Argh! Two More Months Of Life Slipped On By
And it’s summer again. Almost. We are still undecided here in the Midwest. But the calendar says June 14. And the temps don’t lie. Well, they do, but we ignore that flaw because we love it so. I don’t want to bog this day down with a lot of past dwelling so let me update fast and we can carry on from this moment. I’m only hitting the highlights, so to speak, and moving on. First, the darkness.
Death has touched ground too much this year and I have had 6 opportunities to say goodbye to some lovely family and friends in the last 6 months. That’s really all I’m going to post about it. No disrespect to anyone, but I can’t trust my wordiness, and I don’t like carrying a heavy heart very far. All were loved, and all will be missed.
On a lighter note, I have a new vehicle! If you have visited here before you may know that I kind of loved my Maxima.
In a comfy, stable, but still kind of fast and sexy, way. Well, 200,000 thousand miles just wasn’t in the cards for the old girl and she decided to give me a random Wednesday off of work when she pooped out in the middle of the road while I was driving her in to the job. Too much to fix this time and we had to let her go. Cursed and blessed. Because I found my dream machine. Catch me I’m falling, swooning and flushing, batting my eyelashes, getting all hot and sweaty, because I am in love love love with this mere automobile. Meet my new main squeeze, the 2012 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. Used, but so sweet, and only 18000 miles.
Isn’t she beautiful? I hesitated at the edge for a split second and then jumped in anyway to the Jeep pool. The dealer said I would love it. He was right right right. I have been driving it for a month and it feels like it has been mine forever. When I walk out of work and see it in the parking lot, my heart skips a little beat, I swear. Typed, that looks, and sounds, sad, I realize, but I don’t care. My heart for a Jeep.
I still waste entirely too much time playing these stupid stupid phone games that I get absolutely nothing for in the real world except satisfaction of reaching the maximum level possible and the knowledge that I did not spend even ONE cent of my own money to get here. Level 70. Tiny Village. You kill me. But I love you so. I have a job. I have money to pay my bills. I’m fairly healthy with a birthday coming up that I’m not exactly jumping for joy about, but I’m alive right? I lost 10 pounds since I saw my doc in April! That alone makes me happy. My clothes fit! And my B/P is going down number by number with each little weight loss. My skin still turns into kind of a mess every few weeks but these are the things we live with. Stay out of the sun, don’t drink alcohol, (don’t drink a lot of alcohol), eat as healthy as you can, exercise, get some sleep. That’s pretty much the whole trick of it.
The kids. The kids are out of school. Again. I have a Junior and a Sophomore now. 16 and 15. Both driving. Both taller than me. Both beautiful. And both not too shabby in the brains department. Healthy and seemingly happy as of this moment. Also, spending the weekend with their dad. Father’s Day and all that. This is the first time I have been totally alone in this house, for a whole weekend, and overnight, for like, a million years. One. Million. Years. It. Is. Wonderful.
But Lisa, you say, don’t you have a boyfriend? Where is he? How can you be totally alone?
Well, let me enlighten. I still have a BF. He’s fine. He’s fabulous. He supports my crazy. And there’s no shortage of that around here. I always find the extra level. I’m blaming it on age. He’s younger (that’s right, that’s how we do it) so I have to blaze the trail. It’s hard, to be sure, but it’s less hard now; now that I got that Jeep! Woop. See what I just did? Turned it into a Jeep commercial. Shameless.
Anyway, the BF just left for another one of his motorcycle trips (hence the alone part) and this time I’m gonna document it. It’s a week long, and I won’t even say where. One, cause I don’t really know exactly, (East towards Pennsylvania and then South to Tennessee/Alabama/etc…I believe), and two, I don’t need to know because he’s going to take pictures every time he stops and I’m going to post them. We are all going on this journey together. Gather round and follow us down. I’ve been up since 5 am so I’m really proud of this day. And it’s only 3:30! I have a shit ton of work to catch up on but I think I can handle it with all this breathing room I have. Even if it is only 48 hours worth. The house is neat and quiet. Most of the laundry is done. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. The flowers are blooming. The air is fresh and clean. It’s like a damn country song over here. I even got a flag in the window. And a Jeep in the driveway. And the boy’s GMC out in the front. If I had a lake in the backyard to skip a stone on, I’d really have it all. Well, ain’t that America? I will do my best to share what the BF sends back to me every day. It’ll be a small vacation for all of us. For free. Let’s go!
Park Forest, Illinois. 6 am. Packing and getting ready. He’s driving alone today. Meeting the rest of the traveler’s in PA later tonight.
Plymouth, Indiana. 7:30 am. Gas, water, food stop. Since there is no picture sent with the message I’ll just use this here map to kind of show the way. (Internet Map CREDIT: Map Of The United States by FreyFox. Thank you!) It’s silly, but it’s meant to be. It’s also a good map! Take a look all around, then look to the East. Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania.
Upper Sandusky, Ohio. 11:30 ish. Fun fact: All you can eat KFC! But it’s more than that! It’s a KFC, Long John Silvers, DQ, and a gas station. I’m at home eating leftover noodles with butter. I do like this picture though. It never seems like other states are as crowded as Illinois. Hmm. Pondering time.
Carrollton, Ohio. 2:30 pm. Not much to see. Let’s flip it around.
Well, it’s a gas station. I just thought I’d showcase the motorcycle since I was so bad about the last trip. The text received with the pic is: Back to the road…next stop will be destination. 3 more hours. I asked about time zones, but it was too late. You can’t keep these motorcycle people still for long. So that’s it for now. I will update as much as possible this week. Work will interfere but I have a late night ahead, to try and get ahead, and some days off in the near future. Maybe I will even get in some extra stuff. Birds and flowers and such. I got benches for the last three years. And some found money that I am about to lump into an all-inclusive-3 year total. I could potentially be up all night! Full moon too. You can stay with me if you like. Come and hang if you happen to be up. Leave a comment or just browse around.
And as a side note to the BF: You might not see this today or anytime soon, but be careful! Stay safe. I love you.
Watch for motorcycles! Later!
Please Please Please Can We Have 60 Degrees?
My flowers are so confused. First batch is already trying to bloom. They don’t know it’s still only 39 degrees. Lots of sun. No fun. And now we wait.
This Is Really The Last Picture Of The Famed Icicle
Mostly because it is totally gone. All of it. The icicle and the snow. We are back down to the sidewalk and rocks. I took this right before I left for work. By the time I got home, winter halftime melted almost everything around this majestic beauty. In Chicago, we get a few days every winter, smack dab in the middle, to remind us why we live here or don’t live here, or why we need to get our pneumonia and flu shots every fall. Temps go up, dumbasses walk around in summer clothes, and then can’t figure out why they are deathly ill the next day when the temp drops back into the teen range. Except that it only stays there for a few hours before going back up into the 50’s and raining like it’s springtime. Not raining like you might have. That’s baby rain. That’s amateur hour outside of the Illinois borders. But raining with thunder and lightning and 50 mph winds that are blowing the half melted icy snow across the road to cause some kind of watersleetsnowicefog mix that causes us all to crash into each other on the expressway. And then at night, just a touch more snow, like the icing on the cake. It’s actually more like vanilla powder on a cake that already has icing, flowers, writing, sprinkles, shavings and maybe some glitter. It’s overkill and we are not impressed. Only Indiana can rival us with snow weather. They get a lot. Mostly due to our strategic placement of Lake Michigan. Ha. Suckers. But their biggest problem this year, I hear, is something called “expansion joints.” Apparently they keep popping up in the middle of the roadway and causing a bunch of flat tires and accidents. It’s not funny at all. But it kind of is. How about you all do it like we do it in Illinois (and everywhere else) and just make the road in one long piece? Then all you have to worry about are the giant potholes that can swallow an entire Mini Cooper in one bite! Come on Indiana! Step it up and get all those flat tires the good old fashioned way. By driving into, and out of, a huge hole in the ground! In Illinois you get a 50/50 chance of coming out of it ok. Whereas in Indiana, I don’t think you have even a slim chance of not getting a flat, or worse, when the whole roadway separates into two, non-connected, pieces. It’s probably because our roads go through our state, not over it. Let’s bring it to the ground I-N.
Anyhoo, let me end here. I don’t want to start any wars. Winter blows all over this middle part of America. Every place around here has their own private hell. Sometimes you win, mostly you lose. So it’s a draw. I think I have one ugly pic of the front of the icicle and a blurry pic of the road that I drove home on the next day. (More snow. Can you believe it?) I’m not using them. I want to forget. I’ll just post some of the other random pictures from the camera and phone and call it a wrap for this wave of weather. It’s holding steady around 30-35 degrees. For 2 whole days now! A little melt. A little freeze. I don’t know why I stay here. Later.
Monday Was A Good Day
Two quick pics to keep this site interesting and I am going to get ready for work. Monday was a good day for my viewing numbers–Thank you all for following me!–and it was good for life in general. I felt very good and healthy. Very glad to be alive and thankful for life and family and a job that allows me to have days off during the week. Living the dream, for realz. Haha. Anyhoo, I also managed to accomplish most of my list goals, including shop for food for the fam for the rest of the week while I am at work, and laundry. Sort of. It’s not piled up on the floor, so it counts. I had a hawk in the backyard, first thing, yesterday morning, 7 AM. A hawk. Just sitting there, on the ground, under the bird feeder, scaring away every other species of wildlife in the area. No joke. Not one other animal-like creature, be it bird, squirrel, butterfly, chipmunk, rabbit, etc…, was in my yard the entire time the hawk sat there. And it was very quiet too. No sounds. Not even bugs and insects dare make a peep when the top-of-the-food-chain predator for our little suburb decides to pop a squat after a long night of hunting or whatever it was doing. Of course I got pictures. About 100. Wait until you see them! This is the enticing, hanging story line, that I am using to bring you back tomorrow. I have to sort the pics and pick out the non-blurry ones. And I truly do not have time. As usual, I am pushing my “wasting” time into my actual “need to go” time. If it’s a good night tonight at the old general store, I will post them later, if not, then in the AM when I crawl out of bed. This is the nice time of year for weather around here so everyone enjoy and I will be back. Later.
I’m Just Going To Start Posting All These Pictures Already.
Side of the garage. Number 1. I take a lot of pictures of the side of my garage for some reason. Usually it’s because of some shadow on it. And that’s the case here. I like the way it looks some mornings. So now I will share with you. Every picture I take of the garage coming soon. Every. Picture. I. Take.
Not to be left out, I also have pictures of my neighbor’s garage. That’s right. Shadows cast over there too. Lucky days ahead. I should rename today, “What? WOW! Wednesday’s Wuh-Rock!!” If you say that fast enough, it works. Wuh-really! If I was wuh-really trying to do something groundbreaking with this site, I could make these garage pic, like, an exclusive, for Wednesday only, thing. Hmmm. I don’t know. That’s putting a major time schedule on all this major creativity. You can’t schedule greatness so…I think I will keep it random, because then you will have to check every day to see if I am “WOWing” the internet. Suh-mart! Stay tuned.
One Whole Week Without Internet And This Was The Best I Could Come Up With
I know. But I am in a time crunch. Again. I had to work all weekend and now all week. But still, I need to waste some time here when I should be getting my uniform and showering. We really did not have internet. My kids were going crazy. No access to the public via the smart phones. At least not without using our GB’s. No XBox! That was the real tragedy for my son. Cut off from the gaming world forever! I could not pay bills or share all my random, excess thoughts and lame pictures. But after 3 visits from AT&T, it’s finally fixed. The inside guy came and determined it was the outside guys problem. Only because construction on one of our roads messed up the wiring that occurs half a mile away from your actual house. But only an outside guy can fix that. Then another inside guy has to come back and readjust all the little wires in your “inside” equipment box (which is actually outside bolted to your house) and finally get you running again because he didn’t connect all the stuff correctly the first time he was here. Human error all around. At least I got a 20 dollar discount/credit and it works good now, so whatever.
It’s been hot and cold and raining and sunny and windy in the last week. But yesterday was warm. 70-75 degrees. Today is even better. 80+. My little temp box says 84. Figures. I am bummed because I have to leave in 30 minutes and won’t get out of work until dark now. Boo hoo I know. All the daffodils are dead. All gone. They bloomed and now they are no more. Just green stalks where they used to be. I shall leave them as they are for awhile and then cut those down too. There’s the pic above. Below is the curtain hanging by the door as I went to go take the picture of the green leaves. I thought it looked kind of interesting. That’s all you get on a Tuesday. I’ll jump back in this posting game during the week as we go. Have a very wonderful day and enjoy some of that nice warm weather and sun if you can. Later.
View From the Sidewalk
Well I did it. I managed to get my butt up and out of the house two days in a row. Yesterday was the trail, I can post those next, but today was walking to the library and back. Three and a half miles. Walking briskly. In jeans and my winter coat. Took about an hour or so with library time. This is looking over the high school to the North. Clear blue nothing. My legs felt tight but I could have run if I wanted to. This day was a bit misleading. It looked nice. The temp said it was 50 degrees, but it felt cold and damp. And there was some small wind activity in certain directions that made it feel extra chill. And that sun was so bright I felt like I was dizzy. It’s just setting now but I swear it’s trying to go down as brilliantly as it possibly can. I just went to look at it in case I need to take a picture of another magnificent sunset and all I can see are black spots in my eyes. It’s too bright to even try to look at. My smart phone says “Sunny” and “48”. But it should really say “Extra Blindingly Photo Flash Sunny” and “Damp And Clammy 48”. But that’s probably too much information and could get confusing. As for the walking part, I was a sweaty mess when I got back home. My shirt was grossly soaked through. You could see the outline of my bra in the back. That’s another reason why I wear mostly black. Sweat doesn’t show. I am attributing my recent penchant for extra sweatiness (the last year or so) to the extra weightiness I have picked up in that same last year or so. I used to be a cool cucumber. Not anymore. I am a soggy pickle. There’s probably not more I can add after that so I’m going to end this right here. Later.
HOT DAMN!!
It is SIZZLING over here! 104 Degrees! Are you kidding me?? I cannot remember when it has been this hot. And it’s not just hot outside, it’s pretty damn smoking inside too.
I have been frantically answering questions in preparation for this big test you may have heard about, and I tend to get a little freaked out when I am not doing good, or good enough; but after a 200 question blitz this morning (and I guess this afternoon), I feel about 97% better that I have what it takes to finish this thing. So it’s break time for now. I have to eat and scrape the sweat and peeling skin off my body from the massive sunburn I gave myself last week when I brilliantly decided to go to the beach and bake for 5 hours without sunscreen. I know. So smart. So shamefully DUMB. At least I’ll be able to DX my own skin cancer. Not funny.
I’ll hit some review later tonight and get ready for another 200 Q’s tomorrow. I hope it’s HOT again! If you can’t go out you might as well stay in and study! Here’s a picture or two of the beach. It was nice. Started off clear as a bell then got cloudy. Super windy too that day. The riptides were giving my kids free entertainment.
Anyway…stay inside if you can, the sun is getting lower, but it’s still too hot to play. And if you have to go out, be careful, drink that water and avoid the angry, wild-eyed, super-sweaty people with mayhem on their minds. Later.
I want a refund!
One hundred degrees of blistering sunshine and heat stroke have been replaced by 70 degrees of overcast and drizzle. NOT that I am complaining. Too much.
My air conditioner is OFF. Money saved.
BF is at work. Rode his bike there because it’s so nice and dry today. Hmmm. I guess rain-riding experience is necessary. Still…
My kids are gone. They went to the beach. Again, because it was supposed to be nice and hot. They may or may not be in tornado conditions along the shores of Lake Michigan in Indiana. I don’t know. It’s probably not a good thing when you have to rely on Facebook for the status of your children. BUT, I do trust who they are with and it is just threat of rain right now. Apparently the super heat wave that rolled in down from the north last night and caused us all that trouble, swooped up all the hotness and carried it away to the east somewhere. Cause it sure ain’t here.
I, on the other hand, had many plans for this day of hot and alone. I did get up early. Check. I did shower, shave, hygiene, blah blah blah. Check. I did pay one bill. Check. I did do one load of laundry. Check. And this is where the happy story ends. I am at an impasse. I need to study, but I want to drink. I need to balance the checking account, but I want to drink. I need to finish the laundry, but…you get the idea. Just a little. Not drunk. Just for…fun? Because it is July 1, it’s Friday, and I have, truly, nothing to do today? I don’t need to drive anywhere. I wouldn’t anyway. And it’s not even hot! And that makes it all the better! Now I won’t get overly sweaty or tipsy too fast! Plus, I can still do that other stuff while drinking.
Then it’s settled. I am inviting my friend Jack over and we are going to BS thru the afternoon. Thank you sounding board/inner conscious/internet. However, I better get on that check book thing first. Numbers tend to go all loopy after a few hours of the sippy juice. Later.
Oops, wait, not raining now
Sky is trying to do that.
Yes, I am wondering too…when the H*LL did this become a weather blog?? Well, it’s easy, that’s for sure. I have other crap. Exciting crap! It’s just that this is fast.
Stay with me here. I will NOT say there won’t be anymore weather (I mean, c’mon, I have a rainbow picture! A Rain. Bow. And flowers and birds and stuff), but I’ll throw in some random things too. I have this big idea that there should be a theme. Something that flows. Linking one post to another. HA. I need to embrace the fact that my life and my brain are running on several different tracks, and they don’t really go to the same places. The theme is that there is no theme. Random shots. Random thoughts. The only common thread is that they will all be here on this site! Happy Thursday!
just shy of pretty 