how do you live so happily while i am sad and broken down?

Ok, so looking at my journal, it's been ages since I really posted here. On the bright side, my twitter to facebook connection is working again, so I am tweeting more which lets you know things like I went to the ER last weekend. That was fun.

So let's see. Last weekend - Friday night, tennis. Saturday, tennis. Sunday, walked a 5K in 53 minutes. This was my first 5K and I was happy that it was pretty easy for me. Of course, it's not like we walked super fast or anything but hey. It was fun. Actual fun, not the sarcastic fun from the previous paragraph. Then there was my little DIY accident. Lesson learned: never set power tools above you, they might fall. The major thing I have to say about that is that I was really disappointed with the ER at Emory. Since I moved here, people have always told me that if I need to go to the hospital, I should go to Emory. I think they must mean the one downtown, because the one at the campus hospital was tiny and dingy. And I had to wait for 3 hours to get an x-ray.

But anyway, thankfully it turned out to be nothing. It didn't even hurt really, just a lot of swelling which is now turning into a lovely large bruise with still just a tiny bit of swelling. Luckily the organizers of the 5K had included a sample of Arctic Ease so I tried it out. It feels weird because it's all clammy, but it was much more convenient than the bag of ice. Also, unlike the bag of ice, my cat didn't try to attack it and eat it.

I had to take a few days off from tennis on the doctor's recommendation, so I missed practice on Monday and had to postpone the match I had planned for Tuesday. I did finish the shelves though, and over Thursday and Friday I managed to deep clean the bathroom and get everything back in the closet. It's so nice to have a place for everything instead of having stuff piled up in a jumble. Other than that, I didn't accomplish much this week though.

Thursday night, I played a THREE HOUR TENNIS MATCH. Long match was long. I won though, so that's something. Then last night, it was the usual - tennis drills and tacos after with friends. Then I had the make up match from Tuesday today. Sadly, my legs went "Bitch, do you think you're an athlete or something???" and then replied "Um, no." I totally lost the will to live in the second set. I'd planned to come home and mow the lawn, but as tomorrow is our Spring ALTA season opener, I felt I owed it to my partner to rest up tonight and try to be fresher for tomorrow. We shall see.

So all of that is to say that if you were to ask me what I've been up to, I would say: playing tennis.

Tonight I have:

• Sat on my couch.


• Eaten candy.


• Watched the movie Brothers and cried.


• Worked on my iPod playlists.


• Took pictures of the Super Moon.


• Packed for my work trip to (near) Chicago tomorrow.


• Written you a long, fairly boring LJ post.

Well, I nearly had another home decorating fail tonight. I was trying to hang tension rod for the fabric wall for my bathroom downstairs (second attempt, it fell down the first time). I needed to hang a hook from the ceiling to support the center of the rod, and ONCE AGAIN, I stripped the screw. Half in, half out, not budging in either direction. :(

I walked away from it for a while and hung up the toilet paper holder and hand towel holder, which were relatively easy - there was a touch-and-go moment with the hand towel holder but I conquered it. Then I took another look at the screw, got a standard screwdriver (it was a phillips screw) and slowly unscrewed it by hand. Then I figured out that the screw I was trying to use was too long to fit in the space between the ceiling and whatever flooring or whatnot that was stopping it. I got a shorter screw, screwed it in by hand, and voila!

Or at least, it's been up for an hour and it hasn't fallen down yet.

I'm giving it a while before I hang up the towel rod that it would probably knock down if it fell. Maybe tomorrow night.

Anyway, all I've been thinking about lately is how my house isn't where I want it to be, because I'm having a party at the end of the month and I want everything to be perfect. Which of course it won't be, but I'm trying. There's also a lot of stuff I want to buy right now but I'm going to have to prioritize.

Chair for the living room: $200
Painting my office: ~$200
Fertilizing and re-seeding my lawn: $150
Furniture for the office: ~$200

I'm holding off on the office stuff for a while, definitely til after the party and probably until after Coachella. I will probably work on my lawn this weekend, if the rain stops long enough.

That's the exciting life I'm leading right now :D I was kind of down tonight thinking of all the stuff I needed to do, but now I'm feeling better that I've accomplished something.

Hey, you know what can cause your OCD to flare up? Yard work. Know what's impossible to get clean? THE OUTDOORS.

I feel like I haven't really updated in a while, other than twitter posts and the occasional 'hey, look at this' link. I'm doing good, just focused elsewhere, I guess. I've been playing a lot of tennis, although our league wrapped up on Saturday for the winter season. I had my best game so far, so that was awesome. I saw My Bloody Valentine with some fellow Supernatural enthusiasts on opening day. I enjoyed it a lot, mostly because I was in a theater full of people intent on having a good time. It was cheesy but fun, and I wish the theater had had the 3D stuff because that would have been awesome.

I watched the inauguration, of course, and twittered through it - which kind of cracks me up, but anyway. I thought his speech was good, and I hope that the rest of the nation takes it the way I took it, that it's great he got elected, but that our duty didn't end there and now we have to help turn things around by volunteering, by staying involved in local, state and federal politics, and by holding our elected officials accountable for their voting.

I'm of two minds about the whole closing of Gitmo thing. On the one hand, I am happy that Obama is moving to close the torture 'loophole' - that goes against everything we sell ourselves as as Americans, and you cannot say we stand for liberty and justice and freedom for all, but we have to do this horrible thing because everybody else does it and the ends justify the means. No. On the other hand, it opens up a whole host of really uncomfortable questions, and I hope that this is step one, and step two is a really clever plan to address them. Where do these detainees go? What should the legal process for indicting/prosecuting/imprisoning terrorists be? Should there be degrees of terrorism like there are degrees of murder? There's a lot of hard questions there that I don't have the answers for, and am frankly glad that I don't personally have to come up with them. Like it says in this video, I'm glad we've elected the smart guy, because decades of going for the charismatic guy that doesn't make us feel stupid had gotten us in this mess. My understanding is that the Obama administration is asking for a 30 day suspension on everything, and I hope they come back with a plan at that point.

In other less political news, I came home on Sunday and started putting away my groceries only to notice that something was amiss in the kitchen. On further inspection, I discovered that my cabinets, which are ONLY TWO YEARS OLD are coming un-nailed from the back of the cabinet (which is mounted onto the wall). So now they're crooked and I'm trying to find a good handyman to put them back. To add to the unfairness, it's not even like I put that much food into them. Argh, I say, argh!

And that's about it. Most of my focus these days is on my diet (which is going well), making a blanket, figuring out what I'm doing with my vacation time this year (trips to Denver, home, Savannah, home), and fighting off a cold.

Ugh, I'm having one of those nights when I can't make my brain shut down. I'm feeling rushed with everything I need to do before I leave on my work trip on Sunday, since I won't get home til the following Saturday night and I'm having a Halloween party on that Sunday. So I'm lying in bed wondering about things like, if I took the bags with me to Mexico, maybe I could make those cool tea light bag things I saw in Better Homes and Gardens? And how much do cupcake cakes cost? And I need to invite a few more people that I missed out on (if you are in ATL and want to come, let me know!)... and the list goes on. Plus I need to re-seed my lawn this weekend, and redo the caulking in my bathroom for the tub and sink, and put the filters in my A/C vents. And and and... *hyperventilates*

So yeah, I'm putting writing and reading and practicing my drums on hold - I can take all that with me on my work trip - and focusing on the house.

On the bright side, I got a lot done today - 3 hours of lawn work! I had today off from work; they give us flex holidays, so we can choose when to take them. I took today off in celebration of Random Thursday. I hauled the rest of the debris from taking my shed down to the curb, and picked up the loose branches out of the back yard, and then bagged up 6 bags of pine straw (I think that's what the needles are called when they dry out) and pine cones! If anyone ever needs that stuff, I have a factory. Note to anyone doing any landscaping ever: do not plant pine trees! They are messy and they kill your grass, and there's a special season where you have to take great care walking from your car to your house so as not to be boinked on the head by a pine cone missile.

Then I cleaned up my rec room (this is what I am officially calling my 'garage'/craft room/game&DVD storage/workout room) for the party - I bought all my lawn care stuff at Lowe's last weekend and I'd just thrown it all in there, so now it's either put away, or tucked into the office until after the party. And I got my duvet cover that I washed this week put back on the bed. So I have accomplished quite a bit today!

So today I went to Home Depot and Lowe's and got quotes on all the things I need to start caring for my own lawn. Lowe's has said they will match Home Depot's financing plan (6 months, no interest, no payments), so I'm planning to buy everything from them except for the shed, which I'll get at Home Depot. The final cost is going to run me just under $1300. So that's 17 months of lawn service at the current price or 10 months at the new price.

Either way, I have a plan, go me!

The guy at HD also showed me Bagster, which is awesome - you buy the bag for $30 and it holds something like 3 tons of junk, and then you call them and they haul it away for $70. Way cheaper than the $300 the junk people wanted to charge me.

Then I came home and found a website for a company that says they'll come get it for free! So I'm trying them first, and then I'll do the bagster thing if that doesn't pan out.

Then I went to the craft store and bought the things I needed to make my brother's christmas present, and came home and ordered the photo developing online for it. And I finished putting together the scrapbook I completed last week.

Now I'm going to pour myself a glass of wine and start on my next project - sorting out my 2005 & 2006 scrapbook stuff - and watch The Black Parade is Dead! on DVD.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! (or at least it will be by the time I get done typing this!)

So I kinda posted last week and then disappeared, sorry about that. Thanks for everyone that replied to my post. Work was a complete clusterfuck all week, and left me mostly comatose in the evenings. To update on the dog story: So I called animal control again on Wednesday, because the dog not only had been out each day since I'd asked my neighbor to keep him in on Monday, but also because he was dragging trash into my backyard, and they weren't home when I went over to tell them. Then on the way back to my house, the dog got between me and my door and wouldn't let me go in my own house. I had to get a stick out of another neighbor's yard and threaten him with it before I could go back in. So I called them, and I don't think they ever came. More dog sightings on Thursday and Friday, complete with their OTHER dog out and in my backyard. I was pissed, but so consumed with work I didn't have time to do anything about it.

Friday is my day for tennis class, but I got a big surprise when I walked out my front door after work. The curb and yard of the neighbor's house was piled up with trash and furniture and kids toys. All their cars were gone. They're moving out! I had about 1 minute of pure joy, and then I realized that THE DOG WAS STILL THERE. :( Fail, neighbors, fail. There wasn't much I could do about it, since they were gone and it was after 5pm, so I went off to tennis. I am loving playing again - it's nice to do exercise that doesn't involve machines, and that does involve socializing. I am making new friends, yay!

Saturday I heard movement next door when I got up, and saw them moving more stuff out to the curb. By the time I got ready, they were gone again, and there was no sign of the dog, so I hope they took him with them this time. Maybe they were just making a trip on Friday and came back for him that night, idk. I'd gotten up early so that I could go to the art museum. This weekend was the last weekend for the Georgia O'Keefe/Stieglitz showing. I am not a huge Georgia O'Keefe fan, but I bought a membership to the High (yes, that is the name of Atlanta's art museum - I really wish they'd do a 'Come On, Get High' promotion) this year and I want to try to go to all the exhibits. I was a little skeeved by the description of her mentor/husband, because there were a lot of references to his belief that women brought a child-like innocence to art that had a lot of creepy undertones to them, and his photography, particularly his nudes of her, was disconcerting and awkward. I did enjoy some of the other artists he had mentored though, particularly some of the photographs by Gertrude Kasebier.

Today, I got up and fixed both of my gates, so if there is a return of the dog, or if I get new neighbors, I will be prepared! I do feel bad for the owners of the property - they are a nice couple about my age, and this was their first flip then they couldn't sell it so they had to rent it. I guarantee you the renters destroyed the place. Then I drove up to Buckhead to go to the sporting goods store because I needed tape for the handle on my tennis racquet. This should have cost me $5. It ended up costing me $90. I now have: tape, a new racquet (it is purple and pretty and part of the proceeds go to fight breast cancer), a new tennis outfit, and socks to match it. Oops?

My little detour almost made me miss my flight out, not because I took to long, but because I didn't realize that the construction on 75/85 had moved from the northbound lane to the southbound. But I made it and now I am in French Lick, Indiana, lucky me! The hotel is really nice, and here's to hoping that this week goes better than last week!

*sigh* That's the song playing on my iPod right now - ironic, since I'm sitting here wondering where the weekend went.

I've really gotten spoiled with my travel schedule this spring, and now that I'm back on doing back-to-back trips, I'm cranky. I got home around 11pm on Friday night, and left out at 3pm today, so that's what? 36 hours home? Something like that. I spent most of that doing prep work on my living room: taking off the electrical covers, patching scratches, sanding down drywall, primering over the paint sample that I tried and didn't like, washing the baseboards. Now I just have to find the time to actually paint. It's looking like the end of April, unless my site for week after next falls off.

Hmm. That's about all I have to say that isn't whining, either about the house, or being a grown up, or being single, or the blisters on my feet, or my writing. Whining feels overindulgent today, so I'm going to skip it.

I woke up this morning with all my muscles screaming. Apparently an hour and a half of tennis after a lifetime of laziness had consequences. I sucked it up though, because today was forecast to be the nicest day of the weekend and I wanted to take care of a couple of outdoor projects. So I downed some Aleve, and headed outside.

First, I went around the yard picking up all the branches that have fallen over the winter, and then I pulled all the vines trying to grow on my house. Then I moved on to the major project for the day. Last year my dad made a new door for the crawlspace to my house, but told me that I needed to let it weather for a year before I painted it. So I start painting, only to realize I can hear running water. Not good.

I open the door, and where the sump pump is, there's a mini geyser under my house. Like, its own little water feature and yet not planned or soothing. So I got my dad on the phone, with visions of plumbers in my future, and crawled under my house. We ruled out fuse issues, and I got to learn how to test an outlet with a voltage meter (while standing in a bit of water, with my dad ready to call the paramedics from 800 miles away if things went badly). While doing that, I realized that the outlet was grounded so I pushed the button to shut it off and the water stopped.

Once the fountain was off, I realized that the problem was that the flex pipe that connected to the pump had come off. It should have just needed reattaching but somehow it didn't reach any more. I don't know. Maybe it shrunk? So I take measurements and get advice from my dad and head off to Home Depot. They, of course, have nothing that will bridge the gap. So I head off to the local Ace True Value Hardware, and oh! Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man! I am going to make an effort to shop there more often. He was so nice, listened to me, got me a whole new sump pump kit and connections and explained how it all needed to go together, and the whole thing cost less than $20. Then, when I got home and couldn't get part of the old pipe off the sump pump, I took the whole thing to the store and he took it off, put the new part on, and tightened it for me. I am a little bit in love with him.

The best part was while I was standing in the parking lot, waiting for him to come back with the wrench to tighten the connection, a little boy about three years old toddled by and looked at me (having spent about four hours crawling in and out from under my house, rolling around in red Georgia mud) and said, "Mommy, why is that lady so dirty?" ♥

*I've flown over 45,000 miles this year, but only taken 11 trips.
*I'm torn over the last Harry Potter movie. I am only on the third book of the series, I like reading them after the movies come out. Weird, I know. I'm spoiled through Book 6, and I've never cared before but now I find myself not wanting to know how it ends til the last movie comes out. Which means I'd have to go at least two more years never reading anything about Harry Potter on the internet ever again. Odds of this happening: 1 in 1 billion.
*I'm working on my ipod playlists - I'm into the W's! 2069 songs down, a few hundred more to go. Plus all the new albums I've bought since the beginning of the year. Yeah, it's never going to be finished. But hopefully I can work on it while I'm home between now and September.
*I also want to work on my scrapbooks for a while - and take a break on doing things around the house. We'll see! :D
*I wish my sister would move to Atlanta, but she probably won't.
*The shelf that I was so proud of hanging in my coat closet? Fell down last weekend when I put actual coats on it. I used drywall screws and everything. Am giving up and getting my dad to fix it next week.
*I'm going on another pub crawl this weekend - this time namaste_atlanta's coming with me! Goals for the evening: have fun, meet new people, don't miss the last train back to Decatur this time.