bless the genius of crazy people

I just heard how this angry claimant sent a Progressive claims adjuster a big bouquet of flowers, hung out outside the building and when the adjuster came out with the bouquet he shot her. So you know, if a random person sends you flowers don't take them home. If you pissed them off, they might be watching for you.

the thin red line.

I burnt my arm. I maintain that it's Christen's fault; I had to iron his shirt this morning. It's not that he's inept at such things, but he was whining more than normal on the state of the wrinkles -- I thought it might be easier to simply do it for him once he had tried and failed. I usually leave him to his own devices. Alas, my poor burned arm (although of course it's really not that bad, just an itchy red line).
They've taken away overtime at work now. I'm restricted to strict 8-5 hours. Looks like I'll be getting some sleep now! But I really enjoyed that extra umph on my paycheck twice a month, and it's so much easier to get work done when there's no one here. I've decided if they are taking it away then I'm going to start taking my breaks too, so now I'm going to start blogging on my breaks. So congrats! You'll hear from me more! I can't technically "blog" from work, but I can email myself what I want to say and post it at night, which works. It makes me happy. And we want April happy.
Last night I went to a karaoke bar for a girl from work's birthday. It was much fun, I'll tell you. I drug Christen too, (not to say I drugged him but I made him come with) and I think he had fun too although he didn't know very many people. It's okay; I didn't know many people either. There were many terrible singers and a few good ones (that includes the ones in our group) but we stayed late and it was entirely too difficult to get up this morning because of it. The "other April" sang Angel by Sarah McLaughlin, and she was great. I made her sing, and I think I'll be making her sing a lot more now. Hehehehe.
Countdown to my birthday -- 7 days!

in space

It seems so many are getting in car accidents. First it was Mason Dixon --

And now a very good friend from work. The thing is there were about 10 of us on the patio drinking when our friend got in the accident crossing the street from work to the bar. I guess it's a good thing he didn't get in the accident leaving the bar instead. He's alright, but let me tell you: Tiberon's do not hold up against Expeditions. I didn't take a picture but a friend did and I'll post it if I get ahold of it.

back to the land of the living ...

I'm not quite finished moving but I've decided I've had it. Everything left, well, I haven't missed it in the last week, now have I? Maybe I won't notice if I just trash it all. I do still need to put in my change of address because I'm not getting my bills, and though I don't mind this I'm sure Capital One does.

And I've missed all of you terribly so I've decided to come back to ze blawgin' communidy.

I lied though; I can't throw anything away so I'm sure I won't trash it all. I just have to get the mometum to go back and grab everything. For this weekend I'm taking it easy. We bought a new couch from Kanes to be picked up tomorrow, and my family is coming over tonight to see the new place and to hang out (and the little sister will be spending the night). I plan on a nice dinner at the diner around the corner and some local shopping and geocaching. Woohoo, sounds like fun! Christen has been taking care of his dad for the past few days so I've been home organizing all my books and dvds and kitchen stuff -- it's been lonely but great fun; we all know how much I love to organize. I hate to pack and I detest moving, but I revel in the reorganizing. I have a library now! Life is good.

I swear I'm alive ...

I'm just moving between monsoons ...

If I don't drown moving the couch I'll stop by soon!

gettin' down with the sickness ...

So being sick has allotted me the time that I otherwise would not have to watch movies. I'd read, but for two reasons: one, my head, it was a-poundin' the entire 5 days of illness; and two, I packed all of my books last week and dragged them over to the new house. It's a very dreary house indeed, one with no books. But there's always Blockbuster and HBO on Demand! So here's what I've watched Friday Sunday and Monday:

Spanglish
The Incredibles
In Good Company
The Counterfeit Contessa
Singles
The Prince and Me
Easy
Bowling for Columbine
Cinderella Story
Groundhog Day
3 episodes of Family Business

... and I'm sure a number of others. It's been fun! Some of those would have ended up on MooCow's "I watch bad movies so you don't have to" list, but I found most of them thoroughly enjoyable. If it helps, I would have watched a Mary Kate & Ashley movie if I would have caught it on television. And I DVR'd (the Brighthouse equiv. of TIVO) The Prince and Me because Christen refused to watch it with me. And tomorrow I shall return to the land of the living -- well, almost. New Jersey Insurance, here I come!

and the rain came tumblin' down.

I feel like Chicken Little with all this rain. It started on Tuesday with the rain when it took me two hours -- two hours to get to work. Then ... I got sick. It started out like a little sore throat -- nothin' I couldn't handle. Then my ears filled up -- everytime I swallow my throat hurts and my ears pop. Then my sinuses filled up.

By Friday this is what I felt like. I worked 6:30-10:30 am and had to get out of there -- I felt like shit. This weekend hasn't been any better. We tried to do some moving yesterday and got about 10 boxes across the Bay before it started pouring again. Today I've been reduced to lounging on the couch watching crapping On Demand movies. Anyone want to help me move?

courtesy of NPR Junkie

Have you ever:

(x) snuck out of the house – 9th grade and I was grounded for 7 months (1 month for sneaking out and 6 months for lying about it)
(x) gotten lost in your city – sometimes that's the best part
(x) seen a shooting star
( ) been to any other countries besides the united states
( ) had a serious surgery
(x) gone out in public in your pajamas - all the time, and i still do it
(x) kissed a stranger
(x) hugged a stranger
(x) been in a fist fight – with an ex-boyfriend's girlfriend, but not over him ... she was a bitch.
( ) been arrested – nope, can’t say as I’ve been caught….
(X) laughed and had milk/coke come out of your nose
(x) pushed all the buttons on an elevator
(x) swore at your parents
(x) been in love
(x) been close to love - i've felt like i should have been in love but wasn't
(x) been to a casino – Hard Rock casino is just down the street
( ) been skydiving - no, but i've done that windtunnel sky diving (fake skydiving)
(x) skinny-dipped
(x) skipped school – not enough to put a dent in my education
(x) seen a therapist – didn't help in the least ... y'all know i'm still nuts
(x) done the splits - is this gymnastics or splitting your pants? i've done both!
(x) played spin the bottle
( ) gotten stitches
( ) drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour – isn’t that something they do for fun out in the midwest?
(x) bitten someone – that's my only defense when people tickle me!
( ) been to Niagara Falls
(x) gotten the chicken pox – so bad I had boils in my throat ... it was icky
(x) kissed a member of the opposite sex – this should come as no surprise…
( ) crashed into a friend's car
( ) been to Japan - but i have a friend who's been there for 3 years
(x) ridden in a taxi
(x) been dumped - i didn't know how to break up with one guy so i just stopped talking to him until he broke up with me --- in a note! gotta love high school
(x) shoplifted - don't wanna talk about (never was caught though!)
(x) been fired - but not for a very good reason
( ) had a crush on someone of the same sex
(x) had feelings for someone who didn't have them back
(x) gone on a blind date
(x) lied to a friend – sometimes it’s better to NOT tell the truth
(x) had a crush on a teacher
( ) celebrated Mardi-Gras in new Orleans
( ) been to Europe-
(x) slept with a co-worker sort of, since i met my boyfriend at work, but we worked for different stores and very rarely had to work together
( ) been married
( ) gotten divorced
( ) had children- oh god no!
( ) seen someone die
(x) had a close friend die - my 16 year old neighbor committed suicide when i was in grade school and a high school friend died of leukemia right after graduation
( ) been to Africa
(x) driven over 400 miles in one day – tampa fl to asheville, nc in 12 hours!
( ) been to Canada
( ) been to Mexico –
(x) been on a plane - to Indianapolis for a band trip in high school
(x) seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show but not till after college
( ) thrown up in a bar –
( ) purposely set a part of myself on fire - WTF?!
(x) eaten sushi
( ) been skiing/snowboarding
(x) met someone in person from the internet- yep, L and a couple ex boyfriends ...
( ) lost a child
(x) gone to college-although sometimes it’s hard to believe.
(x) graduated college-again, sometimes hard to believe
(x) fired a gun – well, a bebe gun at one of those huge grasshoppers when i was about 8, and never again..
(x) purposely hurt yourself -- high school was a little trecherous sometimes
(x) taken painkillers-

just so you know ....

You are

What Rejected Crayon Are You?

Attention IDOL fans (look away Mrs. Mogul)

CARRIE WON! HURRAH!

Jacskonville -- city of cache.

So I've decided to go to GeoWoodstock III next weekend in Jacksonville. It's about a 4-hour drive and my sister has agreed to come too, probably in hopes of meeting cute 12-year-old boys ... but that's besides the point (yes, she's 12). But now I have to find a cheap hotel and I don't know where the okay spots are and where the not so good places are. Any help? Looking for something in the 50-60 dollar range, considering I just dropped a buttload of money on the intial rental of the house (first last and sizable deposit). Then we can bring Cheerios and pb&j sandwiches and make it the cheapest stay-over EVAR. Last time I went to Jacksonville was for a band trip and they paid for the room, so I really don't even know where we stayed. Anywho, off to pick up the coffee table we bought at the RTG clearance store. Fun fun!

and meet jacob the snacob too ...

Jacob isn't happy that I didn't feed him today, but he's seemingly happy reading my blog. Perhaps he's spell-checking for me!

let me introduce you to my new house

Isn't it beautiful? This is where I'll be living as of June 1st in the heart of downtown Safety Harbor. I'm so thrilled. I'll take more pictures when I move in. Who wants to do a dinner party? Thus endeth the bitch-blogging about looking for houses. Hallellujah. Now we shall have to name it. I think she's a girl -- she's just so cute and pretty. Any ideas?

it's really not that I've been lazy

but more that I just haven't had the time for you. I know, I'm so sorry. I've missed you all terribly. And just so you know, I'm still reading your posts even though I haven't been much for posting or even commenting. Last week was a week of overtime, mental breakdowns, losing houses, losing minds, crying hysterically and being pissed at the chick at the bowling alley.

You'll excuse me if I go sit on my butt for a little while. Dinner's in the oven and I've got books to read. L and I went book shopping at Wilson's in St. Pete on our lunch break and it occurs to me that I bought 3 books that I'd like to read, but I'm still in the middle of one that I've been reading for weeks and have one in-waiting for when I finish this one. So now I'm 4 behind. And one behind when it's as big as mine is quite enough, thank you!

a la Becky ...

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

20% Dixie

10% Yankee

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

quick choice: to read or blog?

I felt like blogging this weekend but it was the first time I've actually had the time to read so I've had to choose: to blog or read. Reading won out for a little bit, and after this post I'll pick up the house (yes I'm compulsive about cleaning) and go back to the book. I told my brother he could borrow the book when I'm done and he's getting rather impatient (You only read 35 pages? I could have done that in one period at school!!) so I've resolved to finish it and get it to him before he makes me spend the 20 bucks to get his own copy. Good book, Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell (I know I've mentioned it before as I've been carrying it around with me for two weeks or so). We'll see if I can consume it today.

I celebrated Mother's Day with my mom last night -- I made lasagna and brought it over in a Pyrex dish and played with snakes (she's got two boas and a corn snake) and tickle-tortured my little sister. Great fun, eh? Today was the day to visit Christen's grandmothers and we had lunch with his parents at Fridays. It's been a lazy day so now I'm sitting here with my eyes half closed while I type. Who's up for a Sunday nap?

On another note, I was up for a nap but someone just placed a travel bug about 5 miles from home that I've been waiting for so I guess I'm going geocaching. Wish me happy hunting!

a purse, a book and a bit of traffic.

So it's only 9:30 and I've been home for less than an hour but I'm already thinking of going to bed. I stayed late at work until nearly 7pm wrapping up some work and went to dinner with a coworker at the new Cracker Barrel down the street from work. It only opened Sunday and it was swamped! And there was a geocache there so I signed without knowing the coordinates. The Cracker Barrel caches are so easy usually. I've only not found one, in Fort Myers. It was harder to find the cache online than it was at the place. I'm thinking about writing an article about that series for the magazine. It's an interesting series.

Sunday was great fun. Sadly, I bowled better in the morning than I did in the evening. But such is life, right? My high score for the whole day was 137, but low score was 86. Not so great. Midday warranted a bookstore hike, and though my favorite used bookstore was closed we made due with the local B&N for amusement. I bought David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. I wanted Sarah Vowell's Radio On: A Listener's Diary, but alas they did not carry it. I suppose I'll have to submit to order it. Blegch. At DSW I found an adorable green tweed purse that begged me to take it home with me and stray from my old black and brown favorites. Which I not only did, but bought a red wallet to go inside instead of my usual Scooby Doo wallet that has seen too many years. Scooby Doo was usually more like Scooby Doo-I-Have-To? when I took him out of my purse. Perhaps time to retire, my dear. Plus it fixed the whole problem with hurting my wallet at the bookstore. This new one is mainly just for cards, so they're always longing to come out and play!

So let me tell you about this traffic jam I was in. Do you want to hear? So Friday night I'm driving home and I leave work at 5:02pm. I always have to drive over this huge bridge to get home and the traffic is usually murderous, but I never worry so much about traffic so whatever. But I'm pulling out of the parking lot and I see an ambulance fly by toward the bridge. It was the only one I saw though, so I'm still not worried. I'm not suppose to pick up my friend to go have drinks until 6pm. So I'm tooling down the highway over the bridge, get over the hump (yes, I said "hump" so giggle away) and traffic stops. Dead. There's no movement whatsoever. I put the car in neutral, pull the parking brake and start reading. 20 pages in there's still no movemet. The guy in the minivan behind me has gotten out of his car. People have tried to tool down the shoulder of the bridge and are now getting tickets. I put the book down and get out of my car to go talk to the dude from the minivan. We were there for 45 minutes. 45 MINUTES! I've never ever been in traffic that you can get out of your car for. That's for in the movies, you know? Thankfully by the time I got OFF the bridge rush hour traffic was out of downtown so it only took 20 minutes to get to Scott's house and I was only 10 minutes late. But holy by golly gee wiz, man. Have you ever seen such traffic?

who needs sleep?

I don't know what 's with me lately but on the weekends it's not possible for me to sleep past 8:30. I realize that my body is used to waking up at six every morning, but during the week I also go to bed at 10 and the past few nights at after one and still I'm up at 8:30. Body, let me sleep! Arg!

But the good thing about getting up that early is that the day goes on forever. Well, it's probably not a good thing if your days suck, but mine -- not so bad, really. :D Yesterday I got all the cleaning done except the bathroom mirror which I'll probably do before I take a shower so it steams all nice. Anyone who's been to my place knows that the phrase "My house is such a mess" is a subjective phrase. My house is rarely a mess. However I hate to deal with papers, so I do have a bit of clutter. My usual dealing with paperwork and receipts is to throw them in the nearest grocery, Target or NY & Co. bag and stack them next to my desk. If no bag is available they get stacked (neatly, mind you) on the inside corner of the kitchen bar. Or on the desk. Or the other desk. This is how I lose so many bills. So yesterday I got all the bags and stacks and threw them on the dining room table and cleaned the apt. Then I went back and dropped all the clutter in the middle of the living room floor and went through ALL of it. I'm now down to a small stack that has my receipt for my car (to go back into the glove box) this month's bills and my 401K stuff from my new job that I don't understand and therefore have yet to sign up. Woohoo! Tomorrow I'll probably pay all my bills and the stack will diminish. I'm so happy to see the floor next to my desk, can I tell you?

Last night I was on a rant about this box of pens I have. It's one of those five-ream paper boxes and it's full of pens. Well, it's gone. I can't find it anywhere, and it's really not like it can hide too much. There's one closet and under the bed that aren't organized to some degree. Yeah, it's not there; it's not anywhere. I have the distinct feeling that Christen made off with it. I don't know why he would have, but who else would have taken it? And I wouldn't have really cared but for two things: It was my box and I wasn't able to go through it for the ones I really wanted. But he says he had nothing to do with it and it'll surface when we move, but we'll see.

And I also went through all my old tapes. Cassette tapes, you remember those? Yeah, well I still have a ton of them so I went through looking for my single of Grateful Dead's Touch of Grey because I wanted to listen to My Brother Esau, which is the B-side. Wow, I have a lot of crap on those tapes. Would you like to listen to Gloria Estefan's greatist hits or the soundtrack to Wayne's World with me? hehe.

I'm going bowling with Ivan and L today, so I think that'll be loads of fun. L and I (hehe, that looks funny) are going book shopping later, so wish my wallet luck!

I'm a posting machine!

Yeah, I know I'm shirking the responsibility of cleaning the house, but read this! Evidently that's what I do, according to this:

Your Birthdate: July 5

With a birthday on the 5th of the month you are inclined to work well with people and enjoy them. You are talented and versatile, very good at presenting ideas. You may have a tendency to get itchy feet at times and need change and travel. You tend to be very progressive, imaginative and adaptable. Your mind is quick, clever and analytical. A restlessness in your nature may make you a bit impatient and easily bored with routine. You may have a tendency to shirk responsibility

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Suprise suprise

Your Life Path Number Is 3

3 Your Life Path is one that emphasizes expression, sociability, and creativity as the lesson to be learned in this life. You are among the entertainers of the world, bright, effervescent, sparkling people with very optimistic attitudes. You possess the most exceptional creative skills: normally in the verbal realm, writing, speaking, acting, or similar endeavors. The lesson to be learned with a 3 life path is that of achievement through expression. The bright side of this path stresses harmony, beauty and pleasures; of sharing your creative talents with the world. Capturing your capability in creative self-expression is the highest level of attainment for this life path. You are warm and friendly, a good conversationalist, social and open. A good conversationalist both from the standpoint of being a delight to listen to, but even more importantly, one who has the ability to listen to others. You are always a welcome addition to any social situation and know how to make others feel at home. Your reative imagination is present, if sometimes latent, as the you may not be moved to develop you talent. Your approach to life tends to be exceedingly positive, and your disposition is almost surely sunny and open-hearted. You effectively cope with all of the many setbacks that occur in life and readily bounce back for more. It is usually easy for you to deal with problems because you can freely admit the existence of problems without letting them get you down. You have good manners and seem to be very conscious of other people's feelings and emotions. Life is generally lived to the fullest, often without much worry about tomorrow. You are not very good at handling money because of a general lack of concern about it. You spend it when you have it and don't when you don't. On the negative side, a 3 may be so delighted with the joy of living that the life becomes frivolous and superficial. You may scatter your abilities and express little sense of purpose. You can be an enigma, for no apparent reason you may become moody and tend to retreat. Escapist tendencies are not uncommon with the 3 life path, and you find it very hard to settle into one place or one position. Guard against being critical of others, impatient, intolerant, or overly optimistic. Typically, the life path 3 gives an above-average ability in some art form. This can encompass painting, interior decorating, landscaping, crafts, writing, music, or the stage, or all of the above. You are apt to be a happy, inspired person, constantly seeking the stimuli of similar people. Your exuberant nature can take you far, especially if you are ever able to focus your energies and talents.

What Is Your Life Path Number?