I was tagged by Lara on what makes me shudder. Here’s my list: rats, having a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, blood and guts, dirty grocery stores, and relationships.

I’m tagging Sandy J, Dennie, and Amie. 

Even though it seemed to go by fast…this week really crawled by.

However, I can’t believe it’s Friday. And I have a super busy week again next week. Lots of things happening and going on. It seems I exchanged one drama for another one (and neither one of them I can really talk about here…)

Suffice it is say… HOLY SHIT BATMAN.

Speaking of Batman, the baby boy wants to be Batman for Halloween… even though he was that last year. I can’t seem to talk him into anything else.

“Don’t you want to be Jack Sparrow?”

“No.”

“How about… Darth Vader?”

“No, Mom. Batman.”

Okay. So Batman it is I suppose. It’s kind of low maintenance though… he already has his costume from last year. haha

Tuesday is picture day and he gets to go to the fire station on a field trip. If I didn’t have to be in Dallas all day, I would so be chaparoning that. Firemen are hot (no pun intended).

Happy Friday, ya’ll!

Hey I’m blogging over at Chicas with another Thursday Thirteen – so check it out here! 

Tuesday I went to the Get Motivated Seminar in Dallas. I decided I didn’t want to fight the traffic of pay the $20 to park so I rode the train for $4.50 instead.

Now. The first Park and Ride I went to was completely full. No spaces. Every lot FULL TO CAPACITY. Annoying.

So I drove up the rode a ways and went to the next one. I decided right then and there I wasn’t going if there were no spots. Because I just wasn’t going to leave my car in a weird spot and risk it getting hit, broken into, or other things.

There was only a handful of spaces left. So I parked, bought a ticket and got on the train.

Now. Why I wanted to go to the American Airlines Center with 20,000 of my closest friends was BEYOND me. I think I must have had a moment of insanity. Aside from the fact the speakers were great (Colin Powell, Steve Forbes, Brian Tracy and Goldie Hawn), the experience reaffirmed something for me I had forgotten: People are Assholes. And yes, that’s with a capital A.

When you meet someone one-on-one it’s totally different than being stuck in a large crowd (sans friends or co-workers). And I realized… the general population only cares about themselves. How can they cut in line without really cutting in line? How can they get on the train before anyone else? Even if it means trampling people around them to get there.

As I stood in line for my $10 chicken strips (three) and fries (very few) and a bottled water (yeah, you read that right – TEN FRICKING DOLLARS), I watched these two broads walk up to another broad way ahead in line. They somehow managed to talk their “friend” into buying their goodies for them. What a total beating it was. Not only did she do it, but when she handed over the super large popcorn and coke to the dumbass, SHE DROPPED IT. All over the floor. And THEN to make matters worse (and continue to hold up the line), she asked for a refill. What killed me the most was THEY GAVE IT TO HER for free.

I was so annoyed by this. And here I am supposed to be pumped up and motivated and achieving my goals.

The only goal I wanted to achieve that day was getting home in one piece.

I skipped out a little early so I could make the 4:36 train. However, it was packed by the time it rolled through and only a handful of people got on. The next train was at 4:56.

It amazes me the rush of folks to the doors of the train. While we were waiting for the 4:56, one lady walks up and asks, “Where are the doors going to be?” I shake my head. Lady, COME ON. There will be another train after this one, and then another and another. I’m sure everyone will get on.

When the 4:56 arrived you’d think it was the last train out of town. They way people rushed toward the doors and then practically ran over other people just to get on. And then once we get on, it was Standing Room Only.

I hate people. I really do. It’s almost enough to make you never want to leave the house.

Almost.

However, I gotta say…after being in the arena all day, with no one really to interact with… I realized something else. I need human interaction to make myself feel complete. How’s that for an oxymoron?

I guess I’m weird… lol

Ever have an Ick moment? I did on Monday. But it was a moment that I didn’t know was going to end up being Ick. If that makes sense.

I think I drank too much wine on Sunday night so I was a little hungover when I got up Monday. And it was VERY difficult to drag my ass out of bed on Monday. So my stomach wasn’t too up to par after the entire weekend of eating and then a half a bottle of wine.

I had a crunchy granola bar with my coffee for breakfast. It was good – it stuck to my ribs and made me feel full. But about 11:15 I was suddenly starving. One of the girls at work wanted Vietnamese food for lunch. I’ve never tried it and even though I’m not big into trying new things, I figured what the hell.

So we went and had … oh I can’t remember what it was called. Pho Nu or something like that. Basically a soup with noodles with green onions and then you add cilantro, bean sprouts, and fresh jalapenos. I got the chicken. Oh and we had the spring rolls which weren’t fried. They were in those rice paper wraps and they felt really weird. And of course I made the comment that I didn’t think I could put it in my mouth. Which of course made them laugh out loud at me.

Anyway. The spring roll things had shrimp and some veggies in them. They were pretty good and so was the soup. However, my stomach decided to reject the entire meal at about 3 pm. I never got sick, I just FELT sick. Kind of queasy actually. And I had a headache. And I could still taste the soup in the back of my throat.

It was definitely an Ick moment. It will probably be the last (and only) time I have that kind of food.

By the time I got home from work, I was STARVING. I ate left over chicken and rice. Now that’s comfort food to me. hehe

And then I ended up going shopping at the mall with my friend. And NO, I didn’t buy anything at Coach, even though I stopped in and coveted the new Bleeker line of bags. (The new leather patchwork is TO DIE FOR.)

I did, however, get a really cute pair of black patent leather Mary Jane’s. Hey – they were on sale! And every girl needs new stuff for Fall. Right?

Anyway, by the time I hit the door again, I was exhausted.

I’m off to a seminar all day. I’m riding the train in so I don’t have to pay $20 to park (it’s only $4.50 roundtrip). I’ve never riden the train so this should definitely be an experience…

First of all – HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my friends, Sandy S and Sandy J! (Yes, they are both named Sandy and they both have back-to-back birthdays!)

Saturday was super busy. I got up early for Sweetie Boy’s soccer game. They won – 6-1 – and played against a girl’s team. I guess those boys just can’t get beat by girls. hehe After the game was over, it was off to the concession stand where I had to help out for an hour. We had all of three customers. Can you say boring?

When I got out of there, I headed to the mall because the stores were calling my name. First stop was Coach so I could participate in the Preferred Customer Event. Plus I had $48 worth of store credit. I chose a wallet. Now my collection is complete! And I’m not looking anymore at Coach stuff. I’m done. That’s it.

After petting and sniffing all the bags at Coach, I went to Penney’s and found some great deals on some cute clothes. They were having a big sale, plus I had $10 off. I got two blouses, a blue stretchy turtleneck, this really cute pin-striped jumpsuit, a houndstooth swing coat, and an asymmetical skirt. All for about $150. Now that’s my kind of shopping.

I got home shortly after 2 pm, talked to Mom on the phone for a bit (becuase my pants are WAY too long – it’s that bell bottom look they are bringing back – and she agreed to cut them off for me), and then got ready for dinner. My friend came over at 3 so we could head out for dinner.

We went to The Man’s restaurant and had a great time. I always get excellent service there, plus visits from The Man at the same time. There’s a very cute, young server there who sat and chatted with us quite a bit. Plus our server looks just like Dane on my book cover! The only difference was he had brown eyes (and Dane, of course, has green). Dane Look-alike, though, wasn’t as chatty as the other guy who made us laugh quite a bit.

After a very filling dinner (with banana springrolls for dessert – yum!), we headed out to Starbucks and met up with three more girlfriends. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. We ended up there until 10 pm (for about three hours!) and just had a great time.

It made me very happy I’m fortunate enough to have a great group of girlfriens I can talk and laugh with. In any other life (aka a married one), I wouldn’t be able to do that sort of thing – just hang out with my girlfriends at a coffee shop. We talked about everything from sex to writing.

Anyway.

Got home and fainted shortly after. Sunday I got up and went to church with my friend and then we headed to Gloria’s for brunch complete with mimosas. I had these scrambled eggs with potatoes and jack cheese, black beans, fres gaucamole and pico. Then we had dessert – a very yummy cake.

Yes, it was a food fest all weekend with two heavy meals in a row.

I was tired after church and brunch on Sunday but I knew if I sat down I wouldn’t get back up. So instead, I made my grocery list and went shopping. I spent way too much money at the store but that’s what happens when you’re out of everything. Got home, put away groceries, started laundry, mowed the yard.

And then collapsed shortly after that. It was a hectic weekend and I didn’t want to get up this morning. Coffee is my best friend. haha

I’m going to have to really watch what I eat these next few days. I seriously think I have a food hangover!

Today I have the Sweetie Boy’s soccer game at 11. And then I have to rush across town to work the concession stand at the other field from 12-1.

And then I’m going to the mall and I’m going to stand in the Coach store, inhale deeply, and smell Coach. I don’t know what it is about that store or their bags, but they are so wonderful. I’m thinking I’m going to use my PCE (Preferred Customer Event) discount for the wallet I’ve been waning. PLUS I have $50 worth of store credit, so I should be able to get out there relatively inexpensively. I hope. I really want another bag, but the one I’m currently coveting doesn’t come out until October. It’s a very cool patchwork.

Anyway.

Yesterday after work, I got the oil changed and the tires rotated on the car. He said my manual transmission fluid was a little low and I needed to take it to the dealer for that. Yeah right. Like I have time to sit at the dealer for 2130498 hours for that. I’m going to find someone in town that can do it. The car drives way better now that I have the tires balanced and rotated. What a difference! Plus I bet I’ll get better gas mileage.

The cat woke me up at 7:30 this morning meowing because his bowl was empty. sigh I just got up and made coffee. Better get going. I have a busy day ahead of me!

Yeah. That’s right. It’s Friday.

HELL YEAH.

I made it to the end of the week and: (1) there was no blood spilled (that I know of); (2) I only wanted to kill people once or twice; (3) I actually went to a mid-week movie; and (4) I still have a half a bottle of wine left.

So…work has been kind of a nightmare lately. The kind of nightmare where you’re running down the hallways sweating and you can’t get away from the demon that’s following you. The kind of nightmare where you just can’t wake up no matter what you try to do TO wake up. The kind of nightmare that…well, you get the picture. The only thing that didn’t happen in the nightmare was me or someone I know getting sucked into the mattress…

I actually started working out again. It’s a good thing because I would have way too much anger to manage. I had to get it out of me somehow. That’s good stress relief.

Oh and I yelled at AT&T. Again.

Here’s the deal. My phone line has been very static-y. So bad in fact that I can’t talk on it. Not that I really DO talk on it much, but you know… the very few times I DO talk on it, I want to be able to carry on a conversation without my ear bleeding by the end of the conversation. I called the phone company for the THIRD time (yes you read that right) on Monday to get them to fix the bloody thing.

They said they’d send someone out between the convenient hours of 8 am and 5 pm on Wednesday. I get a call Wednesday afternoon at like 5 that says they are coming to work on it. But I never saw a truck. Okay. Whatever. By 7:30 the phone line was STILL bad and my internet and television was gone.

sigh

First I called the phone company. Oh, they said they had an open ticket and went to check status. Apparently, the repair person came out but because I’m now a U-Verse customer it was a problem with U-Verse and they would have to send a tech out to fix it. Okay, so, if I hadn’t have called back…nothing would have happened? They sent a U-Verse person out today to fix it. FINALLY! I have a normal phone line once again.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The second order of business was to call the technical support people. Now I would rather fall on a sword than have to talk to these people. Really, I would. But I had no choice seeing as how their POS equipment was effing up again.

Since I have called in several times for the same issue, they transferred me to the next level of technical support. Okay, so, great. I talked to a lady. She didn’t like the static on my phone line so I told her – they’re supposed to fix it tomorrow. KMA and TS. Well, I didn’t really say the last part but I SO wanted to.

She did a few things, had me do a factory reset by pushing the little teeny tiny button on the back of the router. Everything came back up and was working and OF COURSE, the very nanosecond I hung up, it stopped working.

At this point, I was ready to walk outside and beat my head against the bricks.

Instead, I very calmly picked up the phone and called back to Tier 2 technical support.

This time I got a guy who was clearly a trainee and who clearly had a difficult time communicating. He could barely get the prepared speech out and I KNEW he was reading it.

Oh I so didn’t have the patience for this.

I just wanted to say, “Yeah yeah yeah. GET ON WITH IT.” But I told him the problem. Calmly. Again.

About ten minutes later after he had stammered and stumbled his way through the speech he couldn’t read on his card, I said, “Listen. I know this isn’t your fault but I gotta tell you I’ve been down EVERY SINGLE DAY since this has been installed. And if you or someone don’t get it fixed TODAY, I’m going to cancel the entire LOT OF YOU. Got it?”

He put me on hold.

growl

But I was totally serious. I’d had it. Enough already. If this effing POS from HELL wasn’t going to work, then I was going to rip the box out of my wall, put it in my driveway and back over it until it was in teeny tiny pieces.

Well, that’s what I wanted to do in my imaginary world. Of course, I didn’t.

And of course, after FORTY excrutiating minutes on the phone with this guy, it actually started working again. You should have heard the jubilation in his voice when I told him I got a solid green light. You’d think I had just told him he’d won the lottery. Guess I was his first tech support call. Way to go, dude.

It’s been working all day today, except for the one hiccup I got when I first turned it on for the 6 pm news. It’s like the box has to warm up or something. I don’t know. But I don’t dare call them back because if I do, I will wish for death.

So in between yelling at AT&T, I had a heated text message relay with The Man. And not the heated kind where we talked dirty to each other. More like the heated kind where we were not exactly happy with each other.

I ate a pint of ice cream and felt better.

I am emotionally and physically worn out from the last few days. I have a very busy Saturday planned – soccer game, working the concession, and then a trip to the Coach store because I got The Call and was personally invited to their Preferred Customer Event where I can get 25 percent off anything in the store. Oh yeah. I’m so NOT passing that one up. If Coach calls, you go. You don’t tell Coach no. You just can’t. It would be a total snub.

And I figured I totally deserve to love and pet Coach bags after the last two weeks I’ve had. Now. I just gotta decide which one it’s gonna be…

T.G.I.F. Ya’ll!

(And…today is my daddy’s birthday…he would have been 82 if he was alive today… happy birthday, Dad…we miss you…)

I’m doing a Thursday Thirteen over at Chicas if anyone is interested. It’s my Thirteen things I love and hate and you can read that here. haha

It’s been a weird couple of days. Went to the movies with a good friend on Tuesday night and saw Stardust. They had lots and lots of previews for movies coming this fall that I swear were made just for me. Lots of fantasy/adventure movies. Anyway, Stardust was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Definitely a keeper movie and one I’ll be adding to my DVD shelf. Claire Danes is lovely with a hint of humor (she’s the falling star) and Robert DiNero is WONDERFUL as a sky-faring pirate. Lots a great moments with this movie and I just love the guy who played Tristan.

Yesterday totally beat me down from the moment I got up to the moment I went to bed. Lots of work stress and other stress. And none of it I want to talk about here.

No writing done at all. It sucks. I hope to get some done this weekend.

Hey I know it’s Wordless Wednesday and all, but I’m blogging over at the Samhain blog. You can read it here!

Do you ever have one of those dreams where you wake up and instantly reach for a pen? It’s a rare occasion when that happens to me.

Recently, I was lucky enough to have such an occurrence. It was one of those weird dreams where I woke up, shook my head (and rubbed the cobwebs out of my eyes), and thought nothing of it. But later… later, as I sat at my desk at work (because that’s where I do my best brainstorming, oddly enough), I recalled the dream.

It went something like this…

(more…)

It astounds me how fast the weekends go. Wasn’t it just Friday like 2 minutes ago?

I can barely remember Friday… What did I do? Oh yes. I didn’t feel like cooking so it was off to McDonald’s for us. I got a grilled chicken sandwich becuase I couldn’t stand the guilt of the fried hamburger. Even though I really really wanted one. I’m feeling fat these days, though, so I skipped it. I did, however, have the fries and the Coke. Bad. And then ice cream later. Bad Again.

Saturday was the baby boy’s soccer game and then we came home and just vegged the rest of the day. Didn’t go anywhere. Didn’t do anything. We just hung out and I let him pretty much do whatever he wanted. And I had more ice cream. Bad.

He didn’t want to go to bed Saturday night. He wanted to stay up and play with his fort. So I let him. Until 10 pm when I finally made him get into bed. He was out in 2.3 seconds. I snuck (is that a word?) off to the computer and played a rousing game of Sims until the thing locked up, I got disgusted, and then just shut everything down.

I got into bed about 11:15 and was out in like 2.3 seconds. And I had weird dreams. Heard the baby coughing at about 4 am and woke up to check on him. He didn’t wake up.

I woke up about 7 and then dozed for another hour. Got up, had a cup of coffee, showered and got ready for church. The baby boy slept until after 9. He was mad because I was already up and we didn’t get our Sunday morning snuggle-time.

Then it was off to church where I went to a sort of orientation to find out a little bit more about them. Sweetie Boy went into the child care room. It was a two hour session, which flew by. Afterward, I picked up the baby boy.

“Did you have a good class, Mom?” he asked. It made me giggle. I said I did and then he asked, “Did you do good, Mom?”

HAHA It was so darn cute.

He talked me into going the “big” Wal-Mart (we have a Neighborhood Market) because he knew he could sucker me into a new toy. All I needed was chili sauce for dinner. So instead of spending $1.87 I ended up spending $9.00 on a new toy, chili sauce, and a box of Triscuits (it’s better than ice cream).

I cooked over BBQ’d chicken with homemade sauce last night and it was DELISH. Even the Sweetie Boy liked it. He said it was a keeper recipe. LOL He’s gotten to be quite the little wordsmith lately.

After dinner, was dishes, cleaning the cat box, and finishing laundry. Isn’t my life exciting? It’s my night to sort of wind down the weekend and get prepped for the week ahead. Which I totally detest but you know…ya gotta do it. It’s a living. Until something better comes along or I strike it rich, whichever comes first. haha

I did manage to forego the ice cream Sunday night…but it sure was hard to resist.

And now it’s off to work …

…even though I’m still thinking about ice cream… 

The boys lost their soccer game today. But tis okay. There’s always next week!

I renewed my Home Warranty and I feel good knowing I have that protection. Now, you just go head and DIE A/C. I DARE YOU. haha

If only the home warranty covered a brand new bathroom…

Anyway… I decided to install The Sims game tonight and me and the boy had a blast playing it. Well, mostly HE played. And he killed poor Mortimer in a house fire. The Grim Reaper showed up and put Mortimer in an urn. He is survived by wife Bella and oh I can’t think of his kid’s name. They would stand at the urn and weep. It kinda cracks me up now that I think of it.

AND!

I changed my MySpace layout. It’s way sexier than it was before.

You can check that out here!

Happy Saturday!

So. We’re doing this project at work that’s part of our annual holiday awards banquet and the boss asked me to dig out some stuff I had and bring it. Which is totally cool with me because this is something I’m so all about.

Anyway.

We were also talking about Glamour Shots. Remember that place? I had some done way back a long time ago. I think I was 18 or 19 at the time. So I’ve been on the search for the proofs I had. I can’t find them anywhere. My last ditch effort was to look in the box marked “high school stuff”.

After putting the baby boy to bed, I dug it out. It was on the very bottom of the closet in the office. I had to move everything out just to get to it. So I open up the box and start to go through things.

Talk about a walk down memory lane!

I started looking through my senior book. It has pages where you fill out information about the time. Gas was – get this – 0.89 cents a gallon. CAN YOU IMAGINE? And at the time I drove a Geo Metro (stop laughing) and it only cost me like $6.00 to fill up. Those were the days.

Then I found the page that lists all the “Most likely to succeed” BS. There was “Best dressed” and “Wittiest” and stuff like that. Oddly, I wrote my name down for the Best Dressed, Wittiest, and some other things.

And then at the bottom of the page, I wrote: Please note: I am not conceited.

Yeah, okay. I see things haven’t changed much.

I also discovered, with some horror, that I…was a total nerd. TOTAL.

I found all my old Star Trek books. The Star Trek Compendium with almost the entire original cast’s autographs. That’s because, you see, I went to all the conventions. I saved newspaper clippings about the conventions. I even have a copy of the script from Star Trek: The Next Generation’s pilot episode. Hello. Nerdom.

I also found my Star Wars Storybook – the one I got for Christmas in 1978. Yeah, that’s because Star Wars was still in the theater by Christmas 1978, even though the release was May 1977. Don’t ask me how I remember that. I just do. That’s because, back then, there was no such thing as VCRs and DVDs. It makes me feel…old. My kid actually asked me what a cassette tape was.

I also found the “Collector’s Edition” of the magazine Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as well as Return of the Jedi.

And I somehow managed to keep every program and invitation of every dance recital I ever did. From 1980. 

See? I told you I was a nerd.

It was kinda neat to see all my old pictures from my senior year of high school though. It was a total walk down memor lane.

Never did find those Glamour Shots though. I’m thinking they must be long gone by now. I mean, after all…if I can keep up with stuff from frigging 1980, you’d think I’d still have the sheet of proofs from 1991. Right?