General

…or at least, that’s what Denis says! Last night I bought a couple of new books of piano music, and while we were waiting for our pizza at the restaurant next to the music store I was browsing through the books. I can hear the music in my head when I look at it – and I found a piece that had an amusing melody, so I was giggling over it…and Denis promptly declared that I was weird. I guess I’ve been reading music that way for so long I didn’t realize it was an unusual ability – I mean, I know not everybody reads music in the first place, but I just assumed that part of reading music was hearing it too. Besides, it really was an amusing piece – the Irish Washerwoman song – you know, dah dah dah…oh nevermind.

I am so busy at work, I can hardly see straight. If I survive the next three weeks, it will be a miracle. And to top matters off, my wrist picked today to start acting up again – I haven’t had problems with it in months! – and I don’t have any brace or bandage with me. It aches all the way up my shoulder. Yes, I’m whining. But, to paraphrase a stupid song, “it’s my blog and I can whine if I want to!”

Adding to our recent woes with the firewall at our house, we came home last night to discover that we’d been hacked. Fortunately, the hacker was only on for about 30 minutes – long enough to cripple the system and get our IP blocked from some sites, I’m sure, but not long enough to do any real lasting damage. Unfortunately, it meant another night without the internet, which makes project research a little tough…

OK. Just because it’s blizzarding outside doesn’t mean they need to turn the blasted thermostat up to a million degrees. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was going through “the change”! Tomorrow, I’m wearing shorts and a t-shirt to work.

I decided to check out Blogger Pro since it has a few nifty features, and promises to come out with more. And I’m never one to pass on nifty features! Besides, I’ve managed to keep my blog up-to-date for more than six months, so it’s obviously not just a passing thing. Time to get serious. :D

Monday already?!?
Where on earth did the weekend go? This project is going to kill me! I even missed some of the better superbowl commercials because I was glued to my laptop, frantically writing code… (I’m assuming I missed the better ones because the ones I saw were pretty lame.) At least I got a lot done. Well, before I totally trashed the database installation I was using…but I think I fixed it…hopefully.

On the fun side, I hung out at my parents’ place and watched Fifth Element on their big screen TV with the surround sound – that was pretty cool! Molly got to play with Sylvan and Shadow, so she was very sleepy Saturday night. Yesterday, I had a few people over to watch the superbowl, or the superbowl commercials, and my cousins’ dog Casper came over. Casper and Molly played really hard and I think she’s still tired from it today! A sleepy dog is a good dog. :)

Yay. Winter’s here. :P They’re predicting a “parfait of precipitation” today and tomorrow. So far, we’ve had some ice, then a layer of snow. Later, we’re going to get sleet, then freezing rain. Tomorrow, we’ll top it off with slush and more freezing rain. Fun! I was amazed when I woke up to our local school being closed (the school is easy walking distance from our house) when there was only maybe a half-inch of snow on the ground. By the time we left the house about an hour later, at least another inch had fallen, and it was coming down faster. I’m not sure how we’ll get in the driveway later… Well, at least it’s nearly February. Only about four more months before spring arrives. :)

Sleepy!
I’m very sleepy today – I didn’t sleep very well last night. I’ve been feeling kind of guilty because the other night I woke up at 3AM to find Molly curled up in a ball outside our bedroom door (we have a baby gate across it to keep her out). She looked so miserable, like she was trying to be as close to us as she could. So, last night I put everything she could get into away, cleaned the stray bits of stuff off the floor (I was much too tired to vacuum) and took the gate away. She was so happy, tail wagging, sniffing everything in the room, just hanging out. But when Denis turned the lights out, she went down to the family room. So, I spent the whole night listening for the jingle-jangle of the tags on her collar, hoping she’d come back upstairs…and worried that if she did she’d find something I hadn’t put away to get into trouble with! Of course, she also picked last night to bark at random things just about every 20 minutes, so even if we hadn’t opened up the gate I probably would’ve been up half the night. I used to be a very heavy sleeper, until I got a dog. I would imagine it’s much worse when you have children to listen for in the middle of the night!

The “Digital” Generation
My “little” brother, who just turned 17 yesterday, doesn’t know what shrinky dinks are. I mean, I realize there’s a nine-year difference in our ages (yes, if you do the math you can figure out how old I am) but I never knew he led such a deprived childhood! I’m going to have to buy him a shrinky dink set on my way home tonight. Thankfully, he does know what an easy-bake oven is and has seen (and possibly used) a lite-brite. :)

No Internet!
Ack! I’ve been without the internet all weekend… Actually, considering how lovely it was outside, it really wasn’t that big a problem. Except that I’m running out of chai, and had to wait until today to order it. Priorities, of course. :)

But, since Denis destroyed the internet (well, really, all he did was take down our router/firewall, and I probably could have managed to alter my settings so I could get out, but that would have taken some degree of effort – and besides, I’ve been sick of looking at a computer screen for many days now) we got lots done this weekend. The rest of my bulbs are in the ground, impatiently waiting for the real spring weather to appear. We patched the hole in the kitchen ceiling – another round of sanding and one more layer of spackle, and it might be ready for painting! I took two really long walks with Molly. And all the laundry and grocery shopping are done. (So much for getting tons of stuff done on my master’s project this weekend!)