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....

pony pink.

here is the helga. i named her helga, and she is beautiful. i love her. she has met her demise this past week. she will no longer charge. sad day in my life. BUT i did get to paint her pink....

there comes a day when every girl wants to paint something. now my idea of painting something usually entails me holding a paintbrush and watching someone else paint. but alas, this day at work had other plans in store for me. these plans were "end painting". this lovely, enjoyable and glamorous task involves mixing a big bucket with paint and glue and then painting the ends of fresh cut logs. darwin came in with the color that we aptly dubbed "pink pony pink." if you are not from atlanta, then you do not know what this fine institution is (i guess that was a little presumptuous of me, you may know what it is); it is a lovely little strip club that is located in north atlanta as well as south atlanta, and has billboards that say catchy phrases like "forecast calls for scattered panties." classy. with that being said, you can only imagine what horrendous color of pink was chosen for this end painting task. lots of giggling and threatening occurred while painting logs. mainly, don't piss me off, i will most certainly give your dog a pink mohawk....(that did not happen, but we used to daycare a dog name beau jangles (poor little beau) and i most certainly painted his nails pink...) after painting about 40 ends and thinking i may become blind from the atrocious color, i decided that i was going to paint the forklift. at first all i put was a dot on it. just one little dot and left it, to see how long it would take darwin to notice...

one dot apparently is not noticeable. so hopped up on diet soda, i commenced to painting more dots on the back of the forklift. mike (the shop guy) noticed and started laughing. still no note from darwin. so, that sent me on a mission....a mission that ended with a masterfully painted forklift. darwin finally noticed and gave me that look. the look of: i think i may hate you, but i am most certainly too tired to do anything about this. also, the look of i may hate you, but what could i have said to make you not do that...answer ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. it turned out for the best (at least i think so) and now we had a "pretty forklift." i always warned darwin that i was going to paint one of the forklifts pink and it would be MY forklift. ha...i mean, i did warn him.

when working in a lumber yard full of guys, you've got to get your kicks somewhere. so when missions arise, like go buy some spray paint or i need a new toothbrush, i am most definitely going to buy the one that is the girliest. usually neon pink, or maybe with a princess or two on it. i find it highly amusing because, come on, it is.

so cheers to pink pony pink painting...say that 5 times fast...

word vomit....

it’s wednesday and it’s raining. could you make a worse combination if you tried? i am not entirely convinced, but i am sure there is someway to make it worse….and oh wait, i’ve just found it, the internet is going in and out and it’s cold. i am currently (i clearly mean, me and the two dogs) are huddled by the wood stove, pretending that a. we aren’t bored, b. (they don’t have to pee) c. i am not hopped up on diet soda with nowhere to go…it’s like putting a bouncy ball in a confined box and watching it frantically wiggle around trying to find a place to stop and settle (usually my operating speed anyway). it’s just not going to happen and that is something i have vaguely come to terms with. i shouldn’t drink diet soda, but i just love it so. i really am a fan of buying the 93 cent one from Sam’s Club, RaceTrac, Pilot, wherever, and chugging it and annoying the ever living shit out of darwin; he has been known to take them away from me asking for a “sip” and chug the entire thing: “because it’s better that way, if you (me) don’t drink the rest of that. for my sanity and yours.” touche, fact, touche nonetheless. it makes my day more entertaining; i am sure he wishes he could bungee cord me to the chair and watch me squirm so that he doesn’t have to deal with me, but alas, things don’t go as we wish most of the time. hope for the best and plan for the worst right? that is pretty much how i have been living my life the past 6 months or so. walked away from something i knew for over 3 years and did my damndest to not fall apart. it’s november and i am still functioning (some days better than others) and i haven’t fallen apart just quite yet. there have been numerous meltdowns, which i feel i should probably apologize to darwin and my friends for having to be caught in the middle of them, but ya know, shit happens.

days like today are, when the flow chart of ideas going through my head is like driving the autobon in germany: it’s going as fast as possible and it’s dangerous. i often get sidetracked and one tangent leads to about 6 others. which leads me to this post. have you ever just tried to sit down and do something start to finish without stopping, interrupting or getting sidetracked? i have, and i used to be really good at focusing and getting that one task or idea done and moving on to the next one; all with great ease and precision. after over 2 years at Mississippi Wood Trader i find myself lacking the mental ability and drive anymore to make myself sit still and get one task, no matter how menial and small, done without doing 3 others at the same time. i often wonder if maybe i could have handled something better if i would have just taken the time to sort it completely out, and then i promptly forget about it because i have eight million other task in line. i think darwin is rubbing off on me. yet somehow, my organizational overachiever self always steps in and i manage to get everything done. i make lists upon lists and cross things off as i go and then add about 10 more. if you were to read these lists, they would probably look like a bunch of kindergarten gibberish (complete with doodles), which in many cases they actually might be. i am a firm believer in seeing an idea through all its possible outcomes, but sometimes, that may take a day, a month, 2 years, an eternity, i just never really know. usually the best ideas get tossed aside to do something else, like say undoing the Quickbooks disaster that darwin always manages to create, but they come back to me and i begin to ponder. it’s really hard for me to turn my brain completely off.

today i made myself do one task and complete it before i moved on. do you know how HARD that was for me? hopped up on diet soda and french fries? mmmm french fries….case and point. i am not really sure i actually accomplished that task, or really what that task was. hmm. i am not cut out for corporate America; i like the beach entirely too much to be restricted to this silly “vacation time” you people speak of. i’ve got too much energy to be pent up in a cubicle, and i really, really like my dog. so i came to Mississippi Wood Trader, knowing nothing other than what my uncle has told me: darwin’s young, he’s cool, and he sells lumber. i can sell lumber, right? of course i can, i grew up with it….or at least i made myself believe i could. now that being said, i knew i could never work some where being given one task to do a day. good gracious that sounds miserable. so naturally i pick the place with an energetic boss, skateboards, forklifts, trucks, dogs, the whole nine yards. i love it and it proves that no matter how silly an idea may seem, it could turn out to be the best thing you have ever done.

maybe part of the reason i really enjoy working here, is because the random things that shoot through my brain at Indy 500 speeds, don’t seem quite so crazy. ideas around here come and go, and someone has to take them and filter them and carry through with them. that usually falls to me, and i am okay with that, because organizing is something i crave. it’s almost scary how much i can’t handle unfolded laundry, dishes, papers….it sends me into an absolute tizzy.

so there you have it. this is how my brain works, which coincides quite well with how darwin’s works. we both bounce off each other like toddlers and sometimes we meet in the middle and realize a good idea. which is part of the reason i started this blog; i thought it was a good idea, darwin humored me for the nanosecond he was paying attention, and then viola i made a blog. i am a blogger. ha, now that’s just silly.

P.S. expect a lot of rambling, because after over 4 years of structured History major paper writing, i am tired of filtering thoughts (frankly, i am just tired). ideas come in a rush and this is pretty much how i sound at most times anyway. i talk too fast, and i think too much, so it comes out in a jumble and you just have to piece it together and bear with me…it takes a second to get used to, but i find it works best.