So the DDR mat came, and Ive been playing that a bit. Definately gets me sweating hard, much more intense a workout than the 10 minute dance aerobics things ive been doing. I aim for 20 minutes of aerobics a day, plus 15-20 minutes of yoga, plus about 4 minutes on a break from work to bust out a bunch of pushups and crunches. Not too bad. I should still push it up a little more to loose weight. Ill ween up to it. I hate exercise.
I brought roshi outside for the first time since i found him. He didnt like it. He was very scared. Didnt help that Pazu was outside too and immediately went to chasing Roshi. I tried to bring him back inside but he took off running and literally disappeared.. I went around the fence 5 seconds after he did and he was nowhere to be seen. I looked for him for a couple hours but no luck. I set the live animal trap again hoping he would come back. I was really nervous because the stray dog packs have been around here lately, and I could hear them barking and howling not too far off.
As often as I could I ran outside during work, calling for him. I was really worried and upset, thinking I had lost him. I could only hope that before I found him, he had a home, and was just disoriented because of the porcupine quills, and now he was headed back home.
Well after work at 10:30pm or so, I went outside, feeling dejected at seeing the empty trap. I sat down on the brick wall and half-heartedly called for him, knowing he was gone ... but then .. there he was! He came loping back up to me, covered in mud!
Yay! Got the Rosh back!
I went and got the lumber for the bird / bat / hawk / owl boxes im goingto build. Allpine Lumber in La Jara is a good spot, can buy scraps and all kinds of lumber pretty cheap. At La jara Trading Post, for a couple pieces of plywood I spent $50. For about 8 assorted boards, all roughly 6 feet long, at Allpine, it only cost $7.
Tho, I found out at La jara trading post, your welcome to take their old pallets for free. Good news to me! We can use them to build compost bins and a simple outhouse.
At Allpine, for $20 you can get a full truckload of scrap lumber (some of which is beautiful and good size).
Their sawdust is commissioned out already unfortunately.
Need to find a very cheap or free sawdust provider for the composting toilets.
Tho I found out that we HAVE to have a septic system. Which from google estimates I thought would be about 15 grand, but calling installers in the area its actually going to be about 4 grand. Still alot, and will have to get my dad to pay for it. We have to have it installed before electricity, and we want to have electricity this summer.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Weekly update, nothing, but yet something
Shit. All my ideas for the things ive done this week, i now see were all done last week and i already wrote about them. Apparently 2 sessions of Brain Age hasnt improved my memory :P
This sucks, the weeks are going by quicker and quicker and honestly I dont know what I do each day. It just disappears. I hate it when it gets like this, where i wake up, im tired all day, so everything takes twice as long. i exercise, make breakfast, take my meds, and read my email, and by then its already 11 or 12. Then I try to do my 1o minutes of cleanup, but from the looks of the house its not working lol. 10 minutes will be good for maintenance, to actually get shit cleaned up its gotta be at least 30 mins.
Then its time to make lunch. THat usually takes an hour, I make and eat, play an hour of video games, and then go to work.
A whole big pile of nothing.
I excuse myself because ive been mildly sick lately (suprised it took this long to kick in - normally the whole winter im slightly sick and exhausted) but really its no excuse. Its ok to take things easy, but i should still be doing something worthwhile and memorable every day.
I have been doing well with exercising (missed 1 day so far). Still need to up it tho to like an hour, but im still at the point where a half hour feels like a ton. I mean, i used to do no exercise, occassionaly forcing myself to do 10 minutes of aerobics, maybe twice a week. During the summer I counted being on the land as my exercise, and sure some days were, but most werent really exercise.
Ive been spending too much money also. On alot of small things that add up.
But they are cool things which I think will be worth it in the end.
A subscription to the local paper. Ive wanted it for some time, and its not THAT bad, $30 a year. Worth it to stay in touch with whats goin on in the area.
I got microphones and a DDR mat for the ps2. This lets us play (ripped) karaoke games for party games (instead of paying $200 for rock band), and the DDR Mat will be a fun way to exercise. eventually I might get another mat so we have 2 and can battle. They are only like $10 on ebay. Same with the mics.
I also got a set of Devil sticks. My mom probably threw out my set from when I was a kid, after I ran away she threw out most of my stuff. I suck at it, but its fun, and a cool thing to have around the house to entertain.
And, I got a CycloDS which basically lets you put ROMs onto a disc and then load them onto your DS. In other words, you can play hundreds of games free without having to change game cartridges. Also has cool options like cheat codes, Real Time save, skins, and more.
It wasnt cheap, about $60, but that right there is 2 bought games. Ive already put about 10 games on it, so its already paid for itself. My microSD memory card is only 1 GB, which I thought would be plenty, but its not. Not for someone like me who obsessively collects things (I want just about every quality DS game ever made on there). So theres another thing I bought - an 8gb microSD card.
And then I realized that to play Game Boy Advance games, you need another tool, called the EZ Flash 3-in-1. So I bought that too, but that one was about $20.
And, I bought chinese, which was $30, of course. Its too hard to just order one thing lol. Fortunately it should feed me for at least 3 days, so its not TOO bad of a deal.
The new burrito place in Alamosa - the Fresh Tortilla Company, is pretty good. Its alot like Qdoba, they make your burrito with fresh ingredients right in front of you. I had a couple suggestions which Im going to send to them, like .. the rice is overcooked.. they need to make it in smaller batches so that it doesnt overcook waiting for customers while staying warm. That way it wont ever be undercooked either, they just have to make it twice as often. Also, add lime to it. Lime-cilantro rice is the shiznit.
They make their own fresh flour tortillas in plain and jalapeno-cheddar. They are quite good, the jalapeno cheddar you can actually taste the flavors unlike the ones you buy in the grocery store. But they need corn tortillas too. A tortilla factory just aint completely without fresh corn tortillas.
Also, would be great to have some more veggies. Fajita style veggies would be good, peppers and onions.
Otherwise tho, its quite good and healthy (from what I can determine, its about 600 calories for a burrito, and about $7.00) Not bad, just make sure to skip the churros despite their deliciousness and get water instead of soda or, if you must treat yourself, go for the small soda size and eat in. Eat inners get free soda refills, so paying for the smaller size is worth it since you can refill it. Also it will help budget how much soda your drinking.
No more sonic. My favorite drink in the world, the strawberry limeade, has about 800 calories for a medium size! Almost half of my entire days calories!!! Delicious, but not worth it. If im dying for one, Ill have the kiddie size.
Im getting into home made bread making. I can control how much white flour goes into it, also how much salt (most people dont realize it but we all get waaay too much sodium in our diets, and its terrible for your heart and blood pressure). Plus theeres something really wholesome and nostalgic about home made bread in a country kitchen. Not that I ever had that in my childhood, but nostalgic in cultural memory. Id ideally like to eat super simply, which in a way would also be healthy .. even tho Id be eating good amounts of bread, I just feel like it sbetter for me if I make it myself. Bread- (preferably rye with olive oil, italian spices, and mushrooms (dired and soaked) - my dad sent me that for christmas, I was doubtful of the mushrooms but to my suprise it was fantastic and im hooked), and salad, and soup. It would be alot cheaper to eat that way, and for some reason I think that eating really simply, eating pretty much the same thing each day, would help me loose weight.
I dunno, but I have lost about 2 lbs since I started the super awesome weight loss deal with my folks. (course, hard to tell right now, since its that time of the month and im retaining water) but.. wow this is so sweet, im so lucky.. basically, $20 per lb I loose, but I cant collect until Ive lost at least 20 lbs. Therefore, every 20 lbs I loose, which should take 2-3 months, I get $400. When I get to my goal weight of 150-160, I get a bonus $1000. If I keep it off for a year, I get another $500, and for a 2nd year, another $500. Its alot I know, but it has to be to really motivate me. I thought about doing it forhalf that amount, but to be honest it wouldnt really be enough to work up the hardcore motivation i need. Still its not really enough. Which is really sad, saying something about how poor my willpower is. If it was like $20, 000, that would be enough to get me REALLY going lol. But hey, I want to loose the weight anyways, I just need an external source to help motivate me to do everything im doing right, and kick it up a notch. I feel like im at my max, but I know Im not, thats why a reward is important.
At this point tho, finding time to exercise that much .. I dunno how im going to do it. I do nothing and yet have no time.
Oh. That reminded me of somehting I did. Lol.
I went to a Solar Power Panel yesterday in Alamosa. There were a bunch of people talking about how the SLV is looking to be developed for solar power in the coming years. basically the grid needs to be rebuilt as a smart grid first, and then the building of solar plants. One of the solar technologies uses water, which concerns everyone due to our water issues, and the other is just plain solar panels. The only better thing about the water method is that its easier to store the energy. Thats a big drawback of solar right now, on a commercial level, is the lack of adequate storage technology. Homeowners use batteries, which in itself is not a great technology, it requires regular maintenance and is expensive and you need alot of them. The SLV is the prime spot for international solar developers.. theres about 5 spots in the US that would be good, but ours is the best because of lots of open land without buildings or obstructions, rural area, high altitude, and 300+ days of sun a year.
I was amazed to see a map showing how much land area is needed to supply coal plants .. both the plants themselves and also mining for coal, it took up a good 1/3 of our country. While a solar plant .. One 60 square mile plant could supply the entire US!!!
It all makes me feel less guilty about bring electricity to our property. We want to be on full solar eventually but that may take a few years, top priority is to get the house built first lol.
but Excel (our power company) owns several solar plants and is almost 50% sustainable energy now. Plus they offer incentives for people adding solar to their homes. Its not bad :D
New idea - instead of building a barn or meditation hut out of strawbale this summer for practice for the house, we should do a well house. Not entirely sure why they are needed, but its a common practice, so it must be important. Either way, it would protect our well pump from the elements, probably keep it from freezing (i head that just with 1 light bulb, you can give enough heat in a well house to prevent it from freezing all winter). Also could hook the electricity up to it while we build our house, so it would be close by and easy to hook over to the main house later.
Emotionally Ive been better. My main thing is still with the boy. I know theres another girl he likes alot. And thats fine, we are just friends. But he tells me like how beautiful she is and shit and that makes me jealous. I feel like hes kinda playing games with me, he told me that if he didnt find anyone else he would marry me, but then the next day he said he actually couldnt do that because he already promised that to someone else. Whats weird is before he said that, I really didnt have expectations about us being together again, I knew it was over and I was just glad to be close friends with him again. But since he said that, and then took it away, I felt really hurt and angry. And definately jealous.
And then he told me he was sending pics to the girl he likes. I asked him to send them to me too. Normally he would have laughed and done just that. But he suddenly got really angry and said he didnt want to fight with me and then left. I didnt know how to react to that. I felt excluded and hurt.
He called me a few hours later tho and apologized, but it was awkward, immediately after he apologized he started talking about the girl he likes. I dunno. I feel like he is trying to make me jealous.
But more likely, he is just confused on his emotions, and wants to share his excitement for this girl with me cuz im his friend and probably the only one he can talk to about it.
Sadly I dont know if I can really handle it. I want to be here for him and have him be able to talk about ANYTHING with me, but that cant be if I get upset when he says certain things. It doesnt work like that. I have a spying problem, and I log on wow several times a day on a trial account to see what hes up to. And hes almost always with her. And it drives me crazy. I need to stop spying so I dont think about it so much.
I dunno why im so worried. hes quite a bit younger than me. and yeah, hes my ideal guy in personality. but he still needs time to play around with other girls, and I know if i stay cool and steady and loving, in the end im whats going to be the one thats stuck by him for years. course he could find someone else and i have to accept that. at the very least we can be lifelong friends. at the most, he will come back to me because we do love each other (hes told me he does, but its like we are already family not a romantic love) and ive always been there for him. if i can just relax, let him do his thing, but still be a good friend to him, in 5 years we very well could be married.
Another reason to loose weight!! Even if its not with him, I increase my chances of finding someone 100x just by getting in shape. I have a hard enough time meeting people as it is. And no one is interested in a fat chick right off the bat. In that case you have to fall in love with their personality, and im so weird that i take someone very unique, and .. well.. narrows my chances alot. but if im healthy and in shape, then ill get alot more options to choose from without having to be as socially involved hehe :P
This sucks, the weeks are going by quicker and quicker and honestly I dont know what I do each day. It just disappears. I hate it when it gets like this, where i wake up, im tired all day, so everything takes twice as long. i exercise, make breakfast, take my meds, and read my email, and by then its already 11 or 12. Then I try to do my 1o minutes of cleanup, but from the looks of the house its not working lol. 10 minutes will be good for maintenance, to actually get shit cleaned up its gotta be at least 30 mins.
Then its time to make lunch. THat usually takes an hour, I make and eat, play an hour of video games, and then go to work.
A whole big pile of nothing.
I excuse myself because ive been mildly sick lately (suprised it took this long to kick in - normally the whole winter im slightly sick and exhausted) but really its no excuse. Its ok to take things easy, but i should still be doing something worthwhile and memorable every day.
I have been doing well with exercising (missed 1 day so far). Still need to up it tho to like an hour, but im still at the point where a half hour feels like a ton. I mean, i used to do no exercise, occassionaly forcing myself to do 10 minutes of aerobics, maybe twice a week. During the summer I counted being on the land as my exercise, and sure some days were, but most werent really exercise.
Ive been spending too much money also. On alot of small things that add up.
But they are cool things which I think will be worth it in the end.
A subscription to the local paper. Ive wanted it for some time, and its not THAT bad, $30 a year. Worth it to stay in touch with whats goin on in the area.
I got microphones and a DDR mat for the ps2. This lets us play (ripped) karaoke games for party games (instead of paying $200 for rock band), and the DDR Mat will be a fun way to exercise. eventually I might get another mat so we have 2 and can battle. They are only like $10 on ebay. Same with the mics.
I also got a set of Devil sticks. My mom probably threw out my set from when I was a kid, after I ran away she threw out most of my stuff. I suck at it, but its fun, and a cool thing to have around the house to entertain.
And, I got a CycloDS which basically lets you put ROMs onto a disc and then load them onto your DS. In other words, you can play hundreds of games free without having to change game cartridges. Also has cool options like cheat codes, Real Time save, skins, and more.
It wasnt cheap, about $60, but that right there is 2 bought games. Ive already put about 10 games on it, so its already paid for itself. My microSD memory card is only 1 GB, which I thought would be plenty, but its not. Not for someone like me who obsessively collects things (I want just about every quality DS game ever made on there). So theres another thing I bought - an 8gb microSD card.
And then I realized that to play Game Boy Advance games, you need another tool, called the EZ Flash 3-in-1. So I bought that too, but that one was about $20.
And, I bought chinese, which was $30, of course. Its too hard to just order one thing lol. Fortunately it should feed me for at least 3 days, so its not TOO bad of a deal.
The new burrito place in Alamosa - the Fresh Tortilla Company, is pretty good. Its alot like Qdoba, they make your burrito with fresh ingredients right in front of you. I had a couple suggestions which Im going to send to them, like .. the rice is overcooked.. they need to make it in smaller batches so that it doesnt overcook waiting for customers while staying warm. That way it wont ever be undercooked either, they just have to make it twice as often. Also, add lime to it. Lime-cilantro rice is the shiznit.
They make their own fresh flour tortillas in plain and jalapeno-cheddar. They are quite good, the jalapeno cheddar you can actually taste the flavors unlike the ones you buy in the grocery store. But they need corn tortillas too. A tortilla factory just aint completely without fresh corn tortillas.
Also, would be great to have some more veggies. Fajita style veggies would be good, peppers and onions.
Otherwise tho, its quite good and healthy (from what I can determine, its about 600 calories for a burrito, and about $7.00) Not bad, just make sure to skip the churros despite their deliciousness and get water instead of soda or, if you must treat yourself, go for the small soda size and eat in. Eat inners get free soda refills, so paying for the smaller size is worth it since you can refill it. Also it will help budget how much soda your drinking.
No more sonic. My favorite drink in the world, the strawberry limeade, has about 800 calories for a medium size! Almost half of my entire days calories!!! Delicious, but not worth it. If im dying for one, Ill have the kiddie size.
Im getting into home made bread making. I can control how much white flour goes into it, also how much salt (most people dont realize it but we all get waaay too much sodium in our diets, and its terrible for your heart and blood pressure). Plus theeres something really wholesome and nostalgic about home made bread in a country kitchen. Not that I ever had that in my childhood, but nostalgic in cultural memory. Id ideally like to eat super simply, which in a way would also be healthy .. even tho Id be eating good amounts of bread, I just feel like it sbetter for me if I make it myself. Bread- (preferably rye with olive oil, italian spices, and mushrooms (dired and soaked) - my dad sent me that for christmas, I was doubtful of the mushrooms but to my suprise it was fantastic and im hooked), and salad, and soup. It would be alot cheaper to eat that way, and for some reason I think that eating really simply, eating pretty much the same thing each day, would help me loose weight.
I dunno, but I have lost about 2 lbs since I started the super awesome weight loss deal with my folks. (course, hard to tell right now, since its that time of the month and im retaining water) but.. wow this is so sweet, im so lucky.. basically, $20 per lb I loose, but I cant collect until Ive lost at least 20 lbs. Therefore, every 20 lbs I loose, which should take 2-3 months, I get $400. When I get to my goal weight of 150-160, I get a bonus $1000. If I keep it off for a year, I get another $500, and for a 2nd year, another $500. Its alot I know, but it has to be to really motivate me. I thought about doing it forhalf that amount, but to be honest it wouldnt really be enough to work up the hardcore motivation i need. Still its not really enough. Which is really sad, saying something about how poor my willpower is. If it was like $20, 000, that would be enough to get me REALLY going lol. But hey, I want to loose the weight anyways, I just need an external source to help motivate me to do everything im doing right, and kick it up a notch. I feel like im at my max, but I know Im not, thats why a reward is important.
At this point tho, finding time to exercise that much .. I dunno how im going to do it. I do nothing and yet have no time.
Oh. That reminded me of somehting I did. Lol.
I went to a Solar Power Panel yesterday in Alamosa. There were a bunch of people talking about how the SLV is looking to be developed for solar power in the coming years. basically the grid needs to be rebuilt as a smart grid first, and then the building of solar plants. One of the solar technologies uses water, which concerns everyone due to our water issues, and the other is just plain solar panels. The only better thing about the water method is that its easier to store the energy. Thats a big drawback of solar right now, on a commercial level, is the lack of adequate storage technology. Homeowners use batteries, which in itself is not a great technology, it requires regular maintenance and is expensive and you need alot of them. The SLV is the prime spot for international solar developers.. theres about 5 spots in the US that would be good, but ours is the best because of lots of open land without buildings or obstructions, rural area, high altitude, and 300+ days of sun a year.
I was amazed to see a map showing how much land area is needed to supply coal plants .. both the plants themselves and also mining for coal, it took up a good 1/3 of our country. While a solar plant .. One 60 square mile plant could supply the entire US!!!
It all makes me feel less guilty about bring electricity to our property. We want to be on full solar eventually but that may take a few years, top priority is to get the house built first lol.
but Excel (our power company) owns several solar plants and is almost 50% sustainable energy now. Plus they offer incentives for people adding solar to their homes. Its not bad :D
New idea - instead of building a barn or meditation hut out of strawbale this summer for practice for the house, we should do a well house. Not entirely sure why they are needed, but its a common practice, so it must be important. Either way, it would protect our well pump from the elements, probably keep it from freezing (i head that just with 1 light bulb, you can give enough heat in a well house to prevent it from freezing all winter). Also could hook the electricity up to it while we build our house, so it would be close by and easy to hook over to the main house later.
Emotionally Ive been better. My main thing is still with the boy. I know theres another girl he likes alot. And thats fine, we are just friends. But he tells me like how beautiful she is and shit and that makes me jealous. I feel like hes kinda playing games with me, he told me that if he didnt find anyone else he would marry me, but then the next day he said he actually couldnt do that because he already promised that to someone else. Whats weird is before he said that, I really didnt have expectations about us being together again, I knew it was over and I was just glad to be close friends with him again. But since he said that, and then took it away, I felt really hurt and angry. And definately jealous.
And then he told me he was sending pics to the girl he likes. I asked him to send them to me too. Normally he would have laughed and done just that. But he suddenly got really angry and said he didnt want to fight with me and then left. I didnt know how to react to that. I felt excluded and hurt.
He called me a few hours later tho and apologized, but it was awkward, immediately after he apologized he started talking about the girl he likes. I dunno. I feel like he is trying to make me jealous.
But more likely, he is just confused on his emotions, and wants to share his excitement for this girl with me cuz im his friend and probably the only one he can talk to about it.
Sadly I dont know if I can really handle it. I want to be here for him and have him be able to talk about ANYTHING with me, but that cant be if I get upset when he says certain things. It doesnt work like that. I have a spying problem, and I log on wow several times a day on a trial account to see what hes up to. And hes almost always with her. And it drives me crazy. I need to stop spying so I dont think about it so much.
I dunno why im so worried. hes quite a bit younger than me. and yeah, hes my ideal guy in personality. but he still needs time to play around with other girls, and I know if i stay cool and steady and loving, in the end im whats going to be the one thats stuck by him for years. course he could find someone else and i have to accept that. at the very least we can be lifelong friends. at the most, he will come back to me because we do love each other (hes told me he does, but its like we are already family not a romantic love) and ive always been there for him. if i can just relax, let him do his thing, but still be a good friend to him, in 5 years we very well could be married.
Another reason to loose weight!! Even if its not with him, I increase my chances of finding someone 100x just by getting in shape. I have a hard enough time meeting people as it is. And no one is interested in a fat chick right off the bat. In that case you have to fall in love with their personality, and im so weird that i take someone very unique, and .. well.. narrows my chances alot. but if im healthy and in shape, then ill get alot more options to choose from without having to be as socially involved hehe :P
Sunday, January 11, 2009
What Ive done and What to Do
1/4 still asleep, the sunrise tickling my irises, when i have no qualms about looking directly into the sun.
Trying to remember what Ive done this week. Um.
Beat Fallout 3. Its no where near finished tho, theres still about 10 more quests I can unlock but i just got tired of it. A 100+ hour gameplay game is awesome, but exhausting. I just wanted it done already.
Oh well, leaves some interesting things to do if I ever replay it.
Finger is pretty much healed.
Started logging everything I eat and how much I exercise each day at www.prevention.com/healthtracker
I think it will help alot, tho I have a number of suggestions for the tool to make it better that I emailed to them. Such as, they have graphs to show your balance of foods, but it only includes carbs, protein, fat, and alcohol. Wheres the fruits and veggies? Stuff like that irks me, but otherwise it will be useful if i keep it up. Yesterday I even noticed myself looking at it saying "ok so Ive already ate 1100 calories .. technically I can have 1000 more. I really crave pizza.... (I then went and ordered one with dominoes to go pick up in alamosa in an hour, thankfully I didnt pay with my credit card because after realizing how many calories and stuff pizza has, I decided against it and never showed up to pick it up.) It just wasnt worth the taste for the health cost. Im still craving a nice fat greasy slice of brooklyn style tho. So I might still get it sometime soon, but it will be a small pizza and ill have to freeze all but a couple slices and divvy it out over a few days or weeks.
Setup PlayOn, a service which runs on your computer and broadcasts to your xbox, ps3, and any tvs that can recieve the signal. It lets you watch youtube, CNN, CBS, Hulu (which has most of any TV show you could want to watch), etc. Its pretty neat. Even tho I can watch all that stuff on my computer anyways, it seems more interesting and more fun on there. Its free for 2 weeks then there is a one time $30 fee to use it forever. Im not sure if Ill go for it. I want to, but I certainly dont need it. And Ive got to save money.
I went to the BARC meeting (antoinito Beautification and Restoration Committee), and once I was able to sneak a word in, everyone got really psyched about my ideas. I suggested local and recycled materials, like pulling tires out of the river which cleans up the environment, and then using them as planters to put native shrubs in around the plaza, with little signs saying their traditional native american and hispanic medicinal uses, etc. Doing things like that will help reduce the cost significantly, be easier to find a grant for (they love the sustainable stuff), be unique and creative, environmentally friendly, promote the local culture, etc.
Wow the whole room exploded in excitement with that idea. I felt good, important.
I also volunteered to show up to all the county comissioners and town hall meetings, and take notes to share with the group on a brief rundown on whats going on.'
Roshi and Pazu are driving me nuts. They are doing great, roshi still needs worm medication and a bath tho but otherwise is happy and healthy. Hes stolen Pazu's spot on the bed, so I have to make sure to give Pazu lots of individual attention. They chase each other and play fight most of the day .. and night. Ive got to lock them out of my room now at night because it just keeps waking me up.
I think thats about all I did this week. It sounds like more than it is. I have no idea where 3 days went or if I even did anything at all.
In general my mood is stable. Im not depressed, pretty happy overall. Slightly sick, but thats winter.
Things to do before Eric gets back in 6 weeks:
1. Fill out and drop off the electricity application
2. Build a owl box, a hawk box, and a bat box
3. Finish or at least make 6 inches progress on my first knitting attempt
4. Loose 10 lbs.
5. Save up $500
6. get the road to the land plowed, bring down the compost, finish the insulation in the greenhouse
7. eat out at at least 2 restaurants that I wont get a chance to go to when Eric is here (basically anything besides fast food and the brewery)
8. Finish at least 1 metal gear solid game
9. Spend a day in bed or by the fire reading
10. Develop healthy habits to keep when he comes back - spend 10 mins a day cleaning up the house, go outside (in the sun) for 15+ mins a day, blog each week, meditate weekly, exercise daily, eat simply and healthfully, save a little money from each paycheck, RELAX
Trying to remember what Ive done this week. Um.
Beat Fallout 3. Its no where near finished tho, theres still about 10 more quests I can unlock but i just got tired of it. A 100+ hour gameplay game is awesome, but exhausting. I just wanted it done already.
Oh well, leaves some interesting things to do if I ever replay it.
Finger is pretty much healed.
Started logging everything I eat and how much I exercise each day at www.prevention.com/healthtracker
I think it will help alot, tho I have a number of suggestions for the tool to make it better that I emailed to them. Such as, they have graphs to show your balance of foods, but it only includes carbs, protein, fat, and alcohol. Wheres the fruits and veggies? Stuff like that irks me, but otherwise it will be useful if i keep it up. Yesterday I even noticed myself looking at it saying "ok so Ive already ate 1100 calories .. technically I can have 1000 more. I really crave pizza.... (I then went and ordered one with dominoes to go pick up in alamosa in an hour, thankfully I didnt pay with my credit card because after realizing how many calories and stuff pizza has, I decided against it and never showed up to pick it up.) It just wasnt worth the taste for the health cost. Im still craving a nice fat greasy slice of brooklyn style tho. So I might still get it sometime soon, but it will be a small pizza and ill have to freeze all but a couple slices and divvy it out over a few days or weeks.
Setup PlayOn, a service which runs on your computer and broadcasts to your xbox, ps3, and any tvs that can recieve the signal. It lets you watch youtube, CNN, CBS, Hulu (which has most of any TV show you could want to watch), etc. Its pretty neat. Even tho I can watch all that stuff on my computer anyways, it seems more interesting and more fun on there. Its free for 2 weeks then there is a one time $30 fee to use it forever. Im not sure if Ill go for it. I want to, but I certainly dont need it. And Ive got to save money.
I went to the BARC meeting (antoinito Beautification and Restoration Committee), and once I was able to sneak a word in, everyone got really psyched about my ideas. I suggested local and recycled materials, like pulling tires out of the river which cleans up the environment, and then using them as planters to put native shrubs in around the plaza, with little signs saying their traditional native american and hispanic medicinal uses, etc. Doing things like that will help reduce the cost significantly, be easier to find a grant for (they love the sustainable stuff), be unique and creative, environmentally friendly, promote the local culture, etc.
Wow the whole room exploded in excitement with that idea. I felt good, important.
I also volunteered to show up to all the county comissioners and town hall meetings, and take notes to share with the group on a brief rundown on whats going on.'
Roshi and Pazu are driving me nuts. They are doing great, roshi still needs worm medication and a bath tho but otherwise is happy and healthy. Hes stolen Pazu's spot on the bed, so I have to make sure to give Pazu lots of individual attention. They chase each other and play fight most of the day .. and night. Ive got to lock them out of my room now at night because it just keeps waking me up.
I think thats about all I did this week. It sounds like more than it is. I have no idea where 3 days went or if I even did anything at all.
In general my mood is stable. Im not depressed, pretty happy overall. Slightly sick, but thats winter.
Things to do before Eric gets back in 6 weeks:
1. Fill out and drop off the electricity application
2. Build a owl box, a hawk box, and a bat box
3. Finish or at least make 6 inches progress on my first knitting attempt
4. Loose 10 lbs.
5. Save up $500
6. get the road to the land plowed, bring down the compost, finish the insulation in the greenhouse
7. eat out at at least 2 restaurants that I wont get a chance to go to when Eric is here (basically anything besides fast food and the brewery)
8. Finish at least 1 metal gear solid game
9. Spend a day in bed or by the fire reading
10. Develop healthy habits to keep when he comes back - spend 10 mins a day cleaning up the house, go outside (in the sun) for 15+ mins a day, blog each week, meditate weekly, exercise daily, eat simply and healthfully, save a little money from each paycheck, RELAX
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Pinky and the Roshi
I feel quite unproductive. I need to exercise, clean the house, build those damn bat houses and owl boxes ive been meaning to.
But I think I just need to rest right now, its okay.
I just worry that the days are starting to mesh together, run on by without any meaning. And then suddenly Eric (my brother) will be back from NY, and Ill be all pissed off because I didnt get enough alone time. Well, its only not enough alone time if I dont make the most of it. True, Im really happy being alone and would prefer it stay this way evermore, but, reality is that isnt going to happen.
Ive done a number of things tho the past couple of days that are somewhat interesting, despite my unproductiveness.
- Set up my webcam at the window, and set it to take a snapshot every 20 minutes. At the end of the day, Ill stick them all todether in a slideshow for a time-lapse movie of the day. The effects wont be REALLY cool until I mesh together time lapses from each day in a month long or year-long movie.
- Nursing my hacked pinky. I chopped off the tip, about a 1/4 inch, not huge enough to go to the hospital, but not a tiny cut either. Im definately missing a chunk. Happened last night while peeling a papaya for an amazing dip I managed to complete even with the gimp pinky. (Basically - cooked sweet potatoes, papaya, chopped onions and bell peppers, black beans, a little vinegar and lime, chili powder, and garlic, served with tortilla chips - zomg its gooder than it sounds! really! better than salsa!)
As for the pinky, well, it was gushing needless to say. haha, great, I know, talk about a chopped pinky right after a recipe, mmmm. Lots of blood. I wrapped it with like 20 bandaids. That was a terrible idea. The inside ones didnt stick at all cuz of all the blood. And this morning it was half falling off so i decided to try and pull it off and try another tactic .. BAD idea. It hurt SO bad to take them off. Im glad i finally did tho, because it is much more comfortable to have a wab of cotton coated in neosporin, and then wrapped with tape. Bandaids suck. really.
- OH! YEAH!! I havent told you yet about this. On Christmas day, I was about to go up to volunteer for the free dinner thing, when my cat pazu starts buggin out by the window. I look out to see what hes lookin at, but all i see is his reflection. .. .. Wait, what? Double take, its another cat sitting on the windowsill!!! It looks alot like Pazu. It has lots of porcupine quills in its face, and its looking at me and meowing. I run outside, but as soon as it sees me it takes off running. I put on my brand new xmas-present-from-dad snowshoes, and track it through the woods. I actually was quite proud of my tracking skills. I mean i havent been trained or anything, and it took a while of me going back and forth figuring it out, but I did! At first I was following the cat, but every time it saw me, even if I was 500 ft away, it kept running. I didnt want to keep driving it further and further away in its condition, so I started hunting around for where it was sleeping. Sure enough, I found it, a small depression in the snow, melted down to the leaves, with some cat scat buried around near it. So I left a towel and some food.
I called my brother and my mom to ask if they had any ideas. My brother really made me angry, he just said "let it die." Now, first of all, hes trying to preach back to me my own philosophy that ive preached to him previously. nature is nature, and sometimes its cruel. Nothing you can do about it. If it died, I wasnt going to get all worked up about it.
However, in practice that is selfish, lazy, and cruel. To NOT do anything when you have the power to help another being is not just nature being nature.
I got really upset by his comment, but it didnt deter me.
The next day the food was gone, so I left more. The day after, I saw the cat again running around the house, and as soon as it saw me, again it ran away. I didnt follow this time but instead left food outside the house and piled towels inside the broken cold frame. That night was a terrible storm, lots of driving snow, very very cold, strong wind from the south. I was really worried about the cat.
But the next afternoon, the food outside the house was gone, and I could see cat tracks in the snow so I know it wasnt a racoon or something.
I left food out for it one more day while I ran up to town and got a live animal trap. It took some tweaking to get it to set right. I used Pazu as a test cat, put some tuna in the back and he went right on in. Im glad I did that because it helped me to make fine adjustments to the sensitivity of the trap, and also see where I needed to put the food to get it to trigger correctly.
Pazu was startled when it finally closed on him, but remarkably calm. I took him out and pet him, and then went about getting more food to set it up for the stray cat. When I came back, pazu was right back in the cage, finishing off the last bits of tuna. LOL.
I set the trap outside, with a towel underneath it to make it easier on the cats feet and not so cold to step on. 5 hours later on my break from work, he was in it!
I brought the trap inside and closed him off from the other cats. He meowed alot. I put a chopstick through the holes of the cage and he rubbed against it, he seemed very needy to be pet. I poured a mixture of 1 part milk and 4 parts water into the dish in the cage, which he drank right up ravenously, and I gave him more as well as some dry cat food. The way he ate seemed very aggressive and desperate. I dont blame him, who knows how long he had been starving. But his mannerisms seemed very feral, however his response the chopstick let me know that he must have been socialized to humans at a young age.
Without thinking about it, the name "Roshi" just slipped out of my mouth. His ears perked and he rubbed against the side of the cage, so I guess thats his name. It turns out it was a good name because its non-gender specific (even tho he looked like a male, I couldnt tell for sure at the time), and also because hes a samurai cat with 12 swords in his face!
My friend Whitney who runs C.R.O.W. for Cats paid for a visit to the vet, and we got the quills out, got him neutered, and vaccinated. Good deal. She also gave me food and stuff for him. Really really great. I couldnt have afforded all this without her, and Roshi is doing wonderfully.
He is very stinky, and I think he might have worms, but otherwise he has already healed up nice, and is very very sweet. Him and Pazu get along well, which is great. Pazu needs a little brother to bug and play with.
-watched the American Ballet Theater version of The Nutcracker. Wished I could be so nimble and jump so damn high. Damn.
- Made sweet sesame balls and Mochi. A chinese / japanese treat of sweet rice flour, sugar, sweet red bean paste, and sesame seeds. Im experimenting with the leftover dough to find other ways of eating it. Its not good by itself. It tastes kind of like playdough. Actually exactly like playdough. As soon as you add the red bean paste however, its delicious.
- Am drying cranberries in the oven. I Love dried cranberries with a passion, and this is the cheaper and better way to do it than buying them. I can leave out the sugar. A little honey is nice but not necessary.
For anyone who is interested :
How To Dry Cranberries in Your Oven
But I think I just need to rest right now, its okay.
I just worry that the days are starting to mesh together, run on by without any meaning. And then suddenly Eric (my brother) will be back from NY, and Ill be all pissed off because I didnt get enough alone time. Well, its only not enough alone time if I dont make the most of it. True, Im really happy being alone and would prefer it stay this way evermore, but, reality is that isnt going to happen.
Ive done a number of things tho the past couple of days that are somewhat interesting, despite my unproductiveness.
- Set up my webcam at the window, and set it to take a snapshot every 20 minutes. At the end of the day, Ill stick them all todether in a slideshow for a time-lapse movie of the day. The effects wont be REALLY cool until I mesh together time lapses from each day in a month long or year-long movie.
- Nursing my hacked pinky. I chopped off the tip, about a 1/4 inch, not huge enough to go to the hospital, but not a tiny cut either. Im definately missing a chunk. Happened last night while peeling a papaya for an amazing dip I managed to complete even with the gimp pinky. (Basically - cooked sweet potatoes, papaya, chopped onions and bell peppers, black beans, a little vinegar and lime, chili powder, and garlic, served with tortilla chips - zomg its gooder than it sounds! really! better than salsa!)
As for the pinky, well, it was gushing needless to say. haha, great, I know, talk about a chopped pinky right after a recipe, mmmm. Lots of blood. I wrapped it with like 20 bandaids. That was a terrible idea. The inside ones didnt stick at all cuz of all the blood. And this morning it was half falling off so i decided to try and pull it off and try another tactic .. BAD idea. It hurt SO bad to take them off. Im glad i finally did tho, because it is much more comfortable to have a wab of cotton coated in neosporin, and then wrapped with tape. Bandaids suck. really.
- OH! YEAH!! I havent told you yet about this. On Christmas day, I was about to go up to volunteer for the free dinner thing, when my cat pazu starts buggin out by the window. I look out to see what hes lookin at, but all i see is his reflection. .. .. Wait, what? Double take, its another cat sitting on the windowsill!!! It looks alot like Pazu. It has lots of porcupine quills in its face, and its looking at me and meowing. I run outside, but as soon as it sees me it takes off running. I put on my brand new xmas-present-from-dad snowshoes, and track it through the woods. I actually was quite proud of my tracking skills. I mean i havent been trained or anything, and it took a while of me going back and forth figuring it out, but I did! At first I was following the cat, but every time it saw me, even if I was 500 ft away, it kept running. I didnt want to keep driving it further and further away in its condition, so I started hunting around for where it was sleeping. Sure enough, I found it, a small depression in the snow, melted down to the leaves, with some cat scat buried around near it. So I left a towel and some food.
I called my brother and my mom to ask if they had any ideas. My brother really made me angry, he just said "let it die." Now, first of all, hes trying to preach back to me my own philosophy that ive preached to him previously. nature is nature, and sometimes its cruel. Nothing you can do about it. If it died, I wasnt going to get all worked up about it.
However, in practice that is selfish, lazy, and cruel. To NOT do anything when you have the power to help another being is not just nature being nature.
I got really upset by his comment, but it didnt deter me.
The next day the food was gone, so I left more. The day after, I saw the cat again running around the house, and as soon as it saw me, again it ran away. I didnt follow this time but instead left food outside the house and piled towels inside the broken cold frame. That night was a terrible storm, lots of driving snow, very very cold, strong wind from the south. I was really worried about the cat.
But the next afternoon, the food outside the house was gone, and I could see cat tracks in the snow so I know it wasnt a racoon or something.
I left food out for it one more day while I ran up to town and got a live animal trap. It took some tweaking to get it to set right. I used Pazu as a test cat, put some tuna in the back and he went right on in. Im glad I did that because it helped me to make fine adjustments to the sensitivity of the trap, and also see where I needed to put the food to get it to trigger correctly.
Pazu was startled when it finally closed on him, but remarkably calm. I took him out and pet him, and then went about getting more food to set it up for the stray cat. When I came back, pazu was right back in the cage, finishing off the last bits of tuna. LOL.
I set the trap outside, with a towel underneath it to make it easier on the cats feet and not so cold to step on. 5 hours later on my break from work, he was in it!
I brought the trap inside and closed him off from the other cats. He meowed alot. I put a chopstick through the holes of the cage and he rubbed against it, he seemed very needy to be pet. I poured a mixture of 1 part milk and 4 parts water into the dish in the cage, which he drank right up ravenously, and I gave him more as well as some dry cat food. The way he ate seemed very aggressive and desperate. I dont blame him, who knows how long he had been starving. But his mannerisms seemed very feral, however his response the chopstick let me know that he must have been socialized to humans at a young age.
Without thinking about it, the name "Roshi" just slipped out of my mouth. His ears perked and he rubbed against the side of the cage, so I guess thats his name. It turns out it was a good name because its non-gender specific (even tho he looked like a male, I couldnt tell for sure at the time), and also because hes a samurai cat with 12 swords in his face!
My friend Whitney who runs C.R.O.W. for Cats paid for a visit to the vet, and we got the quills out, got him neutered, and vaccinated. Good deal. She also gave me food and stuff for him. Really really great. I couldnt have afforded all this without her, and Roshi is doing wonderfully.
He is very stinky, and I think he might have worms, but otherwise he has already healed up nice, and is very very sweet. Him and Pazu get along well, which is great. Pazu needs a little brother to bug and play with.
-watched the American Ballet Theater version of The Nutcracker. Wished I could be so nimble and jump so damn high. Damn.
- Made sweet sesame balls and Mochi. A chinese / japanese treat of sweet rice flour, sugar, sweet red bean paste, and sesame seeds. Im experimenting with the leftover dough to find other ways of eating it. Its not good by itself. It tastes kind of like playdough. Actually exactly like playdough. As soon as you add the red bean paste however, its delicious.
- Am drying cranberries in the oven. I Love dried cranberries with a passion, and this is the cheaper and better way to do it than buying them. I can leave out the sugar. A little honey is nice but not necessary.
For anyone who is interested :
How To Dry Cranberries in Your Oven
1. Put 1-2 bags of cranberries in a pot with about a half cup of water. Put the lid on, and turn the heat on medium. Add sweetener if you like. Try OJ, a half cup of honey, or brown sugar.
2. When it starts to boil, give it a good stir. Listen for the cranberries popping. You want all the cranberries to pop. If some dont, thats ok, use your stirring spoon to smoosh them against the side of the pot until they crack open.
3. After about 10 minutes, or when it starts getting quite thick and most cranberries have popped, turn off the heat and let cool for about 10 more minutes.
4. Meanwhile, take a cookie sheet or baking tray and line it with 2 layers of paper towels, and 1 layer of Parchment Paper. Note : DO NOT USE WAX PAPER. I made this mistake the first round. They are not the same thing and wax paper is a nightmare to get the berries off of later.
5. Pour out the cranberries onto the paper covered tray and spread them out evenly. You want a pretty thin layer. If you need to, use a 2nd cookie sheet.
6. Put it in the oven on very very low. Im talking 100-200 degrees.
7. Check on it in about 3 hours. Flip over the paper towels, or put down new ones if needed. Scoop off the berries and replace the parchment paper. Put it back in the oven.
8. Check on it again in another 3 hours to see if its done. You shouldnt need to change the paper again. You will probably need a few more hours. In my dry climate, my berries are good and dried, but not brittle, still have a nice chew, at about 8 hours. I like to go about 9, but rarely keep track, just check on them every 3-4 hours and see. Remember when they cool they harden up a little more too. They should seperate somewhat as you peel them off, although mine have not gotten to be as individual as the store bought ones, a little more like small clumps of fruit leather. Whatever, I dont care, it tastes good.
I store them in a ziplock in the fridge since they dont have any preservatives. Not sure how long they last technically, but should be a while. Drying is an excellent preserving method for fruits, and the native americans did it all the time without ovens and fridges. So it should last quite a while.
2. When it starts to boil, give it a good stir. Listen for the cranberries popping. You want all the cranberries to pop. If some dont, thats ok, use your stirring spoon to smoosh them against the side of the pot until they crack open.
3. After about 10 minutes, or when it starts getting quite thick and most cranberries have popped, turn off the heat and let cool for about 10 more minutes.
4. Meanwhile, take a cookie sheet or baking tray and line it with 2 layers of paper towels, and 1 layer of Parchment Paper. Note : DO NOT USE WAX PAPER. I made this mistake the first round. They are not the same thing and wax paper is a nightmare to get the berries off of later.
5. Pour out the cranberries onto the paper covered tray and spread them out evenly. You want a pretty thin layer. If you need to, use a 2nd cookie sheet.
6. Put it in the oven on very very low. Im talking 100-200 degrees.
7. Check on it in about 3 hours. Flip over the paper towels, or put down new ones if needed. Scoop off the berries and replace the parchment paper. Put it back in the oven.
8. Check on it again in another 3 hours to see if its done. You shouldnt need to change the paper again. You will probably need a few more hours. In my dry climate, my berries are good and dried, but not brittle, still have a nice chew, at about 8 hours. I like to go about 9, but rarely keep track, just check on them every 3-4 hours and see. Remember when they cool they harden up a little more too. They should seperate somewhat as you peel them off, although mine have not gotten to be as individual as the store bought ones, a little more like small clumps of fruit leather. Whatever, I dont care, it tastes good.
I store them in a ziplock in the fridge since they dont have any preservatives. Not sure how long they last technically, but should be a while. Drying is an excellent preserving method for fruits, and the native americans did it all the time without ovens and fridges. So it should last quite a while.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
