HOW TO MAKE A GREAT ESPRESSO

1) Grind your own coffee beans. In fact, grind them so finely that when you open the top of the grinder, you inhale a lungful of powdered coffee.

2) Spill most of the coffee in the sink while trying to get it into the tiny little coffee filter thing. You don't want to pack it too tight after all.

3) Take the time to clean up all of the coffee you spilled since you know once you've actually achieved making an espresso, you'll forget to do it.

4) Snap the little filter thingie into the machine and turn it on. Please don't fool with the milk frother thing because it will get HOT.

5) Stand around and wait until you see a thin stream of muddy looking water drain into the carafe. Get excited because apparently, this is what espresso looks like when it's being made.

6) Suddenly remember that you forgot to get a cup of milk for the steamer so that you can dilute the evil looking coffee. Grab the closest clean mug and fill it to the top.

7) Run back to the Espresso machine and try to put the mug under the steamer. Realize that the mug you picked is too tall to put under there without spilling milk everywhere.

8) Slide the working (and hot, don't forget) machine to the edge of the table it's sitting on so that you can get the mug under the steamer. Get discouraged when the steamer doesn't work.

9) Remember that the steamer won't work until you turn the steamer knob. Turn the knob.

10) Stand there screaming as the steamer causes the milk to froth into a cloud that overflows the mug, spills down the side of the espresso machine, into the mixing bowls, oven mitts, and box of Top Ramen noodles. Don't let it dawn on you until it's too late to simply move the mug out of the way to prevent this mess.

11) Squirt some chocolate into the giant latte mug you got out of the cabinets and pour in the
milk that is left in the container. Notice that the latte mug is less than half full.

12) Add the shot of espresso. Notice the mug is still less than half full.

13) Clean up the milk that foamed out of the steaming mug. This will take a while since you have to move everything in and around the table. Crawl along the floor looking for where the rag dripped on the way to the sink. Clean that up with a second rag.

14) Taste the drink which is now cold. Shudder. Decide that since you went through the trouble to make it, you'll soldier on.

15) Realize that a latte is supposed to be one part espresso/three parts milk, not the other way around.

16) Decide to get your lattes at Starbucks until you practice more on your new machine.

So let me get this straight...

George Bush is the cause of all of the suffering in New Orleans? This because he cut funding for shoring up the leavee that burst? A leavee that has, for 45 years been known to be too weak and hasn't been replaced or reinforced in all that time? Apparently, Louisiana was waiting until he was in office to fix it. Well, that only makes sense, I suppose. He's easier to blame if something goes wrong than the public works department, or anyone else that might have gotten it reinforced in the past FOURTY-FIVE FREAKIN' YEARS!!!

Or it could be that he's the whole cause of it because he hates black people. We all know he does, otherwise he would have jumped into the nearest phone booth, pulled on his Super W suit and flew straight into New Orleans and single handedly rescued all of the people there. Otherwise he would have crossed his arms and blinked his eyes and immediately fixed the breach letting all the water in. OTHERWISE, he would have taken a loaf of bread and five fish and fed the multitudes, right?

Or it could be it was because he didn't immediately end the war in Iraq, fly all of the soldiers home and arrange a search and rescue in the 45 minutes after the rain stopped.

Puh-leeze.

Micheal Moore, thou art a jackass.
Jesse Jackson, thou art a bigot and a jackass.

That's all I've got to say about that.

Never in my life has a soft bed and air conditioning been so uncomfortable. I don't know if what I'm feeling is some kind of survivor's guilt, or what. I woke up this morning at 3:00 am, and all I could think about were those poor people who need help. I had to get up and otherwise occupy my mind.

I don't want anyone to think I'm playing the oh-so-sensitive heart bleeder here, because that isn't it. I guess I'm just wondering why I was blessed enough to live in a place where our biggest inconvenience was a few downed limbs and a power outage, when there are babies and old people suffering down there. I don't really feel that it's fair. I don't at all mean that I would want to be in their place, and I hope I never am, but somehow it doesn't seem fair. I guess widespread terror and devastation rarely does, though.

UPDATE

The sky has finally cleared and the sun is shining again...up here at least. I can't believe the utter devistation that has happened along the coast. What makes it even more dumbfounding is that so many people stayed behind. I'm sure they had reasons, and I hope they were good ones. I'm not judging, you understand, I'm just completely bewildered by it. I kept thinking that I wanted to do SOMETHING, but I didn't know what. I'm too terrified by needles to give blood, I didn't know where to donate money, and I'm usually not good in any kind of crisis, so going down there to help was out of the question. My question of what I could do was answered in an e-mail from the employee association. They wanted donations of personal items, baby stuff, and pet food. Therein, I found my niche. If nothing else, in a crisis, I can shop. I still feel like I should do more.

We didn't sustain any damage, really. We lost a few branches from the walnut tree, and leaves were EVERYWHERE. It looked like fall came early, only all of the leaves were green. We lost power for a few hours, too. Steve and I would have never thought about getting up Tuesday morning if he hadn't gotten up to go to the bathroom and noticed the clock was off. I had to go and find my MP3 player, which unfortunately, has a pair of headphones attached that I used when I worked at the radio station (i.e. the Princess Leia hairbuns) to listen to the time and the weather. It was physically impossible to lay down with the headset on, so I decided to go ahead and get up and get ready for work. A lot of places had closed for the day, but not the SpRocket. I swear, on Judgement Day I'm going to have to ask God if he can wait until 5:00 for me to get there, because we WILL be open. Steve and I had enough hot water to take showers, but no lights to see about getting ready. I was trying to find clothes that matched and put on makeup, and I couldn't dry my hair, so I got to work looking like Edward Scissorhands. I'm not sure why being darker than normal might have cause this lapse in judgement, but I put on this shirt that I don't normally wear because it's not big enough. I suppose in candlelight, everything looks better, so I didn't think of the ramifications of wearing a button up shirt that was too small. By the time I got to work, I knew that I was in some kind of trouble. To put it delicately, a deep breath could have caused dangerous button projectiles. I kept my lab coat/utility jacket on until I had to leave for school, and I had no problem at first. When I was walking out, a security guard stopped me to ask a question, and while I was talking to him, I noticed a breeze. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what happened. I can thank God that I was holding the proof of a sign, so I just held it up and kept my composure. The last thing I wanted to do was bring attention to my...plight. Before I went to school, and it made me late, I had to go to Wal-Mart and buy a shirt to put on. It took me all of five minutes to buy it, but then I realized I didn't have a place to change, so I figured I'd do it in my car. Trying to be suave about it, I pulled the t-shirt over my head and over the shirt I was wearing. That being done, I had to figure out how to get the other shirt off. Let me just say that if anyone tells you that they were in the Wa-Mart parking lot, and they saw a woman in the front seat of a Durango who looked like she was having a fist fight with herself, that was me. I finally got situated, and I think I will be burning the evil shirt that started the whole mess.

Anyways.

As for the weekend, it was busy. We were having the Saturn/Apollo Reunion here at work, and I was slammed with sign requests. It wouldn't have been so bad, but two of the printer heads on our fancy printer went out, so I had to figure out how to make decent signs with only yellow and magenta ink, and vinyl. It wasn't easy. I was busy at work, and then ran to church to help serve the dinner for the Teacher's Appreciation thingie. Hardly anyone came, shame on them, but we had enough there to actually feed. After cleaning, I took the balloons and sucked the helium out of them and sang Ella Fitzgerald songs. I'm sure that the other ladies wished I did more cleaning. : )

Saturday was a series of unfortunate events for Steve. It didn't start out that way. I think we will have to give him the fourth Bless-His-Heart Award. We spent the morning cleaning the living room and working in the yard. I was doing the living room, and I was doing a meticulous job, starting in one corner, moving furniture, hanging pictures, and dusting. By the time I got to the other end of the room, it looked great. Steve decided he would work on filling in the doorway that he sealed up, so he taped a sheet of plastic over the electronics nook and started sanding...with a power sander. While he was doing this, I was happily ignorant doing my homework back in the bedroom. After a while, Steve came in COVERED with white powder. He told me he needed help cleaning up because he had made a mess. I told him I was doing my homework, and he'd have to do it himself. I will spare you the blow by blow, but after he came back in and told me I HAD to help, and I threw a fit about never finishing college and spending my life cleaning up his messes, I walked into the living room and saw what had happened. Apparently, it isn't possible to vaccum up plaster dust because the vaccume cleaner will suck it up, and blow it back out with the exhaust all over the place. Our living room looked like your stereotypical haunted houses, covered in thick dust and hazy. I will still mad at being made to clean up when I had other things to do, which in turn caused Steve to get more mad at me for fussing, and in his haste to get away from me and into the garage, he shattered the window on the kitchen-to-garage door...and he was barefoot. So there he is, trying to clean up glass, and just as he got it all up, he opened up the door again, and a shard of glass fell and stabbed him in the arm. By this point, I realized that trying to clean the living room when stuff is still flying about in the air and resettling, was moot, I went to help him clean up the new glass while he cleaned up his arm. After that, he was completely out of it, running into things, spilling things, and etc. I was glad when we finally got done and left to see his parents. I was afraid he would kill himself. All together now: BLESS HIS HEART!

Sunday was pretty uneventful, save for the fact I forgot that wearing black pants is bad when all things in the living room are coated with white powder. I had white handprints on my rear-end where I was looking for something in my pocket. Nice.

...I'M JUST LOOKIN' FOR SOME TUSCHE

Don't get scared, tusche is a type of lithography material. When Mr. Crouse was talking about it, I couldn't help but think of that song by ZZ Top. I guess I should be grateful that I didn't start to sing it out loud!

School is actually kind of scary this semester. My Medieval (I can never remember how to spell that) Art class is going to be a lot of reading and researching, and we have to do a research paper and presentation. She gave us an assignment on our first day which was to read the first 12 pages of our textbook and the book of Matthew. I was all, Huh? I've never been told to read the bible as an assignment! Math is...evil. I don't even want to think about it. Lithography seems like it's going to be both interesting and HARD. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it better than I did intaglio. It's just going to be more time consuming, but what else do I have to do in my spare time? : )

One of the things I've liked about going back to school in the fall is to see the new freshman coming to school in their new clothes, looking all scared. It's so funny to see those girls trying to slog from class to class across campus in their skimpy little dresses and pointy, high heeled shoes. It's even funnier to see them by the end of the semester when most of them end up coming to class in pajamas or have embraced some kind of Goth subculture and have tattoos and strange piercings. College can warp people fairly solidly during the freshman year.

In Other News...

I am actually so horrified by something I've recently done that I can't tell you what it is. I know you're wondering why I even brought it up on my blog if I'm not going to tell you what it is. My answer to that is because I need to vent a little. However, since I can't be specific about what I did, it isn't going to be very cathartic. The reader's digest condensed version is that I assumed something...and, well, made good on the old cliche about assuming things. I wish I could climb under my desk and hide fr a couple of months.

I can, however, tell you another embarrassing thing that I've done lately. You may not see why I'm so embarassed, but I am. As I've mentioned before, sometimes if I get bored, I will plug in names of people I haven't seen in a while to see if I can find anything about them on the internet. I know that's sad, but we all do weird things when we are bored. Anyway, I found this friend on a web site for his school's 10 year reunion. I thought it might be nice to see if I could get his e-mail address and drop him a line, just to see what was going on. Well, when I clicked on the link it said I had to become a member to access the information, which was on a Yahoo message board. Well, I have an e-mail address for Yahoo that I never use because I had created the account to play a joke on a former co-worker and so I plugged that in and hit submit thinking I could just jump in there and snag the address and jump out. It said since I hadn't used it in a while, I'd need to change a couple of things, which I did to regain access, and it basically told me that it had sent my request to join the XX High School Reunion group to the administrator for access. My friend (or used-to-be-my-friend) would be one of the administrators. It wouldn't be so bad since I didn't have my name on the e-mail account and the address is something that doesn't even remotely describe me, but my "secondary" e-mail address is one that I have had since I knew him back in the day. Now instead of just getting his address (which I now have access to) I'm too scared to do anything that might draw attention to myself or my screen name because I don't want to think I am stalking him. I also don't know how to remove myself from the list, and even if I did, I don't want to send another e-mail in case he recognizes me. What is the problem, you ask, since your original intent was to get the address anyways. It would be one thing if I had just been able to get his address and e-mail him on my own, but now it looks like I'm trying to be sneaky or something by joining his class reunion board. How in the world do I get into stuff like that?

UGG!

I talked to my friend's dad, and he says that her life is out of danger. Can you say "Whew"? Although she isn't doing well at all, she has gotten passed the worst part of he sickness and should be on her way to recovering. Her dad said she had three surgeries within three days, and will probably have to have a couple more. I'm glad she's doing better, even if she isn't well yet.

I felt like a complete idiot while talking to my friend's stepmom. I called their home number to see if I could get Sara's cell phone number (her mom was carrying the phone). When I got in touch with her, I kept stumbling over what I was trying to say, called her by the wrong name, and almost hung up before she could tell me how my friend was. I can't believe I used to have a job where I talked on the phone for a living.

I've got to leave for school in a little while. I have my history class today, and my other two classes tomorrow. SIGH.

I've also got to go outside and replace some signs, but I want to put it off until after I get back from school because I don't want to show up to class looking hot and sweaty. I hate summer.

Apparently, Steve likes his new bed. He was putting it together before I made it home, and I got there just in time to see that he didn't hurt himself dragging the matress/box springs across the hall. Actually, I got there in time for him to literally pin me against the wall with the matress. I guess he thought it would keep me out of the way! : ) Before I got a chance to put any sheets or anything on it, he had already lain down and fallen asleep. I figured he would wake up in time to have dinner, so I made burritos (one of his favorites). He didn't get up. So I put on a movie, BeetleJuice, and watched it as I ate. I figured he would wake up eventually, so I worked on the church scrapbook (sadly far behind because of me), and desperately tried to figure our how to make the pages look decent. I don't think I'm doing a very good job. It's weird. I am a graphic design artist, but I can't get the hang of scrapbooking. Eh, it's a soccermom past time anyways. ; ) At any rate, he didn't get up, so I had to throw away most of the food that had been sitting out for several hours. Wasteful hastered. I don't really HAVE to spend time with him I guess... heeheehee.

I called the hospital in Birmingham to check on my friend. She is still in SICU. I hope that's just precautionary. I tried e-mailing one of our friends who lives down there and see's here more often than I do, but I haven't heard anything back yet. I suppose it doesn't help that I've never e-mailed him before. I hope he doesn't think I'm spam.

School starts back tomorrow, and I've already started to dread it. I have to take algebra (again). Steve spent quite alot of time trying to explain the reason for variables. Did I understand it? What do you think? Mr. Lee also tried to give me an example of why we need variables. He said it was like having a dinner party, but not knowing how many people would be there, so you have to do the math to see how much food everyone should get. I just told him if that was the case, I'd wait for them all to show up, and then order pizza. I hate math.

Otherwise, I have Art History: Medival Art, and Lithography. Three down, five to go. I am so tired of being in school.

Weekend Update.

I wish I could tell you that I had an eventful weekend, but honestly I didn't. If you read my last post, you pretty much know about the most eventful thing that happened. As for that, I don't have a clue if anything has changed for my friend. I believe that if anything bad had happened since I talked to her mom, someone would have called me, but it's still kinda bad not to know. I supposed I could call the hospital, but I don't want to bother anyone in case she's in a room and sleeping and everything. I'm sure I'll hear something soon.

Friday night, in an attempt to help me not worry about my friend, Steve took me to Cheeburger Cheeburger to have dinner with Josh, and afterwards to Sweet Dreams Cafe where I preceeded to eat a piece of cake the size of my head. I truly, truly wish I cold be one of those people who lost their appetite when they were upset. We were also going to see the Dukes of Hazzard movie, but the projection system for that theater was busted, so we went home.

Saturday was one of those fabulously boring days where you don't really have anything to do, so you putter around. I love to putter. I spent most of the day trying to shovel the junk off the bed in the guest room. Angie has given Steve and I her old bed, which is bigger than the one we have now, so we are going to have to switch out mattresses. I never did get the whole thing finished. I never realized just how much junk can accumulate in a room that no one ever uses. While we were eating lunch, we watched a movie called "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou" or something. I had heard it was hysterical, but it was really only mildly funny. One scene in particular made the whole thing worth watching, but I'll let you find it yourself. We had also rented "Saw" which I've heard is good, but we haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Anyways, Steve had fallen asleep after working in the yard, so it was kind of late in the evening when we decided to go out. I wanted to start my christmas shopping, so we went to Marshall's and then we finally got to see The Dukes of Hazzard. In a few words, I liked it, but not in the same way I liked the tv series. My favorite line:

Big Guy: Hey, Hillbilly!
Luke Duke: We prefer the term Appalachian-American.

Maybe you just have to see it to find out why that's funny. : )

We had church the next day, of course. After church last night, we went to the SpRocket Center and watched some fireworks that were being put on for a group of people who were having a party here. Steve and I got to watch them from the roof since my office has roof access. I'm a sucker for fireworks. I wish I had had my camera, because from our angle, I could have gotten some great shots of fireworks going off by the Saturn V. When we left there, I had asked if it would be okay to go by Wal-Mart to get some stuff we needed. I expected a fuss, because Steve hates to shop, but he was oddly willing to go. I was really only going to get a couple of things, but I ended up getting a cart full of stuff. I was going to price espresso machines, because I had looked for some the other day, and the cheapest one was $299. I actually found a small one for $24! I love Wal-Mart. I've had dates there, I've found bargains there...it's a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, we ended up staying at Wal-Mart for a long time, and didn't get home until midnight. We fed the dogs and put them to bed, and before we went to bed, I had a big glass of Ovaltine. I'd never had Ovaltine before, and in my opinion, it has crack in it. It was really good, but after I had it, I couldn't sleep. In fact, I was wired. It was after 2:00 am before I fell asleep, which caused me to be late for work this morning.

I'm not so sure I am having a good day after that. Observe:

After being late, I struggled in and remembered that I had a task that needed to get done fairly quickly, and for some reason it took me all freaking morning to complete. I still hadn't given my boss my school schedule, so I printed that out for him and realized right then that something didn't look right. I was under the impression that I was going to have a class at night twice a week, but instead it's during the work day. Therefore there is another three hours of work a week that I'm going to be missing. It's too late to change the schedule and I need these classes anyways, so I decided to keep what I have. It still makes me mad though. I wasn't going to take a whole hour for lunch to make up for the time I missed this morning, so I went to the Off Campus Book Store to get my stuff for school (which starts wednesday). I had to go get my books for school which didn't take that long, but when I stopped at another place to get a gift for someone, I ended up standing in line for a while, realizing that it had begun to pour rain, and my windows were open. So I get back into the car and end up sitting in a puddle. When I got back to the office, I hadn't heard from my boss about the draft of a project I sent him, so I've been kind of twiddling my thumbs. I'm probably forgetting to do something as we speak.

One good thing did happen, though. I got my Campus Trial Pack when I bought my books. I know this is sad, but I love samples of stuff. I've decided that the only reason I'm still in college is to get the Campus Trial Pack once a year! : )

It's 2:03 am and I can't sleep. It has nothing to do with caffine or chocolate tonight, but it has everything to do with being afraid.

When I got home today, I had a message on my machine from the mother of a very, very good friend of mine. She called to tell me that my friend is in the hospital in critical condition due to a rather sudden, and severe, medical problem, and that things aren't looking very good for her.

Deep down inside, in the places where the sun never truly reaches but things are still very clear, I believe she'll be okay. I have to believe it.

All I can think about is that I never sent her a birthday card. That doesn't make sense to me, exactly, but it won't leave me alone.

Her mom said that at one point, they gave her a 50/50 chance, but they're doctors, right? They can fix just about anything. I have to believe that too.

I have a lot of friends, close friends, but I've only had a few that I could tell anything to. She is one of them, and those ranks are already getting thinner every day.

All I can do is pray. Please do the same.

Why is it when I ask a purely hypothetical question, people think I have a hidden agenda? Last night we went out to eat with Josh and Anthony. I decided I wanted to play the "Hypothetical Game" and I asked "If you were going to tell someone something that would make them morally uncomfortable, how would you do it?" No one seemed to get what I meant, so I used the example of "If you were in love with a married woman, would you tell her and how?" All at once they start asking me what married man I was going to tell that I was in love with. Even Steve...STEVE...asked me who I was talking about. I don't think they believed me when I told them it was just a question. I forget that most men don't watch soap operas. One episode of Days of Our Lives, and they would have never questioned my motives. *sound of disgust* I have yet to meet anyone who is fun to play the "Hypothetical Game" with!

You know what I think is funny (besides saying Nibby Bar)? When you run into someone who you know slightly and they don't have a clue who you are, so they desperately look you over while trying to remember where they know you from. This happened to me when I went to pick up some signs. A guy I had a class with was working there and I smiled my friendly I-Know-You smile and said hello and asked how he was. I could tell he recognized me, but didn't know from where, so as he answered me, he's raking me over with his eyes for a clue to figure out how he knows me and he spies my badge. A couple of seconds of staring at my badge, which is on my chest, he realizes that maybe staring at my chest may be a little worse than not knowing my name. After that I decided to let him off the hook and just ask for the signs. He seemed relieved. : )

Do you remember when I told you about my troublesome thumb? At first I thought that I might just be getting old age pains, but I've finally figured out what has caused it. I have a repeatative motion injury, kind of like tennis elbow. Except my injury didn't come from anything quite as noble as tennis. I got it from crocheting. I have a crocheting injury. That is the saddest thing I've ever heard.

Hershey's Special Dark Kisses - 2 on the nummy scale. No nightmares, but I do believe I got mild food poisoning. I had forgotten how old those things were. I'm still not sure how long I've had them, but I believe it's going on two years. *shudder*

Wow, I'm busy today (she says as she stops everything to write a blog entry)! Actually, I'm busy, but I can only go as fast as the plotter can print, so I have a few minutes. I got slammed with a rather sign saturated night function job that requires 7 signs and I haven't been able to print any of them yet because my boss is printing giant "First To The Moon" License plates for some kind of kick-off thing.

I finally got to see the pictures I took in California. You probably think that's weird since they were digital, but Steve has had them on his lap top, so I wasn't able to see them until yesterday. If I do say so, some of them turned out excellent. My favorite ones are the ones from Bodie, NV, which was the ghost town we visited. They are a little over exposed looking because the sun was BRIGHT, but it gives them character.

My friend Jason (or Father Hatfield as I will think of him from now on) and I were just talking about that sci-Fi channel show "Ghost Hunters". If you aren't familliar with that show, it follows TAPS, or The Atlantic Paranormal Society (I think) who are people who go into supposedly haunted places and try to determine if there is actually any ghosts there. I'm both fascinated and scared by it. Steve fell asleep early and left me all alone to watch it by myself, and it was scarier than usual because the big guy on the show even got spooked, and he is never shaken by anything. I was also doing dishes and running back and forth to see what was going on, so I missed some stuff. Jason was filling me in on what I missed. Then everyone went to lunch, leaving me alone up here. About the time everyone leaves, WTAK starts playing "Don't Fear the Reaper". Nice timing, you guys. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to start calling Jason during Ghost Hunters so that I can be safe, and if Jason hears me scream and drop the phone, maybe he'll call the police. With Steve being alseep, he wouldn't hear me. He sleeps like the dead.

Sherffin-Berger Nibby Bar (heeheehee) - 5 on the nummy scale, produced nightmare that didn't scare me, but freaked out everyone I told about it.

This has been a freakishly long day. I keep thinking that it's almost time to go, but when I look at the clock, only about 15 minutes will have passed.

Last night I went home and mowed the lawn. It looked like a jungle since we weren't able to mow it last week. I had looked at the weather online before I went out to mow, and I saw a bunch of the color splotchies headed our way. It was still far enough off that I knew I could, at least, get the front done, but I was going to have to hurry. I was doing pretty good (and getting all Zen again, which I tend to do when I mow) but I noticed the sun was getting dimmer, and I just knew it was going to rain. So I put the mower into one of the highest gears and start playing Death Race 2000 with the grass. I had no idea that the riding mower could pull so many Gs! So I'm finally done and I race into the garage and get everything put away...and I realize that the light was getting dimmer because the sun was going down, not because it was fixing to rain! How embarrassing. At any rate, it did rain, finally (a few hours later!)

Steve and I watched the movie White Noise last night. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't scarier, but the EVP stuff was creepy. Out of just about everything ghostly, the EVPs scare me the most. I know in my head that it could be anything making noises that "sound" like words, but I get heebed out about it. The movie, however, didn't make much sense, so even what did scare me was neutralized. Eh...

GRRR.

Why is it when I think I'm all Zen about life, something suddenly comes along to un-zen me? Why is it that these un-zenning things are things that I have no control over, and therefore can not fix or change?

I'm too old for this.

And please don't ask.

PURELY FOR THE SAKE OF SCIENCE

I'm sure I mentioned it a while ago, but for those of you not in the know, I have discovered an actual negative aspect to eating chocolate: Nightmares. *excuse me for a moment while I regain my composure*

Ahem.

Anyways, I had almost forgotten about this because I haven't had any plain chocolate candy (like candy bars or boxes of chocolates) in the house for a while, or at least none that I was eating close enough to bedtime to expirence this side effect. However, on my recent trip out to San Francisco, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit a magical place called Ghirardelli Square. Other chocolate lovers will recognize this name immediately as the second best producer of chocolate in the world (the first being, no surprise, Godiva.) As we were walking down the street, we were handed Ghirardelli coupons that would entitle us to 15% off of any purchase in the official store. Of course, I was not going to be content until I got to go in. It was like Charlie visiting the chocolate factory, without the added bonus of Johnny Depp, but that didn't make it any less wonderful. Of course, Mr. Lee being the generous guy that he is, loaded us up. Since we've returned, we have this chocolate lying about and I can't insult Mr. Ghirardelli by not eating it (even though I had to finally restrict myself to only one square after dinner so that I wouldn't go into sugar shock).

But I digress.

For the past three nights, I have had various levels of nightmares that made me remember that eating chocolate too late in the day plays havoc with my subconcious. Now, luckily, these aren't the kind of nightmares that trouble me all day. These are just mildly disturbing ones that bother me for a moment after I wake up and then start to fade immediately. Well, except for the breif edge-of-sleep one I had two days ago about the children in the Donner Party, but that is another post all together. At any rate, relizing this has given me a desire to preform an expirement to see what kinds of dreams different kinds of chocolate make me have. I know, I know, you're probably thinking that it is very gallant to sacrifice myself in such a way, but I'm willing to do this so that others may benefit from it. Heeheehee. Yeah, right. However, I am actually curious if it is true of all kinds of chocolate, or just the better grades of it, or what. If any of you can give me some chemical information about different grades of chocolate, I'd truly appreciate it. Darn it, Jim, I'm a chocolate lover, not a scientist!

So far, I have gathered this information in which I have placed the chocolate on the Kelly's Nummy Scale and it's dream inducing effects:

***
Godiva - A 10.5 on the nummy scale. Causes violent nightmares that not only scare the poo out of me, but follow me all the way through the day. Has not, however, scared me enough to stop eating it. I can't imagine anything less than finding a roach in one would do that.

Ghirardelli - A 9.5 on the nummy scale. Causes mild nightmares that are somewhat troubling, but start to fade as soon as I wake up.

After 8 Chocolate Mint hot chocolate - An 8 on the nummy scale. Didn't so much give me nightmares as made me have dreams that made me mad. Also, made me feel like I had a hangover when I woke up. Not quite sure why.
***

Next I shall be working with the Scherfin-Berger Nibby Bar. I can't see that this will be too bad. Just saying Nibby Bar makes me laugh! : )

I'll keep you updated!

Well, the Grizwalds are home! As most of you know, Steve and I accompanied his parents on a trip to California last week. We just got in last night, and there is a LOT to tell. I tried recording everything we did on Steve's laptop while we were out there, but I'm not exactly Jack Keroac. It will be too much for me to write as a blog entry, so I'm going to have to create a link from my web page to explain everything! However, I will tell you a few things I learned while traveling this past week:
A) Big cities scare me. I don't care how provencial that makes me sound. Give me Huntsville over San Francisco any day!
B) My prayer life gets way more active when Mr. Lee drives in the mountains.
C) Apparently, when frightened, I curl my toes almost all the way under my foot and make a squeaking noise that no one but Steve seems to hear.
D) Fresno sucks.
E) Apparently, Mono Lake is for lovers.
F) California is the most beautiful place I've ever been.
G) The story about the Donner Party is way more disturbing than I thought it was going to be.
H) The intent to send post cards doesn't always mean I'll do it.
I) I'm not normally agile, but I have the ability to climb large rocks with no problem (with a camera in tow, no less!)
J) People ruin photographs of scenery.
and lastly,
K) It really IS a dry heat!

I'll try to get my trip diary up and running asap! We had a great time and I saw so much! Woo-Hoo!

Weekend Update!

Well, the weekend started out very well. After work I met some friends at a resturaunt where we ate dinner with my former boss, Cathy. It was so good to see her again, because she was always so much fun to work for. we were having a great time, but I think we annoyed some of the other patrons because we were LOUD! I ended up having to leave a lot sooner than everyone else so that I could finish up some pressing things that needed to be done at home, but I had a great time with them. By the time I got home, Steve wasn't there. He had gone to play trivia with some other friends of ours, but he didn't get back until I had already gone to bed.

Saturday was somewhat eventful. My mother's side of the family had a family reunion. I don't normally go to them because my family makes me nervous. I wish I could explain why, but I can't explain it. Anyways, Steve and I drove to Scottsborough and couldn't find the community center, but we had a hard time locating anything that even closely resembled a gathering place. We drove down Broad street for a while until finally something looked familliar. I was drawing on a memory of a place I haven't been in about 14 years, and suprisingly I was right. This is kind of suprising seeing that sometimes I forget what I'm talking about in the middle of a sentence! Anyways, we went in and my Aunt Peggy started introducing us around. I got to meet a lot of people I've heard about, but never knew. Poor Steve starts off by embarrassing himself because he introduced himself as my wife! Heeheehee. I got to hug a ton of people (my family members are notorious huggers) and we had dinner. Steve and I finally made our way out and we visited the Unclaimed Baggage store (where I found a truly beautiful book of fairy tales that was a special printing and I'm sure whomever lost it was sad) and went to a small flea market before coming home. By the time we got home and settled, I got a bad headache and pretty much medicated myself and sat around for the rest of the night and played with the dogs.

Sunday was church and we went to my parent's house and celebrated Seth's 7th birthday. I love my nephews a whole bunch, but I'm seriously thinking that parents should make it a habit to drug and hog-tie children. And people wonder why I am reluctant to spawn any of my own! I also had another bout of "Kelly Can't Dress Herself" sunday morning. When we got home from morning worship, Steve came into the room while I was changing shoes, and he looked at me weird and said "Your earrings don't match." Now, I know for a fact that my earrings matched. I picked out a pair specifically to match what I was wearing and remembered putting them on. The first thing I thought was "Stupid men..." but I said, "They do too! I picked them out on purpose." Well, he reached out and took a hold of one of them and started laughing. He said "Well, they would match if this wasn't in them." Apparently another dangly earring had gotten caught in the ones I was wearing, and NO ONE SAID ANYTHING!!!! Thinking back, I was wondering why one of them was brushing my shoulder and one wasn't, but I thought that maybe my head wasn't straight or something. SIGH. Oh yeah, and Steve stepped on the hem of my skirt when he stood up to sing, and when I stood up I almost mooned the people behind us. I'm glad I got a hold of it before I embarassed anyone, or myself.

So tell me, why is it that I was asked to go to a meeting when I was all but ignored? Granted, I'm fairly new at the whole graphic designing game, but I do know what I'm doing (believe it or not). Today my boss and I had a meeting with some of the guys in marketing who travel to different places to pimp out our camp. What they want is to update some of the stuff they are using for their booth. It was pretty plain to see what needed to be done, but any time I said anything, the other guys stared right through my head and acted as if I was a rather annoying gnat that kept flyng around trying to get up their noses. At least my boss didn't do that (he's an awful cool guy). At any rate, I decided that I was going to make them listen to me, so I locked eyes with one of them and repeated myself until he got the hint that maybe I wasn't some art-house rat that would undermine the whole idea behind "MARKETING". I worked with customers through our marketing department for three frikin' years! I know what I'm talking about even if I don't have a degree. I would probably know what would catch the eyes of our potential customers just as well as they do, if not more. Great googly-moogly that was annoying.

On a nicer, less annoyed note:

We watched the shuttle launch from the little theater I used to work in. There were tons of people packed in there, and I have to say, it was awesome. It amazes me that people are willing to be strapped to a flaming projectile and circle the earth for the sake of science. Smart and brave people just blow my mind. I realized that even though I've worked here on and off for almost 10 years, I had never watched a live launch or even a whole shuttle launch for that matter. Everyone was cheering and getting all excited! It's fun working in a place where everyone is so interested in what is going on.

I've pretty much been toodling around here all day not doing much. It's weird when we have down time because I never know if I should be doing something specific or if I should be in suspended animation waiting for instructions. I've already put the PMS color markers in order, so what else can I do? : )

I am supposed to sing saturday at my family reunion, but it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to. Eh, well, as much as I like to sing in public, I think I would gladly sit this out if I can. It's weird, I have sung in front of crowds as big as 2,000 people, but the thought of singing in front of my family freaks me out. I'll keep you posted!

That is all.

Weekend Update!

Greetings Everyone! I hope you had a nice weekend. I did.

Friday after work, Steve went to a concert on the mountain with Anthony and Josh, but I didn't care anything about seeing the guy. I'd heard him perform once before and he is super talented, but I couldn't stand the thought of sitting outside in the summer, so me and my buddy Master Wok had dinner and watched TV. I decided to mow the grass once it started getting dark so that I wouldn't have to do it during the day saturday, and I had a teeny little accident. I was kind of hanging over the edge of the lawn mower trying to snag a branch that was in my way, and I ran into a light pole. I wasn't going very fast, so it didn't hurt me, but I got stuck. I put it in reverse to get away from the pole, and on my way forward again, I ran over the neighbor's sprinkler thingie and destroyed it. I didn't know what it was at first, but as soon as I saw the weeping stump I put all the pieces of it I could find in a pile and ran into the house. I couldn't tell anyone what I did because they weren't there that night, so I had to wait and see. If they've noticed, they haven't said anything. I'm too scared to tell them what I did because Mr. Neighbor is kind of freakish about his lawn and I don't want him to yell at me. After that debacle I was watching Poltergeist and crocheting, when thunder blasted outside of the window at about the same time the emergency broadcast siren went off, so I almost had a heart attack. For a second, I thought 'Their here!" I got the dogs and lit a candle in case the power went out, and went about my business. I was thinking that it was going to come another storm, but I don't think it even rained very much.

Saturday was a busy day. I was scrounging some stuff to give my parents for their yard sale, and trying to clean up the living room. It took me all freakin' day, too. I didn't realize how dirty I had let that room get. There was stuff everyhere. Steve and his dad were replacing the water pump in his truck, so he was out of my way for a while. I was able to get quite a bit of laundry and stuff done. we were both too tired to go out that night, so we stayed at home and watched several episodes of the new Dr. Who. I am really starting to enjoy it, but I'm also sad because the guy playing the Dr. is only going to be there for one season. He said he didn't want to be typecast. : ( I hope the next guy is as likeable as this one. I also got to indulge in one of life's little known pleasures. Chocolate ice cream for dinner. Yummers! Because of my new Dr. Who fascination, I want to make a formal apology to everyone I've made fun of who watches the new Battlestar Galactica. Sure, it sucks, but I can't live in a glass house about bad tv sci-fi anymore.

Sunday I was sick as a dog. Mowing the yard apparently unleashed the worst allergy attack I've had in a long time and I pretty much just sat around trying to breathe and not move my head much. I was so dizzy, it was like a bad case of motion sickness. I did, however, rouse myself enough to have lunch with my family and help celebrate Shawn's birthday. He's 32! We all had a great time. Steve and I left there pretty early because I still wasn't feeling well and we were going to go to Wal-Mart to get some stuff, but we ended up going home and falling asleep. I woke up a little before Steve and went back to the couch and read until he left and watched TV and did some more crocheting. I'm a party animal!

I have a new annoyance. I'm kind of hesitant to admit it, because I've been known to do this myself, but I can honestly tell you that when I have done it, I've even annoyed myself. As hypocritical as this is going to sound, people on diets irritate me. Well, it isn't so much the people on diets, but it's the people who are hard core on diets. You know the types. They are usualy one one of those diets that requires buying a book for, and they tell you IN DETAIL everything they eat from day to day, they talk about why their diet is the best one and why you should do it. You can't talk about food in front of them because they will cut you off at the knees with a swift "I can't eat that!" You can't offer them anything without them telling you how bad it is for you and what it does to your body. Personally, I like to eat. If you are on a diet, good for you, but I don't want to know about it unless I ask. Let's consider it to be like talking about your sex life -- I DON"T WANT TO KNOW. If I do, I'll ask, and you should be unwilling to share details without blushing and stammering. With a few exceptions *coughchinesefood&chocolateicecream* I've been trying to eat better myself, but I hope I'm not being annoying about it. There have been many instances lately where I can't enjoy a meal because it never fails that SOMEONE is going to start talking about how fat they are and why they don't eat sugar, and what size they are. You know the one thing that I never hear with the diet people? How much they are exercising to lose this weight. I don't think I'd care so much if I thought they were at least trying to be healthy, but all I hear is how they have cut out all carbs, sugar, oil, starch, sweets, ad nauseum (not healthy, by the way). I would love to turn to them (mouth full of something they wish they were eating) and say, "You know, you can have all of those delicious and forbidden things if you weren't just trying to lose weight by going on some radical and usually unhealthy depravation diet." See, I know I'm being hypocritical there because you don't see me running to the gym six times a week, but at least I know that is something I should do. I'm not going to pretend that eating carrots and wheat germ for every meal is the way to go and generally make something that should be plesant into a three times a day torture session. God gave us food, we are supposed to eat it! We just aren't suposed to overindulge and make ourselves slothy (is that even a word) with it. There. I think I steped on my own toes a little there, but I needed to vent a little. It had been building up.

I'm off!

Why is it, the more sleep you sem to get, the less rested you feel? Last night, after watching the new Dr. Who (which is fast growing on me), I lay back on the couch for a power nap. My nap raged out of control and I woke up just in time to go to bed. I also overslept this morning, and I feel like a nap would be a good idea right now. Could anyone spare a shot of adrenaline or anything? Please? I'm afraid my boss is going to come in and find me in the fetal position asleep under the desk.

I just found out my shirt was inspected by both Inspector 21 and Inspector 13. I don't know if I should have complete confidence that my shirt is top quality or worry what is wrong with it since it had to be inspected twice. I really don't understand the whole purpose of having the little stickers on your shirts anyways. Do we really need to know which inspector looked at our underwear? Are we supposed to feel better knowing that ISP. 12 made sure our underwear was ok before it was shipped out? Who knows?

I got a flippin' parking ticket in the parking lot of the museum yesterday. I was apparently parked one row too close to the entrance. Can you say, puh-leeze? Not only that, but I didn't notice the parking ticket under my windshield wiper until I was halfawy home *with the windshied wipers on!* So there I am with little bits of sodden paper smearing all over my windshield and me having to turn my windshield wipers off so that I wouldn't destroy the ticket. I was afraid that I would have to pay a fine or something and if I didn't, my paycheck would be withheld. However, I found out that even some of the security guards think giving the tickets is lame, so you don't have to pay anything. However, if I make it a habit, I can get fired, or so I read. Oh yes, let me park 6 feet from where you say it's okay or I lose my livelyhood. SOMEONE out there needs something better to do, in my opinion.

I've come to a decision.

Now that I'm an artist, I can no longer be called weird. From now on, address me as eccentric! I know that tecnically I don't have enough money to be eccentric, but that's what I'm going with.

Went to lunch today with two of my co-workers. These guys are so funny, but it's amazing how careful they are being about offending me. Not that I would want them to go on a free-for-all and be disgusting, but still, I'm not that delicate. However, I do appreciate it, so I'm not going to complain. I guess I'm just surprised that people still do that. We went to La Alameda and had some Mexican food. I need to be more careful about using my Rosie Perez accent in Mexican food places. I'm going to get in trouble! I also had to stop by PetsMart for some dog sedatives. Butler took a chunk out of Bear again, and we scared him last night trying to put medicine on it. So yeah, I'm going to have to drug the dog so that I can work on him. SIGH.

Speaking of Butler, how can a 65 pound Lab suddenly decide he is a lap dog? This is the second time I've been watching TV and he's jumped into my lap and wallowed all over me. It's not just a little wallowing, either, he goes on a full scale, flipped over, burrowing under the couch cushions act. Then he stood on me and launched himself off of my bladder. I think my dog is on crack.

It's still hot outside. Still so dag-blasted hot! I feel like someone has taken one of those hot towels they give you at the doctor and threw it over my head. What I wouldn't give for Storm's X-Men power of controlling the weather. There would be some snow ouside right now.

Scotty has been beamed up.

The man who played Scotty on the origial series of Star Trek passed away today.

May the sky be all the brighter with him truly among the stars.

I had to staple my shirt to my bra today. I realize that is not the best way to handle a situation, but I had an embarrassing incident this morning. It shall not happen again! Mwahahahahahahhaa! The fun part will be trying to get the staples out!

I hate the summer. Well, not so much the summer but the heat. I have had to be outside more than normal because I have to do stuff out in the parking lot or in Rocket Park, and I hate it. I finally know what "Sultry" means in reference to the weather. It's the kind of heat that wraps around you like a second skin made of hot water, making you sweat the second you walk out the door. I don't even want to discuss trying to get into the car. I'm almost positive that hell is only a little hotter than Alabama in the summer.

Yesterday I wrote a long and involved entry in my blog, but stupid me still hasn't gotten used to the old OS on my work Mac, and I deleted the whole thing. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, let me tell you. I had a long and complicated weekend, but I don't want to take the time to write the whole thing over, so I'll give you the highlights.
*Went shopping like a mad woman for clothes to wear to work. Now I have an abundance of "Career Casual" and I am so darned cute! Steve and I also went to dinner with a bunch of friends. The married couple are not getting along. Can we say, uncomfortable? Saturday I had planned to do so much, but my Harry Potter book came in and I ingored everything else. I finished it already and it is by far my favorite of them all. The end made me cry. I know the people in it aren't real, but I was helpless not to. I don't want to say why in case you haven't read it yet, though. I'll give it a couple of weeks. We also went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was amazing. It was actually based on the book, so I think that's why I liked it so much. Besides, even when he looks weird, Johnny Depp is SO good looking. Heeheehee. Sunday was another church sandwhich. We also went to Decatur with Josh to eat at Steak and Shake. I wish they would build one of those in Huntsville. Yummers!*

I have a problem that both bothers me and makes me feel bad. There is a person I know (who will remain nameless) who hugs me every time they see me. Now, if you know me well, you know I normally love to be hugged. Probably more than the average person, even. However, this person who feels the need to hug me, I don't know that well. Maybe if I knew them better, I wouldn't be uncomfortable with the hugs. To be honest, I don't know why they even want to hug me. I AM awful huggable, I guess, but I don't do anything at all that says "Please, come into physical contact with me! PLEASE!" Once again, let me say again, I normally love to be hugged by friends and family. However, the afore mentioned hugs seem to be both obligitory and half hearted. Maybe if they didn't seem secretly repelled at the idea of hugging me, I wouldn't mind so much. Who knows? I've tried to deflect the hug, even, but it never works. I am too polite to ask them to stop because I know that somewhere down deep, this person feels they are being friendly and I don't want the hurt their feelings. Sigh. I never thought I would complain about being hugged. : P Don't worry, it isn't any of you who read this. Just FYI. : )

I spilled chicken noodle soup into my keyboard here at work. It wouldn't be so bad, but I have one of those psudeo-trendy translucent keyboards that came with the Macintoshes when the computer was new, and all I could see was chicken soup goo moving from one place to the other. However, I cleaned it out, so no worries there. My IT guy is going to LOVE this.

MORE RANDOMNESS

Greetings to all of you! Yes, I know I haven't been writing much and I apologize. I realize some of you aren't really living until you read what I'm doing! : ) Just kidding. That would be saying that you have less of a life han I do, and that's just not possible. Well, on with the rambling...

1. When did I get old? I mean, I know 27 isn't OLD, but for some reason my body seems to think it's much older than that. I only recently realized this when I woke up and my thumb was jammed. Not jammed in the painful way, but as if it decided that if I don't move it while I'm sleeping, then it's going to take it's time moving when I wake up. I've also noticed that my right knee creaks, I'm gaining weight for some unseeable reason (I'm much more active and eating better, but it ain't working) and I have some gray hair. Now, the gray hair doesn't bother me, but Steve pulls them out if he sees them before I do, so it's no fun. Eh, oh well.

2. I had the worst dream ever the other night. I'll try and give the readers digest condensed version. There were zombies and everyone who hadn't already been killed were trying to get away. There wasn't anyone I knew with me, so I was trying to find some people to travel with to be safe. Everyone I met up with would be fine at first and then down the road some glaring problem would arise with them (being crazy or something similar usually). Just when I thought I had found a safe place, another wave of zombies came through tearing the place apart. I decided to go to my parent's house, and when I got there everything was fine. I told them what was going on, and ran back to my own room to pack my backpack if we had to evacuate. While I'm in my room packing, the zombies come back and I'm having to kill them by beating them up. My dad runs in and hands me a baseball bat and I wake up. Well, you'd think that would be it except I fall back asleep and pick up on the dream. Apparently the zombies are gone and we are cleaning up where the zombies had torn the place apart. While I'm outside, I see them coming again and I run back inside grabbing everything we can use as a weapon on my way. I call everyone into the bathroom (it doesn't have a wondow) and we slam the door. Once we're inside, I realize my brother isn't in there. I ask my mom where he is and she tells me he's in the cellar. I know we don't have a cellar and it dawns on me that they left him outside (for those of you who don't know, he's severely handicapped and wouldn't be able to run). At that point in my dream, I say aloud "kelly, you have GOT to get out of this dream...NOW!" and I woke up. That dream bothered me for the rest of the day!

3. I've gotten a new appreciation for classic rock and roll. While I'm working, I keep a radio going and the guy who left it in here origianlly left WTAK on, and it plays Skynard, Led Zepplin and the like. I normally didn't listen to that kind of music, but I'm really enjoying it! Of course, I never thought I'd ever listen to an Ozzie Osbourne song on purpose, and now I know the words to a couple! This is probably why I'm cutting myself all of the time, I'm jamming to the radio instead of paying attention! : )

4. I just finished the first of my big projects with only a few changes having to be made! Go me! Now I need to go get printing estimates.

5. I went home yesterday and had dinner, and was suddenly hit with extreme tiredness. Thinking I was only going to take a power nap, I fell asleep and woke up this morning at about 4:00 am. I hate it when that happens! It was such a waste of a perfectly good evening.

6. I think I "over-fonted" my laptop. I got a CD of Macintosh fonts and started to load them. I'm not done, but it won't let me put anymore into the folder! Geez...

well, that's about as interesting as I can be today! Ciao!

Contrary to popular belief, I have not dropped off the face of the earth. When I started this job, I knew it was busy, but I had no idea what kind of busy! I'm literally running, cutting, plotting or whatever from the time I get in until the time I leave. It's completely awesome! I haven't had a chance to post anything lately, but now that I have a breathing spell, I'm going to taje advantage of it!

Monday I didn't come to work because of the holiday. I, along with Steve's family, went to Lawrenceville, Tennesseeto see the Amish community. I was a little nervous about it, because let's face it, we were going there to stare at people for being different. However, mostly all we did was drive around and see the houses and Mr. Lee bought some vegetables and jelly. It was actually very interesting. I took my camera along, but you aren't allowed to take pictures of the people, so I took some of the fields and houses. We also went to Davy Crockett state park and had lunch. It was a nice day. By the time we got home, though, it was pouring down rain and our power had gone off. I didn't care, though. In the daytime, a quiet nap in a cool house listening to the rain without the sounds of technology is nice. I guess I was still feeling the Amish vibe. : )

This week at work has been super busy. I'm kind of glad, because the days just seem to fly by, but when you get so busy that you don't realize you've been standing in practically one position for three hours, that's kind of weird. I have had to make a lot of big signs and posters lately, and last night I stayed until 7 o'clock to get some stuff ready for today. What would normally have only taken a few minutes took several hours because one of our printers ran out of the special paper and I had to do it all with vinyl sheeting. Imagine making ten small signs with what basically boils down to stickers. I barely got them to the people who needed them on time. The sad thing? I know that as soon as that luncheon is over, they are going to throw all of them away. SIGH.

I have officially wounded myself every day that I've been at work! I have over 9 cuts on my hands, and yesterday I thought I was doing well by not cutting myself and it turns out that I cut a big hole in my shirt! I also bought what looked like some very comfortable sandles to wear to work, and they ended up blistering my feet so badly that I had to go barefoot most of the day yesterday. Yuck.

I got some bad news yesterday. My mother called and told me that the football coach from my high school died. He had a heart attack while he was jogging. He was only 44 years old. I couldn't help but shed a few tears for the man. I mean, I hadn't seen him in 10 years, but he was a good friend of my sister and my cousins played ball for him. He was always very nice to me. Coach Cavnar was a good man, he loved the kids he taught and he was a talented artist. I hope I can make a difference to people like he did.

Did I ever tell you about my uncomfortable moment? I don't think I did. Well, it probably wasn't as uncomfortable as it could have been, but it still made me feel awkward. Steve, Josh, and I went out to eat with a guy, Joe, who we used to work with at the SpRocket and his new wife. We didn't really know her that well, but she is a really sweet girl who is a lot of fun. Well, all during dinner we were laughing and talking and generally acting foolish. I kept noticing this lady watching our table, and I didn't think much about it because we WERE being kind of loud. Well, the people at that lady's table got up and were leaving when I noticed a younger woman walking with her stop and look at everyone at our table. She looked at me right in the eye and I realized that she was the ex-girlfriend of Joe (and had been really upset that he had gotten married). Now she didn't say or do anything, but she did give us all a measured look and it was so awkward. Joe never saw her because he was talking to Steve, but Joe's wife, Josh and I did. All of us just kind of clammed up and looked guilty! Does anyone have any idea why we do these things? I mean, Joe and that girl had been broken up for over two years, but they had dated for 5 years and Joe's wife was the girl he started dating soon after. There was no reason to feel weird, but we did. Oh well.

Well. I guess I do need to get back to work!

MEDIC!!!!!!!

I'm still a little queazy from what happened to me a few minutes ago. I was standing there, minding my own business and cutting out a sign with my exacto knife, when I suddenly felt a sting on the side of my finger. I looked down and realized that I had cut off the corner of my finger. You heard me right, folks, I sliced a chunk out of my left index finger. Now, I didn't lose the tip off or anything, but there is now a notch on my hand. Amazingly enough, I cut in just the right place for it not to start bleeding immediately, so I ran over and grabbed the liquid bandage goo and squirted it right over whre I hurt myself. The shock of pain that ran through my body when that stuff got down into that cut made me almost pass out, but I was able to keep on working with no fuss or muss. I can't help but still be shaky, though. My knife was sharp enough to go right through me...*shudder*

Anyways. Last night Steve and I went to see War of the Worlds. We were supposed to go and see it wednesday, but I fell asleep! My one work summary of the movie: amazing! I was afraid that the movie wasn't going to be all that great, but I was very surprised! It was awesome. There was just enough action not to be overwhelming and a good combination of sets and CGI special effects. Tom Cruise, while I find him personally strange, does a great job acting as the scared father in this movie. I don't want to say too much because I want you all (yes, even you too) to go see it! I will want this movie when it comes out on DVD! See it on the big screen if possible!

Wow, I'm tired. We are supposed to go over to our friends house tonight and play trivia, but I wish I could just sleep. I would never be ale to get away with not going, though. Dangit, maybe I will get a nap in before I have to go anywhere.

Work is still going well. I've completed most of the tasks that have been turned over to me, except the ones that keep making my computers crash! : ) My work computers are two of the oldest and most dragged down couple of Macs I've ever been near. Just trying to reply to an e-mail on my Outlook makes the computer lock up! However, I'm getting a lot of the more simple projects out of the way. We have 378 projects on our roster, and so far only 17 have been completed. To be fair, they are the more complicated ones, but good greif...

Well, I must go and weed a sign. : )

A Post From the Salt Mines...

Greetings, readers! I address you today from my lovely office, situated on the "toppest" floor of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center Museum. Well, it isn't all that lovely, being a workroom and all, but it's nice and quiet and I don't have to talk to angry mothers, therefore it's heavenly.

I began working on Monday, where they just kind of threw me into the mix by sending me on a mission to a printing buisness to have some stuff laminated. After that, I came back and started the business of cleaning up the office. To give you an idea of what kind of job that has been, this room used to be a storage area for all of the suff no one needed or used. It was also dusty, and apparently someone had sprayed an adhesive indoors (a production NO-NO) because the dust that had accumulated on the shelves was sticky and gross. A huge plus about my office is that it has windows that line two walls and a door that goes out of the roof in case we have to use a spraypaint or something. A huge minus about where I am is that I have to climb three flights of stairs to get there. THREE FLIGHTS OF STAIRS. If nothing else, I'll achieve some massive calf muscles going back and forth every day. Yesterday I got kind of nervous because everyone left me alone most of the day, so I was kind of at a loss of what to do. I mean, I kept myself occupied, but I guess I'm so paranoid about not looking busy that I didn't realize that until I have a task, I'm pretty much on my own. My friends Jason (who is still extremely talented, no matter what anyone else says) and Roderick are still up here, so I have them to talk to, and there is a new guy named Rodney, who is extrememly nice, so I'm not lonely.

At any rate, I'm beginning to enjoy my job. I'm sure there will be days where I want to burn the place down (as is a pitfall of any job) but I'm hoping those days are few and far inbetween. I did find out something that made me rather nervous. I was under the impression that I would be physically making signs other people design. However, I was informed that because we are now exhibit design as well as publication and sign design, I will be given actual design work to do. Eeeek. I'm scared.

Well, I need to get back to work. : ) I'll post some pictures of my office when I get a chance to take them!

*The halleluja chorus blares from an unseen source. Sunbeams shine on the top of my head and light up the room. Doves and butterflies alight on my shoulders and I run happily through a field of poppies towards the blinding light of freedom.*

Free at last, free at last! Great God Almighty, Free at last!

Now, onward to a whole new set of headaches and problems! : ) Woo-Hoo!

Ick.

Well, I'm properly horrified. Last night I was in the kitchen persuing some rather common domestic chores when I hear a desperate voice from the living room call out to me.

"Spider! Big Spider!"

Now, I promise you that I'm not making fun of my husband, because he is honestly arachnophobic. He's not just scared of spiders, like me, he is terrified of them. To the point of all senses shutting down. Just want to get that out of the way so that you understand why I was the one with the spider killing New Balance sneaker.

Well, I am barefoot, so I run to find a shoe, and when I get into the living room I see this massive (or maybe not so much, but pretty darn big anyways) brown spider making it's way across the floor. I am terrified of finding a brown recluse in my house, so any time I see a brown spider, I try to get close enough to see what kind before I have to make any kind of contact with it. I couldn't tell what kind it was, but it didn't look like any spider I'd ever seen. The front half looked like a grass spider, but the back half looked lumpy and round, which isn't like a grass spider. So in a fit of bravery, which in my opinion is equaled only by Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, I bring down the sneaker and squash the heck out of it. The minute I bring the shoe up, dozens of little baby spiders pop off of it like popcorn and go skiddering in multiple directions. So I am screaming, trying to squash spiders roughly half the size of pin points with a shoe, and scaring the heck out of the dogs. I'm yelling for bug spray and all Steve can find is the spray we have to get bugs off of plants. I didn't know if it would work, but I went Lara Croft on those critters and started hopping around, spraying everything that moved. It was like a mini arachnid Hiroshima. I cleaned up everything I could, but I have this sneaking suspicion that one of the little hastareds got away and is planning revenge Godfather II style.

The thing I want to know is, how could that thing survive when we just had the house sprayed professionally that morning? The exterminators have some 'splainin to do.

Day Off!

You're probably wondering why I got a day off in the middle of training the new girl for her job. Well, a benevolent and angelic friend (who happens to have access to my time records) realized that I had built up enough time to have a personal day. However, if I didn't take it before next week, I would lose it, so I decided that Today would be a fabulous day to be a bum! Woo-Hoo! I've been sitting here for a while trying to figure out how I'm going to be both productive and lazy in one 24 hour period, and I haven't quite figured it out yet. I need to clean for the bug people to come and spray tomorrow, but I also want to lie on the couch and read all day. Ah well, I'll figure something out!

Last night we went to Steve's parents house for his dad's birthday dinner. It was great, as usual. We got Mr. Lee 10 bottles of salsa from some place in Texas he told us about. Well, we didn't get them from Texas, the salsa was made in Texas...anyway... He really liked them, so I'm glad. It's always fun when you don't get the polite "wow, um, that's great..." look from someone you've given something to. : )

I am kind of disappointed today. Josh's sister is getting married again, and her future mother in law had forgotten to book a preacher. Josh called and asked if I would officiate since I am legally ordained (which just means I have a licence to preside over weddings, as I would not condecend to become spiritually ordained since I don't believe in lady preachers and all). At any rate, I was all excited, but apparently mom-in-law found someone at the last minute who could do the wedding, so I don't get to. : ( I have a feeling that they don't think I"m really -legally- ordained. However, I did some research and my licence is good everywhere except for Missouri, West Virginia, and part of New England. Eh, oh well. At least the ULC can call me The Very Reverend Kelly Pratt. ; ) Heeheehee.

The girl I am training isn't getting along as well as I hoped. I'm not saying she won't get it in time, but it seems like she should be pretty much trained by now, but then again, I'm not very patient. She has only spoken on the phone to a customer twice and the rest of the time she has only been typing in the info. Oh well, I am doing my best. I do have to say one thing, and I'll go ahead and ask forgiveness for being catty. Bless her heart, I don't know if she shaves off her eyebrows or if she lost them in some industrial accident, but she draws them on every day. Now, I'm not saying that is a bad thing, but she draws them on as if she were circling her occular cavity, so they go straight across above her eyes and then curve down at the corners. She looks angry. In mentioning this to someone at church (and you know who you are) they said she was like Mr. Potato head "Putting on his Angry Eyes" a la Toy Story. Now I can't help but thinking of that while I'm talking to her. Also, when I'm trying to talk to her, all I'm doing is staring at her eyebrows. I'm helpless to stop. They are like magnets. It's like that scene in Austin Powers: Goldmember when he sees the guy with a big mole on his face and can't quit staring at it. I can't even make eye references anymore because I'll look at her when I do it. Not only that, but I have always had a habit of doodling eyes, and I can't do that anymore because I keep trying to draw what I wish her eyebrows looked like and I don't want her to know that's why I'm doing it. I have three pages of squiggles where I have to restrain myself from drawing nicely arched eyebrows. I swear, by the end of this week I am going to have to knock her down and use the brown Sharpie to fix them!

Just a breif note.

Sorry for the serious lack of updates lately. I've been training a new girl at work, who seems oddly familliar and very nice, except for the fact that she reads everything on my computer screen. She's already corrected my spelling on a private e-mail and I'm scared to open anymore e-mails or write anything while she's there because I don't know how she'll react if I inadvertantly say something she finds offensive. So, until I am no longer training, things will be a little slim here, Which is a shame because there have been things worth mentioning! Of course, now I can't remember any of them. As usual.

Oooh, I made some chocolate covered strawberries last night to take to the concert on the mountain tonight and they are calling to me. Must...be...strong...

Well, I must goes to get ready for my day. In case I don't get a chance to write again until next week: Happy Father's Day to all of the wonderful daddies out there!

SOME RANDOM RANDOMNESS

1) We went to see Josh's new school in Providence last night. I've got one word to describe it: Stepford. I'm serious. It's very beautiful, very ordered, and very clean. A veritable breeding ground for SoccerMoms, but otherwise a very nice place. Providence is actually a "Planned Community" and it has these beautiful homes and town houses with sort of a plantation/New Orleans feel to them, and it has it's own shops and resturaunts. However, it kind of makes me nervous. I saw a movie once about a place like this. It was about a planned community who used the schools to brainwash the children, and had hidden cameras doing survelliance in every home. It was very Big Brother. The neighborhood association ended up mutilating the family dog and trying to hold them hostage by locking the doors to the neighborhood and becoming self sufficent. Weird. At any rate, ethe school is lovely and Josh will make an excellent Vice Principal. He even has his own nifty little office and everything!

2) Yesterday we were busy, as usual, but when four o'clock came around, we had dead silence. It was eerie until I realized that four o'clock was the time set aside to read the Micheal Jackson verdict. I don't know whether or not to find it sad that everyone had take time out of their lives to hear it, or think it's funny. So, about the verdict? I'm glad for him. I never thought he did what they accused him of, but I kept an open mind and read the testemonies to make sure that I wasn't wrong. I found too many inconsistancies in what the mom and the kid said for me to believe it. I mean, sure, he's a circus freak, but not a child molester. I will give him one piece of advice, though. Micheal, keep the kids out of the bedroom!!! In fact, keep kids out of the wing of Neverland that has your bedroom in it. I don't care if you were accuitted this time, you need to take some precautions to keep this from happening again. Please. Because if I have to hear, read, or listen to another one of your weird, rabid fans cry and slobber over you and how the world is unfair to you because of your greatness, I'll have to go on a rampage.

3) We painted the primer on the garage door yesterday. Since we got our new windows, we are trying hard to do the update on the outside of the house. The primer is a greyish blue, as anyone who looked at my forehead last night can attest (had to scratch, forgot it was oil based), but the actual color of the door will be a dark blue. We are also painting the front door the same color eventually, and we will also repaint the stoop and railings a whole new color. As soon as we can get the brick painted, it will look like a different house all together!

4) The Emmys are this weekend! Go Lauren!

5) I have 8 days and counting before my new job starts. I've already got my bowl of M&Ms for the desk and my Napoleon Dynamite poster for the door. All I need now is my Captain Jack Sparrow poster and my Exacto blades and I'll be set. My cubie looks very bare and sad. I've been bringing stuff home by dribs and drabs, but there are still a bunch of little things to get. A girl who recently left gave me a giant cup full of straws because I was always borrowing them from her. I was trying to decide last Friday whether or not I wanted to take them with me, and I didn't think I did, but I didn't want to throw them away either. So I decided to do some arts and crafts. After constructing an eight or ten foot straw by taping them together and then making it into a hula hoop, I decided to make a hat. Now, in the process of making this hat (and I was taking calls the whole time, so I'm not a complete slacker) I put the skeleton of it on my head to get it out of the way. About that time, the CFO walks in and looks at me. I had two options, I could dive under my desk and hide, or I could play it off. I just smiled at him and pretended that it was normal for people to wear straws on their heads. Luckily he thought it was a party hat of some kind and he asked what we were celebrating. I just told him I was queen of the call center and he nodded and went on his way. I am one lucky freak.

6) We went to Steve's company picnic on Saturday. It was fun, but it rained the whole time. At least I got to go to the Botanical Gardens during the day while there were flowers blooming. Normally we only go when it's night time or during the winter when there are no flowers. It was beautiful. I also got to go into the Butterfly House where they breed the butterflies and they just fly all around you. It's weird, but as much as I hate bugs, I don't mind butterflies landing on me. None did, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Steve didn't like it, so he waited outside. We also had dinner with Steve's co-worker Casey and his girlfriend Mariah. It was a lot of fun, and we watched The Amityville Horror, the new version. It left me pretty cold except when he killed the dog, and that bothered me. I usually don't care how many people bite it during a movie as long as the pets live. Otherwise it didn't bother me that much. I thought it would, but since I found out the whole thing was a hoax to begin with, it didn't bother me. : P

7) The other day I was making a list to post on here that was "10 Things I've done that no one else has". I only got to number 6. I'm so boring. : (

8) I DO NOT recommend the Slim Fast soup in a cup. I had an emergency stash in my desk for those days before I get paid and am broke, but when I tried to eat it it was disgusting. I had to eat a Wet One to get the taste out of my mouth.

9) I wish I were in Key West right now under that palm tree on the beach. I wouldn't even have to get out in the water, just lie there and get a tan. I wonder if I could do it on my lunch break?

10) The lady who works as our switchboard operator has had some problems with anxiety lately, so she leaves for the doc today and comes back with a bottle of Xanax. She asked me if I would look up information about it for her, and to say the least, I'm scared. She already has an attitude problem, but apparently Xanax can cause hallucinations and aggrivated outbursts. I can only say, I hope that I'm not on the phone with her when one of those happen! : )

I got so mad yesterday. I got a call from a woman in the UK that wanted a rule bent for her daughter. I told her we couldn't do it, and in the process of me trying to tell her what I could do, she started talking over me and not letting me finish what I was saying. We all know this infuriates me, but because she was a customer and I couldn't say anything about how rude she was being, it only made things worse. Not only that, but she kept repeating why she wanted the rule bent for her daughter and no matter how much I told her it wasn't possible UNTIL I asked the camp, and she still wouldn't shut up. I'm not sure why this woman rubbed me the wrong way, but by the time I was off of the phone with her, I was so mad that I was shaking. One of my supervisors came out and realized what happened and told me to take over the switchboard and then then go ahead and go on my lunch break. I thought I was fine when I came back to the phones, but I was still so irritated that I was rude to another customer. After that, I was fine. That woman severly rattled my chi. : P

I would like to request prayers for my Grandmother. She had hip problems and had to be placed in a nursing home, and seemed to be doing better, but she has come down with pneumonia (?) and is really sick right now. : (

So, Sunday we got to go to dinner at Shogun. That was so much fun! I'd seen commercials for that resturaunt since I was little, and had always wanted to go. Steve's company was having an appreciation dinner for the people who are working at the Test and Evaluation Days thingie, and Steve (plus significant other-don't you just love the PC-ness of it all?) was invited. I was scared that they wouldn't have anything I would want to eat, but the food was exellent. I even ate part of a zucchini! Go me! I also got to meet some of his co-workers and they were very nice. Now I want to go back!

As I said in the ill begotten last post, we got our new front windows yesterday. They look SO nice. In fact, it looks like a different house all together. Now we have to paint out front stoop and the garage door to complete the transformation! Now, if we can just get the actual house painted and the other window replaced, we'll be in business. Woo-Hoo!

I'm so tired. I don't know why, exactly, but I'm so tired that I got halfway to work and had no idea how I got where I was. Thank God for kenesthetic (?) memory. I have been making typing mistakes all morning too. I haven't been able to focus! I feel like I took a dose of Niquil before work. I just took some Excedrine, so this should be an interesting day. : )

This is sort of a drive by blogging...

I've only sat down long enough to dash off a note and tell you what is going on. In the interest of time, I will do this in a simple outline.

I. Monday
A. Sucked because:
a) I was the only call center agent there until 3:00 and I was training someone.
b) It was busy like I haven't seen in a long time.
c) I didn't get a lunch break
B. Didn't suck because:
a) Since I didn't take a lunch break I was promised to be able to leave early the next day.
b) I had KFC for dinner, and it was good.
c) Made more soap and watched SpiderMan
II. Tuesday
A. Another long and busy day, but not as bad because:
a) I wasn't trying to train anyone
b) I got to leave at 3:00
c) I was able to get my hair cut and I'm even cuter than usual ; )
d) Went to Chili's for dinner
III. We have our new windows installed in the front:
A: They look Awesome.
B: I will have pictures posted ASAP.
C. They make our house look 100% better than it did.
D. Has only one drawback which is:
a) Now we have to do a lot of other cosmetic work around so that the rest of the house is nice.
IV. We gave Bear a bath
A. Because he had been wallering
B: We found a new bite wound on his neck and it needed cleaning
C. Unfortunately he:
a) Doesn't like baths and he didn't cooperate
b) Shook all over the bathroom leaving puddles and fur everywhere.
c) Rolled all over the carpet and now has carpet fuzz in his fur.
V. This format is tedious because:
A. It seems like a lot of trouble to eliminate too much detail
B. I'm having to consult a book to remember how to do it.
C. I never liked doing this anyways.
D. Actually took more time than I meant to use.
VI. I'm going to go to bed.
VII. Good Night
A. Sleep tight
B. Plesant dreams

Oh yeah, I also saw this quote and got a chuckle... "Come to the dark side...we have cookies."
I'm not sure why I find this funny, but I do.

I have found a wonderful thing at Target. It's a Wolfgang Puck Gourmet Latte, but get this...it heats itself up! I know that sounds crazy, but it's really cool! You don't need a microwave or a coffee maker! Whatever it is is called OnTech, and I hope it catches on! I'm just nerdy enough to be fascinated, and the drink is pretty good too. I hope they make hot chocoate like this one day. Although I have to ask, why am I drinking coffee at 10 PM?

I have been trying a new hobby today. Hobby Lobby is having a half off sale on lots of stuff, and I decided to try my hand at making soap. Well, not actually making it, but melting it and pouring it into molds. It is so much fun, but now I have a billion little bars of glycerine soap in various flavors and colors. I'm going to have to take seven showers a day for a few months to get rid of it all! : ) You'll be getting soap for Christmas!

A month! I've got to stay here in my current job for another MONTH! I do not understand this at all. I know the call center is short staffed, but the design department has been short staffed for almost two months, and that is much more complicated than just having a qeue line that you can clear out by the end of the day. I don't know what they're going to do. Can they give my job to someone else?
The thing is, I'm not brave enough to ask anyone to change this! I knew I would be working for at least another two weeks, but now I've got to stay longer and I am helpless and confused and NOT happy about it.
Otherwise, I don't care because I still get to stop being a call center agent in a month!!!

I just got the word, I did indeed get the job. I don't know when I start, but I will find out as soon as my current boss comes back from vacation.

Now if you will excuse me...I need to go run around the building and throw confetti.

I am tense. Tense I am.

I know I shouldn't worry about whether or not I got the job, but I'm getting nervous. I wish I could articulate how I feel, but it all comes out sounding so lame. I've given up trying to tell people. I'm almost positive I should have heard something by now, but I don't know if it would be settled within a week or not. Ack. You know, it's not so much me wanting to get the job, which I do of course, but it's not knowing. I'm not patient at all! ; )

Josh just called me from Ireland. Lucky booger. He's having a great time and he's told me if he meets his wife while he's there that he's not coming back! Well, that means Sam gets to stay! Nah, he also misses Sam, so he'll be back. : ) He got me a snowglobe! He loves me! He's going to be in Scotland from Saturday until next wednesday...I just hope he doesn't come back wearing a kilt. *shudder*

SANCTUARY!!!!!

The third official "Bless Her Heart" award has been given out this weekend, and the lucky recipient is yours truly. Story below.

Apparently I am the worst evesdropper ever. A few years ago I was at church and I overheard someone talking about a homeless man who lived in the church bell tower, who would sneak down to the church kitchen at night and eat the food from the kitchen. That had kind of freaked me out ever since, because our church isn't in the best of neighborhoods and if that could happen once, who is to say that someone couldn't do it again. Well, the kitchen comittee has noticed recently that food has begun missing from the kitchen again. While we were down there talking yesterday morning, it was brought up again, and I said "Could this be like that time the man lived in the bell tower and was eating the food?" Of course, this was met with blank stares all around. The head of the comittee looked at me like I was crazy and had me tell the story. Once again, blank stares. Immediately Steve starts cracking up, and I start feeling as if I have finally gone crazy. I KNEW I had heard someone talking about this, but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. I went and asked several of the people in church if the story was true, but no one else knew what I was talking about. It wasn't until Steve came home from church last night (I had a nasty sinus headache, so I stayed home) that I found out that what I overheard was someone talking about a BOOK they had read that happened to be in the church library. So I've been freaked out for several years about something that never really happend, and looked like a lunatic in the process. *wince*

Steve has had a ball telling people that I thought a man lived in the bell tower of our church. He likes to bring it up at odd times, like if I ask him if he's seen something I'm looking for, he says "I bet the man in the bell tower took it." Well, I got him back when he brought it up at my parents dinner table yesterday. Steve thought that "dolphin safe tuna" meant that there were certain kinds of tuna fish that was safe for dolphins to eat because the other kinds were poisionus! So for that, he gets the Jessica Simpson Chicken of the Sea Award! So there! ; )

I am SO tired of dogs peeing on me! This morning when I let the boys out, I was standing at the garage sink filling up the water bucket, and Sam walks over to me to get petted and he just let go. Now, granted, he didn't actually pee on ME directly, but the ensuing spatter that happens when liquid hits a solid surface with moderate force, got on me. That's two dogs in less than a week. Sort of reminds me of my station in life. Heeheehee. : )

I still haven't heard who got hired for the job. I'm hoping that I did, but I'm wondering if Mr. Boyd isn't going to hire someone with actual paid expirence somewhere. Who knows. All I know is that I hope I got it! I'd hate to think that I can't get hired for an entry level position because I don't have any expirence. It's the age old vicious cycle...can't get hired without expirence, can get expirence without being hired. Oy! At least this time I know I'm qualified and good at what I do. After that, it's up to God.

It's memorial day weekend, and I don't have any plans. : ( I'm so boring! I offered to work for a friend of mine, so I'm here at the call center today (Saturday) and there is a chance that the elusive red-haired Scary Spice (or Sara) will come over and visit with Steve and I this evening, but so far that's it.

I was waxing nostalgic this morning, and I starting thinking of when I was a senior in high school and was first introduced to the internet. My first e-mail adress was Kmarti@elimestone.k12.al.us.edu or something equally as excessive. I could only get e-mail from the people in the other room of the school and my dear friend Kenny, who was at Auburn at the time. I also learned, and was pretty good at, coding html and building websites. I don't remember any of that anymore, but who needs it when I've got a program with a GUI that will code it all for me! I used to print out websites and show people instead of sending them the url. Ahhhh. Good times, noodle salad.

Oh yeah, another piece of proof that Soccermoms are out to get me! Within walking distance of my home is an absolutely gorgeous piece of property known as Jones Valley. I believe it used to be a dairy farm or a farm that raised cows for beef...either way cows are involved. Anyways, it's a beautiful deep valley filled with cows and grass and the farm house still stands in the middle looking like something Martha Stewart would live in to seve out her final days of house arrest. About a year and some change ago, I noticed that there was a large patch of the field, closest to the subdivisions built nearby, that was mown down and fenced off from the rest. What sprouted from that piece of property, you might ask? A flippin' soccer field!!!!!! Like a blob of bird poo on Michelangelo's Pieta, is a big ugly field ringed with safety lights. But that's not all, oh no, because next to that they expanded and built a softball or T ball field and a parking lot. You can argue that it's at least nice looking field with the press box or whatever built in the baffling "Southern Greek" style, but I don't care how many pediments and columns adorn the thing, it's still ugly. However, the simple fact that they ruined one of the most beautiful places around isn't what bothers me. I mean, hey, kids gotta have a place to play. I can dig that. What I cannot dig, though, is the fact that with the new sports fields down the street, it has lowered our property values so much that we couldn't refinance our house the last time we tried. The stupid fields aren't even within sight of where we live, but it still effects us. Just another way they are trying to get to me! Yeah, it's kind of a lame conspiracy theory, but it's the only one I have. Don't judge me!!! ; )

This story makes me so mad. I know that both parents should have rights to their children, but there comes a time when the law should look at the parent in question and realize that just because someone fathers a child, does not mean that they make an acceptable father. I'm not saying that what the mother did was right, but when a man is violent and has never cared for or tried to be a good father to a child, why should he get any rights to the child at all? In my opinion, this man is just trying to get back at the mother and using this little girl as a pawn. What a jerk. To take this little girl out of a family who loves her and wants to take care of her just to make a point ought to be beaten within an inch of his life, taken to a hospital to heal, and then beaten all over again.

I have to deal with arguing parents all the time in my job. I have lost so much faith in humanity just from the way some divorced couples treat their kids. Just yesterday a soldier in Afghanistan called me to make sure his child's camp got canceled because his ex-wife told him she wasn't going to let him send their kid here. I'm thinking, you know...this guy is in danger of being killed every minute he spends over there, but he has to call us to make sure that whatever plans he made for his child were scrapped because the ex didn't want him to have his way. What is wrong with people? I know not every divorced couple acts that way, but it's the bad ones that stick in my head.

Maybe I'm just spoiled because I was blessed to have grown up in a family where my parents loved one another and we were happy. Maybe I just feel everyone deserves that. I guess I am naive.