☆ November 26, 2012 ☆

Good morning everyone! I know it's Monday, but SMILE! You're alive, so what better reason to smile? Saturday we ran errands with Josh, took him to work, hit a garage sale here in town, & then I got to work on the house. I dusted the bathroom lights & bedroom wall decor, straightened the dining room chairs, cleaned out under the kitchen sink (I had to sterilize myself after that one), folded some laundry, dusted the televisions, & swept the hall. After that my day went straight downhill. We watched parts 4 & 5 of a mini-series we'd been

watching on DVD. It wasn't one of the best things I'd ever watched, but I kept hoping it would get better. In fact, it just got worse. The ending was so horrible that I wished I didn't waste 10 hours or so of my life watching it. It really made me angry to see it end the way it did. I know it was just fiction (I hope!), but still ... it was horrible. When the movie finally ended I was now in a foul mood & went off to my office to check facebook & calm down. My computer

locked up. Didn't help my mood. Fine. I went & got my laptop, even angrier now than I was before. My laptop froze solid. Are you KIDDING ME?! Temper about to completely explode now. FINE! I'll go to the station & calm down on the computer there. Where's my truck key? (Pete has been using my truck while his car is still out of commission). He doesn't know where his keys are. Now, in print & being far removed from the entire thing, it doesn't sound like

much. But when you're already agitated & one thing after another goes wrong ... well, let's just say there's no longer a laptop. Gone. Dead. That was Saturday night's casualty ... unfortunately. I finally went & got my emergency truck key & got the heck out of here & calmed down at least a little. Later that night, in an effort to calm down to a more normal level, I asked Pete if we can go out to grab a bite to eat. He agreed & we left an hour earlier than we were

supposed to (we had to pick Josh up at midnight from work). We stopped for fuel on our way out & Josh calls. He got off work early & he's waiting for us. That figures. There goes my meal & my calming down. Now my temper is rising yet again, from an already elevated level. Saturday night was NOT one of my better nights. :( The next morning, I tried my best to forget all about Saturday night. I woke up & looked through the Sunday paper. Pulled

out all the sale fliers (my favorite part), & then cleared out my e-mail from the week. I take care of important e-mails as they come in, the rest I sort through & deal with on Sundays. I checked facebook & then showered to go out to lunch & have the meal I got shorted the night before. Pete & I went to Chopsticks Asian Cafe & had a nice lunch & then we went to Big Lots where I bought a new Christmas tree (from their sale flier). Ours was SO old & started

looking like a Charlie Brown special. Over the years we somehow had lost some of the branches. We now have a smaller, tabletop tree (4') that's pre-lit. Saves lots of time! I also bought a net of lights that I figured I'd hang in my office window. I assumed they'd be round since they're made to throw over bushes, but this one was 6' x 3' which turned out to be the perfect size for my office window. It looks like it was made to fit there! It looks great from both the inside & the outside. The little tree is set up on a coffee table in the center of the living room windows & also looks great. I finally got Kyle to bring down the rest of the lights from the attic, so now I can put those up too. While I was setting up the tree & the office window lights, Pete got excited & decided to trade rooms with Josh. Josh was in our converted garage & Pete's office was in a tiny room behind the garage. Now Pete has a huge office & lots of space & Josh got downsized into the small room behind the garage. I don't think Josh is too thrilled with the downsize, but tough. He doesn't help out around here nearly as much as he's supposed to & he doesn't pay rent, so he's lucky he's not living in a tent in the back yard. All I asked for was 3 chores a day (his choice) & maybe a chore or 2 additional as they're written in on the white board occasionally. Since he doesn't bother most of the time, I'm not too worried about his smaller room or lack or DirecTV, which is now wired into Pete's new, larger office. HA! Shoulda done chores DAILY Josh. Anyway, Pete's room swap took Pete & Josh the rest of the day & night. Huge job because Pete had more stuff in his office than I have in mine. He's got server racks, book shelves on every wall that are FULL, computers, desks, etc. My office is more like an office, Pete's office was more like a lab. While they were room swapping, I knitted another thin white panel on the knitting machine & then loaded up Sims. I completed the living room on Worthington & then loaded up a beautiful house created by a very talented other called Simiterranean Seaside Home. This home is beautiful inside & out & has everything including a beautiful & large garden in the back yard along with a pond well stocked for fishing, a bridge over the pond, & beautiful decor in & out. Nicely done! I started this game out in the summer & Queen (2nd gen) was born. She's good, easily impressed, an Aquarius who likes French music, crepes, & the color spiceberry. She had just aged up into a toddler when I closed the game for the night. Mom's gardening skill had greatly improved keeping up the large garden, but now that she's going back to work & having to teach Queen how to talk, walk, & potty train, the poor garden is wilting & dying. So sad! Just like real life, there's often not enough time in a workday to do everything you'd like to do ... gardening being one of them. I guess that's why in real life, it's the retirees who have the largest & nicest gardens. Time. They've got the time. After Sims I checked Twitter, dusted the ceiling fan blades, planned dinner for the night + the next 3 days, made Fettuccine Alfredo for dinner, watched 666 Park Avenue with Pete & then we went to bed. The FD was very busy after midnight. We had a mutual aid to a neighboring town for a large grass fire & then a wreck & a med call later in the morning after Pete left for work & I was stuck here without my truck again. No, Pete didn't do the brake job in his car yet. I don't mind though, not having my truck doesn't effect me with the exception of the FD which of course was busier than usual this morning. Luckily there are talented others who currently have transportation who responded to the calls. I updated the apps on my phone & while I was there I found an app called Living Earth that's just amazing! I'll put the info in here since it was SO good! $1.99 & worth it to me. LCFD training Tuesday.

Bandbox:

1: A usually cylindrical box for holding light articles of attire. 2: A structure (as a baseball park) having relatively small interior dimensions.

The Padres hit & scored as if they were playing in a bandbox rather than spacious Petco Park.

In the 17th century, the word "band" was sometimes used for ruffs, the large round collars of pleated muslin or linen worn by men & women of the time period, & the bandbox was invented for holding such bands. The flimsy cardboard structure of the box inspired people to use its name for any flimsy object, especially in a small & insubstantial one. But people also admired the neat, sharp appearance of ruffs just taken from a bandbox & began using the word in a complimentary way, such as "she looked as if she came out of a bandbox." Today, "bandbox" can also be used as an adjective meaning "exquisitely neat, clean, or ordered," as in "bandbox military officers."

George W. Bush pardons a turkey (2002):

On this day in 2002, President George W. Bush issues a humorous but sincere presidential pardon to a lucky turkey that otherwise might have ended up on someone's Thanksgiving Day dinner table. In doing so, he continued a tradition begun in 1947 when the National Turkey Foundation first presented Thanksgiving turkeys to President Harry S. Truman.

According to the National Turkey Foundation, Truman was given one live turkey and two dressed turkeys the week before Thanksgiving in 1947. Truman donated the live bird to a local farm, where the turkey was guaranteed a long life unmolested by stuffing or gravy.

Likewise, in 2005, Bush accepted the foundation's gift of two live birds, named "Marshmallow" and "Yam," in a White House ceremony. Calling the birds "the people's turkeys," Bush explained that they had earned their names through a democratic process—the public was allowed to vote on names for the birds through the White House website. He quipped that the vote had been so close, "you might say it was neck and neck." Previous votes resulted in names like "Biscuit" and "Gravy;" Bush's 2003 turkeys were patriotically dubbed "Stars" and "Stripes."

According to the White House website, most previously pardoned turkeys had been sent to live on a 1930s-era farm in Fairfax County, Virginia. In 2005, Bush sent Marshmallow and Yam to serve as Grand Marshals for the Disneyland Thanksgiving Day Parade and to live out their years at the Disneyland Resort and Theme Park in Anaheim, California.

Bush and his family later enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving meal of roast turkey with all the trimmings.

How many white stripes are on the U.S. flag?

A. 5

B. 6

C. 7

D. 8

International day to eliminate violence against women (1999):

The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution designating November 25 the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The resolution, which was introduced by the Dominican Republic, marked the anniversary of the death of three sisters, Maria, Teresa, and Minerva Mirabel, who were brutally murdered there in 1960. While women in Latin America and the Caribbean had honored the day since 1981, all UN countries did not formally recognize it until 1999.

Many organizations, including the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), had been pushing for international recognition of the date for some time.

A year earlier, Noeleen Heyzer, the director of UNIFEM, gave a speech at a fundraising breakfast in Toronto, Canada, encouraging men and women to participate in 16 days of activism against gender violence. The voluntary effort was to begin on November 25 and last through December 10, the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was passed in 1948 as a response to the genocidal terror of the Nazi regime. This 16-day period had particular significance for Heyzer's Canadian audience, for one of Canada's most horrific tragedies occurred on December 6, 1989, when Marc Lepine went on a shooting spree at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal. Lepine had entered the college with a shotgun and murdered 14 female engineering students before turning the gun on himself in what later became known as the "Montreal Massacre." In his suicide note, Lepine declared his murdering spree to be an attack against feminism.

Women's organizations worldwide have successfully pulled together for increased awareness and support of their cause. Although this is a sign of positive change in the struggle to end violence against women, statistics show that there is still much work left to do. A report released in 1994 by the World Bank, entitled Violence Against Women: The Hidden Health Burden, estimated that one out of every four women worldwide has been, or will be, raped. The report also said that violence against women is as serious a cause of death and incapacity among women of reproductive age as cancer, and a greater cause of ill health than traffic accidents and malaria combined.

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Once you reach the person you want (& you expect the call to last more than a minute or 2), ask if you're interrupting. Saying, "Are you in the middle of something? I can call back," shows that you're considerate of the other person's time.

Only time you should let your financial situation dictate when to have children is when it's an extreme case. I mean, if you've got 6 kids & you want 20, I'd probably tell you to slow down & get control of your money 1st. Or, if you're sitting square in the middle of bankruptcy, it might be a good idea to wait a year or 2 while you straighten things out & get back on solid ground financially.

Try thinking worst-case-scenario to see how unrealistic overreacting is. If you're in a traffic jam, take the thought, "I'm going to be late," to a ludicrous point, "I'm going to be fired," to an even more ludicrous point, "I'm going to have to sell pencils on the street!" Feel your anxiety deflate.

What bestselling book was the result of a friendly dispute over which bird is faster, the golden plover or the red grouse?

Guinness World Records. The dispute, between the Guinness Brewery’s managing director and some friends, led the beer manufacturer to produce a small book of facts in 1955 that was distributed free to pubs to settle disagreements and sell more brew.

What creature’s skin—usually considered a waste product—was used by fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi to create a glittery cocktail dress?

When storing Christmas ornaments, use paper coffee filters to wrap ornaments. It's an inexpensive way to protect them.

Which diamond is the largest?

A. The Star of Sierra Leone

B. The Cullinan

C. The Excelsior

Which type of energy comes from under the earth's crust?

A. Geosolar

B. Tectonic

C. Subdermal

D. Geothermal

Answer: D. Geothermal

Who is the only U.S. athlete in history to be drafted in four professional leagues?

Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield. In 1973 he was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association, the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association, the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball, and the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League. He opted for baseball.

You're an impudent __________, a disgusting __________, & you destroy my __________.