Tea for Free

Following my sister's advice, I'm posting a link to Adagio Teas. They will send you free tea if you link to their site. It's based on your Google Page Rank. She got her tea package today so I'm giving it a whirl.

Although, I have to say that I feel a little disloyal.

Cross posted at Lintefiniel Musing

Which is Better: New Year's Edition

I thought I'd do a Which is Better for New Years, although I realize that many of you aren't around the web today or this weekend. But anyway...

Which is better on New Year's Eve?

Staying Home

OR

Braving the Crowds

Speak your piece in the comments.

My Other Blog is Broken

Yeah, so my host stinks and my blog is inaccessible yet again. For the 3rd time in about 6 months, the blog is being moved to a different server. Or so I am told.

I get paid in a couple of day and the first thing I will be doing is signing up for new hosting with pMachine Hosting.

I'm trying to decide if it's worth the time to add the blogrolls here, since I spiffed up the template and lost all of the links I had added way back when. I'm thinking I might, that way if the blog is down again, I'll have the backup list to peruse.

Change your Blogrolls!!

After a weekend's work, I think I'm ready for you all to change your links in your blogrolls.

Tony was a huge help tonight - he pretty much did the editing of the files to get the new blog looking right. It still needs tweaking and some stuff moved over from here, but it's ready to go.

The new link is http://www.freakinjen.us/weblog.php. I'll be posting there starting Monday, June 2.

The Stupid Baby Shower Game

I forgot to mention that we played the obligatory "Identify the Baby Food Flavor" game at the baby shower yesterday. I protested the rules heavily.

Now I've played this game before and always we were able to smell the jars. Because if you've smelled baby food, then you know that it does not necessarily smell like what it is. But there are about 20 shades of yellow or orange, so there's not much chance of picking out the right flavor just by looking at the jar. Which is what we were expected to do.

Hello? I'm single with no kids - I do not spend hours in the baby food lane at the grocery store nor feeding a baby that goo. There is no way I can identify that stuff without smelling it. So I protested the rules hard. I didn't get anywhere, but I made my case.

There were 10 jars. I guessed 6 of the 10. I was stumped by the last four. And then the shoe dropped when the game leaders gave a clue that 3 of the jars were blends! What? I had no chance! That's ridiculous and although I hate to cry discrimination, it placed an unfair advantage to the mothers in the room (all of the women except me and a 12 year old niece of the guest-of-honor, who was one of the game leaders and has a 2 year old brother).

So I managed to get 5 of the 6 I guessed correct. The winner got 6 right. What pushed her ahead of me? Hawaiian Delight. That was the name of the one of the blends. As I said, I had no chance. And in a weird quirk, her prize was lovely decorator soaps by Martha Stewart! Heh.

Did We Skip a Few Months?

It's cool and blustery outside this morning. And really cloudy - so it'll probably rain today. [sarcasm] Yay! [/sarcasm]

It reminds me of a late October day rather than June 1.

Weird.

I Think Faye May Be Replaced

Surfing and discovered NBC rerunning that Martha Stewart movie that I didn't watch when I was in Georgia.

The credits alone tell me that this may be the new Mommie Dearest.

I am going to watch the whole stupid thing. *rubbing hands together in glee*

"I want to make my salad!"

Sunday 5:52am: I couldn't watch the whole thing. It was awful...although Cybill Shepherd definitely pulled a Faye Dunaway by caricaturing Martha. Actually the girls who played the younger Martha was excellent. Hee. Anyway, I turned it off at the halfway point.

Moving is a Pain

Virtual moving is equally painful. However, I have the boxes in the house and I've started unpacking and getting the place in shape.

If you'd like a sneak peek, click here.

**Warning: Don't change your links yet. I'll announce the housewarming when I'm ready for the flood of visitors. *smirk*

What Have I Been Doing?

I worked on the new blog for a long time this morning. I got some of the graphics files uploaded and read the user's manual for pMachine. I need to learn XHTML. This blog uses the old school HTML, so the new format and CSS are a little confusing for me. And I'm a little lost on how to do some stuff with pMachine, so Raye, I'm trying to figure out how to send an email without overloading you with questions! I did figure out how to change the colors of the calendar and that's about it. And until I have a workable blog going, I'm not revealing my new digs to you. You're going to have to be patient.

After playing with that for several hours. I got dressed and headed out for a baby shower for a friend from an old job. This is her first baby, a boy and his name is super secret. She's due in July. I was able to catch up with her sister, who was also a former co-worker at the same company and who recently got married and moved to South Carolina. She married a guy in the USAF - they were planning to marry this summer - but the war with Iraq was gearing up so they took care of it in February. I don't think he was called up. And I saw the third friend from that job. The last time I saw them all was at the third's baby shower a year ago. Wow. It was good time.

And now I'm gearing up for more reading for and working on the new blog. I like to learn new things, but at my age I want to learn them quickly (instantly) and it's just not happening. *sigh*

Interesting Questions

I found these questions at Cootiehog.

1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES? I have a set of burgundy red dishes. I also have a set of cheap spongewear (dusty blue) dishes. My best are expensive pottery spongewear in blue.
2. WHAT BOOK(S) ARE YOU READING NOW? The Rescuer by Dee Henderson
3. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? CIA logo.
4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? Trivial Pursuit.
5. FAVORITE MAGAZINES? I don't read many magazines.
6. FAVORITE SMELLS? Fresh laundry out of the dryer, clean babies.
7. LEAST FAVORITE SMELL? Vomit of any kind.
8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? Do I have to get up?
9. FAVORITE COLOR? Brick red.
10. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR? Gray
11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE? 2 if I can get to it in a timely manner, 3 if I can't
12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? I'd steal Owen from Jaynee for my son, I don't know about a girl's name.
13. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE? My faith and my family!
14. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? Depends. I love chocolate for all things. But I prefer vanilla ice cream and milkshakes.
15. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? It's not so much a matter of driving fast. I like get where I'm going in a timely manner.
16. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? No, although I have a few in a basket in my bedroom.
17. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY? I'm stealing Jaynee's answer--Cool - especially when the sky turns that wacky shade of green/grey.
18. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? If you count the first car I drove, then it's a 1975 Datsun pickup. I loved that truck. Then it was a Chevy Chevette in college.
19. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE? Jesus Christ
21. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN & YOUR BIRTHDAY? Aries, March 27
22. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? Yeah.
23. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE? Do I have to work?
24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I have always wanted to be a redhead
25. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? Yes
26. IS THE GLASS HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY? Usually half full, although I'm sure some think I'm the opposite because I'm a realist.
27. FAVORITE MOVIES? Too many to name.
28. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? Mostly, I think
29. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? A storage container of rolled wrapping paper. I have a ton of it from my days working at Hallmark.
30. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? 8
31. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Baseball, NFL
32. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR? Public speaking
33. FAVORITE CD? I have to pick one? Right now I'm listening to Nicole Nordeman's new one.
37. FAVORITE TV SHOWS? The Amazing Race (when it's on), CSI, ER, West Wing, Alias, Boomtown to name a few.
38. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD? Yes
39. HAMBURGER OR HOT DOG? Hot dog
40. FAVORITE SOFT DRINK? I was recenlty introduced to Vanilla Diet Coke. Yum. Barq's root beer. Fresca.
41. THE BEST PLACES YOU HAVE EVER BEEN? The UK (Scotland and England); Monterey, CA; New England
42. WHAT SCREEN SAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW? My wallpaper is Olivia. My screensave is a scrolling-tumbling thingy that says, "Screensaver." Clever, huh?
43. FAVORITE FAST FOOD? Chick-Fil-A
44. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SONG RIGHT NOW? My Offering by Nicole Nordeman
45. WHAT ARE YOU DOING RIGHT NOW BESIDES ANSWERING THESE SILLY QUESTIONS? Watching the news, giving myself a pedicure.
46. WHAT IS FOR DINNER TONIGHT? I have no idea.
47. WHAT DID YOU EAT FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? Reese's Puffs cereal.
48. DO YOU HAVE A NICKNAME? WHAT IS IT? As long as I can remember I've been Jen, which is short for Jennifer.
49. WHAT KIND OF CAR DO YOU DRIVE NOW? 2003 Toyota Corolla. Silverado turns 1 year old tomorrow.
50. WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Jen

Let the Games Begin

I'll be working on the migration of my blog this weekend. So blogging here may be light.

Or it may be heavy if I feel the need to rant in frustration.

LATER (8:00am): Upload and installation successful. However, I am unable to log in to the pMachine control panel to start working on my blog. I even reset the password and I still can't get in. Getting a little frustrated...

LATERER (8:33am): OK, figured out the log in problem and I've been looking at the control panel. This may take a while for me to learn and migrate. I have a feeling I'll be pestering Raye with many emails over the next week or so.

Lemonlye Hits Another One Out of the Park

Lemonlye is best known for her splendidly witty parody of The Two Towers (the link for the parody is buried in her and my archives - do a Google search or something if you must find it.)

Today I discover that she has written a snarky review of Matrix Reloaded. Be aware that there are spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie yet and plan to, wait to read the review
until after you've seen it.

The best snippet that isn't a spoiler:

Five or six times, Neo gets into a conversation about Destiny with someone. These conversations always go roughly like:

Sage Person: You know why you are here.
Neo: No I don't. Tell me.
Sage Person: Yes you do. You merely have to understand.
Neo: What do you mean?
Sage Person: You already know, because you have already chosen.
Neo: Then why are you offering me this choice?
Sage Person: I'm not. You are just here so you can grasp your purpose in life.
Neo: My path is hidden from me.
Sage Person: No, your path is laid before your feet.
(Oh, no, wait, that last part was also from The Two Towers.)

Heh.

Amish vs English

The Amish are winning, me thinks.

Apparently, the drivers in PA don't recognize the orange triangle warning sign on the back of Amish buggies. Some think it's a biohazard warning or yield sign.

Right, because the Amish are known to accumulate massive amounts of biohazardous wastes...
Chewie of Chew's News editorial comment sums it up nicely, eh?

In a study of 106 people, less than 30% knew what the sign meant. "We were surprised," Philip M. Garvey, a research associate at Penn State's Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, said. "We live in a rural community, and people should be familiar with seeing this."

Idiots.

Gratuitous Link(s)

Jay Solo's Verbosity

and for equality in the race

Right We Are

Good luck!

Things I Forgot from Earlier

I caught the last 30 minutes of Sean Hannity on the radio today. He was talking to a spokesperson from PETA about some animal rights issue. Towards the end of the conversation, Sean asked the guy to stop speaking for PETA and answer a question from his own personal pov. The question?

Would you consider an abortion to be equal to killing an animal? (Or something similar, I can't remember how he phrased it exactly.)

The response was a claim that he couldn't give his opinion on that because he was there to represent PETA. Sean said to him that he knew this wasn't PETA's stance - he just wanted to know how this one guy thought. At one point the guy said that it has nothing to do with what they were talking about.

Excuse me? I think it has everything to do with what they were talking about. They were talking about the value of life. How on earth can someone who passionately fights for the rights of animals ignore the thousands of babies that are killed daily?

In case I haven't mentioned it before, I'm pro-life. 100% - abortion should not be legal in any case, imho. Ever.

It's Started!

I love this show so much. As crazy as people are about Survivor, I am about The Amazing Race (bomp bomp).

My early predictions:

1. The fat couple will be gone early. Please. Out of shape is one thing. Obese is another, and sadly I think they're in that category. LATER: I realized later that my comment was a little too unkind. I felt bad about it.

2. There are a lot of good looking men this season. I predict that the bachelor team of guys will make it to the final 4.

3. The circus clowns may be the comic team this season.

4. Too much will be played about the 12 year dating virgins.

I'm logging off now to watch. My thoughts on Episode 1 tomorrow (or maybe later tonight). And a new reason to get back into reading snarky recpaps at Television Without Pity (link in the left column).

More Mangled Words for the Collection

More to add to the list:

Generally heard: alls and acrosst. Both drive me absolutely nuts.

And don't even attempt to say Warshington to me without getting eyes rolled at you.

Hipsonic: a person from a latin region, also known as hispanic

From Wednesday, 4:30-ish pm

Laugh Til You Cry

There's a place in our parking garage that is deadly (no one has actually died yet, but the potential for serious injury is there). There's a
really low overhang that you have to stoop to avoid knocking your head. And by "stoop" I mean you're really bending forward in half at the waist to get under it. It's about a foot (maybe two feet) deep so it's pretty uncomfortable.

There's a large yellow WARNING - Danger! sign on it and people have taken markers to add arrows pointing to the sign. I'll have to see about getting a photo of that, it's pretty funny when you first see it.

Apparently many have konked their heads on that overhang, including a former Chief Deputy from our office several years ago who managed to break the skin of his forehead he hit it so hard. My friend from Probation, KR, walked into it last month when she was writing down a phone number that a deputy was giving her. She hit it so hard that it threw her back and she landed hard. She was knocked out for a minute, but our deputy was kind enough to help her up and make sure she was OK, with minimal laughter. She had a nice bump and bruise for a week. And we had many chuckles in the retelling of the story later.

Then today, CJ, our rotating Court Security Inspector, ran into it. She was with another deputy, who tried to warn her but too late. She was knocked down and left early with a splitting headache, goose-egg, and developing bruise. She was telling us how hard the deputy was laughing as he helped her up and we were surprised because we would have thought the other one would be the belly-laugher as someone else's misfortune rather than this gentle soul. You never know what things people will or won't laugh at.

LW and I agreed that we would have been cracking up hard if we had been witness to these occurances. So we (LW and I) started telling stories of instances where we've laughed at or been laughed at. At one point we were both laughing so hard that we were crying. She and I are way too similar - we laugh at the same sick stuff, we both have the same sarcastic thoughts pop into our heads in meetings.

And I have a headache from laughing too hard, but it was totally worth it.

From today (Thursday): LW and I were upstairs on a mail/soda run when we came upon this guy in the hall. He sneezed without making a sound. Then he looked like he was going to sneeze again as we passed him. LW whispered, "Bless you?" and I lost it because I had almost blessed him after the first one but I was afraid I would laugh instead. She let out a loud laugh when I laughed, so I fear he heard us laughing instead of her quiet blessing.

From Wednesday, 4ish pm

OK, This is Just Oogey

Paul MacCartney and wife, Heather Mills, are expecting their first child
later this year.

Yes, I realize she's only 34. He's 61.

Ick.

From Wednesday, 2:04pm

I have bought my domain name and webhosting. I plan to download pMachine
tonight and the migration from Blogger will commence this weekend. I anticipate many sighs, curses, and rants by the time the blog-move is complete.

Also, my good friend Jason started a blog for his start-up church in the Virginia Beach area, Crosscurrent Church. Go pay him a visit.

From Wednesday, 10:44am

This is in response to a few comments from a couple of posts. I'm too lazy to turn off the javascript, reload the page, click into the comments, turn the javascript back on, etc.

1. Regarding the Iraq War Fake Boyfriends^TM, I was referring to Greg Kelly and Rick Leventhal of Fox News. Although Todd Conner is a hottie as well. David, you're wife's pick is safe from me.

2. The New Look: I just created a new masthead with a current photo of me that I will upload tonight. It's basically the same overall look, but I did change the font and added the photo. I'm hoping it will look right - there's no telling. I will figure out some way to keep the "little jen" pic and get a new one of Annie without the blue background. My software limitations require creative photoshopping.

I also plan to prune the blogroll and clean up the left column a bit. It's a work in progress. Thanks for the positive feedback on the new colors, though! I like them too.

3. There will be no early morning blogging for this week. It's a struggle to ignore the siren call of my computer when I wake up, but I want to get back into reading and that's a good time to do it - while I'm drinking that first perfect cup of coffee.

4. There will be no blogging on Thursday nights for the next several weeks - or it will be extremely light. I plan to be parked in front of my TV watching the new season of The Amazing Race 4 (the link to the show is not working, I wonder if they use blog*spot?), which starts tomorrow at 8pm on CBS. I am very excited because this is the best reality show.

I think that's it.

Starting the Countdown

The Amazing Race 4 premiere is in about 4 hours (ET) - 8pm on CBS.

Dad - you MUST watch it. We can do this. We can win this. Consider it good quality bonding time.

I'm sending this as a test from my work email. I'm hoping it works.

LATER: It didn't work, but I set the time to reflect when I sent it.

At Home This Morning

I need to get my car inspected, so my appointment for that and an oil change is at 10:30.

So I'm working on some stuff, although I just spent the past 30 minutes dialing in and getting disconnected no less than 7 times! Seven! I think I'm in for the duration this time.

Surfing TV I heard about the phone issues with the American Idol final voting. Apparently callers may have mistaken the Q (#7 on the keypad) and O (#6 on the keypad). Where they should have dialed the 6, they pressed the 7 instead in their haste to get their vote counted. What this tells me is that there are thousands of people who don't know their alphabet.

AKUS in Concert

Alison Krauss and Union Station are on CMT right now.

She has the most amazingly sweet voice.

I Emailed Four Posts Today

My outbox shows them as sent. So Blogger has them somewhere, I hope. Argh!

Later: I emailed them from my work email and so I am unable to cut and paste them as I would do otherwise.

Laterer: I couldn't see that my posts hadn't arrived at my blog because I couldn't get my blog to open all day. And that's why I didn't visit any of you today. I rely on my blogroll as my bookmark list. As for the blogroll, there was some pruning today, I think 10-12 links got deleted. One got added - my friend Jason has a blog about the church he leads in Virginia Beach. So go check him out.

In the meantime, the new mashead with picture has been added.

Tweakage Tonight

Looks like Blogger has solved the template problem. I will be working on that tonight.

Just wanted to warn you...

7:44pm - Hmmm...I wonder why the little jen photo is so distorted? It looks fine otherwise. I will work on that.

8:17pm - Working on new background and color changes. Not sure I like this combo outside of the plaid. But I will live with it for a day.

8:32pm - I couldn't do it. Changed from the gold-pink plaid to the pink-green plaid.

8:53pm - Will work on the masthead. Old one put back.

Busy, Busy, Busy...Rant, Rant, Rant

It's a pain to be out of the office for a week no matter the reason. I have stacks of paper and messages to get through. I just completed reading the mass quantities of email from HQ regarding various matters that don't pertain to me but that they send to all personnel.

My boss is out this week on vacation, which I didn't know was planned because he was off for training the week before I went to my training. So I hadn't talked to him in about 2 weeks.

I'm sick and tired of the rain. There are mushrooms now sprouting up in the field where I walk Annie. Not that I'm looking forward to the hot summer days ahead, but a little sunshine would be nice, Lord. Please?

I woke up at 2:48am wide awake. I lay there for about 20 minutes hoping to get back to sleep, but I knew that I was up for the day. So I
turned on the light and started a book from the stack I have piling up. I got about a third of the way into it before getting up to walk Annie and have some coffee. I'm afraid that I'll crash at about 2pm this afternoon, but I'm feeling pretty good right now.

I think that's it for now. Oh, we're getting Chipotle for lunch today. Yum! And it's Tuesday! Woo hoo!