New Season

Anyone else get this in their email today ago go "YEA!!"

And then go "Oh interesting ... season." I am excited about 2 of the regular season shows, and then 2-3 of the season special shows.

Replace All

Replace all is usually my friend in Word. I love being able to just take out a bunch of stuff when I edit, or replace words with what I want it to say. I was doing some address labels and wanted to change 'and' for '&' so I did a replace all. Not even thinking about some of the names. I ended up with some doosies:

C&dice, S&y, R&y, Ch&ler were my favorites. Note to self, replace all does not always work for every situation!

My Dream

This is not a post about what I want to be when I grow up, it is in fact about my dream last night. I remember it so vividly and that does not happen to me often.

I was sitting in my office at work in a meeting with our printing vendor. I was asking them to change our sales person to someone specific and he was telling me no. All of the sales staff from my company walked into my office needing something from me, ignoring the vendor who I was meeting with. I noticed in this group was also a lady from special needs mutual with the script to the roadshow in her hand, my special needs co-teacher, my uncle holding a sink faucet, and someone I did not recognize. The vendor and I could not finish our conversation, so I asked everyone in my office to leave immediately and I would come find them when I was done with what I was doing. They all left except my boss. He told me I was needed next door immediately in another office. I excused myself from the meeting and walked next door. Instead of finding another office I found myself in a hospital room where two good friends of mine were sharing the space. One of these friends just had delivered her baby who was sick and the other one was pregnant but had an infection and needed to be monitored. Instead of their family sitting with them my special needs co-teacher was sitting there reading from style magazines. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by the whole dream and the aspects of my life that I felt I had no control over right now. I walked out of the hospital room to the lobby of my office which was abandoned and sat down and cried.

I would analyze it, but I think I already know what it means. I think it means I need to eat more protein ... or chocolate ...

My first gardening injury

I bought a house last year, a house I do not yet live in, but I did get the tax benefit of owning a home. This house that I will be living in by the end of this year is my Grandma's house. Currently living in the house are my wonderful Aunts who are looking for an apartment to live in. In the back yard Aunt Colleen has done a marvelous job of building a beautiful garden area. When I was growing up the garden was the place to be in the spring and summer. We all helped pull weeds and pick the veggies when it was time. I still to this day can picture so vividly sitting on the drive with Grams doing peas. The garden now is much smaller than it was in those days, and in a different location on the property. Well this weekend the rain and snow temporarily stopped and I was able to go out and get a start on this late garden.

So I am out in the garden tilling ... after I put the till together like an amazon woman ... and got my first injury from the till. Yes I still have all of my toes, it was not that kind of injury. The tiller hit the wood in the planter boxes and jumped back and jammed my thumb. I have a really pretty bruise on both sides of the thumb and can't quite bend it. After the tilling was done and I managed to rake the soil flat Aunt Colleen pronounced my efforts "not bad for a first timer!" I took it as a compliment considering I could not actually close my hand around the rake (injured!) Now if the rain and snow would actually stop I could plant all of those wonderful seeds I bought 3 weeks ago. Peas, corn, green beans (gross), potatoes, onions, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and cantaloupe. My biggest fear? Weeding the garden and mistaking weeds for the actual plant and pulling everything up. I did not say it was a rational fear!! :)

The Dentist

Let me start this post by a confession that may contain too much information: I would rather visit my gynecologist than my dentist. No offense to Dr B, he is a fine dentist as was Dr S growing up. I just have never enjoyed going to the dentist even for a cleaning. Today I have my second appointment with Dr B in as many weeks. I had a cleaning two weeks ago and today I have to have two fillings replaced. Allow me to tell you what I hate most about visiting the dentist. One might think it would be the drill or shots ... alas no. I really really really dislike that sucker thing. Don't get me wrong I dislike the smell, I really dislike the drill sound, and I really really dislike the shots. But I really really really dislike the sucker. I think it is the most unnatural thing about the dentist. See that is 4 things to dislike during my visit today where as at the gynecologist I only ... just kidding I am not going to finish that sentence.

Growing up I was pretty good about brushing my teeth. I remember one visit to Dr S where my siblings walked out one at a time "Look Ma no cavities" (to be honest no one calls my Mom 'Ma' but you get the idea) and I walked out with 10 (you read that right) cavities. One would think I would have taken the lesson that it does not matter what I do to my teeth I am going to get cavities, but instead I walked away with a tooth cleaning neurosis. So when I am told I have a cavity or need to have a filling replaced I always remember that visit years ago when I walked out so sad because I worked so hard ... and I did not get a prize from the toy chest. At least when I was leaving Dr B's office two weeks ago they gave me some carrot seeds for my garden.

Okay so back to the sucker thing ... So here is the deal with the dentist sucker tool: It is not natural to not swallow. I do not want to swallow what the dentist cleans my teeth with, it just is not natural to not swallow and to have someone stick a tool in my mouth that "swallows" for me. Then they rinse my mouth and instead of letting me spit it out they put the sucker thing in my mouth and tell me to close my mouth around it ... shudder at the thought. Just gross and not natural. So there is a look into one of my many neuroses.

On a completely unrelated note yesterday was Sister's (or Sista's) birthday. When I went to bed last night everyone was still up playing a game and I truly truly hope you got to cheat at least once for your birthday!! The funny thing about this game set up last night was they were playing Five Crowns which is a card game while at the same time playing an interactive word game on their smart phone or iPods. That is multitasking fun!

The Oddest Thing ...

The oddest thing happened to me today. I am still trying to wrap my head around it. I have a full day today: my family was assigned to clean the church this morning, I had to come in to work to get a jump on the crazy upcoming week, then I am meeting a dear friend to go see a show we are both super excited about, dinner with same friend, then home to plan a lesson for church tomorrow.

So since the day was crazy I grabbed the breakfast of champions on the way out the door on the way to church ... it was a pop-tart. I bet you thought I was going to say cold pizza, common mistake when I say breakfast of champions. My assignment at church this morning was to vacuum. So the pop-tarts were unopened in their wrapper in my purse which I hung up by the primary room. I started the vacuuming there and went to the other end. When I was done I grabbed my purse and drove to work. When I got to my desk I reached into my purse to grab my breakfast. Instead of grabbing the pop-tarts I grabbed an empty pop-tart wrapper.

I emptied my purse thinking it was odd and maybe the wrapper had burst open and my pop-tart was in my bag. I pulled out my wallet (still full of money and credit cards), my cell phone, my iPod, my iPad, and misc papers. All there. But my pop-tarts were gone. I am 100% convinced that I did not eat them because I still had a full thermos of milk. (really one should not eat pop-tarts without milk!) It is the oddest thing.

I honestly do not even have a crazy explanation for how it could have happened. Including me, there were 6 people at the church today. I can pretty much guarantee my folks did not eat my pop-tarts, and why would anyone look in a purse that had an iPad, iPod, and a wallet full of money and credit cards and have eyes only for pop-tarts? Furthermore I ask why would someone eat random pop-tarts found in a random purse and PUT THE WRAPPER BACK?!

From the bottom of my heart I am convinced whoever took the pop-tarts needed them more than I did and I just wonder if I should deduct that from my offering next month (bazinga). But I tell you this much, I will never look at a pop-tart the same way ... or vacuuming the church ... Oddest thing ... Ironically? The lesson I am teaching tomorrow is on honesty.

Intervention

My brother B was working from home yesterday and since he does not get the keys to his new house until next week he was at our house. He walked up the stairs to see a big box on the porch that was left there. He brought it in, saw my name on it, and put it in the living room. Then he walked out the back door and found 2 more packages, all with my name on them. So three packages in one day arrived on our doorstep. B has decided I have an online shopping problem! Mom tells me all of this last night before I had to run to teach classes at TLC. So I went to see what packages had arrived ... because I have not bought anything online recently with the exception of pre-ordering the new HP movie due tomorrow. So what came?!

2 of the boxes contained birthday presents for my sister whose bday is Sunday. (Happy Birthday Sister, your presents are here and NO I will not tell you what they are!) Well Mom ordered them from Amazon using my account, so the boxes came addressed to me. Two boxes were not even mine!

The other box, well it sure was mine. I did not expect it so soon. When I found out Monday that I had passed my class I also found out that I can walk in the UofP commencement exercises May 7. So I ordered my cap and gown. That was what was in the third box. I thought it would take weeks to get to me. In the box was not only my required regalia, but I had ordered a few announcements, a diploma frame, and an honors medallion. The later two are going to look amazing in the closet of my new house! (There are two bedrooms upstairs, one will be for sleeping, the other is going to be turned into my closet/den/exercise room so the diploma and medallion will go in the den area.)

In light of what was in the boxes, I cannot wait for the online shopping intervention from B!!

Some non related items that made me happy today

First thing is first, my super cute sister is having a giveaway of these super cute dresses ... or I should say one dress in the pattern below:

For more information visit The Busy Bean's website and look for the blog Simply Stated. Cute nieces, right?! Follow the instructions for a chance to win one for a little girl in your life.

Well then I got my final grade for school ... I passed! I will be graduating with honors and have the chance to walk in the commencement ceremony in May. It is a huge relief to be done, or I should say 99% done, with school. And to meet a goal to graduate with honors is alright too!!

I have to give my utmost undying love to Mom B for looking over my taxes yesterday before I sent it off and finding $1200 more in refunds for me!! Bless her. I have never really had a refund, so this is all brand new to me and I cannot wait for it to come so I can take Mom B out to dinner (and Dad B too!) and then put the rest in savings.

Saturday I did not get out of bed until 4 p.m. You read that right. I woke up when my body normally does (6:45 a.m.) but instead of getting out of bed, I rolled over and grabbed my iPad to finish reading my book. I finished it, downloaded and read another one, and finally got out of bed at 4 to eat some breakfast. Best. Day. Ever!!

The Power of Music

I have been a little more aware of music the last few weeks (thanks Squitch for being on bed rest so I can teach MDT ... Nolan be nicer to mama!!) Music shapes my life. My life has a soundtrack and frankly it differs from one day to another. I have music for all of my moods. So last week when the speakers on my work computer went out I had a few days of panic. I had no music in my life during the day.

Music can affect me more than anything else. Take for example my guilty pleasure: Grey's Anatomy. I loves me some dark and twisty, some McDreamy and Steamy, and who can resist Sara Ramirez's smile? So when Grey's pulls off a musical event episode ... oh let's be honest some of the songs were just shamefully bad ... but mostly it was such a good episode. Speaking of Squitch, she and I watched the episode together and cried like little girls whose favorite dolly had just been decapitated. Grey's can make me cry faster than any other show, but add the characters singing and I am a goner. I have seen this episode now 5 times and cried each time. (I would say it is 90% that the show is moving and 10% I am still kind of sleep deprived from this last weekend of school.)

I am also reading a book that is centered around music ... you read that right ... I am reading a book for pleasure right now. So right now music is so central to my life. I was thinking about music last night and wondered if I had to make a list, a mixed tape if you will, about my life what would it be? What music would I include on my life's mixed tape? Right now you might be thinking I am going to give you my list, right? Well it is harder than it might sound. The only two songs I know would be on there for sure is 'For Good' from "Wicked" and 'The Little Drummer Boy' because it is a family favorite. The rest, well that is a little bit harder to narrow down.

Those crazy kids at Gmail!!

I tell you what those Google engineers are ahead of the game again. How incredible is their new technology?

Gmail Motion

Can't wait to try it, looks so user friendly!