Changing my mind

I had a whole post about the Lion King in my head but I've since been sidetracked by other thoughts. I logged into facebook tonight and there was a notice about funeral services for someone I went to high school with. I don't really remember her that well, but I was trying to figure out what she died from. So I went to the news paper in the town my parents live in. I couldn't find the obit I was looking for, but it turns out my mother's best friend died. She was only 66. I don't know what happened there but that's sad for my mom and for her friend's family. She had a daughter and a son and 5 (or possibly more at this point) grandchildren. I always liked her.

One thing I've picked up from both my parents, I don't seem to need/want a lot of friends. Michelle was my mom's only friend. (Oh holy crap, I am turning into my mom! MY BFF is a Michelle.) Neither of my parents are particularly social people. They'll talk to people in the stores and what not but not really the hanging out or going out for coffee with other people kind of thing. They never threw parties or anything like that and in reality, I cannot recall my father even having a guy friend to hang out with or whatever. He seemed really content to go to work, come home, potter around the house. He took his lunch to work with him every single day and as far as I know ate it at his desk, so no need for someone to go to lunch with. I think that was partially because he worked on an army base and civilians can't use a lot of the services on the base, but my dad's not really a going out to eat kind of guy. I know they would never have friends over or anything crazy like that, but I do not remember them ever going out with friends either, except for Walt and Michelle (and that was when I was older since my sister and Michelle's daughter were in gymnastics again), and my dad didn't really like them either. We're a weird people, my family. A weird people.

Converted

For years Michelle has been trying to convince me to switch to Pandora. For years I've resisted. I had spent many years building up my Launch station to be exactly what I wanted it to be. CBS bought out Launch from Yahoo and ended the individual stations that used to be available on it. Sigh. So about two weeks ago I moved over to Pandora. Initially there were some problems... my work computer had issues with it, but then one day the problems stopped and now it totally works. And now I totally get why Michelle loves it so much. I listen all day at work and have been hearing quite a bit from artists I've never heard before or from artists I haven't heard much from. My only complaint (and there may be an explanation to figure it out) is that I tend to get a whole bundle of one style of music.

Yum Yum Pizza!

I'm participating in the TRAC study again. They did this once before where I wear a GPS and a step counter and then write down every place I go for a week. Apparently the last time I did this the GPS wasn't recording data so they had to have me redo it. I find the green notebook where I write my movements down to be fascinating. I can't access any of the info in the GPS or step counter so that doesn't matter, but the notebook tells me a lot. Today, for instance, I went to more bus stops than I did anything else. (Since there were several times I had to change buses.)

I went to Pacific Fabrics and picked up 'eyes.' :) Simple black buttons to use for my animals. I also went and got pizza. Yay. What a fun day! Now I'm back working on my lion. I have to rustle up my felt. I know I have some here in the apartment, I just have to figure out where I put it. I need it to make the lion's muzzle.

Big Project

Apparently I've taken a minimum of 266 photos of my scouts during all the years we've been meeting. Minimum because that's the number of photos I just ordered. Over the holidays I purchased this cute photo scrapbook and I'm going to scrapbook all my scout years. I really should find my table before I do this so that I can work in a big enough space. Scrapbooking is big work. :) I'm rather excited about working on this. It was so funny printing out these pictures. The girls were so young!

Rest & relaxation Sunday

I'm watching the latest season of The Amazing Race. I love this show. I'm so excited about this season and a teeny bit sad I'll miss an episode while I'm in Ireland. :) I like the teams that are interesting and different instead of the usual "we're blondes and we get our way" team or the bickersons who argue the whole race and are using the race to determine if they should be together or not. Like THAT's a good barometer.

I've spent part of the day working on amigurumi animals for Michelle. So far the turtle isn't that great yet. I had to pull some stitches out of his head because it was way too oblong and not as round as it should be. But I haven't finished it yet. I had a hard time buying a crochet hook since the place I went to had two that were different sizes but were labelled the same size. (Ie an F hook should be x size and a G hook should be y size and instead both were labelled 4 mm sizes) so I'm not sure if I'm using the right sized one for the turtle. I've started on a lion next because I had some nice yellow yarn for the body. I think they're bigger than I thought they were going to be. For some reason I thought they were going to be teeny tiny like keyring size and instead I think they are more toy sized. I have to get better eyes though. I used pony beads for the eyes for the turtle, but I don't like that look. The patterns are from this book: Amigurumi World, seriously cute crochet. Hopefully with practice they'll start looking less retarded. Currently they look like they kind of have pointy heads.

What to do what to do....

So my eharmony subscription ran out last week. I decided not to renew because a - it is very expensive and b - I wasn't really getting any responses. I had 2 people make it to open communication, one I definitely wasn't feeling and the other, eh not really either. I emailed him in Jan and never heard back. The rest of the people I would try to send first questions for some but wouldn't hear back. Now I don't know. I'm contemplating Match because they have that 6 month guarantee. (They don't refund your money but instead extend you for 6 months at no cost) but is it really worth it? If I want to meet someone I should be more active about what I'm doing. Since I don't live in a romantic comedy, I won't meet mr right in my apartment building hallway. I've tried the theory, do what you'll enjoy and you'll meet people that way. So far while that's the dream, it isn't the reality. I hate bars, and am probably getting old for them anyway. My employer apparently only hires gay men or married men. Sometimes I think about joining this singles club here in Seattle, but then I think that seems so weird. I know a singles club seems weird to me yet online dating does not. I get the double standard there.

This neuroses brought to you by the woman at work I've made cry at least three times if not more because she's so freaked out about what is going to happen to her once she can no longer work. Thanks to her I'm now facing my own old age (I know I know I'm not old but if I felt like I were progressing in this area things would be different, but last year and the year before and the year before that have all basically been the same... )

Bats in my belfry

I remember this morning's dream quite vividly. First in the dream I bought a house and it was a beautiful big old house. The front door opened to a great big dining/living room that had wood floors and a big table with 8 chairs. The walls were that old style wood/wall paper combo (you know, wood at the bottom half of the wall and cream wall paper at the top of the wall). Upstairs were the bedrooms (and here's where it got a little weird, whenever I'd go upstairs I'd revert back to being a child and in my dream my father was not MY father but the person who was my father was a mean man.) So I was prowling around my giant main room and a little girl sold me some girl scout cookies. In my dream she was from the mat-su girl scout council. (Mat/su is for Matanuska/Susitna Borough in AK). She only had two styles of cookies to sell so I donated money to her. Then I went back to looking carefully at my home and my back yard was beautiful and big. I was getting ready to go outside when I discovered there was a whole spot of my floor that was damaged and the wall too. I looked up and there were sleeping bats. Big ones and little ones. I didn't want to disturb them but they were destroying this whole part of my house. I went back in the main room to make a game plan and was getting ready to go outside when this whole group of bugs (but cute like cartoon bugs not creepy and scary gross bugs) decided to have a bug war. I put on a shoe and stomped the bad ones. So weird.

No More!

99% of the time I do not use store credit cards. I have one with Lane Bryant and one with Macy's. I used them in either November or December and now am reaping the headache of doing so. Since I never use them, I never remember to pay the damn bill. Hence both have dinged me in the past month or two for non payment. Lame Giant got me because I missed December (since I never use the card I never remember) but when I got the first dunning notice I went online to pay. BUT since I wasn't paying attention I set up the payment to go out on the due date of the next bill not immediately. Grr. I'm not using either card anymore. I can't have my awesome credit score jacked due to two stupid store cards. (Vaguely interesting, I don't have a catagory for money. Must be because I work hard to avoid it at all costs.)

Unrelated to anything

But I love how Stephen King has caused all this drama by calling the Twilight author untalented. I've not read the books. I probably won't. But I would imagine that for what the stories are they're just fine. They're not supposed to be the next Great Gatsby or anything (I don't know why I picked that book; it just popped into my head). They're like Laffy Taffy. Fun for about 15 minutes and then you move on usually even forgetting you had it. Hell 99% of what I read falls into that catagory (as evidenced by the fact I was about 3/4ths of the way through Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep when I realized I had already read the book.)

Sickness and non-sickness and why 8 hours in the cold is NOT the reason I'm sick

So Sunday I volunteered for Slopes for Hope at Snoqualmie ski area (I'm sure there's a formal name, I do not know it.) It was pretty fun. I talked to little kids about their skiing and watched skiiers and snow-boarders go careening down hills. I took some photos that I'll try to remember to post later. Also, luckily enough, one of the people I was with knew a girl who was skiing and she took my camera up with her and took some shots of the whole area. That was pretty darn cool I'd say. I had toe warmers on both the tops and bottoms of my toes and by the end of the day even that wasn't helping too much. I was fine most of the time, but by the end, I was pretty darn cold.

Now I'm sick. I know it wasn't the 6 hours in the cold that did it since you don't get sick from the cold. Plus I was feeling it on Sunday night while trip planning with Lyday. Sigh. A day and a half off from work has not helped me feel better. I'm still wiped out. I'm also cranky and quite possibly whiney. Eh whatever.