Destructive Ratties & Four Day Weekends

Yesterday I bought Templeton a hammock for his cage.

This morning I found it torn to shreds.

Apparently he wanted to drag it inside his igloo and was determined to get it in there by any means necessary. He had two of the four clips completely severed from their hooks so I had to throw the whole thing away. It would have been faster and less frustrating had I taken the $8 I paid and flushed it down the toilet. I guess he doesn’t want a hammock now that he has the igloo. I thought he’d like it since he enjoyed it so much in the past. Silly rat!

Thanksgiving Dinner

It was a nice productive four day weekend and I wish it didn’t have to end. We visited with family on Thanksgiving, had our own Thanksgiving on Black Friday, had my car repaired at a discounted price, finished Christmas present shopping for the kids, put up our Christmas lights outside, cleaned the house, and cleaned Miss toad’s tank.

I even got lucky in the shopping department today and found a cute sweater at Target as well as a scarf, fuzzy slippers and a pair of boots at Payless for a great price. I know I mentioned my goal to not spend as much money, and I still intend to do that, but I’ve been looking for boots all over the place to replace the ones that are literally falling apart so I make no apologies. Heck, even the slippers and sweater were “needs” since I’m always cold. The scarf was probably more of a “want” since I didn’t need it, but it’s super cute and was $7.50 so I’m not going to feel guilty about it. Considering we spent less than $50 at Target today when we typically spend over $100, and that included my $20 sweater, I’d say we’re doing pretty good being more frugal.

TV Addict

Has anyone been watching The Walking Dead on AMC? I read about it via someone’s blog or Twitter, can’t recall which, and I’m glad I did, because I was able to catch up this week via Comcast’s On Demand before the third episode aired on Sunday. But it’s not scary like the person wrote. Interesting, for sure, but it doesn’t really scare me at all. Perhaps I’ve watched one too many horror films? Oh, I finally saw Paranormal Activity a few weeks ago. Now that was more scary than AMC’s zombie series.

I’m starting to think… no, that’s a lie, more like I know, that I watch too much TV. But I love it. Feel free to weigh in on my viewing with what you like or recommend:

Sundays
America’s Funniest Home Videos
Family Guy
The Walking Dead
Dexter

Mondays
How I Met Your Mother
Rules of Engagement
Gossip Girl
The Event
Diners Drive-Ins and Dives

Tuesdays
Raising Hope
Glee
Nick Swardson’s Pretend Time

Wednesdays
The Middle
Better With You
Cougar Town
Human Target
South Park

Thursdays
The Big Bang Theory
Community
30 Rock
Outsourced
Fringe
The Mentalist
* And in January Thursdays will include two more shows: Parks and Recreation and Perfect Couples

Fridays
Outlaw
The Soup
Forensic Files (only new EPs since I’ve seen the old ones)
Undeclared

Saturdays
Saturday Night Live (more like fast-forward through it on Sundays on the DVR because most EPs suck ass)

Damn, that’s 28 shows currently, 30 starting in January (probably not going to watch American Idol now that Simon is gone). Yea, it’s safe to say I’m an addict. I don’t watch most of the shows at the time they air, though, and usually not even the same day they air. The one-hour shows, with the exception of Dexter, tend to back up and then I’ll watch 2 EPs at a time to get caught up. Yea, as if that makes all that TV-watching any better, right?

Bananafishbones

Today has been just one of those days. I only worked a half day so I could make it to a doctor appointment. I’m not going to go into details here, but I’ve been having some issues lately and my doctor has no idea what’s wrong with me. It’s frustrating to say the least. So the afternoon was not off to a great start.

On my way home I stopped at the library to pick up some books and was informed my card was expiring at the end of the month. This library isn’t where my card was issued, so I’m grateful they told me, since the actual library where my card is from didn’t say a word to me and I was just there on Friday! So I added that to my list of errands to run as I made my way back home. My next stop was CVS to fill a prescription, but there was a problem with it and my doctor’s office was closed for lunch so I couldn’t wait for my drugs as planned.

I went back out to my car and started it up, intending to swing by my home library to take care of renewing my library card, but the check engine light on my car came on. The car was running fine, but one of the last times this happened it wouldn’t start after turning it off, so I didn’t want to take any chances, and went straight home, even though I literally passed the library on the way home. When I got home I turned off the car, waited a bit, and turned it back on. The check engine light is still on, but it starts and runs fine. A trip to Autozone once Joe gets home is in order to get a diagnostic code. It might be an oxygen sensor or something. I hope it’s nothing serious since I really do not want to start dumping a lot of money into maintenance for my car, nor do I want to buy a new one until the Escape has been paid off first.

When I got home I baked some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for our Thanksgiving potluck at work tomorrow. I love this event and missed it last year because we were in Phoenix, so I’m especially looking forward to it. I know it’s going to be a busy day having missed a half day and going through an audit (at work) right now, but I hope I can relax enough to enjoy all the food because after tomorrow I’m going to start eating better and stop buying crap. Hell, I’m going to stop buying so much food in general. I threw out a bunch of expired canned food when cleaning out the pantry this weekend. It made me sick to have wasted not just the food, but the money too because I was trying to “stock up” and save. There’s only two of us yet the pantry is filled with food, a lot of it junk. That ends today.

Shower me with games

Saturday we attended our nephew’s and his girlfriend’s baby shower. It’s been years since I’ve been to a shower which is a good thing because I’m not into that sort of thing. That being said, this one wasn’t bad, although I felt anxious when it reached 4:30 pm (it started at 2) and the guest of honor still hadn’t gotten to opening our gift. We needed to leave at 5 in order to get back home in time for game night which I was hosting and had planned two months ago before receiving the shower invitation. Luckily we did end up getting out of there on time and all my guests arrived late so we were home with plenty of time to spare. Oh, and I won the “Baby BINGO” we played. The prize was a box of mini diffusers in “Linen” scent which smell really nice.

Game night was a blast!!! It’s tough finding people who are truly interested in playing board games but once they were introduced to Aggravation, my friends couldn’t get enough. I don’t know why I even own so many other games when Aggravation is the bestest one ever! :) My new-found friends, which happen to be my new boss and new Director (and her boyfriend), are awesome. I feel very comfortable around them. We get along great on work and non-work levels which is such a refreshing change after all the bullshit I’ve had to deal with over the years. Joe really liked them too and I hope we all get together soon, although with the holidays coming up it might be awhile. Who knows.

DST. Should I complain about it because everyone else is? Truth is I didn’t notice any difference in my sleep schedule. But I don’t understand everyone’s happiness about the light in the morning. I really couldn’t care less if it’s dark or light when I’m driving to work. I much prefer the sunlight once I’m off work. Also, now my commute into work involves the rising sun in my eyes and the drive home is the setting sun in my eyes. Woo hoo. Not.

Recently they upgraded our computers at work to Windows 7. I have a laptop since I work from home once a week, so they installed Windows 7 on a new machine, a Lenovo ThinkPad. My old laptop is a Dell, which I loved, but they stopped supporting them at work, plus the Lenovo has a faster processor and twice as much memory. So while it functions better, I don’t like it because of the following reasons:

The internet cable port is on the side instead of the back.

The USB ports are on the left-hand side whereas they were on the right with my Dell.

The power code doesn’t wrap up nicely like the Dell one.

The control key is not the bottom-left key, the stupid function key is, so I’m constantly thinking I’m copying something when I’m really not. Are there no standards to keyboards?!? Pretty much every other one I’ve ever used has the control key in the bottom-left corner. WTF Lenovo? Do you think you’re special?

And most importantly, the thing is just ugly. No, FUGLY. Just look at the thing!

The 90’s called and it wants its laptop back.