Ahhh Monday

I don't know where to start......

1. Isaak forgot his math homework this morning and I'm not sure if I should take it in to him or let him learn from his mistake. He is so terrible at remembering to bring home his spelling workbook, his reading assignment books, he's already lost his lunch box after 3 weeks of school, and now this morning he forgets his math home work that was sitting on top of his backpack. He just picked up the backpack and let the homework fall to the floor. He is completely oblivious. I think I should just let him suffer the consequences. How else will he learn to take care of his own stuff. But still there is a part of me that thinks I should take it in to him and is making me feel guilty for not taking it to him.

2. My tufting gun is still broken. I got the part last Friday, but it doesn't fit and the chick at the factory is going to have to check and see what the deal is. This could potentially take another 2 weeks to solve. In the meantime I have a rug sitting on the rack getting overly stretched out and probably being wrecked. I was so gung ho since school started and now I am stuck and at the mercy of the gun manufacturer. It is giving me an eye twitch.

3. Tony Robbins. It seems like my most popular blog posts are the ones in which I talk about Tony Robbins. I keep getting questions about whether I liked his CD's or not and what I've done to make changes to my life since listening to them. The answer is I liked them a little and they have not done much to change my life. Everything that Tony talks about is basic common sense. If you don't have common sense then the CD's are a treasure trove of info. If you are like me and have read a lot of self-help, have a ton of common sense, and are well read in general the tapes will not help too much. They are motivational if you need a little kick in the pants to get going, but they are not life changing.

4. The children are sick and I sent them to school anyway. No one had a fever, but both boys have a hacking phlemy cough that I'm sure will be annoying to their classmates today. Maybe they should have stayed home, but I really wanted this day to myself. I only get Monday's and Wednesday's to myself and there was no way I wanted the two of them to be here arguing, coughing, and begging to play video games all day. Does that make me a horrible parent? Probably. I don't mind if their sick on a Tuesday or Thursday or Friday, but Monday's and Wednesday's are sacred days.

Now I feel better already. Sometimes it's just got to get out of my head. My eye is still twitching, but maybe some Tylenol will help with that.

Chocolate Croissants

I love love love chocolate croissants. I could eat them every morning for breakfast and every night for dessert.

When we lived in California there was a cute litte French bakery about a block away from my office. When the craving struck I just walked down and picked up a $4.00 piece of heaven. The price and my waistline kept me from over indulging too much.

Since moving to Flagstaff (sometimes called the "Ghetto in the Meadow") my love for chocolate croissants has not wavered, but I have had to satisfy my hunger for them with the Williams Sonoma mail-order croissants. They are delicious, but expensive ($40 for a box of 15 not including S&H), and they must be planned in advance. The croissants must defrost overnight, and then sit for another hour or so to rise. A sudden urge cannot be satisfied until a good 8-10 hours later.

We have no donut shops here and no pastry shops other than chocolate confectioners. There was no place sophisitcated enough to make a good croissant......... until this week.

While doing my usual mid-week milk run at Safeway I saw a sign next door that said "Village Baker Now Open!". I was shocked to see the sign since the Village Baker was a client of mine and I had just designed a new store for them a few blocks over. What were they possibly doing here in a second location. I walked in and could not believe my eyes. There before me was a case filled with several different pastries and croissants and out of the corner of one was peeking out the unmistakable sight of melted croissant chocolate. I was told by the boy behind the counter that the owner had decided to open a second location that sold pastries and cakes in addition to the location that I knew that sold only commercial bread loaves and rolls.

I bought one of the croissants and the rest is history. I went by this morning and picked up a couple and I will stop by later this afternoon and pick up 6 more for the weekend. I am going to overindulge and roll around in the crispy buttery chocolate decadence until I am sick of the sight of chocolate croissants. My only hope is that there are other people in town that will support this new bakery and their pastries, otherwise I am going to be spending a lot of money trying to keep the place open with my patronage just so that I can continue to have my croissants.

Switching it Up

I did get some serious stuff started on Monday. I figured out how to optimize my artwork from Illustrator to get it to look right in DreamWeaver for my rug web site. That was a major hurdle and now web design doesn't seem quite as scary as it did before.

I also started a new blog that will be devoted entirely to architecture. Today I will start another one that will be devoted entirely to the books that I'm reading, and what I'm writing when I'm not updating my 3 blogs.

Will anyone read these other blogs? Not likely, but it will help me get into the habit of writing everyday and help me figure out what it is that I really want to write. This one blog isn't big enough for all that I want to say, and it's so all over the place it's hard to find an audience.

So here will remain all of my complains, budget woes, and general life updates, but if you want something a little more specialized you'll have to head over to my new blogs. I won't post them now, but probably next week when I've got something to look at over there I'll let you know.

Down to Business

Alright!
No more excuses. This is it. All of the children are officially back at school. No more fucking around. This is serious.

No more Perez all day, no more reading on the porch all afternoon. It's time to buckle down and start rolling the dough.

There will be serious writing going on, serious web site design, serious tufting and serious big pimping to sell all my shit and bring in the Benjamins.

No more Jack Johnson, John Mayer, or Coldplay. It's all NIN, Micky Avalon, and Dr Dre.

I've been biding my time since February waiting for this very day, so I had better show some effort, and have something big to cross off my list today.

So far nothing comes to mind. I'm frustrated, and stuck in the mire of 6 months of being a stay at home mom. I'm excited, but don't know where to start and what will produce the most results. My gun is still broken, and I lack any funds to start up my web site other than just buying the domain name.

So it looks like I will be writing. It's the one thing that I can do for free and all it will cost me to get it out there is a stamp and a free web site.

This is the day that I said I was going to start writing everyday. This was when I was going to start writing whether I had found an idae to run with or not. I'm
just going to write and write and hopefully get better and better, and again, hopefully, find someone who wants to read what I write.

Here goes nothing..........

Appliance Breakdown

Apparently the lifespan of the average appliance is 5 years since every single appliance in our house has broken this year except for the dishwasher which I expect to go at any minute now.

First it was the oven.

Then it was the dryer.

Now it is the freakin refrigerator. Of all the appliances I can't live without this one reins supreme. I just used the toaster over when the over was out and had to do without cookies and brownies. When the dryer was out I just hung the clothes outside, but the fridge?

I have an extra freezer which is now stuffed to the brim with tater tots and fish sticks, but the fridge side will not all fit into out picnic coolers. My condiments will all have to be replaced (which is probably not a bad idea with or without the fridge broken). My M&M's are warm, and I have 4 jugs of milk and no where to put them. Argggggh!

And then to make matters worse..... I finally got a rug up on the rack and started tufting this weekend, and then today when I went back out to start a whole day of rug tufting the speed control switch broke and would only work at 500 mph. This was the 2nd time I had used the gun since I bought it back in January. Thankfully I called the manufacturer and they are going to send me a new speed switch free of charge, but if it has to come from Germany it will take 3 weeks for the part to get here. Arghggggh!

Just when I thought everything was smooth sailing and the kids were back at school, the gun breaks and now I'm on hold indefinitely. Two steps forward and one step back is an understatement.

I'm going to have to buy some sage to try and drive out the evil gremlin that is affecting all of my appliances. Is there such a thing as an appliance gremlin? If there is he has moved into my house.

Tha Library

I'm going to update my thoghts and feelings on the library. I think in was back in March that I posted a tirade about the evil grossness of the library, but after months on going there to get my book fix I think I have changed my mind.

It's still gross, I have to wipe off most books with a Clorox wipe before I open them, but I think I have begun to understand that magical mystery coolness of the library.

I used to have a $300/month book habit. I would order with abandon from Amazon and walk out of Barnes and Noble with armfulls of books. I would wind up with some clunkers, some absolute trash, and a rare diamond. I didn't care. I had the money to spend and they looked beautiful on my shelves.

Now that I am no longer working I have had to find another way to feed my massive appetite for books. I started going to the library out of pure raw desire to have a new book in my hand. And I'm not talking about $15 paperbacks. I love giant Tashen and Rizzoli books with glossy full spread photos, a full 3 lb weight, and over 400 pages of high brow text. Those kinds of books are not in my price range anymore, but I have since stumbled upon them at the library.

The past few months I have come to know the shelves of the library as well as the shelves at my local Barnes and Noble. When I first ranted about the library I had yet to find the travel books, the history books, or even the fiction section. I had forgotten how to use a card catalog and the Dewey decimal system. Now that my mind has been reintroduced to this wonderfullness I can take full advantage of the library.

I can walk out with stacks just as big as the ones I used to buy from B&N, only now there is no buyers remorse, or credit card guilt. If a book is sucky, I can take it back the next day. If it is a good read, I can return it when I am done, if the book is a true diamond I will hunt for it on Abe Books and hopefully but it for $1 and know that it is worth every penny (plus shipping and handling).

I can't say that I will always use the library, but for now it is making me tolerably happy. As soon as I am able, I will be right back to my book spending habits, but I will proably still use the library to seek out only the really good books to add to my at home library.

Sacred Sedona

Sometimes I forget that just 30 minutes down the mountain is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Since I seldom leave my house during the week things can get very overwhelming what with the children and my dear husband working 14 hour days.
So this weekend we left the kids with grandma and took a night out. We didn't go to the movies, we didn't get dressed up, we just got in the car and drove down the canyon to Sedona.
For those of you not familiar with Sedona, it is one of the most magical mystical places in the world. The light is different, the air feels different and the sun feels different. It is a place that always feels "right". Besides the city itself, there are places in the rocks that are called Vortexes. They have a certain strange magnetic vibration. you can't feel it just by walking near it, but if you sit and relax and listen to the rocks, and feel the sun and the air and try and clear your mind you can feel it. It is easier to meditate near them than it is anywhere else.

We often go down there with our ipods and sit and try and regroup and recharge as my husband calls it.
I've never been a very religious person, but I was raised Lutheran and spent a lot of time in churches growing up. I love the beautiful church architecture and I appreciate them for their history and their architectural beauty, but I have never felt at peace inside of one.
I feel closer to god and to the universe as a whole sitting on a rock in a vortex in Sedona than I ever have in a church. I don't think there is anyplace else on earth that has that feeling for me. It is such a spiritual place. If we don't go down at least once a month we start to get jittery and angry. If Sedona is the center of the calm warm universe of positive energy, then Flagstaff is the exact opposite filled with tension and negativity.
After sitting for 45 minutes I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt like I could go home and be with the kids for another 2 weeks until school starts. I was questioning my sanity before, but felt inspired to work again after.
It works like a drug to me. After the horrible week I had I felt like a new person.
If I was smart I would just schedule a once a week meditation session on my rock and I would never be angry or upset and always have the energy to get through the tough weeks.