Domestic Geek

The department I work in is overstaffed. We have been most of the time I've worked there. I originally asked to go over there because they were majorly understaffed. I thought I was going to be in a department of 3 people. Now we've got 5 (at one point 6). I've spent so much time dragging my feet just trying to get my hours in that its driving me absolutely bat-shit crazy. I've already lost 4 hours this week and that totally sucks since we're coming into the holiday season. I even thought about going back to the old department, but they don't really need any help over there, either. Oh, well.

Today I called and asked if I could just come in later. I got so much done this morning. I made a pot of soup, made a big dent in the THW Golf poster I was making for Marcus, shoveled the front steps, washed some dishes...all before noon. I got in about 12:30 and knew the rest of the day was going to suck when I saw that they had my office mate working at one of the inkjetters. After I checked my email and saw there was nothing to do, I clocked out on a break and went back to working on Marcus' poster. It was another hour before there was anything to do and that was because someone else in my department went home for the day. I worked a whole two jobs, prepared a third so that I could tackle it in the morning when the client sends the data and then I had to clock out. Five freaking hours was all I managed to eek out. Oh, well. Of course, I got home early and then Marcus got stuck at work and I had to eat my soup all by myself. At least I had his poster done by the time I got home.

So, how did the poster turn out? Not too shabby:

I went to New Mexico early last month. I wanted to go to the Taos Wool Festival and figured I might as well swing over and see my old college pal while I was in the state, as well. Good thing I had Angie to visit because the wool festival and Taos kind of sucked. I'm glad I didn't waste the money to actually stay overnight in Taos.

I had originally intended to go down Saturday and get a room with friends, but an online friend of Marcus' and mine from Texas came to Colorado to visit, so I pushed it a day to drive down Sunday instead.

I actually managed to get on the road by 5:30 am. It was a beautiful drive down - the fall colors were spectacular. I was having a lovely day until I got to Taos. The part of town where the festival was held is kind of a dump. I wandered through the exhibitor booths for about an hour and didn't find a danged thing I wanted to buy. I found the couple of yarn shops that I had found online and didn't find anything cool, either. I figured certainly I'd find something at the quilt store, but struck out there as well. Discouraged, I tracked down a shot glass for my collection and got the hell out of town. I didn't even bother getting any lunch. I just relied on the snacks I had packed and got back on the road.

The roads between Taos and Farmington are a nice drive, though. The canyon was especially pretty. There were some gorgeous purple colored rocks in the canyon walls. I got into Farmington about 2 hours earlier than I expected, but I had an awesome visit with Angie, her husband Doug and their daughter Haley (and their two dogs, Shamus and Mac). I love visiting there. I feel so comfortable. Ang took me to see the Aztec ruins. I was going to go back the next day and sketch them, but it rained all day. I ended up going to a lovely quilt shop instead.

The only sucky thing is I picked up a bug down there. I started feeling sick the last night I was there and steadily deteriorated on the way home. The cough and crap in my chest has been lingering ever since. As I was reading though some posts from a year ago, I was sick this same exact time last year. This is becoming a tradition I hope to not repeat next year.

Man, I hope people can read this. I know the blog has been absent for a bit. The company that provided my free DNS services was bought up by another company and I neglected to figure out how to direct people here. Since I can see it at home (hosted on a server here), I totally forgot about the outside world. Of course, not having written a word in forever, I didn't feel motivated to do anything about it.

I realized it is now November 1st and I want to try to complete NaBloPoMo. I failed miserably last year. I Googled to find the home page and found it is now part of BlogHer:

So, here I go. Maybe if I can get back into the habit of writing here, I'll take the time to fix the template and learn the new things in this Expression Engine install. I am so out of practice with all things web and it makes me incredibly sad.

I've been having a hard time sleeping lately. I know a good portion of that is my mind swirling with everything that needs to get done if this move actually happens. The major reason is that I'm still hating my job and need to find something else to do with my life. I'm also thinking it may be due to my increased intake of sugar and caffeine (to stay awake) lately. Danged vicious cycle, I tell you, since the sugar and caffeine also keep me from sleeping.

I've been self-medicating the anger and irritation with chocolate, candy and sunflower seeds (cracking seeds is therapeutic when deep down you want to crack open stupid heads). I've been adding chocolate milk powder and sugar to my morning coffee. I've been drinking a cold Via (again with chocolate milk powder to make it drinkable) when I get home from mid-day shopping on the weekends. I've had way too many chai frappucinos to count in the last couple of months. The almost solid week of traveling last week with bottled, sweetened teas to drink was not good for my system, either.

I've decided I really should cut out caffeine completely, but I turn into a raging beyatch when I try to go cold turkey, so baby steps will have to do. This week I'm starting by cutting out the morning coffee and just sticking with cold, unsweetened iced tea. I'll gradually start drinking more plain water instead of the tea. I'm hoping to wean myself off my caffeine by the end of the month and see where I'm at then. I know I haven't been drinking enough fluids (especially plain water) lately. I've been getting headaches and retaining fluid like crazy.

Well, we'll see how it goes.

I hope that's what South Dakota residents call themselves. I searched online and didn't find anything similar to the disagreement as to what those in Colorado are called (I myself prefer Coloradoan, but I digress).

The week prior to Memorial Day, Marcus and I made another quick trip up to Hill City, South Dakota. While the previous trips have all been about sight-seeing and biking, we had another agenda. Marcus wrote in great detail about it on his blog.

A quick summary: we may soon move our house to Hill City.

Why now? Well, the park owners are threatening to raise lot rent again (under the guise of high water usage). If such an increase goes into effect, the lot rent will be more than the house payment. Also, with the construction going on around here with the Fitzsimons complex, traffic is going to increase substantially. Access to our street was cut off by something they're doing over there, so the park owners converted the empty lot next to us into a street. Also, Aurora has made it no secret that they want to do away with mobile home parks. It's probably only a matter of time before we'd be forced out anyway. Finally, it's even getting harder to put an older manufactured home anywhere, even Hill City. If we don't do this now, we may never get it onto a permanent foundation.

Anyway, we'll know by the end of the month if we can do this. Sadly, we'll have to treat it as a vacation home at first. While I can probably find something up there to replace my pitiful salary, it won't be so easy for Marcus. First things first, though.

So, here's a little sneak peek of our (hopefully) new home:



Keeping fingers, eyes and toes crossed for the next three weeks...