Confessions.

I really like musicals.

I really like soundtracks from musicals.

And when I'm the only one in the office, as has been the case for the past two days, I rock the musical soundtracks all day long. I also sing along. 

I try not to sing too loudly, though, because these walls are pretty thin, and I don't want the people at the family ministry next door to hear my private concerts. It's like singing in your car; you don't want everyone to hear you, and that's why you do it there. 

In the rotation today:

Wicked

Spring Awakening

Hairspray

Lea Michele's rendition of On My Own

P.S. One of my new goals is to meet Lea Michele. That girl seriously rocks On My Own like no other. (Also, does anyone else think in that video she looks more like a girl disguised as a Jedi, rather than a girl disguised as a Revolutionary from Les Mis?)

Project 365.

So here's a sampling of pictures I've taken for 365 so far. I've decided I'm not posting every picture, as about a quarter to half of these will be random, around the house, "oh, no, I forgot to take my 365 pic today and now it's 11:45pm!" photos. And I'm sure there's only so many self portraits taken in the bathroom mirror that you want to see.

So I'm only putting up the fun ones, or the ones that tell a story. Or the ones that are just rock your socks off aesthetically pleasing.

Picture 003 is a reminder of a fun night I had last week when I was still feeling a bit under the weather. I think it was like 6 in the evening, no one else was home, and I was snuggled on the couch with my down blanket, the new energy efficient heater, and the fifth Harry Potter movie, which I'd just picked up from the library. I don't often watch movies in the dark by myslef, but it just seemed so right in this setting.

Day 004: My laptop was in major need of a cleaning. But I am not one of those types who will just wipe the screen with anything (ahem, almost everyone I know). I also don't like spending $10 for cleaners. So I found a great "recipe" online to clear the dust off LCD surfaces. One trip to Walmart and around $2 later, and I had me the ingredients for a homemade laptop screen cleaner. I made extra, so if anyone's ever over to the ol' apartment and needs a good laptop cleaning....

Day 009: This is what boys do at our house. I suppose we could have entertained them better... (Actually, this would be a good time to point out that what Ryan is doing in this photo is creating his blog. Hooray! The moment of conception for You Wanna Laugh, It's Too Absurd, the latest and greatest blog title inspired by Spring Awakening lyrics.)

Day 010: So technically this pictures comes from the same gathering, but fortunately we know how to party and this photo was well into the second hour of January 10. (Yeah, we know how to party- we are partyin' fools with that Office trivia game!)

Photo 011: RIP Chargers

Day 012: The first day I truly almost forgot to take a picture! Instead of succumbing to the noncreative self portrait, I luckily had a nice stack of books right next to me that tell the tale of the project I'm currently working on.

Here's where I explain my project, in vague details, because those are the only kinds of details I offer about projects I'm currently working on.

I'm working on a children's book (hence the 2009 CWIM). It's actually going to fall into the young adult category, but pretty much anything geared towards 18 and younger is considered to be in the children's publishing domain. The Book in a Month book is this awesome book I picked up last week with the Borders email coupon. Basically, it's a walk-through of prompts and plans and... homework, if you will, so the task of writing a book is more structured, for those of us who prefer structure in our lives. You can choose to go hardcore and really write a book in a month, or take one of the more mellow routes which leads you to a well-developed outline. I chose the second one.

Normally I don't post about my writing, or what I'm writing, or how often I'm writing, mostly because I assume if I put it out there, then some people will inevitably come back with, "So how's the writing coming?" In which most cases, I'd have to answer either, "Yeah, um, it's okay... I'm a little stuck... the ideas... they're mulling in my head right now," or the more honest, "Yeah, I haven't really added any words to that thing in over a month now."

I've made the mistake of telling Jenna my goals for writing, and Jenna is very good at keeping people accountable. I don't like letting Jenna down when she asks me how my book is coming along. But, you know, maybe that's what I need to finish. People asking me. Bugging me. Getting in my face and asking why I watched discs two and three of The Office instead of sitting at my keyboard and adding words. Any words.

So, my loyal friends... I hereby give you permission to ask me about my writing. (And question my Office watching expenditure.)

NPH on SNL! NPH on SNL!

So it's a peaceful night over here at the ol' apartment. Andy texted us awhile ago to remind us that Neil Patrick Harris is the host on SNL tonight. Which means we invited him and Ryan to come over at 11:30pm to watch, because things like that are best shared with people, don't you think?

So far there have been numerous "Hey, Neil, wanna know how I met your mother?"' lines, and NPH has come out as an awesome aroebics instructor and Mark from Rent, in a spoof on all the Broadway shows that are closing this month. (I was just lamenting to Ryan about the tragedy of that.)

I do love me that NPH.

Word(le).

I discovered this awesome site yesterday. Or the day before. I don't remember. Anyway, I just noticed that it's popping up everywhere else, in my other favorite blogs and other cool websites I like, so I am apparently way behind the curve here. Or else everyone else is catching up at the same time. Whatever. The site's awesome.




If you want to make awesome word images like my beautiful 'don't do sadness' banner at the top of my spiffy blog, this is the place. Just make sure you read the FAQs or you won't understand how to make certain words bigger than others.





The wonderful world of Wordle.





And since typing the above, I found the awesome blog feature. Instead of typing in all your words, you can copy/paste the link to your blog in the second box and it will automatically make you a wordle based on the words commonly used in your blog. How neato is this! I went ahead and did mine, and here it is:

Look at that... it's me in like 100 words. Apparently 'new' is my most used word on the ol' blog.

I also tried out some of your blogs, cuz I'm sneaky like that, but I won't post them here, because what's the fun in that? But they're good. Real good. So go do your own wordle and post it on your blog!

For those who need help turning it into a jpeg, or just getting it off wordle, the best way I found is: 1) Click 'Open in Window' and then maximize the pop-up window, 2) do a screen capture (the prt sc button next to F12), 3) open some kind of picture editing program and paste it into a blank document. I use Photoshop Elements which I know most of you don't have but I think there's some kind of editing software that comes standard with Windows.

If worse comes to worse, just save it to the wordle gallery, and send me a plea for help. If I'm feeling nice I'll screen capture it for you and send you the jpeg via e-mail. And I'll probably be feeling nice.

Why, yes, I do take requests.

And, yes, I do often fail to make good on my promises to post additional pictures of fun things we do. If anyone else has a request, just let me know!

Backups.

So I spent the majority of today backing up my 2008 everything. It took a long time. And then I spent five minutes tidying up the first day of 2009, and that was great fun.

I'm kind of weird with my organizing.

So, clearly, I'm embarking on the Picture Of The Day endeavor, also known as Project 365. Yesteray's picture was from our little trip to the snow, and today's sums up my view for the last six hours or so. I've got my trusty laptop, my faithful external hard drive, my awesomely cute new green wireless mouse, and my baby laptop, which I affectionately call Wall-E. It's just that cute. You'll also note my snack of choice here: dark chocolate clearanced holiday M&Ms and caffeine free coke. Because part of my declaration of FREEDOM this year means I'm nixing my addiction to caffeine. I just have to trick myself out of it, you see....

New.

I don't like the passing of time. It kind of makes me sad, knowing we can never get time back, never be in the exact same time in our lives again. But. There is something about a fresh start that I absolutely love. I love brand new file folders at work. I love a brand new laptop just waiting to be filled (with meticulously organized folders, of course). I love the idea that no matter what happened in the year before, it is officially in the past.

A lot of the blogs I read are talking about picking a word to use as a theme for the year. I've had my own picked out for about three weeks now.

But I'm using two words, because I don't like limiting myself.

FUN + FREEDOM

And instead of resolutions, my new year's decisions will be circulating around these words. For instance, today Brittany suggested a trip up to Julian to take pictures, and I wasn't really feeling it (I think I'm getting sick). Normally I would have stayed home and nursed my pseudo-cold with soup and movies, but, in honoring the FUN part of my resolution, I went along. And you know what? It was FUN. (And we got some snazzy snow pictures.)

Happy 2009, everybody!