Domestic Geek

I've had intentions of crafting more. Well, life got in the way and that hasn't happened. I've been pushing my projects to the backburner and I'm really sorry I have done so. As my friend Cass said the other day (at least I think she said it as I can't find the post amongst her many blogs), you have to make time to craft. So making time I am.

This afternoon I'm taking my birthday money from my company and going to take a knitting class. I've been wanting to knit for years and Marcus' mother even bought me a knitting kit for Christmas 2 years ago. I've tried to read the book and watch videos online, but for some reason I just don't "get it" yet. I can do the stitches, I just can't get a project cast on. I need a seasoned knitter to show me how to get started.

Speaking of Cass, she has started an Online Craft Club that takes place every Friday. I'll be a day late, but I'll participate this week with the results of my knitting class.

I'm so excited!!!

Man, I was in a rotten mood yesterday. First, my neck was paining me. Ever since that car accident when we got rear-ended a couple of years ago, weather changes make my neck ache. It was so bad I could barely turn my head to the right and not to the left at all. Right after I got to work (Late, because people wouldn't freaking DRIVE), our department manager wanted to see me up in his office. I got excited thinking it was about the raise my supervisor put me in for. Nooo, he wanted me to take a CSR position. Let's see: not in my field of study, dealing with customers, being on the phone all day, having to dress nice, having to be upstairs in the main offices, stress from all angles. Um, no. There's a reason people in that job burn out and have nervous breakdowns. Been there, done that, not doing it again. I actually went into the bathroom and cried after I left his office because I was so disappointed. Oh, well.

The neck still hurts like mad today. It sucks because I have a lot I want to do on my computer, but sitting upright looking at it for very long is torture. If it doesn't ease up over the weekend, I'll have to go to a doctor.

I got a $100 bill and a card from my company for my birthday. That was cool. I keep meaning to scan it or take a picture (someone folds it up into a cute little bow tie), but I keep forgetting. I've decided to treat myself to a knitting class. I found a shop in Aurora that used to charge for its classes but now offers them for free. All you have to pay for is the yarn. I'm going to do that on Saturday for a few hours. They teach you how to make a cute little bag, so that should be fun. I really want to get into knitting, but just can't get the hang of it from reading books. I need someone to just show me, especially the casting on part.

Thirteen of my Online Friends You Should Visit

I've been fortunate and met quite a lot of interesting people online. This week I'd like to share the sites of 13 of those friends with you.

1. hello! yoshi — I met Yoshi while looking for an Expression Engine blogroll link manager. I was sick to death of blogrolling.com always hanging my site and he had written a nifty little module that works wonderfully (I still use it to this day). Since then, we have been through two blogathons together and he's always quick to help when problems come up and Marcus isn't available. He sent me a tutorial on how I can do private posts on here, I just haven't managed to find the time to take a look at it yet.
2. LaLaGirl - Twinfinite Chaos — Oddly enough, I met Laura before I even knew what a blog was. She and I were attending the same stupid school and my friend Rev and I would chat with Laura once in a while during lunch. It was while doing a search to see if anyone else hated that stupid school as much as I that I found a link to Laura's blog. She had written about this stupid programming instructor that everyone absolutely hated. She's quite the busy gal with two sets of twins and a tween daughter. She won't admit it, but she's quite the superwoman. I really admire her.
3. Simple Kind of Life — If you're blogging and haven't been to any of Colleen's many sites, what rock have you been hiding under? Her first blog is SKOL and I found her a few years ago through Laura's site, but only became really well acquainted with her in the last year or so since I emailed her about a paid blogging site question I had. She's another one of those superwomen... three kids, a career and a blogging celebrity all rolled into one. She's quite an inspiration.
4. Whatever I Feel Like — I also found Amy through Laura. I was like this little insider hanging on the fringe of this group of online girlfriends. Amy is another woman I really admire. She's really smart and has some wonderful insights into life. She's another source of inspiration. She and her family recently go a chocolate lab named Grace. I'm so jealous.
5. Cass Knits — I met Cass on a paid blogging site forums. She's a Southern gal with 8 kids and a whole slew of interesting blogs. She shared the process of making sweet tea with me and I'm ever so grateful! I don't know how she manages to raise a family, blog, moderate forums and find time to be crafty, but she does.
6. RADHOLE — Russ is a Denverite that I know through Marcus' best friend Mike's sister Valerie. *whew* Russ is quite the character. He is an amateur movie maker, a writer and a successful urban gardener. He also is fascinated with space and space exploration.
7. Marisa's Dandelion Patch — Marisa (another PPP friend) is a grandmother, but you'd never know it by looking at her. She's an extremely geeky, wise and opinionated woman.
8. Shameless Reality Show — Another online friendship forged through the PPP forums. Terri went MIA for a couple of months when an errant Wordpress plugin took her site down. She's a budding astrologer and in exchange for a chart, I helped her get her site back up.
9. An Indian Summer — I met Bug during last year's blogathon. She may be young in years, but I think she's an old and wise soul. Unfortunately, she hasn't been blogging very much lately due to her job getting in the way, but she gave her notice and hopefully we'll get to read more from her in the near future. She has a radio program that you should check out. The link is in her sidebar.
10. Surviving NJ — Deb is another online friend I made via PPP. She's a published author as well as a blogger. She's also quite the traveler.
11. Stitching the Night Away Craft Blog — Loretta is another gal that I met of the PPP forums. She also runs several sites, but my favorite of hers is her craft blog.
12. Julie's Journal — Dang, I can't remember if I read Julie through Laura's site or not. I have also gotten to know her through a paid blogging site. She's a techy gal like me, living in Nevada and had a wedding in Vegas sponsored by previously mentioned paid blogging site.
13. MarcusLingl.net — If you've read my site for any length of time, you should know Marcus. If not, he's my boyfriend of 15 years, a computer geek, lover of all things Mac, a gamer and a mountain biker. He doesn't blog very often, but when he does he posts well thought-out, insightful content (and I'm not just saying that).

So, there you go. I have several more friends that I'll introduce in a later T13. If you stop by any of them, tell them I sent you!

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I usually avoid MTV and current pop music nonsense, but after seeing so much buzz about this on blogs and message boards, I had to view it for myself.

Wow.

Once upon a time, Britney Spears had it. Marcus was obsessed with her. In fact, he once told me that if he should ever have the chance to be with her, I'd be history. Well, fortunately for me, her total downspiral as of late has made that possibility null. The mere fact she popped out kids turned him off. Couple that with the addictions, the white trash behavior and the irresponsible attitude, is it any wonder she no longer holds appeal for a lot of men?

Anyway, not one to usually kick people when they're down, I was really hoping she'd clean up her act in rehab. If not for her, then at least for the poor children she brought into this world. After that humiliating display on the MTV VMA show the other night, I see that hasn't happened. You'd think if you were going for a comeback, you'd try to sober up. The girl looked drunk, high or both. Clumsily stumbling around on stage lip-syncing poorly to her own music with absolutely no passion whatsoever. Her backup dancers were more into it than she was. People have been knocking on her weight. While I don't think she's fat by any stretch, she definitely had no business on stage in a skimpy bikini.

I was amused by the horror-struck and disbelieving faces in the audience, especially those of her peers and fellow singers. It was most definitely a train wreck of epic proportions. If you haven't seen it for yourself, I'm sure the opening video of Britney over at the MTV VMA page will be available for a bit. If not, there's a low quality YouTube video in the extended.

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« All Done!

It's been a roller coaster weekend.

Yesterday, I put in another few hours at work trying to catch up on some of the file room work that I've fallen behind on being so busy. I was having second thoughts about going, but since I really need the cash right now, I sucked it up and went in. Last night, we (Mike, Nina, Marcus and myself) went to Rodezio Grill downtown to celebrate Mike's and my birthdays. They have some really good food there, not to mention handsome men dressed as Brazilian gauchos bringing you meat carved off of a sword.. I ordered a beer and that thing was HUGE! Way more alcohol than I was used to and all it did was make me really tired and unable to sleep. After we stuffed ourselves with grilled meat, we exchanged gifts. I got some gift certificates and Marcus got me a NAPP membership (National Association of Photoshop Professionals). That was so thoughtful of him! I've been wanting to join that organization for years, but always talk myself out of spending the money.

Except for being totally exhausted, this morning was cool. Marcus and I headed over to LePeeps for breakfast. When we got home, I had a whole list of things I was going to tackle and take care of today. It went downhill from there. We ended up having to have one of our rabbits put down. The vet suspects she broke her back (apparently a common rabbit problem). While trying to drag herself around, we think she either dislocated or broke a leg. We decided it wasn't fair for her to live like that. Poor thing. We got raped financially by the vet. He called beforehand to get a quote on the cost and what they told him was only half of what it really cost. They neglected to mention the cremation cost on the phone. They charged more to put a rabbit down that it did to put our dog down last January. Not cool. The receptionist was kind of thick, too. It's a good thing the vet herself was compassionate and smoothed things over a little. Marcus still will probably write a letter to complain about how it went.

After that, Marcus totally forgot that he needed to run over to work this afternoon to take care of something. After doing that and grabbing some stuff at the store for dinner, the day was pretty much shot. I had hoped to accomplish some blog stuff today, but this is about it. I'm off to bed for rest so work tomorrow doesn't totally suck. Hopefully I'll get something accomplished tomorrow.