i got an email from CBS Sports asking me to fill in a bracket with our same group from last year....... have any of you joined again this year?!?!?!?

i'm game to do it again, but i want to join a group that's going to have some other folks participating, you know!?

http://xangafun.mayhem.cbssports.com/brackets

baj and i like to play the rhyming words game. ok, it's mostly i who likes the game, but he humors me and laughs along.

-ary/-erry is one of the best: berry, cary/carrie/kerry, ferry, cherry, wary, merry/mary, gary, larry, harry, terry, dairy, jerry, perry, query (yes? no?), very. so many! and this list has lots of good names. i mean, seriously, if you're gonna have quadruplets... jerry, gary, larry, and harry. perfect.

i discovered another one yesterday: -oat/-ote: throat, goat, boat, tote, moat, vote, coat, dote (yes? no?), haute, note, wrote.

fun, game, eh?

today i went with -eck and it didn't work so well: neck, breck, heck, peck, fleck, beck, deck, tech. ok, i could only get about 4 of those this morning... but still. not quite as good.

your turn! (why do i think this is so fun... and SO funny!?)

my poor sweetie bear is sick. he's been fighting a fever and sore throat most of the week and we finally took him to urgent care this morning and they said his throat looks terrible and he was dehydrated. they made him stay and take fluids and medicine through an IV and i got him antibiotics from the pharmacy. he's home now, sleeping on the couch. so i'm in the bedroom, "reading."

i really hate to read. i mean, i want to like it, but when they take a whole chapter to describe a man walking to the mailbox in the ice (i got through chapter 1 of The Shack), i get bored. so i did some laundry. i got a snack. i cleaned out the litter box. i retrieved my laptop from the family room when i "checked on" honey pooh, and now i'm blogging. maybe i'll get through another chapter before i end up taking a nap.

funny thing is... i read 22 "chapters" of an online story while at work on friday (oops, don't tell my boss - who left town for 7 days and left me nothing to do). maybe i just like her writing better or maybe i just need all books to be on a screen. i think it's writing style... one paragraph per description... none of this taking-a-whole-chapter-to-make-one-point stuff. we'll see how it goes.

sometimes i think i should blog more often. i don't write in a journal much. i've had the same one my college roommate gave me in 1999 and it's maybe half-full. i write when i feel inspired, but i usually feel a little dumb writing in it if perhaps someone could find it and read it later. plus, i get a little picky about my handwriting, which makes me not want to write, or mess up. i think i should chronicle my life by compiling all my emails over the years anyway. i write what i'm thinking/feeling/doing, someone reads it and responds. this is when i snap back to reality and sometimes realize that i'm not seeing the whole picture, or i'm over-reacting, or i just want someone to hear me. then i feel better.

but i journaled in high school a little more often and it's fun to go back and read what i was up to, how i saw the world, what i was feeling. (p.s., my feelings usually revolved around whichever boy i liked even though he never talked to me and i never talked to him). it'd be nice to be able to look back and see how i was doing and what i've learned in the last few years.

when i read good blogs (http://thepioneerwoman.com) (thanks, sarbro!!), it makes me want to write more often. and take more pictures.

also........ yesterday, i felt entitled to a large chocolate milkshake from mcdonalds. 1) large milkshakes are served in those extra-large cups that are bigger at the top than the bottom, maybe like 32 oz... that's HUGE, 2) the chocolate had hints of strawberry in it... which i'm going to view as "bonus flavors" and not "unwashed milkshake machine nastiness," and 3) i couldn't finish it, so i put in in the freezer at work to finish today. i'm pretty sure left-over milkshake isn't as good as the original, but i'm not going to be picky.

i have found that one of the perfect gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, and christmas (which happen to nearly all be in dec/jan in my family) is the restaurant gift card. people don't want more stuff (i know i don't) and they can use it when they want. it's a special treat for those who don't eat out much or a relief on the wallets of those who eat out all the time. you can get what you want, when you want, and it doesn't collect dust. what a great idea.

i don't get the bitterness that goes with the need to feel "cool" to join facebook/myspace/etc. why does everyone snark about how fake it is and how they don't think they should have to feel pressure to be cool or make a page that's acceptable or whatever? really? are we still in high school? are people really sitting around talking about my facebook page? i don't think so.

i don't "collect" friends, or worry about the number i have, or brag about the number of snowballs that are thrown at me (i ignore them because they're annoying), or whatever. if someone doesn't want to be my friend... uh, ok. that's ok, don't be. i just like to know what's going on with people i know. where they are and what they're doing. see pictures of their kids, see what they look like 10 years later. 

do i care about which pictures i put on there? sure. do i care about the statuses i leave and what they say about me? sure. but am i fake and bitter that i'm not as "cool" as others or worried about not fitting in? um, no. why does it matter? are people really sitting around at age 30 talking about who's cool and who isn't? i'm pretty sure no one cares.

i think it's tacky to not join just because you're anti-cool or too-cool or anything-with-the-word-cool. if you don't want to join, fine, but if you're my friend, i'd like to keep up with you. are we really still so high-school that you don't want to go to the facebook "dance" because you have nothing to wear or no date to go with? no one really cares THAT much about YOU. get over it.