So typical of me. I post every single day for a whole week and then I fall off the face of the earth for over a week after that! This time it was for a mostly good reason...

I quit my job!

For the past 5 years I have been working for the same company (well, technically 1.5 was through a temp agency but then I was hired direct with the company for the remaining time), doing a tedious clerical job that I really didn't care much for. There were a lot of things that bothered me about how the company was run, but I suffered in silence until the final straw... unsafe working conditions. There was a "little" construction accident at work (exactly a week ago today actually) which made me feel unsafe working in the building. The bosses insisted it was safe to be there, but I disagree. I decided that if there was ever a time to be reckless and irrational, that was it. I quit my job the day after the construction incident. I would go into more detail but this probably isn't the best place to do so. If anyone is dying of curiosity, I don't mind hashing out the details through email though it's mostly a long fairly uninteresting story to anyone other than myself.

This probably wasn't a very smart move in a financial sense, but the fact that I'm happy despite the fact that I currently have no source of income is enough proof for me that I made the right choice. Risking my health and safety for a company that has no regard for its' employees was just not worth it. I'm glad that chapter of my life is over with, though I will miss most of my former coworkers. The thought of moving on to something better, something new, something that I actually want, is exciting. Of course money is an issue but I don't want to jump right into another job that I will despise equally as the last one. I have a good feeling that everything will work out for the best.

I have to admit though, the thought of not having extra money to spend is bumming me out especially this week because one of my most favorite shows was released on DVD yesterday.



I thought Wonderfalls was quirky, funny, had a unique plot, interesting characters, (mostly) good acting and overall it was just nice to look at, but apparently the rest of the country didn't agree because the show was cancelled after only a few episodes. So, here's to hoping a find a good job soon so I can add Wonderfalls to my collection :)

Today was yet another mostly unproductive day, though I started it out very early this morning! I have the hardest time waking up in the morning and it's always a mental battle between 'responsible Sarah' and 'lazy sloth-like Sarah' to get out of bed anytime before 8:30 AM. For some reason this weekend I found myself wide awake before 7:30 AM both Saturday and today. I was actually outside shoveling snow at 8:00 AM! The productivity level for the day pretty much went down hill from there though. Cory & I ventured out to the grocery store at around 10:30, spent way too much money on groceries, came home, made french bread pizza, sat on our bums, watched American Pie, sat on our bums some more, made chicken corn chowder (which turned out really well!), and then I proceeded to sit on my bum for several hours after that until I moved said bum to the computer chair, where I now sit typing this before I go to bed.

I feel guilty for not accomplishing anything of importance this weekend, but I guess I deserve one more weekend of pure laziness. My college classes start this week. Hours of homework. Tests. Textbooks. Essays. Gak!

Well, that's all for now. Goodnight!

Day 5! 6?

I suddenly don't feel so bad about spending nearly every Saturday night in couch potato mode because I have found a new source of television entertainment. I was just flipping through the 6 channels we are able to watch (we don't have cable) and I stopped on PBS when I heard familiar music... Modest Mouse! They were playing on Austin City Limits, a show I had never watched until tonight.

Mostly I associate PBS with Sesame Street or Antiques Road Show, so I don't typically notice what other programs they air. After checking out the info on Austin City Limits, I'm anxious to see future episodes. Coming up this season are performances by several bands/musicians I like... The Pixies, Damien Rice, Elvis Costello, Wilco, The Shins, Bright Eyes, Guster. Yay!

I shouldn't be so excited about another excuse to veg-out like a lump in front of the TV, because I did that ALL day today. To my credit, that was mostly due to the snow and arctic-like temperatures because it was too damn cold in our house to do anything productive!

Day 4. I almost forgot to post again! I actually laid down in bed at 10:30 tonight because I was so bored (yeah, I have no life) and then realized that I hadn't blogged today, so that gave me a reason to get out of bed. Now here I am and I can't think of anything of importance or interest to write about, so I thought I would just post a photo.

This is my cat, Willow, lounging in one of our living room chairs. Looks like she should have a beer tucked under one paw and a TV remote under the other. :)

Damn! I almost forgot to post again. Day 3 of my "blog at least once per day every single day for a week" thing.

I watched last night's premiere, as well as the second episode tonight, of Point Pleasant. My initial reactions to the first commercials I saw advertising this show was that it would be just another lame show that probably wouldn't be worth watching, but when I did some more research and read about the plot I thought it might actually be interesting to watch. I was hoping that "Point Pleasant" would be at least half as interesting and well written as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," seeing that they both share a common writer/producer, Marti Noxon.

So far I'm disappointed in the show. It appears to be just another cheesy drama involving high school students (played by 20-something actors, of course), their parents, and their predictable love affairs ... à la "The O.C." Of course, there is a bit of supernatural and evil mixed in, but it's nothing spectacular. Maybe I'm being to quick to judge seeing that only two episodes have aired, but I really can't see this show joining the ranks of Buffy, Angel or other similar shows. Too bad. The story line gives it potential to be a really good show, if only they could do away with over-done, corny teenage angst drama.

*Just thought I would add that yes, I realize Buffy had the same 20-something actors playing high school students and much of the same corny teenage drama as Point Pleasant, but it was just handled in a much better fashion on Buffy, and the action and plot lines were enough to distract from the melodrama. Ok, I'm just over-analyzing this now.

I almost blew it, my goal of posting every day for the next week, but here I am posting, with a little over an hour of the day remaining.

Since I have nothing utterly exciting to write about I guess I will just blab about some random happenings in my life.

I received a letter in the mail last week informing me that I am on the Dean's List! (Why does knowing that I'm on this list make me feel as though I have done something bad, like I'm on Santa's naughty list?!) A week or so previous to that letter, I also received an invitation to apply to my school's honors program. After a lot of mulling it over, I decided that if I were accepted to the program it really would have been more stress than it was worth, at least for this semester, so I didn't fill out the application. If I keep my grades up maybe I will be eligible again next semester when I will, hopefully, have an even lesser workload. I hope it wasn't a huge mistake not at least trying for the honors program right now, but I just didn't want to take on more than I could handle. Working full time and taking 12 credit hours of classes is almost more than I can keep up with as it is, and the honors program would entail doing an independent study class of sorts in addition to my other classes.

My new classes start in a few days. I just received a new shipment of books for this semester. Over $300 for 4 books, and they were all used!!! Buying textbooks from the school bookstore is such a rip-off. I know the smart thing to do would have been to buy them used online, but unfortunately there was no way I could afford to front the money and wait to be reimbursed in a couple of months with my student loan aid. Ah well. At least I will be able to return one of the books, and accounting text, because it turns out that the text I used for Accounting I is the same as the text for Accounting II... gee, would have been nice if they told me that in the first place. I listed a couple of last semester's books on Half.com so hopefully those will sell, it would be nice to get something for them seeing that they are in very good shape and I paid an arm and a leg for them.

Well, that's enough rambles for one night. Until tomorrow...

Is there anything worse than getting a paper cut on your knuckle? $#!@!!!

Oh yeah, there is ... the current weather conditions.



For the first time ever, I am actually dreading the end of the work day, but only because I will have to leave a heated building and walk out into this bitter cold. Just the thought of it is making my fingers and toes numb, and my sinuses burn!

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I looked out my bedroom window (which offers a lovely view of my neighbor's roof) to see a bunch of little black birds huddled around on top of the chimney, warming their feathers. There were probably about 10 to 15 of them up there at a time. Every couple of minutes another bird would fly up and plunk down on top of one of the birds already sitting in the huddle, forcing that one out and the process kept repeating until, I assume, every one of the little black birds had a chance to warm up. I wish I had my video camera ready, that scene would have made a funny little movie, especially with cute little chirpy bird-like voices dubbed in.

I'm so frustrated with this blog. I think it's time for something new. Perhaps if started over, from scratch, I would have more interest in keeping this thing up to date. Just over two years ago I started this blog, with no direction, no thoughts on what I wanted to write about or how long I would keep it up, and here I am just bobbing along, rarely updating and when I do it's usually just rambling for the sake of rambling.

I guess what I really need to do is put forth effort. Maybe challenging myself to update this blog at least once per day for the next week is all I need to get back in the blogging habit, so I will try that. My concern isn't limited to the quantity of posts, but the quality. Obviously I can't make my life exciting and packed with news-worthy bits overnight, but I can find other things to write about other than me. The thought of having some sort of themed blog (cooking, music, art, photography, etc.) has crossed my mind, but I think my interests are too scattered to limit into one thing so maybe I just need to find a way to mesh all of that together into one. Having a digital camera would help too, because I always find blogs more fun when there are at least a few photos to see now and then. I'm hoping to get a semi-decent camera sometime soon and once I do I will probably be a photo posting maniac for a while.

So what was the point of this entry anyway? Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I intend to make some changes around here and hopefully bring this blog to life. Actually, I'm really considering doing away with this whole blog and starting all over, as I mentioned before. Maybe I will branch out and move away from Blogger, though I'm not very knowledgeable about any of the alternatives (except for LiveJournal, but that's not quite what I had in mind). Looks like I have some research ahead of me, and as I do that I will be trying to think of a whole new blog title as well. A whole new me, how exciting.

Happy New Year, a little bit late.

I would have posted sooner but I wasn't sure what to write about after my last "everyone go out now and donate money to poor tsunami victims" tirade, which I still mean every word of but I realize I was much too wordy. Why can't I just be simplistic and to the point? Why couldn't I have just said "Hey, it would be super if you swung a few dollars in the direction of The Red Cross or Unicef" ... why? Oh yeah, because I'm me and I ramble and I'm doing it right now.

So, other than that my other reason for not blogging is that I haven't been spending as much time online lately. School is over for the semester and I'm rather enjoying not having to spend every waking moment of my day staring at a computer screen. Though I still use a computer at work all day, I haven't been going online as much at home at night. Classes will be starting up again in a couple of weeks though so I will once again be a slave to Windows.

I'm so happy with myself that I made it through a semester. There were so many times when I never thought I would find the courage and/or determination to go back to school, but somehow I did it. While I sometimes feel as though I'm not in a "real college" because my classes are taken entirely via internet, and I'm not exactly in love with the degree program I am majoring in, I am still glad that I'm doing it. My grades were decent. They could have been better and I vow to try even harder next semester. I earned one A+, two A's, one B and one B-. Not too shabby I suppose. The upcoming Spring '05 semester should be a little bit easier as I'm only taking four classes rather than the five I took last semester.

It's a little bit scary to think that in less than a year and a half I will finally have my associate's degree and then I will be moving on to something different. The problem is that I don't know what I want that "something different" to be. I really need to start putting some serious thought into what I want to do with the rest of my life. Most likely after I get my associate's degree I will transfer to a local college and go for a B.A., but majoring in what I haven't the foggiest. How is one supposed to know what they want to do in the future? I can't even decide what I want to have for dinner tomorrow night so how the hell am I supposed to figure out who and where I want to be 10 or 20 years from now? The thought of making the wrong choice terrifies me, but then again, is there a wrong choice? Maybe I just need to accept the fact that someday in the future I may not want something that I want today, so I will just need to start over at that point and take a new path. Maybe my goals for 2005 should be to think about what I want right now and learn to accept that. Easier said than done.

I feel guilty saying that my Christmas was a good one when I know that at this very moment there are so many people suffering from Sunday's tsunami. Recent thoughts of what I will purchase with the gift certificates I received for Christmas, and how I will celebrate New Year's Eve tomorrow night, leave me feeling ashamed. How can I concern myself with such trivial things when every news program I see on tv, and nearly every website I visit is plastered with images of mass graves lined with bodies of those who drown, and footage of a grief stricken parent grasping her baby's lifeless hand for the last time. I can't shake those images from my head, nor do I want to because I don't want this tragedy to become another "life goes on," "glad it didn't happen to me," "nothing I can do about it anyway" events. I want to keep those images circulating through my brain so I do not forget, so I do not shrug the matter off as something beyond my control.

Assuming that any little part I could do to help would not be significant enough to make a difference is not something I want either, and it's not something I want for the rest of the world's population. People, myself included, need to realize that even donating $5 to The Red Cross, or Unicef, or donating a tiny bit of food or clothing to a locally organized rescue mission IS enough to make a difference. If even a quarter of the world's population donated $5 or $10 or an article of clothing, imagine how much aid that would bring to those directly affected by the tsunami!

Many of us watched in horror as the lives of just under 3,000 people were lost on September 11, 2001. People from all around the world kept the United States in their hearts and thoughts. Thousands upon thousands of volunteers, and donations of money, food, and even blood seemed to come out of the woodwork that September morning. American citizens came together and helped one another. They sacrificed, they cared, they were concerned. I am sad to see that so many Americans have seemed to shrug off this past Sunday's events. Of course there are many bloggers posting entries, much like this one, expressing their sadness over the situation, and I have had several face to face conversations about it, but I don't hear coworkers discussing the thousands of children who are now orphans, I don't hear people in the grocery store speaking in hushed voices, with tears in their eyes, about the small fishing villages completely wiped out by the wave. Many of the same people who were distraught over the lives lost on 9-11 are now giving little more than a look of pity and a sad head shake to the stories of the tsunami victims. Maybe that's because Americans were more physically connected to the terrorist attacks here in this country, but the tsunami affected non-English speaking countries on the other side of the world. It is easy to shrug off something that isn't on your front door step, but that is the problem, that is why victims in Indonesia and other areas won't get the aid they need to rebuild their countries. People (again, myself included) have to start caring more and doing more about things that aren't on their front door step.

I hate to sound all preachy, and act as though Americans are all greedy, uncaring and unaware, but maybe we all need a little push now and then. I will admit that after September 11th I had every intent to donate blood or money, but the feeling of "what is my tiny little contribution really going to do anyway" overruled my intentions and I did nothing to help. I have thought about joining groups online, or local groups, sending packages to soldiers in Iraq, but as of yet, I have not done so. I'm a person who procrastinates so much and I can easily talk myself out of doing things that require more effort than usual, so I am amazed with myself that I have spent so long typing an entry insisting that people need to DO SOMETHING when I have been guilt of doing nothing for so long. Perhaps I wrote this entry as a way to force myself to help out. After all, I can't write this big long lecture on how we need to help others and how every little bit helps and then not donate some of my money, so I will. I will donate money. I don't have tons of extra money. I live paycheck to paycheck like so many of you do but I'm going to at least donate $5 today. And maybe next week I will donate $10, and hopefully in the future I will have even more to donate. Yes, I'm probably still going to purchase alcohol to celebrate tomorrow night and I am still going to use my gift certificates to buy new clothes for myself, and I am not going to abandon on frivolous spending on my part, but I am going to do something. $5 will help someone, donating nothing will not help anyone. So, skip the Starbucks coffee tomorrow morning. Buy the 98 cent Suave shampoo this week rather than the $12 Paul Mitchell salon-quality stuff. Thinking of taking your family out to a restaurant for dinner tonight? Grab a cheap pizza instead. Do something, even just one thing to change your spending habits today or at some point this week and use that $5 or $20 you just saved and donate it to The Red Cross or Unicef or some other charity. Though you won't be able to hear them, someone out there will be thanking you for it.

So if you have actually read all of this and been inspired enough to donate a few dollars then you have my undying respect and gratitude (especially for putting up with my preachy-ness!) and here are some good place to donate or do some more research:

unicef

American Red Cross

Network for Good

United Way

Tomorrow I'm heading east! My mom, my sister and I are spending Christmas at my aunt's house which is about 20-30 miles northwest of Boston. I hear we are celebrating the holiday with The Fam on Xmas Eve rather than Christmas day. I don't know exactly what we are going to do the day of the 25th now, because we aren't heading back to NY until Sunday. I thought about driving into Boston for a while just for something to pass the time, but I keep forgetting that nearly everything is closed on Christmas day. Maybe we will drive to the ocean and run around in the (cold) sand for a while.

I can't wait! I love road trips. I also can't wait to get some Chinese food when we get there. It's a tradition we have, usually the day we arrive at my Aunt's we order a bunch of take-out. The Chinese food out there is just so much better than what we have here in Upstate NY. Mmm. Can't wait.

Speaking of road trips to Massachusetts, that reminds me of a very crazy Christmas Eve I once experienced. I can't remember exactly which year it was, I'm guessing it was 1995 because I was probably around 15 years old when this happened. My mom, my sister and I were driving along the Mass Pike, somewhere around Sturbridge, when suddenly my mom's piece of crap car just died, in the middle lane of the highway! Luckily there was a break in traffic in the right lane so she was able to just roll over into the breakdown lane. Of course Janelle and I started to panic and flip out. After sitting there with the flashers on and the hood up for a little while, a big white Cadillac pulls over behind us. I think we were all a little bit afraid to see who got out of the car. It was a thin, average height man, probably in his late 30s or early 40s. He looked like a biker, or part of The Mob. He had tattoos and a leather jacket and I think maybe he even had leather pants on. His name was Al.

My mom and Al were looking under the hood of the car, trying to figure out what was wrong while my sister and I sat in the car, wondering if this man was going to kill our mother. By this time the sun was nearly setting and it was getting cold sitting in the car with no heat. After a while Al flagged down a state trooper, who wasn't very helpful other than to radio for a tow truck to come get us before he zoomed off. Al didn't want to leave us alone waiting for the tow truck so he offered for us to come sit in his car where we could at least have heat. Janelle and I were either too scared or too shy to sit in his car so we said we would wait in my mom's car. Finally, after probably an hour or so a tow truck came. The tow truck already had people in it's cab though so it was a good thing that Al waited. At this point, Janelle and I had no choice other choice but to climb into Al's big beast of a car, which had plush maroon interior(swanky!), and follow the tow truck to the garage. From there my mom called my aunt's house to tell her why we hadn't arrived yet because we were now hours behind schedule, and they were trying to figure out who could come pick us up when Al offered to drive us the rest of the way to my aunt's. I can't believe my mom accepted his offer as it seems a little risky to ride with a complete stranger, especially with children, but anyway I guess she thought he seemed safe and accepted the offer.

Al was on his way to Cape Cod to see his family for the holiday, so he was going way out of his way to bring us up near the New Hampshire border but he didn't seem to mind. Turns out he wasn't an ax murdered after all because we arrived at my aunt's house in one piece. I remember they were trying to shove money at him to at least cover the extra gas he used but he kept refusing it. What a nice guy! He spent a couple of hours on the side of the road with strangers and went so far out of his way too, and all of that on Christmas Eve! Oh, and I remember when we put our bags in the trunk of his car I was expecting to see a body wrapped up in a garbage bag or something, but instead there were two pink bean bag chairs, which he said were gifts for his daughters!

Ahh... doesn't that just warm the cockles of your heart?

So, remember the annoying neighbors I have mentioned before? I like to refer to them as "The Ghetto Fam." Anyway, here is just another reason why they drive me insane...

You know those gigantic inflatable Christmas ornaments? The ones that you see in front of every other house in your neighborhood? Yeah, well The Ghetto Fam has a menagerie of them on their front lawn. There are four of them out there, one of which should actually count as three because it appears to be an attached family of 3 snowmen. In addition to the snowmen there is an inflatable Grinch, a Santa, and a Mickey Mouse Santa. I think they just might be trying to create their own inflatable ghetto Nativity scene! They also have a very realistic (from a distance anyway) "life size" Santa standing on their porch, which creeps me out every time I see it, along with about 1000 different types of lights and other illuminated ornaments. The newest addition to the Ghetto Fam Spectacular of Lights is the little army of plastic gingerbread men and candy canes which stand at attention in a row along the edge of their lawn. Did I mention all of this is squished onto a lawn that is maybe 10'x20'? That's a lot of decoration for one small space.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being a total Scrooge here. I like Christmas decorations but there is a big difference between cute/pretty decorations and tacky decoration overload. I wouldn't think it was so strange that they have all of these decorations on their lawn if they had small children, but their youngest is an 8 year old boy and he swears more than a drunken sailor, so I can't imagine he gets all excited about Mickey Mouse Santa and little gingerbread men. You know what I mean?

So, I didn't even mention the worst part of it all... the noise. I don't know what it is, if it's one of the decorations, or if it's a stereo they have set up outside but for the past few weeks I have woken up on Saturday and Sunday mornings to the sounds of Christmas music and a voice reading Christmas stories. It's some sort of prerecorded annoying crap that plays non-stop. This isn't motion sensor activated, it's an on & off switch thing because sometimes they let it play for HOURS. Frigging hours and hours of Christmas singing and stories. Noooooo! The first couple of days they had it the volume was turned up so loud that you could clearly hear every word from inside of our house. I'm guessing another neighbor complained though because now when the offending device is switched into action, the volume is much quieter, though still loud enough that I can hear it muffled in my bedroom which is on the opposite side of the house from their yard. The Ghetto Fam is really making me hate Christmas.

Looks like winter has finally arrived in the Capital Region. *sigh* I shouldn't complain. We are lucky to have made it all the way until December before we had any actual snow. I seem to recall trick-or-treating a couple of times in the snow when I was a kid, so I'm actually surprised we hadn't had any heavy snowfall this season up until today. I'm not looking forward to the soaking wet pant legs and shoes I will have after walking out to my car and cleaning it off at the end of the work day. Grumble, grumble.

Speaking of grumbling, I was feeling all bad for myself for a minute when I found out, after the fact, that Cat Power did a show at Mass MoCA on Saturday. I thought that would have been a great show to see, but apparently I was wrong. According to this article in the Times Union, I should consider myself lucky that I didn't know about the concert until today! I'm thankful that I didn't waste the money and time driving all the way out to North Adams for that. Ack! Perfomance artists with attitudes like hers just make me twitch. What a sniveling, miserable little twit she is for acting so disrespectful to an audience, and a paying one no less. Sure everyone has bad days but judging by that review, her behavior was way out of line.

Well, I still enjoy her voice so I probably won't boycott her music, but I definitely have lost respect for that woman. And as pointed out in the Times Union article, "Almost 700 fans watched a Cat Power meltdown -- with many die-hards swooning nonetheless." I suppose that's why so many musicians and actors act that way - they figure they can throw public temper tantrums and because they are attractive, charming and/or talented, all will be forgiven and forgotten, and in many cases it's true. That has me wondering just how many other musicians are equally as childish and ungrateful of their fans and the venues which support them. I think I would rather just live in complete denial, assuming that all of my favorite musicians are shiny, happy wonderful people.

Alright, well I have yapped long enough for one day and it's almost time to go home. A post about my horrid neighbors is coming soon, I swear!!!

I'm cheating.... I'm cross posting this from my LiveJournal because it would just be silly to re-type all of this...


Well, hello there LiveJournal Blogger. I haven't posted here in quite a while. Just a mixture of procrastination, the holiday, lots of homework and other time consuming things.

So what's new with me?

Well, Thanksgiving was good. I spent the day with my mom and my sister. My mom cooked and of course she made my favorite... butternut squash with lots of brown sugar. Janelle and I watched Elf which satisfied my recent Christmas movie cravings. So it was a good day.

Saturday was Cory's 26th birthday. We decided to spend the day taking a road trip to Connecticut so we could go on a mini-shopping spree at IKEA. Our intent was to buy some Christmas presents but we wound up spending more money on stuff for our house (duvet cover, curtains, a metal rack thingy and lots of coffee for Cory) than on the one present we picked out. Two of the people we would have been shopping for ended up going with us though, so I think we will try to make another trip there sometime in the next couple of weeks. This was only my second time shopping at IKEA. It's so mind boggling. Normally I have a good sense of direction but in this store I have to stop every few minutes to try to figure out where I am and which way I came from. It's like a shopping maze. I love it. The first time we went there, it was a Friday afternoon in early October and there were very few customers in the store, which was nice. This weekend was completely different. The entire parking lot was nearly filled and there were just so many people shopping, which was a little frustrating but I still had fun. Some people might think driving 5 hours round trip to spend 2 or 3 hours in one store is a little crazy, but I had a good time, despite spending more money than I should have.

As we were returning home, just outside of Albany, I somehow made the wrong decision on the Thruway (so much for that good sense of direction) and ended up heading south on I-87. Unfortunately the next exit was about 20 or 30 miles away... which I believe was in or around Coxsackie (for those of you who aren't from around here ... yes, that is actually the name of a town!). So, thanks to me we ended up spending an extra 45 minutes to an hour on the road. I still think highway exits should not be spaced so far apart.

Other random news from my world:

- My sister got into a car accident (she was the passenger, not the driver) with her boyfriend at Crossgates Mall last Sunday. Someone slammed into the front area of the passenger's side, luckily missing the door or Janelle could have been seriously hurt. Phew! Close call. Sometimes I just want to shrink her down to a miniature size, wrap her up in bubble wrap and carry her around in my bag so nothing will hurt her. Though, I suppose being shrunk, wrapped up and stuffed in a bag would be quite uncomfortable. Oh, my poor delicate little sister!

- My wisdom teeth are killing me. I really need to go to the dentist. I'm such a chicken. Why is it so hard to just pick up the phone, call a dentist's office, make an appointment and go to it? Why? What's even more frustrating is that I know how ridiculous it is being so afraid of making an appointment, yet I still can't snap out of that frame of mind.

- My tacky neighbors (remember them?) are still tacky and still annoying. I will post more about them tomorrow though because it's just too much to get into right now.

- Won $5 on a $2 scratch-off lotto ticket. I'm rich

- Found a dead rat in our (outdoor) garbage can last weekend. A RAT!!! A DEAD one!!! Disgusting!!!

Well, the end of the work day is nearing and I have some work to finish before I leave so I that's all the news for now. I can't wait to get home. I made lasagna yesterday... leftovers! Yay! And Cory got the final season of Buffy on DVD for his birthday so hopefully I will get to see a few episodes of that. I have never seen any of the final season episodes and I don't even really know how the whole series ends, so keep your lips sealed if you know!

I tried changing my blog layout today but my lack of HTML knowledge left me wanting to rip my hair out, so I just gave up and put this one back in place. I will keep practicing though and hopefully one of these days this place will have a new look. Preferably I would create my own layout but that's way too advanced for me as I'm having a hard time just using a free linkware template. Oy!

Anyway, Jasper the Pervert Cat has had his 15 minutes of fame... time for something new. These are some photos I took a few months ago of my dahlias. Yes, MINE. I grew them from seeds. This was my first adventure into the world of gardening and I was so proud of myself when these bloomed. Pretty, eh?




I'm terrified of bees so I'm amazed with myself that I actually leaned in close enough to take this photo (I was using Cory's phone to take these)




A few days after I snapped these pics, this yellow bloom fell off perfectly intact and I couldn't bear to toss it and it seemed to big to press in a book so I actually have it in a tupperware container in my freezer but I don't know what to do with it. Any ideas???



I probably should have cropped these but that just requires more effort than I can dredge up at the moment.

Meet Jasper, my Dollar Store feather duster humping cat.

I have been in desperate need of some new music lately so last night I downloaded the free version of BearShare (a Gnutella P2P file sharing program). The free version comes with pesky 'SAVE' adware while the paid version supposedly is adware-free, but since I don't have the cash to throw down on some new CDs I obviously don't have money to pay for 6 months of BearShare either. Needless to say I decided that adware was not too big of a price to pay for oodles of free tunes.

I'm impressed, the adware actually has proved not to be too pesky so far. I downloaded around 30 songs last night and I only had ads pop up a handful of times, and those ads are just one window at a time that are easily closed. So far, so good. I found most of the songs I was searching for and most of them downloaded fairly quickly without any problems. There were a few files that turned out to be the wrong song, or some wouldn't download but overall I'm happy with the program.

Most of the files I downloaded last night were cover songs because I'm working on a cover songs mixed CD for a swap. I found some really good stuff, including a live version of Fuel covering Elton John's "Daniel," a very odd, but good Deftones cover of "No Ordinary Love" (yes, the Sade song! Ha!), and Juliana Hatfield singing Weezer's "Say it Ain't So." There were more but that's all that comes to mind at the moment. If I get a chance to after work tonight I will put the mix together and post a play list.

The Covers Project really came in handy when I was searching for ideas for my mix. I love that site. I just loves me some good cover songs.

Well, I think my first voting experience has scarred me for life. Not the actual experience of voting itself, the outcome is what will be traumatizing me for the next four years and possibly many to follow. All I can say is that I'm immensely disappointed in the half of the U.S. (well, half of the percentage who actually bothered to vote, that is). I am still in shock that so many people actually support that monster. You think people would have learned their lesson after his first four years in office.

Anyway, I have done my fair share of debating on the whole election ordeal with several people so going into it even further here on my blog just seems like a waste of time. I'm not going to flee the country but I have never felt so ashamed to live in this country.

So, moving on... to more senseless things...

McDonald's Employee Simulator

I stumbled upon this gem tonight and it rather reminds me of my life, but substitute the burger flipping for typing and paper shuffling for hours on end. Oh, and I usually never have time to eat a bowl of cereal before work, let alone several. The potatoes and carrots for dinner looks about right though. Throw in some grocery shopping, school work, and there you have it... my life in a nutshell!

It's just another one of those printer-is-out-of-paper, stapler-is-out-of-staples, I'm-wearing-an-itchy-sweater kind of days. *sigh*

Maybe I should be in a better mood after all, the Red Sox won (I knew they could do it! Hurray!) and I had a nice clear view of last night's eclipse from my yard. That was one of the greatest things I have ever set eyes upon.

Ha! I knew they could do it. Yay Boston!

The funny thing is I usually hate watching sports on TV but just in the past week Cory and I somehow found ourselves sucked into a Cardinals - Astros game. Then we saw some of one of the Yankees - BoSox game, I think it was Game 4. I was so desperate to see "the curse" lifted I kept watching! I even watched some parts of the games on my own while I was doing my homework in our computer room. So unlike me, but I just had to see Boston win.

I route for Boston teams in any sport, mainly because I was born in Massachusetts and most of my family lives there. MA will always be my home even though I have lived in NY for over 18 years. I'm a hypocrite though because if the game were between Yankees and some non-Boston team, I would probably choose to route for NY.

Anyway, hurray for Boston!