Chocoberry!

I can't imagine I'm the only one this happens to.  You wake up, late of course.. think about making breakfast, end up running out of time and leave without anything to eat.  You stop at a cafe, Dunkin, Starbucks..  If its a cafe, as in cafeteria, lunch-room, serve yourself style, you're pretty much on your own.  But in the breakfast area there is a whole plate of oversized crunchy on the outside mushy in the middle muffins.  "Yay muffins", you think - what a delightful little breakfast this will serve as over the next few hours until you are finally finished picking and its lunchtime.  You grab the plate, head to the muffin counter and alas!  There are THREE muffins in a row with dark black pebbly spots poking out.  One has a very mild bluish tint on the side, the other has an even more mild tint in the middle and the third has no tint.  Hoping the one with the bluish tint on the side is in fact blueberry, the muffin is purchased and you begin to work/surf the 'Net while eating.  A few bites in, relieved, you are glad you chose correctly.  The next bite though tastes like a mouthful of chocolate.  HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN!?  Why did my blueberry muffin have one little area where the chocolate chips hid to escape from the other muffin?

Muffin fail, afterall.

94.3% of that muffin was in fact, blueberry.  The remaining 5.7% made me sad.

Fireplace Christmas

Yes, I promised to post fireplace Christmas lights.  I also promised myself that I'd charge my camera battery and find the cable that will connect it to the computer.  Fail!  Picture still to come- the lights provided a significant amount of light in a rather dimly lit space and was a talking point for anyone who came over. Success!

I recently went to the dentist where I saw that they use their fireplace as a Poinsettia holder.  Hilarious.

Anyone else not at all thrilled about all of the engagements that happened around Christmas/New Years?

I was a little hesitant to log into Facebook that week since it seemed like every day, someone new was announcing an engagement.  Don't get me wrong, that did not even one bit stop me from wasting my free time on Facebook, but STILL!

Then it got me thinking, through a conversation at work with a handful of 30-something women.

If the engagement was a surprise (as most that I saw on Facebook seemed to be), what if the girl doesn't like the ring?  It is their hand that they have to look at everyday.  Did they have any input?  At least they all seem happy with the outcome- or at least they are within the first few hours while changing their relationship status for the world to see.

Unrelated - Did you get any holiday presents that you really don't like/want?

Backstreet's Back ALRIGHT!

A dear friend commented "Where have you been?"

Well, readers.... I have been here. On my "backup" computer. And sad. Let's start at the very beginning... a very good place to start.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I arrived home from work to a darkish, empty house. I walked in and heard a strange sound coming from the office. Knowing that I had my electric toothbrush plugged into an outlet in the office, I decided it was either that, or a robber with a chainsaw hiding in the closet so the sound was muffled.

I rushed into the room, very concerned by what could have fallen and was now stuck pressed against the toothbrush in its charger making it buzz.

Not the toothbrush.

My amazing, 8 year old computer, in fact. Horrified, I checked my e-mail, facebook, twitter, some blogs and the news.... then decided to turn off the computer.

When BF came home, I dragged him into the office, turned on the computer and said "I think my fan is broken".

His response? "Sorry dear, thats your hard drive. They make that sound just before they die".

Heartbroken, I made a decision to not turn on the computer again until I figured out a way to fully back up everything on it, should that be the last time it lets me turn it on. I began to use my slow 4-year old Vista running laptop as my primary computer because most "fun" things (including blogs) are blocked at...work. Because of the slowness, I mainly used it for e-mail and facebook (which almost always froze the system).

BF decided that it would be nice for the season of presents that was coming up, to gift me a new hard drive and new computer, once everything was backed up onto the hard drive.

WEEKS went by. Hard drive was purchased on Black Friday. Arrived one-point-five weeks later. Another 2 weeks went by before we tried to install it. New computer never purchased. Result? Hard drive NOT compatible with 8 year old computer. Sidebar? 8 year old computers carry mounds of dust inside. It was disgusting and amazing to clean.

While the cover was off of the unit, BF had a genius idea to turn on the computer and see if anything "else" was making a sound.

Well friends, the hard drive was silent. Very much alive, well, happy and dust-free. The FAN on the other hand? Oh that was buzzing like a toothbrush.

BF said "So, what do you want to do now?"

"Well, since you bought me a hard drive for YOU, and no new computer, I want you to get up and find me a new FAN since we could have solved this weeks ago with a $3.00 part".

Sony makes their own parts, in their own sizes, that normal walk-in stores do not carry. Sigh. Another week later, my fan arrived from the online order we had to make after driving to 4 stores.

And I spent the next few hours singing to my computer how much I loved it and how its so much better than BF's computer.

Twinkle lit fireplace pics to come!