Domestic Geek

Guess who turned 42 today? Duh, ME!

It should be a pretty good day. I don't have to work. Dad's coming over in a bit for some Wii bowling. I may take my free birthday entree coupon from Noodles & Co. over and get some free lunch as well as some free ice cream at either Cold Stone or Baskin Robbins. I've got knitting and crocheting to do. We're going out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse this evening.

We actually celebrated last Saturday. We had BBQ Steak on a Stake over at Mike and Nina's house. We played some Wii - Mike has some really cool game where you knock stuff down. Marcus and I got Mike Rock Band for his birthday. That game is actually quite fun! I had to sing first, but after I got over myself, I actually had a good time. I got the first season of The Big Bang Theory DVDs (I LOVE that show) and a Frank Sinatra CD from Mike and Nina. Marcus got me a new Superdrive and a G5 Jive and an adapter card to add extra hard drives to my Mac. I'm going to install them this afternoon and rip the cd to iTunes to see if it all works. Marcus already ripped TBBT for me and we've been watching them all week on the AppleTV.

I can't believe that seven years later, I'm still getting comments about my birthday being on September 11th. I was at a quilt store last Friday taking advantage of my birthday month discount when it last happened. I had to produce my driver's license to verify my birthday and the clerk commented that it must be tough to have a birthday on "that day." Uh, not really. The only thing that's rough is dealing with the people that make such comments. I admit that my birthday in 2001 sucked. I, like every other caring person in this country (and around the world) was in shock and upset over what happened. Horrible things happen all the time, though, and unfortunately these fall on somebody's birthday. If I met someone whose date of birth was December 7th, I wouldn't say, "Oh, how sad to have a birthday on the same day Pearl Harbor was bombed."

Anyway, off to enjoy my day!

ETA: Heh, Laura sent me this ecard she found:

Happy Birthday, Marcus!

Today was Marcus' birthday. As usual, I don't dare divulge his age for fear of the wrath I will bring down upon myself. I've never met a man so freaked out about birthdays and getting older, especially since no matter how many he has, I'll always be older. To hear him go on, you'd think he was on the verge of geezerhood!

Yesterday we celebrated out to dinner with Mike & Nina at Chili's, followed by Dairy Queen ice cream cake at our house. Mike & Nina got him the coolest calendar they made via iPhoto/Apple using Mike's mountain biking photos. It's really neat. This evening, Dad accompanied us to the Texas Roadhouse for yet another yummy birthday dinner.

Since his birthday is almost over and I'm really late in posting this, why don't you head over to his site and give him some belated birthday wishes.

Also, today would have been my mother's 63rd birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom.

The other day when I stopped at the Hallmark store, I saw the cutest little ornament that featured a dog trying to get a toy out of a vending machine. It made me realize that this is the first Christmas in my whole life that I am dogless and my heart ached. I know I'm going to lose it when I unpack the stockings and see both Ursa's and Skippy's stockings (that I lovingly made) packed away never to be hung again. The sensible part of me knows that getting another dog is not the right thing to do, but he selfish part of me wants a furry friend to love. It's early, but I'm making a resolution for the coming year that I'm doing whatever it takes to get myself into a better living situation so that next Christmas, I'll have a reason to put a wrapped rawhide under the tree.

I ran across an article today that mentioned something about how you can tell whether a blog is good or bad by the amount of comments it has. The author's premise is that if a blog is not generating a conversation, then it's bad. I'm getting so sick of reading stuff like that. There are as many reasons for blogs to exist as there are people that have them. You can't declare a blog to be wrong or bad just because it doesn't fit into some preconceived notion of what a blog "should" be. If someone wants to have conversation, be popular and have tons of traffic, so be it. I don't really care if people read this or not. I blog for my own personal reasons. If I'm not interesting to others, so be it.

I was told at work today that they are interviewing a new preflighter tomorrow and if they hire this person, I'll have to give up my archiving room duties. I know I should be happy because it means I'm almost a full-fledged prepress operator, but at the same time I'm sad and almost angry that "my room" is going to be under the control of someone else. I like working back there. Not only does it give me a chance to get away from everyone for a while, it breaks up the monotony of being on the computer for a straight 8-hour shift. I've worked damn hard to get that place in order and it is the closest thing I'll ever have working there to having my own space. I'm sure it will all be fine in the end, I'm just a little bit of a control freak and I have to not let my perfectionism not get in the way of advancing my career. That said, I hope if this person is a woman that I can tolerate her. I personally can't take another woman in the department that I can't stand (I have a really hard time getting along with a lot of women - females for the most part really annoy me).

Well, I guess I'd better head off to bed. I always end up staying up too late on Thursdays because I really hate working Fridays. It ends up being the most stupid and draining day of the week. The energy in the department is always negative and yucky on Fridays due to the nature of our business and the particular supervisor that runs the shift. It's also not a payday Friday, which is worse.

I've got quilting and decorating to look forward to this weekend, though. We're supposed to get a little snow tomorrow, but I hope it's not a lot. I'd like to get the rest of my lights up this weekend and be done with it. We're going to go cut our tree on the 8th, so I'd like to have everything else done before that. We're hosting the annual Christmas Eve party for our friends and I vowed I would not save shopping, decorating and baking until the very last minute like I always do. I actually purchased the fudge-making supplies while I was out today.

I bought How the Grinch Stole Christmas today at the iTunes store with some of my birthday credits. I wish they had more classic Christmas stuff on there.

Dang, just realized I forgot to do Thursday Thirteen yet again. Thanksgiving seems like it was just yesterday — how did a whole week go by already?

I checked out the weather forecast before bed last night. I knew a cold front was coming in and we'd be nowhere near yesterday's mid-60 temps, but I opened my door to leave for work this morning to snow! The weathercasters on the radio were, "Oops, we totally didn't see that coming." No shit, Sherlock. Of course, it also happens to be the same day I left my phone at work the day previously, so I couldn't even call to say I'd be late. Since nobody expecting it nor was ready for it, the streets were yucky. Sheer ice in some spots. As per typical Colorado, it warmed up enough that the drive was absolutely no problem for Marcus a couple of hours later.

Every year I try to find an ornament that signifies something special that happened the previous year. I haven't been able to do it due to finances the last couple of years, but I hit the Hallmark store today to see what I could get for this year. I didn't find squat. I was thinking something to do with knitting since I finally learned how. No dice. Nothing really signified a full time with benefits job. Other than that, no major milestones happened this year. Well, except for having to put our beloved Skippy down, but who wants an ornament to remember that?

I have noticed a lot of ornaments from various manufacturers out for A Christmas Story this year. I thought maybe it was a 25th anniversary thing or something, but according to IMDB, the movie came out in 1983.