It's All About The Bacon!

While we were in Vegas we went to The World's Largest Gift Shop. It's HUGE. There were so many hilarious things in it, so we took lots of pictures. Today's blog is brought to you by bacon.

Gummy Bacon (actually strawberry flavored, thank goodness):
Bacon Bandages:
Bacon TOOTHPICKS EEEEW:
Amusing.

So my hand is not hurting today, which is nice because it was AWFUL yesterday. I did everything left-handed at work and I am so awkward with my left hand because I never use it for anything. So, no pain today, but it did get tired easily, and then it was doing this weird thing where it felt like I was getting little electrical shocks in my hand and arm. Weird.

So you know how my instrument at work always breaks? Yeah, I GOT A NEW ONE. Kinda...technically they couldn't just give me a new one under our service contract, so Richard just replaced all the parts inside, leaving us with the original chassis. HA, take THAT Thermo-Fisher. Now, yesterday Richard was planning to come in around 8 and be able to finish it in 3 hours. He didn't show until 11 and when it was 3 he still wasn't done and I was all screw this and went home. Since he was installing all day yesterday I didn't get any of the samples run so today I had to run around like a chicken with my head cut off and get yesterday's AND today's samples done, and of course I had to run another lab's mercurys as well.

The good thing in all of this craziness: extra $300 in the paycheck. I like the moneys.

The dog tried to eat my Oreos. Jerk.

Fremont and Pain

So here's another tidbit about Vegas:

The Fremont Street Experience is actually pretty cool, albeit ear-bustingly LOUD. During the day you can walk around and look up and it just looks like some sort of sun shade is over the street, but then periodically throughout the night the whole street turns its lights off and the canopy LIGHTS UP. It's actually made of a kazillion little LEDs. These are a few pictures of the neat shows. The whole theme was "Summer of '69", because it was the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. The entire staff of our hotel was wearing tie-dye, which was pretty fun. Anyway, so the shows on the giant sky-TV were all about that, and there was some good music too. I was actually surprised at the crowd; it was much smaller than I expected, which is AWESOME because I don't always do well in crowds.

On another, unrelated note, I went to the doctor again yesterday. Apparently we need to "prove" that it is actually carpal tunnel, so they had to give me a cortisone injection INTO MY HAND DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW PAINFUL THAT IS, HOLY CRAP. They injected numbing stuff in along with the steroid, so last night I couldn't feel anything, and then It. Wore. Off.

Pain. Oh yes, pain.

And all day today I had to do everything left-handed and it was hard and awkward and I was sad. But the pain is mostly gone, except typing this isn't exactly pleasant.

So I go back in three weeks, and if the cortisone has helped, then we know it is, in fact, carpal tunnel, and then we can proceed for plans to surgify me, yes I make up words. The surgery will have me out of work for a whole week and I have no idea how I am going to handle that. I take one day off and I get so excruciatingly bored, so a whole week? Let me just say, there better be some wicked good pain meds that go along with all this. Maybe if I'm stoned I won't be bored...?

Sorry...

...for the lack of posts. Baby Pink Lappie has been very, very sick. She is mostly better now due to the tremendous efforts of the amazing Mr. Scott. She needed to be reformatted and now she is acting like a computer instead of a broken record. Soon she will be back to normal (some files haven't been transferred back on to Lappie from backup...cough cough 40 gigs of music...).

I have to have surgery on my wrist, or maybe wrists, I will ask the surgeon tomorrow what he thinks. I have carpal tunnel syndrome. Woo hoo, my favorite. So for a while there will be no posting, because I won't be able to type for a little while. I have to take some time off work, and I hope pushing the buttons on the remote control doesn't hurt because THERE WILL BE NOTHING ELSE TO DO AT MY HOUSE. I'm thinking back on the few months I didn't have a job and I can't for the life of me remember what in the world I did all day. I get a day off now and I feel so LAZY. And I'm bored ALL DAY LONG.

Oh yeah, we went to Vegas on vacation for Pioneer Day. I should post about that...how about I post a little bit at a time to minimize wrist-hurting-ness? Excellent idea, Anna.


Scott got a tattoo:
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.
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Ok, not really. It was a "henna" tattoo. I say "henna" because is WASN'T real henna. I would know, I do henna tattoos. Anyway. The lady said it would last for like 3 weeks but it was gone the next day...waste of $15. Anyway, we thought it would be funny to freak out Scott's ultra-conservative mother. But, seeing as it faded away, she wasn't fooled.


More to come later. Maybe daily mini-posts until I am done talking about Vegas...?

Blogging About Blogs

I enjoy reading blogs. I like reading about people I know personally, but there is just something very appealing to me about finding a person that I know nothing about and reading his or her blog. It's interesting to see what internet anonymity does for a person. If you're writing and nobody knows who you are you have much more freedom to express yourself without offending the people you know (or, even if they do get offended, they don't know who wrote what offended them) so in reading these blogs I get a better sense of who a person really is.

Plus I need something to do at work.

Some of the blogs I enjoy reading are:
Dooce
Daddy Scratches
Yarn Harlot

Once I read an entire blog, all the way from the first entry to the most recent, I look around for a new one to read. Some don't catch my interest at all and are quickly dismissed, but when I find a good one they've got a new regular reader. As someone who is married with no children and almost no responsibilities beyond going to work and feeding the dog, I am incredibly blessed with lots of free time. Usually I like to knit/crochet while I watch TV/movies, but sometimes, especially lately, my hands hurt and it is easier for me to point and click than play with yarn. So, with all my free time, I need things to do. Surfing the internet is ok, but I would rather have a list of sites I go to on a daily basis to check for new content. So, I read some webcomics and I read some blogs. I like blogs.

Reading the blogs I do makes me want to be a better writer (all three of the blogs listed above are written by an author or journalist). They have talent. I can win the grammar contest every time, and write a term paper in my sleep, but when it comes down to putting down my personal thoughts, I could use a little more panache. It isn't that I'm a bad writer, it's just that I feel I could do better. So, sometimes when I have something I would like to blog about, I don't, because I don't know exactly how to put it in words that don't sound completely idiotic.
So, I write about what happens to me on a daily basis. And I worry that this is BORING. But, it's a great way to keep up with friends who also blog.

So, here, from a blog I stumbled across a few minutes ago (Perfectly Cursed Life, I was only there for a few minutes and I'm already very interested) here is a really good meme:

I Can't
See past about a foot without my glasses on
Handle stress without medication
Knit lace
Run without having an asthma attack
Figure out technology without Scott's help
I Can
Accept my limitations, both emotional and physical
Read faster than anyone else I know
Play minesweeper faster than anyone else I know
Leave old ladies in the dust with my wicked yarn skills
I Won't
Intentionally hurt another person, even though I might want to
Let myself go again
Ever have the opportunity to shoot my gun (no bullets anywhere ever)(although I have my permit now so I can carry it concealed)(but it's worthless without the ammo)(sad)
Get a tattoo or another piercing
I Will
Always go above and beyond at work
Tell Scott I love him every single day
Squish spiders on sight
Knit until my hands hurt
I Shouldn't
Worry about things that are never going to happen
Drink soda (or eat candy, for that matter)
Take as many naps during the day (but I still will)
Use sarcasm
I Should
Exercise and eat better
Help out more around the house
Cherish the people I have in my life
Say only positive things about people

Interesting what responses you come up with when you just sit and think about it for a while.
I have a good life.

My Finger Hurts

So for the fourth we didn't do anything special. I was planning on going down to my Mim's house but she had to work almost nonstop the whole weekend so I would have been bored. So, I stayed home and was bored. Go figure.

We ventured out of the house to get snacks at the corner gas station and we decided to buy a few fireworks while we were at it. We shot them off just a little while ago at the end of our driveway. We had Buster tied up out front with us and he was really confused at all the fuss. I burned my finger. I'm such a sissy.

I finished half of Em's birthday present. I was trying to get more done but the hand cramps are getting worse, so I can only do a little at a time whithout excruciating pain and seizing up completely so I can't move my hand. I really need to go see a doc about it but I'm afraid that there will be surgeryness and I don't want to take the time off work. I'm not a workaholic or anything, but you know I don't like messing up my routine.

Scott got some mosquito bites tonight and they swelled up into GIANT bumps on his arms. I got off with no bites at all. I win.

ZOMBIE

So the motherboard was fried! Rex replaced it today and VOILA it works just fine.

Then, Arsenic broke. I can't win. So tomorrow I get to go in and try to diagnose the problem.

I was NOT feeling well today. I haven't been sleeping very well at all, so every morning I wake up feeling like a zombie. No amount of caffeine seems to help, either. So, just now I took Nyquil and I am going to sleep like a rock tonight and hopefully I will feel better tomorrow. But it's more likely that I'll feel like a zombie because of the effects of the medicine. Once again, I can't win.

Minesweeper BUNNYCAKE

This just happened: Buster was lying around. Scott started talking to him:

"Puppy, you should go make me chocolate milk.

"No? Ok, you should go make me a steak.

"No? Ok, you should sit there and look at me like an idiot."

Buster looked away.

AWESOME DOG.

FTIR is still broken. Rex (FTIR Dude) is ordering parts and will get back to us.

Work was pretty busy today. I had a USP Heavy Metals test (takes about 5 hours) and 20 samples, plus another lab sent over 35 samples for me to run mercury.

I have been asking my lab manager for a while now if there is somewhere I can organize raw materials. We keep samples of all outgoing product for the past 5 years in an archive (they call it the "morgue", kinda morbid if you ask me) but they don't have any sort of organizational system for raw materials, which we are also required to keep around for 5 years. So today I talked to my boss. I decided how I wanted to organize them and I asked for what I needed and he said ok, so as soon as I get the shelving and small boxes I will start. It will probably be a big project, since I have hundreds of samples to run through.

So this Wednesday is Mim's birthday. We celebrated this past weekend. We drove down Friday after work. Traffic was awful so we didn't get there until about 7:00. We took Em and Jorg and Em's friend Fish out for dinner at The Pizza Factory, which was very tasty but the service was SOOO slow. We left there and went to do some shopping. We needed groceries for Mim's birthday dinner and Em and Jorg hadn't had a chance to get Mim anything for her birthday. So Jorg picked out some candles and Em found some hand salve and cuticle cream (Burt's Bees! It's the best!) and I found a necklace that was so very Mimmish:We got home and went to bed, but I couldn't sleep so when Mim got home from work around midnight I hung out with her a little bit before going back to bed. In the morning we all woke up and we sent Mim out for her surprise. We had scheduled her for a manicure/pedicure/facial package at a spa, and also a deep conditioning hair treatment. We figured she would be gone about six hours, so we woke Em and Jorg up and Scott went to get breakfast for us all. We ate (yummy Burger King, CinniMinis are the best) and then got to work! Em and I teamed up, and Jorg and Scott teamed up, and we all tackled cleaning the house. We got A LOT done, and when Mim got home she was so excited to have a clean house! We then made birthday dinner: burgers and chips and soda and birthday cake. Desu (one of Em's bunnies) was on the table after we were all done with dinner and apparently will eat anything:BUNNYCAKE. Very cute!

We hung around for a little longer while we waited for the benadryl to kick in (in Buster-he gets very motion sick in the car and we hoped this would help-it did) and then we came home. It was a fun visit, and I think Mim had a very good time.

So I made a minesweeper record:74 Seconds! On expert level! I have too much time on my hands...

What Is It About Our House?

So today the FTIR guy came. The REAL one. From Perkin-Elmer. Dude worked on the instrument for three solid hours and came up empty-handed. This whole thing is way past annoying now. Of course the service technicians always come when it is most INconvenient. We had 20 samples today plus I had outside testing and monthly water testing, and I had to retest ALL of the mercury samples, so I was pretty busy, and I have such a small instrument room that I had to dance around FTIR Dude to get my work done. Annoying.

Moving on.

I exercised today! I am so incredibly out of shape. This is pathetic, but my goal was to do just 20 minutes on the treadmill. BUT, I didn't feel like dying so I went 35 MINUTES WOW. And I pushed myself too. Now, I just need to do this every day and get into shape really fast so I look awesome in my bikini when we go to Vegas next month.

Yes, Vegas. We're planning to go Pioneer Day weekend. Mim and Scott and I will drive down Thursday after work and stay until Sunday morning. We're going to hit up all the free stuff (there's actually quite a lot to do if you're cheap) and soak up the sun. I'm really excited. I've been on road trips before, but I've never actually planned a vacation and gone on it. We didn't even really go on a honeymoon (I think what we did was better: spend a whole week shopping and eating out and seeing movies and doing fun stuff while we got our house organized. No planning involved! And no money spent! Except on the vacuum cleaner. Definitely spent $500.00 on that one) so this will be really cool for me. I don't really like being away from home, where everything is familiar and I have all my stuff around me, but I think I can deal for a few days. Our friend is going to house-sit (and puppy-sit) and Mim is going to board Gir and have someone check in on the bunnies and snakes, and then we're not going to worry about anything or anyone else for THREE WHOLE DAYS!

Em and Jorg will be going to Cedar Point (somewhere in Ohio?) to ride roller coasters with Dad so Mim would be all alone and bored if we didn't do something together. How sad would that be?

So. Our house.

This is the second time someone has tried to break into our house. Seriously, what's the deal?!

Now, don't get me wrong, we have a lot of valuables, but I'm sure all the other houses do too...and it's been ours twice.

I got home and let Buster outside, but I didn't go out myself. I exercised, showered, and wound a ball of yarn before Scott got home. When he got home, he let Buster out again and went with him to play. Now, yesterday he had gone around and put screens back on windows. But today when he went into the backyard one of the screens had been pulled off and another was almost off. It couldn't have been wind or anything because they are designed to be hard to pull off. Now luckily we lock all our windows and Buster was probably barking like crazy (we don't know, it happened while we were at work). There were perfect fingerprints, but the policeman who came thought it was most likely stupid kids getting into mischief. He was a really nice guy. We talked about the neighborhood and he had some really good suggestions aboout home security so over the next few days we will be looking into buying a gun safe and making a security system (seriously, Scott can make anything with electronics. Genius.) that we can monitor from our computer and program to send us a text message if the alarm is triggered. COOL.

We also decided to do an entire home inventory, with the make, model, and serial numbers of all our electronics and guns, plus lists of all the furniture and how much it's worth, a list of all our movies and CDs, etc. Then we will store the list not only on our computers but on our online server and we will have that in case things are stolen or the house burns down or something and we need to make a police report or insurance claim.

We're grownups!

I finished the second season of Bones that Scott got me. I love the TV on DVD idea. Genius. Of course that means I have seen every episode of Stargate EVER like, five times. I'm not nerdy or anything. Nope, not me.

OH YEAH I ALMOST FORGOT. I freaking finished the socks! It only took me months...there were just so many stitches, and they were so tiny, and it got boring in the middle just going around and around and around...yeah. But they're done. And Mim is getting them this weekend at her birthday celebration. Here they are on my feet:They are still a little stiff because I haven't washed them yet, but they feel like a hug, but for your feet. Seriously, if you have never worn hand-knit socks you are missing out.

Scott has been building a remote-control lawn mower (coolest project ever, there will definitely be a post about it when it's done) and so he has been practicing welding. He welded me this message:I am so loved.

Now here's what Scott does at work: OctoStacker.
My husband is so sexy.

Gah, BE QUIET

The Honey Bunches of Oats spinoff, Just Bunches, is better in the Honey Roasted flavor than in the Caramel flavor.

This has been a public service announcement.

Also, Buster will not stop WHINING.

Broken, Not Broken: Make Up Your Mind!

So our friend didn't end up moving in with us. I don't know how she's doing it! Breaking up with someone is hard enough, but when you continue to live with him while looking for a new place you are just nuts. But she seems to be holding up okay, at least for now. Hopefully she will find a place soon and she can have some closure and move on with her life.

This week was pretty easy. Everything worked pretty well (except FTIR , more on that in a second) until Thursday. The day I had off. OF COURSE. Because when I leave, things get a mind of their own. Arsenic wasn't working, and I talked my boss through everything I could think of over the phone, and it still wasn't working, so he gave up and left it for me to finish this morning. But when I got in this morning, and braced myself for a fight to the death, it just started up without any tweaking and cheerfully worked perfectly. HAUNTED. Drew (toothpastefordinner.com) summed it up perfectly:Anyway, the FTIR has been down for a week now. I don't use it every day, so it isn't as critical. The maintenance dude was supposed to come on Monday. So we waited...and waited...he didn't call or anything. Next day: We waited, and waited...Nope. Wednesday: "I'm definitely coming in today!" Not a chance. Thursday (while I'm not there): "Here I am!"

So he took a look at it and a fan had seized up completely, making everything overheat! No wonder it wasn't working. So he got the part today and came in to replace it. He took the whole thing apart and replaced the fan and it was a good thing he turned it on to make sure it was working because then something else was wrong! So I have about a zillion and a half people asking me every day, "When will my FTIR project get done??" And AGAIN I have to say "Sorry, I promise it is not my fault it is broken! Really, I swear!"

So there must be a virus. That only affects MY instruments, not anyone else's...yeah.

So Mim's birthday is July 1, so the weekend before that we are planning something awesome. But she reads this so I can't reveal details until after. But it will be way fun! Then, we always do the planning to celebrate the 4th of July. Last year we went camping, but little did we know that we were on private land, NOT public like we thought, and we all got in trouble and the dude almost called the cops and we were like OH NO WE ARE SO SORRY PLEASE NO COPS WE DIDN'T KNOW!

So, this year, we need to plan something else. We are thinking of just keeping it simple this year, just inviting everyone to our house. We will have a huge barbecue, and we will have movies and fireworks (the pitiful little ones that are legal in Utah, BOO), and if The Farm is open the guys will all go play paintball up there. But mostly it will just be hanging out and doing whatever we think will be fun. One thing we liked about doing camping is that we were right next to the perfect field for paintball, and had a perfect place to shoot. There will be no shooting at our house, because 1. THERE IS NO AMMO ANYWHERE and 2. I don't want to get arrested. Nope.

Panda Express has Asparagus Chicken now. SO TASTY.

Bones came in the mail finally, so yesterday while the dudes were working on our air conditioning, I watched Bones and I love that show.

Now, the reason people were working on our air conditioning is because we didn't have any. We just had a swamp cooler. Now, when we moved into this house, we signed a rent-to-own agreement, so part of our rent each month goes toward equity, and then in October, we get to take out a loan and fully purchase the house. We're making small improvements now, just little tiny things that make it nicer in here, but Scott negotiated with our landlord to split the cost of installing new AC. So, since Chet was paying half, we opted for the really nice AC and also replaced the old furnace with one of the new super-efficient ones, and it only cost us $2200.00. And that will raise the value of the house much more than that, so good investment! This owning a house thing is going to be fun. However, the idea of being in debt that far HURTS. I have been fortunate to always have enough work to cover my expenses so the most I was ever in debt was about $1500.00, until we bought our car, and since we paid mostly cash for it, we only had to take out a small loan to cover the rest so really we are barely in debt at all. So BIG debt...a little scary. I mean, it's like I'm an adult or something...