tennessee

Snow is an interesting thing.

The company I work for is not very logistically minded.

Jalapeno Smokehouse almonds are actually very good.

There is at least one mouse sharing residency in our house. He likes to eat.

My birthday is in less than a month (as of one minute ago).

I don't like not being able to get on the internet.

I like snow.

And donuts.

Fast cars are cool too.

Do you ever find yourself staring at something so long you totally stop seeing it at all?

Peanut butter is quite tasty.


mood: think it might be time for sleep
music: "So Long, So Long" - Dashboard Confessional

back to the real world

Well, although there are still seven and a half hours before I have to be at work, it is officially Monday morning, thus ending a glorious four day weekend. I think I have lived most of this time in various stages and places of un-reality. (perhaps the next tv craze?) I have spent many hours watching Alias and reading "David Copperfield" (which I am finally within about 80 pages of finishing) and thinking that I can still play tackle football.

I think I ate less this Thanksgiving than I have since I was probably ten years old. A little sad, but all the food was wonderful! And I guess it shouldn't be too sad of a thing that my stomach didn't feel as if it would explode if I twisted just right...

I am seriously having touble figuring out which parts of last night I really saw happen and which part of it was a dream. I think I saw someone in my house that doesn't live here (don't worry, they were with someone who does). Actually, I know that they were here and I saw them lying on the futon in the living room. However, I don't know if I also saw them in the kitchen as well, or if that part was in a dream. Seriously, I have no idea. Somewhat disturbing.

Kinda scary to think that a week from now we will already be into December.

Ooh. Also, assisting in the weekend fantasy world, I went to see the new Bond movie with some friends. And, as most of you have seen it or are intending to see it, I will just leave it at this...wow! Great, awesome movie. If you are on the fence about seeing it, go. You will like it. I think I spent the first ten minutes with my mouth hanging open and at times almost giggling (i said almost) because I just couldn't believe the utter sweetness that I was beholding!

Sure could go for some pie right now...or a turkey sandwich. Corn. Corn would be good too. There are a few disadvantages to not living with the parents...but most of them involve food.

I think that parents, at least mothers, have an inherent desire to question their children's...umm..."matelessness" for lack of better word...always in front of others. Why?! Do they think that having others involved is going to prod said children into action? If it were as simple a thing to be solved by mere action! Or do they do it simply because their parents did it to them and their parents before them? Because lets face it, we know we are all going to do it to our children. If we ever get past our inaction and are able to find someone...

mood: me thinks me needs some shut-eye
music: "Have A Little Faith In Me" - John Hiatt

pie!

Pie night at the church tonight. Yes, there are something like fourty pies on the table! Good times. And no, I didn't have a piece from each one. I only had three small pieces. Which is quite good for me.


Wish ya'll coulda been there. It was a great time. Mostly cause I got to hang out in the kitchen with everyone and helped get everything set up. Reminded me of the old food service days back in college. I actually liked working up there for somme reason. Good times. And I love the people that usually are always working in the kitchen here. Good people.


mood: pie
music: "Extraordinary Machine" - Fiona Apple

south of the border

I was refered to as a "kid" today, by someone who obviously did not recognize me and was talking smack about me, unknowingly, right to my face. Always enjoyable. Just glad I have enough self-restraint at times like that that I let the anger well up inside for a while instead of just taking swings at people's faces, like I really really wanted to do with this guy. Cause him and his wife were both big jerks. And that's not just me saying that. I have back-up opinions on that fact. Anyway... That's life I guess. But I didn't really think that I looked that young anymore. Especially to someone who was probably only in their mid-thirties. I'm over it now, was a long time ago actually, but it (and the other things they said) really did bother me a whole lot more than they really should have. Oh well, just more issues I need to work on. What's new?

On a happier note...I actually got to work eight hours today. It was quite nice. Third time that that has happened now in the last week and a half. Now I just need it to start happening every day again and all will be well... I should have a full day again tomorrow too, and possibly Wendesday, but that reamins to be seen. But no paid holidays yet, so that is sad. But I'm sure I will not be thinking too much about the work that I am not doing on Thursday and Friday as I eat all the wonderful food that will be always within arm's reach. Getting hungry already just thinking about it. Seriously. My stomach just started doing the little flip-flops it would do when I was in high school and would go longer than two hours at a time without eating.

I think iTunes has psychic powers. I was just thinking that I hadn't heard any of the songs from a certain album for quite a while, and sure enough, the next song it played was from that album. Strange, and a little disconcerting.

Whoever founded Rubbermaid has to be quite wealthy.

The less tv I watch, I miss it less and less all the time.


mood: definitely not feeling like a kid. two hours of basketball sure hurt
music: the furnace and the helicopter are kinda drowning out the music right at the moment

cheering to no avail

AWESOME!

I think I might have to actually finally become a Denver Broncos fan, just to have an excuse to go to NFL games. It was so much fun! Loved it! True, the Broncos did lose, but it was a great game. Lots of scoring. Some good hits. Lots of yelling, although I don't think they heard me. Because they definitely did not "go" or "play defense" at all. But it is an outdoor stadium, which is how football is meant to be played.

Church was excellent today as well. Kicked my butt. The service was about Job. He was rather impressive.

Now, time to get some sleep before the 6 a.m. practice. Still haven't decided if I am going in early to work out or not. I did get one good comment today from one of the varsity players about the practice I ran on Friday. Said he went home and took a nap after. Always good to hear that I accomplished what I set out to do...make them tired, very tired. They had the weekend to recover. And they're still young, it's good for them.


mood: a little chilly, maybe i should close my window...nah
music: "Reason Why" - Rachael Yamagata

nocturnal

Football. Lots of football this weekend. Good times. Was able to watch some football today. Not too much, not too little. Just the right amount for today. And tomorrow... I GET TO GO TO MY FIRST NFL GAME EVER!! And, actually, I guess that would be today. If I wanted to get all technical about it. Very excited about this! Broncos v. Chargers. Should be a great game.

I have been hearing a lot of new music lately. Not really "new" music, but new to me. I like it, I like it a lot. And I think it is helping me to be a little calmer than I have been the last few months. At least it seems to be helping. Maybe there is something to that science project I had to do way back in like seventh grade. Those poor little mice...

Ooh. Picture of the basement bathroom. Kinda hard to really tell what is going on in there, but really, there is not a whole lot left of it...



Yeah. That is where the sink and toilet used to be. Pretty much gone now. And now there are trenches in other rooms too. Going to have to replace all the pipes that are under the floor down there. And, the week after Thanksgiving, we get to dig a hole outside the house that is at least three feet across and nine feet deep. Yep, that's three feet deeper than your average grave. My help has already been asked for on that. That is going to be the funnest part of all...or maybe not. Digging holes in CO is not too fun. The soil out here is horrible to dig. But, it's all good experience. Looks good on the resume, right? Oh, and all the trenches you can see in the floor, and all the ones you can't, pretty much are all my dad's doing. I only helped him for like 2 hours on that part of things. He is an animal!

mood: excited
music: "Reason Why" - Rachael Yamagata

barely listening

I had forgotten what a great show Alias is/was. And no, it's not because of Jennifer Garner. Not a huge fan of hers, although she does do a pretty good job on the show. Right now, seen as how I am just starting to watch the first season again, it's mostly Marshall. But later, Jack and Vaughn and Weiss. It's a pretty great show. Keeps the suspense level up near the boiling point most of the time. Not a whole lot of shows that succeed in doing that.

Ray Charles has a great voice. He's one of the singers that with every word he sings makes you believe he has lived and felt each word and if he doesn't sing it out his own heart is going to burst. But that's just my opinion.

I think at times my mind forgets to wander. But then I realize that the verry fact that I am thinking this probably means that my mind is doing more wandering than it should.

Electricity is a very handy thing.


mood: wishing i enjoyed reading more text books
music: "Hello" - Evanescence

back to basics

So, I have been forced to revert to the darkages of the internet again. Dial up. Goodbye streaming radio feeds and having multiple browsers open and actually having them all loading pages at the same time. I miss you, wireless internet connection, I miss you.

The reason for this atrocity? (sorry if the spelling is off more than usual, but using the dictionary online is horribly slow on this computer) I was at my parents house helping my dad last night and received a call from my landlord about the power at the house. I figured he just meant that it had gone out for some reason, but no. One of my lovely roommates, who is never ever there (seriously i have seen him a total of less than five minutes in the two weeks that i have been there), has the electric set up in his name and apparently he has decided not to pay the bill anymore. And apparently he decided this four months ago. So, yeah. They turned our power off yesterday. But it should be back on at some point today. Which is a good thing. In the meantime...I got to spend the night on my parents short couch. And I guess I fell asleep and somehow managed to change the channel on the tv to PBS before dropping the remote, because I woke up this morning to the very disturbing sounds of the TeleTubbies. That'll give you nightmares!

So, I am still currently at the parents house, no work today, just waiting till I have some electricity to go home to. I knew this move was going to make for some fun stories! But really, these are the things that make life fun. Just glad I had a warm place to sleep.

It almost tried to snow here yesterday.

Hope all of you lovely people out there are having a wonderful day. I am going to go now, before I go any loopier than I already am...


mood: sore, dirty, and wishing I was working. But really pretty good!
music: "Silver Bell" - Ray Conniff (hey, the music selection on my dad's computer is QUITE limited. besides, it's almost that time of year...)

mercury

Yes, the mercury is finally dropping! I am sitting here with my window slightly open and I can actually feel a little cold air coming in. Could be due to the fact that it is 34 degrees outside right now. Very nice!

My dad decided to have the sewer line replaced that runs from the house to the street because it was pretty much not working anymore. Not a huge deal, other than the cost, but it doesn't require any work inside your actual house. However, before they started the job, they ran a camera inside the pipes that are inside of the house and found some problems in those as well. Meaning that the basement bathroom had to be ripped out and the floor dug up and some pipes replaced down there. So, seen as how this is what I do (at times) for my job, I spent about three hours Thusrsday and another two or three on Friday gutting the bathroom. It was great fun and quite enjoyable as I have wanted to tear that bathroom up for years. It was a horrible little place. I'll try to get a couple pics up in the next couple of days to share. It really isn't too exciting to look at right now I guess, just a whole lot of nothing and some holes in the floor. But you'll just have to live through it with me. Cause for some reason these are the types of things I enjoy doing...

Not a whole lot else happening. Lived through the first week of basketball practice. Found out Friday that the two missing guys from the jv team are actually eighth graders. They practiced with us on Friday, and they seem pretty good, so they should help us out. But they are eighth graders...always a scary thing.

Also, spent about three hours tonight unpacking bins that I haven't looked in for a year and a half. Found a whole bunch of stuff that I had forgotten I even had and also found some stuff that I have been looking for and could never find when I would actually attempt to dig through things. I now have a good amount of my "library" out on shelves, instead of in storage, and it is kinda nice. Now I just have three more bins to go through, build a shelf thingy (out of some drawer innards I hijacked from work) for my dvds, and figure out where to put all the clothes I found and then I should be done setting up my room. Good times! (oh, and try to get the cable working down here. that would be nice too. but i really haven't had a whole lot of time/interest to even watch much tv lately)


mood: quite content at the moment
music: "Since I Fell For You" - Lenny Welch

Raining In Baltimore

I think sometimes lately I have been turning into a person that I don't like so much. And I try to justify it by saying that I'm just going thru a hard time and that I deserve to be how I am right now.

That's crap.

On a lighter note..."Days Of Thunder" is on tv, on one of the Spanish channels, right now! Spanish always makes a great movie even better! And no, I don't know more than uno word of Spanish, but it is always fun to watch their shows anyway. Highly entertaining.

And I went to a scary little Wal-Mart tonight. Sadly, the closest Target to my new dwelling is probably about a 15 - 20 minute drive, and the Wal-Mart is only like 3 minutes away. Amazingly, it was not incredibly busy. It was, however, I think the only Wal-Mart left that is not a SuperCenter. But they had the stuff I wanted to get and they do have a couple of isles of food, even some frozen stuff, so it will probably be the place I end up going to most of the time.

Ooh!! Looks like "The Mummy" is going to be on the Spanish station "muy pronto". I'll have to try to catch that one too.


mood: sleepy
music: "Invisible City" - The Wallflowers

reason why

Ok. So since I am now living in a place that has wireless internet I should be posting something on here like every ten minutes, right? Of course it would help if I were actually ever home. I left the house this morning at about ten minutes to six (for a meeting at work that had absolutely no reasson for me, or at least five other people, even being there), and I just got back tonight at about elevenish. Long day. And tomorrow I am going to try to get to the school at about five in the a.m. so I am going to have to get up rather early. But that is a good thing. I think.

First basketball practice was tonight. Didn't go too horribly, but I wonder about some of those kids. And Chris, the head coach, was talking to me before practice and said that he was thinking about making me the head coach for the JV team after a couple of games, if I was feeling up to it. Could be interesting. Don't think that there would be a whole lot of pressure to win at least...

Also, the sis is leaving for MN tomorrow, so there will once again be less laughter in CO. I don't think I have laughed as hard as I did tonight in a long long time. It was kind of crazy. Of course the major sugar high that I was on didn't hurt anything either.

I think I only have to work a half day tomorrow, so maybe I will be able to catch up on a few things and try to figure out what all I still need to move over to my new place right now and get this all set up. And maybe I can try to call and talk about a new job as well. That would be a good thing. A very very good thing. I think I am officially done trying to deal with my current employment. I like most of the people that I actually have to deal with on a daily basis. But the management, and all the ridiculous policies that supposedly are to make my life easier and safer...just makes me want to scream!

But I am not complaining about it. Really. (the "slapping me upside the head for complaining" rule is still standing for anyone who may be interested) I am thankful that I have a job and it compensates me fairly well, at times. It is just time to move on.


mood: sleepy
music: "Hello" - Evanescence

sitting

In utter disregaurd to the danger of me losing at least half of you by venting about baseball right off the bat (sorry, lame joke), I am going to do exactly that. Was reading this weeks issue of SI tonight, it is Thursday after all, and there was a nice article in there about the St. Louis Cardinals winning the World Series. Yes, I know that the final game was almost a whole week ago now, and this is actually not news-worthy anymore. But bear with me for a second. I'll make it short. Basically, my problem with the article is that it wass trying to say that the Cards are truly a great team and were worthy of winning. Well, not from how I see things. True, they won. So they must have been a good team, right? Sort of. It is a sport, so really any team has a chance of winning, that's just one of the beautiful things about sports. And yes, they did make it to the post season, so they were not a horrible team. But in reality, they just happened to be a team with enough experienced guys on it to win in the end. They caught a VERY your Detroit team at perhaps the easiest time to beat them, and they took advantage. Detroit had almost a full week off before the Series started, the Cards had a day or two. This is huge is baseball. And most of Detroit's players are young and have little to absolutely no post season experience at all, let alone World Series experience. Also, Detroit had to beat the Yankees and Oakland to get to the Series. Two very tough teams that would wear most any other team out.

Anyway, I could go on, but I will spare all of you. In the end, the Cards won and that is all that ultimately matters. Errors, experience, time off, crowd noise, and what the players ate doesn't matter. It's the wins. And Detroit just happened to pick a bad time to have a couple of off games and St. Louis picked a great time to have some very good games. So, congrats to all of you Cardinals fans out there (Kathy). And here's hopin the Twins get there next year.

Also, I would like to take this chance to say that I don't think that I like Rick Reilly's "Life of Reilly" page that he has at the end of every issue. Initially, this page was one of the biggest selling points for me on SI. Loved it. Good, intelligent writing. Lately, seems like he is just writing trash. Granted, there are always going to be those nuggets of good, but do I really want to have to go dumpster diving every week to find them?

if you want a good page though, and almost a gaurantee of a good page, read Steve Rushin's page. Always the first by-line in SI and I never miss it. Granted, I am slightly biased to him, as he did grow up in Minnesota. But he is very intelligent, funny, and just writes good stuff. It is rare that I don't learn something from his page, or at least find myself touched by who he writes about. So, even if you aren't a sports fan, it would be worth reading him every week if you can get your hands on a copy of SI. And if you don't know anyone who has a subscription and you don't want to buy one yourself, and you don't want to stand in the magazine isle at Target reading it, I would imagine that pretty much any guy out there would jump at the chance to buy one for you. If you expressed your interest about it to him in just the right way. Guys are suckers for things like that. And well, you women know what you are doing and how to do it, so I don't need to say any more on that than I have.

Enough about SI. It is a great mag, but I really wasn't intending to go on that much about anything sports related.

So I tried to call the guy I ran into the other day about a job. Just got his voice mail but I at least left him a nice message so he knows I am for sure interested. And remember how I said I thought he was fairly high up in the company he works for. Yeah, was looking at his card while I was calling and pretty sure that it said "Vice President" under his name. That's pretty high up. Definitely going to try to call him again tomorrow.

I can't believe that I am already thinking about Christmas. And I am actually getting a little excited about it too. Usually I get in the mood to listen to some Christmas music for a day or two somewhere in the middle of the summer and then I am good until like December 20th or so. And I am usually dreading Christmas right at this time of year. And I have been from time to time already. But the last day or so it has actually crossed my mind a time or two, and there was no dread attached to those thoughts. Strange. Still not going to put more than my Kermit ornament on the tree any time soon though.

Think I might actually be able to stay at my new place tomorrow night. Finally. Still have a bunch of stuff to do there, but at least I would be there.

The Office. What a great, great show. Almost felt sorry for Michael tonight, almost. But really, I am having a really hard time remembering what actually happened on tonight's episode. I have been watching the dvd's from season two and those are all I can think of right now. D'oh!

mood: may as well watch some more of The Office
music: "Got You (Where I Want You)" - The Flys

discovery

I think that perhaps I am finally starting to figure some things out about life. Or at least my life. And why I can be such an angry person at times. Now, all I need to do is purpose to change those circumstances, and never stop until I do change them. At least as much as I can. In the circumstances I am thinking of I know that ultimately I can only do so much and then just be content with what God decides for me. At least I have been having some epiphanies the last few days. Means I have actually been thinking about things, which is more than I am used to. Baby steps.

Collected my sister from the airport tonight! She brought me a new bed spread or comforter, whatever it is you call those things. I just call them blankets. Easier that way. But it is pretty cool. And it means I can finally stop using the blanket my ex made for me. And there was much rejoicing.

And it is really nice to have someone around who understands my parents and can help me deal with them. And someone who will laugh at me when I just have to vent about things. Cause that is really all I want. Just someone to laugh. Then maybe I can see that what I am all bent out of shape about isn't really that big of a deal, but maybe I can keep going and make them laugh even more and then pretty soon I will be laughing about it too. And then it really isn't as bad. I don't know. Does that make any sense at all?

But life is good right now. I know I still have much to learn and a long way to go, but at least I'm heading in the right direction.

mood: getting ready to watch a couple episodes of The Office. i'd say that's a good thing
music: "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 122/24)" - Trans-Siberian Orchestra (yes, i know it is early for christmas music, but i just remembered to put this cd on my iTunes and had to listen to this song. it is one of my favorites...)