government intervention strikes again!

so today . . . i was a fashion faux pas. i blame the u.s. government...

i don't know whose brilliant idea it was to move daylight savings time to the second weekend of march, but they should be forced to live in the dark until the end of april. i'm serious. i know the idea is to shift time so that people will use less energy, but if you have to get up for work before 8:00 a.m. (which is true of almost everyone with a job!) you are going to have to use your lights in the morning anyway, so i don't see how that is saving any electricity!!!

clearly i am a bit frustrated by the government's intrusion into my mornings...

i don't like to get up in the morning. ever! well, except for christmas morning, but other than that, mornings are not my happy time. i especially hate getting up IN THE DARK! the dark was made for sleeping, not for getting up. my eyes do not want to open unless the sun is fully visible. the best thing about our new house? the dimmer switch in our bathroom! it allows me to see without the light screaming at my eyeballs. so it should go without saying that if there is any ambient light at all in my room in the morning, i am not going to be turning on any lights. especially since i shouldn't have to! because it should be light enough at 7:30 in the morning not to require the use of any electricity!!!

which there was. last week. before daylight savings time.

last week, when i was cleaning out my closet and organizing things into my new dresser, i sorted my tights and belts by color--black, brown, gray--and put each color in it's own drawer... in alphabetical order, from the left. because how else would you do it?!?! so this morning, since i was wearing a navy dress with brown shoes and a brown sweater, i decided brown tights would be the right choice. i went to the second drawer from the left (the brown drawer,) and picked out a pair of tights, and got dressed. i looked in the mirror before i left my room, and everything seemed to be ok, so off i went to work...

... and everything was fine until my break. because during my break i went to use the bathroom. and that's when i realized that my tights weren't brown. they were black.

yes, i was wearing black tights with a navy dress and brown shoes. black tights. it was so, so wrong...

how could this have happened, i wondered. i got the tights out of the brown drawer, didn't i? maybe i didn't. maybe i had accidentally (since my eyes were only half open,) accessed the black drawer. but still, wouldn't i have noticed the color difference when i looked in the mirror? yes, i would have, if there had been enough light for me to actually SEE the colors i was wearing! and why wasn't there enough light for me to see??? stupid daylight savings time, that's why!

i read fashion magazines. i watch tv. i live in l.a., for pete's sake, so i either have to have a clue about what looks good or die! i know that "color blocking" is the trend this spring, but i am pretty sure that color blocking does not mean a navy dress, brown shoes, and black tights! i am not adverse to mixing colors in unusual ways--like navy and brown, or turquoise and yellow, or lime green and orange. i even like black and brown together. but black, brown and navy? i don't think so...

remember the chipped pink nail polish? yeah, well, this was way worse. waaaay worse, because i could sort of hide the chipped pink nail polish. there was no way to hide my legs. one of my facebook friends asked if i had taken the tights off when i noticed. no. no, i did not. it was cold today, so i was stuck. apparently being the "what not to wear" model for the week is better than freezing to death...

which would not have been an issue if there had been adequate light in my bedroom at 7:30 this morning. which there would have been if someone, somewhere hadn't decided that they could play fast and loose with the beginning of daylight savings time. which clearly isn't saving any electricity anyway!

i'll show them. tomorrow morning i am going to turn on the lights! from the time i get up at 7:30 until i leave the house at 7:50! i'll use all the electricity i can!! daylight savings time will not save any electricity in my house...

... and maybe i'll double check the color of my tights... just to be safe.

well, it IS the 21st century...

so today . . . my dad initiated a video chat with me on facebook :)

i have the best parents. i think they can pretty much do anything. but all this new technology can be confusing! just ask me how many times i've been at the "genius bar" in the apple store during the last three months!! but as each new thing comes along, they figure it out. here's how it works...

usually, either rollie or i get a new electronic gadget. ok, usually rollie gets a new electronic gadget, then after listening to him tell me all the amazing things his new electronic gadget will do, i get one. then i convince my mom that she needs one. and my dad sees her playing with her new toy, and after a while, he decides that maybe he would like one too. this process takes a few months, but eventually, we are all playing with the same electronic gadgets.

a side effect of this progression is that since my dad is usually the last one on the train, it takes him longer to figure out how to make his new toy do all the things that we do with ours. luckily, my mom is there to help him out...

this is the way it has always worked. until today. today my dad initiated a video chat on facebook with me. my dad.

last night, while we were farming, he hit the video chat button. i don't know if he did it on purpose or accidentally. since he doesn't touch type, he sometimes inadvertently hits the wrong key, which sometimes causes him big problems. but this time it turned out to be a good thing...

so i was farming along, when i got the message that he was "calling" me. this has never happened to me on facebook before, so i wasn't quite sure what to do. so i hit the video chat button, but then i realized that i was "calling" him. all that this accomplished was to confuse everything! i got another message that i had missed his call, and he had missed mine. now i really didn't know what to do. i didn't know whether to try to call again, or wait for him, or message him, or just turn off the computer and go to bed. and then i got a second message that said he was "calling" me. and then my mom's face appeared, and suddenly we were looking at each other and talking!

isn't technology wonderful :)

so we talked for a while, and she showed my dad the results of his experimentation. but you know how it is when you accidentally do something wonderful and then can't remember how you did it? that's kind of what happened. so we disconnected and my mom showed him how to initiate the video chat if he wanted to. i figured he would never want to. when he is farming, my dad is a man of few words...

and then tonight he did it again. on purpose! and my mom was nowhere in sight!! he just wanted to tell me to move some of my trees so that he could harvest a few hidden crops. he could have typed me a message, but he didn't. he video chatted with me!! all by himself!!!

i'm so impressed. and while my farm didn't function all that well while we were chatting, it was ok, because i could see his face. and it had a big smile on it. i think maybe he was kind of impressed with himself, too! and he should be!!

my electronics confound and frustrate me quite often, but i am so glad for the technologies that we have. remember when video phone calls were so futuristic that we only saw them on the jetson's?? and now they are a reality for anyone with wi-fi and a webcam! and as our families and friends spread out (diandra lives clear across town from me now, you know,) it is nice to be able to see their faces (even if they are kind of pixelated,) and hear their voices (even if the audio is a little bit behind the video,) no matter where we are...

now if someone could just perfect that whole robot maid and instantly cooked meal thing that the jetson's had...

so, who decides what is funny?

so today . . . was fun--even though there were spiders.

it started before i even got out of bed. it just felt like a play day. rollie was immediately on board--today was his day off and he had already completed his "to do" list before my eyes were even open. diandra was home trying to prepare for our trip next week, because she is going to be working at the fireworks stand for the next 64+ hours, and then we leave for portland. and of course, i have my list to complete before i head out of town as well. but we all felt like doing nothing, and the dogs were doing their very best to distract us from our work, so we finally decided to work until 12:30 and then break for lunch.

rollie headed off to the man room, because his work was done. diandra was cleaning her room, and i was working downstairs. and then i heard some of my favorite words--"mom, do you want this?" i looked upstairs, and there she was, holding the orange dress with the turquoise beads on it that i wore when she was in texas. "YES!" i said, "that is one of my favorite dresses." "well," she said, "it is brand new--i've never even worn it. in fact, you have worn it more than i have...and here is that top you said you liked. do you want that too?"

i knew her clothes would come home to me . . .

i was pretty excited about these new additions to my wardrobe, so of course i updated my fb status--Diandra is cleaning out her closet. My favorite part? "mom, do you want this?" It's like Christmas in July for me! :) which would have been fine if i hadn't felt compelled to reply to a response by one of my friends with these words--that is the beauty of having a daughter who takes me shopping with her. i SAY "oh get this diandra--it would look really cute on you!" but i am THINKING "oh get this diandra--it would look really cute on ME!" hehehe. sometimes i forget that everyone (including diandra) can read what i write to someone else . . .

i knew she had read it when i saw her face at lunch. we had traveled in separate cars to rubio's and she and rollie got there first. when i walked up to their table, i could tell by the look on her face that she had read what i had written. i tried to convince her that i was just being funny, but she wasn't buying it.

we finished lunch and went to old navy. old navy is not her store of choice, but it was close, she needed shorts, and we had stuff to do today. we walked in and immediately saw cute tops. i went right on by, because i had all those new clothes from diandra waiting for me at home. she, however, noticed the tops. "what do you think about this?" she asked me. "i think it is very cute. you should get it," i said. she looked at me, her eyes narrowed, and then she said, "you just want me to get it, because i don't need tops and you think one day i will give it to you."

and that is how our afternoon went. she was so suspicious! i was afraid i was going to have to resort to telling her that everything looked awful, just so she would start believing what i said! i think we have never shopped so long and purchased so little.

but that is ok, because it really wasn't about shopping today. diandra could have just gone to american eagle by herself, bought shorts, and come home. but where is the fun in that?!? today it was about having some fun. and we had fun when rollie was teasing her about spiders (well, rollie had fun then--diandra, not so much,) she had fun teasing me about coveting her clothes, i had fun when she gave me her clothes, we all had fun eating lunch together, and i am pretty sure she had fun taunting me all afternoon about my shopping motives.

one day i was in the car with diandra and i was laughing at something she had said. i said, "you are so funny!" "i'm not sure it is a good thing that you think i am so funny," she replied, "because when you say that so often, i start to believe it. so now i think i am funny. . . but i'm not sure that everyone else agrees."

i find that hard to believe. i think all three of us are hysterical! maybe it is just that we know how to tell a story to make it funny. maybe it is just that we know how to push each other's funny buttons. or maybe we are not really funny at all and are just deluded . . .

i don't know, but it doesn't really matter. because the important thing is that we can make each other laugh!

"wait, are my bangs ok?"

so today . . . i realized if i die, my possible future grandchildren will not know what i looked like.

all i wanted to do was post a new profile picture on facebook. that didn't seem like such an insurmountable task--but it was.

i started going through my photo files and found that there are very few pictures of me. i suppose it is because usually i am the one taking the pictures, so i am not in them. and when we are out doing stuff, rollie and diandra don't seem to think of taking my picture--they are just enjoying whatever we are out doing. so i feel sort of self-absorbed handing them my camera and saying, "here, take a picture of me."

i have tons of photos of diandra--of course, she is my precious, darling daughter who never, ever takes a bad picture, which means i have to keep them all! i have lots of pictures of diandra and rollie together--because when the two of them get together, they do goofy, funny, crazy photo-worthy stuff. i have some pictures of just rollie--but he gets tired of hearing me say, "stand there. just a minute. shoot! oh wait, do it again. let me take one more. now move just a step to the right . . ." and then there are those lovely self-portraits taken at arm's length with one or the other of them, where they look fine and i look weird. because sadly, my arms aren't long enough to take my own picture.

several months ago, i went with diandra to santa barbara for a photo shoot. we got there really early and it was a beautiful day, so we decided she should take some pictures of me--that way she could scout locations and play with her camera settings before she met up with her bride and groom. and i might finally have some photos of myself that i would love!

diandra is an awesome photographer, so the pictures came out pretty good--considering i was in them! but i couldn't wear my glasses since they were tinted, so i think i look all squinty-eyed. and i had dressed for comfort, not photos, so i wasn't all that happy with my wardrobe choices (except for my boots--they rocked!) and my bangs wouldn't stay in place--the wind kept blowing them and exposing my forehead!

and there is part of the problem . . .

i don't think i am very photogenic. i see all the flaws--not the least of which is always my bangs, which refuse to lay properly! several years ago, someone took a picture of diandra and me on a whale watching trip. obviously, we were on a boat in the ocean. and it is a cute picture--except the wind is blowing my bangs off my forehead. but i really liked the picture. so we decided to photoshop bangs onto my forehead--you know, technology can fix anything, right? so we tried. but photoshop was not all that sophisticated then, and diandra wasn't into photography yet . . . and the result was less than satisfying. in fact, it was kind of scary! it looked like some brown, furry tentacle was taking over my forehead!

we did not save the edited version.

but i need profile pics for facebook. i refuse to be a "ghost person." and i get tired of looking at the same picture all the time. so what to do, what to do . . .

according to facebook, i can take a picture with my webcam to use. but have you seen webcam photos?!? they are frightening! they make a person look like a criminal holed up in a basement somewhere, looking for recruits on the internet.

(and sometimes i think maybe i am suited for a life of crime. there aren't very many pictures of me. i know how to create a new identity. my brain thinks in larcenous ways--it's all those mystery books i read--and i hardly ever get stopped for traffic violations . . . )

i find that my best pictures seem to be those that are taken from far away--which makes it hard to see my face. which is maybe why i like them! or the ones taken with diandra, because her "shine" sort of reflects onto me. which helps. or the ones taken with rollie, because his eyes are always smiling. which is why i fell in love with him.

i don't know. maybe it isn't that important. maybe photographs will never show who i really am--because it is hard to be myself in front of a camera. so maybe i just need to give it up. maybe i won't even have possible future grandchildren, so it won't matter. maybe i just need to go do fun things and leave my camera at home . . .

i'm sure my facebook friends won't mind if my profile picture is a mug shot from my possible future life of crime . . .

is there no end to facebook apps?

so today . . . i spent my lunch time in the school secretary's office.

no, i wasn't in trouble. no, i wasn't working. i was harvesting, planting, and baking.

yes, baking. i've recently started playing a couple of new facebook games, and one requires baking.

you may remember my farmtown addiction, the index finger exhaustion, and the heart-stopping horror of accidentally virtually buying a house. and then i added pet society, which finally resulted in my spending of real money for virtual stuff.

i like facebook games. there are hundreds of them, so i obviously can't play them all. but there is something satisfying about "inhabiting" a place over which you have almost total control. every day you can see progress. other people can't mess up your world. i find it very soothing . . . usually.

i recently tried fish world, which i didn't even bother to blog about because i was so terrible at it. my fish kept dying. i would just delete the game and be done with it, but my friends who play can get points for reviving my fish. so while i have to deal with conflicting emotions about purposefully letting my fish die, i figure that i am helping out my friends by ignoring my fish.

i tried owning a zoo, but quickly became disillusioned when i realized that i had no control over where anything was--it was all about accumulating points and buying stuff, but there was no creativity or interaction involved. just a lot of mindless mouse clicking . . .

my mother got me started on island paradise. it is pretty much like farmtown, except you are on an island instead of a farm. i really like this idea. there are coconut trees. i bought a lawn chair--just one, because did i mention that i am all alone on this island? sometimes jewels or pearls wash up on shore, and how can you not love that!!?! there is planting and harvesting to be done, but it is a small island, so it isn't very much work. and if i turn the sound on my computer, i hear ocean sounds. it is all very relaxing. it is my virtual "happy place."

and then, there is yoville. i "swore" (you see the quotation marks, because i would never swear--it is just a figure of speech) that i would never, ever play this game. first of all, the name annoys me. it is just too "trying to be cool." and the people's heads are too big for their tiny bodies. you can buy clothes (of course) for the tiny bodies, but you can barely see them. you can also buy hair styles for their big heads, which pretty much eliminates ever having a bad hair day--unless you buy bad hair. as you level up, you are awarded with dance moves and emotions. really. i have earned several now, but i have no idea what to do with them. and the way you earn money in this game is by baking. i think it is a nice change from growing things, and it does make me feel productive. but still, once you start the process, it is a commitment.

so, you may ask, then why do you play?

it's like this. i have a friend who asked me to play. at first, i just politely said no, and she said she admired my ability to resist. this friend is very, very nice. i think she must play dozens of these games, because i don't think she ever says no--she is too nice, and she wants to help everyone out. besides, you never know when a new game will be even more fun than the ones you already play. but i didn't think i had time for more games. so i said no. and i held firm. for a while.

which brings me to my time in the secretary's office. last night i foolishly baked 12 hour desserts. they needed to be taken out of the oven by my break time this morning, but i had no internet in my classroom today, so it required a trek down the hallway. i did not want to lose these desserts. yesterday i forgot about them, and they all burned up. it was kind of embarrassing--i can't even virtually cook?!? so there i sat, computer in my lap, clicking away . . .

i'm sure there are better things to do with my time, but sometimes when all you have is 15 minutes, it is nice to escape into a world where everything goes your way . . .

. . . especially when you spend your day surrounded by tiny people whose main goal seems to be to thwart you at every turn.

a conversation . . . (yes mom, i posted it . . . )

so today . . . i was not going to post, because i was gone all weekend, and i am exhausted. i haven't even unpacked, and yet here i am on the internet . . .

my mom was gone all weekend too, and so tonight we were talking on facebook a little bit before deciding we should maybe head for bed. and we had this conversation, which made me laugh. so instead of posting nothing, i am going to share it with you. (yeah mom, i didn't go straight to bed--hehehe . . .)

mom: have a good day tomorrow and hopefully the week will go fast. As far as I am concerned, October can go fast. Then it's put up the christmas stuff, have thanksgiving and then christmas shopping. I'm tired just thinking of it all.

Enough whining for one night. Off to bed!!!!! goodnight.

julie: oh golly yes--i can't think past this week. although, maybe i will get out some fall decorations this year--i've narrowed it down to one box, so it doesn't take too long. otherwise we don't know it is fall, because the leaves don't change color, and it doesn't rain, and you can still drive with the top down.

mom: Fall?? I was thinking I should get out Halloween tomorrow.

julie: well, i don't technically have halloween decorations--i just go straight to the leaves and turkeys :) oh, and pumpkins.

mom: Are you bragging? Whine along with me!!

julie: hahahaha!

mom: No raking leaves? Think of the exercise.

julie: that was southern california whining!

mom: hahahahahahahaha

julie: no, we have people to do that (raking leaves)

mom: We have people too. ME

julie:hahahahaha! ok, i may have to blog that conversation!

mom: No blogging. Time for bed.

julie: ok. good night. catch you tomorrow.

and then i blogged . . . because sometimes we just crack me up!

it's my mom's birthday!

so today . . . i did it. i paid real money for virtual stuff. what could possibly convince me to do such a crazy thing? my mom's birthday!

today is my mom's birthday and as i started thinking about a birthday gift, i was stymied. my mom used to be really easy to buy for, because she collected lots of things. but in the last few years, she has started decluttering her house (not that it ever looked cluttered to me--she had some beautiful collections!) stuff takes maintenance, and i think she got tired of taking care of things that she just looked at. or maybe she got tired of looking at it--i don't know, but the result was the same--the stuff started disappearing . . .

when i was at her house recently, i was keeping my eyes and ears open for ideas but got nothing. she gets her books from the library. she has so many dvds that odds are she would already have anything i would choose. it is hard to buy clothes for her, because i don't get to see her often enough to know what she has. and handbags are subject to personal preference, which makes them a difficult gift to give. i live too far away to take her out and do something fun! so, what to do, what to do . . .

my mom does like electronics. when we were visiting last month, we signed her up with sprint and got her the coolest phone ever, but i had my doubts about how she would adapt to the rigors of cell phone ownership--especially when diandra and i kept trying to catch her with her phone off by texting her at various times throughout the day (yeah mom, it was a plot!) we caught her a couple of times the first day or two, but i have to say that now she responds fairly quickly no matter what time it is. however i am not familiar enough with her new phone to have any idea about what i could get for her that would enhance her cell phone experience. so that idea led me nowhere.

the other day we were talking to each other on the computer, and she was telling me how her poor little virtual pet had no money. this is something we all experience from time to time (except diandra who seems to be the luckiest pet owner in the game when it comes to the daily lottery!) we were commiserating about how long it takes to earn coins to spend on fun stuff, when i thought, "aha!" so for her birthday, paypal and i bought her some coins to spend on her pet.

and it was fun! i was worried that she would be horrified that i had spent actual money on the game, but she wasn't--or at least she hid it well. we "shopped" together, and when i bought something as a gift for her, it showed up in her virtual pet's house in lovely pink gift boxes with bows on top--i didn't even have to wrap them!

she didn't spend all the coins today. and still she got a princess bed and dresser, a settee and chandelier with flickering candles, a jacuzzi tub and mirror for her bathroom, and a waterfall with moving water for her yard. but then she didn't have enough rooms in her virtual house for everything. so she did the only thing she could--she created a cute little virtual pet on my DAD'S facebook account. and named her lily. and then she gave lily all of her extra stuff. lily is kind of going to be "garage sale girl" for a while, i think. here's the funny part--my dad doesn't even know lily exists! he may never know. my clever mother has figured out a way to have two virtual pets.

i love my mom. she was a good parent when i was growing up, and is not to blame for my issues--i take full responsibility for the crazy way i think about things sometimes. she tolerates my diet pepsi consumption even though she knows it is bad for me, but compensates by also feeding me broccoli. she will spend over an hour in sephora with us when we just meant to stop in for a minute. she will watch high school musical 1 or 2 or 3 or whatever as many times as diandra wants to. she will make a second trip to the grocery store to get ice cream and bar-be-que potato chips because we ate them all and still had a few days left of our visit. she lets us do some of our own christmas shopping so that everything fits--even though it means she has to pay the dreaded california sales tax! she has become quite electronically savvy so that we can keep in closer contact. she has learned to text message and surf the web from her phone. she has a facebook farm, and accepts my goofy friends (you know who you are!) as her friends so they can advance in the game.

my mom is the greatest! she must be, because when i did a search of my blogs for the words "my mom," i found that i had mentioned her in 78 of my 204 blogs!now if only she would get on an airplane . . .

i guess it has to be red!

so today . . . i decided i want the red bathtub.

it costs two and a half times as much as the white bathtub, and works in exactly the same way, but i want the red one.

it isn't for me. it is for penelope. penelope is my new virtual pet. she is way better than my previous virtual pets, in that she actually does stuff and i can interact with her. she lives in a cute house next to our other virtual friends and within walking distance of several virtual stores. she eats, sleeps, runs, dances, watches tv, runs races (although we are terrible at that and i don't do it very often, because i can't stand the look on her little face when i crash her into a hurdle and she falls . . . you know, i'm not very athletic!) and as of today, she can even go fishing! here she is sitting in her yard.i finally got a new room in the virtual house that my virtual pet lives in on facebook. i've been working for several days for that room--visiting people, playing games with my pet, 'buying' stuff--all to earn points so i would have enough to level up and get another room.

i leveled up, all right. and got a 'better' ball for my trouble instead of another room. ok, work, work, work again. this time i got a 'better' frisbee. woohoo~ work, work, work again, because surely this time i will get a room. surely they will not just give me a 'better' version of something i already have (which, btw, i can't find anything better about--it just looks different!) and guess what i got? a 'better jump rope!' so i stopped working, because it just seemed pointless.

so i went back to playing the game just for fun. i had all the trophies i was going to get for a while. my pet had clothes to wear and chairs to sit on and a bed for sleeping. she even started growing vegetables (which has it's own set of frustrations.) and then i leveled up. and got a room! this time when i said WOOHOO, i meant it!

i already had a sitting room/bedroom, a trophy room, a sun room with plants, and a room that i just liked the color of, so a decision had to be made about this new room. i was vacillating between bathroom and kitchen/dining room. most of the kitchen items were kind of expensive (remember, we are talking about virtual money here, but still . . . ) and did my pet really need a bathroom?

but then one day i was virtually visiting another friend who had a bathroom, and the most amazing thing happened--her pet vaulted over the side of the bathtub (here's penelope doing it,) and took a shower! the water came on and soap bubbles appeared, the pet smiled and giggled, and the cleanliness gauge shot to the top. it was so cute! so that made my decision for me--i needed a bathroom!

i was feeling pretty good, because i had this great stone floor that i hadn't used in any of the other rooms that would be just perfect for a bathroom. so i went 'shopping' for fixtures and found that the white bathtub was 1000 coins, and the red bathtub was 2500 coins. as i said, they are exactly the same, except for the color. i am guessing they operate in the same way, although i don't have any personal experience with the red one.

at this point, i had about 800 coins--not enough for either bathtub. so i started looking at what i had that i could sell and got up to about 1600 coins. and that is when my trouble began. because that was enough for the white tub, but i didn't buy it. i played around a bit more, gave it some more thought, changed the color of the walls, tried to talk myself into the white tub, and finally realized that i wanted the red bathtub--and if i settled for the white one just because it's what i could get now, every time i looked at it i would be thinking about the red one.

patience is not one of my virtues.

it takes a long time to earn 1000 coins in this game, and that is how many more i needed for the tub of my dreams. but i did not want to have to wait, so i started looking at options . . .

the easiest thing to do would be to buy some coins. you can do this. in fact, i spent a whole blog recently renouncing the spending of real money to buy something that doesn't really exist. and then i talked to diandra . . .

she said, "you know, it costs at least $10 to go see a movie, and what do you get for that? you sit in a big dark room and are entertained for a couple of hours. and then you go home, and you have nothing to show for the money you spent. BUT if you spend that same $10 for coins for the game, think how long you would enjoy spending those coins and playing with the stuff you got . . . so maybe it isn't such a bad idea after all."

hmmmm.

but no, even though, following her logic, i could now probably justify doing that, it still felt a little bit like cheating to me. for this tub, i needed to earn the coins. what i wish is that i could spend the "money" i have made playing farm town--i have 1.4 million coins on that game and have pretty much run out of stuff to spend it on . . .

ok--so i bought a couple of mystery boxes, thinking i could resell the items and make some money. but that didn't work out too well either. so i went fishing--i caught one fish, and a broken pot, a piece of seaweed, and an old boot. let's just say that i lost money on that one too.

my last hope is my vegetable garden. if i let my vegetables grow to the large size (which takes a lot of patience, which you may remember is not my strong suit) and sell them, i might have enough to get the bright and shiny red bathtub. so that is what i decide to do. but it is taking those crazy vegetables a LONG time to grow. i check them almost every hour and there is no change. i have been watching them for a couple of days now, and they haven't grown at all! my patience is about to run out.

let's see, where did i leave my debit card . . .

i've grown accustomed to her "voice"

so today . . . i miss my mom. she is at the beach with my dad, sister-in-law, and nephew for a few days.

she lives 1000 miles away from me, so you wouldn't think it would matter if she is at home or if she is an hour away at the beach. but it does matter, because there is no internet access at the beach . . .

my mom embraces electronics and what they can do to enhance our lives. she was one of the first people i knew to get a palm pda, and she still says that if she could only have one electronic device, that is the one she would keep. her whole life is in that thing! she has a powerful desktop computer and two laptops (one for her and one for my dad.) she has an ipod and a speaker system for it. she has a digital camera and video camera. she has a cell phone, (although we are still working on the whole texting thing . . .) she is working on digitizing her slides and photos. in her defense, in case she needs one, many of her purchases have come after she has seen what we do with our electronics . . . so i take some of the credit. or blame, depending on how you look at it.

one day i was on facebook, and my aunt kaye im'd me. aunt kaye is my mom's sister, and after talking for a few minutes, she said, "i am on the phone with your mom, telling her that we are talking on facebook!" this just cracked me up!! i could just see my aunt, cell phone in one hand, eyes on the computer, talking to both of us. and then she said, "we have to get your mom on facebook!" i did not think this was ever going to happen, but my aunt kaye is very persistent--and cheerful, which is a deadly combination :) it is hard to tell her no, and so it wasn't very long before my mom was on facebook.

she was a ghost person for a while--you know, no profile picture. i was going to help her with that, but she figured it out all by herself. she added a few friends, and superpoke pets. her pet is a cute little white rabbit named snowflake. as i may have mentioned before, this app is like playing with colorforms--you choose a background, and then decorate it with things that you can "buy" with points that you earn by participating and getting your friends to play as well. it's fun, but it is very low maintenance.

and then, we discovered farm town.

farm town is definitely NOT low maintenance. farm town requires almost daily attention or your crops will die, and you will lose money. well, "money." what has evolved is this little group of farm town friends--my mom, two friends i used to teach with that live in different parts of oregon, and a friend who lives here that i rarely see. we are all on and off facebook all day now, checking on our farms. and we are almost always online in the evenings, harvesting, plowing, planting, and most importantly, talking.

this has been going on for a few weeks, and i have become accustomed to being able to talk to my mom several times a day online. but as i mentioned, she is at the beach now and has no internet access. being the responsible farmer she is, she planted long term crops before she left, so that she wouldn't come home to a dead farm. but that doesn't help me!

it isn't that i really have anything i need to tell her. that's the beauty of chatting online--you don't have to have anything important to say. you just start out with, "hi! what are you up to?" and then go from there. but i've found that i like hearing her "voice" every day, and now i miss it when she isn't there.

i think she is either going to have to stop going places without internet access, or she is going to have to add texting to her cell phone plan . . . i can live with either option :)

the electronic connections

so today . . . i realized how much i depend on my electronics.

i know i have blogged about how much i love my electronics and can't live without them, but today i realized that it is about more than just my entertainment--it is what is keeping me connected with people. without my smartphone, my laptop, and an internet connection, i would be a man without a country . . . well, maybe a woman without a country . . . let's just say solitary . . .

my phone plan has unlimited everything for only one "small" fee. i guess it is small compared to my car payment or my grocery bill, but it is still a chunk of change. i think our very first cell phone plan was for 60 minutes of talk time a month--can you imagine?!? we guarded those minutes like gold! and we had ways of circumventing the actual use of the cell phone ("i'll call your cell phone, and when you see my number on the caller id, don't answer it. just go call me from the nearest regular phone at work.") if we left diandra at home alone, we would tell her, "don't call us unless the house is on fire or you are bleeding and a bandaid won't fix it." when text messaging came on the scene, we didn't see the need for it, and so we only had 100 text messages per month on our plan. but once we started communicating by text, we very quickly realized that 100 was not going to be adequate. and don't even get me started on the joy of being able to access the internet from my phone anytime, anywhere. yes, we now have the "talk all you want, text all you want, surf the net all you want" plan. and it is a good thing.

yesterday i texted diandra because i needed someone to come harvest the crops my kindergarten boys had planted. their crops have to be dealt with in a timely manner if i want them to be able to be involved, because it all has to happen during the school day. so when it was time to harvest, and none of my farmer friends were online, i texted diandra. she got on her computer, harvested for us, and then went back to whatever she had been doing. was i going to call someone and ask them to do that? no, that would just be ridiculous! but there is something casual about a text message . . . it didn't seem ridiculous at all to text her.

this afternoon i was at costco, and i got a text from a friend of mine who had seen me driving there. she just wanted to know if that was where i was headed. (we have a brand new costco near us--thus, the excitement!) i texted back, "yes." and then we proceeded to text each other back and forth for the next 45 minutes or so. we could have called--we both had our cell phones. and had we called, the conversation probably would have only taken 10 minutes. but text messages are much less intrusive. i could shop at costco, and read her message any time after it came in, and respond while i was just wandering the aisles.

pictures add another whole level to the communication. i rarely go shopping without diandra, but when i do, picture mail is a necessary part of it. i send her a photo and say, "what do you think?" and quite frequently i will get a picture from her while she is at the mall, asking my opinion of a coat or shoes or top she is looking at. we can help each other shop without even being at the mall together!

the other day i was sending a text and mentioned to rollie that i needed an angry face smiley for my message, but my phone didn't have one. after he and diandra got done laughing about the incongruity of that, he sent me this picture:
and now, when i am texting and need an angry smiley, i just insert his picture. (and since that is such a scary picture of a really nice guy, i'm also posting this picture for balance--but since i don't know how to crop pics yet, it is of all of us.)i've blogged about how facebook has allowed me to reconnect with old friends who live far away. but it isn't just about sending email--we can message each other in real time and have conversations.

tonight when i settled down with my computer to farm, it wouldn't load onto my computer. i tried several times, but kept getting an error message. oh no, i thought, what was i going to do with my evening? working on my farm was my plan for tonight. so i watched, and as soon as i saw my mom come online, i messaged her and found out she couldn't get on either. then wendy popped up, and i asked her too and got the same response--no farm town for anyone. so we just talked to each other on the computer for a while. but soon wendy messaged me, "i'm on farm town." my heart leaped--i messaged my mom, "wendy is on farm town. i'm going to give it a try." my mom messaged me, "i'm on my way too," or something like that. and soon we were all happily plowing, planting, harvesting, and plotting about what we were going to do on our farms. because you see, farm town isn't just about the farm. if it was, we would probably tire of it fairly quickly. it is about the people and the communication with them that happens while we farm. that is what keeps us going back night after night. it isn't really about the white farmhouse, it's about meeting our friends every night and catching up on what's been going on in our real lives.

i get to talk to my mom and wendy and sherry and albert almost every night, and that wouldn't happen without farm town. rollie and diandra are never further than a text message away--they cannot always answer their phones when i call, but they can almost always read a text. my facebook interactions sometimes move people i only know superficially into the friend column. my life is enriched because of my electronic connections with people.

but, if anyone ever hits los angeles with one of those smart bombs that doesn't destroy anything except the electrical systems, i am toast.

the results of one small action

so today . . . i had a major moment of panic. my jaw dropped. my heart went BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM in my chest. i got hot. my brain started flashing nononoNoNoNoNONOOOOO! i was paralyzed. that fight or flight response you learned about in psych 101? i was definitely in flight mode . . .

you see, i accidentally bought the white farmhouse.

i have been farming on facebook for a while now. and after the second time that i increased the size of my farm, i've had my eye on that perfect white farmhouse. i don't want a barn (60,000 coins) or a silo (30,000 coins) or even the small brown farmhouse which can be had for a mere 70,000 coins. i want the beautiful white farmhouse with the porch and yellow flowers all around it. when i reached the level in the game that made it possible for me to buy the farmhouse, i learned that it was going to cost me 300,000 coins. at the time, i had about 90,000 coins.

so, how to get the farmhouse, before all my animals die of old age . . .

i squished my crops closer together so i could plant more, which would result in bigger payoffs at harvest time. i haunted the marketplace, hoping strangers would hire me to come harvest their crops. i watched as my farming friends added windmills and white fencing and pathways and hay bales to their farms, adding personality and making them very inviting. but still i left my farm plain, crammed with crops. i planted crops that would mature in only one day to maximize my point total so that i could continue to level up and increase my property. every time i increased my farm size, it cost me--20,000 coins, then 25,000 coins, then 30,000 . . . i kept thinking that maybe i should be saving that money for my house, but i knew that by increasing my land, and therefore the amount of my crops, in just a few days i would be showing even larger profits.

my bank account grew. i kept recalculating how much i thought i needed before i bought the house. i needed more than the 300,000 for the house, because i still needed money to plow and plant my farm. my total hit 250,000 coins, and i started thinking that the house was going to become a reality (virtually speaking, of course.) i decided i needed at least 450,000 coins, and 500,000 would be even better, before i took the plunge. my farm is big enough now that it costs me about 100,000 coins to plow and plant after every harvest, and i don't want to be left without resources--even electronic ones. so by my calculations, i should be able to afford the house by this weekend, and i have big plans . . .

this morning, i saw that my bank account was now at 425,000 coins! i was so excited! so when my kindergarteners and i were finished working on their farm plots, i started talking about my plans. we were huddled around my tiny computer, and i went to the store to show them the beautiful house. they were very interested, not just in the house but also in the other buildings available for purchase. they wanted to know what a silo was for and why i didn't want to get a barn. they wanted to know what the windmill would do.

and then it happened.

joshua clicked the mouse.

it was positioned over the farmhouse of my dreams. and suddenly we were at my farm, and so was the house.

i couldn't breathe. i couldn't think. i wasn't ready for this. not yet. i needed more in my bank account. how would i plow and plant crops? would i have this huge farm with a lovely house and only three crops? what would i do with my evenings now if i couldn't afford to farm? it could take weeks to recover from this one tiny act. click. and suddenly everything had changed.

the boys looked at my panic-stricken face. joshua immediately said "sorry," and i have no doubt that he really, really meant it. i'm frantically trying to figure out how to cope with this surprising turn of events. ok, i think, it isn't that bad. at least it is something i wanted and not the small brown house which would be totally useless to me. and a blight on my landscape. ok, i think, this is salvageable. i'll just have to plow and plant each square at the same time so that i don't end up with empty plowed fields and not have enough money to plant. ok, i think, it will be ok.

so i start looking for a place to put the house. it is pretty big, and as i said, my crops are all squished together. there just isn't any space for it! well maybe i can put it on top of some of my crops, even if it kills them. but the house won't stay if the ground isn't clear. now i am starting to worry that i have lost my money and if i can't get the house to stay, i will lose it as well. i keep moving it around, looking for an answer. i decide to text diandra and ask her to come harvest joshua's strawberries. it is the only crop ready for harvest, and if she does that then maybe the house will sit in that spot. and then i glance up at my bank account.

and guess what? it still says 425,000 coins. huh? and then i remember that when you buy seeds from the store, it doesn't actually charge you for them until you use them. is it possible that it will be the same with the other items for sale? i decide to try to "return" the house. i don't really have a lot of options, because there is no room for it yet. so i go to the toolbar, click on another random icon, and the house disappears.

it disappears, and the money is still in my account. my breathing becomes more normal. my posture relaxes. i smile, and joshua relaxes.

crisis averted. blood pressure back to normal. lesson learned (don't click the mouse until ms. julie says it's ok.) original plan back in effect.

the earth is back on it's axis and all is right in farm town . . .

a day off can be exhausting . . .

so today . . . i spent a lot of time catching up on my reality tv and farming. i'm exhausted!

as i've mentioned, our lives have been unusually busy the last few weeks, so our schedule has just gone out the window. it wouldn't be that much of an issue, except that we like some reality tv shows, and may is "finale season." i managed to keep up with the shows that i watch by myself (american idol, dancing with the stars) because i try to watch them live. but the ones that rollie and i watch together on the weekend (survivor and the amazing race) were just sitting there on the tivo, waiting for us . . . we had the final three episodes of the amazing race, and the final FIVE episodes of survivor, and if we wanted to be surprised by the winners, we needed to get them watched! i already knew the results of survivor, because someone wrote about it on facebook. let that be a lesson to me--don't read facebook until i've watched the finales!

we like these shows (survivor and the amazing race,) because it is fun to watch the interaction of the people in these situations. it is fun to see how they make decisions and then how those decisions affect their progress in the game. and it is fun to try and predict what is going to happen . . . we boo the people who are mean, and cheer for the ones who are not. we pause the tivo and talk about what we would do if we were playing the game, so it is more interactive than most of what we entertain ourselves with on tv. but it isn't nearly as much fun if you already know what is going to happen. today i had to amuse myself with trying to guess who was going to be voted out next on survivor, because i already knew who the winner was going to be!

and the winner is never going to be me. please!! i wouldn't last 3 days on survivor--no packaged food, no toilet paper, no laptop or ipod or cell phone . . . and unlimited bugs, dirt, backstabbing, and conniving (well ok, i admit, i might enjoy the conniving part . . . ) and, i'm pretty sure i would whine (which doesn't make for must-see-t-v) and yet, i mercilessly mock the whiners (that would be my non-existant spiritual gift of compassion coming out!) and you cannot survive the amazing race unless you can swim, which i cannot. besides which, i would want to stop and take pictures of everything. twice.

but i couldn't just sit here and watch tv all day--well, i probably could, but at some point i would fall asleep. so instead of taking that chance, i plopped my computer in my lap and headed to farm town. my farm is getting pretty big--in fact, i earned enough points today to enlarge my farm once again. i'm following the example of my friend sherry and think i might become a farming tycoon!

when it was time to harvest, three of my neighbors were online--my mom and two of my friends. i needed to ask someone to harvest, but who? i wanted to help them all, and i couldn't choose, so i just hired all three of them! and then i zoomed out on my farm so that i could see all of it, and it was so cool! i could see their little avatars running around, and saw my crops disappearing as they were harvested. it was a little confusing because two of them looked exactly the same, so i couldn't tell who was who (not that it mattered.) but as the harvesting progressed, i found myself getting a little anxious . . . what if someone got more than someone else? what if one of them felt like another one was infringing on their territory? what if someone got stuck and had to reload the game? i mean, i've harvested with multiple harvesters before, and i know what it is like to be working along and suddenly see the adjacent fields being harvested right out from under you! or be stuck and unable to move, and watch while the crops fall all around you . . . so i don't know if i will do that again or not. maybe if i do, i should just go hang out at the marketplace until they are done . . . because i can't watch!

when i first started farming, i looked at the long term crops and thought to myself, "i will never plant very many of those-they take too long!" i experimented with sunflowers, which take three days to grow, and it killed me! i'll bet i checked those crazy flowers 6 or 7 times a day! which is insane, because it's a computer game!! if they say it is going to take them three days to mature, then it is going to take them three days to mature. it isn't like some of them were going to surprise me and be done in two days!!! and yet, still i checked . . .

but today i discovered the reason for longer term crops. you see, i accumulated enough points today to enlarge my farm AGAIN. so, of course, i did! after my three neighbors got done with the harvesting, i started plowing. and i plowed and plowed and plowed and plowed. then i got the notice that i could enlarge, so i did, which required more plowing!!! now i realize i am not actually out in the hot field riding farm equipment around working in real soil. but can i just say, my right index finger is just a little bit sore! really!! by the time i got done plowing up all those plots, AND THEN PLANTING THEM, all of which requires my finger to tap on my mouse pad, it was tired and the tip of it was sore!! ok, i know you are laughing at me, but can you see how doing this day after day after day might cause some sort of medical problem . . .

ALSO it was time consuming. i don't know exactly how long it took, because as i said, i was also watching tv. but it took up a good chunk of my afternoon, and i realized that i cannot do this every day--i just don't have time! but i love to farm!! and that's when it hit me--plant longer term crops! MENTAL HEAD SLAP! of course! if i would just divide my farm up into sections, plant longer term crops and rotate them, then i could still harvest and plant every day, but i wouldn't have to do the WHOLE DANG FARM!! if i planted 3 day crops, then i could just work on a third of it every day. that would be much more manageable.

so that is my plan. the very next time that i enlarge my farm, i am going to plow the whole thing under and start over. and i will plant more interesting longer term crops. and maybe buy some fencing and finally pen my animals up so they aren't all over the place. and i have my eye on this very cute white farmhouse . . . and llamas! i am so envious of sherry's llamas!

i can see that i am going to have to teach my other fingers how to farm . . .

sigh . . . ? or scream . . . !!!

so today . . . i have no profound thoughts to share. or even mindless, random ones . . .

it's been a day of frustrations--nothing major, just a lot of little stuff. i hate that, because it makes me feel edgy all day. and since i tend to be non-confrontational, this means a day of just swallowing the words that crowd my mind, and trying not to compound things by telling everyone just what i think! that's why i have no thoughts to share--my brain has been so busy controlling my reactions that it hasn't had time to wander into territory that would make for interesting reading . . .

i've had several days like this lately, and it is bothering me. this is not the way i want to live my life, but it seems to be what's going on right now. maybe i am just ready for summer vacation--but that is still almost a month away! maybe i need therapy to learn how to deal with these frustrations more positively. maybe, like one of my friends, i just need pharmaceutical aid. i don't know.

all i know is, today i am glad for my dogs (who think i am the second best person on the planet,) and facebook farm town (which gives me the illusion of being in control--even though my animals are running wild!)

is it an addiction? or just a vice . . .

so today . . . i realized i am addicted to farm town on facebook.

i'm sure i have mentioned this before, and if you are not on facebook, you will not completely understand this blog. but i can't help it--it's time to confess . . .

farm town is an app where you create your own farm. you plow up the ground, choose crops and plant them, harvest them, and then go to market to sell the products of all that work! and then you start over again . . .

i love it! i love every part of it!!

i started really playing a couple of weeks ago. i was going to do it with joshua and jonathan at school in the afternoon. i thought it would be something different that they would enjoy and also would go along with our science curriculum. so they helped me. for a week. and then i went up to portland . . .

my plan was to just earn as much money as i could while i was gone, so that when i got back, the boys could run the farm, and i wouldn't have to worry about running out of money. this was a good plan, except for one thing--while i was gone, i became addicted.

seriously addicted. i now check my farm first thing in the morning, and then several times during the day and evening. i run around to my friends' farms--watering, raking, and weeding to make a little extra cash. i do the math on all the crops--how much does it cost to plow and plant, and how long does it take to mature--so i know which are the most profitable seeds to plant. i plow up more land and buy more seeds. i have planted and harvested so many potatoes that i am sick of looking at them. and yet, my brain says, "plant potatoes," because it is the most profitable crop available to me right now, and it matures in just one day. which is great, because it means that i get to plow and plant and harvest and sell EVERY SINGLE DAY!!! and i've found that i do not have the patience right now to wait for crops if they take more than one day to grow. i followed the lead of one of my farmer friends yesterday, and planted sunflowers--which i'm sure will be beautiful, but they take 3 days to mature! i can't stand it!!! i keep watching them, but they are so slow . . .

it is funny how i thought that when i had earned 10,000 coins (the "legal tender" used in farm town,) i could relax and plant crops that were a little more "fun." but then i reached 10,000 and actually went to about 14,000. ok, i thought, maybe i should get to 25,000 before i branched out. i passed that mark, and now i am thinking i should get to at least 50,000 coins before i get too creative. (i did splurge and spend 200 coins for a scarecrow . . . ) but now that i am becoming somewhat successful, i am thinking of enlarging my farm, and that is expensive. i have a feeling that i am going to find that 50,000 coins isn't nearly as much as i thought . . .

today my addiction reached a new level. i started hanging out in the marketplace, waiting for some farmer to come hire me to harvest on their farm. there are dozens of avatars hanging around, waiting to be hired. some beg for work, some move around a lot to draw attention to themselves, but my strategy is to just stand in a clear spot as close to the middle as i can, and wait. usually this is just a waste of time, but a few times it has worked for me.

i've had two funny experiences. the first happened yesterday. i got hired to go work on a really big farm! it had corrals for it's animals and even a house! it was planted with the dreaded potatoes, but also some strawberries. so i went running around harvesting, watching my bank account swell. when i got done, i thanked the farmer for letting me help harvest, and he said, "np, want to harvest the fruit trees?" well, i didn't know who np was! i knew it wasn't me, and i couldn't find any trees. so after trying to find np on the farm, and failing, i went on home . . . feeling kind of rejected that i hadn't been chosen to harvest the fruit . . .

i later realized that np was short for "no problem," and that i had unchecked the "show trees" box on my computer, so all the trees were hidden! i felt so dumb! especially because this was a big farm, and i had been hoping i would be asked back. now i am thinking my chances of that are pretty slim . . .

and then today i was hanging out in the marketplace--i admit i lurk--and was invited to a farm to harvest. when i got there, again, it was totally planted with potatoes (they really are a good money making crop!) but the crops were only 99% ready! well, you can't harvest until they are 100%. so i waited and waited. i figured it was better than going back to the marketplace--at least this was a job. finally the crops were ready. i started racing about harvesting, when i realized i was not alone! there were two other people harvesting at the same time as i was!! well, this kind of changed things--it became a race. and not just a race, but also a competition to try to outsmart the others so they couldn't get in front of me. it was just a tiny bit stressful . . .

i asked one of my friends today, "do you think we will get tired of playing this game?" he said, "probably eventually. but for now, i just keep thinking about levelling up and enlarging my farm!" another farmer friend said she woke up this morning thinking about how she wanted to arrange her farm. sometimes i find myself on my farm just waiting for something to happen--even though i know nothing is going to happen for a few more hours . . . i am just drawn to it.

so yes, i admit it. my name is julie, and i am a facebook farm townaholic . . .

at least it isn't a rerun . . .

so today . . . was just an average, normal, uneventful day.

this makes it hard to blog. what do i write about . . .

i had half a whole wheat bagel for breakfast. as usual, i was in a rush to get out the door this morning, and that is what they were serving for breakfast at school, so i helped myself--half a whole wheat bagel WITH cream cheese. i decided to toast it, which i rarely do, but today i just felt like a warm and toasty bagel. so i sliced it in half and dropped it in the toaster. when it was done, it popped up. well, sort of. i heard it pop up, but only half of my half came up high enough that i could grab it. so i did, and then just stood there staring at the other half that was still resting low in the toaster. had i been at home, i would have grabbed my trusty 'pampered chef' bamboo toast grabber and had that bagel out of there in seconds. but i was at school--with no trusty pampered chef bamboo toast grabber. i am kind of a wimp and did not want to suffer burned fingers. so i did the only thing i could--i picked up a knife and thought about sticking it in the toaster.

don't worry! clearly i am still alive. and since i'm not writing this from my hospital bed, i did not electrocute myself. but all i had was that knife. it was a really sharp knife. so i very, very carefully stuck the tip of the knife into the bagel--NOT into the toaster. i stabbed that bagel and pulled it out without even coming close to electrocution. (ok mom, you can start breathing again!)

and then i spent the school day listening to joshua chatter. jonathan is on vacation this week, so during instructional time, it is just joshua and me. so he is talking A LOT! yesterday i thought it would make a great blog to just keep track of all the funny comments joshua made throughout the day. by noon i had given up! i just couldn't keep up, and he is so random sometimes that seeing what he said written down just didn't communicate what he had said. it is true that there are times when you just had to be there . . .

we did spend some time working on our facebook farm. as with everything, i am somewhat ocd when it comes to my farm. joshua is not. i have actually "paid" to clear a previously plowed field, so that i could move it just a bit one way or the other in order for all my plowed plots to be aligned properly (and i still have a few to correct.) i plant the same crops in adjacent plots. i line my trees up neatly. i carefully do the math to see which crops will make the most money for me. joshua cares nothing for all my careful planning. i don't know, maybe there is a plan in his little head, but i cannot figure it out. so today we planted tomatoes, strawberries, grapes, corn, and rice all over the place. at least it will be interesting to look at . . .

we also have a cow, a horse, and a pig wandering about the place. but yesterday, we got enough points to "unlock" a puppy. this does not mean that we can get a puppy--it only means that we can give puppies as gifts to our other farmer friends. joshua doesn't quite get this. (actually, neither do i!) but i said, "don't worry, maybe sherry will give us a puppy." sherry has gifted all my animals to me, and all my fruit trees too, so i thought there was a good chance she would send us a puppy. but today, there was no puppy. so we decided to be more direct. we went to visit sherry's farm, and looked for all her animals (she has lots of trees, so the unpenned animals can be hard to find.) and then we wrote to her and asked her for a puppy. so we will see what happens tomorrow.

i came home and spent a little time helping rollie's mom figure out how to email photos. it can be very confusing if you have never done it before. i tried to make it as simple as possible, and she did a great job following my directions. she is probably going to turn into a picture-taking-email-sending maniac! that's what happens when you get a new camera, you know.

and now i am sitting here, wearing flannel, watching american idol and dancing with the stars, fighting off milo (who apparently hasn't licked my face enough in the last few days,) eating dark chocolate m&m's and thinking "will they even bother to check my blog tomorrow?!?" i've got to get out more . . .

a time to plant . . .

so today . . . i planted an apple tree, a plum tree, and a banana tree, dug in the dirt, planted some grapes, watered them, and oh yeah, i also planted some tomatoes.

all virtually, of course!

my friend sherry invited me to participate in a game on facebook called "farm town." first of all, let me just say that sherry is the queen of facebook apps. she participates in so many things. and yet, when i begged her to add one more (superpets) to help me out, she did--with gusto. sherry is facing some very difficult days right now and these "games" help her to relax and get her mind off of her situation. i have found that to be true too, but i usually choose apps that take very little thought--send a virtual flower, play with a virtual pet, have virtual coffee with someone . . .

but this farm thing is something different. it is like a computer game. it kind of reminds me of many, many years ago when the sims game was new. you had to plan a town, populate it, take care of it, keep it's citizens safe and employed and make sure they had services . . . i was terrible at it! i can't even tell you how many times my cities went bankrupt. and yet i kept playing, apparently thinking i had learned something from my last failure. and maybe i did. but i never learned enough to operate a town successfully.

i thought i could handle a farm. it is pretty much just planting, harvesting, selling, and planting again, isn't it? well, yes and no. these crops have to be harvested at the right time or you will lose them, and then your investment is gone. sherry's farm is beautiful! she has lots of trees and animals, and she is growing sunflowers and coffee and rice. she even has a fenced area with three black and white cows and she has a duck and a sheep and a horse . . . today i sent my avatar over to sherry's farm, just to see how a real virtual farm should look.

speaking of the avatar--it is clearly not the most important part of the farm. and i find that odd. if you are creating a female, you get only two hairstyles and two colors from which to choose. and yet there are like eight mouths and five or six noses. what is up with that? and somehow my hair has turned gray--it must be the stress of all those decisions a new farmer must make.

and i have a pig. sherry gave it to me. i don't have to take care of the pig--he just wanders around the farm. every once in a while he will just fall over and go to sleep. i have to admit, right now he is my favorite part of the farm. he doesn't seem to be ruining my crops, even when he falls down and goes to sleep on them. maybe some of the animals do kill the crops though, because the "store" does have fencing . . .

i figured most of this out this afternoon at school. the kids like the virtual pets on facebook, so sometimes when we have free time i will open up superpets and let them play for a while. but today i thought maybe "farm town" would be a fun thing to do with my two boys. so we worked on it a little. i think they will be interested to see how things are progressing. we will just go online and take care of our farm for a few minutes every afternoon. it should be fun!

i have high hopes for my farm! although, i have not even been playing for 24 hours, and i have less than $100 left.

after school i had to go to walmart and get laundry detergent (clothes to be washed--totally out of soap--needed it today.) i usually pay at the cash registers at the back end of the store by the garden supplies. when i went back there today, after spending my afternoon "on the farm," i had an almost irresistable urge to buy plants. and plant them.

but that would require watering and weeding and hot sun and bugs and eventually trimming and maintenance and did i mention hot hot sun and sweating and bugs ?!?!?

i think for now i will just do my planting and harvesting in cyberspace . . .