My girlfriend called me up on Friday morning and asked me if I wanted to go out and have coffee with her. I was so busy, but, I totally knew it would be good for me, so I said, “Sure!” And we had a really nice time together. The coffee shop that we go to is on the town square, so after we were done with our coffee, we visited a couple of the shops on the square. One of them I have been wanting to go into for a long time. They had the absolute cutest things! They had handmade purses, beautiful jewelry, and gorgeous little makeup mirrors. Oh! They even had a purse made out of a football! It was really neat, even though I don’t like football! I’ve been telling Sammie for a long time that we need to go in that store and look around, and I was so right! Only – if I had had Sammie with me, I’m afraid I never would have gotten out of there! Haha! She does want to go, though – even more now, after hearing me talk about it. It was really good to get out with my friend and hang out for a little while, even if all we did was window shop!
Archives for December 2007
Getting out with friends
Digital storage
Storing information off of my hard drive has been on my mind a lot lately, having recently upgraded to a new hard drive after my crash. I know that I want to organize all of my photos and get them on CD’s. There is also the matter of documents, though. My son is a class at school that utilized thumb drives to take their information with them wherever they go. I think I would like something with a little more storage capacity, though. I’ve been reading about micro sd cards, and I’m thinking that might be just what I need. The only problem that I can see is that they are so small, I’d be afraid that I might lose mine. I’m always thinking that with the kids’ Nintendo DS games. Those things are tiny, and I just know they’re going to lose them – but, they don’t. Hmm…interesting. How on earth does that work? That a kid can keep track of an itty bitty thing like that, and yet, they often can’t find their shoes? Haha! Well, so maybe I wouldn’t lose it. I do need to do something – I need to prepared for another crash. I don’t ever want to go through that again! It was awful!
Very cool dog tags!
I just received the coolest dog tag for Shawn in the mail! Check it out:
I know, I know, my picture sucks. As luck would have it, though, just when I want to show you something, my camera battery dies. And apparently, my scanner needs to retire to greener pastures. Gah! It is just all of a sudden, giving me the worst possible scans. It is definitely time to upgrade in that department, but, this post is not about scanners, it is about wicked cool dog tags!
I was so excited when I opened the package, because, I had thought that the dog tags were plastic and on key chain-length chains. However, it is metal and on a necklace-length chain. It is so nice. I was trying to save it for Shawn to give to him on Christmas, but, I just could not help myself! I had to give it to him! He was so excited! He totally loves it! He wears it every single day!
The band teacher was even impressed! And just as I suspected, Sammie wants one and Patrick isn’t really interested. Oh! I’d love to send my nieces and nephew one, too!
Some of the strongest kids
….are kids who are dealing with, or who have dealth with, catastrophic illness. We have a little girl at our elementary school who is going through cancer treatment, and the last time I saw her, she was in a wheelchair. Today at the Christmas concert, not only was she not in a wheelchair, she was not wearing a hat or scarf or a wig, her beautiful bald head glowing in the fluorescent lighting. She reminded me of Melissa Etheridge – fighting against her illness, loud and proud! This sweet little girl in our school is in the fifth grade, just on the verge of appearance really mattering to these kids. And yet, here she was, proudly carrying this gorgeously white head of hers, like it was all the rage. And yet, it was more than that, really. She really had that attitude of not caring what people thought. And that, to me, is the best place to be. I love kids (and adults, too!) that can wander through their days, not so obsessed with ‘oh no, am I wearing the right brand of jeans, and oh no, did I curl them up just so – just like everybody else?’ (Yeah, I know – curling up your jeans was from the 50’s, the 80’s, and for a short time a couple years ago – definitely not now! Hey – it was just an example!)
Seeing this girl today really made me feel good. It is like, just being in the presence of such beauty and strength, we are ourselves uplifted, some little bit.
I don’t know what all kind of treatments she had, but, I know she is on the road to recovery. And I’ll just bet that a good part of the reason for that is the strength of her spirit!
I want my living room in my living room
It’s driving me absolutely nutty having my living room in the basement, and having my living room half torn up and empty! I’m just getting so sick of it. It wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t have to go through the garage to get to the basement hangout room. I totally understand the reasoning for it – keeping it empty until we do the renovations so we don’t have a whole ton of furniture to move when it’s time to do the renovations. And so we don’t put off doing the renovations, because, we don’t feel like moving a ton of furniture. It’s just starting to really get to me. It would be nice to shop for some discount furniture and just get a couple of pieces, like maybe two soft chairs, so that we’d have someplace comfortable to sit up here, besides on our beds. We had a new thrift shop open up in town and it is huge. I’m keeping my eyes out there for some decent chairs. I’ll just be so glad when we can make this house our home. It sure would make this whole transition easier!
Pour on the caffeine!
My mom and I both are so addicted to coffee, and buying mochas and espressos at that starry place! 😉 We both keep attempting to cut down, but, it is so hard! I know we’d both just love to have our own espresso machines! Even though we wouldn’t really be cutting back on the caffeine, at least we could cut down on the cost! And you know, owning our own might just make us cut back our consumption, too. I had a friend growing up who always had all the best junk at her house. I’m talking candy, chips, Strawberry Quik, biscuits, all the sugary cereals, soda – you name it, they usually had it! And you know what? She could totally take or leave all that stuff. I, on the other hand, went into sugarphoria every time I walked into her house! Haha! So maybe having something around all the time helps you not need/want it so much. Who knows – with my darn luck, I’d drink way more caffeine! Sheesh!
The ruckus downstairs
Oh my goodness – is it ever loud in our basement! We’ve got a couple of extra kids tonight and the whole crew of them are downstairs doing gosh knows what, but, it sure is loud! We do have several gaming systems down there…and it gets really loud when they play Dance Dance Revolution, that is for sure. It doesn’t sound like that is what they are up to right now, though. Who knows – they could be killing each other on some other lovely video game…ugh! We have so much equipment down there, including two different TV’s, that some HDMI splitters could probably really help us out, to keep everything organized. It’s strange how we went from a family with no gaming consoles to a family with too many! Thank goodness our kids are all still major bookworms, or we’d really have to rethink this whole setup!
Prometa – interesting and controversial
There is a new triple cocktail of pharmaceuticals that doctors are giving to alcoholics and drug addicts to sober them up for good. Huh. I’m pretty much totally not convinced. There is an article, however, about a man who was in and out of drug rehab and just was not getting off of the meth and ‘doing his life’. He goes in for these drugs and now he’s living life on life’s terms, he says. There are three drugs in the cocktail, and the addicts go in for three days in a row to get them administered. One doctor even said that the patients come in agitated and irritable, and get up twenty minutes later just feeling great. I must remain skeptical about this one.
Daily prayer makes all the difference
I have to say that I am still amazed what a difference daily prayer makes in my life. When I remember to hit my knees in the morning, and at night when I go to bed, my life runs a lot smoother and a lot happier. Maybe I don’t even want to say ‘happier’. It’s more like – fulfilled. That is it – I walk through my life feeling more fulfilled when I am ‘plugging into the source’ twice a day. I love the way this one older gentleman I used to know would talk about it. He talked about it like plugging a power cord into an electrical outlet. I love that analogy, and I can really wrap my brain around it.
I do think it’s funny that after several years of sobriety, I am still amazed at the power of those two tiny little bits of action on my part. Amazed I am, though.
I realized this morning that I hadn’t been praying for several days – this is what has it on my mind. I don’t know when I stopped or why I stopped. One might think with all the rush of Thanksgiving, I would forget to pray. That wasn’t it, though. I specifically remember praying while my mom and dad were here. It was such a special time we had and I remember talking to God about it. I talk to God a lot during the day, but, those times on my knees are much more ‘in touch’, if you will. And I remember being ‘in touch’ with God when Momma and Daddy were here.
You know what I bet it was? And this is so super silly. Sometimes when I go to bed at night, Lucky is in my way, and it is very hard to kneel down beside the bed. Put 120 pounds of dog in my two feet ‘hallway’ between my dresser and my bed, and things are a little cramped. Ha! You should see me trying to get up in the middle of the night to pee! That’s a funny sight!
I don’t really know if that is what it was that caused me to stop, but, I do know that, just in case it was, I shall pray at the end of the bed at night if I need to do so. It’s weird, because, in the morning, I just hit my knees wherever, sometimes even in the dining room next to a chair. At night, though, I’m so picky about how my bedtime routine goes. I guess I better nip that in the bud!
Ok, so ya’ll remember to ‘plug in’ tonight – I know I will! (And thanks, Lloyd – for the cool analogy!)
Working in bed – or wherever I want
Lots of good things have come together to make it possible for me to work in any room of my house. I suppose I could even work outside. I know I can work on the balcony, as I’ve already tried that. I just don’t know how far that I can go. Can I sit on the swing under the pecan tree? I’m not sure yet. Can I put a blanket or a chair out front and hang out in the front yard with Lucky and the kids? I’m not sure yet. I do know, however, that I can now work in bed, which makes me so happy. It would be so awesome if I had one of those adjustable platform beds! I’m getting sick of leaning up against the wall, but, I shall not complain about my newfound computer mobility.
Here’s the good and groovy chain of events that made all of this happen, though…
- First, my sweet Daddy gifted me with a new laptop, which I stupidly thought was a Dell. He has frequently bought Dells, so I think I just assumed it was a Dell. It is, however, a Lenovo ThinkPad. And I think I love it. Heh! Thanks, Daddy!
- Secondly, my sweet friend, Amy – asked her husband, Rob, if he had an extra router for me, as mine was pitifully incompetent. He did – she sent. They rock. I’m now the proud new owner of a Linksys Router. Thanks, guys!
- Thirdly, my friend, John P., told me about this super-mega-cool program called FolderShare, through which my two computers (my desktop and my new ThinkPad) can communicate with each other. So if I need access to any files on my harddrive while I’m blogging, it’s no problem! Totally awesome!
Sometimes the universe all comes together for us in such splendid ways, don’t you think?
Now if I could get someone to pay this darn electric bill – I think I’ll never catch up with Alabama Power! Where is my sugar daddy when I need him? Haha!
