Ridiculous Thoughts

I feel orange.

Good thing I’ve redecorated then. Seriously though I’ve been meaning to redo this place for ages now and since I’ve been making blogs for work (Captain Wow’s Movie Blog of Doom and mine anyway) I figured since I’m on a roll I’d go ahead and do this one while I’m at it.

This is quite a departure for me. I’m sort of a muted, quiet colour person myself (see UKMelia) and so going with the bold orange and retro background was a nailbiter.

But I’m happy with it for now. There may be more tweaking to come as I fine tune it, but anyway, I think it’s fun 🙂

My car’s paid off. WOOHOO!!!!!! I’m so chuffed. What a wonderful feeling.

Shannon’s all registered for her freshman year… It was quite the setup they had to corral parents and their kids and make it as painless as possible. You walk in, she gets her course schedule; turn in health paperwork; run fast past the ‘give us money’ section (hey I’m all for supporting the school but it has to be on my pay schedule, not theirs); sign up for clubs (French Club and Astronomy Club for her); get picture taken; pay for a couple weeks’ worth of lunches by rude a lunch lady who treated me like I was invisible as I stood before her trying to ask a question – I’m not kidding. The witch just carried on writing on some form as I stood there and asked my question, she didn’t answer me, and some other mother came up and she turned to help her and chitchat. I was LIVID. So she got some attitude from me when I forced her to answer my damn question. Grrrr. Finally, I had to give permission for her to be able to get online during the school year.

And now my little girl’s all ready. We bought the usual pens and pencils and paper etc. and she had a good time packing it all neatly in her backpack. I always loved doing that too before school began.

And so in a couple weeks she’ll take her first big steps towards adulthood. I’m both proud and sad.

Well! That was a bit of a break eh? It’s been crazy busy lately in my life, a fact for which I’m actually grateful. I love being busy and feeling like I have a purpose. One of our guys left the department a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been getting to do his stuff along with mine which equates to working late and working at home a little.

It’s refreshing though because although it’s hard work, it’s work I love. I’m so lucky to be able to work in a job I actually *like*. So many people end up stuck and unhappy and I was sure headed that way. Thank Elvis for the Internets 🙂 It saved me.

Sooooo what’s been happening…. Well aside from lots of work, I’m looking forward to tomorrow as I will be making my final car payment (woohoo!) and from then on getting an extra $200 bucks a month back. Plus my insurance rate drops so that’s even more dosh in my pocket. Maybe that will help ease things up and let me get back on track with everything. otherwise I’m starting to think it’s time for a part-time job of some kind.

The kid will also be registering for High School tomorrow *sob* My baby’s growing so fast. She’s totally looking forward to starting whereas I was a nervous wreck. I hated starting a new school year once I got up in my high school years. Probably because I moved so much and frequently had to start in a new school. It was so hard to forge friendships in places where everyone’s known each other since kindergarten.

But I’m happy she’s looking forward to it. The Gs are buying her a computer (Believe me I was utterly gobsmacked when they told us) to start high school with. She’s over the moon about that. She’s taking French (which pleased me no end because I can help herr with that easy. I had it for five years and then lived with french peeople in England.) and drama, symphony orchestra, and the core classes like geometry and english etc. She’s going to have an exciting year.

I’m hoping she takes an interest in journalism because UNL down the road is one of the top journo schools in the country. I think she’d be good at it as well. Plus one of the writers at my paper is also a journo teacher at Senior High and I think it’d be fun for her to be in his class.

Ok so that’s my update for now. Oh, I’ve started a new blog called ‘IVL‘ which will be my blog for the paper which is another reason I’ve been so quiet here. IVL is gong to take a lot of my time. It’s where I get to talk about my experiences as a longtime ‘Netizen and I’ll pass on fun and funky websites I know about, talk about how to get along online, tips, tricks, things like that. So check it out.

/shameless plug

Hehehe.

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING? “Goblet of Fire.” Just finished Half-Blood Prince and since the 4th film is due out in November I figured I’d re-read GoF really quick.

3. WHAT WERE YOU DOING JUST MINUTES AGO? Petting my cat.

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE? Mad Magazine

5. FAVORITE SMELLS? Lillies, baking bread, the smell outside just after it rains.

6. FAVORITE FOODS? Pastas, my chili, a nice steak.. Chicken Marsala. I don’t know I like a lot of different foods.

7. FAVORITE SOUNDS? Shannon’s giggle, rollin thunder.

8. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD? Knowing you’ve disappointed someone you love.

9. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP? Lately it’s been thoughts of chucking the cat off the balcony because she keeps waking me up.

10. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE? McD’s

11.FUTURE CHILD’S NAME? Not planning any.

12. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. “IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY… I’d pay my debts, ensure the kid can go to college of her choice, take care of friends and family, buy a nice new car and a lovely home, with a second home somewhere cool, and then travel a lot.

13. DO YOU DRIVE FAST? Occasionally.

14. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? No, not a stuffed animal fan. But I do sleep with my Moosh pillow 🙂

15. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY? Ultra-bloody cool. I live for them.

16. Describe YOUR FIRST CAR? The first car I ever owned all to myself was an old Ford Escort.

17. FAVORITE DRINK? Iced Tea or Dr.Pepper. If you mean cocktail then it would be an Amaretto and Coke (made with Disarrono)

18. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, “IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD: Write my book.

19. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI? Of course! That’s the best part 🙂

20. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE? Chocolatey brown.

21. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN: Grand Island, NE; Palm Springs, CA; Fresno CA; Atlantic, IA; Council Bluffs, IA; Marina, CA; Seaside, CA; Monterey, CA; Gunnison, CO; Sedalia, CO; London, UK; Little Hampden, UK

22. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? Meh. Not a sports fan.

23. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU… Corey is one of my dearest friends and I love him to bits.

24. WHAT IS UNDER YOUR BED? Storage boxes full of old videos and ummm… other stuff.

25. TOILET PAPER/PAPER TOWEL-OVER OR UNDER? Definitely over.

26 MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL? A night person forced to be a morning person.

27. OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE – Over easy.

28. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX! In my bed.

29. FAVORITE PIE? I’m a cake person myself, but if it has to be pie, you can’t go wrong with a plain old apple pie.

30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE WHO WILL SEE THIS WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO DUPLICATE: Adam can never resist a Meme 🙂

31. LEAST LIKELY? Gary.

What a nice weekend we’ve had. Friday night we had dinner with the Gs, and then we were off to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was most excellent (hehe, puppet burn center…) and then it was time to head for the midnight Harry Potter release party. Which was fairly lame unfortunately. You can always tell when the business doesn’t have their heads into it when the games are lame and the event they’ve been publicisizing for weeks is unorganized and uninteresting.

Poor Shan tho had some of her fun ruined when she overheard the manager running the whole thing comment to a coworker hat he hated Harry Potter. Sort of deflated the anticipation a bit for her which pissed me off. Next time we’ll just show up a half an hour before the release and wait in line for our books. Screw the party.

Oooo it’s raining, yay!

Anyway we got our mitts on our copies and headed straight home. Shan’s intention was to stay up all night and read but I convnced her she needed her sleep. So we read for a bit and then carried on with it the next day. It was just so lovely to hang out in my room all day reading together. We should really do it more often.

We both finished the book in the evening some time and I, for one, definitely needed kleenex because I was a sobbing mess by the end of the book. No spoilers here though because I don’t want to wreck it for anyone who’s not as greedy as we are and hasn’t read it yet. But I will only say that it was wonderfully awful.

We had a lovely-but-far-too-short lunch with Jo as well. Next time we should do lunch somewhere where they don’t mind if you hang around to chat after eating 🙂 Coney Island seemed to need the seating. But it was good to see her and talk for a bit.

Today was spent just hanging out again watching some telly and messing about online. I found this interestingly cool website the other day and we’ve had a lot of fun with it. You manipulate different bits of ummm, pipes? that make different musical sounds when these pieces of candy flow through them. Sounds weird I know but it defies description. Check it out for yourself.

And with that I’m off to re-read my book and enjoy the rain.

I just read the best movie review ever thanks to Retrocrush:

LAND OF THE DEAD
FILM REVIEW BY GENE SISKEL

Hugnl…hrllll ughnnn? Ughnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ahhhh ughhh uuuuuuuuhhhh mnrglthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Uhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Uhhh grghlthhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhh! Uhhhhhh! NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! UUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH! Grraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagth! nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ahhhh ughhh uuuuuuuuhhhh mnrglthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhthhh! Uhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uuuuuuuuhhhh mnrglthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhthhh! Uhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Uhhh grghlthhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhh! Uhhhhhh! NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! UUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH! hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Uhhh grghlthhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhh! Uhhhhhh! NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! UUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH! Grraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagth!nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ahhhh ughhh aaaagth!nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ahhhh ughhh uuuuuuuuhhhh mnrglthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhthhh! Uhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Uhhh grghlthhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhh! Uhhhhhh! NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! UUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH! Grraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagth!

BRAINS!

LO-fecking-L!!

That is all.

“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

I love this poem. Normally I’m not one for poetry despite all of my mother’s attempts to instill the love of poetry in me but this one… I don’t know, it does something for me. It’s Yeats of course, not that I would have known that without looking it up.

No, I heard it in a movie (where else? 🙂 ) and for some reason it’s stuck with me.

I would give you everything in the world, I love you that much. Even though I have no money, I would still give you all I have instead.

That’s devotion 🙂

Ahhhhh…. I’m tired. Dog-tired. Bone-tired and fatigued. I should go to bed but it’s still light out. It’s just a wee bit pathetic to be going to bed when there’s a sliver of daylight left. You’d think I was old or something.

I keep joking about being old. You know when you’re making small talk with someone and somehow the subject of ages comes up. Usually you’ll play off your age by either making jokes at your expense or making jokes at others’ expense (but in a nice way.) I make jokes at my expense. Most of the time it’s funny, but lately I’ve been feeling like, “Hey wait a minute, I’m NOT old damnit.” I don’t want to even joke about it because in a weird way, joking about it actually makes me feel old.

Or maybe it’s because I feel an overwhelming desire to crawl into bed when it’s still daylight that makes me feel old.

Sod it. Been a crazy week. Bed wins.