Nothing else matters ...

Okay, guys. I have a story to tell you. It's not terribly, terribly exciting unless you know how awful I am at directions. If you do know, you'll be laughing your ass off because this is so classic fucking me that it's hilarious.

Here goes: I had what you could call a job interview today. In Palo Alto. This is about 45 minutes away from where I live. My best friend (lj user="malkovich03"> happens to work in Palo Alto so I *kinda* know my way around. Oh, who am I kidding? I can find my way from the freeway to her work. If the planets align and if I'm lucky.

So I talked Eric into going with me because I really do have a horrid sense of direction and I didn't want to get lost and end up being late to an interview. We're cruising along in Palo Alto and I'm like... "LOOK! That's Lacey's bank! This is so exciting! Maybe if I flail my arms like an idiot and shriek loudly she'll know I'm nearby!" For the record, she didn't know. Apparently I didn't shriek loud enough.

I think I need to add at this point that I didn't have actual directions to the place we were trying to get to. I has the address and a page of hand scrawled directions consisting of left on El Camino, rt on whatever. I kinda figured that as long as I had my phone, which has GPS in it, everything would be fine.

Yeah. No. That's not what happened. We ended up in some janky part of town and had to turn around and the street we turned down to turn around on had some guy sleeping in the back of his truck with his legs sticking out. I'm like... "Dead body. Dead body. Dead body." It was weird and off-putting.

Anyway. I cranked up my GPS (FINALLY!) and we had to backtrack to the street that Lacey's bank is on. Because the guy's office is right down the street from the fucking bank. I kid you not. I was so excited that I recognized a landmark that I totally didn't check the street name. *face palm*

I made it there in plenty of time, in case you're wondering. I was even able to go score a cup of coffee, which was sorely needed at that point. I also got to see the delectable Lacey and she made me laugh so hard I think I almost cracked a rib. damnyouautocorrect.com ... that's all I'm going to say about that.

As for the interview. I think it went well. It's something very different than what I did before so there's that. Otherwise, I won't know anything until next week. No, I'm still not thrilled to be diving back into a normal job, but I'll get over it. I have a plan, you know. A good plan that involves working for myself eventually. I'll just have to make it happen.

After all that... Book stuff!
Book #24 - Personal Demons (Personal Demons #1) by Lisa Desrochers - I had a lot of fun writing this review. I was able to wax poetic about my love of bad boys. Yum.
Book Blogger Hop & Follow Friday (01/14/11) - I don't even know how I rambled as much as I did. *shakes head*

As a random aside, I've had several of my reviews linked by some of the authors who wrote the books and it's such a thrill to have someone I admire thank me for reading their books. It makes me giddy.

My dog is snoring. Ha!

Okay. I'm done now.
Later.

I forgot to journal yesterday. Well, maybe not 'forgot' exactly, but by the time I was ready to journal it was after midnight and when I really started thinking about it I realized that I didn't actually have anything to say. So, I went back to reading my smutty story and figured that I'd get in an early journal today. And LOOK! Here I am!

Anyway. I dragged Cole out to Target this morning because I forgot to buy toothpaste for him when I went on Sunday and somehow my quest for toothpaste turned into $100. WTF? Seriously? I didn't even buy that much. Although I'm pretty sure it was the Skullcandy headphones and Clash of the Titans on Blu-Ray that did me in. Whoops.

And that's why I shouldn't go shopping on Tuesdays. Ever. New movies, new books... my downfall.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm going to work on my resume today. It's been so long since I did one that I'm dreading it. When you work with the same company for 16+ years, you don't keep up on little things like a resume. Blah. Have I mentioned how much I really don't want to go looking for a job? Because I really, really, really don't.

What happened to all my plans to be a self-sufficient, stay at home mom who set her own hours and wrote smut at 2 in the morning? Those were good plans. I am sad to have to set them aside. Even if it's just for a short while.

On the other hand ... no, I still want to be a porn-writing degenerate who stays up way too late and gets up way too early and has to nap during the day to keep up with her candle at both ends lifestyle.

Damn you, real life, for getting in the way of my dreams!

Speaking of dreams, I did a wee bit of writing yesterday but I kept getting distracted by everything and it was only a couple hundred words. Today's goal: break 45K. That is all.

Cole needs my help on a video game. I'm such the rocking mom!
Later.

I had this moment of clarity today while I was sitting at my sister's house for another fun-filled morning of babysitting the contractors as they worked on the floor. As much complaining as I've been doing about the house sitting recently, when else do I have an excuse to do nothing but sit and read and write. Yes, I can do it at home, but there's always a nagging voice in the back of my head detailing things that I could be doing around the house. You know, like, vacuuming. Or something. So this house sitting is really an excuse for me to take a vacation from my vacation. Awesome.

Yeah. So I didn't write on my story today. However ...
Book #26 - Bitten (Women of the Otherworld #1) by Kelley Armstrong - This was the book that singlehandedly reignited the spark of interest I had in werewolf books. It also made me go from tolerating first person narratives to embracing them with a whole-heartedness that's nearly embarrassing. I loved Elena's story from the first word. I was drawn in and emotionally wrung out by how much I wanted her to get her happily ever after. As the only female werewolf, Elena Michaels is something of a precious commodity. She holds an esteemed position in the Pack, has a almost-psychotic sometimes-boyfriend packmate who both knows and accepts what she is and she's trying to live a normal in the human world (complete with a job and long-time boyfriend who has no idea that she turns into a wolf upon occasion). Yeah. Her life is a little complicated. When the Pack Alpha calls her home, Elena has to reconcile the two sides of her nature before the secrets of the Pack are revealed. Seriously, one of my favorite werewolf books. It's dense, well-written, and emotionally wrenching.

-and-

Book #27 - Stolen (Women of the Otherworld #2) by Kelley Armstrong - Picking up roughly a year after Bitten, Elena and Clay have found a balance with each other and they're trying hard to make it work. Following up on a lead which could reveal the secret of the werewolves, Elena comes into contact with two witches who tell her more than she ever imagined regarding other Supernatural races (something the Pack barely knew existed). Elena's investigation leads her to a group of people who kidnap and study Supernaturals to try to learn what makes them different. Now, this book isn't quite as insanely captivating as the first, but it's still good. It moves quickly and it helps define Elena's personality and morals a bit more. Plus, it introduces a whole new level of intrigue by bringing in witches, shamans, demons, and half-demons.

I'm so glad I decided to re-read this series. I love love love those werewolves!

Word has come down from the sis that I'm not needed tomorrow. However, I'll be there on Wednesday for the installing of the new carpet. *sigh* That means that I have to change my hair appointment. Boo. Ehh, not a big deal.

I just realized that it's been a year since my official last day at the bank. Whoa. A year. Nice. It's been the best damn year of my life. I feel like a real person again. The sad news is that it's starting to sink in that I'm probably going to have to start looking for a job soon. Part of me is still rebelling against the thought, but part of me is trying to be a big girl and take it in stride. Even if (fine, when!) I find a job, I'm going to have a long term goal of working for myself. Whether it's as a writer or whatever. It's what I want. I think I could be a full-time blogger. Yes? Yes. Seriously, though, I still want to write like WHOA! Even on the days that the muse is fighting me tooth and nail I want to be a writer.

So now I have a goal.

Excellent.

Done now. I have things to do. Or something.
Later.

Are all the numerologists out there creaming themselves over today's date? 09/09/09. It's cool and all, but it really just ends up being like any other day. Any other day with the same numbers repeated.

You know, I wasn't going to read a book last night. Really. I was going to take a day off and kick back and watch the rest of my Indy trilogy ... or quadrilogy, but I ended up picking up a book toward the end of the day and it was good. So I finished it. I will be reading again today since I have my hair appointment in a bit and I need something to do while my color is setting.

Anyway. Book!
Book #91 - The Clue in the Old Stagecoach by Carolyn Keene - A fairly fast paced and well written entry in the series. Nancy helps a town find a long-lost treasure so they can build a new school. Awwww. She's such a civic minded young lady. Honestly, though, it's interesting reading these books that were set in a very different time than we live in now. Everybody helps out just because they can. Not because they're going to get anything out of it. Not because there's a prize at the end of the rainbow. Heck, Nancy doesn't even accept money for solving her mysteries. She does it because it's what she loves to do. Sure, she's a fictional character, but it's nice to read books where not everybody is mercenary and only looking out for #1.

One of the things I wanted to get going yesterday (not just yesterday, really. I've been wanting to do it for a while) was designing T-shirts for my Cafe Press store. The problem I'm running into is that it's been so long since I played around in Photoshop that I have to figure out what does what again. It's funny how things start to fall out of your head when you don't use them on a consistent basis. The moral of this story is that Photoshop is not like riding a bike.

Okay. I have to unload the dishwasher and run up to the bank before I can get my hair done. Wish me red!
Later!

You know how yesterday I had no kids and I ended up watching nothing but kid friendly movies? Yeah. Tonight, both kids are here (Hailey can't stay away from her beloved dog!) and I'm trying to watch a horror-lite movie. It's rather difficult when I have to keep pausing it whenever they wander in. I really should have planned that better.

I think it's time for another picture! Or two.


The first is our lemon tree with most of the blossoms faded. The second is my lavender plant. Cole informed me that the picture looks fake. Lol! It's not. I promise.

I'm 50 or 60 pages into one of my current books and it's kinda confusing me. That makes me determined to figure out if it's me or the book. I'm leaning toward the book at the moment. Yeah, things had best be explained. Or I'm cracking skulls!

I've felt very scattered the last week or so. I have all theses THINGS that I need to get done and somehow I just don't do them. I have been cooking a lot, though. Trying out recipes. Tossing out recipes because they're vile. Deciding to make one teeny, tiny little change that will doubtless make this the BEST RECIPE EVER! Yeah. I've had to get on the food log train because I'm worried that all this cooking is going to make me pile on the pounds. Scary! It's deceptive when most of the foods I'm dealing with are fresh and healthy and I think that I can eat as much of them as I want. So, I'm tracking it. It's going rather well so far. And it really is surprising how quickly all those little extras can add up. Anyway. I'm at Self.com under soulswallo if anyone else is hanging around there. :)

As an interesting aside, I brushed my teeth with baking soda today. It was very salty. Not at all what I thought it would be. That Baking Soda book I read the other day is already making an impact.

I'm out!

Good golly! My allergies are KILLING me today. If I can stop sneezing tonight maybe I'll be able to sleep. Maybe.

Okay. I've been calculating calorie contents for my upcoming cookbook. That is just about the most exciting thing that one can do in a day. I will say that it's somewhat eye-opening when you're really looking at how many calories you could be consuming in a day.

I'm going to buy a watermelon tomorrow. Yummers.
I'm out.

Okay. I've caught up on my comments. I no longer feel like kicking someone's head in. I've napped. I've watched several bad movies (which is probably why I'm feeling so mellow at the moment). Cole's camping with his dad. Hailey's NOT spending the night tonight. Holy smokes! It's a kid free zone at Casa Rubidoux!

What do I do? Scary movie? Bad movie? Read? Ahhhhhh! The choices!!!

Anyway. I've given myself some time to think and I'm still not sure if I'm going to continue writing for that particular company. Admittedly, things could change with the assignments I'm given, but I didn't enjoy it in the least. And now I know far too much about the Cesar Awards, which are the French version of the Oscar's in case anybody was wondering.

I think I'll designate next week as Get Back to Writing Reviews Week. Alternately, Work On Those Cafe Press Designs Week. And possibly, Those Web Pages Don't Update Themselves Week. True story.

I just polished off a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup and frozen black cherries. Oh.Yum. I bought those cherries for smoothies, but they're doing a pretty swell job in the ice cream. Word.

I'm done. I have things to do. And other stuff. One of which is to close my windows because it's starting to get pretty chilly in here. My pasty white legs can't stand it anymore. And neither can I.

Later!

Holy smokes. I just watched a movie that played on the Sci-Fi channel a couple of weekends ago (DVRs! Love 'em!) and it actually scared me. Most of the time I'm like, "Whatever. Not scary!" This time? Not so much. It made me cower. I was cowering. It was AWESOME!

I have this writing assignment due on Friday and my plan was to have it done by today so that I could send it up tomorrow. Yeah. That didn't quite happen. I have 5 completely finished and one more that's halfway finished. And I've run into the wall of "there's no more information on this person on the ENTIRE INTERNET!" It's making finishing rather difficult. I'll figure it out. I'll have them done by tomorrow. So say we all.

Watching Bones with the kiddo. One of his friends from his old school is coming over to play tomorrow. Fun!

Okay. I'm done.

I promised myself two things today. The first is that I was going to watch the season finale of TSCC. I haven't done that yet, but as soon as I'm done here ... it's happening. The second was that I wasn't going to put up any updates about my web pages. I seriously wasn't. Except. Except that I did such AWESOME stuff today on my Horror on Blu-Ray page that I'm practically giddy. I added stuff about the Umbrella Corporation and how to survive a zombie attack and ... I don't even know! I added so much that it's making my head spin. Bwahahahahaha! I'm totally going to be doing the same to all my other Blu-Ray pages. Word.

Okay. The dog's been walked. Cole's settling in (he's on Spring Break this next week and is allowed to stay up later than normal). Terminator ... here I come.

Wish me luck!

Oh, my day was jam-packed! Seriously!

We got our sweet little dog today from the animal shelter. The poor thing was spayed this morning so she's a little out of it. It looks like her name is going to be Bailey. She is seriously so sweet. Awww. My mom's cat isn't sure what to make of her.

Besides getting the dog, I've been working on web pages all day. All.Day.
I made a page for Reusable shopping bags.
I've broken up my main Blu-Ray page into smaller and much more manageable genre specific pages.
Sci-Fi on Blu-Ray
TV on Blu-Ray

Actually, that's about it. It felt like a lot more stuff while I was doing it. Part of it is probably that I keep looking at that main Blu-Ray page and thinking about how much more I have to do to get that page to where I want it.

Okay. Time to get the kiddo off to bed.