goodbye iowa, hello nebraska

made it through iowa last night. well, all but about 2 miles of it. we stopped in council bluffs for the night.

had dinner in iowa city. the olive garden there has made it on "the list of things 'becca loves about iowa." the waitress has NOT made that list. it's hard to get good service these days, huh? :)

we've added a mini goal to the trip: ice cream in every state. last night this was satisfied by a raspberry mango milkshake from mickey d's. absolutely fabulous. we have a cold stone creamery in site as we go through nebraska today.

we're gonna go drive now. yay us!

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'becca thinks the weather channel girl was hired for her looks, not her skills.

tyb30 - august update

five months to finish the list. i think i'm doing alright so far, but let's look at it mathematically. (doesn't everyone want to look at everything mathematically on a sunday morning?) my year before 30 is 58% complete. so i should be 58% complete with my goals. let's see ...

1: take 2900 photos. 2000 taken so far. a little weird that i'm at an exact 2000 on an update day, huh? without even trying - because trying would definitely be something i would do. but i didn't. 69% to goal.

2: visit two places i've never been before. i'm currently at three: pittsburgh, michigan (yeah, seriously ... i made it 29 years without going to michigan. crazy, huh?) and south dakota. i leave on for a 14-state road trip this week - this list will get longer. :) 100% to goal.

3: finish two quilts. alicia's is done. i have some progress made on the second one. 50% to goal.

4: make/recycle/customize a table for the living room. 0% to goal.

5: avoid deep-fried vegetables. the french fry embargo officially started may 1. so far, so good. although it did occur to me as i was eating some potato chips that technically they're off limits, too. but i was already eating them, so what was i going to do? technically this is 100% to goal, i suppose, as i have been avoiding deep-fried vegetables. and i didn't put a time constraint it like avoid them all year.

6: watch the entire 'friends' series. on season seven, disc four. 68% to goal.

7: send out Christmas cards. done! hey - i never said i was going to send them out at Christmas-time. :) 100% to goal.

8: tackle another month of 1000 photographs. accomplished in july - 1,029 photos. you can see them all here on my flickr account. 100% to goal.

9: put together the fortune journal. i made fortune covers for my new purse calendar, but i'm not pleased with the outcome. i need to try something different. more random. 50% to goal. (i don't know, how do you figure some of this out?)

10: surprise! done & i love it! i turned one of my living room walls into a huge piece of black/white photographic artwork. 166 of my photos, floor to ceiling, corner to corner. they start small on the left side of the wall (4.5" x 3") and get bigger with each column of photos (ending at 24" x 16"). i have had some issues with humidity, but nothing catastrophic, yet. 100% to goal.

11: send a piece of real mail each month. june - sent & received! july - sent & received! august - sent & received! 100% to goal.

12: watch all of Alan Alda's movies available from netflix. there are twenty-one alda movies available on netflix. i've seen four and still have the mephisto waltz sitting in my office. considering i'm thinking about dumping my netflix subscription, this one may not get done. i suppose i could keep netflix long enough to reach the goal - but i just really don't watch movies very much. 19% to goal.

13: try a muffuletta from at least two restaurants other than three floyd's. 0% to goal.

14: host a ladies' night at the new house. technically, i hosted a ladies' night in july since we didn't play bunco. it wasn't what i originally had in mind, but it does fulfill the goal. :) 100% to goal.

15: get my own place. done! haven't you invited yourself over yet? 100% to goal.

16: plantumentary. officially started june 21. i took a minor hiatus from this a week or so ago, but i'm back on track now. and i learned that having the plant by the open window on windy days wasn't good for it. 50% to goal.

17: get my blog archives under control with yearly headers. workin' on it. 25% to goal.

18: don't plug in my tv until goal #3 is accomplished. so far so good. 100% to goal.

19: try to grow some vegetables. i have three healthy veggie plants - and two itty bitty tomoatoes! 100% to goal. (keeping goals vague can be good. i can't make the goal to successfully harvest tomatoes ... i mean, what if the mole hadn't stopped digging in that area? or what if the bunnies ate all the blossoms? or what if it frosts before they ripen? i can't control nature, people!)

20: read a book. i've finished'persepolis' and started catch 22, again. 100% to goal.

21: put up a Christmas tree. 0% to goal. but this holiday-related goal might actually wait until the holidays. :)

22: get my nose pierced. done on the fifth of july! and by a very nice looking man, if i do say so myself. 100% to goal.

23: update my portfolio. in the process. i've made some revisions to the biography area & uploaded newer projects. now i need to flesh out the project descriptions and get that sucker out there. 75% to goal.

24: screen print a t-shirt. i have a plan ... :) 0% to goal.

25: bike ten miles. i haven't had my bike out of the garage all summer. 0% to goal.

26: create artwork for the office. i haven't thought much about the artwork ... but i think i found some fabulous fabric to make curtains out of. 0% to goal.

27: go two weeks without obvious processed sugars. i will do this. after vacation & before the holidays. perhaps i'll line it up with halloween. just to test my resolve. :) 0% to goal.

28: Christmas surprise. 0% to goal.

29: have breakfast at lynn's paradise cafe. 0% to goal, but perhaps this will be fixed very soon. (ooo, i should e-mail malissa ....)

okay, if i average all the percentages i'm at 55% to goal. that's really good, i think. almost impressive, one might say. good thing i sent out those Christmas cards early. ;)

the end of science

getting home last night ended the scientific odometer experiment. it lasted for twenty-six days. and it ends because i'm done remembering to take a photo every time i park my car. there's very little chance i'd find the motivation to keep up with it on vacation ... so i'm ending it now.

final result: of the 127 times i parked my car in the last 26 days, my odometer ended on a five or a zero 22 times. 17%, which is lower than the laws of probability state it should be. so yes, i was imagining the idea that my odometer landed there more often than it should.

hmm. imagine that. me imagining something. oh well. :) perhaps someday i'll pick the experiment up again and track the results over a longer period of time.

but probably not.

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'becca thinks she found a cell phone she wants to buy.

friday's photos

my second tomato plant has blossoms! so i may get fruit from both plants before frost. i can tell where my pepper plant is going to blossom, too. i might make fresh salsa yet. :)


and these are the two li'l tomatoes on my first plant. aren't they adorable? c'mon ... they're adorable.


i believe this is an american pokeweed. i think i have two of them on the side of the house. it's a little hard to tell because they're HUGE (taller than me) and all jumbled together this this vine that's growing on the fence there. i cut some of these out a couple of months ago because i found them to be in a bad spot. seeing how tall they've gotten, i'm quite glad i removed the other plants. the majority of the plant is toxic, apparently - especially when it's matured. but i could mush up the berries & make a fabulous dye if i was so inclined.


they berries are also supposed to bring song birds. we'll see how that goes since they're pretty close to my bedroom window. :) lots of people online complained they were invasive & annoying. but they're out of my way, in a corner i don't use. and the fact that they're taller than me makes me respect them a little bit. and i can't be too mad at the birds if they start leaving purple poo on the sidewalk from eating the berries. well, i could be mad ... but they do the same thing from the mulberries behind my garage, and i'm not going to go cut out the mulberry tree either.


there was desk cleaning to be done at work today. this stack of magazines was set to be trashed, but i brought them home for a possible art project. i fought it because i tend to just collect this type of stuff & then never do anything with it. but i promise these small stack of magazines will not move with me when i leave this house. be it in 6 months or 6 years ... when i leave this house, these magazines will be thrown away.


i got my first Christmas present today. seems fair since i sent out my Christmas cards, eh? :) kathy found these fabulous tealight holders for me. i do believe they will match my living quite nicely. they're black & white. they're li'l severed heads. yup. perfect.


today marked the end of the sandal season for me. i know it's early, but two reasons why. A: i lost a toenail & walking around with one unpainted toenail looks funny. well, actually, it makes three unpainted toenails. i can't paint my tiny toenails because they're too tiny & my toes are too curly. but those are hard to notice. my big toenail is a little more obvious. and yes, i could just not paint any of my toenails ... what? half the fun of sandal season is painting your toenails. reason 2: i have one pair of casual sandals ... and i keep tripping over them. i do enough things to let everyone know i'm clumsy & awkward. i don't need to fall flat on my face at work just to prove the point.

these are, by the way, my pittsburgh socks. symbolically worn on the first day of sock season because in LESS THAN A WEEK i'll be back with my pittsburgh girls again. we won't be in pittsburgh, but that's good. because pennsylvania isn't out the road trip route.

in case you're curious, the other half of the fun of sandal season is wearing a toe ring. and actually, since my toe ring broke a few weeks ago ... there really is no good reason to wear sandals anymore. my clumsiness aside. :)

notice the artwork on the wall? the li'l severed jack heads really will match the room, won't they?


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'becca thinks the photo of the li'l tomatoes looks like a flower-headed creature leaning foward while holding two green bowling balls.

20: read a book.

i finished the complete persepolis tonight. i do enjoy reading a good memoir. in fact, it seems i do enjoy reading.

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'becca will now undertake the reading of catch 22. she must return that book to greg.

at&t strikes back

somewhere between going to bed, trying unsuccessfully to sleep, getting up to eat doritos & watch two episodes of friends and eventually checking my e-mail again ... at&t gave their web mail a new feel. and i must say, it's nice.

so i can't ditch my long-distance service online, but i no longer have to horizontally scroll to read the e-mail i'm typing. and i can flag messages. it's quite lovely.

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'becca shouldn't have eaten that many doritos. that taste is not going away anytime soon.

random seems right tonight

1. i tried finding you a good video of the ditty bops "ooh la la." no such luck, however. so you'll just have to believe me it's enjoyable. or, at least, you can believe that it's the song that's currently playing on my itunes.

2. the u.s. postal service is speedy. my mailman didn't take the envelopes from my mailbox until after 2 p.m. yesterday ... and folks all over the place got them today. gold star, usps. gold star.

3. i had the most deliciously fresh corn on the cob for dinner tonight. yumm-o.

4. the deliveries spoken of in number two would not have been so speedy in the midst of the december postal chaos.

5. the atlas sitting on my floor came in handy when i said to myself, "self, where is englewood, colorado?"

6. thinking about trading in my car makes my head hurt. and it makes me want ice cream.

7. i leave for a fourteen state road trip in less than nine days. nine days from now, we'll be somewhere in illinois or iowa, discussing where we want to stop for the night.

8. if you're curious, englewood appears to be a suburb of denver.

9. if i remember correctly, my horoscope gave me five stars today. good thing i don't believe those things. otherwise today would have been doubly disappointing.

10. i find at&t's web site to be frustrating. i think i'll dump my long-distance service. swing that money into the cell phone package.

11. if i lowered my monthly car payment, i would seriously contemplate the iphone. i don't need an iphone. does that mean i should keep my car?

12. i'm going to go make myself a bowl of ice cream now.

13. trading in my car early (the contract isn't up for another two years) would undoubtedly require me using some of my savings for the penalty fees. if i'm willing to do that to lower my monthly payment, thereby allowing me to save money each month, why don't i just make my car payment out of my savings account each month? wouldn't that be the same thing, just different?

14. this is why my head hurts.

15. i'm letting the ice cream soften a little so it'll be easier to mash with the oreo cookies. that's why i said "make myself a bowl of ice cream" and not "get myself a bowl of ice cream."

16. i'm aware that making my monthly car payment out of my savings account would be ridiculous. especially when i can afford to pay it out of my checking account each month. but why does it seem better to give up a chunk of my savings account now so that the monthly payment gets smaller?

17. why am i so concerned about that savings account? i'm always "i should use it to do this" or "i should use it to do that" ... in the end, i feel guilty even touching that money. why? i earned it.

18. the fact that i can't cancel my long-distance service through my online account manager is ridiculous.

19. i generally try to keep my personal e-mail inbox down to 25 messages or less. that way they all fit on one page, and i can feel like i'm keeping up with the communication. today i find that impossible. i feel all fuzzy-headed. too many things to think about. so i'll think about none of it. for now, at least.

20. i watch way more movies when i'm not alone than when i am. why do we think that is? watching a movie should be a good solitary pastime.

21. i need to remember to pack sneakers for the road trip.

22. i bought a very cute, very work-appropriate brown purse over the weekend.

23. i will be using some of the savings account for the upcoming road trip. and i will not feel guilty. :D

24. my birthday falls on a saturday next year. have i mentioned that here, yet? who wants to throw me a party?

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'becca now feels like eating something salty. maybe she should have mixed pretzels into her ice cream ... killed two birds with one stone. (sorry, beth.)

19: try to grow some vegetables.

my tomato plant has blossoms! currently both tomato plants and the pepper plant look very healthy & strong. and with these two blossoms, i just may get some fruit before the frost. :) yay!


my veggie plants are planted along my back fence. on my neighbor's side of said fence, these adorable flowers are growing. i really thought they were weeds until they bloomed. they're a good four foot tall and are growing in the 8" of ground between their garage and the fence. even if they are weeds, aren't they pretty?

no, this is not the tyb30 goal i referred to a couple of days ago. that one will be revealed in the next couple of days. and not to everyone at the same time. mysterious, eh?

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'becca definitely made the right choice in buying that soy sauce before reheating the rice.

progress

i made major progress towards accomplishing on of the year before 30 goals. but i can't give you details yet. don't you just hate that? :)

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'becca needs to buy soy sauce before she reheats her leftover fried rice.

storm videos

this one is looking northwest from the house - towards griffith.



and this one is looking southeast from the house - away from griffith. :) you can hear beth & i talking in this one ... but you can also hear the rain & thunder. i love thunder.

i shot some at the railcats stadium, too, but i don't like them as well. if i had some video-editing software i could just pull out the good parts. but i don't.

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'becca isn't sure she likes the new feel of blogger.

8 minutes of SP goodness

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'becca especially likes it once you can see the reflection reaching towards the drooping putty.

too depressing

alright, new post because the last one was too depressing to keep re-reading every time i get online. not dwelling is hard when one continues to re-read.

on my team not surviving the restructure: my boss is still there, but he's not my boss anymore. one co-worker is still there, but she will be the entire marketing department & continue to report to my ex-boss. the other co-worker is not still there.

my progress on #6 (watching the friend series) while being on top of #18 (no tv until two quilts are done) is made possible by watching the DVDs on my computer. no, my computer is not a substitute for the tv ... as it only allows me to watch DVDs. well, i could watch tv episodes online, i suppose, but i don't. i use it to watch friends episodes while i sew. and when i come home for lunch. and occasionally for a movie ... but this folding chair isn't too comfortable to sit & watch a movie. my laptop is better for that. ;)

of the 80 times i've parked my car since beginning the scientific experiment, my odometer has ended in a five or a zero 15 times. that's 19%.

my rebate from staples is listed as "validation complete" ... i should be getting my check for $1.99 soon. pretty exciting, i know.

i'm working on updating my online portfolio.

according to my 'where i've been' map, i've visited 7% of the world. this will change after my labor day road trip, where one of the goals is to visit as many states as possible on our way from south dakota to ohio. our current route takes us through wyoming, colorado, new mexico, texas, oklahoma, arkansas, tennessee and kentucky.

i'm setting up a YouTube account to allow you to see some of the videos i've shot recently. but i'm losing interest in waiting for the confirmation e-mail.

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'becca thinks dinner sounds like a good idea, but doesn't care to actually make anything.

update

beth asked if my blog was broken or if was supposed to be blank.

kathy asked the same.

julie requested an update. she's tired of looking at the blank page.

i am, too. so here's an update for you.

i survived another round of lay-offs at work a little over a week ago. my team did not survive the lay-offs. i've been "folded into" another department. time will tell how that will affect my day-to-day responsibilities. for now i've moved to a desk across the office and am waiting for the rest of the company to shift desks to accommodate the new structure. those changes will happen quickly. other changes are yet to be announced & seen. i don't expect the next few weeks to be calm.

i've been so mentally submerged in the work-bound chaos that there's been nothing blog-able to put here. i've felt blank (thus the post), abandoned, uprooted, confused, angry, nervous, sick to my stomach, overwhelmed ... and may be experiencing a bit of separation anxiety. it's struck me as interesting how quickly one can become accustomed to her situation. and how true it is that we don't realize what we've got until it's gone.

yes, i know ... focus on the fact you still have a job, 'becca. and i am focused on that. i'm fortunate; i know. but i deny that the good fortune of having a job negates all the other emotions & facets of the situation. i deny that still having a job justifies glossing over the ugliness of the situation. the situation is ugly. not as ugly as it could have been ... but ugly nonetheless. i have no qualms saying that. it doesn't mean i have a bad attitude or that i'm ungrateful. it's just the truth. and ignoring it won't make it go away.

neither will dwelling on it reverse the events of the past twelve days. so we move forward. perhaps a bit more cautiously than before. trying to find a balance of acknowledging the events while not being mired down by them.

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'becca burned her finger getting the potatoes out of the oven ... but it was worth it.