I took a vacation day yesterday and it rawked. I went to see Rachel Getting Married. It hought it was beautifully shot, cast, acted. I loved the presentation of such a musical, creative, complex, multi-racial, multi-cultural extended family. AND, my personal reactions: I'm glad I'm not an addict. I'm glad I'm not the sister of an addict. Finally, I don't think I could last through hours and hours of wedding planning and events and meals and toasts and ceremonies, no matter how beautiful.

I watched Knocked Up last night and ate 4 chocolate chip cookies while playing with the dog. This morning Olive and I went to the dog park for an hour where we discovered a new path through the woods, which was like a giant obstacle course and she loved it. Now I've showered and dressed and getting ready to go out for bagel sammiches with the boyfriend. I'll keep you updated.

I am packing to fly to Nola tomorrow for Mardi Gras. Today I got my nails painted purple! all 20 of them! Took the monsters(my dogs) to monster camp this morning.I swear I think they would live there if I let them. Its great they come home worn out.

I spent most of today asleep because I'm recovering from a nasty sinus infection.

Oh, yay, tortilla making!

Here's a tip: Rolling them out is too much work. Just roll the dough into a ball, put it between two sheets of wax paper, and flatten it between two hardback books. It's a DIY tortilla press!

I might have to go out and get some masa now.

Haven't done much other than watch TV. I watched a cool documentary about Joe Strummer this afternoon. I did manage to work out.

I may have just finished paying off the utility bills that my ex-roommate stuck me with, which will decrease my anxiety level enormously.

My trip a few days ago to Goodwill for paperbacks has netted me books 2-7 of the Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough. I finished The Grass Crown (Marius and Sulla, the Marsic War, Mithridates turning the Eastern Mediterranean over his knee) this morning, and although I find the dialogue a bit loopy in places, her handling of facts in the actual narrative is awe-inspiring. I will definitely be attacking her immense bibliography once I'm done with the series.

My current roommate, poor kid, had wrist surgery yesterday, so I'm going to do some heavy cleaning tomorrow so he can relax in a clean apartment that smells a little less like the ghosts of 120-year-old onions.

Oh and I have threewholedaysoff! inarow! starting tomorrow.

I'm having a lazy weekend. I've been tired to the point of incapacity lately, and needed to flop. I walked down the road to a party at my friend's house on friday night, which was a lot of fun. I didn't know a hell of a lot of people there, but it was small enough and friendly enough that I got chatting to people, and made new friends. I even got invited to a party today with a couple of them. I think I should go -but might check with my other friends what time they'll get there.

Yesterday I didn't really get up at all. I watched the bulk of season two of Mad Men, and now I'm frantically anticipating series 3. It took weeks for me to recognise Pete Campbell as Conner from Angel! actually - the only reason I picked it up was that I read an article and it listed him as being in Angel, and I wanted to argue until I remembered. I hated him as Conner, have begun to quite like his character a little bit in Mad Men. I also had a bath, used a special mud face mask, and sang my lungs out with my face all crunchy. Then I used a new coconut and almond scrub, a posh one I got free with makeup, changed my bed, and went to sleep.

Today I'm probably going to this party, and then I'm off to the rooftop cinema tonight to watch The Neverending Story.

Did the breakfast ride this morning, then after that we proceeded over to the bike shop I like. They were closed for three weeks and reopened today in their new location.

Shortly after I got home my younger son arrived home. They had the regional music instrumental competition and he did well... so well that he's going to the state competition on piano. Sweet!

I then did "spring cleaning" on my wife's car- a thorough cleaning inside and out. Tomorrow we'll drive down to Schreiner University to tour the campus on Monday.

Good so far. Didn't have to work late yesterday after all, so came home and chilled out with videogames, a fire in the fireplace, snoozing cats, and beer.

Did taxes today, ran errands, and now again with the videogames and beer. Also, Depeche Mode and Pylon on the stereo.

We were supposed to meet up with my dad and his GF tomorrow for lunch and a birthday trip to Cirque du Soleil (for me AND my dad- our birthdays are one day apart), but they're both sick, so it's been postponed until next weekend. We're planning to watch The Dark Knight tomorrow night instead of the Oscars (not that we ever watch the Oscars) because... fuck the Oscars! The Dark Knight rules!

eeeeeeeewwuuugggggg blarg

does not feel well...must clean house...people coming over tomorrow...

I had so much energy this morning, I RAN to get coffee during break. My class went really well, but the second I got in the car, I was car sick, and it hasn't worn off 6 hours later.

Tomorrow we are hosting movie night for "The God of Cookery".

Went to spin class this am, came back, had lunch, showered, dressed, and headed out along with my hubby to my parents' house. We hung out there for awhile (dad opened up a thirty dollar bottle of wine and we each had an infinitesimal amount, heh) then headed off to Dunn to a redneck version of a really fancy steak place. We were celebrating my husband's birthday (which was last Sunday) so my parents paid for the meal as their gift to him. The coffee is so good you don't have to add any cream or sugar and the waitress is a sweet older lady who kept our cups filled and every need met-she even brought hubby a small adorable cake complete with candle at the end of our meal!

We then came back to my folks' house where I observed just how spoiled rotten their yellow cat is. He might as well be my fuzzy brother....after visiting and watching further cat spoilage we got in the car and came home, where I am now doing belated laundry.

I took the weekend off. That, plus my regular day off on Tuesday, means I don't have to be back at work until Wednesday!! Today was a sad day - Mr. V came for the rest of his stuff and my stepson. Very emotional all the way around. I'll be okay, I know, but it's hard. However, once they were loaded up and gone, I moved all of my bedroom furniture around, steam cleaned my stepson's room (which will now go to oldest son - my kids will each have their own rooms for the first time!), did laundry, and basically pulled myself together. Tomorrow I need to do a little shopping, and am looking forward to a leisurely Sunday.

((redvixen)) I don't know the backstory, but that sounds rough.

I've been sick since last weekend, getting up in the middle of the night for breathing treatments. This is the first full day I've been able to do anything without having to rest after 30 minutes. I'm trying hard not to overdo it.

I really really want to go to church tomorrow. We couldn't go the last two Wednesdays because the boys were too hyper, and last Sunday we were all feverish and I was afraid of making others sick. This has the cumulative effect of making me withdraw into myself even more.

So, um, hi, everyone.

I truly do not remember what I did yesterday. Oh, wait, yes I do. Thurs night I stayed over at a friend's house when it became clear it would not be smart to drive. Wasn't feeling well most of Friday (hm. related?) and mostly stayed in. This a.m. I got up and went to the garden, where I made a trellis, planted four 30' rows of sugar snap peas for the garden, weeded 30' of asparagus beds (there are asparagus starting already!!) and made macaroni with pesto for 12. I also managed to put in two 8' rows of peas in my own plot. Then I baked a bundt pan full of Amish Friendship bread and went to a dinner party. Tomorrow I'll be starting tomatoes, peppers, flowers, basil, and whatever other plants I need to start. Then I'm going to an oscar party tomorrow night. Full, fun weekend.

(((redvixen)))

The bagel sammiches were good, we went to the renovated Value Village (the same Value Village where I have been sniffed by strangers not once, not twice, but three separate times) in search of sheets for photo backdrops. I fell in love with this set of white sheets with big yellow flowers that would make just the cutest sundress. So of course I had to find a pattern at JoAnn Fabrics. Not sure when I will find time to make a dress, but eh. I have a whole container of fabric for "future projects".

Right now I have some stew simmering on the stove, a few loads of laundry going, the boyfriend napping on the couch, and Olive just proudly carried inside an icicle bigger than her.

This Saturday is going alright.

I had the day off work yesterday and went to three beaches on the west coast of Vancouver Island: China Beach, Sombrio Beach and Botanical Beach. I'm loving this unusual February in Canada although I get the feeling all this dry weather will be catching up with us this summer when we could be short on water.

nelvana, your unusual Feburary in Canada had beaches while mine involved not one but TWO trucks separately fishtailing towards me at high speed in near white-out conditions. That was a white-knuckle drive home, especially the ravine parts. While on my break at work I did our taxes. I spent ages trying to figure out the answer to taz question - I showed the picture to about 25 people but no one knew it. Our art section sucks. I'm sure a friend will know the answer but I don't wan to ask her to walk over here in this snowstorm. If I didn't have to work tomorrow I would just cocoon with the children and read to them. Oh, and my son still has scars on his face from when we were playing chess - it makes me laugh every time I see them. Enjoy your Sunday redvixen, your son must be happy to have his own space.

My best friend came down to visit because she managed to get free lift tickets to a local ski place through a friend who works there. She came down Friday and we went to the mall where we spent an awesome amount of time trying on lots of outfits, accessories, and playing with makeup. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and had a very adult dinner (complete with bottle of wine!) We then returned to my parents house (since we were staying at my brother's house) because she wanted to wear my awesome slingbacks Saturday night. I lost my house key and had to tap on the front door to have my father let my drunk ass in. (Note: It was well after midnight at this point.)
We returned to my brother's house, put on Repo!, and spent lots of time being giggly. We went to bed around 2am, but we had to be up at 5 in order to meet her friend at the ski place in time before he had to go teach classes. We rolled out of bed and got all dressed in layers and rolled out the ski place. I faceplanted twice and was super slow. (Luckily, we got a free one hour lesson with our lift passes.) I decided that skiing wasn't for me and decided to find a nice bench so I could clap for my homie, who was much better at it than me. (Neither of us had ever been on skis before and her friend taught snowboarding.)
Around 1pm, we were both getting tired, so we decided to head back to my brother's place and chill for a while. (Our evening plans were undecided at that point in time.) We went to the grocery store to pick up some munchies and to the liquor store for the obvious and went back and finished watching Repo! and then Forgetting Sarah Marshall. We decided to go back to the ski place and took her friend out to some tiny bar that was CRAMMED and had a fantastic dinner with lots more booze and some oldies cover band. We took her friend back to his hotel and returned once again to my brother's house, where we watched Sex Drive and drank ourselves stupid.
This morning, we had to roll out early (but not as early as the day before) because I had to go to work. We were so stiff and whimpering. We cleaned up the house and headed out. I gave her the tour of my office, she picked up some DD, and then she headed out. I finished work (which was crazy busy for a Sunday) and returned to my parents house to find out that pops has some crazy idea to buy another condo somewhere for me to live in. I don't know what part of "I DO NOT WANT LONG-TERM TIES TO THIS AREA" is so hard for him to understand.

And now I'm curled up in my desk chair, not looking forward to unpacking. Because that involves moving. And my legs really hurt. But I got my state tax refund!

My weekend has gone well. Went with the bf to a modern dance performance and ethiopian food on Friday which was fun (we tried out some of the dance moves at home and they didn't go so well).
Then we went to brunch and went ice skating then to art galleries. Then we went out to Queens with a bunch of my friends for Indian food.
Today I met a bunch of camp friends for lunch then met my best friend to help him buy a shower curtain and now I am being lazy and possibly skipping the meetup I should be at. I'm also supposed to go watch the Oscars at a college friend's house.
Busy weekend!

I had a terrific weekend in Boston and melismata was the perfect hostess. The weekend began with a meetup that included eideteker, his girlfriend (to whom I must apologize for not remembering your name), melismata and myself at Legal Seafoods.

On Saturday, melismata and I travelled to Salem for the day and then attended the Boston Symphony Orchestra for an evening of Mozart. Sunday was rainy and windy, so we decided to do a trolley tour of Boston. We ate supper at the originating restaurant of the Boston cream pie and we shared a serving for dessert.

I didn't get to see the postcard view of a New England winter, but I certainly got a taste of a typical Boston February. However, what I did find was a special friendship that I hope will last well past these last few days.

Homesteading:

I spent the weekend working on rebuilding the shed/barn. One of my hubbys' old friends came on Saturday and helped me figure out how to take make a single big opening out of two free storm doors. Very neat. Now, when I need to get things in and out, I can remove the center post, open both doors and have a big ole' hole.

Sunday was on my own and made platforms for feed troughs out of two salvaged/free 60's vintage bathtubs. Even thought to slope them slightly towards the drain so they will be easy to wash out.

I wish I could do this stuff full time!