Domestic Geek

Current mood: aggravated
I'm caught up on my bills after that horrible illness thanks to my tax refund. Now what happens? My car dies. So, not only do I have to use the money I'd finally saved up to get my annual exam and get back on my birth control pills, I can't get to work to make any additional money. *sigh* And.....why is it that my car always dies on the weekend?! It won't have problems on a Tuesday or anything so that I can get it into the shop right away. No, it always takes a dump on Friday or Saturday. The last time it died on a Friday AND right before my mechanic went on a vacation. Well, I'm going to look on the bright side: 1) it died at home, 2) at least it's not a timing belt that snapped like the car of my poor friend at school, 3) I didn't feel like driving tonight anyway, and 4) I'll get some work done on my portfolio this evening and do some housework that I've been letting slide (there's a desk under there somewhere!).

On a happier note, school is going well. Today we were playing with Macromedia Fireworks. It's a program (similar to Photoshop/Illustrator) mainly used for creating web graphics to import into Dreamweaver. I am so going to redesign my whole site (and update the content) when I have a chance. I have got to save some money (if things will stop going wrong) so I can get the software I need before I graduate. I can get the Macromedia Studio MX 2004 for $189.95 as a student. It's selling for $899.95 right now at Apple's web site. If I'm going to be a professional web designer, I'm going to have to get Flash. I'm also going to need the Adobe Creative Suite. I can get it for $379.95 and it retails for $1,229.95 on Apple's site.

Current mood: busy
Man, I haven’t posted all week. I've been a busy little bee around here. Since it seems that my manager at work has lifted whatever grudge he had against me and is actually giving me some hours, I’ve been trying to take advantage.

I just had to share my latest eBay acquisition. She’s so darned cute, I just could not resist (plus it only cost $3.00 and I got my tax return so I figured I’d splurge just a little). It’s a little figurine entitled “Quilting Bee”. I got her for my craft room figurine collection. I also love bees. I absolutely love her cute little thimble on her thumb and how she's sitting in the middle of a flower. Too cool.

Speaking of eBay, I had to buy some black ink for my printer to print stuff for my portfolio. The ink came on Thursday, with $1.87 POSTAGE DUE! I was so mad. He charged me $3.00 for shipping, used a priority mail box (free box) turned inside out to ship it, and then only paid $1.98 towards shipping. I emailed him last night about my displeasure and he refunded me $1.00. Yeah, won’t be buying ink from that guy again. If he had sent me the whole amount that I had to pay to get my package from the post office, I probably would have left positive feedback for him. Just goes to show you can’t totally trust the eBay feedback system. This guy had 100% positives and over 400 sales. Oh, well.

I’m in the middle of packing up my Christmas decorations. Yes, it is March and they’re still up. I have had absolutely no motivation to pack them up. I did manage to get the tree down earlier, though. At least I didn’t have that still in my house (being real and all). Between that bout with strep and the whole portfolio fiasco, the decorations weren’t exactly on the top of my priority list. Since it felt so spring-like today, it was time to get them down. Marcus can hopefully help me get them all to storage tomorrow.

Well, Mike and Nina are coming over in a bit, so I’d better grab myself some dinner before they get here. Maybe I can get a little sanding on my portfolio case in before they get here, too.

Current mood: excited
Yay for the "LOTR: The Return of the King!"



Every person I heard talking about this year's Academy Awards said this movie should win but it wouldn't. I think they won in every category for which it was nominated. I'm so excited to finally see this movie. I think I'm going to go next week. I've been putting it off because I wanted to finish reading the book that Nina & Mike got me for Christmas. I finally finished it about a week ago. I was a little confused watching the first movie because I felt like there was more to the story than was being told. Many people told me I should read the book and the movies would make more sense. I never read the trilogy when I was younger. I made the mistake of trying to read The Silmarillion as my first foray into J.R.R. Tolkien and was quickly frustrated. I may try it again one day. I just read The Hobbit, also. It was an easy read. Easier than The Lord of the Rings. Anyway, I'm going to watch the first two movies again (Nina will let me borrow hers) before I see "Return of the King."

Another big surprise this year was Sean Penn winning best actor. Again, I heard he should win and wouldn't.

One of the best moments of the night was the tribute to Blake Edwards (Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffany's) done by Jim Carrey. Also Will Ferrell and Jack Black did a funny song about acceptance speeches that go too long. Cracked me up.

My body has been trying to get sick again. I slept most of the afternoon today. I really had alot to get done, but I guess my body won out. At least I only have class two days this week (M/W) and I only asked to work 4 days instead of the five I tried to do last week. I guess I'd better try to go get some sleep.

Current mood: sad
Why don't I have any money? I really want to go to the Mac Design Conference in Chicago in June. It would be such an awesome educational opportunity. *sigh*

Marcus embarrasses way too easily (and he wasn't even there). I drank all his Pepsis, so I promised him I'd get him some more. Since Pepsi and Apple are doing this iTunes giveaway, I figure I might as well replace them with ones that will get us some free tunes. Thanks to a tip from Mike, it turns out Pepsi goofed and you can see whether the bottles are winners or not just by looking. So I refuse to buy a Pepsi that doesn't have a winning cap. When I presented Marcus with his Pepsi last night, he got all flustered because I told him that I was standing in the store tilting the bottles to look for winners. It's not like that's a crime. Oh, well, he'll get over it when he's redeeming those caps!