I have been addicted to facebook for a while now. It started slowly…for a while I even refused to get an account. But then, someone finally convinced me to join and I’ve been in a downhill spiral ever since.

At the beginning of this year, I was introduced to an application on FaceBook called MouseHunt. It has since become my latest online addiction. The premise is relatively simple. You start out with a simple mouse trap and a few pieces of cheese and start hunting in a town called Gnawnia. From there, each mouse you catch earns you gold and points which you then use to buy more cheese and better traps. It took me a couple of days to get into it. It’s a passive game…you can only start a hunt once every 15 minutes. And the system will take you back to check your traps roughly once every hour.

The thing is…the mice in the game aren’t just ordinary mice. There are varying breeds: the plain simple brown, white and grey mice; and the more advanced - pirate, zombie, gold, silver, ninja, dwarf…and many more. Some give you more gold than others…some give more points than others. Each have their weakness in traps and cheese and so there’s a little strategy in determining which trap and bait to use. A good bit of the game, however, is just plain luck.

So, needless to say I’m surprised at how ridiculously happy I get when I return to check my trap and discover that I’ve caught a new kind of mouse for the first time. Or that the mouse has dropped some good loot when I caught it. It’s silly how much I am enjoying this simple game. If you’re on facebook and want a game that doesn’t require you to be at your computer constantly to be playing, you should check this out.

We just had our first snow of the Winter 2008-2009 season.  It’s funny…When I moved up hear a year ago, I thought that this part of Virginia would get at least one (probably two) good snows a year.  But in reality, I’m finding that’s not the case.   After I moved here last January we had two snows, I think.  And each of those snows accumulated to no more than 2 inches.  Some of you may think I’m crazy, but I love snow! So, the track record so far has been a bit disappointing.

Yesterday was an odd day for me.  I knew they were predicting snow, but when I got ready to leave for work, there was nothing really…it was just an extremely light sleet.  So, I headed out.  By the time I got to work, however, it was snowing fairly steadily.  (I love the way snow looks when it’s falling!)  I had been at work 20 minutes or so when I looked out of the window and saw that there was already an inch of snow accumulated in the parking lot.  Now, this Alabama girl doesn’t have a clue how to drive in the snow, so I started getting nervous.  45 minutes after I arrived, I decided I’d rather be stuck at home than stuck at work…so I got in my car and headed back home to telecommute the rest of the day.  Thankfully, the major roads weren’t bad, but in my neighborhood, I was plowing through the few inches of freshly fallen snow.  But by going very slowly, I made it home safe and sound. :)  If my deck railings are any indication, we had 2.5 to 3 inches of snow total here in my neighborhood.

The story today is ice.  So, once again I’m telecommuting.  I’ll drive in snow, but I’m way too much of a chicken to drive on ice.  And the depressing thing about the ice is that it means I can’t get out and build a snowman like I’ve been longing to do ever since I moved to Virginia.  Oh well! There’s always next time.  I’m just hoping this isn’t the only snow of the season.

Facebook has a very simple drawing application called “Graffiti.”  Despite it’s simplicity (or maybe because of it), it’s quite addicting.  They’ve just recently added the ability to generate the code to post your drawings in other blogs, so I thought I’d test it out. It’s amusing to watch my drawings being played back to me. Enjoy! (Hint: push the play button! )

I’m such a bad blogger.  I can’t seem to find the time to do any updates to this site.  The older I get, the faster time seems to move.  And the faster time seems to move, the less time I find to sit down to do simple things like update my website.

I’ll try to be better…but I suppose I should make no promises.

Well…time for a brief update. I guess I can now say that I’m settled at my new residence. My first day in Virginia was January 3rd (though, I didn’t get my furniture until January 5), so it’s been right at a month now that I’ve been here.

Overall impressions are pretty good. I like the area. I live in a nice neighborhood with a residential suburban feel, but I am extremely close to lots of shopping and amenities. That’s a big change for me from my last location. Plus, I’m really close to DC, so I have all sorts of things there to do on the weekend.

It’s only really snowed once since I got here, and that was on a Thursday. So, I had to be an adult and go to work instead of getting out and building a snowman like I wanted to. Below are a couple of pictures from that snow, though. One is of my row of townhouses and the other is a view from my deck.

So, here I am… Busy trying to learn my way around, make new friends, figure out my job, and all other fun things that come from moving to a new city. Hopefully my friends from my old residence won’t forget about me and will keep in touch.