holy moly.

I have been working hard... certainly not as hard as I could be working, but I am alright with that. my bedroom has basically been a construction zone for two and a half years... I've absolutely hated it every single day I have lived in this house and since I have recently stumbled upon a large amount of free time I concentrated a good amount on working on my room, finally. It was a fair amount of work since I've started, new windows, new walls, new floor. The last 3 weeks I had to finish putting in 3 feet of uncompleted flooring, a new soffit, spackle and sand the entire room and paint. I hung new curtains, I cleaned out my closet all my drawers and now it looks pretty good. Its not quite complete because it needs moldings and window sills and is going to cost a little more than I can afford at the moment...but for now I am very happy with my bedroom. onto the next project I go!

i lost myself for a second.

This week is a week about me, I guess. I have come to realize this week that I've been neglecting myself for awhile. I haven't been doing things I need to do, I wouldn't say I really wanted to do the things I needed to do, or maybe I just didn't realize I wanted to do them. At any rate my bedroom has been making me really miserable probably since they day I moved into my house. It used to be really really bad and then slowly its gotten better...two and a half years slowly. I had decided that my bedroom was going to be the last thing I worked on when I moved into my house (that hasn't really worked out), besides the kitchen. The two extra bedrooms were the most important for me to finish because I rent them out so those have been done for quite awhile. nothing else is really 'done' but sort of in limbo.
I was sort of forced into working on my bedroom last october when my parents moved away...before they moved my dad decided that he had to help me replace ALL the windows in my house before they moved, so over the course of 4 days all the windows were taken out and replaced. it was a messy messy ordeal and pretty much made every room in my entire house a construction zone. All the walls around every window were rotten and needed to be replace...thus began my bedroom process. thats been going on for a year.
I put in a new floor, but i didn't finish it. I replaced the front a wall about 6 months ago but haven't painted it because I had to finish fixing another wall that I attempted to fix 2 years ago. I finally finished this wall I started 2 years ago this weekend. I had to take the entire thing out and put it back in....it took two hours...so today I got home from work and decided I needed to really get this done. I plastered and spackled the wall...which took like no time, so I embarked on finishing the floor. I'm not completely done with the floor, I have a couple rows left and need to rip out the molding and replace an outlet tomorrow but that shouldn't take more than an hour. All in all this process probably only took me 4 hours and I had really forgotten how much I enjoyed working on my house. Its seriously been so long since I really worked on it. I mean, I finished my bathroom a couple months ago but that was NOT fun for some reason. this was. I guess I just like mindless repetitive things like putting in a wood floor by hand...or maybe I'm just excited by the fact that soon my bedroom will be done and I won't feel like I'm living in a disgusting mess like I have for the last 2.5 years. Its exciting to see something getting done for the first time in awhile and I'm glad I'm finally actually doing it. so. yeah. go me.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.

though this time its fo-real. for years...YEARS I've said I was going to take a picture of myself once a day for at least a year...I said i'd do this last year, the year before. etc. I'm sure some cannot believe that I really haven't been doing this. (yes I know I take a lot of pictures of myself) but its really happening. I started 3 days ago...and I've been keeping it up. Honestly it isn't that hard. I officially want to start on my birthday, but I've started early...maybe I'll come up with a more clever set up in a couple weeks from now....maybe I'll just keep my tripod in the same part of my room....maybe I'll move around place...who knows...I have a whole year to figure it out I guess. I can't wait to wait myself age, one picture at a time...a year from now.

for like.ever

Summer is almost officially over. I find it interesting that as soon as labor day began its approach the weather cooled about 20 degrees and the humidity completely disappeared. It hasn't been getting up past 80 degrees lately which is prefect weather in my opinion. You could wear a light jacket at night, but you don't have to.

Last night was a 'free night' for me. No roller derby practice, no plans with anyone, it was nice. Unfortunately I needed to take a trip to target and homedepot to buy some much needed supplies like cat litter, and corner bead for my walls. Thankfully this trip to two stores took less than an hour of my time - and I was a good shopper and didn't buy anything I didn't really need at target. on a whim I decided that I was going to buy some wood to make shelves in my kitchen. nothing fancy, just some wide pieces of pine. My kitchen is extremely small and living with 2 other people that love to buy tons of food is proving to be difficult sometimes...

I purchased a really long piece of 9inch wide pine and went home. I didn't really PLAN on making the shelves last night, but I got bored cleaning my basement and decided that I would. I cut them out and hung them in less than an hour, man I'm good. I started painting them last night. I decided on white because thats what color my horrid kitchen cabinets are...I figured I should keep it consistent even though I'm a hater of anything white. I don't imagine that I'll use these shelves for anything useful in the kitchen rather I think I may use them as display for all my neat little antique kitchen gadgets....we'll see. pictures to follow.

september.

Boy am I sleepy. The kids in the park near my house have been super rowdy this week. I've had to call the police several times late at night (early morning) to complain. I am happy that school is starting on tuesday, unless it hasn't already.

Philly has been super rainy all summer, its been nice because I haven't had to water my garden like I used to...its been bad because my basement has been flooding, not terribly, but there have been little pools of water. I finally had to break down and buy a dehumidifier this weekend. My dad (the penny pincher) tried to discourage me from doing this, or at least buying a used one...but no one here is getting rid of theirs, and once I saw black mold growing downstairs I knew it was high time to fork over 150 dollars. It was either the money, or the smelly wet moldy basement that is making everything thats metal in their basement rust. I think I made the right choice.

I have been intensely working on my home improvement, I am right now working on finishing my half bath downstairs...its been in limbo for half a year since it was put in. I can either blame this fact on me not having a lot of free time and finally kicking it into gear, or possibly because my parents are coming to visit in a couple weeks and I don't want to get scolded really badly about not doing anything. I'm sure its a combination of the two.

In an interesting turn of events the houses a door down on either side of me have been purchased by young women. My block is starting to become gentrified. I sustainable fish co op is opening across the street - luckily this is all frozen fish or I would be really worried about the smell. there are also 4 other homes on my block for sale at the moment so I'm crossing my fingers that I get new neighbors. apparently the houses on my block that just sold went for 180k. They are NOT as nice as my house (will be, ha) I bought my house in june 2007 for 130k. I think that this is good news. I suppose I've probably put close to 10-15k into it so far. MAYBE. Thats all my 'big news' for now.

roller skating with seth green?

Being on Philly Roller Girls holds some interesting opportunities on occasion from what I can gather. Robot chicken, if you don't know - is a show on adult swim which is on sunday nights on comedy central. Anyway, as a promotion robot chicken was driving across the country promoting with a roller skating party. They came to philly and asked some of the philly roller girls to come as special guests. I don't really watch robot chicken anymore (I used to) and I don't really like seth green (i never have) but I did get credit for practice for going to this, and it sounded interesting. Becky and I and about 20 other girls got put on a special list to get in early. The line outside for this event was pretty insane, hundreds of people were lined up to get in, and I'm pretty sure most of them didn't. We got to cut up front and enter the event an hour and a half early.
I saw seth green, he's really short and he has a trashy looking girlfriend. He was skating around and people were taking pictures of him. I guess its pretty cool that he'd be mingling amongst a bunch of weirdo people that are obsessed with him...by default you have to be a weirdo for liking seth green in my opinion.
I don't have any pictures of him as I don't own a point and shoot camera anymore...and the night was rather lame. The most fun of the night is when me and the other PRG girls whipped around the rink weaving around all the fans that were there pissing them off and pretty much clearing the rink because we were bothering people...we eventually got yelled at and it wasn't fun anymore so me and becky left and watched some good old LOST on tv.

this and that.

I am going to try and post on this blog more than I have been. (good luck to me.)
I guess my problem is that I don't feel like I really have that much to write about that is of much interest.
I have been procrastinating on my house lately, I've been so busy with going to the beach, camping, painting and roller derby. ah! I think September holds more promise for house fixing than August does.
I have been spending a lot of my free time - which there isn't a lot of tending to my garden. I have been overloaded with cucumbers, and think I'm going to try and can some this week, maybe tonight if I have time. My tomatoes are starting to roll in like crazy. I ended up tearing up my cherry tomato plant because I just don't like them - they're always rotting before i eat them. The grass in my back yard is flourishing even though its constantly getting peed on by my dog cylar. I suppose that this is due to all the rain we've been getting. There have been consistent strong storms two to three times a week. I am so sick of the rain! not because I don't like the rain, I do...but when it pours buckets it starts to flood my poor basement. Though this flooding basement is good incentive to clean and organize it.
Boring.
In other news I think i will be able to pick up my falcon soon from where it has been stored in NJ for the past 9 months. I miss seeing it and driving it. I have been having quite a time getting the title transferred and getting antique plates for it, but i think in a handful more days these things will be in my hands. I can't wait to show off my car and get a garage in the city.
can't wait.

whoa

its been a long long time since I posted in my blog, I am bad! but its ok, I've been keeping my real life journal up to date with the boring details of my life.
sooo whats happened. I went on a fun visit to california where my sister lives. I was there almost a whole week...we did lots of things, and it was really pretty there...cold, but pretty.

my doggy cylar had some weird bumps on his skin before I went to california, and some odd swollen red eyes - which he was being treated for. when I returned home it was out of control! I took him to the vet and they had no idea what was going on. I finally took him to another vet a week ago and they did a biopsy and i think they figured out what the problem was. They said he has something called lymphohistiocytic dermatitis but they said its really rare, and they're not sure yet how to treat it. My 'new' vet is trying to speak with other specialists to figure out how to treat him. He seems to be getting better on his own at this point though.

I started playing roller derby again...I had flirted with rejoining a team for about 2 years now, and my girlfriend becky finally convinced me to join her league. Its fun to go to practice twice a week after work and get some exercise with a group. I keep ending up with welts all over my body though...which isn't that big of a deal, it just looks horrible. I'm really having fun skating again though. I had forgotten how much I liked it and I've been getting a lot better at it as well. I still have a long way to go though, I never fully relearned how to skate since I broke my leg the last time, so my leg muscles seem really weak at this point.

I got a new saddle on my bike. I've had my bike for two years now. I estimate that my old saddle ate through at least 8 pairs of pants in the 2 years I've had it. after I blew the inner thigh of the last pair I decided that it was time to get a leather saddle so I'd stop ruining my pants so fast...not to mention my old saddle was staring to get little holes all over... of course I chose a Brooks Saddle


I've had the saddle for about 2 months now, I am very pleased with it. its much more comfortable than my old saddle...it was a little pricey at 85 dollars, but well worth it since I ride my bike at least 10 miles a day. good choices good choices.