one.liners.

let the moving commence people.

i can hardly contain my excitement over the thought of moving.

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

things that literally happened to me today have led me to the thought that perhaps i should write a book of the amazing one liners i get.

let's paint the scene from today, shall we?:

location - ball ground georgia home depot parking lot

i was sent to purchase us a brand spanking new tool chest. so i take my happy ass on over to the home depot where the one darwin wants is on sale. i find it and purchase it. darwin was going to pick it up tomorrow, but decided last minute that i should just put it in the land rover so it can be transported to his house....

similar to this guy.

i fold down the seats and make a land rover as accommodating as it can be for a british suv. the guys come out with the chest and proceed to tell me they aren't sure it's going to fit. well could you pretty please try? thank you in advance. i'm standing next to the rover and this guy pops around the corner and says: "you sure are a good housewife buying that as a surprise." blank stare. "can i give you my address so you can go and show my wife what appreciation looks like?" blank stare. stutter. smile and back away.

the tool chest fit. 2 36" chests in the back of a rover. quite impressive. the one liners weren't so bad either.


i hear lots of awesome things when working in the lumber business. not all of them are when i am actively doing lumber related activities...

ciao.

p.s. i've decided that the rover's name should be rita.


source

the proverbial fan.

remember that time i told you that darwin was going out of town and it was time to get all of our ducks in a row as to ensure things ran smoothly and there were no crises (yes that is plural of crisis and yes i realize that it looks stupid) that i would have to handle.

well. we all know how that usually turns out. shit hitting the proverbial fan. and yes, you guessed it. shit.hit.the.fan.

that sure is some nice manure you have there good sir.

as i told you before, we had a big job that we shipped out a week ago. we were so happy that we got everything done on time and delivered without too many surprises. well, SURPRISE. they under-ordered or someone missed a take-off section. neither here nor there, but they were short material.

guess who got to solve that dilemma? if you guessed me, then you are correct.

want to know what involved solving that dilemma?

-schlepping heart pine
-reschlepping heart pine
-selling my soul to millwork
-reselling my soul to millwork
-bombing around kennesaw while my soul was at millwork
-SOOOOO MUCH CAFFEINE
-getting home at 630 on a friday
-getting up at 6 on a saturday
-finding out the finishing guy has a chest cold and you are now in charge of finishing 500SF
-praia rolling in compost heap waste
-showering off compost heap waste
-trying not to vomit while showering off compost heap waste
-schlepping more heart pine
-breaking into a 5 gallon container of velvit oil (crow bar and screw drivers involved)
-lining up over 500SF of heart pine (over 10' long)
-crouching around wiping on velvit oil
-trying not to die of velvit oil inhalation

you know the usual.

and you know what made it all worth it? well aside from satisfaction and pride: getting to do it all again today.

i really should add heart pine schlepper to my resume (right under fork lift extractor. i should also really come up with more glamorous names for these things.)

now comes the fun part. selling my soul to millwork again tomorrow to get 650LF of walnut run so that i can finish it tomorrow so that all this material can ship out wednesday morning bright and early.

wish me luck.

ciao. 


**picture

forklifting...

so it's tomorrow: LOOPHOLE! - i never told you which day would be tomorrow. tricky, i know.

forklift extraction.

ouch.

it's a science. a very inexact science at best. but a science nonetheless.

i am beginning to think that perhaps i should add it to my list in my resume and on my business card: "official forklift extractor." more like really good at telling you how to extract the forklift. that's a lie, i am also really good at getting them out too, but i like to keep that to myself and all 4 of you that read this (that 4 is being generous...)

round 1:

new shop. forklift in a hole. no other method of extraction besides the truck. i was not involved in that extraction. mainly because i couldn't stomach the viewing of it. it was all entirely too nerve-racking for me. forklift got extracted. win - win.

round 2:

new shop. forklift stuck in the field. me in forklift. darwin in trackhoe. yes trackhoe. darwin behind me in forklift shoving. it was a lot of wheel spinning, mud throwing, but it came unstuck.

round 3:

new shop. forklift stuck in a hole (round 1 style - same hole). trackhoe involvement round 2. lots of mud throwing, wheels spinning, plywood shoving, and ratchet strap maneuvering. ya know the usual. it got unstuck.

now i think i have a degree in forklift extraction.

ahh the joys of working in a lumberyard.

ciao.

picture: http://whomeninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/funny-car-pictures-23.jpg

so much with so little.

i may not be the most eloquent person (writing, speaking, etc.), but when it comes to pulling something off for a deadline, with very little to work with and very little time, well let's just say i am pretty good at pulling the proverbial rabbit out of the proverbial hat.

so this story i promise has a point and i may get to it by the end, if, and that's a big IF, i can remember where i was going when i started. ---again not one of my best qualities. perhaps i should start outlining my blog posts or maybe even writing down just key points...who am i kidding, that is most certainly never going to happen and takes out the fun "word vomit" approach i am so fond of these days.

back to the rambling - yes i know you can hardly contain your excitement - and on with my story.

it is a long roundabout story, that is further explained here Urban Reclaimed (read the dinner expo bit), so i will spare you all the details and you can go there and read for yourself/selves(?) - whatever. long story short, darwin approached me about 3 weeks ago about doing some tables for an underground dinner club for our friend rob. (UGDC - Push Start Kitchen (yes their latest post pertains to this post as well), Rob - I Love LA Eats - these links are making my brain hurt...)

well those three weeks drifted by quickly and we are approaching said deadline...ahem friday...

let me back-peddle a bit and state for the record that i was not entirely in favor of doing these tables...i send my mea culpas out now, but at the time (and currently) we were juggling a lot of projects that involved micromanaging money...ugh, and i just didn't have it in me to put another thing on the list...

but with enough badgering and coaxing full of backhanded compliments, darwin and rob sold me on the idea. so that meant my last week was sent scrambling to find metal fabricators....that is the easy part...the hard part you ask? finding one that doesn't cost you more than your entire life savings to make one silly little base in the shape of an inverted trapezoid...jesus pete. i fear a purchasing of metal fabricating equipment in our near future....

yes that is me in the background. darwin wanted to use me as a reference point...

well we (read: i) remembered our good friend MC over at Lemay Designs (i know, i know, again with the links) and she has graciously offered to help us under this intense deadline. she is so amazing that she has actually already sent me a picture of one of the bases. WOOOO..

yesterday, i thought was going to be a harmless day of gathering supplies, driving to bumble, and dropping off supplies (along with lunch...life lesson number 2, never let the bossman get hungry), dropping off snacks for later and turning my little red jetta around and fleeing back to atlanta. i was mistaken. horribly, horribly mistaken.

i am getting ready to leave atlanta, when darwin sends me a text about how i am going to be sanding the cedar slabs (that's what the tables are being made from if i didn't already state that) while he goes to a meeting. translation: you will be sanding these because i am tired of doing it.

with supplies in hand, i drive on out to bumble world. i arrive with lunch and snacks as to be expected. i eat my lunch. and then my day ends with a preposterous amount of sawdust up my nose. granted, i rather like sanding things. it's calming - i don't do calm. the sawdust up my nose, i could do without, but it's cedar and it is a scent of the gods. no moths will be living up my nose any time soon. (bad, bad joke. well aware)

as of right now i seem to be making this deadline work. i am not going to jinx anything though, because after all, it's only wednesday and there is a lot of time for things to go horribly awry.

i said i would remember the point of this, but alas, i don't. just another post about the day in the life of working for a small business that has taken on starting another small business under it...

yay small business! (that was a serious yay, not a sarcastic yay)

ciao.

so it's been a month...literally.

wow, firstly i apologize. it's been a month. eek.

have you ever felt like you are being pulled in so many directions you feel as if you may actually come apart? yes? good, i am glad to know that i am not the only one.

we've moved the shop (hence the delay). that meant two things: heavy lifting and planning. guess which one excited me more? if you guessed planning you would be correct. however, the heavy lifting wasn't far off. now knowing what i know about darwin, this planning wasn't going to be easy. i planned and planned and then replanned. still wasn't enough planning. i should have known, right? well luckily i did, and planned accordingly. that involved letting darwin dilly dally until he freaked out. then, i picked up the pieces, took over, made a checklist, and replanned. we made it. just barely, but we are alive and the proud new owners (renters) of a wood shed. well it is nicer than a shed, but not quite, say, a warehouse. so...shedhouse? wareshed? whatever you call it, it's ours and it's quiet and it's in the middle of NOWHERE.

with that middle of nowhereness, i get to build things. what is second on my list of awesome things after planning? making stuff. right now we are building a solar kiln --- forklifts, nail guns, staplers, trucks --- mmm powertools. whilst building the solar kiln, i have built a bookshelf, a bunch of triangular shelf supports, and learned the fundamentals of trailer driving and parking...

i really like the hands on approach. yea you may screw it up and get a little dirty, but whatever, you're learning. learning means growing, so i've go that going for me.

aside from all that awesomeness, darwin and i have started a furniture line (second delay). it's a urban reclaimed natural edge furniture line. i've come up with a name and i am pretty sure we are in agreement with it: UrbanGreen. follow us on Facebook, bookmark our BLOG (and mine too), spread the word, and most importantly...BUY SOMETHING!

ciao.


stay tuned for a funny story in solar kiln building. i promise it won't take a month....

the smoking gun. err, dashboard...

so, i am back from the beach. i came back kicking and screaming. well mainly just screaming. it's hard to kick and drive at the same time. the week went by too fast. it was absolutely glorious though. GLORIOUS!

my sister-in-law, Rachel, went paddle boarding with me. i wouldn't say she went willingly; i mainly bullied her into it because i didn't want to go alone. i will say, she was a trooper and did quite well. she did ask me to go shopping with her on many occasion, but i just couldn't bear to leave the beach.

i realized that i am a person who is going 90 mph at all times. no stopping, no slowing down, no sleeping. just going, going, going. but when i get to the beach (and this may be true of all water, but i am going to say the beach) i stop. everything slows down. granted, i am still doing about 45 mph, but i'll take it. something about the ocean calms me. that is not an easy task folks. i have been trying unsuccessfully for the past 25 (yes, 25) years to figure that one out, and apparently all i need is the ocean.

now that i am back to reality, i am back to cramming as much in the day as possible. this move may be the death of darwin and i. we realized on monday that we have until next friday to finish everything. EVERYTHING. the inside is mainly done. just a few things that can't be packed up until darwin is finished milling, but most everything has been cleared. the yard. well the yard is a slow process that is going to require most of our weekend to tackle.

i was driving keisha to the new shop with a load of miscellaneous crap on tuesday and there i was jumping onto 285 from 20 and i look down and she is smoking out the dashboard. well hello, this is a problem. i pull over on 285 and try not to get hit by any semis, and call darwin. thankfully this time he actually answered his phone. i told him calmly (rather panically) that keisha's dashboard was smoking. he told me to turn her off (way ahead of you there) and turn off all the switches (propane and veggie oil) - also way ahead there- and wait a minute to see if it stops. so it stopped. he told me it was probably fine, but if it started again to call him back because i was going to have to perform keisha emergency surgery.

WHAT! oh, this is just what i want to hear....

so we pull back on to 285 and la la la la i look down and keisha starts smoking again. i pull off, get to a sketchy gas station (sketchy at best) and call darwin. HERE WE GO. pop the hood. see the wire coming off the battery on the driver side, clip that from the battery and the plug. the close the propane tank. if that doesn't work then leave the truck and run away and don't tell me about it, because that means there is a problem with the factory wiring and....(you get the idea)

so here i am. in the ghetto, scrounging around keisha for some form of useful tool to clip wire. i can find no shortage of screw drivers, an ipod shuffle (which darwin though he lost), a bungee chord, some headphones, a tape, and of course nothing to clip wire with. i am standing in the back of keisha basically inside the toolbox looking for something, anything. grasping at straws at this point. then i hear this rickety voice screaming at me, that i don't belong in a truck and i shouldn't be driving that big thing, and i need to get out the back of it before i hurt myself. i look up and see this man approaching the truck. now normally this would have made me nervous, but i was PISSED. i shot him the look of death and scream WHAT DO YOU WANT? he promptly pivoted and walked away. after scrounging and being yelled at, i remember: I PUT BANDING SHEARS IN ONE OF THESE BOXES! yes! problem solved. button keisha back up and we are on our merry little way to get the hell out the ghetto.

problem solving folks. problem solving.

ciao.

ch. ch. ch. ch. chaaaaaanges

it is absolutely disgusting outside. things that are terrible to do when it's this hot outside:

-car shop
-manual labor
-be outside

so seeing as i have done all those things already today (and yesterday) i am sitting inside blogging for your reading pleasure.

ch. ch. ch. ch. chaaaaaangesssss. turn and face the strain...chhhh chhanges.

yes big changes are happening around here. stay tuned for that.

but on a lazy blogging note. check out this awesome website i found today...via twitter...don't judge me...

http://www.raptitude.com/2009/07/88-important-truths-ive-learned-about-life/

because i know you all are lazy, i will include the contents of this link at the end of my list of suggestions of the one's you should read....you're welcome

so here are the ones i particularly like:

1, nine, 12, 15, twenty-nine, 31, FORTY TWO, 64, 67, 74, SEVENTY-SEVEN, eight-seven

"1. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try.

2. It is a hundred times more difficult to burn calories than to refrain from consuming them in the first place.

3. If you’re talking to someone you don’t know well, you may be talking to someone who knows way more about whatever you’re talking about than you do.

4. The cheapest and most expensive models are usually both bad deals.

5. Everyone likes somebody who gets to the point quickly.

6. Bad moods will come and go your whole life, and trying to force them away makes them run deeper and last longer.

7. Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be.

8. If everyone in the TV show you’re watching is good-looking, it’s not worth watching.

9. Yelling always makes things worse.

10. Whenever you’re worried about what others will think of you, you’re really just worried about what you’ll think of you.

11. Every problem you have is your responsibility, regardless of who caused it.

12. You never have to deal with more than one moment at a time.

13. If you never doubt your beliefs, then you’re wrong a lot.

14. Managing one’s wants is the most powerful skill a person can learn.

15. Nobody has it all figured out.

16. Cynicism is far too easy to be useful.

17. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.

18. Whenever you hate something, it hates you back: people, situations and inanimate objects alike.

19. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works alone can teach you everything you need to know about living with grace and happiness.

20. People embellish everything, as a rule.

21. Anger reveals weakness of character, violence even moreso.

22. Humans cannot destroy the planet, but we can destroy its capacity to keep us alive. And we are.

23. When people are uncomfortable with the present moment, they fidget with their hands or their minds. Watch and see.

24. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least.

25. Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.

26. Credit card debt devours souls.

27. Nobody knows more than a minuscule fraction of what’s going on in the world. It’s just way too big for any one person to know it well.

28. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.

29. A person who is unafraid to present a candid version of herself to the world is as rare as diamonds.

30. The most common addiction in the world is the draw of comfort. It wrecks dreams and breaks people.

31. If what you’re doing feels perfectly safe, there is probably a better course of action.

32. The greatest innovation in the history of humankind is language.

33. Blame is the favorite pastime of those who dislike responsibility.

34. Everyone you meet is better than you at something.

35. Proof is nothing but a collection of opinions that match your own.

36. Knowledge is belief, nothing more.

37. Indulging your desires is not self-love.

38. What makes human beings different from animals is that animals can be themselves with ease.

39. Self-examination is the only path out of misery.

40. Whoever you are, you will die. To know and understand that means you are alive.

41. Revenge is for the petty and irresponsible.

42. Getting truly organized can vastly improve anyone’s life.

43. Almost every cliché contains a truth so profound that people have been compelled to repeat it until it makes you roll your eyes. But the wisdom is still in there.

44. People cause suffering when they are suffering themselves. Alleviating their suffering will help them not hurt others.

45. High quality is worth any quantity, in possessions, friends and experiences.

46. The world would be a better place if everyone read National Geographic.

47. If you aren’t happy single, you won’t be happy in a relationship.

48. Even if it costs no money, nothing is free if it takes time.

49. Emotions exist to make us strongly biased towards or against something. This hinders as often as it helps.

50. Addiction is a much greater problem in society than it’s made out to be. It’s present in every person in various forms, but usually we call it something else.

51. “Gut feeling” is not just a euphemism. Tension in the abdomen speaks volumes about how you truly feel about something, beyond all arguments and rationales.

52. Posture and dress change profoundly how you feel about yourself and how others feel about you, like it or not.

53. Everyone thinks they’re an above average driver.

54. The urge to punish others has much more to do with venting frustration than correcting behavior.

55. By default, people think far too much.

56. If anything is worth splurging on, it’s a high-quality mattress. You’ll spend a third of your life using it.

57. There is nothing worse than having no friends.

58. To write a person off as worthless is an act of great violence.

59. Try as we might to be otherwise, we are all hypocrites.

60. Justice is a human invention which is in reality rarely achievable, but many will not hesitate to destroy lives demanding it.

61. Kids will usually understand exactly what you mean if you keep it to one or two short sentences.

62. Stuff that’s on sale usually has an annoying downside.

63. Casual swearing makes people sound dumb.

64. Words are immensely powerful. One cruel remark can wound someone for life.

65. It’s easy to make someone’s day just by being uncommonly pleasant to them.

66. Most of what children learn from their parents isn’t taught on purpose.

67. The secret ingredient is usually butter, in obscene amounts.

68. It is worth re-trying foods that you didn’t like at first.

69. Problems, when they arise, are rarely as painful as the experience of fearing them.

70. Nothing — ever — happens exactly like you pictured it.

71. North Americans are generally terrible at accepting compliments and offers of help.

72. There are not enough women in positions of power. The world has suffered from this deficit for a long time.

73. When you break promises to yourself, you feel terrible. When you make a habit of it, you begin to hate yourself.

74. A good nine out of ten bad things I’ve worried about never happened. A good nine out of ten bad things that did happen never occurred to me to worry about.

75. You can’t hide a bad mood from people who know you well, but you can always be polite.

76. Sometimes you have to remove certain people from your life, even if they’re family.

77. Anyone can be calmed in an instant by looking at the ocean or the stars.

78. There is no point finishing a book you aren’t enjoying. Life is too short for that. Swallow your pride and put it down for good, unfinished.

79. There is no correlation between the price of a brand of batteries and how long they last.

80. Breaking new ground only takes a small amount more effort than you’re used to giving.

81. Life is a solo trip, but you’ll have lots of visitors. Some of them are long-term, most aren’t.

82. One of the best things you can do for your kids is take them on road trips. I’m not a parent, but I was a kid once.

83. The fewer possessions you have, the more they do for you.

84. Einstein was wiser than he was intelligent, and he was a genius.

85. When you’re sick of your own life, that’s a good time to pick up a book.

86. Wishing things were different is a great way to torture yourself.

87. The ability to be happy is nothing other than the ability to come to terms with how things change.

88. Killing time is an atrocity. It’s priceless, and it never grows back."

ciao.

BIG CHANGES..

wishing and hoping.

tim robbins once said: "...hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." that quote is from his character andy dufresne in shawshank redemption for those of you living in a hole. perhaps a crater. i'm not entirely positive how you would not know this quote in some shape or fashion, unless you lived in a crater or on the moon. oh, yes on the moon, in a crater. that must be it.

my last post was about faith being a bluebird and believing in something and holding on tight. because if you don't believe in something then what exactly is your purpose? believe in whatever you want, cheese, chocolate, diet coke, puppies, naps, grammar, math, rainbows, unicorns, zombies, god, literature...whatever, just pick something. i have many things that i believe in, for better or for worse, i will always believe in them. even if someone tells you it is silly, keep on believing; prove them wrong. so there in lies the holding on tight. one thing i personally like to believe in is childhood. when you were a kid you believed you could do anything. you were out to prove to the world that you could in fact be WHATEVER you wanted. nothing was too preposterous to be when you grew up. i'm just having a hard time grappling with that whole growing up part. i've gotten older and i've stepped up to my responsibilities, but i'm still a little kid searching.

my entire life i've never known what i wanted to be when i grew up; mainly because i never actually wanted grow up. kind of like peter pan. but then again, i always knew that i wanted to do something with my life. i wanted to make my mark in some way. i didn't know what that would be, but i was sure as shit going to try and find out. i'm still trying to find out and one of these days i'll figure something out and let you know, but for the moment here's to hoping.

i've got a lot of faith in hope. and i've always been a very hopeful person. so i guess i've got that going for me. a lot of faith and even more hope. and dreams. so. many. dreams. and hey, if andy dufresne says that hope is a good thing and no good thing ever dies and morgan freeman believed him, then why on earth should i doubt him? that just would be silly and illogical.

at this exact moment, i am believing and have faith and hope in one thing in particular, aside from childhood, and that's a great company that is destined to do big (read: huge) things. and for right now, that's enough for me. maybe it won't always be, but it is for now, and i am okay with that. nothing is better than participating in something you believe in and seeing it grow to it's full potential. mark my words: nothing. absolutely nothing.

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.

sidewalk chalk...

it's monday. i hate mondays; i am fairly convinced that the entire world hates mondays. anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. it's inevitable; somewhere there is a murphy's law explaining mondays and why to avoid them at all costs...but mondays around here go one of two ways. one: it's an absolutely non stop, no holds bar, forget to eat lunch, wake up on the floor, shit-show. bona fide, tried and true, and never fails. or option two: we do nothing, and stare at each other all day. as much fun as option two may seem, it makes for a long day....

enveloped in option one also comes darwin. now let me give you a little insight on darwin. no fewer than 15 ideas are swirling through his head at any given moment. so that in turn means that i get the task of mentally filing, researching, and remembering of these said ideas. take a step back, and just imagine the flow chart of tasks that goes through my head on any given day....it takes an act of God and Congress, but somehow, in the over 2 years of working here, i have managed to delegate and relegate the important, the slightly less important, the silly, and the downright outrageous, and come out relatively sane and unscathed (let's use relatively loosely here). if you let him, he will pull you in 8 million directions. if you can stand your ground and hold on you will be fine, but finding that balance takes time, and is something that not everyone can master...."we had a great partnership, in that no matter how crazy an idea i'd come up with, it was not crazy to her - until proved to be unrealistic." "...communicate to everyone why he or she had to take some of my more radical ideas seriously or at least humor me until i forgot about them." Let My People Go Surfing pg. 42.

with that being said, today has been a rather busy day. we've sold some stuff, we've unsold some stuff...the usual. however, i had the grand and exciting task this morning of measuring some walnut slabs and chalking the dimensions on them....easy enough. WRONG. in a warehouse where we have no fewer than 8 measuring tapes (probably grossly underestimated), i can find none. not a single solitary little one. i mean how, how is that even possible? i've searched all the vehicles, all the forklifts, all the tables...EVERYWHERE. none to be found; not to mention, chalk...ha...what chalk? that's just silly and absurd if you think we have any of those buggers laying around. so i've now wandered the gigantour warehouse 3 times in battle for these measuring tapes. FINALLY, i spy an appropriately painted bright "SHOOT ME NOW" SATAN ORANGE. you may ask how i missed that the first go round, even maybe the second, but you have yet to see what i must put up with on an organizational level here in the hovel. so finally, i've struck gold and can measure.

i cannot, however, chalk...infuriating...so that leads me to a wonderful little store called Staples. they have that easy button, that always seems to be just out of reach down here, but i digress. so i stroll into staples, eating my sandwich (multitasking per usual), and get some sidewalk chalk. the see it from space, no breaking these bad boys, chalk. i sort of feel like that kindergarten kid who can't quite grip the regular pencil or crayon and has to use the big ones, but that is a story for another time...

this is just a small glimpse into what my day has been.

slabs - measure - chalk - email - pricing - email some more - appointments - post office - bills - bank....you get the picture. 400 little things, to keep this afloat. it's hectic, it's fun, and it sure beats sitting in a cubicle....