Wednesday: finished

Last night I finished a bottle of lotion! This is always a landmark experience for me because it doesn't happen often. It should probably happen more often, but sometimes the thought of putting on cold lotion just deters me from doing it.

Anyway, I have many more bottles of lotion to move on to...we'll see which one comes up next!

Monday2: This one's for Aaron and Heather

I love fail blogs that are weird things that show up in Google auto complete. So I thought I'd try a few of my own. While most of them weren't very original, this one made me laugh.

Monday: old food

Ben and I have slowly been trying to get rid of some of our "old food." You know, the food that is still good for eating but hasn't looked good since you got it at the grocery store?

Or the random food that your mom bought years ago and your dad gave you when you moved out of the house? (Like the 20 cans of new potatoes. They must have been on sale for a whole month and she could never remember that she had previously bought them. I wonder if she laughed about it when she got the 20th can.)

Today's ingredient was beef bullion cubes. I used up three while making a delicious French dip. It was the first time we've made it and not only was it good, it was super easy.

Sunday

I don't know what to write about today. So you're going to get a conversation from several weeks ago that I found hilarious. Since it was so long ago it might be modified a bit. Thanks go out to Amy, Brian, and Carolyn for their inspiration.

Amanda: yeah, they're the ABCs. We could do that with our kids! C, D, E, F, G...I'm not having five kids so that we can get all the way to H though.

Ben: Maybe we can include middle names.

Laura: What real words end in H? Maybe their initials could just be a word.

Amanda: Hah.

Dusty: Duh.

Amanda: But how can CDH or EFGH be a word?

Dusty: It's not. Are there any words that even have their letters in subsequent alphabetical order?

Amanda: no

Dusty: (weird look)

Ben: haha...as in lmno

Laura: hi.

Maybe you had to be there.

Saturday

Today I took over Ben's old monitors as he just got a new one. They're pretty nice.

Flurry started taking medicine for her paw tonight. About an hour afterwards she was limping worse than we've ever seen her. She seems a little better now though, so hopefully it was just a fluke.

The rest of the day was pretty relaxing. We cleaned and straightened the house, I took a nap, watched some Olympics, and played some Warcraft. I got a new Warcraft vanity pet! I also kept killing my hunter pet, but told Flurry that I wouldn't do the same thing to her...I love her a lot more than my virtual flamingo.

Thursday: short track

Here's why short track is my favorite winter event this year:

Announcer: and they're off!

Announcer: as they round the first corner we see the #1 guy in last place. That's a great place for him to be right now.

(Amanda: seriously? Last place is best?)

Announcer: two laps to go! #1 better make a move soon!

Announcer: and look at #1 now! He passed two people on the outside and one on the inside! #1 wins!!

(Amanda: wow. Just wow.)

And then I watched the relay. That was crazy too. People were everywhere, although it wasn't very exciting because two teams wiped out in the beginning.

Wednesday: things ahappenin'

Today was an eventful day!

We received the golden toliet that is going around church. The deal is that you can buy insurance up front to not get the toilet or pay $10 to have it removed. The proceeds go the youth group who are raising money for the 30 hours famine. Yay! I was hoping that we would get it at some point.

I also picked up my quilt. Here is a picture of the back.

I made a vet appointment for Flurry because she's been treating one of her paws a little funny. I'm now glad I did because she was limping a lot more today than we've seen her do in the past.

Finally, I covered up the white paint splatters on our red wall. It looks so much better and really for not that much work. I'm eying a few other places that could maybe use some similar treatment. I also found out that there is still a ton of dust on the high mantles and wall. There is now a bit less dust but I wouldn't call it clean. The remaining dust is rather invisible though, and that's all I really care about.

Tuesday: last night

Amanda: I read my book.

Ben: You did? (When did you have time??)

Amanda: yeah, the front cover.

Sunday: Olympics and quilt2

Today I watched a lot of Olympics. However, it is actually rather hard for me to just sit and watch them because there are too many commercials and random commentaries. So I moved a lot of my housework to the living room (such as laundry sorting). I really enjoyed the moguls and short track the most I think.

I also started cutting some of the pieces for the next quilt, as it is something I can easily do while watching Olympics.

Flurry wants Penny to know that she is doing rigorous testing to make sure the quilt will be up to cat-napping standards.

Friday: school buses

Today we had to do some errands, and we ended up going near the schools just as they were getting out. There were buses everywhere. We ended up behind one. It stopped, two kids got off, crossed the road, and went into their respective houses. We go again. Ten feet later the bus stops, one kid gets off, crosses the road, and goes into his house.

Seriously? I guess I don't understand this new fad with stopping in front of every single house. I can understand wanting to have a bus stop in sight of your house or maybe for elementary schools, but I really feel that older kids should all be able to get out and walk the ten extra feet. Bus stops were good places for meeting kids in the neighborhood (SARAH VANDERBILT WERE ARE YOU NOW?!?) and getting a little exercise and I'm a little sad that they're disappearing.

Thursday: snowplow

Today was Ben's day to work from home. It works well...I usually go in a little earlier. Today I got up and looked out the window. The snow didn't look too bad on the driveway, but I thought I'd shovel the end to keep it clean. Just as I start shoveling the snowplow went by on the other side of the road. I thought "oh great, it'll probably come around on this side right after I finish shoveling and bring that terrible heavy stuff with it." Soon afterwards I get to the end of the driveway and realize that the snow had drifted. It was up to my knees. Sigh. I start shoveling, rather sure that I've already shoveled this snow twice yesterday. I reach the end of the driveway and realize that there is still two feet of this knee-high snow. Then I hear a rumble in the background. The snowplow is coming back! I was so happy. It didn't even put a lot of bad snow in front of the driveway and took away most of the snow that was still left away.

Three cheers for the snowplow driver!

Tuesday: power

Tonight our power went out. It's the first time since we've been here that it has gone out while we were at home. It was almost fun. :) Then we went out to Bible Study and the roads were really bad. We probably should have canceled. One of these days we'll figure out when to cancel and when not to. The roads going home were still bad, but not quite so bad. At least we didn't have to dodge any pickup trucks perpendicular to the highway or people deciding to walk right in front of us like we did on the way there. :s

Monday: happy car

Today our car got to go to the doctor. It got some new belts, the fuel line fixed, and the air conditioning compressor disconnected. It turns out that the annoying scary squeal was from the ac compressor. So right now we don't have the squeal but we also don't have a/c either.

Sunday: superbowl

We had a superbowl party at our house tonight. It was a lot of fun. I was cheering for the Saints (for no real reason) so was excited that they won. I feel like I won something important even though I didn't really decide who I was rooting for until about five minutes into the game. Hugh got really angry the exact same time the Saints scored a TD, and the look on his face was priceless. We also had some delicious cheese fondue and a bunch of other good food. Oh, and the Doritos commercials were by far the best. We were all laughing at most of them.

Saturday: !

By popular demand, here is Amalle in her new tabard:

and no, no calluses. I've been about 10 quests away for quite a while now, so I finally finished them off this morning.

In other news, the day went much better than I was expecting. Ben and I also went grocery shopping together which was oddly fun. And we got donuts!! Flurry is now napping in my lap which makes me happy.

Saturday morning: too much WoW?

For all of you non-WoW players, it means that I have done a majority of the quests in the game.

Friday: a nice day

Today I only had to work about a half day, which was wonderful. Then I had a nice lunch with Jess, a long nap, and then pizza with Dusty and Laura.

I also managed to make myself bleed without actually cutting through the skin. I thought it was a pretty amazing feat.

Thursday: Amanda

So the latest thing on Facebook is to look up your name in urban dictionary. "How dumb," I thought. But I thought I'd look it up anyway. And it turned out to be so cool that I couldn't not share it.

"A woman named Amanda is typically very beautiful with an incredible body and nice eyes. They are known to be very loveable. Amandas are envied by other women."

I also started working on pillowcases to go with the quilt. It's interesting trying to make something with the remaining cloth. Some colors I have lots of and some colors barely have any.

Wednesday: chair

The garbage people took away our broken chair! And emptied our very full trash can! Hooray garbage people!!

Tuesday: dreams

I forgot to post yesterday, but here is what I meant to post:

I had two dreams last night. In one of them Ashley and Stanley got a housegoat. In the other my ice cream and strawberries looked like water but still tasted like ice cream and strawberries.

Monday: a pet peeve

So, one of my biggest pet peeves is finding dirty dishes in the sink. I know, I know, it seems like a dumb pet peeve. But I finally put into words why I don't like it. When there are dishes in the sink they tend to collect water even when they're there for a short time. So then when I take the dishes out to put in the dish washer my fingers get wet. Then my fingers get cold, and cold fingers make me grumpy.

Sunday: finished

I ended up finishing it today too. Now I just need to talk to someone to figure out how to actually make it into a quilt and not just a top.

Congrats to Brian and Roommate on the birth of their daughter yesterday!

Sunday: getting closer

Friday: toes

Here's what I've noticed recently about my toes: they are almost always cold in the winter. I'll get into bed and they are ice cubes, but then an hour later they are still cold. It has been the downfall of several naps...when I can't get them to change from ice cubes to just cold.

Thursday: dates

So lately I've been having to type the date often. I have found that last year I liked using slashes (12/09/09), but this year the slashes seem more cumbersome and so I'm going with dots more often (1.25.10). I think it is partly due to how the "1" and the "9" are closer to the "." and the "/", respectively.

Wednesday: nada

Today nothing very special happened. I had a hard time staying awake around 2pm but then a second wind kicked in and I got quite a bit done in the last two hours of work. We forgot to put the trash out which normally wouldn't be a big deal, but the trash can was much fuller than normal. I'm sure we'll somehow make it through another week, but it might get a little tight. We also have a computer chair that died so we're hoping the trash people will pick it up too, although I have my doubts.

Tuesday: language

Her's my favorite sentence of the day:

"Shrink all sleeving with the robotic shrinker and all shrink labels"

That's right...I used one word as a verb, noun, and adjective.

Small group party at our house tonight. With a snack-luck. I really like the word "snack-luck." It was a lot of fun, although the boys won the game. :(

Sunday: Ben's home!

Ben's home! He was gone all weekend and definitely missed.

Saturday: puzzle night!

Tonight some friends came over for the express purpose of putting a puzzle together! :D It was a lot of fun.

Pre-puzzle

Puzzlers (along with Heidi, who was taking the pictures)

Finished puzzle!

Friday afternoon: someone understood my problem

So I'm going along, looking at specs from the web, and find this:

Well, it doesn't take much to figure out that something is wrong. So I call the company. Except that it is before business hours in California, so I get someone without a clue.

Amanda: can you open the file from the website? It'll make things easier to explain

Clueless: ok, I see the dimensions

Amanda: so you see that .690 doesn't equal .325+.150.

Clueless: but that is how you're supposed to cut it.

Amanda: but the dimensions don't add up.

Clueless: I don't understand. Cut it to those dimensions

Amanda: is there a dimension I'm missing?

Clueless: no, everything is right. Can you tell me your problem again?

Amanda: .690 doesn't equal .325+.150. How am I supposed to cut it?

Clueless: using the dimensions that are there.

After about five minutes he says he'll get with his boss and they'll call me back. They didn't. So I called today, asked the person to look at the drawing and he understood right away. All I had to say was ".690 doesn't equal .325+.150". It made my day.

Wednesday: fishing

Since I went with a serious topic yesterday, today I'll go with a funny one.

Someone at work has a wildlife calendar. Probably wildlife that you might hunt, but it's only January so I'm not sure yet. Anyway, some days have this weird symbol on them...either white, grey, or black. The symbol kind of looks like one of those long, skinny balloons on it's side.

At first I assumed it had something to do with the moon, but then it just didn't line up correctly. So I looked at the key...they stand for good, better, and best fishing days. How does one tell about six months in advance when the good fishing days are? I know almanacs do some of that, but what makes for a good fishing day? Was it coincidence that no Wednesdays were even good fishing days and the weekends were often good fishing days?

Tuesday: options

Today I thought of lots of things I could talk about, from inconsequential to very serious. I think I'll go with the plain "serious" though.

Small group is on Tuesdays. However, we canceled it tonight because the weather was looking iffy. The roads were fine when I was driving, but it was a little above freezing with a light precipitation. So we canceled group. I especially felt bad about this because we were going to be at a new house and it was a party night so it would have been fun to see everyone. But I also want everyone to be safe. It was kind of one of those no-win situations.

Monday: hmm

Hmm. I'm not sure what I want to talk about today. Throughout the day I try to remember something relevant but odd, but I don't remember any from today.

I had lunch with Jess which was great as always. Zach joined us for his first 25 man raid which was cool. My elbow hurts when I touch it.

I made about 120 potions for some people today in WoW and was exicted that I got a 4x proc. Zach asked what proc stood for and we had no idea. I wikied it...it stands for Programed Random OCcurrence.

Sunday: quilt

I got one of the four big blocks finished. I think it'll fit the bed pretty well in the end.

update: I now have two done!

Saturday: busy

Today ended up being a pretty busy day. This morning we went to church for a Bible Study leaders meeting and to find out what we're doing next...it's The Prodigal God. We've had some preview stuff and it looks really, really good. I'm excited to start it.

Then we had lunch with Clay and Jess and Hugh. Good times.

After a nap (we had to get up early after all) I made some cookies and we went to a game night. Also fun, and it got done a little earlier than normal which was kind of nice.

I didn't get the wash started. :( But I thought about the wash and that I'm going to put my new flannel sheets on next. Does that count?

Friday: weird tricks

We watched Inglorious Basterds with Dusty and Laura tonight. Afterwards we were discussing the different ways that the Germans and Americans/British count on their fingers, only to find out that Ben and Laura can't keep their pinky down while keeping their ring finger up. Then we discovered that Ben and Laura can't stretch their toes sideways while Dusty and I could. It brought forth a lot of laughter.

Keeping the ring finger up

Not being able to keep the ring finger up

Toe stretch (with Flurry coming to investigate)

So here's the question: can you do both or neither? Is there something that makes one person be able to stretch their toes and fingers better? Or can you only do one of the above mentioned things?

Thursday: Nathan

I have a great brother! However, I don't have many recent pictures of just the two of us.

Wednesday: In the last 24 hours...

In the last 24 hours...

1. Have you had the flu?

2. Have you had a headache?

3. Have you been stressed?

4. Have you had a heart attack?

I seriously answered a survey with that question today.

Tuesday: headaches and legos

This morning I had a little headache. The kind that is annoying but doesn't really make you stop doing anything you want. By the time I got into work, I thought I'd take an Excedrin. Then the Excedrin kicked in...I felt so much happier! It's amazing how feeling almost well and completely well make such a difference.

For Christmas, I got a lego ice cube tray. Below is my creation. They're rather slippery, so don't really stack well.

Although making the blocks colorful was a fun idea, it turns out the ice melts when you touch it and you end up with a big mess.

Monday: going into McDonalds

Today we decided to go to McDonalds for dinner, and when I pulled into the parking lot there was no one there. So we got the best parking spot. Why is it the best? Because Ben and I both got to be in the cold for the least amount of time. My picture below describes it much better.

Our car is sad. Not only are we leaving it, it is dirty, has bad belts, and a fuel smell. However, we made it slightly happier by going through the car wash on the way home! I really do love car washes.

Sunday: chap stick

This past week I finished a tube of cherry chapstick. I've kept the tube around so that I would remember to post about this accomplishment. I don't use chapstick a ton, so to a) not lose the tube and b) actually finish it was very surprising!

I had something else I was going to say, but now I don't remember. Maybe that I started using some of my new quilting supplies? They've been fun. I had to take a break from making progress on the quilt to fixing something on it, but I'm about back to making progress again. Yay!

Oh! I have a friend (the Ertman-Towbridge Family) who is pregnant and on bedrest. With a one year old. I was thinking it might be fun to post your most addictive webpage so that she can use it as a time sink. If you have one that would be fun with a one year old, that would be even better. I think mine will be... http://icanhascheezburger.com/ and http://dictionary.reference.com/fun/crossword/index.html

Saturday: cold hands, warm heart

Today I spent some of my Christmas money on a little space heater. In the past we've just kept the door to the computer room closed and that has helped with the temperature, but this year our hands were still getting cold. So we'll try something different.

I also went to a women's Bible Study at church. It was pretty good. I car-pooled with Jess which was fun.

Nathan thinks I should see deer-cow at our local deli.

"the taste of wild game but with the convenience of your local deli. Cow-deer. Now at your local supermarket"

Friday: deer-cow

We were driving home after dinner yesterday and saw some deer in the road. So obviously, we slowed down. Then the fattest deer we've ever seen came into the road...Ben and I both thought it looked more like a cow. I thought it because of the face, Ben because of the rump. We laughed about it for the rest of the way home.

Thursday: ups and downs

So, most of the day part of today was just ok. I tried fixing WIPs, which is always lovely. I've ignored them for quite a while, and they were piling up. I gave three back to operators to test, one I don't know how to fix yet, and five are remaining. They did, however, give me an excuse to wear jeans.

Then this evening Flurry sat on my lap (twice!) and I found out Doug got a job and Zack and Jenny joined our guild and we killed a WoW boss for the first time.

Wednesday: April

Today was the day we found out more about our intra-corporation merge and layoffs. (Our site is now part of a larger group instead of just being our little group. So far...no obvious day-to-day changes.) Sorry if this post ends up being a stream of thought instead of semi-good paragraphs.

They aren't doing the layoffs until APRIL. April!!! There were rumors for the end of January, but I was expecting February or early March. Pros: people have extra months to save money, and houses will go up for sale in the good selling season. Con: we have to wait three more months to find out what's going on. Three months isn't so bad, but considering that we've already been waiting two it is getting obnoxious. Couple this five month wait with the waits from the last layoff periods and it just means there has been a lot of waiting to find out what's going to happen. (This is somewhat of an understatement. It means there are a lot of "what ifs". It means there is a lot of not spending.)

Oh, there will be around 1100 layoffs across our new group. If they are spread out equally across sites (which they won't be), we would lose about 175 from our site. Those odds don't seem too bad, but one never knows what they are thinking and if our site will be hit badly. There could also be some unexpected people laid off as companies are merging and there will be overlap in what people work on.

Monday: first day back

Work was fine. Nothing really exciting happened, but nothing really bad happened either. It is a bit depressing to think about how long it will be before we get more vacation.

I did a whole bunch of laundry this weekend and now it is all sitting in the hallway by the washer. We have clean clothes and the ...desire?... to fold them has disappeared. They're much more fun as an obstacle course.

Sunday: Flurry

Flurry's sitting on my lap!!!!

I love her.

Sunday

Oh, I have to go back to work tomorrow. I've enjoyed the long vacation. Today was again quite frigid, but we had to go out. We did some errands (I got new quilting supplies and a frame for one of our prints) and went to church. After church we went to Ruby Tuesdays with some friends...they have a cool brunch special: biscuits, parafiet, small entrée, and cookies. I got an omelet and wasn't very impressed, but the rest of the food was really good. We briefly stopped at the drum store and I started not feeling great. However, since there was pretty much no food in the house we still stopped at the grocery store. Our cart was barely full and yet we still managed to spend $70. I just don't understand how that works sometimes. Ben put the groceries away while I took a nap and recovered.

I know, wasn't that exciting! I'm sure you really wanted to know all those details. Well, have a good night.

Saturday: brrr

Ben and I went out to shovel the driveway and realized why the furnace had been on so much today...it was frigid! It luckily didn't take us very long to shovel, but we were cold by the end. We also took down all the Christmas decorations. I miss the lights. I think that is my favorite part of Christmas decor.

It was still a very nice day though...we played some WoW, I took a nap, and just hung out.

We were are on a cool day in Florida.

Friday: 2010

What a wonderful way to start the new year...we went to a Rockband Party last night and then stayed home all day. Flurry was still nice and cuddly so we spent a lot of time reading by here. We finished unpacking and played with our Christmas presents.