For starters, I forgot to post this week’s weigh in. Given that I gained 2 pounds this may not be a bad thing. *sheepish grin* I did get a couple hours of cardio in this week, though, so all is not lost.

I managed to go from 7am yesterday to 5pm today without a cigarette, thanks to aromatherapy and nicotine gum. I caved after that. The stress of dealing with Glenn and the boys has been too much. On the semi-positive side the few cigs I did smoke today tasted NASTY, so I will be making another attempt to quit ASAP. I’m amazed I managed to last as long as I did. Last night I was so tense! For the last couple of nights Glenn has been so drunk that he snores. LOUDLY. So fucking loud that I can have my Sansa up high enough to hurt my ears and I can still hear him! And any attempt to roll him over results in failure. He is so lucky I didn’t take advantage of his pillow laying beside him last night ’cause, trust me, I probably could’ve pulled off the “temporary insanity thing”.

In other news the preteen, who refuses to brush his teeth, lost two of them in the course of a week. Because the Town refuses to pay for dental insurance we have no way of telling if they were baby teeth coming out late. I’m thinking “no”. The loss of one of them isn’t too bad, however, as it was one of the same two teeth I had to have pulled to make way for my “fangs” which the preteen has inherited. One is growning in the spot where one tooth fell out (hell, it might have even pushed it out), the other is coming in above and behind the tooth it should be in front of. *headdesk*

Wednesday night was the first practice of Bay State Sound, the corps that has risen out of the ashes of the Light Brigade. Most folks were expecting some reunion time after two months vacation but Bill, the owner/manager/etc. insisted both the horn and drum lines commence to learn the new program. The colorguard went downstairs and discussed what we would do if BSS doesn’t show some true signs of life within the next few months. It was decided that if the corps. failed we’d go, as a group, to the Holy Defenders. Well, a group minus one. The Holy Defenders are in Rockland, home of the secret lover Glenn insists I have, so I can’t go. This means if Bay State Sound doesn’t take off I have to choose between either being a traitor by joining the Boston Crusaders, or not being in a colorguard at all. 🙁

Inbetween all of this I’ve been busy crocheting, Simming and watching DVDs. I’ve managed to create a handful of scarves that I hope to unload on Etsy. I’m so loving the good and bad witches in “Apartment Life” but fear that I will not “complete” the game within my lifetime, even with all the dumbasses setting fire to themselves. I can’t get enough of the director/cast commentary for “The Lords of Dogtown” so I checked out Best Buy to see if they had a copy, cheap. They had a copy labeled $9.99, which wasn’t bad. Even better was when it rang up for $5.99!

*pulls a snickerdoodle from my secret stash* Shh! These things are delicious! I refuse to share them with the boys.

I don’t know about Xmas, but the Gods have blessed us with a very snowy Yule.

The forecast predicted 7-12 inches on Friday, starting before noon, a sunny Saturday, and snow/rain starting sometime today. The storm started around 2-ish, Friday afternoon. When I went out for a smoke Saturday morning, around 2am, the snow was finally tapering off after dumping 8 inches of fluffy snow on us. However, it never completely stopped. All day Saturday, instead of sun, we had light flurries, which apparently intensified into another snow storm during the night. Glenn, who thought he was going to have the day to rest up after 22 hours of plowing/shoveling, got called in at 6am. I think he got called in then. Not sure as I wasn’t quite in my right mind, having been awake for nearly two days straight. Anyway, I just went out and there’s another 4 inches of snow — the heavier stuff, this time — and it’s still coming down strong.

My Yule plans didn’t go as, well, planned. Glenn didn’t take the turkey out of the freezer untill two days after I had asked him to do so. As such, the bird was still frozen. Fortunately I decided to cheat this year. Instead of the usual cover with cheesecloth/roast at a low temp/baste every 30 minutes method, I threw it into an oven bag and roasted it at a higher temperature. Still, we ate three hours later than we were supposed to. While we were eating I put the pie into the oven. Shortly afterward an already piss drunk Glenn turned off the stove, so when the timer went off it was nowhere near done. *headdesk* Because of the hubbub over dinner I never heard my phone’s timer go off, reminding me of ritual time, so I compleltey flaked off about that until about 2am this morning. My oil lamp, which was lit during the ritual, had gone out before I awoke this morning despite my making sure the wick was at the correct height and it had enough olive oil. And the tree, which we were supposed to decorate after dinner, is getting decorated now. Given the current weather, I’m not worried that I missed the sunrise. *laughs*

Needless to say, it’s been an interesting weekend, thus far.

I was having computer problems. Often, when I would turn my computer back on after either shutting it down, or it going into hibernation, all I’d get was a prompt about the BIOS. Because the computer’s diagnostic lights were indicating a mystery failure I called my uncle for assistance. It turned out to be my graphics card, which I had popped out of place when I hooked up the digital connection to my monitor and thought I had popped back. Obviously not. It took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to open the doo-hickey that Dell uses to hold the cards in place but once I did, and fully removed and replaced the card, everything started working again.

After my uncle and I fixed the damn thing, we chatted for a bit. He asked me if I had received an email from our friends, “the Fluffys,” inviting me to their XMas Eve Dinner, and Holiday Party. I had not, and wasn’t really put off by it… until I learned that the Holiday Party is to be held on the 20th. This is the date I am hosting my Yule gathering. A gathering I invtied everyone who was present at Thanksgiving Dinner (including the Fluffys) to. So yeah, I’m not a happy camper.

As I’ve been so stressed lately that my stomach kills, I’ve been trying to take my mind of the negative with a number of more relaxing activities.

Maxwell and I discovered the ability to post-date entries in WordPress and have been having fun arranging chapters for publishing next week. I figure spacing them out every other day will keep the site active yet still allow Max some time to create new content.

I have been contemplating the ethics involved with submitting a chapter or two to StumbleUpon, myself. I’ve heard of some bloggers doing it. In any case the site is prepared for a “Digg” (I even have “In case of an emergancy” code stashed away if needed) though I would think SU would have less of an immediate impact, by its very nature.

Back when IJ crashed, I finally learned about Twitter. It was whispered in my ear that creating an account for Maxwell Pink Tells Stories might be a good idea, even though neither of us had a clue what it could be used for. It is, after all, a fiction archive. Well, we figured it out this morning: behind the scenes stuff. Like non-content related site updates, battles with the Bishi Harem, and word counts of projects. So Max now has a Twitter Badge hardcoded into the site’s sidebar. Yay!

In other news, I went to the teen’s IEP meeting yesterday. He is teetering between needing and not, in regards to special education. The deciding factor was that if he took his meds he could function normally, but since he won’t he needs the support. It’s a bit depressing when you learn the king of “Cs” and “Fs” is really capable of at least “B” work. *sigh*

Tomorrow is the annual Mail Carrier’s Food Drive. As usual I will be voluntering my time weeding out the expired food that some folks think is A-okay to donate. After a couple of hours there I’ll be off to visit an old friend who just moved into a new home. I hear it’s huge!

*sniffs air* I better get into the kitchen and rescue the pizzas from the oven. The teen has his friends over and I’m sure he’s forgetten all about them.

After sleeping all of yesterday and a good chunk of today, Ben is feeling much better. He immediately perked right up when we returned from Target with Rock Band for PS2, the game he really wanted for Christmas, and was pissed because all he got were Target gift cards and (up until today) Toys R Us was the only store locally to carry the game. He is taking a walk down to the Center to buy a pizza from Domino’s as I am typing this. He wanted me to phone in an order for delivery until he realized he didn’t have the money for a tip.

I’m trying hard not to fall asleep. Glenn had to get up early this morning to finish the snow clean up and made damn sure I was awake and unable to get back to sleep until after he left. Since I’ve been dealing with a mild bought of insomnia, I want to avoid altering my sleep schedule if I can. Animal Crossing for the DS was almost the death of me. 🙂

A couple of sites of interest I thought I’d share:

http://www.buffet.com/eclub allows you to sign up for a newsletter from your local Buffet Chain resturaunt (Old Country Buffet/Hoemtown Buffet/Country Buffet/Ryan’s/Fire Mountain). For signing up you get a coupon for a free meal (any size) with the purchase of an adult meal. They also send out a goody or two for your birthday.

http://www.walkathome.com/club-walkslim/ Get a free six month’s membership to Leslie Sansone’s Walk Club. Definitely a bargain. I only got 12 weeks for my free trial last year! Obviously the club is a promotional tool, but I’ve managed to avoid most of the hype to make it work for me (and if you have a laptop with a wireless connection you can take the best advantage of Leslie’s streaming workout videos).

http://flylady.net Fly Lady’s website to help the organizationally challenged get it together.

http://www.rememberthemilk.com An online To-Do list. I use it to keep track of all my Fly Lady stuff.

http://google.com/calendar Creat an account (if you alaready haven’t) and get yourself this free online calendar. You can create several mini calendars (each a different color!) to keep track of individual projects and decide who else, if anyone, can view them. You can also intergrate your Remember the Milk list into it.

Okay. Done now. Time for sleepy sleepy.

Night!