Computer Frustrations and Pointless Rambling

Things are pretty low key right now in the adventure department, hence the lack of any sort of posts. I did get to spend some time with friends last night, but I didn’t get home until really late and decided I needed sleep more than I needed to blog. I’m tired now, and I’m frustrated with computer programs that aren’t cooperating with me. I was asked to review an advanced reader copy of a novel, and I’m really excited to do it…but I can’t get the book onto my eReader, even though I’m following all the instructions. I’m currently giving Adobe a huge angry eye. Not that they care. I’ve always had issues with Adobe software, but if I want to read this book, they’re the only way.

In my quest to figure it out, I ended up signing out of my Kobo account, which reset everything on my eReader. That was frustrating. And because I took all this time to mess around with trying to get this book, I feel like I’ve wasted most of my evening, and I’m not sure which project to try and tackle right now.

I’m tempted to call it a night, read my other book for awhile, and reset my project mode for the weekend, even though it’s looking to be a super busy weekend and I don’t know how much time I’ll have in general. Such drama! It’s all self induced too. I’m pretty sure nothing I’m griping about is really as bad as it seems at the moment, and if I wasn’t such a procrastinator, I’d suck it up and just get it done.

Another Friday rolls in tomorrow, and I’m ready for it. It’s been another mentally taxing week. However, we have no plans for tomorrow evening, other than going to the gym (probably), and I bet I can fit in some of those projects and accomplishments. Saturday, we’re helping a fellow geocacher move and getting our car fixed. Sunday is gaming. It’s going to be a busy weekend, but I’m still going to try to enjoy it. Word on the street is that it’s supposed to be warmer than it’s been this week. Fingers crossed.

Sorry for the lack of substance. I wanted to get a post done to maintain my routine, but I can’t vouch for excitement.  Big adventures are on hold until Jon gets a job, so it’s going to be little adventures for awhile. And since little adventures are usually, “I finished a book!” it’s looking to be a pretty boring stretch of blogging.

A.

 

Deja Vu Thursday

The “deja vu” in the title of this post refers to the fact that today kind of felt like other days this week and was relatively boring.  This seems to be a mellow week in general. I think that’s probably good, though it doesn’t make for any interesting blog posts.

Work stress level today: 5.

On the way to pick Jon up from work, I passed an ambulance, some cops, and a woman sitting in the street with something around her leg. My guess is she got hit.  Some of the cops looked to be interviewing the people in the vehicle, but I can’t even jump to a conclusion and say the driver was in the wrong because I drive that stretch every day, and sometimes the pedestrians walk like jerks. Don’t get me wrong, I understand there’s a right of way that recognizes pedestrians. But the crosswalks and the walk lights are there for a reason, and too often, a college student doesn’t use one or the other and walks in front of a car that is way too close to brake effectively.

The woman was upright and talking, and they weren’t hauling her into the ambulance, so I’m guessing she’s okay, but she’ll probably be using crutches. I don’t know if she was at fault either, so I wasn’t placing blame in that last paragraph. The only thing that surprises me is that I don’t see more of those kinds of accidents in that area.

We had no errands or anything to do after work (since I gassed the car on my lunch), so we headed to the rec track for our walk.  It was tempting to just head home. I didn’t get my rest day, and Jon was fried from classes. Somehow, we managed to talk ourselves into getting our walk rather than out of it. I did a zombie mission without the chases and maintained a nice, steady pace the whole way. I walked about a 1.25 miles, hitting the mile mark before thirty minutes with no breaks.  I had a little back pain towards the end, but nothing that put me down. Eventually, I’m going to work up to hitting the mile and a half mark and so on.

We had Subway for dinner again. I’m going through a Subway phase, specifically their tuna sub on honey oat. It’s so good.

I finally put laundry away and cleaned a few things in the apartment before settling in on the computer. During my weekly check of Instantwatcher, I found the 2012 remake of the Beauty and the Beast television series. I didn’t even know this was a thing! After doing some checking, it looks like there are some differences, but the names and location are the same, so there has to be some sort of rebooting going on there. Either way, I put it on the queue for later consumption.

I made some pocket queries and stored some caches for next weekend’s trip to Oklahoma. I had to restrain myself from putting too many on there, though. Otherwise, we’d never reach our destinations.

Time for a shower and probably some sleep. Some extra snooze time tonight would be good.

A.

 

Thunderstorms and a Sunny Drive

Heading out the door this morning, we were greeted by a thunderstorm. Said storm then accompanied us on the drive to work. I love storms, but I hate driving in them. What usually takes 20 minutes took much longer.

When we finally got to town, we found areas near Aggieville flooded. We couldn’t see the tires on some cars, and a few had stalled out at the intersection due to the high water level.

While this probably wasn’t bad compared to major flooding areas in the rest of the country, it was still pretty unsettling.

After work, we stopped to get gas and a snack, then headed towards Rose Hill. I took Jon to find the cache I got at BOW, and we grabbed a few more in that area as well.

Almost didn't find the one at this lovely bridge.

On the way, we tried for two more, one of which we found. The other one wasn’t where we thought it was, and there were muggles around, so we gave up after a short time.

We finally decided to stop stopping and haul it to our destination. We stopped in Andover to get dinner (Braum’s for the win), then finally reached the in-laws. We had discussed doing some night caching, but now that we’re here, I’m ready to crash.
I might knit for awhile, but an early night will be good. Jon and I are planning to go geocaching in the morning before heading to OKC. I’ve been warned that there may be some bad weather tomorrow night, but I’m thinking we’ll be there by the time it hits.

That’s what I’m hoping anyway.

A.

…and hello, October!

October came in warm and sunny and full of stress, at least for the first part of the day. This week is bringing in the 4th quarter at work, a three month period that’s known for being hectic. I suppose I’m being warned to prepare; much like winter, fourth quarter is coming.

The day as a whole wasn’t bad though. I was feeling down this morning, but Forsh brought me surprise Noodles and Co. for lunch, which was pretty legit! I decided to use half my lunch to do a zombie mission. I didn’t get the half hour because I stopped to talk to people, but I did get my first zombie chase, so that was pretty exciting. I tried a new accelerometer setting and was apparently walking fast enough to trigger it. I was only doing a supply mission, so I was kind of surprised when the voice told me zombies were 100 feet away. You’ll be happy to know I was able to escape, though I think anyone watching me probably thought I was nuts. I got about sixteen minutes of good walking, and I think I’m going to try to fit a lunch walk in most days until the snow and ice hit.

Jon and I decided to skip the gym tonight. This means we’ll miss our gym goal for the week, but we’ll be doing a lot of walking this coming weekend in OKC. We’ll do the gym tomorrow and then Thursday night after we get to Rose Hill, we’re going to walk around and do some geocaching.  It just felt like a good night for a rest.

We picked up Wendy’s for dinner. That apple pecan salad…it’s going to happen again.

Being home early meant I had some time and an excuse to clean for some extra activity, so we put away laundry and cleaned some of the living room and bathroom. Not a whole lot, but enough to make a difference. We also packed our weekend suitcase so we won’t be running around tomorrow night trying to get that done. I finished a movie called Dread, which managed to disturb me, and started watching The Doors. I also did some knitting and finished a boot cuff. I was going to try to do more, but my wrist started hurting. I thought it was carpal tunnel acting up, but I’m able to type just fine, so maybe it was just fatigue.

We put on the Scentsy burners tonight and our apartment smells like Christmas. I’m going to shower and get some sleep in hopes of being perky tomorrow.

A.

 

Goodbye, September…

The last day of the month came and went. One part of my brain feels like September went on forever, while another part can’t believe it’s gone already. It was a busy month, and even though it had its rewards, I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief now that it’s over.

After a frustrating work day, Jon and I went to the gym. I tried some new settings to make Zombies Run work on my machine, but still no dice. It was a good workout, though. I think I need to start changing it up between music and movies depending on how long of a workout I’m putting in.

We decided to skip the store and get Subway for dinner. While we were eating, I suggested we go grab a geocache, because I obviously didn’t get enough of it this past weekend. Jon was on board, so we went and grabbed one that we’ve passed many times. I don’t even remember why we put off getting it in the first place, but it was super quick and easy.

At home, we cleaned out the car to prepare for OKC. We have two passengers, Drew and a friend of his, so we need to make trunk and seat space. We accomplished a little of that tonight.

My plan for when we got inside was to put laundry away and start packing. But that hasn’t happened. I’m feeling tired, and I wanted to get this post done before I crashed out. I’m thinking of resting my eyes for a little bit, then getting up and doing it. Or procrastinating until tomorrow.

Either way works for me.

A.

Ahoy, from Captain Patch Jones!

It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day, and Jon just clued me in as to what my pirate name is. Epic. His is Fluffbucket Bones Jones.  Truly epic.

Today was my Friday since I’m off tomorrow for Becoming an Outdoors Woman. I’ve been a little anxious all week about it, but tonight I’m excited.  I packed up everything except for a few last minute morning things and have my papers printed and ready to go. We passed the area coming back from Wichita, so I have a decent idea of where I’m going. Yeah, I think it’s going to be fun. I’m even going to take part in the mini Fun Run tomorrow night, walking it of course. I’m pretty sure I’ll be the last one to finish, but I don’t care. I’m going to do it anyway.

My friend made me a care package to take which includes some toothpaste, bug bite stuff, and face wipes. She also gave me a pair of wrap around sunglasses, which are going to be awesome for this weekend and for future road trips, not to mention geocaching. Between that and the stuff my other co-worker and friend is letting me borrow, I think I’m set. I’ll get there and realize there was something I forgot, probably.

Jon and I were both sore today, so we decided to skip the gym. I don’t know yet if that’s a good idea or not. We’re going to try to slide our third day of the week in on Sunday, but we have gaming and I’m figuring that I’m going to be exhausted from the weekend.  Still, we’re going to try. Our plan was to head home, then stop at the rec center to do a zombie mission on the walking trail. But the sky this way was really dark and I saw lightning. Lightning scares me. It’s awesome to watch if I’m inside a building or even my car, but I hate being outside when it’s striking within a hundred mile radius. So yeah, no walk either. I’m justifying this by saying this is my rest day before a few days of outdoor activity, so the goal is now to make sure I get that activity.

Besides packing, I also cast on for an easy scarf project to take with me and finished watching The People Under the Stairs. I’m leaving for the weekend with several projects pending, but I’ll be putting in some time on all of them next week.

Better log off and start winding down for the night. Just a reminder, unless I find a random signal, there won’t be any posts for the next couple nights. See you all Sunday!

A.

When the Universe is (Mostly) in Good Alignment

This day has been a good one, and definitely good in ways that I don’t always get to experience. It even started out well with receiving a laptop bag from a co-worker and a bag of yarn and knitting needles from another co-worker. Work wise, I got to assist people doing different things, something I always enjoy, especially when I get to flex some of my lesser used skills in writing.  The work day as a whole was good.

There are a few less than great things going on for some friends of mine at the moment, and I feel sad for that, so if my readers can send some prayers/good vibes/positive mojo their way, I’d greatly appreciate it.

After work, as promised, I took our UK ladies to the Oz Museum. What’s more fun than enjoying a cool place? Watching someone else thoroughly enjoy it, and they both seemed to love it.  It was my second time through, and I thought it was just as cool the second time, but I love that this seemed to be a highlight of their trip.

The original plan had been to just go to the museum and then let them go back to the hotel and pack, but we ended up picking Jon up and grabbing something to eat since they had no other big dinner plans. The food was good and we chatted for a few hours. They’re such cool ladies. I’ve enjoyed almost all of our UK friends and I really hope they can come back in the future.  After dinner, we swung by Wal-Mart to pick up a few things before I took them back to the hotel.

It was late, and we were full, so Jon and I skipped out on tonight’s workout. I’m too tired and had too much fun to feel guilty. We also know that we can still get our gym days in and that we’re probably going to be doing some walking and physical activity to set up for and work TengaiCon, so it’ll all even out.

I’m mentally preparing myself for a busy weekend with last minute con prep, the con itself, and a double up workout day on Sunday in an effort to meet our weekly goals. Part of me is dreading it all, but another part of me is really looking forward to it all.

A.

Staying Restful and Comfy

The saga of the hot apartment and the “broken” AC has been somewhat resolved. We decided to go ahead and try one more time to run it in the apartment for a day to see what would happen. Luckily, it did cool the place off, so we’re sitting in relative comfort tonight. It’s still a little warmish in the living room, but not bad. I think the clean air filter helped. Do I have any regrets about waiting this long? No, because we saved a lot on our electric bill this summer. However, having a cooler place for these last few weeks of the heat will be worth it, as long as the AC continues to do what it’s made to do (and as long as the heat doesn’t continue into December).

My day started out with a cicada attack. One got me as we were leaving the building and heading to work. Everything went okay from there. The highlight of my day was setting up a new savings account at our credit union. It was amazingly easy. We want to keep a travel account, but Jon’s current bank has decided that they’re going to charge us ten dollars a month in fees. We looked at other banks, but none had a fee free account, so we’re just sticking with an additional one in our joint account.  Simplifying and streamlining is awesome.

I took an honest to goodness rest day if you don’t count the fifteen minutes of cleaning I did when we got home. Which I don’t in this case, because it was pretty light cleaning.  My legs are sore with shin splints, and since we’re back to training and gym tomorrow, it’s probably a good thing I took a rest.

Now that we can make plans for the weekend, I have no idea what we’re going to do, but I have pinpointed a few possibilities. A Saturday meeting is jacking up my schedule, but I can’t complain since I scheduled the meeting. Labor Day is also making things tough because I don’t know what’s going to be open on the holiday. But it’ll be good. We’ll still have fun and make the most of the long weekend.

That’s really all I have today. I finished another movie tonight called Confined. I didn’t like it. The main character was annoying and it just fell short of being good.  I also played some Dead Island, and as previously mentioned, got some cleaning done so my living room is back in functional order.

It’s early but I’m tired tonight, so I think I’m calling it an early one.

A.

Preppin’ and Restin’

It was a good day of rest for Jon and I. I was sore again this morning, though I knew I would be with climbing that hill yesterday.  I’m not complaining…it was a good soreness…but I had to stop my brain from being slightly obsessive about going out again for a long walk.  It helped that my shoes were being washed, so I couldn’t walk anywhere for a good portion of the day.

We went over to a friend’s house while she and her family were in KC. She was awesome enough to let us watch her movies and use her laundry facilities while we kept her dog company. My tennis shoes are now nice and clean, though they seemed to have shrunk a bit in the wash. They felt fine on my feet afterwards, though, so I’m sure they’ll be fine for the week.

Later, we went and found a quick geocache to get our “souvenir” for the 31 days of Geocaching this month.  It was close to my friend’s house and turned out to be a really easy find. I spotted it first, so I’m the winner today (whoo!) and we took the trackable, hoping to find somewhere to leave it in Indy or one of the states in between (if we should happen to stop somewhere where a cache is nearby).

I grabbed some headbands from Walgreens and we got smoothies from the People’s Grocery for dinner before heading home.  We packed our clothes and most of our toiletries, which means we just have a few last minute things to pack tomorrow night and to grab Tuesday morning. I sent out a confirmation email to the friends who are riding with us to Indy, and it was around that time that I started the “What if?” game: what if we get a flat tire? What if the car breaks down? What if something happens to our money? This is a dangerous game, and I hate it when my mind goes there and starts making me anxious.  I’m doing okay so far to keep it at bay though, and my plan, if something should go wrong, is to not panic, do what needs to be done, and just roll with it.  Don’t worry, but be prepared…that kind of thing.

That about sums up the day. The only other news was that I received my confirmation for the Being an Outdoors Woman (BOW) weekend.  I didn’t get all of my first choices, but that doesn’t bother me, especially because my registration was so late. I’m signed up for fishing, GPS 101, Geocaching (I know, right?), and nature journaling. There’s also a mini Race for the Cure that I’m thinking about participating in, even though I’m a really slow walker. It’s like a mile and a half, though, and I think I could handle that without it taking all night. Right?

This is one of the rare instances I want Monday to get here, but that’s because I want to get it done and over with so we can start vacation.  So I’m off to shower and sleep so I can tackle the last minute stuff tomorrow.

A.