the world is your acorn

I’ve been playing Zeus for about 3 days now. Today I took out the recycling and put in a load of laundry, which was a big accomplishment. Vacation is great.

My family came to visit for 3 days. My parents stayed in a hotel, thank goodness, and my brother stayed with us. I did ok until yesterday, when my mother’s constant nagging and my father and brother’s total non-participation in preparing lunch and dinner put me over the edge.

I’m home alone today, and plan to be a total lump. I’m actually still waiting for someone to come prop me up in bed and brush my teeth.

I just recaulked the tub. Yeah, I know. No, I have no idea how to recaulk a tub. But I had to, since family is going to be here in 2 days and there was all kinds of mildew/mold/scum growing in the old caulk.

When Patrick the handyman came to install our new sink he told me how to do it, so now, 4 months later, I have taken the plunge. The worst of it was removing the old caulk. That took hours yesterday afternoon with lots of weird curling up into different positions inside the tub. This morning I applied caulk. It’s actually kind of fun, except for the fear of ruining our tub part.

The Little Red Haired Girl and I are dying to shower, but we’re supposed to wait 72 hours. We have to go to a holiday gathering in a couple hours though, so we can’t wait. We’re going to try and tape some plastic around the caulky areas and hope for the best.

A friend directed me to this website called CoolPeopleCare, which is all about ways that we can help to make the world a better place. They have a daily “5 minutes of caring” suggestion for easy ways to contribute to a better world. They also have a lot of postings for volunteer opportunities, benefits, and whatnot. It’s Nashville specific, but I believe they are trying to expand to other areas of the country. Give them a visit every once in a while, and maybe get inspired!

Once again my parents are coming to visit during Christmas, and we are looking for a place to eat out. So far I know that Shalimar, Ru San, and Golden Coast are open. Anyone else?

I think it’s been days since the last time we saw (or heard, really) Cujo. The weather has been warm, and The Little Red Haired Girl and I have been doing a lot of yard work, so it has been nice to not have the barking. Still, I wonder what happened to her. The other dog next door, the 371 year-old, is still doing its arthritic thing. Poor guy, I wonder if he’s lonely without Cujo.

So, last night was the holiday party at The Superheroes’ place. Great food, fun folks, excellent karaoke. We had been to the same party last year, but it was totally different. We didn’t know The Superheroes very well yet, and only knew about 40% of the folks at the party. We were a little apprehensive, a little shy, and very intimidated. Everyone was really nice and we had a great time, no doubt. This year’s party made me realize how much everything has changed since moving here. The Superheroes and a lot of other folks have become integral parts of our lives, and we feel at home here now. We had fun at the party again this year, but it was different. The self-consciousness of being new and unfamiliar and a stranger was all gone, and in its place a comfort in being with people we enjoy and like and love. And we had funnel cake. Delish.

It’s called booksling. Keep your pens and pencils with your book, and mark your place. Genius. I must have it. No, I must have 7.
Little Red Haired Girl? Lady E? Hello? Anyone out there? Can you hear me? I must have it.

I just found about four eyelashes or eyebrow hairs on my keyboard. Am I face balding?
The paper is going well, as you can tell.

I have a paper due on Friday. My schedule has been pretty light since Monday night, but I’ve managed to do this much [0] of my paper since then. I’ve even presented it already, so it should be a pretty smooth write-up. So wtf? Well, I have a new addiction: word puzzles at Tanga’s Daily Fun page. Tanga is kind of woot-ish in that they sell a severely discounted item each day. Woot leans towards technology stuff, and Tanga leans towards game stuff. So there are also these daily puzzles at Tanga, which are really quite hard for me, but enough people talk about them on the blog that I can be nudged in the right direction. An it’s just so darn satisfying to get an answer, especially if I figure out most of it on my own.

I know, you’re thinking to yourself, if it’s just a puzzle a day, what’s the problem. Well the problem is that I just discovered Tanga, which means that I have a puzzle a day since mid-September to make up. Yeah. They take me between 15 and 45 minutes each. I have about 14 left to go. I can’t stop doing it. I’ve been staying up late, getting up early, working on them during meals and at other inappropriate times. I get irritated when something disrupts my puzzle-solving, and I’ve had to force myself to leave the house to meet commitments. I know that when I finish the archived puzzles I’ll be fine, but at this point, with my paper due tomorrow, I can’t afford the time.

ARGH. I just have to stop myself from clicking on a new one. Seems easy enough. Maybe I’ll just reward myself with a little puzzle after a little bit of writing…