It's NaBloWriMo again

Just found out that October is National Blog Post Writing Month or whatever the name is. Time to get back to blogging regularly.

Funny stuff

Is it wrong that I got a kick out of watching the demo video for a contraption called "Twirl-A-Squirrel"? I think it was the shot of a dizzy squirrel rolling on the ground that did it.

Also, El Burrito is standing on the steps right now, singing the chorus to a Great Big Sea song called "River Driver" and I find it hilarious. Probably wrong of me, since there's a line about getting "sober by and by" but I don't think it's warped his brain too much.

And now to convince him that it is, indeed, nap time.

Coupons and stuff

Random notes:

The "Pack a Kraft Smile" coupon/calendar booklet that I got from Kraft arrived last week. Some of the coupons were good ones, but I was a little peeved that three of the coupons had already expired!

Gorton's was nice enough to send me a free-item coupon after I let them know about some pretty low-quality tilapia fillets I bought. Peter Pan cheaped out a bit with a 50-cent coupon after I complained about their container shrinkage (18-oz is now either 12 or 15). Sure, they're using less plastic, but the price didn't go down when the jar size did.

Coupons.com is a good site for coupons, but their printer is a little odd. I tried to print 3 coupons last night. The site printed those three, plus six that I didn't want and can't use. Strange.

Weird note, not that the person in question will ever read it.
Someone on a local listserv has been convinced that there will be mandatory flu shots for H1N1 this year (and related conspiracy theories). I don't see it happening, just because a) we don't have mandatory vax for anything else and b) the companies don't have the supply to vaccinate everyone. They're already publicizing the priority ranking for who should get the shots first.

Library day

So, another library day post. We returned 3 books and a DVD, and didn't check anything out. Spent $11 at the sale, but I think we were overcharged. Not that I'm going to fuss about it, it's a donation of sorts, and I've gotten enough great deals to make up for it.

Current numbers: 2 items on hold, 36 or so checked out. Can't be certain; their web catalog is being very slow right now.

The suckage that is my mood

I'm in a shit mood right now. I'm home alone-with-a-preschooler all day, practically every day. Today's "alone time" was an hour that I spent at Target and the grocery store. I don't get to have a decent adult conversation, since DH and El Burrito go to bed at the same time. I have no friends, online, offline, or otherwise. There's no one for me to talk to, except for DH, and as I pointed out tonight, that doesn't really help when I need to bitch about him and let off a little steam. I think he finally admitted that other than him, I don't really have anyone to talk to. My mom isn't an option, ditto mom-in-law and my one decent sis-in-law. My sister might be in a pinch, but she's got grad school and her own issues. Plus, some things I'd rather not have making the rounds at family dinner when we're not there.

I've read the "how to get some you time" articles in the mommy mags, but they're not really useful sometimes. The big one seems to be to let dad take care of the kid after he gets home, while you have a girls night out. I have no "girls" and DH gets home around 7:00 or 7:30. Even if I skip dinner at home, there's not much for me to do in this town after 7:30. I'm not a bar person. The mall closes at 9, library closes at 5 0r 9, depending on the day. The public garden closes at dusk, so do the local parks. That leaves the 24-hour stores - Walgreens, Walmart, and the grocery stores.

Yeah. I think I'd rather stay home and hide in the closet.

And apparently the reason why we haven't done the wills or called a realtor or I haven't lost any weight is because I/we haven't "put any effort" into it. I'll admit it. I bitch about being overweight, then we go to Schnucks and buy five pounds of cookies. Lack of motivation. How to fix it? Who the hell knows. I don't, obviously.

Potty training and PC upgrades

Two things are frustrating me so badly right now that I could spit nails.

A. Potty training. As in, my mother thinks I'm not working on it enough with El Burrito or something, because the fact that he's 3 and wears a diaper is somehow all my fault. Sorry, Mom, if you think you can do a better job, have at it. I'm ready to drop him off at your house for a &%*$*#( month and turn the damn phone off. He's got a potty. He's got underwear. What we don't have is motivation on his part. Yeah, he was dying for a trike or a bike, which I could have used to encourage the potty thing. Until Mom went and got him one of each. Stickers and cookies don't do much.

Situation right now: We have a potty. We have underwear. El B was using the potty for peeing pretty easily, if we asked. He didn't ask on his own too much. He's got the bladder control, and he's usually dry in the morning. But for the past month or so, it's been no go. We ask and he says no. We push the issue, and there's a nice argument and fussing. He'll pee two drops and say he's done. Pooping isn't even on the radar. It's a control issue, I guess. Whatever. I'm ready to drop the whole stinking thing.

Mom says just put his unders on and he'll decide he doesn't like a wet butt. Yeah, and I don't care for having big puddles of pee on the carpet, especially since we're (supposedly) going to be house hunting soon. I don't think old-pee smell will be a selling point. So, she says, take him on the deck. Where, I point out, the pee will drain down onto our downstairs neighbor's deck. Not a good thing.



Then there's the PC upgrade. DH got me a 1 TB hard drive and some more RAM for an anniversary present. The hard drive is going to be a media drive, for music and photos. So we shift all the MP3s and music over. Which is when I realize that the ratings from Windows Media Player won't transfer over, unless I upgrade to WMP 10. Which wouldn't install on this PC, because it's supposedly not compatible with the version of Windows I've got. (BS. I've got XP, Service Pack 3, and WMP 10 requires XP, SP2. I'm not seeing the issue here.) So, after 6 hours of downloading, I end up with WMP 11. And a buttload of duplicate entries in the WMP library. Which should be solved by Microsoft's handy dandy instructions on cleaning up the library. EXCEPT that their info on the library database file's name and location are both not quite right. The only file I can find was last modified in 2006. Pretty sure that's not the one I need.

So I've got my music in three locations, eating up massive amounts of hard drive space. I've got WMP 11 giving me fits because I can't force it to a) rebuild the library or b) IGNORE the music on C:. And I've got about 20 tabs open in Firefox trying to figure out this crap. Because once, just once, I'd like to figure out something on my own, without needing DH to fix it for me. I've got a master's degree. I've been online for 10+ years. I'm not computer illiterate, or I didn't think so until lately.

Is that too much to ask????? Apparently so.

And that, folks, is why I am having a very very very VERY crappy day. And week - the WMP situation is on Day 4. Joy. I hate Microsoft sometimes.

Library day and family

So, a quick library update. We didn't return anything today, but did return 5 or 6 on Saturday. Right now, we've got 44 books out and 4 on hold, and we spent $5 at the cart sale. We walked up to the second floor and read a Grover book in the reading area, and noticed all the circles in the r oom

And my family is driving me NUTS. More on that later.