Footprints on the Moon

I’m not moving… and I’ve said many times that I’m not willing to move out of the area. But it’s time for a confession. I was looking tonight at Wilmington NC real estate, and other areas in NC as well. Why? I don’t know… I really don’t want to leave Indiana. I’m not the type to want to live far away from my family. Especially now that I have a nephew that I want to watch grow up. When I get married and have babies, I want to be close to my family, and I want my kids to grow up with my brother’s kids. Keeping that in mind, moving across the country shouldn’t even be an option. But I like the idea of North Carolina. And that kind of scares me.

Let’s play a game. It’s called “Guess What I Did Last Night.” Ready? Go! I’ll give you a hint.

Have you figured it out yet?? Need another hint? How about this picture I took last week?

I got my hair cut short!! It was kind of an impulsive decision because I was planning on just getting a couple of inches cut off. Then she had me in the smock with the scissors to the first locks of hair when I said “No, cut it short short.” I had some brief moments of panic as the hair hit the floor, but I’m happy with it. What do you think?

I feel like I’m back in high school again. My senior year, I had to take Economics. Like many other high schools, we had the tradition of playing a mock stock market. Our teacher was the stock broker, and he processed all of our trades. We were given a certain amount of “money” to invest, and using the real turns of the stock market, the person with the most money at the end of the trial “won.” I don’t remember what the prize was… I think it may have been bonus points, or being exempt from the final. All I know is that the stock market did not perform well that semester, and I did not win.
The whole point of the exercise was to learn about the stock market, and how it worked, what it’s like to invest, and what can happen with your money. If you didn’t play a mock stock in your high school days, you still have the opportunity. All you have to do is register for MyWallSt.net, and sign up for their rookie challenge. You’ll get $100,000 to invest any way that you want to. You can follow the progress of your portfolio, and the portfolios of other participants. Even better, at the end of the week, the rookie member with the highest percent gain in portfolio equity for the week will be the winner of $1,000.
Sounds good to me! I’m off to start investing my fake money… who should I buy stock in? The company I work for would be an obvious choice if they hadn’t recently de-listed from the stock exchange. I worked at McDonalds in high school so I “bought” stock in them, as well as a few other well known companies. If you decide to participate, be sure to let me know how you’re doing!

When I posted yesterday about my dentist appointment, I mentioned that I was hoping it would be the last one until my cleaning in January. No such luck there. I have another appointment October 22nd, but I believe she used the words “one more.” So crossing my fingers that I will have a couple of months off after that one! This is getting rather pricey, as the insurance pays about half.
Yesterday sucked too. Novocaine takes a long time to get me numb, and the first shot only got half of what they needed numb. They had to come back and do another shot, and wait even longer to get started. I didn’t get home until after 6, and my appointment was at 4. I was still numb when I went to bed. Today my mouth hurts sooo bad. The tooth they worked on feels fine, but where they stuck the needles in is very sore. I can’t open my mouth very far because it hurts… I think I ended up wearing just as much of my dinner as I ate last night for that very reason.

Someone turn off the kichler lighting. It’s too bright in here, and I have a headache. It’s not even very sunny out, and I’ve closed most of the blinds already. Wish I could get away with turning the rest of the lights off, but I can’t. At least I get to leave early, in 5-10 minutes. Unfortunately, I’m leaving early because I have a dentist appointment at four. More drilling. So tonight I get to have a headache AND be hungry because I have a numb mouth. YAY. I hope this is the last one because I’ve now had a dentist appointment once a month since June. I’m tired of the drilling, and it’s getting kind of expensive. So hopefully after this will be the cleaning in January. Fingers crossed.

The great excavation of 2007 continues, after a good amount of ignoring. I had gotten to the point that there was so much stuff to sort through, it was literally taking over my apartment. You couldn’t even walk through the living room. I’m trying to seriously weed out things and put alot of stuff in the garage sale. I’m a serious pack rat because I attach emotional memories to the silliest of things, so I have that added on top of the typical pack rat “I might need it someday” syndrome. I reached the point where I just couldn’t make any more decisions about what to keep and what to give away. I put everything that hadn’t been sorted back into boxes, and back into my bedroom. I got them back out this weekend, and made a good amount of progress. I need to take things over to my mom’s to store so I can really get a feel for what I’m dealing with now.
One thing I have discovered though– I don’t need to buy any more crafty things, as much as I want to. I’ve got so many unfinished projects already. I keep discovering so many things that I’ve forgotten about that I’m half-expecting to discover I was once into slot cars or something! I know that’s not the case, but I do have many, many unfinished crochet projects, plus yarn for countless projects yet to have been started. I also found an unfinished cross-stitch project or two that I started almost TEN YEARS ago! That’s just sad! It won’t stop me from buying new things when I decide I need them, but is sad none the less.

I just discovered my photopress broke when I upgraded my WordPress, so I can’t put the meme banner in this post until I fix it. What do you think is special about this picture?? Give up? This is the one and only picture I took of myself today for Self Portrait Sunday. Usually I take about 15 and pick the best one. Today I was tempted to skip it, so I decided to pick up the camera and go with the first picture rather than missing out entirely.

Now, I’m hoping I can go to sleep despite the fact that I took a nap today and shouldn’t have. Visit DigiCass to see people who probably bothered to look decent today.

I woke up this morning absolutely freezing. I’m ready for my Florida vacation now. Remember when I said it was only a matter of time before I started threatening to move somewhere warm? Give me a little time, and I’ll be okay with being here, but for right now, I want my warm weather back!! I was SO cold this morning that I had to go dig out a sweatshirt. The whole apartment has been closed up too, so it’s not like I’m letting cold air in… I’m not ready for winter, and this chilly weekend is just a cruel reminder that it’s right around the corner.

My half-uncle got married today. He’s only a couple years older than me, so we’ve always considered him more of a cousin than an uncle, but technically…
I was going to post all about the whole day, but I’m really far too tired to do that! The wedding and reception were both really pretty… even if the Amaretto Sours left both Ash-lee and I with slightly unsettled stomachs. (We’re not convinced that it wasn’t a result of a vengeful waitress from Steak and Shake.)
I was glad to come home though… I was getting really tired– I got to bed by 9 or 9:30 during the week. Add in a couple of alcoholic drinks, and I was half asleep. Alcohol makes me sleepy. Warm and sleepy.

So! Congrats to Elena and Tony, I’m so happy for you!! As for the rest of you… good night!

Last week for the Online Craft Club, I showed you the beginnings of a basket weave baby blanket. Unfortunately, that blanket looks exactly the same today as it did last week.
So I snapped a picture of another work in progress.

Can you guess what it’s supposed to be?
Confession: I started this when I was in high school, and I haven’t touched it in at least two years. It’s migrated to my desk now, however, and my other cross stitch supplies were recently sighted, so there is hope I will make progress on this soon!
I start a lot of projects, so I can show you lots of unfinished crafts before I have to follow through and actually finish one. Go visit Cass Knits and see the others who *are* making progress with their projects!