Category Archives: Love/Loathe

Love:

* That there’s only 4 months until Christmas.

* Going to the mountains, like we did this past weekend, and doing all the things we do in the mountains… visit to KMart, the Candy Shop, squirrel watching, book reading, sleeping in, hiking, visiting the shooting range (I got the best shooting score!!). Idyllic stuff. Good stuff.

* I bought these a few months ago and thought it’d be fun to use them during the summer months for our iced tea. I love how they look like we should be using them for something else.

* How fun my cubicle at work looks. I may have a “small cubicle complex”, but I get a lot of compliments on it. So I guess it is true — it’s not how big it is, it’s how you use it?

Loathe:

* The not so good moment in the mountains when we discovered that the one store where we’d been able to buy our favorite pie has stopped carrying it. Gah! I just know I’m gonna be a hoarder because of discontinued products!

* Frisky bullet shells, such as the ones I experienced this past weekend. The most exciting one started in my cleavage and went all the way down south. I got burned in three places. First time that’s ever happened.

* Weird sleep patterns.

* Squeaky doors.

* Drama over stupid stuff.

* Clutter.

One Last Thing:

I didn’t get a very good picture of this, in fact, the picture pretty much sucks, but since I took it, I’m posting it. Mostly it’s just a reminder to me to put the question out there. So, here’s what it is… I’ve seen quite a few vehicles driving around with stickers on their back window saying things like, “In loving memory of John P. Andrews… 1978 – 2005.”

Do you think they just want to remember their loved one or do you think that’s like a portable headstone and they’re driving around with an urn in their car, belted into the passenger seat?

Love:

* Snug’s summer antics. I had forgotten about this thing Snug does when we run our box fans. He positions himself either in front or behind it and then YOWLS into it at the top of his lungs. He likes the sound of fan distortion, apparently, because he’s been doing this every summer for awhile now.

* It’s August! Tony’s birthday month! Our anniversary month! Four months until Christmas! This is exciting stuff, folks!! I keep telling him that his third job is playing the lottery, so maybe for his birthday he’ll finally win — the lottery from a broke state. HA HA!

* Finally, finally, finding a GYN and his office staff that I like — the whole package (see previous post). I can’t believe it. Best experience of having my bottoms off and on the table, ever (except for my RE, that is).

* Someone at my work did something right with their tomato plants. The person brings in a large bag every Monday morning and leaves it in the kitchen for everyone to share. I wish I knew who it was, because I’d love to tell them thank you!

* While my fancy-pants watch is in the shop getting a new battery, I bought a cheap thing on clearance at Big Lots! The flowers on this thing appear and disappear and I could stare at it all day. Never has time going by been so fun to watch before!

* Summer swims in the outdoor pool. These wonderful swims are what I think and dream about while swimming inside at the gym during the winter.

Loathe:

* Searching for stuff only to learn that it’s been discontinued. For example, I have a Kensington Pilotboard Multimedia Keyboard at home that I bought three years ago. I love everything about it and would love to have one at work, too. But guess what? Kensington no longer makes it. Grrr. Cosmetic companies discontinue stuff ALL THE TIME and it makes me crazy. I feel like I have to stockpile stuff when I like it because next time I go to the store, it might not be there. I think I may have a glimmer of understanding for hoarders, because I think it probably all started with the “discontinued” error.

* People who talk on their cell phone in a public restroom while using the toilet. When I encounter that, I intentionally become a multiple flusher, but it matters not to them. The one I encountered this past week at work was sitting on the toilet grunting and plunking and talking mid-plunk. So gross.

* Traffic. I now have to take one of the horrific California freeways to get to work. My other option is a surface street with traffic lights. So I take the freeway. I thought I had figured out the traffic patterns and it worked great for three days last week, leaving my house 5 or 10 minutes earlier than usual I missed all the traffic. Apparently I was tricked, because my strategy isn’t working this week.

One Last Thing:

This past Sunday, I was walking back to my car after swimming and a butterfly caught my eye. It was fluttering up and down, in giant circles, at the will of the breeze that was following the bank of the road up the hill. I increased my walking speed, got back to my car and grabbed my camera. I looked for the butterfly and caught a glimpse of it, but then it was out of range. I saw it again, then lost it, saw it, lost it, and finally just decided to take a wild shot, not even hoping that I captured it photographically. When I downloaded my pictures, I was stoked to discover that I actually did get it in the picture I took. What a lucky shot!

Cropped to the butterfly:

Love:

* A faster booting computer. I followed some dude’s guidelines and it shaved 3-4 minutes off the booting time of my downstairs computer. Of course, I practiced on my work computer just before we moved so that if I screwed anything up, I could just go tell my IT crew that it must’ve been messed up in the move. It’s important to think ahead on these types of things, you know.

* My IT crew. They are seriously so quirky and funny. There are some days when their funniness helps get me through the day.

* Jewel’s new CD, Lullaby.

* Succulent summer deliciousness in the form of fruit — pineapple, watermelon, plums, figs, nectarines, peaches, strawberries *blissful sigh*

* Sunsets that look like pastel paintings done with watercolors.

Loathe:

* Weird sleep. It didn’t really cool off here on Sunday night and the both of us woke in pools of icky sweat. Monday night I came home from work and went upstairs to do a couple things. I woke up 2 hours later thinking I was late for work! I guess I needed sleep more than I needed to swim…

* Missing my mom. However, as Tony pointed out, I now have “Phone Mommy” back.

One Last Thing:
When we went to San Francisco earlier this month, I believe I mentioned we did a whole lotta walking. Uphill, downhill, uneven surfaces, upstairs, downstairs, so forth and so on. My shins hurt by the time I got home.

What I didn’t mention was that the luggage handlers at SFO shattered the plastic piece inside the base of my suitcase, so the wheels kept turning inward. Which essentially meant that I had pigeon-toed luggage the entire time I was in San Francisco. Pulling that thing kind of felt like I was dragging a 25 pound box of sand and, in fact, I spent much of my time carrying it instead of pulling it for that reason.

My last and biggest love of today is directed toward my husband who went and bought a board and is presently out in the garage using that to fix my broken suitcase… and I figure having a board in the bottom of my suitcase should increase my “INSPECTED” tag collection when sending it through airport security!

Love:

*Wasabi peas.

*Rice snack mix… I knew it was gonna be good when the cashier checked me out and muttered under her breath, “Oh, this is good.” Like my purchase just reminded her exactly how good it was and on her next break she probably bought her own bag.

* Search engine results. I’m gonna have to do another post on it. June’s were hairlairious!

* The views from the new office. Also, that my car is parked in the shade all day, no more sun aging and no more stupid window flyers. (I’m trying, here, folks!)

* I am so, so, sooo glad that I didnt’t have to go to Los Angeles for any reason today.

Loathe:

* The work week before vacation.

* Commuting in traffic on freeways. Why are they called freeways when you’re clearly NOT free to move.

One Last Thing:
I was thinking recently, as I bought a huge 18 pack of toilet paper at Target for cheap, how there used to be various colors of TP available for purchase. Anyone else remember toilet paper in blue or pink? It’s been a few years, I guess, and it just quietly stopped showing up in the stores, so I hardly even noticed. I remember someone saying a few years ago that they never buy dyed toilet paper because of where it’s used…

I suppose, if it were really important to me, I could probably buy it somewhere on the Internet… but, well, why spend extra money for something you’re just going to flush down the drain?