Goodbye Blogger

I was going to wait until Dec 31st to do this (new year, new addy type thing) but I've decided why wait.

Good bye Blogger. You were once a great playground for writers, readers, lurkers, and people wanting to pass a few minutes getting to know what strangers are doing. Now you've become a big pain in the ass.

You can follow my future ramblings at
http://ksteele2.authorsabode.com/

Things I've Done/Haven't Done

By way of
Annalee Blysse
01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain - then rappelled down a rope into a very long, dark cave. Then climbed back out again many hours later. Sometimes I really miss the mountains.
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula - amazingly soft and silky
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea - I'm cheating on the definition of "at sea" here - on the beach, by the ocean.
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars Now I really, really miss the mountains.
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer - This thing is not like the others..
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud - One word - College.
64. Played in the rain - 64a - Played touch football in the rain and mud
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage - I think it was 4th grade. Long, long time ago
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Been to the Great Barrier Reef
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication [Do books count?]
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

How about you?

Banks are evil

It's Friday, and I should be looking forward to so many things - the quiet morning with the kids off at school; going to a basketball game tonight and listening to Sean call the game (listen live here, or listen to the podcast after); the weekend, with a Christmas party and a birthday party; the cold clear December day that brought us our first true taste of Father Winter.

Instead, as soon as I get Samantha off to school I'll get to waste yet another morning navigating the automated phone trees of banks and credit card companies, set up I believe with the sole intention of frustrating us until we throw up our hands and let them keep our money. The more frustrated you become, the more useless departments the person who finally answers the phone will find to transfer you to.

Listening to Sarah Mclachlan's "Wintersong" to calm myself. It's not really calming, but it is beautiful.

Do You del.icio.us ?

http://del.icio.us/ksteele2

How did I never realize just how incredibly useful this is before? I've stumbled through the site a few times, and always thought that it didn't look appealing. Then when I looked at it again yesterday, the pieces all lined up with a mental click and suddenly, I fell in love.

Hate it when you bookmark a page on one pc, and then can't remember the link when you're on your laptop - or at work? Never go through that again! Upload your favorite lists from all your pcs, add the "post to del.icio.us" icon to your toolbars, and you'll never use the Bookmarks page again.

It was this "post" thing that really had me puzzled at first. I didn't want to post - my stalkers know I've got enough places to post with Blogger, Wordpress, Vox, Flickr, Myspace, and forums. But that post option? It's really "add". You're adding a favorite place to your online list of favorite places. And when you add a place (lets say, sweepstake places), you can see 84 people who have also listed that as their favorite. And then you can see what other sweepstake places they have linked. Hey, this looks like a cool site - I'll add it too!

Useful. Entertaining. Borederline addictive. What more can you ask for with web page bookmarking?

Depth

Montgomery just came out of his room wearing a black tee shirt. Usually, this near-teenage son of mine considers tee shirts of any color fit only for sleep, and that period of post-sleep that lasts on the weekends until I threaten to withhold food or tv. Tee shirts are not a part of his fashion statement. But today, it is. And it's black. Oy.

After somewhat gracefully accepting the hard time I gave him over his new wardrobe (What? What? WHAT?? - he added a new word to his vocabulary along with his new shirt) he told me a joke. I'll leave you with this :
Why are three dimensional games better than two dimensional games?

"They have more depth."

Cheers and Jeers

Cheers to YBP Library Services for their plan to distribute eBooks to academic libraries. Where they lead, may many more follow! Details here.

Jeers to Blogger. Oh, how I am coming to loathe you. Today's wackiness began with me not being able to leave a reply on a friends blog. This has become such a regular feature of Blogger that I have all but given up commenting on Blogger blogs; I typically read them through the rss feeder and don't even click through to try. But today someone pulled my heartstrings and I really, really wanted to comment. Only to be told to "Type the characters you see in the picture above." But there WERE no characters, there was no picture above. Then I came here to blog about my disgust, and was told repeatedly that Blogger was unavailable.... try back later. Hopefully after I'd cooled down.

Blogger, you've about ended your usefulness to me. A change has been a long time coming.... This link will soon be moved!

Ha. Take that.

I'm sure they're shivering in their timbers over my intention to move my free blog elsewhere....

"I guess we'll have a good Christmas after all"

My tree is beautiful. Definitely a top 5 tree. Maybe a top 3. It inspired this quote from Samantha : "I guess we'll have a good Christmas after all."

I'm not sure what made my four year old think we weren't going to have a great Christmas in the first place, but looking at the tree is definitely enough to inspire one to visions of a good Christmas.

Sean's mystery headaches have mostly tapered off. After our scary trip to the ER last Friday night he spent most of Thanksgiving weekend in bed doped up on Vicoden. This morning he woke up with chest tightness and a bit of coughing, so off he went to the DR. Now I'm not saying it's mental, not at all, but he left here at 2pm breathing fine and came home at 4pm wheezing and gasping for breath after they told him he may have bronchitis. Drugs are inbound - cough medicine with yet more morphine and antibiotics - here's hoping he feels better soon. Hopefully by the weekend; he's got a tournament in Orlando Sat / Sun.

Samantha and I are going down to help with registration on Saturday; we were planning on coming back right afterwards, but now he is worried he will be too tired to handle finishing it up. And Montgomery has his Duke TIP test Saturday morning (yay for aunts that will get out of bed at 6:30 on a Saturday to drive my kid across town, since Sean needed me to go with him!) - I'd hoped to be here to take him and pick him up, but now it looks like we won't be back by the time it's over. I'm trying not to think about the last time we stayed at this hotel, when the bedtop deflated and I couldn't walk for weeks. Happy thoughts! Block out the bad memories!

Sick-and-wheezy is hungry. Looks like it's time to go brave the empty pantry and turn bread crusts, broth, and frozen lima beans into a feast fit for the bedridden. I knew I needed to go shopping today....

My back has gotten a bit better every day. I can sit for up to 30 minutes without cringing and moaning when I finally stand up. Yes, that is progress!!

The laptop is on it's last legs, and only boots up when it wants to - yesterday it decided to play nice, so I got some of what I've written longhand typed up. Ran out of time after only about 10 pages, but it's progress. Unfortunately I'm not going to make the Golden Heart deadline now (which is today!!) - I'm just too far behind. But I've got several friends who entered, so I'll keep my fingers crossed for them. And I signed up to judge; should be able to learn a lot just from looking at others entries this year, and be ready next year with my own.

Starting to get excited about the holidays. Found a great web site that tracks all the Thanksgiving sales ads http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/index.php
and just the thought of shopping is getting me all excited. And I see some great deals on there. So now I'm torn - get up early and shop with many other people there (ugh! People!!) or stay at home and miss the deals? Going to be a last minute decision I'm sure.

We're having dinner at the in-laws this year. As long as the weather stays nice (fingers crossed) it will be a great day. With the Broncos playing at 8, we'll be eating by 6 so Sean can make it home to watch the game. The table will seem much quieter without sis here this year; I'm trying to get over it. (sobs quietly) I'm on bread (sourdough, cheese, and yeast rolls this year)and dessert (pumpkin pie, apple pie, and a third not-decided-may-have-to-test-a-few-in-the-next-week variety that will be something new and exciting. Or it may be cherry. Which doesn't pass as new, but is always exciting. Or at least delicious.

Time to get up and move around a bit before my spine fuses together. Is it bad that I've gotten used to it makeing firecracker sounds when I stand up?

On the fly -

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 350 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

And there are 104 people sharing my husband's name, 65 sharing my daughter's name. My son is unique!~

Catch-up Sunday

Things to get done before Wednesday-

update chapter website for contest that starts next month
update chapter website Bookshelf
write letter to judges for contest
write book review (just one! And it's not even late!)
finish phrasing out the last 5 chapters of Krissy's story
stop eating the now 1/3 empty bag of Reese's Peanut Butter minicups that I sat behind my desk to keep it safe from the kids til Halloween. Ha, who was I kidding? I should have asked them to hide it to keep it safe from me. Hope the trick-or-treaters don't mind if they end up getting granola bars and raison boxes this year.