7.29.2002

Took a day off of work today — I had way too many hours on ye olde timesheet, so my boss told me to take a day. Yay! She really does try to take care of her people.

Went to Stadt Kaffee for lunch — James is now totally addicted to German food. Bwah ha ha ha, my evil plan has succeeded! :)

Fun activity of the day from The Dislexicon: become a word! Or several, in fact:

1: neoLisa (neo-Lisa): new Lisa
2: interLisaize (inter-Lisa-ize): to cause to be or to become between or in the midst of Lisa
3: monoLisa (mono-Lisa): one or a single Lisa
4: macroLisaship (macro-Lisa-ship): quality, status or skill of long, large Lisa
5: archLisaular (arch-Lisa-ular): relating to or resembling highest or most important Lisa
6: superLisary (super-Lisa-ary): of or relating to above or superior to Lisa
7: gastroLisation (gastro-Lisa-ation): process, state or action of stomach of Lisa
8: unLisaosis (un-Lisa-osis): abnormal condition or process of not Lisa
9: Lisative (Lisa-ative): associated with Lisa
10: hypoLisa (hypo-Lisa): below or less than Lisa
11: monoLisa (mono-Lisa): one or a single Lisa
12: hemiLisaious (hemi-Lisa-ious): full of or having the qualities of half Lisa
13: proLisa (pro-Lisa): supporting or favoring Lisa
14: Lisaism (Lisa-ism): action, process or practice of Lisa
15: conLisator (con-Lisa-ator): one that acts in the manner of with Lisa
16: extraLisaible (extra-Lisa-ible): capable or worthy of beyond Lisa
17: megaLisaess (mega-Lisa-ess): a female a large Lisa
18: Lisament (Lisa-ment): action or process of Lisa
19: Lisaling (Lisa-ling): one connected with Lisa
20: metaLisaferous (meta-Lisa-ferous): producing or containing changed from or later than Lisa
21: microLisametric (micro-Lisa-metric): relating to measurement of small Lisa
22: endoLisa (endo-Lisa): within Lisa
23: hypoLisa (hypo-Lisa): below or less than Lisa
24: Lisably (Lisa-ably): performing in a manor worth of Lisa
25: Lisability (Lisa-ability): inclination or suitability for Lisa

This completely cracked me up! :) I think "microLisametric" is my favorite. LOL.

pixie.dust sprinkled at 7:10:00 PM • 0 witty remark(s)

7.27.2002

Got recertified in CPR today. Once again I'm authorized to break ribs! LOL.

I'll be starting the fourth (and final) semester of the Paramedic program at NOVA (aka Beltway Tech) in a few weeks. I am really looking forward to it. :) This is the first semester I've had off of school since I started all this in the summer of 2000; that's many semesters without a break! I almost feel like my brain has leaked out my ears since May. Heh. I need to be back in class!! And now that I'm recertified in CPR, I'm going to volunteer with the Front Royal Volunteer Fire Department. Yay!

I'm sitting on the floor, posting this from my laptop. I love this thing. :) But even more than that, I love my husband, who makes the best Spanakopita ever:

Spanakopita (Greek Spinach Pie)

One pack of very thin 'fílo' pastry (phyllo dough)
2 lb of spinach, either frozen or fresh
2 lb of féta cheese
1/2lb of butter or margarine
2 cloves of garlic or garlic powder

If the spinach is raw, cook and slice thinly. If frozen, defrost. In either case, mix the féta cheese with the spinach to make a mixture, adding the chopped garlic. Spread some butter on an oven tray. Open the fílo package and place each thin pastry (it is as thin as paper) on the tray, buttering each one using a brush. After you have done 8 fílo slices, place the spinach/féta mixture and spread over the entire oven tray, covering the 8 pastry slices. On top of this, place the remaining pastry slices, buttering each one of them as well. Notch the last one creating 2 inch (5 cm) on a side, squares. Place in a 375 degree oven and cook till brown (50 minutes or so).

pixie.dust sprinkled at 8:13:00 PM • 0 witty remark(s)

7.18.2002

So I'm sitting here at work in my PJs. LOL. I worked from 8 a.m. yesterday until 3:30 this morning, and finally got home and in bed shortly before 5 a.m. I slept until noon, and got back to work around 2 p.m. Now we're gearing up for another all-nighter so we can get this proposal out the door. Ugh. At least we get free dinner. :) Tonight we're ordering Thai food. I suspect my internal clock is going to be pretty screwed for a couple of days after all this! But at least I got to sleep in next to my sweetie this morning, and he made me a lovely waffle for lunch before I left. :)

Ordered some new bedroom furniture on Sunday — went back to Grand Home Furnishings in Winchester on Sunday and ordered one of those long, low dressers (it comes with a big mirror, but we'll have to remove it because the dresser is going in front of our bedroom windows), a matching night table for James' side of the bed, and a headboard. It's all in blondish maple wood. :) They'll deliver it on Tuesday. Yay! I'll have somewhere for all my jeans and shirts! They're on my closet shelf, and I can't reach 'em. LOL. Oh, the joys of being 4'11". (Don't worry, Mom — I don't blame you. Ha ha!)

pixie.dust sprinkled at 9:09:00 PM • 0 witty remark(s)

7.15.2002

I bought one of those Conair braiding machine-thingies yesterday — it actually works pretty well!

So I ended up with three twisty braids on each side. :) I almost ended up with dreads before I figured out how to get the darn thing to work with my super-thick hair. LOL.

I even put one in James' hair. Wheee! ;) It comes with a bunch of little rubber bands and the snap beads you can put at the end of the braids. Fun!

pixie.dust sprinkled at 11:12:00 AM • 0 witty remark(s)

7.09.2002

Personalized license plate of the day, seen on a black Jeep Cherokee:

DTHSTAR

LOL. The driver looked like a Star Wars guy. Yesterday I saw INSTG8R and GR8AVI8R. And MEOOOOW on a Mercury Cougar. Personalized plates are so inexpensive in Virginia, so many people have 'em. I have PIX1E on mine (PIXIE was taken, darnit!) and James has CELT ELF.

This message was brought to you by the letter "c" for "caffeine." :)

pixie.dust sprinkled at 1:46:00 PM • 0 witty remark(s)

7.06.2002

Had a good day. :) Went to Arlington (Pentagon City) for the monthly local Hellenion group meeting. We've been asked to do the opening ritual for DC Pagan Pride Day, which is really an honor. :) So we have lots of work to do! Dennis came up with some great ideas (as always!).

Other than that, I've just been loading software on my laptop and stuff. I've finally got Windows XP all figured out; this is my first time using it, since my desktop PC and my desktop PC at work both have Windows 98. I like XP — nice interface. James said it was a Mac OS X ripoff. LOL. That's my Mac guy!

pixie.dust sprinkled at 10:20:00 PM • 0 witty remark(s)

7.04.2002

Hope everyone is enjoying a day off. :) We're going to have turkey burgers and corn on the cob later. Yum!

This is weird -- we've been getting calls here for a Maureen Wilson; we figured our number used to be hers. Well today she calls us, and says she received our phone bill. LOL. But then she goes on to explain that she changed her number to avoid bill collectors ("They just can't wait one damn day, those bill collectors!" she said), and that Sprint had been sending her long-distance bill to the U.S. Customs Service, and that the Customs Service had started calling her as well. Huh? Mmmmmmmmmmmm, okay. In any case, Sprint is closed today, but I suspect that's just a bill for her final charges on this number. I didn't think to ask her what dates the bill was covering, or when she had changed her number. But I have her number (after I promised not to give it to any bill collectors), so at least I can get back to her. Because James reminded me that we've already paid a Sprint bill -- so I don't know how that can be ours.

Whatever! So now I can be pretty sure that the people calling here asking for Maureen are bill collectors, and they probably think we're lying when we say "wrong number." Because they always follow up with that question that drives me crazy -- "Are you sure there's no Maureen there?" Oh, wait, that's right -- I have a Maureen in my closet, hang on a second! Heh.

In any case, have a great 4th, everyone, and be safe! We're going NOWHERE near DC today. It must be a madhouse! And a broiling hot one, too.

pixie.dust sprinkled at 1:10:00 PM • 0 witty remark(s)

7.03.2002

I'm watching my Lord of the Rings bootleg AVI while I'm working. I love Windows Media Player. :)

pixie.dust sprinkled at 1:31:00 PM • 0 witty remark(s)

7.01.2002

Posting this from my laptop. Rock. :)

pixie.dust sprinkled at 8:43:00 PM • 0 witty remark(s)

My lovely HP ze1110 notebook arrived on Thursday — it rocks!

Our friends April and Mark came up to visit from Roanoke this weekend. Our first houseguests! :) We had a fantastic weekend. Yesterday we went to Skyline Caverns, just outside Front Royal. They were awesome! We also visited the Virginia State Arboretum today, which is only about 10 miles from our house. :) We also visited our local Pagan shop a couple of times, and I bought a lovely necklace made with 2,000-year-old Roman glass. It's gorgeous!! James took a ton of digital pictures this weekend — he's really quite the photographer. :) They came out nice! I'll post a few soon.

pixie.dust sprinkled at 8:40:00 AM • 0 witty remark(s)