8 Things Friday

1. I finally got my phone upgrade yesterday! I haven't had a new phone for three or four years. My little pink Razr was fine, of course, but the sound quality wasn't that great, and with all the texting I'm doing now, to Matt, my work friends, even my mom... the whole "hitting a button four times for one letter" thing got a little old. So now I have this:



The Blackberry Curve 8330. I love love love it! When I first started thinking about my phone upgrade, I wanted a Blackberry of some sort, but didn't want to pay for internet, which you have to have. But then we got rid of our house phone, and we've decided we don't use Netflix nearly as often as we used to, so we're axing that as well. So really our bills will be the same as they've been after my new phone stuff gets added onto our cell phone bill. Not bad.

I can do Facebook whenever I want! I can Google the name of an actor I can't remember, or look up a definition on Dictionary.com. I can get directions if I'm lost and I can check my email anywhere. It's so cool!

2. This is specifically for Andrea, if you're reading, but others of you might find it amusing. The other day a guy came through my line at work with a tattoo on his upper arm, partly covered by the sleeve of his t-shirt. When the transaction was nearly done, I asked, "What's your tattoo of?" because it was very colorful, and literally covered every inch of his upper arm. It looked like a landscape, with grass in the foreground and mountains in the background. He lifted his sleeve up and started muttering something, then I exclaimed, "Is that from a Redwall book??" and he nodded and said yeah. It was of a badger in armor being charged by a bunch of ferrets/weasels with spears. (Maybe from Salamandastron?) I loved those books when I was younger! And I think it's so funny yet awesome that someone would get a TATTOO of a scene from one of them.

3. Besides the new phone, I have another change:



I had bangs cut on Wednesday! I'd been thinking about it for a while, but didn't want to do it because I would inevitably want to grown them out, and that's such a huge pain. I haven't had bangs since about junior year of high school, when I started to grow out the bangs I'd had since eigth grade or so. This is a change, which I'd been wanting for my hair, but not a big drastic one like chopping it all off. I like it! :)

(Sorry for the expression, I'd been playing around with eye makeup and wanted to show that off too.)

4. Ahh, work. I meet so many... interesting... people there. You know how certain credit cards let you go online and choose a picture to put on your card? Most people have pics of their pets. Today this guy comes through--maybe five feet tall with his shoes on, but rather buff and clearly thought he was spiffy by the way he talked and carried himself. Wore a nice, preppy-looking button-down shirt, kind of blingy jewelry, buzz cut. On his credit card were two pictures of himself!!! One in color where he was smiling, and one black and white where he looked serious and was staring into the distance. COULD YOU GAG?

5. I was searching, though Google, for an older post to link to when I came across a picture of myself on someone else's blog. It's of my first tattoo and includes a mini-bio about me and why I got the tattoo, as well as a link to this blog.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I did put that picture up on my blog, and anyone with a computer and an internet connection can read it. I guess it's kind of flattering, that someone would want to feature me and my tattoo on their blog about tattoos. But that's my picture, and my tattoo, my body. They didn't ask permission or even just notify me in any way.

But I do the same thing all the time. I link to friends' blogs, or webpages I think are neat. I post recipes, pictures, videos, crafty things, anything I find interesting and want to share. I think that's just the nature of the internet, and there's no use getting angry about it unless someone is using something of mine and claiming it as their own, rather than just saying "This is neat and here's where it came from." So I guess I'm not upset about it. It's just... a little odd.

6. Matt's dad and step-mom had our niece and nephews for the week, and we were able to run down and have dinner with them all after work today. Matt's older sister is in D.C. visiting family, and her husband stayed home with the dogs, so it was just "Grandma and Papa" and the kids all week! (Bob and Karen seemed tired!) But the kids had a blast playing Attack Uncle Matt! And it was fun to see them. They're getting so big! Lauryn is 7, Dylan's 5, and Ethan is 3. Lauryn is writing pretty well now, and acting like Hannah Montana. (Sigh.) Dylan is his usual wild self, but more like a boy than a little toddler. And Ethan is talking in full sentences (though when he gets over-excited or you put him on the spot with a question, he seems to stutter a little, repeating the first two words over and over til he gets the whole thing out. Hm.) Ethan did a "stage dive" off the bed and bonked his head on the dresser, but other than that, much fun was had and spaghetti was eaten.

7. I have such long, middle-of-the-day shifts for the next three days, I don't know when I'll ever have time to get groceries or do laundry. Ugh. Tomorrow after work--I'm off at 7--I'll have to run to the store so we have SOMETHING to eat. Sunday is packed as usual--nursery, church, then work til close--and Monday I work 10-5ish. I guess grocery shopping will happen then, but DANG. I hate not having any decent food and barely enough clean clothes to get by.

8. Well, I still can't find the dang post I was looking for! I was going to link to the one with pictures of the old house my relatives bought and fixed up. It used to be my maternal grandmother's mom and dad's house. (If anyone can find that post easily, link in the comments, will ya? Thanks. The house has a green roof, and there's also a picture of a huge tree and an old chair.) ANYway, when I was visiting my mom earlier this week and both her sisters were in town from out of state, we all went to "Cornbread Corner," so called because Mamo (what everyone called my great-grandma) made a lot of cornbread, apparently, and Grandad loved it. Also, the house is on the corner of that street.

My aunt Lori, who hadn't seen the place since she was about twelve and Mamo and Grandad moved to Texas to retire, kept saying how much smaller everything looked. She used to think it was amazing that her mom let her and her friends play in the barn because it was soooo far from the house! But it's maybe 25 steps. The front patio was huuuuge! But now it's just.... patio-sized.

I've done that the last couple of times I've visited my Grandme's (dad's mom) house. The "playroom" with the green speckled linoleum used to seem giant, more than enough for all the cousins and all our toys. But it's just a little office-type space with a big table in the corner. There was a whole world under the big pine tree where we used to play, but there's no way I could even fit under there now. It's funny. I'm not that much bigger now than I was at 10 years old. I've gained maybe a foot of distance from the floor. But it's not so much a matter of size as it is perspective. As an adult, you think about different things, or you think about the same things in different ways. Your imagination works differently, as does your ability to focus. You can't block out the rest of the world so the playroom becomes your world. And I think it's interesting. Have any of you, Dear Readers, found the same thing to happen, when you returned to a place from your childhood?

Post-script
Alw_ays, from your comment on Sunday's post: It's so funny that you recognized the font from my header! It's not my favourite, but it is called Heather, so I had to have it. :) Your links to the yo-yo things on last 8 Things Friday... *shudder* Bag's kinda cute, the elephant... freaky.

If you read this through RSS and don't see the actual page, yes, I have a new header as of last Friday. <3