category: randomness

The daily random ramblings of Yours Truly.

Hairstyle Update

Sheryl came to my rescue at work today, suggesting a slight side part and a few other serving suggestions (headband with wispies, teeny hair clips).

Of the people who saw my new 'do, about half told me how much they liked it. I'm assuming the other half were practicing the "if you can't say anything nice" school of thought. Either that, or they're trying to figure out if this is what my hair always looked like.

I'm starting to get more used to it. Like I told Sheryl, I wouldn't have tried anything like this of my own accord, but I suppose it's good to try something new — even if just to decide I don't want to do it again. And, after all, it's just hair. It'll grow back.

 

Adventures in Discount Hairstyling

You get what you pay for. Go to Great Clips for a $6.99 haircut, and that's exactly what you'll get.

As for me, I got a stylist who heard me say, "I'm not quite used to the short hair yet," saw me visually and verbally describe the cut I wanted, then proceeded to give me a MUCH shorter cut. To her credit, she did apologize for making it so short, after she said that it had turned out shorter than she'd thought.

What? You have the scissors, lady! My hairstyle is completely under your control! WTF.

So, now I'm stuck with a VERY short haircut that I didn't ask for, but that I now have to deal with for several months until it grows out. One thing is for certain: I am NEVER going back to Great Clips.

 

Cute Skirtness Redux

I bought this skirt at the mall last week. Afterward, I purchased some socks online — these are technically over-the-knee socks, but my still-oversized thighs forced the socks into submission as Harajuku-style scrunch socks. I finally located a black turtleneck sweater in the back of the closet to complete the outfit, and voila! Cuteness.

While shopping, I made the mistake of picking things up, saying, "But where would I wear this?" and putting them back. I almost said that with this skirt, but it was just too damned cute. It wasn't until later that I recalled a favorite sentiment from those evil What Not To Wear hosts: Do you need an excuse to look fashionable? Freaking wear it to the grocery store! Who cares?

Really, though: 80% of my wardrobe is casual clothes that I wear less than 30% of the time — that is to say, on the weekend. Sheryl thinks I could totally wear this outfit to work (with nylons instead of socks), but I'm kind of hesitant. I'd feel less professional and more cute, and I'm not sure how that would work out. Maybe, though. We'll see.

P.S. - For yet another startling photo comparison of my new weight versus the old, check out the original "Cute Skirtness" entry from March 2005.

 

Starting Over

Did 30 minutes of Wii Fit this evening, along with a little bit of housework. Currently working on the Zen podcast. Planning to go to Zen meditation tomorrow evening. Life is getting back into its normal, non-depressed groove.

I've decided that the best way to go from here, assuming my mood doesn't continue to improve, is the Fake It Till You Make It approach. Keep busy, keep upbeat, don't make it obvious that I have a shitty self-image, and eventually my brain will fall into line.

Wednesday evening is Zen. Thursday evening will involve doing yoga and cleaning my desk. Friday evening will be more Wii Fit and probably continuing to clean my desk. (I've noticed I do feel more positive and productive if my work area is clean and tidy.) The weekend will be the weekend, and on Monday, I will begin my blog migration / redesign in earnest. I may even move it and make it live before the design is completely done, just because I'm so looking forward to a new design and a decrufted installation of MT.

Keeping busy, but not TOO busy. Leaving time to pamper myself. Sit zazen. Tweeze my eyebrows. That sort of thing.

I'll be fine. Thanks for thinking of me. :-D

 

One Down, One Zillion To Go

Apart from a few minor issues that I need to finish addressing, my freelance gig is complete. The site is done, the client knows how to update it, and I've been paid for my work. Now the trick is to get Chelsea Tipton's website to come up first in the Google rankings for a search on his name, instead of being stuck on the second page of results.

Now that I have one project in the bag (or I will very shortly), I can contemplate my next project: moving and redesigning my blog.

And after that's done, I have a laundry list of projects that will literally never end. Not until I'm dead.

Minor things like editing home videos and outputting them to DVD. Major things like finishing a novel or two. Mundane things like getting my fucking desk clean once and for all. Pragmatic things like updating my resume and portfolio. Creative things like songwriting, or photography, or scrapbooking. Oh, Lordy, the scrapbooking. I haven't even finished scrapbooking our honeymoon, and we celebrated our 5th anniversary this past May.

Whenever I hear someone say they need a hobby, I want to invite them to have one of mine. I have more than I'll ever use up.

 

Never Thought It Could Happen To Me

I was out on a sushi double-date last Saturday when the first oddity arose. I went to pay for lunch, and my debit card was declined. My debit card? Huh. I chalked it up to weirdness with their credit card machine and paid with an actual credit card, which went through without a hitch.

Later on, Aaron suggested I try paying for our Starbucks with my debit card to see if the earlier issue had just been a glitch. Nope — my card was declined at Starbucks, too. I started to worry, and made a note to check my online banking when I got home.

Later that evening, I logged into my online banking and found the first major WTF: a $635 charge from Virgin Blue. Airline tickets?

I got on the phone immediately to the NCB call center.

The customer service rep who spoke with me was super polite and helpful and told me that my debit card had been frozen by the Fraud Department due to some suspicious charges. He gave me the number for Fraud, although they wouldn't be in until after the long weekend. That was OK: I wasn't overdrawn or anything, so it could wait.

Forgot to call Tuesday. Called from my desk at work on Wednesday. The woman in the Fraud Department was also very nice and explained that some unusual charges had come in. Since Saturday, another charge of about $400 from Oman Air had appeared in my online banking, in addition to the $635 charge for Virgin. (Good thing I'd just gotten paid, so my balance could take the hit.) Then she proceeded to rattle off the charges that they'd caught and stopped before they hit my account: London, Turkey, Skype, Yahoo, PayPal, all adding up to more than $1000 — and that's not counting the $1000 that DID post!

Now THAT would have wiped me out, but good.

So, the nice lady in Fraud ordered me a new debit card with a new card number (note to self: must change anything online that autodebits my debit card) and told me to go into a branch to fill out an affidavit of fraud to get credit for the charges that posted. Plus the International Transaction Fees that posted along with them. Sigh.

No problem. Left work early, went to the bank, and TaMika hooked me up. Didn't even have to fill out or sign anything — it was all done in their computer system. I should be getting my provisional credit in about four business days; until then, I'm going to be careful about which bills I pay when, so I don't overdraw myself before I get my $1000 back.

Despite all this, I'm not on the road to being one of those people who gets the prepaid credit cards from their bank for online shopping. I probably just used my debit card on one unscrupulous site — or with a company whose wi-fi network wasn't well-shielded enough — and away my number went. Who knows where it got leaked. At any rate, I'm still going to shop online, although I don't know if I'll be so cavalier about using my debit card online anymore.

My debit card number got stolen, and it turned out to be just a minor nuisance (so far). I count myself lucky: other people have had it worse.

 

The Daily Grind

I think it's funny that, anytime I sit down to write the sort of entry I would have written in a paper journal (back in the pre-blog Dark Ages of the year 2000), I feel the need to reaffirm the fact that this is still my personal journal. This isn't my full-time job, I'm not monetizing my blog, and I shouldn't feel like an inferior blogger just because I keep a wide-ranging, personal journal. I'm not topical, like some of the tech blogs; I don't craft witty and humorous essays like Dooce; I'm just making public what was once a private venture, from my first journal at age seven to my last pre-blog folders of scribbled notebook paper and "Talking to Myself" text files on my old Mac.

That said, here's what's going on with me:

read more...

 

Quote of the Day

Found on a scrap of paper on my desk:

"Do all your work as though you had a thousand years to live, and as you would if you knew you must die tomorrow."

—Mother Ann Lee, of the Shakers

 

More Unblogged Thoughts

Again, from the depths of my stale inbox:

4/20/05
I'm such a photographer. Everybody is oooh-ing and ahh-ing over someone's cute family picture, complete with a new baby, and all I can think is, "well, their bodies need to be overlapped more, and his head is tilted too far."

6/20/05
you can't leave your baby alone with your husband for three days while you go on vacation? i find that odd. i mean, when aaron and i procreate, we'll be learning together how to take care of our kid, and most likely one of us will be watching him or her while the other parent is at work, for the most part.

 

Little Bit of Everything

I don't do these massive update posts much anymore — I prefer to keep my blog entries on one topic at a time — but I figured I'd do one catch-up post, then maybe expound on parts of it later. So, working backwards from today...

Weighed in today at 196.5 lbs on my home scale — that's one and a half pounds away from my recent all-time low of 195 from May 2007. (Yep, I gained 15 pounds in six months, and it took me longer than that to lose it again.) It was a bit of a disappointment, then, to weigh in at my Weight Watchers meeting at 200.4 lbs, even after I had an ultra-light breakfast and didn't drink much water before the weigh-in. My mini-goal had been to weigh in under 200 pounds at the meeting. Oh, well — I guess I'll wait until next weigh-in to hit my mini-goal, and to reward myself with some shorts and dress pants and blouses that fit.

My supervisor asked me this morning if I'd like to attend a User Group meeting in Lansing (two hours away) this Thursday. Then she asked me if I could drive, since her car doesn't have air conditioning. D'oh! So, I'll be getting up at the buttcrack of dawn on Thursday, driving with my supervisor for two hours, attending four hours of Business Intelligence lectures and panels, then having lunch and driving two hours back. At least we don't have to work for the last couple hours of the day; basically, my day gets shifted forward by two hours.

I landed a freelance web design gig yesterday. Actually, I pretty much "landed" it last Wednesday, when he asked me if I do web design, but yesterday's client meeting was the first official sealing of our new business relationship. He's the resident conductor of a local orchestra, so I'm basically making him a PR tool, which is perfect work for me. I underpriced myself, as per usual, but I made sure to leave myself an out: a flat fee for the first 20 hours, then an hourly fee for the next 20, topping out at 40 hours. So, I won't have totally hosed myself.

This past weekend, Aaron and I went up to the Ann Arbor Art Fairs. Great time, as always. I took a few pictures (with the Holga, too, although I'll have to wait until those are developed to post them), and I bought one expensive thing and one not-so-expensive thing.

Oh, and I still need to get this blog moved to its new home on another web host, and not just because something's borked with my MT installation/upgrade (as you will have noticed if you tried to comment on a post lately — your comments ARE going through, I promise). I have until the end of August to get my stuff moved — which, incidentally, is also the deadline for getting my freelance site done. I'm going to be looking at some mighty busy evenings here. I'll need to carefully ration out my time.

And now I should get to bed, because I need to ready myself for my epic early-morning wakey-wakey in another day or so. I haven't gotten up at 5:30am since... um... well, it's been a while. Not counting jet lag in another timezone, of course.

 

Financially Speaking

I'm not a financial analyst; far from it. However, I did work for a financial institution for five years, and I lost my job as a result of that financial institution, Sky Financial Group, being acquired by Huntington Bancshares.

Since Huntington gave me a quite reasonable retention bonus and severance package (most of which still remains in my high-yield savings), and since my job loss was the catalyst for a new and better career move, and (most importantly) since my severance agreement included a clause against publishing negative commentary about the company, I'm disinclined to talk smack about Huntington.

However, that doesn't mean I'm not curious about how they're faring in the current financial climate. I've remained blissfully ignorant of most of the happenings of the bank since I left, with only a few bits and pieces making it my way through the grapevine. Now that things are coming to even more of a head in the financial world, though, I find myself wondering how that merger worked out for them.

Not so good, it seems.

read more...

 

My Brain Makes the Darndest Dreams

The inner workings of the brain never cease to amuse me.

This weekend, I did a few completely unrelated things:

1. Searched for Alton Brown's lentil soup recipe
2. Took a long walk with Aaron
3. Looked to see if my hometown of Medina was recorded for Google Street View
4. Read the menu of the restaurant I'd be going to today with my co-workers, to decide on an entree in advance

Last night, my brain concocted this great dream where I'd moved into a house in Medina. (I'm pretty sure that both Aaron and my mother lived there, too.) I was walking along the streets at night, when I came across none other than Alton Brown, talking into a bluetooth digital audio recorder. When I approached him, he was friendly, and we walked together to a local drug store which, inexplicably, sold food in the middle of the night. We ordered the special — which I ate until AB pointed out that the meat in the sandwich was mainly fatty, at which point I stopped and said I should really stick to my diet. I was also giddy and fangirl-ish and more candid than I needed to be, telling embarrassing stories about myself. Afterward, as we walked back to our respective homes, I discovered that my new Medina house was only three houses down from AB's house. I also discovered that it was 3am, and I'd been out for a Very Long Time.

Isn't the brain fun?

 

This Is So Me

From an e-mail to myself, recently discovered in the depths of my inbox:

Fri, Apr 15, 2005 at 4:54 PM

Have you been robbed by the three thieves of productivity - distraction, perfectionism and procrastination? If you are task and achievement oriented, you’ve struggled to keep these villains out of your life.

Here are some quick tips to help improve productivity.

• Spend a few moments when you get to work getting organized and creating a to-do list to reduce the risk of distraction.
• Is perfection getting in the way? That speech, project, or report is probably ready to go now. So let it fly.
• Always waiting for tomorrow? Learn how to produce a sense of urgency to ward off procrastination so you can act and avoid delays. Do it by focusing on the consequences of not completing a task and the rewards of getting it done.

There's no citation, so I'm guessing I got it from the company intranet. I can only find it in one place online.

It's so true, though, on all three counts. It's an ongoing self-improvement struggle for me to combat my procrastinatory tendencies. It's been an issue since I was a kid. Some things never change, I guess... but that doesn't stop me from trying.

 

Unusually Stylish

I tend to read Dooce's Daily Style section and just be amazed at all the kitschy, swanky, stylish stuff she can find. So, when I was in Barnes & Noble recently and found this in the clearance bin, I couldn't pass it up.

While I'm not usually one to glom onto delicate cuteness in baby blue, and I don't often have occasion to send Thank You cards, I thought these cards by Pepperpot were classy and well-designed, and I appreciated the small-press personal touch with the tie and tag around the cards.

The kicker? The keepsake box. Not only is it fairly strong and sturdy, but the lid has magnets to snap the lid shut. MAGNETS. In the LID. That appeals to my packrat nature in so many ways.

Now I wish I could find more. Alas, an Amazon search doesn't turn up much that isn't baby books.

 

Meme: Diana Needs...

I haven't done one of these in a while; and, no, I wasn't "tagged" for this one, either. I was just looking through some old blog entries yesterday, and came upon the "Diana is..." meme from a few years back, so I thought I'd do the related "Diana needs..." meme just for fun:

[Edited To Add: The idea here is to Google your first name with the verb "needs" or "is" and post the first several hits — particularly the amusing ones.]

Diana needs a wealthy husband who can provide her with the high life she craves while sheltering her from the media clamor that follows her every move.
> [Um, wrong Diana. Sorry.]

Diana needs a hug.
> [Always.]

Diana needs to come over and turn my charming studio into a warehouse loft!
> [Diana needs to paint her own living room first, kthx.]

Diana needs to make an announcement.
> [I do? Very well... I AM GOING TO HAWAII IN 35 28 DAYS.]

Diana... needs outa this town!
> [See above.]

Diana needs help.
> [Always.]

Diana needs to learn respect to the refs.
> [I got a rope... I got a tree... All we need is a... nevermind.]

Diana needs to take a trip to the museum to see all the beautiful paintings of women ten times bigger during the Roman/Greek times.
> [Maybe she does. Maybe Diana would feel better about herself if her likeness were dropped into a Boticelli or Bellini painting.]

Diana needs to get a few clues.
> [Again, always.]

 

Weekend Shopping

Last weekend, Aaron and I had an agenda. We were going to peruse the monthly flea market at the Wood County Fairgrounds in Bowling Green, hit the BG Goodwill while we were in town, and drive through downtown to see what's left of our old familiar haunts. After that, I thought maybe we'd hit Levis Commons (one of those outdoor malls) in Perrysburg on the way home.

We decided to eat lunch in BG, which went well; we tried the Old Town Buffet, a newer Chinese buffet on N. Main Street. They had different food than we were used to getting at a Chinese buffet, which was good — kept things interesting. Plus, they had good (if tame) sushi, and were reasonably priced. And I was good and only ate one plate of food, plus a little dessert. Score one for our BG trip.

The flea market was at least something to do, and someplace to walk around. There wasn't anything we were interested in actually buying, but some of the stuff was fun to look at. That, plus it's always interesting to people-watch at the flea market. Our trip around the booths was short and sweet, and we were fairly ambivalent about it. Didn't suck, but wasn't great.

Same with Goodwill. Looked around everything except the clothes (which take up most of the newly renovated and expanded store). Noticed some overpriced video games and systems that we didn't want. Left after our brief spin through the aisles.

After Goodwill, I let Aaron take me to that bastion of evildoing in retail, Wal-Mart, so he could see if they had any HD-DVDs on clearance. (Aaron, being the consumer of many dead media formats already, waited until HD-DVD was officially dead to purchase the HD add-on for his Xbox 360, thereby getting both the player and the movies at blowout prices.)

Of course, they didn't have any.

Our BG trip was getting more and more dismal. No Madhatter to visit, no interest in book-shopping or coffee-drinking at Grounds, no interest in just walking around campus. On our way out of town, we drove past campus and ogled at the not-really-new wider streets and the quasi-new street signs and all the corporateness that has sprung up around campus (Starbucks, Chipotle, and the like). Then we hit the highway and headed toward home, by way of Perrysburg.

It was still a little chilly to be walking around outside, but we made the best of it. Sort of. We went into Lane Bryant first, and left without buying one item. All of their "spring fashions" looked like the 70s and the 80s had a fat baby — the blouses all flaunted the worst patterns possible, and I couldn't find much of anything I would wear. Then we walked to Maggie Moo's, the ice cream place, since we'd never been there — and, for once, we realized that ice cream really wasn't calling to us. Then we stopped into J. Jill, just because I'd never been there before. At first, I thought I'd finally come home, because all the clothes looked like something I would wear; then I looked at the price tag on a particularly stylish skirt, and I promptly headed for the door after reading the $100 price tag. Somehow, we even managed to not really enjoy the bookstore: neither of us really had an agenda, and none of the magazines or manga or anything really caught our eye. So we just went home.

Well, that sucked.

Surprisingly enough, Sunday was a completely different story.

Aaron had heard that the Value City Department Store in Maumee was having a closing sale, and that the whole store was some ridiculous percentage off. He heard right, and we had a great time just browing the aisles for cheap awesomeness. We left Value City with a non-stick pan (from the collection of Rachael Ray), a decorative basket, a new purse for me, a pair of very thirsty and soft microfiber dishtowels, and three very awesome pairs of shoes for me, of which this is but one:

Our cashier was a character, and she topped off the whole experience by talking about how she'd heard about cooking cabbage and noodles for the first time that weekend, when someone else had bought a non-stick pan and told her that was what they were planning to make in said pan. This woman was an absolute hoot.

But the day kept going! After that, we swung past a gelato place for our first-ever taste of gelato (and, boy, was it yummy), followed by a trip two doors down to Avenue, where I bought myself the clothes I had been hoping to find at Lane Bryant the day before. I now have two more pairs of work/dress pants, a knit sweater, and a hooded spring jacket. Oh, and a nice lady in line behind me gave me a couple of coupons that saved me $17. Score!

So, last weekend was quite the odd dichotomy of suck and awesome. All in all, though, I think the awesome outweighed the suck.

 

Our Spelling May "Suprise" You

Seen Tuesday on weather.com:

As usual, I found the typo.

 

An Open Letter to Joseph, Whom I Met While Walking

Dear Joseph,

After having had some time to consider our random encounter this afternoon, I feel compelled to let you know that I'll be standing you up on your fifty-second birthday (April 11). I will also make a point of staying away from the meeting spot you designated when my birthday rolls around (April 22). Please allow me to explain why.

Firstly: starting a conversation with, "You're a pretty girl..." is generally considered creepy by girls everywhere, pretty or no. However, I was willing to engage in conversation with you simply because I'm not good at being rude and ignoring people. Plus, after your comment about how you'd like to grow your hair long like mine and bleach it blond, I thought our conversation would be harmless, brief, and amusing.

Secondly: handshakes are acceptable, even impressive. But please let go after said handshake. Talking at length whilst still holding the hand, then pulling the handshakee into a hug is generally considered improper when both parties are complete strangers. Above all, attempting to kiss a complete stranger on the mouth is highly improper, and attempting to tongue-kiss a stranger after she pushes away from your on-the-mouth kiss is grounds for a knee in the crotch. You should consider yourself ultimately lucky that all I did was give an emphatic "no" and push away.

Thirdly: Smelling like beer is not a good way to get to know a professional who happens to be on her lunch break, even if she has admitted to you that she likes to drink on occasion.

Fourthly: Declaring that you need a girlfriend and then asking your new acquaintance if she is single is not a particularly suave move. Upon her assertion that she is in fact NOT single, it is equally unsuave to answer that your new acquaintance's significant other "doesn't need to know."

So, Joseph, I do apologize if I led you on, but I won't be meeting you for either of our birthdays. In fact, I will likely take an alternate walking route on both of those days. If you ever attempt to touch me again, please be forewarned that I've promised my husband that I'll call the cops on you.

Best of luck to you, and I hope your Mom and her new boyfriend are doing well.

Most Sincerely,
Diana (the girl with the long hair and the knit kitty hat)

 

Stop The World - I Want To Get Off

There are things that must be done. I made myself dinner, and I have to wash the dinner dishes. I need to assemble tomorrow's lunch. I really should look for the 401(k) rollover form from Sky Bank, since I'll be taxed a jillion dollars or something if they end up cutting me a check directly.

Besides those things, though, I have no intention of being productive tonight. That includes blogging about my Chicago trip.

My brain won't stop thinking about the server error message I got just before I left work today. I don't know how I broke the dev server, and I don't know how to fix it. I'm usually so good at not bringing work home with me; but tonight, it just won't be denied.

I shouldn't feel like I need a vacation already. Should I?

 

Ouch.

I was running late this morning, as usual. Grabbed my purse and went out to the car through the garage, also as usual. (We only have a one-car garage, and two cars, so the one that's most often used gets parked in the driveway.)

I hit the button for the garage door, and it took its sweet time to open. No big surprise there. I strode through the garage, past the Contour, and ducked under the opening door.

And clocked myself on the garage door.

...

Yes, my head still hurts.

 

Christmas Eve Checklist

Aaron's and my presents are opened.
Rock Band has been played.
My new 22" widescreen monitor has been set up.
The zucchini-chocolate cake is ready to go.
The sausage cake is baked, glazed and cooling.
The remaining presents are wrapped.
The directions to Uncle Pete's house have been unearthed from the Kia.

All is well. Merry Christmas, all.

 

Responsible Decisions

Having received severance and retention pay from my former employer, then having landed a job relatively soon after, I recently found myself with several thousand dollars burning a hole in my ING Direct savings account.

So many possibilities flooded my imagination. Another vacation to Japan? Or a trip to Ireland? Or maybe someplace else?

Alas, the grown-up part of me seized hold and reminded me that I have several thousand dollars in credit card debt that should really be paid down.

That's not saying that this Christmas won't be more kick-ass than usual, of course. There will also be a dishwasher in our future. And perhaps the professional installation of some ceiling fans, in view of the astronomical cost of installing central air in a house with no ductwork.

Generally, though, responsible finances reign. Oh, well.

 

Mrs. Grumpy-Pants

I tried to figure out my database reporting app all day, but was still confuddled by day's end.

I left work extremely hungry, thanks to the apparently under-nourishing lunch I packed this morning. I guess a breakfast banana, brown rice with salsa and cheese, sugar-free pudding and a small yogurt just aren't enough to keep me going. My plans to go to aikido were therefore thwarted, being that I required more sustenance than could be had in the five minutes I'd have at home before leaving for keiko.

One bowl of whole wheat rotini and tuna later — plus a bowl of Chocolatey Special K for "dessert" — I'm feeling sated.

Now I'm cold and tired, but don't want to go to bed too early. That just means that tomorrow's workday would come that much sooner.

Did I mention that Aaron's Xbox 360 red-ringed last week? That's a good month round trip until he gets a fixed Xbox. No vegging out in the recliner with Carcassonne or Backgammon or Catan or Puzzle Fighter. It's harder to veg out with a Wii game, since they all seem to require actual movement and interaction. :-)

Jeebus, I'm tired.

Just say no to the call of the refrigerator...

 

Shopping Spree

Yesterday, Aaron and I went down to the local GameStop so he could pick up some used video games during their buy-2-get-1-free sale. While we were in the strip mall, we just so happened to notice that there was a clothing store next door for sizes 14 and up. Not sure how I missed that, after living in the area for almost four years, but there it was.

Since I had been saying I needed more business casual attire, and since I'd gone into the game store with Aaron, he convinced me to go into the plus size clothing store and get myself some work clothes.

Aaron actually found the stretchy black button-down shirt, and I think he saw the cable sweater first, too. I know he pointed out the red pullover (which is a darker red IRL). I wasn't sure about the wraparound shirt, but it actually slims me quite a bit.

In addition to the four shirts, I got two microfiber underwire bras and one wireless bra. Thanks to my interest in this sports bra (before I realized it was a $65 sports bra), I'd recently re-measured myself to determine my correct bra size, which is actually an odd and difficult-to-find combination of band and cup sizes. Avenue had it, though, no problem.

I ended up spending nearly $200 on four shirts and three bras. Really, though, in the grand scheme of women's clothes, and especially plus sizes, that's not too bad. And now I have some classier business casual that isn't looking like it's past its prime.

Next time, though, I'll have to get some pants.

 

Giving Thanks

I am thankful for my new job, which is helping me grow both personally and professionally.
I am thankful for my loving husband, who supports me in everything I do.
I am thankful for my house, in which I feel safe and at home.
I am thankful for our two cars, which help us get to work and other places.
I am thankful for my health, without which life would be a lot more stressful and uncertain.
I am thankful for my glasses, which allow me to see clearly to read and drive and live.
I am thankful for confusion, which prompts me to seek out answers.
I am thankful for the internet, which helps me locate the answers I am seeking.
I am thankful for Huntington Bank, whose acquisition of Sky Bank spurred me to seek a new job.
I am thankful for my friends, who are understanding and supportive.
I am thankful for my bed, which is much more comfortable than an air mattress or a sleeping bag.
I am thankful for my family, who reminds me who I am and where I came from.
I am thankful for Riverview Elementary, whose Gifted program first developed my interest in computers.
I am thankful for Mary (Bindis) Franzosa, who introduced me to my husband nearly 12 years ago.
I am thankful for readers who leave comments, who assure me that I am relevant and interesting.

 

My Day So Far

8:51am - Alarm goes off, reminding me that I want to go to aikido at 10am. I roll over and go back to sleep.

10:45am - I realize that I need to leave soon to take Sensei's digital recorder back to the dojo while someone is still there and the door is unlocked. Get up, get dressed, pull hair back, and drive to dojo.

11:00am - Sensei isn't at the dojo, and a senior student is teaching the class that is just concluding. I put the recorder on Sensei's desk and beat a hasty retreat.

11:10am - Arrive home. Eat breakfast of Chocolatey Special K. Read e-mails and blog entries.

12:00pm - Attempt to wake the husband. Am shot down in favor of continued sleep. Come back downstairs and begin trying to fix my iTunes library (another story entirely).

12:30pm - The husband awakes and showers. Begin working on Zen podcast.

1:15pm - Lunch: one breaded, stuffed cordon bleu chicken breast, cooked by Aaron.

1:30pm - Resume editing podcast.

2:00pm - Upload podcast. Send e-mail to Sensei with a link and some potential show notes. Begin backing up CDs with drum corps photos and other materials onto my computer in preparation for sending them to the new Executive Director. Alternate computer availability between WinRAR and iTunes.

3:00pm - Backups complete. Take break to watch Aaron play Bioshock. Eat banana.

3:30pm - Receive e-mail that reminds me to check the drum corps forums' permissions. Realize, after some research, that there is no foul play and that I have b0rked the permissions myself. Rig a temporary fix so that members can actually see all the forums.

4:00pm - Forums unb0rked. Begin packing up CDs in a makeshift cardboard sleeve to be mailed to the Executive Director.

4:15pm - CDs packed. Do some more work on iTunes library. Talk with Aaron. Look over my to-do list. Cringe.

5:00pm - Talk with Aaron while he gets ready for work.

5:30pm - Say goodbye to Aaron. Feed the cat. Make dinner. Blog while eating at the computer.

It sure seems like I've been doing a lot of stuff today. So why do I feel like I'm treading water? Aaron says that maybe it's because everything I've done today (just about) has been for someone else, either the corps or the sangha.

Next on the agenda: Go for a walk and listen to the hour-long podcast I just put together (since I missed the actual talk, being out of town). Review some SQL for tomorrow's second interview downtown. Do some more cleaning and organizing, maybe.

Coming up on one month of joblessness. Hmm.

ETA: This article saved my ass the next day. Everything is magically fine again, without having to right-click on every damned file and browse to find its new location. Fantastic!

 

General Crap

I'm feeling the need to write something, although I don't really have a topic I want to rant about tonight.

Was pretty productive with the job search today. Applied for three jobs, and have a fourth in the works.

Worked on the redesign of my drum corps' website. Am satisfied with the first comp for now. Have some feedback from the Executive Director for some tweaks, which I will apply later this week.

Made some banana-coconut (a.k.a. Banana Cream Pie) candles tonight. At this point, I'm trying to whittle down my supply of old, half-used scents so I can justify buying more new ones. Still undecided about the holiday push for candle sales. It would really necessitate a website overhaul to work the way I want.

Am planning to do NaNoWriMo this year, even if I don't have a job by November. I'll have to split up my time between writing and job-searching (and working on the corps' website), but I think I can do it. I've never won NaNo before (i.e. written 50,000 words in 30 days), and it's about time I did. I have a premise and a few characters' subplots. They'll all come together at the end of my dystopian future society tale. Somehow.

Trying to get my sleep schedule back on track. Getting up before noon is an accomplishment, as is getting to bed before 2am. I'd sleep ten to twelve hours a night if I let myself, and I really don't think that's healthy.

Overall, I'm doing OK. Gained a little weight, am sometimes bored or depressed, but am trying to keep myself upbeat. I can pay bills. I'm relatively healthy. I've had a couple job interviews. I'm OK.

 

Girlie Time

Today was Heather's last day working for our mutual former employer. Today was also the day that many stores opened in The Shops At Fallen Timbers. Including Lane Bryant. So, after she was done having her exit interview and packing up her desk, we got together and went out for an evening of shopping and general girl-time.

First, we did a round of the mall, going into stores I wouldn't usually even give a second (or first) glance. American Eagle, Pac Sun, the Gap, places like that. We spent an inordinately long time in Bath and Body Works, where I got assaulted by the nice lotion lady — my hand *still* smells like Pomegranate lotion — but where I still purchased two body splash samples, two lotion samples, and a candle with the greatest fresh apple scent (which cost almost as much as all my samples put together).

After B&BW, we hit Lane Bryant, which was our main target of the evening. After standing in the soul-sucking dressing room line twice, I ended up buying one pant suit (brown), one suit jacket (black), one camisole (cream), and a pair of brown trouser socks. Yaye! I have a new interview suit! Two, actually, since the black jacket goes well over a black knee-length dress I bought online recently.

We took our haul out to the car, and went back for more malling. Our next and final stop was Payless, which was having a buy-one-get-one-half-off sale. I bought a pair of patent-leather flats and a pair of brown moccasins with a polka-dot accent bow. Super cute, both. I almost bought my first pair of heels since high school, but they only had it in size 11, and I needed a size smaller. I would have relearned to walk in heels for these shoes, totally.

Our evening had started around 4:30pm. By this time, it was well after 9pm — time for dinner. We drove back toward my house and went to Lone Star for a massive and yummy late dinner.

This really needs to be a monthly occurrence. We both enjoyed ourselves, had fun girlie time, and bought stuff. Maybe next time I needn't spend $200 on clothes and shoes and lotion and dinner... but I sure had a fun time doing it.

 

Guilty Pleasures

I don't ever look up exactly when it will be broadcast, but sometimes I'll flip past Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team 2... and watch the whole show.

Honestly, it reminds me of drum corps in a way. It's just that what they do is different from what we did, and even different from what the colorguard in the corps did. But it's rhythmically-based physical routines in unison, and something about that really catches my attention, no matter what genre it is. Maybe because I know what kind of concentration and memorization and muscle memory that takes, on top of the sheer physical nature of what you're doing. At least I didn't have to worry about my figure in order to make it into drum corps.

I think the show is also helping me to break through my jealous stereotypes of skinny chicks: the successful cheerleaders have to not only have flawless bodies and pretty faces, but they are actually judged on intelligence, not to mention their ability to dance and to learn choreography quickly and accurately. The dense and ditzy ones don't stand a chance.

I remain fixed in my assertion that many skinny hos are dumb blonde fluff chicks. Still, watching these ladies learn choreography and be both athletic and artistic makes me realize that I can't jump to conclusions.

Plus... even though I'm a girl, I still can appreciate the eye candy. And, really, what girl wouldn't like to fantasize about herself looking like a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader?

Don't lie.

 

Come On, Baby, Finish What You Started

I've been droning on about aikido a little too much lately, so I suppose I should write about something else already. I'm sitting here at work, with a painfully light workload, so this seems as good a time as any to write a blog entry (via e-mail to myself, of course).

Not that I have anything particularly pressing to blog about, mind you. Most of my "free" time lately has been spent job-hunting, nursing my pulled muscle, or escaping into Civilization IV.

Speaking of the job hunt: I've gone through my list, submitted my resume for those jobs I hadn't yet, followed up on past inquiries, and have started putting the finishing touches on my portfolio. I think I've got the portfolio working in all modern browsers, including Firefox 2, Opera 9, Safari for Windows, IE6 and IE7. Granted, there are a few minor display discrepancies: IE6 has an unfortunate space at the bottom of the page which activates the scroll bar, and Opera (or is it Safari?) doesn't highlight the items in my submenus. Those are minor details, though, and I can deal with the differences for now. Now, I'm going through all my featured projects and including examples and samples and links for each. I plan to have my portfolio complete by the end of next weekend.


In other news of the me, I ordered my very first Little Black Dress™ and a couple pairs of work-friendly Skechers online. I need to get myself down to Lane Bryant and spend a decent amount of money updating my wardrobe, although I feel funny either a.) shopping alone or b.) shopping with Aaron, and I don't really have any local girlfriends to shop with. What I'd really like to buy is a brown tailored pantsuit to go with my new shoes. (Wow... matching an outfit to a pair of shoes? That sounds unusually girly of me.)

Last time I really went ballistic on clothes shopping, I sorely needed a wardrobe update due to having lost, oh, fifty pounds? Now, though, I'm just tired of wearing the same crap to work all the time. Of course, I should probably hold off on buying work clothes until I get a new job and find out what the dress code is there. I'd hate to update my business casual wardrobe, just to find that I can wear Threadless shirts and jeans to work -- or, worse, that I have to go out and purchase an actual professional wardrobe, with multiple suits and accessories.


Also: Aaron and I had an in-depth conversation this weekend about my ability to finish what I start. I am absolutely notorious for starting a project, either coming to a hard part or just getting bored with it, and dropping it for the next Flavor of the Month. Websites, fiction, genealogy research, major cleaning, all have fallen prey to this habit of mine. He was particularly concerned with me finishing my portfolio website before I get involved in something else -- namely, instructing marching band for the first time. He reminded me that I don't do anything by halves -- quite like him, now that I think about it. I immerse myself in whatever new project I undertake: genealogy, candle-making, learning SQL, weight-loss, drum corps, aikido, whatever. I don't just try something or dabble in something. For this reason, I've specifically avoided starting any new projects, even though I've wanted to work on my fiction and genealogy research in the past months.

I might have to gracefully and humbly bow out of the marching band gig, even though I don't want to. I can see things that need fixing in the band, things that I might be able to help with, but I don't know if I should really be dedicating literally an entire evening a week to band, plus a good part of another evening a week to aikido.

I have some time to think it over, though, and to finish my portfolio before the next rehearsal I'm slated to attend. We'll see how things pan out.

 

Turning Over A New Mental Leaf

I could have had a shitty evening. My portfolio was throwing fits at IE6, and I'm unlikely to get any work done on it tomorrow or Wednesday, as I have evening plans both days. I was feeling a little stressed.

Instead of freaking out? I meditated for 15 minutes. I chatted with friends over IM, which I haven't done in ages. I posted a comment to a friend's blog that was cathartic in its own way. Responded to my bestest Amy-friend's e-mail from a couple weeks ago. And I figured out my coding problem, for the most part.

I'm feeling pretty good right now. Chilled. Relaxed. At peace with myself.

For the most part.

 

Well, Shit.

I was just sitting here, getting into some portfolio coding, when I heard something. Something like tornado sirens.

That's my cue to turn on the TV and check the local news. From the bit I heard and saw, Lucas County is under a Tornado Warning and will be hit by the storm in question in about 25 minutes.

Weather.com says the storm is "capable of producing a tornado," and that it also is capable of producing destructive straight line winds.

Hmm. Should be an awesome storm. I'm looking forward to it.

As for my portfolio... I'll just be sure to save often.

Update, 7:15pm: As promised, awesome storm. Too short, but awesome. Sat outside on the front step until it started to downpour. Sat in the living room with a candle and Channel 13 News until the danger of tornadoes passed. Now, I'm back to the portfolio... but with a window open.

 

Another Weird Dream

I've mentioned this before, but I hate having effed-up dreams wherein Aaron and I have weird relationship issues. Even though I know we're perfectly fine in our marriage, it always makes me wonder if my subconscious is seeing something I'm not.

Last night, dream-Aaron and I got married after having done a courthouse wedding a week or so before. (That was an odd dream sequence in many ways, but not particularly disturbing.) Then we went out and partied, but the bar was playing a song that Aaron associated with bad memories from high school, so we left and went elsewhere. Later on, he left me alone to go hang out with some guy friends and have a bachelor party of sorts. I wandered the streets alone, and found him some time afterward standing in a doorway with a friend or two, smoking a freshly-lit cigarette -- which I immediately called him on.

Both before and after the bachelor party, I remember that we had some serious and deep dream-conversations about us. I don't remember what they were about, specifically, but I awoke disturbed and uneasy.

This couldn't all stem from the fact that I didn't do the dishes last night like I told Aaron I would... could it?

 

Lonely

Aaron went back to work today, after two weeks of vacation. Two weeks of coming home to my honey at 5:15pm and not having him leave for work fifteen minutes later. Two weeks, granted, of being less productive than I should have in the evenings, thanks to spending quality time with my honey.

I should be happy tonight, though. I have a job lead that is (bad news) a good 40-minute commute away, but (good news) would pay literally double my current salary. I should be so effing stoked right now.

Instead? I'm in a weird, lonely, unmotivated mood. I'll probably curl up in front of the Food Network shortly, and call my evening a wash.

 

Home On The Range

We go camping at Harrison Lake tomorrow afternoon. Neither myself nor Aaron have been really camping since Scouts back in elementary school 1, so this should be fun.

We've got our s'mores action going on, our new king-size air mattress to go in our never-used dome tent we got as a wedding present back in 2003, our lawn chairs and bug spray and swimsuits and sunscreen and everything (hopefully) to help us get our camping fun on.

I hope this doesn't suck. This is more of a trial run, hence why we're only camping for one night. If we enjoy camping, maybe we'll do it more often. Until we're sure, though, 3pm Sunday through noonish Monday should be a sufficient getaway.

Update, Sunday @ noon: It's been raining since 8am. Chance of scattered thunderstorms all afternoon, all evening, and all night. Prospects aren't looking good... but maybe we'll pack up the car and head out, anyway, to see what Harrison Lake is like. We'll see how things pan out....

1 This, of course, is not including the ill-fated October camping trip of the girls of 2nd floor Kohl Hall back in 1999. Amy and I were the only people with competent fire-building skills, and our RA had to purchase firewood from a neighboring RV camper. An unseasonably warm October turned coats that night, and none of us got any sleep that chilly autumn night. What had started as an "I don't want to *know* if you have alcohol in your tent, *wink-wink*" party night ended as a 5am "Let's get back to the dorm and get some sleep" morning.

 

I Did It All For The Nookie

My husband is on vacation for the next two weeks. We should be having snoo-snoo EVERY NIGHT, given that we usually see one another for a grand total of 15 minutes on the weekdays, and this Evening Togetherness thing is quite a treat.

Instead? Yesterday I made myself too much dinner, and ended up too full to... well, you know. This evening, I've been totally exhausted, on top of having the most fascinatingly uncomfortable gas cramps. (TMI? Yeah, I know.)

So, yeah. I feel like a doofus. Tomorrow is aikido and zen meditation, both of which I should really attend, since I didn't go at all last week. But that means I won't get home until 9pm. Assuming I don't feel like this tomorrow evening, that is; if I do, there's no way in hell I'm going to aikido.

Dammit. I go off The Pill to get my libido back and stop being so goddamn cranky, and now we can't even manage to have Happy Time at all.

*sigh*

I have another week and a half to get my mojo going. Plus a camping trip on Sunday. If that doesn't at least engender some grab-ass... I dunno.

 

Ambiguity

When blogs first went mainstream several years back, there were a couple of complete strangers whose blogs intrigued me. Not because we had a lot in common — I don't know that we had *anything* in common — but because their designs were eyecatching, and mainly because the authors were so intentionally vague. The ambiguity of their posts made me wonder about them, and read more. Eventually, I found answers to some of my more basic questions: age, orientation, relationship status, things like that. But the topics of each post remained purposefully unknown.

I don't have very many vague strangers whose blogs I read anymore; most of them are either not vague at all (except with given names), or they've gone AWOL. One person whose blog I used to frequent has stopped blogging altogether; I grew bored with another's continual daily two-line ultra-depressed teasers with no informational or emotional payoff. With the advent of friends-locked entries and (relatively) secure social networking sites (and a distinct lack of interesting design in free blogs, which was what drew me to view certain blogs in the first place), there's little chance I'll ever completely recapture the odd sort of voyeurism I once enjoyed.

Every now and then, though, I read an intentionally vague entry by an acquaintance or a complete stranger, and I'm reminded of that delicious confusion in putting the puzzle together. "Isn't he living with his wife? Don't they have a kid? Why is he mentioning seeking out sexual relationships, then? Who is [insert cryptic name here], and how does he know her?" And so forth.

Many people are more guarded about their secrets than I.

 

Quick Weekend Recap

Friday night: watched webcast of J. K. Rowling reading the first chapter of Deathly Hallows at midnight British Summer Time (which was 7pm Eastern). Waited a few minutes after that, and couldn't take the suspense anymore. Downloaded HP7 from a favorite bittorrent website, and read the first 20 chapters before the book was officially released in the U.S.

Saturday: Aikido Basics Seminar from 9am to noon. Lunch at the Garden Cafe with Aaron, then back to the dojo at 3pm for a brief class and kyu testing. I wasn't testing this time, but it was valuable to watch the testing process, as I should be testing this fall. Hung out at the dojo after class, but didn't partake in the "pot luck." (There was some food, but the pot luck was mainly comprised of different kinds of alcohol. Sake, microbrews, champagne...) Got home just after 6pm and spent the evening at home with Aaron. (Deathly Hallows arrived from Amazon with Saturday's mail, BTW.)

Today: Aaron's off doing grocery shopping right now. Later this afternoon, we'll be meeting a co-worker/friend of Aaron's, and we'll all be driving up to Detroit for a free festival featuring They Might Be Giants. The one chance I had to see TMBG live, at BGSU, the show was cancelled due to lack of interest (supposedly), so I'm especially looking forward to tonight.

For now, though, I'm going to be reading some more Harry Potter until Aaron gets back from the store.

 

Making Things Plain

1. I am, in fact, currently depressed. This is for a number of reasons, both biological and circumstantial. Yes, I am PMS-ing, but I am also surrounded by people at my work who either a.) have interviews lined up, or b.) have definite jobs lined up. This is a big part of my depression, being that my ego thinks I'm so much more worthy than many of these people. (James: not you, necessarily, although I do admit to a touch of jealousy at your pimp-ass DBA gig.)

   Yes, I know that the solution is to apply for more jobs, and to eventually secure one. This brings me to:

2. I have now officially applied for seven jobs. Of these, I have received one "hire" (just got the check for last month's task of worthiness today) for undervalued part-time website coding; one request for an interview that never got to the scheduling stage for some reason (on their part); and one polite and standard e-mail confirmation. I have no room to bitch until I reach at least one dozen apps out, and until I've followed up with every blessed one of them at least once. I haven't applied for anything I haven't gone all googley-eyed for when I read it, since I don't want to settle on another sucky job. Yet.
3. My computer now has 2GB of RAM. This makes me somewhat happier. You want systems experience, do ya? I installed my new RAM in probably three minutes, and that was including the minute that I stared stupidly at the RAM before I remembered that there's only one way it'll fit in the slot. That was $130 well spent.

Addendum to #1: One person at my work chose: option c.) quitting work entirely to be with her newborn son. She's one of those who is very open with her feelings, and has shared with everyone her incredulity at the amount of love she has for her son. Being that she sits one cube over from me, the sound of her joy is rarely out of my range of hearing. This, of course, makes me sad. (If you don't know why, you missed this post in January.) I think this has a big part to play in my current depression, whether consciously or subconsciously.

All I know is that I'm getting seriously pissed at being so depressed. My depression always manifests in overeating and not giving a shit (about overeating and about Life In General). Therefore, even being pissed about being depressed is only mildly helpful, until the anger and frustration outweighs the depression. In any case, I wouldn't want to be around me right now.

 

Quick Update

Friday: Day off of work. Slept in. Opened National City bank accounts. Went to Pietasters show in Cleveland. Good openers, rowdy audience, great showing by the band. Awesome show. Bought a $10 shirt. Got a $10 parking ticket for a meter that ran out just 20 minutes before we got out of the show. We paid the damn thing $1.75 for the four hours it gave us, and I'm pretty sure it shorted us some time. At least it was only ten bucks, though, even if the cop had to have been sitting there and waiting for the meter to run out.

Saturday: Afternoon in BG. Madhatter is closing July 14th; it's the end of an era. Cosmo's coffee shop (where Aaron and I had our first date) is closed, too, among other former BG staples. Outskirts of town are booming, though. Had ice cream at the Marble Slab Creamery downtown. Party at James's house in the evening. Food and adult beverages and music and fireworks out in the country. Good times.

Sunday: Took a closet full of stuff to the thrift. Played Wii. Ordered an ice cream maker online. Made fettuccine alfredo for dinner. Normal laundry and shopping bit. Chilled-out sort of day.

Today: James's last day at Sky before going to his new job at BGSU. Spent the afternoon manning the front desk, and so managed to miss most of his desk-cleaning spree. Skipped aikido in favor of job-hunting this evening. Got sidetracked by an alert about some LSM forum spam that desperately needed taking care of. Ended up not being able to submit one specific job app yet because I need full reference info.

And that's the weekend in a nutshell.

When I get a new job, maybe I can do like James and fabricate myself a week vacation between gigs. I shouldn't feel like I need another vacation... but I do.

 

Fickle Brain

So, for the past few days, I've been trying to get myself onto a decent evening schedule. Turn off the computer around 9:30pm, make tomorrow's lunch, pick out tomorrow's clothes, read for a while, and have lights out by 11pm. It's worked pretty well, and I've been waking up more refreshed (if not always on time, as per usual).

Tonight, I'd like to stay up later, since I'm taking the day off work tomorrow. (We're going to a Pietasters show in Cleveland tomorrow evening, and there's NO WAY I'd be able to stay up for a late show if I went to work.) I spent my evening playing Wii — oh, by the way, Aaron bought a Wii this week! — and just realized that I missed my favorite TV show again. D'oh! At any rate, I thought that I could stay up a little later, do some websurfing (or something more productive), or maybe play some computer games now that I'm done with Wii Sports... but no. My brain is all, "OK, time to start shutting down for the night!"

Dammit. Why must you be catching onto this schedule thing so well?

 

Dinner Date

Went to dinner with some former co-workers after work today: Loni and Angie, with whom I worked in Lockbox; and Jen, who worked in Lockbox after I'd left, but also worked in Loan Corrections with me until recently. We looked at Jen's wedding pictures and my Japan pictures, and talked about our job prospects after the upcoming merger.

I hadn't really been in the mood to be social until I got there, but I'm glad I went. I'd forgotten how fun it can be to swap stories and just socialize with people other than Aaron's friends. Granted, I do like Aaron's friends, and most of them I can count as my own friends by now. It's a little different to go out with The Girls, though, and talk about old times and future plans.

I don't think I'm "outing" Loni by publishing the fact that she's planning to start a Lockbox business of her own in short order. She's talked to an attorney, potential clients, Sky's HR department, and the company that develops the processing software, and she seems to have her ducks all in a row. It's awesome that she has a plan for the remainder of her pre-retirement years (and she does have a while yet), but it's funny that she's going back into the business that we all so vehemently tried to escape. She knows what kinds of mistakes not to make, though, and how fast she can grow, how many accounts she can take on, things like that. I'll be curious to keep tabs on how her business fares.

Angie noticed that I'd lost weight since I'd seen her last — looking at my handy-dandy historical weight chart, I see that I've lost about fifteen pounds since then. It made me feel pretty good that, despite my uber-slow weight loss of late, she noticed as soon as she saw me that I was looking slimmer than before. I also mentioned that I've been doing strength training and following the Body for Life program... then I ate a shrimp quesadilla while she stuck with the taco salad. Meh.

All in all, I enjoyed my visit with my old co-workers. Yeah... sometimes I forget that there are other people out there who really do give a damn.

 

Ack.

Feeling quite busy. Have job-hunting-related projects to complete. Have websites to maintain. Have to CLEAN MY DESK OMG. Only getting one major task accomplished per night, and blogging about Japan is falling to the wayside (for now).

I'm proud of myself that I've still been working out every evening, without fail (except on my Saturday off), and have continued to pre-pack my lunches for the next day.

If I ever manage to get caught up with all the things I want to accomplish in my life, that'll only be because I'm dead.

 

Mom's In Da House

Mom arrived on Thursday evening to start her house-sitting and cat-sitting tenure. She'll be here while we're gone, then probably hang out with us for another week or so before going back to Texas. It'll be nice to have her around for a while, although it *will* change up our normal routine. Sometimes you need that, though.

I am now officially on vacation. I don't have to be back to work for a week and a half. Woo-hoo!

 

Birthday Weekend 2007

I hadn't been going to blog about this weekend, until my cube-buddy James mentioned how much stuff I'd been telling him that I did this weekend. I hadn't really thought about it, but I suppose Birthday #31 was a pretty jam-packed weekend.

Saturday began with a little evilness: lunch at the Happy Rose Buffet. Afterward, we went next door to Lowe's and purchased a square shovel and potting soil. (I need to remove the dead grass from the edges of our sidewalk, and I need to repot my houseplants.) Then we made our weekly pilgrimage to Goodwill, and of course found nothing of interest.

Earlier in the week, we'd gotten an advertisement from Banner Mattress and Furniture in the mail, touting their latest "No Interest, No Payments Until..." deal. The magic year: 2011. Four years to pay off a minimum of $1000 of furniture. We are in need of some new furniture — and not just "new-to-us" furniture like we've been using all our adult lives. It's time to grow up and actually buy a couch.

So we did.

We meandered around Banner Mattress for probably a half hour, deciding on a large sofa, recliner / massager, and an understated dining room table and chairs. The financing didn't work out quite as we'd hoped, and we ended up with one year instead of four to pay off our $1700 of new furnishings, but that's still quite do-able. The couch and dining room set will be delivered sometime on Saturday, and the recliner will arrive in six to eight weeks (we just *had* to special-order the green color instead of taking the burgundy that was in stock). Due to the financing snafu, we ended up being at Banner for much, MUCH longer than we'd originally intended... but that's OK. I think the new furniture's worth the wait. Plus, we got to get all up-close and personal with our intended couch while we waited. :-)

That evening, Aaron took me to birthday dinner at Red Lobster, where I indulged in some lobster and shrimp, and we shared not only stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer, but also the Chocolate Wave for dessert. We then came home and enjoyed a short stroll around the neighborhood, to take in the fantastic weather and get our dinner moving along.

After our walk, Aaron let me open my birthday present.

He got me a new iPod. 30GB. With a screen twice as big as the one on my Mini.

I wasn't expecting that AT ALL. I promptly synched it up to my iTunes, then ordered a belt clip and a nifty brushed aluminum case online. Even with my entire iTunes library on my iPod, it's not even half full. I was swapping out music left and right on my Mini, to keep the songs I liked and still switch out some fresh music. This is going to be friggin' sweet.

And that was Saturday.

Sunday was a bit more normal, more low-key, but no less enjoyable. Lunch was grilled BBQ burgers at home. After lunch was a trip to Oak Openings for an hour-long walk on the nature trail. On the way home from Oak Openings, I caved in and requested a stop at Dairy Queen, where we both got Blizzards. (Smalls, of course, although they still had 61g of sugar apiece. Hell, it was my birthday. I didn't care.)

Then the day went into the more ordinary: I did laundry, and Aaron left to do shopping. When he came back, he made me peanut butter chicken for at-home birthday dinner, we relaxed for a while, and we had birthday snuggle-time.

Overall, it was an exceptional birthday weekend, and not just because Aaron got me an iPod. ^_^

 

Productive

Finished the initial roll of film in the Brownie Starmite. Today was appropriately sunshiny, so I took identical photos to yesterday's overcast ones, plus some others to pad out the roll. Wrote a check to Dwayne's Photo for $14, packed up the film, and will be shipping it off tomorrow morning. I expect to have twelve 4" x 4" prints in my hot little hands by May 1st.

Put away the mess of clothes on the floor by the bed. Went into the small bedroom and arranged all of our board games on a small plastic shelving unit in the closet. (Damn, we have a lot of board games. Trivial Pursuit especially.) Moved my empty steamer trunk from the small bedroom to beside my nightstand. Sometime in the near future, I'll be going through the linen closet and moving blankets into the trunk to make room for the new sheets I intend to purchase.

Submitted the new freelance site to Google for spidering and indexing. I'm planning to use a Google search for the site search, so a good spidering by Google would be a definite plus. Still have a lot to do... I'm not going to end up getting everything done this week that I told them I would. I knew I was giving myself a mighty tall order, what with the laundry list of stuff I had yet to do. Not to worry. It'll get done well before the Japan trip. Hopefully by the end of April, if not sooner.

Paid my credit card bills. A simple task, but still one that makes me feel... satisfied? Relieved? Accomplished? Meh. It's done, anyway.

Paying bills is going to get more interesting in July, when Sky changes over to Huntington's payroll system. Bi-weekly instead of semi-monthly. This will take some getting used to, after being paid on the 15th and the last day of the month for the past 4½ years.

 

Facebook Is Evil.

Over Easter, I got talking about social networking sites with Aaron's cousins. The consensus was that Facebook was better than MySpace. OK, I thought, but no one I know is on Facebook.

How could I have been so wrong?

After having Facebook scour my Gmail contacts for Facebook friends, then me perusing *their* friends for mutual friends, plus searching for random friends of my own, I'm discovering that I probably know just as many people on Facebook as on MySpace. Which still isn't many in the grand scheme of things, but still. I've spent way, WAY too much time exploring Facebook in the past couple of days, instead of doing something more productive. Like finishing my freelance project.

Current count:
- Livejournal, 8 actual people-I-know friends.
- MySpace, 25 actual people-I-know friends.
- Facebook, 7 10 12 actual people-I-know friends (so far... some are pending)

Like I tell everyone who dogs on MySpace: I like to keep in touch with people. If everyone wrote their own blogs on blogspot or LJ or whatever, I'd go read them. Since so many people are all in one place, though, it's easier to join up there and catch up with them all at once. Hooray to Facebook for letting me import my blog's RSS feed, too. Makes my job easier. Don't need the usual "I don't post here b/c I have a blog" post.

And, with that, I'm done for the night. Nothing useful accomplished, except an attempt to book a ryokan room. And finding a few more long-lost friends.

 

Signs of Spring

As I sat on my couch, reading my cooking magazine, a sound came in through the open window.

The ice cream truck. Playing the ever-popular ice cream truck tune, "Turkey in the Straw."

I didn't think 60-ish degrees was warm enough to entice kids to buy ice cream yet, but I've been wrong before. Even so, it's a pleasant enough harbinger of warm weather to come.

 

Out of Nowhere

Can someone please tell me where I might find the shut-off valve for my left nostril?

kthx.

 

Diagnosis: Funk

Damn these moods. I really, REALLY need to come up with the wherewithal to jumpstart myself out of a funk, once I recognize said funk.

Turns out that pulling a double-shift of sorts to complete a contracting project is A Bad Idea™, as the project will then have major issues and need to be fixed by someone else before going off to proof. Submitting B-minus work in Real Life has much different connotations than in college. In college, it's just your grade. In Real Life, it's your reputation.

Adding to my funk is the fact that my weight loss has plateaued before it ever really began. Starting March 1st, James and I have been having a friendly wager as to who can amass the most SparkPoints in the month of March. It's less of a weight-loss contest and more of a contest of wills. Who is more involved in reaching their fitness goals? Right now, it's James, totally. We were neck and neck for the first week of March, then I started lagging behind because of the same reasons I always stall out: I have other things to do, or I'm in a funk and can't make myself exercise, or lack of planning convinced me to make a fast and evil dinner (like tuna mac).

My next dietary step is to increase my fiber and my protein. My next exercise step is to get back to doing it every day, like I'd been so enjoying for a week there. My next webstuff step is to do some minor updates on the LSM site, then complete a working demo of my freelance client's website (the stylesheets, not all the content yet) by Sunday night.

Tonight was a night for myself to chill. And for cooking. Tomorrow's potluck will have at least two reasonably healthy dishes: mine and James's.

*le sigh*

 

On Blogging

I was looking through my old archives today, seeking out the tattoo of my name in Elvish that I really wanted to get back in 2002:

when it occured to me that I've been doing this blogging thing for quite a while now. Nonstop. Since September 2002, and sporadically before that, before blogging had a name (that I knew of, anyway). Reading Dooce's entry from today about the anniversary of her own website made me think about it again.

Sometimes I wonder if I should be trying to "make it" in the blogosphere. If I should get some Google Ads going on, and write more carefully-crafted entries that read more like essays on Life than normal journal entries. And I realize that this is still what it's always been: my journal, but online, for my long-distance friends to read.

One of the main reasons I started this, besides to get back into daily writing and journaling, was to keep in touch with all my scattered friends in Michigan, Missouri, California, Illinois, Arizona, and various places in Ohio, amongst others. That random strangers and new friends find my blog is just a bonus.

Do I wish this thing were bigger and more popular? Not really.