Note to self, don’t buy a patio door on a windy day. RAW enlisted the help of two neighbors to get this huge thing off the truck after he managed to get it home somehow. They almost lost it when a gust hit. The tree and fence saved it from crashing to the ground.
Now we got to get the sucker installed.
And while we are out spending money, NOT on the kitchen, I ordered a new read couch.
I have been wanting to move my old Blogger blog to MT for some time. I was hoping to do this next month but I had a blog scare at the old site with a co-worker who found me when he googled his name. Eeek! I don’t really have anything to hide but still.
Anyway, Merry Christmas. We had a good day and in Hollace’s words, “better than I ever dreamed”.
It was quiet with none of us even unlocking the door to go outside.
I, for some reason, never picked up my camera to take any pictures. Doesn’t that seem odd for me? I did have the camcorder filming for the first hour or so. Of course I can’t put any of that in the photo album. Some of what Hollace got was a Leapster and a couple games, 2 Winx Club fairies (what she was “dying” for), a Fairytopia, personal CD player and iceskating Barbie and Ken. I got RAW a 9″ TV to take camping (you know roughing it) and I finally found the watch I got him and couldn’t find. I got some bike shorts, a cake pan to replace my missing one and the promise he will make a magazine rack I requested.
Last night we started a new Christmas Eve tradition, actually going to church. We decided a couple years ago to always spend the actual holiday at home then traveling to the parents either before or after. Last weekend we went to Fort Wayne and tomorrow we go to Crown Point.
Anyway, we went to church for the candlelight service. Hollace’s candle started dripping hot wax on her so I grabbed it in fear she was just going to drop it. I walked out of there with 2 wax droppings on my pants. Hopefully I can get it out.
Every night Hollace prays that Haley, the girl around the corner that broke her arm on the slide by our house a couple months ago, gets her cast off before she sees her again. Well I guess Haley got her cast off cause the kid has been coming around a lot lately. She spent 2 full days at our house playing with Hollace. She even called on Christmas eve asking if she could come over to play. I told her not today.
Maybe her being around explains why Hollace woke up in the middle of the night after throwing up all over. She had the “silent but deadlies” earlier in the evening (and still is having those 3 days later). Fortunately it was a one shot thing and has been good since.
Lets see what else do I need to update you on?
Hollace had her school Christmas program. Hollace wants nothing to do with it and was proud she was just a stage hand. We practiced the songs for weeks and she at least knew them but stage fright still took over and she didn’t sing. Actually I do have one photo of her with her mouth open so maybe see did sing a little. They did Charlie Brown Christmas and inbetween dialog and song, the kids were suppose to bop around dancing. Only Hollace and the mean kid Dane sat there on the steps and did no dancing. In her defence thought she did “skate” around in the begining.
Apparently Hollace is too shy to sing in front of an audience but not too shy to flip up her dress and show her undies. She doesn’t think she is showing anything cause she has tights on. When we were getting dressed for the show she was looking for a long dress which apparently she has none. I am now thinking the teacher requested she wear a long dress to avoid the show she showed. Oh well, even though me and RAW are sitting there trying to get her to put down her dress, she was cute.
It is that time again, a time full of promise that I will make my changes. Of course they are the same changes I promise myself every year but still I am optimistic I will do them…this year.
We had our typical New Years Eve, just stay home alone and celebrate by ourselves. Though this is how we like it I still feel a bit pitiful and lonesome. Everyone else seems to celebrate with other people even thought they tell me they don’t like to go out, they just invite a few friends over. Well someone is going out, like the friends. We never get invites like that. I know why not invite someone over here. I am sure everyone has their plans.
I actually got a New Years Eve-Eve party invite from Lisa C at work. She is all the way in Wisconsin, about a 40 minute drive. My hermit homebody tendancies told me I didn’t really want to go but I thought I better go anyway because someone actually invited me and I am out mingling with others.
Going to this party was a little awkward. No one else from work came like they apparently promised. I am not really in Lisa’s relm of friends at work, there was only a small handful that were there and Lisa isn’t much of a hostest not really introducing us to anyone or conversing with us. It felt a little like why the hell are we here?
When I asked Hollace if she wanted to go to a party she said sure, she might meet some new people. She knew there probably wasn’t going to be any kids there. I love that attitude and one I have been wishing she would have.
There was a 3 year old girl there that took her by her hand once we went downstairs. They ran around and played the whole night. The girl’s mother on the other hand might of been like me. I think she was Lisa’s sister-in-law. She sat there by herself and didn’t seem interested in having a conversation. I did try to engage her a bit like with the question of how old her daughter was. She said three and that was it. If I was more of an engaging person I would of forced her in a conversation with questions. I think I was looking in a mirror or maybe she was really a snob. I for the most part hung around RAW who was conversing with some neighbor guys and did they “uh huh” thing. Eventually I talked with Lisa’s boyfriend/fiancee’s mom. She was an interesting character.
We ended the night not knowing anyone’s name because no one ever said (including us), hi I am so and so, what is your name.
Oh well it was a lesson dealing with people. Practice makes perfect.
Looks like I went off on a tangent with my original title for this post.
I think I gained 10 lbs this holiday season. I am looking at the South Beach diet book and while I will probably pattern my eating plan with this I am so uninspired. All the testomials were edited horribly (or maybe they jump around with their experieces that badly) and they always ended it with, well I cheat a little now and am backsliding.
I think this is the curse of low carb diets. I will get more into my philosophy of this with my diet blog later. I think in my case, watch the fat (that means skipping my whole cream lobster bisque, yum) and especially watch portion sizes which is my big issue. I am still going to be low or only healthy carbs. I still think hypnosis is the key to my self destructive binges. Exercize is key. Tomorrow I think for exercize I will dance around the living room for 20-30 minutes. I will eventually join the health club at work.
I am also going to nip that personality problem I mentioned earlier in this post with hypnosis.
My photography and my photoblog will be a big deal in 2005. I hope to stretch and grow in this area.
I gave Hollace some resolutions too. She will tie her shoes and try new foods amongst others.
Today I cut my nails so I am feeling rather chatty but I think I will end this post anyway. Today we gave the DVD a workout watching movies. Me and RAW just watched Big Fish. Good movie. RAW wants me be acquire the movie for our collection.
You can really waste a lot of time blogging. Especially reading from others. One of my resolutions is to look at more photoblogs. Photoblogs take the least amount of time because it is usually only one picture to look at then you move on but if I want to be popular in the world of photoblogs, I need to really look, form a thought and leave a comment all over.
It is the text blogs that take so much time cause blog writers are generally chatty. Today I stumbled on a Best of 2004 site where one of the categories was best diet blog. Well I am trying to start one for myself and I wanted to see what others are doing. I just can’t do it, where is the time. Just how much is the average blogger spending reading everyone elses stuff? Not to mention the time it takes to make your own entry and now I have 3 of these silly things. I have a lot of blah, blah, blah on my mind but no time to write it out.
You know what, I am not going to proof read this so I hope it makes sense, I just don’t have the time to read yet another blog!
Rented a lot of movies over the New Year holiday. I don’t know why I want record of this but this is what we watched.
Tom Hanks in, shit, what was the movie called. It is the one where he is trapped in an airport (I just looked it up, The Terminal. Then we seen Eloise at Christmastime, Sound of Music and Princess Diaries (all with Julie Andrews) then the last movie we seen was Tom Hanks in the Ladykillers.
Here are some of the others we seen during the holiday”
Big Fish
Napolean Dynamite
SuperSize Me
Garfield
VeggieTales, stories of the bible
Disney Princesses
I just realized when I went to look up the Tom Hanks flix that I was also looking to rent Splash an old Hanks movie cause Hollace is into mermaids and I thought she might enjoy that one. At the time (just like right now) I couldn’t remember its name and when I finally did they didn’t have it.
Speaking of movies. I just left this post to go watch the independent film Hollace was in last year. It is a half hour movie starring Gabby from ArtWorks. She was excellent! It is a sad, depressing movie where she runs away. Hollace plays the young Gabby in 2 flashbacks. I choked back the tears when I seen her. She was so cute and happy, she did very well. Looks like Stephan got some good footage of her. Aww, my little reluctant movie star did good.
Tonight I finally made my first camera club meeting for this season (which started in September). I was raring and ready to show off. I printed up some business cards with my photoblog’s URL, grabbed one of my photo calendars and my new Canon DSLR and head out.
I was fairly outgoing for a change talking to people there. I even blurted out a comment during a quiet moment at the Photoshop demo.
Aaauggg, I was about to tear my hair out listening to the speaker though. He was this old guy (ok, most everyone there is an old man) who teaches Photoshop at the community college who talks so.damn.slow! I thought we would never get done. That said I did learn a little bit new stuff, more than I thought as a 12 year user. I mean I know there is a lot of stuff I don’t know about Photoshop but I didn’t think this guy was going to touch any of it since the audience was full of old people that aren’t computer saavy.
Speaking about showing off. Even thought I will probably be painfully embarrassed, I am submitting one of my kaleidoscopes in the members art show gallery for the Lake County Artist Guild. It is the only reason I joined the guild is to try to sneak one of my scope prints in. I am sure it will look odd next to all the paintings. I am going to do it anyway.
I will probably embarrass myself and already did slightly but you know what? I don’t care or at least that is what I am trying to tell myself. Tonight I entered one of my kaleidoscope prints in the member’s only art show. I joined the artist guild only so I could do this. I will probably be embarrassed but I got to learn to get over it.
I originally went over to the college (where the gallery is) but couldn’t find the building. I finally drove home in disgust. After dinner RAW drove me out there and walked through the other buildings to get to the building in the back that has no road apparently. Anyway I was unsure I should do this and even though I had trouble getting there I still went ahead and did it.
Now I just need to get through Friday night for the art show opening.
I have that slight uneasy feeling going on now
This week has been like a rollercoaster
It started when I found out the 2nd copy of Trainer Soft (for eLearning) went to Deb instead of me. I talked to Paul about it and and got a lame answer about putting it on Deb’s machine because she is production, doing changes. “Bob” got the other copy which makes sence but it bothers me to no end that I am left out. I talked to Lisa today and she was part of the decision process and can’t figure out why they did that. I see a meeting with Paul in my future.
Then Apple announced the MiniMac and I emailed Vic, the resident Mac addict (and my former boss) to talk to my management to get back my Mac-ability back. Last time I talked to Vic about me staying with my Mac he broke my heart and pretty much said that is the way it goes. This time he said he changed his mind and agrees with me that multimedia=multiplatform. he talked to Paul and Paul has no problem (my old supervisor had the problem) but he wants to wait until we get a new supervisor. That made me feel better. Also Paul’s devotion to score me a copy of DVD Studio Pro (for the spare Mac).
Lisa said she was going to go for the supervisor position which got me excited (my Mac would be a shoo-in). Paul and all seemed pleased as well. That was yesterday’s talk but today I had lunch with Lisa and she got an offer this morning with another division. She thinks she is going to take it. No, NO, Lisa you can’t go! Tomorrow is Christina’s last day as she is going off to that same division. With Christina, I lose my great music contact and she is a really cool person.
I am going to feel a bit lost with 3 key people leaving (I am counting my supervisor too who left in November). Nobody else around has a clue.
For the last couple weeks I was planning on going to Sherry’s daugher’s baby shower on Saturday. They live 100 miles away in Indiana (by my mom’s)
Today is Saturday, me and Hollace head out at 10:30 for our 2 hour drive. About a mile down the road I go to make sure I have the invite with the instructions and that was when I noticed that the shower is on the 16th.
Um, yesterday I was able to determine that it was the 14th so I guess that means today isn’t the 16th is it?
Thank God we didn’t drive all the way to Indiana before figuring that out.
Then RAW heads out to a motorcycle swap meet. He calls me shortly after saying that he is having the same problem. The swap meet is also tomorrow, the 16th. At least he only had to drive 7 miles.
I guess we need to invest in a good calendar
On the eve of receiving the new computer I ordered (it is coming today), all that ailed my old 4 year old machine mysteriously fixed itself.
Last week when I tried to work from home I was unable to launch Macromedia Dreamweaver, my main tool for work. I also couldn’t print, and use VPN that logs me into the network at work. I was unable to reinstall any of my software nor could I seem to fix any of this with my diagnostic utilities. My Norton antivirus seemed to quit working too calling for a reinstall (which I couldn’t do). I was in the market of replacing the old thing in March hoping to time it with the new OS that is coming out. Because I now couldn’t work at home if I needed to, I went ahead and ordered a new beast.
Yesterday at work on my PC, I discovered that my personable website was hacked. My anti-virus at work spewed out viral errors. Then right after that my Dreamweaver (on the PC) quit working. I found it interesting that the exact same problem was happening on my PC version as it did at home on my Mac…it tries to start up then goes away. Corey reinstalls me and I avoid swardraws.com just in case there was a connection.
Back at home on my Mac, I replace my index.htm page and fix the website hack.
Then I try to launch Dreamweaver to look at the code of my hacked page and lo and behold Dreamweaver launches! And I can now print…and I can now log into the work network and I am getting no more errors from Norton.
WTF? My own little swardraws brought me down to my knees, on both platforms with anti-virus protection. I didn’t know this could happen just looking at a webpage, well at least a page like my own.
If I could of waited to get my new computer when I wanted I could of saved $130 for the OS upgrade and $20 for the iLife upgrade that just came out that would of already been on my new machine had I waited.
Just a bunch of blah blah from me
Posted by swardraw 
