Brian just summoned me over to his cube. He just got back from San Diego, CA and had a gift for me. Its a stuffed toy of Shamoo (the Killer Whale) and her baby. They pull apart by a string and the baby vibrates and comes back to her mamma and they kiss! Sooo cute :-) The thing I REALLY like about this toy is the vibrating feature… set it in my lap and I’ll get a nice thrill. ;-) woohoo!

I spent a good hour on the phone with MSN Tech Support this morning trying to help me solve my constant dropped connections. Sigh. We've tried everything short of 1) getting a new modem and 2) checking for dirty phone lines. Lovely. I don't know what the deal is but its like a quest... will try a new modem next. I'll get a better one than I've got so I won't feel so bad if it doesn't solve the problem totally. At least it will rule that problem out. I've been having problems sending replies and forwards and even new messages at times through MSN. So, I followed the instructions on the "patch" which involved uninstalling MS Office 97, installing the erase registry program, then re-installing MS Office. Well folks, it didn't work! I'm tired of talking to tech support so I'll call them on another day. Tired of messing with this bloody thing! Seems like I've been sitting here in front of my PC all day long. I felt like crap this morning and forced myself to work out. Glad I did - felt somewhat better after. :-) What is it about working out that makes a person feel so good? Must be the endorphins and getting all the toxins out of the body by sweating.

Seems my body is under attack again by the Rhuematoid Arthritis monster. I've been achier this past week than I have been for the last month. :-( Still no 'severe' flare ups, but I'm starting to wonder if my medication isn't working as well as another could. Sigh. I go to the doc the first part of March so I'll have a chat with him. He wasn't 100% pleased with this medication at the last visit, but we decided to wait another 6 weeks to see if I would continue to improve. This is only the first of many disease modifying meds I can try.

Where did this week go? I think I blinked and missed it! Nothing too exciting happened at work, just kept busy and unfortunately out of trouble. I need to go shopping and see what fun pranks I can find to play. My friend Robin and I are going to Salt Lake next Friday to see a psychic. We saw her about a year ago and really liked her. She does palm reading and numerology as well as the Terot cards. There's something special about her - not like a lot of psychics out there. I know I can't plan my life around what they say, but she gave a lot of good insight to my life last year. Will be interesting to see what she sees this year. :-) Yesterday, Linda and I played hooky from work. We took the afternoon off and went to lunch then to a movie. We saw "I am Sam". It was a great movie - lot of humor, yet a lot of heart. Better movie than I thought it would be. Sean Penn should definitely win an award for this performance. Spent the day today doing my usual cleaning, then ran some errands and took Mom to lunch. It was a nice day out. :-) I came home and called the travel agent at work to see what she could find for me as far as flights for England! Woohoo! She may not get back to me until Monday though - since they do 'personal' travel as they can. I'm well on my way!!!

I spent the day cleaning and de-cluttering my bedroom. I started on my room, then needed some extra storage space and that led me to the storage room where I had a bunch of old clothes stored. 3 HUGE garbage sacks full of clothes later, I had lots of room! Wow - had no idea I had that many clothes in there. The wardrobe is still 1/2 full of clothes that I will keep... the rest is now filled up with other stuff :-) I went through my curio cabinet and shelves and got rid of several items that held no value or sentiment. The Beanie Babies are packed up in a box where they are safe and won't collect any more dust. Now I'm gonna go crash!

What a lovely weekend its been! We actually hit 38 F yesterday and today was 40! Mostly sunny and a bit overcast, but not bad. I even washed my dirty, grimy car today. Why is it every time I wash my car, a storm decides to come through? I think the universe doesn't like me to have a clean car! Humph. I started to be ambitious today. I feel the need to get rid of some clutter in my bedroom. I started with my bookcase and that's where I ended. I had grand plans to clean my bedroom from corner to corner has fizzled, but I may still get in the mood tomorrow. 4-Day weekends are so great :-) I need more of them... everyone does!

Well, the day that almost every single person dreads is here. Yup, Valentines' Day. I don't dread it although it would be nice to have a real Valentine all my own to celebrate with. So, I concentrate on the people I have in my life that care about me and that I care about. :-) There was a bit of a ripple with my sister Kathy this past week. I changed internet providers over the weekend - Mom had an e-mail on my account and I told her to forward her stuff to a hotmail account, so she did. I got the new e-mail all set up for her and she was happy. I get home on Monday and Mom tells me that Kathy is on the war path and is VERY angry with me for deleting her e-mail account. HUH??!! I had NO clue she had an e-mail on MY internet account. I felt really bad. Kathy, of course, thought I did it on purpose. How would I know?! She never gave me her e-mail and I never asked. I thought she had a free sort of e-mail Kinda hard to do something on purpose when I didn't know about it. I think I have a right to be pissed that she got into my account and created herself an e-mail. But I'll keep my mouth shut about it. I know one thing: with my new internet provider, she has to have my password to create a new account and she's not getting it. But then she probably won't ask. She has a computer of her own as well as a phone line! She's just too lazy to hook it all up after all her moving around the past year. Maybe this will give her some incentive to set it up. Sheesh! OK, enough bitching about her. The work week is finally over! Woohoo! AND I've got a bonus, a 4-day weekend! It better be good cuz its the last one until Memorial Day weekend. Oh, I take that back... I'll have a 8 or 9 day weekend when I go to England! :-D First vacation I've taken in about 10 years (holiday weekends not included).

Sandi is on a kick about pairing me up with a guy here at work. She’s so funny… this is an extremely nice guy, but he just doesn’t do it for me (but she thinks he would definitely ‘do it for me’) *snicker*. Hmmm… I’m not going to go there. She had a meeting with this man this morning, and she kept ‘spacing off’ and thinking all sorts of things that he and I could do together, now that’s scary. She didn’t elaborate on exactly what she was thinking, but I got the idea. Work has been crazy this week. Financials. Need I say more?! My brain is fried! Must go shopping this afternoon to get some Valentines for my loved ones. I can’t believe I spaced it off… not like me to leave things to the last minute, well – OK, its not the ‘last minute’ but close enough.

I watched the Olympic Opening Ceremonies Friday night... from the TV of course... and I thought they were done well. I didn't like the 'artsy' type stuff, but seeing all the atheletes from all over the world gave me goose bumps. The most incredible part of the show, was of course, the flag of the World Trade Center that they recovered. I had tears rolling down my face as the flag was brought out, as did many others, I'm sure.

Yesterday was bliss. The only ambitious thing I did was work out. I managed to look through my guidebook of Great Britain and have an idea of what I want to see while I'm there, just need to find out if its do-able, then a plan will be set. :-D The sun has been shining brightly but its still been quite cold. I'm tired of the cold. Burrr! Plans for today: work out, laundry, and vegging. Trying to get into the mind set of going back to work tomorrow isn't going to be easy.

Whew! What a day... I got up early, got my cleaning done, spent 2 hours at the new optomitrist. He was very thorough, which impressed me. He dialated my eyes, which I hate but know it was necessary. The reason I went is because my vision has been blurring when I read, and one of the medications I take could effect the vision so I wanted to make sure everything was OK. The Opthamologist I went to in October was supposed to do a full base-line exam before I started taking this medication. Well, come to find out today that that doctor didn't do the FULL exam... I was supposed to have a vision field exam as well, and he didn't do it. I was (and still am) pissed about that. I have to go back to this new doc next week for the vision field exam. Until then, he's given me some new contacts to try thinking that its only a change in my vision and need for new contacts. Kinda what I thought but being the worry-wart that I am, I had to have it checked out. After the eye doc, I went to the county offices and submitted my passport papers! WOOOOHOOOO! England, here I come! Should I warn them?? tee hee My friends that I will be visiting know full well what I'm like and they still want me to come. More of the dream coming a reality!!! I spent the next 2 hours going to the mall, pharmacy, Sam's Club, video store, post office, grocery store and dairy. Then I came home and changed internet providers. Tired of AT&T disconnecting me all the time and the monthly charge doubled and the # of hours dropped by half and they didn't tell me. Pissed me off so I changed to MSN. Hopefully they'll be better... at least they can't drop the number of hours cuz now I've got unlimited... now I may be on this thing more than ever now! When I got home, I got the best surprise. Everyone has cleared out for the weekend (they went to Idaho) leaving me all by myself! Yes, I jumped up and down for joy and screamed YAHOOOO! I haven't had solitude like this for over 18 months. I'm sooooo excited!! Must dos this weekend: 1. Look at the Great Brittan Guide that P&E got me for Xmas and decide what I want to see while I'm over there. 2. Look up something called Leaky Gut Syndrome. My friend gave me an article that said it could be linked to causing Rhuematoid Arthritis. 3. Whatever the hell I want. :-D

Been bad at blogging this week. Been going through some strange emotional roller coaster ride and not sure what caused it – whether its lunar or physical or all of the above. I’m starting to come out of it now, mostly thanks to great friends who listen to me babble like an idiot and give me encouragement to go forward. I hate being so emotional and not knowing why – it’s a total waste of my time. I’d rather be using the energy for good and fun than being a basket case. Getting my hair cut and blonded again tonight, that will make me feel a little better, cover that gray that keeps sprouting up. I’ve inherited my Mom’s genes of going gray early. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I’ve got an eye doc appt to check some blurriness going on, then I’m putting in my papers for my passport for my trip to England! WOOHOO! This weekend I’ll be sorting out where and what I’ll be seeing while I’m there. My dream of going is becoming a reality! :-D

Survived the birthday festivities. It turned out to be nicer than I had imagined. One aunt and cousins didn't show, which I didn't feel bad about, but thought it was rude they didn't at least call before to let Mom know so she didn't make so much food. We had a Mexican Fiesta dinner. Mom made my favorite, (yup, you got it) Cheese Enchiladas. :-) They were quite good - sauce homemade, not from a can. Yum. The rest of the troups will be coming today for sure to pick my other aunt (who's staying here) up on their way back to Idaho... so we'll probably feed them leftovers. Mom also made me a cheese cake. It was so delicious - depsite the fact that I had her use 'fat free' cream cheese, no one knew except her and I. All my brothers and sisters came over, and 4 nieces, 1 nephew, and one great-niece. Everyone was gone by 7:30 so I was able to enjoy the rest of my evening being a slug. I was a bit more ambitious yesterday than I'd planned on, but it turned out to be a nice day, although I feel really old now. Everyone calls me 'just a baby' but that's just because they're older than I am. My 7 year-old niece asked me how old I was, and her eyes bulged out of her head when I told her. Still a few less than 40 though, that's the bright side of things.

Well, OK... today is my birthday. I was hoping for a relatively low-key dinner and perhaps some cheesecake. Well, it seems to have turned into a circus. My two aunts have travelled from Idaho (not for my birthday, but for other reasons). One aunt is staying here and the other will be staying with her daughter. Mom has invited everyone possible to dinner and dessert. Can I crawl in a hole and hide??? Its not that I'm ungrateful for people wanting to celebrate my birthday with me, I'm just not up for all these people around! I guess the one plus side to this, is no one is coming over until this evening so I have all day today to hide out. My plans include: going back to bed and watching the shows I taped during the week and watching some movies that I rented. Then, I'll watch the Best of Friends Volumes 3 & 4 that E and P gave me for my b-day. Thanks!! :-D I've already watched American Pie 2 (funny as hell) and Rat Race (also funny - but different humor than AP2). I've got two left to watch: Evolution and What's the Worst that Can Happen.

Its Saturday already... don't know where the last couple of days have gone. Happy Groundhog's Day! I hope the little fella doesn't see his shadow, but here in Utah... he will I'm sure. Its sunny (but still damn cold) without a cloud in the sky... so that means no early Spring. Crap.