Weekend in Review 12-29-07

In an effort to get myself into the habit of updating-even if its just short and sweet stuff instead of a big long cumlative post, I am going to do my weekend in review. Nothing all that exciting but still good to write:)

Friday-I met Tracy and Valeda (friends from work) at the Mall to shop although we spent most of our time in the food court just talking after we ate some lunch but it was still a lot of fun. We did hit up Macy's so I could exchange some shirts Ben got for a different size and then I wanted to look around because I had gotten a gift card at Macys and so I thought I would look and see if there is anything I would like but wouldn't normally buy. We ended up in the purses/handbag section and I saw some Kipling stuff on sale. Now I don't normally care about brands at all but I always love the Kipling stuff-the cool colorts, good material and different shapes of bags BUT it is usually over priced and not on sale so I was excited to see it on sale. I ended up buying a dark purple Kipling "Creativity" Cosmetic case that I am using for my ipod and related stuff (earphones, cords, etc) so that I can just toss the bag into my purse when we go anywhere and not worry about crunching the headphones or missing anything I might need. I LOVE it. I can't find a photo of the purple one anywhere but I did end up going back today to get one in pink too so I could use it for lots of other little odds and ends that tend to get lost in my bag! Here is a picture of the pink one:


Other than that we didn't do much at the Mall. Ben called me to tell me he was sick and I tried to find a dr that would be open on a friday night but wasn't lucky. After I took Tracy home I went to Ben's work, got gas and went with him to try and find a place he could see a dr. When we struck out we just went home and watched Rush Hour 3. I love those Rush Hour movies-both actors play off each other well and are so funny.

Saturday: Ben had to work. I had high hopes for re-organizing our DVD collection since I really hadn't organized or updated our list since last christmas and it was in serious need. So I got all the DVDs off of one shelf and started to get them alphabitized when Ben called to see if I wanted to go see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which is one of my faves. His brother was on their way up to see it at the State Theater with the kids and they had 5 extra tickets.He was still at work but I decided the DVDs could wait and I went. Of course they called me at 1:30pm and the show started at 2pm! I able to quickly get dressed-since it was a day sow I could get away with jeans and sweater which I NEVER wear to a theater show but we usually see night shows. Jumped into the car and flew into New Brunswick-thankfully I knew some good side streets to look for parking and got lucky, got my ticket from the Will Call office and got to my seat with about 5 min to spare-literally!

The show was good-it always is. The Plays in the Park people put it on and its the only time they perform in the State theater instead of the park but they have done this show every year for 13 years. Ben and I have seen it at least once or twice ourselves. I took some photos but not sure how they came out since I couldn't use the flash.
Here are a few-it was a very minimalistic set with lots of props and costumes to make the scenes. I only took photos at the end though:)




After the show we went to The Round Grill for dinner which is one of my favorite places so that made me happy. Ben was just getting done work but was able to find a place he could go see a dr so I just got him some takeout and met him at home later with the food. After we got home we watched some tv and then went to bed-he tried to fall asleep and I was organizing some photo stuff online while watching FRIENDS. I started from the first episode when I was sick and have been going through episode by espisode-I am almost done season 3!

Sunday: Got up, and went to the laudrymat. Not my favorite thing to do but I wanted to get it done early and try to avoid crowds.I got there at noon and was lucky enough to get some good washers and then dryers. I grabbed a sandwich from the delit next door then got comfy listening to my ipod (I have recently created some "old school" playlists of tons of 80s tunes I got from my friends collection of 80s CDs and suplimented it with various purchases from itunes with my christmas gift cards and such!) I also tried out my new Brain Age 2 game for my DS lite-its kind of cool and it kept me entertained til it was time to fold my clothes.It has Suduku on it too so that was fun to try-I am still in the middle of a puzzle though! Sidebar:and I just say I love my new headphones too-I couldn't hear ANYTHING other than my music while I was doing laundry-and because they had three size ear things to choose from I had originally been using medium but I tried the smaller ones and they are even better!!!

After laundry I ran over to the mall to use more of my gift card and get the pink case I showed above, then picked up some pretzels and lunch for Ben. I settled in for a nice afternoon of updating, organizing and playing online. There was a small interruption abour 5:30pm when the entire block lost power. And of course the sun is on its way down so it was really black in the house. I went out to the street to see if it was just us and it was the whole block. We lite a bunch of candles to give us enough light to see around the house and just sort of chilled out and about an hour later the power came back on-yeah! So then I got back to work on my online stuff!

I spent the first hour back online on www.webkinz.com Has anyone else ever heard of these things? They are stuffed animals you "adopt" and then you can do different things in the "Webkinz World". Tracy, Valeda and I got them for christmas so I figured I better get online and figure it out so I can help them:) My niece Julia showed me a little bit on Christmas about the site but there is a ton of stuff on the site-I couldn't believe I played on there for an hour-the site is suppossed to be geared toward kids!! I am sure it will keep us entertained though. I have a black lab but I am totally going to have to get myself the mini-penguin one of these days LOL! They are just too cute and too soft!

Oh-while I was here updating a friend of mine from college called to let me know they just found out they are having a baby in August-congrats to them. I really want to get my college photos into a good storybook or 12x12 album this year-I will have to get working on that one of these days!

Now I am here updating for you, uploading photos, moving and backing up photos to my external hard drive so I know I have it all backed up. I create such a process for myself b/c I am so paranoid of losing any photos although I am getting more relaxed since I have smugmug but I am still crazy. Here is my crazy way of doing things:

1. upload unedited photos to backup private gallery on smugmug.
2. run photos through color correction/lighting software.
3. upload edited photos to public gallery to share
4. copy original photos to external hard drive for storage.
5. if its photos I plan to use in the near future for some sort of project, I also copy them to my small external drive that I call my "working" folder although now that I have a laptop with some space on it dont always copy over to the working drive b/c I dont need it like I used too.

I am also trying to get myself into the habit of using the Creative Memories "Memory Manager" software since I want to show my grandfather how to use it for his photos (its easy as pie) and it does come in handy when I am looking for photos instead of searching through my folders all the time so slowly but surely I am pulling photos into that to use as my working area and then I can jsut grab what I need for my photo projects.

Ok-so are your eyes tired of reading yet? I know I am getting there! So I will end it here. Boy I can talk a lot for a "mini update". Thankfully most of my weekends aren't as exciting!

If I dont make it back here-Happy New Year to everyone and stay safe. We are staying home (thankfully!) and just going to chill out to bring in the new year. Ben works and so I am not sure what we are going to eat yet but I am hoping to get back to my DVD project tomorrow while he is at work.

Ta ta for now!!!