Domestic Geek

Am I the only one who gets a little sad when I have to throw out an old Christmas light set? I realize I've gotten many good years of use out of them and they probably hung in a lot longer than the manufacturer intended, but I still feel bad that the fate of the poor thing is the dump. At the same time, that one that shorted out fried 25 perfectly good bulbs that will need to be replaced one day. Oh, well. I'm just goofy that way.

One of the ways I increase my stock of light strings and bulbs is to hit the after Christmas sales. That won't be happening this year and not just because I don't have any money. The stores are practically bare right now. Either they didn't stock as much this year as in years past or people have more money to spend this year. I've got to get myself in a better financial situation by next Christmas. I can't get my Hallmark Star Trek ornaments again this year (I didn't get the Enterprise from last year yet, either). The classic Trek transporter ornament is already out of stock in the few Hallmark stores I've been into (not that I could buy them even if I had seen one). The price is skyrocketing on eBay already. I always try to get an ornament that depicts some achievement or milestone of the past year. I guess a lack of a new ornament is going to have to do. Seriously, what would an ornament depicting losing your job and collecting unemployment look like?

All right, since Colleen's post reminded me, I guess I'd better go check and make sure my DVR is set to record Medium. I keep forgetting that is on Wednesdays now, as well.

I've been watching that Christmas show marathon on ABC Family most of today to get myself into some Christmas spirit. It's funny because Marcus has never seen most of those shows. He keeps making fun of them and of me (I cry when Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey's mother dies — "Ears, Nestor" *sob*). He was asking about whatever happened to Rankin/Bass since they were the kings of Christmas specials back in the 60s and 70s. Quite a bit of information there on the old wikipedia page. I also found the Rankin/Bass website which led me to these adorable Heat Miser/Snow Miser ornaments that I must have for my collection. The Year Without a Santa Claus comes on here shortly and I can't wait —I LOVE the Miser brothers! I dug out my Miser dolls for the occasion!





I was trying to get the lights ready so that Marcus could get them put up before he left for work. No such luck. Oh, well. It's still supposed to be nice tomorrow, too. I plugged one set in and it shorted bad. I really need to replace a lot of those light strings. I'm pretty sure the one that blew was one that had belonged to my mother. I was bummed that there wouldn't be enough sets to go around the roof, but I found a couple of sets that I had purchased on clearance at Lowes a couple of years ago. Yay! I had bought them to be replacement bulbs (since buying whole light strings, especially after Christmas, is way cheaper than buying bulbs alone.

I painted the bulbs yellow in my new tree top star last night. It looks a lot better than being plain white. I'll see if I can get a decent picture to post later. Marcus set me up a directory on the server for my craft blog. I really want to start documenting my craftiness. I installed wordpress in it and now I need to find or design a cool theme. Not a high priority right at the moment, though.

OK, I'm gonna go work on Christmas cards and popcorn garland while I watch some more Christmas shows. Then I need to make Marcus a Santa graphic for his website, decorate my tree, make my new blog design...wow, I have a lot to do today. What am I doing sitting here?

You got to give it to those guys at Time Life...they sure come up with some really cool compilations! I'm watching one of those infomercials for Time Life where the guys from Air Supply are pimping the Soft Rock Collection. I want this set (11 CDs)! There are some awesome songs on here. I was just looking for some of them on iTunes and a lot of them aren't on there. Bummer.

I love books, but I regret that I don't always have time to sit in a quiet, secluded area to read. A former owner of a pizza place I used to work at turned me on to audiobooks. Back then, I lived over an hour from work and used to drive home in the middle of the night. Listening to the books used to keep me company on that long, lonely drive home.

I've been wanting to get all the Harry Potter Audiobooks so that I could listen to them while I commute (got to keep that HP interest going while waiting for the final book 7 to be released), but we all know how cash poor I've been lately. It's also hard to justify spending all that money on an audio version when I have perfectly good hard copies in my bookcase.

Did you know that there are companies that rent audiobooks just like you can use Netflix to get movies? One of those is a company called Simply Audiobooks. In addition to renting audiobooks, you can purchase titles for download or receive hard copies for your library. This is definitely a service I'm going to start using soon.

I love the site T-Shirt Hell. A lot of people are offended by what they offer, but they love to push the envelope and I get a little giggle out of it.

I totally cracked up at the Pooh inspired shirt they started offering this month (pictured below). See, "Bitch Betta Have My Money" by AMG is one of Marcus' favorite songs. He sings it all the time. Seeing it associated with a lovable little Pooh Bear was just too funny!