Well, I am FINALLY starting to feel a bit better. I came back to work yesterday and lasted pretty well (half the day). I had another doctor’s appointment yesterday afternoon. It seems the flu gave birth to a sinus infection.

Lucky me … it’s the gift that keeps on giving!

So I got a shot and more pills. Meh. Oh well, at least now my head is clearer and though I’m still coughing up a lung quite a bit, I do feel a LOT better and have gotten most of my voice back. (much to Jim and Jessie’s chagrin I’m sure! )

I read that the Lunarpages crew are having their final 12 vote. None of mine were included, but two of my design submissions are now featured in their WordPress Theme Gallery, so that’s pretty cool in itself. Entering the contest was more about testing the waters and getting some (hopefully) unbiased feedback on my designs — so all in all, it was a good learning experience.

Though 5 years of free hosting WOULD have been nice … LOL!

Being at home by myself this week, I was reminded of why I stopped working from home and went back to work in an office environment — it’s boring! ;P The quiet time was nice, but after only a couple of days, I was wishing I was well enough to go in to work. Don’t get me wrong, I got a good bit of work done, but by the end of the day I was running out of things to do to entertain myself until time for Jim and Jessie to get home. I watched stuff on YouTube, I played online games, … in fact, this was the first time I played online Backgammon. I used to play Backgammon a lot when I was little with my Gramps. I think if he were around now, he’s probably love to hit up some Backgammon online.

I also spent some time working on a mockup Blogger design for the lovely ladies in the Cotillion that I had started a while back:

It’s based on an earlier design that they used at a previous location (on mu.nu I think). Overall, I’m very pleased with how well it turned out. I’ve still got a few bugs here or there to tweak. It’s harder than designing a WordPress theme, but I think that’s because it’s been such a long time since I’ve played around in Blogger code … so much of it has changed since I last had an account there.

Moving on … anyone got anything exciting planned for the weekend? Jim and I are planning on meeting up with Captain Fantastic and the lovely Miranda tomorrow and heading to the gun show in Bessemer. My Ladies Night Out group is also meeting up tomorrow night, but I don’t know yet if we’ll be done in time to go.

In all honesty, I don’t care what we end up doing. I’m just happy to get out of the house!

I had walked down to the Purple Onion to grab lunch and on the way back, I was reading the bumper stickers on the cars parked along the side. One of them caught my eye immediately:

“Not a piece of (meat)”

I was introduced to this amazing group via Jen, of my Ladies Night Out meetup group. It’s great seeing support here and there like that!

I don’t think they have a “real website”, but they are on MySpace if any of you locals are interested in attending and/or supporting one of their events: www.myspace.com/notapieceof

I left work yesterday to join my Ladies Night Out meetup group for some good food and good times. We all met at the California Pizza Kitchen by the Galleria. I discovered a new favorite drink — Caramel Apple Martini! I wish I had thought to snap a pic before I started drinking on it, but trust me, it was pretty! Take a sour apple martini and add butterscotch schnapps and decorate by drizzling caramel sauce around the glass. YUM!

I did manage to snap off a few shots before I left:

As you can tell, Jennifer enjoyed her dessert a little too much!

Jocelyn prettied herself up (she left us to go out man hunting, lol)

This first one’s a bit fuzzy, but here’s the rest of the group getting a kick out of Jocelyn and enjoying dessert:

I headed home shortly after that to find that one of my favorite shows was on and about to start with a new episode. (Perfect timing!) Also, Jim had gone by our favorite Cajun place and picked up some red beans and rice (my favorite dish there!) so I could have them for breakfast this morning. Isn’t he sweet?

So yeah, the weekend is indeed off to a good start!

* I proudly smurfed that phrase from Mara’s post earlier today.

“People of the net” — that’s you guys ‘n gals, and I love every last one of ya’s!

A couple of days ago I reached out to many of you asking for a vote for my theme in Lunarpages’ WordPress Theme Design contest. Several went beyond that and did some reaching out of their own: Beth and Father Luke, each posting on their blogs on my behalf; several of my MySpace friends sent IMs and emails to their friends and groups requesting votes for me; my coworkers each voted and even emailed their SO’s requesting they vote as well; Jen, the lovely leader of my Ladies Night Out meetup group, emailed the group asking everyone to go vote.

I’m very grateful to you all. When last I looked, I was tied for first — I don’t expect to win, but it would be nice.

If you haven’t voted already, please consider taking a moment to do so here.

Saturday’s event was a LOAD of fun! My eternal thanks to Jen and Wes for letting me invade their beautiful home and to my best bud and maid of honor Teresa and my friends in the Ladies Night Out meetup group for giving me such a wonderful shower. We had lots of laughs. I think I turned as red as my tshirt several times, hehe. We had food, games, and even karaoke. (next time I’ll bring drinks and limber up first!) This is definitely going to be one of my favorite wedding-related memories.

Pictures

Since I was a goober and did not have my camera, I took pictures on my Helio Ocean. However, Alison did have her camera, so her pictures are combined in this photoset with mine:

Note: these pics are work-safe … I only uploaded the clean ones ;P