Would you forgive me love / If I danced in your shower So I suck at updating. Welcome to my life, dears.
Brianna is walking. And has a tooth. Both of these things are awesome and also scary. The good news? we mostly weaned before the appearance of said tooth.
Also, she has given up on formula. She weaned her own sweet self onto cows milk, which is early, earlier than I had intended, but I'm rolling with it. I'm just trying to make sure she gets enough iron - and we'll all be good.
And she's eating table food like it's going out of style. She took down an entire happy meal Sunday night, while we were killing time waiting to see if Chad was going to get admitted to the hospital overnight - long story. The point is, she's only 10-months old, and ate 4 chicken nuggets and all her fries. And drank 8 oz of milk. There is no way a child that small should be able to hold that much, lol.
I did NaNoWriMo this year. I didn't win, but i came really close - 43000 words or so. I blame my being sick, and out of town for the last weekend in Nov for not winning. But it was a pretty good experience overall, at any rate.
Getting ready for the Great Christmas Tour - with an added complication of a 10-month-old added to the already crazy 12+-hour drive with dog and cat and presents. If you want to get together whilst we are back home - let me know, and we'll see what we can do.
Also, Brianna will have a new little cousin (on her Daddy's side) sometime this month. Probably sooner rather than later. We're looking forward to meeting him!
There are other things, but my mind is mushy. Being sick (all the time) sucks, and I'm hopping to be done with it soon. (Probably just in time to create another germ carrier to make us sick all the time, lol).
We'll love you just the way you are / If you're perfect I think I'm finally done Christmas shopping. For the most part. I *think*. Sheesh. I don't think it's quite Christmas in my head yet, despite the fact that I've sung the Christmas Tree song to the tree every time Chad has turned it on (and Chad is counting the days until he can ban that song for another 11 months). I'm hoping I'll feel more like Christmas when I get back to Memphis/Huntsville, where it's cold, and everyone is wearing sweaters and stuff. "Going home" for Christmas kind of helps set it apart from the rest of the year... there's something about pulling into the driveway after a long trip when it's dark and freezing cold, and being greeted by family and (warm!) food that always makes me feel like Christmas.
And then, you know, the family drama catches up with you, and then it *really* feels like Christmas. You know what I mean. You can't have a family gathering without at least a strong undercurrent of this kind of drama. And since I only come home a couple of times a year.... it all hits at once.
So what did I accomplish this year, from my family's perspective?
I once again failed to produce grandchildren for my parents (through lack of trying on my part, which makes them sad).
I left school, which is probably good, since I was getting too educated for my own good (or something like that). In any case, they're pretty sure this should hasten the arrival of grandchildren.
I sold out to the corporate man, and work for the devil. Which might not hasten the arrival of grandchildren. Since I'm now a "career woman". And stuff.
In all seriousness, I think my parents are more or less proud of me. But they make no secret of the fact that they would be *prouder* if they had pictures of grandchildren to show off. Because that's what it's all about, in the end. Or something.
You wait and see when the smoke clears Lessons for the day (more for archival benefit than because you guys will be interested...):
You can't use relative path names for images that you want to load from jars. You have to use a ClassLoader to getResource().
It takes about 3 hours to determine this, if you forget that you can see the console output *if you run the jar from the command line* instead of trying to load it through Java WebStart.
It takes about 10 minutes to fix this problem, thanks to Find/Replace.
You cannot load files into a File object by their filename (even if you use getResource) if they are stored in a jar. Apparently, jarring them cause them to not be files any more (I know, it makes no sense to me either, but that's the best answer I could come up with from the forums). You need to use ClassLoader.getResourceAsStream() to put the jarred file directly into an input stream, skippign hte file object all together.
It takes another three hours of [Run the program in Eclipse. See that it works. Jar the project. Sign the jar. Run the jar through WebStart. See that it's broken.] repeated, ad nauseum, and googling various variations on the theme of "jar read from file" before you remember that you can run the jar from the command line. And get the exception output, with the error name, and google that.
It takes about 30 seconds to fix this problem, once you know how.
And, if you spend all day debugging all this stuff... you get no real quantifiable work accomplished.
Have-to's and need-to's and get-to's by three Sleep. Is good. But now that I have tiem for sleep... yeah, I'm not really taking advantage of it. LotRO has somewhat cut into my sleep (something about never getting off the computer until 10:15 or 10:30, and then having to do all the stuff you should have done before gaming...), and I've be trying to get out of the house early(ish) to beat traffic. This morning, didn't work so good. I left at like, 6:45, but I had to run by the school on the way to work (the words "on the way to work" here mean "before I could go to work", not that the school is actually "on the way" anywhere from my house). So I didn't get to work until 8:30.
And all day I've been drawing little pictures. that are not icons (not that small). And trying my hand at interaction design.
Once I know who I'm not then I'll know who I am Life... is exceedingly busy. Not bad, just really busy. I feel like I'm running behind, too (although I'm not completely sure that I'm actually behind in the real world. Maybe just in my head).
But yeah. Having a four day weekend last weekend totally rocked. I did lots of stuff. Including unpacking some of the large number of boxes that we still have laying around from the last (several) time(s) we moved.
Less than two weeks of classes left, then I'm working fulltime for the summer. Yay for summer! I know I've already planned more stuff than I can possibly do in like, three months. But it'll be fun to try and get it all done.
Not the doctor Oh. My. God. I just want to go to a doctor that will fix my back, and my head, and will not make me hurt worse or make me come and see them 8 million times a week. Is that too much to ask?
So I went to a family practice doctor today. I waited for almost an hour to get into his office (no big deal, I expect to wait). Then, he doesn't intorduce himself, and this is the conversation that we have...
Him: So why are you here? Me just like I told the girl who scheduled me, and the girls when I checked in, and wrote on at least 3 medical forms: I have had a headache for 8 days now. My lower back hurts, and I had a car accident 6 days ago that might account for some of the back pain. Him: I don't do car accidents. Did you tell my girls all this? Me: Yes, but what about my headache? Him: I'll refer you to another doctor for the back pain, and I won't charge you a co-pay. *mumbles about ambulance chasers*. Me: But what about my headache? it hurt before the accident? Him: *has already left the room*
Yeah. Total waste of my time. Didn't listen to anything I said, didn't look at me. I hate doctors. The doctor he refered me to... is a surgeon. In Alvin. I am not driving all the way to Alvin to have someone tell me that I need back surgery. Stoopid doctors.
So now I have to find a new family doctor. Again. Preferably not one who's an ass. Are there just so many doctors in Houston that they feel like they can all be asses? I mean, really. This is ridiculous. I don't really care what insurance gets charged for the medical stuff... it's not like the chick who hit me is paying any of it... I just want someone to fix me, dammit.
Isn't it ironic? So I went shopping for a suit coat to wear to my next interview... And I had no idea it was going to be such an ordeal! apparently, I was not designed to wear suit coats. At all. After going to Ross's, Marshall's, Sears, JCPenny, Foley's, Mervyns, and Dillards, I decided to hit the little (more expensive) stores... (Well, less expensive than Dillards, but more expensive than everywhere else). So I went to all these stores I would normally never set foot in... Banana Republic, Bebe, Talbots, Express, Limited, on and on and on (every place in the Baybrook mall)... Nothing fit me. Except a really cute shirt at Ann Taylor, which I bought (I didn't even try on coats there, they were out of my budget).
I was frustrated, and tired, so I headed home. On the way home, I decided to stop at Target to look at cabinet shelf thingies to hold game controllers and stuff... and what should I find? The perfect charcoal blazer... one button, fits perfectly. And it was only $30. And it goes perfectly with the aforementioned cute shirt from Ann Taylor.
I can't wait until the career clothes shopping starts in earnest *rolls eyes*.
I'm frustrated by your apathy... I get extremely amazingly frustrated when grading labs. Like, throwing my pen at the wall frustrated. I don't understand not doing a lab because you don't know how and you didn't bother to ask.
you know... there are really very few things as satisfying as sitting and coding something just for fun (not for a grade)... with no deadlines... while blaring Alanis Morissette (Jagged Little Pill, what else?) through my sightly less than optimum laptop speakers... with the freedom to sing at the top of my lungs... and eating Froot Loops. Straight out of the box. Geek girl nirvana. *sigh* The only thing I need now is... ummm.... Dilbert pajamas?
This is my brain..... in part, at least.
