That’s right, folks – you heard it here first! That is, of course, unless you’ve been watching the Alabama news. You haven’t, have you? Well, we are under a tornado watch until 6pm. Tornado watch? A few days after Christmas? That is so weird. And it has been in effect all day. That is a long tornado watch, too. My poor little outdoor Christmas tree keeps getting knocked over on the balcony. I need some little tray doohickey to put underneath it so that I can bring it in. Or there is going to be a sailing Christmas tree pretty soon! First the kids look up and see Santa’s sleigh flying through the air, then they wait a few days and see a Christmas tree sailing through the air! Ha!

I was reading Jason Moffat’s blog, and he so generously shared (haha!) with us this video of his friend, Kyle Cease – doing stand up. I’m a little sarcastic, because, the firestorm that ensued in Jason’s comments was amazing! Let me just tell you, straight up, there is some very colorful language in Kyle’s act. And some of Jason’s subscribers were none too happy with that fact.

Kyle is darn funny, though – I enjoyed his humor. Watch the video of Kyle Cease and see what you think. And then, if you like it as much as I did, go vote for him!

I enjoyed it so much, that I visited Kyle’s MySpace page and watched some more videos there, too! I absolutely loved ‘The Real World’ – cracked me up! Especially the bloopers at the end – I was busting up right along with Kyle and his friend!

I’ve spent the last hour on a new site that is in beta and I’m having so much fun! The site is called Rankrz and it is all about user-generated rankings. Rankings on what? you ask… Rankings on all kinds of things – anything and everything! That is one of the things that is so cool about it, because, you can build a ranking list for a very focused niche, if you want to. There are other ranking-type sites out there, but, none for very focused niches. And what happens is I start a ranking list, and then others start ranking lists on the same topic (or keyword) and then those lists are aggregated. The first thought that came to my mind was that my friend, Loretta, could start some kind of cross-stitch ranking list. And then others could come in and do the same thing. And you wind up with all the separate lists, and the big, combined list.

I made a list for some of my favorite movies:

It is really helpful if you enter a description for each one of your selections. Thinking of one of the ways that it is helpful to do so, brings me to another really cool thing about Rankrz. You can make money by participating in this fun, new ranking site. You can do so through Amazon and Google Adsense. You just enter your ID’s for both of those sites in your profile, and you will be able to participate in revenue sharing on the site. And one girl’s list of stuff she liked, I noticed Amazon text links were showing up in her descriptions! So describing your entries can definitely be helpful!

So come on over, and rank stuff with me – this could be fun! I’m serious! (Or I’m just an internet nerd!)

Check out our Christmas morning and our awesome musical surprises for the kids! We’re going to be the coolest, hippest family on the block! Come on over for a jam session any time!

Part Two:

That’s what I’ve been told…

• You have exceeded the maximum number of payments allowed on this account.

And which fine company do you think has shared this lovely information with me? The electric company, perchance? Yes – the electric company. You know, Alabama Power Company – the ones that want me to pay them extra money for not having enough money – now won’t let me give them any money! WTH??

Nutters, I tell you, it’s just plain nutters. See, I’ve been paying them bits and pieces here and there as I can, and it just so happens that in the last two weeks, I’ve been able to send them four or five different payments.

And I had $200 I could send them on Friday, but, it was on two separate cards – which would mean two separate payments. I paid the first one, no problem. The software then asked me if I’d like to make another payment. Why, yes – I would. How did you guess?

So I head back in to do just that and that is when I received the lovely message above.

And yet, it is due to be cut off on Wednesday. Just lover-ly.

One more chapter in the ongoing saga of Lisa VS. Alabama Power. Heh.

“….so then we’ll have money, and Aunt Tracy can come here.” You know, like – we could send her money to travel here.

There are some moments when I regret with every fiber of my me-ness, moving out here. There are some moments when I just ask myself, “what in the hell were you thinking?!” And I physically ache to go home.

My brother and his wife, Tracy – were so involved in these kids’ lives. They were so much a part of their existence.

Am I nothing but pure evil to take them away – to separate them?

Oh gawd, I gotta think about something else – this hurts too much.