Mishmash Musings

I’ve never really celebrated New Year’s Eve out at a big party or anything. I think the most exciting one I had was when I was in Trafalgar Square (London) for NYE to ring in 1999. Even then, I don’t think we lasted until midnight because of jetlag.

At any rate, if you’re going out to celebrate tonight, please stay safe. Use cabs, public transportation, or a designated driver if you’re drinking; please don’t even think about getting behind the wheel of a car.

And here’s to a great 2007!

The big news today is that Saddam Hussein’s death penalty was carried out. I guess this actually happened late last night (going by U.S. time). And as you might expect in this Internet age, his final moments were digitally captured and beamed all over the world soon after the event took place.

I saw a short video of the hanging over on Google video, and thought it was brutal and disgusting. I wish I hadn’t let my curiosity get the best of me. Don’t get me wrong: I have no sympathy for someone like Hussein, who was responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands of people in his lifetime. I guess I was just surprised at how… unceremonious everything was. They didn’t even put a hood on him. It was very quick, too.

I’m not going to link to any videos here. If you want to see it, I’m sure you can find it.

I’m still in the market for some good weight loss supplements to help me with my New Year’s resolution of losing 10 pounds by June. That’s just a little under a pound per month, which should be doable with the right combination of diet and exercise. But I want to have some supplements on hand in case I need a bit of a boost. I’ve heard that some people have had excellent results with Hoodia, so I want to check into that next. If you have any experience with it, please let me know. Did it work for you??

We’ve been giving a lot of thought as to where to take one of our family vacations this year. Originally, we were going to go to Orlando to visit Disney World and other theme parks, but since we’ve already gone there a couple times in the past few years, we changed our minds. Now we’re thinking about heading to Outer Banks North Carolina instead. This is not set in stone yet, but I’ve heard such good things about the place that I really want to go.

Our vacation will likely be in May or June, depending on my husband’s work schedule. I’ll post updates as I get more information.

I’m a Beatles fan and was surprised to learn that they’d never been featured on British postage stamps. Aren’t they like the most famous thing to ever emerge from the U.K.??? Ha ha, just kidding.

The stamp drought is about to change, though, because I just read that the Royal Mail will release a set of six stamps featuring album cover artwork from the Beatles. I think this is very cool and will contact a couple of London friends to see if they can get their hands on some of these stamps for me!

We’ve decided to paint our living room, dining room, and two of the bedrooms this winter. We really haven’t done much with the place since we moved in, so we still have white walls in nearly every room. Anyway, I was searching for house painting ideas today and came across a great site that has lots of unique suggestions as well as nice pictures that show exactly how the finished project will look. We actually might end up using some of these!!

I’ve felt generally sluggish and almost nauseous nearly every day for the past few weeks. At first, I thought it was computer-related since I sit in front of my monitor for at least 8 hours per day. I thought the main problem was eye-strain, which in turn led to the nauseousness. But even after cutting way back on my computer use, I didn’t feel any better.

Then I got the bright idea to eat lunch at McDonald’s today. I’ve been trying to avoid junk food lately because of holiday weight gain and general health, but today I went all out with a Quarter Pounder with cheese combo meal, fries, and a regular Coke (not diet). And you know what? I’ve felt fantastic all day!

Maybe I’m just the kind of person who needs junk food once in a while. I remember when I was pregnant I had terrible morning sickness for the first four months. In fact, the only things I could keep down were McDonald’s cheeseburgers! So I’m not kidding about the needing junk food angle. Strange, huh?

I just read that Gerald R. Ford, the 38th president of the United States, died today at the age of 93. Ford, of course, was the one who pardoned Richard Nixon, a move which sparked a lot of controversy back then. I was just a baby when Ford was in office during his 2-year tenure, so I don’t know much about what he accomplished.

Every major news website has nice, long biographies out, so here are a few different ones for you:

Yahoo/AP Story

CNN Story

Chicago Tribune Story

I just wanted to make a quick post here to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas! I hope you have safe travels during this time and get to spend this evening and tomorrow with the people you love and care about. I’ll be staying off the computer tomorrow (one day won’t kill me), so I’ll catch up with all of you on Tuesday. Be safe and have a wonderful day!

Even though I live less than 30 miles away from where I went to high school, I rarely run into any of my former classmates. Well, maybe I have but just didn’t realize it because I didn’t recognize them or whatever. But today was very different. I (quite literally) bumped into Matt B., who I had a HUGE crush on from 7th grade all the way through high school! He was a year ahead of me and just the cutest guy ever! He was also very nice and said hi to me in the halls even though I wasn’t part of the “cool crowd” like he was.

Anyway, we didn’t have much time to chat since we were being crushed on all sides by other shoppers. He’s gained a bit of weight and isn’t as cute as he was back in H.S., but that’s to be expected. I’m just happy that he remembered who I was!

Well, I’ve had my braces on for two weeks now, so I think I’ve got a good feel for how things are going to be. First of all, they hurt for the first week, but are completely fine now. I had almost forgotten this whole cycle of pain/nothing, pain/nothing that occurs after new wires are put on. Eating is kind of a chore because I can’t really bite into anything. So I have to use a knife and fork for practically everything — even sandwiches!

I miss being able to floss quickly, and can’t manipulate these underwire floss thingies very well. That’s a major negative in my book. In addition, because I have ceramic braces and white rubberbands, I can’t eat any foods that could potentially leave stains. My orthodontist specifically warned against ketchup, curry, spaghetti sauce, and coffee. I don’t drink coffee, but I do drink a lot of diet Coke, which I’m now taking in through a straw — another annoyance.

Overall, having braces hasn’t been too bad thus far. But I can’t wait to get them off!

I do a bit of freelance writing in the early mornings and late evenings when I’m not busy with my son. It used to be an ideal situation for me because I’d spend a couple hours pounding out articles or whatever and make a bit of money from it.

But recently, I’ve been more active in online forums frequented by other writers, and I’ve realized that it’s just sucking the life right out of me! I spend a lot of time there, reading threads, adding to them, and then refreshing the page to see who else has commented. When I do that, it’s very easy for an hour or two to go by without my realizing it. Pretty soon, I was feeling as though I had spent all day on these writing assignments because I was talking about them all day with other writers. It got to be rather exhausting.

In addition, I let myself get caught up in some of the drama that usually surrounds Internet message boards. In fact, I let some of the other posters get to me and upset me. That’s going way too far, so now I’m taking a self-imposed break from all these forums. I’m just going to do my work and be done with it. It’s not worth getting myself all worked up for a few bucks a day.