Desktop

Here's my desktop photo:









Tracy posted a picture of her desktop over at her blog, and I thought I'd post mine here. If you're not in the collage, no worries: I probably didn't have a photo of you on my computer when I made this. I probably need to put together another one, as some of the younger folks in the collage are older folks now. Well, older young folks. Also, I'm missing several people.

My old desktop picture was the characters from Farscape. It was up so long, I don't remember my desktop before that one.

I'm up because I went to bed early, then had a crazy nightmare which I reasoned my way out of before waking. It was very odd. It was a mix of The Mist (which is a Stephen King short story/novelette I read back in the 80s and which is now a film... which moved me to re-read it, because I remember liking it a lot), real life, various road trips with my sister, and my fear of someone breaking into my home. So it was easy to reason my way out of it, you see.

Anyway, I thought I'd post my desktop pic. Enjoy!

Going Green for Christmas

I know it's before Thanksgiving, and it makes me insane that I'm already hearing Christmas music everywhere I go (and if you've read my posts around this time of year any other year, you already know that), but I wanted to get this out there for those people who have already bought my gift.

This year, in an effort to "go green", I've come up with an idea about wrapping paper.

If you buy the weaker masking tape, it's very easy to peel that off paper. Instead of wrapping my gift in traditional wrapping paper, wrap my gifts in money, instead.

All you do is lay out the bills, (dollars are fine, but you can probably make more interesting holiday patterns with a variety of bills) to the size you want--and obviously close together, if not slightly overlapping. Then, tape them together using the weakest masking tape you can find.

Next, wrap the present with the tape on the inside. If wrap well, you really only need on piece of tape on each end of the gift, and that you can hide with a bow made up of several well-folded one-hundred dollar bills.

This way, the only part of the wrapping paper I won't recycle is the tape.

I appreciate everyone's cooperation in this matter.

About That Facial Hair

We're doing a fundraiser at school. Many of the male staff members have not shaved for a few weeks (well, a little "shaping" is allowed). We're about to give the kids a chance to vote with donations to our Christmas fund (where we pick some families with a need and we provide them with stuff for Christmas) whether we get to shave on the morning of the last Monday before Winter Break, or on the morning of Valentines Day.

So, that's why I'm going around with what looks like an attempt at a beard.

Facial hair doesn't work on me. And I don't mean it doesn't work, as in "is not a good look for", but as in "my car doesn't work... I can't even get the engine to turn over".

Anyway, I just wanted to explain, in case you see me (or worse yet, a picture of me), and wonder if I'm aware my facial hair doesn't know how to grow right.

Also, speaking of pictures of me, apparently I have problems with tone in my writing. I'm aware of this. That post with the picture of me holding a sleeping Binx was suppose to have a tone of "I'm joking--since when do I actually care what my hair looks like?" when I was talking about my hair. Apparently I failed.

So it goes.

A Weekend In Omaha

Before we get started, let me ask this: Why hasn't anyone told me my hair looked like that?

Painful!

Saturday morning I woke up nice and early to get to Omaha for the birthday happenings (Jordan and Binx have birthdays side-by-side). I hate waking up to an alarm on a Saturday morning, and the good news is I woke up just before my alarm was to go off.

When I went out to the car, it looked like the front driver-side tire was low, but it always looks like that. However, it felt a little pull-to-the-left-y, so I stopped at QT and checked it out on a flat surface (which my driveway SO is not).

It was low, so I put some air in it, hoping there was just some little one-time thing happening here, and all would be well.

Yeah, seriously, I do that hoping thing a lot. I'm an optimist like that.

I went over to the church (I was going to leave my car at the church as I needed to be at the church on Sunday morning, and it made more sense for Ruth to just drop me off at the church when we got back instead of taking me to my home and then having me drive back to the church--plus, this meant sleeping in a little longer on Sunday in Omaha) thinking I could help get things set up for the breakfast they were having, but everything was already set up (and it wasn't 7:30 yet!).

So, I eventually went back out to my car to wait for Ruth.

We got to Omaha around 11:00, and while Ruth took a nap, Leslie, Jordan, and I played "Imaginiff..." which is this board game I have had for a while and have always known would be fun, but have never gotten to play (note to self: get life together and start having a game night a couple of times a month with friends). It was enough fun to bring Ruth back into the living room.

Say arrived and Binx arrived and some of Jordan's friends (and co-slumber-partiers) arrived and soon Leslie and I took the 7th grade set to pick up the rest of the crowd and head for the mall (part of Jordan's party was to go to the mall and walk around without her mom RIGHT THERE the whole time... Leslie and I hung out in the food court with cell phones at the ready).

When we got back to the house, the girls went up to the "Slumber Party Room" while Ruth, Leslie, Say, and I played "Imaginiff..." again. We played it a couple of times, actually. It's a great game if you like to laugh a lot.

Anyway, Binx was getting fussy and still not wanting to be near me (because since Carrie's wedding he's forgotten what a fun guy I am, you see), and he wouldn't stay still for anyone who held him, and he wouldn't stay where he was supposed to when they set him down.

So I finally just reached down and picked him up. It's unfortunate we didn't get a picture of him. He was as still as could be. After a bit Leslie noticed he looked tired, so I started singing. This always works, because at this young age they don't want to injure themselves to make themselves deaf, so the only escape from my singing is slumber.

Once he was out, Ruth snapped that picture where my hair is doing that thing.

Anyway, it was a fun time. The girls got to do crazy crafts and played "Imaginiff..." upstairs, we pranked Jordan with a phone call, and a good time was had by all.

Of course, here it is the "fall back" weekend, and I am once again doing something that doesn't allow me to just enjoy the extra hour--but I've decided that's just my way.

When I got to the church, my tire was indeed flat. I got to check out my new tire-changing stuff, and John Campbell (not to be confused with his son, John Campbell) did most of the work... which was funny, because I spent most of church thinking I would wait until everyone left because I wasn't sure I wanted anyone to see my insane reaction to yet another flat tire.

It wasn't so insane anyway, so no big.

I went home and got laundry done, then got to see Ben, Tricia, and the girls and have a good Sunday Dinner with them. Great times!

Anyway, that was my fun weekend. Why don't some of you commenters tell me about your weekend? And maybe suggest another poll topic...

Oh, So THAT'S Where The Expression "Like A Root Canal" Comes From

So I had this root canal thingy done yesterday, and couldn't figure out what the big deal was. "It hurt like a root canal," or "Only a little painful, like a root canal is a little painful," and so on.

Seriously, the root canal part was no big. Mostly boring and awkward, as I'm not used to people messing around with my teeth. (I did mention it's been 20 years since my last dentist visit, right?)

I got there a little after 1:00, and by 1:15 or so I was hooked up to the laughing gas and had that VERY painful shot in the mouth... two shots in the mouth, actually. I didn't feel any pain.

Until about 6:00 that night.

I was at the church, killing time until choir practice. I had started feeling a little... sore, I guess. It was a sort of free-floating soreness that I didn't associate with anything other than my face being so numb. Anyway, at about 4:00 or so, I was feeling a little sore.

Right around 6:00 is when I started wishing for unconsciousness. Seriously awful.

And, being pragmatic, I started praying--not that the pain go away, but that the pain be significantly less by morning, so I'd know it wasn't going to last forever.

I tried to nap, tried to occupy myself by taking pictures in the sanctuary (see yesterday's STILL:Life), tried to play music. Nothing was enough of a distraction.

So we had practice, and the choir sent me home after one time through the song for this Sunday.

I got home, ate a quick supper (as I was hungry enough to overcome the whole "eating is going to hurt" thing that was going through my brain... plus, cold mac 'n' cheese is easy to swallow with minimal chewing), then hit the sack.

I had a lovely evening of hour-long naps... with one or two 90-minute naps thrown in.

But, in the morning, I did feel significantly better.

Today was much better, and tonight I only feel slightly sore.

Hooray!

Tomorrow we go to Omaha to visit Zach one day after his first birthday, and for Jordan's birthday party. She's a teenager now. Sunrise, sunset...