I work with some mean people. Now, I'm not one to throw stones because as we all know, in the immortal words of Ouiser, "I'm not as sweet as I used to be". But today I was surprised at just how mean these people I normally like so much, can be. I've told you about the new guy that started working with us not long ago? Well, apparently everyone has decided that they aren't even going to try to be nice. Granted, the boy can be a little...much. He's kind of hyper and he wants to get into every conversation, but seriously, he's a very sweet guy. He called in sick today, so that gave everyone ample oppourtunity to pick him apart. They just hurt his feelings so much every day, and there isn't anything I can do. I've seen him get tears in his eyes after talking to them, but I don't know what to say to make him feel better. He just wants to be friends. Granted, he needs to tone it down, but that doesn't give anyone the right to act that way. I told them I thought they were being mean, but they just laughed it off. It makes me feel so bad for him. It amazes me that people who are so senstitive about being hurt themselves can be cruel to other people.

Cartoon Moments

These are moments when there SHOULD be hidden cameras in my home. Steve and I have this little low table that fits into the corner of our living room. We moved it into the guest room to make room for the Christmas tree, but never moved it back. This weekend I was trying to straighten up, so I moved the corner table into the hallway, to the left of the bathroom door, until Steve and I could figure out what to do with it. While taking a break, we were in the living room watching Garden State (good Indie film, by the way, and Zach Braff is adorable) and I had turned off all the lights except for the little one by the door in the room where we were. I ran out of the room to go to the bathroom and about the time I get to the hallway I hear Steve say, "Don't trip over the..." and FLOOMP! I'm lying face down on the the top of that table. It hit me right above the knees and I just went over. I had to lie there for a moment to make sure that I wasn't broken, all the while listening to my dear husband laughing so hard I thought he was going to throw up. At any rate, I didn't harm anything but my dignity, and as you all know, I didn't have that much dignity left. : )

This weekend was busy. We have yet another appraiser coming to our house, so I tried to clean up a little. Well, actually, a lot. We don't have time to do much because of school and stuff, so I was trying to clean up the kitchen/dining room area. I was finding stuff from Christmas that I had never moved. It took me almost 4 hours to clean up the kitchen, and I still didn't get all of the dishes done. However, I did mostly clean up everything, washed the tablecloth, and moved in the white drawer thingie from the yellow bedroom into the dining room and filled it with candles and random junk that would otherwise be in the way. I also did laundry and begun the excavation of the guest room. Warning: when you have a room you use as a stroage locker, it's going to eventually become a mystery to even you. I literally found clothes that I forgot I owned, and threw away a ton of stuff too. I've still got to go through some things, but all in all, I did a lot in just a couple of hours in there. It didn't help that The Color Purple was on, so I'd have to run into the bedroom periodically to see the good bits.

Sunday was lazy for me. We didn't go to my parents, and I had totally forgotten that our sunday school class was going to Cathedral Caverns, and Steve had a lot of homework to do, so I took a nap. Sunday afternoon naps are severely underrated. I had planned to work on some homework of my own, but I thought "Nap or homework?" Nap won hands down!

Well, I need to get back to work. I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Does it disturb anyone else when you go into a doctor's office and they have those posters on the wall showing you all of the horrible things that can happen to your body parts? You usually only see these things when you go into a specialist's office, though. You know, in a chiropractor's office they have this big illustrated poster that shows you bulging disks, misaligned spines and whatnot, and I've seen all manner of illustrated gastric maladies...shudder. Today in the eye doctors office I saw one of these same posters with all these gruesome eye injuries and problems. I'm thinking, hmmmm. Don't you think that the person in a doctor's office is already kind of worried about what the Dr. will say, and they don't exactly need to be worried by the threat of a bleeding eye leison? I mean, come on! OH! I also got my first retinal scan. I could hear the faint strains of the Mission Impossible theme playing in my head as this was going on. I have very interesting retinas. The Dr. let me see the images (and I got the feeling they do this to justify the use of what is obviously a frickin expensive machine). I have a slight astigmatism in one eye and my other eye is starting to fail slightly as well. I'm certainly not going to go blind anytime soon, but she said my sight was 50/150. I don't know what that means exactly. I got some cute glasses, and she said I can get contacts if I want them, so I'm going to think about that. I would like to be able to get dressed up without my glasses without having to be blind as a bat in the process. Maybe I can "make my brown eyes blue" too! heh.

I'd like to thank the Country Music Academy...

Going through some pictures at my parent's house on Sunday, I happened to come across a ton of pictures of me with some...well, big hair. This picture is of me and my mom somewhere around 1993 when I was 15. That was the Year of the Hot Rollers. I wish I could be standing up so you could see the full effect of hot rollers plus 1/2 a can of hairspray. I also always kept it in a big poofy barret (?) on the back of my head. For those of you who never saw me back then, have a laugh on me.

What a weekend.

No, nothing exciting happened, it was just...weird.

I had to work on Saturday, and Steve and I had plans to go see Josh's play at the school that night. Steve's parents were supposed to go, but Rhonda got sick and she and Mr. Lee ended up spending the evening at the emergency room so that they could see a Dr. It's a good thing too, because they found out she had a blocked bile duct and had to do surgery. She's fine now, though, but I'm sure she'd still appreciate a few prayers. : )

The play was very good, and Josh looked great in his big bishop hat. I got so tickled at him because as he started to walk out of the scene he started blessing the audience. : ) Afterwards we all went to Red Lobster (yum) and then Steve and I went home.

Sunday, Steve and I got a call from Mr. Lee letting us know about Ms. Rhonda, so we stayed near the phone until we left for my parent's house to eat lunch. It was funny, we got a call from Lee at about 1:00 telling us that Rhonda was having some tests run, and then we got a call from him again at 4:00 letting us know she had just come out of surgery. We were all, huh? We didn't know until later that Steve's phone had wondered out of area, and that there was a message from Lee telling us that she had gone into surgery. We went to see her and to give her a birthday gift (Happy Birthday, Rhonda!) and see how she was. She was on the good drugs, so we left her to sleep and went home.

All weekend I was having these bizarre dreams. I'll say it before and I'll say it again: I shouldn't eat before going to sleep. The one last night was sad. It was a variation of a dream I have often. I dreamed I went to a mall or somewhere, but instead of going with a bunch of friends, I was there alone and it was only a coincidence that I was there at the same time as one of the friends. I waved to them and they came over and railed me out for following them around and told me to go away! Normally it ends up with me and my friends getting together and taking pictures (kind of like a weird, subconcious Mentos commercial), but instead it made me feel bad, and I left and ended up hanging out with a bunch of strangers and watching cartoons. It was really odd. At least no one died in this one. I hate it when people die in my dreams!

SO SUE ME...

OK, so after a conversation with Steve the other night, he tells me that I come across as being too nosey because I ask to know names of people that I'm hearing about or ask who went where with who. I can't help it! My mom used to do the same thing and I guess I got that from her. I need to know names so that I don't get confused. I also ask who went with you so I can have a picture in my head (I need to visualize, I'm an artist!) So to all of you that I've done this to, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to get into your business, I'm just trying to sort out the people you are talking about. I mean, granted I'm nosey, but I'm not asking for names so I can do research on them. Heeheehee. I never knew how it must of sounded! Sorry for seeming more interested than I should (and honestly, more interested than I probably was)! : )

Hmmm...Interesting.

A couple of days ago I got an unusual comment on one of my Blog entries. Here it is verbatem:

************************
Kelly,

I am a one of the mysterious creatures known as Wall Trolls. We are not Pixies, Elves, Fairies, Leprechauns or Gremlins. We live in the walls and attic of many homes, including yours. We normally live quiet and peaceful lives, so we do not usually interact with the outside (human) world. Because of the tragic events surrounding the annual celebration of the birthday of the oldest living member of our family, I elected to tell you how your oven was turned off the other day and give you a warning.

Every year we celebrate the birthday of the oldest living family member. The location of the celebration is shared among the many families that make up our clan, "The Spider Clan". We are called that because we have 8 fingers, four on each hand and a thumb for a total of ten digits. (Except me, the thumb on the left hand is missing due to an accident in you blender.) There is a movement afoot by some of the rouge members of the family to change the name of the clan to the "Decaclan" because of the two thumbs. But I say what good are two thumbs if they are on backwards?....Never mind all that! I was saying that this year was my family's turn to host the birthday party for Grandpa Bemelin who was 128 years old on Thursday. Grandpa Bemelin prefers ice cream cake over frosted cakes or cupcakes. So we got the family all together and were having the birthday party for grandpa. We choose to have the party in the oven since it the best place for all of us to gather. It has a light and is fairly clean, plus we can swing from the racks when we play. We noticed when we gathered that the oven was warm but we went ahead with the party anyway. When we brought the ice cream cake out and it started to MELT! Cousin Lemelin climbed out of the oven to check and found that it was still on! He turned it off, but the damage was already done, the cake was ruined! Grandma Bemelin was so overcome that she fainted and fell against the heating coil and singed her beard and burned her eye. Now she can’t blink it very well. Needless to say the event brought so much distress to the whole birthday celebration, we were shamed in front of the entire clan and were told we would never be allowed to host another one. Our only way to repay you is play tricks and jokes on you. So, if you hear a noise, or if Butler barks at “nothing” or things aren’t as you left them, then know that we are extracting our revenge. If you contact the authorities we will hide so that they will never find us, and we will have to resort to hire the mercenaries called the “Gremlins”. They will take the revenge to the next level. BE WARNED!

Signed:

Ringwal of the Wall Troll Spider Clan. a.k.a “Lefty”

****************************************
Now, when I got that reply i was a little taken back as I was sure we had sprayed for Wall Trolls already this year, but apparently they have been propagating for generations behind our walls. I am SO going to call our pest control company!!! At any rate, now I know who turned off my oven, and I'm relieved to know I'm not going insane. I'd also like to send a reply to Mr. Ringwal and thank him for not letting my house burn down.

Mr. Ringwal,

I would like to apologize for ruining your party and for your grandmother burning her eye. I've never been responsible for someone not being able to blink before. It's an odd sensation! I don't mind the tricks and jokes as long as you don't shave naughty words into the dog's fur again. Now that I know that was you, I owe Steve a huge apology. I will do my best to leave the oven off from now on, so feel free to have as many parties there as you see fit, as long as you clean up after yourself when it's over.

Oh yes, and if you are the one responsible for hiding the mates to my socks, and I do not find the missing ones in the laundry basket when I get home, consider that an act of war!

Your's always,
Kelly

: ) Thanks for the good laugh!

Note to self...

Check for open wounds on fingers before sticking your hands in a vat of vinagar and salt. OUCH!!!!!!!! I was trying to deoxidize my printing plate last night and I had a scratch on my finger. I had to do the owie dance. : (

"It vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone."

And so it begins.

HE'S HERE, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA....

That movie was wonderful! It had been so long since I'd seen the play that I forgot how great it all was! Although I still prefer the original cast recording of the music, all of the songs were well done and the whole spectacle of the thing was amazing. The Phantom was a little unusual for my taste, though. He sounded more like the lead singer for a metal band than an opera singer, but he was still good. I know that the story calls for the man to be disfigured (hence the mask) but seriously, when she pulled off his mask and everyone screams and whatever, all I could think of was that I've had pimples worse than what he looked like. He wasn't bad at all. Had he not been completely insane, he wouldn't have been too bad for Christine at all. : ) Raul was a cutie, too! All in all, I really and truly enjoyed it. I'll have to go out and get the sound track that I used to have. If I have one complaint, I'd have to say that there was too many...um, how can I say this delicately. Too many partially exposed bosoms in the movie. I now know what it must be like to be a short guy at the prom. If it had been in slow motion, it would have been like a Victorian era Baywatch! Anyways, I give it two thumbs up.

FINALLY! We are going tonight to see the Phantom of the Opera. I've heard that it is wonderful and I've heard it was awful. I hope it's the former. I've loved Phantom since my friend Bonnie first lent me her CDs of the soundtrack when I was a sophomore. Sara and I and some other people who have ceased to matter over the years (j/k!) went to see it on stage in Nashville, and I was completely amazed. Of course, we were at the top of the theater and everyone was about as this big "-", but it was great. Hopefully my glasses will hold together long enough for me to see the whole thing.

Speaking of Sara, I got a birthday card from her (Thanks, Scary Spice) today. ON the back it said: CONFIDENTIAL, Can Only Be Opened By An Old Woman. It's a shame I'm going to have to wait till HER birthday to see what was inside! : )

I'm so freakin' bored.

I am at work today, and it feels like the minutes are dragging by so slowly. We had to move from the trailer yesterday because of a potential electrical issue that COULD cause a fire, and we've been trapped in the back up call center in the museum since yesterday afternoon. I don't think it would be so bad if there were pictures on the walls or something, but we're basically in a narrow white room snaked with cables and computer equipment. At least we have the internet now. The last time we were up here we were using computers that would only run our DOS reservation program. I had bad 9th grade Apple 2 nightmares. I'm only supposed to be here from 9:00 until 1:00, and it's only 11:30 or so right now. I think I've aged seven years in these past 2 1/2 hours.

I've been reading a web site called "Tudor Place" and it is an exhaustive family tree of the Tudor branch of the English royal family. It's actually really very interesting, if you're into that sort of thing. I've been reading books about Queen Elizabeth I and Anne Boleyn, so I wanted to find out how much truth there was to the stories I was reading. That family was messed up! Also, I don't care if Henry VIII was a king, he was a jerk that could have benefitted from a kick in the butt. Of course, he could have you beheaded, so that's probably why that never happened!

Steve and I have to go sign some paper work in Decatur later today and I have to get my tire checked. If this day gets any more exciting, I might blow an artery. SIGH.

I'm going insane.

I've only felt this way once before (when I thought I saw myself. Not in a mirror, but actually saw myself standing across the parking lot from myself), and it really threw me for a loop, but for a second yesterday I felt as if my mind had gone unhinged.

I was working with some polymer clay yesterday morning making a tangent I could wear on a necklace, and I remember very clearly pulling the baking sheet out of the oven and taking Josh's ring (which was also baking in there) off of the sheet and putting it on the counter and then going about my business. Normally when I use my oven, I use the built in timer, which reminds me to turn the oven off. However, I used my egg timer for some reason and I didn't touch the oven controls at all after that. Well, I get to school, and in the middle of a lecture it hits me that I've left the oven on. At first I tried to shrug it off and tell myself that it was on a relatively low temp and would be okay until I got home, but I had turned it on at 9:00 and I wouldn't get home until after classes at about 3:45. Next I tried to tell myself that the oven had an automatic off switch, but I knew that wasn't true. Then I suddenly remembered I had a kitchen towel on the stove, so I jumped up and ran out of class, to my car, and started home. I was in full-blown panic mode. I was scared to death, shaking, praying that I would get there before the fire department did. I tore out of the car and ran inside, and the oven was OFF!!

I just sort of stared at it for a second in disbelief. I even punched the "off' button again just to make sure I wasn't mistaken about whether or not it was really off, but I wasn't. I even opened the oven and touched the racks (with my bare hands...what an idiot), and sure enough it was off. I was so confused.

Now, maybe God turned it off, I don't know, but I certainly know that I didn't do it. I even called Steve to see if he had done it, but he hadn't. That completely threw me off for the rest of the day. I mean, I had gone into a panic attack! It took me hours to get back to normal. Weirdness. Someone call Unsolved Mysteries or something.

I'm in the process of redesigning my whole website. It's kind of going along slowly, since I'm having to do most of the graphics on my laptop, but I've got the ideas. All I have to do is put foundations under them. (I'd like to thank the guy who wrote Walden for that last line I just mangled. I know who he is, but I don't know how to spell his name. No need to send it to me, I'll look it up later.)

We have a new guy at work named Ian. He's 17 years old. He reminds me of Kevin in a lot of ways. You know what I'm talking about. : ) He's a really sweet guy, and he bought me sour gummy worms. I've only known him one day and he's already buying me things. I think I'm going to like him fine. ; )

Steve gave me my birthday gift yesterday. He got me a gift card from Williams-Sanoma! Woo-Hoo! He actually gave me a pack of cards and I was all, "Wha? Um...okay, thanks." He asked me to shuffle them so we could play something and in the middle of the deck was my gift card. He's so cute! We're going out to celebrate my birthday on Saturday if nothing happens. I'm kind of glad. I hate trying to do birthday stuff on my actual birthday. Too many obligitory romantic dates going on! Heeheehee. I guess I sound like the Valentine's Day Scrooge or something. Bah Humbug!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Apparently it's the year of the rooster.

I have no idea what the significance of that is. : )

Oog...

I know I shouldn't feel weird about this now...seeing that it was a long time ago, but I just found out something unplesant.

I dated a guy who had a girlfriend I didn't know about.

Of course, all of this depends on exact dates that they were together and everything, but I'm almost completely certain that the times coincide.

I feel...oogie. Oogieness from several years ago. Not only that, but I feel stupid for feeling bad about something that wasn't intentional AND happened a long time ago. Let's just say, I wouldn't have done that on purpose.

The internet is a dangerous source of suprise information.

In the words of a wise man..."That's all I've got to say about that."

Super what?

Nah, I didn't watch the super bowl. In fact, I did my darndest to avoid anything football related yesterday, and I pretty much succeeded until Steve flipped the channel over after we watched a DVD. I think a bird team won or something. I have no idea why the Super Bowl is such a big deal. Of course, I am not a football fan and I don't care to be around a group of them if a game is on. Maybe if I cared, I would understand.

Maybe I'm just getting old. I'd rather stay home and read, watch tv, or make something than go out anymore and if I do go out, I just want to go somewhere calm to sit and talk. Josh thinks I'm boring. Heck, Steve thinks I'm boring. Maybe I am. Eh, who cares? Personally, I think that if you can't be content at home, you can't be content anywhere. That's just me, though.

I've been reading this book about the reign of Queen Elizabeth and a man named Robert Dudley who was trying to get the queen to fall in love with him so that he could marry her and be powerful. I got to a part yesterday that was good, but Steve and I had to leave for church. I grabbed the book thinking that I could read a little before church started, but I never thought to take off the dust jacket. It dawns on me too late that no matter how innocent the content, a book called "The Virgin's Lover" probably is going to look bad to someone who only sees the cover. I had to keep it hidden!! Le Sigh.

Speaking of Josh, he is going to be the Bishop in the Huntsville High School presentation of The Sound of Music. I have been making his big cross that he is going to wear, and I have to make his fishermans ring. He is going to be one pimped out bishop. I'm afraid if I'm not careful, he'll look more like Flava Flav than anyone even remotely holy. : ) He wants me to make one of those stick things that they carry around, but I'm Baptist and I don't know what it is or what it looks like. I just know that it's some kind of staff with a curled over end. Anyone want to help me with that?

The Bemusement Park

That's my I'm-Too-Lazy-To-Erase-My-Link link for today. It's actually a good read, and the guy who writes it is hilarious. I had to bookmark after the first time I read it.

Anyways.

I'm prompted to write this morning because of a conversation we had going on in the office a minute ago. We were talking about Valentine's Day. I've said it before and I'll say it again...

I hate Valentines Day.

*20 Minutes Later*
I actually had a long post explaining why I hate Val. Day. But I'm not in the mood to sound whiny, so I'll just have a quick rant. Here is the Reader's Digest Condensed Version.

A note beforehand - this is not because of something Steve did or didn't do. I've hated Val. Day since long before I met him.*

Rant

I don't approve of a holiday where people feel obligated to have a significant other and I hate that there are people out there who get depressed because they don't have one. I hate that some people think that if they don't get expensive gifts or are not taken on some wildly elaborate date that the person they are with doesn't love them enough. I hate that there are women who EXPECT to get proposed to on that day. I think that if people love one another, they don't need a special day to prove it, and they certainly don't need to buy diamonds or flowers or whatever to prove it either.

However, if there is one thing that doesn't completely suck about Val. Day it's something that can be summed up with one word. Chocolate.

/Rant

No more crack for me...

After class, I was walking out of the gym and I had my mat carrier slung across my chest with the strap in the front and the bag in the back. It looked and felt like I was carrying a quiver, you know, like you keep arrows in. As I was walking out, I had an unholy urge to play a quick scene from Lord of the Rings and pretend to be Legolas and shoot one of the gym managers with an imaginary arrow. Luckily I was not insane enough to do it and I made it out of the door without incident. Good thing, too. I'm a good shot with those imaginary arrows.

I had a little time to kill after my graphics class, so I went to Hobby Lobby to get some paper for the church scrapbook. I know absolutly nothing about scrapbooking, so I'm wondering through the asiles trying to figure out what everything does. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by scrapbook enthusiasts...Soccermoms, I just know it. Apparently there is this whole multitude of people who record each and every aspect of their lives by gluing things into a book along with cute little stickers, glitter, grommets, and fancy things made from bent wires. Now, as an arty kind of person, I have some of these things at home, but I had no idea the extent of this whole scrapbooking movement. Now I will attempt to record church activities in an attractive, yet archivially proper way...with little shaped punch out thingies and fancy paper. SIGH, first the SUV, now this. If I start talking about naming any of my future kids something like Bailey or Taylor, just shoot me in the head.

More Yoga News...

I think I broke my spleen today. I also broke my glasses again.

That's pretty much all for now.

Woah...

Do you know what I just realized? I'm scary looking first thing in the morning. I mean, sure, I'm not Angelina Jolie at any time of the day, but jeez. heeheehee I looked in the mirror a minute ago, and I was awake enough to realize that I sort of resembled Sloth from "The Goonies" movie! Either Steve has reached that place where he doesn't care what I look like anymore, or that is the real reason he doesn't get out of bed until I'm almost ready every day! : )