it's not lady-scented!

 I saw this commercial last night for the first time - I almost fell off the couch laughing.  Then I had to rewind it and watch it multiple times in a row.  I'm not into Old Spice and I don't have a man to buy the body wash for, but I feel like I want to buy a bottle just because this commercial is so awesome.

peanut butter jelly time

peanut butter jelly time, originally uploaded by dorisaurus.

Does anyone else still enjoy seeing how long they can preserve part of the smooth surface of a peanut butter jar? I've done it since I was about five years old and I'll do it when I'm 95. As you can see, 3/4 of the jar has been excavated to the bottom. I'm going to have to start scooping up from the bottom up and that last ledge of smoothness is going to collapse soon.

This is one thing you can't do with those all-natural nut butters!

Coffee. Colorful. Hot.

Wed, 24 Feb, originally uploaded by dorisaurus.

Two posts in one day? Un-possible! That's what happens when lazy blogging is made even easier by being able upload things straight from my iphone and blogging straight from flickr without having to cut and paste links and resizing.

If it was a secret before, it's not now that I'm highly attracted to colorful glowing things. Wave them front of me and I'm like ooooh, shiny. This coffee dispenser was recently put into the building across the way as a way of apologizing for the closure of the coffee kiosk outside our building since last summer. Poor substitute, but I'm highly amused by the futuristic lights/shiny/steam as if my coffee is being beamed in from a faraway (and mediocre) cafe.

Yes, I am easily amused. :D

Missing paradise...

IMG_3869
Originally uploaded by dorisaurus

Whenever I have a crappy day, I like to look back on my vacation photos and remember how great it was! I'm not having a crappy day right at the moment, but I'm feeling kinda stressed and a lot tired. Life was pretty perfect at the moment when this picture was taken.

Testing out this Flickr link/blog thing.  Kinda nice! pictures make blogs look busier.

I can has security, plz

"I feel like I'm at the bottom of a huge hill...mountain.. Small steps, vitamin D. You ran a marathon starting from not being able to run 1 mile. You can do it!"

 

This is the mantra I'm adopting today.  What's been going on in my life?

It's been a busy month for me...in that brain stewing way.  I have to move again in a few months, and if you look back only a few entries, you can see that in fact, I only just moved a few months ago.  This is a situation I'm getting horrifically tired of, because at heart I'm a nester.  I like having my home be my home, and for the last year the solidity of that home has been in question for various reasons that were out of my control.  When I was first studying landscape architecture, I read a bunch of essays about house/home psychology - like how pregnant women sometimes have this compulsive need to clean and do house things (makes sense, right?), and how the home is an extension of your personality (also makes sense to me.)  Maybe that explains some things about my state of mind over the last year, constant looming threat of being laid off besides.

I for one am freaking tired of having to move all the time.

So all that leads to some brain churning, and talking to my parents about what I'm going to do.  The end solution is, I'm going to move home with my parents to save for my own place.  And, since I've never been good about saving money, I'm starting from an embarrassingly close-to-the-beginning stage.

Woo.  Staring down the idea of saving tens of thousands of dollars is really depressing.  Trying to save that money, living with the parents again, dealing with a commute that hurt my back? (It's probably about an hour of driving in traffic each way.)  This is going to take some (a lot) of time, and a lot of discipline.  My income is pretty modest, VERY VERY modest for the area I live in.  Right now I'm getting really depressed because it seems impossible.  Seems like I'll have to sacrifice a lot in terms of lifestyle (i.e. going out to have fun.  Living with my parents again.  Being "independent".)  Seems like it'll never happen.  Last time I lived with my parents some pretty crappy things happened to me psychologically.  I'd go so far as to say I was mentally unhealthy.

In trying not to dwell on the negative, here's some positive things to remember, and that will keep me inspired along the way.

1. This is an investment in my future.  Invest now, reap the benefits later. 
2. Living with parents means more time to read.  More time to do some creative writing. Home cooked meals, space to garden, running trail so close.  That novel and that graphic novel will get so much work done on them! 
3. My main activities now in the evenings anyway are training for triathlons and marathons, dance, and soon woodworking classes - not partying, hehehe.  I don't EVEN go out late anymore.
4. Eye on the prize.

Most importantly on the seeming impossibility of it all - a few years ago I couldn't run a MILE.  I hated running.  I swore I'd never run if I didn't have to.  Then I started to train, I forced myself to, I cried, I thought I'd quit, but last year I ran a full marathon, 26 POINT 2 miles, thank you. If I could do that, I can do anything!