Well, here they are, the last of my Vacation Pictures.

And, for bdragon, here are a few pictures of sheep.

Enjoy!

So, here's a big surprise. I've put some more pictures up in my Flickr account. What? You're not surprised? Well, here's the link anyway: More Pictures!

Actually am very nearly done with the vacation pics, so may be returning to something resembling normal posting soon.

Too bad.

Here's the link to the third set: Clicky

These include the pics from our boat trip to Staffa, which is probably my favorite part of the vacation. Enjoy! I am off to bed now.

Okay, not really. I am off to watch incredibly bad tv, and maybe do some reading.

Here's the second set of pictures from my vacation:

Clicky!

I have finished sorting through all of the pictures and deciding which ones I am going to share. So as not to totally overwhelm you, I will be posting them in small doses. The first set covers Sat - Mon, much of which was spent traveling.

Wanna see? Clicky.

What is it with old men and speedos? Seriously. Do you turn 70 and then displaying your package to everyone suddenly seems like the greatest of all possible ideas? And if you are going to wear a speedo...do you need to wear knee high socks with your sandals? My mind is boggled...and permanently scarred.

So, I was going to run to the store to pick up some food and drinks. I go out to the car, try to start it...Nothing. Battery warning light comes on. Pop the hood, and see that one of the belts has snapped. Get it to the garage, and sure enough, I need a new alternator. *sigh* At least I found out today, and not tomorrow when I tried to go to work. I am pretty sure they would frown upon me missing work the day I am supposed to return from vacation.

Anyway...in better news...here are a few pictures to tide you over until I can really go through them. ( clicky )

Hi everyone! Just wanted to say that I am home safely from my vacation, and I had a great time. Will be posting in more detail later (including lots of pictures - I took just over 900 of them, which may have been a bit excessive, but there it is).

Moving pictures from my camera to computer to free up space on the card, in preparation for my trip, and I found this one, which I had totally forgotten about.

I am getting antsy. I leave for England on Friday, and it can't get here fast enough. I bought one of those stability balls to sit on at work, which is perfect for bouncing.

*bounce* *bounce* *bounce*

I have pretty much managed to complete my whole month's worth of work in 1.5 weeks, so I can enjoy my holiday, without feeling like I have left things undone.

*bounce* *bounce* *bounce* Wheee!

Okay...I may have also had waaaaay too much caffeine today.

In other news...I am going to be discontinuing use of my crafting lj, and switching over to my blogspot account, which was sadly neglected. So, for those of you that are interested, you can read all my ramblings on all things crafty, and see some pretty pictures, too, at inlerah.blogspot.com.

oh, and did I mention...
*bounce* *bounce* *bounce*

A few pictures I took last weekend at the studio:

I haven't been posting or even reading lj much lately. I don't have any time at work since I have to, like, work all day. Mostly my life has consisted of going to work, going to the gym, and going to the studio. And sleeping. A lot. Well, a lot for me anyway. The only noticeable effect that the 3-4 hours I am spending at the gym every week is that I am exhausted all the time.

Anyway, in more fun news, I went to the NH Sheep and Wool festival a few weeks ago and that was fun. And last weekend, I hung out with paper_wings for a few hours and did crafty stuff. I really miss our crafting days. That's pretty much all that has happened in the last few weeks.

Also, I finally got around to watching Juno. I don't know if the fact that pretty much everyone I know had seen it and loved it raised my expectations too much or what...but I really expected to love it and I didn't. It kind of annoyed me, actually. The two things that I did like were Allison Janney and the fact that Barry Louis Polisar had a song on the soundtrack. Otherwise? Meh. I also watched No Country for Old Men. It was, umm, interesting. I was actually expecting it to be more violent than it was.

So that's what I have been doing. You can understand why I haven't been posting much, huh?

I mentioned last week that I joined a gym. I am pleased to report that I actually went to the gym twice this week, just as scheduled. Go me! Did about a half hour or so of cardio stuff on Monday, and then went to the "Butts and Guts" class last night. I don't know why it seemed like a good idea to do 15 min on the elliptical machine before the class, but that was a bad move. Oof. Working out is hard. I hurt a little today, but am proud of myself.

In other news, this whole thing where it's 85 degrees in April? Not cool. My apartment was about 85 degrees last night, and even with all the windows open and the fans going, it had only cooled down to about 78 by this morning.

I wish I had something more to say, but, I guess I don't.

My weekend got off to a somewhat rocky start. I went to the doctor on Friday morning to have my back checked out (it's been doing a painful spasming thing since Tues night). The NP had me do some range of motion tests to see how far I could move without hurting myself, and while in the middle of the test, I started to feel queasy and lightheaded, and then fainted. That's never happened to me before, and it was quite unpleasant. The nurse prescribed some pain relievers and muscle relaxants and then told me to go home, after I rested for a while and didn't feel woozy anymore. Spent most of the rest of the day sleeping, woke up briefly to watch BSG (Yay!) and then went back to sleep.

All that sleep definitely helped, and I felt a little better on Saturday. I headed out to W. MA to visit with sryder and gerry and dionethoughts. Got out that way a bit earlier than expected and had time to visit with reverendtom and ionia_dreaming and have some lunch. The rest of the day was mostly spent playing Rock Band with sryder, gerry and dionethoughts. So much fun! Of course, I had to take some silly pictures of us "rocking out". Here's a few of my favorites:







More silliness can be found in the gallery.

Sryder made us a yummy dinner, and further assisted my recovery by giving me a massage. Thanks for having me over, guys, I had an excellent time, and hope to see you again soon.

Sunday was the BBBS bowl-a-thon. Thanks to saimmyon and jadefu for their donations. You rock! I got to visit with morgansong and her little and did some very light bowling (found myself an 8 pound ball, and managed not to injure myself). We had a fun time, but I wish I had been able to bowl more enthusiastically. Next time, for sure.



After the bowling, I met up with extrajoker to hang out for a bit, and had dinner before heading home to collapse.

So, all in all, it was a very good weekend, got to see lots of friends and had fun. And am totally addicted to Rock Band, so if anyone wants to invite me over to play.....

Last night was great. katiesmurf and i booked out of work at 5, and headed to Alewife. Took the T to Davis Square. We were very excited to discover the Mr. Crepe cafe practically next door to the Somerville Theater and had a delightful dinner of crepes and coffee.


I had the green apples, grapes and brie crepe for dinner (and a s'more crepe for dessert, though I sadly couldn't eat all of it), and a really foamy latte. Yum!

Had never been to the Somerville Theater before and it was a very cute venue. We checked out the merchandising booth, got ourselves some hard cider and headed up to the balcony to find out seats, which turned out to be pretty good. The theater is small, so we weren't too far away, and we were right in the center, so we had good line of sight to the stage.

The opening band, Apollo Sunshine, was fairly entertaining. They played lots of different instruments, and were bouncing around the stage, which was fun to watch.

They Might Be Giants finally took the stage, and their set was fantastic. Lots of energy, though I would have liked the sound on the vocals to be a bit better. Sure it's fun to sing along, but I also like to actually hear the band. Still, I bounced around a lot and had a great time. Best of all, they played practically every song I was hoping to hear: The Guitar, New York City, She's an Angel, Ana Ng... It was a great show, they played a little bit of everything, and it's always fun to hear the old stuff mixed in with the new stuff.


Hooray for crappy cell phone pictures!

I don't have anything else planned for this weekend, and I only got about 2 hours of sleep, so I think it may be naptime.

Thanks to everyone for their well wishes and support. You guys are a great help. Have already submitted my resume to a few places, and actually got a call from a third place on Friday from having updated my resume online. As much as I hate looking for a new job (like many people, I am somewhat resistant to change), I am feeling pretty positive about my opportunities at the moment.

By the way, I am participating in the Big Brothers, Big Sisters bowl-a-thon in a few weeks. If anyone wants to make a donation, you can do so here.

Or you can donate via paypal:

Thanks for your support.

Friday night was great. I met up with dionethoughts in Northampton, she grabbed a bite to eat, and we had a chance to hang out and talk before we headed over to Pearl Street. Met up with paper_wings, sryder and gerry and others, and found ourselves a good spot to view the show. I think I have seen Enter the Haggis 5 or 6 times now, and this was the best show. The sound was good, we had room for some low-key flailing, and the band seemed especially full of energy. We got to laugh at the incredibly dumb guys who kept trying to dance, first with paper_wings and then with me, and who didn't seem to grasp the concept that while 2 girls dancing together may turn a guy on...it doesn't necessarily work the other way around. It may have helped if either of them had the least bit of rhythm. Still, the show was great, and I was especially happy that they did Lannigan's Ball, since I love that song, and they haven't done it at the last couple of shows. I think everyone had a good time, and I was certainly glad to spend some time with such a fun group of people that I don't get to hang out with often enough.

Afterwards, we visited the Dirty Truth for a pint or two, and then, being the old fogies that we are, everyone was tired and headed home. I had thought about staying over out that way, but was still feeling pretty lively, and had a lot to get done at home on Sat, so I made my way home. It was probably 2:30 when I got in, due to the fact that I suddenly realized that I was really hungry partway home, and stopped to get some nasty McDonald's food (there's not a lot of eating choices at 1:30 am), and then I had to stop again to dispose of the nasty McDonald's food when I realized that I couldn't actually force myself to eat it. I made myself a grilled cheese when I got home and finally staggered off to bed at around 5.

Which meant that a good part of my Saturday was spent sleeping, which was nice, for a change. Did a little bit of cleaning, and just hung out at home until it was time to head up to Lowell to pick up geekpixie. Her place is within walking distance of the arena, so that worked out great. We wandered over there, and then had to stand in line to get through the pat-down. Let me just take a moment here to say that the Tsongas Arena is the most disorganized venue I have ever been at. I only saw 1 other show there, and it was the same. I don't know what their problem is, but the last time, the show was already starting and there was still a significant queue to get into the building. This time, we did make it in before the show started, but it was just ridiculous. Part of the problem is that they had 5 doors available for the guys to enter in, and only 3 or 4 for the women, who take longer anyway, since they tend to have purses and things to search...not that they were doing a very good job of it anyway.

The Dropkick Murphys show itself was a lot of fun. They started their set by having 10 or so bagpipers come on stage to play with them, and then throughout the show had a number of local guest musicians, irish step dancers and even a choir join them on stage. It was a shame that the sound was so poor though, because you could barely make out the vocals, or any of the guests, otherwise I am sure it would have been amazing. Still, it was hilarious to watch the mosh pits in action (I was especially amused by the moshing during "Amazing Grace"), and they brought a bunch of girls up on stage along with all the step dancers for a rousing rendition of "Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced". Some of the very little girls knew far too many of the words to that song. Post-show, geekpixie and I met up with damagedmuse for drinks and tiramisu at Fortunato's. We hung out there until a group came in and announced to the bartender that they were going to have a group of 20 or so. Umm, yeah, those of you who have been to Fortunato's know that the bar area is fairly small, and we decided that was our cue to leave. Thanks again to geekpixie for coming out to play with me. I hope you had a good time.

Today is a pretty lazy day. I walked to the grocery store this morning and did my shopping, and I think it is about time for some lunch and possibly some knitting.

Hope you all are having a lovely St. Patrick's Day weekend.

I have switched from theater-going mode to concert-going mode. Last weekend, I finished up the last of my theatering by going to see A Man for All Seasons on Friday night with my parents, and Into the Woods on Sunday afternoon with some co-workers. The first play was not as good as we normally see at that theater, the energy was low, the lighting was too dark, and several of the actors were difficult to hear. I managed to stay awake, but there was some snoring coming from various parts of the audience, and a lot of squirming. Into the Woods was excellent. Of course, I love that play anyway, but the kids in the show did the very good job. The baker and his wife had strong voices, and almost everyone was good. The two princes pretty much stole the show every time they were onstage, and Jack was adorable. Prior to the show, katiesmurf and i had lunch in Concord and then visited a toy shop where we bought silly finger puppets (I got a penguin, and you put your fingers into his feet, so you can make him waddle and it is the cutest thing ever). So it was a good, relaxing, girly kind of day.

Tonight I am going to see Enter the Haggis with dionethoughts, and we will hopefully see sryder and paper_wings there, and maybe go out for drinks after. Tomorrow I am going to the Dropkick Murphys concert with geekpixie, and I am super excited about it. I have been wanting to see them for years, but the concerts always sell out before I can get tickets. Thankfully, they put some more tickets up for sale this week, and geekpixie kindly agreed to accompany me. In two weeks is the They Might Be Giants show. Woo-hoo! Am totally into the live music.

I got my ticket to London! Woo-hoo!

Something that made me happy this week:



Yep, I got my grandma's ring back from the jeweler on Tuesday, and I am so happy to have it. It has been just over a year since my gram passed away, so it is extra special to finally have this little memento.