Doggone

Well, we're all back from London now. I called the Humane Society today to find out about the status of the sweet doggie -- it seems they've given her back to her owner after all, who came and picked her back up and paid the vet bill off. So no sweet doggie for us. Then I made the HUGE mistake of flipping through their website and looking at all the dogs they have up for adoption (and cats too, but we've already got two, there's just no way). It's enough to make you cry. I'm such a softie. I can't walk into those places, I just get too depressed. You want to take all of them home and you just can't. So I don't know. We might perhaps get a dog sometime - after all, Tony is a serious dog person and dogs seriously love him (all dogs, I don't know what it is, but they gravitate to him). Now is a tough time, what with him taking on a new job and all the traveling he's going to have to do. And we do already have the cats...it isn't as if we need a dog in any way. I dunno. It's just when they look at you with those eyes of theirs and their furry faces. It's hard.

The Most Depressing Day of the Year

We were watching CNN and it was reported that, statistically speaking (and scientifically chosen), January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. My birthday.

Isn't that peachy?

As if it weren't bad enough getting older (not that I really mind all that much, at least, not yet), I have to do it on the most depressing day of the year.

How exactly do they determine such a thing anyway? "Excuse me, ma'am, we're doing a little survey here. Exactly what day is it you feel the worst? You know, the kind of day where the dog has vomited all over the carpet, the kids are sick, and your husband's in the living room yelling about the telly being broken? And your mother-in-law has just called to discuss coming over for a month visit. That kind of day."

Oh well. I lead a charmed life.

The Sweet Doggie

Yesterday we had some drama...a dog was following Tony down the street and playing around and then ran across the street right as a car came down. Tony called me to help him out and I held the doggie on the sidewalk until Animal Control got there. Such a sweet dog -- she was wagging her tail even as she lay there all bleeding and everything.

Well, I called today to find out how the dog was. Turns out it was a previously adopted dog from the Humane Society and it will not be going back to the previous owner -- who is now claiming to have never even had the dog! The jerk. We gave them our number. It's not like we exactly need a dog, but this was literally the sweetest dog ever. Just not sure how she would be with cats...

Some people should just not have pets. I think that is just terrible.

Hmmmm

I have a dilemma. I gave all my old Sims stuff (version 1) to my niece and nephew and I was on the phone with my sister Lisa tonight as they were installing it and beginning to play. Ryan, of course, asked for some cheat codes. So I gave him the $$ one, arguably the most useful one (CTRL + SHIFT + C, then type in rosebud). He asked for some more codes (again, of course) and I did a quick internet search and e-mailed off two websites that had lists of the codes.

Then I started clicking around one of the websites I'd sent off. The guy is a plushie! Or a furry, or whatever you want to call those odd people who like to pretend they're half animal and get it on with each other. Or whatever they do. I don't really want to know. They kind of freak me out. I only know about them at all from watching one of those HBO shows late at night (and it was so freaky, I think we literally only watched part of it, looked at each other with a "uhhh" look, and turned it off). Now, I'm not a prude. And I firmly believe that people can do whatever the heck they want, as long as they aren't hurting someone else. I just really wished I'd realized what was up with this particular dude before I sent the link off to my thirteen-year-old niece.

I'm not sure what to do. If I send another e-mail saying "Don't go surfing around that guy's site!" I know exactly what they'll do. Shoot, I'd have done it too. And the "freaky" content is buried pretty well, it's not something that they'd come across easily. They'd have to click around a lot and get way away from the Sims content the guy has. So it is probably okay, but still. Urgh.

Yikees

I just did something I shouldn't have. I added up the income and expenses for the YA website last year. Yikes. I'm still in a hole as far as the site is concerned. WAY in the hole. Not counting the last payments from Google and Amazon (which'll only be a bit over $100 anyway), I'm negative $784 for the year (So negative really somewhere around $650, since the last hosting charge also wasn't in my spreadsheet). Ouch.

Sigh.

At least it is making some money now. I don't even want to know what the year before was like (but then, it might not have been as bad since I wasn't mailing as many books out then). I just need to figure out some other ways for it to produce income so I can keep going with it. It's a catch-22 -- the more time you put into it, the better it does...the more time I put into it, the less writing of my own I can do. Ah, well. Life.

Postage is the killer. $530.54 in postage fees. But I don't see any way around that. One of the biggest draws of the site is the giving away of books. And you can't give something away and then charge postage. It's just not right. And I do love to give books away. All the kids love that.

Well, I'll start some new advertising things this year and see how things go. And my husband and a friend of ours (who's a lawyer) has convinced me I really need to incorporate or I could be in trouble if anyone ever wants to sue the site for some reason. I have no idea why, but who knows? Agh. Another expense.

So, hey, if you're reading this and you visit my website, click on an ad or two, willya?

Yep, that's me

My husband gives me structure and keeps me ...well, not sane, but at least more anchored in the real world. Without him I'd forget to do the normal things, like go to bed at a reasonable hour and eat real food. I would live on cereal and pop tarts or make a cake and live off of that. Talk to my cats and forget to leave the house. Things like that. It's not that I'm a freak, exactly...I'm just...preoccupied, I guess. Maybe my brain doesn't work right.

I need to get back into some sort of normal schedule before he gets back from Toronto, instead of waking up at noon and going to sleep at who-knows-when. My big problem is that all my big ideas occur in the middle of the night when I'm supposed to be sleeping. And, strangely enough, that's where all my get-up-and-go is too. In the wee hours.

So so so sleepy

I'm still sick. Bleck. And just plain tired all the time. If I get anything done, I feel like cheering, except that would take too much effort.

I have been getting a lot of reading done, though. That's one thing that doesn't take a lot of energy. And I did a lot of site planning.

Oh, and the winners of the Eldest contest have finally been announced (I was waiting until I got all the books in). Glad to have that done.

I'm not sure if I'll do a big giveaway-a-day thing at the end of this year. It was a lot of work and everyone was so frantic if I didn't post who the winners were first thing every day. And then I had computer trouble at the end of it...ugh.

I finally have my laptop back now and it is behaving. The pain is that they decided to reinstall the original software/operating system even though the problem was only hardware related -- JUST IN CASE. Just in case there might be any kind of software conflict. UGH. Which means I've been re-installing everything, which takes FOREVER. Thanks, Gateway. Next time, I'll not be checking the box to give them free reign over my PC. The buggers.

Right now, I think I'll be grabbing something to eat and then taking a nap...and then hopefully I'll get some more done tonight. Tony is in Toronto, so it's just me and the kitties.

Oh good heavens

Second try....first I posted this to the wrong blog! Agh! Oh, yes, come to the YABC blog to learn about books and my inner mucus monster. Sheesh.

I think I'm coming down with something. I'm all stuffed up (but not like allergy stuffed up, more like a mucus (sp?) monster has invaded my head) and just really, really tired. More tired than normal medicine-tired. Bleck. Figures it would come on right after the kid's visit...

I've come to believe that kids are simply mobile germ units.

So I have no get up and go at the moment. I'm drinking tea. And about to settle down to write my Christmas thank-you's and maybe finally finish knitting that darn scarf for Auntie that is now really, really late.

On a bright note, I got a new camera from Tony for Christmas. It was my big gift (and, as always, he spent way too much). It's a Kodak P850 or something like that with a 12X zoom, which is awesome. Now I just have to figure out how to use all the macro features. It's 5.1 megapixels though, so now I can print up to an 11 x 17 if I want to. Maybe I'll post some pictures later. I really really really need to on the other blog.