This week was crazy.
In between battling numerous website requests (which is my job by the way – I’m not complaining, just saying), and getting this elementary school website up and running, (which still needs some tweaking but honestly, what website doesn’t?) I haven’t had a lot of time to think outside my Dreamweaver box.
Things have quiet down for me, though, and I can breathe for the first time all week. I had some stomach pain two days out of this week and I’m wondering if I may have an ulcer? Or perhaps it was just stress? Who knows. I feel better now (now that the waters have calmed) and am ready to take on more projects (hinthint – you know who you are).
In short, my brain is scrambled. But this of course, will not keep me from blabbing nonsense at you, so here’s what’s on my mind:
I told the Write Anything writers they could take a week off in October so I could post a week-long “seminar”, if you will, about how-to write a novel. Now that the time has arrived, I have nothing. I haven’t even begun to PLAN for this week-long seminar. Swell. Chock this up to another one of my hare-brained ideas that sounded good at the time. I will, however, throw something together because I did promise – and I keep my promises.
I’m getting quite nervous about my contribution to the Chapter Seven project. We’re currently on chapter two. I believe I’m scheduled to write chapter six – in a science fiction story. ZOINK! Science fiction is NOT my bag and I hope my part doesn’t totally suck. We plan on posting this story in November on the Write Anything blog – I’ll post my chapter and the link to the full story when the time arrives. This, of course, would be another one of my hare-brained ideas.
I installed Carbonite.com on my computer four days ago. For those that don’t know about this nifty program:
Carbonite installs a small application on your computer that works quietly in the background looking for new and changed files that need to be backed up. It looks and feels just like part of your computer, and is integrated with your desktop — there’s no new interface for you to learn.
In essence, it continously backs up your computer whenever you change/update any of your files so that if your computer crashes, Carbonite will restore your data.
Sounds good on the surface, right? So, I downloaded the 15-day free trial and today, four days after installing the thing, it has finally backed up all of my files. Now granted, I had to pause the process several times because even though Carbonite works in the background and doesn’t really slow my computer process down, it does drag our internet connection down. And when you have three other people sucking bandwidth, it can get ugly.
I’m not sure if I’ll pay the $50 dollars annual fee required for a full membership yet – so far, I haven’t been that impressed, but it WOULD be nice to not have to worry about keeping hard copies around as much (you should always have hard copies anyway). We’ll see. My free trial is up in eleven days. If I don’t buy the full subscription, then Carbonite will just delete my files.
My husband’s toe is better. He didn’t go to the doctor (I knew he wouldn’t) and though it’s still not 100%, he can move it and the swelling has gone down. It still pains him to wear his dress shoes though and I think that’s just because they are too small. This man of mine is awfully stubborn and refuses to accept the fact that his body is changing as he gets older and that his feet are just wider than they used to be. I’ll most likely drag him to the shoe store this weekend for bigger, and more comfortable, shoes.
By the way, the slick horizontal lines you see throughout this post? You can do the same thing on your blog by inserting this code
Just a little code tip for you this Friday.
I am now actively on the prowl for 16 gifts for GD. His 16th birthday is coming up in November and I really want to give him 16 little gifts throughout his day to make it special for him. My mom did that for me on my 16th birthday and that is one of the few birthdays I can remember because it was so much fun! I have a few ideas: Microsoft points (he can cash those in to buy games for the XBox), Wii points (same thing), Mountain Dew (the boy is a Mt. Dew FREAK) … and that’s about it for now. Yeah, this is going to be tough. I don’t think this would have been so hard if he was a she – I mean, what girl wouldn’t want lip gloss and makeup? However, I’m lucky if GD combs his hair in the morning so grooming items? Would be a total wash. If you have any suggestions on what to buy a 16-year old hard-core gamer boy, trust me, I’m all ears.
I did stumble across some UBER cool cupcakes though:
Aren’t these sweet? (pun intended). Actually, MK might get a kick out of these more than GD since MK is OBSESSED with anything Mario. But wow, if I could find some edible gaming thing like this, I’d be in heaven! I wonder if she does Halo? And if she would SELL them to me??
(By the way, you MUST see her robot cupcakes – YOU MUST! GO NOW! Then come back, please. 🙂 )
I did not go to the husband’s company picnic yesterday. I know. I feel REALLY BAD about that. But I had an excuse (albeit flimsy at best) – MK had his saxophone lessons. And they were smack dab in the middle of the thing. Well, we could have gone before his lessons, but the kids had homework. So, if we had gone, it would have only been for about 30 minutes. We did end up dropping by as everyone was leaving, and I think that made the husband happy – but I still feel guilty that he was surrounded by co-workers and their families and we weren’t there.
It wasn’t a good wife moment.
But while at the music store, MK and I noticed they got a new saxophone in. He’s been on the prowl for a more sophisticated, BLACK sax. We priced the two shiny, black saxs they had in stock – holy mother of God – they are freaking expensive. And we’re not QUITE sure we can justify allowing a 13-year absent-minded kid to walk around with a $3,000 saxophone.
But they are cool, truly. And he’s proven to us he’s serious about playing sax; he’s been playing for a solid two years. And he plans on playing all through high school. (Which is another bone of contention – a $3,000 sax in marching band??)
He’s even hinted around that if that is all Santa brings him for Christmas, he’d be one happy boy.
*sigh* No pressure, Santa.
But last night, as we were leaving, we noticed they have a black matte saxophone – and WOWSIERS. That thing blinds you with its coolness. In fact, MK actually started salivating – I had to hand him a napkin. He wants it; he wants it BAD. And considering the boy is going to be playing his fingers off this year (band, jazz band, pep band, honors and competitions) it’s not like we would buy it and then it would sit around and collect dust.
Yes, I’m going to call today and see how much it’s going to cost. We have some equity built up in his old sax, and then there’s the book value of his old sax (which isn’t much, you know how that goes), but still, every little bit helps. And they have a 12-month no interest thing and we can probably pay it off in a year …
I don’t know. What would you do? Your child LOVES playing the saxophone. He’s scheduled to play A LOT in the coming months. He’s proven that he’s careful and responsible with the one he has now (though I don’t trust other kids and if anything happened to it we would totally press charges), and it’s the only thing he wants for Christmas.
To me, that says he’s serious.
Update: I just called the music store and we ran some numbers on the black matte sax – WOW. It’s the most expensive yet. The husband is not going for it. He says we don’t always get what we want. I agree with that, but it breaks me heart to have to deny MK this luxury. 😦
Write From Karen 