O_O! EEEEEEE THANK GOD IT IS RAINING NOW.

<33333

 
I am retiring from the world tonight. Far too pooped. Work wasn't especially hard today or anything, I guess just three days of it + 743920 degree heat with 43289074390% humidity has defeated me.

But, I got a cute shirt and skirt from Fashion Bug for like $20 total today. So that was good at least.

 
Pretty new pics on emulsion, go see. :) Have resized a batch more, should continue updates through this week. If I forget, feel free to poke me about it.

Prerecorded actions are FANFREAKINGTASTIC hi. <333 SO glad I figured those out, they take alllll the annoyingness out of resizing things and re-saving things and all.

Meanwhile, my feet, of all places, are veryvery sunburned. *giggles* They've been in sandals, and I've spent half an hour to an hour on my bike each day lately, plus half an hour outside around noon for lunch, and in all of those instances, feet are getting sunned on quite heavily. (I tend to put my feet up rather than under the picnic table at lunch, to let them rest a lil.) It stings and itches. Thank goooodness for a nice big happy bottle of aloe. <3

Working 10-4 through Friday this week, Saturday Mom and the grandparents are coming down, yay! Then the next two weeks, I work M-W-F 10-4, and Sat+Sun 9-5. @_@! Crazy, but, broken up enough I should be alright. And it's lots of hours which means: I WILL HAVE AN INCOME OMFGWTFBBQQQQQQ!

I also discovered I get a 25% discount at Paper Factory now. :D Happyhappy. You will all get nice birthday gifts.

Which reminds me, Mel I still owe you one. hmm...

I need to bake more cookies, my snickerdoodles are all gone (though Tom didn't eat many, they're too bland for him e_e; ). But it's hooooooot.

*noses around no-bake cookie recipes* <3

 
So, my first day of work went really well. ^___________^ I only messed up a few little things on the register, adn they were easily fixed, I was working beside people all day. But I learned to use the register, checked in and priced and put away new stock, blew up balloons, took an order for balloons, cut wrapping paper, and about 80,000 other little things. Everyone's really really nice though, and all said it's like months before anyone knows most of the procedure around there, there's just sooo muuuuch of eeeeverything, heh.
It's air-conditioned, thank goodness, and my feet only got a little sore toward the end of the six hours I was there. Everyone's very friendly, it's very causal and comfortable and things, and everyone makes fun of each other, hee.

The minute I got home, Tom was in the kitchen and met me at the door with a glass of ice water. <3 Stepped inside, and he handed me today's mail:

- Sigur Ros' "Saeglópur" single (with three new songs, and a dvd with the videos for "Saeglópur", which I haven't seen, "Hoppípolla", which's cute, and "Glósóli", which is...breathtaking <3), which I ordered from amazon.uk and wasn't expecting for another few days at least.

- My diploma. ...I think it's finally sunk in, I'm a college graduate. Seeing it printed there...I have a degree.
Holy crap.
^_^
It is sitting proudly on top of the shelves that hold the tv, in prominent display.

 
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment by an overwhelming margin. With 187 Representatives voting against the FMA, the extremists pushing the amendment fell far short of the two-thirds majority needed to write discrimination into the Constitution.

*happydance!* So, can they give up on that one now? plzkthx.

 
So, if you are here, and I'm going to assume for my fragile ego's sake that someone is at least occasionally, then you've undoubtedly noticed the rather obvious addition to the layout.

I have no idea how this site failed to cross my radar for SO long, but, last.fm. If you're a music person, as most of you are, go check it out. Remember how fun library thing is? This, you don't even have to punch anything *in*. A small, unobtrusive little program hangs out on your taskbar, and passes along anything that goes through your music program (handles itunes, winamp, media player, and probably more), updating lists on your profile on their site. It compiles charts and all sorts of fun things. Everything's..a little skewed on mine just now, as I'm currently on a mission to get everything on my system listened to at least once, and things are on shuffle, but.. *giggles*
I get to spy on whatever Megs and Mel are listening to (ps mel you need to friend me back :p), and anyone else on there, I can do the same, hee. There are groups, with rather pathetic attempts at discussion on their boards, but, it's a good way to see what other people who like what you like listen to - I've found about a million glam artists to check out. <3
You can also listen to clips of what everyone's listening to - it uploads a bit of your song to their system. So like the myspace thing, but without a really dumb looking player, and not the whole song, but.. dude does anyone really sit and listen through the players on random peoples' myspace pages? idek.

Anyway, I think it's cool, and it is, like most things, a little addictive, trying to get things set up nicely for yourself and all. I'm hugely loving the fact that they'll code up and update a little "recently played" list you can put up ANYWHERE, like the one I have. Unfortunately, unless you get a paid account (like $5/mo, or $45/yr I think it works out to, forget that), you can't do a custom one.. ... ...or, if you can, I can't figure out where the hell to do it. But there's a million styles to choose from, most large, but some small and pretty like mine, so that's alright. Doesn't update anything quite like instantly, though the main site picks up what you're listening to before you're halfway through the song, but, close enough. *G*

I realise I have a rather large "guilty pleasure" count on my system, but, things make me happy, so, there. *g*

 
I am so freaking proud of my cooking abilities today. ^______________^

Mid-afternoon, Tom and I were both hungry. We'd bought strawberries on sale today, so I said I was thinking of making something with those and ice cream. Tom suggested Belgian waffles. This sounded very promising.
So, I ended up making:
Belgian waffles (thank you mom for the iron :), with a bit of additional sugar and some vanilla extract added. The instant they were off the iron, I set them on top of a few halved strawberries, then sprinkled some chocolate chips on them to melt a bit. Quartered some strawberries, arranged those on the waffles. Then covered it all with vanilla ice cream. <3 Lacking chocolate syrup, I sprinkled everything with more chocolate chips. Halved a few more strawberries, and arranged four halves all prettily on top of each, with a whole berry pointed upwards on the very top. Then sprinkled some sugar over everything (mainly to add to the strawberries).
They were SO pretty, and SOOO good. <333

For dinner, I made yogurt samosas, which I'd wanted to make for awhile but was lacking a few ingredients for. They took foreeeeever to make, and I got a tiiiny little oil-burn from frying them, but goodness were they good. The recipe claimed to need a whole package of phyllo dough, but I only used half, only had enough filling for 20. Which was more than enough to make a dinner for us both. And oh were they gooooood. And so impressive looking! Such cute lil fried triangles (google image will give you an idea). Tom was all spazzy about how adventerous I was being, making these, and he loooooved. We decided they tasted as much Greek as Indian, but neither of us minded that, oh they were good.

I SO win. ^_____________________^ I'm so happy and proud right now. (And full, hee.)

...Tom's much less brooding now, we took a trip to WalMart, as much to get out of the house awhile as anything, but he also wanted to pick something up to get himself out of his funk. He wound up with a new game (Hitman, very violent of course but really, really cool and immersive looking), and I wound up with a few odds and ends. I discovered where the discounted old fabric remnants are kept. ^____^ I got two really pretty little bundles that'll be perfect for patching jeans and things - 50cents each. <3 Also embroidery thread is far cheaper than I remembered. But they didn't have the little jingle bells I wanted! I'm pretty sure I bought mine there a year or two ago, but I didn't see any pretty tiny little silver ones, just big gold ones. meh.

 
EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! It's a lil firefox!!! It's SO cute. Go see.

...

In other news. The Woodwind Camp kids' concert was really, really nice, I couldn't believe how amazing some of them played. Some of the groups played together better than others, and there were a few for whom it was just another homework assignment, but the vast majority had a real love for what they were doing. and omfg flute players. SO many played with such a wonderful and expressive tone, I was REALLY impressed. :) (Also..there was a flute boy. A really cute kinda even hot flute boy. *happy shiver* And he was gooood.) And, the names of all the quintets/trios were inside jokes and randomness, and amused me greatly.

After that, Tom and I went in to town for Victorian Dazzle...which was a fair bit less dazzling than I'd hoped. There were a handful of food vendors, so I bought us fried dough and it was soooogooooood <3, and later we got some of those little flavored honey stick things (which tasted better in memory than in present, but still good). And, wonderfully enough, yesterday was the antiques day, so there were all sorts of fun things laid out on tables. Toooons of old jewelry, but only a few things that really caught my eye, and they were like $30. sigh. There were some cute lil boxes and things, but the one I'd been thinking about disappeared by the time I came back to it. But there were some really cool things to look at, anyway, some more old postcards adn the usual, milk bottles, AND! Piano rolls! That was really cool. And they had a stereogram viewer, as well as stereograms. (It was like $95 though, and the individual pictures are like $5 each, which is more than I usually like to spend on them. I got a really pretty one on Long Island for like $1 or $2.)
There were various exhibitions and talks and things going on, but....
EVERYTHING cost money. The only thing that didn't was a cemetary tour, which was over with by the time we got there (and I have maps anyway of where all the famous people are anyway). Only one thing really interested me at all anyway, a Victorian fashion thing, but even that was only a little.
The ghost tour... was going to be $10. Far too much when you're on this tight of a budget... But I'm ok, I read the description in the brouchure and it sounded like kind of an amalgram of random things: When Underground Railroad stories are included in the list, you get a hunch they have to stretch a little for material. And I figure I can find out a lot of these stories in the museum on my own anyway.. plus the main ghost story would be the fire at Old Main, which I'm sure I know more about than they'd tell anyway.
But it was a nice thing for a summer afternoon, anyway, walking around the square full of people, dodging small children on bikes, seeing a few people in old dresses and suits, watching someone actually ride one of those victorian bicycles with the HUGE!!! front wheel.. that was pretty cool. :)

I start work on Tuesday. I'm a littlenervous, but I'm also looking forward to having something to do, as well as having income. The grandparents are amazing and sent along another check this week, which'll make things nice and relaxed until I start getting paychecks. :) And we've done really well on food and things, we didn't have much at all to buy this week, only spent $30, and that includes a splurge on some strawberries and a few random ingredients for new recipes. <3 And I let Tom get whole milk, because we needed something random to cheer him up a little...there's a lot of things worrying/bothering him right now. He hasn't talked to me yet about what they are, but I have a pretty good idea... Until he decides to talk about it, there's not much I can do, but I can make him yummy meals and go upstairs and give him kisses now and again, and maybe I'll make a nice dessert-y thing today. :)