All the Days Feel Like a Sunday

I finished reading Happiness Sold Separately a few minutes ago. I'm not going to discuss it here since I'm discussing it in my group but I will say that I'm peeved. That's all you get.

I am very excited for tomorrow to get here. Ya know why? Cuz I have a stack of books that have been off limits that I get to start reading tomorrow. Yay!! Until then, I have beasts, spirits, and humanoids to slay and the rest of my Calvin and Hobbes book to keep me entertained. We also have to go to the pet store to get guinea pig litter. Someone should have mentioned how foul those things can get to smelling. Sheesh!

I'm not going to wish anyone a happy New Years because I hate this holiday. I will wish everyone fun, safe, and good times as they enjoy the evening off of work though.

Oh! And I just realized that today is the last day of Holidailies. I think I made it through, lol. I'm not entirely sure though. I'm still going to blog but I'm not going to be obsessive about it. I'll allow myself a break here and there. 61 solid days of blogging. Wow!

The hubby and I had a fun filled day. Last night, our friends called and asked if it would be okay if they brought the girls home today at 6:30'ish this evening instead of 11 am'ish. Well, YEAH it would be okay. I know. I sound horrible. But don't judge me too harshly. The kids didn't want to come home and they said that while they missed the dogs, they didn't miss us. Lmao. Their time away consisted of going to see a movie, soda, popcorn, and candy for lunch (totally serious), lots of Dance, Dance, Revolution on the Playstation, games, and whatever else they did. Is it any wonder they didn't want to come home? And the last time they spent the night away was in May for our anniversary. I had forgotten that.

Anyway, we went to the library today and I got January's book for my book club. We're reading Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston. So far, so good. Definitely not something I would have picked out on my own but it's not too bad nonetheless.

I'm off to do some research. Hope everyone's Sunday was peaceful and pleasant.

Glad to See You're Still Here

My blog posts have been less than stellar lately. I've been occupied with other things to be honest. The holidays haven't made it any easier either. Lucky for you all, we don't celebrate New Years. So, what's been going on?

Well, like I said yesterday, I finished another book. I've been wracking my brain with something to say about it but it was so in depth and involved that I can't figure out how to summarize it. Read it for yourselves, lol. ;)

I've also been delving into the online gaming world. I'm a nerd. I've never denied this. The hubby and I have been playing two different games together. It's our couple time, heheh. Since they are addictive, we haven't been doing much else.

Today, a couple that we are friends with offered to take our kids for the night. I love my kids, but WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Do you know the last time both of my kids were gone overnight at the same time?? Neither do I!!!!!!!!! It's been, at the very least, a year. The hubby and I don't have any big plans tonight. We might go for a walk on the beach...alone, hehehehehehhe. It is, after all, 77 degrees out. Oh, and we're going to take down our Christmas stuff today too. I usually wait until the 1st but this weather isn't going to hold out and it's much nicer to take down your outside decorations when you're not freezing your butt off at the same time.

I also forgot to relate the happenings of formatting my computer the other day. Weird stuff happened that I've never had happen before on a reformat. After I reinstalled Windows, I had these rolling line deals going down my screen. That was nice. Turns out it was a resolution issue. Then, I couldn't figure out who manufactured my sound card so I didn't have sound for a bit, heheh. I remembered to back up my music files, my picture files, and my documents. Then, I exported my favorites and forgot to back them up. Real smart. I lost all my saved favorite websites. Big bummer. I also forgot to back up my address book so I lost quite a few e-mail addresses. What can I say? I can't remember everything. BUT! My computer is working much better now and I no longer desire to put a hammer through it or toss it off the roof. You take the good with the bad.

And those are the highlights. Nothing spectacular. Nothing really all that interesting. I'm not a mover and a shaker. I'm sure something horrible will happen for New Years that I'll be able to post about that will entertain.

Thursday Meme

Brought to you by Booking Through Thursday.

It’s an old question, but a good one . . . What were your favorite books
this year?
List as many as you like … fiction, non-fiction, mystery, romance,
science-fiction, business, travel, cookbooks … whatever the category. But,
really, we’re all dying to know. What books were the highlight of your reading
year in 2007?

I was dreading having to answer this question. I have a hard time picking favorites whether it's books, movies, songs, TV shows, whatever.

I'd have to start with all the In Death books that I read or reread this year by J.D. Robb. There's nothing like a good In Death book to take you away from the mundane. Having Creation in Death personally autographed by J.D. Robb herself and in person was, by far, my highlight of the year. That will be hard to top in the coming year as well.

Next, I'd list the last Harry Potter. Yes, I didn't like the ending, but I endeavored not to let that ruin the book for me. The Harry Potter series was truly magical and I was sorry to see it come to an end. I will never be rich and famous enough to obtain a copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Tied in the next spot (whatever that spot may be) would be Wicked and The Life of Pi.

Next would be Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris. It's not often that something moves me, but this book moved me and left an impression.

I also really loved Lisey's Story by King and Beaches by I.R. Dart.

I've only covered half of 2007 with this review, but I could go on and on. It would be easier to list the books that I didn't like. 2007 was a great year for reading and 2008 promises to be even better.

The Day After

Yesterday's post sucked. We were literally in the middle of a battle when I minimized our game to post on the blog so that I could get it in before midnight. We lost the battle and the post wasn't worth the effort to read, lol. So anyway...

We had a great Christmas. The kids got a ton of stuff and were happy as clams all day. I got FOUR books off of my various reading lists and some other stuff as well. I was a happy clam too although it's really hard to hold myself back from reading my new books since I have to wait until the 1st to start them. :( Patience isn't a virtue of mine at all. Although, the hubby did get me The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes to tide me over. It's great. I've been a huge fan of Calvin and Hobbes since high school and I'm willing to bet that my friends from high school who read my blog will know why. ;)

For those of you who are waiting for the better than sex cake recipe, the powers that be that hold the recipe didn't answer their phone or return my call yesterday so I still don't have it. I'm not sure what my next step on this quest is going to be so you'll have to sit tight.

On a slightly less than positive note, my computer has decided to be a big, crapping piece of crap. It's barely a year old but since it is over a year old, it's no longer under a warranty. Of course. This means that I'm going to have to reformat my computer and hope that fixes my various problems. If you've reformated a hard drive before, you know what a chore this is going to be. I'm going to have to back up all my files, search out program disc's that I'll need to reinstall, and then keep my fingers crossed that it was worth the trouble. The timing couldn't be better since I'm on my winter break from classes but that doesn't make this task any more fun. :)

And now I'm off to help the hubby clean out the car. Fun times, right?

Merry Christmas

I can't blog long. I'm in the middle of slaying demons with the mister. I just wanted to drop a quick note. Longer one tomorrow. I promise.

Till then, be safe, have fun with your new loot and I'll be back tomorrow.

Christmas Eve Wonderings

I have three things going on in my mind tonight. I'm going to blog about all of them for your reading pleasure. Consider it an early Christmas gift.



#1. The Mister and I decided that we are starting a new Christmas tradition in honor of one of the best Christmas movies ever made: A Christmas Story. For Christmas Eve dinner we got Chinese at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra! It's a fun, new tradition.



#2. I got several Merry Christmas text messages and a few Happy Holiday e-mails. I, being the biggest believer in technology and the Internet, saw nothing wrong with this and they made me smile. They did make me pause, however. This is the first year that I've ever gotten holiday text messages. It was a little strange. Any opinions?



#3. The kids were tasked with cleaning the kitchen this morning in preparation for our holiday baking. The oldest took out the trash. This is the result:

The left can clearly has bags in it. The right? Empty. She trooped the bag out the kitchen, out the side door, and around the shed, but couldn't manage to lift the lid and put the bag in the can. Her level of laziness astounds me.

Happy Christmas Eve and I'll see ya tomorrow.

My Sunday

I have absolutely nothing of interest to say. Today, we hit the commissary for Christmas dinner stuff and enough food to get us through the holiday. I was shocked at the lack of people there too. Usually around holidays (and during hurricanes) the commissary is packed but it wasn't this morning. Maybe going during church hours is the trick.

Tonight's plans are dinner, gift wrapping, and slaying some evil beasts with my minions. Fun times, right?

Oh. And yesterday I finished Five Quarters of the Orange. Excellent read. It was about sadness and hope, love and hate, mothers and their children. It was one of those books that I was sorry to see it end. When I came to the part in the story where the purpose of the title is revealed, it was like, "OH! That makes perfect sense." It's a great title. This is the second Joanne Harris book that I've read and I'm already convinced of her skills as a storyteller. I hope that I can find time in all of my reading challenges to fit in another of her novels.

My Saturday

Today was a full day. Well, it wouldn't have been as full had I actually started my day before noon but you get my gist.

We started out the day with some Christmas stuff. The hubby took the kids shopping while I stayed home and wrapped some presents. Then we had a gaming marathon for a couple hours. Next, I went shopping while everyone else stayed home. We are done Christmas shopping. Finally. I swear. Next year, I'm starting in September and I will be done by October. This last minute business has got to stop.

The hubby is in the family room cackling. Why? Because he scared the living shit out of me moments ago. I was coming out of our bedroom and he was crouched in front of the door. When I opened it, he jumped up and screamed at me. I screamed back and then chased him down the hall while he laughed his butt off and I attempted to get even. He's still laughing at his prowess. The asshole.

OH! I almost forgot to mention. I made a pineapple upside down cake tonight. It was YUMMY!! I would have taken a picture and posted it on my blog had I been able to hold myself back from it long enough to do so. Sorry.

And now I'm off to wrap more presents. Ugh.

My Friday

It totally feels like Saturday to me. The kids are on their winter break and the Mister got off of work at noon. He and I finished up our Christmas shopping for the kids today. Traffic is just horrible. I make him drive and I still get a headache from it. All that we have left is to buy for each other now. I'm stumped. Figuring out his gift will prove to be an interesting (read that to say frustrating, lol) experience.

We got a free pay-per-view from my cable company for Christmas today. I thought that was pretty neat. None of the other cable companies I've had in the past have done that.

Okay. I'm off for today. I plan on logging in some game playing time and some reading time on my current book today. I'm reading Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris. I'm only about 1/4 of the way into it but I like it so far. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for something to happen. There's quite a bit of foreshadowing in this book.

Happy Friday everyone.

Thursday Meme

Courtesy of Booking Through Thursday.

1. What fiction book (or books) would you nominate to be the best
new book published in 2007?(Older books that you read for the first time in 2007
don’t count.)

2. What non-fiction book (or books) would you nominate to be the
best new book published in 2007?(Older books that you read for the first time in
2007 don’t count.)

3. And, do “best of” lists influence your reading?

1. Creation in Death by J.D. Robb (Totally biased opinion here.)
2. I don't read a lot of nonfiction. In fact, the only non-fiction book that I've read that was published this year was The Reagan Diaries by Ronald Reagan so I'd have to pick that.
3. Yes, lists influence my reading to some extent. If I can't figure out what to read next, I'll see what's on the best sellers list. This doesn't really happen too often though. I'm hardly ever without an idea of what I want to read next. "Best of" lists can actually have a negative effect on a book. If I read a book that's gotten a lot of hype, I go into it with higher expectations. This often leads to being disappointment with the book.

Random-ness

My house is a pleasant 70 degrees this morning. Ahhh.

I want the new Jack Johnson CD. iTunes has a preview of it and I likes. Too bad that it doesn't come out until February. It would have made a nice gift for me

C sold another cheesecake. Yeah, it's to a friend but that's how businesses start. She's coming by to pick it up this morning and I'm totally looking forward to the visit. I had the strangest dream that when I opened the box to show it to her, the cake was the thickness of a pizza. I tried passing it off to her that it was how cheesecakes were supposed to look, lol.

Christmas shopping is going the way that it normally does every year. I'm only about halfway done, nothing is wrapped, and I only have six shopping days left. If I didn't have kids, I wouldn't even bother. Isn't that horrible? The way I feel about 95% of the holidays, I sometimes think I was born into the wrong nationality or born out of time or something. I should've been a prehistoric woman.

Well, I gotsta run. Gotta get ready for my day.

The Grinch Has Retreated **Updated x2**

I'm sitting here at my comp, enjoying my apple strudel Pop Tart, and freezing my tail off. It's only 63 degrees in my house and the heat hasn't turned off since yesterday. I'm going to call my heating and cooling guy today and ask if this is normal behavior for a brand new heat pump. If so, they suck and why do people use them.

I finished my Christmas shopping for the dogs yesterday. They're easy to buy for. Chew toys, treats, stuffed animals. They're happy dogs.

On today's agenda: Do some house work, hit the Starbucks for my fave pick-me-up, take my Frappuccino for a ride to do some Christmas shopping, mentally prepare myself for afternoon homework, and that's about it. I'll also probably fit in some game play time as well; slay some evil minions. Oh. And I'm also going to start Five Quarters of the Orange today as well. It's not a jam-packed day but it's enough to keep my mind busy.

**Update**

No, it isn't normal for the heater to have been on for 36 hours straight and for it to only be 62 degrees in the house. Yes. It went down a degree since I posted this morning. (It's 8:15 am EST as I type this update.)
As a result, I can't go anywhere today after all because I have to wait for the heating and air dudes to show up to figure out what's wrong. The guy said they'd been fielding repair calls since 7 am this morning. Fun times.

**Update #2**

It's now 11:30 and the repair guy just left. He said our unit was two pounds short on freon and the thermostat was wired wrong so that the heat strips weren't coming on. I HAVE HEAT!! We didn't really notice that the heat wasn't working properly before because it hasn't been very cold. This morning, however, it was only 24 degrees and we noticed the cold, lol.

Make Up Your Own Title

Do you go through phases where you're online a lot and then you're not at all? I haven't been online too much lately doing my "normal" thing: blogging, reading blogs, attending to the book group, Pogo, Myspace, etc., and I'm not in the mood to do these things. Blogging is taking extra effort. I think I'm getting burned out on it. Blogging for two months straight is surely enough to burn someone out, right? I haven't even been watching a lot of tv either which is unusual for me.

I finished reading Chocolat (which I liked despite the ending) today and I've been reading W&P off and on.

I'm also stressing about Christmas. Buying for the kids was a lot simpler when their list consisted of dolls and crayons. Now they want iPods, Wii's, and DS's. Ugh.

I'm also being bogged down by things that aren't suitable for public consumption. This makes it really hard to come up with mundane, everyday-type things to say. I'm not the sort of person that can compartmentalize. When I'm upset or stressed, it dominates my life. I can't shove it into a corner and ignore it. I wish I could. This is probably why I have health issues at my age.

I'm tired, my dog is snoring, and I'm going to bed.

Back to Normal

The parents left this morning. They're having to take a convoluted way back to Ohio because of all the winter weather so the trip is going to take them two days instead of one. We were all sad to see them go. Even Bailey and Hannah were a little more quiet than usual.

Tomorrow, the kids go to school and C goes back to work after his week off. I'm really looking forward to a bit or normal. Yay! I got caught up (mostly) on my blog reading tonight. So many blogs, so little time. Now, I'm off for some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and my book.

Another Busy Day

We had our early Christmas this morning. It was a good time. I got Water for Elephants. Yay!! I totally cannot wait to get into it. I have 3 other books ahead of it though so it'll be a few days before I can start it.

We also drove to Jacksonville to do some shopping. BIG mistake. That place was a freaking mad house. No. It gave new meaning to Mad House. It took it to a whole new level. We saw three car accidents all within a mile of each other. I love North Carolina but these are some of the rudest drivers I've ever seen in my life and I've been to New York and L.A. My dad wanted a GPS though and the Jax Best Buy was the only place in the area that had the exact model he wanted so off we went. We also needed dog food and I bought The Santa Clause and White Christmas on DVD.

After we got back to New Bern, we bought some steaks and shrimp to bbq on the grill and then topped off the night by watching The Santa Clause. My dad and step mom are leaving in the morning. :( I'm already sad about them leaving but we're making plans to meet up in Tennessee in June or July. Sometimes, living away from family is hard.

Tomorrow I'm not going to have anything to say because after my parents leave we plan on doing NOTHING, punctuated by taking naps, and then doing nothing some more. Bet you all are looking forward to reading about that, lmao.

Family + Holidays = No Time

I had family arrive from Ohio yesterday. I'm exhausted, tired, worn out, sleepy, etc. If it weren't for Holidailies, I wouldn't even be posting right now. As it is, I'm way behind on my blog reading.

Yesterday, we got Sonic for dinner. They don't have very many of those in Ohio and there aren't any nearby our families so it's a treat.

Today, we went to the beach and gathered bags fulls of shells. Then, we had lunch/dinner at this neat restaurant that overlooks the ocean. We watched dolphins play in the surf while we waited on our food. How cool is that? After that, we did some Christmas shopping because we're having an early Christmas tomorrow. The rest of tonight we're going to watch Christmas movies until the kids go to bed and then we're going to wrap presents and put them under the tree for tomorrow.

So, in spite of being tired, I'm having a fantastic time.

Thursday Meme

Courtesy of Booking Through Thursday.

Do you use any of the online book-cataloguing sites, like Library Thing or Shelfari? Why or why not? (Or . . . do you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking to?? (grin))
If not an online catalog, do you use any other method to catalog your book collection? Excel spreadsheets, index cards, a notebook, anything?

I just posted about this last week. Funny timing. Anyway, I've tried all three of them. I found LibraryThing to be tedious when it comes to adding books to your library so I stopped using it and tried GoodReads. I like GoodReads well enough. I like their widget the best out of all of the cataloging sites. Then, I tried Shelfari. Between GoodReads and Shelfari, I can't really decide which one I like the best. Shelfari has my most complete library on it, however, but I'll probably keep using Shelfari and GoodReads at the same time because I have friends on both of them.

From what I can tell, people like LibraryThing the best because of the tagging feature. You can do that on Shelfari too so what's the difference? And what makes tagging so much of a desired feature? And what makes people willing to deal with LibraryThing's limitations when it comes to the size of your library? You can only add so many books before you have to pay for it. I can't see paying for something that you can get for free at two other places.

Round One Down

C and I just got back from taking the first round of our exams. We each had two to take today and we'll each have one to take tomorrow. I'm pretty confident about the ones I took today. One was for a grammar class and the other was a technical writing class. No biggie. C's a little less than sure about his but he's always like that and then it'll turn out that he did fine. Tomorrow is going to be the doozy. We both saved the hardest for last. His is government and mine is business. Yuckity, yuck, yuck. But once we're finished, we have a little more than a month off and we're both really looking forward to the break. I plan on rewarding myself with a new book and a game playing marathon. I'd say which game but it's embarrassing, lol. It's one of my guilty pleasures.

I'm exhausted so I'm off for a bit of a lie down. I have cleaning to do later on because some of our parents from Ohio are coming for a visit tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to seeing some family for Christmas. It's been a while since we've had family for the holiday.

**Edited to change three weeks into a month. Usually it's a three week break but with the holidays, we get a month before the spring semester starts. Big YAY!!

Christmas Adventures

We had an interesting time with decorating the tree last night. It started out normal enough. I sat on the floor passing the girls ornaments to put on the tree while C looked bored next to me. We were just about finished when C decided to stand up for some reason, then all hell broke loose. See. We had to put our tree in the dining room because there wasn't space for it anywhere else. In order to do this, we had to move the table to the side of the room leaving the chandelier(?) sort of hanging there in the middle of nowhere. When C stood up, he banged his head into the light, knocked it into the ceiling, blew out some of the lights, and caused it to fall down from the ceiling fixture hanging there only by its cord. I'm not sure how old this light is or what it's made of but it's freaking HEAVY. C's lucky he didn't give himself a concussion. After much cussing, screaming, crying, and yelling (you can figure out for yourselves who was doing what.) C and I started fixing the light back to the ceiling. It was waaaay too heavy to hang there only by its cord. We got it back into place but when we turned it back on, it flashed and blew out another light. I'm figuring I'm going to have to call the electrician to make sure that the wiring is okay so we don't burn the house down. We had to finish decorating the tree in the semi-dark with only the trees lights to see by, lol. Even so, it turned out great. This will be a Christmas we'll always remember, heheh.

Off topic side note...C and I are getting ready to take the dogs to the beach. Yay! I haven't been since September. We're having record high temps and C is on leave this week so we figured it's a great time to go. I'll post pictures of the tree and stuff later on today.