Hey

Just wanted to say that yes, I am alive. I know how annoying it is to check other people's blogs hoping that they've updated so that I can read something new and then to be met by the same page you've seen for a week. However, there really is nothing to report. Over the past two weekends I've been to two birthday parties and had a scrapping date with Mel. Other than that, nothing new going on. This is why I at first resisted starting a blog. The feeling of needing to update it, yet nothing to report.
I suppose I could report about my continued addiction in Ikea. We went back there on Saturday. Got an end table and basket for the living room (almost no more room for furniture) but the basket was needed to store the attachments for the new Dyson, which is also in the living room as there is no other place to put it. The old vacuum is still in the closet because I don't want to just throw it away as it is still an ok vacuum. I'm thinking I'll give it to our church rummage sale, but they usually don't start collecting stuff until after Easter. Aaaagh, no storage!
Anyway, I digressed. I also got myself a new bookcase at Ikea for my scraproom. This has then had me thinking about my whole scrapbook storage and now I want three more bookcases with doors. Since I'm lacking the hundreds of dollars this would take, I'll just stick with what I've got for a while. I also need better lighting so I've been poring over the Ikea catalog and online and I think I know what I want to get. Also must get boxes or baskets or something for some organization on the shelves. Perhaps once I actually get the room all tidied and stuff put away, I'll take pictures. However, since moving in I have yet to think that my room is "done". Way too much crap with no place to put it! I suppose more purging is necessary, but that's so much easier said than done.
Anyway, enough rambling for tonight. Hope I've entertained you all sufficiently.

You Know You Are Living In 2006 when...

Liz sent this to me and I thought I would share.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2006 when...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20
or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

A stroll down memory lane

So Karen Burniston’s blog has inspired me to share with you a Psycho Kirstin story. When I previously lived in Waltham, Linda and I shared an apartment with a girl name Kirstin. Kirstin was a very strange girl. She had many bizarre quirks. She was normal enough when you first met her (except for lacking a few social graces, but nothing too obvious in a brief encounter). Linda’s and my parents didn’t understand why we didn’t really like her, but they didn’t have to encounter daily floaties, messes in the kitchen, unlocked doors, and all of her other habits.

Anyway, we had a large closet at the end of our hallway. It held coats, cleaning supplies, hardware items, and miscellaneous boxes. One day Linda and I decided to tackle the boxes. As was the case at Karen’s house, none of the boxes had been broken down. Hence the need to clean the closet. So Linda and I set to work breaking down the boxes. We really weren’t discarding any, just making it so that one could actually get to other items in the closet. Kirstin then came home and saw what we were up to. She insisted that we leave her large Dell computer box intact. We weren’t allowed to break it down and save the packing materials. Nope. Had to stay exactly as it was. Why, you ask? Well, she was going to need it for when she moved. (I think this cleaning incident happened after about a year of living together, so she still had two more years to go.) And couldn’t she just tape the box back up again? Apparently not. So we suffered with this huge box taking up half the closet for many more years.

Ok, so Karen tells stories much better than I do, but seeing her boxes reminded me of the Kirstin story. Just be glad I didn’t tell the tale of “Please don’t leave the kids unattended in the pool”.

Shopping Alert

For those of you interested in purchasing Lisa's Favorite Albums from QVC (it's the TSV on the 18th) they are now available online using item number F-00519. I really don't get the whole get the TSV price before the actual day, but who am I to complain. I was able to get it ordered now and then I don't need to stay up until midnight to order.

And another...

I was just reading the comments on my Tag post, and saw that Christy asked about me having lived in England. So, here goes.

When I was in fourth grade (ok, I was technically in third when the process started) my dad decided that he wanted the opportunity to work in another country. So, he applied for a number of positions in various countries. I remember that in the end it came down to England or Singapore. Anyway, he went on sabatical from his job in MA and took a position teaching at the University of Bradford. We all moved over to England for a year, rented a house, went to British schools, and traveled around England a ton!

Unfortunately, since I was only nine at the time, I don't really remember a lot of it. However, ever since then I have loved England. In college I spent Spring semester of my Junior year in England. I spent my weekends re-visiting places as well as checking out some new spots. Then in 2002 I spent a week in London with my brother, and in 2003 Chris and I honeymooned in London and Cornwall. And now I'm itching to go back again.

Most of the pictures from our year there were taken on slide film. Last year I took the slides and scanned them all in. It was great being able to see some of these places again. Some of them were labeled, others I sent to the family in the hopes that they could identify them. In my copious amounts of my spare time (yeah right!) I hope to start doing some layouts about my time there. I really didn't enjoy my childhood, but I loved my year in England.

Year in Review

So this was my layout for the second week of Donna's class. This layout took much much longer than I would have expected, especially since it was already designed for me. I was kind of wishing I had more space to write things on my tags, especially since not all of these pictures will have corresponding layouts in this album. Oh well. I'm pleased with it. And I scrapped, which is always a good thing.

Tag

Mel tagged me, so here it is.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
- Fast Food employee at Wendy's. Even got to dress up as Wendy a couple of times!
- Wal*Mart associate. Lasted only a couple of weeks until a better opportunity came up.
- Costume shop technician. One of my favorite jobs. Great people to work with. Got to sew some fabulous costumes. Learned a ton.
- Executive Assistant. Not the most exciting, but it pays the bills.

Four movies you would watch over and over:
- The Princess Bride
- Clueless
- Labyrinth
- Heavenly Creatures

Four places you have lived:
- Talladega, Alabama
- Grafton, Massachusetts
- Bingley, W. Yorshire, England
- Waltham, Massachusetts

Four TV shows you love to watch:
- Buffy
- CSI
- Lost
- Gilmore Girls

Four places you have been on vacation:
- England
- Spain
- Maine
- Rome

Four websites you visit daily:
- Hotmail
- 2 Peas
- Boston.com
- various blogs

Four of your favorite foods:
- chocolate
- soup on a cold day
- Pizza
- Chicken pad thai

Four places you would rather be right now:
- At home in bed
- At home scrapping
- Doing whatever is on my "to do" list
- Anywhere with friends

Four bloggers you are tagging:
Sorry. Just not going to happen. Besides, I think Mel may have gotten then only other people who read my blog.

More registrations.

Registration for the CK Convention in Manchester opens 1:00 pm EST on Feb 8th. I don't remember registering so early for that one in the past.

PSA of the Day

You may already know this, but I just found out so I thought I would share. Registration for CKU-Boston is May 31st. That's about 20 weeks away. Now I just need to start saving $20 a week so that I can afford registration. I'll also need to save up for an anniversary gift for Chris as that is six days before registration. Chris and I were kidding about chipping in to buy a Dyson vacuum as an anniversary gift. I wonder if he would actually agree to that? Otherwise I don't think I'll ever be getting one.

Scrapping Goals for 2006

I entered these into my planner/notebook that I altered for Donna's class. I also added the question, "By writing these down, do I actually have to commit?"

- Finish 2005 layouts by mid 2006.
- Finish Pre-Wedding 2-up album.
- Finish CKU-MN album before CKU-Boston.
- Sell at least 25 Toolbelts.
- Be no more than 2 months behind on 2006 album.
- Make progress on childhood/Book of Me layouts.
- Better organize supplies.

So I wrote these down last night and looking at them now I'm wondering if perhaps I was being a bit too ambitious. Mel, I may need you to keep me on track with some of these things. I thought about adding a goal of using up lots of my current stash before buying new, but I knew there was no way that I was going to be able to have the self restraint to keep that goal.

Have no fear...

Have no fear, I'm still here. Just seemingly busy? Got back from Georgia very late on Tuesday night. Then Wednesday had a dentist appointment and ran errands with Chris. (And bought two more trees- 7.5' green and 6' pink.) Then Thursday was scrapping with Mel and came home to find out that the computer was on the fritz again. So, no computer at home. I feel lost without it. Back to work today and trying to get back into the swing of things.

Do the right thing...

OK, so I was good and I called wine.com. So yesterday afternoon I had posted a poll on 2Peas about this. The majority was for me calling them, but there actually was a decent numebr who were voting to keep it. However, those voting for me to keep it apparently all decided not to leave any comments.

So quiet today and then tomorrow off to Georgia.

To return or not to return...

So I came home today to find a package at the door. It's from wine.com. It was addressed to a previous tenant. However, I'm guessing this was a couple of tenants ago since I didn't recognize the name. We seem to get a lot of mail from more recent previous tenants. Anyway, the last time a package arrived not for us I called the company to have it returned. I had to be transfered about 5 times before someone finally took down my information so that they could send me a shipping label. And then the package sat around for about 2 weeks before I got the label and was able to return it.

So, the question is, do I want to go through with that again? I decided to open up the box to see what kind of wine it was. I only did this because I knew I could tape it back up again and no one would really be the wise. It's a $20 bottle of Shiraz. So part of me says keep it. If the sender really wanted their friend to have it, they should have checked the address in adcance. However, I also would know that if I were sending a gift and it went to the wrong address, I would prefer that it be returned so that I could make sure that the intended recipient got it.

So help be my counsious. Should I keep it or return it?

Peer Pressure

So vanessa got herself a blog! Woo hoo! In situations like this though, I am always reminded of a song from an middle school musical that our town put on. (I wasn't cool enough to get cast in it, but that's another story.) Anyway, I remember nothing else about this play except there was a song, with a line that went, "Peer, pressure, pressure, peer". I'm sure it works much better if you could actually hear me singing it, but that's not going to happen. Anyway, just had to share.

I won, I won!

Ok, so last week the guys at Chris’ work started what I have dubbed The Great iPod Challenge. Rules are simple. Create a playlist of 10 songs that are really crappy/bad. Whoever comes up with the best (Is it really the best if the songs suck?) list is dubbed the winner for the week. When Chris first learned of this contest he thought over his music and didn’t think he had anything appropriate, but commented to the others that I did. And then that evening he told me about the contest and his comments. I got very excited starting to think about what I could include on a playlist. He thought I would be upset that he called my music crap, but little did he know!

When I was in college, Darlene and I used to send each other various mix tapes. We even came up with a production label- FuT Productions. (FuT standing for Nucking Fut.) The mixes certainly were a mix. Some of the songs that we included had significance to us and our friendship, some were ones we thought the other would like, some were songs we liked, and others were there just to piss the other one off or were just so bad. We got really good at picking out crappy songs! There are probably about a dozen or so of these mix tapes.

So yes, I became very good at creating crappy mixes. When I learned of this contest I even wrote to Darlene for suggestions. She gave me some good ones, but unfortunately I don’t have many of her choices and not so sure I want to get a CD of songs sung by professional wrestlers.

Anyway, here was my first mix.
1. I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas by Gayla Peevey
2. Leavin on a Jet Plane/ Country Road by Judy Collins
3. Step by Step by NKOTB
4. I've Got a Thoery/Bunnies/If We're Together from Buffy Soundtrack
5. Bear Necessities- a capella version of the Disney Classic
6. I'm Ugly and I don't Know Why by Butt Trumpet
7. Who Loves Ya Baby? by Debbie Gibson
8. Somewhere That's Green by Mandy Patinkin
9. Hi At Hotel by Lost and Found
10. Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus (We broke down and bought it since I knew it would be perfect.)

So Chris calls me this morning. By a toss of the CD (how does that work if you have more than 2 people competing) he was chosen to go first. Apparently I set the bar a little too high with my crappalicious selections. One of his co-workers declared that for next week he’ll need to put a bit more thought into it. And now I’m wondering if I will be able to continue this level of badness every week. So if you have some really bad music that you think would be appropriate, please feel free to send it my way for inclusion in future contests.

Vanessa, This One's For You

A follow up to my post from last week about the removal of my tongue ring.

If you are easily disgusted, perhaps you’ll want to stop reading. And blame Vanessa since she thought it would be entertaining blog material.

Ok. So apparently when I was a little I had issues with the fluoride treatments at the dentist. I had no remembrance of this, but a number of years ago the hygienist was reviewing my chart and noticed that there was a note not to give me fluoride as it made me gag. Like I said, I don’t remember having problems, but apparently once upon a time I did. I do know that I had since received fluoride treatments, so I guess it was back when I was really little.

Fast forward to modern day. From time to time when brushing my teeth I will start to gag. This will then make me start dry heaving. Not a pleasant experience at all. No idea why this happens sometimes and not others. Some toothpastes make this happen more than others, but again, it’s not really consistent. Sometimes I’ll even start to gag while chewing gum. I’ll be chewing away doing just fine and then all of a sudden I’ll start to get that gag reflex. I know I must spit out that gum right away.

So this morning I’m at the dentist. One of the things he needs to do is take impressions of my mouth. Next week I’m going in to have a graft done, and they are going to give me stents to protect where they took the cells from as well as over the graft. To do this, they need to make impressions. So, the hygienist loads up the little mouth tray with alginate and puts it in my mouth. I almost immediately stat to gag and dry heave. (Even just typing this makes me want to gag!) There was an extra blob of alginate that I was practically choking on. That comes out of my mouth. I continue to dry heave. And then I throw up a little. Luckily the hygienist was very nice trying to offer suggestions to make it better, apologizing for it taking so long etc.

So finally the mold comes out of my mouth. Apparently it was not a good impression. She takes it to the Doctor for him to say if it is sufficient or not. It wasn’t. He comes back to help. He verifies that the tray is the appropriate size and shows me exactly what he’s going to do and what he wants me to do to make it less painful. He loads it up with alginate. Into my mouth it goes. He has me tip my chin down and put my legs up. Breathe through your nose. I start to gag. I throw up a little. And then somehow it gets a little better. Maybe another small gag or two. He apologizes for the alginate taking so long to set up. Then time for the lower teeth. Again he explains the process. This time I really try to concentrate on my breathing. I only drooled a little. Much better!

And I am so glad that is done! After the first one and then the second one not going well, I was about to tell them to forget about the stents. (They were optional to have anyway.) I know I had to have impressions done when I had my braces and retainers, but I don’t remember them being this bad at all!

And that is the story of my visit to the dentist. I must say though, this was my first time going to this dentist (it’s a specialist) and I was very pleased with him. He did a great job of being sympathetic to my issues and he also did a great job of explaining what I needed to have done. And while they were taking the impressions, the receptionist had figured out how best to bill insurance (I have dual insurance only through the end of the year) and found me an appointment time that would allow me to have the work done next week.

Unexpected packages!

Unexpected packages are a wonderful thing! But I was very confused when I first came home and saw the box waiting for me. I had no idea who the return address person was. So I opened it, somewhat worried that I was opening a Christmas present that I shouldn't be and ruining surprises. And then I saw the tag saying it was from Christine and I got very excited. Yay! Thank you so much. I love it! So of course I had to put it on and have Chris take a picture of me in it for you. Thanks chica!

Apparently, I'm a grinch

So Chris got all pissy at me last night. He had gone out shopping for my Christmas gift while Lind and I were scrapping. (Well, I was working on Christmas cards.) He comes home, tells me to stay where I am and brings my gift into the computer room. Then he comes in to my room (where the wrapping paper is) and asks for some paper. I give him a roll. He comes back a couple of minutes later asking for wider paper. I tell him we don’t have anything wider and to just use an extra piece on the ends of the TV box. He starts to hit me over the head with the wrapping paper tube for guessing what the gift is.

Then later in the evening he tells me that in the future, even if I know what my gift is, I should keep it to myself. Ok, fine. I’ll try. But don’t make it so darn easy for me to guess! He knows I want a TV for my room and we’ve talked about what features I want. And I don’t see any of my other gift requests being so large there would be wrapping issues. He just set himself up for me to figure this one out! The only other thing it might possibly be is the iHome, and I don’t’ think that box is especially large. But he did say that he had thought about getting some fabric to wrap it in. That would have been kind of cute. :)

Glitter, glitter everywhere

Well I think I'm done decorating. All of my trees have something on them. And next weekend is cookie baking, so things need to be done by then anyway.

Snow Day

So I was supposed to have another craft party on Friday. I was going to take a half day of work so that I could have a bit of time to get everything together and head out to Westboro. However, in the late morning I got a call from the hostess. Due to the weather she was going to have to cancel. I figured I would go home early anyway. I had plenty of stuff to do and I had the time available. Well the roads were horrible! I was going about 40 mph on route 2. I oculdn't believe the number of people zipping by me! Then when I got to the apartment complex, they had hardly plowed. I almsot couldn't get up the final hill. Then I go to pull into a parking spot and I couldn't. I ended up having to dig myself out a bit before I could move. Around 3:00 the hostess called me back. After calling people to cancel, everyone had been so dissappointed that she decided to have her party anyway. After my previous driving experience I let her know that I wouldn't be able to make it. And it's a good thing I made this decision as they didn't start plowing the complex until around 5:00. It was interesting as people started to come home from work and there were no parking spots. Anyway, these pictures are from around 4:30 or so. The snow had stopped and I was really liking the lighting, so I made Chris go for a walk with me.