What the heck is up with that?? It’s 79 degrees outside according to my iPhone’s weather widget.  Where the hell did winter go??

We had to turn on our a/c because due to our vaulted ceilings throughout the house (which, by the way, I do not ever recommend to anyone – ever) and shoddy air circulation, it’s currently 82 degrees in my office/den, where I am currently sitting and contemplating finishing the last few tasks for work (telecommute day).  And the fact that my 24″ LCD monitor gives off quite a bit of heat probably doesn’t help my room temperature much.  I don’t know what is up with that.  I can put my hand up in front of it a couple inches away and feel the heat radiating off of it. 

Anyway… I know all you in the frigid climates may be jealous of the temperatures here.  But honestly, I’d rather it be 30-40 degrees cooler right now, it’s too early for this kind of weather!!

We see these all over the place where I live. Short, tall, skinny, wide, no arms, dozens of arms… Did you know it is illegal do do any damage to these plants, even if you own one? You cannot just go out and dig one up out of the desert and plant it in your yard, not only because of how large and heavy saguaros are, but even if they’re teeny tiny and could put it in a small pot, if you have one without having purchased it through a licensed grower, you can find yourself in some very hot water.

If you decide to shoot one full of bullet holes in a drunken stupor, and get caught, you will be fined. I think you can even be fined if you hit one accidentally with your car!

Anyway, I just thought I would try out a new service I found via some other bloggers’ postings about a site that you can find licensed pictures where you can link to the blog images free for your blogs. I like this idea – I like being able to post photographs on my blog without the hassle of having to upload them somewhere, not to mention doing any resizing and optimization beforehand – this place does it all for you! AcoBox.com

So, will my luck hold out?  Or will I have to trek down and sit all day to see if I get called for a jury?

On the one hand it would be intersting to sit on a jury, depending on the case; on the other, my husband’s schedule will be changing soon – like next week – and if the case runs too long, I may not be able to attend and still drop off/pick up my daughter from preschool.  I guess it just depends on what time they would expect jurors to be present at the court each day and when we’d be released.

And on yet another hand – I tend to get bored easily if I’m sitting around, and when I get bored doing nothing, I have a big tendency to get sleepy and drift off into snoozeville.  It happened a lot in high school and college, and I nod off on the commute to work since I’m not driving… so I don’t think I’d be a good fit for a jury.  Can you imagine?  Some poor sap is giving their testimony and I’m sitting there unconsious and drooling on my shirt and end up getting fined by the court for falling asleep.  Yeah, I am so hoping I either get dismissed tonight or if I do have to go to the courthouse, they find their jurors before they even need to call me in.

Now my back hurts, my feet hurt and the sciatica in my right side is acting up – all for about 15 minutes of work!  Ugh.  Oh, and I have dirt wedged into the creases on my fingers, mostly my right thumb and index finger where the skin is a little rough, that I can’t get out with a scrub brush.  Bah.

We need to scrounge up the money to have the landscapers give the place a once over, and then to have the pest control company spray the yard with the industrial strength death for weeds so we don’t have to worry about those darn things for a while.  Having rock landscaping in the front has it perks (i.e. no grass to mow) but still makes it fairly easy for weeds to take hold.

I have seen these Space Bags advertised on televsion and have seen them at the local super store, and have considered picking up a couple of them to try out, particularly for the loads of clothes I have currently stashed in those big plastic totes, waiting to either be given away or set up at a yard sale.  But it looks like there is a better deal if you order these Space Bags  online – 7 bags for $19.95 plus shipping & handling.  That’s a pretty good deal, considering I have seen them selling only two or three of the medium or large bags in the stores for the same price!

They are a good way to store all your winter clothes until they’re needed again next season, especially the bulky sweaters, blankets and coats that would ordinarily stuff your closets.  So if you’re looking for something to help save you some closet space – or even to be able to shove them under your bed to make cozy with the dust bunnies – go check out the Space Bags at that site to get seven of them for $19.95 + S & H.

Please see her page at this link to read about it.  

I already wrote to both my state’s Senators and my Congressman.

My husband got me seasons 1 & 2 for Christmas.  I zipped through those and had to buy season 2 on Amazon (it was only $19.99, whereas at the stores it’s more like $40), and then once I was done with that, since it’s currently on the season 4 run so I can’t get it on DVD, I bought a season pass for that on iTunes and am already caught up and waiting for the next episode… which doesn’t air until January 15!!  Agh!  Whatever am I going to do until then??  I may replay the episodes from this season again, or maybe start over on season 3, I’m not sure yet.

I’d forgotten how much I liked that show until I started watching it again when hubby got them for me for Christmas.  We used to watch Smallville a lot too but stopped watching it around the same time as we stopped watching Supernatural, and while I do have some of the later seasons of that on HD and BluRay, I haven’t been watching them since I am feeling like that show is probably getting too hokey and probably jumped the shark once Lex & Lana left – and I haven’t even seen the episodes when that happens yet!  I’ve read here and there on the show’s website about some of the stuff going on currently, and it just seems… Meh.  I am wondering if it should have ended back when it was originally rumored to have been ending… like at the end of season 5.

My husband’s work schedule will be changing in a couple of weeks, he’ll be going back to swing shift so there will be a few days where we only see each other while we’re at work for a couple of hours but not at home since I’ll be asleep by the time he gets home.  And the Kiddo won’t even see him at all those days unless I let her give him a goodbye kiss in the morning while he sleeps.

On the plus side he’ll be getting 5% differential, which is good since there are rumours that no one is getting a raise at all this year, which I think is stupid but that’s for another post.  And he’ll get three days off from work again, plus won’t see much of his boss – who he hates – since he’ll be coming in about three hours before the boss leaves for the day.

Unfortunately this means no more carpooling for me, so I won’t be able to snooze on the way into work.  On the other hand, I’ll be able to go back to telecommuting once a week again, which will be nice and help save on gas.  And as long as the gas prices don’t skyrocket again we’ll actually see the benefit of the extra 5% of his pay rather than it all being drained away in the gas tank.

My iPod nano will be happy as it’ll be getting used again during my drive to and from work since I don’t have satellite radio in my car and let’s face it… regular radio is pretty lacking these days.

Anyway, I’ll probably be donning my headphones tomorrow as I’ll be working from home, too.  My poor cats are going to going to be slinking around the house looking for a good hiding spot.  I may be nice and open up the Kiddo’s room so they can hide under her bed, I haven’t decided yet.

Let’s cross our fingers that they don’t have to open up any walls.

I thought those went the way of the dinosaurs with the birth of the internet and the new way to do pyramid schemes, but apparently that is not so.

A couple months back I got a bulky letter in the mail, addressed directly to ME, with my current married name.  I opened it, and what do I find?  One of those stupid pyramid chain letters, only this one “claims” because they use a certain phrase in it, that it is now perfectly legal, and there are only like six peoples’ names on the list for you to send money to.

Of course if you want to participate, you have to cough up the money to buy a mailing list.  Then cough up more money for all of the envelopes you will need, not to mention the costs for copying ten thousand copies of the letter, and then even more money to buy stamps to mail them all out!

I got another one of these Thursday!

I can’t believe people still try these things.  I guess the hope is that if they send it out to enough people, if a small fraction of those people participate, at the very least that person may get their investment back, but hopefully more.

Bah!  I am in the bunch of people who just throw those stupid things away and curse the company that sold my address to these idiots.  You have wasted your $1-$1.50 on me, people.  Because I really don’t think my trash can is going to send you or any of the other people on your list a dollar.