my scramblings & ramblings
‘Twas a very pleasant day for the fair. The weather was perfect, the skies were blue and sunny. There was a nice breeze, and although it was crowded, it was still fun.
I’ll tell you what, having a wristband makes hitting the rides so much easier. I was sufficiently dizzy by the end of the night. Until I ate, that is.
The first thing Bob and I rode was something called the Space Roller.
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On the way home from my mom’s today, I got caught in the most horrific thunderstorm ever.
Traffic was stopped. Everyone could only sit there with their hazards on and wait it out. Hail POUNDED the SUV. It was so loud I had to cover my ears. The lightening was terrific. Debris was flying all over the place. Visibility was minimal. The sky was pitch black.
It was simply incredible.
I had to marvel, because years ago, I would have had a hysterical fit. I would have had to pull over, scream, curl into a ball, something. Today, the most I did was grip the seat and cringe at the sound of the hail, and at the sight of the trees blowing like mad. Hoping and praying everyone on the road would make it home safely.
It was quite an experience.
I’m proud to say I didn’t have a panic attack. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I had a panic attack. Over anything. I think it’s been years. YAY.
I wanted to take pictures, but my camera was in my suitcase.
Hours before that, I’m ashamed to say I threw a temper tantrum. Well, not an actual *on the floor kicking and screaming* tantrum, but I sulked a lot. I just really HATE going to Heinen’s, and I especially hate it now because they don’t sell the damned chocolate Rice Krispies Split Stix.
I had fun, though, helping my mom pick out a new car. Well, it’s used, but still new. A 2002 Ford Taurus. Red. So much better than the 2002 Dodge Intrepid she was considering. I really don’t like that car. But she fell in love with the Taurus, is getting a great deal on it–but she wants to wait ’til my step-dad is with her to actually commit to it. She’ll hopefully be driving it home tomorrow or Tuesday.
And I had the most yummy dinner today. BBQ chicken and baked beans, and a slice of bread. Mmmmmm.
The agenda for tomorrow includes:
– Library;
– Meijer;
– Lunch with itskels;
– Kicking the boys out of the house to watch fireworks and stealing some ME time. >:)
You know what I realized? As lazy as I can be, I have a hard time relaxing. I always feel like I should be doing something. So, even though I could be stealing a nap, (say, the boys are out of the house or something) I always feel a twinge of guilt–because there is laundry to do. Website work to complete. Novels to revise and edit and work on. Library books to finish reading before tomorrow (yeah, about that…), friends and family to call. I often have to physically WORK to keep from grinding my teeth because I start to think and concentrate so much that I don’t even realize I’m doing it!
I neglected to mention I spent all day yesterday at Andy’s. He’s so cool. He cooked a lot of good food that make my tummy very happy. Spaghetti and grilled chicken. Mmmm. He grilled the chicken on a CHARCOAL grill, too. Oh wow, yum. Then he made chocolate chip cookies–mostly to keep me from eating all the raw cookie dough, I think. We watched movies all day. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (with that great Moaning Myrtle scene, plus anything involving Diggory), Pirates of the Caribbean, and …. oh shoot. Why can’t I remember the other movie we watched? Oh man. What the heck?
And seriously, bacon cooked in the oven is a piece of Heaven on Earth. Firstly, it SMELLS heavenly. Thirty minutes of … BACON. Mmm. And it tastes better than bacon cooked any other way. Although, Foremanized bacon isn’t bad either. But OVEN-COOKED BACON cannot be beat. Ever.
Had a weird dream. I was in Chicago, but a strange part of town with strange random girls. Shopping in strange, random stores. I wanted a box of earrings, but in silver. They only had gold. I remember waiting a long time to see if they could put in a special order for silver. But in the dream, I knew that I was broke, so I was trying to figure out how I was going to pay for the earrings. Turned out they couldn’t order them, so I was off the hook. I also remember getting Aidan from where a bunch of “guys” were hanging out (Chris included), and trying to get him in the stroller. Aidan was too big for the stroller and there weren’t wheels on it. I said the F word a lot.
What a weird dream.
Anyway, Aidan woke me up at 8:35 this morning, and I got a ten minute catnap early this afternoon. So I’m tired. G’night.
ETA: BATMAN BEGINS! That was the other movie!!! 😀
I also got my desktop computer back, all nicely rebuilt by Andy. Once my Windows XP disk comes (yay for OEM software!), I’ll install it and YAY, I’ll have a desktop up and running again WOOHOO!
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Hmm. After a yummy breakfast of bacon and Cream of Wheat (mmmm) and a nice shower, I am much better than the Cranky Ronni I was just an hour ago. 😀 YAY.
Here are things I need to do as the summer progresses:
– Grow my hair back out, which will be easy, seeing as I can no longer afford to get my hair done at the salon, which means no more “trims” which are really cuts. I miss my long hair. 🙁
– Lose weight. I have a on a pair of capri pants I wore easily last year, and they’re a bit tight on me now. Unacceptable.
– Continue writing. Even though I’ve managed to convince myself I’ll never sell.
That’s all for now, folks.
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Aidan is having a bad evening. Sort of.
· He can’t find his light-up shoes, and is refusing to put on his sandals.
· He wants Hawaiian Punch.
Here is the exchange:
Aidan: Can I have Hawaiian Punch?
Ronni: No, it’s too late.
Aidan: IT’S NOT TOO LATE, IT’S NOT NIGHT TIME!
Ronni: Aidan, it’s 7 o’clock, too late for juice.
Aidan: NO IT’S NOT NIGHT TIME! (louder, more whiny)
Ronni: Aidan, I said NO and I’m not going to argue with you.
Aidan: WAH!!!
Trying to get him to go outside, but we’ll see.
I don’t have to buy a new light for the aquarium after all. The plug had gotten knocked out of the socket, thus rendering it useless. But now, it’s plugged in and my aquarium has light again! Wheee! I’d cleaned it earlier this week too, so it looks very nice.
They let us out of work early today. 2pm. I went to the bank, then home, where I crashed until 4:30. I wasn’t all that tired, actually, but honestly, why turn down a free nap?
I am deciding if I want to work on MOVES tonight, or continue to prepare for CRUSH revisions. I start on them tomorrow. I’m really in a MOVES state of mind and I fear that if I work on it tonight, I won’t be able to switch gears to CRUSH mode. So I’m actually taking a break from writing today. I’ve gotten so used to doing it every single day that this feels weird.
Catching up on emails. I only have two to answer! 🙂 Then the weekend.
· Writing
· Visiting Andy
· Visiting Mommy
· Family stuff
· Eating lots of food that’s not so good for me
Speaking of, Aidan is trying to force me to eat a giant marshmallow. Help.
‘Til next time!
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I uninstalled IE 7.0 Beta and went back to having only IE 6 on my computer. AOL is acting just fine, now. Still stupid ads in my email, but at least the graphics are fixed now and the emails load properly. I’ll probably hang on to it for a bit.
And just to clarify from my last post–I only use Mozilla and Firefox for surfing. Two different browsers–one for all my regular links and also my lilrongal journal, the other for all my writing links and my bananagirl19 journal. I thought I’d try IE 7.0 just to see what it was about, but it’s just as crap as any other IE, so yeah. That’s all it was.
I also cleaned a lot of crap off of my computer, and it runs a lot more smoothly, and it also starts up a lot quicker. YAY for getting rid of junk! Woo!
Today was a day of imitations.
· The road was imitating coffins, for dead animals. Especially skunks. Ew.
· My bladder was doing a great imitation of a pea. (I had to pee every hour, it seemed)
· The family room is doing a good imitation of being clean, but really, I just took all of Aidan’s clothes and put them in the chair, and dumped all of his toys in the toy room.
· Fi is imitating a crazy person, as he is determined to get the fish out of the aquarium.
· The house is imitating Gracie’s litter box, as she’s been sick with a UTI, so she’s been dribbling whereever she felt the urge. That shall be cleaned up before July 19, and that is when life group will be hosted at my house. Eep.
Today is one of those days I feel like being a loner. Probably because I have a full weekend ahead of me. Four days off, but something to do each day, it seems. I’m most anxious for July 1st to get here, as that is when I will start revisions on CRUSH. I do believe I will be up at midnight, opening the Word document and getting to work. Should take me two weeks, tops, before I ship it off mandywriter (the BEST critique partner in the world), and then a few more revisions, then on to his majesty, The Agent. Can’t wait for that one to go on submissions. I’m really excited about CRUSH.
I bought a new planner at Barnes & Noble the other day. Yes, the 2007 ones are out already! It starts on July 1st! Seems like so much hinges on July 1st. See, I have this THING about planners. A lot of my friends use PALMS or TREOS or some other fancy gadget, and one would think, since I’m so into technology and stuff, that I’d be into it as well. But no, I love my 5×7 planner. I love writing everything down. All my notes. Birthdays. Important phone numbers. In a bit, I’ll probably go upstairs and bust out the stickers. I like to do my planner up right. Different colored ink for different things, pencil for plans with people. Red for cancellations. Green for payday. Blue for birthdays. It might be a bit psychotic if you ask me, but there is something about planners.
It started when I was in college. At the Ohio State bookstores, you could pick up a planner every year called Dates & Data. It was prefilled with all sorts of OSU trivia, pictures, holidays and such. I got one every year, and LOVED filling it up. I still have it. I enjoy going through it, looking at the things that were important to me. All the homework and exams that were taking place. My birth control pill schedule. Vacations. Stickers, of course. Every since then, I’d tried several different ways of calendaring. I still do. I’ve had fancy Franklin planners, a Palm Pilot (old school, m100 or something like that), online services (AOL, Yahoo, Google – I do use that a bit, but more to let people know what I’m up to), but you know what? I LOVE my 5×7 spiral-bound notebooks, and I buy one from Barnes & Noble every single year.
I also have an attachment to certain types of journals. Emily bought me a really cool one for my birthday in 2004. Spiral bound, perfect size, the paper had the perfect thickness. Most importantly, the sheets had NO PERFORATION. It’s important to me that the sheets have no perforation. I filled it up in a year, and late last year, asked Emily where she got it. Waldenbooks. So every year, I’ll be trekking to Waldenbooks to get the kind of journal that’s perfect for me.
Yeah, I guess I’m a nerd like that.
The boys are off playing disc golf. I’m supposed to be working on MOVES, but I’ve kicked ass in the progress on that book. I wasn’t even supposed to start it until July 1st, and I’m already over 11,000 words! I will do something tonight, though. I want to get to 12,000. Then, I shall have spaghetti. Mmm, nights alone. Must go to the store tomorrow (PAYDAY YAY!). I need a new bulb for the aquarium, some of that Feline Pine stuff (thanks to Gracie), and some Rice Krispie Treats Split Stix (chocolate please). I went to Meijer on Monday and they were OUT. And get this. No one else sells the darn things. Grar. I hate when I fall in love with a snack food only to have it disappear from the shelves months later. Like the following:
· Rice Krispie Treats – Double Chocolately Chunk. I can only get them in the variety pack, or if I’m lucky, a gas station or something will have huge ones for sale.
· Granola Dipps. Someone tell me WHY I can only find these at that god awful Wal-mart? 🙁
· Skippy Peanut Butter and Marshmallow bars. Oh man, those were so good. And I can’t find them anywhere.
You know, now that I think about it, I think grocery stores in general around here suck. I mean, I can only get the 75% less sugar Trix at that god awful Wal-mart. And since I’m DONE shopping in that store save a major emergency, I won’t be getting most of those. It’s not fair that only certain stores carry certain things. I want to find a store (NOT WAL-MART) that carries everything I like. One stop shopping for real, yo.
Maybe I’ll try Kroger again. Sigh. 🙁
I should go write. Then eat. I’ll probably be back later. 😀
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