all think. The first class I had him for he terrified me at first. By the end of the semester I was hooked. I scheduled myself deliberately for his classes for the next year and a half and I did well. If I may pat myself on the back, I think he liked me as well. I was the first and only student of his to get a 100% on one of his exams and he appreciated that.

After that semester we all went off for summer break. Come fall I entered a class with follow journalism students and one of them asked if I'd heard the news. My favorite teacher in whole university had had a heart attack over the summer and died.

I never had another professor I liked quite so well. My enthusiasm for the subject waned until I was just going through the motions, ready to graduate and be done with school. By the time I walked across the stage at graduation I knew I'd likely never work in my field. (There were several other reasons for that, not just his death, but that certainly sparked the malaise that filled me back then).

I hope that my daughter is lucky enough to find some teachers who mean as much to her as some of my old teachers meant to me then, and that as she grows up she will think back kindly on some of them and smile.

Boooo :(

You might not know this, but I graduated with a degree in journalism several years ago and I'm a huge fan of the First Amendment, which is supposed to guarantee freedom of speech and expression. I'm also a big Greenday fan.

So what the fuck is up with Walmart? It's a long-standing policy of Walmart's not to stock any CD with a parental advisory sticker, so musical artists are given the choice of offering a cleaned up (CENSORED) version or not having their CD sold at the big box stores. It's a flagrant violation of the First Amendment.

AND Walmart still sells R rated movies, with swearing, violence and mature content. Many of these DVDs have unrated content on them that goes beyond an R rating. They also offer up video games with mature ratings. Hypocritical much? Who made Walmart the musical morality police, anyway? How about you let me decide to buy for myself and my child? It's my decision to make, not some big corporation's.

Good for Greenday for not bowing to pressure and refusing to censor their new album. From now on I will buy what little music I buy elsewhere. I don't think artists should be forced to offer dumbed down versions of their CDs, just to get in to the world's largest retailer.

Go support your local music store and buy the CD the artist meant you to have in the first place. And there's always iTunes ;)

Excellent weekend!

My bestest buddy and her son were here for two days. Too short really, but good fun. We ended up in Estes Park, playing in the snow. That would be Trail Ridge Road, btw. It's not officially open, but it's open a fair way up. We also went to Bear Lake, which is covered in snow as well, lol.

And speaking of Estes, we are less than a month away from the Estes Wool Market. I can't wait, I love the Market! And this year I think I might just have to buy some Yak yarn from Bijou Basin Ranch. They were at Estes last year and it was sooooo soft but I had to choose between them and Plain and Fancy. :( But this year the owners of Bijou Basin have put up a 15% off coupon, woot! This is their year, lol. (And I have two skeins of Plain and Fancy tucked away from last year, time for something new!).

Hmmm

I needed a change for my blog design, and I love the designs from the Cutest Blog on the Block, but none of them really fit me. This one is too pink. But I'm too lazy to design my own, lol.

And busy. My bestest friend from high school is coming to visit me this weekend. Which is brilliant, but made me realize that my guest bedroom is full of plants and craft items and sans bed! So I've spent most of the morning packing up scrapbooking, knitting and soap making supplies and cleaning up the fallen leaves and blooms that accumulate near plants. The spare room now has a bed instead of a craft table and sheets (finally found a matching set of full sized sheets lol, it's amazing how much of my stuff is still in boxes after more than a year!).

Anyhoo, I'm off to get cleaned up so we can go play for a few hours today now that that's done. Have a lovely day!

Brrrr

I put my geraniums back outside because the weather has been lovely and what happens? We get wind and rain and cooler temps. Poor things were totally battered by the wind. and of course we just turned our sprinkler system back on and it poured last night, lol. I think I'm going to go turn it off for tonight, I hate watering while it's raining!

Anyhoo. Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there. I got jewelery from my DD, a hand beaded bracelet :) I love it.

My baby

My darling daughter was born at 1:26 PM, May 9, 2009. She was a big baby, 8 lbs. 15 oz.

Today my little one turned 9 and as she's all too ready to tell me, she's not a baby anymore!

Happy birthday, dear daughter. You'll always be our baby *grin*

PS Two of the girls invited did respond, because we nagged them, lol. Both very last minute and while the kiddo is happy, I'm still peeved.

*sigh*

My daughter's birthday is coming up in less than a week now. We kept her invite list small, just 5 kids. I asked for RSVPs on the invites and would you believe I've not heard from a single person? How rude is that? No wonder kids are so screwed up now, their parents who really should know better are just as bad.

So for the education of anyone who might not know: An RSVP means let the sender know if you will be coming or not. Either way. It's just good manners.

"R.S.V.P. stands for a French phrase, "répondez, s'il vous plaît," which means "please reply." The person sending the invitation wo­uld like you to tell him or her whether you accept or decline the invitation. That is, will you be coming to the event or not? Etiquette rules followed in most Western cultures require that if you receive a formal, written invitation, you should reply promptly, perhaps that same day. For hosts who are planning a dinner party, a wedding or a reception, this is important from a practical point of view, because they need to know how many people to count on and how much food and drink to buy. More important, though, is the simple courtesy of responding to someone who was nice enough to invite you, even if it is to say that you regret that you will not be able to attend." --How Stuff Works

And really it's a child's party. It's going to break my kiddo's heart if no one shows up. At this point I am ready to make other plans for us for the day so she won't feel bad and if anyone responds at the last minute tell them to shove off :(

Broken Down

In more ways than one.

I broke down and gave in to peer pressure to read Twilight. After two of the ladies at work read it and raved about I thought about reading it, but the waiting list at my library is a mile long so I put it off. But the ladies conspired and brought in a copy for me to read, lol. I'm on chapter 4 now. I'm withholding judgment for now, Edward's back and forth like a fiddler's elbow and so am I, lol.

The other thing that was broken down was my truck this afternoon. I left work a bit early. It was really quiet, the guys had their tools out and were plotting new ways to take over all the space around them and it's lovely outside. Climbed into my truck, turned the key and nothing. Wtf? I looked to see if I'd done something stupid like leaving my iPod plugged in. Nothing obvious. The truck's light are automatic, so it couldn't be that.

I had to call the hubby to come jump start me. Luckily, that's all it took. I mean, as soon as his car started my dashboard lights came back to life, so it was pretty obvious the truck would start. He followed me home, just in case. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will be ok now. I don't work 'til 3 PM tomorrow, so it leaves it a lot of time to decide to die, lol.

Edited to add: The truck did not start for work, so it goes in Friday morning. I'm hoping that we will get it back by the time I go to work again at 3. *Crossing fingers that it's something simple*

Jumped the shark

*Sigh* I used to love the tv show Ghost Hunters. I loved the way the went into an investigation with the intent to debunk and put homeowners fears to rest. To hear the "H" word from Jason was a rare thing, and usually had to be pried out of him by other team members.

But over the last several seasons the team has primarily gone into commercial locations, locations that I suspect are less interested in help getting rid of a ghost than they are in proving a haunting, purely to cash in on the additional revenue a haunting can bring in.

My first hint of things to come was when the crew went to the Moss Beach Distillery. The Moss Beach is a well known fake, with gizmos planted through out the building to "enhance" guests experiences. If I knew the place was a fake, why the hell didn't GH? They either need to boost their research or they went in with the intent of "exposing" the fakery to boost their rep.

I don't think I've seen an episode over the last two seasons that hasn't offered up some evidence of the paranormal, unless maybe a more recent epi in an old bowling alley where my hopes were falsely raised that the debunking was back.

Things like jacket collars so very obviously pulled, hangers conveniently tossed from off camera, EVPs that are just soooo damned convenient, they've all made me very skeptical of the show. And don't get me started on GHI!

But last night was the final straw. GH has jumped the shark. To investigate their own "haunted" inn was just too much! And to pull GHI into to give it an air of respectability... Whew. What's that smell? Something stinks of blatant and shameless self-promotion.

Bye - bye Ghost Hunters. I'll miss Steve and Tango's antics, but I'm so over Grant and Jason :(

I really should update my reading list

but I'm too bloody tired tonight, lol. Hubby's had a cold and starts coughing the moment he lays down, poor thing. And of course that keeps us both awake. Now my throat is starting to hurt and I am sincerely hoping that it's not strep.

Anyhoo, as usual I've read many books since my last post. The sad thing is, my waiting list at the library has dwindled to only 14 books! And 3 of those are for my daughter.

Part of the problem is, they don't seem to be ordering the books I want to read. Like the new Broken Heart Vampires book that comes out next month, and Undead and Unwelcome, which also comes out next month. And the new Laurell K Hamilton book that I can't seem to stop myself from wanting to read, if only to see the train-wreck that Anita's life has become. I mean, this sentence from chapter one sort of says it all, when Anita is talking about family pictures, "When you're sort of living with, at last count, four men, and dating another five, or six; who goes in the pictures?" Shesh.

Did I mention that my daughter is now reading some of the books I read when I was her age? And it tickles me pink that she's reading Trixie Belden and loving the BWGs! And she's doing a book report on The Great Brain. Again, I love T.D. and his brothers, lol.

Anyway. I started this post by saying how tired I am, so why in the heck am I still here? Lol. Night!

"The rain, rain, rain came down, down, down

in rushing, rising, riv'lets." --The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

That's how the last few days have been. At work we had a seriously leaking roof in several place, most notably in the print area. One leak was a pour, as opposed to a drip.

At home it appears our vent in the master bath has a drip, hopefully something as simple as just needing to reseat the cap. Mighty disconcerting when you get up in the middle of the night, more than half asleep and something cold drips on your head, lol.

And my friend Alan is now in a hotel with his family and their weekend company because the ceiling in their kitchen caved in due to the rain. Shesh!

The good news is it's sunny today, and is supposed to stay that way for a while now. And the mountains look brilliant in the distance, all snow covered.

Well, at some point I am heading to whatever hotel Alan is tucked up into to meet a fellow WoW guildie (his father in law, lol) from the small guild I belong to on Alan's server. And I desperately need to go do some dailies on Annstás to make some money to cover the repairs I've had to make thanks to a couple of painful Ulduar 10 person runs, lol. (Hint: Brand new level 80 really isn't up to Ulduar, but it was fun!)

Just when I thought it was safe...

to put away the electric blanket! I walked out of the house yesterday to a cold mist. Yuck. Didn't think to go back in and get a coat, just hustled to the car to get out of the yuck.

So by the time I left work at 3 PM, it was raining hard. And cold. By the time I ran the gauntlet (thanks go out to the ass who was turning and didn't signal so I had to stand in the rain waiting for you to drive by and then you didn't. Loved that.) and got to my truck I was soaked and peeved.

However, meeting the "girls" after work for drinks and appetizers was lovely and put me right back in a lovely mood, lol.

This morning it is still raining, which on the one hand is a good thing, it was supposed to turn to snow overnight, so I will live with the rain! But on the other hand, it's gray and wet and cold out there, lol. I try to tell myself that we are living in a drought, and that the rain is good for us. But my aching knee doesn't care about that and the thought of going to work in a bit is not a happy one.

Oh well. Nothing I can do about it. Guess I'll grab some more coffee and watch the rain for a bit before I wake the kiddo. Ciao!

All quiet

Not much happening here. Been rereading a lot of books, as you can see from my reading blog. Enjoying having three days off this week, with another to come quickly on Sunday since we are closed on Easter.

Finally got my death knight to 80 in WoW and really, just don't know what to do with myself now, lol. I started a shaman a few weeks ago, maybe I'll play her. She was actually meant as a joke. My guild has become flooded with characters that are called soandsosangel (so and so being the husband of the hubby and wife duo), and when someone suggested I make a character named after my hubby's character, I created a character called Imnoangel instead.

If I were to play any other character really, I'd rather just move one of my older chars from hubby's account to mine and continue to level that way. I've abandoned a priest, a mage and a warlock on his account, lol (I also abandoned a warrior, hubby took her and leveled her to 80 while I played my DK, so we now have a wide variety of characters to chose from). Gnorma, a gnome mage, is the most likely to be further leveled, purely because she's the highest level, at 47.

Then again, I've a gnome DK on another server that I created to help a coworker level, I may go back to playing her (I love her, just because of her name, lol. She's Abbygnormal *snicker*)

Oh! Ummm, hi!

So the blizzard wasn't really all that that much of a blizzard. We did get 9" of snow, and for a while there it was total whiteout. School was let out early Thursday and Friday was canceled completely, so the kiddo got a long weekend to play in the snow.

By Saturday most of the snow was gone again, since we warmed right back up. Typical March weather for us, lol. In fact the weather right now is much more typical than it has been all winter.

Anyhoo. Not much knitting going on, some reading. But mostly playing WoW again lately, since the hubby talked me into signing up for some raids lately. And strangely enough, I find I'm actually having fun, rather than dying of impatience every five minutes. Yes, there's a lot of standing around, but it's not as terrible as I feared, lol.

Going to grab some breakfast and play my death knight for a bit. Ciao!

In for it!

"A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM MDT FRIDAY.

SNOW WILL BECOME WIDESPREAD OVER THE ENTIRE AREA BY MIDDAY...AND
BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES...ESPECIALLY THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING.
NORTH TO NORTHEAST WINDS OF 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 45
MPH WILL PRODUCE BLIZZARD CONDITIONS AND CONSIDERABLE DRIFTING
SNOW ON THE PLAINS BY AFTERNOON. THE WORST CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED
TO BE IN AREAS SOUTH OF A LINE FROM BOULDER TO AKRON.

TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS BY LATE THURSDAY NIGHT WILL RANGE FROM
6 TO 12 INCHES ACROSS THE NORTHEAST PLAINS...WITH 8 TO 16 INCHES
OF SNOW FROM THE DENVER METRO AREA TO LIMON...AND ONE TO TWO FEET
IN DOUGLAS AND WESTERN ELBERT COUNTIES. THE SNOW AND PROLONGED
WINDS WILL ALSO PRODUCE CONSIDERABLE DRIFTING OF SNOW."

We've been lucky this winter. Too lucky, 'cause Mother Nature has decided enough is enough and it's really ugly out there. In fact, I walked out into the living room (we've been tucked up into bed, reading, this morning, lol) and looked out the window and immediately pulled up the school district's web page. It's almost total white out out there, between the snow and the wind. Sure enough, the schools are all closing this afternoon. It didn't say when though, so we called the kiddo's school and they said we could come get her now. So hubby is on his way to get her and stopping for milk on the way, then we are going to hunker down for the rest of the day.

I'm supposed to go to work at 3 pm today, but I'm kind of thinking that may not happen. I hope not, because it's only supposed to get worse. I worry about my co-workers though, because both managers on duty today come from the next town over, as do the copy specialist and several others. Not a nice drive anywhere at this point, let alone along the very open highways between here and there.

Anyhoo, now I am waiting on pins and needles for the hubby and kiddo to get home. He's much better at driving in the snow than I am, thanks to safety training he was require to take at his old job, but it's still nerve-wracking, knowing how ugly it is out there.

UPDATE: Almost 8 1/2" now, with some pretty hefty drifts out there in the backyard. No school tomorrow for the kiddo. Good news is the wind died down around 1pm and the roads are just snow covered, you can at least see again. We got off fairly lightly, areas just to the south of us got a foot or more. Of course it's still snowing so who knows what we shall see tomorrow. But we are all safe and warm so it's all good :)

Home again.

Well, actually home again for several days. We got home Friday night and I went back to work Monday. Kind of a fast trip, considering all that driving.

But for the most part it was a good trip. We had absolutely wonderful weather, with only one day a little chilly, the rest of the time it was unseasonably warm. Even the day we spent in Madison was nice enough that we only needed light jackets/ sweaters.

Madison was wonderful by the way. Even if they didn't let me look for any yarn shops, lol. I could totally live there. We had a great time with friends we hadn't seen in years and got to see some of the U of Wisconsin campus. And to top it all off, our friends live only blocks away from the zoo and it's free! So we walked over there and spent some time wandering through the little zoo. Of course the kiddo loved that.

And as a little side note, the giraffes at the Henry Vilas Zoo came from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs (they let you feed them there, lol. It was way cool when we were there), so that's kind of neat too.

Anyhoo. I'm still tired from the trip, and had a bit of an emotional melt down Monday that I am still tired from as well, lol. So I think I am going to go soak in a nice hot bath and read. Ciao!

On our way!

We're leaving shortly for Iowa. Our yearly pilgrimage to the old homestead and Gram. Not sure what all we are going to do when we get there, but the weather is supposed to be quite lovely for once, so yay! Makes a change from our trip last April and rain, rain, rain and cold!

No WoW for almost a week, but I am taking some books and my knitting. And I never did check the mail yesterday, so I may do that before we go, just in case my needles are here. (Scratch that. Can't find one of my balls of yarn for the socks, and no time to look now).

Anyway, gotta give the upset cat some more attention and then get moving. See you all later!

Tools of the Trade

Tools I am taking with me on my USB drive to give my mother's PC a tune-up next week:

1. Portable Firefox
   Brilliant! I can run my preferred browser with my bookmarks straight from my jump drive!


2. Defraggler
   Because the built in defrag tool is rubbish!

There are a few other tools I will take with me, but I can't give away all our tech secrets, can I? Lol.

Other tools I am taking with me:
Size 10 1/2 straights, 10 1/2 circular. Lots of green Cascade 220.

Tools I will not be taking with me because they didn't arrive in time:
Size 3 40" circular needle for two socks at one time, Corntastic Yarn. :(

Knitting.

I am! But not what I was knitting. I picked up my knitting for my Flowers on the Go bag and looked at the mess it was and cringed. My join was lose and really the whole 6 rows of it looked awful. So it hit the frog pond.

And really, why the heck am I knitting a purse when I am trying to get away from carrying one at all? Lately I've been looking into just carrying my most frequently used cards (Sam's Club, debit, ID and library cards) with me. I've been looking for a hard card case, something I could just slide in my back pocket and not have to worry about.

Part of that is due to the fact that my old boss had her purse stolen last year and it was a nightmare. And we all carry way too much stuff with us. With identity theft on the rise, most prevention tips tell us to only carry the cards we use with us and to never carry your Social Security card with you. So why the heck am I carrying around store cards that I honestly only use once or twice a year?

And why am I carrying around a checkbook? I can't remember the last time I actually wrote a check at a store.

So anyhoo. What to do with all that green yarn that I would never use for anything else?? I wandered through Ravelry and finally decided to make a modified Booga bag. I've cast on 64 stitches and I'm going to knit for 60-ish rows on the bottom before I pick up stitches. It'll be my yarn bag for home. And if I knit fast enough, I may even be able to get my mother to line it for me next week, lol.

Mother Nature has an odd sense of humor

There's snow out there, y'all. Snow that we actually desperately need (rain just doesn't do it when the ground is rock hard. It just rolls off, snow on the other hand, seeps in). But that doesn't make it any less of a shock to the system when really we've not had much winter this year.

My mind knows that March is typically one of our wettest months, but this winter has been absolutely atypical. Anyone who says there's no such thing as global warming, or that it isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, needs a smack to the head. Or just to be brought to Colorado in July, because it's going to be an UGLY wildfire season.

Anyhoo. There's just enough snow out there to make my morning drive obnoxious, so I'd better get moving. Have a good day, y'all.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?*

Wow! It has been in the 70s the last few days and absolutely GORGEOUS! And of course, I've worked the last two days, lol. But tomorrow is supposed to be almost as nice, and I'm off work so it's all good.

Not much knitting going on here, but a lot of reading. I just can't seem to work up enthusiasm for knitting right now and I don't know if that's my projects or just me. I did pick up 2-at-a-time Socks though, and I've found the pattern that I am going to use for my daughter's Corntastic socks, Pitter Patter. It's a very simple pattern but that's what I need if I am going to try making them two at a time, lol. I just need to get a 40" circular now. It would be nice to have them ready to go for our trip to Iowa later this month.

Anyhoo. I'm tired and thanks to a co-worker, cranky. I'm going to grab something to eat and go see what's On Demand to veg to. Ciao!

*Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

"Mama said there'll be days like this...

...There'll be days like this, my mama said." -Dusty Springfield

Ah yes, today was one of those days. From the moment I woke up all too early til right now. I basically informed my boss this morning that I was going to go work in the copy section the moment someone else came in. He said, "Maybe." I said, "No maybe about it." And when D. came in at 10:30 a.m. I said, "Seeya." And off I went. Lol.

So I spent most of my day with pretty much just the head of the copy section and away from anyone I might be tempted to growl at or bite ;)

After work the kiddo read in her room and the hubby went and got food. I hid in the bedroom and watched Mike Rowe milk spiders.

Then I made the mistake of opening Sims 2 whilst the kiddo was in the shower so I could see what the new pets I imported yesterday looked like. Then the kiddo had to make a new family. But she dithered and dawdled and didn't even get one family member done by the time I came in to read. So I gave her the choice. Turn it off and read stories or keep going without stories before bed. When she continued to say "just a minute, just a minute," I turned the lights off and said good night. What I really wanted to do was scream and gnash my teeth and growl. Like I've wanted to do all day...

*Sigh* Must be bedtime for me now.

To quote Miss Scarlet, "Afterall, tomorrow is another day."

Not a wild night

Poor hubby has a miserable cold, so we put off a nice dinner until he feels better. No fun going out for a meal you can't even taste.

It was a nice night though. We dropped the kiddo off at a local program for kids (it was packed, lol. Every parent in town went, "Woot! No babysitter scramble!" Including us.) and actually enjoyed a few hours to ourselves in the evening. It's been a very long time since we've left the kiddo with anyone and gone out in the evening. And I think the last time we actually went out on our anniversary was before she was born!

The brilliant thing is, she had an awesome time and wants to go again. She immediately saw a couple of friends, though she didn't hook up with them for a bit, like I said, the place was packed with kids. They talked and played and watched other kids. The event is at the local rec center every Saturday, and there's tons of stuff for them to do. I see a few more nights out for all of us coming :)

Hubby and I did go out for burgers. Our local Culver's offered free two scoop sundaes with your meal so that's what we did. After we rolled out of Culver's we headed for the next town to the east, since they have a Border's and I had gift cards ;)

I really have a hard time finding things in Borders. It's not my fave bookstore. And Seattle's Best Coffee? Yuck. Even their frufru drinks are bitter. But free books are free books, so we go, lol. And after about 20 minutes I did find the book I was looking for, so it worked.

Anyhoo, the kiddo has finally stumbled out of bed, so I shall get us breakfast. Ciao!

Valentine's

Always a big day in our house. It's hubby's birthday and our wedding anniversary. It makes 18 years this year and it's also hubby's big 4-0.

At this point last year I wasn't sure we'd make it to 18 but I am very glad we have. He's my best friend in addition to my love and I'm very thankful to have him in my life.

Funny enough, his 40th doesn't seem to be bothering him. It's bothering the hell out of me though, lol. It reminds me that next year it's my turn and I feel very very old. It's had an odd effect on my psyche as well, since I've been having bad dreams lately, nightmares about growing old and infirm. It's silly since I know 40 isn't really all that old, but apparently my mind is having a hard time accepting that deep down.

Anyhoo, hubby is sick on his birthday and feels like crap, so I don't know that we are going to do anything tonight. Poor guy.

I was playing WoW this morning, but I am dreadfully bored at the moment. I think I shall just go read. I'm officially on book 29 for the year already, lol.

New toys... sort of

Blogger now lets you add a blogroll to your page, and sorts them in the order of who has most recently updated. I love it. Though I am having issues with the font size but that's another thing... See, Blogrolling was hacked a while back (October for crying out loud!) and it's never been fixed enough to allow me to do anything with it. Which is really rather annoying and in my opinion rather poor customer service, and had I been a subscriber I'd be quite pissed off, but instead I just left.

So anyhoo. I've added a blogroll for the Ravelry 52 books group, but since there are hundreds of people and blogs in the list it will take me a while. And quite honestly I'm being fussy and only linking book blogs or sites with separate pages for their book info. No offense, but I'm there for the books, not for the latest baby diaper change. Oh, I am snarky lately.

Whatever. I'm going back to my book.

Books!

You all should know by now that I love to read. And reading over at Ms. Amy's blog I found her 52 Books post and her attempt to read 52 books in 2009. I frequently pick up reads from the blogs I read, why not the idea of 52 books as well.

Like Amy I must visit the local library to support my reading habit. Especially since in a good week I can read several books. If you look at my list you will see that I am now on #21 already, lol.

So anyhoo, to keep track I've started a new blog, Tabhair leabhar dom! which is Give Me a Book! in Gaelic. You're welcome to trundle on over and check out what I am reading.

Oh wow

I found my very first blog post ever tonight, lol. It goes just like this:

I decided to try my hand at this whole Blog thing tonight because I just have so many thoughts running through my brain. I sometimes think that if I don't get some of them out, I might just go crazy...

This seems like the ideal place to share my thoughts.

A little about me. I'm 31, married to a wonderful man for over 10 years, and we have a lovely daughter named Isabel. We'll be celebrating her first birthday May 9th.

I posted that on April 28, 2001. It's funny to see what I liked graphically back then, and how things changed as I learned my way around html, and finally CSS.

Rofl

The "great debate" on Dear Abby for the last two days... Thongs up or Thongs Down.

Are they comfortable? Are they sexy? Are they sleazy? Or are they just a way to avoid VPL (visible panty-lines).

I'm no fashionista. But a while back E! did a show on Fashion Do's and Don'ts and there were two things at the top of the Don't list. Mom Jeans and VPL. I don't wear Mom Jeans and I don't have VPL, so I guess I'm more fashionable than I thought ;)

So. Are they comfortable? Don't tell me they aren't comfortable if you haven't tried them. I'm so sick of people who have a lot to say about things they've never tried or considered doing.

Are they sexy? Don't care. I'm not wearing them for anyone else.

Are they sleazy? Nope, the man looking at my ass noticing I have no panty line is the sleazy one. Yeah, I am sure there are women wearing thongs who are sleazy. I'm also sure there are some who wear regular old undies that are sleazy. It's the person inside the knickers that's sleazy, not the knickers themselves, lol.

Frankly, I don't give a damn about what kind of undies a person wears. It's not any of my business. Really, let's keep it that way.

(Note to all those who seem to think that really low cut jeans are the only alternative to Mom Jeans: I don't want to see you panties and/or your crack when you bend over. In men that's called plumber's arse. Think about it...)

Winter

has returned to Colorado. While most of the Midwest and the East was in the deep freeze last week, we were reaching record high temps. My poor little mother was freezing in Iowa while we were running around in short sleeves. As my boss said one day, "Yesterday was the perfect April day. Only not in April." Lol.

So this week the weather has changed and it actually feels like January. We got some much needed snow as well. (We all forget just how necessary snow is to our area when we are running around enjoying 70 degree temps. But without adequate snowfall we have things like this and this at a weird time of the year and goodness knows what come July!). Between this week and one bitterly cold period where it barely got out of single digits, we've only had about 2 weeks of winter.

And even now, the temps are only short lived. One more cold day today, then back up to the 40s and 50s. Who says there's no such thing as global warming??

Anyhoo. Off to the shower before it is time to get the kiddo up for school. Ciao!

Call me a pessimist if you want but

I prefer to think of myself as a realist. I'm thrilled that G.W. is gone. Oh so thrilled. But I'm also pretty darned sure that Obama comes without a magic wand. I'm almost positive he's a muggle like the rest of us...

Yes, change is good. Yes, I voted for Obama and I do think change is coming. But it took things a long time to get this screwed up. It's going to take a long time and more than one man to get it all straightened out again. Honestly, I actually feel sorry for Obama, because he has a long row to hoe and very high expectations to live up to.

Most blogs and comments to blogs I've seen make me think people either think the man is a saint (which I think he would be the first to admit is not the case) or that he's gonna wave his non-existent magic wand and things are going to be better over night.

Let's be realistic here. He's one man working with at least 535 other people (the House of Representatives and Senate, not to mention cabinet members, advisors, and other world leaders...) that all have their own interests and opinions. Even with a longer than usual presidential "honeymoon" period like experts are predicting, when does government ever move quickly?

Change'll do you good and I believe it's coming, but don't expect too much too soon from this one single person. Give the man the chance, and the time he needs.

Knit Twit Trips Down Memory Lane

I wish that it was possible to program a playlist in YouTube, without joining anyway, lol. There are a million and one songs there that I don't have in my iTunes. Songs that I would never pay for, like anything by Metallica (insert raised finger here). *Snark* I imagine they'll come after YouTube soon (and insert again) lol. And there are also a lot of songs I have in iTunes that no longer exist on the old puter. iTunes no longer exists on the old puter, lol.

Really though, my hubby was playing my metal playlist the other day (aka WoW PvP tunes, nm that I don't PvP anymore) and he bitched that I should rename it to AC/DC list, lol. Well can I help it that most of the metal I've loaded is AC/DC (and really, it's only 17 of the 35 songs in the list, rofl)? I have more of their albums than any other metal band. And sadly, a lot of my metal music is in that unplayable, old-fashioned format, the dreaded cassette tape! And iTunes just doesn't have Megadeath available for dl. But even YouTube doesn't have much of the old punk that I loved, like the DKs (listening to "Institutionalized" right now, thanks to Jango, lol. "All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi!" And of course we can't forget the classic, "I Saw Your Mommy" What scares me is I still remember the lyrics to both songs, haha. What a sick child I was, lol.)

Anyhoo.

I did actually cast on for my bag tonight. I need to work up a few more stitch markers, that or find the ones that my daughter ran off with because they were pretty, lol. Hmm, she got a jewelery kit for Christmas, maybe I'll steal some of her charms, haha.

(PS This little trip down memory lane brought to you by phone calls from friends out of the past ;)

Ok so recasting on the

Flowers on the Go bag the other day was a rather ambitious idea as it turns out. Just balling the last skein was a project in itself. New Years Resolution number 2: From now on I only buy yarn at places that ball the yarn for me ;)

I have a ball winder. It works fine and dandy. But the last three skeins of yarn I've tried to wind have ended up a tangled mess 2/3 of the way through. I would guess that this last skein of yarn took a good two hours for tow of us to wind.
how the heck it gets so tangled I know not. One moment everything is fine and the next there is 50 yards of wool in one giant knot.

So while I love my closest LYS because the owner is friendly and helpful when I need help and content to let me just wander and touch yarn when I don't, she doesn't ever offer to ball the yarn.

The adorable LYS in the next town over (love, love, love the location and the atmosphere of this store!) has friendly and helpful employees who ALWAYS offer to wind my yarn.

Even the employees at the single most unfriendly yarn shop I've ever been in wound my yarn for me the one and only time I shopped there.

I don't know, it just seems life (and knitting time) is too short to waste untangling wool ;)

New Year's Resolution

Yes, I know it's a little late. But still... My resolution this year is to get a family photo taken. Our last family photo was taken when the munchkin was probably 2. And that was just a shot we set up before Christmas in front of the old fireplace so really, it wasn't even a great picture. This year I want a real photo taken, and since you can't really beat the price it's not asking for a lot, is it?

It hit me last year when we were at Mt. Rushmore and someone offered to take a pic of the three of us (and cranky hubby said no, but that's another story) that we really needed to do this.

Of course, hubby and I have both put on some weight this last year (being out of work and sitting on one's arse eating chocolate tends to do that...) but oh well.

My other resolution is to knit more. I just need to make the time. I have some lovely stash yarns that are just begging to be used. Heck, I have some UFOs sitting in my knitting drawer. The Flowers on the Go bag needs to be frogged and the new skein of yarn balled so I can cast on again. I've socks on the needles. I've got Corntastic yarn begging to be knit into plain Jane socks for the kiddo. And my Brooks Farm Yarn is crying to be knit in to something fantastic. Not to mention my spiderweb shawl...