I've had a crazy busy week.  As I mentioned in the last post, my sister had her baby.  So, the end of last week culminated in me heading back to Milwaukee to visit my nephew.  Saturday I headed down, and Sunday I headed back up.  Upon returning, I had a major freelance project to do.

The project was a tough one.  It wasn't really the nature of the project that was tough, but more the time frame it had to be done in.  I had all the materials I needed, but I had to digitize, edit, and render everything within an evening.  The following day, I was woken up by a phone call with fixes that had to be done right away.  So, for two days, I was working pretty solidly on one project.  The time crunch made it feel like I was writing a paper for a class the day it was due.  Plus, never fails...when you're under pressure, that's when weird errors start happening that have never happened before.  I got Final Cut Pro's "general error", "out of memory" error, and had to enter the product serial number something like 3 times.  At one point, the firewire port just stopped working too.  I got it all done on time though.  Nothing like an adventure to keep life interesting!

On a completely unrelated note, we're having a kitty problem in the house.  Specifically, we're having a kitty pee problem.  Chris wouldn't want me to blame Serenity, but let's face it, it's Serenity.  She's had a history of peeing in places other than the cat box, and she's the only one with that history in the house.  Anyway, she has been peeing on the concrete floor underneath the basement stairs.  Originally there were some small piles of sawdust down there, and she peed on one of them.  It took us a while before we realized that the smell was coming from there.  We just thought that the cat boxes were rank.  Nope!  Cat boxes changed...still a nasty smell. Chris discovered it and did a very good job of cleaning it up.  He has an enzyme spray that neutralizes the scent.

Unfortunately though, Serenity seems to want to pee in that area.  It's happened twice more since then.  We're trying some new techniques.  For example, today I sprayed the cat and kitten repellent around the area.  We'll see if that works.  If you have other suggestions, fire away in the comments.

I had a job interview this week.  It went well, and I'm very excited about it.  I have a second interview this coming week.  I don't want to jinx anything.  So I'll leave it at that.  Wish me luck.

I've been looking in to starting a new hobby.  Most of my hobbies surround technology, and I've decided that I want to learn something that doesn't deal with tech at all.  I figure it'd be nice to do something by hand.  Working with metal is intriguing to me.  So I've started doing research into metal working and blacksmithing.  I know...hard to picture a girl like me doing something like that, but I think it'd be fun.  Plus, it's a great way to create interesting items, like jewelry, artwork, and so on.  Maybe eventually I could make complex items, like armor or a replica of some historical object.  Today Chris and I went to a local hardware store and looked at prices on tools for it.  It'll be a little expensive at the beginning, but not terrible.  Hammers, torches, safety equipment, and of course, metal.  I'm going to do a lot of reading on it first, so I don't make an ass of myself.  Well, I suppose that could still happen even with the reading...;)

There's no segway into this, but I've been having a problem for a week and a half now.  My left ear is slightly plugged.  My car has no air conditioning anymore.  So I have had to drive with the windows down any time I drive.  I woke up the morning after I drove back to Chippewa from Milwaukee, and my left ear was totally plugged up.  I'm really thinking the pressure difference from the window and the four hour freeway drive did something to it.

Since then, I've tried a number of remedies.  I've swabbed (a lot), tried an ear wax removal kit, candled my ear, tried sudafed at the recommendation of the pharmacist, tried a prescription nasal spray for wax removal, and now I'm trying Mucinex at the recommendation of another pharmacist.  I've definitely cleared out the wax build up that was there now, but the blockage remains.  I'm pretty sure it's behind the ear drum.  So, I'm still stuck with a left ear that sounds like I'm hearing in a tunnel.  It's really getting annoying.  I'm hoping all this effort starts to have an effect soon.  The one thing I'm going to try yet is flushing with hot water and peroxide.  Here's hoping!

Early on Thursday morning I had to meet up with the client I was doing the stressful video for just to give them the final.  That meant getting up before 7 am and driving into town.  I sat through a heavy rainstorm with lightning striking all around where I was.  When I got back home, I went back to sleep since I hadn't gotten much good sleep the few days prior.  It was a good move.

During that extra few hours of sleep, I had some of the best dreams I have had in a long time.  That's right, I was Wonder Woman.  It was a very long and involved dream with me starting in jail...why, I don't know.  Still, I managed to escape somehow.  I saved the life of the President, and suddenly I was forgiven for whatever I had been in jail for.  People were applauding me like crazy.  I remember I looked damn good in the costume too.  I know why I took notice of that.  On Wednesday, I tried on my speedo swim suit.  I hadn't worn it in ages, and I just wanted to see how well it fit me.  Turns out it fits me very well.  I looked damn good in it.  So that translated to me looking damn good in the Wonder Woman costume.

Anyway, I could fly of course, and I remember getting a lot of press attention in the dream.  There was also a point in which Superman appeared.  We fought a battle against some evil robot together.  It was a very fulfilling dream.  I hope I have more like it, and soon.

Lastly, I just want to leave with a mention of Michael Jackson.  I was a huge fan of Michael Jackson back in my early grade school days.  I had the "Bad" album, as well as "Thriller".  I was all about the music videos and I even had the Moonwalker movie on VHS.  Looking back on it, it was a ridiculous film, but I loved it then.  I know MJ ran into problems and was obviously not your average individual.  Still, I will always remember the music I grew up with that I loved so much.  Thanks Michael for the memories.  Rest in Peace.