titansphere.com

Ack! Google Maps’ “Street View” has come to my street, and although the pictures are from last October, I still feel a little like I’ve been spied on. *sigh* That was back when the 4Runner still lived (as you can see from the view)…

Despite the car accident, we went camping this weekend as planned before the Prius got a bad nose job. I’m glad we did; it cheered me up considerably once everyone stopped commiserating with me over the loss.

In all, 10 friends and 3 dogs camped on our friends’ family’s land. A little creek runs by a slew of campsites, so each tent has it’s own privacy but there’s also a big common area with a fire pit, tables, a volleyball net, horseshoes, a bbq, and an outhouse - yay for not shitting in the woods! The weather cooperated a bit and we were able to get our legs in the water, but we weren’t too excited about the prospect of freezing all night so we didn’t actually get wet wet.

The food was excellent - we had, in no particular order, blueberry pancakes, homemade chili, bacon & eggs ‘n potatoes ‘n onions hash,  roasted oranges, bratwurst, summer squash, corn on the cob, french toast, hummus, and s’mores (of course). The company was just as good - it was a very mellow experience but just what the doctor ordered. We have been so busy lately with the house remodeling that NOT doing was nice. Mostly we hung out by the fire, played horseshoes, threw stuff for the dogs to fetch, waded in the creek, and cooked…cooking takes a long time by open flame!

Thursday included a very disappointed April. I got in another car accident and now my shiny brand new pretty car has a big dent in it, and the driver’s door doesn’t open, and the alignment is off, and when it shuts off there’s a weird noise. *pout* *wail* I’m still so upset about it. It wasn’t my fault (it was that bitch at Pizza Hut’s…see PS) - the other car hit us at a dead stop, but my new car! How devastating! I want it back in pristine condition…right now it is at Toyota getting better. Here’s what happened:

Typical parking lot fender-bender: I come past a row of parked cars to the aisle and see a 1984 ugly copper Chevy Camaro coming waaaay too fast at me. Eric yells “STOP” and I slam on the brakes and they see us at the last second and try to swerve but it’s too late and they smack my fender and wheel panel. George goes flying onto the floor (he thinks its just a carnival ride). I hit my left shoulder (the other one) on the door frame and now I’m back at the chiropractor/masseuse because someone else made a poor decision driving.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

Oh, PS - If the lady at Pizza Hut would’ve substituted regular breadsticks for chocolate ones like they did last time then we wouldn’t have had to leave in the first place for food. 

I hate heights because I’m so good (or bad) at falling. So what did I do all day yesterday? Hang out at the top of our 20 foot vaulted ceilings painting the corner between the ceiling and the wall. I didn’t finish until 9:15pm, but its completely done and I don’t have to worry anymore about falling to my incapacitation or death trying to reach that last little bit in the far corner. All we have left is the hallway, which only has about 12 foot ceilings. Piece of cake!

Home improvement is contagious…when we upgraded to the new wood floor, we decided (last minute) to upgrade the walls, too. Today we finished the living room and kitchen area in “Florida Mango” Behr Satin Enamel paint - the ceiling is still white. It looks absolutely wonderful. Beyond our expectations so much so that now all the white walls look boring and we’re thinking of expanding our painting adventure.

Pictures soon, I promise!

It does look awesome!!! *squeal of delight*

I’m geeking out in a whole new way: garden tracking with myfolia.com. Somehow I’ve combined two nearly opposite passions of mine - computers and gardening. Hey, at least I’m not pasty white or dying of skin cancer!

Myfolia.com is a social networking website for gardeners around the globe. Perhaps I’ll meet someone really cool, but for now, I just like that I can track all my plants in gardens and keep all of the specific names of each plant straight. Furthermore, I’d like to start composting and rainwater harvesting (why should I pay the city to water my plants?) and I’ve joined the group where I hope to learn from others’ experience and mistakes.

Soooo, if you’re interested in gardening, keeping track of plants, or just meeting fellow green-thumbs from around the globe, join us!

I may well be inexistent for the next while - we are working on some home improvements and that, with work, will make it nigh impossible for me to find any free time. Here is what’s shakin’:

• We’ve incorporated an office into our bedroom. The furniture is in and we’re rearranging and filling the shelving with stuff. Yay for organization and a quiet place to work!
• We’re reflooring our living area/hallways with Brazilian Cherry laminate flooring. This is just shy of 800 sq. feet, or about 1/2 the square footage of the house. It’s going to look awesome when it’s done.
• We bought some organizational shelving for the garage for our tools and camping equipment. The garage has seriously lacked storage areas and we aim to fix that.

So, that’s a summary of our summer plans. Perhaps we’ll incorporate staining the fence. And one day I’ll post pictures of our beautiful home improvements…hopefully I’ll be able to catalog the transformation from cookie-cutter suburb house to *our* house.

I really don’t know how to explain my absence, so I’ll just chronicle the events that have kept me from blogging.

We spent the 4th of July in Montana as per usual. It was wonderful - a full week - but very action-packed. The fireworks were absolutely breathtaking, and since it was Laurel’s centennial celebration of cityhood, they shot off over 12,000 fireworks. 12,000!

Let’s see - I’ve been trying to refinance my house for over 2 months. Its proving to be a long and complicated process that I’m loathe to participate again. Its like having a second job. We’d like to start doing some remodeling on our house but we can’t start until the refinance goes through. So on top of that we’ve done some research on what we’d like to upgrade and to what, and we’ve also been doing some cleaning and purging of crap we don’t need in preparation for the “new do.”

I’ve switched to 10-hour days at work - Monday through Thursday. The weekdays are long but the 3 day weekend is reaaallllly nice. Really nice. It is easy for me to forget that its Friday rather than Saturday.