Footprints on the Moon

Win a Copy of Aladdin on DVD

I hope I have enough time to complete this before submissions are closed, but last-minute I decided to participate in the Winter 2008 Bloggy Giveaways

The amount of giveaways is nearing 900, so after you enter this one, make sure you head over to check out the other submissions. I’ve spent time yesterday and a good portion of this morning entering for giveaways, and I’m nowhere near even 1/4th of the way through the list!

What I’m giving Away

A brand-new copy of Disney’s Aladdin on DVD. This DVD is getting put into the Disney Vault TODAY, so if you don’t already own it, this might be your last chance!

Who Can Win

It’s a Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only) DVD, so if you’ve got a DVD player that will play Region 1 DVDs, you’re good to go.

How To Enter

Leave a comment below! Easy peasy.

The Rest of the Details

Make sure the email address you provide is accurate… if I can’t contact you to get your information, you won’t be able to receive your prize.
All submissions must be in by 6 p.m. EST on Sunday February 3rd. The winner will be announced on Monday 2/4. Any submissions received after 6pm Sunday, but before the comments are closed will not be valid.
Good luck!!

If you’ve never commented before, your comment will land in the moderation queue. Don’t worry, I’ll get them approved just as soon as I can!

Key Largo, Montego, Baby, Why dont we go

Okay the title is because I got that song stuck in my head while thinking of places I’d rather be right now… they’re all warm!! The Outer Banks won’t quite do it– I want to go to the Florida Keys… Jamaica… Bermuda… Put me in the middle of the desert if you have to, but I don’t want to be cold anymore!
If I’ve ever told you that I was a popsicle before, I was LYING. Because today… today I was a popsicle. I’m STILL a popsicle. It was 44 degrees when I left for work yesterday morning. This morning it was below 0. There was a storm last night, you do the math. If you can’t quite figure out what 1+1 equals, it equals nastiness! My car was completely frozen shut this morning. I felt like I was going to break the handle off of my car door just trying to get in. It took prying it open just a bit, and then a whole lot of leverage. And that was just to get in to start the car!
By the time I got my car cracked out of all the ice and thawed enough to get out of the parking space, I had windburn on my face! (That, by the way, really sucks!) Of course, at the same time I was ready to leave, the truck decided to plow the parking lot and wouldn’t let me out of my space! Of course, that was already after I was supposed to be AT work. In the end, I landed at my desk just a little bit late, and almost an hour later, my legs were still cold to the touch. I still don’t think I’ve warmed up either.
Of course, we had a bunch of people from other states in today, and they all thought they were the first clever people to ask me why I turned down the temperature. Ha. Ha. Ha. Welcome to Indiana, kids.

Hiding Stuff under the Bed

I really don’t like platform beds, but when I was attempting to gather up my laundry yesterday, I was briefly envious of people who have them. They never have to get down on their bellies on the floor and crawl halfway under the bed to retrieve dirty socks that their cats found it necessary to drag down there. And that’s not to mention the mound of Kleenex. I have a bad habit of falling asleep with a Kleenex in my hand. After I fall asleep, at some point, I naturally let go of it and 9 times out of 10, it makes its way over to drop off the side of the bed between the headboard and the wall.

So I’m on the floor on my stomach, retrieving socks, and I’m thinking how nice a platform bed might be… and then I remember how convenient it always was to have space under the bed when I was a kid. Eventually I had a water bed with storage drawers underneath, but before that it was great to have a bed with space underneath to shove all sorts of things when I was supposed to be cleaning my room. Closets were great for that too… though, usually mom checked both of those places and made me keep cleaning, every once in a while I got away with it. So the next time you come over to my apartment, if I don’t close my bedroom door to keep you from seeing it, please don’t look under the bed.

New Financial Plan

If you’ve been around here for awhile, you’ve heard me talk about my finances a few times, and probably even outline a few plans for trying to get a handle on it all. Well, I overdrew my bank account over the weekend due to a dumb mistake, and a frustrating gas station. That together with looking at my tax information got me into a bit of a freak-out where finances are concerned, resulting in a new financial plan. Which is to stop making financial plans. Okay, not really. I do have a new plan and it has nothing to do with designer bags, maternity dresses, or any other type of “new antiques.” (If you’ve never read the Shopaholic series, that makes no sense to you and that’s okay. But there’s at least one person out there nodding who knows exactly what I’m talking about!)

Here’s the real financial plan:
Give 10% (tithing), save 10%, and trust God for the rest.

It’s the last part of that that is the real kicker. Just the thought of having 20% of my paycheck unavailable to me right off the top makes me slightly panicky. But I feel that tithing is important, and so is saving money. If I’d had some money in savings, I wouldn’t have the bank account issues I’m having this morning. Starting with Friday’s paycheck, I’ll be writing a check to the church first, transferring 10% to my savings account second, and then looking at all my bills. I know it’s going to take a lot of trust and courage because I stopped tithing last time because I “couldn’t afford it.” (I stopped going to church about the same time.) Wouldn’t you know? I still have money problems. Obviously, my plan isn’t working. It’s time to trust God that His will.

Self Portrait Sunday 1/27/08

Happy Sunday! I took this picture this morning when I was hauling my laundry over to my mother’s house to prevent going to work naked this week! Don’t worry, I wasn’t driving — the car was firmly in park while I had the camera out.

That was basically my day today… I got up bright and early and actually got in the shower right away. I was at church for the 9am service, home to sort laundry, grab something to eat and at my mom’s by 11:15 or so. I crocheted awhile on a new blanket while I waited to change loads of laundry. And before you ask, no I have not finished the basket weave blanket, but I still started a new blanket for me. I’ll have to take a picture soon, I think it’s going to be really pretty!

When I finally made it home, I took the time to hang up my work clothes because something tells me that Gary wouldn’t care for an extremely wrinkled clean uniform any better than a dirty one. I watched Flightplan which was an interesting movie, but not nearly as good as it looked. For now, I’m going to shut off the bathroom lights for the millionth time (I swear, they turn themselves on! How are they always on? I live by myself!) and then probably to read in bed for a little bit. Don’t forget to check DigiCass and see everyone else who participated this week before you head off to bed!

Best Laid Plans

The plan for today was originally to do a little bit of cleaning, and then to spend the day in my wanna-be leather home theater seating (also known as the loveseat) watching movies/TV/what have you. It didn’t quite work out that way. I called over to my mom’s to find out if I could do laundry there tomorrow, and Harold invited me to go out to lunch with them. I mulled it over for a minute, considered my growling stomach and said SURE!

So after we got back from lunch, I just hung out there for awhile trying to get motivated to go get some groceries and generally be productive. Being me, I naturally waited until it started snowing so that I would have lovely road conditions as I attempted to fight the Saturday traffic on the way to the grocery store. But in the end, I made it to the store, picked up the few things I was after and came back home. And I finally made it to my “home theater seating” to watch some of the things Tivo recorded last night and this morning. You’ll notice that the one thing in the plan that didn’t happen today was cleaning!! Probably won’t happen tomorrow either– I plan on church in the morning, and then Mom’s most of the day to get some laundry done so I don’t have to go to work naked next week.

I have Tivo!

I’m getting ready to head for bed, but before I collapse onto my memory foam mattress, I wanted to check in with you guys. (Never mind the fact that I have a pillow-top Doctor’s Choice mattress, and not a memory foam.)

Guess what arrived on my doorstep yesterday afternoon? That’s right… my Tivo!! I’m proud to be coming out of the dark ages, and having a DVR system rather than relying on my brain to remember to set the VCR, and set it correctly. Of course, I unpacked it first thing, tried to make sense of the mess of wires, and got through the general set-up. I had plans to go to church so I didn’t have too much time to play with it, but I picked a few shows at random to have it record. Because you can’t have a Tivo and not have it recording something as soon as humanly possible!!

In fact, Sarah and I ended up watching one of those shows tonight while we waited for it to be time for How to Look Good Naked. So far, I like the Tivo, but I still need to figure out how to wire it up so I can run both the Tivo and my DVD player without having to move wires at all. I also will be spending a little bit with the manual to see what all I can do… gotta max out the potential here! Whatever happens though, I’ve already scheduled a season pass for the most important show — LOST season premiere next week!

Getting Back to my Heart

I’m going to attempt to write the post that I said I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to. But this blog is about me, and that’s where this comes in. Alot of things have changed for me in the last couple of years. I changed jobs, I started blogging in earnest, I moved into my own apartment, I made some of the most amazing friends I have ever had and I’m only sorry that they’re spread across the country.

In that same amount of time, there have naturally been negative changes. There are only two I want to talk about: I stopped going to church, and I’ve become a person that I don’t want to be. People who know me may or may not believe my next sentence, but I believe it to be true. I am not a nice person. I’m not trying to say that I’m just a completely nasty person who is incapable of being nice… I just mean, I am not the person I know I could and should be. There are days when people are grating on my nerves, and it’s all I can do not to growl out loud and I don’t recognize that person who is sitting at my desk. I was watching a service online from a couple weeks ago and the thing that sticks out in my head that Jason said that pertains to this is “That’s not what God looks like.”

I went to church tonight… for the first time (other than Christmas and special occasions) in about two years and I went alone. And I’m glad I did. It was a good thing, especially since I wasn’t completely sure I’d go until I actually got out of the car in the church parking lot. It’s been weighing on my heart for a couple days, and being there was a balm to my soul. If you’re not a church-going person, you won’t understand that sentiment, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Another thing that was said a couple weeks ago that I’m holding on to is “the past is past. We have to deal with now and move into the future.” My paraphrase, of course.

I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I don’t know what this means for the coming hours and days and weeks. I only know that it’s where I’m at right now. And it starts with having gone to church tonight. He asked me to, and I went.
Oh, remember the guy I said was easy on the eyes? Guess who ended up sitting next to me at church tonight? Listening to God is not without its rewards.

The Moment of Truth

I didn’t post at all yesterday. I’ve been in a…. reflective mood the last couple days, and I’m still trying to formulate my thoughts on it, IF I want to post about it at all. But one thing I DID do yesterday was watch The Moment of Truth, after American Idol. It’s the show where people are hooked to a lie detector, and asked personal, potentially hurtful questions in the hopes of winning $500,000. I couldn’t look away. (Okay, I looked away long enough to set the VCR and go to bed, but I watched the rest first thing this morning.) It’s not the good kind of look away either, not really… more of a can’t look away from the horrendous train wreck sort of thing.

Take Catia. She was the wife of the first contestant. He walked away with no money, and she found out that he’s never used the internet to flirt with other women since they’ve been married. Great, right? Not so much… see, poor Catia ALSO found out that her husband has touched the women he works with longer than necessary, that he’d encourage her to have liposuction if she got a little bit pudgy, he hasn’t had children with her yet because he’s not sure they’ll be together for life, oh yeah, and that there is something that he’s done that would cause her not to trust him if she knew about it. Are these things that might be true for millions of men and husbands? Sure… but now the seed of doubt has been planted. She might have thought there were things that she didn’t know before, but now she KNOWS that there are things that she shouldn’t trust him about.

I don’t know. It’s an interesting idea. When I first heard about it, I thought it sounded like a fun show to watch. The more I thought about it though, and now that I’ve seen it, I’m not so sure. I’m all for honesty, I’m just not so sure this is such a great venue for it. Reveal these intimate secrets about yourself and maybe you’ll walk away with a little cash. Or maybe you’ll have succeeded in nothing more than putting cracks into the foundation of the the most important relationships in your life.

Shop and You Shall Receive

I’m excited to get off of work today… this is not anything new, I think I’m always ready to go home. This is true for a couple of reasons today though… one is that mom’s got Killian tonight and she’s invited me over for dinner. As soon as I go home and change (and maybe catch up on some email), I get to head over there and play with that baby and that ALWAYS makes me happy.
The second reason has to do with my title. Last week was one of my two “extra” paychecks of the year, and I used it to pay a couple bills, and then to buy things that I’ve wanted and needed to buy but haven’t necessarily been able to afford on one of my normal bi-weekly checks between bills and rent, and the expense of living. I ordered a new cell phone, a gorillapod for my camera, an x-shot, Nike golf clothing, Tivo… okay, not the golf clothing, but if I were going to, this is the week I would have done that! I did my shopping online, and according to many of the tracking methods, several of my items should be sitting in front of my door waiting for me when I get home! Well, the UPS shipped stuff won’t be there until I get home from mom’s. Everything should be here by the end of the week. Sometimes it’s nice to shop in stores and be able to bring your stuff home right away. Other times, it’s just plain fun to be able to come home and find packages on my door step. It’s no secret that I like to get mail… I especially like to get mail that ISN’T a bill! Shopping online is the best of both worlds– retail therapy, and mail that isn’t bills!