reading

A Potluck Entry

/ life

I have problems.

First one is that I like JoJo’s new song “Too Little Too Late.” Why is this a problem? Well, the thing is, I never liked JoJo. I have a problem when it sounds like there are 20 of the person singing (unless it’s Enya singing Anywhere Is—she can do whatever she wants!). And I thought most of her songs were popish and boring. But I LOVE “Too Little Too Late.” And on that note, I love “Fergielicious” or whatever it is, also.

Second one is that I don’t know how to contain myself when I am at the library. I was in the library for maybe 10–15 minutes today and came out with SIX items. Seriously, I just pluck them off the shelf, one by one. Plop, plop, plop. One of the items is the movie Mad Hot Ballroom, which I’ve wanted to see ever since I saw the preview on one of my other DVDs. Granted, I had a couple of things on reserve, but what about the others?

Third one is that if I read the back of one more teen novel that says “So and so is freaking out because she doesn’t have a date to the prom” I’m going to SCREAM! I guess part of it is that well, I like teen novels and I guess teens are really hung up on prom? I never was hung up on it, so I don’t know. I decided two days before mine to go, wore a borrowed dress, and my mom dropped me off. Needless to say, I did not have a date. Anyway, the best book I read about the prom was well, Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Fourth one is that I finished reading Impulse by Ellen Hopkins today on my lunchbreak and totally lost it right there at my desk. I had to go to the bathroom to compose myself. Thank you, Ellen, for being the author of the first book in 2007 to make me cry. Although I did come close with Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Weiss. But the point is that CRYING AT WORK IS NEVER COOL.

I think that’s all for now, as far as problems go. Now onto other stuff.

My jeans—my beautiful, expensive jeans that I cannot afford to replace—are not ruined after all!! Vigilant soaking and scrubbing took care of the *ahem* problem, and now they’re as good as new. Well, sort of. The point is that I can wear them again! YAY! Okay, I can wear them after I lose about five pounds, but the point is that I don’t have to mourn the loss of the only pair of expensive designer jeans I’m ever likely to own. And I CERTAINLY won’t mourn the loss of those five stupid pounds once they decide to leave me alone.

My laptop is working pristinely now. Got all that mean spyware off (there were no viruses) and now it’s no longer overheating and shutting off. It’s also running a lot faster than before. I’m still excited that I saved $130 because I have friends who are geeks smart. 😉

I found an awesome shortcut for my after-work commute. I take back roads—one of which conveniently lets me off right the library. I’ve managed to cut two minutes off of my commute by going the back way. Well, on days I don’t go to the library, anyway….

I NEED SOCKS. I have four pairs that don’t have holes in them. I love socks from Aeropostale, I do, but they’re cheap. I need some good socks, but cute ones. Once upon a time, I was able to buy L.E.I. socks at Meijer, but when I checked last night, there were none. Now I have to find a new place to find decently-made, cute socks. Any suggestions?

Also, I’m looking for a copy of Avril’s new one, “Girlfriend.” Such a bitchy song, but so much fun to sing. A little help, please?

It’s a bad thing when your electric heater falls and sounds like it’s going to break in March. The problem is that it’s almost impossible to get a replacement. The stores have replaced their heaters with grilling equipment, even though it’s still winter outside. Thank goodness for places like Home Depot. They seem to have heaters all the time.

Did you know that it’s National Sleep Week or something of that nature? And here I was going to feel guilty for wanting to take a nap all evening when I got home. But it turns out—well, sleeping is ENCOURAGED this week! How awesome!

If you are in the mood for some BIZARRE humor, watch The Fuccons: http://www.thefuccons.com

And finally, here is a way to get money while shopping and possibly save money too. Ebates is this cool site that gives you cash back if you use them as a portal of sorts for shopping. In addition, they have TONS of coupons you can use. And the stores are not wimpy. For example, you can get 4% cash back from Barnes and Noble. There are rebates for shopping at amazon.com as well. You also get cashback if you book travel from United or Expedia. Basically, just do your regular online shopping, but you get money back if you go through Ebates. Awesome, huh? If you want to sign up, use this link: http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?id=32695696 Once you make a purchase, we both get $5!

Holy cow, Ellen Hopkins just commented on my MySpace. *swoooooon* I love authors. Can’t wait ’til I’m one someday.

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Sunday Afternoon Randomness

/ books, life

My friend crimsonghost_oh visited me for the weekend. It was fun. I made him watch The Boondock Saints, and now he wants to go buy it. YESSSS, another convert! 🙂

My laptop is home from the doctor. The Geek Squad said they’d need $130 to do an “XP Reimage” because it had spyware and viruses on it. As if I have $130 lying around to give them for something I can do myself?

I just finished The Geography of Girlhood by Kirsten Smith. There are blurbs all over the back of the book, and one of them is from Julia Stiles. My first thought: How in the FRESH HELL did a first-time novelist get a blurb from JULIA STILES? Well, turned out that this author co-wrote some very famous screenplays—one of them being Ten Things I Hate About You, which if I am not mistaken, Julia Stiles played in, so yeah. Ha. Can you imagine, getting blurbed by an A-list actress? Well, she’s A-list in my eyes, anyway.

Speaking of writing, I entered that contest over at Gather.com, and I haven’t been back in two days to check my score or any comments. I kind of just want to forget about it now—if I obsess over it, I’ll be miserable and stressed. I’m proud I had the balls to enter, but now I just want to block it from my mind.

In the meantime, adamselzer‘s book is kicking butt in reviews. I saw it at the library the other day, and when I looked it up, the Columbus Libraries had 14 copies, 9 of which were checked out. Now, the library owns 16 copies. Go Adam! (If you can’t guess, I’m doing my favorite thing again—reserving books at the library! It’s like shopping, only FREE!)

Last week, I finally got through Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. I had a HARD time with it, only because it was very stressful to read. It felt like a continuous assault to me. Description, action, bang bang bang. I like fast-paced novels with strong voices, but this one was too much for me.

And now I am reading My Brother’s Keeper by Patricia McCormick, and Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares. After that, I will read Monster by Walter Dean Myers, and maybe I’ll try Envy by Robin Wasserman again. Actually, I might do Monster before the Sisterhood book because I’ve had that one longer.

Firefox updated itself on my computer and now none of my fun extensions and themes work. Let me tell you how annoying that is! As far as FF is concerned, my computer has no freakin’ clue. I can’t even import the bookmarks in another browser because the computer doesn’t know they’re there, although THEY ARE VERY CLEARLY IN FIREFOX. I don’t know what to do, I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled a million times, deleted directories and all that good stuff. It’s just a hot mess. Which is a shame because I love Firefox normally. Flock is okay, but the backward and forward arrows are just that. There are no drop-downs to get you to the other pages you visited. But all of my Firefox extensions are working in Flock so maybe I’ll just switch to that one, once I get all the bookmarks moved over somehow.

Tomorrow, I see Aidan for the first time in about 20 days. So weird, not seeing him for so long, although I did talk to him on the phone.

Here is a question I have: Why in the world would someone pay $249 for an 8 gig iPod nano, when one can get a 30 gig regular iPod for the same price? I mean, the logic should be obvious here, right? And yes, I am dreaming of a new iPod. Mine stays charged for about 20 minutes these days, IF I am lucky, and it’s not color nor does it play videos. I want a NEW one. I also want a MacBook Pro. Just because. I can’t afford any of these things, but I sure do want them. All because I love technology. Blah.

I have a coupon for a free panty from Victoria’s Secret. I’ll go on Tuesday to get that, yee-haw. I also have one for a free aromatherapy thing from Bath & Body Works, but of course, THEIRS is with purchase. Poopheads. But here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to buy a $2.50 bar of soap or something and then get my $13 value aromatherapy thing. I love their Cherry Blossom scent, so I’ll probably get a bar of the soap. Mmm. Soap.

I’m hungry, but I can’t decide if I want spaghetti, or a turkey sammich. I guess my stomach will decide for me before long.

Til next time!

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Potluck Like Whoa! :) (Video)

/ aidan, books, life, videos

First of all, you can send me Virtual Valentines using this nifty little guy:

My Valentinr - lilrongal
Get your own valentinr

I won’t see anything until Valentine’s Day, but I will know how many I’ve received. Neat, huh?

Second of all, it’s SATURDAY and Aidan slept until 10am. Unfortunately, he tends to wet the bed when he sleeps that late. Boo. “Don’t see it,” he commands, trying to cover the evidence. Sigh.

Last night, before we went to sleep, Aidan made a really loud fart sound with his mouth and yelled “MOMMY! YOU FARTED”! I’m sure the neighbors had a field day with that. For fifteen minutes, we made fart noises and yelled out “_____, YOU FARTED!” It was great.

I finally emptied my memory cards! One had 850 photos on it, the other had about 150 plus videos. Now they’re clean, and all the pictures and videos have been moved to CDs. YAY. I feel accomplished. Kind of. Plus, Time Warner came and got the old cable modem. All my bills are paid or accounted for, and I don’t have to go anywhere until Monday. I was getting collection calls, and I finally called the number back to see what the banana they were calling me for, and it turned out they were for the person who had the phone number before me. So now, I don’t get collection calls anymore. 🙂

I like having loose ends tied up.

Yesterday at work, we got called into an impromptu staff meeting at 1:30pm. There was no meeting–there was ice cream, cherries, chocolate sauce and other fixings so we could build our own sundaes! Plus, Cheryl & Co. delivered Valentine cookies. YAY for sweets! YAY for thwarting the 2:30pm slumps. Last Friday, there were two cakes and fruit. The cakes said “TGIF” on them.

Just now, Aidan was starting to get really fussy and kind of mean, and it finally dawned on me that the child needed lunch. Now he’s happily eating a chicken pot pie and watching Cars.

I got an email from an old college roommate whom I hadn’t heard from in YEARS. I also heard from one on MySpace not too long ago. It’s amazing when people come back, you know. Exciting, too.

It’s gonna get REALLY COLD here in a few days. Highs in the single digits. I’m getting the deep freeze I wanted, but it’s not fun while going through it. Looks like only a few days, though, so that’s good. Hopefully just enough to kill those mega-mosquitoes that were probably trying to breed when it was unseasonably warm last month.

I finished The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld yesterday during lunch. It was really good. A definite page-turner. I started on Sloth by Robin Wasserman, but I’m having a hard time getting into it. I also had a hard time with Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. Just renewed the Playlist one, will try it again a bit later.

Hmmm. What else? Oh yeah. Here is a link to the list of books I’ve read in 2007. It’ll be updated every time I finish a new book, so check back there often: [2007 Books]

And finally, a video demonstrationg Aidan’s smarts again.

more Check it out!

See ya!

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Sunday (Pictures)

/ books, life, pictures

Earlier, I was writing a LJ update on my laptop when it overheated and shut off. 🙁 I can’t wait to get the notebook fan I ordered from HiPoints. I’ve been a member of Harris Poll online for years, and I’d accumulated over 13,000 points. I wasn’t impressed with anything in the 10,000 point folio, so I decided to get several little things. So here’s what I ordered:

1. programmable wireless optical mouse
2. notebook fan thingy
3. 1-year subscription to Glamour magazine
4. cordless Dirt Devil vac

I love shopping when I don’t have to spend any money. They even cover shipping!

That also means getting packages in the mail over the next several weeks, so yay for that.

Spent the weekend with little Aidan. He’s so cute. He gets so wound up over the smallest things sometimes. He totally got that from his dad. 😉 Other than that, he’s hilarious. Some of the things he comes up with, I’m just amazed. And watching him fall asleep at night. It’s the most precious thing to see. I’m so lucky to have such a cuddly, beautiful little boy. 🙂

My Little Model Puppy Aidan!

He left about 10:30 this morning, and I immediately went back to bed, and read. Then I took a nap, and read some more. Today, I read Peeps by Scott Westerfeld. I loved it. I immediately went to the library website and put the sequel on reserve. And I added Peeps to my Reading Pleasure Wish List.

Then I read Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume. Believe it or not, I missed a LOT of Judy Blume books as I was growing up, but I’m making up for it now. Thank GOD for public libraries!

Friday, I watched High School Musical and LOVED it. It’s so fun, and Aidan had me watch the “We’re All In This Together” video over and over. He enjoyed it, too. I return it to Netflix tomorrow, just in time to cancel my free 2-week trial, but I added it to my wishlist in case someone wants to randomly buy me a present. LOL.

It’s COLD out. Temps in the teens. That’s frightening. I hope this doesn’t continue for too long. Looking forward to Spring already.

Weekends go too quickly. Another LONG work week ahead. Oh well. Such is life.

See ya.

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Books and Reading

/ books

Today, I read a book called Sold by Patricia McCormick. A novel about a girl sold into prostitution. It’s scary because it’s REAL. It’s a novel, but that kind of stuff really does happen. My mouth dropped at certain parts, I had to go back and reread parts to be sure I really was reading what I was reading. The horrors of that kind of life, all spelled out, emotionally in a free-verse novel.

It will haunt me.

Over the past week, I have read Cut by the same author, and Crank by Ellen Hopkins. In between that, I managed to fit in Specials by Scott Westerfeld. Yes, I’ve been busy, devouring books like I devour peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Cut is dramatic, a good look inside the mind of a cutter, and her slow recovery. Crank tells the story of a girl who got addicted to meth, in free verse (I love Hopkins’ free verse style), and Specials is the third book in the Uglies trilogy (Uglies, Pretties, Specials), books set hundreds of years in the future which deal with governmental control and brainwashing, surgery, mutilation, and rebellion. The Uglies trilogy is very intense and adventure-packed. Very little romance, and was hard for me to follow at times–the action was that fierce.

I have a huge stack of more books to tackle, but I think I’ll soak my feet for a while and watch High School Musical. ‘Til next time!

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