Bowling

So I got my feelings hurt yesterday at bowling - and shockingly it had nothing to do with scores. I got my average twice and broke 100 all three games, so I (and no one else) can complain about that.

Here's the set-up. all of my team members except for me are married with kids. Three of the 4 others regularly bring their four kids, which I have absolutely no problem with. Anyone who's seen me with kids knows that I actually get along better with kids than other 27-year-olds. Hmm... a pattern here? I get along better with old people and kids. ARGH. Anyway - the kids love me and we play I spy or I bounce them or color or whatever. They are all 4 and under (one of them is just 2 weeks old), so they are pretty rambunctious, but I try to keep it calm.

So, at the end of bowling, everyone had left but me, and I was cleaning up our table and this older guy, (60 or 70?) Dennis came up and said something pretty mean. He said "You must be tired." I responded "Yeah, but I love kids, so it was worth it. I'll sleep good tonight." Here's the (probably unintentional) zinger: "You are kinda a convenient babysitter, aren't you?" He didn't say the word 'just' but I heard it. I mean I want to do convenient things for people, or the location of a gas station can be convenient or turning on the weather channel just in time for Local on the 8s is convenient, but I don't want people to describe ME as convenient. It just sucks because I really do like to do things for people - selfishly (shellfishly) it makes me feel good. I like to do favors, but I am starting to realize that people probably do look at that and think - wow, she's convenient. The conversation actually got a little worse as I just kinda shrugged and Dennis said "you should get your own kids." And all I could think to say is "well, I have dogs, and it's fun to give kids back to their parents." I think he's probably just an old man who didn't know that what he said was mean, but still. Pretty much just wanted me to never do anything nice again. Oh, well.

Mean Mother Nature

yesterday we had a high of 66 degrees. People were wearing shorts. today the high will be 25 and we have blowing snow. Aside from bowling - I'm not going anywhere today...staying home and making cookies. I hope the weather is better where you are.

Definition of Pride

Get ready to load me down with external validation. Today I am the Queen of the campground.

I fixed my shower head. I took the faucets off and gooped the washers up with Vaseline and replaced them. Voila! No More Drips! I was thinking last night that maybe the seal just wasn't great... and it was a thought that i could fix it.

then ... today is a fairly warm day - a high of 41, and tomorrow is going to be mid-50's. So I realized that tomorrow would be a great day to climb trees and do some more sawing if only I had a ladder. This genius and Queen of campground sawed the bent part off the ladder and drilled holes for new feet. I am champion. Tomorrow I have a date with trees... and the chainsaw. The trees would be smart just to drop their broken limbs now. Sadly, most of the trees on the campground are too dumb to actually do this.

Definition of frustration

So this story starts a little while ago... let me take you back to last week.

My shower head drips. How much, I wondered? So I put a 1 gallon ice cream bucket under the drip... apparently about 3 gallons a day. I have been dumping the bucket in the dogs' water bucket and washing machine, but really... I can't do this forever. So I decide this is something I will fix. This is the obvious start of the frustration. After researching on the internet, what I've learned is that the source of the drip is likely the 'seat washers', which likely need to be replaced. Ok... this is something I can do, surely. So I start to take it all apart. Quickly I realize I am missing a tool. I go to the small hardware store here in town to get said tool. I come home - with a tool that doesn't fit. And the wrong washers. So I plan a trip into Salina - a town with a Lowe's. I get to Lowe's and begin to realize that I don't really know what I need. At Lowe's I do pick up a better fitting tool - and encounter a man that obviously thinks I don't belong in Lowe's at all. And he basically refuses to help me because I can only begin to tell him what I'm doing and what I need. Ick. So i come home and call it a day, because that day the level of frustration was already high. That brings us to today. I turn the water off and use the newest tool to remove the valve to take to the hardware store and find something that will work. Well - after 2 trips to the hardware store I found some washers that didn't quite fit, but I thought might work because they were too big, not too small. I got it all put together and ... the water wouldn't turn back on. Apparently this morning, while the coffee can was off the pipe that holds the shut off, the cold got down there and froze it. So I waited. And when the water magically and suddenly turned back on - the washers didn't work. I couldn't turn the water off at the faucet so the shower is spraying and I'm wet and cold and cussing. So I returned it off at the shut off, replaced the new washers with the old washers and turned the water back on. My shower head drips.

HAHA! HEEHEE!

I have to say that after reading this, I laughed hard. I didn't die, but it may have been close.

In the third century B.C. the Greek stoic philosopher Chrysippus died of laughter after giving his donkey wine, then seeing it attempt to feed on figs.

Updates

This is full of updates. Some good, some disappointing. Oh... and a movie rant.

1st of all - all the twigs are picked up and in the gutter just waiting for the city. It took probably 3 four-hour days to complete finish that job with the dumptruck. I can't imagine how long it would've been if I'd been using a tarp as originally planned. I do know that my massage last week was much needed and deserved. :) All that bending and twisting made it nearly impossible to Wii box. Nearly.

2nd of all - A few blogs ago I provided a teaser: that I was going to enter the city bowling tournament. Sadly, there is no women's tournament, only men's. ARGH! So many things I would totally participate in - but getting enough other women to participate in them seems difficult. It's as if the women in this city have busy, full lives with things to do other than participate in recreation. Well, not this one!

I'm pretty sure Abilene is the only city where I've had to go to the city and pay to register my dogs. I suppose the fee is nothing to complain about - $2/dog, I think. But I think it's strange - I guess it's to try to control the pet population a little, but I think it's interesting that this is a problem in rural areas - but not the cities, where the are more people and more dogs? I will say that here, people just let their dogs run, but anyway - I guess I don't really have a stance on it - I certainly don't have a problem with it. I just think it's strange that in all the 15+ places I've lived, this is the first town that ever had that rule. I kinda like it - it gives Beppo and Vixie yet a little more bling.

Movie Review: Have you ever seen the movie About Last Night? It's an 80's movie with Demi Moore and Rob Lowe and one of the Belushis (John? Jim? The one who's not dead.) Anyway, in too many ways, it's like The Break-up. Why do I want to watch that crap? I'm no movie critic.. but I am critical of movies that require you sit through 45 minutes of people breaking up. It sucks to watch two grown-ups act like 11-year-olds. I don't see why anyone who has been in a long-term relationship - that failed - would watch these movies, then think to themselves - I wish I was still married/living with someone. Seriously - watching people argue makes me wonder why the divorce rate isn't higher - I guess I relate a little too closely to both of those movies (some of the lines were direct quotes between The Devil and I) and I just think that people should watch these movies before they are living with/married to somebody just to show you how easy it is to become completely stupid. I spent those 45 minutes - with both movies - wishing one of the people involved would just shut up and die! :) Worst part of About Last Night? After fighting and breaking up... in the end they get back together!!! Ridiculous - you've just spent the last 45 minutes hating each other! ARGH! Stay away!

Today's hard work

Well - I've lost my photographer. So you'll just have open your minds and let your imaginations go. I suppose I could take a picture of the final work and then those close-minded among you would be able to understand as well.

If you're good, I'll take a picture.

So this morning Jeff started pushing our enormous pile to the gutter so the city will pick it up. I guess we should just be pleased that the city is going to pick up the damage at all, but I can't help but wish they would have just come into the campground and saved us all a lot of trouble today. Anyway - while he was doing the big work in the warm cab of the skid loader, I was working with a rake and the dump truck. And then I started to get ambitious. I took the only ladder we have now - a 6 foot triangle ladder and put it on top of a picnic table. Then I got the electric chainsaw ans climbed the ladder as high as I could and got to sawing. I got a few big pieces down before Jeff came over and told me how silly I was being. Then he let me climb in the bucket of the skid loader and lifted me up for one more piece, but then he made me stop. It was probably for the best anyway, but still....

Anyway - the place for the imagination really comes in when you think about how many little twigs I picked up - a very full dump truck load! Hard to believe that there is still more to be done tomorrow.

Ok you were good:

100th post!

This is the 100th post of this blog! There's no prize or anything... but still! I should bake a cake. I am making oatmeal cookies, so that will be my celebratory food.

Well - as most of you know, there was recently a devastasting ice storm here in Abilene. (While it was strong, it wasn't actually devasting, but I have learned from local and national media - fear sells even more than sex. So.) We have done most of the clean up, but since Mom and Dad are here, I put them to work... cleaning up some of the limbs that broke but we refusing to fall from the trees. These are bad limbs - because they could fall at anytime, on top of a camper - so we definitely have to get as many of these down as we can. So we used a ladder and shimmied up a tree, brought up the electric chain saw and got rid of the limbs we could.

All was going according to plan until... DUHDUHDUUUUH! I sawed off the wrong limb. Or I sawed off the right limb, but it fell the wrong way. And bent and actually broke the aluminum extension ladder. So I stayed out there and cut down some more tragic limbs and then dad and mom held one side of the broken ladder so I could come down. It was pretty funny... for a few minutes we wondered how we were going to get me down.

All in all - it was a productive day and climbing trees is always fun. Climbing trees with an electric chain saw is a little more frightening, but I'm all about adrenaline. Plus - how am I gonna jump out of a plane some day if I can't climb a tree. :) Photos below.

Welcome 2008!

Welcome! Come on in! But don't forget to wipe your feet!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope it was exciting? Or relaxing? Or warm? I hope it was all you wanted and more!

Mine was pretty good - my parents and I wiid well into the night. It was wild! Wii Olympics is serious hard work!

Here are the pictures from Christmas in AZ for those who were interested - please try to ignore the Christmas morning outfits and hair. I know I am publicly a G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S person, but when I'm home with my family, before my hair and make-up people have had a chance to do their work of the day, I'm just a normal person like you or you. I put my pants on the same way everyone else- the helpers I employ put them on one bejeweled leg at a time.

Yucca, AZ

LJ - plenty more Bob the Builder pictures.

Teaser: I'm likely going to bowl in the city-wide bowling tournament... stay tuned.