It will not surprise anyone to learn that I have purchased a new dress for the upcoming Celtic Woman show in our area (Aprilish). I found matching shoes. What I can't find is a nice, dressy purse. And I've looked.

So, I got on etsy and found this:



Needless to say, I want it. It would look almost perfect with the dress. I say 'almost,' because the dress is a slightly less bright color of blue - sort of a duskier navy.....

But it hardly matters. Even if it matched perfectly, I would not be paying $75 for a clutch. My DNA is not programmed to accept that sort of extravagance....but I would like to LOOK like it is. Lol!

So, I went to Hancock Fabrics. I purchased half a yard each of embroidered suede for the outside, and a satiny material to compliment it for the inside. I have some padded material here at the house, I'm sure. (I'll have to dig for it, of course.)

And in the end, I like the fabric, color, and closure styles better than the one I would have bought on etsy! Now, if I could just find my sewing machine under all the crap in that room, I'd be set. Lol!

Total cost of materials? $14. No, I'm not kidding.

So, if this goes well, I might be making a whole lot of these adoreable little buggers. I can't be the only person who thinks that's an outrageous price! I could sell them for $30 plus shipping and be THRILLED with the profit!

PS. clovecigarettes, if you've got a pattern for such a thing, it would save me a bit of research.... Thanks!

Official begin date = Mon. 1-25-10. At that point I will cease to consume anything that isn't expressly written on the diet my trainer handed me last week. I will also begin a twice-daily cardio regimine: 5:30AM and 5:30PM, daily.

This is going to be a hassle, but it'll get the weight off quickly. Once I've dropped 20lbs (I'm at 137 now), I will be ready to get back into the strength training again.

The diet (as much to remind myself as to satisfy your curiosity):
4 Egg Whites
1 Serving of Oatmeal
1 Piece Whole Wheat Toast w/ Natural PB

Boiled Chicken
Red Potatoes
Spinach

Boiled Chicken
Brocolli

And a gallon of water each day, 1Qt before the first cardio, and 1Qt after the last cardio.

I'm planning on being down under 120 in about a month and a half, at that rate. :)

Which is excellent, because I have purchased this year's Celtic Woman dress. It rivals last year's Celtic Woman dress, but it's blue, and in my eyes that makes it better. Lol!

I think everyone should read this, and afterward this. I know all my livejournal friends think of me as ultra conservative. This is true in the sense that I'd like to conserve the constitution the way it is, and don't like seeing legislation like this that threatens to ruin it, rather than improve it.

I know a lot of folks think I'm hard-hearted, because I oppose legislation that (on the surface, at least) is supposed to help less fortunate Americans to get the health care they need. But that isn't what this legislation is doing. It isn't even going to improve health care as an unintended side effect. It's going to ruin our healthcare system for everyone, and for good. And it's going to ruin much more than that......

Anyway, Connelly says it all much better than I could. I hope you will read it regardless of your politics. Because, sadly, this isn't about Republican/Democrat bickering anymore. This is Capitalism vs. Communism. And America is losing.

Spinach Balls

2 (10 oz.) pkg frozen chopped spinach
3 cups herbed seasoned stuffing mix (fine or use food processor to make smaller)
1 large onion, chopped
6 eggs well beaten
¾ C melted butter
½ C grated parmesan cheese
1 ½ tsp garlic salt
½ tsp thyme

Cook spinach according to package, drain well, squeezing out extra moisture. Combine spinach with remaining ingredients, mixing well. Shape into 1 inch balls. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.

---

Squash Casserole

3 cups cooked yellow squash cooked/drained/smashed
1 cup Ritz cracker crumbs
1 onion finely chopped
½ stick of butter
Salt and pepper
2 eggs beaten
1 ½ cup sharp cheddar cheese
½ cup mayo
1 tsp sugar
1 garlic powder

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix all together and bake 30-35 min. Sprinkle with cheese on top while hot.

Yesterday the PBS special "Celtic Woman, Songs from the Heart" aired for the first time. This was recorded over two nights at Powerscourt in Ireland. Lynn and I were there.

We've looked, and we can find ourselves in two audience shots during the second song. We were sitting (if you're looking AT the stage) to the far right, five rows back. Lynn is in the seat on the end. (off-white sweater with many other colors - I'm beside him in a dark jacket, huddling close for warmth because it was so cold!) As far as we can tell from what aired, we weren't in any of the CLOSE audience shots - where you can actually see people's faces. (Though there were many songs recorded which were not played in the special, so perhaps they will be on the DVD?) Lol! But it was still fun trying to spot ourselves.

Anyway, this song they did NOT play the night we were there, so they must have recorded it the night before. I love it! :)

---

See her as she flies
Golden sails across the sky
Close enough to touch
But careful if you try
Though she looks as warm as gold
The moon's a harsh mistress
The moon can be so cold

Once the sun did shine
And lord it felt so fine
The moon a phantom rose
Through the mountains and the pine
And then the darkness fell
The moon's a harsh mistress
It's hard to love her well

I fell out of her eyes
I fell out of her heart
I fell down on my face, yes I did
And I tripped and I missed my star
And I fell and fell alone
The moon's a harsh mistress
The sky is made of stone

The moon's a harsh mistress
She's hard to call your own


Video of Celtic Woman's version!

On the first of January, in eighteen ninety-two,
They opened Ellis Island and they let the people through,
And the first to cross the threshold of that isle of hope and tears
Was Annie Moore from Ireland, who was all of fifteen years.

Isle of hope, isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, isle of fears,
But it's not the isle you left behind.
That isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle you'll never see again,
But the isle of home is always on your mind.

In a little bag she carried all her past and history,
And her dreams for the future in the land of liberty.
And courage is the passport when your old world disappears,
But there's no future in the past when you're fifteen years.

Isle of hope, isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, isle of fears,
But it's not the isle you left behind.
That isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle you'll never see again,
But the isle of home is always on your mind.

When they closed down Ellis Island in nineteen forty-three,
Seventeen million people had come there for sanctuary.
And in springtime when I came here and I stepped onto its piers,
I thought of how it must have been when you're fifteen years.

Isle of hope, isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, isle of fears,
But it's not the isle you left behind.
That isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle you'll never see again,
But the isle of home is always on your mind.

---

Yes, I'm aware that Annie Moore was only 13, and that Ellis Island (which I understand doesn't have a pier) didn't close down until 54. And there were somewhere between 12 and 13 million people rather than 17 million. I know. But this is still a gorgeous song.

For years, each time Wicked came to the TBPAC, I have asked Lynn to take me, and for years he has refused. He simply had no interest in the show. Then, GLEE's cast sang Defying Gravity.

We're going in February, which is the earliest opportunity. Lol! I love Glee more for giving me the chance to see Wicked! Hooray!

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes, and leap!

It's time to try defying gravity
I think I'll try defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity
And you wont bring me down!

I'm through accepting limits
''cause someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change but till I try, I'll never know!
Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost!

I'd sooner buy defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye I'm defying gravity
I think I'll try defying gravity
And you wont bring me down!

I'd sooner buy defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye I'm defying gravity
I think I'll try defying gravity
And never bring me down!
bring me down!
ohh ohhh ohhhh!

Friday afternoon I got an e-mail from sister1, which included a list of twenty questions she wanted answers to about a report she'd requested earlier in the day.

With the help of another individual, I began tracking down what went wrong with inventory. I ran a few reports. The other lady counted the stock. When it appeared I had an answer, I wrote it up and asked sister2 to read it and then fax it to sister1.

I wanted her to read it because it looked like it was a problem with the way the items were released, and it appeared that both she and the other order entry person had done it incorrectly at least once. Also, because I had explained, in the document, how to prevent this from happening again.

Ten minutes later she entered my office to say she "took exception" to the part that said she'd released the item incorrectly. She showed me the release, which was clearly correct.

At this point, in my mind, it was time to move on. I began trying to talk about the next step in figuring out what WAS wrong. However, she was convinced that I would still be accusing her. Each time I tried to speak, she began defending herself - before she could even hear what I was saying. She became louder and louder. I tried six times to say the same sentence before I finally asked her to leave my office. I told her that if she would not allow me to speak, then our conversation was over. She refused to leave. I asked her to do so twice more, admittedly I was getting louder at this point, too. She still refused, so I left my own office. She followed me, threatening to "take this up with" our general manager. I invited her to do so, and I went back into my office and closed the door behind me. I didn't come out for 45 minutes.

This woman is an hourly employee, and I am a manager. If I managed HER department, she'd have been fired months ago for gross incompetence, but I do not manage her department.

Up until today, I have not spoken with her about anything non-work-related. I do not feel that she is a human being who is in control of her mouth or her emotions, and I have no use for someone who behaves that way.

However, I became tired of having to reign in what I say to others in that office just because I don't care for her to know anything about me. Contrarily, though, I was unwilling to just forgive her when she hadn't even had the decency to apologize.

So, I went to her office when no one else was in there (I didn't want to embarrass her) and let her know that I was still upset about her outburst, and that I found it completely unacceptable. Her reply was that she "felt ostracized" all week. To which I responded that of COURSE she felt ostracized. I hadn't been speaking to her, after all.

She proceeded to tell me that she'd worked in the business world much longer than I have, and she'd been shouted at and cussed at before. I asked her if that made it an acceptable behavior. She finally got around to admitting that it was not.

Never once, in the whole conversation, did she apologize. I'm afraid she will probably continue to feel ostracized, because I still want nothing to do with her. She spent too much of the conversation trying to make it my fault. "Well, everyone in this office is always blaming me whenever something goes wrong...." This is true. Do you know WHY everyone blames her? It's because she is usually the one who messed up. In this case she was NOT the one who messed up. However, considering the information I had to go on, it surely looked as though she had. It's not as if I just assumed that, with nothing to back me up.

Furthermore, I did NOT approach her and ACCUSE her of screwing up. Sister1 asked me for answers. I provided them as best I could. I did not pretend that ONLY sister2's release looked wrong on that report. I fully disclosed that the other customer service person's release looked wrong, too. She behaves as though I singled her out to make her look bad when, in fact, the whole situation would have gone in an entirely different direction when the next report was run, without her having to draw attention to herself and make herself look like a child.

So, that's been my work week so far. I've really had about enough. I'm seriously considering becoming a stay-at-home mom.

Lastly, yes, I raised my voice as well. The last time I was shouted at, it was by my FATHER, and I was a CHILD. Admittedly, I didn't handle it well. Next time, I will just continue to sit silently at my desk and let her shout. I won't bother trying to speak. Because I'm sure there will be a next time. People who don't feel the least bit bad when they are that rude are bound to be that rude again.

Next time, however, I expect my GM to ask her to leave FOR me, or I doubt I will continue to be employed there. I will not be spoken to that way.

I was on the phone with my "little" brother yesterday, on my way back to the office from lunch. His 17th birthday is today, so I was asking him what he wanted. (Yes, I'm a slacker and had not purchased him anything. Fortunately, Amazon gift cards arrive instantaneously.)

As I pulled up at a red light, there was a black pickup one car ahead of me, in the lane to the left. Out of the passenger side window hung a young man, approximately my little brother's age. Certainly not older. In fact, I would guess he was closer to 14-15 years old.

First he winked at me. Then he started making what he appeared to think were seductive kissy-lips at me. When he got no reaction, he became still more obvious.

For those of you who are unaware, I am thirty-two years old. Because I am a MEAN old woman, I attempted to stifle my laughter long enough to tell my little brother what was going on. He agreed that the young man would certainly be mortified if he'd known he was flirting with someone my age. We had a good laugh at the kid's expense.

Please, if you are young - or even if you aren't - don't try to be openly sexual in public with people you don't know. They might be laughing AT you instead of with you.

I want to post something, but I don't have anything to write about.

My leg still hurts. I got new medicine that helps for about 3 hours at a time. I get to take another one around 6. It makes me really dizzy, so I have to wait until I'm home for the night.

Work is still sucky. Two people were fired, and all their stuff was given to me to "watch," by which they mean, "do." I'm still sorting through their files and trying to make them fit in my office.

I'm adhering to a fairly loose diet, just so I don't outgrow all my clothes while I can't work out.

I finally finished reading the whole Sword of Truth series. clovecigarettes, do you want me to ship it to you? You'll still need to get books 3 & 4 from the library, but after that, you'll have them all. :) I doubt I'll ever want to read them again.....

I'm still playing Fairyland over on FB. If you aren't playing it with me yet, please start! I'm having a horrible time trying to find a fox and could use all the help I can get. ;)

That's all. Told you I was boring!

Many of you fine folks are aware (though many more are not) that I practically grew up in Children's Hospital, down in Pittsburgh. I had somewhere between 20 and 30 surgeries there, and my chart is three books long - each as thick as a Webster's dictionary (if anyone can remember what a printed dictionary looks like....).

They are involved in a contest - a game room for the kids is being given away by Microsoft, apparently. They aren't winning, but they should be.

Yes, you have to give them your information to be allowed to vote. Please do it anyway. You might win an XBOX, after all, and it's for a good cause. :)

http://xbox.childrensmiraclenetwork.org/default.aspx

If you are shy about giving out your name, then please at least tell people about the contest. CHP is a great hospital, and they do a lot for the kids, but this would really be something special. The days get really, really dull when you're spending two weeks at a time in a hospital, especially when you're twelve years old.

I have made a friends cut. A sizeable one. If I never hear from you, you probably got a notification in your inbox. (Unless I know you in person, of course.) I didn't do it to be mean. There were just a lot of folks with whom I am not in touch, anymore. Please don't feel like I'll be offended if you remove me in return.

If I suck, and you and I HAVE spoken recently, but I took you off anyway? Just let me know. I'll put you right back. It isn't like I don't WANT to be friends. I just want the friends list to reflect reality.

Seriously. For the last two workdays, I have attempted to make Outlook 2007 work in Vista Home Basic, SP2. It just WON'T. I've scoured the message boards. I've downloaded the "recovery disc," which is in torrent (which I don't really know how to use) and attempted to make a recovery CD out of it, only to find that the files have no data in them. 0 MB. Brilliant. I have added the suggested registry lines. I have done EVERYTHING that ANYONE has suggested MIGHT work. And still every time I open Outlook, it begins configuring.

All I want, at this point, is to be able to re-partition the hard drive and start over. Sadly, I can't even do THAT, because this computer arrived with NO VISTA CD in the box. In fact, of the FIVE computers we have purchased with this accursed OS, not ONE of them has an OS Installation CD.

This is intended to be an all-inclusive list of every fanfic I've written for the HP Fandom. With luck, I will find links to all the places my stories are archived....with a lot of luck. I fear there have been some places archiving my stories with neither my knowledge nor my permission (not that I mind, as long as my name is attached to it). If you're still active in the fandom, and you know of anywhere else that one of these stories is archived, please let me know. Thanks!

---

( MASTER LIST )

---

This week, I unlocked all my Muriel stories, so that a new friend (who doesn't have a livejournal) can read them. In the process, I re-read them. Considering it was the first thing I ever wrote, I think it turned out alright. Rather skin-and-bones...it could have been fleshed out a bit, for certain. But I don't write much fanfic anymore, and there's hardly any sense in going back to make alterations, now.

I DID notice, however, that there was a story missing from the lineup. Without it, several things at the end don't make much sense. So, here it is:

( Taking Sides )

Next

Thursday, August 6th was our last full day in Ireland, as we had to spend Friday traveling. We got off to a slow start, having a lazy breakfast, chatting with Chris and Jane, who own The Tudor Lodge. (Aside: I paused here and went to leave a review for them at one of the travel websites - something we said we would do during that conversation. I think I'll probably leave several, on all the major travel websites I can find. We had that much fun, and they were that nice.)

When we finally left the lodge, we drove to the Upper Lake and walked out to the old Miner's Village. The trail was mostly through woodland, but once in a while you got a really lovely view of the lake.



I climbed around a lot on the rocks, because I just really enjoy doing that. Always have. The mine was a much more recent ruin than all the others we'd seen - it was open into the early 1900's. Jane, our hostess, was the daughter of the only man ever killed while working there - he was in charge of dynamite. She wasn't in the room when her husband recommended that we walk up that way. She was only three, and her brother was younger. :(

There was also a waterfall out there, but we didn't have time to keep walking up to it. It's a three hour trip all the way around the lake, and some of it is nearly vertical. The path looks very scary.

After we'd crawled around that ruin for a short time, we went back to the hotel and got cleaned up for dinner. We ate at a very nice restaurant in Laragh, and had a really lovely time. Michelle, the Romanian woman who makes breakfast and cleans the rooms at our B&B, works there in the evenings, so we made sure to get a table in her section. And she, in turn, treated us like gold - as she had all week. When our dessert arrived, there was a sparkler in it, and she wished us Happy Anniversary. Really sweet and thoughtful girl. She said she'd been waiting all week to do it, and was starting to worry that we weren't really going to come there for dinner at all.

We went to bed reasonably early, and got up early to go to the airport. And then we spent the day traveling. We finally got to our house at 12:30AM on Saturday morning (today). And today I should have spent doing laundry, but I've mostly been catching up on these posts. The internet at the B&B went down just after I got sick, so I've had to post everything since then today.

We've got everyone's souvenirs out on the dining room table, and we're trying to remember which things we bought for which folks. Lol! I didn't realize we'd bought so many souvenirs! And there are several things we got for ourselves, too. Lynn has a Celtic Knot pinky ring that's very nice, and a car tag that he'll probably put up in the TV room that says WICKLOW, and another that says EIRE for his truck, as well as several tee-shirts. I got my sheeps wool scarf, a necklace made of Connemara-mined marble, another necklace of a fairy holding a dangly shamrock, and a gorgeous emerald claddaugh ring. And, of course, we both have the 3500 pictures we took. *winks*

A selection of the pictures can be found in my scrapbook, this includes but is not limited to the images I've been including in posts. If you haven't been clicking on the pictures to take you to the scrapbook, after reading, then now is the time. There are 80 pictures there, right now, and I tried to caption each one with info that maybe wasn't in the post for that day. I think I've posted most of my favorites, but there may be more later (though it's kind of a pain to put things in the right order when posting them after the fact).

So, thank you, everyone, for following along. I'm going to go back and answer comments here shortly. Perhaps right after I order this pizza. ;) But it was really fun sharing with everyone all the fun we've had.

On Wednesday, we drove back to Co. Meath (North of Dublin) to Trim. Trim has a true, medieval castle. The one, in fact, in which Mel Gibson filmed some scenes of Braveheart.

Trim Castle sits on the River Boyne, and has a defensable outer wall, with several guard towers, a river-access to allow supplies inside, and a tower on one corner of the wall (broken now) which was added later, when the family moved OUT of the keep. There was also a "great hall" for entertaining, that was built just inside the wall, on the river-side. And then there's the keep. Truely astounding! Time has stripped it down to just the stone walls, which are covered in a green growth of some kind. Ireland has put in modern walkways and stairs to replace anything that was originally made of wood - floors, etc. The effect is romance meets industrial. It was definitely a tour. The good news was, since it was basically just rock, we were allowed to take pictures inside.

We did part of the river walk before going into the castle. It was the LEAST expensive castle tour we did, but arguably the most interesting. Since I'm such a fantasy buff, it was really entertaining to me to see the more practical aspects of living in a castle such as this one.



On the hill, across the river, was a broken tower. We walked up there as well, and were rewarded with a fabulous view of Trim Castle.

On Tuesday I awoke feeling much, MUCH better, and very bored with being in bed. So, we decided we would take the trip North to Co. Meath and see Newgrange. When we got there, they sold us tickets for a bus tour that was almost three hours from that time. As we'd come through town (Slane), we had passed the entrance to Slane Castle, where the Celtic Woman DVD "A New Journey" had been recorded, and we decided we'd go back there and take the tour.

The castle was gorgeous, inside and out. Because people lived there up into the nineties, it has been updated several times. Recently, though, a whole wing of it burned to ashes, and had to be rebuilt. Those rooms are particularly modern. Like Kilkenny Castle, we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside. But that's okay because the outside looked awesome!



Afterwards, we went back to the visitor center for Newgrange and had something to eat. Then, we realized we were running late and we had them exchange our tickets for a later bus, so we could finish our lunch. We looked around the center, which was very educational - and I mean that in an INTERESTING way. Lol! We watched their movie about ancient druids, etc. It was really neat. Finally, we caught the bus out to the site. Ours was the last tour.

This might have been the most completely awesome thing we saw in Ireland. Newgrange predates the Egyptian pyramids by 500 years. It is a ring of massive stones, some with carvings, built on the top of a hill. above the stones, there is a wall made of quartz, which the guide explained must have come from over 40km away, and been hauled up there to build the place. Above that, a dirt dome is covered in grass. It appears that the whole thing was made so that, after so many years had passed, the exterior would slide, hiding the place entirely - and that's exactly what happened. For several centuries, that hill looked just like any other. And then one day a minor lord needed rock to build something, so he sent some locals up that hill to gather it, and they found the entrance stone, with all the carvings. Being superstitious, they refused to look anymore.

When it was investigated, they found the interior of the mound - a tomb with three chambers. On the day of the winter solstice, the sun hits the center chamber. VERY Indiana Jones.

After the tour, we went to dinner at the Millhouse Restaurant. Quite old in its own right, the Millhouse dates back to the industrial revolution (that's sort of the benchmark for "old" in America. Lol!), when the stream was diverted to use for grinding corn into flower. The restaurant is fabulous - instead of tables and chairs, you sit on sofas and eat on coffee tables. And the folks there were very friendly, telling us all about the history of the place, and of Slane Castle.

All in all, a lovely day. I was so glad I hadn't missed it and had to spend another day in bed!