To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Sleep is my favorite hobby.  Wait, is sleep a hobby?  Sleep is my favorite pasttime?  Activity?  (wait, activity?!?  really?  I don't think so) Whatever, this girl likes to sleep. 

Anyway, I've developed a bit of a problem since getting married.  Here is my favorite sleeping position:

Yes I do sleep under bedding, but that makes it kinda hard to see what's going on in the picture.  Don't argue with my art.  As for what's going on in that picture, I'm taking up an entire queen size bed because I sprawl when I'm sleeping.  It's all arms and legs everywhere!  And my grandpa (not The Corporal, the other grandpa) used to call me a windmill in a tornado.  Apparently I didn't just sprawl and stay there, I liked to flail those arms and legs around a lot. 

Now that we have a queen size in the guest room (used to be a double bed until it broke... don't ask) my second favorite sleeping position is:

it sucked when it was a double bed, because that really is pretty much the proper scale on size of Muppy and how much bed he takes up.  I apologize for the crappy drawing, I haven't mastered the fine art of Muppy drawings yet.  He kinda looks like a weird cow/horse hybrid.  In real life, he's a weird dog/cat hybrid, but that's a story for another day. 

Now for my least favorite sleeping position:

Now part of me wants to blame Hitter's stupid sleep number bed.  I have hated that thing since the day he bought it (also a very long story for another day... the short version is "whatever Hitter wants, Hitter gets, whether I agree with it or not) And another part of me wants to blame the fact that he refuses to let me have a TV in the bedroom... he claims he can't get to sleep if there's a TV on, even though when we're in a hotel he turns the TV on and sets the sleep timer and falls right to sleep, and almost every time we sit on the couch and watch TV together he falls asleep, but NOOOOOOOOO he can't sleep with a TV in the bedroom *eye roll*  (the reason I want a TV is because I have trouble turning my brain off at night, if I just lay in the dark and quiet I start thinking... and thinking... and everything bad or scary or evil or whatever starts spinning around in my head and then I really can't sleep, so I turn on something mind-numbing... TV when I'm sleeping alone, or I stuff the ear buds of my ipod in when I have to sleep with Hitter) (longest string of words in parentheses in history) 

Anyway, part of me also suspects that it's just the presence of him in bed with me.  Sometimes I'll wake up with his elbow in my back, a lot of times I wake up with no covers, he snores and Muppy doesn't...

I can't sprawl...

Oh, and back to the stupid sleep number bed, unless we have the stupid thing at pretty similar numbers, it's like we're playing a sleepy game of king of the mountain.  One of us is way up high, and the other is down in a valley.  Sleep number is especially stupid in queen size because if you like the bed firm, then you're essentially sleeping on top of one of those stability balls, and if you like the bed soft then you're in a hammock.  Because your air pocket for your side of the bed is literally smaller than a twin bed. 

The biggest problem is I can't just go sleep in the guest room, because oh heaven forbid!  If we don't sleep in the same bed every night, then we're going to get divorced!  Oh my! 

*eye roll*

Never mind the fact that a sleep-deprived-me is a lot more likely to want to leave him than a got-a-good-night-sleep-in-the-other-room-me. 

Men are stupid.  So are queen sized sleep number beds. 

A Photographer's Guide to Photography

Pileated Woodpecker:

(he's the one on top)



Some of you may recognize that tree and birdfeeder from the raccoon incident.  Slight change of season.  Anyway, pileated woodpeckers are becoming a bit of an obsession of mine.  We have a mated pair that lives in our area and come to Hitter's suet feeder pretty regularly.  I think they're living in the dead tree that will be featured on the 2011-Year-In-Pictures once everything is green again.  I mean seriously, all trees look dead in the winter. 

I had out both cameras, both lenses for the interchangeable-lens camera, the tripod, and my insanity.  I am on a mission to get a lot of really good pictures of these birds. 

Here's the fun I put myself through a few days ago trying to get a good picture of him.  (No, I'm not being random calling him a "him", it really is the male this time.  I can tell them apart.  And I know what their call sounds like.  I need help.  Hitter turned me into a birdwatcher *twitch*)  The background information you need to know is I'm pretty much a lazy-butt and I love to be on my couch.

Problem #1: I can't just take a picture from the couch because our windows have screens on the bottom half so I'd end up with stupid pictures.

Problem #2: I can't take pictures through the top of the living room window (screen-less) because the outside light shines through the glass inset in our front door and reflects off the windows.  Then I end up with these weird ghosty things. 

Failed solution to problem #2:

I put a blanket over the door.  Still didn't work so much.  Moving on!

Problem #3: The birds can see through the living room window so if I try to get up to go to a different window, they fly away.  Pileated woodpeckers are very skittish. 

Successful remedy to problem #3: Me falling off the couch EVER-SO-GRACEFULLY (yeah right) so the birds can't see me, then I crawl across the floor until I am out of their line of sight.

Problem #4: The only other windows with a view of the bird feeder are the French doors.  These doors have after-market enclosed blinds on them.  I love them, love love love, except in the winter they fog up something terrible. 

Solution to Problem #4, Part 1: I took off the enclosed-blind thing (thank goodness they're removable) 

Then I set up the tripod pointing out the window, had the zoom lens on the camera and the other one nearby, looked out the window and.....

Problem #5:

NO BIRDS!

They'd all flown away.  It was just as well, the window wasn't de-fogged yet anyway. 

Solution to Problem #4, Part 2: Did I mention the window still wasn't de-fogged? 

I got Hitter's hair dryer (yes he has a hair dryer, no I do not.  that's probably also a post for another day) and blow-dried the window. 

And FINALLY, I got pictures.  Oh glory did I get pictures!  Two hours later, I had a full memory card.  Oh happy day.  (have I mentioned I love digital?  seriously, I took almost 400 pictures over two days.  who the hell would do that if it was film?)  Sat down to my trusty rusty laptop to upload the pictures and pick out the good ones...... and...........

I have NO IDEA how in the hell I accidentally caused that!  I almost broke my computer smashing the cancel button as hard as I could.  I lost about half of them.  And then I almost threw my computer and the camera across the room.  I refrained, but it was a strong urge. 

Hitter gets home from work that night and is all "so what did you do today?" which is a loaded question because I'm a childless housewife.  But what could I say?  I mean I was busy all day!  It just ended up being for nothing.  How do you say "well I spent all day trying to create the ideal bird photography studio in my house because I was obsessed with getting pictures TODAY of some birds that live here and I'll see them again someday, and then I managed to accidentally delete most of the pictures.  So, yeah, umm, I didn't do anything today.  How do you feel about leftovers for supper?  Cuz I'm worn out!"

So Much For Saving The Planet

Did you know Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs (you know, those little swirly "environmentally-friendly" lightbulbs) are full of mercury?  Yep, I did.  Which is all fine well and dandy as long as you take your burned out bulbs for recycling and you don't break one.

Wait, what?

Crap. 

Last night I was really tired but I was really grumpy and sick of sleeping in the same bed with Hitter (long story...) and I was full of beer and margaritas (who thought mixing the two would be a good idea?!?) so I sent Hitter to his bed and I headed to the guest room to read for a while (aka, stay awake until he falls asleep, and then I sleep in the guest room and am happy)

And then I tipped over my reading lamp. 

And then my CFL broke.

Have I ever mentioned that any small tiny little bit of logic I have during daytime hours turns into a mass of paranoia in the middle of the night?  It's really not pretty.  That's why I always go to bed with my ipod ear buds in, but that isn't the point of this story. 

Well considering this was midnight, so my freak-out-brain was in full freak-out mode, I decided this one broken bulb meant that I was going to die of mercury poisoning.  I searched the internet, which is also a bad thing for a paranoid hypochondriac at midnight.  Remember the triple-cancer-plus-AIDS episode?  Right.  I really shouldn't be allowed to be on the computer between sundown and sunrise.  There are conflicting reports left and right on the interwebs... and not even tree-hugging-hippie pages vs I-just-can't-be-bothered-to-care websites.  I mean one state's EPA vs another state's EPA.  Some were all "well, yes mercury is bad but as long as you ventilate the room for 15 minutes and wear gloves while you remove all the broken glass, using sticky tape to pick up any remaining shards, you'll be okay" but others were "OMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!  You need to remove the carpet, you need to get a HEPA mask, you need to not use that room for like months, maybe even call in an environmental disaster clean up crew to your house" *eye roll* 

Did I mention I get paranoid in the middle of the night?  Well I didn't tear out carpet or call the EPA disaster response crew.  But I did open the window in the bedroom all night... and it was 14 degrees out.  Somehow I think the furnace having to run extra canceled out any possible environmental benefits of using the CFL.  (I would like to point out though that I was smart enough to close the door to that room... I didn't just have random open window straight to the thermostat.  I'm only half stupid.  In fact I even closed the floor vent and taped over the cold-air-return and stuffed a blanket under the door.  I'm thorough like that)

And then I remembered that when I was a little kid, I bit the end off an old-fashioned mercury thermometer.  Yeah, in my mouth.  And then when I was a slightly older kid, I broke another thermometer in my mashed potatoes.  (I didn't want to go to school the next morning so I thought "hey I'll stick this thermometer into my steaming hot food so it'll look like I have a fever!  too bad the taters were about 3000 degrees and I exploded the thermometer)

So I think I'm either already a mad hatter, or I'm immune. 

(Did you know that the phrase "mad as a hatter" came from mercury poisoning?  no joke.  I'm a veritable fountain of useless knowledge) (also, my great-grandma was a milliner.  that might explain a lot) 

Oh, and another symptom of mercury poisoning is mood swings.  I told Hitter today on the way home from church that I've been pretty steadily pissed off for the last 3 days, so a mood swing would be a welcome change.  There's nowhere to go but up.

I don't think I'm poisoned.  I'll let you know if I start trembling violently.  My drawings will get worse.  Or better, I'm not sure.

And I'm going to stockpile old-fashioned lightbulbs.

Meppy Birthmas To Me!

Meppy Birthmas is way better than Harry Christday, no?

Last year I told all of my family and all of Hitter's family that all I wanted for my birthday and for Christmas was Kohl's gift cards (no this is not a paid advertisement)  Hitter had an old cheap stand mixer from long before we got married, and I've been getting progressively more annoyed with it as it proves time and again it just isn't up to the kind of abuse I like to throw at it.

I apparently make frosting out of concrete

I NEED a KitchenAid (also not a paid advertisement) and come hell or high water, I will get one!  I knew I couldn't just ask for one for Christmas, they're a bit much for my family's gift-giving budget.  And they're way too freaking much for Hitter's family's gift-giving budget.  But I still needed to give everyone a wish list, and I  only wanted a KitchenAid.  That's when I had the brainstorm.  

Today was the day.  I stacked up my cute little gift cards, I had Hitter's Kohl's charge card in hand (I don't have one), Kohl's is offering free shipping, and KitchenAids were on sale.  So much on sale that I splurged on the big honkin Professional one.  Okay time to do some math:

Regular price Professional KitchenAid: $500

Regular price Artisan KitchenAid: $360

(yes that's a pretty big difference, and until I saw the sale I was all prepared to just get the Artisan)

Sale price Professional KitchenAid: $399

Use of Hitter's Kohl's card = 15% off

Sale price Professional KitchenAid and 15% off: $339
(before you question my statistics, yes the Artisan was also on sale but dammit if there's anything I've learned from being a scientist it's that you can make the data prove any point you want it to!)

Professional it is!  And even though I was a bit afraid of looking like it's Christmas every day in my green kitchen with a red mixer, I had to get the red one.  I wasn't crazy about the shade of blue, don't want black, and really didn't like either of the gray-ish ones.  Plus I love red.  

It's ordered.  It should be here next week.  I am planning all sorts of things to make once it gets here.  Mmmmmmmm homemade bread!

Oh, but I had 5 gift cards and you can only use 4 at a time on Kohl's website.  So I saved one back (the smallest one) (smallest dollar amount.  they're all the same size cards) (you probably could have figured that out on your own) and since that was my first online purchase from Kohl's they emailed me a 10% off coupon on my next online order.  I will use that and the last gift card for some accessories soon.   

Then I went to the grocery store, and the little coupon machine at the register spit out a "$5 off your next visit" coupon.  I'm being rewarded for spending money.  Life is good!  Hitter should probably be afraid.  I might spend all his money if I'm going to keep being rewarded for it.  Did I mention I got a free camera too?  A free camera that's worth $500.  I am awesome.  

I think I'll go to the casino. 

Then I vacuumed the dining room table

*Disclaimer: This post is probably going to be a hot mess.  I've already forgotten some of the stories I wanted to write about, and it just happened two days ago.  And I am writing this at 4 a.m. after waking up an hour ago and not being able to get back to sleep, so I can't deal with all those nicknames.  Characters today: Mom, Dad, Bro, SIL (and possibly also niece and nephew.  haven't gotten that far yet)  And Hitter.  That one I'm pretty comfortable with.

Yesterday morning I get a text message from the Boyfriend (okay he's a character in today's tale too)
Him: what are you up to?
Me: I'm at the farm cleaning my mother's house
*long silent pause*
Me: I should explain, she's not dead or anything.  They're just on vacation and we, umm, kinda had a party at their house while they were gone.  And now I'm cleaning.  Long story.

This past weekend Hitter and I headed to my family's farm.  He had come up with a brilliant birthday present for my dad.  See, Dad has these model trains.  He has some that were his toys when he was a kid, bought another train when Bro and I were kids, and he's picked up quite a few in the last 5 years or so on ebay.  (I refuse to capitalize the b, deal with it.  even though spell check won't deal with it.  ebay has red squiggly line, eBay doesn't.  dammit!  now I capitalized the b *sigh*)  Anyway he used to get the trains out once in a while when Bro and I were kids and just run them around the floor at the bottom of the pool table, and then packed them away for a long time... until the grandkids came along.  Then he got serious, bought some plywood, made a table, bought a whole bunch more track, made a real layout with a rail yard and a mountain and some buildings and a cattle yard and a whole crapload of lights and signals and stuff (as opposed to just running one loop on the floor)

Spell check doesn't like "crapload" either.  Spell check is an asshole.  

So the top of the table looks really nice with all the fancy stuff he's bought and wired up and tra la la.  However, underneath it was pretty redneck.  He had the plywood sitting on top of an old 1960s dining room table, with one piece of 2x4 at either end to make legs.  

Yeah that's stable.  I forgot to draw the plywood sagging on either end and warping in the middle.  I'm all about encouraging my readers to use their imaginations.  You're welcome!

And his electricity!  Oh my stars!  When he was wiring all the lights and signals and stuff, he just ran all the wires to one place, wrapped the wires around each other, and stuffed them into the holes of a power strip!  Holy crap.  I'm pretty sure that's not up to code.  But it's also not the point of this post.

So Hitter's brilliant idea was to build real legs and supports for the table...  so the grandkids won't accidentally knock it over (I'm honestly surprised the air conditioner vent over the table hadn't blown it over.  or that dad's never bumped into it in a drunken stupor and ruined it all) and the plywood will quit sagging and warping.  Hitter knows how to build train tables, we have a layout too.  He gets a bunch of lumber and mostly created the legs at home, he had to wait and do the framework after we got there, and then we loaded them up and headed to the farm this past weekend.  The biggest reason we chose this weekend even though Dad's birthday isn't for a while yet is cuz of the parental unit being on vacation.  We wanted this to be a surprise.  And now my dad has nice legs!

they're even better in real life

I should have mentioned earlier, my mother is an immaculate housekeeper.  At least the parts that show.  I honestly think she vacuumed the living room carpet the very last thing before leaving home, because there were perfect sweeper lines in the carpet with nary a footprint to be found.

("nary"?)

So Bro and SIL and I were joking about how Mom is totally going to know someone was in her house.  I mean before we left, I vacuumed the carpet, mopped the linoleum, washed our sheets and towels, re-cleaned the fridge, and she's still going to be able to sense our presence.  We even brought home the trash we accumulated this weekend!  She's still gonna know.  So rather than try to hide the fact that we were there (plus, seriously, they're gonna notice the new train table legs) I left a note that was all

Dear Mom and Dad,
  We were in your house.  Please don't be mad!  We tried to leave the house as we found it.  I cleaned as well as I am capable, I hope it's enough.  I'm a pretty terrible housekeeper.  We just came here to give dad a birthday present.
Love,
Hitter, Me, and Muppy!

(Muppy is also a terrible housekeeper.  He didn't help clean at all.  In fact, he barfed on the carpet)

(do you like how I guilted them into not being mad because we had such good intentions... I mean who doesn't like a birthday present?!  I stopped short of mentioning the fact that it's my mom's fault I'm a terrible housekeeper) 

How is it I've typed a small novel and still haven't gotten to the point of the title?  And I thought this was going to be a short story.  Well as I said, the framework for the tables had to be built at Mom and Dad's.  Which led to a whole lot of sawdust going into their basement carpet and all over everywhere.  Of course I had to clean that up, it'd be pretty shitty to show up and make a whole birthday present but then leave the mess for the birthday boy to clean up.  Right?  Anyway, the afore-mentioned dining room table that had been the main support of the train table suddenly found itself free from its train prison, but covered in sawdust.  I searched my mom's house high and low for cleaning supplies, and failed miserably.  More text messages, this time between me and SIL:

Me: do you have a dustpan and broom I could borrow?  Mom's house is so clean I can't find any cleaning supplies
SIL: yeah I do, do you need it now?  I think she just vacuums everything
Me: nah, I can wait till we see each other at lunch.  and she vacuums the linoleum too?
SIL: seriously, you know her.  she's nuts.

Which led me me vacuuming the top of a dining room table.  I also vacuumed my socks, while I was wearing them.  It was a weird weekend. 

And why in the hell does vacuum have two u's?  What a stupid word.

To top off the really weird weekend, Hitter is home today.  Guh.  I wonder if I could just sleep all day.  Maybe drink heavily.

Oh and speaking of Hey Fuck Off, there were more revelations of how incredibly stupid and hypocritical my parents are.  For instance: they have a toilet that sometimes sticks in continuous flow mode... I mean wide freaking open, sounds like there's a broken water main.  And it's been like this for YEARS.  I know this because one time three years ago I went up to house-sit for them when they were on vacation and when I showed up after they'd already left, the toilet was running.  It doesn't happen all the time, but some.  Dad is too lazy to bother putting a new flapper on the toilet, but he yells at Mom for using too much water when she's washing dishes.  And he lectures Bro and me about not taking good enough care of our houses and stuff.  This is the same guy who had so much siding missing from the outside of his house that you could see the framing and some of the insulation was missing.  Plus there's that whole electricity thing I mentioned above.  And their garage door is screwed up.  There's no tension spring.  I've asked him two or three times if maybe the thing would work better if he got it fixed.  He tells me it's not broken.  I quit arguing.  Not worth it.  Have I ever told the story about the carbon monoxide leak?!?!?  Fucktards.  I told Hitter on the way home that sometimes I kinda wish I was an orphan.  Dad isn't the only idiot either, as I mentioned above, my mom is an immaculate housekeeper... in the parts that show!  Don't open a closet though...

this was supposed to be an overloaded closet exploding... but I got tired of drawing crap.  See?  I don't even like clutter in my artwork!

 

And even funnier was when Hitter was in the kitchen and busted out laughing... see, my mom is pretty short.  I mean I'm kind of on the short side of normal, and she's shorter than I am.  Dad's no amazon either.  I think he's under 6 feet.  Neither of them can see over the top of the fridge.  So neither of them think twice about how it looks to someone who is 6'4" and can see the top of the fridge and the half dozen mousetraps all in a row up there.  No, they aren't being stored.  They're baited and set.  Because there are mice.  All over the damned house.  But instead of plugging up the holes in the siding and walls and floors and roof and trying to keep the mice out, let's just leave around a couple hundred mousetraps.  

I told Hitter if we ever inherit that house and actually want to move back to the farm, we're leveling the damned thing and starting over.  It'll be cheaper than trying to fix everything that's wrong with it.

You know what?  Now that I think about it, I'm a better housekeeper than she is.  I mean my house may not be quite up to the same immaculate standards in the parts-that-show, but first of all we do a much better job of maintaining stuff, and secondly my storage room is WAY cleaner than hers is.  I think housekeeping skills should be judged by the parts that don't show, not the parts that do.  

I hate people who only care about appearances.  Hey Fuck Off.  

This post is out of control.  I should stop now.  I should have stopped about an hour ago.

Cake Battery

Remember this?

Apparently the gender roles have continued to the next generation.  Buffalo and the Prom Queen have two kids, a 5 year old girl and a 3 year old boy.  A few stories:

• for the niece's third birthday, I made her a Dora the Explorer cake.  It was a 3D cake of my own carving.  Bran Flake asked me "will it be good enough that she will know what you're trying to make?"  Seriously.  WTF?  
• this past year for her fifth birthday, she wanted Hannah Montanna Montanah Montannah seriously, my fingers will not type that.  Anyway, long story but the moral is at one point Flake goes "well if you can't make a good cake for everybody, I suppose I can stop at the store and get something better" and then when we got to the party, she kept rearranging the presents and freaking out on people because everything had to be PERFECT
• I'm wasting a bullet point to say that the last one was a REALLY FUCKING LONG PARAGRAPH TO PUT IN BULLET POINT
• and now, just had the nephew's birthday.  No awkward questions about whether or not the train cake I was making would be recognizable as a train, no accusations that I wasn't putting enough effort into it, no rude yelling at other family members because the party wasn't perfect enough.  

So on one hand it was nice to not have to deal with psychotic grandma behavior, but I kinda feel sorry for my poor punkin nephew.  Niece is obviously the favorite.  When she misbehaves, it's "oh honey please don't do that, okay?" and then nobody notices that she turns right around and keeps doing whatever she was doing.  Nephew misbehaves and it's "NO!" and a spanking.  And while I realize that it's actually better to be a disciplinarian than to spoil a child and so in a perfect world nephew would grow up to be a much better person, I'm afraid the obvious favoritism is going to work against him and make him bitter.  It's already showing when the two kids are playing together. 

There are more stories.  It goes on and on.  She gets to travel with my folks, they never take him along and even said once that they're afraid they'd hurt her feelings if they took him... but they never think about if they're hurting his feelings by leaving him home! 

Anyway, my cake turned out well and I really wish I could have gotten a picture of the way my sweet little nephew's face lit up when he saw what I'd made.  That was pure joy.  But I had both hands holding the cake so no pictures.  Oh well, I remember what it was like and that made it all worthwhile to me!

And in the morning, I'm makin' waffles!

It's a good thing I have no desire to go into politics, because I'd get so much shit for being a waffler of epic proportions.  However I firmly believe that I am not really flipping sides so much as I am just one of those that is capable of seeing both sides of any argument.  I told the Designated Hitter tonight that I kinda think that there is a little lie in every truth and a little truth in every lie.  And then I proceeded to completely convince him that the sky is not blue.  And he believed me.

This was not the basis of my argument

You may be asking just exactly what my point is.  And if you know me, you know that's a stupid question because I have no idea what my point is.  No, wait, I do this time.  

I make fun of Hitter all the time for being a corporate stooge.  He loves the giant mega international corporation he works for, worships at the giant corporate altar, sometimes I think he likes the company more than he likes me.  He's a power-hungry, money-grubbing, corporate-ladder-climbing asshole.  And I've told him so, in those very words.  And whenever he gets all gooey lovey dovey about precious company, I always take the devil's advocate approach and point out the other side of the argument.  And then today, I actually defended the evil giant because someone I know went way out in left field and was making completely unfounded accusations against said company.  Hitter got home from work tonight and the first words I said to him were "I feel like such a whore" 

So, yeah.  I seem to waffle.  Or maybe I'm a hypocrite.  Wonderful, now I can't even make up my mind as to what exactly is wrong with me.  WTF?  One minute I hate belovedest corporation, the next I'm defending it.  But it just all depends on the argument being presented to me.  Because I see both sides of every argument, and I seem to be surrounded by people who are black-and-white thinkers.  (I think I mixed metaphors there.  I see colors?  I'm surrounded by one-side-viewing people?  You know what I mean!) 

And I may be a whore.

But at least I never got paid for all my random sex!

Twuhnnyleven: The Year of the Redneck

Actually, it's supposed to be 2011: A Year in Pictures.  But I keep pronouncing 2011 "twuhnnyleven" which strikes me as a bit redneck.

I have a project for myself this year.  No resolutions, I hate resolutions.  A guy I know posted on his Facebook page today "Every new year people make resolutions to change aspects of themselves they believe are negative. This year just be yourself" and I love that.  Of course I really don't like him that much cuz he's a Longhorns fan, but what can ya do...  

Maybe I should make a resolution to stay on-topic.

Project.  Photos.  Twuhnnyleven.  Right.....  This idea has been pinging around inside my brain for a while now but I'm sometimes a little slow on the uptake.  Plus we currently only have a giant honking dSLR camera with a couple lenses and a big-ass bag to carry it around in, which is incredibly inconvenient for random pictures.  Now I've gotten ahead of myself.

The project is to take at least one picture every day.  Some pictures may be important and meaningful, some will be random and weird.  There will be beautiful pieces of art, and there will be odd snapshots. Some will preserve memories, some I'll look back on and be all "what the fuck, me?"

Like I said two paragraphs ago, and way ahead of its time, I've been ignoring this idea because of the annoyance of always hauling around Designated Hitter's stupid purchase.  Don't get me wrong, as I'm learning how to REALLY use the camera I am falling in love with it.  But he uses it like a point-and-shoot so it's a giant waste of $1000.  Actually probably $1500 after he bought the second lens and other accessories.  And I want to buy more... another lens or two, a new tripod, sheesh I'm high maintenance!  I'm finally studying up on all the fancy things that bad boy can do.  Tee hee!  (if anyone's curious, it's a Nikon D50.  It has a few years on it now, and it's nowhere near high-end dSLR, but it's way more than Hitter needs and is becoming just about exactly something I love)  But anyway, we have a crapload of rewards points from a credit card so I'm going to use them to get a shiny new point-and-shoot that I can just shove in my purse and have it with me all the time.  I'll still use both cameras throughout the year, but the new one will allow me to take pictures more frequently and in places other than home.  

I'm not going to post them all on here.  Especially anything that's very identifying... still trying to maintain a touch of anonymity.  I haven't decided exactly where to stick them yet, I have an old picturetrail account where I'll probably at least start, but there's a limit on how much you can put on there without paying for the account (and I am kind of a tightwad, at least about some things) so I'm sure at some point I'll end up on flickr or something like that.  Not that big a fan of the flickr design though.  Hmm...  

Anyway, here's my January 1 picture!  This was taken this morning, a normal sunrise was going on behind some very interesting clouds.  

This size doesn't really do the picture justice.  But you still get the effect the clouds were giving.  

I'll get back to you on how I make this a redneck year...