STATUS REPORT

One pretty darn good self-promotional website completed and turned in for final project. It actually turned out better than I thought it was going to no matter how much my teacher thinks I should have more "Type Play". I also learned how to do some nifty stuff with Flash in the process. Go me!

12 intaglio prints of Key Largo done and turned in. 7 of them trial proofs and 1 edition of 5 identical ones. They didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but I am just not that skilled with intaglio. If I had more time to devote, I think I'd become rather talented at it. Anyone want to buy me a $3,000 press and UV exposire unit? Anyone?

One hundred handmade wedding invitations completed (well, almost). I got down to the last 25 and ran out of ribbon, but I'm heading out to get the rest of it today! Here is what they look like - although please understand they are much nicer in person -



The invitation is actually navy blue rather than purple, but I had a little trouble with the color settings when I scanned it.

I have not cleaned the house yet. I've made a couple of half hearted tries, but I kept getting distracted with school stuff. In fact, the house seemed to get messier and messier as I was in the process of doing all of this. Today, however, I am going to clean! I don't know what will actually get acomplished, exactly, but I am determined to at least see the floor in one room by the end of today!

I have taken some new pictures that I eventually want to put up on my website. Speaking of, the redesign on that is going SLOW. Maybe this summer I can have it completed. I've got all of these really great ideas, but I haven't been able to implement them. SIGH.

Yesterday I used the remainder of the gift card that dearest husband got me from Williams-Sanoma. I got a very cool muffin pan that makes the muffins or cupcakes, or whatever, in the shapes of roses. Hmmm, maybe that's a little dorky to everyone else. Anyways, I thought that it would be a cute idea to make red velvet cake in them. I just recently found out that I'm good at making red velvet cake. However, I need to learn how to store it away. Steve was eating the last piece and after the first bite found mold on it. Yeah, needed to put that in the fridge. Sorry, Steve!

I have very recently had the feeling that a friend of mine has become utterly and completely tired of me. I don't exactly know if I did anything to cause this, but I suppose I must have. I'd like to apologize if it is something I CAN apologize about, but if it is just about me being me, I guess I'm kinda screwed. At any rate, friend-who-probably-doesn't-even-read-this-but-on-the-off-chance-may-be-reading-this-and-will-know-who-you-are, be nice enough to tell me if this is true and give me a little closure. I'd rather know that we are no longer friends than to sit about waiting to hear from you and not, or finding out later that you only stayed around because it made you feel too bad to just tell me that you were tired of me and have you complain about me to other people. I neither need nor want that. Thanks!

I went to the new Starbucks last night. I was underwhelmed. I mean, it was fine as far as coffee shops go and it had a fine selection of all things coffee and tea, but I guess I was just expecting more. However, I will go back! If nothing else, the smell of the coffee alone is worth going in. I think I might also adopt that angsty art student facade and wear black and sit in the corner with my copy of On the Road. However, finding angst and a copy of On the Road, may be more trouble than it's actually worth! : )

I'm sure all of this was riveting, but I'm going to leave it at that. Ciao!

Yeah, I'm still here. Could someone please tell me why I can't sleep? You'd think I would have left a while ago to go play Sims 2 University, right? I mean, I told you that's where I was going and all, so it makes perfect sense.

However, my rear never even left the chair because I suddenly remembered a very punny conversation I had once that had been posted on my friend, Kenny Smith's, blog, so I went on a mission to find it. I spent a friggin' hour or more reading/scanning every blog entry that dude had recorded since he started his page in 2003. I couldn't remember when we had this converstaion. I don't know why it was important to find that. Oh and I also felt the need to find a part in there where he quoted part of a book, which in turn reminded me to find out when it was we had dinner last year in Cullman where we got in trouble at a bookstore for being raucous. It took a while, but I finally found them, but in the process I noticed that my friend writes A LOT. This isn't a bad thing, because he's entertaining. He talks about his friends, his job, politics and and also an unusual amount of time talking about his lawn care routine. I also realized how much of a life he has and how little of one I have! I mean, I just spent an hour and change reading about all he has done trying to find myself in all of that. (Isn't it weird how people you always think of as being a part of everyday really aren't? Not that I don't think of him or read his website every day, but I guess part of me always thinks he is next door or something and it's a lesson in perpectives that left me pretty shocked.) Anyways, thank you, Kenny's Blog, for helping me to realize I need to get a life interesting enough to write enormous amounts of stuff about, and people to fill it with.

Oh, wait, it's 1:00 a.m. It's too early in the morning to get a life.

Well, here I am! I know you were probably missing me! Heh. Actually, I'm still having trouble with Blogger.com at work, so I haven't been able to post anything while I was thinking about it lately. So I decided to just ramble while I'm at home. It will make you feel less cheated if you're reading this.

Speaking of not posting. I'm going to have to go into a self imposed exile for the next few days due to overburdening myself with projects and what not. Luckily, I finished the final intaglio print that I had due (and not without turning yet another part of myself black for a couple of days), and I also finally finished the wedding programs for my friend Tasha. They turned out decent, if I do say so. The invitations are going to be a little more tricky to finish. They have three layers and a bow, and it takes forever to get everything cut out and tied together. They look nice, though. I've still got 60 left to cut out and put together. I'm glad I'm getting paid for this. I've also got to design a promotional website for myself as if I were presenting it to a potential employer (Dang that was a lot of Ps), and I've got the basic design down, but I still have to do all of the referencing and stuff as well as building two flash animations to insert in there. Didn't know I could do that...huh? : )

I've been having this horrible recurring nightmare that I am packing boxes and having to move out of places. When I ask to stay, the people just tell me to leave because they don't need me anymore. When I look down into my boxes, they are full of weird stuff like the kind of stuff you keep in scrapbooks. Pictures and stuff like that. Then they push me out the door and I can hear them having a party on the other side of the door, but they won't let me back in! It's very frustrating! I think I'm going to learn lucid dreaming and beat someone up. : ) It might not get me invited to the party, but at least no one else will have a good time! Heeheehee.

I need a few prayers, if you don't mind please. I applied for a job in our graphics department today. It's basically the same job I applied for last year. The girl who got that job left a week ago. I would really like to have the job, but I'm nervous about it. I mean, I know it would be great if I was able to finally work in the field I'm training for, entry level or not, but getting the job is not the biggest thing I'm worried about. I mean, I may get it, I may not. That is up to God. What I'm worried about is if I don't get it, will I feel as bad as I did last year. I mean, it really upset me and I don't want to have to feel like that again. I need prayers that I can handle rejection with grace and ease. If it's not God's will for me to have it, I want to be able to accept that and go about my business with little to no discomfort. In fact, I'd like to not even think about it until I have to, but as it is when you want something, it's always lurking around in the brain. I also would ask for prayers that if I DO get the job, I will do my best and make them glad they chose me. I need to fix my portfolio and get it ready. Even if I don't get the position, I want to go into the interview as prepared and professional as possible. I might even wear a skirt. I'm a wild woman! : )

Wow, this is a long entry. It's 11:27 p.m. and I can't sleep. Ah to sleep, perchance to blog. heh.

Steve's Blackberry thingie just scared me half to death. Every time he gets an e-mail, it sings the Mah-na Mah-na song by the Muppets. You're probably familiar with the song from the diet cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper commericals where the dude in the resturaunt starts singing. Anywho, I had to jump up and slam it into the little magnetic pouch that turns the sound off. One thing I DON'T need is to be scared to death by Muppets.

I think I'm about to go in there and waste some time playing Sims 2 University. So far I haven't graduated anyone I've sent to college, but I've killed a great number of people. Now that I've been using the programmers cheat codes, it's a lot more fun to play. You can kill people, aliens can get them pregnant (men or women, believe it or not), they gan get older or live forever, and you never have to make them go to the bathroom if you don't want to! If only life were that easy!

Well, ta for now. Once I am back in a less hectic pace, I will be back. Hopefully I can figure out what is wrong with my blogger at work so I can write stuff while I'm thinking about it. Yeah, I know, whoop-de-freakin-do.

Holler!

OK, so I'm home between classes and watching one of the movie channels during lunch. There have been two Jennifer Love Hewett movies in a row.

Isn't this one of the biblical signs of the apocolypse?

Speaking of dreams...

Last night I was having a weird dream, but I'm not going in to the whole thing. Somewhere in this long, drawn out dream I overhear someone talking and I woke up all cracked up from what they said.

I was dreaming of being in a college in the Science department. I overheard some people talking and one guy says "There was an old lady who accidentally grabbed a packet of SeaMonkeys instead of sugar and poured them over her cereal (which makes perfect sense because I keep my Seamonkeys with the Splenda too, but I digress.) In thirty days she looked great and she was very healthy. Apparently SeaMonkeys are a frickin' fountain of youth! Now SeaMonkeys are being traded like smack out on the streets."

Where does my brain come up with this stuff?

Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight I address you from the yella room where we have been sleeping due to the laundry on our real bed. How am I writing to you from there, you may ask? Well, Steve has installed a wireless network, Woo-Hoo! As I told a friend of mine, I can now jump on the internet from the couch, the bathtub or even the closet if I want to! It's very cool. However, I believe it will not be conducive to activeness. I'm going to grow into the fabric of the couch. : )

I wanted to post earlier today, but for some reason I have been haaving trouble with blogger.com from work. It keeps asking me to log in, but won't let me in the program once I sign in. Weird. I actually had something interesting to say, and of course I can't remember any of it now. Oh well.

I rented the movie "The Grudge" tonight and it was so stupid. I had heard it might be, but I wanted to see for myself. Some advice, just wait for it to go into the $1 bin somewhere before you bother watching it. Pah!

I saw this pretty good looking guy on TV the other night. I was just thinking how cute he was when the first thing out of his mouth was "I have genital herpes." That little infatuation was over quick. Can you please tell me why Vioxx or whatever has to be advertised on TV? I mean, eeeeeesh. Gross. I don't want to know about stuff like that! That poor actor. Under his "former expirence" on his resume it will have to mention the herpes commercial. How embarassing.

I had a very strange dream the other night about a guy I dated a while ago. His name is Andrew, and he has been on my mind a lot lately because he had joined the Marines after he graduated high school. I guess I've been worried about him because I don't know if he is still in the Marines and if he had to go overseas or not and I'm just hoping he is okay. Anyways. I haven't really even spoken to him since 1997 or so, but as I said, I've worried about him because of the war and I don't have any clue how to get in contact with anyone who might know him. In my dream, I saw him again and he gave me this huge book that would tell me everything I wanted to know. Just as I was opening it up, I woke up! I was so mad! I love to dream, but I hate when stuff like that happens.

Well, I need to stop writing now. I'm about to fall asleep and the laptop is getting hot! Ciao!

I saw the most disturbing movie last night called The Hole.

*Warning-I am going to give away the end here. Just FYI*

I've seen a lot of horror movies in my time and rarely have any of them bothered me like this one. I don't even think you can rightfully call it a horror movie, but it scared me a lot. We came in sometime after the beginning, so I didn't really know what was going on at first. It's a non linear story told mostly in flasbacks by a girl who had obviously survived a very bad situation where she had been trapped with three of her friends in an old war bunker for days without food and water. She's telling a psychiatrist about what happened and we see her story play out. This bunker was a place discovered by a boy at school that was out in the woods and no one else knew about it. These 4 friends decided that they wanted to camp out down there during a school vacation, and thought it would be fun to be locked in. The boy locked them in and said he'd be back in three days. Well, they have their party and the three days pass, and the boy doesn't come back. They start freaking out and after a couple of days they begin to starve to death. They try everything they can think of to get out, and they realize that this boy is leaving them down there on purpose and they find microphones down there that are recording their conversations. So they pretend that they are fighting and that one girl is sick so that the boy will hear them, and the next day the door is opened and they get out. However, after we get back to the present, the psychiatrist looks confused and you can tell she's pretty much humoring the girl and we find out that the other three kids are actually dead. As the movie goes on, we see the psychiatrist working with the police to find out what really happened. They arrest the boy who had the key, and he tells a similar story and we see it play out, but his story is that he had given the key to the girl who survived and she could have gotten out at any time. They don't believe him because she had been so sick and starved when she was found and they knew she would have let them out if she could have. Well, then we see the girl who survived again and she takes the psychiatrist down into the place she had been trapped and tells her the real story, and we see her real memories, which are not the ones she told earlier. Apparently she was in love with this boy who never paid attention to her. She (Elizabeth) talked her friend Francis into asking her boyfriend to go along with them to this bunker for the vacation and ask the boy Elizabeth liked to go along so that they could hook up. This doesn't work, and it turns out that the boy likes Francis instead. After two days, the boy decides he doesn't want to stay there any more and he wants to leave. Elizabeth gets upset and says that she's leaving too, but when she gets to the door, she locks it and hides the key. They believe the door is jammed shut. After the others panic (and she pretends to) they realize they are just going to have to survive until someone comes looking for them or the boy who knew they were there tells someone. That doesn't happen. Elizabeth never tells them she has the key and they slowly start to starve to death. Her main purpose in all of this is to sleep with the boy she likes and figures to herself that if he can't get away, it will eventually happen. Just when it is about to, the other boy runs in and says that Francis is sick from the dirty water they drank and can't stop throwing up. At this point you know that Elizabeth is a sociopath because her friend is really sick and she doesn't let her out. That night Francis dies of a hemorrage brought on by throwing up so much. A day or so later, Elizabeth has a flash of concious and starts to tell the others that she has the key, but when one boy finds out that the other had been hoarding drinks, he kills him with his bare hands and that leaves Elizabeth with the boy she likes and he gets that "I'm about to die so why not" attitude. Afterwards, she opens the door. When he finds out what she did, he tries to climb the ladder and kill her, but it breaks and he falls and is killed. She just locks the door behind her. After telling the psychiatrist all of this, the woman is shocked and wants her to tell the police. Elizabeth won't because she didn't want to get in trouble for what she saw as a series of accidents and not her fault. Well, as the psychiatrist is trying to convince her to tell she starts screaming and the police at the crime scene come running and the girl is taken out of the room. The police tell he psychiatrist that the case is over, they have proof the boy that locked them in was guilty. Apparenly (you see in a flash back) he had gone to see Elizabeth and ask why she framed him for all of this and she tells him that she knew he couldn't be proved guilty and she didn't want to get in trouble. He's upset and she bends down to comfort him, and she sticks the key in his pocket and she knocks him over the side of the bridge they were standing on. So they find his body and the key in his pocket, so they believe he comitted suicide out of remorse. At the end you see Elizabeth smile, so you know she planned it that way. Elizabeth gets away with everything because the psychiatrist can't tell what her patient said! It was crazy! Maybe it bothered me because I'm claustrophobic or whatever, but my skin has been crawling ever since.
Sorry for the lengthy review, but yuck, I had to get it out of my head!

I can now commiserate with anyone who has ever tried to dress an angry two year old. This morning I had to take Bear back to the vet to get his stitches out. As soon as he saw me coming with the harness he went nuts. I chased him around the room, tried asking nicely for him to stand still, and I even tried the trick of putting my hands through the leg holes and pulling his legs through that way. When I finally got his legs through, he rolled over on his back so I couldn't fasten it!!! I had to wrestle him down to get it on. Then he jumped on the car, scratching the paint, and while we were driving he tried to stand in my lap! By the time we got to the vet, we were late, he and his lead were wrapped around my legs, and I had a sore spot on my face where he punched me while we were in the car (yes, he PUNCHED me!). He wouldn't sit still for the vet to clip off the stitches, so they had to take him in the back and strap him to the table. While he was back there they found another gross bite mark on his chest that we couldn't see because of his fur. We have to start giving him antibiotics again and put the stinging medicine that he hates on it!!! They didn't even try to stitch it up. Oy vey. The vet thinks he's the worst acting dog, I just know it. He was only scared though. I"m going to have to resort to drugging my dogs whenever I take them in from now on.
How do mothers do it? Geez, these are just dogs for the love of Pete!

Well, I guess this is better than the chocolate crosses they have at Easter. What's next, Beanie Apostles?

RANDOM THOUGHTS OF THE DAY

1. When did I get old? Well, I know I'm not "old", but last night at dinner, a family that used to go to my church was at the same resturaunt we went to. I taught one of their daughters at church and she was 5. She is now in the 5th grade and taller than me. Her sister, who I also remember as being very young, is graduating this year. If you'll excuse me, I'll be in the den with a 6 pack of Ensure and a Matlock marathon.
2. I saw the movie Sahara this weekend. It was SO GOOD!!!!!! Matthew McConehey(?) is a great Indiana Jones kind of character, not to mention he is gorgeous! Two thumbs up, a fine family film. : )
3. For some reason I've been thinking about a friend of mine that I haven't seen in several years. His name is Micheal and we used to hang out all the time, but we stopped seeing each other as much when I met Steve. I feel bad about that now. I always hated that when people would do it to me. At any rate, I don't know why he's been on my mind so much. Maybe that means I'll see him somewhere soon.
4. I want ice cream. I want ice cream NOW!
5. I have to go to school tonight *que video clip of me writhing on the floor having a hysterical tantrum* and I don't want to.
6. I'm skipping the honors day convocation tomorrow to wait for the bug man. We have ants. I've seen all manner of vermin in our house, but never ants. They must be destroyed immediately. If for no other reason than ever since I saw them, I feel like they are in my hair. They aren't, though. Just thought I'd throw that in.
7. I still want ice cream. Ooooh, and chocolate milk. No, I'm not pregnant.
8. Don't shop at the Micheal's art supply store on Univerity Drive. They mis-label prices and have bad customer service skills.

That is all for now!

PHI KAPPA PHI!!

Woo-Hoo!

No, it's not a sorority, it's the honor's program at UAH! I'm finally a member!!! Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to update my resume!

I am so freaking tired. I don't know if it's the time change, or if it's the end-of-semester push, but I feel like I haven't slept in days.
I've kind if got the blues today too. Not a serious case of them, thank goodness, but just enough to delicately color the day. Why? I don't really know the core of it. Part of it is just being tired, part of it is watching things pass away. Things that you'd come to rely on and hoped would always be there. Hey, it happens. Knowing that doesn't make it any better, but at least it's not coming out of nowhere and hopefully I'll just get numb enough to not care.
We took Butler to the vet on thursday so he could get his shots, and he had his new harness on. It looked funny and kept falling down, but I thought it was because I bought one too big. When the vet brought him back, his harness was on differently, and it looked as if it fit better. Apparently I had put it on him sideways. I'm pretty sure the vet was laughing at me. She probably thinks that if I'm the kind of person who can't get a harness on right, I probably couldn't put a bathing suit top on right either.
A breif spark in an otherwise blah day...a friend of mine is getting married and asked me to design her invitations and program. She didn't know what she wanted except for in the most general of terms, so I've got free reign. How cool is that? I went out and looked at different kinds of paper after work and then went to get groceries. I didn't get home until almost 9:00 and I still have to eat and work on that stupid website. I took a minute to sit down and read a couple of my must-read websites that I didn't get to see today and write in my own blog.
Now I'm off to eat. Ciao.

I wasn't going to say anything about Terri Schavio. Partly because I wasn't sure how I felt about the whole situation and partly because I felt people were talking about it enough. However, I will say a couple of things that are on my mind about it.
I'm of three minds about the whole thing. Mind number 1 thinks that what that poor lady went through is horrible. She wasn't on a respirator or a heart machine, she was simply being fed through a tube. Lots of people are fed through tubes. Starving her to death seems so cruel and inhumane. It was like starving a baby, just someone who couldn't feed herself. I have a severely handicapped brother who can't do anything for himself, and part of me felt like it would be like my parents sitting him outside and saying that it was for the best. Mind number 2 says that her husband probably knew better than anyone what she wanted. Maybe it was a conversation they had that she never had with her parents. Maybe she didn't like talking about life and death with her parents, who knows? People like to demonize her husband because after the doctors told him she wouldn't get better, he moved on. Granted, it WAS tacky to get engaged and have kids while she was still alive, but I have to say that I don't blame him. As much as I would love to think that Steve would mourn me and never look at another woman for the rest of his life, I know it isn't likely. Could he have divorced his wife and married the other lady? Sure. Why didn't he? I don't know. That's just it, though, no one knows why he's done what he's done. It's all speculation and wonder. Is he a bad man? I don't think so. I'd have to have more proof than I've gotten so far that he was doing any of this to be cruel.
Mind number 3 (and this is the one I'm beginning to think is right about it) tells me that this stopped being about Terri a LONG time ago. This was a pissing contest (sorry, Rhonda) between two families who wanted the power over someone's life. Could her husband have divorced her and given her life over to her parents? Yes. He would have been free and clear to do whatever he wanted after that. He had already received the million dollar malpractice settlement, so what made him stay? Her parents, even though I feel so bad for them, HAD to know that she wasn't going to get better. She was in that state for 15 years, it was kind of obvious she wasn't going to get any better. Although I know their faith was strong, but I believe they didn't comply with her wishes because they didn't want to and that is that. Do they love her? No doubt, but did they take into consideration that she didn't want to be a burden to them or anyone else? That she didn't want to BE like that? No. Keeping her alive against her wishes is just as wrong as taking her off the machines, IMHO.
All that being said, I'm glad it's over. For Terri's sake and no one elses. I'm ashamed of everyone involved. May she FINALLY rest in peace.