Domestic Geek

If you read here at all, you know of the poor demise of my stand mixer. I really miss having one but have decided to hold out for a really good one.

Well, here's a chance to get an really cool one! You or I can win a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer, but hurry because the contest ends today!

A Cowboy’s Wife is having a contest on her food blog! You can win a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer and she’ll ship anywhere so everyone is eligible!

The Prize: The winner will receive a brand new Hamilton Beach 4.5-qt. Eclectrics Stand Mixer, Pineapple Yellow!!



It's yellow — can you believe it? PINEAPPLE YELLOW! I LOVE IT! You can head over to her site to read more about the mixer and the contest.

I've got several tabs open with links I wanted to pass along, so I'd better get to it so I can close some of those puppies up!

• First, check out the Internet party that happens when Google's parents leave town for the weekend. Dang, wish I could embed the video because it's really quite humorous.
• Second, for all my design or prepress friends out there: Wish you could give your client's a clue about poor typeface choices (i.e. NEVER use Comic Sans if you want any degree of respectability)? How about that Microsoft Word is not a page layout program? Download the Visual Enforcement Kit from The Design Police. I literally laughed out loud!
• I wish the Denver Broncos would get their butts to a Superbowl again so that I could make some of these cute helmet Jell-o Jigglers.
• I really want a pair of these Fingerless Gloves that I saw on Knitty.com. I guess I really need to learn to knit cables first, though, huh?
• Here's a really good online Favicon maker. I used it to make the Christmas one for this site.

OK, guess that'll close up a few tabs.

This blog advertising stuff is getting out of hand. I understand the need to make money. Really, I do. I was weak and put paid blog posts on here while I was unemployed and underemployed to get by. I'm really starting to wish I hadn't. When I move my blog, I won't be taking a lot of those posts. I'm tempted still to sign up for these new ad companies as they pop up to see if I can make any money and the rational side of me prevails and resists.

The fact is that now there is so much of it, that it's making my blog surfing less than enjoyable. There are some blogs with so many sidebar ads, paid blog posts/text links, google ads, etc. that their actual site never loads for me. As I'm roaming around, I'm finding I quickly move on if I see any sort of paid posts or badges for paid blogging sites. Fair? No, but it's what I find myself doing. It used to be safe to get around a lot of that by reading feeds, but even those are being infiltrated.

I think I'm just weary of the whole thing. It's like trying to watch a movie on network television...it is constant commercial interruptions interfering with the enjoyment of the content. I miss being able to read random blogs without links to drug rehab or payday loan sites. Part of me wishes the whole thing will fail, but I realize that probably won't happen. What I can do is pledge that when all my obligations are complete that I will no longer participate in it and just post whenever and whatever I feel like. If people come and visit me, great. If not, that's fine, too.

To my online friends that are doing paid blogging and the like, please don't take my disdain for this personally. I don't like any of you less just because you still have or want to do this for whatever reason. I just can't do it anymore.

Well, despite all of the OT at work, Thanksgiving and my desire to roam quilting stores, I managed to get a post in every day to successfully complete NaBloPoMo. Brilliant writing? Hardly. It was cool to find some new reads, though.

I can't believe how quickly November flew by, though. It seems just like yesterday I was carving pumpkins and here we are starting the month of December tomorrow morning.

If you're into Rabbit, Rabbit, don't forget to say it tomorrow!

That said, I'm off to bed. I'm starting off December with some more OT. They've made an offer of employment to the woman that interviewed today. If she accepts it, my days as file room chick are numbered and I'd really hate to hand it off in the shape it is in right now. I decided today that I'm going to be welcoming and gracious to her if she comes on. I couldn't believe how catty the girl I can't stand was being about her already without having even met her. The older lady that is currently on vacation most certainly wasn't very welcoming when I started, either. There is definitely something to this "Queen Bee Syndrome" I've heard about.

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?