I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. No really, I haven't, I just like to pretend that I have. I've been swallowed up by Facebook (though, the novelty has worn off at this point) and Twitter (but even there I only maybe Tweet once a day) and reading a lot of political action blogs. The past week though, has had none of that. Classes started again this week and my love affair with the computer has lost some of its glow. Now I usually get online only to check the classroom discussion boards and submit my assignments. I still read through most of my old haunts, but after all the writing I do for my classes, I'm a bit burned out and can't seem to muster the energy to do any writing just for myself. I get inspired half a dozen times a day for things I want to write about, but actualy opening a window and starting to type seems to be beyond me.

I think what I need to do is get into a routine. A sort of set schedule that I don't vary from (at least at first) to get myself into the habit of doing certain things. Right now my entire life seems to be entirely hit or miss - with an awful lot of missing going on. Part of it, I think, is because I've been out of work for so long. I've even gotten apathetic about the job search. Mostly because I see no results. I have had a total of one interview after submitting almost 250 resumes over the course of 4 months. It's discouraging. And I guess that 'why bother' attitude has flown through to the rest of life. I need to do something about that. Maybe tomorrow ;) There's always tomorrow, right? lol

Oh look, it's Sunday; time for another update on the state of 'Me'.

This past week hasn't been very productive really. It's been too hot to do much of anything, and I'm still having sleep issues so instead of getting up and having a few cool morning hours, I've been sleeping until after 10 (and sometimes until almost 11) and getting up just in time to have the heat try to kill me before I've even finished my morning reading.

Fist let's tackle the insomnia, 'cuz it's killing me. I'm one of those people who HAS to have a full 7 to 9 hours of sleep. 7 is the absoulte minimum I need to function, 9 is optimal for feeling awake and ready to face the day without being zombified for a few hours in the morning. My 'normal' bedtime is around midnight. While I was working this was problematic because of that whole 7 hour minimum to function and needing to be awake by 5:45 AM to make it to work on time. After the layoff midnight was an OK time because 7AM is workable if it's just the kids who need to get out of the house in the morning. Lately, even though I am getting tired by 10:30/11:00 at night, and getting myself into bed by midnight, I toss and turn for a minimum of 2 and a half hours. Every night. And sometimes it's 3 or 4 hours. I'm not getting to sleep before 3AM and this just isn't cutting it. I've tried self medicating. Nyquil first (because that stuff usually knocks me on my ass and assures sleep within 20 minutes of the first dose and a good 12 hours on my back afterwards.

It didn't help.

Next I tried wine. Again, this usually works pretty well. By the time I finish my 3rd or 4th glass I'm ready for bed and sleep like a baby with minimal hangover. I wake up with dry mouth and a slight headache, both of which are fixed by a glass of water and a halfway decent breakfast.

Didn't work.

Next I tried some OTC sleep aid. With this one I planned on it taking a couple of days to really have an affect. 4 days on this stuff and it doesn't matter what time I take the damned pills, I'm still awake at 3AM. I'm almost at my wits end. If I don't find something that works soon I may end up making a visit to the doctor. But no medical insurance means a trip to the doctor really isn't in the cards right now - especially not for something as stupid as my sleep patterns being out of whack. I mean, it's not that I'm not sleeping; it's just that I'm sleeping at the wrong times. I think I'm going to have to try just not sleeping one night to try and get myself back on the right timetable. I hate doing that, because I get cranky and make everyone miserable, but it's my method of last resort and I know it'll work - eventually.

Next on the state of me agenda, my morning reading. I've found a few femcentric blogs that I find fairly informative and a few news sites that give relative and fairly unbiased reporting, and I try to read through them every morning. I also tend to find interesting links from other LJ users and read those articles as well. I'm a little more informed now, and feeling more a part of the world again (as opposed to my vegetative hermit impression of late). But I'm spending 2+ hours in the mornings reading and I think that's a bit excessive. I've tried to cut back on the number of articles/links that I open, but then I feel like I'm not reading enough. I've tried to split the reading into sections, but then I end up with 2 hours in the AM and a few hours here and there over the course of the day, which doesn't solve the problem. I've tried leaving some of the blogs for weekend reading only, and then ed up with a weekend dedicated to nothing but reading. I need to cut some of them completely, or at least limit myself to only a few articles instead of reading everything, but I really suck at that. Oh well, I'll figure out a way to limit my reading eventually. But the combination of too much reading and sleeping so late is really killing my mornings.

Next on the agenda is school. I've gotten very ambivalent in the past week, and I'm thinking part of it is burnout. The disadvantage to an all on-line school is the lack of breaks. There is no summer break, no spring break, no winter break. There are 5 10 week terms a year, with not even a full week in-between terms. I have been taking 2 classes a week since January 7, and I think I need a break. I'm going to talk to my advisor about taking off the Nov/Dec term. I'm already registered for the Sep/Oct term and I'm almost done with Jul/Aug so the Nov/Dec term is the first chance I'll have. But I really need a break. It's not that the work is so hard, or overwhelming, it's just that it never ends. So yeah, that's what I'm gonna do.

So much other stuff to talk about, but I've been at this for half an hour now, and the heat is starting to creep up on me. I think I shall close here and maybe finish up later, when it's not so hot and after I have accomplished some of the housework I need to get done. If I accomplish any of the housework ;).

Anyway, that's all for now folks. I'll catch you on the flip side.

Cheers.

Well, midterms are done. FINALLY. As anticipated, db was quick and painless and only took me about an hour to get the paper written, so that was submitted with plenty of time to spare. Web design was ... nnnnnnnnnngh ... not so easy. I didn't actually submit until 12:03 AM, which is 4 minutes late. Oh well, maybe he won't be a nitpicker. I doubt it though, because he marked me down on last week's assignment for not having a 'tiled background picture' on the page. And if he had looked at the .css page he would have seen that the navigation panel background was a tiled .jpg, it just happend to be a solid color because I HATE tiled background pics. They look horrible and tacky and I REFUSE TO DO THAT. So I got around it by setting 2px by 2px gray box as the tiled background of the nav panel. If I end up with a B in his class because of that one little oversight on HIS part, I'm gonna be a not so happy camper.

Anyway I ran into a bit of a snag when I realized that my portfolio is missing. I know damned well that I saved every single ad I have ever designed as both a .qxd and a .pdf to my thumb drive when I cleaned out my desk. But they are not there now! I think I may have run out of space and transferred them to my mother's laptop as a temp measure, but at 10:30 at night I couldn't go around there and start rummaging around on her machine, so I had to improvise. Fortunately, my banner ads are still running on the website, so I just did a save image and put a couple on the page. For the print ad page I put in a background image I created for a .ppt a few weeks ago. It should be good enough for his purposes. And the pages all looked pretty good, except for the banner ad page. They just wouldn't line up the way I wanted, so I finally gave up and left them one on top of the other. For the purposes of the project it should be ok. I'll fix it when I have more time and can play with it a little more. If anyone wants to take a gander, the new and improved OBX MEDIA web site is up and running for all to see. Some of the pages are still templates, with no real content. The only ones that are live are index, about, contact, banner ads & print ads. Yeah.

Whatever. I need to forget about classwork for a while and just relax or I'm going to go bananas.

I also need to get my butt into bed, but I'm too wound up just yet. I have to find something to force me to relax enough to sleep. Maybe I'll try meditating - though that hasn't been successful lately. Meph.

The combination of summer + unemployment makes it really hard to keep track of the days sometimes. I've gotten terrible at it, and spent almost an hour this morning thinking it was Monday. Well, at least I was only off by one day.

Today is the last day of my midterm week, which means I have to have both of my midterm projects completed and submitted by midnight tonight. The database portion isn't too bad. I'm done with the practical part of the project - designing and submitting the actual database - but I still haven't done the theory portion. It's not that bad, I have to answer a few questions and it shouldn't take me more than an hour to complete. And I've done most of the reading/research needed to answer those questions. I just need to organize my thoughts and actually put them down on paper. The hard thing is the web design project. I have to submit three completed pages on my website (though, he will allow fudging on content as long as the content area is fully developed and the only thing missing is say a properly formatted graphic, or mock links as placeholders for the real outside links). I mean, I have my template completed. I know exactly how I want the page to look (though I haven't really got it looking exactly like that because some of what I want is still beyond my skills, but I'm getting there). But every time I open up the template and start to customize it for the page I want, it just feels...wrong. I don't know, I think this is the left brain vs. right brain thing. The technical part I have no trouble with, I've got down exactly what the prof wants and I know, technically, how to accomplish it for him. But the creative side keeps saying "No, no, no, no, NO! This isn't ready yet and we need let it percolate more." I think I need to make the creative side just shut up for now and accept that I need to be more worried about getting the 'A' for the project than about presenting my business exactly the way I want it presented. I can always go back and edit the 'design' portion once the percolation has completed and is ready. And I have a little less than 12 hours to do that. lol I am such a good procrastinator.

In other news, I've become more and more vegetative as time goes by. For the past few months, the only conversations and interactions I get are with teenagers, toddlers and my mother. My brain was starting to atrophy. I was getting to the point where I couldn't really think critically. I think I was forgetting how. To combat this I started browsing through some political blogs, some feminist blogs, some other -ism blogs, just to try and engage in some sort of social interaction with people who are actually grown-ups and have ideas and thoughts and opinions that are close enough to my own to be engaging, but different enough to make me THINK dammit. And it's working. For the past few nights, when I go to bed, instead of laying there and going over and over in my mind how much of a failure I am, and how awful things are right now, and how many things I need to change about myself in order to become a contributing member of society and support my family, I've been lying in bed going over the discussions I've read in those blogs and tying to decide which of those ideas I want to accept, which I want to reject, which I feel are on teh right track but not quite there and what I can do see that they get there. It's been a good thing. I'm glad I started and I'm commited to continuing.

I have found one thing, especially in the feminism blogs, that I don't really like and that I haven't figured how to express my feelings on. It's the us vs. them mentality that seems so pervasive. On one hand, I can see where the idea comes from, and why the situation exists; but I can't understand why no one seems to feel that the community should have places that are more 'inclusive' instead of 'exclusive'. I want to find a place where cis, trans, woc, womanism, and white privileged feminism can all interact with one common goal. But that place doesn't exist. And every time I've seem some inkling of someone trying to create that type of discussion or area, they get shot down and told to stay to their own space. Or, they're told if they're interested in the other groups, go to the blog for those other groups and educate themselves rather than asking other groups to take part in this new space/thread/whatever. I think I undestand why so many women can be pro equal rights for women, but still refuse to identify as feminist. It's another thing to think about.

Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

Anyway, I've spent my required 1 1/2 hours educating myself on current events and -isms. I've finished my second cup of coffee for the day. I guess it's time to crack down on the mid-term projects and get moving.

Cheers.

I like food, no questions there. I like to try new foods and recipes when someone else is cooking them (read: restaurant experimentation). I do NOT like to cook. Since I consider it a chore most of the time, I do not try new things in my own kitchen unless someone else has borrowed my kitchen for preparation.

That being said...a very generous neighbor hit the motherload on catfish yesterday. And I do mean motherload, he must have caught 60 of the damned things. Being the wonderful person he is, he gave me a huge bag of cleaned fish. I have about 10 good-sized catfish sitting in my freezer right now, and I have absolutely no idea how to prepare them. Well, not no idea. I know I can put them in an egg wash, coat them with cornflour and either pan fry, deep fry or oven fry them. But I would like my arteries to stay unclogged a little longer if at all possible.

So I am sending out a general cry for help. Anyone out there with suggestions on how to prepare fresh catfish? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Time for a post of substance. Maybe ;)

Time keeps getting away from me, and as a chronic procrastintor, that can be dangerous. I swear if I say "I'll do it tomorrow.", tomorrow disappears before I ever even see it. And I seem to have lost a whole lot tomorrows here lately. Part of it was that damned flu bug (probably swine flu, as the symptoms were classic - but no medical insurance means no doctor visit so I can't be absolute on that). I was weak as a kitten for days, and even now almost a week later I still get tired a lot easier than is normal for me. There is also the whole getting my days and nights turned around because of all the sleeping while I was sick. For the past few days I haven't been able to get to sleep before 4 or 5 AM, which means I'm in bed til noon, and not really ready to face the day until 3 or 4PM which means pretty much a whole day wasted. Tonight I am knocking myself out at around 9PM. Even if I have to down a whole bottle of tequila to do it. Self medicating usually works, and if I can get to sleep at a decent hour tonight, then in a couple of days I should have my sleep patterns back to almost normal.

Flu bug also knocked my school work schedule all to hell. I ended up having to do two weeks worth of school work in one week. Instructors were great about not marking me down for late submissions (after I explained the illness) but trying to get it all done in such a short time period was tough. I'm on track with that again now, but since it's midterm week this week, I've got double the work load anyway (again). Probably another reason why time is slipping so quickly past me.

I need to get the to do list up and running again, and actually pay attention to it (which I have not been doing such a good job of lately). And I need to get the house scrubbed. I swear, if I slack off for even one day this place turns into a pig sty. Slacking off for a week while I was sick means even pigs wouldn't want to spend much time here. And we all know how much I love housework, so that keeps getting put on the tomorrow list. You know, that day that never actually arrives in my world? I need to stop making tomorrow lists and start making today lists.

Maybe I'll do that after the nap I want to take right now.

Snagged from www.feministe.us

The crux of the story? A non-english speaking woman gave birth in an up-scale, all-white hospital. The hospital reported the child as neglected (from what I can see, while they were both still in said hospital), and removed from the mother's custody. Child was placed in a foster home, with attorney foster-parents who are now seeking adoption. WTF????

Please, please, PLEASE! Make your voices heard and stop this travesty. Contact info for the local DHS is below, let them know how despicable this situation is. And let them know that they cannot sweep this under the rug and take a child from her mother on the basis of skin color, country of origin or the frakkin' language spoken in the home!

Children’s Justice Act Program
MS Dept. of Human Services
750 North State Street
Jackson, MS 39202
(601) 359-4499

I let this thing die off for a few weeks again, didn't I? I keep doing that. It's the whole "one line to update facebook" vs an actual intelligently thought out post for here. I'm lazy, what did you expect? ;)

School is going well. In spite of my non-compatibility with VisualBasic, I managed to pull an A in that class, so my 4.0 GPA is intact well into the third term. This time out I'm taking Web Design/Dreamweaver and Database Management/Access, and I've pre-registered for Web Design/Multimedia and Web Elements/Flash for next term. So I'm all set for a while. And I've decided to combine work and school for my Web Design class. Final project is a fully functional web site, 10 page minimum. I figure this is the perfect time for me to finally get my freelance/home business web site built to a professional standard. GO ME! It's only in the very beginning stages (I still have 6 weeks to complete the site) but I have a basic template in mind. The colors are wrong (I'm not used to being limited to web only colors and I keep coming up with stuff that is too saturated, but I will get the almost no color at all look that I am going for soon dammit!) and I'm still missing a few elements (the navigation bar isn't there yet, but I did leave a 'hole' for it to go into once I'm done with it), but here is the basic layout template if anyone wants to take a gander and make suggestions. (I've got a thick skin - bring on the crit!)

In other news, I got a small commission from my high school history teacher. She needed a Power Point presentation made for the 150th Anniversary of the Albemarle & Chesapeake Canal, which runs through the county and played a big role in the history of the towns along its banks. The PP came out nicely - if I do say so myself - and the presentation went well. I've since gotten two more calls from the Historical Society to do similar PP for other presentations coming up. One is for the JP Knapp High School 75th Reunion and the other is for the Whale Head club. No details on either yet, but keeping them in the back of mind and waiting for inspiration to strike!

What else...oldest moved out after a blow up. He was whining about the lack of clean dishes and when I suggested he wash a few he threw a fit, grabbed his toys and flounced. He's at his grandmother's now, but she won't give him any money or let him use her car unless he either contributes financially or by doing house/yard work. So he's still in the same boat, but he's too proud to come home. Maybe now he'll get a job! lol

Everyone else is doing good, including gbaby who is now walking (running) and into everything. Still nothing concrete on the job front, but finances are holding up. We're down to subsistence living, but it's better than nothing and I'm hoping that the job market will start looking up sometime soon. Especially since I can now add a few IT skills to my resume.

I believe I have exhausted the news for now. So I will sign off and give everyone a great big hug and cheers! for now.

It's already 75*, and the high will be around 91*, so I'm trying to get everything physical done this morning before the heat gets too bad. Then this afternoon, the monkey and I shall lounge by the pool. I even have a batch of margaritas chilling for just that eventuality.

Jeff managed sun poisoning on Sunday, so he's missed school the last 2 days. I'm pretty sure he'll be fit to return tomorrow though. Today will be dedicated to cleaning the kitchen/den area, and folding the half-ton on clean laundry that was all dumped onto the living room couch. I'll get what I can done before noon, because after that it's going to be too hot to breath, let alone actually do anything. It will actually be the perfect time to head out for groceries and then make all those phone calls I've been putting off. Sounds like a plan, yes?

I've been making the most of my two month forced vacation, and enjoying myself immensely. Today is officially the last day of this term, and final grades will be posted by the end of next week. So far preliminary grades have me at a 4.0 again *happy dance*. I got several calls of congratulation from the Academic Advising staff, and I've been invited to join one professional association (Association for Computing Machinery) and two honor societies (The National Society for Collegiate Scholars, and the Golden Key Honour Society). I would love to join all, but funds are limited and I must choose one. Anyone have recommendations?

Anyway, next term will be Website Development and Systems Analysis and Design; and the following term is Web Graphics and Multimedia/Flash. Wish me luck?

Ok, I'm off to clean the kitchen and the den conquer that mountain of laundry. Cheers~

Where does the time go? Yesterday was Kairi's 1st Birthday Party (the birthday was May 28th, but we didn't do the party until yesterday) pictures will follow soon, but I'll tell you the day was totally exhausting. I'm still not recovered.

And today is the end of the term for school. I have to turn in my final project and take two final exams before midnight tonight. The project is mostly completed, I just have to write the conclusion and then spell check and I'm done. The finals are another story. The IT Foundations test is a 100 question, 3 hour exam that is equivalent to the A+ technician certification exam. Then for Visual Basic is a 100 question, 2 hour exam covering Arrays, Do Loops, For-Next Expressions, Select Case, Passing ByVal/ByRef, User defined Functions and I can't even remember what else. Thank deity for open book? I've been writing and studying all morning, but I need a break so I'm sort of watching Goblet of Fire and browsing the 'net to distract me for half an hour or so.

I'd better get back to the grind, and make sure I have plenty of time for the exams. Wouldn't do to fail only because I missed the time deadline.

Cheers!

It's been a busy time, but then April/May always is for me. Between prom and birthdays and and anniversaries and end of school shit and finals and everything else, I usually hit the second week of June feeling like I've run the triathalon once a day every day. It's not a pretty sight.

Anyway, I'm coming up on the homestretch - three birthdays left, finals next week (for me and the kids) and then we're done.

Anyway, I've said here before that I don't usually remember my dreams, and I don't, but this morning I had a weird one. Really weird - and totally a blast outta the past.

Dream starts on a sort of wooded hillside (reminiscent of the Catskills, large old pine trees with very little undergrowth and scattered rock formations peeking through here and there). Lighting is dim, like it's a very overcast day, and it's mid-fall I'd say. Cool enough for heavy sweaters and scars, but no gloves or coats. I'm walking with generic male person who is in his early twenties (I am too I think, at least I don't get the 'this guy is so much younger than me' vibe, or the maternal feeling, so I'm guessing we're contemporaries). We're talking quietly and the mood is very somber (the mood continues for the whole dream) which might explain the overcast lighting. What we're talking about isn't important, or at least, I don't remember it being important and I honestly don't remember what was being said, only that it was. At one point we stop in the middle of a group of trees and he puts a ring on my finger. At this point the ring is generic, it doesn't even register as anything of any importance, it's just there almost like an afterthought.

Now the scene changes, to what feels like only a few minutes later. I'm inside now, one of those rustic log cabins that people build as vacation homes, sitting on pillows or cushions of some kind in front of a fireplace and talking again, but this time with generic male number two. I start twisting the ring on my finger, and when he sees the ring he gets all excited and smiles and for some reason I think "He thinks I'm going to marry him.", and when I look down at the ring, it's now two rings - and it's the wedding set I had when I was married to the asshole about a hundred years ago (which I actually thought he had stolen and hocked, but I discovered a few days ago that my mother had it locked away). Anyway, I get sort of panicky that he thinks this, and I'm feeling kind of sorry for him too because the rings don't mean what he thinks they mean. Well, in the dream I think I know what they mean, but upon waking I'm not sure because it didn't feel like the first scene was a proposal, and I know they are connected scenes - not two different dreams. Anyway, he looks at me all excited and holding my hand, and suddenly generic male is Isaac Hanson circa 2000. I try to tell him not to get excited, and not to jump to conclusions, being very gentle about the whole thing so I don't hurt him, and not really getting through to him.

Scene changes again, and now I'm looking for his brother (who is generic male number one - I guess he's Bob the lost Hanson) in the woods so I can find out why Isaac thinks the rings mean I'm going to marry him, and find out what generic male/Bob Hanson thinks the rings mean.

I woke up in the middle of the search, and the dream odd enough that I definitely remembered it. Weird huh? I thought the Hanson obsession ended years ago, and here they come popping up out of nowhere. I think I need therapy, or at least medication.

Anyone out there who can help me figure out why I can't call functions properly? No matter what I try the display won't show the function value and I'm ready to tear my hair out!

...buhfly!!!! Hope you have a wonderful birthday and get all your heart desires!

I love this time of year. Mornings are cool and comfortable with soft breezes, afternoons are hot and lazy, nights are sultry before cooling down again. I wish Spring would last longer than week or so we actually get down here.

Anyway, this morning was gorgeous. I've wasted most of it sitting on the back porch just watching a few wispy clouds race across the sky, and watching the birds and the squirrels race around the trees in the yard. But it's still cool and breezy and I'll be heading out to finish up the yard work in a few minutes. My legs and arms are burning today, from the work out on Friday and the yard work yesterday, but that is a good thing. We made a lot of progress on the front yard yesterday, and today we'll be working in the back. And hopefully we'll get the vegetables planted today.

I got a good portion of my homework submitted yesterday, and I'd like to get the remainder done today. it will depend on how much supervision the kids need in the back yard. Hopefully not much, but I think that's probably looking for a miracle.

Anyway, I'm off for a last cup of coffee, and then heading outside. Cheers!

Well, I made it through another week. That's something to feel good about. Homework for week 5 was turned in 4 days late. But homework for week 6 will be turned in by the end of the day dammit, no matter who I have to kill to get it done. so for once I'll be a little ahead of the game.

I'm still trying to get the yard cleaned up to my satisfaction, but it seems like every time I get started on it, the mower or the weed-eater break down - again. I don't have the money right now to replace them, and fixing them doesn't seem to work for very long. Today I'm going to try and borrow a mower from a neighbor, and then hopefully when i get my next (and last) severance check, I can replace the damn thing. I seem to be trapped in the whole "one step forward, two steps back" thing. And I'm tired of it.

Anyway, the yard will get done this week. I am determined.

I have also started to work out. Sort of. On FitTV there is a show that has a pilates/yoga/tae chi workout - it's an hour show and the movements are very low impact. I started playing along on Thursday. I only lasted 15 minutes, but my goal is to make it through 30 minutes by the end of next week. And do the whole hour by the end of May. At this point, I'm not concentrating on losing weight or inches (though both are a serious necessity), I am only concentrating on making it through the workout without getting lightheaded and losing my breath. Since the show isn't on on weekends, I plan to do some serious power walking today and tomorrow. The road I live on is a circle, and it is almost a mile long. I'm planning to do a circuit a day. Today will just be make it around the circle, tomorrow I'll see how fast I can manage it. I'm tired of being fat and out of shape and I'm going to do something about it.

Nothing else really going on of any importance. Or interest. But hey, we all knew my life was boring right? Right. So, cheers for now!

87*, Sunny with a light breeze - gorgeous day out there. The kids are alternating between housework and yard work and I'm working on homework. I once again left it too late and I'm trying to get it all done in only three days. I always do this, and I don't do it intentionally, but the reading is pretty heavy, and it takes me so much longer to get the discussions questions done than I think it will. I'm going to have to come up with a better system.

Oh well, at least I can do my homework while sitting on the deck or beside the sliding doors so I can enjoy this gorgeous day at least to a certain degree - even if I'm doing something onerous.

The gbaby does not like warm weather. I think she is going to wilt this summer unless I agree to AC in one room. We'll just have to see what happens.

Ok, I've wated enough time here so I'm off to finish the homework. OH right, if anyone wants/needs a dreamwidth account, I have a free invite available so let me know.

Cheers!

It's a gorgeous 74* here in the hinterlands, and will likely go up to the high 80s before the day is out. The sun is shining, wispy clouds floating around overhead and the humidity isn't at killing strength yet - 'twill be a beautiful day.

Today is the day for Kelli's birthday shopping spree. She's taking a group of friends to the mall in VA for lunch, shopping and Starbucks. I'm bringing the laptop and some homework to keep me occupied. Maybe I'll get my VB stuff done, it would be nice anyway. And it's time to start thinking about what I'll be taking next term. Will have to ponder that this week.

I must go now to get some housework done before we leave, and tomorrow will be yard work. Busy busy busy me.

Cheers.

ElvenWolf. He's been there from the beginning - and through all incarnations.

Busy busy day. And as I'm still recovering from the cold from hell, busy really sucks. Took #2 daughter to her 'job shadowing' assignment at an upscale restaurant in town, and spent the day schlepping around and running errands (rather than have to drive all the way home only to turn around drive all the way back again a couple hours later). Managed to pick up #2 son's belated birthday present (a Nintendo DSi) and all the parts necessary to fix the lawnmower. Did some minor 'stuff' type shopping (new fake flowers for the kitchen table centerpiece, a couple new notebooks) and paid off the next to the last bill. As of today, I have only one credit card left to pay off and then I will be debt free save for the car note and student loans. *happy dance*

I also spent a couple hours at the employment agency and found a couple or three good leads which I will apply for first thing Monday AM. All in all not a totally wasted day.

Got home to discover parts will not fix lawnmower and it will probably need to be replaced in the next few days. Also discovered (though this was not exactly a surprise) that #1 daughter is tired of playing mommy and can't understand why nanny won't just do everything for her. The only loser in this scenario is the baby, and I won't let her suffer because mommy is a spoiled little bitch. But spoiled little bitch is in for a rude awakening come summer - and time for the purchase of prom tickets and dress - cause nanny is expecting repayment in full in the way of housework for such expenditures, as well as reimbursement for babysitting chores.

#2 daughter and #2 son are away to the circus tonight with my sister and nephew and are hopefully having a wonderful time. I am taking advantage of the quiet in the house since both of them are gone. I am going to finish off a bottle of wine and pour myself in to bed early. Hopefully when I wake in the morning my nose will be unstuffed and the aches will be gone. I'm going to cross my fingers for that anyway. Then tomorrow will be concentrating on my Visual Basic project for this week, and some yardwork - though that might be tough without a working lawnmower...

Cheers!