tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53813712010-01-06T21:52:00.942-06:00Sum Of MeIt's all you get.Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comBlogger813125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-32074314399886653712010-01-05T22:40:00.002-06:002010-01-05T22:47:04.232-06:00Tonight's Important Lessons:1. Chanel lip gloss is fanfuckingtastic and you should buy some. (Color is very sheer, so don't be afraid of the shades. The feel of it is emollient as all hell, but it's not at all sticky.)2. Spaten Optimator. It's a beer. It is very, very yummy. Drink some.3. No you're not obligated to make a sister-in-law a member of the wedding party. Ever. Blood sister, yes - evenBethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-5148869303667977212010-01-04T20:30:00.004-06:002010-01-04T20:47:56.631-06:00Hi yeah sure I know it's Monday and it's Business As Usual, so I shoulda opened up for SBD, sorry. But my morning was spent having the car towed (grr) and then fretting most the day about what migh be the problem and the cost of fixing it. The excellent news is that it's just the battery, which has been replaced with a nice brand spanking new one. Also a new tire to replace the slow-leaking one Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-42762957391981040442010-01-03T19:06:00.003-06:002010-01-03T19:09:38.412-06:00Yes, I made it back safe and not entirely frozen, despite the fact that my car would not start and I did it all by train, which meant much walking. In the freezing, freezing cold. All I've done since my return this morning is cook myself hot food, wrap myself in many layers of fleece, and watch TV and dicker about on the computer. Not a bad Sunday, really.But tomorrow: reality. It begins with a Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-86031798936143323122010-01-03T08:02:00.002-06:002010-01-03T08:04:30.762-06:00I just want the world to know that I'm heading out the front door right now, to run errands, at 8am on a Sunday, even though it's 5 degrees outside and with the wind chill it feels like NEGATIVE ELEVEN. Feels like I should get some kind of award or something.Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-56824924188913167262010-01-02T08:58:00.003-06:002010-01-02T09:13:42.886-06:00Oy. Happy New Year. I've just woken from a very long, very dead-feeling sleep, which lasted about 11 hours and hopefully made up for the sleep deficit acquired yesterday. But I feel like someone accidentally dropped something large and heavy on my head, so it's a trade-off. See, I never get hungover from too much drink, but I do get some form of hangover from too much sleep all at once.Eh, Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-29593698468867389632009-12-28T08:16:00.003-06:002009-12-28T08:19:47.810-06:00Hey, do we want to SBD today? I kinda don't, even though I read those other two lame "Christmas" romances. How about you just tell me what you got for Christmas that you liked the most, okay? Then we can all be jealous of each other's's'ses giftses. Or not, if you had a crappy holiday.And we can all say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Sandy, who is so MIA due to crazy net connection issues, but she may get to Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-4865860623908933902009-12-26T21:05:00.003-06:002009-12-26T21:30:23.079-06:00Hallo and Merry Christmas, did you get good stuff? I did! Dawn sent me the BEST gift ever, in the form of mini-reindeer, all sparkly and with feather boas - little children to the glorious Magical Reindeer Of Wonder, and these hang on my tree! Also, she got me a cashmere scarf. It is both stylish and fantastically warm and is, of course, nearly as treasured and beloved as the mini-reindeers. (Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-7388950399242931212009-12-23T21:13:00.002-06:002009-12-23T21:13:40.600-06:00Lack of sugar, but a surfeit of rum. Hooooooooooooooooooooboy.Merrry Christamsa!!!Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-1049032058334501952009-12-23T20:23:00.002-06:002009-12-23T20:24:05.353-06:00Oh fucking fuckitty fuckall. Fuck. I'm all out of white sugar, and I'm responsible for dessert. Fuck.Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-89987144919840317422009-12-22T19:32:00.003-06:002009-12-22T19:42:35.101-06:00Oh my gosh you guys oh my gosh my gosh my GOSH I totally got to ride the Santa train! I GOT TO RIDE THE SANTA TRAIN OH MY GOSH!!!! It was ABSURDLY exciting. I am STILL excited. There I was, just minding my own business, drooping on a train platform downtown (Washington/Wells, if you care) at the end of a hectic workaday, then CHRISTMAS MAGIC came barreling down the rails and invited me inside!!! Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-69886184609551008272009-12-21T20:43:00.003-06:002009-12-21T21:20:48.983-06:00Okay, so we gots Chas!andChas!and no one else. We're pretty tapped out, I think.I read this Christmas Ball book and was (am!) mightily annoyed by it. The first story in there started out nice and promising: scullery maid is the bastard daughter of the Earl Of Whatever and she's all hot-n-heavy with the Scottish stable hand. (Why the fuck do they always gotta be Scottish? I blame Gabaldon.) She Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-81345979121544760052009-12-21T13:00:00.002-06:002009-12-21T13:11:08.680-06:00Okay, I've been a busy bee this morning, but it's still SBD. Got anything? I'll tell you about the one (potentially 2!) Christmassy romances I've read but first I have to go to the laundromat and then to the drugstore to fill a new prescription because OH MY GOD my new doctor is insistent that my allergies - the ones that've escalated over the last couple of years and make me miserable pretty Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-87509211712141987172009-12-20T19:33:00.003-06:002009-12-20T19:41:59.592-06:00Dudes, I am watching V. The original V. Yeah, that's right, bitches: the original. And though I was prepared - nay, eager! - to giggle without cease throughout the screening, I must say that it's held up unexpectedly well. More than that, it's way better than the new one. And the new one's good! It's just also mostly crappy, compared to this. This is also crappy, btw. It's like a whole crap-to Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-31986022976276211052009-12-18T18:57:00.002-06:002009-12-18T19:01:06.383-06:00Woo hoo! I've bought nearly everyone's gifts. I just have to pick up the bottle of yummy alcoholic beverage for the brother, and then wander around the neighborhood shops on Monday (I have the day off, huzzah!) to find some token-ish gifts for the little Florida niece and neff who I barely know but should get something since their older sister is. but! All is is bought, and done. Many things are Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-82191521592699010932009-12-16T18:35:00.002-06:002009-12-16T18:51:08.679-06:00Holy crap, the little coffee shop around the corner - which is also a sammich shop (and now they're doing dinner and have a French pastry chef, wha?) - makes a sammich called The Ferdinand and I got it for the first time tonight and HOLY JAYSUS is it good. You know when you finish eating something and then you immediately want another one, even though you're technically not hungry anymore? Or Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-13228908157391561012009-12-15T08:01:00.005-06:002009-12-15T08:11:09.356-06:00When I started in my DMP (that's Debt Management Program, if you forgot), the minimum monthly payment due on my Citibank card - and remember that's just one of the cards - was $328.25. Yesterday, I got the newest statement and the minimum due is $10.Ten. Dollars.I'm considering a Christmas gift to myself of just paying it all off now instead of waiting until February. It'd eat up nearly half of Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-55197452406898674382009-12-11T11:19:00.002-06:002009-12-11T11:22:06.720-06:00Wow. I am in a horrible, awful, foul & abysmally depressed mood.I don't think it's the weather. I don't like it, but I've lived with it most of my life and am more than used to it by now.Don't think it's falling on the ice or the resulting injuries. Psht, that shit happens all the time too.Don't think it's work. My boss is out for the rest of the year, after all, and the work itself isn't Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-92129124863784217882009-12-10T20:49:00.002-06:002009-12-10T21:04:55.567-06:00It's like 7 degrees outside. Or at least it was, the last time I personally was outside. And windy. Fucking winter. Fucking CHICAGO winter. It's beastly, I tell you.And yesterday it was like 40s and doing this slush/rain thing, so then it froze overnight and this morning I slipped on the resulting ice floe. With the first step outside. My hand to god, people. It happens every year at least once, Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-16548453596710428392009-12-09T07:59:00.001-06:002009-12-09T08:01:15.943-06:00Hey, this should be mandatory reading for Romance writers. Although, I think they tend to get it right anymore, unlike in the 80s.Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-18996375457439164182009-12-07T20:03:00.004-06:002009-12-07T20:46:09.160-06:00Okay, I've been a busy little non-SBDer. Or maybe a semi-SBDer? I ran my errands, stopped to browse and shop, came home and... decorated!Why hello there, MAGICAL REINDEER OF FABULOUSNESS AND SPARKLE! We've missed you terribly! Do you like how I put you next to the cheap cheesey Santa/Snowman dollar store figurine, so as to amplify your stunning magnificence? Thought you might.And yes, if you're Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-39194780142588311512009-12-07T07:33:00.004-06:002009-12-07T07:49:42.039-06:00Good morning! It snowed here. I woke up to the sound of a salt truck hauling ass through the stop sign on the street below and setting of a goddamn car alarm. Ah, the sounds of winter. But it's really very pretty out there, I must say. Here lemme take a picture.Oh yay - snow means the air is not so murderously cold.So I could hang my head out and take two, see, even though my hair's still wet,NowBethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-8264142282700061312009-12-05T22:07:00.001-06:002009-12-05T22:07:51.314-06:00After a long day of much driving, I am back. With new hair. Yay.Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-72450048102770038382009-12-04T19:29:00.003-06:002009-12-04T19:48:22.389-06:00Okay, I got the neffs taken care of, for Christmas. It's a pile of fun n games, but none of them involve a computer or TV screen. That's why they call me Aunt Best. Or, um, why they should. Now I just have to buy for... everyone else. Well I guess I can scratch my sister off the list permanently, though. Not like we ever exchange gifts anyway, but still. Today she forwarded me some fucking email Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-55377036430294455872009-12-03T18:42:00.003-06:002009-12-03T18:59:05.653-06:00In today's mail, among the holiday junk: a notice from a credit card company - the one card I've paid off, actually. I think the actual card itself is in a drawer somewhere, because you didn't think I'd be using a credit card again any time soon, right? Anyway, this is not one of the Huge Banks. then again maybe it is and I just don't know it, but the name is certainly never in the news so it Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5381371.post-45063687667936950142009-12-03T08:21:00.002-06:002009-12-03T08:30:48.650-06:00After my first forays into Pondering What To Get People For Christmas, I've decided I want to call the whole thing off. I don't want to shop, I don't want to guess what everyone might like, and I don't want to watch them open it. Nothing.Can we call it off, please? Or maybe I can just give everyone gift cards. Except then it's all like "But how much do I give them? Is $20 okay? Or does it have toBethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17425794200989416449Ekingston@gmail.com