Oh my aching gums!

Funny thing about blogs - you tell people they're there and all of a sudden you have to keep up the darn thing... :-)

Just kidding. If you want to read about my boring life, I don't mind typing!

I had to go to the dentist today. Routine 6-month checkup. My dentist has been my dentist since before I had teeth, so we have a good repoire. His office is an hour from home and a half hour from work, so if we didn't, you can bet I wouldn't go there anymore! All the hygienists are great, doesn't matter which one I get.

I'm not a flosser. I just admit this the second I walk in the door. Hi, I'm Karen and I don't floss my teeth. I figure, they're going to notice the second they look in my mouth so I may as well be honest about it!

Well, today my hygienist really gave me a work over. She decided to measure my gums. So I'm laying there as she stabs my gums all over and then sits back to see where they bleed. I was sitting there, joking and laughing with her about it being my "punishment" for not flossing. Seriously, I was doing ok. Then we went on with the usual routine stuff, I saw the dentist, and left.

Got out to my car and proceeded to try to eat my peanut butter sandwich. Oh.my.goodness. That hurt! I thought my teeth were going to fall out of my head! Then I got back to the office and tried to eat my waldorf salad. Apples, nuts, raisins, celery. Yeah. Good choice for dentist day, Karen!

So guess who's flossing from now on? But not tonight! And maybe not tomorrow either - my teeth might fall out!

We'll see how I do after my filling in three weeks...

Confessions of a Forum Junkie

I love forums. I freely admit it. I think I'm up to eight that I visit nearly every day. Some have a frugal living focus. Some have a simple living focus (no, they're not quite the same thing). Some are quite conservative. Some are quite liberal. Some are decidedly Christian in focus, others definitely are not. When forced to go a day without forums, I miss them horribly - these lovely people have become my friends, and it feels foreign to me to be out of contact with them.

I've learned so much from my forums. Some of it has greatly helped my budget (homemade laundry soap, energy and water saving ideas, where to find cheap books), some of it has created greater expenses (Penzey's spices, Intelligentsia coffee, where to find cheap books). But oh my I have fun!

I've made so many new friends, and gotten so many great tips and recipes (oh, the recipes!).

So...to all my forum friends...thank you, you are awesome!

Cranky Days

Ever had one of those days where you want to crawl in a hole and make the world go away? That's me today. So to everyone who asked me to do something today, here's what I have to say:

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go away and leave me alone.

That is all.

Ask me again tomorrow - I'm sure I'll be back to my usual, pleasant self! :-)

All the pretty colors

Larry and I are undertaking a major house project. Well, he's doing most of the work and I'm admiring it when I get home every night. We're painting the walls and putting new flooring in the living room, hallway, and dining area (which is this totally ambiguous space that's open to the kitchen, but not really a part of it, but not a separate room). It's going to look fabulous when it's finished. I'm taking pictures on my film camera (Gasp! Shock! Yes, I still use a film camera. Larry has a digital but I haven't brought myself into the digital age yet). When they're developed I'll try to upload them here...

Anyway, we're having some adventures. We picked a great shade of yellow for the hallway. Under the compact fluorescent light bulb, it turned a sickly shade of green. So now we have a REAL light bulb in the hallway fixture, because, well, it's SO much easier than having Larry repaint the hall!

We picked a really light, almost ice blue for the living room. We also picked a darker blue to put on some paneling on the lower part of the wall, then discovered that the paneling is just a bit out of our budget at the moment...so that's on hold.

The dining area will be light green. We're getting done with the living room and hall first, then will move all the furniture back to the living room, and do the dining area.

Larry's also going to make new cupboard doors for the kitchen cupboards. Those will be painted dark green and antique white (to pull in the ugly 1980s countertops we're not quite ready to replace yet).

My house is going to look SO GOOD when it's done! Now, if we could only fast forward to finishing day... :-)

Nanowrimo

I'm going to write a novel. In 30 days. Call me crazy! I've signed up with www.nanowrimo.org. Write a novel in 30 days, just to say you've done it. 50,000 words. 175 pages. How hard can it be? ha, ha, ha, ha!

It's going to be about a woman. A young widow, who sells just about everything she owns, leaves city life behind, and goes to be a cook on a ranch somewhere remote. Should be utterly fascinating, I'm sure. :-)

I'll be kicking off bright and early on November 1, wish me luck!

I'm not sure why I feel compelled to do this. Am I bored with no Master's Thesis to procrastinate about? There's nothing hanging over my head at home, no big mental projects to work on. It's almost like school withdrawal. It's a little scary. I write some at work, but not anything big or fulfilling. I almost always have some kind of story floating around in my head. If I write it down, will it leave me? When I'm done, will I share it? Or will it be a private journey, a piece of myself too precious to part with?

Who will be my characters? I know someone who wrote a book, and based the characters on people she knew. Are people flattered by that, or do they look at the flaws in the character and wonder if the author sees those flaws in themselves?

Will my story have a plot? Will I screw it up? Long, long ago, I wrote a short story about a guy in a wheelchair. Halfway through the story he got up to answer the door. I forgot he was in a wheelchair. Oops! It's the careless mistakes that will get you every time, I suppose...

Well. It'll be a project, that's for sure. We'll see how I do!

Keeping House

I'll freely admit it. Housework is my downfall. I can't think of a single activity I hate more than cleaning. And I've tried it all. All the cleaners, all the latest disposable gimmicks, flylady, everything short of paying someone to come in and do it for me. My house is a MESS!

I bought a swiffer the other day. Finally tried it out yesterday. Piece of crap. Just pushed the dirt and dog hair around. Thinking about asking for my money back, but I haven't tried the wet swiffer cloths yet, maybe I'll like them better. But first I'll have to sweep up all the dog hair. I should call the company and tell them their product sucks. But then they'll send me coupons to use toward a sucky product. *sigh*.

I have found that I can work pretty well in 15 minute increments, ala Flylady. But not in any organized fashion. I just set the timer and pick whatever room strikes my fancy and go to work. Usually two 15 minute sessions in any given room makes all the difference in the world. For instance, I can unload and re-load the dishwasher in 15 minutes. I can handwash about 10 pans, if they've soaked first. I can get rid of all the junk mail on the kitchen table and sort the good stuff into piles. I can gather up all the recycling and pop cans from the living room. I can file about 30 things in the computer room. 15 minutes. Now, if only I had the discipline to do 15 minutes every morning and about 10 sessions on the weekends, my house would be looking fantastic in no time flat!

I'm feeling sick today, but I have the urge to clean. I think I'm tired of sitting around, waiting for DH to get out of bed. He works nights so he sleeps till 2, but today is his day off and he was making noises about cleaning when we had dinner on Friday. So if I wait till he gets up maybe we can clean together...

Random thoughts on the simple life

Lately I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking on frugality and simple living. Frugality is becoming a necessity as Larry's job is uncertain. But simple living? It appeals to me in so many ways, but I think if we went that route, we'd be giving up a lot of conveniences.

I sit at my desk, and I'm surrounded by STUFF. Not just the computer and all its accoutrements, but books, papers, cds, and, well, STUFF. We are people of stuff. Well, I'm a person of stuff. Larry's not so bad because he's not interested in much that can't be downloaded or installed. His computer is full of STUFF - you just can't see it!

Since I started frequenting a lot of frugal living communities, I've made some changes. I make my own laundry detergent. We don't have cable or satellite (but we do have blockbuster.com, because we have to get our movies SOMEWHERE and it's a great deal!). I try to batch cook and keep it in the freezer, though Larry objects to eating anything that's been in the freezer so I don't know how much good it's doing! But, we still eat out far too much. I still overspend on groceries. We throw away a whole lot of food.

One of the challenges of marriage is compromising in areas of living. Like, if I lived alone I'd eat a lot more soup, a lot more beans and rice. But these are things that Larry doesn't want to eat, so I don't make them. Though I am making a lot more casseroles these days. Hmm. I wonder how he feels about that. I wonder how he feels about the corndog casserole I made last night? He ate a bunch of it...

There are not many areas in our spending to cut back. We spend a good deal on fixing up the house, money that we don't have to spend but there's a lot we want to do to improve the look and feel of the place. Other than that, we don't spend a lot on clothes, we have the cheapest phone plan except for the DSL, and we try to maximize efficiency on our gas and electric use. We do water the garden, but we don't water the lawn. We spend a good deal on our dogs, too, because we want to.

Maybe our life is already simple? I refuse to believe that, but perhaps it's true...

Mother's Day is just around the corner!

If my brothers are reading this (not that I think anyone is reading this, since I haven't told anyone it's here), boy, I sure hope you're planning to call Mom on Sunday. She gets really upset when you don't. It would really be nice if one year we could all get together and have dinner with her, as a family, on Mother's Day. We seem to manage to do it for Dad on Father's Day, but we never quite get it together for Mom.

Mother's Day is tough at my house. I want to celebrate it, and make it all special for my mom and grandma, but Larry's mom is gone now, and it just makes him sad. I try not to talk about it too much, but it's hard to make plans and such without talking about it, really. I invited him to come along for dinner with my mom and dad on Sunday, but he hasn't decided yet if he's coming. I hope he does. After all, she is his mother-in-law, right? And without her, he wouldn't have such a wonderful wife! :-)

One of these years, we 'll have kids of our own, and we can start creating our own traditions. Until then, it's a delicate dance we do...

It's 11:30...do you know where your doggies are?

I'm in the computer room, trying to put the finishing touches on the thesis while being mightily distracted by the forums I love to read so much. I suddenly realize the dogs are being WAAAAAAAAAY too quiet...

Well, now they've come slamming through the dog door and are drooling in my lap, so I guess they're ok! But really, it scares me when my dogs get quiet. Because, well, here's just a few of the wonderful things they've done when we couldn't hear them...

• eaten about three dozen pairs of socks
• chewed up the arm of a chair
• eaten the bark off the apple tree
• dug a big hole under the house
• chewed on the bottom rung of the CD rack
• distributed little pieces of junk mail all over the backyard

So, I just noticed that most of these are "chewing offenses" - does that mean that in a year or two, we won't have to worry so much when we can't hear them? Sheesh...I sure hope so!

School's...out...forever!

Ok! This is more like it! I passed my defense on Monday! YIPPEE!!!! I can't even explain the feeling of total relief and exhaustion. I am so glad I survived the week - there were times I thought I was going to fall asleep at my desk, I was so tired after the stress of it all. But here I am...

Went out last night to an improv comedy show (think "Who's Line is it Anyway"). A friend of mine was taking a class from the group, and she had a performance in conjunction with their show. It was FABULOUS! I'm totally going to take that class the next time they're in town. Then we went out afterward. My friend said that the class has totally helped her think on her feet and be more outgoing and confident. I could use some of that in my life!

This weekend I have to clean house. Mom and Dad are coming on Tuesday to get some stuff to take to a Girl Scout rummage sale. I have half a mind to just let them walk through the house and pick stuff - I've got way too much crap and I can't bear to part with most of it! But, I'll do it, I'll wander through my house and critically eye what I need and what I don't. Might be a good time to clean out that craft box that's gathering dust, or some of those books I really need to weed out of my collection.

There's nothing important on my mind today - I'm way too tired!

I hate school!

I'm defending my Master's thesis on Monday. I'll complain about this to anyone who'll listen! I HATE school. This was probably the worst decision I've ever made in my life. Six long years of misery. I kept trying to drop out and people kept talking me out of it. AARGH!

So here I am, wasting my weekend putting together a powerpoint presentation. The good news is that if I pass, it'll be graduation in three weeks, and it'll all be behind me!

My Blog about Me...

Hi!

I'm Karen. This is my blog about me, who I am, what I'm thinking. I'm 31 years old, married to Larry, mom to three furbabies - Hershey, Ringo, and Puck. Puck's a brown and grey tabby cat, mighty hunter extraordinnaire (killed three rodents in one night last night!). Ringo is an 8 month old lab/hound mix. Hershey is 15 months old, and the whiniest, most pathetic lab/shepherd in the entire history of the planet. But she's darn cute so we keep her around...!

I also have a fish, a blue betta. He lives at the office. He's yet to be named, I just got him on Monday, but I don't think he's going to survive the week. He was laying on the floor of his tank when I left for the day...

The animals are on my mind today. Ringo's in a serious chewing phase. We're trying to figure out how to deal with it. So far this time he's chewed the front of an arm off my favorite chair, the edge off a big plastic planter in the backyard, a large chunk of our living room windowsill, and goodness only knows what else! We're wondering why we have two puppies (well, we know why - Hershey needed a friend and Larry only wanted puppies!)... But really, they're cute and they're fun and we like having them around. I just wish I could wake up tomorrow and find them both suddenly five years old!