Perforation Problems

Happy Fourth of July!

In honor of the 4th of July, I convinced my team to go outside and light sparklers. It kind of fell flat because we didn't think about how lackluster sparklers would be in the daylight. It also took us a good 15 minutes and 23 matches to get them to light. Here they're looking at the video Krista took of me running around with a sparkler in each hand and yelling "WOOOOOOO." That's good leadership, guys.

I'm now 24 posts behind. It's also getting harder to take interesting pictures. This is Puppy. I'm 30 years old but I sleep with him every night. It's not like it's a beloved childhood toy -- I think my grandma gave him to me when I was like 17. Too old really for stuffed animals, but I've always liked them. I think it's really just because I like real life animals, but for some reason it's not okay to have your own tiger or elephant. You have to make do with stuffed versions. That's why stuffed animals that look like real animals are the best. None of these giant bears with hearts. Bears don't hold hearts, man. Unless they rip it out of your chest in the forest, and then they'd probably just eat it, not hold it out to you and play "You Are my Sunshine." I got this dog sometime before I left for college. I had to leave behind my real life dog, Max, which was a pretty heart-wrenching thing to do. I think I missed Max more ...

How do you feel about jewelry parties? Do you feel more excited than all these people? If so than you are more excited than I was.  P.S. This is one of those posts that I wouldn't write if my mother were reading this blog, because I wouldn't want her feelings to be hurt that I thought the jewelry party was boring. It's not her fault she felt compelled to let her visiting friend throw one. And, hey, I somehow ended up spending $75, so who am I to talk. P.P.S. I do like my new earrings.

Some of the days I look forward to the most are ones where Michael and I have the whole day to do whatever we want, no obligations to anyone else, no computers or emails to answer, no schedule to follow. Those are the days when I really feel what it means to have someone you're spending your life with -- this is the person who I choose to have around me in my free time, who will be there when a job isn't, or when friends or family are busy with their own lives. It sounds really corny, but his life is my life. It's our life. Barf. Sorry. Many times we end up spending free days at the park. So far we've visited at least seven different walking trails within 20 minutes of our house. This trail is actually for mountain bikes, and it had a lot of interesting ups and downs, plus jumps and a couple ramps. The creek kept popping up through the trees.  The trail curved back and forth, towards the water, and then away, so that you ended up almost doubling back bef...

I don't mean those adult-like things. I mean helping your friends move, and creating assembly lines to get boxes from the storage unit to the truck.

Someone shared this in a writing group I'm a part of on FB today:  25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing I can specifically relate to #2, 3, 4, 6, 8... lots of them. But I think #7 in particular:  7. STOP THINKING IT SHOULD BE EASIER  It’s not going to get any easier, and why should it? Anything truly worth doing requires hella hard work. If climbing to the top of Kilimanjaro meant packing a light lunch and hopping in a climate-controlled elevator, it wouldn’t really be that big a fucking deal, would it? You want to do This Writing Thing, then don’t just expect hard work — be happy that it’s a hard row to hoe and that you’re just the, er, hoer to hoe it? I dunno. Don’t look at me like that. AVERT YOUR GAZE, SCRUTINIZER. And get back to work.