Tale of a Shooting Star…

Ahhh… our loving, neurotic little furbaby strikes again. She woke me up early this morning by planting herself on my chest and licking my face. She was trembling, so I rolled over and told Terry that she needed to go outside. He got up and took her downstairs, but I never heard the back door open (we have a bell on it for her to use, even though she doesn’t). Just then I hear some thunder. Terry comes back up with Phoebe and announces that she must be afraid of the storm that’s coming.

She gets a little apprehensive about thunder, but this was ridiculous! She would not let me go back to sleep as this annoyingly long storm took its sweet time rolling through. At some point, I got up and went downstairs so that I could give her some of her calming supplement to see if it would help (she hadn’t had her usual dose yesterday morning or before bed). The periods of thunder in this storm were LONG. I have never heard such long, extended, continuous rolls of thunder in my life, honestly. As it came closer and closer, I could start to see the lightning through the closed blinds and the long peals of thunder grew louder. Of course, this just agitated Phoebe even more, just when she had started to settle down and I was dozing off. To top it all off, just then the alarm sounded. Ugh!

Oh, no wait, to top it ALL off, I had been wrestling with a headache for most of the day on Sunday and through the entire night. I had such exquisite pain when I finally got up and into the shower this morning, I tell you! Terry rolled over and apologized at one point this morning and I just told him “It’s all part of being a mom.” And it truly is. It doesn’t matter if your kids are fuzzy or fleshy, they still get scared when a thunderstorm arrives and want to cuddle with mom and dad.

Okay, so I’ve actually managed to watch this movie twice in the past week. The first time was out of sheer desperation due to an absolute lack of ANYTHING else on TV. It was at night and the movie just hit us as being funny in the worst possible way. The language is a bit much at some points and the frontal nudity is way too much for me, but overall the slapstick, stupid, situational, stoner humor will make you laugh until tears leak out of your eyes. The extreme mix tape in the truck of the poser gang is the best, but I would hate to spoil anything for anyone. 🙂

Apparently, it was funny enough that we decided to watch it again when we finished watched Leslie Nielson’s Wrongfully Accused and were looking for something else. Leslie Nielson is a little too slapstick and A LOT too stupid for me, unless I’m in exactly the right mood, but Harold and Kumar fit the bill after all of the complete mindlessness.

I never would have gone to see it in the theater, but for me, it’s definitely worth watching when nothing else is on. Okay, maybe even a little better than that. Not quite repeat-worthy like Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, as I could probably watch that movie at least once a week for the rest of my life.

Too bad Harold and Kumar is now over and we’re back to nothing on TV. Someone tell me why we pay so much for so many channels to not have anything to watch when we truly need it? I guess that’s why they make DVDs.

Phoebe let me clip two nails this morning – the last two absolutely needed for now. I will probably continue to clip, as it has taken weeks to get everything clipped and the older ones are starting to grow out. But at least they won’t get a chance to start to curl before I get to them now.

The one nail a morning system ended up working really well. I’m not sure if any of it relates back to the supplements we’ve been giving her or if it’s just the fact that we’ve established a routine and she knows what to expect now. I even clipped one nail too short on Friday morning and it bled. Fortunately, I bought a styptic (sp?) gel a few months ago just in case, so we were able to stop the bleeding quickly. And she still let me cut two this morning. Fortunately, her phobia doesn’t seem to be getting any worse (knock on wood). She may not love it, but she at least puts up with it. It’s to the point where she actually won’t leave the bedroom in the morning to come down and go outside because she knows she gets a nail clipped first. LOL.

Whatever works. I wish the whole process was a little easier… maybe in time.

Okay, so the actual upgrade didn’t actually take me very long. I’ve been spending most of this time surfing the web and applying a publicly available theme to my blog. The one I have up right now is Ocadia by Becca Wei. It encompasses several of the major design points that I want to hit when I finally have some time to create my own custom theme for this place. In the meantime, Becca’s theme will do beautifully. 😀

I may actually take a few moments to change the colors to shades of purple sometime in the near future. Otherwise, the custom graphics creation and figuring out how to work with the WordPress templates will have to wait. Before that, I need to finish creating the graphics for my mother’s storefront and then I have to make myself dig into trying to create the new layout I have envisioned for my personal site. Once my personal site is redesigned, I can apply those layout concepts across to my blog and my photo gallery.

For now, though, I’m happy where I am, as I’ve made huge strides towards my ultimate destination tonight.

I have several changes for my blog planned now. First, I changed the name (again) to Tale of a Shooting Star…. This should be the last name change, as I put a lot of thought energy into developing a name that would be cute, durable and would reflect me fairly succinctly. So, there you have it. Next I’ll cook up a description that accomplishes the same thing. Suggestions will be accepted.

Tonight or sometime this weekend, I will be upgrading the underlying software from WordPress 1.2 to WordPress 1.5. Once I have accomplished this (with careful, full backups before doing so), I will be able to fully customize the look and feel of my blog. I’ve been looking through other people’s blogs (mostly hosted on Blogspot, interestingly enough) and a bunch of themes built on top of WordPress 1.5, so I have a decent idea of what I want to do.

The next step will require some serious time in front of my computer upstairs, plugging away at Photoshop, in order to create the graphics that I want. Which probably won’t be a big deal, but always seems daunting initially.

Okay, time to back this puppy up…

A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you’re in deep water.
How come it takes so little time for a child who is afraid of the dark to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?
Business conventions are important because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.
Why is it that at class reunions you feel younger than everyone else looks?
Scratch a dog and you’ll find a permanent job.
No one has more driving ambition than the boy who wants to buy a car.
There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 AM. It could be a right number.
No one ever says, “It’s only a game,” when his team is winning.
Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail.
The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow.
If you don’t have a sense of humor, you probably don’t have any sense at all.
Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.
I’ve reached the age where happy hour is a nap.
Be careful reading the fine print. There’s no way you’re going to like it.
The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.
To err is human, to forgive — highly unlikely.
Do you realize that in about 40 years, we’ll have thousands of old ladies running around with tattoos? This is way scary.
Money can’t buy happiness — but somehow it’s more comfortable to cry in a Corvette than in a Yugo.

This is a quote spoken by Marg Helgenberger in the role of Katherine Willows at the end of an episode of CSI I watched last night. And I think I like it! This pretty much sums up the kind of philosophy I’d like to learn to live myself.

I just thought I’d share that because it resonated with me so much. In the meantime, I’ve been fighting a headache all day, which is inevitable during menstrual week, so what do I do? I went outside and weeded like a mad woman while Terry mowed the grass. He told me to stay inside because he knew I wasn’t feeling well, but I have this thing about not being able to sit inside like a spoiled princess while he works outside. Someday, I’ll have to get over that. 🙂 But hey, I should only have one more one-hour weeding session left before I can start using the Roundup and stop pulling everything by hand.

1. Blaming your farts on me… not funny… not funny at all!!!
2. Yelling at me for barking ….. I’M A FRIGGIN’ DOG, YOU IDIOT!
3. Taking me for a walk, then not letting me check stuff out. Exactly whose walk is this anyway?
4. Any trick that involves balancing food on my nose… stop it!
5. Any haircut that involves bows or ribbons. Now you know why we chew your stuff up when you’re not home.
6. The sleight of hand, fake fetch throw. You fooled a dog! WhooooHoooooooo, what a proud moment for the top of the food chain.
7. Taking me to the vet for “the big snip”, then acting surprised when I freak out every time we go back!
8. Getting upset when I sniff the crotches of your guests. Sorry, but I haven’t quite mastered that handshake thing yet.
9. Dog sweaters. Hello??? Haven’t you noticed the fur?
10. How you act disgusted when I lick myself. Look, we both know the truth, you’re just jealous.

Now lay off me on some of these things . We both know who’s boss here!!!
(You don’t see me picking up your poop do you ???)

Understanding Engineers – Take One

Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, “Where did you get such a great bike?” The second engineer replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, “Take what you want.”

The second engineer nodded approvingly, “Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit.”

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Understanding Engineers – Take Two

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

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Understanding Engineers – Take Three

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