i am one

One person is all I am. I can't do five things at once, I can only do one...although with multi tasking I can attempt to do all. However, to multi task is to half ass. I don't like doing anything half assed. So I continue with my mantra "I am one". I understand that things need to get done quickly. I also understand if I get things earlier and not last minute that I'll actually do them and get them done well. Last minute sometimes equals sloppiness as well. I don't like sloppy, especially when my name is attached to the project, or whatever it is I'm working on.

So, I take a deep breath and continue on with the things that needed to be done yesterday and think to myself, "I am one."

she knows, she knows

Why is it my inner guide always knows things and I sometimes listen and sometimes don't? Why don't I always listen?!?! Please, let me listen...

Example 1:
thoughts to myself..."I should really wear a belt today." Results: I don't and all day at work I am spent pulling up my pants, which is damned annoying.

Example 2:
thoughts to myself and the out loud to Kevin..."You might want to take a dry tee shirt on our hike today." Results, we end up getting dumped on and he was thankful for dry clothing.

Example 3:
thoughts out loud to Jenn, my steam cleaning friend..."I hope the machine doesn't break while I am using it!" Results: The hose for the upholstery cleaning rips in two right as I spiral it back onto the machine and have it hooked ever so nicely in each little spot designed specifically for holding the hose in place. This leaves me with nasty, and I mean nasty, water and sludge from the living room through the hallway and into the kitchen where I had taken it to make disposal of the nasty water easier, you know so I wouldn't slop it all through the house? I suppose I should have let her use the machine first, but then again she only has rugs to clean so I would have ended up having to call her to let her know that the hose broke anyway. I now am searching for the Hoover Steam Vac Ultra hose (do you think I could find the part number ANYWHERE? NO!) It's model #F5872-900. Hoover.com is of no help.

Luckily I did get all the steam cleaning done AND the vacuum part isn't affected by the hose not working so at least I didn't destroy the entire machine. Ugh.

Kev and the animals are all currently locked in the bedroom until carpet, area rug and sofa are dry. All I can say is it's damn nice I got done with the sofa prior to it breaking...can you imagine a half done sofa?

Note to self, LISTEN TO THE INNER GUIDE, she knows, she knows.

you must know by now

How much I adore my dog. She's such a funny creature. She's sweet. She's a lover. She's a goofball. She's happy. She's crazed and insane. She's a pain in the ass. She's...MY pain in the ass.

This was taken last night when she was feeling exceptionally snuggly. Her tongue is warm. I love kisses from her, although not when I'm not expecting them. That would fall her into the PITA catagory. The stealthly walk by kisses...not so much. The "give me a kiss" or "can I have some sugar" kisses are all kinds of what I'm about.

I can hear it now, the "ewwwwww, dog kiss" comments. Until you know the love of a good dog, you'll never understand why I love my dog T H I S much!!!

I heart my Josie!

she came in!

So remember the girl Jen whose red shoes we were stretching? I posted if she was reading the words I was writing she should come pick up her shoes...

She came in. Sadly she couldn't find the link on Jen in KC's site, but that's okay because I showed her what I'd done and we got a huge laugh together. It was lovely to start my day with a wonderful gal and a giggle or two.

The very cool thing, we figured out we live in the same area and have swapped numbers so we can get together sometime and hang out. Man, this job is great. Not only does it feed the shoe addiction (the addiction it started mind you) BUT it has given me quite the group of really fabulous friends!

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that she got her shoes...cuz I sooooo know you were all losing sleep over it. Especially you Reggie and Russ!

my friday night...and then some

My friend Jenn and I got a surprise hang out night last night (Fri). It was so much fun! I also got a surprise in the mail from my dearest Tanya who is stuck in GradShitTownsVille, Illinois for Grad School. Jenn's house got me the loan of her in-law's steam cleaner (more on that later if I am feeling up to sharing). Tanya's surprise landed me with the most beautiful, hand knit, GORGEOUS scarf with the sweetest note of birthday greetings (so I opened the package a week early, she didn't say not to!!). I am nervous about the steam cleaner, not nervous, but annoyed we have to use it in the first place (again more later...we'll see). I am in love with the scarf that is the accessory I didn't know that I wanted but now that I have it in all it's gorgeousness I can't imagine not having it in my life!!! Don't you agree that Tanya is amazing and talented and her scarf ROCKS? Don't you adore friends like Jenn who loan you large equipment, AND the cleaners that go in that equipment, so you can have your sanity back (really, I'm getting to that in the next paragraphs)?

I was going to take a picture of the steam cleaner as well, but that is just an ugly reminder for myself why we needed to borrow it in the first place. Okay, Mom, get ready because this story, she ain't pretty...

While I was gone in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago (man, it's been that long?!) Josie decided that instead of holding her bladder (I know you see where this is going but I will continue) she would go in a small spot on the new carpet in the cave. Since my darling husband has a fairly weak sense of smell he didn't smell it upon arriving home. No, there was no visible wet spot as the color of the carpet we chose is perfect at hiding things like that. When I got home that Sunday night/Monday morning I instantly was smacked upside the head with an odor that was not pleasant.

"Josie peeped in the house."

"She did?"

"Yes, you can't smell that?!"

"No....(gets into the room I'm in)...awwww JOSIE!"

Now, we know that she really wouldn't have peeped inside if she was able to hold it. Kev's work day is much longer than mine and thus, she couldn't hold it any longer. He had been unable to get home to let her out, thus she couldn't hold it. Now she has that smell there to lure her into peeping again, and again, and again. We've bought Nature's Miracle (yes, the incorrect apostrophe is their typo, not mine) and sprayed the hell out of the spot. It worked for a couple of days but then yesterday when I got home...peep.

Jenn told me she'd get the steam cleaner and let me use it first (I am smitten with my friend, not because of the steam cleaner but because she's an amazing woman who makes me laugh out loud...often!). So tomorrow morning I will get up and after me crash course in steam cleaning 101 I will set out to clean the wall to wall carpet, the area rug in the living room and the sofa in the living room as well (neither of the last two things are peep stinky, but just a bit off in their own right and need some attention).

why?

Why do people come in, ask for something and when I show them what I have they say, "Oh, that's not really what I had in mind. I had something more like that (pointing) in mind." So when I remember HEY that comes in that size now and produce said item they come up with all kinds of reasons why it wouldn't work. I understand the first item not being what they were looking for, but the second, the one they pointed out, why?!?!

Just curious...

you are so jealous, i know!

Erin Brockovich. She wears a size 8 shoe! And I just sold her two pairs for herself and one pair for her friend. ROCK ON! She handed me her card. I took a look at the name and said, "I thought that was who you are..." She smiled and said, "Yep, it's me!" Then when I went to look at the signature on the back of the card it was absent and I proceeded to joke that even though I knew who she was would she like to show me proof. She laughed and she showed me her drivers license. We spoke of writing "ask for ID" on our cards, etc. They are in town for some event, but even though I'm nosy I didn't ask what event...

Erin Freaking Brockovich!!! She's an amazing woman. And I sold her shoes!!!

happiness is

A warm pair of socks fresh out of the dryer when your feet are ice cold.

with no fat cat on my head

I woke this morning right at 7:00. I think part of me was surprised because I didn't have the warm, fat, orange cat trampling across my head like normal. I didn't have to pee. I didn't have an alarm accidentally set. I just simply woke up. My favorite way to wake. :)

The animals were all kinds of excited that they were actually getting breakfast at their regular feeding time instead of an hour or so late. I was excited about getting to get up and give myself a manicure (I know, I'd just gotten one last week in LA, but they were just too long...words I never thought I'd write or say about nails growing on my hands...I digress). I was excited because the house was quiet and all mine. I fed the crew, let Josie out and then told her to go back to bed. She did. Every so often she would come visit me, but then she'd go back to her warm fleece lined bed and snooze more. Now there is the faint hum of the washer as it runs through it's rinse cycle and the smell of the heater as it turns on for the very first time of the year. Winter is coming.

Today I was supposed to meet with Naomi, the tattoo artist whom I'm having work on my leg. She called yesterday not sounding like she felt all that well and asked if we could postpone the meeting as she'd been fighting the flu all week. I told her to call me when she felt better. Myself, having just gotten over either a really bad cold or a sinus infection, didn't feel like getting the flu. So I am now waiting for 12:00 to roll around. You see today is the benefit for Mercy Corps at the Yoga Shala. Diana has no idea we are going to join her class at 1:00. I am very happy to get to see her today. A perk for my weekend really.

Diana is possibly one of the most beautiful people I've met since living here in Portland. She's an amazing spirit. She is calming. She is energizing. She kicks my butt... :) Before Jill and I "stumbled" into her class in January I really had no idea what was going to become of me and yoga. I think I thought it would be something that I'd do for a little while, get bored, move on (like so many of the things I do, sadly). But it's become more for me. A way of life really. I find myself in situations where I would have at one point gotten quite upset and frustrated but now instead I listen and take in everything before reacting. I try to see things from every point of view before I say or do anything. It has allowed me to become more proactive in my life.

For this, I thank Diana.

odd, i know

Jen, the girl who dropped off a pair of ruby shoes to have them stretched...if you are reading this, your shoes are ready (and will be downtown by tomorrow, the 1st of October). My boss said our repair guy couldn't find the ticket once he got them done. Since I gave you the addresses of PlazaJen as well as Mir at Woulda Coulda Shoulda and told you that Jen had linked me...off chance you'll have actually followed the pathes to me, but you never known.

Okay, if you read this I'll see you in the next day or two. If you don't and you happen in, I'll share this post with you so we can get a hearty laugh out of it.

Cheers!

published writer? doubt it.

I will probably never be a published writer, and I'm okay with that. I enjoy writing here because so many of our friends and family (and now a few people who've found me via the blog whom I don't know, but really want to have lunch with if I'm ever in their necks of the woods-Jen and Bek) where was I? Oh yes, our friends and family have told me they enjoy being able to know what is going on in our life (or would that be lives?).

Not much. Kev is working. I am working. The sinus gnomes have beaten down the mucous gnomes in a battle royale. The cats are fat and sassy. The dog is lean and crazy. The rains are here today, we'll see what tomorrow brings.

I have been continuing down the road of yoga and feel myself drawn in even further. Our class was on Tuesday this week, and was the prime reason the mucous gnomes came out from hiding as early as they did. There is nothing like a little down dog to get things a flowing! Diana handed us a flyer for a Mercy Corps Benefit this weekend at the Yoga Shala. She will be teaching a 50 minute class called "soul vinyasa" that Jill, Shannon and myself will attend. We've not told her we are going to come. We'd like to surprise her. The money will be heading to the south to aide those in need after the hurricanes ravaged their neck of the woods. I'm just excited about getting out into a studio and showing off. :) Diana has been really pushing us hard and it feels great.

Like I said, I'm never going to get published, nor will I win any major awards for my writing.

everyone together....awwwww

This is my cute dog. Her name is Josie. She is approximately 4 years old. She is a black lab mix (I think she's mixed with either cat, doberman, or squirrel). We adopted her almost two years ago (the day after Thanksgiving of 2003).

She's a cutie, but don't let her cuteness fool you. She's insane. Take, for instance, when I came into the cave to putz around on the computer this evening. She'd been lying with her pig stick on the ground, guarding it from everyone. She got up and started wagging her tail, she turned her body towards me and as she did she whacked herself in her face with, you guessed it, her own tail. She didn't stop wagging, nor did she change the orientation of her body. She just sat there and wagging her tail and smacking her face, simply because I was coming into the room.

I love my dog Josie.

friends are goooo-ood

Lotion-ized Kleenex. My friend Jenn (not to be confused with Jen) brought a box in today for me. I called her last night to let her know that I wouldn't be making it tonight to her Alias season premire party. She thought I sounded like death and brought me facial tissues. I had told her I used almost a whole roll of toilet paper at work yesterday. Today, I have real, made for your nose, honest-to-goodnes, KLEENEX! Thanks Jenn! ;)

sinus gnomes attack

Thanks to Jen I have remembered what she calls the evil beings that unleash their evil (yeah, I can't think straight right now) on your world. Gnomes. My sinus gnomes and my mucous gnomes have gotten together and are throwing the biggest party in my head. I hate them. They are evil. They have made me want to blow my brains out through my nose...at least that is what it feels like I am trying to do each time I blow my nose. And those gnomes have made me want to sleep. Just sleep. I'm getting to go in a couple of hours late today and I did go to bed at 8:30 last night, but there is a difference between going to bed and falling asleep. Falling asleep didn't happen all that easily last night. I even took some Tylenol Sinus night time. I called my boss and asked if he could open and let me try to get more sleep. Sadly the more sleep didn't work and I just ended up eating breakfast and sitting still, when not blowing those damn gnomes out of my head...

Saturday and Sunday

sisters
Originally uploaded by chlortence.

Shall we see if Flickr and Blogger will work hand in hand now? It seems as though they will...

So last I left off we were heading into Saturday. We got up when we felt like it (so nice to be able to do) and went on a long walk with Oscar. He had a ball on the beach (until we read the sign that said NO DOGS ON BEACH). OOps. :) He was pretty tired, as we were, when we got back to the house (which btw is fabulous!!). We ate a little breakfast because we'd both realized we were so excited about getting our day started that we failed to eat anything prior to our hour and a half walk. We decided to go walk around the promenade and shop a little. I got a great book called The Alphabet Sisters. CRY CRY CRY!!! I scored a top at Urban Outfitters. Was on sale...$5.51! We then zipped home after an afternoon of shopping and lunch and decided to not go to yoga (I may have mentioned that in a brief post earlier). We went out to a bar not far from their house, or their favorite sushi joint. After we listened to a really bad bar band-we dubbed them Creediohead (and playing bar band bingo where you list all the bands they could possibly cover) we headed over to sushi. Amazing. I can see why it is their favorite place to go. We wandered home (which is when the photo came from) and hung out a little before heading to bed.

Sunday we slept in later and then had to go to her office to gather some posters we were going to give away at the Abbott-Kinney street fair. We worked a booth for a couple of hours selling politically charged tee shirts. It was a lot of fun. We met David out for lunch before heading for our stint at the booth. I bought Kev a "Vote for Pedro" tee shirt. I got myself some stationary. We headed back to the booth. We hung there for the two hours we'd said we would work and then went home to Julianne's so I could finish packing and head to the airport. It was a long ride home to Portland, but I am so glad that I could go. I had a great time and look forward to when Kev and I can go there together so he can see where they live. Right on the canals of Venice beach. Beautiful!

So now I'm home and it's Tuesday (yesterday we got up with just minutes to spare before we had to go to our dentist appts). I'm at work and it's going rather slowly, although at the same time it's already halfway done. Tonight I have yoga and will have to see how my sinuses will deal with it. I had been feeling a bit nasal before heading down and it just got worse being on the plane. I hate plane air!

tennis anyone?

Okay, tried to post something via Flickr last night but it ended up only loading the photo. Here is Oscar. The cutest boy dog in my life! I can not get enough of him really.

So, my weekend:

Friday- I arrive a bit later than scheduled because the original flight had me arriving in San Francisco 40 minutes AFTER my flight to LA took off. So yeah, in at 9:30 but the plane I was trying to catch left at 8:50...you do the math. So I got on a direct flight from Portland to LA...oh yeah!.

I get in and call Julianne. She is on her way and is only minutes from the airport. I jump in the car, she is squeals and tells me how great I look (remember, she hasn't seen me but has heard of the "hot new bod" as she has taken to calling it). And then she drops the "bombshell" on me. "Trina Turk's outlet is only open today...not Saturday like we'd planned, do you want to go there now?" How fast can we get there? :) I found the most amazing pants there for...wait for it...$20!!! Yes, that is correct. Pants that would have been $125-150 at Nordstroms. So after Trina we head to her house to drop my things off, let me change shoes and we head to Abbott-Kinney (a street that has great shops that's not far from her house). We go to our nail appointment, where I proceed to have my girl take off the polish she just put on (rather poorly) and put on a different shade that is just a sheer, almost clear, polish. I felt a little guilty, but honestly wasn't impressed by the first color and decided I was going to be happy.

After nails we went to Rocca for dinner. David didn't join us, he had plans to go off and just be a guy's guy and go eat sushi. Julianne and I had a great time together and after eating went back to their place to hang with Oscar and David (when he got home from his night out with his friend). We played pinball on the Xbox and I went to bed around midnight.

That's it for now. Will get Saturday and Sunday written about later...

deviation

It's okay to allow yourself NOT to do something. Before I came down here to visit my sister (yes, I've got one more day and I leave tonight), anyway, before I came down here we had all kinds of plans. We are planning girls. We get this from our mother. Yesterday we were walking around the Promanad and feeling a bit out of it and not really feeling like yoga, rather I was feeling like something to eat and you just don't do yoga with food in your stomach...oh the inversions...We made the grand choice of NOT going to yoga. Julianne chose the words "blow off" I chose "we consciously made the choice not to go and that is fine." Yeah, we pretty much blew it off.

I've been having a blast. Right when I landed we made the decision to go to the Trina Turk outlet...droooool. I found an amazing, make me feel like a million bucks, pair of black pants for...$20!!! They would have been around $125-140 regular retail. I also found an amazing brown and white striped 3/4 sleeved shirt. Hard to describe, fabulous to wear!

We did go eat sushi last night at their favorite place, which yes, you can walk to. We walked in and everyone working knew Julianne and made a big deal asking, "Where's David? Is he joining you?" Since David's weekend plans were all kinds of fouled up he's been kind of out of it and not wanting to elbow into our weekend. I have already told him that him being here is an extra perk for me because it's been 2 years since I saw him last and honestly, between you, me and the lamp post, I adore him. He's such a great person and is the perfect balance for my sister.

Okay, going to go make a fresh pot of coffee and scratch on Oscar (yeah, there will be a post about him in the near future...pictures and all...just pray that right now, this very second as I publish....too late, he just farted). Mmmmm, dog farts (save me, I'm dying).

girls weekend?

Well, I just got an email from my sister (I assume she wrote it last night) saying that her boyfriend, David, will not be going to Austin, Texas for the Austin City Limits music festival. From what she told me FEMA has taken control of the hotels in Austin to evacuate people from Houston to them. Hence, David is staying home and girls weekend has become a weekend for me to go visit my sister and her boyfriend. She has said the only things that will change is he will be joining us for meals. This, I like. He is such a great person and I'm glad to get to spend time with him. It's been way too long since I've gotten to see him. Not that a weekend soley with my sister wouldn't have been enjoyed, but it will be nice to get to see David too.

However, it also means I either get the sofa or the aerobed. Not sure about which one to take...

i feel a list coming on...

I am almost completely packed. I have washed a few things that will be thrown into my bag tomorrow night. I'm ready to go! I have a few loose ends to tie up at work tomorrow and then I'm ready for my weekend in LA to begin.

Josie keeps giving me her big sad eyes and Simon has begun investigating my duffel bag. Chloe is the only one who is giving me the time of day this evening. Kev gave me crap about taking the duffel bag instead of the wheeled carry on, but honestly, I don't need that much room! I'm not going for a week...what that man was thinking, I'll never know.

I just have to load up some music onto my MP3 player (although I'm going to see if Kev can show me how to compress it more so I can have more music on the thing...as it is in MP3 form, I can only get about 2 cds worth and that just ain't going to cut it). I have to have Kev unload some small videos he shot while out with his buddies...maybe while at Ween, I'm not sure though. The camera is charged and ready to go though. Tomorrow I will charge my phone overnight so it'll be ready too. Then I just have to pack the toiletries.

Can you tell I'm getting a bit excited? Perhaps, just a wee bit? I guess I should probably pick up some cash too tomorrow. The things to remember. Where's some paper, I'm feeling the need to make a list.

uh...yeah

How odd is it that I have found out that Jeremy and his wife were wed on my birthday? I haven't shared this information with him...some things are better left unsaid. Still, interesting.