Since the last time we left our intrepid hero...

It's been over a month since I blogged. A very long, very stressful month. I somehow survived half the move to the new building. I'm not sure how, but I managed. I had three students come in the Sunday after Thanksgiving and we packed up a lot of the stuff in the lab. The movers came over on Monday and moved all the stuff we packed over to the new building. Since that time, I have been there 6-8 times getting stuff that were okayed to pack and apparently weren't really okay to pack. :( It's a long walk from the parking area to the building, especially if you are carrying stuff. It's just so backwards. We are supposed to be moving into that building, not out of it...

Jesse turned 12 yesterday. I can't believe he is so old! :( We went to Cici's Pizza on Tuesday with the family to celebrate. My mom picked up a very cute ice cream cake (scroll down to the snowman). Jesse got a Special Edition Nintendo DS Lite. He was very happy with his gift. Yesterday we stayed home all day. I made him cupcakes. He really wanted orange cake with strawberry frosting. I put the strawberry frosting on four of the cupcakes but vanilla on all the others.

I have been doing a lot of reading and playing my early Christmas present.

Reading:
Lover Revealed by JD Ward (Book 4 of the Black Dagger Brotherhood)- This book is Butch and Marissa's story. Butch was the only human allowed with the vampire Black Dagger Brotherhood. Lover Unbound by JD Ward (Book 5 of the Black Dagger Brotherhood)- This is Vischous' story. It was a good read. I loved the background information on Vischous. I guess she ran out of happy endings. :(

I'm really looking forward to the next book in the series.

Dance with the Devil by Sherrilyn Kenyon- This is Zarek's story. It was great. I loved the depth of the character. Zarek was a former slaved (to his father's family) he suffered untold abuse and ended up dark and misunderstood.
Kiss of the Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon- Cassandra is the only remaining relative of Apollo. It is told that her death can stop the curse. Wulf is a Dark Hunter who is cursed to never be remembered by anyone he meets that is not of his own blood. Definitely a good mix! :)
Night Play by Sherrilyn Kenyon- considered a Dark Hunter book, but not really. More of a Were Hunter book. Vane is friends with Dark Hunters, tho. And Bride is friends with the family of girls that are featured quite a bit in this series. It is a great book to go against all the body image problems. I really liked it. I couldn't put it down at all!
Seize the Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon- Kenyon turns the villian into a hero. Very masterful. Valerius and Tabitha. We have been hating Valerius since the beginning. He gets hooked up with his enemies' wife's twin sister. We learn to love him with Tabitha.

I have enjoyed the Dark Hunter books. As soon as I can, I will be ordering more. :)

Games:
I got a Nintendo DS Lite for an early Christmas present. I got to get it now because Christmas is about watching Jesse open presents. :)

Nintendogs: A very cute game. You get to take your dogs for walks, teach them tricks and enter them into competitions.

The Sims 2 Castaway: Love it! I finished the game, but I haven't finished the collecting. It's really cool. Once you escape the island, a host of new things open up for you. You get to spear fish, dig, explore the temple, cook, forage, plant seed, hunt for bugs, make stuff, and sew clothing. I'm at 98% of stuff collected and am just waiting for some stuff to drop at my SOS sign.

Brain Age: A great game, but not something you can play for a long time. You train a little each day to make your brain work better.

My Sims: Not as good as Castaway. I haven't played it a lot, but I hope to get the strategy guide this weekend and give it a try again.

Puzzle Quest, Challenge of the Warlord: A puzzle game with a role playing element. The battles are like Bejeweled, but you and your opponent take turns on the same board. I had to retrain myself how to play the Bejeweled game. I like to set myself up for a good move on the next turn. If I do that, I'm really just setting my opponent up. :(

Sim City: I have barely scratched the surface of this game. So, I don't have much to tell you.

I want Rune Factory pretty badly! :(

I just found this game... It cracks me up! Sprung! How can I not want a game with the tagline "A game where everyone scores" LOL!!!!

For you knitters... (and for those who love a knitter...)

There is a great contest going on over at Shut up, I'm counting. Cass has made it to her 333 post. Wow! That is great! :)

And for those of you who love (or like works too) a knitter... Here is an awesome gift! I want everyone I know to send me one. :)

And again... (Warning- Vent in progress!)

I'm posting again. Mainly cuz I have something I have to get off my chest...

I am the one in charge of moving the lab into the new building. I am the one working every single day of the week. I am the one who did NOT get a vacation this year. I am the one that was here all summer... If I hear one more time about how stressed this stinkin' move is making other people that did not work all summer, only work part time now and can take off work when they want, I'm going to blow the top of my effin head off!!!!!

(That's all for now!- Back to our regularly scheduled happiness.) :)

This makes me smile. :)

Posting...

Sarah says that I need to post. She says there are all kinds of things I can talk about... I don't know.

My weeks have been crazy lately. Last week I went to NIH in Bethesda, MD to pick up some mice. One of my students is doing some behavioral testing on mice. He's looking at Bi-Polar disorder. It should be really interesting. The trip to NIH was crazy. I hate driving on the beltway. Do people really need to drive that crazy???? They have signs saying "Aggressive Driver Imaging in Use- For your safety." What exactly does that mean? Honestly, I don't think it's working.

I had to walk a lot. The NIH campus is horrible for parking. And then I had to follow this cute boy for miles. Kind of back and forth... All I can say is that at least I got to follow a cute boy (Don't tell my hubby!) LOL

This weekend was nice and relaxing. Tho, I did spend a good part of it upset with my hubby. On Friday night, I really wanted him to play World of Warcraft with me. Instead of playing with me, he took off to play with some people in our guild. It seems silly, but that upset me. He had plans all weekend (plans without me...) I don't think asking him to play a video game with me was asking too much. I am about the least needy female. I tell him to make plans to play with his friends. He goes out every Sunday to play a game with our friends. Nearly every Saturday he goes and play a war game with his friends. Most guys would love their SO to want to play video games with him... (I think what I'm trying to explain with this paragraph is that my husband is whacked in the head... I didn't hit him, honest!)

I read two books this weekend:
Lover Eternal by JD Ward and Lover Awakened by JD Ward. They were incredible books. I haven't read anything that good in a while. I stayed up until 3 am Friday night reading. I won an auction on eBay for the next two in the series. I paid for them this morning. I really hope they don't take too long to get to me...

Sunday, I made a big pot of chili. I love my chili. It's great because I know I don't have to cook the rest of the week. With it now just being the three of us again (SQUEE!), that pot will last us a while. Fred and I don't mind eating the same thing every night, but Jesse will be complaining very soon! We got tomatoes, tomato sauce and chili powder at BJ's. Fred said this will be a chili winter. Honestly, I don't mind at all. I spend all summer wishing it would get cooler so I can have chili. I did tell him that I will have to make my beef stew this winter. Beef stew takes all day because my stew meat has to practically melt in your mouth, or I'm not happy.

Okay, so I found some stuff to tell everyone... Nice.

I do have one confession to make... I haven't picked up knitting needles in a couple of weeks. I'm so failing the Secret of the Stole. :(

Meet Bigga...

This is Bigga. He's an attention hound. He doesn't understand that there are times when I am not ready to love on him.

He's very cute and cuddly. He has lots of silky fur.

This is Bigga when I am trying to sleep. (Please click link.)

Ravelry and ppl's blogs...

I finally got my Ravelry invite. I'm Devilwmn there as well. I have already joined 50 groups!!! It sucks up a lot of time. :)

I think very few people actually read my blog. Most of those that do know me in person. I read a lot of blogs. I really don't comment very often. I often feel when I comment that I'm sticking my nose into other people's business. When I was a kid, my mother's best friend had a dog that had puppies. One of the puppies was everyone's favorite, but they were pure-bred and needing the money, my mother's friend had to sell that puppy. Everyone was crying. I was with them in the car when they took the puppy to it's new home. I was crying too. I spent a lot of time there and loved that puppy just as much as everyone else. My mother's friend turned around and looked at me and said "Why are you crying? It's not your dog and you have no business being upset." I try to keep out of other's business. I find it very hard reading blogs and getting to know lots of things about people's lifes. I like to comment. Generally, I'm a pretty happy and empathetic person. I like to send my good thoughts out into the universe. Maybe the good vibes will get where they need to go. It doesn't hurt to try, right? But, every once in a while, I feel that maybe I shouldn't even be reading ppl's blogs. I had been reading a particular blog and commenting several times when the owner of the blog had a give away. I thought it was a contest like i see on several blogs. I commented. I figured if she was doing a drawing to give something away that I wanted, it wouldn't hurt... Boy was I wrong! She sent back... "What are you doing commenting on my blog. I don't even know you. This is for friends only." The thing of it is, she's a knitting designer. She had a lot of neat patterns for toys. I liked her patterns and was going to purchase some... Upon getting that email, I cancelled my bloglines subscription for her blog. I have not been back and that was a year ago. Now whenever I comment on blogs, I feel like an interloper. I'm very sad that someone could ruin it for me. :( Now I think I only regularly comment on blogs of someone who is a friend or someone that I know is okay with comments from me... Hi Chris! :) and Rhonda! :)

I've been slacking again...

I was doing so good posting for a while... Then I got busy... I'm back and am going to try to do better...

Tuesday, I took my boy to the airport. He's going to be in Kansas with his grandmother for a month. It takes me a while to get used to it. I'm usually starting to enjoy it when it's time for him to be back. LOL He had just gotten back from Boy Scout camp on Saturday afternoon. He left for Kansas a few days later. I feel like something is missing in my life. I pack my lunch in the morning and feel like I don't have something important. Normally, I cut him a piece of watermelon every morning. I go to bed at night and feel like I forgot to do something. I try to check on him when he isn't even there. :(

This is how we got him back from Scout Camp. Apparently, they didn't teach him how to duck. He was hit by a flying log. An adult leader was banging a log against a tree. (I guess to make it smaller for the camp fire.) A piece went flying and got Jesse right in the face. Luckily, nothing is broken. I just hope the log looks worse.

I was in the living room playing video games with my husband and roomate. When I got up to walk through the kitchen, I found this. I had to check to see if it was alive. Can you believe that any self respecting cat would lay like this? This creature is crazy! He's such a fat lazy cat. I love him! :)

Yesterday...

Yesterday I went to see a Midwife. I was looking for a new gyn because I'm not happy with the doctors in my area. I had been really bad and hadn't been for a couple of years. Not since I went to the health department last. I had insurance, I just didn't want to go to the gyn that did my grandmother's hysterecemy. My grandmother got a staff infection from that surgery and never really woke up again. :( So, I heard about this doctor that several of my friends really like. The doctor had a midwife that works with him. The receptionist asked me if I wanted to see her and I said "Sure, why not." I like things like that. They are unconventional by today's standards, but a way of life in the old days. That's why I like knitting and sewing so much. It's also why I heat my house with a wood stove in the winter. I have a furnace, but oil is expensive and I like the wood stove better. Not that I don't like new stuff too. I love my laptop, DVR and big flat screen tv. I love World of Warcraft, but I just like the old stuff to, so I'll pick and choice which older things I can happily live with and which I can't. :)

I don't think I've ever explained the irony of my nick. As many of you know, I'm a wiccan. Hence I don't believe in the devil. How could I? I would have to believe in the christian god in order for one of the fallen angels to exist. So, you may ask, why Devilwmn? I like the irony of it shortened like that. It's actually short for Devilish woman. With devilish ( adj. playful in an appealingly bold way; "a roguish grin" ) being an accepted word in the english language. I don't have to agree with the origin of it... :)

For Freak Knitter: This is the hair tie culprit. He's so adorable, that it hides his troublesome personality! LOL

Here's some of his most interesting pictures:

MeMe

This is my first ever MeMe... I read it on Scarlett's Blog... that makes me tagged...

Rules:

go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday month and day only. Then post 3 events, 2 births and one holiday that occurred on your birthday, then tag 5 friends

Events:

1. 1692 - A doctor in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony declares that three teenage girls are under domination of Satan, leading to the Salem witch trials.
2. 1855 - The Devil's Footprints mysteriously appear in southern Devon.
3. 2001 - Disney's California Adventure, a new Disney theme park opened in Anaheim, California.

Births:

1. 1828 - Jules Verne, French author (d. 1905)
2. 1851 - Kate Chopin, American author (d. 1904)

Holiday:

1. Nirvana Day - an annual Buddhist festival.

If you are reading this, you too are tagged... :) It's actually a lot of fun! :)

Trying something here...

So, I see all these blogs with pictures. I have never tried to put a picture on my blog. I want to. It's summer, work is slow. I think I'll give it a try. Here goes.... (wish me luck!)

I did it!!!! :) I feel so smart... s m r t!!! :) Now I have to get my digital camera and take tons of pics! But, until then, another animal pics (I have those in abudance!)

Isn't that a pretty belly button??? I always want to touch it, but Tao won't let me. :( He's such a tease...