Aaahh... Blogspot!

I kinda feel like I've been neglecting this blog. Been so busy over at Live Spaces and getting into blogging in my own language, this place has seen few updates lately.

Come tomorrow, I'm back to work 100%. About freaking time, is all I'm saying. The arm is far from 100%, but I don't care anymore. 80% has been going good enough that I don't wanna wait anymore.

Kiri has opened up a Space too, but she hasn't done much with it. She ran into some of the same problems my sister did, though she did manage to snag the horoscope service that my sister is still in hot pursuit of. Told my sister, she was aghast that Kiri had managed in one try, what she has been trying to do, but failed at for weeks.

I kinda feel like I've neglected Kiri too, seeing as my blogging at Spaces is in Norwegian, which she doesn't understand. Maybe I should start a second space, in English?

I didn't get to see Def Leppard Friday. The plan that most of the team at work was going dwindled out into nothing, and for some reason, I wasn't informed. They all thought I knew, which I didn't until two weeks before the show. Too late for me to nag anyone else into coming with me, and I really don't like going alone. Too bad too, as the show had raving reviews!

As it turned out, one of the girls was invited to a wedding this weekend, and felt that the wedding had to take priority, which I totally agree with, don't get me wrong. But as she was the one that insisted she'd get all the tickets together, I'd have liked to be informed sooner than I was. I really wanted to go...

After that, one by one fell off the 'wanna go' wagon, and I was the last to be informed. Sucks!

In other news, I've put in an application for another job. This would be a new field for me, but one where knowing customer care can come in very handy. It's at the local consumers office, and there's nothing I like better than solving problems. I really hope they'll consider me, it'd mean better pay and more challenges in my work. I crave challenges, these days. There's really not a whole lot of it where I am now. Occasionally I get a tough case, but they are few and far between, these days. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. It's pointless calling them to ensure they got my application, as it was done electronically, and I've already received confirmation they've got it.

Received an envelope from FedEx, Friday. Four packs of Ranch dressing for my enjoyment. Thank you Kiri, I haven't gotten around to mix any up yet, but I plan to! And now my sister is demanding a taste too...

I need to get a care packet ready for Kiri soon. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. I'll think of something. I know she likes my preferred brand of coffee, so there'll have to be a couple of packs of that too.

The Empress is relaxing out on the veranda today. She got no joy yesterday as it was pouring down with rain, but today, the sun is back!

Oh well, time I got my ass moving a little. Things to do, even on a Sunday...

Aah, I so love a Monday off...

A day off is always welcome, especially when it's a paid day off! Today is the second day of Lent. In Norway, that translates into a 'Red Day'. Red days on our calendar means a day off... With pay, as long as it's not a Sunday or a Saturday that went Red for some reason like Christmas Day or some such. If it's a weekday marked red, I get paid to park my ass at home!

My sister and I have been busy over at Windows Live Spaces for the last couple of days, she's building and cussing like a drunken sailor, and I try to help as best I can. It's really not helping matters that their galleries are down for maintenance at all hours, or that the Horoscope service she wants doesn't wanna hang out on her page. I've had it from the get-go, she wants it, we have trouble!

This weekend has been very hot and sunny. Summer temperatures all last week, today it's still sunny, but with a cold wind. I hope it lets off soon, so that I can keep the veranda door open and The Empress on a leash. Not that it isn't more trouble than it's worth, what with her getting herself tangled up in knots all the time!

Just a quick little update today, as my sister is still toiling over at her page with that darn horoscope service that won't!

I'm happily playing around on my space, creating music- and book lists, and blogging in Norwegian for a change. I'll be over there most of today too, I think...

Kiri, you need to get Messenger Live, and a space to play with. It's fun!

Live Spaces

There's a nifty new thing I've discovered, thanks to my sister. Windows Live Space, or Spaces for short.

Found an invite in my mailbox about someone named Pia wanting to 'be my friend' at this place. I suspected my sister, but she's been anti-everything along the lines of MySpace and Facebook. As have I, I'm not on either community. Shot off a mail to my sister, to make sure this was from her, and true enough... It was.

So, in I go and set up shop just to pass some time. It's kinda fun, if you overlook all the frustration my sister went through not finding what she wanted. Easy, this place is not! For some reason, my space wound up with a really cool horoscope service. I didn't select it from the list (because I didn't notice it), but now she wanted it. Then we find out that her version of spaces is in Norwegian, my template is in English. Okaaaay, I'll switch my language to Norwegian and set about guiding her to the place I found the horoscope on my list. No go, she found everything I told her to look for, but no horoscope. darn! Then I hit 'save' to make sure I don't lose anything, and my theme is gone! WTF? I go in search of it, and find that it's not available in the Norwegian version. I loved that theme! Fine, change the templates back to English, I can still post in Norwegian. The only thing a lingo change does is change the language of the menu's and content. Finally, I find my theme again, and all is well. Well... Not so much, my sister is now on a mission, she WANTS(!) that horoscope service and has gone off to the galleries in search of it. She's gonna have to look at 88 pages of content! I head over there to see if the search can be narrowed down. I spot the search bar and enter 'horoscopes' and hit the appropriate button to search the gallery, not the web. I get 19 matches. I tell my sister, she speeds off to make her search, typing exactly what I did, hitting the same button I did... 0 matches! WTF(?) again! She did everything I told her to, down to last detail, and where I get 19 matches, she gets 0? Spaces must not like her for some reason... She tried searching in Norwegian, she switched her lingo to English, no matter what she did, she got the same result... 0 matches! By this time, she was furious! So she headed off to the gym so she could get her workout done before they closed the doors, with a solemn promise to return to the hunt when she got back. I kinda felt sorry for the gym...

My space is set to a certain privacy, meaning I have to approve whomever wants to stop by. As it's kept in Norwegian, I don't see non-Norwegians getting too much out of it... Though, there are photo albums... and one of them is dedicated to The Empress...

As it was my sister who lured me into spaces, I've chosen to keep it in Norwegian, just as I decided to keep this spot in English, as it was Kiri who made me start blogging here, and she's American! Not to say that English speaking visitors can't leave a mark in their own language, of course they can. But they'll sadly not be able to read the blog I'm keeping there... so now I have two... and I still blame Kiri, what's up with that? Oh yeah, she made me start in the first place. At least I beat my sister to blogging. She's a creative woman, and she does have a lot of opinions (sound familiar?) but she's not been able to break this barrier she's had about blogging. She made her first post late last night, I doubt it'll be the last!

Meh...

What a rough last couple of weeks...

For a while there, I was worried my ME had come back to bite me on the ass. I've had no energy aside from crawling out of bed and going to work. I've been hibernating every chance I had to save up strength and energy. This has, of course, pissed The Empress off to the point where she took dumps outside her litter box, just to get some amount of attention. Kiri hasn't 'seen' me at all, aside from a tag here and there on her blog, explaining my absence. I think it's getting better now. I can honestly blame a lot of the lethargy on my cough medicine, which is laced with Morphine, leaving me with a morphine hangover for nearly two weeks. Even though I only had to take it at night to be able to sleep through all the coughing. I've had a couple of nights now where I've been able to sleep without it, and I can feel the lethargy peeling off. Bliss!

The Empress is now seeming to forgive my lack of attention and willingness to be her favorite chew toy, and has been visiting her litter box, dutifully, again. She's currently hanging out on the veranda soaking up the summer temperatures. I know, she's staying in the shade, but still. She does take regular trips inside, to make sure I'm still here to serve as her chew toy. Then, satisfied that I am, she heads back out again.

My mother and her siblings (two younger sisters and one little brother) have been busy cleaning out my grandmothers apartment. With the blessings of said grandmother, seeing as she's not going back there. At 99 and in her weakened state after her illness last winter, she's finally agreed that she's no longer capable of taking care of herself.

I drove my mom to pick up some of the larger stuff she was keeping, pictures and paintings and whatnot, then I noticed that no one had claimed her lemonade set. It's a lovely green set, that I have loved since I was little. My mom got one of her sisters on the horn, and was informed that if I wanted it, I should grab it, no one else had said anything about keeping it. So, now it's sitting pretty in my cabinet!

Glasses, plates, a bowl and the pitcher. Oh
and some of my crystals...

I did get a scare last week, when on the very day of Kiri's day off, three (yeah, not one, not two, but three!!!) twisters hit Virginia. As I'm not quite sure of the geography of Virginia, I have no idea where on the map Kiri actually is, so I had a near panic attack. Day after, she was back at work and could tell me over the IM that they hit nowhere near her and to start breathing again!

I've had two weeks at my new desk at work, and I can only say... I freaking hate it! I want my old desk back, I get no peace where I'm seated now, and the distractions are twenty times what they were back by the wall. Also, I miss my three sweet boys! They kept the distractions to a minimum and only bothered me when they truly needed a quick answer. Bless their hearts, they kept me entertained with their constant (good natured) bickering, and they were easy to tune out when I needed too. The noise level where I am now is harder to tune out. There was no noise by the wall, just a hum... At least my team leader said it wasn't permanent and that there's always a chance I can get it back, just not yet. They needed my desk for the two new ADSL boys that came over from the other call center, y'know, the one I was at before? Yep, they came over from cellular solutions, private market and wanted to learn ADSL. Hence, I had to vacate my desk.

Even here at home, I don't get to keep my desk to myself... As evidenced by this:

Take note of how carefully she blocks my access to my keyboard!
This was taken just last night, so it's the most recent picture
of The Empress.

I've also been preoccupied with the online newspapers, covering the Incest scandal in Amstetten, Austria. I'm just horrified that a father can do something like that to his own child. It angers me that it happens, and I feel a sense of hopelessness that I have no power to do anything about it. It's been a heavy topic at work, I think we all feel the same way about it.

Today, I have big plans to do some cleaning. I've been lax about it during my flu and the last couple of weeks worth of morphine induced lethargy. Just to avoid temptations, I'll turn the computer off and get to work... Later!