(click here for a full-size image)

Hey, at least it isn’t a Corvette. A friend will be driving my lovely new 2007 Honda Shadow Aero to my home tomorrow. Yes, I still need to work on that wacky little thing called “learning how to drive a motorcycle”. Earliest class I could get into is five weeks from now, but I’m going on standby for next week’s class. Hopefully it won’t be sitting in the garage for too long. Next step, buying myself bulk bandanas and Sarah tubetops.

This morning was a bit of a rush. So when I put on my shirt, I failed to notice that the zipper didn’t completely engage at the bottom. (Yes, it’s a shirt that zips.) I can’t be sure at what moment the zipper teeth actually began to separate. But I’m sure it was well before the moment I actually noticed that I was half naked, which was when I sat in my seat on the bus and thought gee, my shirt feels different today. Thank god I was wearing my jacket. Even though it’s late June, mornings in Snoqualmie can be rather chilly, being closer to the mountains. I was able to button it up tight until I could rush into the nearest bathroom an hour later in downtown Seattle (Starbucks) to fix myself. Which thankfully I was able to do after much tugging and pulling on that zipper.

I’m fairly certain that during at least half of my walk to the bus stop my shirt was barely covering my womanly parts. And of course my normally people/car free walk wasn’t people/car free. I can distinctly remember at least 3 cars and one woman walking her dogs. Now I know why she didn’t answer my “good morning”. I was the crazy half-dressed woman rushing down the sidewalk with half my shirt flapping to the side.

The universe has an evil sense of humor.

But still neat looking. An impromtu visit to Snoqualmie Falls yesterday:

(BTW, the Falls is literally right down the street from us.)

At the end of the day today I read a bunch of father’s day postings from people on postsecret. The website posts anonymous postcards sent in by people. Most are pretty confessional in the way only something completely anonymous can be. They make you think.

I thought about my father. I never got to know him, as he died from a heart attack when I was in 6th grade. Although I now realize most kids may of known their fathers by that age, I didn’t. He was the very tall, very big, person that I was deathly afraid of. No reason for that fear, really. He spanked me once when I crossed the busy street near our house.

We never talked though. Or he never talked to me. I never remember seeing him smiling. Feeling a warm emotion from him. Seeing him happy. We went fishing every other week for a while. But, I was scared to talk to him. I didn’t know what to say. He felt like a stranger. He was, in a sense. I found out at his funeral that my mother and him were divorced, and he was staying around for the kids. And I thought fathers just slept on the couch every night. He also had some type of other family. I never was able to pull out the details; if they were his kids, or the lady’s he was seeing.

Anyway, the point is I never felt I got to know him. As a person. But thinking about it, I’m not sure if there was anything to know. Except maybe why he was dead inside. Or at least that’s what I think I see when I look back at the two of them. My mother and my father. Two living dead people. Unhappy, unmoved by life. No passions. No dreams.

I think my worst fear is becoming that. Sometimes I wonder if I’m already there. I definitely think depression runs in our family. I think my parents had it. I have a hard time being happy. Being motivated. But the modern times have given us natural remedies to help with that, and society is more open about being bummed.

I still think my life is too boring. That I’m not doing enough. At least I’m not inflicting that on children, though. Perhaps that’s why I have no interest in hearing from my own children currently scattered somewhere around the country. Maybe I grew up never learning that warm bond of family. Maybe it just wasn’t in our genetic makeup. Maybe it’s now not in my own. Hard to say.

Another reason why the floor project is languishing. For some reason the previous owners thought it a classy touch to lay down tiling over the lovely hardwood floor to go with the bargain basement shag carpet. This stuff is extremely difficult to pull up…

List of things I’m not doing:

• Getting ready to refinish the livingroom floor.
• Finishing unpacking and organizing.
• Keeping the house clean.
• Sticking to the magical list of weekly chores.
• Creating that magical list of weekly chores.
• Eating healthily.
• Starting that magical workout plan that I was supposed to get excited about once I moved into my new house.
• Being social.
• Taking pride in my appearance.
• Being active and experiencing life.
• Keeping a proper sleeping schedule.
• Striving to continually improve my relationship.

List of things I actually am doing:

• Starting to once again take my vitamins and other ‘mood balancing’ pills.
• Looked at the exercise manual several times for the exercise machines upstairs. (actually got on them a few times.)
• Signed up, through work, for an extremely intensive week-long training class in Nevada (Henderson, not Vegas, there will be no time for partying) that will earn me a useful CCNA certification.
• Monkeying around of some electronics and woodworking projects. (but also making things less organized in the process.)
• Trying to be more social at work and be less guarded about my personal life. (which involved copious amounts of fried eggs at a greasy spoon one morning this week and three 30-something men whining about relationships like a show about sexual women in a city)

End Times today…. I’m thinking somewhere around 2ish… That’s why I’m going to lunch around 1pm. I want a good meal in me for the coming apocalypse.

update: Apocalypse has been postponed until further notice. -God

Between the buckets of rain and catching a cold, there hasn’t been a whole lot done in the yard for the past 2 weeks.  But it’s all falling into place in my head.  (Which of course is distinctly different from falling into place in actuality.) 

Finally picked up some of the soil conditioner I’d been wanting.  (Soil conditioner is a nice name for bat poop and other equally lovely things.)  It’ll be used in the front yard where most of the planting will be done. I also happened to run across a great deal on perennials and snatched up their remaining delphiniums, risking the wrath of one elderly lady who was greedily eyeing them as I put them in my cart.  She got her vengeance later by neatly stepping in front of us in line at the checkout to ask the clerk where to find something.  I felt a little guilty, I’ll admit, but then again I did see them first.

Yesterday we ventured out to investigate a Half Price Books that we hadn’t been to before.  I think it halfway appealed to us because it was an adventure that didn’t involve freeway driving.  The whole roughly 15 miles is nearly a straight-shot through trees and farmland and turned out to be a very pretty drive.  In between fits of coughing and an extremely annoying child with an extremely annoying noise-making toy, I managed to find the book I wanted and we were done in less than 15 minutes.  What does that have to do with gardening?  Well, nothing, except that on the drive home we ran across a plant nursery we didn’t know existed.  We spent a happy half hour wandering the rows of plants.  Steven liked nearly every plant I pointed out from my Master List which was nice because it means I’m doing a good job picking out things that I think we both would like. 

But best of all, I ran across a variegated Japanese willow tree which I had never seen before and which will more than likely be our choice for a replacement for the gawd-awful rhododendron in the back yard.  (Which is hopefully being removed this weekend - one way or another.)

There’s a certain sense of satisfaction involved when a idea coalesces into an actual plan of attack.  It’s all laid out before me.  I know what needs done.  I know how to do it.  And best of all, I’ve begun.

Now if I can keep the dogs from digging up the delphiniums, I’ll be happy.

Work and weather conspired to keep us from the wood floors and other general household plans. Almost every day has been dark, dank, and dreary.

I immediately left work after my third meeting of the day was over. Around 2pm. No, I didn’t feel guilty. I drove through the drizzle, turned into my driveway and hit the brakes before I made it into the garage. I decided on the short drive to assemble the wood that has been sitting in there for over two weeks.

The result is a massive 350 pound, 8 foot by 4 foot killer workbench.

Sarah needed to help me lift the 80 pound particle board sheets. :-)

Also nearly finished up my hobby room workbench. Still need to assemble the two right side drawers. This also is a very sturdy, durable bench. It came with a 3/4″ MDF top, 4 deep drawers, worklight, outlet strip, and pegboard.