Planner Envy and other bits of boringness.

PLANNER ENVY.

You know, back in the day, guys used planners. My dad used Day-Timers for YEARS. He called it his brain. Women tended to use desk diaries, but the more women came into the business workforce, you saw Day-Timer offering femmed-up versions and planner purses, etc. I had Day-Timers and planners long before it became the huge THING it is now. Soccer moms, Sunday School teachers, people who think they’re really busy but aren’t, teenagers, have all gotten on the planner bandwagon. There’s been a proliferation of planners like Erin Condren, Plum Paper, Happy, you name it. If you came across this post because of the hashtags, then you probably know all the brands better than I, and all the stickers, pens, tapes, subscriptions, pantookas, and gorbnobbles available.

Nine tenths of which are solely designed to separate you from your money.

With the BOOM in planning popularity, planners are in every shape, form, colour, design, and have gotten really pricey. Plus, Acco Brands now owns most of the well-known names in planners except Erin Condren (not including ones like Leuchtturm1917, etc):  Mead, At-a-Glance, Day-Runner, Calendar Express, Five Star; they’ve even bought up Day-Timer, for fuck’s sake!

Some grand goal-planning for 2019 includes writing more. In my little box mind, I was thinking on the novel, but writing here and in my character blog are also writing, yes? I’ve added “W-writing” to my habit tracker (cue raucous, derisive laughing here). Before you asphyxiate laughing, the habit tracker is not keeping track of daily habits (except taking blood glucose readings), but just a general, keeping track of how often I do things.

Speaking of the tracker, I have:

M—Morning glucose;

P—Post prandial glucose;

BP—Blood Pressure (I don’t have an issue with this, but sometimes when I go to a doctor, it’s slightly elevated, more than likely from just getting out in traffic, etc.);

J—did I work in my Studio Art Journal? https://www.jamieridlerstudios.ca/the-studio-yearbook/ or any other Journal?;

A—Art;

W—Writing;

L—Learn:  my Irish lessons or any kind of research;
E—Exercise or work out, including my PT exercises;

H—House:  work on painting, repair, decluttering, etc.

LV—bLog and/or Video

F—Family projects like the ass-ton of photos from my mother’s place, or her letters, or all the stuff from my grandfather’s effects, boxes of books and chotskies to be sorted, sent to people or donated.

Again, these are not only a reminder to do certain things, but to keep track of just how often.

At this time I think well, I’m not working anymore, why do I even need more than a simple little “old man pocket calendar”?  I swear, you can’t even find the ones I’m talking about anymore, they were about 2”x3” and literally fit into a man’s shirt pocket.

Back to my planner planning. I’ve tried the big Erin Condren and Plum Paper planners (virtually the same, by the way) and I don’t think I actually finished a year in either, even though I used them for several years (I put all my planners from work in the big shred bin when I retired, but I think I finished out several of those all the way). But those are just too big to carry around and too much space goes wasted in them for me. If I just wanted to keep track of appointments, a simple month-at-a-glance would suffice, but there are other things that go in a planner…isn’t that why they’re called p-l-a-n-n-e-r-s?

I’ve tried starting DIY planners before and I think I got rolled up because there were too many future dates for work. 

But….I don’t have to bloody include job-related shit in my planner any longer HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!

I’ve been watching a couple “bullet journalers” on YT and random others if they pop up and look interesting.

AmandaRachLee https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk9aeo2A6a1fg3VeRueTn9w

Cindy Guentert-Baldo https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZSl2jCSort1fHUI8oeNOuQ

Everyone has such slick, pretty layouts and lettering. Anything but plain printing or a version of this

ends up looking like a 2^nd grader did them. They have this pretty script lettering, that…yeah.. *eye roll*

https://bit.ly/2rYk7TP like I could do that. Not.

Updated:

I was going to use the Lemome bullet planner (the one I have has been discontinued), but decided to finish out my ‘notebook from hell.’ I got it a couple years ago from Office Depot for about $6, I think. It has graph-ruled paper in it and is roughly A5 size. It has everything in it:  Notes on my novel, notes on my blog character, designs and plans for things like my studio and the reno of my pantry, mind maps, DIY calendar pages, to-do lists, travel plans and lists…you name it. I’ve covered the cover, front, back, and inside with various stickers. I’d do a flip of it on YT, but it would be the most boring flip-through video ever.

There are quite a few (about ¼-inch thick) pages left, so I’d just rather use it for now. When full, it will not be thrown away as it will still be a valuable reference.

 

Front Cover

Back Cover

Notes for the pantry reno

Year forward

395th version of the studio/living room plan

 So a whole lot of what I previously wrote might go by the wayside, just sayin’.

As for updates, I had the ‘dreaded scope’ this past Monday, nothing alarming, but the doc did take three biopsies; keep your fingers crossed.

And I’m finally getting the bunion on the right side done. They’ve been giving me grief for a loooong time. Got the left done probably 15 years ago, maybe a bit more. They did the big one on the inside, the little one on the outside and I had a four-inch steel rod in my second toe to straighten it. This time, just the big one on the inside.

Any Questions?

More stupid car tricks

These fake wire wheels with the "knock-off hubs" are ridiculously stupid looking on big cars...they're just plain insulting to a Mercedes. I ought to leave the tag number so people can write to them and tell them just how stupid their car looks.

As I was just saying....

This happened on our corner yesterday afternoon.

 

http://www.weareaustin.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_3632.shtml

Randomocity

Many is the day I really want to write serious, thought-provoking posts. then I come to my senses and realize that would take effort. And organization skills I left at university when I graduated. I think about essays and telling people to get bent and how to do things....then, yeah, the whole effort thing comes up and I go play Bubbletown....again.

The same thing happens with my house. I picture myself with this really cute, well-decorated, clean, organized house (with the broken things fixed), and having a party to "unveil" the new and improved digs. Then my reality hits and I go read a book. Right now, for instance, I'm supposed to be cleaning the bathroom (at least according to the little dilettante in my head) and yet, here I am, writing a blog post instead. Hey, at least I cleared all my crap off the kitchen table and fed the dogs....what more do you want? No wonder my son is so screwed up.

I have this friend (you know who you are), who comes home from work and repaints entire rooms, builds furniture, plants gardens, and changes her oil...all before dinner. Lately she's been very ill and has the nerve to beat herself up because she's not getting anything done. Really? Chill, girlfriend. I come home from work, look at my piles of shit, the ADHD kicks in, I get overwhelmed and go hide somewhere (Helloooo, Bubbletown!). Occasionally I get on this manic tear and get stuff done, but it seems like such a tiny drop in the bucket, I feel like I haven't really accomplished anything. If I sit back and look objectively at things, I can see it, but that takes....you guessed it: effort.

I've made a huge effort lately to keep the kitchen clean most of the time and it does make me feel a lot better, even if I don't necessarily do the dishes every.single.day. Climbing up out of a 20-year bucket of depression is not the easiest thing in the world (and I don't really mean to moan and cry "depression!" here, but when I look at things honestly, that's what's going on); some days you just say screw it and slide back into the bucket (it's warm and floaty in there). But then I think of all the things I'd rather be doing with my time than cleaning and de-cluttering, like my art, and sewing, and training my dog, and maybe going fishing with my son before he's too old to appreciate it, gardening, weekend trips, visiting my mother and and daughter more than once every 6 months--well, I see Mother more often than that...she's only 5 minutes away, truth be told, the kiddo is only about 10 minutes away, but whereas my mom would welcome me every other day if I wanted to be there that often, the kiddo is a bit more...reclusive... Gee, I wonder where she gets THAT from?

 

WOYWW #159

Hi, Madame B here. I forgot to mention last week that it was my first WOYWW post! (I was #178...posted on Thursday. Hee.)

We had a marvelous thunderboomer in our neck of the woods today--not all of Austin got rain--lowered the temp and watered the garden a bit. DEEE-lish!

Okay, I never had to go to confession, but I imagine today's post would be a harrowing experience in the confessional: Forgive me, for I have sinned. What is your sin, child? I have allowed a large, wonderful place to work and craft get so totally cluttered with schtuff, I've had to work in the kitchen. Ooooh...I'm not sure there are enough Hail Marys or Our Fathers to cover that, but your penance is banishment from all craft stores until it's tidied up!!

So, before you click the thumbnails of DHOOOM below, a bit of an explanation is due, I think. My house is one constant reno project and things get moved about all the time.  Pic #1 is my kitchen table, because of Pics # 2-3. My studio. *sighs* I had to move things in there and then they didn't get organized at all. Today I was home, giving Valentino meds for his nastily infected eye, so I attacked the studio and started organizing fabric and project bins. Actually made some headway, too. :)

When I came in the kitchen to sit a bit, I was gessoing odd bits of things to use as tags and journals...and playing Bubbletown on the computer. Any wonder I don't get more done?

These are thumbnails, click on them for larger pics!

Curse you...why'd you have to do that?

My wonderful, techno-blessed hubby figured out how to get the BBC iPlayer here. Not the craptastic BBC America, which shows only a few things and has US commercials, but the actual BBC iPlayer. We watch all sorts of shows (contrast to one or two American shows I watch--and only one of those on a regular basis, Castle). And the more I watch, the more I want to live in the UK. I want it so badly, it's a physical heartache. And...unless I win the freaking lotto...I know I'll never even visit.

Makes me loathe the unbearable heat of Texas even more. I know this probably isn't the way to look at it, and soon enough I'll make the paradigm shift just like I have with every other dream or fantasy I've had, so it'll fade to the background. Meanwhile, if anyone from the UK reads my site, send me photos, links, anything...tell me how to get from King's Cross to somewhere else, tell me about things in the store and living in a village...I know it sounds utterly insane, but if i can't go, I can sure as heck live vicariously, eh?


English village street, stolen from some random blog.

Ta.

More June

Not too much done this weekend, on any front. Got some more things moved to the storage unit. Don't know if I said this yet or not, but over the years, I kept getting a storage unit as a "temporary" thing, a stop-gap measure while I supposedly dealt with getting my house painted, arranged, whatever. 2-3 down the road, I'd still not have gotten anything done, but was paying out on the unit, so I'd move everything back and it would sit around, in the way, for years. *sigh*  This time I just flat-out said, "I need a storage unit, pretty much permanently."  I've put things like the antique chairs and table that will be my daughter's when they get a house, the Xmas stuff that only comes out once a year, camping gear that only comes out a few times a year (and hasn't been used at all in some time, since we've not been going to events. So, to make a long story short, I now budget the $58 /month for a 5x10 storage room. I j just kind of look at it as part of the mortgage payment, since our house is seriously storage-challenged.

Didn't get to the dog park on Friday, didn't get much done on the boy's journal--a little added to the inside covers. One of the cats has his nasty eye-infection back, so I need to call the vet today about that. Got a very few things organized in the studio...very few...and mopped a section of the floor where my old cat tracked nasty stuff all over before I finally had him put down. *cries* Slowly, slowly.

Projects on the block here:

• Call the vet about Valentino Done


• Build the kitty loo


• Updating the kitty condo (see lessons learned)


• The boy's journal


• The boy's wash--since I think my brother will finally make it over here to get him this week


• The cleaning and organization of the studio--huge


• The cleaning and organization of the greatroom--even huger...gargantuan


• Finishing up the bathroom--stripping that awful popcorn crap off the ceiling and painting said ceiling, putting the last couple of baseboard pieces in, and framing up the mirror with molding


• Getting rid of more crap in my bedroom and organizing the rest


• Building my bed.


• Selling the trumpet, Navajo loom, dog gates, and primitives


• Making and posting  the vid about my dos-à-dos journals


• Finish painting the kitchen--big job

Not necessarily in that order. Oh, and write at least a chapter a week...uh huh.

I'm writing from work because I'm waiting for the scans to finish on my old computer and for Office Max to deliver the transfer cable so I can move everything to my new computer. Woo..it's lunchtime, baby!

UK-speak *giggles*

From the Dictionary of English Slang.  Seems like one would need to be very careful about -ff, -ffer, -ffed, -ffed as, -ffed to, -ffing, -ffin', and to whom one is speaking.

chuff	Noun. 1. Rubbish, nonsense. E.g."That film was boring, too long, and generally just total chuff." 2. The anus. [Orig Aust.] 3. The vagina. 4. A passing of wind from the anus, a 'fart'. Also used as a euphemism for 'fuck' in expressions such as the denial - "Did I chuff!" Verb. To break wind. E.g."She chuffed just as we were saying grace before dinner"
chuffed	Adj. Pleased, delighted. Compare with 'dischuffed' and 'chuffed to buggery'. E.g."I'm well chuffed at the result." [1950s]
chuffed as nuts	Adj. Extremely pleased.
chuffed to buggery / fuck	Adj. Very pleased. E.g."She's chuffed to buggery that they are marrying before the baby is born."
chuffer	Noun. 1. A contemptible person. 2. An annoying, difficult or disappointing occurrence. E.g."It's a right chuffer, breaking my leg just before the football season starts." Chuffer is a euphemism for 'fucker'.
chuffer (train)	Noun. A train. Children's talk. Also chuff chuff.
chuffing	Adj. An intensifier, and euphemism for 'fucking'. E.g."That chuffing idiot scratched my favourite CD and now it sticks on the third track."
chuffin 'ell!	Exclam. Expressing anger, surprise etc. A euphemism for 'fuckin hell'.

Pen envy

I have decided I want a reasonable set of Copic Markers. They are obscenely expensive, but are so very worth it for many reasons. This lady has about a kabillion of them. I only want 12 or 20 or....

*le sigh*

Wednesday Whatfors: Riddle me this....

Why do bagged lettuce producers think we love those big chunks of romaine spine so much?

If the popularity of the Pontiac G-series was as large in relation to the numbers of them I've been seeing lately, why did Pontiac get axed?

Has Michael's really gotten that lame, or is it just the one in the Arboretum area?

Why do so many art journalers make these gorgeous background pages and then completely cover them with gesso and or torn up paper....baroo?  I don't get that, sorry.

Why do so many art journalers have these big-eyed, tilty-head cartoon girls in their work?

Why is it the more I look at other's journals, the less confident I become about doing my own?

Why didn't I post this on Wednesday?

It appears...

...I'm five days behind on my schedule. Well, hey, you got two posts one day!

If I had a regular reader base...oh, heck, a reader base at all...I'd be more fussed about it, but as it is the one whole person who reads my site understands. *evil grin*

I have a whole raft of things going on. I made a couple of dos-à-dos  journals out of a box that canning rings and lids came in. They're small, but came out quite nice. Even my 15 YO son thought they were cool. Going to do a very small video on them, just to kind of get started on the video blogging. Now I'm making a smash journal for him to take with him to New Orleans; he's spending the summer there with my brother. I have to make sure it's not in the least girly, or he won' t use it. There are a kabillion and one video tutorials and flips and flops of art journals, smash journals, "junque" journals, junky journals, journal journals, and-how-to-desecrate-a-book journals, ruin Moleskine journals (and create very nice art journals from them, too)....you name it journals out there on Youtube, but you know...what we need is just one more lady sharing her art, right?

On the "desecrate a book" thing: at one point in time the idea of "altered books" was just....blasphemy to me. But to be realistic, there are crap-ton of old, falling apart books that will either end up in the landfill or --if someone is doing the right thing-- in the recycle, so why the heck not make something nifty out of them? There are all kinds of artists making sculptures out of old books, but this guy really blows me away. I'd go insane trying to do all that. Particularly, I think old, out of date textbooks are a prime candidate for upcycling into art.

One of the projects I want to do is creating a memory journal out of a really, really old book I had as a little girl (©1950!).  In fact, there are several I'd like to do that with. This particular one was a favorite of mine, about an old guy who has a clock shop. Anyway, none of the original pages would be taken out or destroyed. I'll vid it when I do it.

Took the dogs to the pet clinic today. Turns out they only do vaccines at 1:20 PM...so I had to haul them back home, and then I left the old man at home and just got Abby taken care of. Tested for heartworms (negative, woot!!), annual boosters, they micro-chipped her for free (it'll cost $18 to register the chip), claws clipped, a tube of Advantage for each dog and HW preventative for Abby all for $87.50. Not too shabby. Serg is is 13, so they might not even give him shots. I will have him tested for HW. He might need sedating for the claws, though, since they're so long and it would HURT. So...might not do that either.

Abby was a scaredy-cat, but behaved very well. She's a very sweet dog, but just not used to other humans. So...after a few days, I'm going to start walking her again and taking her to dog parks and stuff; she really needs to get out and be social.

Meanwhile...I discovered bugs in my ceiling. The good news is that I don't think they are termites. The bad news is, they're probably ants. Bleah.

 

June Challenge-Day 2

So...here I am. This is kind of a mini-post; I plan on making a larger one later today.

In my vast readership of ...one...do I have any takers on the June Challenge? (Got an FB message from her that no, she can't, she only does project posting publicly and isn't about to do a project a day. Hmm...well, you could do a day-by-day of it, but anyway).  Anyone else out there in my legions (hahahahah) of readers?

Put a link in the comments to your blog if you're on.

ttfn

 

Cor Blimey, how you do go on.

Okay, my husband sent this cool site to me, http://www.effingpot.com/ which is a glossary of Brit-speak for Americans. He apparently lived in Texas for awhile and used his experiences to write the list. It’s fairly exhaustive, but has some definite errors as well as assumptions that some of these words aren’t used by Americans, and have been for a very long time…since before the invasion of Britcoms, to be honest.

Here’s one that’s incorrect:

“Nark - If someone is in a nark, it means they are in a bad mood, or being grumpy. It's also the word for a spy or informant.
For example a coppers nark is someone who is a police informant - which you might call a stoolie or stool-pigeon. The origin
is from the Romany word, nak, meaning "nose".”

Now, I don’t know about the Romany (Gypsy) word nak. But the American slang word Nark or Narc comes from Undercover Narcotics Officer, usually someone who is masquerading as either a high school or college student. They would get friendly with dopers and their suppliers and then “narc” on them, or turn them in. So now to be a narc is to be yes, a stoolie or stool-pigeon: informant.

Here’s another:

"Shammy - I think you call these wash leathers. They are the completely useless cloths, originally made from the skin of the
chamois - a wild antelope, the size of a goat. They dry rigid and leave horrible streaks across the windows they are supposed to clean!"

I’ve never heard a chamois called “wash leathers” in my life. Maybe in North Carolina or some such place, but it’s a chamois (pronounced shammy). I wonder if he knows you’re supposed to rinse the thing out and then wring it very well before you use it?  I’ve never had a problem with them streaking.

"Plaster board - Sheet rock in Texas. In the UK, plasterboard is used to make ceilings and is also used to make internal walls, it is
then covered in a thin layer of real plaster, except in cheap modern houses. In Texas, entire houses are made from sheet rock, which
is a bit worrying if it is windy or rainy! If the three little pigs had lived in Texas, they would have been eaten! In some states call it's
called "plaster board" like it is here in the UK and others it's called drywall."

Okay, we do not make our entire house out of sheet rock or dry wall…heavens! The house is framed with wood, insulated and then various outside coverings are used, including adobe, hardi-plank, siding, brick, Austin stone.... Only the interior walls have sheet rock on them, and they're still framed inside with 2x4s at the very least. Oy gevalt!

And he seems to think “sofa” is the only word we use for what they call a couch. Well, we use the word couch, a lot, along with sofa and divan. Although divan is not used quite so much anymore. It’s what my grandmother called her sofa. :)

And he seems to have a problem figuring out why we call a restroom a restroom. That one might be a bit tougher, if you aren’t very old. They’re called that because back in the day, restrooms in nicer restaurants, hotels, theaters, and department stores had an outer room with a sofa and very often little sundries like mouthwash or lotion available, and they had an attendant. The attendant was there to watch your purse or briefcase while you went to the loo, and keep the place neat and clean all day long. You often left a tip in a little basket. So they really were places to rest as well as relieve yourself.

There are some under slang that we—at least I and my family—have used forever in the US:

To go on a bender means to basically go on a non-stop drinking spree; blast or blast it all; blinding; Bob’s your uncle; botch; cheeky; cram, for studying hard; dim to mean thick or stupid; and every cowboy called food “grub” in the westerns; haggle; hunky-dory, and in shambles are all examples.

"Piece of cake - I remember saying it's a piece of cake in front of one of my American friends,
who then started looking around for the cake! It means it's a cinch!"

Dunno what kind of dimwit friend he had, but we’ve used this forever. Means the same as “easy as pie,” or a “walk in the park.”

"Piss poor - If something is described as being "piss poor" it means it is an extremely poor attempt at something."

Again, totally US term.  Same here:

"Plastered - Another word for loaded. In other words you have had rather too much to drink down your local.
It has nothing to do with being covered with plaster though anything is possible when you are plastered."

"Shitfaced - If you hear someone saying that they got totally shitfaced it means they were out on the town and
got steaming drunk. Normally attributed to stag nights or other silly events."

 

Now here’s one we use but to us it means 6 of one, half a dozen of the other:

"Sixes and sevens - If something is all at sixes and sevens then it is in a mess, topsy turvy or somewhat haywire!"

Here’s a few that are definitely ones we’ve used for ages in the US:

"Sloshed - Yet another way to describe being drunk. Clearly we need a lot of ways to describe it since
getting plastered is a national pastime."

"Twat - Another word used to insult someone who has upset you. Also means the same as fanny but is less
acceptable in front of your grandmother, as this refers to parts of the female anatomy. Another use for the
same word is to twat something, which would be to hit it hard. Get it right or I'll twat you over the head!"

"Yakking - This means talking incessantly - not that I know anyone who does that now!"

"Zonked - If someone is zonked or "zonked out" it means they are totally knackered or you might say exhausted.
When a baby has drunk so much milk, his eyes roll into the back of his head, it would be fair to say he was zonked!"

I’m beginning to think that perhaps there are some of these that went to England some time ago, since I believe our TV went there before theirs came here, and 30 or 40 years ago entered the lexicon in the UK and he just ran into a great number of idjit Texans.

 

As for correcting our grammar…Not everyone in England is paragon of grammatical correctness, so stuff it. :)

 

Automatic means I don't have to do anything

You know, I understand that software needs upgrading, I understand the reasons, I even agree--for the most part--that software should be upgraded regularly. But, you know...(insert put-upon, slightly whiny voice)..when it says "Click here for an automatic upgrade to Wordpress 3.1.4," I expect an AUTOMATIC upgrade. One click. Poof! Done. No, click here for this task, back up this...oh, oh, oh...you gotta back up this, too...and wait, now you have to CLEAN UP. WTF?

No. Auto means...auto. Too many clicks ruin the soup.

Changes

It appears my site here has done some morphing on its own while I was otherwise engaged. I've lost my custom header and the font doesn't look right. Hmmph. Are websites related to dust bunnies? Off doing their own thing while you're not watching?

Related to that, I finally got off my arse and straightened my room last night. It is by no means an OCD's dream, but it's much better. Less dust and clutter and the dog has more room at the foot of my bed now. Ben must've thought there was a distressing dearth of cat fur on the bed....I woke up with him curled up on the pillow next to my head.

 

Brain much?

It suddenly occurred to me a few minutes ago why blogging is so painful for me.

I've stopped thinking.

In some ways I think more than I used to. I consider things, I evaluate them, but in general, the thinking muscle has atrophied. Snippets of thought better suited to Facebook or Twitter are what my brain produces now.  I find it difficult to pen a cohesive letter any more.

I'm beginning to wonder if a tumblr might not be a more appropriate venue for my lack of writerishness.

But...all my friends are doing it....

At least one of my friends likes to post a "things I like" list every now and then. She'll post different themes of "ten things." I must admit, I'm not nearly so ambitious, but then Dianne's written four books now (three are published, the fourth is being published), and is writing a fifth, she blogs constantly and writes "other fiction" on a regular basis. To be completely honest, when it comes to writing, she is what I wish I were. Ha! I always have been a dreamer.

But, as they say, I digress.

This is just a general, "here are things found on the intarwebs I love plus" list.

1.  I love planners. I never keep them up like I should, but the idea of organizing my life on little lined pages just enthralls me. As I said, I always have been a dreamer.

2. Like Dianne, I love sticky notes; my planners have a plethora of sticky notes in them (which is a problem with digital planners: where the hell do you put the sticky notes??). But I also love paperclips and binder clamps.  Once again, I think it's the whole organizational thing....I picture all my papers and to-dos neatly clippered and clamped with nifty clips and I'll be able to look at a stack and presto! I'm saved.

3.  I love  boxes. Of any kind.  Boxes.  And more boxes. And even MORE boxes. See above. My family believes I secretly know if I get enough boxes, my problems will all be solved. Heh...yeah...I'll get back with you on tht. (OMG....that search sets my heart to fluttering...BOXES!!) Oh...and these, too.

4. Let's face it, I love office/school/art supplies. Period. Different colored pens, markers, sticky notes, notebooks, paper, blank books, rulers, sketch pads, pastels, brushes, you name it. *sighs*

5. I love this room.

6. I love these bookshelves.

7. I love my new washer and dryer. After all the hassle of getting the washer to work and a part replaced, they work great. (Maytag Centennial series).

8. I love my boss. Not that way. He rocks. He might be a colonel, but he checked his ego at the door. He's still intense, demanding, and a control freak, but once you understand that he's all about the mission, you get it. There are still days when I could cheerfully boot him in his flightsuited arse, but then I can also TELL him when he annoys me. The other colonels I've worked for? Oh, hell no. He's PCSing this summer and I'm gonna miss him.

9. I love April and October. which just happen to be my and my son's birth month (April) and my mother's and three of my best friends' birth months and my anniversary month (October).

10. Kismet.  Via Facebook I just found this. I love it. What amazing advice from such a youngster ;).

Now, if you're paying attention (and actually have taken a look at Dianne's lists), you'll notice a big difference. She actually writes about each item, discusses it, tells you why she likes it, irrationally or not. I suppose that's telling. It tells me why she's a writer and I'm not.  But it also tells me I can't always tell you why I like something. Or, conversely, why I hate something. (Although I can easily tell you why I hate some of the ignorant stupidity surfacing these days. [Again, I digress.])

Austin on the map

This time of year I get to thinking about Austin's notoriety. Back in 1986, a little thing called SXSW started here. There were 170 bands and about 700 people attended. I was so wrapped up in finishing school, I don't even remember if I knew about it or not.  At the same time, Austin proper was about 350,000 people and the economy was just starting to tank. But it was better here than a lot of other places, so...we got an influx of people looking for work. Austin grew. By 1990, we were just under 465K in Austin proper. If you just did the math, that's 115,000 in four years.

In the wake of the most recent economic tankage, the media put it out that Austin had jobs and the economy was still clicking. Well, until all the out-of-workers from California, Michigan, and all points across the US got here. The 2010 census numbers of just under 800K  I'm betting are now tens of thousands higher. And of course, we got a huge lump of new citizens after Katrina in 2005. Traffic is phenomenally worse and it wasn't that hot to begin with, due to Austin's tendency to stick its collective heads in the sand when it comes to expansion: everyone wants new business, but no one wants the infrastructure in their neighborhood (can't say as I blame them there).  And, like some sort of growth gauge,  SXSW featured 2400 performers and drew about 36,000...and that doesn't count all the "unofficial" bands and people who didn't actually buy tickets to the SXSW venues. There were hipsters stopping traffic on major streets, gawking, as if Austin were some kind of bizarre museum exhibit. The metrorail, usually slightly anemic in ridership, was packed to the gunwales with riders and bikes.Even though Austinites are rather laid back and easy-going, we still have jobs and kids to get to school. In a way, it reminds me of living in New Orleans. The rest of the world just thinks we party all the time. Uh...no.

I think it's cool that people think Austin is cool. It rocks that we are still labeled "the live music capital of the world" (as much a misnomer as that might be), but sometimes I wish people wouldn't enjoy Austin quite so much. In addition to everyone flocking here to take our jobs, there are about 50 kabillion festivals, sometimes two or three on any given weekend. Oh...in addition to SXSW, the rodeo was on, too. Hipsters and c'boys. I keep picturing this huge pile-up with skinny jeans, pink sunglasses, cowboy boots and manure all piled up and everyone looking rather confused.

The icing on the cake was realizing that some departing SXSWer, sometime Saturday Sunday night decided to take a souvenir. The lanyard for the Texas flag pole on the WWI memorial here in front of the UT stadium was cut and the Texas flag stolen.  You read that right, from the WWI memorial. Really, people? Some folks just have no shame.

If you come to our home to party, please behave yourself, and don't steal from your hosts.

Have we always been this nuts?

To put it simply: this country has gone insane. I'm really beginning to believe that the apocalypse will not come from outside, from some foreign invader, but from the inside. We will self-destruct on stupidity. Just as scientists are discovering that homosexuality is caused by a number of biological factors, I think we'll discover that conservatism is biological in origin, too. It must be...I mean, just how far can one go with no brain? With the caveat that one is just a different kind of human, the other is a defect. Yah...I know which people will read that one way and who will take it the other way.

I'm not dead...really

I had told myself I wasn't going to be one of those web/blog people who started a site and then just disappeared off the face of the earth. Well, I suppose that's true, because here I am, but it's been three months.  Several times I said, "I need to go make a post, but I just don't feel like it." and blew it off.  I'm paying for this g-damned site, g-damn it!

Part of keeping a website/blog is to chronicle the things that happen (especially in my case, since my memory resembles nothing so much as a screen door...with holes in it...) and it would have been nice if I'd been on top of things...oh, well.

In today's news, it's cold. Friggin' cold.  I know those of you up in Yankeeland don't think 23 with a wind chill of 10 is all that cold, but in Central Texas...for the record...that's cold.  And it's icy. But it's business as usual (BAU). Bleah.  My van stopped blowing warm air halfway into work...I'm hoping it's just a confused thermostat...we'll see this evening.

My dryer has been eating clothes for some time now. The drum is loose and things catch in the space between the drum and the housing. Minor damage being rusty marks, major damage being holes in things, like a starving moth got hold of them.  And now the washer has decided to stop running. It cycles, water runs and drains, but the drum doesn't turn. The dishwasher conked out a year ago. So..I'm wondering who'll extend credit to a credit weenie like me.  Farg.