It will not steal your substance

In my seemingly endless blog-surfing, I only just today came across this gem: reinventing sandyb. Dude. Girlfriend crafts some mighty fine posts, oftentimes including delightful iPhone photos. Sometimes I want an iPhone just for the photo apps. Also I think I might possibly want to live in her house? Plus she’s adorkable. I’m just sayin’.

Anyway, my perusal of her site brought me to this entry and guys, can I just say how relieved I was to discover that this bizarro and somewhat annoying thing that I go through regularly might actually be at least a little bit normal? I mean, not that Idoubted that, shoot. Whenever I go through that “what am I doing” phase I feel 1: guilty, and 2: like I’m heading toward some kind of quarter-life crisis that I just don’t have the time or resources to deal with.

So from now on, when struck with restless soul syndrome, I vow to just figure out my own best methods of coping with it. I may not be able to go on those crazy international adventures that I crave, but I’m thinking I can come up with something.

hot as hell, totally thrilling, and gone before you know it

The building I work in has the standard fancy-schmancy air filtering and conditioning system which keeps it hovering around the same temperature range year ’round. Imagine my surprise when, for the first time this year, I walked outside after work and was greeted with the stifle of  humidity. It was like a split second of being smothered by a pillow before adjusting to the heaviness of the air. Believe it or not, I missed that. Oh, I might complain about the heat later, and sweating through my shirt while I walk to my bus stop, but you know what’s great about it? When it cools off juuust enough to sit outside on a clear night with a cold beer and a campfire. That’s why I prefer summer over winter: the nights. So fresh and perfect. I also like flip flops and tank tops rather than puffy coats and clunky boots.

I got home and made a nice salad I found in Women’s Health. Chicken, cucumber, tomato, red and yellow peppers, onion, cabbage (the recipe calls for bibb lettuce), white beans, and toasted chunks of pita. Whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, dijon mustard, sugar, red wine vinegar, and pepper and toss that in the salad. I added balsamic vinegar and some salt. So tasty!

Anyway. We are watching The Pillars of the Earth on Netflix and it’s pretty much amazing, so back to that.

The sky. It’s yellow.

Also? I cannot get this song out of my head. Love.

The Sock Troll

I just realized that the last day of my blog challenge asked three good things that happened, not three things that I learned. So I’m re-answering.

• The Royal Wedding, obviously. I’ll try to stop talking about it now.

• First weekend at the cabin!

• I moved from Blurty to WordPress, and I feel it’s been a change for the better.

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And now for a slice of my life. My boring life.

Darren can be kind of a slob. Isn’t that a common complaint? He neglects to clean up after himself, almost always. It’s not uncommon to find several days worth of socks around our very small living room – on the couch, on the floor, in the couch – and elsewhere. I once found a pair of his unders wedged between the bed and the wall. Who knows how long those had been there. He’s like some kind of freaky little sock troll. O r underwear troll.

The thing is, he only works three days a week right now. You’d think he would be willing to do a little around the apartment those other two days. Well, actually he’s totally willing, but if I don’t ask him to do something, he probably won’t. A lot of the time when I do ask, he puts it off. The other day I asked him to wash the dishes. There weren’t many and they were all his anyway, and he agreed. When I arrived home six hours later, the first thing he said was “I’ll do the dishes in a minute.”

I laughed. He washed them. Now if I could get him to clean all his junk off the coffee table when he’s done with it, that would rule.

It just rarely occurs to him that the stuff he leaves around is actually contributing to a mess and we’d all feel a little better if we put stuff where it belongs.

I love my husband dearly, but dang if he isn’t just a big ol’ sloth (soft and fluffy). He’s also a hindrance in my closet-purging efforts, but that’s another story for another day. Or probably not, because it’s not very interesting. As if this was.

Reason #45465 why I don’t want children. Nothing would ever get done and I would lose my shit. You know the episode of The Simpsons wherein they hire a nanny (Sherry Bobbins!) because Marge is freaking out and losing hair due to stress? I would be Marge.

They say it’s your birthday

After I got home from Kate’s Royal Wedding party on Friday I did five things: laundry, a shower, cleaned, packed, and took a very short nap. Darren got home at about 12:30 and after a quick lunch and last minute errands, we headed out.

The “cabin” is in Baxter, which is about 2 1/2 hours away. The cats got to stay at home dog-free while Enli came with us. We have an old  hand-me-down van so she gets the whole back to herself. We even took out one of the seats so she’d have more space, but she still curls up into one.

We got to Baxter at about 4:30 and discovered Darren’s grandparents there and everything already mostly finished. We didn’t expect them to be there at all so it was a nice surprise. We helped finish setup and then hopped into town for some supplies: hot dog buns and other campfire necessities, beer, and a new leash and outdoor lead for Enli so we could tie her up outside while we worked.

It was nice out during the day on Friday, but the cold settled in quickly. The grandparents went home, so Darren and I sat by the fire until it started to rain. Fortunately I had anticipated the weather, so I’d packed my laptop and some movies.

Darren had to get up early on Saturday to help set up the docks. In the rain. The dog and I stayed in bed until he finished, then we all watched another movie until the rain let up. We had another fire and got to eat our brats.

Lunch brought on nap time, followed by dinner with my mom. My parents only live about 20 minutes away from the cabin so it works out very nice. We had dinner and stopped over at her house so I could pick up a few things – a blanket my grandma made me, plus an end table and some Scentsy bars.

The wind was hellish and it was supposed to snow Saturday night, so we decided to just head back home. We packed up and headed out a little after 10 pm. Obviously we made it home safe.

Now it’s my birthday!   We had lunch at Pizza Luce and intend to spend the rest of the afternoon indoors. We picked up batteries for our Wii remotes and I hope to challenge Darren to some Mario Kart in the near future.

I have another four day work-week coming up and another trip north on Friday. I only hope the weather behave more appropriately.

28 Days ’til I see you

1. Do you wish for anything at 11:11? If so, what do you wish for?

I don’t. Sorry.

2. Your favorite movie.

Most boring question ever. I don’t even have one.

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Wow, good thing I have a story because those questions were totally lame.

I was on the bus home yesterday, all super mad because the bus was late and construction traffic was horrible so I knew I was going to miss my second bus. I was listening to music and fuming silently when I noticed the head of the man sitting in front of me.

At first I thought he was just a regular bald dude, but then I realized he was a head-shaver. How did I know? Well, here’s the thing. He was a heavier guy, and the the back of his head – near the neck – had this big skin fold/wrinkle thing. And when he moved his head the wrinkle opened up a little and you could see that there was still hair there, where the razor couldn’t get to it.

It was like a head mustache.

Gross.

Day 27

1. A picture of your handwriting.

This is from my phone, so sorry about the quality.

Sometimes my handwriting is decent; other times I don’t care enough to try.

2. A picture of you last year and now, and how have you changed since then?

To Facebook!

Okay, here I am approximately one year ago (I stole the picture from Kate. Thanks Kate).

I can’t find any super recent pictures of me (aside from the old-timey ones, which aren’t an accurate representation. Go figure). This one is from New Year’s Eve and is another unfortunate phone pic.

Physically I am a bit thinner and my hair is shorter. I am also apparently more drunk. I am married and acquired another pet and probably have less money, even though I make more now than I did last year. Funny how that works. I also might possibly be more awesome now than I was then.

I don’t know what WordPress’ deal is today. I am not the one that turned comments off on this post. It automatically de-selected the “allow comments” option and won’t let me re-click. Fail, WordPress. Fail.

Edit: All betters. That’s what I get for using Internet Explorer. Stupid work computer…

Iron! atomic #26

1. What are some little things that make you feel warm and fuzzy?

Kittens! Darren making me dinner. Snuggles. When my dog rests her head on my leg while she sleeps. Holding hands. Unsolicted backrubs. Cozy blankets. Pictures of my nephew. My wedding album. Hugs.

2. A photo of somewhere you’ve been.

If you just judged by photos, you’d think I’ve been many places. It’s not really true, though the places I have been are pretty awesome. My favorite? London.

Westminster Abbey. We went to church there on the Sunday of our trip. Best sermon ever.

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Fact: I have a four day work-week this week, so today is Fake Wednesday. On Friday I will watch the Royal Wedding with Kate and Alex (oh yes I will), then when Darren gets off work at noon we will head north to the Motherland to help his grandparents open the “cabin.”

It’s not really a cabin. It’s a camper set up on a piece of property they own that’s part of a resort/association thing. Once it’s all opened up we’re going to spend the rest of the weekend campfire-ing and brat-and-s’mores-eating and beer-drinking. Although it’s probably going to rain. We won’t let that stop us. My mom wants to take us out to dinner on Saturday, which will be awesome. Then we will spend a chunk of my birthday on Sunday driving home, but I’m pretty sure there will be a stop for ice cream. Possibly ice cream cake. Don’t be jealous.

The downer? Gas is expensive and we have to go back up there next weekend so I can be in Marsha’s wedding. Having to make pay for  two trips is a bummer, but two short weeks and a bunch of time at the cabin will be worth it.

It’s love, baby, 24 hours a Day.

1. Seven things that cross your mind a lot.

1. Is it 5:00 yet?
2. What should we have for dinner?
3. Leave me alone, dog.
4. Why are there socks all over the living room?
5. I’m hungry.
6. Stop ringing, phone!
7. Everyone is insane.

2. A photo of something that means a lot to you.

Funny you should ask. My brother just picked this up from our grandma on Friday. It’s his now – he’s going to put it up in his garage – but it has sentimental value for both of us.

It’s the sign that our dad had up outside his motorcycle shop. It was named after us: K&K = Kyle & Katrina. Pretty awesome that Kyle has it now.

For 20 Days, 20 nights, you’ve been gone, I’ve been free

1. Concerts you have attended.

In no particular order:

• Cloud Cult (x2)
• Metric
• The Weakerthans
• Electric Six
• Sufjan Stevens
• Joseph Arthur
• Stars of Track and Field
• Alpha Centauri
• Tapes n’ Tapes
• too many other local bands, I don’t think I could list them all
• Flogging Molly
• Gaelic Storm
• Matchbox 20
• Journey, REO Speedwagon, CCR, Lynyrd Skynyrd and more at Moondance Jam
• Newsboys, dc Talk, Michael W. Smith and more at SonShine (x2)

2. The meaning behind your blog name.

This was covered here.

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I was vague yesterday aboud some stuff going on at work. Now that a day has passed and it’s generally public knowledge,  I feel okay discussing it in this here blog. Time for processing and recovery was needed, y’know?

To begin at the beginning… our Events Manager had a heart attack at the end of February. He’s okay, but he’s been out since then recovering at home. We’re all good there; it just happens to be the first in a series of ever-worsening events.

On Thursday morning (or maybe late last Wednesday night?) my boss’ dad died. I don’t know whether or not he was ill or anything, but it happened. She hasn’t returned to work yet, which is understandable. I wouldn’t have come back yet either.

On Monday night, our Director of Ticketing was out for drinks with some of her employees when she started having trouble breathing. She went into cardiac arrest due to a pulmonary embolism. They stabalized her, and gave her a blood thinner which is standard treatment for an embolism. Unfortunately, this caused internal bleeding and she died at about 3:00 am Tuesday.

The embolism was caused by a blood clot in her leg, which she’d had for several weeks. She’d stopped taking the medication for it because it was making her sick. Then on Monday she was still very upset about what’s going on with our boss and was having trouble breathing even then.

Take your medicine, people. Being sick is better than being dead.

So things are definitely rough around here. Today is better than yesterday, though. Work is getting done and all that. Gotta do what you gotta do. it’s just weird, is all. For me, it’s been a very long time since someone in my life died so suddenly. It takes a bit to adjust to the new reality.

Got 16 Days, one for every time I’ve gone away

1. If the world were to end tomorrow, what would you do with your remaining time on Earth?

I kind of hate answering this question. I think most people would have a similar answer, in that they’d spend time with the people they love. I’d try to gather all of my friends and family together – never mind how difficult that would be, considering they have families of their own – and have a campfire. We could drink delicious drinks, eat delicious food, play music and have a good time together until it was all over.

2. Your celebrity crush?

I think I covered this well enough here.

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It’s been a nice lazy Saturday ’round here. Darren and I went out for Vietnamese food, then stopped by a friend’s house quick before returning home to watch The Empire Strikes Back. Hateful laundry will probably be done at some point, and I am considering baking some cookies. Maybe not. I had intended to run out to JoAnn’s in Roseville to get some yarn, but I think I’ll just put that off for a bit.

Instead, I might watch another movie and eat my leftover pho.

Exciting times here, let me tell you.