blogger's block or busyness?

i've been wanting to post. i really have. but every time i login and start to create a new post, my mind goes blank or i get distracted. so we'll just have to see where this goes i guess.

it's a week o' birthdays for cool people. and by cool people i mean scotty, my friend kjo and myself. yep, the big two five. now that kinda sounds old to me. not OLD old, but not really young either. and for the record, i'm not complaining about it because i like being an adult; it's just the first age that seems like it should come with a maturity/responsibility requirement.

the interesting thing about the mid 20s is that people are in such different stages of life during these years. for example, scotty is turning 27* and he's just graduating college to start his life as a very rich caring pharmacist. he's not yet married (ehem, ladies) or a homeowner, but after making my yearly salary in 2 months i'm sure that will change. kjo turned 26 yesterday. she has been working as an accountant for the past 3 years. she is also not yet married (ehem, guys) but is about to become a homeowner in the next few months. i am turning 25 and have been working as a designer for the past 6 years. i am married, have owned a home for almost 2 years and before i know it i'll be having kids.**

in other news, our new deck was a bit more pricey than i originally planned, so that kind of bummed me out. it looks great though, and i really appreciate magnum's dad helping us put it up. hopefully we'll still have enough money to buy some nice flowers and plants to really spruce up the back yard.


*luckily he won't care that i mentioned his age cause he's not a woman over 30.

**yikes.

somebody kill the radio star

today i had to drive to a press check downtown, which is now 30 minutes away. my car is in the shop, so my kind mother let me borrow hers and of course i forgot to transfer my cds. as i started the car, the horrifying realization hit: i have a 1 hour, round-trip drive ahead of me and i have to listen to the radio.

accepting my fate, i tuned to the station i used to listen to--a college indie-rock channel*. song number one was terrible, but i stuck it out because the radio has never been perfect. song number two sounded just like the same chaotic racket that passed as the first song. song number three involved a shrieking vocal line, some grunting and more unmelodic noise.

and that's when the radio got turned off.

ok. seriously. how the hell is this misuse of instruments and voices considered music? and good enough "music" that it gets radio play? who. listens. to. this. shit? why are these "musicians" getting paid to make more of this awful ear poison?

somebody make it stop. it's sucking my will to live.



*i've refrained from specifying the call numbers to protect the innocent.

guiltless shopping is underrated

i bought a dress today. from white house | black market. this is nothing like dropping $8 on a shirt from target where even if you only wear it once, you're still proud you found such a great deal. i'm having a difficult time with this.

PROS:
1) it's versatile. it's a black, cotton dress that can easily be dressed up or down with accessories.
2) it's flattering. it's pretty much the only dress in years that i've actually looked decent in because of the 1950's-inspired waistline and a-line cut*.

CONS:
1) it's $126 with tax. again, i'm used to $8 shirts here, people.
2) this $126 does not include accessories to dress it up or down. i need shoes, necklaces, earrings, and i could even use an anklet.

*sigh*
to keep or not to keep. that is the question.



*women in the 50s had curves and i have a big ass so this look works for me. i'm so living in the wrong era... except i don't cook or clean or housewife**.

**i swear it works as a verb here.

good friday

i'm thinking my idea of a good friday is a little different than jesus's. for starters, mine doesn't include a crown of thorns or some jerkface pretending not to be my friend 3 times*. rather it includes a beach, a hammock, alcohol, a day off and 85-degree warmth. so as i sit here freezing my ass off, i can't help but count the minutes until my mini vacation.

yesterday we--and by "we" i mean magnum and his dad--tore off our deck that was falling apart to prepare for the new and improved deck/patio to replace it. i'm quite excited to start landscaping and planting bushes and flowers and stuff. i'm pretty new at this whole thing, so if anybody has good recommendations for what to plant in the midwest, i'd really appreciate it. here's what all i'm looking for:
• pretty, low-maintenance bushes that don't have thorns (flowers optional)
• pretty, low-maintenance perennial flowers (yellows and reds)
• any other suggestions on how to make a backyard more inviting
and remember, there are no bad suggestions. except for the time someone told me i should watch Saw. but otherwise, there are no bad suggestions.



* what, too soon?

april showers

bridal showers, that is. i have one every weekend until the end of this month. *cringe* don't get me wrong, i mean i love shopping for spatulas and spending my sunday afternoons in an akward, overly girly situation amongst the bride's unfamiliar family members and friends playing childish games without even the option of alcohol. great times.

speaking of great times, i HATE internet explorer on the PC. i've had to program some websites lately and holy crap, IE sucks my ass. i've always known that IE sucks, but i'm a mac user so i really don't have to deal with it. two days ago i programmed a website. i usually start by testing it on firefox for the mac because it's usually a more accurate representation of how everyone else is going to see it. the site looked great so i checked safari*. all good there, so then i checked IE for the mac--let me just note that IE for the mac hasn't been updated since 1999. surprisingly everything worked. then the real test, IE for the PC. mother eff, the whole website was jacked. i spent the entire day yesterday coding and recoding and coding some more just to get the flippin thing to stop having weird spacing that should have never been there to begin with. i had a programming guru check my code; he said it looked great and couldn't see why it wouldn't work. but he suggested taking out ONE SPACE between an image and a closing tag. as in one hit of the space bar which should generally be ignored in HTML. and wouldn't you know, that was the problem the whole time. grrrrrr....

thankfully my friends who have the unfortunate obligation of using PCs all browse with FF. the problem is that the creators of IE have no motivation to make it a better browser because they already dominate the market. so until IE stops coming pre-installed with windows, i'm afraid programmers are going to continue to rip their hair out.


*the fastest, prettiest, lightest, most efficient browser ever.

the 28-point hand

i saw something amazing this weekend. well, for me anyway. as a cribbage player of over 20 years i had the opportunity to witness my first real 28-point cribbage hand. this might not sound like much, but it's the second biggest hand in cribbage. the odds of getting it are 1 in 15,028. for you poker fans, it's kind of like seeing a straight flush.

the biggest hand in cribbage is 29 points, but i'm not really counting on ever seeing that since those odds are 1 in 649,740. again, poker fans, that would be more like seeing a royal flush.

it was my good friend's husband who got the hand. we were playing at this great little martini bar in GI. it was funny because when he laid his hand down, we all knew it was something good but it took us a little while to figure out just how good it was. i ended up getting skunked* because of it, but it was so cool i didn't even care.



*when the loser scores 61-90 points he is skunked and loses a double stake; if he scores 60 or fewer he is double skunked and loses a triple (or quadruple) stake.