*so tired* And I don’t have time to write this whole trip up in one sitting.

The trip went pretty much as expected. It was nice seeing my Aunt Elaine, Uncle Chris, cousin Erica and her fiancee, and it was really great of them to let us stay at their house.

We rented a car while we were up there. Originally thought we’d just get the cheapest 2-door, but once we got up there the rain, wind and realization that we’d be doing highway driving for most of the trip convinced Michael to get a bigger car. We ended up with a Dodge Magnum. What a yucky car! But it was roomy and better than a little metro or whatever 2-door we would have ended up with.

Wednesday night we saw my Grandparents briefly, then had dinner with my aunt, uncle and cousin. We went to bed pretty early, traveling days are so exhausting.

When we went up to the storage locker on Thursday morning, there was more stuff in it than I expected. All sorts of things like a whole box full of tupperware, boxes of plain mugs, and other household items that I already have. I did manage to find my parent’s old china, knife collection, crock pot (yeah chili!) and a whole bunch of old photos (loose and in albums). My Aunt Meg will be shipping those things to me when she has a chance. I’m glad I went up there, it would have been sad to lose all that. The rest of the things in the locker were taken away by a local church for a rummage sale. It was sad to see some of the furniture go, but I really had no reasonable way to bring it down here to Philadelphia.

After visiting the storage locker Michael and I went out to lunch to Bugaboo Creek with my Aunt Meg, Aunt Elaine, Uncle Paul and my sister Heather. At the end of lunch we were talking about what our plans were for the afternoon when Michael got a call from work. They had a situation that Michael needed to take care of, and we were 2 hours from his laptop and an accessible internet connection, our afternoon plans were decided. We drove back to New Hampshire so he could get online.

When Michael was finished with work we went over to the retirement community where my grandparents live. It’s a very nice place, brand new. The entrance looks like a hotel, their apartment is roomy and they have a full kitchen and a bigger bathroom than I have! They have access to a pool, library, small movie theater (with a popcorn maker!), and all sorts of other things. I want to be old! Well, not really, but it is a great place, and they seem happy. We ate with them in the community dining room, it was like eating in a restaurant, very impressive.

We spent some time with them in their apartment. My grandparents spoke a bit about my father, then gave me a few of his things. One was a term paper he had written in 1971 about Buddhism and Hinduism, he had written it after a tour around the world with his brother when he was 19. It’s quite good, I think I’ll retype it and put it online. Then there was his wooden Buddha statue that I had always been quite fond of (and had in my bedroom for the better part of my teenage years). Then, most importantly, were his Runes. I nearly teared up when my Grandmother told me she had them, I didn’t know anyone had kept them, and as far as spiritual things go that’s the only real link I had with my father. He taught me about Rune stones, and I carried the art into my adult life. Having his stones, the ones I used before I made my own, is very special.

To be continued…

In 24 hours we’ll be on a plane to New Hampshire.

I tied up loose ends for the trip plans this morning via email. Michael reserved a car for us at Enterprise. And we even ventured to the mall last night so I could get a dress for the memorial service.

Our plan is to pack up this evening, drive to Michael’s mother’s house with Caligula. Spend the night there in the morning we’ll hop on a train (which is right across the street from her house) and head to the airport.

Our flight leaves Philly a little after noon, we’ll be in Manchester, NH by 2. Meet up with family at my Aunt’s house, do the family thing.

Thursday we’ll be going to my father’s storage locker to go through the last of his belongings. We’ll probably spend dinner with my grandparents

Friday we’ll be heading up to Maine for the memorial service, then out to lunch, then to spread the ashes. Michael and I will stay in Maine, maybe take Heather and Annette (my sisters) out in the afternoon or something. That evening we will drive to see our friend Morgana, who will be feeding us dinner and giving us a place to sleep for the rest of our stay.

Saturday we’ll spend with Morgana and her husband, just hanging out. She has a couple food places in mind for the real Maine seafood experience (there is nothing like lobster on paper plates!).

Sunday morning we’ll need to leave Morgana’s around 8 so we can be in Manchester and ready for our flight home around noon.

I’m going to take every chance to relax during this trip. Family vacations almost always require a second vacation to recover, but that’s just not an option %\ Must be back at work on Monday.

But first I need to finish today’s work day. Only a little over 3 more hours to go…

It was a good weekend, still is a good weekend.

On Saturday I spent part of the morning organizing my desk area. I have two computers, hour, my primary workstation, and r2q5 which I use for a test box. hour and my UPS were beside my desk, and r2q5 was taking up room under my desk near my legs, and the wires were just a mess:

Plus, I had two monitors, which was needlessly excessive because my big monitor has a second input. So I put the second monitor away, unplugged all my wires, moved r2q5 next to my desk with hour, and made it all look nice:

Late Saturday morning I went out to the grocery store to pick up some rolls for lunch, when I pulled in the driveway a van pulled up behind me. It turned out to be the mailman who had a box for us. It was the rhizomes that Michael ordered from Freshops.com! I put them in the refrigerator until we had time to plan out their placement in our yard and plant them.

In the late afternoon we decided to have some beers. Then some more beers. Then watch Carinvale and have more beers and some absinth. See where this is going? We both got pretty wasted, but we had fun, even if we went to bed at 8pm.

Today we mostly just hung out here at home. I wasn’t in the mood to do friend things, and was pretty tired from the night before (I think I got up a dozen times and drank a gallon of water last night, hah!). In the afternoon we started to plan out our hop garden, decided that we’d tie the thin rope that the hops will grow up to the side of the garage roof, then stake it into the ground so the hops have plenty of room to grow up. We headed out to Lowes in Quakertown to get the stuff we needed for that, and a few other things we needed.

I really started feeling how tired I was while at Lowes, just followed Michael around to get what we needed, and yawned a lot. We decided to get a taller ladder, which had to be tied to the roof of the Rav4 to get it home, and I picked up some AA batteries for my new wireless USB mouse. It was a good shopping trip.

Once back home we started putting together our hop garden. Unfortunately Michael’s drill was at work so we couldn’t put up the ropes. We were able to plant the rhizomes and put in the stakes, so we’re well on our way to having home grown hops. I’m pretty excited %) I’ll have to take pictures throughout the process.

This evening we headed over to Chiaros in Skippack for dinner. Yummie chicken stromboli.

And now we’re going to get our pajamas on watch a few more episode of Carnivale.

Holy crap, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers work.

It’s rare that I buy something after seeing a television commercial. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve done it in years, but after seeing all the commercials for “Magic Erasers” I decided to spend the $2 and get a couple. There were some marks on our TV room wall from the chairs rubbing against it that I wanted to try it on. And what’s $2 if they turn out to be another loser, right?

They sat under my sink, forgotton, for a couple weeks. Today I pulled them out and brought one over to the scuff mark on my wall. Per the directions I got the thing wet, squeezed it out, and brought it over to the mark on the wall and started rubbing. Within just a few seconds I could see a difference. Holy crap! It actually works! I worked my way around the room getting rid of scuff marks.

I then made my way to the trim around the doors that had fingerprints on it since we moved in. Cleaned it up with no problem. No way!

I went into the kitchen and tackled a nasty black scuff mark on the front door that I’ve tried EVERYTHING to clean. Within a minute it was gone. AMAGAD!

Fingerprints on the textured doors. Gone in a few minutes.

Dirt on baseboards.

Scuff marks on walls.

Marks on the stairs.

Throughout this process the sponge like thing was slowly disintegrating. It was entirely gone when I decided that I should probably stop and get back to my normal cleaning. But man, this was cool.

So like any geek, I couldn’t leave this “Magic” mystery unsolved. I had to figure out how this works.

householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov factsheet

The things are made out of: 85% Plaster of Paris, 5% Ethylene Vinyl Acetate Polymer, 5% Formaldehyde-Melamine-Sodium Bisulfite Copolymer, and 5% Crystalline Silica.

The Formaldehyde-Melamine-Sodium Bisulfite Copolymer is the active chemical. As far as I can tell the rest is just a light abrasive (so light that I didn’t realize it was an abrasive until I looked it up, it really just feels like a sponge, but using the Magic Eraser on some surfaces is not recommended and can do damage because of the abrasiveness). I’m not sure how the active ingredient works, and Google hasn’t been much help, it just ends up bringing me to more Magic Eraser sites, I guess that’s the “Magic.”

And side effects? The same as any other fine dust really. This is surprising, I thought something so magical would somehow kill me.

When swung by the store this morning to pick up some rolls for lunch I got another 4-pack.

Michael and I are starting to get more into exploring spirituality in a group setting, spurred on by our need for someone to marry us. These past couple weeks Michael has been doing a lot of exploring of websites and contacting pagans in our area. We’re planning on going to a couple meetings in the near future. This search for someone to marry us has again made me look at how much I lack as far as spirituality. I can say that I’m an atheist, cast my rune stones, but there is something missing when I get into lousy, hopeless moods. Some days I just can’t pull myself up by my bootstraps.

But honestly, that’s ALL I’m missing in life right now. I’ve never been this happy before, I never thought I’d be this happy. Even a year ago when I felt great and didn’t think better was possible, I have learned that it is.

I have Michael, we have a house, we both have good jobs, the only debt we have is our home mortgage, we’re healthy, we have great friends, we live in a nice area, we have the greatest cat ever. Things have really come together for us. The pessimist inside of me keeps warning me to watch my back because things can’t possible stay this good.

Last night I had a dream that it was raining. Nothing else was happening in this dream, just rain.

I think this is the 11th beautiful, sunny day in a row, they say it’s supposed to get over 80 degrees out today. I like sunny days, I can go for walks and work in my garden and enjoy being outside, but 11 days? Barely even a cloud in the sky? It’s weird.

I miss the rain.

I also miss the trees outside of the Univest Insurance office in Lansdale.

Last week while walking I happened to overhead a man in overalls telling a man in a suit that “They never should have planted these trees here, they get too large, the trouble you’re having comes from the roots…” I thought it was sad that someone would not take into account how large the trees grow when planting them in front of a building, like all those poor trees in cities that look nice on a city block until their roots start breaking up the sidewalks and they need to be removed.

Yesterday while out on my walk at lunchtime I walked past a big line of trees, enjoying their pink flowers, and approached the Univest building.

The trees were gone! Only piles of dirt where they had been remained. It’s now just a little bit harder to breathe here in Lansdale.

I wonder what they do with trees like that. Did they have to chop them up and tear them down? I’ve certainly never seen a live tree larger than 15ft be moved on a truck.

On Saturday we did end up going to Green Lane Park for the afternoon. It was much larger than I thought! And it turns out that April 16th was the first day for paddle and motor boat rentals.

We started out just walking a trail around part of the park and small lake that they stock with trout for people who want to fish. It was a beautiful day for taking a walk. Then we drove up to the reservoir and rented a little motor boat. The motor boats only have 10 HP electric engine, so they don’t go fast, but they’re quiet and we were able to see a great deal of the reservoir during our hour on the lake. We had a great time, I can’t remember the last time I was in a boat.

We left the park around 3:30, and went home to try and work out some dinner plans with friends. By 5 it was apparent that we wouldn’t have time for a nice meal AND getting to the fireworks on time, so we had to raincheck the dinner out. Michael and I left for a dinner of our own at Abruzzi on main around 5:30. The dinner was great, as was dessert. We left the restaurant around 7:30 and headed over to the Lower Milford Fire House for the fireworks.

We met up with Bob, Pete, Bill and other guys Michael used to work with. There were lots of normal people coming out to the show just to see fireworks, so it was pretty crowded. The show started at 8:15, and was unlike any other fireworks show I’d seen. For each firework they’d tell us the name of it, and describe a bit about it, since the purpose of this show was to demo the fireworks to promote the business. They also had a bunch of really cool custom fireworks.

Since it hasn’t rained in over a week the ground was pretty dry and a few small fires erupted in the field where they shot off the fireworks, but they were quickly taken care of so the show could continue. The show ended around 10, and Bill offered to take us out on the field to “see the aftermath.” Neat! I never knew what the aftermath of a fireworks show looked like. Unfortunately, by then it was pretty cold out and we didn’t stay in the field for too long.

What a fun day!

On Sunday we didn’t have plans. I tried to work out going out with a friend, but nothing really came of it. So instead spent a greater part of the day outside in my garden. Weeding, picking up more leaves that had blown into it. I also got around to taking apart my vegetable garden and flattening it out so we can throw grass seeds on it in the near future. I did salvage some green onions from the garden though, and moved them into plots I’m going to be using for herbs. See flower beds.

In the evening I made some chicken tacos and we watched some of the Season 3 Coupling episodes that a friend recently sent to us. And perhaps best of all, I got to see all the new Doctor Who episodes! Well, “all” is only 4 right now, but it was exciting to finally see them. The show has definitely striven to increase in quality in all aspects, but the special effects were sometimes still campy enough for me to enjoy them.

*Yawn* Well I best be starting my work, being out most of thursday and all of friday has really made it pile up.

These past few days have not been so good.

On Thursday morning I was sitting at my desk at work and started getting sharp pains in my stomach, I thought they’d just pass as they usually do with my stomach problems, but they didn’t. At 11 I called Michael to pick me up, which sucked for him since he had to leave work to bring me home. I got home, made an appointment to see the doctor at 7:15 that evening, and tried to sit on the couch and watch some movies. About halfway through the first movie I went to bed, my stomach hurt too much to be sitting on the couch. Ugh. Funny thing is that I hadn’t eaten dairy or meat in the previous couple days, I couldn’t find anything in my diet that should have caused such stomach upset.

So I went to the doctor that evening. Advil had helped most of the pain subside, and I was able to talk to the doctor about my stomach problems. He said I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome and put me on Bentyl, which I need to take 3 times a day, yuck. I still wasn’t feeling good on Friday and called out of work, sigh. At least I felt well enough to sit on the couch and watch movies, but man my stomach was hurting. It was feeling better by about 3 in the afternoon, but still not good enough to meet our friends for movie night.

Today I’m feeling better, and I’m glad I finally went to the doctor about my stomach aches. Hopefully this medication will help.

We’re planning on going to a Green Lane Park this afternoon to do some walking on the trails and things. Then this evening we’ll be going to Celebration Fireworks’ annual demonstration day with some friends. It should be a fun day. And it’s beautiful out, for the 8th straight day, no rain, no clouds, just sunny, warm weather.

Yesterday was another nice day, but today was not.

Sunday morning I made some vegan blueberry pancakes (never intended to go vegan, the recipe was just easy and I thought I’d try it) and Morningstar Farm sausages (which are vegetarian, but not vegan).

The pancakes weren’t bad, but were pretty thick, the recipe was from here

1 c Whole wheat flour (I didn’t have whole wheat flour, I used white)
1 t Baking powder
1/4 t Salt
1/4 t Baking soda
1 T Sugar if blueberries are unsweetened
1/2 c Soymilk or rice milk (I used soy milk)
1/2 c Canned blueberries w/juice (I used thawed frozen bluberries w/ juice)

Mix the dry ingredients togther; then mix in the soymilk and the blueberries. If the batter is too thick, mix in more blueberry juice until it is the right consistency. Cook in a nonstick pan until they look edible. They will be very blue!

I didn’t have extra blueberry juice, so I just added a little more soy milk to get it to a thinner consistancy.

The recipe says it will make 6 pancakes, but for me it only made 5 (using 1/4 cup scoops), but this is still a decent breakfast for two. I topped the vegan pancakes with vegan “Soy Garden” butter-like spread and syrup.

I spent nearly 4 hours in the flower garden doing weeding, and managed to get a little sunburned on my face and arms, oops.

I spent some time in the afternoon working on wallaceandgromit.net and catching up on email. In the evening we had dinner and watched a few more episodes of Carnivale.

Around 10pm I started getting a headache, took some Advil and went to bed.

I woke up this morning at 3:38, got out of bed to go to the bathroom and my head was spinning. I took a few more Advils and went to bed.

At 6:18 I my head was still killing me, I got out of bed and called out sick to work. I took a few more Advil and went back to bed.

At 9:30 I woke up feeling slightly better and hungry so I ate some banana bread and watched a couple episodes of Gummi Bears.

By 10 I was feeling yucky again and went back to bed.

Michael shut the bedroom door before he left to go into work for a couple hours, and I slept the rest of the morning away.

Around 1:30 I crawled out of bed feeling mostly better. I ate some lunch and took some more advil to make the remaining bit of my headache go away.

It seems to be gone now, but man, I haven’t had one of those in a long time.