#352 empty house, fun with the 'rents, and I learn that I'm not a computer genius

My house was so quiet today. Mom and Dad left this morning. Lizzie and Jeff left in a hurry on Sunday; Jeff's father passed away unexpectedly on Sunday afternoon. So sad. :( I miss having my family around. I loved that they were all here for Christmas. I thought we had a good time, so today was a little depressing for me. The Christmas tree is still standing in its corner, but we haven't turned on the lights. The remains of the Christmas feast are dwindling, though I'm kinda thankful for that! But most of all the house was so quiet today. MT had to work, so T and I were just rattling around doing our own things. He was playing his new video games. I was working on my computer.

See, I've decided it's time to upgrade my computer, so today I wanted to get all my files in order on my external hard drive. I'm especially concerned about my photos and my music. Well, in my enthusiasm, I managed to remove my iTunes library from the iTunes program, so when I clicked on iTunes, I didn't have a library! EEK!! I was able to restore it because, as I mentioned, I had it saved in a couple of locations on my external HD. I figured out how to save the file back into iTunes, but because I love to do things the hard way, I saved the file twice, so nearly everything was duplicated. It took a little bit of time to delete the extras, but I am very VERY familiar with the contents of my iTunes library now. I did a much better job restoring MT's library.

I'll probably set up the new computer tomorrow. I'm sure I'll have an excellent story to tell about that.

I had a really nice day yesterday. I spent nice time with each of my parents. Mom and I went to a movie in the afternoon. We saw "It's Complicated." We were both drooling over the house and the bakery that Meryl Streep's character owned. The film was pretty funny, too. There were several scenes where I giggled a lot. After the movie, we had a little lunch at a restaurant near the theater. We split a sandwich and chatted. I wish that we lived closer than we do so that lunch and a movie could be a monthly event. Still, I'm sure that "things" would come up. I mean, we only live about three hours from MT's family, and we don't get to Pocatello nearly as much as we should.

In the evening Dad, T and I went to the Energy Solutions Arena to attend the Jazz Superfan Autograph party. I got the tickets from my work (thanks Granite!). Basically, the Jazz players are seated at tables around the Arena and you stand in line to get their autographs. I stood in the Deron Williams line for about 45 minutes. While I was standing in that line (the longest BY FAR) T ran around and collected other autographs on the Jazz pennant he brought. There are currently 12 players on the team and four coaches. T got all autographs from all four coaches and I think nine players. I got photos of all the players and coaches.

T collects the autographs and I collect the photos. Three of the players even posed for me! Kosta Koufas was about ready to sign T's pennant when he looked up at me and sort of smiled.


I sort of chased Ronnie Brewer and Paul Millsap down. That was interesting because I'd had the third injection on my left knee that morning, so it was a little swollen and my right knee hasn't completely recovered from the MCL sprain, so I was hobbling. Standing in the lines didn't do much to ease the pain, either. Anyway, Ronnie and Paul were leaving their autograph table and I hobbled after them. I caught up with them while they were waiting for the elevator and I asked if I could take their pictures. They were really nice about it.


Now that I look at it, this pic of Millsap and Brewer isn't really great because it was dark over there by the elevator. Still, I really like the picture. They are two of my favorites on the team: Millsap because he has lovely shoulders and is a strong player and Brewer because he is so athletic and fun to watch. And they have pretty smiles!

As I've been working on my computer today I've been reading a delicious little book called "The Actor and the Housewife" by Shannon Hale. It has helped pass the time while I was saving every little scrap that I thought I should save from every folder on my computer. I'm telling you, my new computer is going to be organized much better than this computer.

Ah, who am I kidding? I don't have a clue about what I'm doing!