"Productive" is how I would have to describe my weekend. My oldest computer is now running like a charm (thanks Patti!); not done yet though...............and I have 2 out of 4 computer projects (that have been laying around here for weeks) DONE! On the down side though; I found out my stepson is now on his way to northern Iraq. Please keep him and all the troops in your prayers................there is power in prayer.

Monday Madness begins at midnight, March 31st (just 40 minutes from now.) Still looking for a webring to join. I don't plan on starting one; got enough things going on right now. If you come across an appropriate webring, share it with me please. Maybe it'll soon become a member of BlogSnob. I'll have to check that out. Blogger Seeds seems to be getting some traffic. If you want ideas to blog about or things to add to your blog, visit them. It's brand new so they're adding new stuff there quite frequently. And they even have a place where you can add your own ideas to it. It's quite cool.

I should probably start updating my church site; the earlier the better!

The count-down is on! One more day..................Monday Madness begins. I'm excited. I hope you are too. Please, if you've never tried one of these types of 'question blogs' (I'm not sure what to call it), consider giving it a try. It really is quite interesting to read others' answers. And I think everyone needs to take a few minutes out of their daily "must-do's" to have some fun. What better way than to support a newbie to the growing number of 'question blogs' out there? And remember, if you have any questions that you would like to see on Monday Madness, just email me!!! (My email link is over there to the left; down a bit. Remember............"There is no such thing as a stupid question." Hope to see YOUR name on my comment board Monday, March 31st.

We watched yesterday's episode of Survivor tonight. Glad of the results; still upset that some women think they have to lower themselves to stripping in order to get what they want. There is nothing ladylike about that at all. If those two women get voted off next, I won't be disappointed (but still glad the one that was voted off this week is gone.) I think my lack of sleep is catching up to me. I have no good reason for not going to bed earlier; just sometimes I don't sit down at the computer until 11:00 or later. Well, tomorrow is Friday and I have a couple of appointments, but other than that, quite an easy day. I'll probably finish up a couple of projects that I have sitting on my desk waiting to be done. One of them has to be done by Saturday; two by Monday; the fourth "whenever." Anybody who knows me should know better than to not give me a deadline....a SPECIFIC deadline date or it may just be "whenever" by the time I get to it. Earlier today I was reading some "100 Things About Me" pages that people have written. They're kind of interesting but I'm not sure I want to attempt that one. I don't know if I could write 100 things about me. Maybe once I got going.......... Well, it's before midnight and I'm actually calling it a night. I guess there's one thing about me; I stay up too late. 99 more to go................

Number One Annoying Commercial!

Herbal Essence Shampoo..............can you believe how that women makes such noises when she's washing her hair with that stuff? It's disgusting! Do we have to turn the channel from commercials now? Should we be giving them a rating? The noises alone are to me, obscene. I take my shower and wash my hair only because I have to for good hygiene. (Plus it helps wake me up in the morning.) I've never known anyone to get that much "joy" from washing their hair. I will never buy Herbal Essence Shampoo because of that commercial. There. I said it. I feel much better. By the way, I got the idea to blog about this from Blogger Seeds' "suggested blog topics."

WHY do I stay up so late??? I've been wanting to blog about a commercial that annoys me to no end.............tomorrow. That IS one of our suggested blog topics on bloggerseeds; "annoying commercials." I didn't even watch Survivor tonight. I taped it though so I better not watch or listen to any tv or radio tomorrow until I watch it. Sounds really stupid, doesn't it? I DID see the previews and I was NOT impressed with the "beauty queens" taking off their tops to make the "men" fall down. I mean really..........do they have fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers?????? Talk about sleezy! Ok, time to hit the sack! (Please don't tell me who got kicked off this week.)

I want to thank Alex for thinking of a name for our new blog.

Woah! And I was doing so good...........bloggin' every day; sometimes MORE than once a day. But I do have ideas brewing in my head.....just got other projects (non-blogger-related) going on right now. I think Blogger Seeds ought to join a couple of webrings. It'd be nice if the family interacted with that blog though because if I start this other thing I have in mind, I'm COUNTING on family. Actually, it will be a team effort like Blogger Seeds is, so if you want to know more about it and you think you may want to join the team, email me. My email link is over to the left about half way down the column.....

I just spent a good portion of the weekend on my computer. Well, yesterday we were at my sister's house cropping and visiting. It was a lot of fun! I hope the whole "gang" will be able to attend the overnighter she's planning for April. I went to the library today and found out that you can rent dvd's for $1.00 and you get to keep them for 3 days. That's cheaper than a video place. Of course the selection is more limited, but I grabbed a couple. I also found a book that looked pretty interesting. I think I have that for a month. Good thing too, because I'm half-way through "The Cat Who Went Up the Creek." I answered a lot of questions from various sites and posted them on my other blog. Pretty interesting.................Maybe I'll make a permanent link to my other blog and put it here, you know, over to the left where all the other links are. Hey, have you checked out Blogger Seeds yet? Go click on the little blinkie over there! At a loss for what to blog about? You'll find a list of topics at Blogger Seeds! It's shaping up quite nicely, especially considering it was only created a little over a week ago! To the person who took the initiative to set that place up (you know who you are), I thank you!!

And another thing! Why are some of my 'blogrolling' links not CENTERED????? Can you tell it was my day off today? I did get most of my house clean, so I figure I earned this computer time.

No sooner did OttO participate in the "Saturday Scruples" weekly questions, and all of the sudden......POOF! Gone.........Broken LINK! Number 2 on my pet peeves list.....bear with me; I'm going to give it some time. Want to see if it'll come back. (just my luck.)

Check out OttO OncE mOrE. That's where I will post my answers to the questions I've found on various blogs. You will find a link to the site at the bottom of each entry.

I started a blog in August 2002 and I'm going to link to it just as soon as I get some questions anwered. You'll see what I'm talking about...............Stay tuned.....

It's pouring rain here..........first day of Spring! Not much to say.............except I was thinking about changing my background colors again. Do I have a life?

I gotta call Sprint; get my voicemail set up. Later.....

"Please enter your passcode." I DON'T HAVE A PASSCODE!!!! There, I said it. I cannot access my voicemail on my cell phone because I never set up a passcode. When I enter the "default" passcode/password, it says, "Sorry, that is not a valid passcode." I did set up voicemail on the second phone I had. (The first one wasn't working properly, and as it turns out, neither was the second one.) So, I think my third one (the one I'm currently using) is working properly. Now I have to call Sprint one more time to ask them what my passcode is..............how dumb is that going to make me sound? I don't care; that's what they're there for. I must say, every Sprint PCS customer support rep. that I've spoken to so far has been very helpful and very polite. You don't get the impression from them that they are only doing this job because it's 'just their job.' Tomorrow I will be on the phone to Sprint and hopefully I'll be able to get this worked out. By the way, current mood is frustrated.

"Bulk Mail"
I just deleted 45 messages from my bulk mail and that was only one day's worth. Does anybody really ever open any of that junk??? Can you imagine getting 45 pieces of bulk mail in your "snail mail" mailbox every single day??? Why do those companies bother sending out mail to people who NEVER respond to their ads; and sometimes I'm "blessed" with TWO of the same thing!! Oh, I've tried opening the mail so I could scroll down to the bottom of the message and click on "click here to unsubscribe." Don't do it!! It only puts you on MORE junk mail mailing lists. So I will continue to click on each and every message (just in case a real message got accidentally sent to my bulk mail) and clicking on "delete." If you happent to have any working solutions to this problem, please send them my way. I'd love to know. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Oh sure! Post and publish the CRAP! I just spent several precious minutes writing about BULK MAIL and it wouldn't publish. But it decides to publish the shtuff that you could care less about reading.......................

I feeeeeeel your pain (those of you who have experienced what I just did.) End result: NOTHING!

I meant to blog tonight. (It's not "tonight" anymore.) Just been surfing blogs.............there's some good ones out there! Then my computer locked up. Have you seen La Diosa Del Lago's blog lately? You really must visit it. Had another idea tonight while I was chatting with a loved one: a "favorite quotes" list. I guess I better muster up some favorite quotes. So many ideas; now to implement them..........It's late; I'm tired; Gotta get some zzzzzzzzz's.

"Survivor ~ The Amazon"
Well, well, well...............speaking of well: Did you notice how FAST Shawna recovered from her weakness the minute the boys showed up??? How amazing!! Proof to my theory that our psychological health has a lot to do with our physical health. Of course, that's another day. Or maybe you choose to believe it was a "miraculous" recovery? or the very common "bimbo" syndrome.................hmmmmmmmm
(Just had to get that out; I've been thinking about it.)

GEEZE!!! I spelled Grumbleeze wrong! (I fixed it.) I have to put somewhere on here in an obvious place that you can find links to fellow bloggers down toward the lower left-hand column.

Well, I promised someone I was going to blog about not eating meat on Fridays during Lent. The reason I don't eat meat on Fridays during Lent? Because as Catholics, we have been taught to sacrifice during Lent. After all, Jesus did sacrifice his life for us, right? I figure it's the least I can do. To be quite honest with you, I don't eat meat every day anyway. So now I'm wondering if that's really a sacrifice. But not only do I not eat meat on Fridays, I try to watch what I eat, not eat between meals (That's really the biggest sacrifice!), and to eat everything I've put on my plate. I know; I sound like a 5-year old. My daughter tells me "Mom, do you know how many people would be grateful to have that piece of bread you just threw away????" I don't waste much food; don't get me wrong. Sometimes I just think I'm hungrier than I am. Thought I'd have something really profound to say? (Profound?? Me?? Have you read my archives??)

I was on my way home today when I thought about adding a "pet peeve" list to my blog. We'll see how long it takes to fill up a page. Or maybe there's a better place to do that sort of thing.........gotta check with my "bloggoddess."

"Treat your friends like family and your family like friends." (a quote I saw earlier today in a classroom) Now that I'm older this saying doesn't hold the same meaning as it would if I were a kid. I think I treat my family with the utmost respect and love; but that may not have always been true. That doesn't mean that I didn't always love them. I think we sometimes tend to take our family for granted, but do we take our friends for granted? Let's think about it. Kids treat their friends as if they mean everything to them, but their family (especially parents) are often treated as if they could care less if we were in their lives or not. I, as a parent, know this is not true (although sometimes I have to take some serious time to convince myself of this fact.) Us parents don't really know what's right for our kids, we never listen, we're always "harping' on them about something, and then there's those rules. Rules, rules, rules. To a kid (especially a teenager) this can get old real fast and what is the natural reaction? Negative, for sure. And if they have siblings (like I do) oh, they just get in the way; always getting you in trouble, tattling, "making fun of you", and so on and so on. Who do kids turn to when they've had it up to here with their family? Their friends, of course. Thank God (and more importantly, our parents) that we do grow up! We realize that without all those "silly" rules, we may not be capable of making good decisions, without all the "harping" and nagging, we would NOT know right from wrong. Oh, parents do that because they care about us? Because they love us? Only a matter of time kids, you too will thank your parents for setting limits, making rules, caring enough to take the time and effort to teach you right from wrong. And while you're at it, thank your siblings for being there when you needed someone to talk to (and it was too late to call a friend), or when you wanted to play a game and even though they didn't really want to, they did, and for caring enough about you TO tattle on you when you did something wrong. I thank my family for all of these things and a lot more. And you know what? Somewhere along the way, you realize that your family ARE your friends; the best friends you could ever have.

Ok......8 minutes until Survivor is on. Just wanted to say HI to all my "blog fans" out there. (wow) If you know me, you know what that means. No, but seriously, I wanted to share a quote I saw written on someone's chalkboard today. I guess it was supposed to make the kids think. (Well, it made ME think!) Here it is: "Treat your friends like family and your family like friends." More on that later.............

"PayPal"
It's one way to make money I guess, but I see that on more and more sites that I visit, and personally, I think it stinks. A lot of the sites I see PayPal on are graphics sites. I think these people started a website because they love to do what they do. They make mouse-drawn graphics., blinkies, layouts, dollz, etc., and a lot of them are writing "how to" tutorials. I just wonder if they started doing this with the intent to make money or if it's just become so popular to try to get people to donate to their site because they spend a lot of time making these things, that they figure, "Why not? If I can just get a dollar here and a dollar there........" Personally, I will learn how to do it myself before I pay someone else to do it for me (if I want it that bad.) I know it takes a lot of time to create websites and keep them updated. I have a website of my own and I'm in the process of changing all my backgrounds, buttons, bars, ets, to only those that I've created (whether it be with photos that I've taken with my digital camera, or things I've drawn using computer programs.) But I do it because it's something I enjoy.........not to make money.

On another note: I wished my Mom a happy birthday today because she turned 39 again!! Yeah for her! I also read my sister's blog and found out that she was in a car accident today. I know she's ok because she blogged about what she did when she got home. Thank God! It was a day with a lot of ups and downs. I attended a funeral for a friend of mine and that is never easy. But tomorrow will bring new things and we will get through it. (I must go get some zzzzzzzzzzz's) I want to be wide awake for whatever tomorrow does bring.

"Suggested Blog Topics"
One of my fellow bloggers and I were talking the other day about starting a page for you to visit if you can't think of anything to write about. (I fit into this category many a day.) Maybe it would spruce up some of our blogs. (No, I'm not talking about you; I'm talking about me.) So, maybe in the near future, we will start a page such as this. For now though, I must go back to the office. (Hope I'm not there too long.) *sigh*

Something weird is going on here. I blogged and it didn't publish it, then I blogged to let you know I blogged, now I'm blogging to let you know I didn't see my LAST entry on here. My first entry was about the seasons of Michigan, and I just got home from helping a friend shovel. Whoopee. They say things happen for a reason. Maybe cuz it wasn't worth reading.............

I just blogged about 10 minutes worth and it didn't take. So this is what you end up with. (I feel sorry for you.) It was kind of a good blog too.

I am now an official member of BlogSnob. Yeah! It's a gloomy day....but hey, it's Saturday. How can we complain? Gotta do a few things this morning before I can settle in and really enjoy my day. Not much to say really............but how long can that last? I'll be back!

It's 9:00 a.m. and I already put 3 hours of work in today!!! I'm NOT a morning person, but there's work that I have to do when the office is closed (no distractions) and 6:00 a.m. is the best time to go in and do it. So I (not a morning person) got up at 5:30 a.m. and was in the office by 6. Yeah for me! I re-signed up for BlogSnob because apparently they never received my first request to be accepted as a member. I figure it'll be about a week or so before I'm officially accepted. I'll try to add Michigan Weblogs to my template again today. Yesterday I didn't really do anything on here because it was a very busy day. I'll just keep my fingers crossed. (I've been doing that a lot lately.) Later..........

I HAVE to type up my bulletin but wanted to do this first. (Priorities, you know.) Thanks to Earthgoddess for the suggestion. (Keep your fingers crossed.)

I have to wait for a site ID. Hmmmmmmmm.............

I'm trying to add a link to Michigan Weblogs to the left; it won't publish. I'll try again later. Just that one of the rules before you can get accepted into this webring is that you have to have the link on your page (makes sense.) (I'm going to change my mood.)

Solitaire games................what drives us to play them until we win?? It's the competitive nature we have as human beings, I'm sure. It seems solitaire games could be considered a waste of time but really, do we always have to be doing something "constructive?" It's Wednesday morning; 8:33: I'm sitting here at home at my computer (in my jammies) with a nice hot cup of coffee, blogging. I found out very early in the morning that all the schools in the area were closed today due to snow, so I woke up for good at 8:00 a.m. I DID bring work home in anticipation of this but I'm not going to get it out until later.

I found this quote in a little newspaper I was looking at yesterday: "Don't drive faster than your guardian angel can fly." (Well, how fast can they fly???) I just wanted to share that with you. I thought it was kind of cute. More blogging later...............

I jinxed myself. Everyone's comments work but mine. That's what I get. I said what I had to say and I won't say any more. Goodnight.

I was going to comment on a couple blogs I read this afternoon but when I click on "comments" I get this message: "Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /www/hosts/enetation.co.uk/www/comments.php on line 186. User doesn't exist" That's a bit disappointing. I noticed on several of the blogs I visit almost daily, the link to BlogMonstersAnonymous doesn't show it's banner. I also clicked on a link to someone else's blog from BlogSnob and it said, "This page cannot be displayed." I don't like it; not at all. As far as the BlogSnob links, I think it's the responsibility of whoever is managing that site to make sure all the blog sites are still active. AND another thing; I didn't even consider going to one of the links from there because there was a very nasty word in the title of that person's site. In my opinion, that's just not good "internet etiquette." I hope when the BlogSnob people come to check out my site, they read this and take it into consideration when approviing people to their webring. My status is still "not yet approved." I have no offensive words here, I update my blog regularly, and I even change the colors with the seasons for you all! Why am I not yet approved? Well, imood is still working. On another note; the local weather link on my homepage says possible severe weather coming our way tomorrow night and into Wednesday. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. They haen't been right yet this winter; why should we think this time would be any different. 4 to 8 inches of snow???? I don't think so...........

I'm not sure yahoo messenger is working properly. Lately, I turn on my computer and see that one or two friends are online. When I check my list, no one is highlighted. Does that mean they're logged in under "invisible?" I know sometimes I send my sister a messages and she doesn't respond, only to find out that she never saw me send it. If anyone is sending me a message and I don't respond, I'm NOT ignoring you. I just can't see you. Gotta go update my church site.........

Spring cleaning.............isn't it a little early for "Spring cleaning?" It was nice outside today but not THAT nice! I made mention in yesterday's blog about rearranging my furniture and guess what? I did it. I'm not sure why I torture myself with these projects, but I do. I also spent WAY too much time this afternoon making a blinkie. It's really quite cool though; one of my better ones. You can find it at OttO's Blinkies page. If you check that page regularly, you'll know which one I'm talking about. Oh, I put all my snowman decorations away today. I was sick of looking at them because my whole house looks like WINTER! That's what motivated me to rearrange my furniture I guess. Not much else going on except I was checking out some webrings earlier. I think I'll join the Michigan one but I really don't write much about Michigan. I can put my I "heart" Michigan blinkie on here though. I gotta go do some more "work." Aargh!