Archive for December, 2003
Wednesday, December 24th, 2003
I want to say Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates. It’s Christmas Eve and I’m at work, but only for a few hours hopefully. Then tomorrow I celebrate with my hubby. Friday we are off to the in-laws for the week. We’ll probably ring in the New Year with them then head back home. And hopefully while we are down there we’ll get to see my parents. They will be down visiting dad’s sisters, so maybe we’ll be able to coordinate something. Unfortunately I won’t see my sister this Christmas. She is working next week then she’s off to the Rio Grande with her boyfriend for New Years. She’s also attending a quinceañera. For those who do not know what that is, here in America we celebrate Sweet 16. In spanish cultures they celebrate the 15th birthday and the celebration is much more grand and formal usually than our sweet 16 parties.
Yesterday we rented Pay It Forward, so I’ll be watching that today or tomorrow. A few nights ago, I saw Down With Love. It was a cute movie, but I can see why it didn’t last too long at the theaters. For a while now I’ve been recording Charmed on TNT. I’ve loved being able to watch the older episodes from when Prue was alive. TNT has their schedule all wonky because of the holidays so there are a few days that it won’t be on in the afternoon. But they are still showing it in the morning. It airs at 8 and 5 every afternoon. The episodes that have been airing in the morning are more recent ones that I’ve already seen. So I’ve only bothered to record the afternoon episodes. Well, for the holidays, I looked at the schedule and they are airing a few episodes in the morning that I haven’t seen…from when Prue was alive. Plus the ones they are airing in the afteroon next week. So I’ll be missing some while I’m on vacation next week. I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to watch them all…and curse whoever is holding up the release of the DVDs. I’m ready to buy all 5 seasons. Hurry up already!!!
Posted in The Inner Me | 4 Comments »
Friday, December 19th, 2003
First off, comments should be working again. Yeah. Thank you Sara for letting me know there was something wrong. We went and saw Return of the King yesterday afternoon. I was mighty proud of myself for not leaving at any time during the movie for a bathroom break. 
It was a really good movie, but I missed the Hobbit battle. Oh well, maybe that will be on the extended DVD. We also went out and bought some vinyl squares for the kitchen and dining room. While I was at work, my husband did the kitchen floor. We have a pretty small kitchen so it probably didn’t take very long. It looks fabulous. I love it. Of course, now our wallpaper doesn’t match the floor. : Figures. So we have to hurry up and strip the wallpaper so we can paint the walls. It feels great to know we made one more improvement to our house. The dining room is next, probably this weekend. Then in January, we’ll do the walls and maybe also paint the living room walls as well.
I finished all my shopping Tuesday afternoon. Then I came home and spent about 3 hours wrapping everything up. Our tree looks fabulous with all those presents under it. But we have a small tree. It’s only a five foot tree. Maybe next year we’ll get one of those with the lights already on it.
Posted in The Inner Me | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, December 16th, 2003
I’ve only had this layout up for a short while and of course I’m getting an itch to redesign again. Interesting how when I redesign, I seem to do a major overhaul. I can’t seem to just change the look, I manage to change the entire structure of my site. Yes, I know it gets aggravating. I get aggravated with myself. Because I get sick of looking at my site. I don’t even look at it that much anymore yet, I’m already sick of it. It’s some insane sickness I have that I can’t cure. What to do? I’m not sure I want to skin my site, but then it’s ready to skin. Every page already calls a header and footer file that all I’d have to do is modify a little bit, but because my site structure changes so dramatically, it becomes insane. I just wish I could design something that would satisfy me permanently or at least for more than a month. I love those sites that you know what they look like. Their design becomes part of what identifies them. You think that site…and you automatically conjure up an image in your head and you know that is what it will look like. Mine is ever changing that no one knows what to expect.
And of course I see so many great designs out there, but I can’t copy someone’s idea. I battle with this constantly and I’m so fustrated. I just don’t know what to do. I get to a point where I just can’t stand my site. I don’t want to take it down, but I can’t stand looking at it, either. Why does it have to be so difficult to stick with one design? I know I will be changing it after the holidays anyway to a non-holiday look, but I want something I won’t mind looking at for several months to come. Oh, I need some serious help. 
Posted in All Work and No Play | 1 Comment »
Sunday, December 14th, 2003
Last night I had the worst dizzy spell I’ve ever experienced. It was aweful. We went over to visit some friends who were having a party. I sat at the table watching them play drinking games and I just got dizzy. I wasn’t drinking or smoking and I hadn’t yet taken my medication that day (one of the side effects is dizzyness but I’ve never really gotten dizzy from it). I guess maybe it was a combination of the smoke, the noise and the heat or something. But it was the worst feeling. I got so dizzy, I started getting sick to my stomach and I could barely sit up. I was reclining on the couch with a cold cloth on my face neck. I was having cold sweats too. When I tried to sit up, it got worse. I finally gave in and my hubby took me home. I stayed in bed and watched a movie.
I still feel somewhat unstable, so I’ll be taking it very easy today. I have no idea what happened and everyone at the party kept asking me if I was okay. One guy asked me if it was normal. I said, being so dizzy, you’re sick to your stomach and can’t barely sit up isn’t normal.
But I’ve had my flu shot, and for a while that was the only problem…dizziness, till it started getting worse and making my stomach feel woozy. Very strange. I just had to write it down to document that it happened.
Posted in The Inner Me | No Comments »
Monday, December 8th, 2003
I’ve decided to try to redo and continue working on my web soap opera. It’s not up, but I’ve written quite a bit on it so far. Maybe some day it will go online. For now, I’m just developing my storylines. Today I discovered a great program to help me write my serial. It actually works with just about any type of writing. It comes with a term paper, a creative writing and a graph sample to help you get started. It’s called Writer’s Blocks. It allows you to develop your story in pieces and organize the pieces as needed for whatever you’re writing. I’m currently using it to keep track of my storylines and characters. I’m also going to use it to develop my episodes. It is sort of an outline tool, but it has a built in word processor so you can do the actual writing as well. For me, it is so much easier to see everything broken down into pieces than trying to put it all on one big text document.
Each block can be a scene or an summary of a scene. Then you can drag and drop your scenes wherever they need to go to work in your story. If you’re doing a screenplay it has a function to format your content into screenplay submission format. As I mentioned above, I’m using it to keep track of my characters. Each block is a different character. I can link the blocks to link specific characters to each other and I can organize the blocks into columns, so I could put each family in its own column.
I think it is a great tool for someone like me who has a difficult time with writing. Seeing it all in pieces help make it less overwhelming. And I can keep it all organized so much better. Now, if I can only come up with the $150 to purchase it. 
(I’m currently using the 10-day trial)
Posted in The Inner Me | 2 Comments »
Friday, December 5th, 2003
Most families have a particular tradition that makes Christmas a special time. Since I was 10, my family has had it’s own tradition. Every Christmas morning, my father would wake my sister and I up by playing Christmas music. One particular song…Christmas in Dixie by Alabama. Ever since, that song has signified Christmas to me. When I hear it, it brings back memories of special holidays past. It makes Christmas feel real. For me the holiday season hasn’t begun really till I hear that song. Today I received a special surprise. I went to our city tree lighting ceremony and Alabama was there by special request. As the tree lit up, they sang Christmas in Dixie to kick off the holiday season here in Montgomery. It was a wonderful event that I’ll never forget. And it made me feel closer to my family.
Posted in The Inner Me | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2003
I saw on a television show that 10 minutes of jumping rope is the equivalent aerobic workout as 30 minutes of jogging. I figure doing 10 minutes of jumping jacks is similar to jogging. So I’m going to try to start doing 5-10 minutes of jumping jacks several times a week. I’ve tried so many different exercises but it’s like pills. I’d die if my life depended on it, because I don’t ever remember to do it. But I’m going to try, starting tonight. If I could only follow the diet my doctor put me on (no white bread and no sugar) I’d be doing really well.
I’ll be doing some volunteer work this weekend, I hope. I’m set to go talk to the volunteer coordinator to see what I could do and maybe I’ll get to do some. And Friday night, we will be having a houseful of people. Some friends are coming to stay then Saturday they are all going camping, even though it’s supposed to be in the 20s overnight. I’m staying home in my nice warm cozy house. I told them they can go out and freeze their toes if they want but I just can’t do it. I’ll rent a movie Saturday night or something.
Ok, a little bit of Charmed pondering for you fans. I just recently saw an episode where Phoebe, Prue and Piper vanquished the demon that killed their mother, Patty. In the process, her mother’s whitelighter, Sam also died. Later when Paige came to the show, she was the daughter Patty had by her whitelighter. In a later episode Paige meets her father I thought. So if her father is Sam, then did he come to her as a ghost, since he had already been killed by the same demon that killed Patty? I don’t fully remember the episode, so I’m not sure. Can someone enlighten me?
Posted in The Inner Me | 2 Comments »
Monday, December 1st, 2003
I’ve just installed the new Mozilla ActiveX Control using the installer and I am finally able to view my pages in TopStyle using the Mozilla Preview. I’m so glad they finally fixed this issue.
We’re back from Texas, obviously. Thanks to everyone who sent me a holiday e-card. We had a good time with my parents and it was so great to see them again. Traffic coming home was so bad. We were at a crawl on the interstate twice. We took a detour in Mobile to get onto I-65 from I-10 because of traffic, then on I-65 we had backed up traffic so we took another road that runs parallel, but hooks up with the interstate closer to town. All was fine till we got back on the interstate and this was around 6pm. We had no problems with traffic on the way there. We just hit some horrible storms once we got into Texas. Incredible thunder and lightning and so much rain and fog you could barely see the road. It took us one hour to go 20 miles. Other than that, we had a good time, but I was ready to be home.
And I just want to send a congrats to Stacey, on her new pregnancy!
Posted in At Home | 2 Comments »
