BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: WILD WILD WEST EDITION

Hi, Everyone! I’m sure you missed me while I was gone, right? What, you didn’t know I was going anywhere? Well, that’s not surprising. I don’t normally wonder too far away from home. However, for the past week and change, I have been traveling out west like the pioneers of yore. Well, if said pioneers drove in air conditioned covered wagons and stayed in Best Westerns. My adventure began June 23. Here is my story.

VEGAS, BABY!

DAY 1 – Saturday, June 23, 2007: This morning, the 3 Pratts all awoke at a painfully early hour so that we could make it to the airport at the still painful, but not overly so, hour of 6:00 a.m. Luckily we weren’t flying U.S. Air (whom I still haven’t forgiven for losing my luggage and making me spend the night lying on the floor of the Charlotte airport) so our flight was delayed no more than 5 minutes. We flew into Atlanta and were told that the flight had been over-sold and they were looking for volunteers to give up their seats. Um, hello…if people didn’t want to take this flight, they wouldn’t have bought the tickets. And how do you “over sell” a flight anyways? You have x number of seats, you should sell x number of tickets, right? At any rate, this problem, plus the fact that they had to get a different plane, made our flight leave a half hour late. I wasn’t going to complain about that, though. Not after the Charlotte debacle. On our plane, they had the monitors that normally show movies and safety videos, playing a computer simulation of the path the flight was taking. There was a red line from Atlanta to Las Vegas and the little plane would move as we grew closer to our destination. I kept expecting to hear the Indiana Jones theme! The flight was uneventful for the most part. I sat beside a couple whom I lovingly dubbed “Mall Perm and Dragon Shirt”. We didn’t bother each other, but Dragon Shirt kept getting up and down the whole flight. Either he had a cocaine habit or traveler’s diarrhea, I don’t know, but he went to the bathroom an uncountable number of times during the three hour flight. When we approached the Vegas airport, I could sort of see out of the window, but not very much. Mall Hair kept her fat head in my way, but I was able to get a few glimpses as we landed. My first thought about Las Vegas was “brown”, once we deplaned, my second thought was “Hot”. My third thought came once we were in the rental car area, and that one was “Dry”. It’s kind of unnerving to be able to describe a town the same way you can describe a badly cooked steak. At any rate, we had arrived.
If there is one thing I’ve learned while traveling with the Pratt men, is that there are two phrases that one needs to remember to make things move smoothly. These are: “Whatever y'all want is fine” and “It doesn’t matter with me.” I have found that, since they don’t listen to me anyways, these phrases seem to make things go by faster. I had almost forgotten about this, but remembered right away when Mr. Lee asked me to pick a car out of the line-up. I picked a Green Dodge Charger, we drove off in a powder blue Grand Marquis. No problem. So we drove around a while, looking for our motel. Once we found it and got situated, we were trying to figure out where to go from there. Steve wanted to go see something called the “Star Trek Experience” and Mr. Lee was hungry –so what to do first? Since I read a brochure about the Star Trek Experience and saw that there was a place to eat there, Quark’s, I asked why we didn’t just go there and kill two birds with one stone. They said OK, and we ended up at The Mirage Casino and Hotel eating in what had to be the world’s biggest buffet. No Problem. From there we went to Caesar’s Palace to look at the inside shopping mall. I had never seen so many designer stores in my life! Dolce & Gabbanna, Versace, Fendi, Seven Jeans – pretty much every store mentioned in the song “My Humps” I realized. There was even a Harry Winston there! I wanted to go in, but realized I’d have to sell Steve by the pound in order to be allowed to look around. I didn’t get to go into any other shops because Mr. Lee wanted to run to the other end of the mall to see some kind of weird statue thing. That wasn’t a big deal, though. Not only could I not afford anything in any of the stores, but they don’t make anything that would fit me. Chubby girls aren’t allowed to wear designer stuff! Anyways, we left that place, found our car and went to the Star Trek Experience. It. Was. Amazing. We saw both the Borg Invasion and the Klingon Attack shows, and both of them were so much fun! I had no idea what to expect, so going into full scale mock-ups of the Starship Enterprise and running through hallways, basically a huge set that looked exactly like the ship on TV, was incredible. My only problem was the part where they tell you to line up to go into the ride (a ruse which was well played by our tiny little tour guide) and while you’re watching the safety video, the room goes pitch black and when the light some back on, you are somehow in the transport room. That was fun, but apparently being “transported” feels like a big rush of cold wind blowing up from the floor. The problem was the big gust of cold wind blew my shirt over my head. Luckily I was able to fix that before the lights came back on! We went onto the bridge of the 1701-D (a perfect replica…awesome) and then into a Turbo-Lift that took us to the “Cargo Bay” where we got on the escape shuttle. That part was a very fun motion based simulator that literally felt like you were flying through space, running into things, getting shot…I mean, my geek quotient went through the veritable roof, people. I have always loved Star Trek, but now I love it more. Once the ride was over, we were dumped into the gift shop and then out the door. It was, by far, one of the most enjoyable amusement-park like rides I’ve ever been on!
After we left the Las Vegas Hilton (home of the Star Trek thing) we wanted to go back to the motel. We didn’t stay at one of the swank casinos or anything, but I’m kind of glad. I’d like to stay there someday, but there were just too many people and too many lights. Deep down I’m always going to be a small town girl, and while Las Vegas was an amazing place, it was overwhelming. It was too much all at once in too small of an area. I’d love to go back sometime, though, just to be able to see what else there is to see. We finally went back to our hotel and fell asleep in record time. I don’t even know if I made it under the covers before I was unconscious.

VALLEY OF FIRE

Day 2 – Sunday, June 24, 2007: We left Las Vegas at about 9:00 a.m. and drove off into the desert so that we could see Nevada’s very first state park, Valley of Fire. We made a short trip out to Hoover Dam and stopped to take some pictures. We took the dam pictures, but we didn’t take the dam tour. : ) We went from there and drove north to the state park. When I asked Mr. Lee what Valley of Fire was, he said it was a place where the rocks were red. I said OK, because that made sense. However, that description didn’t do the place justice. It was like another planet. You are driving along in the desert, the foothills of the Rockies all around you, brown and gray, and suddenly – and I do mean suddenly – you are on another world. Right in the middle of this valley are these huge, red sandstone rocks. They are GORGEOUS! They come out of nowhere. There is nothing else like them anywhere around, so it literally looks like you are some place completely different than the place where you drove in. The rocks have been eroded, smoothed, and molded by the constant winds that blow around it and they were in these bizarre shapes. There were caves and holes all through them and some of them looked as if they had been machine cut and sanded. There were also Indian petroglyphs in the walls of one of the rocks. They were beautiful and still so clear! They were also really strange. Steve said that it was simply a picture of a deer riding a magic carpet stick. I said OK, because that was as good of a guess as any! : ) Something that I have not mentioned is that the temperature outside was hot. No, hot doesn’t seem to be right. It was really hot. Hot in the way it never gets back here in Alabama. It was dry, of course, but it was like being baked alive in a microwave. I now know what an ant in the beam of a magnifying glass feels like. It was the kind of heat that makes you wonder if God is mad at you for something. It was so hot that it sapped your will to live. It also sucked the moisture out of your body without your knowledge or consent. I have rarely ever been so thirsty in my life, and I have NEVER been tempted to lie down and die like a dog just so that I didn’t have to walk anymore, until today. We finally got back into the car and made our way out of Nevada and into Utah. We were going to where, as Mr. Lee said, “the Mormons do their weird thing.” : ) They have streets named after Brigham Young like the south has streets named after Martin Luther King. After being in that bowl of hell-fire, I couldn’t help but think that there was no wonder that John Smith thought he met Jesus. I was so hot, I thought I saw Jesus too. He was sitting with Santa Clause and Optimus Prime, having a soda and playing poker.
As we drove, I was speechless with awe at the places we drove through. It’s hard to explain how that part of the country looks because it’s almost too much to process. It was almost indescribably beautiful. It’s not just the colors or the cliffs, mountains and gigantic sky that seems to never end…it’s like…looking back in time. It makes your chest hurt and your eyes tear up. It’s just, beautiful. I know that doesn’t tell you anything, really, but I can’t put it into words. I just wish you could have been with me.
We stopped for dinner and sleeping in a place called St. George, Utah. It’s a nice place!

I regret to announce that there will not be a WEEKEND UPDATE this week due to circumstances that have overshadowed all other events during the weekend, and I don't feel they are appropriate to recount in this space.

Because my high red threat level state of pissed off has just very recently settled into a low grade pale yellow annoyance, I feel that by rehashing what happened, I run the risk of getting pissed off all over again. No one wants that to happen.

I will say this one thing, though. It is quite fortunate that I placed myself in a position where I was away from Steve for almost the entire day Sunday, because I'm pretty sure that had I not had time to think of how to handle myself with restraint, I might have flown at him with a wrath very seldom seen outside of Quintin Tarantino movies. As it stands now, however, I think he will be safe.

That is all.

WEEKEND UPDATE!

Greetings everyone! I hope you all had lovely weekends, as I did.

Friday I came home from work and crashed while Steve watched more Stargate SG1 and other various TV shows we had on the DVR. We might have even talked to each other, but I can't remember. I spent most of my evening playing Mah Jhong (is that even close?), trying to sew some patches onto Velcro for one of Steve's jackets and embroidering some napkins that I'm giving a friend of mine who is getting married in March. I'm begging again, no one else get married this year...PLEASE.
I'm actually getting pretty good at the embroidery, but it's tough on my eyes. Oh well, what more noble way of going blind than by sacrificing one's senses to your art? Nah, don't worry. I'm not that crazy yet. Give me a couple of years.

Saturday was another one of those days that I meant to get more done than I actually did. I managed to do laundry and run errands, but that is about where it ended. I wasn't feeling well, so I fell asleep. Steve was helping out with some stuff at the Space Dome, so I had just gotten up when he came home. Then he fell asleep. It was a most unproductive day! Quite honestly, I don't remember what else I did that day, but I'm sure it involved Stargate playing in the background. : )

Sunday was church, and then onto my parents house for lunch. It was a special lunch because it was my birthday lunch with my family. Well, almost all of my family. My brother-in-law didn't feel obligated to come, but that's okay. At least he didn't spend the whole meal jumping up from the table to see which NASCAR was in the lead, per his usual. Heeheehee. We had a good time. My mom made all kinds of wonderful, bad for me food and then the best part, the coconut birthday cake. YUMMMMM. I wish I could share a piece with you all, because you'd love it too! My nephew, Logan, who is twelve and starting to act his age, came over to my seat with a tub of Cool-Whip. He had a spoon full of it, so I thought he was going to either put it on my plate or feed it to me. Apparently, my spidey sense isn't as sharp as it used to be, owing to my advanced age, so I didn't suspect anything was amiss. I suppose that feeding it to me was the closest I had gotten in my own guess, because he not only stuck the spoon in my mouth, but he also smeared whipped cream all over my face, up my nose and in my right ear! I had a horrible flashback of a wedding I went to where the groom (the evil Hastared) smeared cake all over the bride. I was too shocked to react, and so was everyone else! I wanted to laugh, but I was afraid I'd snort cool-whip up my nose. It was too funny. I probably shouldn't have laughed, but other than the whipped cream up my nose, it was actually pretty funny! I'm such a bad influence! : ) Steve and I had to leave a little earlier than we normally would so I could get back to church to take the minutes for a sunday school teacher's meeting. I also sang last night. "Via Dolorosa" is a wonderful song, but I have the worst fear that I wasn't pronouncing any of the Spanish right! Of well, everyone seemed to like it. : ) After church, Steve and I got dinner and watched...no, not Stargate...Walk the Line. It bored me. Well, most of it did, anyways. The Pheonix formerly known as Leaf (mainly because I can't spell his real name) could really sing like Johnny Cash. I had never heard June Carter Cash sing, so I have no idea if Reece Witherspoon sounded anything like her, but I thought she did a good job anyways. Other than that, I was unimpressed. Sorry there, folks.

Well, that is it for my weekend! Don't forget that Wednesday is Valentine's day! Make sure to remember all of the people you love. Not that you should need a special day for that, but it at least gives you an excuse to buy them chocolate. :)

Greetings, Y'all!

I know you've been waiting all weekend for it, and now it's finally time to get it!

WEEKEND UPDATE!

Yeah, that's right, you know it's what you needed. : )

FRIDAY: I had to do some errands after work on Friday afternoon, so I took my lunch hour at four and got a head start on the traffic. Or at least I thought I would. Apparently, no one in Huntsville works past 3:30 on Fridays except the people here at the center. Weird. Anyways, so I fight traffic and make a run to Hobby Lobby. You will be both shocked and amused to realize that I actually left the store without buying anything! I know, I couldn't believe it either! I was actually looking for something very specific when I went shopping and I couldn't find it anywhere. Very frustrating. So I finally make myself go into Pier 1 and I find a reasonably close copy of what I'm looking for. They actually had exactly what I wanted, but only one of them, so I had to go with a close second. I'm making a wedding gift for a guy I work with, and I was getting something for their kitchen. Needless to say, with the trouble I had finding his gift, he'd better stay married for good this time! I also had to run to Target because Steve had requested that I pick up some soda (or Cokes, if you will). I wound up spending much more time than I had meant to while I was in there. :( Target does that to me. I had decided to suck it up and get into the spirit of Valentine's Day for Steve's sake and buy him a box of chocolates. Target has a lot of cute stuff, but being around all of that cuteness made me throw up in my mouth a little. After that, I picked up dinner and went home. After we ate, Steve went looking for something sweet, and he went through the bags that I had brought home and he found his chocolate. He was good enough not to eat it since I told him it WAS supposed to be his Valentine, but I finally just told him to go ahead because it didn't matter anymore. So much for that then!

SATURDAY: Once again I woke up insanely early, but so did Steve. His dad was going to be coming over to help clear out our fence row and move some branches. We had breakfast and watched last week's Battlestar Galactica since we missed it. I was working on another wedding gift (I ask that no one else get married this year) and cleaning up the house. I thought we were going to have some of our friends over, but we decided to go out to eat with them instead. While I was getting ready, I had some extra time and a box of hot rollers. My hair has grown out a lot since the last time I tried to use them, so I thought I'd see how they worked this time. I looked like Shirley Temple. I mean, that's better than Gilda Radner, I suppose, right? So I walk into the livingroom and show Steve. He laughs. Honestly, I couldn't blame him because I looked fairly crazy. I tried and tried to tame it down, but nothing was working. I just ended up having to go out with a white girl fro. Very nice. Josh and Anthony met us at Ruby Tuesday's and we had a really fun time. Anthony said I looked like someone from an old 20's movie, so Tallulah Bankhead...eat your heart out! During dinner, we talked about everything from telephones to the space time continum and collective unconciousness. We also were posed this question by Anthony: Would you get a tattoo on yourself in order to save the lives of five people you don't know. It sounds like a crazy question, right? I would totally do it. Anthony and Steve wouldn't. That doesn't make them despicable, actually. They said that if they didn't know who they were saving, they could be allowing some horrible person to live and maybe end up destroying the world. Of course, they could also be saving the life of someone who could end up curing cancer, so it's a double edged sword. It was an interesting conversation, anyways.

SUNDAY: We went to church, of course. My friend Christie STILL has not had her baby. She was at church though. Her husband Matt is all nervous and fidgety about it, but that's kind of sweet. There were so many people in our pew that I had to sit my purse on the floor out of the way. This led me to forget it when we left. I didn't realize it until I was at home, and Steve was supposed to meet his friend Brittany to get the next two season's of Stargate (sigh) on DVD from her, so we were going to have to run by church on his way to meet her. He got caught up doing something at home with the TV and so when we got to the church, it was locked and no one was home. Steve and I were freaking out because our church is not exactly in the best neighborhood, and my whole existence seems to be in my purse, but there was nothing we could do at that point and we had to go and get his DVDs. On the way, he realized that he knew were he could get a key, so we planned on getting his DVDs and going back for my purse. So we waited, and waited, and waited. Apparently Brittany had forgotten she was teaching Sunday school and had sent Steve a text message about it - - - which he didn't get. So we sat there for 20 minutes before he called her and found this out. By then it was too late to go back and get the key, so we left my stuff at church and went on to my parent's house. Mom had made a wonderful lunch and then we watched some of the pre-game on the Super Bowl. I care nothing for the Super Bowl, but they were giving bios on the coaches and players from the teams, so it was interesting. After church that night, we went to dinner with two families from our church and watched some of the game at the restaurant.

Good times.

WEEKEND UPDATE!

That's right, folks. It's another issue of Weekend Update, Kelly style!

Friday was work, of course. Our HR senior VP had her retirement party that afternoon, so we all went to say goodbye. I can't remember how long they said she had been here, but they did mention that she had hired over 10,000 people! Of course, you've got to count all of the counselors and temps, but still, that's a heck of a lot! She's a sweet lady, so I hope she enjoys her retirement. Later that evening, Steve and I went to Target and got dinner. When we came home, I had to request that we NOT watch "Stargate SG1" or "Threshold", which he complied with, but we ended up watching the original "Stargate" movie from 1994. I remember renting that when it came out on video, and I remembered liking it, so I was okay with that. I ended up working on a wedding gift that I'm making, so I didn't have to pay that close of attention! : )

Saturday I woke up insanly early. It's just my luck that I can't wake up on days I should, but I wake up really early on days I don't have to. :P Anyways, Steve and I had to go to the post office for stamps and such. I don't like going to the post office. The people behind the counter make me nervous! I was also wearing a t-shirt with the COBRA logo on it (G.I. Joe style) and the guy working there said "OH! Cobra! Where are the Joes?" Note to self, wear shirts without logos next time. : ) When we got home we had to part ways. I had to go to the bank and get groceries, and Steve had a date. The stupid computers were down at the back, so the check I deposited wasn't going to be entered right away. Of course, I had to get groceries regardless, so that was a fun game of "Will my check clear or not!" Luckily, everything went fine. So I got groceries and lunch, and by the time Steve got home I had a headache that wouldn't die. I fell asleep, pretty sure I was in for a massive migrane, but it never got as bad as that. Maybe the nap helped. Josh had called and asked us if we wanted to go to dinner, but my head was still hurting and I didn't want to go anywhere, so we stayed home. For the rest of the evening, I was treated to "Stargate SG1". Whee.

Sunday was church, of course. Then lunch with the family. My mom recently had the cabinets changed so that they no longer hang over the stove. It was weird! It looked totally different, but then I'd been used to the old cabinets for 20 years. Steve and I came home and fell asleep, then he went to church while I stayed home and did homework. Oh yes, it's that time of year again. Gah! I had panicked and thought I was supposed to be writing a whole paper last night, but after checking, I found out I'm just supposed to have proof of research. Of course, then I couldn't find anything on the subject I was looking for. It's enough to make you want to rip out your own eyes! I also got an e-mail from the mom of my friend who had the transplant. Sara had gotten out of the hospital last week, but then had to go back for some small complications. Hopefully she will be out again soon and on the mend. Again. Just remember to keep praying!

So that was my weekend!

I should really be working, but I haven't quite fully charged this morning. :P Do you ever have those days where it feels like you only have about 5 out of 9 volts running? That is me today. Of course, you aren't here to read about how tired I am. You are here to read my

WEEKEND UPDATE!

Friday was a really long and busy day. I had a lot of signs and things to make, and for some reason I kept forgetting to do things when it was convenient. I'd make a sign, take it to whomever it belonged to, intend to make a stop by someone elses office to get something on my way back, and then wind up back in my office without what I needed. Then it would start all over again! Very frustrating! That night, Steve, Anthony and I had dinner together and then the fellas went to the boat show. I respectfully declined to attend because stuff like that bores me to tears! So I went to Books-A-Million with the intent of getting a coconut mocha latte (because their cafe makes the best ones). It took me forever to find a parking spot, which for the bookstore is unusual, so I expected that I would walk in and find the place crammed to the gills. But I was wrong. It was strange. Not that many people were milling about, and it was really quiet. It wasn't until I made it back to the Arts & Crafts section that I relized where all of the people were. There was some professor or something who taught theology (somewhere, I didn't check) who was giving a lecture about Tolkein and the LOTR trilogy. I stopped and listened for a second, but I have very little knowledge of Tolkein and I've never read the books, so I couldn't get into it. :( Later on, Steve and Anthony came home and Steve had to show off the new TV. All I can remember about it is that it's HD and big, and it uses tiny little mirrors to make the picture. As long as I can figure out how to use it, I'll be good!

Saturday was a very lazy day for me. I did some laundry, swept a little and did some dishes. Other than that, I had given myself the task of mastering a form of 16th century embroidery called "Blackwork". If you've ever seen a portrait of King Henry VIII or his wives, heck pretty much any of the higher classes of that time, you've probably seen blackwork embroidery along the edges of their sleeves. It's pretty, but it will make your eyes cross. I finally figured it out, so I'm glad. It's kind of a pointless skill to have, unless you plan to spend a great deal of time making costumes, but I don't mind. I figure out a use for it! Steve had been gone to the golf course all morning, so when he got back, we watched some Staargate SG-1 dvds. I'm not crazy about the show like he is, but it can be funny. I pretty much just worked on the blackwork stuff.

OH! I did get an e-mail from the mother of my friend who had gotten the transplant. It looks like she's been moved from the hospital, where she has been for the past 13 weeks, to the transplant recovery house! She has had no organ rejection problems since her transplant, but she has been getting sick with viruses, which is normal for people who have had transplants, but she is well enough to begin her down swing on the whole situation! I was really glad to hear that, because I had gotten worried! Anyways, so hopefully she will be able to come home not too far in the future! Yay!

Sunday Steve and I both woke up not feeling well, so we stayed at home all day. That is pretty much it. : )

Well, that was my weekend.

Well, it's from one update to another, but be fair...I've been busy!

WEEKEND UPDATE!

Friday night was our church's choir party. Every year right before the cantata, they all get together and do what it is that Baptists do best: eat. : ) I was going to be working in the kitchen, as well as being "and spouse" for Steve, so I helped set out and serve some very yummy food. I also got to actually eat out with the other folks too, which is new. I usually stay in the kitchen with the other kitchen staff so that we can do our hostess duties, but since it was pretty much just Selina and I there, we opted to eat with everyone else. Unfortunately, after everyone left, we still had a ton of food and dishes left to take care of and the water heater decided to take that moment to die. So, we are going to have to rewash a lot of those dishes when the heater gets fixed. At any rate, the dinner went well and a good time was had by all!

Saturday my day had already been booked to work as Josh's kitchen staff at his work party. It probably sounds like I never have any fun, but I actually enjoy stuff like that. Sad, I know. I called him on my way over and asked if I could stop and pick anything up for them, and I got sent on a beer run. I was kind of embarrassed because I have never bought beer before, so I'm wheeling a cart around filled with beer and hoping my preacher didn't see me. As far as I know, he didn't! : )
I got to his very large, very posh subdivision club house and began helping prepare the food. Well, I say I helped prepare it, but it was mostly just cutting things up and arranging it on trays. They (Josh and his two co-workers) ended up leaving me alone in the club house to run some errands, but Josh isn't supposed to do that because you have to be on some kind of tennants list to be alone in the building. He told me that if anyone asked, I was his wife, we had gotten married last month, and he just hasn't put my name on the list yet. Thank goodness I didn't have to tell anyone he and I were married. Even the thought of that just feels WRONG! Nothing bad against Josh, but he is so firmly entrenched in the "Friend Zone" that he's like a relative, and even if I'm from the south, I don't want to be married to my relatives!
We finally finished all of the prep work and went to get ready for the party. I decided to actually dress like wait staff so that people wouldn't feel weird asking me to do stuff, as if they were ordering around another guest. I was precious in my black slacks and white button up shirt. I even wore my old, blue Pier 1 apron so I wouldn't get messy. When we got back to the club house and set everything out, the other host of the party (an older lady) saw me and asked if I would like her to have her husband bring me her Santa Clause apron to wear instead of the blue one I was wearing. Always the obliging one, I told her I'd wear it if she'd like me to, since it was her party and all. In hindsight, I need to stop being so obliging. I was picturing a regular apron that had a picture of Santa on it...but nooooooooooooooooooo. This was a very large, red courderoy thing with white fir trim and a black belt with a gold buckle. I looked like some kind of demented elf. I can only thank the good Lord she didn't have a hat for me. It was also HOT in the kitchen, and I was running around a lot. If you've ever worn an excess of corderoy, you know I was boiling.
Well, the party got started and everything went really well! I had told Josh and the other two ladies to leave as much up to me as possible, and they did. Very rarely have I ever run around so much during one party. There were all kinds of teachers and school staff at that party. I joked that I would finally get to see what teachers did on their off time, and I learned one thing...they drink. A lot. Somehow, seeing that they are elementary and middle school teachers, I really don't blame them! I had to figure out how to open wine (which I finally got the hang of) and make sure that no cartons were in the beer coolers. Now, I'm not too hip on the whole BYOB thing, but one couple seemed to do something very rude. Everyone who brought anything to drink set it on a table and everyone else was free to get some of it. This couple walked into the kitchen, bags huddled against their chests, and put their stuff in the fridge so no one else could have any. Is that normal? Oh well, I don't think anyone suffered because of it, it just seemed rude. Also, the drunker the guy got, the more he talked to me when he came into the kitchen to get his stuff out of the fridge. I had a new buddy by the time they left! Heeheehee. By the time it was all over, I was exhausted. I was sore from lifting and running, and I could barely move. It took us about an hour to clean up and I went home and crashed. Since I didn't get paid, I made off with a lot of the leftovers! So I'm going to have tiny little cheesecakes for a long time to come. : )

Sunday was the day of the choir cantata. Steve has joined the choir, so it was a very special occasion! He looked so cute in his robe. Heeheehee. The music was wonderful and the whole choir did a fantastic job. My parents and brother came to hear it and were duly impressed. There was only one complaint that I had about the whole thing, and it was only a tiny thing. The cantata came with a visual DVD to play while they were singing, and it was sooooooooooo cheesy. It was mainly pictures, but there was some animation thrown in for good measure. Steve hit it right on the nose when he said it looked like Monty Python animation...that was exactly what it looked like. So instead of thinking of the cantata as it's proper title, One Small Child, I have been thinking of it as: Monty Python and the Flying Manger. After church we went to my parent's house and had Steve's birthday lunch. His dad and Grandma came and ate with us as well, and we had a really great time. I think my mom drugged our food, though, because all the way home I kept dozing off. Once we got there, Steve and I fell asleep so hard that we overslept the alarm clock and didn't make it to evening worship services. We felt bad! We ended up our evening watching part of the first season of "Lost", which I have come to love dearly. I haven't watched it on TV at all because I missed the first season and had heard that you have to see everything to understand what's going on. However, Steve put it on our Netflix que and we have been watching 4 episodes at a time. I can't believe how good of a show it is!

I find out my grades tomorrow! *fingers are crossed*

More to come...

You've probably wondered where I've been, right? Well, even if you haven't, that's okay. I started out writing last weeks "Weekend Update" on Monday afternoon, but got interrupted by work (yuck). There wasn't a great deal to tell, to be honest, so here's the rundown:

Friday: Pretty much on my own, stayed in and did artsy-craftsy stuff.

Saturday: Spent all day getting ready for Steve's corporate party where we stayed for about 2 hours and didn't get up from the table except to eat and leave. Very Exciting. I didn't even get to see the transvestite this year! BOOOOOOOO!

Sunday: Church, lunch with family, and church again. After the evening service, we had a wedding reception for an older couple who reaffirmed their vows in front of the church after preaching. I served cake! I did ok, except that I have never served a wedding cake on a tier before. I used dental floss to cut the pieces, but didn't realize that the whole stability issue of the top tier of the cake depended on it's adherence to the cake as a whole and the top half kind of exploded and fell off of the support. : ) I had icing up my nose, in my hair, and all over me, including my shoes. Luckily, everyone who wanted cake, still got cake...so score!

Now, cake up my nose was not the only thing I got Sunday night. Sometime between serving cake and cleaning up, a small but powerful germ made its way into my body. I didn't know it, but apparently a very strong and horrible stomach bug was making the rounds and I had effectively gotten it. Monday, I was fine! No problem. I got some groceries, some prescriptions filled, and came home to make sausage balls. Steve and I watched the newest installment of TorchWood and we happily went to sleep. However, deep in the hours of Tuesday morning, I woke up feeling quite...odd. Still rather sleepy and not aware of what was going on, I got up and walked into another room. Suddenly, everything in my body decided to make a break for it! I got so sick, so fast, that I wasn't sure what had happened. All I knew for the next hour was that I was probably going to turn inside out if something didn't change. Begging for death wasn't even helping at that point!

Sorry for being so blatent about throwing up, but I'm going to be honest here. I wasn't expecting anything like what happened to me that night. I haven't been that sick since I was left on the MAT for 15 minutes. Steve, who was not feeling well himself albeit (and thank goodness) not with the same illness, was already having to stay out of work that Tuesday and he took it upon himself to make me go to the doctor. Had it been left up to me, I probably wouldn't have gone. However, I felt as if I didn't have any free will anymore, so I went. He stayed in the exam room with me while I kind of went in and out of conciousness. As long as I didn't move, I was alright, but then the doc started on these tests and I HAD to move. Not good. After taking about a pint of blood (and giving me a nasty in-bow bruise in the process) and some other stuff, they told me that I had a stomach and kidney infection! Woo-HOO! Just when I thought they were going to let me go home, the doctor offered to put me on an IV drip since I was also severly dehydrated from being sick so much. I declined, which turned out to be stupid, because all I wanted to do was go home. Just when I thought they were going to let me leave, they came in and gave me a shot in the rear...you know, to help with nausea. All that did was make me have to run out of the exam room and get sick again. I've never seen an entire staff of nurses look at me like they did when I came out. They kept patting me and telling me they were sorry I felt so bad. In retrospect, I probably looked like hell, so they were probably scared that I'd start speaking in Latin and spinning my head around or something. At any rate, I finally got to go home, and except for one more episode of calling Ralph, all I could do was sleep.

I had more to worry about than the state of my body, though. I had a final in history on Wednesday evening. I hadn't had a chance to study, I still felt like warmed over garbage, and the thought of doing anything more than lying peacefully in the lazy-boy made me sick. However, it was either take the test Wednesday or have it hanging over my head until January the 12th, when final make-ups were scheduled. Somehow the thought of throwing up in the history room wasn't as bad as the thought of worrying over that dumb class over Christmas, so I chose to take the test. I tried studying Wednesday morning, but I kept dozing off into my book. In fact, I had to take nap breaks just to be strong enough to turn the pages of my book. It was during one of my nap breaks that I woke suddenly to realized that I had let too much time pass and I had to leave RIGHT THEN to get to class on time. So, in a state of semi-conciousness, I drove to school and took my final. I have NO idea if I even answered the questions on the exam with answers that made any sense. In fact, I could have written a passage from Gone With the Wind on there and thought I was doing well. I kept wanting to doze off, and for all I know, I did fall asleep during my test, but I finally finished. Since Steve had e-mailed my prof to see what my options were about the test, she knew I was sick, so hopefully she will be kind when she grades it. I went home and fell asleep again. In fact, I fell asleep about three more times that day and still slept the whole night through. During all of this , I had been hallucinating about talking to people and doing stuff that I couldn't have possibly been doing. I know for a fact that I answered a question from Steve before I realized that he wasn't even home. I talked to ALL KINDS of people who weren't there, as a matter of fact. I also dreamed the entire third installment of the "Pirates of the Carribbean" trilogy. The acting was weak and the ending was kind of bland, but not too bad for a fever dream! : )

Thursday I was feeling better, but still really weak. I had to go back to the doctor and Steve went with me to get his second checkup after his Monday visit. We got to the clinic before 8:00 am, and waited until 5 till before we went to the door. I was so weak that I was leaning on him so that I wouldn't fall down. My eyes were closed and my hair was over my face. At some point, I heard another man start talking to Steve about how everyone had been sick, and Steve (in his best small-talk way) said "Yep, it's going around." Then the man said "So, does she go to Grissom?" {For those of you not in the know, that's a local hight school.} At that I looked up and laughed and said "Oh, no sir, I'm his wife!" and that man got so embarrassed! I don't know who was worse, the man who then exclaimed "OH! She just looks so young!" or Steve, who was mistaken for my dad! Heeheehee. Steve thought that man probably thinks he's some kind of pervert who married a teenager. Me, I'm not so insulted. : )

I went back home and slept some more, and this morning I decided to come in to work. I probably shouldn't have since I almost passed out once I got here, but I'm feeling more human now and can catch up on my work! : )

And how are you?

Things I learned this weekend.

1) If you squeeze the nasal spray too hard, the fine, soothing mist becomes a lancet of liquid that causes atomic level pain. Not to mention, it can come close to drowning you. Avoid that if you can.

2) You can have a headache so bad that even when you fall asleep, you dream about having a headache.

3) A cold induced narcolepsy is inconvenient when you have things to get done.

4) My mom will call three times a day if she knows I'm sick, just to make sure I'm still alive.

5) Apparently the stoppers in wine bottles are no longer made of cork. Putting them in the oven makes them swell up and die. Now I have to figure out a way to make a stopper for my art final tomorrow. GAH! More on that later.

If you haven't realized it already, I was sick all weekend. It started on Thursday and by Friday, I was too bad to go to work. I had to send an e-mail to my boss begging him not to fire me for missing another day of work. However, sick or no, I give you my...

WEEKEND UPDATE!

Friday I stayed home from work and took full advantage of what Greg calls "The Green Def" or in non-budness, Nyquil. At first I didn't think it was going to work. I took it and sat back in my recliner with a book, fully expecting to conk out before I read a paragraph. It didn't seem to be doing anything until I stood up and the room did a quick river dance out from under my feet, then I realized I should go lay down. I ended up sleeping most of the day. Steve had volunteered to help the guys at the SpaceDome work on the compressor (which broke down just in time to cancel "The Polar Express") and so I was pretty much on my own for the rest of the day. I ended up feeling really bad because I had forgotten it was Butler's birthday! Butler didn't seem to mind much, I mean, he IS an old man now that he's 4, but Steve came to the rescue. When he got back from the dome, he had gone by Krystals and gotten Butler a box of fries, so Butler, Bear, and I sat down and shared them. It got a little scary at one point because Butler and Bear started to crowd me, but everyone got their fair share. So Butler forgave me for not having a party this year. Besides, he was just greatful not to have to wear a hat!

Saturday dawned much the same. Steve left to help at the theater some more and I shuffled my hide out of bed at some point. I kept medicating myself, probably moreso than I needed to, but a least I was able to breathe. I left the house once to pick up some stuff at Target and get lunch. It was during this time that I realized how bad I felt and that when I don't feel well, I get mean.

I was driving in the parking lot in front of the stores. Since I learned a long time ago that pedestrians get the right of way, I stopped and let some people walk in front of me to get on the sidewalk. This guy behind me honked his horn. I wasn't sure that he was honking at me, because I wasn't doing anything wrong, so I didn't react. More people were trying to walk by, so I waved them on and the dude honked again. This time I realized that he WAS honking at me.

*Let's pause a minute here to recap. I wasn't doing anything wrong. I had stopped to let pedestrians walk across the walkway because they had the right to do so. There just happened to be a lot of people out and about that day*

So I looked in my rearview mirror and see this middle aged guy in his little, fussy, yuppie-jerk car getting pissed off at me for being polite. Granted, I would have been driving had people not been walking in front of me, but Mr. No-Patience Ass didn't want to wait. So when one more person walked ahead of me, he punched the horn and lay down on it. At this point, the point in which Steve would have probably jumped out of the car and ran for cover had he been with me, I had two seconds to think and I didn't use them to think about what Jesus would have done. So I swiftly raised my hand and gave him the "California Howdy" out of the back window of my car. He kept on the horn, I kept up the finger. I even sat in the spot a little longer than I needed to to spite him. The walkway finally cleared, and I was able to go and that jack-ass decided that it would be in his best interest to drive on my tail. Was it not for the fact that I was pretty sure I'd sucker punch the guy in the throat if I came face to face with him, I would have slammed on my brakes and let him hit my bumper just so he'd have to pay for it. However, I ended up having to stop to let someone walk ahead of me again and the guy behind me made a disgusted face and slapped his dashboard and turned off to cow-pasture drive through the parking lot. At this point I started lauging at myself. I couldn't believe I had let some peckerwood touch me off like that! I was ashamed of myself, but also a little bit glad I gave the jerk the finger. Then I realized I needed to get a new Jesus-Fish for my car to curb my outbursts of road rage. It worked for my Cavalier, so certainly it would work for my Sebring. AHHHHH! I do not understand this horn honking thing that seems to be so popular these days. People will honk at you the second the light turns green. Literally before you could possibly take your foot off of the break, much less move the car. I think of them as Yankee-Drivers. That isn't totally fair, because I know some very nice yankees who probably wouldn't do that, but the only other time I've ever known people to do that was while I was in Buffalo, NY, so it's been inextricably linked with yankees in my mind. I hope I can be forgiven!

Anyways, so I got my stuff at Target and got my lunch and headed home. By then I had such a bad headache that I was afraid I'd not be able to drive home. I made it, though. I took some medicine for my head and it didn't work, so I finally went to sleep. When I woke up, I felt surprisingly better! I was still stopped up, but I wasn't wanting to die. I had a lot of homework and stuff to do, so I got started on that, but I felt much better than I had earlier. Steve was gone again to his Sunday School christmas party, which I would have gone to as well, but one of the women in his class is pregnant and I didn't want to make her sick. I had spells of nodding off to sleep, but I got quite a bit of my work done. Go me! I was feeling better until I woke up in the middle of the night coughing like crazy. I felt bad because I didn't want to keep Steve awake, so I got up to go sleep on the Lazy-Boy. I got comfortable and dozed off. Two seconds later I hear *scratch, scratch* which is Butler's way of asking to be let out. I figured that if I ignored him, he'd stop. No dice. He scratched at the door of his kennel for about an hour, and so I finally got up and let him out. All he wanted was to be petted, so in my state of semi-conciousness, I did. Everytime I'd doze off, the wretched beast would nose my hand (and he has a WET, COLD nose) and wake me up again. If I didn't love that dog so much, I would have shaved him out of sheer spite. I have no idea how long I petted him, but he finally decided that he wanted to go out. So I got up, let him and Bear outside, and couldn't go back to sleep. At about 4:00 am, I finally went back to bed and finally fell asleep.

Sunday I was too tired to move and my yuck feeling had come back. So I stayed home from church and my parent's house. I was able to drag myself about and work on homework, but if I got still, I'd fall asleep. I finally lay down on the couch to get a real nap and was out for several hours. When I got up, I worked on homework again and then worked on a gift I'm making. Then more sleep.

So this morning I got up and came to work, but I'm feeling better than I have been. Now I just have to make it through the day and try not to fall asleep at my desk...again. : )

WEEKEND UPDATE!

This weekend was busy. Busy, busy, busy...but you wouldn't know it by the state of my house. This was another one of those weekends that I have all of these plans, yet I get few things done. It wasn't lazyness this time though, it was my underestimation of the time it would take me to do certain things! : )

Friday after work, Steve came to pick me up and we went to get my turkey from the Employee Association guys. As always, every year the SpRocket gives all of their employees a free turkey for thanksgiving. I realized I already had a turkey in the freezer and wouldn't have the need, nor the space, for another one. So I donated it to the needy. Nothing like a little benevolence to start off the weekend. I got a warm fuzzy. Once we got home, I picked up some crocheting that I needed to finish. I was making a baby blanket for a friend of mine and needed to have it done by this weekend. I had a LOT left to go, so I put on my headphones and began. About 5 to 6 hours of straight crochet, and my hands swelled up like water balloons. It was weird. I literally had to soak my hands in ice water to make the swelling go down. I still wasn't finished with the blanket, but I put it aside to work on the next day. For some reason, after that I couldn't sleep. I didn't end up getting sleepy until about 4:30 Saturday morning, which sucked, because I had too much to do to sleep all day. I wound up sleeping until about 10:30, so most of my morning was gone.

Saturday Steve and I were doing laundry and gathering clothes to give to Goodwill. It's not until times like this that I realize that I have a lot of clothes that I hang on to for no good reason. I suppose it's because I think...OH! I'll wear this again! Not so much. So I will be seriously thinning the wardrobe this time. We also went out and got our oil changed (woo-hoo! Party Time!) and I had to go to Wal-Mart for some supplies. Steve had planned on hanging out with Anthony and Watching the 'Arn Bowl' so I got the blanket and made myself finish it. My hands hurt so bad that it took about 20 minutes for them to get limber enough to move correctly. It took 3 hours, but I finally finished the gift. I was very proud, too, because it's the first real, useful and not just decorative, afghan that I've ever made. It's sort of in the shape of Montana, due to the accidental addition of a couple of extra stitches, but otherwise I'm very pleased with it. : ) While I was working on it, I was once again wearing my headphones and listening to an audio novel, when I heard screaming outside. It scared me at first, but then I realized that the ballgame must have ended and Auburn must have won. The people across the street are die-hard Tiger fans, and they had this HUGE flag thing planted in the front yard. I'm going to guess it was them hollering in the front yard. I had completely forgotten about the game being on. I've lost my taste for watching football, even though I used to love watching the Alabama/Auburn game with my dad. I'm sure he was upset at the outcome, because he has always been a Bama fan, so don't tell him I said this: War Eagle! If anyone in my family sees that, I'll have to find someone to adopt me because I'll be disowned, so SHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Sunday was a good day. Church in the morning, of course. Steve has the worst habit of making me laugh during service, though. Everything was fine except that some medicine I had taken was making me sleepy and I kept fading out of the sermon. I sort of half noticed that Steve had his leg crossed and was moving it when all of a sudden SNAP!!!! I thought that he had accidentally ripped the hymnal holder off of the back of the pew! What had happed was that the cuff of his pants had caught on one of the little pencils that they keep there and he wasn't able to stop moving his leg before it broke. The two elderly ladies jumped about a foot in the air. So, of course, I got tickled. Amazingly enough I was able to keep from shaking too much, but I kept thinking about those little old ladies jump, and that would make it worse. That made Steve start laughing and the people behind us start laughing. I was able to regain my composure by the time we had the invitation, so it wasn't too bad. However, we got a good laugh out of it on the way to the car. My parents weren't going to be at home during lunch, so Steve and I went to lunch with his dad. Then we did some errands and went home. I had so much to do for this week that I spent Sunday evening trying to get everything done before I went to bed. Alas, I didn't get it all done, but there's still tonight! I may get things finished. I'm not holding my breath though.

Premature Weekend Update!

It's actually Sunday morning, but I decided to go ahead and do my weekend update! Go me!

Friday was the longest day in the history of long days. We had a new girl start in out web position, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to nail her office door shut. Don't get me wrong, she is very nice and I like her a lot, but she hovers. Granted, she doesn't know anyone and is just wanting to be friendly, but geez. She came into my office three times and stayed for long periods of time. I was even wearing my headphones and listening to an audio book while I was working, and she kept talking. At the end of the day, she came into my office and stayed two solid hours. I can't wait until she gets some stuff to do. I wouldn't ever hurt her feelings for anything, but I'm afraid if this becomes a habit, I'm going to snap. Friday night, Steve and I went to dinner with Anthony. He has some anger issues he's working on, so we tried to keep him cheerful. :) We had dinner at Beaureguards (yum) and we were going to go for fro-yo at TCBY, but it was closed! Not for the evening, but closed for good! OH THE HUMANITY! After that we walked over to Books-A-Million and hung around for a little while. Can someone please explain to me why BAM feels it necessary to keep the art and design magazines directly underneath the gay pride magazines? I could actually care less about what new TV star (ahem....Doogie) has just come out of the closet, but now the guy who stocks magazines thinks it's a favorite subject of mine. To be clear, I was looking for a specific art magazine, so that's why I was at that section. SIGH.

Saturday was mine and Steve's 6th wedding anniversary. We didn't have anything really planned like we did last year, but we had at least decided to go to breakfast at the new Cracker Barrel that they built on Drake Ave. You can sit on the front porch and look out over Wal-Mart. Very scenic. I can't wait for the novelty to wear off for that place. It was PACKED beyond safe numbers. It took Steve and I forever to eat, but it was good. I haven't had breakfast there in so long! We were going to get our Anniversary gift from there, but we had a hard time finding anything. Apparently, year 6 is candy or iron. How they paired those two, I'll never know. We finally found a section of cast iron skillets and stuff, but people were standing in front of it and wouldn't move. We finally made someone uncomfortable enough to walk somewhere else -I knew Steve was good for something!- and picked out one of those cast iron stove top griddles/grills. This Austrailian lady helped us decide. She said you can make good steaks on them. :) After that we went home and watched some movies. I worked on some Christmas gifts, and then because God apparently has a very strange sense of humor and a grudge against me, we found that the entire series of Star Wars movies was playing on Cinemax. All Day. Over and over. Episode 1 through Return of the Jedi. All. Day. Long. So that's what we did that night. Well, we did stop watching long enough to play a short and rather one sided game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. I'm sure you can guess who won that game! : )