Happy New Year!!!

Mood: Tired, really, really tired (turns out that it takes a couple of days for my thirty something year old hiney to recover from the New Year's Eve festivities)

What I'm Watching: Celebrity Ghost Stories (It's midnight, what else would I be watching?)

The hubs and I rang in the New Year by partying with a bunch of rowdy strangers at a hotel. The downside? The hubs and I are not actually social people so being forced to sit at a table with strangers? Not our thing. And drunken, rowdy strangers acting stupid because they're too drunk to realize how stupid they're acting? Totally annoying...especially when they're armed with those obnoxious noisemakers and insist on blowing them in my ear every.ten.seconds! I had to be physically prevented from relocating those noisemakers to someplace where noisemakers aren't normally intended to go.

And don't get me started on the people that brought their children to this party. Yep. Open bar, drunken morons and loud music...I'm not a parent and even I know this isn't exactly the proper environment for your 7 year old. What the heck? Were there no crack dealers you could leave them with?

Also? I've learned that there are some things that you just can't unsee no matter how much you drink or how hard you try. On New Year's Eve, these sights included the following:

* A rather large woman wearing a black bra under a sheer white shirt. Honey. No.

* A woman who wore a completely sequined mini dress that barely contained the minimum amount of skin. After a few drinks? She apparently forgot she was wearing a "barely there" dress and proceeded to sit with her legs spread as though she was half expecting her ob-gyn to come by and give her a pap smear.

*A man who, from the waist up, looked quite dashing in a tuxedo jacket complete with vest and tie. I thought, "wow, it's nice to see a man who dresses up like that for New Year's Eve". Then he walked by me. You guys? He was wearing shorts. What the hell?!?

*A woman who had back hair. Honest to goodness, full on furry back hair. The back of her shirt dipped a little too low and her tufts of hair were peeking out from under the shirt. I feel confident in saying that this was not a man in drag, this was definitely a woman. With copious amounts of back fur. I got independent confirmation from the hubs (who is now completely traumatized). I also got his assurance that should I ever sprout back hair he will shave and/or ensure that it is properly and promptly removed.

*There was a large group of friends sitting at the table next to us. At some point a man from that table was standing in between his wife and her friend. He had an arm around each of them. No big deal. Until his hand slipped down to squeeze his wife's friend's butt (which was probably all of a foot from my face). Okay, so he's a bit drunk and being a bit of an ass. It happens. I tried to ignore it. Then? His hand slipped up under the friend's mini-dress and it stayed under there like it was stuck in some sort of gravitational pull. *shudder* DUDE! You're in public and and right next to your wife!!! Just because she's at an angle where she can't see where your hand is and what it's doing doesn't make it cool. ACK!!! My eyes!!!!

But, lest you think it was all bad, it wasn't. Things that almost made the trauma worth it:

* We got upgraded to the Presidential suite. I'm talking about a hotel room that is bigger than our current apartment complete with a fireplace, a hot tub and a kitchen with a dishwasher. Seriously. What a great way to ring in the new year!

* They made an error on our reservations and we were totally compensated w/ an open bar pass, free breakfast and a reduction in room rate. Sweeeettt!!!

*I got to spend my Borders and B&N gift cards. Hours of shopping surrounded by the smell of brand new books. Sigh. I managed to stretch my dollars too and ended up with something like 13 new books!!!!

*Santa hubs got me a late gift of a Livescribe pen to help with my writing efforts. I tend to brainstorm/plot old school with pen and paper. Unfortunately that means that I have to shuffle through hundreds of notebook pages looking for necessary information. The Livescribe pen will allow me to upload the pages I've written and it makes them searchable so I can easily find the information I need in my notes by searching a keyword or two. Squeeeee!!! So far I'm loving it.

Hope 2010 is treating everyone well so far and that no one was forced to witness the sorts of mind damaging, therapy inducing things that I was on New Year's Eve!!

Late Night Random Blogginess

Mood: Tired and Frustrated (This week at work has already lasted a year and there's no end in sight. Also? Having issues getting plugged in to my writing. The story is there but the energy to write? Not so much).

What I'm Watching: Oprah (I know, I know, I'm so NOT an Oprah person but it's the Mackenzie Phillips interview and I sense a train wreck coming up)

Current Word Count: 9, 497 (Better but not great. Need to get buckled down and start really working the novel or it'll never get done!)

Since it's late and way past my bedtime I'm just going to be hitting some mini-random blogginess.

1.) Aphids. I'd heard of them. Had some vague notion that they were probably some really nasty looking things that had a million legs and would eat me if given half a chance. In reality? Our town is currently overrun with the little buggers and they are tiny little bastards that swarm every freaking where. I can't even walk from my house to my car without being covered with them. According to the experts they're not dangerous to us but I have to say that I've inhaled enough of them that I'm sure it can't be healthy. I have visions of tiny little aphid colonies being formed in my lungs. *shudder*

2.) Camping. I love camping. My husband loves camping (the 'in the woods, in a tent, primitive type camping'). I even bought him a new tent for Christmas last year. So why is it that every weekend we've had free this summer it has either rained or been way too hot to go out camping. We were hoping to go this weekend but we've been hit with the double whammy of forecasted rain and those aforementioned aphids. Spending the weekend inhaling thick swarms of bugs isn't my idea of a good time. :(

3.) Slightly unnerved by the killing of an entire family in a nearby town. Crazy killer? Still on the loose.

4.) Your Kid Ate What? Really? This is a show now? Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis knows that I'm partial to reality tv but isn't this really just scraping the bottom of the barrel? A show about the weird things that kids have eaten? Don't all kids eat weird things? Hell, I once swallowed a penny. My mother didn't call a television crew, she called the doctor who said "this too shall pass". It was cosmic payback for the time that she swallowed an old school camera flashbulb when she was a kid. Amazingly, my grandmother called the doctor, not a television crew.

And there you have it. All the random thoughts currently running through my tired, semi-empty brain. Off to double check the door locks, kill a few stray aphids that followed us into the house, check the weather forecast for the first weekend in October and call my sister to ensure that should one of my nephews eat something gross, dangerous or just plain interesting, she calls the television crew first and the doctor second.

Caution: Reading This Blog May Cause...

Mood: Content (Scott and I spent the day bumming around Harvest Days, had porkchops on the grill for dinner and am now enjoying a quiet evening at home)

What I'm Watching: The Girls Next Door (Don't ask...I really don't know why)

Current Word Count: 8,618 (I know, still pathetic but I had to unravel a few story threads and fix a few issues so while the word count hasn't jumped up much the story works much better).

As most people who regularly read my blog have no doubt surmised, I watch way too much tv. Way too much. I watch tv while I'm cleaning house, while I'm working on my writing, while I'm surfing the net, while I'm eating dinner and while I'm reading a book. Basically, if we're home, the tv is on.

Because Scott and I are still living in the dark ages (meaning we don't have Tivo), we are not only watching tv shows, we're also watching endless hours of advertisements per day. Over the last few years I've noticed an exponential increase in the amount of commercials for medications. How many of us grew up happily never hearing of PMDD, RLS or DVT? Now, not only do we know that they exist, after watching a few hours of tv you'll be half convinced you suffer from at least one of them. Really, it doesn't matter what's wrong with you, there's an advertisement out there that will tell you what the problem is and what you need to take to resolve the problem.

However, at the end of every single one of those advertisements is a roll call of all the potential problems that could occur if you choose to take the medication in question. "Have the sniffles? Take sniffle-ease. It will get rid of all your nasal issues....may cause drowsiness (okay, that's not that bad), diziness (eh, but if it helps my stuffy-sniffley nose it might be worth it), insomnia (thought it was going to make me sleepy?), seizures (what the hell?), and in some cases certain cancers like leukemia ($#%*&@?+?!!!!!!). Right. So, what's so bad about a stuffy nose anyway?

So, in the interest of maintaining truth in advertising, reading this blog may cause:

Boredom (really, my life isn't that exciting), confusion (I tend to ramble about nothing in particular), laughter (occasionally I think I'm mildly funny), irritation (I'm also occasionally annoying), and in some rare cases, a need to come back and check to see just what personal jackassery I've been up to lately (because, really, who could avoid the excitement that is my life?).

Should you experience any of these issues, don't panic. An attorney with a pending class action lawsuit will be along with an advertisement at any moment.

Chicken or Beef?

Mood: Blah. (It's been a long day)

What I'm Watching: Ghost Hunters (Ghosts totally rock! Well when they're not making a mess in my house!)


Really Peta? You honestly think comparing overweight people to whales in this picture is going to turn my fat arse into a vegetarian?? It's just far more likely to just make me hate self-righteous tree hugging hippies.

Sorry folks but I have to admit that I LOVE meat. Yes, I know, "Meat is Murder" but, in my opinion, it's tasty, tasty murder! I freely admit that I would probably chase a cow down in the field for a good steak, I love me some chicken and yes, I sometimes even eat *gasp* pork on occasion. None of that makes me a bad person, nor is your referring to me as a "whale" likely to motivate me to suddenly decide to become enamoured of the vegan lifestyle.

But, lest you think I have no standards at all, I must assure all of you that is not true. I, too, have my own"ethical standards of food consumption". It's simple really; I don't eat anything that is cute. That's right...if I see it in nature and say "awwww" or if I want to pick it up and cuddle with it, then I won't eat it. So, I don't eat: veal (baby cows are adorable), lamb (just too darned cute), deer (how could I eat Bambi?) and Rabbit (c'mon, who could eat cute little bunnies?) just to name a few. Luckily for me, cows, turkeys, chickens and pigs are incredibly ugly creatures.

Mmmmm....steak.