Today has been extraordinarily boring. Seriously, I've completely run out of internet. S made an interesting dinner that she pulled out of her ass that's sort of modified chicken pot pie. She made a ridiculous amount of it, too, so we're going to be eating it forever. It was actually pretty tasty, even if it did have peas in it. I hate peas, but I ate them anyway, because vegetables are important!
S and I are currently conspiring against the dogs to get them bathed tonight so they stop being such itchy puppies. I think we have to clean up the floor and vacuum and Febreeze first, but then we're dragging each dog into the bathroom and making them suffer the indignity of a bath. If S feels good enough, she's been in a lot of pain lately, poor thing. We're going to have to break out the crutches again soon and make her use them so her foot will finish healing already.
I am easily entertained. S and I just sat here making faces at each other for a minute or two.
The Toddler was a terror today. I was watching him for awhile this afternoon, and it wasn't pretty. I got his toy hammer for him, and he decided to hit me with it and wouldn't stop when I told him to stop, so I took it away. I was going to leave it at that, but then he started screaming and hitting me, so he got a time-out for that, which was punctuated by attempted head-butting and more screaming and struggling. Then, when I put the hammer on the bookshelf to take it from him for the afternoon (because of the hitting and screaming behavior when I took it away for hitting me with it), he started screaming and crying again and threw his cup across the room, so he got another time-out for that. This was in the space of five minutes. I also got my face crawled on today, but it was while we were playing, so I don't count those injuries as much.
I've gotten a lot of laundry done today, and should be almost done by tomorrow if I don't burn out again. I definitely need to get to folding, which I'm going to try to get done pretty quick here before we clean the living room and bathe the dogs.
Today, Girl Child got PJ pants in her size that are the same pattern as the ones I just got, because S promised she'd get them for her this week. It's a good thing I remembered, because there were only two pairs of those pants left at Wal-Mart, and only one was in Girl Child's size. She was thrilled, though. Of course, this will lead to lots and lots of mix-ups, just like with the lemon shirts. Maybe less so, because it'll be ridiculously obvious that the pants don't fit if she accidentally steals mine.
Uh.. other stuff that happened today... Well, the Toddler fell on his head while we were at Wal-Mart. He was really excited and running in the aisle we were in and ran right past S and around a corner, tripped over his own feet, and fell on his head so hard the floor reverberated. He was very unhappy about that. He also peeled a scab off his eyebrow and made the spot bleed all over again. (The scab was from when he used his face to go down the stairs on the playground when we went to take storm pictures last weekend.) The whole area is swollen all over again, poor baby.
I haven't really had the opportunity to play Final Fantasy X in about a week. I've either been too tired or the Toddler has been around, and it's difficult to actually play when he's up because of constantly having to stop him from getting into stuff he shouldn't. Plus, there's all that laundry.
So, basically, nothing interesting happened today. There's a cricket somewhere in the house making way too much noise. I hate crickets. I'm also scared of them because of the jumping thing. I just told it to die and it stopped chirping momentarily.
Today I decided I'm going to apply for a job at the Sara Lee plant. I hope I get it. At least it'll be a job, and if I manage to keep all my body parts and stuff, maybe I can find a job closer to home or something, unless it pays ridiculously well.
I have one link to share, so it's not exactly a link round-up. Cracked has an article about things that stopped people from committing suicide, and it was actually really cool. It was pretty sappy, too, but I like sappy. I almost cried on the last one. You should definitely go read it.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Broken Computer Redux and Other Crap
I had to switch computers yesterday morning. The power switch stopped working on the one I've been using, so I'm back to the stupid Frankenstein computer. I'm really frustrated - I've got a lot of stuff on there already that I don't have anywhere else, and my bookmarks on this computer are not updated to reflect the bookmarks on the other computer. I guess this is what happens when I shut the computer down. FML.
I slept most of the day yesterday because I woke up feeling awful. I'm sucking today, too, but that's mostly because of the events of last night - there was a giant incident with Girl Child late last night after S went to bed and after I got the Toddler back in bed. S won't want me to write too specifically about it, so I won't go into detail, but there was a lot of yelling and she's lucky that the police weren't called on her by the neighbors. Also, as awesome as M is, he only made things worse by getting involved. Let's just leave it with last night was very frustrating and stupid over something very simple, but I'm very proud of how J handled it when he got home from work this morning - he handled it beautifully.
But, partly because of last night, I only got about three hours of sleep, so I'm probably going to end up going back to bed soon. Once I get actually sleepy, because I'm not feeling sleepy at all right now.
Before everything went all stupid last night, S and I watched a few episodes of The Joy of Painting, which causes hilarity to ensue rather often, because Bob Ross is kind of unintentionally hilarious sometimes. I also made pudding from scratch last night and discovered that the recipe I used called for way more cornstarch than was necessary. It tasted okay, but it was so thick and gelatinous that you could have rolled it into a ball and bounced it off the floor, so the texture was rather awful. I actually dropped some on my shirt and it didn't even stick or stain or anything. Yep. Definitely way too much cornstarch.
My hair looks freaking terrific right now. I am so never, ever using commercial shampoo and conditioner again. I love the hell out of my hair right now. I got a wide-tooth comb the other day to use in the shower, and it distributed the apple cider vinegar through my hair very nicely, and everything is all soft and perfect.
Anyway, I have a couple pictures to share. I'd have links, too, but without my bookmarks from the other computer, I don't have any of them available and will have to collect others later today.
I discovered I was followed into the bedroom when I was taking the picture of my shirt, and found the Toddler, who had climbed on the bin of his spare toys and was just sitting there. Yes, his face is hidden on purpose.
I just ate a pile of bacon, so this morning just got transferred to the best morning ever. Because bacon does that. I love bacon.
I slept most of the day yesterday because I woke up feeling awful. I'm sucking today, too, but that's mostly because of the events of last night - there was a giant incident with Girl Child late last night after S went to bed and after I got the Toddler back in bed. S won't want me to write too specifically about it, so I won't go into detail, but there was a lot of yelling and she's lucky that the police weren't called on her by the neighbors. Also, as awesome as M is, he only made things worse by getting involved. Let's just leave it with last night was very frustrating and stupid over something very simple, but I'm very proud of how J handled it when he got home from work this morning - he handled it beautifully.
But, partly because of last night, I only got about three hours of sleep, so I'm probably going to end up going back to bed soon. Once I get actually sleepy, because I'm not feeling sleepy at all right now.
Before everything went all stupid last night, S and I watched a few episodes of The Joy of Painting, which causes hilarity to ensue rather often, because Bob Ross is kind of unintentionally hilarious sometimes. I also made pudding from scratch last night and discovered that the recipe I used called for way more cornstarch than was necessary. It tasted okay, but it was so thick and gelatinous that you could have rolled it into a ball and bounced it off the floor, so the texture was rather awful. I actually dropped some on my shirt and it didn't even stick or stain or anything. Yep. Definitely way too much cornstarch.
My hair looks freaking terrific right now. I am so never, ever using commercial shampoo and conditioner again. I love the hell out of my hair right now. I got a wide-tooth comb the other day to use in the shower, and it distributed the apple cider vinegar through my hair very nicely, and everything is all soft and perfect.
Anyway, I have a couple pictures to share. I'd have links, too, but without my bookmarks from the other computer, I don't have any of them available and will have to collect others later today.
 |
| This is my awesome lemon shirt. Girl Child has the same shirt in her size. This leads to confusion on her part. |
I discovered I was followed into the bedroom when I was taking the picture of my shirt, and found the Toddler, who had climbed on the bin of his spare toys and was just sitting there. Yes, his face is hidden on purpose.
 |
| This is the Toddler. |
I just ate a pile of bacon, so this morning just got transferred to the best morning ever. Because bacon does that. I love bacon.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
The Rambliest Post Ever
So I haven’t bothered writing a post at all this week. This week has kind of sucked. I’ve been completely sleep-deprived for the last two or three days, and we’re out of cigarettes (and I’m not sure if we’re getting more or if only J is going to be smoking from now on), so I’m a real treat to be around right now.
I’ve almost completely finished all the laundry that was taken downstairs, though, so as long as I maintain it a little better, we won’t end up with a laundry mountain taking over the hallway again.
I spent three days working on a new Sharpie art piece - I don't have a photo of the completed version (and I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with the completed version), but I do have a photo of it as it was right before I finished it off.
I've also got photos of the crazy line drawing and the slightly schizophrenic-looking one that I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned previously. I'm going to put those in the photo gallery instead, though, I think. The crazy picture up above I'm thinking about uploading to DeviantArt as a work in progress photo since it's been months since I added anything to my profile.
Anyway, Thursday and yesterday were particularly bad in this incredibly fun week. Girl Child had a friend over for a sleepover, which wasn't a problem, she's actually been working on cleaning her room, so S said she could have her over. The problem came when Girl Child basically seems to have decided that since her friend is over, she can treat me any way she wants, regardless of the fact that I am an adult and she is not. So the last two days have been nothing but us sniping at each other because I've finally cracked. She completely overreacts to everything I say and do, even when I'm being perfectly lovely to her, so I'm done trying to be nice, at least until she adjusts her damn attitude and starts showing me some respect, because I'm sick of her crap.
Today, S and the Toddler are going out to meet up with a friend of S's, AC, for a little while, since it's been awhile since they've seen each other. He's almost doubled in size (or at least it seems that way to me) since AC last saw him in October.
Sunshine is slowly starting to get back to normal, so maybe she won't need to be put down after all. She's sort of started wagging her tail again, and wagging her butt sometimes, too. Unfortunately, she's also started being food aggressive toward Shadow again, even when he's nowhere near the food. And for fuck's sake, we don't starve her! There is always food available. Dumbass dog.
My hair is about as long as it was in March of 2010, so I'm a little over a year behind where I would have been if I hadn't ever cut it, so at least there's that. In about another year, it'll be waist-length, so in about two years, it'll be about to where I want it. It's starting to look thicker, so maybe this not-dyeing thing is working out for me.
I don't particularly have anything of substance I want to write about. I'm feeling particularly anti-social today.
I'm hoping to soon be able to get my learner's permit so I can start to get the hang of driving again - I discussed it with S a week or so ago and mentioned that if I got it in July, I could try for my license in October - I'm hoping to have my license before next spring, because S is planning on having a medical procedure done that would render her unable to drive for over a month, and the entire household would disintegrate if she didn't have a substitute driver. Seriously, no bills would get taken care of, we would starve and die, J would never again get a prescription filled, and the car would eventually run out of gas or something. Of course, we'd have starved and died by then, but still. So it would probably be preferential for me to have a license so I can help in that way - plus, that would enable me to have a bit more independence - I could also get a job further away once I find a job nearby that I can use to get enough money to buy a car.
I was so angry at the couch the other night that I coated it in tape so it would stop falling on me. I hate sleeping on it, we were supposed to get a new couch four months ago, but shit kept happening and we never were able to get one. So I took a roll of packing tape that I had downstairs from a move and taped the cushion fabric to the top of the couch frame. I think, since S and the Toddler are out of the house, I may remove the tape and nail it up there for a more permanent solution, at least until we get a new couch. We're basically going to have to completely take this couch apart when we get rid of it to find all the crap we've lost inside of it.
This week has been crap. The only reason I sound so damn cheerful half the time is because that's just how I sound these days - I don't think there's a power in the 'verse could stop me being cheerful for long. This is what happens when you decide that you are going to be happy no matter what. Eventually you stop trying to seem happy and just are happy. And funnily enough, after writing all this down, I'm a lot less cranky and angry than I was when I started, so maybe that's another little nugget of wisdom I've learned: don't bottle everything up, find an outlet.
The weather here is awful, I wish it was winter again. All my clothes that look good on me are too warm for me to wear unless it's 20 degrees outside. It's currently over 90, and even with the air conditioning on, I feel like I'm melting. I'm wearing my oldest, rattiest pajama pants and an ancient t-shirt, so I should be fine, but my stupid body is convinced that it's actually on fire. (I've had these pajama pants since 8th grade, actually - I got the set specifically for pajama day at Sumner, and the only reason I can still wear them is because the elastic is basically exploded.)
I love the music that M makes - this particular song simultaneously makes me feel like my heart is swelling and makes me think of Jurassic Park. What a combination.
I'm experimenting with not messing with my fingernails at all unless they get a snag, and am working on breaking myself of the only relic of biting my nails - sucking on them. They're still very thin and bendy, and I hope they eventually get hard if I stop putting them in my mouth and idly playing with them, but right now they're like kitten claws - flexible and sharp.
Yesterday, S and I were introduced to a new way to play the Bad Translate game by my friend CN. There's an online tool that does the translation transitions for you, so 10 translations, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 56 - and there are often hilarious results. S and I spent most of yesterday playing with it, writing stream of consciousness passages, nonsensical sentences, and weird phrases to see what we would get. For example, if you input, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," and tell it to translate that sentence 50 times, it comes back with, "Fox Brown cloth." I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean, but it's pretty funny.
I require more coffee and I am interested to see if we have any canned pumpkin in the house at all, because I'm interested in completely winging a pumpkin cake. Since I'm awesome like that. I just wish I wasn't so tired. I hope today doesn't suck as much as yesterday did.
I’ve almost completely finished all the laundry that was taken downstairs, though, so as long as I maintain it a little better, we won’t end up with a laundry mountain taking over the hallway again.
I spent three days working on a new Sharpie art piece - I don't have a photo of the completed version (and I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with the completed version), but I do have a photo of it as it was right before I finished it off.
 |
| I haven't decided if I want to call this anything or not. It now has a few more ribbons of yellow and some more stars and a black background. |
I've also got photos of the crazy line drawing and the slightly schizophrenic-looking one that I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned previously. I'm going to put those in the photo gallery instead, though, I think. The crazy picture up above I'm thinking about uploading to DeviantArt as a work in progress photo since it's been months since I added anything to my profile.
Anyway, Thursday and yesterday were particularly bad in this incredibly fun week. Girl Child had a friend over for a sleepover, which wasn't a problem, she's actually been working on cleaning her room, so S said she could have her over. The problem came when Girl Child basically seems to have decided that since her friend is over, she can treat me any way she wants, regardless of the fact that I am an adult and she is not. So the last two days have been nothing but us sniping at each other because I've finally cracked. She completely overreacts to everything I say and do, even when I'm being perfectly lovely to her, so I'm done trying to be nice, at least until she adjusts her damn attitude and starts showing me some respect, because I'm sick of her crap.
Today, S and the Toddler are going out to meet up with a friend of S's, AC, for a little while, since it's been awhile since they've seen each other. He's almost doubled in size (or at least it seems that way to me) since AC last saw him in October.
Sunshine is slowly starting to get back to normal, so maybe she won't need to be put down after all. She's sort of started wagging her tail again, and wagging her butt sometimes, too. Unfortunately, she's also started being food aggressive toward Shadow again, even when he's nowhere near the food. And for fuck's sake, we don't starve her! There is always food available. Dumbass dog.
My hair is about as long as it was in March of 2010, so I'm a little over a year behind where I would have been if I hadn't ever cut it, so at least there's that. In about another year, it'll be waist-length, so in about two years, it'll be about to where I want it. It's starting to look thicker, so maybe this not-dyeing thing is working out for me.
I don't particularly have anything of substance I want to write about. I'm feeling particularly anti-social today.
I'm hoping to soon be able to get my learner's permit so I can start to get the hang of driving again - I discussed it with S a week or so ago and mentioned that if I got it in July, I could try for my license in October - I'm hoping to have my license before next spring, because S is planning on having a medical procedure done that would render her unable to drive for over a month, and the entire household would disintegrate if she didn't have a substitute driver. Seriously, no bills would get taken care of, we would starve and die, J would never again get a prescription filled, and the car would eventually run out of gas or something. Of course, we'd have starved and died by then, but still. So it would probably be preferential for me to have a license so I can help in that way - plus, that would enable me to have a bit more independence - I could also get a job further away once I find a job nearby that I can use to get enough money to buy a car.
I was so angry at the couch the other night that I coated it in tape so it would stop falling on me. I hate sleeping on it, we were supposed to get a new couch four months ago, but shit kept happening and we never were able to get one. So I took a roll of packing tape that I had downstairs from a move and taped the cushion fabric to the top of the couch frame. I think, since S and the Toddler are out of the house, I may remove the tape and nail it up there for a more permanent solution, at least until we get a new couch. We're basically going to have to completely take this couch apart when we get rid of it to find all the crap we've lost inside of it.
This week has been crap. The only reason I sound so damn cheerful half the time is because that's just how I sound these days - I don't think there's a power in the 'verse could stop me being cheerful for long. This is what happens when you decide that you are going to be happy no matter what. Eventually you stop trying to seem happy and just are happy. And funnily enough, after writing all this down, I'm a lot less cranky and angry than I was when I started, so maybe that's another little nugget of wisdom I've learned: don't bottle everything up, find an outlet.
The weather here is awful, I wish it was winter again. All my clothes that look good on me are too warm for me to wear unless it's 20 degrees outside. It's currently over 90, and even with the air conditioning on, I feel like I'm melting. I'm wearing my oldest, rattiest pajama pants and an ancient t-shirt, so I should be fine, but my stupid body is convinced that it's actually on fire. (I've had these pajama pants since 8th grade, actually - I got the set specifically for pajama day at Sumner, and the only reason I can still wear them is because the elastic is basically exploded.)
I love the music that M makes - this particular song simultaneously makes me feel like my heart is swelling and makes me think of Jurassic Park. What a combination.
I'm experimenting with not messing with my fingernails at all unless they get a snag, and am working on breaking myself of the only relic of biting my nails - sucking on them. They're still very thin and bendy, and I hope they eventually get hard if I stop putting them in my mouth and idly playing with them, but right now they're like kitten claws - flexible and sharp.
Yesterday, S and I were introduced to a new way to play the Bad Translate game by my friend CN. There's an online tool that does the translation transitions for you, so 10 translations, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 56 - and there are often hilarious results. S and I spent most of yesterday playing with it, writing stream of consciousness passages, nonsensical sentences, and weird phrases to see what we would get. For example, if you input, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," and tell it to translate that sentence 50 times, it comes back with, "Fox Brown cloth." I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean, but it's pretty funny.
I require more coffee and I am interested to see if we have any canned pumpkin in the house at all, because I'm interested in completely winging a pumpkin cake. Since I'm awesome like that. I just wish I wasn't so tired. I hope today doesn't suck as much as yesterday did.
Monday, June 6, 2011
My Life is an Oddity
I've spent most of the morning reading various news articles and looking up disaster movies and TV shows I find interesting. I can't find anything that would allow me to watch Mega Disasters (the primary one I'm interested in watching, of course), but hopefully I'll find something soon.
I love watching hypothetical/fictional disasters in movies and on TV shows. I like the hysteria, the little CGI cities being ripped to shreds, the explosions. I am a serious dork. I love 2012. Twister was my favorite movie when I was little, and also Night of the Twisters, which is so bad it's good. I liked Dante's Peak and I haven't seen Volcano yet, but it's on the list. I want to be in possession of every disaster movie that was any good. I don't mind cheesy special effects, the more destruction the better! Like The Core, or epic earthquake movies, documentaries about what might happen if a super tornado hit, or if Mount Rainer erupted cataclysmically, or if a really big hurricane hit New York City.
God, I love a good, cheesy disaster movie.
The Toddler is currently down for a nap - I'm not sure how long he'll sleep, since S had to move his bedtime to 9:00 so he'd stop waking up at 1 AM and stay awake all night. S decided that she needed one, too, and after she gets up, we're going to the library so I can drop off those books that I deem useless and pick up my new holds (whee!), and then I think we have an errand or three, but I'm not sure. Pretty stoked about the books, though, I believe one of them is crochet amigurumi of things like zombies and monsters, and I'm all for having patterns for those kinds of things. Poor Toddler, by the time he's five, he's going to have a bedroom filled entirely with zombies, Cthulhu stuffies, monsters, and other strange oddities.
My life is an oddity.
The Girl Child has rearisen - I was previously the only person awake. Because of the various sleeping schedules of the inhabitants of this house, it almost never transpires that we are all awake or all asleep at the same time. I in fact remember very few occasions where we have all been asleep at the same time - there was one day when everyone who doesn't work nights was napping at the same time that J and M were sleeping, including the dogs, but I can think of no other occasions when this has occurred. This morning, we were actually all awake at once, which is a much more common occurrence when J stays up late, unless I happen to stay asleep when the Toddler wakes up. There's a lot of activity in the mornings, usually, with everyone running around and talking all at once and dogs and baby and Girl Child cavorting about, and J and M shouting stories at each other over the din. I love being here.
Anyway, now it's just me and Girl Child, and hopefully soon S and the Toddler will be up. The Toddler's been asleep for about two hours now, so I can't imagine he'll sleep for much longer, unless he takes another epic 3-hour nap. So, now it is time to go to the kitchen and gorge myself on something random because I keep forgetting about the existence of real food. Mmm, real food. I like food. I think I'll go searching for some.
I love watching hypothetical/fictional disasters in movies and on TV shows. I like the hysteria, the little CGI cities being ripped to shreds, the explosions. I am a serious dork. I love 2012. Twister was my favorite movie when I was little, and also Night of the Twisters, which is so bad it's good. I liked Dante's Peak and I haven't seen Volcano yet, but it's on the list. I want to be in possession of every disaster movie that was any good. I don't mind cheesy special effects, the more destruction the better! Like The Core, or epic earthquake movies, documentaries about what might happen if a super tornado hit, or if Mount Rainer erupted cataclysmically, or if a really big hurricane hit New York City.
God, I love a good, cheesy disaster movie.
The Toddler is currently down for a nap - I'm not sure how long he'll sleep, since S had to move his bedtime to 9:00 so he'd stop waking up at 1 AM and stay awake all night. S decided that she needed one, too, and after she gets up, we're going to the library so I can drop off those books that I deem useless and pick up my new holds (whee!), and then I think we have an errand or three, but I'm not sure. Pretty stoked about the books, though, I believe one of them is crochet amigurumi of things like zombies and monsters, and I'm all for having patterns for those kinds of things. Poor Toddler, by the time he's five, he's going to have a bedroom filled entirely with zombies, Cthulhu stuffies, monsters, and other strange oddities.
My life is an oddity.
The Girl Child has rearisen - I was previously the only person awake. Because of the various sleeping schedules of the inhabitants of this house, it almost never transpires that we are all awake or all asleep at the same time. I in fact remember very few occasions where we have all been asleep at the same time - there was one day when everyone who doesn't work nights was napping at the same time that J and M were sleeping, including the dogs, but I can think of no other occasions when this has occurred. This morning, we were actually all awake at once, which is a much more common occurrence when J stays up late, unless I happen to stay asleep when the Toddler wakes up. There's a lot of activity in the mornings, usually, with everyone running around and talking all at once and dogs and baby and Girl Child cavorting about, and J and M shouting stories at each other over the din. I love being here.
Anyway, now it's just me and Girl Child, and hopefully soon S and the Toddler will be up. The Toddler's been asleep for about two hours now, so I can't imagine he'll sleep for much longer, unless he takes another epic 3-hour nap. So, now it is time to go to the kitchen and gorge myself on something random because I keep forgetting about the existence of real food. Mmm, real food. I like food. I think I'll go searching for some.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Laundry, Plans for the Week, and An Obsession with Chocolate
I really shouldn't try to write blog posts when I'm tired. That's really why I haven't been posting lately - I've been tired for the whole week. It's been kind of awful. Anyway, I was looking over last night's post, and found lots of really weird bits where the words in the sentences didn't make sense.
I was so desperate for chocolate earlier that I mixed together some baking cocoa, sugar, a bit of butter, a bit of milk, vanilla extract, and a little cinnamon together to create a concoction that was sort of a cross between chocolate syrup and liquefied candy bar, which was more what I was going for. I'm not sure what I'd need to do to improve this, but I was impressed with myself for my first attempt. It was so rich, though, that I had to add more milk to it so I could ingest it and get some form of chocolate. Oh my god chocolate, how I love you. I'd love you more if I could type properly, but between the keyboard slowly dying and my dyslexic fingers, I'm screwed on that one.
After the Toddler and S wake up (they are napping), we are going to the store. I have forgotten what we're buying, but I hope it's chocolatey. Because everything seriously needs to be made out of chocolate right now. I want to live in a chocolate house and just take great big bites out of the walls.
I am not normal.
The Girl Child has yet to return home from her visit with her best friend, who is in town visiting her dad for the summer. (Girl Child's best friend currently lives in New Mexico with her mother and only sees her father during school breaks.) Don't worry, I'll think of an abbreviation for the girl sometime soon - I'll need to, as she'll be around a lot, hanging out with Girl Child.
E is coming into town this Thursday. We're going to go out for an activity of some sort that will surely involve eating food, and then she'll drop me back at home and continue on to her dad's house. She comes back to Kansas every summer for Royal Family Kids Camp, which is a summer camp for abused and neglected children, and the last couple of times, she's managed to stop by to visit me for at least a little bit, either going to her dad's or on the way back to Nashville. I can't wait to see her, though I imagine she'll be horrorstruck by how fat I've gotten just since last year. At least this time my hair isn't all falling out from hair dye, too.
I need to start finding clothes for going to the store and stuff, the Toddler has been asleep for ages, so I'm pretty sure he'll wake up soon. He may not, though - he woke up at 3:00 and stayed up. Only after bashing S and me with his head when S was trying to get him to sleep with her in the bed. I'm not sure what time S got up this morning, because I was asleep and didn't wake up until 9:00 this morning. I thought J was a fold in the blankets on the other side of the bed and accidentally kicked him, but all he did was roll over and stick his arms out weirdly, so I guess I didn't hurt him.
I'm hoping this week we can take ALL the laundry to the laundromat and just get it all washed at once. And get Girl Child's room cleaned out so there's room to put all her clothes away so she'll stop stealing all the laundry baskets.
Today I need to find as many of my clothes as possible and wash them; I'm completely out of clothes and I'm really annoyed about it.
Anyway, obviously today isn't the most exciting day ever. It's hot and muggy and disgusting outside. I'm going to get dressed the rest of the way and then work on my crocheting some more, though I think I'll temporarily abandon the bag for awhile because I really want to get started on the actual work of getting the afghan all put together and stuff.
I was so desperate for chocolate earlier that I mixed together some baking cocoa, sugar, a bit of butter, a bit of milk, vanilla extract, and a little cinnamon together to create a concoction that was sort of a cross between chocolate syrup and liquefied candy bar, which was more what I was going for. I'm not sure what I'd need to do to improve this, but I was impressed with myself for my first attempt. It was so rich, though, that I had to add more milk to it so I could ingest it and get some form of chocolate. Oh my god chocolate, how I love you. I'd love you more if I could type properly, but between the keyboard slowly dying and my dyslexic fingers, I'm screwed on that one.
After the Toddler and S wake up (they are napping), we are going to the store. I have forgotten what we're buying, but I hope it's chocolatey. Because everything seriously needs to be made out of chocolate right now. I want to live in a chocolate house and just take great big bites out of the walls.
I am not normal.
The Girl Child has yet to return home from her visit with her best friend, who is in town visiting her dad for the summer. (Girl Child's best friend currently lives in New Mexico with her mother and only sees her father during school breaks.) Don't worry, I'll think of an abbreviation for the girl sometime soon - I'll need to, as she'll be around a lot, hanging out with Girl Child.
E is coming into town this Thursday. We're going to go out for an activity of some sort that will surely involve eating food, and then she'll drop me back at home and continue on to her dad's house. She comes back to Kansas every summer for Royal Family Kids Camp, which is a summer camp for abused and neglected children, and the last couple of times, she's managed to stop by to visit me for at least a little bit, either going to her dad's or on the way back to Nashville. I can't wait to see her, though I imagine she'll be horrorstruck by how fat I've gotten just since last year. At least this time my hair isn't all falling out from hair dye, too.
I need to start finding clothes for going to the store and stuff, the Toddler has been asleep for ages, so I'm pretty sure he'll wake up soon. He may not, though - he woke up at 3:00 and stayed up. Only after bashing S and me with his head when S was trying to get him to sleep with her in the bed. I'm not sure what time S got up this morning, because I was asleep and didn't wake up until 9:00 this morning. I thought J was a fold in the blankets on the other side of the bed and accidentally kicked him, but all he did was roll over and stick his arms out weirdly, so I guess I didn't hurt him.
I'm hoping this week we can take ALL the laundry to the laundromat and just get it all washed at once. And get Girl Child's room cleaned out so there's room to put all her clothes away so she'll stop stealing all the laundry baskets.
Today I need to find as many of my clothes as possible and wash them; I'm completely out of clothes and I'm really annoyed about it.
Anyway, obviously today isn't the most exciting day ever. It's hot and muggy and disgusting outside. I'm going to get dressed the rest of the way and then work on my crocheting some more, though I think I'll temporarily abandon the bag for awhile because I really want to get started on the actual work of getting the afghan all put together and stuff.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Daily Drivel and Advice
I ended up writing nothing over the last weekend, mostly because I was so irritated with Blogger for deleting the page I had to re-create (the link is just below the title), and also because I’ve been exhausted beyond belief.
I got up at 6:00 after going to sleep around 4:00 on Saturday to help get everything ready to go for the road trip S and J were taking to pick up the riding lawn mower JGM gave them. I had the house to myself for the whole day, so I ended up going back to sleep around 8:00 and slept until nearly 3:00, so I got nearly enough sleep. I ended up cleaning the whole living room and taking a ton of laundry downstairs in anticipation of D&D, so we’d have room to play and S could stop dying on her crutches.
W and A came over with LW around 10:00, about the same time that J and S and the children returned, but by this point, it was far too late for game, so we hung out and chatted. I made cornbread around midnight because it sounded wonderful. They were here until LW fell asleep on A around 1:00, and then we all hung around the living room doing our own thing until very late. Saturday was basically a very boring day full of nothing much.
Yesterday was also a nothing-much routine kind of day. I don’t actually remember a lot about it because of how tired I’ve been. The only thing that we really did was stop by the library to print some stuff because our printer at home is broken, and then not a whole lot happened. I’ve been particularly irritable the last few days, not sure why, but I’d really like to keep that under control, since no one in this house has really done anything to deserve me being cranky and snarky toward them.
Today was exhausting because I didn’t get nearly enough sleep. I fell asleep on S last night while she was showing me stuff in Minecraft, and then when I had to wake up so she could go to bed, I was unable to get back to sleep for almost an hour, then J scared me awake when he came home, and the dogs barked at M when he got home a couple of hours later, which also woke me up, and then the Toddler woke up before 7:00, and from that point onward, his mission for the day seemed to be to destroy the living room and grab stuff that doesn’t belong to him. Like S’s incense. I tried to take a nap earlier, but it takes me awhile to fall asleep, and between that and the guitar and the screaming, I managed about 10 minutes, especially since the Toddler decided to pound on the bedroom door and yell at me. Wah, wah, poor me.
I had a stroke of brilliance earlier in regard to J’s work food - chili and cornbread! I made a big batch of cornbread and we bought some canned chili at the grocery store, and he’s set! Yay!
I have no plans in particular for tonight, I’m going to go to sleep early and hopefully get enough sleep so I can have some energy tomorrow (the coffee just doesn’t give me the energy I need anymore, I totally need an espresso maker), and I’m going to try to get some stuff done. Like making a dent in the laundry, because S, the Toddler, and I are all completely out of clothes. I’m currently wearing a retired pair of polyester dress pants, and it’s just too warm for that crap. They don’t breathe. I’m dying.
I talked to C for a bit today. I’m worried about him, he’s in a similar situation to E, and I hate seeing good people be miserable for no good reason.
Speaking of E, I also spent a good long time talking to her today as well. I really feel bad for her, she seems to be stuck between trying to please everyone and wanting to be happy, and she can only have one in this situation. I hope she and her husband sit down soon and have a discussion, a real discussion, about the things they want out of life, and hopefully he’ll come to the same conclusion that she did, that they need to get a divorce. She’s just so palpably miserable. I try to sympathize with her as best I can, even though I’m on the complete opposite end of her viewpoint toward children. I just don’t think she deserves to be punished because she doesn’t want them. Not everyone was made to be a parent, and she’s one of those people. As wonderful as she is, she would be an awful parent. She likes things to be too clean to be a happy, effective parent. I don’t know why her husband doesn’t see that, doesn’t see her. I don’t think he even wants to see her, just the image of what he wants her to be, and I think that’s why he gets so angry when she just isn’t what he expects. He doesn’t love her for her, and that’s not fair to her.
I don’t understand the attitude to the people who are childfree. They are still people, and they still deserve respect, and they deserve to do with their lives what they want, even if that doesn’t happen to include children. E doesn’t deserve to be treated like a brood mare because her mother-in-law wants grandchildren, or because her husband doesn’t care about her wishes. I have several friends, not just E, who are childfree, and I try to be as supportive as I can, even though I don’t get why E and H hate babies. Well, I guess I can see why they hate babies, but I see so much good and fun with babies that I can overlook all the gross stuff and the screaming and the sleep deprivation. I guess that’s the difference between wanting to have children and not wanting to have children, and I will never pressure either E or H or any of my friends who don’t want children to have them. It’s their decision to make, and I’ll still be just as supportive if they decide in 10 years that they would like to have children, though I have my doubts that either of them will.
I’ve been kind of an advice dispenser today. Every so often, I just come out with all of this wisdom, and it always seems to be just the right thing to say. It’s really weird. I’m really stupid when it comes to managing my own life, but I can find the correct solution for the problems in my friends’ lives, and give them justifying reasons for why they deserve to be happy. I just wish I could take my own advice sometimes. (JHB used to call me his source of wisdom because of this weird quirk of mine.)
Anyway, today hasn’t been terribly exciting by any stretch of the imagination. The Girl Child has slipped back into being sullen and surly, and has gone back to being insulting toward me at random intervals, S and I have been hanging out most of the day, and I’ve finally gotten my first wind and have started doing some of the laundry. M and J are both at work, and the Toddler is in bed for the night. Just another day at the crazy house. Ha. S is currently making lava waterfalls in Minecraft.
I really have nothing more to say.
I got up at 6:00 after going to sleep around 4:00 on Saturday to help get everything ready to go for the road trip S and J were taking to pick up the riding lawn mower JGM gave them. I had the house to myself for the whole day, so I ended up going back to sleep around 8:00 and slept until nearly 3:00, so I got nearly enough sleep. I ended up cleaning the whole living room and taking a ton of laundry downstairs in anticipation of D&D, so we’d have room to play and S could stop dying on her crutches.
W and A came over with LW around 10:00, about the same time that J and S and the children returned, but by this point, it was far too late for game, so we hung out and chatted. I made cornbread around midnight because it sounded wonderful. They were here until LW fell asleep on A around 1:00, and then we all hung around the living room doing our own thing until very late. Saturday was basically a very boring day full of nothing much.
Yesterday was also a nothing-much routine kind of day. I don’t actually remember a lot about it because of how tired I’ve been. The only thing that we really did was stop by the library to print some stuff because our printer at home is broken, and then not a whole lot happened. I’ve been particularly irritable the last few days, not sure why, but I’d really like to keep that under control, since no one in this house has really done anything to deserve me being cranky and snarky toward them.
Today was exhausting because I didn’t get nearly enough sleep. I fell asleep on S last night while she was showing me stuff in Minecraft, and then when I had to wake up so she could go to bed, I was unable to get back to sleep for almost an hour, then J scared me awake when he came home, and the dogs barked at M when he got home a couple of hours later, which also woke me up, and then the Toddler woke up before 7:00, and from that point onward, his mission for the day seemed to be to destroy the living room and grab stuff that doesn’t belong to him. Like S’s incense. I tried to take a nap earlier, but it takes me awhile to fall asleep, and between that and the guitar and the screaming, I managed about 10 minutes, especially since the Toddler decided to pound on the bedroom door and yell at me. Wah, wah, poor me.
I had a stroke of brilliance earlier in regard to J’s work food - chili and cornbread! I made a big batch of cornbread and we bought some canned chili at the grocery store, and he’s set! Yay!
I have no plans in particular for tonight, I’m going to go to sleep early and hopefully get enough sleep so I can have some energy tomorrow (the coffee just doesn’t give me the energy I need anymore, I totally need an espresso maker), and I’m going to try to get some stuff done. Like making a dent in the laundry, because S, the Toddler, and I are all completely out of clothes. I’m currently wearing a retired pair of polyester dress pants, and it’s just too warm for that crap. They don’t breathe. I’m dying.
I talked to C for a bit today. I’m worried about him, he’s in a similar situation to E, and I hate seeing good people be miserable for no good reason.
Speaking of E, I also spent a good long time talking to her today as well. I really feel bad for her, she seems to be stuck between trying to please everyone and wanting to be happy, and she can only have one in this situation. I hope she and her husband sit down soon and have a discussion, a real discussion, about the things they want out of life, and hopefully he’ll come to the same conclusion that she did, that they need to get a divorce. She’s just so palpably miserable. I try to sympathize with her as best I can, even though I’m on the complete opposite end of her viewpoint toward children. I just don’t think she deserves to be punished because she doesn’t want them. Not everyone was made to be a parent, and she’s one of those people. As wonderful as she is, she would be an awful parent. She likes things to be too clean to be a happy, effective parent. I don’t know why her husband doesn’t see that, doesn’t see her. I don’t think he even wants to see her, just the image of what he wants her to be, and I think that’s why he gets so angry when she just isn’t what he expects. He doesn’t love her for her, and that’s not fair to her.
I don’t understand the attitude to the people who are childfree. They are still people, and they still deserve respect, and they deserve to do with their lives what they want, even if that doesn’t happen to include children. E doesn’t deserve to be treated like a brood mare because her mother-in-law wants grandchildren, or because her husband doesn’t care about her wishes. I have several friends, not just E, who are childfree, and I try to be as supportive as I can, even though I don’t get why E and H hate babies. Well, I guess I can see why they hate babies, but I see so much good and fun with babies that I can overlook all the gross stuff and the screaming and the sleep deprivation. I guess that’s the difference between wanting to have children and not wanting to have children, and I will never pressure either E or H or any of my friends who don’t want children to have them. It’s their decision to make, and I’ll still be just as supportive if they decide in 10 years that they would like to have children, though I have my doubts that either of them will.
I’ve been kind of an advice dispenser today. Every so often, I just come out with all of this wisdom, and it always seems to be just the right thing to say. It’s really weird. I’m really stupid when it comes to managing my own life, but I can find the correct solution for the problems in my friends’ lives, and give them justifying reasons for why they deserve to be happy. I just wish I could take my own advice sometimes. (JHB used to call me his source of wisdom because of this weird quirk of mine.)
Anyway, today hasn’t been terribly exciting by any stretch of the imagination. The Girl Child has slipped back into being sullen and surly, and has gone back to being insulting toward me at random intervals, S and I have been hanging out most of the day, and I’ve finally gotten my first wind and have started doing some of the laundry. M and J are both at work, and the Toddler is in bed for the night. Just another day at the crazy house. Ha. S is currently making lava waterfalls in Minecraft.
I really have nothing more to say.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Yarn Balls and Cooking
I don't actually remember much about yesterday, probably due to the haze of exhaustion (and heat exhaustion) that we all existed in. It was around 90 yesterday (and today), and it was awful. Anyway, here's what I've managed to remember.
After I finished yesterday's blog post, I started to sort through my music, and then S actually decided to have that nap after all, so I was impeded from doing any meaningful sorting of music by the Toddler, who felt it necessary to get into everything he shouldn't, and then would go cry at the bedroom door at any mention of Mommy and Daddy. This included banging on the door. I forgot that he might need to eat, which turned out to be his entire problem. I felt so bad. S ended up getting up from her nap early because he became inconsolable and needed her, which also made me feel bad. I still haven't finished my music sorting, either, because I've been distracted by other things, though I did manage to delete over 50 songs from iTunes (and also my computer) that I didn't actually like, so at least I got something done with clearing disk space for stuff I actually want. This computer is slowly being turned into a music machine. Whee.
Anyway, I downloaded a couple of free ringtones from The Sims 3 website yesterday, put them on my phone, and discovered that the bitrate on them was too large for them to be ringtones. Yipee. So I downloaded some open-source music editing software, discovered that it didn't do what I wanted, and found another open-source piece of software that does nothing but convert audio files to different formats, and also allows me to change the bitrate. I only converted one of the ringtones, the one I actually wanted, and then entered the world of music editing. My text message tone is now the Final Fantasy X victory fanfare, so every morning when I get my weather check, I win! That's really all that can be said about that. I'm incredibly excited about it, it's much easier for me to convert my mp3s into ringtones than try to find ones for purchase that will work with my phone on my wireless carrier's store, not that I can afford to buy ringtones anyway. I'm not sure if that's illegal or not, but I'm not sharing them with anyone, so I guess it's okay.
Over the last few days, M has managed to get S addicted to Minecraft, and they decided to show each other their worlds on their computers and everything they'd built and done (it's actually pretty ridiculous), and the Toddler was being obnoxious and I wanted a cigarette, so we went outside to run around and play with dandelions (well, the fluffy ones, we don't have any yellow ones at the moment). Because he's not very good at blowing the seeds off yet, only having the lung power of an 18 month old, I helped him by blowing some of them for him... which blew directly into his hair. Between that and him rubbing them on his head, he ended up with a helmet of dandelion fluff. It was really cute. Just as we were about to go inside to show everyone, some of the people who live next door came outside with their daughter, who is only a month or two younger than the Toddler. We tried to get them interacting, but it was to no avail, so we chatted for a bit and I showed the neighbor this really cool handshake we taught the Toddler a couple of weeks ago, and then we said goodbye and I brought him inside. S was highly amused by his hair, then told me to get him outside and get it out. Ha. So I sat on the front porch with him in my lap, painstakingly picking dandelion seeds out of his hair. I'm so never doing that again, it took forever to get it all out.
Late last night, W and A showed up out of the blue, with LW, W's two-year-old son. I can't remember if he's been mentioned previously or not, so from now on, he's LW. Anyway, they hung out and chatted and basked in our air conditioning and then they went home to their hot apartment, poor things. They were supposed to be getting that fixed today, though, so hopefully the apartment won't be nearly as miserable for them now.
I didn't get to sleep until nearly one o'clock this morning because I just could not get comfortable (I desperately need new pillows), and then was jarred awake at 5:45 by Girl Child arguing with J about why she wasn't allowed to go downstairs, which was getting increasingly shrill and shouty, and I interjected with, "(Girl Child), shut up and do as you're told, I'm trying to sleep." Then she tried the "you can't tell me to shut up" thing on me again, and I informed her that I just had, and then J yelled at her to get to her room, and she stomped off crying and slammed her door, which woke S up. After all that, I was basically up for the day, especially after a subsequent argument with the Girl Child involving me asking her what she was doing when she was heading for the direction of the kitchen and the basement door, and since I had no idea what her intention was, I expected her to be attempting to sneak down there, as teenagers like to do, and this induced more shouting, of course. I talked J into making coffee before he went to bed, though, which was incredibly awesome of him and meant that S could have coffee as soon as she was out of bed, which came along pretty quickly as the Toddler woke up as soon as J went into the bedroom.
Today was pretty much nonstop from that point onward. I changed the Toddler while S showered, then he was breakfasted and we had things that sort of constituted breakfast, then I looked at all of S's mp3s to decide what ones I wanted from her that I didn't already have and made a list, and meanwhile, the Toddler was running around grabbing stuff and hitting us with books and generally being a toddler. After awhile, we put him down for a nap and left him with a sleeping J (which worked beautifully, he slept until right after we got home, and since J was there, it was totally safe) while we went to the store. S sat in the car and read one of her library books while I blitzed through the store, grabbing everything we needed. Except, of course, the damn baby bottle brush to clean the Toddler's sippy cups. Again. That's the third week in a row. Anyway, enough facepalming. We got home, I managed to carry everything but S and her crutches inside in one trip, get the cold stuff put away, and collapse for 30 seconds before the Toddler woke up from his nap and demanded for someone to retrieve him. We won't have this luxury in a few months when he gets his own room, though, because he'll probably have a toddler bed by then.
After J got up for the day, we ended up having to go out again, this time to grab him some work food for his lunch, get him some McDonald's, drop his blazer thingy off at the cleaners, and then to the gas station for gas. This was an epic run. I ran into Wal-Mart to get his food, discovered they were out of it, ran back to the car to tell S this, ended up buying the individual size of it instead, discovered that this Wal-Mart actually carries my pesto that I love and bought three jars and a box of penne, and actually remembered the goddamned bottle brush. I had to write it on my arm to remember, but dammit, I got the fucking thing. After that, we drove like crazy to the gas station, where I pumped gas for about the fourth time in my life, but it felt really good to do it. It made me feel like an adult. Anyway, after THAT, we drove to McDonald's, got J his home-food, and drove home, where I ran inside and dropped the food off before running BACK outside to go to the cleaners to drop off his blazer thingy. Then back home to release the Toddler from his prison and let him run around a little.
After I recovered, I spent some time with the Toddler getting the living room partially cleaned. He helped me a lot, actually. He is surprisingly helpful for still being a baby. He put the dirty laundry that was on the floor in the laundry pile in the hall, put all the shoes away, helped put his toys away in his toy box, and picked up all of the trash for me that was on the floor before I vacuumed. We have two vacuums, one is a bagless and the other is traditional, and I started with the bagless before the belt decided it wanted to die and burned itself up halfway through, so I had to switch to the older one that doesn't work as well to finish up, and ended up giving up on it before I got everything because it just stopped picking stuff up. The Toddler even started to help me vacuum, he grabbed the handle and everything, but then he got too scared and ran back to the safety of S's lap. At least he didn't cry this time.
Once the floor was cleaned up, I got the yarn balls that SM (S's mother, for those who have forgotten) made for the Toddler and played with him a bit while S was on the phone with a friend. After she got off the phone, she joined us on the floor and what started as an attempt at an educational experience turned into a hilarious game of throwing the yarn balls at each other in fits of hysterics. There was a ridiculous amount of screaming. Then it was dinner time for the Toddler and the Girl Child went to finish off the kitchen so I could cook dinner. (Yes, I actually cooked, don't pass out or anything.)
Cooking was an adventure. The Girl Child and I had a huge, dramatic, full-out screaming fight about the dishes and her interrupting me when I was telling S what is left to do in there, which ended with Girl Child screaming that everyone hates me and that no one wants me to be here, which was probably the two worst things she could have said, since they're the two things I'm most insecure about. Ouch. Anyway, she was grounded, there was crying, I cooked and ignored her while I cooled off, and then she did a complete 180 on me and was totally nice and sweet and awesome like she usually is for the rest of the time I interacted with her. As much as that fight sucked, I'm glad I actually stood up to her instead of just letting her talk to me like that. And you know, I love her anyway, even when she says terrible things to me.
Anyway, I don't really want to think about that nasty incident anymore than I have to, so I shall continue on with the rest of the story of me cooking.
I overcooked the noodles. It turned out great, but I was horrified at first because the noodles nearly disintegrated. I've never had that happen before, and I've made this a bunch of times, or at least helped to make it, because it's my grandmother's recipe and I've known how to make it since I was three. Anyway, I made a double batch so we can have it tomorrow night, too, and I also cooked up a huge amount of vegetables to go with it for tonight. There's even enough left over for J to have some when he gets home from work tonight. Tomorrow I'm going to throw some more veggies on, throw the second casserole in the oven, and make mashed potatoes to go with it. Om nom nom nom. Throughout the entire time I was cooking, I was also shouting myself hoarse at all the flies that are in the kitchen that we can't quite seem to kill or get to leave the fucking house. I imagine it was pretty funny to listen to, actually.
Anyway, we all sat down and ate dinner, poor S has hardly eaten anything today, so she was starving, and the Girl Child even had some, probably because of the novelty of having potato chips as a dinner topping. (This is a 1950s-style casserole.) She decided to have an apple instead of the vegetables because she didn't like their texture, so S ended up having them when she had seconds.
I'm getting ready to head to bed in a few, even though I'm so keyed up I probably won't be able to sleep for quite a while, so I hope I'm suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion here soon so I can get a decent amount of sleep.
Anyway, I will write more tomorrow, if anything interesting happens.
After I finished yesterday's blog post, I started to sort through my music, and then S actually decided to have that nap after all, so I was impeded from doing any meaningful sorting of music by the Toddler, who felt it necessary to get into everything he shouldn't, and then would go cry at the bedroom door at any mention of Mommy and Daddy. This included banging on the door. I forgot that he might need to eat, which turned out to be his entire problem. I felt so bad. S ended up getting up from her nap early because he became inconsolable and needed her, which also made me feel bad. I still haven't finished my music sorting, either, because I've been distracted by other things, though I did manage to delete over 50 songs from iTunes (and also my computer) that I didn't actually like, so at least I got something done with clearing disk space for stuff I actually want. This computer is slowly being turned into a music machine. Whee.
Anyway, I downloaded a couple of free ringtones from The Sims 3 website yesterday, put them on my phone, and discovered that the bitrate on them was too large for them to be ringtones. Yipee. So I downloaded some open-source music editing software, discovered that it didn't do what I wanted, and found another open-source piece of software that does nothing but convert audio files to different formats, and also allows me to change the bitrate. I only converted one of the ringtones, the one I actually wanted, and then entered the world of music editing. My text message tone is now the Final Fantasy X victory fanfare, so every morning when I get my weather check, I win! That's really all that can be said about that. I'm incredibly excited about it, it's much easier for me to convert my mp3s into ringtones than try to find ones for purchase that will work with my phone on my wireless carrier's store, not that I can afford to buy ringtones anyway. I'm not sure if that's illegal or not, but I'm not sharing them with anyone, so I guess it's okay.
Over the last few days, M has managed to get S addicted to Minecraft, and they decided to show each other their worlds on their computers and everything they'd built and done (it's actually pretty ridiculous), and the Toddler was being obnoxious and I wanted a cigarette, so we went outside to run around and play with dandelions (well, the fluffy ones, we don't have any yellow ones at the moment). Because he's not very good at blowing the seeds off yet, only having the lung power of an 18 month old, I helped him by blowing some of them for him... which blew directly into his hair. Between that and him rubbing them on his head, he ended up with a helmet of dandelion fluff. It was really cute. Just as we were about to go inside to show everyone, some of the people who live next door came outside with their daughter, who is only a month or two younger than the Toddler. We tried to get them interacting, but it was to no avail, so we chatted for a bit and I showed the neighbor this really cool handshake we taught the Toddler a couple of weeks ago, and then we said goodbye and I brought him inside. S was highly amused by his hair, then told me to get him outside and get it out. Ha. So I sat on the front porch with him in my lap, painstakingly picking dandelion seeds out of his hair. I'm so never doing that again, it took forever to get it all out.
Late last night, W and A showed up out of the blue, with LW, W's two-year-old son. I can't remember if he's been mentioned previously or not, so from now on, he's LW. Anyway, they hung out and chatted and basked in our air conditioning and then they went home to their hot apartment, poor things. They were supposed to be getting that fixed today, though, so hopefully the apartment won't be nearly as miserable for them now.
I didn't get to sleep until nearly one o'clock this morning because I just could not get comfortable (I desperately need new pillows), and then was jarred awake at 5:45 by Girl Child arguing with J about why she wasn't allowed to go downstairs, which was getting increasingly shrill and shouty, and I interjected with, "(Girl Child), shut up and do as you're told, I'm trying to sleep." Then she tried the "you can't tell me to shut up" thing on me again, and I informed her that I just had, and then J yelled at her to get to her room, and she stomped off crying and slammed her door, which woke S up. After all that, I was basically up for the day, especially after a subsequent argument with the Girl Child involving me asking her what she was doing when she was heading for the direction of the kitchen and the basement door, and since I had no idea what her intention was, I expected her to be attempting to sneak down there, as teenagers like to do, and this induced more shouting, of course. I talked J into making coffee before he went to bed, though, which was incredibly awesome of him and meant that S could have coffee as soon as she was out of bed, which came along pretty quickly as the Toddler woke up as soon as J went into the bedroom.
Today was pretty much nonstop from that point onward. I changed the Toddler while S showered, then he was breakfasted and we had things that sort of constituted breakfast, then I looked at all of S's mp3s to decide what ones I wanted from her that I didn't already have and made a list, and meanwhile, the Toddler was running around grabbing stuff and hitting us with books and generally being a toddler. After awhile, we put him down for a nap and left him with a sleeping J (which worked beautifully, he slept until right after we got home, and since J was there, it was totally safe) while we went to the store. S sat in the car and read one of her library books while I blitzed through the store, grabbing everything we needed. Except, of course, the damn baby bottle brush to clean the Toddler's sippy cups. Again. That's the third week in a row. Anyway, enough facepalming. We got home, I managed to carry everything but S and her crutches inside in one trip, get the cold stuff put away, and collapse for 30 seconds before the Toddler woke up from his nap and demanded for someone to retrieve him. We won't have this luxury in a few months when he gets his own room, though, because he'll probably have a toddler bed by then.
After J got up for the day, we ended up having to go out again, this time to grab him some work food for his lunch, get him some McDonald's, drop his blazer thingy off at the cleaners, and then to the gas station for gas. This was an epic run. I ran into Wal-Mart to get his food, discovered they were out of it, ran back to the car to tell S this, ended up buying the individual size of it instead, discovered that this Wal-Mart actually carries my pesto that I love and bought three jars and a box of penne, and actually remembered the goddamned bottle brush. I had to write it on my arm to remember, but dammit, I got the fucking thing. After that, we drove like crazy to the gas station, where I pumped gas for about the fourth time in my life, but it felt really good to do it. It made me feel like an adult. Anyway, after THAT, we drove to McDonald's, got J his home-food, and drove home, where I ran inside and dropped the food off before running BACK outside to go to the cleaners to drop off his blazer thingy. Then back home to release the Toddler from his prison and let him run around a little.
After I recovered, I spent some time with the Toddler getting the living room partially cleaned. He helped me a lot, actually. He is surprisingly helpful for still being a baby. He put the dirty laundry that was on the floor in the laundry pile in the hall, put all the shoes away, helped put his toys away in his toy box, and picked up all of the trash for me that was on the floor before I vacuumed. We have two vacuums, one is a bagless and the other is traditional, and I started with the bagless before the belt decided it wanted to die and burned itself up halfway through, so I had to switch to the older one that doesn't work as well to finish up, and ended up giving up on it before I got everything because it just stopped picking stuff up. The Toddler even started to help me vacuum, he grabbed the handle and everything, but then he got too scared and ran back to the safety of S's lap. At least he didn't cry this time.
Once the floor was cleaned up, I got the yarn balls that SM (S's mother, for those who have forgotten) made for the Toddler and played with him a bit while S was on the phone with a friend. After she got off the phone, she joined us on the floor and what started as an attempt at an educational experience turned into a hilarious game of throwing the yarn balls at each other in fits of hysterics. There was a ridiculous amount of screaming. Then it was dinner time for the Toddler and the Girl Child went to finish off the kitchen so I could cook dinner. (Yes, I actually cooked, don't pass out or anything.)
Cooking was an adventure. The Girl Child and I had a huge, dramatic, full-out screaming fight about the dishes and her interrupting me when I was telling S what is left to do in there, which ended with Girl Child screaming that everyone hates me and that no one wants me to be here, which was probably the two worst things she could have said, since they're the two things I'm most insecure about. Ouch. Anyway, she was grounded, there was crying, I cooked and ignored her while I cooled off, and then she did a complete 180 on me and was totally nice and sweet and awesome like she usually is for the rest of the time I interacted with her. As much as that fight sucked, I'm glad I actually stood up to her instead of just letting her talk to me like that. And you know, I love her anyway, even when she says terrible things to me.
Anyway, I don't really want to think about that nasty incident anymore than I have to, so I shall continue on with the rest of the story of me cooking.
I overcooked the noodles. It turned out great, but I was horrified at first because the noodles nearly disintegrated. I've never had that happen before, and I've made this a bunch of times, or at least helped to make it, because it's my grandmother's recipe and I've known how to make it since I was three. Anyway, I made a double batch so we can have it tomorrow night, too, and I also cooked up a huge amount of vegetables to go with it for tonight. There's even enough left over for J to have some when he gets home from work tonight. Tomorrow I'm going to throw some more veggies on, throw the second casserole in the oven, and make mashed potatoes to go with it. Om nom nom nom. Throughout the entire time I was cooking, I was also shouting myself hoarse at all the flies that are in the kitchen that we can't quite seem to kill or get to leave the fucking house. I imagine it was pretty funny to listen to, actually.
Anyway, we all sat down and ate dinner, poor S has hardly eaten anything today, so she was starving, and the Girl Child even had some, probably because of the novelty of having potato chips as a dinner topping. (This is a 1950s-style casserole.) She decided to have an apple instead of the vegetables because she didn't like their texture, so S ended up having them when she had seconds.
I'm getting ready to head to bed in a few, even though I'm so keyed up I probably won't be able to sleep for quite a while, so I hope I'm suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion here soon so I can get a decent amount of sleep.
Anyway, I will write more tomorrow, if anything interesting happens.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Low Blood Sugar and Brain Sprouts
Somehow I have managed to eat almost nothing today, and I am not doing well because of that. I feel like my belly has been hollowed out and replaced with a beast that will shred me from the inside out, and my brain feels muzzy and uncomprehending. I don't know how I keep doing this, but it happens with regularity, several times a week. M just came up for the first time today, and apparently he's going to pick up food for us before we perish. (S also managed to eat almost nothing today.)
Nothing else of note has really happened today, the Toddler decided that the best receiver of his affections today would be the wall, so he's been repeatedly kissing it, which is probably the funniest thing ever. I got met with more fun attitude from Girl Child earlier, but that's as always.
Sprout just had a commercial for Sproutarama, and M happened to be walking into the living room and said, "Sproutarama! It's the only thing that sprouts in your brain!" Or something. I've forgotten.
The Toddler is currently wreaking havoc, trying to destroy our fragile brains, and the Girl Child is in the kitchen "doing" the dishes. (She didn't do a very good job, it turns out, after I made the discovery that all of the bowls she washed either had scum on them or bits of old food.) S and I are having chocolate milk in an effort to raise our blood sugar enough that we will continue to be gifted with brains instead of sleepy mush. We'll be eating soon, though, once we make a decision about what it is that we will be eating.
I have nothing else to add, really. I even gave it an hour or so to make sure, but I'm not terribly clear-headed right now, and I haven't thought of anything, so I guess this one is done.
Nothing else of note has really happened today, the Toddler decided that the best receiver of his affections today would be the wall, so he's been repeatedly kissing it, which is probably the funniest thing ever. I got met with more fun attitude from Girl Child earlier, but that's as always.
Sprout just had a commercial for Sproutarama, and M happened to be walking into the living room and said, "Sproutarama! It's the only thing that sprouts in your brain!" Or something. I've forgotten.
The Toddler is currently wreaking havoc, trying to destroy our fragile brains, and the Girl Child is in the kitchen "doing" the dishes. (She didn't do a very good job, it turns out, after I made the discovery that all of the bowls she washed either had scum on them or bits of old food.) S and I are having chocolate milk in an effort to raise our blood sugar enough that we will continue to be gifted with brains instead of sleepy mush. We'll be eating soon, though, once we make a decision about what it is that we will be eating.
I have nothing else to add, really. I even gave it an hour or so to make sure, but I'm not terribly clear-headed right now, and I haven't thought of anything, so I guess this one is done.
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