Terrible at Nothing

Terrible at Nothing

I just can't sit around for very long. I bought a refill calendar for my dayrunner a few weeks ago, and suddenly, it's almost full. For example: this weekend I'm

1.Altering a wedding dress for a second fitting on Monday.
2. Working today for a co-worker who's going to a wedding.
3. Meeting Kevin for dinner and the latest WTC production.
4.Going to Lunch with my friend Jeff who I haven't seen since I moved Even though we only live half an hour apart.

Then I'm working 15 extra hours in the next two weeks to make up for my trip to Texas. Going to Portland to help with costumes for Wycliffe's latest drama. Auditioning for the fall play at the Warehouse. Helping set up for a friend's wedding one day, then going to the wedding the next. Trying to squeeze in a visit with Teri, who's coming into town right before I leave again. Hoping to see Kristina when she's here. Going to Texas and back in six days to finally move out of Waco. Two days of teacher In-service the day after I get back. Several weeks of just work until I begin teaching after Labor Day. Hopefully I'll be in the fall play. Coordinating Wycliffe Dinner Theater's show at my church in September....and that's my last formal engagement until spring when I begin production meetings for the WTC spring play. I'm helping with costumes.

Let it never be said I don't get involved.

Last night, on an unrelated note, I made pasta. It tasted almost entirely unlike tortellini. It did taste remarkably like play-dough. I tried boiling it in salt water and garlic, and then (in the absence of marinara) covered it in ranch dressing. I gagged three bites down and then went for grapes. They were safe and non-toxic. I suppose, for that matter, playdough is non-toxic.

A man just walked in and was talking about fox finishing. Do you suppose he meant faux?

And that's it for me. I'm not even going to begin to think about my curriculum until it is officially August. In my head that gives me plenty of time. In reality, that's like, two days.

And somewhere in here I'm going to rearrange my rooms to make room for the rest of my furniture. I'm so excited about my big comfy wingback chair. It's big enough I can sit cross legged in it. And my lovely victorian loveseat.

I'm going to kill Cai. That stupid cat has started mewing at 6:30am three mornings in a row. He wanted to go wander the halls. I wanted to sleep. Throwing things at him didn't work. Today I got fed up and spanked him. Are you allowed to spank a cat? The SPCA is probably going to hunt me down. It did shut him up. If it happens again tomorrow there's going to be a cat-acide.

And that's my hodgepodge for today...

Freaky Deja Vu

You know you're getting old when..

Your mom sees you from behind and freaks out because you look just like her mother.

Actually, I'd been noticing for a while that I look a lot like Grandma in the pictures when Mom was little. And Mom would have been 8 or 9 when Grandma was as old as I am now. So, I guess it's not that far-fetched.

You have to be careful

You have to be careful around here.

I took my shoes off to sort some boxes in the stock room, and they were taken away to a pile of clothes that were being sold.

On the plus side, had I lost my favorite Doc's, I got a pair of Franco Sarto's in my size.

I don't care what bee Harry has in his bonnet

I don't care what bee Harry has in his bonnet...

I still trust Snape. "Professor Snape, Harry."

Oh, I forgot

Oh, I forgot

I got a second job. I've been interviewing and working on things for a while, but everything is done now.

This fall I'll be teaching Elementary Music at a local Private school a few hours a week.

My parents are only rubbing it in every half hour or so.

Mutual Insanity by Telepathy

Mutual Insanity by Telepathy

Highlight of the weekend while playing Catch Phrase:

"Ok! The ruler during the time of Aladdin."
"The Russian Tzar!"

And you know, it was the right answer.

Finally. A weekend

Finally. A weekend. My first real vacation since tour ended. And I'm going to relax. Unfortunatly I'm not going to relax with the new Harry Potter book because Allie got to it before I did and I couldn't wrestle it out of her grasp.

Ok who done it?

Ok who submitted my name to the muscular dystrophy lock up? I'm not mad. Just curious.

Being productive Regardless

Being Productive Regardless

My back is feeling well enough that I'm attempting to do some cleaning and sewing for my apartment, and a lot of sewing and crafting for our guest room, which will be in use for the first official time this Thursday night and Nancy and I are trying to get it in order.

Being females and relatively crafty, we've compiled pages of magazines pictures of "this is what we want" and "avoid this at all costs." We've been hauling furniture upstairs from the shop. The bed is still is cute as long as you put the broken spindles against the wall. A vanity with fabric long past its prime. A chair with such ugly brocade no one's even attempted to buy it. Extra paint. A coffee maker. A big cappuccino cup (Excuse me? I believe I ordered a large! HE-llo.) And a few hotel amenities that someone has been stealing en masse.

Last night I finished painting. I done one wall a few weeks ago in the rich hot chocolate color. Then I hurt myself. Then we had the half off sale. Then I hurt myself again. So the project was dragging on. And nothing else could be done (The decorating is the fun part). I kept hinting that Nancy ought to have some volunteers finish it, but she didn't take the hint.

So now we're trying to pull together bedding and *ergh* clean the bathroom that hasn't been used in years.

Allie's coming tomorrow to paint the bathroom Robin's Egg Blue.

E.L.F.

E.L.F.

A friend of mine heard about a makeup company that's online and in some department stores now that sells all of their products for one dollar. Why are they so cheap? They don't advertise and they have minimal packaging, which cuts down on overhead. I went online and ordered base, eyeshadow, eyeliner and they added in a lipgloss as the promotional item of the week.

It just arrived and I'm really happy. It looks like stuff you'd buy in a drugstore (back to the cheap packaging) but the makeup is good quality. The only downside is it isn't a huge quantity (Like those Este Lauder mega pressed powder squares). Even so, for $1 you can't afford to go to the drug store and buy it. Shipping was $4.85 and it came in a bubble envelope. Give me a few days to see how the base reacts with my skin (In California I had to buy some really expensive makeup non-everything, and mascara made of seaweed) but for everything else I'd say, I'd recommend it.

They don't have an extensive range of colors and products yet-though what they have isn't shabb. Even their makeup brushes and eyelash curlers are $1. That's way less than you'd pay at Walmart or Sephora. So go check them out here. I think it's worth it. And I ordered it thursday and it arrived today.

Horse People

Horse people sure are different.

For one thing, everyone has a dog. No one has a pedigree dog, unless it's an aussie. And they look like mutts anyway. The dog hangs out at the tent and the horse trailer and guards territory. The dog does not go with the horse into the arena, as ours tried to do, no matter how often he's trotted alongside at practice.

If you're really cool you have a horse trailer slash RV. Those were very popular with the camping crowd.

Horse judging is like ice skating. There are cerain manditory criteria. Then the horse (or rider) is judged on the technical skill and then the overall appearance. In one event they had the technical part, and then one where each rider submitted their pattern and were judged on how well they did it. I guess that would be the artistic portion. For example: lead changes. As near as I can figure, that's when the horse changes from beginning with his right front foot to beginning with his left front foot without breaking stride. Extra points given if you do a "flying" lead change over a "single" lead change. I have no clue what the difference is, but it seemed to be the difference between a flawless second and a flawless first place.

Horse people are not dumb. They've figured out how to make an animal ten times their size mind. They may not use necessarily all the parts of a sentence properly. Or in the right order. And "l-y" doesn't exist. Neither does the distinction between "good" and "well."

I'm going to stop before Allie, who reads this blog, disowns me as "making fun." I'm not. I was totally out of my element. It felt like the odd sporting events I've been to. People were going "oooooh" and shaking their heads and I had NO IDEA what had been done improperly. A lot of the time it seemed to have a lot to do with whether or not the horse "stuck the landing." I'm sure they have a better word for it. And if the rider's hand moved. That was big too.

And if all else failed, and everything else was the same, it came down to who had the coolest hat.

Allie kicked butt. She even went out for some new events she'd never tried. One was an open scholarship class where she competed against juniors and seniors in high school.

And I actually got on a horse. Twice. And got tickled by a foal trying to eat my t-shirt. And I fed a horse an apple.

Tinsel

Ginger got up as usual at five and practiced speed reading till half past six then ran till eight when it was time to shower and go to the cram course...And then to top off the day, a twilight run

...She kept her mind busy memorizing calories. Frozen asparagus tips were good, twenty-two per three and a half ounces, but bamboo shoots were better, just twenty-seven calories for three quarters of a cup. Raw snap green beans were better yet, a whole cup barely thirty two. And seven eighths of a cup of drained cooked cauliflower were twenty-two, so there was a pal when you needed one. Celery and chicory and lettuce and chard, there were nice to have around too. So many wonderful things to eat, so many friends.

Nights she and Freddy or sometimes the whole family had orgies of movie-and theatergoing. A Taste of Honey and Becket with Olivier himself and Gypsy with Merman and Irma La Douce with Elizabeth Seal...And Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn who was super but starting to get fat.

From Tinsel by William Goldman. Pages 211 on are the best bit on anorexia I've read.

And if his name sounds familiar, he wrote The Princess Bride.

Mrs Murphy's Chowder

For my Sister. Who Couldn't remember the words.

MRS. MURPHY'S CHOWDER

Won't you bring back, won't you bring back, Mrs. Murphy's chowder

It was tuneful, every spoonful made you yodel louder

After dinner Uncle Ben used to fill his fountain pen

From a plate of Mrs. Murphy's chowder

Chorus

Ice cream, cold cream, benzene, gasoline,

soup-beans, string beans, floating all around

Sponge cake, beefsteak, mistake, stomach ache,

creampuffs, earmuffs, many to be found

Silk hats, doormats, bed slats, democrats,

coco bells, doorbells, beckon you to dine

Meatballs, fish balls, mothballs, cannonballs,

come on in, the chowder's fine

Won't you bring back, won't you bring back, Mrs. Murphy's chowder

From each helping you'll be yelping for a headache powder

And if they had it where we are, you might find an Austin car

In a plate of Mrs. Murphy's chowder (chorus)

Won't you bring back, won't you bring back, Mrs. Murphy's chowder

You can pack it, you can stack it, all around the larder

The plumber died the other day; they embalmed him right away

In a bowl of Mrs. Murphy's chowder

Movies in the Park

Movies in the Park

For those of you living in the Yakima Valley, Allied Arts is bringing you outdoor movies at Gilbert Park all summer. Showtimes are at 8:30. Free with a can of non-perishable food for NW Harvest.

July 24: The Princess Bride
July 31: The Lion King
August 7: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
August 14: Monsters Inc
August 21: Shrek 2

Beautician

Playing Beautician

I got fed up this morning with split ends and bleached frizzies. So I cut my hair. With my sewing scissors. Nothing fancy. Just trimmed about an inch off and then went for broke and tried some layers. It appears to have worked.

At least, it doesn't look like I was attacked with a weedwacker.

They killed him

They killed him off

I can't believe it.

After 300 pages of near misses, and chance meetings, and true love, and miscommunication, and the final big We-can't-go-on-like-this-so-I'm-ending-it-now, he finally gets it together. He can let go his wife who died tragically years ago. He wants to move on. He writes one last letter-in-a-bottle to his wife to say goodbye, and mails another to the woman he wants to be with. Then he goes out in a boat to throw away the Last Bottle. A storm comes up. Faster than he expected. And he dies.

And she's left where he was in the beginning. Writing love letters to the deceased.

Usually my favorite books aren't the ones with pat endings. Lord of the Rings comes to mind. Or Peter Pan. But this is going a bit too far.

I'm off to find some Happily Ever After now.

Power Outage

Unexpected Break

A power outage forced the shop to close for an hour and a half this afternoon. It was lovely. Except I sent the help home. Now the power is back on, and only two hours are left in the work day. Lovely!

Thomas A Kempis

Not as to What We Have Read

What does it avail to discourse profoundly of the Trinity if you are void of humility and are thereby displeasing to the Trinity? Surely profound words do not make a man holy and just; but a virtuous life makes him dear to God. I would rather feel contrition than know the definition thereof. If you knew the whole Bible by heart, and the saying of all the philosophers, what would all that profit you without love (I Cor. 13:12)?

Truly when the day of judgment comes, we shall not be examined as to what we have read, but what we have done (Matt. 25); not how well we have spoken, but how we have lived.

Thomas a Kempis

Sorry I've been laid up

Been Laid Up

Flat on my back for the last few days with a back injury. Or rather an older injury which keeps getting re-injured. I went to the doctor Friday morning and was told that my car wreck three years ago all-but-obliviated the curvature in my lower spine. So I'm going to keep hurting myself unless I'm very careful. She gave me a lovely brace to wear at work, and a baggy of sample Aleve. Those did nothing, nor did the at least half dozen Ibuprofin I had on top of that.

Spent Friday night awake trying to find a way to sleep that wasn't agony. All of the pain killers only made me noxious. So, thank God, mom came over yesterday bringing food, different pain killers, and took care of me all afternoon. She also cleaned my room for me which was getting a bit out of hand, but I couldn't do anything about it from flat on my back in bed.

Today finally I'm feeling a bit better. After a lovely breakfast of chocolate fondue-d bananas, Murder Must Advertise, and a shower, I'm up to a brief blog.

The bright spot in all this was the Mission when I moved in being unable to find a regular bed for me. Instead I have a medical bed, complete with all the bells and whistles. So, by playing with the remote controls I'm able to raise and lower the head and foot of the bed until I'm comfortable at night.

I'm off to have some stew Mom made last night and back to bed again. If I keep off my feet today, I may be able to be of some use at work tomorrow...

Lesson Plans

Preparing Lesson Plans.

Tell you why later.

Candlemaking

Did you ever wonder where all the half burned candles go? That's right. To us. And tonight I'm taking a bunch of half burned white and yellow candles and half a bottle of vanilla scent and making new candles with empty candle-company jars.

The first one is a bit yellow, but at least I remembered to put scent in it.

My favorite days are when people send us half burned scented candles. I take those upstairs and use them up. Right now I have French Vanilla, Sugar Cookie, and Cinnamon Vanilla burning. When those are empty. I'll melt some more down and refill them. I LOVE this place!

Pounding pt. III

A little more Pounding

I have a lead again. So another resume has been printed and rearranged. Now I'm off to try to land a few more hours a week. Thursday I have the Wycliffe meeting, and the interim music leader has asked me to join the worship team. I don't want to very badly, but they need people. I warned him I'm looking for a second job, so I don't know how much time I'll have, but I'll do it for the summer.

Stop Buying New

Stop Buying New Things...
Except Underwear!

There is no reson on earth why we couldn't stop buying new until we've worn out/used up the old. So many things are being thrown away that can be reused, recycled into something new, or used up. Take clothes for instance. Tons of clothing gets donated, much of it little worn. The next time you need something, consider looking around for a good quality used item at a thrift or second hand store. Not only can you find name brand clothes for a fraction of the cost (We have Givenchy Sport in the shop for $2), these clothes are hardly worn!

How many times have we crafters started a project and run out of steam midway. What do we do with it? Either move it with us in the hope of finishing it *someday* or giving it to Goodwill, or throwing it out. The next time you want to try a new project, consider checking for ones that have been bought and unfinished. It's far cheaper. And if you don't, you can donate it back without feeling guilty for all the money you invested.

Books. I am guilty of spending small fortunes on my book library. I'm trying to check the library first, and borrow those I can't wait for (The new Harry Potter is being mailed to me once my sister finishes it). But some entire book collections get donated from estate. Lots of New Releases are read and discarded.

What about housewares, dishes, furniture, the dreaded knicknacks that some can't live without? You don't even want to know how many older sewing machines are brought in that function very nicely.

I fear I may be going off the deep end. I get depressed in malls. All of this time and energy and resources used to make *stuff* that we don't need, won't want in five minutes, and throw away. What if we all stopped for a while. Just stopped buying and buying and buying and throwing out. We should stop and go see what's still good. If you're tired of things, donate them so someone else can have a go, and find someone else's used that they can't stand anymore.

Crafty Things that I didn't know not to buy new:

1. Crochet Hooks and Knitting Needles (compare at $7, used $.10-.25)

2. Yarn, Thread and Embroidery Floss (Here: $.25 a skene)

3. Patterns. (Cost $3-12, used $.25)

4. Pillow Forms (The fabric may be passe, but the insides are good)

5. Decor and Couture Books ($25-$30 hardcover, Here $1)

Be mindful of your surroundings Obi Wan

Be mindful of your surroundings Obi Wan...er...I mean Bruce

I just saw Batman. I liked it! Especially Inspector Gordon. And Michael Cain as Alfred. And the wussy guy wearing all the blush and mascara.

I had my doubts at first about Christian Bale. He's a great actor, but I'll always picture him running around in his underwear and sneakers with a chainsaw. Thank you American Psycho.

Liam Neeson did a great job. A few of his lines were a bit Qui Gon. The battle scenes were hard to tell who was kicking whose butt. And there was no, "Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?" But they threw the Joker in, so all is well.

I loved Morgan Freeman, as usual.

Lots of fun. Thanks Eric for taking me! And letting me drive the Miata. Especially after my Dad yelled as we pulled out, "She's already totalled one and a half of mine!" Very trusting.