I am so frustrated right now with customer service reps it makes me want to yell and throw something.  I deal with customers, helping them solve stuff and I really do try to be as helpful as possible and I've been told I do a great job.  Awesome!  And then I get customer service reps who say, "Oh, that's not my job.  I just do..." And when they are enlisted to fix my problem only give me a solution that's really 95% unacceptable and just doesn't work and refuses to understand why I can't be more like them.  I'm just super frustrated and want to yell at someone or something - so no one should call me because I won't be a friendly customer service person - except I went on lunch right after all of this happened so the world was saved from my tickedoffedness.  This has yet caused more issues because something got uninstalled for IE8 and I had to spend an hour figuring it all out before now the two browsers will coexist without sucker-punching each other.  Blah!

For the most part I am feeling better, but it's in waves.  For a while my head will sort of explode in sneezes and sniffles and I'll feel icky - then I'm just fine.  Got really bad yesterday afternoon so I called the church and said maybe it wasn't a great idea for me to be there last night considering my immune system was probably all weak and kids carry everything - also that I was sneezing and kids catch everything.  It seemed in everyone's best interest if I just stayed home.  Which was good because I watched the latest episode of Kamen Rider W. The female lead still annoys me, I still really like the two detectives, and the Dopants are pretty nifty.  I do, however, want green slippers now.  Also got the apartment mostly cleaned up.  I need to finish washing clothes, put them away and vacuum everything.  Between sewing and having snippets of thread in places, bits of trimmed yarn and the normal Chinchilla mess it's necessary that it happens today.  Also want things tidied up since people are meeting at my place to go to the Pocket Sandwich Theater tonight.  I'm excited about this, personally.  I always love their popcorn throwing plays.

I downloaded TweetDeck last night - I think that might have been a bad idea - yet another thing to distract me from everything else I should be doing. It like, turns Twitter into an instant messenger and makes it far too easy to use and organize - key word: organize! I like to organize things and make them custom to how I like it and when I can do that, I'm more likely to use something.  It makes me wonder if I shouldn't have separate twitters for things like NaNo that's for a specific group or whatnot...I wonder if it's too late to do this.....

Yes, this is a dismally uninteresting blog.  However, most of the excitement that has been happening has been in my head and figuring out stuff for my NaNo novel.  I'm getting more and more excited about it and slowly wondering if I'm more excited about the world building than the actual writing of the book. Makes me wonder how it will go!

Okay, so I saw this and it made me giggle.  I'm not a Grammar Nerd, but I find it funny.  Also, my friend sent me this.  I request it for my birthday.

Well my dad is in surgery today, so just a bit nervous for him, even though it's not a big deal - someone's still cutting my daddy to bits and that makes me nervous.  He's having like three sleep apnea corrective procedures done all at once and will be a bit cranky for like the next month probably - even though the doctor says he should be fine in a few days.  If it's an excuse to be cranky - he'll take it! I love my dad.  :)

Mondays are always weird.  Yesterday I woke up just fine, got to work and got a bunch of stuff done all at once and then it took me the entire afternoon to do like, one thing.  I guess I burned myself out doing everything else too quickly.  I'm also far too critical of my own work - I think it's sloppy and I should do a much better job.  Mistakes annoy me and I get really upset with myself.  That should be a goal - establishing a steady work pace and go with it.

One exciting note about yesterday, I'm jonesing so much for NaNo I went on and started this ridiculous shortish story.  In my head it's a spin off of Beauty and the Beast, though I think it's been warped enough now that it's not really that similar to it.  The first two sections are on my Booksie page - and it's called Beauty and the Beast - Or Not for now - I think it needs a more fitting title.  It's very silly and nothing in it is supposed to make perfect sense; it's really just supposed to be funny.  I really should have revised it before putting it up because I think the intro is a bit rushed but I really don't want to take forever getting the story set up when the actual story shouldn't be that long.  I'm toying with the idea of doing a lot of short stories that continue after this and all sort of tie together.  ((as a side note, and so very selfish - if you do click through on the Booksie page, click the Like blue box at the bottom of each chapter.  it gets me better ratings and more searchability.))

Anyways!  My Olympus camera shipped, so I'm a bit excited about that.  It should probably be here by the end of the week.  I feel like there's a lot I should be saying but I'm drawing a blank.  I just really want to spend the day writing, so maybe that's where all my words have gone.

So I did my little two mile walk/jog thing on Saturday, and I think I might have strained something.  Which is weird and I suddenly feel extremely fat and horrible for that.  My hip joints actually hurt which I don't know - maybe it's from derby falls?  My shins also hurt, and it's been long enough I shouldn't still have stress fractures or anything.  It puzzles me.  If the weather stays clear I want to go out and just do a long, easy walk to just get out and do something now that I've given myself a little bit of time.  Using the gym at the apartment complex now that the weather's changed is just about impossible; there's always people in there and I just got tired of going back and back and back to see the same person using the equipment.  I'll have to figure out something else.

I got a new background for my laptop.  It's a looking towards NaNo one.  It's fun.  ^__^  I'm also quite entertained by a user named Inkygirl - she does comics.  (Countdown Continues, NaNoWriMo Prep, Countdown to NaNoWriMo Begins)  I think she's fantastic, and makes me giggle.

I believe tonight I will be seeing the latest episode of Tool Academy.  I'm very excited.  I love my trash TV.  I also have the latest episode of W downloaded but again, have yet to watch it.  Typical of me, I know.  I think my Netflix are coming in today too!  Geezes.  Tomorrow night I will be volunteering at church, so that should be interesting.  They're doing a Trunk or Treat on Halloween and I'm toying with the idea of participating and setting up my Jeep as a car to get candy out of.  I have speakers I could use to play music and stuff and I'm sure I would dress the Jeepie up and do something fun and silly for kids.  Maybe I could talk Kara into it and we could team up and use both our Jeeps for like one big, fun activity Trunk or Treat station.  I don't know - I'll talk to her tonight about it. 

I'm rambling and I need to get to work.  Ciao!

Okay - so I'm very excited to say that today was very productive as far as my strange, planning thoughts for NaNoWriMo.  I realize I'm a planner; I like lists, details, plotting things into the history and seeing opportunities for the future.  Today I had a huge, enormous light-bulb moment on the aspects of magic and religion in the novel.  There are going to be a lot of things implied and delt with about our current culture in the context of the novel.  There is symbolism for Christianity, Islam, technology, philosophy, feminism, a lot of things that I've just sort of pieced together and stuck in there.  Now do I expect for people to pick these out should they decide to read them? Nope.  Not at all.  :)  I'm very excited because I've really plotted out the big picture as far as World History goes, and I've figured out why the country the story takes place in is even there.  I've figured out how the steampunk elements I want to incorporate in it will work and why some won't.  I think I have an idea for how magic and religion will play out but I'm still a little lost on how the main character will deal with it all.  I need to finish the character profile so her and I can get better acquainted; we're going to be spending a lot of time together!

I even got a little binder today; one of those five star, plastic ring things that are super flexible.  Really I just sort of got suckered into it because it's a great color of blue and has some fun kind of neon paisley stuff on the front.  I did, however, print out a label that says NaNoWriMo 2009 - The Barking Dog on it as yet more motivation.  I tend to write stuff down or have these random thought-bursts and I need a place to keep these things I write down on the back of receipts or on an index card and this binder will be it.  It'll also be where I keep all of my world-building notes because I tend to like to put my hands on papers and look at them.

I also drew maps yesterday but for some strange reason never mentioned them.  Okay, so they sort of look silly but I never said I had artistic ability.  I just needed to draw it all out so that I could figure it out on paper as far as where these places all are.  There are several types of maps too, all on my Flickr account, which show the neighboring countries, the geography, the cities, major roads and towns.  I think I've hit the big points I need to for now and later on I'll probably make more to show the movement of characters and where they all are.

All in all I'm very excited with the way this is going.  I talked briefly to a friend of mine who is in art school about thinking about designing some art for it - but of course that's nothing that needs to be thought about until like, January.  I'll have to finish the novel of course and then decide what I want to do with it, but I imagine I would like a copy nicely printed and bound for myself.  I also know people who are taking bets about how long it will be based on how much I write already; if you've never read anything I've written creatively I would say good for you.  It tends to be long.

It's homecoming season here in the south and I had a lot of fun reminiscing about mums.  If you don't know what a mum is - you're missing out!  I think it's a southern thing really.  I made one like once with my friends just for the heck of it.  I always thought they were a little silly, but they were also fun. I think I was in junior high when I made mine at my friend Carla's house... I think her name was Carla, she was a red head who transferred to our school.  Anyways, we all went to her house and made mums one year and they were huge and we were super cool because of them and it was ridiculous.  I love the memory of it.  I might have pictures around here somewhere - that I'm not willing to share.  I'm pretty sure I sharpied people out I didn't like at one point or another for some stupid reason.  Hilarious memories.

I didn't do anything on the dress tonight - and I didn't even have anyone over.  I should have done something - but I didn't.  Instead I was on my couch and knitted, watching The Office, Kamen Rider, and stuff.  I just did measly house-stuff really.  The place is still a mess but at least I have clean dishes, the trash has been taken out and the Chinchillas are clean, happy, and fed.  The Office Wedding was great.  The intro had me heaving and laughing at the same time.  The wedding was really awesome.  I won't ruin it - I'll just say it was awesome.  I'm really happy with the new W series of Kamen Rider.  I don't know if I've mentioned it or not but it makes me think of the old Dick Tracey stuff. 

Worked on my teal scarf - have maybe a foot more done.  I'm using rather large needles so the knit's rather loose - which is what I'm going for.  I want a useful scarf I can wear in the Texas winter, so I don't want it to be super thick, just something nice.  If that makes any sense at all...

I had the strangest urge to go for a run today.  It's not the first time I've had this; I've considered like jogging around the residential areas behind my apartment complex or perhaps jogging around where I work but I haven't.  Plus, jogging in converse or the other shoes I have isn't exactly pleasant - I tried that.  I'm considering going out and getting a pair of running shoes and trying out the jogging; I might just like it.  Maybe I'll look into the shoes over the weekend.

I made a pot-holder!  Well, really what happened was that while taking stock of what I have as far as yarn and what I have to try making a beanie out of - I ran across this.  I think I started it as a scarf but um, completely forgot about it, who it was for and everything.  So I ripped out a few rows, finished it and here we are! A very tightly woven pot-holder.

I'm starting to think I may be making my stitches too tight a lot of the time; I hold onto the needles really hard and am always tightening stitches and realized at work that my knuckles sort of hurt.  I don't think they're supposed to.

I intended to start the beanie cap, but realized I needed the circular needle thinggies... I'll have to pick some up and just work on my 'blanket' for now. It's well over a foot in vertical length and I tried counting stitches; it's more like 150+ stitches - eventually I just lost count.  Basically it's a lot of yarn.  I should have knitted different squares really and just pieced them all together.  Oh well - I'll know better for the future now.

And I watched the latest episode of the Tool Academy; oh my goodness!  It's trash TV, I know, but it's great just for the drama, crazy stuff that happens.  The latest episode was all about the guys learning to appreciate their girlfriends and oh my goodness!  The guys go into an outrage and trying to fight some of the crew, destroy stuff - it's just so nuts!  The guys get the taste of their own medicine having to watch their girlfriends taken out on a date by a 'true gentleman'.  They don't see that it's fair turn around, they just growl and throw a fit about how it's so unfair to them.  Such an interesting show...

So while taking my morning off work, I happened to watch the Rachael Ray show - I don't think I've ever done that.  I was intrigued by her cooking and that this chicka's going to do a year of Rachael Ray recipes because she's inspired by the movie Julie/Julia that I have yet to see.  Anyways, I poked around her recipe archive and was thrilled to see she has a picky eaters section!  She's speaking to my heart...  Anyways, I think that I want to pick out some of her recipes and try them.  I should try cooking new things - my cooking's getting a little predictable.  I'm probably going to be cooking up some Tilapia tomorrow night for our weekly gathering to watch The Office so I might see if there's something new and exciting I can do to it.

Now for a bit of my nerdy side.  A friend of mine watches this show called Kamen Rider - and to be quite frank I used to mock him to his face and secretly about it.  I mean come on - live action battling 'monsters'? Super dumb.  However, one night I was bored and watched an episode of the Den-O season and I've been hooked ever since.  The new season, called Kamen Rider W (here on referred to as W for short) just started at the beginning of the month; we're three episodes in as it has to be translated before links go up.  The new season fills me with a huge sense of nostalgia as it reminds me so much of when I used to play Dick Tracy with my friends growing up.  The two male leads - I love.  The female lead - I hate; she's so freaking obnoxious and like nails on a chalkboard!  I'm enjoying this season though; last season with Decade was a bit of a let down - even though I left off like half way through and have yet to finish it I've been told I'm not missing much.

Either tonight or Saturday I will make the trip to look for fabric for the bridesmaid dress.  I have an idea of what I think I want to do in my head but it could require a lot of work and I may just end up taking the border to one of those stitching shops and get them to do the embroidery and not do it myself - but that's if I go with that plan.  I need to see fabric first!  I plugged in the reference swatch she sent me for reference.  As far as I can tell it's either straight up acrylic or some sort of blend, a bit course.  If I can find this particular fabric I'd completely line the dress with something more comfy - it's also going to be December in Oklahoma so I'm considering lining whatever I make so I don't freeze; if the wedding's in the church I remember - I have distinct memories of freezing through a service already.... I don't wanna be a brides-maid-ice-sculpture or anything. Hmm, I hadn't even asked about shoes - what kind of shoes we're supposed to wear makes a lot of difference too.... *goes to text the bride!*