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Didn’t feel like we had much of a summer this year. The first part was cold and damp, the next part was way too hot and overly-humid, and then as soon as Labor Day happened, we ended up in Fall. Bleh.

Could be worse, I suppose. My friends in Denver woke up to snow the other day and that’s just wrong.

Right now, it’s 62 degrees in my house and my hands are cold. My feet, too, but I’m too lazy to go unearth my slippers from the depths of my closet. I should turn the heat on, but I’m resisting! Every day I resist turning the heat on means a potentially lower utility bill! RESIST!

I wonder what Squeaky Fromme will do now that she’s ‘free.’ Apparently she was granted parole for good conduct or whatever the hell they call it, but the AP rundown of her prison career doesn’t read like that of a model inmate. Weirdness.

All that Manson Family stuff happened six years before I was born, but I have always found the story fascinating. That kind of killing is always fascinating in a morbid way, but the circus that surrounded it all is where my attention has always gone. From the protests outside the courtroom to the protests INSIDE the courtroom, all of that is just so amazing to me.


Especially now, where the news cycle is soooo short - I wonder how it would have all played out had it happened in 2009 and not 1969. We would have had live feeds from Sharon Tate’s house, leaked cell-phone images of the crime scene, up-to-the-second Twitter feeds, the whole mess. Would that make it more or less horrible?

1. Listening to Thriller. I revisited it as a tribute to Michael Jackson and I am amazed at how well it holds up. Amazed. It’s excellent music for cleaning the house, too.

2. Not writing blog posts (duh). I have come to the realization that although my life isn’t boring to live, once I start writing stuff down… whoa. BORING. It’s boring as hell to write about, so I can only imagine it is at least twice as boring to read about. However…

3. Gardening! Well, not so much gardening as much as ’sticking seeds in the ground to see what happens.’ The lettuce was pulled out weeks ago because it bolted a lot faster than I expected it too. Oh well. The scallions are just hanging on, so we’re about at the end of that. I planted peppers, which are… slackers. I’m not sure how well they’re going to do. But the tomatoes… oh the tomatoes. We’re going to have a lot. 38 plants and they’re all THRIVING. I also have cucumbers. I’ve never grown them, so I am not familiar with how they grow but… I have a few that are as big around as my daughter’s entire body but they’re only about 4 inches long. Weird.

4. Beer. Our first batch of homebrew came out AMAZING. So the second batch was brewed last Thursday and we’re hoping our beginner’s luck holds out for that. We have decided that we need a boiler for outside though, because the house was stinky for four entire days. This will also help when the tomatoes arrive, because the thought of canning tomatoes in my sweat lodge of a kitchen makes me want to cry.

5. Potty-training. Jillian is getting the hang of peeing, and the pooping is coming along as well. I can’t get her to dress/undress herself yet - she is content to let me do it. Hmm. Still, not having to change diapers except for naptime/bedtime is a wonderful thing.

6. Knitting. I’m working on Preppy Sock #2, which is almost done. I turned the heel the other day and now it’s just a matter of getting to the end. I started this pair way back in March, so it’s about time. Then I can move on to something else, like…. more socks. Actually, I’m going to knit a new sweater for Jillian who refuses to stop growing and has outgrown the one I made for her two years ago.

7. Party planning. Jillian’s 3rd birthday is at the end of this month. I am gobsmacked that she’s already three! In one sense, it feels like she just got here, but in another, it’s getting difficult to remember what life was like without her. She’s talking (constantly) and growing (constantly) and learning stuff and just being delightful.

8. Working out. Because $40/hour for a personal trainer is a bit expensive, we have acquired a lot of the tools I was using at the gym and can work out at home. We have BodyBars, medicine balls, resistance bands, and sometime in the next week or so, we’ll have dumbbells. I also have a treadmill and a stability ball, so there is no excuse at all, ever, for me to not be working out. I worked out in the backyard with Freddie on Saturday and I’m pleased to note that 2 days later, he is still hurting a bit. Story of my life - I know what I need to do… I just need to do it. I’m trying to build up my running stamina and I’m planning to start working with a swim coach…. and Freddie wants to buy me a bike because he thinks I’m going to be ready for a triathlon next year. Errrrrr….. I’m not so sure about that. There is one at Cedar Point that I would LOVE to go to, but I was thinking more along the lines of Freddie doing it. Turns out he thinks I should do it. I suppose it would be fitting. There are few places on Earth that I love the way I love Cedar Point.

9. Maybe getting a dog. We have been talking about getting a dog for awhile now, and we finally found a few that we like on Petfinder. The application process is interesting - it’s no wonder people just go out and buy dogs because it seems like there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get one through a rescue. It should be the other way around, i think. Still, we’ll see. The dog we’re interested in is a Border Collie/Whippet mix, which translates into HIGH ENERGY OMG! But I have a three-year-old, so they will match up well.

Sooooooooo….. that catastrophic data loss I had last week? Where my user profile appeared to be deleted and I proceeded to LOSE MY FREAKING MIND because I thought I’d lost all my music and pictures?

Apparently it didn’t actually happen.

After five full days of freaking right out and then restoring the data (twice!) and MANUALLY deleting 18,000 song files that were copied somehow by the restore, I finally felt confident enough to take the computer out of backup mode and re-start it.

So I held my breath, crossed my fingers, and hit ‘restart.’

Since I am superstitious and computer fuck-ups tend to make me a wee bit homicidal, I didn’t sit around to watch the beeping and booping and whirring and whatnot of the restart. I went into another room altogether to wait a few minutes. I might have prayed a little bit. Maybe.

I gathered up whatever remained of my wits and tiptoed cautiously back to the table.

And.

It was all back. ALL OF IT. My old desktop photo, all the crap bookmarks/shortcuts on the desktop… all of it. As if nothing had ever happened.

I am so confused. Grateful, sure. But confused as all get-out because WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED in the first place? I went through five full days of losing my shit for NO GOOD REASON? I like to at least have a reason when I lose my mind, you know?

SO confused. And now I’m going to constantly be worried that this will happen again. I know it’s not a tragedy, since I do have backup, but I don’t need this kind of anxiety! I create enough on my own, dammit!

This is only a test, I hope.

I woke up this morning and opened up the computer to find that it had somehow killed everything. EVERYTHING. Music? Gone. Photos? Gone. Everything, everything, everything, gone, gone, gone.

Any programs I’d installed were intact, which was weird, but any data/settings? GONE.

How does this happen? Nobody seems to know. I think Bill Gates got mad at me the other day for telling Windows Vista to shut up. I’m SORRY, okay?

This has created a weird space in my head. This weird space is occupied by the thought that I am incredibly thankful for Howard Stern. Why? Well.

Freddie enjoys the comedy stylings of Howard Stern. I don’t really understand this, since I find him boring and repetitive (not to mention puerile and lowest-common-denominator). So Freddie listens to Howard on the radio. And one of the companies that advertises on Howard’s radio show is for a PC backup service, of which we are customers.

So, when the thing is finished restoring everything I had lost this morning, we’ll see if we’re getting our money’s worth (we’re at 68% restored at the moment). And then I will not say anything derogatory about Howard Stern or his fans for at least a week.

The real test today is to see how well I keep it together. I have been hanging on to my sanity by a very fine thread for quite some time now, since things in my house insist upon requiring repair, which costs me money. It would be one thing if everything was broken at once, but it’s not like that. Something breaks, I get it fixed (because of course it’s a fix that is outside even my crafty MacGuyver skills), I pay for it, and then something else goes. This has been going on since October and I am pretty sure I’m close to my limit of being able to cope without being medicated.

This constant feeling of “NOW WHAT” is going to be the death of me. I’m trying to be all Zen or whatever happy-clappy coping bullshit, but it’s difficult. VERY difficult. I just keep breathing, keep moving, keep rolling. Four years ago, when I was Professionally Crazy, this would have been the end of me. But I know I’ll get through it if I just keep moving.

Drugs would be more efficient, of course, but I am becoming increasingly anti-pharmie in my old age. I don’t want to be That Girl who takes pills for everything because she can’t cope, can’t sleep, can’t get out of bed. I can do all of those things.

My internet service is not the greatest. It comes and goes, usually without reason or pattern. This is not a good thing.

It went out again today. Told me there was a problem with the DNS, and… the error message directed me to a website for more info. When I couldn’t access the internet. Well played, Microsoft Vista. Well played, indeed.

Shut UP, Microsoft Vista.

So… the internet was out and so was the phone (VoIP), which meant I had to not only locate, but use my cell phone. This is a challenge in many ways: once the phone is located, I have to hope it’s charged. Otherwise, I am tethered to the nearest plug while it charges. The Deafness factor does not help this, nor does the Toddler Factor.

Phone was found, was medium-charged, and because I’m stupid, I called the cable company and opted to allow it to walk me through the troubleshooting steps with the automated system. DON’T EVER TRY THIS if you cannot handle stupidity.

Eventually, I gave up trying to make the thing understand me when I said “continue” and I got a human on the phone. Who could not hear me because the phone was breaking up. I suppose this is what one can expect when one has a $7 cell phone.

I gave up. Had some lunch. Decided to give it another shot and here we are. But for how long?

As much as I love and adore my computer and my Imaginary Internet Friends who live inside it, I could probably be perfectly happy living without this shiny machine. But I don’t want to find out for sure.

Note to self - never go to Target in December.

I am thankful for my husband, my lovely and hilarious daughter, and for the fact that we are all healthy, have [more than] enough to eat, a house to live in and stuff to do. I am thankful that we have elected a President I can believe in, and I hope he will help turn us back in a more positive direction. I am thankful for my parents, who are slowly losing their minds and have therefore become extremely entertaining in recent years. I am thankful for my friends, of both the Real and Imaginary Internet variety, for providing me with entertainment, solidarity, information, and unwavering support. I am thankful for so many things. Happy Thanksgiving!

1. I am making cookies for my nearest and dearest for the holidays this year. To that end, I went to Costco today to get certain supplies in bulk. A 72-oz bag of chocolate chips is a very sexy thing. I have a list of about 15 different things I’m planning to make - we’ll see how many I get through before I am thoroughly sick of baking.

2. The sun seems to have gone on vacation. I am not amused.

3. WTF, HBO? You have the rights and releases to so many movies, yet you persist in showing the absolutely sub-par ones OVER AND OVER. Why not some mediocre movies once in a while? And what the hell is up with your On-Demand? It sucks almost as much as the regular channels do.

4. I am in the mood for sushi.

5. I have finally figured out knitting with double-pointed needles. Yeah, I know it’s not exactly a professional-level skill, but it was frustrating me to the point that I was perfectly happy making other stuff. Until I discovered mittens. Oh, the mittens. I am in love with knitting mittens. I am told they are the gateway project to socks, an addiction to which has affected many a knitter before me. I am reluctant to hit the socks, but… I do have some self-striping sock yarn in the stash, so maybe I’ll give them a try.

6. I need another bookcase. We rearranged the living room furniture when we re-acquired a second small bookcase, but now there is a giant pile of books that need a home and the remaining large bookcase just can’t hold them all. I suppose I could get rid of some books, but I did that when we moved and I just don’t think I can cull the herd any more.

7. I could really use a beer or seven.

8. Facebook cracks me up on a near-hourly basis. People from my past turn up in the most unexpected of places.

9. NaNoWriMo is a no-go again this year. Who picked November for this, anyway? The one month out of the year when I have crap to do - why not January when the weather is extra-shitty and nobody goes anywhere or does anything because they’re paying off their holiday debt (or not, as the case may be)?

10. Did you know that the producers of “The Brady Bunch” originally considered Gene Hackman for the role of Mr. Brady? Can you imagine what our world would be like if that had happened?

11. We haven’t talked about my boobs in awhile, have we? I had a whole post planned out about that very subject but I haven’t gotten around to writing it yet. It’s thrilling stuff, I tell you. But then again, it’s about my boobs, so why wouldn’t it be?

12. I have to start researching types of dogs since we’re thinking about getting one next spring.

Our laptop was officially ‘elderly’ the day after we bought it. Four years later, someone, whose name rhymes with Shmeddie Mack spilled orange soda on the keyboard, effectively incapacitating it. A USB keyboard was acquired and that worked surprisingly well (despite the fact that the theme to Sanford and Son played in my head every time I looked at it).

Until it didn’t. The laptop keyboard decided to be retarded and go ““~~~~“`~~~“~~~~ like a mad thing. So I did what any red-blooded American would do in an economic crisis both personal and national: I went to Best Buy and bought a new laptop.

It’s so shiny! And new! And shiny! And will give me a chance to start over with my Sims! My first priority, obviously, is getting all of my iTunes crap moved over successfully (we are not hopeful, not at all) and then all my words (my previous blog is still in Word document format - all two million words of blather), and then I can re-install all my Sims. Now, I know I could transfer my game files from the old ‘puter to the new one but I’m not going to. I would like a clean slate, and maybe, just maybe, I can create heterosexual Sims.

All my Sims are gay. I have no idea why this is, but it has always been the case.

So, new computer. Hooray! That means more and better website updates! See, I haven’t been neglecting you, my 5 loyal readers. Not at all! It’s just… the keyboard, right? And… well, the weather has been better so Jillian and I have been hanging around outside for more than 15 minutes at a time. And… well… I just don’t have much to say since everything is more or less hunky. And dory. One might say that it’s all just hunky-dory.