Domestic Geek

Continuing with my "taking care of me" weekend, I decided to just chill and cross-stitch. I launched Netflix and saw they had season 1 of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I wanted to see it, but never managed to last year, so I settled in. I must've liked it as I've been watching it ALL DANGED DAY!

I'm not sure if I'll get the whole season in this weekend, but I'm contemplating buying a season pass on iTunes to see the current season.

I had planned to write a huge post tonight, but thanks to the nonsense going on at work, that's not going to happen. I am so physically and mentally exhausted that I bought a rotisserie chicken for dinner at Whole Foods and am falling into bed early. Now, if only my insomnia will stay at bay so that I can get some sleep before the dog wants out at 7:20 am. It's uncanny how he always wants up at that time. BTW, we obviously ended up finding "the right dog." That's a subject I will have to tackle this month.

I was going to share a pic, but I must not have something set right on my server to upload pics from this iExpression app. I will definitely have to look into that when I have had some sleep.

Anyway, I have been looking for the Star Trek: TNG Pez set that was released last month. Some folks on Facebook said they had them at WalMart. I have been boycotting them because they were on my "list" (three major strikes and you're on my list - Michaels just got on it). I really needed some thread to repair my pants this morning, so I went against my better judgement and headed over to the closest one.

After much searching, I found their Pez display and they had the Star Trek one! The package said it included the exclusive Locutus of Borg one. I was thrilled because I thought that meant it had an extra one. Nope - the Beverly Crusher one was absent. LAME!

Amazingly, I had to stop in at Safeway on my way back to work after lunch and they had a set. Guess the other one is being returned to WalMart tomorrow. I also saw a set of KISS Pez. May have to get those, too.

As Marcus and I were heading to work yesterday morning, I exited I-25 at University and as we pulled up to the light, we heard something out of the ordinary. I rolled down to get a better listen I'll be darned if the driver of the Lexus in front of us wasn't listening to classical music at full volume. It was delightful and a welcome change to the rap/hip hop crap you usually hear from other vehicles these days. What sucks is, I am so out of the music loop that I knew I had played the piece on several occasions, but couldn't place it from the old memory files. I had planned to look it up at work, but by the time I got there, the usual stupid drama was in full effect and I never got to it. By the time I had time to look it up, the tune had escaped by head.

Later last night, as I was surfing Facebook, I found myself humming it and quickly started looking up pieces on iTunes and found it: Dvorák: Symphony No. 9 - "From the New World" - a piece I had definitely played many times over my earlier music days.

As I was taking that stroll down memory lane and finding other works I had performed, I got terribly sad. I wish I hadn't given up that part of my life so easily. I've really got to find a musical outlet. I miss it so much.

Marcus bought me a Kindle for Christmas this year. I absolutely love it and it has brought back the passion for reading that I once had (when I was young, my nose was always in a book). I've read more books in the first part of this year than I have in the last 5 years combined. It's sad how I've let reading slip, but I totally see how it happened. Being laid off and relatively poor for a while meant cutting books out of the budget, then my recent desire to downsize my life and my clutter left me not wanting physical books around. My obsessive game-playing on Facebook squandered valuable reading time. Then there was my new obsession with knitting. I know that there is the public library, but I really have a moral opposition to them (except for reference material). Authors make their livelihood by selling books and I feel really guilty borrowing novels from living authors there.

Right now, I'm reading a book by Wendy McClure called The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie. To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement. I'm not going to go into why, as those thoughts are better kept to myself. It has rekindled my desire to know more about Laura Ingalls Wilder, though. I've visited the Little House site in Independence, Kansas and the Wilder Home in Mansfield, Missouri. I've got plans to go to some of the other sites.

I think I've always been fascinated by Laura Ingalls because she represents a simpler way of life. I'm well aware that "the old days" was not an ideal existence, yet I yearn to get out of the big city. Marcus and I have dreams of one day living on land in South Dakota. I want to raise my own chickens and grow my own food. When I was younger, I loved sewing on my mother's antique Singer because that's how it used to be done (don't get me wrong - I love my computerized sewing and embroidery machines now), but I always felt connected to the past in some small way when I used it. Weird, I know. Sometimes I wish that old machine was close by so I could run it, but it resides with my sister out in California. If Marcus and I ever do get settled someplace permanent, I'd love to find one of those old machines.

*sigh* Well, I'd better wrap this up because it's almost time to head off to work.

I saw some tweets last week about the Google Pac-Man game they had on their homepage to honor the 30th anniversary of the game. Many people were lamenting how much time they had wasted playing it. Fortunately for our company, our department is not allowed to use the Internet during the work day for non-work activities (we have to log in to a firewall to get to the Internet and those logs are reviewed frequently). Other companies were not so lucky. Apparently, more then 4.8 million work hours were wasted by people playing the game.