In about five hours my alarm is set to go off at the loudest it’s ever been. By 10am I need to be in the shower and ready to start the day because between the hours of noon and four PM I’ll be waiting on Stanley Steamer to get here and take care of the carpets. Now, when one pays a company to come in and do….say…6 rooms, you also pay a bit extra so that they can move things around. So please tell me why for the last two days Sean and I have been moving everything out of the living room, dining room, bedroom and office? Because while they claim they’ll move things for you, it only falls under certain categories and if they DO move it for you, it needs to be completely cleaned off. They don’t move plants, they don’t move bulky furniture (king bed), they won’t move wooden bookcases unless they’re cleared off and they won’t touch electronics. Guess who’s house is filled with everything they WON’T move, but were paid extra for? :: waits patiently for your guess ::

I attempted to get into bed around 3:30 because thanks to a faulty alarm clock (Sean) I didn’t wake up as early as I wanted to so I knew I was going to have to fight to get myself to sleep tonight. Who would have thought that an hour and half later listening to Sean wheezing, Bella snoring, and the different paperboys doing 80 miles an hour in a 13 mile-an-hour complex could keep me wide awake?

I’m in the kitchen because there’s so much stuff piled up on my desk (to get it off the floor for the cleaners) that I can’t even use my iMac. I’m not sure of where my laptop is at this point considering the house is in complete disarray. My DS is no where to be found but something tells me Sean had something to do with that, considering his “throw it anywhere” strategy when we started this project. He doesn’t understand that if you’re organized going into this, it’s so much easier to put everything back and get back to your regular life without having to go through bags and stacked up things where you’re unsure of their original origin, but men tend to do that.

The coffee pot is just about done brewing, Karen sets it for about 5am considering she’s up around 5:30 (most days). Today she has a doctors appointment at 9am so I’m sure her alarm is going to be beeping soon as well. I don’t know what to do to get myself to sleep. Usually staring at a screen for a little while does it for me, reading a book works if the screen remedy fails. Unfortunately, neither one is working for me right now. I guess because I feel as though there’s so much to accomplish today. I would love to just start cleaning right now but the only thing that’s really left to do before they show up is vacuum and that’s kind of rude to do at 5am. Both Karen and Sean can sleep right through it, but I doubt that’ll have the same effect on the neighbors considering how loud the Dyson is. With the window cracked I can hear it up the street.

I need to find something to do that will bore me enough to get me in bed. Maybe I’ll surf around MySpace for a while, nothing but uninteresting people there.

The WordPress upgrade issue should hopefully be resolved with the release of Fantastico 3, unfortunately I have no idea when that’s actually going to be but at this point in time it’s not overly important.¬† I’m sure when it’s a mandatory upgrade everything will be processed accordingly.

An issue I’m having at the moment is with my laptop.¬† I’ve said before that I’m looking to get a new one and since then mine has been on the fritz.¬† I’m unsure of if it’s something Sean’s done (since he’s been using it for the last week) or if my computer is slowly crashing but when it comes to the brightness on the screen, something just isn’t right.¬† I have “Brightview” and that only works when I have my AC plugged in.¬† This evening it’s showing me a brighter screen when I’m running just on the battery.¬† I was able to fix it while holding down Fn and pressing f7 but the changes being made in the first place without my immediate knowledge is a bit annoying.¬† Maybe Sean’s eyes started to hurt and he turned it down, who knows – that’s a small thing in comparison to the extreme lag I’m experiencing as well.

So what does this mean?¬† Over the course of the next few months I’ll be banking some extra money (probably just leaving it on my Paypal account) and saving up for a new laptop.¬† I don’t need to spend $1200 to get something extreme.¬† I’m looking more along the lines of a $750 max budget.¬† I use my laptop primarily when I travel, or when I just don’t feel like being in the office.¬† I never use it for graphics anymore because I have the iMac now, I do think using it just for code is more than acceptable.¬† So I’m more than likely going to get something with the same statistics I have on this one, I just know I’ll save a little money considering this particular model is almost 2 years old.

I’ve narrowed my choices down to Acer or HP.¬† Either one will suffice for me.¬† I’ve noticed a rise in Acer machines lately and the ones I’ve worked on have really held up the way you would expect a decent computer to do so.¬† Typically they’re less expensive than HP’s as well.¬† Then again, so is Gateway but there’s no way in hell I’d even consider owning a Gateway ANYTHING.¬† No moo-cow box for me, mmhmm.¬† If I really wanted to splurge I’d pick up a Macbook but I don’t really want to spend that kind of money when it’s good to have a Windows based machine at my fingertips for a much lower price tag.

I signed into WordPress and saw that I’m supposed to do some kind of a manditory update on my WordPress installation.¬† Unfortunately I’m unable to get in touch with the server master for my reseller account so I can’t even get Fantastico updated.¬† Then again, I’m not even sure if there’s an update for it either.¬† I really do need to stay on top of things this year, maybe I should add that to my list of resolutions huh?

We’re staying here a bit longer than we’d originally planned.¬† I really do love being up here and I’m getting to spend time with family that I haven’t seen in quite some time.¬† Sean and I have decided to look outside of Delaware for either an apartment or a house and then go from there.¬† The half-way point for access to both families is in New Jersey so we may wind up looking up that route.¬† Hopefully we’ll figure everything out once money is good enough to make such a move.

For quite some time now I’ve made it a point to be a member of any community I live in. I was always part of fundraisers for as long as I can remember. I remember raising funds for the Drama class in middle school, I’ve also helped to raise money for breast cancer research in high school. On top of that I always sold items for the school to bring in some extra funding for sports and academics alike. Even to this day I donate to random charities around the US. I know that there are other countries out there in need of help but with all of the poverty and other problems that American’s have, it’s hard to give something to another country when we’re just as much in need thanks to the bone head running our country. That’s a different rant though.

You’re probably wondering where this is coming from?

Today I came across a company named Shout Back. They’re a website that runs many different options for you to raise funds for your cause. The point of their site is to have a medium where all of your group members and supporters can come together and get the job done. You can type in your ZIP code and look for the activities going on around you. Unfortunately I was unable to locate any for both Rehoboth Beach and Glen Cove, but that’s OK. I know that my money is still going to fundraisers that are valued throughout the US. You can start your own group or sponsor an existing one. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find ANYTHING but I’m sure there’s something that I’m just overlooking. I was hoping to get around to an auction but that’s ok.