Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Merry Christmas, Part I
The three of us have been getting pretty tired of all the brown in the living room. Since we moved in almost 4 years ago. So, for Christmas this year, we said "No presents. Because we're mounting the TV to the wall and getting new furniture!"
Now, granted, this picture shows the living room as way more crowded than usual. But, the brown. The brown. Could you die? It's too much. We wanted to start by mounting the TV to the wall and getting rid of the enormous entertainment center-y hutch. After much deliberation, though, we decided not to mount it. The wall is wood paneling and we didn't want the headache of the drilling, patching, then inevitably messing something up and having to repaint the entire wall, and then repaint the entire living room to match. Etc.
So we bought what we were hoping would be a sleek and streamlined entertainment hutch.
Nice, right? Our main concern - ok my main concern - was not being able to see wires. No wires. No wires anywhere. And G spent the better part of this week winding and threading and velcroing and cussing and griping at Lucy and now look! No wires!
See how helpful Lucy was?
The next step is to get new furniture, but that will take a while. What with the teensy cost and the one or two other things we have going on the weekends (GRADING WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME. I'LL GIVE YOU ALL MY KING SOOPERS COUPONS TO GRADE PAPERS FOR ME).
Nice improvement though, right?
I hate you, brown. Your days are numbered.
Before
Now, granted, this picture shows the living room as way more crowded than usual. But, the brown. The brown. Could you die? It's too much. We wanted to start by mounting the TV to the wall and getting rid of the enormous entertainment center-y hutch. After much deliberation, though, we decided not to mount it. The wall is wood paneling and we didn't want the headache of the drilling, patching, then inevitably messing something up and having to repaint the entire wall, and then repaint the entire living room to match. Etc.
So we bought what we were hoping would be a sleek and streamlined entertainment hutch.
After
Nice, right? Our main concern - ok my main concern - was not being able to see wires. No wires. No wires anywhere. And G spent the better part of this week winding and threading and velcroing and cussing and griping at Lucy and now look! No wires!
During
See how helpful Lucy was?
The next step is to get new furniture, but that will take a while. What with the teensy cost and the one or two other things we have going on the weekends (GRADING WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME. I'LL GIVE YOU ALL MY KING SOOPERS COUPONS TO GRADE PAPERS FOR ME).
Nice improvement though, right?
I hate you, brown. Your days are numbered.
Friday, February 10, 2017
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Friday, February 3, 2017
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Slippery
Last night as we were getting ready for bed, G (my personal weather forecaster since I never check it on my phone or the news) mentioned that today was supposed to be icy. I was fluffing my pillow and arranging my latest Anne Lamott book, so I was like, "Mmm k hon, love you, night night." And he was like, "So, we need to be careful driving and walking," and I was like, "Yes, and what are we? 85 years old? It'll be fine."
Sure enough I nearly busted my a$$ in the driveway this morning. As I was walking to the car. In hiking boots. (massive eye roll)
Cars were careening around on the roads, and students were skating - not walking - to class. Myself included.
It is a blustery day in the Mile High City, my friends.
This:
Quickly turned into this:
In case you're wondering, no, I do not just randomly take selfies. But I wanted to show off my necklace that A-peep got me for Christmas. It's African, nbd. I love love love it. I want to move there and work on an elephant preserve and never write a paper again. I can read from atop an African elephant as we saunter through the brush on our way to pet baby cheetahs and such.
The arctic picture above is from a brisk walk I took in between teaching and my other job today. Walking in the cold is my favorite and I'm trying very hard to live my life rather than letting it live me and exercise is one way I can make myself delirious off of endorphins instead of adrenaline and anxiety. It's one way that I can try to be in the moment and halfway aware of myself and how I'm feeling and how I'm doing and if, generally, I'm OK.
I do what I can, is all I'm sayin.
It was very beautiful in a cold, icy, silvery sort of way.
The lil chicken has been doing perfectly fine. No more tummy issues, so, you know, now we can sleep at night. I bought her a seasonal friend in honor of Valentine's Day because I just couldn't help myself. It was only $5 AND matched her friends AND it's a panda!
I mean, right??
Sometimes she puts up with him, and sometimes she most certainly does not. What can I say? She's a strong female. I support that.
Now if only she would snuggle with me all day...
Sure enough I nearly busted my a$$ in the driveway this morning. As I was walking to the car. In hiking boots. (massive eye roll)
Cars were careening around on the roads, and students were skating - not walking - to class. Myself included.
It is a blustery day in the Mile High City, my friends.
This:
Quickly turned into this:
In case you're wondering, no, I do not just randomly take selfies. But I wanted to show off my necklace that A-peep got me for Christmas. It's African, nbd. I love love love it. I want to move there and work on an elephant preserve and never write a paper again. I can read from atop an African elephant as we saunter through the brush on our way to pet baby cheetahs and such.
The arctic picture above is from a brisk walk I took in between teaching and my other job today. Walking in the cold is my favorite and I'm trying very hard to live my life rather than letting it live me and exercise is one way I can make myself delirious off of endorphins instead of adrenaline and anxiety. It's one way that I can try to be in the moment and halfway aware of myself and how I'm feeling and how I'm doing and if, generally, I'm OK.
I do what I can, is all I'm sayin.
It was very beautiful in a cold, icy, silvery sort of way.
The lil chicken has been doing perfectly fine. No more tummy issues, so, you know, now we can sleep at night. I bought her a seasonal friend in honor of Valentine's Day because I just couldn't help myself. It was only $5 AND matched her friends AND it's a panda!
I mean, right??
Sometimes she puts up with him, and sometimes she most certainly does not. What can I say? She's a strong female. I support that.
Now if only she would snuggle with me all day...
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
On Taking a Chance
Look who came over last night! The Russkie!
I wanted to title this post: American/Russian Relations, but that's too politically sensitive right now. No need to invite hackers to the blog. Oh, who are we kidding? They're already hacking everything anyway.
The Russkie came over last night and we ate delicious soup and caught up on life and mostly talked about politics. Because I guess that's the only thing most of us can think about and try to process these days.
But. As we were talking, I was thinking about how we are friends only because I took a chance.
Before I left my old job and entered poverty by going back to school and working for mere crumbs, I took advantage of my very good health insurance by catching up on All The Appointments. Dentist, General Practitioner, Eye Doctor, all of it. During one of my appointments, the Russkie helped me and in the middle of our interaction she goes, "Ok, sorry, but your eyelashes are amazing." This was back when I had eyelash extensions because, disposable income. Her comment basically caused us to chat nonstop for like 20 minutes. She worked and chatted. I sat there and asked her questions and talked about Colorado and basically, eventually, kept her from doing any work at all.
And then I left. The appointment had been on a Friday and I was scheduled for a quick follow up early the next week, and I thought a lot about her that weekend. I didn't even know her name. But, here I was, confused, despondent about the looming Job and Life Change, and I had had such a good conversation with her! So I thought to myself that if she happened to be in the office when I went back in for my follow-up, that I was essentially going to do the grown-up version of passing her a note and asking her to be my friend: I was going to give her my business card and ask if we could have coffee sometime.
She was in the office. We chatted some more and our interaction gave me the courage to "ask her out". I told her that I'm not a crazy person but here was my card and I really enjoyed talking to her and maybe we could hang out sometime? And then I waited.
She calmly took the card and walked away.
Just as I was starting to mentally flail around, she came back with a note pad and a pen. She wrote down her name and her email address.
A few weeks later we met for sushi (well, fake sushi for her) and the rest is history.
I wanted to title this post: American/Russian Relations, but that's too politically sensitive right now. No need to invite hackers to the blog. Oh, who are we kidding? They're already hacking everything anyway.
The Russkie came over last night and we ate delicious soup and caught up on life and mostly talked about politics. Because I guess that's the only thing most of us can think about and try to process these days.
But. As we were talking, I was thinking about how we are friends only because I took a chance.
Before I left my old job and entered poverty by going back to school and working for mere crumbs, I took advantage of my very good health insurance by catching up on All The Appointments. Dentist, General Practitioner, Eye Doctor, all of it. During one of my appointments, the Russkie helped me and in the middle of our interaction she goes, "Ok, sorry, but your eyelashes are amazing." This was back when I had eyelash extensions because, disposable income. Her comment basically caused us to chat nonstop for like 20 minutes. She worked and chatted. I sat there and asked her questions and talked about Colorado and basically, eventually, kept her from doing any work at all.
And then I left. The appointment had been on a Friday and I was scheduled for a quick follow up early the next week, and I thought a lot about her that weekend. I didn't even know her name. But, here I was, confused, despondent about the looming Job and Life Change, and I had had such a good conversation with her! So I thought to myself that if she happened to be in the office when I went back in for my follow-up, that I was essentially going to do the grown-up version of passing her a note and asking her to be my friend: I was going to give her my business card and ask if we could have coffee sometime.
She was in the office. We chatted some more and our interaction gave me the courage to "ask her out". I told her that I'm not a crazy person but here was my card and I really enjoyed talking to her and maybe we could hang out sometime? And then I waited.
She calmly took the card and walked away.
Just as I was starting to mentally flail around, she came back with a note pad and a pen. She wrote down her name and her email address.
A few weeks later we met for sushi (well, fake sushi for her) and the rest is history.
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