I haven't talked about books for a while

So here's a list of what I've read recently and what I thought of it. I'm going to go in reverse order from what I read since my last post to the most recent book.

Such a pretty girl: Really disturbing. The topic mainly is disturbing. Based around a 15 yr old girl who was molested by her dad, he gets out of jail when she's 15 instead of when she's 18 as she was promised. Mother is psychotic and moves him right back in because he 'made a mistake'. Yeah, you really want to shake her the entire time. Young adult fiction but not bad.

The Center of Everything: Very inspirational. I didn't feel like the ending quite did the entire story justice. I wanted to know what happened, like it needed an 'afterward' because I really did become interested in the main character. Excellent coming of age novel though.

Wish: Must read of the summer! What a cute book! All the 80's references and idols were nothing short of hilarious! Great beach read. Light and funny, parts of it were a little intense but the humor just leveled it all out. Great great read.

Stargirl: another YA book. Sometimes I can get into these. This one was okay and I think we can definitely all learn something from stargirl, I just think it was all so exaggerated. Pretty much everything about the entire book felt exaggerated. I guess that's great for YA fiction because that's an exaggerated time of your life and if I'm going to continue to read YA then I should just accept that and get over it. I'll shut up now.

Lost & Found: Don't want to ruin it for you but *finally* a dog story where the dog doesn't die at the end! I love how in this book there's a couple chapters written from the dog's point of view. I always look at my dogs and wonder just what they're thinking, well, this guy is gonna tell you. Quite possibly the best dog ever. Good book, I felt like there were too many sub-plots that didn't quite get tied up at the end of the book but a great portrayal of life with a canine best friend.

That's all for now. I was on quite a reading kick for a while. I'm working on a new book now and then I'll probably move into a little bit heavier books as the weather gets colder.

Bored husband...

So, I guess John is laying off the furniture thing for a while because I came home to this:

We've had the new siding now for probably 2 months. I didn't want to push the issue because it's been steamy hot, and I know I would have to help. But today apparently he was inspired. I got to come home and clean up the mess he'd made. Load the scrap wood up on the trailer and peal the backing off the old aluminum siding to take to the recycle. I think I would've preferred a nap but man will a shower feel great tonight!

The domain is mine!

Well, I registered this morning to get my domain for our furniture website. It was available and is parked until my website goddess can upload it (soon I hope!) Keep an eye out! www.chesapeakecl.com

A little table

Todd and Diane encouraged us last weekend to build a table to go with our adirondack chairs. John and I both agreed that we kinda wanted the chair to dictate how the table looked. Same lines, that sort of thing. As artsy-fartsy as that sounds. We've both become quite the furniture critics, we like the lines to be consistent on certain things. So I saw something that inspired me and I told John the gyst of it and Friday evening he had it sketched out and measurements made, yesterday I had my table. I wasn't quite happy with the feet so back to the drawing board on those this morning and now I have the table I am satisfied with. Yes, it does look a little bit like the mushroom from super mario, but I really like how the lines on the top go with the ottoman and the front of the chair. Just right for a glass of wine (or 2!)

Pillow project

So I thought with Hanna blowing through today, it would be a perfect day to stuff and stitch up some of the pillows that Karen sewed together for me. I think they turned out great. I still have 4 bags of cedar to go! I found some fabric upstairs at my house too so one of these days I'm going to get hubby to help with rearranging some furniture to make my sewing machine more accessible. I have one of Karen's large pillows left that I didn't stuff, I was tired after all these. That cedar sure is messy! I think the homeless pets at the humane society will like them though.

The piggy that had roast beef....

*probaby not a post for the weak stomached*

So, I'm really hard on my toes... not THAT hard, but they always seem to be in my way. Last week I got my middle toe (piggy that had roast beef) caught in hubby's little shop and managed to tear it up pretty bad. So of course now that this toe is sore, I have managed to hit it everywhere. It's like it sticks out a foot (no pun intended) farther than my other toes and just catches everything. I got a pedicure last week, trying to dress pig up a little bit, but I forgot about it when the girl went to remove my old polish. Yeah, my head nearly hit the ceiling. So last night I'm getting ready for bed and I stumbled. I'm not graceful, this isn't unusual but of course, I hit my toe again. I go to take my final peepee before bed and I'm sitting there putting some lotion on and all and I notice my foot is wet. My toe had bled a great big puddle on my bathroom floor! And it was still going at it!!! I honestly didn't think I was going to get it to stop. I finally stood up and propped my foot on the toilet so it would just drip in there because it was just making a mess. It was like my toe was attached to a main artery. I think I would've lost less blood had I just cut my toe off. I finally got it down to a dribble and went to bed with a band-aid on it. Geesh.

for the love of 2008!!

I work with a woman who has a mullet. Quite similar to this one in fact. Except she's in her probably late 50's and she dyes it jet black. Imagine some weird, fake Elvira teenwolf mullet and you've got her. I try not to let it get to me, but apparently today I have nothing else to think about because another coworker and I have each commented to each other about it several times today. I feel like she brings us all down. Since I work in IT, we have a pretty relaxed dress code. Capri's are allowed, she wears knickers as John calls them. They're basically knee length shorts made out of stretchy cotton. I'm afraid she's going to ruin the lax dress code for all of us. I try to dress a little nicer, because it makes me feel better about myself and then perhaps I won't be as nasty to those around me. This has not caught on though.

another one about why I hate my job...

The vast majority of my job involves offering support to both customers and co-workers on all things computer related. In the past, this has involved complete overhauls of the system and obviously it involves a teller system that I manage. So, there's this one branch (out of 10) that really doesn't like me. They have accused me of being rude, lazy, dumb... you name it. These are the only ones I have a problem with. So they called to ask me a support question earlier... a question to which there was no real, immediate answer. I told them to wait until the end of the day for their differences in their teller system to wash out. They said that wasn't an option. The next thing I told them to do was wrong and I knew it. But it was the only way to solve their problem.

You can guess where my next call came from within 2 minutes. The big kahuna of course only got the second half of their story telling how I had told them to do something that was wrong. Not the first part where I told them to wait it out and do the right thing. I didn't bother correcting, because I knew as soon as I received this follow up call that the whole thing had been a setup. I just listened and agreed to never ever do it again with my tail between my legs.

Why do people do this? Why set me up like that? I'm offering you the best support I can even though I really don't like you. I would never ever dream of doing this to my fellow human being. I really do go to great lengths if I don't know the answer to a question to find the best possible answer or find someone who can get it for you. Ugh... why can't everyone be like Laura?

2:30 update... So now this customer calls me and wants to argue about how the telephone banking works. I'm telling him that the reason he can't access it is because he just opened his account an hour ago and he's got to give me time to get it on the system (read: get off the phone with him!). He says no, he doesn't think that's the problem. Well buddy, considering I'm the one who does all the maintenance on that system (yup, it's even my voice) I would recommend you don't argue with me.

who's your favorite now?

Like every other girl in my age group, I was *IN LOVE-UH* with the New Kids on the Block. Completely obsessed, bought all my Teen magazines, posters all over my room, just all out pre-teen hormonaly crazy. So I saw this picture of New Kids 2008 on People magazine's website, and wow... they're lookin pretty good these days. I have to admit that back in the day, I was a Joe fan. Probably because he was the youngest and quite pretty (guess I had a pretty boy thing going on). Here is a classic picture of them from left: Joe, Jordan, Danny, Jonathan, Donnie. Must show love here for the satin backed vest that Jon is sporting.

Here we are in 2008 and at least in this picture, I think I'm favoring Danny, who I never would've found attractive before. They all look quite confused here, but guys typically do look confused. For those who don't know, they are from left: Donnie, Jonathan, Danny, Joe, Jordan. (Is Jordan wearing that same satin backed vest?)

So in 5th grade (for me anyway) when they were all the craze, it seemed that every girl had *her* favorite and if your friend had her favorite, you couldn't have the same favorite because you couldn't both marry the same one (no-duh!). So who was it then and who is it now? Oh, and did you have any of the big buttons? Those were all the craze, they were like the size of a paper plate and had a picture of your favorite Kid on it. I had one with Joe's picture of course.

Malaysian men have small penises!!!

I copied this story from here.

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - A Malaysian welder had to have a nut removed from around his penis after an attempt to lengthen it before he gets engaged next week went embarrassingly wrong, a news report said Sunday.

The nut got stuck on his penis following an erection, the Star newspaper said, forcing him to seek help at a hospital in southern Johor state.

Staff from the Sultanah Aminah hospital had to drain some blood from the penis and cut away a top layer of skin before the object could be removed, the newspaper said.

It said the fire and rescue department were also involved in trying to remove the nut from the unnamed welder, who is in his 20s and hoped the nut would weigh down his penis to make it longer.

"The patient is now recovering and we hope to discharge him today (Sunday)," hospital director Daud Abdul Rahim told the Star.

On August 25, another young man in Kuala Lumpur had tried to increase his sexual prowess by slipping a steel ring around his penis, forcing the fire department to cut off the ring after doctors were unable to remove it, the newspaper said.

I have so many things to say...
- Do you think she'll still marry him?
- What's the penile recovery time?
- Would that actually work?
- What kind of nut are we talking about? I'm imagining a small one...
- Did he weld it on?
- Couldn't he just... you know... wait it out? Think about his grandma or something?
- How does it feel to have the fire dept involved in your penis lenthening?

I know you have something to say...