[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Taylani]

I have debated to add something or not in regards to your last addition. I was struggling with whether or not it would come across as mean or if it would come across as trying to get people to understand the life of a stay at home mom. Because trust me, I get the broad range of people. Some act as if stay at home mom's are just a step below sainthood, other's act as if we have been given a free ticket to an easy life.

hmm I feel myself getting in sermon mode so going to make a note to update my scrapbook rather then spam yours with the sermon.

If Stay at home mom's seem to have more time then those who are not stay at home mom's it is because we do. Wanna know why we do? Because we multi-task with the best of them. Right now I have a load of laundry in my lap that I am folding while composing this message. Do I have more time, yes but probably because my work allows me close access to the computer. It isn't just because I am a stay at home mom that I was leading the fray (I sincerely believe that I have laid back on writing enough to where someone else has closed the gap) but because I have an over-hyper brain that can not focus on one thing at a time. Just can't do it. So I focus on what I am doing while at the same time as composing posts. I can type fast so I am able to throw out the post once I get it written in my head within minutes.

I am not defending myself. I am used to people assuming such things about me particularly in the Online community. I am defending, however, others who chose to take the route of stay at home mom. Now I will be writing a lengthy sermon-y post in my own scrapbook to enlighten the world about just what it entails to be a stay at home mom. Just a ssoon as I go vacuum and pick the kiddos up from christmas play practice.

[Celeste Arumen]

I can't agree with you more. Today, I have literally no enthusiasm for writing. I just don't do ultimatums. It's one thing if you're competing for yourself and another thing entirely when you've suddenly been locked into a grudge match with another person on the basis of pride.

I'm taking a day to get my head together and instead of writing my ass off, I'm playing the Sims 3. I'll make a Jen and Kate family and we'll be evil masterminds together.

[Ball]

Honestly I never would've expected Nano to get this competitive. Is it a competition? Sure, but as you stated we are a community and as a community we shouldn't take this sorta thing so seriously. But there are some people that do and when they do they take things too far. One has apoligized in their scrap, as you stated, and that is a great thing to admit that they did wrong. Kudos for them.


As for teh Stay at home mom thing... Uhh... Whoa, people really are saying that stuff? Damn. I write when I have free time (which is very little currently I might add) but I do it to unwind from everything I have going on with my life, in fact that is why I stuck with Mizahar instead of retiring everything I had going on here back in February. Stay at home moms are amazing people ^.^ There are a few bad eggs, but not many (Yes I know a few that do take advantage of being a stay at home mom in the wrong direction... Those are bad peoples)...

But I rant in yer scrap, sorry Jen. I hope yer festivities went well for the New Year!

Happy Samhain and I hope yer Yule tidings are just as epic. ^.^

[Gossamer]

. Car Troubles I haven't been doing much with Mizahar today or last night or even yesterday because I've been working on getting my car fixed. It's always amazing when you pay a car off and have no more car payments how many things start going wrong with it. In this case I thought it was the starter, but it turned out to be a really bad issue with the battery being internally busted and chambers leaking in to one another. I swore it was the starter but popular trucker opinion gave all sorts of feedback until an actual shop said... "Nope, its the battery." So while my car was in pieces today - you would not believe where the battery is on this thing and how much deconstruction you have to do to get to it - I grabbed the old battery, took it back to where I bought it. Now, being relatively intelligent when i had battery troubles last year I went to a high end retailer with a really good battery selection and killer warranty and bought a top end battery so I would never ever ever have to change out this battery again. I'm talking 10 year life of the car warranty. This was an expensive bugger too. But let me tell you, to get to the battery, you have to jack the car up, remove the left front tire, tear out all the ferings that house the tire, remove three cross members, some wiring harness, then pull the battery. It's insane. So I thought I was smart paying that kind of money for a battery... we're taking a couple of hundred. It ran great for a while, then this issue started. I had it towed into the shop, and they were like holy hell girl who designed this car? So before they tore it apart, put it back together, and tore it apart again, I ran to the shop, got the bad battery, picked up a new battery, took it back to the shop, and now I'm at home waiting for their call that they got the monster installed. Hopefully, fingers crossed, we'll never have to do this again. We also discovered one of the back tires were shredded. Nice. So I have to get that fixed tomorrow on thanksgiving. I'm not sure I want to brave the Walmart tire center on Thanksgiving... but I might have too. Yesterday was even crazier. I got almost nothing done then either. I called the tow truck driver to take the car into the shop - ask me how much I love AAA and I'll rant for hours about how amazing this service is - and he showed up literally covered in blood. Yup. And he was like twenty two, pot bellied, wearing a hunters orange sweat shirt that was more blood than orange, had a attitude to match. He amused the hell out of me and had me laughing so hard I could barely contain myself. I'm sure most of you would be horrified, but this is Washington, and not that uncommon. So he starts telling me he got the AAA (that's triple AAA a car service in the US for you out of towners) call that someone needed a tow and he had to drive to his buddies house to get the truck since his buddy took it home the night before. They work together evidently - or I assume they did. His buddy's field was full of bull elk, probably a big bachelor herd, so the dude said... "Hell with the tow, I'm killing my elk and tagging it..." So he grabs his rifle out of his pickup, drops a bull or two... (he tried to tell me it was five but I kinda doubted it).. and then hops in the tow truck to get me after running out into the field and bleeding the animals. Then he shows up at my house all ... "I just dropped half a dozen elk... you me.. we need to get this done so I can go out and get my meat." And hes racing around racking up my car and speeds off with it like hes driving in the Indianapolis 500. And I kept thinking... you know, this would make a great scene in a movie. So when I went to get all that stuff done for my mechanic today, there's an elk hanging just behind his shop. Turns out the guy that dropped it and had the tow truck sold it to him. And they were dressing it out, which was why his shop was so backed up today with cars needing fixes. I love where I live. I seriously do. Only in Washington.... But anyhow, its been a busy day. Luckily the high end company replaced the battery for almost free (prorated of course) ... its all good to go, and the bill wasn't steep at the shop saving me hundreds because a new starter is crazy expensive in that make and model. And I get to be at Walmart on Thanksgiving. And I got to meet The Elk Killer guy... and Paul the guy who owned the shop in Winlock... and it was just overall a really good day. And yet I got nothing done. I'll make up for it tomorrow. .

[Taylani]

... I feel guilty that I giggled through that whole story. It isn't just Washington...in the small town in Kentucky where I grew up I once was picked up by the tow truck driver with a deer in the back of the truck. He was more worried about our car messing up his trophy antlers then about the antlers scratching our car...

So even though I am giggling....hard...I feel your pain.

[Gossamer]

*lol* I'm pretty sure that tow truck and its wench was how the elk got over to the mechanics and was hanging there nicely so fast.

[Elysium]

No way... The tow dude sold your mechanic one of those Elk?

dies laughing

[Abstract]

O.o

Wow... that... the Elk... what...

See, this never happens in my area... the wildest thing is the occasional fox... I've seen people excited to see a squirrel >.>

I'm sure if you head an hour or two north though, you'll find something like that... Practically most of Canada, really.... XD

[Taylani]

hmm we need to commence spamming Abstract's Scrapbook with pictures of local wildlife so that she is not deprived.

[Gossamer]

. Feeling Spunky And its a day off work too. Ever have one of those days where you think to yourself... "I have shit to do?" Yup, this was one of those days for me. So yesterday I had car adventures and got my ride all fixed up in a sort of part 1 scenario. Today was a 'make it to Walmart when they first open and get new tires' scenario of the part 2. I wanted to be early because I didn't want to spend the whole day at Walmart messing around. They told me that I should come back, once I actually got there, because black friday prices put their tires at half price. Well, they had a chart on the wall of all the tires they had in stock and guess what bitches? I bought the only two high end goodyears that they had on hand that fit my car... so good luck fighting the deadly crowd after 6pm to find out they are out of stock. The good news is walmart prices are so cheap on tires that they are roughly already half price from the same exact tire at the goodyear dealership. WTF's up with that anyhow? Meanwhile, Gillar was busy raiding the rest of the store for some groceries for today and some deals. Yea, he scalped all the shit that was on sale for the black friday event starting at 6pm that he wanted and since we rang up our purchases at the tire center, no one said jack or squat about us being there pre-shopping and getting black friday prices at 8am. So... we have enough batteries to last the apocalypse and well into a new rougher age as well as some other fun stuff. I also picked up a killer bottle of new polish that I'd been sort of lemming'n on since I saw it in Scrangie's Blog around Nov 18th. Revlon has these new little colors out that are scented and just absolutely gorgeous. I'd already picked up Wintermint (which is a dupe for Deborah Lippman Mermaid's Dream - impossible to find on ebay $13-$50 bucks) and Sea Surf, an incredible green sparkle and a blue frost... but I wanted Autumn Spice and no one had it. But today Walmart did, and I was like OMG so cool and picked up one. Now, you might not have heard the term lemming in the bloggers world of nail polishes and swatches, but its a tongue in cheekk term for a polish that you think is so gorgeous that you'd jump off a cliff like a lemming to get a bottle. I have a very short list of lemmings in the polish world, but they include Opi's Man Of La Mancha, Opi's The Show Must Go On, Essie's Shine of the Times, Nuf's #51, and I think this autumn spice was turning into a lemming for me too because I just couldn't find it. Now though... now.... it is mine. MINE I SAY! Yes I'm doing that voice... Anyhow this is a deep warm rich brown with tiny glass mica flakes in it that shimmer in gold and bronzes and browns. Someone called it autumn in a bottle and I believe it. It even smells like cinnamon spice on your fingers and the scent lasts and lasts and lasts. Here's a swatch from scrangie : So is anyone else doing any Black Friday shopping? I checked all my favorite blogs plus blackfriday.com to see what was happening, and didn't really find much of anything going on. I did hit up Zoya's site because if you love their polishes, they're giving away twelve free in a gift pack (along with free full sized top coats, free gift pack of nail conditioners, polish remover - some of this you don't realize until your cart is full) that retails for about $112 worth of free stuff for a min order. I went crazy because they emailed me the coupon last night, with the sale not starting until 6pm EST today, and loaded up my shopping cart on the site with the polishes I wanted... all in all if you spend the min amount they ask, get all the free stuff.. .and not count the free stuff itself besides the polishes, you get their polishes, which retail between 8-10 bucks a bottle for 3.43 a bottle. And believe me Zoya is incredible. Their Tinsley and Logan colors are probably lemmings for me too. Logan is discontinued though being only a special holiday color a while back. I love love love Tinsley and probably wear it once a week. Logan I wear probably a couple of times a month. Sooo pretty. Anyhow, they let you buy gift packs which have gift boxes all set up... you can buy pre-made ones or load your own choices of polishes in. If you like their more expensive polishes like the Pixie Dust ones, you can load them in the gift boxes and get them for a few dollars off. Its a really really good deal, even if it sounds expensive up front. It's worth it. So.. anyhow... I'm done gushing/whining about Black Friday and my car and the whole lot of it. I'm going to instead baton down and write some NaNo stuff because I still haven't hit my word goal of beating my count from last year. I have nothing to do for the next two days but write. So I'm going to take advantage of that and do so. Are you guys meeting your goals? Have you considered Black Friday or are you hiding out like me and refusing to leave the house even for good booze? I'd love it if you scrapped in your scraps about your experiences... good, bad, indifferent or even about NaNo. .