Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to all! What's everyone up to tonight? Me? Myles and I will be heading out with our best friends and their daughter, my adorable neice, to take the Squirt trick-or-treating. :) Then, she's staying with a babysitter while Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Myles and Aunty go out to have some adult fun. :) Not sure if I'm going to get into my costume or not. This year I was Hugh Hefner's maid...Hugh being my Myles. We'll probably go to our favorite hick bar so we can drink and Ann and I can sing and dance. Three of our favorite things. Woo hoo!

And on another front, yesterday we put an offer in on another house. If we get it, this will be our 3rd rental. This one will take some work to get it ready, since it's a foreclosure, but it's worth it. Losts of painting and yardwork and cleaning to do. Eeek. But, if we get it, we'll get it done and get it rented and have more money in our pockets between rent and equity. And then Myles will look for yet another one. :P

Editing tip for the day:
Pay attention to comma usage. Read your sentences out loud, pausing where you have commas and see if it sounds right. I've been running into a lot of misplaced commas lately. These are easy fixes, people! =)

And I'll say it again...

...and again and again and again. Don't email me/us/whoever a month after you have subbed a story. Again, READ THE AUTOMATED RESPONSE! Ten to twelve weeks, people. If three months have passed and you haven't heard anything, then email. But I'll say it again, at any given time, we've got fifteen to thirty stories to read...and most of them were subbed before you. When you bug us, you irritate us and we start to doubt whether or not we'd like to work with you as an author if you're a pest. =) You're not the only one who wants their story read and published. Trust me on that one. LOL

And as an author...it is your duty to learn and utilize Track Changes. Every publishing house I've ever worked for has used them, so that's pretty standard. Learn the tool and learn it well.

Okay, enough for today...I think.

An Exciting Evening Correction

There weren't 8 other astronauts there. There were SIXTEEN other astronauts there. We managed to snag a pic of all of them. :) Including Gene Cernan. So there was the first man to walk on the moon and the last man. And Gus Grissom's widow was there as well. She donated a "lunar sample", i.e. a moon rock, to Purdue. :) Okay, I'm a bit of a space buff, too. =P Today we're driving up to my parents' in South Bend (Go Irish!), picking up my ten-year-old brother and taking him to a movie in Three Oaks, MI, In the Shadow of the Moon, by Ron Howard, which is a limited release movie. So, yes, we're basically driving seven hours, round trip, for a movie. :P

OH MY GOD

Yeah, tonight was phenomenal. Just got home. The night was much better than I expected it to be. :) We actually got to meet Neil Armstrong and the 16 other astronauts there. Wow. I'm pretty speechless. Here's a picture of my Myles and Neil Armstrong. Woo hoo!

An Exciting Evening

As anyone who knows me knows, my fiance is a MAJOR space buff. Well, more than just a buff, I guess. He's pretty much obsessed with it and is convinced he'll go to the moon before he dies. :) He's a phenomenal pilot and went to Purdue for it. At the time, they only excepted less than 1% of their applicants into the flight program...and he was at the top of the list. Needless to say, his poor vision hindered him from flying in the Air Force like he wanted to and getting into the space program. In the 90s you couldn't just go get lasik. =P So, anyways, as I work in Purdue and handle all the payments for the new buildings going up and all construction projects, I was privy to a great opportunity for him, which is my wedding present to him. THE Neil Armstrong helped raise money for a new engineering building, where the aeronautical and astronomical areas will be held. Alas, good old Neil was a graduate of Purdue. So, it's been almost three years and the building is done. Tonight is a black tie dinner being held in honor of the opening, and eight other astronauts besides Neil Armstrong will be there, as they have all graduated from Purdue. This is a BIG deal, especially for someone like Myles. Needless to say, not just anyone is invited. You've got to be friends with the current or ex-president of the university, or you have to be a HUGE donor. That automatically put me off the list.

But, never to dear, I have connections with the right people and managed to finagle myself an invitation to the $65 a head soiree. And that's where we're going tonight. Yup, my hubby-to-be gets to spend his evening in heaven, sitting in the same room as Neil Armstrong and eight other astronauts. Plus, he gets to see me in a cocktail dress to boot! Trust me, that rarely happens. After this, the next time I wear a dress will be on my wedding day in a year! =) So yeah, he's pretty damn excited and I'm just happy I could do it for him. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's for him and it'll make hime absolutely elated, and that's all that matters.

Now, if I could just get rid of the smell of rotting vermin in my car.

Tes, I said rotting vermin. Decomposing mice bodies. The stench of death. Yeah. Mice got in my car, built a nest, had babies, and then the nest feel into my blower motor. It was making noise so I took it out...yes, I took it out, I'm a major car chick...and found mice bodies. Not very cute ones, either. Cut in half ones. But dammit, even though they are gone, the smell is still there. One of the little suckers must have crawled into the ductwork and died. So now, everytime I turn my car on and the air comes out of the vents, I get to smell rotting vermin. Needless to say, we won't be taking my car tonight. Blech!

"Fustrated"

Oh my God, Myles was driving me crazy last night. He kept saying "fustrated" over and over and over. There is no such word! It's "fRustrated" dammit! There are two r's! His response was to tell me to go and get an East Coast dictionary and that it would be in there. Grrrrrr. Then he started saying "Drawring" to annoy me as well. Everyone from the East Coast leaves r's out when they're supposed to be there, yet adds them to words where they don't belong. Can anyone make sense of this for me? It's very irritating to listen to them talk sometimes. =P And then they make fun of me for saying "y'all." "It's so cute, say it again." Oh, two weeks straight with all of them in January is going to be SO much fun. *sigh*

And while I'm on the subject, pacifically...yeah, not a word. It's "specifically." If you can't say it, don't say it. And ethniticity is NOT a word either. It's "ethnicity." All of these drive me nuts. Oh, and here's one some people at my work use..."Valentime's Day." Grrrrrrrrr. There is no such holiday!!! And the kicker? Half these words have been used by some of my college professors. And I'm PAYING these people to teach me. Can someone tell me what's wrong with this picture?

I think I'm done for now...for now. Not for long, though. There's always something else to rant about. Always.

Finally back to normal

Yeah, things have finally settled down and are back to normal. I think all my tears are cried out and I've come to terms with everything, so all is well on that front.

However, on another front, I started The Diet today. Yes, indeed. More specifically, the Hawaii diet. There's now way I'm going to Hawaii for two weeks in January looking like this. LOL The major thing for me is all the ice cream and junk food I eat, so I'm cutting that out. Eek! Yeah, nto so good. But I can do this...I think. We'll see how it goes. I've got enough editing, writing, and submissions to read through to keep my mind occupied, so hopefully that works out well. Hopefuly. :)

Hope all is well with everyone else!

Feeling better

I'm feeling a little better today about things. Last night was pretty rough, as Dave's fiancee sent us pictures of his car. Those were pretty tough to look at. I will be MIA tomorrow evening, much of Thursday and much of Friday, as those are the viewings and services. So if you need me and can't get ahold of me, be patient, please.

Nothing else is really going on. We had our annual Halloween Party on Saturday night. We decided that Dave would have wanted us to continue to party on, so we did. Well, at least partially. It wasn't a "normal" party atmosphere, but that's okay. We still had some fun. My brother and his best friend came down from South Bend, so that was a blast. They were dressed as an Air Force pilot and an Iraqi. They'd gotten the whole haji get-up when they were in Iraq, as they're both in the Army Reserves. So needless to say, it was pretty interesting when both of them went running down the road, dressed like that, chasing each other. It was a laugh I REALLY needed, to say the least. :) They're supposed to go back to Iraq in 10 months, so I'll be pretty bummed when they leave again...especially since it's two months before my wedding. They'd better be back for that, dammit!

Hope all is well with everyone else.

The loss of someone dear

I've been a bit MIA this weekend and I will probably be for the next few days, just doing what I have to to get by. On Friday afternoon, I received the news that one of my bestest friends had died in a car accident. Sadly, he had been drinking, ran a stop sign and ran into a tree. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt and the car rolled a few times. And to make things even more wonderful, he died on my "future" wedding date, October 11, since he died at about 11:15 at night, though he wasn't found until 8:00 the next morning. Myles was just as close to him as I was, so it's equally hard for both of us, instead of one of use being able to remain strong for the other one. Yeah, this pretty much sucks, but there's nothing I can do about it except to get through it. Here's a pic of Dave and Myles. My Myles is on the left with the glasses and my Dave is on the right, with his signature funky goatee. =) Damn, I'll miss him.

Sick and tired...literally

Yeah, I seem to have caught some sort of bug, and it's kicking my ass this weekend. I had intentions of getting soooo much done and had soooo many plans. Instead, I'm sitting on the couch, watching TV and praying that my meds start to work soon. So far, they're not giving me much pleasure. Also, everytime I glance behind me to look out into the backyard, (I like to look out into the woods) I see the huge spider that somehow managed to get between the screen and the glass. Lovely. Especially since I tend to be pretty arachnaphobic. I think it stems from watching Tarantula with my father when I was little. Not sure. :) All I know, is that I wish it would die, since I've already asked Myles to take the screen down and kill the little bastard for me. Yeah, he just laughed and teased me. I think I'm going to take it easy today and just chill in front of the TV and read some submissions during commercials. Yeah, I think that's about all I have the energy for today.

Ice Cream and Editing

So tonight Myles headed off to Chicago to see a Genesis concert--$100 for a seat in the nosebleeds. Too bad the guy that bought the tickets didn't ask if we wanted to pay that much for one. :P But, oh well. He'll have fun, even if he gets home at two in the morning and has to get up for work in the morning. And since I have the evening to myself, I went out and got a big 'ole thing of Cold Stone Creamery ice cream for dinner and I'm sitting here eating it and getting some edits done with the TV on as background noise. A poifect evening, if I do say so myself. :) I'm going to enjoy my quiet time tonight since it looks like everything is going to be pretty busy from tomorrow night on. Eeek. Birthday parties and Lia Sophia parties and baby showers. Lots and lots going on. I'm going to get as much done tonight and during work the next two days at work as I can. :)

Pics of the house stuff as promised

So, there's my painted cat. Hahaha. Yeah, I got her good. And there's the pics of what I spent my entire weekend a couple of weekends ago doing. Sooooo NOT fun. We painted the entire hallway upstairs, hung some of the Myles photography, and hung the chandelier. And just to clarify, for those who think I'm weird (and I am), I call him "the Myles" because his best friend's daughter calls him "the Myles". She just turned 4. LOL

A night for us girls

So, tonight I have my little neice (one of my best friend's daughters) over here. She's going to be two this weekend and Mom and Dad had to do some shopping for the Squirt without her around. :) Yes, I love her to death. She's allllll mine right now. She's kept me from getting any work done, though. And she takes over the TV. She HAS to have her Mickey Mouse. And her Uncle Myles. She absolutely adores him. He adores her, even though he's too "manly" to admit it. LOL So, of course, I had to take pics of she and I tonight, so her y'all go. =)