Summer Stay-cation: Day 1

Today was the first full day of my week long "stay-cation". I decided I needed a break from work since it was starting to get to me. I get vacation hours, so why not use them.

So, today I slept in to 12:30pm, and was woken up by my mom calling to see if I was FINALLY available for "Sunday Dinner". The answer, FINALLY was yes!

Got up, made bed, washed face, got dressed, told sister that mom and dad were on there way over to pick us up for "Sunday Dinner".

We went to Applebee's. I had a steak.

I watched the Wold Cup game between the U.S. and Portugal. Oh My God, what an awesome and heart pounding game! Just wow.

During said game I cleaned my bathroom. It was gross. Since the cleaning, a nephew washed the dogs in the tub and now it smells like wet dog in there and there is dog hair clogging the drain. Such is life.

I also cleaned out my closet of clothes I never wear or will never fit in again. Sad that I have come to the realization that I won't be "that thin" again, but again, such is life.

Surfed the internet for awhile, then mom texted and said to come on over for cards.

We sat out in mom and dads backyard for a bit and I pet my cat and brushed my cat and was told that my cat is now "out on the prowl" at night and does not come home till morning. Good thing that boy is fixed and chipped.

We played cards. I lost. We ate grilled cheese sandwiches and Cambell's soup. We talked, we laughed, we googled. (we think we found the Laotian refugee family my parents took in back when I was probably 3 years old.)

All in all, a good start to the "stay-cation". I will win for sure next time.

By God, it's a fountain!

Long long ago (back in 2009, the year I went mental and other things happened) in the far distant smelly tar lands (Taft, California) *shutters* some of my crew members came across something that they thought I would like. At the time I was telling them of the adventures I was having fixing my house and landscaping my backyard. I was collecting rocks for a pond that my sister was constructing while I was out doing field work. Now there aren't many rocks in Taft. There's a lot of sand, and sticky stinky sand, but not a lot of rocks... that I'd be willing to display anyway in my glorious and wondrous backyard. HA! I did procure a coyote skull and a sheep skull however, and several other crew members took home some animal bones as well. We had a lovely cat skull sitting on the dashboard for a few weeks. It was adorable until you looked in its dead empty eye sockets and your soul turned black with despair.

Anyway, I'm getting distracted. At the end of the day when we would all meet up again, they said, "hey, we found something you may want". So off we went to find the GPS coordinate they logged. Low and behold they had found a stash of transmission tower ceramic insulators. These weren't your cute aqua glass insulators that people spend $50 bucks a pop at overpriced antique stores. No sir. This was an intact 40-50 pound ceramic insulator. And I thought it was beautiful. I thanked the crew members who found it and thought of me. We heaved it into the back of the SUV, and off we tootled. My first thought was to get it home and turn it into a fountain.

Well it made it home and sat in my backyard for years. It was a stand for tomato plants for a few years. It also held strawberry plants when we rebuilt the main vegetable garden beds. But finally after years of neglect and wishing it was still hanging off a steel transmission line in the dessert, it has become a fountain!

One of my nephews drilled the hole needed to run the rubber tube, and my sister one day took our old pond apart (we never took the time to maintain it) and replaced said pond (mosquito breeding ground) with our new fountain. TA DA!!

isn't it just the cutest thing ever?

and it works!!

Trees Trees Trees: Part 3

So um, I still have 12 sticks in 12 pots, but miraculously 9 of them now have leaves!

 All 3 Goldenraintrees!

 The lonely White Flowering Dogwood (1 of 4)

 All 3 Eastern Redbuds!

And both Crapemyrtles!

I love the leaves on the Eastern Redbuds and the Goldenraintrees.

All of these lovelies will grow big and strong and in a short few 20 years, they will look like this:

A full grown Eastern Redbud

Goldenraintree

White Flowering Dogwood

Crapemyrtle

Now, as I said before here: Most are up for grabs. I am willing to part with both Crapemyrtles only because I already have one in my backyard and three in my front yard. The City of Gilroy obviously LOVES Crapemyrtles! I'm not complaining, they are beautiful trees, and they bloom in the summer, not spring. Two of the Eastern Redbuds, and two of the Goldenraintrees are also up for grabs. Since only one white flowering dogwood took root, I'm keeping him.

So these little sticks with leaves are ready for their forever homes. However, I think they should stay in their pots for a bit longer. But then again, I don't know anything really about keeping trees alive, especially baby ones.

So far only one has been truly spoken for. My mom has laid claim to one of the Crapemyrtles. Whether she remembers sending me that email or not.

If anyone wants one, please let me know and we can arrange their pick-up/delivery. I'm serious! I cannot plant all of these in my yards. Well, I could but then mowing would be like a mowing/edging obstacle course.

Picture Number 6.....ish

Bill Wyoming 2005, the "road" to the Federer Homestead

My Grandmother knows exactly where it is. Left when she was only 13

What remains of the Homestead, 2005

What remains on the Homestead, 2005

Picture Number 5

It's time for another Not So Random Photo:

Mono Lake, California, Eastern side of the Sierra Mountains and east of Yosemite National Park, taken in 2006.

This is the serious post... Don't panic.

Feeling very unacomplished lately. I need to get my ass in gear and figure out what I really want. What I really want to do with my life and what I really want to do as a job/career/ need to make more money than I am now.

Being back in a food/drink service job getting minimum wage makes me really yearn for the days when I was an extremely underpaid archaeologist. I was living just above paycheck to paycheck because I was able to save up for big things like plane tickets and DVD's and was able to pay for my car getting serviced and not having to put it on a credit card and taking 6 months to pay off $200 dollars.

Now I am living paycheck to paycheck and bleeding. I say bleeding because it isn't working. I don't make enough to sustain myself, and that makes me sad and angry and feel real bad about myself. I am in my 30's, I have two college degrees, I'm single so I don't have to sustain anyone but myself and I'm not doing it. My savings is just about empty. One major thing like my car breaking down, or a root canal or something like that, and I will be in the red, like I can't pay my mortgage red. I am only able to pay my portion of the mortgage every month just barely. I don't pay for the cable or utilities or even food. So really, I am not making it.

Things need to change, and they need to change soon. Nephew #2 is graduating in June and sis will want to move within the next year or so. And then what? Move back to mommy and daddy's? I hope not.

I'm the one who put myself in this situation, and I need to pull my head out of the sand and start moving and facing the problems I've been avoiding and start making things happen. The coffee shop job I have now was only suppose to be temporary. It was to be temporary stability, so I could work toward the shop dream. I only wanted to stay there 6 months to a year tops. It has been 8 months now.

I want to open my own little shop. I want to live in a little house with lots of land. I want a riding lawn mower and cats and finally live by myself. I want to be financially secure so I can fix my cars windshield and all the little things I've let slide or go because I can't afford them.

So how does one do this? How do I get moving and make forward progress?


Baby steps and with help. I admit that now. I've talked and hopefully planted a seed in one of you. And after 3 months of being a slouch, I'm finally running again. So yeah, baby steps and help.

The Glamorous Life

So instead of writing about what I set out to today, I'm going to talk about bodily fluids again. Oh joy! One of my more so called "popular" posts was about a time when I had a most unpleasant experience in the middle of a desolate landscape surrounded by my "minions". You can read it all over again here, if you really want to.

Back when I was an archaeologist and was playing out in the world, I had to "used the facilities" in various states of actual facilities. Some times you're close enough to an actual flush toilet that is stocked with actual toilet paper and a sink with soap and stuff. But usually... that's not the case. As a side note, I know where all of the bathrooms are at the Monterey Presidio just in case you ever need to know. You learn early on in your archaeology career when it is safe to use a port-o-potty. If you are working with a construction crew who carts their "john" around with them... don't even open the door, just don't. It is also safer to just walk around to the back of one and go elsewhere when it hasn't been sucked out in so long that the mound is now actually visible without having to look down the hole.

You also learn early on to carry TP or something to wipe and dispose of with you at all times. (it would have been nice to be told this in field school) This is especially true for the females. When you don't have time to air dry. You all know what I'm talking about. Peeing as a female is such a freakin ordeal that many of us are masters of holding it all day. Bladders of steel, yo!

The point of all this was really to say that there is a level of trust one needs to have with their fellow crew members/humans or your poor bowels or bladder will explode. When you are in the middle of a plowed field with not a shrub, tree, or even a weed in sight for miles and you have to go, you trust your crew mates to turn around, walk away, and wait till you're done, before continuing the job at hand. Those of you who were on the Maricopa Solar project know what I'm talking about. I'm at a point now in my life that I am (I wouldn't say comfortable) but comfortable enough to "go" just about anywhere and around just about anyone. So thanks, archaeology for teaching me how to poop and pee in public.

Also, I thought about this while sitting on my awesome flushing goddess of a toilet in my house. You're welcome.