The rumors were true!

Math is hard.

It has been so MANY years since I've had to calculate anything. So, now instead of just struggling with regression, I'm also struggling solving equations. I swear this has been said a million times, but when am I going to use this?
Will I really need to transpose a matrix in my daily life?

(...not transpose THE Matrix, silly. That would be impossible.)

We love and hate the patio...

...As we love and hate ourselves.

As mentioned, we moved approximately 13 butt-tonnes of material to make this shiznit happen. We had this long list of to-dos that precursed the actual construction of the patio:
clean the garage (once and for all),
get fences put in, get trees taken down,
push Stilgar into the garage so we could stack up 3 butt-tones of Pennsylvania Irregular Bluestone (what is this mysterious blue stone? it's not slate...) that we'd scattered around the yard years before.
All this in preparation, before we'd even begun the digging of the mudpit.

(note, this magazine article is not related to patios. It is about drywalling, which is an even stupider pastime.)

The long list of precursing ended with the item "GET HELP!" in caps, followed by an exclamation point.

Yet did we?
No, for we are glorious asses. What were we thinking? We are nincompoops and do things like throw our 13-year-old kitties onto gravel piles hoping for a funny picture and feeling bad afterwards.


Again...asses.


Let me amend - we are assish idiots. Do you have any idea how much some of these larger stones weigh? Much. Much, much too much to be arranging in neat patterns - picking up, putting down, flipping them, and then picking them up and putting them back in the pile.

We made a last minute decision to go with our original plan that included a firepit. Let me be clear: we love this firepit...it was the easiest, cheapest thing we've ever done to the house and we lurve it with all our ass hearts. We recommend firepits to anyone who enjoys fire. If you're human, that's probably you.


Yes, we have open flame close to scattered straw. Don't judge us.

These pictures don't do it justice. Having a stone patio has more than doubled our outside living space - yes, there's the lawn, but that's mostly dog poop and mosquitos. And it's just so pretty. When we're home and chillaxed, we sit on the deck, sip our coffee, and grin foolishly at our work. It is good.

Shanukah 2008, or "How I Spent My Economic Stimulus Check"

Sigh...It was possibly the most lovely Shanukah yet: old friends, new friends, and beautiful creatures overnighted from Nova Scotia.



We had perfect weather, perfect company...and the second most fantastic cake ever:

(yes, that is a lobster in a party hat)

My fat-fat arms

I love my arms, but lately, they've been growing.

Admittedly, I've upped my swimming quite dramatically. And I'm lifting a lot more these days...and suddenly, I can't fit into things that I've worn my whole life.

Yes. I did say that - I have two pieces of summer clothing that have been treasured staples in my wardrobe since my late teens when I stole them from my parents: a purple Dashiki (made by my mom for my dad), and a red sheath dress (made for my mom by her mom). I think each of these items is older than I am (which is now 34, by the way), especially since I think my grandma made the dress for my mom when she was pregnant with me or Jess.

So, these two things have fit me through thick and thin, on and off, for almost 20 years...and suddenly, they're binding on my massive biceps. Seriously, I am built (And thank goodness for that - we just finished a stone patio and realized that over the course of it, we moved about 13 tons of soil, stone, and gravel).



Goodness, they look larger in a photo. Man, I scare myself.

Home on the ...

We spent most of my birthday evening handling sidearms.
This was new for me - I'm a long-gun kinda girl (I do love my Winchester "older boy's" rifle).

Handguns freak me the hell out.






I was all brave and stepped up to fire a 9mm Glock.
I was all proud until Lisa calmly shot Alexis's 357 Magnum revolver (which I will not touch).




Two stalls down, someone was shooting a 45. The boom on those things...makes me jump out of my skin. As we were leaving, I showed Lisa the giant shells - "next time," she said, "we'll take out that one!"

Oh no, not me baby - that shit is cra-zazy.

Visual puzzle!

I pulled this out of the compost pile yesterday. I am ridiculously proud and think it's totally neato.

But what is it?
I think it looks a bit like a set of prayer flags.


This is one of the "flags" - what does it look like?


And this?




Answer: it's all the polyester parts of a pair of J. Crew cotton chinos. Everything else just rotted right out of it - including the cotton fabric from each beltloop.

I have compost fu!