My resolution right now is to stop being so lazy and indifferent about things. I've fallen into a rut in which I spend way too much time sitting around the house not doing a damn thing, and it needs to stop. I just went out to *finally* clean out my car so that I can take it in to get the oil change without having to be embarrassed (Okay, that's a lie. I really don't care, more indifference, perhaps, but the thing is, I am never at home and awake when the oil people are open, so I beg my beautiful mother to take my car in for me while I am still asleep. That's pretty awful, isn't it? Maybe I'll buy her a cookie or something this time. Anyway, St Mom takes the car in for me, and she gets all embarrassed when the mechanic guys see my car all disgusting. Thus, she refuses to take it until I clean it, and I have therefore been 8000 miles since I got my oil changed. The other reason behind this is that I go through miles like...um... I can't think of a good simile here, but I drive a lot, and thus can't afford to get my oil changed every other day, like I probably should be. Wow, was this a long parenthetical note or what?) to take it in. My poor car is starting to run a little off, her own way of protesting that she needs some attention, but she'll have to make it through at least one more day of work. Poor car, I'm sorry!
I finally settled down to work on my taxes on the morning of the 15th. What, me, procrastinate? Nah. My actual plan had been to get an extension, but then I found out that they make you fill out a form to get the extension, and dude, if I have to fill out a form anyway, I might as well just go ahead and do the taxes! Bleh. The worst part is that although I didn't have to pay anything in thanks to the beauty of mileage deductions, between buying TaxCut federal, state, and paying to e-file, it cost me $65 just to do the stupid taxes. I don't even usually pay $65 to do things I *want* to do, but paying that much to do something I'd rather avoid? That just sucks. At least I get $25 back via rebate. Add that to the $50 Cingular rebate on my new phone that will be on its way, and things will be looking much better!
Mom and I have been on a quest to find a new house, but I have no idea where we're going to end up yet. We looked at one in Forsyth that had a sort of separate apartment downstairs with a kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom/living room combo. The downstairs even had its own entrance, which would make it more separate home-like. There was a huge deck attached to the upstairs living room with a great lake view. Unfortunately, mom doesn't like the location much, so its probably not going to win the great house hunt. However, I did just find a house in the little real estate book that has what used to be a detatched garage, but was converted to an office a few years ago, but according to the description, has a bathroom and kitchen, so it could be its own little studio apartment! Sounds good to me!
My favorite Away Message that I've seen in ages:
Auto response from JULESMD: I'm away from the computer. If your name is Crystal, now I'm mad at you.
Heh!
Despite all my whining about taxes, I did at least get to have a nice time crunching numbers the day before I did them, because I decided to pack everything up and hang out on my favorite little dock at the lake to do the work. Let me tell you, there are few things in life, taxes included, that can't be improved by doing them out by the water on a nice sunny day. Of course, because I had my camera with me, and due to the fact that there were tiny little baby geese, I spent the first fifteen minutes or so taking pictures and squealing over their cuteness (the cuteness of the geese, not the cuteness of the pictures.) I also noticed that I've become semi-obsessed with the way that light and shadow play upon the surface of water, and took about a bazillion pictures of that. Because I am a reasonably nice girl, I'll only subject you to a couple of them:
Geese chicks!
I am in love with the hazy quality of the light here.
Not only do we have supercute baby geese here, but also my very favorite bench! The park comes out to a peninsula here, and that bench in the top left is at the very tip.
Reflection of the bridge to the dock in the water, and, if we look closer...
Reflection of me in my sunglasses.
On Saturday, I decided to go out to Silver Dollar City for a few hours to check out World Fest, since this was the first weekend for it. I bought a 3-park season pass last year, and didn't use it at all, so they let me trade it in on this year's, thankfully! I was thrilled that I got there just a few minutes before the Italian Flag Throwing guys were supposed to start, because I really wanted to see them. If you've seen Under the Tuscan Sun, think of the contest the Polish guy was in. Yeah, that. I got a pretty good spot to watch, but unfortunately it wasn't very good for pictures, unless you want to know what the back of the guy in front of me's head looked like, in which case I can totally hook you up with some great shots. I did come out with a couple of decent ones, though:
After the Italian guys were Chinese acrobats that perform in their own theater here in town, but that I've never been to see. The opening act was a 13-year old girl who if I hadn't known better, I would have guessed to be about 7, who was pretty good.
You obviously can't tell from this photo, but she was actually doing back flips at an alarmingly quick rate on this tiny little stand here. Very cool!
The only problem I have with Silver Dollar City now is that I can't help but compare it to WDW. World Fest, for example, is nothing compared to World Showcase in Epcot. The Chinese acrobats here were good, the ones there left Nate and I sitting with our jaws on the ground in astonishment. I wish I could stop comparing and just enjoy where I am, but no luck yet.
Can anyone PLEASE recommend me some good books to listen to while I'm working? I just finished the Pimsleur short course in Japanese, and I'll probably go ahead and do Japanese 2 if I can't find any good books. Do you people really want me to be that good at conversational Japanese? Help!
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