Goin' Mobile. Keep Me Movin'.

we're going to try really hard to keep Archie out of the laundry room this weekend.

So, my starter in my car needed to be replaced. I also had them try to get my hatch to work again. It had been stuck shut since the tornado. I was afraid that if I ever got it open, I may not get it closed again. They said it was jammed with broken glass from when that back window shattered into a million pieces due to the force of the winds. Anyway, it actually works now. Weird. It wasn't horribly expensive, and I had the money to afford it, so It wasn't horrible.

So, this weekend...I actually some plans this time around. Tomorrow night, I'm making the brown sugar salmon, some almond rice pilaf and saute'ing asparagus, red bell pepper, and zucchini in garlic butter and white wine. The girl crush is going to visit and she'll finally get to see my house, meet Archie and officially meet The Guy. I'm so excited.

On Saturday morning, The Guy and I are going to drive to Des Moines to pick up his new car. He got it $500 cheaper than buying one here in town, so it's very worth the drive. I'm not sure what will happen when we come back in the afternoon. If it snows enough, we might try to ski...In the evening, we're going to go out for a nice dinner to celebrate our mobility. Yea us!

I'm not sure what's going on for Sunday yet. I'll have to let you know after it happens.

So, what do any of you have planned this weekend? Will you be hanging out with your girl crushes who are visiting from out of town or going out of town yourselves?

Let's Get Together Before We Get Much Older

Here is a mural with snow covering the bottom of it.

Another wonderful Wednesday night with The Guy. This time we invited my friend G. and that made it even better. The Guy and I made spicy peanut noodles, miso soup, salad, roasted garlic and bought some sour dough bread from the Co-op. It was really good. We had a great time with G. The Guy and I both love hanging out with her, but The Guy hadn't seen her in forever. She also finally got to meet Archie. Poor G.

So, tomorrow morning I take my car in to see why it's so hard to start over the last few months. Please wish me luck that whatever it is doesn't cost too much. Please and thank you.

Hangin' Round the Ceiling Half the Time

As promised, a dahlia and one of my glads. It was supposed to be a mix of colors for the gladiolas, but so far the mix is just yellow and white.

So, today is Stinky and her boyfriend's one month anniversary. How 16 years old is it to celebrate a one month anniversary? It is pretty cute, because he is such a nice kid and he is just as crazy about her as she is about him. There's nothing wrong with being a total dork about someone. In fact, I wish that all my friends could find someone they could be shamelessly dorky with. I'm just a hopeless romantic that way...Or maybe I'm just hopeless.

Here is a photo of my tomato plants getting ready to take over the world. They're almost as tall as I am.

So, my first day back to work after my long birthday weekend was crazy busy. I had this training thing that took all morning and was REALLY boring. I didn't have time to take my car in, but I'm going to leave it at the muffler shop tomorrow morning and walk to work from there.

Tonight Dr. Lyd and her hubby stopped by to finally check out my new place. Her hubby is an engineer and was very helpful. They really liked my place and were nice enough not to notice any of the flaws...Even when I pointed them out to them. My friend K. stopped by as well to drop off some books and movies she borrowed and to pick up some more of each. I love sharing.

Now, it's late and I'm going to retreat to my lair to read myself to sleep. Depending on how much the estimate is on my car, I might spend my lunch break tomorrow buying books with the gift certificate to Prairie Lights I got for my birthday. There. That ought to take the edge off. Night night.

It Never Ends (It Never Ends...)

Here is a photo of my freshly painted kitchen walls. The color is called "sparkling Stream". I bought flowers for myself at the Co-op on my way home for work. I'm so glad I had them later on when I needed some cheering up.

Okay. I have good news and bad news, but I always say the bad news first to get it out of the way. My car battery was dead again when I went to drive Stinky and her friend to a basketball game. I haven't driven my car for a couple of days, but I used to go days without driving it before my battery was drained and never had a problem. Plus, it's not really even that cold anymore. So, I did a lot of spazzing in my head, and since I don't really have an adult to talk to, I posted a FB status update just to whine into the void we call the internets. Then, since I'm a fix-it girl, I sat down and figured out what to do. I called Sears to find out about how it worked to get a new battery. The guy said they're open at 8. I can't make an appointment, but they'll take care of it on a first come, first served basis. Then I called my mechanic neighbor. After he called me a pain in the butt and kept laughing at American Idol while I detailed the problem, (which made me smile) he agreed to give my car a jump in the morning. He said I should get a new battery and if it loses its charge, I might want to get the alternator checked out. Which was exactly what I was thinking. Anyway, at least I have a plan now and I'll call work in the morning to let them know I'll be a little late...Again.

The good news, is that I got my kitchen painted. Hurray! With all the drama, I didn't get it put back together yet, but I figure I'll do that tomorrow night. My girls gave me crap about how much blue there is in our house, but I don't care. Like I always say, I'm a water girl. The blue in my kitchen is much more muted than my bathroom and my bedroom is actually green. Although it's still a color based on water. I think it's called sea surf or something. Anyway, I find water or sea colors relaxing and the blue/gray in my kitchen is very clean looking. After how dirty it was when we moved in, (I'm still trying to clean off the dirtcicles hanging off the ceiling) I wanted something really clean.

This week I'm going to work very hard at putting everything back together and cleaning and FINALLY unpacking the last couple of bags and boxes in the kitchen before I start my next project - priming, sanding and painting the cupboards. I really can't wait until the bulk of my projects are done, so I can just sit around and read a book or something crazy like that.

In the Place Where I Make No Mistakes

Here is Stinky, earlier in the season with a coworker and a certain Hawkeye.

I'm writing this while watching the Orange Bowl and my daughter is yelling at the TV, so this post might be even more disjointed than usual. Today continued my string of annoyances. Believe me, I know how good I have things. Annoyances are not tragedies. I've just reached my saturation point of having to deal with crap - mostly because of the frigid temperatures.

When it's bitterly cold out, I drive in as close in to work as I can without having to pay. So, this morning, I hopped in my car and the battery was dead again. Nice. As I've said before, I have the right kind of clothes to be able to handle the cold, so I walked all the way to work. No problem

The big problem came with trying to figure out what was wrong with my battery and how to get it fixed, so I don't get stranded wherever I go. I emailed K.'s ex, J. because he was the one who was nice enough to get and install my battery 3 years ago. He gave me some options and said something about the battery possibly needing water in order to hold a charge. I had no idea you needed to put water in your battery. I've had my car for several years and didn't water my battery once. He sent me a link to a helpful YouTube video about just how to water up my battery.

My friend G. was nice enough to come over right after work to help me push my car out of the garage and give my battery a jump. Of course, we didn't have very good cables, and the jump didn't take. G. was smart enough to get a number for my neighbor V. who lives two houses down from me and happens to be a mechanic. He was still at work, but said he'd stop by if we didn't get it figured out by the time he got off. Next, my ex stopped by to drop off my daughter and tried to help as well. Even with his cables, my car didn't charge.

I was starting to think my battery might be toast, but then my neighbor stopped over and used his cables and my car started right up. Finally! My neighbor was even nicer still and told me that if my car doesn't start in the morning, to call him and he'll give me a jump, so I can drive to the mechanic where I bought the battery and get me a new one - one that hopefully works.

So, like MnMom suggested, this might be the year when my friends show up at the right time, with exactly what I need. Thank god, the wonderful people in Iowa make up for the crappy weather.

Baby I've Been Here Before

Stinky picked out the photos she wanted me to put up on today's post. She chose all the "pretty ones" I took during the week. Lately, I've just been walking around on my lunch break and taking photos of anything I see that I like. This one is of the warning system they put up overnight and the older lamp post underneath it by Gilmore Hall.

So, remember all those plans I had for the weekend? Well, they all pretty much went out the window. I had an on and off migraine from Thursday night until this afternoon sometime. I took my meds and they got rid of the worst of the pain, but I was so weak and tired for most of the weekend. It was a big drag because this very well could have been the last really nice weekend we'll have until Spring sometime.

This here is Jefferson Street now that the leaves are changing.

It wasn't horrible, I just felt like I wasted some nice weather. What did I do? Well, let me tell you.

On Friday night, I watched movies. It was all I was up for. I gave the girls money to get food either during or after the football game and I can't remember if I ate anything much myself.

I watched a Jodie Foster movie called The Brave One. it was better than I thought it would be, but I'd like to see Jodie Foster do something other than be angry and paranoid in every single movie she's in. Plus, I've lived in some scary neighborhoods in my life, but I've never been the target of as much violent crime as her character was, every single day.

Stinky had her sleepover and the girls were all so exhausted that they fell asleep around midnight. Perfect.

These are the flowers on the Pentacrest. They just took the Summer flowers away a couple of weeks ago and replaced them with these Mums.

On Saturday, I was in just enough pain that I figured I might as well get my car looked at. I didn't want to do it when everything was going well and ruin a perfectly good day. It's been all funky since our trip, leaking something, but running just fine. I don't have any money to fix it, but if it was leaking that much oil, I figured, I should get it changed and get more in there. So, I took it to Jiffy Lube. They said that a sealant was messed-up and it was a common problem for Subaru's. He said the oil wasn't leaking on the manifold. He said it would only cost a few bucks for the sealant, but the labor to put it on and clean up the oil would be at least a couple hundred dollars. I asked him if it was dangerous or if it would hurt the car to drive it like that. He said no. Since I don't have an extra couple hundred dollars and I didn't find any more money when I went running this weekend, I'm just going to let it go and get my oil changed more often.

Here is photo of a guy in a tree with his laptop. As you know, this is my favorite tree and Stinky thought the boy looked hot.

Saturday was a mix CD day for me. My friend Rachie sent me one in the mail. It was great. I make them for people all the time, but I think the last time anyone made one for me was FMDM on our first date. The one Rachie made me was nice and mellow - what I call Sunday morning music. There was some Pinback and Okkervil River and David Bazan, and a bunch of other great bands. It was perfect for drinking tea and reading the paper this morning.

I also made a mix CD for my friend K. I'll probably post if for you guys tomorrow night. So, on Saturday evening I stopped by K.'s house and dropped it off, along with some cherry tomatoes and jalapenos and stayed for an hour and chatted with her. I got home and was still pretty migrainey, so I watched a movie called Notes on a Scandal. It was really uncomfortable and good. Judy Densch was amazing in it. She really is one hell of a dame.

Here is a pic of a lamp post all by itself with the changing trees in the background.

Today I really wanted to go take photos, but I was still zonked out by my migraine until the afternoon. I finally started feeling better and ran my six mile route, but I still had so much practical shit I still had to get done, that I couldn't go play and take pictures. Drat. Foiled again.