It has not been a good week.

 

I’ve also been extremely busy at work. That, I am actually grateful for though.I am glad that I had the distraction of work because otherwise I would have spent most of the week wallowing in the sad.

 

I miss my kitty

 

In happier, unrelated news; i had a smallish get together on Saturday, January 24th.

 

Aaaahhhahahahahahaahahaa. I love Rob’s hair and the look on his face. Balthrop (in the background) looks appropriately imposing.

I also found root beer that apparently already belongs to me when Amy and I went to the store before the party.

Master Chief did her duty by protecting the last of the Jell-O shots.

We had a pretty good amount of people show up.

In this picture from L to R is James, Chad, Jeff, Weldon, Rebecca and Rob

Rebecca is making guacamole and James is cutting the Jack Daniels marinated skirt steak into strips for fajitas.

The boys played poker. Well…..tried to play poker. I kept yelling at them because they were too loud. 

From L to R is Lee, JB, Weldon, Chad and Chuckles

Later, Chard and Elysia stopped by. I’m really unsure what kind of look is on his face or exactly why it is there but I am oh so grateful that I caught it. It’s very grumpy old men.

Eventually we did make it upstairs to watch “The Fifth Element” JB (left) and Rob (right) yapped through the entire movie

Luke spent most of the evening playing either Garry’s Mod or CounterStrike. He did make an appearance downstairs a few times and watched part of the movie.

 

Speaking of Luke….

I am somewhat amused (in that “are you fucking kidding me” kind of way) to have received both of the following papers on the same day…

Luke – you didn’t do your homework and you had a whole week to do it!

Luke! You’re super smart and made it into LEAP!

I truly love this boy and I am amazed by what he can accomplish but it is days like this that i just want to throttle him.

 

I’m getting pretty tired so I think I’m going to phone it in with a couple of random pictures…

 

Odin is such a classy kitty.                                                  Eli is just a sleepy kitty.

 

 

i r serious jam; this r serious picture.

this r not serious picture.

 

Odin likes to think that this is his bed.

Eli Many Paws

 

Daddy and Luke

 

 

Luke, passed out on the couch.

 

 

Hercules first came into our lives at the very end of May of 1997. Barely 2 days old, he had been abandoned by his mother and subsequently rescued by the receptionist at our Vet’s office.

I was a few months pregnant with Luke at the time and was definitely feeling those motherly urges. Somehow, I convinced Steve that we should take him home.

As we got back in the truck that day, the Elton John CD we were listening to started back up again. Blaring through the speakers was the song “Hercules”. Steve said we should name the kitten Hercules.

I laughed at the thought of this tiny kitten being named Hercules. He was so small and delicate!

Little did I know that he would grow to be a behemoth of a cat.

Hercules has been a part of my life for the better part of 12 years and has been the one thing always by my side.

When I was terrified of being a horrible mother; Hercules was there.

When Steve whistled or sang a little tune; Hercules would come running.

On those cold lonely nights when Steve was deployed; Hercules was there.

On the lonelier nights after Steve and I went our separate ways; Hercules was there.

When Luke was spending time with his Dad and I was alone; Hercules was there.

On the big gamble move from Spokane to Redmond; Hercules was there.

When it came time to discipline Odin; Hercules was there.

When Doug and I drove from Seattle to San Diego as part of my move to Dallas; Hercules was there.

When I moved from my rental into my very first “all mine” home; Hercules was there.

 

He was and still is an amazing cat and I am grateful that he chose to spend his life with me.

He never refused a cuddle and was certain that every plastic bag held catnip.

He had a crinkly ear from a cyst removal many years ago. It made him look gentle and sweet even when he was irritated.

Even in his younger more spry days; he never once jumped on a counter but he would defend his coffee table from the pesky kittens by dragging them off by the scruff of their necks.

I will miss you Hercules. Thank you for being my rock of stability for the past 12 years.

 

I am warmed by the knowledge that you are no longer uncomfortable

and are happily chirping for catnip across the rainbow bridge……

 

With love and sincere gratitude for all my days…

 

~jam

 

This was a Facebook thing….

1) There are only a handful of people in the world that I trust.

2) I am certain that everyone talks about me behind my back.

3) Sometimes I look at Luke in awe and tell myself how incredibly lucky I am.

4) No, I’m not working 12 hour days because I think I need to; I do it because I like to.

5) The cat just stole my hair tie. I can’t put anything down without it being "catted"

6) If I didn’t have my heating pad, I would be miserable.

7) Sometimes I consider my sensitivity a curse, despite the fact that I’ve learned to make it a strength.

A friend once told me that I was a walking dichotomy. I didn’t fully understand him until I realized how different I am outside of work. If don’t notice a difference, you’re not as close to me as you think.

9) I am fiercely traditional when it comes to relationships. I tend to get very upset if I am not able to serve/tend to my significant other or if my attempts to do so are rejected (regardless of the reason).

10) I routinely avoid going down aisles in the grocery store if there is a “sample lady” there, even if I need something in that aisle.

11) Some days; I come home from work, get changed, get a snack and lay on the couch with my heating pad for the entire night. It isn’t because I’m lazy, I’m just so wiped out by the end of the day that I can’t do anything else.

12) I finished painting the ½ bath, hung the new mirror and the freshly painted cabinet tonight.

Old                                                          New

Old                                                          New

13) I need so much more external validation than I get.

14) At work, I like to be in charge. Running things energizes me like nothing else does.

15) I am much harder on Luke than I need to be for him to succeed, but I don’t want him to just succeed. I want him to excel and have a huge impact on the world around him.

16) I cannot remember any of my young childhood; save for the stories my family tells me. This is one of the reasons why I document so many trivial things with photographs. I am terrified that I will not remember the days I am living now.

17) Anything that has a numerical counter (volume, timer) must be set in intervals of 5.

18) I have incredibly sensitive hearing and cannot stand sounds that most people find relaxing such as white noise and fans. I cannot tolerate the sound of metal on metal.

19) I am an incredible cook.

20) I have a very limited amount of patience in most areas except relationships.

21) I am fascinated by the period of history marked by the Nazis and that of Hiroshima.

22) I clench my jaw so much that my face aches most of the time.

23) I like to sit in the car in the heat of summer with the windows rolled up. There is something about the oppressive heat that relaxes me.

24) I have a hard time completing a task if I am focused on only one thing.

25) I refuse to give up. Ever.

Back in November, when Luke and I bought the house, bought a bunch of paint at Home Depot.

The only rooms in the house that were painted were completely icky.

The kitchen was this awful peach color. I found the paint can the other day. The color was called “Apricot Glow”.

 

Luke’s room was pink. Well…it’s still pink but it has a swatch of the gray that I intend to paint it at some point.

Every other room was builder’s grade eggshell white. Yay personality.

After painting the kitchen and the accent area above the fireplace a beautiful deep chocolate brown, the half bath downstairs was next.

Last weekend, I removed the cabinet from the wall. This was not a smart thing for me to do by myself, but I wanted it done. It’s one of those big kitchen cabinets; about 3×3.5 and all kinds of heavy.

A few weeks ago, i replaced the faucet from the builder’s grade crap to a pretty brushed metal classic faucet.

Here’s the old one….

Here is the new one…

The other day I picked up a cheap mirror at Ross. The gold color wouldn’t have worked in the bathroom but a little spray paint fixed that right up.

Here is the original mirror:

All taped up an nowhere to go:

 

Spray painted (no I didn’t paint it on the couch):

The final product:

Once the paint dried, I used steel wool to dull the surface and bring some of the original finish back. It came out pretty well. I need to put a coat of clear coat on it before I put it in the bathroom.

The old mirror obviously needed to come down. This proved to be a challenge. I took off the clips but apparently they were decorative because the mirror was attached to the wall with what I can only assume was some kind of super top secret government grade adhesive. Probably the same stuff they used to keep little Georgie’s mittens attached to his coat.

Old mirror aka My Nemesis:

I realized that I would need to pry the mirror off the wall. What to use…what to use….

Screwdriver? No…not flat/long enough

Butterknife? Hmmm…pretty flat and long but not very flexible. Oh, I tried it but it didn’t do much.

Think..think…

Oh yes. You are a genius.

Offset spatula.

It was at this point that I realized that as I was prying the mirror off the wall
; there was a good chance that it would shatter and leave me somewhat bloody and lacerated.

Safety first!

I used duct tape to cover the mirror in a lattice pattern. If the mirror did break, the duct tape would have kept it from shattering and flying in my non glass shard friendly face. I was too intent on the task at hand to take a picture, but you get the idea.

It took quite awhile to get the right leverage to start pulling the adhesive away. By this point, I was boiling hot because I was 2 inches away from the lights. I would have turned them off, but then…well….it would have been dark.

i did burn my arm on one of the light-bulbs but it only got a little red.

At last, I heard the distinctive sound of paper ripping. I had to force myself to apply slow steady pressure rather than yank the spatula.

There was some breakage, but not too much. I didn’t intend to keep the mirror so it’s not a big deal at all.

The adhesive tore the paper off the drywall, but again; I am not concerned. Another mirror will be going over that spot so I did not bother to patch the drywall.

 

 

The bathroom was fully prepped for paint. I hate prepping to paint, but it saves so much time/hassle that it is worth it.

It took a lot of moving about to not only prep, but paint the room. It’s a small under the stair half bath so the ceiling is angled. I needed to use a ladder to reach the higher places but didn’t have a lot of room to manipulate the ladder within the bathroom. This meant a lot of stretching and cursing.

At anyrate, the first coat is finished. I’ll do a second coat tomorrow.

This is the ceiling with the angled wall. Yes, I know how to cut in without the help of painter’s tape but the tape makes it easier.

This is a pretty crappy picture.

Right now, the bathroom appears to be very dark and overwhelmingly green. I am reserving judgment however because nothing has been put back in the bathroom yet. The cabinet will be painted a seashell color which will brighten up the dark area quite a bit.

The mirror will also help.

The previous accessories (soap dish, towel ring, toity paper holder) are a black wrought iron. I intend to seashell them as well.

I think that when it is all finished, it will be very nice.

For now, I am very hurty (and a bit smelly) but I’m proud of what I accomplished today.

I kind of forgot to eat after my migraine went away (I can’t eat while I have a migraine; it’s like throwing food directly in the toity).

Luke and I had “bad for us” food for dinner and now I’m snacking on some almonds.

I just realized that it is almost 1am. I really should go to bed.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

 

   

 

 

Turns out I’m not all that good at keeping up with this writing a post everyday thing.

Yesterday, I had a post all ready to write about Danica Patrick’s PEAK commercial, but I couldn’t find the commercial online. I couldn’t remember exactly what she said so I couldn’t write the post.

I’m using Windows Live Writer, part of the new Windows Essentials Pack to update today. It appears to be a very efficient update method, but we’ll see how it handles images.

Today I….

Dyed my hair. My roots were showing. Ew.

Inserting pictures seems to be simple and I’ve noticed that in addition to calling out possible misspelled words with a red line, the application bolds them. There does not seem to be an autocorrect in place, but that may just be a lack of proper settings on my part.

I just reviewed the proofing settings and there does not appear to be an autocorrect feature. I’m surprised at the lack of a simple autocorrect such as i to I.

After dying my hair, cleaning up the mess and myself; I got dressed and headed out meet some friends to help them look at houses.

I stopped at the Quiktrip to grab a cup of coffee as I usually do in the morning. I have a routine for coffee getting.

1) Get cup

2) Put approximately 1/4 cup of crushed ice in cup

3) Add 2 teaspoons of sugar

4) Add two presses of the Non Dairy Creamer button (each press equals one of those little plastic things) from the machine second from the right.

5) Swirl cup

6) While swirling cup, add Original coffee; decreasing the swirl motion as the cup fills to 1” of the top of the cup. (This is important. Any more than that and it spills out of the little hole in the lid. Any less than that and I feel like I’m not getting what I am paying for.

7) Take cup to first coffee finalizing station, stir to ensure the removal of all hotspots.

Take lid from 3rd row and close cup.

9) Walk to the right, around the coffee finalizing station and through the center aisle to pay for coffee.

I know it seems like I should be on medication (don’t worry, I totally am!) but I am a person who craves structure. I need to do the same thing every morning. If I don’t, my entire day is off just a little.

This morning as I was standing at the counter paying for my obsessive compulsive cup of coffee, I heard the strains of “Welcome to the Jungle” wafting through the air. I briefly thought that it was the radio/music system in the mini-mart but dismissed that due to the less than stellar quality of the sound.

To my absolute delight, it was a cell phone ring tone belonging to the guy who was buying lottery tickets and cigarettes at the next register. Normally; this would not have elicited such a tickled reaction, but the cell phone belonged to an 60ish year old man who looked like a farmer of some sort.

He wore a plaid red/black flannel jacket, a hat that looked to be 20 years old if it was a day and jeans that had spent many a long hour doing the dirty details of farm work. He spoke in short clipped sentences; not using anymore words than were necessary to convey his point. His face bore the tale of a man who worked hard to care of his family, land and animals. The deep creases laid across his cheeks no doubt held the tension of years of stoic resolve and unwavering dependability.

The stark contrast of the strong yet unassuming farmer and the loud, unmistakable screeching of Axl Rose brought a smile to my face.  I don’t know this man and I doubt I will every see him again but I think that I was in the company of one of the good ones. I’m pretty sure of it.

Coffee in hand, I got back in the car. I had woken with a tinge of migraine so I took some Excedrin Migraine with the rest of my morning pills. I learned long ago that it was always wise to keep some Imitrex and painkillers with me when I went out. I have been caught without them on occasion and suffered the consequences. I took an Imitrex and started to make my way to meet my friends.

I was looking forward to not only seeing them but also to seeing my Realtor Josh:

Josh was extremely helpful when I was buying my home so I was quick to recommend him to my friends. If you’re in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and looking to buy, look up Josh Van Meter.

I was also looking forward to meeting the kitties that I had heard so much about!

I of course got a little lost in the apartment complex, but it was brief and painless. A parking spot was easily found and up the stairs I went (I hate stairs).

This is Butch. He’s…..butchy.

A very affectionate, carefree kitty; Butch did not bat a whisker at my presence. He recognized me as a lap and potential source of food.

Fancypants (Fancy is her real name but I like Fancypants)

This little darling initially hopped up on the coffee table and walked toward me as if she were calm. Mid-stride she realized that she didn’t know me and this meant I was there to kill her. She took off like a cat with a bottle rocket up it’s ass and remained hidden for some time. Eventually she got brave enough to poke out from under the couch and cuddle with her humans. She sniffed around me a few times and nosed my fingers but pulled away at my attempt to scritch her chin.

I left my hand stretched out and soon enough, she was rubbing against it and allowing me to pet her head.

Josh soon arrived and off we went to the first house. It was a charming place, but had obvious foundation issues and was pretty much an immediate no go. It did however have the most awesome paint job in one of the bedrooms.

After 10 minutes of internal debate (and facebookery) I’ve decided that the paint job warrants me getting up to get the camera so I can transfer the pictures in order to post it here.

Just sat down after getting camera and finding USB transferry thing. All of a sudden have to pee like a picked up toad. Gah.

The photos are being batch resized/renamed. I can’t just pull one picture out; they all have to get organized.

Ok, back to the paint job…

I lol’d.

The next house was good, save the fist hole and body shaped dent in the wall.

Back to the apartment where we bid Josh farewell. Lunch plans were made and I headed onto my most important errand of the day.

On Friday this:

left this:

here:

which resulted in something reminiscent of this:

I’m kidding; he just told me that he he forgot it and looked upset.

He asked me to go back to the office on Friday to get it, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t shrivel up and waste away if he missed one night of gaming. He watched some age-inappropriate comedy special on Comedy Central and fell asleep by 1030. Hah!

After retrieving the memory card, I headed back home. I asked another friend for his address so that I could send some Happy 40th Anniversary flowers to him. I’m sure he has no idea that I’m going to do that because my “What is your address and no I won’t tell you why I need it”? was super subtle.

Arriving at home, I told Luke that we were going to lunch with the aforementioned friends.

He got dressed while I hemorrhaged over the cost of flowers (I decided not to have them arrive today, opting for a local shop and a Thursday delivery instead). It occurs to me that this friend may very well read this post prior to said flower arriving but I’ve already typed it and I’m not deleting it.

Luke and I headed to Johnny Carino’s for lunch. I had a delectable Shrimp Scampi while Luke wolfed down a 10” pizza.

After lunch we parted ways with our friends and headed to Ross to pick up a poster frame. I want to frame the faceplates we drew at work because their current location is not optimal.

We left Ross without a frame but with a mirror for the half-bath downstairs. Target had the frame I was looking for so we grabbed it and headed home.

I had grand plans to finish taping off and starting to paint the bathroom but i was weak and my back and shoulder were complaining.

So here I sit, on the couch; watching various documentaries and food shows.

Wild Saturday night. Woooo.

Inserting and putting a border around the pictures seems pretty easy. The preview shows well, with no changes in formatting. Here’s hoping that it stays that way when I publish it.

1. Learn to sew

2. Learn to knit

3. Lose 60 pounds

4. Save 10% of each check by year’s end

5. Eat meals with Luke, without the TV on and at the table

6. Walk at least 1 mile, at least 4 times a week

7. Visit Mom2 at least once a week

8. Visit my sister and get to know her family.

9. Watch more movies

10. Attend/Visit one educational/cultural event a month