Hi Everybody! Just want to let you all know that I am still living. :) In fact, I'm even blogging - but over at my Crochet Blog. At the moment I'm participating in the Crochet Olympics, making a sweater.
I'm planning on resurrecting this blog, but after the Olympics. I'm busy crocheting away, taking marriage classes, and going to Florida for wedding plans until then. Yep, that's right, the wedding is on for November in Florida. :)
I leave you with Valentines Days photos of us. :)
Me:
My Valentine, at a romantic Valentines Day lunch:
The roses he gave me:
I just finished the 4th Season of the West Wing on DVD. Argh!! I need the fifth season!!!! And it's not out on DVD yet. :( Sigh.
I bought this season when I was in London. So now I have three seasons in Region 1, and one season in Region 2 DVDs. Not a problem, I'll just have to make sure my DVD player in the States is region free.
I also looked for the CSI first season while I was in London - I can only find the second half of the first season or the 2nd and 3rd seasons here in Germany. I finally found the first half of the season in London, but it wasn't reduced. And of course I'd like to buy the complete first season together, but paying 55pounds for it all together was a bit pricey for me. :( And why did they split it in half anyway??? Is that silly or what? Oh, I just looked at amazon.com, and in the States it's NOT split in half. Pphhth! Guess I'll wait until I'm there to buy it. Arrrgh.
I woke up this morning feeling crappy. Four hours of sleep after a bug fix nightmare at work last night. Dreading going in to work. And what is waiting for me in my email? A whole bunch of nice compliments about my Serephina Shawl, a really cute e-card from my Aunt for St. Patricks Day (I forgot! Oh NO!), and a lovely loving e-card from my babe.
I'm all cheered up! Still dreading the going into work thing, but cheered up. :)
I saw Blade Trinity this evening. This movie was good! Not as good as the first of course, but better that the second. Lots of humor and scrumbious vampires & vamp hunters. Okay, not only was Wesley Snipes super buff as always, but Parker Posey (playing the ueber-vamp lead) was hot too. She looks hot in vampire goth.
I'm definitely looking for this when it comes out on DVD. Hopefully they'll do a special with all three movies as a set. I mean, that would just make sense, right? I have to check out the soundtrack too. I like the music in the movie.
Ahhh!! I just finished watching the first seaon DVD's of The West Wing. I have to know what happened after the big season shoot-em-up cliff hanger. :sigh: Now I have to wait the 11-18 business days for Amazon.com to deliver seasons 2 and 3 to my doorstep. Incidentally, with the exchange rate, my $94 order will be about 72Euro. Is that cool or what?
Oh, and no comments on this because I don't want people spoiling it for me. <holds hands to ears> I'm not listening, I'm not listening </holds hands to ears>
Sorry I've been quiet y'all. Just adjusting to being back home, sleeping in my own bed, working long hours again, and "pigging" out on DVD's of TV shows I bought - West Wing Season One, Law & Order: Criminal Intent Seaon One, and Frasier Season One. I really wanted Law & Order normal, but Target & Best Buy didn't have any when I went in. That's okay, I really like the wacky detective on Criminal Intent.
Oh, so I was going to write about fitness. My apartment elevator is broken. For the last two days. I live on the 4th floor (5th in US terms). So no luggage has been put away and I"m not doing laundry until it's fixed! Although I bought four pairs of pants & a couple of shirts in the States, so that shouldn't be a problem for a while. Between the escalators that work every third evening at my Sbahn stop and the broken elevator, I'm getting a workout. I started doing squats the last couple of mornings, so that's helping out.
I also just signed up at a nice gym in the middle of the city. It's on my way home, open from 7am-11pm, has a pool, a sauna, big flat wall TV screens, and more equipment than you can shake a stick at. My goal is to go there twice during the week and once on weekends. And since they're on the way home, I can do that! Even when I leave the office at 8pm! Woohoo!
This is NOT a New Years Resolution. It's just getting back into the gym and starting to tone my body back up. I have a wedding to prepare for! I figure since we're not planning to get married for over a year (no Mom, no date yet), I have time to really shape up! I don't want to loose weight so much - though that would be a nice benefit - I just want to tone and get healthier. So those 5 flights of stairs don't wind me anymore. And loose the beginnings of a double chin that I'm seeing in photos. Ick.
So, that's my update folks. Sorry for the long quiet period. :)
I am this close to being finished with big project #1. I just have to put the border on and wash it. It's a little wider than it should be, but, hey - it's done. And it looks okay.
I have most of the things I will be packing all in the living room stacked around the suitcase's. The laundry is mostly done, just need to fold it. I'm pretty much on track with were I planned to be for today. Tomorrow evening is our Christmas party at work, so I have NO time to do packing then.
Oh - while I was out yesterday doing my last minute shopping - along with everybody else! - I took some photos of the Christmas market. I haven't looked at them yet, but I plan on posting them this evening. I have to wash dishes, fold laundry, and put a border on big project #1 first.
Bis später! See you later!
Here's a meme for you all to play along. Leave your answers and questions in the comments and I'll answer anything.
(A) First, recommend to me:
1. a movie
2. a book
3. a musical artist, song, or album
(B) I want everyone who reads this to ask me three questions, no more, no less. Ask me anything you want.
(C) Then I want you to go to your blog/journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends to ask you anything & say that you stole it from me.
I stole it from Shelby. She gave me good answers to my questions. :)
So......ask away!
It's official now. Thanks to a little bit of advice from Neil, I felt confident enough to put two CD's out there this evening. You can view my auctions here. So go there and look! And, um, bid up some interest for me, okay? ;)
Man, I just read about this at the Impulsive Buy. It sounds good. Lecker. Marvo may complain about being in the middle of the Pacific and therefore getting products later than the US, but Germany is worse. They don't have Mountain Dew here PERIOD. So a new varient of Mountain Dew is out of the question.
Btw, Impulsive Buy is a great site. I mentioned it before, but it's going on my links now. Soon. :)
I'm playing at being glamorous today. I went for a haircut today. I've actually found a hairstylist I like, in Germany! I don't have to go home on vacations to Mommies stylist. Not that that has anything to do with Germany, I had the same problem in Jersey. Erm, anyway. So, at the end she put my hair in these huge rollers and stuck me under the dryer for 10 minutes. My hair came out is these huge fluffy curls. Wow. For about 10 secs I fancied I looked like Christina Aguilara's new look. Still, I look mahvolous dahlin'. After paying, she gave me a gutschein for free cosmetic stuff from Douglas (pronouced doo-glass). Since I was going to buy moisterizer from them anyway, I went right away. Then I bought some nail polish that I will apply shortly.
Last weekend I was in Saturn and heard this lovely bluesy Country music playing. I asked an employee what was playing and she said it was the new Alison Krauss & Union Station. I looked for it, but couldn't find it. So, today I went back, found it, and popped it in a CD player to listen. I've always liked her stuff, but never enough to buy it. And the same goes for this album. Nice, but the songs I like the best were the ones where she wasn't the lead vocal. There are three or four songs where one of the guys in the band, Dan Tyminski, is the lead vocal. I loved those songs. But, I'm not going to buy the CD for those three or four songs. However, when I was flipping through other CD's I found two Mavericks CD's that I always thought about buying & never did. I don't know why! I love their album "What a Crying Shame" and after listening to snippets of these two other albums ("Music for Every Occasion" and "Trampoline") I took them to the cash register (they were 10Euro each). I'm sorry I've waited 5-7 years to listen to these albums! They're bluesy quirky country/rock. Some tracks remind me of the quirkiness of Dwight Yoakum's album "Gone".
Oh, and to top off the afternoon, I finally found a winter jacket! Yea! Yippee! :)
I enjoyed my Thanksgiving Dinner two months ago, but for every other American, today is Turkey Day.
Have a great day everybody! And for those expats, like Dave & Vivi, who are cooking today, I hope your dinners turn out wonderful and everybody is impressed!
Every so often I get in these moods. Everything I do is crap, I'm a horrible person, I'm a failure, etc. I'm filled with anger and depressing thoughts. I want to get out of my skin, go somewhere else. Listen to lots of angry rock. LOUD.
It used to happen every three to six months and last for a few days. Lately though, it hasn't happened. I'd say my last bad spell was about a year ago. And it wasn't too long, maybe a day, day and a half.
Well, I'm in the middle of one of those spells right now. I really do not want to be here. Not as in not here on earth, just not...here. I want out of my skin.
Update: I'm feeling better. Really I am. It helps to 1) get it out - just say it in a public sphere somehow and 2) Bill called me and emailed me lots of lovely loving thoughts and 3) my mom called and 4) one of the situations at work that snowballed these feelings is clearing up. So I think I'm on a permanent up-swing now. Which would make this the shortest really depressive cycle I've ever had.
By the way, I have to credit Bill and our relationship for even-ing out these depressive cycles. His love and support really lift me up and keep me on an even keel. I love him so.
I'm a little t'd off this morning. I broke one of my Halloween Bowls.
First, I couldn't wake up, so I was later than normal getting out the door, but that's nothing earthshattering. Then I put my black ghost Halloween bowl in a bag to bring in to work so I could spread Halloween cheer. It matched my "Boo" shirt and ghost socks. On the way down the stairs to the Sbahn, the handles of the bag were all tangled and I tried to untangle them. Thinking the entire time, "don't let go of the handles, you'll drop the bowl". So what happens? I drop the bowl. And it broke in tens of pieces. :(
The Sbahn being late and jammed packed and slow just added to it all. So, I'm a little ticky this morning. Mostly because I'm really disappointed in myself.
I checked the TBE site just now, and he's release a new version. However, there are lots of (maybe)'s beside fix's, so I'm going to wait a day or two and see if another release comes out. Plus, I'm just too whooped to bother with it right now.
See previous entry.
Ug. My favorite, use-it-all-the-time browser extension has a bug. A serious bug. Firefox has a lovely feature that block popups. Tabbed Browser Extensions allows me to place the tab bar at the bottom of the screen, bring links up in seperate tabs in a background process, and all sorts of other lovely browser enriching goodness. However, at the moment TBE does not play well with the popup blocker in the new version of Firefox. It completely ignores the settings and just blocks the popup. Which is great for ads - I can't remember the last time I had a pop up ad - but bad for blog comments. I can usually get around this by right clicking and opening the link in a new tab, but sometimes the link is a Javascript and doesn't co-operate. Sigh.
I will be checking the TBE site daily until this bug is fixed.
This guy from London just called me up wanting to survey me about my expatriate experiences with investing (what investing?). He was obviously reading from a script and not really paying much attention to what he was reading or my answers. He asked how satisfied I was with my offshore investments. I don't have any. Okay, how satisfied are you with your offshore investments in [Caymen Islands, Isle of Man, Switzerland, etc]. I just had to laugh and ask if he was reading from a script. "Yes I am, how did you know?" LOL.
But hey, he had a lovely accent. I was turning into a puddle just listening to him. He could read me the ingredients off a cereal box and I wouldn't care. Sorry Bill. :-)
I've just returned from seeing Man on Fire. Denzel Washington's character does creative bad things to the bad guys. Their just rewards, you could say. And the little girl in the movie, Dakota Fanning, gives an excellent performance. It's funny at times, good bad guy action, and justifiable revenge.
They showed a preview for Blade: Trinity. Yummy. HAVE to see this one. Wesley Snipes plays such a yummy good vampire. Blade I was great, Blade II was eh, this one looks like it'll be better than the second. He's teaming up with another band of vampire hunters - one of them apparently an ex-vampire. I'm not quite sure how that works, but we'll see.
Two other movies I rented this weekend [what? don't look at me like that, I've got a lot of free time on my hands now] were White Oleander and Love Actually. Two movies that I've wanted to see, and just never had. The first was very good and Michelle Pfeiffer plays an unexpected role. For me anyway. The second was an interesting concept - eight or nine interweaving love stories - and just plain good fun. Not very deep. However, the sound track for Love Actually is excellent. I'm going to have to look for that one in the local Saturn.
I think I've developed, if not an allegry, then a sensitivy to caffeine. I noticed it first a couple of months ago that when I would drink Coke (my main drink at work), my throat started feeling tight. Kind of like when I'm around cats too long, only without the itchy mouth or eyes. So I cut back on the Coke, but it didn't seem to help to much because I wasn't drinking much else. Sigh. So I brought my Rubber Maid sippy container into work and I periodically fill it with water throughout the day (yes, I have an oral fixation - if it has a straw, I will suck on it until whatever is in the cup is GONE). This helps alot.
Anyway, back to the beginning. At first I thought it was just a Coke thing because tea didn't bother me. Then I had a Frappachino from Starbucks and had the same reaction. Okay, so it should be caffiene, right? Esp. when strong tea gave me the same reaction. But a small bottle of Dr. Pepper didn't affect me. And the 2liter bottle of Mountain Dew Bill brought home didn't either. (It's great having a bf with access to a Military Commissary!) However, this evening I've drunk about a liter of Dr. Pepper and I'm getting the same reaction.
This bites! Rum and Coke - sorry, Bacardi Cola (Germans have no idea what a Rum and Coke is, but a Bacardi Cola they know. Sigh) - is my favorite alcholic drink. And I like soda. Pout, pout, pout. I guess I'm going to have to limit it to a treat every now and then. I've been working towards this, but was hoping it was just Coke that was the problem. Guess not. :-( Hey, at least I'll be drinking healthier.
p.s. This entry is inspired by the blondelibrarian's Coke addiction entry and my comment to it.
Last week I tried saving an Excel File as a comma seperated list (CSV). Used to be Excel would ask you what you wanted your seperator to be: comma, tab, semi-colon, etc. No more. So saving my CSV file resulted in a semi-colon seperated file. Argh. NOT what I wanted. I looked through all the options, nothing. I went searching on the web and found out that MS, in all it's wisdom, has moved this setting into your CONTROL PANEL, under Date/Time/Regional settings. Somewhere there, stuck under language settings, is the "seperator" setting. My colleague and I switch my setting to English, with German dates, numbers, and semi-colon. This one stupid change f'd up my whole computing experience for 2 days. My clock, which had been in 24Hr mode, was now in 12Hr mode. My keyboard kept switching from English to German, depending on the application I was in - that was fun. I finally got all those little bugs worked out though.
However, this one application yesterday decided to place my keyboard into US configuration, but just for it! All the other applications had my keyboard as a German configuration. Since I was in the middle of using it extensively when it decided to switch, I couldn't close it and re-open it. So for hours yesterday I was hunting for the (,),',",.,_, and * keys. All punctation marks that I, as a programmer, use extensively. If I didn't look at the keyboard, I could almost do it from memory (I DO use a US keyboard at home, and grew up with it), but the keys themselves kept confusing me. Eventually I got it though. Of course now, today, I'm unconsciously using the US placement for a couple of keys. Sigh, you can't win, huh?
This morning Bill went for a run, I went for a walk. At the end we walked together along the river front where all the swans, geese, ducks and pigeons like to hang out. Bill says "This place is pretty fowl looking." Just then, a geese started squawking and it sounded like it was laughing at him! It was too funny. LOL
Bill took me to see the movie Riddic this evening. I have to confess, I wasn't really looking forward to it. I hadn't heard much about the movie and although it did feature Vin Diesel, it looked like it might be a bad B-flick. Boy, was I wrong! It might be considered a B-flick (maybe), but it was GOOD. Not only was Vin Diesel yummy yummy scrumpious, but the action and plot moved well and were interesting. I would definitely recommend going to see it. I'm most probably going to buy it on DVD.
I received a call this afternoon asking when I would like to have my new table delivered. First, yea!! Second, um, I dunno. Tomorrow morning? Okay, but they can only arrive as early as my work starting time and it'll take about an hour to put together. Hmm....tomorrow at lunch? Okay.
Soo....I'm going home in the middle of the day to watch my new table be put together. Ack! Which means I have to make some room in my living room. And clean a bit. But, I finally have it!
I know you all are dying for content and I just haven't thought of anything to post in the last week. So, I just got one of those twenty question emails from a brother of mine and decided to post my responses. Lame, but hey.
1. IF YOU COULD BUILD A HOUSE ANYWHERE WHERE WOULD IT BE?
Hmmm...in a non-humid, not-too-cold in winter, pretty country-side, but not too far from a fair sized city area.
2. FAVORITE ARTICLE of CLOTHING?
blue jeans
3. FAVORITE PHYSICAL FEATURE OF THE OPPOSITE SEX?
Muscles in the thighs
4. THE LAST CD YOU BOUGHT?
Kylie Monoe
5. WHERE'S YOUR LEAST FAVORITE PLACE TO BE?
Work
6. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE TO BE MASSAGED?
upper back/shoulder blades
7. WHAT'S MOST IMPORTANT, STRONG IN MIND OR STRONG IN BODY?
strong in mind
8. WHAT TIME DO YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
7:30ish
9. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE KITCHEN APPLIANCE?
microwave
10. WHAT MAKES YOU REALLY ANGRY?
Brothers who don't communicate except through emails like these
11. IF YOU COULD PLAY AN INSTRUMENT, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Piano. I did for awhile, but I quit.
12. FAVORITE COLOR?
Green
13. WHICH DO YOU PREFER, SPORTS CAR OR SUV?
Sporty little SUVs
14. DO YOU BELIEVE IN AFTERLIFE?
Yes and no
15. FAVORITE CHILDREN'S BOOK?
Shel Silverstein's The End of the Sidewalk (or something similar to that).
16. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON?
It would be spring, but everything blooms then, so it has to be fall.
17. IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPER POWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
mind reading
18. IF YOU HAVE A TATTOO, WHAT IS IT?
n/a. If I ever do, it'll be something unique to me and expressive of my personality and something I want for decades. Probably won't ever think of something.
19. CAN YOU JUGGLE? No.
20. THE ONE PERSON FROM YOUR PAST YOU WISH YOU COULD GO BACK AND TALK TO? My parents when they were younger. Wait, my Great grandma on my Dad's father's side.
21. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE DAY? Saturday - sleep in, muddle about the house and eventually do the shopping
22. WHAT'S IN THE BACK OF YOUR CAR?
Don't have one
23. WHICH DO YOU PREFER SUSHI OR HAMBURGER?
Hamburger
24. FROM THE PEOPLE YOU WILL EMAIL THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST? Only sending it to one person, and he sent it to me. So nobody.
25. WHO'S LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Ditto.
26. WHO DID YOU RECEIVE THIS FROM? My hardest headed brother.
Yes, there is only one entry here (now two). That is normal - the blog only displays 7 days of entries and obviously I haven't blogged much in the last 7 days. I'm working on a longer entry about our adventures this weekend, but for more info, go see Mom and Dad's Travels.
I have a new dining room table. Or I will in six - eight weeks. :) It's a nice table with a corner bench and chairs. The chairs are upholstered in a lovely cream green print and the benches have storage under the seats. Very nice. My parents went looking at furniture stores this morning to find one for me. They were going to gift it to me, but once they found out the price, they decided to go half-sies with me (Which is great too, bc I wouldn't spend the whole price on it myself, but spending half is okay). It's a very nice gift - my Christmas present for last year and this year. :D
Thank you Mom and Dad!
I finally bought my first set of dishes. My first real, "I'm a grown up now" dishes. Yes, I had dishes before, but they were a set of 4, in a pattern I didn't particularly care about (didn't hate, didn't love), that were a Christmas gift from my parents. Now I have a lovely colorful set of 8 that I bought myself. :) Two yellow, two creamy orange, two creamy green, one two tone green and one two tone yellow/orange. I like them a lot. And since I bought them directly from the factory, the 4 chargers, 8 large plates, 8 small plates, 8 bowls, and 4 serving bowls of various sizes cost me a whopping 115Euro. Excellent deal!
If you're ever in the Frankfurt area and are looking for dinnerware, you should check out Waechtersbach Factory Outlet. Mom shopped there twenty years ago, I went back there last year with my girlfriend (she bought a set of eight two-tone dishes), and now I've shopped there for myself. It's a family tradition.
The blondelibrarian has Firefox on her computer. And she blames lists me as one of her influences. :)
If you haven't yet, you really should try this browser out. It's the little browser that CAN. Much much better than IE and not so feature bloated as Mozilla. It's just neat. And Tabbed Browsing is the best!
Oh, and if you have installed Firefox on a Windows machine, you need to check this security warning and download the latest version of Firefox.
Okay, enough procrastination. My parents arrive in 36+ hours and my house is a disaster. Have to get started on that cleaning I've been meaning to do for the last month. Sigh.
Update: I meant to thank my brother last night for the security tip mention, but obviously I forgot. So, thank you Norm!
The problem with asking your hairdresser to make the new highlights in your hair look natural, is that, well, it looks natural. So nobody notices until you point it out. And a couple of people say "I thought red was your natural color." Well, yeah, but the blonde highlights AREN'T. Sigh. :)
Today (here in Germany), Venus is transitting the sun. I'd heard something about it in the news, but didn't realize it was today until my co-worker asked if I wanted to look at the sun. Cue puzzled look: Wieso? Why? He explained and then offered some sun glasses specially made for looking at the sun (purchased for looking at a sun eclipse four years ago). Neat-o. Venus is a little black dot in front of the sun.
They [are] healing well. The right side is anyway. I have absolutely no discomfort there. The gums feel a little rough/dry on that side, but I think that's just normal healing scar tissue stuff.
On the left, well, the swelling is completely gone. Which means I can feel the stitches strings again. Which means I have a tendency to play with the ends with my tongue. Thats not the bad part though. The bad part is the inability to open my mouth wide enough to bite a sandwich without a short sharp pain from the cheek muscle. That muscle is really tight. And smiling hurts on that cheek. And it's just generally sore. It sounds like I'm miserable, but I'm not. Except when eating or smiling. :) I had to keep holding that cheek today when smiling or laughing so that muscle wouldn't tense up. Oh, and I'm starting to sport a lovely bruise on my chin of all places.
I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon. I think we're supposed to take the stitches out then - they're not self-dissolving stitches. I think it's actually the stitches that cause my cheek to hurt when I smile.
And yes Janine and Brett's mom - I was only drinking water or non-carbonated beverages (until today) and being good about putting ice on (until today). Even today I put ice on in the morning and right after lunch. It's just really hard to type and hold an ice bag to your face.
More updates tomorrow after the dentist appt.
Yesterday was Bill's graduation from college. A goal he's been working towards for many years and yesterday he finally made it. It's a great feeling for him. He invited me, his ex (she helped him a lot and they try to remain friends) and his son.
Bill and I had a nice time there. The day was warm and sunny (and therefore they were all hot in their black gowns). A couple of the speakers were a little long winded, but that's par for the course too. And at the end he got a pretty piece of paper saying the diploma is in the mail. Woo hoo! Congratulations sweetie!
This was a really unique graduation because it was made up of primarily military members who take these classes in the evening or online or on the weekend. And the graduation was for all of Europe. So there were people from the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, etc there. I was surprised that some people would come from so far away to graduate. However, it IS a big milestone. The average age of the graduates was 35 and their average length of study time was 14 years! One guy had been working on his for 43 years!! That is a lot of dedication.
Bill's ex and son didn't show up. She's got some BUG up her butt, and is giving Bill the silent treatment. Wow. To be so grown up that you have to try and make somebody miserable because of some imagined slight. I can't imagine how good that feels. It's just as well. I wouldn't have enjoyed pretending to be nice for Bill and William's sake. It would have been nice for them to be there for Bill's sake to congratulate him, but if her showing up would have meant putting up with attitude, I'm glad she decided not to come.
Die Weisheit ist forbei! My wisdom is gone! Sigh.
I had my wisdom teeth removed yesterday. And despite all the horror stories people wanted to pile on me about getting their wisdom teeth removed, all went pretty well. The right side came out in five minutes. Even if I did thing for a minute that my entire right side was coming with it, it came out. Then she went to work on the left side. Apparently it was really narrow up there and she didn't have much maneuvering room. The tooth itself was loose, she just couldn't get a good grip. So she broke it up little by little and pulled mightly and it eventually came out. They cleaned me up, gave me an anti swelling shot and left me alone for 10 minutes with a cold pack. That was it. In an hour, I was done.
One thing that they did that I really liked was they put some lip lotion on my lips to keep the lips nice, soft and pliable. Good thing too, or I would have a split lip now from the left side.
Afterwards I shakily made my way the grocery store for some jogurt and soup. Next stop: McDonalds for a milkshake. That was interesting - my lips weren't cooperating to well, so I basically had to shove the straw in my mouth, clamp down and suck. Of course, I had to experiment with it some, so I got a couple of funny looks in the Sbahn. :P
At home, I checked mail and then fell into bed until about 10:30. Got up ate my soup, read some, and went back to sleep.
This morning my left side is sore and a little swollen. In comparison to the left, the right is fine, just a little soreness. I'm putting a cold pack on my left side every few hours.
I was reading this blog entry on blogs effect on journalism and academia and I thought "Hey, I wonder if anybody from Wesleyan College blogs?"
So I went searching through google for "Wesleyan blog". I found a girl who's an alum of Wesleyan University and has a photo blog. Interesting but not what I'm looking for. Okay, let's try "Wesleyan College blog". Links to Tennessee Wesleyan, Iowa Wesleyan, Kentucky Wesleyan. No Wesleyan College. Sigh. Hmmm....."Wesleyan College Georgia blog"?? More of the same and a blog entry about a choreographer who "inspired hundreds of dancers studying at Wesleyan College". Since my Wesleyan College didn't have a dance program when I attended it less that ten years ago, I doubt he taught there.
Oddly enough, one link did consistently come up for my Wesleyan College: a site on George W. Bush's site listing various "Students for Bush" organizations.
Of course, because of this entry, I'll probably be the number one search result for "Wesleyan College blog" after this. :)
Just for the record, I graduated cum laude from Wesleyan College, Macon Georgia in 1996.
I found a new website today, reason.com. I've only had a chance to look through three or four of their articles, but I like what I've seen so far. And I think their recent cartoon entitled Sluts for Jesus is pretty funny. I'm definitely going to be visiting this site more.
I just finished watching Natuerlich Blonde 2 (Legally Blond 2) auf Englisch. Okay, first of all, it's cute and has a nice message. Moral fluff. But that's not why I'm blogging about it. At the end, Elle drives off with her groom in a SMART car. Pink of course. Which is really funny, because you can't GET a SMART car in the States. I think it's illegal. Customs will not let you import it because of ... I don't know. I just know you can't get it. I investigated it a few years ago when I got back from a vacation to Germany and fell in love with the car. I heard recently that SMART will enter the US market with their Roadster in 2006. I would link to it, but their site doesn't have nice friendly links. So just go to smart.com, choose Germany, and then the fifth link down is for the Roadster.
My good friend Janine came to visit me last summer. Janine works for a dentist. I think Janine was slightly horrified at my lack of appropriate dental hygiene tools (hey - I brushed and OCCASIONALLY flossed!), so part of my Christmas present from her was assorted dental hygiene items - dental floss, mouth wash, toothpaste, etc. Janine will be happy to learn that I'm using them too!
However, the flossing is kind of a side benefit. See, I've discovered that if I place a piece of floss just - SO - between certain teeth on the right side of my mouth, it seems to relieve pressure and make my mouth feel better. I've noticed that I have "pressure" points on that side of my mouth for a while - even mentioned it to the dentist last year. She explained that your teeth move around, and since I've got some space in between my front bottom teeth, my teeth are probably trying to rearrange themselves up there. The other dentist also suggested I get my wisdom teeth out on bottom (they don't and have never existed on top). No real need to, but it would give my teeth more room, and eventually they'll probably get impacted and have to come out anyway. Soo....when I have my check up in a couple of months, I'll probably see about getting my wisdom teeth out. Or maybe sooner if this pressure keeps up. It's gotten worse in the last couple of weeks - hence the side benefit of flossing. :)
Update: I'm going to make an appointment with the dentist. I just felt my gums and it seems like I've got a tooth starting to come in behind my molars on top. Guess the wisdom teeth are on top, not bottom.
In the last two weeks I've heard two new popular songs that I HATED when I first heard them, but upon subsequent listenings of the songs, I've found myself singing along. WHY??? They're still bad. One's a German rap song (L.O.V.E.) that is half in English and sounds completely STUPID in German. The other one's a guy whinging about how he doesn't want some girl back (I don't want you back?). And he's not even singing. He's literally brokenly whinging. Ug. I'm disgusted with it.
And this is the only thing I can think to blog about today. How bad is THAT?
Here's three interesting news articles I found today.
1) Despite the fact that my Mom tells me people are starting to talk about a draft (complete news to me), this article says that soldiers are "re-enlisting at rates that exceed the retention goals set by the Pentagon. As of March 31 - halfway through the Army's fiscal year - 28,406 soldiers had signed on for another tour of duty, topping the six-month goal of 28,377. The Army's goal is to re-enlist 56,100 soldiers by the end of September." (hat tip: CPT Patti)
2) A German newspaper, Die Welt, posted a thoughtful commentary piece about popular German political thinking. An English translation is here. No good brief snippets to excerpt, just read the entire thing. Basically he's saying that maybe Germans are going too far with their Anti-Americanisms. Only people who believe in what they are doing and actually DO something to right a wrong get the opportunity to make mistakes. Everybody else can only say how wrong it is or how such and such else should be done instead. Go read.
3) Those WMD that our critics keep saying must not exist because we haven't found any? Well, guess what, WE HAVE. It's just not making press because it's not all "stockpiled" together. Read the very interesting and enlightening article here. (hat tip: Instapundit)
I either have the med that is a combo anti-histamine/decongestant that helps but makes me loopy and achy or I have the dry-out-the-sinuses, give a bad taste in the mouth, dry out the mouth/lungs stuff that doesn't stop me from having a stuffed up nose.
Guess I'll go see a doctor this week and see what prescription stuff they can recommend. Argh.
I saw a $3 fee on my American account when I visited my online statement a couple of weeks ago. Having no clue what this $3 "Banking Center Transaction Fee" was, I sent them a question via their Customer Service email. Today I logged back into the account and among other things, read their reply. The relevant part is quoted below:
Seems I had the gall to use the Teller window twice last month and therefore got charged $3. I can use the ATM as much as I want though - free! That helps ALOT considering I'm an ocean away and they have NO international branches in Germany. Jerks.
I ordered new glasses last week and picked them up today. See photo below. They aren't something I would have personally picked out, but I am very happy that the Optomitrist talked me into something different. He wanted me to go much bolder and dominant, but I'm happy with these.
I can highly recommend Fielmann in Offenbach if anybody needs glasses. They are highly professional and very nice. I walked in two minutes before closing this evening and I did not get the impression that I was imposing on them and they were honestly nice and even did last minute adjustments on the glasses. Hey, and one of them is a friend of Stefan's.
Now my eyes just have to adjust to being able to see clearly again. It is truly amazing how clear and crisp everything looks. I figure I'll have a headache in an hour or two. :)
Does Spain REALLY think that by pulling out of Iraq the terrorists will play nice and not bother their country anymore? Really?
Please...
A little lunch time story.....
My colleagues and I to a soup deli place for lunch. It's kind of new-agish and the soups are made fresh daily. This is the third time I've been there. I must admit, the soups weren't as good as the times before, but they were okay. My boss decided the place was just CRAP. He stared at the customer's and their soups, sniffed and stared at ours and then made comments the entire time we were eating about how crappy the soups looked. How he would NEVER eat such crappy soups. What kind of a soup place is this anyway? The other soup place is much better. And so on and so on.
I got so mad at him. I even told him to wait outside or go find something else to eat, but he took it as a joke. Then he has the gall to go to the local supermarket in the Sbahn station and buy one of those Insta-soups on our way back.
I noticed a black smudge on the back of my front door the other day, so today I took a sponge to the door. YUCK. The entire door was covered with a black sheen. And each of the other four doors in the front hall (each room in Germany has a door on it, and most of them have seals around them - airtight). The worst was the kitchen door. The kitchen faces the street. This is pollution making it's way up from the street and into my fifth story (fourth in Germany) apartment. And I'm breathing this in. Yummy. Still, this only what's built up in a year and four months. So I guess the pollution isn't THAT bad. But still, yuck.
I love Spring. I love that the sun actually makes an appearance throughout the day. That it sets later. That the flowers are out. That it's now warmer and I do not have to wear the winter jacket.
However, I HATE pollen, or rather my body hates it. I can not BREATH. I am constantly stuffed up, and it's still in my lungs. I woke up at least twice last night because it was hard to breath. And this is AFTER taking the 12hr anti-histamine/decongestant that makes me a little loopy halfway through the 12hrs.
Of course, wearing the T-shirt to bed that I wore while laying out on a sunny lawn yesterday with Bill probably didn't help.
Bad Anna, bad bad Anna.
I forgot part of my website password the other day, so I had the hosting company reset it. No problem! Go in, change the password again. Great. It works. I checked! Oh, wait, while we're here....let's mess with this permission. Oooh, and THAT permission. Save, log off, go out for some afternoon sunshine.
Think about logging into the website several times during the next day, but decide it will just distract you too much, so go off and read OTHER websites and work. (I know, it doesn't make sense). Finally, while on the phone with your boyfriend, discover that those clever permission changes render your blog completely USELESS! You can't log in. The comments don't work. ARGGHHH!
Fiddle with permissions again. Nada. Research forum. Post message to forum. Fiddle with permissions 10 more times. FINALLY hit right combination that allows you to log in. Sigh.
Note to self: DO NOT play with permissions anymore! At least, until you've read up on them some more.
Lovely. Not only do I have to contend with email spam now, I have comment spam and referrer log spam now. The joys of owning a blog. I get at least one, probably two comment spams a day now. I've need to go to the Moveable Type website and see if they have something I can add on to help filter it. It's not a huge volume or anything, it's just annoying.
I apologize for the light blogging the last week or so. Even though I've been back nearly two weeks now, I haven't blogged much.
Partly it's because of the wealth of reading and DVD materials I've either received or bought in the last month. Much late night viewing of La Femme Nikita and Roswell has happened. Also, much weekend/late night reading: Last Chance Saloon by Marion Keyes, Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey, A Theory of Relativity by Jacqueln Michard, a couple of series romance "novels", and the beginning of a book of Quantum Gravity have all been consumed since I've returned.
On the other hand, much digestion of emotional fallout and the things that happen because of deaths has happened too. Grandma T was a hard woman to love. I did though. I feel a bit hard hearted and callous however because her death does not make me sad. It does NOT make me glad, it just doesn't make me sad. On the other hand, I feel sad because I didn't know her better and that she made it hard to know her or like her. I'm also angry at her for being such a hard woman. Too, I feel weird joking about the things we found in her house (something like 50 ashtrays from lots of hotels and restaurants, same number of lighters - still in the package, etc). Lots more could be said in this vein, but I'm not sure I'd do any good trying. I'd just be trying to explain myself out of an emotional circle.
Anyway, I've had my away time, so things should get back to normal around here. If not right away, then soon.
If you could live anywhere in the US, irregardless of family connections, job, etc., where would you live?
Personally, I'm not quite sure, but I know that most of the east coast does not appeal to me. I enjoyed my summer in Tennessee, so that's a possiblity. I thought for a while about the West Coast, but now I'm not so sure. I still want to visit there though. I'm leaning towards a Mid-West/Southwestern area at the moment. Yes, I'm fishing for ideas. ;)
I am soo tired. Off to bed for four hours of sleep now.
I'll probably post once or twice while we're there. Bill has to take one of his finals on Friday, so we'll be visiting an internet cafe then. If possible, I'll try uploading a couple of photos. Otherwise, you'll just have to wait until I get back.
Ciao!
Yes, I'm in the midst of packing. I need to clear my camera off and charge it up, so here's something to look at for awhile. This is Christmas Plutos' first Sbahn ride home. :)
My Christmas packet finally arrived from Janine! :) And right on top was a Christmas Pluto with antlers and bells around his neck. He's really really cute!
It was also full of books, Cucumber Melon smelly stuff (lotions, cremes, etc), and a couple of Christmas presents for Bill and his son.
Thank you Janine!
p.s. I'm glad I didn't go out and buy The DaVinci Code. She's been talking about it on her blog and peaking my interest. I now have my very own copy, courtesy of Janine!
p.p.s. Through the wonder of digital photography, you too can see my present! :)
My friend Erik took the original of the photo in my header and came up with a cleaner, nicer end product. I promptly posted it above, replacing the other one I created with my own VERY rudimentary Photoshop skills. That old photo must have been bugging him, because he volunteered to do it, I never asked. Nice of him, don't you think?
Then he gave me tips for reducing the washed out portions of Emilie's photo below. I went to work right away, so I posted the photo below before the last of his tips came in. Well, it gives me something else to practice on later. ;) So you might see an improved version of that photo again later.
Off to bed. I should have been starting to prepare for my trip on Thursday, but I spent all night on my blog (can't you tell?). Well, I'm not known for doing things last minute for nothing!
Okay, all of you who are still using Internet Explorer - check this browser out:
It used to be called Phoenix, then Firebird. I believe they've finally found a name that will not give them any trademark problems in Firefox.
It's a GREAT browser, it's FREE, open-source, and has lots of features: pop up blocking, tabbed browsing, a variety of skins (interface looks) and much more! Check it out! I've been using this browser for over a year, and it's the ONLY browser I use.
I highly recommend the Tabbrowser Extensions and the Phoenity Theme.