Officially Technological

There are certain moments in a person's life that may seem insignificant, but are really important. The day I became "officially technological" was one such day. Another such day occurred Saturday, January 28, 2006. You may wonder about the significance of a random sounding day as January 28th, but wonder no more. January 28, 2006 was the day I officially graduated from "Oil-free" facial moisturizer to "Combination skin" moisturizer. Some of you may not realize the right-of-passage that was crossed when I started using a moisturizer that has oil in it, but in my mind I equate it with womanhood. When you can stop worrying about pimples and start worrying about wrinkles, you have made it! I have been waiting for this day for about 25 years now, I finally feel like an adult.

Unfortunately, my moment of self-importance was ruined about ten minutes ago, when my co-worker, Laura, who is a woman with very lovely skin at the age of 50, told me that she just found a pimple the other day. So, perhaps, "Combination skin" doesn't mean that you can stop worrying about pimples, perhaps it means you have to worry about both pimples and wrinkles at the same time. So, I thought to myself, "isn't that just like adulthood? Just when you think it's cool to be an adult something happens to remind you that you're just a very old kid."

So, in this brief moment of time where I'm not getting neither zits nor wrinkles, I'm going to enjoy it. I'm sure it last another 45 minutes.

But I have nothing interesting to say today....

Or anything uninteresting to say, for that matter.....


So, I'll save it until I can think of something.

Confession: It has been confirmed. I'm a crazy bride. I always thought I'd be one of those cool brides who doesn't let anything ruffle her and is just as calm as a cucumber. Guess what! I'm not. It's OK to laugh at me. I realize I'm crazy. Let me explain to you how I'm crazy.

1. During registering (which was super fun), I found a red, chili pepper wreath which I fell in love with. Brian, on the other hand, reasonably assumed that it was the tackiest thing he has ever seen (it was tacky - but still very, very cool!). After using one of his "absolute no's" (we had a sort of pact where you got so many no-questions-asked vetos), I mentioned it no fewer than a hundred times. And still bring it up periodically.
2. I called my sister this morning to see if my dress had been dropped off yet (she was the only person I could think of who would be home to sign for it) and it had been delivered. Within a matter of minutes I had excitedly called and/or emailed everyone I've ever met to tell them that it came.
3. I just spent almost two hours looking for thank-you cards online (and I still didn't find anything that I liked).
4. I wasted eight trees and the afternoons of 3 federal employees to pick out fonts for our invitations.
5. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 pictures of Brian and I in my cube at work (and of course they all look exactly the same, except we're wearing different clothes).
6. Cameron - my carpool friend - is about to disown me, because the 50 mile drive gives me way, way too long to describe every wedding detail.

Today is my birthday. I am officially one quarter of a century old. Wow.

But enough about me!

Today is an exciting day. Because today is a snowy day. I'm not sure where all of you live, but here in Michigan it has seemed more like Seattle, Washington (I can say that now because I've been there). It has been coldish (lower forties), foggy, gray, misty, rainy, uck. But last night we got that warm, slushy snow. About two inches of it, and it is now clinging to every, single twig of every, single branch of every, single tree. And it's beautiful. And I remembered why I am still in Michigan - even though it's January. Because when it looks like this, it is beautiful. So, I'm excited. It's a beautiful winter, Michigan day. And it's not too cold (by too cold I mean -27 degrees). It's just beautiful. So, for today, January 18th, 2006, all is right in Michigan (or at least all is right in my own sheltered little area in Michigan - but either way....).

Pronunciation: 'brId

Definition: All stressed up and everywhere to go.

Reference: The Holly Bohart Collegiate Dictionary

I am of the opinion that if you're going to be productive and make everyone jealous at how much you can juggle at one time, you should do it in spurts. You shouldn't have to maintain wonder-person status. You should be able to do it, impress everyone, and then be able to lapse back into normal life. We all know we're not wonder-people, we can't maintain such activity very long. But if you have one productive day followed by ten normal days, you're still averaging out to be more productive than the average person. Right? So, here's my theory. I have one super hero kind of day, and then I follow it with with ten or so lazy days, and I believe that this averages out to be about.... well.... Average.
So yesterday I:

• Cleaned up a problem with my payroll (that took the whole work day. Feds can really slow down the production process).
• Found a doctor so I can get my physical.
• Went to the Secretary of State and got my Driver's License and Car Registration renewed (my birthday's coming up) and changed my Voter's Registration to my current address (for a whopping 2.5 months).
• Completed and filed my taxes for 2005 (I should be the first person in the whole country to get that done, so I'm expecting to see my tax return next week).
• Cleaned out my 2005 files (by "files" I mean drawer).
• Changed my Verizon account from my mom's name to mine (after procrastinating only one year and three months).
• Made a stack of my Travel Credit Card statements to file at work (I only do that about twice a year, so I have quite a few of those).
• Took a hot bath
• Was in bed by 9:03 (PM not AM).

Super human? It's been suggested. But honestly. All those things could legitimately take some serious time. But I managed to get it all done! Are you impressed yet? Because if you are I'd like to return back to my normal, lazy self. I'm tired! And since I did so much yesterday, I think I should be able to be lazy for a good 3 or 4 weeks now (by "lazy" I mean sitting on the couch for hours at a time only stirring to go to bed).

Because I was joking!

All day (well, not all day, but you get the picture) on Monday I spent hunting for the perfect dress to upload on my blog and scare everyone with. I was looking for something horrible, but not so horrible that no one would believe me. And the dress below is the one I decided on.

But I did get a couple of funny stories out of it. The funniest, was that Brian (for the second time in his life) checked my blog. I emailed him and told him to check it, but he doesn't check his email every day and I kinda assumed he wouldn't get the email until I had posted something that said I was joking. Anyway, long story short, the poor guy didn't know what to say and/or do. He was trying to be supportive, but he said his heart stopped when he saw it (which I don't doubt). It doesn't help that my family has been "preparing" him that my dress is a little non-traditional (i.e. trendy). So, he was already prepared to be surprised, so when he saw it he just assumed....

Anyway, I think he might be still twitching from the incident. You may want to pray for a quick recovery. :)

Here's the clip-out from the magazine. I thought the hat was a little much so, I didn't get that.

You may not have realized this.... but I almost died last week. Yes, died. It was horrible. I had the worst cold I've had in years. I missed almost 3 whole days of work. As it turned out, I didn't actually have a cold, I had a sinus infection, but even with antibiotics, I was pretty sick for a couple of days. On Friday I took 2 naps (both over 2 hours long) and got about 10 or 11 hours of sleep that night.

But I am definitely on the mend. Saturday I only took one nap. Yesterday, none. And today, I came back to work, although everyone is kinda eyeing me suspiciously and not getting too close... just in case.

In my delirium I had several epiphanies about myself, several of which I'll share now. This is kinda like the part of "Villette" where Lucy Snowe is sick and in her feverish confusion she wandered aimlessly through the streets of Villette until she happened upon a church where she confessed to the priest. So here are the confessions of Julie, discovered in the altered state of sickness.

• Nothing is better on a sore head than a pillow sheathed in flannel under your head and a flannel sheet over it.
• No offense is greater than having to do dishes after two hours of restless sleep only wakening because you couldn't breathe... out of anything.
• Not even a box of Cheez-its can relieve cold symptoms.
• Running out of hot water while trying to take a hot bath is the second biggest offense.
• I'm addicted to Brian (there - I've said it). I went down to see him yesterday, even though I shouldn't have because he couldn't come and see me.
• Not being able to locate one (out forty or so) tube of chapstick is the third biggest offense.
• I know it sounds hokey (and maybe even a little wimpy), but I'm not convinced my nose wouldn't have to been amputated had I not used the Kleenex with lotion.
• Having to scrape an 1/8 of an inch of ice off your windshield so that you can go to Meijer to get enough food to make it through the day is the fourth largest offense.
• Having enough time to watch Episodes IV, V, and VI of Star Wars was very pleasant.

That's all my confessions for today.

Brian and I were talking on the phone last night and I was tired, because I'm sicker than a dog, and after asking me a couple of questions, I realized (in my altered state - because in my regular state I probably wouldn't admit this) that I'm not a trivia queen. So, here's some stuff that I never knew and now I do, because I'm waiting for the doctor downstairs to call so I've been *google*ing stuff. So, here is some random trivia I've gleaned.

• The old maxim is "starve a fever, feed a cold" (not "feed a fever, starve a cold")
• The song 'Kiss From A Rose' is sung by Seal
• "Ms" should have a period after it since it's an abbreviation. For what? For the word "mistress".
• The Monkees' song 'I'm a Believer' was written by Neil Diamond (I know, I know, I cried when I found that out too).
• Lionel Barrymore (the bad guy in "It's a Wonderful Life") is not Drew's great-grandfather, he is actually her great-uncle.
• In mathematics, the symbols "<" and ">" are not a representation for an aligator eating the smaller number as we are taught in elementary school, but were actually created by a man named Thomas Harriot who was inspired by a tatoo he saw on a Native American. The tatoo was the two symbols on top of each other.

So, there's some random stuff for a weird, coldish day in January.

(In a good way)
This picture totally makes me laugh (in a very good way). There's just something about it that seems so.... I can't think of the right word. I just like it a lot. We took it when we walked down to the pier in Manistee (on Lake Michigan) the day after Christmas. Just in case anyone was wondering it was very, very cold on the Lake, and very, very windy.