Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I’m working on a new blog.  I’m going to experiment with it a bit, and if I decide it will work better for me, I shall post the link forthwith.  Meanwhile, I don’t even want to contemplate what it says about my personality that when my posts don’t format properly, I become completely and utterly enraged, especially after the 5th or 6th edit that won’t update.  Of course, those of you who know me aren’t surprised a bit.  Anyway.  I’m disappointed, because the WordPress format is nifty, but it’s making me crazy when it will update properly one day and then jerk me around the next.  Not cool, and certainly not worth my time.

The Book Keeper Person is supposed to come here this afternoon, and my house is a trainwreck.  That’s why I’m goofing around on the computer…procrastination produces stress, and in turn, stress produces a clean house. That’s just the way we roll around here.  We spent the morning attempting to get all the business files in some semblance of order so the Book Keeper Person will not immediately turn around and walk right back out the door.  Hopefully we won’t embarass ourselves too badly.

My little Crack Monkey

Taylor was killing me with the funny this afternoon. After we left the orthodontist's office, she said she was hungry, so I stopped at a convenience store and got her a snack. I needed to do a little shopping at the organic grocery and grab a coffee, and so Tay stayed in the car to eat. When I got the groceries loaded into the car and hopped in to head home, I noticed that she was really, really chipper. She had consumed an entire bottle of Arizona Mandarin Orange Green Tea in the 15 minutes it took me to snag the groceries.

Me: Dude, you're wired!

Her: THERE'S SUGAR RUNNING THROUGH MY VEINS! CALL ME ELVIS!!

Me: OMG, you're a dork.

Her: DORKS KNOW THAT SUGAR IS OUR MASTER! *giggles like a junkie on a binge*
Then she proceeded to entertain me all the way home from Bayfield. First, she sang. She alternated between her version of Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, and Defy You by System of a Down, punctuated by maniacal giggling. When she got tired of singing, she treated me to her amazingly accurate imitation of Father Dougal McGuire. Dear God, that was funny. It's amazing the entertainment we got for $1.59. I laughed all the way home. Her last words before we got out of the car were: I LOVE AMERICA! GIVE ME A COOKIE!

Randomness

I am going to take Taylor to get her braces tightened today, which means she’ll be on the Soup and Ibuprophen Diet for the next few days. She will also get to experience the magic of flavored latex gloves again…cherry, grape and something else. Orange? I’m not sure. I’m wavering between intrigued and repulsed. Unfortunately, I can’t help but think about the grown up use for flavored latex…and I’ll just leave that thought right there. What I really wanted to say is that I can’t believe the difference in her teeth in just two months. It’s probably the best $1500 we’ve ever spent.

Margo, there is a Church of Craft website based in Canada, but I don’t know if that would actually affect us. I think it’s be a fun name to use in the future, but I’m not sure how you research that kind of thing, Mrs. Budding Attorney, so I’ll leave that to you. Your email from this morning has me all wound up, and I’m positively vibrating with the thought of a book and website and crafty goodness. *squee* I’m trying to figure out how to write off a trip to Tucson as a business expense, but since it would actually involve business-type things, I’m sure it wouldn’t be too difficult. It’s just the logistics… Eventually life will calm down, and I’ll be able to travel once more. You’ll notice I say “I’ll be able” and not “we’ll be able”, because I don’t know if Adam be free to travel any time in the next 5 years.

I ordered 100 strawberry plants the other day, because I am mentally unstable and prone to rash decisions when it comes to gardening. I was completely swayed by the thought of fresh strawberries, so much so that I lost my fricken’ mind and ordered 100 plants. One hundred plants will multiply, which means I need a huge strawberry bed, and that means work. Lots of work. You know, like I didn’t have anything else to do. I should really learn to ignore my Inner Masochist.

This is what we woke up to yesterday morning. It didn’t last long, but it was lovely while it lasted. I took a photo of Adam outside in his jammies, sweeping off the internet dish, and he was not thrilled. He told me that he had better not find that photo on the internet anywhere. Here I was thinking I was doing the world a favor by showing off the glorious spectacle of those terrific flannel pajamas, but apparently I was wrong.

You know what?  I have noticed that the thrift shop prices have really jumped. They used to want .25 for paperbacks, and now they want a dollar. What is up with that? I’m too cheap to pay a buck for a ratty old paperback. When you buy 57,000 books a year, you have to be frugal, dammit! *sigh* I guess I’ll have to rely on yard sales to bolster my book addiction collection.

Speaking of addictions, my new journals and pens came in. Let me go snap a photo.

There. Aren’t they pretty? Color me happy.

Tuesday update

Tuesdays are the new Friday! Woot! Does that make any sense at all? No, probably not. We changed violin lessons from Friday to Tuesday in order to be able to meet Adam for lunch or coffee in Durango at least one day a week, therefore Tuesday is our new Durango day. I’m hoping Tuesdays will be less chaotic than Fridays. Durango is a damn nuthouse on Friday–no parking, mad traffic, and come this summer there will be touristas everywhere. Tuesday is a better day all the way around.

We hit the thrift stores at the end of last week, but I think I’ll try to hit them again today to see if I can score some of the weekend bounty. Everyone drops stuff on the weekends, so hopefully I’ll be able to find some nifty stuff. The stores were pretty picked-over last time, but Taylor still managed to pick up a dozen books. She has inherited the family affliction: book lust.

Adam is finishing up yesterday’s paintjob today. The weather made life extremely difficult for him because the spring winds have arrived, and he wound up having to move the truck into the dealership, so PEOPLE WERE WATCHING and coming by to talk to him, and you know how hard that is when you’re feeling the pressure. So, he was a ball of stress when he got home. Poor guy. I made him a quart of my patented margaritas* and beef stroganoff, so he was feeling better by the time dinner was over. I don’t think he’s going to tackle big jobs, like painting/bondo-ing a door on the weekdays anymore. It really cuts into his profit margin. He can make more money doing 4-5 small jobs a day. Painting will go much more smoothly when he has his custom tent, but who knows when that will be? I sure don’t. It’s a learning process, knowing what to take on and what to say no to.

*Patented margarita recipe:

1/2 can frozen limeade concentrate

Tequila--the good kind, please, not bottom-shelf el cheapo brand because you don’t want that headache. Add according to your taste.
Triple Sec, or Grand Marnier if you’re feeling rich. Add according to your taste.
1 bottle of Corona.

Squish the frozen limeade around with the tequila and triple sec to get it all incorporated, and then add the Corona and stir. DO NOT USE A BLENDER!! Serve over ice. I sometimes add a little fresh lime juice if I have it, but that’s just because I’m partial to lime.

ETA: I had to bold the breaks in my writing in order to get the damn post to format properly. WTF, WordPress?!

Nervous.

Adam has his first paintjob for a dealership today. He’s nervous, so I’m nervous. He needs to ace this job to establish his reputation with the dealer. I don’t even want to think about what will happen if something goes wrong. Oh, the humanity!

Adam w/ Kirk’s car, where he had to work a dent out, bondo, and paint.

The dent was actually on the hood crease, so I think the finished product is pretty impressive. These are not the best photos–my kingdom for a better camera!

Adam has really earned my admiration recently.  I’ve always respected him, because he’s the kind of person who is easy to respect, but he’s really jumped several notches in my estimation with his crazy/brave/inspired leap into this new business.  He didn’t just go out on a limb here, he went out on a limb and proceeded to jump up and down, fully aware that there is no safety net below.  And now he is making it pay, and getting ready to start training an employee.  Dude, you ROCK.

Pen fetish

I recieved two $10 gift certificates for Amazon.com in my email a couple of days ago. Pennies from heaven! Joy! There’s very little that makes me happier than an Amazon.com g.c. So, what did I buy, you ask? I agonized for hours over what I would buy off of my 12 page wish list. I loaded and unloaded my cart several times. I would get up and leave the computer to clear my mind and try to figure out what I really, really wanted. I’ve been so spend-phobic recently that I was determined to spend as close to $20 with shipping that I could.

I thought about buying 3 or 4 used books. That would have been pretty close to the mark. I could have bought $25 in new books and gotten free shipping, which is a pretty good deal, too. But no. Nope. I bought more pens. Do I need more pens? No. I need more pens like I need a hole in the head. In fact, I tried to get photos of all my pens, but the batteries on my camera died while I was taking photos. I shit you not. I killed the batteries while trying to capture the enormity of my hoard of pens. I embarass myself.
Pens are my Crack. I am giddy with anticipation of my order. When they arrive, I will test every. single. pen. on a fresh piece of paper, possibly in a fresh notebook, because if pens are my Crack, notebooks are my Heroin. Post It notes are Meth, and things like staplers, hole punches, paperclips, and file folders are my Recreational Marijuana. I am an office supply junkie, and there is no rehab for my compulsion. (Heh. I wonder who Google will send here now?) When Adam comes home with some batteries, I will document my addiction for posterity, because I’m a dork like that.

Ordering those pens loosened my purse strings, and I went and ordered some more of my favorite journals. Thank God I haven’t fallen under the spell of the uber-trendy Moleskine (pronounced mole-uh-skeen-uh…say it right!). I can buy 5 of my favorite journals for the price of one and a half Moleskines. Pretty nifty. Now I’m all set to capture all the profound thoughts that roll out of my brain at 3am. (Why is it always 3am? Why can’t it be noon or some time that is actually convenient?)

Today I will clean. I’m concentrating on Spring Cleaning and getting organized and into the new groove has that evolved with the new business. It’s a poor substitute for Spring Gardening, which I’d rather be thinking about–whine, whine, moan, moan, okay I’m done. Oh, gosh, I just thought of a new rationalization for pens and paper, which is all the lists I need to keep track of, and I could color-code them or something insane like that. Maybe I should go to Office Depot tomorrow and make sure they don’t have something cool that I really, really need…

George

This is George. I wanted to call him Lucky, but I was vetoed. He’s a charming little fart.  I can always tell how dirty my floors are by the amount of dirt that shows up on his fur.  He’s my little Filth-O-Meter.

Winter’s last hurrah

We enjoyed some serious winter weather this weekend. That was fun. It’s beautiful outside, and everything looks sparkly and clean in the way that snow magically transforms the mess outside into something pretty. I’m enjoying it now, because soon there will be mud. Mud is just not as much fun as snow.

Taylor and Chloe playing outside. You’ll notice that there are no cats in this photo. That’s because they are appalled at this weather and have spent the majority of their time indoors where they can nap in front of the woodstove until the evil passes.

The snowball fight is on! Adam hauled a load of wood in about an hour after I snapped this photo. When he came in, he had the remains of a giant snowball plastered to the back of his head. Apparently Taylor took advantage of him while he was loading wood into the wheelbarrow. She’s bad like that…takes after her mother.

Hot tub + snow storm = happy.

Yesterday was an early day for Adam, so he brought home the new Harry Potter movie and we watched it and drank coffee. It was a nice way to spend a gloomy afternoon, especially since it felt like he was playing hooky. What is it about the forbidden that makes it so special? Is it because we’ve been brought up to think in terms of sin/not sin? Possibly. Either way, it was a nice afternoon.

After the movie, Adam got power and the internet hooked up at the kitchen counter, so we’re really fancy now. I can listen to podcasts and do dishes, which might actually improve my productivity. Anything to take my mind off the astounding boredom of cleaning. Heh. If I were to write a how-to book on Modern Homekeeping, it would read, in essence: don’t think, just do. And hurry up about it, so you can move on to something more interesting.

We finished the evening playing Xbox last night. We played Simpsons Hit and Run, which is an old favorite. It’s good for taking turns, because when you’ve about had it and are ready to take the console out and use it for target practice, you can just hand the controler off and let the next fool have a turn. Maybe that doesn’t sound fun, but it is. Better than passively watching the boob tube, in terms of sheer entertainment. I have to eat candied ginger in order to not get motion sickness when I’m playing, or watching anyone play. Last night, I ate too much candied ginger, and my body did not thank me for it. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
I don’t have the camera again today. I can see this is a situation that needs to be remedied, asap. I hate not having a camera. True, I generally take photos of cats and my child, but that’s just a reflection of what’s really important in my universe. Occasionally, I might get a chance to take a photo of a blizzard, which is a rare enough occurence that it simply requires that you photograph it. If you have a camera, that is.

I wonder if it’s going to be a late winter, or if this is just winter’s last hurrah? Three whole days of cloudy, and I’m feeling a little hopeful. (It takes so little.) Maybe it won’t be such a bad year for water after all. Of course, bad weather complicates Adam’s life about a hundredfold, so it would be an act of Murphy’s Law for us to keep getting bad weather. Poor Murphy must have been a bastard.

Taylor has a cold, so we’re staying home today. No lessons or appointments for her. I’m feeling a tad housebound, but I’ll live. I’m debating about what to have for dinner, which is my eternal debate. Fortunately, I’m debating now, at 10am, and not at 5:30pm when everyone is starving, and it’s can’t we just throw together a pizza or something? I’m thinking: chicken, mashed potatoes and salad. Taylor was expounding on the glories of mashed potatoes last night, so I’ll take my cue from that. She said that if she went to a gourmet restaurant, she would have mashed potatoes and a giant bowl of Bow Tie Festival. You know, because all gourmet restaurants serve mashed potatoes and Bow Tie Festival. All the good ones do, anyway.