Fail!

I didn't post yesterday, but it's totally not my fault. See, Scott and I carpooled, despite the fact that in the past two weeks, Tuesdays are the days where the s--t hits the fan in his job and he ends up having to stay late.

It couldn't possibly happen THREE weeks in a row!

It happened.

I ended up sitting around for two hours. We got home around 12:15.

I think we're carpooling today, which means I really should be in the shower by now! I've got a very exciting day at work that I can't talk about AT ALL publicly. And truth be told, I doubt the rest of the world would even be interested. But I'm bringing a paper bag with me in case The Boss starts to hyperventilate!

Shopped

Well, we went and spent our free money at Sports Authority, and only ended up spending $18 of our own money. That was pretty sweet! We bought:

• a handlebar bag for me
• 2 sweet water bottles (no BPA and dishwasher safe)
• a bike lock with a cable long enough to secure both bikes
• a bottle holder for Scott
• a portable tire pump
• ceiling hooks to hang the bikes (we think we're going to mount them under the neighbor's stairs where they will be easier to get down)
• a padded seat for Scott (the one his bike came with was sort of...utilitarian)

I think that's it. Of course, Scott's got an OT shift tonight, and I have one next week. By the time we're both off, it'll be 95 degrees out! Even if that's the case, we'll just have to get up and go early in the morning when it's "only" 80.

And thus concludes this month's NaBloPoMo entries. I'm going to try to keep going next month, because writing every day is therapeutic in its own weird way. And I know I've never gone 2 months in a row before...

Wish me luck!

Writer's Block

So...not only can I not think of anything to say today, I don't even have the luxury of pictures on the hard drive to fall back on. So here's a clip from last weekend's Saturday Night Live. Sure, this is definitely a cheaty-pants post, but you've got to admit it's hilarious!

And Here We Go Again...

Once again, I find myself the victim(?) of peer pressure in the form of NaBloPoMo. So I thought I'd pick up in April where I left off in February - in the back yard!

Spring has brought a new batch of birds out back, and I'm hoping that my NaBlo partner in crime (or any of the rest of you) can help me with some identification.

First up, my newest fascinating bird. I think this guy is a little blue heron. Really, it's the only identification I can think of that makes any sense. I realize it's difficult to see in these pictures (taken at dusk some day last week), but he's inky black, with a blue sheen. He's not spotted here every day, but he's definitely a regular at the fishin' hole.

To the best of my vast bird knowledge (and ability to compare photos on the internet), this little guy is a black-necked stilt. Guess where he gets his name... c'mon... guess! The stilts tend to be out in pairs, and are often there at the same time as the guy above. I took some pictures of them together at sunrise last week, but alas, without the flash, they were just too gray and blurry to hold on to.

I left this last photo a little wider than normal to show off the lovely purple weed-flowers that the lawn guys choose to not to anything about. They're pretty, if slightly unruly.

In my pre-research mind, any bird that looks like this is a sandpiper. I know that they aren't the same, but my personal genuses seem to break down into egrets, ibises, herons, snake birds, ducks, and sandpipers. Oh, and all non-water birds. That's the craziest thing of all. I never see normal woods-dwelling birds around here. Scott's bird feeder has been summarily ignored. On the bright side, our little stilt friends are insect eaters. Of course, there are still more mosquitoes out back than you can shake a citronella candle at, but think how many more there would be otherwise!

Blown

Well, I missed the posting for yesterday. I was downstairs watching TV, and then I looked at the clock and it was 12:13 am. I never officially signed up on the NaBloPoMo site due to some technical difficulties early on, so there was never any chance I was going to win any prizes.

I've got another 3-day weekend right now. It's the weekend-o-painting, come Hell or high water. Nothing's gonna stop us now. We're livin' on a prayer. Purple or bust! Nope, that last one wasn't a song title or a cliche.

We're also going to see GodSpell tonight, so maybe I'll have something interesting to talk about tomorrow. I guess time will tell...

Better Late than Never

I took this picture of Harley on a particularly cold and dreary day a few weeks ago. You can tell it's cold because he's got no neck.

Anyway, here's your required post for the day. I'm not going to talk about anything else, because it will undoubtedly turn into a whine/rant, and no one wants to read that.

Hoping tomorrow brings better thoughts to my head...

Halftime

I'm watching the Super Bowl. OK, I'm mostly watching the commercials, but it's turned into a pretty good game. I decided that I most certainly did not need to watch The Who perform during halftime, mostly because I knew I needed to put something up here.

I have a great weather-related bird picture to share, but not until I have more time to edit and upload it. Maybe after the game?

If you're looking for me in the next two hours, I'll be that lump between the sofa and the green fuzzy blanket.

Thank You!

I'm pretty bad at peer pressure. In the comments of my last post, I suggested to wickedmess that we do NaBloPoMo for February. And then I got an email from her at 10:34 telling me she's in and 'don't forget yours.'

Yeah, I had totally forgotten.

So here's my just-under-the-wire post for tonight. I'm going to try to focus on my local birds this month (her suggestion)...at least until I run out of ones to photograph! Here's another picture I took on Saturday. This guy has quite a beak! I sure wouldn't want to make him angry!

...and if I do run out of bird pictures, perhaps I'll enthrall you with some Tales from the Stand Mixer.

What Was I Thinking?

I signed up for November NaBloPoMo this morning. Why? Well, certainly not because I have a great deal to say. But I've done it the past two years, and November is the real NaBloPoMo, so I'd hate to miss it. Plus, there's prizes (that I've never won).

Right now, I'm toying with the idea of forcing myself to sit down every day and write a full paragraph of only positive things. It's like therapy. I'm so miserable at work that I have to force myself out the door every morning. And I cry almost every night. I'm not blaming work for all of that. I'm tired. My sleep cycle is messed up - every other morning my body wants to be awake before 7, and then I sleep 12 hours the next night. I've still got moving related stress (primarily the knowledge that we're not going to be able to put off forever the lugging of old cat pee-stained furniture down 3 flights of stairs for much longer).

But you know what? My job really is sucking the life out of me. From the same manager, I get "you need to scale back to your normal job responsibilities and stop taking on extra projects," AND "you need to find and schedule competent people to work overtime in here." Hey dude...I'm not the draft board. And right now I can't in good conscience ask anyone to come into this rabbit hole and work in the world where you keep changing the rules every 10 minutes.

I'm stuck. There's still no comparable jobs opening within the company, and my job on the outside world would probably result in a $4/hour pay cut. We can't afford that with the mortgage over our heads.

So like I was saying, maybe forcing myself to spend 10 minutes a day thinking about something good isn't such a bad idea. Plus, we've got 2 plays to see and an open house to host coming up... at least I'll have something to talk about!

August 2009: You Are Entitled to My Opinion

I've once again been peer pressured into participating in NaBloPoMo. The theme is "tomorrow," but instead of looking to the future (if I wrote an entry about tomorrow it would probably say "I'm looking forward to working with a skeleton crew tomorrow. Oh, and also sleeping in past 8:00.") I've decided to look to the past, and spend a whole month reviewing random things.

And so I present August 2009 NaBloPoMo: YAEtMO!

Today I'm starting with a fun little gadget Scott and I picked up off the clearance rack at Publix: the Dove SkinVitalizer. You may have seen the commercials for this little thing and giggled, "hey - it's a vibrator for your face!" I think every company that makes face wash came out with something similar about the same time.

Really, if it hadn't been on the clearance rack, I never would have brought it home. It seems silly - my fingers and my favorite face wash were doing a fine job washing my face! Scott and I have both used the DSV for two days now, and I'm ready to go back to my old routine.

My primary issue with this little device is that it's incredibly wasteful. Not only does it run on batteries, it also uses these little disposable "pillows" that stick to the surface of the gadget. This means I'm having to throw something out after every shower (actually, I try throwing it out from the shower, but end up picking it up from wherever it flew to and then putting it in the trash can once I'm out of the shower).

And while I admit that on day 2 my cheeks were smoother than they were before, I don't feel that my nose and forehead are as clean as they would otherwise be. It's almost as if the cleanser is too gentle. And don't even ask me to wash my face in two steps... that's just not good time management!

Fun sideshow: turn the DSV on and press it against the bridge of your nose. This morning it nearly made me sneeze!

Out of 5 stars, I give the Dove SkinVitalizer ***.

May 17

This is the month that doesn't end...
It just goes on and on my friend...

We turned the page on the calendar because of when it was,
and now we will be living it forever just because...

This is the month that doesn't end...

NaBloPoMo has definitely been tough for me this time around. All I want to write is variations on the theme of "I hate my job." But when it comes down to it, I don't hate the job. I'm bored of the job. And I feel taken for granted. But given the state of the economy, I should be thankful that I have a job, and even more thankful that I got a less-than-cost-of-living raise this year. That's really everything that needs to be said on the subject, so for the rest of the month I'm declaring a moratorium on work posts.

I still don't have anything to say, so be on the lookout for more pictures of the ZPMKPZ (now with tropical palm tree) in the coming days. Or, you know, more quotes from college commencement addresses. I like those too.

Saturday Morning

I remember when Saturday morning was a lazy time of Smurfs and Snorks. Now it's the one day of the week that I have to wake up to the sounds of an alarm. At 7:00. Other people love Saturdays. Not me!

Today marks the beginning of a very busy stretch at work. I say that with an actual amount of excitement, because business has not been great for the past few months. But this week we have wait lists for some days, full seatings for other days, and none of us can figure out why. Someone remarked that it's spill-over from Mother's Day. Good theory, except we're pretty dead on Mother's Day.

Sweet of the day: left-overs from last night for dessert at work: fresh fruit salad from Publix. There's watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes and pineapple. Yum!

I'm In!

I've been peer-pressured into doing the May NaBloPoMo (theme: "sweet"), so Happy May! Here I am!

Scott and I did another hour of biking at Ft. Wilderness this morning, followed by lunch at Sweet Tomatoes (now open at Crossroads!). Now, we're on our way to what is becoming a weekly cook-out at Dave's.

We have a few pictures from today's outing, but they are, for now, still on the camera. I'll try to post a few when we get home. (or after midnight for tomorrow's post)

As for the theme, I'm not sure if they were talking about sweet treats or sweet things like kitten photos. Today, I'll tell you about the desserts we had at dinner last night at The Ravenous Pig. We split a strawberry-rhubarb crisp and a caramel-chocolate tart. Both were divine... and WAY sweet! The best part of the meal though was the veggies that came with my fish. That's the first time I've ever had okra served as a vegetable instead of deep-fried. I'm totally in love!

TTFN... I'm off to a decidedly less high-brow dinner tonight!!

Fin

Another NaBloPoMo is over.

I had a lot of fun this year, but have no intention whatsoever of signing up for the full-year in '09.

And now, I shall celebrate by having pie for breakfast!

Fin

Those of you who know Dora the Explorer will understand why, upon realizing that today is the last day of November, and therefore the last day of NaBloPoMo, I have this stupid song stuck in my head.



And for those of you who have never seen Dora... oh well, your loss! ;-)

It's the song they sing at the end of every episode, changing the verses to fit the plot of the show, and leaving the "We Did It" in place.

If I were doing my own Dora song about this month, I don't really know which of the following exciting bits I would include:

* I got my back adjusted today...

* My high school reunion was cancelled again...

* I cooked dinner twice...

* I bought stamps online...

* The Christmas Cards are ready to mail

We did it!!

Is it any wonder that I was able to keep the blog up for the entire month, when I had such a wealth of fascinating life stories to share?

It's Baaaack!

I've been thinking about my blog history in the past 2 months. It's been crappy. And I've been thinking about ways to get myself motivated to blog more often. And then it hit me: November is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month)! Not only have they updated the site this year, they've actually made it into a social networking site, like Facebook for bloggers (here's my profile page). I signed up for NaBloPoMo and joined two groups - cranky bloggers and Florida bloggers.

It's true that I haven't had much to say, so I'll probably be talking more about current events or games or just putting up pictures of my critters, but you never know - I just might come up with a gem.

Here's an example of things to come:

If today were in November, I'd probably do a blog entry about my terrible broken nail, accompanied by fuzzy dark pictures taken before and after I trimmed it down closer to the actual break. Ouch! Stupid box of kitty litter!

I bet you just can't wait for November 1!