I just want to let my readers know I’m still alive. I’m really sorry I’ve not been active on my site over the past few days. Due to the fact that the holidays are drawing near and whatnot, I’ve just been busy doing things away from my computer.

My son’s birthday is on Christmas day, so it’s a double holiday for us. Even if that weren’t the case, though, our family tends to spend lots more family time together during this time of year. It’s something that we should always do no matter what, but it seems like the fact that the holidays are here just makes us really want to hang around each other more. Having the house all decorated up helps, too. Who doesn’t like sitting around in a winter wonderland being all nice and cozy and enjoying a nice conversation with someone you love?!

Anyway, I had better get back at some other stuff. I just wanted to make sure to post something so I won’t be given up on! I will go back to posting at least once per day once things settle down a bit. PLEASE keep checking back!

I hope everyone is enjoying the season! My best wishes go out to all of you and your families.  

• I got all my Christmas cards sent out tonight! I couldn’t have done it without the help of my beautiful daughter, though. She’s the one who actually ran them to the box while I video taped her doing so. We’re a tag-team of jolliness!

• Lonnie’s in some serious dental pain again. It makes me so sad. I wish there was something I could do. The last time, he had four teeth pulled on the right side of this mouth. This time he has a molar on the bottom left that’s really bothering him. He’ll either have to get a root canal or have it pulled. Either way…ouch.

• So, I found out earlier today that Pownce will be shutting down. I cannot even begin to explain how angry this makes me, so I won’t even try. All I will say is that they are money hungry sell-outs who should be ashamed of themselves.

• I’ve decided to do Christmas Cupcakes this year instead of Gingerbread Men like I did last year. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them yet. I’m either considering a standard frosting with standard decorations on them, or I might use Fondant and do something super adorable with them. The latter method will take much more time, so I just don’t know. I have a HUGE list of people to make a cupcake for. I’ll just have to weigh the pros and cons.

• We just ran out of coffee creamer. Now I’m steamed.

• I got some women’s daily vitamins earlier tonight. Lonnie sent me to Walgreen’s to grab some for him, so I figured, “What the heck?!” and grabbed a bottle for me, too. They were on sale, so they were super cheap…err…inexpensive. They’re Walgreen’s brand, but hey - same thing as the other junk they charge out the buttocks for, right? I’ll let you know if I notice a change in energy.

• I hate it when I’m sitting on the toilet peeing and I reach over to grab some toilet paper and I suddenly notice that there’s hardly any left. So then I have an angel on one shoulder and Satan on the other. The angel is saying, “Just use the last of it and replace the roll. It’s the right thing to do.” But Satan, he’s a big jerk who’s saying, “Leave two squares on the roll so the next sucker who uses the toilet has to replace the roll!” Well, it must say something about my character that I’ve never listened to Satan. I always change the stinkin’ roll…begrudgingly, of course.

• I’m sick and tired of people thinking that my son and I are either boyfriend/girlfriend or brother/sister. I know I should take it as a compliment…blah, blah, blah. I don’t, though. I hate having to explain my relationship with strangers. What the heck business is it of theirs? Next time I’ll just say, “My boyfriend? Is that what they call pimps nowadays?”

• No, I’d never really do that. GOSH!

• Speaking of “Napoleon Dynamite”, he was on TV again last night. My son was watching it. He used to loathe the movie. Now he loves it. How does one go from hating something to loving it? My theory is that he’s heard me doing Napoleon impressions and making reference to the movie SO much that he had no choice but to watch it a couple times just to see what the heck I was on about…which resulted in his enjoyment of the movie! Mission accomplished!

• I got an email from someone asking if I would be willing to link to their site if they would link to mine. After looking at their site in detail, my thought was something like, “Mmmm…..I think I’ll pass.” It’s a gaming site. Not like the cool kind of gamers….like the Pogo type of gaming. Flash games. First of all, I rarely play those things myself, and even if I did, how the Hell is having a link to my site on a site like that going to benefit me? HE is clearly the one who would benefit from it…not me. So nah - I’ll pass. I didn’t even bother to email the guy back. Rude, perhaps. But I figured that if I emailed him, he’d email me back again with reasons why it really would work…etc. Meh…nope. Not biting.

• I ripped my French tips off again today after being on my computer for ten minutes. I don’t get it. I used to be able to go literally months with those things on and type like nobody’s business. Now when I have ‘em on, they drive me freakin’ nuts. I just can’t take it. They last two days and then BAM! I snap and rip ‘em off…which, I might add, hurts like the dickens.

• Where did the term, “Like the dickens” come from, anyway? I’m assuming it’s an English thing. Silly blokes.

• I need a coffee refill (imagine that), so I shall return briefly…

• I’m back. Don’t get too excited. You might fall backwards off your chair and break something vital…like your CPU.

• I don’t like Beck one bit.

• It’s 3:50AM right now. I swore I was going to try to get on a regular schedule today. Darn it. I blew it again.

• Maybe I should go lay down in bed and attempt to sleep. I mean, an attempt is better than nothing, right? I have to be up in a few hours to wake my daughter up for school and whatnot, though, so it just seems kinda stupid. As soon as I fall asleep, it’s time to wake up. Duh. What’s the point in that?

• Our house is 3/4 decorated for Christmas. We have so much stuff, we have to decorate in shifts. Tomorrow should be the last day and then we’ll be done. It’ll look so jolly in here that Santa, himself, would be like, “Wow. These people need to learn moderation!”

• I’m feeling so sorry for Lonnie and his pain that I’m going to get off of here and go offer him a massage or something to take his mind off his tooth pain. The poor guy. It’s like just as soon as one thing is taken care of, something else pops up. I feel so helpless. All I can do is be supportive and sympathetic. At least I’m good at those things.

• Have a wonderful day, everyone! Remember to be nice. Santa sees everything you do.

I’m going to be sending holiday cards out again this year and I want anyone who would like to get one from me to send me a message with their mailing information so that I can send one out to them. Although I’m Christian and practice Christmas, I understand that not all of my friends are, so they will be generalized holiday cards.

So anyway, if you’d like for me to add you to my mailing list, send me a quick PM with your mailing info. I’m planning to send them out around the 1st of December, so it’s best if you can get your information to me before then!       (There’s a “contact me” link under my picture in the sidebar…just click it!)BTW - I promise not to share any of your information with anyone else. I would never ever consider doing such a thing. I simply want to spread some holiday cheer!  

As I’ve been mentioning off and on for a while now, my BFF, Sarah, sent my family a Christmas package. So far you’ve seen some of the neato stuff that was in there. Well, now it’s time to show you another item!

Sarah was sweet enough to get us a bottle of wine from a winery where she lives. I took a few pictures, so here you go…

Here’s the bottle with a glass for Lonnie and a glass for me already poured:

Here’s Lonnie showing his thanks by raising his glass to the camera for Sarah…

I didn’t even realize what was in the next picture until I went to resize it so I could blog it! If you look closely, you can see Patrick Swayze peeking around Lonnie! …

Lastly, here’s my dorky-ass self raising my glass…

Thank you again for the tasty bottle of wine, Sarah! Lonnie and I really enjoyed it. It was such a lovely way for us to wind down and relax for a change. :D:

As I’ve already posted, Sarah sent the family a care package for Christmas! I still cannot get over her generosity and total sweetheartedness. Yeah - that’s a word because I say it’s a word!

So anyway, she sent me a little purse that’s just so flippin’ cute! Last night was the first time I had a chance to use it. (I’m a hermit…I hate leaving home.) I took it with me on our anniversary date! It’s just so damned cute and handy! I hate big purses, so this was the perfect gift for me!

Thank you again, Sarah! I Love You!Here’s a picture of my dorky self right before we left to head to the movie theater last night…

I totally dig the purse!! It’s Karen sized! w00t!

(Sarah sent a bunch of other stuff, too…which I will be blogging individually like I did this one. )

I figured I’d better post something since I’ve got this blog still.  I kinda slacked off on the whole blogging thing. With the holidays and everything else going on, I just haven’t felt up to being such a consistent blogger. I still blog nearly daily over on MyOpera, but that’s different. I just kinda chat and blab about whatever’s going on at that time…nothing too profound or personal.

I’ve been working on the website I’m creating. I’ve got the logo and tagline taken care of. Next comes the layout. I am thinking I will go with a Web 2.0 look. Simple yet fun and easy to navigate. It seems as though that’s the hip thing lately, so I might as well follow suit. I also have my Master’s Degree in Web 2.0, so I might as well put it to use!

I have a sore throat once again. This time it doesn’t feel like one of those temporary “I just woke up and ouch” kinda things. It feels like the beginning of a cold. Bah! I haven’t had a cold in like two years…I don’t want one. Especially not right before Christmas. That would suck ass to be ill while Christmas shopping and then during the actual festivities. Not a very good way to spend the holidays. I’ll do whatever I can to nip this in the bud!

Speaking of buds, my Tulips are opening very nicely! They’re so beautiful. I still need to take more pictures of them as they look now. The original picture I have doesn’t do them justice. They were still cold at that point. They are now totally settled in and warmed up and saying, “Hello, Karen! Here we are!” Yay! I love them so much!

My brother’s birthday was yesterday. I called him, but got his voicemail. Luckily, I had sent him an e-card the night before, so at least I don’t come off as totally uncaring. I left a message, but he’s a busy guy, so who knows if he listened to it yet or not. He has a really high stress job…I honestly don’t know how he does it. It boggles my mind how two people born of the same parents can be so entirely different. He is very, very assertive and a born leader. I, on the other hand, am overly submissive and mousy, and a natural follower. I mean, I can be a leader in some situations, but in general, I’m happy following others. Oddly enough, most people who only know me on the Net think I’m full of shit when I say that. I come off as pretty assertive and confident on the Net, I guess. *shrugs* I guess I am to a certain degree. It’s kind of easy to have a feeling of false confidence when you can hide behind a monitor, ya’ know? If any of these people were to meet me in person, though, they would be like, “Um, who are you and where is Karen?” I’m super-duper shy and usually pretty soft-spoken…although my laugh is quite a belly laugh. Not one of those annoying laughs like Janice on friends…just a jolly kind of laugh, I guess. Hard to explain. If you’ve heard my GabCast thingies, then you know what I mean…I think. Hmmm….I can’t remember if I did more than giggle on those. I tend to do that a lot when I’m nervous -which I was when I recorded those things. I hate my voice and I hate talking when I know shitloads of people are hearing me. So yeah - I was a ball of nerves! But at least I didn’t chicken out! Yay for that!

Well, I’m going to go call my friend, Jenn now. I’m very worried about her. They had a winter storm where she lives and her power went out. She ended up having to stay in a hotel last night because her house got to be too cold to stay there. I’m worried because I know Jenn like I know myself. If she had access to the Net, she would be on here right now talking to me…or at least emailing me to let me know she’s okay. The hotel had WiFi, so she must not be there anymore…and if she were at home, she’d have the Net, too. I hope she didn’t end up having to go back home to her cold house because the hotel room was previously reserved or something. Oh no! I didn’t think of that ’til now. Now I’m frantically worried. I don’t want her to freeze to death, damn it. She could also get really sick being in those temps for too long. I gotta go call her before I freak out and give myself an ulcer….