Motivation…

February 12, 2013 meisajDaily Life

Or Lack Of.

Cause yesterday was not a motivation building day.

Got home after 7pm last night from work. The big parent meeting I planned for our school, well it was a good important meeting, but it was a good important meeting that had very little impact on a school wide basis due to turnout. Welcome to education AJ.

So I came home tired… and my general rule of “If I am out of the house for twelve hours or more during the work day I won’t exercise,” held true; even if I wanted to get back to it this week.

Instead I planned on walking through the door, putting some tv on and drawing.

Instead of that I walked through the door and cleaned the kitchen, did the dishes and picked up the living room. It’s pretty much the same thing as I planned…. right?

The whole time cleaning up I thought, ‘I can do this now and then collapse on the couch with Sam and eat some dinner and zone out to some Lost.” It had been a long day, and that seemed like the perfect way to end it.

Instead (see all these insteads) minor crisis meant helping Sam for several hours.

Crawled into bed around 11:30, completely asleep by midnight.

5 – 6 hours of sleep multiple nights in a row.

Check

Long hours at work all this week

Check

Losing Sabres team

Check

Angelo Poo on the carpet

NO. Yay. His poo swings are devastating when he decides to go all carpet on me. But today, today he hit the litter box. That’s a big plus.

So motivation to myself moving this morning is a little rough. That shining spot of Angelo’s keenly placed poo isn’t enough to get me all excited for the day. So I’ll head to work and make it through the day like I do every day.

Tonight, hopefully I’ll be home at a semi-normal hour. Exercise. Make a dinner (Rice, chicken, veggies?). Watch the Sabres. Come away excited that they won huge. Scoop hopefully well place Angelo poo. Maybe take a bath. Get in bed before 11.

That’s the plan. Lets hope it works and doesn’t involve ‘instead’.

Archer Dreams

February 11, 2013February 11, 2013 meisajDaily Life

So I had a weird dream that involved Archer last night.

Dig Dug II

It started with two American scientists going to Iceland to do a big study. They landed, and Iceland looked like a Dig Dug II Island. Flat, and looking at it from the top. Exactly like Dig Dug II. In the whole island there was only one person, and she didn’t say anything. Other scientists started to land on Iceland as well. As soon as there were a big grouping on the island, the two American scientist put flags down and claimed Iceland as American property.

The problem was that other scientists started doing this too, and the whole island started falling apart (just like in Dig Dug II). The other scientists fled in boats, and the one islander just floated away on a piece of the island, but the two American scientists were stranded. They went to a peninsula that came within a few feet of the mainland (that’s right, Iceland butted up right next to the continental USA). There was small bridge and they were about to cross it when Archer kicked the bridge over from the beach on the mainland side.

Archer was laughing and just walked away leaving the scientists stranded, for some reason they couldn’t just walk or swim the five feet between Iceland and the USA. Archer walked with Woodhouse (his servant if you don’t watch the show) to a train depot, where he started to get chased by gunmen. They hopped on the train that was already moving and Archer started shooting at the gunmen chasing them. Unfortunately the train was going through a lion sanctuary a

nd the lions started attacking the train (how lions attack a train I don’t know, but it was happening, even if I never saw a lion actually attack the train). Archer took aim at one lion and as t

he train passed him killed the lion. He then took aim at another one and Woodhouse got in front of him and told him the lions had stopped attacking.

In the distance you could the lions just yawning and laying down (as if they were never attacking at all). Archer had some disbelief, and started aiming again before seeing that Woodhouse was right. They just sat down and rode the train away…

And then I woke up. Bizarre, super realistic dream.

Desert Island II

February 8, 2013February 8, 2013 meisajDaily Life

I have been working on a new mix cd. It’ll be “Desert Island Mix II”.

rob - mixtape

Its a tougher undertaking than I thought. I may have to rename it. It’s more a playlist to send to my pen pal, but I am kinda of a playlist snob. I wouldn’t say I’m Rob from High Fidelity, but playlists are complex. A playlist isn’t just a collection of songs. It has to flow. It has to represent what I’m listening to.

I haven’t created one in a long while. I start by just going through my collection and throwing about 200 songs at my playlist. I then narrow it down to about twenty that represent what I’m listening to then, or at least have been on my listening cycle for a long while.

From there is rearranging the songs. What sounds best as an opener. Is it going to flow from one song to the next. Do they clash too much to be put near each other. Have I already used the song on a similar collection.

If its a playlist for someone else, I think about whether it exposes them to something new. Doesn’t necessarily have to be current new music, just something I think will be new to them.

And of course… would I listen to this playlist.

Its important.

I was pretty proud of my last Desert Island mix. 21 songs that made a near perfect mix.

Plainsong – the Cure
Mañana – Desaparecidos
Beat Your Heart Out – the Distillers
the Brews – NOFX
Nervous in the Alley – Less Than Jake
Fall Back Down – Rancid
I’m a Believer – the Sheila Divine
the Bends – Radiohead
Stars – Hum
Car Song – Madder Rose
Us – Regina Spektor
I Want to be the Boy – the White Stripes
Cherub Rock – Smashing Pumpkins
Maglite – Wussy
Bone Machine – Pixies
Train in Vain – the Clash
My Name Is Jonas – Weezer
King of the Road – Piebald
Dishes – Pulp
Delicious – Catherine Wheel
Dream a Little Dream – Louis Armstrong

And of course I made some pretty awesome cover art for it.

So the bar, in my mind, was set high by me. And I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Valentine’s Day Dilemma

February 7, 2013 meisajDaily Life

For the first time in history Sam has beaten me to the punch gift buying-wise. But to be honest we have never bought anything for Valentine’s Day before. Like most we recognize Valentine’s Day for what it is, a commercial entity that fuels the economy greeting card wise.

Soooooo….. With the prospect of Sam bragging about having gotten me a gift I’m left a little lack luster on ideas here. Maybe its the long work hours lately, or maybe its the fact that Valentine’s Day falls on Parent-Teacher Conferences this year and I’ll be at work from 7:30am until 8pm that day. I’m positive I won’t want to do anything after that. Normally I make a day of Valentine’s Day instead of a gift of Valentine’s Day. Homemade meal, movie, something else thrown in there. But with a prospective 12 hour work day (more likely a 13 hour work day) Valentine’s Day is thrown out the door.

Eh. We’ll see. I have an idea. But I don’t really feel like figuring it out now.

Snooty… or is it snotty

February 6, 2013 meisajDaily Life

Its snotty. I’m fairly certain it is snotty. Which is what I am this morning. Pretty snotty. One of those snotty mornings where you blow your nose and immediately realize you should have used six tissues instead of one because you completely destroyed the one you used.

That paragraph alone proves this wasn’t a snooty post.

Anyways, being a Buffalo Hockey fan means my nights haven’t been that great lately. I was listening to NHL radio over the weekend and they talked about how bi-polar the Sabres are. When they are there on, there is no defense against them. Unfortunately they aren’t on often, or for even a whole game. Basing my nights around hockey games is getting sad, but dammit I bought NHL GameCenter to watch these games, and like any true fan, I’ll still watch their games, even when horrible.

But… despite the Sabres loss and my snotty morning, Angelo is make me feel better. Cause he’s a cat and can do things like that.

Post-Bowl

February 4, 2013February 4, 2013 meisajDaily Life

So Sam and I used the idea of having guests over for the Super Bowl to clean the apartment. We had one almost positive guest, a bunch of maybe, and two “I might show late.”

We scrubbed and cleaned our apartment like nothing before. Which was fun and tiring and at the same very needed. Apartment looks great. We even bought a plant!!! And some pieces for our mantle. We also hung pictures up using some awesome velcro strip!! One fell down a few times before sticking, but with an extra strip added it looks nice now. We added a picture of our friend Jason, Danei and the awesome son Harvey to our wall as well. We are working on a family and friends wall somewhere else in the apartment right, but this was in the middle of the living, where we were quasi expecting people.

Picture Wall

After a slew of cleaning we set to work cooking. Like last year this was an excuse to bake. We tried a modified soft pretzel recipe, our go to pizza recipe, a salsa recipe, chili, buffalo dip, and homemade perogies made three different ways. Ya, we went that nuts in our baking. It was a full on six hours of cooking on and off.

We knew early on it wasn’t going to a full house. Some people I never heard back from, some people cancelled and then the Sabres lost their game. That was like icing on the cake and a predictor of people showing up. I’m certain if they won people would have come over in droves.

Regardless, food was great. There was a power outage at the game, and San Francisco almost won. And we had a good night. Although that extra half hour of sleep I didn’t get because of the power outage has left me tired this morning. Nothing unusual, but Friday my coffee shipment came in at work so I’m stocked and will be well caffeinated to get through the day.