Monday: dreams

I've been having rather stressful dreams lately...it's annoying. Better than the run of scary dreams I had several years back, but just barely.

This time I was late for an international flight. Late like it was an hour from departure and we hadn't left the house yet. My brother (not Nathan) had packed my bags for me, but I kept finding clothes that I thought he would have packed but he didn't. I grabbed them and figured I'd stuff them in the already-too-heavy bags I had. I opened up the bags in the minivan (my parents were driving), only to find out that he had packed the suitcases full of black ethernet cord.

Sunday: pictures

Flurry is still enjoying her bubble wrap.

The Christmas tree is up!

Saturday: dinner two

Today we put up the Christmas tree. The camera is downstairs and I'm feeling too lazy to get it, so I guess pictures will have to wait until tomorrow. We went to Dusty and Laura's for a delicious dinner and found out that a zobo is the offspring of a zebu and a yak. It is cool enough to get it's own wikipedia page, but it isn't cool enough to get any information about itself on the page.

Friday: cards and castles

We are making Christmas Cards this year to sell as a fund raiser. We have five patterns and so we just need to mass produce them. Below is the first round on Saturday, and we did a lot of the prep work like tracing, cutting, and writing. (Note that three people did a ton of prep work for us to do our prep work). The cards are beautiful and I expect them to fly off the shelves.

Ben and I also tore into the Legos this weekend and are making a space castle compound. Here's a preview.

Thursday: Thanksgiving

Yay Thanksgiving. We were in charge of bringing the potatoes, and since we both hate it when we run out of mashed potatoes we made a lot. Needless to say, we had plenty of leftovers.

We ate at Clay and Jess' with several friends.

We played games afterwards, including Cranium. The scuplting clay was dry, so we used some of the mashed potatoes instead. While much more fun, mashed potatoes really don't work as well as clay.

Wednesday: vacation!

Yay! We're on vacation!

Today went well. I finished the thing I had to finish and got something else ready for Monday. There is a whole bunch of other things waiting for Monday too, so luckily I won't be bored when I get back. Also lucky is that they can wait until I get back.

There is apparently a canned pumpkin shortage this year. I happened to find a can of pumpkin in the cupboard, and it hasn't even expired yet! The only problem is we don't have anything to put it in...but we'll probably bring it with us tomorrow in case someone happens to have something to put it in but no pumpkin. Hey, it could happen.

Tuesday: green peppers

I remembered what my thought was from yesterday, although it really isn't that profound. It is that I've started enjoying green peppers in food. Growing up I never really had green peppers, but a few months ago I started putting them in my breakfast burrito. And then I put them on my Subway sandwich. And then I put them on my own sandwich. I'm working my way up to eating them plain, but just haven't had the desire to do so yet.

Only one more day of work! I have something kind of big due though, so hopefully it won't be too stressful. It's actually something small, but a big step for me. I'm supposed to be helping people by doing this but I'm not convinced that they couldn't have done it faster. Sure, it is one of those things that just takes some time to learn, but the idea behind giving it to me was that several people are out this week and I was the least swamped person.

Monday: pilly

So I've noticed that some of my lighter (vs. heavier) pants seem to be getting a little pilly by where the crease is when I sit down. I've never seen this before on any pants...is there any way to get rid of it or at least stop it from getting worse?

I had something else profound to say, but I can't remember it. Maybe tomorrow.

Friday: stripes and mice

Today I wore a shirt with blue stripes to match the blue wire I was working with.

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Announcer: Let's see what the interesting conversation is today...

Ben: I use the side mouse button to cast my spell.

Amanda: I found out that my mouse was on my desk again last night.

Blank stares from everyone.

Amanda blankly stares back.

Dusty: oh, you mean a real mouse?

Ben goes into a laughter convulsion.

Amanda: yeah, it left me some presents on my mouse pad. I never thought about it like the real mouse being by the electronic mouse.

Ben: I was wondering where else your [electronic] mouse would be.

Thursday: lame?

Today I did a lot of unrolling, measuring, checking labels, and rerolling blue wire. I knew I was going to have to do this yesterday, so I wore a blue shirt so I would match the wire. Lame? Maybe.

Tuesday: a row

I have a row done!

Monday: and here we go again

Today they announced some significant company reorganization, and with that came the announcement of more layoffs. Oh joy. We don't know how many, although we do know the number will be announced early January. There could also be some relocations for people as some of the business may be moving to different locations.

It's really hard to put into words how I'm feeling. I'm frustrated because I want to feel settled. I'm annoyed that I will have to listen to people talk about it for the next 2-3 months, even though no one knows anything. I'm sad that people will have to leave. I'm happy we didn't buy a car. I'm afraid that Ben and/or I will get laid off. I'm wondering why I worry more about selling the house than leaving friends (although I think it is because selling the house would be more stressful).

And above all I'm trying to trust God that he will take care of us, like he always has.

Sunday

I tried the spice tea made with lemonade today. It tasted like hot iced tea with lemon. Not bad, but not good either. I'll be sticking with the Tang.

The computer room is really hot and seems to be sucking all the heat out of our bedroom, which is really cold.

Saturday: a busy non-busy day

This morning started out with lazing around in bed and doing some kitty fishing with our robe ties. Mine won! I caught a kitty.

I made a small amount spice tea with lemonade instead of tang just to try it. However, I haven't tried it yet.

I went to a friend's surprise party tonight. I only knew a few people, but it was still fun. The food was good. They had a party game called "party playoff" which was a pretty good party game. The rules were easy, it was easy to get people involved, there wasn't a lot of waiting. However, there was one bracket that was People. As you all may or may not know, I don't know a lot of famous people...I know who they are in movies, but their names are just not something that sticks. Everyone was debating whether mud wrestling or Kevin Bacon would be a better topic of conversation and how it was obviously Kevin Bacon because everyone knew him and he had a game after him. Jess and I were laughing in the corner at how we had no idea who he was, but how he might make a good conversation topic because the other person could tell us all about him. A little later the conversation (not part of the game anymore...mud wrestling won) they were talking about Ug boots. I looked over to Jess so we could again bond in having no idea what they were.

Here's Kevin. While he does look familar, I can't tell you anything about him off the top of my head.

Here are the boots. They look really familiar; I might have gotten a pair for Christmas. But mine are black. They're nice and warm and tall so snow doesn't get inside, but I would have to agree with the conversation...they are not appropriate for a wood shop.

Friday: lunch

Today I had lunch with Jess in the sun. It was nice.

By the time I left work today, I felt like I was on top of everything. Not caught up, but not way behind either.

Tonight Ben and I are having an exciting night of trying to find my last quests in a zone in Warcraft so I can get an achievement. Actually, it'll be two achievements. However, I seem to have missed some large quest chain and so am having a rather hard time. I still need fourteen quests and have five in my quest log. There's a chance they'll lead to enough quests, but rather unlikely.

As I was driving home I was thinking about the number of letters in things. After a certain point, it just seems like the number of letters to describe a (place/name/etc.) isn't worth the time it takes to write. It isn't something that gets taken into account when you're deciding on something, but after the fact it feels as though it should have been a factor. For example, our street name has 16 letters (including spaces, but words were abbreviated). It takes too long to write. Also, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Seriously?!? 42 characters. I tried to think of a longer college name and failed. While it can often be abbreviated, when I am job searching or wanting to make sure the reader knows exactly where I went, I need to write it out. I bet some names have the same problem, although mine isn't bad. So what other things can you think of that have too many letters?

Thursday: Thanks

Today I am thankful for being able to flex at work. I worked from home for three hours and didn't make it in until about 10:45am.

I'm also thankful for skulls. I banged mine pretty hard today. It was against something flat, so while it hurt a bit it didn't hurt too much. But as I was walking away I thought about what life would be like without skulls...what things would be different? Would we be more peaceful, or would we just wear helmets?

Wednesday

Twas again a busy day. I was trying to think of something funny that happened, but came up really with nothing. At least not really amusing. There were a few "I can't believe this is actually happening" laughs, but that's the best I've got today. I think I'm just trying to quickly get used to a "working a lot" schedule.

Yesterday a WIP kicked my butt. Today I solved a machine problem. Not a WIP, but still a machine and still solved.

Tuesday: a crazy busy day

Phew...it's been a long, but good day. Work has gotten crazy again, and was rather non-stop all day. It was 3:30 before I managed to eat my sandwich.

I went home and picked up Ben, we had some creme brulee, and then went the the Toyota lot to test drive some cars. We tried the Yaris and Corolla and weren't super happy with either. We still have a few places to look though...this was just our first stop.

We headed over to Target to pack Operation Christmas Child boxes with our Bible Study. On the way there I decided that being a car salesman would probably be the last job I would ever want to do...you have to be confrontational and call people when the don't want to be called and try to pretend to give them a good deal while making the most money for yourself and work on the weekends and drive around in circles and sit and wait for people to come in. Yuck.

Anyway, we went shopping for our shoebox and it was a lot of fun. There were three groups and they were told to spend about $30. Well, the total came out to $90.95...amazing! The boxes were all stuffed full of fun things.

Monday: deep thought #4

The deep thought: sometimes it's ok to go to bed frustrated.

This is so contrary to what I so often hear "don't go to bed angry" that I wanted to take a look at the statement. I think one of the things that started this post is that I was reading a thread on the internet where every person agreed with the above statement.

First, there is a difference between angry and frustrated. I don't think that I actually get truly angry very often. Sometimes there is something so consuming that it just can't wait...and then it shouldn't wait. My deep thought is more for times when the problem isn't going to disrupt life too much until it gets dealt with.

I have found that sleeping on something is the best way to calm myself. When I wake up I have a new perspective and less stress. Sometimes the issue is still important, and then I can think about it with a significantly clearer head, which will (hopefully) lead to calmer discussions. Often I realize that the issue wasn't a big deal and then I can be glad that I maintained the peace.

Sunday

After church we went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries to check it out. It was good, but not something that I go to unless I was in the area. Ben really enjoyed the fries, but I wasn't really in a fry mood so they were just ok.

It was nice out, so we did our (hopefully) last raking of the season.

I didn't take a nap today, which I am really regretting now. We're about to leave and go bowling, but part of me just wants to go to sleep. Once I get going I'm sure I'll be fine though...that's how it usually works.

Saturday

We found out yesterday that the local Papa John's closed. We don't get pizza from them very often, but I had been looking forward to it last night. We went with a different pizza place that has good pizza, but it just isn't quite the same.

We were going to go over to some friend's house for dinner and games, but their daughter was sick, probably with the flu. So we declined...I really don't want to get sick. We ended up watching a movie and are about to read before bed instead. A different kind of fun.

Thursday: HELP!

It's that time of the year again: Christmas list season. So far I have:

*3 quilting items

*3-in-1 apple corer/peeler/cutter

*3 books

*3 +/- 1 door car

Any other ideas for me?

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At work I answered the phone: "Good morning, this is Six" (I happened to be considering the number 6 at the time and thinking it should replace a 4).

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I realized that I don't say/hear the word "macabre" very often. I was trying to say something to Ben and found out that while the word worked in my head it didn't work once I was trying to say it. It is supposed to be ma-ca-bray and came out mac-er-bee.

Wednesday: busy

Work has gotten rather crazy busy again...which is nice...in some ways. :)

I had a donut today. It was delicious.

Monday: explosion

While taking my shower this even I must have bumped the shaving cream. I have had this can for quite a while, and I kept thinking it was almost empty. Well, a whole bunch came out during the shower. It was rather fun to play with. Then it stopped, so I figured that the pressures had equalized. Nope! A few minutes later more came out. Here's the final result.

Yeah, it might be a slow news day.

Sunday: wall

I just hung up the last photo! Yay! It wasn't too bad, although if I had to do it again I would 1) arrange the frames and then choose photos to go in them and 2) lay them out on graph paper, stick the graph paper to the wall, and put up the nails using the markings on the graph paper.

I know it isn't a great photo, but it is dark outside and it was hard to get an angle without glare. I might try to post one again later when there is natural light. Or you can come visit to see it better. :)

There are a few photos I'm still missing:

1) One of our Bible Study. There have been a few that were taken, but none that I loved.

2) Larry and Cheryl on their wedding day

3) One with Pat (maybe we'll need to get a family picture this Christmas)