Bummer

I should have suspected something was up when Jones clan kids didn't remember to ask off for this weekend. And when their projector went kaput.

Whomever runs the party room rentals for my building either never got my check or completely blew off my reservation, because no one got a hold of me to get me the party room key. So I've called several places to see if I could find someone to get me in, no joy.

Then Jones clan called, they started out for the cities. Hwy 7 was crap, so they turned around and went home.

No holiday party. I was so looking forward to this. Spent $95 to rent a projector that now won't even come out of it's case. I was going to get new pix of the kids and family. Bah flippin' humbug.

Trying to reschedule is going to be a treat. G has Knowledge Bowl and speech tournaments most Saturdays right through my birthday, so Sundays are still an option. Question is when. Try it again, see what happens.

At least I got to see Dominik clan Christmas night for supper, and I'm going out to see Jones clan to sew cloaks on Thursday, so not a total loss.

So, I suppose, back to work. More like actually get the work I was supposed to be doing done.

Happy eve of Xmas Eve

Normally I'd say bah humbug right about here. Not feeling it quite so bad this year. Blame it on me being in lust.

Work continues to be a merry go round in things not getting done on time. I had to chew out both the packager and the SCCM boys today because they weren't playing well together. Since they are so much alike, they tend to point fingers at each other when something goes wrong. Shadow effect in full force between those two.

I made it very clear this morning when I sent out a meeting notice that no finger pointing was allowed and that I wanted answers and fixes. To say I was peeved at them is an understatement.

Anyway, meeting went better than I hoped. I've just got a lot to learn about how software is packaged, moved to SMS, then converted to SCCM. This is a side of PC's I never wanted to know. In doing software asset management, guess I'm going to have to learn. Pffftttt.

I'm looking forward to Sunday. Jones and Dominik clans are descending on my party room for the second annual DoJoKo holiday party. Dig out the Wii, put a 5 pound roast in the roaster, get some veggies and chips and dig in. It was a lot of fun last year, and will be even more interesting this year. Add in two exchange students, a boyfriend and his parents... it's gonna be a full house. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

Meanwhile, a huge snow storm is headed to Minnesota. I'm hearing forecasts of anywhere from 7" to 20"+ of snow. It started sleeting around 2 when I was out and about and is supposed to snow all the way through until Saturday sometime.
As long as it doesn't top the Halloween Storm of '91's 30"+ we'll be fine. At least it will be in the upper 20's, not sub-zero.

My holiday plans? Work, other than a run to the grocery store tomorrow and a platelet donation Saturday. And the party Sunday.

Hope y'all have a good holiday. I'll post some pix of the party on Sunday or Monday.

gettin' stuff done

It's not even 1 pm and I've gotten a lot of stuff done today.
1. Washed three loads of clothes
2. Washed three loads of dishes
3. Made both regular and keifer yogurt, which are in the Nesco roaster
4. Washed out the microwave and various parts
5. Washed off the top of the stove, took the burners apart and cleaned them

I haven't stopped moving until I sat down to write this. Feels good to get some stuff done.

Might also help that I've listened to my "Get Around To It" paraliminal both yesterday and today. I listened to a couple others as well, and will again today. I've got them, might as well make use of them to help me help myself.

The cleaning bug is in part due to the fact I gave someone a copy of The Celestine Prophecy. His teenage daughter will present him with his first grandchild sometime in March. What he doesn't know, yet, is that child is a Crystal child and is going to come out asking questions. He's the closest in the family to waking up. I wasn't going to interfere until the book fell off the shelf into my hands twice, then the third time hit me on the head when I was sitting below it. Every time it fell out I thought of him. When it hit me on the head, I said OK, Universe, I get it, he needs this book. He finally walked by my desk this week so I gave it to him.

Once he reads it, he's going to have questions. I want to be able to bring him here so if he goes ballistic on learning how I know what I know, he has the space and privacy to do so. If I have control of the space, I can influence the outcome. Home turf advantage, shall we say.

In preparation for that, I re-read for the umpteenth time my copy of Celestine. There were several things I needed to be reminded of as well, things I need to work on myself. I'll work through the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Insights as well.

In a way, after my hate letters, Celestine is a good place to start over again. Remind me of what I already knew and hadn't looked at in a while. Get me back on the path again, the beginner's mind.
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My kids are growing up. Granted, I didn't have the fun of making them or raising them, but they are the closest thing I have to bearing my own.

G was down earlier this week for a teacher's conference, so I met up with her. Thing 2 told her she wanted a coat like I have. G mentioned it to me, and I said yes, I'd be willing to make her a winter coat like I have that is based on the Jedi cloak.

Thing 2 then told Things 1 & 3 that I was making a cloak for her, so now they decided they want cloaks, too. I suspected that might happen. So when they come down for Christmas, we'll head for SR Harris to buy the fleece and nylon fabric for the cloaks, the buttons, thread and cord to match. The following weekend I'll head out and sew like crazy for three days to put them together.

Thankfully it's a really basic pattern with only three parts. The hardest part is that the main body and sleeve of each side are cut out of one piece - depending on how tall the person is, that piece will be between 9-12 feet long. The only seams are at the sides and back - no shoulder seams. I don't have the room to lay out anything that long or wide. Jones clan, however, has a dining room and living room where we can lay out something that long on the floor and cut it out. Then it's sewing the back and under arm seams together, adding the hood, and sewing the fleece side and the nylon sides together and sewing the bottom closed.

Then I get an email from G. One of the two oldest evidently has a boyfriend here in the Cities. She's already asked Mom and Dad if he could come visit for New Years. The trick is if I will transport said boyfriend from the Cities out to their place.
I have no problems doing that. However, to keep everything kosher and safe, I told G that I want both her and at least one of his parents in on the email chain back and forth as we make arrangements. Then his parents know how to get a hold of me if something should come up, they know I'm legitimate, etc. Can't be too safe these days, and I'd rather be up front so his parents know who I am.

So, we shall see how this works out. My babies are growing up.

The fun begins

Not.

Since the communications and the EUA's started on Monday, I have not had time to think while I've been at work. I've come home with a headache every night because I'm concentrating so hard.

This is one of those top of my head blown off headaches. Not sure if I'm not getting enough carbs to keep up with what my brain needs for glucose, or if my crown chakra had just decided to blow open.

Either way, brain fried.

Then there's the Minnesota weather to deal with. We got our first snowstorm of the season. Ugh. I can deal with the snow, it's the cold I'm not fond of. Nor the wind.

At least the drivers I was moving along with at 30-40 mph were well behaved. On the news they said between last night and 1 pm today there were 669 accidents, three deaths and 300+ simple in the ditches. That's just here in the Cities, I think. South by Rochester they got a foot or more of snow.

Sorry I'm not more talkative. I'm too tired. See if I can get some energy this weekend.

Almost a year

It's been almost a year I've been working on this software licensing project. This year has gone by quickly, and in some respects its hard to believe it's taken this long to get to the point where we can start communicating and removing software.

We overhauled the EUA, so it's simple for the end user. The communications have been overhauled for the umpteenth time. The Visio Viewer is in progress of being advertised to the whole company. It's a mad dash to Tuesday when everything goes live.

Fifty-one weeks to get to this point. I didn't think it would take this long. When you don't have an idea of what you're doing, it's an uphill learning curve. The next one will be easier, because we've already done it once. The third will be a refinement of the process, going faster and easier.

So, we'll see what happens as the communications go out. See how many howl, how many come up with licenses, how many don't notice what's going on until their software goes missing.
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The Monday night before Thanksgiving I finally got an appointment with the animal communicator. What should have been a reading on Shadow ended up being commentary on me.

Turns out I'm not the only one with a cat that howls at all hours of the day and night. J did some asking and got back that the howls are in fact the cat's way of 'toning' to help us humans move out negative energy.

I do admit, I was stuck in a pretty bad rut. Most of my 'stories' were negative, angry rants at my parents, my ex-boyfriend from 22 years ago, my half siblings, etc. She called me on it, asked me to write a letter to each person finally voicing all the things I've not been able to tell them. Get it all out on paper, she said, before it eats you alive.

Then I remembered Louise Hay and her story about her vaginal cancer. Cancer is the anger literally eating away at you. Mom died from her cancer, her anger at her life gone wrong.

So I wrote some very hate-full letters. I cried tears that burned my eyes. My throat didn't want to work. As the week went on and I wrote more letters, my runny nose turned into sinus infection that went into my lungs. She told me to burn the letters the night before the full moon - Tuesday night.

When I'd written all I could, I burned the letters Tuesday night. I forgave myself for choosing this family. I forgave my parents yet again for their addictions and their lack of care. I forgave my siblings for not being there when I needed them. I forgave the ex-boyfriend for his transgressions.

I'm catching myself earlier when I start down a path. I clear myself with a vortex of divine white light before I come into the house at night, and before I go to sleep. I clean Shadow with another white light vortex, so she doesn't have to tone at night. I call in the archangels to clean the house and the whole floor of the building I work in of any negative energies, negative entities, negative thoughts or thought patterns.

I can tell a difference when I walk on to the floor. It feels lighter, better. There seems to be a bit more harmony in the department. Time will tell.