I know that I’ve been slacking on the site. I have the colophon page’s content 95% done. I have the about page 25% done. I have the basic color scheme and background idea ready to go in photoshop so that once all the content is up, I can get the site looking the way I want it to… I just don’t have TIME!

Ben is doing well. He’s getting around on crutches. Over the next two weeks he can start putting more and more weight on his leg and should be off them alltogether at his next appointment. Then he has to do some physical therapy. And THEN(!!) he will not have to worry about his knee bothering him anymore. And he can drive his happy little heart out.

In the first two weeks of the new year with the help of a pretty strict diet and lots ‘o exercise I lost 5 pounds. FIVE POUNDS! Last weekend though I kinda ‘fell off the wagon’ while taking care of The Benjamin and ate like crap for two straight days. Tonight I was up two pounds netting me a 3 pound loss total. DAMMIT! I’m back on track though. That 5 pounds was a total morale booster and I’m more determined than I’ve been in a long time. And really, I figured that I’d have gaind all five back… heh The best part is that after two weeks tonight on the eliptical machine I was able to up my intensity from an eight to a nine and went half a mile farther than two weeks ago.

The best news though is that the demon in my belly is responding well to the new diet. I’ve cut out all red meat and am down to VERY lean chicken and turkey or no meat at all for all my meals. I’ve also cut 95% of the dairy out and I’ve discovered that Special K w/ Red Berries + Vanilla Soy Milk is SO. Damn. Yummy. I went four whole days without an “attack”. Saturday I got a burger from Carls Jr on the way home from the taking Ben to the doctor and I was sick for a good 24 hours after that.

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that ya’ll know I’m alive and hope *crosses fingers* to have the site back to normal and running smoothly and more regularly in the next two or so weeks.

Ben has had a torn medial meniscus of his left knee. Today he had arthroscopic surgery to repair it. It’s not clear yet if they cut away the torn part or were able to repair it. We’ll find out at his follow up appointment Monday. He said we get to see pictures of it. Fascinating. For the next three days he’s restricted to couch rest. Not bed because he can’t make it up the stairs. I feel bad for him. Stuck on the couch with the Sidekick, laptop, XBox, GameCube and three TV/DVD/audio receiver remotes all within reach on the coffee table… and two girls that love him enough to answer to his beck and call.

In other news, I’m rethinking telling Cassidy she can dress herself and do her own hair in the morning. Also, I was playing with the camera settings the other day and I need to figure out why it will only take blurry shots.

I finally got around to Sears today to use the gift card Ben got me for Christmas. I got all my paint supplies plus a gallon of the green we both agreed on. After two coats we are able to see what the final color is going to be and it’s just… fabulous. I hated that pink. Really, really, really hated it. I’m pretty sure the person who lived here before us was blind and they just used whatever left over paint they could find to finish the remodel. There’s just no other explanation. So anyway, here is a bad pic in bad light of the before and after. Tomorrow after I get the last coat on the wall I’ll take better pics in some real light.

Cassidy had a friend from school spend the night last night. Then I went with my mom to get her hair done (our X-Mas present to her). Then to Sears. Then home and helped Ben isntall his exhaust Then painted. Then fixed my broken gallery. *whew*

Gonna sleep WAAAAAYYYY in tomorrow. After I get a small section of the kitchen painted (want to get an idea of the color agains the tile/wood in the kitchen to make sure we REALLY like it before I cover the rest of the pink) I’m going to finally tackle that purse I gave up on. My mom translated the directions into Blond Terms for me today.

I need to start getting more sleep. For the last week I’ve seen people talking about upgrading to Wordpress 2 and I’ve been thinking, “Hello, I upgraded to that like FOREVER AGO! Come on people!”

I was thinking 1.5.2. But they were all thinking Wordpress 2. It has a bunch of new bells and whistles and I have to have it NOW!

If anything seems broken for the next hour, that is why.

(EDIT - Painless install. Hrumph. My awsome new gallery doesn’t work. And I have a whole new ‘wp support forums suck donkey balls’ rant that will be posted tomorrow…)

I wrote this post up last week and never finished it. But after the conversation I just listened to it has to be done… Now hopefully you all understand what I deal with. EVERY DAY!

First, the week old post:

I tried all morning to figure out a way to inject coffee directly into my bloodstream. It really doesn’t have to be coffee. Any substance that contains large amounts of caffeine would work. So I’m open to chocolate, also.

The Avon Lady has not been feeling the season. At all. She grumbled through our entire Christmas party. She said she didn’t want to particiate in the elephant gift tradition (because it was ’stupid’) then decided last minute she would and complained the rest of the afternoon about ending up with denture glue. She’s said at least 434158434 times that nobody got her anything for Christmas. She’s just been a major buzzkill. So I’ve taken to doing what I always do in these situations. Plug both my ears with NPR and hide behind my monitor.

She’s also started this annoying TSK *sigh* habit.

*phone rings*
Avon Lady(AL): TSK *sigh* *phone greeting*
AL: Conversation
*hangs up*
AL: TSK *sigh*

SHE JUST DID IT RIGHT NOW FOR NO REASON! TSK *sigh*

Our printer has been slowly dying. The four of us on the credit balance team share one industrial size printer that spits out 35 pages a minute. We’ve had it worked on three times in the last few months because tray three keeps getting paper jams.

The New Girl(TNG): AAAAAaaaaannnnnnnaaaaaa. Can we just take the paper out of drawer three? Will it still work?
Me: Is it jammed again?
TNG: Yeah! For like the third time this morning.
Me: Yeah, just pull out the paper and give IT a call.
AL: TSK *sigh*
AL: *jumps out of chair*
AL: It SHOULDN’T be getting stuck. It’s been WORKED on THREE times.
AL: TSK *sigh*
TNG: I’ll call IT.
AL: *starts opening drawers and slamming them closed over and over and over and making all kinds of noise and shaking my cube walls since the printer sits against the outside of my cube.*
AL: TSK *sigh*
AL: I can tell you why this is happening. It’s because somebody isn’t putting the FULL ream of paper in there. They just put in PART of it and set the REST of it beside the printer and it’s causing AIR to get in the paper and it’s making it jam. I don’t know who is doing that but that’s why the paper keeps jamming.

(Sidenote: We all know it’s The New Girl doing this. I know The Avon Lady knows this because she’s mentioned it to me at least three times. I told the New Girl once to just put the whole ream in but she still doesn’t. It’s no big deal. And it’s NOT causing the paper to jam!! When I see it I take the whole .25 seconds to throw the rest of the paper in there. Whenever the Avon Lady notices it… you guess it! TSK *sigh* *slam paper into drawer* *slam drawer closed* *entire cube shakes*)

Me: *Good. Lord.*
TNG: Really?
TNG: That seems kind of odd.
AL: TSK *sigh* It’s the paper. It’s bad paper. And it’s being left out. And that’s causing it to jam.
AL: Just leave the paper out of it and call IT.
Me: Good idea!
AL: TSK *sigh*

In the 20 or so minutes it took me to write this between phone calls and other unavoidable work I counted 7 TSK *sighs*’s while doing nothing but sitting at her desk working and 4 TSK *sighs*’s while answering the phone and hanging it up and 3 TSK *sighs* after people greeted her.

TSK *sigh*

_______________________________________________

Now today:

Set up: Nobody ever called IT about the printer. If it’s jammed when I go to pick up prints I just pull drawer three out an inch and let it go. When I’m done I push it back in. The humor of watching the other three girls freak out is far too enjoyable for me to want to have it fixed.

*printer has jammed about 10 times in the last hour*
New Girl: Whoah! The printer just spit out half a page. I wonder where the other half is!?
Me: I’m going to make a very uneducated guess and say.. somewhere in the printer!
NG: *laughs*
Avon Lady (TAL): TSK *sigh* I’m so SICK of people leaving the paper out and not putting it all in! If people would just do that this would stop happening.
NG: *slowly backs off and retreats to desk, snickering*

(Side note: A lady from another dept occasionally uses our printer if she’s printing out big projects because ours goes much faster. We’ll call her Poor Unsuspecting Lady, or PUL for short. PUL walked up as NG was making her retreat.)

AL: *to PUL* If you’re putting paper in here you need to put the WHOLE ream in and not leave the rest sitting out because then the paper gets saturated with air and the computer senses that it’s a different type of paper and makes it jam.

(Sidenote: I swear that’s word for word what was said. I started to type it out immediately because I knew this would have to be posted. Yes, she said “saturated with air”. And yes, she said “computer”, not “printer”.)

ME: *I actually laughed out loud when she said this. I had my headphones on though and I often laugh at talk radio so I think it went unnoticed*
PUL: Really? I’d never heard that. I’m really glad you told me.
AL: Yes. So put the whole ream in there, please.
PUL: Okay!!
AL: TSK *sigh*

Ah, the comedy.

P.S. - I really need to get some stock post banners made.
P.S.S - Site update post is 99% done so it will probably be posted sometime in the next… month? HA!