Monday, June 29, 2009

She's so lucky

I used to be one of those people who said "I never win anything." I have no way of really proving that cause I never kept records of raffles or drawings or contests that I've entered and not won. But I did feel that way. Well not anymore.

Back in February I won a photo title contest at The Pioneer Woman. Here's the post with my name in bold! "Calf au Lait" how freakin clever is that? I was so proud of myself I could barely stand it. And the prize was great, $300 at Target.com. I got a yoga mat, throw pillows for the couch, a new comforter, some pyrex bakeware, and a microwave. It ruled.

And this morning I just got an email from Bossy saying I won a pound of coffee! I'm afraid it will be whole bean, which means I'll have to buy a grinder, which means that it's a shame I didn't get one with my $300 at Target.com. But I don't care, I love coffee.

In any case, I'm starting to feel a bit embarrassed by my good fortune. And now that I'm thinking of it, back around Thanksgiving I won (well the table pooled our tickets and put me in charge of organizing them, and then I made my friend take the prize because I still lived out in the boonies with my folks and didn't want to drunk drive) a week of free beer at Mario's Fishbowl. And last summer Aaron gave me extra raffle tickets at a fundraiser and I won a gift certificate to Black Bear Burritos which is maybe my favorite place in Morgantown. (And this was even before we started dating. Awwww.)

And gosh, I even won a pair of basketball tickets at Working Women's Wednesday back in January. Shoot, I feel really greedy for even entering the coffee giveaway. Well if you're reading this and you want a free pound of coffee, just be the first to comment here and I'll send it to you!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

The Good, The Bat, and The Ugly

The Good: I managed to miraculously end up with a bra, sweatshirt, and yoga pants in the completely random fistful of clothing I grabbed in the dark.

The Bad: I grabbed this fistful of clothing because at approximately 4:00 am on Friday morning, I awoke to a fucking BAT flying around my bedroom. Sorry for the swearing (well, no I'm not really or else I wouldn't have typed it) but that's the only adjective that feels honest. It took me about 5 seconds to realize that I had to get the hell out of the apartment and also that I needed to put something on over my sleeping outfit.**

The Ugly: After hiding out at my parents' house till a more appropriate time in the morning, my dad and I met my landlord back at my place to try and get rid of the intruder. I stood outside and waited and waited. They searched the whole place and freaked out the cats until my dad had to leave for work. I went back inside and listened to my landlord try to convince me that it must have left through the open window he found. But I made him check the closet one more time. And of course, right in front of my eyes, as soon as he opened the door it flew right out. I immediately dropped down into a little ball on the floor, covered my head and started shrieking. He calmly suggested I leave, which I managed to do, and by the time I made it down to the sidewalk, I heard three sharp whacks of the broom. A minute later he walked out with a little box, shook it to demonstrate that there was a dead bat body inside, and tossed it in the trash.

I'm still not entirely over it. Naturally I took the day off of work.

**ETA: When I say "sleeping outfit" what I mean is birthday suit.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Weekend Wrap-up

Boyfriend went out of town to see a Phish concert and while he was away, I had a really nice weekend. Between taking him to the airport and picking him up from the airport I:

- Finished catching up with Lost. Good golly, it feels good to be done, not that I didn't enjoy watching it. Pumped for season 6!

-Watched all of Weeds season 4, just in time to watch the season premiere tonight! (In just one hour from now!)

-Finished dishcloth 4 of 4 for an upcoming present (for someone who definitely does not read this blog but I'm still going to keep it at least slightly secret here). This one I did while watching all that tv I just mentioned.

-Went to the local farmer's market! Bought apple butter, honey, goat cheese (chevre), and a bag of salad. Persevered through washing the salad despite finding an inch worm, slug, green flying thing (aphid?), endless little tiny black flying things, and a lady bug. I felt bad about squashing the lady bug, but it had to be done. I also petted a bunch of handspun yarn, but alas, it's too pricey for my budget and too scratchy to be any of the projects that I have in mind right now.

-Went bowling and did not too badly.

-Did a little yoga, thanks to this site. It kicked my ass a little, I really haven't worked out at all since February (and I wasn't that consistent about it before then either). I'm sore.

-Slept a lot. Which is particularly good because I really haven't followed up much on my previous intentions to sleep more.

-Made some art! A moonscape in pastels on canvas. Pastels feel a bit like glorified crayons with my skill level, and that's kind of what it winds up looking like, but I really enjoy this one and I'm going to hang it over my bed. And hopefully post a picture here too.

It was a good weekend. I missed Aaron but it was really satisfying to do so much that was all about me. =)

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Not worth it

This post is about an ugly plant that the former resident of my apartment left behind. Here it is:


It's not only a bad picture, it's just an ugly plant. But I initially felt happy about having a plant in my new place. Plants are good. So I watered it and it grew a little and I felt nice. But here's what I know is true about me: I'm not that inclined towards growing plants. I forget to water them and I don't like the dirt.


So I would water it, then forget, it would get wilty and sad looking, so I'd water it again and it would perk up and that would make me feel good, but then I'd forget to water it again for a while. One day it dawned on me that I didn't particularly like the plant in the first place and since I clearly wasn't motivated enough to give it what it needed, it was only draining me to continue caring for it. So I put it out with the trash.


Goodbye ugly little plant. I hope you decompose in peace and go on to serve a better purpose than annoying me from the windowsill.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

I don't go to church

I've been a delinquent little blogger... I want to post more pictures but it feels like when I get home to my laptop where all the pictures live, I don't want to be doing anything on the computer anymore. So here I am, blogging at work again without any pictures.

The other reason I haven't blogged in a bit is that the things I'm thinking of blogging about are kind of tricky and I'm not sure how to get them out to the best effect. But I'm going to try to open the door on one of those things now anyway. So here we go.

I was showing an acquaintance some pictures from a friend's recent wedding and there was a picture of me and another friend's daughter. I really like this little girl, she's super awesome. So I said to my acquaintance viewing the picture with me, "Ya know, if I knew that mine would come out like her, I'd be way more inclined towards the idea of having kids." By which I essentially meant, I'm not particularly fond of hanging out with kids these days, but this one here is really neat and I like her.

My acquaintance however, took it another way and responded by saying, "Well you can pray about it and the Lord will give you the desires of your heart."

Well hmm. That's not exactly what I was expecting to hear. I certainly didn't mean to imply that I secretly had baby fever but I was just nervous about how my kid would turn out, which is how she seemed to interpret it. So I just disregarded the statement and moved straight ahead to the next picture.

I'm not sure exactly how this happens, but it does from time to time. People I've met since moving back to WV eventually discover that I used to work for a church, a church where I was an active member for a time as well. Now, when this information comes out I try to emphasize that I don't do that anymore. As in, I don't go to church, I don't read the Bible, I don't pray in Jesus's name, and I currently have no desire to recommence any of those activities. I have a lot of good reasons for that and if you want to get to know me better you'll eventually hear about it I'm sure. With certain people though, the second half of that doesn't seem to sink in. They only hear that I was part of church where I used to live. I guess they assume that I just haven't mentioned what church I go to now, or maybe I'm still looking for one I like.

It has definitely been a sticking point with my grandparents (as noted briefly here). And part of the problem is that I never know how to handle it when it comes up. When someone says something that implies that they think I'm into Jesus, how far do I go to correct them? And what if that's just how they're going to talk? Perhaps my acquaintance just suggests prayer to anyone. I don't know. It's not like she said anything inherently offensive. But it irks me, ya know?