Daily Dose

Poop. Just, Poop.

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

I fell asleep last night before I posted my photo challenge photo. Which is extra dumb because I already knew what I was going to take a photo of — I just needed to take 30 seconds and do it.

But. I wasn’t feeling well. And, my back hurt. And I was really tired. And also trying to figure out whether I’d be able to wake up extra early and drive into the city to meet Elisa and Melisa for breakfast (which I ended up not doing because see above…)

I hate it when I screw up a daily challenge because I just didn’t take the 30 seconds it would take to DO IT. That’s just silly lazy bullshit. Even if I’m tired or behind on work because of a 3 hour conference call or my back hurts or… really, there’s not much of a reason to miss doing something that takes 30 seconds.

Must. Stop. Procrastinating. All. The. Things. Especially. The. Little. Things.

Poop. Just, Poop. Read More »

Things That Make No Sense

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

TW said the dogs wanted out, so I took them. Turns out they didn’t really want out. I stood at the back door, in the sunshine, playing WWF, scrolling through Instagram, catching up on Facebook thinking “Man, it’s really warm out. Maybe we should go for a walk” while the dogs stood at the cold room door waiting to go in.

I looked at the weather on my iPHone — 19F, feels like 9F. In what world is that warm? NOT MINE so why was I thinking we should go for a damn walk?

I came inside to find an apple pie and a box of croissants sitting on the washing machine and wondered what RJ was baking (the pie and croissants had been in the oven) — turns out it’s not RJ, the baker, at all. It’s Elly. Preparing to make biscuits AND a chocolate cake.

In what world is Elly the baker? And, in what world do we need biscuits and a chocolate cake when we have an apple pie and croissants?

The world is stupid today.

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Frozen Yogurt for Dinner

Daily Dose, Family Funk, Foodie, Memories /

Last week (or was it the week before) when I read one of those Jennifer Crusie novels, the characters kept eating hot fudge sundaes and I really really wanted one.

Actually, what I wanted was plain ole vanilla ice cream + the chocolate syrup my parents used to sometimes make for us. But, since neither of my parents seemed to show up at my door and I was still craving a hot fudge sundae, we went to Menchies for dinner tonight.

A froyo with bobas and hot fudge sauce is not nearly the same as a hot fudge sundae, but it was good. Or good enough. I’d still like one of my parents to show up and make me some hot fudge. Or maybe I could just figure out how they made it and convince TW to make me some? Now that I think about it some more, I’m kind of still craving that hot fudge sundae.

Gah.

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Filofax, Journaling, and Art Journaling and Other Goals in January

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Filofax, Memes and Quizzes /

Well… mixed bag. That pretty much sums up what happened in January with my efforts to use my Filofaxes to get (stay) organized, to journal every day, and to get back to art journaling. That sounds worse than it is. It really just means the month didn’t go quite as I’d hoped, but months rarely do. I did a great job with some things and a horrid job with others.

I made it through the 365 List journaling thingy for January. I blogged every day on this blog. I blogged several times on BlogHer. And, at Blicks several months ago, I bought a little five year journal called “Every Day” and I did journal in it every day in January. I’m super proud of that.

I did use both of my Filofaxes every day in January and rather than 10 big things to do in a month, I ended up with 20 and I crossed out 16 of them. That’s pretty darn good for me. I’m not in love with some of the pages in my Filofaxes, but I expected that. It’s hard to know which layouts are going to work for you until you start using them — so some of these aren’t working but I’m not rushing out to order/print something new. I am going to make a few changes in February, using some of the papers that I have and see how that goes. Then in March, I might try printing another type of layout that I think might work better for me and give that a try. WIP, that’s what this is and I’m ok with that.

For the first time, ever (I THINK?), I completed a photo a day challenge. I’m pretty damn pleased with myself for doing it and not skipping the days that were rough (due to work or tough prompts) and I’m looking forward to trying another one this month.

I’m not doing much art journaling (in or out of my Filofax) at all. Yes I’m adding stickers or washi to my filofax but that’s about it. I am, however, doing a good job of working on JMP’s Christmas stocking so I’m calling that a good trade off — for now. I am hoping to give myself more creative time in February though as I type that I laughed out loud. Sassymonkey’s going on vacation so that means I’ll work more, not less, lol. See — this is why months rarely go as I plan them in my head. That’s ok — it’s all good. Really.

All in all — mixed bag, but I’m happy with the month. Onward to February!

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My Love/Hate (No Wait, My HATE/HATE) Relationship with the USPS

3 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Pet Peeves /

I kind of hate my mail carrier. But then I feel badly about that because it’s colder than cold out there and it’s got to be a horrible experience to drive around and deliver the mail.

Then again, our mail carrier(s) (because I’m sure we’ve had several since moving) suck a whole lot even when the weather isn’t bad, so I stop feeling badly for hating them.

They leave “We missed you so you have to pick up your package at the post office” notices all of the time, though they didn’t actually get out of their little mail truck to see if we were home. Because we absolutely were home and the dogs would have told us if someone knocked at the damn door.

They bring us more mail for other people than mail actually addressed to us. Which makes me wonder how much of our mail is ending up at other people’s houses… no, I’m not going to wonder about that. I’m going to pretend that’s not happening.

When I’ve caught the mail carrier to say “THIS IS NOT OURS” he’s said, well it must be miss-addressed and then I point out, no it’s not. It’s for the people on Melise Dr (across the street from us), he grumbles under his breath like it is MY FAULT that I’m not the person who the mail was addressed to.

They’ve folded up large photo envelopes and stuff them into the mail box.
They’ve wadded up mail to try and get MORE mail to fit into the mailbox.

Today, TW went to the street and found Michelle’s college diploma not IN the mailbox but stuck between the box and the mail flag. Just out there. In the open. In the GOD BLESSED WIND and freezing yukkiness. What would have led the mail carrier to think this was an appropriate delivery of mail? In this particular case, if he didn’t want to get out of the car in -20F, then fine — LEAVE ME A NOTICE and let me go pick it up, for godsakes. You’ve done it a million other times, for no good weather reason…

This kind of thing is why the USPS is in trouble. Why would I want to send ANYTHING via US mail and risk it being treated that way? I think my goal for 2014 should be to see if I can NEVER mail anything via US MAIL again. Ever.

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I’m An Ant Killer

1 Comment / Animal Issues, Daily Dose, Day to Day, Family Funk /

TW gave me an ant farm for Christmas because I have always wanted one and never had one.

I was very excited. It’s one of those weird blue gel glowing ant farm thingies. I was so excited that I sent away for my ants the first weekend after Christmas.

TW suggested that was not a good idea because it is winter and the ants probably can’t be shipped in the winter.

Oh. Yea.

Weeks passed and the only response I had from the people I ordered the ants from was “thank you for your order…” so I thought maybe they knew that ants couldn’t be shipped to the frozen bowels of hell (which some people call Chicagoland) in January and they’d just wait to send them in the spring.

It’s been so long since I ordered them that I really almost forgot about them. If it wasn’t for the empty ant farm sitting on my desk, I really would have forgotten about them — but every now and then Buster butt jumps up on the edge of the desk and knocks the ant farm over and I wonder about my ants.

I went out to the mailbox this morning while I was warming up the car. There were three tiny little envelope packages in there. One was some jewelry I ordered as Christmas presents way back last November. (sigh) One was a new iPhone case for TW (because Buster butt ate her other new one last week.) One was… my ants. My very frozen ants.

The outside of the envelope says “Keep away from extreme heat or cold.” Sigh. I think the high between the time the mail arrived and the time I retrieved the mail was about – 9F and the poor things were in that box for a good 16 hours. I’d say that’s extreme cold and from the shape of the poor things in their little tube, I’m guessing they’d agree if ant ghosts could talk.

I’m feeling all sad and guilty about that tube of ants. *sniff* May they RIP.

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I’m Still Craving Roast Chicken

4 Comments / Animal Issues, Daily Dose, Day to Day, Foodie /

At some point last weekend? Or maybe it was last Friday? Whatever, I don’t remember exactly when… I started to smell … something … every time I was in the office. Something familiar. Something almost… comforting? What was that odor?

It finally occurred to me that it was something like roast chicken or maybe turkey. Huh. Weird. Was TW roasting a chicken for dinner? That would be nice but why was she roasting a chicken so early? Was something going on that meant she needed to cook early? Or we needed to eat early? Or … oh well. Whatever.

I assumed that’s what it was and went on about my day only to discover much later that TW had not really planned anything for dinner and she was most definitely not roasting a turkey.

Huh. What was that odor?

We ended up having pork chops and dressing and some other vegetables that I don’t really remember now and I kind of half decided that the odor in the office might have been dressing. It kind of smells like that and maybe RJ had found the bag of vegan dressing and made herself a pot earlier in the day? Weird but it could happen. RJ likes dressing.

I went about my business trying very hard to forget that the office STILL smelled like… roast chicken? stuffing/dressing? SOMETHING… but after two days, it was getting harder to forget that the office smelled that way.

On the third day, I was pretty much going nuts and had decided that my subconscious was telling me that I needed to roast a chicken or the scent was NOT going to go away. So I made a note to myself to take a chicken out of the freezer.

Later that evening, the dogs were causing a ruckus at the prairie dog cage. Skeeter and Lola barking, Betty banging on the bars, Buster butt banging on the bars. Total mayhem. I went over to shoo the dogs away only to find Buster trying very hard to remove some stalks of celery from the cage and the odor, the one that I thought was roast chicken or stuffing … it was oh so very strong.

Celery. It was celery. Not a chicken roasting. Not dressing/stuffing. Celery.

I cursed and removed all of the celery from the cage because the girls were certainly not eating it. I removed the celery from the mouths of all three dogs (because by that time Buster had successfully removed several stalks) and threw it all away.

I also forbid TW from ever putting celery in the girls’ cages again. It was bad enough that the office smelled like squash for three days the last time she put a half of a butternut squash in their cage but this was worse. The not knowing what the smell was or WHY it was there was so much worse than that. I really had begun to think I was nuts.

It’s been several days since I solved the mystery and cleared out the celery. The office hasn’t smelled like roast chicken in ages.

But, every time I sit down at my desk I think, “Gosh, roast chicken would be really awesome for dinner.”

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WTF WWF?

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Pet Peeves /

Words With Friends is pissing me the hell off.

They updated the app again and that always means things are a little wonky at first but this time, it’s so bad I can barely manage to play.

For the first few days, every time I opened the app, I’d have to pull the screen down three times before I could get it to even show me any of my in progress games.

Then, when I’d open a board, I’d get 55 popups telling me “You won” or “You lost” and I’d have to dismiss them before I could access the board.

Then when I accessed the board, it often looked like this…

Worse yet, none of the actual words on this board are even ON the game I’ve just tried to open. STUPID, WWF.

Yesterday, Karenlynn messaged me with something like “are you too busy filofaxing to play two games at once?” I thought she asked that because I hadn’t played in hours and hours so I replied that I’d just been busy with work and then the 5 hour prairie dog rescue ordeal kept me away from my phone.

But no, I think the problem is that a game I know we started is just gone from the list. There’s another one that says it’s her move, and it has no tiles placed — but that board also says that the chat has been closed because the game is over.

WTF?

Then, on another board, I played a word — the screen reloaded and it was there, so I closed it to go to another game and… that first board, it’s showing that it’s still my turn and my word didn’t actually play after all. But when I try to play a word, it won’t let me.

It’s gotten to the point that I don’t even want to open the damn app — it’s so bad. (And yes, I’ve rebooted my iPhone and yes, I’ve looked to see if there’s another update to fix these problems.)

Get your act together, WWF. This is just stupid.

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Buster’s Not the Only Butt

4 Comments / Animal Issues, Daily Dose, Day to Day, Family Funk /

All of the dogs have been TROUBLE for the last few days. I guess I could blame the warmer weather? They have certainly been excited about being able to stay out for more than 90 seconds without risking frost bite.

Lola, in particular, has been thrilled to mouth off to all of the squirrels and try to climb fences and trees to catch them. Poor thing doesn’t realize that even if she can climb the fence, she’s still 30 feet too low to reach the squirrel.

Skeeter poodle has barked pretty much non-stop, at invisible things — though TW said last night there were coyotes outside. I didn’t see them so maybe Skeeter just somehow told her they were out there?

Buster butt just runs around madly because the other two are excited by stuff. He has no idea what that stuff is but he’s more than happy to help them cause chaos.

It’s not just the running around and barking though.

I’ve found Skeeter eating several things she should not have.

A shoe.
A book.
Some mail that turned out only to be an empty envelope, thankfully.
And… the big one… TW’s brand new leather iPhone wallet that she’d only had for 36 hours. Her brand new leather iPhone wallet that she LOVES. Yep. Destroyed. By Skeeter. Not by Buster. Though it is possible that Buster retrieved it and passed it on to Skeeter to eat. He does that sometimes. Still. She KNOWS BETTER.

Speaking of knowing better… Buster might be learning something…

One of the most frustrating things about Buster butt is that he has not seemed to learn that we are unhappy with him when he eats all of the things. When we yell or stomp our way toward him or do some other thing to try and stop him from eating what he’s eating, he has always just sat there chewing the forbidden item and looking at us like we’re nuts or even wagged his tail thinking we’re coming to play.

For the last couple of days though, he’s made that ashamed face when he sees me coming to retrieve something he shouldn’t have. A couple of times he’s slunk away from what he was headed for when he heard me tell him NO.

I’m telling myself that this is a sign that we’re making progress. It IS a sign we’re making progress, right?

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I’m Not Afraid of the Dark, But…

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Money Talks, Pet Peeves /

I really hate it when TW gets into “money saving via conserving electricity” mode. It happens a couple of times a year and it makes me nuts.

I’ll leave the room for one minute and come back to find the lights off.

It’s 7pm and she’s turned all of the lights in the house off, except for those in our bedroom — and dammit, I can turn them back on again when I head back to my computer for a spam run or to the cold room to take the dogs out or the laundry room to do the laundry or the kitchen to clean the Ninja that was too hot to clean when I did the rest of the dishes. But I DON’T WANT TO.

It’s annoying. I’m always holding a book and often holding a coffee cup as I pass through the dark rooms. There are dogs underfoot. There are dog toys on the darn floor. Even ONE light left on would be useful. Just one, then I could safely navigate half of the way through the house and hit any other light I needed to hit as I go.

Haven’t we switched to CFLs? Which means it’s cheaper to leave the lights on since odds are high someone’s going to need them within 15 minutes… and the off and on shortens the life of the CFL… Oh shoot. I just looked up. The office lights are not CFL. If I switch them, would she stop turning this light off? Or should I just ride this storm of money saving madness til the end. It probably won’t last long… and I won’t trip over a dog and kill myself in the dark before she gives up on the idea… right?

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