The random thoughts that flutter through my mind...
In the year 2006 I resolve to: Start spamming people I do not like. Get your resolution here. |
howard on doing my part for th...
rustymadgal on doing my part for th...
My birthday: April 17
My anniversary: April 25
YIM: downbutterflylane
If I had a billion dollars, I'd give a million to each of my friends and family. I'd have an indoor gym and pool built at my college. I'd pay for teachers aides at my daughter's school. I'd buy every book Nora Roberts ever wrote, and I'd fly to her next book signing so I could tell her thank you for saving my sanity by giving me an escape from reality for a few hours at a time.
.
1,000 Shades of Fool
American Girl
Buddhists Do Scratch Their Heads Too
DJGroovySlug
FlyLady.net
He Wrote, She Wrote
I choose not to believe
I Was Just Thinking...
Jill Shalvis
Long and Writing Road
Miss Snark
Passionate Chaos
Pub Rants
Questions Asked, Questions Answered
Running With Quills
Still I Rise
Sublime Vacuity
The Steal-Me Book
Turn the Page
Woodland Rambles
today
April 2008
May 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
Taken from the ALA website
Books I have read are italicized.
I can't access any private blogs that I was a member of... and I can't post on member only blogs. Is it a motime glitch, or is everyone mad at me?
Ethel has pneumonia. Just a mild case. She gets to go back to school tomorrow. We got new cell phones. That's about all that's happened of interest lately.
Oshu asked George his name, and he said 'George' Bleeble-blabble H-----------. He finally realized where it came from. The other day, Oshu was watching Celebrity Jeopardy, and the Bill Cosby character answered a Final Jeopardy question with "Bleeble-blabble" and George has been saying it ever since.
I have to get up in 6 hours and 30 minutes. I have to leave the house in 7 hours and 15 minutes. Guess I oughta go to bed.
Well, four of the fish have currently bit the dust. The second tetra and the plecostomos were lying on the bottom of the tank when we got up yesterday, and after I took them out and cleaned the tank, one of the platies died last night. Oshu suggested that when the last one bites the dust we not get more fish.
Famous last words. This morning, Orange (Ethel named her), the sole surviving platie, had been joined by approximately 6-8 progeny. I thought she might be pregnant, but jeez. So now we have as many as 9 fish in a two gallon aquarium. Dang it.
When I go buy groceries later I'm planning to go buy some breeding grass for the little runts to hide in so their doting parent doesn't consume them. I've already rescued three of them from the gravel- they swim in and can't swim back out. I've been moving the gravel around with a wooden chopstick. Which reminds me, I need to go check on them again. Hopefully a few of them survive. Baby fish are cute.
Oh yeah, speaking of babies... my sister had hers. 6:22 am, 7 lb 8 oz, August 22, 2005. He's squinchy and wrinkly and adorable. I was up all night at the hospital waiting for her to have him- went home and had a 50 minute nap between 2:30 and 3:20... and then she called and said she was fully dilated and I needed to hurry back. Then she proceeded to do nothing until 6:22. Twerp. I got home just in time to get the kids up and ready for school and go to work all day. My boss sent me home early that afternoon because I was falling asleep at the circulation desk.
Update: Well, after delivering 14 babies, Orange died. So far two of the babies are dead- one got stuck in the gravel, and I'm not sure about the other. I guess the stress was just too much for poor Orange. I took part of the gravel out- hopefully that will keep them from getting stuck as easily. I've been reading up on it, and apparently I should have cycled the tank before buying fish. Sooo... daily water changes for the forseeable future (at least until they get big enough that I can buy a vacuum without sucking the fry up in it) and hopefully a few of them survive.
or... not much. One of our tetras had an unfortunate accident. It was crushed by a water lily bulb, and ignomiously disposed of in the trash can.
We bought a wireless router and a PCI card for the desktop computer. I installed it all. Oshu rearranged all of the furniture so we could take the Dude upstairs to our bedroom. He's such a sweetie.
We've been watching Six Feet Under: The Complete Fourth Season. Disk two was warped... and of course we didn't realize it until Circuit City was closed for the night. So... the next day I returned it, and proceeded to venture forth in search of another copy. Circuit City was out, you see, and I wanted my money so I could buy another one. I went to Walmart. I went to Target. I went to Sam Goody and Kmart. I came home quite distraught. Oshu said that it wasn't such a big deal, we could still watch it, it just took several tries to load the dvd. He didn't understand why I was so upset... until I revealed the disastrous news. I had returned it. They had marked it defective. They wouldn't resell it.
I made another trip back to Circuit City. I asked the clerk at the return desk very nicely to sell it back to me. She insisted that it was impossible. I recommended that she do a post-void on the transaction. "It would be like I'd never returned it at all!" I wheedled. She still refused. (Obnoxious twit. Don't make me break your skinny little body in half.) I politely requested a member of management, suggesting that if I griped loudly enough perhaps he or she could authorize my request. She went in search of someone with more clout than she, as a lowly clerk, possessed. (Wonder what she told him.) When the manager walked up to the counter, he didn't even bother to speak to me. He simply marched over to the computer, typed in something, and handed her the box. As he walked away, his only words to me were, "That was the strangest request I've ever had." She rang me up and I stalked victoriously to the car and drove home, peeling defective stickers off at the stoplights.
Today was another story. I locked the keys in the car at the gym, had to call Dad to come rescue me (and since he didn't answer his phone, I went out and poked around futilely with a bent clotheshanger in a desperate attempt to unlock the door myself until he called back), and couldn't even work out while I waited because I didn't have my workout clothes... only my swimsuit and shoes for water aerobics. There wasn't a water aerobics class scheduled. Soooo... I got ready for work and stood by the car until he arrived to rescue me (and point out that one of the tires was bald and had wires sticking out) so I could go on my merry way.
We did get new cell phones today. That was a happy thing. And I'm thinking that the kids and I are going to have something fattening and unhealthy for dinner tonight. Don't know what yet. Nothing actually sounds good, because it's allergy season and I feel like crap. Which reminds me, time for another little pink pill.
This whole wireless thing is so much fun. I'm sitting on my patio while the kids play out in the yard, Lucinda in my lap, typing away.
We bought fishies. 5 of them. 2 platies, 2 tetras, and a plecostomos. They're in a 2-gallon tank. One of the platies appears to be pregnant. As if buying a pregnant fish wasn't enough- the other one is male. Oh, goodie. I'm about to open a fish hatchery. Trying to decide whether I want to go guy breeding grass or another tank in an attempt to keep the fry alive or whether to allow the big fish a tasty snack.
Oshu doesn't think the kids need to see the baby fish getting eaten by the big fish... he's probably right. But... do I really want to go to the effort and expense of another tank in an attempt to have more fish?
This may become academic, because she looks ready to pop... so she might have them before I get around to deciding.
I did read something about trading the fry in at pet shops for store credit. Might be an idea.
So I'm sitting here drinking my triple venti caramel macchiatto and trying to wake up. Spent the weekend with my sil and nephews. Had a terrific time. The kids ran around like wild indians all weekend- almost every time I saw one of the kids he or she had either a sword or a lightsaber (or occasionally one of each). The younger nephew is two weeks older than George. He had a tiny set of handcuffs. He kept thumb-cuffing me and dragging me off to 'jail' and I kept having to stage jailbreaks to escape. After the kids went to sleep Saturday night, my sil and I sat up and talked half the night. It was so great. We dyed our hair Sunday morning. She put what was intended to be blonde streaks in my hair, but for some reason they came out red (which is cool because that was what I really wanted to do in the first place but I wasn't sure how it would look), and we watched parts of the race (and immediately after the race, Oshu called to tell me that he won $150 in the race pool at work- which made me glad I was cheering for Tony Stewart).
We're having the training on the new reserve program today (assuming the girls coming down from another campus are able to find us) -speaking of which, here they are... so gotta go. More later.
...to Wally.
Kids, don't try this at home.
Which is a really dumb way of saying that I was delaying working on the baby room stuff today. We went through all the kids craft supplies, organized them, threw away the dead and dying markers, got the school supplies separated out and in their own spot, labeled everything with Ethel's name that is going to school next week and put it all away in her backpack, and random other stuff.
Unfortunately, when I bought the sheets to use for some of the stuff (quilt back, curtains etc), I accidentally bought a fitted instead of a flat sheet. Can you say duh? So I went back and bought another (since I'd ripped open the package and couldn't return it) and just a little bit ago, when I opened the new sheet... it was fitted too. I gave up. I just cut the elastic off, cut open the corner seams, and I'm using the damn things. I am NOT going to go buy ANOTHER sheet for this project.
If I ever get it finished I'll take pictures and post them so you can all see what I've been moaning about. (That's my goal- to finish so I can take pictures to show off. I'm such a goon.)
Totally unrelated subject: has anyone started their Christmas shopping yet? I have. I have one thing bought... but I have a list of several more things to buy. I'm going to hide everything in a plastic tote in the top of my closet where nobody can see it. (Hell, nobody in their right mind would be brave enough to go IN my closet. It's more of a giant box that things get thrown into, with a door.)
Well, time to get the kids down here for lunch, and then I get to iron all the creases out of the fitted sheets so I can properly measure them and start sewing them into the appropriate shapes.
Why am I awake? Because my children woke me up.
Why isn't anyone else awake? Because they don't have children, I suppose.
I hate mornings. I'm not even all that fond of early afternoons.
I've entered over 150 documents and books into the new online course reserve system. Monday we actually get trained on how to use it. (Sorta putting the cart before the horse, but then again, I'm a tad more computer literate than some of the people who work here.) I'm going to have nightmares about them coming in, telling me I did everything wrong and we'll have to redo all of them. I'll cry. Then I'll take four days off. I get a vacation! I'm taking next Tuesday-Friday off for what The Pickle (our reference librarian) calls a Mental Health Vacation. You know, "I get time off or I check myself into the loony bin?" days.
I just realized something. We have The Pickle, The Fry, The Frankfurter, The Sandwich, and The Candy Bar. The only one I can't think of a food-type nickname for is the boss.
This is my new objective.
I'm at work. I've been doing data-entry for a week and a half. I'm bored. The coolness of being given the authority to do things within the Course Reserve system (generally not something students are allowed to do) has worn off. I'm almost done... but it's making me nuts.
Okay, back to the grind. Stay tuned: more whining later.
I have an online test in my human sexuality class that I have to take before midnight. I have two hours and 45 minutes. I haven't even read the four chapters the test covers. Instead of studying earlier, I took th ekids to Subway and Walmart, where I walked around for two hours and left with a sheet, a notepad for Ethel with her name on it, (No, it doesn't say Ethel. I really doubt that they make things with teh name Ethel anymore) a box of trashbags, and a new Catherine Coulter book. (Well, I think it's Catherine Coulter. Maybe it's Catherine Anderson. I don't remember... other than the fact that it's the third in a series and I enjoyed the first two... I'm not sure who wrote it or the title. And since it's over on the couch in the bag still, I'm too lazy to go look and see what it actually is.)
Well. That was one hell of a run-on sentence.
One of these days I am going to chart a path through all of the blogs I visit regularly so that I can go from one to another by using the links on each page instead of going back to my blog and clicking all those links.
Oh, before I forget: while we were at Subway, George looked at me and said that the people in his head told him not to eat his sandwich. I asked him what their names were (humoring him) and he said Man, Jerry, Tom and Tijiri. Should I be disturbed that he not only said he had people in his head, but that he instantly knew all of their names? Or is it just a sign of his creativity?
We went to visit Ethel's teacher today. She has been pretty worked up about school starting- she was afraid her teacher wouldn't like her. Well, I'd say the visit was a success. Turns out the teacher is a woman who has been in the library at work several times and was also on the PTO last year. She is a terrific woman and I think she will do wonders for Ethel. I'm going to be volunteering in the classroom every Wednesday morning, so I think that will have a positive effect on the parent-teacher relationship as well as giving me a glimpse of how Ethel is doing.
I have now wasted another ten minutes. I can never ermember for sure- is the rule spell the number out if it's less than ten, or up to and including ten, or is it higher than that? I know there is a point when you are supposed to write the number itself instead of spelling it out, but I don't remember when it is. Any English gurus out there?
Update: It's midnight. I just finished the exam. I got a 92%- which gave me a 93% for the class, which is an A. (92% would have been an A-, which is only a 3.7 on the GPA scale.) This summer has been good for my GPA- two A'sin 3 credit hour classes.
And I did a body fat index profile at the gym, and according to the results I looked up, I should aim for around 125# if I want a healthy body fat index. (Whatever teh hell that means.) Going to bed now.
