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Thursday, January 31, 2008

I guess this mostly ended up being about Scout. Again.

Yuck. I had to get that whiny post out of the top spot. Dichroic was right: I needed to go to bed. Anytime I start to feel that way again for the rest of my life I am going to remember that sage advice. Everything looks better in the morning.

(Even if the poor dog DOES get so anxious when we leave that she just HAS to poop inside. Hey, at least she holds the pee! We take her for SO MANY walks, trying to get her to do her dirty business outside, but it just seems like her body clock schedules that second poop of the day right during any meetings we ever have in the evening. I am studying up on how to housetrain an adolescent dog. I'll let you know how it goes.)

OK, that's the only scatological reference in this entire post; no need to leave.

Speaking of the dog, she went to the vet on Monday as aforementioned. She is approximately eight months old, is not spayed yet (but she will be), and is most likely a Queensland/terrier mix. I really thought there was pinscher in that face, but the more I looked at her, the more I remembered a dog my grandpa had when I was a girl -- Jenn and Debi, do you remember Patches? This was Patches' dad -- who was a Queensland and who had exactly the same coloring. He was just larger and stockier, with a slightly shorter face, which of course is where the terrier comes in, in Scout's case. The vet says she doesn't think Scout is even a bit of pinscher. Which honestly eases my mind a little, what with Scout sleeping practically on my daughter's face most nights. I know, I know, it's more nurture than nature, but still.

Also, I really REALLY think she wants a small doggy companion, but T says NO. Quite emphatically. So I guess she'll have to *snif* be lonely *snuffle* for the rest of her natural life. *sniffle*.

Yes, as a matter of fact, T does read my blog! Hi, T! Love you! Smooch!

The parallels between having a dog and having a baby are many, really, when you think about it.

OK, on to something else. Enough about the dog. The weather! Is still lame. Even my children are sick of snow, and that's all that needs to be said about that. We actually had a nice sunny day yesterday, which was good, except that it was also so cold that you couldn't go for a walk without a balaclava and fur-lined gloves. (OK, or maybe it was a knitted hat and mittens. But a scarf would definitely have helped.)

In other news, I have no clue what to make for supper tonight, and said supper has to be made in an hour and fifteen minutes. No. Clue. Yay for the tax return because I think we're going to the little neighborhood store for fried chicken. I am definitely not tracking today's food for my nutrition instructor.

Speaking of scarves (well, I was, up there), I am knitting one. I think I mentioned that before. I pulled out the foot or so that I had done and started over because I wanted to do the edges differently. Then I figured, what the heck, and pulled out the front pieces of the cardigan I am making for C to start them over with different edges too. Here's hoping that the new edges work out; otherwise I'll be making these projects for my grandchildren.

And that is all. I cannot bring myself to bore you all any further this afternoon, although you know I could if I wanted to.

Monday, December 24, 2007

very quick little tidbits

Guess what I did today? I used the table saw to cut trim! For three whole rooms! (Good thing most of the mistakes I made were of the trim-too-long variety. Ahem. At least there were no mistakes that involved, say, copious quantities of blood.)

And (drumroll please) all of the floor, window, and door trim in the bedrooms is DONE. Donedonedone!! That leaves ceiling moulding, which is not a high priority and which we will probably do one room at a time as we can afford to buy good stuff, rather than trying to put back the cheap stuff that was there before.

Aaand this Friday we are emptying a storage unit (one of two), and then Saturday we are LAYING THE FLOORS YES YES YAY.

Also, I still have not found out my grades because the college's grade-checking site won't let me in to see them. What kind of Communist conspiracy is this??

We are all ready for Christmas and even excited. Dinner is on the table so I must not elaborate.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

she's a young thing and cannot leave her mother

Did you actually believe me when I said that 'every day' thing? sheesh. You should know me better than that by now. (Actually, I am kind of disappointed in myself.)

I hope everyone who celebrates it has a great Thanksgiving tomorrow. We are going to my inlaws'; I am bringing the no-sugar-added cherry pie I made today. Mine is the type of family where if someone is making a cherry pie, people start humming "Billy Boy" -- we just can't help it -- and then someone starts singing it (for "someone" read "Rachel") and then if my mom is around it ends up being a duet, with harmony. Car rides were a lot of fun when I was a kid. I thought everyone drove around the state belting out "Hennery the Eighth" and "There's A Hole In The Bucket" and "The Cutest Boy I Ever Saw (Was Sipping Cider Through A Straw)".

Also, I introduced my dad to Regina Spektor tonight. (Well, not personally.) It was an interesting experience for all concerned. (Except, of course, for Regina, who had no idea it was happening.) Dad was humming along with "Fidelity" and "On the Radio" but by the time we got to "Après Moi" (one of my personal favorite RS songs, with the Russian and all) and "Lady"*, he was looking at my iPod like it was a visitor from another planet that had come down and attached itself to his shelf stereo system, bent on mischief. I fully concede that Regina S. is an acquired taste, especially if the person to do the acquiring wears overalls, is skilled at driving a 1940's-vintage tractor, and has never listened to NPR in his life**.

We are supposed to sign papers on the house on Monday, and get the key, and all that fun stuff. It is starting to sink in -- the glad part, anyway. The traumatic we-are-paying-how-much? and we-will-be-doing-how-much-work-before-we-move-in? parts are mercifully still resting beneath a veneer of unreality, where I hope they stay. Forever, preferably.

I can always tell when I have finished a really big English assignment woo hoo! because I cut loose with all kinds of verboten excess parentheses and run-ons and forty-character hyphenated compound adjectives and lists that use 'and' every time instead of commas.

*I skipped "That Time", "Uh-Merica", and several others. No need to overwhelm the poor guy.

**I only listen to it for the classical music. Really.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

no news is not actually necessarily good news

This is Thursday, the 23rd of August. This wouldn't mean much to most people (except the approximately 16.5 million people whose birthday is today; happy birthday!), but to me it means that it has been MORE THAN THREE DAYS since we were absolutely really supposed to have heard something sort of definite about you-know-what. Except apparently the mortgage company who stands to lose even more of its bankruptcy-tattered shirt on this deal had the realtor-access locks changed, which means that the appraiser couldn't get in until today, and now that he's presumably had a chance to do his appraising thing, we should REALLY hear something. By Christmas. Of 2009.

I'm feeling a wee bit more at peace about the whole thing, but only by the grace of God, and that's not to say that sometimes I don't briefly fantasize about moving into a refrigerator box on the street corner just so that I can stop with the wondering and the waiting and the freaking out. And there also might be fleeting fantasies about lobbing grenades through the windows of a certain blue-and-white real estate office -- after hours, of course -- but they're really and truly very fleeting.

Instead of the refrigerator box, it appears that we'll be moving in with my parents. I'm sorry, parents. You offered. My thought was that if we weren't able to get the house we want (which also happens to be, I am not joking, the sole and only house in our area that we can afford, including two-bedroom places which are really not an option), we would suck it up, admit defeat, and rent; moving in with Mom and Dad was only supposed to happen if we did get the house but couldn't move into it before our deadline to be out of this one. But T wants to hold off on getting into a rental for a few months, to see if the market does anything miraculous or interesting (like, say, completely recover and leave us entirely in the single-income-family dust) by the end of the year. So we are sucking it up even further and moving into my old bedroom and my parents' spare bedroom (which actually, come to think of it, was originally intended for Jenn, but she moved back to LA before she had a chance to occupy it). This is far from being all bad. Honestly, I've wanted to live out there again almost since I moved away; I just hadn't planned on invading their privacy and peace so thoroughly and for so long. We're already filling their garage with our belongings, including T's Charger, and we've also rented a storage unit to house our household furniture and also some engines and rear ends (the automotive kind) that need to be out of the weather and out of the way at the same time. I have made a spreadsheet (I may be a nerd, but hey, I am now a sane nerd -- every little bit helps) detailing what I need to do with the inside-house stuff, and when, and I was surprised by the length of the list of tasks that had "ASAP" in the "When?" column. So today I decided to tackle the filing cabinet. Five hours, two oversized and overfilled Hefty bags, and an overheated shredder later, here I am. But I guess at least that's done, I can check it off the list, and the cabinet can go in our moving sale.

Have I mentioned how much I hate moving? I truly really hate moving, and not just because it wears me out physically. The emotional strain is just as bad. Do I try to find room to store the ancient and now-nearly-untuneable piano that my father bought for me with $300 of hard-earned overtime pay when I was in tenth grade? Exactly how many pictures drawn by my son at the age of five can I throw away without sending him screaming to a therapist at the age of 25 instead of 30? Or, for that matter, without sending ME screaming to a therapist, say, tomorrow? How many times can our truck make the trek back and forth to my parents' house before it falls apart in an exhausted, trembling heap in the middle of the dirt road? How many truckloads of stuff can four people own, anyway? (answer: humankind hasn't figured out how to count that high yet.)

I swear I think about stuff besides moving. I really do. For at least seven and a half minutes per day.

(School is going OK. The online English class seems to be working out fine (even though the book we're reading might be annoying me just a wee tiny little bit), and so is the in-person music appreciation one, except I need to be more careful to duct-tape my mouth closed before class starts. Debi. will you please PRETTY please take the class and sit behind me so that you can stab me between the shoulder blades with a freshly sharpened pencil every time I open my mouth? The difficulty is that I LOVE music and I'm SO interested in it. The other students in the class never say anything when the instructor is standing there waiting for someone to contribute, and it is really, really hard to stuff my fist far enough into my mouth to keep myself from calling out answers. Next week I'm resorting to the milkshake bribe again.)

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

stuff

I've been under a lot of stress since the whole we-have-to-move thing got dropped in our laps. I realized the other day that this is a new experience for me, this waiting for someone else to make decisions that will impact my life in a very big way. The last time this happened was when I was applying for colleges. In 1993. In my adult life, I've never had to move house; I've not applied for jobs and waited for calls for interviews; I've not even applied for credit when there was any doubt that it would be approved. So this whole issue of waiting (and waiting and waiting) for other people, who don't know me from Adam and couldn't care less if I lived or died, to get themselves together and make a decision that will alter my life in a very serious way, is taking its toll on me. I have had some up-and-down days lately, and I've been lying low about it around here because if I'm tired of my own whining that I know nobody else wants to hear it, but actually some of the days, the 'down' bits of up-and-down have been almost kind of scary.

So it was nice to go to school tonight for the first time since May and have a really good time. Small blessings, and all. Even though I got to my car after class and saw that I'd left my headlights on (car started fine). Even though I got pulled over on the way home because the officer said I was weaving and thought I might be under the influence. (Yep, that's me, under the influence of a diet Coke and a Beatles song combined with the fact that a 35-year-old car has a steering box that is a wee bit more relaxed than the ones they come out with today.) Even though the instructor for the class I'm taking has a reputation as a really hard grader. Even though I get to spend the semester reading books about the working poor with a decidedly liberal slant, and even though I'm a tiny bit afraid of getting graded down for my opinions rather than my writing skills. Honestly, with the kind of day I had, I could have been going to a dental appointment followed by a trip to the gynecologist, a swimsuit-shopping expedition, and a tour of a dairy farm, and it would have been a pleasant change from the breakdown-inducing difficulties I had with my kids today, just over whether or not their chores would get done. Well, with one of them.

Oops, there's that whining I wasn't going to do.

So. It's good to be back at school. Tomorrow I have another class -- something else to look forward to, that will help pass the time while we wait for house news. I wonder if it's too late to sign up for about thirty more units?

Sunday, July 22, 2007

I should not be so perky right now.

This afternoon (well, yesterday afternoon) we went to Lick Observatory (you know, why couldn't the guy have been named, say, Thompson? Yay for the guy and all, thank you for your contributions to science, but Lick Observatory just sounds... wrong). It was a lovely drive, and looking through the ginormous telescopes, which I had never done before, was sublime. We stayed until almost eleven. The observatory is three and a half hours from home going the quick way -- which we did not use. We got home, with a brief stop to eat (1:00 AM, we were at this place off the freeway with like ten fast-food joints per square foot, and every drive-thru was busy. It was ... surreal) and a stop to get gas, at 3:20-ish. All I can say about that is that T has reason to be glad that I have my strange up-till-the-wee-small-hours sleep habits, because I drove home with nary a yawn, singing along to the iPod, while he and LT both snored. Next time he gives me a hard time when I come to bed at three AM, I'll ask if it's worth saving an $80 night in a hotel for him to leave me alone about it.

(Oh, did I say I was going to start going to bed at a normal hour? Har! hee hee! ha!)

Poor T, though. He was off looking at some astronomy-related thing, maybe Jupiter or something, while I was setting up my tripod to take some post-sunset city lights pictures and watching the sun go down. As the sun set, the last little bitty remnant of it flashed green. I didn't know this was anything special, although the guy next to me kind of freaked out about it, until T came over asking if it had really happened because the aforementioned excited guy was telling everyone about it and they didn't believe him. Apparently this is something T has wanted to see, oh, his entire life, and he missed it, and I couldn't have cared less while I stood there and watched it happen before my very eyes. (Also, I went in a tank at an airshow when I was like seven, and didn't care a hoot about it, whereas T, who has been a tank freak since he was in diapers, did not have a similar opportunity until he was past thirty; add to this the fact that my bank-assigned ATM PIN is pretty much his favorite number -- it's a car thang -- and means nothing at all to me, and I suppose I should really start to feel pretty bad for the guy.)

Friday, July 06, 2007

la la la no news la la

This will be a post about a few things that are completely not house-related because there is nothing house-related to discuss. Me tired of waiting? nah. Take your time, universe. yeah.

ha.

I am doing another DPChallenge side thing (like the 30-day self-portrait thing). This one is themed "50 days in the life of ______", except instead of the blank you would, you know, put my name. (Oh, man, why do I ever write in this thing in the wee small hours? I always, always regret it later...). I have not set up a photo blog for this one (although who knows why not, because a girl just can't have too many photo blogs). I am instead doing the sort-of-blogging at DPChallenge. I post the pictures at flickr, but don't blog there. Um. I think, if you cared, you could go... um, let me find it (cut to cartoon image of person digging through trunk, throwing out a series of humorous objects over shoulders)... here, and sort of follow along.

Also, T! My awesome husband, T! Do you know what he did? He lost THIRTY-SEVEN POUNDS from January till now. THIRTY SEVEN. That is very nearly the weight of one of my larger nephews. Gone! Awesome, no? He didn't do any fancy diets, he just ate less and moved a little bit more. The reason he didn't move a LOT more is that this was a competition that a few guys at work put together (leave it to men to make weight loss into a competition. Can you see a bunch of women doing that? We'd end up crying and/or scratching each other's eyes out), and it was purely weight-based, and he didn't want to gain too much muscle weight. He won the contest. He. Looks. Amazing. (like he didn't already). He weighs less than he did when we got married. I am so proud of him. And maybe a little insecure, now that I am the one with the higher-than-I-wished-it-was BMI. Don't bother asking if that stops me from digging into the ice cream or the Kung Pau chicken, though. Sigh.

And I said "a few things", which implies three-ish or more, but that is all I can think of right now, unless you wanted to hear about my grocery-shopping solo trip to the city tonight, or the fact that it was a hundred degrees at 8:35 this evening, or about how appallingly easy it is to spend $200 on food and household sundries, or about how glad I am that my car runs nicely again, or about how I stopped on the way home at 10:00 to let a man whose car was broken down use my cell phone and I didn't get mauled or kidnapped or anything. Or about how the stars were gorgeous. But you didn't want to hear about any of that stuff. Oops.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

another vacation post

ha! creepy internet stalkers foiled again! I'm still here! BUT YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN I WON'T BE.

Weather is still fabulously amazing. I keep expecting any day to wake up to fog and clouds which is more the usual state of things on this section of the California coast, but no, one gorgeous day after another. I am so sunburned. Cheap sunscreen = total waste. On me, anyway. Also, I used some of my parents' sunscreen in a desperate attempt to keep the malignant melanoma at bay for one more day and had some kind of itchy bumpy allergic reaction to it. So you can imagine how fabulous I look. But nobody will notice, right? right?

Also, my flickr photostream (which should be linked on the right over there, unless something dire has occurred with my CSS while I wasn't looking) has a few vacation photos in it. Just a few. I have taken three hundred something so far. I am so going to have to upgrade to a full account.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

5-minute post

I am in gorgeous sunny Morro Bay with only four minutes left of my library computer time in which to write a post. So!

Weather is gorgeous, better than I ever remember it being here in the summer. Had a FANTABULOUS but brief visit with Jenn on Saturday and Sunday and took many silly pictures. Am trying not to overeat too heavily but I'm compensating for the inevitable failure by going for lots of fast-but-still-romantic walks with T. The kids are having a fantastic time as well. Even Roman (Mom and Dad's dog), who was bitten by a rattlesnake a few weeks ago (I know, I know, I should blog more), is doing so well that you'd never know he'd been sick a minute.

Pictures when I return. WHICH COULD BE ANYTIME, creepy internet stalkers. Even today.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

just a weeee little bit fixated

The really nice people at iTunes informed me the other day that I could get a discount if I purchased the remainder of an album from which I had already purchased individual songs. This means that I scored fourteen additional Regina Spektor songs for $8 (The "bonus track version" of Begin to Hope has I think five or six bonus tracks). So you know what I've had in my ears for the past two days (well, that and the Librivox version of The Treasure Seekers which is absolutely brilliant). Actually, my discovery of the existence of her music earlier this year has had an interesting effect on me. Listening to her piano wizardry, and the fun she apparently has with it, reminded me (corny alert! corny alert!) how I loved playing the piano and what an outlet it was for self-expression, many long moons ago before I had a sleeping infant who turned into a crawly baby and then a nosy toddler who was joined by a sister and then both of them grew up into needy little kidlets, until I was just completely out of the piano habit and the thing just sat there gathering dust and collecting mess. While apparently, judging from my self-assigned piano practice over the past week, my left ring finger completely atrophied. You would have thought that ten years of near-constant Internet-related-and-otherwise typing would have done something to keep it healthy, but apparently no. I need to write more blog posts with plenty of w, s, and x in them, I guess.

So. Regina Spektor. I've never heard any music so fresh and original and sparkly and interesting. Some of it is perhaps a wee bit weird ("Uh-merica", I am looking at you), but the thing is, the weird stuff grows on you. It even grows on your husband. Or on mine anyway. And since C is (joy!) in a Mommy Can Do No Wrong And I Adore All That She Likes stage, she is the most ardent seven-year-old Regina Spektor fan you will ever meet, which just leaves LT yet to be converted. He still says she sounds like she needs to sneeze.

Ahem. In other non-obsession-related news:

I only have three history classes left. The dreaded paper is turned in, for better or worse, and I only have one more reaction paper to do, and then before I know it it will be summer, with no evening commitments at all woo hoo!. We are taking the summer off at Bible study because last summer we ended up cancelling probably half the meetings anyway because so many people were gone so often. We take a break from formal sit-down homeschooling from the beginning of June to the beginning of September. AWANA takes the summer off, too, of course, and that leaves just Boy Scouts for the Ts, which doesn't involve me. Even though I'll miss night classes a little (I was thinking about taking a partially-online class during the summer -- can't afford the gas for a regular night class, since they're three or four days a week and they don't offer any up here -- but the required orientation is scheduled during our beach vacation), really, I haven't looked forward to summer so much since I was a teenager. Maybe I should invite a bunch of people over for pizza, movies, and a 2 AM walk as soon as school lets out, to celebrate.

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