Footprints on the Moon

Self Portrait Sunday - Mother’s Day Edition

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there reading this. I took this picture right after I got home from grocery shopping this morning. Can you tell that I was soaking wet from having to carry groceries in the rain? Okay, you might notice the rain drops on my sweatshirt, but can you tell that I was still trying to catch my breath from RUNNING back and forth from the car to the building and up a flight of stairs? LOL

Have you all had a good holiday, and have you called your mother? I saw my mom when I went over to use her washer and dryer so I wouldn’t have to go to work naked in the morning. Then we met Ryan, Ash-lee and Killian at Ponderosa for lunch/dinner. Good times… Killian was YELLING at the top of his lungs in the restaurant to get everyone’s attention so he could grin and flirt with them. Booger.

Now I am really tired, so I’m going to go get some pajamas on and start thinking about bed… Monday morning just comes around so quickly! Don’t forget to check out Midlife Musings to see who else is playing along this week.

Frustrated with Bluehost

If you tried to visit my blogs between about 9:30 pm on Thursday night and 11:45pm Friday night, you were greeted with a lovely “This account has been deactivated” notice. Bluehost deactivated my account, and sent me an email which I received at 6am on Friday.

It said:
“Your web hosting account for footprintsonthemoon.com has been deactivated (reason: call
customer support).
Although your web site has been disabled, your data may still be available for
up to 30 days, after which it will be deleted.

If you feel this deactivation is in error, please contact customer support as
soon as possible.”

Nice, right? I called customer service, and as far as I can tell from the mumbling, accented tech support guy I got on the phone, they found evidence of a hacker on the server. They deleted the files they could find but I needed to “update my scripts and delete everything else” before they’ll scan again and reactivate my account. Oh, and by the way, do I have access to my control panel. Uh, no, because YOU DEACTIVATED MY ACCOUNT. The tech support guy said he’d get me back into my control panel within 5-10 minutes, and put in a ticket when I’m done, kthanxbye.

Of course, by that time, I had to leave for work. I can access my control panel from work to update my installs, but I couldn’t access ftp to check for foreign files, so it had to wait until I got home. So I had no blogs whatsoever for more than 24 hours, and I’m obviously a little less than happy about it.

I think the part that frustrates me the most is that Bluehost has plenty of ways of contacting me and they did nothing to let me know what was going on before they did it. Instead they deactivated my account and then sent me an EMAIL which I didn’t get until 8 hours after my blogs were taken down. NOT HAPPY.

I got this email when they reinstated my account: “we have unsuspended the account, we will let you know if anything else needs to be corrected.” Gee, nice to know that you’re perfectly willing to let me know what the heck the problem was to begin with, and that you’re sorry for my inconvenience.

The Gas Prices Might Kill Me

The gas light came on in my car today and stayed on so I couldn’t keep putting it off any longer. Once again, procrastination bites me in the butt because gas prices rose an additional 20 cents a gallon while I was at work today. It took me nearly $45 to fill up my gas tank. Y’all, I have a Honda Civic… when I first bought this car 4 years ago, it cost me 19 dollars and change to fill the tank. I don’t know how these people with big trucks and SUVs aren’t sleeping in their cars!

Also threatening to suffocate me are the hundreds of people who find it necessary to comment on my blog with names like “penis enlargement” and “Phentermine 37.5 mg“. Call me crazy, but most people I know have names like Gary, John or David. Last time I checked, I didn’t know anyone legitimately named “grandfather clocks”, though with the celebrities naming their kids the things they do, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Just a note to all commenting– this blog is NOT a DoFollow blog, the keywords on your comments don’t help you any, so save us both some time and not post lame comments such as “Great post, you rawk” when I’m talking about my grandfather being in the hospital, mmm-kay pumpkin? Thanks.

In the meantime, I am just plain out of energy. Yesterday I blamed it on the lack of sleep but today I’m afraid I have no good excuse. I’m probably going to go to bed insanely early… like in about 10 minutes. And I’m going to like it.

Indiana Primary

I voted in my very first primary election today! Actually, this is only the second time I’ve voted, ever. The first time was the presidential election in 2004, and I voted absentee because I was 3 hours away from my polling place. I had intended to go vote on my way home from work today, but since I found myself wide awake really early and out of bed by 4am there was no good reason I couldn’t get ready for work early enough to vote on my way in.

Since I hadn’t ever voted in person before, I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I got there. I got online before I left to verify that I was in fact registered to vote, with the address on my state-issued ID, and where my polling place was. I glanced at the precinct info, but promptly forgot it… I knew I was headed for the high school and which entrance I needed. I knew there were several precincts voting at the school, but there are a million and one entrances over there, so I figured the others would be on different sides of the building. Except where I was had 2 entrances, for 2 different precincts, and do you think I had any idea which one was mine? Of course not! I walked up to the first door, and I thought the precinct number didn’t look right, but the guy standing there told me to just go on in and have them check the books anyways. Of course the lady with my last initial could not alphabetize to save her life, so that took ages. And I was right– it wasn’t the correct place for me to be.

So I walked down to the next door and handed the lady my license, and she promptly asked if I was married to my father LOL I guess she grew up down the street from him, and just recognized the name… probably knew he’d been remarried recently and wasn’t even thinking about the age. I got signed in, got my ballot and had to wait a minute for a booth, and then filled in all the appropriate bubbles. It was quick, painless. I fed the ballot into the machine and was on my way to work! 18th voter in my precinct this morning, according to the counter on the machine.

It will be interesting to see the outcome of this primary– this is the first time in a long time that Indiana has had a say in the primary process! That is pretty neat in and of itself, no matter how the election turns out.

Edited to correct dumb mistake… turns out I can’t blog and answer the phone at the same time.

Summer Vacation Plans

Do you guys all have your summer vacation plans in place? I know a lot of people do, but I’m still trying to decide whether or not I’m going to take off out of here for awhile. I had originally planned to save my money and my vacation days for a conference in September, but the more I crunch the numbers, the more I’m deciding that it’s probably not the most financially sound thing for me to do right now. Still, I’d love to get away from work for a couple of days, so I’ve been looking for vacation ideas that cost less money. I’m considering everything from Hilton Head rentals to a girl’s weekend with my best friend who is getting married sometime this year to driving out to visit a certain friend in Newport News, VA. My money that’s not strictly budgeted won’t arrive until August (that’s when I’ll get 3 paychecks in a month), so I’ve got some time to make a decision, but that’s not keeping me from planning in the meantime.

Razor Burn. Ouch!

I had every intention of spending some time on the internet today looking for some kind of natural acne treatment because nothing I’ve tried so far really helps and I’m tired of looking like a teenager going through puberty… but something else has my complete attention. Like an alternative to shaving! I got real crazy and shaved my legs yesterday… so they are nice and smooth and touchable. That’s not really the problem, though I do completely abhor shaving my legs and do it as infrequently as I can manage to get away with…

The problem is the patch of razor burn that I gave myself. On my outer thigh… right where the seam of my pants keeps rubbing. And have I mentioned that I find it nearly impossible to sit still for any decent length of time? Yeah, ow. It’s a very small little spot, but it sure is irritating!

Prayers and Good Wishes Please

For those of you who are the praying type, please keep my grandfather in your prayers. I got a message from my dad today that he was in the emergency room because he’s had a stroke. That’s basically all I know… that it was a mild stroke, that he couldn’t move his right arm, and which hospital room he’ll be in. I’m going to go up to the hospital after I get off work tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll know more then.

Self Portrait Sunday 5/4/08

Sunday again already! I’m still trying to figure out why it feels like time has been moving so fast the last year or so, but I can’t believe we’re 4 days into May already.

I had a pretty good weekend though! Friday night, Sarah and I went over to Ryan and Ash-lee’s and spent the evening over there playing with Killian, playing Mario Kart on the Wii and just talking. Saturday I spent playing on the internet between bouts of cleaning my apartment. I still have a bit to do… like figuring out what to do with the plethora of ink pens that I found. Went from 0 pens to about 15 in one day! lol

Today, I cooked lunch for my mom and Harold, including dessert, AND I even did the dishes! Then, I got real crazy and shaved. my. legs. WOW. Of course, then when I went to take a shower, I opened the shower curtain to discover several inches of ice cold water standing in the bottom of the tub from yesterday’s shower. EW. The tub has stopped draining again.

When I get over my disgust, I’ll be off to Midlife Musings to see the other Self Portrait Sunday participants.

Rain, Rain Go Away

What on earth is with this weather?! Yes, I realize it’s spring, and it has to rain so the grass and the flowers will grow, etc etc. But it’s supposed to be flip flop weather. If I were to leave wearing flip flops this week, I would have very cold, very wet feet.

I had to close the windows earlier because the breeze coming in was so cold, I had goosebumps, and I was considering getting out a sweatshirt to put on. I’m just so tired of cold weather… I’m ready for consistently warm weather. And I’ll thank you not to remind me how much I complained of the cold when I’m whining about how hot it is in July.

Not Always Right

Every once in awhile, when I’m stumbling around the internet, I come across a little website called Not Always Right. It plays on the old saying, “The customer is always right,” since any of us who have ever had to deal with people while working know that is not generally the case. People can go to this website and share actual conversations that they have had with customers that PROVE that the customer is NOT always right. Go check it out when you get the chance, there are some funny things posted over there.

For now though, I just had to share this one. I don’t know why, but when I read it I just cracked up!

Me: “Well, sir, just hold on to it. Once we slingshot around the moon, it will be fine.”

Bwahahahahahaha!