Thursday, April 28, 2011

a rude awakening!

so today . . . i had a near death experience. in the shower.

when i get up in the morning, i am not really alert. my eyes are open, but they don't really see anything. my brain struggles to begin conscious thought. really, i am on autopilot until about 10:00. so i am not always aware of the details of my surroundings...

this morning i felt my way along the wall until i reached the shower. i turned the water on, and continued sleeping. i opened my eyes briefly so i could find the shampoo, and then closed them again--because really, i can't see my hair while i'm shampooing it anyway...

near the end of my shower, i finally opened my eyes all the way. and then i saw it--a big, fat, hairy (well, i couldn't actually SEE that it was hairy, because i wasn't wearing my glasses and my eyes were five feet away, but i know it was hairy!!) SPIDER!!! IN THE SHOWER!!! WITH ME!!!!!!!

let me just say, if i was diandra, shrieking, screaming, crying, and panicking would have ensued. we would have all gone running, thinking she was fighting off a knife-wielding psychopath instead of a spider. she would not have been able to get out of that shower fast enough!! i, however, kept my cool. mostly...

i am not so much afraid of spiders, as i am creeped out by them. i am capable of grabbing a tissue and eliminating any feckless spiders that happen across my path, but that doesn't mean i want to be surprised by one. i don't want my bare foot to find one in my shoe. i don't want one to drop on my head and crawl down my arm. and i certainly don't want to take a shower with one!

my poor sleeping brain wasn't quite sure what to do. my first thought was to drown it. i was in the shower, after all--there was plenty of water. but i was kind of afraid that if i moved the stream of water to kill the spider, it might flee from the water--toward me! i couldn't squish it with a tissue, because a) there were no tissues within reach, and b) a tissue would just disintegrate in the shower and then i would be HOLDING a spider! i couldn't yell for help, because i was alone. in the house. with a spider. IN MY SHOWER!!!

i decided that perhaps my best course of action was to get out of the shower. and fast. so i turned off the water, grabbed my towel and started to dry off. in the shower.

yes, i dry off in the shower--i have to. our shower is right inside the bathroom door, so if i step out onto the bathmat without drying off first, then the bathmat is wet! and then every time i go in or out of the bathroom, in my bare or stockinged feet, my feet get wet. and i hate having wet feet! (technically, we probably don't even need a bath mat since we can't step on it with our wet feet, but i just think we should have one. at least it feels nice on my feet before i step into the shower.) so yes, there i was, drying off in the shower, with one eye on that spider.

actually, both eyes were on the spider. i just knew that once the water was off, he was going to start running laps around the shower floor, and then he would eventually get dizzy and stagger into the center of the shower WHERE MY FEET WERE!!! sure enough, he started moving clockwise. he got to the side where the door was (i don't know how he knew that was where the door was... do spiders even know what a door is?!?!?) and started to climb up the side toward freedom. i thought this was an excellent idea! but he couldn't seem to get out!! he would crawl a little way up and then slide down, crawl up a bit and then slide down. clearly he was not getting anywhere...

and then he turned around and headed straight. for. me!

by now i was almost dry--everything except my feet and my dripping hair! i backed into the corner of the shower, drying off one foot. he kept coming. the foot that was still on the shower floor started tingling. i just knew he was going to be on my foot in seconds! i slid my foot as far away as i could get and started angling toward the door...

and then he crawled down the drain.

DOWN THE DRAIN!! OF HIS OWN FREE WILL!!! didn't he know that there was water down there? didn't he know that spiders can't swim? didn't he know that soon rollie would be getting in the shower and he would be toast???

i don't know. maybe the spider was not a morning person either and was running on auto pilot like i had been. (you notice i say "had been," because now i was thoroughly and completely awake!!) or maybe he had just had enough! maybe he was tired of living in fear of diandra's screams and my looming tissues... maybe we had annihilated all the other spiders in our house, and he could see the handwriting on the wall...

either way, apparently i was not in the shower with a knife-wielding psychopath... just with a suicidal spider...

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

the siren song of costco...

so today . . . i went to costco. it was time. we were out of almonds.

going to the grocery store is not my favorite thing to do. it ranks right up there with cleaning the shower or going to the dentist. but sometimes i have to go. we need food that i can only get at costco--like two pound bags of almonds or five dozen eggs or a giant bag of kettle corn (which, btw, is only 150 calories per serving. and guess what? a serving is 2 1/2 cups!!! this is new knowledge that i gained while shopping at costco today! now the big bag of kettle corn is on my 'must have it' list.)

i had put off going to costco as long as i could. but this morning we were totally out of almonds, which is 1/3 of rollie's breakfast. thankfully, i had a small bag of trail mix (no almonds, but it did have peanuts and raisins, and bonus m&ms,) so i left that out for him--you know, because it's sort of my responsibility to make sure we have cheese and eggs and nuts at all times, and i didn't make it to the store yesterday. so i knew i had to go today.

when i left school and headed for costco, i realized that i was going to drive right past the house we are hoping to buy--well, not right past, but really close to it--so i decided to make a short detour and just drive by again...

i didn't have the address, but i've been there twice. how hard could it be to find it? it is in a housing development, surrounded by a cement block wall, with only one entrance. i figured if i got in, i would eventually find it.

eventually turned out to be right! i made it to the street that the house is on with no problems. and then i turned the wrong way. i went left when i should have gone right. this was not good, not good at all. i had no idea there could be so many dead ends and cul-de-sacs in such a small area! it seemed like no matter where i went, i had to turn around and go back! i kept thinking that if i just went a little further, i could get out. i was wrong.

i finally got turned around the right way and found the house... and a whole street lined with giant pine trees!

how could i have missed that before?!? our possible new house is on a street lined with pine trees! i am not a fan of pine trees, unless i am in oregon. that is where pine trees belong! they look normal up there! in southern california, they look like they are lost, like somehow they were on their way north when they just got too tired to continue, and so they put their roots down here. i don't like it. it isn't a deal breaker, but i don't like it.

eventually i found my way out of the housing development, and continued on to costco. i was just there to get the staples of our diet--lettuce, broccoli, cheese, bananas, dried mangoes, almonds and pecans, eggs, and wheat thins. (ok, we eat other stuff too, but this is what i get at costco.) i walked in, flipped my card at the entrance guard, and stopped.

i was in big trouble.

let's just say that if you are in the process of buying a new home, you should probably stay out of costco unless you have a credit card with a zero balance.

before i even got to the first aisle, i saw a commercial grade garden hose, water resistant throw pillows (for that outdoor furniture i will one day have,) and refrigerators (because we might have to buy one.) and then it occurred to me that costco might be a good place to get a whole bunch of stuff we will need when we move into a new house.

but not today. today i did not have an empty credit card with me. today i do not yet have a new house. today the house i am living in does not have room for anything else! so today was not the day to stock up on new house stuff.

i turned my cart toward the lettuce, moving quickly past all the shiny kitchen gadgets. because even though i don't like to cook, i looooove shiny kitchen gadgets. if it plugs in and whirrs, i want it. i might never, ever use it, but i like having shiny kitchen gadgets in my kitchen. because you just never know when i might be inspired to prepare something... i got the lettuce and turned toward the cheese. but to get to the cheese, i had to go through the bakery...

ah, the bakery... the bakery at costco is like the fourth level of hell. it lures and entices you with the delicious smells that are created when white sugar and flour are baked together. if they sold any of those baked good individually, i would be in deep and serious trouble! but since you have to buy them in great quantities, i can usually resist.

i got the cheese and then braved the cold of the giant cooler to add some eggs to my cart. while i was on my way to get wheat thins, i spied the outdoor furniture...

ok, we are going to need outdoor furniture. one of the things we like about the new house is the back yard. it isn't great yet, but we have plans for it. big plans. and i am pretty sure that at some point outdoor furniture is going to be a part of those plans. so it is good to know what the options are...

i sat in chairs. i sat on loveseats. i sat at tables and pretended i was having 'breakfast out on the terrace.'

i moved on to the nuts. i finished my shopping and headed home. i did not go past the new house again.

i don't know if we are going to get this house. they've asked for another day to think about it. they may reject our offer, and i don't want to get too attached until i see if it is going to be ours. but if it is, i see more than one trip to costco in our future. because costco pretty much seems to have everything a new house needs...

...except the kitchen sink. thankfully, we won't need a kitchen sink!

Monday, April 25, 2011

did we just make a decision?!?

so today . . . we made an offer on a house. i feel a little sick.

i don't know whether to be excited that we might get the house or scared that we might get the house. so i seem to have compromised by feeling a little nauseated...

after my first big day of house hunting by myself, i dragged rollie out to dinner and told him every little detail of every house i had seen--even the ones i didn't like! and i showed him the photos i had taken. and then i made him drive by the teeny tiny house, because it happened to be really, really close to rubio's (which you would think would be a selling point.) i'm sure he was exhausted, and he hadn't even looked at any actual houses!

and then last wednesday afternoon, our realtor called and said she had found the PERFECT HOUSE, but it had just come on the market and we needed to see it IMMEDIATELY or it might be gone!! well. the perfect house. ok, then. rollie was available, so we piled into jill's car (jill is our exceptional realtor,) and headed out...

as we drove, i read the listing sheet--out loud, for everyone's benefit! it sounded nearly perfect. we walked in, and i immediately fell in love. it was beautiful! it had been totally remodeled--tile and wood flooring, crown molding, new kitchen cabinets and appliances, new windows, and NEW BATHROOM FIXTURES (i cannot tell you how many icky showers i have looked at!) the closets were small, but it was all one level--there is only so much room in a one story home!

and then we went into the back yard...

a nice back yard is important to us. we have beautiful weather here most of the year, so we want to be able to hang out in our back yard. BUT i don't want to be surrounded by two story homes overlooking our space, and i don't want the house behind me to be right next to my fence! this is not so easy to find. i keep saying to jill, "we need a back yard that is quiet, relaxing, private..." yeah, in l.a. fortunately, in addition to all the other wonderfulness in this house, the back yard was private, because there was no one living behind it. unfortunately, there was a school behind it.

ok, maybe for most people that wouldn't be such a big deal. but we have these two dogs... and they like to bark... sometimes i even think they just pretend they hear something outside so that they can race out the doggie door and bark their little furry heads off! so living right next to a school yard was probably not going to work for us, because there would be kids there. and our dogs would bark at the kids. and the neighbors would call animal control. and then there would be a big neighborhood controversy--people would choose up sides. it might get ugly.

yeah, as beautiful as it was, this was probably not the house for us.

but all was not lost. jill said there was another house with the same floor plan, in a different neighborhood that was also available. we went to look at it, and it wasn't bad--at least there was no school behind it--but after looking at the completely remodeled house, it was just not very appealing to see dated kitchen cabinets and wall to wall carpeting and icky bathrooms...

i was starting to feel like we might never find anything.

and then i talked to a friend of mine who said they had looked at 32 houses before they bought one! ok, so maybe it was unrealistic to expect to find a house so quickly. maybe this was like house hunter's initiation. "don't get discouraged," she said, "keep looking. you will find the house that is right for you. just keep looking." and so, we did.

we arranged to meet jill on saturday to see another batch of houses. this time, rollie was able to come.

seeing houses with rollie was a different experience. it was kind of like when we went house hunting on his ipad. i tended to move quickly, get a feel for the house, and move on. rollie was much, much slower. he looked at details. he asked questions. he talked to the people who were currently living in the houses! let's just say, it took us about an hour longer to see fewer houses than when jill and i went alone.

BUT the first house we took him to see was the first house i had seen on my first day of house hunting. and he loved it! i had been talking about it, because as we looked at other houses, i just kept coming back to that one. it isn't perfect--it only has a two car garage, the laundry facilities are in the two car garage, and there is no pool. (ok, the pool was kind of a long shot anyway, but this is california! i feel as though i should have a pool!!) and so we continued on to look at more houses. but at the end of the day, we both thought maybe the first house we saw was the house we should get. so today we made an offer.and now all we can do is wait. and then wait some more. i can't get excited, because if we don't get the house, i don't want to be disappointed. i'm not even absolutely 100% sure that this is the house we should get, because you never know... there might be a better house out there somewhere. but i am 100% sure that if we don't get this house, i will be disappointed--at least until we find a better house. but what if we don't find a better house? what if we end up paying just as much money for a smaller house? or a house with loud neighbors? or what if we get this house and it has loud neighbors? or dogs that engage in barking contests with our dogs?

WHAT THE HECK ARE WE DOING?!?!?!?!?!

...sigh. it's ok. really it is. i am not stressed. i am not worried. either we will get this house or we won't. it will be fine. really. it will be fine.

but just in case, i have located our tent...

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

if only i didn't need a paycheck...

so today . . . i am thinking about quitting my job and becoming diandra's photography assistant.

diandra had a big photo shoot today. it was a styled shoot, and as she was telling me about all the vendors involved, i asked her how many photographers would be there, and she said... just one. it sounded like a very complicated shoot, and it soon became clear that it would be good if she had some help. so i sent some text messages and talked to some people, and was able to take the afternoon off work and rearrange an appointment so that i could go with her.

i dashed home at noon, changed my clothes, grabbed an extra sweater and a coat (because we were going to be at the beach and it was cool today,) and we headed south to san clemente.

it was a beautiful day! we were right by the beach, but we spent most of the day at the venue, which was beautiful!! it was an old casino, built in 1937, that had gone through several transformations during the last century. in world war 2 it was a naval lookout station, it was a moose lodge for a while, and was also used as an entertainment venue. it has recently been remodeled to host weddings and events, and it was a gorgeous place! there are beautiful outdoor areas with fireplaces and native vegetation, a ballroom with a domed lighted ceiling, terracotta tiled floors in the large meeting rooms, and details, details, details. it was so unique, it made me want to plan a huge party! i'm sure all five of my friends would come ;-)

we met the other people who were going to be involved today, and then diandra started shooting details. i babysat her lenses, held the diffusion shield, kept track of what the client wanted, moved stuff around and put it back, and generally did what i could to help diandra so that she could focus on getting the shots she wanted. and i loved every minute of it!

and then she asked me for her wide angle lens...

uh oh. i looked into her shoot sac. i saw four lenses. apparently one of them was a wide angle lens, but i had no idea which one. i surreptitiously took one out and looked at it. nope, it didn't say "wide angle" anywhere. i checked the next one. it said 50mm. hmmm, it didn't say wide angle either. i picked up another one. still no words, just numbers, numbers, numbers. after checking the last lens, i knew i was in trouble. i did not know which one was the wide angle lens. i didn't want to hand her the wrong one, and i was trying to act like i assisted her all the time, so i didn't really want to have to ask her. i quickly checked them all again, but it became clear that i was going to have to get some help. i walked over to diandra and quietly said, "um, it doesn't say wide angle on any of the lenses."

she is still laughing about it.

she explained the numbers to me, AGAIN, and soon i had it figured out. in fact, i learned a lot of things today, so i was thinking that maybe it was time for a top ten list...

TOP TEN THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT BEING A PHOTOGRAPHER'S ASSISTANT TODAY...

10. wait to take a bathroom break until the photographer is ready to take a bathroom break. it isn't good if the photographer is standing around, wasting their valuable time, because the assistant drank a huge diet soda on the way to the shoot and had to go use the facilities. even if your excuse was that you were scoping out locations...

9. don't drink more than the photographer. why? see #10...

8. remember where the shootsac is. the shootsac is the most valuable item at the shoot--except for the camera. it is filled with lenses, batteries, memory cards, business cards... in other words, it needs to be available to the photographer at all times. i tried to keep the shootsac with me, but sometimes i had to put it down to shade the details diandra was shooting. and then we would move on to something else. and then i would turn around to get a lens and the shootsac would be gone! and i would have to try to remember where i had left it and go get it. it seemed like no matter where we were, the shootsac would be hiding the lenses at the other side of the venue. i think the shootsac thinks i am after it's job! it's pretty smart, because i might be :-)

7. the food is just there to look beautiful. don't eat it--at least not until the photographer says she is done shooting it! a styled shoot is all about the photographs. sometimes that means the food isn't exactly real. but today, the food from sweet cream bakery in san clemente was real. and beautiful. and delicious. i know it was delicious, because after looking at it all afternoon, we finally got to eat it. i ate a red velvet cake pop. and then i ate another one. i was really, really glad that the food was real at this shoot! so was everyone else. everyone who was involved today was standing just out of camera range, waiting for diandra to say, "ok, i'm done shooting the desserts." those biblical locusts had nothing on us!!!

6. don't put a small point and shoot camera into the top of the shootsac. i was carrying so much stuff back and forth that it seemed like a good idea at the time, and maybe it was... right up until the moment that it fell out of the shootsac onto the ceramic tiles... which brings me to...

5. don't drop my camera. of course i had my camera with me! it was a day full of photo ops!! i looooove to take pictures of diandra taking pictures. but i had to squeeze that in between juggling her lenses and the diffusion shield and tweeting about how much fun i was having. i've dropped my camera before, and it has always survived, so i wasn't really worried. but then, the next photo i took looked like this:suddenly i was thinking maybe i should have stayed at work and earned my paycheck this afternoon, because it looked like i might be replacing a camera... thankfully it was just a lens cover malfunction. i fixed it, and then took some more pictures of diandra shooting pictures.4. keep extra ponytail bands in the shootsac. it was a bit windy yesterday, and we were outside most of the time. i spent a lot of time with my arms fully extended above my head holding a diffuser shade. which was fine, until the wind blew my hair across my face, and i couldn't breathe--or move to brush it away!! it was kind of like having a bug crawling up your arm or a tiny rock in your shoe. it drove me crazy!!! thankfully, diandra had an extra ponytail band in the shootsac...

3. know when to shut up. it isn't as easy as it sounds! when i look at pictures, i always see the messy background or the hair that is out of place. i see the scrap of paper that has blown under the adirondack chair, or the four yellow dandelions in the yard full of beautiful green grass, or the sprinkler head in the middle of the picture, and so i want to make sure they don't get in the shot. but i also don't want to break diandra's train of thought as she moves through her shoot. sometimes i see a shot from a different angle that i think would be a great picture, so i suggest it. but i also don't want to sound like i am trying to tell her what to do, so sometimes i don't. it is a fine line to walk...2. don't leave the lenses at the location. this seems somewhat unnecessary to say. and yet, i walked off to the car at the end of the day without the shootsac. thankfully i remembered before we got out of the parking lot.

and the number one thing i learned about being a photographer's assistant today...

1. if they borrow your diamond ring for the shoot, make sure to get it back! yeah, we were sitting in the car, ready to leave, when travis--the groom model--came running across the parking lot with my ring in his hand. several times during the day i had thought, "don't forget to get your ring... don't forget to get your ring..." but by the end of the day, it was dark and we were tired, and i just forgot... luckily we were working with honest people!

on the way home, i told diandra how much i had enjoyed the day. i even offered to quit my job if i could be her assistant. she said it had been a big help to have me there today, but that usually she didn't really need an assistant. i tried to convince her that she did! she told me that she probably couldn't match my paycheck. this is probably true... ...but my paycheck doesn't buy days spent in the sunshine watching my daughter do what she loves best, and getting to be a part of it!

Monday, April 18, 2011

snack attack!

so today . . . i am in big trouble. today i discovered that one doesn't need ice cream in order to eat the toppings.

you know i try to eat healthy most of the time. you know this, because i go on and on and on about it... but lately i am having a hard time staying on the straight and narrow. lately i just want to live on crunchy cheetos and brownies and ice cream, with an occasional banana thrown in, you know, just so i can pretend that i still have some sort of moral compass.

to aid me in my quest for nutritious food choices, i do not buy unhealthy snack food at the grocery store. or costco. especially costco, because at costco you cannot buy just one small bag of some terrible snack food--you have to buy a huge bag. or two bags forever joined by shrink-wrapped cellophane. in fact, when we finished off our last 12 pack of pepsi one, i decided i would no longer buy it. if i didn't have it in the house, i figured, i wouldn't have any soda to drink, which would force me to drink something more healthful--like water. this seemed like a good idea. it was a good idea. except that i still have car keys and a vehicle with gas in the tank (although it cost me $42 to fill my teeny tiny tank today!) and a 7-11 just about a mile away... i think i have been at 7-11 almost every day since i decided not to buy any more pepsi one.

clearly my plan is not working...

it is really not working, because when i go to 7-11 for a diet lemon cokesi, i almost always buy a brownie. or two. or three. and a bag of crunchy cheetos. or two. it is becoming a problem. friday, when i made my daily run for a soda, i also put a brownie on the counter. "only one today?" said the lady manning the cash register. yeah, that store clerk has my number. i might, in fact, be slightly addicted to soda and brownies.

or maybe it is just the sugar. sometimes i just want something sweet. but since, as i said, i don't really keep sweet snacks in the house, this can be a problem.

i don't have any sugar in my kitchen. we exorcised our kitchen from the evils of sugar a few years ago. but there are days when i still go looking for it. there were no cookies in the cookie jar, no chocolate kisses in the candy dish, no cans of frosting in the cupboard, no chocolate chips in the freezer. and no ice cream.

i knew we didn't have any cookies or candy or frosting or chocolate or ice cream, and yet i went looking anyway. i needed some sugar and i didn't want to have to drive to get it, because i was already wearing my flannel pants (the ones that are about 10 sizes too big for me,) and it was dark outside. i was in for the night!

and then i found some butterscotch ice cream topping...

i knew we didn't have any ice cream. i knew, because i had already checked the freezer for any hidden deliciousness and found that there wasn't any. but that jar of butterscotch topping lured me in. i was standing there thinking about dipping a spoon in it, when i saw the nut container.

now we were getting somewhere...

i put some chopped nuts in a small bowl and drizzled the butterscotch topping over it. (ok, here's the truth. there was no drizzling happening. i added butterscotch topping by the spoonful! and then i added even more. those nuts were almost swimming in a pool of butterscotch!) and then i sort of mixed it all together. and it tasted pretty good! even without the ice cream.

i guess desperation is the mother of invention. i guess it isn't safe to keep butterscotch topping in the refrigerator anymore. i guess maybe i should go to bed earlier, before the munchies attack me.

i guess it isn't enough to expunge the sugar from the kitchen. i guess i am also going to have to exercise a bit of self-control.

sigh. i am doomed.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

house hunters...

so today . . . i was a house hunter. on steroids.

today all the planets were aligned properly, i guess, because i finally found myself in a car, with a realtor, and a list of houses to see. eight houses. three hours. and ninety degree weather.

it was quite a day...

if you have ever watched house hunters, there are three things that you know.

1-they will look at three houses.

2--they will not like everything about any of them.

3--they will choose one anyway...

that's what i thought house hunting would be like today, but it is a lot harder in real life, when you are spending your own money (well, technically the bank's money, i guess,) and trying to decide how important granite counter tops are, and wondering if anyone ever cleans their bathroom anymore, and calculating the cost of adding air conditioning or ripping concrete out of the back yard so the dogs can have a patch of grass. a lot harder.

i looked at eight houses today. some were pretty nice. one was pretty awful. some had potential, but needed some work. i think one might have had a dead body in the garage, because the people renting the house REALLY did not want us to look in there... there were two houses on corner lots, two in cul-de-sacs, and one on a dead end. there were lovely wood floors, nice tile floors, and 40 year old carpeted floors. there were doors in strange places, under the sink cabinets with 45 degree angled floors, and a couch blocking a sliding glass door. there was one garage that actually had cars in it! there were empty houses, party houses, and two houses with people sleeping in the beds! there were big dogs, little dogs, and cats...

(oooo, cats. i forgot to ask about the cats. rollie is highly allergic, and probably won't be able to breathe in a house that has had cats.)

of the eight houses we looked at today, i liked most of the features of two--the most expensive house on the list (of course,) and the smallest house on the list (1300 square feet!) neither is perfect, but both have some nice features and i think i could live in either and be pretty happy with my choice.

rollie is still holding out for a pool...

so here it is, 11:00, and i have visions of wood floors, walk-in closets, and gas fireplaces dancing in my head. (notice i did not say granite counter tops. i like granite counter tops, but the truth is, i don't really spend much time in the kitchen...) i have not done any laundry. i have not finished diandra's taxes (thank goodness for the extra three days this year!) i did not pass go or collect $200 (shoot!) and tomorrow i am scheduled to go look at a couple more houses after church. which means those things may not get done again.

i have a feeling i am going to be very, very tired before this week is over... maybe before this weekend is over...

Thursday, April 14, 2011

get ready! the search is about to begin...

so today . . . a bank decided they could trust us with some of their money.

this is a good thing, because soon we are going to have to move out of the house we have lived in for the last ten years. since rollie has a new job, he isn't the pastor of our church anymore. and since our church owns the house we live in, they are probably going to need it for their new pastor. eventually.

i'm going to have to live in a tent in the park...

we have known since the beginning of the year that we were going to have to move, but it just seems like circumstances have been conspiring against us. rollie had to move to a new office, diandra got married--in las vegas. rollie has been out of town 4 or 5 times. i had lesson plans to write and report cards to do and pre-k evaluations and parent conferences... and the list goes on.

whenever i had a little extra time, i would look at houses for sale online, but i was pretty sure i didn't have enough money in my bank account to buy one. we finally managed to find an afternoon to go talk to a realtor, but that was as far as we got in our search for a house. because she said we really needed to know how much we could spend before we did any looking (duh! well, she didn't say 'duh,' but i sort of think she was thinking 'duh'...) which meant filling out paperwork. which took time... time we couldn't seem to find.

i'm sure there are some nice parks where we could put a tent...

our realtor had planned to be gone for a month on vacation in march and april. she was worried that we might have to move before she got back. but we have a little time to work with here, and besides, we hadn't done the whole bank thing yet. so we told her it was ok--we would just wait for her. a month should be plenty of time to get a loan pre-approved...

and then it was time to do the taxes. and you know how that went... and then suddenly it was time for our realtor to come home--could she have possibly already been gone for a month?!?!? and we still hadn't connected with the bank yet.

i'm starting to really think i might have to live in a tent in the park...

i was worried about the whole bank thing. housing is not what you would call reasonable here in southern california. and we have two dogs that need a yard, and two convertibles that need a garage, and some storage space for all the stuff i can't seem to get rid of (although rollie assures me i will be able to get rid of some of it when we move. he says he will help me. i can hardly wait...) and i am worried we won't possibly be able to afford all of that. so this whole loan pre-approval thing has been torturing me. but our realtor is coming back tomorrow. and really, how can we tell her that in all the time she was gone we hadn't been able to find a few hours to do our paperwork?!?

i was afraid that is exactly what we were going to have to do. and then, miracle of miracles, rollie did it--he got the paperwork filled out yesterday. he faxed it to the bank, and today they said YES! they would love to loan us some money!

of course they would. for a fee. a pretty hefty fee, actually, if you figure out how much interest we will ultimately pay...

rollie is excited. i am a little sick. because now that we have the money, we have to find a house. can you imagine how many decisions are going to have to be made??? that we are going to have to agree on?!?!?!? and the pressure of choosing a house to live in until we die (which is our plan--we never want to have to move again!) and what if, after spending enough money to feed a small country, and moving all our worldly possessions (well, the ones that escape rollie and the dumpster,) we find out that the neighbors hate dogs? or that the back yard floods when it rains?? (that could be 4 or 5 miserable days every year!!!) or that "the last people who lived in that house let all the neighborhood kids swim in the pool whenever they wanted to!" (hey, we could have a pool! the realtor says houses with pools in cerritos are actually cheaper...)

maybe a tent in the park isn't such a bad idea. we already own a tent...

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

diandra--my enabler :-)

so today . . . my name is julie and i'm a social media-aholic.

i am not even going to give you all the pathetic details of my condition. let me just say, if i were in a support group, i would have to go tonight and say, "it has only been a few hours since i joined a new social media platform..." say hello to tumblr.

i spend plenty of time on facebook, probably more than is good for me. i blog, and when i blog, it usually takes a couple of hours out of my already full day. i also tweet, but mostly as a quick way to post something to facebook.

and then, last night, diandra discovered tumblr.

i'm not quite sure how it happened, but she spent all evening working on her page layout and posting stuff. i was curious about what she was doing, so she said, "just go on and follow me." so, of course i did.

i was surprised to learn that i already had a tumblr account. i have no idea how that happened. i do not remember signing up for tumblr. i didn't even know what it was!!! but i was following one person. one. this was a surprise to me! but anyway, now that i had an account, i decided i should start to use it. diandra said it was very user friendly (meaning, "even you could probably figure it out, mom,") so this afternoon i tried to get it working...

first i had to get over the forgotten password hurdle. since i didn't even know i had an account, i sure didn't know the password! i tried every password i could remember ever using for anything. nothing worked. i finally had to give in and have them send me the "don't you keep a list of your passwords somewhere?" email that told me how to reset it. which i did. this allowed me to finally access the account.

and then the trouble really began, because i was suddenly faced with choices, choices, choices. layouts, colors, fonts, oh my! after viewing several free ones (because you could pay up to $49 for one! seriously?? i mean, i know designers should be paid for their work, but my page is just for fun. and probably only two people will ever bother to go look at it, so i don't think i'll be paying anything for a layout template,) i chose one that was very simple but colorful. i was pretty happy with it, but then my lunch break was over so i had to wait to finish it up...

when i got home, diandra said she had posted about 20 things to her tumblr page over the last two days. i thought that sounded like a lot. i'm pretty sure i won't be posting nearly that much, but i thought i should go finish figuring the thing out. but first, diandra went to look at it. and that is when the mocking began... because since i hadn't posted anything, my page was just blocks of color--no words, no pictures, nothing. well, that isn't technically true. because in setting the page up, it wanted me to give it a title. sheesh. i didn't know what to call it. i didn't know what kind of stuff i was going to post, so how could i know what to call it. "hmmmm, mom? really?? that's what you are going to call your page? hmmmm??" that was diandra's response. this was not encouraging to me. i had thought it was a decent title. that is the sound of thinking... it seemed like a good idea at the time...

ok, fine! i needed words. but i didn't know what to write. i'm not quite sure what to do with tumblr. i use twitter if i have an amusing thought to share. facebook is where i interact with my family and friends. (i even have two facebook pages now--one for family, one for friends. although, some friends are on the family one, because i haven't had the friend one for very long. so it is a little confusing, even to me.) and this blog is where i write, since i have discovered i love to write. (actually i'm not sure if i love to write or if i just love to tell stories, writing being the easiest way to do that...) so i don't really know where tumblr fits in...

i thought maybe it should address a particular area of my life. my blog is just about random stuff that happens to me that i think might make you laugh. facebook is mostly a response to the people who are or have been a part of my life. so tumblr... maybe it should be inspirational. i could write inspirational. i think. or maybe it should be opinionated. i certainly have opinions, but i rarely share them. or maybe it should just consist of reposting stuff i find that interests me. but would any of that be interesting to anyone else? and will anyone else ever see it? and does it matter if they do or not???

i don't know. but i kind of wanted my first post to set the tone for what was to come. how could i do that if i didn't know what was to come. i was sitting on the couch, unable to write anything. diandra was sitting next to me, whining about needing food. "we can't go until i write something," i said. "you made fun of my empty page. what if people stumble across it and it says nothing!" "we are going to be here all night, mom, just write something!!!" she said, (that was the hunger talking...) but i couldn't. i was paralyzed. but she was hungry. so she leaned over my computer, and in the title space she wrote "paralized," while i tried to push her fingers off my keyboard. "ACK! DON'T POST THAT!! I AM NOT GOING TO HAVE MISSPELLED WORDS ON MY PAGE!!!" she proceeded to write a pretty cute entry, which was quite a feat considering i was trying to prevent her. but i read it, corrected the spelling, and thought, ok, that is a good start. and then i wrote some more. and then some more. and then i decided to post hers first, and then mine. but i am still learning how to use tumblr, and i accidentally deleted hers. which is too bad, because it was cute...

and then i started my blog for today. because if i can't blog on tumblr (which technically i can, but i don't have time for two blogs,) then i needed to blog about tumblr--just this once. and then diandra said, "if you blog about tumblr, then maybe people who read your blog will come to your tumblr page. and if they come to your tumblr page, they might see MY tumblr page. and what if they follow me?" "that will be good, won't it? don't you want people to read your page?" i asked. "no," she said, "this is just my personal page." "then maybe you should make it private," i said. "well," she paused, "i want people to read it, but maybe not people i know. what if i want to post something inappropriate?!?"

ok, that made me laugh. i am following her on tumblr. she knows that. i am her mother. i doubt she is going to post something inappropriate. but i understand what she is saying. i am sort of feeling the need to have a place where i can write it all--the good, the bad, and the ugly (the ugly would probably be a gallery of photos of my bangs...)

so. tumblr. i'm not sure exactly what it is going to become. but it might not be for everyone. maybe i should call it "julie. unplugged." you know, just in case i decide to post something inappropriate.

;-)

Monday, April 11, 2011

an explanation... and the aftermath...

so today . . . i needed a soda. NEEDED one. not in the normal, "oh, i wish i had a soda" kind of way. i needed one in the "if i don't get a soda in the next 15 minutes i am either going to be sick, have a headache, or fall over unconscious" kind of way. i blame the federal tax system...

yes, it is tax time once again. and once again, i was compiling tax information at the last minute. last night was the last minute, because rollie had a tax appointment this morning with h & r block. i've known about this appointment for a week. in fact, i am the one who reminded him that time was running out, and he needed to make time for an appointment. i said this last tuesday. i even said that if he could get an appointment for friday, i would have the information ready. and i would have. it just would have meant that i didn't get much sleep thursday night instead of last night.

my friend wendy can't understand why it takes me so long to prepare for taxes, since i am not even the one who fills out the forms. i think she thinks i do it just so i have an excuse to whine. i do whine. sometimes. but when it comes to preparing the taxes, i have reason to whine.

the main reason is my ability to procrastinate. it doesn't matter whether we make our tax appointment for february 1st or april 10th--whenever it is, i will start preparing early, then decide i have plenty of time, and then end up staying up all night to get it done at the eleventh hour. i wish it weren't so, but it is.

part of the problem is our house in oregon. because we lived there such a short time and now we rent it, we have to itemize our deductions. which opens up another can of worms...

...receipts. to itemize, one has to have receipts. and boy do i have them! the problem is that, while i have file folders for everything, receipts do not always make it into their designated folder. which results in me running around the house, looking in every possible hiding place so that i don't miss any. which inevitably i do. every single year when i am dealing with the mountain of receipts, i will find some from the previous year that somehow evaded detection before. i hate this! it means my tax preparation wasn't perfect, which really annoys the ocd part of my brain!!

and then there is the sales tax deduction. wendy lives in oregon, where they don't have sales tax. at all. 0%!!! so she doesn't understand the sales tax deduction. but if i am going to itemize my deductions, i want to get all i can! this means saving all the receipts every time we buy something... every. single. receipt. and then, i have to somehow organize them so that i can add up all the sales tax we paid. every. single. penny. so i have a system... and the system works pretty well, once i get all the receipts collected. but that is the problem. our system is, at the end of the day we put all the receipts for the day in a file folder in the kitchen. which works great for the first six or seven months of the year. but then as the file folder gets fuller and fuller, we start stacking them, neatly at first, on the edge of the kitchen counter. even that works pretty well, because i sort them out every couple of weeks and stuff them into the folder. the problem is with the receipts that escape...

you know the ones. these are the receipts for the shoes i am not sure i am going to keep until i walk around the house in them a little bit. or the ones for the eighth black sweater i bought, which i didn't really need, but it was on sale soooo cheap, and i forgot i had another one almost like it, but it was soooo cheap! so i leave the receipt in the bag, so i can find it if i have to return the shoes. or the sweater. but then when i decide to keep the shoes (or the sweater,) i don't always remember to take the receipt out of the bag... and then there are the car repairs that are filed in the car file, but which have sales tax added. so i have to look through the car files, just in case we had any repairs done, and then copy the receipts, so i can leave the original in the car file and put one with the taxes.

and then there are the receipts for the stuff we bought online. because those receipts sometimes get overlooked and get filed with warranty information, or stuffed in a drawer, or left on a dresser.

and THEN there are the really confusing receipts for anything we bought while we were in oregon on vacation or at christmastime, because those receipts don't have any sales tax on them. at all. but, out of habit, i save them anyway...

last night this was all further compounded by the mess of medical receipts we had. i thought i had them all. i organized them, added everything up, filled out the form on my computer that i use to keep track of stuff, printed it out, and set it aside for rollie. yay! this was the first task i finished last night. and then, when i started on the sales tax receipts, i found three more medical receipts. so i added them in, reprinted the form, set everything aside again, and went back to the sales tax receipts. and then i found two more medical receipts...

this happened four times. four.

and i am not even going to take time to tell you what i have to do to get credit for all our charitable deductions...

at 7:00 i thought i might finish up by 10:00. at 10:00 i was hoping for midnight. at midnight, i thought i might still be able to function today if i was in bed, asleep, by 2:00. at 3:30 rollie came downstairs and asked if i was going to go to bed at all. i said i wasn't sure, because i HAD to get finished. there was no grace period--i was in the grace period. at 430 a.m. i finally shut my computer off, put the last of the information on the table for rollie, and went to bed...

... and laid there, looking at the ceiling, not falling asleep. i mentally picked out my clothes for school. i thought about how tired i was going to be. i wondered what i would have for lunch. i was afraid i might wake up with a headache. i worried my alarm wouldn't go off, and rollie would think i had decided not to go to work and wouldn't wake me up either. i counted backwards, slowly, which always works! but i kept getting distracted by other thoughts...

apparently i eventually fell asleep, because i did have to drag myself back to consciousness this morning, throw on some clothes, and go to work. i made it through the morning pretty well--a little dragged out, but no headache! and then, at 11:30, i hit the wall. which is where i started this post--i NEEDED a soda...

thankfully my break came at ll:45, so i raced to 7-11 to get a big gulp. a BIG one. i careened into the parking lot, ran into the store, and headed for the soda machine--only to come to a screeching halt!

the front was off the soda machine and there was a guy in a uniform playing with wires...

oh nonononononono!! this could not be happening! i only had a 15 minute break, and i had already spent five minutes of it getting to 7-11! there were no other options, and if i didn't get a soda, well, i did not want to find out what the consequences would be.

i just stopped and looked at the guy. he continued to play with the wires. he totally ignored me!! but i was a desperate woman in need of caffeine, sugar, and carbs (oh yeah, i planned to get a brownie too. duh!) so i said, "excuse me, but is the machine broken?!?!? and how long is it going to take you to fix it, because i really, really need a soda today and i only have 15 minutes." he looked at me, and backed away, just slightly. "no," he said, "the soda dispenser works. there is just something wrong with the lights." "oh good!" i said, "then i can get a soda?" "yeees," he said, and backed away a little more. i grabbed a big gulp cup and started filling it. when it was almost full, i realized i hadn't put any ice in it!

i occasionally forget to put ice in my fountain drink, especially if i am in a hurry. and once the cup is more than half full, you can't put any in or the soda splashes all over the place. i have found that i can dispense a few cubes into my hand and then drop them into the cup... but the guy working on the machine was already looking at me like he thought i was a little unstable--i don't know why, i had been perfectly polite--but i decided to forgo the ice today anyway...

i got my brownie, added a bag of crunchy cheetos (to compensate for pain and suffering,) and zipped back to school.

the good news is, i found that the perfect anecdote for severe lack of sleep is the amount of sugar, caffeine, and carbs found in a brownie, a big gulp, and a bag of cheetos.

the bad news is, i almost didn't pick up the cheetos...

Saturday, April 9, 2011

procrastinating again. it must be tax time...

so today . . . i spent the day avoiding doing my taxes.

i hate taxes. it isn't that i mind paying them--i know it costs money to run our government (although i have some choice words for the games currently being played...) and i don't mind paying my share. what i hate is figuring out how much of the tax burden is mine.

i've actually spent the last couple of weeks avoiding doing my taxes--i'm quite good at it--but rollie has an appointment with h&r block on monday. this means that my time is almost up. soon, avoiding this odious task will no longer be an option. soon, i am going to have to wade my way through mountains of receipts and stacks of file folders and put my calculator to work.

every year when i get the stuff ready for taxes, i say to myself, "next year i am not going to wait until the last minute to do this. next year, i am going to organize the receipts and paperwork each month during the year. next year, doing the taxes will merely be a matter of adding up the monthly totals that i have carefully calculated all year long." which might work, except for one thing--since i never get the taxes done until the last minute, i am already three and a half months behind when this brilliant revelation comes to me...

my plan for this weekend was to do the taxes on friday afternoon. then i could goof off the rest of the weekend. that was my plan. and it was a good plan! rollie was out of town and wasn't scheduled to be home until about 8:00 p.m. friday night. diandra had a youth event and would be gone friday afternoon and evening. so, my plan was to drag all the paperwork to the family room floor when i got home from school, get a large soda, watch some tivo, and get organized.

i was somewhat successful. i got a large soda, and watched some tivo...

when i went to bed, late late late last night, i had a new plan. i would get up first thing this morning, drag all the paperwork to the family room floor, get a large soda, watch some more tivo (have i told you lately how much i love tivo?) and get organized. once again, my plan was not totally successful.

i tried... kind of. i had a large soda. i had the tivo on. i was thinking about dragging out all those papers. i was mentally organizing. and then diandra came into the room. it was lunch time, so we discussed options, and she agreed to come with me to do an errand. at ulta. and then have lunch. (can you say, "reprieve?")

i had to go to ulta today, because i had a 20% off coupon. i get coupons from ulta all the time, so i have become somewhat immune to their charms. but this coupon said i could use it on some products that are never discounted. ever. products that i use every single day. so the deal was too good to pass up. i got my products, and diandra looked at hair stuff. i picked up some clearance items (that were almost free!) and diandra looked at make-up. i paid for my stuff, and we headed for el pollo loco.

yes, back to the crazy chicken. they have recently added sweet potato fries to their menu, and diandra is in loooove. sweet potato fries at a drive-thru just five minutes from our house! i'm pretty sure she thinks it is a preview of heaven...

as we left el pollo loco's drive thru, i looked at the clock on my dashboard. "we haven't been gone very long at all," i said. i was feeling pretty good. i knew i still had to do the tax stuff, but it was only 2:00. i had plenty of time...

...that is, until i remembered that i haven't yet changed the time on my dashboard clock to reflect daylight savings time. it isn't a big deal. usually i just mentally add an hour to the time on my clock. but that only works on normal work days when i am on a schedule and already sort of know what hour it is. it does not work quite so well on saturdays.

when we got home, i started the laundry. i should have started it sooner, but as i said, diandra was at an overnighter last night, and i thought she had probably been too tired to get her laundry together. (and before any of you get all worked up about me doing her laundry, i don't fold it or put it away--i just throw it into the machines with our clothes. it saves water and electricity. i'm just trying to be earth friendly here...) i checked my email. i looked longingly at the red wii on buy.com. i put the clean sheets back on the bed. and then rollie wanted to eat...

you see, this is our problem. on saturday, we are all sort of on different schedules...

we ate dinner, watched last week's survivor, and then i dragged the receipts and paperwork out to the floor of the family room.

i was making progress...

then i looked for some pictures diandra wanted that we thought might be on my computer. of course, we didn't find them, because the picture files on my computer are still a big mess. and it just keeps getting worse! because now, not only do i have the photos i take with my camera to organize, but also the pictures i take with my phone. and all the old pictures i have been scanning into my computer. my picture files are a nightmare!!

finally diandra went to bed. rollie went to bed. i did a couple more loads of laundry, and virtually purchased some stuff on pet society (that's a facebook game, in case you didn't know. my poor pet, penelope has been sadly neglected the last few weeks...) and then i remembered that i hadn't blogged yet.

i've been trying to get back into the habit of blogging after being off for a couple of weeks, but it isn't as easy as you might think. my brain has not wanted to get back into blogging mode. and we continue to have internet issues, which make me a little hesitant to spend hours writing a blog only to possibly lose it if the network goes down. and sometimes i can't stay connected long enough to get something posted, even if i write it off line! but i need to try anyway...

i looked at the pile of stuff on the floor in the family room. and then i picked it up and moved it back to the kitchen counter. because it is late and i am tired. and i can't leave it on the floor while i go to church tomorrow, because of the dogs. and i can't deal with it tonight, because i need to blog.

but tomorrow i have to do the taxes. i have to. i can either do it during the afternoon and go to bed at a decent hour, or i can spend the day avoiding it and then stay up most of the night to get it done. i'd like to say that i know i am going to make a good choice and get a good night's sleep. that is what i would like to say. but i know myself. i know the odds are not in my favor. if you were going to bet on my behavior tomorrow, the smart money would be on avoidance and a late night. because i am a world class procrastinator. if procrastination was an olympic sport, i would be the gold medal winner. every time. no one else would even be close!

sigh. tomorrow is another day... yippee...

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

so many excuses... so little time...

so today . . . i got up extra early. so of course i was late.

i have decided that if i want to be on time, i need to get a late start. if i get up early, i seem to have this feeling that i have plenty of time. so i don't move very fast. and i don't watch the clock. and then, before i know it, i am late. again.

whereas if i get up late, i know i have to hurry! i zip around with one eye on the clock. every minute has to be productive. there is no time to stand in front of my closet and decide what to wear--i just have to grab something and throw it on. there is no time to make a lunch--i just have to grab a hot pocket out of the freezer and go. there is no time to straighten my hair or put cream cheese on my breakfast bagel or apply mascara or have a conversation. if i get up late, it is all about getting out the door as quickly as possible.

these are inevitably the mornings when conversations happen. these are the mornings where i can't tell if the tights i pulled out of the drawer are black or blue--and inevitably discover that even though they looked black, they were navy blue. which would have been fine, if i wasn't wearing black skirt... these are always the mornings where i can't find my car keys--my one and only set of car keys. these are the mornings that the traffic is bad, and i miss both of the lights on my one mile drive to school.

these are also the mornings when i go off and leave the homework folders at home--the homework folders that have to go home TODAY!

THIS is why we have to buy a house that is close to our current neighborhood. because i fear that if we move more than a couple of miles away, i will get fired for chronic lateness. plus, i need to be able to drive home, retrieve whatever it is that i have forgotten (homework folders, lunch, cell phone, reading books,) and get back to work before my 15 minute break is over...

i'm spoiled. i know i am. there are thousands of people in l.a. who drive clear across town to their jobs. in traffic. during "rush" hour. and i just have to drive a mile. i have had jobs before where it took me half an hour to get to work, and oddly, i was rarely late. but now... now that i can practically see the school from my house, i am a few minutes late almost every morning.

i try to blame the traffic, and sometimes it isn't a ridiculous as it sounds. sometimes i miss the light, because there are a couple of cars ahead of me and one of them wants to turn left. sometimes i can't get out of our neighborhood because of all the cars turning into our neighborhood to avoid the traffic light. sometimes there is a pedestrian... slowly walking across the intersection where i need to turn. and sometimes, sometimes the school crossing guard gives me attitude and makes me wait. and wait. and wait.

and that is just the first crossing guard. two intersections = two crossing guards.

sometimes i think maybe i will be able to blame a parent. that is always a good excuse. because if a parent of one of my students happens to drive into the parking lot at the same time as i do, then i feel it is only polite to wait for them, and talk to them. you know, connect!

this rarely happens.

sometimes, if i am only a minute or two late, i try to blame it on ms. martha. ms. martha is the keeper of the door buzzer in the morning. this is not as easy as it sounds, because for some strange reason, the little thing she has to push to unlock the door when it buzzes, only works when she stands in certain places and puts the thing up against her chin before she presses it. and sometimes, even when she does everything perfectly, it still doesn't open right away. so yes, some days my tardiness can be attributed to faulty door buzzer operations...

this happens a lot. the problem with this is that i am rarely just a minute or two late.

i see no solution here. as i said, i've tried getting up earlier, but i just do more things and so i'm still late. i've tried setting my clocks ahead--and you know what a ruckus that caused. i've tried tricking myself into thinking i have to be at school 15 minutes earlier. but then i just get confused and end up forgetting what time i am really supposed to be there.

maybe they should just change the time i am supposed to be at school to 15 minutes later.

and not tell me...

Monday, April 4, 2011

my shortest blog. ever.

so today . . . i waited too long to blog. and now it is nearly midnight.

i'm not sure i have ever written a blog and posted it in less than 45 minutes--most take longer than that. but i just started blogging again, so i didn't want to miss today altogether. and yet, i have to think about how i am going to function tomorrow if i don't get to bed in the next few minutes...

besides, it was just sort of an ordinary day today. the sun shone, i went to work, i ate the rest of my red velvet cheesecake from the cheesecake factory, and then i ran a marathon.

ok, i didn't run a marathon. but after eating that cheesecake, i should have! i tried to convince myself that if i just ate one or two bites several times a day it wouldn't be so bad. but then i finally gave up and just ate it all. and it was delicious!! it may be my new favorite dessert.

it is probably a good thing that there isn't a cheesecake factory in my neighborhood...

Saturday, April 2, 2011

it's hot. it's cold. it must be spring!

so today . . . it was cold.

i knew it was going to get cold again, because i just put my winter clothes in the extra closet and moved my summer clothes back into my room. i did this because it was so hot last week. the week before that it rained. and rained and rained and rained. but last week was really nice. and it is april, so you would think the seasonal clothing migration would be safe. so i moved out the warm sweaters and everything with long sleeves, and replaced them with summer tops and lightweight jackets.

and so, of course, today it was cold.

usually my clothes don't migrate until easter weekend. easter weekend usually marks the start of spring for me, not the calendar. but last week was sooooo nice. and you know, sometimes easter is in march, and the cadbury eggs are already out at wal-mart, and there is a new movie out about the easter bunny... so i jumped the gun and switched out the clothes.

i felt like i had to do it, because on thursday it was so hot, i was worried about the kids being outside at recess. i don't know why, but our chinese parents tend to overdress their kids. and by overdress, i mean that on a day when the forecast says it will be over 80 degrees outside, those kids will come to school wearing a turtleneck long-sleeved t-shirt, another long-sleeved t-shirt over that, a short sleeved t-shirt over that, and a hoodie zipped up over them all!

ok. i tend to get cold. and so even when hot temperatures are forecast, i typically wear a lightweight cardigan over my short-sleeved shirt in the morning. but three shirts and a hoodie?!?! that seems just a bit excessive. so on thursday, as we were undressing kids (because we had to take off all those shirts so that they could just wear the t-shirt outside,) i was still worried about the heat. i was DYING, and i was standing in the shade!! but the kids seemed oblivious. they were running around and playing in that hot sun, beads of sweat forming on their foreheads, only stopping for an occasional drink. i kept expecting them to drop from heat exhaustion, but our playground seemed to be inhabited by energizer bunny clones...

so yesterday i gathered my warm weather wardrobe (ah, alliteration...) and prepared for spring. and then today proved it was spring, as the weather changed once again.

fortunately, i do have cardigan sweaters and lightweight jackets still in my closet.

fortunately, my "ugg" boots are still in my closet.

fortunately, i did not replace my long pants with shorts just yet.

and fortunately, diandra's winter clothes are still in her closet, which is just down the hall...

Friday, April 1, 2011

modern "technology" strikes again!

so today . . . i am seriously frustrated. if i had a weapon handy, i would smash our wireless router to smithereens! yes, i said smithereens!!!

like many other people, we went wireless a few years ago. i could suddenly sit on the couch in the family room and surf the web, shop online, and send documents to the printer... all without being plugged into anything!! i was in looooove!

but for the last month or so, my ardor has cooled quite a bit. in fact, i am on the verge of wireless router-cide. i seriously want to kill that thing...

i am not a violent person. i am nice. i am thoughtful. i am accommodating. (at least, i think i am...) but this router has it in for me. it refuses to stay connected. several times a night, i have to get up off the couch, walk to the router, unplug it for a minute or two, plug it back in to reset it, and then go back to my computer and try to continue.

the other night i was shoe shopping online, because i wanted some really cushy shoes, but i didn't want to pay nordstrom prices--i didn't even want to pay nordstrom rack prices! i wanted nordstrom shoes at walmart prices, and i figured the only way that was going to happen was if i shopped online. so after a couple of hours of shopping, i found the perfect pair of shoes. i filled out the information on the order form and was just about to hit the "complete my order" button... and then the network went down.

AAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!! i raced to the router to reset the stupid thing, and then i raced back to complete my order and get those cute, cushy shoes headed my way--only to find that in that short time, the shoes had sold out!! sold out!!! can you believe it?!?!? so technically i guess you could say it saved me some money, but my feet are not happy. they are afraid i will make them wear some terribly uncomfortable shoes just to look good, now that the cushy ones are out of the running...

and this is not the only problem. it is interfering with our tivo. we are kind of tivo addicts. we have the high definition machine with the big hard drive, and of course we also have the little gadget that connects it to the network wirelessly. which is great, when it is working. but right now, we sometimes only get half a show recorded... or all but the last few minutes! or sometimes we miss the first ten minutes, so we have no idea what the show is about. and even worse, sometimes when we are trying to watch something, we will get the dreaded blue screen of death. (i find it interesting that the dreaded blue screen of death never shows up during a commercial. oh no. it only shows up at the most crucial, dramatic moments. which means we miss the crucial, dramatic moments. because by the time we get up, reset the router, and wait for the tivo to power up again, the crucial dramatic moments are over, and there is a commercial playing...)

typically i am the one who resets the network when there is a problem. usually rollie is upstairs, and diandra doesn't know how to do it. or didn't know how to do it... until we went out of town and left her home alone. she texted me one night, because she couldn't get online. so i texted her back the directions on how to reset the network. which played right into my evil plan, because now when diandra and i are in the family room watching tv with our computers on our laps and the network goes down, we have a conversation that goes something like this...

"oh no. the stupid network is down again."

"well, i guess someone should go reset it."

"yes, i guess someone should..."

"i would do it, but my computer is on my lap."

"well, my computer is on my lap too!"

"yes, but look! milo is all cuddled up next to me. and i hate to disturb him--he looks so cute!"

"oh fine! i'll do it this time! but next time it is your turn..."

and we have this conversation several times during the evening. because sometimes the network only works for ten or fifteen minutes before we have to reset it again.

but tonight... tonight it just about pushed me past my breaking point. i've been trying to catch up on my blog reading, and sort through the 180 emails that have collected over the last couple of days, and check on what has been happening on shopping tv. i went to facebook for a while to see how martha's egg laying birds were doing (her REAL birds, not the angry virtual ones that everyone is playing with,) and how sarah was celebrating her birthday, and what pictures diandra had uploaded since the last time i looked, and then i went to play my island game. it was all ready to plant. i tried to get seeds to plant, but the seed store just kept loading and loading and loading. i exited the game and tried again, with the same result. i went out of facebook, and came back on, and tried again. and still, the seed store just kept loading and loading and loading. i finally gave up--it was just taking too long, and i wasn't sure it was EVER going to load.

i can deal with the interrupted tv shows. i can adjust to losing a great pair of shoes. i can even tell myself it is no big deal to reset the network fifteen times a night. but apparently, what will finally drive me to thinking deadly thoughts, is not being able to play my fb games...

that router is living on borrowed time...