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.

It was such a beautiful day out yesterday that spring fever was really kicking in. We decided to take a walk up to the library.

The library is about a mile from our house, it was a nice walk. I picked up some books to read on rainy days, requested a copy of Women Don’t Ask from another library, and piled the books into my bag. Gosh that was heavy. Then we ventured to the antiques store in town so browse for a bit. I’m looking for a dresser (don’t have one at all right now), and we found a nice one for $225, but I’ll have to think about it some more, we should really get ourselves to some funiture stores to check out new stuff too.

We walked around a bit more and got home around 1pm to eat lunch.

After lunch we brought Caligula outside on a lead and harness to play for a bit. Then we headed up to the big, beautiful garden supply store down the street, Ott’s. It’s an amazing place with beautiful displays that you can walk through, I wish they had a website, I’ll have to take my camera next time I’m over there.

I picked up 10 mixed Nanus Gladioli bulbs, and 10 pink Large Flowering Gladioli. To be honest I don’t know much about them, besides that they looked nice on the package :)

We also picked up a spider plant, and a pot and hanger set so we could hang it in front of a window in our livingroom. And a pot full of white caladiums, which we’ll be enjoying in the house for quite some time (perhaps moving some outdoors if they get too big to manage). Unfortunately we discovered too late that the caladiums are poisonous, and needed to find it a place in the sun and out of Caligula’s reach. It’s now sharing a spot next to our printer.

I also picked up some herbs: Catnip, Rosemary, Spearment, Oregano. And a package of bush beans. See.

After potting the houseplants, I went to work planting my flower bulbs. 18 of them went in my big garden plots, and I put a couple out by the mailbox. It’ll be a few weeks before they bloom, but I’m hopeful that they’ll turn out nicely. I thought about getting some annuals, but that would be a big job, seeing as I have so many plots to fill. I figure I’ll see how the bulbs look this year, and maybe I’ll start earlier and plant some annual seeds next year.

In the evening we sat down with a couple beers, some Moringstar Farms burgers (which really are great, Boca Burgers can’t compare) and watched a few episodes of Carnivale.

It was a great day.

Today is another beautiful day. I was going to get started on planting the herbs, but I’m not sure we’re out of the danger zone for frost yet so I might hold off for a couple weeks. I think I’ll just work on weeding the rest of the garden.

I also need to deconstruct the veggie garden. It was a nice try last year, but I just don’t want to spend the time on it.

And lest I be accused of ignoring my computers, this morning I decided to upgrade my ubuntu box from warty to hoary. I updated my /etc/apt/sources.list to replace warty with hoary, and then

elizabeth@r2q5:~ $ sudo apt-get update
elizabeth@r2q5:~ $ sudo apt-get upgrade
538 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 266 not upgraded.
Need to get 263MB of archives.
After unpacking 15.7MB of additional disk space will be used.

538 packages upgrade, hehe. I was surprised to discover that it was really fast (maxed out my download speed), just yesterday it was so slow it was timing out. The enti
re upgrade took about an hour. I’ll have to dig up a keyboard and mouse later today so I can actually see what I’ve done ;)

But for now I am going to go make some blueberry pancakes.

Last Friday our friend Bob gave us an old loveseat of his. It was beat up, but solid and comfortable, so earlier this week Michael ordered a sofa cover for it.

I admit, I was skeptical, sofa covers I’d seen in the past we’re pretty cheesy looking. But Michael managed to find a very nice looking suede one. It arrived yesterday and it looks really great! I’ll have to take a picture.

But lets back up to the subject of this entry. When we got the couch we put it in our TV room and were dismayed to realize that it didn’t fit. It stuck out too much and the whole room just looked crowded with furniture. We thought through a lot of alternatives, but it just wasn’t working out, the position of the radiator along a good wall was completely throwing it all off.

“Let’s just switch the bedroom and the TV room.” Michael suggested. The TV room and the bedroom are identical except for the placement of the closet and radiator.

“Hmm, yeah, then we can put the TV in the closet.”

“Huh, that’s a good idea.”

That’s what we did. Because of the radiator being along a different wall it worked out great. Both chairs and the loveseat fit nicely along the wall facing the tv, which is in the closet. Putting the TV (and stereo and myth box, and ps2 and vcr…) in the closet really worked out nicely.

We did this all Wednesday night after work. Boy was I tired after that.

Thursday evening we decided to do some cleaning. Our house never gets very dirty, but we’re neat freaks, and the past couple weeks we’ve been lazier than normal about keeping everything sparkly. We wanted it looking great for movie night tonight.

Yay movie night is tonight. Only 3 more hours of work.

The past few days have been beautiful. Weather in the 70s, low humidity, and a nice breeze. Being stuck inside all day is torture, so I’ve been spending most of my lunch breaks walking through downtown Lansdale.

Downtown Lansdale is a sad place. It has the potential to be a really nice downtown area (and probably once was) but today there are a lot of “For Lease” signs around, cheap stores (Checks cashed! Cigs at state min!) and discarded 7-11 cups. Between the empty buildings and thrift stores there are a few cute shops that I’ve ventured in to, but there aren’t many. Maybe before my next adventure through Lansdale I’ll fire up Google Maps and see if I can find anything interesting around here.

Crappy downtown atmosphere aside, the walks are nice. I love this time of year, my allergies haven’t started acting up yet, the weather is not too hot, and I just a 30 minute walk makes my body feel so good following my lazy winter of chocolate and beer indulging.

But now I’m back in my cubicle, and the only breeze I feel is from the air conditioner *sigh*

I was going through the mail on Monday and found a postcard for Michael from the Gatherings Concert Series. When I flipped it over and saw Jonn Serrie’s name on it I gasped with delight.

I saw him in concert a couple years when Michael took me to the Summer Solstice Spacemusic Spectacular in Harrisburg, PA. That’s when I learned that I liked his music so much. His set was last, after Jeff Pearce, Robert Rich, and Steve Roach, Jonn Serrie’s performance was my favorite.

And now I’ll get to see him again, here in Philadelphia for The Gatherings Concert. This will be a good chance to pick up a copy of Lumia Nights and get it signed, woo!

It’s on Saturday May 14th at 8:00pm at St. Mary’s in Philadelphia. Who wants to come with? %)