I think my cousin Emily will be moving into the state of Kentucky (most likely Louisville) in August or December of this year. This makes me Very Happy, for this is the closest we'll have ever lived to one another. Growing up she lived in Connecticut (not that big of a deal, because we're 6 years apart, so we weren't always on the same level), and then went to WVU in Morgantown (about six hours from me), and now to Marshall Univ. (about 2 hours.) If she lives in Louisville, she'll be one hour away. That makes me Very Happy. I'll be able to see her at will! YAY!

I know that all sounds geeky, but I love my cousin. :)

Oh, I completely forgot to blog about my oh-so-lovely weekend.

My dad was here on Saturday. His birthday was the previous Tuesday, so in honor of that we planned to make his favorite dinner, hamburger steaks and homemade French fries. No big deal, we used to do it all the time at home. Mom always had some oil available for making fries, and did it a few times a week.

So I find a suitable pan, dad cuts up the potatoes, I pour in the oil. Hmm, doesn’t look like enough. I add more. There, that should be enough. The hamburger steaks are cooking, almost done. Dad’s making the first batch of fries. Some grease pours over, flares up for about a second, goes out. Dad puts the fries back on, they cook fine, etc. He starts the second batch. Within a few seconds, the grease pours over, and a real grease fire starts. Where’s the fire extinguisher? No one knows. (Aimee later informs that she has seen it in our garage.) Dad puts a lid over the burner, but the fire is now licking up around the dials of the stove, coming out between the top of the stove and the dial area. Aiee. Dad calls 9-1-1. I try to squash the flames with oven mitts. Finally, it goes out. There’s a lot of smoke in the house. The fire department shows up, with three engines. The smoke alarm is still going on. Jay’s sister Lizzy and her roommate were there, and I tried to make them go to the basement with the pets to avoid the smoke. I felt like a complete and utter moron when all of those firemen showed up, but they were really cool. They looked over the stove, said it looked fine, gives us advice on how to clean it up, and blows a big fan through the house to get rid of the smoke. By that time the hamburger steaks were toast, so Dad took us out to Texas Roadhouse. It was all scary.

On Sunday morning and ice storm starts. Jay goes into work as scheduled at about 10:30. The ice gets worse and worse. He says he’ll take the bus home. As he’s trying to navigate the area outside the dorm where he works, he slips and hurts his foot. There’s no way he can make it to the bus stop. Dad and I spent about half an hour chipping his car out, and then slowly slowly slowly make our way to pick him up. We finally did, and got home ok. I took him to the doctor on Monday, and they x-rayed it, but the x-rays are inconclusive. It might be a stress fracture, or just a bad sprain. Regardless, his foot is about five million shades of blue and purple. Ew. hehehe. He’s supposed to be wearing an orthopedic shoe thingie, but he says it hurts, and he’s supposed to be using crutches, but he’s incredibly stubborn.

And on Monday I lost my job. Enough with this, already.

Ok, so now I blog.

On Monday, I went into work, as normal. I knew something was up when my boss told me to be in the 9:00 meeting. During the meeting, he tells us he’s sold ¾ of the company to a local tire business, and the rest of the company is going to be downsized (the rest of the company included me.) We went into his office one by one, and I got the axe. So did another guy, and the receptionist/project manager, who has since been rehired. It really sucks. I understand how deep in debt he is and everything, and the web division hadn’t been making money in years. Still… I really helped build that company over the past six years. I did 50% of the billable work at one point. All in all, I don’t see the company existing too much longer. They have some of their web business, and another product they’re pushing, but if it doesn’t get off the ground, they’re toast.

Anyhow, I am now unemployed. In a way, it’s a good thing for me, to find a new job. I’d had so little work to do at my old job that I had grown very bored, but I wouldn’t have left on my own. I’ve applied for some promising jobs, and some at University of Kentucky. I really want a job at UK; you get free classes, and I’ll all about free classes (and excellent benefits.) I realize I might have to take a pay cut for awhile, but I’ll take a job that has a lower starting salary but more of a promise of moving up the ladder. I don’t really know what I want to do; jobs like the one I had are few and far between these days. I’m willing to branch out into tech support, human resources, writing, etc. There’s one communications/marketing job for Habitat for Humanity that would rock, if it would pay enough.

With unemployment, tax refunds, and financial aid disbursements, we should be ok financially for awhile. I’m not going to be ultra-choosy, but I don’t want to settle for something that pays $13 an hour. (Wow, I remember when that seemed like a fortune to me.) In the meantime, I’ll hang around the house, play with the pets, knit, organize, etc. Today I’ve been working on getting the office set up so it’s comfortable, which includes getting all the stupid cords out of the way. I hate visible cords. I also could put some books on shelves, which I might do later. I think I’ll make some snickerdoodles today, as well. Eh, why not? I have nothing else to do. Hehe.

So.. now everyone go out and find me a job, ASAP. Thankyouverymuch.

I just lost my job. We ran out of money, so I have no work.

Hire me, please.

Thank you.

Went to Joseph-Beth and knitted last night. I theoretically learned how to add a stitch, but I'm not sure if I could do it again without Liz there to guide me. I worked on my seed stitch, which I really like (I didn't think I was going to, for no discernible reason.) It's good to make new friends and stuff, too. A little socialization never hurt me much. Especially right now, when I'm still dealing with the whole grief thing. Sometimes I feel like I talk about it too much, but I guess I need to, or I wouldn't do it. I am having dreams a couple of times a week where Mom is alive again, but we know she's going to die in a limited amount of time. The dreams are sheer agony. I just wish more of my memories of Mom would be from before the stroke, or before she got really sick. Not that those memories aren't valuable in their own right, but it's not the whole picture. She wouldn't want to be remembered as "sick". Gah.

On a happier note, I got the new Ani Difranco album Educated Guess when it was released on Tuesday. She recorded the entire thing by herself on an old four track, and I really like the songs on it, but I could do without her backing vocals. They don't add anything. Her voice is quite strong enough in it's own right. There are some artists that can back themselves (i.e. Tori Amos), but I do not believe Ani Difranco needs to. I also want to tune her guitar, but I'm guessing the untuned thing was intentional. Other than that, the album's great, though. I want to see her live. Has anyone else heard it? What do you think? Listen to the whole thing here, streaming in Quicktime.

What I Did Over the Weekend.
By Colleen

I knitted. I watched movies (I highly recommend Real Woman Have Curves). The Hours was ok, kinda boring.

On Saturday, it was raining, and my wipers were making this horrible screeching noise. I decided I needed new wiper refills. HA! Easier said than done. It took Jay and I (mostly Jay) about half an hour to put them in, and then one came off after I'd been driving about 10 minutes, on my way to knit at Barnes and Nobles with my Stitch and Bitch group. That was fun. I got a lot done on a certain project. Afterwards, I went to Liz's to get help with the wiper dilemma. Her husband (and my friend) Patrick put them on firmly. He rocks.

Last night I worked on knit one-purl one for awhile, to make ribbing. I kept picking up extra stitches! Aiee! Finally, I started with only six stitches (easy to count), and started using the size 6 needles that Renee gave me. hehe. I'm going to keep working on it until it looks good. Next up: Knit-one purl-one to make seed stitch.

Last night Emily and I went to see Dave Pelzer speak at Joseph-Beth. He's the author of a series of books about his life (A Child Called It, A Boy Named Dave, etc.), where he discusses the severe abuse and trauma he suffered as a young child at the hands of his mother, and how he recovers from it. He's not a great writer, but the books are intriguing, and his triumph is an uplifting story to read. Therefore, I was expecting more when I saw him speak (he does a lot of work as a motivational speaker, too.) It was kind of disappointed. He was ok, but he reused the same Arnold Schwarzanegger jokes over and over, and the phrase, "Do you know what I'm saying, ladies and gentleman?" He made a good point in no matter how bad you think you got it, someone has it worse. He kept making this point to the "young adults" in the audience. While that's all well and true, telling someone that someone has it worse doesn't make their pain dissipate. That's like saying, "Stop having that cold!" I'm not saying that we all should have a pity party all the time, and we should be responsible for our actions. I'm glad he could overcome all that he had happen to him; he seems to be a very strong person. Not everyone is that strong, no matter how much they want to be.

All in all, it was good to see Emily for the duration of her stay, and his talk was ok, but he was a little too...schmalzy? I don't know the word I'm looking for.. it was a little bit like watching Chris Farley do the "van down by the river" thing.

Last night I had a dream that the Barenaked Ladies were staying with me. They just showed up at my door and asked if they could stay for a few days. I said "Sure", and was in awe. It was actually at my dad's house. We were just chillin', and I was trying not to act like a complete fool in front of them. I remember thinking, "Wow, should I tell Tara or not? She might be so jealous that she's hurt." heheh. I couldn't figure out how they knew I liked BNL, and why they asked to stay with me. They were doing a show in Charleston, and of course we got comp tickets. The concert itself was not in my dream, however. hehe. I remember being nervous around them, trying to be cool and not fawn. I wanted to tell Jim Creeggan that the first time Jay and I met we went to a Brothers Creeggan concert, and it was awesome. In another tangent in the dream, Jay and I had bought a house right next door to Scott's mom and dad.

I think this means I need to go to more concerts. Last night's dream was much better than the night before, when I dreamed that I had to take a Calculus test, when I've never ever ever had calculus.

Time for an update, I suppose.

Umm.. I knitted Aimee a cozy for her blanky. I got a super-cool DVD from Beth: Ben Folds Five Sessions at West 54th. It made me happy, and reinforced the idea that I must move to Australia so he can be mine, all mine! He looks so young. He's 10 years older than me, and that was about five years ago, so he woulda been about 32. He had much more hair then. That was such a thoughtful present. Beth is the coolest.

I watched a lot of movies this weekend. Aimee and I saw In America at the Kentucky. It was pretty good. Jay and I rented Heads of State, which wasn't bad. I got some pjs from Target. They are comfy.

Boring, I know. I have nothing better to say, right now.

Yes, I know I'm a geek, but the Mars pictures are really cool.

Bored bored bored.

I have no concerts scheduled for 2004, as of now. That makes me sad. My last concert of 2003 was Da Vinci's Notebook. It was a rather lackluster show. Funny enough, but I can see why they're going on hiatus. And as far as the setlist goes.. they didn't play a single song I hadn't heard them play live before. It was my, what, fourth time seeing them? I find a bit of irony there, as DVN is one of the favorite groups of someone all of us TMBG folk know for that same person decrying, "They never change their setlist. WAH!" about TMBG.

If the above paragraph is unreadable, I apologize.

I didn't do much this weekend. Watched movies, for the most part. We rented The In Laws, Daredevil, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? On Sunday, I saw Paycheck with Aimee. It was ok. I was hungry for most of the movie, so I was happy when it ended.

Eh, that's all I have for now. I get my new washer tomorrow, shich means I can once again have clean clothes. Whoo hoo.