Weekend warriors

I know I owe you guys some Alaska recaps, and I promise I'll get to them soon. I thought I'd have a chance this weekend, but it turned out we had a lot of other stuff to do.

On Friday after work, I took Indy back to the trail we visited two weekends ago. We had a nice walk, and on the way back we saw a doe and her gangly teenaged fawn, only a bit bigger than Indy. Indy was all, "OMG! Tall skinny dogs!" and the deer were all, "OMG! A little black coyote wearing a backpack!" After we left the woods and were back on the road, we ran into a pair of guys with a tiny dog and a kitten on leashes. Indy was utterly fascinated (it was pretty peculiar, I have to admit).

Saturday was a big day for Indy. He got to hang out in the yard and watch MB and me rip out grass and old mulch from a big overgrown planting bed in front of the house. It took for-freaking-ever, but it looks pretty nice now. No more two-foot-tall weeds making our house look all crappy in front of the neighbors' fancy manicured landscaping. In the afternoon, we took Indy out for a hotdog at Culver's, and then went to the crunchy hippie pet store, where he did all his tricks for a cookie and charmed the staff. Once we got home I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned some more, which wasn't exactly fun, but was rather satisfying (until both pets did their best to shed enough overnight that it looked like I hadn't swept at all).

Today we took the pooch to a nearby state park that has a pet trail. As I suspected he'd be, Indy was a total champ, even on the really big hills:




I finally got a photo of Indy drinking from a bottle--probably his neatest and most convenient trick:


In the first few weeks we had Indy, we met a guy around the corner who had a golden retriever. He told us that he'd taught his dog to drink out of a sports bottle, and we decided to give it a try. Not having to carry a dish is nice, and Indy is pretty damn cute slurping water out of his squirt bottle.


I met Danger at Goodwill after lunch and found a cool end table to put beside the couch. We won't have to drag a dining room chair over to put drinks on anymore! Yay!


I also nabbed some cute spawngear, including this ridiculously awesome sweater:


So what did you do this weekend? Anything fun?


Reading:  Three Bags Full:  A Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann

Playing:  Marcy Playground

"Hey! Hey, you! Wanna play?"

Photo Friday

View the entire Photo Friday collection on Flickr.

lolkitters of the week

Click the photo to vote for Kitters!

View the collected weekly lolkitters on Flickr.

Even Nedry knew better than to mess with the raptor fences

I could survive for 60 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

Also, this.

Mystery solved!

This contest was more fun than I expected, especially looking back through some of my old trip photos in search of good ones to use. I have been really, really lucky and had lots of opportunities to travel to some really amazing places. And I'm really, really grateful. Yay, life! Anyway, here are the answers:

San Francisco Bay
The boat is heading to Alcatraz Island, off to the left there. This shot was taken from Lower Fort Mason in May 2007.

Gatlinburg Sky Lift
Taken on our honeymoon in August of 2004. The Sky Lift was a pretty cool experience.

cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde National Park
Photo from the two-week road trip I took out West with MacGyver and another friend the summer after my freshman year in college. I've actually visited Mesa Verde twice; my family also went there on our two-week road trip in 1993.

Avebury Henge
I spent 9 days in England shortly after high school graduation. On the way to Stonehenge, we stopped at another henge near the adorably quaint village of Avebury. It was incredible. (I'm the one in the orange and blue jacket.)

Giant Geyser at Yellowstone National Park
I took this shot of Giant in the summer of 2002, when my dad took my sister and me to visit Yellowstone. I got to see it again the next summer when I was at geologic field camp. Yay, geysers! (Even though the supervolcano thing is scary as hell.)

Mount Desert Island, Maine
(Say it like dessert, not desert. Blame the French.) I'm pretty sure this is a view of the Porcupine Islands, taken from Bar Harbor or thereabouts. I was in a "geologic excursion" class where we had to spend a semester writing a research paper and then spent ten days roadtripping out to Acadia National Park and back. Can you believe I got credits for that? Wicked. (I also did another excursion class that ended with two weeks driving around Ontario. Srsly...geology = kickass major.)

Hoh Rainforest, Olympic National Park
This one is from the ridiculously awesome trip MB and I took to Washington State in the fall of 2006. Moss is awesome, you can't deny it.


Big thanks to everyone who played along! I'll announce the winners very soon.


Reading:  Three Bags Full:  a Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann

Playing:  a little Marcy Playground, a little Tonic, a little Alanis, and a lot of Cowboy Junkies

Mystery Photo #7

Mystery Photo #6

Mystery Photo #5

Photo Friday

View the entire Photo Friday collection on Flickr.

lolkitters of the week

Click the photo to vote for Kitters!

View the collected weekly lolkitters on Flickr.

Today's guest poster writes at the fabulous All or Nothing. Her dog is adorable and her Project Runway recaps are not to be missed. We agree that Stella should've reconsidered those candy cane leggings.

Okay, here's a little something I've been wanting to talk about for a while, but haven't had the nerve to do it on my site. But now! I've been given this fabulous opportunity from my girl, velocibadgergirl. And I'm not going to waste it. So without further ado, here we go:

Victim's Mentality

Can I just tell you how much I dislike this state of mind? Actually, let's start over. Regardless of my opinion on the subject, can I just say how completely crippling it is to the basic human state to walk around in a constant fog of feeling victimized?

I mean, it's easy to see how it happens. Shit happens, you know? Times get tough, when it rains it pours, and if it's not one thing, it's another. I know. Believe me, I know. Lest you think my road has been easy and paved in Dove dark chocolate squares and long naps, allow me to give you a brief rundown:

I bought a store in 2005 - the purchase price was based on the financials provided by the previous owner to me, my lawyer, and my accountant. Those financials turned out to be LIES. Big, fat lies. I was in a lawsuit for over a year, all the while slowly going out of business at my brand new store. At the same time, I was working on my first year of marriage, and building a house with my husband. And when I say "building", I don't mean we were paying someone to build it. We were BUILDING IT. As in, gathering bricks from other, torn down houses to build ours, laying/sanding/staining floors, painting inside and out, wiring the house, putting up sheetrock - you get the picture. We didn't have a builder. WE were the builder. And! During this same time, my husband lost his job, the one we moved for, and the one we were making all our decisions (read: purchasing a store and building a house) based upon. So, to recap: I was in a lawsuit to try and recoup enough money to keep the store I couldn't pay for, my husband and I were building a house ourselves that we couldn't afford, and my husband had lost the job we moved for. Awesome!

However! To chalk up all those circumstances, regardless of how unfair they seemed, and turn myself into a victim - well, it's detrimental at best, just plain wrong at worst. Let's think about it: what do I accomplish by looking around, at my life seemingly crumbling as I watch, and saying "Well, hell. I guess there's nothing I can do. I tried my best, I made decisions based on the information I was given, and nothing worked. I'm doomed. The world obviously is against me, and it's just not in the cards for me to succeed. Might as well get me a big ol' case of beer, a couple of lawnchairs, and sit here in my half-built house and drink my sorrows away". I mean, what do I really accomplish with that attitude? Other than a good buzz, of course, which I am TOTALLY not devaluing.

It's just super pointless. And listen, I'm not suggesting a Pollyanna-ish outlook on the world. I'm not saying "look at all the things you do have! I mean, you have your health! Or, you have good finances! Or, you have good friends! Or, at least you live somewhere you like!" There's ALWAYS something you can look at that's not so bad; something in your life you like, whether that be that you have a great family support system to fall back on, or just that you've always thought you have great abs and this poverty-induced diet is only making them nicer. So I'm NOT saying that focusing on what's good takes away what's bad. I think the only people who say that are people who haven't actually GONE THROUGH anything bad, because anyone who is smack in the middle of some horrific circumstance knows that rose-colored glasses can only take you so far.

But what I AM saying is this: when you're down, when life has dealt you what looks from all sides to be an incredibly bad hand, you CANNOT just throw your hands up and say that you're done. You can't give up and give in to the mindset of a victim. I mean, you CAN...but it's only going to make things worse. Because Victim's Mentality is like rolling a rock off a precipice. It only picks up speed and gets harder and harder to stop. Just like lots of things that are bad for you, Victim's Mentality FEELS good at first; feels like a balm on a painful sore. It's NOT your fault! It's SOMEONE ELSE'S fault! There's nothing you can do, so you might as well give up and wait for someone else to do it. Ahhh! It's like a fresh breath of air, after months and years of self-condemnation, stress, and worry. But it's a dangerous slope you're walking, and pretty soon the relief turns bitter. WHY did you get dealt such a bad hand? Why do other people have it so much better than you? Why isn't anyone stepping in to fix your situation? You start resenting friends and family who seem to have it all together. The feeling of bad luck - of unfairness and injustice - consumes you. Soon, you can't think of anything BUT your misfortune, and how completely ridiculous it is that YOU have to deal with all this crap, while everyone else moves around untouched by tragedy.

Do you see how it happens?

Of course things spiral pretty quickly into the trap of deceiving yourself - I mean, just about EVERYONE has to deal with tragedy at some point, so to sit in your Sob Seat and look at the rest of the world and consider them all to be luckier than you - it's categorically untrue. And, more than anything, it's SO unhealthy. Nothing can stunt your emotional growth more than lapsing into Victim's Mentality. You will alienate your friends, because they won't know how to deal with your constant state of unhappiness, and you'll be resenting them for their "good fortune" anyway. The whole world will go from beautiful and interesting to evil and scary and Against You.

You won't want to venture into any new endeavors, because the memory of "what happened last time" will haunt you and the fear will prevent you from moving forward. Not to mention you'll be miserable, and miserable to be around. You get the point.

So how do you keep yourself from falling prey to the dreaded Victim's Mentality? I don't think there's a surefire way that works every time, for everyone. But I do think there are a few good things to keep in mind; things that help maintain balance in an otherwise precarious situation.

1) Go ahead and accept that things are bad right now. Take a summary of the situation, write down exactly what happened, how it happened, and figure out what your worst case scenario would be. This is a good exercise to keep your brain from going crazy, imagining worse and worse things that "could" happen. Go ahead and realize exactly what COULD happen, write it down, realize it, and don't give credence to those 2:30am fears that leave you in a cold sweat. You already KNOW what's going on. You're not living in denial. This helps more than you realize.

2) Take some steps to improve the situation. I know this may seem impossible at the time - hell, if you could take steps, maybe you wouldn't BE in the horrible situation. But there's always SOMETHING you can do. Some cost you can get rid of, some relationship you can work on, somebody who is worse off than you (believe it or not!) who could use a card, or a visit, or a cooked meal. Taking action, however small it feels at the time, is immeasurably better than sitting stagnant, stewing in a situation that *feels* out of control.

3) Realize that whatever you're going through right now WILL end, at some point. Most bad circumstances, just by merit of their extremeness, cannot sustain the Bad for TOO long. It may feel like forever, but it won't be. Think back on what you were doing at this exact time a year ago - chances are it is different than what you are doing right now. Things change more quickly than you realize, especially when you're bogged down in a crappy situation. I read something once that advised viewing "failures" as stepping stones that lead us one step closer to what we are ultimately supposed to be doing. I know that sounds awfully trite, but it IS true.
Like I said, there's no magic bullet that can "fix it!" just like that. But like so many other things in life, how you choose to FEEL about a situation can largely determine your quality of life while going through the situation. If you can find the strength to pull yourself out of the cloying grasp of Victim's Mentality, I promise - things will be much, MUCH better.

-- Elise Carter

Mystery Photo #4

Old

Today's guest poster usually blogs at Jason Loves Jesus   Jason. For the love of God, where she has sometimes been known to make me laugh so hard I nearly die, and at Scrivel. I have been lucky enough to call her my friend both online and in real life for a long-ass time. I have met her family, all except the dog, and I can tell you that they are that funny, they are that inappropriate, and her hair is really that awesome. I love her hinty--and you should, too.


I realized the other day, much to my dismay, that I am old as crap.

Chronologically? I’m 32. Emotionally, spiritually, and (most of all) physically? I’m 109.

So, as evidenced by both my hair and my ass, I never do anything small. Right? So I decide that next year I’m going to walk in this big 2-day event for breast cancer research. I’m going to raise thousands of dollars to help these poor women who can’t afford mammograms. I’m going to walk and be strong and proud and all that crap. I’m going to be awesome.

The problem is? I’M ONE HUNDRED AND NINE.

Also? For a 109 year old? I’m in really bad shape.

But! I am determined! So I start a walking regimen and pretty much within the first fifteen minutes feel like I’m going to keel over and die. Not even the addition of the New Kids on The Block classic “Step by Step” on my trusty iPod makes me feel like anything other than death warmed over and spit upon.

BUT! I am determined! So I march on.

As I am trudging through the woods I am lapped by a number of people. Okay, like twenty. Including a two-hundred-year-old woman wearing a purple headband and an off-the shoulder blouse that reads, “Jazzy!” in glitter.

And her husband, who appears to have been around since George Washington was in office and, despite the fact that he was not wearing any apparel with words on it, seemed pretty spry.

And their dog. Who, they informed me somewhat gleefully, has arthritis.

For the love of God.


But, I’m determined. Or some crap. So I finish my walk and go home.


And the next day when I wake up? My hipbones feel like they are going to come detached from their sockets.

And if you don’t know what that feels like, well. Let me just tell you. Not very good at all.


I don’t know what has happened to me. When I was twenty I took twenty hours of college courses, slept four hours a night, worked a full-time job and a part-time job and still managed to be witty and charming enough to snag a husband. Granted, that husband was sort of a tool, but still. These days my vastly superior husband is lucky if I nod in his general direction once a week because I am so busy/tired/behind on everything. He’s no better really. The other day he asked me if I wanted to go see some fireworks and I said, “I don’t know” and he was all like, “I know. It will really cut into our laying around and doing nothing time.”

But dude. For real. We can’t help it. We’re old.


I find this especially hilarious, because of a hike MB and I took on our honeymoon. We were like, "A mile and a half? CAKE! Bring it!" and sort of ignored the part of the sign that said, "300 feet of elevation change over half a mile." And the fact that we were already about 1000 feet higher in elevation than we usually are.

We had to stop and rest THREE TIMES.

And the second time, a little old Estelle Getty style lady WITH A MOTHERFUCKING CANE breezed by us.

Since we honeymooned pretty near where That Chick lives, she and I suspect we might've been served by the same spry old lady. Bedazzled granny strikes twice in four years! Humiliating.

Mystery Photo #3

Cleaning out my closet

Today's guest poster usually blogs about life, motherhood, and her evil pets at I am doing the best I can. She is the mastermind behind True Wife Confessions and the painfully hilarious and 150% non-work-safe Desperately Seeking Something. She also knows how to rock a sexy, sexy pair of shoes.


I'm pretty sure there is something dead in my closet.

If only this was a metaphor, but sadly it is not.

I noticed it at the beginning of the summer. It isn't my "main" closet, filled with my primary wardrobe pieces and all shoes and silk scarves. No, it is the "secondary" closet which holds Purses, Coats (All Seasons), Winter Scarves and Hats, Books, Odds and Ends, my scrapbooking horde, last years Christmas cards which are addressed ( but never quite sent), my sewing machine, and MORE books. Loads and Loads of books.

This being said, I only open the closet to change purses during the summer. A once a week door open, location of purse desired for the week, and the door closes.

My Yankee Candle Air freshener seemed to lost it's Umph. No longer did the lovely smell of French Lavender waft out towards me during my frantic opening and shutting of the closet door.

The smell was kind of musty...like my brother's old shoes. But darker. An edge of rot hung at the afterburn of the smell. Having grown up with cats, I know this smell. I am guessing a mouse or other small rodent has left its mortal coil in my closet. And its now decomposing. But the smell is small and contained only in my closet. No one else opens this closet, so only my nose has detected the undercurrent of something being awry.

Now, I should probably clarify that I am a sniffer. It drives my husband crazy, and has become something of a joke in my family. I smell EVERYTHING. Food, people, cars, clothes, drinks...EVERYTHING. I can locate the source of a smell within seconds if I put my mind to it. I put it up as survival skill borne of a mother who fed us questionable food. Or it is a Jungian response to being poisoned in a former life. All I know is you bite into a moldy peanut butter and jelly once and you will smell everything for the rest of your life.

So my reluctance to locate the source of the smell is a bit puzzling. Or is it?

Location of the smell will lead to cleaning of the mess that is the source of the smell. My summer has been so chaotic that the effort I will have to put into cleaning is not particularly worth the elimination of the smell. As bizarre and twisted as this sounds, I am also finding this same instinct is what is keeping me from truly tackling the fridge, where similar things are decomposing, albeit at a slower more refrigerated rate.

Yes, it will be good when I don't smell that when I open the closet. Just as it will be good when I can open the fridge and not worry about the state of whatever might be in those bowls back there.

But right now, it is a question of contained chaos. And like Pandora's Box, I know it will have to be opened eventually, I am just putting it off a little longer.

Mystery Photo #2

A dorky little contest

I'm not taking my laptop with me on my trip, but I didn't like the idea of leaving my poor blog bare and alone for an entire week. And so! My blog is going to host a dorky little contest while I'm away.

Each day, the blog will magically post a mystery photo from a trip I have taken in the past. A small disclaimer before we start:  most of these photos were taken pre-digital age, and then I had to photograph the prints since my scanner hates Vista. Just think of it as part of the challenge! Or something! Some of the locations will probably be pretty damn easy, especially if you've been reading this blog for a while. Others will be a bit more challenging, though I tried not to pick anything really impossible. No two photos were taken in the same place, most were taken before this blog existed, and they're not going to be posted in any special order.

Leave comments guessing where the photo was taken, being as specific, as vague, or as humorous as you wish. When I get back, somebody will win a prize brought all the way from Alaska. (Please understand it will probably be a dorky little prize, since I'm a dork and my souvenir budget is already pretty small.) (Also, I don't really know how the winner will be chosen, but I'm sure MB and I will find a way to reward accuracy, frequency of participation, and sense of humor.)

Good luck, and here's the first photo:

North to the future

Around 2:00 tomorrow afternoon, I will be departing for a week in Anchorage. As in Anchorage, Alaska. I didn't mean to keep it a secret or anything, I promise. I didn't want to drive myself crazy with impatience, so when the trip was several months off I just put it out of my mind and focused on stuff that was more immediate. Then, suddenly, the trip was less than a week away and I hadn't even bothered to get excited about it yet. Awkward!


Now that I'm mostly packed and actually talking about it, I'm starting to get ridiculously giddy. I've never been to Alaska, and though like everybody else I have "visit all 50 states" on my list of things to do before I die, I always suspected that Alaska and Hawaii might be a little beyond my reach. And then I got an opportunity to go to Anchorage for a work-related thing, and I couldn't believe my luck. I still can't believe it, to be honest.

I invited my dad to go with me, since he loves to travel as much as I do, but he'd already scored a by-application-only volunteer spot at the Ryder Cup in Louisville for the same dates. My mom, who hasn't traveled beyond the Tri-State since I was twelve, surprised me by not only asking if she could go in Dad's place but by being super, super excited about the whole thing. I'll be attending meetings on Tuesday on Wednesday, and we're spending Thursday on an all-day glacier cruise.


(if I see this, I might actually fall down from shock and awe)

We'll have Friday and Saturday to wander around on our own. I'm not quite sure what we'll end up doing, but I don't think it really matters all that much. Even if we just go to the musk ox yarn store, I'm sure it'll be fantastic.

I won't be toting my laptop along. I just couldn't work up enough determination to haul it through three airports and two flights on the off chance that I'll have time and energy to post a few times during the week. I'll be doing my best to be interesting on Twitter throughout the trip. I've recruited a few kickass guest bloggers to post while I'm gone, and something fun will be unveiled tomorrow. If all goes well, there will be something new posted here each day this week. See you all when I return! xo!

The Ambassador

Author Jon Katz blogs about his black Lab, Lenore, who he has dubbed the Hound of Love because of the love she spreads. Lenore may have pinned down the title of Love Dog, but Indy is going for Ambassador.

Everywhere we go, people seem to really connect with him. They ask us questions--how old is he? Is he a Lab? So many people say, "Oh, I love Labs! We had a Lab, and he / she was the best! dog! ever!" A week or so ago, we met a woman on our walk who was out with a small terrier. She, too, had owned and loved a Lab mix. As Indy sat obediently near her, she looked down at him. "I know you," she said with a touch of wonder. "There's a face I haven't seen in thirty years."

*************************
We're planning to take Indy on his first camping trip over the first weekend of November. Since it might be a bit chilly by then, we ordered him a dog bed:


I have no idea why he looks so bummed in this one.
As we should have expected, Indy wasn't very interested in his posh bed.
Maybe he'll feel a bit more inclined to use it when it's 50 degrees outside?

I'm really, really looking forward to taking him. I suspect he'll have a fabulous time. We're going to camp on the property owned by one of MB's coworkers, so if Indy doesn't sleep or barks at lots of squirrels, we won't bother anybody but people who already like the dog. I just hope he'll agree to stay in the tent with us overnight and not decide to chew his way out to chase raccoons.

*************************
On Friday I took Indy to the park that adjoins the nature preserve where I volunteer. Dogs aren't allowed inside the nature preserve itself, but Indy didn't seem to mind.


He carried his own water and wore his backpack without complaint. We walked up and back down a short bike path, and then headed for a trail through the woods that I found a few years ago on the non-preserve side of the fence. Indy was thrilled. He trotted merrily along, sniffing everything. Hills didn't faze him, nor did small wooden bridges across shallow dry gullies. I think he's going to turn out to be a champion hiker.


*************************
"Yeah, yeah. I rule. Can we go get ice cream now?"


Reading:  Iodine by Haven Kimmel

Playing:  Lemon Parade by Tonic

Photo Friday

View the entire Photo Friday collection on Flickr.

lolkitters of the week

Click the photo to vote for Kitters!

View the collected weekly lolkitters on Flickr.

Triple threat

I am not exaggerating at all when I say this one made me laugh until I had tears running down my face and a stomachache:

That would be a 'trebuchet'

This evening I attended a birthday party for my cousin Amethyst's daughter Pie, who just turned six. I was trying to convince Pie that my present would be the best, since I got her broccoli and a miniature cow. (Ok, not really, but it was fun to pretend.)

other cousin Sunny:  I think Amethyst's present will be the best. She got Pie a bike.

VBG:  Yeah, that will be pretty hard to beat.

cousin-in-law Dave:  I got her a flamethrower.

VBG:  That would pretty much trump all presents, ever.

Amethyst:  Unless you got one of those things...what are those things? You know, that they use to throw cows?

Photo Friday

View the entire Photo Friday collection on Flickr.

lolkitters of the week

Click the photo to vote for Kitters!

View the collected weekly lolkitters on Flickr.

Willing suspension of disbelief

The Scene:  MB and I are watching season three of Buffy, the episode "Amends". After a near-hour of characters bitching about the heat in the Southern California (fake) town of Sunnydale, a lovely snowfall interrupts a big dramatic scene between Buffy and Angel.

MB:  What the hell? What is up with the snow?

VBG:  It's a romantic moment.

MB:  It doesn't make sense.

VBG:  Christmas magic, then?

MB:  I still don't get it. What is it supposed to mean?

VBG:  Well, snow sometimes symbolizes purity, or a clean slate.

MB:  I still don't see how it relates.

VBG:  There are demons living under the Christmas tree farm, and you're worried about a little snow?

I'm a tree I'm a tree I'm a tree I'm a tree

Evilducky invited me to a yoga class with her last night, and it was FABULOUS. It had probably been over a year since I'd done any yoga, but I was happy to find I could still do most of the poses. Not well, mind you, but I could do them.

My favorite yoga poses have always been the standing ones, and I was happy that the teacher had us do quite a few of them. I was actually able to do all of these, though I did practically fall over halfway through most of them.

tree pose

extended side angle

half moon

standing bow, "real"

standing bow, "ideal"

My hips are old-lady achy today, but it was totally worth it. I am definitely going back! How about you guys? What's your favorite yoga pose?

With friends like these...

You know how everybody has that one friend (at least I hope they do) who always sends the best presents, who can make them laugh when they least expect it, who laughs at all their jokes and means it? For me, that friend is often the Untamed Shrew. Getting a package in the mail from her is like crackpot Christmas, every time.

She once sent me a box of miniature handmade envelopes, each one containing a single sample pouch of Burt's Bees milk and honey lotion. For my birthday, she sent me a package of recycled pens, a recycled plastic toothbrush, and a notebook with pictures of people having accidents at work on the cover.

Understand, then, my joy when I opened the door last night and found a box with her return address sitting on my front steps. Inside, I found a smaller box, wrapped in this:


The writing says, "Note the modesty panel made of rose petals."
Which made me laugh, a lot.

Inside the smaller box, I found this:


Only the best measuring cup ever.

And then I was all:



Because she is a big Indy fan, I'll post this in gratitude:


Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go measure something.


Reading:  Why I Let My Hair Grow Out by Maryrose Wood

Playing:  various albums from my past