Gradual diminishing

I woke up early yesterday morning, looking around for who was nudging my bed. By the time i realized that we were having a minor earthquake, it was already over. I stayed awake for several more minutes to see if it would start up again, but within ten minutes, i estimate that i was passed out again.
Later, I started out yesterday in SUCH a good mood. I woke up on time without any residual tiredness at all, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, I even got to work early and the sun was shining. At work, everyone was all abuzz about the earthquake. And despite my distaste for hypochondriacs, i found myself feeling exuberant. I texted my boyfriend. Originally from California...i figured he had slept straight through the earthquake.

"Top news story of the day! There was an earthquake...and we actually FELT it! OMG!"
"Lol"
"Yeah, we are such lightweights when it comes to earthquakes"
"Lol"

The day went along like normal. Broken copy machines (also known as 'Load Paper'), phone calls, power point presentations, metrics, and trying to stay out of trouble.

I'm not really sure what started to happen. But i found that as the day progressed, with every new person that i talked to, my mood was diminishing. But 4:00pm, i was hiding in my cubicle working on some tedious "extra" metrics so that i wouldn't have to talk to anyone. By the time 5:00 rolled around, all i wanted to do the rest of the night was something that didn't involve technology, media, or people.
I went home, turned off my laptop, put my phone on silent and started reading a book I had borrowed, but had been too busy in the last couple of weeks to start.
I'll save the review for later. But i got through about 220 out of 286 pages in about 3 hours. I fell asleep with my finger between the pages sitting in my oversize chair and didn't move again until almost 1am where i transferred myself to my bed and slept again.
It felt good after such a long absence to go back to just the simple things that i spent most of my youth living for. I would read sometimes in upwards of forty books a summer.

All i know is that the last thing i wanted was to talk to anyone. I started the day in such a good mood, with a smile on my face and a bounce in my step. And i ended it hiding under a warm blanket with a book and more pumpkin seeds.

Spring Clean is complete

I had been "moved" into my apartment for almost two months. There were still boxes everywhere, and moving from room to room was an obstacle course. I have been assuring boyfriend Jon that i don't normally live with this much mess. That when i lived alone before for those few short months, my house was kept at a reasonable state of clean.
He really had not had a lot of reason to believe me. Let's just leave it at that.
I decided about three weeks ago that i needed a serious incentive to finish unpacking and getting my apartment to the state i had envisioned. My only problem was that some of the stuff had no where to go. But that was efficiently taken care of by the creation of my DVD stand and my TV stand. Both are now in place and filled with all the random stuff that had been taking over my living room.
I also got my dad's help framing and my mother's help in hanging the wall art which has been sitting in my dresser drawers for a little over a year. Mirriors, calendars, wall sconces, floating shelves, and white boards all went up. The remaining six boxes were emptied and taken out to the recycle bins. Stuff magically found places, and slowly but surely, i was all but done.
I sat down and literally a minute later, my incentive to complete these tasks...arrived. I had invited my family over for a bbq. A couple of my oldest friends were able to join us too. Next thing i knew my home was filled It's looking like my capacity is about 8 before the place becomes too cramped.
I was exhausted, sore, and bordering on cranky but very happy to see people i care about enjoying themselves in my new home. There was good food, good company and my dad even had an audience to regale with stories.
And even though i was happy to share my now clean home with my family and friends...i was also relieved when they helped me clean up, take some of the extra food and leave. I was exhausted and promptly laid down. Had i known how tired i was going to be, i might have canceled. But I'm glad now that i didn't. I simply MUST do this again soon.

And just when i thought i could lay down and recover with some deep sleep...my smoke detector goes berzerk at 1:10am. It took me 45 minutes to figure out that No, my apartment was not on fire, No....there was no carbon monoxide, No, it didn't need fresh batteries....but that we had a power outage and the beeping was just it resetting itself. Turns out...the is only one way to tell that i have had a power outage. My microwave clock.

Pumpkin Seeds and Puzzle Rings

Is it just me or does my title sound like an excerpt from a witches incantation?

Well, i can assure you that i'm not brewing up any serious potions right now. I just wanted to mention how much i LOVE pumpkin seeds. I seriously would live off or pumpkin seeds and watermelon if i could get adequate nutrition from them.
My parents have a policy that any of the kids can raid the pantry and take whatever foodstuffs they want. That was until my dad figured out where his big jar of pumpkin seeds was always disappearing to. So i ended up taking about half...at first. Then i'd be back at the house visiting for some reason and take a handful here and there. next thing i know...there's hardly any seeds left. Thankfully, the local Trader Joe's sells them and i was able to find a large bag to replenish the supply.
And the other part of the title is that i randomly found the puzzle ring that my mother gave me several years ago. And i also remember why i stopped wearing it! It's the wrong size. It only barely fits on my left ring finger (i'm not married) and falls off of my pinky. I love this puzzle ring, but it was a cheap knockoff and not very pretty or comfortable to wear. Guess i'll have to find a new one.

6 months ago...

It's hard to believe that just six months ago, the person who makes me laugh and puts up with my craziness was just another acquaintance. Someone i talked to occasionally and had met by some random occurrence. I had no idea that we would be drawn to each other, and helped along by a loyal friend into the most natural feeling relationship i have ever been in.

I met Jon two years ago as part of Nano. He had shown up to the local meet where i had also joined. I had some initial attraction to him, most of which i had attributed to the fact that the rest of the team was older men and women. He had a big genuine smile and an interesting story concept. But after some cautious testing of the waters, i figured he wasn't interested but might eventually fall into the friend category. Our playful banter and friendly competition was a highlight of Nano 2008. But to my disappointment, when Nano was over, so was our only means of communication.

I didn't hear from him again for a very long time. When Nano 2009 rolled around, it was on a lark that i sent out an invitation message to everyone i had contacted the previous year. And only one person responded. Jon.

When he showed up at the Nano meet i was orchestrating, i was so excited to see another familiar face that i gave him a huge hug.

Thus began a very uncertain courtship dance, carefully worded emails, not so subtle inquiries and funny gaffes. It's a comedy now...looking back on how we both were talking to my friend Annie about possibilities, finding excuses to hang out and hoping that the other one had not brought someone else with, and still all the while in a friendly competition just like the previous year.

The thirteenth of November, 2009 happened to fall on a Friday. Thankfully, that turned out to be a day of good luck. I got my boyfriend Jon that day. :)

Promised picture

I am SO beyond proud of this. First of what will eventually be a complete living room SET. Matching TV stand on it's way.

Plague Recovery

I am hopefully well on the way to recovering from a very uncomfortable bout of what I think was food poisoning followed by a nasty cold. Sufficient to say, it was a very unpleasant two days spending quality time with the porcelain god. Following that was four days worth of lung hacking coughs, loosing my voice, and the last three days included a stuffy nose and sinus pressure headaches.

I'm not really the kind of person who does nothing when sick but watch tv and be a pitiful lump on the couch. Don't get me wrong, i did a lot of that. Slipping in and out of consciousness while random daytime tv shows played. But for the most part, i found myself going stir crazy and looking for something to do. I have found over the years that when sinuses are blocked...standing up helps them drain for a while. My mother was always yelling at me to rest up and let my body fight whatever bug i had contracted.
This was a rare thing. I was a lucky child in that i hardly ever got sick. But i'm well known in my family as they affectionatly refer to me as a magnifying glass. I get sick for two days, the rest of the family is out for a week. The inverse is true also. Someone catches a full blown flu, I might get the sniffles for a day or two.

Thankfully, those short bursts of energy helped me get through most of the remaining boxes which mostly contained things i wasn't sure if i really wanted to keep. I made a run to donations and even alphabetized all my dvds. What should have taken me twenty minutes took hours. Which is exceedingly frustrating for me.

In some good news, I did manage to complete my DVD cabinet. I put three coats of a nifty varnish on it. It went on milky blue but dried completely clear. I was needless to say, extremely happy with the results. the cabinet will be a fine addition to my apartment. And i promise, just as soon as i can figure out where the gremlins hid my camera, i will post pictures.

As soon as that project is out of my dad's shop and no longer in fear of sawdust...i can get started with my next objective. A TV stand complete with drawers.

Now if only my nose would stop dripping.

Productivity

There must be something about the month of May. When the sun starts peeking through, temperatures rise up just slightly, a change starts to come over the northwest. More flowers pop through, more pollen covering my pretty black car every day, making it futile to take it for a wash. And yet, despite the sun, it still rains all the time, which keeps Seattlites mostly indoors.

This weekend was no exception. Sunshine came in brief bursts, and clouds loomed over us constantly threatening to dump a torrent of rain. I found myself in my dad's shop working on a project which I had originally planned to have completed a month ago.

The delay was mostly due to the fact that I am not comfortable working in the shop alone while cutting large pieces of wood. So I had to wait until my dad and mine's schedules lined up so we could work at the same time. My friday afternoon was spent cutting the basic pieces of wood out and dry fitting the daddos. Saturday was spent putting the pieces of my new DVD stand together and debating the finer points of carpentry with my dad. Sunday was putting the finishing touches on. Iron on veneer edging, filling the holes and sanding before i put the very beautiful stain on.

I choose a red mahogany stain and I'm giving it lots of time to soak in for a darker, richer hue. And starting next weekend I'll be making a TV stand to match.

I was very lucky to receive a carpentry education very young. My dad, a do-it-yourself-er for life, hardly ever called in a professional. We ripped out plumbing, electrical, walls, floors, ceilings. As a matter of fact, in my parents home of 22 years, i don't think there is a single room where i haven't at some point seen the guts of the house. He also built a good amount of our furniture, and that was something that I was avid to learn how to do.

Most of my carpentry skills have been developed because I know what quality furniture is like and when i walk through the halls of Walmart, Ikea, and other "cheap furniture" places, i become frustrated or disgusted. I hate particle board with a vengeance and outright refuse to buy anything made of the stuff. Anything that is truly quality furniture, is absurdly out of my price range.

Thus I am extremely proud of my creation. Made from some "not-so-scrap" scrap material my dad graciously let me use, it is beautiful, functional, sturdy, and well made. I can't wait for it to grace my home.

In other news:
I found where the gremlins have been hiding my stuff. ALL of it was still located back at my parents garage including that elusive curtain rod. I'm just not sure how 3 people and myself, could be so sure that it had made it into my apartment, when it never left the garage. Hmmmm.... sneaky devils.