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May 31st, 2009

(Sing to me)

April 12th, 2009

05:05 pm - I'm back! We all survived the vacation quite well, thankfully. Small Spawn only really had one meltdown, which was mostly solved by sending him upstairs to calm down. (My preferred method of coping) I told Mom that really, the best way to deal with Small Spawn was to treat him as a toddler -- he doesn't seem to have any of those filters that one accumulates growing up -- for instance, a gift that isn't what he wants will send him into tears and sulking. *sighs* Hopefully, as he grows up a bit more, he'll get those filters. But everything else was lovely. I made it up to the hot tub once (darn female things!) and the husband took the spawn out and about quite a bit. We watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua and The Tale of Desperaux last night, I was pleasantly surprised by BHC and impressed by ToD, so. The wireless access was...there, shall we say. Although if you tried to open up more than one window, you could almost hear the "...wait whut?" coming from your wireless modem, heh. However, I have tomorrow off (\o/) and plan an exciting day of cleaning out kitchen cabinets! Current Mood: full

(Sing to me)

April 10th, 2009

05:48 pm So I've survived the first day of the family vacation -- mostly by angling to never be in the same room with said family, heee. I haven't yet got up to the hot tub, I'm saving that for after dinner. Today was for watching Mamma Mia with my mom (singing along with all the songs), going on a two-hour excursion to the grocery store also with Mom (because she said "hey 'they' said they're building something over here maybe....wanna check it out?" We found a very upscale development.), and reading "Nancy Runs the Bookmobile" -- an absolute gem of a 'YA' novel from the late 50's and a nap. I had weird dreams -- something about having to brush cobwebs away? and am now committing my first post while drinking! (Vodka and coke, the chocolate martini experiment last night was not really a success, although I am a fan now of Godiva chocolate liqueurs, hee.) And the wireless seems to have smartened up since last night and this morning, which leaves me hopeful for further being able to keep up with y'all, heh. On a more serious note, I've renegotiated my hours at Job #3, and now have every other Wednesday morning off. I think that this will be a good thing both for me (because, whoo, some time off -- srsly, I'll have eight hours between five AM and 1 PM, heh) and for Eldest Spawn over the summer. It also solves a problem at Job #3, namely, finding someone to work at noon or between noon and three (we're now telling knock knock jokes -- this is what passes for high comedy in my family) on the days that Boss #2 is elsewhere. So that makes me immensely happy, although I will have to be much more disciplined with the moneys. Mmm,vodka and coke. Current Mood: drinking

(Sing to me)

April 5th, 2009

02:20 pm - *points to icon* So it's been a rather...eventful week here in LadyStarlight land. I got some news on Monday that meant that a lot of things I'd taken for granted were now up in the air -- mainly that the daycare had lost its license for having school aged children due to lack of a separate room to run the afterschool program. So after teaching the toddlers a couple of new words, I started wondering just what the hell I was gonna do with Small Spawn over the summer. Thus my crushing of the hopes and dreams of Eldest Spawn this morning, heh. The only solution we have is to grit our teeth and leave Eldest Spawn in charge when the grownups are working, as there's no other daycare in town and the 'summer fun' program is 9-3 Monday-Friday, Also $200 a week. (We are going to send Small Spawn on Fridays, like we did last year -- Fridays are field trip days and Small Spawn is quite enthusiastic about this.) This also throws a spanner into whatever plans Eldest Spawn had, which is why I fed him McDonalds food before breaking the news to him, in the hopes that a nice grease and carb coma would cushion the blow a little bit. This has the potential to either be a really good thing or a horrible thing, heh. I'm just hoping that at the end of each day, I still have the amount of spawn I started out with. I'm not sure if he's going to try and find a job to work around his new responsibilities or not -- I left that bit completely up to him. I'm now also wondering if I want to keep on doing the spreadsheeting I've been doing for three years (!) now. Since I was bartering my time for free care, do I want to keep going with it and just use it as karma? Or do I bow out of it because honestly, it's a couple hours a week that will free up for me? Luckily, there has been no further developments in the Very Bad Thing at the daycare -- we're all sort of hoping that it's finally over and done with. Once you respond to veiled threats with a "oh hai, talk to my lawyer", sometimes that just stomps everything out. And I discovered a fabulous new (to me) webcomic last night! Digger -- found here: http://www.diggercomic.com/ . I'm up to mid-June of 2007 now, so anticipate at least a couple days of reading ahead of me. The artist also has unbelievably gorgeous artwork for sale here: http://www.metalandmagic.com/index.php , and I think I'm going to attempt to buy some of her prints -- three for me and one for the husband, heee. Because what I need in my life is a print of an otter with an attack goldfish, srsly! (YAYA haaa boo!) It is, however, possibly spring here now. Of course, now that I've said that, kerfloomp, we'll get like, eight feet of snow this week. But I am tentatively poking at the idea of yard work and wondering what I'll do with flowers this year and also wondering if I'm really crazy enough to try and put a small vegetable garden in (verdict: Probably, if the husband builds the system I want. And yes, I haz a system.) and other springish thoughts. Like thinking again that I should put a bird feeder up, if only to watch the cats plaster themselves against the window and chatter in foiled Mighty Hunter mode. I think if I put the feeder sort of in the middle of the yard, they'll have a fighting chance of seeing the cats coming. I am firmly Not Thinking about what Eldest Spawn's teachers are going to say at parent-teacher interviews right now, because I have a fresh pot of hazelnut coffee awaiting me and am going to go hide Easter eggs on Facebook while I drink a cup before plunging into the todo list for today. Current Mood: busy

(Sing to me)

April 4th, 2009

08:32 pm I just horrified Eldest Spawn by pulling up a song on YouTube that I used to listen to in my metal stage! \o/ (for those of you who are curious: Bonded by Blood -- Exodus. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjTrr7wiVeI ) I thought it was Profound and Edgy 20+ years ago. I still like the chorus, heh. (even if I've lost control of YouTube, as you can tell by my music. Oh, hell, who am I kidding, I like this song too. *grins*) Current Mood: nostalgic Current Music: Mama Let Him Play -- Doucette

(2 songs sung | Sing to me)

April 2nd, 2009

08:21 am - March books ( Real Vampires Have Curves/Live Large ) ( More Cats in the Belfry ) ( Greywalker ) ( Weather Warden series ) ( Summer at Fairacre ) ( Haunted Heart ) ( Fish out of Water ) ( Poltergeist ) ( A Star is Found ) ( Destiny ) ( Why We Suck ) ( Horse Fantastic ) ( The Graveyard Book ) ( Promises in Death ) 16 books, 4,765 p. Current Mood: restless

( | Sing to me)

March 28th, 2009

05:45 pm - Happy Birthday to me! I'm waiting to go out for supper with the 'rents -- so I'm reading pr0n and responding to the birthday wishes on LJ. *hugs everyone* And it's a good thing, because discussing plans for the mutant zombie apocalypse with my student helper was pretty much the high point of work today. About quarter to three, I had a patron come in and offhandedly remark that there was a man lying on the sidewalk outside. So I headed out to take a look and he was lying in a snowbank, shivering and unresponsive. Cue 911 calling and standing outside waiting for the ambulance, sigh. On the bright side, I wound up with a sealed pint of vodka, since the paramedic couldn't juggle that and the patient, so she handed it off to me. It's currently in the freezer. Current Mood: hungry

(2 songs sung | Sing to me)

March 22nd, 2009

06:26 pm I've been having a lovely day today, lovely to me, anyways, heh. After getting our closet cleaned out last night, I decided to finish tidying up the upstairs and got it all vacuumed. Well, except for the bathroom and Eldest Spawn's room, heh. Nobody was at the shelter this morning so I'll have to try and call there during business hours to see if they're still going to have someone else (with keys, because NO WANT!) there on Sunday mornings. And if Sunday mornings don't work out for them, I'm going to have to regretfully stop being a volunteer there. I love it, but if I can't work there when it works for me, then too bad. And I realized that the handy little .pdf converter thingie I have on my toolbar actually works, so I've spent a whole bunch of time downloading favorite fics! (I have a horror of having a desire to read something I haven't read in yonks, going back to it, and it's gone!) This will also be handy when/if we go to Manitoba -- portable pr0n! *grins* I also decided to dip a toe into decorating waters by buying the stuff I need to make a very simple window covering for the hallway window. Of course, actually doing it is perhaps a week or so off, but still. Progress! ( O rly, horrorscope? ) *goes back to converting fic and saving, heee* Current Mood: content

(Sing to me)

March 21st, 2009

08:01 am So it's been an...interesting week. There was a rather major kerfluffle at the daycare, and being a board member, of course I was right in the thick of it. AGAIN. (I can haz vacation in two months? Awesome.) The mighty mighty K-Car died on Tuesday -- we're waiting for the transplant part, hopefully it'll be in today. (Luckily, the shop where we buy the parts usually gives us a massive discount [sometimes below cost!] because the parts are so readily available and nobody else is buying them, heh.) I need to get caught up on BSG -- I could've sworn that I had the first half of the season on disk somewheres, but I can't find it anywheres. (midnightsjane, I'm still looking for my Blood Ties DVDs too, sigh.) However, job #3 went very well Friday morning, I managed to get all caught up on those little niggling "must do that soon" jobs, so I'm feeling quite smug. And the tax information is dropped off at H&R Block, so hopefully will have good news about THAT soon. At least this year, we're both pretty much guaranteed refunds (I have both jobs take $20 extra tax off each paycheque) and I have my fingers crossed that mine will almost pay off what remains on the Visa card. Or at least pay for my plane ticket, hee. And because I tend to look ahead...I have hopes that next year's will finally pay for a trip to Manitoba, so I can finally get my mom off my freakin' back about it! Eldest Spawn is going to go in for an eye appointment (possibly new glasses too) and a doctor's appointment soon, as he claimed headaches for three days of the four he was supposed to go to school this week. Sigh. On the one hand, I'm sitting here going LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE and on the other, I'm going "weeeeeel....possible". When I phoned in for the last day he was absent, I also asked that the school counselor talk to him again. Headaches are one of the things that are so hard to prove -- especially since the husband used to get migraines. (Or what he called migraines, anyways.) And, sad to say, I've known people who seemed to get pretty convenient migraines, so. I have no idea how to motivate him at all -- nothing seems to work, not the fear of failing grade 8, not doing really cool options in school, nothing. (I told him at parent/teacher interviews this fall, when his math teacher basically said "do better or fail" that I would not be that parent who stormed the school and said "OMG U HAVE TO PASS MY BABY". No, I would be the parent who said "huh. Sucks to be you, buddy.") But on the whole, things are going well here, I think. Balancing stuff is, as always, my theme for this year, but I'm working on it. Current Mood: weird

(4 songs sung | Sing to me)

March 16th, 2009

07:21 pm - Snow So last night, we had what I consider a REAL BLIZZARD! The power was flickering between 9:30 and quarter to ten, when it finally went out at around ten to. This was upsetting to the husband as he was just at the good part of "The Departed", heh. And when we went outside to see if it was just us -- OMG BLIZZARD! It didn't last that long, the power was back on by one, but it was sort of nice going to sleep in that peaceful darkness, heee. And there wasn't hardly any snow to speak of when I got up, heh. I am looking forward to getting my Wednesday morning off like you wouldn't believe, hee. I need to spend some quality time with the desktop, moving files around and trying to ransom my music from the clutches of WMP. I'd like to get back to MegaUpload as well, has anyone heard anymore about that virus that was going around? Current Mood: chipper

(Sing to me)

March 15th, 2009

09:02 pm - Is this the rare one? I can never remember, hee. Quickie post before getting ready for bed: You Are An ISFJ The Nurturer You have a strong need to belong, and you are very loyal. A good listener, you excel at helping others in practical ways. In your spare time, you enjoy engaging your senses through art, cooking, and music. You find it easy to be devoted to one person... a partner who you do special things for. In love, you express your emotions through actions. Taking care of someone is how you love them. And you do it well! At work, you do well in a structured environment. You complete tasks well and on time. You would make a good interior designer, chef, or child psychologist. How you see yourself: Competent, dependable, and detail oriented When other people don't get you, they see you as: Boring, dominant, and stuck in a rut What's Your Personality Type? Except for all the damn cooking stuff, this seems to describe me.... Current Mood: tired

(Sing to me)

March 9th, 2009

05:42 pm Apparently, I broke LJ. Um, oops? Who knew 'skip=45' was such a powerful tool! I shall try to use my awesome new power for good! Current Mood: giggly

(Sing to me)

March 8th, 2009

02:39 pm Small Spawn has just pulled "Too Much Time on my Hands" up on YouTube. And we're all doing the double clap in time with it. My work here is done! (also, dlgood, answers to your association things coming soon!) Current Mood: amused Current Music: Too Much Time on my Hands -- Styx

(Sing to me)

12:45 pm - "Weekend" So I wound up working Saturday morning at job #3, and oh lord, I am NEVER EVER working a hockey weekend again! Between the crazy hockey parents whom I booted out of the pool area for eating (and then they stood around at the viewing windows complaining that they couldn't go in and take pictures because they couldn't take their coffee into the pool. My response? "Put your coffee on the counter, nobody'll roofie it, YOU'RE NOT THAT PRETTY!!11") and the smelly idiot who wanted a double bed room for a week (Saturday night? Not happening, sorry.) and who wanted a better rate because his father may or may not be having surgery (Still no rooms with two beds. No, I'm sure that's the best rate I can give you. No, you can't talk to the manager. Why? She's on holidays. NO I CAN'T CALL HER!) and the other crazy hockey parents whose hotel did not have a pool (No, you have to be a guest. Yes, I'm sure. No, you can't just pay a fee to get into the pool. It's not a question of you being bad, you have to be a guest. If you want to rent a room for the night, I have a suite left. $200 plus taxes and you could take two kids to swim. Yes, that is expensive. NO YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE YOUR TEAM IN OMG!!!) it was...interesting. And if I could write it up a little more coherently than above, I'd be posting to customers_suck, heh. (Never again, srsly) *deep breath* But that morning is all done with, and I get Wednesday morning off in exchange, so that's good. I'm presently loading the ippid with all my comedy albums (I'd forgotten I had George Carlin, yay!) because, come hell or high water, I am going to Get Something Done today if it kills me! (And it just might, since I want to climb onto a rather rickety chair to clean off the top of the fridge. If I don't update for a while, pls to call and find out if I fell off. If so, send chocolate, heee.) And I spent some time cruising the cheap sheets at WalMart, because I have decided that I need to update the window coverings in the living room. I've about decided on Roman blinds, mostly because they look like the easiest to make (besides just hanging sheets up, and I've done that before, heh) and also because I should be able to tailor them fairly precisely to the size of the window. And possibly be able to get two blinds out of a queen size flat sheet, so. (My library holds list looks interesting "urban fantasy, urban fantasy, mystery, graphic novel, urban fantasy, urban fantasy, how to make curtains, urban fantasy") I am, as always, making lists and schedules and etc, and I want to also spend some quality time with said lists either tonight or tomorrow. It's a madcap social whirl around here, I tell you! Current Mood: accomplished

(2 songs sung | Sing to me)

March 5th, 2009

06:28 am Missed Lost last night due to being a nice person and deciding to let everyone else watch a show they'd been waiting for for a month. *awards self gold stars* I thought I could stay up to catch it, but decided to just watch the two-hour version next week. Luckily, everyone on my flist is pretty good about cutting for spoilers. And I'm going to attempt hauling myself off the couch in a couple minutes and going to the gym this morning. Hopefully tomorrow morning too, but we'll see how that works, heh. I actually find myself looking forward to the DST change this Sunday -- at least then maybe it won't be pitch black outside when I'm trying to talk myself into going out this early, heh. Current Mood: determined

(Sing to me)

March 1st, 2009

02:16 pm - February books ( Living Dead Girl ) ( The Wee Free Men ) ( Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh ) ( Plum Spooky ) ( A Face at the Window ) ( Magic to the Bone ) ( Comfort reading ) ( The Sharing Knife: Horizon ) ( High Heels are Murder ) ( Suite 606 ) ( Weather Warden series ) ( Cats in the Belfry ) ( Mother on Fire ) ( Men of the Otherworld ) ( Comfort Food ) ( Mean Streets ) ( A Hat Full of Sky ) 7,616 p., 23 books Current Mood: busy

(4 songs sung | Sing to me)

February 27th, 2009

07:39 pm Okay, if you're me, that icon does actually make sense, I promise. This week has been a fairly good one, even if I'm now addicted to Scavenger Hunt on Facebook. Things got done (OMG DED FROM PAPER) and work went very smoothly, up to and including the poo shoveling. For such a full week, I've got not a lot to say. Or, to be more precise, not a lot that's coherent to say, hee. Current Mood: cheerful

(Sing to me)

February 22nd, 2009

08:03 pm Okay, I have officially given up spreadsheeting for tonight. Mostly because it's awkward on the laptop and I am having a weird ache in my back. And since I will grab at any excuse to not do what I'm supposed to... I managed to clean up the eleventy zillion Facebook requests that were hanging about, and if you were one of them, I'm so sorry it took me so long, OMG! I promise to try and keep up with them better. Maybe, heeh. Current Mood: listless

(Sing to me)

02:24 pm - I can haz laptop table! (okay, and srsly, laptop? What is up with the no more liking the tab key? We like the tab key! It moves my cursor!) So I splurged today and bought a laptop stand. And possible a good-going case of carpal tunnel syndrome, given the little thing on the bottom that keeps the laptop from sliding off the table. However, we'll see how that goes, heh. (I just tried it and it doesn't really slide, so it's possible that a screwdriver will be coming out soon, thankfully) I am liking it, though. At some point, I need to clean the kitchen (probably just in time for someone else to make supper, heeee) and finish up laundry and work on the daycare spreadsheet. And really see if I like the laptop table, heheh. Oh, and I couldn't remember my AIM password, so I just got a new screen name -- I'm now ladystarlight388. Current Mood: happy

(Sing to me)

February 21st, 2009

10:10 am - this & that I managed to complete this wild hair I got for taking all my old (2007? Who knew) 2008 papers out of their envelopes to cut down on the amount of space they take up this morning. It worked too, although at some point in the future, I will be investigating ePost for the bills. And in the process, managed to find some fairly important tax stuff (are dentist bills deductable? I guess I'll find out.) for when it's tax time. (Which I'm looking forward to this year, what with the not having to shell out five grand +, yay) I've still got another milk crate and a bit of stuff to go through, but I feel very accomplished this morning, so. (I'll probably start on that tonight) I foresee file folders in my future, heee. And possibly storage boxes, because that's always amusing too. Maybe even dusting, w00t! \o/ And I'm hopeful that I won't be called in to work the graveyard tonight, although if I am, I'll manage to amuse myself somehow, heh. But other than that, nothing too much is going on. I paid the furnace bill and managed to not blow a gasket over the whininess of the office manager when I proffered my Visa card. Apparently Visa takes a percentage or charges them a percentage for every transaction. To which I mentally replied "Not my problem. I trotted right down and paid this bill as soon as I got the paper bill -- I didn't dispute anything and I could have waited until my 30 days were up.". I give good blankface in situations like that, heee. At some point, I think we're going to have to buy a new DVD player, since this one sometimes gets cranky about actually, oh, playing the disks. I'm leaning towards buying one that will play computer files (DivX and/or WMA) since I think that would be OMG SO AWESOME, except that I have no idea what to do with the .avi files I have, heh. Is there a conversion program that doesn't take six hours to convert four files (the approximate time to burn a playable DVD) into either DivX or WMA? And yes, stupid question, but. Or would DivX be able to convert the files all by itself? *awaits geek help eagerly* But now I should go and take a shower and clean up the kitchen before going to work. Hopefully it will be quiet, after the couple days of dramallama we've had, argh. (Stupid teenager gets kicked out for being...a stupid teenager Tuesday night. He comes in Wednesday and is informed 'haha, u r banninated, GTFO'. Stupid teenager comes BACK Thursday night (coworked happens to miss it because he gave an alias to sign in for a computer), I happen to show up to pick up printing and go all "OMG GTFO NAOW" on his ass. Stupid teenager says to a friend on the way out "Eldest Spawn's mom is mad at me". I go into Mama Bear mode and Boss tells me Friday morning when I tell her "if anything happens, call the cops". Drama llama, heee) Huh. When I started this post, I didn't think I had that much to say.... Current Mood: mischievous

(Sing to me)