Stellar Finds

That was clearly that most exciting thing that has happened or will take place in my month of August! I felt my desk shaking and dismissed it, but as it continued and others around me felt it, I realized it was an earthquake.

In the same vein of wanting to see a tornado sometime when I’m on vacation and far away from my house, I’m glad I got to feel an earthquake at least once in my life. And extra glad it was just a little one.

More than anything else, the earthquake left me feeling powerless and out of control. In the moment your options are to ride it out where you are or ride it out under something sturdy. Those are really the only choices you get. Comforting and upsetting at the same time; so simple yet so jarring.

So, after just one month and about 1,500 miles on my new car (a Subaru Impreza Outback Sport that we’ve lovingly named Newbaru), I’ve already gotten the first piece piece of road paraphernalia jammed into my tire on my way into Starbucks on Friday: April Fool’s Day.  Not a funny joke.  It looks like it was a bolt, but despite having specially requested that Pep Boys return it after plugging the tire, I was disappointed to find they either kept it for themselves or threw it away. I’m amassing a modest collection given the fact that I typically get something stuck in my tire about three times per year. We still have the peculiar little wooden spike that found it’s way into the old Subaru’s tire at some point last summer. Luckily I took a souvenir photo of the April Fool’s Day bolt.  (See it at right.  Oh!  That’s what it is! Now you see!)

Now, back to Pep Boys.  We dropped off the car off for the tire repair and went home for some snacks and baseball (The Pirates were on! I’m sooo surprised they lost!). When I got word that my car was ready, I was fully prepared to pay the $15 to $20 bucks to have had the bolt extracted, the tire put back on my car, and the pitiful little spare tire returned to its compartment. Turns out it was all free!

The reason for the freebie was the Auto Rewards Program at Pep Boys. They signed me up just so I could get the free tire repair. After having paid for the Sears tire warranty for my old tires, I kinda feel like I got a little jipped.  While that did cover some portion of tire replacement, things have never gone that far.  I always just needed to have the tires plugged and plugged again (my luck is really what’s stellar here) — so I could have been getting that done for free at Pep Boys all along. Also included in the membership? Free tire rotation and air pressure check, free check engine light evaluation (for those of us who like to gamble with how long they can keep that light on and still travel successfully from point A to point B) and free brake check. Plus, after you earn 200 points (from purchasing an assortment of windshield wipers and car air fresheners) you earn gift certificates (that you can put toward more windshield wipers and air fresheners). Plus, now I have a cute Manny, Moe, and Jack little bar code thingy on my key chain.

And let’s be honest here.  Part of me was really excited to share about free tire repair, but the another part of me also thought that my new car deserved a little ink.  Isn’t it pretty?:

One final thing: my blogging-on-the-go scenario hasn’t yet panned out for typing full posts, but I did make some edits and put the pictures in while on the road yesterday (Matt was driving or that would have been taking things to a whole new level of distracted driving).   That’s all for now.

Wow. So there’s an app for this!

I always thought that if I could blog at lunch or at least edit posts on the go, I’d be able to keep up with this more regularly. This morning it occurred to me that there might be a WordPress app and when I checked at lunch I was thrilled to find that there was. And typing with only your thumbs on an iPhone certainly isn’t preferable, but it beats not writing at all.

Matt and I had a stupendous Wednesday evening with dinner downtown at The Dandelion followed by going to see Alexi Murdoch at the First Unitarian Church. The music was so mellow and the atmosphere so relaxing — scents of incense and patchouli; cool, still church air — that I didn’t feel the least bit guilty letting myself drift off into a light little nap for a song or two. It was perfect. More on The Dandelion to come (and some grainy, dark iPhone pics to be sure as well!).

Now back to my break:

I have been thinking a lot about how to better allocate my free time and am discovering that things have really gotten away from me.  I’m going to work on making a change and getting a little more organized.  We’ll see how all of this goes, but at least this is a start … writing it down so I have some accountability.  Though I just noticed that the post before my last post talked about more regular updates as well.  And we see how that went.

Anyway, there are three things in my day-to-day that I’d really like to get under control:

Hobbies. I used to have a lot of them, but they have gotten pushed to the wayside a bit over the past few months.  I don’t know if the cold has squelched my motivation or what, but I haven’t blogged, I’ve hardly knit, and I’ve got too many projects in progress.  We also got a great new camera so that’s not only begging to be used for blogging, but just for general photography as well.  And can I tell you how much fabric I’ve amassed for quilting?  I can’t.  It’s gotten a little embarrassing.

Stacks. The piles of to-do, to-sort, to-put-away are really growing out of control.  Something needs to happen with those.  Maybe one per week?  There is a real need for a spring clean-out on all fronts.  And I even have this great new armoire that I finally finished re-re-re-painting (bright blue, dark blue, and finally brown) over the winter.  Got new glass in the doors and all.  It even has 4 empty drawers!!  Those need to be put to use (maybe I’ll post photo soon — I don’t know that I took a before, but I’m in love with the after).

Correspondence. There was a point where I was the veritable queen of correspondence.  Never missed a birthday.  Hardly missed a holiday (especially for my little cousins in the “seven and under” set).  And I certainly didn’t go for several months without sending my friends notes to let them know I have been thinking of them.  I could even do that at lunch, really, so there is no excuse.  Back on board.

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So that’s all.  The sad thing is, I started this post on March 9 … and now it’s the 14th.  I initially had four areas I wanted to work on but had to downgrade to three because, well, I totally forgot what the fourth one was.  We’ll see how this goes, but I think that at this point, until I keep up with my blogging for at least a couple of weeks in a row, all of my many far-flung fans best not hold their breath.