This week I've been noticing how horrible my posture is. Seriously, it's bad. I sit down at my desk, and five minutes later, I'm hunched down over my keyboard. When I type I tilt my head to one side (usually the right), and hunch down even more. At home, at work, it makes no difference. How fucking hard is it to sit up straight?
September 2007 Archives
Mascara cannot help define your eyelashes if it's in your husband's truck (where you left it yesterday) and you are not.
I did indeed receive my Nancy Drew game before yesterday, so there will be no beheadings this week. I also FINISHED it before yesterday. The game was sitting on the doorstep waiting for me when I got home Monday afternoon (along with a box from Amazon containing two books and a CSI game for my pretty, pretty laptop, but those are stories for another day), so I tore into it like an impatient consumer and started playing right away. I put in about 45 minutes or so of gameplay before bedtime, but, like a nitwit, I forgot to, you know, SAVE the game before I turned off the DS, so I had to start from the beginning again on Tuesday when I picked it back up. In spite of that, I managed to finish the game before Mike got home from class Tuesday night.
The game itself was pretty fun, and Bess, George, and Nancy's dad interacted with her at some points in the game while Ned chauffeured Nancy around River Heights. While I enjoyed playing it, I think it's safe to say that this game was not made with 26-year-old women in mind as its target audience. It was a little too easy. Everyone I needed to talk to had an exclamation point over their head, everything I needed to look at had a magnifying glass hovering above it, and everywhere I needed to go was marked with a stick figure. Now, I appreciate my fair share of handholding, but this didn't feel like it left much of a challenge for me, and that was a little disappointing. I'm hoping that the upcoming CSI DS game proves to be more challenging.
I am a bundle of contradictions lately - one moment I am energized, happy, enthusiastic, and motivated, while the next I am lethargic, grouchy, and snappish. This is a week of daily migraines so I suppose that's par for the course, although I am not happy about it, Sam-I-Am. Not at all. I am oversensitive to the nth degree, reading into everything, and, sweet mother of Moses, am I out of patience with everyone and everything...even my wiener-babies. When they start irritating me, I know I am in full Grinch mode. It is not good.
Part of it is the hormones and migraines, yes, but I also think my respiratory/sinus problems are contributing, too, particularly in their impact on my sleep, as in, I'm not sleeping well these days. I am looking at next week's appointment as a magic bullet. I hope the specialist has a magic wand, 'cause at this point I want a miracle.
Normally I like seeing the morning sunlight while I'm sitting at my desk, but today I have a migraine, and the sun that's pouring in through the blinds is not doing anything to improve things.
House keys and car keys are not interchangeable, no matter how many times you try to use one in place of the other.
I have GOT to stop putting off my homework till the last minute. It is killing me, y'all. Last night I stayed up until after 11 working on my web design assignment. I would've been done before then but some time around 10:30 the program I was using to create a storyboard crashed, and I had to start over from scratch. (Note to self: Remember to save your work periodically so this does not happen again.)
As if the news of a Nancy Drew DS game wasn't exciting enough, I just found out that a CSI DS game (CSI: Dark Motives) is in the works. I'll have to wait for it though, because it's not scheduled for release until November 27.
There is a Nancy Drew DS game, and soon it will be mine! Not as soon as I would've liked, though. Mike and I went into EB Games on Tuesday so he could pick up Eternal Sonata. While I was waiting for him, I browsed through the printout of new and upcoming releases for DS games and saw the Nancy Drew game on the list. According to that printout, it was supposed to be released that day, but when I asked about it, the elfin-looking guy behind the counter said that the release date on that list is actually the day it ships, so they wouldn't have it in until Wednesday. With that in mind, I stopped Best Buy on my way home on Wednesday to pick up Nancy Drew, but they told me the game wouldn't be released until next Tuesday. My next stop was EB Games, where they told me that, yes, they had said the game would be in stock that day, but, well, it wasn't. And even though my little elfin friend from the previous day looked in the computer and called one of the other local EB Games stores, they couldn't tell me why. So I pouted, ate the ice cream Mike bought me at Maggie Moos (he knows how to make everything better), then went home and ordered it online. I even paid extra to have it delivered by the weekend so I could play my new game instead of studying for my networking test. In spite of that, the UPS site says it's going to be delivered on Monday. This does not please me at all. There is a Nancy Drew game that can be played on my pretty, pretty DS, but I CAN'T PLAY IT YET BECAUSE I CAN'T GET IT ANY SOONER THAN MONDAY. Good thing I'll be able to spend most of Wednesday getting acquainted with Ms. Drew while I sit in waiting rooms.
If I do not have my game by Wednesday, HEADS WILL ROLL.
I just read this short article about a woman's experience when she tried to stop complaining for a week. While I would've liked to see the article go into a little more detail, it's a thought-provoking idea for me. I know I complain a lot. I also know how unpleasant it is to be around people who are negative all the time, and I like the idea of taking a break from complaining for a set amount of time. Sometimes complaining helps me feel better, but more often than not I find myself getting more upset about whatever it is I'm venting about.
I've heard people mention Moleskine notebooks for a few years now, but for some reason I had mentally pegged (and dismissed) them as a notebook for overzealous fans of something or another. Mike ordered a Moleskine watercolor pad last week, and when it arrived today it came with a sheet showing some of Moleskine's new products - city notebooks. Of all the cities Moleskine makes notebooks for, the ones I want to visit are Boston, Chicago, LA, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Amsterdam, Berlin, Barcelona, Dublin, Florence, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Montreal, Prague, Rome, and Venice. I think it would be neat to use those books as the backbone for a scrapbook of our trip when Mike and I go to a city from that list. I ordered the books for DC (we live in the area, but we're talking about making more trips into DC to take pictures and see the different sights/attractions, and I would like to document those trips) and Boston to begin with, but I would like to eventually get all of them to keep on hand for when we start travelling more and can visit places in Europe.
If you have glasses with screws that have a tendency to pop out, leaving nothing to hold your lenses in place, get one of those tiny screwdrivers to keep in your car so you don't ever again have to use your fingernail to screw one of those miniscule screws back in.
- Someone had an ice-cold can of Coke at the admin luncheon I went to today (the theme was tailgaiting food - crackers and cheese, veggies and dip, pork barbeque sandwiches...better than what I had brought in, that's for sure!), and ever since I saw it I have been craving one. Not a bottle of Coke, not a glass or cup of it, a can. I may hit up a vending machine at work tomorrow.
- I got a 100 on my first graded networking assignment! (I turned in one the week before, but it hasn't been graded yet because I had to resend the files in a different format so my professor could open them.) I am so excited. I'm still not optimistic about the rest of the class, though. My mind is just not geared for that stuff, I think. Or maybe it's 'cause I'm skimming the chapters...
- We got a tax refund check in today's mail, which was quite a nice surprise since we weren't expecting a refund this year. While it's not enough to take a vacation to a tropical island with, it's more than a shiny nickel, and it's going straight into a savings account.
- There were pumpkins at farmer's market when I went last weekend. Hello, fall!
- For A Few Demons More and Kushiel's Justice, the new books in Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series and Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series, respectively, are out and on their way to me as I type. I ordered a book of kitchen tips, too. I love books.
- I'm totally loving the BtVS - Season Eight comics. It really does feel like it's another season of the show, and I'm glad Joss went ahead with the idea. I'm even looking forward to the comic book season of Angel, which should tell you how serious this is.
- My sinuses are still pretty messed up, and the current manifestation involves an alternately stuffy and runny nose. I can't smell much of anything unless it's really strong (like the skunk spray that was stinking up our front yard the other night), which is both a blessing and a curse. It makes cleaning out the puppies' litter box MUCH less unpleasant, and Mike's cigars don't bother me as much as they normally would, but it also makes it hard to enjoy my morning bowl of oatmeal with pumpkin and baked cinnamon apples. And it would be nice to be able to breath through my nose again at some point.
- I love the way Maddy puts her paws on my face when she's giving kisses. It's almost like she's holding me in place until she's done. Sometimes she changes it up and only puts one paw on me, which is just as cute.
I saw a link to this money confession photo essay on Fabulously Broke in the City, and this one caught my attention:
"I had to place my dog into the pound due to lack of money. I wish I hadn't. I wonder if someone adopted him?"
I view the puppies as part of our family, and I do not EVER want to be in a position where money keeps me from taking care of them as they need it, nor do I want to have to give them up because of financial reasons. I can't stand the mindset that pets are disposable.
I am wide awake, but I don't have the energy (well, motivation, really) to do anything more than crawl back in bed and eat cookie dough. Unfortunately, the work situation from Friday (it sucks) means that I have to go in, at least for a little bit, and it will be better if I do not go in late. No cookie batter till later. I will, however, be thankful that the superbeautifulaweseome weather from the weekend is still with us because I don't think I could possibly love it any more. I love the cool, almost cold even, mornings, the way the day warms up to beautiful, but not hot, and the way the evening cools off again. It is perfect weather to throw open as many windows as possible, which is exactly what I did over the weekend and will do again when I get home early to mope and eat raw oatmeal cookies.
Grandwitch died this morning.
This weather is fantastic. I love it more than I can put into words. I've had the windows open since we got home yesterday afternoon to let the fresh air waft throughout the house, and this is exactly what I think the beginning of fall should feel like. To help get into the right mindset I made some bean soup for dinner last night, using a ham bone and the recipe from How To Cook Everything (thank you again, Karinne - it's my favorite cookbook), and it fit my mood perfectly. I'm sure I'll be grumbling about the cold sometime around December, but for right now I'm looking forward to the cooler weather.
Yesterday, it was my zipper; today as I was sorting through some mail, my hand brushed against something cold and wet on the sweatshirt I was huddled in to keep warm (they're doing some sort of work to the AC in my builiding this week, and it is FREEZING). It might have even been a bit slimy. I don't know about you, but I prefer to keep my emergency-warmth sweatshirts dry and non-slimy, so this freaked me out a tiny bit, until I looked down and realized that I had spilled some yogurt on my shirt.
Thank God I spend the majority of my workday sitting down behind a computer. My zipper has apparently been down for some undetermined amount of time, but the first I knewof this was when I went into the bathroom and noticed that I didn't have to unzip my zipper because IT WAS ALREADY DOWN. Good thing I'm wearing underwear today.
Mike and I went to see this last night, and it was pretty good. I am paranoid about not getting to the theater with enough time to get our tickets, any snacks we might want, and get seated before the previews start (I love watching the previews, Mike hates them), but in spite of my certainty that leaving the house with 15 minutes was not going to give us enough time, it did. (I did miss the first part of the previews, but that's because I was wishy-washy about getting a snack until after we'd given the usher our tickets and were on our way to sit down. And even with the long line at the concession stand, I still made it back in time to catch the previews for The Mist and 30 Days of Night, both of which look very interesting. Also in upcoming movie news - I saw the poster for The Dark is Rising, and staring at it was the highlight of my time spent waiting in various lines.) As far as the actual movie went, I liked it. I haven't seen any of the original Halloween movies, so I don't have any baseline or reference point to compare it to, however, the movie effectively creeped me out to the point that I scurried up the stairs as fast as I could after turning off the lights before bed because I am no fool - I just spent two+ hours watching Michael Meyers detach himself from shadows and noiselessly go after his next unsuspecting vicitm. Hell if it's going to be me.
If your phone rings during a movie, do not answer it in the theater - take it out to the hall to have your conversation, especially if you are going to inquire about the caller's baby, ask about halftime of a game that's on tv, and tell the caller about your plans to leave at 7:30 the next morning. If you DO take such a call and have a similar, non-emergency-related, conversation, do not spend the next fifteen minutes after you hang up asking your spouse what's going on in the movie because you missed it while you were chatting on the phone. ("How many years later is it?" "Fifteen." "Oh, I thought it was ten or something.") I guarantee you your fellow movie-goers will wish they had laser eyes with which to turn your inconsiderate ass into bacon. Or maybe that's just me.
The teeth cleaning results: Jordan had to have two teeth extracted. Well, technically they only extracted one - the other tooth FELL OUT when they started scraping off the tarter, which was apparently the only thing holding it in. My poor little man. He was so happy to see me when I picked him up, and on the way home he curled up in my lap and mooshed his nose to the window for the entire trip, only moving when the truck jolted or went around a turn. Now that we've been home for a bit he seems to be doing okay, just very sleepy, which I think is probably from a) the anesthesia and b) the pain pills the vet sent him home with, but that won't keep me from fretting over him every few minutes until I know for sure he's feeling better. In other news, he has to have soft food until the sockets heal from the extractions, so he'll be eating a mix of canned food and his regular kibble (softened in hot water) for the next week. This means I need to give the other two a smidgen of canned food too so we don't have any squabbles. They're like toddlers, minus the diapers.
I dropped Jordan off at the vet this morning so he could have his teeth cleaned, and he was the most pitiful thing you have ever seen. After he got through sniffing everything within reach in the vestibule he wanted to be picked up, so while I was filling out the paperwork (of which there was more than I anticipated, btw. I naively thought I would just walk in and drop him off, which, no) I held him while he looked around and quivered. Then the vet tech came out to take him back, and he wanted nothing to do with her. He tucked his tail between his legs, crouched as low to the ground as he could get, and pressed himself against my legs. When I stepped away so the tech could get him, he hid between, then behind, my legs, trying to stay as close to me as possible. I ended up holding him while she put their leash on him, but he still didn't want to go with her. He dug his little paws into the floor and wouldn't budge, and since it was a leash/slip-collar combined, she could only pull so much before it would start choking him, so she was trying to get him to go with her without strangling him. That's the picture I saw as I left him there - my little rescue puppy who took so long to completely warm up to us, not wanting me to leave him there with the nice, but strange (to him), people who're going to do bloodwork, give him anesthesia, clip his nails while he's asleep and can't fight about it, and then clean the hell out of his teeth. I'm sure I was more upset about it than he was, but I'm still going to give him extra snuggles and fuss over him more than usual this evening. Hopefully he'll have much nicer breath when we pick him up.
Grandpa seems to be doing well with the chemo, but Grandwitch is not doing well at all. Things are at the point where she needs to have someone with her all the time (partly because she's so sick and partly because of the mental illness, which is apparently making her a real peach to deal with), and she's not eating hardly anything. The doctor said that if she doesn't start eating more, she's going to starve before the cancer does her in, although I'm sure he said it much nicer than that. Mom's flying out again today to see if she and her brothers can work with Grandwitch to get her stuff in order before things go even further downhill.
I'll be glad when this ends because she's in so much pain and my mom and uncles are going through so much to try to help her, but I'll be heartbroken too. This is the grandmother who used to put on magic shows locally for birthday parties, hospitals, and other occasions (which is why she was dubbed "Grandwitch"). Because we moved around so much, we didn't get to visit them often, but when we did, she would put on spectacular magic shows for us, complete with a dove and colored smoke. She would also hide little trinkets (quarter-machine rings and the like) in her garden for us to find, and for the longest time I believed that she did indeed have a magic garden, complete with fairies that hide those treats for us.
This is all about the frivolous, my friends. I got a haircut on Thursday, and I'm just now deciding that I kinda like it. It's shorter than I had in mind, but it's not as horrible and face-fat emphasizing as I first thought it was, so, yay. I also got it colored FINALLY (no more chunks of light-colored roots, also yay!), and, as always, I berated myself for waiting so long in between colorings. My hair looks much better red than it does in its naturally strawberry-blond state, but after about five weeks, I start procrastinating on my next visit to my stylist. Why? Because I am lazy, I think, and when it gets to a certain point, I forget how much I love my hair when it's red.
My body has decided to systematically shut down* (or at least misfire) over the past few days. In addition to my sinusy woes, my stomach is killing me too. All because I ate a little mac 'n cheese (homemade, otherwise the tummy pains would be understandable) with some ham. I am SUCH a joy to live with.
When washing your face, it's a good idea to take your fucking glasses off first - if you don't, expect to meet resistance when you try to rub your wet hands over your face.
