Hiya!

I had an interview for the Hennepin County Library system today. Fingers crossed.
And in other news, still loving the new sassy 'do :)

A Little Catching Up

Hi there. Right now I'm sitting cross-legged on my bed drinking grape soda and listening to The Beatles, I sorta feel like a teenager again. Sorta. I have a few more lines on my face these days but at least I'm acne-free. Phew! I've been slacking on the blogging lately so I thought this was a good time to sit down, relax with some good tunes, and catch up with you folks out in cyber-land. Little T is sound asleep, wheezing and snoring on her bed next to me. Be grateful you can't hear it.

Over the winter I wasn't all that into photography so I didn't take many pics, relatively speaking. But I was still into nature walks and at the Eastman Nature Center I became interested in birds. I started watching them outside the window because I was bored one day. They have signs up depicting the species found in each season and soon I was familiar with and easily able to identify the "winter" birds from the sign and even some that weren't on the sign. On one trip to the nature center I met a retired gentleman from Wisconsin. He's an avid birder and he taught me a lot. We were sitting there quietly enjoying the birds when I spotted one in the distance that didn't look like or act like the others. I pointed it out to him and he took a picture with his awesome zoom lens and determined it was a varied thrush. According to him this is a fantastic and pretty rare sighting for the time and place. Most people might find it boring, but I thought it was pretty exciting and so did he. I started journaling about my bird and wildlife sightings (with pen and paper). I don't have many photos to share because my camera is a cheap model and very limited when it comes to zooming and motion shots, so most of the time I didn't even bring it with me. But I had a lot of cool sightings, I'll list a few: deer, coyotes, barred owl, wild turkeys, bald eagles, ring neck pheasants, many species of birds including trumpeter swans recently.

I found another new hobby during my long winter hibernation - baking. I found that I'm actually pretty good at it. I was always terrible at baking in the past because I never really learned how and didn't much like it. But this winter I taught myself and now I love it. In fact I'm having a bake sale in the yard next week. The weather is supposed to be great and it should be fun.

I learned that my little sister is expecting her first child in September!
** Spoiler Alert** She wants a little boy and everyone thinks it's going to be a boy, but I know it will be a little girl :) and I've been crocheting a blanket and pillow for her. (Hopefully my sister is like everyone else and doesn't read my blog, otherwise she'll know exactly what my baby shower gift is.)

Let's see, what else is new? Oh, I changed my hair the other day. I took a scissors to my ponytail on a whim and now it's really short (boy-length), black, and spiky. It's the shortest my hair has ever been and I know the style isn't "me" at all, but I'd like to think that I am always changing, evolving... (read "I'm impulsive and get bored easily").

BEFORE:


AFTER:




wth?? Hey! Who posted that pic of Bob's Big Boy? I'm so offended! :-p
I noticed the resemblance after I snapped the pic of myself. It is a little uncanny but unplanned.
The faux-hawk was a surprise. The stylist left it longer on top and the hair just sort of went that direction on its own. **Update: I've taken some more length off the top since this photo was taken and it looks better now. When I got home from the hair salon it was even higher than pictured here, I had already cut alot off. I'm not sure what the stylist was thinking??

Alright, let's get to some more photos.

JANUARY:

Elm Creek Nature Reserve

Brrrrrr!



Eastman Nature Center

Great Horned Owl
Lives in captivity at the nature center. No, he's not winking at you, he was born with only one eye.



The following photos were taken at night leaving the shutter open for maximum light and cool effects with the lights of the passing cars on the highway.













FEBRUARY:

I made a sled for Tee-Tee out of a plastic Sterilite storage bin. I pulled her behind me a couple of times before the snow melted, around the yard and on trails at the Elm Creek Nature Preserve.


Tuckered out from sledding.

Sadly, that was pretty much the extent of my outdoor activities in February.

MARCH:

Tee and I took some walks on and around our land. We found an interesting animal track.



Once again Teepa was wiped from the strenuous activity. Hey, it's tough being a senior citizen! :P


Okay, I think we're all caught up. I doubt I'll be blogging much this summer. I do have a trip planned to the north shore this summer though and I'll be sure to bring my camera!

Spring Mint Cupcakes

Spring is just around the corner!


I bought this vase at a thrift store for $0.45 and the flowers at the dollar store. Thrifty can be pretty!

Now for my latest pastry creation... I call them Spring Mint cupcakes. I'm super excited right now, partly because I had so much fun making them tonight (Thursday night) and partly because I just had to sample the goodies as I went along and now I'm all hopped up on sugar. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! Right, okay then, let's see some sweet pics!





This is a recipe I partly came up with myself and this is the first time I have ever made frosting from scratch! It's devil's food chocolate cupcakes (from a mix) with a butter cream frosting that has just a hint of peppermint. I sprinkled crushed pastel-colored dinner mints on top after the photos were taken.







I've never done this kind of baking before, it's a ton of work and I had to improvise a lot. For example, I had no food coloring so I brought a little bit of milk to a boil in the microwave and then added pink sugar crystal sprinkles. The sprinkles turned the milk pink, then I added it to the white frosting and voila! I did the same for the green frosting. I'm so proud of myself right now for figuring all this stuff out. This is the first time I ever used a pastry bag with tips so I was playing around and testing out the variety of tips. (I used the frosting in a can before) I've never been much of an artist so the flowers look pretty lame but this isn't bad at all for my first try! And they taste so nummy. My guinea pig er... I mean Grandma thinks the frosting is out of this world. Seriously, she is intensely coveting the leftover frosting and has ordered me not to throw it out, lol.

Valentine Goodies

I baked some treats for family and co-workers. People seem to like the stuff I make so this summer I hope to have some bake sales and make a little cash, we'll see how it goes...

Arizona Road Trip, October 2009

Well I'm finally getting around to posting the pics from my AZ trip last fall. In my defense, I had over 500 photos to sort through! It's a shame it took this long though because now some of the details of the trip are fuzzy. I passed through so many states within a 12 day period that they all seem to blur together and I'm not sure where some of the shots were taken.

On a side note: I just noticed that I have 14,318 photos in my Flickr account. Sweet Holy Moses that's a lot! And I still have thousands on my external hard drive that haven't been uploaded yet. Yikes.

Back story:
I was hired to help a quadriplegic man confined to a wheelchair and his two young children relocate from Minneapolis to Phoenix. For the purposes of this post and out of respect for his anonymity, I'll simply refer to him as "the jackass". ('cause I'm a considerate person like that). I functioned as his PCA (personal care attendant), nanny, as well as packer/mover. My PCA duties included manual transfers, toileting, bathing, dressing, range-of-motion exercises, and a trillion other misc. tasks.

The whole thing was pretty much a nightmare and I wasn't compensated nearly enough for the hard work and endless hours I put in. Hindsight is 20/20, now I know I NEVER should have done it - it was just exhausting and maddening. He didn't appreciate or reward my efforts or even treat me well - in fact he was downright insulting and verbally abusive to me and his kids. I think I did it for the following reasons: I love road-trip adventures, I needed the cash, I felt bad for the kids, and deep down I thought he was a good person who was just dealt a bad hand in life. I believed that in the end he would do right by me. I was wrong. And quite gullible. Now on with the rest of the story and pictures! (because you know no matter how crappy I felt, I would capitalize on this opportunity to see new places and snap a gazillion pics!)

MN to AZ
We drove straight down through Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and across New Mexico. I drove my own car and followed him and the kids. We did it over 2 days, 1 night so we pretty much drove non-stop except for the hotel stay. Now I'll backtrack and say I had been working like a dog up until we left, learning how to do the manual lifts required to transfer jackass in and out of the wheelchair, packing all of his crap and loading it into his van and my car, getting his kids off the bus and feeding them, etc. He gave me one day off, so I worked 6 out of 7 days before we left for AZ. As a reward he had promised me that at the end of the first day of driving I could separate from them and take some time off for sightseeing or do whatever I wanted and meet them in Phoenix a few days later. I really needed the break and was extremely excited for this opportunity - I had a map, a stack of tourist brochures, and a plan for exactly where I was going to take my trusty camera. But unfortunately the jackass failed to clear it in advance with the kids' mom, the only person in Phoenix who could fill in for me, so at the very last minute he called and said I needed to meet them at the hotel in Oklahoma and finish the trip with them. I was beyond furious but way too exhausted to do anything about it.

So after driving from MN to OK in one day, I still had work to do once I got to the hotel that night. They had already started eating when I arrived and didn't order me anything, so for dinner I just ate the side salad that came with Brittany's entree. Then I had to watch the kids while they swam in the pool (I wasn't allowed to soak my tired muscles in the hot tub because jackass wanted me by the side of the pool while they swam) then I had to put his highness the jackass to bed, which involved a manual transfer in a very narrow space (Handicap accessible room my ass! Also, the drain in the bathroom floor didn't work because the floor just wasn't built at an angle that allowed it to drain, so after everyone had showered the carpet was flooded. We called it Lake Oklahoma. Thanks a lot Holiday Inn!). Anyway, after I was done with all of my work (11pm or so) I was told I could finally go use the hot tub. Instead I promptly passed out on the bed beside Brit. Go figure. (But it's not like I ever had the time or energy to shave my legs anyway)

The next evening we arrived at his grandmother Carol's house in Phoenix (they got there hours ahead of me because the jackass drove like a maniac). When I finally got there I walked right inside the house like I'd been there 1,000 times, ignored the dog growling protectively at me, laid down on the couch and passed out. I mean passed out like a drunken frat boy after an all-night kegger. Dead to the world. I didn't know who would put jackass and the kids to bed and I didn't care. I needed sleep and rest, period.

I was able to take a grand total of 1 pictures on the way down:

Ta-da. This was taken in OK after I got the bad news that I wouldn't be able to take any time off. I seriously considered turning around at this point but drove to the hotel anyway *slaps forehead*

So after a week in AZ, working at least 12 hours a day doing the following and then some: daily care for the jackass, cleaning the floor after he spilled his piss bottle (He did it frequently and I swear he did it on purpose), unpacking his crap, setting up his computers, cleaning the house for his grandmother, grocery shopping, cooking meals, 2-3 loads of laundry a day, watching the kids and keeping them entertained during the day with swimming, mini-golf, etc. - I was more than ready to get the hell out of there. I should mention that at night I slept on a couch that had seen better days while the kids slept in sleeping bags on the floor next to me. It had been about 10 days since I'd had a day off or any time to myself whatsoever, and every inch of my body ached. If it weren't for those kids I never would have put up with it.

Me, Tyler, Brittany

See, they're pretty cute huh? And pretty well behaved too all things considered. (Stop looking up my nose, you're supposed to be looking at them, geesh)

I'm embarrassed to admit this next part. When it came time to fill out my time card the jackass ended up paying me an average of 7.75 hours/day, $11/hr. He did not, I repeat, he did not compensate me for gas or any of my travel expenses. (unless you count the side salad he fed me at the hotel.) How dumb do I feel for not getting an agreement in writing ahead of time? Extremely dumb. Lesson learned. He expected me to hang around for a few more weeks until he could line up a local PCA but that wasn't going to happen. I got up the next day, got his ass out of bed and showered him, then I simply got in my car and took off, never looking back. (I'm pretty good at that.) At least I didn't leave him in bed, that would have been too mean. The grandmother, Carol, adored me and cried when I left. The children were silent and morose but not at all surprised. I barely said good-bye because it was too difficult. I didn't even tell jackass I was leaving because I didn't see the point, and besides I didn't want to lose my temper and go off on him in front of the kids. He sent me a few panicked and angry text messages and that's the last I ever heard from him. Those children are precious, I felt bad leaving them and missed them a lot. I feel sorry for them and hope everything turns out okay for them. But I suppose they're not the first kids in history to have a jackass for a dad. They'll probably turn out just fine.

Here are some more pictures I took during the 7 days I was in Phoenix. The next couple were taken while I took the kids on a walk down to the store.





Grandma Carol's house:





She had this great little patio with a grapefruit tree growing in it. The kids would cut open a grapefruit and the whole patio smelled wonderful.







This is Beefy. She's strong as a bull but sweet as a newborn kitten.

Awwww.

Mini-golfing in the evening:















AZ to MN
After everything I had been through I felt RUN DOWN. I was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted and drained. So I decided to reward myself with some sightseeing on the way back to Minnesota. Now, with the wind in my hair and the jackass still choking on my dust, is when things really started to get fun. The only problem is my memory of the trip back is a little fuzzy, funny considering the trauma of everything leading up to it is crystal clear. I think I went through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota. But I'll just let the pictures do the talking. And there are A LOT so warm up your scrolling finger. Let's go!

First stop: Petrified Forest National Park & The Painted Desert. Very cool. Unfortunately it was getting late and there wasn't a lot of light left for pictures once I got to the coolest parts. Oh well.







Self Portrait:

(Hint: the phallic shaped shadow on the ground is me. Say that three times fast.)









Day Two:

Northern New Mexico and Colorado











Taken on the road leading to the Great Sand Dunes:








Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

















I wouldn't mind living out in this country.










My trusty Focus bathed in the cherry blossom light of the setting sun... or something poetic.




Day Three:

Eastern Wyoming or Western South Dakota




Just outside Chamberlain, SD:








Here comes the rain, doot 'n doo doo


That's all she wrote. My adventures will be pretty local for the next year or so, but I plan to take the opportunity while I'm here to explore the heck out of Minnesota so have no fear, I shall post many more photos. Ta for now.