the CRAZY is gone!

I remembered what I did with the picture & then confirmed where I had stashed it :)

I had used it in his Everyday Easel birthday celebration & then stashed it in his baby book with the other pictures I used!

WOOT!

Am not crazy!

Late night boredom

So with my husband on the couch, at least he wasn't snoring, and LeNelle having gone off to bed, I was left Self Googling & then quickly started looking for old high school friends.

This all started because LeNelle was trying to come up with a user name for a job site and didn't want something very search-able so I googled her first choice & found some funny shit - mostly tags for Boston news stories but just going by headlines you can gather quite a few assumptions about who LeNelle is. Which I found hysterical, LeNelle, not so much. So then I googled my AIM screen name & only came back with 10 hits! WOOT! I'm more under the radar than she is! And one of the hits was from this HORRIBLE crab shack we went to in Fairfax way back when, when our relationship was still new & the food was horrible. And I actually wrote a review about it. I found that endearing and this started my googling of other screen names I have had & then onto looking for old friends.

A few years ago, I stumbled upon my old friend's, Clark, work email address & I emailed him & it really was him & we got to talking again and this that and the other. He had just had a baby boy & was married to a woman who had a child from another marriage, I wasn't married yet so we did some catching up then life took off & we fell back out of touch. Around that same time, I got a random ass email about someone buying a condo in San Diego but it was from Linda, one of my high school (Leland Lesiters!) girlfriends so I emailed her back basically saying, somehow you got the wrong Jennifer but hey it's me! We caught up & then fell out of touch again somehow. Last night, I emailed Clark at his work address but it got returned as no longer valid - little bugger went and got a new job! So I googled him & found his new email address :) And sent another email! Did the same with Linda but her's is Hotmail so maybe it hasn't changed (didn't get bounced back) but also maybe it has gone the way of spam folder demise...

And less than 12 hours later & I haven't heard from anyone! HA! I think I have Iqbal's email that Christina passed along to me & I think she's caught me up on Steve's life these days...I have never been able to find anyone else though - minus my two boyfriends (Julio & Scott) who are both married now also. Don't any of these people keep blogs?!?!

I woke up this morning with a lovely little headache & a broken coffee maker. BOO! I stumbled down to get Liam his bottle & make coffee and when I hit ON, the little pretty red light came on & nothing happened. Nothing happened. No coffee! My less annoying when not snoring on the couch husband RAN to Dunkin' Donuts with the child (all bundled up in his ROOTS hoodie and socks over his PJs) to get coffee from their drive-thru! thankfully, we are not coffee-less because seriously, I don't know what I would have done. So now we have to go coffee-maker shopping & all I ask for is a stainless steel one & I'm quite sure they do not exist. White's fine, it matches the big appliances but I like all my others to be of the stainless variety of steel & it bugs the ever loving shit out of me to have ONE white appliance in my lovely sea of stainless steel.

The Crazy is back.

Every time Liam got his X Month Picture taken, I put it in a new frame on the mantel & then we put the old ones on his "gallery" in his room. We got his one year pictures back right before the Nissan show & I distinctly remember taking one of him down & stowing it somewhere. The point of that sentence is the somewhere. Once again, I have misplaced something & it's driving me crazy. I've looked in all my usual places, of course. Even took pictures out of frames and checked to make sure I didn't re-use a frame without remembering.

I cannot find it. It's driving me a little mad. I think someone was here with me when I took it down - LeNelle or mom - got any ideas? It's not with his 8x10 one & it's the one of him with his hand in his mouth cause the cowboy one is on my little perch by the computer...

Procrastination Central

I'm stealing a meme that no one tagged me for but since I'm slightly putting off getting all my stuff gathered up for my Prince William County Moms of Multiples Club (PWCMOMC for short!) vendor & yard sale, I figured I would amuse y'all with 6 Quirks About Me and then insist y'all follow suit...

1) I don't like my food to touch. And if I run out of room on my plate, I'll either get a salad plate for the "spill over" or just eat what I have and go get what I was missing the first plate around. That basically means I don't like casseroles. And buffets can be difficult for me.

2)I cannot handle raw meat.

[wow. these could really turn into Weird Food Issue Quirks...]

3) I only print, I do not know how to write cursive.

4) I don't like making left turns against traffic (no light OR arrow) but even more so I don't like crossing ALL lanes of traffic to cut across. Usually, I will turn right then make a U-turn at the next chance I get.

5) I have to put my right shoe on first. Sometimes I nearly even fall over/lose my balance if I forget and put my left shoe on first.

6) Sometimes I put things on my existing To Do Lists that I've already completed just so I can check them off.

Jenny's Lisey's Story

I've been a huge Stephen King fan since my pre-teen years, devouring every one of his books (minus IT), as soon as I can get my little claws on them. With that said, I can usually read one of his books in less than a week and then I get bummed cause I blew through it too quickly & then I am left with nothin'! Until he writes his next one, that is :)

I started reading Lisey's Story on the plane to Creek & finished this 500+ page book over the weekend.

Two things about it -

1. It gave me a nightmare one night. It's the first book since The Shining to have done so.
2. I have incorporated some of the phrases from the two main characters into my every day speech. And it's creeping me the F out. You know how you & your spouse have words & phrases that you use together, that is intimate just between the two of you? Well this book has a good mess of those & I have totally found myself saying them - first it wasn't out loud but in my head & I would stop myself cause that's crazy talk, right? Then I couldn't help myself & have just started using them daily.

You know that this is a sign of fantastic writing when you adopt phrases into your vocabulary but since it's Stephen King we are talking about here, I'm a little weirded out by it. With the whole "horror story" & "love story" mix this novel has going on, I really don't appreciate those words sneaking their way into my brain and putting down roots. Especially since one of the characters is dead (not giving any plot away, that's on the back cover) & talking to his not dead wife (and here's the creepy part) - SHE RESPONDS TO HIM OUT LOUD.

So not only have I adopted this intimate language but it's intimate language between a ghost & his wife in a horror novel.

I just cannot believe that he got into my head that way & has stuck there. Trips me out!

Not totally insane!

I found my book!!!

It was underneath our bed on Matias' side also with my Body & Soul magazine - it's strange though because it was right on top of the magazine as if it was moved as a unit & not just pushed aside. My magazine was not beside my bed...so although I might be a little tinge of crazy, I don't know how it got there but at least I found it!!

I ROCK!

FINALLY finished my CDN taxes!! And I don't owe anything, I actually am getting a refund!

This is happy news because when I used online software to calculate my taxes "they" royally screwed it up & had me OWING over $1200! On only 7 months of employment! I nearly had another birth story to write up, but this one would have included a cow!

My dad was helping me out very much but I didn't have the time to sit down and get it re-done. He had found a few glaring errors that needed correcting...last night I sat down at 10:30pm to redo them...and the SOFTWARE SUCKS ASS.

I finally gave up & asked for help as I was only making my balance owed LARGER by trying to correct my mistakes. Matias & my dad hovered over me & tried to figure out what *I* was doing wrong - ahem - it was NOT me, it was the software not being able to handle my "non-resident + CDN income - no foreign taxable income" status. We went through the forms manually after printing them all out (really need a REAL printer) & decided at 1am to go to bed & finish it up for real, by hand, with a calculator & a pen.

As soon as Liam went down for his nap, I started going through all 15 pages of it - complete with Schedule A, Schedule 10 & Schedule 1 forms (can I get a WTF?) - and FOUND THE SOFTWARE'S ERROR! I was so excited I celebrated with a cigarette & a call to my dad (who is driving to Cary right now...) to tell him I found their goddamn error!

I know you are dying to know what it was - not only did they tax my CDN income BUT they also "claimed" that I had foreign income that needed to be taxed & collected on behalf of the CDN government! Income that I DO NOT HAVE! And nowhere in the software was I EVER asked/prompted/given the option to add any foreign income! BASTARDS! And since the software doesn't supply you with all the various Schedules & Forms to complete/punch in your numbers there was NO WAY TO CHANGE IT! We could NOT figure out where they were getting this number from - but the math genius that I am figured it out - of course I figured it out by READING but still, I figured it out nonetheless!

Take that stupidstupid software fuckers!

You know what else I love?

I love LISTS. Love making them, crossing them off, tidying them up, typing them up, blogging about them, typing them so I can blog about them...ANYTHING. i HEART lists.

I have a notebook that I carry around with me, now it basically lives on my desk though, that is just ALL LISTS.

Here's a sampling of my lists in my List Notebook.

• Foods Liam can eat at 8 months old
• Bills due each month
• Target
• Things I need to stock up on at Bath & Body
• What size clothes Liam is a different stores
• Who gets pictures & cards lists
• Things I want to blog about
• a For Liam List with things such as the type of stroller we want or baby gates
• Books I want

Then on my monitor I use a Post-It note for a WEEKLY To Do List & once I cross enough things off, I can make another one :)

What's on that list right now:

• order cat food
• CDN taxes
• Dad - tools- reminder email
• Dr. appt - Liam - 9 mos
• Journal Storybook for G. Grandma

THEN if I have an "event" that will take up more than a Post-It note worth of space, I have a little pad of paper that I use for my larger lists - you saw that one earlier with My Things To Do Before G. Grandma Comes List.

And I do NOT throw out these notebooks. Oh heavens, no. I file them away. And choosing my next one is always a hard decision for me because I need some specific qualifications to be met...

• spiral bound - since I'm a Lefty I need to be able to fold it over to write properly
• lined
• hard enough cover so that it "with stands" the pressure & stress I will put it under
• LOOKS. Hardly the last thing on the list but usually the RIGHT ONE will make itself known to me rather quickly so it's usually not an issue.
  

Things that Annoy Me

These things just get under my skin & I know there's no changing them/him but yet they still bother :) And for the record...these sorts of "things" have ALWAYS bothered me.

1. leaving cabinets open any amount - how hard is it to shut it completely?
2. leaving the shower door open about an inch every single time - how hard is it to shut it completely?
3. not putting things back where you got them - like books, screwdrivers, etc
4. not throwing things out but instead placing them 1/2" away from the garbage can
5. not answering the house phone EVER