Another one bites the dust. Tom wants kids, has always wanted kids, and wants to be with someone who feels the same way. Unfortunately, I'm still undecided about kids, and now that I'm 37, I'm not sure I want to. I know, I know. Lot's of women are having kids into their 40's these days. But I don't want to be 60 when my kid would be graduating high school. So that's the end of Tom.

I'm resolved to the fact that my experiment was just that, an experiment. And I learned some valuable things from it. One, that I'm too honest sometimes. Two, I'm unsure of what I'm looking for in a man. Three, I'm probably just better off on my own, I better get used to it, and learn to enjoy the rest of my life. No sense being a miserable bitch for however much longer I'm on this earth.

On a more sour note, tomorrow is Mother's Day, actually it's today, since it's now after midnight. I really really don't like Mother's Day. If it weren't for my adopted family, I'd stay in bed on Mother's Day. Everywhere I went today, I saw signs and advertisements for Mother's Day. You'd think someone out there would have compassion for those who aren't a mother, and/or no longer have a mother. All I do on Mother's Day is miss my own mom. No matter how good my adopted mom has been, she's still not my mom. I missed out on so much with my mom, and this day just brings me down.

Tonight was the graduation party for my cousin's girlfriend. She had a LOT of family come from out of town for this. They were all really enjoying themselves. Unfortunately, I just wasn't in much of a celebratory mood tonight. If gas prices weren't so high, I'd take some vacation days and just drive. I don't know where I'd drive, but I'd get away and spend some time thinking about my life, and where I'm going with it.

Anyway, I guess I should go to bed now. I want to be up in time for Alice's and Kerry's streams. And damn, I don't think I'll hear much of Kerry's stream. I have to be in Sycamore at 11:30, and I have to buy flowers and get cash and get gas before heading out there. So that means I have to leave about 10, which means I have to take my shower at about 9, which is when Kerry starts her stream. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Alice was complaining that no one was posting this week. Well, here's a post for you to read Alice. Not sure how interesting it is. I'm listening to Cubby stream right now. I've had about four glasses of wine, I'm feeling pretty good, I guess.

This week has been long, been staying up too late, getting up too early, working too hard. Well, maybe not too hard, but working nonetheless. A little stressful, but nothing I can't get through.

Tomorrow, Saturday, I am meeting Tom for lunch. He's the man I was matched with who was about to take his final exams and graduate with his nursing degree. He said he'd call me after he was done, and he did. I had no doubt he would. So we're meeting for lunch at a restaurant chain called Chili's, that's sort of between our two towns, a lot closer to me than him, but not much we can do about that now. I'll let you know how it goes.

Tomorrow night (Saturday night) I have a graduation party to go to, my cousin's girlfriend is graduation college finally, so she invited us to her party. Will be out most the night. Haven't decided if I'm going to get her something, or just give her money.

I got home about an hour ago, after being out most of the day with Deb. It's been so nice visiting with her. Since it's been almost a week since I posted, I'll update everyone on what I've been doing and what I got done, lol.

Every night this last week, I was cleaning, sorting, straightening, all the stuff that I normally would have taken my time with and done over several weekends. I got the "disaster" of a second bedroom all cleaned up. It looks much better now, lol. I'm going to try real hard to keep it looking nice.

I got the living room all vacuumed, got any cobwebs removed, I even pulled out the couch and loveseat and vacuumed underneath and behind those. It hadn't been done since I moved in 7-1/2 years ago. So needless to say it was quite dusty and dirty back there. Feels good to get all this done.

I got my bedroom done, just barely. That was finished this morning before picking Deb up to take to my aunt's for brunch. I never really got to the kitchen, unfortunately. But it's not like Deb was staying overnight here, or that I'd actually have to cook for her, lmao. I wish I'd had one more day to get the last few things done, but oh well.

Friday evening my aunt came and picked me up, and we met Deb at the first church the bell choir was performing at, right here in my town, just 5 minutes away from my apartment. It's a small Presbyterian church, but it wasn't even half full for the performance. I was expecting the pews to be packed, so was disappointed that they weren't. The concert itself was fantastic! It's so fascinating watching a bell choir perform, I don't think I'll ever understand exactly HOW everyone knows when to ring their bells, lol.

This morning, I quickly did some last minute vacuuming and bagging of stuff in my room that needed to be removed, then picked Deb up for the day. Her husband had already gone out with others from the choir, I believe they spent part of the day at the mall. The two of us headed out to my aunt's, we went to brunch at a place called Egg Haven. They make 5 egg omelets, that are so huge, you can't eat it all. I had a full stack of chocolate chip pancakes, Deb had a short stack of pecan pancakes, and my aunt had a steak ceasar salad. We were all stuffed! Then we went to Wal Mart, lol.

Deb has never been to a Super Wal Mart, and she doesn't know anyone in Michigan that will go with her to Wal Mart, so we went there and did a little shopping. I didn't see any cd's on sale (Kerry), but I got my USB Cable that I need for my scanner! After that, we went back to my aunt's condo, sat and chatted a while before she needed to get ready for a show she was going to see tonight, Colin Mochrie. Deb and I returned back to my place, I showed her pictures that I had hanging on my walls of friends and family members, then we left to go to tonight's performace of the bell choir at a church in Aurora, about 20 minutes from my apartment.

The concert was again excellent. They changed a few things from last night to be different, they had a different crowd tonight, more older folks tonight than last night. But still not a very big crowd. This performance was at a Methodist church, beautiful sanctuary, lots of stained glass windows. I was still surprised at how few people were there. Once the performance was over with, I purchased a Christmas cd for $15. Deb and I went outside to move her bags from my car to her husband's car, and she realized she left one bag at my apartment. So we hopped in the car to race back here to get it, figuring we'd have enough time, since they needed to pack all the bells, tear down the tables, and load everything up. She left a message for Rick, telling him what we were doing. We were almost back to the church when he called her asking where she was. When we pulled into the parking lot, they were waiting in the car for her. Oh well, we tried. I hope they weren't too upset with her. Tonight the group was driving up to Waukegan, north of Chicago, staying in a hotel there, and performing at a church service tomorrow morning. After that, they were heading straight back to Michigan.

Such a nice weekend! And tomorrow (Sunday) I get to stay home and relax!

Not much too exciting going on around here. Today was day one of backdating at work. Didn't have much to do. I sorta wasted part of the afternoon following the nascar race that got rained out yesterday. Wish I'd known about it last night, I would have gladly taped the race instead of DooL, lol. My favorite driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was doing really well, but then blew his engine just after half way, glad I didn't have him on my fantasy team this week. Not really sure why I didn't trade for him, I think I was just too out of it Saturday night at midnight when I was going through my drivers, lol.

Tonight I came home, and did some cleaning, straightening, tossing, organizing, etc. My second bedroom is, well to put it nicely, a disaster area, lol. It's much better now though. I hung two shot glass cases, and filled both. Tomorrow I will run to the hardware store to get 4 more screws and anchors so I can hang the other two cases I have. Now what I need is a case for all the tall shotglasses I have. Five of the six cases I have only have spaces for small shot glasses. Will have to keep an eye on that. Once I have these two cases hung, I can eventually start to catalog all my shot glasses. I had a list at one point, but it got so outdated so quickly, lol.

I have a stereo from the 70's I would guess. It has an 8 track tape deck, a turntable, a cassette deck, and a radio, and two detached speakers. It was manufactured by Montgomery Ward. It was my roommates, and when she passed away her mom let me keep it. Well, eventually I got a table top 5 cd stereo with a turntable, and two cassette decks, so I put the old MW stereo, where else? The second bedroom. I called my aunt (actually my friend's aunt) to see if she thought my friend's mom would mind or ever notice if I just tossed this old MW stereo. She didn't think so, but she remembered she has a friend who collects old stereos. So she is going to call him and next time I go out to her house, I will take it with so he can pick it up there.

I also have a storage bin filled with collectible teddy bears that my roommate's mom wanted her nephew to have. Most of the collection is already at her house being stored in the basement. But somehow this one bin stayed with me and I just never took it there. So Saturday when I head out to my aunt's I'll take not only the stereo but the bin too, get both out of here.

I got four loads of laundry done tonight, and started on one bathroom. About the only thing I didn't do tonight was eat. Have to go fix something small to get me through the night, lol. Oh yeah, almost forgot, there was one other thing I am getting for my birthday. My aunt got me a year's subscription to a Civil War magazine, I'll get one every other month! I thought that was a really neat idea for her to do that!

Short post tonight, since I need to get to bed soon. I celebrated my birthday with family today, or should I say part of my family. I went out to lunch with my adopted mom and adopted aunt, then we went to see The Sentinel. My cousin and his girlfriend were supposed to join us, but they never showed, and neither one of them answered their phones when we called to see where they were. I was very disappointed that they flaked on us, but what do you expect from 23 yr olds.

I got a bunch of shot glasses. In case you didn't know it, I collect them. I have several cases on my walls here, to display some of them. One of these days I need to update my list of what I have and don't have. I also got a lounging outfit for home, and a couple of holiday tops to wear for Christmas. My big present from my aunt was my printer/scanner/copier that she and I have been talking about for months. We've been waiting to see them go on sale, and she kept putting me off when I'd tell her where I saw one cheap. Turns out she bought this one a while ago, and didn't tell me, lol. I'm going to try to get it set up this week, but not sure itf I'll have time.

Deb is coming to town this weekend. Woooooooooo Hoooooooooooooo I'll be busy in the evenings after work making sure this place is spotless for her, cause I know how much of a neat freak she is, and let's just say I'm not so much of a neat freak, lol.

Oh what a night! Late April back in 2006! LOL, my own version of the KC & the Sunshine hit!

I never even got a chance to get on the computer tonight until after Kerry was in bed! Oh my goodness, I was busy! It started out at maybe 5:15-5:30, when the phone rang. It was our long lost friend Deb. Her husband (I love saying that) Rick and his bell ringers are coming to Chicago for three performances next weekend, Deb is coming with, and would like to get together while she is here! We talked for awhile. She hasn't posted in forever for a couple reasons.

First, her back hurts when she sits down at the computer, so she hasn't really been on the computer much at all lately. Second, she hasn't posted in her blog for the first reason, but also because she FORGOT HER PASSWORD! And then she didn't have the energy to send Kerry or I an email to get her password. I will be emailing it to her tonight before I go to bed, lol. Other than all that, she's doing ok.

After I was off the phone with her, I called Darlene real quick to let her know Deb was alive and still coming to Chicago. While on the phone with her, my other line rings. I switch over, and it's the most recent match I received this week from The Right One! I switch back to Darlene, tell her I gotta go, then switch back to Tom.

Tom lives about 90 minutes away in a small town called Marseilles. He doesn't like the big city area at all. He's a truck driver, but didn't want to do it all his life, so he's back in school to be a nurse. He graduates next weekend, and already has a job waiting for him. He seems really nice, so we agreed once his exams are over with and he's finished with school, we'll figure out a time and place to meet to get better acquainted.

So while talking to him, I was taping TAR, cause I couldn't miss that. There's no repeats of it to watch later, lol. Since I was taping TAR, I missed Bones. I'll keep an eye out for possible repeats during the summer so I can catch this episode, it looked REALLY good!! By the time I got off the phone with Tom, it was almost 8pm CDT, time for Idol results show. I called Darlene back real quick to make sure she was going to watch. Andrea Boccelli was performing, so I told her she only needed to watch the first 15 minutes or so, then could watch whatever else she wanted. Andrea was great! And Kellie Pickler is FINALLY GONE! Wooooooooo hooooooooo

After Idol is Unan1mous, the show ended tonight waiting for the results of another vote to see if they can unanimously pick one of the remaining three to get the remaining $490,000 or so. What a waste...1.5 million dollars has dwindled to less than 1/3. One guy had the audacity to boast in secret to one of the others about how he just purchased a mercedes! And he claims he "needs" this money?? Once that information became public knowledge, there was no way anyone was going to vote for him to get the money!

Supposed to be another beautiful day tomorrow (it better be! I ordered one, lol) before cooling back down and getting rain for the weekend. Well, time to check the weather, take the clothes out of the washer, hang them up to dry, and start getting ready for bed. With traffic being so bad in the mornings lately, I'm having to leave by 6:45 to get to work by 8am.

Now that Blogger is back up from the upgrade or whatever it was tonight, I can post.

An update on my attempt at a lovelife: The third match I was given never called me. So after two weeks, I sent in my follow up thingy, telling them I'm not comfortable being the first person to make contact all the time. He never called me, so obviously he's not interested in finding a match. Well, a week ago, while I was still waiting for that guy to call, I got another match in the mail. After a week, he hasn't called me either. Well, guess what I got in the mail today? Another match, my fifth. I'm hoping he calls, but I'm not holding my breath. That would be a waste of some good oxygen and carbon dioxide, LOL

I have not made any decision about streaming again. I am excited for Kerry, because I know she was missing it something terrible. I just have reservations, because we're coming on the warmer weather, and the same thing happens every year when it gets warm. The chat rooms empty out, because everyone is spending time outdoors, going on vacations, etc. So why would I want to go back to streaming right before summer? I just don't know what to do. I enjoy sharing my music, I really do! I'm just really torn.

The year was 1924. Easter Sunday, April 20th in Wheatland, Wyoming. A nurse and a master sergeant, both veterans of World War I, welcomed a baby boy named Orion Ernest into the world. He was blessed to have a beautiful little sister, a second chance at love, one son, five daughters, and seven grandchildren (more came later that he never saw). He worked at his fathers car dealership, installed television antennas, repaired televisions, flew airplanes in World War II, and was the most handsome man I've ever known.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

I've been meaning to do a post to let Kerry know about the show Unan1mous. It airs on Wednesday nights, after the Idol results show on Fox. So here it is in a nutshell...

Nine people agree to go down into a bunker (underground), with no contact with the outside world, and have to come to a unanimous decsion for one and only one person of the 9 to win 1.5 million dollars. That's the basic plot. However, as any reality show viewer knows, there's always more to it.

It's weird, these people are being controlled. They are told when to eat, when to sleep, when to vote, etc. Everyone comes from different backgrounds. One is a minister, one is a poker player, another is a truck driver, another is a real estate salesman, etc. They don't have much time to get to know each other before they have to make their first vote. It's all done anonymously. There are these metallic looking balls that open up, and inside is this scrolling wheel with everyone's names on it. Each person has to choose which person he or she thinks should get the money. And you can't vote for yourself.

The first vote was not unanimous. Everyone is told to leave the room where the voting takes place. They go and explain why they think they deserve the money. Everyone starts agreeing that the truck driver is the most deserving of the money. When it's time to vote again, they are all supposed to vote for him. BUT, one person lies, says he will, then changes his vote at the last second. No one wins the money.

The game isn't over though. At this point, three folders are raised up out of the table, each folder has a secret that belongs to one of the players. They don't know who it belongs to. They have to read all three secrets, decide which one is the worst, and that person become an outcast. They are no longer in the running for the money, but they still vote for the others. Boy does the shit start to hit the fan! By this time, the minister says she's had enough of it, she wants out, and if she leaves they are told the money will be cut in half! She leaves anyway. It's now down to750,000 dollars. With her departure, the first outcast is brought back to the group. But they are still not able to unanimously decide who should get the money.

So now the money starts decreasing by one dollar every second...tick, tick, tick...money going down the drain. With people being outcasted, everyone starts turning on each other. They are making alliances, fake alliances, lying, all in the name of somehow trying to make the strong players outcasts and hoping to convince the rest to vote for them. All of this makes another of the players physically ill. She gets a horrendous migraine, is sick to the stomach, she cannot take the conditions down there. She leaves due to her health (which causes no additional decrease of the money), so there is one less person in the mix.

All I can say is this show is very weird! It's unlike anything I have watched before. I don't know if I would watch it if they do another one. But it is interesting to see what lengths people will go to, for 1.5 million dollars. The real estate salesman told everyone he has testicular cancer so they'd feel sorry for him and give him the money. He even went so far as to do a little limping so they'd think he was in pain! Everyone is lying to everyone else, there are no loyalties, the show is down to seven people, three are outcasts, and it's up to the outcasts to pick one of the four others to be another outcast. It's almost like a last man standing game, lol.

Anyway, that's Unan1mous! LOL (click on the word for show info)

Watched American Idol tonight, everyone was truly good tonight! Will be difficult to see anyone leaving tomorrow night. This week's theme was The Great American Songbook by Rod Stewart, and the contestants got to meet with and sing for Rod Stewart. He will be performing one of his songs tomorrow night. I think this is cool, because Kerry and I have two of his Songbook cd's, and we want the other two. She and I are starting to expand our music collections even further than before, branching out into more Jazz and old classics. I am enjoying this!

After that, I watched some strange British mystery I think, it takes place at some nursing school Very weird, but I had to keep watching, lmao. Then of course, I realized the Cubs game was on so started watching that. Then during a commercial, I changed to an Independant station that shows a lot of inspirational shows, like It's A Miracle. This episode had a story about a woman visiting Hong Kong and was in a motorcycle accident right before heading home to England. She appeared fine, but once on the plane started complaining about chest pain. Turns out she had a collapsed lung, and while ON THE PLANE, a doctor made a makeshift chest tube and INSERTED IT, actual surgery, so she could breathe until they landed at Heathrow! What an amazing story!

Once that story was complete, I continued on my channel surfing way, lo and behold, I came to USA channel and Nashville Star! I completely forgot it was on tonight! I saw the last performer, and who was voted off, that's the really important part, but I would like to see Chris Young's performance. So I'll check out usanetwork.com before going to bed, because the show will be re-aired about midnight or 1am. Never fear!

It will be just like last night, when I had to tape a re-airing of Days of our Lives. A former Governor of Illinois, George Ryan, was on trial for 22 separate counts, ranging from fraud, to racketeering, to who knows what else. Well, he was found guilty on all charges and faces up to 20 years in prison. The man is 70 years old. I can just picture him spending 20 years in jail, and coming out at 90, lmao. So anyway, all this came down, of course, right when Days would have been on yesterday afternoon. NBC was nice enough to re-air the broadcast of Days in the wee hours when nothing else is on, so viewers/fans could tape it and not miss that episode. NOT that anything exciting happened, lol. Nothing exciting EVER happens in Salem anymore!

Well, I think that's enough chatter, time to check the weather, check when NS will be re-aired, and head to bed.

Now that I've scanned the requisite blogs in my favorites, I can post in my own blog.

Ok.


Umm...


Went to work today. Whoopee. Boring, I did filing all afternoon.

Came home, watched Celebrity Cooking Showdown, or whatever it's called. I only watched because Ali Sweeney from Days of our Lives was on it. Of course she didn't win, even though she fixed the HARDEST dishes of the three competing. So now I don't need to watch on Thursday or Friday, lol.

Umm...

I guess I'll go to work tomorrow. That would probably be a good thing.

Umm...

I did a couple loads of laundry tonight. And I sent Kerry one last cd, Chris Botti. She's lovin' his music!

Umm...

Guess that's about it. My life is so exciting huh?? Oh yeah!

Yesterday was Easter (Resurrection Sunday for those that choose that reference, since the word Easter is never mentioned in the Bible), and I got together with family and we went out for brunch. I call it brunch, because we go to a local restaurant that serves a buffet on the big holidays like "Easter" and Mother's Day. Breakfast is at one end, then changing to lunch/dinner at the other end. I always have the breakfast, of course! It's my favorite meal of the day!

Boy did we have some fierce storms go through yesterday afternoon and last night. Not a lot of lightning and thunder, but heavy heavy rain. I was trying to drive home in part of it, and I could hardly see the road at times. We needed the rain, but not that much all at once, lol. Was beautiful today, lots of sunshine, if not a little chilly. But I can handle having to put a Spring jacket on again, lol.

Lake and Michelle are gone from The Amazing Race!!! Wooo Hooo! I think Ray and Yolanda have a good shot at winning, but it looks like next week they start to fall apart. I'm posting now because I'm taping the Idol results show. They decided to start it during TAR, and I can't watch both. So I'm taping Idol and Unan1mous, then will watch them at 9. Shouldn't take too long, lol In the meantime I can finish converting all this music Kerry sent me!

Tomorrow is the last work day of the week for me. It feels weird only being three days long, but that's as far my complaining will go, lol. I just wish I wasn't having such a hard time falling asleep. Once I'm asleep I'm fine, it's just getting there that's a problem. So today at lunch, I went out to my car, closed my eyes for about 45 minutes, thinking that I might doze, just to keep me going until I went to bed tonight. I actually fell asleep, deep enough to start dreaming in those 45 minutes! It was a very strange dream, and it had to do with work...of course!

I dreamed that I was going on vacation or something like that, so I wouldn't be around. One of my customers had a load of steel that they were waiting for, and we were expecting the truck driver to need directions. So I had a map out and I was writing down the directions to the customer, to give to my boss, because the driver was somehow going to be calling him! The call was going to be forwarded from his phone at work to his cell phone or something, lmao. When I told him about this dream at lunch, he told me I need to stop thinking about work so much. I tried to tell him work was the LAST thing on my mind! (At least I didn't dream about dirty toilete stalls again! That's a story you DON'T want to hear about.)

I'm trying to finish watching Nashville Star, but I also wanted to start my post before I forgot. It's down to three contestants, and one won't make it. So far my fav is Chris Young! He wrote an awesome song! Next contestant is up...

Today was back to work day. Not too much going on. I specifically told my boss that if a release came in for a specific customer, that I would do it when I came in today. Did he listen? No...he did it anyway. I ended up having to cancel two loads with the warehouse, because of the coils my boss was putting on the same truck. I wish he would listen when I ask him NOT to do something. Grrrrrrrrr. I know he means well. But I also know he's been really busy and stressed out, having problems with a processor, so why he spent the time to do part of my stuff, and then put a note on the paperwork saying "I hope I did it right, it's been a long time since I did one of these." If that's the case, then DON'T DO IT! Oh well, I guess next time I shouldn't waste my breath.

Down to two on Nashville Star, one man and one woman...who will be leaving tonight? Sssshhhh, I'll never tell!

Ok, color me confused! As Nashville Star was ending, I switched over to CMT, which is airing the CMT Music Awards. I SWEAR I saw Wynonna on stage with Kenny Chesney as he was accepting an award for Who You'd Be Today. If Nashville Star is supposed to be LIVE, and the CMT Music Awards are supposed to be LIVE, how can Wynonna be in TWO places at once, wearing TWO different outfits???????

Well, I thought today would be nice and relaxing getting up, seeing as how I had the day off. My alarm went off at 9am, but I had a headache, so I hit snooze and laid back down to see if I could take the edge off before actually getting up for the day. About 4 minutes later, there's a banging noise, possibly at my door. I get up, stumble to the peephole, and outside my door is one of the maintenance men. Apparently, my water heater was leaking and it was going down to the apartment below me. So I threw enough clothes on to be decent, let him in, and they proceeded to spend the next 15 minutes replacing some seal I guess. I can't remember what they called it. I was only half awake at the time and I was on the phone with my official wake up call (Kerry), lol. It was a connector for the meter that reads how much hot water I use. I pay for my electricity to heat the water, I pay for the water that I heat, but not the cold water I use. It was just a drippy leak, nothing major for my apartment, but I would have noticed it this morning when I went to do laundry (my water heater is right next to my washer and dryer).

Anyway, once they were gone, I took a couple advil, checked my email, did a couple loads of laundry, showered, and started my day. I cleaned some old clothes out of my closet that I haven't worn in a while. Some were good enough to be given to Goodwill, others were tossed. I also had some other things in the second bedroom that could go to Goodwill, so I got all that together and delivered them. Hopefully, people should get some use out of all of it. I also got a haircut. It wasn't terribly long, but my bangs were starting to get into my line of sight, which bothers me. So I figured since I had the day off, I'd get it cut now. I also did my taxes today; I can't believe I actually have to PAY both federal and state! I haven't had to pay federal in YEARS! So much for using that to pay for my car maintenance. I scheduled that today, since I'll be at 15,000 miles in a few days. I also washed the outside of my sliding glass door and the screen. The screen didn't actually get "washed", I just took a cheap broom I use for sweeping my balcony, and I brush off the screen to get all the dust that accumulated all winter off it.

I still have more things to do around here, possibly Friday I will get more done, once I'm back from the dealer with my car. But at least it's a start.

Aaaaaahhhhhh, it's nice knowing I can go to bed tonight and have an extra day off tomorrow. I'm planning on getting started on my spring cleaning, running some errands (haircut, grocery store, etc.). It will be nice being able to open the windows and air this place out. I didn't do it really at all this winter, so it needs it badly. Should be a perfect day for it, high temp near 70F.

I saw Take The Lead today, starring Antonio Banderas. It was very good. Brief synopsis...he's a ballroom dance instructor and decides to teach some high school detention students how to dance ballroom style. They of course resist, he insists, and in the process everyone learns something. The dancing was entertaining, and of course Antonio was looking very nice! If you are an Antonio Banderas fan, are a fan of ballroom dancing, or just want to see a feel-good movie about down-and-out kids making their lives better, then go see this movie!

I love Saturday, the one day each week I allow myself to sleep in...usually. Last night I stayed up until 3am reading a book. A very good historical romance about a woman from Virginia who goes back in time to right before the Revolutionary War. She got to meet Patrick Henry, and (lol) helped him with his famour "Give Me Liberty, Or Give Me Death" speech. Of course she fell in love (the whole point of the story), and stayed in the 18th century. I love happy endings!

After sleeping till noon, that was only 9 hours of sleep, hardly enough to consider sleeping in, I got dressed and ran some errands. I went to Best Buy first, not sure if I was going to buy anything there. I ended up purchasing the blank cd's I needed while I was there, and I also purchased the two copies of Narnia while I was there, since they were on sale for 14.99 there, the same as Target. Since that was my big reason for going to Target, I didn't need to go there anymore, one less stop to make. Also while I was at Best Buy, I glanced at the printer/scanner/copiers, because I've been wanting one for awhile now. The cheapest one at Best Buy was $150, not exactly cheap. I've seen them at Target for $65, so decided I would keep looking. My aunt also wants one, so she's been telling me that she's waiting for them to go lower in price before she buys one. (Turns out she bought one for me for my birthday in a few weeks, so I'll be getting one very soon!)

I decided not to get my hair cut today. Being off on Monday, I thought I'd go then, when it probably won't be as crowded. So from Best Buy, I headed across town to Big Lots to pick up Laundry Detergent. I ended up buying 6 of them, they probably had about 8 more. But I couldn't fit any more in the cart. I will probably keep three of them, and off the others to my aunt and/or her sister.

Once back at home, I watched the end of the Cubs game (Cubbies won!), and talked to my aunt in CA on the phone. She agrees with how I handled the guy who called to apologize (after three weeks) for not wanting to meet me. She also encouraged me to not give up, which I hadn't planned on doing anyway. I might be seeing her later this year, we discussed meeting up in Colorado in September. My great-niece will be four I think, and we might end up going there for her birthday.

Kerry sent me a LOT of songs tonight, we spent three hours in msn transferring songs. Only 8 more cd's to go! Woooooo Hooooooo And I was even doing that while playing NTT, which I won again! Na Na Nee Boo Boo to Jopete! :P Now I'll have to play again next Saturday to defend my title, lol.

It's Friday night, and I have a long weekend ahead of me. I took Monday off as a personal day. It would have been the 38th birthday of a dear friend of mine, and I miss her dearly.

Today at work I spent most of the day filing. That's a good thing, because there's so much filing to be done. But it made the day go by slower than I would have liked. Things have quieted down quite a bit at work, not only am I free to do filing now, but two other people in my department (well three, but the third doesn't pitch in) also are helping with this filing. Between the three of us, it should get done pretty quickly.

Tonight, despite the extreme tiredness of Kerry (hey, that could be a story!) we got two cd's transferred. It was more like three, because one cd had 18 songs on it. And msn wasn't cooperating, the file transfers were going very slowly, about 7-10 minutes per song.

Tomorrow I have errands to run. I'm going to Target to buy two copies of Narnia (to give as a birthday present and a Christmas present) later this year, going to Big Lots because I am told they are currently carrying the laundry detergent I use, and it's getting harder to find so I buy it when I find it. I will also probably stop at Best Buy to pick up some blank cd's, since I only have one left. It's time for a haircut too; my bangs are long enough to be in my line of sight. Hopefully, after all that, Kerry and I will have time to transfer some more cd's. I still have to convert all the songs she's sent me the last few days, and move them to their respective artist folders. Plus I might go in to c2c tomorrow night to defend my title at NTT, lol.

I'm trying to type this during commercials for Nashville Star. All I can say so far is, Chris Young is awesome! I started out liking Matt Mason, but my allegiance is moving steadily more and more to the side of Chris Young every week. Two performers done on Nashville Star and I think there must have been some communication between Nashville and Hollywood this past week. The first two performers on Nashville Star sang the same songs as were sung on American Idol this week. Of all the country songs out there, what are the odds? I'm wondering if any more will be duplicated, lol. ( I bet Kerry liked Kristen's song)

OH yeah, and I just HAVE to comment on Naomi Judd being a guest judge on tonight's show! I just love the banter between mother and daughter! It's nice that the two of them have a better relationship now than they used to have, so people can see them together like this. It's really making the show enjoyable this week. Keeping having judges like this, instead of John Cena from last week, or Larry the Cable Guy from the previous week. I didn't care to listen to either one of them, I don't value their opinion, and if they're there for entertainment, don't make them a judge, just have them be a guest host or something.

Speaking of country...I picked up Rascal Flatts' new cd today, it's called Me and My Gang. If the first release off it is any indication, the cd should be just as good as their previous three. ( I also got a Jack Johnson cd and a David Gilmour cd, but they aren't country, so I won't mention them.)

Things might be slowing down just a tad at work, which is good, cause I have enough other things to do besides my regular stuff. And end of month is over with, so that makes things easier. It'll still be only in the 50's tomorrow, but the office is so warm, I'll probably wear short sleeves just so I don't break out in a sweat if I get the opportunity to do some filing tomorrow.

Ok, going back to the show. Hope everyone watching it is enjoying it as much as I am!

Happy Daylight Saving Time!

Is everyone appropriately messed up on what time they should go to bed? LOL It's almost 11pm CDT, and I'm just now starting to get tired, which is good. Now if I can just fall asleep when I crawl into bed.

Since Kerry was going to her orientation for school tonight, I thought I'd take the time to not only watch DooL, but to watch a show from Friday night that I hadn't watched yet. By the time that was done, and I got online, I didn't see Kerry anywhere. She was either in bed, or just not online and didn't see me, lol. So I went into AD since BillCal was streaming, and I usually like his streams. WildAngel was in there, and I remember Deb commenting to me that she thought WildAngel and Wendy were the same person. Turns out they aren't the same person, they are SISTERS! And Ticat was their brother, Mustang is their brother, and Foxybabe is their sister! Chatting...the new family affair, lmao.

Was another busy day at work today. I keep waiting for it to slow down again so I can get more filing done, cause it's still just piling up, lol. I got most of the file drawers straight so I have room to actually DO the filing, but now I don't have the TIME to do the filing! Argh!

I discovered something this weekend that I knew Kerry would want to know about. On Tuesday nights, we both watch The Amazing Race, and Nashville Star. The problem is they are both on at 10pm EDT. Not anymore! TAR has now moved to Wednesday nights at 8pm EDT, which puts it opposite Bones, which I watch before the Idol results show. So now I don't have to tape TAR while I watch Nashville Star, but I have to either tape TAR or Bones on Wednesdays. I can't seem to win, there's either nothing on to watch, or I have multiple shows all on the same night.

Here's hoping I can fall asleep! Nighty night!

I just finished converting all the songs Kerry sent me tonight. We got 6 more cd's transferred! Most of the music Kerry still has on her computer is at 160 kbps, and I prefer my songs to be 128 kbps, because the file size is smaller, so it takes up less room on my hard drive. MM has a nice little function called "convert files", which I use after receiving music from Kerry or downloading files that are larger than 128 kbps. Yes, I'm anal, lol.

I listened to about 20 minutes or so of Alice's stream tonight, but then had to help Kerry get the country station back on her RP that she likes to listen to. And well, once I did that, I was listening to country music and never went back to Alice's stream. Sorry about that Alice. What I heard was awesome! I'm still listening to it, after converting and organizing all the music Kerry sent me. She went to bed about an hour or so ago. Now I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do. I have, I think, two days of DooL to watch, plus three hours of shows I taped tonight, but I'm not really in the mood to watch tv. Maybe I'll go read, something I didn't do last week when I said I was going to.

Trying to post this at the commercials during ER

What a beautiful day today! It almost reached 70F! Too bad I was cooped up inside all day. I did take some time to walk at lunch today, for about 15 minutes. When it's warmer, I'm going to try to spend more of my lunch time walking.

Work wasn't so busy today, which is good. It's almost end of month, and it's aggravating if it gets busy right when we need to make sure everything's done for end of month. So I'm trying to keep caught up on everything, so Monday and Tuesday won't be so stressed.

Another commercial, so I can continue, lol. So besides Friday being the last day of the month, yesterday we got four new fax machines in the office. One that sits behind me, one for A/R, one for the International Dept., and one for a general fax that's sort of used by various departments. With the arrival of the new fax machines, all the preprogrammed numbers need to be programmed again. As with all fax machines, they are slightly different, so there is a learning curve. Add to the fact that half the office, including IT and HR, are Japanese. Can you see where I'm heading? I have taken it upon myself to learn how to program the fax machine that sits behind me, doing a few numbers each day. There are 16 fast dial buttons on the top, but we can also have an additional hundred or more numbers programmed. We just need to figure out how to use them once they're programmed, lol.

ER sure seems to go faster when I keep busy during the commercials, lol. I got almost caught up on shows I taped this week. I have one episode of Days to watch, well...two after tomorrow. I finally saw The Amazing Race from Tuesday, I saw three days worth of Days, too. Other than that, I only have last weekend's Nascar race to watch. I'm planning on trying to get that done on Saturday. Will go quickly, since I can fast-forward through commercials.

Well, now that I've said a lot about nothing, time to finish ER and go to bed (hopefully).

I wasn't sure what I was going to talk about tonight...

but then the phone rang about 5 minutes ago. Keep in mind, the time was 8:58 PM. No one calls me that late unless it's an emergency! Fortunately, I had the receiver sitting behind me, so I picked it up. On the other end was a man's voice.

But not just ANY man's voice. It was a voice from about a month ago, when I received my first match from The Right One. You remember the one, he didn't want to meet me, and wouldn't tell me why. Yes, that one! He called to apologize, said he should never have treated me that way, that I didn't deserve it. Part of the conversation was difficult to hear because he has a cell phone, but his excuse was that he had some stuff going on (?) and wasn't thinking clearly...or something like that.

I accepted his apology; I'm not THAT mean. He then asked if I had received any other matches since then. I told him yes, I'd received a couple, but I didn't volunteer any additional information and he didn't ask further. His next question? Was I still interested in meeting him. I could have said yes. After all, we were matched up because we have similar interests. But I just don't think I could get past how he treated me on the phone those weeks ago. Yes, he apologized, and I'm not angry at him anymore. But I don't think I could get that conversation out of my head if I were to meet him. I would work really hard at keeping part of me closed from him, to protect myself from him, in case he pulls something like that again. And that's not how I want to approach potential relationships.

My answer to him was, no I don't think so. He said ok, and we disconnected. I'm wondering if my comments on the Feedback Survey prompted someone to call him. I don't want to use the phrase "chew him out" but I'm unable to formulate the proper words, lol. Maybe they suggested he call and apologize, since the way he treated me looked badly on them.

Meanwhile, the new match, Jeff, hasn't called. I'll give him until Friday evening. I'm tempted to play 20 questions with him. 1. Are you serious about finding a match with this service? 2. Do you believe in love at first sight? That's just for starters. I'll have to keep thinking of more questions to ask him. Suggestions welcome!

What to post, what to post

Had a nice conversation with AliceKay tonight. Been awhile since we talked like that. Too bad I couldn't send the fainting goats video to Kerry.

Got more music from Kerry tonight, she sent me 3 cd's, plus one song off a cd from yesterday that somehow got missed. We are making progress, slowly but surely!

I also was able to get through some of the stuff I taped that I didn't get watched over the weekend. Got two days of DooL watched, boring boring boring, plus the premiere of the new reality show called Unanimous. It was very weird! Then I watched InJustice taped on Friday night. I thought I taped Conviction Friday night too, but basketball was on, and I missed the re-airing of it on Saturday night. Oh well. Now I only have today's DooL and the race from Sunday to watch. By tomorrow night, I'll have tomorrow's DooL to watch, then Idol is on for probably an hour, TAR is on at 9, so a busy night tomorrow night. Don't know if I'll get caught up on anything or fall further behind. Probably the latter.

Oh, and by the way, I received another match in the mail on Saturday. His name is Jeff, he's 34, 5'11", brown hair, blue eyes, never married, likes relaxing at home and collecting comic books. What do you think?? (I haven't heard from him yet)

I really do enjoy reading comments left on my blog

I know my post last night was done when I wasn't in the best of moods, but maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it helps to know that other people aren't always in a good mood. Kerry, I'm sorry I didn't say anything to you about how I was feeling. It came upon me kind of quickly, and I wasn't sure how long it would last. The last thing I wanted to do was spend a bunch of time talking about it. Working through it seemed the best thing to do at the time. Alice, I do enjoy your games of NTT. And you should put some harder tunes in the list, to make it challenging. It was me last night, not you or your music. When I get like that, the best thing to do is to leave, which I did. Please say hi to Terri for me!

I saw V for Vendetta today. Very strange movie. I wasn't really sure what it was about, the previews didn't tell me much. Apparently, it takes place in the future, in Britain, after the U.S. has fallen into chaos and civil war. One man has taken over in Britain, become the High Chancellor, and has made absolute law the rule. There were so many things you couldn't do or say, restricted curfews, detention camps, etc. Natalie Portman is in the movie, she was also in the Star Wars movies, Episodes I, II & III. Apparently, the movie is based on comic books? It was ok, not great, kind of bloody, but not terribly so. The movie ends with the Parliament building being blown up, and pretty much everyone in London rebelling. The High Chancellor is killed, along with several other members of his corrupt ruling government. And the person that instigates all this, is a man in a Guy Fawkes mask, who calls himself V. Very strange movie. If anyone is interested in seeing it, I would recommend renting it.

Thanks for all the music you sent me this weekend Kerry. Have to check on some tracks that are missing, though. She sent me 4 cd's of The Beatles, one of the Backstreet Boys, one of Outlaws of Country, an Aerosmith cd, and a 2 cd set of CCR's greatest hits. I have almost 10,000 songs now!

Ok, spent too much time on the computer, time for bed! Nighty night!

Another Saturday Night And I Ain’t Got Nobody

Sitting here at the computer drinking wine, trading music with Kerry, and of course the wine is making me mellow. I was listening to LadyStyx's stream earlier, was enjoying it. Then I switched over to AliceKay's at 9 EST for NTT, and by 10:30, I knew I was down by at least 8 pts, so no reason to keep playing. Wasn't having fun anyway. It wasn't the music, Alice, it was me. Sometimes it just gets hard to be in chat with everyone in there talking about spouses or kids and I have none of that. And the wine doesn't help. I just wasn't in the mood to stay there and not have the answer to the songs, seeing everyone else name them.

Tomorrow I'm going to my adoptive aunt's house (ant/darlene), we're then going to her sister's house for a birthday celebration. Ribs and presents, then out to see V for Vendetta. For some reason everyone thought I wanted to see it, but I'm the only one who doesn't want to see it, so I'll go since I'm the only one who doesn't want to see it.

As soon as Kerry is done with what she's doing in MM, I think I might go read or do something on my own. Completely got out of the mood to talk to anyone.

Listening to the end of Alice's stream, lyrics stick with me...Save me from the nothing I've become.

Tomorrow is Friday!

Happy happy, joy joy! This week feels like it really dragged. Oh well, at least it's almost over.

Today started out kind of boring. At work, I experienced the same problem as yesterday regarding the magically changing coil numbers. The IT guy never told me if he fixed it, guess I'll have to ask him tomorrow. I noticed it happened with the same order as yesterday too, so there is something weird going on just with this one order. Fortunately, we have maybe one more coil to ship against this order, so it's about done.

This afternoon I got really busy, 33 orders were plopped on my desk about 11am. Well, there were more than 33, but some were duplicated, so I was able to combine them and narrow it down to 33. By the time I got a couple questions answered by my outside salesman, it was about 3pm, so I worked like mad that last hour to get them all done so I could give them to the coordinator who double checks them before I send them to the mill. They should be waiting for me on my desk when I get in tomorrow morning.

Tonight Kerry got only one cd sent to me. MSN was acting slow again, which means it takes longer to transfer songs. Plus I didn't get online until after 7:30 her time, then I had to read emails, I d/l some Idol songs (omg they did so good this week), and finally transferred some songs from Kerry. At least it's one less on our list!

I watched Tuesday's episode of Days of our Lives tonight, and Nashville Star from Tuesday, I still have Wednesday's DooL, Bones, the premiere of Unanimous, and Thursday's DooL to watch. By tomorrow night, I'll have added Friday's DooL to the list, lol. For now, I'm going back to get myself all ready for ER at 9 (10 est).

Crossing my fingers that this works.

I tried posting a comment to Kerry's blog a minute ago, and it wouldn't let me. I think there's a problem with the word verification. All four attempts gave me the same word verification to type, and all four times blogger told me what I typed was wrong.

Short post tonight. I just got home from my friend Wendy's house. She invited me over for dinner tonight, because her husband is out of town for his new job. We watched the Idol results show, woooooooooo hooooooooooooo Kevin "Chicken Little" Covais is GONE!!!!!!!!!!

I know there was something else I was going to mention here, but now I can't remember what it was, so oh well! It's almost Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

March Madness has lived up to it's name

Boy does it make you mad when your favorite team is eliminated in the first round. Then, a couple lower seeded teams beat better ones, and you never expect it. So far in this online game, I'm at about 60% accuracy. Basically that puts me way down towards the bottom, but it's been interesting. Better than trying to make all my picks for the entire tourney. If you miss one in the first round, it screws you for every round after that.

Kerry and I didn't get very much accomplished tonight, lol. I sent her the last cd I had for her, Bon Jovi's Have A Nice Day. But then I was showing her something in Musicmatch, and it brought in a bunch more songs into her MM, including all her Christmas songs she never deleted in December/January. That wasted about 30 minutes, lol. But she did get the one Rush song I like sent to me, and she sent me the songs I needed off a 4 disc set of Led Zeppelin. She actually only has 3 of the 4 discs, and they're Mike's not Kerry's, lol. And because I already have I, II, III, Physical Graffiti, and Houses of the Holy, I had at least half the songs on the discs. It's a good start to the 56 cd's!

Nothing new to mention regarding my lack of love life. Tomorrow I need to send the feedback form advising them that I am available for another match. I tried to call Deb tonight since she never called me on Saturday, but no answer. Maybe she was out celebrating the arrival of spring, lol.

March Madness

I won't bore you with all the details, cause I know no one reading this is as "into" the games and the NCAA Tournament as I am. I will say that I am participating in an online game, each matchup you get right gets you points, your score is compared to everyone else playing, there's a tiebreaker score for each round, and at the end, whoever has the most points wins something, not sure what. I'm not concerned about it, because my chances of winning are like a couple thousand to one? LOL Anyway, I've been keeping up with the games so far today, watched a little bit on tv before coming online tonight, just to see who's winning which games. It's something else for me to do, other than the Nascar stuff. Did I mention that in addition to the fantasy league I participate in, I'm also in two other online games too? LOL That's how I found out about the basketball one.

Other than basketball, and work, my life is pretty boring right now. I still haven't heard back from Brian, I REALLY doubt I will now. I'm half tempted to call him up and call him a hypocrite, but that could start a conversation that won't be productive for either of us. So probably on Monday, I'll fax my sheet back to the service and tell them it didn't work out. At this point, I'm pretty disappointed, but I don't know what I could change to get better prospects. It's not necessarily that I'm being matched with men that I have nothing in common with. They're just not being upfront about their expectations or their committment to the process. I'm almost tempted to not answer the phone, for fear of what will happen when (and if) the next guy calls.

Speaking of the phone...here in Illinois we're having a primary election next Tuesday. So for the last week or so, I have been getting several phone calls every day (that I know of) from candidates, or people stumping (supporting) a candidate. They leave recorded messages on my answering machine, or they call me during the evening when I'm trying to watch Idol. It's gotten so I won't answer my phone until after the 21st.

Anyway, ER is about to start, so I have to post this and get in to turn the tv on. Happy Friday, and Happy St. Patrick's Day! Wear green, even if you're not Irish!

Note on Friday morning...I tried several times to post this last night, but I kept getting an error message. I never lost the post, luckily.

Monday night and no phone call

After meeting this guy Brian for an hour Saturday night, we spoke last night for a few minutes. He was trying to decide what to eat for dinner, but he said he'd call me back. A little while later, he did, only to ask me a question. The question was, "What do you think of my looks?"

Now, so everyone understands the importance of this question, when he and I first talked on the phone Saturday evening, before meeting, he asked me if looks are important. I told him, very honestly, that I'm more interested in personality than looks. He agreed and said he felt the same way.

So back to Sunday night's question, which threw me for a loop. Here's a guy who tells me looks aren't important to him, and knows I told him looks aren't important to me, asking me what I thought of his looks. I didn't know how to answer him. I felt like a guy being asked by his girlfriend, "Does this dress make me look fat?" There's no right answer.

I reminded Brian that looks are not most important with me, and I don't judge someone on their looks. He was persistant, he wanted to know if I thought he was good looking, average, or bad looking. I felt I needed to be honest, but was trying not to make it sound negative. I told him that he wasn't "Hollywood drop-dead gorgeous" but that he wasn't bad looking. And again, I reminded him that I'm looking at someone's personality, not judging them on their looks.

Then he asks me if there was any spark of attraction. Hello! I know sometimes it happens instantly, but we were only together for an hour. I didn't go into this expecting to meet someone and have an instant spark. Sometimes it takes a little bit for it to develop. I tried my best to tell him this, that I would want to get to know someone a little bit better than a one hour conversation before I made any decision on whether there was interest there.

I must have done a lousy job, or else he's more shallow than he let on. He said he had to go because he was outside trying to walk to his truck, and it started pouring out, but that he'd call me back. That was I think before 9pm last night. It's now about 10pm the next nite and I haven't heard back from him. And he very clearly said he'd call me back.

So my only thought here is that he didn't feel any "spark of attraction," and/or didn't find me attractive, and will probably not contact me again. I will wait until the weekend; if I don't hear from him by then, I will submit my follow-up, stating that I am available for another match, that we will not be dating.

And I still haven't heard back from the service about my first match that wouldn't even meet me. So I don't know if I will only have 4 more matches, or if they will give me credit for the first jerk who wouldn't even meet me.

On a side note, I saw the movie 16 Blocks yesterday, with Bruce Willis. I don't believe it was advertised much, I only saw one advertisement for it. It was pretty good. Not great, but not terrible either. Some parts it moved slow, but in general it was a good movie. I'd recommend it as a rental.

Posting before The West Wing

It starts at 7, so I figured now would be a good time to post, since I may not get back here afterwards.

I was feeling pretty yucky after Thursday night's experience, as you can tell from my last post. But things are looking better today. Yesterday I was being lazy, just sitting at the computer sending music back and forth with Kerry. I hadn't even gone outside to get the mail. So the phone rings about 5:30pm. It's some guy named Brian who got my name from this dating service! Boy was I surprised, since I hadn't received any information on him yet. We talked for a bit, and decided to meet for a late dinner at Portillo's, a Chicago-based hot dog chain. We agreed to meet at 8pm, so I go jump in the shower to clean up and get dressed. I decided to dress casually, since it wasn't a fancy restaurant or anything, more like fast food, wearing black jeans and a plum-colored v-neck 3/4 sleeve top.

We met up at the restaurant, ate, talked...he's a really nice guy, not gorgeous, but to me looks aren't number one priority, I'm more interested in personality. He has a great sense of humor, and he was willing to do a lot of talking! What people may not know about me is, I'm a shy person, and when I'm around people I don't know, I clam up and don't talk much. We were there for about an hour, then I came home. We didn't make any promises to call each other, so I thought I'd call him this evening, before The West Wing starts to thank him for a nice evening.

Anyway, he seems like a nice guy, we'll see where it goes. And we all head off into another adventure we call Monday!

My life sucks right now

I called this guy Paul back. He didn't want to even meet me. And he wouldn't give me a reason why. I know HE'S the asshole and the one with a problem, but it sure makes me feel like shit to get treated that way. Right now I can't decide if I want to go through with the rest of this or just cut my losses now. I don't even know if I'd get my money back now, since I technically haven't even "met" anyone. Maybe I'll feel differently in the morning. On the feedback form I'm going to fax tomorrow, I'm requesting that he not count as one of my guaranteed matches, since he wouldn't meet me. I don't know if it will work, but I have to try. All I can think about right now, is an episode of Days of Our Lives where Samantha Brady makes a comment to Lucas, I think, where she refers to her future self as a lonely old lady with lots of cats.

Why does life treat me like I don't belong??

Rain, Rain Don't Go Away

Yes, it's raining. That's a sign that spring is on the way, right? I mean, it could be snow!!! Right now, I'll take some rain; we need it desperately.

Hmm, what to talk about next. Boy am I at a loss for words. I guess today was too boring to talk about, lol. I watched The Amazing Race tonight. I was so happy when I saw who was eliminated! There are a couple teams I'm rooting for, one is really struggling right now, but things could change. Unfortunately, there are a couple of really good teams in the lead, and it will be difficult (or will take a lot of luck) to get ahead of them.

I was going to call Paul tonight, since I haven't heard from him since he and I talked Saturday night. But between 7 and 8, I just got too tired and didn't have the energy to get up, get the phone and call him. I'll do it tomorrow night. I can't not try this, I have too much invested to not try. Whatever happens, I'll deal with it, and go on.

Unbelievable all the people that have died in the last week. Don Knotts, 81, best known for his portrayals of Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show and as Mr. Furley on Three's Company; Darren McGavin, 83, who portrayed Mike Hammer in the 50's, and a reporter on Kolchak: The Night Stalker in the 70's; Dennis Weaver, 81, won an emmy for his acting in Gunsmoke as the Deputy, another lawman in McCloud, and probably the role I remember best, an average joe being followed and attacked by a mystery truck in Duel; Kirby Puckett, one of the most, if not THE most, beloved baseball players for the Minnesota Twins, after suffering a stroke yesterday at the age of 44; Dana Reeve, also 44, wife of the late Christopher Reeve, just seven months after announcing she was battling lung cancer. Every year it seems we lose more and more legendary and talented actors, actresses, and people who inspire us all. Please say a prayer tonight for the families of all these people.

Ugh, Another Monday

It's March, and Spring should be coming, but you can't convince mother nature of that. She came and dropped some wet heavy snow yesterday. The good news is, it was wet, so the streets stayed pretty clear. The bad news is, it reminds me that winter is still here, and we still have a while to go before the warm weather comes.

Finally getting caught up on some shows I taped Friday night. Ghost Whisperer, InJustice, and the new show Conviction. Kerry also sent me some more music tonight before she headed to bed. It sucks to not be able to sleep the night through.

I haven't heard from Paul, so tomorrow night I will call him. The point of all this is for us to meet, right? Well, we ended the conversation on Saturday without discussing meeting, and because he hadn't been "matched" with anyone in a while, for all I know he already has a girlfriend. So I guess I have to call him AGAIN and find out if he wants to meet, or do I need to contact The Right One and tell them he won't cooperate so I can get a new match? LOL

Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 40's and up near 60 by Saturday. If that's the case, I'll be spending my day outside!

Sunday snowy Sunday

Just checked the weather map, and it's supposed to start snowing any minute now. What a weekend I've had so far, and it's only half over.

Friday night, Kerry and I spent several hours on the computer going BACK over what music she had been planning to send me, all thanks to her dear husband. She sent me a few cd's worth of music, then we both went to bed. Once I receive music from Kerry, I use a feature of MusicMatch that allows me to convert (compress) the file down to 128 kbps to make the file smaller. For some reason most of the songs on Kerry's computer are at 160 kbps. The higher the kbps, the larger the file, the more room it takes up on my computer. Supposedly you lose some quality the more you compress, but I've listened to songs before converting and after, and I haven't noticed any difference in quality.

Yesterday I was going to convert all the files Kerry sent me on Friday night. I was part way through, but it was taking so long because my From Kerry file was getting pretty full. So part way through, I start making subfiles in From Kerry, one for each artist. That ended up taking all day and all night, but only because I got distracted doing something else, lmao. I thoroughly enjoyed the chat in msn yesterday with everyone. And I finally got all the subfiles made, songs converted and moved to the appropriate file. The only ones I didn't move are the ones I have just one or two songs for an artist, the oddball ones I don't know if I'll ever have more songs by them, like Tebey.

About 7:30pm last night, I also decided I was going to call this guy Paul who was "matched" for me by this dating service I joined (see post from Monday Feb 27). He answered his phone, lo and behold he knew nothing about our "match." Apparently he hadn't opened his mail for the last couple of days and didn't know there was a match waiting to be contacted, lol. He was at his mom's visiting for a bit, he said he'd call me back later. So later, about 9:00 or so, the phone rings, it's him calling me back. We talked for about an hour. Very nice conversation, we talked a lot about bad drivers here in Chicago, and family stuff. Apparently we talked his whole drive home from his mom's. He lives in Streamwood, which is only about 15 miles north of me. Unfortunately, we ended the conversation not confirming if he would be calling me back so we could arrange to meet. I'm not so good at this stuff, lol.

Then I had the craziest dream last night. Too much stuff going to get into details, but I was at some guy's house who I had been "matched" up with, and after being there for several hours waiting to spend some time with him (he kept doing other things like talking on the phone, or talking to a friend/relative), as I was leaving I asked if he was going to call me, and he said he didn't feel anything for me, and I hope that's ok. LMAO, maybe just my fears coming through in my dream??

Today, I'm going to see a movie, Ultraviolet. Not sure if it will be good or not, I'll let ya know, lol.

Happy Spring!

Wonder why I'm saying that? Well...have I got an answer for you! On the news last night, the meteorologist was saying that Feb 28th is the last day of meteorological winter. March 1 is the beginning of meteorological spring. Not sure WHY that is, but it is. So, happy spring!

Tonight was kind of a boring night, didn't do a lot. After a rough day at work, I came home, ate some food, Kerry sent me one cd, I watched American Idol, then got caught up on Supernatural taped last night and my soap (Days of Our Lives) from today. The episode of Supernatural was supposedly taking place in Chicago, but I don't recall seeing any landmarks to prove it was filmed here, lol. Odds are they didn't go on location to film this episode.

Tomorrow will be pretty busy at work tomorrow, so as soon as DooL is over, I'm heading to bed.

What a night for television!

American Idol from 7pm-8:30pm, Supernatural from 8pm-9pm, and The Amazing Race from 8pm-10pm. Impossible to watch all of them at once!

First with American Idol...tonight was the top 10 girls performing. I have a couple favorites so far, and there were a couple that I think have some potential, but picked some songs that didn't impress me. It's amazing how one week the judges will say "We want to see more of you", then the next week when you do a song to show your personality, they say "You looked like you were having fun, but your song selection wasn't good." Sometimes you just can't win, lol. Tomorrow night is the guys turn, another 90 minute show, 2 of each to be eliminated on the Thursday results show.

Moving to The Amazing Race, in case Kerry hasn't seen the second half of it yet, I won't give anything away. Let's just say the team I was HOPING and WISHING would be eliminated wasn't. Some teams had some real struggles, with the language, with directions, even with just getting along with each other. I'm amazed with all the time they were in Sao Paolo, Brazil, going all over town in several taxis, most of the teams were trying to communicate in Spanish. Only a couple of the teams knew or figured out that Portuguese is the language of Brazil, not Spanish. And none of the taxi drivers or people they met corrected them. I know they didn't know where they were going ahead of time, but I would find someway to include a book (there has to be one somewhere) that lists the languages of every country, since they knew they would be going all over the world this time, not just in North America.

Lastly, Supernatural...which I haven't watched. I had to tape that, because obviously I couldn't watch that while I was watching two other shows at the same time, lol. I watch Supernatural because I think it's very fascinating, and it doesn't hurt that one of the lead characters is a real hottie!! Click for Jensen's website.

Anyway, off to bed. Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite!

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!

The Olympics are finally over! WTG to all the countries who participated, except maybe Austria, because of the doping problems. Now my life can get back to some normalcy, relatively speaking. I enjoyed watching the olympics, but it was hard staying up till 10:30 or 11pm every night. And the commercial breaks were so short, I didn't have enough time to run to the computer to try to write something up. So I said to heck with it, and waited till they were done and I can post when I want, and go to bed at a decent time, lol

My big news that I might be mentioning again in the future is that I joined a dating service called The Right One. I decided that I wasn't going to find anyone sitting on my ass at home, and all my friends are married, and where am I going to go to find someone worth meeting? Today in the mail, I received the first of 6 "matches" they will make for me. I should hear from him in the next couple of days. Wish me luck, if nothing else, I should meet some very nice men.

On another positive note, last week we received our performance reviews at work. I got a 5% raise retroactive to Jan 1, plus a FANTASTIC bonus! This will pay for my enrollment in the dating service, so it all worked out perfectly! And I might have some extra left over to pay off my remaining Christmas bills, lol

Kerry and I have gone nuts with the music! So many cd's we're sending back and forth to complete our collections. And so many cd's yet for us to look for at the stores. This will keep us out of trouble for quite awhile (and out of cash, lmao).

Just wanted to let everyone know that I plan on a return to blogging as soon as the Olympics are over. Since they are on from 7pm-10:30pm, and I go right to bed after, I don't have any time left to post here. I'll be back soon!

Ugly Ugly Monday Today


Ugh! Today's a nice day to stay in bed! I didn't post last night because I ended up watching something on tv that I hadn't planned on watching. My "plan" was to watch Cold Case at 7pm, then catch the rerun of Supernatural at 8pm. That would leave me with an hour to do whatever (read, blog, etc) until 10pm when I would go to bed.

The best laid plans...Cold Case started late because golf ran late during the afternoon. So when I went to switch over to Supernatural, I would miss the last 15 minutes or so. Well! The WB decided NOT to air Supernatural, instead they aired Charmed, which I'm just as happy watching, but not what I WANTED to watch. I switched back to watch the end of Cold Case and decided to watch the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie on CBS, The Water Is Wide. It was a very good movie about a teacher on an island off the coast of South Carolina. By the time that was done, it was 10:15. So much for free time, lol

I then read for a bit and went to bed. Traffic was a b*tch this morning, took me an hour and 15 minutes, and most of that was spent sitting in stop and go heavy delays on one road that has been "wide open" for weeks. There were no accidents to report, absolutely no reason why traffic was so backed up. I think I'll go send a nasty message to the Governor and to ITA (Illinois Tollway Authority) to let them know how well "Open Road Tolling" is working.

It's Friday! It's Friday! Friday Friday Friday!!!


Can you tell I'm happy?? It's finally Friday, and I finally got my cable back last night! I was SO happy! I watched CSI, then a very interesting documentary about North Korea.

Tonight I'm going out to dinner and a movie with a girlfriend! We're going to see Glory Road, definitely NOT a chick flick, but it's one we both want to see and have no one to go with, except each other. Should be a fun night!

Wednesday is over, the weekend's almost here!


This will be short since I'm posting from work. I had a dentist appt last night, went very well. No Cavaties! Got there early and chatted with the receptionist, a very nice lady. I was planning on hanging out at the local Hallmark store to pass the time, but when I got there I found out it was GONE! I haven't been there in quite a few months, but it was disappointing to see it gone. I know the owner by name, and I remember when he opened it back in maybe 1996/97? The lady at the dentist's office thinks some of the Hallmark stores are closing because more and more people are buying their cards from Target/Wal Mart or when they are at their local grocery store. They all carry cards of every kind, so it's more convenient than running out separately to a Hallmark store. Still sad to see the business leave Warrenville. I think that was the only Hallmark store in town.

So I got home and my cable was STILL out. No DooL to watch, no AI, nuttin. So I caught up on my emails, played more Chicken Invaders on the computer (lol), then watched Notting Hill again! I LOVE that movie.

No Cable In My Entire Complex


Wow, is it only Tuesday? Today went by very quickly, was very busy at work today, trying to get everything done that I didn't get done yesterday. I succeeded! On the way home I was going to stop at Target and do some shopping, but I changed my mind. I decided to do it tomorrow night after my dentist appt. Just a cleaning, so I'll be out of there in 20 minutes.

Got home, with the plan of watching American Idol. Lo and behold, no cable. I put in the tape that was supposed to have taped Days of Our Lives this afternoon from 1-2pm, and nothing but snow. So my cable has been out since before 1pm. As of right now, it's still out. I called the cable company, but they were already aware of the outage and supposedly are working on it. They said it's out in Country Lakes (me) and Greens of Naperville (some buildings that were G of N, but are now part of Country Lakes). So apparently, something major must have happened. Someone must have cut a cable when they were digging, or something. Otherwise, why would half the street be out?

So with no tv to watch tonight, I played on the computer for a bit. I've gotten hooked on a game you can play online through MSN, probably Yahoo too. It's called Chicken Invaders. It's a variation of the old Space Invaders, but instead of invading ships, there are invading chickens that you have to shoot. They fly down, they parachute down, they come down as hatching eggs, it's quite entertaining, lmao. After playing that for about an hour, I decided to watch a movie until bedtime.

Over the weekend, a couple of cable channels were playing some Julia Roberts movies, TBS was showing Erin Brockovich, and another channel was showing Pretty Woman. Well that got me in the mood to see another Julia Roberts movie, one of my absolute favorites of all time, Notting Hill. So I took the opportunity to watch it tonight. Every time I watch it, I get teary eyed, my heart breaks every time they say goodbye, even though I know they'll be together at the end. I loved it so much, I wanted to watch it again as soon as it was over. My favorite line from the movie is: I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love me.

That makes my heart break every time I hear it. It is so romantic! I'm still waiting for someone to say something like that to me. One day, maybe...

Daily Extended Horoscope (Taurus):

For the next few days, it's going to be all about relationships for you, kid. Other than feeding yourself and your critters, you'll forget about work, play, cleaning the house, and just about anything else. If you're already attached, the object of your affection -- well, let's just say they'll finally understand just how lucky they really are. If you're not, it's definitely time to resume the hunt, in earnest, for the Right One. The universe has equipped you with everything you need. Get busy.


Guess it's time for me to start looking for Mr. Right, huh?

What a Day!

I went to bed last night with a headache, woke up this morning...STILL had the headache. Took a couple Advil, went back to sleep for 30 minutes, it was still there, dozed for another hour, by then it was gone, but I was so late for work at that point, I actually thought about just calling in sick. But did I??? NOOOOOOOOO

I almost wish I had. Today was a day from hell. I was at work for 7 hours, and felt like I got nothing done all day. I mostly dealt with piddly little shit stuff, that makes you feel like you haven't done anything important. So the things I'm normally done with by 11am, never got done today. Maybe tomorrow. And hopefully I'll be able to get up on time tomorrow, lol

Watched a bit of the news tonight, supposedly today is the first day of the year our average high temp will start increasing. Meaning, between now and sometime in July, our average high will slowly get warmer and warmer, then after that July date (I can't remember what the date is), it will start decreasing and slowly start cooling off. So in my mind, spring is right around the corner. Makes sense to me!

It's Almost Friday!


Today was beautiful, mostly sunny, upper 40's, very nice weather for January. After such a cold start to winter at the beginning of December, the last month has been unseasonably warm. Wonder what that means for Spring and Summer???

I stopped on the way home to fill my car with gas, which I do about every 5 days. Gas is costing about $2.28 per gallon here. I think that's about $0.60 per litre. Kerry check my math, lmao (1 gallon is about 3.75 litres?)

I was planning on watching a rerun episode, that I had not seen, of CSI:NY at 7pm, but instead it was a rerun episode of CSI, which I had seen. So I dozed for about 15 minutes, then read some emails, then watched a new CSI episode at 8pm. ER was a rerun, so I switched over to CNN to watch Anderson Cooper 360. He is in New Orleans, still working to find out why so many people there don't have assistance from FEMA. He spoke to the President of Bernard Parrish, who bought 6500 trailers, at a savings of almost $3000 versus the FEMA trailers. Bernard Parrish doesn't have the money themselves to pay for this, and they figured FEMA would be glad to pay for them, seeing as how they're saving them so much money.

You'd think, huh?? Nope! FEMA is now stating that there are too many roadblocks, red tape, regulations, etc for them to install the trailers. $3000 per trailer savings for 6500 trailers. Do the math! That's over $18 million dollars in savings for FEMA, and they are stonewalling! Meanwhile, the ship that is currently holding several hundred New Orleans residents is set to leave port the end of February. Where are these people supposed to go? Apparently, it will be YEARS before enough trailers could be made to house everyone who needs one. Un-freaking-believeable that in this day and age, with all the technological advances, that we have a government this callous as to leave these people homeless after all these months.

Nothing rhymes with Wednesday


I couldn't think of anything funny or entertaining for this post, so that's all you get. Here's a summary of my day:

Weather: cold but sunny
Work: boring, but I'm almost done making file folders, then I can start the stacks of filing.
TV: Watched the hour of American Idol tonight, from the Mile High city, Denver, Colorado. There was this "guy" who had hair styled like a girl, wore girl clothes, and sang terribly. Of course, there was a lot of build-up to his audition. 37 people made it to Hollywood, more than the 32 from Chicago, which took 2 hours to show, as opposed to one hour for Denver. Somehow, I'm sure that's not fair, lol And because I was watching CSI: NY at 9pm, I missed Fox News at 9, who interviewed the Paris Hilton look-alike from last night, who supposedly has just had a terrible life since being told no by the judges. I was hoping their website might have something about it, but I couldn't find anything.

Tomorrow's Thursday, and the week is almost over! WoooHooo!

American Idol begins Season 5


Two hours of hilarity, stupidity, mixed in with a small amount of talent. That's how I would describe the first night of American Idol Season 5, with audtions being held right here in Chicago. I won't be voting, but I will watch, as interstingly enough, I like to see who makes it through each week, and who gets sent packing.

Brrr, it's cold out. This morning started out in the upper 30's, and the temps dropped all day. We had, supposedly, some rain turning to snow. I don't recal much rain falling, but there were some flurries this afternoon. At least I'm glad I don't live in Toronto, where there was freezing rain icing everything up this afternoon.

Looks to be another boring day at work tomorrow, so I'd best get my beauty sleep. Lord knows I need it!

It Shore Is Monday


This past weekend? Uneventful. I saw the movie Munich. It was very good, but long. Three hours to be exact. Watched football, Da Bears lost, which I kind of figured they would. Pittsburgh won, so that was cool! Hard to believe the football season is almost over. Pretty soon spring training will be starting, and I'll be getting into the baseball spirit, lol.

Another slow day at work today, more of the same. Oh how I wish traffic could everyday be like it was today. There were just enough fewer cars on the road to make my commute very easy. It's very unusual for me to make it home in less than 45 minutes. Tomorrow will be back to normal, I'm sure.

Tonights blog is brought to you by the letters C, S, I, E and R.


Pretty boring day today. Work was slow, made more file folders, I walked to the post office at lunch today. It's about 2-1/2 - 3 city blocks away, but about 6 regular blocks. And I went the long way, on the sidewalk, to the crosswalk at the intersection then down, instead of cutting through the parking garage and jaywalking across in front of the Starbucks like everyone usually does. I got these cool looking stamps that have both the flag and the Statue of Liberty on them.

After coming home tonight, I relaxed in front of the tv, pretty typical, snoozed between 6:30 and 7pm, missing the second half of CSI, then I watched CSI: Miami, CSI, and ER. Anyway, time to go to bed, it's casual Friday tomorrow! Woooo Hoooo

Today Just Seemed Long


It doesn't help that I woke up over two hours later than I should have. For some reason, when the alarm went off at 5:30am, I hit the off button instead of the snooze button. When I finally woke up, I knew just by how rested I felt that I was late. The time? 8:02am. The time I start work? 8:00am. Guess I was just a little late to work today? By the time I showered, got dressed, fixed my lunch, and left for work, it was 9:00am. You'd think traffic would be pretty good by then, most everyone would be at work, right? Nope! Huge traffic jam about one minute after I get onto the tollway. Four lanes of traffic absolutely crawled for about four miles. By the time it opened up and we all could speed again, all I could find that might have caused it were three cars on the shoulder by an on-ramp. Two were police cars, but there was no accident that I could tell, just the three cars. So everyone was rubbernecking? Being lookyloos? Gaping? At three cars doing absolutely nothing?? Talk about frustrating!

Once I finally got to work at 9:45, the day passed uneventfully and slowly. I had pretty much NOTHING to do. For most of the day, I made file folders. Whoopee! For whatever reason, even though I am salaried, the inside sales people are required to sign in and out every day. And if we come in late, we have to make up our time either that day or as soon as possible. Well, with an hour and 45 minutes to make up, I was not staying at work till almost 6pm! So, with my boss' permission, I worked through 45 minutes of my lunch, took my 15 minute constitutional, and also stayed one hour late, till 5pm, and therefore made up all my time from this morning. Tomorrow I'll try not to do that again! LMAO

What Day is it Again?


I was talking on the phone with Deb tonight, and for some reason couldn't remember that today was Monday. Like anyone ever forgets when it's Monday? I'm either getting old, or I have Alzheimers, lmao. J/K

Today was a learning day at work. I discovered that for six months I was doing something wrong when I was paying bills for coils that we had slit. It wasn't really my fault though. It was for the account I was handling while Karen was on maternity leave, and she never got a chance to tell me all the information I needed. Her leave was pretty sudden. So, when Accounting was balancing accounts for the end of the year, they noticed one account was off by $30,000. Once we realized what I was doing wrong, that accounted for about $20,000 of it. Needless to say, now I know what I should have been doing. They say you learn something new every day, and today I did!

I was soooo hungry today, after having my usual breakfast of two chewy granola bars, my pb&j sandwich for lunch, my TGIF chips for a snack, I was starving by 3:30. Normally, I don't get hungry till about 5pm. And I've had a taste for Taco Bell for several days, so I decided to stop on the way home and have some tacos and get it out of my system (so to speak). Was yummy!

Tomorrow is supposed to be about 40F, so I think I might take my daily constitutional at lunchtime. I had stopped once it got extremely cold last month. And now since it's after 11pm (I got caught up watching highlights of the 1987-88 AFC Championship game between Denver and Cleveland), I think I'll go to bed.

The Weekend's Over Already?


Well, what do you know about that? Seems like the weekend just started and it's over already. Time flies when you're having fun! NOT!

Thursday night was interesting, sorta. My aunt in California called me, because she was worried about my sister, whom several people in my family had not heard from in a while, so I volunteered to call my other aunt in Minnesota to see if she had heard from her. Lo and behold, she had. So all is calm again in California. Although she'd like to strangle my sister for worrying her so. (And wouldn't we all?)

Other than that, I had a very quiet weekend. Watched football mostly, and chatted with Kerry on Saturday for about what 8 hours in MSN? LOL I went for a quick trip to the grocery store tonight, and filled my car up with gas. Prices are going up again, what's the deal? I haven't heard of any refinery problems, or increases in the price of a barrel of oil, so why is gas going up? I also went for a walk this afternoon between football games, since it was about 43F (+6C), pretty warm for January. Felt good to get out and get a little bit of exercise, and I need it after all the gorging I did over the holidays!

I decided to relax in front of the tv tonight, watched The West Wing at 7pm CST, since it's one of the last episodes John Spencer filmed before dying of a heart attack on Dec 16. Then I watched Supernatural, a show about two brothers who are searching for their Dad by going around the country investigating paranormal/strange occurrances. Tonight's episode was a little gory, a plumber got his hand chopped off...n/m, you don't want to know. Anyway, after that, I watched CSI: NY then CSI: Miami, as both shows were delayed due to football running long.

And now that it's midnight, I need to head to bed so I can get 5 hours of sleep, lol

Last College Football game of the season!


I'm watching the Rose Bowl tonight, for the National Championship in College Football in the U.S. The granddaddy of them all, between #1 USC and #2 Texas. It's been quite a game. It started out slow, but in the second half it has picked up quite a bit and is looking to be a showdown! I hope Texas wins, only because USC has won the National Championship the last two years. I could only hope for MY team to make it to the BCS Championship game someday...sigh!

Today was slow at work, which is exactly how I expect it to be for the next few months. If anything interesting happens there, I'll tell you about it, otherwise assume same ole, same ole.


It's almost midnight, the game is finally over...Texas came from behind and won 41-38!

Normalcy at last!


Well, things are getting back to normal at work. Karen is back from her six month maternity leave, which means the one big account I was handling for her is going back to her, as of today. So...now I will have time to continue getting caught up on all the file folders I need to make, and all the filing that has piled up for four months. It will take me awhile, but I'll eventually get it all done. Then what will I do? Only the shadow knows! (Sorry, that was a line from an old time radio show called The Shadow).

Watched a movie tonight that I haven't watched in years, a Stephen King movie called Duel. There's not much to it, just a guy in a car trying to go home, and a trucker that keeps trying to kill him. Eventually he gets the better of the truck by forcing it off a cliff into a quarry. Very strange movie, but I have memories of watching it in high school with a neighbor of mine. He and I used to have a lot of fun hanging out all summer doing stuff together.

By the way, does anyone reading this know how to keep nail polish from peeling off the nail two days after they've been polished? It makes it kind of hard to strengthen and grow my nails when the stuff comes loose on the edges and starts peeling off. Any suggestions would be helpful, as long as they don't cost too much, lol.

2006


After a nice relaxing four day weekend, and now that the holidays are over, I can get back to semi-regular blogging. I hope 2006 is better than 2005 for those of you reading this. And if 2005 was good to you, I hope 2006 is even better. I have quite a bit of vacation built up from last year, so I'm hoping to take a trip out to California later this year to visit family.

Happy New Year everyone!

Blah Blah Blah


Testing to see if anyone reads my blog anymore, lol

First Big Snow of the Season


Today was the first big snow of the season, and Chicago failed the test. That being how traffic handles the snow and how well the plows clear the streets. I took the day off from work to go shopping with a couple friends. We were out in Rockford today. One friend lives in the town next to Rockford, called Belvidere. I left her house in Belvidere at about 2:45pm this afternoon. We figured, with the snow, we'd allow 2 hours, just in case, so I could drop my other friend off at her house by 5pm. Well! We got to her house about 4:30 maybe? I can't remember the exact time. I left her house and started my long ass trip home. Normally, the drive would take 30-45 minutes, depending on traffic. Tonight, it took almost 2-1/2 hours. Every road I took hadn't been plowed yet, and traffic was at a dead crawl. I am so glad to be home right now. And with all this snow, maybe only 5 inches, I will have to get up at 5am, go outside at about 6am and start clearing off my car, so I can leave by 6:30 at the latest to try to get to work by 8. Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday and I can dress in jeans and sneakers!

Just a Quick Post


I'm heading to bed, had to read emails and catch up on blogs, and couldn't do all that until after I watched part 2 of The Triangle, a mini series on SciFi. Almost freaked me out on the plane today, cause I was remembering images from the first episode last night.

I flew down to Indianapolis today to go visit a customer. Nice visit. I've been there once before, but it was nice to go see the buyer again. And I got to see a couple pieces of steel that they've been having problems with. I knew what the problem was, but I wanted to see what it actually looked like to them. Flew back this evening, and since I don't fly much in the winter, I think this is the first time I've ever actually been on a plane that I knew was being de-iced. It was interesting to watch, lol. I think the plane held 40 people total, and I was in seat 1A, so I got off first! Wooo Hooo! ! !

Friggin airport, couldn't let us park in the parking garage on one of the coldest f***ing days of the year, NOOOO, we had to park in the outside lot, and walk OUTSIDE to get to the terminal! And the WIND! OMG! Overnight temps are supposed to be around 0F with a windchill of -15F. I'm not even going to attempt a conversion for Kerry, lmao.

Back to work tomorrow, then off on Thursday to go shopping with a couple friends, then back to work on Friday, crazy week! LOL

It's FRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDAY! ! ! ! !


What a nice day it was! I got out of work early, so I could come home and get ready for my "Holiday Dinner." Damn thing was 45 miles one way, took me an hour and a half to get there! Of course that was during rush hour too, plus one accident along the way.

Dinner was very nice. I had filet mignon, green beans, mashed potatoes, some kind of creamy shrimp soup, hearts of romaine ceasar salad (two pieces of lettuce 6 inches long with ceasar dressing drizzled on top), and OMG this cheesecake for dessert! It was like a mint flavor cheesecake, and a firm coating of chocolate all around it. That was the best part of the meal, lol

I don't know if I'll get any pictures of me in my outfit, only 2-3 were taken with me in them (I think), if I get any of them digitally, if they show the outfit at all, I'll send them to you.

I only had one glass of wine with dinner, drank water and diet pepsi the rest of the time. Traffic was much better coming home, it only took me 45 minutes or so to get home. And just as I was about to turn onto my street, I see the first snowflakes falling, so my timing was perfect. I ended up not driving in any snow, lol.

Now that I have this stupid song in my head (me? I'm a kitty cat, and I dance dance dance, and I dance dance dance.) Kerry will know what I'm talking about, lmao

Quick and Painless


Is that what the dentist said to Kerry tonight? LMAO

Busy day today! It's end of month AGAIN! Seems like I just went through all this, and now I'm doing it again, lol. Ran some errands on the way home from work today...stopped at the post office to get stamps, got gas for my car (gas is getting cheaper and cheaper, wooo hoooo 2.14/gallon), and picked up some dry cleaning. Tomorrow night (Friday) is my "Holiday Dinner." Guess it's not being called a Christmas Dinner, because we have so many Japanese people in the office, and I just bet some of them aren't Christians, lol.

So I had this outfit for oh at least three years and never wore it, lmao. I LOVED the outfit in the store, but the pants were too long. I bought it anyway, and just never got around to having the pants hemmed. Well, since it was suggested that I reconsider going to the Holiday Dinner, I figured now was a great time to hem the pants and wear this outfit. The pants are all black, real soft material. The top is button all the way down, it's like a jacket, goes down past my hips, it's tan in the front and black in the back, with this blacked stitched flower or something on the front. I think it looks very nice on me, perfect for this dinner, which we've been told is business formal. Black flats with the outfit, and I'm all set.

Now I'm just hoping that the snow really does hold off until after midnight so I can get home from this dinner beforehand. And since I'm going to the dinner, I get off work at 2pm tomorrow!!! Gives me a chance to come home, shower, shave, get all spruced up, grab a little snack since dinner won't be until 7pm and I'll be starving by then, lol.

I had bills to pay tonight, had two episodes of Days to watch (one of which had no sound so it only took 7-8 minutes to fast-forward through it, lol), watched ER, typed up this, and now I'm going to bed. Hope everyone else sleeps as well as I'm going to tonight!