Your Next Disaster

Happy Mother’s Day everyone! I hope all the mother’s out there are having a wonderful day and all the children out there are telling your mother’s how much you love them! Me and Katrina contemplated what to get Mama - A gift certificate to her favorite store? Nah, we do that every year. Something from the Baldwin store? Nah, we’ll save that for Father’s Day. Ultimately, we decided to get her a gift certificate to her favorite salon and spa - she loved it! She’s going to go get some kind of massage tomorrow after work. Today we are going out to lunch and then to see “Made of Honor” since she told me she wanted to see it. It should be a good day!

Yesterday, Joe and I ended up watching “The Office” (of course), Having dinner and walking around his college campus (we were bored). I wish there was something to do in this town … blah. We’re supposed to be taking a trip to Atlanta in June; he’s got a meeting there on a Friday so we’re just going to stay the weekend. So hopefully that will be fun - he desperately wants to go to the Coca Cola factory so we’re going to do that. Anyways, I’m going to go get dressed and get ready for my day with my mom!

Yay for Thursdays! I just finished “Ugly Betty”, “The Office”, “Smallville” and “LOST”. LOST is the most insane, complicated and jaw dropping show on TV - I swear. Half the time I have no idea what’s going on but the web they’ve got me tangled in is just extremely addictive. Every commercial break for feminine products or auto insurance online has me on the edge of my seat waiting for the show to return so it can confuse me a little more. I think next week is the beginning of the finale - LOST finales are always exciting and always deliver so I cannot wait! It’s taking a week break between Pt. 1 of the finale and Pt. 2 and 3 which totally sucks but I don’t seem to have a choice in the matter (I should).

So anyways, I’m about to head to bed. Katrina and I are going out to lunch tomorrow and to get pedicures and a card for Mother’s Day. It should be fun! I’ve needed a pedicure for a few months now - I’m just too cheap to actually follow through with it. It’s summer now though and I need my toe nails to be painted and lady like because that’s what society expects :P

I’ve decided to participate in Jade’s new meme called “Remember Wednesday”. It’s where I pick a song to post about and talk about some of the memories that go with it. You can learn more about it at Jade’s blog and also join in yourself!

My first choice is going to be … “Never Ever” by All Saints

Really random and silly choice BUT this is the song that I had my first “swaying along in a circle with your friends” type moment. It was at a summer camp in 1997-98ish and I was in love (lust?) with a boy who was dating another girl but neglected to tell me about it. So the lyrics “you can tell me to my face, you can tell me on the phone, you can write it in a letter, babe” really resonated with 14 year old Kristi. So, Being the teenage girl I was, I dwelled over this the ENTIRE span of camp - good times. At one of our many random dances during our stay we requested this song and they played it for us. It will always remind me of stupid puppy love with boys who don’t deserve you as well as childhood innocence; the times when we’d walk around with amicrofiber mops in hands belting out the lyrics to our favorite tunes (not that I ever STOPPED doing that :P). Who knew All Saints was that profound?

Another bad day… I didn’t get any sleep from the dogs barking and the birds chirping (damn birds!) and then Rhonda showed up 10AM thus causing Jake to yell the entire day. Then Jason and his people show up with their screaming kid too and it seems we’re running a daycare here - for both adults and children! How quaint! Tomorrow I will be offering up my quick weight loss solutions; feel free to drop your kids and annoying relatives off - everyone else does!

Nothing on TV tonight… except the results show of American Idol but I just fast forward to the end of that. It takes a whole 2 minutes to do… so I have nothing else to do with my days / nights at the moment. I’m downloading “She’s the Man” and “Untraceable” right now to watch sometime tonight hopefully and I’ve got “Before the Devil Knows You’re Gone” queued up for as soon as everyone goes to bed. What an uneventful life I lead… anyone want to hire and / or adopt me?! I’m very quiet and non-messy!

Joe came and rescued me from home for a few hours today after he got off work. We went grocery shopping and then came back home and sat on the back porch for about an hour and a half.. I just didn’t really want to go inside yet. In going in the backyard we had to unlock the gate but what I didn’t know is that you can’t LOCK the gate back from the outside… so it’s unlocked as of now. If I go to the backyard through our back door, I’ll end up waking up my mom (it’s a loud door with some of those vinyl curtains) … and I didn’t want to do that so I just left her a note saying to lock the door when she got up - hopefully no one will rob our backyard in the meantime, eek!

Anyways, it was good to get away for a while; even if it was for a few brief hours. Joe and I have been talking about “the future” lately and it’s kind of exciting… about things like; going on vacations, moving in together, what we’re going to name our non-existent kids and about staying together until we’re old and both need reading magnifiers to read the paper. It’s kind of neat to have goals and hopes but also a little scary.. but I think that comes with the territory, right? It’s late - I’ll write more about this on another day when I’m more able to produce clear thoughts.

I joined the new brainchild of IZEA the other day, known as SocialSpark. I’ve been with IZEA as a company for about 2 years through ups and downs and was a little timid about checking out social spark but I decided to give it a shot. I like the concept of it; giving bloggers a closer relationship with advertisers thus producing more communication but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

You can check out my profile for the site and see that I am signed up with Your Next Disaster. I haven’t yet taken an opportunity but I do look forward to taking one sometime in the future. Since it is still very new there are bugs that need to be worked out on various facets of the site but I will say that I enjoy the layout. I think if they can get everything working the way it should that it could be a great step for paid blogging. They have a new way of calculating what certain opportunities pay which is called “Dynamic pricing” - it fluctuates by taking into account the popularity or non popularity of the opp. The only problem with this is when an opportunity becomes more popular and thus the price goes down - there’s no problem when bloggers get paid more but when we get paid less we tend to feel slighted. As far as I know IZEA has taken this into account and will be working on making the feature more fair and balanced for everyone.

Eek, my mom had a big fight with Rhonda where the same old things were said.. “You shouldn’t be here!” - “neither should you!” - “I pay rent!” - “So what!”, etc. etc. She’s talking about moving to Terry’s now or getting an apartment… but she does that a lot so who knows if it could happen. Even though we don’t have much money, I think we could get a decent place with some discount furniture and be perfectly happy. I don’t require much - I just want a place to call my own where random people can’t walk in the door at any given time. That’s not too much to ask is it?

My grandma came up to me shortly after this and begged me not to leave.. I don’t know what to do - I’m caught in the middle of all this and I don’t want to be. I’m miserable here… I like to spend time with my grandparents at all but I just can’t handle all of this. I don’t want to upset my grandma - she’s been through so much already and she’s crying constantly but I really don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore. It’s very confusing..

Oh Yay, Rhonda’s back over here at 9AM. It must be nice to have someone else take care of your kids and you just come over a visit everyday to play some games. It must be awesome to go home at the end of the day, pour yourself a drink and not have to deal with the kid crying because you’ve messed with his head all day. God, I hate this family - I’m so tempted to call Children’s Services on my own home. This is ridiculous. As far as I know, we havent heard from Children’s Services since Friday - way to follow up. Jake was supposed to placed somewhere yesterday but I guess everyone figures the 70 year old grandparents can handle it; that’s great.

Anyways, on to positive things.. oh wait, I can’t think of one positive thing to say. Ain’t life grand? American Idol tonight? No, woah - that is certainly not positive! Not that I’d ever watch such a show anyways… ;)

I’ve had a rough day at home today… I had to of course wake up early because of Jake and it’s been a constant all day long. Jason and his clan (We know how much I love them..) showed up at about noon and are still here; do people not have homes? Rhonda came by and stayed for about 4 hours as well, and then Jessica and then Connie - our house is like a family truck stop or something. They uncovered the pool today as well so that means even more unwanted guest. I’m really started to get .. I don’t even know the word, antsy? about being here. It’s constant drama, I have to stay in my room 24/7 because there’s always someone here that I can’t stand to be around. Someones always screaming or crying … it was already bad before Jake came along and now it’s even worse.

We can’t seem to afford to rent an apartment because everything is so expensive these days.. not that we have anything to put in a home anyways - my mom gave everything away. It’s just really unsettling to realize that you have nothing of your own and you’re completely stuck in this situation that you can’t get out of. I can’t escape because everyone has their own lives and Joe has to work so I’m stuck here all day, every day listening to everything that goes on and it’s just really starting to take a toll on me. I had a girly moment today and just laid in bed, listened to music and cried. There is just so much happening at once and not one part of it is in my control - it’s incredibly frustrating. The only peace is in the bathroom; thank god for shower faucets that drown out the noise of my house hold falling apart. I know it seems selfish of me to be upset by this whole situation but it’s completely disrupted all of our lives and Rhonda just.. completely does NOT care. I don’t know how to deal with that, do you?

I watched a ton of TV and movies this weekend; I tried to stay out of the house for the most part because of all the drama but I still managed to finish everything on the TiVo. I watched all my Thursday night shows of course (The Office, LOST, Ugly Betty, Smallville, Supernatural, Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy and ER) but for some reason I don’t have anything to say about any of them. None of the episodes were made of brillance and I can’t think of one that stood out from the crowd. Hopefully now that it’s May - sweeps will begin and the episodes will start providing us with the good plots we need AND deserve after the long wait.

As for movies, I saw…
-Iron Man (eh, not my kind of movie but Joe loved it. Some of the humor and gadgets were pretty cool / geektastic, from the Rolex Datejust watch to the laser constructed hand piece for the suit. I have to admit I was impressed by the technology they showed but it wasn’t enough for me!)
-Teeth (very weird movie.. but interesting)
-Sydney White (actually really, really cute!)
-The Eye (mediocre)

Pretty good round up for a few days span, I say! Now that Joe’s back at work I’ve got to find something to do with my week days.. I tried to watch “The Riches” but it’s just not catching my attention at all. Are there any other great shows out there that I absolutely need to check out? I’d prefer something that’s already had a couple of seasons so that it will keep me busy for a while.

Other than that not much is going on … the drama surrounding my house cooled down a little over the weekend but I’m sure it will be back today. Oh, Joy.

I’m going to start a new segment on here called “Buy of the week” which will feature an item every week that I want to buy or plan to buy in the coming future. You guys can feel free to join in on your own blogs or reply here with something each week! Here’s a list of Weekly Deals from Buy.com which I will be getting idea’s from - they have a ton great items to choose from!

So, first up is … ::drum roll:: The LaCie 750GB Hard Drive - Yes, you read that right, 750 GIGABITES! The current hard drive I have is 80GB and as you can imagine I have to delete things quite a bit. I like to back up all my music, DVD’s, TV Shows and pictures on my external hard drive, so it tends to take up a lot of space on both my main drive AND my external. My biggest problem as of late is the video’s I take on my digital camera at concerts - they are huge files sometimes but of course I want to keep them around for sentimental reasons. I’ve ended up having to delete some of my old Hanson and Matt Nathanson concert video’s because of the space needed for new ones. So, as you can see I’m in desperate need of a hard drive makeover; for someone who spends about 15 hours a day at the computer - a lot of space is a necessity. It’s my all in one entertainment system if you will. I didn’t think it was feasible for me to have a huge external like this because the price would be astronomical, right? Wrong! On Buy.com I found it for $145.99 with free shipping - that’s not a bad deal at all! It’s completely within my budget when I do decide to splurge on myself sometime this summer.

Of course, being a girl, my first thought was “Is it pretty?” I’m the type of person who makes every buying decision based on what the product looks like - my boyfriend keeps telling me this is not the proper way to assess what to purchase but I won’t hear of it! Luckily, the LaCie external is sleek, shiny and matches the rest of the items on my computer desk! You may think I’m kidding but I absolutely would not buy an unattractive hard drive - I’m kind of dorky (read: OCD) like that. To put the icing on the cake, I originally paid $90 for the one I have now - That means the LaCie hard drive has 10 times the space for only $50 more. Who could resist that deal?!

So, what do you guys think? Would you like to have this item (who wouldn’t?) or is there something else on the Weekly Deals list that caught your eye? Leave a comment and let me know! Coming up next week is a Mother’s Day influenced choice; because Mom’s deserve awesome deals for gifts as well!

What a week this is turning out to be…

-Rhonda went and did the same thing she did before and now Jake WILL NOT be given back to her. So now he has to go somewhere.. there’s three different people / families that want him yet we’re the logical choice? Really? two 70 year olds who are in the hospital every other month are logical? I think not. Someone needs to swallow their stubborness and pride and let Jake go to someone who can take care of him and give him a steady environment.

-Until that is resolved “I” have to go get a drug test because I live here.. what the hell? I don’t want anything to do with this. I refuse to defend Rhonda or take care of her son (If I wanted a kid, I’d get one). It’s a really stupid and ridiculous situation that I’m embarrassed to be wrapped up in. Is it possible to have a normal family where any given member is not addicted to something or other?! I’m starting to doubt it. Rhonda think she’s coming here when she gets out of wherever she’s going… um hell no. The reason we’re here in the first place was to get away from that shit with Ricky - we won’t be doing it again. She has alienated and used everyone and there’s no one left and I don’t know what to tell her. There’s only so many times I can feel bad and say “do better” - at a certain point I have to let go. She’s not the same person she was - I don’t think that person is in there anymore. I have no idea WHO she is; I just know I don’t like her. We used to talk about taking caribbean cruises when Christmas rolled around but I guess that’s off the table now… I’m not sure I could stand to be around her in a confined area like that. Someday, I’ll get the cruise and happy, stable life but it can’t seem to come soon enough.

-In other news; Joe and I’s 6 month anniversary is tomorrow and we’re going to do.. something. Not sure what yet - we’ll figure something out. Six months is a pretty big accomplishment, right? We’ve come along way if I do say so myself :) I think we’re in a good place for the amount of time we’ve been together.

-Tonight is Thursday night TV! Not as exciting as last week when it was completely new and unheard of but this week will be awesome as well! It’s May now so the episodes should be getting really good for all the shows! I know tonight is “long lost dad” night on the CW so that should be fun!

I think that’s about it… I’m about to go watch “Bones” and then head out to run some errands, have dinner and be back by TV time!

I finally saw this movie and I have to say.. it was pretty good. The ending was completely twisted and I think Stephen King is a maniac but it was good stuff. We all love a story of your everyday people; the grocery store clerk, the mortgage lenders and the local school teachers all having to go up against some unfathomable monster. I would have liked a more conclusive ending with answers to some of my many questions such as; what were those things? How far spread did the mist go? How did they clear it? What happened to the poor guy? All in all though it was a good mystery / horror / Stephen King movie.

I think I’m going to have a lazy Sunday (Chronic, what?! Cles of Narnia) and take a nap. I put new sheets on my bed, flipped the mattress and put my pillow in the drier so I’m ready to test it out! Good evening.

Alright, the Thursday night TV Show post - finally! It was a pretty great night of television and some areas and mediocre in others but to have it all in the same night was completely overwhelming.

“The Office” - I kind of loved this episode - I laughed out loud A LOT and it made me remember that I do love Ryan. It’s sad to see his fall from grace (if he was ever there) but also funny. That’s what the Office is good for! I kind of like it and hate it when they show us that Jim Halpert is human and makes mistakes just like the rest of us but I guess it’s good to see. WTF! at Toby Flenderson leaving ::moment of silence:: From the finale title / synopsis that was leaked I am lead to believe it’s true. Toby is one of my favorite characters so I think this really sucks… now who is Michael going to hate?

“Ugly Betty” - Didn’t make a great comeback… it was a cute episode and I’m now on team Gio/Betty but I need more of the funny! That’s what “Ugly Betty” is for, right? So bring on the comedy!

“Supernatural” - Was not a fan of this episode much. It was a little cute I guess but I prefer our normal format, thankyouverymuch. I was scared Dean and Sam might not ever show up and that was scary! Next week looks awesome though! I am always excited to see Daddy Winchester; whether he be real, ghost or demon.

“Smallville” - If they don’t stop lying to me in the promo’s! Last week they showed Lex at the fortress and Brainiac was back - I received neither of these things! You don’t promise a girl some James Marsters and then take it away.. that’s a federal television offense and I won’t take it! That being said.. next week looks awesome! I saw Clark int he glasses and it looked like he was a reporter - flash forward?! I hope so!

“Grey’s Anatomy” - Okay episode, I kind of like Merideth’s sister now (although I apparently can’t remember her name). I am completely over Mer/Der and… yea, bring back the funny / witty season 1 type episodes of Grey’s I miss!

“Scrubs” - What can you really say about “Scrubs”? It was amusing as usual. It never fails to make me smile and that’s a quality I definitely like in a show.

“LOST” - Nadia was back and she married Sayid and all was happy with the world! … LOST is mean! They better not kill Penelope Widmore! Is it so hard to let one couple be happy!? Geez.

Ben is a B.A.M.F., man. I don’t even begin to understand him or how he does the things he does. My question: Can Charles Widmore not die (like Michael)? If so, why not? We know the island is not full of invincible people so what’s the deal with some people being all immortal? I loved Protective!Sawyer <3 With Claire and Hurley, so cute. I thought tonight would be the night Claire died but I guess not - LOST is always tricking me! Way to go for Locke asking about the smoke monster - boo to Ben once again not answering. Some people question Hurley’s lack of weight loss, some question want to know they always stay so clean shaven and groom, but me? I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE SMOKE MONSTER IS! Come on, LOST!

I think the way they’re doing the finale is a little stupid.. 3 hours spread out over 3 weeks with a break in the middle but.. what can you do? I think the finale might be when we finally make it to Jacob? Or when they actually get off the island! That’d be exciting! I want a huge twist since I ruined last years (I promised not to do that again).

First off, I promise I will do the Thursday night wrap up sometime tomorrow! I got busy today and never got around to writing it - but I have watched everything except “Grey’s Anatomy” and “ER” and I will watch those tomorrow. Joe is going out of town so I won’t have any distractions :P

Tonight we went out to eat with his friend Mario and his girlfriend and then headed out to see “Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guatanamo Bay” - this is not the typical type of movie I’d like but 1. The first one was very funny, 2. Neil Patrick Harris (NPH!) so these are the reasons I went. It was pretty good, great for a laugh . After that we went to see “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (’cause you know I never pay $10 just to see 1 movie, I’m gonna get my money’s worth!). It was pretty good as well! Jason Segal is adorable and I saw… way too much of his man meat (if that’s possible, I don’t think it is - but Joe does). It took me an HOUR to realize that the leading lady was Kristen Bell! I knew she was in the movie I just did not recognize her at all. About half way in I asked Joe where Veronica Mars was because she was supposed to be in this.. then it hit us at the same time like a couple of soccer trophies to the head; she’s Sarah Marshall! Weird stuff, but it was a good movie as well - all in all I enjoyed both of them and it was a good way to spend my Saturday night. What did you guys do?

Here’s a quick 1:00AM update before I go to sleeps. Went to see Grandmother today in the hospital - by the time Joe and I had gotten there they had taken her back to the operating room for her.. something. So we had to hang out with my family for a little while and have a hospital dinner. It’s really awkward and nerve wrecking for me to sit around with my family doing “small talk” - I wish hospitals had laptop rental or something, do they do that? Grandmother finally came back to her room and the Dr’s said her infection doesn’t seem to be healing well. So they are doing something or other to try to make it better… apparently it hurt really bad and they had to put grandmother under anesthesia all the way :( My poor grandma is scared to death up there… it’s very sad / upsetting to watch. She has to have something else done tomorrow with the Dr. and she really doesn’t want to. I swear hospitals are just torturous. My great aunt thinks something really bad is wrong and they’re trying to cover it.. I don’t know anything about these subjects really but it scares me. It was good to see her though … I just wish she’d hurry up and come home.

After that, Joe and I went to pick up his niece from school and took her home then headed to my house to watch “The Office” and finish season one of “How I Met Your Mother”. That’s about the extent of my day and now I’m headed to bed. Still haven’t finished all of my Thursday night shows but when I do, I will do a big post with my thoughts on all the important ones.

I have finally discovered Jason Mraz’ new EP(’s) - Apparently he is releasing a new album in May but before that happens he will be releasing THREE seperate EP’s with acoustic versions of all the songs. I only have “We Sing” so far and I am absolutely in love with a song called “A Beautiful Mess” - It’s classic Mraz which I have greatly missed. It’s got some excellent imagery and a few lines that I really love (I bolded them), here’s a little snippet of the lyrics for you:

I have all of Jason’s previous albums but the last one just really didn’t impress me much. It seemed as if he changed to fit what he thought people “wanted” from him and it became a bit too… cliche’ or expected. It lacked the profound lyrical content that made Jason’s music special in the first place.. he replaces it with sillyness and innuendo’s (which are nice and apart of Jason Mraz but I want the other stuff too!) - hopefully this album will make up for that. I wasn’t looking forward to the album before I heard this song but now I find myself anticipating the release date. I’ve always loved Jason’s laid back style, his smooth music, vegan shoes, wearing his random hat of the week with a polaroid camera in hand. I miss the kid he used to be and hope he’s back now after the Sophomore slump. I haven’t seen him in concert since 2004 so it might be time to do so again soon.. we’ll see!

Grandmother was supposed to come home from the hospital today but I guess they changed their minds. I called Papa this morning and he answered the phone all out of breathe and sounding weird so I asked him what was wrong? He said the Dr. came in to check on her “wound” from where the other pacemaker was and the Dr. stuck his finger in it and felt around while Grandmother was screaming and my grandpa was about to throw up. Eek.. gross! They said it’s not healing right properly now (well gee, I wonder why Doc?!) and they might have to put a pump on it. I don’t quite understand what that means but it sounds horrible and painful, poor Grandmother… We need to check into something relaxing and enjoyable for her to do once this is all over. Maybe a trip to somewhere she likes; I’ll look into some St. John villa rentals and see if I can find a place she’d like.

So I’m going to try to go visit her sometime today if Joe has time. I have to be home before 8:00PM of course, so it might be difficult, we’ll see! I kept having nightmares about someone breaking in my room last night so I didn’t get all that much sleep.. I swear I saw the chair move and then I turned over and there was a dude (looked like Ethan from “LOST”) standing in my window! I ran for the door and then, as I always do, realized I’m crazy and went back to bed and calmed down. My head is insane..

It’s almost Thursday! What an amazing day it’s going to be! Tomorrow is a HUGE day in television for me; just look at this beautiful lineup!

8:00PM - Ugly Betty
8:00PM - Smallville
8:30PM - Scrubs
9:00PM - Supernatural
9:00PM - Grey’s Anatomy
9:30PM - The Office
10:00PM - LOST
10:00PM - ER

TiVo ALMOST got to record seven things in one night but NBC had to mess it up and put “Scrubs” during the 8 O’clock hour and now I can’t record it. I will have to download it and “Grey Anatomy” online sometime on Friday. Even still, tomorrow is going to be an amazing day! Thee of my top 5 favorite shows on the same night, how much better can it get?! I think I’m going to make some popcorn, shut all the windows, blinds, exterior shutters, doors and have a girl night in and veg out with my favorite night of television! I thought I was going to miss “Eli Stone” but they really didn’t leave me with nothing else to do, right? It’ll take me ’til Saturday to finish all of these - I’m so excited! Let’s get this party started on a Thursday night!

Today was a pretty productive day. Joe and I worked on the “Blogging Makes me Happy” video for about an hour or so then headed out to grab some dinner. He decided he really wanted Mexican, which is not my fav. but I figured I needed to eat a salad one of these days anyways. Then we headed to Walmart to pick up some thingsl; snacks, gum, body wash and a new squishy thingy to bathe with (it was pink!). So, that’s a successful day in my book!

Grandmother is still in the hospital but seems to be doing well. They’re just trying to get her blood evened out (it’s either too thick or too thin). When she gets home she’ll have some late anniversary presents waiting for her! Another one came in the mail today - my guess is it’s a pair of his and her personalized pens, how cute would that be? They’ve gotten a lot of cool things out of this! Perhaps I need to have an anniversary party… hmm.