Celticangel.org

But my car is not.

So there we were, minding our own business, driving straight and at a slow pace headed for the freeway on-ramp, when this white Corvette exits the freeway too fast and loses control. We didn’t see that at first. What we saw was the car in front of us do this funny little swerve that we couldn’t figure out. Then there was the one second of “Oh No!” And then…Bam! We managed to get to the side of the road, but now my poor baby car won’t start. (I dunno how fast the guy was going, but he hit us quite hard.)

We’re okay (mostly), just banged up a bit from the seat belts and what not. I can tell, however, that tomorrow will be distinctly un-fun already. Sigh.

sniffle

So. Koshvader got a new job. *Yay!*
At a NASA research outpost not far away. *Yay!*

However…
Wonkiness with pay periods, etc. means that we are actually missing one whole paycheck this month. …and I just figured this out today when he didn’t get paid. *Argh!*
I’ve managed to rework the budget so that we are only $48 short of paying all of our bills (and that was stressful, let me tell you.) and we conveniently have $50 Canadian lying around the house. According to the exchange rates I looked at, it’s pretty close to the right amount. *whew*

Thank heavens for my blogging job. It really made a difference this month.

Yeah. I’m not doing anything or going anywhere this month. Which, of course, means that I’m going to have a bit more time to blog here. Hello silver lining!

My favorite photographic subject seems to be Koshvader’s back.

I’ve been experiencing a great deal of stress and anxiety lately. It’s the usual cocktail of money/job/relationship stuff with a heaping side of can’t-seem-to-get-pregnant. Meh.

All of that is really annoying and makes it difficult to sleep/concentrate/wake up, you know? Plus, with my nervous system, it also means that any tiny little thing makes my cry. For like…two hours if I’m not careful. Things like a balloon popping (which makes me cry all of the time anyway. What is it with me and popping balloons? For some reason the noise just goes right through me. All sorts of fun in social situations, let me tell you.), missing a phone call, or making a mistake. This, in and of itself, is really annoying and stressful.

So, what I want to know is, what do you do to relieve stress? I mean, obviously there’s “have lots of sex” (fun, but hard to work into one’s schedule on a daily basis) and “have a nice cup of tea” (the pause that refreshes, but one must stick to decaf or herbal is one wishes to sleep at night. Have I mentioned that I drink a lot of tea?) What has been working best for me lately is photography. It forces me to try and think creatively. It also forces me to get out of the house, which is not my preference when I’m feeling like this. I’m a hermit at the best of times. An interesting side effect of all of this photography-based travel has been my gut opinion of places. (Sometimes being an HSP can be a bit entertaining. Who knew?) For example, I love this one beach in Pacifica. There’s just something about it that I connect with. But I went to Stinson Beach the other day, and I found it to be not soothing. Easy to walk on, yes. Soothing, no. The parking lot for said beach in the evening? That was soothing. No idea why. *shrug*

Oh. And petting cats is nice too.

What do you lot do to relax?

relieve stress, relax

Nerves. I has them. …And boy howdy.

Yesterday when I returned from my photo outing I was in a great deal of pain. Methinks I rather overdid it out there. I took some Motrin (took two hours to work and started to fade a couple of hours after that.) Later, I thought I’d take some Tylenol so I could actually get to sleep.

And then I happened to read the ingredients. I’m not sure why I didn’t do this before, but I never thought that pain-killer would try to poison me.

Right there before “talc” was “sucralose.” And Sucralose, boys and girls, is another word for Splenda. Yes, one of the artificial sweeteners that makes me ill. This would explain some of the problems I’ve had when taking Tylenol 8-hour in the past.

This just reinforces my need to read the ingredients in everything I might ingest. Did you know that they put High Fructose Corn Syrup in BREAD? Or Lactose as a filler in vitamins? They’ll even change ingredients without notice. So look out.

Stop trying to poison me, people!

sucralose, Splenda, artificial sweeteners, Tylenol 8-hour, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Lactose

According to SciFi Wire, Disney is making yet another attempt to re-imagine “Escape to Witch Mountain.” You’d have thought that the last attempt (the purple monstrosity) would have cured them of this, but no. “Race to Witch Mountain” is described thusly:

“Andy Fickman is on board to direct what is described as an action thriller, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and AnnaSophia Robb. The adaptation, written by Matt Lopez, revolves around a pair of paranormal-powered siblings (Ludwig and Robb) who, with the help of a Las Vegas cab driver (Johnson), go on the run from a diabolical group of men who wish to exploit their abilities. Hinds will play the nefarious leader of the pack.”

Argh! Did they even read the book or are they working from the film again? …And “The Rock” is playing the Mr. O’Day character? Who’s playing Uncle Benet? Vin Diesel?

*grumble*

My laptop died. *sob*

The Last Sunset of 2007

Well, the sun has set on the old year, and there is a shiny new year stretching out before me. And yet, when I got up this morning I went right back into the anxiety that struck me when I got home from work yesterday. So, with my theme for the new year ringing in my ears, I propose to do something about this.

Lists always help me to organize my thoughts, so I’m going to do this in the form of a list. I will list the things that are bothering me, and then what I propose to do about them. (God willing.) Right, then. Here we go.

1. I am still not pregnant. - In the new year, I will get a physical next week, and so will my Husband. The appointments are already made. Then I will see about who is covering my OB/GYN’s duties while she is out on Maternity Leave. There were two things left for us to do, and I want to get them out of the way. I was born in the Year of the Rat, and after Chinese New Year that’s what 2008 will be. This is the year that I either find out for sure that I can’t have children (and therefore start looking into other options) or finally have a child. Darn it.

2. I am 35 and I still have acne. - I’m pretty sure that this is hormone-related, so I will bring it up the aforementioned Doctor’s appointment.

3. My Husband doesn’t have life insurance or a will. - I will contact my Insurance Agent to get the Insurance part taken care of. Then, I will pull out my will for him to get a look at and make him do one himself. We don’t own any property (yet) to a handwritten one will suffice.

4. My apartment is a mess. - We have too much stuff, and not enough space for it. Most of the clutter can be put away, though as I have actually cleaned out much of the closets/cupboards. I will have a friend come over to hang out with me while I clean, and then I will do the same for her. I’ve already had one offer (I’m really good at organizing other people’s stuff for some reason) so I’ll try to get this out of the way soon.

5. We need to get new Passports. - I think that this is only stressing me out because I’m not quite sure what I need to do to get a new one. Plus, I can’t take koshvader to Scotland if we don’t get this taken care of. Also, I’ve been putting this off for a while. So, I’ll do a bit of research (which will likely involve calling my parents, as they recently got new passports) and get this one taken care of.

6. My Husband is not happy with his current line of work. - Much of this problem can only be solved by him, no matter how much I want to help. His state of mind affects me profoundly, so I’m doing the only thing I can. I bought him a good camera this morning. If he is serious about starting to do some professional photography, now he can. Also, this will get us out of the house…Ah! And now I know what to do with the Gift card that Dell sent me. I must now go research GPS systems.

7. The Huge Monitor on my Floor - It is blocking access to my DVDs. It’s huge. I want to take it to Green Citizen to recycle, but…it’s huge. It’ll fit in the back of my car, but I’m not sure that I can carry it to the car. I guess I’ll just make the space in the back of the car and koshvader and I can carry it between the two of us. Hopefully there, some fine strapping young lad can unload it for us.

8. My Health Rider - I was having trouble finding an exercise bicycle that fit my body. I’m all of 5 feet tall, you see. So I bought this Health Rider. Only to find that my back isn’t too happy about my using it. This year I will either 1) Find someone with an older (that is to say smaller) exercise bicycle who wants to trade or 2)Off-load the thing in frustration later in the year. It takes up space, and no matter how annoyed I am with the fact that I spent good money on it, darn it, it isn’t paying its way in my front room. And this leads me to…

9. I’m out of shape - A very common complaint, I’m sure. I’m getting a physical. I’ll be looking into the exercise equipment situation. And I expect to be getting out of the house more often to go on hikes and such, as that is the only way that koshvader will be able to get the photos he wants.

10. My financial situation - Well, I’m already working on that, believe it or don’t. I just need to take the next step. Beyond that, the single best thing for my financial situation is to eat at home more often. This will involve cooking, I know, but it’s time I took responsibility for that sort of thing. This will involve cooking food ahead, as I generally don’t get home until 7pm, and by then my blood sugar has dropped enough to turn me into a Cave Woman. (Me want food! Grrr!) This will also help with #9.

11. I need to get organized - This sounds rather like #4, but it’s more a mental thing for me. When I feel out of control I have trouble thinking clearly, and this doesn’t help me get stuff done. This year I will decide on one disorganized part of my life, like say…my lack of a disaster plan, and get it in order.

12. I am too hard on myself - Most of my stress comes from this. I’m a perfectionist. I demand no less from myself. I need to give myself a break occasionally and goof off. I need to watch more than 15 minutes of a TV Show at a time or something equally mindless, like recreating my old mix tapes as itunes playlists. (Okay, that last bit was actually useful, but fun useful.)

Well, there’s my list. I may end up adding to it, and it sort of ended up like a longer to do list, but there you are. I’m going to go back to writing my story, now.

May your New Year be productive and relaxing.

Do NOT Shop at Express Cameras.com. (I have included their Better Business Bureau link, for those of you interested.)

They have no customer service skills, and that’s the good part. They over price. They revel in the hard sell. Don’t try to cancel anything, as they will threaten you.

No. I’m not joking.

Express Cameras.com

Our romantic fireplace.

Today we shopped and walked a lot.

Did I mention the walking? (Yeah. My legs are tired.)

We walked out to the American Tin Cannery for breakfast and shopping. We had breakfast at First Awakenings. Or rather, brunch, as we both managed to sleep through the free food this morning. Sigh. KoshVader went with the Lemon Chicken sandwich which was “pretty good” and I went with the fruit crepe which was okay. Brunch was actually fun, as there was a little bird in the building, and two kids kept trying to sneak up on it. I swear that they moved like cats. Very amusing.

The shopping at the ATC was actually quite fruitful. We managed to find KoshVader some new shoes that were not black. (Don’t faint, Linds and Dani.) We popped into many of the shops. There was one place that said it was open, but you needed to go downstairs to a different store and ask if you wanted to browse. Normally, that is not the sort of thing that we would do. Introverted tends to be a fairly good descriptor for both of us. Today, however, KoshVader really wanted to browse in the gem and rock shop. (He collects minerals.) So, downstairs we went. The little shop was very nice. Lots of eye candy. Oh, to win the lottery. I love jewelry. Have I mentioned? I have a metal allergy, but that doesn’t stop the love. It…just stops me from wearing earrings very often. I purchased nothing (*wistful sigh*), but KoshVader found a nice Spinnel.

New Not-Black Shoes enjoying the firelight.

What’s a Spinnel? This is a Spinnel. Specifically, the pink bit. The white rock is just the vehicle, apparently.

We ended up not playing Blacklight Miniature Golf, even though it looked really fun and kitschy. Our hands were full by then. Well, too full to easily play golf, anyway. Sadly, we didn’t make it back over there in the evening, either. A wee bit more shopping found us no size 5 shoes for my Mother-in-Law. Yes, I’m doing my Christmas shopping on my vacation. As such, I have only purchased a book and a little St. Andrew’s Cross flag for myself. Witness my virtue! Okay…really, I just like saving time, and it’s the right time for such shopping. Add to that interesting shops and small crowds and you have shopping paradise for the Celtic Angel.

Where was I? Oh, yes. My Mother-in-law wears size 5 shoes, so I’ve picked up the habit of checking out any shoe store I enter to see if they have something she might wear. Oh, speaking of shoes, KoshVader’s new ones were 60% off. The ones I liked, but did not need, were only 30% off. Not good enough.

After our shopping excursion at the American Tin Cannery in Pacific Grove we trekked back to the hotel to drop off our purchases. As luck would have it, we only had a half an hour left until the wine and cheese reception when we arrived. So, we killed some time and then headed on over. They were offering a couple of 2005 local wines, which is a bit young in my opinion. At least the Syrah tasted young. It wasn’t terrible, but I was glad to have the cheese, grapes, and cute butterfly cracker to cut the tannins. KoshVader was glad to see that they were also offering lemonade.

After our break we headed back to Cannery Row. We enjoyed the Steinbeck Wax Museum. It was a total tourist trap and was obviously hasn’t been updated since the 1960s, if the Kit Carson reference is anything to go on, but that didn’t stop it from being educational. Yes, we have a thing for tourist traps. After more wandering, KoshVader tried to take some pictures down at the beach. That was when the batteries died on our camera. With the light going, we went on a battery hunt. The lady from the flag store didn’t let us down. We loaded up the camera and headed back to the spot.

Here is the result:

Straight ahead is the Fish Hopper.
To the left is the Blue Moon Bistro/a hotel that I forget the name of.

Eventually, we had dinner at The Fish Hopper again. This time I had the Ahi and KoshVader had the Halibut. The Halibut was great. I felt that the Ahi wasn’t as good as the previous time we had it. The seasoning was a bit different. *shrug* After dinner we went to a Garlic Gift Shop. There we found some of the Joe Perry hot sauce we like. Yay for the not having to pay to have it shipped! We spent some time in the hotel room before heading out for dessert, and here comes the angry part.

After much staring at menus on the side of buildings we stopped at the Blue Moon Bistro for dessert. The atmosphere was romantic. The service was good and the dessert really tasty. That’s not the the angry part. You see, KoshVader and I sometimes play cards while we wait for food to arrive. It doesn’t generally last too long, and we have been told several times in the past by servers and friends that it was a clever way to pass the time. Tonight…well, tonight another patron took it upon himself to tell us that the sound of shuffling cards had no place in a restaurant like that. In short, he yelled at me, and then he left. Now, I do not deal well with being yelled at in the best of times. Generally, I either burst into tears or just barely manage to stop myself. But lately, my emotions have been a lot closer to the surface. It totally destroyed my enjoyment of the evening. I burst into tears in public, and KoshVader sent some angry parting words after the fellow in question. Luckily, the restaurant wasn’t brightly lit so my bright red nose wasn’t that noticeable. When the waiter returned with our drinks, I couldn’t even talk. It was *so* embarrassing. Hey, but I managed not to smudge my mascara somehow. When we explained what had happened to the server later, as I didn’t want him to think we’d disliked any aspect of the meal experience itself, he told us that they had no problem with us playing cards there. (For the record, there are many places we do not play cards, but this place seemed relaxed enough for it.) So, wherever that fellow is, I hope that he’s happy. Growl.

Don’t worry. I large dose of LolCats cheered us right up. We’re leaving tomorrow, so I’m off to pack up. Night!