I really, really love vacation. Usually I go somewhere - home to SF, to Vancouver, to somewhere. I plan cool things and go hiking and bird watching and read books and come back tired but rejuvenated. But this time, I just stayed home. It's been so weird - I've never been home without fifty million things to do. I worried that I might get bored. I plotted possible day trips just in case - to Crystal for skiing, to Port Angeles, to Vancouver on the train. But I am in love.

Spring cleaning! Thanks to bigboobedcanuck, I got this bug in my head to start going through stuff. Three huge bags of trash later, three equally huge bags of donation, sparkling clean baseboards, windowsills and lightswitches, a new dresser!, and an empty hall closet later, I am in *heaven*.

I gave away an old chair I never finished recovering, rehung lights, weeded the garden. My daffodils are blooming, my purple broccoli is sprouting, rainbow chard is growing like it's almost out of style. I've been cooking - real meals! Big juicy halibut steaks, fresh strawberries, homemade bread, good, good food! (I missed good food. There's been too many late study nights over pizza and not enough *real* food).

Good lord, people. I have been sleeping! And taking naps when needed. I love sleep!

And I made a trip down to my fave bookstore and actually remembered my gift certificate and went crazy! I have a huge stack of awesome books - a million different kinds - fantasy, victorian literature, kids books I remember loving (The Blue Sword, anyone?) I'm hopelessly behind on flist comments, fic responses, everything, because I have been so amazingly lazy.

I have been drinking wine in the afternoon. Is there anything better?

I cannot believe I have to go back to work on Saturday and back to class on Monday. I cannot wait until summertime, when maybe I can take another week off and do it all over again - in the sun instead of the snow!

end long-ass post here....

I

DST never used to bother me, but these last few years it's been harder to get used to. (It's probably because I'm getting older but I blame moving it to March from April). So here it is, nearly 3am. I have to work in 4 hours. I have an exam tonight. And I can't sleep! Once I start counting down hours, I might as well give up the good fight. Plus, I know I'll fall asleep around 4:30/5, and my alarm will go off at 5:15. I hate, hate, hate insomnia. No sleep makes me grouchy. And I have a sinking feeling that my job review is tomorrow.

This weekend, I fell in love with Dexter. Not the censored pared down CBS version. The Season 1 DVD. Good lord that show is some awesome crack. Why isn't Season 2 out yet? If I can't sleep, as least I can be watching some good old fashioned serial killing.

(I think this blog entry just put me on some creepy government watch list. Maybe I should friendslock).

I'm not the world's best LJ-er. Sometimes I go a week or more without getting online to check my flist. Sometimes I check it every day. And I love my flist! *pets you all* But community wise ... sometimes there's some slogging to do. Like this new community I joined. At first, there was great fic. Sure every once in a while you might get a crappy piece, but at least the odds were in your favor. But now, posting has slowed and there is one person who posts every day. Well, multiple times in a day. And it would be exciting if it was awesome, fun to read, well written stuff. But it's not (IMO). It's poorly characterized (gah! pet peeve right there) dreck, with awful grammar and is a bit cringe inducing overall.

Yikes. Okay, that sounds a bit harsh ...but true... I could just leave the community, but then I'll miss out on all the good stuff as no one in the comm is on my flist. Maybe I should just do it and truck to the comm to check for new posts of interest. I know boards often have a politeness caution about overposting. Do LJ comms ever have anything like this? Should I even ask the mod or just let it go? I don't want to cause any trouble ... but if it's bothering me it's probably bothering others too, right?

In completely unrelated news, today at work I wore my hair all sleeked back today with a little curly puff over a shoulder instead of my normal crazy fro - the horrors! But I got compliments! "Chic!" I somehow pulled off chic in scrubs! This is a true miracle. And yay! I have a new hairstyle! :)

Over the summer, one of the rehabbers I worked with got me hooked on Bret Michaels: Rock of Love. Because it was the scariest, most disturbing show we'd ever seen. I couldn't ever watch an entire episode, but I'd watch as much as possible and then at work we'd die laughing over all the awful, sketchy, whoredom that it was.

Oh, the trash.

I don't watch much reality tv, so I'm still a little new to the whole 'car-crash' tv concept. But that is this show: it is so slimy and so nasty and it's really hypnotizing in all its grossness.

(And yes, after keeping in some girl, Bret Michaels really did say: Ah, my Ukranian love tank ...)

*last season the girl who won was so obviously not really into him that it made it all just a little bit better. But watching this old man make out with a girl that's barely legal is just squickifying. Really. I can't believe these girls are all crazy enough to actually lurrrve Bret. And his icky, icky bandana too.

Flu sucks. I'm a terrible sick person and luckily I don't get sick all that often. It was just Oct. that I had that awful flu that turned into some crazy bacterial infection that knocked me out for weeks, so when I started getting sick this week I decided to get lots of sleep, fluids, etc. Take care of myself. I don't really remember Tuesday. I remember checking my temperature - 103! - chugging down ice cold V8. Wednesday wasn't much better - made it to class for just a few hours to do the lab. Made it to Safeway to restock on juices. Drank over a liter of juice and am still dehydrated.

I've got to back to work tomorrow but standing for ten minutes still makes me feel woozy in the head. How I'm going to make it through a 10 hour shift? I surely don't know. :(

Haven't been up to checking LJ, email or much of anything. Finally today got enough energy to dig out some Netflix, so that's been cool. But the one good news is I've been too sick to smoke for 3 days. I'd quit for over three years by the time I eased back in (one smoke here, drink and smoke there, yadda yadda) and I didn't even really notice when I actually started smoking again. But le evil disease decided for me - if 3 days pretty much gets all the physical withdrawal out and I was too sick to notice, starting again now is like throwing away a get of jail free card. So, everyone, wish me luck! Hopefully this will be the second time - and it'll stick.

Comment and I'll give you a letter; then you have to list 10 things you love that begin with that letter. Afterwards, post this in your journal and give out some letters of your own.


belle_1220 gave me B. (which is so much better than L I don't even know what to say). You rock!

1. Boys. (Yes, I'm just a little shallow)
2. Banana bread - especially my mother's banana bread, which I still can't make quite right
3. Blue skies (rare in Seattle and that much cooler)
4. Brett Favre That's just not even true. :)
5. Buttocks. Nothing like a fiiiiine booty. :)
6. Books (I know,I know, boring, but true)
7. Brick houses/warehouses (especially in old Seattle, or Cleveland)
8. Brownies (Dude. Chocolate. Need I say more?)
9. Blue Scholars (local hip-hop group)
10. Bad Ass (The saying. I probably use it a little too much. i.e., dude, mkwhite, that spill you took was bad ass

Bonus - since I lied on #4 - Bandaids - fun ones with patterns like Scooby-Doo, or skulls with hair ribbons. Ooooh! Or glow in the dark bandaids. Those are cool!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love me some Friday Night Lights.

(oh, god, I cried like a baby. A lot.)

So lazy tonight, ordered pizza and ice cream (hey! There was a salad in there too!) and vegged on the couch with the new ( Supernatural )

And another random tee-hee moment - I totally used the Malleus Maleficarum in a college Shakespeare class to write a big paper arguing that the witches in MacBeth were feminist tools to destroy the dominant male hegemony and (essentially) take over the world. Except, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind...

having a much better day.

I ... got my car back. And will survive til pay day. Which is more exciting because budget got passed and we got a raise! *cheers* a desperately needed raise in fact

I ... went to the fancy-schmancy hospital party on Saturday and drank wine and ate food and went out afterwards with some cool folks and played darts and drank beer and had an honest to goodness fricken night out. It's been weeks. It, too, was desperately needed.

I ... got chocolate! (and if that isn't just a highlight of life, I don't know what else is ...)

I ... understood lecture in class tonight (first time in the new quarter).

I ... figured out how to access my email through my control panel even though the domain is gone! Damn. I'm the most ig'nant webbie out there, but I figured it out! Not getting LJ notifications, but dang. I still feel cool.

I ... figured out how to burn programs from Bob the tivo to my DVR, so I can burn Sarah Conner Chronicles and the Masterpiece theater Austen series I'm addicted to, and take them to pet sitting houses and get my fix.

Okay, maybe not the most impressive list ever, but damn. Life is looking so much better today. And it's Monday! Maybe tomorrow will be even better!

Oh, sweet optimism. I missed you so ...

So far, 2008 is not the pinnacle of organization for me. Probably because I've been petsitting in other peoples homes for over a month, and haven't had time to get home to take care of business. So all those little details that I don't have set up to do automatically have all fallen through the cracks.

Like my web domain. It expires in January of every year, and I spaced on re-registering. They send their reminders to an email I never check, and while I've missed it before, it's always stayed available. But this year, it expired on the 26th. Here it is the 27th, and someone has taken the domain! Who wants "soaringturtles.com" besides me? Srsly!

I've been wanting to change my domain name for ever, but I can never think of anything good. I don't want to use my name, but I don't want it to be so goofy I can't hand it out to clients/friends. I need ideas!

Help me, flist! You're my only hope ...

(in the meantime, I have no email! So if you've emailed me and I haven't returned the msg, I'm not an evil bitca who's ignoring you. I'm just winning the award for biggest space cadet ever).

So, a little update on my poor car. Almost word for word for the lady at the repair shop: "Yadda yadda, hole in the undercarriage ... yadda yadda ... water in the hydraulics system ... yadda yadda ... cold temperatures = water freezing ... yadda yadda ... $775 --"

Holy.

Shit.


And that's what they think the problem is.

In better news, borrowed a car from a friend for weekend pet sitting. Planned on ridesharing up to the mountains for skiing to take my mind off it all, but guess what liz the dummy did?

If you guessed that she left her skis, boots, poles and winter parka in her car that got towed in and is not locked up over the weekend, you win a cookie.

So, my car is broken again. I love it dearly but it always finds the creative ways to break down. And BTW, creative = expensive.

The brake pedal is stuck. Please, laugh, because I don't know what else to do. The fricking brake pedal is stuck! In brake! So I cannot move my car.

Plus I have a nice little ice rink in the backseat where water/some mysterious fluid leaked in, pooled up and then froze overnight.

A little online research looks like maybe the place where the water is leaking in from has short circuited electronics or maybe has clogged some of the inner workings of the brake system. Either way? Expensive

Fuckity fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

(Excuse the language).

This takes the palce of my very sad re: Heath Ledger post, because I am an evil selfish witch. Who now may miss her chem exam tonight while she struggles to get her car fixed. Again.

1. Skiied my first black diamonds of the season. Or of the last 15 seasons. And damn, they felt good. Painful, scary, but good.

2. Drove up to the pass for skiing so S. and I could leave early to walk dogs. And then stuck around for just one more run (okay, maybe two or three) and ended up stuck in crazy traffic.

3. Had to chain up to make it down the pass.

4. Lost a chain half way down. So if anyone finds a lonely tire chain halfway between Snoqualmie and Seattle, it might be mine.

5. Learned that sometimes, 1 chain is still better than none.

And now I'm going to bed so I can do it all tomorrow.

Things I did not do today:

Study for my chemistry exam on Wednesday.

But there was snow! In the mountains! With funny people! Tough decision ...

Dayum.

Well, we're the SeaHawks, not the SnowHawks. And now I think everyone knows why.

*headthuddesk*

Even with pitchers of beer and an entire bar full of the 12th man, that game just hurt. As much as I hate the Cowboys and the Packers, (sorry herowlness!), I'm anticipating they'll be duking it out in the NFC Championship. And while it'll be a good game, and I'll watch, it matter, cause I have decided:

I am boycotting a Patriot Super Bowl. mkwhite, I'm off to buy my Crystal Mountain bus ticket!

Okay, I'm annoying, but they keep playing this Jeep commercial over and over again during the Chargers/Titans game (intercepted in the end zone - d'oh!) And every time they show it I start cracking up all over again.




I think it's right after the wolf eats the bird - the look on the guy's face is like: "Dude! We were singing here! What the hell?" *cracks self up*

Okay, maybe I need to turn off the game and do some homework instead ...

For any and all Seattle folks, The Sunset Bowl is closing and being turned to evil soulless spawns of Satan mixed use condos. Farewell to bowling pin shaped beers, late-night karaoke and good time cheap party central. Are there even any bowling alleys left now that Leilani and Sunset are gone/going? Lame-o.

Went skiing yesterday with mkwhite and some good peeps and had way too much fun playing in the powder. Top that off with King's veggie burgers and oodles of beer to celebrate the Hawks wildcard victory and meeting cute boys (and some very-not-so-cute boys) and you have a tired, sore Liz this morning. Was going to go back up to mountains for more punishment ski-time, but Trish is sick and Allison hungover and instead I got a lazy morning with coffee, vegan donuts and the AFC Wildcard games. :)

I've got a random bruise on my knee that is seriously the size of a grapefruit. Uh, ouch?! Where the hell it came from I surely do not know.

Another loooong break from LJ ... went home to SF for Christmas. Not enough friend time (although A's belly is big and growing and kicking now and she's glowing now that the months of puking and moodiness are over), too much family time (successfully managed to pick a fight with big-sis and then had to talk her out of storming out of the house and ruining one of our three christmas dinners), lots of photos on my new digicam, big beautiful niece and nephew, my brother seems calm and happy and that is fabulous. Dad is old now and reminds me of his mother at that age, crotchedy, keeps the house like a sauna, but still hilarious throughout it all.

Plus ... I picked up my new skis yesterday! Bindings are all mounted and they look so sweet and sleek and fast! Meant to head up this morning but felt headachy and didn't feel like doing the first ski of the season alone. But the mountains are calling my name, and so I'm going Saturday and Sunday. Sorry Seahawks! Oodles of fresh powder so trump your playoff game.

In a totally unrelated topic ... the big 3-0 is nearly exactly 6 months away. And a post over in seattle made me think that I should really plan something fun for it. Any ideas? I'm loving the thought of a week in italy, but it'd be nice to do something here that people could come join in on. Not up for the whole skydiving thing (cause despite popular opinion, I'm not crazy, but ideas seem few and far between ... there's got to be something fun and affordable and not a pain in the ass to plan.

I'm probably late to the party, but for anyone else that's missed it:

Part I of the teaser trailer for Veronica Mars Season 4. I was absolutely not a big fan of the whole jump ahead in time Veronica joins the FBI idea, but this trailer? Looks pretty damn cool. Made me remember and miss the utterly badass days of VM. I hadn't been interested in a VM movies before, but just when I think I'm out ... (yadda yadda yadda)



P.S. What is Leno dressed up as? It is so, so scary.

UPS just stopped by and dropped off my new TIVO! Huzzah! The downside of being so awfully sick for a week is time spent shopping for goods online that I never have time to think about buying. A cool gift for my Mom's birthday this friday, a new digital camera (my first one evah!) and now, this shiny-evil-enabling machine.

Somehow, it makes the pain of my truly awful chem exam last night a bit more bearable.

So, anybody/everybody ...


what should I TIVO?

Somewhere around 26 weeks according to LJ which is sad. But the summer was crazy - working over 60 hours a week, pet sitting, trying to date people then trying to not date people and it didn't leave a lot of room for anything else. But now, the rain is here, the fall in full effect, I've officially been sick 1 day shy of 3 weeks and am back in school, studying up for exams like a (sick) crazy person.

Plus, I just wrote the longest sentence ever.

So after bailing on Blackalicious tonight *sobs* in the name of healing and studying for a chemistry exam, I'm taking a break in front of ye ole tele, and who do I see?

Wallace Fennel. In a Hot Pockets commercial.

*wails and pulls hair*

Damn. That is just so not right.