It’s gorgeous isn’t it?

Those trees are on the neighboring plat, the rock outcropping is to the South-East, which is going to make for some awesome sunrises.

Believe it or not, this is zoned as a residential neighborhood. Rural residential (which means animals are okay) but still residential.

My inner rock hound is delighted, being so close to all the best places to find the best shiny things nature can provide.

I’m so indescribably happy. And worried. Happy because I’ve wanted to get a place where we could keep a few larger animals (not horse large, but a dairy goat would be nice) and some chickens, and because I really still don’t like the way our neighborhood has changed over the last few years (all the cool people got divorced and moved away, leaving room for not so awesome people to move in and start annoying me.)

And worried because we have a whole property to plan and develop.

Then I plotted out my garden, but I still haven’t dug it up. I need a dry day to mow the lawn before I start digging. And a cattle panel to install for the squash and gourds before I put the starts in the ground.

Tried to go see Max Brooks at the Salem Public Library on the 27th of last month, but his presentation was sold out. So it’s possible I’ll never know if I have the ten essential skills to survive a zombie apocalypse. I did have a good laugh that night commiserating on the lack of tickets with other fans online, noting that there is absolutely no irony in the fact that scalpers typically don’t have tickets to public library events.

I did however manage to pick up the last copy of the Zombie Survival Guide at Borders, swooping in just before someone with tickets was able to purchase it (that was before I knew the presentation was sold out. Of course I was buying the book in anticipation of having it autographed as our first copy has been read by everyone in the family, it looks like it has gone though a zombie apocalypse. So I really hope I didn’t screw one of the ticket holders out of an autograph by getting the last copy that night.

There is no sweater wearing on these gorgeous tropical sun drenched brightly lit days, my beautiful socks must stay in a drawer while my feet go flopping around naked in dusty leather sandals, and my freckled skin does its absolute best to imitate a tan.

I don’t so much tan really, I just kind of turn into a reverse white on dark freckle pattern.

I didn’t really mean to quit smoking this time around, I bought an electronic cigarette– tried it, liked it, tried an “analog” smoke at the end of the day and decided that combusting tobacco products are so back then.

Which means now I’m vaping (using vapor instead of cigarette smoke to get my fix.) Before I get any lectures about replacing one deadly habit with another, check this out. According to the documents (and spiffy powerpoint presentations) linked its far safer than combustion cigarettes.

Toxic emissions scores for the Ruyan brand of e-cigarettes tested compared to tobacco cigarette brands such as Marlboro revealed what most e-cigarette consumers already knew: tobacco cigarettes emit over 100 times more toxic chemicals than e-cigarettes do. From a list of more than 70 of toxic substances found in tobacco cigarette smoke, 0 of those toxicants were found in e-cigarette emissions.

Nicotine levels per puff were also analyzed: e-cigarette mist contains significantly less nicotine than tobacco cigarette smoke. Only 10% of the nicotine found in a normal puff from a tobacco cigarette was found in e-cigarette mist.

And beside, it plugs into my USB– anything that plugs into my USB is good (that’s not a hard and fast rule, it’s really a guideline.)

So I’ve been kind of busy around the house, because now I’m noticing all sorts of new smells and I had to spend several days with mop and bucket of vinegar water and soap and lots of elbow grease eliminating those smells. The irony being, of course, that I have never smoked inside my house– so those smells are old house smells, pet, and fireplace smoke smells.

Oh so charming. I must have good friends because no one ever acted put off before, and I was completely unaware.

Either that or my friends have no sense of smell.

Such is the cycle of life.

I bought a couple of seed starting thingies for the kids and some veggie seeds. Lexi’s doing color-ins of plant anatomy, and she’ll be charting the growth of a few select plants over the summer. Josey is going to try to establish a self sustaining enviroment in an enclosed terrarium.

Try as I might to convince the boy child that the plants cannot produce enough air or food for vertebrates in a sealed 10 gallon aquarium he seems to think that he can get a pet turtle out of this deal. The fauna bit of his bio-dome will have to consist of oxygen efficient invertebrates.

Of course, we’re also going rounds about which invertebrates to use. Apparently he wants to use insects that don’t gross him out. I truly understand his position on this one, however some of the grosser looking life forms on this planet are very beneficial and very appropriate for his project.

One thing we do agree on: the praying mantis does look like an alien ninja warrior and thus, is the coolest insect ever. The question being can the small environment support enough detrivores to feed a carnivore without help?

I’m going to talk to the elephant. Here, right now.

Every so often someone leaves a nasty comment for me, using a fake name, and a fake email address. The syntax and grammar are bad, the punctuation hideous. This person does know me, but pretends to not know me, or pretends to be someone else that does know me (which is lame, because the person that this person pretends to be has much better spelling skills and would *never* act like such an ass.)

Today, someone using the elephant’s wife’s name signed up on twitter and followed me, and then stopped following me (perhaps unaware that twitter would send me a notification email.)

So to the elephant and/or his wife, I get it. I *still* get it. You’re going to stalk me online when you have nothing better to do. What you don’t get is that I have reached an epic level of not giving a rats tiny ass what you do with your spare time as long as your stalking stays virtual and relatively harmless.

I’m feeling outrageously good today. I played with my dogs at the park, had a big breakfast and did schoolwork with the kids, I may even make it outside to start prepping my little flower beds and prune the hedges when I’m finished putting my laundry away. I might even get really wild and crazy after the children are tucked into bed and dye some yarn, or order wool online.

And if I’m feeling outrageously uninhibited I might even sew a needle case or two.

Lets remember this in case of future mind controlling alien invasions. Bad parasitic aliens may take temporary control of a human’s nervous system and use them as a pawn in all sorts of evil schemes but when it comes down to alien vs. coffee, coffee always wins. (I know this is true, I’ve seen The Faculty at least 3 times.)

Trung Nguyen is the best coffee ever. Seriously. No contest.

Just, for the sake of your own sanity, do not attempt to use it through a flat filter. I made this mistake once and nearly ended up in a dissociative fugue state. Gravity filters are the way to go, or better yet use a phin (like a little tea screen for individual coffee) so you aren’t forced to share with others.

I joined twitter yesterday. I like it. I made it talk to my Skype.

This morning, I had a similar sensation. I tried to boot up my laptop and it wouldn’t boot. The hard drive wouldn’t fire up, the fan didn’t come on, nothing. I turned it off and then back on, pictures of my children without backups or hard copies danced in my head taunting me, and I tried again with the on and off. And a few more times just for good luck. Finally, I put my palm over the hard drive (this is what I swear I once heard Uri Geller suggest this to a woman on a radio show) picturing an orange dot, and sending my intentions into the dot for the laptop to work.

It worked. I opened my eyes to the charming little “ba-do-da” of Windows booting up.

Weird huh?

So right now, at this very moment: I’m backing up my laptop, making a mad grab for all my pictures and documents (I can replace the programs) and wondering if I shouldn’t try faith healing my old toaster oven instead of resoldering the short.

Just for the record I’ve tried bending spoons (again ala Uri Geller’s instructions) with no success as yet. Coincidence or not, I’m thrilled to have this one last chance to copy the laptops contents.