Painting, Baking, Birthday

Posted on June 30, 2008 by Michelle

Well, I thought I did a great job spray painting this chest of drawers until I saw this photo. Ack. Back to the front yard with another can.

Sage really likes the carpet in his new room. I still need to address the broken windows and replace a couple of outlets. One of those will require an electrician, while the windows will certainly require a professional. Bye bye money.

Sky’s 18th birthday is tomorrow, and we celebrated yesterday. Last week, we had went to the music store, where I traded in an electric guitar and amp, threw in fifty bucks and got him a conga set. It turns out he’s pretty good at drumming.

When my folks were over yesterday, my mom gave Sky a photo album she had put together for him. She teared up when she gave it to him. There were pictures of her as a young mother and photos of my grandmother as well as photos of me when I was young. These are photos that even I don’t have. There were also quite a few of him as a young kiddo, all smiling! My parents simply adore Sky, and it really showed with that gift. I hope he realizes how much that gift meant. I think he does.

Here is the cake I made. He said he wanted cheesecake, or even better, tiramisu. Since I live in a town where marscapone cheese is impossible to find, I invented a recipe.

This turned out to be the best cake I’ve ever made, even if it isn’t the prettiest one. If you want to make it, it is very simple, and you can do it in ten minutes. Here’s what you do:

Buy a bakery angel food cake, Kahlua, a dark chocolate bar, sliced almonds and a tub of ready to eat cheesecake.

You probably already have some coffee on hand. Brew up a cup of really strong coffee, sweeten to taste, and throw in about half a cup of the Kahlua.

Slice the cake into three layers. Poke the top of the bottom two layers with a fork. Pour half the coffee mixture on each layer (or until it is about 1/4 saturated), then spread the cheesecake filling on top of that, like frosting. Layer the cake as usual, and then “frost” with the remaining cheesecake filling. Grate the chocolate on top and decorate with almonds.

This would probably be good with amaretto instead of the Kahlua, although Sky noted that it tasted like a White Russian. Of course, you could always leave out the liqueur altogether, especially since that was the most expensive part of the cake!

One thing, I could never have that cheesecake filling around in the refrigerator. It’s dangerous.

This Is So Clever

Posted on June 29, 2008 by Michelle

Less internet-savvy individuals will fall straight for it! This is really a cool idea.

Visions

Posted on June 28, 2008 by Michelle

Photo: kuyman

So far, they’ve never been premonitions. And when you’re driving down the road and in your mind’s eye you see the motorcycle in front of you skid, tumble, its driver sliding beneath the wheels of an oncoming car–you are thankful for that.

It’s difficult to know what to make of it all sometimes. You read articles about people who felt a sudden foreboding about getting on a particular flight, and who subsequently saved themselves from a fiery death amid twisted metal falling from the sky. You imagine what would happen if you acted on all of your feelings of foreboding. Chances are, you’d never leave the house again.

You wonder what would happen if for once, you actually did have a premonition of a disaster of some sort. Would you recognize it? Or would you write it off as being just another one of your catastrophic visions?

You wish the visions in your head were good ones. Perhaps someday, in the subreality your mind drifts to, you will see the perfection of the incomprehensible order of life. The good things. The ones we take for granted.

Read more about vision at Sunday Scribblings.

And It All Just Went Away, Kinda

Posted on June 27, 2008 by Michelle

I stopped thinking about politics.

I started thinking about ways to earn money instead. I found myself abandoning sites like TruthOut and reading Dosh Dosh as an unlikely alternative.

This all sounds very selfish and all, but it has worked out for me rather well. I’ve made several thousand more dollars than I would have otherwise and I’m not nearly as miserable as I used to be when I followed every evil act that Bush, Monsanto, Insert Random Big Corporation Here committed. I even quit thinking about how awful the local police are. That was hard to do, given that Sky and my school have both contrived to give me the inside view that I never wanted to see.

I hadn’t really been aware that I’d backed off from politics until I looked in an unlikely mirror. G, who was always the more apathetic of the two of us, now constantly rants about legal injustices, police brutality, corporate crimes and hypocrites in general.

I find it annoying. I try to change the subject, but he doesn’t get my hints. I can’t be judgmental here, because I was doing the exact same thing just a year ago. I will eventually work up the nerve to ask him to stop, once I can think of a nice way to put it. It brings me down.

I figure there is absolutely no purpose in ranting about politics unless one is going to do something to change them. Even then, it’s probably better to just go on and do whatever it is without talking about it endlessly. For example, going to the local farmer’s market feels good. I think it probably feels better going without carrying along the baggage of self-righteousness that I’m not shopping at Wal-Mart instead, you know?

There’s not much I can do to change things, when you get right down to it. At least nothing that I am willing to do at this point in time. So, if I’m not willing or able to stop corporate welfare (to give just one example), then why not go and read some poetry instead?

Everyone needs a hobby.

On second thought, maybe the Zoloft is just working really, really well and I’m part of the mind-controlled masses. You never know.

Deep Thinking

Posted on June 25, 2008 by Michelle

Such serious things my kiddos contemplate.

Sage got home from day camp and watched a Scooby Doo movie. After the movie, he turns to me and says, “Life is going by really fast. Soon I’ll be grown up. Then I’ll be a grandpa and then I’ll die. And I know what it feels like when you die. You feel nothing.”

He looked and sounded very serious. We talked about it for a while. The idea of “nothing” is not something that he has been raised to believe, so I am intrigued. Strange, the things he is imagining.

About ten minutes later, he asked me why people eat meat. He wanted to know if people needed to eat it to survive. He ended up crying because he felt bad about poisoning the ants in the front yard. (This was me, thirty years ago.)

We’ve had the meat conversation before. He’ll go a few days without eating meat and then cave and eat a pepperoni pizza. I don’t ever give him a hard time about it. We don’t eat a lot of meat in our house anyway, although, since this topic keeps coming up, I’m considering just going vegetarian so he won’t feel so conflicted. It’s not like I really like our factory farming system anyway…

It has felt serious around here lately.

Maybe this kid is going to be an activist.

Yuk

Posted on June 23, 2008 by Michelle

Cleaning, Stencils, Being Mad, Cleaning

Posted on June 22, 2008 by Michelle

Really, if I had wanted stunning before and after pictures, I should have taken pictures of the apartment before and after cleaning it. I thought about it, but decided not to, because after all, you all don’t really have to know what a disgusting piglet I can be when it comes to housecleaning, right?

I did get a lot done, though, and there’s plenty more to do. I’ve got to finish painting Sage’s room before the people come to install the carpet. We talked about getting stencils and painting some things on the wall, but we both think these are way cooler.

it’s at Etsy

dvider

I’m partial to the jellyfish one, personally. Sage hasn’t decided yet. There are others I’d like for the living room. The thing is, these pieces of vinyl are flippin’ expensive! For example, the fish are $60.

I asked Sky what he wanted for his eighteenth birthday and he said books. I asked him to email me a list, and he did. It had about ten books on it, every single one of which had to do with LSD shit in some shape or fashion. Apparently, I have not gotten my point across about not liking that shit. Anyway, no books for Sky. I’m getting him something else that I think he’ll like better anyway.

On another note, after cleaning that ~~dirty~~ disgustingly filthy apartment, I’m determined to turn over a new leaf. This may involve hiring someone to come in every other week and clean, at least after school starts. We’ll see.

Reality Is a Tenuous Thing

Posted on June 21, 2008 by Michelle

Oh God.

You carry a child in your body, birth it, and you are so happy if the child is healthy. The thing is, it’s too soon to sigh with relief and relax.

Your child could go on to develop schizophrenia. Perhaps your child triggered it himself, through the use of various and sundry hallucinagins, some of which you’ve probably never heard of.

You ask yourself questions. Questions like, “What if I had never gotten divorced and he had had a more stable life?”

You tell yourself, “Maybe then he wouldn’t have escaped into a world of drugs, a world far from reality.”

You are angry at yourself for letting him have a computer. Did you know that the compounds for hallucinagenics can be researched and then ordered on the computer?

You blame yourself.

You blame society for being generally fucked up.

You blame your kid for using.

You blame your ex for sending him those Carlos Casteneda books.

You wonder if the drugs caused it, or if it was lying in wait all along. If it would have surfaced anyway.

You hope it is a temporary thing. You are afraid to say the words. We all know the power of words.

You took it in stride when he told you about the voices he heard in the restaurant, and then you just felt crazy in the head and cried a whole lot.

You don’t know what to do.

You want to tear things up.

You think you might understand the anti-drug crusaders. Maybe they don’t want to legislate your life after all. Maybe they want to save you this pain.

You just really want it to go away. You don’t want that much “neurological diversity” in your family. You want him to achieve his full potential.

You really don’t know what to do.

Photos Of Things That Need To Be Done

Posted on June 20, 2008 by Michelle

Yesterday, I made myself a big pitcher of this, and seriously got to work on the room that is the most formidable.

Sage loves bright colors, and painting it yellow didn’t take very long at all. Yesterday, I did finish the parts up by the ceiling and took down the tape. However, the worst is yet to come.

Windows. Sage’s room has six old-fashioned windows. Four of the panes are broken, so I need to have that addressed. I spent a lot of time removing those plastic things that hold up mini-blinds and scrubbing 10-20 years of filth off of the sills. I mean, that water in the bucket was black! Today, I will tape them off and start painting. I’ll have to do a coat with Kilz first, though, to control the mildew.

Then there are the doors. This house has so many doors! The kitchen alone has four. If you walk through the middle of my house it is like a labyrinth. You can take a shortcut to the bathroom by walking through my closet, which has two doors. It’s pretty cool, actually. What is ick is cleaning decades of dirt off of the doors. They also have spots of mildew, which I clean and then spray with bleach before painting. The musty smell that the house had is gone now!

There are ancient fixtures on the doors, some of which have had to be totally removed, due to missing parts. I’ve saved the ones I can, however. I’m going to have to fill in where it was with some putty and put in a new doorknob. I need to buy about six sets of doorknobs. Do you have any idea how expensive attractive doorknobs are? Jeez!

The hallway between Sage’s room and mine has this cool telephone nook, which appears to have been painted in the ’60s. I kinda like it, but it doesn’t go with the rest of the house. I don’t want to paint it white (boring) but I have to be careful with colors because I don’t want the hallway to be too dark. It’s a nice light aqua blue right now. I’m tempted to just leave it, at least for the time being. (Hey, nothing shows how times have changed like having a modem where one of those telephones with the dials used to sit!)

Now that I’ve moved (again), I’m really tempted to go ahead and get a new address label to go with my new address. Vistaprint has sent some good deals (a lot of it free plus shipping) to my inbox, and I really want some. Especially since I live on Magnolia Street. Isn’t that a great street name?

Still, what with having to go and buy a sack of doorknobs and all, I don’t even know if I want to pay shipping at this point. Maybe next month…

Blogs, Cats, Kids, Prisoners…

Posted on June 17, 2008 by Michelle

There’s certainly been a lot going on lately. The moving, the painting, installing, etc. is definitely keeping me busy. And, I am still blogging. I just sold Bloggrrl, bringing the total I’ve made off of that blog to about 4K. I’ve made an additional three thousand or so more doing paid posts on my other blogs as well.

So, of course I had to start a new blog. The purpose of the new one is to entertain people while I make some more money–either via advertising (the first day I put it up it got 700 hits) or selling it on down the line. I realize that a grand total of 7K from blogging this year is not going to make me rich, but even recently, the blog money is helping me put carpet in Sage’s bedroom and the hallway, as well as paying for things like a new mailbox, another air conditioner and other house things.

Of course, as usual, I appreciate links. It’s called Little Pink Flower (no reason, the domain was cheap and it already had PR2), with the tagline “Life is Beautiful”. Little Pink Flower. So, if you don’t mind, link me up! I definitely want to maintain my page rank, if not increase it.

I totally appreciate Tonya and Pacian doing it for Bloggrrl. Every little bit helps! For what it’s worth, this one is blatantly commercial like my last one. It’s just supposed to be fun.

Yesterday, when I left the house, I saw prisoners in the park across the street cleaning up after our latest festival. We had to reassure Sage that they don’t let the murdering prisoners out to help clean parks. I had no idea that the stripes are still in vogue. Reminds me of O’ Brother Where Art Thou.

Although I know I should be taking more photos of the house–I just finished painting Sage’s room a bright Caribbean yellow–I seem to just be taking pics of Sage and the cat.

She looks really pissed off in this one.