Today feels like the day after Christmas.

Don't worry, I still want presents at Christmastime. But still; I had a hard time falling asleep after the election coverage last night, because I was sooo happy and excited about how things went yesterday - it was like having Christmas morning in the middle of the night, and then being expected to fall asleep right after. Now my sleep schedule is a little out of whack, but the country is on track to be less out of whack than it has been in a long time, so I'm okay with losing a little sleep. :)

I couldn't BELIEVE how well things went last night. I was disappointed to see all the anti-gay legislation that passed in other states (wtf is up w/ that???), but that'll turn around soon I hope. But OBAMA!!! WOO!!! And in our state we kept our current governor who I think is great, we passed the death with dignity law, and we kicked Tim Eyman's stupid (STUPID) transportation bill to the curb. I was worried it would pass because I thought most people would be stupid enough to be like, "Hmmm...this says it will help traffic. APPROVED." But maybe people aren't as dumb as I usually think they are. At least not about everything.

And now our bambino will be born during the first term of the first non-white president. I honestly don't really give a crap what color Obama is, but I still got pretty choked up when I realized that this country would (finally) hit that milestone before our baby is even born. Now there are only like, 8,000 other things I'd like to change about this country before next June. But I doubt we'll be seeing any sinkholes shaped like this anytime soon, so I guess on that matter I'm sol:

I feel like I'm behind on EVERYTHING lately.

Our house is still not on the market. I have about 1,000 little home projects that I've either not started, or not finished. I haven't had a real (1hr+) workout in probably over a month. I have 47 unread items sitting in my google reader. 440 unread items in my gmail (not counting spam). I've barely taken any photos lately, and the ones I have are just sitting in iPhoto, because I haven't uploaded to flickrrr in weeks. I started crocheting a new fall hat for myself last month, and it's not even half finished. Blah.

That being said, things are coming along. Slooowly, but still. I'm sad that we won't have the house on the market before the end of September, because the market slows down in the late fall/winter, but hopefully it won't take tooooo long to sell. It's okay if the prices keep dropping, because the next house we buy will be in the same market, so if our house lowers in value, so do those, which will mean a smaller mortgage in the end. (If you don't get it, I can explain later.) I wish we could just sell the house and buy a new one super easy and super fast, and have it be OVER with.

Anyway...moving on. I watched this Diesel ad this morning and found it to be fucking hilarious. You may find it offensive. Idk. They say it's sfw (that's kind of the whole point, I think), but I would deem it nsfw, unless nooobody can see your screen or hear your speakers. Because while Diesel makes some awesome jeans, this ad has nothing whatsoever to do with clothing.



The debates are on now, so I guess I'm going to stop writing and pay attention. Even though I already know I'm voting for Obama.

Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew.

OMG. I am still shaking. I am so grossed out. Okay, so recently B and I have been trying to ween ourselves off of summer fruits, and get ready for fall. Only, I'm not a big fan of fall fruit, but whatevs. That's not what this story is about. So B has gotten grapes for himself for a few weeks in a row now, but I haven't eaten them because the skin on grapes kind of gives me the willies. So he just ended up eating both bags of grapes himself, straight from the bag (after rinsing them, obviously). BOTH times he got to the middle of the bag, and found, in the middle of the grapes, a hideous pile of liquefied rot. The kind of rotten where you're so grossed out that had you KNOWN about it, you would've just thrown the whole thing away.

This week, I decided that I'D get grapes (they were on sale), and I'd separate them out into tiny bunches for snacks after I washed them, so that I'd know about any possible rot. Instead, I just threw them into the produce drawer and forgot about them.

That was only just on Sunday though. This story is not about rot. But this afternoon I opened the fridge to see my grapes out on a regular shelf, because Brett must've seen them ignored in the produce drawer and figured I forgot about them (he figured right). So since I'm sick, I thought, "Oh, I should eat those grapes. THEY'LL help me feel better!"

So poor, sick, hungry little me pulled those grapes out of the fridge, walked over to the sink to wash them, and when I opened the bag, what did I see? WHAT DID I SEE???

CATERPILLAR TENTING. I didn't see any caterpillars, but it LOOKS like the grape people must've cleaned the tenting off of the OUTSIDE of the grapes, but missed the stuff in the middle. I could've screamed. I could've barfed. I. Could. Have. DIED.

In case you've forgotten (or never knew in the first place), I have a horrible phobia of tent caterpillars. I go bat-shit crazy if I see even one. It's like a full-on, primal, head-to-toe panic attack. Once, B and I went to the library during a particularly bad tent caterpillar season, and we didn't notice until we were halfway across the parking lot that all of the trees in the lot and in front of the library were FILLED w/ tent caterpillars. I noticed first, and I froze, and Brett noticed that I wasn't moving, but I was so terrified that I couldn't even speak to tell him what was wrong. Finally HE realized what was wrong, and he dragged (drug?) me back to the car. Once inside the safety of the car, I was able to breathe, cry, and try to brush the willies off of my skin, but it took awhile for me to feel normal again. HORRIBLE.

At least with the grapes I didn't see any actual caterpillars (ugh; I just got the shivers), but I still threw them into the fridge and slammed the door. Brett can eat them if he wants. If it were spider webbing or something, I'd totally just rinse them off and eat them. But I just...can't do that. Not with caterpillars. OMG. Sooo gross.

Sleepy.

I need to go to bed, but first! I would like to publicly promise that tomorrow I will:

Call my dad back. I keep forgetting to, and then when I remember, it's always the middle of the night his time. I will call TOMORROW. Which, since he'll be getting up soon, probably counts as "today" for him.

Swing open the french doors, and workout while both catching up on video podcasts, AND exposing myself (in a non-naked way) to fresh air and sunshine. I friggin love my new desk location. And I desperately need to work out. For at least an hour. I ate like, half a tube of Ritz crackers today. :P

Do laundry.

Water the plants.

Finish organizing my closet o' crap in the basement (art supplies, tools, random gadgets and cables).

Do other productive things that I will be non-committal about, because I don't know how much time I'll actually have once the above items are taken care of.

It's also spaghetti night tomorrow. Woo! I've been waiting for that all week. It's also Bravo tv night - Project Runway and Top Design. And can I just say: we're getting rid of our cable when we move, and Bravo's shows (the good ones, anyway) aren't available on Hulu, or even for PURCHASE on iTunes, so I guess I won't be watching them anymore. Epic fail, Bravo. Poop on you, and on your awesome programming. Which I will miss terribly. :/

Oh, and I uploaded new photos to Flickr tonight. I still have a few more to upload, but the set I uploaded was HUGE, so I figured I'd wait a bit for the rest.

Lame.

I just noticed that The Secret of NIMH, AND Troll 2 are both expiring from Hulu in FOUR DAYS. Boo. :/

The Secret of NIMH is an awesome movie, and if you haven't seen it you're probably like, waaay younger, or waaay older than me. Or you grew up in some sort of Secret of NIMH-less bubble, which must've been horrible for you. I'm very sorry.

I highly recommend catching it before Hulu rips it from their library. Though it's also available for instant viewing on Netflix, and it doesn't appear to be expiring there anytime soon. Kudos to Netflix for that. But like, -10,000,000 kudos to Netflix for *STILL* not being Mac compatible. I mean, COME ON! I know that supposedly their problem is that the movie studio people have to approve the Mac version of their DRM software or some shit, but Hulu and a bunch of other sites work juuust fine. And Netflix's "Instant Viewing" has been available on PC for like, what...a year and a half now??? Remember when it was called "Watch it Now?" They've taken the time to change the name, totally change up the look of the whole thing, and it's STILL PC only. What is this, 1997? Anyway. Moving on.

Troll 2 is...interesting. You might hate it. You might love it. Brett and I own it on DVD, and have watched it multiple times. It is a piece of shit that probably had a budget of like, $20,000. And I bet a significant amount of that budget was spent on drugs.

I think it's worth watching, but I sometimes like things BECAUSE they are awful. It's not scary. Nor does it actually contain any Trolls. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the original Troll movie, which we also own. We bought them as a packaged set at Fred Meyer for $7. I would've paid $14. But only because it was a set; I wouldn't have paid $7 for each DVD individually. So I guess that doesn't really make sense. Huh.

Anyway, so I highly recommend catching Troll 2 before it expires as well, but only if you're into that sort of thing. And don't come crying to me if you hate it; it's not like I made it sound good.

God help me.

I've been feeling a little under the weather lately. Last night I had the Debbie Gibsons* for like, three hours straight. My stomach still hurt when I got up this morning, but about a half an hour ago the hungry feelings started to outweigh the churny, crampy feelings, so I decided to go into the kitchen and make something to eat. We were out of town this weekend and haven't had a chance yet to make a real grocery run, so we're out of a lot of the more comforting foods: no crackers, no eggs, no salad, etc. I guess I have bread, rice, and bananas, but I don't feel like tasting bananas, I don't have anything to put on a sammie (and I don't want toast), and I didn't feel like making rice. So what did I do? I decided to reheat some left over curry, and eat that. without rice.

It's a red curry, so it's not like, tooooo spicy, but it definitely burns going down. And there's no meat in it to dilute the spiciness; just kidney beans and chickpeas. It's so tasty though. Man I love curry. I've had terrible heartburn for the last few days too, but I don't even care. Bring it. I need my spicy food.

I just hope it doesn't make me sick again. And I hope that if my recent "issues" have been due to pregnancy, I don't have these gi issues for the whole first trimester. Because I'm really not good at avoiding foods just because they upset my stomach. And for those of you out there who are like, "But what about dairy?!? You're insanely irritating in your refusal to consume dairy!!!" Dairy does not just "upset my stomach." It upsets my everything. And what it does to my stomach makes the Debbie Gibsons look like a day at the spa. SO THERE.


* Our friend Tony's grandma called diarrhea "the gibsons" when he was growing up, so naturally Brett and I also call diarrhea "the gibsons," because it's hilarious. We also call it a lot of other things. But when diarrhea is especially painful and explosive, we upgrade it to "the Debbie Gibsons."

Complainy Complainerson.

I'm in a foul mood. Well, not exactly, but I've felt really whiny all day. So I will use this blog as an outlet for my complaints, because I feel like complaining out loud, but Brett is asleep, and when I complain to my cats I kind of feel like they're not really "getting" me.

1) FM radio really sucks balls. I'm trying to get up earlier and earlier each day this week, which means setting an alarm. Since my phone's been dead since like...sometime last week, this morning I used our clock radio to wake up. But I was still sleepy when it went off, so I laid there for about 20 minutes just listening to 107.7 (The End).

It was 10am, so I didn't have to deal with any of that talk radio bullshit (God, why do people like morning talk radio??? What a load of garbage.), but there were sooo many commercials. And the DJ called one of the songs "new," and I was already sick of it last spring. Because it takes FM radio like, forever to get permission to play stuff. Or whatever it is...I don't know why it takes them so long. Plus it's just a lot of the same shit over and over again. AND it's usually censored, which is stupid. And the sound quality was terrible. When I finally got up, I was glad to be done listening to it.

2) WHY am I trying to get up earlier and earlier each morning? Because I usually wake up slooowly, sometime between 10a-12p, drink some water, maybe check my email, putter around, eat some "breakfast," and then do random chores in the afternoon, while still wearing some form of clothing only fit for wearing in the house or backyard. I know I'm gross - I'm just being honest.

But on FRIDAY, I have to get up at like, 5 am. And go to work with Brettles. BUT!!!11 I'm not actually allowed to go IN with him, since I don't have "security clearance." Here's the deal:

We're going to Portland on Friday, and we havehavehave to be there in time for dinner. Brett is working at his normal job in Mountlake Terr in the morning, and then in the afternoon he's going to Redmundo to teach some sort of efficiency workshop thingy at Microshaft, which will hopefully end around 3 pm. The problem is, traffic is terrrible on Fridays. And Portland is about three hours south of Seattle. So if Brett were to drive from Microsoft alllll the way back up to Marysville and THEN we left for P'town, we'd be lucky to get there by 8pm. Which would be pushing it, IMO. Since we're having dinner with my family, and my mom made a point of asking me to be there "by dinner time."

So what are we doing instead? Well, since we have only one car, and Brett can't carpool with anyone since he's kind of going all over the place, I am getting up at 5 friggin am, showering, finishing any last minute packing, drying my hair, feeding the cats, locking up the house, loading up the car, and going to work WITH him, so we can leave straight from Redmond together. IN. SANE.

I flat iron my hair, which I am NOT going to take the time to do before we leave, so my plan is to drop him off at the office by 8 am, and then drive to Alderwood Mall (because they have the sickest public bathrooms I've ever seen; they're almost country club nice), wait for them to open, and do my hrrr and makeup thrrr. Then I'll drive back to Premera, pick up B, we'll have lunch at Whole Foods (where I'll hopefully pick up some tasty df snacks for our stay in Pdx), I'll drop him off at Microslut, and I'll head down to Crossroads Mall to search for some cheap new clothes. Because I've lost...let's just say "a few" dress sizes in the last year, and all my clothes look weird on me now.

Then once B is done at MS, we'll take 405S to I-5 and go straight to Portland, so we probably won't have any problem getting there by 6 or 7 pm. I'm super comfortable hanging out at malls by myself so that part sounds fun, but every time I think about getting up at 5 am, something inside of me vomits. But I'm really excited to see my family for the weekend (especially my baby bruder ♥Joe♥, who is fuh-inally visiting from NY), so it'll be worth it.

3) Ugh. This post is way too long, so all my other complaints will be in one paragraph. I was going to complain about: how I just realized tonight that we're going to be gone all weekend and I have a ton of shit to get done around here; how Brett saw this month's Nylon cover and asked why the girls all looked like whores, and when I said that they don't look any more like whores today than the old 90210 girls looked like whores in the 90's, his disbelief made me feel vicariously old and crotchety; and how I'm HORRIBLY broken out right now and have just been feeling crappy and gross in general. Which may mean I'm pregnant, but could just mean that I happen to be a little under the weather for some reason. So who knows. I know *I* won't know for at least a few weeks, and YOU will know when I want you to know. So don't ask. But I'm probably not. We've been "trying" since May, and every month I think I'm pregnant, and every month I'm not. So I probably just had a bad reaction to hot tub water or something. But GOD I feel ugly. My skin is so gross that it's actually physically uncomfortable. It looks like my pores have done some sort of freaky friday with the pores of a 14 year old boy. :/

And if you've actually read this far, I love you. :)

Hoooly crap.

So...I know it's late. But now that my computer is in the basement, there's a big set of french doors behind me. I have to say, I'm not too weirded out by the idea of people being able to see me from outside, but every once in awhile I get the urge to turn around and make sure no one is standing like, RIGHT THERE. (Don't worry, this isn't a creepy stalker story.)

So all evening, I've been hearing funny noises in our backyard. We have a lot of wildlife here though, so I've learned to kind of tune it out. I actually like having all the animals around. Except the coyotes. And if I ever see a bear, I'll probably pee my pants and cry like a baby.

But tonight I was just finishing up Frogs on Hulu (which is a movie about various flora & fauna ganging up on a family and killing them), when I heard a sort of...knock, I guess, at the door behind me. What did I see when I turned around? A big fat raccoon with its face pressed right up against the glass, staring at me. Or the movie. Either way, it seemed a little too interested, and a little too unafraid. As soon as I moved to grab my camera it turned and walked away, but I have no idea how long it was there before I saw it. Hopefully it didn't get any ideas from the movie. :/

Guesswhatguesswhatguesswhat???

My iMac is back!!! We were at Ali's party, and the Mac store called and the guy was like, "yeah, we're open until 10. You can pick it up anytime!" And I was sitting in a circle of people and I shouldn't have been so loud on the phone, but I was all like, "YES! Thank you so much!!!"

That story was so not necessary. But I don't care!!! It's back!!! And it's EARLY!!! :D The party was more of an outdoor/afternoon thing, so we had plenty of time to pick it up on the way home. They didn't need to replace the hard drive which is cool, but they replaced the glass in the screen, and when I asked why, the guy was like, "I dunno. To make it look nicer?" Which sounded like a load of shit to me, but I don't care. It's back it's back it's back!!! And afterward we were bored, so we went to Sephora, but I couldn't find anything new I wanted, so we went to Arby's. I got curly fries and a turkey & swiss sammie, hold the swiss. Because Arby's t&s sammies are df if you get them w/out the s. Brett got like 8,000 roast beef sammies. That's what he always gets. Their beef sammies are NOT df though, because the buns have milk.

When our agent stopped by on Friday she gave me the okay for my idea of moving my desk down to the basement (she'd said earlier that I should get it out of the living room), so when we got home from Arby's we moved my desk downstairs, and set up my computer there. Which is now, I guess, down "here." Since I'm in the basement right now. Watching Star Wars V and eating my sammie. So now when I use my iSight camera, instead of having stairs behind me, I have french doors. As you can see in the lovely photo below. Hooray for curly fries! :D

Incidentally, it's hot as hell here right now. According to the outdoor thermometer at the house we were at this afternoon, it was 110°, but that CAN'T have been right. Though I did feel a little sun-sick at one point. But okay, so yeah. I think I look kind of sweaty and pink in the photo I just took, but that's why. Because it's hot. That's also why my hair is so frizzy. And why I'm so fat. And not taller.

Peace.

Ewww...

Does anyone else's Blogger dashboard look totally different today? I like how fb & last.fm warned us ahead of time that things were going to be different, and gave us a chance to sort of beta test the new look first, and complain about stuff we didn't like. I hate unexpected change. Except...zomg. YES! Now I can hide all those old blogs that I don't write in. They used to just sit on my dashboard ignored, and now they can be ignored and HIDDEN, which is awesome.

You know what I've been waiting for blogger to add, though? Some sort of comments manager thingy. I'd like to be able to see an at-a-glance list of the blogger blogs I've commented on recently, and who the top-commentors are on that blog, etc. Other sites have that sort of functionality, and it's great - you'd think google would be all over that shit. Whatever though, it's free. I guess I can't complain.

Oh, and also - as of tomorrow, I will have been iMac-free for a week. It will HOPEFULLY be ready Monday ("hopefully," he said. I could've died.), so maybe once I have it back I'll upload some photos for this month, because I realized last night that I hadn't uploaded anything yet. And then I uploaded this. Which I really don't think looks like me, but which Brett thinks really does. Go figs. I WISH my hair looked like that. And FYI: the graveyard background is because I've been going through a little bit of a Buffy/Angel relapse lately. Thanks, Hulu! ♥ :)

Oh, and also also - this is so awesome I could barf. Not for the squeamish, and pooosibly NSFW, but only if you work somewhere lame. Or with small children.

Can I have my Mac now, bitte?

As of this moment, I have 204 unread items in my Google Reader. I don't know how many new emails I have, because I had a lot of old emails marked "new" before I was w/out my Mac, but I know there are a lot of those, too. I just don't like reading stuff on this tiny little screen. And I'm not just bitching because it's a laptop, so don't roll your eyes at me, Leute; Brett's laptop screen is at least an inch bigger than this one. At least. And it's shiny and bright. This one is neither of those things. I feel like Doogie Howser clicking away on this thing. Only far less cool (and therefore far less popular) than NPH. Someone should make a WWNPHD? button for the Pieces of Flair app on Fb. Grr, I bet there is one, but I can't search for it because their search feature is STILL down. But NPH is the bees knees.

And speaking of my lack of popularity, what's with the lack of comments? Just because I'm not commenting on blogs this week, that doesn't mean you can't comment on mine. Brett finally felt bad enough to throw a comment my way, and he doesn't even usually read my posts unless I poke and prod him. There are many more people who read every post I write, but haven't commented lately. Or ever. Or hardly ever.

So the next time you see a post of mine pop up in your feed reader, click on it and comment, dammit! You know...if you want to. And you have something nice to say. Or something funny. I'll accept not-nice if it's funny.

I'm thinking of vlogging. Not always, but maybe sometimes. I'm thinking of vlogging about baby stuff once I fuhINALLY get pregnant. Because I figure if there's one thing people want to hear me talk about with my actual voice, it's vomiting and breast tenderness. Yes? No? I hate talking to a camera, but I think I could get used to it. I doubt I'll have much to say, but I don't usually say much on THIS blog, yet I still manage to fill it with "content," so I'm sure I could fill a three minute video once a week or something. On teh youtubes, so it'll be iPhone friendly. iPhone iPhone IPHONE. ♥

Ho Hum.

My beautiful iMac had a bad fan, so this morning Brett took it to the Genius Bar for a little tlc. I thought maybe since it was just a fan they would be done with it by the time he got off work, but they actually have to wait a few days for the part to come in, so it could be as long as FIVE DAYS before I am basking in its warm glow once again. Only, hopefully its glow will no longer be so warm.

The GOOD thing about all this is that they're just going to go ahead and replace ALL the fans, which is cool, and while they're in there they'll check to make sure everything else is looking good, too. And it's all free. Which is also nice.

It's also kind of good timing, I guess. I never really LIKE to be without a computer, but our real estate agent is coming over on Friday to check out the work we've been doing around here, so I should really be focused on other things anyway. And I guess I'm not exactly without a computer - I have this POS PC laptop.

I mean, it's a pretty good computer and all, but it's no iMac. It's kind of like...it's like the difference between a McDonald's cherry pie and an actual slice of cherry pie; they'll both fill your belly, and they're both sweet and gooey, but one is just sooo much better than the other. Especially when it's piping hot, with crust that is light and flaky and just a little bit sweet. With maybe some sugar crystals sprinkled around the edges. (Can you tell that I really want a piece of cherry pie right now?)

Anyway. So I might post to my blog, but I won't be posting photos to flickr, scrobbling to last.fm (though I'll still listen to some stuff within last.fm), playing Challenge Sudoku or any other fb game that requires mouse skillz (this thingy has a trackpad, and I hates trackpads), or doing anything that I'd rather do on my big, beautiful iMac.

I also won't be watching Karate Kid I or II on Hulu. Because barf. I'm really not into those movies. I wish they'd put up more stuff I like. Not that they deserve my complaining though; they're friggin awesome. Speaking of friggin awesome, if you have an iPhone (or possibly even if you don't), lists.zenbe.com is friggin awesome.

I don't really care about the rest of what Zenbe has to offer (their email can only import POP so I was like, boo! because I like IMAP), but their lists thingy is great! At least for us. I'm craaazy about making lists. I make them for everything. I had a blog for awhile that I just used to post lists, but it was too tedious to keep up, so I quit and went back to using Entourage & Excel to make my lists, but the problem with that is when I want to share them with Brett, I have to manually send them to him each time I make an update, or he has an outdated version.

Zenbe is cool because I can make lists, invite B to share them with me, and either one of us can make changes that the other one can see right away. And they have a FREE iPhone app. There are other to do list apps for the iPhone that are possibly better, but they're not free. This one is, and it does what we need, and it's cool because now my to do lists can go with us wherever we go. Which might drive me crazy if I wasn't so anal, but I am, so it doesn't. Woo!

I just cut three millimeters off the length of my nails. :/

My hands are usually too dry for me to be able to grow my nails long in the winter, but I like them long in the summer. Really long. Inconveniently long. Brett actually complains about it, because they get long enough for me to accidentally scratch him, have trouble opening pop cans, etc.

And having long nails makes using an iPhone difficult (but not impossible!) because since it has to have skin-to-screen contact, and I can't use the tip of my finger because then I'm just stabbing at the vkeyboard with my fingernail (which does nooothing), I have to use the pad of my finger, which is big and clumsy.

I still like having them, though. I usually use gloves when I clean or do the dishes anyway, so they don't usually get too gunked up unless I'm cooking, and then it's just food, and it's easy to rinse out afterward. I keep them super clean. It's actually kind of fun to clean under long nails because when you're done, you have this big wide open clean white surface. It's like mopping the floor.

So anyway. Brett complains about them waaay too much, which I find really irritating, because if he hates something enough I eventually end up caving and just changing whatever it is he doesn't like, which makes me sad because I know *I* like having long nails, but if he doesn't want me to have them then all of the sudden I don't want to have them so much any more. But I do! But I don't. But I do! Do you know what I mean?

It's prooobably the way I made HIM feel when he had a beard. Because he likes having at least a short beard, and I'm of the opinion that a day's worth of stubble is the most facial hair any good looking man should have. If you have something to cover up, sure - grow a beard. HE has nothing to cover up. He was hiding a nice jaw line and a good chin under what I see as the male equivalent of leg hair on a woman.

So. I was scratching at my neck after watching Lars and the Real Girl tonight (which I deem cute, but a little sad), and I noticed that my thumbnail felt especially scratchy. I looked at it, and saw that it had a tear a couple of millimeters down from the top. Sooo...I cut them all off. I still have maybe two mm of white at the ends, but they feel really short to me. But Brett was happy when he saw them. And I got to tell him that I did it because I was tired of him complaining, which made him feel guilty, and made me feel a little better.

Besides, they'll grow back. I wonder how fast fingernails grow...I know hair is like, what...half an inch a month or something? Maybe fingies are like two mm/mo. That'd be cool. I'd like to have them long again by the end of August.

I had some things...

I was going to say here, but I'm in a hurry now and can't remember what they were.

I DO know that I uploaded some photos last night, so you should look at them. They're of a little "Memory/Travel Box" I made myself as a kid. I like to save things. If I were a serial killer, the popos would totally catch me, because I'd be all about the creepy "souvenirs," like the serial killers on tv are. Even Dexter saves blood, and he should really know better. Aaanyhoo, so here's the text from the flickr set, because I don't have time to write it again:

---

We moved a lot (alotalot) when I was a kid, and I traveled a lot. I made a few little treasure boxes of keepsakes over the years, and I found this one the other day while I was packing up random things in our basement (to move again).

It'd probably been like...I dunno, at least seven or eight years since I looked in it last. Which makes me feel old. But whatevs; that's life.

---

So yeah...check it out. And also - happy 08/08/08!!! I don't know if there's much significance to that date, but it's still cool. I should google it to find out if anything cool is coming out today, but I won't. I guess the Olympics start today, which is cool, since I'm pretty sure 8 is a lucky number in Chinese. I think it has something to do with prosperity. And maybe if you're an athlete you can relate that to winning, because winning means gold. Eh? Not to mention the endorsements. *Cha-ching!* Whatevs though, I don't feel like caring about the Olys this year. But I don't have a problem with them being hosted in China.

On 06/06/06 I dragged Brett to opening night of The Omen, which was craaazy crowded. With goths and teenagers. I fit right in. It kind of sucked, but not any more than the original ones did. And it was super cool to do something like that on 666. Because while Catholic school didn't rub much Christianity off onto me, it DID instill in me an unhealthy fascination with Satan and demonology. Which is why I own Constantine. And Stigmata. And The Devil's Advocate. And has probably played a not-small part in my love for Buffy and Zombie movies.

It's too bad 888 isn't creepy. But oh! 01/03/13 will be creepy, I bet. I like 13's. I'm of the "lucky 13" camp.


This post makes me sound creepy.

Some things:

1) I've just discovered that if you make a peanut butter and banana sandwich using a hoagie roll, you don't have to cut up the banana!!! It can remain intact; as phallic as God intended. It is glorious.

2) I uploaded a new photo set to flickr, despite Brett's strong objections. He thinks they're bad photos, and that I shouldn't let people see them. I think he's a douche. He might be right about them being bad, but I don't really care. I wanted to upload something new and didn't feel like taking the time to find one of my cameras to import, so there ya go.

3) I found this awesome wake up call thingy this morning, and aaalmost gave them B's phone number so he'd really be able to start his day off on a good note, but then I decided...maybe that's not the note he's going for at 6 am. Also, it's sponsored by both Walmart and Disney, which is a little creepy to me.

But back when the Transformers movie came out, I had special messages from Optimus Prime sent to both B's phone and mine. It was suh-weeeeet. I don't think Hannah Montana would be quiiite as enjoyable, though. But check out her rockin' microphone. *Bling!* She sure knows how to look badass. And not like a Disney slave. Her pants really say it all.

Apparently, I really feel like blogging today.

Also, when I was typing in the url to start writing this post, I first wrote "blooger.com" which made me lols. Because I'm 30 years old and still think boogers are funny.

Anyway. The point of this post was to write that I've spent the last hour or so sitting in our living room watching Bones episodes and doing random crap in FB. Brett is in the basement playing some sort of video game. Probably FF[something or other; I think he has them all].

Sooo...I was about to start a new game of Word Twist, when my cellphone rang. With Brett's ring. I answered his call with a, "Nice, dude."

He acknowledged his laziness, and we continued our conversation for another seven minutes or so. During this time, we both agreed that we should get teriyaki takeout for dins, and also managed to select what we wanted from the menu, without ever actually making an effort to see each other face to face. Then I hung up with him so I could place the order, and once I was done, I shouted down the stairs, "TEN MINUTES!" And he shouted back, "K!"

You might attribute this horrible, lazy, anti-social behaviour to the fact that we've been married for eight years, but you'd be wrong. We've always been like this. We're both totally affectionate and romantic, and we're atrociously shameless with the PDA, but back before we were even married, yes, waaay back then, we spent HOURS ICQing each other from dorm rooms that were about twenty feet away from one another. Brett even proposed over ICQ:

*****

Brett 5/7/00 3:54 PM so do you think we'll get married?

Cat 5/7/00 3:54 PM nah. you forgot my candy.

Cat 5/7/00 3:55 PM ;)

Cat 5/7/00 3:55 PM i don't know, what do you think? i mean, 50%
of the choice IS up to you...

Brett 5/7/00 3:55 PM he heh.. right.. you're so loving.

Brett 5/7/00 3:55 PM well.. i know what i think.. but i don't know
what you think..

Cat 5/7/00 3:55 PM well why don't you tell me what YOU think...

Brett 5/7/00 3:56 PM i'd like to.. as soon as we feel like it.. i
don't know when that would be for you..

Cat 5/7/00 3:57 PM yay...me too. :) but i don't know how
soon...it's expensive, and time consuming...

Brett 5/7/00 3:57 PM it doesn't have to be expensive.. and as for
time, you have 6 months to work and do
whtaever.. who knows.. and it's not like
anyone would be planning alone..

Cat 5/7/00 3:58 PM yeah, okay, so maybe i could do some planning
while i'm not in school...but when would you
feel like getting married? do you know?

Brett 5/7/00 3:59 PM as soon as you want to.. i guess.. i'm so
accustomed to being wiht you.. i don't
remember life any other way.. and it seems a
rather natural transition.. i guess.. you
know..

Cat 5/7/00 4:01 PM it does...it does...so natural...but like,
when would you want to start telling people?
how long should we wait before we tell our
parents? do we need to get rings?

[Blah blah blah about money for awhile, and then...]

Brett 5/7/00 4:12 PM you're so cute.. damn.. ok.. well.. then can
we tell other people? do we even really want
to tell people? ooh, should i do that whole
"will you marry me?" thing? what about that?

Cat 5/7/00 4:14 PM what do you want to do? do YOU want to tell
other people? I'm fine with whoever; as long
as my parents don't find out until i feel like
i can show them that i'm trying to do things
sensibly... you can do the whole will you
marry me thing if you want to, but i'm pretty
sure i'll say yes, so it'd just be like...a
formality or something...what do you think?

Brett 5/7/00 4:16 PM i dont' like formalities.. hey, we could be
special and do it over icq.. wouldn't that be
trashy? um.. i think it's totally cool not to
tell your parents now.. we can not tell mine
too.. until later..

[Blah blah blah about who to tell, and when, and then...]

Cat 5/7/00 4:20 PM cool about [refers to edited text]...agreed about the
formalities, except let's NOT go the trashy
icq route...lets just say that it just kind of
happened gradually, with both of us just
talking about it more and more, 'cause that's
kind of how it happened. you can [refers to edited text] hey...so
um...does this mean you're my fiancee yet?

Brett 5/7/00 4:21 PM yes.. i am.. and you're mine.. ok..

[MORE blah blah blah about who to tell, and when, and then...]

Brett 5/7/00 5:06 PM dinnah, oh beautiful fiancee of mine?

Cat 5/7/00 5:59 PM fiancee....fiancee...fiancee...

Brett 5/7/00 6:00 PM heh heh ehh.. yes.. mmm.. i'm happy..

Cat 5/7/00 6:00 PM me too...i feel a little funny...because it's
new...but funny in a good way...cat jackson...

Brett 5/7/00 6:01 PM that sounds like hte name of some kind of funk
singer..

Cat 5/7/00 6:01 PM i likes it. i've been liking it in my head
for awhile now, actually...

*****

That's all I feel like sharing. And probably way MORE than anyone feels like reading. But weren't we sooo cute??? And at the time, Brett and I were 20 and 21 years old respectively. Which seems SO FRIGGIN YOUNG to me now! TOO young. But I felt totally grown up then, and pooh poohed anyone who said we were too young to get married. And apparently, I was right to do it! :)

Also, please don't allow the hideous length of this post to deter you from reading the other two posts I've written so far today. You should read alllll of my words! ALL OF THEM!!! ♥

Whoa.

JUST after I posted my complaint about FB's removal of the import option, I noticed they'd added the option back in (under the new "settings" link, at the top of the mini feed), and they imported my faved YouTube video. FB FTW! :D

Bacon pie.

Brett is back! He came home last night, and then worked a half day today, and he's home again for the weekend. Yay! ♥

On his way home today, he stopped at Costco for groceries, Taco Bell for himself, and McDonald's for me. My energy has been reeeally dragging today, so I tried eating a big huge green salad with olives and tofu and basil and a nice homemade vinaigrette for brunch, thinking that the protein and veg would pep me up, but it did not. Proper nutrition = FAIL.

Then I tried drinking a bunch of water, thinking that maybe if I just shocked my system with sort of the inside equivalent of a cold shower, THAT would pep me up. Proper hydration = FAIL.

Moving around = FAIL.

Lying on the couch and watching two hours of Shear Genius = (obvious) FAIL.

By 1 pm, I was lying face-down on the couch with my eyes closed. So I decided to go in a different direction, and called Brett, who was running errands, and asked him to pick me up some McDonald's. I got: a diet coke (for caffeine), apple pies (for carbs, fat, and a nice healthy dose of hfcs), and a chicken sammie (because I figured, you know...I might as well just go all the way).

And you know what? I feel better. This high may end with a crashing low in a few hours, but for right now I feel pretty good. Here's the weird thing though - I ate my chicken sammie first, and it pretty much just tasted like mayonnaise and breading. No shocker there. But my diet coke and the one apple pie I've eaten so far (why do they come in twos??? So stupid) have both had, I swear to God, a subtle hint of bacon in their flavoring.

At first I was like, "well, maybe someone didn't clean off the fryer before they cooked the apple pie. But WTF? I'm pretty sure they just microwave that shit inside its paper box; I doubt it ever actually touches human hands until I'm shoving it into my fat face. But maybe they also microwave their bacon, and they had just done that when they decided to heat up my pie? Idfk. It's a mystery. But how the hell does my COKE taste like bacon??? How does that HAPPEN??? Anyone? Don't tell me if you know the answer, but you think I might not want to hear it. Wait, no...tell me. Wait, no don't.

And on a completely unrelated note: what do you think of teh new Faceboks? (OH! My stomach is starting to hurt. McDonald's, I'm looking at you!) It took me a few hours to get used to using the new layout, but now I love it. I think it's sooo much better. And anyone who is pissed that they didn't make it more customizable with different color choices and all that can kiss my ass. MySpace is fugly. If FB ever becomes as fugly as MySpace, I won't use it anymore. There are, however, some things that I do NOT care for:

1) I can't for the life of me figure out what happened to my ability to import data from other websites into my mini feed (you know - Flickr, Digg, YouTube, etc?). I know I have at least one Stumble and one faved YouTube vid that should've shown up, but they haven't and I can't find the options to add/delete/update my acct info. If they really did get rid of the import option, that's so fuxed. They're retarded if they think it won't be missed. At least by me. And I'm important, dammit!!! Does anyone know if they plan to add it back in, or if it's just in some weird place that I haven't found yet?

2) They have a nice little spot under my profile image for me to "write something about" myself, but it's text only. All I wanted to do was add hyperlinks to a few other sites that I go to (just like on my profiles for Flickr, Last.fm, etc), but I couldn't even use <a href="...>. Hell, I couldn't even use [url]!!! Facebook, that is G-H-E-T-T-O. Fuckin' weak. And if I let them display my urls FOR me, you know, in my "website" section? They display the whooole thing, http and all. Which is ugly, so I keep it hidden. Much like Hugo Simpson. But there will be no bucket of fish heads for my website section, because it doesn't deserve them. I will let it starve until it learns to be a pretty girl.

3) Ew...my diet bacon Coke is sweating a big wet ring onto my desk. I should really finish it. Or get a coaster. I'll just finish it. Anyway, like I was saying...

3) You used to be able to add all kinds of cute shit to the bottom of fb comments, like Free Gifts, Green Gifts, you know, the type of ghey shit someone like me would (and did) add to like, a good 25% of their comments. What can I say? I like adding a birthday cake image to the bottom of a "Happy Birthday!" comment. Or a picture of a bikini to the bottom of a comment that includes a story about a sunburn. Today I went to add a four-leafed clover to the bottom of a comment for someone in the middle of a job hunt, and found that my only option was to add one of FB's "Gifts." Lame. FB CHARGES for their gifts. I never use them. Unless the are the free sponsored gifts that pop up once in a blue moon. I want to add Free Gifts and Green Gifts to my comments, gd it!!! Bring them back!!! :/

That's really it, though. Oh, I also hate that my photo section is so prominently displayed, since I usually just use flickr. But that's all I can think of for now. Even with the shitty stuff that they still need to work on though, I still like the new layout better. So good job, FB staff! You're like, 99% there.

This post is longer than I intended it to be. But oh! FYI (if you're one of the people who was still wondering) - Mordechai is home safe. So is Star (she got out too, later). And Mordechai got out AGIAN last night, and came home again this morning. Bastards. Wanting to get out and enjoy the world. Can you IMAGINE??? How rude! (Aaron, I totally think of FH every time I say "How rude!")

But, IF you were one of the people still wondering if Mordechai had yet been found, you could always check my FB status. 'Cause I updated it as soon as I found him.

Or, if you're not my FB friend yet (I'm looking at you, old people and fb boycotters), you could check my feed on Iminta. I have to manually update my fb status there, which sucks (I'm looking at you, Aaron Newton), and the time stamp on MOST of the shit that shows up in my Iminta feed is waaay off (and the amount of time that it's off varies from site to site, which also sucks), but it DOES show my activity on each site in order, which is the most important thing. So like, my Last.fm playlist info might show up after my FB status update, when in fact it was played BEFORE, but FB status update #343 will always show up after FB status update #342, which is good. I really like Iminta, and I want it to be good, and I want it to be popular. I think FriendFeed is ugly and stupid. There ARE other lifestream blogging options out there, but honestly none that I like as much as Iminta. So far.

Okay, now this post is reeeally too long. Kudos to you if you get this far. I'm going to watch some Bones and maybe play some sort of FB game until Brett gets off the phone with his birthday twinnie and makes me do something productive. Cross your fingers for me that they talk for a few hours, k? :)

Luh-AME.

Facebook is down, and my cat is missing.

I switched over to the new fb layout yesterday, and it's awesome, exceeept that now it's down. I pulled up a erm...different fb account in a different browser, and it looks like the OLD fb is working fine. I'm thinking that deleting my cookies might allow me to regain access to the old fb on my real fb account, but I don't wanna. I don't ever want to go back. Plus I've already rearranged all my little boxes and shiz. Whinewhinewhine. I'll just wait it out; hopefully it'll be back up in a minute.

A little more concerning is the fact that Mordechai got out early this morning (around 4ish, I think, when I went to take in the trash bins), and I haven't seen or heard from him since. A black cat out before dawn and now at dusk is a little worrisome. Especially with all the half-asleep commuters probably driving through our neighborhood at those hours. Ugh. I don't want to think about it.

When I was little we owned a horse ranch, and we had a male cat who would escape out into the wilderness for sometimes days at a time. But he was an indoor/outdoor cat, and I don't know how many predators were around (out on the Olympic Peninsula). HERE, there are lots of cars, and lots of coyotes. Brett's parents live only about a mile and a half from here, and I think they've had two or three cats that they suspect were eaten by coyotes.

Guh...Mordechai, COME HOME!!! ♥

So...I'm thinking of making curry.

Maybe fruit salad. Maybe both? I don't know. Right now I'm eating a fudgesicle (or "fudgeicle," if you will), and feeling a little bit like I'd rather just keep busy all night, instead of trying to sleep. Brett's away on business until Thursday, and while that's definitely not long enough to make me feel lonely, I have a strong dislike of sleeping alone.

It's not that I'm scared; I just don't see the appeal in laying down next to...nothing. When I was single I sometimes stayed up for days at a time. Or had to fall asleep watching movies. Maybe I'll see if Hulu works on the Wii yet. We somehow have 0 s-video cables in the house right now, and that's the only way my old-ass laptop can connect to the tv, so...yeah. I guess I could just watch shit on the lappy itself. Or actually watch tv. Ew.

Right now I have my laptop running behind me (I spent the morning laying in bed using it to watch Angel and play Word Twist), and I'm on my iMac. I'm Mac in the front, and PC in the back. Ha. If the PC was in the front, and the Mac was in the back, it'd be like a perfect computer mullet. Too bad that if given the choice, I'd always rather face a Mac. :P

Speaking of mullets...I'm also wearing a tube top and a super high ponytail. And I'm barefoot. I might as well be drinking cheap beer and sporting a black eye that I SWEAR came from falling down the stairs. Hawttt.

Anyway. Are you on Last.fm? You should add me as a friend if you are. But you probably aren't. Or you don't use it. I don't know. I wish it were more popular than it is. Anyway, so I spent a good chunk of today listening to Katy Perry. Which you would know if you'd seen my last.fm profile. Or my iminta profile, I guess, but that's neither here nor there.

What I'd like to know is - what do YOU think of Katy Perry? If you've heard enough of her to formulate an opinion. I think a lot of her shit is reeeally crappy (check out her "similar artists" section for verification of her crappiness), but NPR thought she was good enough to bother mentioning, and I've liked her "I Kissed a Girl" song for awhile now, so I thought I'd check out more of what she has to offer. Most of it wasn't worth listening to more than once or twice, but I kind of like "Hot N Cold" and "UR So Gay."

So...UR So Gay. Here are the lyrics. I'll admit I call THINGS "ghey" or "ghay" all the time, but usually when I call people "gay" it's because they're, well...gay. And they call THEMSELVES gay, too. So reason 1 for me to hate this song - the guy she's singing about is, according to her, NOT ACTUALLY GAY. Reason 2? I actually PREFER IT when guys are literate, eco-conscious, fashionable, wear sunscreen, and have good taste in music. I think they're better that way, and I can't stand it when guys are all butched up and caveman-ish. And if they bother wearing makeup, well, good for them. You know, if it works. Reason 3 that I hate this song: it ends with her spitting out the word PENIS like some sort of retarded ten year old.

The ONLY reason I LIKE this song is because it's sooo catchy. I totally sang it over and over while I was washing dishes this afternoon. (Incidentally, Brett - what the hell did you eat that was hot pink??? I couldn't figure it out.) But judging from the lyrics and/or from listening to it on last.fm, what do YOU think of "UR So Gay?" Is it too awful for me to listen to? Should I just stick with the thousands of other catchy songs out there, or is it maybe actually hilarious and not meant to be taken as a serious affront to all men who are awesome and metrosexual? Do you like it? Do you hate it? Eh?

Huh.

We recycle. So sometimes when I finish off a jar of something especially gloppy, I do this weird thing where I fill it with water and let it sit while I wash the dishes, in the hopes that most of the glop will loosen up without me having to glop up our scrub brush. About a month ago, I did this with a jar of peanut butter. There wasn't much peanut butter left in the jar; just those last little bits around the mouth of the jar, and in the corner place at the bottom.

We also don't pour our cooking oil down the drain. We pour it into clean used jars, and when they are full of oil, we throw them away. At some point, the above mentioned peanut butter jar filled with water made its way to the corner of the counter where we keep the oil jar, so that it looked like there were just two oil jars, and no jar full of soaking peanut butter water stuff.

I noticed the peanut butter jar while doing the dishes today. The peanut butter scraps had turned grey. I knew it was bad news, but I opened the jar anyway. APPARENTLY, if you leave a jar of peanut butter sitting on a sunny counter top for about a month in the summer, the resulting concoction smells just like blue cheese. JUST LIKE IT. It's amazing. Also amazing was how quickly the smell filled the whooole kitchen. And how long it lingered.

Another interesting fact: no matter how much I tried to tell myself to calm down and just imagine that it really WAS blue cheese I was smelling, I couldn't stop wanting to throw up.

And on a completely random and unrelated note: someone from Alabama just found my blog by searching for "I have a great rack." Which is awesome for them, because I DO have a great rack. Thanks.

Just a few quick notes...

because I'm SUPPOSED to be productive today. Sheesh. Imagine that.

1) Brett and I stayed at our friend Peter's house in B'ham last Saturday. We had a good time. We went on a walk at sunset, and I took a few pictures. Take a look. Feel free to comment, if you have a Flickr account. If you don't have a Flickr account...you should have a Flickr account. It's cheap as free. Unless you go pro, like me. Then it's aaalmost cheap as free.

2) I don't remember if I've mentioned this already, but I also finished uploading my photos from Seaside. And did you know that every month I usually upload a couple of random photos into a set just titled "[Month] [YY]" as well? There are a couple in there for July.

3) Shannon & Kim's birthdays are tomorrow!!! Should that be Shannon's and Kim's, since they're two separate events? Anyhoo. Happy birthday, girlies!!!

So...every year B and I go to at least one night of Shakespeare in the Park as put on by Wooden O/Seattle Shakespeare Co. This year we're only going to Midsummer Night's Dream, because we don't know anyone performing in Romeo & Juliet, and that play is...um...

So SHANNON is awesome, because she realized that since we prefer our SITP in Lynndale Park, we'd want to see either the 07/16 or 07/17 showing. And since 07/16 is her BIRTHDAY, and SITP is FREE and in a PARK, she decided to have her birthday party be a picnic dinner in the park before/during the play. So tomorrow we'll be seeing Jon perform in Midsummer Night's Dream at Shannon's Midsummer Night's Birthday. I'm bringing chocolate cupcakes, if you want to come. I think I'm bringing about two dozen (depending on how many I eat the night before), so I'm sure there'll be enough for the like, two local people who actually read this f'ing blog.

4) Last night we finally bought our tickets to our friend Dan's* LAST play in Seattle: Adventures in Mating. We're going this Friday. If you want to go too, get your tickets nownownow!!! They're almost sold out. I'm not sure what this play will be like, but the idea is that it's some sort of strange, choose your own adventure dealy. Read about it here.

* I chose to link to Dan's TPS page after realizing that his blog appears to have been mostly abandoned. What a nerd. What a nerd for NOT BLOGGING.

What the boo???

Okay, I was abooout to go into iphoto and choose some pics to upload, but then I saw on StatCounter that someone found my blog by googling "I hate being a Gemini."

WHAAA??? WHO HATES BEING A GEMINI??? Geminis are AWESOME!!! In case you didn't know, the top five astrological signs are as follows:

1. Gemini
2. Virgo & Cancer (it's a tie)
4. Aries
5. Sagittarius

I can't believe there are actually self-hating Geminis out there. I thought we were all totally in love with ourselves. But maybe that's just me.

Either way, if there's anything that visitor should be hatin' on, maybe it should be the fact that they accessed my site using I friggin E on a machine running Windows XP. Barfaroni. Maybe whatever it is in your life that has FOR SOME REASON made you hate being blessed with the BEST ASTROLOGICAL SIGN EVER can be fixed with a few simple upgrades to your machine. Or maybe you just need to get the hell out of Michigan. I'm just sayin.

Holy rocket fuel, Batman!

Once I finally choke down the last of tonight's curry, my hope is that I'll have created my own built-in jet-pack. So strong will be the force of my ass flames. I wonder if I could get all the way to Brett's mom's house tomorrow on ass power alone. Hmmm...and if THAT works, maybe I'll test out carrying Brett with me when we go to Portland next month. And if I could eat enough curry to fly us to Phoenix in October, we wouldn't have to pay for plane tickets, which would be sweeeeet. But I'll need to remember to wear a skirt. Because pants + curry jet pack ass = fashion disaster. :/

It's not that it's BAD curry; it's actually really, really good. Brett made it, and he has mad curry skillz. He was just a little..."heavy handed" with the spicy bits this time. And by "a little," I mean my lips burn so badly that I can't comfortably press them together. And I haven't taken a bite in about five minutes. I'd say it's about six stars, on a scale of one to five. But it's good though. Hellsa good.

Oh God...my esophagus burns. Jesus. But it's such a good burn. Like a shot of tequila when you just really need a shot of tequila. If you know what I mean. Besides, my step dad told me that in the love family they used chilis to get rid of intestinal parasites. So if I have any parasites today, I bet I won't tomorrow!!! :D

Speaking of "the family," we found someone to do our yard work for us. Guess who? Guess whoooo??? My brother All's friend Smooth. Out of all the virtue names I've ever heard, Smooth's is the best by faaar. It's really "Smoothness," but I guess he just goes by Smooth. Like Sharing goes by Share. Fuckin' awesome.

I was never in the family, so I never got a virtue name. Every once in awhile someone asks me what I think my virtue name would've been, and I usually say something like "Creativity" or "Wisdom." But after hearing Smooth's name, I've decided that my virtue name will be Dope Ass Mother Fucker. Damf, for short. Not really a "virtue," but neither is "All" and everybody still loves him.

Maybe I'll make Damf my new nickname. When we were at the coast last week, Sam got pepper sprayed (he didn't do anything wrong, it's a long story), so I nicknamed him Pepper Spray. Which then rapidly became Pepper, Sgt Pepper, and then (after Maria decided that "Sgt Pepper" gave him too much authority and not enough emasculation), Brett came up with Paprika. So Sam's new forevs nickname is Paprika.

Then Brett kept correcting people, and he was dubbed Inspector Corrector. Somehow Sarah became Ceviche Sarah, but I forget why. I wanted a nickname too, and tried really hard to get people to call me Awesome Opossum, but they weren't havin' it. Maybe Damf, though. Call me Damf!!! :D Or Cat. Cat is fine, too. And I guess some people call me Kitty, and that's okay too. Just not anything that sucks.

Aaanyway, so Smooth is coming over tomorrow and the next day with a buddy to work on our yarrrd. I doubt it will look beautiful when they're done, but I'm sure it will look markedly better. Which will be nice. I hate being home while people are doing work here, so while they do their thang I'm gonna go to Brett's parents' house to hang out with his mom, Alison, and little ♥Esmond♥. I'll try to take a bunch of photos. I also have some photos from Seaside that I should upload soon. Hmmm. Maybe I'll work on that now...

By the Sea

We're still at the coast - we're planning to leave early tomorrow morning in the hopes of beating most of the tourist traffic out of town, but we'll see. It's been a reeeally nice trip. Brett and I managed to workout on the beach every day until today, which makes me feel a little bit better about the 50,000 tons of junk food and meat we've eaten since our arrival. Yesterday I swear to God I bet I literally ate like, 3 lbs of BBQed pork. And a cup of gwak. And about 7 lbs of other random crap. And a whole "small" orange Fanta at the movies. But I would've called it a large. After I ordered it and the guy started filling my cup, I was like, "That's a SMALL???" And he was like, "I know, right! Aren't you glad you didn't go for the medium?" And I was like, "YES." But Sam got a large. Blah. HFCS FTW!!!

The REASON we were at the movies though, was because we saw...WALL-E!!! It was ***sooo goooood***. I loveloveloved it. It was defs preachy, but I agreed with all of the things it was preaching about, so therefore it was awesome. And the animation was muy excelente. And Sam is friends with one of the guys who did the lighting, which was also really, really good. The textures were amazing too. You should definitely see it. DEFINITELY. AWESOME. DEFINITELY AWESOME.

I've taken some pics (and a little bit of low res video! we'll see if it turns out.), but I'll upload most of them from home. Right now I have to go help mom, Maria, and Chris put together a puzzle. Because they need all the help they can get. But for now, here's a photo from Brett's iPhone: on our way home from the beach yesterday, we played in the tide pools a little bit, and I tried to get this starfish to come off its rock so I could throw it back in the ocean, but it wasn't haaavin it.

I should be updating my ipod, but...

I think I'll do this instead. I'm running a load of laundry right now, so I'm still kiiind of being productive. I feel a little weird right now. A little out of the loop on things. I'm not a big fan of most tv, so I only watch maaaybe a couple of hours a week. I watch stuff from Netflix, and I poke around on youtube, but that's pretty much it. Since I don't work, it's easy to get away with not watching tv, because there aren't a lot of people around me every day being all like, "Oh my gaaawd, did you SEE last night's 'So You Think You Can Dance???' Did you SEEEEE IT??? OH MY GAAAWD!!!" But at the same time, there's no one around to inform me of "important" things I need to know. Like that there's a new Pixar movie out.

Well...Brett works, so he SHOULD be capable of informing me of these things, but we don't usually hit much on pop culture in our conversations. We mostly just blab about our own lives/thoughts, or "preach to the choir" about things like trade laws, global politics, health/nutrition, the arts, whatevs. We're pretty boring.

Sometimes I manage to stay in the loop via friends, intarwebs, or podcasts (which I guess count as intarwebs?) but lately I haven't been listening to podcasts much, and apparently, at least when it comes to WALL-E, my friends and the intarwebs have FAILED me. I *did* see the free WALL-E gift on fb awhile ago, but I was like, "Wtf is that thing? It looks like that thing from Short Circuit."

Then Shannon mentioned that she was going to see something called WALL-E with her mom, but I just figured it was some dumb movie that I hadn't heard of because it was probably dumb. Or...you know. Not my cuppa tea. Same dif.

Then when we were hanging out with Tony and Nicolle tonight, THEY were talking about it, and I was like, "What the fuck are you TALKING ABOUT?" And Tony mentioned that it was the new Pixar movie that's out right now. And Brett was all like, "Yeah. It looks kind of sad. And WALL-E looks like the robot from Short Circuit." Or something like that.

So then I felt sad. And out of the loop. And a little left behind, which is sometimes how I feel these days. Isolated. It's funny; I don't have kids, so I can't make that standard SAHM complaint of needing "adult" time because I'm tired of dealing with children all day, but since I'm ALONE all day, I also sort of feel like I need "adult" time. I still want to have kids, and I still want to be at home with them, but maybe my kids will like...go to summer camp. And have two years of preschool (both Brett and I did, and we turned out great!), and spend a few weeks with the grandparents every now and then, while the Mr and I wonder off to...the Netherlands or something. You know...where ever.

I also think I want to maybe take a class or two next fall. Since I've never taken a photography class (or even finished reading the manual for my camera), I'm thinking of taking a beginning photography class at Shoreline. Continuing Ed, obviously. Not like, an actual class. But maybe an actual class would be fun too...and then I'd have a student id card, and theatre tickets/technology/etc would be cheaper. I'm assuming that taking a fer reals class would cost significantly more, but maybe it would pay for itself in student discounts! :D

Can you even TAKE classes for credit at a community college if you already have a BA? I can't imagine that they'd turn me away just because I already have a degree, but I CAN imagine that they'd turn me down once they learn that I'm not actually intending to graduate from any sort of "program." Because kids who don't graduate fux up their statistics. But there's something very satisfying to me about being graded on things. Plus, it'd be a lot more work, and a lot more contact with other people. Ah...♥people♥.

Then maybe by the end of fall quarter, I'll either be pregs and start finding like, baby groups to join or something (you know...baby water aerobics, baby massage, baby buggy workouts, baby monster truck driving...), or I'll find a temp job for awhile. Or if NEITHER thing happens, maybe I'll just take more classes. Or join some sort of free meetup group or something. But nothing too weird or sad. Because despite my current feelings of isolation, I'm still oddly elitist, so not just anyone will do. Go figs!

Eek...k, it's really late, and I'm getting up at 7am tomorrow to pack/leave for Seaside. Maybe I'll write from the coast, and maybe I won't. Maybe I won't!!! I guess we'll have to see.

Latrz!

Some things on my mind.

1) I got my hair cut today. It is short (chin length), and so far I think it looks pretty cute. I have reeeally thick hair, so having it a few inches shorter feels AWESOME in this heat.

2) Why are my favorite fruits the most expensive ones? Today at the store I bought a $2 avocado, and a $1.50 bell pepper. Which was on sale from ***$4***. The cherries we bought were also on sale; they were $5, on sale from $10. The strawberries were super cheap though, I guess - $2.50 (on sale from $5). And I looove strawberries. I don't know. We mostly bought produce today, and we only bought food for two days (since we'll be at le beach in a few days), and we spent $50. I guess I did buy some hair stuff. And a $7 frozen pizza (vegan. obviously.).

3) That brings me to my next question. Why do I always crave such shit food when it's hot? Like, I understand why I don't feel like cooking. But why do I ALSO crave disgusting, fried/frozen/fast foods? Why not salad? Carrots? Even some sort of cold soup?

Last night we went out to dinner, and I got a big plate full of gooey, spicey, pork chops. Then I came home and had chocolate pie. THEN, at like 2am (because it was too hot to sleep, so we just sat around in the basement watching crappy movies until 4am, when it finally cooled down), I ate an entire frozen pizza. Then today I bought ANOTHER one. I can seriously count on one hand the number of times I've eaten ANY pizza in the last six months, yet by the end of this weekend I will have eaten two. And the only things I've eaten so far today are: an ounce of almonds, three squares of chocolate, and a bowl full of pork fried rice. And some raspberry lemonade. What the butt?

4) Speaking of raspberry lemonade. If you live in the PNW, FM has all flavors of Santa Cruz lemonade on sale right now for 99¢. Don't be fooled by the "organic" label - it's not good for you. It's mostly sugar, but you know...it's lemonade.

Once in college, I worked at a food stand at a fair in Portland, and we made batter fried veggies and fresh-squeezed lemonade. Each lemonade we served was one cup of lemon juice, ONE CUP OF SUGAR, and then the rest was filled with water and ice. But it was the best lemonade EvEr. It was so good I could've cried. And the whole PNW is fuckingroastinghotasamotherfucker right now, which I think makes drinking lemonade and iced tea pretty much a requirement.

5) Oh, also...when I tried to open the lemonade jar at first, I couldn't get it open. Not even with a dish towel. A few years ago, my grandmother (who is a kitchen gadget FIEND) gave me this gigantic, awkward looking jar opener, and I was all like, "um...thaaanks."

But in my head I was thinking "Why the hell would I need this POS? I am young and strong."

BUT, I haaave used it a few times. And today, on my raspberry lemonade, it worked like a charm. It's big and clunky, but I have to say - I love it. Oma FTW. ♥

6) Speaking of Oma, she'll be in Seaside when we go down for the holiday. I'm excited to see her. Also vacationing with us will be: my mom & Brian, Sam, Maria & Indra, Sarah & Chris & baby Nevada, and All & Sandy. Smaller than most of our summer family holidays, but here's the kicker; All & Sandy are staying at a hotel, but alllll of the rest of us will be staying in my parents' four-bedroom beach house. I think it's like, 1600-1700 sq ft. For five days. I wouldn't be worried if there wasn't a grandma and a baby, but two parents, one grandparent, one baby niece, and five-seven siblings (depending on whether or not you count A&S), plus Brett...I don't know. It sounds a little...third worldish. And I sound like an asshole for saying that, but whatevs. We'll just see how it goes. It'll probably be great, but I'm still a little apprehensive.

7) It is sooo hot here. Too hot to do anythinggg. It's in the 90's, which I guess isn't THAT hot, but remember - most people in the Northwest, including us, don't have air conditioning. And this computer is in our living room, which is the highest point of our split-level home. It's probably like, 8000° up here. And my monitor/computer is AWESOMELYHUGE (24"), and is probably making things even hotter. I'm sad because I took some photos last night that I want to upload, but I have to sort through them and I just CAN'T stay up here any longer. But I can't upload them from my laptop, because they've already been imported into my iMac. Grar. But maybe I'll bust out the lappy later and go on Facebook or something. We'll see. We'll probably be hanging out in our basement all night, watching whatever crap is on tv. At first I'll be eating homemade tacos while watching tv, but then maybe I'll go on fb. Or maybe I'll crochet. Or maybe I'll eat my frozen pizza. Who knows? But I won't be coming back upstairs, that's for damn sure. WHEW!

How NOT to insult your husband.

So, this afternoon a big package came for me from Old Navy and Gap (because you can order from ON, BR, Gap, & Piperlime at the same time now! Woo!!!). It consisted of: three t-shirts, four tank tops, two pairs of yoga capris, and like...I don't even know how many different pairs of panties. I stopped counting at seven. All the shops were having big sales, and there was a lot of cute stuff, so...yeah. Anyway.

If Brett is home when I get a package, I always make him stand next to me and check out what I got. He's always very nice with the oohs and aahs, but he's also good at saying things like, "That makes your boobs look funny." or "Those puffy sleeves are awful. I really, really hate them." Which I appreciate. Because I'd much rather be told that my tits look weird and my sleeves are ugly BEFORE I leave the house.

I still get a little catty when he critiques, but today my comebacks weren't exactly...snappy:

ME
(holds up the guh-gillionth pair of panties - a particularly thongy-looking thong)
Eh?

BRETT
(stares quizzically)
Those look a little long in the crotch...

ME
(squints angrily)
YOU look a little long in the crotch.

BRETT
(blinks, pauses, then says cheerfully)
Why thank you!

ME
(glares with the displeasure of defeat)

BRETT
(beams triumphantly)

ME
(holds up the first of the t-shirts)
Eh?

BRETT
Is that one for showing off your bra? Because the fabric looks really thin.

ME
(pouts, wounded)
NO! And maybe YOU look really thin.

BRETT
(baffled; beams once again)
Thanks! That's fine by me.

ME
(sighs with confusion and self-disappointment)
What is WRONG with me?

I honestly don't remember what his response was. I think I was still reeling from the shock of my own lack of wit. Ugh.

Oh dear God.

I have to upload more photos to bump down those horrible "face transformer" photos, but I...have...nothing to upload...guh...no...

And I really should pack.

I'll think of something while I'm packing maybe.

Also, some notes about this post, and the last:

If you don't know what "S my C" means, watch Semi-Pro. You should've already seen it by now anyway.

In the last post, I used the word "shit" intentionally, just for Aaron. In this post "while I'm packing" was also used with Aaron in mind. I love you, Aaron. :D

"Staging" can S my C.

When you put your home on the market, you can't just like, leave it as-is. Well, you can. You can also do a lot of other things that will end up biting you in the ass in the end. Unless you reeeally don't care how much money you make from the sale, and you just want the whole process to be over as quickly as possible.

Since we're not buh-gillionaires, and we're moving closer-in (which means buying a more expensive home, or a smaller home, or both), we want to make as much money as possible from this sale. While also not waiting for fo'evs to sell it. So the main things we're focusing on are:

1) Fixing up our shit yard. I wouldn't say we're 100% "indoor" people, exactly. I really enjoy outdoor shopping, and hanging out in other people's well-maintained yards, but I never had to do yard work as a kid, and from what I understand B didn't have to do much either, so our yard looks kind of like...well, you know sometimes how there are little ravines on the side of the road, like, under bridges that don't actually cross over another road or something? And the naychur underneath isn't exactly forest, but it's not exactly meadow? That's kind of what our yard is. Minus the fast food garbage, trucker bombs, and sleeping hobos. (ZOMG. I wonder if someone's ever HIT a hobo with a trucker bomb before. Poor hobos!)

Anyway. So we're having people come and bid on tidying up our yard. Hopefully it won't cost an arm and a leg.

2) Packing up our shit belongings. Basically, anything we don't absosmurfly need for the next few months must be tossed into our Pods box and hauled away. The less stuff is left in the house, the roomier it looks, apparently.

And all "personal" things (photos of people we know; books that send messages like, "I speak several languages AND hate the current political administration;" our cats; etc.) have to either be packed up, or hidden. Clutter has to be hidden as well. My mom keeps telling me not to forget that even the TOASTER has to be off the counter. And we can't cook. Well, we can "cook," but we can't COOK. No onions. No garlic. No fish sauce. No curry. Nothing that has a strong smell.

And since we have to de-clutter our pantry as well, we're packing up the wok, crock, bread machine, stock pots, steamer, etc. So basically we'll be eating either grilled food, blah food, raw food, or OUT. As soon as I heard that we'd be packing up our kitchen, I kept asking, "but what do we EAT? WHAT DO WE EAT?"

Nobody really had an answer. Which didn't surprise me actually, because frankly, I don't think most people give a shit WHAT they eat. But I do. I like my food to be good, or not at all. Brett knows; I'm reeeally irritating about it.

3) Painting, having the carpets cleaned, and having someone come in and clean everything else. Because according to my parents, I have no idea how well these crews can clean, and I probably COULD do it myself, but I won't want to. Apparently they use toothbrushes like, everywhere. And caulk. And everybody loves caulk! I know *I* do.

I guess typed out in neat little steps like that it seeems like pretty easy work. But it's not. Right now I'm stuck on the packing part, and it totally sux0rz. I've promised Brett that by Saturday (by the time Saturday STARTS, not by the time it finishes), I'll have alllll of my art supplies packed up. I haven't started yet. And! You may not know this, but since I like all kinds of artsy stuff, and I get pretty much whatever I want, my "art supplies" take up about a quarter of our whole basement. Yarn alone will fill a whole large box. And then there are acrylic paints, oil paints, watercolors, canvases (some of those won't even FIT in boxes, actually), my easel (I don't want to pack it!), big huge drawing pads, misc chemicals (toxic/not, flammable/not), wire spools, sewing stuff, my sewing machine, beading stuff, stacks and stacks of paper, about a million different essential oils, dyes, pigments, blah blah blah. Bitch bitch bitch. I don't wanna do it.

God this is a horrible post. I just really don't feel like packing. I hate packing. And I didn't get enough sleep last night, so EVERYTHING is irritating me today. I've said "_____ can S my C." like 8,000 times already, and it's not even dinner time yet. Woo!

But here's something a little more fun:



Apparently, this is what I would look like if I were Asian. And had an even bigger chin than I already have. Click here to see more!

It's only 65°, but...

if today is anything like yesterday, our house will still be pretty toasty by mid afternoon. Yesterday we were SUPPOSED to eat rice, broccers, and tofu for dinner, but the rice requires the oven, and it was too hot for that. Instead Brett grilled some lamb and pitas outside, and I cut up some cucumber & bell pepper, and we just ate that. With hummus. Mmm...hummmmmus...

So now TODAY we're supposed to have last night's dinner, only I'm supposed to cook the rice now - before the house gets too hot to want to have the oven on. I've been feeling a little apprehensive about it, because after all - won't turning the oven on BEFORE the sun heats up the house only just make the house heat up the same amount, only faster? Whatevs. I don't know how these things work. I never took anything past a 100-level physics class. If that even counts as physics. That's how ignorant I am - I don't even know what kind of science I'm talking about.

Anyhooooo...I'll be making the rice regardless. I feel kind of stupid about it, because it requires an awful amount of effort for just RICE, but it's wild rice, so I guess it's worth it. I guess. It takes like, 15 minutes on the stove, and then an hour in the oven. But it's about 1,000x better than anything capable of being cooked in the rice cooker. And sometimes tofu doesn't fill me up as much as I think it should, but wild rice is really filling, so it balances out in the end.

"...balances out in the end." makes me think of my last post. Yes, that's right - I have the same sense of humor as a twelve year old boy. Woo!!! :D

Every now and then...

I realize that the reason I don't post to my blog very often is because I always feel like I have to write a huge post explaining every little thing that's happened in my life since the last post. So I'm like, "Ugh. I don't have time for that." And more time goes by, and then I feel even MORE like I don't have time for it. So I'll say that I'm going to start posting more frequently, so that it's not as big of a deal. But that never seems to work out because there are always going to be times when I don't feel like posting.

So maybe instead of promising to post more frequently, I'll just promise to write about whatever I feel like writing about at that moment, rather than whatever I think people are expecting me to mention.

On that note, I *DO* want to mention that...Ali had her baby!!! He is so sweet and cute Icouldjustdie. ♥.♥ For photos of my brand new nephew Esmond, my almost-brand-new niece Nevada, and random other stuff, go here.

And now for the topic that actually motivated me to post today (WARNING! This will be TMI for like, 99.99% of the world's population):

OMG. If you're ever packin' and you want to take a dump so bad you think your head will explode, just eat a LOT of fruit.

I haven't been eating very balanced meals lately...kind of just eating what I feel like which, for me, usually means eating more protein than I should, and not enough produce. DEFINITELY not enough fiber. My favorite breakfast is a couple of ounces of almonds and a can of V-8 (I hate cooking in the morning, and I'm not a fan of simple carbs for breakies, so...yeah.), but while drinking a can of V-8 technically counts as eating produce, its fiber content is pretty non-existent. The almonds actually contain more fiber than the can of V-8. I often skip lunch, and then eat a big dinner, which always contains at least one vegetable, but I still sometimes end up eating about half the fruit/veg that I'm supposed to.

We were pretty busy last week, so rather than bothering to make more of an effort with my food, I decided to just take a whole bunch of fiber. I actually really like fiber (it's not just for grandpas!), and uuusually it's a sure-fire way to um...clean house. But this week it totally sux0red, and despite the fact that I took it several times (AND drank plenty of water), my poops were still refusing to be dropped off at the pool.

By Saturday it was so bad that I was having trouble sleeping, I had a terrible headache, and I tried a...um...well, one of these. (They're not just for colonoscopy patients and fetishists!) It wasn't my first time using one, so I know I did it correctly and everything, but still...all I got out was pretty much just what I'd put in. Then we had a BBQ, and I ate a bunch of beef, some popcorn, alcohol...you know - pretty much the opposite of what you should eat if you want to take a good dump. Then yesterday I ate more beef and beer. :/

Finally, last night, I'd had it. So I whipped up a little fruit salad (and by "little," I mean one mango, two peaches, half a cantaloupe, two cups of chopped strawberries, a quarter cup of raspberries, about a cup and a half of cherries, a bunch of grapes, and a few sprigs of chopped mint), and within twenty minutes I'd eaten about half of it.

All night my stomach churned and cramped. I tossed and turned and tried to sleep, but I was sooo uncomfortable. When I got up this morning, I knew the Big Day had arrived. Because I'm disgusting (and overly curious), I weighed myself first. Then I took The Happiest Dump Ever. Then I weighed myself again: I'd lost exactly three pounds. Three pounds. Of dump. Three pounds. Apparently, if anyone I talked to over the weekend thought I was full of shit, they were correct.

Because you can never have too much of a good thing (except possibly liquor. Or cocaine.), I ate the rest of my delicious fruit salad for breakfast this morning, along with my usual almonds and V-8.

Here's hoping for another three pounds! :D

It's my birthday, my buh-buh-buh-birthday...

The only productive thing I've done so far today is get a massage. Which I guess isn't really productive, but whaddayagonnado. Soon it'll be time for me to get my hair cut, and then we're having friends over for a small dairy-free potluck (woo!), and then tomorrow the plan is to head down to Seattle for some shopping, dinner, and family time. Then Monday Amanda and Gini (and who ever else wants to come, just let us know!) are coming over to do some yard work. And the weather is *perfect,* and I've had loads of awesome presents, and Brett isn't going back to work until Tuesday. It's a perfect birthday weekend. Woo! :D

A muggy kind of hot.

You know when like, the sky is white with clouds, and there's a slight cool breeze, so it SEEMS like it should rain, but instead all the clouds end up doing is holding in the heat from when it was sunny a few hours before, so there's this like, pressing, thick heat all around that makes you sweat every time you move? That's the kind of hot it is at my house right now.

Luckily it's only about 80°, which really isn't that bad. I've shoveled sludge and sawdust all day in the hot Georgia sun (or worse; inside an un-air conditioned Georgia paper mill filled huge oven-hot machinery) wearing full length jeans, a hard hat, and steel-toed boots. And a t-shirt. But not a tank top, because for some reason it was okay to risk exposing our arms to things, but not our shoulders. Whatevs, dude.

But anyway, I learned from that experience that even when I feel like it's too hot to possibly get any work done, if I'm not dry-heaving, I'll probably be fine. As long as I drink water and take breaks. "Take 5 to stay alive." That was the rule. And I was NOT one to break the rules. Hell, sometimes I took 10, or even 20! You know, just to play it safe.

Our real estate agent is coming over tomorrow to check out our digs, and give us some advice on what we'll need to do to this dump in order to sell it for a good price. I'm pretty nervous about it. I'm pretty sure we have a lot of things working in our favor; a nice, quiet, safe neighborhood, a big yard, three pretty good sized bedrooms, 1.75 baths, multiple living spaces, hardwood floors, nice architectural details, two decks, a hot tub, a not-bad kitchen w/ new appliances, separate closets in the master bedroom, two fireplaces, vaulted ceilings in the living room and bar, and a huge garage with lots of built-in storage. We're also walking distance from three different grocery stores and a bunch of other things (restaurants, a movie theatre, etc), we're biking distance from a mall, and about three minutes from the freeway. And we have several fruit trees, three maples, three lilac trees, jasmine, climbing roses, wisteria, a crap load of rhodies, and all kinds of other pretty flowering things that I don't know the names of. And blueberries! We have blueberries.

Aaanyway, my point is that I really hope she likes what she sees. Our house is a little 70's-ish, and I know it needs new paint, new carpet in a couple of places, and probably new kitchen cabinets, but I really don't want to list it as a fixer. Even a "cosmetic" fixer. I like it the way it is, and I'm hoping she thinks it's good enough for buyers to like it the way it is, too. We'll jut have to see. And Brett and I can both be a little pack-rat-ish, so we have a lot of purging and packing to do before we put it on the market, which I know she'll say. Especially in the basement, garage, and front guest room. But it'll feel really good to let go of a lot of that old stuff, I think. We already have a bunch of stuff piled up to go to Goodwill, and we'll just keep adding more. Especially since we're moving closer-in, which will mean going smaller, which will mean less space. AND we'll have kids soon, and those little monkeys take up a lot of space too. Ugh. I hate moving SO MUCH.

I should really get back to ironing. BUT! Do you like how I changed things up a bit on this site? I really only changed the colors and the ratio of the left column to the right column. I can't believe I still use tables, but whaddayagonnado. I studied web design back in the dark ages, and they just make sense to me. Also, MOST (but not all) of my photos from SF are up; take a look! Or wait for me to finish uploading. Maybe on Saturday night. If not then, probably in a few weeks. We've been really busy lately. REALLY busy.

And on Tuesday of next week I'm driving down to Portland to hang out with my mom and sister, and attend a luncheon where my mom will be honored as a "woman of achievement." Her contributions over the years to organizations empowering women and children have not just been monetary, but have also involved large amounts of time, effort, and a passionate drive that has helped inspire countless others to give more of themselves, as well. So woo! Go mom! But I'm driving down to Portland by myself for the first time EVER (believe it or not), and then back up again the very next day (also by myself), so wish me luck. I've never driven that long alone before, so let's just hope I don't fall asleep at the wheel. Or get lost. Because I'm reeeally good at getting lost. Knowing me, I'll probably accidentally get on 99 or something, and end up in Idaho. Oooh...Cat. :/

And then when I get back...it will be Wednesday night. But THEN! It will be Thursday. And then Friday. And THEN!!! MY BIRTHDAY!!! My 30th. The big three-oh. People keep asking me how I feel about it, if I'm doing okay, etc. You'd think I was diagnosed with some sort of disease. FYI: I'm doing fine. Brett and I want to have a few kids, and I'd like to squeeze them all in (or out...ew), before I hit my late 30's, but other than a slight sense of urgency in that regard, I have no feelings of panic or regret.

Sometimes I feel like my life has actually been eerily perfect; like, even all of my negative experiences served some purpose, because it all lead up to the life I have now, which is exactly the life I want. I'd like to have children, I'd like to keep traveling, and obviously I'll always want to keep learning, growing, and evolving as a person, but I'm quite happy with what I've achieved up to this point in my life, and I don't feel behind schedule. Life is good! :D

Spring has sprung, but...

it's snowing outside. Hard. And it's sticking! :D

Bloop.

Since my last post I have:

Decided to get glasses.
The doctor says I don't really NEED them, but I wanted them so he wrote me a prescription for reading glasses. I have to say...I'm a little disappointed. I'm legally blind in my right eye, which normally doesn't bother me at all, but it's a bitch to deal with when putting on eyeliner. So I had this fantasy that if I got glasses, I could just maneuver my eyeliner brush around the frames and put my eyeliner on that way, which would be a lot easier than what I do now, which is basically like, put a little on, open my eye to check the work, put a little on, open my eye to check the work, repeat repeat repeat. But my optometrist said that glasses like that wouldn't be practical. The correction for my right eye would apparently be crazy huge, and he said that since I don't use that eye normally anyway, ACTUALLY seeing out of it would probably 1) be something I could only do by "manually switching" to that eye (which is hard to explain to people who use both eyes all the time, but I totally knew what he meant, and it makes my left eye cross), and 2) it would probably give me headaches and make me nauseated, because I'm just NOT accustomed to using that eye. So, bah. I guess it's still going to take me fo-eva to put on eyeliner.

By the time my doc gave me the bad news about my eyeliner situation though, I'd already picked out frames I liked. And I WANTED them. So, because I'm a freak who actually wants glasses, I was like, "what CAN you give me a prescription for?"

He said he could give me reading glasses, since sometimes my poor little left eye gets tired from reading/beading/etc, because it has to work doubly hard. So I got reading glasses. Brett got his normal prescription, but with entirely new and different frames. Our optics shop was having a sale, so before the sale price and insurance, his frames and lenses totaled about $350 (his lenses are expensive). After the sale - $215. After insurance - $15. After the HSA card - $0. Mine were about $260 before the sale price, but then went down to $205, then $5, and obviously we paid that with the same HSA card mentioned above, so we walked away paying $0. Except for what B put into the HSA card initially, which was pre-tax income with matching funds from his employer.

If your employer offers an HSA with matching funds and you plan on using your body for things, ACCEPT THEIR GENEROUS OFFER, PEOPLE!!! Little bits of money (the amount is up to you) are taken from your paycheck each month, your employer automatically matches those funds (so the amount doubles, duh), and then if you, say, hypothetically, go to the dentist for the first time in seven years and need two cleanings, a fluoride treatment, eight fillings, a root canal, and a crown (I am SO glad that's over), not only is it NO STRAIN WHATSOEVER on your daily budget, but you might even have extra money left over for things like fancy reading glasses and expensive prenatal vitamins. (I'm not pregnant yet. STOP ASKING.) Three cheers for good financial planning!!!

Been told that I'm going to San Francisco as an early birthday present. Woo!
Apparently, despite the "early birthday present" label I insisted that my iMac be bought with, my mom and dad have also been in cahoots with Brett planning a long-weekend getaway for the two of us down in SF. We'll be staying at a cool boutique hotel downtown, hanging out with my little brother (Sam) who lives in the area, eating lots of good (DF) food, and possibly, if I can talk Brett and my brother into it, going to Maker Faire. I want to go sooo bad. But we won't have a car, so Sam will have to drive us. But Sam would love Maker Faire. I bet. So he should totally go with us. And we should go. Pleeease?

Been feeling a bit under the weather, and have consequently let the house go to shit.
All last week I had a headache, congestion, and a feeling of like...blah. Just not good. I thought it was allergies, and when the achiness set in I thought it was allergies + pms. But then Brett got sick too. REALLY sick. He spent most of Saturday with a fever over 100, and I took my own temperature as well, and it was 99.5. So we were sick. :P We were SUPPOSED to spend Easter with his family at his parents' house, and I was supposed to bring dairy-and-soy-free biscuits and gravy, but since we were sick and Ali is seven months pregnant, the consensus was that Brett and I spend Easter quarantined in our own filthy sicky house, so that nobody, fetus included, would get our cooties.

So I went to the store and bought a dozen eggs, determined that, come hell or high water, I WOULD have deviled eggs on Easter Sunday. Then Sunday came around, and I was too exhausted to actually cook them. And since I'd been feeling sick all week, the kitchen was so disgusting that I couldn't really cook much of anything. I actually don't even remember what we ate that day. I think we made a sort of half-assed chicken soup. It was Brett's idea and really it tasted pretty good: just chicken broth, carrots, rice, onion, and garlic. No actual chicken. if there had been chicken in it, I would've considered it whole-assed. But sans chicken I give it only half an ass.

Brett stayed home sick until today. He was MUCH sicker than I was, so he had every right to lay on the couch all weekend creating a massive pile of dirty dishes, snotty tissues, sweaty blankets, food crumbs, dvd boxes, etc. But I just didn't have the energy to feel yucky, take care of him, AND keep up with the mess. By the time he went back to work today the house was like, COPS messy. You know, like on COPS, when they go into someone's house and it's totally disgusting, and the person is all like, "yeah, I've been meaning to throw out that dead cat for awhile now." But like, there's so much shit all over the floor that the camera can't even FIND the dead cat, but the cops just keep commenting on the smell?!?

We had no dead cats (thank God), but it did take me all day just to clean up the living room and bar. And I barely made a dent in the kitchen. I swear, never in the history of our marriage do I remember our kitchen ever being this messy. This morning I went in to make breakfast, and since I only had about 5" of counter space, a couple of spoons, and no cookware, I ended up microwaving canned soup in a mixing bowl and THAT'S what I had for breakies. And lunchies. I managed to clean it up enough to make beef stroganoff in the crock for dinner, but it still has a looong way to go. Man I hate getting sick.

Incidentally, I worked on that dairy-and-soy-free biscuits and gravy recipe for THREE DAYS, and it was really good. Not a perfect milk-and-flour sausage gravy base exactly, but an excellent sausage gravy, never the less. Made with a bacon fat roux, crumbled breakfast sausage, sauteed onion, and a combo of almond milk, beef broth, and water as the "milk" part. It looked more like something that should be coming up rather than going down, but it was delicious.

Been totally obsessed with LHotP.
LHotP, aka Little House on the Prairie, is a book by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Aka LIW. I'm actually obsessed more with the whole "Laura Years" series, but I refer to it as LHotP. I have them as audio books performed by Cherry Jones, with Pa's Fiddle performed by Paul Woodiel. I normally prefer audio books to actual books, but the extra treat of Cherry Jones' soft accent and soothing voice, and the singing and fiddling of songs that, in the books, would've just been written out as lyrics has been awesome. I read the whole series of books over and over again as a kid, and for some reason I got the urge to listen to them as audio recently, so...I have been. I like to listen to them on le ipod while I'm cooking, cleaning, madly clicking through (fluff)Friends, etc. It's been quite nice, and it's put me in a very nesty sort of mood. Which, since I'm a homemaker anyway, is a very nice way to feel. :)

Been more okay with the idea of moving.
Brett's wanted to move closer-in for awhile now, but I LOVE our house, neighborhood, and town. And I don't want to leave them. But as the population of this area has grown, the traffic has rapidly gone from bad to worse. Brett's average commute is about 45 min each way, and we're spending about $200/month on gas, so living here just doesn't make sense any more. Moving closer-in will most likely mean moving into a smaller house, which seems like a bad idea since we're also planning on having kids in the near future (and we want to have three), but lots of people have children in small living spaces, and it's just fine. It's funny - when we moved into our current 1800 sq ft house I thought it was TINY, but now that I've lived here awhile I feel like I really don't even need all this space.

There are some things I'm having a hard time letting go of; I still want more than one bathroom, I want a dining room, two separate living areas, a master suite with plenty of closet space, etc, but I've let go of my previous demands that our next house HAS to have a music room and it HAS to have a bar, a hot tub, etc. Because really. WTF. It sooo doesn't have to have those things. All it HAS to have are places to sleep, eat, play, and relax. And places to go to the bathroom. Preferably multiple places to go to the bathroom.

Because this one time, when I was little, I was staying in someone's house in OKC with my aunt and uncle and cousin for a wedding, and there were so many people staying in the house that all four of us were in one suite together, with my aunt and uncle in the bed and my cousin and I on the floor. Then my cousin got sick and barfed in my hair, and we only had ONE bathroom for the four of us, so my aunt cleaned the barf out of my hair with a washcloth while my cousin was sick in the bathroom, and then my aunt got sick too (food poisoning, it turned out), and she and my cousin had to SHARE THE SAME BATHROOM for their barfs and rhea. And they stayed in there together, doing those things, all night. I had to pee, but chose to hold it until morning and use someone else's bathroom. Hell if I was going to pee in that toilet.

The lesson I learned on that disastrous trip: multiple people need multiple bathrooms. Even with just Brett and I living together it's been helpful, because if one of us is sick to our stomach, the other one can continue going about their normally scheduled bathroom business in the other bathroom, completely unhindered. And there have been quite a few times after road trips or long days out on the town where we both enter the house and immediately want to head for the bathroom, and why, isn't that lovely! We can both go at the same time. No queue!

On that note, I think it's time for me to pee, listen to some LHotP, and then hit the hay. Good night! :)