back in business

Ta-da:










I should be able to catch up on backlogged pictures and blogging a little easier now. My enabling wonderful husband has spent the last two weeks searching for the right deal on the right machine to get me back to computing on a regular basis. I found this one on my door step this past weekend. I love it! It's definitely nice to have a quick, smooth machine that actually does the things you ask it to dependably! Of course that means it's all new maneuvering and windows and stuff, so I'm still feeling my way around it; I had next to no time to play with it at all this past weekend, but I should be able to make up for it this week. The craziest few days are behind us and my parents are now here for a nice long visit, so I should have a little more down time. In between family outings, swimming lessons, soccer practice, bible study, and other miscellaneous appointments that is. Oh, and a certain just-about-six-year-old's birthday!

We had a great and full weekend. After the Big Birthday Party Friday night (mega-post to come), Saturday was chock full of friends and running around. Savannah had a soccer game and I headed south for a baby shower for Kasey. After the shower Heather, Erin, Kasey and I met up with all the guys and the kids as they wrapped up a venture of egg hunt insanity, and we all spent the evening hanging out, catching up and chowing on some pizza. We headed home a little early as it had been a very late night for us all the night before and a very full day, with more to come bright and early in the morning!
And Sunday started way too bright and early... we had to be at church early (Ryan at 7:15 and me before 8am for responsibilities at our first service that started at 8:15) and of course the kids were up following their jellybean trails and digging into their baskets before that.
We were back home by 11 for a little time to relax before running out to the airport to pick up my parents at 1. We then spent the afternoon visiting, the kids crazily wound up in a combination of too much sugar, too little sleep and the excitement of visiting grandparents. We had a great yummy Easter dinner and after more playing and visiting, eventually everyone kind of fell into bed exhausted.

Now we're back to Monday, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief. Back to the routine, and even though that's busy in itself, it's at least a normal, predictable busy! We have house guests, Savannah has no school today, Sawyer has swim lessons, and I have grocery shopping to do; it's kind of a gray rainy day, so it feels like a good day to lay low and recoop from the craziness of the past week.
And I love laying low with a new laptop on my lap!!

Now on to my 300 unread emails and the 880 (!!) unread posts sitting in my Google reader.
I'm sure I'll be a little heavy on the delete button, so forgive me if I miss something important!

i'm grounded

I'm just checking in real quick.
As predicted, my laptop finally died. I've been saying that for a couple of months now... ironic that it should quit immediately after I wrote about it though.
Actually, for two days following that post, it behaved beautifully... everything was smooth and working quickly and perfectly. It was strange. Then on Wednesday evening the screen just went poof.
Actually the computer itself is still working (for now). It seems to just be the screen that's died. So at least we're able to connect it to the desktop downstairs and get everything off it I need. I'm just grounded to the basement now.
Which means way less computer time for me. And more of a hassle to work with, transfer and post any pics. Ugh.

I do have pics from this weekend; Savannah had her first soccer game. But I'm too lazy to worry about it right now. Maybe tomorrow. It's supposed to snow (?!!) and be only about 30 degrees tomorrow, so I think we'll be spending our Monday sticking to the house.
I just wanted to check in and put a place holder of sorts here.
And to say that I may not be as quick on emails, posting and such for the next little bit, so bear with me. :)

TFT: what's in a name

Funny that Nic did a TFT on germs and babies this week, since I'd been planning a slightly different version of that myself for today. But, now I'm too lazy to write it up (I really need to start doing my homework and get these posts going ahead of time because by Thursday I'm just either so lazy or so busy that the things I want to post about just don't happen!), so keep thinking germy thoughts all week and I"ll get on that for next Thursday.

Today I'm keeping it light and easy... no real thinking, no debating, easy peasy.
I'm wondering about things in the good ol' world wide web.
Your email address, the name of your blog, the address of your blog (if it's different than your "title"); how did you decide on them?
Did you use your name? A combination of family names? Did you use an inside joke or something special to you? Did you try to come up with something clever and original? Is it something that makes you smile? Did you even think about it or just pick the first thing that popped into your head?

My first email address was hgirardvw @ blah blah blah. H for first name, girard for last name, and vw for the new tall, dark and handsome German I was in love with. My car.
I eventually left my email host and got a new account and spent hours (yes, that's probably an exaggeration) trying to come up with a new username. Something more fun than just my name. And maybe something that had to do with the act of emailing in and of itself... I finally came up with notes4heather @ blah blah blah. I like it because it's simple and easy for people to remember. Easy to just tell someone without them having to immediately write it down.
Just the other day actually, I told my address to the cashier guy at World Market to get on their mailing list, and as the guy typed it in, he commented on how original that was, and how funny because people writing to me really were sending notes for heather, and hehe did I get the joke? Um, yeah. I get it. I made up the address dummy.

Anyway, I love cool blog names. Something interesting and easy to remember. But I'm horrible at coming up with them.
I started my first blog when we moved from Oregon to Michigan and called it Life As We Know It (along with 831 other blogs, I'm sure). The address was morrisonsinmichigan. I know; real original. I never loved the name, but spit it out real quick while we were experimenting with different websites/blogs trying to decide the best venue for keeping in touch with our families and that's what stuck.
I was actually excited to start a new blog page when we moved and were no longer the morrisons in michigan so I could come up with a better, more original name. Unfortunately, I'm braindead when it comes to stuff like that so I took the easy way out and stuck with the Life theme, calling this new page Everyday Life. It is after all, my journal of our life everyday. What ever it is- good, bad, ugly, boring- it really is our life. And I simply picked an address that somewhat went along with my email address. And so this place for notesofus was born.

As for my other blogs, Our Own Gong Show I actually stole from Kim T. Well, I've heard that term before referring to toddlers and mealtimes, but it seemed Kim used it on a regular basis and it cracked me up every time. So since the blog really was all about our own gong show at our table every day, I went with it.
I Like Today Because... is just exactly what it implies it is. Finding the good things about each day. Along with a very annoying address with lots of dashes (year-long-photo-album), but really who types out the address very often?

So there's my naming of my internet communications....
Kind of an off the wall topic, but I'm always curious where/why people come up with the email addresses/blog names that they do. So where did you come up with yours?

a good wednesday night

This is a good Wednesday night.
Just finished folding my last load of laundry,
sitting here with hair color on my hair,
eating a fantastic bowl of Edy's Slow Churn Peppermint Ice Cream,
found one of my favorite movies on TV,
just vegging on the couch.

*********
And BAM!
My laptop goes dead.

Yes, that's right. I'd no sooner pulled up my computer, typed all of six lines, and suddenly my screen goes black. I can't get it back on for the life of me. It did this once before, and I thought we needed a new power cord. Turns out all I needed was for Ryan to come home from work. Does this happen to anyone else?
I can make my way around a computer as well as the next person. Ryan thinks I'm pretty pc illiterate but that's really just because when he's around, it's faster and easier to have him figure stuff out for me if I have problems or run into something new. But when I have to, I'm pretty good at feeling my way around a computer.
Well, any issues we have ever had with any computers, always, without fail happen on my watch. And then magically as soon as Ryan tries the same thing that I have been begging my computer to do for the previous four hours... it works. And I look like an idiot. Even if I had already tried the exact. same. thing. that he did.

So the last time the laptop died, it warned me the battery was low, which confused me because I had it plugged in. But after checking, I realized the cord wasn't getting any power. The battery eventually died, the whole thing shut down, and after trying numerous different outlets and periodically fiddling with the cord and all the connections, I gave up and reported to Ryan that we needed a new power cord. He gets home from work that night and wiggled one connection and guess what little green light came on? Oh, that made me so mad!

So I'm hoping tonight it's the same story. I have no power in my cord. But I never got a low battery warning before everything turned off and it kind of went off with a zap like it got a shock or something, so I'm a little worried. But Ryan will be home from soccer soon, and as much as it drives me crazy, I'm counting on the fact that as always, all he needs to do is touch it and it will be healed.

So where was I?
Oh yeah, my nice relaxing night.
Well after messing with my non responsive laptop, I finally rinsed the color from my hair and now I'm down in our concrete basement on the desktop blogging once again. And I can assure you it won't be for long. We don't even have a desk chair down here. Just a little stool. And a big screen and awkward keyboard I'm not used to. I should write down here more often; I probably wouldn't ramble on as much.

Anyway, I was talking to Nicole tonight and she was asking about pictures of the new lights and the dining room table, and then I realized that I never posted finished pics of Savannah's bedroom or the kids' bathroom either. So I was going to do a little house update photo post, but guess where my pictures are? Well the dining room ones anyway. The old ones are down here, but my Photoshop is on the laptop and so I can't size them for the web down here and I'm not up for sitting down here on a stool freezing while I upload huge pictures onto slow-a$$ Blogger. So it looks like that will have to wait for another day and this post turned into simply whining about my computer issues. Aren't you glad you tuned in for that?!

I'm going upstairs for more ice cream.

psa

Just some notes for my fellow bloggers...

Since I know quite a few of you are new(ish) bloggers, or blog readers, I just wanted to point out a couple of helpful time savers. If you have more than a small handful of blogs you like to read, you need to check out a service like Bloglines if you haven't already. Bloglines or also Google Reader are easy ways to keep track of the blogs you like stay up to date with. Instead of having to run through your list of bookmarks or links, checking blogs one at a time, waiting for updates... just use Bloglines or Google Reader to subcribe to those blog feeds and then you have it all in one place. You simply check your list in one place for who has new posts, or you can also choose email notifications.
Makes things much easier if you have more that a couple of blogs you want to check on every day.


Also.
If you haven't heard of our first annual (we're hoping) Blog World meets Real World weekend getaway, let me enlighten you. A bunch of us bloggers who are "getting to know each other" through the blog world are going to meet for a weekend retreat in Chicago next spring. I am so looking forward to getting away, meeting all these fabulous women and spending some time livin' it up (as much livin' it up as I remember how to do, lol!) in Chi-town doing whatever it is girls do on a girls' weekend. The plan as of now is to actually stay the night in nearby Michigan City (where there is a great outlet mall!) to save some money on lodging and then take the train into Chicago for the day to hang out.

If any other bloggers out there want to join us, we'd LOVE to have more company. To get all the scoop and details and be involved in making decisions on this trip, sign up through the following link:
Blog World Meets Real World Yahoo! Group

p.s. If anyone else from the STL area (or anywhere in between STL and Chicago) wants to carpool or caravan, let me know. Kasey and I are planning on making the drive up together, and the more the merrier (and cheaper!!). Heather? Erin? Marisa?