Last night I decided I was fed up with my music being so disorganized and began the endeavor of getting it sorted out and deleting stuff I meant to delete months ago. Like my Enya stuff, which was a mess - I had six copies of the same song in some instances. I've deleted about 1,000 songs since yesterday evening, when I started, and I've added probably about 150 or so so far, but I'm also still deleting. Exciting stuff. When I started, I had almost 4,000 songs, and I'm down to just under 3,000 now, ranging over the entire musical spectrum. I'm fairly sure I don't have a single unrepresented genre. Well, I was, but S asked me if I had any punk or Goth music, and I'm not sure I have any big band (because, dude, 3,000 songs), but I've got at least a small sampling of almost everything. Obviously.
I've got access to my files from the other hard drive again, and I'm taking great advantage of this by getting everything off of it as soon as possible.
Anyway, the weather here is wonderful and cold and perfect. It feels delicious and like cocoa and crunchy leaves and long sleeves. Favorite time of year ever.
I've been working on a crochet project that my ex-fiance sent me (I left it in England with him because I thought we were getting married), it's actually the first granny square I ever made, which I made with a bunch of random scrap yarn I had, and I'm going to give it to S when I'm done, because she really likes the colors. I'll post a picture tomorrow after I get the chance to take a picture of it. This means when I'm working on it and the Toddler is in bed.
I'm about to go out and drop off a job application, and half the reason I'm so stinking excited about it is because I get to wear a long-sleeved shirt for once! Okay, getting dressed and leaving now, so posting. The Toddler is very displeased that we are not leaving immediately.
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Winter Clothes, Laundry Success, and Rediscovering Music
I often completely forget about the existence of some songs. I will hear a song, love it, and then years later be reminded of it (usually because of a Wikipedia trawl), and be horrified that I don't have it on my iPod. I rediscovered Gone Till November by Wyclef Jean last night while I was reading Wikipedia articles about the previous MTV Video Music Awards shows, from back when they had a huge selection of categories and were actually about music. Anyway, Gone Till November won an award in 1998, and I remember seeing the music video on MTV, because it was right around the time I started watching MTV. (That makes me old, the fact that I can remember when MTV and VH1 had actual music videos broadcasting in the daytime.) But I loved that song, and I forgot all about it, so I am very happy to have rediscovered it. Now once I get all the music off the other computer and reorganize on this computer (J is pretty sure it's the motherboard that's gone bad, but he didn't even check to see if the power button is broken or not, so it could be that, too), I will have the ability to see what I do and don't have, and make sure I haven't already gotten it and just forgotten about it. Because that would be annoying, and I tend to do that rather often.
Anyway, I finished the laundry today. My shirt also arrived, which I'm very excited about, and it's now washed and dried and sitting in my dresser waiting for me to wear it. S and I are picking up the bras tomorrow sometime, after we go to the library to print the email confirmation to prove that I am in fact the person who bought the damn things, and then there will (hopefully) be new bras! Woo! Also, folding sheets is awful and I do not recommend it to anyone who wants to keep their sanity. But there's only one load of dirty clothing right now, and I need to wash the comforters, and that is it. Everything else is clean. I can't say put away because Girl Child won't let me put her clothes away for her and all she does is stuff them in a random part of her dresser and then wonder why nothing fits. All the rest of the clothes are put away, though, except for a few of S's because the dresser simply doesn't have the capacity for more. And the closet is so full I couldn't fit another thing in there if I was Hagrid. I'm feeling pretty good about the state of the laundry, though - it's whittled down to a point where I'll only need to do about a load a day, probably.
I actually had a disagreement with Girl Child about that. She doesn't see why I should want the laundry to be completely done. Because she doesn't care, and she doesn't think it matters. Sometimes I really just want to grab her and shake her - but I'll just fantasize about shoving a banana up her nose instead. (No worries, no crabby hormonal teenagers were harmed in the making of this blog.) Besides, the banana threat worked fairly well as a laugh-inducer earlier, even if she didn't bother doing any of the things I asked her to do until I nagged her about it. I would fall over in a dead faint if I discover tomorrow that she actually bothered to put her sheets on her bed like I told her to. I'm really frustrated with her right now, can you tell?
I spent this morning baby-sitting the Toddler because S didn't get to sleep until after 4:00 this morning and he woke up at 5:30, so at 8:00, she decided to get me up and ask me to take care of him until later. She got another three hours of sleep, which I guess is something. Unfortunately, there was so little coffee left in the house that what I ended up making was like weak tea. It was very sad. J was up until about 6:00 this evening (so almost 24 hours), so I had a little back-up when I was alone with the Toddler, and the day was generally a good one. Dealing with Girl Child was frustrating, the Toddler was both a giant butthead and really sweet, J was mostly playing on his computer and quiet, and S was S. The highlight of my day was playing Final Fantasy X. I'm finally ready to admit that I'm a little over-leveled - I killed Seymour in the battle on Gagazet so quickly that I barely got everyone in on the AP for the battle.
While I was folding the laundry this afternoon, the Toddler hung out with me. I stuck him in the crib while I was playing music and managed to get a decent amount done until he decided he wanted to go back to the living room. It was actually a pretty cool way to fold the laundry, too. I sang to him and he'd either "sing" or start to dance, and then he'd throw one of his stuffed animals at me and start screaming for no apparent reason. He's adorable.
I just heard a weird noise. It sounded like air rapidly leaking from an air mattress, and I was a bit startled, as it started very suddenly, so I began looking all around the living room for the sound, only to discover it was S, with her cheeks puffed out, blowing out air through her mouth. I told her that I was very startled by the noise and had thought it was a giant balloon or air mattress I'd somehow not noticed in the living room leaking air, which she thought was very funny. Then I said, "Oh, you're just leaking again," and she said, "Occasionally I just plug the hole with something.. You know, food, drink, cock, whatever."
Yeah, that's what it's like to live here.
Anyway, I had more stuff to write about. Oh, yes. This evening, I went through the stuff I have stored in totes downstairs (this is what my life boils down to - totes) so I could get all my winter clothes sorted out and ready for when it gets cold. Not that I really need them - if I wear a long-sleeved shirt, I only need a light sweater when it's 30 degrees outside. I barely wore my coat at all. Not that it fits anymore - my chest has gotten too big to button it, and it was the biggest size Kohl's had in that style, and was the first girly coat I've ever owned. I'm a little disappointed, but maybe I'll shrink a little once I lose some weight. Anyway, I got my small supply of winter clothes out and took the clothes that I never, ever wear downstairs to keep down there. They're all clothes that will count as work clothes if I ever manage to get a job, so they'll have to come back up once that happens, unless I have a uniform or something, but for now, they're fine downstairs. Especially since most of them barely make it over my stupid boobs right now. (Hence, new bra.)
Anyway, the hat I made last summer (I made a whole set for myself - scarf, hat, and two sets of arm warmers) finally looks good on me now that my hair has grown out - it looked really stupid last year. Which reminds me, I need to get my ass in gear on the hat I'm making for S so she can wear it with the scarf I made for her last year. Hopefully I'll be able to make Girl Child's Ravenclaw scarf soon, too - she'll like having that.
My hair is sort of long enough to braid. It's not a braid I'd ever wear out of the house, because it's all stubby and it'd fall apart in three seconds if I was moving around at all, but it's good for just sitting here.
Anyway, I'm really tired, and there isn't really a whole lot else to say.
Anyway, I finished the laundry today. My shirt also arrived, which I'm very excited about, and it's now washed and dried and sitting in my dresser waiting for me to wear it. S and I are picking up the bras tomorrow sometime, after we go to the library to print the email confirmation to prove that I am in fact the person who bought the damn things, and then there will (hopefully) be new bras! Woo! Also, folding sheets is awful and I do not recommend it to anyone who wants to keep their sanity. But there's only one load of dirty clothing right now, and I need to wash the comforters, and that is it. Everything else is clean. I can't say put away because Girl Child won't let me put her clothes away for her and all she does is stuff them in a random part of her dresser and then wonder why nothing fits. All the rest of the clothes are put away, though, except for a few of S's because the dresser simply doesn't have the capacity for more. And the closet is so full I couldn't fit another thing in there if I was Hagrid. I'm feeling pretty good about the state of the laundry, though - it's whittled down to a point where I'll only need to do about a load a day, probably.
I actually had a disagreement with Girl Child about that. She doesn't see why I should want the laundry to be completely done. Because she doesn't care, and she doesn't think it matters. Sometimes I really just want to grab her and shake her - but I'll just fantasize about shoving a banana up her nose instead. (No worries, no crabby hormonal teenagers were harmed in the making of this blog.) Besides, the banana threat worked fairly well as a laugh-inducer earlier, even if she didn't bother doing any of the things I asked her to do until I nagged her about it. I would fall over in a dead faint if I discover tomorrow that she actually bothered to put her sheets on her bed like I told her to. I'm really frustrated with her right now, can you tell?
I spent this morning baby-sitting the Toddler because S didn't get to sleep until after 4:00 this morning and he woke up at 5:30, so at 8:00, she decided to get me up and ask me to take care of him until later. She got another three hours of sleep, which I guess is something. Unfortunately, there was so little coffee left in the house that what I ended up making was like weak tea. It was very sad. J was up until about 6:00 this evening (so almost 24 hours), so I had a little back-up when I was alone with the Toddler, and the day was generally a good one. Dealing with Girl Child was frustrating, the Toddler was both a giant butthead and really sweet, J was mostly playing on his computer and quiet, and S was S. The highlight of my day was playing Final Fantasy X. I'm finally ready to admit that I'm a little over-leveled - I killed Seymour in the battle on Gagazet so quickly that I barely got everyone in on the AP for the battle.
While I was folding the laundry this afternoon, the Toddler hung out with me. I stuck him in the crib while I was playing music and managed to get a decent amount done until he decided he wanted to go back to the living room. It was actually a pretty cool way to fold the laundry, too. I sang to him and he'd either "sing" or start to dance, and then he'd throw one of his stuffed animals at me and start screaming for no apparent reason. He's adorable.
I just heard a weird noise. It sounded like air rapidly leaking from an air mattress, and I was a bit startled, as it started very suddenly, so I began looking all around the living room for the sound, only to discover it was S, with her cheeks puffed out, blowing out air through her mouth. I told her that I was very startled by the noise and had thought it was a giant balloon or air mattress I'd somehow not noticed in the living room leaking air, which she thought was very funny. Then I said, "Oh, you're just leaking again," and she said, "Occasionally I just plug the hole with something.. You know, food, drink, cock, whatever."
Yeah, that's what it's like to live here.
Anyway, I had more stuff to write about. Oh, yes. This evening, I went through the stuff I have stored in totes downstairs (this is what my life boils down to - totes) so I could get all my winter clothes sorted out and ready for when it gets cold. Not that I really need them - if I wear a long-sleeved shirt, I only need a light sweater when it's 30 degrees outside. I barely wore my coat at all. Not that it fits anymore - my chest has gotten too big to button it, and it was the biggest size Kohl's had in that style, and was the first girly coat I've ever owned. I'm a little disappointed, but maybe I'll shrink a little once I lose some weight. Anyway, I got my small supply of winter clothes out and took the clothes that I never, ever wear downstairs to keep down there. They're all clothes that will count as work clothes if I ever manage to get a job, so they'll have to come back up once that happens, unless I have a uniform or something, but for now, they're fine downstairs. Especially since most of them barely make it over my stupid boobs right now. (Hence, new bra.)
Anyway, the hat I made last summer (I made a whole set for myself - scarf, hat, and two sets of arm warmers) finally looks good on me now that my hair has grown out - it looked really stupid last year. Which reminds me, I need to get my ass in gear on the hat I'm making for S so she can wear it with the scarf I made for her last year. Hopefully I'll be able to make Girl Child's Ravenclaw scarf soon, too - she'll like having that.
My hair is sort of long enough to braid. It's not a braid I'd ever wear out of the house, because it's all stubby and it'd fall apart in three seconds if I was moving around at all, but it's good for just sitting here.
Anyway, I'm really tired, and there isn't really a whole lot else to say.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Dog Baths and Head Injuries
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.
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.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Switcheroos and Baking Soda
I am so lazy! I've been having a hard time finding the desire to write anything. Really, all I'd like to do at the moment is a whole fat lot of nothing. Or sleep. My dark circles have bags. Even when I get enough sleep, I look exhausted.
I haven't done anything more with that essay about abortion that I talked about - I've been busy ignoring it in favor of things that require much less brainpower. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my brain has just completely deteriorated to a point where I'll never be able to think deeply again. That's kind of a scary thought, so maybe now I need to work on that essay and post it.
I'm listening to my favorite song by M at the moment, which is making it hard to sit and type everything out because it's so beautiful that I want to sit with my eyes closed and just listen to it.
Last night, I switched from my poor Frankenstein of a computer (which I never posted any photos of) to S's old XPS that used to be J's a few years ago. S inherited M's XPS (they're actually almost the exact same computer, except M's old computer has a better processor and RAM but a smaller hard drive than the other XPS), so I get a computer that I can actually keep most of my crap on, but now I can't play the Sims, unless I turn this one off and put it somewhere safe and hook the other one up with its eight thousand cables, because the optical drive on this one is broken from J dropping it so much. However, this computer has a much better, and less broken, keyboard. It's also faster, has Windows 7 instead of XP, and it's prettier. Not to mention, I could theoretically take it places with me that allow me to use the electricity, since the battery does not work at all. And I can close it if I need to, which is nice and something I've definitely missed. Anyway, I was intending on formatting this computer before using it, but then discovered that because the optical drive only works sporadically, it can't reinstall Windows (or run the Sims, since you need the disc to play if you don't want to play pirated copies), so what I've done instead is delete all of S's old files, reconfigure all of her settings and basically change absolutely everything to suit me. It's almost like having it be mine, except that it says Users>S-- instead of Users>L--, which just bothers the hell out of me, but honestly, if that's all I've got to complain about, I'll take what I can get.
Anyway, so lots of excitement surrounding the transference of computers - I'm keeping the Frankenstein as a way to play the Sims until I manage to acquire one with a functioning optical drive and other good parts, and this also means transferring my music library over - that's almost 18 gigs of music! And I have to completely resort it and delete all the stuff that I only deleted out of iTunes last time, because it's all back now since I never deleted the source files. (Over 1,000 songs, actually, that I'm going to have to go and find and delete. Oh joy.) Then I have to readd my audiobooks and fix all of them as well, probably, knowing my luck. Maybe it'll let me fix the chapter titles so they don't suck anymore, though, because a lack of formatting makes my head want to explode. And I need to find a better copy of Order of the Phoenix, as the one I've got is missing the end of the chapter The Woes of Mrs. Weasley.
Well, that's probably enough bitching about how disorganized I am and how much work I'm going to have to do in iTunes before I can even attempt to sync my iPod, so in other news, S and I are going to be trying out this "No 'Poo" thing that I found on a blog, which sounds completely awesome - basically, we won't be using store-bought shampoo or conditioner on our hair anymore, but a mixture of baking soda and water (and after J gets paid, we'll also be adding essential oils to give it a scent) for shampoo every few days and apple cider vinegar with water for conditioner, though just on the ends at first. Funnily enough, I found this not by searching for ways to stop using shampoo, but to find ways to make my hair healthier with food items, out of a combination of curiousity and frustration at how pathetic and weird my hair is. And because I just joined a long hair forum, hoping for some information that I might find helpful in growing my hair out. Anyway, I found this blog after a bit of googling, and it sounds like an absolutely terrific idea, especially after I got a load of her before and after pictures - her before picture had her hair looking dry and weird and poofy with this weird wave, and in the after picture, her hair was tame and soft and silky-looking, and it had darkened, too, to a shade of brown that she apparently was in love with.
Anyway, I've devised a schedule of how often I'm going to use the baking soda mixture on my hair, and I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to use the ACV every time I wash my hair or every other time. The way I've drawn up the schedule looks as if I'll be washing my hair on Saturday, Tuesday, Friday, Monday, Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday, and then back to Saturday again, in a nice little cycle, so there'll be two days between each washing. I don't know if I'm going to need to move them closer or not - you're supposed to just rinse your hair with warm water in the shower on the days you don't wash it. It's going to be an interesting first week, though - the first 10 days or so apparently involve some truly horrific hair days while the scalp stops being all weird and re-regulates the natural oil production, which is basically the purpose of this experiment. I'm going to give it about a month and see how I like it by the end of August, and if it ends up looking okay, that's just how I'm going to wash my hair from now on. Hopefully, I'll never need to use a styling product again.
I'm really excited about this! I've read one account of someone's hair falling out in clumps, but 90% of them say that after the natural oils of the scalp regulated, they were so happy with it that they'd never go back. Also, some people discovered that they had curly hair, or straight hair, or another entirely different hair type than they previously thought, and it cuts out frizz almost completely. Also, if this works and we keep at it, we're going to save SO much money in the long run - we use a lot of shampoo and conditioner right now, and it'll be nice to only have to buy a box of nice, cheap baking soda instead of shampoo and conditioner for every person in the house, if J and Girl Child switch to it as well. Actually, I'm doubtful that Girl Child will make the switch, since it's so close to the start of the school year, but J probably will, if it does good things for our hair. I'm hoping M will make the switch, too, from what I've read, it does amazing things for people with very curly hair, and I think he'd be very happy.
Today, we went on errands involving the Kansas Department of Revenue - specifically getting the car registered and going to get Girl Child her first state ID and to get my instruction permit so I can work on driving and get my license. Unfortunately, I'm listed as having suspended driving privileges, so I couldn't get my permit today, or take the test, or do anything but be hung up on by customer service in Topeka. So I'm calling tomorrow morning, after I call the other relevant places to get more information on why this happened. Hopefully, it'll be quickly resolved with little effort on my part and I'll get my permit on Tuesday or something. If I'm lucky and it doesn't turn out that my driving privileges are suspended for life or something ridiculous.
In D&D news, we're starting another new game what W is going to run, and I'm going to try out being a rogue. Basically, I'm a fancy beat-stick, but it's still a slight departure from the norm, and since I'm not all that good at the roleplay aspect as of yet, that's the best I can do right now. I decided to name my new rogue Zoe, and S told me that I'd damn well better live up to the name and be a Big Damn Hero. It should be interesting with W running - I've never actually played a game with him running, because LW was born right as he was about to start running the last game that I was going to participate with him as DM, and we basically had to give that campaign up after one session. So, yeah, I'm a little nervous, as from what S has said, W's games are usually something that turns into a Lovecraftian horror. Anyway, because J's work schedule is changing, we're moving game from Saturdays to Mondays, which is handy, because that is the day I'll be watching LW every week, so we'll be able to get started sooner since they won't have to drive all the way out to Raytown to pick him up before even getting here.
I applied for a job with the county a day or two ago, I can't remember for what position right now (it's in my email, so it's not like I'll be totally clueless if they actually called me), and I'm intending on applying to be an election worker, so maybe that'll help me get a normal job. The permit thing is going to cause me problems, though, but maybe not too many.
I don't really have anything further to add, so I'm going to go and be very frustrated with iTunes now.
Also, thanks to The Bloggess, I now want a scary metal chicken sculpture.
I haven't done anything more with that essay about abortion that I talked about - I've been busy ignoring it in favor of things that require much less brainpower. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my brain has just completely deteriorated to a point where I'll never be able to think deeply again. That's kind of a scary thought, so maybe now I need to work on that essay and post it.
I'm listening to my favorite song by M at the moment, which is making it hard to sit and type everything out because it's so beautiful that I want to sit with my eyes closed and just listen to it.
Last night, I switched from my poor Frankenstein of a computer (which I never posted any photos of) to S's old XPS that used to be J's a few years ago. S inherited M's XPS (they're actually almost the exact same computer, except M's old computer has a better processor and RAM but a smaller hard drive than the other XPS), so I get a computer that I can actually keep most of my crap on, but now I can't play the Sims, unless I turn this one off and put it somewhere safe and hook the other one up with its eight thousand cables, because the optical drive on this one is broken from J dropping it so much. However, this computer has a much better, and less broken, keyboard. It's also faster, has Windows 7 instead of XP, and it's prettier. Not to mention, I could theoretically take it places with me that allow me to use the electricity, since the battery does not work at all. And I can close it if I need to, which is nice and something I've definitely missed. Anyway, I was intending on formatting this computer before using it, but then discovered that because the optical drive only works sporadically, it can't reinstall Windows (or run the Sims, since you need the disc to play if you don't want to play pirated copies), so what I've done instead is delete all of S's old files, reconfigure all of her settings and basically change absolutely everything to suit me. It's almost like having it be mine, except that it says Users>S-- instead of Users>L--, which just bothers the hell out of me, but honestly, if that's all I've got to complain about, I'll take what I can get.
Anyway, so lots of excitement surrounding the transference of computers - I'm keeping the Frankenstein as a way to play the Sims until I manage to acquire one with a functioning optical drive and other good parts, and this also means transferring my music library over - that's almost 18 gigs of music! And I have to completely resort it and delete all the stuff that I only deleted out of iTunes last time, because it's all back now since I never deleted the source files. (Over 1,000 songs, actually, that I'm going to have to go and find and delete. Oh joy.) Then I have to readd my audiobooks and fix all of them as well, probably, knowing my luck. Maybe it'll let me fix the chapter titles so they don't suck anymore, though, because a lack of formatting makes my head want to explode. And I need to find a better copy of Order of the Phoenix, as the one I've got is missing the end of the chapter The Woes of Mrs. Weasley.
Well, that's probably enough bitching about how disorganized I am and how much work I'm going to have to do in iTunes before I can even attempt to sync my iPod, so in other news, S and I are going to be trying out this "No 'Poo" thing that I found on a blog, which sounds completely awesome - basically, we won't be using store-bought shampoo or conditioner on our hair anymore, but a mixture of baking soda and water (and after J gets paid, we'll also be adding essential oils to give it a scent) for shampoo every few days and apple cider vinegar with water for conditioner, though just on the ends at first. Funnily enough, I found this not by searching for ways to stop using shampoo, but to find ways to make my hair healthier with food items, out of a combination of curiousity and frustration at how pathetic and weird my hair is. And because I just joined a long hair forum, hoping for some information that I might find helpful in growing my hair out. Anyway, I found this blog after a bit of googling, and it sounds like an absolutely terrific idea, especially after I got a load of her before and after pictures - her before picture had her hair looking dry and weird and poofy with this weird wave, and in the after picture, her hair was tame and soft and silky-looking, and it had darkened, too, to a shade of brown that she apparently was in love with.
Anyway, I've devised a schedule of how often I'm going to use the baking soda mixture on my hair, and I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to use the ACV every time I wash my hair or every other time. The way I've drawn up the schedule looks as if I'll be washing my hair on Saturday, Tuesday, Friday, Monday, Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday, and then back to Saturday again, in a nice little cycle, so there'll be two days between each washing. I don't know if I'm going to need to move them closer or not - you're supposed to just rinse your hair with warm water in the shower on the days you don't wash it. It's going to be an interesting first week, though - the first 10 days or so apparently involve some truly horrific hair days while the scalp stops being all weird and re-regulates the natural oil production, which is basically the purpose of this experiment. I'm going to give it about a month and see how I like it by the end of August, and if it ends up looking okay, that's just how I'm going to wash my hair from now on. Hopefully, I'll never need to use a styling product again.
I'm really excited about this! I've read one account of someone's hair falling out in clumps, but 90% of them say that after the natural oils of the scalp regulated, they were so happy with it that they'd never go back. Also, some people discovered that they had curly hair, or straight hair, or another entirely different hair type than they previously thought, and it cuts out frizz almost completely. Also, if this works and we keep at it, we're going to save SO much money in the long run - we use a lot of shampoo and conditioner right now, and it'll be nice to only have to buy a box of nice, cheap baking soda instead of shampoo and conditioner for every person in the house, if J and Girl Child switch to it as well. Actually, I'm doubtful that Girl Child will make the switch, since it's so close to the start of the school year, but J probably will, if it does good things for our hair. I'm hoping M will make the switch, too, from what I've read, it does amazing things for people with very curly hair, and I think he'd be very happy.
Today, we went on errands involving the Kansas Department of Revenue - specifically getting the car registered and going to get Girl Child her first state ID and to get my instruction permit so I can work on driving and get my license. Unfortunately, I'm listed as having suspended driving privileges, so I couldn't get my permit today, or take the test, or do anything but be hung up on by customer service in Topeka. So I'm calling tomorrow morning, after I call the other relevant places to get more information on why this happened. Hopefully, it'll be quickly resolved with little effort on my part and I'll get my permit on Tuesday or something. If I'm lucky and it doesn't turn out that my driving privileges are suspended for life or something ridiculous.
In D&D news, we're starting another new game what W is going to run, and I'm going to try out being a rogue. Basically, I'm a fancy beat-stick, but it's still a slight departure from the norm, and since I'm not all that good at the roleplay aspect as of yet, that's the best I can do right now. I decided to name my new rogue Zoe, and S told me that I'd damn well better live up to the name and be a Big Damn Hero. It should be interesting with W running - I've never actually played a game with him running, because LW was born right as he was about to start running the last game that I was going to participate with him as DM, and we basically had to give that campaign up after one session. So, yeah, I'm a little nervous, as from what S has said, W's games are usually something that turns into a Lovecraftian horror. Anyway, because J's work schedule is changing, we're moving game from Saturdays to Mondays, which is handy, because that is the day I'll be watching LW every week, so we'll be able to get started sooner since they won't have to drive all the way out to Raytown to pick him up before even getting here.
I applied for a job with the county a day or two ago, I can't remember for what position right now (it's in my email, so it's not like I'll be totally clueless if they actually called me), and I'm intending on applying to be an election worker, so maybe that'll help me get a normal job. The permit thing is going to cause me problems, though, but maybe not too many.
I don't really have anything further to add, so I'm going to go and be very frustrated with iTunes now.
Also, thanks to The Bloggess, I now want a scary metal chicken sculpture.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Quick Update
Yes, I am alive!
Life's been.. you know, life. I haven't updated in ages, I know. I haven't felt like it. I discovered that this computer will (barely) run The Sims 2, so I've been playing that pretty obsessively, as I do. I've also almost finished catching up on the laundry, but have slowed down significantly due to the heat wave - poor M sleeps in the basement, which is an oven, and I don't want to fry him to death any more than he has to be.
I'm still unemployed. I recently applied at Old Navy when a position opened up, but I never got a response, so they probably hired someone with a better employment history. I'm getting my learner's permit on Monday or Tuesday, though, so I'll be driving again soon, and will hopefully have my license by the end of October. Yee-haw.
Honestly, it's been pretty boring here lately. Even the insane stuff is sort of boring when you factor in the fact that it happens every day.
I am going to try to start blogging more regularly, though. I was doing so well for awhile, too. I have a nice little rant I wrote about abortions and sexual education after the whole thing with the legislature in Kansas screwing with Planned Parenthood, and I may eventually get off my ass and refine that so it's postable. Maybe.
I've got a Google+ account now, which is pretty cool, since I'm really angry with Facebook after they started forcing chat on me, like I'd want to use that shit. There was a reason I was permanently offline and kept it hidden, and I don't appreciate them deciding to sign me in or force it to be visible to me. I'm hoping that it'll be pretty difficult to connect my blog to my G+ account, though, since I like to keep my private life separate from my work life and all that.
I think I'm going to start baby-sitting LW sometimes here soon, which should be interesting. I'm not sure how we'll get him down for naps or anything, but he's a cutie, so I'm totally cool with baby-sitting and making a little pocket money. Woo.
Anyway, I have nothing further to add.
Life's been.. you know, life. I haven't updated in ages, I know. I haven't felt like it. I discovered that this computer will (barely) run The Sims 2, so I've been playing that pretty obsessively, as I do. I've also almost finished catching up on the laundry, but have slowed down significantly due to the heat wave - poor M sleeps in the basement, which is an oven, and I don't want to fry him to death any more than he has to be.
I'm still unemployed. I recently applied at Old Navy when a position opened up, but I never got a response, so they probably hired someone with a better employment history. I'm getting my learner's permit on Monday or Tuesday, though, so I'll be driving again soon, and will hopefully have my license by the end of October. Yee-haw.
Honestly, it's been pretty boring here lately. Even the insane stuff is sort of boring when you factor in the fact that it happens every day.
I am going to try to start blogging more regularly, though. I was doing so well for awhile, too. I have a nice little rant I wrote about abortions and sexual education after the whole thing with the legislature in Kansas screwing with Planned Parenthood, and I may eventually get off my ass and refine that so it's postable. Maybe.
I've got a Google+ account now, which is pretty cool, since I'm really angry with Facebook after they started forcing chat on me, like I'd want to use that shit. There was a reason I was permanently offline and kept it hidden, and I don't appreciate them deciding to sign me in or force it to be visible to me. I'm hoping that it'll be pretty difficult to connect my blog to my G+ account, though, since I like to keep my private life separate from my work life and all that.
I think I'm going to start baby-sitting LW sometimes here soon, which should be interesting. I'm not sure how we'll get him down for naps or anything, but he's a cutie, so I'm totally cool with baby-sitting and making a little pocket money. Woo.
Anyway, I have nothing further to add.
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.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
A Tornado Outbreak Makes For a Crazy Week
This has been one hell of a week.
Last Sunday evening, an F5 tornado hit the city of Joplin, Missouri. This is the town that one of my friends, CG, lives in with her husband and daughter, and several of my friends have friends and family there. There are 139 confirmed dead already, and they haven’t even found everyone yet. Joplin isn’t exactly a small town, its population numbers somewhere around 50,000, and there’s a six-block section of the city, cut from west to east, that is just flattened. CG was barely missed, she lives two blocks north of where the really bad damage starts, and they came out of it with just some trees that needed to be removed, not even any broken windows. I know she’s lost at least three coworkers and some friends, I’m not too sure how many because it’s not like she’s got a counter up on her Facebook profile, and she’s been pretty quiet about it. I feel really terrible for her, I can’t imagine what that’s like, to lose so many people at once, to see your entire hometown ripped to shreds - I’ve been in a few close calls and one small tornado, which I think was an F2, when I was a toddler, but I’ve never witnessed firsthand that kind of destruction on that scale, or known I’d lost everything, that almost everyone I know has as well. Today is CG’s daughter’s second birthday. I was invited to the birthday party, but there’s no way I could get down there now, and I don’t think she could have made it all the way up here to pick me up, now that all this has happened.
I don’t really remember what happened on Monday. I think there was probably some stuff that happened, but damned if I can remember what occurred. It obviously wasn’t important. Apparently Monday was a void.
We bought a weather radio on Tuesday (the 24th), and got it all set up in time for us to have some lovely severe thunderstorms come in while I was babysitting the kids. I kept The Weather Channel on the whole night and watched as tornado after tornado hit Texas and Oklahoma and Arkansas, and another one just scraped by Joplin. The weather radio freaked out regularly about every 10 minutes or so because S didn’t get it programmed for our county until the next morning.
On Wednesday, there was an F0 tornado that went straight through the middle of Overland Park. It was actually a very large, wedge-shaped tornado, but it just didn’t have any oomph behind it, which was why there was almost no damage (some light tree damage was the extent, I believe), because it was large and slow-moving... We got so lucky. If it had had more power behind it, it would have completely destroyed Overland Park, more than likely. It passed by less than two miles from home, and S and I had to get J out of bed and downstairs and woke M up in the process and spent a good twenty minutes in the basement, and then stayed upstairs for the second set of sirens because it wasn’t going to pass remotely close to the house, or at least not close enough to worry about. (S could seriously be a meteorologist.)
Thursday was Girl Child’s last day of school. She did fantastically, as always, though her hair was... special. She and S teased it up that morning and made it crazy and … well, crazy, because she wanted to make a statement for the last day of school.
J brought AB home with him from work Thursday night, so she was there Friday when we all woke up. She’s a nice enough girl, but after awhile she’s a bit grating. Probably because she’s consistently a teenager in her behavior. She actually ended up irritating the crap out of me just by being there all day. I can see why S gets so sick of me sometimes. Anyway, we ended up taking her with us on our errands, most of which involved them staying in the car while I took the Toddler in with me wherever I was going because he cried when I left him in the car. I got the yarn I needed to finish my afghan, and pillow inserts for the matching pillows I’m making, and made a stop at Micro Center, and Wal-Mart - we were out of the house for about five hours and did not stop all day. Friday was exhausting.
Friday night, we started to start a new game of D&D, but it was taking forever for character creation because J was too busy playing Minecraft to remember that he was supposed to be explaining all this to AB, so S and I ended up going to bed once we got too tired to stay up any longer. I’m pretty sure AB isn’t smart enough to play D&D anyway, she can’t even spell charisma. I have generally found that most people who play D&D and are good at it are ridiculously smart. I hope I become a good player, though I have no illusions about my intelligence. I am not as smart as I was when I was in high school. I mean, I could still out-think most of the people I had the misfortune of attending high school with, but a potato could out-think some of those people. Anyway, W, S, and J are all ridiculously smart, and they are all good at D&D. I’m not sure AB will even be able to figure out what J is talking about half the time, unless he dumbs his explanation down a lot.
Yesterday was okay, W and A showed up on time, but then W went back to their apartment for an hour to look for A’s dice, so we still didn’t start until after 10:00, but we got the story advanced a little bit, at least. I’m finally starting to consistently remember how to do everything and am needing less and less help knowing what kind of die I need for a roll (though I have enough dice at this point that it is difficult to find the right kind just by them being camouflaged by all the other ones), and I’m getting pretty good at levelling my character up without any help. I imagine other stuff besides game-related stuff happened, but once again, the rest of the day is a blank.
Today hasn’t been very eventful. I was woken up by S asking me where the hell I put the Wheat Thins, but they were under J’s window for unknown reasons, which I knew but had no part in causing. Anyway, nothing important has happened today. I made cornbread so J could have lunch at work, I acquired some new music that I’m sorting through, and I baby-sat the Toddler for awhile this evening for about an hour and a half. He cried the entire time until I stripped him naked and let him lay on me and eat peaches. Toddlers are so freaking strange. The morning of the Overland Park tornado, he rubbed an entire handful of cottage cheese into his eye.
I’ve been incredibly cranky for most of the day, though apparently you wouldn’t know it. I am short on patience and I just want to bite off the head of whoever is foolhardy enough to bother me. I don’t even know why I feel this way. Probably a combination of not having any coffee this morning and we ran out of cigarettes this morning and because J has an e-cig, they’ve decided to stop buying them altogether, which leaves me quitting cold turkey and I am very unhappy about this because I don’t currently want to quit at all. I know it’s not really my choice - it’s not my money, if they don’t want to buy them, I can’t change that. Anyway, I’m irrationally and disproportionately angry about the whole thing in addition to feeling rubbed completely raw by being completely without cigarettes for almost the whole day. I’m actually really glad Girl Child is staying over at a friend’s house tonight, so I won’t randomly start yelling at her for absolutely no reason. That would suck, and she wouldn’t deserve it. At least I recognize this, which is why I've put in the earbuds and am not talking to anyone, because anytime I talk to anybody, I don't sound very nice.
I think another part of my problem is that I abstractly stopped writing this week, and I probably shouldn’t have. I don’t really have another outlet to just get some of this stuff out of my head, I don’t talk to anyone, ever, so it just gets internalized if I don’t write about it. Fun.
Anyway, tomorrow is Monday, we’ll see what happens then. Probably nothing. Tonight, my plans are to finish off this bag I’m making to keep my scrap yarn in and then move on to working on the squares for the afghan as soon as possible. I’m going to see if I can watch Orphan while crocheting, but I’ve never seen it, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to. I don’t generally do horror very well.
Last Sunday evening, an F5 tornado hit the city of Joplin, Missouri. This is the town that one of my friends, CG, lives in with her husband and daughter, and several of my friends have friends and family there. There are 139 confirmed dead already, and they haven’t even found everyone yet. Joplin isn’t exactly a small town, its population numbers somewhere around 50,000, and there’s a six-block section of the city, cut from west to east, that is just flattened. CG was barely missed, she lives two blocks north of where the really bad damage starts, and they came out of it with just some trees that needed to be removed, not even any broken windows. I know she’s lost at least three coworkers and some friends, I’m not too sure how many because it’s not like she’s got a counter up on her Facebook profile, and she’s been pretty quiet about it. I feel really terrible for her, I can’t imagine what that’s like, to lose so many people at once, to see your entire hometown ripped to shreds - I’ve been in a few close calls and one small tornado, which I think was an F2, when I was a toddler, but I’ve never witnessed firsthand that kind of destruction on that scale, or known I’d lost everything, that almost everyone I know has as well. Today is CG’s daughter’s second birthday. I was invited to the birthday party, but there’s no way I could get down there now, and I don’t think she could have made it all the way up here to pick me up, now that all this has happened.
I don’t really remember what happened on Monday. I think there was probably some stuff that happened, but damned if I can remember what occurred. It obviously wasn’t important. Apparently Monday was a void.
We bought a weather radio on Tuesday (the 24th), and got it all set up in time for us to have some lovely severe thunderstorms come in while I was babysitting the kids. I kept The Weather Channel on the whole night and watched as tornado after tornado hit Texas and Oklahoma and Arkansas, and another one just scraped by Joplin. The weather radio freaked out regularly about every 10 minutes or so because S didn’t get it programmed for our county until the next morning.
On Wednesday, there was an F0 tornado that went straight through the middle of Overland Park. It was actually a very large, wedge-shaped tornado, but it just didn’t have any oomph behind it, which was why there was almost no damage (some light tree damage was the extent, I believe), because it was large and slow-moving... We got so lucky. If it had had more power behind it, it would have completely destroyed Overland Park, more than likely. It passed by less than two miles from home, and S and I had to get J out of bed and downstairs and woke M up in the process and spent a good twenty minutes in the basement, and then stayed upstairs for the second set of sirens because it wasn’t going to pass remotely close to the house, or at least not close enough to worry about. (S could seriously be a meteorologist.)
Thursday was Girl Child’s last day of school. She did fantastically, as always, though her hair was... special. She and S teased it up that morning and made it crazy and … well, crazy, because she wanted to make a statement for the last day of school.
J brought AB home with him from work Thursday night, so she was there Friday when we all woke up. She’s a nice enough girl, but after awhile she’s a bit grating. Probably because she’s consistently a teenager in her behavior. She actually ended up irritating the crap out of me just by being there all day. I can see why S gets so sick of me sometimes. Anyway, we ended up taking her with us on our errands, most of which involved them staying in the car while I took the Toddler in with me wherever I was going because he cried when I left him in the car. I got the yarn I needed to finish my afghan, and pillow inserts for the matching pillows I’m making, and made a stop at Micro Center, and Wal-Mart - we were out of the house for about five hours and did not stop all day. Friday was exhausting.
Friday night, we started to start a new game of D&D, but it was taking forever for character creation because J was too busy playing Minecraft to remember that he was supposed to be explaining all this to AB, so S and I ended up going to bed once we got too tired to stay up any longer. I’m pretty sure AB isn’t smart enough to play D&D anyway, she can’t even spell charisma. I have generally found that most people who play D&D and are good at it are ridiculously smart. I hope I become a good player, though I have no illusions about my intelligence. I am not as smart as I was when I was in high school. I mean, I could still out-think most of the people I had the misfortune of attending high school with, but a potato could out-think some of those people. Anyway, W, S, and J are all ridiculously smart, and they are all good at D&D. I’m not sure AB will even be able to figure out what J is talking about half the time, unless he dumbs his explanation down a lot.
Yesterday was okay, W and A showed up on time, but then W went back to their apartment for an hour to look for A’s dice, so we still didn’t start until after 10:00, but we got the story advanced a little bit, at least. I’m finally starting to consistently remember how to do everything and am needing less and less help knowing what kind of die I need for a roll (though I have enough dice at this point that it is difficult to find the right kind just by them being camouflaged by all the other ones), and I’m getting pretty good at levelling my character up without any help. I imagine other stuff besides game-related stuff happened, but once again, the rest of the day is a blank.
Today hasn’t been very eventful. I was woken up by S asking me where the hell I put the Wheat Thins, but they were under J’s window for unknown reasons, which I knew but had no part in causing. Anyway, nothing important has happened today. I made cornbread so J could have lunch at work, I acquired some new music that I’m sorting through, and I baby-sat the Toddler for awhile this evening for about an hour and a half. He cried the entire time until I stripped him naked and let him lay on me and eat peaches. Toddlers are so freaking strange. The morning of the Overland Park tornado, he rubbed an entire handful of cottage cheese into his eye.
I’ve been incredibly cranky for most of the day, though apparently you wouldn’t know it. I am short on patience and I just want to bite off the head of whoever is foolhardy enough to bother me. I don’t even know why I feel this way. Probably a combination of not having any coffee this morning and we ran out of cigarettes this morning and because J has an e-cig, they’ve decided to stop buying them altogether, which leaves me quitting cold turkey and I am very unhappy about this because I don’t currently want to quit at all. I know it’s not really my choice - it’s not my money, if they don’t want to buy them, I can’t change that. Anyway, I’m irrationally and disproportionately angry about the whole thing in addition to feeling rubbed completely raw by being completely without cigarettes for almost the whole day. I’m actually really glad Girl Child is staying over at a friend’s house tonight, so I won’t randomly start yelling at her for absolutely no reason. That would suck, and she wouldn’t deserve it. At least I recognize this, which is why I've put in the earbuds and am not talking to anyone, because anytime I talk to anybody, I don't sound very nice.
I think another part of my problem is that I abstractly stopped writing this week, and I probably shouldn’t have. I don’t really have another outlet to just get some of this stuff out of my head, I don’t talk to anyone, ever, so it just gets internalized if I don’t write about it. Fun.
Anyway, tomorrow is Monday, we’ll see what happens then. Probably nothing. Tonight, my plans are to finish off this bag I’m making to keep my scrap yarn in and then move on to working on the squares for the afghan as soon as possible. I’m going to see if I can watch Orphan while crocheting, but I’ve never seen it, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to. I don’t generally do horror very well.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Self-Worth
I really want a gym membership. I want to get toned and lose some weight and be able to wear my cute clothes again. I want to have the energy to do everything I want to in a day again. My weight is starting to get out of hand, especially since I'm barely five feet tall. I miss the body I used to have when I was active, before the car accident in 2008. I miss feeling beautiful. I miss everything about that, especially being healthy. I used to be ridiculously healthy, I never got sick, ever, except when I got sick epically, which only happened about once a year, sometimes once every couple of years.
I miss how my hair was before I started dyeing it in 2008. (That just seems to be the year of everything being fucked.) It's a lot thinner now, though it's coming back and starting to feel healthy again, but I'm starting to think it'll never be as thick or as beautiful as it was. I don't know what I was thinking.
I miss having a job and feeling like I was doing something. It doesn't matter if it's retail or not, at least it's not being useless all the time, which is how I feel so often now. I'll probably even feel useless if I manage to get the whole of the house cleaned up and organized, and I still feel useless even though I'm helping out with the Toddler and the cooking. I don't think these feelings will change unless I have a job, I don't feel like I'm contributing in a tangible way unless I am also earning money in addition to everything else I'm attempting to accomplish. I want to be Superwoman, I want to do it all so I feel that I am worth having here.
I'm so different from how I was a few years ago. I would have taken this life, these people, for granted, completely, just a few years ago. I can't believe how much I have changed. I don't like who I was and I am glad of the change, but I'm not sure I like who I am now. I imagine I'd be fine with myself if I had a job. It all seems to come down to my employment status.
I want to work on getting my driver's license this summer. I want to actually work on it, actually practice enough that I will be able to drive in any condition, and that I won't be a road hazard to everyone around me. I want my driver's license. I want to be able to own a car and drive it. I want to be independent. (This does not mean I want to live alone. I would go slowly insane if I lived alone, I don't think I'm equipped to be alone, but that kind of independence, especially if it came coupled with a job, would mean I would also be in the house less and drive S a lot less crazy.)
I want to be able to go somewhere outside of the house under my own power, alone, to go grocery shopping or run errands or whatever. I want to be an adult.
I need to grow up. It's time. I'm not sure what that will mean, I'm not sure it's something I truly want, but I want to make some changes. I want to eat better, join a gym and lose some fucking weight, get a job and a driver's license and a car, and get my debt paid off. I want to feel worthy of the friendship and love that I have been offered in this house.
I miss how my hair was before I started dyeing it in 2008. (That just seems to be the year of everything being fucked.) It's a lot thinner now, though it's coming back and starting to feel healthy again, but I'm starting to think it'll never be as thick or as beautiful as it was. I don't know what I was thinking.
I miss having a job and feeling like I was doing something. It doesn't matter if it's retail or not, at least it's not being useless all the time, which is how I feel so often now. I'll probably even feel useless if I manage to get the whole of the house cleaned up and organized, and I still feel useless even though I'm helping out with the Toddler and the cooking. I don't think these feelings will change unless I have a job, I don't feel like I'm contributing in a tangible way unless I am also earning money in addition to everything else I'm attempting to accomplish. I want to be Superwoman, I want to do it all so I feel that I am worth having here.
I'm so different from how I was a few years ago. I would have taken this life, these people, for granted, completely, just a few years ago. I can't believe how much I have changed. I don't like who I was and I am glad of the change, but I'm not sure I like who I am now. I imagine I'd be fine with myself if I had a job. It all seems to come down to my employment status.
I want to work on getting my driver's license this summer. I want to actually work on it, actually practice enough that I will be able to drive in any condition, and that I won't be a road hazard to everyone around me. I want my driver's license. I want to be able to own a car and drive it. I want to be independent. (This does not mean I want to live alone. I would go slowly insane if I lived alone, I don't think I'm equipped to be alone, but that kind of independence, especially if it came coupled with a job, would mean I would also be in the house less and drive S a lot less crazy.)
I want to be able to go somewhere outside of the house under my own power, alone, to go grocery shopping or run errands or whatever. I want to be an adult.
I need to grow up. It's time. I'm not sure what that will mean, I'm not sure it's something I truly want, but I want to make some changes. I want to eat better, join a gym and lose some fucking weight, get a job and a driver's license and a car, and get my debt paid off. I want to feel worthy of the friendship and love that I have been offered in this house.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Pizza, Silly Songs, and Unemployment
Today wound up being a very full day, all things considered. S and I ran errands, including a major grocery run, which ended in my hip grinding so badly that I could hardly make it through the store. I single-handedly brought in all of the groceries because S really just can’t physically do that right now (though she’ll try if I let her), helped her set the Toddler up for lunch, then put away almost all the groceries myself. What this means is that everything is nice and organized, which I quite like. S and I seem to be the only people in the house that care if we can find food in the fridge.
Anyway, after we got back, S got J up for the day, then the Toddler was put down for a nap, and then J went out to get some McDonald’s, and while he was gone, S was trying to make food in the kitchen for herself and managed to knock down a plate, which completely shattered all over the floor. This would be the second time in 24 hours that something has been knocked down and broken in the kitchen. The vacuum was necessary this time. The plate-breakage is really my fault, though, I’m the one that stacked them haphazardly last night. I had just finished vacuuming the area in the dining room that received a bit of plate shrapnel when Girl Child and J’s grandmother showed up (Girl Child spent the entire weekend with her great-grandmother). While she was visiting with the family, I fixed S’s food for her so she wouldn’t have to get up again, and wound up collapsing on the couch in exhaustion. My lunch wound up being a Choco Taco, which, while wonderful, is not really a sufficient lunch.
Just as J was getting ready to head out the door, S’s parents showed up for a visit. I shall call them SM and SD, because they both have S names, too. J had to go ahead and leave, and then the visiting commenced, coinciding with Toddler’s nap ending. He was very adamant about being removed from his crib and jumped and screamed when it took me a moment to get to him. I actually find his tantrums fairly hilarious, so this doesn’t really bother me, unless he screams directly into my ear.
Anyway, S’s parents ended up staying for dinner, and since we were already planning on having Papa Murphy’s, we just got a bigger size. They got to see the Toddler after a quick shower, and have some cuddle time with him, and he seems to recognize them as Grandma and Grandpa, which is really cute, and there was a lot of fun this afternoon. I got to play with the Girl Child some instead of arguing with her, too. And we did some sort of strange group sing-along involving “The Song That Gets On Everybody’s Nerves” and “The Song That Never Ends” and other hilarity involving this type of thing. Girl Child and I spoke whale at the tops of our voices. (See Finding Nemo if you don’t understand.)
Anyway, I’ve spent a good portion of my afternoon and evening sorting some music for iTunes and adding it, and discovering that I have a ridiculous collection of music, and I seem never to run out of things I want to add. Tomorrow, after I’m done sorting the rest of the unsorted stuff (I have a collection of ambient music and a collection of Randy Newman songs left to go through), I’m going to start going through what I have on iTunes itself to get the playlist parsed down to something a bit more manageable, and with less songs that I don’t really like.
I got an e-mail today from ADT informing me that they are not interested in hiring me. Yipee. No one is interested in hiring me. I am so screwed. I need a job. I need a job that pays money and has health benefits, including vision and dental, and something to do with my brain other than surf the internet all day and play with the Toddler. I’m very frustrated, I have actually made an effort to get a job, but no one will even give me a chance. I hope we do move after we’re able to take M, maybe a different job market will help, maybe I’ll find a job then. I mean, I’m not excited at the prospect of having to wait two years to get a job and I hope that I find SOMETHING in the next few months, but I’m starting to think that there really is nothing out there for me.
Anyway, I’m off to bed in a little bit in an effort to not feel like I’ve been beaten to death and reanimated by a sadist when I wake up.
Anyway, after we got back, S got J up for the day, then the Toddler was put down for a nap, and then J went out to get some McDonald’s, and while he was gone, S was trying to make food in the kitchen for herself and managed to knock down a plate, which completely shattered all over the floor. This would be the second time in 24 hours that something has been knocked down and broken in the kitchen. The vacuum was necessary this time. The plate-breakage is really my fault, though, I’m the one that stacked them haphazardly last night. I had just finished vacuuming the area in the dining room that received a bit of plate shrapnel when Girl Child and J’s grandmother showed up (Girl Child spent the entire weekend with her great-grandmother). While she was visiting with the family, I fixed S’s food for her so she wouldn’t have to get up again, and wound up collapsing on the couch in exhaustion. My lunch wound up being a Choco Taco, which, while wonderful, is not really a sufficient lunch.
Just as J was getting ready to head out the door, S’s parents showed up for a visit. I shall call them SM and SD, because they both have S names, too. J had to go ahead and leave, and then the visiting commenced, coinciding with Toddler’s nap ending. He was very adamant about being removed from his crib and jumped and screamed when it took me a moment to get to him. I actually find his tantrums fairly hilarious, so this doesn’t really bother me, unless he screams directly into my ear.
Anyway, S’s parents ended up staying for dinner, and since we were already planning on having Papa Murphy’s, we just got a bigger size. They got to see the Toddler after a quick shower, and have some cuddle time with him, and he seems to recognize them as Grandma and Grandpa, which is really cute, and there was a lot of fun this afternoon. I got to play with the Girl Child some instead of arguing with her, too. And we did some sort of strange group sing-along involving “The Song That Gets On Everybody’s Nerves” and “The Song That Never Ends” and other hilarity involving this type of thing. Girl Child and I spoke whale at the tops of our voices. (See Finding Nemo if you don’t understand.)
Anyway, I’ve spent a good portion of my afternoon and evening sorting some music for iTunes and adding it, and discovering that I have a ridiculous collection of music, and I seem never to run out of things I want to add. Tomorrow, after I’m done sorting the rest of the unsorted stuff (I have a collection of ambient music and a collection of Randy Newman songs left to go through), I’m going to start going through what I have on iTunes itself to get the playlist parsed down to something a bit more manageable, and with less songs that I don’t really like.
I got an e-mail today from ADT informing me that they are not interested in hiring me. Yipee. No one is interested in hiring me. I am so screwed. I need a job. I need a job that pays money and has health benefits, including vision and dental, and something to do with my brain other than surf the internet all day and play with the Toddler. I’m very frustrated, I have actually made an effort to get a job, but no one will even give me a chance. I hope we do move after we’re able to take M, maybe a different job market will help, maybe I’ll find a job then. I mean, I’m not excited at the prospect of having to wait two years to get a job and I hope that I find SOMETHING in the next few months, but I’m starting to think that there really is nothing out there for me.
Anyway, I’m off to bed in a little bit in an effort to not feel like I’ve been beaten to death and reanimated by a sadist when I wake up.
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