Category Archives: ranting & raving

Beauty is all around us: LOOK CLOSER.

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new blooms

I look at the world around me and I see a lot of beauty – and a lot of ugliness, too. I guess it depends on what you are looking at and how you choose to look. You can see the beautiful flowers popping up on all of the trees or you can see the discarded petals littering the ground below trees that have adorned their leaves for the year. You can see the lush green grass and pretty yellow dandelions popping up everywhere or you can choose to focus on the brown spots and all those nasty weeds trying to overtake your lawn. Perspective.

Whether something is beautiful or ugly depends entirely on you and your perspective. Whether it’s a couple madly in love and hoping to get married, flowers in your lawn, families finding peace and happiness in a new land, buds on the trees in Spring, a child laughing. All of these things could and should be beautiful. But depending on your perspective you might instead see low life degenerates trying to ruin the sanctity of marriage, weeds overtaking your lawn, immigrants stealing all the jobs, yard waste that needs to be swept and a bunch of kids making too much noise.

I’m exaggerating a little, I know. But only a little. This morning I read one of those dumb “why should I press 1 for English?” comics on my Facebook page. I’ve seen jokes like those a million times probably and never let it bother me but today it did. Why is English the national language of America? Because a bunch of immigrants from England who were being oppressed at home sailed across the ocean to America and tried to build a new life for themselves where they would be free from judgement and persecution. Speaking on behalf of those immigrants, we kinda mucked that one up a bit initially, fighting with the people already living here and making a lot of mistakes. We refused to “learn the language” and weren’t very nice. But we are good people deep down, I think.

We are all of us immigrants here, some more recently than others. And while I agree that being able to communicate with each other is very important, I think compassion is also important. I think that remembering where we come from is important. We are a nation of immigrants – it’s what makes America beautiful. If we could only treat each other equally -  all of us – think how beautiful and amazing we could be.

It’s easy to see something different and judge it based on what we know. To feel tired and cranky and focus on the negatives is a normal, human thing to do. Sometimes we just want to feel the negativity for a little while and really marinate in it.  But then when we are ready, we look again and see how beautiful the world really is – how nothing has changed except everything. The beauty never left, you just forgot to look for awhile. So if you are looking around yourself and seeing nothing but ugliness, look closer. The beauty is there if you’ll just choose to look at it.

Disclaimer: I don’t claim to have all the answers. I can’t necessarily see the big picture and I know that complex issues are just that, complex. But I do believe in equality, love, compassion and kindness. I think we can all agree to abide by those ideals here. If you choose to comment, please do so with kindness and compassion and an open mind.

on not fighting the tides.

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544777_10100137919685056_145240845_n

It’s a lounge in our jammies watching tv kind of day. A second latte, lingering in little moments kind of day. I’ve been trying to focus on all the little good things – the impossible bend in her limbs as she watches Sofia the First on repeat with me. The delicious taste of coffee freshly brewed at home. A happy, healthy family. The weekend fast approaching, finally.

Lately little aspects of our lives that I cannot control have been bugging me more than usual. Family being far away has been getting harder to take in stride and that feeling of being an outsider in a town full of outsiders trying to break in. Driving down the same roads every day, I feel like a hamster running the same wheel and accomplishing little. My social circle continues to expand and then extract as people come and go and I find myself saying good bye to good friends that it’s hard to imagine living without and yet I should be used to it, it’s happened before and will happen again. I should remember all the friends who had to say goodbye to us when we moved not that long ago.

I remind myself of all of the things that I love about our home and our lives. Of our happy, healthy family and the roof over our heads. All the things we have that others have not. I miss my family. I resent the moments I am missing in their lives that I am not a part of and wonder how much is changing that I’ll never know. I’m tired of saying good bye and saying hello and then good bye again. It’s so hard to put yourself out there and connect with people and plant roots in your lives only to have them dug up again and being forced to start again. And though I know I’ll be fine, I stubbornly lick my wounds and take a day to just hide inside of it all.

I know that my real problem is the impermanence and my own lack of control in the changes of our lives. Your best friend can move away tomorrow and though the friendship will always be there, it will never be the same. The people we love will not always be there – and even though these losses are inevitable, we still put ourselves out there and love. It’s always worth it, but that doesn’t make it hurt less. But sometimes when you are standing in the cross hairs of change, you look at the choices we make in our lives and it seems silly. Why make plans when they may never come to fruition? Why make these roots only to have them dug up? Why is change so hard every time? Why are we walking this path at all? What if there is another path that would be easier that we cannot fathom right now?

I’m trying to ignore myself right now – to spend another hour in my pjs, watching Disney Jr with my little girl, while she’s still little. I’m not going to worry about the things I cannot control, which is, you know, basically everything. I can’t think about that right now, I’ll think about that tomorrow.

Am I running out of things to say?

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I know it’s normal for creativity to have it’s ebbs and flows, highs and lows. But sometimes I feel like I have literally said all that needs to be said, photographed all that needs to be photographed, folded all that ever needs to be folded (okay, that’s a flat out lie, folding unfortunately is never done).

I have felt my creativity draining over the past few weeks. Maybe it’s the impending rush of the holiday season, leaving me focused on getting out of the next month alive, sane and not broke. Perhaps it’s the three year old who is determined to give up napping forever and always wants to wear the least convenient shoes wherever we are going. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. Beating myself up because that whole nanowrimo thing? Yeah it didn’t happen, in kind of a major way. Like one week in, I said pfft – never mind, I’m done. Or really just, maybe I don’t want to be forced to write every day even when I have nothing to write, even when it’s garbage. Maybe I will write in a month that is not November just once instead of trying to stockpile my creativity all year only to have it horrendously backfire on me. Excuses, I know.

It’s been leaking into other areas, too, though. Like photography – I’ve been phoning it in where my 365 project is concerned, making copious use of “filler photos” and taking lots of random cell phone snapshots just cause. And sometimes I want to force myself not to photograph things but rather to experience them. To ignore that whisper in my brain that says if there is no picture, it didn’t really happen. I don’t need proof of my happiness to be happy. So sometimes I think maybe it is more important to take photographs when they count, when they matter, when you are inspired. And not just because it’s 9:30 at night and you haven’t taken a picture that day. Maybe I won’t need 80 pictures of coffee when all is said and done.

peppermint mocha. on 365 Project

And of course, there is this blog. Sometimes I have my moments, where I say something epic and even though nobody comments, I love the post and feel inspired. I can’t be upset by the lack of comments, I’m a frequent blog stalker, too. Always reading, never commenting. And I’ve dropped off a lot of the meme / carnival band wagons in the search of quality over quantity, ignoring the fact that my quality is only so so most weeks. Many weeks go by with just an obligatory daybook post, a wordless Wednesday or Thursday and maybe a repetitive rehash about what I’m reading that month. And it kind of makes this feel like a wasted opportunity. I’ve given myself this platform to say something, to document my life and explore my creativity and say something. Am I wasting this space or is this just a realistic representative of where my life is right now, just sort of existing. Everything is fine and thus there isn’t much to say except perhaps another obligatory complaint about the lack of nap times in my life.

So what am I trying to say? I have no idea, and that’s kind of the point.

Doctor Who Should Come With a Warning Label: Do Not Get Too Attached!

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Christopher Eccleston as the 9th Doctor

Dan and I recently started watching Doctor Who together. When the fall / winter series finally had all had their finales, we switched over to our Netflix Instant Queue and decided to finally see what all the fuss was about. We were originally going to go all the way back to the episodes from the 60′s but those original shows seem to be scattered across a million DVDs and the new re-released series is all nice and tidy and we only have to press one button. So for the time being, we started with the 2005 premier of the 9th Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston.

At first I couldn’t watch the show without commenting on the pure cheesiness. Both Eccleston and his co-star Billie Piper seemed to be laying it on pretty thick and the whole thing felt like it was filmed in the 80′s which is clearly not a compliment. But the show grew on me and the characters grew on me and every night we’d put the kids to bed and then settle down for some Tardis Time. It was our thing. It’s still our thing except something happened. Something awful.

I’d preface that this is a spoiler alert, but honestly I think you need to know. At the end of the first (billionth?) season, our cheesy big eared Doctor regenerates into this cheesy Doctor:

David-Tennant-as-Doctor-Who

Even he looks confused about the casting change

Apparently when the Doctor is basically on his death bed for whatever reason, he is able to completely regenerate in the form of an entirely new person in order to survive. Still the same Doctor, except not. Now I guess given that the previous Doctor was the 9th Doctor, I should have figured out that he wasn’t going to be sticking around forever. But in a show that has been around for 50 years or so, I’d think we’d get more than one season with him. Moreover, the whole romantic connection between Piper and Eccleston had just been (finally!) acknowledged when BAM! New guy. It’s just creepy. Don’t ever kiss a guy on television or he’ll either turn into a demon, literally change faces or die. This is what I’m beginning to learn.

I guess there have been interviews and speculations, etc. that Eccleston never intended to do more than one season because he didn’t want to become typecast or something (lame) but I have to say this was a loss for everyone. This new Doctor? I mean, he’s fine. Maybe he’ll even grow on me. Maybe they wanted someone younger so that people wouldn’t be raising their eyebrows all the time at him and Rose liking each other (though apparently she won’t be sticking around much longer either, I don’t blame her, really) but Eccleston was such an amazing Doctor Who. He has that perfect blend of silly childish humor that meets perfect comedic timing and also, frankly, you just believe. He delivers a line and you believe. I don’t get that from David Tennant yet and it’s a damned shame.

And also? I resent having to whine and complain on my blog about Doctor Who, making it vividly clear to all of you that one) I’m a giant nerd and two) I take my television shows way too seriously. But seriously! If Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey had done one season and then randomly morphed into Lindsey Lohan I think we can all agree that we’d collectively flip our shit, right? How can Derek just take that in stride and believe her when she says, “Trust me, I’m still the same Meredith. Look how I flap about ridiculously and then say the word “fantastic” and everything is okay again.”

It wouldn’t work – and not because Grey’s Anatomy isn’t a Sci-Fi Show, honestly they’ve pushed the limits on reality plenty with the whole Denny the Ghost Love Scenes and all. No, it wouldn’t work because audiences like to get attached to people. We can deal with change that’s been a long time coming but just f-ing with us for the sake of keeping us on our toes is plain mean.

Maybe their males in their 20′s and 30′s Demographic just don’t form the same attatchments that women (read: I) do but I just need to have it out and written here that, I am not pleased and I miss the Big Eared Goofy Doctor a lot. I had to go on Netflix and add like 7 movies he’s done outside of Who-ville that all seem to have lackluster reviews but I don’t care. I know I’ll need a fix. Even if it won’t be the same.

They say that the first Doctor tends to be people’s favorite which is a crying shame but certainly makes sense. Fans of Doctor Who, tell me – who’s your favorite Doctor and which one did you watch first?

my thoughts on politics – don’t make me say it again (Vote for Elmo!)

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Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
Gore Vidal

I hate talking about politics. Partly because the facts in each election, major or minor, get so skewed by the media that it’s hard to tell who is telling the truth at the end of the day when everyone writing has their own agenda. Partly because elections bring out the absolute worst in a candidate – I’m pretty sure that if Elmo ran for governor that I’d hate him by the time the election was over. By the time election time rolls around, the mud slinging gets so intense that the sound of a political ad on the tv or radio sickens me – the picket signs on all the lawns on my street irritate me beyond reason and the SNL parodies of political candidates become more compelling and well rounded than the candidates themselves.

I think it’s a terrible shame that politics has become show business.
Sydney Pollack

Today my state is voting for governor. For months now we’ve been bombarded with “information” about Candidate A who hates kittens, runs an illegal honey badger prostitution ring out of his billion dollar vacation home in the Bermuda Triangle and wants to take all the money from the orphans and give it to Hitler using his time machine built by Skynet ; or Candidate B who flunked out of kindergarten and can’t spell his own name, is married to his pet donkey and thinks he can solve our states financial problems by playing Bingo at the Senior Center. Or something, I wasn’t really paying attention because I was too busy changing diapers and smoking bon bons while watching a Toddlers in Tiaras marathons.
Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.
Robert Byrne
In some elections you are lucky enough to know who you think the right candidate is. They say something in a debate that strikes a cord with you or they have a really cute butt or …something. Whatever the reason, you know without a doubt who you want to vote for. That’s awesome. Other times it feels like you are trying to decide which serial killer to give the keys to the city to. Neither candidate is remotely compelling or interesting or good looking and you are left voting for the one who either belongs to the politcal party you ascribe to at the end of the day or the one who you know probably hasn’t killed anyone. Or you like their name.
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
Doug Larson
But the thing that irks me the most is that come election time, you cannot escape it. From the Facebook statuses of every friend and fremeny you know, to the Political Televegangelists who ring your doorbell every night at exactly the same time you are trying to put your baby down for a nap or feed your toddler dinner – to the signs on every street corner and the commercials running every fifteen minutes on the television and radio. It’s everywhere. Long after you’ve made up your mind about who to vote for (Elmo for Governor!) they continue to invade your space, making sure that you know that Candidate A wants to give you herpes and that Candidate B thinks you look fat in that dress. Awesome.
It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.
George MacDonald
And then election day finally rolls around and you think, “Awesome – now we can all stop talking about politics already.” But that’s never the case. There is always another election, another evil dictator that we need to get rid of or The Second Coming of Politicians that we need to rally behind and shove into office. No sooner than this governor election ends, we’ll all be talking about the presidential election instead. And no matter who gets elected, somebody is going to hate the pants off said politician and never shut up about it, ever.
We would all like to vote for the best man but he is never a candidate.
Kin Hubbard
Look, all I’m trying to say… is that although a little political debate and conversation can be fun and educational and thought provoking – that too much of anything, especially politics, is just not good for you – it’s not good for your soul, it drains all the good karma right out of your day and it will probably make you gain ten pounds when you drown your angst in a chocolate sheet cake while the kids are “napping.” And nobody wants that. So can we all agree to NOT talk about politics for like ten minutes tomorrow? Please?
There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.
Gertrude Stein
/ rant

pretty picture, grumpy mom.

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Blooms. on 365 Project

One of the pictures I took yesterday at Olbrich. Probably the best of the bunch. In not remotely fun news, MM has swollen tonsils and I think I might, too. Jury is still out. I’m taking him to the doctors this afternoon to get looked at. I know it’s silly, but I’m a little bummed because I’d been looking forward to a return to normalcy with Spring Break ending and also I feel like we just all got better from the last illness. I’m just not in the mood.

Apple Fritters: The World’s Most Dangerous Dessert

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It’s been one of those days. The fact that it’s only 11am and I’m already saying it’s been one of those days should tell you that it hasn’t been a particularly good day.

It started last night, when I woke up from a somewhat bad dream – not a nightmare but still a bit disturbing. I won’t go into details because I don’t feel like it and you probably don’t really care. Does anybody really like hearing about other people’s dreams? Anyway, I woke up around 2 or 3 am – I’m not really sure what time it was really, I’m just guessing.

But I couldn’t fall back asleep. I lay awake dwelling on the dream for longer than the dream warranted and then started dwelling on other things that are only important at 4 in the morning. I was convinced I should just get up because I wouldn’t fall back asleep but eventually I did, just long enough to be annoyed when it was time to wake up.

I fed the kids breakfast, made myself some oatmeal, fought with MM over why he couldn’t wear the same outfit (exactly) that he wore yesterday and why he needed to wear jeans instead of shorts and socks instead of going bare foot and…. I ended up running late getting the kids out the door for a walk we had scheduled this morning with friends at Olbrich Botanical Gardens (my favorite). There were four of us scheduled to walk but only two of us showed up. No idea why really. But so I felt bad being 15 minutes late and keeping my friend waiting, but the weather was nice so we walked.

I was tired. Absolutely dragging. BB didn’t want to hold my hand. Or walk at remotely the same pace or in the same direction as us. I took some pictures – they might be pretty, I’ll look at them later and post any good one here (obvy). The walk was nice, the company was good but I was tired…. So on the way home we stopped for coffee at Starbucks.

Already the “I wants” begin. We aren’t even out of the car and MM is leveraging for a snack and a drink. BB wants goldfish. BB always wants goldfish. We got out of the car and walked to the sidewalk. MM ran face first into the side mirror on my door. Water works.

I eventually calmed him down. We went inside. Starbucks was absolutely packed. No tables free. We went to line to at least get my coffee but somehow ended up with a bag of popcorn and a milk box and then… I saw an Apple Fritter. I thought of Ree (who wouldn’t?). A small voice in my head thought caution. This might not end well. A bigger part of my head thought apple fritter. A stern responsible voice added diet. That other voice insisted apple fritter. It’ll be fine, I thought. I ordered the apple fritter. I fought with my change purse. I found the change. I bought the apple fritter and other various sundries.

A tiny table in the back was available with one chair. I sat MM down, planning to linger with my coffee and apple fritter. I asked a woman sitting at a two seater table alone if I could use the other chair for BB. She agreed. I had just gotten BB sitting down when she offered us her table so we could have three seats. Score. I tried to very cleverly move BB in her chair to the other table. She liked the table she was at and told me so by holding onto it while I moved the chair and then face planting on the hard floor below. People stared.

She screamed. She told me in her two year old kind of way that I had deeply upset her and that I was going to have to make this up to her with goldfish and anything else her tiny heart desires. She sat in my lap at our table with three seats sobbing for a bit until I convinced her to sit in her chair with goldfish, MM in his with popcorn. They shared the milk (not happily mind you). I ate my damned apple fritter. It was delicious. I had to share with both kids even though neither offered to share their snacks with me. I decided it was life’s way of making me pay penance for even attempting to eat an apple fritter. I should have known better. But I really thought things would be okay. And I mean,it was delicious and nobody needed to go to the emergency room and no glass was broken and we all got home in one piece and it was delicious. So… I guess we made out okay.

But you should known – those apple fritters are dangerous. Eat them at your own risk. You’ve been warned.

I’ll think about that tomorrow.

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Those Big Blue Eyes. on 365 Project

Dan threw his back out on Monday. He spent a day at home recovering and now he’s back at work thanks to Aleave and a back brace. So he’s doing okay but he can’t do much heavy lifting for at least a week, maybe a month. Not sure yet.

This morning we got our first big snow! Only like 3-5 inches apparently is expected but the ground is covered in that pretty fluffy white stuff I kept wishing for. I didn’t anticipate being the one on shoveling duty though.

Today I learned that our road can get so slippery that I actually can’t crest the hill and today I had to kick the car into reverse and go the long way around to avoid our steepest hill. Thank goodness we have a long way option. But our driveway is also steep and I couldn’t get the car INTO the garage. Awesome. So hubby said “sand the driveway” but guess what? The sand is in a bucket that I cannot for the life of me get open. It just keeps getting awesomer right?

Not to be outdone, I shoveled the driveway, but I think I should have just waited because I’m going to have to do it all over again when Dan gets home tonight. Yay! And my car is still stuck. Yay! And also, I need to take the car in for maintenance cause it’s stalling occasionally. Yay! I made an appointment for Tuesday and I’m hoping my driveway and street aren’t treacherous and undriveable by then. Wish me luck.

I’ve decided to try not thinking about it for as long as possible and stare at this face instead.

Yes, her again. on 365 Project

At least I’m getting in some exercise while shoveling, whether I like it or not.

Sleepy. Sick. Stuff.

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passed out. on 365 ProjectLately BB’s nap schedule has been hard to pin down. Some days she’s up until 1 or 2 no problem. Other days she’s falling asleep in her lunch at 11am. Yesterday I went into the living room to get her ready for a trip to Target around 10am and found her passed out on our new leather rocking chair. Being the good little blogging mommy that I am, I of course took pictures.

wake up sleepy head

Luckily she woke up a few seconds into our photo session, in good spirits and everything and I was able to get her dressed and coax her out into the real world where we got our errands done and were home in time for lunch, etc.

Today I woke up feeling “sick as a dog” which a) makes me question the phrase because dogs typically seem yappy and chipper to a down right irritating degree – running around chasing their own tails and then begging for a treat or a brisk walk around the block. I feel more like a sleepy kitten who is irritated at anything and everything which asks me to leave my state of slumber, contemplating smacking said irritation across the side of their head and wondering who is going to get me a saucer of warm milk to make up for the intrusion. b) Seriously, can I go back to bed now?

The sucky thing about being sick when you are a grown up and a parent is that you don’t really get to do the sick kid thing. Sure I canceled my plans, decided to forgo the whole pretense of getting dressed and I’m lounging  around drinking tea – but I also get to do all the same stuff I normally do like washing dishes, changing diapers, getting BB snacks and meals and picking MM up at the bus stop this afternoon. Okay, fine, I probably won’t bother with the dishes. Sue me, I’m sick.

Dan of course has meetings and important grown up stuff that he has to do which apparently are the primary source of our income and pays for things like hot tea and Internet access and the bed I’m waiting to lay down in again later. I get this but part of me wishes he could play hookie and make my tea for me and change BB’s diapers and make me lunch and dinner and stuff. ::cough cough:: I’m just sayin, it’d be nice.

I took some dayquil before he left and I’m pretty sure it’s the only thing keeping me human. And by human unfortunately I don’t mean that getting up to fix myself a cup of tea didn’t make me feel woozy and exhausted and a little grumpy.

Hmmm it’s only 9:18 am and I’m already weary with this day and ready to try again tomorrow. It’s gonna be a long day.

I swear I was tech savvy once. Why is the rum gone?

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So I think I may have mentioned before that I’m something of a big huge nerdy pants, at least for a girl. I think it’s official now because Dan has brainwashed me into being a bit of a Linux geek.

When we got my pretty new desktop though, we found Windows 7 wasn’t quite as bad as previous editions, at least at first glance and decided to give it a shot and take advantage of being normal Windows users for awhile – maybe buy some fun software or be able to take advantage of some of those Windows-only applications that I swear I’ve run into before but haven’t encountered since switching to Windows.

But since that switch I’ve started to feel dumber and dumber where technology is concerned. Little things would break and Sweet Little Windows would tell me absolutely nothing about what was wrong. Just, “Yup, that didn’t work. Weird huh? You should probably restart me now.”

I ignored it for awhile but I can only bury my head in the sand for so long. I’m not ready to be the sweet tech-luddite granny who needs her kids to come fix her computer while she bakes cookies… yet. Maybe next year, but not today. And I was getting kind of tired of Windows and all of it’s vagueness and brain farts.

So I decided to go back to Linux where I was once somewhat comfortable – but this time, I was going to be more in charge of the whole thing and become self sufficient. I mean, come on, I grew up in this tech age and used to be able to completely take charge of my technology. I want those days back, guys.

But apparently it was more complicated than that. Some Ubuntu application that was supposed to make installing Linux easy turned out to be broken (better broken than my fault, though) and then Dan said, “You know, I still don’t like the new version of Ubuntu anyway, let’s try Fedora.” And I thought, “Fedoras are a pretty cool hat. Maybe they are a nifty OS, too.” So I was game.

Except apparently that was complicated, too, and I ended up needing some help, but okay, whatev. I’ll just make sure to stay in the room so I can take notes and learn how to do this myself next time. Except it involved a lot of gibberish languages that I don’t speak. Isn’t there a book that can translate command prompt lingo into Vaguely Geeky Girl-ese?

But we got it running and all was good except I . kept. breaking. it. Or like kinda quasi-breaking it. And only some settings were actually set up. And then Dan decided to play with the internet at work the other day (yesterday) but then left it broken and then had important meetings and the end result was I couldn’t go online yesterday unless you count my smart phone. Which would be fine except I refuse to blog on my phone. Sorry.

Then this morning he said it was all FIXED except I was apparently working off the CD by accident and got all confused and “wah?” and couldn’t log in, much less get online. So then I removed the CD and broke the computer somehow and it was like, “Congratulations! You’re using Emergency Mode for the first time!!! Exciting, huh? Please type the information that only Wizards know to proceed.” And I was all, “restart?” and then it was all, “Congratulations! You’re using Emergency Mode for the first time!!! Exciting, huh? Please type the information that only Wizards know to proceed.” And then I said, “DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.”

And then he fixed it. Somehow. I don’t know how because I was watching Sesame Street with BB. Except apparently he didn’t fix it very well because I still can’t get online on my desktop, even though it works fine and dandy here on my netbook. Which is how I’m typing this.

Sidenote: Last night while yours truly and the rest of the sane universe was sleeping, Dan was helping one of his customers do an upgrade. It was supposed to be pretty easy peasy lemon squeezy but apparently hell broke loose or something because now he’s on the phone helping them figure it out and hasn’t even had breakfast yet, never mind left for his office. Don’t worry, I totally made him coffee, but still.

So now I feel kinda rude and silly asking him to please fix my internet because he’s helping somebody who pays him right now. Probably more important, right?

So anyway, this is all to explain why there are no pictures in this post. Because I’m typing on a tiny machine and can’t upload any new pictures because I haven’t been able to use Big Beautiful since Sunday, and right now I’m just hoping that when Dan fixes my internet that we’ll find all the problems were ours and not Fedoras because frankly, he’s still the New Guy on the Block as far as I’m concerned and part of me wants to blame him for all these issues and not Dumb Jen.

And now I’m sure some people are saying, “That’s what you get for trying ditch Windows, silly girl. We don’t have any of these problems.” And other people are saying, “How are you getting internet from a hat? I’m confused.” And maybe other people are saying, “Just type squiggle exclamation elephant toe and your internet will totally work fine. Duh.” And to those people, I say:

“Please leave a comment with precise and girl-friendly instructions – but don’t dumb it down too much cause I swear I’m smart sometimes.”