So Friendly

Now that it’s over, I find myself searching out the Tweets and Facebook statuses and posts about BlogHer.  I want to see what I missed, I guess.  I haven’t seen much, yet.   But what I have seen makes me both sad all over again that I missed it and happy that it went so well for so many women (and men).   Most of what I have seen is the usual BlogHer honeymoon style posts, speaking of amazing moments, wonderful friendships and powerful sessions.  I love to hear it.  I can almost remember how it felt when I was there too.  The heady combination of it all.  The urge to fill as many hours as possible with high-quality moments.  The parties, the hugs, the camaraderie…

I miss it.

And I could have definitely used it this year.  Oh yes.  I could have.

***

I’ve spoken before about how lonely it can be, staying at home.  Generations ago, most women stayed home with the kids.  It was common to know the women in the neighborhood and out of a need for survival, they would come together for coffee, let the kids play, chat about their families, prop each other up.  Help each other out.  Be a shoulder to lean on, those long, difficult days.  These women were, in each other, someone besides their husbands that cared about them.  If they didn’t live in the same town with their families, that bond was imperative.

These days… the neighborhoods are empty during the days. Everything is quiet.  No moms.  No kids.  Nothing.

There are avenues for making friends, but it’s hard.  A lot of people make friends at work.  When you don’t work, you make friends at your child’s school, church and church functions, the store.  And when you’re shy, it makes it that much more difficult.  And when you’ve been burnt, it makes it even harder than that.

I have a lot of friendly acquaintances, on and offline.  I have friends, I’m sure I do, but often circumstance and distance keep us from really being able to rely on one another.

I could use more friends.  I need more friends.  We have no family anywhere close.  We have no one, generally, to hang out with on summer evenings, or winter evenings or spring evenings… you get the idea.  No game nights, no barbecues, no pool parties, no meeting for lunches out, no shopping dates, no movie nights.

It’s got to be as hard on my husband as it is on me.  Though surely he’s busier with work and isn’t as aware of the gaping absence of friends.  Still, I know there are times he’d like to have some people who are close to get together with and celebrate, even if it’s just to celebrate the weekend.

I don’t know how to change this.  I don’t think I can.  Well, not here at least.  It’s a cop out, but I’ve convinced myself that living in Reno is part of the problem.  And not just Reno, but WHERE in Reno we live.  We’re fairly isolated out here.  No one wants to drive clear out here.  I don’t blame them!  I probably wouldn’t want to either.  Maybe if we lived somewhere else, another state even, it would be better.  Easier.  At least a clean slate would help, right?

Online friends are great but there lacks that closeness.  And a lot of times they are still just acquaintances.  Someone who is nice to chat with, but not someone you can trust or count on.  Not a friend.

***

Aaaaaaand, on that happy note, I’m going to bed.  Be good to each other, y’all.

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In which I talk of many things including the weather

I FINALLY saw “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” last night.  Since we just asked for our money back at the drive in (I won’t be going back THERE, thankyouverymuch), Kile suggested I take Harry while he stayed home with the little ones.  We went to the theaters down at the Summit Sierra mall.  I’d almost forgotten what it was like to watch a movie in a REAL theater.  It’s been a while.

Anyhow, I’m not going to go into big details here just in case there is someone out there who is as unlucky as me and hasn’t seen it yet.  But… yeah.  I liked it, for the most part.  I loved the way it was directed, the cinematography, the whole ATMOSPHERE of the movie seemed right on to me.  But there were some changes.  Things left out, things added in…. A lot of it made me want to tear my hair out, to be perfectly honest.  If anyone out there has seen it, feels the same, and wants to discuss it, just email me and we can discuss at great length what we liked and what we hated.  Sound good?

***

On the other hand, it was really nice going to see a movie with Harry like that.  We grabbed McDonald’s at the drive through on the way down to the theater and ate in the car.  Harry made a fine companion and it was nice to get to spend time with just him for a change.  He and I used to spend all sorts of time together.  I took him everywhere with me when he was little.  He was my sidekick.  We never get to do that anymore.

I would like to make this movie thing a semi-regular thing.  Maybe one a month or every two months?  Just he and I, out to the movies.  That would be so much fun!

***

I woke up this morning to overcast skies.  I cannot express to you how happy this makes me.  No sun = some relief from blistering heat.  I’m sure it’ll still be unpleasantly warm, but at least the sun isn’t out, making it worse.

Sadly, I doubt it will last.  The sun will come out and force it’s rays upon us.  But for now, I’m enjoying the dim.

Shoot, in the movie last night, I found myself gazing fondly at the screen during the snowy-winter scenes.  Oh, snow.  How I miss you!  How I love the sight of snow-covered mountains and snow falling and the crunch under your feet….

Damnit.  I want winter back.

***

I’m ignoring about 90% of my Facebook friends today.  Sorry, y’all.  But if you’re going to insist on posting about traveling to BlogHer, seeing people at BlogHer, being excited about BlogHer, etc and so forth?  I’m going to have to stick my fingers in my ears and go, “LA LA LA LA!!”

Nothing personal.

***

I hear my little girl waking up upstairs so I best go fetch her.  I haven’t seen her since about 5:30 last night so I’m actually looking forward to getting some cuddles in, as I’m sure she is too.

She really is quite snuggle-icious.

Enjoy your Thursday, all!

Guess where I'm not going this week?

BlogHer.

Bah.  Bah, I say!  And humbug!

Actually, I’m torn.  Part of me is sad and/or left out because I love BlogHer and I’ve gone for three years now and there are so many fabulous people I’m going to miss seeing this year.  And everyone is posting about BlogHer.  I can’t even check Facebook without being inundated with posts about packing, makeovers and last minute arrangements.  Darn it, I always enjoyed that last minute frenzy before the fun began.  I’ve purposefully stayed away from news and talk about BlogHer this year because I didn’t want to feel any worse about having to miss it.  So while I don’t know EXACTLY what I’m missing, I know I’m missing something.  And that sucks, yo.

And then part of me is sorta relieved that I’m not going.  Last year, quite frankly, was kind of a nightmare and while I’m SO glad that I went, I still have bitterness.  But mostly why I’m relieved is that right now I don’t think I could handle the extra stress that going this year would bring.  One big vacation at a time, thank you!  All money aside (and yes, money was a factor in deciding whether to go this year), I think even if someone had come to me last week with a free pass, free plane tickets, a free hotel room, I would probably STILL balk at going.  We are leaving for our Disney Extravaganza in two weeks (GULP).  That trip is literally taking all my attention right now and it’s not fair to the Disney Extravaganza or to BlogHer to divide that attention.  It’s just bad timing is all.

Still, at the end of the day, I wish I were going to Chicago this year, going to the parties and hanging out in hotel rooms and attending sessions and learning and meeting and doing.  That would be so much fun.  And I’m sad that I’m missing it.

So I wish everyone who IS going safe travels and a fun time in Chicago.  Get out from behind the potted plant and meet people and talk and join in the fun.  Just trust me.  And save me some swag, okay?  To everyone who ISN’T going, don’t feel too bad.  There is always next year.  Just decide early on if you’re going to go and then GO.  I truly hope that I can go next year.  As always, it’s somewhat dependent on where it’s located and who is going, etc and so forth.  But I’m hoping to go.  And I hope you are going too!  And we can ALL meet and have fun and do silly things and annoy the people who can’t go on our blogs.  Sound like a plan?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go FREAK OUT cuz it’s TWO WEEKS until we leave for Florida.  HALP!

Are you going to BlogHer? Cuz I'm not.

I’m trying (very hard) not to feel too bad about going to BlogHer this year.  I’ve known for a while that going this year was pretty much out of the question.  Short of a completely free trip (RIGHT), there was no way I could feasibly go.  And it’s not just the money thing.  We’re going on that big cruise/Disney World/extravaganza just weeks after BlogHer is scheduled and that’s an awful lot of traveling.  So yeah, if a fully comped deal had landed in my lap, I could make it work.  Since the last time I checked such things do not exist, I am not making it work.  I’m not going.

I made no secret that last year’s BlogHer was a little… less.  It was very, very, VERY hard to go with the family.  Even with Harry staying with my parents, having to deal with Evie made it VERY hard.  And while the day care set up was awesome (SERIOUSLY, if you are thinking of going with a child, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT.  The people there were awesome and Liam had a great time), it had limitations.  Mostly in that at 5-5:30 or so, day care was over and it’s hard to go to night clubs with two year olds.  I think I was in bed by 8 that night, my heart sick with stress and frustration.  The next problem was parking.  And check out.  Sure, we could have solved that by paying for an extra day of parking and an extra night at the hotel.  But we are notorious cheapskates.  We had to be back in San Jose on Saturday to celebrate my dad’s birthday and why pay for another hotel night when we wouldn’t stay there?  And the parking was outrageously expensive and paying a whole day for just a few more hours just didn’t jive with my practical side.  So by checking out by noon, we lost a place for me to go and nurse Evie and rest and have downtime (the nursing room provided was small, filled with uncomfortable chairs and cold as heck), and we lost a place to put all our stuff.  Kile had suggested moving the van to a place down the street where he could pay to park it for a few hours and we could keep our stuff in there.  But, heart-sick again, I gave up.  The Gods had deemed the whole thing a loss.  So we left at lunch.

Even now, writing that out, I still feel so incredibly sad about how it all ended up.  No ones fault, to be sure (except maybe my own).  But still so sad.  It was just hard to manage with kids.

If I had gone this year, it would probably be by myself, sans children.  Which is awfully optimistic of myself because even though Evie is closing in on her first birthday, she shows no sign of wanting to wean and still rejects virtually every other method of liquid intake available.  So even if I took Evie with me and put her in day care, I’d need to go feed her or whatever.  Which, yeah, I could make it work.

But the point is: I’m not.  I’m not going.  It feels weird to admit that since I have gone for three years now.  I’m going to miss some fabulous ladies this year.  So you’ll have to forgive me if I avoid all discussions about BlogHer.  If I roll my eyes at mentions of roommates, parties, sessions and swag.  If I stick my fingers in my ears and go “LALALALAICAN’THEARYOULALALA”.  It’s nothing personal and it’s just me being a little bitter.  (Save me some swag, please?  I’ll be your best friend!)

Yeah, I did this last year too

The end of the year is the perfect time to indulge in reflection and memes, don’t you think? I did this particular year-end meme last year too and I has been just as interesting to read last year’s answers as it has been to look back on this year.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

I had a baby girl! I also learned how to knit. And I took up cloth diapering. Wow, this was a banner year, wasn’t it?

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

SNORT. I’ll be going over this more in a day or two but the long story short is: No. And yes.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Uh… me? I think that’s someone close to me. Plus lots of fabulous bloggy peoples gave birth too.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, thank goodness.

5. What countries did you visit?

Riiiiiight.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

Money. That’d help. And sanity. That’d help, too.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

March 20, the day Evie was born. November 4, the day Obama was elected.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I had my third and final child.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Again, I was social failure. And a professional failure too, for the most part. I guess I should just be happy that I wasn’t a total failure as a parent, eh?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Nope. Thank goodness.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

iPhone. Even though I didn’t really buy it so much as WON it, but it is totally the most awesome thing in my life, materialistically speaking.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Anyone who is near and dear to me. Friends and family that have been there for me and helped me and picked me up and dusted me off. You all know who you are. Thank you.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

This would pretty much be the same people as last year. Suffice it to say, if you say you’re a friend, you should act like it.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Cloth diapers. Heh. And I’m supposing we’re saying money in a relative sort of way. Otherwise I’d have to say something totally boring like “the mortgage” or something. Yawn.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

My daughter. Meeting her and getting to know her has been so incredibly awesome. Also was very, very excited about the “Twilight” movie and my iPhone. Heh.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

“Viva la Vida” by Coldplay, “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. Awesome songs.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? SADDER. Sad to say.
b) thinner or fatter? THE SAME, which ain’t so good considering I was 5-6 months pregnant last year.
c) richer or poorer? THE SAME, though with less Christmas money to spend. Dangit.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Exercise. Definitely. I don’t know exactly what I need to do get more exercise since time is definitely short.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Again, I wish I had done less sitting around. SIGH.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

We stayed home and Kile’s parents came from Elko to spend it with us. That was really very nice, actually. It was nice to have someone here besides just us. And wow, Christmas with three kids is a lot different than Christmas with just two or one.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?

Yep, with wee little Evie.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

“Lost” for sure. That show rocks my socks.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nope. I try not to. Though I’m fairly annoyed at Dell for this shoddy laptop.

24. What was the best book you read?

Can I count the whole set of “Twilight” books in this one? Not literary genius, to be sure. But still totally awesome.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Hmm. Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” themed playlists really helped me find some interesting new music. And I rediscovered a love for Coldplay.

26. What did you want and get?

A baby girl. A trip to BlogHer ’08. A new iPhone. Those are some pretty swell things!

27. What did you want and not get?

A new laptop. (Macbook!) A new camera. (come on, it doesn’t even have to be a DSLR!)

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

“Twilight”. That was awesome. “Ironman” was good too.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Sigh. I turned 33. I got my blood drawn. Kile made me dinner. I got jammies.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

A new laptop? A new camera? (Do we sense a theme here?) A healthier outlook would have helped too.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

Comfort is Key. Heh. A lot of people bag the whole pajama thing but come on. They’re COMFORTABLE. Sure, jeans look nice when out and about but around home I want to be comfortable.

32. What kept you sane?

Is this a trick question? Heh. My blog helped. Having this outlet helps more than you can know.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

EDWARD!! Come on, 2008 was totally The Year of Edward. And Neil Patrick Harris. Oh, and Owen Wilson. But that’s a gimme.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Can I get a “duh” here? The election, people!

35. Who did you miss?

Don’t know if I really missed anyone. I missed not seeing Zoot at BlogHer ’08 though.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

I didn’t meet a whole lot of people this year but I did meet Rhi and Loralee at BlogHer. That was pretty much awesome.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

Hmm. Not sure if I learned anything. I did get further lessons in “There is No Such Thing as Adult Friendships” though.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

“Viva la Vida” by Coldplay

If you want to join in the fun and do this quiz on your blog too, check out the details from All & Sundry for including your post in her “master list”. Sound fun? Just keep in mind that it takes a while to do it because this has taken me no shorter than three hours to get through. Of course, my laptop is continuing it’s sharp decline and that hasn’t helped matters. Let’s have a new laptop in 2009, mmkay?

Reporting from Small Town, USA

I’m writing this on my iPhone, sitting out in the van with the kids while Kile is in the DMV here in Elko trying to take care of a situation that has been brewing for the better part of a year. I’m also hoping that there’s enough of an Edge network signal to post this once I finish.

Cell phone service is criminal out here. Edge is as best you can hope for and I don’t think I’ve had more than three bars worth of signal since we got here. I tried to talk to my parents this morning and the call was dropped no less than 10 times. Whatup, AT&T?? To be fair, the Internet is little better. Though my in laws have wireless DSL, the signal and performance are… spotty. Very frustrating. Don’t get me wrong though. I’m rather glad to gave any signal at all. Having Edge is even better than I expected. But this would definitely be a deal-breaker should we ever consider moving here.

It’s Harry’s birthday today. Nine years old. I don’t think I feel nearly old enough to have a nine year old. We did up a family party last night and he is beyond thrilled with his new iPod Shuffle (which he is now listening to in the “way back” seat). He got some other great gifts too. Only I didn’t take any pictures because I totally forgot and I fail as a mother. Sounds about right.

I saw the big BlogHer announcement this morning. I’m a little sad that the conference is going to be in Chicago this year. Since it is, I don’t think I’ll be able to go. The combined costs of traveling and hotel and conference itself are just too much. We’re going on a big cruise in August and though my parents are pretty much paying for it all, we’ll still need spending money. That doesn’t leave much room for BlogHer. I’m sad because it’ll be the first conference I’ll miss since 2006. And I’ll miss seeing friends and all sorts of other awesome people. So… boo.

Anyhow, we’ll be cooling our heels here for another day and are heading back to Reno tomorrow. And then I’ll have my decrepit laptop back. Yay.

Needing Direction

I don’t know what’s going on with my blog, ya’ll.  I think I’m losing focus.  The stats are down, my inspiration is down… This is not good, heading into NaBloPoMo, which I always look forward to each year and which requires constant content.  At the left there you see a graph of my weekly stats.  The highest point was BlogHer, I believe.  This week isn’t even half over yet, so obviously it’s still low, but you have to admit there’s a deliberate downtrend there.

And yet… WHY DO I CARE?  Or do I really?  It’s not really about ad revenue.  So I can’t blame the ads for watching these and feeling a pit in my stomach.  I think it has more to do with… ego.  After I had Evie, my blog enjoyed a nice boost.  A lot of people were visiting and commenting, I had lots to post about and everything was great.  In recent months, the visitors have dropped off, I’ve lost inspiration and I’m left feeling like a wallflower once again.

For the record, I hate feeling like that.

I don’t want to care.  I want to move past it.  I want to get back to the CONTENT.  But I am just not sure how to do that.  What was I posting back in the spring and summer that I enjoyed so much?  What about before then?  Right now, I feel like I have no goal.  I’m a boat set adrift in the sea of the internet.  Drifting is no fun.  I like to either have a goal or be anchored.  I’m a planner, after all.  The unknown isn’t something I like to embrace too much.  I suppose that’s the German in me.  We must be regimented!

How do I find my Blogging North Star?  Where is my focus supposed to be?  Why do I feel so confused when I open up my “Write Post” page?

And, most importantly, how do I STOP looking at the stats?  Because I seriously think they’re going to make me crazy.

How to get me to read your blog post

I subscribe to a lot of blogs.   A LOT.  And, to be honest, I simply don’t have the time (or patience) to read everything.  I don’t know who would, without spending 100% of their life on the computer.  So there are some posts that I skip.  And some that I don’t.  I thought I would share some things that I look for when scanning through my reader and what generally catches my eye, versus what I generally mark as read and move past.  WIthout further ado, here’s how to get me to read your blog post:

• Publish full feeds.  I cannot stress this enough.  When I’m crunched for time, the blogs that publish partial feeds are the first ones I skip (and that’s if I’ve even subscribed to them in the first place).  If you don’t care enough to put up the full feed, I don’t care enough to click through to read the post.  Simple enough.
• Avoid long chunks of text.  This means long paragraphs that aren’t broken up.  I’ve been known to do this myself, so I apologize.  But when flipping through reader, trying to get things read, I tend to skip over the posts that are just large blocks of text because, quite frankly, they take the longest time to read.
• Don’t post about sports.  Or music.  I don’t care.  I’m not a sports fan.  And I’m not a music fan.  So post your fantasy football picks and your favorite You Tube videos all you want, but I’m gonna pass.  It’s just not my cup of tea.
• Don’t start off a post by warning me that this is a long post.  Because I will glance at the clock and say to myself, “Oy, I don’t have time for a long post.”  And I will skip it.  And then I’ll go back a week later and mark it as read because I still don’t have and now the post is hopelessly outdated.
• Include pictures.  I love to read posts that have lots of pictures.  The pictures are not only interesting to look at but break up the monotony of the text.
• Post little snippets.  Not every post has to be a super-long narrative.  A small conversation from the day, a picture you took, a thought that made you stop and think again… I love these.  They’re interesting, quick to read and then I can move on to the next post.  I often don’t follow this one.  I’m sorry.
• Vary the tone of your posts.  You may be going through a rough time, but if EVERY post is depressing then I’m going to want to skip over them.  I’ve tried to be particularly mindful of this and that’s why after a couple of “woe is me” posts, I’ll try to post something light.  If I see the fifth whiny post in a row from someone I subscribe to, that post gets put on the chopping block.  And if it keeps up, I unsubscribe altogether.
• Don’t post a lot about an issue that I am opposed to.  This is particularly true during election season.  Now, this isn’t something that a lot of people can (or should) help.  But the fact of the matter is, if I subscribe to a blog and then they start ranting about liberals or how McCain is the Second Coming?  I’m not going to read it.  NOPE.  I guess this is why I’ve TRIED (not always successfully) to tone down my own political posts.  Because I know half of everyone wouldn’t want to read that.
• Don’t just put out posts full of links to your other blog gigs.  If I open up a blog and see that the latest post is full of links to their paying gigs and nothing else?  I skip it.  If I want to read their other blogs, I’m already subscribed to them and hence already know about the posts over there.  A better way to promote your other gigs is to throw a line or two in at the bottom of a regular post with a link.  I’m far more likely to actually read that.
• Keep review posts to a review blog.  Even if you aren’t a member of BlogHerAds and don’t need to separate the two.  Because when a blog I subscribe to publishes a review for something I don’t care about (or worse, that smacks of “pay per post” type deals), I skip the post.  Again, like I said above, put a link in a regular post to your review blog.  If it’s something I’m interested in learning about or if there’s an associated giveaway, I’ll go check it out.   I do subscribe to some review blogs and some of the posts I read and some I don’t.  But I like to know, going in, that that’s what I’m going to find.

That pretty much covers it for me.  So I want to turn the question on you guys.  What posts do you generally skip when you’re trying to burn through your readers?  What makes you more likely to read a blog post?  Do you have any hot-button issues (like the full feeds thing is for me)?

Do I drink the Mac kool-aid?

I’ve known for years that if you were a “cool kid”, you had a Mac.  Most specificially (and most recently), this is a MacBook.  Nay, a MacBook PRO.  Shoot, I remember going to BlogHer and seeing entire tables of laptops with the little glowing apple blazing on the back.  EVERYONE had that damned laptop, it seemed.  Except me and my deficient Dell.  But, you know, whatever.  I’ve always BEEN a PC girl, I’ll always BE a PC girl.  You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, after all, and I am rather attatched to my right-click mouse button.

But, well, I’m starting to wonder if Apple doesn’t maybe have something going for them.  After all, it’s not like PC’s have been overly-kind to me in recent times.  And the Mac’s promise to not let me down is mighty tempting.  I suppose the number one event that caused me to even CONSIDER getting a Mac was getting my iPhone last month.

humina, humina…

I love my iPhone.  My iPhone has changed my life.  And I’m not trying to make any of you out there who want an iPhone and can’t or don’t have one for one reason or another feel bad, but I can’t lie.  When I first found out I won one, I was excited, but I really had no idea what an iPhone was all about.  All I knew is what I’d heard from others.  I figured I would use it as much as I used my current phone (a Motorola Razr), perhaps a little more.  But really, what could the difference be?  OH THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. The iPhone is far more like a mini-computer than a PHONE (I often forget that it can make and receive calls, to be honest) and I use it ALL THE TIME.  I love it passionately.

But I have to admit that it has been sort of a gateway drug.  We’ve been back to the Apple Store a couple times since then.  To deal with iPod related issues for Kile, to browse accessories, etc and so on.  And… I like the Apple Store.  It’s a fabulous place to be.  It’s almost always full of people.  There are plenty of computers, phones, iPods and whatnot to play on, books to flip through…  It’s intoxicating.

If I’m going to get a Mac, it’s got to be a laptop.  And if I’m going to get a Mac laptop, it’s got to be a MacBook Pro.  Now, I have to admit, if I thought I knew very little about the iPhone, I know absolutely nothing about Mac computers.  I’ve worked on them, briefly, a few times here and there over the years.  Enough to know that I was annoyed by some of their features.  I can recall being perturbed by the lack of a right-click mouse button.  I also remember being a little more than annoyed at how you had to ask the computer to spit out your disk instead of pressing a button on the exterior, like you could on a PC.  Plus, for a very long time, there were programs that I considered essential that would not run on a Mac.  And then there was the whole Windows issue.  I knew how Windows worked.  Comparatively, the Mac OS was a foreign language.

I was old and stuck in my ways.

But I’m trying to get away from that philosophy.  I’ve been trying to learn more about how Macs work, how to do basic funtions on them (I know how to “right-click” now!) and have learned that you can even operate Windows on a Mac.  So what’s stopping me?

Well… for one thing, they’re kinda pricey.  But I’m in the market for a new laptop in the next several months anyhow.  We may be able to get a deal on a MacBook Pro.  It’s a little more than I was hoping to spend and, sadly, MacBook’s don’t come in PINK.  But… I think I might have to go for it.  Because I feel like it’s now or never.  (That’s probably a little dramatic but I don’t care.)

So what do you all think?  How many of you have Macs?  Have you always been a Mac person?  Or, if you are a former PC person, how was the transition?  Your feedback is much appreciated!

Wordfull Sunday

So.  Here it is Sunday and I’ve got nothing to say for myself.  Truly.  I should be ashamed of myself.  But when the weekend rolls around, I’m so in the business of CHILLING OUT that it doesn’t leave a lot of room for waxing poetic on my blog.  So I apologize for the lack of interesting content but you should be happy to know that when I’m not posting here I’m enjoying myself so that’s something, right?

In other news, I got through my Google Reader today.  Which means, TA DA, I’m all caught up.   I don’t think I’ve been caught up since BlogHer.  So I’m just tickled to death about this.  Now no one post anything for the next couple of days so I can enjoy the blank-ness.

Also: I gave up on asking Kile to read “Twilight”.  I’m just sad, is all, that no one I actually know in real life wants to read this book and talk to me about it.  Do they think I have bad taste?  That I would have them read a book that I know they wouldn’t enjoy?  Bah.  Just sad.

Which of course always gets me into thinking about my friend-less existence and how much that really sucks.  But we’re all tired of hearing about that.

On that happy note, I’m going to leave you with an iconic picture Liam trying out Harry’s old tricycle.  It’s just a crappy iPhone picture but I love it anyhow.