Domestic Geek

I had all sorts of things I needed to do, all sorts of things I wanted to post...not a thing got done.

Instead, I spent most of the time in bed either sleeping or curled up in pain. w00t! So much for having an extra hour in my weekend. Oh, well, tomorrow is another day and all I can do is move on from here.

I did end up watching a movie called Because I Said So that I got from Netflix. It had Mandy Moore, Diane Keaton and Lauren Graham in it. It was a cute story. I still have a hard time seeing Lauren Graham as anything other than Lorelai Gilmore, though. Earlier this week, I watched Evan Almighty, too. I thought for sure I wouldn't like it, but I'm glad I gave it a chance because I actually liked the story a lot better than Bruce Almighty.

WARNING! Woman Stuff Ahead! Ignore the first paragraph if you're a guy!

This sucks. My period, which normally starts Tuesday or Wednesday, decided it would wait until late last night to arrive. My planned day of designing my new layout and of doing much-needed housework was derailed and instead I spent much of the day curled up in bed with a heating pad. *sigh* Even a hot shower (almost to the point of scalding), did nothing to reduce the cramps and chills I was feeling. I have got to get myself back on the pill. Even though I will still cramp, it isn't as bad and my cycles are predictable. I'd much rather feel like crap at work than at home on the weekend.

I did venture out briefly to have a yummy dinner of a broccoli cheese soup bowl over at Mike & Nina's home. Marcus got me a tasty chai latte from Starbucks on the way home. I put together the puzzle that came out of the HUGE Kinder egg that Marcus' sister sent and now I'm off to curl up with the heating pad again.

I'm really hoping my body cooperates tomorrow as I have much to do. I just realized yesterday that Thanksgiving is less than 3 weeks away. The holiday season is almost upon us and I'm panicking because I'm once again not ready. With no OT again this week and very little paid blogging, my income lately has sucked. I wish I had a beater car that I could use to deliver pizzas. That is the only part time job out there that can make some decent money. I can't use my current car to do it or it won't last until the payments are done. I can't even design on the side because my creativity is stalled. I've got a friend that wants me to redo her site and I can't even make myself do that. I know it's the financial stress that I'm under that is killing my creative desires (I haven't even picked up my knitting needles in 2 weeks), yet if I could be creative, I could make some more money. It's a really lame catch 22.

I'm a little depressed, too. Wednesday is the day that I had been planning on flying to Vegas. I'm really disappointed in myself that I couldn't figure out how to make that happen.

A long time ago, waaaaay back before I even had a blog, a coworker at the place of pizza employment was going through a divorce and had to get rid of his birds. I was told they were parakeets, so I agreed to take them in. Well, imagine my surprise that one of them was not a parakeet at all. After a bit of research, it turned out that one of them was a Peach-faced Lovebird — not only an expensive bird, but one that has quite a long life span. Marcus named it Kane after a popular WWF wrestler at the time that wore a red leather face mask (we later learned it was a girl when she laid eggs, but the name stuck). She's been in the original cage that I was given when I got her. Marcus and I both felt it was a little small for her, it was a pain in the butt to clean and the plastic bottom was actually cracked. We had planned on getting a new one, but circumstances and finances had never aligned right for us to get her a new home.

Now, I need to mention before I continue this story that I used to be quite the garbage queen, especially back in my pizza delivery days. Many a day I would come home with "treasure" that I had found in someone's trash and it would drive Marcus crazy, especially when it would sit around being more clutter. I promised him a few years ago that I would quit bringing home other people's trash.

About a month ago we were coming home from the store and as we turned the corner onto our street, there, perched upon the stuffed Hefty bags, sat a huge bird cage. I excitedly asked Marcus to pull over so I could get it. He said I wasn't going to take it and I begged for him to please stop the car. He gave in, and even though it was raining pretty steady, I got out and snagged it.

As per my procrastinating ways, it took a couple of weeks before I got around to cleaning it up (it was rather filthy from a parrot or something) and got it ready for her. It was missing the seed and water cups, so I found a suitable water dish and a couple of new wooden bars. While I was out getting those, I saw the same cage at PetSmart retailing for $119 (though the model originally came with a stand). Score! I was feeling quite happy that I had snagged it for free! Well, we got her all moved in and it took a few days for her to get accustomed to the new digs, but she seems quite happy now and her old cage has since ended up in the dumpster.

I couldn't believe that someone would just throw a cage they had obviously invested such a chunk of cash in, but I am so glad that they did.

I've decided to participate in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). All you have to do is post (a quality post) every day during the month of November — just the incentive I need to get out of my blogging slump.

In addition to being a cool month-long project, the NaBloPoMo site also has some great social networking functionality. I'm really looking forward to finding some new reads, especially since my friend Laura started a Colorado Bloggers group there. I love reading about areas I'm familiar with from other people's points of view.

D'oh! It's helpful when you make a post to show up on Halloween that you actually make it public.

Halloween was uneventful here. I thought about getting candy to pass out, but $2.79 for a bag with about 12 fun-size candy bars in it? No freaking way. Remember when bags of candy were actually full? I've only given out candy once since we lived in this park (the first year we moved in), and I think I only got 5 Trick or Treaters. Good thing I decided against the candy, because not one single person knocked on my door this year. The last thing I need to waste my money on is a bunch of candy that I don't need sitting around going stale, or worse, being eaten by me.

I carved my pumpkins and only cut myself once. Nothing to match my cool Jobs-O-Lantern from last year, but hey, I wasn't working full time last year, either. I made a Linux Tux one that unfortunately won't last long due to some wrong cuts I made and an extremely stringy pumpkin. I'll post a link to pictures later this evening. Here's a link to photos of this year's Jack-O-Lanterns.


I never got my cookies made. The milk for the frosting was bad and I didn't feel like going back out to get some. I might make them this evening, though, and take them in for a Friday treat at work. I'm roasting my seeds tonight, too.

Hope everyone out there reading had a fun and safe Halloween!