dianaschnuth

Dammit. I had a great start, then my computer locked up on the fucking History Channel website. I guess that’s what I get for wanting to put goddamned hyperlinks in my blog. Well, let’s see if I can get unpissed and recreate what I had. *deep breath*

Well, then… I’ve spent all evening watching VH1’s "I Love The 80’s Strikes Back" and playing Civ III. Fun at the time, but now I feel like I’ve wasted the whole goddamned day. I mean, I’d planned to post some stuff to eBay, and clean the computer room, and work on cataloguing my Smurf collection.

Yes, my Smurf collection. All 100 of them.

Two things recently prompted me to dig out my Smurfs and catalogue them for either general collecting or for eBaying. One was my thrift acquisition of a new knick-knack shelf: one of those typesetter’s cases that’s been converted to hang on the wall and hold trinkets. The other thing was finding out that Kris is looking to start liquidating his old Transformers and Star Wars figurines (still living at his parents’ house… come on, man, you’re 30 now!).

So, last night, there I was, sitting on the living room floor, watching a special about the Salem Witch Trials on the Discovery Channel and sorting Smurfs.

It’s going to take me forever to catalogue them the way I want to, but I’m going to do it anyway, because I’m curious as to what I have. I have the little guys all sorted out into a.) Smurfs to keep, b.) Smurfs to eBay, c.) Smurfs to thrift because they’ve been dog- or cat-chewed, d.) Smurfs without accessories, and e.) random accessories. Blueimps.com has been quite the find, as has MushroomVillage.com — they each have a great way of locating the official names and serial numbers of each Smurf. At Blue Imps, I can browse the images and say, "Is that him? Yeah, that’s him." At the Mushroom Village, I can type in a word, like "ball," and get photos and descriptions of Smurfs with, well, balls. (Bowling balls and soccer balls! Be nice!)

I only have 20 Smurfs catalogued in my little Excel file (with name, ID, variation, and notes), so I’ve quite the haul ahead of me. Oh, and if you’re checking up on me at eBay to see what I’m selling, my ID has changed to reflect my married name. I am now dschnuth on eBay. (And, yes, I’ve got some stuff up right now. I’m selling the beginning of my closet junk: old McDonald’s Happy Meal toys.)

In other news… I managed two culinary feats today. I made dinner (yes, it’s a feat) and I hardboiled some eggs. Now, wait, let me tell you all about it. As for dinner, I steamed some cauliflower and baked a chicken breast. But since dousing the chicken in lemon or soy or a concoction of the two plus some honey (which I’d come to enjoy) is out with Atkins, I discovered the art of mixing Worchestershire sauce into some mayo and using it as a glaze of sorts. It was actually quite yummy. So, culinary feat #1 was a success. Mmm.

Culinary feat #2 was not so much. I put some water on to boil for eggs, and didn’t forget about it for too long. Which is more than I can say for the eggs. Here I was, playing Civ III, when I glanced at my watch and realized that the eggs had been boiling for twice as long as necessary. Like, 45 minutes. I freaked out and ran into the kitchen, which was thankfully not on fire, and rescued the eggs. I ate the one that had cracked when I’d first put it in — and it tasted burnt. Hell, it even looked a little burnt inside. I’ll bet you didn’t know you could burn a fucking hardboiled egg, did you? Me neither. Well, luckily enough, the rest of them just seem to be a touch overdone, not nasty or inedible. I feel like a fool, though, just the same.

And at work, things are a little happier. Andrew and Ruth (our boss and his boss) had private meetings with all of us, except the newest temp and Loni. The newest temp, A (yes, another one), wasn’t progressing fast enough, so they "cancelled" her. That’s the polite term for firing a temp, since you cancel her services through the company, and they call her to let her know she’ll be getting a different assignment as soon as one becomes available. Not like I’ve been on the receiving end of that or anything… ahem. So, Dawn realizes that we didn’t fire (sorry, cancel) the old new temp — that is, Lorna, the one before “new” A — just because she wasn’t catching on. It was her absenteeism that really did it. So, Dawn has been quite pleasant the past two or three days. It amazes me that she can turn it off like a switch, though.

It must have taken a lot of energy to be that pissed off for an entire month, considering that she can just blink and be back to normal. I don’t know about you, but if I’m pissed at someone for a whole damn month, to the point of not speaking to that person, it’s going to take more than just being told I made an incorrect assumption for me to get back to being OK with that person. Of course, you know me — I find it hard to hold a grudge for more than a few days at a time, unless it’s something big. Like with Dan’s brother, Matt, the time that he nearly stiffed me for the fifty bucks he offered me to make his new drumcorps’ website, and then told me that he’d hired someone else to completely redesign my just-launched site, and informed me that they would be using the same page structure and copy that I’d written basically out of thin fucking air. That pissed me off, and I still don’t think I’ve quite recovered. And that was damn near seven years ago, I think. I don’t take kindly to being used… and being paid fifty bucks (most basic sites cost $200 or so) to fabricate a website from a single brochure, then having that copy stolen and being told, "thanks anyway," that qualified to me. It still does. Not that I’m bitter or anything. 🙂

Wow, I kinda rambled for a while, didn’t I? Ah, well. I need to go wash some dishes so Aaron doesn’t come home to a sinkful. I’ll at least do the stuff I dirtied, if not all of it. I’m trying to get better at that, but I still suck sometimes. At age 27, I’m still very much a wife-in-training.

OK, I’m going to go now before I get too down on myself for my poor housekeeping skills.

P.S. – I think we have a CD around here that Kris made us of all his old tunes, including Schnuth, Put the Hamburger Down. I’ll ask Aaron if he knows where it is.