suzyness.com

Feeling “type-y” today… it’s the equivalent of chatty, just in blog
speak instead.

There are several versions of blogs out there; the “ready to be posted
to, comes along free with your profile” accounts, which you’ll see on
sites like MySpace; the “slightly modifable blog” that serves solely
for blog posting and allows you to change colors, fonts and
backgrounds, such as Blogger; the “slightly modifable blog + friends”
which is essentially the same format as above, but emphasizes the
“friend” aspect of blogging more; and finally, the “fully editable
blog”, such as WordPress or Cute News (not that these are of
equivalent powers, they just fall into the same catergory of blog).

I have several blogs. One on Myspace, a few on LiveJournal, one on
Blogger, and I hope to someday convert my blog over to WordPress
(although there’s been talk of this conversion for nearly a year now,
and no results yet). One difficulty I run into; each type of account
is used by different friends… and it’s difficult to get their
updates regularly, and to ensure they’re getting yours as well. Since
switching over to Blogger, I have no “friends” list that exists beyond
my website frequenters. I still check my friends page on livejournal
to see what the most recent updates are.

I signed onto my livejournal friends page today and commented on a few
friend’s blogs for the first time in months. It’s not that I don’t
want to know what they’re doing, I’m just a slacker when it comes to
keeping up on even my own blog, let alone others. To exemplify my
slackerism, I’m out for now :)

Sundays always afford me an hour or two to myself… Ben goes off to
play soccer, usually leaving his laptop is lurking about somewhere
close. While I have an awesomely fast desktop computer, blogging and
surfing the internet is just so much more appealing while sitting on
the couch watching tv. This morning, it’s been the History Channel.
First a documentary on Dragons, now something called “Hell: The
Devil’s Domain” (pre-biblical concepts of a negative afterlife). It’s
not as bad as it sounds; the historical aspect of it makes it
interesting in general. I’ve spent some time responding to email,
checking cnn.com, and finally writing this blog.

I’ve not as frequent of a blogger as I once was. Part of it is due to
my life being slightly more routine and less adventurous than it was a
year ago. Another (big) part is due to not spending time at work for
blogging. Since my new job, I’ve separated out my blogging time and
work time, rarely even starting to write a blog until after I’ve
gotten home. This leaves less time for me to jot down my brilliant
ideas in blog form. By the time I get home, the ideas have diminished,
and the whole idea of blogging just seems somewhat exhausting to me. I
recently discovered that I can email blogs to my blog page (using a
secret email address that shall not be revealed) and have been saving
drafts of blogs in my gmail account.

Transitioning to a different note… Tina, my first best friend ever
(we met when we were 5), has a son who is now 5. We both turned 25
this year, which means we met 20 years ago. Xavier is starting
kindergarten 20 years after Tina and I started and met in
kindergarten. This fact is, of course, relative to the year that X was
born. Ie, if he were 2 years older, he would have started elementary
school on Tina & my 18th “anniversary”, but it still seems monumental
to us. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were starting school. Not
long after meeting, Tina and I soon had matching CareBear lunch pails,
that had our names carefully puff painted on, and we did everything
together.

Going through a box that still has yet to be unpacked, I found a book
I wrote in the 1st grade. Tina & I had both poured our hearts into
these books, that were written with the intent of entering them into
the book faire. We were both accomplished writers for our age, both
advid readers and having received a good educational basis from our
parents, siblings, and the competition between us. My book, ‘Chrissy
the Playful Whale’, and Tina’s ‘The Big Ferocious Dinosaur’ were the
hit of our schools book faire. We both received blue ribbons for our
1st grade group, and were moved up to the state book faire. There, we
faced the first harsh reality of life. The judges did not believe that
we had written the books on our own, and disqualified both of our
stories. Though we fought, it was hopeless. They’d made their
narrow-minded decision, and were sticking by it. I read my book again
the other night. It didn’t seem to have been written by a 1st grader.
In fact, I was surprised at my own abilities at such a young age. I
can see why the judges thought we’d had help from our parents or
teachers, but it still irks me a bit that my talent was the cause for
my disqualification.

Anyway, there’s my rant on the unfair world of being a child…. which
later extends to the unfair world of being an adult. I realize that
Xavier will have to go through similar trials; they’re just a part of
the childhood and life.

Be forewarned, this post is rather boring…

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve dillegently been going to the gym
daily for approx 4 months now; and have seen little progress. I’ve
gained muscle, and have improved my overall cardio health, but I’m not
thinning down like I’d hoped. I have a bridesmaids dress for a my
friends wedding late September (same girl we went to Vegas for) that
I’ve been working towards. I bought it a bit snug back in January,
with the intention of losing a few pounds. So far I’ve remained
consistent, even with all of my efforts at good health.

Less than two months until the wedding, I decided it was time to try
the dress on again. Not much hope that it would be any less snug (it
was to the point of not being able to breathe comfortably when I tried
it on in Feb), I grabbed my latest acquisition from David’s Bridal,
and took the plunge. Shockingly, the dress fit great! It zipped up
easily and I could actually breath in it… a big improvement over the
first try on back in February. So now, all I have to do is keep it up
for September!

This week has been long hours at work… which will be followed by
more long hours. We’re going through a system conversion, which always
means more time figuring out how to use the new programs, where data
is located, if it’s all there, etc. I’m actually getting a laptop to
help with all of this extra work. August should be a fun month, but
things should get better towards the end of the year.

That’s pretty much it for the past week… sans the surprise party on
Friday night. The above post was actually started on Wednesday,
finished on Saturday, so it’s got a bit of a gap in timeline… but
y’all can just deal. :)

Last night was my first surprise birthday party… and it was awesome! I had no idea it was coming. Ben engineered the plans while Jen acted as his accomplice in the whole thing.

My original plans, as indicated in the previous blog, was to meet Jen in Old Town around 4pm, and hang out with her a bit. Followed by dinner at an italian restaurant in Folsom with Jen, Jason & Ben.

Leaving Old Town, we headed towards home, planning on meeting Ben there and picking him up for dinner. Although we were running late for our 8pm dinner reservations, when we arrived at the house, Jen pleaded to come inside and use the restroom. I obliged, opened the door, and stopped short. I’d grabbed a few things from my car to drop off inside, so gym bag, keys and sunglasses in hand, I was shocked to see balloons, streamers, and 20 people waiting to surprise me for my birthday!! Craziness.

It was a great time and an awesome way to celebrate my 25th (which won’t actually be official until Thursday)… once again… i have the awesomest boyfriend evar :)

I wrote this as well, but didn’t have it with me last night when I
posted. Consider it an addition to the last post :)

On Saturday we took a cab ride out to my favorite mexican resturant in
Vegas; it’s a $12 cab ride, but worth every penny! Authentic &
delicious mexican food, yummy chips and salsa, great sangria… my
kinda meal :)

Sunday, more thunderstorms were predicted for later that evening, just
in time for our flight out! We were worried that we would be delayed
and stuck at the airport again, but the thunderstorms never came!
(Well, at least not while we were there)

I came home to an awesome bouquet of flowers and an even awesomer
boyfriend late Sunday night :) It was a fun weekend, but I’m glad to
be home again!

So I had a whirlwind weekend in Vegas; leaving Thursday night and
returning late Sunday.

Our flight was delayed leaving Sac on Thursday night, so we spent a
few hours sitting around the airport, crossing our fingers that we
would actually fly out that evening. The fates were with us, as the
thunderstorms in Vegas cleared around 10pm, and we finally left for
Vegas (yay!). Exhausted, we arrived to our hotel around midnight, and
did the non-Vegas thing and went to bed.

Friday we spent a leisurely morning enjoying our day off and getting
to sleep in. Preparing to head out for the day, I pulled my digital
camera out my bag, tried to snap a picture, and discovered that I’d
left my memory card at home!!! :( Edna & Tina had bought a 4 pack of
disposable cameras, so we divvied those up between the four of us and
set out.

We did the usual touristy stuff while there; saw the lions at MGM
Grand, got some novelty sized frozen beverages, went up to the top of
the Eiffel tower at Paris, gambled a bit, and enjoyed the Vegas night
life. I’d elaborate, but we’ve all been sworn to secrecy :)

We did take a day to lounge by the pool and soak in some of that 108
degree weather. Usually I’m not much of a pool person; don’t really
like getting my hair wet, the contacts get all weird, and my eyes burn
immediately from the massive amounts of chlorine in the pool. However,
in the Vegas heat, I was all over the pool situation. It was so great!
Yes, my eyes still burned, but the water was temperate and relaxing.

It never ceases to fail that something will go wrong with my computer
while I’m away from home for any extended amount of time. It’s like it
rebels against me for the lack of attention. Anyway, this trip away
yielded no different results from my computer. It’s finally back up
and running, after being back for nearly the same amount of time that
I was gone. This time it was actually due to my favorite ole memory
card (the one I forgot to put back in my camera). I’d left it in the
card reader slot on my computer, and it took a few days for me (Ben)
to figure out that the computer was trying to boot off of it.
Actually, I never figured it out, I just stared at my computer screen
while it stared blankly back at me. I left it all to Ben’s fixin’
skills… but it took a few days to get him pinned down to actually
look at my computer.

I’m actually a bit bummed because I left another blog I started to
write on another computer. I thought I’d saved everything to a draft
in my gmail account, but, alas, it appears I did not. Now I’m
contemplating whether it’s worth it to re-write now, or wait until
tomorrow to post. I think the latter.

Works been crazy… and I have to leave early tomorrow. Which means, I
have to go in SUPER early to get everything done. Jen (from college)
will be visiting, and she and her boyfriend will be arriving in Old
Sac around 4pm, so I’ve arranged it to leave early so I can meet up
with her and keep her company :) After walking around old town for a
bit, it’s off to dinner. We’ve got reservations at a yummy Italian
place in Folsom. Anyway, getting back to the “really early” part of
this paragraph… I need to be up in approx 8 hours, so I should
probably be going to bed RIGHT NOW!!!! Annnnddddd… i’m off.