No thank you, Punxsutawney Phil

The last few weeks in bullet points...

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  Endured another snow and a scary ride home from work. Bad drivers on top of snow on top of ice = me having a drink when I get home. Or at the very least playing with the puppies and then Photoshop. :)

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  Tried unsuccessfully to stalk Miranda Lambert at the new Extreme Makeover house in Tulsa.
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  Finally purchased an external hard drive and transferred the laptop pics to it. Named it Bobby Elvis.
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  Did dinner and Up in the Air with Beth. I loved the movie but hated how I felt at the end. I get ambiguity... that's life... it's 'up in the air' if you will... but it makes me wonder if filmmakers have just given up on resolving their stories. I think the attitude is 'Just end it... it's cool.' Whatev. Two hours of Clooney on a big screen. Sigh.

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  Started work on a tribute album for my friend Sarah. She got her puppy Pedie in September of '08 and he died only months later from dyautonomia. Very sad. Strange phenomena too - I guess this particular disease has really been concentrated around southwest Missouri. They still don't know much about it.
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  In keeping with the depressing dog theme, I did another layout for the Ali Edwards' Yesterday & Today class. It was supposed to be one about something challenging. So of course I put it off. Finally decided to pull this story directly from my blog.

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  Made a birthday card for the girl - my first one in awhile. Used a bow from a Victoria's Secret box left over from Christmas. Love it when I actually use random stuff that I save! Nine... I still can't believe it. When she opened the card at the party, she said 'Oh yeah, this is definitely from Allison!' :)

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  Birthday partied yesterday in MO. No skates this time = no injuries. Yay! It was fast and furious but she had such fun with her friends and did really well on the skates too! Although, she was concerned by the end that she'd broken her thumb. I think she'll be OK. [Dear Blogger, is it too much to ask to center, I mean REALLY center, this friggin' picture!?!]

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  We did some experimenting with the external flash. I liked how this one came out. Chris was holding the flash halfway across the rink from me. Which was cool, except that my control freak tendencies kind of came out to play. Since I had the camera set to wireless flash, I was getting so aggravated that there wasn't a flash there every time I wanted to take a picture! The flash might've been with my 'flasher' on the other side of the room. Maybe I should've been toting both cameras. Maybe I have a sickness.

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  My one and only Oscar prediction came true. Inglourious Basterds was nominated for Best Cinematography. It's always at this time of year that I feel least like the person I was ten years ago when I entered college as a Film Theory student. This year, I was pretty proud to have seen 3 of the 10 nominated Best Picture films [which, by the way, what's with that??]. That's probably a record for me recently.
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  Really really really ready for spring. I've liked these productive snow days, but the cabin fever is kicking in.