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. : )