Little Bit of This, Little Bit of That

Hubby put a new OS on my phone, so I thought maybe I'd try posting photos a little more often to keep it a little more organized.

( The last week, in pictures. )

In other news, it's the weekend! Very happy about this. Tomorrow, it will be exactly 4 weeks till we leave for the lake. Looking SO forward to it; I can already feel myself winding down. Better warn my boss. *hee*

Seriously, this winter has just been hanging on and hanging on. It's been Spring for a month and we've had snow several times since then.

Which, yes, I know is fairly common around here, but still. I love Winter, I love snow, I love the cold - but even I have my limits. I am ready to stop putting on socks every day, and to stop wearing a bulky coat.

( This was Wednesday morning where I live. )

Just. Yikes. NEED SPRING, PLEASE.

I haven't posted in a while - last time, I left y'all with woe about our car. Things are better now, I'm just finally taking a moment to post.

( Car and California. )

( Foooood. )

( What is the world coming to? )

( Haircut! )

OK, I think that's it for now; I will have to come back with pictures next time from California, and of my hair. I hope y'all are having a nicer warm-up for Spring than we are (I know, Wisconsin, believe me - I know), and hopefully I will be back here more often to post. XD.

Yowser, it's been a busy few weeks. It never seems like it, though, till I get down to the wire (aka Three Days Till We Leave For The Lake). This is when it seems like there are a million and eighteen things to do.

So, like any self-respecting journaler, I am putting it off for a little longer in order to recap here. Duh.


( Boychild Went to Camp )

( I Finally Pamper Myself )

( We Make Cookies )

( I Kick Vacation Planning Into High Gear )

( I Find My Muse )

( Speaking of Reading... )

( We Drive A LOT )

I'm straining under the weight of so many things to get done before we leave on Saturday, but I know that once we leave, it's going to be a great week.

We got new license plates! We've been ogling these ones for a while, and since it was time to renew the tabs, we went ahead and did it yesterday. We LOVE them:



Well, hubby and I do. Kiddo thinks the original ones were better...but he's eleven, what does he know? *snerk* He can't wait till we hang up one of the old ones in his room. ;)

( Egg-Dyeing Pics! )

The entire apartment smells like, well, eggy gas, of course, but that's to be expected when you boil five dozen eggs, yes? ;)

Ham and au gratin potatoes and green beans with bacon tomorrow for Easter dinner, and yummy Hawaiian rolls. Banana cream pie and pumpkin pie on deck for dessert, though I doubt I'll manage it! ;)

1. First things first - I'm kind of surprised no one had anything to say about my last post. If you simply missed it but are reading this one, I would really appreciate thoughts on the previous one.

2. It was such a fabulous weekend. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and we were kid-free till Sunday afternoon. Hubby and I had ourselves a day-long date on Saturday and it was perfect. We had an early lunch, did some shopping, just drove around for a few hours, did a little more shopping, took in a movie, had a late dinner and went home. MAN, did I love Saturday.

3. The movie we saw was Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and it was very good. I love the books, and while obviously stuff had to be cut out for a movie, and of course they messed crap up, it was still very good, and made hubby want to read the book. Excellent. I also loved being able to prod him along through the movie, to be able to see a scene spread out and be able to say, "OK, what do you see a lot of? Who do you think they'll meet here? What do you think is happening here?" It was really fun to watch things click for him with just a word here, a prod there.

4. ( Cut for pictures! )

5. Speaking of this Saturday, Valerie and Bailey are visiting with baby Phoenix. They'll arrive Friday, and we'll probably see them Saturday or Sunday. I'll have to try to take pictures - for having a stupid name, the kid is way cute, and happy, too.

6. Big Bang Theory tonight - yay! XD.

1. Got my hour back.

2. My Vikes are currently winning, but we just lost the ball; 24 to 13, the Pack just got a first down, and there's 5:40 left in the third. Argh. Fuck. They just got a touchdown. My team's game is falling apart.

3. ( I have Halloween pics. )

4. Game update: Vikes are leading 31 to 20, just got a touchdown and there's 13:30 left in the fourth quarter. That's better than it was. Go, Vikes!!

5. Candy on sale is awesome.

6. Cleaned the balcony today; swept up the leaves, emptied the dead flower pots, tossed the dead box the herbs were in. It looks better.

7. Making dinner now. Chicken patties and leftover mac-n-cheese. And some cheese sticks we'll heat up in the oven.

8. Bunny made pea soup yesterday and sent us home with an entire pot of it. When we put the pot on the stove today to heat up, it smelled icky and got foamy and we ended up dumping it. People who are better cooks than me: should we maybe have removed it from the pot and put it in different containers when we got home last night instead of putting the pot in the fridge as-is?

9. I realized none of you really know what Bunny and John look like. They are Mikey's grandparents, the mother and stepfather of Mikey's biological father, and some of our very best friends. We are very lucky to have them; this is a pic of them from last weekend:


10. Pack just got a TD, score is 31 to 26, 10 minutes remaining. *growls*

1. OK, so I haven't collected all the vacation pics yet. BUT - I did find the one of Mikey with the fish he caught. Check him out:



2. Since that's the only one, I'll picspam you with today's fabulosity. I'm so good to you guys. *snorts*

3. Nachos for dinner! They were SO good!
YUMMO!


The "Nachos Idea Guy," grinning with his mouth full:


4. We were in Target and I found a Harry Potter Clue game!!

Yes, of course I bought it!


It's a bit more involved than the good, old-fashioned Clue game, but it's still the same basic move-accuse-deduce setup.


You can be Resident Bad-Ass, Neville Longbottom! Win!


Or Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny or Luna. We ended up playing two rounds:


5. You guys, I got my own fishee!!

Look at him and tell me he's not gorgeous:


He's mostly this deep, rich, cobalt blue:


Had to turn the flash off to get that glory-of-the-sun-in-blue color to show nicely:


But the flash brings out that stunning aqua-green beneath!


6. And Fishee totally needs a name. I can't keep calling him "Fishee." Any suggestions?I'm thinking along the lines of something Thai or Cambodian; betta fish are native to the rice paddies of these places. I've got several ideas, most of them Thai. Chanarong, which means experienced warrior. Kasem, well being; happiness. Klahan, courageous. Niran, everlasting; eternal. Sunan, which has no meaning. Virote, great; power. Atid, sun. Of those, Chanarong would be closest in description - they're Siamese fighting fish, after all. But I don't really like that name. I couldn't find a Thai name that means "glorious," because MAN, look at that coloring! I want to sink into the brilliance of it.

I found a Vietnamese name, Thanh, meaning bright, clear blue; elegant - do they have rice paddies in Vietnam, do you suppose? It's the same region as Thailand and Cambodia, after all...

And a Cambodian name, Samnang, which means good fortune, which of course has nothing whatsoever to do with fish or fighting or gloriously brilliant, sink-into-me blue.

According to an online translator I found, "glorious" in Thai is: รุ่งโรจน์ , which of course doesn't tell me anything about how you say it. *rolls eyes*

I think I'm leaning mostly toward the Vietnamese name, Thanh, pronounced TAN-yih, because the meaning is closest to what I think of when I look at him. But I also like the Cambodian Samnang, because I could call him Sam for short and I love that.

Decisions, decisions... Thoughts, anyone? Please?

7. We saw bunnies there. I want a bunny so horrifyingly badly, but I can't have them; I'm allergic to them in rotten, unlivable ways. I'm allergic to nearly all the pets we could easily afford and handle, which sucks for Mike because it means he can't have any of them. *shakes fist at the allergy deity*

So suffice it to say I babble at Fishee like it's a bunny or kitty or puppy I can pet and snuggle and love. Yeah, I'm a geek, I know it. *hehe*

8. I keep making these long posts - is that irritating to anybody? Would it be better if I used cuts more often? I wonder, sometimes, if people don't like to see really long entries cluttering up their "friends" pages. Thoughts?

9. I brushed my hair this morning. It hurt. Note to self: next time you bring a brush along on vacation, USE IT.

10. A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. GEORGE MOORE.

11. Hmm, it's apparently ten after three, which means it's not even Sunday anymore, it's Monday. I think I'll head to bed; have a good week, all!!

EDIT: 12. I forgot to tell you! That two-hour power outage last night? Completely fried our already-gasping router. *rolls eyes* But we picked up a new one today for less than half what we planned to spend on it, so that rocks. Yay for unexpected sales and finding the last one in stock!

1. WE LEAVE IN TEN HOURS!

2. I posted $2.8 MILLION in payments today. Been holding them for WEEKS when she told me to work on those bloody corporate accounts...she'd completely forgotten I had the other payments, so was thrilled when I told her month-end would look great once I posted all the outstanding electronic files I'd accumulated.

Some days, I wonder why I still work there.

3. We went to Como Zoo last Sunday. I had way more pictures than this, but my camera's been a bit wonky lately and zoom won't work, so these are just a few of the better pictures.

( Mini Zoo PicSpam )

4. *points at top of journal* Did you see the banner I made, huh? Huh? Didja? *is proud*

5. In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe. MICHAEL JACKSON.

6. Time to get some sleep. Everybody have a great week!

Been a while since I updated...

1. We are mostly done moving. There are just a few things left to get from the house, and we are good to go. Thank GOD.

2. Work is...work. The LEAN team is up again this week, doing more cleaning that they really have no business doing. Seriously, shouldn't people who don't KNOW anything about my job ASK me before they decide to move everything around? *rolls eyes* They're also making everyone clean their desk tomorrow and everything has to be labeled in folders in time for "inspection." Christ on a pogo stick, when did I enter the military? Seriously, these people have NO idea. [/bitching.]

3. On a happy work note, I got to move to the big corner desk today. More room for all my work, and no one can sneak up on me anymore. I LOVE it.

4. Mikey's last day of school is this Thursday. He is so happy. Amanda's dying his hair green tonight, then tomorrow night his grandfather is cutting it so that Amanda can give him either a mohawk or liberty spikes for Thursday. *hehe*

5. Mike also had five teeth pulled at the dentist on May 26th. The roots on these babies are UNBELIEVABLE. No wonder he'd only lost three in all ten of his years - they're STRONG suckers! Anyway, netted himself a cool $5.00 from the Tooth Fairy. ;)

6. Had pizza last Friday evening with Beth, Dana and the girls. Was a nice night; good food, better company.

7. Speaking of Beth, she gave me an invite code for Dreamwidth not too long ago. I like it, and will eventually get myself a paid account. Paid accounts get 75 userpics, which is cool. Here's a "free vs. paid" acct chart thingy: Comparison. And I have two of my own invite codes to give out - let me know if you'd like one. First come, first serve.

8. I'm enjoying beta reading for now. I just recently finished beta reading four different pieces for people, and have more set up, although all three of those are for the same person, and spread out nicely in terms of due dates. One of which I need to get to, like, yesterday. Sorry, zagury...I'll get it to you tomorrow night, cross my heart. :)

9. Bought - and finished - The Sorceress a week and a half ago. Loved it; can't believe I have to wait for the next. Again. Updated my reading list.

10. ( I haz pictures. )

I think that's all I've got, for now. XD

So.

I've been promising the lot of you pictures for what could reasonably be termed "forever." Last night I finally took my laptop, plugged in my camera and wiped all the pictures from it onto the computer, then sat and selected several of them before resizing and uploading them.

Now I'll spend a good portion of the afternoon putting it together in a post for you, complete with comments, and praying it lets me put in 114 pictures because I couldn't narrow it down any more than that. Although to be honest, now I'm thinking I could probably weed out a few more...

Anyway, please enjoy them - I worked hard on picking them out from the thousands I had, and equally as hard on resizing them and uploading them.

( There are so many of them - a cut is the only way to go, here...you will thank me for this later. Oh, and I'm sorry in advance for the crazy-long load time... )

OK, that exhausts my photo supply. I left a couple unnecessary ones out, but other than that, they're all here. And that catches me up to the here and now, kids. Hope you enjoyed them! Let me know which ones you like best! I'm biased, so I like them all. *hehe*

BETH. We have a few videos from my camera of Elaina singing Jason Mraz. They are wildly cute, but we won't post them up on YouTube without your permission, so let us know if you're OK with that. Also, feel free to swipe any of those pics I posted and use them on your own journal - you have far more friends than I, I'm sure they'd like to see them, too. XD.