March, 2009

did I put you to sleep yet?

I’ve spent the day putting reviews up on Yelp. It’s really helped to pass the time.

Lately I feel like all I have is time. No real stories to tell. Just time. I watch it pass. I mean, I’m at work? What else can I do? The hyper student in me would shout HOMEWORK! but I have no desire for that at the moment.

I just wish I could bundle up the hours I spend surfing the net and then use them towards something else. I’m getting paid to sit and watch the clock go by, but it still is vaguely irritating. I’m getting older by the minute! Come on!

I made a call to a local nursery and talked to one of the ladies and she was telling me about a bunch of neat shrubs that would fit what I’m looking for. She suggested that I come visit in about two weeks so that any other freak frosts will have passed and there will be better selection to look at and decide from. I thanked her for being so free with information, I love people like that, and helpful.

Lowes, you have been permanently passed over in the Growing advice department. Never again shall I grace that section of your store (oh, who am I kidding?). But I will flitter through all the rest because I love Lowes anyway. Oh, except I will be checking out hammocks because I want one and that is in the same general vicinity.

I can spend hours in that store, hand on hip, wandering through the aisles and daydreaming about home improvements. I really could. Andy and I have been known to go in for something and come out four hours later without what we came in for just because we never made it to that section of the store and Jas had some sort of bowel/fashion emergency.

That also happens at craft stores. We get lost in our future attempts at different projects. Floating along with our ideas pulling us forward like a kite. Kindred spirits in that respect.

Any sort of project is ON THE BRAIN for about a month. Then it is promptly forgotten because there is some other NEW SHINY PROJECT that distracts us. After about three to six months, we tend to rotate back to the original project.

This is clearly evident by the language project I set up, my Bella. Every few months or so I’ll go on a binge of learning and practicing, getting myself all amped up learning and relearning things. Then I’ll have to return a great book to the library and before I know it, the excitement for the idea has faded down and something else is on the horizon.

Anyway. I’m not sure what my current project is. Probably listlessness. I’ve also been reading a bit more than usual, books that is, but otherwise I haven’t noticed a new trend. My camera has sat since the broken lens, the violin is sitting in my office still next to my flute and oboe (I think they’re having an abandoned instruments party), the seedlings for very obvious reasons are lying dead on themselves if they haven’t already been torn from their pods by toddler or impish cat, I haven’t experimented in the kitchen with a new dessert recently… meh.

Although I am thinking very hard about making another chocolate chip cookie cake because that sounds divine. Depends on if I have the supplies and urge to do so.

I say, let’s blame all this lethargy on the rain.

Also: this is the perfect kind of day for a LOTR movie marathon. Cookie cake and a movie, yes? Um, yes. Most def.



oh mother nature, darling, you are too much

So it did snow. About four inches. And then it promptly melted the following afternoon. Although the positive side is that now I know the areas in the backyard that get full sun because they are big muddy slicks. So that is somewhat helpful.

I’ve decided that I want to plant two burning bush’s and two forsythia bushes in the backyard. I’m looking for one other type of bush to put with them. I was hoping something with a more blue-green tint seeing as how the burning bush goes red and forsythia is yellow. Our backyard needs some color. Ideas??!?

I also bought two rose bushes in the form of roots at Lowes a few weeks ago that I need to plant. Although I’m glad I didn’t already put them outside since I’m not sure how they would have responded to this freak snowfall. Hopefully they will survive better than my poor little seedlings.

Ah, the seedlings. May they rest in peace. Lesson learned: never listen to the gardening schmucks at Lowes. They might lead you astray! Go to a nursery instead. Alas. At least I still have some seeds left over. I refuse to give up. Seedling Experiment 2009 – Take Two. ACTION!

But really now. This time I will make it patently clear to all blonde creatures in my domain that whosoever disturbs my seedlings will lose a limb.



Dear Mother Nature

Sweetheart, wtf? It’s supposed to SNOW tomorrow? This is the end of March! Dollface, that is not what they meant with the lion and the lamb analogy covering calendars everywhere. Snow is supposed to happen at the beginning of the month, not the end.

And seriously, what are you doing to North Dakota?

I know that you have a hard job regulating our environments and that you like to get a bit whimsical at times but I’m starting to fear for your sanity. I mean, aren’t you ready for the flowers to bloom and sunshine to caress the nation? I’m ready! I thought you would be too.

Hoping you haven’t completely lost it,
the freezing summer fairy who underdressed this morning in just a hoodie and not a PARKA

PS – I still haven’t forgotten about that awful ice storm trick you did a few months ago. I think you owe me a nice spring for that basketful of crazy.



a strange little day

Yesterday, work got so slow that my boss let me leave three hours early. The phones weren’t ringing. The invoices were done. Converting oxygen to carbion dioxide and reading online were the only things getting done. Today looks like more of the same but I hope things start to pick back up.

So I left. Got in the car. And then I kind of had a brain spasm, what do I do now? Do I go get Jas or do I wait until the usual time, since I pay a daily rate anyway? I’d eaten a lunch already, although it was an awful microwave dinner that I am never going to purchase again. Chicken fried chicken – pure awful. That is a meal that needs to be made fresh. I’m not even sure it was chicken.

I was tempted to go get some technology stuffs I need: a new charger for the laptop, an ethernet cable, a new charger for my batteries; but I have no money for such things. Plus it would seem kind of ridiculous to get off early at work and go spend more money.

I went to the library and browsed the overlarge book section. And I found an awesome book on Rembrandt that I was totally going to check out until I realized it was missing pages. I flipped through to see what it had to say on Bathsheba, my favorite work of his, and four pages where it was supposed to be were missing! So frustrating!

Especially because it was the type of book that you can enjoy reading in that it was well written. It wasn’t clinical jargon, but a huge work explaining his life story and how it correlated to his artwork. Something amazing! But missing pages! So frustrating. I actually said ‘What the FUCK!?’ in the library. Someone looked up and I pointed to the book and whispered ‘It’s missing pages.’ Maybe they got it, maybe they didn’t.

I should have brought it to the librarian’s attention so they could order another copy, but then I noticed a big biography section right next to the art books and got distracted. I found Anne Rice’s book on her spiritual exploration and did a little dance. It’s sitting in the car right now.

Then by serendipity I saw the book ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ and remembered the title from one of my many book lists (I’ve made four enormous ones throughout my internet forays, although only the current one survives) so I picked it up as well.

I started reading it and I must recommend it to EVERYONE. Prin, you would totally enjoy this book. Mom, if you haven’t already read it, check it out. Seriously, everyone. Check. It. Out.

Here is a quote from it that I really love and I’m only a third of the way through the book: We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.

Genuis. It’s written by Robert Pirsig, amazon page for reference. Library it or buy it. Or borrow it. Something!

Um, anyway. I visited the financial aid office for school and made sure all the paperwork I turned in was received. But we still make too much money to qualify for aid. So I guess I’ll just progress slower than I’d hoped. I’m still not sure how that works to be honest. Although I imagine our medical bills have absorbed quite a bit of the money they think we have.

Oh well. They can’t hold me down. With or without that help I’m going to do it and that is really all that matters in the long run anyway. And it’ll give me extra bragging rights, so there.



a geeky spark

geek \\

I just finished working on the encyclopedia (project closed so the link was removed) and it’s done except that I need to work up a picture for Andy. My photoshop and massive horde of pictures are all at home.

I also took down my album section because I want to rework it. The layout and image sizings need tweaked. But it will be completely fresh whenever I get to it.

// geek

I met the most inspiring person today. You know how most times when you meet people, they can wander back out of your life and you hardly notice. But then you meet someone and they shoot sparks. You notice in an instant how special they are, how awesome.

One of my customers was like that today. I gave him a ride to his workplace and the whole time we were talking about learning, how he’d built up a business, and in general, how to become successful. It was such a pleasure talking to him, to someone who seemed to be channeling the very wavelengths that bounce around in my head.

I’ve meet only five people in life who cause that sort of reaction. People who you don’t forget and who help to build you into a better person. People whose traits you want to emulate so that you can become a person that will have that reaction on others. Hell, I married one of them. But still, I plan on thanking him for reassuring me that humanity is not all lost. That there are people like me out there, not just on the internet in their own countries, but even here in this county. That is exciting.

geek //

I owned the latest psychology test. She hasn’t passed them back yet, but I checked my grades online and I got 99/100. Um yes. Person in my class who previously got a 100%, check yourself.

// geek