I haven't had much to write lately.
There's just not much too much happening.
I'm just working and doing wedding stuff and house stuff.
But by not writing I'm neglecting the purpose of the blog.
(Purpose? 
Oh, yeah! 
To keep people our family fah fah away informed of our happenings!)

We had a wedding shower the past two Saturdays and got lots of great presents.
Boots and I are going to have plenty of new things to use in our house.
We got nice, new, fluffy towels.
Shiny pots and brand new spoons!
Baskets, and decorations, and tools!
I'm dying to cook something with all my new wares but I haven't had the time yet.
Expect lots of cooking posts in October.

I've been writing 'thank you' notes until my eyes cross.
Don't you just love writing 'thank you' notes?
(I may be sarcastic about a lot of things but from the bottom of my heart I love writing 'thank you' notes.
I like paying bills too.
There's just some allure about writing checks, licking envelopes, and sticking stamps.
Maybe because it's only 'special' occasions that you get to do such.)

Boots and I finally decided on the flooring for the majority of the house!
Hallelujah!
Indecision makes my head spin.
I like to have things decided out right away so I don't have to stress over the possible outcomes.

Possible outcomes......
New business venture idea in the works.

Dear Boots,
I am becoming increasingly attached to the blue bathroom each time I see it.
Please, do not destroy.
Save your creative destructive energies for the grand house we're building in our heads that will someday be on the ground.
Much love,
Rachel

You know what's great about all this hectic wedding stuff?
Ya know, besides the cake and punch?
I get to see so many people that I haven't seen in a while and/or don't get to see very often.
I can't wait until the wedding!
There will be (I hope!) so many people there that love us and I hope we get to visit with them all.

Chloe has moved out of my apartment and down to our house.
She chewed up a wall in my bathroom yesterday as payback for the trouble she got in that morning and I cannot have teeth marks on everything that doesn't belong to me that I have to pay for when I move out.
I'm not sure if Nikki is sad her friend is gone or glad to have all the attention to herself again.
I hope they mesh as well as they have been meshing next month when they have to live together for good.
I hope me and Chloe started meshing better.
Mesh, mesh, mesh.

Cake, love, and funerals,
Rachel

Reaching In

Yesterday I went with a coworker lady to a business women's convention that my boss said I had to attend as a community outreach project.
We had to choose 3 seminars to attend that were sure to help us better ourselves at work and home.
I picked something about cooking (got a meatloaf recipe, do I like meatloaf?), something about dealing with difficult people (good ideas on paper, but how does that work in real life?), and something about exercising at work (keep your hand weights in your desk and learn to Zumba in heels.)

Sorry for being so vague.
I'm big on generalizing big ideas and specifying the details.

Lunch was some sort of chicken something or the other and a salad that was declared "divine" by the lady sitting next to me.

One thing I really noticed is that black is the color of today's business woman.
The auditorium looked like a sea of mourners.
No wonder work sucks.
Except for Barbara Dooley, who bounced around in a flowered top and hot pink skirt like a butterfly among moths and gave such a motivational speech (and I say that as sarcastically as possible) on having good attitudes at home and work (while exploiting our husbands for diamond bracelets) and that integrity will make you successful in life.
Sigh.

(At the end, Barbara entertained us by singing some Stevie Wonder love song that I thought only existed in musical birthday cards and soap opera love scenes.
Then she made us turn to our neighbors and tell them we loved them!
Ha!
Forced love always made me feel like a million bucks, way to go!)

Moth I am and moth I surely be.
I will never be famous, I will never be well known and that is just fine with me.
I don't want to have to put myself out there and campaign for myself.
I don't want to be on TV (but I wouldn't mind paper), I don't want to give speeches, compete for awards, or make public appearances.
If I never amount to nothing more than the "star status" I have now that will be a success.
Visiting and hanging out with people that I don't know does not appeal to me.

I think maybe the farmers' market is the club I should join.
I'll do my community outreach with them.
Those are more "my" people.

Dear Boss,
Please don't send me back again.
Ever.
Rach

Thought for Food

If God only wants 10%, why do we have to give the waitress 20?

Do My Eyes Look Green To You?

I know it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

In fifty years who will even care?

But at this present time it's important to me and now it feels slightly tainted.

Shoulda called and asked.

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Boots, I want this.

I think it would look great in our bedroom.

Nevermind the fact that its $525.

Money's such a little thing, really.

If I had an iPad I'd make a sleeve for it.
Here's some instructions.

Obsessed

Today work was quiet.
Work was slow.
I had plenty of time but no book to read.
Too much time to think.
I browsed online until I had an epiphany, mistake, idea and decided to check out iPad.
After reading half the manual and checking out all the features and specs I have literally become obsessed with this little thing.

I want one so I can take my blogging on the go.
I have so many great ideas and thoughts that I lose because I can't get to a computer fast enough.
I've taken to writing them down on paper or making drafts in my text messages but remembering what you thought just isn't as great as running with it when you first think it.

I want one because I fear that any day now my computer is going to crash.
My laptop has so much junk on it that I can't even put one more picture on it.
Its literally full even though I have bought an external hard drive and transferred everything I care about to it.
I've tried to wipe my computer clean of everything by doing disk defragmentations but they don't help much.
I don't even have enough space to update my virus protection!

With iPad I could blog, upload pictures from my cameras to iPad then to my external hard drive, I could email, create documents, and read ebooks.
I have wanted a reader for a few years now but I never could decide between Kindle, Reader, and then Nook.
iPad has made the choice for me.

I want an iPad!
If I had an iPad I would name it "Escribir."

I really want an iPad.
Did I buy myself a graduation present?
What about Christmas-- did I buy myself a Christmas present last year?
I'm basically looking for any excuse to run out and buy one but I need to spend money on the house instead.
I'll just wait for my computer to kick the bucket.

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."


Cyril Connolly
(1903 - 1974)

Do you see this sweet face?

You would never imagine that this sweet face belongs to a monster.

A monster that is bound and determined to destroy all rocks, stones, and pebbles by means of digestion!

A monster with aging teeth and gums, that would rather enjoy the crunch of ancient melded grit than Beneful!

Do you see this coffee table?

This coffee table in front of this blue yoga mat, said blue yoga mat shoved up under and beside the metal screen that keeps things (people, animals, junk) from falling in the fireplace?

All this junk that has to keep the rock eating monster from taking all the rocks out of the fireplace so that we don't get dinged when we move out of our apartment?!

If I had anything worth writing that didn't revolve around "house this" or "house that" I'd write it.
But I don't.
I'm boring myself.

I did it again, didn't I? Yes, I did!

Yesterday was Tuesday.
On Tuesdays I'm mandated to post about items I liked from all the Etsy emails I get each week.
This week I didn't have anything, again.
I tell you what, this "Etsy Likes:" post idea really fizzled out quick!

Maybe it should just be an occasionally like instead of a weekly like?

I'm the one that said I had to post about it weekly anyway!

In other news......

Ever read a Prime Lifestyle of Alabama magazine?
Yeah, me neither until I started reading them at the funeral home.

These magazines are for old people (no offense!) and they feature things that the uhhh......negatively aged challenged? would enjoy, more so than young people.
But, whatever, I read them when I'm bored.

Mr. Brad Bull wrote an article four months too late this month called "Take the Stress Out of Buying a Home."
He lists ten reasons to help you chill out when making such a large purchase.
Reading his list, I thought that Boots and I did everything he recommended, except for #9: "Accept that a little buyer's remorse is inevitable and will probably pass."

Buyer's remorse.
I forgot that's what they called it.
I called it "New Homebuyer's Panic."
Or sometimes, "IthinkwemadeamistakeI'mgonnadieWecan'tdothisOMGWhathavewedone?!?!"

Yeah.
Buyer's remorse.
He says its only temporary, and it is, but, boy, is it hard to see the forest for all the trees (sorta) when you're in the middle of it!

Oh, and!
I'm up to 15 followers!
Yay, me!
(Or-- Yay, you guys!)

Picasa

I've been playing around with a new photo-editing program from Blogger called Picasa.
Its got lots of neat things to try, best of all its free!
No need for an expensive photoshop program.

A Lesson In Taping......

I never thought I'd be one to dole out home improvement advice.
Just goes to show you that you never really know......

My advice is this: Don't tape windows at night!

You tape at night, you tell yourself, "Man!  I'm doing a great job!"
Next day in the daylight you see your handiwork and it looks like this.

A crack!

That's just great!

Having a Bad Day?

Bootscontructor is busy building a fence.
To build a fence you must put up fence posts, therefore you have to dig post holes.
As previously stated, digging millions of post holes with a manual post hole digger is work.
Lots of work.
To save the day, I called and found the cheapest gas-powered post hole digger auger you can rent.
Boots goes to retrieve said piece of machinery and it is already rented.
Dang.
On to the next cheapest.
Rent the thing, haul it home, proceed to dig holes in the ground, bit thingy needs sharpening.
Haul bit thingy to the store, have it sharpened for free (thanks, nice man!), proceed again.
To no avail.
Haul the thing back. 
Get a partial refund since you only used it half a day.
Proceed to get really aggravated and call the Rachelfiance on the phone because things are going badly.
Run down to nearest Ace and beg the man to let you rent one of those things on the cheap because you're having a bad day!
Rent a second machine, take it home, pull string to crank, break string, have break down, take broke string and machine back to Ace.
Get string fixed, head back home.

A New Back Yard!

Remember when I posted about the smell of destruction?
Things have been happening to our back yard.
Boots and his friend, Jay, have been very busy being destructive.

Remember the way the outside used to look?
Its all ripped up now.
Check it out.

This shed......

......is the same shed as this one!

(This shed was stolen carried away a few hours after it was torn down.

Probably wound up in a scrap yard somewhere.)

See all the bushes and growth behind this tree?

Undergrowth, no more!

Before

After

Our yard doesn't look like such a nice home for snakes now.

I bet the neighbors are happy, unless the snakes moved to their yards.

The Bootspainter and my baby sister Kate have been busy in our house today.
Everybody has paint stained clothes.

Be The Title......

Your job is what defines you.
You are a garbageman, a teacher, the president.
That is what who you are.
That is it and nothing more unless you somehow manage to overcome it by being something even better.

You are the job.
Be the job.
The job is you and you are one.

Be the position.
Be the title.
Be the occupation.
Be the hazard.

You are what you have become.

Except Different Maybe

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Boots!

I want this!

And Now, A Break From Boring House Pictures!

High school literature makes kids emo.

Remember how we always had to figure out the symbolism in the books we read?
"Dead trees mean this, green grass means this, such and such means this."

Some of those kids took that stuff to heart and ran with it.
That's why the emo-rage is running rampant among teenagers these days.

Why couldn't they be happy like the kids from the 60's and 70's minus the dope and stuff?

(This has been a public service announcement on What's Wrong With America?!
Part One can be found here.)

Hey, Man! You Smell Something?

Boots met the neighbors.

Apparently, back in the pioneering days, men developed an olfactory sense that alerted them to when other men were about to tear something up.

Destruction has a distinct odor or so I hear.

Couple hundred years later, men still have this ability and that's how Boots and our neighborman (who shan't be named for fear of reveiling his identity!) ripped up that dreaded holly bush last Sunday night.

They took out a cedar stump that was just chillin' in the front yard while they were at it.

There's dirt and tore up grass everywhere!

Men may be attracted to destruction but I love the smell of accomplishment!

Etsy Likes: Jars

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I like these jars.

If I had these jars I'd put flowers in them at the wedding.

But maybe I'd want clear instead of blue.

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Lovely!

The bubbles

Rising to the top,

As the heat escapes

In the form of steam.

Too much heat

To be still

To be calm.

Energy over-flowing,

Spewing over the edges.

Hissing and spitting

As it reaches the element.

Until the knob is turned

And all is quiet again.

For now.

The Whole Bathroom (And Nothing But The Bathroom)

This is the one full bathroom in our house.

The other one is a "half bath" which translates to a sink and a toilet.

I don't know what to say about these lights.
Except that they're kinda pretty in a 1970's sort of way.
Ya know?

Boots hates this blue bathtub.
He's making plans to rip it out while I'm scheming against that darned holly bush (which at this point has met its untimely but appropriate death, I'll post about that later, 'kay?).

(Boots took this picture of me sitting on the pot.

Just sitting.)

Bedroom

Keys

(I meant to post this about a week ago but, something went wrong.

Operator error, I'm sure.)

A couple Fridays ago, Boots and I got the keys to our new (to us) house!

Here we are in a celebratory cheesy photo in the lawyer's office.

She was really nice, nothing like other lawyer ladies I know.

(Our realtor has a special place with Boots as she's the one that introduced his parents.)

Our mortgage man was the best mortgage man we could have found.

He was very patient and explained everything in great detail to me (and Boots, but mostly me because I'm slow like that when you throw huge stacks of papers written in fine print at me.)

After that we went down to our house and started unloading the things Boots needed to start living there.

I've never seen a little bitty trailer like this one with so much stuff in it!

Boots means business when he packs!

I was so overwhelmed with happiness that it spilled over into lots of cheesy photos!

Oh, well, I'm sure I'll enjoy these when I'm old.

The Horn, The Horn, It Sounds So Forlorn......

I have The Sads.
The Sads is sort of like being in A Funk although not quite as bad.

I'm sad because everyone is going back to school this year except me and I'm having trouble adjusting.
I miss buying new pencils and blank packs of paper.
I won't get to fill up notebooks with pages covered in my scratchy handwriting this year.

I have plenty of other things to fill my time with this year but, that doesn't stop me from being sad.