| I gots Torchwood epis!!! |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|02:33 pm] |
Ah, hubby is the best! I started watching Torchwood a few weeks ago and get the DVD's through Netflix. He must've noticed me always impatiently waiting for the next DVD in the set, and yesterday he presented me with a USB stick with the complete seasons 1 and 2 on it! I don't know where he downloaded them from, but I was soooo happy - since I've so far only made it to the first two epis of season 2. Netflix is a great service, but it's still a slow process to watch an entire season of something that way. So now I don't have to wait anymore! I'm foreseeing an early night for the kids and a marathon of TW for me tonight *G*
Now all I need is Children of the Earth. Too bad I don't get BBC or BBC America. I've seen loads of blogging about it on LJ these past few days, and they sound like slamming episodes so far!
Oh well, eventually.....
That reminds me: How do you like it so far, Germankitty? |
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| Home alone - HOME ALONE! |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|12:36 pm] |
Wow, I'm actually having a few hours all to myself today! I'm ecstatic! I usually only have some actual solitude late at night when the kids are in bed, but by then I'm usually tired from a long day and can't really enjoy it. Now hubby just took the kids to the mall where he's meeting his mother who will take care of Baby Daniel while he and Alex Jr. are seeing Transformers II.
THAT MEANS I'LL HAVE AT LEAST 3-4 HOURS TO MYSELF!!!
Time alone during the day - a luxury I haven't had since before Baby Daniel was born! YAY!!
Speaking of being born - I'm guesstimating that I have about 6 weeks left until Baby Angelina is going to be here. I'm big, round and clumsy, I have swollen legs and I'm short of breath every time the weather gets humid. This is DEFINITELY going to be my last baby!
I'm going to throw myself on the couch now with sandwiches and soda, watch a movie, chat on IM, read some stories and write some e-mails I meant to catch up on. And maybe, just maybe, I'll even get some motivation to work on one of the WIP's that I've neglected forever. But no promises there, because I might just fall asleep instead.... |
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| Birthday greetings!!!! |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|12:26 pm] |
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GERMANKITTY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, I'm no good with the glittery, fancy writing, but I DID manage to find a nice pic for you...
That also shows my newest fandom obsession *g* |
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| OMG, Eiji!! |
[Mar. 26th, 2009|08:40 pm] |
Wow, after an eternity I have checked Masayuki Deai's blog again and this is his newest picture!
What a difference hair can make! He's still handsome........(but he was *gorgeous* as Takaoka Eiji in Boukenger!) |
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| Wow, I actually get to do a meme! |
[Mar. 13th, 2009|09:40 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | meme | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  good | ] |
I haven't posted anything here in ages!!!! And I blame it all on my kids ;) (nice to have someone to put the blame on who can't defend himself)
So I saw this meme on Cmar's journal and considered myself tagged.....
01. Make a list of 5 things you can see:
Laptop, kid running back and forth while babbling, glass of Mountain Dew, leftover dishes in the sink, coconut cookies.
02. Would you ever get plastic surgery?
Most likely not. I'm still mulling over Lasix surgery, though.....
03. What was the last video you watched on youtube?
Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, Act 3
04. What's your occupation?
Until 2 years ago it used to be hotel concierge, now I'm a stay-at-home mom. Concierge was easier.....
05. Do you nap a lot?
I try to nap when Baby Daniel naps, sometime it works, sometime it doesn't.
06. What was your first car?
A used Mazda 323 with peeling *gold* paint. We used to call it "Brösel" *crumb* because of that.
07. What's your current fandom/obsession/addiction?
I don't get to watch a lot of TV anymore. Power Rangers Jungle Fury was pretty good. I am starting to like above mentioned Shinkenger, and I am planning on at least catching up on PR RPM.
Oh, and Robin Hood 2006! It's a BBC show, so I've rented both seasons on Netflix, and am impatiently awaiting season 3!
08. What was the last thing you ate today?
Dinner was Beef Burritos with a variety of toppings. It was supposed to have red rice on the side, but I burned that :(
09. What was the last text message you received?
A cute 'how ya doing?' text from a good friend in Las Vegas.
10. What websites do you always visit when you go online?
Half a dozen freelance translator portal sites *to try to snag a translation job or two*, LiveJournal *whenever I can make it*, Tagesschau.de *German news show*, and personal e-mail sites.
11. What was the last thing you bought?
Groceries and a pair of new slacks for Alex Jr.
12. What are you listening to right now?
The sounds of killing and maiming from Alex's Halo Wars videogame, liberally interrupted with Baby Daniel's comments. (Yeah, I know, I'm raising my kids to be killers)
13. If you could pick another name for you, what would it be?
When I was younger, I didn't like my name very much, but now I'm so used to it I wouldn't want another one. Besides, people call me 3 different versions of it anyways.....
14. What is your zodiac sign?
Aries
15. What is your favorite weather, and why?
Sunny, but not too hot. Just the right weather to hang out outside.
16. If you could play any musical instrument, which one would you play?
I used to have piano lessons as a kid, but don't retain much of it. I wouldn't mind trying my hand at guitar.
17. Do you have any siblings?
A 16 year younger sister.
18. What's something you'd like to say to someone right now?
I'd like to tell my husband's supervisor a few things that are not fit to be put into print on a public journal site. (Don't ask, it's a long story.....)
19. Shower or bath?
Baths, preferably in a jacuzzi tub with vanilla scented bubble bath.
20. Say something to the person who tagged you:
Hi Cmar, I'm so sorry about my way-too-few e-mails lately. Hope you're doing better, sweetie!! |
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| As if I didn't have enough addictions already |
[Nov. 20th, 2008|08:30 pm] |
I have discovered a new show! It's the latest Robin Hood incarnation called Robin Hood 2006 from the BBC. It's horribly inaccurate from any historical point of view, has incredibly gullible bad guys, every single guard of Nottingham Castle is plain out incompetent (how many men with bows and arrows does it take to shoot a man off a horse as he's charging towards them? Apparently at least 12, and still none of them hit him! LOL), Robin Hood with his 12th century bow and arrow could easily outshoot any modern day expert SWAT sniper with a laserscope, the storylines are predictable, and the dialogues are so hilariously cliche sometimes that all you can do is shake your head and laugh.
I LOVE IT!!!!!!!
The action is awesome, Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne are smoking H.O.T. And if you don't believe me, just look at these:
(the leather, oh the black leather!!)
And while the Robin/Marian dynamics are very well done in the show, my slashy fangirl brain has of course already honed in on my own OTP of the show: Robin and his utterly loyal former manservant Much.
Much's love and devotion are so obvious it's poignant.He told Robin in the pilot episode that he loved him and I was hooked from then on. Poor Much, they have absolutely no future together for so many reasons, and that has implanted a plot bunny into my head that is so stuck there that the only way to get it out is to write the story. But when, oh when??? Maybe Santa will bring me an extra dozen hours of writing time this Christmas.
Oh well, there's always 2am..... |
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| Happy Halloween! |
[Oct. 31st, 2008|12:24 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
Just a quick post to wish a great and fun Halloween to everyone on my friends list!!!!!!!!!!
*Oh, and thank you, Dagmar, for that hilarious card!! Gave me a good chuckle :) * |
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| Snowstorms in October? |
[Oct. 29th, 2008|12:17 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cold | ] |
Wow, I haven't had a chance to post anything on this journal for months, and when I finally do have the opportunity, it's to lament about having to literally flee from my home and seek shelter at my mother-in-law's house in Pennsylvania!!!
Yesterday at noon the power went out at our house in New Jersey. No big deal, I thought, I'm sure it'll come on again soon. It had been raining the day before, the rain had turned to sleet during the night, and in the morning it was snowing. When the power went out at noon there were probably already 2 inches of snow on the ground - and on the power lines. I called Jersey Central Power and Light at around 3pm, asking how much longer it would take to get the electricity back on. They couldn't tell me any time, but she did tell me that there were a lot of power lines down all over town because of fallen tree branches (it's been really windy).
OK, we could hold out a bit longer, I thought. By the time I picked up Junior from school, the snow and wind were getting pretty bad, and I was hoping that there'll be power again before it gets dark. Just to be on the safe side, though, I figured I'd go to Wal-Mart and pick up spare batteries, candles and another lantern.
Wal-Mart - and all the stores around it - was closed due to power outage!
Thankfully, Lowe's was on backup generator power and had lanterns and batteries for sale. Made our way back home again (the traffic was a MESS by then), and had cold sandwiches in our now quickly cooling house. Still no news from the power company as to when anything would be back up.
By 7pm, we were sitting in our living-room with candles and lanterns all around, wearing multiple layers of clothes and blankets, and playing cards and reading. Junior actually thought it was kinda cool. Baby had a pretty good time, too. And me - I was just hoping that my cell phone charge was going to hold up until the next day.
By the time hubby got home at 9.30pm, all novelty had worn off for me, especially since I had to use a teapot warmer and half a dozen tealights to warm up everything from Baby's dinner to hot chocolate to keep warm.
And during the night it got so cold that we all slept in one bed with all kinds of blankets and comforters. Not as nice as you might think, especially when there are two kids who move around A LOT while sleeping.
And everyone's nose was running this morning. Hubby went to work, and I went back on the phone with the power company, still no news on when the power can be restored. That did it for me, and I packed the kids and enough stuff for a sleepover and escaped to my mother-in-law's house in Pennsylvania. So that's where we are right now, no idea how long we'll be here, but I'm not going back until the electricity is back on and I can heat my house again and cook some food. It's been over 24 hours already, and while I understand that the snowstorm caught everyone by surprise, I can't fathom why they can't even give me an update on our outage yet. I know they've worked hard since yesterday, but it can't be that many more downed lines anymore. And on the way to the highway, I didn't see any downed power lines anymore. So why can't they come down our little street yet?
Our first taste of winter in New Jersey. Not very encouraging. |
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| HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CAMILLE!!!! |
[Sep. 20th, 2008|11:54 pm] |
A HUGE Birthday hug to you, my dear friend!!! I wish that we could talk more often these days, but just remember that you have an open invitation to come to New Jersey anytime!!!!!
And here are some more well-wishers:
 |
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| Wedding picture |
[Aug. 1st, 2008|07:51 pm] |
Wow, I actually got to spend 10 undisturbed minutes in front of my computer, so I'm going to try to put up that wedding Sari picture I've been talking about a few weeks ago. Here goes...
Thanks to Camille and Patty for their tips on inserting images :)
P.S. Disregard the date on the pictures. My camera's automatic date is messed up. The wedding's actually been 3 weeks ago. |
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| It is done, it is finally done! |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|01:05 am] |
Wow, these past few days - since Sunday to be exact - have been crazy hectic!
The best news first: We got our house! Finally! The deal is done, the papers are signed, and the bank has approved everything. We ran around like crazy Monday and Tuesday, including late night trips to our lawyer's house, but it was all worth it. This morning we got the keys to our new home! :) SQQUUUEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
So now we've got two days of painting and cleaning ahead of us, and on Saturday we're moving!
Camille, I'm really sorry, but I haven't had the chance to read your chapter yet, and I don't know if I'll get to it the next few days. But I'll try. ;)
Oh, and if the house closing wasn't enough yet, we also had my brother-in-law's wedding rehearsal on Monday, and the actual wedding on Tuesday. Hubby was best man and I was a bride's maid. We had a great time, and hubby looked exceptionally handsome in his black tux. I got some nice comments, too, since my outfit was rather...unusual for me. Since the bride is Indian, she wore a traditional Indian wedding sari (and looked absolutely gorgeous), and therefore she wanted the bridesmaids to wear saris as well. Mine was turquoise, and I have to admit that, once I was properly wrapped up in it, it looked quite nice. Too bad I don't know how to insert pictures into LJ posts, so I'll just have to e-mail them upon request...:)
So we had a great time at the wedding, danced, and stayed way too late, consequently got home crazy late and slept until almost noon the next day (Baby included).
And speaking of sleeping - better do some of that myself now, since tomorrow is going to be another busy day at the new house :) :) :) |
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| Sorry y'all... |
[Jun. 18th, 2008|12:15 am] |
Apologies to everyone on my f-list for not being very talkative these days. I simply don't have much positive to say, and every day of waiting for this house-deal to finally come to an end makes the mood go further south. We were supposed to have the walkthrough today and have the Closing tomorrow. Monday we get a call from our realtor that the seller still hasn't submitted the last document needed for the closing proceedings. WTF!?! All he has to do is sign the damn form! So there go our plans for the weekend of having a painting party (we were hoping to have all the rooms repainted in one day), and to start ripping out the old, nasty carpet so that we can have wood flooring installed.
Now we don't know WHEN we're going to close and be able to move in. And Junior's Day Camp starts on the 30th. All our planning and timing is just screwed again!
I have a feeling that the seller is dragging his feet because he still hasn't completely vacated the house. When I was there 2 weeks ago he still had a lot of crap in the garage and the basement.
God, I want this to be done and over with! We Need To Move!! I don't care how this guy gets his crap out of the house and where he goes with it, but he needs to get it done!! NOW!!
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Once we're in this house, I don't want to move again for many, many years... |
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| Maybe, just maybe... |
[Jun. 3rd, 2008|12:59 pm] |
I hope I'm not jinxing myself with this post, but we might - just might - have finally found our house.
It's a 3bedroom 2bath, one-story house with a spacious 2-car detached garage and a nice, big backyard(with lots of grass) in Hopatcong, NJ. It also has a pretty large kitchen with enough room for our dining room table, and sliding glass doors out to the (small) back deck. Living room is a little on the small side, but it's got a bay window :)
There's also a basement for storage.
What's giving me hope about this one is that it's owned by a private person (finally not a bank-owned foreclosure! Woohoo!). He's pretty much moved out already, only has some stuff left in the garage and basement. On Friday we did the inspection, and only minor problems came up, most of it cosmetic and fixable. Now we're just waiting for our and the seller's attorneys to come up with an acceptable sales contract. I'm SOOO hoping no last-minute dealbreaker will come up!!!
The location is very nice, too. A quiet street only 5 minutes from Junior's new school and less than 10 minutes from the train station to NYC. Also only a 5-minute car ride to the lake :)
God, please let this one be Da One!!!! |
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| Mother's Day |
[May. 10th, 2008|11:39 pm] |
I WOULD LIKE TO WISH ALL THE MOTHERS ON MY F-LIST A WONDERFUL MOTHER'S DAY!!
Bask in the recognition you all so very much deserve, and let your family do for you for one day all the things you do for them the other 364 days of the year!
He, he, he, my request for Mother's Day was 2 hours of peace and solitude. No kids, no chores, only time for myself to do a few things I don't get to do much anymore. Mainly doing some reading and writing. So hubby is taking the boys out somewhere (I don't even care where to as long as they GO), while I lounge around and finally get some work done on my current WIP.
Yay, I can't wait :) |
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| Oh, Baby |
[Apr. 24th, 2008|11:42 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | worried | ] |
Things I fished out of Baby Daniel's mouth today:
- Fuzzballs, several of them
- A small pebble
- Banana peel!
And the one I didn't get: I have no idea what it was, but he swallowed it before I could get to it. Hopefully it was another fuzzball, and nothing more serious. I was concerned and was watching him carefully for any signs of distress for a long time, but many hours later he was still fine, so now I'm just hoping that whatever it was will travel through his system and come out the other end without any problems.
ARGH, and he's not even walking yet. What will I be in for then??? |
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| house search update |
[Apr. 24th, 2008|10:31 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
So, we put another bid on a house. That makes the, what, 4th house we've bid on. Of course I hope that will be the one we get, but with our track record up till now, I'm not even holding my breath anymore. The first two houses we got outbid on, with the third house the bank accepted our offer, but upon inspection it turned out to have so many problems that it wasn't practical for us to actually buy it. It would have taken way too much to fix it up. What was especially sleazy of the bank was that they tried to hide these problems (leaking oil tank, busted pipes, etc) and wanted to impose a clause that we had to sign the purchase contract *before* we schedule a house inspection. Thankfully our realtor was sly enough to keep the bank's realtor at bay and play ignorant of that stipulation until the inspection was already under way. If we had signed that contract, we would be stuck with a house right now that would need probably tens of thousands of dollars to get those problems fixed just to make it habitable. And none of those problems were visible, since the oil tank was underground and the pipes were in the walls.
The most current house is a bank-owned property as well, and we'll keep a very close eye on their contract clauses, and we're definitely having the inspection done before we sign anything!!!
Why can't we just find a place to stay!?! If this house doesn't pan out, we're just going to bite the bullet and rent a house in Hopatcong. We've got to move on, we've been living with my mother-in-law for over a year now, but we've got to get our own lives up and running again. I need to make a move regarding Junior's next school, and Alex wants to start looking for work in New Jersey.
What really get to me also is that Baby Daniel is 9 months old and his German grandparents have not seen him yet, since we're so rural here in PA that there aren't any hotels around here for them to stay if they were to visit! As soon as we have a place to stay in New Jersey, I'm either having them come over or I take the kids and fly home for a few weeks during Jr's summer recess.
And speaking of Baby...he's crawling faster than the wind, and I can't get ANYTHING done, since I constantly have to either run after him, pry things out of his hands or mouth, or carry him around 'cause he's whiny. *sigh* |
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| Met the ladies |
[Apr. 14th, 2008|09:59 pm] |
Yesterday I met ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cmar and <lj user="germankitty> for lunch in Manhattan! It was so nice seeing Cmar again after nearly a year, and Germankitty is just as sweet as I had imagined her to be. We ate and talked and must have gone through two dozen subjects in a little under two hours. Unfortunately then I had to run off to catch my bus back to the Pennsylvania boonies, where hubby and Baby were waiting for me after 6 hours by themselves. (Thankfully, they managed that just fine)
In the meantime, my resourceful mother-in-law, who had taken Junior to Build-a-bear workshop while I was lunching, kept the bus from leaving until I got there by acting as if she couldn't find her bus ticket. Gotta love her :)
Ladies, I had a great time with you, and I hope I didn't chew off your ears too badly ;) I don't get out much, you know.
Hope you're both feeling better by now!! |
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| So much for the house |
[Mar. 6th, 2008|10:40 am] |
Well, looks like I've cheered too soon. The house we thought we had.....we had already started the paperwork for the sale, but the sellers haven't actually signed them yet, only verbally accepted our offer. So yesterday our realtor gets a call from their realtor that they got a higher offer on the house, and that they are going to accept that one unless we increase our offer. And since we don't want to play the bidding war game, we're going to have to let that house go.
I am beyond upset at this whole situation, and also sick and tired of searching for houses. Hubby is once again talking about packing up and moving back to Vegas (since the housing market is flooded there), and I'm just tired, tired, tired. Of everything.
What's going to happen now? Who knows........... |
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| FINALLY!!! |
[Mar. 2nd, 2008|08:00 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  ecstatic | ] |
Woohoo, we found a house!!
Finally, after months of driving from Pennsylvania to New Jersey every weekend, and after looking at DOZENS of houses in three different counties, and .
after four submitted offers on different properties, one of them got accepted!!!!!!
We are now the proud owners of a house in Hopatcong, New Jersey! It has 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, a huge living room with a den for Alex' computers, a back deck, basement and attic for storage, and a spacious backyard for the kids to run around in :)
It also has lots of closet space, and an eat-in kitchen - which we will have to remodel, though, because it's old and mismatched. No garage, but it has a 2-car driveway, so that's fine.
It's close to the NJ transit train station for Alex to get to work in New York, and even closer to Junior's next elementary school.
The neighbouthood looks nice, predominantly residential, and all the other houses on the street are in good shape, the neighbors seem friendly.
We did it, the search is finally over!!!! :) |
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| Power Rangers Jungle Fury |
[Feb. 26th, 2008|10:32 pm] |
Well, I finally got around to watching Jungle Fury today. Since we don't get Jetix over here in PA, I watched the pilot epi and Sigh of the Tiger on Youtube. Not the best quality, but hey, it's better than nothing, and I'm just grateful that people are posting those epis at all.
All in all I have to say I really liked it!!!!! I have only seen maybe 2 full episodes of Gekiranger and then only snippets here and there, but I really like how they've 'Americanized' it into Jungle Fury. Of course the show has the usual shortfalls such as no background information on the settings and characters (I've had a big flashback to Ninja Storm when I saw the kung fu school, btw), as well as the inexplicable instant acquisition of all Ranger knowledge through the morphers, but we're all used to that in the Power Ranger genre by now, right?
Speaking or morphers: Sunglasses? Very new and very cool, I like it.
I also like the fact that this season emphasizes on kung fu as opposed to many earlier shows where the fighting styles were pretty much just mixed martial arts and acrobatics.
The characters are very attractive, even the villains. Camille's face reminds me of Madonna for some reason. Maybe it's her eyes. And the main villain (Jarrod?) has a nice, dark intensity about him. And I had to chuckle at the fact that they gave him pretty much Rio's outfit, down to the big-shouldered fur coat :)
The first thing I thought when I saw Casey was: Oh my, here's the love child of Wes and Sky! He's so cute.
And RJ is just HOT!!!!! In his goofy state he reminds me of Toby, the record store owner from Mystic Force, but when he's serious he's totally something to stare at - which I will be doing quite a lot, I'm sure ;)
His character is chock-full of potential. I hope the writers won't screw it (him) up as the show progresses.
it is no secret that I was disappointed with Operation Overdrive and quickly lost interest in watching it after a few epis. That was mainly because I liked Boukenger so very much. But for Jungle Fury, I have very high hopes, and I'm already looking forward to watching the next epi.
Oh, and the theme song - very catchy!!! |
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