I am so digging the new(ish) Keane album.  I am listening to it at fairly high volume and it is totally doing it for me! 

Run out and buy it.  Or do what I did and buy it through iTunes.  How convenient!

Oh - and have a very Happy New Year!  Don’t drink and drive!  You may, however, drink and post, if you’d like.  We all like to be entertained!!

Lovely, lovely, lovely!!  I am singing along to my iTunes and we’re in a Four Seasons groove. 

I still have quite a cold.  Possibly a sinus infection.  And lots of hacking coughing.

I’m singing along with the Four Seasons.

Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?  Stop on by!

Today I REALLY had nothing to do.  I’m waiting test results and for other people to review the test results.  In the meantime, I sit and wait.  So when one of the other buildings on the campus had an emergency outage, which could last for two days, I was the first to volunteer to give up my desk and go work from home!  It’s the least I can do, right??

Honestly, there was no reason for me to physically be at work today and I’m already scheduled to work from home tomorrow, so it’s a perfect situation! 

I’m always willing to help out!

Well, here I sit at work.  I can’t very well be reading my book here, and I have finished everything I have to do today (except for my 1:00 meeting), so here I am!  Did you miss me???

Let’s see.  What was I going to say?  I just witnessed something that could have had tragic results but instead turned out to be pretty humourous.  You see, we’re “undecorating” the area today.  (I guess no one has anything to do!) Something had to be taken down from the ceiling.  So someone stood on the arm of a chair, holding scissors, and then the chair tipped over and he landed on someone else.  All I could imagine was that one or both of them got stabbed with the scissors.  I swear, I had 9-1 dialed and I was ready to finish the other -1.  But no one got hurt and now I can go back to what I was doing.

Nothing. 

Happy Hump Day!

Hi, folks!  Christmas is over.  Did everyone make it through OK?  It’s been a rough season for those I know and love, so I’m sorta glad it’s done.

I was sitting in my comfy chair night before last because I couldn’t sleep.  It was early morning and I turned my head and looked at the many many shelves of books to my left.  I saw so many that I haven’t read and I remembered a bunch that I got for Christmas presents this year and I decided that I’m not getting any younger.  I want to read about two zillion books and I won’t live that long, so I must get started and at least try to make a dent.

So, instead of blogging in my free time, I’m going to be reading.  Books, not blogs.  That’s the plan, anyway.  I’ll check in some time later on and get back into the swing of things, I’ll bet.  After all, I do have another skin coming sometime early next year!  But for now, I’m going to grab myself a cup of coffee and retire to the library.  I don’t have to work today, so this is my chance to make a lot of progress on one of my current books.

Have fun and hang in there, y’all!  I wish you simply the bestest New Year ever and I’ll be seeing you!

Merry Christmas to you all.  We’re off to do our own Christmas Eve thing now. 

And to all a good night!

I started the Christmas present wrapping very early this year.  Well, not really early.  Noon today is not so early, is it?  Anyway, the pile of presents gets smaller and smaller every year as kids grow older and older so there weren’t many to do and it still took me 2 hours to get it all done! 

I don’t have the wrapping bug in me any more.  My tolerance for getting everything all pretty and sparkly is just about gone.  I used to put package tie-ons on everything and go get special bows and ribbons but now it’s like, feh.  Can you see what’s inside the paper?  No?  Done.

I blame it on gift bags.  Once they invented them, I wanted no part of actual paper any more.  Grab a couple pieces of tissue paper, crumble them up and shove everything in a bag.  Yippee!  And don’t ever sign the little card attached to the bag.  That way, the recipient can reuse the bag! 

Martha Stewart tips, Empress style!

Wow!  Imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang this morning at 10:00.  We were both dozing on the couch, recovering from way too much happy partying with our bestest friends, Bob and Beanne, and we had no idea who could be at the door.

Here’s who!

It’s a Christmas present from Pete & Erin - our other bestest friends!!  Wow, again!  I can’t believe you guys!  And to go to such risk to send it to us, too!  Let’s hope you’re not spending your “Fleas Navidad” in the clink!

Buzz and I went to a new restaurant in our town last night for dinner.  It’s the Texas Roadhouse.  The place opens at 4:00 and we got there at 4:30.  It was already crowded.  Good sign?  Or just a sign that it’s a new restaurant and people are too pooped to cook during the shopping season?

We walked up to the door and there was a sign that gave us a warning that there was peanut dust absolutely everywhere.  Huh?  I know nothing of this restaurant so that actually intrigued me.  I was amused.

They were right - there are buckets of peanuts all over this restaurant and apparently it’s OK to just toss your hulls overboard wherever you happen to be standing.  Interesting! 

Another feature of this place is that you can pick out your steak if you are of a mind to reject the “small” portions on the menu.  I opted for the babiest of steaks on the menu, thanks very much.  I mean, I don’t pick out my lobster at a seafood restaurant and I’m not about to pick out my cow at this one.

They bake fresh rolls every 5 minutes.  These are tiny nuggets of goodness, served with a sweetened cinnamon butter.  Again - intriguing!  And quite yummy!  We both started with one of their legendary 1800 margaritas (on the rocks, of course!) and were not disappointed.  They are served in bucket-sized glasses and worth the $6.25.  One lasted me all the way through dinner.  Then we both had the house salad with blue cheese dressing and we both chose the 6 oz. filet, cooked rare as god intended.  Buzz also had a side order of their famous fall-off-the-bone ribs.  He had the baked potato with everything they could find to put on top of it, like he does, and I ordered the mashed potatoes.  To my enormous surprise, the waitress asked if I wanted sour cream, cheddar cheese and bacon on my potatoes.  I asked, “On mashed potatoes?” and she said, “You will not believe these!” Bring it on, sister!!  It was a heavenly, sinful delight!

The steak was delicious in its simplicity, not too much seasoning, and I scarfed down the potatoes like I’d never had a carbohydrate before in my life!  I had a couple bites of the ribs and I even loved them!  (And I don’t like barbecue!)

Two enthusiastic thumbs up for the Texas Roadhouse!  And by the time we left, there were a good 30 people waiting to be seated.  Sheesh!

P.S.  We ordered Rattlesnake Bites to split for an appetizer.  Trust me when I tell you that this was NOT a good decision for someone with chapped lips.  My face still hurts!

P.P.S.  At one point, the wait staff lined up and danced.  A line dance.  In the aisle of the restaurant.  Hmm.

Beth left a comment that triggered a thought in my head.  Kudos to Beth for accomplishing the nearly impossible! 

Oh, wait - that’s not the point.  She mentioned pigtails and I responded back to her that I was safe in not committting that particular fashion faux pas because I never put my hair in pigtails.  And then the thought hit…

Sometimes I do braid my hair but I don’t secure it with anything.  Why?  Because when I braid my hair, I am invariably drunk.  Sad as this sounds, it’s one of a couple of things that I do as a matter of course if I am drunk.  Several other things that I do:

1.  Cry over songs (although I can do this when I’m not drunk, too, it happens much more frequently when I imbibe)
2.  Sing louder than the loud music that’s playing (I can also do this when I’m not drunk but when I imbibe, I think I sound magnificent!)
3.  Bite my nails - why??  And to go along with this one, when I have had acrylic or tips on my nails, I will rip them off my fingers one at a time until my fingers are bloody and sore.  Why???

For those of you who occasionally partake of the evil drink, do you have any strange behavior patterns that emerge when under the influence?

As always, I save my favorite for last.  Merry Christmas!

*Click to enlarge*

*Click to enlarge*

This will be the last installment of Christmas Picture Pages before the big day!  And I only have three of them, so it will all be over soon!

Happy day, everyone!

*Click to enlarge*

This is great!

Scared of Santa

I’ve seen this is several places surfing around with Blog Explosion.  Just another one of those examples where I don’t have the URL!  Oh, well!

Enjoy!

Update:  Found it!  I last saw this at Mood Stabilizer.  Whew!  Now I can rest easy!

Going into MSN Hotmail to get my e-mails, I see this little item on the left side of the screen:

I had to see what the fashion faux pas was supposed to be in that picture.  I mean, if it’s a faux pas to have silver hair, I am so out of luck!  So I clicked on the link and browsed the article.  I can’t find anything that references that picture!  The closest it comes is talking about hat head or static electricity.  What’s up with that?  I want to see what the issue is in that picture!