*dances the dance of new technology*

So, I've had a Kindle for quite a few years. It's one of the first of the first generation ones; Kindles first came out a few weeks after my birthday, and one of my presents that year was a postcard that said when the Kindles started shipping, mine would be coming in the mail. It's served me well for all that time, saving me from boredom during substitute teaching jobs, keeping people from talking to me on the Metro, and just generally making me a happy reader.

But...I had to buy a textbook for the special ed class I took in August, and Amazon was kind enough to send me a note letting me know that if I sold the book back to them, they'd give me more than half the price for it in Amazon credit...and that just so happened to be slightly more money than the cheapest new Kindle. >.> So, now I have a brand new Kindle and my first thought is holy crap, it's so tiny compared to my old one.

I went with the cheapest one because it has everything I need (the capability to read books and download new ones) and nothing I don't need (I don't want to touch the screen to turn pages, I like my side buttons, damn it). I was talking about Kindles with the women in my knitting group, and one of them insisted that I should at least get the one with 3G, because what if I'm stuck somewhere without wifi and I want a new book? I pointed out that I have 30+ books on my Kindle that I haven't read yet, and will therefore never, ever be somewhere without wifi and find myself in want of a book.

Oh, how I hope I don't break this thing before I get a proper cover for it! *pets it carefully while everything transfers over* Now, I just have to figure out what to do with the old one. :)

I'm trying to focus on happy things, so I'm still collecting addresses for holiday cards here!

TL;DR version: I need a recommendation for an allergist in the Northern Virginia area, or a recommendation for where I could go about finding one.

Long version: So, I think my fruit allergy has gone from "Annoying" to "Completely Ridiculous."

When I was in my late teens, I discovered that I'm allergic to raw apples. I know, it sounds weird, but just go with me here. The allergy has always been the worst with plain apples, but drinking apple juice also gives me an upset stomach. This sucks because apple juice is the base of every. single. fruit juice created except for juices made from a grape base instead. So, I've learned to love juices based off of white grapes and mourned the loss of caramel apples in the fall, but I've been getting by well enough.

Unfortunately, the allergy seems to be getting worse. A few years ago, I noticed that other fruits give me a more minor allergic reaction; strawberries, blueberries, peaches - basically anything you pick off the plant, wash off, and eat - make my lips tingle, and make my throat feel weird. Plus, anything that has even a hint of apple makes me feel sick - I had a quarter-sized piece of apple in a fruit salad once, and ended up having the same reaction I used to get from eating multiple slices. So, I started sticking to fruits that have a peel, mainly bananas and clementines. Then, I moved out of my parents' house, and dwindled down to just bananas, because clementines are kind of expensive.

A few days ago, I had a clementine for the first time in probably almost a year - one of the teachers bought a box to give some to her students during the study period, and she gave me one too. As soon as I finished it, I had one of the worst reactions I've had to a fruit since I stopped eating apples. SIGH. I got home and took some medicine, so I was fine within an hour or so, but I've started watching all my fruit intake over the past few days, and realized it's worse than I've thought. I have a small cup of orange juice every morning with my meds and vitamins, and I assumed that the scratchy feeling in my throat was from the acid. I had some white grape peach juice in the pantry, so I cracked it open and had a glass, and spent the rest of the evening burping.

It's one thing for me to have to give up apples, but this has gotten infinitely worse. I've never been to an allergist before, because my allergies have always been straightforward - it used to just be cats, but when we moved to Virginia, both my dad and I developed raging spring allergies as well, which are thankfully beaten down by daily doses of Claritin. I'm wondering if there's more to this than even I know, but I'm not sure where to go from here.

So, does anyone who's been to an allergist have tips? Does anyone know a good one in the Northern Virginia/DC area?

So, I have a letter and check that need to get sent out in the mail by tomorrow. I wrote the check last night, and put it on the kitchen table with my purse, so I'd remember to bring it to work today (I don't have any envelopes at home, so my plan was to steal borrow an envelope from work and mail it from here). I wrote the letter this morning and put it all folded up nicely with the check. And then I got distracted when I realized I was running a little late this morning, and proceeded to grab my purse, but not the letter or check.

It's a miracle I make it out of the house fully clothed sometimes, I swear to god.

Now that it's post-Thanksgiving, I'm finally prepared for the holidays, and that means cards! The most important thing this year is that OMG I HAVE A NEW ADDRESS YAY. Yes, I'm still excited about moving out.

So, if you have a post where you're collecting addresses, let me know because I am way behind on my flist and have probably missed it. And leave me your addresses here!

Did I really not do a single one of these last season? Oops!

( SPN 7x02 )

So, I got my Pottermore invitation today, and got sorted into Slytherin wtfffff! Yes, I am still boggling. Anyway, I have been terrible about keeping track of people's names, so if you've got a name on Pottermore, let me know here. (I'm StormSeer142 if you want to add me!)

Wait.

Wait wait wait. Wait.

How am I just now finding out that Channing Tatum used to be a stripper? I suppose the fact that I think he looks like he got smacked with a shovel a few too many times might have something to do with it, but still, I've seen enough movies that he's been in that I feel like I should have picked up on this information somehow.

I don't know who else might be interested in this, but the Mediaeval Baebes are going to be performing at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA on September 13th. Tickets are $37 from Ticketmaster, and I don't know what the Birchmere is like, but it looks awfully pretty on their website.

- I think my brother is trying to impress someone at work today, because I came out of my room this morning and walked into a cloud of cologne. At least it was good smelling cologne, and not the Axe he usually douses himself with?

- Getting an email that my father added me on Google+ was just the reminder I needed to delete my account! >.>

- If you live near Chesapeake, MD and are a knitter/crocheter/spinner/etc., I have to recommend Vulcan's Rest Fibers. gblvr, wolfshark, and I went there on our way home yesterday, and our experience was faaabulous. First of all, the store is huge. There's the Main Room, the Room of Books, the Room of Needles and Roving, the Kitchen of Bargain Yarn, and the Back Area of Miscellaneous Notions, which are all organized really well. They had yarn in all price ranges and materials, and the best part was, the people working there were super nice (because that's really what makes or breaks a store). It was pouring when we got in, and gblvr got especially wet since she had to park the car, so they told her she could go into the kitchen to dry off. Then, when we left, they let her take an umbrella back to the car and drive into the back alley behind the store to pick us up. That was all in addition to answering questions about yarn and helping us find what we wanted, so yes, I highly recommend this place. When it's not pouring rain, at least.

So, I realized this morning that I never updated on the situation with my brother. The basic details are: he and the girlfriend are planning on a two year engagement so he can be better settled in his career and she can, I don't know, be two years closer to actually finishing a BA in something, and she is not moving in here anytime soon because I made it abundantly clear that that is just not happening for any reason.

At first, he was really upset that my sister and mother and I weren't being supportive, because omg the girlfriend's family is so happy! So we should be too! Then, separately, we sat him down and explained that a) of course her family is happy, they're white trash and they're marrying their most unintelligent kid off to a boy with a college education and millionaires for parents, how could they not love this plan, and b) that is pretty much why we're not happy, because she's so beneath the kinds of girls he should be dating.

The good news is, he understands why we don't like her now. The bad news is, the things we don't like about her are the reasons he does like her - my brother is one of the most stubborn people I've ever met, so having a girlfriend who doesn't have any thoughts on things that go against his desires is perfect. He said they "complement" each other because he's "stern and likes making decisions" and she's "fun and spontaneous." Which, I guess is the polite way of saying "Brainless bimbo who doesn't have any opinions and is therefore totally malleable to my will."

He's still insistent that my mother and sister and I are the only people who don't approve, but we're having a family picnic today with my aunt, uncle, and some of my cousins. The girlfriend is coming with my brother, so we'll see what happens when my good relatives meet her.

So, every year, my family and I go to the Kennedy Center for the Fourth of July, for their yearly picnic/fireworks watching thing. We invited my sister's boyfriend along this year, because we love and adore him, and want to make him feel welcome, and unfortunately, that meant we had to invite my brother's girlfriend along as well. This is the girl he's been dating on and off since high school, who took the four years my brother was in college to complete an associate's degree. She's a complete moron who's never going to have a job that doesn't involve the phrase "Would you like fries with that?" so their most recent "on" time in their relationship came right after my brother got his really good job, gee I wonder why? >.< Everyone in our family hates her for using my brother for sex and money, but he's getting laid on a regular basis by a girl who says she loves him, so we've never been able to get him to see sense.

Unfortunately, my sister's boyfriend couldn't make it - he had a family retirement party to attend and he's a volunteer firefighter, so he was on call last night - so we were stuck with my brother's girlfriend for no good reason. The evening went all right, but things were always more comfortable when she and my brother went off to look for more food. When the fireworks started, we all went out to the roof to watch them, and my brother took his girlfriend and went somewhere else on the roof to see them. We all figured, whatever, they came separately and they can leave separately and did we mention we don't like being around her? Then I came home and played around on the computer, and I didn't realize my brother had come home until I came out of the bathroom and saw his bedroom door closed.

Then, I woke up this morning to a flailing email from my sister saying, "Tell me David's Facebook relationship status is a joke!"

At some point between leaving us at the fireworks and coming home last night, my brother proposed to his girlfriend.

UUUUGH I CANNOT EVEN WTF. First of all, how do you not give your family some warning that you're going to propose to someone? Yes, if he had told us, we would have tried to talk him out of it, but we've tried to talk him out of everything else involving this girl and he hasn't listened to us yet, so I doubt we would have changed his mind. Secondly, how do you tell your family that you got engaged on FUCKING FACEBOOK? I was awake when he got home last night! How did he not say anything? And third, which really only applies to me but is my greatest concern, what's going to happen to our living situation now? Is he going to move in somewhere with his girlfriend and leave me to pay for a townhouse alone? Is he expecting the stupid bitch to move in with us? Is he going to try to take the townhouse from me so they can live together alone?

I AM NOT FUCKING MOVING, I will say that right now. I am also seriously disinclined to let her move in without a) getting a label maker to mark what's mine and b) forcing her to pay a third of the bills, which she can't do on minimum wage. My parents have pointed out that they can't afford to get married right now, and my dad's going to try to point out that my brother can't afford to start a family right now because he doesn't make that much money and his job isn't entirely secure, but I don't even know. I cannot even, people.

So, I hit the big 3-0 today, sigh. It was actually a good day though - it was the first day of summer vacation, so I had the house all to myself and I got to sleep in, aaaah. Plus, my parents took me out to dinner, and I got a present I very desperately needed: a new digital camera. My old camera is, well, very old, and it's never been good at taking pictures of people, which is the primary thing I use cameras for! When I realized the camera on my cellphone has more megapixels than my digital camera, I knew it was time to get a new one, so I'm super excited.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes across the various forms of social media we inhabit. <3 to you all. :D

Okay local HP fans, who's going to a midnight showing of the last movie? I saw the first part by myself and it was rough - I can't imagine getting through the very last movie on my own. THE TRAILER ALONE IS MAKING ME TEARY, I WILL NOT SURVIVE BY MYSELF IN THE THEATER.

Oh CW. Who thought this would be a wise idea? THIS IS NOT A WISE IDEA.

(Yes, it's real, it's been verified. THIS IS NOT GOING TO END WELL, PEOPLE. MAKE YOUR POPCORN NOW.)

Happy birthday zillah975! *showers you with confetti and spirit beasts*

The good news is, my brother and I have an official date for moving into our new place: March 26th. Aaaauuuggghhh I will never have all my non-essentials moved in time! Except, I totally will, and aaaaahhhhh my excitement cannot be contained!

The bad news is, because of that moving date, I won't be going to Muskrat Jamboree. :( I just can't afford the expense on top of the money I have to fork over to move, so hopefully there's still some lucky person on the wait list who will get in in my place. I'll have to find something else to fill the fangirl void of my spring.

Now that my contract is at a renewable point, I'm finally getting my last Christmas present - an Android cell phone (the Samsung Captivate, since I'm stuck on AT&T). So, Android users, what are your recommended apps?

(Also, if you don't mind sharing, about how much data do you use in a month? I've never had a smartphone before, so I have no idea how much data I'll be using for e-mail/Twitter/checking the interwebs every once in a while.)

I don't care if it's in freaking New Jersey, I am going to see this when it opens. Oh, my childhood. \o/

So, my mother asked if I want her and my father's old queen-sized bed which, she added, they are not offering to my brother, because it might encourage his girlfriend to come over and spend the night.

a) You really don't understand how this "not living under your roof anymore" thing works, do you?

b) Do you really think a smaller bed will stop her from spending the night if they want that?

c) Have you met your son? You know, the one remaining Catholic out of your three children who less than two weeks ago said he and his girlfriend aren't sleeping together because he's waiting for marriage?

d) I CAN HAVE SEX TOO, YOU KNOW. SOMEDAY. MAYBE. /foreveralone