A Room with a sm00 I write about my life in general, but specifically about my daughter, my husband, life in Texas, and my hobbies Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 42 2901

Articles from A Room with a sm00

Update to the update and other ramblings 2008-01-10 18:05:27 My father does not have a virus around his heart. The sack around his heart is inflamed, probably caused by his latest sinus infection (the man is plagued with sinus infections). Not only has he been feeling bad since Monday, it apparently started last week. He was actually taking aspirin just in case! Anyhow, my sister read my parents the riot act (thankfully). No more waiting on phone calls (if my dad says an ER visit is required, it's serious stuff - he's one to normally just suck up the pain and keep on keepin' on) and no more waiting on chest pain!They're still waiting on the EKG, but don't expect it to show anything abnormal. It appears as though all is well again. Whew.Edited to add: My mother sent a link to the WebMD page on Percarditis, which is apparently what my father has.In other news, Sophie has been rather amusing lately. The whole thing where she was sitting in the LP barn the other day calling it a car? Well, she was actually trying t ...

Update on my father... 2008-01-10 10:50:29 According to the latest, he has a virus around his heart. They'll prescribe Motrin for the pain but are waiting to get him into a CAT scan to make sure that's all it is.Thanks to all of my wonderful friends who have posted supportive comments, and to all of my friends who have held thoughts or said prayers but were unable to comment. It is all greatly appreciated. :) ...

Mmph. 2008-01-10 09:06:03 My father went into the hospital this morning around 2:00 for heart trouble. Apparently he's doing fine now but they don't know what caused his pain. He's been having pain since Monday and thought it was just really bad indigestion. I guess he gave up on the Tums and decided it was time to go in to have it checked.He's in a room now and is actually sharing with someone who used to go to our church, who also happens to be the father of his general practitioner. It helped left his spirits a bit this morning when Dr. Haller walked in. Both were a bit surprised to see each other.In any case, prayers, thoughts, and vibes are all greatly appreciated right now. There is a chance I'll be making a flight up to Michigan early this year after all, but we'll see. ...

Indecisive, much? 2008-01-09 21:21:49 63% John Edwards62% Rudy Giuliani62% Mitt Romney58% Hillary Clinton57% Bill Richardson56% John McCain56% Barack Obama55% Mike Gravel55% Tom Tancredo54% Chris Dodd52% Fred Thompson50% Joe Biden47% Dennis Kucinich46% Mike Huckabee34% Ron Paul2008 Presidential Candidate Matching QuizOkay, every time I take this quiz I get different results. This last time, I think my results changed because of the weight I put on certain issues. Tancredo, Dodd, Biden, and Richardson are all out of the race (not sure if I'm missing anyone).I swear, the first time I did this, I think Huckabee was at the top of my list (no idea why). I know Dodd and Biden were in my top five at one point. Obama was second for one of the quizzes and first for one of them. Hillary was second for one of the quizzes (why is it we call all the other candidates by their last name, but she gets called by her first name?).I seriously have no idea who will be getting my vote. It appears I have a lot of research to do. As ...

Razzle Zazzle! 2008-01-09 14:25:03 After my less than pleasant experience with Shutterfly (the calendar was okay, but their outsourced customer service stinks and their die-cutter for their magnet doesn't work for beans), I was pretty happy to find Zazzle. Not only can I create a calendar there, it appears as though there is much more configurability as well. I'll have to play around with it for next year's calendar, or I'll ask my sister to make one for me (the iPhoto calendar she made rocks).What's really cool is you can create anything from shirts and bags to stickers and even postage! Their prices are a little better than stamps.com as far as smaller orders go, but if you want to order in quantity, stamps.com is still the way to go. You can either upload your own images, or purchase from items already created. I'm not sure what the quality of their products is like, though. That's my only concern. I really want to play around with the calendar and find out how nice it is befo ...

Boats for Cameron setback 2008-01-09 11:13:56 So, somehow in the most recent pattern repeat (I ought to go back and check all my panels now), I found what could possibly have become a hole in the blanket. Thankfully, I just ripped back to the lifeline (17 rows). Normally I wouldn't bother with a lifeline for a pattern like this, but working double stranded and having Sophie around, it makes it much easier to recover from curious hands (haven't needed to yet, but just in case...).I was able to recover the 17 rows that I ripped out, but that means I didn't really get anything accomplished last night. Well, that's not entirely true. I did a little knitting before I noticed the hole last night, but only about five rows. I told B I had a hole and had to frog the last few lines (rip-it, rip-it... yeah, knitters are pretty darn witty, no?) and he asked if the hole was in the boat. I told him I wasn't sure but I thought so. He told me it was a good thing I was fixing it then, otherwise the boat would sink. ...

Sophie update, long overdue 2008-01-09 01:36:35 No pictures this time, although I will work on that, really. However, she's been full of it lately, and I probably ought to record some of what she does. I am SO bad about that for some reason.Firstly, words Sophie says... in her own way: Cookie is toodoo. Butterfly is still bunnaby. Slippers is nipples (yeah, absolutely love when she says that in public). Christmas tree is chichi. Water is wahdie. Owl is ollie. There is one more I wanted to list for sure, but for the life of me I can't think of it right now. Secondly, things Sophie does... in her own way: She is climbing everywhere now. "Climbing?" she says... whenever she is near anything that can possibly be used for climbing. I found her standing on her Little People garage the other day. Sheesh. I still have to keep things out of reach, which is growing more and more difficult because she has a greater reach now and is more and more curious every day. She's becoming very adept at using ...

cleaning house... LJ style 2008-01-06 00:20:32 I've done a little bit of cleaning up of my f-list. If you were removed, please don't be offended (I rarely f-lock entries anyhow). I mostly removed people who seem to have dead accounts. If you feel I removed you in error, please comment and I'll most likely add you back (tried to do a quick skim through Semagic).Also, if anyone feels the need to do the same to their f-list and wants to dump me, feel free to do so with no hard feelings here. I know I haven't been the best of commenters lately, but I have been reading, believe me. If you have gotten a comment out of me in the last month, feel extra special, because I really haven't had time. If you haven't gotten a comment out of me, please don't be hurt. More likely than not, I probably had something to say but either forgot it by the time I got to the computer (remember, I read a lot on my phone) or someone else already said what I had to say.Speaking of comments or lack thereof, someone post ...

[Laptop] Screenshot 2008-01-04 22:34:51 I am absolutely in love with all wallpaper from Vladstudio. I know I've shared this love before, but here I go again. The only thing his site lacks, I think, is more red wallpapers.Yes, this really is my desktop. Don't let the lack of icons fool you. The sm00bs folder is loaded with crap, most of which I don't even recall putting in there. Also, I rely heavily on my QuickLaunch bar and have started using the search feature in Vista. All of this makes it a lot easier for me to keep my desktop neat and clean and free from messy icons that just clutter up the desktop and make it difficult for me to enjoy my wallpaper. I actually have more crap running in the systray than I normally would, but I did trial runs of some software so I could write reviews and have forgotten to remove it. Duh, me. I'll get around to that... someday. My current desktop1) Take a screenshot of your desktop.2) To capture a desktop:For PC: Press "Print Screen" (prt sc) button.For Macs: S ...

2007: A year in review 2008-01-02 00:18:42 I'm not sure how good the review will be because I'm sure I've forgotten most of what happened. I spent close to two full months of 2007 with Sophie in Michigan (part in January and then again in June/July) and didn't really blog much during that time. paid off the SL2 Sophie hit 1 year Texas had record rainfalls this year had radiant barrier and insulation sprayed in the attic bought a water softener bought the laptop started doing Dream Dinners interviewed for a job I didn't get but came to terms with the idea of actually going back to work tried my hand at blogging for money but decided it simply wasn't worth it met lots of new LJ friends started blogging for ChaCha All in all, it may not seem like much, but 2007 was a good year. I have a feeling Sophie had a lot to do with that. She's been so cute lately, too. She sings about butterfly t-shirts and lemon cookies (lemon toodoo) all the time. 2008 will be all about finding a job, debt ...

It's about that time... 2007-12-30 23:46:50 2008 is fast approaching and it's time to close out 2007. I'm shoving two memes into one post here, one old and one new (for me, at least).I've done the "first line of each year" post in the past, I know I have, but I don't think I did it last year. If I did, I'm not seeing it, but that's neither here nor there. Who cares, right? What's important is I'm doing it this year, although I'm sure there are plenty of people who simply don't care about this year, either. January: 01/12 - I'm still alive. I've caught a bug of some sort while in Michigan, but it hasn't killed me yet. February: 02/06 - Flew to Detroit Dec 12 (Sophie was awesome on the way up, and pretty good on the way back) and stayed until Jan 26. March: 03/05 - I don't think I've ever actually noticed a dust storm since I've lived in Texas, but last weekend we had one. April: 04/01 - I think the invites are done, at least the computer ...

Yummy Fresh Baked Goodness 2007-12-27 16:05:58 One of my favorite things to do (not just at Christmas) is bake. Naturally, one of the things I love most about Christmas is the baking. This year was the first year in five years that I've actually been able to go all out with my baking. I didn't get quite as much done as I'd wanted, but I still had a chance to go wild (B was worn out with all of the baking by the time Christmas finally rolled around).This year's list: Macaroons Russian Tea Cakes (both walnut and pecan) Cinnamon Spritz Rugelach Peppermint Meringues Two-Tone Christmas Cookies (probably my favorite new cookie!) French Christmas Cookies Lemon Snowflakes (another favorite new cookie) Crunchy Chocolate Cups Marshmallow Puffs (favorite new candy recipe) Spiced Nuts Italian Crackers Mexican Cheese Crackers Ranch Pretzels Chex Mix The Macaroons and the Russian Tea Cakes are traditional cookies we made when we were growing up. Everything else was new this year as far as the cook ...

Whew! 2007-12-26 22:36:13 Belated Merry Christmas to everyone.Everything was great here. B's parents came over Christmas Eve for the traditional Christmas Eve soup and a gift exchange. Sophie got a little rocking elephant from her grandparents but is deathly afraid of it. She will go near it now to listen to the music (it's so quiet, which is nice) and pet it, but she refuses to ride it. Christmas morning we didn't get out of bed until 10:00! I still can't get over Sophie letting us sleep in so late. We got up and took our time with gifts since it was just the three of us. Sophie is still very much into ripping the paper into small bits and seems to be more fascinated by unwrapping than by the actual gift, although we did see some classic "oh wow, how cool" faces. Because everyone else seems to want to rush her so they can see her with the gifts they gave her, we just let her go at her own pace. We really didn't want to rush the whole process since she's only this little o ...

Busy Bee! 2007-12-20 10:20:59 Things are crazy busy here and probably will be until Christmas is over. Christmas cards haven't been started yet - still have to make labels. Two of the knotted blankets are done - still have one left. Decoupage boxes are almost done - need to spray it with some clear acrylic sealer and let it dry. The ornaments for the girls are all done - pictures are up (one more to add) in the crafting blog. Baking is under way. I cheated yesterday and made three snack mixes and two candies. I should have done at least one harder recipe, but was whipped by the end of the day. Chui ran off as we were going in the house after getting the mail, so that took up a big chunk of my afternoon. I made chicken stock for chicken noodle soup (the soup itself will probably have to be made tonight after Dream Dinners). I haven't started wrapping, but that won't take me too long. That can wait until Christmas Eve if it has to. I have to make the Christmas Eve soup (might be eaten ...

Music lover links 2007-12-17 10:30:57 I just read about AllMusic. Maybe this site has been around for a while, but I've never seen it and I wanted to share it. If I've been living in the dark and this is old news (like last.fm was when I finally caught that wave), please spare me that information. Another link for those of you who love to listen to music but don't have mp3s or CDs nearby and have a high speed internet connection, check out Pandora (this one isn't new, but I don't think I've shared it before).If there are any other worthwhile music related sites out there, please feel free to share them. Thanks! ...