And I have no idea what to do next.

It's happened, years earlier then I expected, and I don't know what to do about it.

The Bug asked to listen to Hannah Montana. That's right, the Disney machine appears to be sucking him in at the tender age of 3.

I'm trying to find comfort in the fact that the request was bookended by requests by him for R.E.M and The Velvet Underground.

via froglady
<p><em>Your result for The Harry Potter Husband Test...</em></p><h4>Mrs. Harry Potter</h4><p style="text-align:center"><img src="http://cdn.okcimg.com/php/load_okc_image.php/images/0x0/0x0/0/17226131710288665942.jpeg" width="663" height="919" /></p>
<div>You like a guy who's not afraid to fight evil when evil picks a fight. There's a lot to say for bravery in the face of overwhelming odds, even if it does come with a prejudice against people who don't fit into his conception of "good guy" and a penchant for hurling objects across rooms when he gets angry. But in fairness, for an orphan who's spent the better part of his life being hunted by the most evil wizard in existence, he's turned out pretty well. Just be prepared to name your kids after everyone he's ever lost, because he's got a bit of an obsession about the past. <em></em></div><p><a href="http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-harry-potter-husband-test">Take The Harry Potter Husband Test</a> at <a href="http://www.helloquizzy.com/"><b style="color:#131313"><span style="color:#ac000c">H</span>ello<span style="color:#ac000c">Q</span>uizzy</b></a></p>

I need some for a porject for school.  Short story, article or novel.  Any suggestions?

I needed my jump drive this morning, so I reached into my pretty laptop bag, which has been my carryall for everything bag lately.  Below is a list of what was in there:

• Laptop
• powerchord
• 3 lipsticks
• 1 blistex
• 3 pens
• 2 pencils
• 1 fine point Sharpie
• small hair brush
• glue stick
• small bottle of Visine drops
• checkbook
• empty wrapper for spongebob cheese crackers
• plans for rearranging bedroom and renovating  basement
• 12 cents
• half a red crayon
• wallet
• blank index cards (about 25)
• knitting markers
• small toy scorpion
• knitting needles with sock cast on
• two giant safety pins for holding knitting stiuches
• Half a ticket to Eddie Izzard show
• Gift Card
• small hair clip
• Two kids books - Llama Llama Red Pajama, and the Night Kitchen
• Work ID Card
• Changes from client on freelance project
• Tuition bill
• 2 bills from lawn care service

What wasn't there was my jump drive.

Woohoo!

I was accepted to the graduate program I applied for!

Yeah me:)

I had thought about saying something, hopefully meaningful, about Star today (along with half of the internets is appears) it would have more than likely been some morose, self-indulgent tripe that wouldn’t honor her memory as well as others already have. And then I thought about not mentioning it at all, since I often don’t really share my real feelings with others.  So instead of trying to figure out what to say, I share with you

found via Lawyer Mama

A little girl named Laura has a plan for the holiday. It's called Twenty Five Days to Make a Difference. Go read about Laura's project and then I dare you not to be inspired to follow in her footsteps.

Check it out, and get inspired. 

Star would be so giddy right now watching Duran Duran on the AMA's.  (I swear, she got giddy, I've seen it:)

Simon Le bon was an early member of the pretend Rock Star boyfriend club.

Today I say thank you to my husband (a Veteran of the Kosovo conflict), my Uncle, Capt. Foster,  Capt.  Anderle,  SSGT Thompson, WO2 Pardue, all currently serving in Iraq. 


In honor of Veteran's Day:

These very cool photographs done in the early 1900's, often to help sell war bonds.  Check them out.



The one of the statue of Liberty consists of 18,000 soldiers.

A wedding mem found via RaisingWEG

1.  Where and how did you meet your current spouse?
At a sweet 16 party for a mutual friend (I had gone to elementary school with her, and he went to high school with her.  We started talking because this friend’s cousin thought he was cute, but was afraid to talk to him.

2.  How long have you known each other?
16 years

3.  How long after you met did you start dating?
One week

4.  How long did you date before you were engaged?
Of and on for 7 years. We weren’t technically dating when we got engaged.  In fact, we hadn’t even seen each other for a few months and had only started talking to each other again a week or two before.

5.  How long was your engagement?
A few months.  We tried to elope, but that turned out to be harder than we thought it would be.

6.  How long have you been married?
9 years this December

7.  When is your anniversary?
New Year’s Eve   

8.  Where was your wedding?
Philadelphia, at a hall.  We were married by a non-denominational minister in the same place that we had our reception. After the reception about 40 of us, went to a club to celebrate New Year’s Eve. I wore my dress:)

9.  Describe your wedding costume.
Standard white dress.  I’ll try to find a pic to upload.

10.  How many people were in your bridal party?
Too many.

11. Are you still friends with them all?
About half of them.  Sadly, the guys my husband was friends with growing up have all drifted away.

12. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony?
I don’t know. Honestly that part is kind of a blur. 

13.  Do you wear wedding bands?  Are they engraved?  If so, what do they say?
We do.  They are not engraved.  In fact, they are not the ones we were married with.  Turns our neither of us actually liked them, but agreed to them because we thought the other one did. We make that mistake more often than we probably should.

14.  How many people came to your wedding reception?
About 100

15. Who paid?
We received some pre-wedding financial gifts from my parents and grandmother, and we paid for the rest. We skipped the rehearsal dinner, instead we went and had few beers with some of the bridal party and went shopping for music for the wedding (yes, the night before)

16.  What kind of cake did you serve?
My husbands cousin made our cake.  It was white with butter cream icing, and amazing.  It’s the best cake I have ever had. 

17.  What did you serve for your meal?
No idea.

18. What was your first dance?
Shania Twain, You’re Still the One

19.  Most special moment of your wedding day?
Dedicating a song to my parents for their first dance.  They didn’t have a big wedding, and never did the first dance thing, so my sisters and I decided to do that for them.  I think it was If I could write a book by Harry Connick jr.

20.  Any funny moments?
Right before the ceremony I was pretty much ready to bolt, and my Dad, sensing this looked at me, and lifted =the leg of his trousers to show me the Marvin the Martian socks he was wearing.  It worked (obviously as I am married)

During the ceremony I’m told that the DJ had arrived to set up for our reception, which was in the adjoining room, and tested the equipment by playing the theme song to Charlie Brown.  Everyone but me heard it.  See above about everything being a blur.

21.  Any big disasters?
None that I know about.

22.  Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We stayed at a hotel in Philadelphia for a few days, where we both came down with the flu, and then rented a U haul and moved to Georgia.

23. How long were you gone?
In Philadelphia, 2 days.  After we moved, 7 years.

24. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change?
I’d have a live band., fewer attendants, more twinkling lights and there would be something outdoors.

A pic of my favorite scary witch!

I have to thank vis for the lift. I was having a bummer of a day, and this amused me:)

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
nodeva goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as Pippi Longstocking.
babyraven tricks you! You get a used tissue.
feanor1138 gives you 14 green watermelon-flavoured wafers.
feanorsgrrl tricks you! You get a broken balloon.
fullmotor gives you 10 purple spearmint-flavoured gumdrops.
pjg1872 gives you 13 yellow strawberry-flavoured gumdrops.
robin52178 gives you 9 white strawberry-flavoured gumdrops.
sarcasmom gives you 5 milky white chocolate-flavoured gumdrops.
sarcasmoscorner gives you 16 light yellow grape-flavoured nuggets.
tattooedraven tricks you! You lose 1 pieces of candy!
vis_major gives you 1 orange cinnamon-flavoured pieces of bubblegum.
nodeva ends up with 67 pieces of candy, a used tissue, and a broken balloon.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

vis

Taken from vis and babyraven.

The other day, the bug and I were in the car and he was playing DJ.  Every few minutes he'd shout out a song request, and like the good Mommy I am, I completely ignored the traffic rules, and scrolled through my iPod to find the requested tune.  About halfway through the drive he says:

The Bug: Mommy, I want the 20 minute song
Me:  (not having a clue what he's talking about) The 20 minute song? Do you mean "If I had a million dollars" *
TB: (whining) No Mommy, the 20 minute song
Me: Baby, Mommy doesn't know that one, can you sing a little bit of it for me?
TB: Umm, 20, 20, 20, 20 minutes to go, I wanna be sedated**
Me: OHHH, You want  "I want to be sedated".
TB; Yes Mommy, I want to be sedated.

Honestly, my kid is way cooler at 2 then I ever was.  First off, his lyric recall is amazing, and at 2.5, his conversation skills floor me.  I'm not fluffing out the sentence structure for sake of readability, that is exactly how the conversation went.

And now, everytime he wants that song, he says: Mommy, I wanna be sedated

*I realize this is a stretch, but it had numbers in it, and it is one of his favorites
** He got the words wrong, but he NAILED the tune

found via http://feministing.com/archives/007982.html

77 year old German Playboy Rolf Eden has filed an ageism lawsuit in Germany because after and evening out with a 19 year-old woman, she declined his offer of sex:

Despite a night on the town with Eden, which ended back at his place, she refused to have sex with him, saying the he was too old for her.

"That was shattering. No woman has ever said that to me before," Eden told the tabloid. "I was crushed." He has filed charges with the prosecutors' office, he said. "After all, there are laws against discrimination."

Umm, yeah.  You go with that buddy.  I have to agree with the feministing commenter who said

   women's bodies are not a public resource. Therefore, they do not have to obey anti-discrimination laws.

That is much nicer than the way I was going to put it.

That is some serious committment right there:

(found via twhite design)

Conversation 3 days ago with colleague
Colleague:  Nodeva, can you please make up some flyers for this event?  We had a similar event several years ago and liked the poster, so can you use the same on and just change the copy?

Me:  Sure, are you sure you don’t want a new design though? I can’t access the old files, so either way I’ll have to create something from scratch.  I can recreate this, but I’d be glad to do something new for you — something that is more in line with the previous things I’ve already created for this event.

Colleague: No, why make more work when you don’t have to.  They* like this design so let’s just go with it.


Conversation with same colleague today
Colleague:  I finally heard back from them*.  They were wondering if you could redesign it.  The redesign you did for our previous event was really well received and they thought you would do something similar for this.

Me:  I thought they wanted the same design as before?

Colleague:  They did, until they saw it.  Do you think you could just pop some photos in and snazzy it up the way that you do?

Me: (banging my head on the desk) Sure.

A piece of advice:  When your designer politely offers to redesign something for you, what she’s actually telling you is that what you have is complete crap visually.  Let her.  She’s a much nicer person when she doesn’t have to redo work simply because you didn’t want to listen the first time.




*They/Them is the weird collective here that decides everything.  No one person makes a decision – it’s all done by committee.  I think it's so that I never have a clear target.