And so we ran

Tonight was the Harvest Party at church. We had darts, ring toss, cupcake decorating, pillow case races, and yours truly on the mummy wrap as well as plenty of other activities. And food, we can't forget the food. Becky went out and bought me a box of cheap toilet paper from the dollar store and everyone had a great time. Of course, we didn't wind up using all of the toilet paper, and I had bought some extra stuff so I didn't need it. I offered it to Bry, but he didn't really need it either as he had just purchased 24 rolls himself, and it can take even two bachelors a while to get through that much. I was thinking about just donating it to the church, but nobody seemed really taken with the idea, seeing as it wasn't the nicest stuff available (read: it tore easily and we would probably go through a roll a service per stall).

And then Bryan had The Idea.

For those of you who don't know, we recently got a new pastor who happened to grow up in Central Point. We usually hassle our new pastors somehow, but Bro. Bill is family. So New Pastor + Overabundance of Toilet Paper = Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight. There were six of us all told, Bryan, myself, Zach, Mandy, Mark and Troy. We drove over and began our work, which I must say was rather artistic. We avoided the vehicles because we figured that anyone who just moved up from Richmond, California, would have an alarm. We were right. I spelled out a very nice WELCOME on the lawn, we garnished all of the bushes, we have pictures, we were putting on the final touches and.... well, stories begin to vary at this point. Mark heard a click that wasn't made by us and started booking, Zach stood staring at the door as it opened until a voice said "there's a 64 pound...." and felt the need to move along. I just saw people moving quickly away from the house.

And so we ran.

We were very impressive, making it to the cars and up the street in excellent time. As I whipped past the other car I looked in the back window and saw four silhouettes. Four. I called Bryan and my phone immediately died, thanks to three solid years of abuse. Fortunately, he stopped at the end of the street and I pulled up alongside him.

"Do you have Troy?"

*quick head count* "I guess not!"

Yes, loyal readers, our numbers were short by one. And so we were now obligated to return to the scene of our crime to retrieve our fallen comrade. After all, we could leave no man behind, even if it were in the middle of a nice neighborhood in a relatively smallish town. I mean, it's cold this time of year and he would have had to walk a ways to get home. Even then, we probably could have gotten away with it, except for one simple fact. As the rest of us ran for the cars, Troy ran in the opposite direction and the pastor's wife saw him. The pastor found him pressed up against the side of the building, probably wondering how he was going to break it to Uncle Terry that he was being removed from the choir. Fortunately for him, the 64 pound dog that had moved Zach along was actually quite friendly. We had thought that since there's some commuting going on that it wouldn't be here on weekends, but apparently we were wrong and her growling had awakened Bro. Bill's daughter. And Troy, instead of running to the cars, had run the other way. *gurgle of laughter* I love my cousin Troy.

By the way, it is 1:20 a.m. Do you know where the other five are?

*choirs of angels singing*

The library has re-opened!!! Hallelujah!! I will get something done while sitting around in my happy, peaceful solitude, rather than go stark, raving mad! For those of you who didn't know, Jackson and Josephine Counties both shut down their libraries in what I have seen noted as the largest closure of its kind in the history of the nation. Lovely, eh? This explains the slow, quiet growth of my personal library. There are various reasons for the closures and I don't wish to go into them right now, but suffice it to say that money was at the bottom of it all. Be that as it may, at 12:30 today, a half hour after the doors opened, I was there, along with quite a few other people. As one of the librarians commented, several of us looked as though we were stocking up in case it closed again. One of the greatest things was that all of the books were on the shelf, meaning that I could take accurate stock of what my library actually has! *happy dance in my chair* I'm so excited!! And I can listen to different music again.... *moment of giddy silence* Oh, I can't tell you what this means to me. *happy sigh*

This re-opening combined with absolutely gorgeous weather is making this quite a magnificent autumn, despite the occasional twinge of melancholy. It's been in the low 70s here for the last couple days and the trees are magnificent. I get to drive through one of the orchards on my way to work and the leaves are all changing at different times, with one block bright red right now and another still green while yet another is starting to yellow. My houseplants are flourishing-ish, although the tree-like plant needs another dish soap bath to rid it of aphids and the sweet woodruff isn't taking to indoor life as well as I had hoped and I'm not sure why. But otherwise we are all thriving, and I have discovered that I am the proud owner of an Angel Wing Fibrous Begonia.

I yearn, I pine...

....for my USB cable that goes to my camera. My darling Nicio has (we hope) discovered it among the trappings of her end of the move, and I eagerly await its arrival here. I have some great pics of Lithia to post (possibly to Bebo) and I'm thinking that I would like to share some pictures of my NINE (9) houseplants. We had a new addition on Saturday with a very pretty little diefenbacchia (completely not spelled right) and so at lunch on Sunday, while the other people were sharing stories about their dogs savaging their plants, I shared my difficulties with the various petty jealousies and rivalries that spring up between my flamboyant varieties of foliage. No one believed me that the the Thompson's Flowering Maple had attacked the Peace Lily; I was quite hurt.

Hummus is pureed garbanzo beans with garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and whatever else, for those who have asked. Unfortunately, my hummus still isn't done, as I nearly burned out my blender trying to get the stupid stuff to because a smooth dip to complement any pita bread I might have made. Bry's mom has said I can use her food processor, but I have to get to her house with the garbanzo gook to begin with! Some day, my fine legumey friend, we shall meet again, and this time I will be the master.

Garbanzo Beans

I feel you should all know, one cup of garbanzo beans is more than enough for a batch of hummus. Two cups - more than more than enough. In my never ending quest to have food in the house (I miss my Nan!!!) I am endeavoring to get something made that I can get together quickly. I have discovered a new breakfast gruel (it's very nice, really, and I'm quite pleased) and I'm hoping to get a decent batch of pita bread and hummus made for lunches and stuff. In that vein, I soaked some beans in preparation of cooking and hummusing, tragically overlooking the fact that all of my pan lids are in the storage shed. Hello, brain? Anyone there? So, yes, I'm trying to figure out if I can circumnavigate this obstacle somehow or if I should just bite the bullet and go to the storage unit. I think I will circumnavigate. It is the American way. By the way, the weather was perfect today and yesterday. *happy sigh* I love the autumn.

I love new computer programs sometimes

I just have to say that I am learning all about the near-complete integration of parts that is taking place in the computer world. For example, using my accounting software, I can download all of my financial info from my bank accounts and then turn around and pay nearly all of my bills. While I'm doing that, I may be struck by an idea that I want to explore a little more fully later on, so I pull up a Microsoft OneNote Sidenote and type it out real quick, and then go back to that thought when I'm done with the financial stuff. If I register my blog within my OneNote, I can decide to blog on that topic and have my Word program automatically sign me in to post!!! And then, if I've registered my Live Messenger id with Office/XP/iTunes, I can navigate a variety of different sites with my Microsoft Passport clearing my way!! Soon I won't even need to leave the house!!!! So, yeah, what started this was a quick tour through OneNote. I would just like to say that this should have been invented EIGHT YEARS AGO while I was STILL IN COLLEGE. Along with all these lovely student deals on laptops that I'm just now hearing about. I can only imagine how much more organized I could have been. As it was, I actually did some of the stuff in OneNote on my own, like, keeping a file open so I could jot down ideas quickly that came to mind while I was in the middle of a paragraph.

Okay, enough geeking out for now. I'll leave Quicken and iTunes for next time or something. I would now like to say that I love autumn. It is really the most fabulous season until winter, maybe even spring. It gets all moody around here, punctuated with days of brilliant sun and biting cold. The trees are just fabulous. We have the ones who kind of sneak from dark green into this incredibly deep purple, and at first you can't even tell if they're actually changing or if it's perhaps just a trick of shadow and light. And then there are the trees that look like someone poured gasoline down one side and lit them on fire, and the other side is still green while the one is crimson and gold. *sighs* And I get to wear my scarves and gloves, and have tea and start Fellowship of the Ring. What more could a girl want?

On My Own

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, to my first post from my new apartment and also (perhaps most excitingly) from my new computer!!!! Yes, I finally have my very own computer, loyal readers. But first, an update, since you haven't heard from me since July... unless you went out to coffee with me yesterday or something. Anyway, the amazing Brinicio and I have vacated our wonderful house as of September 31st and she has returned to the Valley of the Willamette while I have transferred not all of my belongings into a beautiful little studio apartment above some friends' garage which sits on a hill overlooking the Valley of the Rogue. Among the items that actually made it here rather than being consigned to a storage unit (another first for me, personal storage unit renting), are three almost completely full bookshelves, six plants, and a new fuzzy, purple baby plant from the home of Troy and Bryan, may they not kill one another for another day. This is my first time completely On My Own, and while I still haven't adjusted completely (I'm still waking up in the middle of the night for no good reason), I am on the second floor and there's only one door, so my paranoid imaginings of people coming through the window are now easily pushed aside.

On to the computer. As some of you may or may not know, when I left the employ of the The Crazed Screaming Boss, she refused to take back the computer she had "gifted" me with. When I later learned that she was informing people that she had bought me off with it, you can imagine that I reacted negatively ("She WHAT?!!!? I will never use that computer!!!!"). That reaction lasted a little over a year, until Bri moved out, taking my last connection with the outside world with her. I spoke with my wonderful, brilliant, generous and kind cousin Bryan, who wound up tricking out my cyber-ride, and I now have a pretty lean, mean surfing machine with two (two) hard drives, a wireless modem, a CD-Rom drive and a DVD drive, both of which are CD-RWs, and various other little things. A huge round of applause and thanks to Bry for enduring allergy attacks to clean out the accumulated ick (apparently no one had ever thought to clean this unit) figuring out all the glitches, putting in all the new bits and who knows what else!!

Final big change: I'm back at the lumber yard. Business is slowing down everywhere and I knew there was no way my previous employer could keep me going at 40 hours a week much longer, and there was no way they would be able to give me a pay raise to compensate at all. Add to this the email incident with my boss (I never did tell her that I was this close to walking out) and the nightmare that was the County Fair last year, and I decided that Becky's offer of a $2 pay increase and Campmeeting was probably worth the obnoxious men. Although the hours are probably going to drop this winter at the lumber yard as well, at least I know that my managers will be much more willing to work on a flexible schedule with me if I decide to pick up part-time seasonal work elsewhere (Bear Creek). So, yeah, while there are some things I miss about the old office (some of the co-workers, the lack of cursing, getting to dress up a little), I think I've made the right decision. Anyway, I just wanted to catch everyone up on what's going on, and hopefully my next post will be shorter. And it will definitely involve the weather. Just a warning.