Happy Halloween

 

Happy

 

 Halloween!

My Mom Is A Craft Nut

Halloween

Mom loves decorating for holidays and Halloween is one of her favorites. A good majority of her decorations are handmade. Her hanging ghosts are just a styrofoam ball with a bit of material draped over it and tied. At one time she was really into the hat decorating thing and opted to make a Halloween themed hat. Her ghost family is nothing but styrofoam balls for the heads and 2 liter and 12 oz coke bottles for the bodies and then covered in material. Those are a hit every year. Lots of people ask about them. Her witch is just a simple doll made from a pattern.

Do You Do the Change?

It's that time of the year for me where I get to "fall back" on the time. And, oh boy, do I love it. For me it just seems that I gain so much more time in the day instead of having it whiz by me. Yesterday I managed to sleep till noon and take a 2 hour nap around 3:00 PM and it still felt like I had time left. Right now it's just 1:22 AM and am planning on getting me a snack and heading off to bed here in a little bit. With the time change, I also decided to change things around here with a new look again. I also managed to finally get caught up with everyone's blogs.

Later

A Beautiful Day

As I'm sitting here typing this, I can look out my front door and see the beautiful colors of the trees and sky. The sky is a wondrous blue and here lately this week the temps have been comfortable. We had rain earlier in the week, but now it's just gorgeous sunshine.

I haven't been writing much this week. In all honesty, I just haven't been in the mood. Don't really know why. Just been sluggish this week. I have been coming home and doing a little of this and that on my computer installing updates (yet again) and such. I'm still not done installing all of my programs just yet. I have recieved my new power box that I ordered the other day. I may try installing it later or maybe next weekend.

This past week has been kind of trying for my grandma. Her sister (my great aunt) passed away. This is the same grandma who just last year on Thanksgiving weekend lost her youngest daughter (my aunt). Bless her heart. She's handling this a little better though. It has been expected for some time now for Aunt Dee to pass on. She's been in a nursing home and her health has been slowly deteriorating. This wasn't a shock to grandma, but it has gotten her a little down and now her shingles are acting up. Grandma just keeps hanging in there. Gotta love her.

CR received his Guild Wars Nightfall game yesterday and has been playing it. His reaction to the game, "Sweeet." He's enjoying it.

Wyrm is on vacation now. He had three days left out of three weeks and decided to take off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. What will he be doing while off from work? You guessed it, playing World of Warcraft.

I have a therapy session on Tuesday and it may be my last. Honestly I don't feel like I'm making any more progress since the revelation that a part of me is still stuck in my past. I don't know how to overcome it, but it's something that I can accept and totally understand. I really am at a standstill on what to do now from here on. There are obstacles that I just simply cannot overcome at this point no matter how hard I try or what kind of medication I'm on. I'm able to walk out of my house and deal with work and people somewhat and I feel that is an accomplishment.

As for what I am doing right now, I'm planning on closing this, dine on Hamburger Helper and watch The Scariest Places on Earth marathon on ABC Family. I like watching scary and haunting shows of this nature. Enjoy your day.

Later

Another Day

My computer is still running thankfully. I have ordered a power box and should receive it soon. Now what's left is to reinstall my programs, yet again. It gets annoying having to install the programs that I want over and over again. Right now I've got my printer, Microsoft Office, and DSL installed. I still have my Adobe Photoshop to install probably this weekend. Luckily before the computer decided to go belly up I managed to upload the photos of our house decorated for Halloween to Flickr. I will show those this weekend and write about the decorations. Right now my mind is just too groggy to really think of anything so I guess I will just head off to bed. Later

Absolute Frustration !@#!!*

I am so sorry everyone for not posting anything, returning comments, or answering friends requests. This has been an absolute frustrating week with my computer. It got stuck in the boot up cycle and never would load Windows. So we figured that the virus I accidentally opened wreaked havoc with my harddrive and that it finally went belly up. Well luckily I had saved the hard drive out of my other computer (the one where I fried the processor) so Wyrm just switched them out for me. I went through the hassle of installing my MSN Premium, AVG Anti Virus, and DSL yet again for CR to install his Guild Wars game to play. Just as soon as he started playing the computer shut itself off. We tried pushing the button to turn it back on, but it was all in vain. It was dead. So I've been without a computer all this week until earlier today. We had yet another computer tower and Wyrm tried hooking that one up and left me to install the DSL. Let me tell ya. This was late afternoon and I was about in tears and sick at my stomach from being so frustrated with this dang thing. I couldn't get the DSL to install right and Wyrm was more interested in playing World of Warcraft than helping me at the time. I just had to give up on it. Just about an hour ago Wyrm finally came in here and tried switching out the power boxes in my tower with the older one. Guess what. The stupid thing works now only this power box doesn't have enough connections for everything that I have. At least I'm up and running. So it may be a few more days before I can type out another post, but hopefully this computer will stay alive long enough for me to purchase another power box with enough connections and a bigger harddrive. This old one is only a 20 gig where the one that died was an 80.

Later

Fond Memories of...

Peppermint Cake

add 1 tsp (or more to taste) to white cake mix and then bake per instructions

add 1 tsp (or more to taste) to white (or vanilla) frosting

Yes, you heard me right, peppermint cake. As far back as I can remember, mom has made this for me and my sister, Took, and we loved it. She would make it for us for our birthdays and color with food coloring and decorate it with those sugar candy decorations. Since my birthday was in July and Took's was in August (we were both born on the 9th day) we would celebrate our birthdays together somewhere in between and invite all of our friends over for the party. Mom had a house full of kids but she never minded. She loved them all. Our friends also loved the cake. Those were the good ol' days of smelling the cake as mom was baking it knowing that she saved us the scrapings of cake batter. My lil' sis and I would actually fight over it to try to get the most. Yum. As we grew up the cake was literally forgotten about until the other day when she was making a comment about how she was tired of the same cake flavors and wanted something different. That's when I rememberd the peppermint cakes she used to make. At that moment her face lit up and so did mine just thinking about how good it would be to taste it again. One night before I had got the cake eaten, my sis called to say that she would be coming over the next day. Mom told her about making the peppermint cake which resulted in a silent pause from Took. Then she exclaimed, "I remember those" and then proceeded to tell mom to give me the order to leave the cake alone and not to eat it all before she got there. To which my reply was she was younger than me and would not be ordering me to do anything especially when it came to that cake. I then said that I would eat the whole thing and there would be nothing left for her. Of course I wouldn't do that. One I love my sis and two I didn't want a stomachache. When Took came over, mom, CR, and Took all went shopping and had brought supper home. Naturally my lil' sis (who can eat like a pig and not gain a single pound) ate too much and was too full to indulge herself with a piece. So mom lovingly cut out a hunk of it for Took to take home with her. I came home to a huge piece of my cake gone and mom told me what she had done. Thankfully she sent the middle home with my sister and left me the corners.

Later

Yes, I'm Still Here

This week CR was home for Fall Break so when I arrived home from work my computer was occupied. I was too tired to really put up a fuss for it so I just came home long enough to talk to him and then snuggled down under the covers. This week I was blessed with a drop in the temperatures. I love this time of the year. It's more comforting and relaxing to me to wrap myself up in covers to snooze more so than the summer throwing the covers off of me just to stay cool.

Wednesday saw me rising to the alarm at around 8:30 AM. I had an appointment with a lawyer at 11:00 AM to discuss bankruptcy. Yes, I probably could have lain there alittle longer, but I just can't start my day without having a little time on the computer. The consultation went well. I will be filing Chapter 13. I do have to pay back the debt (which I have no problem doing, I ran up the bills, it's my responsibility to pay it back), but the lawyer will help to stop finance changes, mayber lower the amout to pay back, and come up with a payment where I can pay it without hurting myself family and homewise. Part of filing for Chapter 13 is that I will have to undergo a credit counseling program for about $40. All in all it won't hurt me to do this. I need to settle down and relearn how to budget my finances. I feel optimistic over this. I was starting to feel really depressed over having to do something like this, but now I feel like I will benefit in the long run and come out better in the end for it.

Temps here in Kentucky have dropped low enough that we had a hard freeze one night this week. I've had to dig out my heavy coat. I made the mistake of not having it one night after leaving work. That made for a cold walk to the car and sure enough it would have been one of those nights where Wyrm couldn't find a parking space closer to the doors. Since I have been packing a heavy camoflauge coat into work and wearing it out.

Mom has her porch decorated for Halloween. Since I am too lazy to sift through my album for photos of her craftwork, I may wrap myself up and take fresh photos of our house decorate and post those either later tonight, early morning, or sometime later this week.

Work has went fairly well since my return from vacation. Management hasn't changed and probably never will. I made this mistake of running out of my Zoloft and just never refilled while I was off. I just didn't feel the need by being home and relaxed. After a few days at work, I realized I made a HUGE mistake not getting it refilled. Yes, I am back on it and will not make that mistake again. Why I thought that maybe I could do okay without I will never know. Lesson learned.

I must draw to a close. Wyrm took a loan out on his 401K to help pay for the lawyer and with what is left over I'm planning to make out checks to pay some of these small bills that have been piling up. Once I get those done the only debt I will have is the car loan (which I do keep up with those payments) and this bankruptcy. Also, CR has done hit me up that he is wanting the computer to play Guild Wars so I suppose I will let him have the computer for the day and I will play Spyro after I pay the bills.

Later

The Beginning of the Week

Well, it's back to work I go as I sit here at the computer and not wanting to give it up so to speak. It's 1:01 AM here. I woke up yesterday feeling fine until right before Wyrm and I left to head to Owensboro for the weekly grocery shopping. I had bathroom problems before we left and while we were in Owensboro. I'm not sick, but boy did I felt like my energy was drained out of me and into the toilet. I've felt sluggish ever since. After we came home, I got busy with hubby's change jar and rolled everything up to deposit it when we leave out for work. It's funny how loose change can add up to quite a bit. He accumulated $128.00. I don't know exactly how long though. I spent the weekend working on some flyers to post up around town. I think I may try my hand at addressing greeting cards/invitations for people around here if it will work. Doesn't hurt to try. I've also got pretty much all of my programs installed back on my computer except for two. Even after all of that hassle of reformatting, I'm still having computer problems. The only thing I can figure now is that it may be a hardware problem. It keeps freezing/locking up during startup. Other than that, once I can get it going everything else is just fine. It's running alot quicker now without all of that junk on here.

Time for me to head off to bed. I want to watch at least the biggest part of X-Men 3 before I have to turn in.

Later

The Case of the Missing Fonts

Okay, I have discovered where my missing fonts were. I didn't realize that only a certain amount of fonts are included on certain software programs. Confused? Well, this is how I figured it out. Some time ago I had purchased Microsoft Works v7.0 in order to get Microsoft Word. Sometime after that I was able to purchase Microsoft Office 2003 at a reasonable price so I couldn't just pass it up. I would be getting Microsoft Powerpoint so I would then be able to view my son's classroom projects that students had done with Powerpoint. What I didn't realize was that when I had installed Microsoft Works a certain number of fonts were with it and the same with Microsoft Office. Apparently when I reformatted the computer and only installed Microsoft Office, it didn't have Tempus Sans ITC and some others. The idea struck me that maybe they were on the Microsoft Works program. So I just installed it and voila! I have some of my fonts back. I don't know if you can see the different fonts that I use, but this one is more pleasing to me. Now for the other fonts that are still missing. I believe they may be on my American Greetings Create-A-Card program. I will do more experimenting when I get up this afternoon.

As for yesterday, we had our little yard sale once again but still had no luck. The only one that has managed to make any kind of profit is CR with his video games. I've only sold two items, and I don't believe mom has sold anything. For some reason we just never have good luck with yard sales

After spending all this time on the computer installing this and that and Windows updates, I do believe my eyes are tired. I woke yesterday with my eyes dry and irritated, and for the life of me, I can't remember where I put the eyedrops the last time I used them. Oh well.

Later

Another Day Gone

Today was spent getting haircuts. Mom's and CR's. Although CR hated to sit still for that long. He does look good though and more cooler. He has a thick head of hair and when it gets long it starts to curl everywhere.

Other than that nothing really went on, so I will use this entry to answer some questions that commenters have asked me:

Leanne posed the question about my flickr account, "is there a monthly limit to how many photos you can upload". Yes, Leanne, there is a limit but it is not measured in how many photos you can upload. It's measured in bandwidth. My limit is 2GB per month. More info can be found at Flickr.

Scandie asked me where in KY do I live. I will email her the answer to this question. Sorry folks, no answer listed here for this one.

Meg says that she enjoys my book list and that she has read the Rose Wilder series and asks if I have read any of the books on Caroline. Yes, Meg, I have read and own these books also.

That's it for now. I feel the munchies coming on and must decide if I want to read or watch a movie tonight.

 

Later

It's Done Finally

The computer has been reformatted and is running more smoothly now. I don't have everything completely installed just yet. Obviously I've got the operating system and internet installed, and I've also got Windows Live Writer and Microsoft Office installed. Now here's the catch. I've lost some of my fonts. The one I normally use is Tempus Sans ITC, but for some strange reason I don't have it in my MO or WLW font listings. GRRR! There's always some little annoying thing that happens when you have to reformat your computer. Besides that minor thing though I do believe it went well. I didn't really lose anything of importance cause all of my important photos are uploaded at Flickr and my poetry was already saved to floppy disk. I now plan to spend the next few hours trying to figure out what happened to those fonts and installing the rest of my software programs.

 

Later

Monday and Tuesday

Monday began for me with my friend, T, calling me while I was getting ready for work. She advised me to sit down and not be alarmed, but wanted me to know that she had heard that either the high school (where my son goes) or the middle school was on lockdown due to the threat of a gun in some student's locker. Okay, how am I not supposed to be alarmed?! I did go on into work and had my stomach in a turmoil until about 4:30 PM when I went on break. I called home and relievingly heard my son's voice tell me that it wasn't the high school that had the threat. It was the middle school. I could relax then. Work went by much better after hearing his voice. I had already heard bits and pieces of a school shooting in Pennsylvania, but didn't know all the details. Every day due to this world of evil people I send my son to school with the horrible thought in the back of my mind, "Is this the last time I will see him?". It sickens me that people have become so evil that they can just take the lives of innocent children (or anyone for that matter) without a care or thought. Lives shattered because someone was insane. Horrible.

Tuesday began with me rising at 11:30 AM and getting ready. Wyrm and I didn't go in today due to dr. appointments (therapist and podiatrist). As I was waiting on the hubby I found out from Mom more details of the incident at the middle school. Apparently a note laying on the floor was discovered by someone. The note stated that there was a gun in a locker. Naturally they had to take it seriously and take the necessary precautions. No gun was found. Mom also told me more details about the Amish school shooting and that more of the children had died. My heart goes out to the parents.

Wyrm and I left for my therapist appointment which was at 1:00 PM. I'm really getting tired of therapy and everything really. I honestly feel that there is no hope for me. Those moods have been coming on for some time now and usually there is no stopping them. I'm in debt up to my neck. Yes, it's totally my fault and I suppose I have a shopping addiction problem. No worries though (insert sarcasm here). With creditors calling constantly and the cards maxed and accounts closed, I can't spend anymore, and I'm already spazzing from withdrawals. I'm in desperate need of some kind of help, and yes, I am getting it. I need a good swift kick in my butt. Anyone want to stand in line?

After therapy was my podiatrist visit. I received good news with him. He is releasing me. My heel pain is totally gone, but I still have some tenderness in my ankle and Achilles tendon. With just that he said there was no reason for me to see him anymore. With the inserts and wrapping my ankle, I would slowly heal and I didn't need to come back unless the pain became worse. Yay! I'm done with this dr.

I have other things going on in my life right now, but won't go into details. I'm having one of those times in your life when you get up you just have to ask, "What else could possibly happen now". It's a rut, mind you a deep one, but a rut that I will pull myself out of. In the meantime, I plan to enjoy the rest of the week using up what's left of my vacation time. I may do a little revamping around here, who knows.

Later

Sunday

Finally! The weekend has arrived where I can sit down, relax, and unwind from the stress of the week. The weather has been enjoyably pleasant today. Perfect for gallivanting around which is what Wyrm and I did if you can call grocery shopping gallivanting.

Earlier this week I regrettably opened an e-greeting that I believed to be from someone I knew. Instead it was a horrible virus that has been an absolute pain with my computer. The hubby looked at it and seems to think reformatting the hard drive would be the best way to go. I don't have anything of major importance saved on my computer, but it is just annoying to have to install everything again. Why someone loves to come up with these things I will never know. I'll probably spend the rest of the evening gathering up my operating system disc, drivers, and such to have ready later this week. We will be using up the last of our vacation time this week, and Wyrm said that he would work on it then. In the meantime what I do on the net is limited until we can get things cleared up.

Later