It'll probably be Sunday by the time I finish writing this post.

Friday was a very sneezy day for me. I took the last two pills of my prescription antihistamine (need to remember to refill it) but was still sneezing a lot. Finally I stopped sometime in mid-afternoon, but the drugs left me feeling kind of sleepy. I went to Starbucks after work and did some writing and got some caffeine, and then went home. I went to bed at a reasonable time, slightly before midnight, and then took some Benadryl and went to sleep.

I slept like a log.

It seriously felt like I was pulled underwater into a world where all I wanted to do was sleep. If you've ever taken something like NyQuil or Benadryl or anything else that causes "drowsiness," maybe you understand. I woke up at 9 AM and then fell back to sleep. I finally talked myself into getting out of bed at around 11:30, but probably could have easily slept for another 8 hours. In fact, all day today I was kind of tired. Not in the "I'm going to pass out now" sense, but in the "I'm too tired to speak" sense. Ever have that, where you're too tired to speak? Moving is okay, doing is okay, driving is okay, but speaking seems like it takes a ridiculous amount of energy. Thankfully, I didn't have to give a speech!

My right hand is tired and achy from all the cross-stitching I've done lately. So I'm not going to do any tonight.

I had a lot of dreams. I don't remember most of the details. Here are some highlights?

I was going to my book club meeting. But there were some people there that I didn't know and there were some other people missing. Then I remembered that we were supposed to be having the baby shower and that was at a different place, and then I felt like a colossal idiot for having forgotten. Also, I was hungry, like horribly hungry because I hadn't had anything to eat, and I was trying to eat some things, because there are usually some munchy snacks at the book club meetings, but this time there wasn't, there was just drinks. 

There was a LOT more, but I don't remember it anymore. Oh well.

Today, I went to Marty's and at last got some new sandals, with only a little bit of a heel. They are not the most wonderful things in the world, but they're nice enough to wear to work, they fit well, and they were reasonably priced. Also, went to PetSmart, mostly because Mum was almost out of Josh's dog food, and got some other random cat treats also for Squirt. And then to AC Moore, where I (at last) found the Christmas Ornament frames that I could have sworn I got at Joann's. Well, now I know where I got them! I bought six, for now. There's an AC Moore closer to my apartment, so I'm fairly certain I could get some there as well. They also have some smaller ones, some oval ones, and some square-shaped ones, so maybe at some point I'll branch out into other shapes.

Tomorrow's plan is to do some desperately needed vacuuming, perhaps laundry, and food shopping. Also reading, since the book club meeting is Tuesday and I haven't even started the book for this month. Monday I'm off, and I have to take Squirt to the vet at ten AM. If I don't do laundry tomorrow, I'll do it on Monday, and same for the food shopping. Might also do some other random shopping. I haven't been to the mall in ages. I thought about driving out of the county tomorrow to do some random shopping, but I dunno. Oh, and definitely reading because Book Club is coming!!

Oh, right, and I have to figure out what little gift I am getting for the Baby Shower thing. Can't forget that!!

Anyway. I'm sleepy again, so I think I'll probably take some more drugs and go to bed. After I pay attention to the cat for a bit. He's getting antsy because he'd like me to stop looking at the glowing rectangle box thing and start looking at him.

It is raining. Again. It must be the rainy season because it has rained a lot lately.

For dinner I am having leftover Jasmine rice. And a bowl of frozen soup; lobster bisque. It is not awful, but there's a bit of spice to it that I don't like. I find that sometimes frozen dinners have a little spice to them, I guess the company things this "improves" the taste. It does not. Chicken Alfredo, for example, should not be spicy. Just sayin'.

Also, you know what goes well with jasmine rice? Dill pickles. No, I am not pregnant. I am not 1,000% certain of that, but it's highly unlikely unless something happened recently that I don't know about. Awwwwkward.

Work today was more boring than usual. There was only some stupid things to break up the monotony.

Our usual Thursday & Friday work was delayed due to some form of IT problem that prevented The System from functioning as it was supposed to. So I had to find some other things to keep me busy.

I had another email conversation with a guy I used to think was smart, but has lately become stupid. See, each morning, when necessary, I get an email about items that they can't ship because nobody put a price on them. Nobody put a price on them because the item wasn't authorized for the stores they were trying to send it. So I forwarded the email to the guy who can fix that problem, saying "Please authorize if this is correct."

His reply was to tell me the retail he wanted. So I replied. "I can't do that, it's not authorized." He ignored me.

Several hours passed and then some people in another department (Supply & Logistics) emailed him telling that there had been an error in attempting to ship the item, and could he get it fixed? He then finally sent the email to the Giggle Club asking them to authorize the item. Sigh.

This was after I had spent yesterday afternoon explaining to him that the BONUS item is supposed to be the same price as the regular sized item...especially when the box specifically says something like "20% MORE FREE." Yeah...

Head, meet desk. Oh, you're friends now? Meet again. And again.

Damn, I'm not unconscious yet.

My neighbor and I have been "bonding," by which I mean she has been attempting to engage me in conversation somewhat regularly, usually to commiserate about stupid people. I dislike this. By which I don't mean I dislike her, because I can't say that I do, but I don't trust her, and I don't trust her reputation, and I wonder if associating with people such as that might be something of a ding in my character. Not that we're best of friends, or ever will be. But I am wary of being too friendly with people.

I got paid today. :)

This weekend I will need to come up with a little gift for the baby shower/book club meeting on Tuesday. Via emails, the rest of us agreed to purchase some sort of baby carrier which will be less than $20 each for the six of us, which is awesome, and we all also agreed that we would get her something little individually. I have been such a slacker that I have not even gone on the baby registry to see what we are purchasing, nor what other little things might be suitable.

I also have not obtained or read the book. This is normal for me. I did, however, finish my last library book today, so I might just whip out my Kindle this evening and download the book club book. I thought about going to the library this evening but that didn't happen. I might stop by on my way home tomorrow night, but I'm not sure how late they're open, and I'm pretty sure they're not open on weekends in the summer. Okay, I checked the website and they are only open until 5 on Fridays in the summer, so I'll definitely download it.

I do have Monday off. So I plan to spend at least some time reading on Monday.

Also in the plans for this weekend, aside from a trip to some baby store (by which I mean a store that sells things FOR babies, not a store that SELLS babies) or some store which sells baby-related products (supermarket?), is a trip to a shoe store because my current pair of high-heeled sandals is starting to fall apart.

See, I used to have umpteen high-heeled sandals, but at some point in the recent past, I purged a few that were beloved but falling apart, or rarely worn. So now I have one pair of high-heeled sandals and one pair of not-really-really cheap flip-flops that are not nice enough (in my opinion) to wear to work. So I need to buy some new dressy sandals.

So far I looked at Kmart, which in the past was a good place to buy shoes (not this time) and DSW. I might look in Payless, but in my experience Payless sells two kinds of women's shoes: cheap, flimsy flats that will fall apart the first time it rains, and 4-5 inch heels that will break my ankles omg ow I can't even look at them. X.x

The Plan, I think, is to maybe go to Marty's, which has sensible but also nice-looking shoes, since there is a Marty's near my mothers. If THAT doesn't work out, well perhaps I'll just go barefoot all summer.

Anyway.

Tomorrow is Friday and I don't have a theme for a Playlist yet. I think I had one, in my head, but I have forgotten it. Ah well, this procrastination is normal as well.

It is Tuesday and I have not yet blogged about work. That is because it is very boring today. And yesterday. Today I was yawning a lot.

Today I am still not going to blog about work. I'm sure you're relieved.

The cat seems to be doing better. He was sniffling a bit, but has not sneezed since I got home about 2 hours ago. I guess he slept off his cold or whatever. :)

The weather today was mostly cloudy, warm, and humid. It was sunny-ish when I drove home from work. I came in and settled down on the bed with my laptop and maybe about 20 minutes later it started to rain, hard. The wind was blowing so that I could feel the rain on my bare feet even though I am sitting about 3-4 feet away from the window. Yipes. The cat moved away from the window, of course.

Anyway, maybe 20 minutes after that, it cleared up and the sun came out, and so I opened the window again.

I am sewing crayons in my latest project. Photos maybe tomorrow if I get more done on it.

I have been meaning to share some things that I find interesting on the Interwebs. But now I forgot what most of them were. So here's two webcomics I read that I feel like sharing:

Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire  This was a looooong webcomic that was going on for ten years, but has recently concluded. The art, especially in the beginning, is not that awesome, but the story line is really good, and gets really detailed at times because it is so long. The main character is a guy who is a seer; he can see the future, either by having random, uncontrolled visions, or by using his second sight. In the beginning of the story, he's kind of a grumpy hermit who lives alone with his talking cat, Spark, and has to work as a fortune-teller in a village of stupid people. As the story goes on, though, he makes friends and goes on adventures, and we get to meet his family and explore the world he lives in. I recommend it, but only if you're willing to waste LOTS of time reading it, because it's pretty long. :)

Bug...oops, I mean Bug Martini. The name changed recently. This comic is hilarious. It makes me laugh just about every day, and as a result I am often sharing it on Facebook. If you have a few hours or days to kill and feel like laughing, read the archives.

I was listening to Pandora, and then I switched to Spotify, at work pretty regularly, but lately I've been listening to my good ol' fashioned iPod Classic. I can't decide what to listen to, so it's just on shuffle, and I've done the same with the iTunes on my computer. For the longest time I would automatically put iTunes in when I went on the computer, and somehow I fell out of the habit. Dunno why. Might have had something to do with the fact that I was often watching TV while online, and listening to music at the same time as that would be kind of confusing.

Oh, okay, here are some work-related sentences. I was two minutes late this morning, and I was still the second person to work after Frank.

I've started calling Frank Jerry Seinfeld or Mr. Seinfeld on my Wordpress blog. Should I do that here, too? Is it more humorous or confusing to refer to him as Mr. Seinfeld? I couldn't just call him Jerry, so I'd have to write "Jerry Seinfeld" every time or nothing at all. Thankfully, I don't know any real people named Jerry. Or Jerry Seinfeld himself, man, that would be confusing.

Oh, you're not missing anything on Wordpress, by the way. I've just been copy-pasting blogs from here to there. I might not bother except people are apparently reading them. Or skimming them and commenting, anyway.

Even though I have leftovers, I am being exceptionally lazy today. I had TGI Friday's potato skins, which they say you should not microwave but I have anyway. and a microwave quesadilla from Smart Ones. Spell check does not think quesadilla is a word and wants me to change it to 'quadrille,' which is a word I am fairly certain I have never used in this blog until now. Or ever, for that matter.

Seriously, spell check, 'quadrille,' but not 'quesadilla?' You need to get out more.

I don't have anything else to say. I guess I'll go sew another crayon.

There are 4 topics I wish to discuss in this post, most of which have nothing to do with one another.

1. Look at this link (LINK!). Isn't it interesting. It's a bunch of maps explaining how people in America say different words, or when they use different terms for the same thing.

The one I found most interesting was #15. How do you pronounce these words: Mary, marry, merry. Turns out, New Jersey is one of the few places wherein all three are pronounced differently! Well, I know people think we talk weird, and so now there is proof.

Also of interest is #50. What word(s) do you use to address a group of two or more people: "You guys," "You," "You all," or "Y'all." The north-south divide is clear in that picture!

2. Dreams are actually quite pleasant sometimes, when they're not traumatic. Sometimes I have nice dreams but they make me sad. A few weeks ago I had a dream about my ex. Now, we broke up almost ten years ago, and mostly I think I'm over it and don't think about the relationship at all, but sometimes dreams kind of slam into me.

Last night, though, I had a dream that I had somehow traveled (driving, I think?) to Missouri to see @randaness, which is something I'm hoping to do this summer, though I still need to work out all the details. Somehow I made it to her house and she wasn't home, but a bunch of other people were. Relatives maybe? Not sure. Anyway, they were super nice and showed me where to put my stuff and take a shower. There was apparently some sort of big get-together, maybe of family or friends, but @randaness wasn't there yet.

At some point after that, she did come home and we were very pleased to see one another, and all that stuff. And then we went for a drive in a car. I forget who was driving, but someone else was with us who I'm pretty sure was her husband. We were going to a park, maybe to have a picnic, and all I remember clearly was that there was a pond of some sort and we were very excited about being able to see ducks or geese or something, as though we don't see those often. I think it might have been raining, or maybe we were getting lost on the way? I don't have any clear memories of the conversations, just that we were laughing a lot and having fun. :)

3. I have mentioned to a few people now that I'm thinking of going to Missouri this summer. Traditionally, I take vacation the week of my birthday in mid-August, but I might change my mind and take it in July or something. The more I think about driving (as opposed to flying) the more I like the idea. Road trips are awesome!

I'm concerned about what to do about work, though. Not that I can't take off a week of work, of course, but there is a specific task I have to do every Wednesday that nobody else really knows how to do. Last year, I gave the job to Kathy but that's obviously not an option this year, and anyway even she was not quite comfortable with the task. I can't give it to The Clueless One, because she simply doesn't have the Excel skills to do it, and even if I spent the last 52 weeks training her she still wouldn't be able to do it in under a day. So my options are either to try to teach Transfer Lady, who might be a bit better at it, make Frank do it (which is unfair to him because he's really busy) or just have it not get done that week, which probably wouldn't make anyone happy.

The problem is that the task is very Excel-heavy, and requires, well, not a LOT of Excel skills, but a bit. I have to pull data from Access and paste it into spreadsheets, and convert data and then use V-Lookups and links. And then the compiled information gets sent to some pretty important people. And then some other important people. And then the data is used to make some pricing decisions on pretty important items, that, if it gets screwed up, will make some pretty important people and customers notice and get mad. I hate this task because of how important it is, but for that reason, I can't just hand it to one of the clerks at random.

It's something I'll have to discuss with Frank. And maybe the Hockey Lady...sigh.

4. Oh crap, did I forget the fourth thing? I might have. Meh, anyway here's how my Saturday went. I slept later than originally planned, mostly because the cat decided to be mega-hyper at 2 AM, and that interrupted my sleep, and then I had to yell at him and then pay attention to him. And then I woke up at 9 to use the bathroom and did not feel like getting up at all. so I went back to sleep and stayed in bed until 11.

Mom gave me a plant? She went to buy some plants today at the VA hospital, where they have a cheap plant sale every year. Since Uncle #2 goes up there for group therapy and other medical thingamabobs, she knows when it's coming, so they went together today and got some plants. She put in tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers. Still to be planted are the string beans and the lettuce. Anyway, they had these pots of something called "million bells" which are like mini petunias? for half price. So she got two and decided that I should have a pot because I have a little mini porch area outside my door and I could put it there. So I did. There. A plant.

Also I went to Michael's today and got some magnets. They also didn't have any of the ornament frames, so maybe I got them at AC Moore? I dunno. Might have to go online and see if I can order them that way. I didn't do any cross-stitching today or yesterday, so I'm hoping this means my hands will have a chance to rest a bit. Between that and the typing I do all the time I'm sure I'll get terrible, horrible carpal tunnel syndrome shortly.

Anyway. I think that's all for today, folks.