Captain

Captain

 

The noise on this photo is crazy bad, but I love it anyway and had to show it off. I’m just that proud of how it looks if you don’t look that closely or aren’t as critical as I am. I have edited it using Pixlr, but that site does something weird to photos when you re-save them. They come out … I don’t know … shiny, flat, smooth, over processed, I guess. The good news is that I got Photoshop and will load it onto my computer sometime tonight or tomorrow.

I should be able to use it well sometime by my mid-forties.

Scraggy

This is a photo of Scraggy, the stray kitten that showed up at my parents’ place sometime around Thanksgiving. S/He is fluffy and very, very affectionate. Supposedly, this is an outdoor cat, but we’ll see what happens with that.

Every day I find it a little more frustrating that I have no subjects to take photos of to practice. I have the dog, but he’s only 10 inches tall when standing. And most of the time he doesn’t stand. He’s more of a laying down dog, which makes my primary subject about two inches tall.

And Josh as a subject…. no. Dude feels the need to ham and act weird. Just doesn’t work. I’m going to have to figure something out soon.

 

Jerry

Last year I made the dogs and cat hats, sweaters, and a scarf (my sister had just gotten a new puppy and we weren’t sure how he’d react to a hat, so he got scarf).

This year Jerry got to wear Archie’s hat from last year since Archie is still afraid of hats and things.

It’s important to note that Archie is a somewhat overweight corgi and Jerry is a somewhat scrawny yorkie.

Also, Jerry isn’t very bright.

However, he is probably one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

Funny story…

… I went in to quit my part-time job today and walked out with a different, better job.

Also, I have to work tomorrow at 7:30, forty minutes from where I live. So I have to be up soonish. Which means I need to be asleep now.

Real writing and thinking soon, I promise.

Sick again

After a day and a half or so of feeling good, I’m halfway back to crap.

I blame the kids I work with now. I had to talk for two hours straight, with brief, seconds-long pauses for them to respond in, and then babble some more so they would keep focused. Now my throat is sore again and my head, muscles, and joints are aching.

So not cool.

I promise I will have something interesting and worthwhile to say eventually, just not while I feel so crappy. For example, I’ve been planning to write about my experience with the outstanding Ronald McDonald House, but I haven’t even started writing that one yet. I’m afraid my writing ability won’t live up to what that place deserves. I’ll get over my chicken soon enough and come up with something.

I’ve also got something started about the supercool ICON theater we went to a few weeks ago, but that’s on the back burner too now while I try to get better through the tried and true method of doing nothing.

And then there’s the new apartment. We freaking love it. Except last night, when some idiot next door tried to kill bedbugs by mixing a random assortment of chemicals, created a gas with unexpected reactions, and six apartments (only six! Aren’t we lucky?!) in our huge building had to be evacuated and then evaluated by two HAZMAT teams. We were back within the hour, but it was annoying, and since that apartment is still blocked off with yellow FIRE LINE tape, we’re on edge that some of that gas will seep into our place.

Did I mention we’re saving for a house? And that I got a real job so a real home is a real possibility?

But for today I think it’ s just work from home a little, sleep a lot, maybe read my book, watch some TV on the internet, and sleep some more.

I’m not okay

I miss my brother so much today.

Michael

Guess who has the flu?

I do!

Aching joints, low fever, headache, and sore throat.

It’s been going on for three days now, getting a little worse every day. Let’s hope I’m near the end of it now.

Shameless self-promotion

Hey Internets! How many of my reader live in the Twin Cities area?

If you raised your hand, or even if you don’t and you know something about web design, marketing, or Internet copywriting, please check out the web site I built in a desperate attempt not to work at WalMart.

So far it’s worked out, kinda. I’ve gotten one tutoring hit, one housecleaning/organizing hit, and one proofreading hit. I’ve plastered it all over Craigslist and that seems to be working fairly well, but I’m not sure it’s good enough. The tutoring portion of my site is also in my profile at UniversityTutor, though that has gotten me nowhere.

This is where I could use some feedback. What is good about the site that I should highlight or extend to other areas of the site? What needs improvement?

I really appreciate any input! Thank you!

Beauty and Burned

New Flowers After Fire

I’m starting my first “real” day of work in Minnesota this afternoon so I don’t have time to write a real post or essay of any sort, so today you get a picture I took with my phone a day or so after our fire. My sister’s dogs and our family’s ancient cat are buried back here and most of their flowers were melted in the extreme heat of the fire. Sometime after the fire trucks stopped coming she replaced the flowers. The contrast of the beautiful, bright new flowers against dark ash and destruction is startling.

My only regret is that I didn’t bring my “good” camera. I love the composition of this photo and most of the way the colors turned out, but I would prefer it in a much higher quality.

Goals for 2012

To me, and apparently most of the internets this year, “new year’s resolution” is synonymous with “failure.”  New year’s resolutions are generally forgotten, failed, or “adjusted” by roughly January 3, only to be re-upped with slightly modified wording the next December 31st.

This year, in honor of what I’m sure was one of my goals last year (though I can’t be bothered to go back and see what they really were), “get smarter,” I’m going to skip the resolutions and do goals instead.

Goals are far more attainable. When I think of goals, I think of reasonable things I can really do and am capable of figuring out how to achieve without too much self-loathing or excessive wondering why I thought this was a good idea. Goals are concrete, real things, not just pie-in-the-sky good ideas a shrink would be glad to hear I’ve considered. These are things I’ve identified as needing attention and work because they will make my life better or just plain get things done.

1. Decide whether or not get get more education. I would love to be a reference librarian in a public library. I’ve accepted that this simply is not going to happen here. My second love is teaching, so I need to decide whether I want to invest yet more UNBELIEVABLY large quantities of money and some more time in my education to become a licensed teacher. I’m also still considering a PhD, though I am now limited to whatever programs at Twin Cities area universities will accept me. I’d also have to decide whether I really want to put 5-7 more years into my education at my age and the fact that I would now be just short of 28 when I started.
2. Stretch daily. I stretched every single day from seventh grade through my fourth year of college, but once my real, full-time job started demanding I wake up earlier, work harder for longer hours, and come home and wake up more exhausted, I stopped. Suddenly, I have lower back pain when I’m on my feet for more than an hour or so, my body tightens up at the slightest whiff of stress, and I’m not as impressively parlor-trick flexible anymore. Plus, I’m getting older, so all of these things are going to get worse and less easily corrected. Time to get back in shape!
3. Find peace. I put a reading lamp on our headboard because if I can’t sleep, I just lay there haunted by the events of the last year. I have no idea how to go about meeting this goal, but it is undeniably something I absolutely must do.
4. Read something substantive at least five days a week, or at least five pieces per week, and read less crap (Daily Mail, I’m looking at you). This is a self-improvement thing. I waste far too much time reading things that are not only far too useless, but also contribute to a culture I don’t really support (my hits on their pages encourage them to continue, and I don’t think that’s good). My time is precious, and more of it should be spent reading things that will help me understand myself, my environment, others, and the larger world around me and far beyond my reach.
5. Keep my new home tidy enough not to make me nuts. I love our new apartment! It’s MASSIVE, at least compared to the last place we live. And it’s clean. I can see floor everywhere and things are put away so that I can find most of them when I need them. It looks tidy and being in this space brings me a sense of calm rather than the anxiety I felt when I was in our last place and saw messes everywhere that needed to be dealt with.
6. Learn to use my new camera better. My parents gave me a D5000 (entry level DSLR) for my grad school graduation present and I want to learn to use it better. Since I graduated so long ago you’d think I’d know how to use it better by now, but things got in the way. Now is the time to get this up and running. Among the things I learned last year were how very, very much I value the photos I have and that I have never regretted a single one. I got this camera because I want to be able to take better photos that capture people and moments. Among the places I’ve found as good, approachable resources for this goal are The Pioneer Woman, MckMama, Ken Rockwell, Chookoloonks, and Digital Photography School. [PUT LINKS IN HERE]
7. Be kinder and gentler, more patient and open, be a better listener and stop attacking. This has been a goal since roughly 1995. I know many of my faults and I would put my failure at these things right near the top.

Here’s to 2012 sucking far less than 2011!