connundrums.

have you ever tried to list something on craig's list? we do a lot of "craig's listing" and it sometimes can be the most frustrating part of the day. take last week for instance, i literally changed the password on craig's list 4 times. 4. absolutely ridiculous. then i just had to make a new account all together. just ludicrous if you ask me. today i had to reset the password again. i've now tried to list darwin's rover 6 times. finally i think i may have managed to make it work, but no guarantees. it says that it has posted, but then straight up doesn't show up in the listings. no idea. so, long story short, i give up. everything else i post shows up, just not the rover. i guess it's not ready to have a new home. if you have any thoughts on why this is happening, or why craig's list refuses to let me sign in, please let me know, because i have got nothing. zilch, nada, zero....

i did however get to drive keisha on friday. i rather love driving keisha. she is big, and big. people just get out of your way. the one downside is finding parking for that beast. she has a big ole rear end and it just not compact. you have to practically park in africa and walk a gajillion miles. but i love her so. mmm french fries. that's what she smells like. after the blue plume of smoke dissipates (not so much these days...), she smells like used veggie grease, so usually french fries. and it is awesome!

last night i won our friends royal rumble pool. i won a belt. i wore it to work today...i look like a child on christmas in the photo, but i don't care because i won a belt that spins and is entirely too big!

spinning.

so today has been an eventful day for me. i'm in charge, added oil to the rover, been to the vet, been to the post office, paid bills, made a haircut appointment for praia, bought dog food, updated insurance, finagled quickbooks, been covered in sludge from keisha and changed a deadbolt. now if you had to guess which one of these was the most difficult, which would you say? i would have put money on the vet being the most difficult part of my day. wrong.

the deadbolt proved to be the most difficult thing that i would encounter today. literally a chimpanzee can change a deadbolt. i had the entire thing torn apart in approximately 2 minutes. probably actually less than that. there are 4 screws that hold a deadbolt together. and i fought with 1 lousy screw for 25 minutes. 25. 2-5. ludicrous. it took 4 tools to get 1 screw out. terrible. 2 different screw drivers, a hammer and vice grips. i literally fought with the door. by the way if you are wondering, trying to use both hands and hold a door open is probably one of the more awkward maneuvers to perform. it is also not a very graceful, or girlie look. granted, i am not usually described as graceful or girlie; i do have the capacity to be both, but in this situation i needed to dig down and pretty much mount a metal door. one of my finer moments.

so that was my challenge for the day, besides finding the hidden hood release on the rover (another magical moment today). i am beginning to think that i have at least one a day. some are more trying than others, but today proved to test my limits. i am a competent girl, i use power tools, i use regular tools, i can drive a big F-350 through small spaces, but today tested me in the frustration scenario. but mission accomplished, we can move on to a new challenge. bring it.

work is a balancing act. well life is a balancing act. but sometimes, you've just got to spin.

mantras....

working for a small company has it pluses and minuses (i am sure working for multinational conglomerate corporation big malarky companies also does too, but this i know nothing about, and i personally do like to make assumptions; because that makes an ass out of you and 'mption - whoever that may be...). but anyway, everyone plays the plus minus game in life, it's all a matter of what you see as pluses and if you are willing to overlook a few minuses to stay ahead.

now that being said. this game can get tricky, because what may seem like a plus may turn out to be a HUGE minus, or vice versa, and completely throw off your ratio. you want everything to come up sunshine and roses, but it doesn't always work out the way you plan. you can plan and plan and plan, but something will inevitably throw a wrench into your well thought out plan. i like to tell darwin that i can plan for the best, but i do much better when i plan for the worst and hope for the best. going into situations knowing they may not end up perfectly, helps you remember to go with the flow and what is meant to be will be. everything happens for a reason and it will most decidedly work out in the end. however, the waiting game and the constant grinning do get old. i will be the first to admit that waiting is absolutely terrible and trying to find the reasoning behind things happening sucks, but i have come to learn to stop looking and start living.

it's part of my 2011 mantra. just let it be. it is january 21st and i have broken that mantra approximately 3 times already. that is a one a week mantra breaking. not exactly the best record, but old habits die hard, right? well mine do at least. if i have learned anything from the past, it's that i do not do well with knowing when to throw in the towel. i have to keep reminding myself that i haven't quit, i've just decided to take another route.

there are many pluses that come with my job...and also some minuses. 9 times out of 10 the pluses overshadow the minuses to the point where its almost as if they aren't even real. some days however (3 of them so far) the minuses come up and rear their ugly heads...i would like to say that i am an adult and can handle it with grace and poise, but that's just laughable. i am toddler. i freak out (on my own time, ahem, mostly on my own time). it's usually a 3 day funk period and then something funny happens and you remember that not everything has to be so serious....

let it be. happiness. bravery. fearless. stop looking and start living.

ciao.

freedom.

the day has finally arrived. i have been freed from the snowbound hell that i have been in for the past week. yes folks one whole week: 7 days, 268 hours, 10,800 minutes, 604,800 seconds...you get the picture. i have been released from my prison, but my poor car is still iced in. baby steps, baby steps. but for now, i feel like i have gained a small victory after being imprisoned in my own home.

i did however enjoy a lovely stroll (ice skating session) with the dogs yesterday. i was actually stopped whilst walking them and told that i was brave to be walking 2 dogs on the ice. fair, but he didn't understand my vitamin d deficiency or my lack of caring anymore, because i could finally go outside using the sketchy steps on the side of my house (the driveway just ain't happening.)

speaking of sketchy; one of my favorite things about working in the ghetto, not the deep dark ghetto (that does border us, but we are not "exactly" in that area...close, but not quite), is being the token white people. now with white guys, it's not that big of a deal, but a little white girl in the ghetto is something of a sight. take for instance, getting gas. there are lots of awkward stares, friendly smiles, and of course asking for spare change. but my all time favorite is going to the bank. sometimes on fridays, i don't want to drive to my house to make deposits, so i just take a left instead of a right and go to one of the two that are within walking distance (a mile...that i'm not walking). one is next to a classy strip club - the bouncer cops are out there at approximately 11 o'clock everyday...a little early for strippers if you ask me, but who am i to judge? i normally go to this bank. darwin thinks i am crazy, but i've grown rather fond of it. most of the time i go through the drive-through or the atm, but sometimes, just sometimes, i get a little too bold and i venture indoors. THAT makes for a fun afternoon.

the cops know me by now, and i guess assume that i am not out there to purchase drugs so they just leave me be. they used to look at me very concerned, but not anymore. when i do venture indoors, it gets deafeningly quiet. people stop and stare. quite literally STOP and stare. the tellers all look a little frantic, but whatever.

my second favorite token white people encounter was at the quiznos that was open for about a week. darwin and i went in twice. neither of us care anymore, because people are too shocked to bother with you. but it is fun to see the looks on people's faces when they walk in and see two white people just sitting and eating like it's nothing. always throws them for a loop. we went one time with one of our sales guys. he was overly concerned with the area we were in and kept needing reassurance that everything would be okay. darwin and i just nodded and kept right on eating. he however, was a little squirrely and always apprehensive when darwin and i would take him to restaurants right by the shop. well, he was just a little squirrely in general.

darwin and i's all time favorite restaurant was a persian restaurant called Kabobee. it was the greatest place ever. we knew everyone there, they knew us. it was a win win situation. oh and it was delicious! i'll tell you all about kabobee one of these days...

the cupcake has absolutely no relevance, other than the fact that i want one.

snowmageddon. part 4.

welcome to snow day part 4 for this kid. i think i have reached the max capacity of snow that i can take. i live in the south for a reason and that reason does not involve snow in any way shape or form. since monday i can count how many times i have been out of my house (besides to let the dog and now dogs out) on one hand. it's 3. 3 times. i can't handle that. it's not like i have anything to do, it's the fact that i cannot do anything if i even wanted to. even the dogs are restless. it says the temperature is supposed to be 35 today. which is a lie. i just looked, only 32. so that means no melting of the awesomeness. BUT tomorrow is supposed to be 43! i have never been so happy for the 40s in my entire life! and then get this 51 on monday. ha. welcome to the south i guess.

you may wonder what i have done in 3 1/2 days of being snowed in. well i will inform you. i have read a book, cruised the entire internet (yes the entire thing), cleaned my house top to bottom, and most importantly i've had staring contests with the dogs. i don't think i or they could be more bored. i've never thought of myself as an especially boring person until this week. i may not actually be a boring person, but without civilization to talk to, i may never know. at the rate this snow is melting i for sure may never know.

if i were at work, which i desperately miss right now... the cold warehouse. the lumber smell. the propane heater in my office. the forklift cranking up. the saw buzzing through wood. the crazy customers. all of it, i miss it... i would be floating around organizing and throwing things away. i think secretly i should have gone to school for organizational purposes. i completely made that terminology up, but i am going with it.

all i have done since day one at mississippi wood trader is organize. organize the office, the bills, the company, the lumber, darwin, darwin's life, my life, and the list goes on and on. i am fairly certain i was put on this earth to organize. which comes to the day that i decided we needed a job board. darwin may have suggested it, but again let's be honest it's up to me to get most ideas moving along. we needed some way to organize the jobs that were going on so that we could see them clearly and plan accordingly. which meant i got to craft and organize all in one sitting. that. was. a. big. day. i walk into work armed with paint pens. i find a suitable ruler substitute and get to drawing. we have a big dry erase board that currently wasn't being utilized so i ganked that and put it up in the office. about an hour and a half later, the job board was created.

moral of the story. if i get to organize and create. i am a happy girl. just like when i got to organize and create things for the scott antique market that we did...total bust, but fun anyway. i think i am going to now try on every piece of clothing i own and decide if i like it anymore...wish me luck.

p.s. that is not a picture of my house, but that is what i feel like....

snowpocalypse...

snow day. part 2. i think the cabin fever may have set in. my driveway goes straight down; there is no getting out. i am not even sure that i could leave on foot if i even tried. that may come later based on how stir crazy i get by the end of the day...

now around the warehouse things constantly need fixed. it's kind of a continuous string of calamities that may or may not get dealt with. one that needed to be dealt with for oh as long as i have been here, and most certainly needed to be fixed before i got here, attempted to get fixed one morning.

i stroll into the warehouse one morning and notice that one of the forklifts is in the shop bay. the mast is all the way up and there appears to be a human hanging from the rafters. imagine this view at 8 in the morning. is he dead? who is he? what in the hell is going on? i put my stuff down and stroll on back to the shop bay to see exactly what is going on.

it's darwin. he is hanging/repelling from the rafters. he has climbed the forklift and has attached himself to the rafters to fix the florescent lights. yes, most of the florescent lights have been out since oh i don't know circa 2005, but that does not mean that we need to be climbing forklifts to hang from rafters.

now this whole scenario wouldn't have been quite so terrible if say someone had actually have been there to make sure he didn't topple off the top of the forklift, electrocute himself, or i don't know help. now that is where i stepped in. handing him lightbulbs, sockets, the whole nine yards. but still nothing is more nerve racking (well actually there is, but we won't go there today) than seeing your boss hanging from the rafters with no adult supervision.

he always tells me to be careful when i am climbing on things (log piles, metal sculptures, lumber packs...) and i always tell him that i am okay, i used to do this all the time. he responds with well i don't want to have to explain to your mother what happened. i proceed to explain that my mother would understand and most certainly wouldn't be surprised....however if we reverse that situation, i am not sure how i would explain that to his mom, besides yes ma'am i am very sorry. i have sold the business and praia and i are moving to the beach...come and visit...(are you sensing a pattern of my life goals yet...beach, beach, and some more beach, with a side of beach.)

so snow day...good lousy i am going insane...

engine sludge.

one of the perks of my job is that i get to bring my dog to work with me. if you know me, then you understand my mild obsession with my dog. i love the coneman, even if his breath does smell like he just ate a turd sandwich....coney gets to play with praia (darwin's non-poodle portuguese water dog...call her a poodle, i find it entertaining), praia gets to bully coney, coney gets to chew on wood scraps... all is right in their little doggie worlds.

whenever darwin is out of town, i have praia. i love her, she gets to lay on my couch and play king (queen) of the castle, and generally annoy coney. (not hard to do, he's 10 - she's 3.) BUT there is the rare occasion when i politely ask (beg) darwin to watch coney. he's not a difficult dog. he would first have to be awake to be difficult, and let's just say he isn't awake much of the day (i rather envy him for his napping ability). this last time darwin had coney for less than 48 hours. and in less than oh 18 hours of leaving i had a lovely email entitled: Coney.

to back up a smidgen (how is smidge not a word, but smidgen is?)...i had flown home to run my very first 1/2 marathon. yes i will nod along with you as you stop and think that i am crazy for even thinking of running that far, because frankly i agree with you, which is precisely why i signed up for another one...sidetracked (you would've thought i'd had diet coke today...WRONG.) okay okay. so:

december 3rd. i fly home. darwin has my dog, my car, my house keys. all of my worldly belongings.

december 4th. i run the 1/2 marathon. i get an e-mail from darwin about the conemonster. now just think when you see the subject line of the email and it says coney. i panicked a little (a lot). ha, it gets better. darwin proceeds to tell me that coney fell (slipped, was startled...) into 5 gallons of used motor oil. the sludge from keisha (the dually) is all over my poor little (large) dog. i begin to chuckle, because come on that's just funny....coney is frightened and darwin is trying to corral him to wipe the sludge off. not working out so well for darwin. cone is scared of deep yelling voices...bahahahahahaha more laughter from me. so darwin takes him over to the kennel where we take praia and coney and they tell him they will fix him right up. poor little pooter (coney nor darwin).

december 5th. darwin picks me up from the airport and brings me to my car at the shop. there are oily doggy footprints EVERYWHERE! like woah. i laugh, but then remember that it will be my task to clean them up. oh and also, darwin dropped coney off in my car - yes, footprints are in the back of my car and will not come out...-fantastic. i go pick coney up at the kennel (spa) and the girl doesn't want to give me my dog back. she says i thought darwin was coming to pick him up, and i told her oh, no he had some stuff to do today, i am picking him up. oh well i thought, i mean darwin did drop him off. yeeeeees, but he is MY dog......

december 6th - back to work. it took me about 30 minutes to clean up all the oil - by all of it, i mean my office and maybe a .00005% of where it was in the warehouse....

i am beginning to think that maybe darwin just doesn't want to watch coney...i mean come on. haha. i found it all rather hilarious, right up until the car wash company said the oil wasn't coming out of my seat, and also when i had to clean sludge off and already sludged-out warehouse floor....so many layers of grime and gook came off that floor. gross.

now to plan revenge with p-funk. i am thinking a mohawk or maybe something subtle like pink ribbons and some sweet glitter fingernail polish....she did get a pretty sweet poodle haircut one time (not a fun day for that doggie hair dresser...)oh this could get fun.....revenge is a dish best served cold or hot pink....

good riddance.

new year. new you. that's how it works correct? well new year, new way of organizing and staying there. i think that may be my motto after what i walked into this morning. the office looked like a tasmanian devil had zipped around and threw stuff EVERYWHERE! i mean good gracious. granted i was gone for a week or so. but really. darwin wasn't here that much...how on earth could it have gotten so bad. so bad in fact that darwin (mister unorganized) called me this morning to chat about the day and asked me if i would clean the office as it was driving him crazy. imagine if it was driving him crazy how it made me feel....

so with the office finally clean and things put in the respective places (for the time being at least) i get to my favorite part of the year. making resolutions that you know you won't keep. ha, that's not really my favorite part. my favorite part is purging the old stuff to get ready for new stuff. like say a tractor trailer load of heart pine...oh wait...that already appeared, and shuffled everything around into places they don't belong.

back to purging. this means that i get to take all of last year's crap, ahem, stuff, and stick it in a box, label it 2010 and close the lid and never think about it again (until darwin needs a receipt circa 2005...) i get to organize AND put away. 2 of my absolute favorite things. absolutely no sarcasm there. really i swear i actually enjoy organizing stuff within an inch of it's life. it's really quite cathartic.

so cheers to 2011. it most certainly can't be worse than 2010. well at least not for me, because if it is, my poor little brain and soul can't handle it and you can most certainly bet i will cash out and move to fiji, or tahiti, or culebra, or somewhere ANYWHERE secluded with no cell phone reception, a beach, and tiny umbrellas for your drinks. you can find me at the bar, third seat from the left...

i would typed the lyrics to auld lang syne here, but really who cares. SALUD!