It's official.  You can find the new blog here.

I'm actually a little sad over this.  But, where one door closes, another opens, right?

From what I hear, this is a season for change.  A new president and other elected officials.  A new season.  A new economy.

A new blog? 

I'm really toying with the idea of moving everything over to Wordpress.  My personal blog will still be separate from my business blog, but I just feel as if it may be the right thing to do.  I know it's not an earth shattering decision or anything--and I sincerely doubt anyone cares--but Blogdrive has been very good to me over the years.

I don't know that I will be doing it anytime soon, even though the blog is pretty much set up.  I just don't feel like I will be blogging very much over the next couple of months.  But after the new year I feel like I will have many more things to blog about.  It feels almost symbolic to me to get a new blog.

Also, I'm kind of annoyed that my comments have completely, mysteriously stopped working.  Maybe if I can figure out how to fix that I will change my mind.  But I kind of doubt it.  There are so many things about Wordpress that are far superior to Blogdrive.  The only draw back is not being able to have an Etsy Mini or keep track of who your visitors are (without coughing up some money... though maybe I'll consider that someday).

So, you've been warned.  It may happen tomorrow.  It may happen in January.  But I'm pretty sure it will happen.

I have officially lost all respect for John Ratzenberger and Victoria Jackson. 



If you're so worried that people think everyone in Hollywood is like Al Franken, chill out.  The only people who would judge like that are people like you.  Those of us with heart and soul (on both sides of the aisle, I'm sure), will look at him and think his behavior only reflects on him, good or bad.

Yes, it just so happens I like Al Franken. I respect him a lot, and I think his marriage says much more about his character than his writing. It also turns out that I care much more about policies than politically unrelated histories. I don't agree with pretty much everything Norm Coleman says.

And you know, just to be giving (I'm a peaceful hippie, remember this), I will not hold this commercial against all of Hollywood. I won't even hold it against Hollywood Republicans. I do take offense to the fact that you aren't Minnesotans; stay the fuck out of my politics. *ahem* I mean, peace, man.

It's 3am.  I've been awake for 21 hours.  I just had one of those amazing, life-changing conversations that make staying awake that long worth it.  I'm going to have a hard time sleeping, maybe.

The point, however, is that my wish for the thermostat to be turned up has been granted.  The weather this week has been beautiful.  Thank you for playing.

I turned the electric blanket on for the first time last night. I feel as if I've lost a small battle in doing so. That means it's winter. I may be a little on the extreme side, but I have a tendency to nearly skip fall entirely. Fall is when weather starts to get cool. Winter is the shivering in my truck bull honky I'm currently enduring.

I am worried that I will soon need to bust out the winter coat and wool socks.  I'm really just not ready to give up on fall, but it snowed a couple days ago, and that's frightening.  Granted it was mostly sleety snow, but it was snow nonetheless.  This is the time of year that almost requires that I stay in bed all day.  If I must leave my bed, I need to have my robe within reach.  I didn't have my robe this morning (silly me, doing laundry....), and I nearly cried.

I'm pretty sure I am not going to survive this winter.  I found my missing hat and ended up wearing it while at work the other night.  I was working overnight with one other person, and she told me I looked stupid.  "But I'm warm!" I replied.  Also, I was jogging back and forth to get the blood pumping.  Seriously, it seems like I've never been this cold in my life, and I'm never going to warm up again.

Will someone please turn up the thermostat??

If you have a problem with a sales clerk, don't tell them.  Tell a manger.  You don't know that clerk or their situation.  Maybe their dog died last night; you don't know.  But I guarantee that if you tell a clerk--a human being--how awful they are to their face, it will 100% ruin their day.  It will be in the back of their mind with every customer they help after you.  They might be driven to tears.  They might be driven to quit.  How dare you hold that much control over another human being.

No on one this planet it perfect.  I bet there is a time in your life that you were (accidentally, intentionally, it doesn't matter) rude to someone.  Or that your tone of voice or choice of words offended someone.  Or that you maybe forgot a piece of information that someone else thought was very important.  I implore you to remember that before you insult someone or snap at someone.

Better yet, let's not limit this to sales clerks.  Just be nice to people in general.  You'd be surprised at how much easier that makes your life.

PS: I was blocked from entering the freeway this morning by a car with a COEXIST bumper sticker.  Awesome.

I had a major epiphany while sewing this evening.  At least I think it was while sewing; it could have been during my shower.  Unfortunately, I can't remember what it was, thereby forcing myself and the world to go at least one more day without this earth shattering revelation.

I don't know if it's because I work with people in their 40s and 50 (and 60s and 70s), or if it's because I don't do many mentally stimulating activities, but I have the memory of a goldfish.  I feel like I can't hold on to a thought longer than a few seconds unless I 1) write it down or b) repeat it in my head until I complete it--and sometimes well after.

I once had to bring eggs to Rocketdog's.  For the 5 to 10 minutes I was getting ready to go, I repeated "Eggs, eggs, eggs..." in my head.  Nonstop.  Then, walking out to the truck with eggs in hand, I kept repeating it.  I'm not entirely certain I had stopped repeating it when I got to my destination.

But... I just remembered the name of someone I met this weekend.  I'm usually really bad with names.  I consider that a victory.

No clue why my comment thingy isn't working.  I swear I didn't disable it on purpose.  

I made myself pancakes for dinner last night.  I had pancakes for breakfast this morning.  I will have pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.  I'm still feeling really lazy, so, yeah, I had pancakes for dinner tonight too.  But I didn't want to just have pancakes; I wanted to spruce things up a bit.  So I melted some peanut butter and some jelly and spooned it on top. 

I was pretty psyched.  I love pancakes.  I love peanut butter.  I love jelly.

Turns out, I hate peanut butter and jelly pancakes.  I feel kind of bad right now.  I have half a pancake and at least one tablespoon of pb&j goop staring at me.  I should have stuck with syrup.  Tomorrow it will be syrup.

I don't often blog when I'm depressed because I feel as if it makes mountains out of mole hills and I usually regret everything I say.  But I feel as if my depression has gone on a really long time this time around, and there are some things I need to get off my chest.  I'm not really looking for advice, and I'm definitely not looking for pity, this is mostly just for myself.

Long story short, I hate myself.  I feel as if I have absolutely no control over my own life, and a lot of this has to do with my self esteem and my depression.  I suppose I don't know if not knowing what I want to be when I grow up is self esteem related, or if I just don't know, but I hate myself for not knowing.  Don't get me wrong, I actually like my job, but I get paid shit and I feel like I'm less of a person because of my job.  I'm ashamed to tell people what I do.  I avoid people from high school when I see them because I don't want to tell anyone.  I will probably never go to a reunion so long as I'm working there.  I suppose maybe my feelings toward my job are all in my head, but I've been told a thousand times over that I can do better.  The tone in someone's voice when they say "Ohh..." upon hearing where I work is not lost on me. 

I'd love to do better.  I'd love to be able to tell people I have a cool job, but I don't know what I'd do.  Never in my life have I felt a calling for something.  I've had many inklings, but my brain is entirely broken, and over the last 25 years I've shot them all down one by one.  I have reasons for not doing any of them, though I'm sure they were all bad reasons by most people's standards.  Self esteem.

So because of this... Because I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, because I can come up with an excuse for why anything won't work...  I feel like I'm stuck where I am.  I feel like I'm never going to go anywhere.  I'll be stuck in my parents' house forever.  Or at least the next seven years until I'm not paying loans anymore.  The Hippy and I were looking at houses for awhile, but the economy has him skittish.  He refuses to rent, and I really don't feel like I can afford an apartment on my own.  So here I am.  Eating brown rice and gravy because I'm too lazy to go grocery shopping these days. 

I probably shouldn't worry about the future.  We can't see what will come.  I wish I could just stop caring about the present, though.  I am where I am, so I should probably just get over it.

And there you have it.