this little life of mine

Today was tons of fun! Suzie and DeeDee arrived soon after I posted the previous entry; DeeDee had her foster son with her, so we were an even team of four. We had (non-alcoholic) beverages and Big Mutha Nachos as planned, and spent nearly two hours at Mother's catching up with each other's lives. Afterwards, we wandered around downtown SLO showing DeeDee all the changes that have occured since she moved to Oregon, walked along the creek, took pictures of each other, and sat in the park in front of the Mission, still chatting away, while DeeDee's foster son played on the rock wall, rolled down the grassy knoll and played in the fountian in front of the Mission. Later we stopped had some refreshing frozen yogurt. It was amazingly warm out today - I was in a tank top, capris and Birkies and was still too warm! - so the frozen yogurt tasted really good. Downtown was packed with people, and keeping track of an almost-five-year-old was a bit of a challenge. He's an adorable kid, though; very sweet and amazingly well behaved. It was around 4:30 in the afternoon when we said our good-byes and went our separate ways. It was really nice to see DeeDee again, and I was thrilled to see her doing so well. Suzie and I decided we really should get together for lunch sometime, as we work pretty close to each other, but who knows? We're both so busy, but we promised to try.

I'm sitting in Mother's waiting for two long-lost friends to join me: DeeDee and Suzie! DeeDee is down for a visit from Oregon so naturally The Three Musketeers had to get together for some Big Mutha nachos and margaritas. After lunch, who knows? We'll just go wherever the wind takes us.

Well, I now have a (temporary) fake tooth in my mouth. I spent about 90 minutes in the dentist's chair yesterday afternoon getting what was left (after removing the stuff that was filling in the hole, and the removal of the fillings) of my original tooth ground down to a sad, quivering nubbin upon which a shiny new crown will be installed in a couple weeks; the temp is on there now.

The whole experience wasn't bad, really, and I had no soreness to speak of until about 6 p.m. when the novocane finally wore off and the intense sharp stabbing-like-an-icepick pain began. I took two Excedrin and felt better, but even now there's a dull ache where that fake tooth is, and eating (specifically chewing) has been uncomfortable to say the least. Hopefully that will go away after a while.

In other news, my new computer arrived Tuesday, and I picked it up yesterday before my dental appointment. When I got home I set it up, and I'm sure I'll be pleased with it as soon as I have some time to play around with it. (My tooth was just starting to hurt when I finished setting it up and I didn't feel like playing anymore.) While I was at Staples, I also picked up an extra memory card for my camera, and a reader for my laptop for travel purposes. Technologically I'm set for my vacation next month. Hopefully my mouth will be ready by then, too!!

Yeah, Happy Valentine's Day. Whatever.

1. It's Valentine's Day and I have no Valentine. Yeah, I know in the past I've said I'm okay with spending the rest of my miserable life alone, and it's okay if I never get married or have kids or anything, and I can have a happy, sparkly, sunshiny life without those basic necessities, but really, that's just bullshit.
2. I didn't get any Valentines made this year despite having all the stamps, stamp pads, blank cards and accent paper set out on my craft desk. I suck.
3. This afternoon I get to have my broken tooth ground down in preparation for having a nice, new porceleon crown put on. Hoo-frickin'-rah.
4. The front page of the Fee Waiver form changed. They couldn't do it during the regularly scheduled January 1st change, could they? No. They couldn't even wait until the mid-year forms change in July, could they? Of course not. They had to do it now. In February. And, I made 1,000 of the damn things last month.
5. Gah. Just gah.

On a somewhat brighter note, my new computer arrived yesterday. I intend to pick it up before hitting the dentist chair this afternoon, and if I'm feeling well enough, hooking it up tonight.

My new camera just arrived! Ooohh! It's so pretty and shiny and sleek and small! I bought the fancy-pants Coach Edition, so I have a fancy-pants Coach camera case, too. It wasn't that much more, so I figured, what the heck!

A quick update/positive list for this holiday Monday :

1. Well, first and foremost, it's a holiday, so I have today off work. That's always a nice way to start a Monday!
2. We finally got some rain this weekend. Although it wasn't as much as predicted or as much as we need, it's better than nothing at all.
3. I bought a new camera. It's the Canon PowerShot Digital ELPH SD900. The two features I like the most are the larger viewing screen on the back and the 10 mega pixels. That should be an amazing improvement on the measly 4 mega pixels my current ELPH has.
4. I also bought a new computer: the HP Pavilion s7700n. Being unable to upgrade to Vista on my current computer due to not having enough space was the final straw. For at least a year I've been frustrated about how slow-as-molasses my computer is, and how it doesn't have enough space – thus necessitating the purchase of an external hard drive to store my photos on, and very nearly getting another one - but I'd just been living with it because I figured a new computer would be a silly, unnecessary and expensive purchase. Then I saw this HP computer which is smaller than my current computer, has more space, is faster and already has Vista on it! And, it was only $579.98; less as soon as I send it my rebate information. I realized then it would be cheaper in the long run to buy this new machine rather than continuing to spend money on another external hard drive to house whatever it is that's taking up all the space on my machine and the Vista upgrade. So, I returned the Vista Upgrade to Staples, and put in an order for the new computer. It was sold out, but they found one at another store, and are shipping it here. I should have it by Wednesday.
5. The daffodils are coming up in our garden! So far it's just the leaves, but soon the stalks and blossoms will be up!

So, there's my broken tooth. My dentist took a picture with his fancy new camera and displayed it on the TV screen. So, naturally I had to take a picture of my own!  For now, he's filled the empty space with some Silly-Putty-like stuff that smoothed out the rough edges (and my tongue thanks you!), but due to another fracture in the tooth (you can't really see it in this picture, but it's there; I saw it), it will require a crown. Lucky me.

So there I was happily munching on my bag of toffee peanuts during my afternoon break, minding my own business, when it happened: I bit down on a rock. You know what I'm talking about: one of those really hard crunchy bits of solid sugar that are hard as a rock?  Yeah. Anyway, I bit down on one of those and it was really, really hard, and I tried crunching it a bit more to see if it would soften up so I could still enjoy its sugary goodness, but it wouldn't give so I spit it out. I looked at this thing in the palm of my hand, and just before tossing it in the trash, I thought, "ooh, wierd, it's tooth-coloured." Then I started running my tongue along my teeth and came across a great gaping hole in one of my back molars. That's when it hit me: it wasn't a rock, it wasn't a tooth-colured bit of toffee, it WAS my tooth!

So, yeah, I broke a tooth. That was a fun way to end my Tuesday. (Please feel free to read that last sentence with a sarcastic tone, as that's how I wrote it.) I made an appointment with my dentist for tomorrow at 1pm to have him take a look at the damage and to find out how bad it is and how much it'll cost me. Gah!

Happy Tuesday.

I know it sounds like a lot, but I'm getting pretty good at multi-tasking!

1. Print out birthday and baby shower pix for work.

2. Print out new pictures for desk and calendar displays at work.

3. Upload January's 26 Things photos to Flickr group.

4. Write letters to friends.

5. Update blog and journal.

6. Go through mail and pay bills.

7. Get rid of some books (at local used book stores or online).

8. Do a Goodwill bag with clothes and shoes.

9. Start on Valentine's cards.

10. Cook up two weeks' worth of dinners.

11. Make some homemade soup or stew.

12. Do some cleaning and organizing of my bedroom and den.

13. Mail out box of stamps I sold last week.