pain

so i have not written for a few days. i started to write yesterday but all i could think about was my mouth, which is now being referred to as my grill. the braces are a gold alloy. and no george, i have not taken pictures yet. i will, just not until the pain goes away and i can actually smile again. joshua invited me to a picnic this afternoon and he just called to see what i would like to eat. i responded, "juice." there will be no eating until i figure out where to put my tongue. no worries, as joshua explained the first day i showed him, i have been wanting to lose a few pounds. yeah maybe 5, not 20. i can not eat! i have nothing more to say.

start a potemkin revolution

where is my summer going? i start my second class as soon as we get back from vacation; native american history, in celebration of my new status as an american indian! for those of you i do not speak to on a regular basis and anyone i do not know who wandered into my blog, i am now officially a member of the cherokee tribe. i know, it will be hard to continue reading this because you are so jealous that i have something of such value as a cdib card (certificate of degree of indian blood). after my card came in the mail i called my mother to tell her, i had to tell someone, and her first question was, "do you get casino money now?" my proud day of final proof of ties to my heritage and all anyone wanted to know was when the money was going to roll in.
i had already enrolled in the course before the card came in the mail, but that will not stop me from being a dork everytime someone asked about summer class and i repond that i am learning about 'my people.' we shall see how much of the class is about 'my people' and how much is just general history of all native american culture. it would actually be great to learn a bit about central and south american natives as well.

happy again

still busy as ever but things are going better this week. i have been getting things accomplished. i finalized and sent out invitations for the housewarming party. then i remembered more people and sent out more invitations. so far it is mostly going to be family driving up to see me and the new pad. that was the plan so for that i am happy. hung out with larissa for a short time yesterday and felt happy about having a girl to chat with. she is so easy going and down to earth. nothing too girlie or silly about her. must come from having three older brothers.
i am getting my braces tomorrow. joshua has taken to making inappropriate comments about the fact the they are being made in germany. i will leave the tacky thoughts to your imagination. there will be many posts about my new braces at the age of 33 i am sure. and even some about the 4 teeth they have decided to pull to make more room for the teeth they are trying to save. ironic. i am having 4 teeth pulled so that the 2 in front have more room and do not get pushed out of the bone.
we are still planning to leave for the grand tetons sat or sun. it is a 17 hour drive from here. i think we are both trying to decide how long we can stay in a 2-door car before we kill the other. i always sleep in cars and that leads to snoring. joshua whistles, which drives me nuts. he also never stops moving. i know i will love the hiking part but the getting there part will be a challenge.
i am finally making progress on the house. the living room is looking better; we finally decided to go ahead and keep the tv and put it in the living room. i finished painting one bookcase and unpacked some smelly candles. things will be much better when all the bookcases are finished and i can unpack the 10 boxes of books. i am getting impatient.

feel better already

it must have just been hormones or stress from a long day. today has been much better with no sad face or lamenting that i have no friends. i spent the day studying, cleaning, and inviting. we are having a housewarming party the end of next month and i sent out my invitations today. that is what really made me feel better because the first person who responded said she could come. no one wants to have a party where the guests do not attend. i have yet to have one of those but i am always worried that this time people will have something better to do. i invited a few family members, some friends, out of town friends, and the people at work. it should be an entertaining event.
at least i know people do like me. larissa called today to see how i was doing. it made me feel so good i talked until her phone died and we got cut off. i spent the next hour worrying that now she does not have a phone to call if the baby comes. then i remembered that the people across the hall are friends of her and andy. the week looks promising. i am hopeful.

happy birthday eric blair

sleepless night. there are a million things i should be doing. the house is still disheveled, there is a test to study for, and i could be working on the website. today i helped the browns move. i saw a few people i know and met several more of the army of friends andy brown keeps up with. it reminded me that i have not really done well with my attempts to make friends. i have been hanging out with larissa a bit and i email people at times. oddly enough it seems that i just do not have the energy to keep up with friends these days. i am planning this housewarming party in hopes that people will feel more comfortable coming around and hanging out with us again. the party is also in hopes of convincing my family that they need to come see me. my sister used to always complain that no one would visit her in dallas. it is going on two years that i have been here. i do not want to whine or gripe because everyone seems to be just as busy as i am these days, but i would even settle for a card in the mail. not one card for my birthday this year. none of them. joshua got me a card though. he loves me. i digress. for some reason i am a bit melancholy tonight.

i really am a happy person

from all of my past post one would like think that i am sad, frustrated , or angry all the time. that is not the case. usually i am happy, in love, and generally in a good mood. this last development blows my stack though. we got the call from the shop about the white car; it has a cracked head. anyone reading this who has known me for some time will realize that this is not the first head i have cracked. the best part is that the first car i killed was an '86, white chevy cavalier and this one is a '97, white chevy cavalier. i am on a roll. same problem both times as well. sort of. the first time i was clueless and let it run bone dry on water and oil. this time the water pump went out and i pulled over the second it overheated. same result. i spent my morning getting joshua motorcycle insurance and dealing with a dead car. the people at the shop have been real nice though; they are paying for the second tow and getting bids from salvage yards for me. i think the guy feels bad because i was about to cry in his office. that and the montgomerys have been doing business with him since they moved to lawrence in '92.
time for lunch and then i am off to help the browns pack up to move tomorrow.

this is a test

the white car died. fortunately not on me. i took my car today because i knew something was wrong with it. joshua got up, tried to start it and then got the great idea that if he let it roll down the hill it would start. this from a man who has a degree in aerospace engineering. even i know that if it is having engine problems you can not pop the clutch. i have nothing more to say on the matter.
i am going to curl up with a really trashy mystery novel by a tulsa author who usually mentions enough local spots to make me feel less homesick.

and now that idea festers

some kind person responded to my earlier post about the car to make sure that the shop was not just lazy. after driving to school this morning i have started wondering if the car really is ok. it seems to take more coaxing to start and to run hotter than before. joshua says not to worry about it but he was the one who said not to worry about the idiot light when it came on and we all know how that turned out. i had a little fit and told him he at least needed to look under the hood before making pronouncements that everything is fine; unless he wants to be the one stuck on the side of the road.
today was spent at the office fixing all sorts of little problems and helping joshua with his work. i said i was going to start working from home but that has yet to materialize. i do not think there is any hope until i get the house cleaned and that will not happen while i am online.

more to come...

got the car fixed. it turned out to just be a water pump, which is better than what i thought. for those of you who know me and are wondering how i could have run down a perfectly new car you can stop wondering now. i was driving joshua's old car so that he could have the air conditioning. his broke and in the kansas heat he was arriving for meetings soaked through his suit. i do not mind the heat, until i got stuck on the freeway.

when does it get better?

the car broke down on the way to class this morning. i was stuck on the freeway just outside of town until joshua came to get me. my professor probably thinks i do not like mondays because i was sick last week. after towing the car to the shop i crawled back in bed. yes it was that depressing. i did not make it into work until 1 and then had a rough day there trying to finish non-profit paperwork with the irs. the evening was spent cooking dinner for my love and cleaning the kitchen. i got no boxes unpacked or even a single room better organized. i tried to work a little on the bathroom but ended up laying down to read my textbook instead. of course constitutional law put me right to sleep so i still have not finished all of my reading for class, and my professor thinks i am a flake for skipping class. tomorrow better be a new day.

Cheeky Monkey..

just the name of this video made me giggle.

happy watergate day

we decided to go for a walk after dinner last night after eating on the patio with the cat outside roaming around. joshua said we had to put him inside or he would follow us and it turns out he did. but that is not the funny part. we just walked around the block instead of our usual mile path and the cat followed us the entire time. after about half way around the block i started to hear an odd noise. it was my cat panting! he is so fat he can not walk a block without getting winded. then he rested for a minute and when i called him he came running like a bat out of hell looking like a bowling ball with feet. he followed slower after that and soon started complaining. about 4 houses down from ours i started feeling sorry for him and picked him up and carried him the rest of the way home. he was still panting. joshua and i were laughing so hard we could not finish our walk. we will need to make up for it tonight as our trip to the grand tetons is in two weeks.

i saw how the sausage was made

wait wait was so much fun. we got to see how radio shows are made and saw mo rocca. i laughed so hard i had trouble breathing. as usual for a show they turned the air off once the recording began so it got a little warm toward the end. after they go through the entire show they have to re-record a few things that the producers think did not come out clear. the re-recording at the end only took a few minutes and then we got to ask questions of the radio personalities. peter sagal was there of course and cory flintoff filled in for carl kasell who had to be in europe for his son's wedding. the panelist were mo rocca, amy dickinson, and roy blount jr. our show will air on this saturday evening, check your local stations for times! and for all of my dorky friends hoping i could be a contestant...it is all previously decided who is on. as one would expect the entire thing is as scripted as can be with a live performance. joshua thinks that it must be pretty hard for the panelists because they are set on stage and told to be funny, no script, just be funny. i know people who are good at that so i thought it would be fun. several people asked how to be on npr during the q&a session. i am sure it would be fun to be a panelist.
no more babbling for now. i am off to work and then joshua is taking me to see a prairie home companion tonight.

i can not wait!

for wait..wait tonight. so that was corny. i spent another 3 hours in the office today trying to get the books balanced. it would help if i had some sort of accounting background for this. after the frustration of not remembering the passwords to the online accounts i left. i went to the bank to deposit check and when the manager said hi to me and asked how i was i promptly told him i was going to see wait...wait tonight in kc. he does not care so why did i feel the need to share? i restrained myself at the grocery store while picking up my really costly allergy meds and a lot of produce that was on sale. i am sure the pharmacist thanks me.

my addiction, today

i think it is time to look into the possibility that i may be addicted to my blog. i started to think something was up when i stayed up late adding 4 entries for one day. then george called and i mentioned how i read everyone's blog each day and the fact that derek had not written for several days had me on edge. i think i am addicted, not only to my blog but to reading the blogs of those friends who are far away. i have yet to hit the random button and read the blog of a complete stranger, yet. i know there is nothing really wrong with my need for blogs but it could be a gateway thing taking me into chat rooms and then one day i will leave my family for the internet taking only the computer...nope, that wasn't me. i am in a good mood today because i had two phone calls from friends, people i have known since high school. now i get to go unpack more boxes and figure out where i put our tickets for wait, wait.

i slept

for those of you worried that i might go postal from lack of sleep, your fears are allayed; i slept. this was unfortunately after having a nutty. anyone who has spent any time with me knows that there are two things that must be kept up with: food and sleep. i get very cranky if i am lacking in either. after my nutty joshua and i decided that i am to go back to work on the non-profit side of the company spending about 20 hours a week in the beginning telecommuting. i worked this last part out simply because i do not want to be in the office with him when he starts yelling at people. he always starts with me.
so i begin work again tomorrow at 1pm.

a new day, a few hours later

i did finally sleep, for a few hours. i would have stayed in bed if it were not for class. i am taking constitution for teachers which turns out to be a class studying the supreme court. apparently it matters not what the framers said but rather what the court thinks they said. i like the instructor and it has been a decent class so far.
today i will get back to unpacking and putting the house together. no more rushing to be other places, i am now free to move at my own pace. the plan was, and hopefully still is, to have a housewarming party next month in an effort to motivate me to get the place put together. the only other plans this month are to help larissa move and get my braces on the 28th. next month we are going on vacation with joshua's family to jackson hole. i have never been but i hear it is beautiful.

pics are fun

this is me not sleeping still...i decided to go through boxes and i found a jewel of a pic. if you know me you will have either been at this party or heard of it somehow. i just have to say that we love v all the more because she lets us giggle with her.

sniff, sniff

my allergies are keeping me awake. they made me sleep all day sun and most of mon and now i can not sleep for the sniffles and the breathing problems. i spent a few hours online surfing then tried to get caught up on reading for class. now i am back online and no closer to sleeping.
i find my favorite just from the fridge snacks are lunch meat and cheese rolled up together. nevermind that joshua says american cheese sucks; i like it and i am the one who does the grocery shopping. i cooked dinner for us tonight and it was pretty bland. i am doing more missing than hitting on the cooking scene lately. i should go back to my trusty cookbooks and make some good food so joshua remembers that i can cook and he does want to come home for dinner. tonight he politely ate some of the meal then fixed a bowl of cereal. this is how i know when he does not like it because he always professes his love for everything i fix.
another turkey and cheese rollup and i am back to reading.

i return

sleeping makes it all better. i no longer itch and i am starting to feel human again. sunday i got up and started to put the house together. after about 2 hours of that i got tired and took a nap, a long nap. not only did i sleep most of yesterday but i slept through my class this morning and after i got up i felt crappy. mom thinks it is allergies or maybe strep. joshua thinks i am allergic to hippies. i got out of going back to the festival yesterday and all of my stuff was delivered last night. i have been working around the house slowly and finally got my computer put back together. we are testing some wireless equipment on my desktop for the apartment complexes. it is just a wireless adapter that connects via usb. i think it is cool but the problem is that i am getting the signal from the office instead of having a unit attached to my house so it is slower. i need fast internet. i work for an isp, i should have great internet. instead i am the tester.

civilization means showering

i finally made it home from hippiefest. i immediately jumped in the shower to start the process of returning to my normal human state. things would have been fine had i not forgot about the heat rash. i now itch all over again.
joshua's friend matt joined us at wakarusa so he could watch the flaming lips. while waiting for the show he somehow convienced me that creating a myspace page would be fun. i then spent the next hour surfing for people i know. it turns out that more people have pages than i thought. i found quite a few people i went to school with; and even some i like! so after adding them as friends i wait to find out if they will return the favor so that i will have more than two friends listed on myspace page.

it itches

so it turns out that i am allergic to the sun. after a day in the heat and humidity i broke out in a rash that drove me nuts. big red bumps all down my leg. i tried to not scratch and put ice on them but that was little relief. turns out that the spray bottle of aloe vera i brought in case of sunburn was the only help.

i did get to wander around the festival a bit and see what was here. i found a couple selling flavor ice that you get in the grocery store 20 for $1 for $1 each. we saw a tattoo artist working his trade, a rasta dj spinning, rick's mom's pasta, and fried oreos. there were so many other sights i could hardly imagine had i not seen for myself. the paper reported that 15,000 people would enter the gates each day.
we are going home tonight so i can shower and treat my heat rash. also because i was just supposed to help out and i have been running the booth every day for the past three. it has been a nice relief from unpacking though.

waka waka

day three began muggy. i tried to sleep late but could only stand 9:30. the chance of rain has gone up to 80% and now they are predicting hail. hippies, rain, what else could one want?

as requested i took a picture of my feet. this elicited guffaws from my coworkers. they do not know fun when the see it. most need to drink beer to have fun. i am having fun just watching the hippie parade. some guy this morning elected himself traffic cop and started yelling at the cars to keep moving. i think they would have removed him had he not been so efficient. the hour for throwing water from an outdoor faucet over a sweaty half naked body has commenced. i am just happy they are bathing.

more waka pics

another fun day at wakarusa. sales have not been good but i am still enjoying myself. i have yet to get a good picture of the booth so i will just put in a boring one.

a man was arrested earlier for throwing water ballons with a sling shot.

pictures

here is our mobile hot spot unit...

day two....and i showered

it is a good thing i have allergies and can not smell. the port-a-johns have a sign on them stating that they are not to be used by more than 10 people for one work week. 10 people for 5 days is 50 for one day. my belief is that there are more than 50 people using them in each day. and there are three 20 yards from our booth.
we did not camp last night but plan to this evening after reverand horton heat since the show will be over late. tommorow evening is les claypool and the flaming lips which are the acts everyone is here to see. so far the internet sales are slow and every hippie in the place thinks we should give them free access.
the johnnie on the spot people are here to empty the johns....i could have lived my entire life without witnessing the removal of human waste into a large tank. where do they take it after here? is there a dump somewhere or a fertilizer plant that transfers it all into eco-friendly stuff?
there are hundreds of volunteers wandering around directing the hippie walk-way and keeping cars out of the way. they are also passing out recycle and trash bags every time we enter the park.
my job today is to convince all that they want to pay 50cents a minute to use our computers or pay 20 dollars for wireless access for their laptops. i have a feeling i will be blogging quite a bit today.

the unwashed masses

are all here at wakarusa. today was challenging . we had technical problems most of the day but things ended up ok. i will load a few pictures later.

fun in the sun begins

wakarusa begins in the am and we are still up at the office working. it is almost midnight and we are to set up at 6am. here is to hoping this is all worth the effort. if we actually have customers then we could seriously make money at this, if no one knows we are available then it could all be a lot of work for nothing. i had planned on not really doing much but as it stands now i will be managing a booth with desktop machines for rent by the minute. i still have to go home, pack for the next few days and help get the equipment together. when does the fun begin?
no more tonight.

moving is good exercise

so we finally finished moving. i have no internet access at home because the signal from the office is strong enough that we do not need an access point. this works well for joshua and his wireless laptop but my poor little desktop and my ancient laptop without the built-in wireless are completely unconnected. for that reason i must sit here at school in the lab checking my email and keeping up with finances.
i started summer classes yesterday. it should be fun. the first class i am in has a total of three individuals. i bet they will notice if i sleep-in. it is called constitution for teachers and has actually proved quite interesting so far. the instructor is knowledgable and the subject one i am not very familiar. we will consentrate mainly on the supreme court interpretation of the constitution so i bet i will learn more than if i had just watched my dvds of west wing.
later today joshua and i are going to kc to help his cousin move there from st. louis. did i mention moving was a lot of hard work? i was so tired today that i had trouble getting out of bed. this is my new workout plan. i will place an ad in larryville lending my moving services in order to trim up and lose the extra weight i gained over the winter.
wakarusa starts on thursday and we have visitors staying with us. this was joshua's brilliant idea. i had trouble finding towels yesterday and he allowed people to come stay with us this weekend. that plus we will both be at the festival most of the time. we have yet to decide if we are camping. as part of the contract we got daily passes and a nice camping site. now if we can only make enough money from the gig to pay the expenses.
www.wakarusa.com
i just want to find my stuff, get the house decorated, get back to working, and have fun with summer school. i have yet to find time to spend with my friend justin this summer and other than packing larissa and i have spent little time together. i hope next week is slower.

its friday!!!

i would not normally be so excited about a single day of the week, however, this day brings a relief. tonight at 5:30 we must leave for KC to catch a plane to chicago, rent a car in chicago and drive to some town in indiana i can not pronounce. all of this because joshua has a family that does stuff together. his cousin is getting married.
so first thing this morning i got a call from mike, joshua's dad, to ask if we had hotel reservations. no mike, i got plane tickets, car rental but i forgot the hotel room. it seems that they could not find my reservation and ASSUMED i had yet to make any, so the mother of the groom made another reservation for us. never mind that there was a note on the invitation about a block of room reserved and which hotel we should use. i followed instructions and still i am treated like a kid who eats paste.
joshua has just learned about the blog and wants to make sure that he is not mentioned in it. how selfish of him to assume that i would speak about him. this is for me=]
today is day four of moving and it looks as though we may finish today. i hope so because i could not possibly come back to this. i look forward to somewhere indiana.

a new month

as i begin day three of packing and moving i realize that what does not kill you only makes you stronger. literally in my case. my calves still hurt from going up and down the stairs. thank god the new place is only 1 story. i have been lifting heavy boxes and working hard. other than here in this blog i have not complained but simply asked for help. larissa and andy stopped by last night to help move a few loads and this morning joshua is taking off to help with the garage and the heavy stuff. i am reminded that i am loved. as sore as i am i see things going better today. let us hope the attitude helps.