Cookin' on all burners

Boy I can't believe I'm here and here again.

Work is busy, my girl's school is busy, and my sister is getting married in less than a month. Did I mention that I'm the wedding photographer? Should I just have a heart attack now or later?

And yes, I've gone way off on my WW Points. You bet. Waaaaaay off.

I actually had a dream

where I was following my football picks on Sunday and I was at the bottom with like, two right and everyone else was floating at the top with nine. I had this dream and I literally woke up with eyes popping open and a short gasp--almost like the movies except I didn't jerk myself up in a sitting position.

See how a taste of victory can go to one's head? Anyhoo, I was actually going to do some research and look at injury reports but unfortunately, since I don't really know the players, I really don't know how much that affects the point spread. We'll see if I do better with research...

I am the champion, my friends

Victory tastes so sweet.

It's a tradition that the weekly winner brings in doughnuts. As this was my first winning week EVER in all the years I have been playing in/donating to this football pool, I upped it to bagels and cream cheese. I got a bucket of classic and a bucket of fancy/sweet ones. I wish you were all here to share in my delicious glory.

I worked late last night and almost forgot about the game until I was checking e-mail and Laura commented that the score was exactly what I needed with less than 4 minutes left to go. I'm pretty sure I'm glad I didn't actually watch the game because I'm sure I'd need a defibrillator on standby, so thanks Laura for the update I needed! With the Colts win, I got 12 picks right out of a possible 16--sweet.

On to week 3...

Go Colts

As someone of you know, I have been in a football pool for a number of years running and have yet to win a week of picks (darn the point spread!)

If you've got any mojo around, please put it towards the Colts over Miami. By 4 points.

By the Power of GreySkull...again

I'm in so deep...in clutter.

By the Power of GreySkull, I must, must, must make a dent in it or I well seriously lose it.

Any suggestions for someone in so deep are welcome.

Time to get new pants?

When I was younger, when someone still fit into pants but didn't realize they outgrew the length, the other kids would hound him or her with "where's the flood?" But don't you think we could fold them up and call them capris and save some Hamiltons?

Don't get Clooneyed

Sometimes after working a long day (and knowing I've some more time to put in at work) I'll take a mental break and go to the MSN home page and see the latest news. And...perhaps some gossip. Unfortunately I learned the hard way that despite starting at a legit and presumably firewalled-up-the-wazoo site like the MSN home page, that as you hit links to connecting stories, the new pages may be other sites that aren't as firewalled as msn.

The hard way includes having to call the guy who handles IT issues (among other things) on his commute home and shamefully confess that I might have gotten a virus on my PC. Oooo, how, you ask? Well, I was on the MSN home page and I hit these links... He snorts something along the lines of ech, you're screwed, see you in the morning.

The hard way includes losing an entire day at work (and having to stay really late the next day--Friday--to catch up) while I lose all my music and photos because my hard drive has to be wiped clean and get Windows reinstalled.

The hard way includes everyone hearing you got demoted to "restricted" access to the internet and I swear, getting a much older and lamer version of Windows Media Player installed. It's a combo punishment of wearing the Scarlet letter and having my stealing hand cut off and being forced to eat with my wiping hand. On the plus side, everyone has been on edge on where they go on the internet now which apparently should lessen the chances of getting another PC infected at work. Hooray for them.

Bottom line, don't fall for the links that claim George Clooney Finally Falls in Love--For Reals!

It's not worth it. On so many levels.

Off to school

Sigh. How can it be that sometimes time drags but life just flies by?

No I didn't forget

But for some reason, September 11 came upon me suddenly. Unlike last year and previous years, where I couldn't escape the coming impact of this day in my history, I almost forgot that September 11 was coming until it arrived this year. It was almost like, hey, there's a meeting on Friday, which Friday? Let's see, that would be September 11. For a brief moment, it was like any other date and it didn't land hard like September 11.

But I'm sure as the day goes on, it'll all hit me. I always remember.

Good & Fiery

One of my fave, fave candies is Good & Plenty. So I was game when Paul found a new addition to the family, Good & Fiery:

Now he's more of a Hot Tamale fan than me, but I thought the makers of Good & Plenty couldn't go wrong.

Ech, I was wrong. I'm apparently not the niche target they were planning on marketing this to. The combo of the artificial fruit flavors with spicy fire felt like a mistake. Like accidentally ingesting Lemon Pledge while eating a stale cinnamon tic tac. And it wasn't just me. I brought the rest of the box to work and I saw a number of folks try them, only to see their faces scrunch up while they pawed their mouths, like dogs do when they're forced to wear silly hats by their owners.

So unfortunately, despite a promising idea, I have to give Good & Fiery a C-.

Someone is getting married

and I made the invites! My sister is getting married in October and I was thrilled that she let me make the invites for the wedding. Here was an inspiration piece that my sister had, but she didn't care for the butterflies and glitter:


I created a multi-page invite including reply postcard and kept the color scheme of chocolate, light blue, and stone beige. I replaced the trees with allium flowers hand-stamped on white vellum:

Totally psyched that my sister and her man dug them!

The advantages of technology

When I was in college, there was a guy in my statistics class who sat in the front row and had a laptop. Since I was in college 20 years ago, having a laptop wasn't common at all. I remember one of my college send-off gifts was an electric typewriter (I typed on a manual typewriter through high school) and my dorm featured a typing room. Anyhoo, this guy could be heard typing away as the rest of low tech losers scribbled notes in our notebooks. One day, this guy sat in front of me and I discovered what he was truly furiously typing away at: Tetris.

I wonder if he's in the Connecticut state congress now:

(House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, far right, speaks while colleagues play solitaire on their computers as the House convenes to vote on a new budget for the fiscal year in the Capitol, in Hartford, Conn., Monday, Aug., 31, 2009.)

***If you can't see the picture, see it here.

Failblog.org is one of my favorite humor sites. Besides some great pictures and vids from around the world, it has further discouraged my desire to join FaceBook.

Lloyd "I love you"

What, what is that you're doing with your hands?

Just happened upon Say Anything on cable recently. I found this short homemade trailer on youtube with some other fave lines:



Boy, that movie brings back a LOT of memories. Has it really been 20 years?! Loved, loved that movie. I remember one of my roommates back in the day would play that movie to go to sleep by. I remember Lili Taylor's memorably stealing the scene with her song, "Joe Lies". I remember thinking, how could you not fall in love with Lloyd Dobler? Will I get a Lloyd Dobler? I remember that Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" is forever tied to this movie.

Funny yet kinda of sad though, now watching it as a parent, I'm sympathizing more with Diane's dad's point of view (minus the felonious stealing). Do I want my daughter flying off with a guy who, when asked about his future plans, responds: "What I really want to do with my life - what I want to do for a living - is I want to be with your daughter. I'm good at it"?

Man, I'm feeling a little old now.

Happy Birthday to my big girl

I had big plans to surprise the girl for her birthday this year. Made this banner and put it up early in the morning:

Piled all her presents on a table:

We were going to surprise her with breakfast in bed with these (but she ambled downstairs while Paul was out picking them up):

But she was still psyched for birthday and got a box of cool "stuff" from her grandfather: including a rose quartz butterfly, a bicentennial half dollar, and more stones to add to her growing rock collection--thanks Opa!

She also scored a bunch of neat things from her Aunt Jane and Uncle Prashant, including some great books, her favorite tea, a cool dream catcher, and a jeweled hairband that the girl had dropped serious covetous hints to her patient aunt:

The big present from me and Paul was the Wii system. We had told her if she saved up her allowance towards the Wii, maybe we'd pitch in the rest for her birthday. We're happy to say we made good, plus her Aunt Annabelle and Uncle Josh added to the loot with the MarioKart game (which she's been playing with her Uncle Josh since his Game Cube days):

My left coast home girls collectively gave her another fun Wii game:

We also gave her seasons 1 and 2 of Scrubs, which she recently got hooked on. We'll cap off the night with a few episodes and a little family slumber party in the living room. It's a good birthday.

There go Saturdays

Yeesh, college football season snuck up on me fast. I can't believe it's here already. It's still like, 90 degrees here. I've really grown to look forward to this season every year.

Raised by parents who didn't follow sports, I wouldn't have predicted how much I look forward to this season every year. In fact, sometimes I marvel how much I absorbed in the last 15 years with my Husker husband. But don't mistake me for one of those fanatics that rattle off stats. I will confess my recall about, say, Matt Ryan, in Boston College's amazing 2007 win over Virgina Tech, is first, that cameras were rolling as he was pacing the sidelines when he suddenly lurched over and vomited, then second, his killer 2 touchdown passes in the last 2 minutes of the game to win the game 14-10. So yeah...stats don't stick out in my head. Though I'm starting to absorb some of that without realizing it, thanks to waking up to College GameDay on Saturday mornings. I love starting off my Saturday mornings with Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, and, now, Desmond Howard. I can't wait till the weather gets a little cooler and enjoy my tea and breakfast with them. Anyone want to join me?

I'm a fun mom

Velina was going to enter this contest entitled "My Fun Mom" (but realized too late the deadline had just passed) where you drew a picture and describe how fun your mom is. This is her drawing of us playing a game called "Scrambled States of America".

Sigh. I really have got to do more with the girl.