Category Archives: Everyday Stuff

Just an area for what I’m doing on an everyday basis.

Lazy Day

Day is about gone, still don’t know what I’m doing with it.  I texted with my MI sis, talked to mom, I’ll call tomorrow for dad and I’m skyping with my IN sis.  I did make sausage and eggs for breakfast and read the paper.

I was reading our new BackPacker, that I’ll like to try and finish later today. It has the top 10 National Parks for hikes, they have a picture of Crater Lake on the cover.  I love the info that BackPacker provides, trails, info on gear, cameras, photo tips, animal tips….just a bunch of very useful info.  We just need to do more to use it…..lol

I took a photo composition class last month, really haven’t used the info yet, haven’t been anywhere/inspired to take pics.  Going to take a class to learn how to use all the options on our SLR, I think not really knowing them doesn’t help.  That class will be in July.  I’m the type that needs a very good reason to use something to learn it.  If it is not something I need or am using, I really have no motivation or retention to learn it.  The weather is really, really not helping on it.  So tired of turning on the heat…it is almost June, dang it…..ggrrr

After a lot of thought and research, aiming to get a bigger hard drive for my macbook pro next month.  I need one big enough to fit all of my music, movies and pictures.  I’m both excited and nervous.  I’m looking at this one : Western Digital Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive All my externals are western digitals and I’ve read a lot of good reviews about them and this one is faster then what I have.  =) It’ll be easier for me to access my stuff, since it is all currently on my external hard drive, but nervous about the process.  I don’t want to screw anything up and lose all my programs and settings.  From what I read, my mac back up (time machine) can be accessed by the operating system disk and it will restore everything.  I so want it to work.

Wow…..the sun is shinning….weird….lol  Suppose to have a semi-nice day tomorrow.  I would love that, but afraid our smokey neighbor will ruin it for me……yuck.

My Uncle Dave had a stroke, he has a hole in his heart that needs surgery.  From last I heard, he is doing ok. His father-in-law, my Aunt Sheila’s dad, just passed.  =(  And to add to all that, my cousin’s grandma-in-law is in the icu….so she got totally hit with her grandpa, her dad and now her husband’s grandma.  All in one – two weeks time.  So my thoughts are with them.

This wasn’t much of a post, but it is something.  I think I’m going to do some reading and listen to some music.

Spring Colors

I really should be doing some work, but it is the weekend and I try to take time for my own things.  I’ll do it later.  =)

We actually got a few dry days this last week and some sunny days and we totally enjoyed them.  Got our 1st 74 degree day this year…..LOVED that.  Now if we can finally get to the 80s I would be totally stoked.

On a dry day two weeks ago, we went out and picked up 5 tomato plants and dirt.  So looking forward to when they start producing.

We don’t have much of back yard, if you can call it.  The things we really like about it makes it hard to grow things.  It is a deck with some dirt and bushes.  We love that on the other side of the fence there are trees, that once the leaves are on it that it gives us privacy from the surrounding buildings and keeps the house cooler on the really, really hot days (no a/c).  BUT that also prevents us from growing things in the ground, due to lack of sunlight and on even a mid-70 day, it feels like 50/60 in the house….bbrrrr

So when we do tomatoes we use pots and have one topsy-turvy….our 2nd year on trying that one.  But we are always moving them around to get the best sunlight.

Tomatoes 2011

Hanging Tomato 2011 & Fuschia

We really did enjoy our 74 sunny day, went and sat on the deck for a time….just getting as much sun and warmth that we could…watching the birds.

Fuschias are so colorful and awesome on attracting humming birds. =)

When it is winter, the gray, damp and cold, even if annoying, is not a big deal.  It is winter, you expect it and you are happy that it is actually much milder then some places you’ve lived and without the snow.  But come Mar/Apr/May it gets on your nerves and you are so ready for a change of weather and color.

We have all these pots from our house plants that we no longer have due to lack of indoor sunlight and plant eating/digging cats so I decided that we should get some flowers for outside.  Just to get some color and my planting bug out of me.  I really have a LOT to learn about judging root systems…..lol  I thought I would be able to plant 2 of them per pot, nope…didn’t happen.  I thought I would only use 4 pots, nope…..9….good thing we had all those extras….lol  Good thing I had hubby helping me, I would taken all day to do them…..grin

Now we have some color leading up to our front door and we have some on our bedroom balcony.  They smell so good when the door is open.

Just watered flowers =)

 

Up the stairs, covering the gas meter. =)

A few flowers on the balcony.

They aren’t much, but it feels so good to have some bright colors and spring smells.  =)  I’m waiting for strawberries to start showing up at our local fruit stands that open for the summer.  We get some of the juiciest and sweetest here in Oregon….mmmm

We even heard and saw a set of Anna’s Humming birds mate.  That was cool and boy, they are noisy…..lol  We’ve had humming bird feeders up for about 3yrs plus the fuschias, so they know where to come for food.  Some of our birds are back for the season, the Golden American Finch, House Sparrow and Black-headed Grosbeaks….including our noisy Scrub Jays…lol  We even saw a Falcon get chased off by a couple of Ravens…that was neat.

Ah….but I had a fun time last week…..lol  Last Sunday my mac was constantly backing up……well, the external that it went to was full.  It is suppose to delete the oldest back ups once it filled up.  Instead of doing that, totally locked up and damaged it.  So I had to hook up to our main external, the Drobo, and try and put over 300 GBs of music, files and pictures on to it from the locked up one.  You could still copy things off of it, but not delete or add.  So that took a few days, I got a few more WD externals, one a MyBook…didn’t meant to, meant to get a MyPassport and a few MyPassports.  Finally got everything moved, took a bit, but was able to reformat my old 500 GB external MyPassport and that is now nothing BUT mac back ups.

What was so frustrating is that the new MyPassports don’t let you use it like a simple flash drive, they were locked…I couldn’t write on them.  The old ones were so simple and nice. I had to learn how to partition them.  I didn’t want them all to be formatted for mac, because it wouldn’t be recognized by a pc.  We need at least one that was writable for both mac and pc.  So we can transfer files from pc and mac to the other…..more for music files.  It was driving me nuts, because I know it could be done.  And when I know that it can be done, I will keep working at it…..I hate giving up when I know the solution is there.  But I did it….grin  Very happy about that.

Thought I was in the free and clear…nope.  Issues with getting my itunes music to line up with the new location.  When we brought my mac I didn’t up the hard drive like I should’ve, so my music/movies will not fit.  That will change next time.  So it was saying that there where about 3000 missing files out of over 15,000…icks.  Took a long while, but it got down to 300 files missing.  Then I had to go searching for them, most was due to me editing them.  Had to rip about 4 cds, get files off of hubby’s mac, in the end only lost about 50 of my songs.  But those were Kid Rock from my MI sister.  So I’ll get them eventually to re-rip.  So much happier that I got that fixed.  And have already backed up my music, other then what we’ve purchased today.  Going to do that a bit more often.  =)

I started this post hours ago, but between chatting, surfing and playing in itunes….lol….so going to watch the evening news and start some work.

 

Planning Our Time

Trying to figure out what to do for our anniversary. What makes it hard is that it is May 31st….always around Memorial Day….it sucks! When we picked the date (it wasn’t our 1st choice) we were trying to be reasonable money wise and avoid the huge mark up of summer weddings. We should’ve stuck with Oct.

Well, the last 3 years, we’ve spent it on the Oregon Coast, ironically the last 2yrs in FL was also on the coast…..lol Nutty.

So now we don’t know what we want to do. Really can’t do anything on the June 1st, I have contractor payroll and end of the month stuff….blah

We want to do something since we are always home, but the question is what? While hoping for good weather.

We were thinking of going to Olympic National Park, but that area is now so fully of “vampire” crap from the Twilight movies…hard to find a place we want to stay. We also don’t know how much effort we want to put into the planning and I don’t know how much driving I really want us to do. I want to enjoy it, driving wears you out.

We don’t even have a restaurant we really want to go….ggeezz

So far, the only thing I can think of without much planning is driving out all the way to Mt St Helen. But the question for that is when, May or June? Due to snow…..blah…..lol

We are so sad…..grin

Seriously thinking of renewing our vows, so we can change the date to Oct……lol I just don’t know how we would want to do that….want something different maybe quirky….lol

Need to figure out this anniversary first…….grin

Planning Our Time

Trying to figure out what to do for our anniversary.  What makes it hard is that it is May 31st….always around Memorial Day….it sucks! When we picked the date (it wasn’t our 1st choice) we were trying to be reasonable money wise and avoid the huge mark up of summer weddings.  We should’ve stuck with Oct.

Well, the last 3 years, we’ve spent it on the Oregon Coast, ironically the last 2yrs in FL was also on the coast…..lol  Nutty.

So now we don’t know what we want to do.  Really can’t do anything on the June 1st, I have contractor payroll and end of the month stuff….blah

We want to do something since we are always home, but the question is what?  While hoping for good weather.

We were thinking of going to Olympic National Park, but that area is now so fully of “vampire” crap from the Twilight movies…hard to find a place we want to stay.  We also don’t know how much effort we want to put into the planning and I don’t know how much driving I really want us to do.  I want to enjoy it, driving wears you out.

We don’t even have a restaurant we really want to go….ggeezz

So far, the only thing I can think of without much planning is driving out all the way to Mt St Helen.  But the question for that is when, May or June?  Due to snow…..blah…..lol

We are so sad…..grin

Seriously thinking of renewing our vows, so we can change the date to Oct……lol  I just don’t know how we would want to do that….want something different maybe quirky….lol

Need to figure out this anniversary first…….grin

Touching Base

I really need to start posting here more. I just don’t know to post about anymore. I can always do politics, but I tweet so much about that I don’t know if I really should. I work at home and other then errands and the gym, my face to face interactions with people that I use to comment on is limited.

Totally love that we finally got Osama Bin Laden….but even with that, overall it hasn’t been the best of weeks. Maybe crappy people like Cheney will quit lying about Obama not caring about national security and putting this country in danger.  It help to put that racist birther crap down.  So sad it took that and he showed his birth certificate….total crap.

Monday was a total Monday in the worst way.  And today was blah.  Put on Despicable Me for some much needed laughter  We did have one day that was totally dry and sunny and hit 70!!  Even if that was at 6pm, it was nice.

We finally got our tomato plants this week.  Went for 5 instead of the 3 we did last year.  It looks like some will mature mid summer and the a couple in late summer, my beefsteak ones.  So looking forward to those.  =)

After having a few rough winter months at the gym where we only went 4 days a week, we’ve been going 5 days for about 2 months.  BUT they haven’t been full days.  Mostly cardio.  I really need to get back to my abs and weights.  Getting some of my tummy back, doesn’t help that I’m eating a bit too much of things I shouldn’t be.  So both my eating habits and not doing the full workouts is not helping.  Need to get back on track next week.  Especially the workout part.

I have finally gotten back into  making time for reading, other then my news/political surfing addiction.  Both for magazines I can’t finish at the gym and books.  I’ve added a couple of new mag subscriptions, so now I have Time, Ms, Bitch, Progressive, Washington Monthly, American Prospect and also trying out Nutrition Action for better eating habits.  Don’t expect to totally change too much on eating, just want to be more educated about it.

On books, hubby got me Lyndon Johnson by Doris Kearns Goodwin (he was so complex) and John Paul Stevens by Bill Barnhart and Gene Schilickman (love Supreme Court stuff…lol) for the holidays, I got those read. I finally read One Soldier’s Story by Bob Dole (brought that when it came out…really liked that), Audition by Barbra Walters (learned a lot about what women went through by 1st person), True Compass by Edward M Kennedy (very interesting read), and during all that, finally finished the big one, My Life by Bill Clinton…which was good, but loaded with so much detail….wow.  Currently working on American Gospel by Jon Meacham, about “religion, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation”.  How they counted on religion being in the public sphere without it being in government so not lead to the tyranny like it did Europe.

I did finally get off of my butt and took a photography composition class, wow….so much to learn.  They use so many terms for what is used on a SLR camera.  Going to have to take the class on how to learn to fully use our nikon ds70.  I actually planned on taking that class this semester, but with my luck the ONE day I actually made plans for it, we had other plans….ggeezz..  Normally we don’t do a thing…lol  Going to see about making time to go through the book we brought years ago on the camera and try to apply it. What I really want and need is better weather so I can take it out.  I have cats to take pics of, but they aren’t the most cooperative when you are learning the equipment…..lol  And that is what the stressed in class, know your equipment, know your equipment….so I really need to learn all the little things.  I have my point and shot olympus, but learning the nikon will help me with that also.

Well the day that I was going to take that class on learning the nikon, we went up to our friend’s in Seattle for a Zombie Jesus Party…..lol  I love satire.  I made deviled carbury eggs and very fudgy brownies….I must admit, I LOVE my brownies….grin…hubby made his addicting chili.  We had a great time, but I do have to admit we are old and cranky in that instead of staying overnight there, we came home that night….3hr drive back.  We just love being in our own beds and miss our cats too much.  As we have gotten older, we miss our cats even more….much harder to stay overnight without them.

I did have an issue that came up on my fb that disturbed me in their twisted logic.  Just because I’m an american feminist doesn’t mean that I’m going to hate on Islam.  One of friends on fb was from HS….and I had posted the quote from POTUS’ speech “Our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader – indeed he was a mass murderer of Muslims.”  And what she posted on it, I can’t describe as nothing but hateful and bigoted. And I simply told her that I found it to be that and not post it on my fb, those may be her beliefs but do not post hate on my wall/posts.

And she part of her reply : “I find it difficult to believe that any feminist would ever deem to support a religion that will put women to death for the crime of their own rapes”  I’m like, I don’t support that, hell I do not support any religion.  EVERY religion has been used to justify rape, beating, abuse and slavery….they all suck on that and that is why I don’t like them.  They never follow their positive and good lessons of their religions, but their books are written by men and totally screwed up due to that.

Just because of my dislike of religion and the majority of their leaders, doesn’t mean I’m going to hate on them as a people.  That is no better then what Hilter did the Jews…..and I told her that, she didn’t like that and did one long post accusing me of attacking her beliefs.  I’m just too old for dealing with that…..it is my fb, which has far as I’m concern is my house and I won’t tolerate what I find is hatred and bigotry towards one type of people….so I unfriended her, I don’t need the drama.  I’m sad in that she has so much hatred built up in her.  And I’m not the most positive person in comments about society.

I can’t say that I’ve ever really known any Muslims, I’ve maybe encountered a few in my years of work but my husband served with some and we all know that every religion and race has both good and bad in it.  I did ask one woman about how do you keep the head wraps on and she seemed very happy to share her culture with me.  But I’m not going to judge a whole group of people based on bad ones, most things are cultural…not religious when it comes to things that are done in the name of Islam.  And I go on about the crimes and stuff of Christianity all the time.  But I also know that there are a lot of good people that actually try practice the teachings of Christ, which are good and get lost.  So individually I have no issue with people having their different faiths when it is not twisted to hurt, abuse or mistreat people or forced on me.  But I do have a MAJOR issue with all the evil and bigotry done in the name of religion.

Now hubby will say I’m dwelling on it, maybe I am….but not in the way that I’m upset in the standard sense of the word.  More like it makes me examine things and want to break it down about human nature and myself.  I think if I’m upset about anything it is that horrible generalization she made about being a feminist….like there aren’t Muslim feminists.  It was insulting to me to think that being a feminist meant that I should hate on them…wtf?  I guess I will never get that way of thinking…..maybe happier not to.

If you hadn’t seen, I became a great aunt in Jan.  =)  Very cool……the closest I will ever to being a grandma and that is as close as I want…grin  I will say that I’m not too please about some of the decisions my niece has been making.  Believe she is making them for all the wrong reasons and doesn’t want to work for anything.  Wants everything now and expects it to be easy.  Her sperm donor father coming out in that.  =(  But it is her life to screw up, just worried about my great niece.

Wow after not posting in awhile, this is a long one.  Maybe I’ll do more of it, probably more social commentary.  =)