Things I am thankful for.

Well, I know it is the day after Thanksgiving, but since my stats tell me no one tried to read my blog yesterday anyway, here is my list.

1. I am thankful for a man who can realize what a mess I am and loves me anyway.

2. I am thankful for friends.  The kind that can take you how you are, help you want to be better/smarter/faster/funnier and forgive you for all the rest.  And the ones who will dress up with you for Halloween.

3. Family.  Mine has been there for me in my darkest hours and celebrated with me when things are sunny and everything in between.

4. Medical care.  They can fix so many things that people used to just have to live with.  Granted, it feels like torture sometimes, but it is a miracle that we can do so much.

5. Shopping online, so I don’t have to battle the crazies mobbing the stores especially on Black Friday.

6. Books.  I love to read and appreciate the authors who can capture my imagination and take me on adventures while I am snuggly warm in bed.

7. Children.  Their wonderfully simple outlook on life makes me so happy.  Having a child love me makes my whole life feel worth while.  They don’t care what you wear or how much you make.  They just think you are cool if you know the names of the Transformers or can build cool things out of Legos.

8. Animals, like children it feels great when one loves you.  I am so glad Ryan and I decided to adopt those kittens.  They have been terrors and majorly destructive, but nothing makes me feel as good as one of them curling up in my lap and purring.  Also, they make me laugh really hard sometimes, kids do that too.

9. Modern conveniences including but not limited to:  Toilets, showers, straightening irons, cars, toothbrushes, computers, iPods, sticky notes, dishwashers, stoves/ovens, microwaves, tennis shoes, nail files, cell phones, chairs with wheels and mechanics.

10. Ctrl+z

11. Pain killers. Taken legally and in moderation, of course.  But really, where would we be without them.

12. Diet Mt. Dew.

13. Chocolate, cookies, cake, pie, chips and salsa, hot wings, pizza, pasta and the treadmill.

14. Facebook and Google.  Making it easier to stalk people all the time.

15. And finally (because I really should focus on work), I am thankful I am a redhead because, face it, we are just cooler than the rest of you. 

Oh, shiny!

The back story: Recently, here in the newsroom, we have been forbidden to eat at our desks.  I think it stems from someone making IT mad and so they are getting back at all of us.  Anyway, we are all feeling a little like we are back in Jr. High.

Coworker #1: Are you going to put up a Christmas tree for our department this year?

Side note: last year’s that he put up was about five feel tall, silver – yes, the whole tree was silver and decorated with Mardi Gras masks.  He also set up a light that changed colors to shine on it, so it glittered colors.

Coworker #2: I don’t know.

Me: Not sure you want to put in that kind of effort for this place this year?

CW #2: (laughing) yeah, maybe.

Me: Maybe if you do they’ll just outlaw anything shiny.

CW#2: (Gasps and holds his hand to his chest as if in pain and stumbles away.)

New Moon and books and movies

Let’s start by saying I love to read.  I read all of the time.  Normally I am reading one book and listening to another on my iPod. (No, not at the same time)

I read Twilight and New Moon before they got all big and became a craze worthy of people dressing up and carrying around handbags with Robert Pattinson on them.

I really liked the story.  I have heard several people complain about the writing style, and I am apparently not a good judge of that because it has never really occurred to me.  I just know if the story is lame or not.

I love to read because it gives me an escape from my real life, lets me have adventures and romance and/or educates me in some way.

That being said, I usually go and see the movies that they make of the books I read, even though the majority of them are disappointing adaptations.  I know that you can’t fit an entire book into a two-hour movie, but I don’t see why they can’t try.

Twilight was a very fun book to read, but the movie was pretty bad, even comical in places (not the right places – right meaning intentional) which was sad to me.  I went and saw New Moon with my husband this weekend (Yes, he wanted to go.  No, I did not have to bribe him.  Yes, he liked it.) and thought it was a good movie.  It thought it at least hit the highlights of the book and made sense which is really all I ask.

I just wanted to get my review out there before people get all crazy cult about it and before everyone gets tired of it.  Jacob was fantastic and beautiful.  Even Edward wasn’t as bad as last time, though not a tenth of how great he was in my imagination before Hollywood put a face on him.

Finally 80%!

I woke up this morning feeling MUCH better.  It’s funny how excited I can be to feel a little better.  I would say I’m feeling about 80% normal.  I still have some congestion and mild cold symptoms, but I don’t have a splitting headache or the runny nose.  So comparatively, I feel great!

When I woke up this morning and realized I had slept the full night, was not in pain and could somewhat breathe, I got up smiling and I’m still in a pretty good mood and it’s almost 1 p.m.!

Well, I got what I asked for…

I’m sick.

And it doesn’t sound like such a good idea anymore.

Allergies suck!

I can’t tell if I’m sick or if I just have allergies.  I have had a moderate cough for five days and it isn’t getting any better or worse.  It is just annoying.

If I could just actually get sick then I could stay home and sleep.  As it is, I am still functional, I just don’t feel good.

 

Big butts and Internet outages

It has been brought to my attention that I neglected to tell you that we know the reason that the Internet connection was down for seven hours on Monday.

The provider told us that a worker ran his big butt into a switch and broke it.  I had to sit in painful boredom for SEVEN HOURS because of somebody’s big butt!

It’s a little sad really.  I will renew my efforts at fighting obesity soon.  Right after I finish this brownie… and maybe that pot of cream of potato soup.

Upgrade

1.	an incline going up in the direction of movement.

2.	an increase or improvement: an upgrade in the year’s profit forecast.

3.	a new version, improved model, etc.: The company is offering an upgrade of its sports sedan.

4.	an increase or improvement in one’s service, accommodations, privileges, or the like: If the ship isn’t full we’ll receive an upgrade to a deluxe stateroom.

5.	something, as a piece of equipment, that serves to improve or enhance: a full range of upgrades available for your computer.

Upgrade is becoming a very bad word for me.  It seems that every time I hear the word upgrade, especially at work (though this applies other places as well as I will tell you later), it ends up meaning much annoyance for me.

Last week at work we changed Internet providers.  the system was really slow for two or three days, but by the end of the week, it was running pretty smoothly.  Monday it was down for about seven hours.  Which means I had NOTHING to do.  I was at work for six of those hours very bored.  It happened again today.  It was only an hour or two today, but it was still annoying.

I was thinking about how obnoxious it is when we feel the need to “fix” things on my way to work this morning as I drove into the road construction that has plagued my commute for (not kidding) almost four years straight.  It moves around some, but it is ever-present.  The finished one street about a year ago and I was so relieved, but it only lasted a month or two before they tore up the very same road again and are still repaving (and widening) it.

Why can’t we just do it right the first time and then give it a rest for a while?  Same with computer “upgrades”, why aren’t these things extensively tested BEFORE an entire company has to endure the problem of “upgrading.”  Seriously.  I would hate to see the actual dollar figure for how much this most recent ISP switch has cost my newspaper.

Ok, I’ll be done ranting for the moment.

Cookies

I love cookies, but one complaint I have is that some people just cook them too long.  I am sure there are health safety issues here, but don’t you think cookies should be chewy rather than crunchy?

The husband and I went on a cruise about two years ago and they had a cookie cart that a worker would push around and you could smell the fabulous cookies from about 50 yards away.  But when the cart got to you and you could actually see the cookies they were golden brown, which in cookie language means rock hard.  And they were and highly disappointing.

I’m just saying my world would be a happier place if people could just make the cookies the way I want them.  That is all.

Sleep deprived

I must be getting old.  I went to bed at 2:30 a.m. and slept until 9 a.m.  That’s six and a half hours!  That’s barely even a short night.  But my head hurts, body aches, eyes sting and itch.  I don’t feel good at all.

What ever happened to the days when I would stay out until 4… 5… 6… and still make it to my first class by 8 and have a perfectly fine day.  But it appears those days are over.  I just can’t keep up.

In other news, elections are finally over for another year! And we don’t have to talk about candidates anymore… except for today… and probably tomorrow and maybe one time next week when the state gets around to making it official.