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http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/31/zune.player.failures/index.html

Merry Little Christmas

Hank, Rocky, and Lucky. This photo was fairly difficult to pose.

Me, Rocky, and Henry on Christmas Eve. Getting ready to open presents!Christmas morning it had dumped two feet of snow! Henry enjoyed it.

It's (finally) beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Today is the last day of work before Christmas!!! Tonight I'm going to my friend's house for Hanukkah dinner. Tomorrow Henry is driving up for Christmas Eve celebrations. Then on Christmas morning we will drive back down to celebrate with his family. Last night I made cookies and brought them to work this morning for my coworkers. Here is the recipe:

Peanut Butter Oatmeal No Bake Cookies

10 minutes prep.
Makes 12 cookies. (I find that it makes more than 12 - around 18 or so)

3 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
5 tablespoons peanut butter (reduced fat works great)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups brown sugar
½ cup milk (non-fat works great)
¼ cup butter

1. Mix together the first three ingredients. Set aside.
2. Stir together sugar, milk, and butter in medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat stirring occasionally – full boil for one minute.
3. Immediately pour over oatmeal mixture and stir thoroughly but rapidly.
4. Spoon cookie size scoops (heaping tablespoon) onto waxed paper or plastic wrap and let set until firm (refrigerate if in a hurry).

Woke up yesterday morning to see that we had finally gotten a proper "dump." My car had about a foot of snow on it.

With flash:

Without flash:I made my bed up all nice and lined up my stuffed animals. Then Rocky jumped up there and squeezed himself in between two of them. He's such a snuggle bug!
Me and Rocky wearing our gay apparel:

Snowy View from Timmerman Hill

Christmas Cards

Below are some Christmas cards I made this weekend. I'm not quite finished yet. Click to enlarge.

ADD(epression)

Can't focus, stuff sucks. Don't even really feel like writing about it. Three characteristics of my life right now:
1. Numb
2. Distracted
3. Going through the motions

This week has been especially difficult (what do you mean, it's only Tuesday?! -oops, it's actually Wednesday). Getting up and going in the morning is a struggle. I feel sore and unrested. Work goes by in an unproductive blur. I get home with the desire to be creative, but I feel like I haven't slept in years, and I end up spacing out and/or watching TV until way past my bedtime, which doesn't make any sense.

I tried to do some scrap booking last night, but I was disorganized and uninspired. I ended up making one mediocre page, which I will probably completely redo.

After that pathetic effort, I ended up just watching several episodes of Lost, which keeps getting stranger and stranger. The plot is thickening, as my Dad would say. I'm on episode 21 or 22 of season 2. Check out Hulu.com. It's great for catching up on old (and not-so-old) episodes of your favorite TV show.

Rocky is very agitated by the guinea pigs. I think he wants to sniff them and chase them, but they also scare him. Every little noise they make causes him to run to their cage and whine and look at me as if to ask "What in God's name ARE these creatures?!" I eventually had to put him in his crate last night because he was just too upset by them to relax.

It's already 11:30, and I've accomplished nothing today. Now I guess I'll go force myself to work out.

Christmas Photos

Henry, Rocky and I took the tripod to the Snake River Canyon visitors' center and took some photos to put in our Christmas cards. Here is a sneak peak:

We are major dorks. Henry got these matching hats for us at some promotion at his work. He's Bud, I'm Bud Light.

This is my favorite. Henry's making a weird face, but otherwise it turned out well.

Henry and Rocky love each other. I think this is a very good picture of the pair.

I love Rocky! He adds so much joy to my life.

More fun with Rocky

Rocky meets my friend's dog, Bear.
Bear is lots of fun!!!

Rocky does not know what he's supposed to do with the ball. Bear, on the other hand, knows exactly what to do with the ball. This is how big Rocky is compared to a Coke. He weighs 9 pounds. Cozy new blanket; only cost $3.50! Rocky took a liking to Henry as soon as they met. Henry was sweet enough to get up early and go with me to the animal shelter and offer moral support.

Meet Rocky!

Meet the new addition to my family! Rocky is a chihuahua/shiba inu. I rescued him from an animal shelter in a nearby county. He's a great little guy! Gets along with everyone, is happy-go-lucky, walks well on the leash, and snuggles with me in my bed.

Yes We Did!!!

It's been two days now, and I still get excited and choked up all at once every time I think of it. I had completely lost faith in our government and country. I figured things were just going to go from pretty bad to a lot worse. Two nights ago, America proved me wrong. There is still hope, and there are a lot more Americans than I thought there were who believe in that hope and are ready to fight for it. Wow! Now I'm actually looking forward to the future of our country.

Happy Halloween!

I don't know what "our mission" is, but it's important!

We voted!

The non-losers at work who actually dressed up:

Henry and me ready to go out on the town:

Pigtures of my piglets

ETA: I will have to find the original photos and put them back in - I went through my flickr account and deleted a bunch of photos, because they only give you a limited amount of storage space.

This is Ginger. I rarely get decent pictures of her, so I'm posting two. I think she is the exact size and shape of a baked potato:

Ginger in her hay/litter box. She poops while she eats, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone:

Freddie hiding in his pigloo. I love how he looks all soft and puffy when he's relaxing:

Halloween Party

This weekend we went to Henry's friend's Halloween Party. The theme was Evil Hospital. Henry's friend is very creative and artistic. He is like the emo male version of Martha Stewart. So the house was decorated fantastically and the food was amazing.

I was Bat Girl, and Henry was the Joker from the beginning of the Dark Knight during the bank robbery scene.

It's getting to be that time of year!

Taken on Guemes Island, Washington some years ago...

Taken in Moscow, ID, even more years ago!

Dirt Coffee and Belevolent Universe

The coffee here tastes like dirt. Doesn't matter if you get it from the cheap hotel continental breakfast or Starbucks. I think it's the West Virginia water. Cloudy and rainy again this morning. I'm hoping that we will get a chance to travel to Morgantown, which is a college town and may have some souveniers that I can bring back to the girls in the Hailey office. Last night, a coworker and I listened to a teleseminar from some inspirational "Harmonic Wealth" speaker named James Ray. My coworker is very excited about this guy, so I thought I'd see what it was all about. It was interesting, but didn't blow me out of the water, as it is based on the premise that we exist in a benevolent universe. I don't believe the universe has any consciousness with which to be belevolent. The universe doesn't think, feel, or care. It just exists.

Country road, take me home

In West Virginia yet again for work. We watched lightening and fireflies as we drove down from Pittsburgh. Woke up to a thunderstorm, and I realized we never have thunderstorms in the morning in Idaho. Molly Hatchet was on our plane from Salt Lake City to Atlanta. They all had grey, fluffy eighties hair. The bass player sat in front of me, and I eavesdropped on the stories he was telling. My coworker exempted me from attending this morning's conference call/meeting because I kept falling alseep at yesterday's and I think he didn't want me to make an even worse impression on our client. What can I say? It's two hours earlier here, I have ADD, and the meetings are freaking boring! I'm just relieved because this meeting is the most boring one they have.

I've done pretty well with the Biggest Loser. I've lost 13 pounds since I started, and am feeling a lot better about myself. At one point, I thought I might even have a chance to win the whole competition, but I'm thinking it's unlikely, as there are people who have more weight to lose, such as new mothers, for example. It doesn't matter much to me though, because losing this weight and becoming more active are worth way more than any money.

Piggies

Freddie recovered beautifully from his surgery. The only drawback is that he is less trusting of me. I guess I understand. He and Ginger are now living together and loving it! They don't snuggle with each other, but they definitely interact. I think they are still getting used to living together. But they have stopped chewing on the bars of their cage and have quit crying/wheeking desparately all the time. When I first put them together, I didn't hear a peep out of them (except for the little gurgles and grunts they make to each other) for a week, and then they started the usual wheeking at dinner time and when they hear food noises, but no wheeking of lonliness/boredom. They are popcorning a lot more, and doing a ton of running and chasing aroung the cage.

I added a ramp from the bottom cage to the top cage, so now they have more space and things to do. They love going up and down the ramp, and enjoy lazing about in their cozy "basement."

What a loser

Joined a "Biggest Loser" competition at work. It started today. I never really watched the show on TV, so I'm not entirely sure how it works, but I decided this would be a good opportunity to try to loose some weight with the support of a group of people, as well as the expertise of our team captain who has personal training and nutrition kowledge. We were weighed for the first time this morning, and I was aghast to see the number 153 pop up. I'm even heavier than I thought! I don't want this to be a big obsession or pain in the butt, but I do hope I can make some positive changes in my lifestyle and some negative changes on the scale.

Here is my "Before" picture (what I look like now):

Frustration

I'm having a frustrating morning:

7:30 am Hair looks like a retarded toupee

7:45 am Cute outfit makes me look like a confused fat old person trying,
unsuccessfully, to recapture her youth

8:00 am Late for work

9:00 am Removed because I probably shouldn't blog about work, especially while at work

9:30 am Removed because I probably shouldn't blog about work, especially while at work

10:00 am Fire alarm at work keeps going off, completely destroying my
already tenuous concentration

10:23 am More to surely follow

Freddie is at the vet as I type. He now weighs 702 grams and is big enough to have his neutering surgery. I've been worrying about him all day. It will be really great once he's all healed up when he can live with his sister again. They have been so lonely, and I think the really enjoy each other's company. It will take one month for all the sperm to lose there viability after the surgery though, so we still have a way to go. I just hope he heals up with no complications.

Mom with Freddie

Henry is coming over tonight and we will celebrate our one year anniversary of dating, which was yesterday. We are going to the new sushi place (we love sushi) that just opened up across the street from our favorite bar, the Hailey Hotel. We'll head on over there afterwards and hang out for a bit. We enjoy the Hailey Hotel because it's been there for a long time (my Mom worked there when it was a restaurant), it has a relaxed ambience, it's not a young people "scene," and the bar tender knows us and is surly but nice. Yesterday, I had balloons and an embarrassingly silly stuffed animal sent to Henry's work, to embarrass him and make him feel good at the same time. I know I embarrassed him, but I also hope that he was a little bit proud to be sent something at work.

Another exciting thing is that my Mom's brother and sister are coming to visit this weekend. It's been a really long time since any family has visited. We're kindof out of the way and a grouchy family in general. Anyway, they will be here tonight, so Henry will get to meet them and vice versa. It should be a lot of fun. My Mom always really enjoys herself with those two.

Subaru Ad

So, a photo of me with my Subaru is running in a Subaru ad in USA Today! An advertising person found the photo in my flickr account online and asked if she could use it. It's in a full-page ad with lots of pictures of people with their Subarus. Here is my picture:

Pig Update

April 8, 2008

What’s new? Well, the guinea pigs are driving me nuts! They squeak all the time and chew on the bars of their cages and I don’t know what they want. I think they are just lonely. They really don’t eat much. When I bring them their veggies, they’re almost indifferent. And I only add pellets to their bowls about once a week. There is never a visible dent in their hay, so I’m not sure if they just don’t like hay much, or if the kind I’ve given them is gross. Here is what they are like individually:

Ginger is finicky. She will only eat a select few types of vegetables. She won’t eat zucchini, peas, broccoli, red peppers, cucumber, or tomato. She never finishes everything I give her. She won’t drink out of her water bottle anymore, so I have to give her water in a little dish. I got her this adorable dish that looks like a radish, but she’s already tipped it over once. She wheeks ALL the time, until she gets hoarse, so her wheek sounds like a parrot complaining. I think she’s lonely, but she doesn’t seem very happy to see me when I try to give her attention. She can get really frisky, and she gallops and jumps all over her cage like a little bucking bronco making cute little yips and squeaks all the while. It’s adorable to watch. Sometimes when she seems really antsy and frustrated, she humps her stuffed animal! When I put her with Freddie during floor-time, under STRICT supervision, she follows him and flirts until he starts chasing her, and then she gets all bitey and runs away. She’s a total tease! She doesn’t seem to be getting very big, and I’m starting to think she’s probably not pregnant.

Freddie is getting HUGE! He’s already over a pound, and he gets cuter with every day. He has really dark soulful eyes. He’s quieter than Ginger, and much more laid back. He wheeks far less than she does. He’s very shy and reserved, but has a sweet nature. Whenever he gets anywhere near Ginger, he automatically starts purring/rumbling. I think he just has a huge crush on her. He drinks a lot of water, and eats more veggies than Ginger. He usually finishes what I give him, but he’s picky about cucumbers and broccoli too. I usually give him her leftovers. Even though he seems much sweeter than Ginger, he does bite me when I pick him up and carry him. I think it’s because he’s scared, and I hope he doesn’t keep it up as he matures.

I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with them. I was planning to get Freddie neutered so that he and Ginger could be together again, but the stories about neutering scare me, and it’s expensive. So then I thought maybe I could find someone to trade one of mine for one of theirs so that I’d have two girls or two boys. But there are no listings for guinea pigs anywhere in Idaho, and it would be difficult to find that ideal situation even if there were. So, now I can’t decide.

“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.”
-Jerome K Jerome

Amusing sentence from an article from an online news station:
"DeJesus confessed to stealing from an apartment inside a brownstone on East 13th Street in the Village and admitted he burblarized another home on East 11th."

Pigs!

March 25, 2008

So, one of my guinea pigs started rumblestrutting the other guinea pig, which means that she was doing a mating dance. They don’t have names yet, but I will call them Pinky and Ginger for the sake of this story. Ginger was doing some weird behavior like rubbing her butt on the ground, and then Pinky would come by and smell it like it was roses, and then she’d go over to Ginger and start making this really sweet rumbling-gurgling-purring noise and wiggling her butt back and forth (rumblestrutting). And she kept following Ginger and doing this dance and sniffing her butt. I thought it was kinda funny, as I’d heard that sometimes female guinea pigs do this with each other. The next day, when I saw that it was still going on, I decided I’d better have a look at their little privates just to be sure they are both girls. I looked, which was difficult because they scrabble around a lot, and they looked pretty much the same, so I was satisfied. As the behavior got more aggressive, I decided to look online at pictures of boys and girls just to be absolutely sure. And sure enough, if you look reallllly close, Pinky has a little tiny penis. So, I panicked and quickly built a second cage and stuck Ginger in there. As soon as I separated them, they started wheeking loudly and have been very upset ever since. I talked to Henry about it, and we decided that we need to get Pinky neutered so that they can be together again, because they miss each other and hate to be alone. If Ginger turns out to be pregnant, we’ll deal with that hurdle when we come to it. So I called an exotics vet in Twin Falls, and he said that we would have to wait to neuter Pinky until he’s three months old. Now, I’m just not sure what to do with them until then, because they are both very lonely and upset, but I certainly can’t put them back together until after he’s neutered. And then of course there’s the pregnancy issue to deal with as well, if Ginger turns out to be pregnant. I don’t want to get them same-sex friends to keep them company, because who knows how many babies Ginger could have if she’s pregnant? Two pigs are really all I have space for at the moment.

Trying to keep it from falling apart

2/28/08
“It all starts with letting things be. Understanding that all bad in your life has the possibility to bear a positive outcome. Taking a step back from everyday stress and worries, taking in a deep breath, looking around at where you are, exhaling and realizing that this is life. It's beautiful at all times.” Response I got from a blogger when I asked him how he’d found the peace he was proclaiming in his post.

It all makes sense, but at the same time, it’s pretty vague and not really instructive. Still, it does help just to have someone tell you things like that from time to time.

I put away all my clothes last night (a major feat for me), and found that I don’t actually have room for all of them. So, I’m going to have to sort through everything and get rid of some stuff. I have trouble parting with things, because it’s difficult for me to get through the thought process of whether or not I will need it in the future. I can never firmly decide. I also cleaned out a corner of my room that’s been festering with random debris for probably a year. So my room feels a lot nicer.

Why do writers of documents intentionally leave a page blank, and then tell us about it?

2/22-2/25/08

2/22/08
Well, it's starting to dump pretty hard here. I hope it stops so the roads will be good after work. I chatted with Yuka online a little bit this morning. She taught me some Japanese words and said she wants me to come visit Japan. She said, "I hope my English is more perfect when I see you!" When I think of how long I've been trying to speak Spanish, with few results, I'm totally impressed with her grasp of the English language. Yuka is a 27 year old girl from Japan whom I met through a co-worker. She visited here and saw snow for the first time, and we took her sledding, which she loved. She did a lot of giggling and screaming, and was just all around adorable.

I found out last night that my friend Bridgette, who's from New Zealand, is now a flight attendant in Dubai. She gets to wear this amazing foreign looking uniform, and she looks gorgeous. She gets to travel all over the world, and it sounds like she's having a blast. I'm jealous of her, because she's always adventuring and traveling and she just makes it work, even if she has no money, while I sit in a rut of my own making.

I looked a little cabin for rent yesterday, and it was cute, but just too small. The whole thing was about the size of my bedroom, and that includes the bathroom and kitchen area. It was so disappointing to have to say no. There went the daydreams that kept me afloat yesterday.

Last night I made a mix for Jon and Kevin (co-workers) to take with them on their trip to West Virginia, but I didn’t give it to them. It wasn’t up to par, and it would just be weird, anyways, since I have no idea what their musical tastes are and it’s not like we’re all that close. It had potential, though, and as soon as I organize all my music, I’ll fine-tune and finish it.

I’ve predictably got cabin fever. I want change – a new house, a new dog, a vacation, an adventure. I’m dreaming about going to Mystic Hot Springs and Bryce Canyon in one trip for my birthday. I’d love to show Henry (current boyfriend) some of the amazing landmarks of the west.

2/25/08
This weekend was pretty fun. I finally cajoled Henry into going to Miracle Hot Spring with me. It was nice except for the fact that we could hear ecstatic moans coming from the tub next door. We did a lot of silent giggling. Miracle Hot Spring several years ago:

Miracle Hot Spring has alligators:
We also had awesome sushi, did a lot of shopping, and played a lot of Rock Band. Things seem to be going well. I’m still not entirely sure where things are going though, if anywhere. Last weekend seemed to be a breakthrough of sorts, because we really started talking, and I felt like we were connecting again.

I was sick on Sunday, even though I didn’t really drink a whole lot the night before. I’m not quite sure what happened there. I was pretty much fine until 6:00 in the evening. Then I got all nauseous and faint and shaky.