February 28, 2008

More friends to meet

Real quick I wanted to mention Cassia and Brian's blogs to which I've freshly linked. Cassia is wife of our assistant pastor and an all around beaming, quirky, awesome sort of woman. Brian is chief musician at our church, and takes a mean photo. Just found their blogs today and look forward to digging into their lives a little more.

Also, drat that Allen just when I was feeling bad about not getting stuff done he up and introduces me to a game that had me obsessively complusively building plasma sentry units and marching them around their pixelated planet. Lesson learned though. Allen cares more about whether I'm having fun than whether I'm doing dishes.

New internet friend

Elisa, a friend of mine from church, recently found my blog, and I am telling you right now to stop everything go read her. Reading her blog is like is like standing, arms outstretched, in the desert while the rushing wind sends your hair dancing out behind you and bites your eyes to tears.

February 27, 2008

Allen at work and play


There are times when this is eerily accurate.

February 26, 2008

And....we bought a car!

I called up the dealership selling the car we didn't get last night, and they offered it at 1k under the buy it now. Yeah. So why did they hoist up the BIN so high? I don't get it either. Anyway, even with dealer fees and delivery we're getting a pretty good deal. Of course now I'm sort of kicking myself for not haggling more with them, but since they price they offered was under our highest bid in the auction I really can't think we did so badly. And it has a sunroof!!! Pretty green paint and a sunroof for fun. Cargo space (for camping) and a 4cyl engine (lower gas mileage) for practicality. We should get it in around 2-3 weeks. Squeeee!

February 25, 2008

Ebay car buying woes

Ok, we've pretty much narrowed it down to a '99/'00 Honda CR-V -with a sunroof. I really want that sunroof. The issue though is actually finding one in good shape that we can afford. It can be frustrating to be sure. We just came within $600 of the buy it now price on one auction, and the reserve still says "unmet." Jeesh. Don't know why the bother using the auction feature at all. Might as well make it a BIN only auction and be done with it. There's another car coming up we might be interested it, but the upper peninsula of Michigan is a long ways away if we were to go pick it up. And then there's shipping if we didn't go up there and plane tickets if one or both of us did. I admit this is one of the times when a swimming pool full of money would come in handy. Plunk down the cash. Get the car. Go home. Done. Still, even without the swimming pool full of money, at least we aren't diving into car payments. Ick. That wouldn't be a jolly way to do things.

February 21, 2008

Car buying

I don't much like buying things on a deadline.I like to browese through ebay and wander around the local thrift stores (or the local Laz-y-Boy) until I find exactly what I want. Of course then sometimes there's a sale ending to consider and the opportunity costs, but it's nothing too bad. It's when the transmission goes out on your ONLY vehicle that things really get interesting. Cause then all of a sudden we have to decide what car we want and how much we want to spend on it and how long we expect to keep it. Yeah. And of course what I want is stretching our definition of what we can afford. And what I want is stretching Allen's definition of "want." Isn't marriage fun :D Allen for the Honda and me for the Toyota (and the one I want would be the more expensive of the two =). It will get sorted out eventually. At least we can borrow my in-law's superfluous van for a while until we find something suitable. It's just part of the ever expanding list of firsts for the not so newly wed.

Namaste

If anyone hasn't tried a Namaste mix I really recommend you do so. They're free of gluten, soy, nuts, refined sugars, and most other potential allergens. I like them because particularly because I'm trying to maintain a mostly wheat free diet (my cheats are fried chicken and communion bread), but they're good for anyone who's trying out healthier alternatives to convention cakes. I particularly like their spice cake with carrot cake variation, but their brownies are also good. When my MIL and FIL were out of town over my brother-in-law's birthday I used the brownie mix to make him a mint chocolate chip brownie cake which he really liked. Anyway, thought I would mention it.

February 18, 2008

Living with limits

I sort of apologize for that last post. For some reason my cycle just completely knocked me off my feet this time around. Well, that on top of a very busy previous week and trying to ward off whatever seems to be going around.

And I'm still not very good at setting limits during these sorts of seasons. I start setting and meeting goals. Something sets my energy level back, and I get all sorts of frustrated that I'm not getting done what I should be getting done. I don't want to be lazy. I want to get stuff done. But there are times when I don't start things because I'm scared of getting tired/busy and having one more unfinished project laying around reminding me of whatever productive thing I could be doing. It's something I'm working on. Being productive and happy during my slow times instead of getting frustrated and overwhelmed by everything else. Speaking of which I have a cake that needs to get in the oven.

February 15, 2008

A gray day

I seem to go through these. Things are going great them BLAM several days hit me once. That's sort of what it feels like today anyway. I'm tired. I feel like I might be getting a cold. My apartment is going downhill. I don't know what to fix for supper, and on top of all of that it looks like baby fever is setting in again. I was thinking that it'd be good to have a couple of months to cleanse. Now I'm starting to change my mind. Not that changing my mind would change anything. It's not something I can control. So there you have it. Poor pitiful me.

The frustrating thing is that it really isn't just laziness or procrastination. If was those I could just kick myself off the sofa and do something about it. I've just got pretty low vital energy right now. It's never been very high since I graduated, but now it's worse, AND I DON'T KNOW WHY. It's frustrating enough to make me cry. I'm drinking water, eating fresh veggies, and taking nutritional supplements. I just don't know what to do. I get so tired and listless, but I don't like spending so much time goofing off at the computer. I have projects I want/need to work on and duties to attend to, but it's so hard getting up the wherewithall to get them done.

I haven't gotten a comment on this blog for weeks, and I don't wonder at it. I've been so dry lately. My writing hasn't even been that interesting to me. Oh well. I better see what I can fix for supper.

February 11, 2008

New Furniture!!!

Well, Allen and I have been busy the last few days. I've been really wanting some living room chairs so I can feel like I have an actual living room and not just a sofa and a bookcase. Well, what started out as a hunt for chairs actually became a regular living room make-over. While pricing chairs I found a sofa. I could get it in brown. I had been dreaming of a brown sofa for the longest time. But......doubts about the suitablity of dark brown assail me. Desire for colors. Not worth the extra $150 to get brown. Utter suitability of a pleasant new leaf green for blending into my existing colors. The in-store discount credit will cover the cost of a lovely lamp which I'd need anyway to balance out the lighting on both sides of the room. Presto, sofa! Also, a lamp with a suggested retail price so far out of my budget (and thrifty sensibilities) that I can't quite believe it's sitting in my living room. Like her heroine's dresses in a GLH novel it's one of those ridiculously simple affairs without fuss or ornamentation which yet manages to put itself unequivically above all it's cheap and fussily ornamented relations - a beautiful wood base simply turned and polished surmounted by a creamy shade. The chairs are $99 wonders from IKEA in Atlanta. Barrel chairs uphostered with sturdy unbleached cotton and slender wooden legs. We've put them on either side of the bookcase and have rearranged the bookcase so that I can display my knick-knacks to better advantage -mostly my Madam Alexander dolls along with various photos and trinkets I've picked up over the years. There's a really curious people of driftwood I once found. From one direction it looks like a ship with its sails full. From another it looks like a woman with her hair and draperies blowing in the breeze. I don't even remember where I found it now.

At any rate I have been quite busy. I'd like to sort of take today off and enjoy the mild breezes blowing through my living room, but unfortunately I have to get this place ready for health class tonight. I'm so glad we can host this, but it does sort of put one on a deadline.

February 8, 2008

Hi again

I realize I haven't been posting as much recently. Part of it is that there's hasn't been a whole lot going on. I'm working on doing some cleansing, and either because of or in spite of it I've been pretty zapped the past couple of weeks. That morning routine of mine has sort of disentagrated simply because I can't get the momentum up. Now I'm sort of doing things in bits and peices throughout the day. And honestly things are sort of looking like it. My morning routine let me pull steady with the apartment and even get ahead. Feeling zapped means I breeze through one room, and just want to sit down. And this is the girl who used to go from 6am to midnight. Hmmmm, that could be why I'm still tired? lol I do think my studies took a toll on my from which perhaps I have not yet entirely recovered.

The other reason I haven't been posting is that I've been running kind of dry lately. Not too much I want to muse over in writing right now. Things will hopefully head uphill again as I continue cleansing and release some of the junk stored up in my body. Until then....things are going to be pretty boring around here.