The Good Old Days

Got this in my email this morning from a friend. God, I miss those days!
*********
Aaaa the good old days.......
Go back...

Before the Internet or the MAC
Before semi automatics and crack
Before SEGA or Super Nintendo...

Way back...

I'm talking 'bout hide and go seek at dusk.
Red light, Green light.
Playing kickball & dodge ball until your porch light came on.
Mother May I?
Red Rover
Hula Hoops
Running through the sprinkler

Wait...

Watchin' Saturday Morning cartoons
Mighty Mouse, Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Donald Duck &
Mickey Mouse

Walking on stilts stilts, roller skating on the street and playing
and hp-scotch
Catchin' lightning bugs in a jar
Christmas morning...
Your first day of school

Bedtime Prayers and Goodnight Kisses
Climbing trees
Getting an Ice Cream off the Ice Cream Truck

A million mosquito bites and sticky fingers
Jumpin' down the steps
Jumpin' on the bed
Pillow fights
Runnin' till you were out of breath

Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt
Being tired from playin'
Your first crush...
Rainy days at school meant playing "Heads up 7UP" in the classroom

Remember that?

I'm not finished yet...

Kool-Aid was the drink of the summer.
Giving your friends a ride on your handlebars.
Wearing your new shoes on the first day of school.

Class Field Trips
When nearly everyone's mom was at home when the kids got there.
When a quarter seemed like a fair allowance, and another quarter a
miracle.

When any parent could discipline any kid, or feed him or use him to
carry groceries, and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it.

When your parents took you out to eat and you were so cool.

When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to
the
fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. Basically, we were in
fear for our lives but it wasn't because of drive by shootings, drugs,
gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! And
some of us are still afraid of em!

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember
that!"

I want to go back to the time when...

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo"

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "do over!"

"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "monopoly"

Catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening
It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends.

Being old, referred to anyone over 20.
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was cooties.

Nobody was prettier than Mom.
Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.

It was a big deal to finally be tall enough to ride the "big people"
rides at the amusement park.
Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true.

Abilities were discovered because of a "double-dog-dare"
Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for
giggles.

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
Water balloons were the ultimate, ultimate weapon.
Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest
protectors.

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have LIVED!!!

Let the Embarrassment Now Commence

I was over at Mir's today and she posted some pictures of the old days of scary hair and big glasses. Being that I had to go through those days as well while I was growing up, I thought it would be fun to join in and post my own, so here goes, let the embarrassment now commence:

Scary Black Glasses
Originally uploaded by ladyrhowan.

Here I am @ 6 years old in my big black framed glasses

I wanted to be Hayley Mills?
Originally uploaded by ladyrhowan.

Here is where my hair decided that it didn't want to be straight in any way, shape, or form, any longer.

Hair Progression
Originally uploaded by ladyrhowan.

At the top is 5th grade; puberty hits and hair gets scared. Next is 6th grade and the hair has gone full on freak out. By 8th grade I gave up on trying look good. I put the glasses back on.

OMG
Originally uploaded by ladyrhowan.

Circa 1991. I dare anyone to beat the freakiness of this hair, glasses and pants combo! Even my own daughter wants to get away as quickly as possible. LOL.

Recently Reading, Watching, Listening...

I thought I would try out a once a month post of the books, movies, and music I have read, watched, and listened to over the past month. I figure a monthly thing will be easier for me. So here goes:
January 2006:

Books
1. Harry Potter #4 (I know I am way behind...I took 3 years off because I am surrounded by him everyday at work)
2. Her Mother's Daughter by Linda Carroll
3. I Don't Know What I Want, But I know It's Not This by Julie Jansen
4. Night by Elie Wiesel

Movies ( I love You Netflix!)
1. Duran Duran Live From London
2. The God Who Wasn't There
3. Manor House
4. March of the Penguins
5. The 4400

Music (I use a Dell DJ 20)
1. Journey
2. The Smiths
3. Hall & Oats
4. Duran Duran
5. Various 1970's

I think that completes the lists for this month. I could throw in Video Games, but I've only been playing Sims 2 sporadically, most of my other free time is spent on school work. :)

New Template

After much searching I finally found a template I really like. I picked it up from Free Blogger Templates There are some very nice templates there. The templates aren't "busy" as with most other template places I've seen. The instructions are easy to understand if you have any experience with HTML, luckily I used to hand code my old website so it wasn't that difficult. The argyle suits my studious nature. :)

Blog Template

I got a comment a couple days ago that was more a question than comment. I decided not to accept the comment, but instead just post about it so that I can answer as best I can for more than one person. I know from experience how frustrating it is to work with these templates. I'll try my best to answer the question. Essentially she wanted to know how I got my template posted. If I were to try to do the same thing again right now, I would have to start from scratch. I just spent the past 3 hours trying to figure out how to post my own template (as you can see it hasn't worked yet). I am great with the design aspect; put me in front of PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro, and I'll come up with some beautiful designs; I can even make a nice web site, but throw all those Blogger tags in and my brain goes dead. Really what you have to do, once you have your new template code, is to read through your current code to see where to copy and paste the code into. That is how I work it, just reading the code and copy and pasting where appropriate; also lots of previewing until I get it right.
She also wanted to know if putting up a new template would erase pictures and whatnot already on the blog. Well, if the picture is part of a post, in the main area, no; but you will want to save all your links and other postings from the nav bar, this will be erased and you will have to copy and paste what you want there again. The best thing to do is read the help files on the Blogger Dashboard. Hopefully this was helpful in some way.

In other news: My vacation is almost over. It started out great. I got to help my sis move into her new place and got to spend some great quality time with her and my nieces. It was a really nice weekend, and I am so happy to have her living so much closer. I've spent the past few days putting some order into my own place. Aaron and I have so much stuff in our little one bedroom apartment, it feels very congested and stifling. I've managed to keep the livingroom and kitchen clean for two whole days in a row, lol. We'll see what happens when I am back to the daily grind of work and school. I have not done much else. I feel like I need another week or two. I've been watching a lot of Digital Life TV with Aaron; cool show, I love Robert and Patrick. I still miss Tech TV.
What I have gathered from my week off from work is that I really love being at home, a lot. I love having the time to keep the place in order, I love having the time to myself, I love being free to do what I want when I want. If I could figure out how to go back to part-time work while supplementing my income with something online, I'd be a happy camper. First I'll have to figure out that CSS stuff.

Sleeeeeeep

I need sleep!!! OMG! I need sleep!!! I'm running late this morning, because I started falling back to sleep!!! after my alarm went off. It's freezing cold and I've had about 3 hours of sleep and I have to be at a meeting in about an hour. And, I'm sick again. Gah!!!