• Things are going really well lately. The weather is beautiful, the flowers are blooming, people seem happier, and everyone in my family is getting along really well. I certainly cannot complain!

• I’ve been playing a game called Animal Crossing on the Gamecube lately. I absolutely adore that game. It’s not only sooo cute, but it’s just so much fun! I’ve not got it hooked up to the Net, but I can imagine it’d be even more fun if it were.

• I dyed my Mom’s hair earlier. It turned out really nice. Better than usual for some reason. I think they changed their formula or something because the color of the dye when it was in the bottle was orange instead of the usual brown. Thank God her hair didn’t turn out orange! Hahaha     

• I’m now a Moderator of the Beta Testers Group on MyOpera. This happened a while back, but it’s been so long that I’ve written anything on my site; I’m catching up.

• Not only am I a Mod, but one of the Mods of the site contacted me and asked me to write up a quote as to why I like My.Opera so much…and also to include a picture. They are making a brochure and they want to include me in it. How incredibly awesome is that?! Seriously!!! I know it might not mean much to many, but to me it’s a huge honor.

• Lonnie is in bed behind me snoring right now. Poor guy. He’s been drumming for the church three days a week…and then another church in our area was basically begging for a drummer, so he offered his services to them as well. He’s been not only busting his ass with work, but he’s also been spending SO much time between the two churches. He’s flat-out exhausted.

• Our landlord came and rototilled a huge section of our yard the other day, so now it’s time to plant that garden. I dislocated my shoulder about two weeks ago which resulted in massive pain and a condition that I cannot remember the name of. So I cannot be out there using the ho or anything like that. It’s a total bummer. I was SO looking forward to doing all of that by myself. But now I’m going to have to rely on my family to help me.     I hate that. Oh well…once it’s been hoed up, I can plant the seeds and starter plants, water it, pull weeds, and all that sort of thing. I just have to take it easy with my shoulder.

• My feet are absolutely frozen solid. I can’t even believe how cold they are. I mean, they’re usually cold, but this is ridiculous!

• I’ve been playing a game on Facebook called Farm Town. Holy cow!!! I love it! It is SO much fun. If you have Facebook, I really recommend trying it out. It’s a bit addicting, but in a totally fun and harmless way.     

• I suppose I’ll wrap it up for now. I have some things I’ve got to do…like tend to my farm in Farm Town, catch up on My.Opera alerts, do some Photoshopping, and do a bunch of other junk. Have a terrific day!!!

I got my Opera prizes in the mail today!
As I’m sure you can imagine, I was totally
bouncin’ off the walls stoked when I
saw the package!Here’s me being overjoyed in my new t-shirt…
I thought I was only getting a t-shirt.
I was wrong! I got some tasty candy, too!
Too bad I’m on a diet…trying to lose my
flabbiness! I’ll save it for a later date.

Here’s a picture of the candy…

• It snowed all day yesterday!!! I was so stoked. Too bad I felt too lazy to take pictures.      I don’t even have one picture to show for it.

• The Master Cleanse thing went well. Now I’m back to eating and feeling much more energized. I’m still not sleeping as I should be, but it doesn’t seem to be taking as much out of me as it did prior to the cleanse. Don’t worry, though…I’ve not given up on the idea of getting a full night’s sleep every night. That’s my next big step…a sleep schedule.

• I need to call my brother. I feel like such a jerk. His birthday was on the 11th and I was going to call him, but none of us could find his number. Well, my Mom got it from my Dad later that night and I had planned to call John (my brother) the next day, but I have yet to do so. Really good sister I turned out to be.   I will call him today.

• I am SO enjoying the Christmas card exchanging I’ve been doing with my friends over on My.Opera. I get at least one card in the mail every single day…most days two or more! I will save all of ‘em forever, too. I’m sentimental like that.

• I HATE to say this, but I feel less festive this year than I did last year. Last year I was dressin’ like Mrs. Clause, baking constantly, listening to nothing but Christmas music, I didn’t go anywhere without my Santa hat…etc. I feel jolly this year, but less jolly. I’m not sure why. I hate it, though! I need to step it up and get my jolly on! It’s not too late to change it. That’s my new goal. Be more jolly ’til the big day!

• I’m still using my Voss bottle. I love the thing. I wash it out all the time with dish soap, so it’s not like it’s all crusty or something. It’s the perfect amount of water for me, though.

• I need to buy more flossers. I’ve only got a couple left…which is like a catastrophe waiting to happen for me! I floss at least twice a day!

• BTW - if you want some free DenTek samples, go HERE and sign up and they will hook you up with stuff. I got free flossers that way!  

• I’m eating a pear now. Mmm…love those things.

• Mmmm…..juicy.

• Oh man, that was sooo good. Not eating for a few days really makes the flavor of stuff much more bold. It’s pretty cool, really.

• My daughter is at home today. She’s got a cold…sore throat, congestion, fever…all that fun stuff. It happens almost every year around this time. She just doesn’t do well with the season change. Poor kid.  She’ll be just fine, though.

• I’m freezing so I just put Lonnie’s robe on over my clothes. Hehe…he hates it when I wear his junk. It’s just so cozy and big, though. I like wearing his robe…it’s like wearing a giant cozy blanket!

• I need to go work on a project now, so I’ve gotta wrap this up. I hope everyone is doing well and will keep on coming back to my site! Thanks for droppin’ by.    :)

• If I make a butt-load of mistakes while typing this, I have a valid reason. No, I’m not tanked up. I don’t drink. I put these new French tips on my nails last night…they’re longer than usual, so I’m typing at a fraction of the speed I’d normally type AND I’m making tons of mistakes. Oh well. At least my hands look pretty .

• Nobody will EVER be able to hear the song “Everybody’s Workin’ For The Weekend” by Loverboy again without seeing Chris Farley doing his Chip n’ Dales thing.     He single handedly ruined that one for Loverboy…although I’d much prefer to picture good ol’ Farley than the dudes from Loverboy.

• Lonnie’s pulling an all-nighter tonight, so I’m going to do my best to stay up, too. I feel too guilty sleeping while he’s working all night. He doesn’t expect me to stay up - its’ just how I am.

• I’m sucking down coffee like it’s going out of style. Hopefully I’ll help.

• I love my new desktop. I LOVED my last one, so I was sad to see it go, but now that I’m doing this whole Desktop Thursday thing, I have to change it weekly. I normally would, anyway….unless I have one I really adore like last week’s. That’s okay. It’ll make the rounds again sometime in the future.

• I’m using OneNote to compose this again.  :swoon:

• I keep applying clear coat to my French tips. I’m afraid all the clicking on my keyboard will wear the white down. So I apply like two coats of clear coat per day. Better safe than sorry…although I only paid $3.57 for them at Sally Beauty Supply AKA my new home away from home.

• I love you, Sarah! xoxox

• Just had to say that. She’s not been online too much lately and I miss her lots. For those of you who don’t already know, we have declared that we’re each other’s wives. Yes, that’s right. We’re cyber married. If it’s good enough for these prepubescent little twits on MySpace, it’s good enough for us.    :P

• Yes, Lonnie is aware of the marriage to Sarah. He just rolls his eyes at it.    :lol:    Let him laugh…whatever. GOSH!

• The “toys” they give you in Cracker Jacks anymore are freakin’ pathetic. I demand a REAL toy!!!

• We bought 60 lemons, a jar of Cayenne Pepper, and a jar of 100% pure Maple syrup last night. We’re going to start the Master Cleanse Diet the day after tomorrow. I cannot wait! I’m SO excited!!! It’s FINALLY happening!!! I’m going to keep a log on how I feel and everything. Just thinking about it is making me feel sooooooooo flippin’ excited!

• My daughter is already buggin’ me to decorate for Christmas. We decorate on the weekend after Thanksgiving….alaways have. I told her that, but she thinks we need to change tradition. I explained to her that if we change traditions, the house might spontaneously combust, so we’ve gotta stay on schedule. She looked at me and said, “Gimme a flippin’ break, Mom. I’m 10, not retarded!”      Where the heck does she get that mouth?!?!

• My tailbone’s bothering me. I have arthritis in it from about 5 years ago when I fell down the stairs and broke it. It acts up once in a while. I guess these are one of these times. I need to go ask Lonnie to kiss my ass. Hehe

• Holy balls of crap! Now Lonnie’s playing Flock of Seagulls - “I Ran”. If he keeps it up, I’m going to be the one running…down the street in my t-shirt whilst screaming, “SAVE ME!!!”

• I’m so stoked that Lonnie’s been using his My.Opera account lately. I hope he’ll actually stick with it. I am certainly not holding my breath.

• BTW - If you would like a Christmas/holiday card from me, let me know and I will get your addy from you and mail you one. I want to break a personal record this year of how many I sent. I normally send quite the fist full, but I REALLY want to spread the cheer this year!!! So, seriously…..if you would like to be added to the list, just say the word, I’ll give you my email address where you can send me your mailing address and I will send a card! I promise to keep your address secret. I’m not the type to go blabbin’ that type of info. I respect people’s privacy just as though it is my own. Scout’s honor!

• Oh my. Now it’s “Karma Chameleon” - Culture Club. I’m not ashamed (although I should be) to admit that I actually like this song! Hahahaa

• Holy crapola! Sir-Mix-A-Lot?!?!?!!?! “Buttermilk Biscuits”!!! Hells yeah! Hahhahaaha…I love this song!

• Okay, time to wrap this mo-fracky up. Thank you so much to all of you who read my blog so religiously. I can’t tell you how excited I get when I get on my computer in the morning, open my Outlook, and see that I’ve got new comments on here. I immediately get all giddy and then race over here to see what was said. The fact that anyone wants to read what I have to say boggles my mind…and the fact that you keep coming back is truly touching. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! I love you guys!!!

Does 1:00 in the morning count as the buttcrack of dawn or is that a little bit later in the morning? I like the term ‘buttcrack of dawn’, so whether that’s technically what it is right now or not, I’m going with it for my title.

Once again, I’m using OneNote to compose my Random Randomness© in. I’ve used it SO many times over the past three days. I’ve stored recipes in it, used it to save Google search results, television schedules, movie information….just so much stuff. I absolutely LOVE this program. I totally cannot believe I’ve had it this whole time and didn’t even know what it was. I’m going to be going through all my Microsoft crap tomorrow (errr…later today) to see what other goodies I’ve got hiding!

Tomorrow (later today since it’s just after 1AM) is my fasting day. My buddy, Matthew, and I fast every single Monday. I admit I accidentally skipped a Monday, but I’ve been pretty good about it. I know Matthew has been doing well also. He’s also been doing his whole Yoga/Push-ups/Sit-Ups thing, so he’s turning into a real Tony Little…minus all the annoyance.

I finally got smart and typed out a ginormous list of different lines of HTML code that I use daily and saved it in OneNote. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve already saved myself. Instead of typing all this lengthy code out all the time, now all I do is open up my OneNote HTML notebook, copy the code I need, and paste it wherever it’s going! Zap! Quick, fast, and in a hurry! I cannot believe it took me all this time to finally bother doing it. I’ve been threatening to for a few years now. Yes…Y-E-A-R-S. I put most procrastinators to shame!

I’ve been drinking a tumbler of tea every night for the past few nights. It’s a really lovely way to wind down. I’ve been going with the Vanilla Chai flavor from the folks over at Bigelow. It’s really very tasty. I enjoy the hell out of it.

When Lonnie and I met with our daughter’s teacher at our parent/teacher conference, I made sure to ask what the school’s policies are with the children bringing home baked goodies to school. The last school our daughter went to had a strict NO HOME BAKED GOODIES!!! rule. Apparently they were freakishly paranoid about one of the kids bringing poisoned treats to school or something. Well, I was informed by my daughter’s teacher that there is no such rule at this school!!! I got SO excited. I told the teacher to be expecting a lot of super cute cupcakes to come her way.

It’s been so nice to finally see Lonnie get a little active with My.Opera. He posted some stuff on his blog the other night. It wasn’t only good to see him on there because he’s never on there and I enjoy his company….it was also nice to see him on there doing something other than work. He’s such a work-a-holic. I knew that’s how he was when we got together, so I do my best not to bring it up or gripe about it….that’s a lot easier said than done sometimes.

Wow…I just got struck with a GIANT wave of grogginess!!! That’s good. If I were smart, I’d get off of here immediately and go lay down. Too bad I’m a complete moron when it comes to this stuff. I drive poor Lonnie insane with the avoiding the doctor bit.

I wasn’t going to, but I think I really am going to lay down this time. I’m feeling more and more groggy….and like my body is essentially shutting down. I’d rather be in the horizontal position when that occurs.

Apparently the time has come to Nominate Your My.Opera Favorites.

By Friday November 21st (my Dad’s birthday!) nomination will close and finalists in each category will be publicly announced. Same as last year, we will rely on community vote, and voting will begin Monday November 24th and last for two weeks. We will provide everyone with cool banners and graphics they can put on their blog/site to increase their winning chances.

Last year they printed diplomas for the winners, but this year they’ve gone a bit farther and have something more cool: Moods of Norway Opera t-shirts!

They are exclusive t-shirts you can’t buy in any store.Category: Community
• Best Blog By A Male
• Best Blog By A Female
• Best Group
• Top Photographer
• Best Picture In A Photo Album
• Best Blog DesignCategory: Opera
• Best Opera Blog
• Biggest Opera Fan
• Most Helpful Opera Forum Member

So there we have it. Now we just need to think our nominations out pretty well prior to voting. Of course, I’m not going to lie and say that I’d not be THRILLED to win one or more of the categories, but I will be genuinely happy for whomever does win.Now I’ve got some real contemplating to do - as I’m sure the rest of you do as well.

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!

On one level or another, I truly believe that each and every one of us is worthy of one or more of these awards. There are just so many good people here on My.Opera.

Good luck, everyone!  Love you guys!