I am a Gamer Geek (not really)

July 12, 2009 at 2:38 pm (Daily Ramblings, The Good)
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I’ve pretty much been focusing on the Little Man, and life in general, my health and things like that in this blog. But I feel like I really should be writing about all aspects of myself. I do tend to censor a little because I’m not totally comfortable with the idea yet, but I’m getting there. My last post was a HUGE step for me, and probably one of the hardest.

Yesterday I saw something about an upcoming Prince of Persia movie (actually it was a picture of Jake Gyllenhaal all buffed out). Yet another video game movie, but this one has promise. It’s NOT directed by Ewe Boll.

Now, I’ve never played the Prince of Persia games. I’ve looked over Mr. Hottie’s shoulder while he’s been playing them, but I tend to not play that kind of game. In fact I haven’t played a lot of the games that are out mainly due to the fact that we didn’t have a TV until last December, and we don’t own any consoles. Yet. (I have big plans for a 52″ Aquos with PS3, Xbox, and Wii). So my gaming experience lately has pretty much been City of Heroes and whatever random Popcap game sucks me in for the week. However, I can appreciate a good game flick.

Prince of Persia looks like it might be a good game flick, just based off a few things. One: Jake Gyllenhaal. Two: Jerry Bruckheimer. Three: NOT Ewe Boll.

There’s not much available to check into. I can’t find what I’d consider to be a ‘real’ trailer, so the only things out there are a couple of interviews and on the set teasers. Still, it looks like it could be very good.

I started a Netflix trial the other day and immediately found one of the movies I grew up on. I swear I used to watch this thing at least once a month, and I remember my dad letting me stay up late to watch it. Yellowbeard! Truly a classic Monty Python people but not Monty Python brand movies. I highly recommend it to anyone with a warped sense of humor. I plan on introducing my kids to it when they visit again. Mua-hah-hah!

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Take A Deep Breath, Let It Out…

July 6, 2009 at 4:03 pm (Daily Ramblings)
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Several months ago a wonderful woman by the name of Maggie started a blog called Violence UnSilenced. In it, survivors of domestic violence and abuse would tell their stories. Some were from people who were already in a better situation, some were from people who had to stay anonymous to protect themselves.

I read the stories with mingled horror and admiration. Some stories even brought tears to my eyes. These women and men were so strong, so brave. It took several days of soul-searching before I decided to send in my story. This was back in February. I think it’s a testament to the welcome nature of the site that it was finally posted today.

Read my story here.

Those of you who have come to my blog from that post, thank you. Thank you for your kind words, and your support. When I started re-reading my own post, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and narrowly avoided having a panic attack. Your words calmed me, soothed me. I wonder if my mother may stumble upon this post. I still haven’t told anyone except my husband, and you faceless, wonderful people of the internet.

I’m mainly writing this post because I wanted to share the letter that I wrote about. I’m not sure that I need to say much about it, the words speak for themselves.

7/27/06
I have tried for years to say I’m sorry. I’ve imagined it, I’ve said it out loud yet the whole time my shame takes me to the place of the unforgiven. I have tried for years to give back to you what I took from you, with anger of my own making. I had no understanding at the time who I was or why I was. It’s funny how the past sews itself into the now and never lets you forget even when you try. We all find ways to cope and yours was the most beautiful. A true forgiving. You were always calm in my storm and my storm sometimes never ended. I finally found the reason and made amends with it. I made myself whole again and you have always been there, the one person I owe a world of thank you’s to, a world of apologies. I live with my regrets but no sorrow of the time we spent together. I came looking for you but never found you. Then out of nowhere google sent me here. I hope you’re well. I hope you have all the happiness in the world. I’m sorry to disturb you if the past is not a fair place to spend any time.

I wrote him back, of course. I won’t post all the emails here, but here is another excerpt from his second email.

I hate to harp on the same subject but I’m trying to find how, in words, to tell you that I healed thanks to you. I went to anger management, psychologist, psychiatrist, the works. All because I couldn’t live with myself for what I did to you. I feel like an alcoholic saying that I haven’t had a drink in ….. But I found peace and haven’t had a relapse of anger EVER. I am grateful that I only have you to apologize to. It’s not fair that we can be hurt so young and hurt other who are innocent, who only want to love us. I sorry from the bottom of my heart. There hasn’t been a week go by that I haven’t thought about you and hoped that I didn’t scar you.

I know I am so lucky, and I can only hope that other people in my situation see themselves and act. I can only pray that the givers of pain, the abusers, recognize themselves and -stop-. It’s a far cry, but it happened in my situation, I have faith that it will happen in others.

Thank you for listening.

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A Real Pain in the Neck

June 30, 2009 at 10:58 am (Daily Ramblings, My Health, The Bad)
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A few days ago I slept on my neck funny or something. Since then I can’t turn my head to the right without pain. It was bad enough yesterday that I spent the day hopped up on painkillers to dull it. This morning I feel utterly like crap. Nausea and no appetite whatsoever, and aching pain from my neck to my shoulder.

Hopefully the chiropractor that Mr. Hottie and I went to last year will be able to see me today. I don’t want to have to keep taking drugs for this.

Sitting upright is making my arm and shoulder shake. Laying down is just as bad.

On a totally unrelated note, it looks like I need to move some posts over again, so don’t be surprised if the rather large gap between May and June starts to fill in.

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An Important Update

May 20, 2009 at 9:15 pm (Daily Ramblings, The Good)
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I was looking back over my past couple posts and boy have things changed for me over the past few weeks! This will be a small update simply because so much has happened I’ll need to think about it all before I post it and make it pretty.

Here are the primary things:

There’s no way I’d be able to keep all this straight if it weren’t for the Outlook Calendar. My life is ruled by recurring events and alarms.

We’re in a new apartment now, much bigger than the old place. Unpacking is going slowly because I have so much other stuff on my plate, but we’re getting there. My kids are coming to visit this weekend and we get an extra day due to Monday being a holiday. I just hope I can get their room cleared of boxes before they show up.

I was rescued from Kaplan at the last minute by a friend from LOTRO who told me about Western Governor’s University. I really can’t say enough good things about this school. They’re competency based so you won’t progress unless you can prove what you know. No slack off passing here.  One of the hardest things for me to adapt to is the fact that there is no homework. You’re evaluated strictly based on your competency on the final assessment for each class. It’s a wonderful change from feeling like you MUST do something, especially when some of the information is stuff I already know and don’t need to worry about it. I have a presentation to do for one class, and I’m already prepping to take my CIWv5 certification, the first of many that are included in the tuition cost of my degree program.

Griffon is officially a toddler now. He’s all over the place and trying to climb up to get things that are out of his reach. This is pretty damn amazing considering back in December we weren’t sure if he’d ever be able to stand on his own, let alone walk.

In the scraps of my deviantart page is my first of many practice sketches. I’ve given myself an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays for art specifically, so I’ll be spending part of the time on the 6×6 30 second sketches, and the rest on inking and coloring. I have a lot of stuff in progress that I’ve been meaning to finish for a long time now, and by golly, I’m gonna do it.

Work is work. Since my financial aid hasn’t kicked in yet (dang slow governmental processes) I had a bit of a panic the other day when I realized that we didn’t have enough money to cover this month’s tuition. Fortunately, I was able to get a balance increase on a credit card I’d paid off several months ago (and cut up), as well as a new card FedEx, so now I’m good for another month. Here’s hoping my Pell Grant and GI Bill kick in before June 25th.

Hopefully I’ll remember to post interesting things HERE instead of over at deviantart.

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I Changed My Mind!

March 14, 2009 at 12:31 am (Daily Ramblings)

Okay, I decided I’d stick around here a bit longer, mainly because there’s a lot of stuff I should have written about but didn’t because I didn’t want to have too much to move, but then I never got around to getting a new page and I forgot all the stuff I wanted to write about!

Yes, yes, I know! Anyway, thanks for stopping by, I’ll try to be more entertaining in the future.

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Turkey Bean Whatever

March 9, 2009 at 8:36 pm (Cooking)

I honestly have no idea what to call this. My mom showed me how to make it, and she didn’t have a name for it either. I usually refer to it as “that turkey stuff”. This is what Hottie and I have been eating every day almost for the past month because it’s cheap and it makes a lot, and it’s very versatile.

Ingredients:

1-2 lbs ground turkey – I think the packages I usually get are something like 1.75 lbs or something, I never pay attention.

4 14.5oz cans of diced tomato – or two giant cans, or used stewed tomato, or whatever tomato-y goodness you like, as long as it’s chunky and not sauced.

5-9 14.5oz cans of beans – This is where the versatility comes in. I use a combination of garbanzo, black, great northern, canolli, kidney, red, butter, or whatever happens to be in the pantry. It just doesn’t matter. Don’t have any kidney beans? Leave ‘em out. Have 3 cans of black? Use all those.

Corn – bag of frozen, couple 14.5oz cans, whatever. I love corn so I’d like to put in 2-3 cans but Hottie doesn’t like corn so we compromise with 1 can.

2 8 oz cans of mushrooms (optional)

First, take a can opener to all the cans. You’ll want to do this ahead of time. You can also drain and rinse all the beans ahead of time but personally I do it just before I add them.

In a 5 quart dutch oven (or other large pot, this recipe makes a LOT so be prepared) brown the turkey over medium heat. If you use real lean stuff you don’t need to drain it, otherwise get rid of as much of the juice as you can. If you use mushrooms, add them now. Salt and pepper the turkey. Add the tomatoes and season*.

Start adding the beans and corn, a little at a time and stir in between. Season again and check the taste. It’s really easy to over spice if you’re using hot stuff so be careful. Turn to low, cover (or not) and let cook until the tomatoes lose their acidity. I usually let mine go for about an hour, but I keep grazing off of it while I’m cooking because it’s so yummy.

Turn off heat and serve over rice (brown and basmati are especially good for this, I’ll use jasmine and white in a pinch but I don’t like them as much because of the starchy stickiness.) Enjoy for a week!

*Spices! Another hit of versatility. My mom uses a few shakes of tabasco and some red pepper flakes, but I’m a wuss so I don’t do that.

I’ve used : cholula + Mrs. Dash chipotle, worchestershire (added to the turkey while browning) + Mrs. Dash Steak seasoning, Mrs. Dash italian seasoning (see a trend here? I love Mrs. Dash)

Experiment with your own combos. I’ve thrown a can of ro-tel in there a time or two and it came out all right. It’s almost impossible to mess this up unless you over salt it.

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Wait, what?

March 9, 2009 at 10:08 am (Everyday Life)

So, I’ve somehow managed to get myself enrolled in Kaplan University’s online IT program. I’m not really sure how this happened. All I really wanted was some information, but then the info guy said those little magic words “no out of pocket cost” and I started to think that maybe it would be possible for me to go back to school after all.

A couple of years ago I attended University of Phoenix online. It was good for a while, I lasted a little over a year, but a couple things ganged up on me to prevent my continuing education with them. 1) They raised their prices to something that was more than my GI Bill could cover, and 2) they stuck me in some horrible math class involving graphing and all sorts of stupid equations, and let me tell you what… I SUCK at math. College mathematics 1, grade C. College mathematics 2, F! F F F! So I don’t want a repeat of that, obviously.

I start the 25th, if all goes well. I’m a bit worried, hell, who am I kidding? I’m scared shitless! I just hope enough of my credits carry over from the Air Force and Phoenix that I don’t have to go through things over again. Mainly because I only get funding for another 3 years, so I’m either going to have to work really fast, or I’m going to have to take on another student loan down the line – not something I’m looking forward to.

I missed the February start date so apparently I’m going to start March 25th. Peak season for my job will also be coming up soon and I AM looking forward to that. I consider myself blessed to have a legitimate work at home job that is not only fun for me, it pays based on the work I do, which is fantastic for my guilt complex. There are days when I work 10 hours, believe me. My boss rocks though. She’s let me stay on through the year when it’s normally a seasonal job because I’m constantly saying “yes” when she asks me if I can type. Now it’s pretty much “If there are cards, you can type.” I love setting my own schedule.

But it’ll be interesting if I’ll be able to wrestle my time-management skills into submission once everything starts to move. School + Japanese classes, work, baby, kids visiting, household stuff, and packing. It’s going to be FUN! Oh, and blogging, which I’m still trying to at least make a couple posts a week. The problem is my posts have been sitting in drafts instead of being published, like this one which I’m topping off today was started on February 13. Yay procrastination!

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Saturday at Aquatica

March 3, 2009 at 10:32 pm (Daily Ramblings, The Good)

One of the only good things about living in Florida is the fact that the local water parks are open year round. They may have shorter hours in the off-season, but they’re still a blast to go to, even when it’s only 84 degrees and there’s enough wind to freeze your little behind off when you get out of the pleasantly heated water.

Anyway, Aquatica! One of the Anheuser-Busch family of amusement parks (Busch Gardens, Sea World) it is definitely a great place to go in Orlando. Since Hottie and I decided to buy 2-year passports to all the parks when we moved here, we go whenever we’re able. I’m pretty sure we’ve more than made up for the cost in visits. 

We decided we’d go this Saturday when my kids were visiting two weeks ago, so they had two weeks to look forward to it. We actually managed to get there very shortly after the park opened so not only did we have great parking, the one ride that usually has a long line didn’t have any at all. Of course, the weather probably had something to do with that – it was still overcast and a little windy when we got there. 

The ride we’d been wanting to try out was the Dolphin Plunge.  When you first look at it, it really seems like a neat concept. It’s a water slide that goes through a tank with a couple of Commerson’s Dolphins, and the advertisements show happy, smiling people looking in awe at the dolphins as they slide through. In reality, however, the ride is more like a black, soul-sucking tube of death that shoots you at high speed into a 3-foot-deep splashdown pool. Thank God I rode on it before letting my daughter go down. I forbade her from riding it. Hottie went down first, and then I had to go try it. I almost wish I hadn’t.

It’s not a slide, it’s a tube, and the only light is the little airholes that are in the upper portion of the tube. Unfortunately, just before the tube goes through the dolphin tank, the airholes vanish, leaving the air in the tube stale, hot and humid. Have I mentioned I’m a teeeensy bit claustrophobic? I was okay until the air vanished and water started splashing my face. I spent the remainder of the ride hyperventilating and praying for it to be over. I didn’t even register the dolphin tank as more than a bright area in an otherwise dark tube. I will never go on that ride again.

After chilling ourselves with that, we all went over to the big kid area and turned my elder two loose. We slathered on the sun screen, and I decided I’d take Little Man into the shallow area. We grabbed a baby life jacket and tried to get him into it. He, of course, complained mightily so I took it back off. I noticed that the water was a little cooler in the kids area so I decided to take him over to the entrance to my favorite thing in the park.

The ‘ride’ is called Roa’s Rapids. I could literally spend hours just floating around in this river. Come to think of it, I did spend hours in it, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I brought him back into the water and little by little got him into deeper parts. By deeper I mean 6 inches or so. Then I got him into the life jacket. He didn’t complain quite as much and was soon smiling as I floated him around.

Soon enough, I brought him into the actual fast water portion. He had a lot of fun as I bounced him up and down in the water while we floated around. He doesn’t like water being splashed on his face either, so at times it was like a game of “dodge the geysers”. We went around that a couple times before the kids and Hottie joined us, and then we went around a couple -more- times until we decided it was time to eat.

The rest of the day was spent eating, splashing and floating. Little Man was the only one of us that didn’t get sunburned. I got sunburned on the tops of my feet, which is almost the WORST place to get a burn. We closed the park down in Roa’s Rapids. I think we were the last ones in there. All in all it was a fantastic day.

Sunday we decided to go get Hottie’s hair cut, and maybe check K-Mart for bikes (HA!). As we were eating lunch, this conversation took place:

Me, to my other son: Do you want a hair cut?
MOS: Yes, I want a hair cut.
Hottie:  Do you want a hair cut, or do you want ‘em all cut?
MOS: What’s a mall cut?

I about died laughing. I love Hottie’s accent.

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It’s Hard To Think Of Titles Sometimes

February 22, 2009 at 1:26 am (Daily Ramblings, The Good)
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I almost made a third post yesterday, but then I thought maybe I better wait because I didn’t want to get into the habit of making multiple posts in one day. I mean, my life isn’t -that- exciting, y’know.

Yeah. Mistake.

My brain is like a steel trap that’s rusted. I can’t even begin to pick up the thread of what I was planning to make my third post about today. That’ll learn me. I’ll just write it, and then wait to publish it until the next day. That makes more sense.

Today we went bike shopping (unsuccessfully). We really want to get a couple of cheap bikes and a trailer that we can just ride around on to get back in shape with. Unfortunately, the bike shop we went to wanted an arm and a leg for a bike. We’re not -serious- bikers. I’d be willing to part with a pinkie, but really, $500 for a bike? No thanks.

Back to craigslist we go.

On the upside, the pawn shop we stopped at to look at bikes after that had some super cheap DVD players, so we’re going to get one of those to go with the TV that’s been collecting dust since Mama Hottie gave it to us for Christmas. I need something to play Baby Einstein for Little Man, after all, and the portable DVD player that I bought back in 2005 is starting to show signs of wear. Hey, running Baby Bach on repeat for hours on end for a year will do that. Quite frankly, I’m surprised the thing still runs at all.

Also on the agenda for today was a visit to the eye doctor for new contacts and glasses prescriptions for us. Lately I’ve been having to take my glasses off to read, and it’s been pretty annoying. Of course, vision changes through pregnancy, so the glasses I got in 2007 are now too strong for me. Yippee!

The eye doctor was really funny. He’s a little guy, not much taller than me, and wears bow ties. In fact, his ads actually refer to him as “the bow-tie guy”. He just adored Little Man, who charms people where ever he goes. 

Anyway, I ended up with a trial pair of acuvue advance, because my eyes get real dry and itchy whenever I wear contacts. So far they’re pretty decent (and at a lower prescription than what I had before) but I’m going to be using the peroxide cleaning thing instead of the saline rubs. This should be interesting. Hottie got special contact lenses in a better prescription as well. We’re both relieved that our insurance covers the majority, and that we have tax money to cover the rest. It’s no fun being blind!

We also picked up a new convertible car seat for the Little Man. Honestly, the stroller/carseat combo is great, but the car seat we got with the set is so damn heavy I can barely carry it. Of course, that’s also because I’m a puny wimp, but hey.  I’ll set that up tomorrow and see how it works.

Little Man is doing fantastic at standing now, and he’s starting to feel around on top of the places he can reach. Time to start babyproofing!

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Beating My Head Against The System

February 20, 2009 at 6:01 pm (Daily Ramblings, The Bad)
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When Hottie and I got married, I opted not to change my name at the time. I had my reasons, none of which I can remember right now except for the “I’m not so sure I like my first name with your last name” one, and the “maybe I’ll use an awkward and unwieldy hyphen-name instead” one. Hottie didn’t care one way or the other, and gradually I started using his last name on more and more things (bills, internet things, checks, etc) until finally, after two years, I decided to do the big social security card name change.

Well, wait, not really. I’m getting ahead of myself. A few weeks ago I sent out for some information from various online colleges to see about going back to school. After a horribly amazing crash and burn failure at University of Phoenix, I’ve been very leery of starting back up again. (It was college math 2, by the way. Math is my nemesis, and anything beyond simple addition and subtraction makes my brain explode.)

Instead of simply getting some information from Kaplan University, I found myself being herded (much like University of Phoenix) into enrollment and registration and class starts next week and holy hell aren’t you guys even going to buy me dinner first?

Needless to say, I dug in my heels a little bit. I just wanted INFORMATION. I wasn’t sure I was ready to go back to school yet. After much harassment and many calls from one of my advisors I finally got around to doing the paperwork necessary to start my GI Bill up again. Except, whoops, there’s something wrong with my last name! I enrolled and sent all my various paperworks (transcripts and DD-214) with my ‘new’ last name. My GI Bill is attached to my social, which is attached to my ‘old’ last name.

See, I really didn’t decide to get my social security card changed, it was kind of decided for me. No problemo! I was willing to do it now since I’d been using Mrs. Hottie for the past year or so. Except I couldn’t find our marriage certificate. We -are- married, right? I’ll just get a copy from the office that’s way downtown and hey we only have one vehicle now but I really don’t feel like traipsing all over town to get this stuff done right now so I’ll wait until tomorrow.

Or the next day.

Meanwhile, my advisor is calling me daily wanting to know if I’ve gotten my paperwork taken care of because I’m supposed to start on the 25th. “Yes,” I say, “I can’t do it today because the social security office closes stupid early and I don’t have the truck.” So finally, today Hottie braves downtown (bless him) to go pick up a copy of our marriage license, comes home, and then I take him back to work and head down to the social security center.

Tangent: My former boss married us in his office. True story.

I get to the center (the one that closes at 3:30) thinking this is going to be an in-and-out situation. I didn’t even bring the diaper bag. As soon as I walk in I realize how wrong I was. The place is packed. Wall-to-wall people. It’s so noisy I can’t even hear myself think, and my vision starts to narrow a little.

I should mention here that a few years ago I was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, one of the reasons I wanted to go to school online. I do okay in small groups, but as soon as the number of people starts to become more than I can count easily, I start having problems.

It’s so confusing that all I can do is go and get an application and retreat, clutching it in one hand while I try to make the fastest exit possible while hiding behind my son. I sit in my truck for about 5 minutes before I’m calmed enough to drive. I even called Hottie and told him, “I can’t do this. I can’t, there’s too many people. I’m just going to mail it in.” Fate was laughing at me at that point. HA HA HA.

When I got home I looked up the social security information to find out what I needed to send, etc etc. Then I spotted this little gem:

Take (or mail) your completed application and documents to your local Social Security office.  If you live in the New York City metropolitan area, Las Vegas NV, Orlando FL, or Phoenix AZ you may need to apply in person at your local Social Security Card Center. 

Guess which one of those areas I live in. And did I mention that the card office I went to is the ONLY one in the area, and they service 3 counties? On top of that, after I apply, I STILL need to wait for the application to be sent to the main office in Baltimore, and then get approved and all that jazz. So it’s still not going to be a fast process.

I call my advisor and leave a message saying that I don’t think I’ll be starting school next week.

I think I need a beer or three.

I’ll be going first thing Monday morning, this time with Hottie so he can be my bulwark against all those people. I’m so lucky to have him to combat all my neuroses.

As a total aside, WordPress does NOT like the word “with”. It keeps trying to make it “WI th”.

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