The challenge was met.

So recently mom and I challenged each other - her to start a website selling her digitized embroidery designs and me to start to re-learn the guitar. Her website is up (GammasCorner.com and I learned a song on the guitar - there's no way to prove it to her, because she can't play music on her computer... but here is a movie - made up of pictures that she took of desert plants and new puppies (and a couple of old pictures because the song is longer than I thought) but the song in the background - that's me.

Cardinal?

Ok so this morning...well, it's been ok. I've been feeling a little down - focusing on some negative aspects of my life that I can have the tendency to focus on - I try not to type about these aspects here for a couple of reasons. I like to try to keep this blog light and entertaining while maintaining a strong sincerity. I want this to be something I can read back over and smile - not go, oh, yeah - that day was pretty shitty. Also, I'm protecting you, Dear Reader. The negative aspects of my life are also notoriously boring. Like ridiculously. So anyway, that's what I've been doing - I slept really late (still recovering from pretending to be young on Friday night!), on the couch no less and made plans for lunch, but other than that, just analyzing and thinking - which I've learned is not a productive way for me to act. So anyway, I'm looking out the window and a male cardinal comes and sits on a cable wire less than a foot away from the window and just stares back.


This strikes me for a couple of reasons:
• Last night when I couldn’t sleep because I was *ahem* thinking too much (see a pattern?) I cruised Netflix’s instant videos and found a boring documentary on birds – it worked. I feel asleep.
• Bright red? What does that mean? Blood? Stop?
• He stared back – seriously. Then flew away.
Then guess what landed on the wire – a female cardinal, she didn’t stay as long – she was clearly chasing. She flew the same direction as her man. A girl chasing a boy.

Anyway – this blog clearly demonstrates that I am a little superstitious as well as over-analytical. To the sender of the cardinal: you don’t have to hit me with a 2x4 to show me something. And I’m trying.

Now – I’m not dumb – I know that the cardinal probably means nothing except that it’s spring and time for birds to lay eggs in the carport. But …. What if?

What would the cardinal have meant to you this morning if he (and then she) had landed in front of you window?

Lonestar!

So, I'm really excited - prepare yourself for wayyyyy too many exclamation points!

I just got off the phone with a local Country radio station - where on 1 call to the number that I wasn't even sure was right - I won tickets to see Lonestar on Friday night! I actually really like this band - I have 2 of their CDs and LJ and I went to see them in College! Ironically in college we saw them for free too - I have to pay more $30 to this band. :) But it's cool - Leon luckily had no plans because my pickings are slim for a take-along - 2 friends and only one likes country...

YAY! What a good day this turned out to be...


DUDE! I forgot - Jamie Foxx is going to be there too - he does a duet with them that I saw on Oprah! It made me cry!!! :):):)


DUDE! actually - I was wrong - it was Jamie Foxx and rascal flatts that made me cry. I like them too.

AH! My greatest creation ... ever!

OK - so I couldn't decide if Dan was saying that a forest didn't throw up or I didn't get a hair cut because I didn't have a picture of either. This got my feeling creative and this is what I spent an hour doing this afternoon.

Forests DO throw up. And when it happens, I look on in disgust. With slightly shorter hair.


Today I played with my font.

GA bulldogs in the NCAA tourney!

I'm half working, half watching the game on ESPN.com right now, but this is also fairly exciting. I hear the AJC has a pretty big readership:

Dan Judy's Newspaper Debut

Do forests throw up?

If they do, this is what it looks like:





In other news - got my hair cut yesterday - don't worry, Mom - not too much shorter, just getting rid of the split ends.

Rock and a hard place

Well we've all been in such a spot. I was put there today by two competing forces - business rules and desire to please. So we occasionally have local people park in the campground because they are moving, or can't afford a house, or other circumstances. Last month a lady came in with her son- a nice older lady (maybe 60s?) and said she was have a rough year and needed to park in the campground and rents and pays for a spot for a month - $375. Now her rent was due this Sunday and she came in asking for me to barter for the spot. We do barter for things occasionally, but the campground is literally making no money - we can't afford to have people using our utilities and we pay cash for those and the campers pay with labor. Sucky, but true. If there was a way I could send her down to the electric company to work off our bill, I might have taken her up on it. Also, she came in about a week ago asking if I had any work for her to do for gas money. I felt bad - but I told her no - both because we really didn't and because I don't want people assuming we have enough money to have employees - because we definitely don't. So. When she asked if she could trade labor, she offered cleaning the bathrooms, lifeguarding the pool and mowing. Well - the pool and mowing are moot points at least for another month, but I love mowing and there's no way I'm giving that chore away. Selfish, I know - but that chore really is my sanity in the summer. And the pool is 5-feet deep at the deepest (so we can get away just posting 'no lifeguard' signs) and insurance-wise, there's no way we can pay a 60-year old to lifeguard it. So we're down to cleaning the bathrooms - Do you realize how much time she would have to spend in there scrubbing to work off her $375 in rent? The electricity to have the lights on so she could see what she was doing would cost us more. Ugh. Rock meet hard spot. Mind if I stand between you two? So today when she came down - I basically had to kick an old lady out. I'm like that mean guy from Rent. (Which was a terrible movie - but we've already discussed this.) I'm pretty sure she was crying - even though I gave her 2 free nights. I hate internal debates - I hate recognizing that it's selfish to a degree - I could pay myself a little less - and then she could stay a little longer, but I'm not willing to do that. I wonder, at what point is it determined that you're going to special landlord hell? Hey - one good thing - I'm a people pleaser - but not if it's gonna cost me money. Great.

Guess what word I regularly mess up in this blog. Occasionally. I want to spell it Occassionally. Which is just nuts.

dad...this place sound familiar?

Comment responses

LJ- You have to come to KS soon... Simply have to!

Gma and Dan - As usual glad to entertain, although, I re-read my blog and here's the breakdown of amusement I displayed.
Smiles- 1
Chuckles- 2
Guffaws- 0
You guys might need higher standards in the 'entertainment' realm.

Tara- now this is entertainment! I am white (I think - Gma you may want to expand upon this if you can) and I have TV - kinda - through the Internet - but I'm so glad you brought it up so I can continue to talk about how I don't have TV. :) But one thing - could you refrain from posting comments that link to blogs that are clearly clever-er and more laughter inducing? It's a real blow to my self-esteem and may cost me readers.

My quilt is on hold - I'm on the stinking last step and my sewing machine (which was the cheapest one I could buy probably 4 years ago) isn't strong enough to quilt through the layers... so...

Spring is taking a vacation starting tomorrow - so I'm hoping to finish the gardens and raking this afternoon. I've started my skin cancer for the summer. Skin cancer in reality is no laughing matter - and so I put sunblock on my face, because I don't want cancer there. I'm a role model for rebels and other TV hating white people. Go , Dan Judy. Cancel that cable and then we can talk about how awesome we are even if one of is right-wing and one of us is left-wing.

I both adore and detest....

...Daylight savings time. I hate that this morning I felt exhausted at 8:30 am. I love that I took a walk with Beppo after 5:00 pm. I'm thinking that tomorrow (when it's supposed to be 71!!!) my clock will be way better and I will just adore DST.

...hammocks. Well - permanently affixed hammocks. The ice storm this year fell down on top of my hammock and made it a little knotted. So this afternoon I untangled it. And it's all prepared for tomorrow's 71 degrees.

...flowering gardens. Our gardens today got a thorough cleaning - emptying out the leaves and dead growth and I've started taking pictures - there's one bloomin' bunch that I've taken several pictures of and I'm gonna keep going until it blooms - then I will have a neat movie.

...learning to quilt. I think it's really cool that I'm learning to quilt. And I know I'm gonna make another one when this one's done. But I wish I'd learned this when I lived with my mom - cuz it is sometimes difficult to understand the instructions for the next step.

Hello...again... hello.

Winter is back. dammit.

Bowling was interesting the other day - I actually bowled pretty good: 136, 136, 119. But no turkeys - which is good (remember the old man and his threat?). I think the old guy realized that I'm not a good bowler, so he's never going to get to carry out the threat of a kiss for a turkey (plus if I was a good bowler I'd gutter it to avoid). So when he bowled a turkey, he kissed my hand. Hello!! Boundaries?! I don't know how to set them. Anyway, if I'da bowled 3 136's, I'da gotten a patch. I think they should make a bowling patch that just says "If..." If I ever get a patch, I will have to make myself some sort of Girl Scout style sash on which to affix said patch(es).

Speaking of making stuff - the quilt albeit small is coming along nicely and I hope to make it to the 2nd to last step this weekend. If so, maybe more pictures will appear.

I got invited to join a Summer softball team :) This is a dream come true. Seriously. When I was a little girl - I used to stand in the front yard and throw the baseball as high as I could in the air and try to catch it in the hopes that (I would and) a baseball scout would be driving by and say that I was good enough to play on a team - even a boys team. The question is why was that a fantasy of mine at 9? Because I wanted to be the center of attention? Did I want to be really good at something? The only girl in a group of 9 (how many people are on a baseball team) boys? Probably all of the above.

Now - is spring coming? I hope so - and this may be a sign. There were about 100,000 birds in the playground and I was outside - I heard a mighty roar as they all began to flap. Then I saw a big bird - maybe medium pigeon sized and I saw him pick up one of the 100,000 in his mouth. Was he the little bird's mom? Or are birds cannibals? I was both perplexed and shnockered. It's easy to be both perplexed and shnockered when you're drunk.

Speaking of drunk, I'll no longer be drinking in the rays of cable TV. (Bad segue.) I canceled cable for the house yesterday. Why? Well, for a few reasons - one is that Dan Judy dared me. Another is that my cable company is annoying. And the third is that my excuse for keeping cable was that it was only $25/month and I could watch Comedy Central - well, lately Comedy Central has been more annoying than funny (despite Stephen Colbert being absolutely fantastic last night with John Legend). I can watch Daily Show and Colbert Report online. I have Wii, Netflix and quilting, card-making and dog entertaining. I bowl and this summer I will be playing softball. I have two jobs. I really don't even begin to watch enough cable TV to justify yet another method of entertainment. Next year I will stop buying clothes and will begin to weave and dye my own yarn and fabric. Well on my way to self-sufficiency and not personally being held down by the man. Now the campground will never be self-sufficient, because (and here's a little irony) most people require a certain level of luxury when they are roughin' it. Judys excluded, of course.