RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Merry after Christmas! We had a lovely holiday, thanks for asking! We made the requisite rounds of family gatherings, ate hugely, played in a completely unexpected snowfall (well, I did) and exchanged gifts. We had a great time all around, I think. Steve, of course, had to bring a whole new set of sucky Christmas movies into the mix, but I forgave him for that since it was Jesus' birthday and all. :) Here is the snowman Seth and I made:


2) Steve gave me a funny/thoughtful Christmas gift this year. He remembered that when I was a little girl, I loved Wonder Woman. Not just loved her, but was planning on becoming her when I grew up. This was, of course, before I knew that she wasn't like Green Lantern and couldn't just pass off her image to a whole new person. (And now I've revealed I know too much about Green Lantern.) Anyways, he gave me a pendant with the Wonder Woman symbol to wear on a necklace! At least that's what I think it is. Maybe it's a Whataburger logo. Eh, either way. cool! I thought it was sweet he remembered my silly childhood ambitions. I'm just glad he didn't buy it at Zales.

3) I finally finished my 365 hat project! *snoopy dance* I know that most of you probably already knew what the "Hat Count" number was about all this time, but for those of you who didn't, I'll explain more fully now that I'm done. I set a goal for myself at the end of last year, to make one hat for every day of the year. My original goal was just to thin out my yarn stash and make 365 hats, period. However, in my search for hat patterns, I ran across a website for "The Hatbox Foundation," which is a charity that takes handmade hats and distributes them to hospitals across the country for patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Since I've lost so many family members to cancer, this site kind of spoke to my heart, and I decided that I'd be able to reach my goal and do some good in the world at the same time! There are other similar charities, but since this one works with the hospital my very loved, late mother-in-law was in during her fight with cancer, I chose it. I won't be sending all 365 hats to the charity, unfortunately. I counted every hat I made into my total, and that included hats I made for myself, ones I made as gifts for friends, & some I sold. Also, some can't be sent because of the type of yarn I used or the pattern I used wasn't suitable because it wasn't tightly woven enough. However, the majority of them, somewhere between 280 - 300 (I have to go through them again to be sure), can be donated! Now my biggest concern is packing them up and figuring out a way to get them to California! I'll probably wait until the new year to figure out that one.

4) I'm going to have to go to the hospital next week and have a sleep study done. Fun, right? : ( My GP is trying to help me figure out some health issues (nothing major, just annoying) and so he sent me to a sleep clinic to see if I have sleep apnea. Steve has told me that sometimes I just stop breathing while I'm asleep and I struggle to start again. Apparently that's not normal. Anyways, I went to the doc (who looks like Stephen King...not cool) and now I have to spend the night in a clinic bedroom with wires taped all over my bod while someone watches me. Seriously, how am I going to fall asleep like that?! There is a slight chance that I may have to have a CPAP, which is just all kinds of sexy. Attention, guys who chose not to marry me...bullet dodged. Consider yourself extra lucky now. Of course, if it keeps me from suffocating in my sleep, I should probably not care one way or the other how it looks, right? Also, if it helps me feel better, I guess I'm willing to use it. I'll just look like Darth Vadar. Heehee. Honestly, I don't think it will come down to having to use a machine to breathe at night, but that is why "Dr. Stephen King" and his minions will be watching me sleep. Just to make sure. We'll see. :)

5) I only sent out one Christmas card this year! I had such plans!!!!!! I made one specifically for a friend/former teacher and his wife who were even bigger "Lost" nerds than I was, and I almost forgot to send that one out.


Maybe next year all of my loved ones will get one. Not necessarily a DHARMA card, but still... Sorry about that, loved ones. My bad!

GUUUURL, PLEASE.

I'm so very tired of the Zales jewelry commercials. You know which ones I mean, right? The ones where the guy presents the little box to the woman and the women go through various stages of ecstasy? Then the caption on the screen changes to something along the lines of: The "Blah, blah, blah" Store?

They grate on me.

I can't help it. I'm not going all feminist on you guys or anything, but frankly, the commercials are insulting.

I know that getting jewelry is a good thing. Hell, we all know how much I personally like sparkly things in general. But I'll be damned if a box of ugly, mass produced jewelry would make my panties hit the floor like the commercial implies it will*. Please.

I can understand being excited over an engagement ring. I can even understand that you might get excited over a well thought out, meaningful piece of jewelry. But these commercials (on purpose or not) just seem to say "Hey! Buy her something from our store! Anything from our store! She'll be apoplectic with joy because you give her something shiny! Bitches, loooooove shiny!"

*shakes head*

*Now, please don't think that I'd make fun of any of you guys for buying your wife or girlfriend a piece of jewelry, because I think it's a lovely thing to do. However, I'd like to think that any man I know and love would have a bit more imagination when it comes to the kind of stuff they buy!

(SOCK) MONKEY BUSINESS

Cringe in envy, folks! CRINGE!

I took this hat to my mother's house one day while I was staying with my brother, and she took this picture for me. Since it was really cold that evening, I actually wore it while I was driving home. I'm not shy about singing and dancing pretty hard while driving, but I had an embarrassing moment when I realized how odd my silhouette must look to anyone from behind.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) We had such a good time at Steve's company party! Of course, we usually do, but it seemed like this year was extra fun. I dunno. Maybe someone put ecstasy in the spinach dip or something. :) It was held at the SpRocket (ptooey), and I went over there that afternoon to help put together cupcake stands and help do other things. I think I was mostly in the way, but I enjoyed helping the little bit that I did. I also got to visit with a whole lot of people I used to work with and it was nice seeing them again! As these things usually go, the different departments kind of grouped together, so the IT guys all shared a table. At one point I asked if that meant we were at the geek table and I was in formed that it meant were at the Awesome Table! Heehee. As usual, Steve didn't win any of the door prizes, but at least two of the guys won something! I didn't get to dance (again) but I can forgive Steve this time because he had minor surgery on his foot earlier in the week. Obviously, that is the only excuse I will accept in the future. There were cupcakes from Gigi's. Cupcakes, y'all! Also, my dress was about 4 inches too long, and I had a bad moment where I stepped on the hem and almost yanked the top part down. I would have given the Toys for Tots Marines the thrill of their lives had I not managed to grab my neckline and keep it where it needed to be. Oh, and I wore bedroom slippers the entire night. My dress was long. Don't judge me.

2) I've been busy making sock monkey hats for people I know. Initially, I only made one because one of my Facebook friends gave me the idea, but several people have asked for one! They're buying the yarn, I'm supplying the hands. I wish I could say I invented the idea, but Skymall beat me to it. Oh, well...mine are cuter. :)

3) We had a wonderful Thanksmas this year and I cooked, cooked, and cooked. Then I ate, ate, and ate. It was a lot of fun! I always enjoy visiting my Georgia family! We even got to see the first installment of Harry Potter with Amy and her family! We used to do that every time I new one came out until they started airing in the summer. Nothing too out of the norm happened, but Steve did get sick. I'm very grateful he kept away from everyone's kids after he started feeling bad. Mr. Lee and I had to go on a wild goose chase to try and find medicine that (we realized later) had been recalled, but all in all it was a great trip and we all had a wonderful time!

4) I feel like such a moron. Do you ever have one of those moments where your brain just can't wrap around a simple concept? I had that moment yesterday when I went to Target to run an errand. I happened to pass by a rack of t-shirts that were made for the BCS national championship game in January. It was a gray shirt that had Auburn Tigers printed on the left side, Oregon Ducks printed on the right and some kind of emblem in between the names. The emblem was in a shield shape and the pointy end extended towards the bottom of the shirt. On the left side of the emblem, underneath the word "tigers," was the number 20 and on the right side of it, underneath the word "ducks," was the number11. I stood there for quite a few minutes staring at the shirt thinking... "How do they know the score already?!" I couldn't figure out if it was some kind of mistake and that a bunch of shirts with scores on them had been pre-printed and sent out by accident, or (and I'm kind of ashamed of myself for this one) if maybe the real game had already been played but wouldn't be aired until January. After about 15 minutes, I realized that the 20 and the 11 were the year. If I facepalmed all day, every day for a month, I don't think it would cover it. Oy.

MY APOLOGIES

I'm going to have to activate the capcha thing on my comments because some foreign company feels that spamming up my modest little blog will make it easier for them to sell Viagra and fake Rolexes.

However, if you feel the need to "MaKe SuRe YoU LoVer LaSt LoNg TiMe" feel free to click on any comment with a link on it that you find.

I also hope that the extra step won't keep real people from commenting on my posts!

Hello, darlings! At the moment of this writing, I'm still alive. I apologize to those of you who faithfully check each day to see if I have written anything. It speaks volumes about the boredom you must feel on a regular basis! :) There is probably some kind of way that you can be notified when I actually do update this blog, so that you can forget about me until a message pops up, but I don't know what that would be called or how to do it. :( Anyways, I've had a lot to talk about, but apparently for the past week I've been sick. I didn't really know I was sick till I got well, which seems odd, but that accounts for why I didn't write anything about Thanksmas or any of the other things. However, those stories will have to wait because I have a particular one I want to share first. I shall call it:

OY, CHRISTMAS TREE -or- The Rise and Fall of Griswold.

(This will be better if you imagine Jean Shepherd reading it aloud.)

I'll be honest, the idea of putting up a Christmas tree feels tedious and weird to me at this stage of my life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not hum bugging the idea of a tree, I actually like them a lot! I love the lights and how the room looks when the lamps are off and the ornaments sparkle, but the idea of actually assembling a tree and decorating it feels more like a job than it used to. For Steve, the tree is an important centerpiece on his very favorite holiday, so even if I moan about doing it, I always help him put it up because it SHOULD be a family activity. If I could open the tree, already decorated, like an umbrella, and set it up that would be perfect. However, Disney hasn't perfected that kind of tree yet, so when Christmas comes around, we pull Griswold out of his resting place for the season.

Griswold is the tree we got during the second Christmas after we got married. We call it Griswold in honor of the scene from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" when the family brings home the tree, brings it into the living room, cuts the rope, and the enormous thing shoves the furniture aside and fills most of the open space with limbs. That is practically what happened the first time we set Griswold up in our (rather small) living room. Gris has been a member of the family ever since, and except for one year, we've faithfully set it up and decorated it every December.

Over the last couple of years, though, I had begun to notice that he was looking a little ragged. Anyone who uses an artificial tree knows what I mean: the limbs start to bend at weird angles and the branches seem to get a bit flat. I knew we were going to have to get a new tree soon, but kept putting it off because Gris had sentimental value, a symbol of a much more innocent time, if you will. I don't exactly know the life span of an artificial tree, but I knew that ours wouldn't last much longer. Also, I was tired of giving up such a chunk of living room space to a tree that was honestly too big for the room. I'd lobbied for a smaller tree, but as I said, Gris is part of the family - and Steve didn't notice he was getting raggedy.

This year, assembling the tree began as usual. Steve pulls the tree out of the over head storage compartment (fake argument #1) and I avoid being in the room while he's setting it up. (This is because he gets snippy when he does this part. If he tells you he doesn't, he LIES!) Anyway, I'm sitting in my office when I hear him say "Ouch!" (injury #1) I don't know what had happened, but I began to worry that he had gotten trapped under the thyroidal monster, so I went in to help him. He was OK, probably just pinched by something, so I sat back in my chair as he began to assemble the tree. He was having problems with the base, and once all of the pieces were up, the tree had a decided lean to it. That was new! Gris was usually trouble free, so we knew something was wrong. Steve disassembled the tree and fooled around with the base...still no joy. He had already handed me the top of the tree, and when he handed me the middle, I couldn't grab it and he snapped at me (Told ya! Real Argument #1) until I grabbed with with my legs. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with it, so about the time he got frustrated, I approached the idea of possibly going out to get another tree! Surprisingly, he agreed. We went out to Hobby Lobby (store #1) to get a new one because they would most likely have a nice one like we wanted. I found one right away, but Steve didn't like it. It had pine cones and was a bit shorter than he wanted. Ok, then...we found a few new ornaments to take home, at least, so it wasn't a total bust! Since we were in the shopping area, we decided to check Target for a tree (store #2). Again, I found one I liked, but it didn't have LED lights (apparently a must). The one we found with LED lights was sold out (although a rather vacuous salesman tried to sell us a floor model - a mislabeled floor model. It was supposedly the tree we were looking for, a pre-lit tree, but the tree had no lights at all on it, which I had to point out.) However, I found packages of silver icicles (which I love but have never thought he'd let me put on an artificial tree, but he will!) and we got 7 packages! Yay! We went home (my fault because I never set my watch back to Central Time after Thanksmas) and when we realized it was still early, we went to Home Depot (store #3), Lowes (store #4), and Wal-Mart (store #5). At each place, I found a tree, but Steve didn't like any of them for one reason or another. Honestly, after Target, I went into "Kill Me" mode. I decided to leave the tree decision up to Steve because he knew what he wanted and I was obviously not sharing his vision. I'm also not proud of this, but in light of full disclosure, I kind of had a come apart at Wal-Mart. I didn't throw things or yell, I do have more class than that, but I was done with it. Getting a Christmas tree shouldn't be as complicated as it had become. I'd run all over the damn town looking for the holy-fracking-grail of Christmas trees, had each and every one of my suggestions disregarded, and not only was I tired and cold, I was pissed. I absolutely HATE when simple things are made to be complicated. Hate. It. There is no reason for it, and at that point, it would have been better to just get a real tree and deal with the loose needles, water, non-symmetry, and possible squirrels. Hell, it might have even been fun to have a non-normal tree (for us) and we could have had a little fun with that, but nope, can't happen. Jesus himself has to surround the tree with angels before we can take it home, and he'd better not forget the LED lights! AHHHHHHHHH! Fudging tree! (Only I didn't say fudge.)

After I cooled off a bit, I realized that since the tree isn't a big deal to me, but it is for Steve, the least I could do is be understanding about it. I was ashamed of myself. I'm not usually that petty and I certainly didn't want to ruin the whole thing for Steve. I seem do that enough about everything else. So when we got home, I helped him try and reassemble Griswold again. We finally got the tree to stand up straight, we still couldn't fix the base, but it seemed stable enough. I crawled under the tree to see if I could figure out what was wrong, but I couldn't find the problem. We were hooking the lights together when Steve said I said "ouch" but I don't remember doing it. What I do remember is climbing out from under the tree and noticing my arm felt cold. I looked down and blood was all over my forearm, from my elbow to halfway to my hand. All I could do was watch as the blood welled up. It didn't hurt, so I think my brain thought I was hallucinating. I actually sat there and watched it while Steve ran to get a paper towel. It was kind of fascinating, really. Once I got the towel on my arm, I noticed that there was blood all over the floor underneath the tree. Nice. So I mopped up what I could see and went to clean my arm off. It still didn't hurt, but it was still bleeding. I have no idea what cut me, and I had no idea I could bleed so much and not even notice! What I do know, is that there shouldn't be forensic evidence left after putting up a tree. When I got cleaned up, I went into my office when I heard the tree come down. I'm not sure if it fell, or if Steve was just pulling it apart, but before I knew it, Steve was repacking it into the box and going to Treetopia (I'd love to get one of the funky trees) to order a new one. Although we were going to have to get rid of Gris, all was right with the world again.

Once we get the new tree, Christmas can begin!