Summer Blahs and Distractions… and a new computer doesn’t help!

Yeah, I’ve seen a few of you expressing this same thing.  Just a general sense of blah and a disinterest in anything.  Maybe it’s the heat, it’s baking our brains -though, it’s been unseasonably mild here, so I can’t use that as an excuse!  I just can’t seem to focus or concentrate on reading.  I just can’t seem to bring myself to caring about anything.  I turn on the tv and fall asleep.  I start reading a book and space out.  The house looks like a tornado went through, but I just step over the messes.

Here’s the thing.  I was feeling a bit blah-like before I got the computer, but since then, I’ve been 10 times worse.  I suddenly realized yesterday when I forgot to get up and wake up my daughter for her summer club that maybe I’ve been on Facebook playing the games a little too much.  Yeah, okay… so I didn’t go to bed for three days playing online stuff, is that a bad thing?  LOL…

Well, at least it didn’t take five or six months to realize maybe I was spending too much time online, you know.. like it did with SecondLife.  And we all need a break from the everyday, right?  Okay, so break’s over.  Time to get back in gear.  First up, cleaning the house before FEMA steps in.  I did mow yesterday, so that’s good, right?  Or was it the day before yesterday… 

I did manage to finish reading Fruits Basket volume 1yesterday.  I was trying hard to wait until I wrote the review before going on to volume two, but… halfway into the second book now, and I think I’ll give up that plan… LOL.  Maggie made me read it!

Speaking of Maggie, she has a friend spending the night tomorrow, and she’s been involved in a play with the summer reading program at the library for which her performance is tomorrow evening.  She’s excited, of course, and is happier that her best friend will be there than she is about my going.  And Maggie starts summer school on Tuesday, which will set me back into a schedule again.  Yay for routines!

Maggie showing off her long Airhead tongue

Coming soon, I promise… a review of Fruits Basket volume 1 with Maggie’s guest review, too.  She made me read it, I swear!  She may look sweet, but you should see her claws!

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Sunday Salon ~ Settling down… Maybe…

 

Oh man… Today our church had services outside and then a picnic and fun and games after.  Gwen, my 15-year-old, entered the watermelon eating contest and came in second.  She at an entire melon and hasn’t felt up to much eating since.. lol.  Cotton candy, snow cones, hillbilly golf (no idea what that is), three-legged races, sack races and so much more.  All told, we were out on the blacktop in the unhindered sunshine for about 3 hours, and went home hot, FULL, and ready for fellowshippin’ with Pastor Pillow and Sister Sheets!  Not long ago, after scratching my forehead, I f0und my skin to be rather warm and sensitive.  My arms are a warm pinky color, but my face is a shiny red sunburn. yay.  Guess I’ll be tearing into the aloe plant in a bit 😉

I finally got the bookmarks from my old computer and put them on here.  The kids are being good little troupers and not complaining about the lack of internet.  Someone suggested I get a router to plug into the modem, and then plug my and their computers into it.  I hope it’s not terrible expensive, I’m already a desk and 25-foot cable into it.

Also, since my desk has been covered with stacks of books, which all went onto my bed when I took out the old computer and put in the new one, making sleep nigh impossible that night (especially since Mags had crawled in my bed while I was working), I finally broke down and got a new bookcase… a HALF bookcase, I don’t intend on filling it… nope, no way… nuh uh!  But, within 24 hours, it had been claimed by someone else.

Wait, THAT'S not on my TBR pile!

Well, I’m hoping for a better week of reading and looking forward to maybe settling back down into a routine, again.  I’m also wondering if maybe I should go through Mt. TBR and being honest with myself, “Am I really ever going to read this?”  Especially if it’s something I know a lot of people have wishlisted.  I’ve already found a home for The Audacity of Hope, which I got last year along with McCain’s book with the plan of doing a post of opposing candidates.  Honestly, I’m not going to read it now, and BM had 199 people wanting it, so it’s going on to a new TBR pile.  Maybe they’ll read it, lol.

I’ve come to a point in having too many books *gasp, clutch pearls!  That’s blasphemy!* where I’ve bought or mooched books I already had, and, if I never got another book, it’d take me at least 3 or 4 years to get through them all.   I should unsubscribe to Shelf-Awareness… lol… but I’d just go to the website.  Too many books and NOT ENOUGH TIME!

K, so now I’ve come to the point in the post to announce the winner of the Something Beyond Greatness giveaway 🙂  And that winner is:  sdechantal!  Congratulations, if you’ll send me your address, I’ll get that out in the mail to you next week 🙂

and now, a video of MY OWN 😀  YaY!  I love my computer, I can now share my pics and vids from my new camera!  This is my dog, Missy.  She’s a Rat Terrier, and her favorite thing in the world is Hardee’s.  Can you guess what her LEAST favorite thing is?

and while watching the vid here, Missy started getting excited and prancing around.  She thought I was saying these things, NOW, to her… LOL….

SBG daily ~ Shar-ities

I’ve got the new computer set up and running and got the old one set up in the living room for the kids.  Then ran into a problem.  Apparently, while my cable acct says I get two lines, there’s only one hole on the back of the modem.  So, either I get a splitter and run 2 computers on it, which probably won’t work, or I have to go get a new modem for in there and pay an extra 4 dollars a month.  Nothing’s ever easy.

AND, trying to get back into the habit of everything is dificult, too.  I just remembered, “Oh yeah… My Google Reader!” and I’ve got 156 posts to get through now, not to mention totally spacing the SBG daily yesterday, Booking Through Thursday and Friday Fill-ins.  And I’ve been spaced out with reading.  I’ve only managed to read 1/2 a manga book last week and about 25 pages of Home Repair by Liz Rosenberg.  Well, anyway…

Today’s daily is the last one and I want to give everyone a chance to leave a link to their favorite charities in the comments.  Be they local, national, or international, online or off, what are some of your favorite charities?

Here are a few of mine:

Emmaus Mission Center is very close to my heart.  At one point in time, my girls and I were homeless.  We stayed at the Emmaus shelter for three months while I took the time to save money and get my brains screwed in straight.  If they hadn’t been there, I don’t know where I’d be today.  Besides a shelter, they also have a girls’ home and a boys’ home, a benevolent center, food pantry, Birthright Center, and a Hispanic help center.

FreeRice.comis a fun website where you answer trivia questions and win a  grain of rice per correct answer.  The rice you win will then be donated to help fight starvation around the world.  Sammi, my oldest introduced the site to me, and I can tell you, from experience, that there is a maximum number of correct answers a day, but it takes like 3 or 4 hours to get there.

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation is a great example of how kind acts can be contagious.  On this site you’ll be able to get ideas of things you can do, as well as report the good deeds you yourself have done.  You can also get together a team.

Feeding America, formerly America’s Second Harvest, uses monetary donations to buy food and get the food to local food banks where it can be distributed to those in need.  Whereas FreeRice.com is global, Feeding America, as the the name implies, is a domestic charity.

I have so many more charity links, but they are on the old computer and I haven’t even started the process of transferring the data yet.  But now you can help out your favorite charities by sharing a link to them so we can all check them out.