Christmas at work

Mood: good
Weather: gray and about 32
Gas: $2.15

I have two topics to post about, one is about the cool amount of loot I end up with around the holidays from work, second is an insightful comparison between crowns on teeth and crowns in the SCA. Here is the first;

As a purchasing agent I have a ton of suppliers and around the holidays our work is more or less a buffet of cookies and candy and nuts. We all share any shareable food item with other people in the company to keep things fair. We also have a firm policy of no gifts over $25 so none of this is really 'great' stuff but still fun. So far I have received;

Shared items;
tins of nuts
tins of popcorn
calendars - over 20
date book (kept one, shared the other 5)

Not shared,
Box of cheese
wallet
money clip
tin box from Germany
collection of jams

...another 8 good reasons to like my job

Christmas Pics

Christmas Tree
Originally uploaded by kate79@gmail.com.

Question of the day; Who is reading this from in or near Levittown??? Totally public blog here but it is fun to know who I'm entertaining (or at least informing)

Big Yeah! of the day; I have been officially accepted into a masters program! The University of St Thomas evening MBA program will be the new subject of where all my time goes. I hope to get it done in 4 years.

Birthday breakdown; It was an odd day overall. A family member in NY, who is and has been very sick for a long time, is now very very sick and decided to sign the DNR so there was much talk about it all weekend. We will all miss him tons and he was a major part of my life until I moved away and even then he would mail little random clippings from newspapers or silly e-mails. I've said prayers for him to be comfortable and happy for years now and I'll keep it up until the end, but it is a birthday bummer. I really did it to myself because I just kept thinking about him, then I started thinking about what if other people die, or Lars, or me, and it is a weird personal gloom I set on myself. Lars has gotten used to these (I think) and I really do get better - today I'm totally normal just regular sad. I did get a cool new game from Lars and we played a round with friends who took us out to lunch and then Lars and I played a round. I need to look at the box to get the name but I highly recommend it. I was a veggie most of the day, we watched some tivo, I read, I refused to fold laundry but we did some general cleaning and wrapping and I ended up going to bed a little early. Today I picked up donuts for the office. I originally thought it was weird to bring in something for your own birthday - so 1st grade - but it really does make sense. 1. if you don't want to mention your birthday you don't have to 2. nobody gets stuck organizing all the office birthdays 3. no wondering if people will remember. All good reasons to bring in donuts yourself if you want the world to know. I share my birthday with a guy in my group so it was even more fun. In the grand scale of birthdays I would put it somewhere in the middle - My 16th I think is at the top, 13th right after and the ones that I had the flu for are at the bottom.

Unfortunately I did not get the pictures of the rest of the house done yesterday but I'll give it a shot tonight. For now, here is a little flicker group of Christmas decorations.(click on this picture to see the others) I re-arranged my sad little tree about 3 times, Lars and I tried to decorate together but it takes effort to make a cheep-o tree look like something and Lars was going for the path of least resistance so there was much ornament clumping. My sister hates it when I rearranged the tree but now we have separate houses on different sides of the mid west so she can't complain and Lars does not notice that nothing is where he put it.

Plan for the week; Finish up the little bits of shopping then we plan on driving around playing Santa on Thursday to our friends. Then we will do our mini Christmas at home before we go to NY for big Christmas.

Birthday Flowers

Birthday Flowers
Originally uploaded by kate79@gmail.com.

Today is my birthday! These flowers are from my parents through Lars. He went to the store and the florist asked what he wanted and he said 'Nothing that says Christmas' She had nothing so this is a custom arrangement. It smell great, the entire house smells like lilies. I still have no particular plans for the day. I think I'm going out to lunch with friend and fellow blogger JC but other then that not too much. I have been working on taking pictures of our house 1 year later since yesterday was the day we closed and we have done a ton. I have talked about alot of the projects but many didn't get pictures. Yesterday I did about half the house, today I'll do the remainder and post. Flicker has been upgraded nicely so it is way easier to use now. So, something to look forward to (if you like pictures) later today. Now, I will go run.

Elephant poop

Mood: sleepy
Weather: cool and clear
Gas: $2.19

It has been snowing on and off for days and the roads are very well salted, plowed, and have a great gray black sloppy quality now. The Saturn, it the 50 or so miles it does in a day, collects big goobs of 'snow' in the wheel wells and when parked in the 40 degree garage they fall off and look all the world like piles of elephant poop. I as a good zoo keeper, go out with my big snow shovel and clean up after the car. It really is a funny chore but it keeps the garage from becoming a swamp

Weekly update

Mood: good
Weather: snowing more - 7in on the ground
Gas: $2.16ish

So, many days have passed since my last post. As have many hundreds of miles. I went to and from a supplier 4 hours north on Tuesday, then drove 7 hours to a supplier in WI and spent the next two days driving around WI to various suppliers. On Sat we only drove 1.8 miles to the event but Sunday, 6 hours back to home.

The event was very fun. We had tons to do and I didn't get to talk to everyone I wanted to but being princess is still fun. The princess sleeve tournament that I hosted was great. There were well over 30 fencers and I talked to the princess of another kingdom and it was a great time. I like the winner too, he seems like he will do a good job. The 2nd place person would have been cool too but he has won a few in the past and the guy who won will benefit from being seen etc way more then #2 would have.

While I was driving and seeing suppliers and going to events my sister had her baby! He is healthy and huge and they are home already enjoying being a family of 4. For about 5 min I was sad that there were no more babies to wait for - my 3 internet babies got born, my neighbor, and my sister are done and that was the end of the list. Yesterday I found out that another friend is a month or so along and then I remembered another person is 3 months along so I'm back in the baby watching game. Maybe next year I'll have one.

Now that I actually worked all day every day plus one evening I am officially caught up at work. There is still plenty to do but I'm not behind anymore.

On to Christmas! I finished wrapping and packing and I mailed everything yesterday. I took advantage of the online postage purchase and free pickup and it actually worked. They got more money out of me then absolutely necessary because I added a pound to all my packages to be positive I was covered. The mail man had to brave 6 inches of falling snow to get the packages but when I got home they were gone so I believe it was a success. I was torn for a while, in my mad day after thanksgiving marathon shopping I got a gift for a brother in law and totally forgot that big and heavy are bad ideas for mailing. I went back and forth and the final deicing factor was that I didn't have a box that could fit it plus the other gifts soooo I bought one online and I'm having it shipped direct. The other one is sitting on my kitchen floor, wrapped, waiting to be unwrapped and returned. I also did the online thing for my sisters baby. I don't want to pre buy Christmas gifts because he might not have been born yet but after he was born I was already on the clock to ship so no time to shop. Anyway, he is getting a cute Winnie the poo sweater set via target express. I still have a little shopping to do for my family in Sayville but I'm going to be flying there so I am putting off shopping until I get there.

This Sunday is my birthday, I'll be 26 so I need to change my blogger bio. No real plans but I have a little pile of presents from Lars to look forward. He was so good, he actually found non-Christmas paper to wrap them in.

Back to work for me

200th Post

Mood: sleepy
Weather: cold
Gas: $?

To follow up - none of the bedding nor the bed smell like pee anymore. Lars got a great spray by oxyclean that ate up the pee using enzymes. The blanket is getting dry, the feathers are still clumpy but we have hope for a full recovery. The current theory is that there was some sort of animal smell that the cat was trying to cover up. So she was trying to do us a favor... She is a good cat but I think she will stay banned from the room for a long time.

Later Monday I had another tragic incident. 2 miles from work I stopped to get gas and the gas pump took 15 min to pump 10 gallons. That was bad but the worst part was that when it finally finished the car would not start. All I got was a click-click-click sound. I called Lars and he said it was probably the battery and he would come jump the car. The worst part really was waiting, it was only 1 degree and I sat for 25min waiting - I was an icecube by the time he got there and by the time I got home I was completely wiped out. Lars and our neighbor replaced the battery yesterday and it was a saga to itself including Lars pulling something off the car that should not have been pulled off. He has a theory that when something isn't working to push, pull, or twist harder - this theory has obvious problems but he always gets jars open. Anyway, the car is fixed and Lars has been declared handy for the week.

Tomorrow - Friday I'm going on my first mostly alone business trip. I'm going to Milwaukee and I will see 4 suppliers in 1.5 days. I'm meeting a coworker for one of the suppliers but the others I will be on my own. There is an SCA even in the area on Sat so Lars is going to meet me there Friday night so get work done plus a 'free' trip I would have needed to go on anyway. The event is one of the bigger winter ones and the Prince of the Middle and the Prince of Calontir are both going to be there so it will be fun for Lars to fight and plan for Pennsic. My favorite part about winning the crown we did is we get to be King and Queen at Pennsic.

Last - on the 9th I will have had this blog for 1 year and this is my 200th post. This time last year I wasn't working at my new great job yet, we were closing on a house in 2 weeks, I had only been married for 1 month and we only had 2 cats. Alot more changed too - I cut my hair super short, Lars won crown, my sister got pregnant and has almost had the baby (due any day now), all the internet people I started reading that were pregnant have had their babies and so has my neighbor. I have made a bunch of new friends at work, Josh has dated a girl for an entire year, a whole lot of my friends got married.... busy busy year. Some things that have not happened; did not manage to buy a couch, never got around to a honeymoon, and we still have 2 mostly empty rooms in the house. I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the next 12 months but I'm sure I'll blog about to some degree.

Cat Pee

Mood: a little mad
Weather: pretty but cold
Gas: $1.98


I was just about to write a nice little post about my great new birthday gift (2 weeks early) but then I got a phone call that the cat peed on it! Lars and I got the extra warm, extra thick down comforter and a pretty cover for me for my birthday and last night we slept under it for the first time and it was great and warm and soft. Lars went home for lunch today and he said the cat just hopped up and peed right on the comforter! He yelled and scared her and threw her outside and is in the middle of washing all the sheets, new comforter, and our bed (it soaked through). She has done this before 2 times a few years ago and we pretty much think it was over dirty letterbox issues but we change the litter every week and it was just changed yesterday!!! Lars is furious and I'm not too happy either :(

Otherwise, life is busy. I've been Christmas shopping and have the majority done. We have done some little SCA projects but nothing major. this week I'm traveling 3 out of 5 days - tomorrow and Thursday - Friday to visit suppliers and we have a big even in WI this weekend.

Update on if my birthday present is ruined or not later.

11-28-05 024

11-28-05 024
Originally uploaded by kate79@gmail.com.

This is what I did all weekend! I climbed a very tall ladder and put up 6 strings of lights on the house and a string for each tree. I also went to Thanksgiving dinner at friends, played a bunch of games, and I even managed to get up at 4:30 am to shop on Friday - it was actually very fun.

My desk is a sea of paper

Mood: busy busy busy
Weather: snowing a little
Gas: $2.16

work is being nuts! I can not see the surface of my desk.... 3 jobs is 1 too many (I had 2 before).

We went to meet SCA people for an A&S discussion and we ended up with a pretty cool concept for a competition. We are going to challenge all the groups in the kingdom to make a group project to be displayed at crown. At the end of the day, a representative from each group will draw the name of another participating group and that's is who they give their project too. Every group will go home with something made by someone else and I think it is a great idea.

No more time to write! I need to get through all this work~

Changes

Mood: busy
Weather: gray and rainy
Gas: $1.12


I have been sorta promoted at work. I have not changed boss, group, or seat but I'm taking over a new bigger responsibility area from a guy who is moving to a supervisor role effective Monday. The fun thing is I don't exactly give up anything for at least a few weeks, half my stuff will go to a person who is currently on medical leave who will hopefully be back in 2 weeks and the other half will be to a new hire. Soooo my inbox runnuth over.

Lars' visit to the eye surgeon went very well - he will have modified eyes by the end of Jan we just have to pick a week to do it where he can have the apt on a Friday and be reasonably sedate all weekend and have a follow up the next week. The tricky point to Jan is events plus Andre's wedding but it will work out I'm sure.

Yesterday I put my last piece of info in the mail for my MBA application. I got it all in early enough to save the $65 application fee so that was nice. Hopefully I get in - my GMAT score was not what I hoped for but the 'new' testing system is probably bringing the average scores down. The test is no longer x number of questions that you get right or wrong that are compared to a pool of test takers - now it is a test that if you get one wrong it drops you down to an easier level and you can NEVER get back to the higher level so your score is prematurely lowered. This particularly sucks with my test taking method of identify the problems I'm good at and the ones I don't want to waste time on so I skip them in order to focus more on the middle ones that I get but I need more time to do. The test gives you about 45 seconds per problem so I needed to work with that factor as well as crazy grading. Anyway, I scored perfect on the writing section so that can tell them something even though it isn't counted into the base score. I'm sure it will be fine but I don't like not scoring well.

Last, tonight we are expecting our first snow, lets see how that goes.

Eyes and Pills

Mood: busy
Weather: gray and cool
Gas: $2.18ish

Lars is at the eye doctor seeing if he is eligible for laser eye surgery. If he is we are doing it first thing in the new year on flex. I'll miss his cute glasses that make him look smart but I will not miss keeping track of the glasses while he fights.

In other news I have sadly broken my almost 4 year record of not taking any antibiotics. I was coughing up chunks and globs of disgusting things that were half choking me so before I hit full pneumonia I got something to kill that gack. The gack isn't giving up easily but the super pills should win in the end.

I just ate year old cake

Mood: good
Weather: foggy but nice temp
Gas: $2.12

Normally, year old food is bad but we just ate the top layer of our wedding cake that is 1 year old today. It was ok, about the same as at the wedding but the icing didn't stay very smooth. Originally we were going to go to a nice B&B or something but since I am sick and Lars has a cold we hung out at home, did a little shopping, went out for an awesome sushi dinner and played a new game while eating wedding cake. Now at 10pm, having been awake a whole 12 hours I'm sleepy again and I'm going to watch West Wing and go to bed.

Afternoon observation

The day after Halloween candy picking are very good at my work. I have much sugar to choose from...

Friend Service Announcement.

You know who you are... Do not, under any circumstances, in any universe, even when very drunk sleep with the 'office slut'. You will be looked down on by everyone because everyone will know and they will think you are desperate and easy so just don't do it.
**I don't know this from personal experience, don't worry mom and dad**

Mood: ok
Weather: fall
Gas: $2.16

Wow,

I'm bad at updating. I'm going to try a new format... less long posts, more short observations. Who knows, maybe it will work. Anyway, I was among the missing because last week Monday and Tuesday I was in a training class that lasted way too late every day but at least they gave us dinner. Wed and Thursday were spent catching up. Friday I took the GMAT and it went ok but I scored lower then I hoped. I have a feeling I was sick last Friday because it was a bad day overall and I found out that I was running a fever on Sat. Took it easy all weekend. Halloween was fun but I was sick so I didn't walk around the neighborhood. Yesterday I still had a fever so I went to the stupid doctor who didn't do a thing and I will not go back to him. Today I'm feeling much better and I am back at work.

Observation of the morning; Airborne (the tablet medicine) is the best. They should have a statue built to them because one tablet of that stuff makes you better for most of the day. I am not recommendation the taste because it is really bad, so bad that chugging a glass of vodka would taste better, but the results are worth the nasty taste.

Update 10/19

Mood: ok
Weather: crisp and bright
Gas: $2.25

Posting for some reason is hard now. I don't know why, things at work are on an easy schedule, I have time, but not too much interesting to say. So far being princess has yielded some interesting e-mail but not too much. Lars and I have discussed the majority of the details and now it is all about doing it. I have a short project list, I would like to stock pile some scroll blanks, I need to make retainer favors, and I should probably look into making some new garb.

The party over the weekend was a success. We had about 30 people come through and we had tons of leftovers. I managed to clean the entire house top to bottom in 8 hours so I now know it is possible. Everyone seemed to have a good time and I need to write some thank you cards but it wrapped up nicely around 11:30 and we were all cleaned up by 12. Sunday we were vegetables just because we knew it would be busy for the next 12 months and the house was clean so we did practically nothing except visit our neighbor and her brand new baby.

I am taking the GMAT in a little over a week, hopefully St Thomas will like my score. I am studying some but I took a practice test and scored well above what they want for a min so I'm not overly worried. I'll take another practice test this weekend just to see if the tips and reviewing I've gotten from the book worked. I'm not looking forward to paying lots for classes but work will pay for 5k a year so I only have to pay around 2k if I take 4 classes a year (not including books and travel etc).

This weekend we are doing our first court, hopefully it will be successful and short and I don't see any reason why it won't be.

That's about it for now~

Mood: good
Weather: sunny and cool
Gas: $2.59

Back to work today. So far not big changes with SCA but I am sure things will start rolling in soon. At the moment, I need to get the house in order for our party this weekend. We also got the first frost so I can plant my tulips today. I'm going to be pretty busy trying to get everything done but I think it is doable. Today I hope to plant bulbs, do my exercises, and then go to our chamberlains house to start planning the reign. Tomorrow is major pre-cleaning and hopefully I can hang the pictures. I also have to fit in returning a pair of shoes, making a bunch of desserts, grocery shopping, and studying for the GMAT.

We Won Crown

Mood: tired
Weather: crisp
Gas: $2.54 here 2.75 in SD

We just got home, crown was 7 hours away.

I was a great win, Lars was 100% undefeated and it was a very clean list. For the final round Hroder would have had to win 2 best of 3 bouts. Lars choose sword and shield first and won the first round (junior of the pair) and Hroder could have chosen any wacky form for second but he said that he would also choose sword and shield because if he couldn't win against that he didn't deserve the throne. So, after that, Lars said that he yielded his 'second' win and if Hroder defeated him in the next two bouts he would be the winner. Then Lars killed him and the crowed and everyone were super impressed. We were immediately crowned so we don't have great pictures but I'm sure someone got some. The rest of the day rushed by and it is kind of a blur except now we aren't allowed to go to the bathroom alone or hold anything.

It is going to be a fun 12 months and it includes being war King and Queen.

Dirty Balls

I don't discuss work because although fun for me not fun to talk about plus I don't want to get Dooced. Anyway, in 5 min I need to address a group of colleges and with a straight face say that the 7 cases of rejected material were found to have dirty and sticky balls.

I seem to have caught apathy

Mood: nothing in paticular
Weather: fall - clear and cool
Gas: $2.63

I'm packed and ready to go to crown, all we need to do is put everything in the car. In the past I have been excited and stressed and I ran around like crazy getting stuff ready and I was keyed up all weekend. This time I have been completely apathetic. It is weird, the stress is gone but so is the excitement. I was packing last night and didn't remember putting my shoes in the bag and I eventually checked but I more or less thought, 'who cares, if Lars wins someone will lend me shoes'. I still really do want to do crown but I'm just not going to get too excited either way until it happens. I know I have posted about practically nothing but crown so it may seem like I'm obsessing but for real, I am very amazed at the weird non feeling I have about it.

In other news, it is sweater weather and my white angora sweater is shedding all over my black office chair. I am also completely alone in my area today, all the guys I sit near are out today. Hopefully nobody will notice when I leave at 3 but I have an 8 hour drive tonight.

2000 frequent flyer miles later

Mood: good
Weather: snowing in ND (not here, just 10 inches of rain)
Gas: $2.75

Back in the swing of things here. I had a great time in NY, we did a baby shower for my sister, visited the grandparents, went apple/pumpkin picking and got nails done with my highschool friend. Dropped by another friends new house to see it and it has alot of potential but I'm glad to see the husband is handy because the house needs lots of love. The main event of the weekend was the pig party, my dad roasted a whole pig over a fire pit and we ate soooo much food and saw tons of people it was alot of fun. Going back to MN is always hard because so many of the people we like and the places we know are on the east coast but we have plenty of friends here too. I have a list of things to be glad about in MN; practically no traffic, clean everything, lots of house for our money, nice neighbors, and a good group of friends.

Crown is this coming weekend and I have not given it more then a passing thought. I actually forgot for a while what weekend it was. I'm making my tokens and they are pretty cheesier but it is hand braided chord with a bead so not the most cheesier thing in the world. I have 6 done and hope to get an even dozen by Friday. I just hope it is a good day with no excessiveness.

I've read 37 'challenged' books on this list

Mood: good in general
Weather: fall like
Gas: $didn't notice today, they randomly blocked the road to work and I had to figure out how to get in.

Ok, Banned books... I purposely have bought and read some banned books like 'The Fixer' but this list of challenged books is crazy. I highlighted in blue the books that were required for HighSchool or earlier in Blue and it is quite a few. I remember memorizing themes and characters from most of these to use on state exams. I credit http://www.eightk.diary-x.com/journal.cgi?entry=20050927a for bringing this to my attention.

100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000


(Ones that I've read are bolded)

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. DaddyÂ’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. ItÂ’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. EarthÂ’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine LÂ’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The HandmaidÂ’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. WhatÂ’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. WhatÂ’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? ItÂ’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed WomenÂ’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. WhereÂ’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Our New Kitten

New Kitten 002
Originally uploaded by kate79@gmail.com.

Introducing Doocie. Named because of poop issues and because it is a cute name. The other cats let her in the same room now, at times, within 1 foot.

New Kitten

New Kitten 001
Originally uploaded by kate79@gmail.com.

Here is Doocie on my head, she seems still in this picture but most of the time she is running full speed.

I am still alive

Mood:busy
Weather: getting cold
Gas: $2.60



Very alive actually, I'm doing tons of stuff so that why I took a blog vacation. It would be crazy to list all the goings on in the last 2 weeks but here are the highlights;

1. Last Monday worked like crazy so I could leave work on time to bring two cats to the vet. My scardy cat who I was afraid would freak out was 100% meek and let the vet do whatever she wanted. Jingles did not do so well, she flipped out a little and they resorted to putting her in the box (so they could sedate her and vaccinate through strategically placed holes). The box actually made her really calm and normal and they took her out and gave her shots normally. I have weird cats.

2. Tuesday and Wednesday I took a loooong road trip in a company van to see 5 facilities with 4 of my coworkers. It was a very educational trip but 48h straight is hard work. I was very glad to get home and collapse

3. Thursday Lars brought home the new kitten. We was received with various degrees of distance by the other cats but they are getting over it now. The kitten is very funny, she refuses to eat kitten food and will only eat the adult food. She tries to get 'into' us, litterly, she put her head in Lars' mouth while he was sleeping and constantly rams her head into our ears and she even tried my belly button once. We named her Doocie and after a week she is adjusting. Anyway, Thursday last week I brought her to the Vet and she is disease free and now worm free.

4. Friday I got talked into looking at another job within the company in another group. I put in an application and I stand a good chance of getting it. I'm torn between wanting the new challenge and possible pay bump and leaving the group I'm comfortable and work well with. If I get an offer I'll think more about it.

5. Weekend was unremarkable. It is our last one off for a few weeks so we took it easy, did some shopping, and relaxed.

6. Monday and Tuesday I was super busy again and the department is 'a buzz' with me interviewing with the other group.

7. Today... interviewing with a bunch of people who already know me is weird. The more or less just ask why I want to move and then they are out of questions.

8. Tomorrow I work, interview more, and get on a plane to NY at 7pm for a party at my parents. Doubt I'll be writing again until I get back.

Should I still own silver pleather pants?

Mood: happy
Weather: pretty
Gas: $2.58 ish but haven't been out yet to check

I went straight from a busy, productive day where my opinion was valued and needed in meetings and people actually wait for my e-mails to home to change for Greenday. I chose to dress punk for the occasion and pulled out the silver pleather pants my sister gave me and a black tank top with silver dragons. Lars' comment is 'you've grown out of that' and I retorted that I had not and the pants were actually a bit big etc but I did get that his point was not about size. I found the shoes I wanted to wear were covered in mold (mold does not happen often, these shoes had been worn 4-wheeling and there was very gross puddle water and now I know how gross it was) so Lars suggested I just wear my black work shoes, high heal loafers, and I suppose as a sign of my 'age' I just put them on and left. While driving there I collected a few things that show I really don't belong in these clothes;
1. I was wearing penny loafers
2. With white athletic socks because I didn't change from the socks I wore w sneakers all day
3. My underwear showed and I could have changed but choose to tie a sweatshirt around my waist instead
I still like dressing up and when I got there with friends we saw the average age was about 12. I'm not joking, the box next to us was FULL of 9 year olds and there were tons of kids. The music was good and I enjoyed the extra stuff they put into the show with the lights and the fire but there was a distinctly Nazi overtone to the first half of the show. I'm talking ceiling to floor black and red drapes, with the angry fist symbol AND the talon (very Nazi). On top of that they got the entire audience (except me) to pump their right hand into the air and make a sound very much like 'Hile'. On there cool huge screen they were showing cartoon bombing scenes of the bombing of Briton, a little disturbing but I really am not sure how much of the crowd got it. While I was bouncing along to the music but not participating in the gestures and noises my friend said I was too Republican and loosen up and I just said I'm not a Nazi (and neither were the 8000 other young white blond people all around me but it made a pretty sick picture). They did a cool thing bringing 3 people from the crowd to play a song, they even got a 10 year old boy to come be the guitarist. He was so cute, he hugged Billy Joe and actually did know how to play. At the end of the song the guy who got picked to play base smashed it on the stage and the security people jumped him. (8k, let me know if it was the same at your show) The joke was on that guy because the kid got to keep the guitar BillyJo had used for the first half and he just got a trip with security.

The whole night was enjoyable, even sitting in the parking garage for 20 min waiting my turn to leave was not so bad because I had a good book on tape to listen to. I got home at 12:30 and woke up just fine the next day, no permanent hearing loss.

Yesterday I played gopher in my yard and transplanted the lilac bushes that were growing straight in front of the door to around the side of the house. I believe a few at least will live. I found 5 big gross grubs and threw them on the driveway for birds. In the end the birds never got them, my friendly yard ants found them and somehow carved them up and took them away. They are very nasty bugs so I'm glad they got eaten up just like they eat my poor bushes. While outside I met two sets of neighbors so it was a nice social day. Today I have already exercised and next on the list is errands including getting stuff for my sisters baby shower.

I'm Back

Mood:busy
Weather:perfect days, sunny and 75
Gas: $2.58

So where have I been! Well, working backwards from today - Yesterday and Wednesday were super busy at work, so busy I didn't even get to read the blogs I normally read. Tuesday and Monday I was on a department bonding trip and fully intended to post except we were so far out of the range of technology that my cell phone didn't even work. The weekend was full of cleaning and organizing and I'm not even sure what took all the time.

I promise to be better in the future... I can't bring myself to really tell any of the silly things that happened over the week because I would write a novel but here are the highlights~

The Department bonding trip included 3 hours of riding ATV where I got muddy head to toe but it was a good time. Ironically, there was a girl on the same ride that came out with only one spot of mud on her... We were going through really huge mud holes, I don't know how she did it.

I am starting my masters degree next semester. At least that is the plan at the moment. It is going to be a long drawn out part time thing because work will only pay for so much a year. Anyway, I have a meeting with HR today to get the details from a company standpoint. So why now? During the career development portion of the trip they said that if I want the next level up then a masters is recommended and the level after that the masters is required so I better start. A MBA isn't a bad thing to get anyway, any job will be pleased to see it. I am going to apply to the U of MN, 15th best part time masters program in the country (according to their website) so in the next few months I need to take my GMAT and do a bunch of paper work.

Tonight I am going to Greenday, last min ticket but I'm excited!

Next week I'm traveling Tuesday and Wednesday and on Thursday we are adopting a new kitten. Lars is very excited to get a new kitten, so excited that I could not say no. Hopefully the other two cats like this one.

On Oct 15 Lars and I are having our first party in the house, now that the shelves are up I feel like we have really done something. We invited about 30 people and we will see who comes.

Ok, 80 items in my work in -box and the goal is to get under 50 before the end of the day...

Pudding and my inability to remember that I am not a fan of milk

Mood: defeated by pudding
Weather: getting cool outside
Gas: $2.75

For the last few weeks the cafe has had pudding with Oreos; bottom layer vanilla, cookie layer, then chocolate, then cookie top. I have been tempted many times and today I decided to get one. Lunch today was basically a staff meeting as all but 2 of my co-workers were there and one by one they all fell under the spell of the pudding and got their own. I started eating mine and stopped myself before I ate the vanilla half somewhat remembering that milk products do not agree with me well. So now I'm having stomach pain, but at least the pudding tasted good.

Left side

left side
Originally uploaded by kate79@gmail.com.

Here is the Left side of the long awaited shelving unit. Ignore all the trash in the pictures, that is Lars' piggyness. Once I finish 100% I'll put books on the shelves and clean up so I can show you a pretty picture.

Right side

Right side
Originally uploaded by kate79@gmail.com.

Here is the right side of the shelving, that center spot gets a picture, there are 8 floating shelves to go in, and the top still needs the crown molding but look how shiny and square they are. Lars and I installed them tonight and he actually lifted them onto the base shelf all by himself (that makes up for me calling him a piggy)

Nifty holes

nifty holes
Originally uploaded by kate79@gmail.com.

An last, here is a close up of the holes used to put up the floating shelves. I used a special jig to make all the holes the same distance, depth and size. The stain is Honey Oak and there is 2 layers of varnish on the entire thing.

Long weekend recap

Mood: Mondayish
Weather: getting sunny
Gas: $2.75

Wow, it has been almost a week...

Last week was busy but not outstanding in any way. My cat bit my foot in the middle of the night and I started screaming like I was having my foot bitten off by wild animals. The screaming probably made the cat more scared and actually made the bite worse and it woke up Lars and he bear hugged me to stop me from hitting him. In the end after some peroxide and triple antibiotic cream it was better in a day. If I actually had gotten around to writing the day it happened I would have been more dramatic but it is well in the past now.

Labor day weekend was not big deal for us. We made no plans and ended up doing a few fun things. Sat I varnished coat 1 on all the shelves and then played online games with Lars. Sunday I varnished coat 2 on the shelves and we went to see The Brothers Grimm. The movie was ok, pretty odd and disjointed but good enough. I'm glad we only paid matinee prices for it. After the movie we went to Sears to get new tires. We talked to the sales guy and pick the tires and go outside and give him keys. He is putting all the protective stuff on the seats and we are standing there watching so we said 'so this will take about half an hour?' he says 'yes, about half an hour' we say; 'ok, see you in 30 min, we are going shopping', he replies ; 'ok, see you then'. Doesn't that sound like the dude didn't need us anymore and in half an hour we would return, pay, and leave? That's what we thought... Half an hour later we are back in Sears after going to a book store and they are paging us... we go to the auto center and the sales guy hasn't even started our order because he forgot to get our phone number. He had 3 service guys glaring at him because it was about 2 min to 6 and they were supposed to close at 6. He tried to pin it on us saying he thought we were waiting inside for him and we reminded him of the; 'see you in 30 min' conversation and he just looked sheepish. Moral of the story, Sears can put on and balance 2 front tires in under 5 min because we were out of there by 6:05. Quite the cluster but we really didn't have to wait too much longer then what they promised so that's not bad.

Monday we looked at furniture at Ashley furniture in the hope that someday we will decide on some sort of couch and love seat set and let the poor futon retire. We saw a few good things but nothing we had to have. Funny thing is we walked in ready to buy and we were completely ignored by the sales people. We had sat on every couch in the entire store and were back to the 3 we liked when finally a sales person asked if we were being helped. I like being let shop but it was annoying to be ignored. We left with nothing and we need to think about the 3 we liked. #1 girlie chenille paisley (semi floral) pattern in the right golds and reds for our house, nail head detail and nice accents on the feet, back and arms. #2 Dark blue with navy pinstripe - more square build, donut wood feet, modern look that would match our house but kinda blah on the personality scale. #3 Champaign chenille - rounded arms, very deep and comfortable and has a matching chair and a half but has no feet (just a box bottom with pleated skirting covering it) and again, little personality. We can't decide at all... After shopping we met up with friends, ate out, and watched 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'. It is a good and sad movie and it is the second time seeing it for us so we caught more of the details but it still ends sadly.

Today still feels like a Monday, slow starting and dull. I'm glad that it is a short week :) Today I hope to actually install the shelves - only took 6 months :)

Mood:good
Weather: very nice - sunny, windy, 80's
Gas: $2.99 - 3.11

Here I am obsessing over gas and I feel silly when New Orleans is a wreck. I feel very bad for everyone who is trying to do the right thing but I am rather mad over the looting and shooting. Looting for food or necessities, not so bad, but looting for TV's and jewelry not excusable at all. I don't even know what they are going to do with the TV, I mean, they don't have power and I doubt they have a nice dry storage area within walking distance...

Anyway, my life continues and my house felt extra dry and nice last night.

I am in danger of loosing wife of the year, Lars apparently has not had work socks for about 3 days now. He has been wearing bright white athletic socks to work with his nice pants, dress pants and dress shoes. I'll do laundry today I suppose but I have to do it quick because we are going to the cities tonight. We went to an art fair a few months ago and saw a few picture that were very well done and we wanted one for a gift so earlier this week I emailed the artist and we are meeting for the hand off tonight. Since we will be there anyway, we are going to 'eat at Joe's (joes garage). It is supposed to be a great funky artistic place but I'll let you know later.

I officially graduated from beginners clogging yesterday. Next week I get to go to the intermediate class and thrown in with the big fish. Over the past month or so the beginner class has dropped to about 10 people. I don't know if everyone else (from our original 50) are on vacation or just lost interest but they are all gone. Our semiprivate lessons have been cool but the intermediate class is back up to around 60 on the floor so it will be tight. The teacher told us all to stand in the front row so we can see better but I'm not sure I want all the advanced people looking at me. I'll see next week....

Someone just asked me what I'm doing over the long weekend and I totally did not know that we had Monday off. Long weekends are great and surprise ones are even better. Maybe I will get the shelves done, that would be nice, but I think we will probably end up being lazy and hanging out.

House Keeping

Mood: good
Weather: night
Gas: $2.75

House keeping is referring to the blog not the pig sty I am living in (don't worry mom). I noticed that some moron company spammed my comments so I have added a new encryption thing. When a real person wants to post they have to type the random wavy word that appears - this will keep the fake automatic comments out. Blogger may have it's drawbacks but that is a nice feature they just added.

I have also added a gas price line to my top template. This gas price will be based the two gas stations I pass in the morning and is in no way scientific. Today they hiked the price but I heard that mid winter it is supposed to come down drastically again, one can only hope. I seriously dislike thinking about all the cool or nice things I could do with $40 rather then dump it in the car. SUV is in need of new tires, maybe some place will be having a labor day sale or something...

Ironic note - I spell check using blogger when I'm not at work and Blogger's spell check does not recognize; blogger, blog, or spammed

breakfast

Mood: full
Weather: sunny and 70s

yum yum yum - bacon egg and cheese breakfast sandwich! I eat oatmeal every day at work but our company has a great cafe that has good prices because it is subsidized by the company. I made a deal with myself that every time I finish a box of oatmeal I get a breakfast sandwich. Tomorrow - another 20 days of oats and water.

Another one bites the dust

Mood: exercised
Weather: fall like but warm enough to run in a tank top and show off my awesome arm muscles

Jingles has killed another mouse, I think this makes 10. Should we get her a cake? Mouse burial is no longer too big a deal - grocery bag burial for one immediately deposited in the outside trash. I and also being thrifty with the scooping, I now select a piece of junk mail to do the heavy lifting for me - most useful thing I've ever done with junk mail.

I just ran a bunch - JC made fun of the fact that there were cobwebbs on the eliptical machine but if it is still nice enough to run outside I'm going to!

I built shelves

Mood: Mondayish
Weather: sunny

Technically, the building part has been done since the end of July but I had to cut the adjustable shelves and all the face trim. I cut and nailed all day Sat and by 9pm I had done as much as I could do and I needed more wood. Sunday morning I got the last pieces of wood and bought stain - finished the cutting and nailing and did 90% of the stain. I got a really bad splinter staining so I didn't finish the last 4 floating shelves but the vast majority is stained. Today or tomorrow I'll start the arduous task of polyurethane the whole thing and maybe this weekend they can be put up! Sometime in the future they will get inset lighting and crown molding but that needs to wait until after they are up.

I have also started carefully re-reading the Order of the Phoenix, even a second time it is a great book and easy to loose a couple of hours reading.

This coming week I don't have any out of the ordinary plans but later in Sept I have a 2 day conference for work and at the end of the month I'll be in NY for a family party.

Wife of the Year

I want to date this post 8/26 because that's the real day that I won Wife of the Year

Yup, I claim the title. I don't cook much, I keep the house clean but not perfect, and I tend to do laundry when Lars runs out of socks HOWEVER my selfless act of 8/26 grants me the title...

This all started with gas prices: Gas here is now consistently over 2.30. Lars and I used to trade cars every other day to keep mileage lower on the SUV because I worked an hour away. I've worked at my new job for 9 months and we never changed our system because it kept the 'my car your car' situation moot. Well, based on gas, we decided I would drive the SUV every day and he would drive the Saturn - this decision was made last Monday. Thursday our power was out so we could not get into the garage and we parked in the driveway. Now here comes the good part; Thursday night it poured rain for hours and Lars had left the drivers side window open. Lars had an early meeting so he was leaving as I was brushing teeth, and he comes in all sad puppy face asking what to do when the seat is all wet.... Here is where I get the award for best wife - I told him to take the SUV, I would take the soaking wet car seat. So I sat on a towel and wore a raincoat and it wasn't so bad but I'm only in the car for 15min and his commute is 30 on a clear day. That is why I am now Wife of the Year (at least to Lars).

High Fructose corn syrup

Mood: good
Weather: cool and sunny

I'm blogging about food - be warned.

Two or three months ago Lars decided to cut out high fructose corn syrup based on something a nutritionist friend talked about. So soda was the first to go and I more or less joined in on the kick. Over the last few months we have checked a few items and purchased a few different brands but we never went hard core. Yesterday was our big grocery shopping for the month and I'm not joking, we actually read every label. The most surprising food item containing high fructose corn syrup - BREADCRUMBS!!! I knew about ketchup, I figured that salad dressing might cause an issue (only Newman's doesn't have it) but I never ever thought breadcrumbs would have it. The stuff is in just about everything but our house is now fairly high fructuous free~

4 loads of laundry

Mood: good
Weather: 70's and no humidity

I have my 4th load of laundry in the dryer and hopefully it is the last. There is still a tote of stuff that went to Pennsic but didn't get worn more then a hour or so that I'm hoping I can get away with airing outside rather then washing. We are going out to the Village Inn for dinner so this will be sorta short.

Pennsic is hard to put into words but it is more then a vacation, it is living differently for a week. We got there 11pm on Sat, driving all day, and went out to a party. That was actually one of the few parties we went to all week. Next day we set up and did all the usual first day visiting. We ate with my parents camp all week so it was cool to have good food and visit family 3 times a day.

Monday - Friday there were battles every day starting at 11. Very easy for me because I could get up, dressed, walk to breakfast and be back by the time people were going to the field. For the first few days Lars was fighting on the opposite side as the majority of the household so I did a lot of walking back and forth to give him water and take care of the other guys too. We kept hoping that Northshield would declare for the East because they were super outnumbered and the king previously said he would fight for the East if they were outnumbered but that didn't happen. I suppose after so many years of being on the loosing side he wanted to win and with numbers 4 to 1 in your favor he had a good shot at it. I don't begrudge him the victory and I won't count on stuff until I see it happening. I don't really care much at all because Lars had fun fighting.

There were two knighting of note. *for the non SCA people who read, knighting is the highest recognition of fighting in the SCA. You have to be a superior fighter and generally good and courteous person. All the current knights discuss and vote on who they want to elevate to knighthood so different kingdoms end up with different standards because they are voted on by different groups etc. Lars, by the way, is a knight and worked very hard to get it and works hard to remain an example and teaches anyone who wants to learn. Anyway, one guy from Bloodguard was knighted - he is a super cool fun guy and it was awesome to see it done. I helped set up the vigil and felt fairly involved so that was cool too. The other knight is from Northshield. He is a cool fun guy too but I really can't judge his fighting because I don't fight. The ceremony for each guy was done by the respective kingdoms and the similarities and differences were interesting to note. Today, in reading my E-mail from the week, someone took a really low shot at the new Northshield knight, publicly saying he cheated on his wife. In my opinion, his personal life is his and who he sleeps with is between the relevant parties. I hope it doesn't taint the Order or the kingdom.

Lars managed to find a poker tournment one night and came in second so we made some money at Pennsic. I stayed in camp chatting 2 nights out of 7 - but I think there were less huge parties this year. 1 night we walked around the merchant area for midnight madness but we didn't actually buy anything, just ran into bunches of people we know and talked. There were 2 ladies nights, the first was fairly dull because there wasn't a lot going on and we were disorganized starting out. The second ladies night was hosted by Mistress Izzy and she always puts on a great party and it was the last night so pennsic ended on a high note. Lars and the other guys joined us both nights about 11 - some of the ladies didn't like it but I did since I have more fun with him around, I suppose someday I may get tired of him ;)

So that is my pennsic in a nutshell. Since I've been home I showered twice, shaved my legs in the luxury of hot good pressure soft water (Pennsic water may be hot but it is very hard, like little iron spikes hitting you and I get a reaction from it every year). I gave myself a manicure, peticure and facial so I look pretty, rested, and tan for work. Now it is time to put food in the belly....

I am Home

Mood: sleepy
Weather: I have new love for my AC

Title says it all. It took 15 hours to get home but the trip was reasonable with only minor adventures. Pennsic was fun, hot, and full of people I haven't seen in ages. More tomorrow, I'll have tons of time between loads of laundry.

2 days to Pennsic

Mood: packed (is that a mood?)
Weather: 80's and rained a tiny bit

Today was one of those productive days that I felt like I goofed off alot. At work today I ended up in conversations all over the place but they all yielded good work knowledge or contacts. I took pictures of a work friend for her profile but that only took about 5 min and we got 12 awesome pictures for her to choose from. Then I actually just got into a ton of projects and since I want to finish as much as possible before I go on vacation I got industrious. After work Lars and I took the test ATV two seater for an hour of test time. I didn't actually get paid to ride an ATV but the riding was free and fun. We almost tipped over at least once and we found all sorts of fun places to ride. The hour or so outside gave us a bunch of energy to power through the packing of the car. Lars even voluntarily cleaned the kitchen including unloading, and reloading the dishwasher! Today was a good day overall.

I probably will not be posting for a week since I'll be camping in Pa but hopefully pictures will follow my return. The current plan is to finish the roof packing tomorrow and take it easy and leave crack of dawn on Sat. If we are lucky we will be there by 9pm.

Count down to Pennsic - 4 days...

Mood: good
Weather: raining

I can't believe that I have to spend an entire day getting there and getting back - that seriously cuts into vacation time. I will do my best to make the car trip to PA vacation-like but 14 hours in the car gets to be not so fun. Today my packing plans include cleaning the dining room in order to pile all things that need to get into the car there. I've made a list so hopefully I can just stick to it and gather from the 5 corners of the house (garage counts as its own corner) and not get sidetracked. Since packing everything 2 people need for a week isn't enough fun, we are taking our friend too and all his stuff. Since he reads I won't tease him too badly but when we were talking about what we can give up for space he volunteered to give up his bed/cot but he needed to bring a bag of books... JM - just pick 2 books! It will be fun no matter what.

Lets not talk about the race

Mood: sunburned
Weather: sunny

My title is not all true - Our team did well and it was a fun day overall. I was 1st for a while in my race but got bumped one too many times and ended up getting flagged. I really don't understand why I got a penalty, throughout the day we all decided that the flagger ref guy was either A. high or B. a highschool drop-out with very little skills. Probably both. Anyway, I ended up 7th but got compliments all around. Other people on the team did very well, we had 2 people get 1st places in their race and a second and a thrid place. In the end it really came down to luck, the guy who was so close to winning got a dud cart and it cost him 2 laps, he still ended 4th so he had skill - just not luck.

Race Day - wish me luck

Mood: early
Weather: sunny, can't yet comment on heat but I'm sure by the end of 10 hours out there I will

I'm heading to the track. I have in tow - cooler, water, coffee, 18 donuts, sunblock, camp chairs, hat, book. I really wish I could wear my super big Asian hat but I think alot of people would laugh. The set up of the race is arrive at 8:30 when we sign in and get to know what round we race in (200 people in the race)then we sit til its our turn. I believe that the top few times in each set move up but it could be based on place... They were not clear. Either way I expect to be out in or before round 2.

In other quick news (since I should be actually getting in the car) I made a tunic for Pennsic for my expecting sister and went out to a fancy restaurant with Lars and friends last night.

I'm going to be a racer

Mood: ok
Weather: gray but hot

Wow, once I miss a few days I have too many things to talk about so I have to take a day to think about what to put in and what to leave out...

Lets start with the fact that last week I was chosen to be on the company go-kart team for a race this weekend. It was a 'random' drawing but I was the only female on the list of 40 people and I was one of the 10 chosen. I was of two minds about signing up in general since I have never seen a go-kart much less driven one so I'm having trouble picturing me racing one. I suppose the worst that could happen is I loose the race but I am still on the team and I get a t-shirt. So this week, starting today, the course is set up and I have 2 practice runs free. That leads me to the fact that I have crammed alot of activity into today;
1. got up early to get to work early because;
2. I have a dentist apt at 9:30
3. back to work and then home where I will hopefully cut out the canape for the bed for Pennsic
4. to dance class - remember, I'm in the hour and a half class now
5. home to pick up Lars (8 at night) to head over to the track to do my first ever go-kart driving
6. eat, sew, sleep
Friday I get to go to the dentist again for a cleaning, I specifically asked for a different hygienist because the last one, while telling me it was her first week out of school, chipped away at 'something funny here' and two days later I lost a filling. I got a classmate of hers but at this point they have a year experience and have learned the difference between tooth - plaque - and filling.

Loosing fillings is old hat to me now. I think almost all my teeth have been refilled, some more then once. I have to think at this point it must be me but I still think it is the associate dentist (out of school a week ironically) who did 5 fillings over 2 sessions and all 5 fell out within a few months and had to be refilled. I have a complex about going there - the senior dentist is very nice but why does he keep hiring morons? Lars goes to the same place and just got his cleaning Monday with the super good woman, but she is booked months in advance. You know what they call the Dentist last in their class??? Dr.... and they get hired by my Dentist.

Last weekend was pretty mild, did some shopping. I returned the umbrella that the tornado wind put on the roof. I got a full refund so yeah for Ikea. The official reason for return; 'tragic incident with wind' and she even put that in the computer, she was a cool customer service person. I got a bunch of little things and spent the rest of the weekend doing little projects. I super scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen, using the steamer and everything. I really should have been sewing but I'm doing well with garb. I should work on on upgrading the wardrobe but Pennsic is often dusty or muddy and hot unless its raining so I don't want to bring anything too great. What I have will have to do and I need to not over pack. yeah right...

Mice Beware

Mood: good
Weather: sunny, nice, heat predicted to come back this weekend

So this afternoon I think, "I would like to post but I really don't have much to say". I chat with coworkers on my way out, go home, read E-mail and then Lars announces that there are 2 dead mice on the porch. Two dead mice are obviously news worthy to the cats because they were meowing up a storm showing them off. I pet them and said 'good cat' and gave them treats all in the presence of two tiny mouse bodies. I know it is a sign of cat love but I sure don't love the disposal process. I actually don't know what to do with the bodies... the first time I freaked out, drove to a gas station with the body in a ziplock bag and threw it out there. The second time I chucked it over the back fence into the stream/ditch area. I have decided driving mice bodies all over town is gross, and chucking them over the fence may attract other animals, so, they are in a tied up grocery bag in our outside trash can. I really think the cats should be out of mice to hunt by now but this explains why they like staying out all night.

Hello BR

Mood: avoiding exercise
Weather: 80 and sunny 0 humidity (gotta have something good about the state)

My title welcomes one of my oldest (as in known longest) friends who judging from the IP address finally found the site! She attended the friends wedding this past weekend and I must say she looked fabulous, thin, and has very buff arms in the pictures I've seen.

So far today I helped save my company over 1 million dollars - I'm not joking or exaggerating, it was very cool to finally get this far on a cost savings project. I also just finished a very strange book - review forthcoming but it is very strange and I have to think about if I want to recommend it or not.

Yesterday I hit a milestone in my dance class. I not only danced all the dances we have learned with minimum of mistakes I actually did them at full speed with the advanced class that is right after mine. I think the correct shoes actually help so I'm glad I got them even if they pinch my toes. In sept I will be bumped into the advanced class but I still have the option to go to the beginner class at 7 for the same price. It is an excellent deal, $5 a class and I can go from 7-9:30 and the teachers are both nationally ranked dancers and are very nice. All we have to do is suffer through is bad jokes but for the price I can handle it.

Now I must exercise, no more procrastinating

My busy 'nothing' weekend

Mood: busy
Weather: sunny and cool

For the first weekend in 4 weeks I had nothing really planned. Actually we were invited to a 6year olds birthday on Sunday but that was just a littl thing not a huge weekend eating project/trip/visitor. My friend got married back in NY and I was vaguely thinking about it while I was contentedly sitting in lounge wear on the coach with Harry Potter and a cup of coffee. I had about 100 pages to finish and Lars was out so I wasn't going to move for anything. Well... as the dramatic ending was unfolding all of a sudden the sky outside turned pitch black and I remember that stupid cat is outside. Just then there is a huge down pour and my first thought was that stupid cat has been preferring to chase bugs in the drainage ditch in the way back of the yard and it is the first spot to flash flood. So, I go out the back door with treats (to shake so he will show himself) and notice the brand new deck umbrella taking flight. I attempted to catch it but basically got out of the way as gale force wind whipped it past me onto the roof where it got stuck on the furnace vent pipe. I gave half a thought to climbing up onto the roof to get it but decided that 1. I needed to find the cat, 2. I don't like being on the roof in nice weather 3. I was already 100% soaked to the skin. In bare feet, cotton shorts and t-shirt I ran around to the back of the property and it was raining so hard I could barley see and even under a tree it felt like I was in a shower. The stream bed was getting full and I shook the treats and Mr. Pink poked his head out. He saw me and ran half way and I had to go haul him out of the water. I more or less flung him on the lawn because I'm not carrying a wet upset cat who can actually run way faster then me. We ran back to the house and he beat me to the door and I got inside just in time to answer the phone - it was Lars telling me in was raining. I changed, mopped up the puddle I made and Mr. Pink just looked at me like him being wet was my fault. That was the dramatic portion of the day. I went back to the couch, finished the book and was about to start sewing a tunic when Lars got home and we rescued the umbrella from the roof because it was now bright and sunny out. Technically that was a tornado condition. I think they should have more litature or something when east coast people move to the Midwest. I know all about storms, hurricanes, nor-easters, gale, squall but nada on tornados. I was supposed to be sitting in the basement with candles and canned goods not running around the yard or sitting by a big window reading a book. All ended up fine but now I know what a tornado storm looks like.

We also ate alot of steak this weekend. Too much really. Remember Lars bought a ton of steaks from the butcher last week to 'save' money. Well we took 6 out of the freezer to eat with friends Friday night. Our friend is a very particular steak cooker and would not cook frozen steak or defrost it in the microwave so Lars and he went to the store to get more steak. It was a good dinner cooked very well. So Sat they call and invite us over to eat the steak that is now defrosted. We go since we don't like cooking and anyone offering to cook we will go there. The butcher steaks were 100 times better then the grocery store steak but steak two days in a row is hard on the system. Sunday night (after the birthday party) we decided to have tuna sandwiches - easy to make and not steak.

I made a very nice tunic for Lars, it took the whole day but it is one of the better ones I've ever done. It is a striped material and I made sure all the stripes lined up and I made a riders slit perfectly centered and lined. He was correctly appreciative of my efforts and likes it alot. Pennsic is only a few weeks away but I think I'm actually fairly squared away with garb. (knock on wood) hopefully everything I want to bring fits in the car with the 3rd person we are taking and his stuff...

Quick hello

Read my stats for the month and I would like to say hello to my new readers.
A special hello to Australia, thanks for signing my guest book
Hi to Sayville - maybe BR? but there is a new Sayville address
and hey to HT (was HMc) - see you in a few weeks!

And it makes me happy that I continue to inform/entertain Gone South, 8K, Alexander and my parents.

The sun helped me out today

Mood: vombie slave to Harry Potter book
Weather: sunny

I must pay tribute to the helpful sun and Lars today (and I'm not being sarcastic). I had been missing a tape in my book on tape for about 4 days and I thoroughly looked for it in the truck and Lars found it in about 5 seconds of looking. That is a minor miracle since he can't usually find things even if they are exactly where you tell him they are. Anyway, I only had about 10 min left on that tape and I drive for 15 min so I reached over to get the next tape out of the black case box thing and it was stuck in there like it was coated in super glue. I got to work and tried the following objects to try and pop out the tape; pen, pen cap, key, coin and fingers. The tape was welded in there and so I left it in disgrace on the seat of the car. Here is where the helpful sun did it's job... After 8 hours in direct sunlight, the plastic case melted so I could easily lift out tape. It was amazing that nothing else was melted and the tape played perfectly so for one,leaving library tapes in the sun for 8 hours was a good thing.

In other doing - I have done nothing but read Harry Potter. I washed and folded two loads of laundry but that's about it. Now I'm at page 400 and I still have two hours to dedicate to reading before I need to sleep.

My parents are home and I am back at work.

Mood: thoughtful
Weather: despite the weather man - it is gorgeous

They actually left yesterday and last night was odd because nobody was around. I took advantage of the time and sat in the shade on the deck and read 100 pages of Harry Potter. I think I need to re-read the last book, I vividly remember reading the book but I'm forgetting details of the story. A ton has changed in my life between the last book and this one. The last book Lars and I were already in MN but I didn't have a 'real' job. I was substitute teaching for 2 districts and getting about 2 jobs a week. As a sub I basically got to read for the majority of the day because the teacher would have left work that I would introduce, help for about 5 min and then just have to sit there and make sure nobody misbehaved. Since then, I have heard from teacher friends that they bribe and threaten their kids to be perfect for subs so that's probably why my job was mostly easy. Anyway, Harry Potter came on a day I didn't have work and I can distinctly remember sitting in my nice sunny bedroom reading at least half the day. I ended up rationing myself because I would have finished it too fast. While I wasn't working much I tried to get every errand done during working hours so I could spend time with Lars, sorta like a stay at home mom with no kids. Harry Potter actually helped me get my last job, I was on an interview and the guy mentioned it and we ended up talking about it for 10 min and he offered me the job the next day.

I am enjoying the book and I am enjoying the remembering of the other books so it is an all around good experience.

Today I feel like I got very little done at work but in all actuality I got a bunch done. I also talked to two friends (rare for a work day) both are doing ok. My one friend is having a hard time but (if your reading you know who you are) she has it under control and the bad stuff makes the good stuff better. Another person I know is getting married this weekend and I'm obviously not going. At first I thought my parents visit was the same weekend but even though it wasn't I could not have taken off days two weeks in a row. On top of that I feel very cut off from her since my wedding. I know she is busy getting married but it would have been nice to have a phone call returned. Oh well, life goes on for us all. I do my best to keep up with my east coast friends but it is pretty hard sometimes.

Enough lamenting - back to work, the quicker I'm done the faster I get home to read.

ps. I got the special shoes for the dance class I'm taking and they are so slippy I might make a huge fool of myself tonight... update on that tomorrow.

Harry Potter

I forgot in my 1000 word dissertation below that I have the Harry Potter book. Two copies in fact. I preordered one for a friend for her birthday (last month) and accidentally put my address instead of hers. I promised not to open mine until I got her hers. Needless to say I kept busy but the book is looking at me now....

Good weekend

Mood: good
Weather: very sunny - probably hot but I didn't go out there yet

Another busy weekend, but this was busy in a fun, not that exhausting way. My parents are here, I picked them up on Friday night. My Mom has a broken foot, someone in Akito broke it for her (accidentally) and she walked around on it for a week thinking it hurt a little and finally went to get it professionally looked at and got a big fat cast on the entire foot and half her leg. Anyway, since my normal very active Mom was plaster bound and they were flying into the local terminal (3 miles away from the main terminal with only spotty shuttle service) I picked them up and drove them to their rental car 3 miles away. I know, slighty crazy, but I know I saved them at least an hour of waiting around for shuttles.

Anyway, Dads official reason for being here is the National Vet conference in the cities so he went on Sat, acquired a bunch of free swag, and he is back there today. Saturday Mom and I went out sightseeing. Actually first we went to the one store in MN that sells clogging shoes, then we went sight seeing. We drove up route 8 to the Frankonia art park, I had seen it from the road a few times but I thought it was about the size of a large yard but it had cool looking sculpture so we wanted to go. We got there and it ended up being HUGE and mom figured she could get around to a few before her arms got tired. Well we start walking in and someone who sorta looked in charge took one look at Mom's foot and asked how far we expected to get. When Mom answered as far as we can he offered the park golfcart. So we saw the park in style in a sunshade roof golf cart. I'm not sure we would have wanted to walk the entire thing even if we were in perfect shape, it is very big and it was over 95 degrees so the cart let us see everything plus it was fun to drive. The sculpture park itself is awesome. A very good mix of styles and all done by artists that won fellowships to live and work there for a few weeks. They must rotate because I didn't see anything older then 5 or 6 years, but who knows, maybe thats when it started. Anyone in MN should go visit this place, it puts the MN sculpture garden with the big spoon to shame. There is a distinct bohemian art flair about the whole place, even the houses on the property are funky. They look like they are building houses for the guest artists out of 100% recycled material. The one we could get a good look at had lawn signs for siding and spackle buckets cut in half making a Spanish tile style roof.

After we left the art park, we stopped by the buffalo field to watch the herd for a few, the were mostly wallowing in a lake but they are fun to watch. We stopped home then when to visit a sick relative. Dinner was awesome steak and Dad and I stayed up late planning the details of the built in shelves I wanted. Oh, the steak, ok, anyone in the area, come to my house for dinner. I asked Lars to go to the butcher to pick up some meat. He asked 'should I get a bunch' I said 'yes'... I thought he would bring home maybe 6 or 8. He came in with a huge box of meat, I'm not joking, there are at least 4 bundles of 8 kinds of steak, plus 10 pounds of ground beef and some chicken. He told me if I wanted something done in moderation don't send him ;)
He is so cute! It really was a fantastic deal, about $200 for the whole thing but that saved us $100 from buying it individually. So now we have a big full freezer.

Yesterday Dad and I went to buy wood and make my shelves. We used my neighbors shop and it made such a difference to have the huge saw the laughs at measly sheets of plywood. I learned how to use my router and ever joint is routered. The entire thing is tight joints and glue and should last forever. I still have to do the facing and stain it but I'm 500% further then I could have gotten alone.

Today Dad is at the conference and Mom is still asleep. I'm dong work from my laptop but I plan on getting some Pennsic sewing done.

Parents visit

Mood: good
Weather:over 100 degrees but very nice

My parents are visiting for 4 days - I just cleaned some, hopefully enough because I don't have time for more.

I think bad luck might be contagious

Mood: fine
Weather:very nice, in the high 90's, sunny, and not humid


There have been a rash of bad luck happenings around me;

Neighbor; 6 months pregnant, has a 1 year old, and her husband just started his own business
1st - the major piece of equipment for the shop didn't work
2nd - found the problem was electric, paid 2,000 to fix
3rd - machine was damaged from trying to make it work before and needed new fuses (better then a blown motor)
4th - during this, their water pressure tank blew leaving them without water from last Friday til yesterday
5th - the family cars break line ruptured as she was leaving the neighborhood, she was able to just go back around the block and coast to a stop.

Friends further north have better luck overall but they have not had 48 hours straight without a power out for over 3 months.

I thought I had dodged it but today I forgot my wallet and as I turned into the work road the low fuel light came on. I am sure I'll be fine since home is only 8 miles away but I planned for the worst and I will call Lars right when I'm leaving and if I'm not home in 10 min he has to come find me. (my cell phone is on the kitchen counter) Seriously! I always have my phone and wallet....

2 weeks in 1006 words

Mood: good
Weather: sunny and warm

Two weeks without a post... I really should have said I was taking a break because I knew I was. Last post was that Lars' parents were set to arrive. I rushed home, cleaned, went to class, came home and jumped in the shower hoping I would be done before they got there and in the end we waited 2 extra hours for them to turn up. No big deal but we were starving! Lars liked his presents from me, especially the keyboard and mouse he got himself and I wrapped. His parents got him a BBQ set that is virtually identical to the one I got him 2 months ago when we got the BBQ, and a shirt that doesn't fit. Lars' mom means well but has Lars' size stuck around freshman in college size. Since moving to MN he works out 5 days a week, one of those days is usually dedicated to weight lifting, so he is significantly larger then she remembers. Wednesday night was a little tense, Thursday got a tiny bit better, Friday we waited up for his sister and brother in law to arrive (8hours later). Saturday we did sight-seeing in the capitol building and a museum and the sculpture garden. The sculptures are all very 1980s, MN must have had a good art budget that year because everything is from between 1978 and 1982. The brother-in-law who is vaguely manic depressive, did not want to come and sat home alone. Kinda a downer of a start but then at least we all fit in one car. He got the idea on Sunday that we weren't going to pander to him and that we would leave him if he wanted to stay, somehow I think he thought we would just hang out if he didn't want to go. Sunday we did the Mall of America then the the guys and our neighbor went to WI for some good fireworks. Monday was the forth so we hung out, played games, went out to an early dinner and around dusk started the 2 cases of fireworks they picked out (somewhere around 120 pieces). We all stayed up too late and were dragging on Tuesday when sister and brother in law took off around 3 and we had one last dinner with the parents. They had to leave very early on Wed so we said goodbye around 8pm and finally got to relax. They really wanted non stop entertainment and I think I ran the dishwasher 5 times in 4 days, cleaned semiconstantly, and was constantly making snacks or meals. The chain smoking habit they all had kept them outside the majority of the weekend so I'm very glad we had nice weather. I cleaned the table yesterday and I had to scrub and spray and wash and wipe for 20 min to get the table white again....

I meant to post last week to say how cool my company is; last Friday my boss took another person in the group and I on a trail ride and I got to go through my first mud pit. It was pretty shallow and I did much better then they expected :) It was my first time on an ATV but they are pretty easy to figure out and it was a nice change of pace for a Friday afternoon. The second reason it is a cool company is that they have a product in the Fabulous Four movie so we got a movie theater to ourselves on Thursday to watch the movie for free a day early! We had to drive 40 min to get to the theater and it ended up being the most uncomfortable theater in the world but it was a cool experience. The movie was pretty good if you like the super hero comic movies. I would put it on par with Spider Man 1, better then Electra, but not as good as the X-Men or Spider man 2. I am of the wrong age to have read the comics but that probably made me like the movie better because I didn't have preconceived ideas of what all the people should look like.

We actually went to our first camping event of the SCA season. Northshield does way less camping and war practice then the east and Lars has gone to 2 other events but this is my first since crown. I think a few people may have thought we quit since we have been absent but it has just been a sparse season. Not winning meant we didn't have to go to any event we didn't want to go so we just didn't :) WW (the event) was good, very hot, but fun. We ended up leaving Sat night because we were both over heated and there really wasn't anything going on Sunday. The grayfox party on Friday night was very cool, tons of people and talking, just like a mini pennsic. The 5 guys ended up drinking all 10 gallons of water I brought for them so that tells you how hot it was. Yesterday I started my list for pennsic and top of the list were things I forgot I needed for hot camping events - WW is like a pennsic trial. I also have a modest to-do list before Pennsic so my free time will mostly be sewing from now until then.

Second to Last in this very long post ~ my parents are coming to visit so I need to get general order in the house again. I have plenty of ideas of things to do when they visit and I took Monday off too. In my opinion they are way easier to have visit then Lars' parents but I may have a personal bias.

and now last - I have decided to do book reviews, real ones like school style, and post them. I'll preface and of them with 'book report' so you can skip but who knows, that may be my blog destiny.

Lars' Birthday is today

Mood:
Weather:

Happy Birthday to Lars!!!

Today he 28 and I have known him for 5 and a half years. At lunch today I need to run to target to get presents. I tried to shop on Monday and I wanted to get either the XFM radio or a Flat panel monitor. One might wonder how one tries (and fails) to shop. Well, I went to Best Buy and since I was in high heels and just came from a long meeting that required alot of walking (plant tour) I went to the closest display first. XFM radio has alot of options, and the sales man who resembled an annoying gnome started talking non stop about the different systems. Problem with his style is that he didn't seem to know more that what I could read on the package and totally didn't understand my technical questions. He followed me around and I tried to politely loose him but he insisted in a low slope of the bell curve way that he could help me with anything. I even said 'well let me just read these here for a few minutes he leaned against the display and would not leave. He annoyed me sooooo much that I had no option but to leave to get rid of him. I sprinted through the torrents of rain (in a silk shirt that was getting water spots and heels) and got to the car and was fending off a headache when I drove away. I got all the way to the highway and remembered I didn't even get to the flat panel monitors! I was not going back, even though I know the stupid gnome could not see over the displays and leach onto me I was not going to risk it again.

Lars bought himself a bunch of computer accessories yesterday and I told him I was wrapping them up so anything I get at Target is extra since he already has what he wants.

The inlaws arrive today at apx 7:30. I have dance class so I won't be home yet but the house is reasonably clean and if I make the bed before I go to class tonight we should look pretty put together. I'm picking up the cake after work and I have no clue what to do for dinner, we had pizza last night because I cleaned the kitchen and I didn't want to mess it up.

Updates later - and possibly hair pictures, I need to get out the camera anyway.

Weekend and Rant

Mood: good
Weather: thunder storm this morning, hail, now sun... You never know whats next

Weekend update; It got hot and sticky enough that we have turned on the air to 80 and it is very nice in the house. I started cleaning all the parts of the house that won't get too messy again by Wednesday. Lars did an awesome job on the fridge and we did all the shopping. We set up the deck furniture and the umbrella is broken so we need to exchange it at IKEA before people arrive Wednesday. Friday night we went to a new store village, it is a bunch of stores that are basically in a fancy strip mall but they have very cool European feeling store fronts that make it feel like you are in a town. There was one store that attracted our attention, it was called; A Feast for Him. What do you think is in a store like that? We thought fancy mens wear or food that would appeal mostly to men (hotsause and beef jerky?) - it ended up being closed and there wasn't any store front so we went in the store next door and shopped a little and asked them.... It turns out that it is a cult. So now cults have offices in cool looking strip malls, whats next.

Rant; Today Lars sent me this link; http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/greatestamerican/greatestamerican.html . If you click on it I'm sure you will be as mad as Lars and I are about who is on the list and who is missing. The ones that really do belong are cheepend by the others, like Dr. Phil. As far as I can tell this was completely non scientific and whoever wrote it took alot of drugs. Then there are those that are great people but how did they make America great? We are definitely missing the medical field and most of the woman's rights movement, and they don't even have Alan Greenspan? Lars has way more rant and I told him he could post to my blog so the 12 people who read can see it.

Today I have a supplier meeting offsite at 1 and I won't be back so tomorrow I'll be busy cathing up on anything I missed plus cleaning. Lars' birthday is Wednesday so I need to wander a store and get inspired plus order his cake. He wants a coldstone creamery mint icecream cake http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/secondary/cake.asp?id=7

My cats think

that the house looks better from the outside in. They stand by doors waiting to get out then stand outside looking in. They don't want to come in, they just like to watch us.

I am cleaning - can't you tell?

I have new hair

Mood: good
Weather: rained but now it's sunny


Ok, it is still my original hair but I got it cut and highlighted last night. I really like it, it is short and bouncy and flip out at the bottom. The highlights are very natural looking caramel color and it really looks like I have been out in the sun. My hairdresser is a woman I used to work with at the boring old job and we gossiped about where everyone got new jobs and who was doing what. It was a 3 hour appointment but very worth it. Lars likes it too and he didn't know if he would, short hair is still new for us but it makes me look more professional yet still young.

Yesterday the artic zone of MN hit 98 degrees. The natives here are melting but I'm very happy that it is finally warm every day. We turned on the central air yesterday for the first time and set it at 85 - it had turned off by 11pm because the temp fell to in the low 70's outside and inside cooled off. I miss the open windows and the breezes, we have done well with that for the last few warm weeks but we have central air and we might as well test it.

This weekend will be deticated to cleaning and maybe getting the flower boxes done. I'm very slow with projects... I have a work open house on Sat and a christining on sat morning and hopefully the rest of the weekend will be productive.

Book meme

Ok - one more thing. I read someone elses meme to (their answers to a list of questions)earlier today and they said they only owned 27 books ever including textbooks. I actively try NOT to accumulate books by using the library and borrowing from friends but I think I currently own at least 200 books and have in my life owned and given away tons more. I hate to think how many books my parents or grandparents own or have owned. I think I have purchased over 20 books just for school for one year - this person leads either a very sad or a dedicated to minimalism life.

Incomplete thoughts

I intended today to write about the following topics of interest but since it is late I won't get to them. Here are my mini thoughts

1. Barbara Walters and her antibrest feeding comments and the resulting feed-in. I am conflicted on the issue, I personally would not want to eat under a blanket but I'm not sure I'm into too much flagrant displays of overly public feedings. Either way the discussion on the radio this morning about it just attracted the morons of society to call in and use their freedom of speech...

2. It's the solstice - don't even know how I actually remembered but I did and mentioned it to some coworkers. One got the general idea that it is a holiday that we miss by not being pagan and the other totally didn't get it. It's an odd thing to try and explain at work and not sound nutty. I blame my mother for my overly broad understanding of multiple religions ;)

3. My saw now runs - the child safety was stuck and is not fixed - but I can't seem to 'tune' it correctly. The directions are vague but it cuts crooked. I could do that by myself, this tool is supposed to help.

We had 4 sunny days in a row!

Mood: good
Weather: raining again but I got my 4 days

Yes, the weather man said it would be sunny - no rain - for 4 days last week. I didn't want to mention it and jinx it but it actually happened!!! We were supposed to go to an event in Kansas City but this type of forecast doesn't come around that often and the deck needed paint. Even Lars stayed (don't know if it was guilt or pity) because I was going to do this deck by myself if necessary. 2 friends ended up coming to help and it took about 5 hours but it is a very nice pale blue gray. We noticed that the last people who painted neglected the outside of the raining, Jen and I hung over the rails and painted upsidedown to make sure we were not guilty of the same painting crime. We ran out of paint just before we got the final details done but I can touch that up this week, I'm just happy the majority is now done.

I need to talk about my cats now... Skip this paragraph if you don't like cat babble. Jingles our 'smarter' cat (a very relative term in the world of cats) was good most of the painting day but we locked her in when we were doing the floor part. She wanted out soooo badly to see what we were doing that she dodged past all of us and ran onto the paint. She got blue feet and tail for her trouble and decided to stay inside for the rest of the night. Sunday she was a bad cat. She wanted all my attention and no matter how much I pet her she kept bumping her head into my hands or elbows, she bumped me right while I was pouring milk even. She is usually good about sitting on my lap at the computer and so I didn't mind when she jumped on my desk BUT she knocked over my fresh coffee all over my pile of just paid, sealed, and stamped bills. I hung them up to dry but the electric, equity payment, and credit card people will have to deal with coffee stained bills. Last piece of cat news - they killed another mouse. This one was outside and they placed it delicately on the path for me to find. I complimented them on their kill and when the weren't looking I tossed it over the back fence into the marsh.

This weekend we had vague plans to go to Thunder Bay for an event but Lars has a poker tournment that he won the $100 entry to by winning another game - if he wins this he wins a free seat at one of the huge prize tournments in Atlantic City. We were also invited to a christening and it is my works open house. I also need to start on house work to tidy before Lars' family arrives. I rearranged the living room and it is way better now - I'll I need is just a general cleaning and to do a load of towels.

Work seems to be back to a normalish level so maybe more posts this week