Warning! Warning! Imminent kidlet arrival!

The small invasion force is returning sometime late tonight. Should be interesting, as always. I have a few things I'd like to get done before then, as I know they won't get done once they're here.

* take bottles back
* get donated items to Salvation Army
* clean both bathrooms
* finish the scarf for Bryon's mom
* clean the basement
* finish Pattern Recognition

I know I'm not going to finish the book. I have less than a hundred pages to go, but obviously there's a lot of other stuff to be done.

I had a nice Easter - we went to church with Bryon's parents, then met my family (G&G, AL, UK, G & J, my parents, my brother and his girlfriend) at 1:00 at Old Country Buffet for dinner. It was good. It was also nice to be able to go get my food, etc without small children in tow [The last two outings to that particular establishment involved the 7 kidlets.]. Then we returned to Bryon's house, where his parents, grandparents, cousin, and Milt (family friend) were gathering to eat around 4:00. Bryon and I sat at the table with them and had a little bit of food and enjoyed the conversation. I know more about great grey owls and cows now than I ever have. :D After dinner, Bryon and I took his cousin Laura's dog, Millie, for a walk/romp around the neighborhood. Millie is a beautiful dog - half yellow Lab and half greyhound. She has a greyhound's elegant lines, Lab ears and a somewhat rambunctious but very friendly personality. She loves to jump on people but she never barks or snaps at them. By the end of the walk I was at least as wiped out as the dog, who then slept for the entire 3-hour ride home.

Oh, in the morning we had to hunt for the Easter baskets which Bryon's mom had put together. I got strawberries & cream shampoo, cute pink socks with flowers on them, toothpaste, candy, and one of those neat washcloths that comes vacuum-formed into a little shape. Those are so entertaining. Tomorrow we are going to hide eggs in a massive Easter egg hunt for the kidlets. THAT should be interesting.

Work is going well. I am wearing my spiffy new pants which I bought on a shopping excursion with Kim on Saturday. I basically raided Charlotte Russe for some fun new stuff... including a pair of beaded slipper-shoes that I just adore. What kills me is, EVERYTHING in that store looks like it came out of the Japanese fashion magazines I have from about a year ago. We are a bit behind, as always.

Off to wrap things up at work and head home!

Moving countdown: 7 days

Happy Spring!

Time for a new avatar (once again created over at Abi-Station)... I think this one looks less like me, but it is somewhat reminiscent of LAST spring, during which my co-workers convinced me to dress up in a bunny suit. It was for an ad in the paper. Luckily I was wearing face paint and the ad was in black and white, so no one could tell it was me unless they already knew. Bryon's parents, of course, had a grand old time with it, cut out the ad and mailed it to Bryon in Iraq. In case you're wondering... this is as close as you're going to get.



Hoppy spring.

Flaming toast and other catastrophes

So... I killed the toaster at work today.

I put in Pop Tarts as I've done most days for the past few months... and in return I got two chunks of charcoal, some of which was still in the red-coal state, and a toaster whose whole top (around the slots) was melted. Nice. At least it didn't set off any alarms. I still don't know if it got stuck in the 'down' position or whether it was an electrical problem. I guess it doesn't matter.

Things are going ok. I am very busy at work. I finished an ad today, one of my favorites that I've made so far. I am feeling like I fit in quite well there and can be of some use to them (which of course is important, being that that's usually why places keep you on). I am enjoying it - except the computer problems. I've taken to leaving my computer on each night because it refuses to shut down properly. During the day it freezes multiple times. I've checked spyware and viruses and that sort of thing, so from the alarming rate of program freeze-ups and crashes I have deduced that the problem runs deeper. It HAS been around a while. I'm working off of Windows 98, with PageMaker 6.5 and Photoshop 5.5... etc... and I'm really hankering for an upgrade. I've been given the go-ahead. I just have to figure out where I can purchase the most cost-effective machine and all that jazz.

I guess it's time to redo my avatar over there... seeing as my current one has an autumn theme and it's now spring. My hair looks completely different too.

I finished my third pair of mittens - green mohair-lookalike this time - and also finished reading Angels and Demons, my first foray into the writings of Dan Brown. I have to say, I wasn't terribly impressed and some parts of the book were almost physically painful to read. The concepts were interesting, although I have no clue as to their accuracy. I went to look up photos of all the sculptures and architecture mentioned - and look how helpful Mr. Brown was in this quest. While poking around I also stumbled across the Da Vinci Code Web Quest, which, while supremely silly, is also kind of fun. Makes me feel all... sleuth-like or something. *shrug*

I had intended to delve into The Da Vinci Code next, but my good friend Jesse talked me into reading Pattern Recognition (by William Gibson) along with his freshman English class (he's teaching, not attending). This book made my brain hurt at first, with its odd sentence structure, sophisticated vocabulary and obscure references. Still, once you get used to it it's quite an interesting read. More on that later, I'm sure.

Bryon and I are also jointly reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in preparation for the upcoming movie. It reads very quickly, even aloud. I would like to get the whole series read (I think this is my second time) before the movie comes out. I'm also hoping to re-read Harry Potter 1-5 prior to the release of Book 6.

Ack! Off to watch "The Office."

THE COOLEST THING EVER. Maybe.

Ok, seriously though, I want to do this.

Television Pixelator.
From craftster.org.

In other news... I found an apartment. A ridiculously nice apartment. The roads weren't too bad by the time I called the realty lady, so she was all for keeping the appointment. We saw 4 different places, but this one was just... amazing. It has a living room with a vaulted ceiling and beautiful wood floors; a kitchen area with a nice big island with an overhang so I can buy two bar stools instead of buying a whole table and chairs... AND I CAN HAVE A CAT. Who shall be named Bishop, I have decided. The apartment is over a store which has very limited hours, in a very nice area and less than 10 minutes from work. I can move in April 4th.

So anyway, that's settled in what appears to be a pleasing and enjoyable way. :)

Tonight I'm hanging out at my house (shock!!); my parents and I drove by the apartment, went to my grandparents to see how my grandpa was doing after his day surgery (VERY perky, we were glad to see), and went to Ponderosa to eat. Every couple of years we go there because we forget why we hate going there. After tonight, I banished it from the restaurant rotation; Ponderosa no longer exists for us. It just suuuuuuuuuuuucks.

Off to play Bejeweled.

Ok, so here's some good news, or at least lighter stuff.

Well, my job is going well. I'm getting to do a lot of ads and things. We had our Winter Fest event on February 12th and it seemed to go ok. That's a big load off our minds (especially Lisa's and mine) and now we are starting to prepare for our May events, and also for things that will go on this summer. It's going to be an extremely busy season.

I am hunting for an apartment. I've come close to taking a few different places but they all seem to have something or other that holds me back. Plus, it was the end of the month when I started looking, so there wasn't much left; now it's the beginning of the month, so new things are opening up. I decided I'd wait a bit rather than moving myself into a 'temporary' location. I am supposed to have an appointment at noon today, but seeing as I'm home from work due to the weather, I can't imagine the realty lady will want to drag us through the snow to look at apartments.

D is home from Atlanta now. I am excited about this although I haven't seen much of her yet (mostly due to weather). I think Christine comes home for break soon.

We've been playing a new game which my brother's girlfriend, Sara, bought. He left it home and told me I could borrow it, and my friends and I are getting a kick out of it. It's called Scene It? and there's a DVD that goes with it so you can play movie clips, etc. There are also trivia cards. For some reason I seem to be rather good at this game, and am usually finished by the time everyone else is halfway around the board. I guess my brother is the same way. My mom has informed me that I must challenge him and beat the pants off him - it's a matter of family honor.

Well, I'm off to enjoy my snow day - so far I've spent it playing Final Fantasy IV. I thought I was close to the end but I guess I have a ways to go yet. Right now I'm running around doing some of the side quests - getting the more powerful summons, etc. So we'll see how that goes.

Good news and bad news.

Bad news first.

On February 5, 2005, my friend Sara's little sister Emily was killed in a terrible car crash. She was 15. It was late at night, around 11:30 or so, and kind of rainy out. The driver was 18 years of age. The weather conditions and just plain cosmically bad luck killed both of them. The driver lost control, hit a guardrail, spun into the other lane and they were nailed by an oncoming vehicle almost twice their size - driven by a young woman who didn't even have a valid license at the time. The whole thing was just a chain of negative factors coinciding.

Emily was a beautiful, smart and talented girl. She was also a giant brat - something I feel comfortable saying because I've known her for years. However, among her friends she was kind and loving, always willing to forgive and to help with others' problems. My most vivid memories of her are from when she was about 8, hanging out with us because we were just the coolest thing since sliced bread. By the time she hit 14 or so, we became "losers" because we're all hitting 24 and 25 without being married or having children. (I did inform her about 2 weeks before she died that we were not, in fact losers - that our situation was better than that of people who got married at 19 and are already divorced with 2 kids.) I remember watching her in the bridal fashion show in which she modeled less than a month before she died. I also remember watching her painstakingly create a mosaic of a ballet shoe for art class. She was very talented.

Sara called Bryon's house about 15 minutes after they found out. We met them at their house after they got back from the hospital (they had to ID her - apparently she didn't have any ID on her), and thus began a whirlwind of visits, food, crying, laughing, more crying... it was the first time I've been right there with a family going through a crisis like this. I am amazed at the strength Sara displayed through it all - she was the one who had to greet many of the visitors, and make important phone calls, talk to the newspaper, write the obituary, etc. She even managed to speak at the funeral without breaking down. Her parents are each handling it in their own way - Linda tells everyone she meets about Emily and what she was like, and amazingly Sara's dad is talking more than usual.

Our group of friends has come together once again, as we did when D's brother Tommy was killed almost two years ago. I really do have wonderful friends. Bryon's been great with me through it all too, letting me cry when I needed to cry, and talking it out with me - he even visited the county to find out information for Linda regarding the car.

Ok, it sounds silly since this really hasn't been that long, but I can't talk about it any more right now. I might post more about it later. I'm also going to add another post about the lighter stuff that's been happening, but this definitely deserved its own entry.

Emily Taylor Rodbourne
May 1989 - February 2005
We'll miss you, Em.