Hi Blog,

Can  I explain why I haven’t called?

Honestly…. I just didn’t quite get around to it.

W and I have been productive lately though.  This past weekend, we did yet another goodwill trip and yet another IKEA and Costco run.  I love! Costco but every other week…it seems like a lot.  After finally getting rid of some extra furniture and getting some more shelving for the storage unit, the apartment is livable again.  This has been a really long process. Longer than I wanted it to go that’s for damn sure.

But when money is kinda tight you can’t go out and buy everything at once…not that we would have really known what to really get.  It’s amazing to be able to walk around freely in the living room and now when we need to vacuum it won’t involve furniture we’re STILL planning on getting rid of.

It may be sad but I think my favorite productiveness of this weekend is the second set of shelves in our storage unit.  It’s ALL camping gear.  And if we need to pack in an hour again… clear the shelves and we’re packed.  It’s awesome.  I may be a little too proud of that one.

The second fish tank is almost fully operational again (our awkward 15 vertical tank) . Complete with 1 fish, rocks, plants, background, and assassin snail for when we get an infestation.  We’re just planning on it from now on.  We got another snail problem in the little 4 gallon tank.  W’s really getting into his tanks.  I’m glad he has a hobby, even if it is expensive although if it were me I’d rather get my big projects done instead of starting/maintaining new littler ones.

But hey I’ve been realizing I have control issues I need to deal with. And I should never miss another massage. 

Any other updates to my life? 

1.       Endomondo.com – first App I have ever paid for!  It was on sale for $1 (vs. 4) and would have been worth every penny of the bigger price.  I ride my bike to work every day.  This tracks how long, elevation, speed, and roughly how many calories I should have burned.  It’s pretty freakin’ sweet.  It also has challenges that you can join – fitness related of course and it tracks it all for you.  Love it.

2.       Adobe… - it may soon be mine.  God I hope so. I’m itching to start projects (I even started legitimately setting up my computer yesterday.  Need that final shelf above my desk for decorative things, like my Dad’s picture.

3.       Started going to the gym – only once a week so far. But hey it’s a start!

4.       Doing the low carb thing again.  Every year I promise myself to lose weight for my birthday.  I’ve got a month, hopefully – for the love of God I will at least begin losing weight this year.  I think I’m finally old enough to just do the grown up thing and say no to the things I don’t need and save up for the things I need.

5.       W got me totally addicted to Dynasty Warriors (although I suppose I’m a bit burnt out at the moment).

6.       I’ve been asking myself over and over again, why is it so hard? And what is wrong with people?  Honestly now, I just signed a EWG petition against the current draft of the US farm bill.  Why because apparently (yes I signed before doing my research – sue me). The government is siding with big Ag and against real food.  Food shouldn’t be something you have to know chemistry for.  As lazy as I am I still cook at least once a day.  Okay kinda all three meals.  A breakfast I make in my sleep (with hopefully sustainable chicken eggs – which I pay more for), I compile my yogurt parfait & lemon drink (also partially asleep), and more often than not I cook dinner for W and me.  He makes the meat on the grill and I make a bunch of veggies and rice/pasta/quinoa on the side.  What eats up my time is dishes.  I hate doing dishes.  I do them all day long – ridiculous!

I know cooking can be a drag.  I do it every day.  But what’s 10 here and 15 min there.  Unless you eat while driving – not Ideal – and there’s no one in the drive through.  You really don’t save that much time.  Not to mention I feel like making a box of rice a roni (which is such a guilty pleasure for me) takes just as much time as any other pasta dish (with veggies) I would make.

Food should be real and it shouldn’t be so DAMN COMPLICATED!

7.       I got into instagram for a bit there.  Have since slacked off.

Yup I think that’s about it for me.  Now back to organization projects.

*My Instagram photo for the day - not from today but still....

Ciao!

Ya for blogging! and for Black Raspberries. They are in fact delicious.


Is it bad form to take you lunch break an hour before you are scheduled to leave?  Personally if I could always make it until 3:30-4 pm before being starving I would probably do it everyday.  I'm one of those people who would rather take a late lunch (when you get back you're that much closer to the end of the day).  This is a fairly extreme example but still stands true....


...My yogurt "parfait" or concoction if you will is more like a cold fruity soup than it normally is.  It kind of weirds me out actually.


Oh yah!  This weekend I had such an 'that figures...' moment it was sad.  Since W and I moved in to our apartment there has been rampant mint growing outside the door.  I finally got around to pulling the damn stuff up but I'm too poor to buy pots to claim the space for my garden.  (I hope you see where this is going.) Yup!  I woke up Saturday morning to a giant BBQ in all of the space I had just cleaned out.  I hate people sometimes.  I think it belongs to the person who just moved in with (I'm assuming) the crazy lady neighbor we don't like.  All assumptions here.  Bad, I know.  But still I do the work, didn't even think I needed to claim space and I apparently lost it.


Oh well.  I'll work around it but if they don't pull it out when they use it (literally next to our window) then I will tell on them.  So bummed, mad, and some other description.  Totally ruined my morning.  My garden space is now taken over by a fat-assed BBQ.  I hope it rusts now that it's living outside.


Sorry, I'm still just bitter.I suppose that's how life goes though.  Claim that shit!


On another note. Disc golf. Fun but I doubt I will be as into it as W.  He's been trying to get me to go out and throw for months now.  I've never really had anything against it, I just like to have girl time/alone time.  I miss alone time.  W and I leave the house at the same time and we get home around the same time.  When we get home I start cooking - a preference I should ease up on (since then I do most of the cooking and I've always washed just about all of the dishes).  I'm just trying to avoid processed foods as much as possible.  All of his food/what he prepares is all boxed, canned, frozen or microwavable.  Admittedly, we don't have a microwave.  No where to put it - works for me!  Sometimes it would be nice though.


Less convenience!  Life should be harder.  Not a lot harder but mankind has given itself obesity, diabetes, lost its work ethic, and ruined the planet pretty much all in the name of convenience.  From the foods we eat, the cars we drive, and the products we use - all of it is produced and marketed for convenience.  Anything disposable, quick food, pre-packaged food, single servings, escalators, computers, tv, modern appliances, everything in life.

It's not the world we live in though.  We've come accustomed to and depend on all of that convenience.  Our   working schedules have gotten longer too exhausted for real food prep.  Our health has deteriorated too heavy/malnourished to be self-sufficient.  Our technology is smarter than we are.  Mainstream society is going down and we're too distracted by little glowing screens (yes I am counting down the days until I can get an iPhone...) to notice or care.

How do you create a balance between the 'amish' life and today's life?  I like to idealize the 50's. I'm sure most americans do.  Why the 50's?  Because there was progress, a middle class, only one parent needed to work (generally speaking), and lets say there was at least an attempt to hide the dark side of humanity.

There was an expectation of courtesy or at least being polite to your neighbors, (as bitter as I am about the BBQ I can't blame them, logically speaking).  This entry has veered off in a pessimistic direction.  Best to end here before I focus on the ills of mankind again.  It's depressing, I don't like it.

For now,
Ciao bella

http://inhabitat.com/singapore’s-spectacular-solar-supertrees-open-this-month-at-the-gardens-by-the-bay/supertrees-8/

Since I couldn’t figure out how to separate the picture from the site (in 20 seconds or less).  Here is the link of the reality of someone’s daydream.

It’s like being in Avatar…well kind of.  It’s the thought that counts.  Either way, I think society is getting to a point where we can transform our environment to be just about anything we want.  Sure the supertrees are obviously fake but they feature vertical gardens, use solar power to light themselves at night.  This is what cities around the world could be like.

Inhabitat.com is another dangerous website because there are soo many cool things, that are one WAY expensive and two not always possible to build, own, etc.  Again, it just goes to show that man’s imagination and creativity are actually capable of.  What if the world were, from here on out, built with design, planet, and functionality in mind.  Sustainable materials where possible, off grid (solar power) and environmentally minded (also serve as a water filtration system).  With all of our technology its fucking retarded that more projects like this aren’t cropping up EVERYWHERE!

Apologies for the expletives…but c’mon people!  It doesn’t take a genius to realize we are all fucking screwed.  Well maybe this generation will be okay but our kids (assuming I wind up having one or two), totally drew the short straw.  The other night I finally got around to weeding and clearing out some of the mint that’s taken over.  I filled a very large garbage bag (plastic I know…no one’s perfect) of the stuff and then proceeded to throw it away (no green bin at the apartment and no room for compost – I asked W. He said no).  Now that my guilt is written on the page… he asked me why I was doing this to which I responded now is the time to learn.

I’m fairly convinced that my underlying personality is a doomsday-ist (Well aware that’s not the term but I couldn’t think of it in 20 seconds or less).  I don’t think the world is going to end in one fail swoop. I don’t even think I will witness anything really traumatic in my lifetime. Which I know is good because I’d probably be the first to go, but I would be soo interesting and all of the little shit in life can just go away. 

Back to doomsday! Just because it’s more interesting.  I want to learn how to garden because as the population grows, real food is scarce, gas prices explode, and shit generally gets too god damned expensive to buy I want to have a backup plan.  The hiccup in my backup plan…water.  Experts of some kind, somewhere,  are predicting that the growing lands are going to start migrating North.  So instead of middle California being optimal Oregon will be produce nirvana.  No idea if that’s true or not but if there’s a chance I think I would like to stay in Portland – perhaps when W and I can move outside the city limits and get some land, ideally.  Not too far out. I want to shop!

Having land but no water could kill my plan unless we create a really efficient way to capture rain water.  The rain pattern has already begun to shift in PDX, instead of our gray 9 month drizzle we are getting legitimate rain storms interspersed with sun.  Real sun.  It was kind of weird this winter, awesome but weird.  Admittedly since I have come to Portland (Fall 2004) it seems like every year has been ‘weird’ so who knows what to really expect of the weather.  It’s just time to begin working on a backup plan.  I’m working towards it.  Training my possible black thumb to be a green thumb, getting used to cooking nightly (and someday using that bread maker W brought home one day), sewing.  Sewing is a big one for me.  I don’t know what the state of the world will be until I’m dead but it’s a good skill to pass on if I can and potentially save myself some money along the way.

***Just found out one of my coworkers was laid off today – there were four of us…now only 3***

Just goes to show how quickly life changes.

...just because I love infographs! (perhaps another post later, or not I've got other chores to do tonight)

Yay for blogging time.

I wrote out this long winded something or other yesterday but never got to finish or post it.  Quite sad.

Oh yes, it was my goals for the evening.  I did some of them actually.  I got my bike - I have brakes now!  Yay.  Food was prepared and since consumed. Yummy.  I did actually set up my desk to the best of my abilities (I need a power strip to set up speakers and external hard drive)
And the last pair of items were to reassemble vacuum and clean up enough clutter to use it.

Those last two almost happened.  The vacuum is nearly together but a few integral pieces were not ready to be used - moisture in the tube mainly.  From there well D came over which basically means food, peggle, and then munchie food. Those ice creams didn’t stand a chance.  But after D left furniture was rearranged and slightly organized.  It’s time to do laundry again.  Both daily wear laundry and blankets.  The blankets I’ve been putting off.  Blek.  It seems like I’ve been doing 2x the laundry I was doing when we lived at the house.  

Someday soon I will be doing less laundry, the apt. will be put together, the walls will be decorated and then I will be able to move onto spending my money on actually living life.  Although, I have to admit I am spending some money on life tomorrow. Wednesdays are belly dance night!  I’m going to finally pick it up again.  And the price has not come down but has become less upfront at each interval.  Instead of 60 for 6 classes they’re asking for 40 for 4.  That works for me! I wasn’t going to be able to afford 60 (not that I can really afford 40 for that matter).  I’ll find a way.  Looks like it’s rice for dinner until July!

So yah between bellydance on Weds (and hopefully practice through the week), yoga in the mornings, and the gym a couple of times a week I will be sitting pretty soon.   Now all I have to do is figure out where I can pick up some extra energy....yay coffee!!

It looks like life is about to start actually taking off.  I do need to find a way to get some fliers made for W.  I lost all of my art programs on my computer (and as I found out...I am now apparently out of ink in my printer - phooey).

*Please note that I do like to take some liberties with the english language, especially in spelling*

As soon as I figure out how to link up my instagram account with my blog I will be posting more random pics.  I should try to take one pic a day - a challenge my sister is also doing.  Just to keep photography in the forefront.  I miss creativity so hard.  It’s like I’ve lost my best friend.  Yay for reunions!

Cheers folks...”For actually doing something about it”

Ciao bella!

Minimalism Wardrobe

Minimalism Wardrobe by squishd 

**There used to be every piece listed here: brand and price.  I took that down because for example, I will never buy a $300 pair of jeans and two these items are just a guideline.**

Goals for this weekend:

• Clear off desk - set up computer
• Start weeding by back door
• Go to gym/hour long yoga
• Get bike to shop

So I did one out of four...any idea which one? How about the one with the least amount of physical effort.  Yup! Took the bike to the shop - admittedly, that really needed to happen and weekend was preferable over mid week.

Beyond that I may not have gotten my computer set up (currently wrapped up in my comforter like a burrito lounging on my bed - it's pretty sweet), but W and I did get through just about all of the boxes in the storage unit, sorted and then kept, threw out or donated everything.  There was a legit car load we took to the dump and another car load we took to Goodwill.  So on that front we actually did really well.  There are still a few more things that need to go (I've got some clothes to give away - which I have foolishly been hanging onto) and then there's the chair and some other random things we'll probably just say 'fuck it' to.

All in all it was a fairly productive weekend.  We got a lot done and we were actually social. Crazy.  One of my college friends was in town this weekend so we hung out a bit.  I wish we weren't so broke.  It would really make going out more pleasurable.

Speaking of spending money! I am now officially an adult.  I bought expensive flip flops.  Normally, I buy the 2-5 dollar Target, Old Navy, Freddie's sandals but today I'm turning over a new leaf (not entirely by choice).  I needed new flops and I've had my eye on a pair at Freddie's, nicer than my normal cheap ones at roughly $8.  So W and I go in so we can each get a new pair of sandals...and of course the ones I want are out of my size.  Figures.  The ones I had my eye on?  A pair of Teva knock-offs, they're the strappy ones instead of just the single strap between the toes.  I've wanted a pair for a few years now.  But why buy one pair of sandals when you can get 10-15 for the same price??

Because they're awesome that why!  I bought myself a pair of Teva's and I feel like I've really moved up a notch in life. Ya know, like it's time to appreciate having quality over quantity.  I justify it in my head by telling myself that I only have one pair (true) and I really only need one pair - aiming towards my goal of a minimalist wardrobe.  Quality over quantity.

I still love my Costco tank tops and I will definitely still shop at Forever21 but hopefully not as much.  I'm 26 moving in on 27, it's time to step it up to at least H&M.  Although, someday I want to move away from shopping at stores (mostly) and make more stuff myself (and probably shop on etsy more).  Etsy seems to have more my style.  Unfortunately, as mentioned before my style on Etsy, Freakin' expensive!  $40 for  a shirt $100 for a sweatshirt.  Ridiculous!  What I want though are good basics made out of nice fabrics, like sustainable cotton or bamboo.  Ya know, the good stuff!

I can't afford a wardrobe of bought items but with practice and creativity I'm sure I could make some things.  If nothing else I want some skirts and a couple of shrugs.  Learning how to make those would be more than worth it money wise.

Well...back to the routine of the work week...and I get my bike back tomorrow!  Way excited, I'll have brakes again.

Ciao Bella!