OrangeZen

Hi again

2007-09-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

I'm experimenting with good old Blogger and word press...not sure which I like yet, but so far Word Press seems a lot more user friendly. I may just have to switch.

It's June already?

2006-06-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

Where did the first half of the year go?

Anyway...
My lack of posting lately has been due to me not having any ANY spare minutes when I wasn't working, talking to people at work, going to work, coming home from work, or sleeping. I may be exaggerating just a tad. I do work a lot though. Most of the time I'm too exhausted to even think much less type out something coherent. Also, much of what I've had to say lately has been about (in)fertility or home improvement or assholes that I have the misfortune of meeting while driving to or from my job(s). While everyone can relate to stupid maniac drivers, and most people have done a home improvement project at some point, not many people have had to deal with infertility. I feel like I would need a whole other blog just to dedicate to all of the (too much) information about it. There's a lot of checking of temeratures and bodily fluids and body organ positions and it's all a little bit overwhelming at times even for me so I can only imagine how gross and just too much it is for the average person.
Thus, I have made a decision to kind of put the blogging on hold for a bit. It's pretty much been on hold for the last year anyway because I have a very boring life or I have run out of things to talk about...or something. It's harder to come up with random things when I'm not sitting bored at a desk, which is where I was when I first started this blog.
So that's pretty much that.
And, in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
=)

Morons...

2006-05-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

Why do people think I am going to pull over when they are gesturing to me in traffic?

New job(s)+new house= ??

2006-03-29T16:11:00.000-08:00

Just when I got used to staying home, I went out and got not one, but TWO jobs. The last time I had 2 jobs I was a newly divorced single mom making slightly more than minimum wage and struggling (sometimes failing) to make ends meet.
So how did I come back to having to have 2 jobs? It's called starting over in a different career....gotta climb a different ladder. Tech support was beginning to wear on me. It's obviously not a creative field. I'm not entirely sure if that's what the problem was or if I was just burned out and bored with it. I'm not even sure I will like doing cakes as a "career" but it's not terrible which is a start I suppose. I like to cook but I don't have a feel for how to put recipes together very well. Having a meat and potatoes type of family definitely doesn't help that very much. Baking is very measured and precise. It's chemistry. And almost everyone likes cake.
I am currently a cake decorator at Cold Stone Creamery AND teaching cake decorating at Michael's. I hope to one day gain enough experience to work in a proper bakery or a grocery store bakery or some such place. Ultimately though I want to do what my good friend does and just do cakes for people and make them pay me for it. Who knows if that's even a real possibility for me who is sorely unmotivated and a big time procrastinator. But you have to start somewhere.
In other news...
We closed on our house yesterday. We even have KEYS. The first items have already been moved over. Those things we don't use very often and storage stuff. One of the first things we did was tear down the hidious wallpaper in the kitchen. All of the seams were visible so it was not a hard thing to do. I have a weird thing about peeling things. If I get a sunburn I can't ignore the peeling skin.I try to get it off in one big sheet. If I get a zit, I mess with it until it's a hugesss blemish. I think when I'm old and senile I'm going to probably have to wear mittens taped to my hands. The best thing is that it's OUR house so we can go into the kitchen and peel off the shitty wallpaper and not have to worry about security deposits and all of that lovely crappy stuff that goes with renting. I can't wait to get out of here and into OUR NEW HOUSE.

Jobby Jobs

2006-03-22T07:41:00.000-08:00

Why is it people pay you big bucks to do things you loathe but if you want to do something you actually enjoy, they can barely manage to scrape together a few pennies?
I am now officially (well, almost) a Wilton Method Instructor. What this means is I am taking my cake decorating non-talent and passing it on to others who would like to learn. I'm doing this mostly because I want to work in a job where the main thing is not talking to people on the phone about how to locate the Start button or explaining to them why it's a good idea to save their work frequently when working on documents that takes 3 hours to compose. The pay is NOT good, the hours couldn't be better, and there are a number of perks that go along with it, not the least of which is a 40% discount (woohoo!). Having finally procured this job, after a couple of months of limbo over another job that I ended up NOT getting because I bounced a check 10 years ago, I got an email from a head hunter today offering me a help desk job in Chesapeake. While I said I would never get a tech job again, the money might just be too good to pass up, especially since we will be basically drawing from savings every month to live in our new house if I can't pull in the extra. Then again, if it's not, do I take the crappy job at the crappy pay just because I would be making more at that than doing cake stuff?

Etc.

2006-03-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

My back...hurts.
I don't know what the hell I did to it. Maybe it's because I have no access to the chiropractor. Maybe I strained it emptying the catbox. For almost 2 weeks now I've had lower back pain and I don't like it! I can't sit for long before it starts aching. Not a sharp pain, but a dull ache. For a while I was sitting on my exercise ball instead of my regular office chair but my stupid cat popped it so now I have to try to use my chair again. One of the good side effects of not being able to sit for that long is that I'm getting more done around the house, which is always a good thing.

I also went back to the gym this week. It's been since before Christmas that I've been. I got a cold right before Christmas and couldn't breathe so, therefore I stopped going. I made a couple attempts to workout at home, but once we got new furniture there was no room to workout anymore. All of that's behind me now though because I'm starting again. After having been out of it for so long I feel like I'm starting from scratch. But starting slow is better than not starting at all I suppose. I've managed to avoid the annual Girl Scout Cookie conspiracy this year so that's about 5 unnecessary pounds I won't be gaining this year. Yay. I weighed myself this morning and discovered that I have lost about 5 pounds since January 1. While this is no great feat, I'm happy with it. Small victories or something like that.

I am more motivated to lose weight now that I've been to the Reproductive Endocrinologist(RE) last week. He said I may have a condition called PCOS and that "diet and exercise" may improve my fertility. I still will have to take medicine though. He told me a lot of things actually. I am to go in for an HSG (see I told you there were a lot of acronyms dealing with infertility) after the start of my next cycle. I've not read a whole lot about HSG's but what I have read is that they are uncomfortable to say the least. I'm not looking forward to it. Why is it that all of the female tests and procedures for diagnosing infertility problems are painful or inconvenient while the male part in it comes down to not wearing tight underwear and getting to masturbate into a cup? NOT FAIR I say... Jeff is being a good sport about it though. I've read stories of some women's husbands who balk at the idea that there might be something wrong with their testicles and refuse to get the test done. Hopefully all of that time around a nuclear reactor didn't hurt his little guys too much.

Apparently I've been writing web pages in my sleep. My husband told me this morning that I asked him for the keywords. I did the same thing yesterday morning. I don't remember any of it. I've been ask by a friend of mine to administer a message board that her and another gal have just started up. It's a message board for cake decorators called The Baker's Bar. It still looks ugly and needs some tweaking, but at least it works. It was the first time I had worked with php or mysql. Fortunately I know people who aren't as dumb about this as I.

We will be moving to a new house in about a month. When we first moved to Norfolk, we didn't know anything about the area or where we should live. Let's just say we didn't choose well and now we're moving to a better area; one where our neighbors will not see fit to put their major appliances and furniture in their front yards to be picked up as trash. It gets a little ridiculouse. How many couches and old stoves do these people have?? Ah, and the music will now be something that I pick for myself instead of someting I'm forced to listen to,in another language, at top volume, at 1am. Fortunately my daughter will stay in the same school. I'm excited about living in the new house and fixing it up to sell, but I ABSOLUTELY despise moving. I wish I could be one of those uber-organized,have-everything-packed-a-month-ahead-of-time type of people. I still have boxes in my house that I haven't unpacked from when we moved her...almost a year ago. Hopefully that's not an indicator of the next one.

FRER gave me a BFN

2006-03-02T02:26:00.000-08:00

Many people don't realize that there is a whole subculture out there. One full of acronyms, obsessive compulsive behavior, probing into regions of the body that usually only one person (an OBGYN) sees.
You see I am anywhere from 16-18 DPO right now (depending on if you ask TCOYF or FF) and I'm on CD33. My AF hasn't shown up yet so I am in the 2WW still. We were doing the SMEP this month so I was sure this would be a god month. I haven't had many symptoms, bb's don't really hurt, and my CM has all but dried up...not to mention that my CP is still high and soft. I have had 2 temps below my CL, but I'm not sure if that means anything. This morning I tested with FRER and got a BFN. Tomorrow I have an appointment with an RE to find out why my husband and I have been TTC for a year now and still don't have a baby.

See what I mean? It's like a whole other language that must be learned. Basically what I just said was that I ovulated 16-18 days ago (depending on which chart you look at). I haven't gotten my period yet so I took a pregnancy test this morning (First Response Early Response) and got a Big Fat Negative. I don't know why this negative was any more fat than normal negatives, but it seems that in the world of Trying To Conceive that it's not just negative it's Big and Fat (same goes if you happen to get a positive result). Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with a Reproductive Endocrinologist. They are the people you go to see when the OBGYN just isn't cutting it and you need the "real stuff". These doctors specialize in the why's and how's of why people can't get pregnant. That's definitely the man (or woman) for me! There was a time when I would be very depressed about getting a negative pregnancy test, but now I just want to get whatever the problem is sorted out and get on with the baby makin'!
The rest of the stuff mentioned above...you just don't want to know, believe me. I mean I suppose you could look it up if you are so inclined, but I'll let you figure that out.

Non-post post

2006-02-24T09:11:00.000-08:00

You are a
Social Liberal
(66% permissive)

and an...
Economic Moderate
(41% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Centrist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Close Call

2006-02-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

So I sort of re-discovered Mike's blog today and was thinking about a childhood memory that I was also reminded of yesterday when I read this disturbing article that Jeff had sent to me.
This is a very vivid memory for me. I was probably about 9 years old riding my bike to the convenience store that was about 3/4 mile from our house. This in itself boggles my mind because there's NO WAY IN HELL that I would even let my almost-12 year old daughter ride her bike on a busy road to a place that was that far from the house, but I guess things were different then or something because I was going to get some milk for my mom for dinner (or something). I was almost there when a man approached me and said hello. I stopped and said hi. He was probably about 20-ish, but it's hard to tell age when you're 9 years old. He had scraggly dark blonde hair that was sort of wavy and needed a haircut and he had a beard and a mustache. He was dressed casually in a flannel shirt and work boots...I remember his boots had mud on them. He asked me if he could show me something. I said sure. He said it's just back there in the woods. He pointed behind him to a fence and some trees. There was a sort of creek that ran through that part and he said what he wanted to show me was down there. I said no I really have to get back, my mom needs some milk. He said are you sure? It will only take a minute. I just said no I gotta go and I left. I don't know if he tried to follow me or anything because I didn't look back. I don't remember feeling particularly anxious or scared because he was not a scary looking man. I remember the ONLY reason I didn't go with this man was because I knew I would get in trouble if I took too long getting the milk! It didn't occur to me until years later that I may not be here writing this if I had actually gone with him. I could have been a statistic, a headline on the evening news, a wreath laid beside the road to mark the place I was last seen alive...you get the idea.
I guess my point is that I don't think parents (myself included) have any idea just how many sick people are out there waiting to prey on children. And I'm not talking about small children because a lot of times they are smarter than we give them credit for, I'm talking about that sort of "tween" age that isn't quite a little girl and not quite a teenager. Sure we've all heard the "don't take candy from strangers" mantra, but what about the not so dubious sounding requests? My daughter has ADHD, is very naive, and very outgoing and I can totally see her just trusting anyone without a thought because she's forgetful like that. It's a scary thought indeed. I think I will let her read the article. That might be the best way to illustrate to her that people aren't automatically deserving of our trust.

The Special K people think you're a big fat pig cow!

2006-02-04T19:41:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't seen this little gem of a commercial, let me set it up for you...
There's a picture of a scale and meat products are dropped onto it until it reads 6 lbs. while "Barnyard Boogie" by Louis Jordan (specifically the part that sings "Oink Oink, Moo Moo") plays in the background.
Does anyone else think this is the most blatant subliminal message? As if to say "Hello all of you big fat Americans! Buy Special K! You need to lose weight!" I mean how awful is that??
And their red berry Special K is so good! And now I have to stop buying it because their commercial could be insulting me! Besides, no way in hell am I eating cereal for 2 meals a day for 2 weeks!! I'd never leave the bathroom!

Hmmm...anyone else notice the ridiculous amount of !!'s and ??'s in this post??(????)

Side note...not a real post...

2006-02-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

Notice the timestamp at the bottom of my posts?
It's 3 hours off.
Since we've moved here, the time on the laptop has remained on Pacific Time and thus is 3 hours behind the ACTUAL time here on the East Coast. I don't know why I did that. I think I was homesick at first or something. Now it just seems silly so I think I might change it.

Time to go play with my birthday gift...TheSims2:Nightlife. New job can't get here fast enough...

Happy Birthday to me

2006-02-01T18:22:00.000-08:00

Yup, today it's 31...(sigh)
When I was a teenager, I thought that 30 was OLD.
Since then I've realized that teenagers are idiots who don't know anything, but think they do. So it's all good!

Watching Food Network...
Ever notice that Giada De Laurentiis wears WAY too much makeup and looks like a lollipop (you know, teeny tiny stick body with a HUGE balloon head). She's like a train wreck, I can't help watching. And what's up with the OCD hand washing after everything she touches? I wonder if she has a special bar of soap and everything.
WTF happened to Rachel Ray? She used to be cute in a girl-next-door kind of way but now I guess she has put on a few pounds or something because she looks funky in a bad way and her overzealous personality seems to have morphed into some kind of psychotic, giggle infested, EVOO, drug induced bad trip or something.
Alton Brown never disappoints though. He's my surrogate husband. When Jeff was gone on deployment, AB was the only man that I saw almost every day. I still watch all of his shows even though I've seen them thousands of times.

I made my own birthday cake today. It was chocolate with chocolate filling made from scratch, including the fondant. It looks sort of like a purse...or a pillow, or something. I'll post a pic eventually.

Hmmm what else...OH

I got a job! Staying at home has been fun, but I am not doing anything productive while I wait to be impregnanted so I may as well make some money. I'm waiting for a security clearance so that I can work on the base here in Norfolk. It's your basic helpdesk type job but for less pay than I was getting before. I'm not all that concerned about how much I make, since it's all going to be extra anyway. It's nice to not have to worry about that for once...

Speaking of trying to get impregnated...yep we're still trying. I had an oh-so-pleasant pelvic ultrasound a few weeks ago and the results were "normal" according to my doctor so there's no reason why I have such a weird cycle. I must admit that I never dreamed having a baby would be this hard, if i had known this in high school I wouldn't have worried so much! March will be a year and a half (more or less) that I've been off of birth control. Of course, Jeff was gone for several months in there and some high stress things were happening in my life (oh, like moving accross the country...) so it's not totally abnormal yet. This will be my 3rd month "charting" so maybe it will get better. I use a nifty little website called "Fertility Friend" (I know it's hilarious isn't it?). I think that link contains more information than you will EVER want to know about me, so click at your own risk.

Ok, I'm fighting sleep...time to surrender. =)

The joys of parenting a tweenager

2006-01-06T07:12:00.000-08:00

I've come to the conclusion that I don't necessarily give my child toys and things like that to keep her happy (although I admit I may do that on occasion), rather I give her these things so that I have LEVERAGE when it comes time to discipline her.
Yesterday I had my ultrasound and we left my 11 year old at home, as she's done a few times in the past, for a couple of hours to avoid the inevitable "I'm bored" and "when can we go?" type of whining. While we were gone her job was to empty the dishwasher, as is her job every day. When we returned and I started making dinner I noticed some curious scrape marks on the handle of the refrigerator. When I went to get the bread from the breadbox, I noticed some of the fruit sitting on top of it had similar slash marks on it. After heavy questioning, much denial, and finally threatening to take away computer games, it came out that my daughter thought it would be fun to take a steak knife and hack away at the refrigerator, banana, and pear. After the thoughts of her cutting off her finger or her toe and gushing blood everywhere had gone from my head I think my head exploded or something because the next thing I knew I was yelling at the top of my lungs about the danger of playing with knives-what would you have done if you hurt yourself-that's MY fruit you slashed up-you are not playing any video games for the forseeable future-what on hearth posessed you to do such a thing-madness and she was sent to her room.
I guess she won't be staying home again by herself for some time.
WheneverI end up yelling at my daughter in that way, I end up blaming myself for 1)not instilling in my child that knives are a tool and not a toy and 2) because it's really MY fault that those things happened because if I had been here they obviously wouldn't have but mostly 3)how I must be the worst mother in the world!
Which starts me thinking..."and I want to have another one??". Somehow I convince myself that it will be different this time because THIS time I won't be a single mom. I'll be able to stay home and be around and available all the time. But will it REALLY be? I am 11 years older than I was when I had my daughter (at the just graduated from high school age of 18) and I should be wiser and more world-weary, right? RIGHT??

Newness

2006-01-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

Organizational maven that I am, I went to change my calendar and found that I hadn't flipped the month since October. I rarely remember what day it is much less the date. All of that really has no meaning when I have no where to be like a job or other commitments. I mean if I need to do something for school for my daughter, they always send home a flyer so I'm good there.
Why do they always put wintery scenes in winter? That's not when people want to be reminded of cold. They want to see cold, snowy weather in July to help them cool off and they want to see hot, sunny weather in January because they are cold (unless they live in the South where it's never really "cold"). When I make a calendar, that's what it's going to be: snowy weather in summer and sunny weather in winter.
So how is your new year so far?

New Year? But I was just getting used to this year...

2005-12-31T02:46:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe this year has passed already. Don't we say that every year?
I was watching TV yesterday and they had one of those "year in review" type montages on there. Brad and Jennifer breaking up seems like it happened 2 years ago, doesn't it? Cause you know that was THE NUMBER ONE thing to be worried about this year... My hair has grown about 4 inches, as has my waist unfortunately. Soon to be remedied though! Monday is the big day when I start back to the gym...again.
I've lived in Virginia for almost 8 months now and it still doesn't feel "right" to say that I live here. I still use the wrong zip code when I address envelopes and the wrong area code when I use my phone number. This is less a place that we live than a place we're staying at for a couple of years until my husband is out of the Navy. Then we can go find a "real" house.
I finished a book I got for Christmas in less than a day. Either I am a fast reader or the book was so hopelessly elementary that it was that easy to read. I haven't finished a book since high school I'm sure. I always try to get into reading but I can never stay interested long enough. I think I have ADD. The book I read was Dark Lord:The Rise of Darth Vader. Nope no great literary classics for me, I'm all about the Star Wars geekiness. It is the first Star Wars Expanded Universe book that I've read and it spurred my interest to read more (since there won't be any more films). Reading it felt like watching one of the movies. There was a lot of action and there were parts that let you get inside of Vader's head and find out what he thought of the suit that kept him alive, the Emperor, and his self-pity and anger that ultimately makes him stronger in the Dark Side of the Force.
My geek alarm is blaring so I must digress...
I wasn't directly affected by any of the hurricanes or other things that happened this year, but I think I must have given about $100 to the Red Cross and other charities raising money for the victims. $100 doesn't sound like much, but given that I usually give $0 to such charities, I think it's quite a bit. I also sent a care package to anysoldier.com. I think it's a good way to support the people risking their lives in Iraq even if you don't agree with the reason they are there.
On a more personal note, this year has been a little disappointing in that we have been trying to have a baby and, well, we're still trying. I'm reading books, charting temperatures, taking tests, and trying to assess places that really only my OBGYN should be assessing. I don't even really like to think about how long it's been because 1)I am impatient, 2)I don't like to think about the fact that it's been this long (9 months) and it hasn't happened (so maybe it's not going to) and 3)I know for a fact that there are people who've been trying for three or four times as long as we've been trying and it makes me feel insignificant. I go in for a pelvic ultrasound on January 15th so they can look at my ovaries. Hopefully there will be some kind of "aHA! there's the problem! here's how we fix it!" type of thing as a result.
Whew
Anyway, I think we will be taking it easy tonight. Staying off the roads is probably a good thing to do with all of the sobriety checkpoints that will be open around here. I say dinner, maybe a movie, watch the ball drop, get some nookie, go to bed...not necessarily in that order.
Simple enough.
Good luck and good health in the new year everyone!

Do you look famous?

2005-12-30T07:29:00.000-08:00

Check out this site. You upload a pic of yourself and the site matches it to that of a celebrity!
Depending on the pic, I resemble Vivien Leigh, Liv Tyler, Angelina Jolie, and Courtney Cox (none of which have the requisite RED HAIR).

Got lights?

2005-12-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

I know at least some of you out there have seen this video of the Christmas lights that are in sync with music, BUT here's a link to even MORE of them including links with directions on how to put together displays like it. (better not show this to my husband lest he get any ideas)
I mean, if you're going to waste energy, don't screw around by driving around a gas guzzling monstrocity of a vehicle that gets 8mpg, REALLY do it right by plugging in hundreds of thousands of lights into an electrical timer that will sync everything to the music you are broadcasting over a close range radio station! Better yet, invite friends and strangers in their gas guzzling monstrocities to drive by your house repeatedly blocking traffic and invading private property! To hell with those nay-sayers who say there is a fuel shortage!
I know that's sort of bah-humbugg-y and even a little bit hypocritical. I enjoy Christmas lights as much as the next person, but there are people who can't even afford to heat their homes this winter and put food on their table and here we have the equivalent of Clark W. Griswold, FFS!
I digress...
I'm mainly posting because I updated my photos, only about a quarter of what I've taken, but I think personal photos tend to have a sort of "slideshow vacation" feel to them. No one knows who is who and no one cares that much.

Merry Christmahannakwanzakah!!

2005-12-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

Ya like that?
How the heck are ya? Are you ready for the holiday? (whatever holiday you happen to be celebrating) I just finished up my online shopping tonight. It's a beautiful thing being able to do 80% of your shopping without even turning off the TV.
Ok so I haven't totally slipped into a coma. We have had the tree and lights up for about 3 weeks. We did all of our holiday baking. Some of the things turned out great. I highly recommend Alton Brown's Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheel cookies. We tried to make fudge about 4 times with absolutely no success. I don't understand because I used the exact recipe I used last year. It was either way dry and crumbly or it had the consistency of Nutella or peanut butter or something like that. Nothing that resembled fudge though. I did learn a few things from the experiment(s) though. Don't try to make fudge on an electric stove. Also, don't try to make fudge on a gas camp stove. Maybe it's the humidity? Or lack of?
Hehe...I'm watching Pretty Woman while I type this. They just showed the part where they're doing it on the piano...gotta do that eventually.
Anyway, not much is new. I have pictures that I've been too lazy to upload. I have had stuff to say that I've been too lazy to type out. I'll try to be better about that sort of thing. I can't believe it's been another year. Last year at Christmas I was sure we would have another little person on the way by this time. It's secretly what I wanted for Christmas (ok not secretly, but maybe inwardly). Oh well,there's always my birthday (in 2 months if anyone is counting!). I have managed to lose 5 pounds which is not really saying much because I am now back to the same weight I was before we moved to Virginia. It's an ok start for a New Year's resolution though.
Speaking of those, they are as follows:
Lose 50lbs. (I'll start with 20 and take it from there)
Exercise at least 3 days a week.
Go for walks 2 nights a week.
Finally unpack every box that I have from when we moved and either use the contents or give them away.
Purge half of my wardrobe to some other fat girl who might require "business casual" at her place of business.
Update my blog at least twice a month. I know this is a pitifully small thing, but it's something I've been meaning to keep up and just haven't because I'm a procrastinator like that.

Of all of those, only the top 2 are absolutely non-negotiable. The rest are sort of my wish to be ultra super organized. We'll see what happens.

Princess in training

2005-11-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

I thought this was the cutest thing ever!
Apparently there was a Star Wars costume contest on this site and some of the costumes are really good...but the idea of putting the fake hair on this kid was too funny!

WikiTree

2005-11-02T20:57:00.000-08:00

A group of people trying to make a family tree of all humankind. No small feat, but it's sort of fun. Give it a try. You can add your own info or that of your family members to see your own family tree.

For the love of GAWD....

2005-11-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

please stop shopping at Wal-mart!!!

From the article...
"It's the world's largest company--bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General Electric."
"It sells in three months what number-two retailer Home Depot sells in a year."
"To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas."
"...dozens of companies contacted declined to talk about even the basics of their business with Wal-Mart... Why in the world would we talk about Wal-Mart? Ask me about anything else, we'll talk. But not Wal-Mart." (what are they, the mob??)

So the moral of this story is, support your local businesses. Stop lining the pockets of Sam Walton's heirs.

Goth wannabe

2005-11-01T13:47:00.000-08:00

Move Over Courtney Love...
Originally uploaded by Ja-nelle.

Here's my daughter on Halloween. She looked cute in a Marilyn Manson/Courtney Love sort of way.
We ended up with NO trick or treaters! Not ONE! So now we have all of this candy laying around! Oh NO! What are we going to do??!! =)

Peach Rose

2005-10-29T00:50:00.000-07:00

Peach Rose
Originally uploaded by Ja-nelle.

Here's the test post! That didn't take too long to figure out. Enjoy my wannabe artistic pictures. =)

Creepiness...

2005-10-29T00:38:00.000-07:00

If you click here, you can play with a woman's body...literally it's like she's dead and you can pick her up and move her all over the screen.

Who comes up with these things?

Check out the pictures in my flickr page thingy. Among them are recent cakes I've done (including the one I did for my sister's reception) and our trip up to DC...go on, bore yourself silly! Maybe I'll do a test post...

If I'm ever put up for auction...

2005-10-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

I am worth $1,108,724 on HumanForSale.com