1/1/2011

It feels a little weird writing 2011. 2010 was hard enough to remember to write correctly. I think I was writing 2009 until at least February. Maybe my brain will be a little more sharper and less cluttered this year. On with the resolutions!

1. Put more time into working on my ancestry.com family tree. -- This is something that I really got into in 2010. There is so much work to do because a lot of the research needs to be done in person at libraries, cemeteries, and courthouses. I need to go to Nebraska and Iowa to get a lot of the detail work done. I have met so many people online that have helped me with my research. One particular man from Brooklyn was especially helpful. He filled in a lot of gaps in my family tree pertaining to my paternal great grandfather and opened up so many surprising details about my family that I never knew of.

2. Be less wasteful and more mindful of where my money goes -- I don't know how much gas is going for where you live but it is right at about $3.30 per gallon for diesel here in Houston. This is about a 40 cent per gallon increase just in the last 4 months alone. Isn't it funny how when gas shot up this much several years ago, the media was all over it. HMMMM........ Prices for many things are about to go sky high. If you keep track of forecasting, you may already know about the cotton crisis that is about to hit. Prices for many things are about to skyrocket. I think we all need to be prepared. Anyways, as part of this resolution, I am going to try and eliminate any debts, save more, and eat out less often. The eating out part will be the hardest for me. I know for a fact that it is not the food that draws me out to restaurants. I am a great cook and can make my own food that tastes fantastic and is a lot less expensive. I like to go out for pure social reasons. I like to mingle, people watch, and hang out with friends. It will be hard.

3. Live life to the fullest-- I am shocked at how fast 2010 went by and I feel like I accomplished nothing outstanding. It is time to take a closer look at my "Bucket List" and get a few more things crossed off.

I hope everybody has a fantastic and blessed 2011!!!!!!!!

Twas the night before the night before Christmas.....

The week in review....

1. On my first day of vacation, I forgot to turn off my alarm and I was cheerfully greeted by blaring Christmas music at 5am. Christmas music at 5 am sucks, especially when I have been meaning to change the station for the last 3 and a half weeks but have just been too lazy. See what procrastinating does for you?
2. I have been on a total crap eating extravaganza which I foresee continuing on through at least Sunday. Truffles? Check! Banana bread? Check! Chik-fil-a? Check! Chinese food? Check! And that was just today!!!! Tis the season you know.....
3. I did not put the tree up until Sunday. I almost did not put it up at all because I have just been so busy but guilt got to me and I did. I did not get around to putting down the Christmas tree skirt or wrapping any presents, again due to being too busy, but apparently there was a reason. On Tuesday morning, I walked into the living room to find water gushing out of the hot water closet and onto the living room floor. Guess what is right next to the water gushing closet? Ding ding ding! If you guessed the Christmas tree you get 5 points!!! Thank God there were no presents under it. How badly would that have sucked?!? Home Depot got a sizable chunk of change from us that day for a new water heater.
4. I actually went into Katy Mills Mall today and survived, The new Victoria's Secret there is pretty nice by the way. I am officially done shopping except for a few stocking stuffers. Yea!!!
5. For some some strange reason, I can't get the Mickey Mouse Club theme song out of my head. It is driving me crazy!!!!!! Join the madness!!!
That about sums it all up. I am ready for Christmas but I am also looking forward to actually relaxing next week before I have to go back to work.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Crown molding was invented by the devil.

The guest bedroom is nearly completed. I have been working on it for over a year. I know, I know..... how the hell has it taken a whole year to remodel one measly room? Life has just gotten in the way. You get home from work and are just too tired, your friends/family want you to do something with them, you lose interest..... blah, blah, blah. About a month ago I forced myself to get back on track and it was time to focus, focus, focus!! A big part of the problem is that I am a perfectionist and a daydreamer so I will strive to get something 100% correct and then I will have to stop and admire my work for half and hour. Believe me, you don't get much done that way.
Now, all that is left is the crown molding and the floor. The floor will be left to the professionals but the crown molding we will do ourselves. If you have never installed crown molding, lets just compare it to solving a difficult math problem that involves power tools and carrying a long piece of wood up and down the stairs and then climbing a ladder over and over until you get the correct fit. Have I mentioned how much I suck at math? I am exhausted. The room is only half way finished and I know I went up and down those stairs 30 times. It is looking good though and is worth the effort. Hopefully I can have it pretty much finished by tomorrow. I think I will go take a nice long hot shower now.

Ponder.....

1. Why does Taylor Swift annoy the hell out of me?
2. Why did I just eat an entire jumbo cinnamon roll?
3. Why do I have so many bottles of nail polish and why do I keep buying more?
4. Why can't I find a tube of clump free smudge free mascara that can actually stay put in Houston's 99.9% humidity?
5. Why do I punish myself by continually looking at 6pm.com when I know I am on a self imposed shoe suspension?
6. Why do I bother looking at news websites? Since when is the winner of Dancing With The Stars important news????
7. Why is it so fucking hot and humid on the day before Thanksgiving? I am just not feeling the holiday spirit. The last thing I want to hear about is how one of my friends just finished putting up all 6 fully decorated Christmas trees in her house. I will be lucky to put up one.
8. Why am I so bitter?

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Tivo lives on

I have always joked with family and friends about my love affair with Tivo. Seriously. I never watch live television anymore. To be honest, I don't watch that much television at all. But I do have my little "to do" list of shows that I watch religiously (commercial free of course!!) I have tried other DVRs at friends and families houses but they all annoy me. Tivo is my friend. I can operate the remote one handed and in the dark with my hand behind my back. My remote is so old that all of the writing on the keys is gone. If you don't know what the keys do...then you are just SOL. When I found out that Directv was bringing back Tivo I was ecstatic. Their current DVR system sucks big time and I refuse to purchase one. I know my ancient Tivo box has a limited life span and I have been worried about replacing it ever since it started rebooting on its own every couple of days about a month ago. Well, last night it seized up big time and for the first time ever I got the green screen of death that said "Severe Error." WTF? Severe error? That did not sound good! There was a message on the screen that said not to reboot or unplug the unit and to just leave the box on for at least 3 hours to see if the system could "repair" itself. They also included a 1-800 number to call if it did not come back to life. Of course, being my father's daughter, I did unplug and reboot the system about 4 times before I gave up and decided I was screwed. I am not ashamed to admit that I was freaking out just a little. What about America's Next Top Model? Pawn Stars? Kendra? Top Chef Just Desserts? Breathe in- Breathe out. Serenity now. I then proceeded to stay up until 1 in the morning on the computer trying to figure out what my options were. I learned that they are many, many, forums devoted to the worship of TIVO and that these people are hardcore. I basically had 4 options. First- Go without TV until next year when the new Directv Tivo launches. Not an option. Second- Buy a used system off of ebay and take my chances that it will even work. Third- Attempt to replace the hard drive in the unit with a newer shinier version. Fourth- Fork out close to $400 bucks for a reconditioned unit with a warranty from a reputable seller. All of these choices sucked. I wanted my old Tivo back!!!!!! All of my recorded shows that I had never watched were lost. I still had not gotten around to watching the first 6 episodes of Housewives of Beverly Hills. And what about Vanilla Ice? I wanted to see which room he was going to work on next. And my collection of The Antonio Project? I had been saving those for a cold rainy day. I went to bed in a daze and had horrible Tivo induced nightmares. The worst one was where I was in an operating room trying to perform a "hard drive" replacement. When I woke up in the morning I felt a little groggy and depressed. Right before I left for work I turned on the TV to write down the 1-800 just so that I could call them and verify my options before I made any rash decisions. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! The green screen of death was gone and there was an infomercial on for the Abomatic or something stupid like that. I actually screamed with joy over the amazing sight of my Tivo having healed itself. It was a miracle! If only it can just keep on going until next Spring, all will be good. I am a true nerd.

We are only here to protect you from your own stupidity

I bought a couple of new towels today. After removing about a bazillion tags from them before throwing them into the washer, I stopped to read the care tag before selecting the water temp. and wash setting. It was actually a miracle that there were written instructions in a language that I could understand. Have you looked at the majority of care tags, especially on clothes, lately? They now use only symbols to tell you how you should care for your washables. Like we have time to study and remember this type of information? The stupid part is that the "master list" of clothing care symbols is not something that your average person has floating around in their brain. Perhaps they are teaching this stuff in school now? I actually had to go online and look up what these symbols mean. A couple of them are pretty easy to figure out, like the one that obviously means no ironing or no machine wash. But since when does a triangle mean the international sign for bleach? And how am I supposed to know that 1 dot = 30 degrees Celsius and 6 dots = 95 degrees Celsius? Argghhhh!!!!!

Jury Duty

I got a summons last Tuesday for jury duty today. They don't give you much time do they? I figured it was karma biting me in the butt because one of my friends got picked a couple of weeks ago and I laughed at him. Actually, I don't mind jury duty. It is a privilege that we live in a country that allows us to participate in the legal system and I think that a lot of people forget that. It would never even occur to me to "not" go. Just like voting... I will never understand why people do not vote when given the opportunity.
Thank God I live out in the country in a small county. It is easy to get to the courthouse, parking is free, and there are no long lines to wait in. If I had to go down to the Harris County courthouse in Houston and sit around for 7 years with all the other people waiting for jury duty.... I might have different feelings about it. The only bad thing about jury duty is that I ALWAYS get picked. ALWAYS!!!! They never even ask me any personal questions during the selection process outside of the basic name, age, and occupation. They just pick me. I guess that is a small town for you. If they really wanted to know my political and religious views they might have second thoughts about putting me up there because opionated is my middle name. Child of a Catholic and Jewish household with very vocal conservative yet occasionally extremely far to the left views anyone? Probably not...... Anyways, I show up and was juror number 203 which is good considering they only summon 250. I would say only about 40 people showed up and I ended up in the last row in the courtroom with only 2 people after me so I felt I had a fighting chance to not be chosen...... until I started looking around at some of the potential jury members. Yep, I was going to be called. There were some real "unusual" looking characters in this group and they would be shown the door quickly.
The judge entered the courtroom and gave us a little speech about what an honor it was to serve, yada yada yada....... and that he had good news and bad news. The good news was that we had all made it on time and that he was glad we were here. The bad news was that we had all made it on time, were here, and that the case had been settled outside of court 15 minutes earlier. Bad news my ass!!!! YIIIPPPEEEEEEEEE! We all looked at each other like "Thank God!!!!" and scurried out into the beautiful sunny day. No jury duty and a paid day off from work. Score!!!!!!!