I hope I am not the only one who celebrates this occasion! That said, if you are waiting for a response from me, please let me know. I hope I didn’t overzealously archive and delete - but its always possible. Its a great day!

I can’t believe how busy I am now - what happened to my bon bons and my soap operas and living the lush and lazy life of a stay at home mom with too many cats and 2 kids in school? Thank God I love what I am doing. I have to gripe for one minute - I love writing, and it is stuck at the dead ass end of the day, when I am worn out. And that is just the writing that I HAVE to do. I hate that I am not able to keep up NailTechSecrets, and my wellness blogs. I love them just as much as eBeautyDaily and MRSANotes, but you would never know it by looking at em. Thank God for Peg at MRSAResources (love, love, love you girlfriend!). Know how long it has been since I have read a book? I LOVE to read. I don’t even know how long it has been. My husband has read, I bet, 15 books since I have read one, and he claims not to be a reader.

In case anyone thinks I am lazy (which if you took a gander at my house, you might think that), I get up at 5am every morning, work til 6:30, get the kids off to school at 7:15, work til 4 - feed the kids, do homework, work a little more, exercise, clean house, do laundry, get the kids to bed - and work again from about 8:30 til (I would love to say) 9:30 (but it’s usually more like 11). Aaack. I am worn plumb out. I wish I had a clone. Or just a few more sleeping hours in the daynight.

/rant

I do love all of my jobs though, and all the wonderful people that go along with wifehood (is that a word?), motherhood, blogging, and b5media. I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. Women are wonderful creatures, aren’t they?

Well, I spent a total of about 10 leisurely hours upgrading to WP 2.1 and messing with a new template. Other than 2 or 3 hours of trying to figure out how to get my blogroll to display properly (I can’t for the life of me get the 1. Bookmarks out of it - I have played with every parameter of the new tag except for the right one, obviously), 2.1 went off without a hitch. I am not keen on the new blogroll tags and the fact that you don’t have much control over the blogroll within admin like you used to (unless I am not seeing it!)l but it’s probably just having to teach an old dog a new trick that is making me resistant.

This theme is kinda business-y for a fun lovin’ gal like me, but I like it, the coding is very nicely done (thanks Brian!), it doesn’t look too cluttered (love keeping some of that cluttery stuff in the footer) and everything works as expected, which never happens for me. I even managed to tweak the b5media blogroll so it looks normal sized instead of giant. And it works. And, most importantly I didn’t have to ask for help. w00t!

I keep thinking I want to get a custom theme, but if I can’t even figure out the basics of what I want, how on earth will I ever be happy with one someone else does? I searched through about 15 Googlepages of designers last night and just didn’t see any one of them that did much for me. I don’t want it to be too boring, or too techy or too girly or too - I don’t know what the word it - swirly maybe. If I see another theme that looks like it has cutouts, I will scream. I love Chris Pearson’s Cutline, but I just keep seeing it over and over and over again - its a great template though - maybe next time I get in a switcheroo mood I will try some customizations and see what happens. I even tried to clear my mind of the bazillion templates I had been looking at and try to imagine what I wanted my blog to look like, and I couldn’t even do that. I think I would drive a designer insane at this point. I am driving myself crazy. I have looked at every 2 column, 3 column, widgetized template with pink, black and gray that exists. And all the non widgetized ones too.

Now to replace that CJ up there with something that is more me. I will surely think of something more suitable soon enough…

I have successfully ignored this once, but I will be nice and comply this time. Thanks, Glen. ::groan:: lol

Five things you don’t know about me:

1. I am a hobby taxidermist. I wish I had time to work on all the animals in my freezer, there are some beautiful ones in there.

2. I hate to take showers - I am a bath girl. I do bathe, though.

3. I am a headbanger at heart. My all time favorite band is Motley Crue.

4. I think I will likely be a crazy cat lady when I’m old. I keep way too many of them around now (…she says as she knocks a couple off her lap so she can type).

5. I love shock value, but I keep it close to home these days. I don’t like shocking you as much as my mother, my children and my hubby.

I tag Hsien (heh - you can’t ignore MEEEEEEEEE can you - especially when you know all this stuff about me already?) Shannon, SP, Elke, and Suzzann .

This is one recipe I need to keep track of - I think I can swing this and it looks and sounds incredibly yummy:

Stef’s Lion’s Heads in Coconut Sauce

If you aren’t a regular reader of Stef’s Noodles and Rice, and you love to cook, or love to eat, then you definitely should be. She is an amazing cook and a beautiful photographer as well. Her pictures and recipes never fail to make me absolutely drool, and heaven forbid I visit there when I am hungry. Maddening!

Yay, thanks to Mark for ripping it off Jeremy’s head finally and getting it out to me. Jeremy - get your own. Hahahahahaha w00t! Now all I need is my Team Perez shirt, and I am set up!

There is so much more to the story after my initial Dell bitch session, but the wind is still out of my sails. Suffice it to say that after blogging about my troubles here, and leaving a comment on the Dell blog (which is what I think did the trick), I finally made it to the escalation team who, on or about November 8th, ordered me a brand spanking new computer to replace our lemon laptop’s broken replacement that I had sitting here.

Well, it is December 16th, and yesterday, finally, our replacement computer arrived. It should have been here within 15 business days, but naturally, that didn’t happen. Icing on the cake: Three days before the computer arrived, I got a nasty note from Dell saying that I needed to return laptop number two immediately in the box that our new computer came in - that it has been too long since I had received the replacement, and they were getting ready to bill me for it. Normally, I would have been soooooooo pissed off and called them up and given them as much hell as I could muster, but I just don’t have any more fight in me for Dell. I couldn’t care less.

To make things just a little sweeter - we have to repurchase MS Office - as we have used our office disk too many times on that old piece of junk that didnt work. I don’t even want to tally up the costs that we have had in this deal, I am quite sure we could have had a new laptop with it all. Hubby said last night - “Well, I guess we weren’t going to get out of this without getting fucked in some way.” I guess he is right. At least the money is going to Microsoft instead of Dell. Dell has gotten their last dime from me, if I can help it.

On a shockingly surprising note, the new laptop appears to be working just fine, but since this saga started at the first of October, it has taken 2 1/2 months to get resolved, and we do have the service package that is supposed to get us through with almost no downtime - on site same day service - all of that. I think we spent nearly $400 on that. What would we have done if that was our only laptop? Well, I think we would have plunked the money down for another computer, and maybe we would have just forgotten about Dell - looking back, I wish we had done that - and we will be doing it the next time. I assure you we will not be going through this hellish process again.

To Dell: Trust me, I can’t WAIT to get this piece of junk broken Dell laptop out of my house. Now that I actually have the new laptop, the old one is sitting at my doorway packed up and ready for DHL to pick up on Monday. Go suck an egg. But thanks to the escalation team for finally putting an end to this hell.

From Christina Jones - beaten, bruised and bitter former Dell cheerleader

You know when you are running around the house, still in your jammies, much too late - and the doorbell rings - and there stands just the person you don’t want to know that you are still in your undies after noon…

Well, thats me. I officially started my “real job” as Project Manager for my beloved blogging network global new media network, b5media, last week - and they decided yesterday that they wanted to add our personal blogs to the Team channel, so here I am. Welcome, and try not to be too bored here. I am putting my clothes and makeup on as we speak.

What a week (or 4). After a long battle with lung cancer and goodness knows what else, my dear Mother in law passed away last Saturday night, and finally she is resting easily in Heaven. I had spent a lot of time with her over the last month especially, sitting with her at home and in the hospital, and I feel so blessed to have been able to be there and to be a part of her last times on Earth. Besides truly being “hot stuff on a stick” in her younger years (her words…lol), she was a spectacular older woman with a brilliant mind, a fierce wit and wonderful, imaginative, personality. At just a few days short of 69 years old, she died much, much too young.

One of the things I will remember most is how I always showed my dumb blonde around her - she would try to be subtle about asking me to get her some cigarettes - she smoked Sports - and she would always slip some silly comment in about sports (I just hate sports), and I would never get it. Over and over - time after time - I never would I get it, and she would always have to thump me on the head each time and say “duh - get me some cigarettes!!” She was very special to me. We have lived here for 4 years, and above everyone else, Jeanette made me feel like a real, long term, part of the Jones family. She confided in me, she loved me, and I loved her so much.

I sat with her for about 4 hours on Friday morning, and I am so honored to have had that time with her. She was laughing and joking and even ribbing me about my dumb blondeness, all the while gasping for breath worse than I had ever seen. Less than a day later she fell asleep (after 2 sleepless nights) and never woke up again. She frequently mentioned how she believed I saved Marshall’s life, and I know she knows how deeply I love her son and he loves me. My heart breaks for the loss of her in my life, as she is one of the few female friends I have here - and makes me so very thankful that my mother has now moved here.

Marshall spoke at her funeral today, I don’t know how he managed it. He and his two brothers stood up in front of everyone and Marshall was the spokesman - he spoke of the things she loved in life (games, family, crossword puzzles and Art Bell), the important roles she had to so many people, and how beautiful she was. And she really was. I have never been so proud of my husband - he brought much needed laughter and tears of loss in the memories he shared of his mother. The service would have been incomplete without him, and with his eulogy (eugoogley?), the service was absolutely perfect.

Her family is so special - she is one of 8 sisters and 2 brothers, and is the 3rd of the group to pass on. Much of the rest of the DeLeon’s were there, and they are just all so very special to me - they have, just like their sister, made me feel like a real and loved member of the family. They all live out of town, and part of the heartbreak of Jeanette’s death is the fear of losing touch with them - Marshall and I both are horrid at keeping in touch, we will absolutely have to make the effort, as that would be a loss worse than death.

Rest in peace, Jeanette - we surely do love you and will miss you desperately until the time comes when we are all together again.

***

If you are including us in your prayers tonight, please also include my friend AT, whose wife is battling an infection, very similar to the one Marshall went through. She is in Oak Ridge, and her circumstance is possibly even more dire than Marshall’s was, if thats possible. Reading AT’s daily diary about what they are going through has become somewhat therapeutic to me, as her situation has been so similar to Marshall’s and her husband’s bare naked feelings so mimic the ones I had at the same time but never wrote down. BJ is having a trach tube put in very soon, as she has done the maximum time on the ventilator. Thankfully Marshall’s lungs worked just before he had to have a trach put in. As I have been praying for my own family, I have been keeping BJ and AT and their family right there in my heart and mind too, and I hope you will as well - they are going to have a long, tough road ahead.

You want to check out some amazing Photoshop work? Do you love babies? (Do you love Gene Simmons?) Sure you do!

Click here.