The Den of Iniquity

Are We There Yet?

5/13/2008 – 8:36 am

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I can honestly say that so far, our vacation is TEH SUCK.

Thank you, Murphy and your damn laws. I had a feeling it was going to be a bad day when I woke up at 8 AM with a BLINDING headache. I actually had to go back to bed for a little while, and luckily, that helped.

Hubby and I made it out of the apartment a bit before 11 AM, and we were about a half an hour away from home when my Mom called.

Their car was acting up, and it sounded like the transmission. After much deliberation, hubby’s idea was that we’d meet them back at their house and figure things out from there.

Hubby and I got to my parents’ house just about the same time that they did. We dropped Dad’s car off at the Ford dealership, and then Hubby and I decided to run to Sonic for some food. I need a new diet pill, because yesterday, I ate way too many hot dogs for my own good. While we were driving to Sonic, hubby and I came up with the idea of going back home and driving back with BOTH of our cars. Now that my Dad’s retired, they’re on a limited income, and renting a car to head off on vacation just wasn’t in the budget.

And there was NO WAY all four of us and all of our luggage was going to fit into my Civic.

Hubby and I headed home. Both of us were exhausted by the time we got into the apartment, so we both took an hour-long nap. We headed back to Delaware and pulled up at my parents’ house around 10:30 PM.

300+ miles on my Civic yesterday, and we STILL haven’t left for PA yet. We’re now looking at a five-plus hour ride from here to the vacation place, and we’re going to have to follow my Dad, who’ll be driving hubby’s car.

So far, vacation has been very, VERY strange.

ETA: The Ford dealership called..luckily, it’s NOT the transmission that’s gone up on the car, although it desperately needed a flush and fill. It needs one of the ball joints replaced, along with a tie rod end, and the rear rotors need to be replaced, along with a front end alignment.

As my Dad said, “There goes our stimulus check!”

raspberryvixen |

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A Busy Little Bee.

5/11/2008 – 6:20 pm

I have been a very productive girl today.

I HAVE FINALLY TAKEN CONTROL OF MY INBOX AGAIN.

*huff*

To say my inbox was out of control is a bit of an understatement. I have well over a hundred different sub-folders in my inbox, and they weren’t TOO bad, but the inbox itself was a complete wreck. Between all of the spam emails for cheap life insurance, Viagra, and cosmetic surgery ads, I had over 1,300 UNREAD emails sitting around.

As of right now, there is ONE email that is marked as unread, as I need that email, since it’s got information on a new doctor for my husband.

I deleted over 500 emails, and parceled out another 500+ to the assorted sub-folders. I’ll deal with the sub-folders later.

Honestly? I should still be working on the apartment cleaning. Hubby already scrubbed down both bathrooms, and I got most of the bedroom cleaned up earlier. I’ll work on the living room while the Flyers game is on, and I’ll wake hubby up from his nap between the first and second periods so that he can get the vacuuming done. The laundry is also almost done…one more load of hubby’s work laundry and I’ll be done!

I also got ANOTHER new stash entry posted up over at Soapworks, and I’ve got another in the works. I took a ton of photos last night, and I’m so on top of things that they’re already edited and ready to go!

Then we have to tackle the momentous task of packing. Ugh. I HATE packing!

raspberryvixen |

Techie Shit, The Boy, Weekenders |

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Full Of Fail.

5/11/2008 – 12:15 am

Have you ever felt that no matter what you do, all you’re basically doing is just banging your head against the wood shutters on the outside of your house? Maybe slamming your head against a brick wall might work a little better…?

Tonight was one of those nights.

We had Tier 2 8 ball finals tonight. Unfortunately, the way things went, we were screwed going into the match. Three of our high ranked shooters were in a wedding, which left me as the highest rank at a 4. Our captain shot the first match and lost. They threw a 5 up against him, and he ran roughshod all over our captain. That meant we couldn’t lose any more matches. We had to take the next three or we were done.

We won the second match. Our fourth shooter hadn’t shown up yet, so I went up, and ended up playing against another one of their 5’s. I was over-matched from the start. I was hoping to play against one of their other 5’s, but no such luck. I shot very well, but there was nothing I could do, and I lost 4-0.

Our team picture is going to be pathetic. Everybody else ducked and ran as soon as my match was over, so it was just me, my captain, and my husband.

*sigh*

After the ass-whipping, I took hubby out to dinner for his birthday. We were going to start in on the cleaning again once we got home, but hubby was so tired that he went to bed.

Right now I’ve got one very pissed off cat, because I won’t let her in the bedroom until I go to bed…she’s out on the couch, pouting.

Today has been so full of fail, it’s not even funny.

raspberryvixen |

Pool, Weekenders |

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Everybody Loves A Geek Girl.

5/9/2008 – 9:27 pm

I am flush with so much extra computer equipment now, it’s not even funny. And everything is unusable in both of our new computers. From the fabulous video cards that we had in both of our custom-built machines, to extra sticks of memory…there are parts and computer shells scattered all throughout the apartment.

Luckily, some of it won’t be going to waste. I built my machine at work based off of the original Frankencomputer, but with a slower processor. I’m going to switch out the processors and add in the extra memory from my machine. My DVD burner and the memory from hubby’s machine are going into my parents’ Compaq, providing I can find the specs of the machine to see how much memory their motherboard can handle. I’m going to get another external case for the 300GB hard drive that was the secondary drive in my old machine, and I’m going to turn that into a backup drive for my husband’s new computer.

I am IN LOVE with my new computer. There were a couple of software glitches at first, but I managed to get everything smoothed out. I still need to bring the UPS up from my car and get my machine hooked up to it…there was a power outage last night due to the thunderstorms that rolled through the area. Luckily, neither of our new computers are any worse for the wear, thank gawd.

I’ve spent the last two nights playing catch up over at Soapworks…I finally managed to get a store review posted for stuff that’s been sitting around since March. I am SERIOUSLY hating WordPress 2.5, and I REFUSE to update the rest of my sites. It’s way too cumbersome and it’s not laid out as nice as 2.3.3 is. The image uploader is a bear to work with…some of the posts over at Soapworks are LOADED with pictures, and it took me FOREVER to get everything uploaded for two friggin’ posts.

Every time I go to write up a post here, I see the warning bar at the top of the page with “A new version of WordPress is available! Please update now.”

No. And in case you didn’t get it the first time…HELL NO!!!!

raspberryvixen |

Techie Shit |

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Counting Down The Days.

5/7/2008 – 8:09 pm

I am counting down the working days until vacation. Now, we’re not going on one of those luxury vacations, mind you…it’s nothing more than my parents, my husband and I heading off into the woods of Pennsylvania for some rest and relaxation.

And right now, I CAN NOT WAIT.

Work has slowed to a crawl. Today, the boss told me I could take a half day and he’d split the day with me, which I’m taking to mean he’s going to pay me for two of the four hours I wasn’t at the shop. At least, that’s what I’m hoping he means. I’m leaving my time sheet blank, as that’s pretty much a guarantee that he’ll ask me about it when I get my paycheck.

Which, I have to remember, I need to ask him to write it out for me THIS Friday, even though we get paid NEXT Friday. I’m not going near that shop until I have to go back to work on the 19th.

Hubby and I have spent his last two nights off trying to get our apartment clean. The office is almost done, and I can actually see the top of my desk again. I got all of the bank accounts put back to rights again this afternoon…you never realize just how much you rely on your computer until you don’t have it. I keep ALL of our financial data in Microsoft Money, and I have a tendency to screw things up big time when I have to do the accounting manually. I’m so glad to at least have that back…I had A TON of entries to post!

Unfortunately, I seemed to have misplaced a bank statement somewhere. I had it in my hands last night, but now, I have NO IDEA where it’s gotten off to! Luckily, I download copies of the statements, so I can just print out another one.

raspberryvixen |

Techie Shit, Vacation Goodies, Work |

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Permanent Brain Fart.

5/7/2008 – 10:04 am

Holy Jesus, is my brain failing. Something very weird is going on.

I got home from work last night and tossed my leftovers from lunch into the fridge. When I went to go to bed, I couldn’t find the faceplate to my radio or my iPod. I frantically sent hubby out to my car. As soon as he walked out the door, I remembered that I’d thrown both pieces into the bag with my leftovers. PinkiePod was NOT happy with being tossed into the chill of the refrigerator.
For the life of me, I could not sleep last night. I was having very nasty nightmares for most of the night. At one point, it got so bad that I almost got out of bed to go get hubby off of the futon so he could come back to bed with me, just to hold me and keep me safe. The nightmares were VERY vivid, although now, I don’t remember what a single on of them was about.
I got up this morning and discovered I’d left my dinner leftovers (Arby’s melts) on the couch overnight.

It’s kind of scary.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Work has come to a screeching halt. I was busier than all get out the last two days, but since I finished the job, I have absolutely NOTHING to do. Of course, I’m sitting here thinking of all of the things I could be doing if I were at home.

You know, like CLEANING?

At least the home office is almost done. I just have to finish cleaning up the war zone that is known as my desk…

raspberryvixen |

Girly Shit, Work |

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Stylish Design.

5/6/2008 – 12:23 pm

I spend a lot of time wandering around the internet, searching out sites that have tons of tips on such things as web design, Adwords optimization, SEO, CSS tips and tricks…you name it. I love those kinds of site, and I have an extensive list of bookmarks of those types of sites.

One such site that I just added to my bookmarks is Stylish Design. The site is not yet fully developed, but it’s showing some great potential. The articles are very well written, and the site is very easy on the eyes and easy to navigate.

There are times when being bored at work has its advantages, as I’ve been able to peruse the site’s archives and I’ve found some very interesting reading!

raspberryvixen |

Techie Shit |

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Fumble.

5/6/2008 – 10:41 am

Yes, Jillian, there will be pics of the aforementioned new computer. I just need to clean my desk up first.

So it could take a while. Heh.

I still have a metric ton of software to install, along with my web cam and my DYMO label printer. I’m also contemplating adding two more cooling fans to my case, as it’s running a bit warmer than I’d like. There are places for three more fans, but I think I’ll just stick with the two that go down by the motherboard.

Jesus, I’m such a geek.

I did something really stupid last night, though. Once I got my spam catcher program up and running, I logged into all of my accounts and downloaded the email headers. Because I was setting the program up again, everything was marked as spam and I had to go back and add everything back to my friends list.

Unfortunately, everything that was marked as spam was also checked to be deleted on processing. I accidentally deleted about 160+ emails.

Oops.

Usually, my spam program can recover the emails, but for some reason, the SMTP server was acting up and I could only recover about a third of them. So…if you’ve emailed me and I haven’t replied, I’m not ignoring you.

I’m just an idiot. Heh.

Needless to say, I go over everything with a fine-toothed comb when my spam catcher is running now. I have things unchecked so that it’s not supposed to mark things for deletion, but it’s doing it anyway.

Ah, technology. Some days I adore it, some days it gives me a headache.

raspberryvixen |

Techie Shit |

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We Build Things.

5/5/2008 – 9:59 pm

Instead of this stupid chair I have here at my desk, I need to replace it with a massage chair. Preferably a nice, cushy recliner. I am numb from my lower back to the tips of my toes right now. Installing software and getting a new computer running can be downright EXHAUSTING!

My new creation is up and running, happily chattering away as it copies stuff over from the backup drive to the new secondary hard drive. It is so very pretty. The only issue I have so far is that the floppy drive doesn’t work. It’s part of a 7-in-1 card reader drive, and at first, I couldn’t get the SD slot to work, along with the floppy. It took me uninstalling the manufacturer’s software to get the SD slot to work. The floppy, I’m still not sure about.

At this point, the words SCREW IT come into play. I’m tired of building this creature, even as lovely as she is.

The specs, for those that actually care:

AeroCool M40-BK Black Steel MicroATX Cube case. This beauty FOLDS OPEN for easy access to the motherboard. I did NOT shred my fingers as I was building this machine.
ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Brisbane 2.7GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor.
4 GB of RAM.
Samsung Super-writemaster Lightscribe combo DVD/CD burner.
160 GB primary hard drive.
500 GB secondary hard drive. In other words, digital picture and hockey video storage.
500 GB eSATA backup drive.
7-in-1 combo card reader/floppy drive.
22″ Acer flat panel LCD widescreen monitor.

Things I sacrificed to build this machine:

300 GB hard drive.
My zippy DVD burner.
THE BRAND NEW POWER SUPPLY THAT I BOUGHT WITH ALL THE PARTS. This is the part that pissed me off the most. I bought a power supply when I bought all the parts, and the PSU that I bought was cool in that you only had to hook up the power cables that you NEEDED. No extraneous wires hanging all over the place. Luckily, we still had the PSU that hubby had bought when his machine blew up, and thankfully, it fit. BARELY. But now I have wires all over the place inside my case. ANNOYED.

It is SO VERY PRETTY. It has a red LCD screen (actually, it’s a dark orange, which makes it a Flyers case!!) that shows the temperature, whether or not the front fan is running, and when the hard drive is active. It’s got 4 USB ports up front, and 4 in the back, along with more internal hookups. It is also nice and quiet…and fast as hell.

Now, she just needs a name.. Frankencomputer Jr. just doesn’t do her justice.

I’m in love.

And many, MANY thanks to my dear friend Jenn for helping me with this. I’m sorry I kept you up late on Friday night!!

raspberryvixen |

Techie Shit |

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Yeah, Um…Hi.

5/5/2008 – 5:13 pm

Hi, I’m back.

And no, I don’t want to talk about it. If I do, somebody STILL might end up losing a testicle.

*ahem*

Brief notes, as I’m still in the middle of building my brand spankin’ new computer:

My 8 ball team SWEPT the team we were playing in the semi-finals, 3-0. We have finals this coming Saturday. Hubby’s birthday. And to make matters worse, we’ll only have four shooters, and I’ll be the highest rank there at a 4. Three of our guys…our highest ranks…are in a wedding. Which means we can only lose one match, if we lose at all.
FLYERS ARE GOING TO THE EASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One more iddy biddy issue and my new computer will be completely done.
FOUR MORE WORKING DAYS UNTIL VACATION.
I’m am SERIOUSLY behind on everything. Finances, laundry, cleaning, you name it. Shit, the cats are lucky that they’ve got food in their bowls.

And now, I need to put the pants on my computer (the cover, for those not in the know) and get it set up on MY desk. I hate hubby’s chair. My back hurts.

raspberryvixen |

Ice Hockey, Pool, Stuff, Techie Shit |

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The Flyers Fly.

5/1/2008 – 2:53 pm

Dad is thoroughly enjoying his retirement, even though Mom is trying to get him to remodel the whole damn house.

Dad was finally able to bring his bass boat home with him about a month ago, and he keeps it parked over in their storage lot. There’s a very nice fishing hole not very far from the house, and our vacation this month is also centered around my Dad’s need to be fishing, as there’s some supposedly incredible fishing to be had where we’re going.

In the past couple of years, my Dad’s become very interested in fly fishing, and he’s taken to tying his own flies. Of course, this makes him call me so that I can search around the internet, looking for all sorts of Feathers and such that he uses to make the flies. He loves using all kinds of different materials in the makings of these “little critters”, and some of them are actually quite beautiful.

He even made up a black, orange, and white one, in honor of our Philadelphia Flyers. How apropos! A Flyers Fly! When I go to visit them this weekend, I’m going to see if he still has it, so that I can take some pictures of it, as it was VERY pretty!

raspberryvixen |

Parental Amusements |

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Multiple Personalities.

4/30/2008 – 6:34 pm

Stupid Avs lost to the stupid Red Wings last night, which means the stupid Red Wings are up 3-0 in Round 2. Stupid Avs. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

*ahem*

The Flyers, on the other hand, have chased Montreal’s 20 year old phenom goalie Carey Price out of goal for Game 4 tonight. That’s what happens when you give up soft goals in two games and you don’t pay attention when you’re in net, buddy boy. Hopefully the Flyers can hold on to the momentum they’ve been carrying throughout the last two games.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I got my first order of books from Amazon. I am in Tudor history heaven. I’m such a book nerd.

Granted, I also have nowhere to put the books…and I still have over $170 worth of credit at Amazon…

~*~*~*~*~*~

I pulled out my DVD drive and the secondary hard drive from Frankencomputer last night. The inside of my computer was UGLY…not only were my hands black by the time I’d pulled out the parts, I also extracted half a cat and a vampire dust bunny with very sharp teeth.

And here I thought I’d really cleaned it out when I’d replaced the fan last year…

Later last night, I rehooked Frankencomputer back up, and boy oh boy, did it have a meltdown. My mouse no longer works properly, I had to get into the BIOS because the boot settings went NUTS, and when I reboot the machine, it tries to install things that it shouldn’t be trying to install.

It’s also trying to update peripherals that ARE NOT THERE.

I’m starting to hate computers. I guess it’s more of a love/hate relationship.

Kind of like my first marriage…

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Your mama’s so ugly they renamed Halloween, Yourmamaween…”

raspberryvixen |

Books Movies Music, Ice Hockey, Techie Shit |

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Stupid Freakin’ Kitchen.

4/29/2008 – 10:35 pm

Hi, I’m exhausted. Not that y’all care, but tough. You know me…if I’m not complaining, then life’s not worth livin’!

Yesterday found me EXTREMELY annoyed, thanks to our damn kitchen. While the Flyers were playing in Game 3…which they won, mind you…hubby and I spent some time trying to get the kitchen back to rights. You know, what we were supposed to have done during the weekend?

Right.

The microwave is STILL taking up half of my counter space. There is just no place else to put it. I am also THISCLOSE to eating the $200 that I spent on that piece of crap hutch and taking a sledgehammer to it. I. HATE. IT. With a burning passion that rivals the hot suns of Tatooine. Hate, HATE, HATE. The whole layout of the kitchen is now completely screwed up, and it’s messing with my head…in more ways than one. I am now down to about 2′ x 4′ of counter space with in which to prepare food, on those rare occasions that my culinary skills decide to show themselves. The hutch that I thought would be more than enough to store all of the stuff that we had in the sideboard only stores about 2/3 of what was in the sideboard. The refrigerator has an annoying, ear-piercing, high-pitched whine that makes me want to break things.

In fact, hubby’s lucky I didn’t start throwing things while I was trying to put things away last night. I was so frustrated I almost started stomping my feet while standing in place in the middle of the kitchen.

Oh, and I SHREDDED the hell out of my right hand when I was cleaning up one part of the wall. I accidentally raked my hand downward over a nail head that was sticking out of the wall. It wasn’t pretty, and it still hurts like hell.

Stupid freakin’ kitchen.

As if the kitchen wasn’t enough of a…um…travesty, for lack of a better word…the rest of the apartment is nothing short of a complete disgrace. Hubby and I TRIED to put things away…as I said, don’t want to leave the place a wreck for the cat sitter (hi, K.!) when we’re on vacation…but when you have an overabundance of things like table top fountains and Boyds Bears, and a COMPLETE lack of storage, things can get a little…ahh…TIGHT.

Heck, why I’m even keeping the one fountain is beyond me…it was a Christmas gift from my cousins and it’s so not my style. Flowers? Me thinketh not.

Stupid freakin’ Avalanche. 4-2 with four minutes to go in the second. Detroit’s gonna go up 3-0 on them. Gah.

And no, my new computer is STILL not built yet. I don’t wanna talk about it. Let’s just say I should practice what I preach.

RTFM, indeed.

raspberryvixen |

Ice Hockey, Stuff, The Boy |

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Weekend Recap.

4/28/2008 – 11:40 am

This past weekend stunk. Stunk like one of my husband’s late-night broccoli farts. Hubby and I had so much stuff we needed to get done. Do you know how much we got done?

LESS THAN NOTHING.

Unless you count gouging two huge holes in a brand-new kitchen floor SOMETHING…

Saturday, hubby’s sleep schedule was all sorts of messed up, and I was in a lot of pain, so that kind of ground us to a halt. The biggest thing we wanted to get done was getting stuff back into the kitchen…unfortunately, everything’s still sitting in its respective boxes in the living room. We had plans to do a major clean…don’t want the cat sitter all grossed out while we’re away on vacation, you know!

Honestly, the only thing I can completely remember doing on Saturday was sitting down to watch the Flyers win against Montreal. That? That was beautiful.

On Sunday, we did manage to get a little bit of stuff done. I finally got all of the bills paid and the checking accounts balanced out. Hubby and I found ourselves some energy and decided to move the fridge.

That’s when we found out that one of the wheels was broken and we’d managed to gouge two HUGE chunks of the floor up. To say I was pissed is a bit of an understatement. That was the reason the fridge wobbled…not because the wheels weren’t locked into place. The right front one was BROKEN and shoved up underneath the fridge. So the entire time that hubby and I are trying to move the fridge across the kitchen, we’re gouging the shit out of the floor.

Yay. SO NOT HAPPY.

We got the fridge in place, almost breaking both of our backs in the process once we found out about the broken wheel. We had to work our asses off to keep that side of the fridge raised so we wouldn’t scrape up anymore of the floor. We then moved the hutch in, and covered the gouges up with a throw rug for the time being…I have to find the super glue.

To cap things off…my email took a dump and I stopped receiving emails as of 11 AM yesterday. If you’ve sent me something between Saturday and today, I’ll get it. Eventually. The problem’s been diagnosed and fixed and the emails are coming in a slow trickle.

Also…Happy Third Birthday to our dear Hell On Four Paws. We celebrate her birthday on the day that I adopted her, as no one knew her exact birth date, and she was already a year old. It was two years ago today that I walked into PetSmart and was completely suckered in by that pretty face. I brought her home under the pretense that she was an early birthday present for the husband.

She has since become MY cat.

Happy Birthday, Idder-Boo.

raspberryvixen |

Pet Stuff, Techie Shit, The Boy, Weekenders |

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Dealing Out The Agony Within.

4/25/2008 – 1:46 pm

My day, in a nutshell.

“Ma’am, do you know who owns this car?” Construction worker points to hubby’s car as I’m trying to leave for work. “Yeah, it’s mine. Why?” “I need you to move it so we can put our truck there to put the shingles up on the roof.” Not “Could you please move it” or “Would it be possible for you to move it?” “I NEED YOU TO MOVE IT.” “EXCUSE ME? You’re not supposed to be putting the new roof on until MONDAY.” “We’re putting the boxes of shingles up on the rooftops today.” “Jesus H. Christ, I don’t have my spare keys on me (they’re on the coffee table, as I just found them, actually) and my husband is ASLEEP after a TWELVE HOUR SHIFT. What the fuck. What would you do if I DIDN’T know who owned the car?!” I went OFF on the guy, slammed my car door, and stomped back upstairs to wake up my poor husband so he could move his car. He was NOT HAPPY. Not to mention the fact that I need to remember to park in the other lot tonight when I get home, because they’ve asked everybody in front of our set of buildings to park elsewhere while the roof’s being replaced.
So much for me getting to work on time.
$3.65 a gallon for mid-grade? Jesus McFuck. Super’s $3.85…it’ll probably be $4 a gallon when I get home.
Customer comes in with the barest grasp of the English language. Things did not go well at all.
Guy is here to work on the color copier. Pretty much tells me there’s nothing he can do. I tell him that’s unacceptable. Oh, and why am *I* having to show the guy how to set a job up to run booklet style? Doesn’t it help if you KNOW how the machine runs before you try to FIX it?!
ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING BEEPING!!!

HI! I’M CRANKY!!

Although, there have been a few good points today…

I have $270 worth of Amazon gift certificates to redeem, thanks to cashing in a butt load of points that I’ve earned AND winning a $20 gift card in Miss Ann’s raffle. I just bought eight books, all of the about the Tudors and/or Anne Boleyn. I need to start reading more. I also need to get all my books up at Library Thing so I can keep track of them all!
It’s FRIDAY. And hubby’s off-weekend.
I just checked Fed Ex and OUR NEW MATTRESS HAS BEEN DELIVERED. I am giddy. I woke up this morning in so much pain, and 93% of it was pressure-point pain from the mattress springs. Gah, I really hope changing out the mattress helps me!!

raspberryvixen |

The Boy, Work |

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