Cooking Tip of the Week

Just a tip but if you are going to make sesame chicken DO NOT over cook the sauce my sister and I found out what happens when you do. It turns into cement really yummy cement but murder on my dishes.

Happy Holidays

Well it was the holidays and I survived a few days with my mother we cleaned her basement out and took a ton of stuff to ARC, the ironic part here is a lot of stuff we took to ARC was bought from ARC. My mother shops to much. I stole my sister from her parents for the week and she seems to be liking the break. my mother assumed I was taking her to watch little man while I do some stuff but I took her to give her a break from her parents and get her to do new stuff. Next week we are going to Nana's house for the week and get another holiday and let her see little man. Yesterday we went out on the snowmobiles and OUCH! I hurt today we watched Roberts friend build a jump for his snowboard and then attempt to use it and he kept crashing at least it was amusing. I fell off the snowmobile when Mr man went before I was holding on tight enough and OUCH. But don't blame him I wasn't paying attention and it was my fault. I may hurt today but it was still fun. My Dad bought me a $90 computer program and I wasn't expecting him to go for that it was a surprise and yeah he didn't even complain. I guess divorce is agreeing with him and he is trying to buy me I still don't know if I trust him yet. Well I'm going to try to make sesame chicken for dinner tonight. Wish me luck.

Hope everyone had a very Merry Holiday!

Ladies,

I just wanted to drop a quick post to wish everyone a late
merryXmas (or whatever holiday you may have celebrated with friends and family). We did our share to support the economy and brighten the lives of those around us this year, and I truly hope all of you, my cherished friends, had a bright and good season filled with love and wonder.

This year was the first time I had my own money to spend on a gift for Mr. Borealis. He's put up with a lot from me over the last few years, what with my perpetual unemployment and student status, so I wanted to get him something really nice. When his iPod died a few months back and he started pining after the sleek purplr nano on the iPod website, I knew what had to be done.

I saved up and bougt him that nano. It was expensive, but good god, after him supporting both of us for so long by himself, he deserved that much. He had no idea it was coming and his face lit up like a freaking atomic bomb when he opened it.

This season I also learned that despite my strong character, my love can be bought. In the most immediate return of karma I have ever seen, this post was typed and delivered via the new iPod touch my mother-in-law got for me.

God bless us, every one!

Alula

Yet one more awesome thing to do online...

Scrapbooking: Check out the free software offered by Scrapbook Flair, and additional reviews here. There are a lot of these free album-creating softwares out there now, and I think they're totally awesome because they play to my need to be creative with photographs without the need to buy and store a bunch of stuff. Also, the templates, backgrounds, etc., are updated regularly and downloadable. I made the following scrapbook page using this program (this is an exported .jpg image--the actual scrapbook page is much bigger):

Resolutions

Hey Ladies,

Resolutions stink they only lead to disappointment! So this year is the same as last year.

1. Shed some pounds

2. Keep the house cleaner

3. Get a job

4. Get a online store running

DoHP's resolutions

So for 2009, I was 0/3.

So for this year
1- Get and stay organized
2- Find a job I like somewhere I like
3- Donate books and clothes to Goodwill

Hopefully I will be able to do that!

Please Help me Decide!

OK I can't decide what to get with this amazon gift card I got from Nana. Normally I would get books but I want other things now plus I don't really have time to read much. So I narrowed it down to two ideas either a dance game for our xbox 360 because I really need the exercises and I liked the game when I played plus I think little man would get a kick out of it. My other idea is to get some photo software because my guys come back with the most awesome pictures from their hunting trips. Well I can't decide and I don't know what to get something for myself is a novelty at this point. please help.

Walmart Fabric Department

Hey Ladies,

Walmart is pulling its fabric departments at the beginning of the new year. Its a financial disaster for me, I get 90% of my fabric there because of the prices. I'm not sure how much it will help but if you thing this is a bad move for Walmart, here is a link to a petition.

http://www.petitiononline.com/savefab/petition.html

Thanks!

Resolutions

Here are my resolution contributions:

1. Have a baby on the way (hopefully here sometime)

2. Set my major for UNC and get school stuff ready for summer

3. Learn to clean my house to please the husband

~Munchkin

New Year Resolutions

I have 2 new years resolutions they are make one of my business a success and get little man potty trained. Simple ideas seems like impossible to achieve. We will see.

Holiday Psychosis

I just turned in my last final yesterday. Being entirely honest with myself, I did my best but I'm going to say the assignment is really worth about an 80%--I'm just not that good at Lakota. Really, I just want to pass my classes. I am way beyond the value of grades at this point, because I've come to the realization that they are entirely subjective to the opinion and abilities of the Professor teaching the course. I learn, and I pass, and I don't worry about jumping through the flaming hoops of tailoring my opinion to fit that of whoever is grading anymore.

Chores are stacking up around my house, and I suppose I'm going to have to take care of those today (to include laundry--washing/drying/folding/putting away, dishes, refilling fish tanks, and wrapping gifts). This will all be happening after work today, which I will run from 1-4, so hopefully I can get it done by the time Mr. B gets home from work.

All my Xmas decorations are up, and I'm trying to work out plans for the holiday. It's my family's turn this year, though I have a feeling that Mr. Borealis's will (as always) try to steal it in any means possible. I'm taking off next week from work to deal with the craziness of the last few months, and my Xmas shopping is 90% done.

I am strongly considering my resolutions for the coming year; I'm 1 for 3 this year, but my goals on the online store kind of changed when I got my current job. I'm still willing to do what I can if someone else is willing to manage day to day operations. I am officially ending the year the same weight I started at, and hoping I can turn this around now that I have the money to pay for a gym because I got a job (excuses, excuses--I squarely accept the blame for my own laziness , but continue to dream that I will develop some self-control and discipline). Here is my in-progress list of resolutions for 2010:

-lose 30 pounds (it's still medical--and the medical need to do this is becoming progressively worse)

-either get into a PhD program to keep my current job, or find a new job with equal pay

-get published

Additionally, I am henceforth resolving to clean out my closet and donate at least 2 laundry baskets of cloths. Anyone who wants to do resolutions with me, feel free--I will once again post them on the site where they will constantly harass you to be a better person.

'Tis the season,

Alula

So how was last week

So everyone how was last week? Are you done with Finals or not? When does your christmas break and what is everyone doing? Come on feeling a little out of the loop! My mother is trying to convince me to come down for a few days she would come get me and little man, but i don't know if i want to because she will make me clean her basement. I will get paid but it will not be easy. all well I will see.

Anyone care for some snow?

Well here are some pictures we are at 18 inches and its still snowing, so here are some pictures the first one is from this morning at 7. And one of Mr Mans friends that was pregnant had a baby girl this morning at 5:15. 21 hours of labor still doesn't beat my 32 hours. She has been named the Snow Baby because she was born during the first really big storm of the year. And we have shoveled our drive way 4 times so far today Mr Man did it this morning a 2 when he was going to work. The Prius is going no where in this weather.

A Summary of Kansas

With my pictures uploaded, here is a visual summary of driving through Kansas:

So on my drive I played ABC's I Spy with Q (you take a picture, and it has to be alphabetic and pertinent to the trip: A is for Agriculture, driving through Kansas, B is for Bridge, a miniature overpass, C is for corn, as far as the eye can see...). I made it all the way to O, and as you can imagine, Q was rather annoyed with me that day, because let's face it, there isn't much in Kansas. Did I mention that my mother-in-law decided we all had to listen to some book on tape the whole way home? It was about an older woman married to a guy with heart problems. They had relations on a rug in front of a fire and got sweaty and jiggly. And I had to listen to it with my in-laws.

Whole Lotta Nothin'.

Farm equipment advertisement.

Do they really need to advertise this?

The Largest Prairie Dog in the World?? Who could miss that? (If you're really curious click here to see it--reviews aren't good so I have never stopped to see it.)

Alula hates books on tape.

(Especially ones that are trapped in the car with me and my in-laws and discuss having carnal knowledge of old people.)

High school troubles

Hey Ladies,

I need to check in more!

Last week Mr. Q's Grandfather pass away. It came as a shock because he was only 68 years old. I am sorry I only really spent one day with him, I wish I could have gotten the opportunity to know him better. Even with the little time I spent with him, I found him to be a loving man, that reminded me so much of Mr.Q.

I figure I should post about high school at some point. Going back to finish this education as been a challenge, but on the hold going very smoothly. Until two weeks ago, my English grade dropped from a A, 100% to a C 78% in one week. (that equals one class) One of the major hits to my grade was a movie analysis. I got a A on the ruff draft and failed the final draft; in fact the hole class failed the final draft. How does that add up? This week my grade is dropped again to a 72% because she put the assignment that was done in class last week, (that I missed due to a death in my family) in as a 0%. I'm not accustom to this grading style, but I guess it a good idea to see what my grade is with out it turned in. For the first have of this class the teacher was happy go lucky " I want all of you to pass"; and now she is grading with a vengeance. I have raised my concerns with my counselor. This teacher is new to the school so the office is watching her closely. Tomorrow I will be showing my counselor all of my papers from this class and see what she recommends I do. I have to have a C to pass, and with out this class I will not graduate this semester. Its ironic because I only need a History credit to get all of my credits for a diploma; but the school requires that I complete two classes at their school. History is going great, and that is super nifty! The teacher in that class has yet to lexure, its rather amusing; we read our books and watch movies. To graduate high school these day you have to pass a exit exam, for two months I have been asking when this has to be done, each time I have been told i had plenty of time. Today I found out they are due by Friday, two weeks before finals. Wish me luck! Since I have proven myself to be a smart cookie I have to take the hardest version of the test. I failed the grammar portion of the test today, but its no big deal apparently; I just keep taking the test until I pass it. Its like The Price is Right! Only I don't get people shouting out the correct bubble to fill in. I am hopping they do not make me bang my head against this test all week, but I don't think I am that lucky.

I have a craft sale this weekend, I just about sold out of everything I had at the last sale. I was hopping to sew all week, but now its looking like I will be testing all week and writing a kick ass final paper for my English class. Its all worth it, I just wish some one would throw me a bone and let me finish high school. I feel I have more to offer this world, than a high school drop out. I am thinking I am jumping though a lot of hoops for this piece of paper. I'm ready to jump though hoops for a fancy collage paper.

I'm sure everyone will be studying like mad for the next too weeks! Good luck surviving all of the torture your teachers have in store for you. We are gonna survive this semester!

How to Heimlich a Cat

For anyone who didn't know, this is how you Heimlich a cat:

http://www.petplace.com/cats/heimlich-for-your-cat/page1.aspx

I never knew. I found this out while watching Gretal coughing up a hairball and wondering what I would do if either of my cats ever did choke on something.

McDonald's is offering free glassware with the purchase of a large Xtra value meal (price ain't bad with the glass included) and the glasses are really pretty nice. Our tall ones keep breaking in the wash so this has been a sweet deal for us.

School: All homework and no play makes Alula a dull sister. So I am thoroughly denying that I have finals due and decorating my home for the holidays, writing, and finally reading Eragon.

Career: Today I thoroughly considered my job options. I came to the conclusion that there is, in fact, a job I would leave my job for, and it's to work as an intelligence analyst. However, there are no government positions for this available in my area, so I'm good.

Mr. B: ...is out of town again. Lonely, lonely, lonely.

Happy Birthday Fuzzy!

hey,

Happy Happy Birthday to you! I hope you have a wonderful day!

Happy Thankgiving, All!

Well, here I am, in Oklahoma with Mr. B's family again. His grandparents (paternal side) gave us our own room, which was good. It's the only room in their home with a computer (hence, internet) which is bad.

Mr. B's younger early teens cousin has a friend with apparently no family to eat with on Thanksgiving, so he came over last night. I got to come back to our room, where unbeknownst to me the 2 teen boys were doing good knows what on the internet with the lights off. Next to my open suitcase, where my unspeakables were in plain view.

Good Grief, Charley Brown. The lack of consideration for privacy in this family is astounding.

I delayed going to bed last night by an hour so I wouldn't have to have the hey-you-get-the-BLEEP-out-of-my-room-I-need-to-undress conversation with the orphan boy.

Both of Mr. B's parents have iPod Touch's now, and I reeeeeallly want one. (They have Kindle for iPod Touch now too!)

My sister sent me this website, where you may take a quiz to see how likely it is your cat is trying to kill you (Count and Gretal scored a combined 91% -- the house sitter has been warned):

http://www.catswhothrowupgrass.com/kill.php

But on this holiday, whether you are cooking or not, I hope this day finds you all surrounded by friends, family, love, and good food.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Alula

Everything back to normal somewhat

Well Mr. man has decided to talk to me again and he even took me to dinner and a movie last night. He still won't let me forget my out burst but hey he is talking to me. My mother is in town and so guess who is cooking Thanksgiving Dinner? ME yes scary right now its going to be a ham and other things not sure yet what else. But hey its fun to be lazy.

It's Christmas before Thanksgiving! Yay!

Ladies,

Yesterday I came back from a meeting at work and found the following message on my phone from my husband: "Hi Alula, I hope you get this message before you go out to lunch because Credit Card Company X pissed me off so I canceled the card a few minutes ago. I hope you didn't need it for anything because if you did I guess you're just screwed."

Yup. They "pissed him off" for refusing to remove the late fees he generated by being a slacker. And I am the one who gets "screwed" by all of it, apparently, and didn't get lunch. That's my life.

And I am supposed to write a final paper today (an annotated bibliography, actually), but thanks to the incredible stress I'm feeling having to pay all of our bills out of my college fund for the next however the hell long until Mr. B decides on, orders, and receives a new credit card, I am declaring Christmas before Thanksgiving.

Thoughts on the new blue-spring-night-whimsy theme I hunted down based on Fuzzy and Munchkin's suggestions?

Hang in there, Fuzzy--you're in one of the most difficult situations I think I've ever encountered in life. It's never been easy for anyone I've ever known who had to decide to stay or go, because both of the options suck, and there's not much to do to change that. No one can tell you what is the "right" thing to do here. But we love you, and we love little man, and we'll do whatever we can to help you out as you try to decide what path to take in proceeding.

Alula

Well It Finally Happened

OK so this is what happened I have been living off Mr Man For the last 5 months every penny I spend is his. Well yesterday I broke he accused me of not doing anything in the morning and well that hit a nerve. And I had a complete melt down, and told him how frustrating it was to live off someone else and that I didn't like it, I also told him that I didn't like this not business he signed me up for, well he had nothing to say to that. And then later that night all I wanted was a hug and him to tell me that he doesn't mind me living off him. And that turned into a chase game and then me jumping on him and I got a "back off Woman" from him and that's the last thing he as said to since then. I get a nod or head shake to questions I ask but that is it. And I don't know what to do, just proving that I mess up every relationship I've ever been in. I guess I have to wait until he decides he has punished me enough and talks to me again. And my birthday is on the 29Th I guess I'm going to have another rotten birthday. I can't leave because I don't have any money and I'm afraid Mr Man will fight me for custody of little man and win because he has the money, job and they share a last name. What do I have? Debt up over my head and no job prospects and no babysitter and no friends up here to help me. I just don't know what to do I can't tell my mother because i would just get an I told you so. And I don't think I can handle that right now and she is going to be up here at the end of the weekend and I have to get it together enough to not let her notice. Well just so everyone know life just sucks.

OMG FREE BOOKS!!!

As a bibliophile and a technophiliac, I have to tell you all about this. Yes I know you already got the email.

Amazon is now in Beta for their new Kindle for PC! If you don't have it yet, you need it. It's free and takes about 30 seconds to download. Get it here:

Amazon Kindle Store

After you download it, look through the books for Kindle here:

Kindle Books

Now, here's the thing: when you select a genre, you can sort it lowest to highest by price to view the free books. Yes, free books. And many are very cheap (under $1 to download--cheaper than a garage sale practically). I like the Science Fiction books (there are many fantastic fiction and fantasy titles as well, and non-fic like cooking, history, and autobiographies):

Science Fiction Kindle Books

The fantastic part is that all of these titles are transferable, which means when I eventually upgrade to a Kindle anything I downloaded (free or purchased), I can move over to my Kindle! How cool is that!

Once you "buy" some free books, you go into your Kindle for PC and select "Sync and Check for New Items" in the Menu tab at the upper right hand corner, and all your downloaded stuff will pop up on the Kindle for PC home page area, ready to read. (Note: there are thousands of free and under $1 books, as well as non-Amazon books you can find elsewhere that are compatible.)

Also, today is my 2-year marriage anniversary with Mr. B. Our 8-year anniversary was back on the 9th. However, he is out of town. But later, I will be treating myself to our traditional fancy dinner at Subway and watching FlashForward with him over Google chat. We're very tech-nouveau as couples go. :)

Happy (FREE BOOKS!) Downloading!

Alula

Lonely...I'm so lonely...

I'm sitting here listening to my Blue October channel on Pandora, being lonely. I looked through a friend's wife's photo album of their kid born last July, and suddenly realized, I think, why people have kids. Damn she looks happy.

No, I do not want one anytime soon. (Nor am I drunk right now. Yeah, I can see you thinking it!)

But I am is sick of school. My give-a-damn's broken, as it were, and I think I'm okay hitting an 80% for my final projects this semester--none of them are particularly inspiring to me.

However, I have been given a lovely opportunity at work to beta a really cool product that's getting released to the public on December 3rd, and that really has been inspiring. I swear I love this job so much it's the only thing keeping me in school through these rough times.

Today we had the first big Christmas craft sale of the season, and Q really raked it in yesterday. Today was a bit of a bust due to heavy snow last night and this morning keeping the crowds away. We collected a bunch of cards and I had personal conversations with some of the crafters, getting email addresses for our online site. Fuzzy noticed early on these people don't like the word "consignment", because those businesses "screw them over." All in all, a pretty successful endeavor, as it looks like there is a lot of interest in such a site.

But I am now in an overly sentimental mood and my husband leaves again tomorrow. Poop.

And I have homework to do. Double poop.

I'm going to write a book this week. And I'm probably going to put up the Christmas decorations on the site early. I'm sorry if this annoys anyone; read my post on Slacker Productivity for the reason why this happens every finals season, and doubly so during holiday sentimentality.

In which DoHP makes a post about WoW

Fuzzy: don't pay attention if you don't want to. I know the rest of these goobers play.

I don't want to make another work post, and my knitting is nothing paticullarly exciting at the moment, and I haven't gone through my pictures from my tourist trap weekend, but I want to post something. And my dryer is sloooooooow.

So y'all get a World of Warcraft blither.

I've been feeling kinda meh about my hunters lately. One of them can go do big epic shiny things, if anyone ever needed dps for them, or if my connection to level 80 dungeons wasn't like swiss cheese. The other one is kinda stuck in Theramore (I still swear there's a "where a bear? There a bear!" joke in that name somewhere).

But I have a druid. She's spoiled as all get out with a dual spec (balance (pew pew lazer budige!)/resto (imagine the tree dance to this, also healy goodness)), and heirloom shoulders (nom nom 10% xp bonus!). She is also crazy fun to play. She's currently 5 levels into Outland (went at 58, will stay 'till 68, No, I don't care what Mr. B says) and is instancing her little leaves off. Yes, PuG healing is significantly less stressful than work, that's how bad work is.

Sometimes I feel like the worst tree in history, like that one BRD run, but BRD. That dungeon is just painful. And we kept having to replace people that either d/c'd or left. I went through it 3 times before actually killing the last boss. I really do like the bite size of Outland and Northrend instances. You can take a short break from questing, do the instance in about 30-45 minutes and go back to what you were doing. Oh, not old world instances. Those you have to go, "what do I want to do with my game time? Hmmm, I want to do an instance." But over 60 instances have DKs. Which vary from competant job doers to "Omg I death gripped that thing off the tank look at my awesome bad dps lol!"

There was more to this, but my dryer just beeped at me to come help it. May be more later...

Socks!

I had two 10 dollar coupons for a clothing store, Mr. Q is in desperate need of new socks. I though getting a pack of socks for 10 dollars would not be a problem. At the store I discovered that mens socks go up to size 12, Mr. Q is a 13! Then I remember his mother telling me, " Its really hard finding socks big enough for Mr. Q and his brother". I spent 30 min looking for socks and finally found three pair for 18 dollars! GOOD GRIEF! They had better be made of gold! Twenty dollars off, and I still paid 16 dollars for 6 pairs of socks.

Business Idea

Ladies,
I got just a random idea that popped into my head yesterday. For the online store what about turning it into a online craft sale and I can market to the other crafters we all see at the craft sales? People that don't want to manage their own website and Ebay is a little congested, its just an idea and I have to work out the details. Well let me know what you think.

Fuzzy

I found the edge.

Ladies,

I will not be going into details of the last week. Let's suffice it to say that the universe has taken from me, and I am waiting for the laws of karma to giveth back. In abundance. The universe owes me in abundance.

I just got back from the grocery store after buying food for movie night tomorrow. I squeezed this in after work and school and an emergency trip to the bank and dropping off our voting ballots. I ate dinner in the car across from another young woman dressed professionally who looked like she was also freakin' exhausted and not able to eat an actual meal. I thought about the Lakota translation I have to do tonight for Thursday because I have work straight up to my group project meeting tomorrow night for the project which is due Friday and presented on Saturday at class.

Then I got home and realized that movie night happens on Tuesday, and today is Tuesday, and the next movie night isn't for a week.

I've found the edge, and I am backing away slowly.

Alula

If you need a good giggle!

Hey Ladies,

I stumbled on a web sight today. I was trying to figure out how to say a name, and found this link.

Turn on you speakers!

Load this page!

Sit back and get ready to wounder who thinks of these things!

http://www.babynamesradio.com/

There was SOOO much snow...

Ladies (especially those of you not living where I am):

I let the cats out to play in it when there was 6 inches yesterday. When I suggested going out today, they just gave me sarcastic looks:

This is my birdhouse out back (it is under there, I promise):

We lost power for nearly 45 minutes last night, resulting in a scramble for the candles and nearly 15 degrees drop in temperature inside the house. At my house, we have about 2 feet total--you can kind of see it on the table in the courtyard behind the cats. My work had an early dismissal yesterday because they were worried about people getting home (like my boss, I elected to work from home at about 8 am anyways). My school closed early yesterday too (though I didn't have school that day). I was supposed to have class today, as the school was open, but my neighborhood roads haven't been plowed and it's still falling.

How much did everyone else get?

Alula

Gym Period Sucks.

Well, I am back from my first evening at the local Community Center, where I sweated to Lady in the Water while doing 15 on the elliptical and 20 cycling.

Apparently there's a kids swimming class letting out at the pool there right when I need to be changing in the locker room, so that was awkward. I crammed myself into a tiny bathroom stall to change because there are otherwise no changing rooms and I just wasn't cool undressing in a room of 5-year-olds. I will probably just change at work after today (much more spacious bathroom stalls).

School, Weight, and Sleeping Computers

I'm exhausted. And I have a hyper-involved group for one of my group projects. This is not a bad thing, but good god, my email and our group page is going to explode. I am taking a break.

And I have officially given up on dieting. I suck at it. I sit on my widening butt for 8 hours every day because of my job, and cutting calories has never given me more than 2 pounds of weight loss. So I am finally admitting defeat--I caved and spent the money for a 20-punch pass to the local rec center today. I'm going to try a 5-week experiment where I go for four 1-hour days every week.

I am effectively instituting a gym period in my life. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Today, one of my coworkers (an older-than-me woman who is also in my MLS program) called me from home to say she was really worried about her computer because it had crashed again. Now, she's not the most technically apt of people--the last few times she's called me regarding computer problems were because she was worried someone had "hacked" her when her computer started doing automatic updates, and once when her computer would not turn on (result of dead battery). This time, she informed me, she was sure she had done it in--she had accidentally hit "logout" instead off "power off" and the computer "seemed to be stuck--the lights are all on but the screen is blank and it's not turning on or off!"

Well, my goodness! I calmly explained the sleep and hibernate functions of laptops to her and told her to hold down the power button until the laptop shut down, and then to reboot it like normal.

And she was very grateful--she once paid a certain highway robbery group of technically oriented people dressed like a '90s stereotype and run by a large electronics store more than $150 to fix a problem like this.

It's nice to be appreciated. It's nice to help. It's also nice to look at people my parents' age and think how cute they are, and not mean that in a demeaning or derogatory way--computers are confusing to people who don't use them often, and sometimes I forget that.

Alula

Change of Plans Again

OK so to anyone who wants to be at Little Mans party I just found out that Mr man will be bringing us down on the 28Th next week and I'm thinking about having the party on Friday night the 30Th something simple. Well I just need to know what people think I need a best day Friday night or Sunday night? Too many choices my brain is going to explode.

Fall Re-Vamping

So my computer crashed a 2nd time (I believe I wrote about this, yes?). Well, I contacted Dell because my 1 year warranty on hardware runs out on November 10th. They diagnosed the problem (or they believe they did--I guess we'll see) and had a new, free hard drive on my door step 2 days later. Prospero lives; I guess we'll see if I crash again, in which case Dell will continue to replace parts, I guess. I hate the hassle but love that they are so responsive--truly phenomenal response time on a problem for one of their 2nd-hand computers.

Now that I have Prospero back, I am warning all of you that this site will be undergoing a remodel sometime in the near future--hopefully I won't lose any of our lists or gadgets this time. If anyone has an opinion, what are you feeling for the next few months (at least)?

Flowers? Dark? Light? Red? Green? Blue? Tell me your thoughts, i.e.:

"Maybe something a little lighter?"

"KITTIES!!!"

"Something that looks like a diary journal."

"Don't care--just get the butt ugly brown off of our site." (<--that would be paraphrased from Q when she bothered me about the current theme a few months ago, LOL)

...or any other ideas you might have

I'll see what I can do, but obviously I may not be able to please everyone--but I will keep you in line for future updates if anyone's idea gets completely pushed aside this time.

Alula

...Were back!

Hey Ladies,

I'm gonna try to get back in the blog spotlight. Tons of things have happened, tons of things are happening, and high school still sucks!

Mr. Q is working full time, and going to school full time. I see him in passing now.

I still am unemployed, and I think that makes me officially useless. Avon is not paying the bills yet but its something to do. I am still hopefully optimistic about getting a job before I have been unemployed for a year.

High school is still high school, the faces have changed but its till the same game. I'M HALF WAY DONE! Its something to celebrate for sure.

I got a washer and dryer a few days ago. They are wonderful! The dryer is acting up but I think its just being too smart for me. I might have to read the manual! Today my Uncle dropped off a fridge and a oven. The fridge is really old but its better than the back up in the garage. Of course the oven is too big for my kitchen so we are sill brain storming about how to get a working oven in the house. Mean while I may be cooking in the garage. (what will the neighbors think!)

Change of plans

OK so I got a surprise today and the one day summit meeting has turned into a two day summit and so I'm changing little mans b-day to the evening of Sunday Nov 1st for anyone who cares and I'm thinking a restaurant after letting him open presents. The meeting goes till 5 pm in down town and on a Sunday I'm thinking the traffic should be not to bad. well let me know what anyone thinks.

At least I was prepared this time

My laptop crashed again. Just wouldn't start on Sunday morning--same deal as before, black screen and a cursor.

And I'm thinking, oh no, this is not an OS issue.

We reloaded the OS. If it's crashed again, it's the hard drive. Or worse, because the hard drive is passing diagnostics, it might be the motherboard. Just in case, I contacted Dell to see if they had any tricks. My warranty on hardware defects is still good through November 10th, and my rep Amit says they will replace any defective parts to my satisfaction.

The good news is everything was backed up this time.

In other news, school this last weekend was a total waste of my time. My teacher announced to the whole class that she has a compressed disc in her back and is trying to lose weight using an appetite suppressant at the same time, so she's basically checked out of her regular mental faculties. She graded our first round of papers in this state, and did not do so fairly. She told us at the first class weekend that she found it appropriate to use the first person in our reflective papers (because they are, well, reflective). And then she marked us all down to a D average for using the first person, because "It is NEVER okay to use the first person in APA format!!!"

This paper was worth 15% of the final grade, which means some people are already so far down on points they will not be able to receive better than a B for the class (we go on academic probation for B- or less). Then she used literally 6 o=hours to discuss changes she was making to the syllabus. Then she spent another 2 describing how she wanted to change the final project from a paper to a presentation, but people kept asking questions about how she was changing various components and she was just making it up as she went, taking no notes. Then by the end she was so confused she just said "You know what, forget the last 2 hours--I'll think about it and send an email tomorrow." So, my time has been wasted. And, it's 2 days later--no email.

I hate it when professors do this. I do my homework and turn it in on time. The teacher's homework is to have a functional syllabus and a lesson plan--not to waste my time by making me watch her dick around with shit she should have done before the class even started in August. Out of a total 12 hours of class this weekend, we had 3 hours of structured learning.

Then she witched at us because several people had computer issues without backing up their work. She told everyone they needed to run out and buy an 8GB flash drive and use it to store their work. Mind you, not back up, but store. She apparently has everything from her entire college career to present on this one flash drive. And it only costs $20, so we all need to conform to that standard. Someone raised their hand and said she used an external hard drive for backup, so that was an option, and the teacher looked at this woman and said "those are way too pricey--I don't recommend them."

So I raised my hand and said all my school stuff is backed up on Zoho, which is free. And the teacher looked at me and said "Yeah, but I can take this flash drive with me in my pocket and I never have to log into anything!"

Well, from then on I fumed. (After speaking with classmates, I was not the only one--everyone hates this witch now). I like my backup copies passwords protected, like the originals, thank you very much. I also like them stored at a facility that makes additional backups. I like them accessible wherever, whether I'm on my own computer or not, and without having to remember to take a flash drive with me. I have also experienced the misfortune of having lost flash drives, or having them malfunction and erase my files. But alas, pocketability is apparently the most important thing when considering where to store your digital life.

So we get to class the next day and the class is even more pissed at the teacher because she failed to post that day's slides to the class blog the night before. Why? Well, we have to forgive her.

She left her flash drive in the classroom the night before.

I wanted to raise my hand and tell her that if it had been backed up to Zoho, this would not have been an issue, but I think she already had the idea, and wasn't happy about it. Karma's a witch, too.

Alula

Random Thought

OK I don't know if i told anyone this but has anyone noticed that a guy from the city or the suburbs is thought of as a city boy, but on the other hand a guy from the mountains is thought of as a mountain man. Boy/Man see the distinction? So girls here is the question do you have a city boy, mountain man, or something else? I have the mountain man who is sitting in a tree stand in Nebraska for the second weekend in a row determined to shoot a white tail buck with his bow of course apparently shooting an animal with a gun has no challenge according to him. I get to go hunting at the end of November with him for a land damage tag happy birthday to me. Don't forget we are having a B-day party for a little man on the 1st of November. He doesn't really need much but he absolutely loves Mickey Mouse Club House and Little Einsteins the Disney shows and the toys. Anything Musical and anything with buttons to push, including mine. I can always use clothes he is into 3t/4t sizes, and has his dads big head and hates anything around is neck so no turtle necks like cloths. And I guess if anyone can find his size goggles, he will be going snow mobile riding with his dad this year. Oh and if anyone wants to get him a preschool computer game for windows vista that's what we have and my mom keeps letting him play reader rabbit at her house I just haven't found one yet. Gifts for the party are not required and only get him something if you really want to you know he will be more interested in the box a present comes in than the actual present. I will be having a house warming for the new house next month sometime that will be interesting considering there is no parking around this house at all. Well something to think about next month. Smile all.

In which DoHP's wall of text crits you for over 9000!

So, this is going to be about three months, maybe more of thought dump.

Fist things first. Work. Uggg. Last year's flu season never really went away. July and August saw a little bit a reprieve, but it's been back in full force since school started. Apparently if you put kids around other kids, all of whom were healthy to begin with, you get a group of sick kids.

And since school started, that means that 1/3 of our staff now has school to deal with along with work and that makes scheduling a nightmare (not that I have to do it) and results in the flexible people working weird hours. I have two things I could do on Tuesday nights that would be fun and I would consider having a life outside of work. Both of them would start at 7. I have been scheduled 12-9 on Tuesdays for the foreseeable future. I do get weekends off though. That's good right?

I think that corporate managers need to come work in the pharmacy some days. Since the beginning of the month we've had a series of bad days that keep getting worse. Too many patients and phone calls, and not enough staff to handle it. Everybody wants their medications NOW, no matter when they got the prescription. My nightmares feature the phrases "How much and how long?" and "One pharmacy call. TWO! pharmacy calls!"

We have a little clinic-y thing in our store that is giving flu shots, and they ran out the other day. I lost track at about 30 each day on the number of calls we recieved asking, when we'd get flu shots in and other bits and pieces of information about the flu shots. Now the clinic can't answer their own calls, because there's only one person there and answering the phone would detract from them being able to see patients. Wouldn't the extra calls also detract from the pharmacy being able to serve patients too?

My chain has always been the wierd one around here and kept all the pseudoephedrine behind the front store counter with the cigarettes. That takes a tremendous load off the pharmacy. As of now, it's back in the pharmacy. I'm wondering when we'll get the time to move it, the space to put it (my pharmacy is tiny, we really have no space for anything else), and the time to sell it during the day.

I'm supossed to be the kinda-manager of the techs at my store. I already act as such. I pester people when stuff needs to get done, I do returns, I help out in sticky customer issues, I do the conference calls, etc. I've even done the class to make it official. Only thing is, it isn't yet. Because the trainer for my area hasn't gotten me in the computer as having taken the class yet. And she forgot to put some of the pre-req things in that I did, and I had to do them over again once I showed up on the "bad people who haven't done their required training" list. This made me rather mad. So, I'm still not offically the tech manager. I'm doing everything that the position requires, but I'm not getting paid properly for it.

Second, everything else. Better than work. At least a little.

I just had to put new front tires on my car. Did I mention my car? I don't remember if I did or not, but it's a long story, and if I didn't I'll tell it later. But it's not the mini-van anymore. The car runs, the radio works, it gets good gas mileage, I'm happy with it.

The last full week in September, my mom, my sister and I all went to my granny's house in VA for a week. This was the week of all the flooding in Atlanta. My community avoided most of the flooding and damage from that. Which I am thankful for.

But Virginia was fun. I saw my cousin's baby (who is HUGE. 9 weeks and 15lbs), spent time with my grandparents, and just was generally not at work. My grandparents are doing well. I don't really have much else to say about it.

My knitting keeps growing on me. Not like, "Oh I didn't this whatever before, but now it's kinda grown on me." But like my vest fit me before I washed it, now it fits my mom, who is several sizes larger than me. So, the lesson I learned here, knitted garments don't go in the washing machine even if the yarn band says they can. I was going through my yarn the other day, and realized I have a strange obsession with purple yarn. And the purple-green color combination. I think I'm going to start trying color work, which has scared me for the longest time.

I'm not going to bore you with WoW stuff. Except that some people think I have happy dungeon/questy fun time all wrong. I'm good at ignoring them. I have more to say if y'all want to hear, but I don't know if you do.

Now right before I went to VA, I was trying to update my iTunes so I could get it to work with my iPod (still dosen't, but eh.) and it was downloading and taking it's dear sweet time, so I turned off my monitor with the intention of going to bed and dealing with it in the morning. Then it starts making a noise. Like it's trying to yodel a cat. I turn the monitor back on and it's green. I force it to shut off, and try to turn it back on. The fans turn on, but it dosen't start up. I give up, and go to bed because it is late at this point. The next morning, I try again. Still the fans turn on, but nothing else. I try starting it with the vista cd in the drive, still nothing. This is my desktop that's being a booger, so there's no technical support to go with it. I look up the hours of the local computer repair shop and get ready to take it in. They can look at it while I'm out of town. I load the computer up in the car, and take it over there, and their website had the wrong hours and they were closed. I take it back home, and decided to deal with it when I got back. My laptop was working fine.

When I get back, my dad has also gotten back from a trip. And we decide to look at it some more, thinking it might be the video card that's gone bad, and of course we have at least one spare. We have a whole closet full of computer parts, old computers and other electronics, and the boxes that go with them. So I take it down to the basement (where the closet is), and we open the case and make sure everything is connected, but nothing seemed to be disconnected. So I plug it in, connect a monitor, and turn it on. It starts like a charm. It's that thing, where you take it to the computer guy and it works.

So, that's what's up with me.
~DoHP

...and you all would have killed me.

Well, something happened to me last week when I tried to do the helpful thing by selling off our guild bank. There I was, standing in the Auction House, and World of Warcraft promptly logged me off and I had to fill out that little form about what I was doing so they could fix the problem. The error was reported successfully, and then it happened:

BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!!!!!

I didn't freak. Computers hiccup all the time. I very calmly tried to restart the machine. The machine very calmly told me that it couldn't restore the session, and I tried a regular reboot. The machine could not reboot, and brought me back to the same screen five times in a loop without ever successfully booting. So I started it in safe mode. And I got the same error, and then the helpful screens with directions went bye-bye and all I was getting when the machine turned on was a black screen with a cursor on it.

Then I freaked out.

Ladies, always back up your data. My dad got me a 320GB portable drive for my birthday; trouble is, I've been so busy lately I had not had a chance to back up any of my pictures or videos (all of my textual docs are backed up using Zoho, except for older writings, which are somewhere on flash or cd). So there I was, freaking like nobody's business, and my husband telling me to chill out. All the baby pictures of Count and Gretal. All my pictures (period) since buying the computer last November. All the graphics I had made for my in-progress Google site. Memories of snow storms. Every picture of my garden this year and last. And then it hit me: All the videos of the camping trip.

Oh....#^$&#!

Mr. B tried to do a straight copy of the drive, but it was unreadable. That's when the hysteria set in. We couldn't recover anything if the backup program couldn't see the drive. After trying a handful of things, something finally found my data, thank god, and we were able to recover *everything* (well, except for my desktop background--I spent an hour hunting it down again online). We have a running theory that the table of contents on the drive is probably what screwed up, and whatever recovered things was reading the shadow.

We formatted the disk and reloaded the OS, and now all of my settings and junk are wanky, but I'll learn. Google Chrome is pretty awesome for anyone that hasn't tried it yet.

So now I owe the powers that be for saving me from my own recklessness. I'm backing up everything later today.

Alula

New House!

Well whats new for me is that Mr Man bought a house an actual on firm ground house and little man will have his own room. we are in the very slow process of moving in, very slow. I am trying to get a food license to sell my jerky at a couple local craft festival events in my area. not easy to find I will be making a bunch of calls tomorrow. I am in town with little man, Mr man dropped us off and is in Nebraska sitting in a tree stand hunting for a white tail dear, if he gets a doe that will be the next round of jerky. Mr man borrowed my "fathers" Tahoe I told him that was daring but he did anyway. Today I'm dragging my family to a pumpkin patch I know early but I have an idea in my head and I have to see if it works. Later I'm thinking about taking my sister to a haunted house for some fun I haven't been to one in a long time, my mother will hopefully watch little man. Later this month we will be in town again on the 31 and 1 and I'm thinking that we should have an early b-day party for little man who be 2 on November 10Th, where does the time go. I have a meeting thing on the day of the 31st but the 1st early afternoon would be good i think let me know what people think. His b-day last year was a bust because of the accident and my concussion so i want this year to be bigger, and like he would care if we celebrated a little early.

Happy Birthday, Lady A

Well ladies, Lady A called me last night. For those of you who have forgotten Lady A, she's dating our friend the Ambassador. She moved across the country to come out here, and the Ambassador is now in China on some sort of teaching stint. Lady A habitually hangs out at my place every other week for movie night, and I have expressed to Mr. B that if they break up, my vote is that we keep Lady A.

Lady A's birthday was last night, and in grand fashion we (including myself and spouse and a couple of her friends) went out late last night and had kalamari and cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory in Denver. Mr. B and I left a little early (he had the LSAT this morning), but the rest of the group went dancing afterwards. It was her 21st birthday, and she doesn't have many friends out here yet, but I do count myself among the friends she does have.

Q and I have tossed around the idea of inviting her to post here, I see her so much lately. I think if we're still close in January, I will invite her to post, or at least send her a link to this forum. I would greatly appreciate comments (pro or con) on this topic.

Other stock items include a book I am currently editing. I have sworn to myself I will try to publish this one. I have already invited Q, GymRat (a friend of mine), and *gasp* Mr. B to read it as test readers. Anyone who wants to read it, shoot me an email and I'll give you the document link--if I ever make it big, I promise you all a very nice dinner, at least. I've decided one of my resolutions for next year is to get published.

And that brings me around to this year's resolutions. With 3 months left in the year, I'm assessing my situation once again. I got the job. Q is selling online, and has plans to utilize the online store we set up together. Now all I have left is my weight, which I admit, has been a big problem for me. I'm trying to zero in on it these last few months, because this needs to get done.

How is everyone else doing?

Alula

First Freeze

Today is the last hours of summer and the first of fall--and it's frickin' freezing out!

Wonderful!

As tends to happen to me when fall rolls around, I'm experiencing my annual moment of clarity in direction. Several weeks ago an opportunity came up at work (still in the air--a possibility and not a certainty) where my temporary position might become a career position if I got a PhD, which tuition costs would be reimbursed on.

So for weeks now I have been agonizing over whether to do it or not, and if I did, what PhD program I would go into. I thought about doing one in Computer Science for the bankability factor, but the idea that they would probably make me get a (3rd, good God) Master's along the way gave me ulcers. I am so ready to be done with on-campus school and beyond ready to be in the workforce full time.

I considered Geography, which is the preference of my workplace, but it just doesn't seem to have many cross-field applications. I considered linguistics, but my program there is not making me happy lately--no one is available to meet with me about completing my program. I considered doing more information management and library science, but what's it good for if you're not going to teach?

Well, yeserday I just knew. I just knew--it's information management and library science. When the time rolls around and if it's still possible, that's what I'm doing. It's good for me to build a career where I am, and will give me a leg up over other librarians in the future if I were to ever leave (...and I could always teach at a university). Plus, it's a lower stress career than others I have considered, so more time to focus on my writing.

Over the river and through the woods

So, I'm away from the internet for a week. So, phone calls and text messages are the best way to get in touch with me, or e-mail (horray for phones).

So, uh...

Here's a random video in exchange

more about jerky

Help! anyone have an idea what color i should paint little mans room? after almost 2 years its almost done i just need to decide on a paint color and a carpet color and type. The room also has to be resold so it has to be kind of generic. And i need to figure out how much to sell my elk jerky for I'm leaning towards 6$ per 4 oz. Anyone think that's to much? I sort of want to do 8$ per quarter pound. I do 2 types of jerky whole muscle and ground meat. and 5 flavors: three pepper and garlic pepper that have MSG and then chipoltle, cracked pepper with garlic and original that don't have any MSG. Each pkg of seasoning cost about 7$ each and season 15 pounds of raw meat that after dried about 3-4 pounds of raw equal 1 pound of dry. And it takes 6-8 hours to dry at 160 degrees F. Marinating time is about 8-12 hours more for whole muscle. and i live in a low income housing. So i want to do 8$ but because of the area 6 might be better. Well let me know what anyone thinks.

All dogs go to heaven

Well ladies, sad day. Sad week. I was supposed to have my birthday party last Sunday night, but my family was too sick. Mr. B offered that we hang out with his folks, but that’s not really a birthday fun situation for me so we just hung out at home instead. He got me speakers and a new memory card for my camera. :)

Today, more upsetting news. My mom texted me that she found her beloved dog, Ginger, passed on of seemingly natural causes earlier today. She was 14 (I think), and my mom found her out back, apparently sunbathing, except she wasn’t there anymore.

Ginger used to do this thing when she sunbathed, where she would lay there until she just couldn’t stand it and then she would jump up panting hysterically with this big goofy dog grin on her face and she’d come inside and stretch out on the cool kitchen floor. I’m happy that’s how she went—it’s how she would have wanted to go, I think. I like to think of her jumping up and running off panting to lie on the kitchen floor in the sky, not even noticing she left her body behind.

We used to call her our Big Dog. She was seven pounds of “vicious” Miniature Pincher—she’d tell anyone who begged to differ, too. She got Q good on the ankle once. But as with all super beings, her kryptonite was sprinklers, and whenever we went for a walk we had to cross the street to avoid them.

Apparently my brother’s dog passed on today too; Kilo was still pretty young for a German Sheppard (5ish, I think). But he was sick with something, I’m not sure what, and we knew he was going to have a shorter life. He was a good dog. We used to joke that my mom’s little dogs must have thought he was a horse (but not Ginger—she was bigger than every other dog on the planet).

Ginger and Kilo are survived by a large family of critters and people, including Spooky the cat and Lily the toy fox terrier.

Alula

Deliquent blogger returns!

Okay, I promise I'll make a real post later.

What's the most professional way to word "I'll move back to Denver when I find a job in Denver. After giving my current job two weeks notice of course. And a week to drive." ?

Jerky Time

Well I got my birthday/Christmas present from Mr Man already its a commercial dehydrator for me to make elk and deer jerky. I also dry fruit as well. Its a huge machine that takes up a lot of room but I am very excited to get it. So I'm going to try to sell home made jerky at this community farmers market and yard sale the area I'm living is having in September. I will include a disclaimer card that this is home made and i try my best to make it safe but nothing is perfect basically covering my butt you know keep refrigerated and use within one week or freeze. It's my newest adventure in home business. So if anyone wants some jerky just let me know and I'll send it out, and yes its safe i feed it to my son and he loves it, but then again he eats dirt and seems to like it also. I spent the weekend at my mothers house because her b-day is next week and she needed some help because she fell last week and put a nice gash in her knee she even went to the ER which tells you how bad it was when she voluntarily went to a hospital ER, but she is doing pretty well all things considering. My ex step dad and his mother were around as well little man didn't seem too impressed with either one. But here is the kicker those two have pretty much been ignoring me for the last 2 years and then i tell them my idea for jerky they both give me 150 dollars each to help me out with my business and are saying how proud they are of me with everything I've done. but i haven't done anything I can't even keep a job for a full consecutive year and they are proud of me? Basically they are confusing me to no end plus they were being nice not something i used to. Not even a snide comment from ex step dad about my bastard child. And I make back home and my new dehydrator is waiting for me its pretty, i just have to get the meat ready to get dried that's a 2 day process alone. I'm trying to clear out our freezer a because Saturday was the start of archery elk season and i still have meat from last year. Well is will be fun, i sure am learning to cook a lot of wild game. Well everyone smile and look forward to tomorrow.

The Saga of Grumpy Begins

I haven't posted in quite some time sorry ladies, so I'll attempt to make up for it. I have truly had a summer to remember. The new job is FABULOUS, thought a thirty of more minute drive each way. My first experience camping was so delightful, that I wish I could do it every weekend. To top off the good stuff, I should officially have a piece of paper that says I have some form of education at the end of this semester.

Now for the interesting stuff... I have overloaded myself once again, like Alula I am a masochist. The gal I work with, I am referring to her as Grumpy because she brings a cloud of doom and hate with her while somehow managing to make her face look like an ugly dwarf, she is terrible. Behind my back she is going to my boss attempting to become my supervisor, and she's only been here one week longer than I have. Neither of us are trained enough to be the supervisor at this point, and she is being very sneaky instead of being honest and waiting her turn. Do not take this as me wanting the position for myself, I want only to work... not to be anything special. I enjoy my job, and she is making my life miserable.

She has left ealy everyday for the past two months and our current supervisor, Sparkley, was getting very upset and speaking her mind to the whole front office including Grumpy's best buddy Prego, after she left. Prego proceeded to tell Grumpy what Sparkley had said the very next morning, and there was a confrontation that afternoon. Sparkley is a good friend of mine and got me the job, so now I am almost sure I am getting the silent treatment because Grumpy assumed I was complaining to Sparkley about her, and that I want to stop her from getting a promotion. The other morning our big boss was running late and had a meeting promptly at 10am with three men from Korea, he called to say he was late and keep them happy until he gets there in a bit, not one minute later they walk through the front door. She was so rude to them they left and came back about 30 minutes later. Knowing that these men just got off an airplane from Korea to come see us, it baffles me to think they could be treated with such a non-care and disrespectful attitude. Everyday I come into work and sit there for 8 hours getting the silent treatment from both my coworkers. All this just started... heck we actually used to get along and communicate like civilized human being once in a while before this experience.

I am getting very frustrated with this woman, and wish i could speak my mind to her so she knows that I didn't do anything, and the problems people may or may not have with her are not because of me but because of her own actions and rudeness to everyone. Oh... And did I forget to mention, she's pregnant and hasn't told anyone yet.

What should I do???

The Plagues of Egypt in my home...

So the wasps in my kitchen ceiling are back. Today I discovered a patch on my kitchen ceiling where it appeared they were attempting to knaw through because the drywall under the paint was gone. Another theory ran that the pesticide shot up there had caused water damage. Still another theory ran that the pesticide had damaged the drywall making it soft and allowing the freak zombie wasps (which are actually yellow jackets, I've been told) to munch away at it. Anyways, the patch is 8" by 6", and any way you cut it, not good. I'll post pics of Q and mother's ingenious solution later.

So just to sum things up here, I thought I'd recap all of the plagues of Egypt my home has suffered this summer:

Blood: period that lasted a month.
Frogs:
Knats: Never had them before. Now they are in every house plant I own.
Wild Animals: Gretal and Count. Enough said. Oh, and the deer incident.
Pestilence: We'll substitute "wasps" here.
Incurably Boils:
Hail: Yup. That too--on car, garden, and home.
Locusts: We'll substitute "husband" for this one, as he killed my garden.
Darkness: 3 power outages and counting. One of which made us both late for work.
Death of the Firstborn:

We have also suffered flooding in the basement and in our upstairs bathroom when the toilet overflowed, a heart attack, and a car accident. And for some reason all the walking I've been doing has caused me to gain weight, rather inexplicably, and I'm hitting 185 again walking 2.4 miles a day--what with that?

Boy, I just can't wait for the frogs, incurable boils, and death of the firstborn to get here. (Not really--please don't smite me further!)

On the bright side I got my shiny new badge yesterday and a work laptop (DELL latitude 6000 series...oh baby!) today. I was also invited by my colleagues to speak at a conference in April.

Also, I feel like a really crappy friend. It feels like every time I call Q lately it’s to have her cover my butt, save my butt, or drive my butt somewhere. Q, hon, you’re the greatest—and please feel free to say no. And I totally owe you a deck of tarot cards for everything you do for me. Just send me an email link to what you want and I’ll order it with my school books.

Alula

The long walk

Ladies, today I did the full circuit--more than 2 miles. From my home to the water tower and back.

Also, Mr. Borealis called me while on the walk. He asked me if I could come down to Pueblo to keep him company. I said, "Oh, sweetie, I would but I have a job now."

And he said, "Well, can't you just quit your job?"

I said, "I would, but then I'd get bleeped at for not having a job."

He paused, and then he said, "Well that's true. You just can't win, can you?"

Ah, the plight of women.

Alula

Cars, Business, Wasps, Screaming, and Camping

Once again, I find myself in the situation that a lot has happened in my life and I'm behind on posting. I've written a summary in prose for those of you who don't want to read the novel:

Mr. B's Outback had just gotten fixed and gone to Pueblo,
It got into a fight with a hailstorm and to more fixing insurance said "no",
Went car shopping & tried to trade in the '93 trooper C4C,
Found it wasn't eligible due to procrastination by Mr. B,
Then went Rolla on a business dealing,
Mr. B found a wasps' nest in the kitchen ceiling,
Had to beg Q for assistance due to husband's vanity,
Q of course came through and saved my kitties and my sanity,
Mr. B freaked out and decided to clean basement,
Apparently got rid of my stuff with permission and still hasn't f-ing apologized,
Got off the plane just in time to fight with husband,
Packed my crap post haste and almost decided marriage was canned,
Briefly discussed if free education was prudent,
Got accused by Mr. B of being perpetual dirty-hippie student,
Went camping one hour later with Q, Munchkin, and spouses,
Banned fighting for the weekend even though all men are louses,
Had 6 hours to share alone with Mr. B on Sunday,
Then we both woke up and went our separate ways.

And the long version:

Well, in case I didn't say this already, Mr. B's Outback had just gotten fixed from the run in with the deer when he drove it down to Pueblo and got stuck in a hail storm. It didn't do any real damage, but apparantly it dinged every exterior portion of the shell of the car to the extent that insurance called it a total loss: cost of repair exceeds total value of car. So we took a settlement and now have a no-value dinged up car.

Realizing we were nowin possession of two cars in need of replacement, we decided to make a move on Cash for Clunkers because my trooper is 16 years old and gets 15 miles to the gallon. Well, thanks to the fact that my husband dragged his butt getting it registered (and had me driving it without registration for 3 months without knowing it), we have not technically "owned" this vehicle for 1 year so it does not qualify. And my husband's procrastination has finally screwed us over in the form of losing a $4,500 coupon for a new car.

I went to Rolla, MO for my first business trip last week; I feel I should note here that they took really good care of us because the flights and hotels were awesome. On Wednesday morning I get this phone call just as I walk through the door to my first meeting:

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"Oh, hey Mr. B--unless something serious is happening, can I call you back around lunch?"

"Oh, um, well...I woke up this morning and there's wasps inside the house?"

"Inside the house?"

"Yeah they're coming through a hole in the kitchen ceiling."

"Uh...okay."

"Can I take care of this when I get home tonight?"

I laugh. "Not unless you want to come home to a house full of wasps--they could swarm and kill our cats. You need to take care of this like now."



Said in irritated tone: "Well, Alula, what do I do?"

I sit there in stunned disbelief for a moment. Then I respond: "Well hon, I'm in Missouri right now, so you're going to have to take care of this one by yourself."

"By doing what?!"

"Call someone."

"Who?!"

And about this time, in my head, I'm going well, there are bugs in the house and you don't want them there...who the bleep do you think you call? I say: "I'm guessing anyone from your dad to 911 depending on how many there are and what they're doing. Jesus--just assess the situation and take care of it. Or keep calling responsible adults until you find one that can help you!"

And I hung up and went to my meeting. I text him that he needs to call Orkin and then let it go. I call his father a little later to be sure he isn't suffering death by wasps alone in our home. Turns out Mr. B has gone to work.

The irony of the situation? I call Q later and she starts with "I got this frantic call from your husband earlier. He needed to know what to do to get wasps out of the house..."

The wasps really freaked him out. Orkin came the next day and gased the invaders and the nest, which was apparently inside our kitchen ceiling. We're still dealing with stragglers trying to rebuild.

Apparently Mr. B thought the basement was too dirty for Orkin to see (no kidding, that was his reasoning) so he "cleaned" it. By breaking a lot of my stuff and donating some of it without permission. I'm still not okay with it and much screaming ensued.

Then when I got home I saw the real damage and there was more screaming. And then I tried to talk to him about how my work is now offering to pay for me to get a PhD--literally pay for it. And pay me regular salary in addition and accomodate my scheduling needs for school. Mr. B said I can't do it because I was "going to become a permanent student" and blah blah blah. We were both pretty pissy and yelly and angry.

Then we took a fifteen mminute breather, started over, and just packed our crap and went out to the camp site where Q and Munchkin and spouses were waiting. We had a lovely weekend of geocaching, s'mores, and freezing our chicklets off. The tight sleeping arrangements of our tent allowed me the perfect excuse to get an albeit amature form of revenge on my husband by breaking gas while we were forced to spoon.

Then we got home, watched some TV, fought a little more, went to bed, and woke up. Now I'm back at work and he's back in Pueblo and we're getting along fine and missing each other terribly. I'm exhausted and I have to plan Movie Night for tomorrow and my family is not making things easy.

Ociffer and Snow were having a rough time of it with Post Partum Depression--she kicked him out and basically absconded with his child for a couple of weeks only allowing him visitation. According to my mom they're "doing better now". God bless him, I hate to see my brother going through these situations. My sister is having some sort of issue now too that she won't tell me about, and my cousin had her baby--another August baby--a healthy little girl. And my grandmother wants to spend more time with me, which I feel guilty about because she lives literally on my same block and I have like no time. I'm setting something up with her for later this week.

Alula

Present from my Cat

Today I was inside trying to do my final project when Count jumped up on the coffee table purring like a motor boat with something in his mouth. He dropped it in front of me and practically cocked an eyebrow and said "I'm so sexy I brought you a present and I didn't even eat it on the way!'

It was a caterpillar. This caterpillar. Fortunately, he wasn't even mashed--I picked him up and he started squirming, and I looked him over for wounds before giving Count a pat on the head and taking the Brave Little Caterpillar out front. I set him down in my garden to chrysalis and grow wings. He might be a moth or a butterfly--I'm not sure which--but it's always nice to have things living in the garden.

As some of you have already seen, my slacker productivity has gone into high gear again and we now have a private webpage to accompany our blog. If you are currently a contributor to this blog (i.e. Alula, Munchkin, Q, DoHP, and Fuzzy) have permissions to check it out here: The Virtual Nest.

Everyone has a private page to play with located off of the home page. Please feel free to customize your private pages however you want; please ask before doing anything with the main page because the RSS feed to the blog and the chat box were hard to figure out. Suggestion to Google: just give people full access to the HTML. It would make my life a lot easier.

Alula

179.5

Evil Pharmacist

So for those of you who haven't heard this yet, I will do a recap.

There is an evil pharmacist at my pharmacy. Every time I get her, there is undoubtedly a "problem" with my insurance. Now, the problem is as follows: she goes to run my insurance, and it comes back saying I owe the full amount on whatever prescription. For my birth control, full price is more than $60/month, when insurance knocks it down to a co-pay of $25. Now, I feel I should note this woman is in fact a real pharmacist, she's at least 50 and has been there since I started filling my prescriptions 2 years ago, and she gets really rude really fast and speaks perfect English. This is not an issue where she is lacking training, experience, wisdom, or appropriate communication.

The first time this happens I brushed it off. I thought, "Eh, well...it's probably a computer error." I took the evil pharmacist's advice and kept my receipt, went home and called insurance to see what was up. They said I only owed $25, even though I had paid $60. I kept this to myself as money was tight at the time (Mr. Borealis was between jobs). When I went back the evil pharmacist said her computer said $60, so if I couldn't provide proof then I couldn't get a refund. She didn't want to talk to insurance.

From then on I avoided that pharmacist because she was rude. However, last fall I was 2 days late on the refill and finally caved. I thought it would run smooth and surely whatever issue or lacking training in entering insurance info had been remedied since our last encounter. Not so. That time she told me my insurance was expired. I said no, it was not. She looked at my card and said it was through the state, and having worked there for twelve years or something, they renewed every October so I needed a new card for my insurance to apply. That didn't sound right to me, so I called Mr. B and sure enough, our insurance was current and renewed in July. Evil pharmacist said her computer said my insurance was expired. I checked to be sure the correct date was on the card, pointed it out, and evil pharmacist said I needed a new card but to keep my receipt. I went home, Mr. B agreed it was weird, he called the insurance company who also agreed it shouldn't have happened, and we requested new cards just in case. I went back in for a refund, this time with my paper proof, and the evil pharmacist said that she could not issue a refund because it was more than 10 days old. I'm thinking, "$%^#%!" I again keep this secret from Mr. B.

Here's the kicker: the next month I go in to pick up my birth control with my fresh insurance card (no information changed--just a new piece of plastic) and have it in hand when I get to the counter to pick up. The evil pharmacist walks in and takes my order, relieving the pharmacist who I had walked up to. I tell her my last name, she gets my birth control, and says "That'll be $25." without even looking at my card. My jaw drops. I say, "You made me go through the ordeal of getting a new card because you told me my insurance was expired--then you refused to refund me when the error wasn't with insurance. It went through this time?" She shrugs and repeats that it's $25. I pay and grind my teeth all the way out to the car. I vow that I will sooner get pregnant before dealing with this inept woman again.

Today, I'm working hard on end of semester projects. I send Mr. B out to get my birth control. Well, guess who he got at the counter? And guess how much my birth control was, because the computer said so, even though Mr. B told all these previous stories and had them check their record to confirm we usually pay $25? Evil pharmacist made him pay $60 anyways, and as always "keep the receipt."

So he came home and told me what happened. And guess who just got blasted by name and store location to the corporate email address?

Vindication will be mine. I kept my receipts.

Alula

Checking in on the New Year's Resolution

Hi all,

So now that we're a little more than halfway through the year, I'm checking in on my New Year's Resolutions (listed on the right sidebar). I'm a little behind on the dates I had set for myself, but generally optimistic about things.

I got my job at more pay and more hours and better perks than I had envisioned; however, it is a desk job, and the first few weeks pretty effectively crashed my diet back to start. Worse than where I started, actually.

Prepare for the brutal honesty. And if any of you tell Mr. Borealis (or anyone else, for that matter) my real numbers, I will torture you with a spork.

I went from 170 to about 185. My feet started killing me because I have a genetic condition where my tissues lack the normal degree of collagen, so I think the arches in my feet just gave. This was around the time that I had to buy new shoes with better arch support. However, I started severe damage control on my weight about 2 weeks ago, as it was my second resolution after getting a job to finance school. I weighed in this morning at 179, with my goal still being in the 140s.

I'm not sure how the online store is going; lately I don't have time to make my own products to sell. I'm still hoping to get that thing running by year's end.

Alula

One Day at a Time

Alula all I can tell you is for you to take one day at a time. And Enjoy the good things that come your way. Above is a picture of my little garden my zucchini are taking over and my tomato plants (not in the picture) are getting really big. Lots of random things in this garden like some onions and strawberries even my lavender is growing. Now if Mr Man remembers to water the garden in my coming up absence from the house. Little man and I will be coming into your area next Saturday we will try to convince Mr Man to go to the Flea Market Sunday and then the big water Park on Monday. I just have to get little man watched on that Monday he's just too little to be going to such a big water park and I love my mom but I don't think she will be able to keep up with Little Man. So then Mr Man will be coming back home and to the garden, I will stay with my mom and leave for a family reunion in Florida on the 29Th Thu the 10Th. And then Mr Man will Have to come get us because he doesn't want to be without the car for that long. Who knows how much longer that truck is going to last. And if anyone wonders for this trip to Florida Mom will be on oxygen a cpap for the plane, Nessy the "Service Dog" will be going on the plane actually with us not in the baggage area, and Little Man is going as a lap Child for this very long flight. Please wish me luck that I don't completely loose my mind, not that I haven't lost it already. Well fun and games, one day at time.

fuzzy

Rain just keeps on pouring down...

The National Weather Service should issue a warning for my life.

Sultry red sunflower in my garden.

Ladies, let me give you the update since last for those of you who haven't heard yet. We spent the 4th of July in hospital room 213 this year; we actually had a pretty decent view of several fireworks shows out the window. Mr. B's father was released from the hospital on Sunday the 5th.

Now allow me to give a play-by-play of last Monday, the 6th. I wake up and see Mr. B out the door; he was going on an out-of-town job this week. So in a very relieved state of mind that his father is out of the hospital, we both go off to work. Around ten, I get a calm phone message from Mr. B. He has some bad news. I'm dialing him back at my office when the phone rings and I answer. It's Mr. B, and he sounds worried and sheepish--he tells me his father has been readmitted to the hospital for chest pain. I keep my voice calm as I give my condolences and he explains they are treating with blood thinners. Then he takes a deep breath.

"Well, there's something else, too..."

Apparently he hit a deer halfway out to his destination. He was going about 60 when it leaped out in front of the car. I try to not freak out (hey, we get big deer out here) in the middle of my office and ask if he's okay. He mumbles something "that's always the first thing people ask.." and then says he's fine--except he probably didn't need another scare after all of last week. Unfortunately the deer died on impact. He got the news about his dad while he was waiting for the state troopers to show up, and thought it best to leave out his own news given that his mother was pretty hysterical already.

The car sustained, as we now know, more than $4,000 in damage. Our insurance deductible is only $350, so it wasn't a terribly big deal. Mr. B called his boss, and explained about the heart attack, and the relapse, and the babies (our good friend the Valedictorian and his wife had their first child on the 1st, just before my new niece on the 2nd), and the deer, and got cleared to take the week off to recover mentally and spend time with family.

While I was driving home that afternoon, I hear sirens as I enter an intersection. I'm twisting this way and that trying to find the damn ambulance but I can't see it; as my brain debates whether to stop or go, my foot just hits the gas and I clear the second half of the intersection. Then, in my rear view mirror, I see the car on the perpendicular street that had been just to my left pull into the intersection with such speed that it hit the car right behind me and spun out. The ambulance he'd been trying to let through stopped right there, and in my head I'm going "Oh my god, if I had stopped I would have been between those two cars that just collided."

So I keep my mouth shut about it until we've carefully broken the news of Mr. B's accident to his parents, then I tell him. We both feel a little sick to our stomachs because 2 babies and a heart attack are a coincidence; both of us having a near-death experience on the same day? What is God trying to tell me?

I'm really freaked out.

Alula