My Fibroduck arrived this weekend! I've been waiting for a few months for her to show up... the previous duck decided to go wandering on the way over the pond from the UK. Maybe he'll show up someday. What is a Fibroduck, you ask? According to fibroduck.com:

Why FibroDuck is travelling the world

Fibroduck.com is owned and run by Jamie Goodwin – Freelance writer and former stand up comedienne. To contact Jamie direct: jamie@fibroduck.com The aim of fibroduck.com is to raise awareness for Fibromyalgia, whilst making you smile. We are a non profit making, doing it for fun, awareness campaign. We do not raise money for any charities. Can you or anyone you know help FibroDuck travel around the world? If you would like to take part, please order your Duck from our shop. The duck is always free, you only pay postage costs. If you have problems ordering please email admin@fibroduck.com

If you want a Fibroduck of your very own to help raise awareness of Fibromyalgia, head over to fibroduck.com and order one! You only pay shipping from the UK, which was about $6 when I ordered mine. Get one for everyone you know!

It's Monday again! I know everyone is so happy to start a new week, right? Well, to celebrate, it's time for the Monday Happy List. Here, in no particular order, are five things that make me happy.

• Having Will home again. I didn't realize just how much I missed having him here. Looking forward to school starting and getting him back on track.
• Podcasts: Yep, podcasts. Thanks to video podcasts and Hulu Plus, we have eliminated all but $10 of our TV bill, for a savings of around $70 a month. If you're into tech, I highly recommend TWiT or Revision3 for all your tech viewing needs.
• Computers: The more I have to stay at home on bad days, the more I appreciate having a computer and a connection to the outside world. I really don't know what I'd do without it.
• My guitar: I only know three chords so far, but I'm really enjoying learning to play.
• Coffee. Why? If I didn't have it, I wouldn't be writing this blog post. Hooray for caffeine!

Yes, I know; it's Tuesday, and I didn't post at all yesterday. I was suffering from allergies, a headache, and an extended bout of extreme grumpiness. Rawr. However, I would like to fill in the gap that I left yesterday by not posting. Here, in random order, are five things that make me happy:

• Zyrtec (cetirizine): It's like the nuclear weapon of over-the-counter allergy medications. One a day, and all my sniffles are gone. Unfortunately, it can have the side effect of putting me in a coma, so we'll see how that works out today. So far, so good.
• David Eddings, author: I just got finished reading Belgarath the Sorcerer for I think the 30th time, and it's just as fun to read every single time. What a wonderful character. Warning: read all of The Belgariad (5 books) and all of The Malloreon (another 5 books) before reading this one. It's an in-depth look at one character from those stories, and reading it without reading the others... well, it would be a shame. Follow this one up with Polgara the Sorceress, you'll be glad you did.
• Air conditioning: seriously, how did anyone ever live in the desert before air conditioning? It was 104° F here over the weekend. I think I would have expired. Seriously. At least the humidity was only about 10%, so the swamp cooler worked wonderfully.
• justinguitar.com: I'm (slowly) learning how to play my new guitar, and since I can't afford lessons at the moment, this guy is awesome. Step by step videos for the absolute raw beginner. I love it. I now know three whole chords, and I may be stringing them together into a song after a bit more practice.
• Ravelry: Have I mentioned Ravelry lately? I haven't been knitting much because of the heat, but if you knit (or crochet), this is the place on the internet to go for all your fibery needs. If you don't feel like knitting (or talking about knitting), there's a forum there for everyone, on just about every topic under the sun.

I have stuff I need to do. Serious stuff. Like go to Target and buy toilet paper. The earlier in the day I get my errands finished, the better off I am. Going into town wipes me out... my little trip to Verizon the other day was a very painful rest of the day. It was worth it, since I got to have lunch at Chipotle, but damn. I hate that. The longer I wait, the more these trips hurt. So why am I not going yet? FedEx and Verizon. I have a replacement phone coming from Verizon via FedEx 2nd day air. The problem with this is that the package will require a signature from someone here, or I'll have to drive all the way out by the airport to pick it up. Unfortunately, my dogs have not yet mastered signing for packages, so I'll have to be here. I'm sure they'd help if they could, but the no opposable thumbs things makes it really hard for them to learn to hold a pen. See? Ares is sad that he can't help, and Apollo just wants me to teach him. That's the kind of dog he is. He just wants to help as much as he can. That's the most awesome thing about Border Collies. Even though they have enough energy for five dogs, all they want to do is help, if you could just show them what to do. This picture also reminds me that it's Friday, which means it's time to vacuum again. It's a never ending task. It's a shame there's no way to get the hair out of the carpet separately, so I could spin it into some yarn. I could make miles of yarn with the amount of hair I get out of my carpet. Updates to come: If my phone has the right bootloader on it, I'm going to root the damn thing. I really don't like HTC's "Sense" UI. I want plain vanilla Android on this phone. Here's hoping.

Just because... here, in no particular order, are five things that make me happy:

• Coffee. Tasty, tasty coffee made fresh in my French Press. One lovely cup per day, but it's ooooh so good.
• Kindle on my iPad. Can I have all my books this way, please?
• Google Voice. If you don't have it, get it. I've replaced my voicemail, so now I never have to call to get it. It just shows up online if I want to see it there. Oh, it transcribes it for me, too. The transcriptions make me laugh.
• My lawn. It's lovely and growing and much nicer than the mess that was there before. Now if I can just get it to water itself, it would be perfect.
• My roses, that I thought were winter-killed, are slowly putting up new canes. I seriously need to prune the old dead canes now. I was just going to dig them up and get rid of them. I think I'll have Will do it when he gets home from his Dad's next month.

Seriously random today. For some reason, coffee always seems to make the list. What makes you happy?