Tag: Throbbing Manor

year in review: 2014

Dear Internet,
Working at home today and getting supremely in the groove. Re-discovered that I used to do a round up, by month, of things that went on in the previous year as a year in review. This seems like a good idea to continue insofar as giving me a perspective for the year and helping me figure out what I need to improve or cut back on.
Previous years: 2000, 1997, 1996

Neil Gaiman’s New Year’s wish for 2015:

Be kind to yourself in the year ahead.

Remember to forgive yourself, and to forgive others. It’s too easy to be outraged these days, so much harder to change things, to reach out, to understand.

Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.

Meet new people and talk to them. Make new things and show them to people who might enjoy them.

Hug too much. Smile too much. And, when you can, love.

It’s been a helluva a year. Here’s to 2015 being boring and slow.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2013, 1999

look, it stopped snowing

Dear Internet,
I unintentionally woke up this morning at 6AM  but it ended up working out as the early wake-up meant I could take Kristin to work. We walked outside to discover that it had snowed over night; nothing serious but it was the first time this season I’ve seen snow sticking to the ground. It snowed once when I was on the east coast, on Thanksgiving, and it was giant fluffy snow; the kind that melts as fast as it hits the ground.
caravaggio
Since I graduated from undergrad in 2005, I’ve made it my personal mission to see every Caravaggio in existence. I am so enamoured of the idea, a few years ago I made a mini-site (okay, a page really) of his known complete works and started checking them off. I haven’t updated in awhile but as of today, I’ve seen over 40 of the 90 Caravaggios open to the public and I have 18 more pieces to catalog before the page is done with the exception of me checking off new ones I have seen.
I really need to hie thee to Florence and Vienna.
The Lisa Chronicles, Vol 1: 1998
…is now up for pre-order. Delivery date is January 31, 2015.
At long last my project is starting to come to fruition. The goal is to take each year from 1998 and forward, clean it up (grammar, spelling, clarity), bundle it as an eBook and sell it on Amazon. The content has been free for  years on EPbaB, but no one reads archives anymore unless there is a direct link within the piece referencing it. There has been requests to eBookify the back content for easier reading, so I’ve done just that.
From the blurb:

In 1998, having an online diary was a bold new world. Mailing lists, communities, chat rooms, and more all sprung up over people’s favorite diarists. Now we would call them bloggers. But then, THEN was a whole ‘nother beast. Then writing online was intimate. Then it was more personalized and personal. Then writers had less shtick. Not much was expected of these online exhibitionist scribes other than the ability to tell a good tale and regularly update.
I miss those days.
I moved my diary (or journal, which was used interchangeably) around to many domains but kept the same name: The Lisa Chronicles. Who better to tell my life story other than me? I never expected to get rich or famous, but what I wanted was to be able to connect to others who were like me. The scared, the frightened, the brave, and the bold. (No relation to the terrible soap opera of the same name.) I wanted to eat the world and in 1998, what better way to do that was through the Internet?
What can you expect from the first volume? Love, conflict, obsessions with people, places, and things. Rotating cast of characters and adventures. Sprinkle of song lyrics here and there. Pop culture references galore. Sex. More sex. Profane words and a bipolar girl desperate to connect with a world she did not understand.
While this work has been edited for grammar, clarification, and the obvious typo, it remains largely unchanged from when it first appeared online nearly two decades ago.
And lastly, every word here is true.

So if you’re intrigued by the book description or want to help support me thanks to the saga of #teamharpy, I would be most grateful if you would pre-order the book.
[amazon template=image&asin=B00R2808QE]
Skaldic Press Presents
The eBook announcement reminds me of another thing I launched this past week: Skaldic Press Presents. It’s a newsletter of updates of my projects, including Exit, Pursued by a Bear, so glad is my heart, and other adventures in addition to Skaldic Press. Includes GIFs.
tl;dr I tweet and write too much, but you want to keep up with me? This newsletter is how to do it.




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where in the world is lisa going to be now?
The constant changing of addresses and locations are baffling peeps, so let me clear some things up. If you have an east coast address for me, mainly for snail mail, you can send me mail there until early January as I will be on the east coast until January 14. After then, I’m back in Michigan to finish up writing my book, continue with The Lisa Chronicles project, and finalize my divorce. I have given out a PO Box to which mail can be sent to and this PO Box is active now. So yes, technically from now until January 15, when I take possession of my apartment in Michigan, I’m homeless.
adios Throbbing Manor (for real this time)
IMG_0884 (1)
The house closed yesterday and the stress of prepping and selling it is now gone. Finally. I’m not sure who is going to be more thrilled about this decision, me or TSTBEH, but we had a very tearful goodbye in the parking lot of the title company before parting ways. I have no idea when I’m going to see him again since he doesn’t need to be present when the divorce is finalized. He headed south for his move, I headed north to Kristin’s to crash for a few days.
And that, they say, is that. I know right now I’m grieving, again, for the loss of my marriage and I’m okay with that. Even knowing what the pain IS doesn’t make it hurt any less.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013

Moving Part Deux

Two
Dear Internet,
Well, here we are again: I’m moving. This time Two Men and a Truck put what I pillaged from Throbbing Manor (thanks to the generosity of TSTBEH) into storage for a month while I’m out on the east coast; then they will move me into Valkyrie Estates (name may change) in mid-January. Then, THEN, work will start on my book(s).
My pillaging helps TSTBEH out as he would have had to either donate, sell, or take with him the remaining furniture he decided he did not want after the split. With the exception of a bed, I’ve almost completely furnished Valkyrie Estates. I’ve got a list of smalls I need to pick up when I get back (like laundry soap and toliet paper), but really, that is it.
This manic last two months, easier to give it a simple explanation when the explanation is really much more complicated, has been financially AND mentally expensive. Truth be told, if I wasn’t counting on the settlement from the selling of the house to pay off my debts, I may have reigned the spending in but that’s an excuse for my own folly. I must accept the responsibility of what I have done financially.
It’s now mid-Sunday afternoon and I’m camped out at a hotel. Again. This time the only thing I’m running from is sleeping on an air mattress in a house that is freezing. Between the consignment shop swopping in on Thursday and my movers on Friday, all that is left until Monday is an air mattress, a 50″ TV and related stereo equipment, dining room table and chairs, TSTBEH’s boxes, and the art deco hutch. In 3200 sqft. We attempted to sleep on the air mattress every night until the closing of the house on Tuesday but I just couldn’t do it. I gave in to my inner diva, left late Friday night for a hotel, and here I am.
And yes, I’m keeping track and earning points with all of this hoteling, flying, and other travel.
My entire life is now split between two suitcases and my messenger bag of electronics. There are a few odds and ends in my trunk but my worldly possessions are now in those two suitcases; it’s a freeing feeling and an exhausting one. Now that my mind is finally clearing and I’m starting to put things into better perspective, I want to nest. Now.
I have to learn patience, I have to learn that waiting is okay and things will still be there when I’m done waiting. Not everything is gossamer and clouds but water and dirt. Things are tangible, holdable, and lovable.  These are things I need to remember and need to not forget ever again.
So let’s move on to something other than my mental geographical quandary.
Part of ThePlan is bundling the previous years entries into an ebook volume and publishing it on Kindle and other eRetailers.
Today I finished the first draft of volume 1 and it clocks in at roughly 114 pages.
The plan is to take previous years (beginning, well, at the beginning) of The Lisa Chronicles, bundle them by year into an eBook version and see if I could shill it on Amazon (and maybe Apple) to make some passive income.
The idea was pitched to me about four years ago when a library school friend offered to go through these entries, edit for clarity and grammar, and help me format them for the Kindle. I was a bit trepidatious at first, for I often do not find myself to be that fascinating, I just happen to get into fascinating circumstances. But apparently there is a market for this type of writing and I had oodles of it already written at my disposal.
But I stalled, as I do, on the project when I was working full time; I started nibbling at the idea again when I started planning for my sabbatical. The process seemed simple enough: get the back entries of The Lisa Chronicles up online on EPbaB for completist sake. Then move the content over to Word for formatting and editing. Find a cover. Set a price. Write a forward and a description. Upload and BOOM. Book is on the Amazons.
But it wasn’t that simple, rather, it was much more complex than my simple plan. Two things were happening in parallel. First being I had to set up as a business entity to help with writing off things related to my sabbatical AND to properly handle any income coming in from the sales of the eBooks. Second, that I had to find the content (easy enough as I kept multiple copies), get it on to EPbaB so the archives were complete, then move it to Word. I knew how prolific I am, so I figured I’d break it down by year and each year would be roughly 50 pages of formatted book text.
Did I mention that year one is at 114 rough pages? And only from April to December 1998? So I was obviously wrong in my page prediction.
I consider 1998 to be the very beginning for the sheer amount of content, though I have pieces that were published much earlier. I have gotten 1998 and 1999 into the EPbaB archives, so the first two volumes of the eBook project are going to be easy to do. I’ll have to work in tandem with getting the later content up and editing the current project and writing the fiction book.
I’m going to be a very busy girl.
Getting it up on Kindle was not that difficult: I opted out of the KDP Select option which means the work would have only been sold on Kindle and I opted out of having DRM on the eBooks. I was able to, with the help of TheBassist and cmmrb, figure out the cover design (Amazon has a free cover creator). I have my EIN and LLC name (Skaldic Press), so everything on the business side was ready to go. It was just a matter of getting the content up, formatted, and edited.
So basically the hard part.
You know where you can find me for the next month.
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2012, 1999, 1998

On the Occasion of TheHusband’s 35th Birthday

TheHusband and I, circa 1998

Dear Internet,
Today is TheHusband’s 35th birthday, which in true TheHusband fashion was spent with basketball, ice cream, and cake. It seems then, on this momentous occasion, that I should dig up the poem I wrote him for Valentine’s day a few years ago to cement how much I love the bastard.
Ode to Snookie Wookums:
A billet-doux for Justin
I struggle to tell you how much I love you,
Not because I do not know how to say it –
But because it has been said many times before (and in many different ways).
Not just from me to you, or from you to me, but
Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Keats — dead white guys
(Your favorite kind.)
Who wrote overly flowery language to describe,
The merest changes in touch, scent and vision of their beloveds,
When they were naked upon the often stained mattresses.
(And why were those mattresses always so stained?)
(Did they not believe in cleaning in those days?)
Or having their woman kill themselves for whatever reason –
(Death, despair, misery – your favorite subjects).
Love, then, is a word we throw about carelessly these post-modern times,
To describe anything we have strong affection for from –
Our pets, food, clothing, movies, to music and cars.
(And do we love, in that we have strong emotion or do we love because we cannot use any other word to describe how we feel for the item we are attached to?)
So then, on this Valentine’s Day –
(A saint who is honored for love instead of being remembered as a Christian martyr in antiquity)
Let me not talk of death, misery, despair, or Nazi’s –
(Thrown in to see if you’re still reading),
But rather let me just tell you that for all of the reasons that I love you,
And for all of the reasons that could possible exist and
Have been turned into a Lifetime Movie Extravaganza –
It is because of your quirks and your stubbornness,
Your strong sense of wavering morality,
Your love of pretentious literature and even more pretentious music,
Your arrogance, your silliness,
Your daring and your bravery,
Your sense of adventure and your resoluteness,
And all of the physical reasons that I adore you so –
(Not stated in case your mother reads this).
Thank you for stalking me all those years,
For proving to be worthy, for believing in me,
For being all of the things that I could hope for and more –
I love you, my snookie wookums, and am every so glad
That I will be dragging you, unwillingly, to the alter in May!
Happy Valentine’s Birthday, my love!
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe:

attracts doves and repells dragons

draco
Miniature of the dragon constellation from Ptolemy’s Almagest, via The British Library

Dear Internet,
One of the gifts TheHusband bestowed on me this holiday season was a wireless (via Bluetooth) solar keyboard that is designed to work with my Air, iPad, and iPhone. Set up literally took two seconds and I am loving the way the keys are feeling under my pads. While I’m a 10 key girl at heart, and I will miss having the 10 key as part of my keyboard, the loss of cords and great aesthetic functionality of the keyboard is totally winning me over.
Tomorrow my Mother-in-Law is arriving for a week long visit and we’ve been prepping the house for her arrival. We had started earlier in the week instead of leaving it all at the last minute, as we tend to do in such matters, but even then it’s now nearing mid-evening hours and TheHusband is now deciding to do some of his chores. He claims trifle belly, which lead to trifle coma, which lead to napping on and off all day while watching terrible television. I cannot be too harsh on him – I didn’t wake up until 11:30 myself and then I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon reading before doing my own chores.
But we did get some work done — laundry is completed, the guest suite is prepped and fresh flowers have been laid, and one of TheHusband’s pet vacation projects, cleaning up the cords and rearranging the router/nas/voip/etc, was also knocked off the list. Tomorrow I take Jeeves in for his yearly oil check and while I’m gone, TheHusband will tackle the worst of all his crimes: his bathroom. Her arrival at the airport is lunchtime, which then dovetails into having a clean house and a lovely afternoon spent with her before we fall back into our usual mess disgrace but my mother-in-law has already said she’s fine with this.
The weather continues to be at worst for wear as we’ve reached the 30″ mark of snowfall this season while in the last 30 years, the average snowfall in December has been 20″. We’re getting predictions for more snow this upcoming week, which is putting a damper on potential plans. The city has been lax in getting the streets cleaned in a timely manner, but considering the damage that came from last week’s ice storm, I can’t be too harsh on them. But overall, the weather is not inviting enough outside to even want to leave the damn house!
Now that the internets is back up and running, and most of my chores of the day have been completed, I’m off to finally take a much need and much desired long soak in the tub before heading to bed.
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2012, 2012, 2011, 2011, 2002

Happy Svein Forkbeard Day!

Wednesday_wishes_you_many_happy_returns.JPG
Wednesday wishes you many happy returns

Dear Internet,
On this day a millennia ago, Svein Forkbeard was declared king of England. Because you have to love a name like Forkbeard, and Vikings, we’ve decided to start celebrating December 25th as Svein Forkbeard Day. Because – why not?
We did things half-assed backwards this year — presents were opened over the course of weeks and the rest of the loot this morning, even though the tree had not even been dragged up and put out. TheHusband was extra good to me this year: I scored a new pair of Tieks, a new winter jacket, new earrings, lipgloss, a bluetooth keyboard that will double with my iPad and MacBook Air, and the new Zelda game for my DS3. The best gift was the milk frother I had added to my list at the last minute, which showed up in time for unwrapping and which I am totally in love with. TheHusband received a new bag from Rickshaw, new Pumas, tshirts, socks, a new Harmony remote, fancy bluetooth mouse, and some kind of special router so he can do some dev work.
After the presents were unwrapped, oohs and ahhs were allotted, I put the tree up while TheHusband started on today’s dinner.
Holiday tree, 2013

A few years ago, I asked the Internet to trim our tree and the Internet did not disappoint! Almost every ornament on the tree came from someone across the globe and I love them for it. What makes this tree even more special is the how many of those who shipped us ornaments knew our personalities (or made very good guesses). Doctor Who, Sherlock, Britishisms, Pugs, Books, Gnomes, Jane Austen, and the list goes on.
Again, thank you. You are now part of our yearly tradition.
May tonight be merry and bright with your loved ones close and have a wonderful new year.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2011

The art of judging character or telling a person’s fortune from the forehead or face

Bors' Dilemma – he chooses to save a maiden rather than his brother Lionel. From Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, via Wikipedia.
Bors’ Dilemma – he chooses to save a maiden rather than his brother Lionel.
From Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, via Wikipedia.

Dear Internet,
I woke Sunday morning buried under the covers and clinging to TheHusband. With my penchant to sleep late on weekends, to make up for the shortened sleep cycles during the week, I was surprised to find it was barely 9AM. The clawing fear of sinking deep again has abated for the morning, but hangs over me like a terrible rain cloud. It was not helped when as I was preparing for bed last night, I remembered I was teaching a college-wide class this week and needed to finish the prep work, thus my anxiety shot through the roof.
After getting out of bed, and spending several hours of catching up on newspaper reading, both this weeks and past editions, TheHusband and I began the yearly house cleaning. We’re having friends over this weekend for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, then the following weekend is Thanksgiving which will mean people will be coming and going all weekend. With the addition of my mother-in-law is coming between Christmas and New Year,  we could not procrastinate any longer.
In the past, we’ve divided up the housework one to two days, which is overwhelming for two people in a house as large as Throbbing Manor. TheHusband’s recommendation this year was to break it up into chunks, and pace it over a week, and we decided to start in the Rumpus room in the basement and work our way up.
The Rumpus Room and other rooms in the basement were to get a once over on Saturday, but we ended up not getting to it so we tacked it on to today’s work. Within a couple of hours, we had swept, vacuumed, mopped, dusted, and sorted the Rumpus room, foyer into the Rumpus room, stairs and landings down to the basement, the upstairs pre-foyer and foyer, first floor living room, solarium, and dining room. Monday is the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, Tuesday will be the stairs and landing connecting the first and second floors, then Wednesday will be our bedroom and respective bathrooms. Thursday I’ll be on campus for roughly 12 hours as I’ve organized an author’s reading so no cleaning, and I’m off on Friday. So whatever we don’t absolutely get done will be done on Friday and allow for any other errands I need to run.
We were done with Sunday’s bits within a few hours, which beats the usually 8-10 hours it takes us to get the whole house down, giving us time to do whatever else we planned for the rest of the day. The one task I’ve been dreading all week is responding to my mother, and after much discussion with my shrink about it, opted to send her a decline to her dinner invite for Thanksgiving. I wrote something along the lines that I appreciated the thought, but we must respectfully decline and perhaps another time in the new year. Maybe I’ll be up for talking to her then, maybe I’ll be up to sorting us out, but not now. Not here. Not because my brother is desperate for our family to be whole.
As I paid bills, and did a few other administrative tasks, I kept an eye on the weather – ready to run down to the basement, the dog under my armpit, at the very last minute if need be.
Grand Rapids did not get the brunt end of the storm band as some areas did, but the wind was obnoxious and the rain, sometimes mixed with hail, pelted against the house. TheHusband predicted the storm would passed us by quickly, which it did, but several hours later we’re now getting the second wave. I’m grateful we didn’t get hit hard, and it seems no one I know across the storm’s path were in trouble. Many blessings were sent to the gods and fates for sparing us today.
I fretted, as I always do, about the safety of the house – did shingles get ripped off in the storm, did a leak spring up, did something happen that I may not have been aware of? TheHusband tutted my fears – the house is made of brick and has stood for 90 years and will probably stand for 90 more. He then pretended we were one of the three little pigs and the wind was the big, bad wolf. TheHusband huffed and puffed, and the house did not fall down.
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2010, 2010, 2009

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: September 21, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz's Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Reading

  • The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
    Set in Rome and Britannia at the turn of the first millennium, I’m sort of digging this story of a wayward Roman informer who sets out to do the right thing, even if it means pissing off his momma. This series has been widely lauded by historians and bookish folk alike, but one thing that is already kind of driving me nuts is Davis’ use of language by having the characters speak colloquially that would find home closer to our contemporary world rather than ancient Rome.

Watching

  • Burn Notice – Series finale.
    We discovered this series a couple of years ago and loved the narrative, the set-up, and that in some ways it was highly educational. Plus there was Bruce Campbell attached, so things aren’t all that bad. But as time wore on, so too did the story and we watched out of laziness rather than excitement. We’ve been missing an odd episode here and there because the storylines seemed to drag on, but we felt, out of loyalty to finish the series out. The ending wasn’t revolutionary or even a revelation, and it seemed wholly unsatisfying. But it did tie up things neatly, so there is that I suppose.
  • Doc Martin
    A cantankerous, blood squeamish doctor moves from London to Portwenn in Cornwall, and meets the towns colorful and endearingly quirky characters and even falls in love. There is nothing wholly original about the set up, but Martin Clunes is almost always a pleasure to watch and much like the Vicar of Dibley, you want to hit the local pub to find out the goings on in the village. Doc Martin is now starting its sixth season and you can find previous seasons on Amazon Prime, Netflix, and AcornTV.
  • She Wolves: England’s Early Queens
  • Britain’s Secret Homes
  • Boardwalk Empire

Weekly watching: QI, Peaky Blinders, The Bridge (US), Project Runway, The Newsroom, Sons of Anarchy, DaVinci’s Demons,  The Vampire Diaries

Links

  • HBO should show dongs
  • For Only $25k You Can Live in the World’s Largest Doomsday Timeshare
  • Is it really possible for books to “transcend genre?”
  • Miley Cyrus is Punk as Fuck
  • Read the description as to why the tickets are getting sold: 4 X one direction tickets sydney Friday 25th October

x0x0,
lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 1998

receives wicked men after their death

Houten badpakken / Wooden bathing suits
Wooden bathing suits, supposed to make swimming a lot easier. Haquian, Washington, USA, 1929. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.

Dear Internet,
I don’t have much time this evening to write as I’m due to leave in about 15 minutes to pick up Beth from their airport. Tomorrow morning, she and I will head up to Throbbing Cabin where five other of our friends will meet us for a long girls weekend.
Seven girls.
All librarians.
Drunk.
In A Cabin.
In the Woods.
What could possibly go wrong?
Don’t be terribly surprised if communication from me is slow this weekend, namely here on the blog. And I’m not quite sure what the protocol is to tweet from jail.
(If you’re into that kind of thing, you can always follow me on the twitters or instagram to keep up with the antics.)
I was feeling pretty focused on work today, but some of the problems with MPOW’s website upgrade is trickling down to me and that is causing me some frustration. The frustration stems as student report vague web issue to library staff, library staff reports that to me long after the student has left so I can’t trouble shoot or fix the issue. I’ve been dragging my own laptop in to test the complaints but I can’t apparently duplicate them and as the student has long gone, I can’t work with them directly.
See. Frustration.
The problems all stem from students who have their own devices, and I have been walking library staff through asking a series of questions to narrow down at least the general problems but something in the communication either from me to them or from them to the student or somewhere else is getting broken. I just feel like I’ve been repeating myself A LOT.
Today is day #3 of no sleepiness and to test out my theory, I refrained from caffeine long after my morning Red Bull was gone. I drank water for the rest of the day and felt fine. Later in the afternoon I had a ritual Coke slurpee while I ran errands as I needed the extra push to make sure I was up when to I went to pick Beth up.
Much later.
It’s long after midnight and I’m still up. Beth’s plane was late by an hour, which turned out to be a boon to me as I was able to complete some packing and writing before I needed to leave. I smushed  her face off when she came out of the gate, whisked her back to Throbbing Manor, gave her the abridged tour of the house and finally got her tucked into bed.
Mood ring says: Feeling pretty good. Pretty even. I’m gloriously enjoying the lack of sleepiness during the day. I’m also absolutely luxuriating in my morning routine, which is now including reading a short story while I eat my breakfast.
And if there is anything I’ve been discovering these last few weeks, the little things are everything.
x0x0,
Lisa (Day #14)

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2012, 2012, 2012, 2011, 1999

One Who Guesses Right

Portrait of an articulated skeleton on a bentwood chair
Portrait of an articulated skeleton on a bentwood chair, circa 1900. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.

Dear Internet,
The 12th Doctor was announced today.  I’m not sure how I feel about the selection but as I said on Twitter, it’s not so much they went with a white male but the beeb, the show, Moffat – they have this AMAZING opportunity to take the show into new direction, pushing boundaries and make the show worth a damn! But no. Moffat on why no female Doctor, “It didn’t feel right to me, right now. I didn’t feel enough people wanted it.”
That has got to be one of the most cowardly statements ever published.  Will I stop watching? More than likely not.
Today was a good day! TheHusband and I got up early, there was no leaping from the bed but early it was, and made some serious head way into the great weeding with the before illustrated below:
The great weeding has begun!
The great weeding has begun!

After two hours and stuffing to the gills a 96 gallon yard waste container, our yard looks exactly the same! Well, not exactly – the weeds between the bricks in the walk are gone. So there is something. TheHusband and I keep going back and forth on how to take care of this mess, knowing really if we spent a few a hours a day working on it, it would be fantastic. And knowing who we are, it’s not probably not going to happen.
But we continue to be optimistic.
After cleaning ourselves up, we headed over to antique row, which is a series of antique stores located in the old warehouse district south of downtown. This area, along with other blighted spots, are getting their own gentrification so now instead of it being a sketchy area to park and shop in, the streets are getting nicer and better shops are moving in.. The row has now doubled to contain six distinct antique and speciality stores, such as one store that specializes in Mid-Century Modern and another that does specializes in reclaimed materials. Reclaimed from what, we’re not sure, but it looked too high falutin for us.
Our needs were pretty simple: Look for Fiestaware, furniture, and a few other odds and ends we need for the cabin. We might as well been shooting for the moon. Several weeks ago, we lucked out when we found Fiesta plates at a local thrift store near our cabin for $1 a piece. At every antique store we visited this weekend, they were selling between $10-30 a piece. Now I know some of this stuff is worth the price, but selling contemporary pieces for vintage prices is a fucking dick move! We saw this in a lot of things we picked up, items that were retro made to emulate vintage looks but priced as of original. I Instagramed some choice pieces but overall, our time at the antique row was a bust.
I also feel like I’ve combed through most of the thrift stores and antique markets in our areas and either we’re not getting the right days or I’m missing something. It’s become pretty frustrating.
We ended our pretty busy day out with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and we both tried something new. The evening was wrapped up with True Blood and some other mindless television before crashing.
So mood – how was my mood. For the most part of the last few weeks, my mood has been pretty steady even and the Klonopin at night has helped taken the edge off. But the edge is still there and sometimes I can feel it like a serrated knife against my chest.
I am so fucking tired. Of being tired. Sometimes I feel like all I do in inhale enough caffeine to keep me functioning for the moment and then I inhale some more. I feel like it’s a lost cause and I want to get off of Lithium so badly but I’m more afraid of the ramifications of going off the drug cold turkey.
x0x0,
Lisa (Day #11)

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