I've been wanting to play with a Linux box for quite some time now, to expand my skill set and maybe gain a few ranks of Nerd (computer). I finally got my KVM hooked up last weekend instead of filling in the holes left by the fence water line debacle, and installed Ubuntu on my sister's old box. (I renamed it from Lucifer to Soubi, because I am thoroughly convinced that half their problems with that box were from naming it improperly. Well, that and the three cubic inches of dust I plucked out of the cpu fan/heat sync.)

( The joys of Linux )

( Computer woes )

I am so angry at the exterminator that my stomach is all tied up in knots. He was supposed to be here at 8, which would easily have gotten me to work by 10 even if it took an hour to spray and run. I called the company at 9 and found out that he had to go to FREAKING UMPQUA before coming back to Springfield to take care of my wasps. (Out to Umpqua before an 8am appointment? Guaranteed lack of punctuality.) At 10:30 I called them again because he hadn't arrived, and confirmed my phone number with them so that he could call me back and let me know what time he would be there.

I decided that if I hadn't heard back by noon that I was cancelling and going to work. Well the guy himself called at 11:15 and said he'd be another hour since he just got back into phone range in Sutherlin... and then asked if I'd mind pushing it back to 1 (presumably so he could have a lunch break). I told him that I sort of NEEDED TO GO TO WORK TODAY AT SOME POINT so he said he'd come right over when he got back into town.

It's not even that he's running late - I mean, yes, that is fairly irritating, but if they had just called me at 8 when he was supposed to be here and say "Hey, he's out in Umpqua, it'll probably be a few hours" I could have gone into work and had them call me when he was back in Eugene. Instead I've been sitting on my computer all morning because I've expected him any minute, and sending emails to people at work going "Sorry, I suck, this wasn't supposed to take this long...", and I am PISSED OFF.

You'd think that communication skills would be, like, important to running a business.

OMG M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes"... it is so addicting. Like I started listening to the song and was pretty "meh" about it, but by the end of the song I had to hear it again. And then again. And then again.

HOLY SHIT DUDE there are like extreme wasps right around my front door. How did I not see them until today? The one nest I found isn't quite finished yet but there is another cluster of them closer to the shingles on the front porch - not sure what they're finding there or if they're trying to build another nest.

I had forgotten about this aspect of homeownership.

When my dad and sister and their significant others were down helping with the fence my brother in law mentioned that he'd seen the wasps under the eaves around the corner of the house, but I hadn't seen them yet there... anyway, I decided against hunting down all the nests and the "spray with wasp killer then run for your life" method of wasp killing and for the "call the exterminator and have him kill everything in sight" method. It will cost about $200, which is way more money than I really want to spend, but I am kind of okay with it. Wasps.

Spending moratorium took a hit with Spore and will take another hit with WotLK, but what has really been hurting me is the random essential shit that has come up. I mean I suppose the fence was not technically essential, but the house was finally empty and I wasn't going to offend anyone and their kids by putting the thing up (also, as it turned out, if you're going to break your neighbor's water line, do it when the house is empty so you don't have to call the plumber in for an "emergency situation" - it was really fairly reasonable, as far as plumbers go, since I called him on Monday). But vet trips are essential, and expensive (and I am seriously thinking about finding another vet, because I know my vet is expensive, but I just like them so much that it is hard!). I am very glad I opted to use WAG for Dora's spay and vaccines instead of my usual vet, because the spay + all vaccines was only $77 instead of my vet, which would probably be closer to $500 for both of those things combined.

I am on comp/break time now, which means I can do all the things I've been meaning to do but haven't had time for, but so far I've just been playing video games. And discovering wasps. Hmm.

ETA: Aaaaand now I've cracked one of my windows through in my attempts to kill a spider. DAMN IT. Duct tape, where aaaaare yooooooou?

Crazy Aunt Purl started talking about knitting again, and I went to the pattern she was talking about and read through it... and there were pictures... and I could seriously feel the knitting needles in my fingers again. I am having ghost needle problems!

BUT I am so close to being done with the cross stitch project that I've been on for the last TEN YEARS or so that I have decided I will do nothing crafty until it is done. I mean, fortunately I've gotten really into it lately (Netflix is good for all sorts of crafty craziness), and in half a day got most of the second to last square done (except the god-forsaken backstitching that always takes longer than the crosses). The end is nigh! Once it is, I shall go back to knitting. I mean, it's not like I have a shortage of YARN or anything. (Imagine a stash picture here - if I were a good blogger, I wouldn't be writing this at work and I would have a great stash picture. Basically, I once could not say no to yarn and have picked up all of my family's excess yarn in addition to the stuff I bought myself. And half-finished projects in yarns that are hard to frog ::coughmohaircough:: Unfortunately most of the hand-me-down yarn is in like freaking Super Saver, which I hate. Maybe I will make a hoard of baby blankets and hand them out like party favors when people I know have children.)

ETA: The pattern is here - it is a bunch of mugs, but I have them laid out in a grid. I was much more interested in this when I started 10 years ago... now I don't know what I am going to do with the thing.

I got the plumber out today to fix the water lines. The house next door (whose line I cut) was vacant and thus I opted not to pay weekend rates. It wound up being $126, which as far as I'm concerned is still highway robbery for twenty minutes of work, but my dad had given me $200 as a limit, which it was significantly under, so I wasn't too worried about it.

My top 1 list of things I did not want to do today:
1) Deal with having punctured the neighbor's water line.

I was just starting to make some goddamned headway on my debt, damn it.

I has a fence!

It hasn't been pulled taut yet, so my dad is coming back next week to help with that, but it is up and it is a definitive barrier between my yard and the former, crappy neighbors. They have moved out, supposedly, although they were clearing shit out today - and the only reason I know this is because they came by just after my dad/Naphalai/sister/Joel left and were like "So... is this on the property line?"

My property line is funky shaped, 'cause it is mostly straight (88 degree angles for the lose) and then right near the street it has a funky angle for 30' that looks like it cuts into the neighbor's yard. We built it six inches this side of the property line, just to be safe. And we measured twice, because it looks fucked up. My dad pointed out that there might be regulations about how much of your property has to be on the street, which would be why they did it that way, so I didn't want to just say "fuck it" and lose that bit of yard by fencing it into the neighbor's yard. But it does look very incorrect the way it is. At least the fence line didn't go straight through the tree. Their water meter is on my property, though. Weirdness.

Oh, well. Don't care. MY YARD, BITCHES. Keep your damn kids out of it. I'm considering stringing another bit between it and my house so that the neighborhood dogs will stop coming into my backyard and pooping on my vegetables. Because nothing says "yum" like dog shit.

Will post pictures when I am less lazy.

UGH Dora appears to be in heat. I SWORE I WASN'T DOING CATS IN HEAT EVER AGAIN. Also Jonah doesn't appear to know what to do with himself and keeps biting her on the neck - omg baby kitty incest?!! I don't know if that's what he's trying to do or not... I don't think he's big enough to, um, reach that far while grabbing her neck if that is his intent... shit, maybe I should separate them just in case. Then again, Dora gets spayed tomorrow so it's not like it really matters if she gets impregnated tonight except for the squick factor for me... shit, dude, Jonah's still fucking NURSING. I am going to stop being squicked by my cats now, really. Ugh. Dude. I am never doing cats in heat ever again. NEVER AGAIN, I SAY.

I found my Palm! It has been missing since we moved from the apartments a year and a half ago, but as I was laying in bed Saturday night I had this vision of me putting it in the same box my collector's spoons are in, because I wouldn't misplace those, and I opened up that box and SURE ENOUGH there it was!

This will make NaNo this year so much easier.

As mentioned earlier, I was debating buying a new one that would still fit with my peripherals vs. buying a NEW new one, because the idea of intentionally buying 6-year-old hardware doesn't sit right with me. I have decided on getting a Blackberry, but also decided to use it as a reward for successfully sticking with my spending moratorium (which needs a better name than that... how about Plan I Have Too Much Stuff Already? PIHTMSA?) through the end of the year. Also by that time maybe T-Mobile will have the 8130 instead of just the 8120. (I also like Samsung's Instinct, mostly because I have had such good luck with Samsung phones, but it has the same problem the iPhone has - it isn't on T-Mobile. Really they are behind on the whole SmartPhone thing in general, but their plan works so well for me that I don't want to switch.)

I've been looking into Olla irrigation as a possibility for my garden. Basically it's a clay pitcher with a narrow neck (or just a lid over a wider neck, but a narrow neck is a bit more attractive) that you bury in the ground, leaving the opening above ground. You keep it filled with water, and water seeps out the porous clay, and self-regulates the watering of the plants around it. It's supposed to be excellent for water conservation (and also laziness).

My only concern is that I can't find any information on it for clay-y, wet regions. I have surprisingly good soil, considering I haven't done much except in a few areas, but it's still more clay than sand, and I found one tiny speck of information that said that clay soils will clog up the pores of the pot and eventually the pot disintegrates. Obviously if I'm digging a massive hole for a $20 pot I don't really want it to disintegrate and have to dig it up, especially not if I'm planting a bunch of perennials around it whose roots I don't want to disturb.

It is depressing that there is almost no information on this except for in helping arid 3rd world countries grow crops. I found it originally at Path to Freedom, a sustainable living site. I have this fascination with sustainable gardening, probably because my garden is a barren landscape of grass and I hate it. I want to replace every square inch of shitty grass with flowers and plants, and I'm thinking my backyard is going to become a little farm. I've already decided that I'm going to plant a corn fence around my backyard next year to block out the backyard neighbors, and I should be able to climb peas or beans up the corn stalks. I think I would eat a lot more vegetables if I didn't have to drive to the store to get them.

Fortunately, fall is the time to make garden beds and adjust soil, so it can settle over the winter and be ready for spring planting. The temptation to rent a tiller and murder my lawn is great (particularly since it will start growing like mad again when the rains come), but I'm going to be good and start small - the bed for my corn fence is already going to be a huge project, and since my neighbors are supposedly moving this weekend it's probably a good time to start planting my rhody border (while the house is empty, so I don't offend anyone... yes, I am a pushover).

So, yes. Giant garden plans. Massive overtime. These two things are incompatible.

Can I just say that I'm freaking sick of the idea that babies are the be-all and end-all of life, and that if you don't want a baby of your very own you're somehow sick in the head? Or, for that matter, the idea that you're not a complete person without a significant other?

The other half of my soul is in my own body, thank you very much.

Um, I almost didn't post this because I am afraid of people on my flist being upset at me, but then I decided, you know, this is my LJ, and if I can't say what I feel on my LJ, what the hell kind of journal is this? Regardless, I'm sorry if you're offended. :D

AGH God damn it, someone needs to adopt kittens before I take them all. Or even just Mr. Orange. I am so close to saying "fuck it" and claiming both him and Dora.

I don't need four cats! I am already feeling like a crazy cat lady! Yes, Crazy Aunt Purl is my idol, but she at least has closer to 800 square feet to keep her cats in!

Please please please go look at these kitties who need homes!! They are sooooo adorable, I want to take them all home with me. The grey one is ready to go now and is a bit older (and freaking beautiful). The first litter will be ready in two weeks - unfortunately there is not much leeway here because they are on antibiotics to cure the eye infections they all had. The leeeetle tiny ones were born maybe three weeks ago? So they won't be ready for a little while longer.

omg I swore I wouldn't start using Twitter, what am I doing?!!?

I blame the Dr. Horrible Comic-con panel entirely. God damn it. (It is up on Youtube if you haven't seen it, and it is hilarious.)

http://twitter.com/craftyran

So... I am apparently getting another cat. It's Kaylee's sister, who looks just like her and is super friendly.

( The Long Version )

In conclusion:
Anyone want a kitten? They are cute and should be available for adoption in like 2 weeks.

I would just like to say, now that I have realized this is August, that this is the first July in like six years that didn't have some sort of shit happen! It was a shit-free July!

I went to Jerry's yesterday to get curtains and a curtain rod for my bedroom, because I was walking back from somewhere and looked at my bedroom window and the broken blinds on it and decided that that was finally enough, and I had to do something. So I went to Jerry's and got a curtain rod, but they didn't have any curtains (or if they did, I didn't find them), so I continued walking around.

I've been intending to get a shelf for my kitchen for months, because my wok has been sitting on the floor by the back door gathering dust, so I figured I'd take a look at what they had for shelves. I found the two brackets that are in that picture and a white shelf that was 12" x 36", thinking that surely that area must be 3 feet (but of course I hadn't measured). I also grabbed some Stepables while I was there, because they weren't too expensive, and that's what I've decided to do with my walkways outside. They will be sexy.

Frey Meyer had some cheap curtain panels that I figured would work. Curtain + curtain rod was about $10. It's translucent red, so it casts a red glow on everything in my room. Not sure how well I like that, but at $7.50 or so a panel, I can change it out later if I so desire. (The hard work, the curtain rod hanging, is done.)

ANYWAY, so today I went to return that shelf and get some good soil to help plant my Stepables so they will grow like crazy, and some hedge trimmers, since I hate the evergreen bush outside my window, and the shrub clippers I borrowed from numfar are great for removing branches but not so great for evening out the foliage. I was looking for a shelf that was 12" x 24" (I measured this time), but the cheap shelf I'd found that was 36" didn't come in a 24" length with the 12" width. Cue frustration. While I was wandering around looking for another option I came across replacement cutting boards in the kitchen cabinet section, and I got this brilliant idea - I could totally use a cutting board as a shelf. I've been wanting a giant cutting board for a long time, anyway, because all I have are the little paddle cutting boards, and stuff falls off them all the time when I'm cutting on them. Two birds with one stone, I get my shelving, voila! The peg board is actually a bathroom towel hanger or something, I got it at Fred Meyer. Thought the loops on my pots were bigger than those pegs, but apparently not. Guess I'll be buying some S-hooks.

See, I should have worked out exactly what counted as "essential" before I started this spending moratorium thing. I don't consider home improvement stuff particularly frivolous, although it is fun. I'm going to count this as barely within the bounds of essential, but will avoid going on home improvement spending sprees in the future.

So there may have been Epic Drama involving the Neglectful Cat Neighbors (and also my Excessive Capitalization, but that is beside the point).

( Cut for length and drama )