Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Gee Whiz, what a weekend.

The Beautiful Ashley Roze, ready for church
Me and the band - Tobe of the Street Dogs
Brian's broken nose
Me and my lover
The Crazy Eye


I really feel my age. Lets see, so Sunday morning I decided to go to Tulsa to see the Street Dogs cause I love them and they keep skipping KC when they tour. So I put some feelers out and Ben says he'll go and my mom will too. Which means we get to drive my mom's car. Which is actually a really nice car. Fast. So Sunday afternoon I lose my voice. I feel like crap. Monday, more of the same. So I dip out of work early and go to the doctor. The conversation goes like this.

"Doc, I have the swine flu"
"No, you just have allergies"
"No, I think you misunderstand what's going on here, I have the swine flu, I'm dying."
"No, you just have allergies."

Needless to say, she sends me on my way with allergy meds. Meanwhile, my left eye has gotten very red and gross. I nickname it The Crazy Eye. I wear my glasses for the next three days. Which are actually new and the right prescription and rather cute. Things are looking up and I almost have my voice back and we get up at the crack of dawn on Thursday. Ben comes over and I cut the hawk before we hit the road. I decide to Twitter the whole trip. Ashley keeps calling Ben 'Nick'. Ben wants to know if he can drive the car. Mom decides he can drive and she'll sleep. Instead I watch Mom have about three mini heart attacks as Ben drives her car in ways it has never been driven (by her at least). We get to Tulsa. My eye freaks out again and I have to take the contacts out. I forgot contact solution. We go to Wal-greens and get stared at (mohawked and tattooed). Some guy really likes Ben's hair and my tattoos.

Later that evening I'm sitting outside in my cousin Rebbecca's backyard holding her 4 month old daughter, Kai. Ben is playing blues on the electric guitar (Rebbecca's husband used to be in a punk band so he and Ben talk shop for a long time). It's a beautiful 75 degree day and I can smell fresh cut strawberries. It's a quiet, fabulous moment.

Dinner is over and we head to the show in some dive bar. People stare at us more. I try to convince some guy that I am the most Martha Stewart type girl he'll ever meet. He tells me that I can't be with that shoulder tattoo. He asks what's wrong with my eye. I tell him about The Crazy Eye. The show starts. Ben and I are running around having a great time scaring Tulsa folks, despite the fact that I can barely breathe cause of the 'allergies'. Singing along to every song. Two songs in Mike yells "Kansas City, I want to see you dance!" I guess he recognized us. Great show and afterwards, we are talking to Mike and Tobe, who asks me about The Crazy Eye as well. So they invite us back to the bus to hang out with them and Alkaline Trio, who is also touring with them, but didn't play that night. We don't go cause I am too tired. Ben hates me.

So heading back home the next day and I sleep. A lot. Which irritates Ashley. I have lost my voice again. We run to the grocery store real quick and start getting ready to go see the Offspring. Ben and Kelsie come over and we grill some burgers and put Ben's hawk back up. We tell Brian and Kelsie how lame the crowd at the Tulsa show was. Off we go to another show.

The crowd here sucks too, We don't like Amberlin so we stay out for that, but head in when Alkaline trio starts. very, very push pit. Lots of big dumb frat boy types who think it's just an excuse to hit people. So I get thrown around a lot. I fall down a lot. They play This Could Be Love and Brian and I dance together in the mosh pit. That part was great. The Used was next and we skipped that, the Taking Back Sunday who put on a killer set, I thought. Then the Offspring start and the pit gets really wild. So Brian finds me at one point and says,"I feel like my nose is broken". I look and it looks like a half moon. I mean, it is screwed up! So we laugh for a minute then get serious and head out of the pit.

Long story short, he has no idea what or who hit him and he shattered it into about eight pieces. He goes in on Friday for surgery to fix it. I 'm pretty frustrated. I mean, we're just getting our finances under control and this happens! I have no idea how much it's going to cost us, but I'm assuming a few thousand dollars. But it's broken so bad, he has too! So anyway, I'm sure it's really painful and uncomfortable for him too. I'll keep you all updated. So anyway, we decided we may be too old for mosh pits. From now on, we'll be the boring people in the back. Neato.

Other news, I think I may start writing a book. I dunno. It's an idea that was brought up to me and I keep throwing around. It occurs to me that while my life is not that interesting, I have a good way of making a mundane story entertaining. I think that's why half of my clients go to me. well, that and my stunning color expertise :)

Monday, May 18, 2009

Sigh. I used to blog so much...


I just get so tired anymore. So what's up, what's new. i have felt like death for the last several days, as many of you know. So I got my little self into the doctor today and it's just really, really bad allergies. So I got some prescription allergy meds. So she tells me that they may make me drowsy, to take them while ate home to best gauge how they affect me. How, I ask you, does only being able to take them at home help me? I mean, I have lost my voice the last two days at work. My voice is important to me! My clients come in to hear me talk, to hear my stories (apparently I'm pretty talented at turning my run-of-the-mill suburban/revolutionary life into an interesting saga). So I keep losing my voice and kids, it just plain hurts! So anyway, my eye also started turning really red at work today too, so it turns out I also have an eye infection. Killer. She gives me drops and says that if it's not better int morning, to go see an eye specialist. Great. That sounds promising. Besides, I have two booked solid days on Tuesday and Wednesday and I need the money! But I can't work with an eye infection. So this better be resolved by morning.

I have decided to trek down to Tulsa to see the Street Dogs on Thursday. I haven't had a road trip in a while so I'm excited. I mean, the house will suffer, for sure. My weekends are time to grocery shop and clean, laundry all that, but it will be okay. Brian will live off of Totino's party pizza's and watch bad movies (he was watching BloodRayne today. I mean, seriously, I have never seen a worse movie. Everything, the costumes, the accents, the acting, the set design, all of it.) So anyway, Ben in coming (my concert buddy) and my mom, cause I have a couple of aunts in Tulsa. So that will be interesting. Two punk rockers and my mom in the (what is it Ben?) GS35. Then back on Friday for the Offspring show. Playing with Amberlin (throw rocks at them), The Used (gag, makes me want to shoot myself), Taking Back Sunday (who I actually like), and Alkaline Trio (I like them too). Busy busy weekend. I'm excited. You see why I need this allergy/eye infection thing cleared up NOW! I have faith that when I wake up in the morning, I will feel like a whole new person.

So, Week 3 of the new budget. We are doing awesome! Basically what I did was make a monthly budget. I have a space for everything, from mortgage to pets (dog food) to clothing to entertainment to allowances. Then I went through the month of may and wrote down each paycheck and what was getting paid from each one. So before May even started, I had the money divided up and spent. So we get to use our debit cards for gas and that's IT. I made it pretty flexible, with our allowances and with our entertainment fund. But once it's gone, it's gone. It was neat though, I was at Target and bought some new clothes and I didn't feel guilty about it, because it was budgeted! It honestly takes a lot of stress off of me, because I know that all the bills will get paid. In fact, in three weeks alone, we have made $300 in credit card payments! At this rate, we can have all of our credit card debt paid off in four months. Then all we have left is my school loans. I have a meeting with our financial adviser on Friday (between getting back from Tulsa and going to the Offspring) and we are opening a 529 which is a college savings fund for Ashley and we'll start making monthly deposits in there and also transferring our IRA into a Roth IRA. The rumor is that the government will be doing away with the Roth IRA's in 2010 because they are such a good deal for the public and such a bad deal for the government (post-tax investments vs per-tax). But if you already have a Roth, you'll be grandfathered in. So we'll start making monthly deposits into that too. They're small now, but after we get the credit cards paid off, we can start adding bigger payments. Theses are all thing that I've had to learn about recently, but are oh so important for our future. We understand that we will never make six-figure salaries, but that doesn't mean that with careful money management and restraint, we can't live very comfortable lives. We are on our way. For example, we don't have car payments right now, we own both cars outright. So I opened a savings account and we are putting $200 a month in it, like it's a car payment. So at $200 a month, in three years we will have $7200+ interest. You can buy a very decent used car for that. And then we won't have any debt, any interest we have to pay. So then maybe we start saving $300 a month instead and in three years we have $10,000 in the bank. Instead of piddling our money away on interest payments, we're thinking ahead and buying things outright. SO anyway, money management. That's where it's at.

I heard a quote tonight - Capability breads humility. It means the better you are at something, the less you have to talk about how good you are at something. So I guess I need to shut up about being a stellar colorist.

I think the allergy meds are kicking in so I'm gonna log off before this blog goes really weird. Look out for updates, photos and yes, probably videos, about my weekend.

Next week - Gogol Bordello

Thursday, May 7, 2009

A perfect day

What a lovely day. I swore off all errands and cleaning for the day. First I met with my friend Ashley and took our kiddos to Deanna Roze farmstead where the kids can feed baby goats from bottles, feed adult goats, ducks, fish, cows, and just about every farm animal you can imagine. There is a fishing pond and a hayride and a pony ride. If you can handle about 100 other screaming children, it's actually a run time. And free. Then I took my mom out to a fancy lunch for mother's day. I used to do that all the time for her and haven't much the last few years. The older I get though, I realize time is more important than anything else I can give her.

After that Brian and Ash and I went to pick up the dogs. Maddi got spayed and Strummer was hanging out keeping her company. We got lots of compliments int eh waiting room on how well trained Strummer is. Which makes me feel like we're doing a good job. Maddi is our new foster. She has been with us two weeks and has gained ten pounds. She is a full-blooded border collie. She came to us weighing 14 pounds and scared to death of everything! She will now come when called (sometimes) and will let us pet her. She still won't voluntarily spend any time out of her kennel though. She's such a sad little thing, but I think she'll recover well. We'll probably have her most of the summer, I expect. Doc thinks puppy mill, but the shelter she came from said abuse. Anyway, it's a sad thing to do to a dog.

After we got home Ash watched a bit of a movie and I sat outside and read while Brian climbed our apple tree and cut off branches (we've decided to put the poor tree out of it's misery) while the dog and the cat roamed around beneath him. It was pretty funny. It was such a nice peaceful few minutes. Then we made spaghetti carbanara and garlic bread and ate outside in the beautiful 75 degree weather. Lovely.

Brian left for work and Ash and I decided to take the dogs for a walk. That was a trip. I have one dog I'm trying to teach to heel and another that has probably never been on a walk in her whole life. Challenging, at best. By the end though, Strummer seemed to be getting pretty good at heel. Won't it be nice when I can take him on a walk without a leash! I think it's possible.

Then I just acquired My Neighbor Totoro, which I'm pretty sure is one of the greatest kids movies ever. And surprisingly well-dubbed into English. You go, Dakota Fanning. I'm so happy to have it for Ashley. I need to get her more of the Studio Ghibli stuff, but since she can't read I need stuff that's been dubbed. It's better than nothing right?

So anyway, now I'm doing a nice at home facial and my my pores are looking very polished indeed. All in all, it was a perfect day off. The only thing better would be if Brian was still home and maybe a bit of winkedy-wink-wink.

Time to read some more Sookie Stackhouse.