Paul and I bought bicycles today. I remember being so good at riding my bike. Younger me could maneuver that thing over any obstacle. Today me was falling all over, tipping, and nervous about turning too sharply. People, it was a laugh riot. We putted around the yard for about 20 minutes before hitting the road briefly, and oh man. I felt like I had run a marathon by the time I reached the driveway. Whew, I am totally not 15 anymore. lol

Had a nice week-long visit with my mom in VT, and just got back today. It's always nice to get away to the mountains and the trees changing made the visit all the more enjoyable. It's so pretty up there, and the temperature was nice and cool.

My brain is fading. I'm going to glut myself with Sloppy Joes and salad, sleep in my own bed (yay!) and start my bike/exercise regimen in the morning. ;)

Here's my handsome little man. This was 3 weeks ago. He's bigger now, and his ears are standing up like bat wings. Too cute.





Don't be fooled; under that adorable face lives a gremlin. :)

I feel delightfully accomplished today, and I've only gotten to half of my To Do list. I've received my washing soda via UPS so I can start of skeletizing leaves and whitening bones. Since the puppy has me up at 8 every morning, pushing his very cold nose into my neck and ear, telling me he wants to be walked and fed, I either get a lot done or I'm pooped and do nothing. It's a never-ending cycle.

I'm knitting with the most horridly frustrating yarn that's ever existed, and I can't wait until this scarf is god damned done. It'll look good, granted, but I'm knitting at half the speed I usually do. Sometimes it's good to slow down, and I just have to remember that.

Is anyone else going to the Keene Pumpkin Festival mid-Oct? I'm so excited for it and I'd love to see you if you are. If you see me from afar, call my cell or chuck a pumpkin at me. One of the small ones, please. ;)

Okay, back to being motivated! Woo! :D

It's already in the air. The smell of frost and the sound of skittering leaves. Pretty soon the trees will be bare and their branches will be silhouetted like gnarled witch fingers against the sky. I can almost hear the dead echo of them scraping together, murmuring their worries to an uncaring October moon. Sooner than I can think my whole world will smell like ripe pumpkins, sick sweet on the breeze, the sharp icy smell of pending frost, and the soft rotted undercurrent of fallen leaves. What a great time to be in New England.

It's a small comfort when my patience for the place I'm living is rapidly growing thin. When calming down and dealing with it fails to be an option. Paul and I need a place that's ours and ours alone, where there's no need to deal with other people's habits or meddling. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, but I doubt it.

Whew!

I made my first pair of pants today!! Nothing spectacular, just plain black, I guess you could call them Yoga Pants, and a simple design, but I'm wicked psyched that I followed a pattern and cut correctly, and they definitely fit, even if they're a smidge big. Next pair I make I'll go with Medium and to hell with it. They're made out of heavier material, so I'll save them for the winter when I'm whining about the cold.

Yesterday- no, day before- I made an a-line skirt that I accented with bleached cherry blossoms on the bottom, and yesterday I bleached a shirt to match. I've felt so unproductive and so frigging sluggish lately that getting back into a groove of making neato things feels fucking great. Churning out a cardigan and hummingbird necklace for Mum's birthday helped. I had a great idea today that I looked up on google and realized it's been done a hundred times - hedgehog pincushion. C'est la vie. Still a cute thing.

I should stop dicking around and help set the table. This family togetherness thing is driving me crazy.

We are so bored. And annoyed.
Any cute girls wanna come watch a movie? Make out? Run around the yard like crazy people? It'd be fun. ;)

I was going to write about my annoyance with my mother in law's father, who is currently visiting, but I've lost interest and can probably find other interesting things to say, frankly.

I set up my little craft area today. I needed to dig out my sewing machine to make my mom a cardigan for her birthday at the end of July. Not everything found a place, but the table is cleared off, and that's a pretty big step. It's quiet up there and there's a place for the dog to lay and be comfortable, so it'll do. The walls are yellow. Meh, nothing's perfect.

We've built two raised bed gardens and have to build two more, because the seeds that we planted need to go into the dirt NOW. Crops include: three kinds of pumpkins, beans, cucumbers, broccoli, carrots, sage, thyme, basil, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cauliflower, and I forget what else. A lot. How exciting! Growing my own food. I like the idea.

About two weeks ago we mail-ordered New Hampshire Reds, 17 pullets and 2 cockerels. (Pullets are baby chickens, and cockerels are baby roosters) They're growing daily. I'm really surprised how fast they're maturing. They roost on the little feeder that they have, and have about half of their grown up feathers now. They peep a lot. Apparently at just about this stage of development they're really good at flying. Seeing as they're living in a kiddie pool with 2 feet of fencing, I expect rogue chickens any day now. But we'll have our own eggs and eventually, meat. :D Yaay!

Oh, Friday was my very first time out in a canoe. Total blast. Me, Paul, and Paul's cousin Jerry went to Tully Lake, went upstream and saw all kinds of animals and nature, and Jerry hit me in the side of the head with his oar. Hard too, and it's a long story, but absolutely hysterical. (trying to get over a little rapid section, I sat on the floor to make us heavy in the back, and he fucking clobbered me with the blade part by accident.) There are some things you never live down, and that's one of them. I had a huge egg behind my ear and everything. Still funny. Won't ever be unfunny.

Off to cut out recipes.

So we're in Burlington VT stopping in on one of Paul's clients before heading to Lowell to visit my mom. I'm having a lovely time walking the grass in front of this little church for a half hour now with the dog. She's rolled in everything that smells interesting and has barked to let the strangers who get too close know that she's on the job.
We stopped in Waterbury and got two loaves of homemade bread, one strawberry and one blueberry. A tasty offering. I would like to be on our way, but I can't complain. I'm sitting in the grass under a tree with my most beloved pup in the fresh air. What I'll do is stop posting to Livejournal and start appreciating this some. :)

I'm having one of those days where I feel like everything I do is wrong, and it makes me feel stupid.
I'm not pleased with today in the least. >:(

And here I am.

We've been settling in for, oh, four days now. Life is coming together slowly, clothes are clean, odds and ends are finding their place, and we're slowly realizing that we don't have to go back to Los Angeles. Yaay! :) Life is good, but for one thing.

Holy. Fucking. Mosquitos.

Were there that many when I left? Has there been some "Save The Skeeters" Rally? Mosquitos don't exist in LA because it's desert. Come back to a LITTLE humidity and I can't go outside without getting eaten aliiiivvveeee. Also I had a horsefly bite me and that was rather unpleasant.

But irritating bugs aside, it's good. The air is fresh and I inhale deeply constantly, taking in the sweet grass smell. Paul got a canoe on Thursday, and I can't wait to learn how to paddle. Life is quiet, relaxed, and good. :) I saw a GIGANTIC wolf spider with an egg sac in her mandibles. Nature is so neat. :D

There are a lot of plans for the near future, and that's exciting. I'm trying to find a day/eve to venture down to MA and maybe hit a club just to say hello to you all. Lemme know a good one. :)

We've just arrived at the NV/UT border. Down the street I can see the Desert Salt Flats or whatever the hell it's called. We're pretty beat but have seen some neat things along the way. And some not-so-neat things. Like the boring ass desert. I pulled up a nursery rhymes website on my blackberry today and started going through shrieking "I remember that one!" My dog insists on sitting/sleeping on me for most of her time in the truck. I'm just now regaining feeling in my legs. Aah, day TWO.

Here's a pic of me relaxing not five minutes ago:



I have a sandwich in my belly and I'm totally ready to be asleep.

So. That's that. I saw "Hairspray" last night, the movie they just did somewhere around a year ago (California has skewed my perception of time), and I thought it was really quite funny and well choreographed.

How's everyone doing? Tell me something good. :)

I got a horrid sunburn on Saturday while moving Mike into his new apt and since I haven't had a sunburn this bad for YEARS I'm being a huge baby about it. I've been wearing this one shirt as often as I can because it's the most comfy thing I have that's not packed. :(

But I found Aloe with Lidocaine at the store so that's been a big help, especially with the sleeping.

I have so much space in the house now that there's nothing in it. ;D

Last night was the first time that I slept through the night until morning for almost a week. I had to go over the Gashlycrumb Tinies in my head three times I think, before I lost consciousness and woke up to the horrid alarm. Nerves are getting to me, I guess.

This is my second to last day of work since I'm off tomorrow. Friday brings pizza and a definite lack of productivity. I need to catch up on my craigslist best-of's, and my boss is out of town 'til nest Tuesday so it's not like he'll call me in the middle of the country to chastise me for my slacking.

My microwave was invaded by ants last night. The whole inside got hosed down with the nearest sprayable chemical I could find, and I'm just going to chuck it in the trash when I get home. Goddamned Los Angeles, this whole city is built on a huge antfarm. Also, giant cockroaches, which my cat likes to chase and torture by ripping their legs off and stomping them to death. Which is fine, except for the dead cockroach bodies on the floor at random. What will my cat do in NH, with no giant roaches to chase? Mice, now that I think of it.

Today is a good Pandora day. And a good Run-Around-In-The-Park-With-The-Dog-Acting-Crazy day. Soon that'll be every day. ;)

I left my patience at home today. I feel bad for my coworkers. And anyone who has to deal with me on the phone for more than five seconds.

We're coming down to our Lasts in Los Angeles. Sunday night we had our Last steak BBQ dinner as a household. After this weekend it's my Last days of work. We're heading out to our Last Bug Show at the Natural History Museum Sunday, and hopefully I'll manage to not spend my whole paycheck. And then, the greatest Last of all, saying Goodbye and Fuck You to LA for good.

I was thinking about being back in New England this morning when I was walking the dog. Omigod, the air is gonna smell so fresh. I'm excited for the drive, and my nervousness is waning. I can't wait to do one thing; I want to lay in the grass. I can't remember the last time I did that. A close second, feed ducks.

I'm going to try and be as un-busy as possible at work today. Here I go.

Hurh.

I gave my notice at work and all went relatively smoothly. Now everyone knows, everything's almost packed, I'm totally ready to be driving out of here. Whew, it's been crazy time around here lately.

Our two big snakes found a new home with a delightful, if intense, gent named Richard. He sent us pics of them in their new enclosure. They'll have plenty of stretch out room, that's for damn sure.

We have a lot of empty space right now. It's pretty echo-y in here.

...I've run out of steam here. I'm off to pack more.

Forty three days left in Los Angeles.

Twenty three left of work.

Some of our stuff is already on the East Coast. That's exciting. There's so much more that we have to pack/sell/throw away.

I can't wait to breathe deep and smell the grass and the dirt and the moist air. Mmm. No truck exhaust. No homeless people who smell like piss. No smog. Well, maybe the first two, but not right outside my fucking front door.

Wanna go for lunch?

My beloved puppy Bones, whom I love more than I love chocolate, sushi, camping, and life in general and you would love just as much if you met her, is in for her No-Puppies-For-Me Surgery. She'll be fine and we take her home tonight, but I'm worried just like anyone would be. Send her good thoughts and hope that she dreams about chasing birds, lying in the sun, and getting a whole jar of peanut butter all for herself. :)

Woof! :)

xoxo
Dani

was fucking great. A brief recap: We packed up the four people currently in the house, the camping equipment, and the dog and headed out for the Redwoods Friday morning. Oh man. What a fucking blast we had. Friday was warm and the boys ran around shirtless catching butterflies. We made a fire in the pit outside of our little cabin, we laughed at each others' stories and had a great time.

Saturday we climbed a damned mountain. Saw big patches of snow and lots of animal tracks. Dressed warm and had a good hike. Ate trail mix. The good things in life. Came back to the cabin, threw some fat steaks over the fire, ate 'em up with loaded baked potatoes. Had ice cream. Mmmm mmmmm.

And then it started to rain.

Then it was hailing.

After that, snow. Lots of snow.

We ate pancakes while watching it snow. We packed up the truck. We got in, and made the first attempt to leave. The truck couldn't get up the hill. Too icy. Fuck. We almost slid down into the ravine, made it back to the cabin, and pondered our next move. Stay? Dig ourselves out? We had some eggs and bacon while we thought. Well, no sense in wasting time.The dog did her part by running around like a crazy thing, chewing snowballs and tearing up big rooster tails. The two-leggers tramped up and down the road to give the sun (who decided to grace us with its presence around 2) a headstart on melting some tire tracks down to the dirt. Worked fine. We were re-packed and on our way by three thirty. Now I'm wishing that it was a goddamned blizzard and we never made it back to LA, since I hate it here. We would have run out of food and been pretty fucked in reality, but it's a nice thing to imagine. Two months, three days until blastoff from Los Angeles. Wooo hoooo!!

Paul and I trade off on chores. Dishes, dog walking in the morning, catbox, etc.

I did the dishes Thursday morning. I remember because I needed the frying pan to make eggs. We only have one frying pan, people.

So tonight we're bbq-ing and I said "We'll need some clean plates."

He SWEARS he did dishes on Friday eve. (entirely not true, there are dishes from Fri morning in the sink.) So after going back and forth for a few minutes, I just up and did the dishes. Why? Because it's so much fucking easier than arguing to death about it. I was pissed when I was washing them and I'm pissed now, but damn, it's worth it to not hear I'm-always-right arguments. And I would've heard this argument, proof or not. Let's just say in the four years of living together, I've learned what's worth fighting for. And dishes aren't it.

It's frustrating how some people remember things so very differently than I do. I KNOW what I remember is correct. I have a fucking GREAT memory. Yet, I argue over the stupidest shit. STUPIDEST.

*grumble*

I'm gonna go eat my hamburger. Mark the date, March 14th @9:22 pm, I did the fucking dishes.

So this morning as I'm pulling the milk out of the fridge the orange juice pitcher
decided that life wasn't worth living anymore and threw itself off the
shelf.

It was like slow motion, I threw my leg out to kind of crush it against the
crisper and I managed to keep it upright, but the lid flew off and soaked
myself, the fridge, the wall, and the floor with juice. Complete with
"Nnnnnnnnnooooooooooooo!!!!!" The thing still has juice in it, but it's
significantly less than yesterday.

How frustrating. I swore a few times and mopped it all up with rags, wiped
the fridge down (the whole inside looked like an orange murder scene),
changed my pants, etc. The dog and cat watched the whole scene with mild
interest and healthy caution, since Mom just yelled FUCK real loud and is
now going from the sink to the fridge with a rag in a hurried fashion. I
made a point to reassure them that it wasn't their fault.

I'm cleaning the fridge tomorrow. Le sigh.

That's my morning, and it's barely 10am.