Tag Archives: getting stuff done

Don’t Fear the Alligator Farm

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Pamela

Did you ever have this thing happen where you look at your watch and realize you have a little extra time so you decide, “Hey, I’m going to run and drop off my dry cleaning.”

But on the way over you run into this giant construction project and you have to wait for an earth-mover and finally you get going again and you decide to try this other way that will probably be easier. Except then you get behind a school bus that stops every 25 feet to drop off some more kids. Then you finally get to the dry cleaners but the two short term parking spots out front are taken so you have to drive around the block to find a spot. Then you have to dig around in the bottom of your purse for some change.

Then you finally get into the dry cleaners and Sister Beatrice Mabel Elizabeth is there, dropping off 30 wimples and she needs a separate receipt for each of the sisters. And by now you’re all lathered up because, what the hell? You were just running out to do one simple errand.

But then the opposite of this is when you get a letter from the IRS and for some reason the IRS thinks you owe 10 years of back taxes on an alligator farm in Gainesville, Florida when in real life you owe no taxes, you own no farm, no alligators and you’ve never been to Gainesville, Florida. You spend several days losing sleep and unable to keep food down while googling “Help, IRS.” You ask the question on reddit and then spend hours going through screen after screen of responses that are some iteration of: you’re screwed. You finally start collecting everything you think of that might prove your case and ask around about tax lawyers.

But then, just for kicks you phone the IRS on the off chance there is a painless way to solve this and after three minutes on hold, the person you talk to says, “Clerical error. Your account is fine. Have a nice day.” Then you wonder why you didn’t just do that first.

I had not one but TWO alligator farms today. Everything worked out fine.

Moral of the story: if you find yourself in an alligator farm situation, don’t be afraid to try the easiest thing first. And be super polite.

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The Saturdays

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Pamela

This is from the reserves match earlier this week. We sat in the club seats. There was rain, hail, cold feet and a pretty sky. You can kind of see the hail in this next one:

Last week was another busy and tiring one. Apparently at my advanced age I can’t do everything all the time.

Yesterday I had some downtime. Last night I slept like a champion. And today I am trying to do everything again.

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Still Doing It Wrong After All These Years

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Pamela

Guess where we were today?

The bean store. (The bean store is not doing it wrong.)

I can’t wait to see the look on Bob’s face (my Bob, not the Red Mill one) when he sees this giant bag of flour I bought.

As it is, I buy 10 lbs. at a time and I go through it pretty quick. I was thinking of working through some of my bread baking recipes this winter. I bet I’ll use it.

I also stocked up on a wide variety of legumes and other stuff. And I had a latte. I don’t drink coffee so right now I feel like my head is about to pop off.

Last week I did two shopping errands, each about 15 minutes, and already I hate Christmas shopping.

At one place the clerk was so worthless it was like it was her purpose to make sure I didn’t buy anything. I stomped out of the store empty-handed but now I still need to find a present.

We have a relatively new motion detector light out front. One of the bulbs burned out and I decided to deal with it right away instead of putting it off for the next three years.

I went to the good hardware store (remind me to write a post about hardware stores someday) and was directed to this item. She told me: You can’t touch the bulb with your fingers because the oil ruins the bulb.

Okay.

Of course the detector is installed up on a wall outside. So I needed a step ladder and I needed to lean at an awkward angle and I couldn’t see what I was doing and I had to cram my tiny girl hand into this little metal cylinder where the lightbulb lives. And you can’t touch the lightbulb so you have it wrapped in a little napkin.

Why would you even invent a system like this? There seriously is no better way to make a motion detector? It took me about a half hour and I said oodles of bad words and stomped in and out of the house trying to figure out what the problem was.

I even looked for online advice thinking there must be something I’m missing. One guy’s advice? “Turn the bulb into the socket in a clockwise direction.”

Wow, thanks Einstein. The world is so lucky to have you.

I finally got it all reassembled and tested it. Then I jogged up and down the driveway in a victory dance, like Rocky.

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Garden is Finished

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Pamela

Yesterday afternoon the light in the backyard was amazing. In the time that it took to get my camera it disappeared. You can kind of see it at the top of the photo.

I haven’t managed to get out there for a couple of weeks and there was tons to do. I dug a bunch of trenches and raked zillions of apples and leaves into them. I picked up a giant box of the prettier looking apples and I’m about to get started on my applesauce project.

That black mark in the bottom corner is Toes. He was doing his business in my garden and than ran over to say hi when I came out.

I told him: You can’t crap in my yard and then expect me to act like friends.

This is the flower garden part that still needs a lot of cleaning up. There are still a few dahlias out there but mostly everything is shriveled up and ready for the bin.

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Walking in Place

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Pamela

Kira these are the raspberries. I found a few ripe ones today.

Since the beginning of the year I keep thinking I have one more big project to finish and then I’ll have a weekend where I can take it easy and catch up on all these loose ends that are getting looser by the minute.

This weekend didn’t work out with extra time either.

If I owe you a phone call or note or said I’d do something for you — maybe next weekend. I have one more big project to finish.

I haven’t even had time to watch all my soccer. One game a day is all I’ve managed to cram in. And none of the games I’ve seen so far has blown my socks off. Who should we root for in England v. France tomorrow?

Every time there’s a once in a lifetime astronomy event, I never pay much attention because it’s cloudy here 385 days a year. There was that venus across the sun thing happening and it was not cloudy so I went and did the homework to see how I could go about viewing it. The instructions said to go some place where they’re projecting it and watch it there.

I’m thinking: watch it projected or wait until tomorrow and look at it on the Internet, what’s the difference?

I also tried just looking at the sun even though the directions said not to. It just looked bright and hurt my eyes.

I baked another loaf of total fail bread. The crust is like crumpled concrete. The inside is dense and tasteless. I can’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I need to get out all my bread notes and see if I can troubleshoot it. Baking bread used to be my super power.

I can hardly keep my eyes open so I’m going to bed.

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Chasing After Some Finer Day

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Pamela

So what’s the etiquette on talking about how people smell?

I’m sensitive to smells meaning that I notice them a lot, good or bad. And I tend to be one to blurt out, “Something smells good,” just about any time. I’m more reserved about bad smells, sometimes.

Recently the UPS man came to the office, and he smelled terrific.

I didn’t say anything because I was afraid it would be weird. But he was like Scatman Crothers and he called me ‘Sweetheart’ so I don’t think he would have minded. We have 2 UPS men at the office. One of them never smiles, even when I make a joke. I would not say anything about smells around him.

News about the self-published eBook is coming shortly. I still need to get a few things checked out and then I want to set it up so you can get it for free for a few days. But it is all done and in the chute and *almost* ready for prime time.

Stay tuned.

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SPROUTASTIC

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Pamela

Kimberlee inspired me to get my sprouter out.

I bought it years ago and used it for awhile and then it was put into the corner of storage and I ignored it.

My seed stash was ancient. The mung beans worked great. The alfalfa-kitchen mix whatever it is hasn’t been too impressive. I’m going to need to refresh my supply.

My week was unexpectedly killer busy. I’ve hardly had time to pull up my socks. But good things happened.

I had a longer post started somewhere but I can’t find it so something to look forward to later.

It’s sunny and I’ve got a soccer match. I’m wearing short sleeves and sandals. Great day.

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I Can Even Touch The Sky

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Pamela

Ishi Pishi Road, Orleans, CA

I finally deleted my Facebook account.

Actually the button said I deactivated it. I’m not sure if I had to dig deeper to delete or if they won’t let you because once they cap everyone they want to have data they can use to control you.

Doesn’t matter because I like being able to change my mind. What if the Timbers play a game that doesn’t destroy my soul and there’s a huge photostream that I can only view if I have a FB account?
 
Clicking that deactivate button was completely exhilarating.

I’m thinking about deleting my Twitter account now, too. I’m wishing I had GooglePlus, Pinterest, Shelfari, SockProvider, RecipeWiz, SewingWorld, ExerciseMama, MeditationShare, and Guns&RodsReloader accounts just so I could delete them all and feel that rush again and again.

Orleans Bridge, Orleans CA

It’s sorta like that story I read about tattoo removal where they joked that as soon as they got one removed they would go get another to keep the cycle going.
 
Did I ever write about when I looked into tattoo removal as a possible new occupation? It was a long time ago when I was not happy with my job (different employer than I have now) and I was looking around to see what other opportunities the world had to offer. I figured tattoo removal was going to be a raging growth industry. But I also realized I would spend my days hunched over burning skin so I didn’t get too far with that.

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Use Your Eyes Birds

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Pamela

At the end of last summer I found a sunflower filled with seeds that hadn’t been torn apart by the squirrels and birds and I stuck it in the shop to deal with later. My thought was that I’d have my very own sunflower seeds to snack on.

Like many things that I stick in the shop to deal with later, I never got around to dealing with this.

At the beginning of January when I was still fresh and optimistic about getting things done, I brought it in the house and looked for a YouTube tutorial that would tell me the easiest way to get the seeds out. The tutorial told me that when the sunflower was ready, I could just shake all the seeds out.

I wrapped the sunflower in an old bedsheet and shook it around like crazy and no seeds came out.

That was enough of that project. I threw the sunflower back out in the garden and figured the birds and squirrels would find it.

That was over a month ago.

No birds or squirrels ever paid any attention to it until this weekend when I saw all these creatures rioting over it and chasing each other off and taking turns dragging it around the yard.

So animals don’t notice food sitting around until another animal notices it? Which animal noticed it first? I wanted to go out and yell at them that they could have been gorging on sunflower seeds a month ago if they’d been paying attention.

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Breakfast with Benefits

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Pamela

There was a little misunderstanding about the oatmeal situation at the house. I thought we were out and bought three more boxes when we still had 2 boxes in the cupboard. Then Bob went to Costco and bought a giant box.

I said, “Well, if the zombie apocalypse comes, at least we’ll have oatmeal.”

(I don’t even eat instant oatmeal. This is all for Bob.)

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