Back in Fashion

It happened this week. I told someone I was wearing something I had had since high school. Upon realizing this, I was amazed and wondrous, as the size I am now and the size I am now are like night and day.

So, here's what happened. I went to a coffee shop with a friend of mine who was in town. We both wished to escape tiny humans and enjoy a conversation that was not interrupted by the tiny humans (or the husbands). Something you don't realize when you usually converse with a two-year-old and not an adult: you can't have a conversation while there are toddlers present, as they will demand your attention either by talking over you or falling on their face. So, we left the tiny humans with our husbands and escaped for two glorious hours of adult conversation at a local coffee shop.

Now, I love this coffee shop. It was the first one suggested to me upon arrival, but I nixed because it was tiny, cramped, and dark. I wound up going there because it was small and I had a tiny human who was crawling everywhere. I fell in love with it for an array of reasons, none having to do with the coffee. They have a FULL-SIZE CHANGING TABLE. They also gave my daughter a full cup of whipped cream mostly because she was so well behaved while my friend and I had coffee. EMO was maybe nine months at the time. She was crawling and I spent the majority of the time chasing her down when she'd get too far from me. (I would have just let her crawl away, but there were others in the shop and they didn't seem to think I should be letting my kid crawl around the coffee shop.) But, she didn't fuss or complain, simply went back to exploring once I brought her back to our corner. The other's times I've taken her, they've almost always given her something, though never again a full cup of whipped cream (which I ate most of because she was too busy crawling away).

The last time I'd gone to the coffee shop to get coffee with my dad, they'd totally redone the place and it felt bigger, brighter, and totally different, so I wanted to go sit in it and enjoy it without a toddler. While the barista was crafting our lattes, he mentioned that my jean jacket was a hot trend and they were "totally back." (Yes, he did, in fact, say that to me.) We proceeded to have a conversation about how things keep coming back in fashion. He really wanted the 80s to return and for men to wear crop tops. (I was not aware that was a thing for dudes in the 80s, but what the hell do I know? I wore whatever my mother put me in throughout my life in the 80s.) My friend mentioned henleys were coming back in and she'd just gotten rid of her whole collection of henleys, to which I responded, "I only ever get rid of stuff that doesn't fit. If it fits, I keep it just in case."

This is very true. Hence why I have a jean jacket from high school. I also have my Doc Martens from high school. All three pairs. (Which until two years ago when I bought a pair of full price Tory Burch flats, were the most expensive shoes I had ever bought for myself at $120 for the shoes and $110 for the sandals.) I have a sweatshirt and top from Abercrombie. They belonged to my brother and he rejected them. They swam on me in high school, they fit now. The jean jacket was also too big when originally purchased. And here's why: my mom refused to believe me when I told her I wore an XS.

Yup. She refused to believe that at seventeen I knew what size I wore. I had been in denial for a few years, but by that point, I had owned up to the fact I wore a size zero. I accepted it and had embraced the fact I was non-existant. I knew, in the back of my head, that so many of my peers would have loved to buy size zero jeans from American Eagle, who have been jealous of me as I bought double zero jeans from Abercrombie (yeah, double zero. I was double non-existent at Abercrombie & Finch). I wore XS shirts because I had no boobs and going to a bigger size didn't make the shirts any longer.

My mother, who did my laundry, honestly thought I was wearing clothes that were too small simply based on what these items looked like when she washed them. She commented quite often about the size of the shirts when she'd washed them, but never when they were on me. She bought me a crop top. I was never brave enough to really wear it, but she did buy it for me. I've no idea why. I was sixteen. She told me I ought to embrace the body I had at the moment as one day it'd be gone.

Like usual, she was right. And I did listen to her, hence why I owned up to the fact I was not a size 4 and began buying the size that fit: zero. (And man did I feel better about myself when I no longer had a saggy butt and had to wear belts to keep my too large pants up.)

Anyways, in the spring of my junior year, for some reason, we were at Old Navy. I didn't really shop at Old Navy in high school after I embraced my non-existence because they didn't make non-existent clothing. So, my mother and I were at Old Navy and she proclaimed she was buying me clothes. This was strange for a wide array of reasons. She had decided when I was ten she wasn't ever buying me clothing and since I was thirteen I had to pay for my own clothes. Also, I didn't NEED anything. By this point in my life, I had enough clothing to clothe the entire school and then some. (Not that many people wore non-existant sized clothing. This was tragic on many levels, most being I could never trade clothes with my girlfriends as they all wore size four or larger.) But, I was not about to argue with my mom paying for clothes, so I went along for the ride.

We both really liked what the mannequin was wearing, so she agreed I could get the jean jacket and red checkered shirt. When we went to get the clothes, I discovered Old Navy actually carried XS. (They did not have size zero pants, though. I did check.) I grabbed the XS, but my mother said, "No. You're not that small."

I think I blinked.

"You need a small."

I did not argue with her. I simply agreed and got the small shirt and jacket.

As whenever I have new clothes, I was super excited to wear the new outfit and planned to wear it on a field trip to the art museum in downtown Chicago. The morning of the trip, I excitedly put my new stuff on and realized a major flaw.

Everything was too big. The shirt was swimming on me, especially in the chest area. Even with my super bra (either filled with air or water, as Victoria Secret carried both to give you bigger boobs and since I had none and everyone who made clothing seemed to think us non-existant people had huge boobs, I had to wear padded bras and the ones filled with air or water looked more natural), the shirt was too big. I put the coat on over it and the coat was down passed my knuckles-- which was great. I loved sleeves that were too long, but the jacket was not the fitted, cute thing it was on the mannequin. It was wide and boxy.

I wore the outfit anyway, as I was running late and figured that at least my pants fit. I didn't take the jacket off all day and no one told me I looked cute.

I never wore the shirt and jacket again while in high school. I've no idea where the shirt went, but I hung onto the jacket. I think my mom sent me off to college with it. I wore it one day and discovered the pockets were sewn in such a manner they gave me inside pockets that were perfect for my ID. So, I wore it a lot in college because it had extra pockets. The jacket even went to Scotland with me. When cooler weather rolls around, I always unearth it from where ever it is and start wearing it again.

As I stood in the coffee shop at thirty-three-years-old and now wearing a size 8, I stared at the jacket I've merrily worn since I became a size 4. It's always fit since that time. Always. (Except when I was six months pregnant and it didn't button over my humungous boobs.) Was my jacket kinda like the Traveling Pants? It was kinda like a traveling coat. It's been to Scotland, Alaska, Texas, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Oklahoma. It's likely to go off and go to more places because every time I've sat down to replace the stupid thing, I can never find a better coat. And yes, I have sat down to replace it a few times. There's just never a coat that's...well, that coat. So, I give up and just go back to wearing a coat bought by my mother in 2001.

And, guess what? I'm totally in fashion right now with my sixteen-year-old denim coat.

Diaper Update

Wiggles is now almost 11 months old. She weights 19 pounds and I've no clue how tall she is as I haven't gotten her to be still long enough to measure her. Her legs have finally chunked out a bit, but she is still long and skinny for a baby. Likely because she is NEVER still. Even when she's asleep she's not still.

We still battle for naps, still have issues sleeping through the night. But sometimes it does happen: sleeping through the night.

Only we had a problem: diaper overflow.

My beloved Luvs were no longer containing the outflows. In the past, when this occured, it was time to go to the next size up. While she was in the weight limit for the diapers in the past, her legs were usually a little too skinny for the next size, her her loads were ready so we just strapped her in and hoped for the best. This time, she is no where near the weight limit for the size 4. She is firmly in size three, yet they do not hold enough pee.

Pee is my enemy now, not poop. (Unless she pees and poops at the same time, then it is a disaster.) During the day, I can change her diaper every two hours. However, HUGE COMMA, at night, I am not waking her up to change her diaper. It ends in tears. Trust me. I woke her once at four to change her diaper because she hadn't woken at her usual time for a bottle. I'd hoped I could get the wet diaper off, put a dry on one, and put her back down.

Not so lucky.

So, the next day, I went to investigate diapers, just as I had when she was still in my belly. This time, though, I had more options. Did you know there are like two different versions of diapers for her size in Pampers? And Huggies? But Luvs only had one type of diapers and they simply do not hold enough pee to go all night long without a diaper change. But, they do make diapers that go that long. After spending a little too long staring at diapers, I picked up small packs of Pampers Cruisers and Huggies Snug and Dry. Both claimed they held 12 hours worth of wetness.

Pampers Cruisers were up first. I put it on her before her nap that day--which she actually took! It was two hours long. In the Luvs, I'd have a very heavy diaper after a two hour nap. With the PC diapers, I had a half full diaper of pee. Happy, I changed her diaper and put her in a Huggies one. Instantly, I hated the Huggies on. I don't like them-- plain and simple. They seem flimsy. At least her legs fit into the holes this time. She wore it for four hours while crawling around and no leaks. I've used the Huggies Snug and Dry at bedtime and so far, no leaks and no overly full diapers. Same with the Pampers.

She's slept through the night at least three times since I bought the new diapers and only one time did Pilot Boy put the wrong diaper on her at night. I had a damp baby come morning when she spent the entire night in the Luvs diaper (she usually wakes up when wet, but she's growing or something).

So, after we finish the Luvs, we're switching to Pampers Cruisers and I will forlornly stare at my empty pocket book but no longer have to change her pants every three or four hours.

Buying for Baby

I'm feeling greatly accomplished. Since officially entering into my third trimester (not semester, no matter how many times I say 'semester' it's not a semester), I've been in a blind panic because of one simple question posed to me by one of the preggo apps I've got.

The wall color for the nursery.
Shermin-Williams, Grey Screen

What was this question?

It was: What was the first item you bought for baby?

So, what was the first item I bought for my kid?

Paint.

Seriously. When I read the inquiry, I hadn't actually bought anything for the kid. Yeah, I had some clothes, a few pacifiers, and some other random things, but I had not bought any of those items. They'd been given to me. I personally had not bought a thing for the baby. And when I did finally buy something for the baby, it was paint for her room.

So, I began to buy stuff. I got some snappy t-shirts my mom suggested, I bought an adorable Peter pan collared shirt on sale from The Gap that won't fit her till she's six months or so, I went out and bought canvas and paint to make artwork for her room, and...I...bought...a....crib (and a mattress, as cribs don't actually come with the mattress. I had to explain this to Pilot Boy, as he couldn't figure out why the crib failed to come with the mattress).

The crib. 

In my life, I've bought very few "expensive" items. I think the most expensive thing I personally have ever bought was the eight hundred dollar area rug. I had a mini heart attack after I hit the ORDER button.
The crib I bought wasn't ANYWHERE near eight hundred bucks. No, I'm not that mental. I also didn't pay for most of it. (Gift vouchers are amazing, as are grandparents.) However, after the area rug, this crib is the second most expensive thing I've hit the ORDER button for. Granted, out of pocket, I wasn't paying much, but still.

Yet, I did not wake up for the first time this week in a blind panic about the lack of baby items for the baby. I mean, besides ordering a crib, I've also signed up for those pesky birthing classes. And I announced later this month I was ordering the car seat and stroller. (It was pointed out to me the car seat is a must need, as you can't take the baby home without one. Pilot Boy seemed to think we could just store her in the trunk with Basil. Kind of like how he didn't think we needed a crib because she could just sleep in the crate. Without Basil, as Basil would sleep on the floor. Clearly, Pilot Boy is confused. The Baby is not a dog. You cannot put the Baby in the crate. Will she crawl in there someday and try to sleep in there? Likely. Will Basil like this? No. Will it happen? Yeah.)

Dream light

Next month, I plan to order the furniture for the room. I'm getting a dresser and a nightstand.

Pilot Boy said I don't need a nightstand. Clearly, he wants to be woken up fully when I feed the baby in the middle of the night when I turn on the overhead lights in order to see what I am doing instead of turning on an adorable little table lamp. Also, he's never read anything about pregnancy or afterwards, as he ought to know that breastfeeding requires things. I've seen it in books. You need a 'breastfeeding' station. Thus, a nightstand.

(Also, I know if I do not order the nightstand now, the kid will never get one. Just like I don't actually have one. Nor does the guest bedroom. We don't actually have any side tables either. We use stools. Yeah. We've been married for six years and have no side tables or bedside tables and use stools. Okay, we've got one table that Pilot Boy claims is a bedside table, but until this house we never used it as a bedside table. It also doesn't have a drawer, it's just a higher than normal side table which is huge. It's tall because the bed Pilot Boy had in college was lofted and it's huge because, well, I don't know why it's so big. He did build it for me as after I showed up in his life he realized I had no where to put my glasses at night and I think he got tired of me trying to find them in the morning.)

I plan to get new knobs.
I hate those knobs, but it has everything else I want. 

Now, I plan to use the dresser as a changing table. Kill two birds with one stone, you know? So, I also ordered a changing pad thing to mount on top of the dresser. The only other major item needed for the nursery: a glider.

The ones I've found that I like are either way too pricey or now sold out. Everything else is ugly as sin and I don't want it in the room. Will I actually get a glider before the baby shows up? I not likely. So, where will I sit at three am to feed a squalling newborn?

No idea. I'll likely wind up on the couch.

It's Research, Not Stalking...Honest

When I first began writing seriously (meaning past naming characters, putting them in designer clothing and making up some dialogue), I never did research. I sat in a cold, concrete floored room at the back of The Ditch and wrote what I knew.

Pages upon pages of what I knew.

Then, I began to make outlandish things up.

And I filled pages upon pages with words.

I never sat around thinking, "Hey, I don't know enough about that, I should look it up."

Granted, this was the day and age before the internet was in your hand at all times, but the Internet was a happening thing and I believe I sometimes ventured over to use it to research things whilst still in high school. I know I used it in college.

I hated the internet.

I'm honest. I hated with with a flaming passion because I could NEVER find what I wanted. Throughout college, I sat in the dusty library and did my research using books that sometimes hadn't seen the light of day since the sixties.

And I still wrote.

Still filled pages of notebook paper with words, still typed Word docs filled with stories and characters I grew to love.

But, never once did I research anything passed maybe looking up a meaning of a name I was unable to find within one of the numerous baby name books I own.

It never occurred to me that as a writer of works of fiction, I'd have to do research, have to do something similar to what I did when writing an essay for school.

Then, one day, my mother informed me I ought to "look something up" so it sounded like I knew what I was talking about. I do not remember WHAT she told me to look up, only she created a monster.

I am a research monster now.

I'm still not any good at it, the internet still fails ninety five percent of the time to tell me what I want it to tell me, but I research everything now. Hours of my life are wasted on various websites looking up random bits of information. I've spent time hunting down slang used in the Old West for ONE SENTENCE.  I've wasted time trying to find how a British person would say "crazy" in the twenties. I spent an hour trying to find out when the rollerball pen was invented and how widely used it was in the 1940s. I spent at least two days searching floor plans online till I finally gave up and made my own-- just so I could describe something better. I've lost track of how many time I've made sure the stupid pop culture reference I've made actually would be known by certain characters and are the right time period.

It's a lot of freaking work.

And that's just for the fan fiction I've been working on as if recent.

Last summer I spent days on end looking at school catalogues to get ideas for course to stick students in. I've wasted hours making sure the schedules I made for them actually worked. I've spent years trying to figure out what colleges some of my characters are going to attend, though I don't plan to actually write about them IN college. I've spent days staring at a map of Glasgow on a real estate site trying to find a flat. For a fictional character. (I did find one. Well, two. Then I merged them, as what I wanted doesn't actual exist.) I've scoured the internet for images of interiors so I'd have a good idea how to describe them. (One day just to find out they'd remodeled the building I was trying to write about so I really had to just use what was in my head. No one thought to take pictures of the fourth floor Adam Smith lecture hall before they redid it...)

Hours of my life were lost when I was working on HYRM and I got lost in a world of quotes. Quotes ate me alive for days on end.

Many of the clever things I come up with in my original works as well as my fan fics no one bothers to really take note of...it's like I always thought: no one notices. They are reading and enjoying the story-- not looking for symbolism, not looking for those little things.

Then, I got feedback when someone noticed the painstaking effort I put forth.

One of my stories follows two real people, who are quite famous. I went back to my roots in my fan fics and started writing about actual people instead of fictional ones. I had the idea in my head for awhile and it wanted out, so I let it out. Yeah, you might think it is rather teenybopper of me, and I think it is, but I like the two OCs I created and if I REALLY wanted to, I could change the names of the famous people, change the names of projects, etc and it'd be orignal. So, I guess you can say I'm just too lazy to change the inspiration. (10p technically started out as a fan fic, only I changed the main romantic interests name, then his profession, thus, it's not. See? No...that's fine.)

Anyways, I've become somewhat fixated with where these two people WERE. I don't care where they are right now, I care where they WERE. I get caught up in trying to figure it out, till I suddenly realize what I'm doing and I laugh.

I'd be worried if I hadn't done the same thing when I was writing some of my original works. Granted I cannot scurry the internet to figure out where my characters were located, but if you saw the pile of paper I carry around for RAB, you'd see I'm rather keen to know every detail.

It wasn't always like this. Once upon I time, I just made stuff up and called it a day.

(Except that one time when I was in high school and I drew a map of the town RAB takes place in just so I could name the street's D used to get from one end of town to another. I could have just made that up, but...I didn't. I made an entire map. On lots of paper. I still have it and use it too. Well, I did have it...I'm not sure where it got off to now that I think about it. Hopefully it survies the move.)

Where Poor Basil Sits and Waits...

A month ago, Brother Unit showed up for a visit. Upon arriving, he requested we go to Thunderbird Falls to go for a hike. While not my ideal way to begin a trip after a seven hour flight, I did not fly anywhere. In the summer when my family invaded, Pilot Boy took my dad and Brother Unit there on the day they arrived because my dad wanted to "do" something.

My mother and I, being the sane ones in the family, remained here. In the house.

Because my brother and his friend weren't sane, I went along for this post flight hike. Because I'm not actually sane, I wore a mini skirt and leggings to go hiking.

Yeah, you read that right.

So, Thunderbird Falls is...a waterfall. It's an "easy" hike. (It's in quotes because there are hills and if you fail to know how I feel about hills, well, then we'll have to talk later.) A few weeks before Brother Unit and Friend arrived, Pilot Boy and I went there to do an afternoon hike. It was snowing and the snow was melting. All at the same time. Thanks to the record snow fall we had this past winter, by the time Brother Unit and Friend showed up, there was still a good deal of snow, but the creek/river/water thing was melted further.

And for some unknown reason, Pilot Boy went to investigate the water. Why? We won't ever know. What we do know: he fell in.

He did.

He brushed it off as the piece of "ice" he was on wasn't solid. It had nothing to do with the fact he lacks grace and coordination.

After checking out the raging water fall, we headed back. We were almost to the Hill of Doom (have you ever tried to walk down a steep included covered in melting snow? It's not fun. Highly likely you'll end up on your butt.) when Pilot Boy started searching his pockets. He handed me the dog and his backpack, but wouldn't tell me what he lost.

So, I assumed the worst.

He lost the keys. We were trapped in Thunderbird Falls!

No, he handed me those when I asked.

He walked off and jumped back into the river. The three of us left that weren't on four legs or in the water, stared at him. (Basil was like WHY WE STOP? WE ARE WALKING HERE PEOPLE.)

"What did he lose?" Brother Unit asked.
"No clue. He won't tell me."
"Was it his wallet? He was checking his pockets."
"Oh, crap."

Images of having to get new IDs flooded my mind. Credit cards. Money. IDs. I was getting a headache just imagining the issues if he'd lost his wallet.

Pilot Boy didn't seem to be making any headway in his search. I finally handed Basil Bea off to Brother Unit (Basil: SERIOUSLY, WHY ARE WE NOT WALKING PEOPLE?) I hopped down to where Pilot Boy was searching the ice cold waters for...something.

"What did you lose?"
He looked at me, then back into the water. He moved a rock.
"Come on, I won't get mad. What did you lose? Your wallet?"
"No," he sneered at me. He thought I was insane to think he'd lost his wallet.

Confession: I'm amazed he hasn't lost his wallet yet. Or forgotten it somewhere.

Pilot Boy looses things. It's how he rolls. Just this week, he lost the power cord to his laptop, rendering the laptop useless. As far as either of us can tell, the airplane he worked on last week ate it.

"What did you lose?"

I honestly couldn't figure out what he could have lost in the water that he was trying to find. I knew he had his phone, I had the keys and he claimed he still had his wallet. What else could he have lost?

"What did you lose?" I repeated.
"My ring."

It took a moment for those words to sink in along with the sheepish expression painting his features. He was scared how I was going to react to the fact he'd lost his wedding ring.

He fell in a freezing cold stream and his ring fell off.

I started laughing. Pilot Boy looked at me like I was deranged. I turned around, climbed back up to where Brother Unit and Friend were located and dumped the backpack.

"What did he lose?" Brother Unit asked.
"His ring."
"His wedding ring?"
"Yup."

Brother Unit also thought I was insane for laughing, as I was still laughing. Friend also thought I was a bit off my rocker. After securing Basil to a tree root (WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? WHY ARE YOU GETTING IN THE WATER? WHY ARE WE NOT WALKING? YOU SAID WE WERE GOING FOR A WALK, NOT A STAND) I hopped into the stream with Pilot Boy and Brother Unit and Friend stood along the shore, keeping a look out for something shiny. Friend took photos and tried to use her flash. I moved rocks and pieces of ice out of the way.

I stayed in that stream till the water began to seep into my hiking boots. (I did wear hiking boots with my mini skirt/legging combo.) I hopped out and watched Pilot Boy continue to search in vain. A few times Friend and I thought we saw something, but we never did find it.

Basil began to whine at some point. (HONESTLY, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? WATER IS EVIL. GET OUT OF THE WATER AND WALK ME. NOW.)

Somehow, I guess the story got out at Pilot Boy's work he lost his wedding ring. His boss asked him the other day if he was out of the dog house yet.

"Why?"
"You lost your wedding ring. Isn't your wife mad at you?"
"Actually, she wasn't very upset," Pilot Boy admitted.

And the boss looked at him as if he was mental. So, Pilot Boy came home and asked me if I was mad at him for losing the ring.

Do you want to know why I am not pissed as hell my husband lost his wedding ring? Because I've been waiting five years for him to lose it. And not just because he loses things. Granted, due to the fact he must remove the ring to whenever he flies (don't ask me why)---and it is highly likely he'll just randomly lose it due to that--- that was not why I have been sitting around waiting for it to go MIA. The reason I've been waiting for it leave him is because it was like two sizes too big. And he refused to get it sized.

When we bought our wedding rings, the lady at the jeweler handed him the ring sizer thing and said, "Try that one."

He stuck the first one she handed him. She asked him how it fit and he said, "I don't know."

"Is it too big? Does it slide off easy? Can you get it off?"

Pilot Boy slid it off, shrugging. He had no clue what to tell her about the size, since he'd never worn a ring before, so he said it was fine. This is typical Pilot Boy behavior when he's doing something he'd rather not and doesn't care. He just wanted a ring: plain, silver. The end.

He got that.

And within a few days of putting it on his finger, I knew it was way too big. I told him he was going to lose it. He kept saying he'd get it sized when we went back to Chicagoland, but he never did. Then we went to the Dirt Hole and they told him he had to remove it to fly. So then he refused to get it resized, even when it flew off his hand and across the room a few times. A few times since we've been in Alaska, he's said he wanted to get it sized, but then he decides no. It's fine.

Then he lost it.

And I got to say, "I told you so."

Best. Moment. Ever.

Hence, why I laughed. Because I've never really got him like that before. Even if I knew I was right and I told him so, he always has some comeback. That day, he just looked sheepish.

At least he didn't lose it like he loses most things: by forgetting them, leaving them behind.

It's been a month since he lost the ring and he still thinks he's going to find it if we go back to Thunderbird Falls. I roll my eyes. That ring is gone, dude.

Gone.

I bought him a replacement ring for a dollar. It was too big. He put it on the dog's collar and yesterday he broke it when he threw her collar at the fireplace for some reason. The ring shattered. At least I only paid a dollar. I'll get a smaller one the next time I go downtown. I'll buy a few.

Till I can drag him to get a proper ring, which might be in ten years....

And So I Got a Flu Shot

I don't remember when I began to get flu shots. I think I was in college. Maybe. Or high school. I honestly do not remember. I do remember getting one while I in college. It was a big deal or something. I also remember being sent to the doctor's office to get a flu shot while I was in college when I'd come home for fall break.

The first fall after I graduated from college, I got a free one provided by my employer. I thought it was a wee bit odd to be stabbed with a needle by a woman who I worked for who was a pharmacist. Before this point in time, I had been unaware a pharmacist could give shots.

They can.

After I got married, I didn't get a flu shot, because I quit my job a week before they had the free clinic. So I just didn't get one. My husband did. He was chased around the office so they could spray it up his nose. (Husband is against flu shots. Or shots in general, which is hilarious, as he gets more shots then I have had in a lifetime.) The next fall, I didn't get one again, as I was based in the Dirt Hole and never left my house. I didn't see the need for me to get one, as I never went anywhere. Plus, at this point, I was fully integrated into the "military family" so I had to get one at the clinic on base. And they were only offering the flu mist, so it was rumored. While I am all for this, my nose isn't. Due to the fact it was always clogged with snot, I didn't think this form of flu vaccine would benefit me much. So I just didn't get one.

The next fall, the only reason I got one was because my mother and father made me. (And by made me I mean they bugged me till I drove myself to Walgreens and had a battle with the pharmacist who wanted to submit it to the insurance company, which due to the fact I'm "military," I didn't want them to do, because I was sure it wouldn't be covered, as I could get one at the clinic. Well, not really, as I was located a few thousand miles away from the clinic, but whatever. The pharmacist didn't want me to pay for it and I had to force her to let me pay.) However, since that point in time, I didn't get one. Why?

Mostly because I avoid the hospital/clinic at all costs. I'm not sure what it is about this place, but the hospital/clinic is always hopping. I have yet to go there when the parking lot isn't filled or almost full. (Even at 11 pm on a summer night, there was an alarming amount of cars still in the parking lot.) Usually, one spends more time driving around the parking lot than doing ones business in the hospital/clinic. So, I only go there when things are dire. And getting a flu shot isn't dire, as I am a hermit. (The best dressed one, too.)

However, the other day, during my search for an Alaskan Postcard and discovering, like bears, postcards hibernate I wound up getting a flu shot. I am serious about postcards going into hibernation. A few weeks ago, I swear to god, postcards were EVERYWHERE. Then, when I need one, they all vanish. So, I decided to go to the BX (think Target, but for only special people with magic cards) as the BX has a huge tourist section. Every BX I've ever been in has always has "local" postcard racks.

Well, the post cards all went into hibernation even in the BX, as the only postcard rack there was for postcard DVDs. Seriously? I just wanted a flipping postcard (well, two) and not a DVD. I also didn't want a card, which was all I was finding. Seriously.

Before I made this tragic discovery, though, I was stopped at the entry to the store by a guy in fatigues asking if I wanted a flu shot.

I noticed the random table in the front of the store the minute I entered the "mall" the shop is located in. It was a table filled with quite a few guys and girls in fatigues, sitting around looking rather bored with a huge red box on the table, but I couldn't read the sign on taped to the table due to the fact I was concentrating on walking. (I wore my Seychelles Romance Boots for the second day in a row and my feet were rebelling. For image of shoe, see banner.) So, I was walking putting one foot in front of the other and not falling over. As I walked into the store, though, one of the guys jumped up and looked excited.

And I thought, dear god, what the hell does he want?

"Ma'am?" he called over to me, as since becoming part of the military family I've become a 27 year old ma'am. Since I knew he was speaking to me, I paused in my careful walking. "Can I interest you in a flu shot?"

I stopped fully and stood in the Hollywood starlet pose in order to steady myself. (Legs crossed, stand up straight, hold your arms behind you.) I stared at the table and realized it was one of those bio boxes that was the red box. They also had tackle boxes full of flu shots. I am serious. Fish tackle boxes full of syringes.

Now, I know what y'all are thinking. Are you going to seriously get a shot in the front end of a store that is like Target? Located in a mall?

While I thought this was a wee bit odd, it wasn't all that odd at the same time. So I said, "Okay. Sure."

This caused a flurry of activity at the table. One guy leaped up and grabbed a handful of syringes and another woman grabbed a clipboard. She asked for the magic card, so I handed it to her. The other guy, the one who kept calling me ma'am and making me feel old (even though I wasn't dressed old, I was more than likely dressed too young for my age, but WHATEVER), asked me what kind of shot I wanted.

"We've got the mist and the traditional."

I looked at him finally and he looked really happy about this information. I was unaware they just simply offered the traditional sort to anyone, as for the past four years they've been chasing my husband down with the mist in hand. (And sometimes they seriously chased him.) I thought a moment, which one did I want? Well, I was not dressed for a shot. And by that I mean, I was not wearing a short sleeve or sleeve less top. I had a white dress shirt on, plus a blazer. And there was no way, I could roll my sleeve up to get a shot, so I said, "Mist."

This excited the guy yet again, so he handed me a plastic sheet and said, "Read this and if you answer NO to each question, we're good to go."

The girl who took the magic card handed it back to me, so I read the laminated sheet while stuffing my magic card into my bag. Since I had answered NO to each one, the guy grabbed a syringe and said, "Now, breathe like normal."

I tried not to laugh. As my nose was actually clear that day, thus I wasn't breathing like normal. Normally I breathe through a thick layer of mucus. (I bet you really wanted to know that.) So, I took a breath in and he shot some liquid into my right nostril. Then he repeated it in the other nostril. He then handed me a cheap, paper tissue and said, "For drippage. Don't blow your nose for 10 minutes."

To which I almost laughed again. As I don't usually blow my nose, but I almost always have the sniffles. Joys of allergies, people. So, taking my cheap tissue to press to my nose, I strutted off in my Romance Boots and found out the postcards at the BX were also in hibernation, so I'd have to buy a packet. So I bought a packet of postcards, strutted over to the clinque counter, got some eye makeup remover and eyelash primer and then left. (After getting my second Pumpkin Spice Latte of the seasons at the Starbucks down the way from the BX.)

So, that's how I got a flu shot. Because I wanted two postcards.

First Time for Everything

Every so often, the First Alert System gets tested. They tell you it is just a test. They then tell you that this alert system will alert you to things of danger.

It went off last night.

Scared the living shit out of me.

I had just gone to bed, turned on the classical music channel and was minding my own business when the horrible sound emitted from the radio and scared me to death.

I know I've lived here for over a year, but I don't know where anything is save Anchorage, Palmer, Homer, Eagle River, Wasilla, and Fairbanks. Oh, and I kind of know where Barrow is, but other than that, I've got no clue. So, as the guy was reading off the tsuami warmings for the state, I was like OMG. WFT? Then he said the wave would his Seward at....

And he got CUT OFF. WFT?

I have no clue where Seward is. I just know it's a highway.

So I took to Twitter. Why did I take to Twitter? Because the Internet and I do not get along. I scrolled through Twitter for a moment then tried to find something on the Internet.

It failed. I could not find out WHERE in Alaska the thing was going to hit. All I knew was that from downtown you can see water. And it connects to the ocean at some point. After a half hour of searching, I finally got smart and searched ALASKA on Twitter and thank god for the people of Twitter. It took me only maybe 5 minutes of scrolling to get the actual alert the guy had been reading. I then used Google Maps and found all the places. I then searched ANCHORAGE on Twitter and found people stating that Anchorage was safe due to how far inland we are and how high above sea level we are. Or something along those lines. By this point, it was one am in the morning. And I was wide awake.

I shut my iPhone off and contemplated getting up and taking to the actual internet on the computer, but just stayed in bed. I got up at seven and watched the "Today Show" which I could not figure out if they were live or an hour behind. They kept saying the wave was going to hit CA on Alaska time, not an hour ahead like it should have been. I think they were live...an hour before the station was playing it. I couldn't tell. I then sat through all of Obama's press conference. Then I realized I should go buy fruit, so I did that.

I did not exercise today, as I am kind of zombie like, seeing I got like maybe three or four hours of actual sleep.

I Like Rain

So, its 14 Feb. Last year, I was somewhere in Canada. I have no idea where I was, but I know for a fact we were travelling on this day last year.

Last year my husband gave me a mug for V-day. I didn't give him anything. I told him not to buy me anything, but he NEVER listens.

I liked Valentines day till I got to junior high. In sixth grade there was no making boxes for cards, no party, no requirement to bring little pieces of cardboard to hand out. Thus, by the time I got through 8th grade, Valentines days was just another day as far as I was concerned. No one every gave me a card in junior high. I did not have any friends throughout most of junior high who would think about the silent girl with the glasses and braces. So, I was like, "Whatever."

Once I got to high school, I never once did anything remotely romantic on Valentines day. I don't remember any presents or anything. I kind of thought it was dumb, and it usually made me kind of cranky when everyone was walking around in red, hearts were everywhere and everyone was giggling. This was also why I hated spring with a flaming passion till I was 22. Valentines day began the "spring fever." What is that? It is when people "get together." Everyone holds hands, people make out in the halls, etc. It annoyed me to no end, even when I had a boyfriend. Till I met Pilot Boy and I became one of those people that annoyed me. And TRUST ME, I annoyed myself.

When I was a freshman in college, I had a boyfriend for Valentines days. I didn't really like him any more, and I did not want him to come up, he but was kind of sappy and thought Valentines Day was a big deal. So he showed up and we had a fight and I thought we broke up. I didn't feel upset by the whole breaking up (his throwing things at me upset me more). Anyways, after he finally left, I took a shower, put my face on, and met B, C and M for dinner. I was never in my life so thankful to have friends. I am totally serious. I ended up watching Disney movies all night.

The next time I had a boyfriend for Valentines Day, it was the last day I ever saw him.

When I was a senior in college, I had no boy on the actual V-Day, but someone sent a red ball to my house. Yeah, it was a red rubber ball, that said Happy Valentines Day from You Know Who.

I did not know who. I had no clue. And there was no way to trace it in the least. My mom had seen the balls on a news story the day before and was more than surprised to see a ball arrive at her house for me, while I was at college. She sent me an email to inform me it had arrived. I asked everyone I knew if they had sent it to me (confused on my they would not mail to my box at school). No one knew what the hell I was talking about. When I went home the next time, my mother showed it to me, and I had no clue who had sent it. But my mother and I had a pretty good idea who would do something along these lines.

I made a big point when I met Pilot Boy that I didn't like Valentines Day. I also told him I hated flowers. He kind of stared at me. But, to his credit, he's only given me a flower once that was alive. He gave me a black plastic rose and a plant. Yeah, he gave me a plant when I had my appendix out. And he gave me a rose...I can't remember why. But I remember not being upset in the least when he handed it to me and apologized for giving it to me, but he felt like I needed a rose. I took it home, put it in a vase and it lived FOREVER. I am serious. It lived forever.

I do not think he got me anything when we lived in the Dirt Hole for V-Day, and our first V-Day as a couple he gave me an antique bracelet from WWII that was made for girls who had pilot boyfriend. I wear it daily. I had told him not to buy me anything, as I wanted to go to this fancy restaurant in St. Louis for dinner. So I had not gotten him anything. He woke me up that morning and said, "Do you want your gift now or later?"

So, I ran around town all day trying to find him something. I failed. He got a handmade card and a box of chocolate and I felt like total shit when he handed me the bracelet. Kind of like when he handed me the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee mug while we were in Canada. I was like, God, I suck.

This year, we both got our presents early. I got him a new black backpack and he got me a TARDIS Cookie jar.

Quest for Sushi

On Thursday, I decided I wanted sushi for lunch. Strangely, Fred Meyer has okay sushi and I also needed milk. I opened the garage door and peeked in the garage to discover Suzi the Subaru was hanging out in the garage. Due to the fact it snowed, Pilot Boy took the Monstrosity to work.

I decided to do something really stupid at this point: I was going to take Suzi the Subaru out in the snow.

Why was this stupid? Aren't all Subaru's 4 wheel drive and made for racing through the snow?

Well, yeah, you'd think that, right? At one point in time Suzi did do such things.  See that picture above? Yeah, all Pilot Boy did was back up and drive off. When the car lived in the Midwest, Suzi the Subaru seemed to like the snow and cold.

Then we put her on a ferry and she went away for awhile. When we saw her again, she had a crack windshield and smelled strongly of gas when ever we turned her on. So we took her to fix her windshield and then found out she had been recalled for the cold weather/gas issue. So, we made the tragic mistake of taking her to...the...Subaru...dealer...in....town.

Suzi has never been the same since.

Things for Suzi went bad when we picked her up form the dealer. Five minutes of driving, the engine light came on. The next day the dealer called and told us because the car wasn't from Alaska, Subaru rejected the recall, so WE HAD TO PAY. We also discovered, the dealer had "fixed" other things. The seat was all whacked and the turbo gauge did not work. They wouldn't fix Suzi unless we brought her in and paid them MORE MONEY, so we took her to a independent Subaru shop. After two tries, the turbo finally worked and Suzi no longer was trying to kill us (her brakes didn't work right after the dealer was done with her either.)

However, after all this trauma, Suzi the Subaru decided she didn't like Alaska. Especially winter. She...won't work right. She flies. I am serious. I think Suzi the Subaru wants to be an airplane.

Pilot Boy thinks if we got snow tires all Suzi's problems would be solved. I think not. I think Suzi hates winter. I also think her brakes are still jacked up. But what do I know?

Anyways, all ready knowing that Suzi the Subaru doesn't like winter and refuses to stop, I took her out on Thursday. It has snowed overnight and Anchorage doesn't own snow plows. They own snow packers. But those hadn't been out yet. Anyways, I put myself into the car and backed out. Everything went fine till I went from our subdivision to the main road.

I wanted to go left.

I ended up facing the opposite direction I wanted to be heading and in the wrong lane.

Why?

Suzi the Subaru decided to spin in a circle. I moved in slow motion as I just kept turning after I made the left hand turned. I have never spun out in a car before. Ever. Even when I drove three hours to work in a snow storm in a car with two wheel drive. And no snow tires. But, there I was, turning around in a circle in the middle of the street. I came to a stop and decided I'd just to the way I was facing. Left hand turns in Suzi were dangerous. So, I laughed like a maniac and drove down the road and went the long way to Fred Meyer. I pretty much kept laughing like a maniac all day and was kind of off my rocker (which might explain why I made the adventure for sushi in the first place).

During this long trip to Fred Meyer, Suzi tried to go into the middle of the intersection on a very busy road (she refused to stop sliding down the road). On the way home, she tried to spin again on the same road, only I was making a right hand turn.(After the first spin, the whole trip was right hand turns, so I kept singing, "Just keep turning! Just keep turning!"

Let me tell you about Thursday.

1. It was not snowing.
2. The roads were pretty clear by the point I left the house.
3. It was not that cold, it was in the upper 20s.
4. THE CAR SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN HAVING THE TROUBLE IT WAS. Why? Because it was a star in the Midwest and Thursday was a very Midwestern sort of day, okay?

Conclusion: Suzi the Subaru was messed up by the dealer and now hates Alaska.

She also hates Alabama, but that is another story.

The Death of Paper

So...last weekend/week my husband went to live in an ice cave. Seriously, he was in an ice cave.

But that isn't the point. The point is, I wanted to desperatly read a new book. So you say, Ireland, go to the library.

I can't. We don't actually have a library card because we never took the post card back to say YEAH WE LIVE HERE! And because when I went into the library, I didn't like it there. I am serious, I am very picky about what libraries I will use. I am a library brat. I think I only used the library in my home town because my mother made me.

But I'm not going to talk about libraries, or we'd be here forever. Like the time I talked about parking lots for two hours. BUT I WILL NOT DO THIS!

No, I want to talk about...eBooks.

I don't actually like books. I like READING. I like the art of creating WORDS ON PAPER. I like STORIES. But I hate the actual books. Why? Easy, they are cumbersome. Have you ever had to carry Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in your purse? Have you ever attempted to carry more than one book in your purse? That are hard cover? I have you ever packed a whole suitcase that was just full of books and then gotten yelled at because you had no socks? (This might have been toys and not books, but you get the point.)

When I worked, I always had a book with me. I turned myself into Rory Gilmore and ALWAYS had a book on me. And my shoulders hated me. I know, why didn't I carry paperbacks? I did. They still take up room. And they still weight a lot when you carry around three of them. During the time I spent with Conrad Black, I read A LOT OF BOOKS. People BROUGHT ME BOOKS TO READ. I am totally serious. And I still have them because the people who would give me books would VANISH randomly during the trial. So, then I'd have a backpack of of paperbacks.

It was also at this time, I began to realize it kind of sucked trying to eat and read at the same time in a chair. (I never sat at the table. I had two chairs I used. It was MY DOMAIN, the Reader in the Corner who Never Talked.) Reading on the train also kind of sucked, as it was hard to keep the pages flat while trying not to touch the person next to me.

I began reading at lunch in high school when I was a ball of nerves and could not EAT in a room of peers. So my mom suggested I read jokes in Reader's Digest. We had spent the summer cleaning out my Grandma D's things and had an a collection of RD's. So they were in my lunch box and I was the weird girl reading during lunch. BUT IT HELPED. But, it did make it hard to eat.

So, back to where I started. eBooks.

I didn't get eBooks when they first appeared. I was like, "WFT? Another device I have to buy? Lame."
I didn't buy straight eBooks because I like to read all over the place. So, one day, I was watching TV and there was a Kindle add for the Kindle app. It moves between devices or something and I was like, "Interesting." I had been getting "free" books off of iBooks to read during times I wait for things (like the two hour oil change. I MADE myself read The Wizard of Oz.) So, I sat on my couch, picked up my iPhone and found the kindle app. I told myself if it was free, I'd get it.

It was free.

Then I went into the Kindle Store and found a few Maureen Johnson books I had wanted to read (they weren't at Target, where I buy most of my books because Target owns my soul). I hit the little download button.

Seven days later I was like "OMG THIS IS AMAZING."

Why?

I will list it for you.

1. I always have at least five books with me at all times.
2. I can read anywhere, in any position and the pages don't move unless I want them to be moved.
3. I can READ AT THE GYM. It is the most amazing thing in the world to make time go by quickly. It'd go better if I had a bigger screen than my iPhone, but STILL!
4. I can get a book at any time without leaving my house (as long as I have access to Wi-Fi.)
5. My shoulder no longer aches from toting around books. I always have my iPhone and it doesn't weigh as much as book.

There. Five reasons why I like eBooks.

I know eBooks do not smell. I know they aren't "books" and the experience in reading them is somehow "different." But, I was never super attached to the actual "book." I never did like book stores. They freaked me out. Too much in one small space. I remember being BORED out of my mind when my friends would go into used book stores in Madison. I would feel like I was wasting away into nothingness. It was like, TOO MANY BOOKS, BRAIN EXPLODE.

I am horrible, I do not care. I like reading on my iPhone. To me, there is nothing different than reading a book on my iPhone than reading an actual book. Also, after I read the book on my iPhone, I don't need to find another book shelf to put the book on. I only have two bookshelves and they are both full. So, in reality, I can't really get any more books. Unless Pilot Boy makes me another bookcase. It took me four years to get the first one.

I am a 06 Alum. No matter what you do. So there.

Beloit college turned off my alum account.

I am serious. I realized this was why something was not emailed to me. And why I have less emails. I just thought my spam blocker was working better. But, no, Beloit decided I didn't graduate or something lame.

Or because I refused to tell them where I was. (I am not calling some 800 number to verify I am an alum and tell you where I am. Plus, that email looks like spam, hence why it keeps ending up in my spam folder.)

I am not a terribly proud graduate. But Beloit, do not feel bad, I am not full of school spirit for any place I have attended. Even Glasgow University, which I loved, I don't have much school spirit towards them either. I just don't like academics in general at this point in my life and I am very, very jaded towards the whole system. Why? I don't know...maybe because after I graduated I realized I had a useless piece of paper and the brand name on it wasn't the right one.

If you are going to spend money on college, go to one people have heard of. I have decided going to a major university gets you farther in life. It is like...say you show up at a designer purse function carrying a tote you got by 5th Avenue at JCPenny's while everyone is else is carrying Marc Jacobs, Prada, Hermes, and Coach. You kind of look out of place and people look at you funny when you say you're carrying 5th Avenue. Or, a childhood fear of mine, showing up on the first day of school wearing no name brand clothing while everyone else is wearing Abercrombie.

When I was tossed out into the job market, I learned quickly, no one had EVER heard of Beloit. I had gotten the free alum forwarding account because I thought it'd look prestigious and impress people, plus show I had graduated. Hard to be either when no one had heard of the place. No one has any idea what Beloit is or where it is. I have had the following conversation too many times to count.

"Where did you got to college?"
"Beloit College."
Blank look. "Where is that?"
"Wisconsin."
"Oh." Blank look. "Where?"
"50 miles south of Madison on the board with Illinois."
"What do they study there?"
"Liberal arts."
"What?"
"Everything. They do everything."
"Oh. So what did you major in?"
"Politics."
"Oh, interesting. What college was it again?"
"Beloit College. Its a liberal hippy school that pops out Socialist Fascists Communists."

This might be why I have no friends. Or didn't get a job.

Or why they decided to disown me. Because they realized I was really a non-existent Socialist Fascist Communist.

(Which cannot exists. I spent four years learning about all three things and they are not the same thing. Hence, why our president cannot be a Fascist Communist like Glen Beck keeps saying. Our president is also not a Socialist. But I all ready did a soap box post on that tirade.)

ETA: So, I guess Beloit turned off ALL alum accounts on 1 December. And at some point they told the whole world this information. They have moved to Gmail accounts that operate as actual email, rather than froward. Same basic address, but you have to reapply, and I'm over it.  As stated before, no one has heard of Beloit and someday I will go to a designer college to get a useless masters degree! (more than likely not. What do I need a masters for?)

Start Your Day With a Laugh

I've taken to watching "Craig Ferguson" every morning since he had his "Doctor Who" special. Mostly because I remembered how funny he was and I did not have to sit up till his show was on because I have a DVR. So now I tape it and watch it in the morning instead of watching the morning news. Mostly because CBS replaced the morning team with a whole new crew of people and it kind of made me mad. And the "Today" show kind of makes me mad as well. Mostly because they annoy me. So now all morning shows annoy me, so I just watch late night TV in the dark in the morning.

I find Craig funny and he's Scottish, so its a win win for me. Well, except when I loose the clicker and I cannot fast forward through the commercials. 

I recently finished watching all Netflix has to offer for "Eureka." I love that show, but I started in the third season. Hence why I was so confused when Allison suddenly had this teenage kid named Kevin and she seemed to know him and everyone else seemed to think she had this teenage kid. But, now I am all caught up and Pilot Boy even kind of likes it! (When he actually likes a show, he can sleep through it. He cannot sleep through "Monarch of the Glen" and hates that show. Go figure.)

I have finished with the holidays. The cards are mailed out and the boxes of gifts are sitting in the freezing cold waiting for the post man to pick them up. I cannot carry all the boxes, so I decided to try the "pick up" at home the post office offers. Hopefully it will go well and Basil Bea Dog will not knock the tree over.

Our dog knocked the tree over yesterday.

I came home and she was NOT sitting at the door waiting. This means two things: 1) she's in her crate or 2) she did something wrong, like sitting on the couch, and is hiding in her crate. I walked in and called, "BASIL! I'm home! I brought Pilot Boy!"

Nothing. I walked in to see if she was sitting on the couch like a bad puppy, but all I saw was a mess of pillows. A mess of pillows meant she had a barking fit on the couch and messed them up. She is not supposed to be on the couch when the cover is on it and the pillows are on it. I put the pillows so she couldn't get on the couch, but she recently took to sitting ON the pillows.

Yesterday, though, she had messed the pillows up, knocked a few on the floor. As I walked further into the living room, I noticed the TREE was on the GROUND and the ornaments were ALL OVER THE PLACE.

I went up stairs, dragged Basil out of her crate and brought her downstairs and showed her the tree and couch and said "BAD DOG! YOU ARE A BAD DOG!"

She ran away from me crouching low to the ground and ran into Pilot Boy. He also told her she was a bad girl and then we went about trying to put the tree back together.

She got on the couch at this point and Pilot Boy took her down and she fell flat on her belly when he yelled "BAD DOG!" Her little heart broke when he called her a bad dog. She slunk away and went to give herself a time out in her crate.

We managed to get the tree back up (neither of us are sure how it is standing, as the stand is lame and after Basil knocked it over, its more lame). We cleaned the downstairs at this point because there were fake tree needles all over the place. Basil came down at the sound of the vacuum. She took one look at me, then ran back upstairs and hid for a while. The rest of the day, she looked pathetic when ever she looked at me. After Pilot Boy fed her dinner and we were watching TV, she tried several times to make up with me, but I refused to let her. We had been working hard to stay off the couch, but all the FUR I found on the couch when I cleaned it, told me that when we were gone, SHE WAS ON THE COUCH. There was two weeks worth of fur on the couch. So, now, tragically, Basil Dog doesn't get free roam of the house when we all leave. She will be crated like she was for the first two years of her life. Till she learns to stay off the couch again, she will be crated.

I am not sure when she decided she could sit on that couch, but her cute face got the better of me and I let her stay there for awhile. I've been working for about a month now to get her to stay off that couch (it is only one couch she gets on too). It is not going well. I thought we were getting somewhere, as every time I caught her on there, she jumped off right away. By the time our relatives got here, she was pretty much staying off. I only caught her twice, one time she wasn't on the couch, she was on the pillows. I no longer laugh or smile at her when I catch her. She gets a scolding. I would have simply scolded her if she hadn't KNOCKED THE TREE OVER.

To knock the tree over means she was 1) on the couch and then 2) saw something to bark at and 3) was making such a hissy fit at the window she knocked the tree over and then jumped on the tree to get a better view (that is the only way all the ornaments fell off, she had to knock them off, as they were on there good. Trust me.) Since it is FREEZING here, we keep the window closed except for the part in front of the tree, so she can't really see out too well, unless she is ON THE COUCH. For the last three months, I've been trying to keep her from looking out the window and barking at nothing.

Least to say, not going to well.

Today, she's been in her crate since I got up, except when I made coffee and she came down to see if Pilot Boy's dad had returned (she loves him). Pilot Boy's dad made coffee every morning and I'm pretty sure since I didn't ground coffee before he showed up, she associates that noise with him. He was her buddy while he was here. He fed her, took her outside, and pet her a lot. She LOVES him. She was super excited to see him when they walked into the house. (She is no longer allowed to go for rides with me alone, after trying to KILL ME when I went to get Pilot Boy at the air port at Thanksgiving. She climbed into the front seat and INTO MY LAP TWICE on the drive there and then when we got her seat belt out, she BROKE FREE and LEAPED AROUND THE BACK the whole ride home, barking the whole way. Basil is too big to sit in my lap while I drive. Plus she doesn't sit still, she moves the whole time, making driving hard. So, no more rides alone with me.)

Well, that is all. Hopefully Basil will be a good puppy today. I think she will be, as she knows I'm not her best friend at the moment. Hopefully we will make up and she will be my puppy again. It is now ten, and I ought to get ready to face the day. I figured I'd sew today. I have an itching to sew and make some new bags.

I tried to get my butt in gear....

We had no door bell ringing at our house. So either the not turning on any lights for two hours worked or no one was trick or treating around here because of the secret hours. Basil Bea was quiet for most of the night, her only barking fest taking place when I let her outside at four. She really doesn't light our neighbor in his own backyard. I usually have to physically go get her when he's out there. She then runs into the house with her tail between her legs because she knows she's a bad puppy dog.

So, Halloween is over. And I have no candy to eat, which might be a good thing. I am currently dressed to go to the gym, I have just yet to actually go.

I really ought to go to the gym more. When we lived in the dirt hole, I went at least three days a week to the gym. I always felt better after I went. It was easier to get to the gym in the dirt hole because it was just a few blocks away. I could walk to it. I usually did, till the summer and then I drove and felt silly.

Since arriving here, going to the gym has been a hard habit to pick up. I usually go one or twice in a week, then don't go for a few days and then I just stop going all together. I also don't like the gym here too much, as there is no nice, quiet place to stretch and do crunches. The dirt hole gym had nice quiet places for stretching out of the main area. This gym just seems to be all main area. Everything is located in a central area. There is no hiding. Personally, I like hiding. I spent at least an hour hiding in the gym in the dirt hole doing weights, stretches and crunches. Usually all alone by myself. Sometimes there were people in the area I used, but mostly it was just me. The area where the mats are here are out in the open and I hate using them. I don't like people watching me stretch if I am honest with myself. That was the issue I had with yoga classes. It was okay when it was just me, the teacher and R, but when other people started showing up (and R stopped), I stopped going. I told myself it was to save the 4 bucks the class cost, but that was a lie. I just hated being in the room with all those people who could see me stretch. I am lame, I know.

But, I am dressed to go to the gym. I should find my gym ID and just buck up and go. Also, the morning rush should be winding down now, so it won't be crowded. I hate crowded gyms (another reason I loved the dirt hole gym....it was never crowded).

Man, I am hard to please.

Best Dressed Hermit

For about an hour today I felt rather worthless and jealous. Why?

I don't hang out with people. I don't really have anyone to hang out with, if I am honest. I know people here in Alaska. I know a few, but the key word is KNOW. These people are not ones I feel comfortable texting/calling/emailing/contacting in any way. If they contact me that is find and dandy. I might go somewhere with them.

Or not. Depends on my mood and if my hair is done.

For an hour today, I felt like there was something wrong me me.

Then I took a shower.

I'm a hermit and have always been a borderline loner. (I say borderline because I get lonely sometimes and feel the need for human contact.)

I'm a really well dressed hermit too. I am serious. I get dressed almost daily and I get "overdress." I have outfits I put together and I wear them. I put makeup on and sometimes I do not leave the house. This always confounded my mother, my getting dressed up to go nowhere (the makeup thing started since I began paying big bucks for makeup, figure I should use it.) I feel better when I am in an outfit, dressed up. There are a few times where I just wore bum clothes and had to be social in them. And it did not go well. One time that jumps to my mind is when my husband had his "solo" flight. He took the keys to both cars, so I figured I wasn't going. I took a shower, tossed on some junk clothing and let my hair air dry. Then, D called and PICKED ME UP and I had to stand around in my junk clothing with my crazy hair and no makeup. Least to say, I was totally embarrassed by the photo of me as I look squat and fat. I work hard to conceal the fact I am short legged and fat. That is why people do not think I am 1) short or 2) fat. (My husband thinks I am sort, but that's because he's almost a foot faller than me, or so it seems when he puts things on the top shelf and I can't reach it.)

So, I get dressed daily. I do my hair. I put on makeup. And sometimes I don't leave the house. Because I don't like to leave the house. And if I do leave the house, 95.5% chance it is by myself. I shop by myself. I entertain myself. I cook for myself. (I lie. I can't cook.) Tragically, though, I have this crazy idea I need to be wild and crazy and popular. As a child I always wanted to be the popular girl, but I would never be popular due to the fact I was quiet and awkward. I learned in college I was awkward because I had no self esteem. As I learned more about myself, I realized I could be fine on my own and I actually kinda liked being on my own.

Well, kinda.

I like having my dog to talk to. As a kid I talked to my clothes. (I pretended they were people, so in my own head I had a lot of friends. Oh, and I had screwdrivers as friends too. Yeah, I didn't play with dolls, I played with screwdrivers.) I was on my own as a child often, as I remember a lot of the neighborhood kids parents worked, so they weren't around during the day. So I played myself and I could do this for hours. I entertained myself with my own imagination till high school when I had a demanding friend. I never had to entertain myself after that and after she was gone I realized I had no idea what to do with myself. I had to re-learn how to entertain myself. Luckily, I still know how to entertain myself since I decided to become a professional hermit.

What do I do on a daily basis?

I get up, let the dog out, feed the dog, feed me, watch TV, sew/craft/write, feed myself, feed the dog, be creative, play video games, text, text, text, talk on the phone, feed the dog, feed myself, write/post purses/blog/surf internet, shop, eat, chase the dog and then go to sleep.

I find putting on makeup entertaining and creative by the way.

I'm a well dressed loner hermit who wants to be popular but has no desire to try.

Interesting huh?

Smelling April Fresh

My senior year of college, the fabric softener in my walk in closet decided it wanted to see if it could fly, so it took a leap. This leap, some five feet off the ground, informed the bottle of fabric softener that it could not fly, as it broke into a million little pieces and its guts went everywhere.

I was sitting at my desk, more than likely not working on anything important, when the bottle tried to fly. I heard something fall in the closet. I turned around and saw nothing, so I turned back around. However, in a few minutes, I began to smell fabric softener. Granted, my room was above the laundry room, but usually I did not smell laundry, dirty or clean. The only time my room smelled was during the weekends when the trash got out of control, then it smelled horrible. Other than that, it was the first time I had a smell free room.

I stood up and followed my nose to the walk in closet and discovered the floor was covered and soaked in fabric softener. The whole bottle had shattered (even thought it was plastic) and there was a whole bottle worth of frabic softener all over the carpet. It was a brand new bottle too. Brand new, shiny and broken.

I had no clue how to clean up the massive puddle of fabric softener. All I knew was it smelled REALLY strong and I was getting a headache. I think I used my towel to clean it up and then ran down to the laundry room with a pile of quarters and washed the towels and anything else I had used to clean it up. For months, though, there was a dark spot where the bottle had fallen. For months, the room totally reeked of fabric softener. You'd think after smelling the smell for months, I'd remember the sent. I do not. I have no clue. All I remember is that when Pilot Boy came to visit me the first time he commented how nice it smelled and when I moved out my dad asked me what had spilled on the floor.

Last Monday, I was doing laundry. Pilot Boy was home and I had been rather angry at him because he refuses to put his dirty clothes in the basket and thus I never know what is clean or dirty. I was doing the last load for the night and picked up the bottle of fabric softener to shake it. (Its the fancy stuff you have to shake for some reason.) I guess I had failed to put the cap on right because one aggressive shake and I was covered in pink goop. I had been talking and ceased, so Pilot Boy came to check it out. I was standing there, covered in pink goop. And of course, he laughed at me. I began laughing too, as it was totally my fault. My sweater was soaked in fabric softener, as was the shirt on under the sweater. I had it all over my face and in my hair. I went upstairs, washed my face, changed my clothes and cleaned up the mess that did not get all over him.

Throughout the night though, I kept getting wiffs of the fabric softener. It seemed to have seeped into my skin. I was worried I'd smell like fabric softener for weeks. I don't. Skin doesn't hold fabric softener like fabric does. In college, when the bottle fell in the closet, my clothes forever smelled like fabric softener. I no longer needed it to make them smell, because they just smelled like it. It over powered my perfume it was so strong. I have yet to see how my sweater fared after I washed it. I bet it'll forever smell like spiced whatever.

Blizzard conditions

I grew up in the Midwest. I lived most of my 26 years in the Midwest, some maybe 20 miles from Lake Michigan. Every winter it snowed, usually after Christmas. No one freaked out, and usually nothing was closed. Growing up, school was maybe canceled due to snow maybe once. School was more likely to be canceled due to cold than snow. I went to college in Wisconsin. We had some big snow storms and some really freezing days. Nothing was ever canceled school wide. Sometimes a professor got stuck, thus they could not show up, but the school itself never shut down due to snow or cold. Or anything for that matter.

My first winter married, we were living in St. Louis. EVERY time it snowed even a tiny bit, they whole area FREAKED OUT. Schools closed, business closed, I got sent home from work twice due to snow. Once, I sat waiting for the others to show up for almost an hour before anyone showed up, and I was late that day. (not due to weather, but due to the fact we only had one car and I had to take the train from the base, and my husband didn't seem to think we'd have to leave early because everyone would be freaking out.) The weather St. Louis had that did freak me out, rain and thunder, no one seemed to notice. I was worried the whole area was going to flood and float away, or the building was going to fall down due to the thunder and lighting, but no one noticed. Snow they freaked out about, but lighting they didn't seem to notice.

This past year I lived in the Dirt Hole. It never snowed. It rained maybe four times whilst we were there, and both times the rain created flooding, as there is no where for rain to go in the Dirt Hole. The first major rain storm, it rained for five hours straight and the back yard was a lake, the front road was a river and my driveway was a waterfall. The spring didn't bring many storms, but the few we had, were not that impressive, compared to the spring storms we had in St. Louis.

Since we've arrived in Alaska, they have had all forms of weather. It was 40 degrees the week we arrived, spring came early! Then, it snowed. And snowed. And some some more. My husband and I didn't think much of it till we watched the weather and they were FREAKING OUT. They were SURPRISED it snowed. They kept saying, from the radio people to the news people, this was the worst snow storm this season. Pilot Boy and I exchanged looked and though, "They think this is bad?"

What makes it bad is the fact they do not salt the roads and I am not sure how they snow plow things here, but most of the roads (even the well traveled roads) seem to be covered in snow. Packed down snow, which almost always turns to ice. Since we have arrived here, we've had two major storms. The first one, we went out in thinking it wasn't so bad. I saw more cars on the side of the road than I had ever seen. I kept thinking, don't people in Alaska know how to drive in snow? Why are they all driving off the side of the road?

It must happen often, as they all seemed to have orange tape to tie onto their cars.

The second storm happened while my husband was going to work, and one side of base was on a two hour delay. The side of base he worked on just said road conditions were red. This translated to show up at ten if you wanted and then go home at one. He didn't go in, as what he had to do that day, no one showed up period. It was like St. Louis all over again. Only this storm of snow was at least ten times worse than the stuff they got in St. Louis and we were in Alaska, so we figured like Minnesota , they'd know how to handle snow.

We're thinking they really don't. Or they just get so tired of it by this point in time, they forget how to deal with it.

The past two days, since the storm ended, its been FREEZING. Single digits cold. Plug your car in cold, the sort of cold we thought we would have driving up here. They do not seem to be phased by that sort of thing. Just snow.

remembering ragnar

This past Friday I learned I will be leaving the Dirt Hole for....the state you can see Russia from! This excites me to no end for various reasons, though I did not know how excited I was until I screamed and threw up my arms when the annoucement was made.

In public.

I screamed and pumped my arms in the air in public.

This is not normal behavior for me in the least.

I was confused after I realized I had acted this way.

So, due to all the hub bub on the forums as of late (i lurk usually), I decided to research what I'll need once I arrive.

Alaska doesn't have sales tax.

Guess how much MORE I love Alaska?

Of course, I might be spending 4 months in Chicago, which I know charges sales tax. I also know IL is a pain in the butt for most "government" type things. I guess I'll figure that out when I get to that road block.

But Alaska! Seriously!

My husband claims this is the last time he will get his first choice more than likely for anything, as he's managed to do it so far in his career.

In other news:

The guest room is set up! R said it looked really good for what I had to work with, so I love it.

R also left me. :( She told me since I am going to Alaska she'd come see me. I hope to get some $$$ together to go see her, as I have never been to our first state.

Basil Dog is a brat. She was over excited about the prospect of three dogs in the house, thus cried, whined and attempted to throw up when she should have been sleeping. She kept me up all night. After I was worn out from the excitment of the day. She's been sort of confused these past two days, especially since the guest room still reeks of the two other dogs. lol. She gets up on the bed and just sniffs it. I imagine if the bed was made of glass, it'd be covered in ever inch with nose smudges.

I accidently cleaned the mirrors in the bathroom with shower cleaner. I think I will do this from now on, as they do not get cloudy and more and there was no streaks. Amazing.

supposed I kept on singing love songs?

Last week I went to the pool. I had not really "been to the pool" since I was in day camp. I had not set foot in a pool since I was 16 up till a few days before I "went to the pool." My friend R and I went to the pool at 11 am, right when I opened and sat by the pool, getting in for awhile once we got too sweaty sitting next to the pool.

Two things happened the day at the pool.

1. I got tanned wearing SPF 70 or higher.
2. I got stung by a bee.

Yeah. I was just sitting by the pool minding my own business and a bee stung me on the leg. I am pretty sure I must have smelled like a flower or something due to the amount of sunblock I was wearing and he/she/it was just checking my legs out, but then I went and moved and it hurt. Not a lot, mind you. I was mostly just like, "Hey, that is uncomfortable." I looked down and sat this bee flying away from me and then looked at my leg. There was a black stinger in my leg. I pulled my leg up to investigate.

"What?" R asked.
"I think I got stung by a bee," I causually said, pulling the stinger out. "Yup, that's a stinger."
She recoiled from me.

We determined I wasn't allergic because I was just sitting there feeling fine, other than a minor hurt in my leg. The rest of the morning and into the early afternoon I was fine. We left the pool at about one, went to Sonic to get something to drink and then headed home. I proceeded to sit in front of my computer and surf around the internet (trying to get "active" in the Etsy forums and failing at life). At around four, I decided I needed to take pictures of my new creations to post to my shop, and I went to get up and I COULD NOT WALK.

I am serious. I looked at my leg and I couldn't see anything was wrong with it. It looked sort of angry where the bee stung me, but for hte life of me I could not see a thing wrong with my leg other than it failed to work. I hobbled to the dinning room and took some rather crappy pictures and managed to edit one before my husband showed up.

"So how was the pool?" he asked walking to the study.
"I got stung by a bee and can't walk," I replied.
"Really? That much fun?"

I hobbled around for awhile until he told me to lay down on the couch. I did this, but couldn't get comfortable. I took two Bendryl before bed and was out like a light. I was fine the next morning. My husband claimed my leg looked swollen, so I didn't go to the gym. I couldn't tell there was anything up with the leg in the least, but he swore to me it was purple and bruised looking. The next day he claimed it looked fine, so I went running in the gym.

Two or three days after the event, R and her husband A came over for dinner and we spent about ten minutes staring at my leg, which they claimed was still sort of green. Evidently R hates bees and is fearful of them and could not believe I did not have a massive panic attack once I got stung and I just sort of sat there.

Its been over week since I got stung by a bee. Today, it ITCHES like CRAZY and is RED and ANGRY looking. It is patchy and rather ugly looking. And I can see its is sort of swollen finally. It is crazy. I didn't think to take pictures of it, so there are none to show.

I had only been stung once up till last week. I got stung right by my eye while standing in my drive way as a kid. I do remember it sort of hurting and freaking out and running to my mom, who said there was nothing there and stop freaking out. I do not remember it swelling or anything in the least.

Well, Basil Dog is FREAKING out about something, so I must go stop her.

the date grows closer and closer

The time is getting near. I've been in the dirt hole for a year now and if the end is in site will be told this Friday! I'm totally crossing my fingers and toes to get out of here. There is a small possibility that we'll be stuck in the dirt for another four years, which is something I dread on many levels.

I am still trucking along with my shop on Etsy. I've only had two sales and one no-sale. I'm trying to do things to get my sales to pick up, but due to the fact I have very little drive, I have yet to do anything major. I told D about the shop, as well as his wife P. D informed me the other day he was telling everyone he knew. Tragically, the only people he sees on a daily basis are wanna-be fighter pilots. All male. They are not in need of purses, tragically.

I have an add running on On Scrappy Chic. She contacted me about wanting to run an ad for my shop. It was like the best day of my life when she asked about that. (Okay, I think getting married was the best day, but it was totally one of the better days in the dirt hole.)

As my time in the dirt hole grows shorter (crosses fingers, knocks on wood, does many odd things to assure she will leave), I need to get ready for guests to invade my house. We have a spare bedroom, which is mostly used to collect junk. My husband used it as his huge walk in closet for awhile, then it just started gathering random items after we got Basil. I walked in there this past weekend and was like, "Wow, its filled with pillows and things Basil's attempted to eat." Stuffing was every which where, there was a pilot helmet sitting on the pathetic table bought from Target that never did stay together, and two broken printer were on the floor. In another corner lives the four floursent bulbs we removed from the kitchen after they put in the new lights in our house and we were being blinded in the kitchen. It is still brigher than it used to be in there with only two bulbs. There are also piles of my rejected, too small clothing. I spent about an hour Sunday shoving things neatly into one of the closets (for unknown reasosn the smallest room in the house has two huge closets...)I still have not shoved enough in for the arrival of our new bed on Friday. After two years, we finally bought a guest bed (as well as new printer, but that is not that important except it cost 69 dollars and I acutally pointed with my elbows at it.)

And to end, I will share with you a picture of Basil with a bra on her head. It cracks me up to no end. She is a total modle when I get the camera out. She always poses for me.

sitting in the dark

I think it is sort of funny that most of the hits for this website come from the entry about Stargate Atlantis and how it ate my soul. That one entry gets almost every hit I get, and yet no one has ever commented on it, thus I can only assume that everyone who actually visits my website thinks it sucks.

Which is more than likely does as it more than likey only makes sense to me. Such is life.

I have been plotting, and this is my plot: Ireland Scott Designs.

I have become a handbag designer! Oh yay is me!

Anyways, come check me out and stuff. Always love selling things!