IPOD
RADIO
I'm on vacation, but it hardly feels like vacation because I'm still babysitting. I'm in Arizona and staying with family friends who are practically like my 2nd family (I've known them for 12 1/2 years, since I was 9). I've been watching the youngest kid (3 1/2) on and off since I got here on Friday. I pretty much immediately started babysitting once I got off the plane because the parents were heading out of town for the weekend and we managed a very tight switch where I grabbed my luggage, went out to the departures curb where they were waiting in the car, they took turns checking in their own bags during all of this, came back out for one last goodbye and I left the airport in their car with the kid in the backseat.
I've spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen trying out some recipes from my vegan cookbook that I brought with me. I made a pesto and tomato pizza completely from scratch, even the pesto, and it turned out pretty amazingly. It was soo good. And then I threw together a ton of vegetables and made a soup the next day that turned out pretty decently. I couldn't find much spices in their cabinets and couldn't ask since the rents were out of town, so it was slightly bland but still had pretty decent flavor from all of the veggies I put in it. So, considering it was my time time making either meal, not to mention completely on my own, I think I did pretty well. I'm kind of starting to like cooking and can't wait to make that pesto and tomato pizza again. I think I might end up making it again tomorrow since the mom didn't get a chance to try it last time.
I'm still confused why my time hasn't run out yet and confused about how to access my billing information. Can anyone tell me how to get into my billing info? Please?! This is the website that the billing link takes me to. It's not how billing on SG used to be like and I've tried to figure it out but it just gives me an error warning when I give it the appropriate info in order to access my account. It's getting really irritating.
I've spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen trying out some recipes from my vegan cookbook that I brought with me. I made a pesto and tomato pizza completely from scratch, even the pesto, and it turned out pretty amazingly. It was soo good. And then I threw together a ton of vegetables and made a soup the next day that turned out pretty decently. I couldn't find much spices in their cabinets and couldn't ask since the rents were out of town, so it was slightly bland but still had pretty decent flavor from all of the veggies I put in it. So, considering it was my time time making either meal, not to mention completely on my own, I think I did pretty well. I'm kind of starting to like cooking and can't wait to make that pesto and tomato pizza again. I think I might end up making it again tomorrow since the mom didn't get a chance to try it last time.
I'm still confused why my time hasn't run out yet and confused about how to access my billing information. Can anyone tell me how to get into my billing info? Please?! This is the website that the billing link takes me to. It's not how billing on SG used to be like and I've tried to figure it out but it just gives me an error warning when I give it the appropriate info in order to access my account. It's getting really irritating.
I've just gotten an e-mail from SG saying that my payment could not be processed. I'm not renewing my subscription to the site. I still can't figure out how to access my billing info because it keeps sending me to a local billing website. I don't understand how to work it and I'm not going to bother trying. So I guess my time is up pretty soon but because of the aforementioned ridiculousness, I don't know exactly when.
(Update: By the way, if you care to keep in touch, here is my myspace)
Is anyone else scared by this Sarah Palin woman? Is she even human? The thought that this woman could, in the possible event of John McCain's death in office, be our President (let alone Vice President) is a horrifying thought. I think that the combination of Sarah Palin and John McCain running our country would be just as bad as reelecting Bush for a 3rd term, if not worse. What qualifications does this woman have to run a country? She can barely manage her own family. She has 4 years of city council; 5 years as mayor of Wasilla; 1 1/2 years governor of Alaska under her belt... not enough to run a fucking country, even as just #2. She has history of abuse of power. She's uber religious and proposes teaching creationism in schools as a science, pro-life extremist (opposed abortion in ALL cases), and has looked into how to ban books. She is, of course, against same-sex marriage and against health benefits for same-sex couples. And then there's that little detail that she does not support expanding hate crime laws to include gay victims. Good to know. She has voted in favor of making rape victims pay for their own rape kits at the hospital. What the fuck? Seriously? Supports abstinence-only education and opposes all other forms of sex-ed. She cut funding for programs directed towards teen mothers. Glad to see her 17 year old daughter is benefiting from those last 2 points. Oh, and what about her newest kid? Her infant son who has Down Syndrome? He'll definitely be benefiting from the funding for special needs education that his mom cut by 62%, along with his cousin who is also special needs. Good luck to them. She gained over $20 million in debt for the town of Wasilla as their mayor. This is a town of roughly 7000 residents. That is a HUGE deficit. She does not believe global warming is due to human impact, obviously, because she's pro oil drilling and has voted against wind farm in Alaska... an alternative, renewable source of energy. She did not know what the Bush Doctrine was when asked but she still agrees with it. She believes that if we "think" a country may be a threat to us (i.e. Iraq) then we have every right to invade them. Oh, and did you know that she wants to to go to war with Russia over the Russia-Georgia shit? Great, just what we need.
I'm scared for us all if that pair get elected into office. Scared.
(Update: By the way, if you care to keep in touch, here is my myspace)
Is anyone else scared by this Sarah Palin woman? Is she even human? The thought that this woman could, in the possible event of John McCain's death in office, be our President (let alone Vice President) is a horrifying thought. I think that the combination of Sarah Palin and John McCain running our country would be just as bad as reelecting Bush for a 3rd term, if not worse. What qualifications does this woman have to run a country? She can barely manage her own family. She has 4 years of city council; 5 years as mayor of Wasilla; 1 1/2 years governor of Alaska under her belt... not enough to run a fucking country, even as just #2. She has history of abuse of power. She's uber religious and proposes teaching creationism in schools as a science, pro-life extremist (opposed abortion in ALL cases), and has looked into how to ban books. She is, of course, against same-sex marriage and against health benefits for same-sex couples. And then there's that little detail that she does not support expanding hate crime laws to include gay victims. Good to know. She has voted in favor of making rape victims pay for their own rape kits at the hospital. What the fuck? Seriously? Supports abstinence-only education and opposes all other forms of sex-ed. She cut funding for programs directed towards teen mothers. Glad to see her 17 year old daughter is benefiting from those last 2 points. Oh, and what about her newest kid? Her infant son who has Down Syndrome? He'll definitely be benefiting from the funding for special needs education that his mom cut by 62%, along with his cousin who is also special needs. Good luck to them. She gained over $20 million in debt for the town of Wasilla as their mayor. This is a town of roughly 7000 residents. That is a HUGE deficit. She does not believe global warming is due to human impact, obviously, because she's pro oil drilling and has voted against wind farm in Alaska... an alternative, renewable source of energy. She did not know what the Bush Doctrine was when asked but she still agrees with it. She believes that if we "think" a country may be a threat to us (i.e. Iraq) then we have every right to invade them. Oh, and did you know that she wants to to go to war with Russia over the Russia-Georgia shit? Great, just what we need.
I'm scared for us all if that pair get elected into office. Scared.
I've just gotten an e-mail from SG saying that my payment could not be processed. I'm not renewing my subscription to the site. I still can't figure out how to access my billing info because it keeps sending me to a local billing website. I don't understand how to work it and I'm not going to bother trying. So I guess my time is up pretty soon but because of the aforementioned ridiculousness, I don't know exactly when.
Is anyone else scared by this Sarah Palin woman? Is she even human? The thought that this woman could, in the possible event of John McCain's death in office, be our President (let alone Vice President) is a horrifying thought. I think that the combination of Sarah Palin and John McCain running our country would be just as bad as reelecting Bush for a 3rd term, if not worse. What qualifications does this woman have to run a country? She can barely manage her own family. She has 4 years of city council; 5 years as mayor of Wasilla; 1 1/2 years governor of Alaska under her belt... not enough to run a fucking country, even as just #2. She has history of abuse of power. She's uber religious and proposes teaching creationism in schools as a science, pro-life extremist (opposed abortion in ALL cases), and has looked into how to ban books. She is, of course, against same-sex marriage and against health benefits for same-sex couples. And then there's that little detail that she does not support expanding hate crime laws to include gay victims. Good to know. She has voted in favor of making rape victims pay for their own rape kits at the hospital. What the fuck? Seriously? Supports abstinence-only education and opposes all other forms of sex-ed. She cut funding for programs directed towards teen mothers. Glad to see her 17 year old daughter is benefiting from those last 2 points. Oh, and what about her newest kid? Her infant son who has Down Syndrome? He'll definitely be benefiting from the funding for special needs education that his mom cut by 62%, along with his cousin who is also special needs. Good luck to them. She gained over $20 million in debt for the town of Wasilla as their mayor. This is a town of roughly 7000 residents. That is a HUGE deficit. She does not believe global warming is due to human impact, obviously, because she's pro oil drilling and has voted against wind farm in Alaska... an alternative, renewable source of energy. She did not know what the Bush Doctrine was when asked but she still agrees with it. She believes that if we "think" a country may be a threat to us (i.e. Iraq) then we have every right to invade them. Oh, and did you know that she wants to to go to war with Russia over the Russia-Georgia shit? Great, just what we need.
I'm scared for us all if that pair get elected into office. Scared.
Is anyone else scared by this Sarah Palin woman? Is she even human? The thought that this woman could, in the possible event of John McCain's death in office, be our President (let alone Vice President) is a horrifying thought. I think that the combination of Sarah Palin and John McCain running our country would be just as bad as reelecting Bush for a 3rd term, if not worse. What qualifications does this woman have to run a country? She can barely manage her own family. She has 4 years of city council; 5 years as mayor of Wasilla; 1 1/2 years governor of Alaska under her belt... not enough to run a fucking country, even as just #2. She has history of abuse of power. She's uber religious and proposes teaching creationism in schools as a science, pro-life extremist (opposed abortion in ALL cases), and has looked into how to ban books. She is, of course, against same-sex marriage and against health benefits for same-sex couples. And then there's that little detail that she does not support expanding hate crime laws to include gay victims. Good to know. She has voted in favor of making rape victims pay for their own rape kits at the hospital. What the fuck? Seriously? Supports abstinence-only education and opposes all other forms of sex-ed. She cut funding for programs directed towards teen mothers. Glad to see her 17 year old daughter is benefiting from those last 2 points. Oh, and what about her newest kid? Her infant son who has Down Syndrome? He'll definitely be benefiting from the funding for special needs education that his mom cut by 62%, along with his cousin who is also special needs. Good luck to them. She gained over $20 million in debt for the town of Wasilla as their mayor. This is a town of roughly 7000 residents. That is a HUGE deficit. She does not believe global warming is due to human impact, obviously, because she's pro oil drilling and has voted against wind farm in Alaska... an alternative, renewable source of energy. She did not know what the Bush Doctrine was when asked but she still agrees with it. She believes that if we "think" a country may be a threat to us (i.e. Iraq) then we have every right to invade them. Oh, and did you know that she wants to to go to war with Russia over the Russia-Georgia shit? Great, just what we need.
I'm scared for us all if that pair get elected into office. Scared.
I'm slowly creeping my way towards moving into my apartment. I got some serious motivation the other day and stayed up very late to finish painting the kitchen. There's only one little section that frames a window between some cabinets that isn't done yet because part of it needs to be sanded and fixed up before I paint over it. And then I got another spurt of motivation to clean the inside of drawers and cabinets and some other stuff but didn't finish because it got really late. Now my bedroom floors is completely covered with plastic and meticulously taped and ready for me to finish priming and then paint. I'm getting there! Hopefully by the end of the week I will be done painting. There's a staircase in my room and parts of the ceiling are lower than the rest because of air ducts running along the ceiling and I have to paint the ceiling so all the edges and corners the stairs and the lowered ceiling creates is going to make painting a lot less straight forward. I'm definitely ready to be done with it and get moved in!
I had a great time at Bumbershoot last weekend! Quite literally none of my friends went so I ended up going alone. On Saturday, the first day, I spent most of the day alone. I kind of felt like I was in Europe in that I felt like I had to be doing something or seeing something in order to feel like I accomplished something since I had no one to just wander around and enjoy the day with. But later in the afternoon I went to see a show that was on an indoors stage with limited capacity so they were letting people in as people left. I got in line and asked the 2 guys in front of me if I was in the right line. We ended up talking the whole 20 or so mins we were in line and turns out they are in a band and came all the way from Reno for Bumbershoot. Right as we got to the very front of the line, literally the first 3 people, the show ended and people started coming out. Lame! So we parted ways. Later on I went to the main stage early for the headlining bands of the day (Band of Horses and Beck), grabbed some food, and as I was about to get up to toss my trash I spotted the 2 Reno guys walking across the field towards the stage and went to join them. I ended up hanging out with them and another girl that they met right after we parted the first time the rest of the weekend and they turned out to be fantastic company and collectively knew quite a few of the smaller bands playing that weekend so I got introduced to some great music I wouldn't have thought to check out. So overall, It turned out to be a great weekend.
Now I am off to paint a bit before bed...
I had a great time at Bumbershoot last weekend! Quite literally none of my friends went so I ended up going alone. On Saturday, the first day, I spent most of the day alone. I kind of felt like I was in Europe in that I felt like I had to be doing something or seeing something in order to feel like I accomplished something since I had no one to just wander around and enjoy the day with. But later in the afternoon I went to see a show that was on an indoors stage with limited capacity so they were letting people in as people left. I got in line and asked the 2 guys in front of me if I was in the right line. We ended up talking the whole 20 or so mins we were in line and turns out they are in a band and came all the way from Reno for Bumbershoot. Right as we got to the very front of the line, literally the first 3 people, the show ended and people started coming out. Lame! So we parted ways. Later on I went to the main stage early for the headlining bands of the day (Band of Horses and Beck), grabbed some food, and as I was about to get up to toss my trash I spotted the 2 Reno guys walking across the field towards the stage and went to join them. I ended up hanging out with them and another girl that they met right after we parted the first time the rest of the weekend and they turned out to be fantastic company and collectively knew quite a few of the smaller bands playing that weekend so I got introduced to some great music I wouldn't have thought to check out. So overall, It turned out to be a great weekend.
Now I am off to paint a bit before bed...
Things are settling down for me finally. I have my work situation figured out. I'll be juggling 2 families (1 for 30hrs, the other for 10) but I like both of them and feel like I'll be happy working for them. I just met up with my newly chosen flatmate to talk and figure things out. I'm really glad I picked her because we're very much on the same level on a lot of things and we get along pretty well already. Not to mention, she likes to bake 
Oh boy, temptations, this could be a disaster! I'm getting my apartment ready for me and the roomie to move in. I've gotten in the habit of painting after midnight... probably not a good idea, but for whatever reason, it's when I actually have motivation to do it. I'm so ready to be settled in and starting my life fresh. I'm a very different person from who I was a year ago. I have more confidence, I'm more outgoing, more independent (who wouldn't be after backpacking through Europe alone for 3 months?), I am taking care of myself a lot better, I've changed my diet completely and moving into my apartment will just be the cherry on top of a freshly baked and frosted cupcake. I'm excited to have my own space and be independent. It will be a good feeling.
And now I'm excited for Bumbershoot next weekend! I missed Folklife because I was in Europe and I don't want to miss Bumbershoot. Not to mention, Beck is playing this year! I'm going to have to revive the Free Hugs sign. The first time I did Free Hugs was at Folklife last year and it was great fun. I initiated a Free Hugs event with other Couchsurfers and 2 Canadian girls from my hostel in Rome and it was so much fun. We started in the Piazza del Popolo, walked to the Spanish Steps and then to the Trevi Fountain. So either I'll be making a new sign this week or searching for my old one because I'm not using my Rome sign... that things going up on a wall in my new room for safe keeping lol
Life is good
Oh boy, temptations, this could be a disaster! I'm getting my apartment ready for me and the roomie to move in. I've gotten in the habit of painting after midnight... probably not a good idea, but for whatever reason, it's when I actually have motivation to do it. I'm so ready to be settled in and starting my life fresh. I'm a very different person from who I was a year ago. I have more confidence, I'm more outgoing, more independent (who wouldn't be after backpacking through Europe alone for 3 months?), I am taking care of myself a lot better, I've changed my diet completely and moving into my apartment will just be the cherry on top of a freshly baked and frosted cupcake. I'm excited to have my own space and be independent. It will be a good feeling.And now I'm excited for Bumbershoot next weekend! I missed Folklife because I was in Europe and I don't want to miss Bumbershoot. Not to mention, Beck is playing this year! I'm going to have to revive the Free Hugs sign. The first time I did Free Hugs was at Folklife last year and it was great fun. I initiated a Free Hugs event with other Couchsurfers and 2 Canadian girls from my hostel in Rome and it was so much fun. We started in the Piazza del Popolo, walked to the Spanish Steps and then to the Trevi Fountain. So either I'll be making a new sign this week or searching for my old one because I'm not using my Rome sign... that things going up on a wall in my new room for safe keeping lol
Life is good
