joining the 21st century

well, my mp3 player died a bit ago. and then while we were on vacation earlier this summer, i killed my husband's as well. so i've been in need of a new mp3 player, and i've had my eye on an ipod. i'm a mac user, so ipods just made sense. i have a dell as well, but the only reason it's still connected to anything is for music downloading and mp3 player syncing.

so my brother has recently found not one, but 2 ipods -- a nano & a touch. i totally covet the touch, but could only manage to get him to sell me the nano. really, the nano is more than acceptable for my needs. and it's the color i wanted, so it's even better :) . but in order to add all of my music to this ipod, i need to transfer everything from wma format to aac format. i'd had the brilliant idea a bit ago to simply upload all of my music from the dell to a thumb drive and then transfer it to the mac. that worked partially, but on my mac, anything that wasn't in mp3 format at least was ignored. and i couldn't figure out how to change the settings in itunes to get it to recognize anything else. so now i'm faced with the option of downloading itunes to the dell & converting everything from there. unfortunately that'll take another 6 or 7 HOURS! i have about 95 hours of music on my computer & i've converted 9.5 hours so far... what a process! i hope it's worth it. :)

but i'm excited to have a working mp3 player again. i've committed to going to the gym every day. i have to get up every morning to take alexander to school, so isabelle & i will go straight from there to the gym and get in a nice workout. i've managed to drag my friend kellie along with me for the past week, but there will be days (like tomorrow) that she can't go. and working out without conversation or music is really difficult. and my favorite fabric artist is making a custom qpouch for me with an armband so i can wear it while i work out. i'm hoping she gives me a discount since i gave her the idea for the armband (hint, hint *smile*).

ok, maybe i'm misunderstanding some of the numbers my computer's telling me. it's still gonna take forever, cuz this computer is about 8 years old, which is about 250 years old in computer years :) . i'm hoping that i'll be able to get to bed sometime before tomorrow :)

now that i have a new ipod, i need to get a new computer that will allow me to upload photos and be on the internet at the same time, and a new camera that will let me take photos indoors. it seems that all of my electronics have issues :)

switched at birth

my sister & i were switched at birth. or actually, before birth, since i'm the oldest & she's the youngest & we have a brother between us. but we completely don't follow the traditions of birth order. as the oldest, i'm supposed to be the go-getter, aggressive, ambitious one. and as the baby of the family, she should be flighty and ditzy. instead, i'm the one who was called "chocolate fluff" in high school, and she's the one with the cojones to ask her boss for a promotion, outlining exactly what she'd like her new job responsibilities to include! way to go!

congratulations, Michelle! i'm so proud of you! :)

rummage and granola

so i love rummage sales. my church does 2 a year--spring and fall--and i help out with the set up every time. it's awesome, cuz if you set up, you get to shop early and get all the good stuff before it goes on sale *smile*. my biggest weakness is cardigans. i have SO MANY cardigans, and they're totally awesome! i love "old lady" cardigans with pearl buttons and "mr rogers" cardigans (for christopher, of course *smile*).

but this year as i was making a final perusal of the sale goods, i came across 2 boxes of fabric that the ladies had missed. yay me! i found a ton of fabulous quilting fabrics and some muslin and really fun halloween flannel (unfortunately not quilting flannel, but i have other uses for it *smile*). there were some great patriotic fabrics and some autumn fabrics and some really great traditional-y quilting fabrics. i'm very excited, cuz when my sister came to visit for isabelle's b-day, she really decimated my quilting stash. of course i did buy some of it with her in mind, but i think i might make her come see me to get it *smile*

and i made granola last night. i really shouldn't do anything important after 9:30 pm. i'm absentminded during the day after a good night's sleep, but at the end of the day, forget about it! *smile* i totally forgot to put in both the flax seed and the wheat germ and forgot that we were very low on canola oil. so i pulled down our little carafe of olive oil, not knowing that my husband had put garlic oil in there once upon a time. so as i'm stirring, i'm wondering why it doesn't smell like it usually does. so i add more cocoa powder. it wasn't until it was baking that i started smelling the garlic. you can't really taste it, but still! i can't eat this fast enough. good thing the children like it too--they can help me eat it so i can make a batch that's nutritious and non-garlic *smile*