The Beauty and the Mess

That's the punchline on my Peanuts calendar for today. :)

My cat is apparently going through some sort of Terrible Twos phase. This weekend his alter ego, Velociraptor Kitty, made an extended appearance. Neither Kathy nor I have had much sleep, what with his insistent meowing and venturing into forbidden areas and knocking things over at 3 am. My boss tells me that his brothers are acting similarly. I hope this will pass soon.

This weekend was nice. I spent Friday night at my parents' house, as planned, watching HGTV with Bun. (I'm glad I don't have cable, because I could easily spend all my time watching that channel.) I got two scrapbook pages done. I drooled over my dad's new Master Computer, which has Windows XP, a flatscreen monitor, and a webcam, and is equipped with the fastest modem available. He let me know that for only 1500 dollars, he could have one built for me, too. :P I'm tempted, since my CD burner has just crashed for the 15,000th time and I am fed up with my computer in general. I don't think it would be that extravagant to get a new computer, since I got mine before I started college, but I may need that money for other things soon. (My mom helpfully suggested I sell my computer to get some money for the new one. I think it would be worth about 50 dollars.)

What happens to old computers, anyway? Do they just throw them away? That seems awfully sad and wasteful.

On Saturday morning, I helped Kathy and her family with a retreat for 4th-through-6th graders at their church. It was fun. One of the activities was drawing the Stations of the Cross. I took pictures of some of them.

( Thoughtful Pictures )

We're under a Winter Storm Watch, which rarely happens around here. The snow is supposed to start very early tomorrow morning. I don't really think it will stick, since it's been in the 40s recently, but you never know.

Attention, everyone! It's National Severe Weather Awareness Week! So...get aware. :)

I am a Skywarn spotter. Or I used to be. I haven't been through training since 1999, but I'm planning to attend a class next month at the library. It's not like we have much severe weather to spot anyway. Just rain. And rain. And rain. I've figured out that our above-average snowfall this year has been more about excessive precipitation than colder temperatures. And I don't even have my meteorology degree! I ought to call the Weather Service and demand a job right now! :P

I was hoping to get a recycled laptop with my tax return money, but I did my taxes and I'm not getting nearly enough back. I guess I could take some money out of savings, but it seems stupid to do so when I hardly use my computer at home, and it works fine when I do. Although when I tell people it's a 1997 Acer, they kind of freak out. :)

Why are garbage trucks so loud with the cranking and the beeping? And why do they always come at 5 or 6 in the morning? How hard could it be to pick up the garbage at 10 or 11, when everyone is awake and/or at work? Sometimes I wish I had listened to my parents and stayed out of the city.

Okay, I'm working on a redesign and it's taking me forever. I'm still looking for a background. Where do you guys find all your pretty pictures and stuff? I can't find the sort of thing I want (and I can't describe it, either :P). I've been through a million background sites, but most of them are tacky. Sigh.

I had a nice lunch with Lawson and Jeremy, as usual, although we disagreed about whether bean sprouts were an acceptable sandwich topping. I enjoy them because they make me feel more healthy, but Lawson thinks they're too grass-like. :)

I had a very nice time with my family last night. My mom cooked special enchiladas. My brother told funny stories. I got to spend time with Bun, who had had a bath the day before, so he was especially fluffy. :) His chin is doing much better, so thankfully he won't need "surgery" after all. And he seems a little thinner! Yay!

I forgot to tell about something neat that happened last week. During most of my band years, I was the band historian, and my senior year, I made a big scrapbook. (It's very crude compared to my scrapping methods now, but it's still a scrapbook.) I'm in the process of re-doing my own band book, so I asked Debra to ask our (my former, her current) band director if I could borrow the old one and scan the pictures, since I don't have many of my own. She asked, and our director said I could keep the book!!! I am so excited. However, I stupidly forgot it at the house last night, so I still haven't gotten to look at it. But I'm going to scan some pictures for you guys. :)

I've spent the morning putting up the new version of my webpage. The verdict: I do not like PageMill, after all. I do not like it in a box. I do not like it with a fox. I cannot fix the problems that do not show up in the program, but mysteriously appear on the actual page.

On an exciting note, Evan has finally posted his pictures from summer conference at the RUF site. Go look! There are captions, so you will have some idea of what you're looking at. :)

I did make lemon whippersnapper cookies last night, and they are wonderful. A freshly baked one failed to elicit more than a calm "It's good" from Evan, but we will see what Jeremy and Lawson think of them when we have lunch today. Bwhahaha...

I am so frustrated. I have PageMill now, and I'm trying to figure out how to use it. It has some neat features, but lacks simple things like SETTING A BACKGROUND COLOR, and SETTING LINE SPACING since all the spacing is at, like, 24 point font, no matter how small your actual font is. Which looks stupid.

And, I found out that I did, in fact, screw something up on Friday. No one's mad, but now I am all stressed out. I feel like a total failure at everything. Lately I have been in such a bad mood. I just want to sleep all the time. It's very bad.

One good thing has happened, though. I met the new campus minister and his wife last night, and they are wonderful. This is such a relief to me. A bunch of us hung out with them at McAllister's last night. I spent about half an hour talking to his wife, Natalie, while Evan and some other people were talking to Robert, the new minister. When everyone was leaving, Evan came over to me and we were both beaming. "It's going to be like having Les back!" he said gleefully. "His wife is awesome!" I said. We smiled at each other like idiots.

Okay, now I feel a little better. Life is not all work and unsuccessful web design. I am thankful for that.

One of my new goals is to have a cooler webpage. My html knowledge is limited, and I do not have money for Frontpage, so I have to write my page using Netscape 4.7. (Collective shock from the audience.) For several weeks, I have been trying to create something that at least looks like frames, but when I publish the page, it goes completely psycho. So I am stuck with my current minimalist design. :P I wish I were like Wendy, who has a super cool boyfriend who designs and operates her website for her.

Alernatively, I could just start learning stuff.

Soon I will leave work and go get ready for the party. By the way, the hot water is working again. Good news.