Stressed Out!

I have not been in a very good mood lately. Sorry. If you don’t want to read an entire post of just gripes, stop reading now. You have been warned.

I am stressed out that I go to pay my credit card bill and find that my checking account has been closed for having a $0 balance for 30 days. I have still not received any notification of this. I am upset that I was followed out to my car by the idiot bank representative. What a witch! She would not take my money (checks drawn at the same bank) for payment and so I did not get to pay my credit card bill. I still don’t know how I will make the payment as this is for a business account and no way will I write a check off of my personal account. I did not take all those years of accounting classes to start screwing up now.

I am stressed out that DH likes to spend money and we never have enough. Toys are more important to him than food. That is until he wants to go food shopping and then there is no money but yet he does not blame his stupid toy habits. Heroclix suck! So I have to pay his credit card bill and since it is due today (a holiday ~ of course any reason to make a person have to pay a late fee) I wanted to call the bank to see if they were open. Every single phone number for this particular bank (and it is a nationally known bank) have been disconnected.

I am stressed out that I shopped at an online scrapbook store and still have not received my order. I placed my first order with them on a Friday (02/10) and got my order the next day (02/11). I was so excited about the great service and did not expect my order that soon. So I placed another order on a Monday (02/13). Well that was last Monday and I still have not received my order. I received notification that it shipped on Monday (of course this email came before the email telling me that it was in process of being packed). So even if the order shipped on Tuesday I should have received it now. I have a feeling that I will just be out $30.00 as I did not buy insurance. Who needs insurance right? I feel that is how online shippers get you. If you don’t buy insurance you are out of luck. It also bothers me that they have no contact number or email address.

The only stress that does not seem to get me upset is the overload of work here at the office. For some reason, I am just fine with it. Go figure.

The post that never ends

I had planned to have boo-koo updates this weekend but got caught up in this whole life thing. So now this will be the Post that never ends!

Friday night, I met up with Happay Mommay and Crazy Momma for a scrapping sleepover. We stayed up till 2am scrapping away until we could scrap no longer. It was great to get together with friends. Although I am known for never finishing a page (I am such a slow scrapper) when cropping with friends, I did manage to get some finished or partially finished. As soon as I get them unpacked and scanned I will put them up on the site.

I got home around 11am on Saturday morning. I vegged out for a couple of hours and then left to run my full day of errands. I had so much to do. I had to go to the bank and deliver a couple of orders. I also wanted to look around Michael’s at some ribbon. Well…..I never made it to the bank and only got to deliver one order. The order was for my aunt and I always enjoy visiting with her. My cousin was also there so the three of us had a great time visiting. I think I was there about 3 hours! Since the second order was for my Mom and I knew I would see her the next day I just went to Michael’s. My plan was to look at ribbon and rub-ons. Well one hour and $20.00 worth of ribbon later I finally started my drive home. I cannot believe I spent $20 on ribbon! I blame Happay Mommay for telling me about Michael’s ribbon!!!! I kept finding new ribbon and putting ribbon down and picking it back up again! I could NOT make up my mind! I hate when I get like that. I have a feeling I will be visiting Michael’s again soon and then I will be in trouble.

Sunday was my birthday.

B got me roses. I have not had flowers in so long. I LOVE them! We had a nice afternoon sitting around watching movies. I even got to see a chick flick! How awesome is that. B must really love me or something. LOL! Sunday night my Mom had us over for steak. My brother did not show up with the kids and that did make me sad for a minute as I really did want to see them but it was very nice to just have Me, DH and my parents there. It was a wonderful birthday dinner. Steak baby!!! YUM!!!

Now it is Monday. I came into work to find my cube decorated. I don’t know how they found out it was my birthday as I did not tell anyone. I knew that the girls in India knew and it was nice to get a birthday card from them. My friend Rosie made an awesome Pineapple upside-down cake and another co-worker brought in brownies.

Also, my boss just came home from India bearing gifts so all-in-all it was a fantastic day!

Happy Friday! Now let's PARTY!

Yesterday was a weird day. We had something that looked a little like rain (well enough to just get the windows irritatingly dirty after I just cleaned them). However according to the news there was no rain so we are now at 116 days of no rain.

After I left work I drove home in the non-existent rain and cold.
That was another surprise….the cold. It was the kind of cold that kind of makes you think it is Winter but how could it be since this season they call Winter does not exist in real life. But it was cold so I played a fun game called 'Let's pretend it is Winter.' So since I was in this Winter mood, I did something I have not done in oh so long. Yep! You guessed it! I knitted! Whoo hoo!!! I am so proud of myself. I worked for a couple of hours on my rectangular shrug. I am proud to say that it is now a few inches longer but still a long way off before it is finished. I wonder if I can finish it before the temps reach 100 degrees. I cannot really say for sure as it is supposedly ‘Winter’ and yet the temps have been in the 80’s.

So I read what I just wrote and there should be no surprises to me why my blog is so boring. I don’t know why I expected anything different. For example, I spent last night knitting and watching ‘While You Were Sleeping’ on TV while B was sleeping on the sofa (kind of funny now that I think back on it). Actually it was a good night for me as when B sleeps I can watch whatever the heck I want! I was the KING of the remote and let me tell you that felt great!!!! What is it with men needing to have control of the remote ALL. THE. TIME???

Now what I should have been doing instead of knitting, was getting ready for the PARTY (ummm..I mean scrapbook sleepover) that is happening tonight. Since I don’t really have any pages planned to scrap, I think I will just bring everything with me. And by everything, I mean EVERYTHING!!! I am really looking forward to a great time tonight and I really hope I don’t get too tired and fall asleep too early. B has been teasing me a lot about this sleepover. MEN! They just don’t get it.

Thus ends my post. The post that will start off this PARTY WEEKEND!!!

My very own cloud

Have you seen those Word Clouds that will show the most used words on a site and the more often those words are used the larger they are on the Word Cloud? Well I came across a site today that lets you make your own Word Cloud. You can also put it on a T-shirt. What a cool idea I thought, but after making a Word Cloud of my blog, I have realized something. Shucks my site is boring! Just look at how small the word "Party" is. I really need to start living it up!!!

Speaking of PARTY!!!!! This weekend I will be getting together for an overnight scrapping PARTY with my friends (you know who you are). I cannot wait!!!!! PARTY ON!!!!

Update on the broken car windows at my apartment complex. I guess the son of one of the tenents went berserk and just went to town busting out all the windows. This son was NOT a child. He was dragged away to the psych ward. After speaking to the management I also found out that the after-hours number I called was aware of this situation and that I was NOT the only one calling in about it.

My complex SUCKS!

I really need to move. I did not get to take my walk today because when I pulled into the parking lot this evening I was greeted by this! This picture is just 4 of the cars. Missing is the one that had all the windows busted out and my neighbors truck as they already covered up the window. I think I counted about 7 damaged cars when I first pulled in. I don't know if there were more that were moved before I got home but some were gone by the time I got out there with my camera. I am SO happy I went to work today and that this did not happen when I stayed home yesterday. I guess all these cars were people that were home or got other transportation. What ticks me off is that this is not a surprise. The management at this apartment complex sucks!!! They are renting to the WORST people!! I sure miss the years that B and I had the complex basically to ourselves. I remember when we first moved in we were told there were no discounts to residents as that brought in the bad element. Now...yep you guessed it...all new tenants get discounts. The bad element is HERE!

I called the after hours number to see if security would be here tonight and really wanted to let management know that I did not feel safe in parking my car in the lot. Instead I got a lot of crap from the after hours girls. The first one I talked to told me that parking was not an after hours issue. I told her I was not calling about parking but about vandalism. I asked about security and was told that they cannot even call security until after 9pm. She took a message for management to call me. Well since management never called me I called back. I asked for the girl's name (as she sounded like the first one I talked to). This is where the attitude came in. She promptly told me...."I am proud to tell you my name...blah blah blah...." She then continued to try to spell it out etc. I told her not to bother. I asked for her supervisor. She told me there were only 2 of them in the office. Then while talking to her a bit more she says there are 3 in the office. I told her to make up her mind. Sheesh! I asked her if the vandalism was already being dealt with and she told me that no one else had called and that I was probably making it up! Okay that is where I lost it!!!! I made sure that they got a few more calls from some angry owners of broken windows. I did warn my neighbors that the management would probably tell them 'Too bad, so sad' as they did to us BOTH times our windows got busted.

Zipingo here I come. This complex gets a bad review all the way!!!! Too bad my lease is not up for quite a few months.

Happy Friday :-)

It is finally Friday and payday. It is about time it finally got here. What more could a person want?

Yesterday (Thursday) was another walking day. I cannot believe I walked twice this week already – GO ME! The ankles ached but the knees are fine. I really do need to get me a new pair of shoes though. I again put on the walking shoes I bought and the left foot fit fine this time but the right foot still has the heel moving too much. That is weird as my right foot is bigger. I found a cool pair of shoes at an online store (I have a catalog) they were so cute. All my tennis shoes have been white with very little color. These were Black/Grey/Pink and for some reason I fell in love with them. I kept my fingers crossed that they still had them as the catalog was over a year old. It didn’t work.

I got so into having to buy new shoes that I kept thinking I would take the ones I have back and exchange them for a different pair BUT I cannot find the receipt for the pair that I bought. So I think I am stuck with them. I did find a website with info on how to tie your shoe laces different to make the heel fit better. I may have to try that out. I hope it works as I am broke and cannot buy any new shoes right now. I do plan to buy some when I start running though.

Last night I watched the remake of The Fog. B was there but as usual he fell asleep right after it started. I remember when he used to stay up later than me. That no longer happens. He is an early morning boy now. The movie was alright. I had never seen the original. Have you seen it? What did you think?

What day is it?

Today feels like Friday. I really want it to be Friday. I NEED it to be Friday. Not only is Friday payday which would help (although the entire thing is going to rent). But Friday means no more work until Monday. I will NOT come into work this Saturday like I did last week. I don’t care how far behind we are. I have not been able to do my regular stuff because of a special project so things are piling up. So in summary……I don’t feel like being at work today.

Since today is Thursday that means it is another day of following the exercise plan, another day of moving and not sitting. My knees are doing fine but my ankles feel a little sore. That is normal so I won’t worry too much about it. I wonder if I should wear my new shoes? (read the comments) Last night while sitting on the couch (hee hee) I would stretch out my legs and I could feel the stretch in my muscles. I loved it. It felt good. I just hope to build them back up. Now if I could just stop eating all the junk I will be on my way.

Oh here is a review for you. I am trying out that new Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke. It is not that bad. I can really taste the cherry. I will drink it again.

Totally (s)lacking

I call myself a Scrapbooker but I don’t scrap very much and to tell the truth I have not yet taken a single picture to scrap for this year and it is already FEBRUARY!

I call myself a Crocheter/Knitter and yet I have many projects that go unfinished. We did not have a winter this year so I got sidetracked on finishing my projects. I don’t know why as it is colder inside this office building than outside. I did not even wear (well remember) the pink scarf I made last year – my first knitting project! I just remembered it the other day and now it is too warm to wear it.

Don’t even get me started on the lack of Cross-stitching.

I think this is why I don’t make goals for myself. I never stick to them. Usually I find if I don’t tell anyone about a goal it seems to be better for me as I stick to them longer. For example, my weight-loss. I have been working for about 26 weeks now at losing this weight. I keep getting close to 20 pounds lost but I never get there. For the past 10 weeks I lost 1.6 pounds and then gained 1.6 pounds and then lost 1.6 pounds etc. I started up on my weight loss efforts again after the holidays. Over the holidays I only gained ….you guessed it 1.6 pounds! I have not been really good at watching what I eat. I guess I am just frustrated. I seem to remember to eat healthy only when I step on the scale. Last week I lost 1.2 pounds. I was so happy it was not the dreaded 1.6 pounds. Well yesterday I weighed in and I gained that 1.2 pounds back. So I guess that 1.2 is the new 1.6.

I decided to do something about it. I heard about Couch-to-5K and I decided I could do this. I am doing the 7-moth plan (Conservative Run Program). I have issues with my ankles so I am starting out very slowly. Last night was the first day. It was just walking but it killed me. I always walk at a fast pace when exercising. I usually try to do about 30 minutes but the schedule said to walk for 10 minutes. I thought that it would be easy. Well….either I have gotten old or I am more out of shape than I thought. I could have very easily walked longer but my ankles could not handle it. They were KILLING ME! But I did it! I am on my way! Then this morning happened. I sure did not want to get out of bed. Not only was I still sleepy but my KNEES were killing me! I have never had a problem with my knees so I was pretty surprised. Hopefully my body will be back to par tomorrow when I have to walk again. I look forward to crossing off the days on this work out calendar. Now I just hope that when it comes time to run on this plan that my ankles don’t make me fall.

LO: Cherish

I decided to switch to 12x12 pages starting with my 2005 every day pictures album. I like that instead of buying 4 sheets of paper I only need to buy 2 sheets. I like that I can fit more pictures on a page. I have noticed though that I seem to be using mostly patterned paper lately. I think that may have to do with the fact that all my Bazzill is in the smaller size but that will not be for long.

I have decided that scrapping 12x12 is fun!

Thanks for looking.

Supplies list:

• Patterned Paper - KI Memories
• White snaps, Rub-ons, paper flower - Making Memories
• Cardstock - Bazzill
• Ribbon, Ric-Rack, Chalk
  
  
  

I always forget to publish

I was all ready to write about how yesterday was considered the most depressing day of the year and then I never post it. That is the tidbit of news I heard while getting ready in the morning. I must say that although it was a pretty windy, cold and dusty day, I did not find it depressing in any way. In fact yesterday was a good day.

I am spending the morning at work previewing new albums to see if I want to buy the whole thing or just a few songs. One thing that I don’t want to happen is to buy a song and then find out B likes the band and he buys the whole album or in my case, already owns it. B has so many CDs that I have been pleasantly surprised when I find out he already owns a song I want on my iPod. I am even more surprised when song I am thinking of downloading ends up being the free song of the week! Free is the best! I can afford Free!

Here is the site where you can preview and hear the entire album before you buy it. Click Here.

Howdy do

Why do I always seem to just post on Mondays? Is it because it is the day that I like to gripe? Even when I don’t plan to gripe I think my posts always turn out that way.

I had a good weekend. How about you?

On Friday night I got together with some friends to scrap. I had a wonderful time and I was actually very productive which is a first for me. Go Me! I am lucky if I finish one page in the hours we spend together but this past Friday I completed (except for minor journaling) 4 pages! Go me again! I had hoped to finish up those pages and scrap more on Saturday and Sunday but that did not happen. Maybe tonight.

Saturday was a nice day. I watched ‘Must Love Dogs’ and I say you Must see this. LOL! I loved it. DH did not see it because he hates John Cusack. He says that he is the same character in every movie he plays. Sometimes I can see that but this movie was not even about him but about Diane Lane. I cleaned the kitchen (I really don’t know why I make it such an ordeal) and when I was finished got my scrap stuff out – however DH was home by then so I did not do anything crafty. We watched ‘Alone in the Dark’. I don’t think that was a great movie. It was kind of boring and predictable to me.

Yesterday (Sunday) we watched ‘Sky High’. Now that was a cute and funny movie. DH will watch anything superhero related so it did not matter it was a Disney movie. After the movie I went to the scrap book store for just 2 items. Since it was only a couple of dollars and I knew that they would not take my debit card for that I looked around. $17+ later I left. I have spent so much this last week on scrapbook supplies. I really need to stop. I think I have officially spent all my Christmas money. LOL! Last night was good TV and it was great! Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and Campus Ladies. I really do love Sunday night TV. DH made steak and it was yummy. All in all it was a fantastic weekend.

Now that brings us to today. Monday. I am at work. I really don’t want to be at work. I have a lot to do and my helper went home. So basically I am not in the mood to do anything. I find that on days I wear my contacts I am not as productive as when I wear my glasses. Also when I wear contacts I get really tired by the end of the day. Do any of you have this problem?

Here ya go!

Do to intense pressure.....

Here is my update.

Have a nice day.

Monday Monday

It is back to the grind for me. Being out on Friday really did make the work pile up. I have tons to do and have a feeling I will be here kind of late tonight.

Last night while walking thru Target I came across the book ‘Fix it and Forget it’ that was recommended by my dear friend Awendybird. I bought the book and was able to look through it just a bit last night. This book is just crock-pot recipes. I bought the regular book but they also had a low-fat version. I am looking forward to being able to have nice meals ready for me when I get home from work. Now to just convince DH to let me cook more often.

I got no scrapping done last night. I just cannot figure out what to do with the page that is sitting on the table and I really don’t want to start on a different page. I did manage to watch some TV but missed the first 3 minutes of Desperate Housewives which sucked because a huge part of the show was about those first 3 minutes. Also Grey’s Anatomy was not new. I really don’t like these recap shows. I guess if I had missed any of the episodes I would like the recap but I really don’t need it when I have already seen it. It did also get to watch the Premier of Campus Ladies. It was not that bad. I really like those two old ladies. There were two episodes on last night but Miranda was only in the first one. I hope to see more of her.

Oh and if you have not visited the wonderful Silver Jewelry Club website lately you will be please to see that they have updated their page to show 4 items at a time instead of one. So instead of one item every 15 minutes, you get a new item every 5 minutes. More chances to buy cool stuff!!!! They also have grouped the matching earrings and pendants together so no more waiting up all night for those earrings you just have to buy to match the pendant you bought. If you buy something let me know what you got!

Where did the weekend go?

On Friday, I called in sick to work. Both B and I were not feeling too well. I had a huge sinus headache and thought my head and ear would just explode from the pressure. Saturday was another day of putting up with not feeling up to par and today Sunday was a bit better. I woke up today with a headache (a different kind but a headache nonetheless). But today was different in that I actually left the house. B and I went out for his birthday lunch since we were not able to go on his actual birthday (the 3rd). We went to Macaroni Grill as we did not want to wait 40 minutes for a seat at Stupid Garden. I don't know why we even went there first. Lunch was good and dinner will be too as we are having our leftovers from lunch. After lunch we stopped by The Red Circle Boutique and I bought the first season of LOST and some socks. I don't know what it is with me and socks lately. I have gone years without buying new socks and lately I have been buying tons of cute socks. It must be all those new shoes I bought recently (shhhh don't tell). Although I don't know why I even bought more socks as today was another hot one and I wore summer clothes with my slip-on sandals. I wonder when winter will come? I think I need to change the theme of this blog from Winter to Summer.

Tonight is good TV. My butt will be a potato. Although I may try to scrap while I watch. I think there is a new Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy. I love both of those shows. I am also a bit more excited about TV tonight as a new show debuts on the Oxygen channel. It is called Campus Ladies. I want to watch this show for one reason. One of the girls in it is someone I knew from high school. We ran with the same group of friends and although I have tons of pictures of her and remember her well, I kind of doubt she remembers me. I kind of feel that way about everyone I was friends with in High School. How sad is that? Anyways.....if you get a chance to watch it please do as she is a fantastic actress. Good luck Miranda with your new show!

Lack of motivation

There was no scrapbooking last night. If we could all have a moment of silence please. ………

Okay. Silence done. I had planned to complete a page last night but instead B and I watched “The Wedding Crashers”. It was a funny movie. Afterwards I tried to get my supplies together but it just was not happening. I got to bed earlier than the night before and actually slept better but it was still hard for me to get going this morning. After putting up with a tantrum this morning care of B, I got out the door and headed to work. I cannot even remember the drive. I was so out of it. Once here at work it was really hard to get motivated. The day is half over and it is still hard for me to get motivated. It does not help that I have a sinus headache that is starting. I hope the fact that I took something now while it is small helps to keep it small. Going home is not an option as B is there and he always complains if I go home early on his day off (great guy huh – he sure does tick me off). I could be deathly ill but that does not matter. He always thinks I go home early because he is there. Sorry to break it to you honey but you are not the center of the universe! Oh but you know….I could always go ‘looking’ at the scrapbook store. I say ‘looking’ because I am poor but knowing me….’looking’ usually ends up being ‘spending’. I have to wait until payday though as my Christmas money went to bills and I have nothing left to spend. Then of course if I leave early due to a sinus headache do I really want to go window shopping?

Last night, dinner was made in the crock-pot. It was so nice to get home and have dinner all ready to eat. Each year I tell myself that I will use the crock-pot more but I never get around to it. I guess it is because I only have a couple of things that I know how to make in the crock-pot and I need more ideas.

Do you have any crock-pot recipes that you have made and liked? I know there are tons of sites out there with recipes but I want some that people have actually tried and liked. Can you share? Please? Pretty Please?

Scrap Happy

Today I am tired. So tired in fact that I could not even wear my contacts. It is my own fault really. I stayed up until midnight scrapping. It did not help that I actually started around 10pm and before that I had to dig for all my supplies (well not all but some really important ones). B made a mess of our second room where my supplies are kept and I had a problem finding things. It did not help that I would put one item down to look for another and then when I finally found what I was looking for I could not find the object I put down. Argh! Around 10pm I took the supplies I wanted to use downstairs as there was not a clear space AT ALL upstairs and got to work. I have always said I was a slow scrapper. Last night proved it. It took about 2 hours to finish the layout. Now I can blame my slowness on the fact that the page was 12x12 and not my normal 8.5x11 but I don’t think that is a good enough excuse, especially since I used a sketch to create the page and the page is super simple ~ but I just could not get it to look right. I was so tired that I put all my stuff in a pile and just left the page sitting there with nothing glued down. I had planned to finish it tonight but before I went upstairs I decided it was done and stuck everything down. So I am proud to say I have officially scrapped my first page for this year (2006) and the first page of photos for 2005. Whoo hoo! Go me!! It's my birthday!!

When I finally crawled into bed at 12:30am I could not sleep. My mind turned on and would not turn off. I kept thinking of stuff like creating budgets (more like convincing B to let us have a budget), making New Years resolutions, and I even thought about blogging about not being able to sleep. It did not help that B was taking up a good part of the bed and I had one cat beside me and the other at my feet. I could not move all night.

Work so far today has been calm and looks to be a good day. I have lots on my plate and new stuff is being given to me so I really have to work on my time management but I am not stressed (that is a good thing right?) I guess having a great boss makes it worthwhile. I sure do love my job and coming to work – even on the bad days although today the coffee is a be ewwww!

The holidays are over

Today it is back to the grind. I got to work around 8:30am after driving in the heaviest traffic I have seen in the morning (all roads had construction and I came across one accident and 2 school zones) I also saw the most garbage trucks ever on the road today. Once I got to work I had to run some reports (something new for me to do) and let me tell you I hate having to create things when I know the data is not correct. I did not get to start on my real work until after 11:00. I guess there will be no lunch for me today (and no W/W meeting). I have a meeting at 12:30 and I am happy it is by phone. It is one of those meetings where you really don’t know if you are supposed to be there. I am basically just there to listen. I hope that it is not a waste of my time. Actually I like knowing what is going on so I hope I learn something new.

Yesterday I had to call the management company of my apartment complex to put in a noise complaint for the girl next door. When she first moved in she played her music loud but it was always off by 10pm (on weekdays) so I had no complaints. B always plays his music loud so I was not about to complain about hers. Well lately the music does not even come on some days until 10:30pm and then it stays on. I have to turn the television on super loud and it still does not drown out the bass beat coming thru the wall. On New Years Eve it was on ALL night. What gets me is that they sit outside and no one can even hear the music going on inside. I had no problems with New Years Eve although around 2am B banged on the wall to let them know enough was enough. Then we got to listen to them yelling outside the entire night. Why is it when people are drunk they always yell “I love you” to everyone? On the 1st she had the music on until 1am. What ticked me off is that they were in the parking lot and not even in the apartment. Because of this I called it in. I was home yesterday and she put on her music around noon (so up went my TV). It was not long before she turned it off and then it did not come on again at all. All night it was peace and quiet…well except for her SLAMMING her door every hour or so. I guess she was a bit ticked. I guess I am getting old but I am not a fan of underage parties and music all night long right outside my front door.

Today is B’s birthday. The poor birthday boy has to work today and we are not able to go out to dinner tonight. I feel bad that we cannot celebrate his birthday tonight. I think he is having friends over late tonight so hopefully they will take him out for a good time since he has the day off tomorrow.

I am still thinking on what goals I want to make for the New Year. Hopefully it will not take me all year to think of some. :-)

Happy Day after New Years Day

I really am alive. Really I am. See that is me over there on the left. Hi there. How ya doing? I have been so out of touch with everything lately. I have neglected my blog, my friend's blogs and basically everything. I have been kept so busy at work that the time (like breaks and lunches) I used to take to read a blog or update a blog just isn't happening. I don't even seem to take my lunch break anymore at all. Argh! Since when did I become a work-a-holic? I sure wish some of that working energy would rub off at home cause I live in a sty! It doesn't help either that instead of picking something up B will just throw it into the second room and leave it for me. Then he gets mad if it isn't done immediately and yet it isn't even a mess I made. Sheesh! Sometimes I wish I lived alone. Sometimes.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. Mine was good. Christmas Eve was spent at my parents’ house as usual and it was nice seeing all the family. I did miss not having my brother and his kids there as they spent the last 2 weeks in Hawaii (ooh lala – must be nice). My favorite uncle also was absent as he was not feeling well. All I can say is the Posole was AWESOME!!!

Christmas day is usually spent at home doing nothing while B plays whatever video game he got. This year was different. I left B at home with his video game and went to my Aunt and Uncles for tamales, menudo and ham.

New Years Eve (day) I got to spend with my brother's kids and watched them open their Christmas presents. Poor B had to work.

New Years Eve (night) we did nothing. We are becoming boring in our old age. Sheesh! B fell asleep while I watched the ball drop and listened to the SUPER loud neighboors next door. Man! That girl parties almost every night!

New Years Day (evening) was spent at the in-laws. We had a yummy dinner (my mother-in-law does know how to cook a good meal) and watched Serenity (the movie). Not so bad of a movie. I never really got past the first two episodes of the TV show though. It sure was a hot day and it was weird dressing in summer clothes. I wonder if I will ever get to wear my nice sweaters and my new jacket anytime soon.

It is now the New Year. I cannot believe how fast this past year went. Of course everyone seems to say that and I don't mind joining them. I have never been one for making New Years resolutions/goals. I remember one year making some and I forgot them the very next day. So if I am going to make some resolutions/goals they have to be biggies and maybe I should write them down. ;-) I guess I am afraid of failure and so I don’t put myself in a situation (such as making goals) so that I don’t fail.

What are your goals for the New Year?

cough~cough~cough

I am sick and it hurts to breathe, I cannot talk and this cough is ridiculous. Yep. I am sick and in pain and really not looking forward to doing anything but sleeping. Since that is not an option I am here at work were we will be having our Cookie exchange and Secret Santa swap.

I stayed up late last night making peanut butter cookies. They are yummy. I feel kind of bummed that a lot of people just bought cake or cookies. How do you exchange cake? I guess B just does not have to know about the cake. ;-)

Being a Secret Santa freaks me out. I stress WAY too much on whether the person will like the gift or not. Of course I did not get anything from the girl’s list so if she does not like it I guess it is my fault. Even though there is a limit to the amount to spend I always feel guilty if I don’t spend more. This time though since funds are tight, I only spent the required amount.

Well I only have 15 minutes until wrap-off so I better get some work done. In the meantime here is a funny for all of you. Enjoy.

Snazzy!

It is all the rage!

People are oh so jealous! What is the new fad you ask? Well let me tell you. It is the latest in office supply hair products. Yes! For only a few cents (or free if they are supplied at your work place) you too can have the latest fashion trend. It is OFFICE COUTURE (but for your hair).

Who knew that paper clips could make such snazzy hair clips? I was always told that if someone teases you that they are jealous of you. So by all the jabs I have received on my choice of hair accessory, I must be the most envied girl in the world! Whoo hoo! I am finally popular!


Ps ~ pictures from the holiday party coming soon.

My feet are tired

Whew! I cannot believe I actually have a moment to write something. It seems even when I am not at work I am busy. Since we are not allowed overtime at the moment at work I got to go home early on Friday. I could not believe the traffic at 2pm on a Friday. I was able to pick up my funky new glasses last night which was a great timesaver for me. Last night I also got together with a couple of wonderful friends to scrap the night away. Well they scrapped a bit more than I did (which is the norm) but I did manage to get ONE page finished. Of course it took me 5 hours and cost me about $8.00! LOL!

This morning around 11:00 my mom called to tell me to meet her at Macy's as they had a wonderful sale with extra discounts that ended at 1pm. Of course that was the time B decided to jump in the shower so I did not get to the mall until noon and then I had to find a place to park. After finding a spot in the back 40 (it was easier to just park far away than to wait for a spot), my mom took me to the department where she saw stuff she thought I would like. She told me that she had to go but that she would leave me her Macy's credit card and that all the ladies there knew. She gave me $100.00 to spend for my Christmas present. I did not find any pants but I did find some really nice tops (one I will wear to the Christmas party tonight) and I found a JACKET!!! I now have a jacket! Let me tell you this is a big deal! I don't have any jackets. When we went on our cruise to Alaska I had to buy a fleece jacket to wear. Now I have a nice denim form fitting jacket that only cost $30.00 down from $69.00. That is the fastest shopping (with trying on clothes) that I have ever done, since I had to check out before 1pm. I made it too as I checked out and my mom called right at 1pm to check up on me. I am very happy with my Christmas present from my parents. Whoo hoo! Clothes are always nice.

After the hour rush to try on clothes I then went to find some nice dressy black shoes. I have no nice heels and I found a couple of different pairs. One is dressy and the other is more for slacks. Being me, I bought both. Then it was off to the lingerie department for a black bra ( I am floored to have found one that fits) and some stockings (I have not worn those in a long time). Since I get to dress up tonight I really needed them although I think I may have an old pair in my drawer. New is always better right?

Now if I thought the traffic at the mall was back at noon you should have seen what it was like when I left around 3pm. All the back spots that were empty when I got there were full. People even parked on the dirt embankment around the mall. It took quite a bit of time to get out of the mall and then I had a few extra errands to run. I finally got home around 4pm and finally ate something.

Now, I am taking a breather while waiting for my laundry to dry. What I thought would be a nice leisurely day off sure turned out to be a busy one but I was nice too. I think I will go and take a couple of aspirin and relax a bit before the rush to get ready to party.

Tomorrow I will start to worry about not having started my Christmas shopping and that I need to send out Christmas cards.

Cookie Cookie Cookie

For the first time I have been invited to participate in a Christmas Cookie Exchange. Being one that does not really eat cookies and have only baked the basics (oatmeal, sugar and chocolate chip) I have no idea what to make. I need to make a couple dozen and I want to make some that are really yummy. So......I need your help. Cause you know I want to have the best cookies there! There is nothing wrong with that is there?

• Does anyone have any idea of what I should make?
• What is your favorite Christmas cookie?
• Do you have a favorite recipe? Can you share it with me?

Thanks in advance everyone!

I can see clearly now

This past week has been hard for me. I was super tired and even stayed home sick on Thursday so that is the explanation for my lack of content. That said....I have been keeping a secret from you. Well it is not a 'real' secret in the fact that it is not something juicy and exciting but it is exciting to me.

Last Saturday, I finally got off of my rear and went in for contacts. It has been years since I have worn them (maybe 4 or 5 years). I have the most awesome vision plan at work. I have worked there 6 years and have never used it. Well I finally did. I got contacts and glasses BOTH! (funky glasses too!) So this past week was my re-introduction into the contact lens wearing world. The funny is that I ended up going to the first eye doctor I ever had when I was 12. He must have been really young then because he sure does not look like he has aged much.

For my first week, I did pretty good except I could not see very well out of my left eye. When I first went in for my exam I tried a stronger prescription but the doctor put a lower rx in that did not mess with my perception as much and sent me home. Well come to find out the person that handed me the contacts gave me my left one inside out (I did not think I would need to double check) so I wore it that way pretty much the entire week. Well until last night that is. It worked much better once in was in my eye the correct way but the rx was still off. What is weird it that my eye did not even feel like the contact was in wrong. I thought of the idea to check it on Thursday only after the contact on my right eye DISAPPEARED into my eye! Can you say OUCH!?! It hurts just as much as I remembered. After having my co-worker make sure it was no where on my clothing I proceeded to the restroom where I fiddled with my eye until I found that darn contact! I cleaned it off and put it back in and boy did it STING! Well I had put it in my eye inside out and that is what prompted me to check my left contact. So today I went in for my first checkup and to pick up my extra contacts and my funky glasses. After waiting for ONE hour, I saw a different doctor and told her about the rx and she put in the original rx. Let me tell you. IT. IS. GOOD. TO. SEE. IN. FOCUS. (that and wearing cool sunglasses again) I will no longer be the weirdo chick closing first one eye and then the other to compare the focus of each eye. Sadly, my glasses were not ready and now I have to wait for my contacts to be re-ordered. Hopefully sometime this week they will both be in and I will be able to show off my new look with my funky glasses.

Static aka My hair has a life of it's own

I have issues with static. Usually my issues revolve around me shocking someone or myself by touching. I am constantly shocking myself each time I go to open the car door. And these small jolts of electricity are not without some pain. Sometimes I have hurt others and even myself with the charge.

But I have never had a problem with static and my hair, until recently that is. I know that I have always wanted more body in my hair but this is ridiculous! hair has so much static it is unreal. My hair is long and very fine/thin. When I try to brush it – I end up having a halo of hair. I hair spray it to death, I have conditioned it, I use shampoo and conditioner for dry hair. But none of these things help. I am not used to this.

Can anyone help me? Does anyone know how to get rid of static?

LO: Dad

Here is my layout for the day.

Very simple layout without much embellishment but it sure took me a long time to complete. I never realized how tiring scrapbooking can be but boy it sure it fun! I guess I am just not used to scrapping every day. I am sure I will get used to it though.

Thanks for looking.

Supplies:

• Patterned paper, Words & Ribbon - Wild Asparagus
• Cardstock - Bazzill
• Computer font - "Georgia"
• Title 'Dad' is exacto'd out of cardstock - font is 2 Peas "High Tide"
• Eyelets
• Chalk

LO: 'Twas the night before

Here is my Layout of the Day for Sunday.

Challenge was to follow the sketch found here, hopefully I did it justice. It is kind of hard when the paper size is different. I like how this layout turned out though. I think this is actually one of my favorites.

Thanks for looking.

Supplies:

• Patterned Paper - Provo Craft (Big Slab)
• Cardstock - Bazzill
• Making Memories rub-ons
• Chalk
• Ribbon - SEI
• Fiber
• Computer font 2Peas "Angelic"

LO: Our Baby Sister

I have been challenged to scrap a layout a day. I think having a goal will be good for me to get my butt in gear and start scrapping away!

This is my layout from Saturday. It is my first time using ink on a page. It took forever to stick down the Making Memories ribbon as no adhesive I owned would work.

I am so happy to be able to scrap a 'girl' page. :-)

This layout is 8.5x11 ~ 2 pages stitched together

Supplies:

• Patterned Paper - Chatterbox "Parlor"
• Cardstock - Bazzill (Marigold Trio)
• Tags - Chatterbox "Parlor"
• Trim - Making Memories
• Lilac Paint - Making Memories
• "Misunderstood" foam stamps - Making Memories
• Flower brads - Making Memories
• Smoke Blue Ink
• Computer font - 2 Peas Beef Broccoli
• Heidi font rub-ons - Making Memories

Short & Sweet

Just a quick and short post for tonight. Well I say that now but I always end up jabbering.

Today we took photos to send to our Tier 1 agents. It was supposed to be a group photo but we could not get everyone together and one girl had to go and we could not find a good place to take a photo. So.....each person got their own photo taken and we will Photoshop them into 'something'. So far all the photos are great and one of the guys had the funniest photo I have ever seen. I will ask him if I can share it tomorrow. But for now......here's my picture. I am actually surprised that it turned out okay and on the first try too. Oh yeah.... I better not let dh see this photo or else he will ask me what that dork from MCR is doing on my screen. LOL!

I think I know why I am so exhausted. When I clocked out at work today I already was at 79.75 hours for the week and I still have one more day left to work tomorrow. I don't see Friday as being a short day either as for some reason my work has been piling up. I do have an inkling though as to why some of it is piling up. You see I work via email and the work I do comes from our customers that fill out an online form. Usually these customers are not calling for support but wanting online assistance. I have been having a few requests lately where the customer has called in and was told by the agent to fill out the online form for help. Am I bothered by this? Heck ya! These requests are for simple passwords and the phone rep can do this while on the call with the customer. For them to send them to me is a definite punt! Then in my other queues I have reps entering in bogus requests. I get those from time to time but usually they have the name of 'test' or something really obvious. Not lately. The bogus requests that are coming in have real names and I cannot tell them apart from the real requests. And I wonder why I ended up working 91 requests when I normally average 30 a day and when I left I still had 16 sitting there. Then in another queue I started with 123, completed 87 and when I left today there were more requests than when I started this morning. No wonder I am so exhausted!

So on that note.....good night!

Nighty Night

Whew! For the last couple of days...well since my last post on Sunday, I even forgot I had a blog. Work has been THAT busy!!! I work all day without taking a lunch and then come home late. Last night I got home and did some laundry (even put it away - Whoo hoo go ME!) and ran the dishwasher and had hoped to have some 'me' time but once I sat down to scrapbook I only managed to mat a couple of pictures and cut them out.

Today was another busy day although I did manage to take about an hour away from my desk but not to relax but to run to our main building for a meeting and a few minutes with my sister (who now works for my company - yeah)! I still managed to work .5 to 1 hour overtime today.

Since we were out of TP and that is an important item in this household, I stopped by The Red Circle Boutique (aka Target) on the way home. Instead of running in and buying the 3 items on my list that I needed, I made a detour through the dangerous sections (aka as clothes and shoes). I have a couple of pairs of shoes that are the wrong size and I had forgot to bring them with me to return. As I looked at the shoes I saw they had the pairs I wanted but only one pair in my size so of course I had to pick them up tonight. I just hope they take back the shoes I want to return as I took the tags off of them but never wore them. And since I bought shoes, I also bought socks. It has been forever since I bought socks and tonight I bought purty socks so I will be sylin'. Oh and the socks are so soft.....So over $100.00 later I drove home.

Once home since it was already past 8 o'clock, I warmed up some soup and watched a bit of T.V. I got online to update my blog template to make it a bit more seasony (is that a word?) and what should have only taken a few minutes ended up taking forever as I ended up with circles in front of all my links and I could not find what I had left open in my code. Well I can tell ya.....all my suffering? All because of a stupid missing semi-colon!!! ARGH! Man! Now I am EXHAUSTED!

I am going to bed. Good night!

Brrrrrr.....

Toady it is FREEZING!!! The wind is blowing and it is 50 degrees!! It is officially winter in my book. I actually got to wear a sweater today ~ a thick one! That is a big thing for me. I LOVE my sweaters.

I have lots to do today and as usual I have left them all to the last minute. I did manage to get out for a bit and wandered over to the scrapbook store where I got to use my coupon (buy $50 and get $15 off ~ Yeah like that was hard). The scrapbook store near me is running a special every week so I hope I don't go too crazy on the spending (Yeah considering I am the tightwad with money that will not be happening). After leaving the scrapping store I stopped by the grocery store for quarters. Good thing I remembered to pick some up as that is the whole reason I left the house today.

So now it is time for some laundry, some kitchen cleaning and making of some yummy potato cheese soup. Yep! It is officially winter in my book! Hmmm I wonder if it is time to change the ole blog template to my winter one.

Thanksgiving should be a soap opera

…but only when it is spent at my in-laws.

It is hard to believe another Thanksgiving has come and gone. It is not one that I would like to remember and I really missed not being with my family. I don't think my mother-in-law said more than two words to me on Thursday but of course, I was kind of hiding so she would not lash out at me. I have not grown up in a family where drama was the main course for a holiday and I can tell ya I do NOT like it!

We arrived at my in-laws and were greeted at the door by my father-in-law and one of my nieces. One could not know that soon the smiles would not be there (although all of us kind of expected something to happen). Now my in-laws have only been in this particular house for a couple of years. Before that, they lived in a much smaller place. The new house has a large kitchen that my MIL bragged about since they bought the house. Well the bragging has stopped. The complaints about the kitchen being too small started as soon as we got to the house.

It was nice to see my sister-in-law, brother-in-law and all of the girls. I finally got to meet my youngest niece (19 months after she was born) and can I tell ya…..she is cuter than I expected.

All in all, there were 10 of us for dinner and so the table was set outside where the weather was FANTASTIC! The actual meal was good and seemed to go quickly but it was nice to sit and chat for a bit. I also had a blast taking photos of the girls as they just love posing for photos.

Then dinner was over and the drama started. The rule in my mother-in-law's house is that nothing and I mean nothing can be done after dinner until ALL dishes are cleaned and put away. That means if you want to watch a movie, you can't. If you want dessert, you can't.

Since my MIL is the one that cooks the cleaning is my FIL's job. Since this newer house has a dishwasher you would think it would be easier for cleanup. Sadly, it is not. My FIL put in the first load and was going to wash the rest of the dishes (with my SIL's help) but my MIL would not have it. She kept saying at first that she needed to put the food away, complaining all the while that she would have to dirty utensils to do so and then complaining about not having enough room in the fridge for the left-overs (yeah I will talk about those later). My FIL and B actually LEFT to take the leftovers back to our place. The drive is about an hour round trip. While they were gone, my SIL again offered to do the dishes, which my MIL refused stating that there were no clean towels (don't know why as there was a closet full of them).

The older girls wanted dessert and the younger girls were hungry again about this time. It was about 2.5 hours after we had eaten. My SIL told the younger girls that they could have some yogurt outside. So the girls put on their shoes and go to the fridge to get the yogurt. My MIL tells N (the 3-year old) "NO yogurt. You cannot eat yet! You have to wait until later for dessert!" This then made the 3 year-old cry as it should. Then my MIL has the gall to say to my SIL "Well if you insist you can give them pie and ice cream" Which is not what they wanted. So my BIL goes to get the yogurt and my MIL stews and starts complaining that she has to do it all and no one helps her clean and at that time B comes back and I just give him the look and tell him "she's losing it."

So finally, HOURS after dinner, dessert was eaten and a movie watched. B and I then headed home where I was in the mood to make myself a nice turkey sandwich. But did I get to make a nice leftover turkey sandwich? NOPE. As you see…..although my MIL gave us leftovers such as a container of gravy, she gave us no TURKEY! B said he told her not to as we have a frozen one in the freezer but as I told him, how will I make a sandwich with a frozen turkey? And why the heck do we need leftover gravy if we have nothing to put it on????

Happy Thanksgiving

For those of you that celebrate Thanksgiving, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. For those of you that don't I wish you a happy Thursday!

Thanksgiving this year will be spent at my in-laws. I am missing my family already and the small gathering of 20-25 people that my mom says will be there (all family too!!!!). B's side of the family is quite small for my tastes. Just his parents, his brother and his brothers family. So we are looking at 10 people (four of which are children). I am excited and thankful that I will get to see my sister-in-law who I love dearly and my 4 nieces (one of which is over one year and I have not met yet). So I am prepared to take tons of girl pictures! I am just debating on if I want to just take my digital which has the smallest memory card EVER or just take my trusty film camera with all the film I still have. My SLR (film) camera takes the best pictures as I am still trying to figure out how to make my little digital take pictures that I like. I sure do miss my depth of field. For those of you that know that term.....I used that ALOT! Well I did anyways in my photography portfolio. Why? Cause I love it! I keep trying to take pictures using all the tricks I know but they just don't turn out the same with this digital so I am left with just snapshots. Don't get me wrong, snapshots are not bad but I really miss taking a photo that when I look at it I go 'WOW'!

Well this Thanksgiving post has really gone off on a tangent. Back to the subject of Thanksgiving.

Everyday I try to think of the things I am thankful for. They usually rush quickly thru my mind and I never actually thought of writing them down. Writing them down makes them permanent and quite personal.

I am thankful...

...for my family and that they are all still here with us
...for the friends that I have. (Most of them may be new but I already hold them dear to my heart)
...for my health
...for my job and the roof over my head
...for my life (for I never thought I would live past 16, 18 or even to my 30's)


Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Don't forget to wear comfy pants!

I see bling!

On Monday I got a surprise in my mailbox. I kind of expected the surprise to happen on Saturday but Monday made up for it. What was my surprise you ask? Well in my tiny mail box was a key. Whenever there is a key you just know there is something good. I took the key and opened the huge mail box reserved for packages. Inside was a huge envelope and 10 tiny envelopes. The huge envelope I was surprised to find contained a free skein of yarn that I kind of forgot I had sent away for. In the 10 tiny envelopes? My jewlery orders of course! I had already received one item a couple of days before and knew that the others should be arriving soon. I cannot believe all the jewlery I have been buying. I really love the rings I ordered but with me losing weight I am sad that I will not get to wear them for long. I also showed them to B who was actually very surprised at how nice the pieces were. So....so far he has no complaints with what I have purchased. If only he knew the dollar amount but hey I am not going to be the one to tell him. Sadly, last night there were no small brown envelopes in my tiny mail box. But today is one more mail day before the holiday so I am keeping my fingers crossed!

I am so happy that after today I will have a long 4-day weekend! Now I am just keeping my fingers crossed that today will not be so busy. I just want a nice relaxing day at work where I can order some more bling (2 so far today) and spend time at the Kindred Creations site (LOL!). If you scrapbook you may want to head over to that site. They have a wonderful layout gallery, the most friendly message board and lots of contest and challenges that I hope will kick my butt into gear and get me to get caught up on all these pages I need to complete.

I need a title, Darn it!

Each day at work I feel more like a grown up. Maybe because I am no longer at the bottom of the totem pole taking calls. I have moved into my new ‘office’ (cube) and I love it!!! I still have pretty much everything in boxes but I know I will eventually have everything unpacked. I find it hard as I have so much more room but I also have so much crap and I don’t know where to put everything. It is hard having lots of choices! Now that I actually have real desk space I can go and buy neat-o office thingies. I even have room for pictures! Yet another picture of me taken at the END of the day. This picture only shows very little of my new space. As soon as I unpack I will show it off.

It is now winter. Winter means nice clothes. Why? Well because all my winter clothes are nice clothes so I HAVE to dress up for work. It was also time to update the old hair color. Heck I was bored and needed something to do. I decided to go dark. As you can see it is also quite red (in certain light). I like it. I have not had my hair this color for awhile. And I like it even more now that I washed it again and my scalp is now the normal white and not red like in this picture. B was worried about it being so dark and not red (he likes the lighter red) but he did notice the red last night so I think all is good. Actually it is more of a burgandy/plum purple but hey guys don't really know colors. One of these days he will realize I dye my hair the colors that I like not what he likes. :-)

Okay here is my gripe for the day. I love my co-workers in my new group/department but there is one woman that just ticks me off. I don’t think I have written about my new group before as I wanted to get to know them first before passing any judgments. Well not anymore. This woman is a witch no matter how many chances I give her.

So let’s start at the beginning. When I first moved into my new group we were in a smaller room full of cubes. There were other departments in there and the majority of the people working in there were temps. This woman (at the time) was a temp. On the morning after my move someone sent an anonymous email to our group. Here is the email that was sent:

It has been requested to remind everyone to have consideration of others working in our small area:
Loud conversation whether it is with other team mates or even on the phone can be disruptive.
Using speaker phones to check audix or make calls can be distractive as well.
Laughter, however, enjoyable to hear, can break concentration and work flow.
Please assure you are being considerate to your neighbors.
Thanks

What the F!?!?!?! Laughter is not allowed? This email ticked off a lot of people as no one 'requested' any of this. I was ticked because….the day before it was sent I did some laughing. I like to laugh. Since when is laughing not allowed in the workplace? Well the woman did not admit to sending it but the managers all think she did. The managers were livid over this email.

So fast forward to just a few days later. I am sitting at my desk when a co-worker walks in for the day. We say hello and so did the other 2 co-workers next to him. He has not even clocked in for the day and was off the clock when this woman comes over and tells us all to get to work. EXCUSE ME??? I have worked for this company for 6 years and my own manager has never had to tell me to ‘get to work’ and now this TEMP has the nerve to do so? Well I spoke to someone about it and the other co-workers had also complained so this woman was taken in to speak to her manager. It appears that this woman would keep track of what everyone else was doing. If you got up from your desk she would write down the time and then time you when you were away. It did not matter if you were in a meeting or on lunch. She kept track of everyone’s time. This was not her job. She was a TEMP! She was told she ticked off a full-timer (ME) and to stop. She did not bother me again. The classic moment came when this particular manager came into the room and complained loudly that it was too quiet and proceeded to make A LOT of noise! Lots of laughing was done that afternoon.

Now fast forward to today. We are having a potluck in our group. (MAN! This group is always having potlucks). Well there were only two of us here this morning so I cleaned out an empty cube and placed the food in it. This was the only empty cube without computer equipment and I wiped down the tabletop. Well everyone was putting their food in this particular cube. Until this woman just had to have her own way and did not think it was good enough and cleaned out the cube next to hers and moved all the food into it. I don’t care about that but the comment she threw my way of ‘that cube you picked is not clean enough and does not have enough room’ is what threw me into a tizzy. What? There are only 8 of us and not everyone brought food. Argh! I guess I need to learn how to work with women. But man! There is only so much a person can take. Well that person being me and since I take everything so personally anyways, I can only take very little. :-)

I am so happy this week is a short week but I have so much to do before I can take time off for the holiday. Why is it when there is tons of work to do, I don’t feel like working at all? Maybe this headache I have may have something to do with it? Or maybe the idea of a 4-day weekend? Anyone in the same boat?

So sparkly I will be!

I think I have a problem. Do you notice that this picture has changed since the last time I posted it? Yeah.....definitely a problem. Why is it a problem? Because so far all of these items are just for me. I have not yet purchased any for Christmas presents like I want to. At least I will look darn purty with all my new jewelry. All of the items I have ordered (except for the one today) have shipped. I think I may need to beat B to the mailbox over the next few days. So in order to not be the only one with this problem, I will share the link to this new addiction with all of you. Just click the pretty banner below.

Disclaimer: I am NOT responsible for any new addictions you may encounter!!

LO: Oh Baby!

Well here it is! The first layout of the twins! I am so happy to have finally finished one (especially now that they are 17 months). These are the photos of their first day. Of course I did not use all the baby stuff that I had planned too and I have tons left over. I guess I will be doing tons of baby layouts soon to use up my stash. I really wish I could make these baby layouts as awesome as Happay Mommay's baby layouts of E. Stop by her blog and check them out and you will see what I mean.

Layout is 2 8.5 x 11 pages stitched together

Supplies used:

Yellow and green cardstock - Bazill
"Oh Baby" stickers - Pebbles "Snip-its"
Making Memories Rub-ons

Thanks for looking.

5 days later

Thanks to a great friend of mine, B and I were given passes to see the sneak preview of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. (Of course I feel she is a great friend even if she did not give us the passes). It was a 10am show and we got there about an hour before. Even though the line was long there were some empty seats in the theatre (up front). B and I lucked out as I was asking a poor young girl how many seats she was saving (I don’t agree with saving a whole row or a ton of seats for someone who does not get there on time) and the woman in the next row asked me how many seats I needed. She moved down one so B and I could sit together and up in the risers and not in the front of the theatre. All the best seats (2 rows in the middle) were saved for the reviewing press which only about 5 showed up! There were quite a few people there without passes that bullied their way in as well.

As for the show….it was okay. B is not a big Harry Potter fan but managed to stay awake during this one (it took him 3 tries to see the first one). This one was very dark and I would think scary for the younger kids in the audience. Lots of scary images and even death. That Harry Potter sure is growing up!

I have found a new addiction and I find it really weird as I am so stingy when it comes to buying jewelry and have spent hours or even days thinking about an item before making the purchase. On the site that is causing this addiction, I only have 15 minutes (sometimes less) to make a decision. All items are free and I only pay $5.99 for shipping. I have to be careful about the earrings as I do have an allergy to nickel but that has not stopped me from ordering a few pendants. In fact I decided today that I think I know what I will be buying my family (at least the females) for Christmas. So if you read this blog and you know you will be getting a gift from me – please forget what I wrote above!!! So far, I have only purchased a couple of pendants – but right now I just bought this ring!!! I don’t even know what size ring I wear but I bought this one anyways. I don’t know why I bought a ring. I sure do hope it fits~!!!!! I am thinking I can wear it on my middle finger as that is my fattest one. LOL! There is a pair of earrings that I really want to purchase but according to the schedule, they will not be available for sale until 17 hours from now. I guess I need to get up early tomorrow. My only fear is finding something as a gift but really liking it for myself.

bleh...

I have been miserable lately. There is something going around this office that is making it so hard to concentrate. It is a sinus thing and all I know is that I get to work and my eyes start watering – Non stop, especially my right eye (to heck with eye makeup!). I had planned to stay home today but B ticked me off so off to work I went (how dare I get sick on his day off). Then B did not put gas in the devil car, so I had to have him drive with me to work this morning. It is a long story but the short version is that he REALLY ticked me off today!! Coming into work is the only thing that kept me in a reasonably good mood today. So do I get an 'A' for effort today?

So since I have been pretty out of it all day, I decided today was a Mission U.K. sort of day. See even my post is all drivel today. Kind of boring but hey at least it is a post.

Oops! I have just realized that I really need to get cracking on some of these requests (only 1 hour to go - well less now that I got this posted) so the time has come to play my “I NEED TO WAKEUP” iTunes play list! HEY! Now don’t laugh at my selections. They work for me and that is all that matters. Now of course I do end up being a source of entertainment to my co-workers as sometimes I really get grooving!

Do you Myspace?

Do I need to?

Upside down

When I used to sit out on the main floor I was usually was the one to instigate a few pranks. Big pranks. The kind of pranks where people stop, stare and take photos. It really helped that I sat next to a couple of guys that would brainstorm prank ideas with me and then do them. Of course they usually bore the brunt of those pranks. I was not the only one to play pranks on co-workers but I started getting blamed for all pranks no matter how big or small or whoever did it them.

Now I am in an office that has its own prankster. He is not into the big pranks but the little pranks (can you tell I like to say pranks?). The ones you really don’t notice until after you have been looking at it for awhile. I came into work yesterday to find that my cube had been turned upside down (well what he could get to). I did notice that the paper with my name was upside down (see pic over there to the right) but he has done that before (I caught him doing that and filling my office with post-its) so I thought nothing of it. In fact I thought maybe I had not fixed it from before. It was not until I sat here a bit (well someone pointed it out to me actually – yes I am that dense I guess – LOL!) that all my photos, frames, water bottle, soda cans, wet ones, white boards etc were upside down. I think I will keep it this way as I am sure it will bug him and I will come in one day and find everything right side up. But rest assured, my mind is already thinking of payback!

Please forgive me for my not so glamorous photo. It was taken at the end of a very long day.

VTO (voluntary time off) ~ it is a state of mind that I don’t plan to move out of anytime soon.

*** Oh and on a side note. And this is directed to those of you that I will be cropping with this weekend and you know who you are. Please be aware that pictures will be taken. Oh yes there will be pictures! You have been warned! ***

The eyes have it

I have always thought my best feature were my eyes. Anyone that has complimented me has always complimented me on my eyes. A person's eyes are the first thing I notice. As for men, it is first the eyes that attract me. I am partial to green, hazel and the icy-est of blue but for some reason I have always dated and then married those with just plain brown.

You could really learn a lot about someone just by looking at his or her eyes. I remember my first photography teacher telling me to always focus on a person's eyes. I find that I still do that to this day and not just when taking a picture either.

My eyes are mostly blue and yet at times they are green. They seem to be green whenever I am at my happiest or I like to tell people 'my eyes are green because I am in love'. All my favorite photos of myself are when my eyes are green (well except for a few b&w's). They change dependant on my mood and sometimes what I wear.

As I have posted before I was the only person in my family (until last year) with eyes that were not brown. A lot of attention has always been made about the color of my eyes. I guess that is what makes me feel pretty special about mine and yet I hide them behind my glasses.

All is well. For now anyways.

I am a happy knitter again.

Although I can still see where I messed up, I don’t think anyone else can. Last night I laid my project down and dh could not tell where I messed up. So that makes me really happy. Here is an updated picture. I am a few rows into my second skein. I would love to give more photo updates but since it is just a boring rectangle of stockinette I will save you the pain and only show you updates after massive progress has been made. Of course I say that now but I will probably change my mind tomorrow.

So combine the fact that I was able to save myself from starting my project over and the fact that this should be my last week giving my neighbor a ride to work, I am surprised I have not exploded in my joy. No more having to put up with someone pulling my iPod adapter out of the socket because he does not want to listen to my music. No more listening to him state that my music is violent and angry - please tell me how The Killers are violent and angry? I admit to playing MCR A-LOT and LOUD but hey! It makes me happy. Yesterday I had to drive the devil car and the FM transmitter was full of static but did that stop me from playing my music? Heck no!!! I am looking forward to not having him change every conversation into politics or religion. Everything is related to politics and religion in his mind. I don’t even talk politics with my own husband! Asking a simple question on how he liked a movie or show and he will not tell you what he thought of it but how it relates to politics and religion.

Okay….this is turning into a rant. But trust me, the average person can only take a small dose of this guy and I think I have had my fill.

Okay. So now what?

So here is where I am with my project. This first photo is what I ended up with when by a freak of nature 4 stitches fell off the needle at the beginning of a new row. I tried to fix them and got this. You can see the individual stitches but what the heck is that long piece there all by itself?

So I followed some advice from the knitty board (thank you ladies) and watched a video on how to put the stitches back on my needle. Easy enough but I still had that weird long piece of yarn. So I got my crochet hook and acted like it was a rung from a dropped stitch. So far so good and I decided to start my new row. But if you look closely this is what I have now. The distance between the stitches on this row compared to all my previous rows is WAY off. Do you think it will tighten up as I work it? Am I being anal to be worried about this little 'wonk' in my fabric? This part that I am knitting is the sleeve so it is something that I will see but not too much as I do have to stitch this area together. So from what you can tell in these pics....am I good to go? Do I try and start the row over or just continue on?

Knitting Sucks!!!

So how is that for a title?

I have been in lala knitting land and my goal was to post with my wonderful progress and have everyone “ohh” and “aww” but that will NOT be happening!!!! I am so upset that knitting may be put on the backburner for now. I was doing so well and then I dropped a few stitches. Dropped stitches no problem you say? Well I dropped 4 and they are not in the middle of my work but the first 4 stitches in a new row. Poor B just watched me calmly (weird for me I know) put my work back in the bag and just sit and pout. I guess I shocked him that I did not throw a fit. I just told him I was not good enough to fix what I did and I guess it does make me feel good that – that made him a bit sad. I thought I caught them so I tried to fix them last night and now it is even worse. I am not good enough yet to fix them myself and I am so sad that I have to start this ENTIRE project over. I cannot even figure out how to just go back a few rows (which I have done before) as my stitches are stockinette and I can’t figure it out! The stitches I dropped were garter. Is it possible to fix the first stitches of a new row? If so how? Please help.

On a good note…..my carpooler will soon be history!!!! Yay! More of that to come later. I promise.

Houston, We have cast off!!!

Well more like cast ON but you know what I mean. I was very excited to find out my gauge was spot on so I started my new project today. It is the rectangle shrug from Family Circle Easy Knitting Winter 2004/2005 issue. Instead of using the worsted weight alpaca that the pattern asks for, I am using Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky in Spice. I really like this yarn. It is very soft and I don't think I will have problems with it being too itchy. It definately does not fit on the straight needles though. I need to move it over to some circulars but since I needed to gauge it first I did not want to buy the wrong size and not get to use them (well on this project anyways). Now that I finally got this project started (after 3 starts - I did not leave enough of a tail for my cast on) This is one project that I know will be perfect for mindless knitting while watching television. The entire pattern is just garter stitch and stockinette. I don't have to count rows at all and it is all by measurement. I am already enjoying this project. Now if I can just figure out which is the right side on my garter stitch and I will be all set to start that stockinette! If I did a long tail cast on which would be the right side of my garter? Would the tail be on the left (cast on row is right side) or on the right (first knit row is right side)? Please help...

Oh and here is some cuteness. Those eyes just get me everytime! Here is a secret about me. I always fall for the eyes first and I have always liked a guy in makeup. :-) Well that is two secrets actually.

My mom just used to tell me that I could hang out with them (the guys) all I wanted but I was just not allowed to kiss them. LOL! Talk about strict. She was no fun. Good thing my dad was the one that would go out and buy me my converse and other cool stuff after she would say no. Of course he was the one that totally freaked when I really chopped all my hair off in high school. Funny thing about that hair cut. I thought I was cool but when I started my first day back, I found that I had the same haircut as many of the boys. LOL! Man! I need to go and find those pics.

Here is my swatch (no not the watch)…

…isn’t she purty? Okay. I think I have dated myself with that title. LOL! Instead of finishing any of the million projects I have taking up space in my place, I started a new one. Go me! Well I did not really start one but I did start my first swatch. I have finally decided to make one of the first patterns that I fell in love with and got me wanting to know how to knit. I finally went out and bought the yarn. The color is a bit more rust than orange but you get the idea. I know that stockinette stitch is not that exciting but it is MY first stockinette stitch so I am thrilled that is looks so good (and is so fast and easy). I just have to find out if my gauge is right (keep your fingers crossed). More details later when I actually start it - that is if I ever do actually start it.

Would you like some typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery with that?

On Saturday, I got my butt out of bed to make it to the bank before they closed. On the way home I decided to stop by McDonald’s for one of their Crispy Chicken Caesar salads. I had purchased one before and thought it was very good. Once at home I was already to eat my lunch when I noticed that this salad looked a little bit different than the one I had before. My first salad had nice small tomatoes and fresh lettuce. Before I even took off the cover I could see that this salad had NO tomatoes (not that I eat them anyways) and was just wimpy lettuce with a sliver of a carrot. I took off the lid and nearly lost it when climbing around the wimpy lettuce was a FLY!!!! Yep! A FLY!!! In my salad!!!! I WILL NEVER EAT AT MCDONALD’S AGAIN!!!!! I put that lid right back on that trapped fly (it looked to be on its last legs) and took that salad back! I got lots of funny looks and whispers from the people that work there but I did get my money back. I was not in the mood to eat but I was hungry so I stopped by Arby’s and bought one of their Martha Vineyard Salads. Let me tell you!!!! This salad was wonderful!!!! It was HUGE!!! Arby’s now has all of my loyalty for fast food salads.

I am proud to say I got some knitting done last week. Now it was only two rows on my shawl but it was something. I was afraid I had forgotten how to knit since I have not picked up any projects in months but it came right back to me. Of course DH had to complain that I was not working on UFO #1. I really need to work on that too. I really have to work on some more wearables as my new office is freezing. Update (with photos) hopefully to come soon!

So basically that has been all that I have been up to. I did NOTHING this weekend. No knitting. No scrapping. No reading email. I basically managed to veg out and listen to Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance (one of my favorite albums). Yet another album that makes me feel old (I really need to stop feeling old). I think this one is a cutie and he is 28 so that is older than the other cuties that are out there. :-) I used to always go for guys like this so I am pretty surprised at ending up with dh.

You know (you probably didn’t but anyways) they were in concert the week of my vacation and I really wanted to go but changed my mind at the last minute. I have not been to a punked out concert in years. I wonder how I would do? I already know that with me being short, I do not go anywhere near the front. That will never change. LOL!

What font are you?

Well I am happy. This is actually one of my favorite fonts too!!!

Lucida Calligraphy - You tend towards the arts.
You tend to stand out in a crowd and have your
own style. Be careful not to be too aloof,
however.

What Font Are You? (Standard Fonts)
brought to you by Quizilla

LO: Grow

Supplies used:

Patterned Paper - Flavia
Eyelets - set via the Silent Setter
Letter stickers
Cactus - c/o my Mom's house