It's a Miracle!

After two months of dead, dead, dead, the wireless on my laptop suddenly started working again.

No more stringing the blue cord up the stairs!

Well, as long as it keeps working anyway.

Also, to add to the nostalgia of the last post, I found an old school picture from the girls' basketball team of '02. Oh, memories... and those stupid knit jerseys....

Nostalgia and a Picture Update

Tonight there was an alumni basketball game between past players and coaches/teachers/random guys from church. It was pretty awesome. Justin and Jen and I went and cheered on "the old guys," comprised of our former basketball coach (who happens to be Jen's dad), our old principal (Mr. Newkirk, who is the picture of the day, and taught us everything from geography to Bible to US. government), Dan Deyling (taught us apologetics and is also the guy I worked for in kids church for three years), and the pastor of our church, among others. It was pretty obvious the game was rigged from the start, and the ref had absolutely no shame in calling fouls on anything for the alumni and turning a blind eye to anything the old guys did. At one point Dan Deyling was holding one of the alumni players down with his knee. And at another point the old guys tried to kidnap an alumni who got too close to their bench.

The three of us agreed it was like taking a trip back in time. Back to the days when Jen and I were in uniform, Justin was cheering in the stands (he's a great little cheerleader :) or taking pictures for yearbook, and Jen's dad was yelling at us from the sidelines, while the boys' team stretched in the corner, waiting for their game to start at 8.

I seriously MISS those days.

The days when Bill would run us ragged at practice and force us to do those horrid exercises where you sit against the wall until your knees buckle. The days when our main plays were called "Hallie" and "Number two" because the assistant coach thought my name was Hallie for half the season, and we apparently weren't creative enough to come up with a good name for the second one. The days when we'd practice in the church gym on Tuesdays until seven, and then run to the other building for youth group until nine.

Anyway, so tonight kind of brought it all back and made us really, really miss those days.

They were pretty awesome ones.

Five on Friday

1) Guacamole on Subway sandwiches does not taste good. I'm regretting it now because it totally ruined my whole sandwich.

2) Speaking of food, yesterday Jessica, Brittany, Genisee, and I went to Olive Garden for $6.95 soup and salad lunch (except they charged us $7.95). And I found my new favorite soup there: chicken gnocci. Yum, yum, YUM. I had warm, happy soup belly all day. And of course I could eat that salad all day. I think I need to go back there very soon.

3) I've been told today that my eyes are extraordinarily blue. It's because I'm wearing a very blue shirt. Ssshhhh. Don't tell anyone my secret to extraordinarily blue eyes.

4) Found an awesome blog today. If you ever find a lost camera, or lose a camera, go to this site. It's good to know there are caring people in the world who just want to get your pictures back to you.

5) I'm hoping it stops raining for now; I'm itching to go home, get my camera, and take pictures outside with the cloudy gray light that's going on out there. I think I'll see if Britt wants to just walk around the neighborhood with me.

Super Bowl Sunday

So here's how Super Bowl Sunday went down:

~Britt and I went to Jarrod's house loaded with chips, pretzels, and wonderful Mike's lemonade (for the girls).

~Jess and Mikey weren't there... even if it was a joint party with them and Jarrod. Tsk tsk.

~Lots of other people were there. To the point that folding chairs had to be brought in. And lots of thieving of the good chairs.

~Lucky for me, I stole Jarrod's good spot early and Justin and I managed to hold those chairs for the entire game, cuz we're buddies who've got each other's backs. And we will fight other people who try to steal our buddy's chair. 

~Jarrod was pretty much the only one cheering on the Steelers. It made the party interesting, because he gets defensive. :)

~In keeping tradition, I chose based on color of uniforms. FYI- maroon and white totally kick highlighter yellow pants out of the running. Seriously, who picked that specific florescent color for the Steelers? Was it some kind of game strategy? To blind the other team with ugly? That must have been it.

~ Poor Cardinals. They were so promising the second half...

~ What was up with those lame commercials? I even spotted two that were text only spots. No pictures. No graphics of any kind. No storyline. No laughs. You know where those kind of ads are good? The newspaper. Don't waste my time during the Super Bowl if you can't put your 5 million to proper use.

~ 3D commercials. I don't know what the big deal was, but then, I didn't have the super special glasses.

~ Outrage from the Cardinals supporters in the room, when one of the Steelers blatantly started shoving a Cardinal for no good reason, and after the play was over. Jarrod was in the bathroom for this shining moment and wouldn't believe us.

~ Jarrod's defense when we kept on him about his dirty, cheating Steelers (and the winning quote of the day): "They're called the Steelers, all right! They're not called the Angel Princesses!"

A Series of Unfortunate Events, and One Lucky One

Well, our Ikea trip yesterday morning was a bust:

~ The cute duvet covers I saw online? The line wrapped through the store and outside for those.
~ Black sheets, with cute black patterned pillowcases and cool red accent colored pillows? They had 'em, but the red pillows would have cost around $20 for two, and the brilliant black spread I found ended up being a mix from three different sheet sets. Seriously, Ikea. What's up with that?
~ The canvas square organizers ended up being $4.99 each, not 2 for $4.99 like it said online.

So I got nothing. Whatever. At least we had fun. And lunch at Subway always helps brighten any day.

Fortunately the day picked up, because Saturday was the day my dad was going to tackle my truck once and for all. In case I haven't mentioned this much, my car keeps dying on me. Or refuses to start right up when I want to leave somewhere. This has made me develop a fear of driving on the freeway or any lane that isn't the farthest right, in case I need to pull over before my truck stops on its own. I know, la-ame.

He's taken out quite a few other parts in the last couple of months in his attempt to fix this problem. Finally it came down to the battery, which was the most expensive to replace. So dad and I set off for a little find-the-cheapest-but-best-battery outing. One trip to WalMart, two trips to Autozone, and two Jack in the Box milkshakes later, we had ourselves a battery.

A freaking $90 battery.

This battery better be really good.

So my dad got it in no problem, I started up my car, and holy jumper cables, Batman! I didn't know that was what my car was supposed to sound like when it started up! It was powerful, and dependable, not this little weak baby cough that it usually makes. So my dad takes the old battery back to Autozone to see how bad this battery really was, because he thought the whole time it was just the connectors were loose. Or something. I don't really know these things. Turns out when they tried to test the battery, it was so low it couldn't even be tested. And apparently it was a miracle I've been able to drive it at all these last couple months.

Hooray for not dying in a fiery car wreck on the freeway!

So I might be getting back some of my $90 since my old battery had a 7 year warranty, and we were just starting year 4 with it. Just $20 or so, but still, anything's better than paying a full $90.

Picture of the Day, of my awesome dad fixing my car, to come as soon as my sister sends me the pictures. Apparently I forgot to put the CF card back in my camera yesterday, and I had to use hers.

And now I'm off to the Super Bowl! Don't know who I'm cheering for yet; it's going to depend on the color of the teams' uniforms and how awesome the names of their quarterbacks are.

(Because names like Jake Delhomme are just so fun to say.)

Picture of the Day Update

So, it's two days until the end of January, and so far I really truly have a picture for everyday. It's harder than I thought it would be, because some days I'm just not doing anything interesting enough to photograph, and other days I am but didn't bring my camera (or the rechargable batteries of the point and shoot died... at three different inopportune times).

But I've decided that no matter what, a picture will be taken. Even if it's something stupid that I have to scrounge around to find. Like the lone present under our still-up Christmas tree on Day 28. Or the picture of Jenna eating the white chocolate covered pretzels that I had thrown in the trash the night before on Day 29. And of course, there's always the fallback bathroom mirror picture.

Disclaimer: There are a few that obviously I didn't take myself, like the one below where Brittany got me trying to photograph the moon. But what rules say I can't use those kind of pictures? 

Inspiration

Inspired by my two new favorite coffee shop cohorts (you know who you are), who spent a lengthy Tuesday evening discussing their goals for the future year, I decided maybe I needed to step it up a bit on my own goals.

Which is why you can currently find me at the Rancho San Diego Starbucks, camped out on the couch, surrounded by books, my laptop, index cards, and two sugar-filled, but not coffee-related, drinks. (The first one came free because Jenna works here; the second one came free because the girl who made it made a completely different one on accident and gave me both. I think I like this place.)

Unfortunately, I didn't plan very well, because although I have all the above mentioned stuff, I forgot to take the SD card that I keep all my current documents on out of my main laptop and transfer it to this little guy. So I don't know how productive I'm being exactly, going off memory, but I'm here, right? We'll call this little trip a brainstorming session.

Anyway, I kind of like it in here. It's quiet, but not deathly silent. Jenna's here, and it's fun watching her interact with customers and her fellow baristas. I knew about half the people present when I first walked in.

I think I'm gonna like it here. :)