Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween!

Or Happy Ho-lloween, depending on how skimpy your costume may be. :)

Tonight Mr. Honey and I will don last-minute costumes and sit out on our driveway with our neighbors, waiting for all 15 of the kids that we anticipate. It's sad, really - 3 years ago, when we moved here, we probably had 200 trick-or-treaters. If I recall correctly, we had to shut down early because we ran out of candy. I learned for the next year, but in the past 2 years, many neighbors have moved away, and no one has moved in to take their place. So in our nice, safe neighborhood, we have fewer kids who live there, and even fewer who come from other places to trick-or-treat at our house. It makes me sad.

As such, Mr. Honey and I haven't done much in the way of preparations.
Costumes? Er, not so much yet.
Candy? 5 bags, still unopened. (It's a miracle!)
Jack-o-lantern? Yep, the foam pumpkins Mr. Honey carved the past couple years, complete with flickering candle lights. No new ones this year. (I apologize for the lack of pictures - I haven't stolen Mr. Honey's laptop to look for 2004 and 2003 pumpkins - the 2005 pumpkin pics had bad lighting.)
President coming to town and disrupting flow of traffic to the neighborhood? Check.

Tune in tomorrow, when we discuss how Honey will be avoiding the 4.5 bags of leftover candy. Or how one kid got very, very lucky.

Posted by Honey :: 7:25 AM :: 3 Comments:

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Monday, October 30, 2006

My muse hires a hitman...

Mr. Honey and I are taking a tropical cruise for Christmas this year, so it stands to reason that I would suddenly find it necessary to get to the gym. Swimsuit season approaches, at least for a week at Christmastime.

A year ago I decided my muse lives at the gym, and that she was planning to kill me through exercise. This past Saturday, I decided I was right about the planning to kill me part, but the ol' muse doesn't live at the gym currently. She's off somewhere enjoying a swimsuit season of her own. She's mad because I haven't been using her in my writing as much as she'd like. I've proven I can write without her, and she's pissed. But I never thought she'd stoop so low in revenge as to hire hitmen to ambush me at the fitness center while she's vacationing.

Seriously, what other explanation is there for the wrenching my neck received on Saturday? I can hardly turn my neck, though I'm better today than I was yesterday. The saddest part of all this, is that my injury happened... wait for it... on a treadmill. I did not fall off the treadmill, nor did I use it in any purpose aside from normal intended treadmill usage. I walked. I jogged a teeny tiny little bit. I cooled down. And now my neck hurts. It's not like I was lifting weights improperly, or using any of those funky yoga toys, like balancing on those big bouncy balls for ab work. I just walked. The only possible explanation is that my muse got tired of torturing me herself and sent the hitmen to put a twist in my neck. At least she's getting creative again.

How was your weekend?

Posted by Honey :: 10:18 AM :: 4 Comments:

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Saturday, October 28, 2006

Super Banana to the Rescue!

I thought today I'd be all witty and suave, because I'm a sucker for anniversaries and I started this blog a year ago today. Then I checked my gmail this morning, and decided there was a better option.

I love my gmail for the ads at the top. You just never know what you're going to see floating around up there. Take this morning's ad, for instance. Now they really have thought of everything. Presenting.... dum-dum-DUM!.... The Banana Guard.


As Dave Barry would say... I swear I am not making this up.

Posted by Honey :: 7:40 AM :: 4 Comments:

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Friday, October 27, 2006

Wasting Time

Do you ever get to Friday and ask yourself, "Where did this past week go?"

That's what I'm doing today. I know I've been at work 8 hours a day this week, but I can't tell you what I've done after work. The week has just slipped by, and I don't have much to show for it.

Do you ever feel like you're wishing your life away? For instance, how many times on a Monday morning do you wake up and think, "Damn, I wish it was Friday."

I've been doing that a bit too much lately. It's time for one of those reminders that there's something I can do Today to make myself happy. Not tomorrow, not next weekend. Today. Whether it's snuggling with Mr. Honey early in the morning, taking an extra couple minutes to put on my favorite hand lotion, diving into my favorite book, or petting my kittens a little while longer when I should be getting ready for work, I can take some time to enjoy my life. When I get home, I can fix my favorite dinner, take a walk or bike ride with Mr. Honey, chat with my friends, visit with the neighbors. But what about that time between leaving for work and getting home? Why should I wish 8 hours of my day away?

I shouldn't. Nobody should. In a perfect world, we'd all do whatever it is that we were born to do, whether it be writing, cooking, teaching, engineering, doctoring, soldiering, decorating, sailing, woodworking, learning, growing, or raising kids. Sure, we'd have our bad days, and the pay might not be what we wish it was, but we wouldn't wish for Friday on Monday mornings, and we wouldn't mourn Sunday evenings because they signal the start of the work week.

In July, I made a deal with myself. It involved doing whatever it took to be happy with the position I'm in. This week has been a difficult week to follow through with that, so it's good to take time to remind myself that I'm the only one who can control me. Maybe that means I should take a day off here and there, to goof off and play Pirates! and go to the gym at 9:30 AM if that's what I want to do. To sit around in my pajamas and let my kittens sleep on my lap. Mr. Honey's been telling me that for years, but I'm not a very good listener.

We have some nice vacation time coming up. I'm hoping our trip to see friends in the lovely city of Savannah will be a good re-boot of my motivation and enthusiasm. Soon after, we have a trip to see family for Thanksgiving, and then a vacation to the eastern Caribbean for Christmas. :) So for now, I'll wish that I spend my time wisely between now and our upcoming trips. And that's about all I can do.

Posted by Honey :: 8:50 AM :: 2 Comments:

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Thursday, October 26, 2006

Kitty Pic Day

The kittens have had quite a time finding new and entertaining ways of exploring the house. And of sleeping. Saffron and Jinx, 12 weeks old:

Look, Ma, no hands!

Aww, isn't it sweet how they pick on each other?

This week Jinx discovered toilet paper.

And Saffron discovered the shower.

Then they both discovered the trash can.

Don't they look like innocent little angels?

(I know. I didn't think so either.)

Posted by Honey :: 8:31 AM :: 8 Comments:

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Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Trials of Short(er) Hair

When I had my long hair, I didn't get it cut very often. And honestly, nobody noticed. When you have 65 cubic feet of hair, nobody says, "Oh, the ends are split. You should get that taken care of." So I'd go and get it trimmed about once a year, maybe twice if there was some fancy event that made it worthwhile. Now, however, I've had 3 haircuts within 5 months, and this last one was overdue. I could tell because I'd started to feel like a shaggy dog.

Last night I went to the beauty school for some hair maintenance. I know some people can go years, decades even, without finding someone who gives a good haircut. And I know some people are cringing at the thought of going to a beauty school and letting somebody without much experience hack at their hair. I lucked out. Mr. Honey knew somebody who decided to go to beauty school, and I took a chance two months ago and went to the school to have her layer my hair. I didn't realize at the time that I was her first real head of hair, but I've never regretted the decision to trust her, and I was happy to go back to her last night.

And again, not disappointed at all. Thrilled, actually. We took it a little shorter than what it was last time, and she trimmed more in back to take some of the massive volume out of it, and then... Then I let her dry my hair.

Since my hair is so curly, and since I prefer to not spend a lot of time on it, and because it'll do whatever it darn well pleases regardless of how much time and effort I might put into making it cute, I usually wash it, comb it, and head out the door with a wet head and let everything dry on its own schedule. So I didn't know how my hair would look when presented with a blow-dryer after losing another inch and a half or so. When all was said and done, I thought it looked fantastic. It had volume, but it complimented my face rather than speaking for my whole head. And it had the layers that gave it a look of actually having been thought about and styled, rather than just letting it dry in a wind tunnel and having weird pieces sticking up and scaring the kittens. I felt like a million bucks.

And then I went home.

And then Mr. Honey got home from his boy scout meeting.

And he made a face. "You look like--nevermind."

"I look like what?" Since I got my hair shortened last June, Mr. Honey and I agree that it's cute short, but how short is still up for debate. Also up for debate is straight vs. curly. He loves the curls and thinks anything straight makes me look like I'm trying to be Jennifer Aniston.

"No, it's nothing," Mr. Honey said.

"I love it, so whatever you're going to say won't change my mind."

Mr. Honey shrugged. "It looks like a helmet."

I knew I should've washed it out before he got home. :)

Posted by Honey :: 8:33 AM :: 4 Comments:

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Used Furniture Salesmen

Mr. Honey and I have been married 5 years, and we've hardly bought a scrap of furniture. I'm sure I've mentioned this before. We've been sitting on second-hand couches for quite a while now, and with a move coming up sometime in the next year, I'm getting colored-wall and new-furniture itch. It's a scary thought, but when we move, I may get to try my hand at color-coordinating a new couch to new carpet and paint the walls a complimentary color. So while we were out and about this weekend, we hopped into a local furniture story to do some pricing. (Mr. Honey and I are nothing if not planners.)

With apologies to any furniture salespeople who visit my blog:
Have you ever wondered if furniture salespeople are the same people who couldn't make it as used car salespeople? Selling furniture and used cars are noble professions - they both put food on the table. But the tactics need some work. See, Mr. Honey and I have been to this furniture store before. We've picked out a lovely bedroom set we plan to purchase after The Big Move. This weekend we wanted to try out couches for comfiness and cost. But have you ever noticed how uncomfortable you can get when seated on a couch in a furniture store while the sales vultures, er, people, circle about every three minutes, looking to make the kill, er, sale?

I understand furniture salespeople work on commission. I do. But when you're not planning to purchase, and you want to be able to visualize this couch in your living room, with you sitting on it watching TV or reading a book, you don't want to visualize the vulture sitting there in your living room with you. You try not to notice the vulture, but you know it's there. And until you can get that couch into your living room all by itself, you just can't get that visual you need in order to feel confident that you've found something and priced it and can work toward saving for it so you're not indebted to the furniture store and their bank for the foreseeable future. (This is especially difficult when you don't know what your new living room will look like, but that's another topic altogether.)

So as Mr. Honey and I made our way back to a couch we found particularly comfortable, and visually pleasing, the vulture returned. Again. This time with her card and a drawing slip. So I looked at Mr. Honey, who had found some new piece of furniture to fiddle with behind the couch, thereby avoiding eye contact. "Mr. Honey, are we interested in entering a drawing for $500 worth of furniture?"
"Not really," Mr. Honey said.

The vulture looked a little surprised. Really, who turns down free money? Well, we do when it comes attached to signing up to receive God only knows what, from regular mailings to constant invitations to apply for the "Earn Dollars for your Furniture Purchase" credit card. So, the vulture starts to ask us to ask for her the next time we're in the store, and I couldn't help myself. I looked her square in the eye and said, "We're not going to buy anything, so we don't want to take up any more of your time. Really. We're moving far, far away, soon, so we're just getting a feel for the furniture market." (If you spend any time at all thinking about that, you'll realize what big dorks Mr. Honey and I are for furniture shopping in a totally different market from where we're planning to make the purchase, but I believe that's the glory of Big Chain Furniture Stores.)

The vulture smiled. "Well, surely there's a Grand Chain Furniture Store where you're going."

I smiled back. "Actually, there's not." Well, there is, maybe, depending on where we move, and we don't know yet where that might be, but odds are good there will be a Grand Chain Furniture Store within a deliverable distance if there's not one in the town exactly, and if there's not, then we will buy the furniture before we move and let the movers ding it all up. *grumble grumble*

So the vulture said, "Okay. Bye." And she turned around and walked away, leaving Mr. Honey and myself to wander the store to our hearts' content without visual interference.

The moral of today's story is, when faced with vultures, don't be a mouse. Just lie. They like that.

Posted by Honey :: 7:47 AM :: 3 Comments:

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Monday, October 23, 2006

Dreams and Past Lives

I've been thinking about my dreams, and I've decided I must have been a superhero in a past life. Except I don't think it was here on Earth. It must've been on another planet where they had cooler superpowers. Stuff better than firing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of regular guns. Because seriously, what harm could a peanut butter and jelly sandwich do when fired from a regular gun? Even though they came flying out of the gun whole in my dream the other night, in practical application they'd probably disintegrate in the barrel of the gun, and then you'd have a gunky bread-jelly-peanut butter mess in your weapon.

If you think about it, being a superhero in my last life makes sense. In my dreams, I can control poisonous darts with my mind and fly just by flapping my arms. I can also wake myself up to escape from scary monsters. We won't talk about the dreams where Mr. Honey does something to piss me off and then when I wake up I'm still mad at him. I think those are a self-destructive anomaly. Or maybe it's my super-weakness. Every superhero has a weakness, right? Maybe being mad at Mr. Honey for nothing is mine.

But that does make me wonder... Was I a good superhero, or was I a bad supervillain? I think being a supervillain would've been more fun, but I'm not a tortured enough soul to have truly been evil in a past life. Unless I've already paid for my sins in another subsequent previous life. Maybe in that life I was a cockroach. Maybe I just let my cats kill my cousin over the weekend. Maybe that's the payback. Or maybe I was a superhero after all and I accidentally killed an innocent while saving three hundred thousand billion million other people, and that's why I have this big guilt complex. Yeah, that makes sense.

But this cockroach thing has me thinking. If we have past lives, are we still related to the people we were related to in our past lives? Seriously, could Mr. Honey's uncle's wife's brother have been my cousin's father's postman's illigitimate daughter? Well, probably not, unless he was a hermaphrodite, but that's beside the point. The point is... I need to think less about my dreams and past lives, and go find a SuperHoney suit in order to rid the current world of evil. We'll start with the extra pounds that Halloween candy inevitably brings about. In the meantime, enjoy your Monday.

Posted by Honey :: 8:28 AM :: 4 Comments:

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Friday, October 20, 2006

Haven't been this excited since Talk Like a Pirate Day...

A friend sent me a link to a trailer yesterday. Can you guess which movie I'm excited about now? Here's a hint: it's coming out next month.

The dudes have Happy Feet! If that's not a Honey-type movie, I don't know what is. 28 days... *sigh*

If you're interested in the trailer, click here. For the IMDB info, try here. And if that's not enough to convince you, Hugh Jackman does one of the voices.

At any rate, now I have a place I can go whenever I have a bad day. Tap-dancing penguins are so cute!

Posted by Honey :: 8:28 AM :: 2 Comments:

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Thursday, October 19, 2006

Sleepy Hollow kind of day

On my way to work this morning, I got 2 green arrows that I almost never, ever get, especially given the circumstances (train for one, light that you have to be at when it turns green in order to get the green arrow at the end of the cycle for the other... such is life when you go against traffic). All this despite the dense layer of fog that's surrounded my greater metropolitan area today. So I figure today will be a good day, aside from the garbage gut I seem to have given myself through poor eating habits last week.

Anyway, now I'm sitting here, and I can't see clearly out my window because there's condensation all over it. But just outside my window is a foggy fall morning. I can't hardly see across the street, and it's been like this since the sun came up. There seem to be fewer cars driving past today, and I keep expecting the headless horseman to gallop past. What a great day to be October. It's definitely pumpkin season.

Speaking of October and pumpkins, what are you going to be for Halloween this year? How about the kids? Are you going to carve any special pumpkins? When Mr. Honey gets home from his business trip, I'll steal his laptop to upload some pictures of his pumpkins from years past. He's a pumpkin artist. :)

Posted by Honey :: 8:06 AM :: 3 Comments:

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Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Kitten Cuteness?

Or a cat-astrophe?

Mr. Honey left for a business trip this past Saturday, so it's just been the kittens and me this week. So far I've written 20 pages, read a book and a half (I absolutely fell in love with Julia Quinn last night when she made me tear up on page 78 of It's in his Kiss), started a new Pirates! game, and watched the kittens get into all kinds of new and exciting things.

First things first. The kittens are now sleeping with me. They're flea-free, and Mr. Honey seemed to indicate he wouldn't mind if we left the bedroom door open at night. So he'll have to learn to share our bed once he returns home.

As part of giving them greater access to the bedroom, they now have greater access to our bathroom as well. We have a stall shower in the bathroom (there's a tub in the guest bath, don't ask why it worked out that way - I don't know), and a clear vinyl shower curtain on the shower. One of Saffron's new favorite games is sneaking into the shower (when it's dry, of course) and waiting for Jinx to sniff the shower curtain, then Saffron attacks through the curtain. Cute, but extremely irritating to wake up to the sounds of kitten-on-vinyl in the middle of the night. The bathroom door is now closed before we all lie down for bed.

Then there's the dining room fun. Mr. Honey and I are non-traditional type people; we have our dining room table in our living room and a papasan chair in our dining room. It works well for us that way. But the papasan is a source of much enjoyment for the kittens, much to my dismay. They're taking it apart, strap by strap. And then trying to eat the straps. *sigh* I know, kids will stick anything in their mouths. Maybe they're not getting enough fiber. Tonight I'll wipe the chair down with lemon juice and cover the straps with aluminum foil. Maybe that'll help.

And then the living room. Last evening I caught them both climbing on the TV stand. Right next to our big, fancy TV. They're not big enough to jump up in one leap yet, so they've been climbing onto the subwoofer and hopping from there up onto the stand. A box is not blocking that route, but it's only a matter of time before they're able to jump up without a stepping stone.

The other day, I noticed that Jinx's ears have grown. Mr. Honey thinks I'm making it up, but I'm not. I swear, her ears are each half the size of her head. I would've thought that all parts of them grew at the same time, but I think I'm wrong. And speaking of Jinx, her whiskers are suddenly uneven. It's like somebody took scissors to the whiskers on the right side of her face and cut them half off. She still has one normal length on that side. I'm hoping they grow back.

I've saved the best for last. Yesterday, I was sitting on my bed reading as bedtime approached. The kittens were wandering about the room when Saffron stopped in front of our laundry hamper. The hamper is this big rubbermaid thing with a lid, but we haven't used the lid in ages. (I think Mr. Honey's so grateful that I finally use the darn thing instead of throwing my clothes on the floor, he doesn't care if the hamper's covered or not.) I was thinking, No way she's going to do it. But she did. She hopped up onto the lip of the hamper, then jumped down into the dirty clothes. And I did what any rational kitten owner would do - I ran for my camera. But it was too late by the time I got back. So, I put the lid on the hamper and moved it so they can't use it to climb up onto my dresser. That, er, still needs some work.

That's what's new with my kittens. Enjoy your Wednesday!

Posted by Honey :: 6:26 AM :: 3 Comments:

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Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Turn Signal Optional

Yesterday morning, I was sitting at a red light waiting for my green arrow so I could turn left, and I noticed something. Out of the six cars sitting in line, waiting for the light to turn, I was the only one using my turn signal. One of the cars behind me was a cop car.

So I got to thinking... is it necessary to use a turn signal when it's obvious you're going to turn? I'm not talking about driving down the highway and switching lanes without signaling, or slowing down to turn off Main Street without signaling, I'm talking about instances where you're at a stoplight, and you're in the turn lane, so there's obviously no other course of action you'd reasonably be expected to take other than turning. Do you use your turn signal then?

I do, but it's because it's a practice that I've done for over a decade. I don't even think about it anymore. I'd have to think to not turn my signal on. How about you? Do you use your turn signal when you're in a turning-only lane?

Posted by Honey :: 8:14 AM :: 2 Comments:

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Monday, October 16, 2006

15 pages and a pound and a half later...

As promised on Friday, today we have a recap of Croptoberfest.

Saturday morning, I had to take Mr. Honey to our little regional airport at 6 AM, so I was overly ready to go by the time 9 rolled around and Croptoberfest started. I showed up early to help set up, but my assistance wasn't needed, so instead I ate a whole cinnabon. By myself. I had to. I did. My stomach was upset from the decongestant and headache medicine I took before I left home. And the cinnabon was the only thing available. I swear, on my honor, that's how it happened.

Since I have this horrible guilt streak, the first thing I did (after consuming the cinnabon whole) was confess that I'd been preparing. And my dear friend the scrapbook consultant told me there was no shame in that, and it wasn't cheating. Yay! So I got to work. When we took a lunch break at 12:30, I'd completed 10 pages. We had chik-fil-a box lunches, in case you were wondering. It was a fried chicken breast sandwich, cole slaw, a bag of chips, and a fudge walnut brownie. I ate it all. I'd worked hard all morning, darn it! :)

Then the Halloween oreos and M&M's and chex mix were put out. But I only had 2 oreos. I swear. And none of the other stuff. The oreos were so cute! They had ghosts and witches and pumpkins on one side. And I finished 5 more pages before we were done for the day, bringing my total to 15. I took home the prize for most pages completed for the day, with the next highest page count being around 9. For my efforts, I was awarded new 12x12 Gold Dust pages and a new tape runner. Then my name was drawn for the grand prize, but that just wasn't right, so they drew again. :)

Then I went home, played with the kittens for an hour, and headed out to a party, where I ate way too much rotel dip and fritos and tortilla chips and cheesy vegetable soup, and then I couldn't finish a single bratwurst because I thought my stomach was going to explode all over the other party guests. And since I was sober driver for my neighbor friends, I didn't even have to add alcohol to the mix to get the whole I-Feel-Like-Sh!t-And-It's-My-Own-D@mn-Fault warm fuzzy feelings in my belly.

I think it's safe to say I won't be craving big meals for a long time. At least until this weekend anyway.

It's also safe to say the scale is not my friend. I gained almost 2 pounds over the weekend. Maybe making that carmel to go along with my apples yesterday wasn't such a good idea after all. *sigh*

Posted by Honey :: 9:24 AM :: 1 Comments:

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Friday, October 13, 2006

Cheating

FYI, I nearly titled this "Heating" because my office is freezing and it's all a subconscious thing. But I'm not blogging about the temperature this morning, I'm blogging about cheating, so let us proceed.

I like to scrapbook. Honestly, sometimes I like having finished scrapbooks more than I like the process of scrapping, but since I'm not willing to pay anybody to scrapbook my life for me, if I want a finished album I have to do the scrapping. This week, however, I've been enjoying the process. Why? Because I'm cheating in a contest that doesn't start until tomorrow. Competition is apparently a great motivator for me (also evidenced by the 12 pages I wrote Wednesday for the KIA marathon, when it was announced that Wednesday was triple point day).

One of my friends is a Creative Memories consultant. Twice a year, in April and October, she hosts a day-long crop. April's crop used to be called National Scrapbook Day (it's now called something else that I can't remember, so I'll continue to call it National Scrapbook Day), and October's used to be called Croptoberfest (now it's called Great Gatherings, but the geeky word-play person in me will always call it Croptoberfest - heck, I call National Scrapbook Day 'Croptoberfest' just because I think it's a cooler word). Anyway, tomorrow is Croptoberfest for us.

We'll crop from 9 AM until 4 PM, have breakfast and lunch catered in, gossip, play scrapbook games, and generally have a great time. But the best part about the day, for the customer at least, is the opportunity to win free prizes. Complete a page? You get your name thrown in the hat. Have a good idea? Get your name thrown in the hat again. First to arrive? Use an idea in the Croptoberfest handout in one of your pages? Finish an album? Name goes in the hat. Every half-hour or hour, there's a drawing for little prizes. At the end of the day, there's a prize for most pages completed, and then a grand-prize drawing. Last time, I didn't win a single drawing until the end of the day, and then I took home the grand prize. That rocked. But as I said, I'm cheating.

The past two nights, I've been picking the colored paper I want to use with my pictures and cutting the letters for the page titles with my Quickutz system. These two steps take the most time of any page I ever put together. I've separated my pictures into pages and put the titles in an envelope with them, and tomorrow morning, when everyone else is deciding which pictures to work on, I'll be hard at work on my first 7 pages. Bwa-ha-ha!

Okay, so I'm being a horrible sport. But the thing is, everybody else can do this too. It's not against the rules to come prepared. And at this point, I need all the motivation I can get to finish my scrapbook. Mr. Honey says we can't take another vacation until the last vacation's scrapbook is complete. We leave in 2 months and 4 days for our next cruise, and I haven't even begun to scrapbook the port days from our last cruise. I'm behind. Way, way far behind. But darn it, I'm going to catch up this weekend. Even if I'm cheating when I do it.

But don't worry - I'm not that bad. If I win most pages completed because I cheated, I'll probably feel compelled to relinquish my prize to the next-highest page count person. That's the beauty of my guilt complex. Unless the prize transcends my guilt, of course. And unless my friend assures me I wasn't cheating, rather working hard to get more pages done in a more efficient manner. Then I'll take the prize.

Tune in Monday when I recount how someone out-cheated me and walked away with the grand prize, too. Karma's a bitch. :) Happy Friday!

Posted by Honey :: 8:22 AM :: 4 Comments:

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Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Retired as a Governor

I gave up on my Pirates! game yesterday. Not the whole entire game forever, obviously, but the particular game I've been playing since the disc arrived last Thursday. I'm hoping my friend comes through with a computer this weekend so I can tackle the computer version instead. Besides, I've got a good bit of work to do in the next couple days to catch up with everything since I've had my nose buried in Pirates! for the last week.

In my game, I named my pirate Westley, and he was about 42 years old and in failing health when I finally admitted the game had gotten the best of him. He'd fought long and hard, rescuing his 4 family members, finding 4 lost Aztec cities, looting other cities and ports, getting promoted to the highest rank possible with the Spanish, Dutch, English, and French, marrying a beautiful Spanish governor's daughter, rescuing other governors' daughters (and I suspect taking them as his mistresses, though the game didn't come right out and say so, but why else would they call him "Darling"?), and generally wreaking havoc on Spanish trade and treasure ships, since they carried more loot than the other countries' trade ships. He also defeated 8 of the 9 other top 10 notorious pirates, and had over 10,000 acres of land to call his own. But he couldn't find that last pirate, which he had to do in order to discover the secret hiding place of Lord Montalbon, that evil man who wronged his family and started him on his quest to rule the Caribbean. And that's why I like the computer version better than the Xbox version.

In the computer version, you can defeat Lord Montalbon at any point in the game. He sails around on a ship and you might just run across him, or a wench at a tavern might tell you he was last spotted in San Juan, in which case you can run over there and see if he's still hanging around. And then you don't have to wait until your health is failing in order to win the ultimate best part of the game.

Mr. Honey managed to make it to Montalbon's hideout last night, but Montalbon is a quick dude for being so old. Maybe tonight Mr. Honey can kick his you-know-what.

In other news, the kittens will get their second flea treatment tonight, and this time I'm going to do it right so they don't have to suffer through it again until a full month has passed. I'm also going to put flea-killer on the carpet and furniture in the living room, and wash everything the kittens may have touched in the last month. Those fleas' hours are numbered now. The only good flea I've ever met was a dead flea.

In other other news, Mr. Honey and I started officially dating 7 years ago today. Happy Anniversary, Mr. Honey!

Posted by Honey :: 7:54 AM :: 3 Comments:

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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Must be a full moon

Everyone I talked to yesterday had a weird animal story. Is it something in the air? Or just the effects of last week's full moon?

For starters, my kittens scared the crap out of Mr. Honey Sunday night. I'd gone to bed since I had to work yesterday, but he was up playing Pirates. At 11, he came into the bedroom and woke me up.
"Something's wrong with the kittens," he said. "Can you come take a look at this?"
I mumbled something that Mr. Honey took to mean What makes you think I'll have any idea?
"You've taken them to the vet," he said. "What does the vet say about when they hoot like an owl?"
At this point, I was totally awake. Obviously it must be a life and death situation if my cats are making bird noises. They're species confused. Pretty soon they'll be hunting worms in the couches and making nests out of toilet paper. That's exactly what the vet said when I randomly asked what it meant if my kittens ever made owl sounds, because obviously, having never owned cats before, I knew instinctively that they would someday hoot like an owl.
"They're all arched up and fluffy, too," Mr. Honey said. "I think something spooked them."
Yeah, like themselves hooting like birds that are currently twice their size.
So I got out of bed and followed Mr. Honey into the living room where, sure enough, Saffron was hiding under the couch and hooting like an owl and Jinx was all fluffed up staring at her. We've since determined they were having a dominance dispute, but it was definitely creepy. They're fine now. I don't know if they worked out their issues or if we'll have further bird-fighting experiences before they decide who gets to be alpha female, but at least now I know their wrestling isn't a big deal.

But my kitties weren't the only ones with issues. A co-worker's cat had a hairball. A neighbor's cat threw up. And another neighbor found a possom in his garbage cane. And they all happened yesterday morning. Weird, or completely normal? I dunno. Have you had any strange animal occurrences lately?

Posted by Honey :: 8:11 AM :: 4 Comments:

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Monday, October 09, 2006

Monday Madness

Mr. Honey has the day off work today, and I don't. So, in honor of his holiday, I'm posting updated kitty pictures. Enjoy!

Posted by Honey :: 9:04 AM :: 2 Comments:

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Friday, October 06, 2006

Funky Friday

I've been in a grand funk for about 2 weeks now. I'm generally lethargic, not all that interesting to talk to or be around, and I've been sleeping a lot. Is my problem a lack of vegetables? A lack of exercise? A lack of free time? Of course not. My problem is a lack of pirates.

Sid Meier's Pirates!, that is.


Over three months ago, a friend introduced me to Pirates! But I couldn't play it at home because the game wasn't compatible with my laptop, nor with Mr. Honey's laptop. Unbelieveably enough, considering we're both geeks, we only have a single computer apiece. No extra computers and/or computer parts laying around, just waiting for an upgraded video card or extra memory so it could be revitalized as a gaming machine. Nope, we got rid of every single one of those. So I couldn't play my Pirates! game. I tried. I did. My laptop crashed the game every single time. *sigh*

So Tuesday I got home from work, made puppy-dog eyes at Mr. Honey, and announced my general lethargy was due to a lack of Pirates! So Mr. Honey, being the knight in shining armor that he is, ran directly to eBay, where he purchased the Xbox version. Yet another of our geek shortcomings is that we don't personally own an Xbox, but we know a friend with 2. He agreed to lend us his old Xbox, my game arrived last night, Mr. Honey and I stayed up until past midnight playing it, and today I feel almost like myself again. Pirates! has changed my life.

**Just for the record, I don't do video games. They're not my thing. But I'm CRAVING Pirates!, so it's gotta be a kick-a$$ game, right?

**Also just for the record, I would be totally back to myself, but because of the whole not-doing-video-games thing, I'm terribly insufficient at operating the Xbox controller, which means that I currently suck at the game. Mostly last night I lived vicariously through Mr. Honey, watching him battle pirates and make deals with port governors. Guess that means I need to practice more.

Posted by Honey :: 10:27 AM :: 2 Comments:

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Monday, October 02, 2006

Too big to be a kid

Over the weekend, I went to my office's annual fall picnic. Mr. Honey went with me. We had a nice time. That's the boring part. On to the excitement!

I don't know if it's like this in your neck of the woods, but around here, every celebration is accompanied by a bouncy castle. At every birthday party, promotion party, going-away party, etc., that we've been invited to, the adults have rented a huge bouncy castle for the kids to play in so the adults can have adult-like conversations without being interrupted by the kids every other minute. Or so the story goes. When I get to these parties, I eye the bouncy castle, then I eye the half-dozen kids bouncing around in it, and I wonder how mad the parents would be if I chased the kids out so I can be a kid again and jump in the bouncy castle.

As luck would have it, at the company picnic this weekend, there was an empty bouncy castle. Two kids got in, jumped for 15 seconds, climbed back out. The bouncy castle sat empty for another half hour. I kept staring at it until Mr. Honey finally ordered me to go jump in the bouncy castle. Apparently I was driving him nuts.

So I went to jump in the bouncy castle. Nobody else was in it, so I tossed my shoes at the little entryway and hopped up inside. Then I bounced. And bounced. And then my office-neighbor gasped, "What are you doing? I just told my 12-year-old that's for the little kids!"

I just grinned and bounced some more. "I love this thing!"

And then my thighs started hurting.

And then a 5-year-old climbed inside. "Make me jump high!" he said.

So we bounced together. And my legs started getting wobbly. And then the castle started to deflate.

That's right. I broke the bouncy castle. Well, maybe "broke" is a strong word. Really, one of the ties came loose and started letting the air out, but that got fixed, and I crawled out of the bouncy castle and let the kids have it again. Next time I looked, there were half a dozen kids hopping around inside it. So now I figure I was just doing my civic duty by getting in the bouncy castle. See, the kids were afraid to use it until they saw that I could take it down if I needed to. Yeah. That's it. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Hope you have a bouncy-castle-fun Monday!

Posted by Honey :: 8:07 AM :: 6 Comments:

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