the happy toaster

big thoughts

August 6th, 2010

My stomach has been a wreck for the last two weeks. It started after I ate my breakfast/lunch burger two weeks ago – it was a leftover that I had grilled the day before, with fresh meat, so I can’t imagine it had gone bad. Maybe. Anyway, I had the worst stomach cramps that day, and the next, and the next, then it seemed to have calmed down, but it flares back up after most meals. So, that’s been fun.

In addition, the elavil has made it more difficult for me to tell when I am hungry. I have already been having this issue for a few months, when I have stomach pain I may not eat all day, just because I can’t differentiate the stomach pain from hunger pain. Usually what happens is that I note the time, and if it’s been 5+ hours, I eat a meal. You might think this would cause one to lose weight, but not if that one is me.

I dyed my hair this ridiculous drugstore auburn which is more a purple than anything else. The color is not found in nature. It was kind of a spontaneous decision which I almost instantly regretted. The color isn’t a good color but I also feel embarrassed at spending the money on it and the “luxury” that it is – like I am so vain for doing it? So I feel very.. I don’t know, I have been keeping it covered up. I feel somewhat ashamed and, I am trying to find the best way to phrase it. I know that it is a terrible way to think, but like I don’t “deserve” doing something to “improve” my looks? I recognize that anyway as a sign I am depressed, I guess.

Another side effect of the elavil is my ridiculous sleep schedule. No matter what time I go to bed, 9p, 3a, midnight, I almost always wake up at noon.

BUT the elavil has helped so much with my bladder problems I don’t want to go off it. And maybe if I stay on it long enough I’ll lose some weight, if I stop buying cartons of cookies and such.

I was thinking about starting a craft blog but I can’t come up with a name for it. I don’t like the Happy Toaster name anymore, it makes me sound like a stoner or something. Ideas?

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housekeeping

July 23rd, 2010

I haven’t posted much this week due to a visit from Phil’s mother. We have a weird relationship. It is not that I do not like her, which is the stereotypical mother in law relationship. In fact I like her very much. It is more like I am completely intimidated by her. To me so is a total inspiration, she is a wonderful cook, one of those people that can make a nice meal of anything. She is an excellent interior designer and organizer, two things which I wish I could do better. She is also a great housekeeper, I have never seen a single bit of dirt on the floor that I didn’t carry in myself. So it’s basically been a week of idol worship and feeling that I could never live up to her standards, anxiety, depression, fear, defensiveness, pride, etc.

In the end I don’t feel I will ever really be as good as her, but I am good at different things. I hope she will visit again, and she really did like the area and the house and I think mostly had a nice time. I guess we will see if she cuts off contact completely after a terrible visit. (ha ha)

We did some touristy things while she was here, including a bus tour of Boulder that introduced us into some different parts of the city. We spent some time at the Pearl Street shopping area, and went to the farmers market on wednesday afternoon. We took her to some of our favorite restaurants that we’ve discovered so far, Proto’s Pizza, Lucille’s Creole Cafe, and tried some new places like 7 West (the only place in town with rooftop seating) and Loaf & Ladle, a place within walking distance I had wanted to dry, it’s a soup restaurant. And I’m a fan of soup.

We did a lot of clearing out of the last room in the house that needs to be organized, our shared office. It’s still a mess, but slightly better. My next project is to go through the stuff in the garage and set up a studio space. I don’t know what to do with myself. Am I going back to school next year? Should I get a job? Should I start a business? I need to find some way to get my confidence back up to acceptable levels. This is a constant fight.

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home decor

July 16th, 2010

When we moved from Texas to Colorado, we left most of our furniture behind. A lot of it was hand me downs and stuff that one of us had “inherited” – not much was our actual style and it served mostly functional purposes, but not fashion. It was kind of cool to build the living room from scratch – we brought our glass tv stand & tv but almost everything else is new.

This is our living room. This is taken from the kitchen, facing the front door and the front windows.

This is the opposite wall of the living room, that divides the living room and the kitchen.

The movers ask me what to do with the boxes. I was like, hey man why don’t you just put them all in the living room! Why not! They filled almost the whole room.

This is actually about 1/3rd of the way through unpacking. Unpacking sucks.

This was taken from the front door. Our new furniture from American Leather is finally here! The couch is the Natasha sleeper bed and the chair is the Kristina recliner. I’m pretty happy with them which is awesome considering that we had to order them without even seeing a sample on the floor.

This shows the wall and part of the kitchen. We had this sideboard in our bedroom in Austin but replaced it with a dresser here. We don’t have nearly as much closet space as before, and the bedrooms are pretty small (especially with a king size bed).

This is taken from in front of the sideboard. I love our new coffee table! It’s so simple. I do wish it was a LITTLE lighter – it’s supposed to be a dark brown but it’s closer to black. I got a little green box from Target for the remotes (when you have that many components, you have a lot of remotes). I want another one for the controllers and stuff. We only have one side table for now, one we brought from TX which is a cube, I like it a lot but we need another one.

In the corner is a paper lamp from IKEA. The pillows are from some etsy sellers (I will link them in another post) as are the coasters. We’re missing a few art prints, I hope they are in a box in the garage. I’m not really sure what to do with the sideboard, but my mother in law is an awesome interior designer and I am sure she will have some suggestions. I also would like to get a bench or possibly move one of our trunks closer to the front door, for storing shoes. Oh, and we were also going to put in a rug under the table and couch, but we haven’t found one we like well enough yet.

Overall pretty happy with everything. I like how minimal it is. I like the colors and Phil’s recliner, which I was worried about ordering such a big piece in turquoise.

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blogs and twitters to follow?

July 14th, 2010

I would like to find some good blogs and twitters to follow. Some that are about art, shopping, design, letterpress, printmaking, etc. Or cooking and stuff. Any ideas? I used to have a ton but then I get depressed and am always like WHY DO THEY GET TO FROLLICK IN GOLD FIELDS AND I AM STUCK HERE AT THIS CRAPPY DESK.

I think I might be depressed. I don’t know. I was reading this girl’s blog today and she is like, I don’t know, 9 years old or something and she is an insane artist and I am not ever going to be that good! I get frustrated with myself and I know I could be better if I practiced, and then I never make time to practice, then I beat myself up about it. I have nothing but time, I could easily be working on improving my drawing skills, but I never make it a priority. I think I need to either just nut up and really commit, or just let it go and become an accountant or something. I don’t know.

Whenever I start drawing or designing I start small and then it just builds up to this peak where I feel really great and everything looks awesome and I am so happy, then something happens and it crashes down and I literally will not do anything for like a year. It could be someone says something critical or I can’t figure out how to solve a design problem and I just shut down. I do not really know how to prevent that. I even can recognize when I am in a downward spiral but I don’t know how to stop.

In school I like the boundaries and being given problems to solve and projects and having a timeline, now that I am not in school I am just kind of floating around, bored, not sure what to do. When I get an idea I sometimes just feel so overwhelmed I don’t even know what to do. So I don’t really do anything.

I know this is not uncommon I just don’t know what to do really, I always try to commit myself to drawing every day, or working on a big project, but then I don’t do it.

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my awesome weekend

July 12th, 2010

What’s new?

bike – got the headlight and tail light installed. The headlight is pretty bright, but the strobe effect is seizure causing. I wasn’t really getting it to see, but more to be seen, while riding at night. Now we have no excuses (except helmets) not to ride bikes down to the pub for trivia. I also got a couple of cheap spoke lights – I got rainbow and Phil got blue. I want to get one of those awesome LED sets, where you can make flowers pictures or spell out words, but I think I am going to ask for it for Christmas. I don’t think I will do enough night riding to really be able to justify it.

My bike helmet shipped from nutcase & my polka dot decals shipped. I was looking at my bike without the basket, and it doesn’t look like I’ve done much to it. I may apply some pink polka dots to the bike frame.

I have decided that when I get bored of the pink princess bike in a few years, I am either going to buy a rainbow bike or have it re-painted in a rainbow. Like the bumpers start violet then all the way to red at the end or so. Then I am going to commission a fur suit maker to make me a giant unicorn head. And I shall ride around town, a unicorn riding a bicycle. Did I just blow your minds? Because this shit can seriously happen. You have no idea.

shopping

I didn’t buy anything of note over the weekend besides beef. We have been eating so much beef since we moved, probably like 3 nights a week at least. We used to eat beef maybe once a week. I really need to get us cut back, but it’s so awesome having a butcher so close and getting good cuts of meat. I need to get us back eating fish, also, but I can’t bring myself to buy it at Super Target.

Speaking of Super Target, I went grocery shopping there Thursday, and (among other things) I bought an onion and two corn cobs. I went to cook them today (Sunday) and they were all covered in black mold. What the hell! Am I crazy for thinking that food should keep longer than two and a half days?

phones

The iPhone 4 showed up, so I got upgraded from an iPhone 3 to an iPhone 3GS. The 3GS was purchased in May about 2 weeks before we moved. I’m glad, because the 3 had some pixelation issues at the slider (theorized to be caused by too much pressure from ol’ drunk hands (that is the nickname I have given myself)). We also got Colorado phone numbers, I think I have emailed everyone who could possibly wish to have it, but if you want it please let me know.

dog

Dog is good.

pills

My elavil prescription that the gastro gave me is awesome. It has been helping a lot for some minor issues that I didn’t even really acknowledge I was having. I still have constant stomach tenderness but I remain hopeful.

Computer

My computer is dying. Phil bought me a brand new computer from dell.com. It should be delivered by the 21st! I had to deactivate all of my adobe programs on this computer, because I can only have the license on one computer, and if something were to happen that would prevent me from being able to deactivate it on this computer, I would be out of luck. Which would suck. The other day it crashed and it literally took an hour to boot back up.

pills, again

Do you have any that I can have?

plans for this week

My mother in law is coming Saturday so I guess my plan for every day until then is to clean until my fingers are raw and pray that she doesn’t find out that we live like hobos and burn everything in our path. Or maybe if she thought that she would give us some money?

I also plan on riding my bike.

school

I have a year to decide but I want to get my bachelors, but I don’t know for what. I don’t know that I am interested in a graphic design BA (especially since it would entail going to a school 2 hours away to complete). I have thought about a BFA in printmaking. Or studying something like business, or psychology. I don’t know. I like learning. I feel a little intimidated. I will hopefully start again next fall (fall 2011). I have to wait a year because of residency. I like the idea of doing fine art but I’m not sure I have the talent.

(cue compliment fishing)

what else

man I don’t know I don’t do anything this is boring

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friday miscellaneous

July 9th, 2010

I gave up on the white helmet. I decided to get this pink helmet, and white dots. I talked to like 10 different online shops and no one had the vanilla sky helmet in small – sad. First time I’ve ever wished my head was just a bit bigger.

I also bought Phil a sharkskin color helmet. For safety.

Yesterday my new headlight arrived, as well as our tail lights and spoke light. We’re going to be SO VISIBLE you guys! Not that I intend on doing a lot of night riding.

My stomach/intestinal biopsies came back NORMAL, except now I have an official ACID REFLUX diagnosis. I kind of already knew about the AR, since at some point in the recent past I realized that I was eating whenever I got the acid-feeling – not because I was hungry, but because I associated that feeling with being hungry or needing to eat to settle my stomach.

My mother in law is going to visit us next week and my number one fear is that she will STEAL MY BIKE. And that she will hate our new furniture.

Shelby is afraid of garbage trucks now, a fact I learned as she tried to mount my head to escape them at 8am. Dogs.

Nothing else much going on, I went to Target yesterday and had to deal with all the yuppie moms in their little outfits with their super cute kids, turning their carts at 45 degree angles in the aisle then wandering off. And then they got mad at ME for wanting to get through the aisle! Imagine. One of those super cute kids took one look at me and told her mom that I was “evil”. Jesus Christ, learn to parent your children a little better, so they wait until the evil person is in the next aisle to say something.

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I just looove spending money

July 8th, 2010

After agonizing trying to find the best helmet, ever, in the whole world, deciding on the white matte bell faction helmet, which I can’t find in my size, like, anywhere, I found this cute nutcase ivory colored helmet and decided to get it –

of course it’s sold out. Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?

I ended up buying it from Calhoun Cycle, hopefully it gets here soon. Even though my trips are short, I do feel vulnerable without a helmet.

And I decided to completely rip off this idea from Oh Joy and I bought pink decals to decorate it. I have no shame in this. It is only a matter of time before I am spotted riding up and down Main street in a crushed velour pink jumpsuit. I am transforming into Barbie’s fat, nerdy cousin.

Next Day Edit: This fricking helmet is sold out EVERYWHERE. I have contacted every online shop I can find that has it “in stock” and they are all sold out. LIARS! Why is it so fricking hard to buy a white helmet? I might get the pink one instead. Argh.

Tags: bicycle, pink things, princess, spending money, this is why you're poor
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yay, socks

July 7th, 2010

After my last post about socks I became fevered and insane, and ordered four new pairs of striped socks. I am afraid this is only the start of my madness. Will no one help me?

Super Juicy – Good standard rainbow sock. Very cute.

Portland Stripes – these look good but I haven’t tried them on yet. I don’t doubt that they will fit the same as the Juicy.

Rugby in Orange and Charcoal, I think this is the same brand as my red and black striped. The colors are saturated and nice.

Plum & Olive – I wanted to love these, because they are a slightly thicker knit and I thought they would be good for winter, but they are a bit too binding. I have to roll down the top part to avoid annoyance. I probably won’t get another pair of these unless my calves get magically smaller. So if you have a fat leg, I couldn’t recommend. But they are quite nice and cute, wish they came in a bigger calf size.

Tags: shopping, socks, spending money, this is why you're poor
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New Urbanism

July 6th, 2010

This is copied from my tumblr dated May 20, 2010, shortly before we moved from TX to Co.

Have you heard of New Urbanism? It’s kind of like walkable suburbs. We have a couple of new urban developments in Austin, notably the Domain area, which is a huge super expensive shopping mall with condos over it. Now, I kind of like the concept of it because it’s meant to encourage walking and less driving, and I think it looks good on paper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism

The issue is that while it may build a neighborhood, it is still artificial, like a suburb. Take the Domain, which has a lot of restaurants and shops (In the higher price ranges) – it doesn’t (or didn’t for a couple of years) have a grocery store. So you still need to get in your car to go to the super market. They are building a Whole Foods but I’m not sure if it opened yet or not. And outside of the Domain’s neighborhood, there’s nothing walkable – it’s kind of an island of urban-ity.

There is another one outside of Longmont (where we are moving) called Prospect New Town. The area is very cool, but still artificial. They have multiple kinds of architecture and housing, from condos to little craftsman style houses to row houses, whatever, but most of the retail spaces are empty, and again, outside of this space there’s nothing to walk to, you have to drive to the super market, there’s not even a little place to go get milk in the area. Also, because it’s not an organic neighborhood, there aren’t a lot of jobs in the area, unless you are working food service or retail, and if you are, you probably can’t afford the houses. The roads are windy and end in cul de sacs. We briefly considered moving to this area, because it really is quite cute and we could walk to get a bagel in the morning, but in the end decided not to.

You can never be sure if you buy a house in this type of place, what kind of stores will end up in the retail space, or in fact if they remain empty for some time. The whole point of living there is to be able to walk to places daily, but since the area was built up there’s no history there to know what to expect. And if stores come in that no one wants to shop at or whatever, or most of the residences remain unfilled, selling will be hard, the house could easily lose value, etc.

Anyway, we are moving to Longmont Old Town. Longmont in general is considered to be an example of urban sprawl, but the Old Town or downtown area is very old and well designed. We will be within walking distance of a small grocer, a butcher, 2 sub shops, 2 coffee shops, 2 veterinarians, multiple mexican, indian, and chinese restaurants, a variety of local shopping, a soup restaurant, an ice cream shop, 2 pubs, etc. I can’t wait! The area is great, the streets are very wide so the neighborhoods don’t feel cramped at all. There are bike paths all over the state, including one that goes from Longmont to Boulder which is about 15 miles away.

The houses are a lot smaller than what we are used to in our subdivision, where at almost 1800 sq ft we are average. The house we are moving into is probably about 80+ years old and 900 sqft, 2 bedroom 1 bath, hardwoods throughout, open floor plan, no basement (sadly, but if we buy that will be a requirement) – it will be a change there, but the neighborhood will hopefully make up for it. Moving from TX to CO is going to be a huge change weather wise also! But we are looking forward to it, I am very excited for the change in lifestyle and hopefully we both get healthier walking and bicycling more.

Tags: Longmont, urbanism
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walkability

July 6th, 2010

First I wanted to link this article at the Harvard Business Review about walkability – The Unintended Consequences of Cul-de-sacs. They have included this comparison map, the one on the left is a suburb of Seattle, the right is an urban neighborhood in Seattle.

comparison maps

I mentioned before the futility of biking in our TX suburb. There were only really 2 ways out of the suburb, and they were both very busy streets with traffic of 55 mph. There were no bike lanes. Most of our biking was around the neighborhood, the twisty streets, and back home.

Anyway I was thinking of this image when I created a similar comparison map for our old and new neighborhoods. The difference is obvious.

We are now within easy biking range of about 7 parks. There is a small grocery store a half mile away, two sub shops, a butcher, 3 coffee shops, several restaurants and pubs, and a few used book stores & thrift shops. We can also walk to most of these locations within 20-30 minutes.

I am trying to build our life around living in our neighborhood – not getting in the car and driving 15-20 minutes every time we need to pick up a loaf of bread or go out for dinner. I buy groceries at the big supermarket once a week or so, if I need a last minute item I go to the small local market. I buy meat 2 days worth at a time from the butcher. I walk or ride my bike to pick up prescriptions at the walgreens 6 blocks away. These are just things that I couldn’t do from our old house. I love it, and on days when my husband takes the car (we had 2 cars when we lived in TX, but got rid of one in favor of bussing & biking) I don’t feel “trapped”. I can go where ever I want and buy pretty much everything I could need – within a mile of our house. It is a wonderful sort of freedom.

We are seeing more people leave the suburbs in favor of this kind of life, and once you are living it, it’s easy to see why.

Tags: urbanism, walkability
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