:(

( More photos )

Tags: car

So we just had a massive hailstorm here, and my brand new car looks like dented shit now! Hurrah. And I only have six years of paying on it to go!

Fuck you, world.

eparchos and I went down to Albuquerque this weekend, and while we were there, I got a new car!



It's a 2008 Honda Fit Sport -- pretty much the exact car I was looking for, only purple (orange was my first choice) and used (it has about 20,000 miles on it). I saved a bunch by buying it used, though, and I ended up liking the console on the 2008 better, anyway. I rather like the purple, too, so I am quite pleased with it! It's a nice car (wow, keyless entry! wow, cruise control!), and has lots more power and cargo space than my Nissan Sentra did. Hurrah! Now to plan a road trip!

( Another photo )

Tags: car
Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: West Wall - Conquest Or Death

Some of you might remember that I posted about some bathroom renovations I was doing, back in April. Well, I finally finished it today, by sealing the grout on the sink top I made:



( Click here for more photos )

Tags: home, house

I took Echoes back to the vet today -- her numbers are about half of what they were a month ago, which is great news. They're still a little high, so I have to keep giving her fluids every day for a couple more weeks, but it looks as though it'll work out in the long run.

Tags: cats, echoes
Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: Diocletian - Doom Cult

Here are the other 2 minis I painted: an autocannon team and a lascannon team.

( For the Emperor! )

Tags: minis
Current Music: Destroyer 666 - Defiance

I bench-pressed 50 lb. (3 sets of 5) today! That's been a goal of mine for a long, long time -- I know it doesn't sound like much, but as a 110 lb. woman, I'm pretty happy with it. Five more pounds and I'll be lifting 1/2 bodyweight!

Starting Strength is seriously the best program ever. I spent ages stuck at benching ~30 pounds before I started it, and I was expending tons more effort in the weight room -- the compound lifts in the Starting Strength program are simpler, quicker, and get much better results than the isolation exercises I was doing before. Thanks, Rippetoe!

Tags: weightlifting

Here's the first of a bunch of new miniatures I painted. I finished lascannon and autocannon teams as well, but I still have to flock 'em (tee hee).

( Mortar )

Tags: 40k, minis
Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Acheron - The Final Conflict

I had a busy day today... everybody on our street got "the City of Espanola would appreciate your cooperation in cleaning up your fucking yards, you oinking pigs" letters, so I hired a friend's husband to help me out with it. He does landscaping for a living, and wow, am I impressed. We ripped out 3 Chinese Elms, including a really big one that's been annoying me since I got the house, we trimmed the dead stuff off the tree out front, and we got rid of all the weeds and junk that were lying around. I'm seriously amazed that we got all this done in just one day! And for $15 an hour, which is a bargain as far as I'm concerned... I'd have needed more than that just to rent the truck and chainsaw.

I think I'll hire him to do the whole yard... the ground needs to be leveled off, and then I need to fence it in somehow and put down some landscape rocks or something. I'd also like to plant some trees as well, and set up space for a garden and a firepit. It's a lot of work, but this guy rules, so I might as well do it while I have the chance!

Tags: house
Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Destroyer 666 - Phoenix Rising

The trip to Maryland Deathfest was really successful; I met a lot of great people (including saevus, check out his art sometime), saw some killer bands (Destroyer 666! Asphyx! Hail of Bullets! And best of all, Bolt fuckin' Thrower -- TWICE!!!), sold a decent number of CDs, and had a lot of time hanging around with Justin and Eric. I might post some photos and a general report later this week.

All in all, it was by far the most fun vacation I've had in a long time. I'd really like to do it again next year, assuming they get another great lineup.

I played airsoft on Saturday for the first time, with Brendan and a couple of his friends from Los Alamos. It's a lot of fun; I think it's better than paintball, which always seems to end with the gun jamming and splattering paint everywhere. I'm not sure if I'll get super into it -- the last thing I need is another expensive gun hobby! -- but I might buy a $40 spring shotgun if I stick with it, as the one they gave me to use sort of sucks. Afterward, I bought an urban-camo BDU top at the Black Hole, which I plan to turn into a patch vest once I rip the arms off. I'd have rather had woodland, but in retrospect, the urban is kind of nice as well. Maybe I'll try to figure out the sewing machine next weekend...

I painted Warhammer 40K minis today for the first time in a while: a mortar team, a lascannon team, and an autocannon team. They're not quite done, but should be finished in a few more sessions. At this rate, my army will be done in about 2012. :P I think this lot looks good, though, so I'm definitely improving.

Echoes is doing OK. She was pretty good about sitting still for the fluid injection today, and she seems quite happy overall. Still two weeks before I can take her back to the vet and run her numbers again... I really hope all this will help!

Tags: cats, echoes, minis
Current Music: Bathory - Blood On Ice

Echoes' lab results came back from the vet today: she has kidney problems.

The vet gave me some special canned food for her, and also an IV bag -- I'm supposed to give her subcutaneous fluids every day, to make things easier on her kidneys. I tried it today, and it went surprisingly well... a lot easier than trying to give her a pill, at any rate. I didn't even have to wrap her up in a towel first! Hopefully she'll continue to be patient with it.

I hope she'll be OK. I think we caught this early, but who knows how slow or quickly it'll progress. Dammit, I hate things like this. I wish my cat weren't sick.

Tags: cats, echoes
Current Mood: sad

I got the first UK edition of Richard Adams' Plague Dogs in the mail today. It's significantly different from the US version, in that the Tod's Geordie dialect is even more impenetrable!

"A hill tod it wor layin'
Atop a roondy crag.
An' niff o' powltry doon belaa
Fair myed its whiskers wag.
Th' farmer's canny lad, ye ken;
Geese fast i' th' kennel, ducks i' th' pen.
Then fyeul shuts henhoose less one hen!
Begox, yon tod wez jumpin'!"

Oh, joy. And the best part is, this old book opens right to that part, because somebody else loved it, too! :) I also got Adams' A Nature Diary, which I've never read... and the illustrated slipcase version of Watership Down ought to be along in a couple of days, also. Hurrah for Ebay: Frith made it, but Pierre Omidyar found it!

These are the books that have meant the most to me in my life, along with Godel, Escher, Bach, Kipling's stories, and a few others. It's going to be really nice to discover them again.

Tags: books

Overheard at the grocery store:

"Mom, can we buy spinach?"

"No, honey, Daddy already bought a big box!"

Perhaps there's hope for America, after all. :P

In other news, my fancy new sink is almost finished! I am just waiting on a drainpiece to come in the mail on Monday -- shortly thereafter, it should be ready to use. I'll post a bunch of before/after/progress pics once it's finished.

Tile is complete!

Tags: house

Before:


After:


THIS WAS SO FUCKING HARD WHY DID WE DO THIS WHY WHY WHY :P

It looks killer, though. Grout goes in tomorrow night.

Tags: house

Things are starting to come together for the Great Bathroom Remodel of 2009. I bought a nice faucet and tub fixture set online, and today I also ordered one of these:


I plan to make a cream-colored tile top for it, and then put this antique Talavera sink in it:


This sink sort of inspired the entire project, because I got it for free from the guy who installed my screen door last fall, and it's just too nice not to use...

I'll start priming (and hopefully also painting) the bathroom walls this weekend. I'm hoping to have the paint done by the 29th or so, by which time the other stuff should be here. Hopefully I can also manage to get the tub fixtures in, if they arrive before or during that next week. Then my parents will be in town the week of the 3rd-10th to help tile the floor and the top of the sink. Hurrah...!

Tags: house
Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Ruina/Tundra/Operation Winter Mist split

So far, 2009 has been a pretty crappy year for me. I've got health trouble and car trouble, and while neither is serious, it's sort of a drag. On top of that, the final season of Battlestar Galactica isn't all it oughtta be, which is pissing me off. Bah.

Fortunately, though, I don't have any financial troubles -- the company is doing better than ever before, despite the recession, and a lot of my bills are finally starting to be paid off. Moving to Espanola helped with this, I think. It's a lot cheaper.

Speaking of which, I've been walking to the Park&Ride bus lately (thus leaving my car at home, where it will hopefully not be broken into again). It's sort of nice, actually; I rather enjoy it. I'm starting to play DDR again, too... at this point, I doubt my arthritis is ever going to get much better, so I might as well deal with it and try to stay in shape. I am still lifting weights as well, and I made a decent amount of progress with that last year: I went up about 20 pounds on all the lifts, which doesn't seem like much, but for a 120 lb. woman, I'm pretty happy with it!

I got a new car stereo today, to replace the stolen one. It's pretty spiffy -- you can control the iPod right from the stereo, which opens up a whole new realm of not-paying-attention-while-driving for me! It also has a removable faceplate, which I hereby swear to remove every single time I'm not in the car, until I eventually forget about it and the stereo gets stolen.

I still need to mail in the claim for the schoolbooks and stuff that was in my bag, but other than that, my Park & Ride thiefventure is now complete. Hurrah!

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Bolt Thrower - The IVth Crusade

From lady_ganesh:

When you see this, post your favorite poem in your journal.

( He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse. )

Tags: meme, memes
Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Incantation - Diabolical Conquest

My car got broken into at the Espanola Park & Ride lot today. They broke the passenger-side window, went through all my stuff, and ripped out my stereo, damaging the dash in the process. I don't really get it... that stereo is 8 years old, and was kind of cheap to begin with, and my car is no great shakes, either, so I don't get why I was the target today. At any rate, it'll cost me a $500 deductible and a lot of trouble to get it all fixed, so I hope that goddamn crack rock was really worth it, assholes.

There is, however, a single ray of light in the darkness: the Battlestar Galactica board game I bought for John and Julie was in the front seat, and there's nary a scratch on it! Kinda surprising, considering that the tag says $50, which is just about as much as the thieves will get from the pawn shop for the stereo. The Lords of Kobol must've looked after it for me. So say we all!

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: Blue Oyster Cult - Some Enchanted Evening