Archives for December 2012

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Tonight we say good bye to 2012! Good Bye and GOOD RIDDANCE.

Edmund and I are going to a house party where there will be gaming, glorious gaming! Our house guests are going to enjoy a night out on the town. And then we will come home to sweet, sweet sleep.

What are you doing? Something fun, I hope. Or, at the least, not depressing.

Have a safe and happy new year.

Catch you next year.

Busy with funtimes

Today we got up, had brunch, watched a couple movies, had dinner, and hung out. It was a good day.

So good I almost forgot to post.

And here is the thing. I am in a place where I am questioning my commitment to blog blag every day. Because I have nothing for ya. Except to say I have nothing for ya and the only reason I am writing this is because I made a pact with myself to blag every day.

How do you feel about that?

The only reason I keep on with it is because the discipline of blagging every day has allowed me to write some awesome posts. The ratio of awesome to not so awesome, however, is not great. A lot more not so awesome. I am trusting the awesome posts make up for the not so awesome posts. And hoping.

Tomorrow more hanging out with Mya and Trisha and My Mom. We’re going to the mall and then out to lunch. Then it’s NEW YEAR’S Eve festivites for all!

Yay! House Guest

My pal Trish is visiting again! And this time she brought her daughter, Mya.

We’re tight on space, so Mya is staying over at my Mom’s. Tomorrow we’re going to do brunch, see a movie and otherwise join in on some fun shenanigans.

About time for the pity party to exit stage left

Been thinking that it is about time for the pity party to end for me.

Not that I’m saying it’s wrong to be grieving or hurting, but I need to start being better about getting the things I want to get done done.

So no more weekend Angel marathons. I’ll keep them to one-day only. No more making Edmund do the laundry every time. I’ll start taking my turn.

Instead of just feeling overwhelmed and shutting down, I’m going to focus on getting something done.

This is doomed to fail, isn’t it?

When I recorded this week’s message from Lounging with LannaLee, I realized that some of the joy has gone out of my life. Now, we all know this is due in no small part to my father’s death and father-in-law’s terminal illness. But those things aside, I have a lot to feel good about. So I’m gonna. Dammit.

Bring On the gratitude

My next “thing” is to bring on the gratitude. So, going forward, I am going to focus on people and parts of my life for which I am grateful.

I won’t be sharing all of my gratitude. Some of it will be too personal. Some of it will be too boring.

Here is a start. I am grateful for:

  • My husband: who cleaned off my car this morning, and takes care of me in so many ways
  • My Mom: who nurtures everyone around her, and makes awesome food.
  • My brother Bill: who is a terrible tease with a big heart. And he drove most of the way back from Pennsylvania Wednesday morning so we could beat the storm.
  • Mom and Bill: for coming to Allentown, Pennsylvania with me and Edmund so we could be together with Ed’s family for Christmas.
  • Mom, Bill and Edmund: for making long-ass car trips fun.
  • Coffee. I am grateful for coffee
  • Being able to break the soda-every-day habit: If you asked me five years ago, I would say it’d never happen
  • Good friends: glad to be seeing my BFF Trish and her daughter Mya over this coming weekend
  • My kitties: for the cuddling. When they would deign to do so.
  • The Lounge: for the opportunity to speak with lots of cool people
  • Amazon Prime/Amazon.com: because I love books and music and movies and junk like that

That’s a good enough start.

Thursday Thursday

The kitty is stuck in my office with me. He meows to get out but I don’t care. He’ll get out when I’m good and ready. Or when he meows annoyingly enough to impel me to rise from my comfy office chair and walk over to the door and let him out.

Oh wait, he found something else annoying, tearing the papers on the floor.

And the meowing.

Watching Angel on the Roku. We got a new Roku for Christmas! Isn’t that keen?

Truth be told, Edmund got the Roku. I misappropriated it from him and installed it in my office. I feel a little bad about that.

So far: LOVING IT!

And I just started another episode of Angel. Probably shouldn’t have done that. But it so awesome!

We got a ton of snow last night here in Maine. I worked from home, so was successfully able to avoid going outside at all. Tomorrow, however, is a brand new day.

Home. Scrambling.

Home. Scrambling together a show for the Lounge. Less sick. On the actual computer.

We left Pennsylvania at 5:30 am this morning. My brother drove straight through NYC to Sturbridge MA, where we got some breakfast. Then Edmund drove straight through to the New Hampshire Liquor store. And then I took over to my Mom’s house.

Overall our trip was good. We were glad to see Edmund’s family and Dad. I did not visit too much with his Dad myself because I’ve had a pretty bad cold with a stuffy nose, fever and coughing. Oh my goodness the coughing. Feeling better now, my sides hurt from coughing so much, but coughing much less.

Ed’s Dad is doing okay. He’s home now, in hospice care, and there are some snags in the whole process. Fortunately, it looks like the hospice people are dropping by every day to help out.

It sucks to be so far away.

Now I’ve got to get a podcast together for tomorrow, I have an idea, but I am sooooo tired.

Yikes.

Argh!

I almost forgot to post on Christmas. Well, I did forget, but through the magic of the interwebs, I will get this post in at the last possible minute.

Merry Christmas. Santa was good. That is all.

Computer Vacation

Typing on my phone. I might just be on a computer vacation.

Brought it with us, my computer. It is still in my bag.

Instead I am coughing, napping and reading on my Kindle. On my third book today.

Back to reading. And napping.

Sick

Fell asleep and did not remember to post. Cheating now. Still Sunday somewhere.

We are in Allentown, Pennsylvania visiting Ed’s family for Christmas. I am sick, I have a cold. Grr.

Edmund’s Dad is not doing great. He is home now, under hospice care, and it’s a little rough going. A lot of kinks to work out.

Going back to sleep now.

Angel Dreams

First, some context: I work as a programmer analyst for a Market research firm. We do online surveys, hand-fill in surveys, focus groups, the whole shebang. Whenever we have a survey, it is my job to take the data and create crosstabs to the specification of our research analysts: they tell me what they want to analyze and I figure out how to show the survey results so they can do their analysis quickly and easily. To do this, I use two programs, SPSS and Wincross. I also make sure we don’t have duplicate respondents for our surveys or duplicate emails in our mailouts. It is very geeky stuff I do.

I dreamt of Angel last night. The Angel of the Buffy Universe. And I used my programmer analyst skills to help him fight demons.

This is what I typed out when I woke up right after the dream.

Was doing data tables for Angel, offering him a volumetric. Mailing lists important in an action adventure way, following it like a path, trail ensuring no dupes.

We were at the Hyperion Hotel, and we were pacing around. I was thinking that the mailing list we sent out was GREAT, it had no duplicates, and we’d get the answers we want. And then I was thinking “We need some volumetrics up in here!” I’m not even sure I understand volumetrics, mind; I know what buttons to push and what codes to put in there. But they’d help us fight those demons!

Place holder

Day was good. No feel like write. Here is duty blag post.

Good news: the world didn’t end. We have that going for us.

Infused with Xmas Spirit

Going shopping, people.

Braving the mall.

Send help.

Empathy Low

My empathy has been low of late. It’s still there, but if I activate my empathy, I become a bit too sad.

It hurts too much to feel for others, I’m having a hard enough time feeling for myself.

What with what is going on these days, the bad things I won’t (can’t) think about, I am focusing on the positive. The happy.

But it is so hard.

As a holiday, I love Christmas. The music, the hanging out with family, the crappy Christmas movies. But, obviously, with Dad gone, Christmastime is bittersweet.

Did you know my Dad had created a wall light switch so he could turn the Christmas lights on and off with a flick of the button? He also created a light switch for the Christmas lights for the tree.

I am glad my family is going to visit with Edmund’s parents for Christmas. Ed’s dad will be home from rehab, it will be nice to see everyone. I am exited to see them, but also a bit trepidatious.

To that end, I will continue to avoid negative or devastating news stories. They hurt too much and my empathy is needed at home.

Hey Look: I did some stuff.

Hey Look: I did some stuff.

Screenshot for Past shows on Lounging with LannaLeeIt’s on the other blog, Lounging with LannaLee. I’ve been wanting to do this FOR MONTHS and I finally just did it while planning out this week’s episode. It looks so simple, but let me tell you, it ain’t. Now I have the data in a spreadsheet that I can update at any time. Which will be good for the future. If I ever learn how to do things differently.

Anywho.

I am without a lounge for this week or next week. So I’ve decided to do a couple of end-of-year specials. This week will be Comedians, funny clips from previous shows plus a bonus short interview with Comedian Bob Marley. Next week I’m thinking inspiration from a few of the episodes.

Okay. Now I want to get caught up on correspondence. A bit. Later, people.

Monday is a Monday

Had a busy, busy Monday at work today. In fact, I am still here at 7:20 pm, writing up my blag post so I won’t have to log on my computer when I get home (It’s COLD in that office, I tell you. COLD).

For the most part it was a good kind of busy, except when I found an issue with the Data. I hope it’s because I’m missing something or other. That would be nice. An easy fix. My fingers are crossed.

I haven’t felt like blogging much lately. No new ideas. I suspect it’s because I’m all depressed and shit. Or something like that. Whatever.

Since I have a reason to be depressed, I am not inclined to see a shrink. We’ll see how that goes.

Regardless, I am keen on keeping up with my blagging every day practice. Even if I don’t feel like it. Which, if you read my blag, you can tell when I have nothing to say. Like now.

And here is the ubiquitous blog post where I talk about having nothing to say. So very meta.