Yes, despite his major character flaw that I thought would be a deal breaker, I do indeed love my new laptop.

It’s a Champagne Sony Vaio CR203E. It was on its way out, with new, bigger, and shinier models coming int to take the spotlight, but despite the fact he was picked up at a significant price reduction, and despite the fact he’s running Windows Vista, he’s still pretty marvelous. All I wanted was a solid dependable machine with a keyboard that wouldn’t drive me crazy, but I’ve found more.

Of course this may have something to do with the fact that this is the first brand new computer I’ve gotten. All my other personal computers have been hand-me-downs and upgrades. Now, he was a display model, so other hands caressed him possessively as he sat out to be oggled, but I brought him home, gave him a good cleaning, and now he’s shiny and pretty much perfect.

His few foibles (the aforementioned Vista, a touch pad instead of a trackpoint) can live with, since I don’t have to share him with anyone, or turn him back into work at some unknown point in the future, so I can make the adjustments that work for me. Plus, I got a new wireless mouse, which makes the pain of the trackpoint easier to handle.

So don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here typing away, and enjoying the fact that no one else’s germs will be on the keyboard but mine.

Merry Christmas to me!

I just got a new laptop! Yippee! Reduced for quick sale floor model, it has everything I want except for the awful Vista operating system. But I guess I can live with that, especially for the price I got.

My most important criteria was the keyboard, which meant I was looking primarily at either IBMs or Sonys. They had a deal on one of the VAIO’s I’ve been looking at , so SCORE!

Right now they’re doing a system restore, then I get to go back out and pick it up, and waste lots more time properly setting up the system, and uninstalling whatever crap comes pre-installed that I neither want nor need.

So now I can join Michael in geeking out, since he’s spent every day since Christmas playing with his Garmin GPS/PDA. (Yesterday we drove around after our trip to the post office, just so he could play with the GPS portion.)

Ack! My vacation is half over! Quick! Hurry up and relax!

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, assuming that is the holiday you celebrate. I’m going to try and stay away from the computer again today.

We’ll see how that goes.

As I promised mysef, I’ve been reading when I haven’t been baking, and in the past day I finished an excellent mystery Bangkok 8 and then read an excellent supernatural fantasy Kitty and the Silver Bullet. As usual, links to the reviews are on the sidebar.

Now I have to figure out what I’m going to read next. I’m thinking Scott Lynch’s Red Seas Under Red Skies, which I’ve been putting off reading since it’s a hardback. But I’ve also got some supernatural fantasy I wouldn’t mind delving into. (I think I’ve cleared out most of my mystery backlog, which is too bad because that’s what I’m kinda in the mood for.)

This was my Dad’s requested recipe this Christmas. It originally came from one of his aunts (all long dead), so I feel perfectly safe posting it.

This is half the recipe. Last year I made the whole recipe and I thought we’d never get rid of all the cookies–my Dad’s favorite or not. I also made a few modifications regarding the amount of rum, as in I increased the amount of rum. I also can think of no reason why I’d need to dissolve the baking soda in warm water, but with half a pound of walnuts at stake, I decided not to risk it and followed the recipe. (But if I can’t find any rhyme or reason for this I’m going to skip it in the future.) Additionally, as they were no directions, I just did the obvious.

Walnut Cookies

1 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar (217 grams) (I used light, since it didn’t specify)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour, sifted (180 grams)
nutmeg (it says a pinch, but I just grated some until it looked like a decent amount)
1/2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 2 tbsp warm water
2 tbsp rum (I used dark rum, because that’s what I have on hand)
8 oz raisins
8 oz walnuts

Pre-heat oven to 350 F.

Cream butter. Add sugar. Add eggs. Sift together flour and nutmeg. Add flour and nutmeg to butter mixture with soda solution and rum. Mix until incorporated. Add raisins and walnuts.
Scoop teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet covered in parchment paper.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through baking.

My goal for the next two days is to be a baking fool (now that I have a dishwasher! Yippee!)

Wish me luck!

Also, for anyone in town? This is a good time to stop by out of the blue and visit.

I’ve been having strange dreams recently. Well, that’s nothing unusual, since between my imagination and the anti-depressants, I’m used to strange dreams.

What I mean is that I’ve been having strange dreams for me.

For the past week I have been having unusually violent dreams, where the protagonist (sometimes me, but not always–about half my dreams seem to be third person) gets beat up or tortured.

On one hand, the meaning seems rather obvious. Considering that part of my depression has stemmed from beating myself up over infractions both real and imagined, this seems pretty straightforward. Except for the fact that these dreams started just recently, as I have become more adept at recognizing self-blame for what it is, and refusing to blame myself for the problems of others. In other words, as my depression has retreated and I have become better at dealing with the things and people who caused me problems, my subconscious seems to have decided to make the whole “beating myself up” thing quite literal–at least in my dreams.

Is it a problem? Not really. I’ve been fascinated by dreams since I was in college, and how the most vivid ones tend to your self-consciousness sending you a message. What I’m confused about now is whether my subconscious is getting in it’s last kicks as I learn to ignore inappropriate guilt, or whether it’s trying to tell me that I’m not doing as well as I think I’m doing, and I still have lots of work ahead of me.

Or perhaps it’s simply trying to get me to finish my current WIP so I can move into a new story seeded by one of my freaky dreams.

Except that it’s really going to have to cut back on the sadism if it expects me to find anything useful.

passel   \PASS-ul\   noun
: a large number or amount

Now I want to watch Firefly again.

Inara:  Maybe you should think twice about letting go of Saffron.  You two sound like quite a match.
Mal:  Maybe you’re right.  Maybe we’re soul mates.
Inara:  Yes, great.  I wish you hundreds of fat children.
Mal:  Could you imagine that?  Me with a whole passel of critters underfoot?  Hell, ten years time I could…

My idea of what I was going to do this morning:
Get up
Eat Breakfast
Take Michael to work
Write
Do some laundry
Start a fire
Read a book

What actually happened this morning:
Get up
Take Michael to work
Run by my office to pick up power supply for PDA that I forgot to take home last night
Eat breakfast
Get kitchen ready for new dishwasher after being told installer would be here between 9 and 10
Start fire
Start laundry
Flatten pile o’ boxes to be recycled while waiting for fire to take off
87 phone calls about whether or not the dishwasher is in stock, is available
Read one chapter of book
More phone calls about dishwasher situation
More laundry
Waiting for dishwasher

I sometimes wonder why I even bother to make plans, since things never ever work according to plan.

However, I’m not at work, so WHO CARES?

WHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am disappointed to report that Andy did NOT read “Moo Baa La La La” aloud during the party. However, Heather (his wife) assures me that he will be made to do so.

Heh.

Next year? Dr Seuss. Especially the ones with the tongue twisters.

VACATION!

(throws papers in the air and runs out the door)

That’s right! I’m on vacation until the 7th of January!

(happy dance)

I’m gonna read and bake and read and relax and read and get a massage and read and play on the computer and read and… I dunno… maybe I’ll read some.

YIPPEE!

I’ve been doing minor work on the website (as you may have noticed, when the sidebar kept getting error messages).

Pay no mind to the man behind the curtain. All is well.

I’m also working on updating my blogroll. I’ve had some down time to read around recently, so I added some sites I’ve been checking regularly. More may be added soon. Unless of course vacation interferes, in which case, too bad.

How is it that within the course of a few hours, my knowledge of web design can make me feel like a total genius and then like a total idiot.

Someone at work wanted advice on setting up an on-line survey. Yesterday I was able to explain to him what he’d need to do using HTML and php, and to create a good enough example that by this afternoon he was working on creating the actual survey and the layout of the pages he wanted to use. (Plus I loaned him a good book that helped as well.)

A few hours later Michael and I are banging our heads against my website trying to figure out why the code:

<?php include (’http://klishis.com/reading.html’); ?>

suddenly stopped working for no reason whatsoever.

Best part? Michael couldn’t figure it out either, and we had to use a work-around. Stupid computers.

Went looking for a birthday book for a friend’s child’s first birthday this year, and I have to say that although some of the possibilities looked abysmal (Pet the different parts of the dog and don’t pull his ears? Ugh.) There’s something about Sandra Boynton that I can’t resist.

We actually had trouble deciding which two books we wanted. My final decision was based upon which two would be most ridiculous for my friend to read (Barnyard Dance was the hands down winner there). However, more annoying for Michael, we again picked up Moo Baa La La La!

All the way home in the car I kept singing “moo baa la la la!” at which point Michael remembered that I’d done the same thing when we got this book for his niece, and was wondering why he let this happen again.

That’s what he gets for having such a bad memory.

MOO! BAA! LA! LA! LA!
MOO! BAA! LA! LA! LA!
MOO! BAA! LA! LA! LA!
MOO! BAA! LA! LA! LA!

tee hee!

Whether we wanted it or not, Michael and I get a new dishwasher for Christmas.

Take home lesson:

Don’t by a GE dishwasher unless you think that replacing the pump after three years, and then having the replacement pump go bad in three months do to a previously unnoticed leak is okay.

We’re going with a Kitchen Aid this time.

I was thinking about the progression of our dishwasher purchases over the years. First, I was thrilled to have something that washed the dishes. The next purchase I had a couple features in mind and wanted better energy efficiency. This time I had a whole slew of features in mind that I wanted the new dishwasher to have, plus I wanted it to be quiet, plus I wanted it to be reliable. At this rate, by the next time I buy a dishwasher, I’ll want one that loads and empties itself.

Probably be denied on that one though.

Speaking of Rodriguez…

Today’s Word of the Day:

craven  \KRAY-vun\  adjective
: lacking the least bit of courage : contemptibly fainthearted

And now I am officially done with the topic of Rich Rodriguez.

Today’s accomplishments:

Peanut Butter Blossoms
M&M Cookies (with and without walnuts)
Pumpkin Spice Cookies (with and without walnuts)
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies*
Sugar Cookies

* Actually made and taste-tested

Those are added to:
Lemon Sugar Coins
Spice Cookies
Nutmeg Sour Cream Cookies
Sugar Cookies

Plus, for my Mom’s birthday I made:
Carrot Cake cupcakes (with and without pecans)
No-bake Lemon Cheesecake

What I have left:
Bar cookies of multiple types
Walnut cookies
Rugelach
Anything else I decide looks good

What I am doing differently this year is making all the dough, scooping out balls for those cookies that are not shaped cookies, and the freezing the uncooked balls. This way, I can simply bake cookies as needed, giving me fresh cookies for the entire holiday season, instead of a freezer full of cookies that become more and more damaged as the holiday season progresses. (I scooped out the cookies, froze them on a cookie try, and then put them into ziplock bags.)

Of course I finished making all this cookie dough, and then decided that I was really in the mood for oreos. I did not, however, make any oreos.

Fuck you.

“I plan on being at West Virginia the rest of my career” my ass.

MOUNTAINEER E-NEWS
Dec. 13, 2007

WVU declares Dec. 27th a holiday

WVU employees on the main campus and regional/division campuses will
enjoy an additional day off during the holiday season, says WVU
President Mike Garrison.

Gov. Joe Manchin granted all state workers additional half days off on
Monday, Dec. 24, and Monday, Dec. 31.

Since WVU already had those days scheduled as holidays, the University
will instead take Thursday, Dec. 27th, as an additional holiday.

In his announcement, Manchin urged state employees to use the time off
to “enjoy family, friends and celebrations that bind us together.”

Employees who already requested that time off will not be charged
annual leave. Please work with your Expert Business Office (EBOs) to
retract your request. Benefits will also remind EBOs to cancel any leave
requests for Dec. 27th.

For additional information or clarification, call the Classification
and Compensation unit at 293-4809.

Official University holidays will now be Dec. 24-27, Dec. 31 and Jan.
1. WVU will be open and operating Friday, Dec. 28th.

Since I was already taking the 27th off, I’m now shifting that vacation day to the 4th. Which means that I won’t have to go back to work until the 7th now. Yippee!

If I don’t come back from vacation feeling relaxed, then there is something seriously wrong with me. Oh. Sorry. Something else seriously wrong with me.

(bounces off in glee)

Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

WANT!

Ordered.

Now I’m done geeking out, and will calmly go to bed.

SQUEE! SQUEE! SQUEE!

(ahem)

Calm.

I have almost finished my Christmas cards (just five left, but they’re mostly to people I never see, so I didn’t want to be perfunctory, so I stopped for the night) and I have one thing to say:

WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE MAKE CHRISTMAS CARDS WITH VILE TASTING ENVELOPE GLUE?!

BLETCH! PTOOEY!

Although it’s possible the glue turned since last January when I bought my cards, I find that highly unlikely. I realize not everyone likes minty things, but that’s no excuse for making the glue nasty tasting.

I just realized that I haven’t been writing very much here recently–at least nothing of import–so I should probably briefly let anyone who cares know how things are going.

They’re going shockingly well, actually.

Not only is my depression under control (the OCD is something else entirely, but I think only much stronger medication will control that completely, and the anti-depressants are good enough that the OCD symptoms I do have are not bothering me), but my anxiety levels have dropped low enough that I am able to deal with stressors in a normal and healthy manner.

This may not seem like a big thing, but for the past two years, when one thing after another was piled on me, I was at the point where any new trauma was pushing me to the breaking point, and even small problems were becoming beyond my ability to deal with.

Now, despite several somewhat major stresses cropping up, I have handled things with (for me) grace and aplomb. I’ve remained as calm as warranted by the situation, and when I felt I was starting to freak out, took steps to back away, and if that didn’t help, did things to actively calm myself down.

This is a huge change for me. My normal modus operandi is to react first, regret later. (That is, unfortunately, not an exaggeration.) But recently I’ve been calm enough to consider what I should do before taking action.

The only downside is that I am still unable to differentiate reasonable reactions from overreactions, and so poor Michael keeps being asked, “am I overreacting or is it reasonable for me to be upset about this?” This answers so far have been that my reactions have been reasonable.

This isn’t to say that things are perfect. However, I’m slowly gaining the ability to step away from the things (read: people) that have caused me problems in the past, and will continue to cause me problems in the future, and accept that their problems are not my problems, no matter how much they may try to make them so. This may sound like something everyone else in the world learned as children, but I am only now learning to take this to heart.

I’ve still got a way to go, which is why I am remaining on my meds for awhile, and will continue seeing my happy doctor in the near future. But having dealt with my particular demons for twenty years now, I’m willing to be patient as necessary.

And I’m taking the joys in life as they come, be they good news or a geeky t-shirt.

After all, as the epicureans once said, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.” I’m better off concentrating on the merry of today than borrowing trouble from tomorrow.