In My Bag

Would it be weird to review painkillers such as Percocet and Vicodin? What makes me ask? Well, I had all four of my wisdom teeth removed on Wednesday morning. I was put under general anesthesia for the procedure, due to the one wisdom tooth growing in at a forty-five degree angle and being severely impacted. Needless to say, I was given painkillers - Vicodin - for pain management, and let me tell you, it is a GODSEND.

Perhaps when I’m not so fuzzed out from the painkillers and being tired and sleepy in general I’ll write up a review on Vicodin, and how pleasant it is making my healing period.

Last week I went to GameStop to pick up a game for my husband. I had him call ahead and reserve it, because I knew I wouldn’t remember what the game was called, and knowing my luck would come home with the wrong thing, or maybe nothing at all. I admit it, I don’t know a lot about games. Just as with computers, I’m very good with software and troubleshooting and Windows in general, but if you were to ask me the difference between cat5 and Cat6, or ask me what type of hard drive my laptop needed (SETA or ATI, or something like that?), I’d bet you $20 that I couldn’t tell you. Thankfully, that’s where my husband comes in at. He’s good at the hardware aspect of things.

I am twenty-three years old, and I have not outgrown my love for glitter. Granted, I no longer buy glittering stationery or do art projects using loads of glitter (though when my three year old daughter gets a little older I’m sure that will change!), but I am still attracted to glitter, and I have glitter containing products. I have a few glitter gel pens. I have some glitter nail polish. I have glitter eyeliner, glitter mascara, glittery lip gloss and lip stick, glittery eyeshadow, loose glitter (white, pink, lilac), and glitter in gel form. (Thankfully for you and the eyesight of myself and everyone around me, I do not wear all of those glitter products at once! I use glitter sparingly.) Right now I am wearing a pink cable knit sweater that glitters, thanks to it being shot through with metallic pink threads.

So when my mom called me and told me that K-Mart had an awesome pair of VERY sparkly (her words) Goddess brand jeans, I decided to run on over and check them out, seeing as I had my eye on a pair of $53 glitter jeans online, and would be more than happy to have the same type of pants for less than half the price ($25, but with the sale I paid $19).

Four weeks later, and I’m kind of bummed. I have a great pair of jeans - they fit nicely, and have just enough “stretch” material to them to fit snugly in the right places, as well as be comfortable all month long, regardless of water retention and period related bloating and all that jazz. However, ALL of the glitter fell off within one week of purchasing them. This is after they were washed once - inside out, on a cold, gentle cycle, as the tag suggested. I even skipped the dryer and laid the jeans flat to dry.

So there you have it. I am once again without glittery pants. Perhaps I should splurge and get those $53 jeans. With all of the technology available these days, you would think a company would figure out how to keep glitter on pants! In fact, I know that there are ways to keep glitter on pants. A pair of my daughter’s jeans - Gap jeans - comes to mind. We purchased them secondhand from a consignment shop last winter, and they had glitter on them then. Nearly a year later, after many wearings, washes and cycles in the dryer, ALL of the glitter is still intact! Perhaps Goddess should take lessons from Gap?

When burning MP3s downloaded from Napster and WinMX to CD-Rs was the “in” thing, before the days of MP3 players (or at least, MP3 players becoming mainstream AND affordable!), you better believe I was right there. At the time I had Roxio Easy CD Creator, and later, Nero. Well, almost three years ago I got my first iPod, so worrying about CD burning software became a thing of the past.

Until I became really into taking photographers, and thought to myself, “Hey self, it might be a good idea to back up all of these photos!”

So last week I bought a spindle of DVD-Rs, thinking the process of transferring a few gigs of photos to a blank DVD-R via Windows Explorer would be a piece of cake. Right. As if anything with Windows, particularly Windows Vista, would be simple. After three instances of DVD-Rs being “burned” only to show up blank or corrupted, I decided to try out CD burning software once again. I went right to Nero.

Nero 8.0 was easy to install, easy to configure, and most definitely easy to use! I haven’t done any type of media CDs or DVDs, but I would imagine they would be as simple and straightforward as a data DVD was. With Windows Explorer I had to wait for it to format the DVD, pull its head out of its ass, and then take three to four HOURS (I am not exaggerating). With Nero 8.0, I waited four to seven minutes.

In summary, I would definitely recommend Nero for your CD/DVD burning and ripping needs.

My grandfather is in a nursing home. Currently there are some legal issues surrounding him being there, including a so-called “guardianship” who hasn’t been paying his bills and has been busy threatening my mom with severing all ties between her and my grandfather if she “interferes” in any way. Sigh. But, that is hopefully being worked out… Anyway, I thought I would tell you guys about bettercaring.com. It seems like a great resource for anyone who is facing the decision of placing themselves or a loved one into a nursing home or other elderly care residence. In addition to general information, tips and advice, there is a community and message board, which is great for sharing personal experiences and asking questions with one another.

For those of you who get photo Christmas cards done, where are you getting them done at? My husband and I are planning to go to The Picture People on Thursday or Friday and have a family portrait done, and then order Christmas cards right then and there. It may be a little costly, but the convenience is worth it to us.

I have clothing in mind for Christmas. Not necessarily port authority clothing, but clothing nevertheless. My youngest brother loves what he calls “swishy” pants, and my oldest brother has been asking my mom for this ridiculously expensive hoodie for the past few weeks. I told my mom to get some sweat suits for Alyssa and Ryan, as those are two articles of clothing that they don’t have.
We’ll probably do most of our clothing shopping at Target and The Children’s Place. Where do you buy clothes at?