spoken for

taking flight

Val — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:25:50 +0000

I lost this whole post last night, so let’s see if we can’t try again, shall we? Yesterday was a bad day for me and so I finally just had to chill out so I thought I’d sit down and do some scrapbooking. Here’s what I came up with:

and

Both are using templates that I absolutely love. The first is a template by Digitreats and the second by Scrapmatters. Normally I try not to use a template but the first did exactly what I wanted and the second is actually for a challenge.

Both layouts are also using stuff from the same kit: Take Flight, the May 2008 kit from Songbird Avenue. I adore this kit! I’d wanted to purchase from Songbird Avenue before but this was the first time I actually did it (not sure why not before). The kits are these collaborative (using the talents of several designers) and the coolest thing is that every penny (besides PayPal fees) goes to charity. This month it’s the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. But if you like the kit you only have until the end of May to get it!

So, yup, there ya go. Two layouts and I haven’t even gotten to use all the elements or my favorite paper yet. :)

In other news, some of my frustration from yesterday has melted away. I am still not happy with my web host right now, though, but I guess we’ll see how things go from here on out. Now, there are other things to attend to…

frustration

Val — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:04:15 +0000

I am extremely extremely frustrated today.

So, everyone, please join me. I need a good scream!

AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm… sadly that doesn’t make me feel any better…

night out

Val — Sun, 04 May 2008 13:45:34 +0000

Last night I went out with my friend C. She’s an awesome friend I know from college but we only get to see each other a couple of times a year. So we’d planned this for a couple of months, haha.

First it was to Applebee’s for dinner. I love Applebee’s. We had some good drinks, some good appetizers, and some good food. We weren’t able to finish it all! We ended there earlier than planned so from there, like the old fogies we are, we went to Wal-mart. Yes, I hate Wal-mart and I rarely go there anymore but, dang it, if I didn’t buy some toilet paper soon, we were going to be screwed at my house!

Then to the movie. The one we really wanted to go see together was The Other Boleyn Girl but that’s neither in mainstream theaters anymore (at least here) nor in the cheaper “expired” movies theater. So C picked Made of Honor because apparently, she loves Patrick Dempsey. Seeing the commercials for this movie, it’s not necessarily one I’d have wanted to see, but I rather enjoyed it. We had a lot of fun. Both of us decided it was predictable, but still pretty good.

From there, home, because, yes, we’re old and have to get to bed early. :P That and I had to get up at 6 this morning. But it was really nice having a night out and away even if it was “just” dinner and a movie. We’re watching that cheaper theater, hoping The Other Boleyn Girl will show up there soon.

dilemma

Val — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:57:34 +0000

Yup, me internet be working again! My great sister-in-law gave me her gateway since they don’t have high speed internet where she’s moved and guess what? Yup, it works perfectly! No more constant disconnecting and the wireless light is actually green, hehe. So I guess what ATT’s gateway “expert” told me was wrong, I was right all along! :P

So anyway, I’ve got this dilemma. Basically.

May 10th is supposed to be my first craft fair of the year but it’s also a day Steve will have to work, the college graduation ceremony for my sister-in-law (60 miles south of me), and the college graduation ceremony for my sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law (40 miles north of me). Someone else invited me to do something, too, but I’ve already, obviously, had to decline that! I was registered for the fair first, I did that probably in January, secondly invited to the first graduation, and thirdly to the second graduation with pizza and cake following. Chances are, the first graduation will take longer than the second and with Steve working, I have neither help with dealing with Elijah during a ceremony nor help with the fair. Since he wouldn’t be there should I do the fair, I also would have to borrow my parents’ trailer and drive that alone (I can’t get everything for an outdoor fair into the Jeep); normally we’d take the Jeep and his pickup and that would be fine. I would also be completely alone because I’m not going to ask Sarah (my usual helper) to miss the first graduation, that of her sister. So I’d also be dealing with Elijah myself and he’s not usually a happy camper at fairs unless he’s being walked around constantly or allowed to run free which can’t happen when I’m by myself.

So, what to do?

Steve acts like I have paid for the fair therefore I should do it. But then again, I have no help. I can drive the trailer, it’s the parking and the backing up and such that I don’t think I can do. I’ve practiced a bit backing up - last year - and I just wasn’t good enough then. Since then we’ve not even had the trailer, it’s currently 40 miles away, so I’d also have to go get it and I don’t have much of any time to practice between now and the 10th.

~~Maybe I’ll call my friend that does jewelry and if she’s not already registered for the fair, maybe she’ll want to take my spot… I guess they would allow that?~~ Back to square one here, I called and that won’t be allowed because I’m already close to someone who will be selling jewelry and they don’t want to put competitors close together. I understand that, but it means I’m back to no solutions.

Bah.

Fishing with Daddy

Val — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:32:49 +0000

The last time the boys went fishing, I was out of town. This time, we all went. Just for a few minutes the other day after dinner, before it got dark.

I get the feeling this time around wasn’t as fun for Steve as the last time, he said Elijah behaved better last time, though I kept feeling like Elijah was relatively good. On the other hand, it also seemed like he wanted to show off for Mommy.

No sooner, however, had Steve first cast Elijah’s line for him when a fish jumped on it and I got my favorite photo of the evening:

He was so excited, haha. The rest of the time we were there only yielded two small bass, all three fish got thrown back. I had fun… up until the time I found out I’d been standing right over a snake the whole time. Then I was ready to go home. :P

I’d post some more photos but with my internet still acting up, it’s really taken a lot of the fun out of it for me. Can’t load my Flickr post bar in my admin here, for example, or even view different internet packages on ATT’s website. Stupid crap, really. I’m getting really tired of it. Think I’m going to go ahead and just buy another gateway to see if that helps since ATT is being so inept at helping me out…

the gods of the internet have decided I should play more Sims 2

Val — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:26:13 +0000

The god of the internet (Al Gore) is clearly letting me know he wants me off the internet, apparently. The other day, I noticed we had no dial tone with the home line, yet the DSL had always worked. ATT came out yesterday to fix the phone line. Something was wrong with the box down the street, the tech said. But my internet started to get flaky earlier in the day and it’s just been acting really weird.

For instance, maybe I’ll surf around the internet and get 5 good page loads but then suddenly it won’t want to go anywhere. Firefox (and yup, tried IE, same thing, both computers, too) will say loading, but it will never progress to the next page. It will never time out, either, just stay at the first page “loading” forever if you let it. Then I might click the link again or a third time and it might go immediately (or never). It rarely actually disconnects me, though while surfing around the internet wirelessly with the laptop, Windows tells me I’m only connected to the local network. How weird is that? Not to mention, I was trying to talk with some people on Gtalk last night and every time I’d send a message, it would go through but then disconnect me from Gtalk and immediately reconnect. Stupid stuff like that. Webforms are also freaking out. I found that when I submit something in a form, it will go through immediately but the page will just stay there “loading” and never progress to the next page.

Either way, it makes it very hard for me to get anything done. I have about a million things I have to do for people on their sites but my internet is just unreliable. I really don’t want to have to go to the library to do it, either.

I have reconfigured the gateway, reset it, left it and all computers off over night, done everything I can think of. I’ve talked to ATT support twice last night and they just keep saying that it’s not on their end that I’m getting a good strong signal. Despite my requests for them to please just reset the connection (like they’ve had to do before) on their end, to rule that out, they refuse to do it. So now I’m supposedly supposed to record the time everything gives me problems. Um, okay, how about constantly??? Oh, and did I mention that the wireless light on the gateway is always out? Maybe whatever lights it up died, ’cause I can get on wirelessly, though with all the same problems.

So we’ll see if this even posts, as I haven’t been able to load my main page of this site for about 10 minutes even though my server is fine. (Well lookie there, as soon as I press publish, the tab with my main site immediately loads but then the page with the post is still sitting there… “loading.”)

So, yes, not only do the gods of the internet not want me to get any work done but they also think I should apparently play the Sims in my free time rather than mess around on the internet… since I have been wanting to play lately, but haven’t found the time. :P