Ridiculous Thoughts

So I’ve got a vague story idea I’m kind of excited about. The only problem is that the more I think about it, the more I begin to talk myself out of writing it. Things like ‘No one’s going to be interested in that’ and ‘who the hell cares about that?’ dance through my head. Gotta love that self-doubt before I actually write the story. Well.. if anyone cares, the story idea is on my Evolve blog. Leave me a comment or something if you think it’s something you’d ever check out.

Anyway… So it’s July. Hottest fecking month of the year apart from August. I’m not one of those that exactly love the heat either so you can iomagine what torture Nebraska summers are for me. I scurry from one air-conditioned place to another as quick as I can, and spend as little time as possible outside. The only respite I find outside is when we hit the pool. It’s not so much the heat as it is the humidity, which is a killer.

I try to find positive things about living in Nebraska, I really do. I’m stuck here for who knows how long for various reasons, so I want to try to find a way to be happy here but this place does not make it easy. Let’s see… I love my job and the people there. I like swimming at the Waterpark.

….

I honestly can’t think of anything else. We have “cultural” things. We have an Ethnic Festival (outdoors, in July, the aforementioned hottest month of the year) in which a bunch of hispanic people cook hispanic food and some old people don leiderhosen and kilts and do a native dance of some kind. And we have Art in the Park where mediocre artists gather to show off their watercolours of flowers and butterflies. It’s not as bad as all that but again, it’s in feckin’ July. WHY??

There’s a museum here all about the Pioneers and there’s an ‘Old Town’ with real houses and stores leftover from the days of the cowboys. I went there on ever bloody field trip you can imagine when I lived here as a kid.

The ratio of restaurants to actual population is outrageous. If there’s construction in town it’s to build another one. Or an auto parts store.

Did I mention it’s hot? It’s fucking hot. Hotter than hot. It’s damn hot. And then we get 2 days of a lovely autumn, and then it’s a deep-freeze in the winter. Then it’s cold. Fucking cold. Colder than cold. it’s damn cold. And the scenery. Well, if you’re a fan of flat cornfields, then this is the place for you. My new thing now when someone asks me what Nebby is like is to tell them to go rent ‘About Schmidt’ with jack Nicholson. That is Nebraska. Depressing.

Wow what a rant. Anyway enough of that 🙂

My damn comments don’t seem to show up occasionally. How annoying. But not *too* annoying as no one who reads this ever leaves me a comment, hint hint 🙂

Hehehe, I dunno who reads this shite anyway, it’s just me rambling about stupid shit most of the time. Then again that’s what a journal’s for eh?

Don’t have very much to write about atm. just working out plans for the kidlet’s 12th (*sob*) birthday this Thursday. 12! ohhhh time flies so quickly. Just yesterday she was wearing little princess outfits and watching Barney. Now she’s wearing the princess outfits ONLY on Halloween and watching The Matrix. *sigh* Last weekend I cut the chord a bit and let her ride her bike to the grandparents, which is about a 5 mile journey. My nails are non-existent as I bit them waiting for her to phone me when she arrived. And she did, a half an hour after she set off. Her trip was incident-free and I worried for no reason. I can’t seem to realise that she’s a lot older now. It’s just so hard to think of her able to do things like that. I remember the first time I let her walk across the street to get a soda from the gas station. I felt like a horrible mother for it. But I wasn’t. Just letting go a little bit at a time. But nobody told me how much that sucks.

Hmmmm.. My blog has emigrated and now everything look weird. Not bad, just… weird. Ah well, we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, haven’t been doing much, just working and hanging out. I made the mistake of getting back into playing Sims on my Gamecube. Yeesh. I forgot how much fun it was to play God. I ended up killing one of my Sims as he was trying to cook dinner, but I played odds or evens with Death and won so he’s still with us. I should have them throw a party or something. So that’s what I’ve been doing with my time while my daughter was is away camping.

She left on Tuesday and is due back sometime today. I’m so curious as to how it went because this is her first time in the wilds of Nebby, and it’s been a stormy and hot week. She does not function well in the heat so I hope she wasn’t too bad off. Her best friend invited her to go with her family, and at first I was kind of chuffed at the prospect of having a few days to myself (bad mommy!) but I really miss her and can’t wait until she’s home. I did manage to get her bday pressies sorted out. Nothing spectacular I’m afraid as I broke down and gave her the new bike for Easter so she’d be able to ride it more so that was the big present for the year. Still I got her some nice things she’ll enjoy and she’s having friends round to the Water park next weekend for an all-day swimfest instead of a proper birthday party. I think she’s getting a little too old for a traditional ‘skate’ party or something like that. When she’s older, and we live in a bigger space, she’ll be able to have parties grown-up stylie, but she’s completely thrilled to be able to spend all day at the water park for now.

Well, time to get back to work. I want to try to find some new modules for my sites.

Well I finished the book. We’ve had ever so much fun (don’t I sound posh?) this weekend and I’m so impressed and pleased. I took the kidlet and her best friend to the shop where, to be honest the ‘fun and games’ weren’t all that fun – but I got to hang out with my old co-workers that I haven’t seen for a while, so that was nice. We got last-minute panic calls earlier that day telling us we needed to ensure that we bought the pre-order gift card or else we might not get a copy, so had to rush out and grab a couple (I wanted 2 copies of the book). So midnight finally rolls around, one woman was going to have a minor heart attack if she didn’t get her copy. I wanted to smack her actually, she was annoying and her kid’s diaper needed changing. Not pleasant when you’re crowded close together in a packed line. Anyway, we got our books and my daughter carried them reverently to the car. Arrived home and went to bed. I know she was reading aloud to her friend for a bit, but I think I read for about an hour and a half before I gave in to sleep. So by morning I was about 5 chapters ahead of her and it just about killed me to stay quiet as we read. And did we ever read. Both of us, the entire day Saturday with small breaks for food and stuff. I wanted to just devour it and I didn’t want anyone to spoil the surprises in the book for me so I stayed offline for most of the day. It was so wonderful to curl up with my daughter on the bed and just read together. What a wonderful time.

I just couldn’t put it down and ended up finishing it around 3am-ish. I did have a couple of breaks, one to chat online for a bit with an old friend, and another to chat on the phone to another friend. The kid gave in to sleep around 1am and she finished the book this afternoon (poor thing slept til noon :)). We are both exhausted from our marathon reading session, but thoroughly satisfied as well. It was so worth the wait.

The reason I’m impressed is because I’m thrilled to see so many people – adults and children – lining up to read. Especially to read a book that’s nearly 1000 pages long. What an accomplishment. I admire JK Rowling so much.

Ahhhh… Now I’m going to re-read book 4, then read the 5th one again. Anyone out there reading this, I hope you enjoy it. If you’re not a fan, that’s okay – it’s probably not everyone’s thang. But I wouldn’t trade the experience the time I’ve had sharing this wonderful book series with my daughter for anything. Sappy, I know, but oh well 🙂

Ahhh my god this new computer is bloody fast. And I have to say the flat panel monitor is awesome. Really nice clarity. The only drawback is I have to re-download all my programs I had on my old one. See, I was told by our illustrious IS department that my old comp was so slow and old. We’ve been converting the hospital to Dells and mine was still an old Gateway. So I asked my boss to stick me on a list for a new computer and I figured I wouldn’t hear another word about it for another year. The wheels grind ever so slowly around here you see. a mere 3 weeks later I’ve got a new puter 🙂 It’s spanky. I managed to move my vital files onto my network so I didn’t lose all of that but half my programs are freebies downloaded from the net, or registered copies I downloaded. So it’s been tedious getting everything put back, especially since I will not have admin privs after one of the geeks comes to put Norton antivirus on here. I guess he’s a real nazi about not letting us peons have the ability to download stuff.

I wouldn’t normally be bothered by it, but 99.9% of my job is online and sometimes requires the odd download of a new program now and then in order for me to be able to get my work done. Now I will have to submit work orders for someone up there to come down, download and install for me, wasting their time and mine. Corporations are fun!

Friday night is going to be a big night for the kidlet. One of the bookshops in town is doing a midnight release party for Harry Potter 5 and I’m going to take her. She’s beside herself with excitement. We’re going to buy 2 copies of the book so we can read it together. But I bet she finishes before me. To be quite honest, I’m kind of looking forward to it myself. JK Rowling is my hero – single mum makes good, you know, that kind of thing. There are quite a few Potter freaks here at work and we’r going to meet up at the party, should be a good time. I just have to resist buying movies while I kill tim til midnight (it’s a video/music/bookstore). I’m at the point where I could hang a sign out and rent videos myself. The problem is a couple video stores in town closed down and are selling all their video for like, $3-$5 each and I’ve found about 8 I just couldn’t live without. *sigh* So in my collection I’m up to 166 VHS vids and 42 DVDs. Give or take the ones I didn’t inventory because they were just kiddie cartoons or recorded from television.

Hmm. With this uber-cool monitor, my background kind of looks shit on the movie site. Have to fix that after the geeks come install my new Photoshop proggie. *sigh*

Flu shots are feckin’ useless. I have just spent the majority of this week throwing up food I’m pretty sure I ate back in 1985. Ugh. I’m beginning to feel better now, but my chest and back are so sore it hurts to take a deep breath. Gonna try to go back to work tomorrow but I don’t know if I’ll make it the whole day. Just standing up tires me out. I feel bad for missing so much work, I hope the boss doesn’t get mad. He shouldn’t tho, he’s pretty cool. He’s weird, but he’s cool.

Still no word from the bellydancer. Again. Have not heard whether she likes the site, nor have I received payment for May. Argh. So frustrating! I need a big old mafia guy to go around breaking legs of those who don’t pay me 🙂 Bet she couldn’t bellydance then! My other job has been great now their domain woes are sorted out and they’re up and running. I sent the bill and got payment 2 days later. I really hate worrying about this shit. I want an accountant.

Anyway, short blog. getting tired and all this typing has worn me out. Gnight.

Oof Blackhawk Down is a bit of a downer movie. Well, I guess the overall message of the film is a good one. I suppose. *shudder* nevermind I don’t wanna go into it. Ahhh so Monday tomorrow. I’ve decided to make tomorrow my day at home this week. I have meetings on both Wednesday and Friday and nothing sucks more than having to drive into work just for a bloody meeting. I was trying to start alternating Wednesday’s and Fridays at home but it’s just not working out for me this week. But this is kind of cool, this not having to go in to work on a Monday. Andy was right 🙂 Heheh.. I have been debating which day to choose for a couple months now based upon my desire to either sort of have a three day weekend (either monday or Friday) or to have a ‘day off’ in the middle of the week. The benefits of all three are pretty good. Oh I know I still have to work, but there’s something to be said for doing your work in your PJs 🙂

I was afraid if I chose Friday, my boss would think I’d use it to slack off and get paid for three day weekends (which I’d never dream of, but you know how bosses are). Monday was kind of the same fear – no one likes to work on Mondays. So Wednesdays seemed safe enough.. Anyway.. sheesh I even bore myself sometimes.

Sorry, I don’t feel well. Throat.. nose.. Guess it’s good I’m working home tomorrow.

I installed Xp on this comp a couple of days ago and it went fine. But I didn’t realise I’d have to reinstall all of my programs 🙁 Ugh. I had so many. Please realise I am not a techie by any means. I’ve always said that I need to marry a techie/mechanic who has no qualms about killing bugs, and won’t make fun of me for not wanting to kill bugs. I know enough about comps to be dangerous and to my credit, I figured out how to grab and install my cable modem’s drivers and got that working again. Go me. Anyway, I’m still able to boot up my ME edition and use my stuff but now I have to operating systems running on here. That can’t be good. But then, what do I know.