The Joys of Hair Cuts

Dawn has given Sylvia and Erik haircuts. Sylvia's was just her bangs, so not very noticeable, but Erik basically got a buzz cut.

 

He was very happy with the result, and asked everyone 'Do you see anything changed about me?' Everyone looked at him for half a second and said 'Oh, you got a hair cut!'

 

This slightly disappointed him and he grumbled to himself 'How come that they all immediately know I got a hair cut!??? I wanted it to be a surprise!'

 

Sylvia dryly commented 'Maybe because you got balder?'

 

Love Thursday

Love is helping your little brother with his dragon puzzle.

 

Happy Love Thursday!

Stopped Smoking!

Last night, my sis decided not to go out and buy a new pack of cigarettes.

 

Instead, she QUIT smoking!

 

Please send TONS of quitting vibes, prayers, positive energy, anything her way, this is not easy for her. It is so much easier to be addicted than to break an addiction.

 

I put counter up (points to the right) to keep track of how many cigarettes she is not smoking AND not buying and now she will have money for chocolate! And ice cream! And a pony!

 

The Joys of Getting Things Done

Today, the day started early with preparing chocolate chip pancakes for my friend and my crew, who then left on their way to Six Flags. She is taking them to have fun, while I am getting things done. How cool is that?

 

In April, I filed for extension on my taxes. Never hard to get, but it does mean that eventually one has to actually DO them. That time has arrived. Today, I am doing tons of things, including getting a start on the taxes. Which sounds easy, but my administration have been somewhat in disarray because of the divorce and other stress. It has not been at the top of my priority list. Which gave me an excellent excuse for not doing the taxes ('I can't FIND anything!') but not sure whether the IRS will accept that one.

 

Because my life is never simple, this issue was further complicated by the fact that there had sprung a Mount Laundry in front of my filing cabinet, and I couldn't actually open it anymore and life was bleak and I was feeling sorry for myself and I was wondering how I would ever get out of this mess. Enter my friend who volunteered to come over and fold laundry for me, which she did last Thursday. Now not only my filing cabinet is reachable and can be opened, but I have clean underwear again!

Another friend had been doing some organizing on my 'metal desk on which I stack the mail in the hope that it takes care of itself' and between the laundry and the desk, I was all ready to get things done.

 

Today so far I have

• Run two loads of laundry (including folding and putting away one);
• Told the puppy 'No, you cannot get the Nutella from the table.';
• One dishwasher load of dishes put away;
• Told the puppy 'No you cannot play with the cat.';
• Made stacks of papers on chairs without any children knocking them over;
• Told the pup 'No, those papers are not yours!';
• Started my taxes by making a list of all the papers I need so I can collect all of them and cross off;
• Told the pup 'No, you cannot have cupcakes;
• Started going through my filing cabinet to find tax related papers and do any quick file maintenance tasks to help it start working again;
• Almost finished the first drawer (out of four) of said filing cabinet;
• Told the puppy 'No, that is not your boot. Not your hat either. And those are MY oven mitts';
• Ate a whole mango, ALL BY MYSELF! I did not share. With anyone!
• Told puppy 'Yes, I love you too, but now get your butt away from the fridge door so I can actually open it.'
• Appreciated how many friends and how much support I have to help me when I drop any of the balls I am juggling;
• Told the pup 'OK, we'll go out for a walk soon.'

 

I am getting things done while my kids are having a blast at Six Flags. I am grateful that I have this whole day of solitude and productivity. My friends are awesome!

Name Change Fun

I have been having fun trying to change my name at many places. The DMV was particularly amusing, since our 'own' DMV was closed for unspecified repairs and the replacing DMV is half an hour drive and only open on Thursdays and Fridays.

Last Friday I went and found out that I wasn't an American yet in their system. I could change my name, but would have to come back with naturalisation papers. Fair enough.

Yesterday, I went back. This time, the problem was that the name on the naturalization certificate didn't match the name in their system, and could I fill out the form again in the naturalization name? It took a while, but eventually I was allowed to use my new name on the form. The next problem was which code to assign it for the change. It seemed that there was no 'She turned American before her name change' code in the system, so they had a hard time deciding between 712 , 726, or 711, and finally decided on 727 for 'removal of restrictions'. Since not being an American clearly is a restriction, right?

 

My visit to the DMV was over and my sister managed to sucker me into helping her to juice 428 baby key limes, which was both a pain and a fun time together. At least she has almost a quart of lime juice now. Which I almost spilled when I tripped over the doorstep.

 

I am still in the process of changing my name at Paypal. First problem, trying to find WHERE to change your name on the website, since it seems more usual to change one's address than one's name. When I finally found, I read the instructions, which clearly said 'Send either copy of court document or copy of photo id.' I uploaded the court document.

Two days later, I get an email 'We cannot process your name change without a photo id.'
I was a good girl and sent them a copy of my photo id.

Three days later, the email states 'We really can't do anything without a court document.'
Um...
On Friday, I uploaded it again and now am waiting for the next email stating that they desperately need my photo id.

The joys of bureaucracy!

Bean Trellis Coolness II

Remember my sister's bean trellis?

 

Look how well the beans are doing!

 

Of course, the continuous rain is helping. Did I mention lately how it rains every single day?

 

We even found three baby beans.

 

Name Change

Last week, I went to probate court, and legally changed my last name and added a middle name, to signify a new start in my life. We celebrated by having a late breakfast mostly to tide over until the ice cream shack FINALLY opened. I chose pina colada ice cream, my sis had black raspberry and it was quite good.

 

We meandered through the country side and stopped at a beautiful pond. We picked mushrooms, and life was excellent.

 

I spent most of the week going many places to change my name, like the DMV and city hall and my local bank. Turns out the DMV needs my naturalization papers too, so I can go back there next week.

 

Since I changed my name, I figured I could as well change my hair too. It turned out a bit more flamboyant than I expected, but it should wash out eventually. I half love it, half am happy it will wash out ^^

 

Licorice Ice Cream

Every time I go pick up the girls from dance class, I drive past this ice cream place advertising '24 flavours of soft serve ice cream!' Every time I drive past, I wonder how one can even design 24 different soft serve flavours. So it was unavoidable that we found ourselves stopping there on the way back from dance class, especially since it was someone's birthday.

 

We stopped and studied the chart. I now realize I forgot to count the number of flavors, but there were quite a lot. Maybe I should go back another day to count how much variety they have. Just to make sure of truth in advertizing.

 

One girl chose espresso soft serve.
The next girl chose pina colada.
Third girl went for chocolate coconut.
And me? I couldn't resist the licorice ice cream.

 

It was surprisingly good and we all enjoyed our ice cream and life is even better once one knows where one can get licorice ice cream.

 

Hobbit Hole

First one in my series of 'Houses which fascinate me and I briefly considered, but then common sense took over and I didn't'

This is what they call an earth sheltered house, but I would call it a hobbit hole.



It does not have any heat source beyond passive solar, which might or might not be a good idea in Vermont.

It has many advantages, like low heating costs (I hope ^^) and it just is a very cool concept. How can one not love a house like this?



What did worry me was where it says 'Needs extensive work' I mean. I do have seven willing workers, cough, but somehow it still didn't feel like the best decision to move into this house and pretend to be hobbits.

A few days ago we actually tried to FIND this hobbit house, just to see what it looked like from the outside. We drove and we drove and we drove. Roads got smaller. Woods sprang up around us. Thunder storms were raging. We got farther and farther away from Vermont's major civilization.

After driving for an inordinate amount of time, we finally arrived on the right dirt road. We tried to find the correct house number, but the house numbers were not in any logical or helpful order. We went back and forth on this road for a while, but it was very clear that this house was a bit too private and far away for us.

Click here to see the house. Read 25 reasons to get an earth sheltered home. Here are some myths and facts.

Still, this house is not for us. Too bad ^^ It would have been fun to be a hobbit.

Weather Forecast

 

Today

 

Showers likely early...then a chance of showers

 

Gotta love living in New England...

 

Fire Tower

 

First fire tower climb of the season.

 

 

I LOVE the views.

 

Six Miles Hike

We went hiking / geocaching in Concord and had a wonderful time.

 

We were organized enough to have two cars, so we could park one on one end of the trail system and one on the other end, enabling us to hike all the way from one side to the other. It was a beautiful hike.

 

We met squirrels, who would yell at us for disturbing the peace in their forest.

 

We saw many frogs and toads.

 

It was a great day and I plan on doing many more hikes this summer.