| Oh my eyes ya |
[13 May 2006|10:29pm] |
We made it in safely. I would have been lost without ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) fenixinthedark and mountaincat and kchoseng. Thank heaven for them, and that the worst is over. I did something to my hip, though, and I am glad tomorrow should be relatively relaxing (packing all the leftover crap up) here at 12213. But I'm signing off now and heading back...
...Home.
Cody's glad her people came back for a visit, though. She seems downright docile.
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| flower power |
[03 May 2006|02:32pm] |
The way I keep going to the national cathedral, I really should just move to Woodley Park.
Flower Mart: Flowers Around the World
Friday, May 05 - Saturday, May 06
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Location: Washington National Cathedral
This wonderful annual outdoor spring festival features plant sales, floral and horticultural displays, boutique booths, tasty foods, music, and entertainment, plus fun activities for children, including rides on the antique carousel.
More info here.
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| we're home../ |
[03 Apr 2006|01:29am] |
We're back, with fresh tuna and oysters. Cat very happy to see us. A messload of pictures, some of which are up at deviathan, but once we get the whole thing into a picture album we'll give you the lot of them.
I am very tired after driving us the 8 and a half hours home. Was a smooth trip until we got to Fredericksburg; that'll learn me.
Had a craving for Mexican food on the way home so we went to Anita's after unloading the car and stopping by the catsitter's. Now I'm realizing why Mexican was such a good idea: Going on vacation immediately after having the stomach flu really gets your system out of whack. At the risk of TMIing, everything working just fine now, although maybe there really is something to that whole "back in the home bathroom" thing.
We're going to try to get down there again this year with the kids.
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| Freaky. |
[24 Mar 2006|09:44am] |
Dood. We could afford a single-wide in Kill Devil Hills, or move across the sound and arrive in this pretty puppy in Columbia, NC, across Albemarle sound from Manteo and Elizabeth City.
Not that we're moving to the OBX or the eastern carolina mainland, but...
$145,000.
T minus 7 hours and 16 minutes to VACATION!
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| Neat things about my job |
[21 Mar 2006|02:01pm] |
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I just interviewed the Craigslist Craig.
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| The nice thing.. |
[10 Mar 2006|03:26pm] |
...about getting my printed credit report is that it tells me when stuff is coming off the report. And six items are coming off this year, from my old student loan fiascos.
:D
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| The ouchie |
[10 Mar 2006|10:41am] |
D and I walked the 3.5-mile round trip to Wegmans and back last night. I'm stiff as all get out today, and once an hour getting up to stretch. See, this is the first major physical activity I've done since the fiasco on the rocks last summer, where I collapsed 3/4 way through a hike and, well, once bitten, I have really been almost scared to try.
But (a) this morning I'm five pounds lighter than I was yesterday morning and (b) I want to do it again.
See, there's this weird thing happening to me right now as I doggedly attempt to train myself to be more organized. You still can't see it at home, but there's a night and day difference at work. M. gasped just now when she saw that my inbox was empty, and finally got round to complimenting me on the major reorg I've been doing in the past week--makes sense, i've cleaned my desk before, but never _organized it_--that is, kept it clean for more than a day.
But what is happening is a miracle of matter over mind. The more I push through to accomplish tasks I have to do, the healthier and more active I want to be.
Chi. Chi. Chi. *deep breath* Didn't make it any easier to get out of bed this morning, but overall, it's invigorating.
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| Shellshockery |
[09 Mar 2006|04:23pm] |
I get interesting press releases. This one kinda tops all of them, because at first I thought this had nothing to do with our publication, but then I realized that there's an angle for our audience, all right-- financial planners, what are your clients doing with regard to saving for their wedding?
The best part? They want to send me free copies of their mags. M suggested I leave them lying around the house; I told her I didn't want to scare him even more.
( the price tag is staggering. let's elope. )
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| Goooood stuff |
[09 Mar 2006|02:59pm] |
Aunt J called a couple of days ago to inquire whether we'd like to join her in Hatteras at the end of the month. Duh. So D and I are taking the whole week off--don't think we'll go down for the whole week but damn skippy we're happy to have a relatively cheap vacay on the Outer Banks. Waiting to hear back from G whether K can go; it's not the best time of year to take a kid, but he and N would have a grand ol' time together. But I'm not taking him if he hasn't gotten his act together at school.
Also, we're 85 percent sure that Medford North is about to become the homestead. Next on the roster, finding out whether we can genuinely have all three bedrooms. Two of them are acting as storage space right now.
I am right now overwhelmed with gratitude for the generosity of family. Now if I could just get my act together at work. (Actually, I'm really close to being together. More than I have been. My desk is actually NEAT.)
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| Home, home on the maines |
[06 Mar 2006|01:44pm] |
One of the brainstorms that is floating around, and has been for a while, is that we take over the not-exactly palatial Mosher homestead in Annandale. Things are percolating around this, although we're still debating a number of options given that the house is presently occupied.
That said, it occurs to me that Lowell and Cody (the two maine coons in Mosher households) are a sitcom waiting to happen.
Whoa, my cat's part of a Mosher household.
Could any of you ever picture me as a Heather, I wonder? Never mind that I'm clearly a Veronica.
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| So that's fscked up |
[03 Mar 2006|09:11pm] |
Apartment rentals in Front Royal are....
2 BR for $600.
So I pay an extra $300 a month in gas, put $300 in savings each month, and still have $200 in fun money that we won't be able to use because we're going to be driving all the time.
But still. $600.
I LIVE IN THE WRONG PLACE PLEASE SAVE ME KTHXBI
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| Been caught speaking |
[02 Mar 2006|11:02am] |
I've been thinking about developing my public speaking skills, because many authors I know don't so much make a living off their writing as they do their speaking. I think I'm outgoing enough to give it a shot, even though I tend to be very shaky when I've had to give presentations in class and what not. But now that I'm finally done with classes, I want to develop that and there aren't really many opportunities to do so short of lay reading in church, which isn't the same.
But two of my goals are to be able to speak from an outline and extemporaneously, and to be able to stand in front of a group without a podium or lecturn behind me. Oh, and a third: to breathe normally.
There are a few toastmasters groups around, but I don't know that much about them other than the fact that when you say "I want to get better at public speaking" that's the first thing people say.
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| Tomorrow is rabbit day... |
[28 Feb 2006|12:36pm] |
...and I just ate a pound of carrots.
It also bears noting that for the next 24 hours, Dean and I are celebrating having reached a year and a half without throwing each other out and in fact generally being overwhelmingly happy together.
Ye gods, I need more userpictures.
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| oh, and another thing... |
[27 Feb 2006|10:09pm] |
Forgot to mention this, but the broccoli was frozen, and when I looked at the package, it had "baby broccoli florets" and "baby vegetables" on the wrapper.
and this led me to utter "baaaaabyvegetables"--
and now I want to start the community, so that I can post the pictures of the sprouted spaghetti squash, the bird seed that ambitiously shot up, and the various adorable jade plant offspring that litters the dressertop. And, of course, the baaaaabybroccoliflorets...
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| It should not have been a mystery... |
[27 Feb 2006|09:35pm] |
...but I'm already convinced that Lilith solved it for me. For dinner, I had orange roughy, broccoli, and mashed potatoes, and already I feel scads better. I had a bit of chili for lunch that had beef in it, and it's the first beef I've had in a while, but it took the more balanced home cooking for me to really feel not stretched all out all over.
I don't know if I will show up as anemic tomorrow, but I'm sure that's what it was. Doing some reading on it tonight--the fatigue, the bleah, the OMG-I'm-freezing...
But it was so bad I had trouble getting up to cook dinner. I was standing there handling the fillets and Dean was urging me to batter them, or at least bread them, and i was like, I don't feel like it. Everything felt heavy and I felt so listless--Dean offered to cook if I would do laundry, and both seemed like a tremendous weight I couldn't handle.
But I am so accustomed to fighting this kind of malaise because it's usually emotional in genesis that it was really disturbing to find it taking root when everything is getting better, for the most part.
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| Map meme |
[27 Feb 2006|02:01pm] |
I haven't done one of these in a while, and it's grown a bit since last time.
( where I've been )
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| You know you've spent too much on your car when.... |
[27 Feb 2006|09:17am] |
...Driving in to work today, an attractive young man flagged me down to say "You have a belt hanging from your car!"
I pictured this as something major dragging from under my engine compartment, but rather than pull over on 66 proper, I got off on 123. It was a full ten minutes before I got to a place I could pull over. Pulse pounding, I did a walkaround of the car, looked underneath it (which is a PITA because my front bumper is so low), and didn't find a thing.
Annoyed that this guy had hollered to me for no reason, I got back in the car and headed to work.
When I got to work, I realized that one end of my sweater's belt had a nasty black spot on it.
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| Adventures in real estate |
[23 Feb 2006|12:05pm] |
well, this might be a dealbreaker, might not. Dunno.
The 18th St. house (now with its own usericon) is built on a timber foundation, and it needs to be jacked up and put on a concrete slab. will probably cost in the 20-30K range, but chances are we can have that folded into the mortgage if we go through a local lender. Most big lenders won't take a chance on a house that can't pass appraisal.
that said, Di's told us to make an offer of $155K, he'll probably negotiate it to $160K. The original selling price was $190K, so it kinda works.
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