Urgh… Headache

I had the grandmother of all headaches last night. It started around 3 PM. I still don't know what caused it. It was probably my body rebelling against a combonation of lack of water (I usually drink 8 glasses/day, but I had had hardly a single glass) and a lack of sinus-clearing shower that morning. It escalated all day until it was throbbing in my right temple as we were coming home from a party. I hit the shower and advil (again) and went straight to bed… at 8:00.

Lo and behold this morning, it's still here. Not big. Not bad. Just in the corner of my head. It took a lot for me to come to work this morning. Especially since it's absolutely gorgeous outside. Staying at home and playing with Loki seemed like a very good idea. *sigh*

I do so dearly hope I'm not developing migraines.

Organization

Keeping life organized is a challenge for me. I've tried lots of systems over the years. I thought I'd met my perfect match in PDAs, but the teeny screens, cumbersome software and data entry and battery life left me longing for paper. So while I keep my organization neat on my computers (office and home), paper is my traveling companion. I maintain calendars and contacts in Thunderbird (at home) and Outlook (at the office) but maintain them manually based on the calendar I print once weekly and add appointments to by hand. My to-do list is a word document with special sections for Target and grocery store shopping lists. Reminders are a shared task between my phone and computers and most updating is done manually. Since I have a relatively small amount of data, it works well for me. But of course, I'm always open to change.

How do you organize? Continue reading “Organization”

Happy Birthday to Blog!

This blog turns two years old today. Hard to believe it's been two whole years. Weird. Take the Way-Back-Machine and check out some of my first entries.

To celebrate this blog's 2nd bday (and I keep saying blog instead of Jesser.org since Jesser.org existed long before the blog), I'm going to be doing some (hopefully) major updates. I want to add a bunch of pictures that I've taken since the first of the year and some media I've been loving but haven't added… and maybe just maybe some crafts and links and … possibly a new section. But I've got to think that one out a bit. Cuz it kinda overlaps some stuff and I dunno about it just yet.

Birthday Wrap-Up


My B'day was very nice. I went out to lunch at TukTuk's with my mom and sister. They gave me two video games, the ones shown above. I put wrap-ups of both in the media section. That evening, Matt made me dinner, the lovely streudel below and then we just spent time hanging out which was a nice change, because we'd had a very busy week last week. He had already gotten me a present … my new video card (that makes Sims 2 fly, by the way) and we played my new video games. It's not over yet though. We do spread-out birthdays in my family. We're going to go to dinner later this month to celebrate both my dad's birthday and mine and some friends who were out-of-town will celebrate with me sometime this week (hopefully).

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes.

Happy Birthday to Me!!

I am 25 years old today. I've had quite the year. This time last year, Matt and I lived in Madison, WI in an apartment with our doggie, May. Now we live in Denver, CO in our own house with our doggie, Loki. Lots of stuff good and bad has happened, but I think the good has far out-weighed the bad. Or maybe, I just choose to believe that.

I'm so glad that I've gotten to share the past year with all of you people that are so dear to me. You know who you are. I just luvya. Thanks so much for making the past year and my life in general brighter.

As far as b'day plans go, we're keeping it low-key. But we did celebrate with my aunt whose b'day is Aug 2 on Tuesday with a nice meal and Film on the Rocks featuring The Princess Bride. Magical.

The Slow Movement


I am one of those people who I used to make fun of. I don't know how it has happened, but my life has become so jam-packed with junk that I'm constantly feeling rushed and like I don't have enough time to do anything … paticularly the things that I want to do. I wouldn't say I'm unhappy. I think I am, by nature, a very happy person. But I have been let's say … discontented. Whenever I actually have the time to do what it is I want to do, I frequently lack the energy or motivation. I don't like that.

While I was in the Bahamas, I read an article about the benefits of slowing down and taking more time to do everything but really making the time you take count. It spoke of meditation as a way to calm, soothe, and re-examine why you're doing what you're doing. Meditation appeals to me a lot anyhow. I kind of think it might help to counter-act my impetuous impatient nature. Plus (and here's the rushed, trying to squeeze tons into a day Jess talking), once you are capable of meditating, it can replace sleep at a 2:1 ratio (or so I've read). Whatever the case, I don't think it can be bad for me. So I got on our library's website and requested the beginning meditation video. I won't go too much into it, since there are some very nice and accurate accounts of the video on Amazon, but I find it to be a very good place to start. Continue reading “The Slow Movement”

Rebate Game

Well, I got a new computer this past week. We had actually ordered it in early July when CompUSA did this whole midnight madness thing. It's about a $500 computer and we got it for $200 … after rebates, of course. Since we're such geekos in our house, we've always got a pile of rebates to send in because practically anything that's a good deal from CompUSA you have to get a rebate for. Actually, electronics in general, wherever they come from usually have a rebate. We've probably sent in about 10 this year already. They're a pain in the ass, but they won't go away because, of course, they work the way the companies want. 41% of people forget to turn in their rebates. I get a little pissy with all these games, especially when you get two rebates on the same product and they both want the original receipt. C'mon!!!

I'm very fond of places that don't make you jump through hoops for your discount. Usually Target and Wal-Mart (though I hate Wal-Mart in many other ways) are pretty good about this. My theory is that if we all send in our rebates they'll decide that they're not such a good scam anymore and get rid of them … so people, SEND IN THOSE REBATES!

Harry Potter and the Chocolate Factory Extravaganza

Or was it the Charlie and the Half-Blood Prince Extravaganza? The world may never know.


In either case, the night before we left for Bahamas, we hit the opening night of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was amazing, and stood in line with a few folks to pick up our copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a moderate departure from Willy Wonka, made in the 70s. Johnny Depp was delightfully quirky and cool as he showed the well-cast youngsters around his factory. Whatever bonehead drew a comparison between him and Jacko should have his head examined. WW doesn't even like the kids.

The visuals for this were amazing as well. It is a shade darker than the previous adaptation which makes for more rich and interesting colors. One place I think it's got it made all over the old veresion is the lack of stupid songs. There's no “Cheer up Charlie” and generally there's a lot less moaning period. They get right to the story and don't add all that junk. And did I mention Johnny Depp?? Very enjoyable.

Atlantis Resort, Bahamas


As I mentioned before, we stayed at the Atlantis Resort in Bahamas. It's located on Paradise Island, just off New Providence (where Nassau is). The setting is beautiful. White sand, gorgeous water, warm weather, warm water, Lovely. Atlantis, however, doesn't measure up to nature.

It's not cheap to begin with. You pay quite a lot for rooms and for your meal plan (which you basically have to get, because it covers most of the resort restaurants and it's hard to get away from the resort – more on that later – and without it, food would be too expensive to consider eating) but it doesn't stop there. Every second you're there, practically, you're handing over the dough by fistfuls. Everything on-site is ridiculously expensive, so that when you get back to the airport, things seem reasonable by comparison. Some if it, I'm sure is import cost, but far more is resort mark-up. And they've got a very captive audience because it's very hard to get away from the resort. It's pretty inconvenient and as usual expensive.

Not being able to get away from the resort is a pain for a few reasons. First, there's zip for shopping. I don't want to spend my whole vacation shopping, but I do love to find some interesting local jewelry or something to take home. There's not much of that. Gucci and Versace abound though. Continue reading “Atlantis Resort, Bahamas”

Vacation Holiday


As you may or may not have guessed, I've been away the past week (yes, those were pre-recorded posts you saw). Anyhoo, Matt and his siblings (Andrew and Theresa) and I went on vacation to Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. We definitely did our fair share of rest and relaxation and hand a very nice time sampling the various water activities. Continue reading “Vacation Holiday”