drool

DS and I have recently returned from the grocery. The bad news is that half of the amazing cat litter I bragged about just a few posts ago has suddenly disappeared. Neither Woodman's (the local co-op that has everything), or PetSmart are carrying Nature's Miracle. We just bought it 2-3 weeks ago!! Oh well, I guess it's just World's Best for us for now.

The good news is that my kitchen is crammed full of my new "healthy" snacks. I made a list from this month's Self magazine. Every fall they have a "choose your goal" issue with four different goals. There are meal suggestions, and I created my grocery list from them. A lot of the stuff I searched and searched and only found in the single "healthy foods" aisle. There are like 50 aisles at this grocery store, and only one they deem "healthy"! And why isn't almond butter grouped with the peanut butter?

Anyway, I'm now the proud owner of ground flaxseed, almond butter, dried cranberries, pears, peaches, apples and bananas! I've also bought soy milk for the first time ever. It's vanilla flavored, and I'm going to attempt making a smoothie for breakfast with it in the morning.

The best thing was my box of 200 popsicles! The kind you get as a kid when your parents know better than to buy you anything more expensive than kool-aid in a small plastic see-through tube. So some of those are freezing right now, and tomorrow I should indulge! Only 25 calories per popsicle, which means I could have 5 every day and still be under my "snack" calorie limit!! Woo-HOO!!!

Riding along

I've managed to get myself going somewhat.  Last week I read an entire book!  (It was Physik, book three in the Septimus Heap series; a children's book and a fast read, but an entire book none the less.)  I also finally made the jewelry for my best friend's wedding, which gave me the itch to make even more jewelry.  Look for new things in the shop soon!  

The apartment is clean, my plants are getting daily waterings, and I even rode my bike today.  It was one of my best bike rides in a long time.  My brakes finally work again.  Or perhaps they just finally work.  I'm not sure they were ever good.  While DS was climbing today I went for an hour long ride around the bike trails and through some neighborhoods.  I had my headphones on, and was singing loudly the whole time.  Luckily I saw very few people, and the one or two that I didn't manage see in time to quiet down actually smiled instead of giving me weird looks.  So that was pretty awesome.  It was a wonderful feeling having the wind in my hair and singing away.

The temperature today was lovely.  Only a high of 77, and no humidity that I could tell.   All last week it was in the 80's, which meant we had the a/c on.  But today, just perfect.

A new release cycle is ramping up at work, which means I'm probably going to start working late again soon.  Which is just crummy timing, because I'm really starting to get into the swing of things again, life-wise.  DS and I even went to a "high class wine and cheese tasting party" on Friday night.  We all dressed up, and went through probably 10 bottles of wine and waaay too much cheese.  It was delicious though, and we even found my favorite, Pinnochio.  There aren't too many wines I really enjoy, so that was really exciting.

Right now I'm waiting on the super slow and crummy dryer to get the clothes at least dry enough that I can hang them around the house and finish drying them.  I think I'll sit here and make some jewelry while I ponder what I want for my birthday.  It's only a few weeks away, and I'm having trouble answering people when they ask what I want...  time to brainstorm!

Pillow

Apparently this is how I sleep...  as a pillow for Felix.  Good to know that she still lays with me sometimes.  She used to do it before I fell asleep, and she doesn't really do that anymore.

Boooooo

I find life in general to be challenging these days.  Work is turning into a disaster.  I'm being told simultaneously to start letting go of my responsibility and not to "check out" too early.  As one might expect, I'm failing.  When did caring about the company you work for become such a bad thing?

The upcoming move is starting to scare the crap out of me.  I have no idea where we're going to find the money to actually get there, much less live there.  And it doesn't help that so many people we know are getting married this fall.  Not that the weddings in and of themselves are bad, but none of those weddings are anywhere near here.  

I can't seem to maintain interest any much of anything either.  My brain has decided that it can't do anything new until after we move, pushing me into a sort of limbo that is highly uncomfortable.  I can't make myself start a new book, or make jewelry, or even finish setting up my craft desk.  I did finally start playing Soul Calibur IV, but that, Soltrio (a solitaire game on xbox live) and watching the Olympics is about all I can muster at the moment.

Can it just be next summer already?

stupid sleep

Every time DS leaves the country, I'm reminded of how much he keeps me functioning more or less normally. I keep not going to bed, so I'm running on little sleep. I'm also eating like crap. But on the plus side, I've been actually socializing (by which I mean leaving my apartment for something other than work, and talking to people face to face).

Winston is antsy. I guess I'm not entertaining enough for him. Felix doesn't care who's here as long as they rub her belly.

Oh.. and I think I'm not sleeping well also because I'm afraid. I'm not used to living on the ground floor, and I keep thinking someone is going to get in, and DS isn't here to save me! And it doesn't help that I want to have the windows open because of the very expensive "window" unit, but I'm sleeping better using the a/c.

Delivery Fail

August 3, 2008	07:39:00 PM	JACKSONVILLE FL	Arrival Scan
July 31, 2008	01:51:00 AM	JACKSONVILLE FL	Shipment has left seller facility and is in transit

It took nearly 4 days to stay in the same city?  WTF?

Not even Babelfish can translate it

DS is in Warsaw, Poland.  I had a title that I tried to translate in Babelfish to Polish, but it would seem that it's not worth Babelfish's time to translate Polish...  He's there for another one of his science conferences.   Before you going thinking how lucky he is to travel places like that for free, you should know that other languages scare him and he's likely to spend the entire trip either listening to talks (which are all in English) or hiding out in his hotel room.  He was supposed to take my camera, but he forgot it.  Which is probably even more of an excuse to not leave his room...

Apparently they don't have internet there.  Or at least it's not mainstream enough for a hotel that hosts large conferences to have it.  He had to call the old fashioned way when he got there today.  I can't wait to see what that cost us.

So we've been in our new place for a week now.  We're on our second furniture arrangement already.  I originally thought I wanted my workspace in the living room so I could watch tv, but I quickly realized that meant there was no where else to go when I didn't want to be in the same room with DS and his video games.  Now the workstation is in the "dining room", which still lets me see the tv if I want, but it's just far enough away that he shouldn't be too distracting if the sound is low if I want to concentrate.

My initial reaction to this place was that it sucked.  The new layout has made it feel like we have more space, which is also greatly helped by the fact that I finally got the kitchen counters cleaned off yesterday.  For the most part, the boxes are all unpacked now.  So I'm thinking it's not quite so bad as I thought.  

Reasons I thought this place sucked:

1. No central air

2. What little a/c we have is a "window unit" installed in the wall on one end of the apartment.

3. That end is NOT the bedroom, so it's like 100 degrees in there.

4. I can't sleep when I'm that hot.

5. I'm told the little heater things along the floor (there's one for each room, and they each have their own thermostat) get hot enough to set things on fire if they come in contact with it....

6. The heater has the very helpful settings of low, medium and high.

7. There aren't overhead lights.

8. The light-switches control every single freakin outlet.

9. For some reason, it controls the bottom plug instead of the top one.

10. Between the closets, heater, balcony door and regular entry door, the bedroom has just enough room for the bed against the wall.  Only the bed...

11. The entryway smells very strongly of mold.

12. There are bugs and spiders all over the place (though thankfully much more rare in my actual apartment than in the building).

13. My garage isn't in my building, so I have five keys just for myself, not counting the garage opener.

14. The closets are awkward.

15. There isn't any place in the bathroom to store towels.

16. The balcony railing stops about 4-6 inches from the actual building.  I'm afraid my cats are going to jump/fall off.  It wouldn't be the first time...

16. Did I mention there's only one place I can put the bed without burning the place down?

Reasons it's not as sucky as I thought:

1. We've more or less figured out the optimal fan placement so we can live without a/c (I'm told that thing is hideously expensive).

2. After investing in some of those 1-to-3 plug things, everything can function without fear of someone flipping a light-switch and crashing my computer.

3. I managed to get things organized in my closets by making separate spaces consisting of boxes on their sides.  Almost like shelving, but not as sturdy.

4. Daily candle burnings and open windows are slowly removing the stank in the apartment.  (still no hope for the entryway)

5. I don't have to get up early just to drive DS to the bus stop anymore!

6. I live near real bike paths again.

7. I don't have to climb a hill from hell just to go somewhere, anywhere, on my bike.

Newly found suckiness:

1. The "dryer" that I now have to pay to use can't even get things dry with two full cycles... we might have to become laundromat people.  Luckily there's one just a block from here.

Now that I am a devoted Google reader reader (heh..), I've been getting a lot of updates from Apartment Therapy.  I'm happy to say that they were right about their cat litter mix, and it is absolutely, completely amazing.  My litter box has never been so easy to clean, or smelled so nice.  Best of all, it's biodegradable and non-toxic, something I definitely couldn't say about my old litter.  Also, my new litter box is the shit!  You just roll it one way, roll it back, and you're clean, no scooping required!  I love it so much I even took the time to post a review on PetSmart.com, where I found it.  I never do that.

hmm.. there was more too, but I feel like I've been typing forever and it's about time I went to bed.  Extra effort has to be made to get me in bed at a decent hour when DS isn't around to tell me it's bed time at 9:30.