Domestic Geek

Not much to report this week. I started working on some knit Christmas stockings for Marcus and me. I decided last year that I can no longer use my old ones. I made matching quilted/cross-stitch stockings for Marcus, myself, Ursa and Skippy many years ago. It hurts now to pull them out and not be able to hang the dog ones (I'm teary as I type this), so I retired them. I purchased the Knit Christmas Stockings book and asked Marcus to pick out which one he wanted. Of course he picks the most basic one and then picked red/green as the color he wanted. Not original, but that is OK. I asked for his input and I'm going to make what he wants. When they are done, I'll post a link to the completed project post on the craft blog.

Marcus and I are celebrating our 17 year anniversary this week (10/28). We continued our tradition of getting Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster to celebrate last evening. We had a really awesome server, it was cold and snowy outside (just the way Marcus likes it). We had a really nice time.

I realized last night that Mayor Tortimer never gave me my golden fishing rod for catching all the species of fish in the Animal Crossing: City Folk game on our Wii. Grrrrr. To say I was upset was an understatement. I searched forum and cheat sites trying to figure out why I hadn't received it. I kept trying to tell myself that it is only a game and not that big of a deal, but I was genuinely disappointed. I open the game this morning and ta-dah!...he's outside my house with my fishing rod. D'oh!

I started my Netflix membership back up, so I've been on a movie watching kick. I'm also really pissed off at network television at the moment. At the start of the season, I picked which shows I would DVR and which shows I could watch online and which shows I would just have to give in and watch live if I wanted to see them. I had a schedule with all of my bases covered...or so I thought. The stupid networks keep changing when their programs air and a couple of shows I thought had online episodes do not. Then you throw in a hour episode here that screws up the schedule or a season premiere weeks after the other shows start that I hadn't calculated into the fray. It's maddening. I understand why they do it, but it still infuriates me to no end. You can't even do like you used to — watch one show the first half of the season and then watch another show during repeats — because there is no repeat season anymore. Show a few episodes, a couple of weeks of repeats, a few new episodes. Never coinciding with any other show's schedule. Annoying.

Marcus rented Scribblenauts for my Nintendo DS from Gamefly, so I played that this past week. Interesting little game. I'll have to get that one day. I went ahead and sent it back for now, though. I've got other stuff I need to be doing instead of being addicted to yet another video game!

Well, it's that time of year to get the wishlists in order. I guess I'll start tackling that later today. The weather is supposed to be halfway decent today, so I guess I had better get the oil changed in my car before it snows again. Lots to do today, so I'd better get to it.

10/27/09 - ETA: CBS had repeats on last night — showing shows from last season. WTF is up with that? Why do I want them to show stuff that I may now already own on DVD? Lame! Network television sucks!

I just wanted to pop in here quickly let everybody know that I had my gall bladder out last Thursday, thus the lack of posting again. I was in the hospital all last week. I'll post a little more details about the ordeal later. For now, I'm just trying to get back to "normal."

After our dinner over at Nina's last Saturday, she realized the chicken she had purchased was organically raised and was probably the reason they were not as large as she normally got. It got us to discussing how they put hormones in everything lately, which can not have a good effect on us humans. Especially the estrogen hormones they put in milk. It's a likely cause to the increasing number of men with "man boobs" that you see everywhere. Marcus was a little horrified about this as he was not aware of the practice of giving cows additional hormones to increase milk production. We're going to be switching to organic milk.

Marcus likes a particular kind of candy, the only problem being is the company changed the product and he didn't like the new version. I was driving around a few weeks ago looking for convenience stores that may still have some of the old candy and found a 7-11 that had a lemon lime vitamin water.

I was intrigued because I had never seen that particular flavor anywhere else, so I bought on and it was yummy! The problem came when I couldn't remember where I had purchased it. I spent the next few weeks trying to retrace my steps and I finally found it. It turned out to be the 7-11 right down the street from where our friends Mike and Nina live. D'oh!

I was checking out Glaceau's site, the company that produces vitamin water, and it turns out they actually have 15 different flavors, yet you see maybe 5 at any one time in the stores. There are a couple of other flavors I'd like to try, such as the peach mango or the green tea. Where can I get some of these different flavors?

I don't know how it happens, but I have worse acne now than I did when I was a teenager. Maybe my stress level is higher now or my hormones are starting to get funky or something? I know part of the problem is the environment in which I work. The ink solutions create oily air which settles on my skin all day long. I'm trying to clean my face at least once during the day, but unfortunately I'm losing the blemish battle. I'm going to have to try something different before I permanently scar my face.

I've heard about a treatment called proactive that is supposed to work really well. I think I saw a television commercial for it in which Jessica Simpson was the spokesperson.

The Proactiv® Solution is actually a three step dermatologist-developed process that heals current blemishes and helps stop new ones from forming. The first step is an oil-free cleanser, the second is a revitalizing toner and the third is a repairing lotion that contains benzoyl peroxide. The site is also giving away two free bonuses with the system — a refining mask and a guide called "Face the Facts" about healing and preventing acne.

I'll definitely be giving this product a try. I'm too old to have acne this bad.