April is almost over and we're in a cold spell this week in the northeast. Cold, and RAIN. Drenching, downpouring, wind-swept rain. Fourties and low fiftys for temperature.

I spent most of Saturday trying to get warm since the heating had been turned off for the season. Thankfully, the landlord came by late in the afternoon to turn it back on. I was still not warm until Sunday.

Campbell's stews and soups came in handy, as did my comforter. Bed was the place to be. That was Saturday.

Sunday was gloom and more wind and rain, but Honey and I were warm. She celebrated our good fortune by having a good sleep:

I just hope our work landlord turned the heat back on. It's going to be a chilly week with more rain.

Well, I finally got the taxes done and filed for refunds on my Medical Reimbursement Account and have gone on to bigger and better things.

The Project de April involves my music collection.

I purchased a 2nd external hard drive [160 GB] and am in the process of loading it up with my music collection. My first external hard drive [120 GB] will be reserved for my photos, documents, audio books, and some specialty music or video files.

A few years ago I converted all my albums and tapes to mp3 and burned them into mp3 CDs; some of these files are also on the first hard drive. I also have some of my CDs on the hard drive too, but sometimes they are not in a quality file size.

Therefore, I'm having to very methodically go through my CD rack to rip and log into a database all my CD music and file it on the new hard drive. It is a painstaking process.

The next phase is even worse. I must then review all my mp3 CD disks and check it against my files on the new hard drive to ensure that everything has been gathered and is in the best quality available.

Once that is finished, I'll re-burn a master set of mp3 discs as backups and call it a project.

I also discovered another cache of tapes that need to be converted to mp3. They're all from various Catholic seminars so they'll be easy to add in later.

My target is to be done with all this by the end of May. 

This goes out to my friend, Carol who had a baaaaaaaaaaad day today:

AND, your favorite....

Tomorrow will be a better day!

Whatever posessed me these past three days has moved on so I'm my old self again. Thank God! Just in time for the weekend. Yay!

Somehow I managed to get my taxes done and filed so I don't have that hanging over my head this weekend. Now I just need to resist the temptation to go on an unauthorized buying spree with the money that's coming back. I do have an list, authorized my my inner adult:

• TIME and TV Guide renewals
• Renter's Insurance-annual
• Norton Internet Security - annual, 2 computers
• annual auto property tax
• charities and other giving
• clothing for the new me
• Weight Watcher's Season Pass

This will consume the refunds with a little more coming out of my pocket. The child in me will just have to wait for a little allotment from a recent Trust disbursement, but that money is overwelmingly earmarked for debt reduction and emergency funds.

Hush, inner child!

::SCOWL::

I've been in a pissy mood all day.

1.  Flood. The men's room located right outside my office had a flooding urinal sometime overnight. Someone stopped the flooding but apparently did not inform the management. The flood soaked the hall carpting so much that water was pooled on top. I had to call the management and insist that they wet-vac it up. All day today, even after they vac'ed it was *squish* *squish* *squish* and that will continue all week.

2.  Space Heater. Same management has asked us FOUR times, the lastest through our president, if the shop has one of their space heaters. Four times our response has been NO.  Write off the $30 heater (if there ever was one) already!Stop harrassing us.

3.  Sullen teller. Bank teller with a bad attitude when I asked a simple question about their CDs. Excuuuuuuuse me!

4.  Lazy co-workers. Can't lift a little finger to pitch in and maybe phone in an office supplies order. Two of you are so under-worked that you can gossip and be on the phone all day. When you're out for days at a time it doesn't even cause a ripple in the working of the office. Make the person who's constantly swamped do it. I hope I ordered your favorite pens. HATE!

5.  Incompetent customer service. So, I order supplies and stick some cartons of copy paper on the order. I ask for the total...$700! Woman had a case of paper at $118. I told her that we get it for around $25 and we always order the same brand. I had to call our sales rep to get it straightened out. Nobody pays $118 a case.

6.  Fumes! .....*scrape* *scrape* *scrape*.....*cough* *cough* *cough*  Landlord and his worker were stripping the paint off my apartment door with a strong solvent. From their progress it is apparent he began the job at the end of the day. The fumes are so bad I have a window and the back door open and I can't be in my computer room or living room. Thanks to my wifi I'm able to be online, chat, and watch American Idol and The Amazing Race from my bedroom. But, I'm not happy. Grrrrrrr.

My formerly friendly relationship with my landlord has been strained of late due to a $100 rent increase and his efforts to sell the building. He kept several apartments empty this past several months to have them open for showing. I feel that the rent increase is paying for those empty apartments. The door-stripping project is the direct result of a comment by a potential buyer. Make it nice for them, ok? Like I said. Strained.

It's all PETTY, PETTY, PETTY, and probably a little hormonal. It feels good to vent.

Thank you for your eye-roll.

SLOW LOADS

Life Off Hold has been loading verrrrrry slowly for a few weeks. Life-the-detective tracked down the culprit. The site that crunched my COUNTDOWN numbers has been MIA and causing the delays. Dead apps at bad links can do that. Sorry.

SLOW TO DO LIST

Lifeonhold is currently procrastinating the following:

1. Taxes - even though I should get hundreds back
2. Medical Retirement Account reimbursement - more money back.

The reason? Paperwork! The Culprit identified! Time ticks away towards the deadlines. In the meantime I do other 'dreaded tasks' like catching up on magazines, and even the Gazelle!

WEIGHT. LOSS? [no]

Two weeks ago I did the Weight Watcher's plan to the T and gained 2 pounds. Waaaaaa? I was dejected and so this week has been a total blow-out.

Home-made shrimp rolls and seafood salad rolls on my new platters. The seafood salad-avacado-cucumber filling is a real winner.

The culprit? Me. Sadly. Wednesday starts a new week.

STIFF NECK

Neck has been killing me for the past 2 weeks. It seems that it's part of the same muscular-skeletal problems that give me the intermittant eye, headache, and body aches, and TMJ. TMJ may be the culprit, or something else. Friday afternoon I signed myself up for a 1/2 day vacation, had an ear coning and then cruised the local mall. At the mall I tried a 'water massage'; after forking over $15 for 10 minutes I climbed fully clothed into a machine shaped sort of like a tanning bed with my head outside but the rest of me enclosed. Jets of high pressure water moved up and down my back and neck giving me a massage. A plastic barrier kept me from getting wet. I emerged a bit sore for a day or two, but the pressure of the water beating  on my neck seemed to do the trick and today was the first in about 2 weeks that my neck feels normal.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

The Worst?  Honey is terrified of being picked up. She salivates with fear and then becomes jumpy every time I approach. I guess her few experiences with it involved cages. I don't know if I'll ever get her to the vet at this rate.

The Best?  Otherwise life is goood! She 'helps me' make the bed in the morning because she knows after that the window to her 'birdie TV' will be opened for the day. Lately I've been partially covering her with the comforter as I make the bed and she hasn't been running away from it. She sorta likes it, but doesn't want to be all suck-up grateful or anything. This morning I got a picture: