▶ September 24, 2012 ❤

What a weekend & Happy Monday! After my post on Saturday I had some bacon (thanks for cooking Pete!) & french toast & then got busy with the housework & cleaned the bathroom sink, dusted & adjusted my alarm clock, fed the cats & dogs, dusted the dining room blinds, cleaned the front of the dishwasher (I love stainless steel appliances, but WOW are they tough to get a mirror shine on!), dusted off the electronics in the living room, mopped the kitchen, dusted my office PC, filled & hosed off the wishing well fountain outside my office window, & swept my office. After a couple other daily routine things I went catalog shopping. I haven't done that for a while & the catalogs had really built up

quite a large pile. Knowing the most recent ones were on top, I proceeded to go through them all & pull out the duplicates & then shopped through all of them. When it was all done I ended up spending $60 on a DayTimer refill for 2013 & a set of 4 notepads (that I use for tracking all my different Sims games). Yes, I could have gotten much more for $60 from somewhere else, but I really needed the supplies from DayTimer & had put it off long enough. I got the Flavia set this time. Not because of the design, but because of the format. it was closest to what I need. As far as the notepads, I got what I HOPE is college ruled (some of them are so widely ruled that it takes 2 sheets to write what I can fit on ONE sheet of college ruled) & they're 'Soft Hues', 1 pad of each color ... very pretty! I wish they had a DayTimer refill in soft hues. :) After that I knitted another panel of the mock cable afghan & then Pete & I went out to lunch (at 9:p) at Chopsticks Asian Cafe & then picked Josh up from work. For "dinner" I had m&ms which was really dessert from our super late lunch. At 12:30 in the morning I loaded up Sims & crawled into the Matrix for some down-time. I started a new game in the political field. This game is set in Appaloosa Plains & my 1st generation Sim is Willow. She's charismatic, friendly, & a mooch (all useful traits for the political career) & then I threw in rebellious (she rides a sweet motorcycle!) & bookworm. She has an American Bobtail cat & as usual, the very 1st thing I do is go get my job. Well, she got a job in the political field & what luck, her boss is male (Booker Singleton). I went straight home & gave him a call. He came over & before 12 hours of game time had elapsed, they were married & she was pregnant. That takes care of THAT 'to do' ... 2nd generation is already on the way. His house is a very nice farmhouse set up for horses. Too bad I don't really like having horses in the game. By the time I closed the game for the night, the 2nd Generation had been born. Lewis Singleton ... friendly & evil. Yesterday we woke up & drove Josh to work. We stopped at Sicily's for some breakfast pizza & Dr Pepper (breakfast of champions baby!), & then came home & went through the Sunday paper. Great sale on a flatscreen TV & we need 1 more ... for the master bedroom. I'm not going to pick one up this week though. Then Pete & Kyle went to work at the other house & I went to work on this one. I cleaned the bathroom mirrors, de-cobwebbed the bedroom (there weren't many after the last one, but still ... enough), fed the cats & dogs, dusted off the silk flowers on the dining room table, did a load of dishes, knocked all the dirt off my living room chair (I wish the big dog would listen to me & stay OFF my chair!), mopped the dining room, & then went outside to trim the shrubs. HA! Well THAT ended up being 2½ hours! Trim the shrubs ... I should have known better. Yes, I trimmed the shrubs, but then ended up staying out there doing all kinds of stuff. You know, you trim the shrubs & they look great. But now you have all those trimmings all over the place, so you rake all of that into piles ... along with leaves & grass clippings, then you have huge piles of 'stuff' that needs to be bagged, but before bagging, I'm looking at the nicely trimmed shrubs & cleared out areas between the shrubs & now the grass that has grown in there is bugging me, so I clear all that out, rake it out, & finally bag all this stuff up. Oh yeah, it's Sunday ... gotta take all the trash cans down to the road. I come back & everything looks great except for the small debris & dirt that didn't make it into the bags. Time to hose off the walkway. Now it's all in the driveway. Time to hose off the driveway. Look, my truck is dirty ... wash the truck. During most of this, I'm covered in sweat & mist from the hose water. I'm also COVERED in butterflies! I wish I had a photo of that. I'm serious. They landed all over me. My arms, my legs ... I was trying to work but also trying to be so careful as to not hurt any of the butterflies on me. It seriously would have been a cool pic! Butterfly woman! I'm I'm now exhausted & dehydrated. I finally call it a day & crawl into the house. Just then Kyle & Pete get home from the other house. Pete noticed the work, Kyle never even saw it. He walked right past it all & never noticed. That's odd, because usually it's the other way around. I could paint the house flaming hot pink & Pete wouldn't notice. Kyle on the other hand notices if I move a tiny object from one side of the fireplace mantle to the other. HA! Pete decided to help out here a bit & work on trimming back the branches that have grown out far enough to touch the house & roof. WOW does it look clearer now! That job stopped when he cut down a very large branch & I'm standing there staring at the end of the branch which is a few feet away from us & said "Uhhh ... I think you found & pissed off a rather LARGE wasp nest." He came down the ladder, we stood there & looked at the swarm for a few seconds & then one of them managed to dive bomb my head. RUN! OK, trimming is over for the day. LOL! Lesson: before cutting down a branch, make sure there isn't a wasp nest in it. I always check the tree branches before doing ANYTHING that could upset a wasp nest which includes mowing under low hanging branches. They don't like the loud noise from the mower & WILL do a few warning fly-bys of your head if you get too close. Anyway, it looks much nicer outside now with the exception of the huge branch laying in the back yard. None of us were going to drag that out to the back property line with that wasp nest still attached & the bees in the mood they were in. After all that I was sore & tired & just wanted to relax with a movie for a bit. it was now 6:30p. FIVE HOURS later we finally sat down to watch the movie AFTER we picked Josh up from work at 10. Well, there goes knitting & Sims. My 2 wind-down actions of the day. Damn! I could have done BOTH during the 5 hours had I known it would be FIVE HOURS, but Pete said we'd watch the movie in a minute, he just wanted to check something on his computer 1st. I waited. Then he just wanted to take a quick shower & rinse all the dirt & sweat off of him ... give him a few minutes. I waited. Then he just wanted to call his mom real quick 1st. OK, I waited. Then he wanted to head out & grab something to eat real quick since both of us were too exhausted to cook. Sounds good to me, we went & grabbed a bite to eat. While we're out, we need some stuff from the store. Yes we do, we went. Then it was time to pick up Josh. Then we got home & he just had to check something on his computer again real quick (isn't this were we started?), then he needed to get something out of his car real quick (ended up cleaning out his car). Now it's 11:30p. We finally start up the movie. FIVE HOURS LATER! I was SO upset. I know he really didn't mean to make me just stand around & wait for 5 hours. He honestly meant "just give me a minute ...", but that's not how it turned out. We finished the movie around 1:a & everyone had work & school the next day, so it was off to bed. No knitting, no Sims. You may be thinking "no big deal". but after working hard all day it's what I do to unwind. It's my happy place after a hard day. I really enjoy it & it helps reset me back to "normal" so I can face the next day of work & errands. So, needless to say I'm not exactly in a good mood today. I have a full day of work ahead of me & that's where I left off yesterday. All work & no play makes this person here slightly postal. I'm old, I'm tired ... I need a break at the end of each day to unwind. Starting a new day still wound tightly from the day before will just wind me tighter. How long before I snap like a rubber band? Well, I woke up this morning already behind the 8 ball because at some point today I need to drive Josh into McKinney so he can take care of some important business. Not his fault, it needs to be done ... but I'm thinking there goes any chance I might have had to unwind TODAY ... AGAIN! Maybe if I rush, maybe if I really put the pedal down I can do it all before it's too late to unwind tonight. That's what I'll do ... I'll just floor it. Already would tight as a drum, but if I just push myself it'll all be worth it tonight. I pour my morning chocolate milk, pick up the glass & don't even get a single sip. My phone text message tone goes off. I just glare sideways at my phone. This BETTER be a weather update from WFAA or a current balance notification from my bank. I put the glass down & check my phone. It's Kyle. He's really not feeling well & needs to be picked up from school A.S.A.P. SONOFA...! OK, not his fault. I'm not angry at Kyle (or Josh) at all. It's just the poker hand I'm being dealt today ... I'm pissed at whoever dealt me this hand because I really needed to finish early today & RELAX. Guess not huh? We'll see how the rest of the day goes. Tomorrow's blog post is either going to be a sigh of relief that I actually made it & was able to relax tonight, or I'm going to be half-crazed & ready to snap worse than I am now. Wish me luck?

Hate is too great a burden to bear. it injures the hater more than it injures the hated.

Hurricane Jeanne crashes into Haiti (2004):

Hurricane Jeanne slams into Haiti, killing thousands, on this day in 2004. Coming just days after Hurricane Ivan, Jeanne was part of a series of deadly storms to hit the region during the 2004 hurricane season.

The storm formed on September 13 near Africa’s west coast. As it moved slowly across the Atlantic, it built up strength and was a Category 2 storm when it reached Haiti. Jeanne’s heavy rains proved to more destructive than its winds. When the floodgates on Haiti’s Peligre River failed, flash floods swept through entire villages, carrying away hundreds of people. The storm’s destruction echoed a tragedy in May 2003 in which hundreds were killed after a dam burst near Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic.

Jean-Baptiste Agilus, a teacher, reported watching the water completely swallow houses in his neighborhood. ''The water rushed into all the homes in the neighborhood. It destroyed everything.'' Gonaives, the port city where Haitians declared their independence from France in 1804, was particularly hard hit by Jeanne. Overall, about 3,000 people were killed by the hurricane and hundreds more were reported missing and never found. Mass graves were filled with corpses. Approximately 250,000 of Haiti’s 8 million people were left homeless by Jeanne. The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico were also battered by the storm, but suffered relatively minor losses compared to Haiti’s.

Hurricane Jeanne then left Haiti and made its way to the north end of the Bahamas, where terrified residents were largely able to evacuate in time. Jeanne’s run ended as it slammed into Florida’s central coast. The people of Florida were well-prepared—Jeanne was the fourth major hurricane to hit the state in 2004. Charley, Frances and Ivan had already pounded the state. Thanks to prudence and caution, only three people died in Florida.

I would prefer an illness from eating __________ to spending time with you.

Noisome:

1: Noxious, harmful. 2a: Offensive to the senses & especially to the sense of smell. b: Highly obnoxious or objectionable.

Often they floundered, stepping or falling hands-1st into waters as noisome as a cesspool, till they were slimed & fouled.

Consider the following 2 sentences: "The babysitter tried to quiet the noisome children." "M son works at a fish market, & his clothes bring a noisome stench into the house when he comes home." Only the 2nd sentence uses "noisome" correctly. "Noisome" isn't a synonym of "noisy." Something noisome is disgusting, like that fishy stench, or harmful, the way toxic fumes can be. "Noisome" comes from the Middle English word noysome, which has the same meaning as "noisome." The noy of noysome means "annoyance," & comes from Anglo-French anui, which also means "annoyance."

Nyctophobia is an abnormal fear of what?

A. Spiders

B. Night/darkness

C. Black objects

D. Cows

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Stephen King releases two books at once (1996):

On this day in 1996, blockbusting bestselling author Stephen King releases two new novels at once. The first, Desperation, was released under King's name, while the second, The Regulators, was published under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman.

King was born in Portland, Maine, in 1947. His father abandoned the family when King was two, and his mother struggled to support her two children. King was sickly as a child and developed a love for books. He studied English at the University of Maine, where he met his wife, Tabitha.

After college, the couple lived in a trailer while King taught school, worked in a laundry, and churned out four novels, which were rejected. Discouraged, he gave up on his fifth novel until his wife encouraged him to try again. In 1973, Doubleday paid him $2,500 for the book Carrie, about the bloody revenge of a high school outcast. A few months later, he earned $420,000 for the paperback rights. The book was a huge bestseller, as were his subsequent 30 novels. He also wrote six novels under the name Richard Bachman, and 14 collections of short stories or nonfiction. King's books have sold 300 million copies to date.

Despite his success, King has struggled with his own demons. In 1988, he joined Alcoholics Anonymous, stating "I never met a drink or drug I don't like." In June 1999, he was taking a walk near his Maine home when he was hit and critically injured by a car. Six operations were required to repair his hips, pelvis, ribs, and other broken bones. Meanwhile, he managed to write a novella, several short stories, and a memoir. In March 2000, he released a new novel, Riding the Bullet and the The Plant available over the Internet. Since that time, King continues to write fiction and non-fiction books.

Use snail mail or other traditional forms of transmission for private or sensitive materials - contracts, business plans, salary & sales information. Unless your system has an encryption program, e-mail isn't private, & messages can be accidentally or intentionally intercepted.

What's unique—and almost certain to be obvious—about an acersecomic person?

When playing with your children, regardless of their age, put away the toys when you finish playing. Playtime should have a beginning & end. Picking up toys when finished playing with them will reduce clutter & teach your kids a good lesson in picking up after themselves.

When school's out, do your kids insist that they're too old for a babysitter? Tell them she's an Entertainment Director. They'll love her. (Personal note: I'm strictly against this. If you lose an argument with your children & have to resort to this kind of stuff, you're doing it WRONG. Who's in charge? Apparently, it's not YOU.)

Which African nation’s flag features a hoe crossed with a rifle superimposed on an open book?

Mozambique’s. The design, according to the country’s constitution, symbolizes “study, production, and defense.”

Which board game involves placing shapes corner to corner on a board with 3 other players?

A. Tetris

B. Tetrominoes

C. Geotastic

D. Blokus

Answer: D. Blokus.

Which is the main, 2nd, & 3rd component of air?

A. Oxygen

B. Nitrogen

C. Argon

Which pro sports team attempted to draft future senator Edward M. Kennedy in 1955?

The Green Bay Packers. Kennedy, who was a tight end on the Harvard University football team, declined the offer, explaining that he was going to pursue “another contact sport, politics.”

Your net worth is what you own minus what you woe or any debts you have. There are lots of people who use income as a gauge of financial independence, but that's not necessarily the case. Simply put, you can have a huge income, but if you've got piles of debt, then you're not financially independent. you're still tied to all those payments.