About Life, the Universe and Everything
Note: Katrina has another journal here that is updated more often
October 24, 2005
What a
great weekend! I needed it, too. On Saturday, we worked on getting
household chores and tasks all up to speed. I worked inside while Eric
did spa maintenance and worked on the tree fort he's building for the kids.
After next weekend, he should be finished. I'm totally impressed.
On
Sunday (yesterday), Delena and I went to town to see The Corpse Bride.
Friends were supposed to join us, but were unable to make it due to car
troubles. I find that I can take or leave Tim Burton and Danny Elfman
pretty much has two tunes to which all of his compositions are set, so I can
take or leave him too and since they are evidently bonded at the hip, I can
take or leave them both. This time, I feel like he really, really scored and
I enjoyed the movie immensely.
One of my favorite characters
was Mrs Everglot, played to wonderful perfection by the awesome Joanna
Lumley. I love her because she has the class to show up in a movie with what
is obviously an inverted nutsack on her head. For two foot tall puppets with
precision crafted clockwork heads, adjusted by hidden keys, the characters
have a wonderful range of expression and are just absolutely fabulous. There
is singing involved, but not to the point that it detracts of the
story-telling or "acting" of the puppets. The story is cute, but you figure
out pretty quickly that there just is no good way for it to end. I'd say of
all of the possible choices, the direction it took was likely the best
resolution. The 90 minutes or so flew past and I was disappointed that it was
over when it ended. I wanted to stay there and enjoy that world for a little
longer. I loved the use of color, or rather lack thereof until something was
specifically colorful, like butterflies. I am grateful to have seen this
movie in the theater rather than waiting for DVD (although I will also get the
DVD) and it was lovely to be so entertained for this time.
After the movie, Delena and I
exchanged the mansion (from Halloween town) at K-mart and I picked up a few
more things. I was happy that almost everything I wanted was on sale
(harvest!) and I had a real coup at Radio Shack, of all places. Eric is
looking to replace his Sirius satellite receiver. The one we have doesn't
connect in well and while it plays OK, the display doesn't light up
consistently. Since he was wanting a new one (and his birthday is next month)
and leaves the old one in the jeep all the time (which I drive), I went
looking for the boom box home base for it so I can listen to my favorite shows
like The Radio Chick, Jimmy Breuer Unleashed and The Wiseguys, not to mention
the cool music. I have the really old 4000 series, so I checked on ebay and
with shipping, it was going to run me $60 at the cheapest, which is much more
than I intended to spend. Went into Radio Shack and the guy finally found one
and told me it was $99, which is even more considerably what I didn't want to
spend. He rang it up to be sure and HUZZAH!!! It rang up at $39! It
was SOLD faster than you can say Visa! So I'm all happy now. Just have to
find a direction to face with it so it will get a signal. It was fine
earlier, but the Sirius satellite must have moved in the sky and the signal is
lost (altogether now, "Awwwww.")
We got home around 5pm and had
a nice, quiet night. I'm all ready to slide into a great week with very
little planned.
Delena has already missed the
bus today, first time in two years. I'm debating letting her stay home
for one more day. She had a good bit of pain from her tooth hole last
night. I checked the socket for the first time since the extraction and
wow, it's really a huge, gaping hole. I figured it would be healing over
by now, but it's just absolutely gigantic and I almost fell over into it.
She still keeps gauze over it (New gauze, not the same gauze) to keep stuff
from going into the socket and I think she may have been pushing it down into
the socket (which makes sense since that was how it was sent home from the
dental office). Unfortunately, I think it has kept it from growing over
at all. She's been doing her salt water rinses and taking her
antibiotics. She is keeping the gauze to the surface now, so with any
luck, it will be closing in a day or so.
Not much else is going on.
Life is smoothing out and over after a very busy harvest season. I'm
going to be kicking back... right after I get Delena to school.
Have an absolutely stellar
week!
October 22, 2005
There
are important things one needs to know. For one thing, if I have a
little bit of money to spare and I go into darkest, most dread K-mart and
they are having a massive sale on really cool Halloween decorations, all
kinds of madness is going to ensue. That's just all there is to it.
They had these wonderful little Halloween Town kind of things that are a
mansion, a Witch's lair, an old barn, a trick-or-treater eating tree, some
little spooky-ass trees, a light up moon, all kinds of stuff to make this
little town. It was all on sale for 40% off, so I spent way too much
money and got the ones that appealed to me (like, the ones I mentioned).
We had a few ceramic pieces to put with the set and now our hearth has total
Halloween Town going on. The pieces are
animated and one has a
soundtrack that sounds like a ride at Disneyland with one of the Witches from
the Witch' s lair bitching and griping. It's great. I also got new
fall garlands for the torches, a fountain that is a stack of skulls (you put
food coloring in the water so it looks like they are bleeding, that's it to
the left) and Nathan's costume. Dylan got his last week. Delena just
needed a red windbreaker (all hail Ebay!) and lighter hair (we haven't decided
on color or a wig) to be Jay from Jay and Silent Bob (she has the snoogans
beanie). Another important thing one needs to know is that my skull
fountain does not have the lowest setting it truly needs. Also it is
important to know that you can't get enough red food coloring (I used the gel
kind) to make water look anything like blood. I have a pile of skulls
gushing what looks like tropical punch kool-aid out of their eyes. I'm
in bidness. Honey, I found luvvv at a K-mart store.
I
found no love whatsoever at Albertsons, however. I spent just under $170
and it all fit on the bottom of the cashier counter where they bag.
That's a damned shame. I swear, food prices have doubled in a year.
Eric
is doing a damned fine job of building a tree fort for the kids in a beautiful
circle of trees off to the side front of the yard (this is the same area that
was infested with cans, bottles and other nasty junk that I cleared away last
early summer). It's all nice now and he's been working like mad for 2
weekends now. I came up with the idea of taking the slide from the swing
set (which they are really too big to use - the swing set, that is) and
attaching it to the tree fort so they climb up the ladder to get up, but slide
down the slide to get down. It's really coming along nicely.
I
actually took a 90 minute uninterrupted nap today. It was glorious.
I'm making a turkey now. Albertsons has them "buy one get one free" and
although I can only have two at a time (the one I'm cooking is #2), I plan to
make use of them. I am seriously considering a small chest freezer.
My family is going to get very sick of turkey.
Nathan
brought home a 50 states cookbook that he checked out of the school library
and as Eric was looking at it, he commented that you can't get a good NJ
sandwich here, so I used the recipe and made him an authentic hoagie?
gyro? submarine? hero? Whatever those New Jersey people call
a sandwich on a roll. Since they called for vinegar and oil on the bread
and I knew that it was not likely Crisco and white vinegar, I consulted with
the deli lady and ended up getting a balsamic vinaigrette, prousciutto,
salami, lettuce, provolone and thin sliced tomato. He was kind enough to
say it came out great and very familiar. :) Score!
I am
about to redeem my day of inactivity (and my splurge into the land of real,
not diet, Dr Pepper by doing a complete clean on the downstairs and getting it
all nice and lovely for the evening. I always feel so much better in a
clean, uncluttered house, but it's the actually doing of it that tends to hold
that off. God, I hate cleaning house... so... much. I'm better at
it than I used to be, but only because my soul and will have been broken into
it. I don't hate it less, I'm just resigned to it more. Plus, I
like the results a good bit.
So off
I go. Into another season of hell (that will likely last an excruciating
30 minutes or so... I'm just whining.
But
I'm good at it!!
Much love,
October 21, 2005
Whew!
What a week! It seems like I say that a lot lately, but more and more my
life patterns after the ancient agricultural cycles of the year and since it's
harvest time until Oct 31, I guess it only makes sense that I'd be out in the
fields, working my butt off to bring in the harvest.
This
week, it was about getting the refi completed (it is), getting Delena at last
into the dentist (she did, but what an experience) and trying to get my house
under control (not really).
I have
to get busy cleaning, cleaning like mad for a hour before the kids get home
and I head down the mountain with Nathan for his day out with Mom. Got
to get groceries and a few things from Wal-Mart.
Delena's appointment yesterday was harrowing. She was having her left,
lower quadrant done. We were told she would need at least one root
canal, possibly two if the second tooth could not be filled well. That
tooth went well. The dentist got it filled and it looks like a root
canal isn't necessary. The other one, however, was so decayed (she lost
a filling and the decay just went nuts) that it had to be extracted. It
was a permanent molar with gigantic roots and it took them almost an hour and
a half of prying and pulling and cutting to get it out. She was such a
trouper, but it was so hard for her and she was in a good bit of pain, despite
FIVE injections of lidocaine. She won't need a root canal now, but
that's cold comfort after the unexpected trauma of yesterday. She's resting
today, taking high powered Motrin and antibiotics and staying toward bed.
Back to school on Monday. No dental appointment until Nov 9th, so time
for both of us to recover.
Spent
2 hours on the phone and online catching up bills today. We got enough
of a cash out from the refi to get our bills caught up, get Eric's
contractor's license and take the kids to Disneyland next month. For the
first time in a long time, all of our accounts are at zero balance and our new
mortgage payment is $300 a month lower than our old one. That's a
wonderful harvest. Eric gets a raise in January and his contractor's
license will be finalized around that time too, which opens some major doors.
That's a marvelous harvest in itself, in addition to the internal blessings
I've received this seaons.
Also,
the girl puppies, Snuggles and Muggles, have moved from the hole in the woods
to under my front porch, which is a major bonus. I found that someone
had taken my sign from the Post Office bulletin board, so I have replaced it
in hopes of finding them great homes. They are sure precious! JoBu
is growing fast and Baby is inside full time now. They are both
housebreaking beautifully. Still a few accidents, but they work hard to
get outside. I NEED A DOGGY DOOR!!
Hope
you have a wonderful weekend.
Much love,
