Help!

Okay, so I just added comments to my blog. Well, the ability for YOU to add comments, that is. I guess. I don't expect this feature to get much use at first because my traffic's really died down since I stopped posting regularly, but it's VERY apropos of this post, so I wanted to not only get it working, but also point out at the beginning of the post that you should UTILIZE this new feature. Please.

Here's my profoundly ultra-super-important reason for needing your help - I can NOT decide on the color of wrap to buy for a charity thing I'm attending in less than two weeks. I know I'm ridiculous, and that this is a pretty "ghay" cry for help, but whatevs. I am NOT naturally stylish, and I'm having difficulty deciding on this.

When I requested the event's dress code, I was told, "something fun and not too dressy but festive! Most women wore skirts or dresses, and some wore nice pants."

Based on a list of some of the guests, the fact that it's at night, and also the fact that I'm going with my mom, I've decided to interpret "not too dressy" to mean cocktail.

I'm wearing a black dress similar to this one (mine has a higher waist and a smaller bow, but I can't find it online), these shoes (for springtime festiveness), and I'll figure out makeup, nails, bag, and jewelry after I pick a wrap.

This is the wrap I'm getting, but I don't know what color to get it in. I don't want black, green, brown, or that "panna" color, and I'm not sure about the coral since I'm so pale and cool-toned. Other than that, what do YOU think?

If you hate the wrap I picked no matter what color it's in, this wrap (in ivory) is my second choice.

Now PLEASE let me know your opinion! I need input. Unless that input is, "ur gay." Because that reeeally doesn't help me.

Grahg.

I'm in the process of revamping my blog, but I'm falling asleep, so I'll finish it tomorrow.

Good night! ♥ :)

The Ides, Pt 2: Behind, Ahead, and Way, Way Back

So I was hanging out in the living room waiting for Shannononon to come pick up her basketball business, when I decided to pre-rewind the tape for her, so she wouldn't have to bother with it once she got home (yes, I know we're old fashioned for using tapes and not dvds, but I don't wanna hear it). So I go up to the vcr to hit rewind, and I realize it's still recording.

Since it was supposed to record from 11:30-3:30pm, and it was after 4pm, I suddenly felt uneasy. The tape was only 4 hrs long...HOW COULD IT STILL BE RECORDING IF IT STARTED TAPING ON TIME?

I stopped recording and looked at the vcr clock, and it said 3:09pm. At first I was confused; why would the vcr say it was 3:09 if it was actually *4:09*? The vcr figures out the time on it's own, and it was correct this morning - I double checked before I programmed it to record!

But my cellphone, computer, kitchen clocks, etc all said it was after 4pm. The vcr was wrong, and hadn't started recording until the second quarter of the game. Weeeeeeak. I have no idea what would cause it to suddenly fall back to the old time again (some sort of glitch with the new daylight savings schedule?) but it sucked really bad. Fortunately Shannon claimed she only cared about the second half anyway, and brought me sour patch kids as a thank you for taping it for her.

So then I open iTunes to put on some music and get started with my blog color business, and I saw that NIN's Year Zero album is available for pre-order, and "Survivalism" is available NOW! It's probably been available at least since Tuesday, but I didn't notice until today. Whatevs.

Anyway, so when you pre-order the album "Survivalism" starts downloading automatically, so I listened to it, and I like it. I love NIN though, so I guess that's to be expected. I already own way too much as it is:

Broken
Every Day Is Exactly the Same (Remixes)
Live: And All that Could Have Been
Sin
Still
The Downward Spiral
The Fragile
With Teeth
and misc songs with other artists or from soundtracks

My music library is sorted by "recently added," and before "Survivalism" is a bunch of 80's stuff. So I got to listen to Thompson Twins' "If You Were Here," which was a nice surprise, because I'd forgotten that I added that. Sixteen Candles is far and away my favorite 80's movie. I even have a lipgloss called "Jake and Samantha." :)

So...that's been my Ides of March so far. Now I'm going to eat dinner and watch a dvd, and I still haven't worked on my blog pinkification. Which, I think, has far more to do with my natural ability to procrastinate than with the assassination of Caesar.

Beware The Ides Of March.

It's funny...I was just talking about Caesar last night. Huh. Anyway, the Ides of March are come (but not gone), and so far nothing really freaky has happened. To me, at least.

An old friend from high school wrote me on myspace, Shannon asked me to tape some sort of sporting event for her, I found a tiny beetle on the wall by my desk, and there was a crumb in my glass of water. The crumb could've come from me (I was eating a sandwich when I initially poured the water), but I'll be getting a new glass all the same. I'm not down with stuff floating in my water - guhROSS.

Other than that, I don't have much to say. I'm going to take a shower and then try to make myself pink-ify this blog (I keep opening all the files and then not DOING anything with them), and hopefully nothing strange and/or bad will happen along the way.

I'll just be sure to stay away from knife-wielding politicians.

Back in the saddle again...

Courtney wrote me this morning to ask if something bad had happened. That's when I knew something had to be done. When the only one nagging me about my lack of blog posts is myself, it's no big deal. I'm a pro at nagging myself, but I'm also a pro at ignoring my own naggings. Otherwise, how would I keep up my fabulous balance of self-disappointment AND non-productive behavior?!?

When a couple of local friends/family mentioned my slacking, I felt like I should really get on the ball and post already.

But when sweet Courtney, all the way over in Japan had to email me and ask if I was well, I knew my hiatus had gone long enough. It occurred to me that though I don't have the most popular blog in the world, there ARE people out there who read this crap, and they really do CARE about what I have to say. I have a large family and a not-small gaggle of long-distance friends, and some people rely on this little blog to see what their Cat is up to.

I'm taking some time this week to re-vamp the colors on my blog (think pink), and to add COMMENTS (if it doesn't end up being too much trouble), and google ads (if they don't suck). I WAS going to avoid posting until I had finished those things, but I've been stuck to my computer all day today anyway for various reasons, so I figured I'd toss out a quick post too.

Actually, I haven't been stuck to my computer ALL day...I've also been in and out of the kitchen (pink apron & all) cooking up a potato-less beef stew for dinner tonight.

I even had a pretty funny housewife moment a few hours ago when I went in to add some wine to the mix - I wanted to add a cup of wine from a bottle of pinot noir we've had open in our bar since last weekend (vacuum sealed), so I got out a measuring cup, filled it with wine, and then decided to taste it (to make sure it wasn't bad). So I had a sip, and it was still really good. So I took another sip.

Then I dumped the rest into the stew, but wait! I needed to add a CUP of wine, and I'd only added about 7/8ths of a cup. So I poured some more wine into the measuring cup, forgot that I was going to add it to the stew, and drank it instead.

Gosh! How silly of me. That was for the stew!!! I can't believe I did that. Well, it IS pretty good wine. Maybe I'll just have a little more...

Needless to say, I ended up drinking a full cup of wine straight from the elegant mouth of our stainless steel Williams-Sonoma measuring cup.

Oh, and I did end up adding an extra splash to the stew, just in case you were wondering.

Man Down! Man Down!

We lost a tree in the storm last night. A little one though; maybe 20'. It was a scrawny little willow tree that USED TO live under the shady protection of the neighbors' evergreens, and has never had to deal with the weight of heavy snow before. Poops. :(

We were hoping that it would grow thick and strong in it's new found sunshine, but alas, it was not meant to be. Right now the only thing that's keeping it from being stretched across our front lawn is a wooden bench that sits underneath it - it's propped up against the back of the bench, jutting out over the yard at a 45 degree angle.

I called Brett at work to tell him about it, and our conversation went like this:

Cat: we have a tree down.

Brett: yeah, I know. go shake the snow off it though and maybe it'll straighten itself.

Cat: um...it's not bowed over, it's tipped over from the roots up, and the snow has melted off the branches already...

Brett: well just shake the snow off and push it back up then.

Cat: THERE IS NO SNOW LEFT TO SHAKE OFF, and if I push it, it will just fall the other way.

Brett: you don't know that; it's not all the way down.

Cat: it's coming out of the ground at an angle, I'm not pushing it anywhere. The ground is probably like, loose.

Brett: but it's still in the ground, so it could be fine if you just push it...

Cat: no! maybe later if we stake it or something, but it won't stand up by itself - the bench is holding it up.

Then the conversation ended, because Brett had to get back to work. But what I forgot to tell him is that the rhodie that fell down in the LAST storm also fell down again in this one. He propped that one up with a stake awhile ago because it was still in the ground and still looked green and everything, but now it's down again.

I'd like to be able to save both the rhodie and our puny willow tree, but I don't want to just keep staking them until they finally die from the stress of falling over in every gd storm we have. Does anyone out there know how to steak a tree for REAL? Can it even be done once they're old and fully grown?

The rhodie is probably only like 6-7', but it's really bushy, so it's kind of top-heavy. The willow is reeeally scrawny so it's not very top-heavy, but we were hoping to keep it because it *kind of* *a little bit* obstructs our view of the neighbors' house. And we can't afford to have another pre-grown tree planted there right now, so we were just hoping that the willow would fill out.