Peeves

So does it really irritate anyone else when you are the only person in a typical public restroom and someone else comes in and goes into the stall directly next to you?! Hello! Can we please exhibit some respect for personal space even if there is a wall between us? Please go at least one door over.

Maybe I'm weird. But that is right up there on the annoying list with people who switch lanes and turn off without using there blinkers...

Sim Children seized due to poor parenting...

Not that I’m planning on having kids anytime soon….but if I were planning on it I might want to reconsider. I have taken on my biggest Sims 2 challenge to date. I installed it on A’s (now mine, I guess! Teehee) computer and started a family of 2—a husband and wife pair. Her aspiration is family, his is fortune (you know, that’s handy for acquiring household items). Before this attempt I had only dealt usually with one Sim at first…later upgrading to 2 and possibly 3, but I always got the first one started by his/herself and really going well first. Well, thinking that my many years of Sims playing had prepared me, I decided they would start a family (to fulfill the wife’s aspirations). So they had a baby. After an initial adjustment period (because they were still broke and couldn’t afford a baby bed, changing table or high chair, etc., they were doing great. Said baby grows to child. Hmmm, says I. Hmmm, I could probably handle another kid—it would make the mom happy anyway! So I introduced another baby. And disaster began. I could pretty well keep up with the new baby and kind of with the child. Everything was working, if not up to par with my usual standards. No homework was being done. Baby grows to toddler. Child has no fun (being poor strikes again) and so is in no mood to do ANYTHING. Even eat. So she gets pretty hungry, despite my bestmediocre efforts. Toddler is doing great, but child’s distress outweighs that. Two social workers come and lecture parents about children. Two social workers pack children away in a blue van, never to return. Parents are full of sorrow and cry a lot. I’m mad that my Sim children were taken away. And to think I was getting ready to add a dog to the mix!

Thankfully, the computer glitched just a bit and wouldn’t let me quit the correct way. Which means I couldn’t save the fact that the children were lost and had to control-alt-delete. Which means they will be back today! And I can try again… ☺

In other news, tonight I think we will get a good start on our Christmas cards. Hopefully. And I will get to go see my sister M do her wonderfully awesome flag routine at the high school!

Toodles!

Why can't we all just get along?

I forgot my book today. This really is very frustrating for me, but it did lead me to some new knowledge this time. Since I was unable to read about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy over my lunch break, I thought that reading the thousands of comments on a controversial (and I think well written blog) would take up my hour of eating time satisfactorily. (It did rather easily—I barely made it halfway!) But this hour of reading comments and my recent experience reading comments on news stories and other stories on celebrity antics has also made me really wonder about people in the world today.

A good chunk of comments on most any heavily commented story are completely negative, name-calling, inconsiderate, and actually rather rude. Some are constructive and are polite messages conveying a different opinion from that of the author. Others are berating the name-calling comments, but are just as rude. (Rudeness from someone does not excuse rudeness in return.)This is not even touching on the fact that most of the commenters out there cannot be bothered with proper spelling, grammar and punctuation. But that's another issue altogether.

I’m quite honestly astonished that there is such hate in the world, although I don’t know why. So many stories in the media are full of hate and are picking at the all-too-human flaws of those in the spotlight that is celebrity. Understand, I’m not excusing the behavior of celebrities when they do wrong; I am questioning our right as citizens, as the public to so outspokenly judge others. What gives us the right to inject hate into comments and posts and news stories? Freedom of speech? Because that doesn’t quite cut it for me.

I don’t believe anything gives us the right to be that way. Yes, we have the right to our own opinion, and yes, we have a right to voice that opinion. What on earth is accomplished, though, if our opinion is full of negativity and is in no way constructive criticism or courteous disagreement? The right to voice our opinion is not a requirement. We do not HAVE to give a voice to negativity. That so many people choose to do so is amazing to me.

Personally, I think we should all take a step back and look at ourselves before we criticize others, and then if we still choose to criticize or correct someone, it should be done in love.

But that’s just my opinion.

Grr...that was just about all she could say.

Oh my, I was so mad last night! I got home after a fairly frustrating day completely and totally ready to eat some chili. It’s one of my absolute favorite comfort foods. And what do you know? The stupid beans were crunchy! Not done at all. Grr. So we are eating chili tonight instead.

Last night we had chicken patties that were only a little burnt and vegetables with Velveeta cheese….or should I say Velveeta soup with vegetables? We kind of went a little overboard on the cheese…but it was yummy! Not chili, but still ok…

And when I tried to print coupons from online, they wouldn’t print! I have no idea what went wrong. I will try again tonight. Grr.

I’m at least probably going to be off half the day tomorrow, which is always good. I have to update my driver’s license (yeah, still haven’t done that) and go shopping for A since its about the only time I’ll be able to go without him.

And to top it all off, I caught A’s cold so I can’t breathe well today. Grr Grr!

Sorry it’s such a downer today. Just too much being frustrated the last couple of days…maybe it will be better and I can get some laundry done tonight. And print my coupons.

Right after I eat my big bowl of chili.

Flooring Fiasco

Well, we have started laying our laminate down in our house, and let me tell you, it is beautiful! Breathtaking! And we have had a heck of a time getting everything together so we can lay it….

First, let me start with a little background. When the carpet guys came to put in the carpet and deliver the laminate (which we are installing ourselves), they left our front door hanging wide open when they left! Anyone could have come in and taken the tools and things we had sitting around in there, or a dog or other animal could have come in and messed on our brand spankin’ new carpet! Not happy were we.

Then when A called to get a little more information on how to put down the laminate, he told the floor store owner/boss that the door had been left open. Not trying to get anyone in trouble, just wanted to let him (the owner) know that it had happened. And the owner did not believe him and said that someone else left the door open. (No one else had been there, and we are not liars.)

Then, we discovered that when they had delivered the laminate, they forgot to bring the underlayment with it (absolutely necessary stuff when laying the laminate over concrete, and which we had already paid for as part of our flooring). So I went and got the underlayment the next day on my lunch break. They gave me three rolls, at 100 square feet per roll.

We ordered 540 square feet of laminate.

You see where this is going, don’t you?

So we laid the first room and it took 2 rolls of underlayment. Only 1 left, with 2 rooms to go! But we thought, ok, a little frustrating, but no big deal, we’ll just ask for some more underlayment because we did not (obviously) get enough.

So A called the store. And was told that we could only have enough for our flooring, no more. A told him we didn’t have enough, he had ordered 500 and some feet of floor and only got 3 rolls. The owner tried to tell A we only ordered 400 and some odd feet of floor (which really, is still a moot point even if that HAD been correct, because 3 rolls would still not have been enough!). And apparently, A and the owner went around and around about it, and finally came to an agreement. I was to go to the store on lunch and pick up 2 rolls and a partial roll (which still is not enough, but at least it’s something). So I did.

And came out with ONE roll and a partial. (Are you getting frustrated now, too? I mean, is this for real?)

I called A, who immediately called the store, and got it all fixed so that the owner would bring the roll he forgot to give me to my building that afternoon. (He had forgotten it because his store was full of people and he was there by himself. Well, I know for a fact (here’s small towns for you) that the people in there were his wife, child and parents. So I don’t have sympathy for that situation. But anyway.)

He delivered the roll.

The partial turned out to be about 10 feet long. Woohoo.

We figured up what we had left to lay and room left to cover, and if our calculations are correct, we will need at least one other roll.

Looks like I’ll be making yet another trip to the carpet store in the fairly near future.

Lowe's, McDonald's, and a trip to Walmart, too!

Well, last night A and I went out to our house...and it was empty! Amazing, I know! And so exciting! But we did discover a couple of things...

Namely, that the people who lived there before were really sloppy people and that we will have a lot more little odd jobs than we thought.

The whole place is pretty darn filthy. I don't think she cleaned at all before they left, and it's doubtful that she cleaned within the last few weeks, either. Deep dust everywhere, the floors were covered in oddsy endsy pieces of trash, and don't even get me started on the bathroom. (There was still a disposable razor and a bar of soap in there! Yuck!!) Plus, one wall in the laundry room is pretty much a third covered in a ginormous patch of mold.

But we progressed past our mild horror at the state of the place, and finalized paint colors in all but 3 rooms, because I ran out of colors that I liked. Which led to my trip today.

First, I headed to Lowe's to get more paint samples. I am really in shock that I needed more, seeing as how I came home with about 40 chips last time, each with 3 different colors on them. But I needed more. So the final 3 rooms will need to be decided on soon.

Then I bought wedding cake ribbon at Hobby Lobby, and made a stop by the carpet store to get the right laminate floor sample book, because I got the wrong one last time. (Then I ate a delightful meal of chicken nuggets and Diet Dr. Pepper at McD's. Yum!) Followed by a trip to the Walmart cleaning isle!

I bought 2 bottles of Tilex Mold and Mildew cleaner, 1 bottle of Tilex bathroom cleaner, a bottle of Murphy's Oil Soap for the cabinets, dish soap to clean out the disgustingly dirty fridge, a bucket and 2 scrubbrushes. Oh, and a broom, since I didn't have that yet. I spilled some of the bathroom cleaner in my car on the way home, but otherwise everything made it home in one piece and the dirt in my new house does not stand a chance!!

Now, I just have to ask, do people really live in that kind of dirt all the time? Or was it just the dirt from moving out? I was truly shocked at the amount of just plain dirt in the house, and I don't think a little dog and one cat made all that mess...

A Switcheroo...

Why? I ask you WHY? Why must every movie series switch the actors and actresses to someone new halfway through the series?

WHY?!

The Twilight Saga recently announced that the actress playing Victoria has been changed because of a scheduling conflict for the original actress, Rachel LeFevre.

As you may have guessed, I am NOT thrilled about this. Not at all.

It’s not that I think the new actress will do a subpar job. Nope, not me! It’s just that I’ve seen Twilight. Several times. And I loved it. I’m planning on seeing New Moon as soon as feasibly possible when it comes out. I will probably see it several times, too. That’s 2 movies out of 4, people. Two movies in which I have become accustomed to certain faces for the characters, which is how I now picture the characters in my head when I read the books for the umpteenth time.

Because I like the characters they originally picked. I like the job that they do portraying the characters. I think they bring the characters to life on the screen (though if I don’t like the way they match the picture I have in my head, I go for the one in my head every time. Because when I read I have my own movie, and usually Hollywood matches… but when they don’t match, my version wins hands down!) so that everyone can see the same thing when they watch the story.

I think when producers or casters or whoever is in charge of these things for movies cast a part for something like Twilight or Harry Potter or anything that goes over multiple books and will last a while, they should make sure that the person cast for the part will be available WITHOUT QUESTION for the entire series (with HP I understand, Dumbledore REALLY died, so they had to find someone new. I get that. I’m ok with that. It’s when the person just decides something else is more important that I get miffed. And moving on...) so that we, the viewers, get a comprehensive character experience. New actors/actresses inevitably bring their own spin to a part (hey, that’s what they do, it’s their job) so when a character flips to someone new in the middle we suddenly have to readjust our vision of the character and scoot things around in our heads. Which can be very frustrating at times, depending on the differences and how well we liked the original portrayal.

Anyway, I’m sure that even though Victoria is new in Eclipse, I will still be happy with the movie, because at least Victoria is (arguably to a point) not a major character. I mean, she’s not at the same level of Bella, Edward, Jacob, Charlie or the other Cullens. And she is a villain, so most likely she will not be the favorite character of too many people. I just wish everything would have worked out and “Original Victoria” could have stayed.

Panic time!

Why is it that whenever someone says to book something as soon as possible, or to do something (time sensitive) as soon as possible, I immediately feel like I have to do it! I mean, I go into full out panic mode and feel like I must book whatever it is right that moment regardless of what time it is! Even if it's 9:30 PM! And no one is doing anything at 9:30 PM!!

Ugh. The stress just might kill me. Or at the very least give me an ulcer. Hopefully I'll get lucky and avoid both, but at this point, I just don't know! ;)

Question.

Why do people not vote on ballots that do not contain presidential candidates? The local news station has a poll every day, with today's being "Will you vote today?" 27% said yes. Just 27%! And when I went to vote tonight, there was not another soul in the office. Two people walked out as I walked in, but not a soul was in there beyond that. Why?

All you hear on the news is how the economy is bad, the country is in a recession. Conversations too often begin with musings about the hard times and how much things cost and rising prices. Yet, when the opportunity is presented to take control of the country and the economy and the events in our local communities, only 27% of the population can rouse themselves enough to make an effort to contribute.

Voting literally took me about 5 minutes. Less actually, if I were more literal. That's less than 300 seconds. You can use your time for whatever you wish, but why not use some of it for something that could actually contribute to a greater cause than your own interests?

In my opinion (and believe me, I know my opinion is not the end all, be all. It is just my opinion.), people do not have the right to complain about the way things are going in this country, in this state, in this community, unless you have expressed your opinions when it actually matters. Unless you have voted. Why should you be able to complain if you did not even try to achieve the outcome you wished?

Even if the issue being voted on is not immediately crucial to your life, or not a huge issue affecting the entire country, it's the same as anything else. The little things all too often add up to be the big things. And we should vote on all of them.

End of sermon. End of rant. I promise next time I will be more pleasant! But if I'm not, I'm sure it will be over something equally important! :-)