October 30, 2007
My husband just confessed something... he was emo. You know, the original emo. He isn't present incarnation, but I think the current state of emo made him shudder to think about it. Yes, that pun was intended.
Dear Sun,
I moved to this state so I could spend more time with you. Please come back out.
Love, Me
The circus on my back patio has ended. Let me start from the beginning.
This afternoon I was on the phone with my mom when I looked out my front window. I had something similar to a Twister moment. Instead of "I gotta go we got cows", I said "I gotta go, I got a kitten." There was momma cat (The same one I think) in the bushes and a little kitten frolicking in the grass. I proceeded to put food out. I was determined to get momma and the kitten and get them fixed and in homes. After putting the food out, I discovered a second kitten! As the afternoon ended and Josh arrived home, he discovered, a third kitten!
Again, I am determined to get these cats fixed and in homes. I wasn't quite expecting three kittens in addition to the momma, but I will try. So this evening I left the door to my back patio open. Well, the kittens and momma explored it, but are still cautious. Josh's old shoes have been given up to the cause. The shoe strings are toys now. A golf ball was discovered and proceeded to be knocked around the patio. The adorable little runt discovered that it could climb the bike on the patio. I tried to get a photo but it was too dark in that spot. The kitten climbed onto the seat and sat on it as though it was going to ride without hands. Of course then it decided to try and climb to the window and fell. It walked away fine, but the noise scared the momma and they haven't been on the patio since. I have checked and she is on the brick patio outside. The kittens are playing in the bushes. I closed the door and will try again tomorrow.
When trying to properly explain the adorable antics of the kittens I said to Josh, "You know all the cute stuff on YouTube? It's happening on our patio." He laughed. It was true. I'll try to update with news and or pictures if I can. Momma seems to be getting a little more comfortable with us. That's step one.
Now, I'm going to finish watching possibly the last game of this World Series.
Getting my geek on. Ahem. If you please. No really. OK. Thanks Bye.
Josh and I have been busy humans today. The oil in both cars was changed and Josh is now doing some super fine work on the headlamps. They got the annoying love-bug crud build up and were looking bad. Some 1000+ grit sandpaper, water, polish and a ton of hard work and Josh has done a great job. Go husband!
Me, I've rearranged and organized my craft closet a little more. The words I thought I would never hear came out of Josh's mouth. I put a shelf I was going to trash, into my closet and he checked out my work and said, "You need another one." Oh how I want shelves on either side, but there are so many other things that we need around the house. At least now I know that he knows.
The cat has left her box. She took up camp in a box some three weeks ago and spends most of her day in it. It is very odd, but cute. I may decorate it with wrapping paper or something. It looks pretty ghetto right now. Another project for another day. I'm still studying my Java too.
When Josh and I were flying back, our first flight's time had us leaving the house entirely too early for breakfast. Unfortunately for us, the only thing open and serving something close to food in our terminal was McDonalds. Well, I got my monopoly game pieces and bored me entered them. I won a little price but now I just need one more piece to win. Ahhh. It's just a ploy to get us to eat more of their food. It won't work. I think the only thing I'll be getting there is maybe a diet coke if I am in dire need.
I am off to the garage for the rest of the day. It is filled with things that we thought we would sell at a yard sale or freecycle sale, but now we realize we don't have the things people want at a yard sale. People want kids toys, baby clothes and furniture. We have books, home organization items and a few sweaters. I am going to sort through and make piles to donate to the hospice resale shop and/or freecycle. I may ebay some of the books as they are in good condition and I want them to go to somewhere that they will be wanted.
We arrived home safely yesterday. No troubles or drama on the return flight*. Well, the first plane had A/C issues, but there were no actual delays. We were severely lacking sleep. We had to leave super early to get to the airport and we were up late watching Boston get into the world series. It is kind of impossible not to watch the game when you are in that area, even during the wedding reception. They had the game on in the bar and when everyone started making trips in, the DJ started giving updates to keep everyone in the reception area. It was amusing.
I made a trip to a fiber store. Yeah. I was good. I hardly made a dent in the birthday cash. Go me.
I took quite a few pictures and will be uploading them to my flickr account later.
*The airport was a different story. They took one look at the name on my boarding pass and sent me through the "tunnel" as I named it. I passed through a glass enclosed area and was patted down at the end of it. Oddly enough I never passed through any metal detection devices and my front and back weren't checked. They just checked my arms, sides and legs. That was a serious mistake if I had been a baddie. I joked that a situation like that would happen. It always has at that airport. Racial profiling, of course.
We got Chinese food for lunch and in my "vegetarian" spring roll there was shrimp. I am allergic to shrimp. I'm being watched closely. I don't think I got any actual shrimp in my mouth, but I am still being a bit cautious.
Wedding tomorrow, rehearsal tonight. Let's hope this little issue doesn't become a big incident.
I made it. My internet access is weak/limited, so I don't know how the posts will be.
The trip was a hassle. There was a problem with the radar on the originating flight, so they kept us in the terminal waiting for an hour and then we were moved to another plane. While on the plane we were informed that we couldn't leave because of fog AT our destination. We managed to get there ten minutes after our connection had left the gate. So we had 15 minutes to eat something (we hadn't eaten since yesterday) and get on our next plane to another connection (unplanned). We got there and discovered we had to RUN to the next plane. We got on the plane and the first people I see are Josh's parents! Hah. So, we managed to get here and I'm hungry (I tried to have a caesar salad but ran out of time). I'm going to scarf down some Tostitos before we head out for dinner.
Oh... and I've been up since 2:30 am. Me = Tired
I am at the airport. It is o'dark thirty and nothing is open yet besides a coffee joint and Hudson News. I don't want a bagel. I want something close to a real breakfast. I would rather have sleep though if I really had to choose.
Benazir Bhutto has arrived back in Pakistan. This should be an interesting next 24 hours.
In honor of my thirtieth birthday, I present thirty random things about me you may or may not have known.
Dear Neighbor,
Just because you want your yard to look "perfect" does not give you the right to blow all of your yard trimmings into my yard. Your yard is empty and all you have is grass. I'm sorry, but this was your choice when you purchased it. Again, you do not have the right to blow all of your trimmings into my yard. If you don't like trimmings in or near your yard, please buy a bag attachment for your mower or a rake.
Please don't try to tell me it was an accident. You live across the street from me. It would take near tropical storm force winds to blow that much of your lawn trimmings into my yard. Either I missed a tropical storm warning this morning or your blower is working properly. Please dont' tell me the trimmings belong to another neighbor. Your lawn is an abnormal grass color for this area. Your lawn is the only one that matches the color of the trimmings left in my yard. Do the math.
If you choose to continue to blow the trimmings in my yard, please remember that I have dozens of trees in my yard. Their leaves will be falling soon. If you want to play dirty, I am prepared.
Thank you,
Your Neighbor
Overhead a minute ago, "Just because you're hungry doesn't mean you have to go eat." AJ was referencing that Shalyn kept running into the grass while playing the cow race game on WiiPlay.
The kids seemed to have enjoyed themselves. The fact that I don't have cable hasn't deterred them from having fun either. The funniest part of the entire night, to me at least, was the fact that all of them insisted on having lights on in the rooms they were sleeping because it is too dark and too quiet in my house. I of course slept like crap due to a headache from H-E-Double Hockey Sticks. No medicine was helping. I was miserable.
The weather is overcast and threatening, but there are only a few sprinkles showing up on the radar. I am taking them home in about an hour. We have stuff to do.
Oh Gord. Shalyn just told AJ, "You pick the lame games, like fishing." They're killing me.
Brittany doesn't want to get up. She's already had ten hours of sleep. Good gravy.
So one nephew and one niece are required to wear khaki pants, shorts and skorts for girls with polo shirts. Unfortunately, there is only one place to get the particular pants and shirts that they need. That place is of course, Target. Well, now that the weather is changing, it was discovered that there weren't enough pants purchased to get the kids through the chilly days. My mother went in search of pants at her local Target to be informed that "Those are seasonal items, no Target has them anymore." When my mom repeated that to me I said, "Pfft, Bull." I was looking right at them at my Target.
I purchased five bottoms for each of the kids and a shirt for each at 75% off. What normally would have been $162.81 came to $38.70. Yes, I rock. I just phoned my mother* to inform her of the grand total and she was giddy with excitement. Clothes for kids are expensive, but it is awesome when you can get school clothes for so much less.
*My mother is up north visiting my grandfather and while riding the subway from the airport she phoned me excitedly to tell me that there was fall foliage colors already. She's slightly jealous of my trip next week.
I've managed to drive my cat crazy with two clicks: Itty bitty kittens on YouTube. Clicks one and two.
I believe my cat telepathically said "WTF" to me when she saw this.
I am liking Radiohead's In Rainbows. It was a bit of a pain in the arse to download, but I imagine that is because they are getting swamped with visitors. I can see remixes in the future and includes in soundtracks, especially with Weird Fishes. It calls up a cliche driving scene or something. 15 Step makes me think of Starsky and Hutch mating with Led Zepplin. Thom Yorke's vocals have a somewhat Jimmy Page on Stairway to Heaven kind of feel to them and the underlying beat reminds me of the music in Starsky and Hutch.
In other entertainment news, I signed back up for a Blockbuster membership. Honestly it was just for the game rentals. Unfortunately, they were out of the one game
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs has passed a resolution (H.Res 106) to call the deaths of a million+ Armenians by members of the Ottoman Empire, genocide.
Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide, and for other purposes....
The House of Representatives finds the following:
(1) The Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland.
I have a question. Didn't the U.S. Government do something similar if not the same thing to Native Americans? Just something for you to discuss with your family over dinner tonight.
My main point of this post is this. If you are going to criticize or label the actions of others, you've got to own up to your own actions first.
Edited to add: The news reports are reporting that the resolution states that the massacre was carried out by Turkish forces. It is when errors like these make it out that the shit hits the fan. There is a distinct difference between those of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey of today. The Turkey of today is the product of a rebellion against the Ottoman's. You wouldn't call Republicans, Democrats or vice versa would you?
This edit is just me ranting about a lack of editing in the news rooms today. Not cool people. Not cool at all.
I bought two one gig memory cards for my camera. I expect I will be taking a lot of pointless pictures soon. Finally. I had hemmed and hawed about what card to buy when I came upon some for dirt cheap. Luckily for me, they were the brand and type I was leaning towards. Destiny I think.
My biggest reason for wanting/needing more memory cards is because next week I am heading north. I'm attending a wedding back to New England, in mid October. If you don't know what that means... here's a hint... peep. We should hopefully be there during the peak. No guarantees though, it's mother nature we are talking about.
Yesterday Eric and I went shopping. Since I have graduated and he lives closer to the school, I don't get to see him everyday like I used to. So we had lunch and went looking at stuff. We ended up at a Harbor Freight store. While I was there I picked up a Kill-A-Watt energy consumption meter. I have discovered that my refrigerator is a freaking energy hog. In three months we will use more energy than a newer model uses in a year.
I do believe that we will be upgrading the fridge before anything else. I'm tempted to skip getting the DDR and put those funds towards the fridge. Perhaps I am overreacting, but it is just crazy to crunch the numbers and realize how much energy is being used.
Next I suppose we'll measure the computers usage. That is going to be interesting.
I want cookies. Unfortunately, the last time I bought sugar free cookies I had a really bad allergic reaction. I don't know if it was the cookie, but the only things that changed were the bread I ate and the sugar free cookies. The doctor said it could be environmental, but I'm still cautious until the test results are back. It doesn't stop me from wanting a cookie though.
I'm having the kids over this weekend. They are going to stay over and play Wii. They haven't stayed over yet, so this will be interesting. I'm not sure they will be able to handle the silence. Oh and the cat.
Hold on a sec... Cate Blanchett is reprising her role as Elizabeth? I thought that was a joke. Oh my.
Back to the cat. We have an electronic feeder that automatically feeds her. It is currently programmed to feed her one meal a day at 4pm everyday. We used it when we lived up north. She learned how to hack it and force it to feed her. I ended up building a table to mount over it so she couldn't hack the controls on the top. I took the table apart because we weren't using the feeder. Now that we have started it again, I think she has remembered what to do because after returning from the store, I found the control panel asking how many meals to feed a day. I think I interrupted her in the middle of hacking it. Notty kitty.
So I was just checking out the video trailers for The Simpsons game for the Wii. The videos show spoofs of Everquest/LoTR, Avatar and Medal of Honor in the game. Too funny.
As much as I want to get it, I am holding off on getting DDR. We've just spend a crap load of money between travel arrangements and getting the VW worked on (clutch replacement). I guess I'll be good and wait. Besides, I'd need an additional game pad and we still need another nun chuck for real fun.
While paying my car insurance bill, I noticed a slip of paper noting a new insurance that they offer. It was freaking wedding insurance. WTF? What's next, funeral insurance? Oh wait, they probably already have that. Is this the state that we are in? People don't feel confident in their relationship that they take out insurance on their wedding? Or is it because they watch all of those wedding disaster stories on TV and fear that they are going to be struck by a hurricane even though they live in central Kansas. Oi vey. Do what Josh and I did, get married and tell everyone after you've already done it.
Oddly enough, I'm going to a wedding two weeks from today. I'm going to freeze my butt of though. Tomorrows high for where I am heading, 66° F and it goes down from there. The high for Wednesday, 54° F. Eeek. I'll only be there for a few days, but it appears that it is going to be a wee bit chilly. We're looking at the 90s here this week. Just a little warmer. /sigh
When the opportunity presents itself, one should seize it, correct? So, with that in mind, I bought some Marvel Comics Super Heroes stamps today. Normally I would buy the Breast Cancer Awareness ones, but I felt like being whimsical with my bills. Yes, I pay bills by post. I have my reasons. However, the Spider-man one is going to be reserved and used to mail something to AJ.
Speaking of AJ. I never did mention how his birthday went. He loved the presents Josh and I got him. We bought him a remote control spider. I think he yelled with excitement for about twenty seconds before his sister told him "enough already." He had told me he wanted one when we went walking around in Toys R Us. I'm a good aunt, I listen. We got him a computer game too, but nothing beat the spider.
I discovered something today. I discovered that you really should reheat chai no more than three times. After that, it looks funky. I'm not talking about the "skin" as I have always called it. I'm talking about color and consistency. I kept forgetting that I had a cup of chai and when I discovered it, I would reheat it and forget it. I've made a new cup and I am determined not to forget it!
I had some photos printed at Shutterfly and unfortunately, I completely forgot that some of the photos needed to be re-centered. Thankfully there were only seven pictures that aren't perfect. They are still usable, just not for what I wanted to use them for.
Now, I am going to go and figure out how I can convince Josh that I NEED to get Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party Bundle
My house smells like a bag of Red Hots. Why? Because I bought a cinnamon broom! I couldn't resist the enchanting smell. They are all over the stores around here. I had planned to buy some sticks of cinnamon to use for an air freshener, but this is so much better. I've been taking it from room to room to "scent" each room, but it really isn't necessary. It is making its way throughout the house. The nice thing is that it isn't a heavily concentrated smell in the room that it is in. The only problem I am having is that it smells so darn good I am craving red hots or atomic fireballs.
The smell is also helping with something else. This afternoon I dug a grave and buried a possum that had been struck by a car yesterday. Some school kids had obviously been poking at its body, so things got messy and smelly real fast*. Well, I used the vapor rub under the nose trick while I dug the grave and buried it. It worked for the most part. There was the "it's on me" fear but the cinnamon scent got rid of that fear pretty quickly. sniff sniff... mmmmmMMMmmmm cinnamon.
*Oddly enough, not a single vulture/buzzard in sight. You'd have thought they'd be all over something as big as this thing was.
As I sat on the phone waiting to hear a mystery noise that no one in my family can decipher, I reflected on the home improvements we have undertaken in the past year. Then I started writing this post in my head. I was thinking about the things I learned about painting. Of course I already knew how to paint a room etc, but there are new products on the market now, better products.
First a tip. Invest in a few things if you plan on doing a fair amount of home repair and improvement. First, invest in a really good ladder. Preferably an A-frame or one that can convert to an A-frame. Second. If you are going to be doing a fair amount of painting. Invest in a canvas tarp. It doesn't need to be huge. It is just useful to have for keeping all of your paint equipment in one location. Third. Tarp and tape off the entire floor. You can use inexpensive plastic tarps. Something like a 3 mil is good. Fourth, if you are going to need to use your ladder, take some rags and wrap the bottoms of the ladder. This avoids snagging the plastic. That tip came from Josh.
If you are painting a ceiling, I recommend tinted Kilz ceiling paint. It is thicker than regular paint and it is tinted pink when wet. The pink tint is great to determine where you have painted already and it dries white. The thickness of the paint also allows for usually just a single coat. I think Wal-mart is the exclusive dealer for it, but if you don't like shopping there or you don't have one near you, check for a paint designed specifically for ceilings. It should be thicker.
Unfortunately, like most homes in America, we have a popcorn ceiling. It hides imperfections, but it looks terrible if knocked off. Fortunately, there are easy to use spray textures available. Just remember to cover anything in the area with tarps and remember to consult the can to make sure you are using the appropriate nozzle. That also applies to walls. Orange peel walls can be repaired with spray textures as well.
When using a roller, make sure you have the appropriate nap for the job. If you aren't sure about what nap you need, ask an attendant in the paint department and check roller packaging.
When it comes to colors on a wall, I have one word for you. SAMPLES! Not all stores have samples available, but it doesn't hurt to ask. We purchased a total of six samples before we decided on our colors. Lowes has inexpensive samples and they will make the color you choose. Colors change through out the day and on different walls. The amount of paint we had was enough to put double coat 1'x1' samples on all of the walls. I'd also recommend taping up a piece of chair rail or molding if you are using it, to help you coordinate your colors.
This may sound silly and like common sense, but believe me, a lot of people don't do this. Take off the outlet covers and switch covers before you paint and cover them with painters tape, even if you are going to replace them!
When choosing the colors, keep in mind your furniture. If you aren't planning on buying new furniture, consider how they will look with the colors. Look for colors anywhere. I found the inspiration for our living room colors in a logo.
Whatever anyone has told you, remember this. Painted fireplace bricks don't look good unless they are painted white and you are living in a cottage on the water. If you have a fireplace like ours where just the hearth is brick and the rest is stucco, painting the stucco is fine. Just make sure your color works with the bricks!
The most important advice I can give you is take your time. If you want the walls painted by a specific deadline, give yourself plenty of time.
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