Ack.

Well, ya know, running a raiding guild is rather like herding cats - it takes a lot of time and patience.  Recently though I gave that up, moved my raiding toon into a separate guild where other folks can deal with the headaches, and have found I’m enjoying the game a lot more without the administrative headaches.  Yes, I still have the guild my friends and I made, but we’ve let go of the pressures of raiding and now just have our friends hanging out in there.  Almost zero administration. It’s been nice. I’ve also gotten to see lots of content in the game I’d never have seen with my own guild (at least, not before the expansion came out), so that’s been cool too.

Kelsey turned 10 just a couple of weeks ago. Ten years! Where did they go?  He was almost as excited about being “double digits” as he was about getting gifts.  We spent the evening over at Grandma and Papap’s and had sloppy joes for dinner - his choice.

Mike’s been thinking about getting a new job, since the promotion they’ve been promising him keeps getting put off until their current project is finished - and it keeps getting delayed indefinitely.  Our health insurance costs jumped up so much at the first of the year that there’s no way, without the promotion, we’d be able to pay it and still have money for the house, utility bills, and groceries.  Luckily we were able to get a decent interest rate on a refinance, bringing our mortgage payment down and locking us in for a 30-year fixed. No more worrying about payments bouncing around (we were on an ARM).  We still wish we had more options on the insurance front, though. We rarely visit the doctor and when we do, we end up paying through the nose between co-pay and the leftover “uncovered” cost; what we’re paying each week dwarfs the amount that the company spends on our entire family of 5 each year. Don’t get me into a rant about how our money is going to pay for illegal immigrants’ health care and frivilous medical lawsuits, and how our family could benefit from having that money back. I might not shut up.

On the decluttering front, I have to admit that the fantastic headway I’ve made has been swallowed up over time, and now you can’t tell anything was ever decluttered. No, we haven’t bought more stuff (are you kidding? With whose money?), and the only thing we’ve “adopted” from someone else is the kitchen island my parents were getting rid of. (It’s sitting in our library waiting for things to get moved around so it can be used.)  The christmas stuff certainly helped (too much incoming stuff, again).

No, actually, come to think of it, there was more “adopted” stuff.  This woman that Mike and my parents work with regularly cleans out her childrens’ closets, and sends everything through my mother to Mike, to us.  We’ve told my Mom not to accept it anymore, yet she does. I’ve told Mike that if it gets put into his car at work, he should drive straight over to the dumpster in the parking lot and can it, yet he doesn’t. So I’ve had to deal with boxes and boxes of clothes suddenly showing up on my couch when I get up in the morning (Mike sneaks it in from the car before he leaves for work).  I have no excuse there - *I* should walk it out to the trash right when I see it; but usually I think to myself “well, I’ll see if there’s something in there that they could really use”.  Before I know it, the entire box has been dumped all over the living room by my 3yr old (who wants to play in the box), kicked down the hall, and we end up not knowing what’s new and what isn’t.  As a result, we are absolutely *buried* in clothes again.

Oh, and when I went through my big decluttering spree, Mike looked at all of the room in the closet and decided that there was room there for him to pull out his old, bagged-clothes. You know, the ones you bag up and say “If I don’t wear what’s in here in the next 6 months, I’ll get rid of them”? Well, he refuses to get rid of them. If I put them in the trash, he digs them out and adds them to the laundry pile. He doesn’t need them, doesn’t wear them… yet he absolutely REFUSES to get rid of them. Yeah, those clothes are in our closet now, and once again you can’t even move the clothes on his side and they’re pushing over into my side.

So, like I said… we’re buried in clothes, literally. I can’t keep up with them. It’s time for another ”give it to Goodwill” session. Ugh.

My high school class is gearing up for our 20th reunion this fall. Still haven’t decided if I’m going. There’s only 3 or 4 people I’d be interested in seeing - the rest I’d be content to just look at pictures, if I even bothered doing that. I honestly don’t care what these people have done with their lives. They made mine hell… why would I want to spend money and travel to watch them all being catty and fake to each other?  Here’s a hint: if you ever find yourself saying “wow, I haven’t seen you in 17 years!”… there’s probably a good reason for that.

On the personal front, I finally acquiesced to getting rid of all of my dental problems in one fell swoop. Yep - they’re gone. I traded daily pain in my mouth for a daily pain in my ass.  Take care of your teeth, folks. I can’t say it enough.  On the other hand, I’ve got a quick and easy way to fix America’s obesity problem: yank all of their teeth.  Eating is a completely different story when you have to actually go get your teeth, wash and brush them off, put goo on them, press them in place for 30 seconds, and then hope they’ll actually chew what you’re going to eat rather than just squeeze it to death. That’s not even counting the time it takes to cut everything into miniscule pieces that you can swallow whole just in case the dentures can’t chew it… if you even bother to eat at all when considering the whole process you’ll have to go through just to be *able* to eat. America will be the thinnest nation again in just 3 short months.  And think of all the money the insurance companies will save on dental bills! Maybe our payments can go down. Win-win.

Political view at the moment: disgusted.
Hope that a non-socialist candidate will end up being even close to the front-runner: no hope at all.
Interest in the election activities? None, other than educational value to show the kids the election process, and even that has taken a back seat as we can’t watch a news show reporting on the process that isn’t filled with what comes out of the end of a bull. “Let’s gush over this candidate that we like and completely ignore these other candidates until they pull out of the race! Giving people all of the information they need to make an informed decision? Good god, no - they might vote for that other guy!” Spare me.

Bah, enough ranting for now. I’m still here, the family is still here, we’re surviving… just not poking our heads out too much. It’s depressing out there and only looks like it’s going to get worse.  On a good note, I’m looking forward to spring and being able to plant again.

Hopefully I’ll check in more often than every six months.

This will be the first “real” family vacation we’ve ever taken - I’ve gone off for a week for business twice, once taking Mike with me. The boys have gone on week-long trips with their grandparents before, but we’ve never done it together. Needless to say, there’s quite a bit of both anticipation and nervousness about the prospect of it. 3 weeks is a long time to be in a camper together. Mike is really looking forward to all the time away from work, but I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be having withdrawal pains and won’t know what to do with himself after a few days with all of that time on his hands. I don’t even think he’s considered what he’s going to take along to keep himself occupied/entertained. I’ll have to talk to him about that tonight.

In the next few days we’ve got a lot of packing to do, cleaning the house up, and generally getting everything ready to go. Wish us luck!

We “rolled some toons” (created characters) on the Madoran realm and have been playing there. Madoran is a PvE realm, meaning “Player vs Everyone”. You never have to go PvP (Player vs Player) if you don’t want to, but the option is there. In the time that I’ve been absent from blogging, I’ve created and dumped many toons, joined and left two guilds, and finally (with some help from my friends) created a guild that’s going very well and has a great group of folks in it.

My main character is Druanna, a level 70 night elf hunter. I’ve also got a little gnome mage, a dranei priest, and a human warlock. All female. These are of course Alliance characters; for the uninitiated Warcraft has two main factions: Alliance or Horde. On the Horde side, I’ve got a blood elf mage and a blood elf paladin. Our guild, Death By Design, also has a sister guild on the Horde side - Undead By Design.

Mike and the boys have also gotten into the action; Mike’s got a human mage that’s coming along nicely despite all the overtime he’s been doing, and a blood elf warlock as well. Kelsey and Brendon share an account, and I can’t keep track of the number of characters they’ve tried out and deleted. Kelsey’s two main characters are a human warlock and a night elf hunter; Brendon is currently playing around with a night elf druid.

We’re having a great time; Warcraft is more vast than we ever could have imagined. Even in the 3 months that I’ve been playing there I *still* haven’t seen everything there is to see, nor even been to every area that you can go to. It really is an entire world, and it’s well worth the $15/mo playing fee. If you’re interested in trying it out, there’s always a 10-day free trial running on the World of Warcraft website, and you can hit up any of our guild’s officers for an invite into the guild. (Try whispering Tartan, Kajiyama, Elocin, Klinnsman, or Liquidfury - one of them is bound to be on no matter what time of the day it is.)

I really wonder if these kids are homeschooled. And look at that house! Wow.

Real-life runescape skills Pt. 1
Real-life runescape skills Pt. 2

This seems to have become a fad on YouTube - if you check the “related videos” screen you’ll see there’s a lot of folks doing these real-life RS vids.  I’m sure after I show the boys they’ll want to make one too!

Photo copyright Reuters.

A girl is enclosed in a floating sphere on a river at a park on the outskirts of Beijing May 3, 2007. The ball-shaped device enables people to “walk” on water surfaces. China is celebrating a week-long Labour Day holiday, which started on Tuesday, a time when millions of Chinese people travel to major cities to enjoy cultural attractions or return home to visit relatives and friends. Picture taken May 3, 2007. REUTERS/Jason Lee (CHINA)

Dad does his part each year by participating in Rolling Thunder, a huge gathering in Washington D.C. by motorcyclists all across the country. I want to go next year - actually, I want to take the older boys, too.

Dad snapped this pic and sent it to us. 58,749 soldiers lost -truly lost, they never came home so we still don’t know if they died or are/were POWs- in the Vietnam War. Dad was drafted for Nam but ended up with stateside tours. He goes each year, as he puts it, “to honor and remember those who went in my place and never came home. There but for the grace of God go I.”

Talking with him today, he reckons that each of those guys would have had an average of two children, who’d be around my age now. Each of those children would’ve had an average of two children, who’d be the age of my kids or so. Some would even have great-grandchildren by now, if their kids got started having kids earlier than I did. So just stop and think for a moment about how much of the possible population was wiped out in that war. It’s devastating. Then for more mind-boggling tragedy, think about all of the WWI and WWII soldiers lost in action… and the soldiers we’re losing daily in Iraq. (I hate how the news calls them “troops”. To me, a “troop” is a group of soldiers, not one individual soldier.)

These men and women pay the ultimate price for us to be able to sit here comfortably blogging about how normal our lives are. Setting our flags at half-mast for half of a day once a year just isn’t enough to honor them for their sacrifices.

Just a little reminder about how freedom isn’t free.
To all of the veterans and the soldiers out there, thank you for my freedom, and the freedom of my sons.

More than half of my front porch is absolutely stuffed with stuff.
Stuff that I’ve spent months purging out of my overcluttered house.
Stuff that CHKD (the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters) was supposed to come and get yesterday. Sometime between 8am and 5pm - they barely made it at 10 minutes to 5.

Here’s the kicker - they didn’t take the stuff. Not a bit of it.
There was too much.
Now, I told the lady who was handling donation pick-ups that there was a LOT of stuff. She, apparently, didn’t believe me. (She probably hears that all the time, and they get there and it’s two boxes.) I told her there was a 55-gallon fish tank, a car bed, and enough stuff to make a good-sized yard sale. When she called back to confirm on Thursday I updated her and let her know we’d added a couch and even more stuff. Heck, I was still walking around grabbing things and adding them to the pile all day yesterday. I had planned on asking the guys when their next trip through our town will be, and telling them to make plans to stop by and pick up more of our purged stuff. Because we aren’t done - not by a longshot. That’s changed, though. I won’t be calling this charity again.

Get this… the guys who were here yesterday (and who are coming back this morning) told us that they won’t take all of it.
They’re going to pick through it.
Things like the baby high chair, which has some dust on it from sitting on the porch for 3 weeks waiting for CHKD to show up, they won’t take - because it’s dirty.
“We don’t do no cleaning of items,” the man told me.
He also pointed to where one of the cushions of the couch was coming loose from the arm (a ten-minute fix-up job that I never bothered to do) and told me the couch was staying, too. “We don’t do no mending, and I can see that’s torn, so we won’t be takin’ that.”
(It’s a good thing the couch was so piled down with boxes that he couldn’t see the rest of it. One of the cushions is torn completely across the top - again another simple fix-up job that we never bothered with… but he probably would’ve run screaming.)

Now, I do realize that this is a charity and that they want to make money, but in a way it bugs me. They’re getting these donations from people -people that could just as easily (and certainly in a much more timely fashion) have thrown these items into the trash- and they’re… well… being picky.
The phrase “looking a gift horse in the mouth” keeps coming to mind.

You’re not going to convince me that they don’t have a huge dumpster right outside the door, or even inside of the facility, where they could throw stuff that they deem not worthy. To me, that would be much better than actually offending the people taking the time -not to mention valuable space- to hold these items for them for THREE FREAKING WEEKS by picking through the stuff and leaving some of it behind.

I already purged the purge pile, as I was making the darn thing. There isn’t any trash in there. There isn’t anything that can’t be sold, and matter of fact anything that’s a little “rough around the edges” could be sold for a good amount as-is and much much more if it were shown a little attention; like mending the couch or hitting the high chair with a clorox wet wipe. There’s an entire box of solid silver items in there, and now I’m wondering if they’ll turn that away because it hasn’t been polished in years and looks black. Seriously, I’m not being cheeky - that’s the impression he gave me. They’re really, REALLY going to be picky.

It’ll be interesting to see what’s left over after they’re done this morning. I’ve taken pictures of the pile; when they’re done I’ll take some more and post a “before/after” comparison. Check back and see what stays and what goes.

Update
Before: Two different pics, one took the day they were supposed to take the stuff and one taken the morning they did take it (with more stuff added)

After: They ended up leaving the couch, the crib (because it wasn’t assembled), the fish tank (because it didn’t have a lid), and some pet supplies that were open (huge bulk bag of bedding, etc).

We spun the couch around and have really enjoyed sitting on it in the evenings. We might just leave it there. It’s tacky, I know, but it fits all of us better than my papasan chair I’ve got out there (which is the same color green, btw, so at least it matches). We’ll be taking the pet supplies to the SPCA this week. They don’t care if the bags are open. As for the crib and fish tank, those will probably get Freecycled.

I was able to actually get out onto the back patio and straighten up once the stuff back there was moved up front, and god help me, I found more stuff that was supposed to go that I’d missed. Now I’m trying to think of a place to keep that stuff as we add to it for the next run - when we’ll be calling the Salvation Army.

Here’s what changed my mind…
Take a look at this transcription of the newspaper story:
http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/2007/05/newspaper-through-looking-glass.html

The fact that the last name is “Lantham” is no big deal. Folks can change their name once they’re off the island - and I highly suspect that Kate has changed her name (probably Sawyer as well).

The thing that changed my mind was the last line - he’s survived by a teenage son.
John Locke has no children.

Who do we know that has a son that’s the age where he’d be a teenager 3 years after the island? Who do we know that used to live in New York?
Michael.

That would also explain why the funeral was being held in a black neighborhood. Many of the fansites are making a big fuss about the “black neighborhood” deal. I found it amusing that the funeral parlor’s name is an anagram for “flash forward”, and didn’t really care about the type of neighborhood the viewing was being held in; other than it seemed to be a lower-class neighborhood. (Further lending credit to my thoughts of it being John; desolate and paralyzed again after returning, with no real means of an income nor a desire to even have an income.)

But there’s no sensible reason (although since when has LOST been sensible) that Michael would change his name. He’s not a fugitive. Sure, he killed people on the island, but it’s not like anyone is gonna go running to the authorities and turn each other in once they get rescued. Hell, at this point, they’d almost all be thrown in jail for something they’ve done on the island.

So do I think it’s Michael?
Not really.
At this point Michael’s the only person that we know now that makes sense. But there’s still 3 seasons coming, and it could be someone we haven’t met yet. (Someone who also seems to be kinda short, judging by the size of the coffin.)

I’m still hoping that this is just a possible future, and will be until February. Argh.

If you Tivo’d it and haven’t watched it yet, click away now.
Come back after you’ve seen it.

Okay, everyone who did watch it, let’s get down to it.

 Update: I’ve changed my mind about John being in the coffin. Click here for my new thoughts.

 The flash-forward to the future that we saw tells us that John Locke died alone and off of the island. No one attended his funeral; only Jack showed up in the hopes that Kate would as well. How sad. I’m wondering if they forced John to leave the island in some way. Maybe he was unconscious. Whatever it was, it was the death of him.

Kate isn’t with Jack, but she is with someone. My guess is Sawyer. The secretive way that Jack met up with her has me thinking that Kate is still on the run. She wasn’t pregnant though, which is curious. Is she not pregnant now, or in the future, had she had the baby already?

Things that were nice to see - Danielle and Alex finally meeting, Ben finally getting the shit beat out of him (although I feel in this particular case he didn’t deserve it, as he knows something no one else does and they really shouldn’t have made that call; but he does deserve it for all of his past actions), Penny knowing for certain that Desmond is alive and on the island, Hurley running down Ryan in the Dharma van and saving the day, Jack finally telling Kate that he loves her, and seeing John up and walking - albeit in a serious amount of pain and suffering.

Charlie could’ve gotten out of that room in time, and sealed the air lock from the other side of the door. He could’ve waited for the room to fill up past the porthole (equalizing the pressure) and then swam out of it, under the station, and back up through the submarine pool. He didn’t have to die, although I suppose he thought that he did in order to ensure that Claire and Aaron got off of the island. It was sad, but in a noble way - I didn’t even cry. Just sighed.

I did a lot of sighing last night.
Hubby continues to remind me the lesson we learned from the finale of Heroes - that the future isn’t set in stone. Perhaps the gut-wrenching mess of a life that Jack has off of the island doesn’t have to be the future. Perhaps John doesn’t have to die. Maybe they will have a happy ending.

And that’s all I want, in the end. For everyone to have their own happy ending. If that means that John stays on the island because he wants to, so be it. If that means that Bernard and Rose stay there too because of her cancer, so be it. If that means our Losties get split up in the end and some leave while some stay, so be it - as long as it’s their own choice.

And now we’re the ones who are lost, for 8 months while we wait for the show’s return. I hate that. But at least I’ll have Harry Potter this summer, and Halo this fall, to keep me occupied.

*sigh*

My mom sent me a link to download a Harry Potter fanbook (what this particular fan thinks The Deathly Hallows will be)  and I sat up reading it all night Saturday. It was a fantastic book. Really well thought-out and the characters were pretty much dead-on.  There was too much “snogging” going on and the few times when the book focuses on Harry’s increasing teenage hormones were a bit uncomfortable (simply because I think JKR would’ve been more subtle about it), but all in all the book was brilliant. It was great to get back into the wizarding world of Harry Potter, it felt like being around old friends. Even though it isn’t the official book ending the series, it definitely is worth the read if you need something to tide you over for the next 66 days.  (Movie comes out in 52 days, book comes out in 66.)  Look for the download on Google, I misplaced the link.

Speaking of the movie, there was a new trailer snippet that was shown during Survivor. I didn’t watch the show, but did spend a lot of time at YouTube today watching all of the different trailers both for the US and international versions, and some of the cool fan videos that have been done up. The movie looks like it’s going to be AWESOME.  I tried not to get my hopes up too much, because the last movie disappointed me (too much stuff cut out, the director focused on the wrong things that weren’t key to the storyline and cut out stuff that was key, etc), but it’s no use. I just love the HP books and movies so much that watching the trailers today really got me all excited to see the movie. I can’t wait.

Mike’s been spending the time since Sunday reading the book; either on my Palm or on the laptop or on his desktop computer. We’ve been doing a lot of reading aloud, for hours and hours at a time. The fanbook is 660 pages long, so it’s taking a while.

Other than that, not much going on.  Mother’s Day was great; the boys got me a big beautiful Snapdragon plant. They were all excited when they found it because Snapdragon is an herb on Runescape. :)  They also made me a couple of little mirror magnets with colored “gems” on them to go on the fridge; they’re really pretty and cute. I twisted my foot/ankle being silly Sunday afternoon over at Mom and Dad’s.

Monday evening Mike had a sudden bout of illness come on and I ended up taking over his Bear den while he stayed home. We had a lot of fun; we went out on a little nature walk around the Moose lodge property and saw lots of different kinds of bugs, flowers, leaves, and even a rogue possum. I also had the Wolf den because I’d promised the week before to take those over for their den leader (he’s been working 16-hour days lately); but he was able to come after all and we just blended the two dens together for our walkabout.  Next week I get the Bears again, as Mike thinks he’ll be working second shift. That will be our last den meeting of the “year”; the Monday after that is the pack meeting and then we go on our extended summer break where we only meet once every 2 or 3 weeks for some kind of fun activity (like an ice cream get-together).  Tomorrow I’m going to look over Mike’s BearTrax software and see if I can squeeze in a few different activities that will help a few of the boys finish off their badge requirements.  These last few kids won’t be working on things during the summer (their parents aren’t involved in their Cub Scout stuff at all) and goodness knows things like ice cream socials isn’t going to help them get their achievements done. (Don’t get me started.)

Kelsey and Brendon have decided that this summer they want to do Cub Scout resident camp instead of the day camp. I’m both relieved and torn. The resident camp is earlier in the summer, so it won’t be so hot, and it’s in a great wooded reservation so they’ll be in the shade most of the time. The spot where they do day camp is on a coast guard base and there’s maybe 5 trees in the whole area; they had boys in the infirmary for dehydration constantly last year (including Kelsey). So it’ll be a better time for them health-wise, plus they’ll have a LOT more fun.  I also get a few days “off”, since they’ll be staying there the whole time (resident camp means you actually sleep there too, like a “real” summer camp), rather than running them back and forth every day.  But the cost is more than double that of day camp. I’m hoping my Dad will pitch in for that, once he gets back from Tennessee.  My great aunt died on Saturday and my parents went to TN for the funeral.

Oh - strike another one off of my vision board, as well.  We were gifted with a really nice couch and love seat set on Sunday from one of Dad’s neighbors.  It’s not the sectional sofa that I was hoping for, but it’s nearly the same color and the throw pillows are almost identical to the picture I have of the sofa on my vision board. It’s waiting for us in Dad’s garage; we’ll be moving it in this weekend once I finish making room for it.  I also called the local charity for a children’s hospital, and they’ll be coming to pick up all of our purged stuff on the 25th. What a relief that’ll be to get that stuff off of our front and back porches!  Our decluttering/organizing/making space efforts have actually ground to a halt because we don’t have anywhere to put more stuff that’s being purged; nor any space to clean out a room and sort it.  I do have a number of boxes in closets that are mentally earmarked to go out onto the purge pile, and I’ll get those out there before the 25th.

Other than that, we’ve just been working on getting the new badges sewn onto outfits and  red jackets, Kelsey’s started working on his Webelos Craftsman badge (he’s building a bird feeder and a toolbox), Brendon built a wooden model of DaVinci’s flying machine, and we’re sadly watching our favorite tv shows (Heroes, LOST, Grey’s Anatomy, and Desperate Housewives) come to an end.  With lots of read-aloud of the Harry Potter - Deathly Hallows fanbook going on the entire time. “Pottering” around.

I hope everyone else’s week is going well!