Monthly Archives: July 2006

I know, I know… I haven’t posted. I feel like I never get any personal computer time anymore. I’m just too fried after work. I am trying to get my schedule straightened out so that I can change that. It is a work in progress, though.

Some Thank Yous:
Since I last wrote, I found out who sent me the mini keychain sharpies for my birthday… Thank you, Jindigar! You know better than most how addicted I am to sharpies and post-its.

I also received this beautiful tee shirt I had been lusting over, but the package didn’t say who it was from. (This seems to be a trend.) Thank you, anonymous person Gikiski!

Briar sent me a very sweet gift – a pretty box full of yarn, a knitting kit, and instructions. I am looking forward to learning how to use the round knitting hoops. Thank you so much! I took a picture of everything on my cell phone, but haven’t posted it yet.

If you got me a present and I haven’t mentioned it in this post or one of my last few, then you may want to look into it. I noticed there were three other items bought off my wishlist that I never received (you have to change the form at the top to ‘purchased’ to see which ones). I’d hate for someone to waste money like that. Plus, right now the items are hidden from me on the default view of my wishlist. I use that list to buy things for myself so I don’t forget where to find them again. I want to re-add them if they really aren’t bought.

Today we went out to an outlet mall. Fun times! That mall is always packed. I was hoping to get sneakers (check) and a white watch band (nope). I found a silk tank top for $10 and a wooden beaded bag I’d been wanting for $15.

Afterwards we went grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping. Our check-out girl was odd. She told me I had an “unusual style” then stared at me for a moment. ‘In a good way, I mean,’ she said finally. She keep throwing our groceries into the bags all willy-nilly and I kept having to rescue the bread from being mashed.

Tonight we are going to enjoy a Mexican restaurant meal with our good friend, Ivan. Tomorrow qwe are going to my coworker’s daughter’s pool party. I made a craft kit for her present. Pool party! It has been very hot and sticky here…

Ivan is here… Time to go!

Happy Birthday
Originally uploaded by punquin.

I love my job. I am the graphic and web designer for a doggy daycare chain. I started out in the doggy playrooms as a daycare attendent, back when the IT job market looked so bleak that I looked for jobs outside of my field. It didn’t take long before I took over their web site design, and soon I moved out of the playrooms permanently. I miss being with the dogs all day, but I love doing design work with a dog theme!

One of the many titles I have earned with this job is that of “Party Organizer” – except that the parties are for dogs! If one of our doggy customers is having a birthday and their “parents” want to bring in a cake, I will throw them a party. I make up “birthday boy” or “birthday girl” party hats, decorate a playroom, and gather staff members to help out. (One staff memebr per party guest, since not every dog understands they are only supposed th eat the cake on their own plate.) During the party, I take pictures and try to make sure the guests are having a good time.

How could your day not be brightened after having a doggy birthday party??

First, a few thank you’s… Thank you Laura for watching our zoo while we were away for the weekend. I know they all love you so we are lucky you are able to sit for us! Thank you to my brother and his wife for the Harry Potter dvd! I haven’t seen that one yet… I am looking forward to it once I find the time. And, thank you to gikiski for the birthday card! It made my day that you took the time to write all that out on there.

I also received a neat-o pack of mini sharpies (mmm, sharpies!) but the packing slip didn’t say who they were from. Fess up so I can thank you personally!

As I wrote earlier, I got Animal Crossing for my Nintendo DS. I am very easily amused and have been enjoying my little town of Pooville greatly, hehe. As I also said earlier, I set up the wifi in the game so I can connect online to other towns and have friends visit mine. The villagers in my town have been whining to me that we never get any out-of-town visitors ever since I set up the wifi. So one of you has to visit my town before I resort to hitting my neighbors over the head with my shovel! Today, the store is closed in town for “expansion”. After that,it won’t upgrade to the fanciest store until I have someone visit over wifi and buy something.

I just called a billion eye doctors. Well, more like 10. Danny is switching jobs at the end of the week, and just found out we need to use $500 that is left in his hcap before then. I was trying to find an eye doctor that has appointments today so we’d have time to get me new glasses before the end of the week. I finally found one that has a 6 pm appointment. I hate picking out new frames, but mine are 4 years old and have faded from brown to barf green. I’ve been wearing my contacts to avoid them.

I started writing up my vacation recap, but it is going to be long. I started yesterday during lunch and had to save it to a file to finish later. I may post it in segments.

Herro! I am back! I will have to write about the whole trip on Monday – right now, I don’t have it in me after that long car ride!

But, here is a question for you… I got Animal Crossing to play in the car this weekend. Does anyone else have it and have their WiFi set up so we can visit each others’ towns? Email me (stephanie at stvlive dot com) if you want to exchange “friend codes”. This game is so silly, but that is why I love it already! And Daisy the dog brought me a birthday cake on my birthday…

If you want good abdominal muscles, try being sick for 2 weeks. Make sure you cough and sneeze a lot. Ow, I am sore. Cleaning last night only added to it.

So, I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to last night. But, I didn’t want to just move piles of stuff, vacuum where the piles were, then move the piles back. Instead, I took the time to really clean up and put/throw/sort things away. We’ve got a bunch of bags of clothes to donate again. The bedroom is the cleanest it’s been in ages. There are too many horizontal surfaces to catch junk in there.

I got the upstairs cleaned and vacuumed (except the bathroom), the stairs down to the second floor vacuumed, and the carpet on the second floor vacuumed. It was getting too late for me to do the rest of the stairs and the first floor. It may not get done before we leave, because I have to make truffles tonight.

In addition to truffle-making (no volunteer helpers yet? Dang…) tonight, we are also going to get my car washed/vacuumed (it was giving me allergy attacks last night) and hit the mall for Dan’s hair cut appointment. I have to clean the kitchen after I make the truffles, and I need to at least do a quick cleaning of the toilets and sinks.

It’s only 2 days until my birthday! *thud* Dcver – Thank you, thank you for the book you sent for my birthday! It arrived yesterday. Books make me happy…

Geez people – I finally start writing every day again, and no one has anything to say in return! I see how it is…

My office smells like thrown-up raw hide. Ew.

On the way home from work yesterday, we stopped at our mail box because my new Micro SD memory card arrived. So tiny!

While Danny went to the bike store to buy locks and a pump, I went to Michael’s craft store to hit the candy-making isle. Wednesday night I will be attempting to make an ass ton of truffles. The doggy daycare I work at is having it’s second annual Charity Dog Wash¹ on Saturday, and there will be a bake sale. Since I am leaving town Thursday afternoon, I have to make my contribution Wednesday. Candy seemed like a good choice so it won’t be stale on Saturday. I’ve never made truffles before. The recipe reviews said it was very easy, but it gets tedious rolling all the truffles into little balls. And I am planning a double batch! Anyone want to come over tomorrow and help roll 100 truffles for charity? I’ll give you some! Oy.

Last night we dropped the Outback off at the dealer for it’s inspection and maintenance before our road trip. Tonight we have to go get it. I’m not looking forward to trying to find my way home from Fairfax in rush hour traffic.Even with the navigation system and Danny driving in front of me. Yes, I’m a wuss.

After we dropped the car off, we stopped at the drug store, the pet store, and the grocery store. I got the rest of my truffle-making supplies. It was pretty late when we got home, so we just cooked dinner and worked on our puzzle until going to bed.

Working at a doggy daycare has it’s perks – like dogs in the office! Today I have Cadex, and employee’s pit bull in here with me. He just barfed up a piece of raw hide (hence the smell). That is exactly why my dogs don’t get raw hide. His daddy just came and brought him a non-edible bone. Now he is chasing his tail. He is a little obsessed with tail-chasing.

…….

It is over an hour later. My lunch break got postponed – I had to cover up at the reception desk while there was a meeting.

Tonight I have to try to get cleaning done. I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for it between work, picking up the car, dinner, and bedtime… But, hopefully I’ll at least get to vacuum and clean the bathrooms. I have a bit more laundry to do as well. The kitchen could use a scrubbing, but I’ll save that for after the truffle madness on Wednesday.

I just added a bunch of dog-related novels to my Amazon list. After reading Marley & Me, I got hooked on that kind of book. Yesterday I finally searched around and found some that looked good. It is so much easier to find books to buy on Amazon than it is in a brick and mortar store. But now, I want to get them all! I just started a huge trilogy and ordered myself one dog book to start with, but I am very impatient when it comes to books. If you gave me a shopping spree in a book store I’d fill up my whole car!

My birthday is in, like, 3 days! ADhjdsfuoewbnfjaigehus!@#%!??&*#$!!!!

1. http://www.happytailsdogspa.com/k9support.php

Hello! Did you think I was going to disappear from here for another 2 weeks? You can’t get rid of me that easily! I just wasn’t on my computer this weekend…

It is almost my birthday!! I will be here! I wasn’t excited about my birthday until we figured out where wewere going. I love road trips, despite the fact that I hate to drive and get bored and stiff in a car for a long time. It’s probably because it doesn’t involve an airplane ride and you can make fun pit stops.

Friday was a normal day at work. I worked from 10 am – 7 pm because I carpooled with Danny. After work, we stopped by a coworker’s party for a bit. That’s always amusing!

On Saturday we went shopping. I needed underwear and pants. I found the underwear, but no one seems to sell pants in July. Just jeans and shorts. I can’t find my pants! Saturday evening we paid a visit to my friend/coworker’s week-old baby boy. He is so handsome!

After stopping for some dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant, I decided I wanted a jigsaw puzzle. At 5 minutes till close, we ran into Target and picked out a puzzle. We chose a picture of 4 golden retriever puppies sitting in a row. There is no background (it is cut out in the shape of the puppies) so there are no straight edges and the only color is tan. It also have some bigger, shaped pieces (food bowls, dogs, bones…) which add weirdly shaped ones that go around them. It is hard!

On Sunday, we had lunch with Dan’s coworker and their new baby boy (sheesh! babies everywhere!) in Maryland. Then I packed up some old clothes and stuffed animals to donate to charity. I wanted to vacuum the bedroom, but Danny laid down for a nap. I did make it through a ton of laundry, though.

Tonight, I have to drive my car to the dealer to get it’s emissions inspection and oil change. hopefully it won’t need new tires as well. But, we are going to take it on the trip (since it has a rack for our bikes) so it needs to be in good health.

Uh, that is all.

Since Yahoo’s avatar maker is finally working on Macs, I updated mine and made a few new LiveJournal icons… Look! They even have Big Brown Stupid India!

If you make one of yourself, post it (or a link to it) here so I can see it!

BTW, in order to get this big version of mine, I took a bunch of little screen shots and put them together like a puzzle. I’m not sure if there is an easier way. Their export tool makes a tiny, blurry copy. I also edited mine slightly in photoshop.

Can you tell I am trying to be better about posting? I meant to start writing every day a while ago, but being sick sucked the life out of me. I am feeling much better now, though! Just an annoying cough.

So I went to my dentist appointment yesterday. No cavities! They were impressed by my amazing flossing. It really does make a difference, people! I wasn’t even told to give up my tea addiction – they just suggested I swish with water after drinking it.

My big news of the day – we made a decision on where to go my birthday weekend!! We decided to go back to the Outer Banks… We loved it when we went a few years ago. We are staying at a nice hotel, so that even if the weather is crappy, we can have a weekend getaway. It is pricey, but you only turn 30 once, right? Dang, I’m old! The hotel has a spa, and what I’d really love is a spa day on my birthday… I’d say you could get me a spa gift certificate for my birthday, but it looks like you’d have to call them to order it. They even say you can order gifts to have waiting for people who are staying there… I can’t wait, it sounds so nice!

If you couldn’t care less about my birthday, feel free to skip over this paragraph. This is for the people who will be asking what I want for my birthday. Okay, the person who will ask… hah. My Amazon list is here. For gift cards, I like: Starbucks, Bath & Body Works, and book stores. I also have a new Fossil watch that you can buy different watch bands for I still need a white band and a black band in size “women’s small”.

So I broke my braiding record – 2 days! 3, if you include the 5 hours on Monday that I spent unbraiding. I still want to split up a few braids so less of my scalp is showing. No huge rush on that – I should just have that done before we go to the Outer Banks to save myself a sunburn.

One muscle in my back keeps twitching. It doesn’t hurt (any more than my back has been hurting in general, at least), but it doesn’t feel good. When it starts twitching, it goes at it several times a second for up to ten minutes. Last night it was keeping me awake. Do I need to eat more bananas or something?

Now, back to work, people.

Remember me? When I last wrote, I was sick. I’m still sick! Ugh… I must have said ‘I rarely get sick anymore’ one time too many, because my cold karma has really sucked. this cold has lasted 2.5 weeks! It is finally ending though. I did a week of antibiotics which allowed me to come to work during it without getting anyone sick. But I’ve gone through 7 boxes of tissues and have slept miserably since it started. I can’t wait to feel healthy again!

OMG it is almost my birthday. You have a week to get your presents in the mail, people! Hah. I am not ready to be “old”, but I don’t look or feel old, so I guess it is okay. Danny and I are trying to plan something to do. We were leaning towards going to Chincoteague for the weekend, but the long-term forecast is calling for it to be gross and rainy (like it always is if we go to the beach on my birthday). I am getting frustrated trying to find something enjoyable to do for my birthday. Our friend, Laura, is lined up tohouse-sit for us that Thursday night through that Sunday. But, where to go? I am about ready to just grab a cheap flight to Cali and show up on someone’s doorstep! At least then we’d have nice weather!

We didn’t do much this weekend. I tried to rest a lot and that seemed to help finally get my cold into the final coughing-it-up stage. My friend/officemate had her baby, so we paid a quick visit to them in the hospital on Monday.

Monday night I got a wild hair up my ass to take out all of my braids and give myself a thorough scalp-washing. I felt so bald! I was thinking I might be able to last a few days without the braids so I could get my hair trimmed, but it was too much of a shock to my system. I started putting them back in the next morning. It felt good to get all of the dead skin off my scalp that had been trapped since I got a little sunburnt. I have most of my braids already back in, but I am not happy with them. I noticed part-way though that I wasn’t doing as many this time, but I decided to go with it since less braids are cooler in the hot summer weather. But this morning I don’t like how it looks. Too much scalp showing. I feel kinda bald and I’ll get sunburnt too easily. If I continue as I am going, I will end up with 40 on each side instead of my normal 60. So I am going to split a few up so that I end up with at least 50 on each side. Fun times! But still, I think I am setting a speed record on my rebraiding this time, because of the 5 hours I spent taking them all out. It gets you motivated to put them back in so you don’t look like a half-braided “ass clown” (Danny’s term).

I have a dentist appointment this afternoon She better not tell me my two weeks of sucking on throat lozenges gave me cavities.

Uh… that is all.