Sunday, February 8, 2009

Enough Already!

Crabby BitchYes, I’m still among the living, to the disappointed chagrin of some and morbid curiosity of others. So what have I been up to? Besides the holidays, followed by end of calendar year work, followed by end of fiscal year work, mixed in with preparing for taxes, mostly I’ve been feeling rather anti-social. I love blog hopping, I really do, or at least I USUALLY do, but reading and commenting on blogs pretty much seemed like more than my grouchy old self could handle— I hadn’t even been visiting icanhascheezeburger.com until last night because I didn't FEEL like smiling, dammit!

Start of a bad dayAnd I’ve been grouchier than usual. Not just in the blogosphere, but even here at home there has been more than the usual snapping going on between all of us. It’s all the damn snow and cold... we’re sick of it. Living in northeastern Ohio, we’re no strangers to winter hassles, but this winter has been particularly brutal and enough is enough already! Unfortunately it’s only February. A few years ago we had another bad winter, not because it was brutal, but because it lasted from the end of October to the middle of May. I sure hope this brutal winter doesn’t last that long, but realistically we won’t see much relief until sometime in April. Whatever happened to global warming anyhow?

I might be unstableEven worse, I haven’t read a book in... Holy Crap, over a month, maybe even six weeks! At first it was because I didn’t have time to read a whole book and I knew if I picked one up I wouldn’t put it down until I was finished. I just couldn’t take the time away from work. But as time went on, I realized that I had deprived myself too long and to pick up a book now would set off a reading binge that would bring everything else going on to a complete halt. Now I’m starting to get the uncontrollable yearning to escape into the pages of a good story and I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. I'm still working on the most excellent anthology, The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance, that I keep in the MomMobile to read when I'm waiting at the dentist, doctor, etc. Lately it's all I can do not to snarl like a rabid beast when it's our turn and we get called in.

A few non-work related things I HAVE been doing though is watching DVDs, listening to CDs, and listening to audio books. My family hates trying to figure out gift ideas for me because when I want something I just buy it for myself. So this past holiday season I came up with a list of DVDs and CDs that I wanted, and between Christmas and my birthday they came through for me (although I used Amazon’s holiday DVD sale to buy a few for myself too). Bugging outNew CDs from Blake Shelton, Sugarland, and David Cook are all loaded in the MomMobile and I’ve been listening to them while plowing through the snowdrifts and careening across the ice packs. Audible.com offered up the first Southern Vampire audio book, Dead Until Dark, at $4.95 so my collection is now completely up to date and I've been happily listening to the earlier audio books in the series while working. I swear that some days audio books are the only thing standing between me and a complete freak-out.

good receptionsNow, here’s the thing with the DVDs—I seldom sit down to watch movies because I just don’t have the patience. I’d rather create the movie in my head while engrossed in a book. Movie Theaters? Yeah, I’ll enjoy them when they stop the movie for me to get up and go pee, or grab a snack, or give me a lamp so I can read a book during the boring parts. People don’t seem to appreciate my PDA light either. Go figure. Yet during my anti-social grouch time, I’ve been not only watching the DVDs I received as presents, but I’ve been surfing through the HBO, Starz, and Showtime On-Demand channels. And I’ve ENJOYED them! In fact, coming up next is a QB's Commentary post about some of them.

I've got a few non-work related projects I've got to take care of too and I've put them off long enough. Computer BashI need to finish clearing out my HP TX1000 laptop so I can send it in for repairs before my extended warranty is up. Remind me to never, ever be an early adopter again, okay? Reading through the book pileI've got to finish weeding out our bedroom closet, and then I need to finish physically organizing all my books, although with the Need-To-Read Beast trying to take control, the latter may prove to be a real time suck since I won't be able to resist reading as I sort. After I've tamed the book piles, maybe I can actually start loading them into LibraryThing. Oh, and I've yet to get around to calling Time Warner about supplying me with a different cable modem so I can install the new router that I bought over the holidays. My youngest demon spawn is chomping at the bit to get on XBox Live and I won't let him suck up all the bandwidth from our current ancient modem/router combo unit.

Not WorthyHave I mentioned how in awe I am of all of you that seem to effortlessly do everything? I mean, I have it relatively easy and I'm whining about not having enough time. I cannot imagine how those of you who truly seem to have a bazillion things to do manage to accomplish ANYTHING, yet you somehow GET IT ALL DONE! I particularly don't understand how you can do it all and still be prolific bloggers. Seriously, this post and the next one, which is a video review, took me ALL day yesterday and half of today to write and pop in the links and pics. I have got to be the slowest blogger ever.

8 comments:

LVLM(Leah) said...

Bev, I totally get you. Totally. Maybe it's something in the air. I've been in a really bad space for weeks now. Like really bad. I'm still managing to get on blogs and do my own blog, but all my last blog posts have been major bitch fests. I have no patience right now for any kind of crap and am taking it out on everyone.

I'm also so antisocial at the moment that I don't even go out of the house for days on end. Although I did go to a book signing with Shelli Stevens and Lauren Dane because we never have those things here in the NW, so I had to take advantage. And I am up north with some women folk friends who are telling me it's all about my hormones. Probably true.

Your blog post tells me I'm not the only one going through a rough/weird patch. Hang in there and at least you're listening to books and watching movies. You could be like me, laying on the couch just staring at the wall.

And glad to see you're back. I was getting really worried that something bad happened.

Bev(QB) said...

I've got to try and do a bit of blog reading. I don't have a clue what's going on with everyone. I'm not quite sure if I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling anti-social or if it makes things worse to know that there are a whole lot of people feeling the same way.

I didn't get into it in this post, but I think all the suck-ass economic gloom and doom is effecting everyone too. And that's on top of the winter weather- even you guys have had some sucky weather this year, haven't you?

That is so cool that you got to a booksigning. I have to do some traveling to get to most of them too.

Oh, and if you feel like laying on the couch staring at the wall, I say go for it. Screw it, sometimes we all have to just shut down for a while.

JenB said...

It lives! And speaks! ;)

I've been kind of antisocial lately too. AND I've been reading historical romances. The earth has shifted on its axis and hell has frozen over. I know. It shocks me too.

I haven't been able to comlpetely get away from blogging, but I have been pretty lazy about it lately. No reviews. I've mostly just been posting questions and requests for recommendations, which forces the commenters do all the work for me. :)

As I told Leah in response to a similar post a while back, I'm just a really good faker. I'm good at throwing together some half-assed stuff at the last minute and making it look like I tried...even though I really didn't try. Shhhhh. Don't tell anyone.

JenB said...

P.S. You need to head over to Lisabea's blog ASAP, if you haven't already. She had some big news on Friday.

Bev(QB) said...

AHA! So YOU are the reason for this fucked-up weather! Get back to reading some manlove smut so the earth's axis will realign, will ya?! GEESH!

And I give you props, Jen. You blog when you blog and you don't seem to have any blog guilt about it. Of course, you're also Twittering or tweating or whatever the hell you cool girls call it. I joined but got so confused trying to figure out how to find people and how to follow conversations that I never went back. This is also why I don't hang out in Yahoo groups. Sometimes you CAN'T teach an old dog new tricks I guess.

And I just popped over to LB's place. I knew the book was coming out very soon but for some reason didn't remember just when. Am I the only blogger not secretly (or not so secretly) aspiring to be a published author?

JenB said...

Bev - I used to have lots of blog guilt, but I finally found my "flow" and now I do an average of two posts a week, which seems to work for me. Honestly, I don't always have something to say...and if you don't have anything to say, why blog about it?

Yes, I believe my new reading habits are responsible for the crazy weather. And possibly the economy. My latest post was a request for historical romances that feature pregnancy. Frightening. O_O

LVLM(Leah) said...

Am I the only blogger not secretly (or not so secretly) aspiring to be a published author?

Nope, I don't want to be a writer either. Just a critic... :D

By the way Bev, you give me hope that I can walk away from my blog and other blogs and get myself together, which would mean getting off the computer, less reading and more walking and exercising. I just might do it now. Walk away for a while. You've inspired me greatly. :D

Bev(QB) said...

I think Jen's got the right attitude. I MUST keep reminding myself that cyberlife should NOT take precedence over real life; that if I find I'm NOT getting things done in real life because I don't want to miss something in cyberlife or feel obligated to cyberlife, then I need to step back and re-prioritize.

Blogging should only be done because it's FUN or a creative outlet. I've got to make that my new mantra. Once blogging and/or following blogs starts to feel like an obligation, I'm going to make a point of taking a break again. Only hopefully not for so long.

Course now you've got me Twittering. We'll see how long I last on there before I'm totally lost.