gardening and more

Here's a picture from when we did karaoke recently in San Diego. Friends Ann and Ira are in the picture with us at the Charcoal House.

I haven't been doing my usual stuff online lately...it's just too hard with my eyes having all this trouble. I had to order new glasses, so I'm waiting for them to arrive. My contacts, as you may recall, are not as good. They are great for the distance part, but not for the bifocal part, so I have trouble seeing the computer screen. Even though I have adjusted the screen settings and fonts, they are still a bit blurry, especially with smaller print. So I have not been doing as much work as usual or online stuff. I have an old pair of glasses, but they are even worse.

Friday night we went to Birmingham. The dean invited all of the chairs to a minor league baseball game there. It was fun, although baseball can be boring. There were enough hits and runs to keep it interesting. The weather was not too hot or humid, so that was good. It was an evening game, but still, it can be pretty warm here at night in the summer. I always bring along my iPod to games now because it helps pass the time when I get bored.

We made a nice night of it, a mini-trip, so we stayed in a hotel near the game. It was a really nice hotel, the Winfrey. I love staying in hotels, especially nice ones. This one is attached to one of the good malls there. The only problem was that their internet wasn't working, except the wirless in the lobby. In a way it was nice because it made it more of a holiday. It was a long day, so we both went to sleep pretty early. We did stop at the hotel bar after the game and had some dinner and drinks. The Birmingham Barons lost by one run to the Mississippi team (don't remember their name).

We went to PF Chang's for lunch, which I always enjoy. They have good food, plus a gluten-free menu. Then we went to Whole Foods, which I love going to. We found this great gouda cheese there called UnieKaas Reserve. It is really awesome, but expensive, so we only got 1/2 a lb.

I hope you had a nice 4th of July. We didn't do anything too interesting, just sat at home.

So I planted some flowers...for me, this is a big deal. I've never done anything like that before. We went to Home Depot because I figured the sales people there might know something, since I know very little. I bought two shrub rose bushes (yellow) and 6 red verbena plants. I think I over-watered the verbena because they are not doing too well. I just read that they like hot weather. Well, I'll stop watering so much and see if that helps. If this goes well, then I might start planting vegetables.

We never did any gardening when I was a girl. We lived in rentals, and I guess my mom was not into it. I know we did sometimes have stuff growing in the yard. I remember a cherry tomato plant, and I remember blackberries. When I was in high school, one of my chores for my foster parents was weeding, and I really hated it (they did pay me, but I still hated it). I have never really liked the outdoors very much. I don't like digging (very hard work), or getting dirty or muddy, or touching gross things like worms. Yes, I know you are laughing, but I'm a city girl and can't help it.

I had a few house plants, but they died. This was a long time ago. I do love flowers, and I like how they make your house look nice. We have several bushes with flowers that bloom every year, even though we do nothing to do them. They were planted by the previous house owners. They say anything can grow here, so I figure if I can plant stuff and it doesn't die, that is really true.

When we moved from Lubbock, my friend Lynn helped me plant some flowers outside, to help sell the house. I hated that afternoon where we dug holes and planted flowers. My back hurt a lot after that. I think having a bigger shovel would have helped. It was not fun digging the holes for these flowers here, but at least it didn't hurt my back. Oh, I'm not too fond of bending over or kneeling down, either.

Anyway, I do love fresh vegetables, so it will be great if I can plant them. After talking to our friend Paul in California, he helped me figure out that it isn't all that hard to plant stuff, and that it's easier if you plant the actual plants and not just seeds.

I joined a forum on Delphiforums called Garden Partay, and those people have been very nice, and helpful. They are into it way more than I ever could be, though.

I really don't want to spend a whole lot of time gardening, so I want it to be as easy and fast as possible. I also want to mention that another reason I don't like the outdoors is that I am allergic to all grass and most trees and some other plants, plus the mosquitoes around here really love me. Oh, and it's very hot and humid this time of year. Yeah, I should have planted back in March, but I didn't. So anyway, when I go out now to plant, I have to wear long sleeves and long pants, and go early in the morning before it gets too hot. Ugh.

So cross your fingers for me that I won't kill my flowers!

David's pc is still in the shop...we are waiting to hear back about it.

Oh, I went to the doctor for a checkup. It's all fine, but I have tennis elbow. It's not from tennis. It's a repetitive stress injury, which you can get from things like gardening, typing, knitting, and other stuff. It's the elbow that hurts, but what's injured is the tendon that connects the elbow to the forearm and wrist. I probably got it typing. The doctor gave me some exercises to do, but I haven't had time yet to try them. It only hurts if I go to pick anything up. It's my left hand, but it's surprising how much we use our distaff hand for.

Nothing much else going on. Hopefully I will get my glasses back soon and be able to see more!

I can't believe the summer is almost half over...

back home, here is more

Today is my friend Corrie's birthday!! Happy birthday, Corrie!!

I've been half-blind for a week! I broke my glasses the day after we came back from our trip...they broke right next to the part that goes around the lens, and they are wire frames, so they couldn't be taped together, or even saudered, or glued. I really need to get to the eye doctor place again asap and get new ones. In the meantime, I have been wearing my contacts. They are ok, but they do take a lot of getting used to. My eyes get really tired of them, especially at the end of the day. When I am first awake, I don't want to put them in. My eyes don't wake up for a few hours. I don't normally wear contacts unless I am going out to karaoke (and sometimes not even then). I'm just very glad Spring is over so my allergies are not too bad.

My glasses are bifocals. My vision has been near-sighted my whole life, meaning I can't see far away. I can see just fine close-up. The computer is somewhere in-between far and near, so that's why I have bi-focals, for the computer. My contacts are supposedly bifocals as well, but they do not work very well in that regard. They are great for distance, but not for the computer monitor. Things are a bit blurry. And I had to get reading glasses for close-up. That is just plain weird, to wear glasses for reading when you don't need them.

I have a pair of older glasses, but they are not very good. I wear them until I get around to putting my contacts in. It's just awful not being able to see right. I am so used to having glasses that work really well. Now I kind of know how someone else's vision works because he is far-sighted and uses reading glasses. You don't realize how many things you read, or little print you have to see, until you can't.

What's funny is I keep leaving the reading glasses elsewhere and forget to take it with me, like, when I go to the bathroom, so I can't read the magazines in there! Anyway, I hope to go get new glasses later today, although I'm sure I won't get them right away. If I'm lucky, they will be able to give me new frames for my lenses, or else I will need to pay for new lenses as well.

It took me 3 or 4 days to get around to unpacking....I still haven't put the suitcases completely away but hope to do that later today. I just keep forgetting because I stuck them in the hallway where I hardly ever go.

It is always good to be back home in your own bed, with your own stuff...but still we would rather be in San Diego and Vegas still, with the great restaurants and night life.

I have been spending far too much time lately on Twitter and Facebook! It's like having daily blog comments. A lot more people read my comments there, than here, I'm guessing.

I can't believe it's already July. Is anyone doing anything exciting for the 4th? Not us. We might go somewhere in a few weeks. Late July is our anniversary as always, and we will be going to Indiana (near Cincinnati). It has been very hot all week, but a little cooler the past two days. It was in the high 90's and humid. Yuk.

Wow, I can't believe it's already light outside at 5:41! You can tell it's summer.

I am thinking about starting a garden...I know, I said that before...still thinking! After talking with Paul the other night, he convinced me it's not as hard as I thought. The first step is finding time to go to Home Depot and/or Walmart to get the supplies. Let's see if I actually get to it.

Ugh, I am so tired of hearing about Michael Jackson. King of pop? You'd think the king of a small country had died.

I know I said my allergies weren't that bad, but mainly I just meant the watering-eyes part. I have been very congested, coughing a lot. It sucks.

Anyway, we had a great time in San Diego. Here is a write-up I did for my brother Pat, then I sent it to other friends and family 6/22. If you got it already, feel free to ignore it! They mostly have, too :( No one emails me, no one comments, boo hoo! There is an update to this at the end, though.

We are in San Diego...leaving tomorrow. I saw Stephen yesterday and we were wondering how you guys were doing, since neither of us have heard from you in a while.

He and David are basically the same from what I could tell...I was pretty tired when we visited Stephen and Zina. David gave Stephen his older computer, so now he has a more recent one. We have been trading songs and other stuff via this program called Mojo. It's free...cool program.

David (my husband, not my brother) and I have been having fun. We were in Vegas Sun.-Wed. We came to San Diego Wed., stayed downtown that night and went to a Padres game, watched them lose. Then we came back to his sister Susan's house, and he went back to another Padres game (too hot for me), and they won that time (both games against Seattle, if you care). Thursday night we went out to karaoke with our old friends Martin and Ira (both more or less from STAR), my old friend Mary that I went to jr. high with, her boyfriend, her oldest son Jake and his girlfriend, and a friend of mine fro high school, Ann, that I haven't seen in 30 years. She drove down from Carlsbad to meet up with us. We have been in touch a lot via email and Facebook for quite a while now. She and I were in choirs and had some other classes together.

It was too crowded, unfortunately. I only got to sing two songs. One was "I will Survive" and the other was a duet that Martin and I always do, "A Whole New World", from Aladdin. Mary's new boyfriend seems really nice.

Anyway, Friday we went up to L.A. with Susan and my MIL because Susan was being enrobed as a judge...she's been a judge a few years now, but for some reason the ceremonial part of it was late. She was enrobed with about 8 other judges. They are all administrative law judges in special
education, which means they basically arbitrate between the public schools and the parents of special ed kids.

It was a nightmare. They had an accident on the 405 near Mullholdand. We left around 10 am, made two quick stops, and we didn't get there until after 4 pm. :( We were supposed to get there and have lunch and then go to her thing at 3pm. Fortunately two other judges were also late for the
same reason, so they waited for all of us. But we were all tired, starving, and wearing hot uncomfortable clothes. They did have a small reception and let us eat before the ceremony. Then that was long and boring, with many speeches, although it was nice for Susan. We took some pics I will send later. Then we went to dinner at a really good Greek restaurant. That was the only good part of the day. By the time we got home, it was 10 pm. Ugh. Talk about a wasted day! Good thing I had my iPod and some comics David gave me to keep me company. The ceremony was nice for Susan, but mostly it was really boring as we had to listen to a lot of long, tedious speeches and pretend to look interested so as not to embarrass anyone.

Saturday we drove up to Riverside to visit our friends there (Shaun, Jadie, Monty and Paul). That was a lot of fun. We stayed up too late and drank too much :) Sunday was tough because we were very tired. David worked with Shaun up at UCR. He worked with Monty at Texas Tech, but Monty now works at Cal San Bernardino and lives right around the corner from Shaun and Jadie! Paul is his partner. They have a beautiful house. Paul is a professional designer, semi-retired, so he does their house and garden. They keep it spotless, too.

We had breakfast with Monty and Paul and then stopped to see Stephen and Zina in Encinitas. We ate at this place called The Broken Yolk, it was pretty good. It has many egg dishes plus other stuff. Then we wandered around an outdoor yuppie mall near there, but we were really tired at that
point, so we didn't stay too long.

Then we were hoping to take a nap and then see our friends George and Beth and their two babies later on that night, but due to some mixed up planning, we didn't get a nap and saw them around 4. We went to a Greek buffet in El Cajon that is pretty good - we go to it every time we are out. By that time, it was too late to nap, so I stayed up, very groggy, for a while..vegged. I went to bed really early, around 9:30.

Today (Monday) we went to lunch and got a box from a postal place so we could mail some stuff home (since the airlines are so strict now about luggage weight). Mary should be calling me sometime soon so we can meet up at Parkway Plaza for a while....then we might see George and Beth again
later, not sure. Their little babies are cute, you would like them.

We fly home tomorrow morning. I wish we had another day to rest, but I know I would have just filled it up with something :)

The only problem with staying at Susan's house is that she likes it very warm. Also she's at work and we don't know how to work the a/c. And there are no open windows, and it's 78. blah.

UPDATE: Mary had a family emergency, so she had to cancel. George and Beth never called us, so I guess they didn't want to go out or were busy with kid stuff. David and I went out to Parkway Plaza and ran a few other errands. Susan's birthday was Wednesday. I had gotten her gift but needed wrapping paper, and we got her a little cake. We didn't stay long at the mall, but I got a neat Spider-Man t-shirt at this store "Hot Topics". We saw a store called "The Magic Bug" but it was a magic store. At least I got a business card from there for my card collection (as well as my lady bug collection). We also looked at the cute puppies in the pet store (really, does anyone spend hundreds-thousands of dollars to buy puppies??) It was not nearly as much fun as going with Mary, though. I had hoped to go out to karaoke Monday night but it was just not to be, for a few reasons.

We gave Susan her presents later, and she also had one for David, since his was the next day after hers. I had gotten her some Beatles stuff at this great store in Vegas. They have a Beatles show at the Mirage casino, some sort of music-and-lights show, and they have a great Beatles gift shop. I got this Sgt. Pepper's t-shirt. It was so pretty, I wanted to keep it for myself! And a little Beatles alarm clock. Anyway, we all went out to the Panda restaurant at Horton Plaza, which is always great, and we had a good time. Then David and I stayed down there, downtown, for a few drinks, then grabbed a cab home.

Tuesday we flew home...such a long day. Uneventful, but long. Thursday was David's birthday. He doesn't like cake, so we just did the presents thing. Other than that, it's been the usual.

Oh, yeah, when we got back home, David's pc wouldn't start up. This is my old one that I bought 6 or 7 years ago. It tries to boot, but then we get the error message "NTDetect Failed" and it keeps trying to reboot. It won't let me do a Windows repair, either. I need to take it to a local computer place so they can try to get the files off it and then reformat it, or else it might be the hard drive, in which case we will have to get a new hard drive. What a pain. Also that is the main computer here and the one attached to the printer and scanner, so now I can't print or scan, unless I want to move the laptop in there and physically attach it. Pfft!

Well, time to take out the contacts and decide if I want to go to sleep, or stay up so I can go to get my glasses...very tough choice, believe me.

In Vegas this week!

Things have been so busy! We usually go to Vegas and then San Diego in May after the university gets out, but we had to wait until June this year, for various reasons.

The weeks before are kind of a blur now...I did a lot of work to get ready before we left. I burned a bunch of DVD's, but of course I probably won't have much time to watch them.

We did tons and tons of errands on Friday and Saturday, too. Sunday we flew here to Vegas. My MIL flew here and then changed planes to go to San Diego. We are staying at the Planet Hollywood casino/hotel. It's a nice place, but they could run it a little better. It took a good 40 minutes standing in line when we checked in. We got a pretty good rate, the room is nice, and they give us a free bottle of liquor each night. We have been choosing champagne, but we haven't really been finishing even half the bottle.

It's always a little tiring to fly across the country, so we have been pretty tired, and not sleeping enough. We went out for lunch when we first got here, at the "Nine Fine Irishman" pub at the New York New York. It has pretty good food and entertainment. I just had a salad, but it was really good. Then I took a long nap, so needed it. We then walked over to Bally's and had dinner at the Japanese restaurant there. Well, I only had appetizers because I wasn't that hungry, then I remember I was supposed to take my pill, which I have to do with food, so I went and got a hot dog for that. It was going to take too long otherwise.

For some reason Vegas is really crowded this week. I don't remember the last time I saw it this way. We try to go when it's not the busy season. Even the Japanese place, which is never crowded, was pretty busy. And the prices are pretty high. Eating used to be pretty cheap here, but now it depends on where you eat, what time, etc. The hot dog, which came with fries, and a soda, was $15. Yikes.

I was so tired, didn't even want to go to karaoke, so that should tell you something! I can't remember where we went after that, but we just walked around, had drinks, etc.

Monday morning I woke up pretty early, been doing that every day. Too early! Went and had breakfast at this little place I love in the Paris casino. It was better when I could eat bread, that's for sure. They have great croissants there. We did some shopping after that...got a birthday present for someone, another present for someone else, and went to my favorite chocolate place, Teuscher's, which is here in the mall attached to PH.

Then we went downtown, where everything is a lot cheaper. We had lunch at the Golden Gate, which has great sandwiches and other stuff. We always like downtown because it's just so cheap in every way. We played a bit. I did okay so far this trip. I did my best ever on roulette, I turned $20 into $81, so that was awesome. I just couldn't lose.

We always take naps here because we stay up so late, drink too much, wake up too early...

Our room has a separate bathtub from the shower, and I had a nice bubble bath the first night. The shower is not real great because you can't move the head and it does not get very hot or very strong. But otherwise the room is great. Very comfy beds.

Last night we had dinner at Ginseng, which is a great Korean restaurant here. It is always fabulous. We went looking for karaoke. It was a pain because there were just too many people out on the sidewalks. Ugh. We went to this outdoors place near our hotel that has karaoke, but they took a long time to set up, and it was pretty hot. I just sang one song and then left. I had not had any alcohol. It was a little nerve-wracking singing to passers-by on the street.

We went to Bill's Gambling Hall next...it used to be Barbary Coast. Again, too crowded. So then we went to Ellis Island. I just sang one song, crowded as usual, but at least we could sit down and it was fun to listen to the other singers.

I'm hoping we can find some better karaoke tonight!

I woke up around 6:30 am this morning...I have a lot of change, and most of the casinos don't take change in the slot machines any more, only bills. I went looking for some places to take it, should have taken it downtown yesterday but forgot. So we bought some sodas and some t-shirts, and that got rid of the change, finally. I had like $20 or more in quarters, dimes and nickels.

It was not as hot as yesterday so I was kind of cold this morning. It even sprinkled a little. It was nice to get out and walk a bit. We do a lot of walking here. We had breakfast at our hotel's coffee shop. It was really good.

We're back resting at the hotel...it's around 10 am. Hopefully I can wake up a bit in a while :)

We leave tomorrow afternoon to go to San Diego, where we'll be until next Tuesday. We are staying the first night downtown and going to a ball game. We'll see my brother David before the game because he lives down there. Thursday we'll go back to El Cajon to stay with the in-laws. We will go to karaoke Thursday night at the Charcoal house in La Mesa, as usual. We're having a few friends join us there, Mary, Ira, maybe Martin etc.

Friday we're going to L.A. for this family thing...not sure yet where we're staying that night. Saturday we drive to Riverside to see all our friends there, Shaun and Jadie, and Monty and Paul! Can't wait to see them. Sunday we're going to see my brother Stephen and SIL Zina, not sure yet what we're doing....then we're seeing George and Beth Sunday night. Monday I hope to go shopping with Mary. Then we leave on Tuesday! Whew!! Busy busy busy.

Have a good week!

the latest!

Wow, I can't believe it's been two weeks since I last posted. I don't know where the time went, honestly...

I still haven't found any time to sing! Plus my allergies are so bad...lots of sneezing and snorting. Yuk.

We had our friends over last week. I had started our "spring cleaning" last month, so I wanted to have all that done before they came over. Our bedroom looks really nice now. We went through all the boxes of stuff and put almost everything away in the closet, all nice and neat and orderly. Much less dusty now, too. We had it cleaned by a maid service on Wednesday. You wouldn't believe how much dog hair was vacuumed up. It had not really been thoroughly cleaned since before Christmas, and my vacuum cleaner was broken last time I tried to use it (it's fixed now, though), so the rugs were pretty bad. Then to make things worse, the maids' vacuum cleaner was not in great shape, so they had to redo it with mine, which now works great. You have to wonder how their service can have a business with a crummy vacuum cleaner. If I hadn't gone back and seen all the dog hair still left on the rug, I would have paid for almost nothing. Clearly the owners are too cheap to spring for new ones. They did a great job, though, on the cleaning. It's not their fault their bosses are cheap! :)

We replaced an old window shade in our bedroom that has needed replacing for a long time. We just have one little window. It was a very old roller shade, and it had come off the roller, so we had it tacked up on the outer part of the window frame. I finally got a new curtain instead. I went to get a roller shade, but the carpets and blinds place only did custom-order ones, and JC Penney's didn't have any of those type. We don't have a drill, so I didn't want to put in any other kind of fancy blinds that would require drilling. I found a rod that is like a spring-tension thing, and it works great...was really cheap, only about $10. Then I had a hard time finding a curtain that was still opaque but not really heavy (was afraid it would fall down off the cheap rod if it was a heavy curtain). The woman working there had not been there long, so she did not know much, and the manager was off. Finally, after a long search, we did find one that they had in stock (they were out of a lot of the ones on display, and without the manager, I couldn't get one of the display models). It was not very expensive, but it was a big pain in the butt going through all that just to find one little curtain and rod. I did have fun looking at all the curtains, though. This new one, which is gold, looks really nice, now, though, and since it is cloth, I can just wash it to get rid of dust. That's what all this spring cleaning was mostly about - getting rid of all the dusty stuff.

I made chicken tacos for the main course, plus some refried beans that were very yummy. I put out tortilla chips with homemade salsa and guacamole. Then I made a great sugar-free raspberry fool. All of these are on my recipes page. I picked the simplest dishes I could find and did most of it ahead of time. I got these cheap but really nice-looking plastic dessert glasses that were on sale at Belk.

It was a lot of fun. They are so nice, and their kids are great. My MIL loved seeing the kids, especially the newborn. The 2-year-old has a lot of energy, but he's a very happy kid. I played with him a lot, mostly picking him up and swing him around, and chasing him around. It was fun, although exhausting! His parents were happy to have someone else entertain him, I think. Anyway, we had a great time. They are off to Europe for the summer, and they are not going to have net or TV access (they are going to a lake cabin out in the middle of nowhere), so I loaned them some DVD's to take with them. They love Scifi but haven't seen as much as I have, so it is fun to share it with them. I'm sure we will get together again when they come back.

We did put the dog out in the backyard while they were here...you never know how he will act around people, and we couldn't take chances with the children there. He would just be really annoying, with all the food around, anyway. We are thinking maybe next time we will put the muzzle on him and let him in for a while...we'll see. I don't know if it's crueler to use the muzzle or to let him watch from outside, poor thing.

In a week or so, we're going to Vegas and then San Diego. I can't wait! We talked about maybe taking a short trip before that, but we decided not to bother. We're going to Vegas on the 14th, then San Diego on the 17th-23rd. Looking forward to seeing all our friends and family there, and doing karaoke of course!

I got a new computer monitor, so I get to set that up tonight. I will be happy to have my old pc back. I couldn't run transcripts or make screencaps for my site without it, and also my DVD recorder in that room is hooked up to it, so I can't see the DVD screen without it. :) It's set up so I can see the TV and the VCR, but not the DVD recorder, which records from either of the others, then I can see it on the ATI on the computer. Anyway, it is nice to get it back. I had a hard time finding a cheap monitor. More than I should have! You wouldn't believe how many hours I spent looking. I just finally got a cheap Dell one...at least it's got a warranty and isn't used.

I had loaned my older laptop to Boo, who works for my site, but she is doing less work now, and she got another new computer, so she sent me the laptop back. I don't really have a pressing need for it, but I am finding it useful. I have it set up here on my desk and I use it to watch shows on iTunes, the net, and DVD while I work. It's great not to have to share my screen. I can type here and watch on there, and it's cool. I do still have the big TV, but it's farther away and often someone else is watching it, anyway. And this way I can use my headphones and not bother anyone if need be. Since most of the primetime shows are over for the year, I can catch up on some other stuff this way, too. It also gives me some privacy, don't have to talk much this way.

Now I have three laptops, pretty weird. 5 computers in all--and all Dells! Well, one pc is mostly David's, and the other pc (the really old one) only uses the ATI and DVD (it doesn't get online any more). Then there's this laptop that I use most of the time, which is hooked up to a full-size monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers, so it's really more like a PC. Then I have the netbook, which I hardly ever use except on trips, and now my old one back again that I am using for a TV. Go figure.

Our DISH network is not working today, so I'm glad I have the laptop as backup! They are coming Thursday to look at the dish. I am hoping it's not our dish, it's some local reception thing, and it will fix itself before then, but we'll see....at least it will be free.

I may have forgotten to mention that we also got a brand new overheard light in our kitchen. Woo hoo! That doesn't sound too exciting, but we are all very glad to have it. The old one had been flickering a while, and then when it went out, we did not get around to calling the electricians right away, and we had this fill in lamp...it was not good. So we are all glad to have a real light. They couldn't fix the old one, so they just replaced it...cost about $150, which isn't too bad, I suppose...considering we spent almost that much to have the plumbers fix the garbage disposal/sinks a couple of weeks ago. It's always something! I wonder what will break down next (knock on wood!).

Soon I have to start cleaning out closets and organizing my tapes...get rid of that "unseen" clutter, too!

Have a great week!

I haven't had any time to get back to singing this week. SIGH! I really want to do more of it. It's hard because I am spending so much time working. It takes hours for me to do any recording because warming up takes a long time.

Yesterday one of my computer monitors died (it is hooked up to my old pc with Windows 98, which I use for one particular program that will not run on XP). Ugh. I spent half the day trying to figure out if there was a cheap way to avoid buying a new one. Not really, but I'm still working on it. I have two extra laptops, so I was hoping there was a way to hook one up to the pc to use as a monitor, but apparently that's not possible. Also, I can't use a program like RemotePC because that pc has no network access any more. And I found out that it won't work with Windows 98 anyway. So far I have only been able to find a new lcd monitor for $65 (including shipping). We will be looking around town on the weekend to see if we can find one cheaper. I don't mind a used one, but I would rather not get a CRT. They take up more room.

I might be able to hook it up to my old tv, so I'll have to go look at Radio Shack this weekend for an adapter...otherwise, I think we're going to look at Sam's Club to see if I can find a cheap monitor there. We have never been there. I wonder if they will let you look around without joining the club? Not sure if we want to pay the fee if they don't have what we're looking for...we have avoided Sam's Club because it's owned by Walmart, which I hate. We don't have a Costco here.

Last week we went to our friends' house for dinner. He works with David. His wife is from here and just finished her PhD. Both are very nice people. I was very glad they invited us over. We had a great time, and they cooked some great food. He is really smart, and just an easy-going, fun person. He tells great stories. Plus, he's a geek like me, likes gaming and scifi. Yet somehow he's cool, too, so I don't know how that worked out, but somehow he manages. She. and I have a lot in common. She has a background in singing/music, and also teaching, and her phd is in English. They have a great little kid, he's just all smiles and energy. They have a baby...cute, but you know, I'm not really into babies. And a really great dog. Huge thing, very friendly and licky. And they have a karaoke machine! I don't mention their names because I don't want to embarrass them...some people do not like their names mentioned on the net.

So, anyway, they are coming over next week. That should be fun! Now I have to figure out what to cook....and start cleaning. But I will have help....at least! I'm sure my MIL will love seeing the kids as she is nuts about children. Maybe we will get to do some karaoke!

We went to the Star Trek movie last weekend. It was fun. I really did enjoy it. I think the plot could have been way better, but the other stuff was all good. I'm hoping the second one will be much better because they can concentrate more on the story. I really don't think Chris Pine is as cute as Shatner was when he was young, but he does a good job playing Kirk. There are even moments he sounds a lot like him, but in a good way, in passing, not like he's trying to imitate him. Quinto is great as Spock, he looks so much like him. However, his voice is a little too high to be Spock. And I didn't like that Chekov was there because he is supposed to be about ten years younger than Kirk, so it made no sense. And also no sense that Kirk was born in space - there was no reason to change that. Parts of it were contrived, especially when Spock marooned Kirk on that planet, and he just happens to find two other people he knows there. There were a lot of little stupid things. So that's what I mean about the plot. The casting, the acting, the action, the special effects, all that was good. Overall, it was enjoyable.

If you are on Facebook, you can see more of what's going on with me on a daily basis. I try to post on there often and keep up with what's going on. It's hard, there is never enough time! I'm glad most of the people I know are on there. That's really cool.

My eyelid is still fluttering/twitching...I went to get my glaucoma test last Friday, but the doctor was not in, so I couldn't ask him about that. I need to call and make another appointment. I did cut way down on caffeine, but I don't know if it helped any. That's been very tough! I sure am addicted to diet soda :)

Well, I am getting sleepy, I think I will watch some TV and then go to bed!

Have a great weekend!