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OK, so I’m just a few days late on my Macro Monday, again. As I mentioned in a previous post, there’s been a lot on my mind. Plus I’ve been busy doing some design work for a fellow photographer, and another for a fellow blogger. I can definitely say I’m busy, and within a matter of days I feel like I’ve started to slip behind on everything - oops. I’ll get caught up.. I will, I promise. I just have to.

I have made a little time here and there to concentrate on some painting, which inspired my shot for this week. At this point, I could use a really good vacation. Know of any vacation deals?

It’s hard to believe it, but between my addiction to taking pictures and my husband’s addiction to computer games, we’ve almost reached capacity on my old external hard drive. It’s nothing unusual for me to take over a hundred pictures a day, which eventually adds up to thousands fairly quickly so it’s really no surprise that we’ve used up so much space so fast. We only had 150GBs on it to start with. What makes things worse, is that at this time we’re sharing a computer and I’m doing a lot of design work on the side. I really don’t want to overload my husband’s computer with all of my stuff when I know I’m going to have my own system again soon.

I’ve been wanting a new external hard drive for a couple of months now, ever since I got my new camera. I’d been in a slump with my photography for a bit so I wasn’t really worried about the storage issue, but now that I have a camera again, I’m taking more and more pictures. I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before I run out of space on my old external hard drive, entirely. My husband has mentioned that he’s planning on buying a new one for me, as an early birthday present so I’ve decided to start pricing them. And this time, you better believe I’m going to get more bang for my buck, so I’m going to start by checking out the weekly deals at Buy.com. We paid $140 for our 150GB external hard drive. I’ve just found a 500GB external hard drive for a great price - $104.99, and comes with free budget shipping. That’s more than 3 times as much space. As a photographer that takes as many pictures as I do, having a lot of storage space is important so having an extra 500GBs of storage space for such an awesome price is fantastic.

If you’re running out of storage space on your hard drive, or external hard drive like me, Western Digital’s 500GB external hard drive is a great solution. Just think of all of the photos, videos, music, movies or even games you’ll be able to store on it. It’s compatible with PC’s running Windows 2000, XP and Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later. It’s small enough to sit on your desk without taking up a ton of space. Great news for me because my desk is super tiny to begin with, with very little space for much of anything, even with a flat screen monitor. This will make a great addition to my own home office!

It’s sleek, it’s small, it’s affordable, and it gets the job done. What more could I ask for?

It’s official, I absolutely hate my Ford Escape. Not only for the fact that it guzzles gas, but because it’s been getting recall after recall since we bought it, and we’ve had some other “issues” with it for a couple of years now. Last week it started this annoying sputtering and jerking. I figured it was just because we hadn’t driven it much, but oh no, it couldn’t be that simple. A day after the sputtering started, we decided to do a test drive around the harbor. It continued to sputter, but the engine light lit up. “Well that’s just great..” I thought to myself. We took her in for an inspection today and though I’m happy it isn’t the engine itself, I’m still bummed that we’ll be forking out nearly $500 to fix two center coils and replacing all of the spark plugs. That’s highway robbery..! LOL. Seriously though, what makes this such an annoying “fix” is that you have to remove the manifold to get to the daggum spark plugs - in short, you can’t really fix it yourself unless you know how to do that. Jo can’t do it, neither can Terry and besides, I would rather have a professional do it anyway.

This really frustrates the mess out of me. We have the money to fix it.. but we don’t have the money to fix it. If that makes sense? Ha, ha. We can afford it but we really need the money for other things. I hate having to fork out such large amounts of money at one time.

What a crappy last few days. I have some design work to catch up on though, so I’m going to get back to it.

Bahhhlahhh.

I spoke to my mom the other day and was informed that Tammy, her roommate, will be having surgery - a biopsy - on her right breast. I’m not sure if I wrote an entry after it happened, but Tammy fell at work about a month ago. The fall left her with some pretty horrible bruises and a sprained wrist. Last week Tammy decided to head to the doctor to let him have a look at the bruise on her left breast which had started to bleed and hadn’t really done much healing. It’s a good thing she went because he ordered a mammogram, which allowed them to find the 3 lumps in her right breast. Some of you may recall my mentioning Tammy’s sister Diane and how she died nearly 4 years ago - breast cancer. Two of the lumps weren’t really much of a concern but the third lump is a definite concern. She’s supposed to have the biopsy sometime this week, so if you all do any praying or anything of the sort.. keep her in them. I’m hoping and praying it isn’t anything to worry about.

I’ve also managed to get some kind of allergic reaction to something. Maybe it’s all of the fresh air I’ve gotten the last 2 days? Since hearing about Tammy, I’ve just sort kept to myself and been outdoors doing a lot of thinking.

My apologies for delays in emails to those of you that have contacted me recently. I’m working through them all now, so you should hear from me shortly if you haven’t already.

I’m a day late, sorry!

Congratulations to Ally! She was the randomly chosen winner for my handbag contest. I used Random.org to generate a single number from 1 - 207 (the number of comments on the entry). Had it selected a number that was a duplicate comment (I’m pretty sure there were a couple of those), I would’ve regenerated a new number. That wasn’t the case, it selected comment number 23 - Ally. So again, congratulations on your win. I’ll be contacting you shortly, for a shipping address.

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I have my laptop picked out and though I’m sad that the tablet notebook only had a 12″ display, I’m still excited about the one I’m getting. I was able to upgrade to 3gbs of ram, which was pretty neat. The only thing I’m not sure about is that it comes with Vista. I’ve heard so many horror stories about Vista (anyone using it, please offer your opinions), so I’m a little weary about it. Ah well, I’m sure it’ll be OK. Besides, I’m just grateful to be able to get this laptop - I’m definitely a “lucky” girl, who generally doesn’t have much luck at all. It’s something I’ve wanted, and somewhat needed for years now. It’ll be nice being able to use it in other areas of the house besides the “office.” It’ll also be nice having a laptop when we travel.

Jo’s sort of jealous that I’m getting laptop though. Why? I have no idea, I mean it isn’t like he didn’t get a new computer last Summer. A suped up computer at that!

I want a massage chair. I’ve been waking up with kinks in my back and neck for a few weeks now, and I really think something like that would help work out those kinks. Besides, even if I didn’t have kinks in my neck and back, it would still be nice to enjoy a massage every once and a while. I can’t even recall the last time I had a good ol’ massage.

You know, I could’ve used a massage earlier this week when I was down with that pesky cold. I had the aches all over my body, in what felt like every joint, every bone, every muscle - just everywhere in general! I did change the shower head to the massaging one, which creates a constant, gentle beating of water. It actually felt nice against my back and neck.

Back to the massage chair though. I think I’ll go to the mall one day this weekend and give one of these suckers a try.

OK, it’s official. I’m sick as a I don’t know what. My throat feels like someone lit a pack of matches on fire and tossed them in there. Ouch. I’m absolutely miserable with this mess. It hurts to swallow, so regardless of what I’m eating or drinking I’m in pain. It’s the pits, it really is. I’m going to call it an early night here shortly. I have my Buckley’s night time right here, and a glass of water. Hopefully it will ease some of this mess and I’ll get a good night’s rest. That’s the plan, whether it happens or not is up in the air. I’ve already turned off my alarm clock. If I sleep in, I sleep in. I’m not going to complain either way, well, unless someone wakes me up before my body is ready for it. Ha, ha.

They say you should get plenty of rest when you’re sick, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Hack.

I took 2 night time Buckley’s last night, before going to bed. It took all of about 5 minutes for me to feel the weight building up on my eyelids. Ha, ha. I went bed shortly after and honestly, I don’t even remember falling asleep. The last thing I even remember was turning off the light - can’t even recall getting into my bed. Here I was thinking it’d be like all the other times I’ve taken nighttime remedies, where I usually have the opposite reaction. I’m glad I took it too. I’d debated on it for a bit before taking them, but I slept like a baby. I didn’t wake up a single time, that I recall, until 10am or so this morning. I obviously wasn’t bothered with any kind of stuffiness either and that’s something that almost always bothers me when I’m sick. Glad it didn’t though. It’s bad enough having this cold to begin with.

We just finished watching the Penguins win game 3 in the series with the NY Rangers. I’m willing to put money on the Penguins, especially after they swept Ottawa in 4 games. I think I’ll go watch a little TV or something.. or maybe I’ll look at some luxury watches? Nah, I think the new Law and Order is on!

I took this photo a few days ago, when the sky was an amazing shade of blue - hardly a cloud in the sky. It was a beautiful, beautiful day. If it’d been a tad bit warmer, I think I would’ve jumped right into the Atlantic Ocean for a swim. Not warm enough for that though!

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I haven’t done much lately, on the photography front. I’m slacking, severely. I think it’s just all of the stress I went through with the hacking crap, then coming down with this daggum cold.. or whatever it is. I hate being under the weather, especially when it involves a sore throat. I guess no one really says they enjoy it though, do they?

I think I’ll go take something and get some rest. Hopefully it helps!