margotvankapelle: (cake)
Of the Chinese curse variety.

Sunday the power went out at work, so we were pressed into removing all of the perishable goods from the grocery section and placing them in bins which were loaded onto refrigerator and freezer trucks.  Whee.  Imagine working in pitch black, no air conditioning, hauling around pallets of stuff and trying not to run over anyone's toes while navigating with the use of a very dim flashlight.  Can you say OSHA violations?  I knew you could.

Today, we went to the zoo.  I got to pet a behbeh donkeh (only 3 days old!) and had most of my fun petting/feeding/being chewed on by the dwarf Nubian goats at the petting zoo.  Boe, bless him, recognizes that I am insane for the goats and so we make it a point to hit the petting zoo part both at the beginning of the zoo visit and at the end.  Himself gets bored to tears but he puts up with me making a fuss over the goats and giggling like an idiot.
margotvankapelle: (adulthood)
Boe got his first paycheck today.

My mom came by the house after I got off of work today and helped me set up electronic bill payment.

The mortgage is going to be paid automatically, every single month.  I am never going to have to worry about forgetting it ever again.

This is SO AWESOME.


(We also picked up replacement underwear and socks.  It is amazing how much one's day can be made by being able to buy necessary clothing.  I haven't had a new pair of underwear in a couple of years.  Boe was even worse off.  Every single pair was worn nearly to rags.)
margotvankapelle: (cheesegrater)
We were hit pretty hard -- about 3 PM yesterday that storm rolled through complete with green sky and horizontal rain. There was a tornado sighted in Allen County, and in all honesty, I have never seen such a large group of people with such a poor sense of self preservation and priorities as WalMart customers.

Naturally, the PERFECT place to shelter oneself during a tornado warning is in the frozen section -- you know, with all the glass doors? And the number of people I had to actively tell to please NOT bring their grocery carts into the shelter area of the store boggled my mind.

Anyway, the power is still out at my workplace; it's estimated that the power should be on by midnight Wednesday into Thursday. I had to collect the written cake orders due tomorrow and make them at the only Walmart in the city that still has power. We lost power at home, but it was restored rather quickly (4 AM) so we didn't lose any perishables. My folks are still without power, but they have a generator to keep their refrigerator and freezers running.

So it was less than fun.

http://journalgazette.net/article/20120630/LOCAL/306309990

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=295491870546769&set=p.295491870546769&type=1&theater

This next one is actually a couple of streets over from where I live...

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10151075809111613&set=p.10151075809111613&type=1&theater
This one was about half an hour southeast of Fort Wayne:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=4185458921467&set=a.1847234347314.111988.1434344535&type=1&theater

ETA:  Have a pic gallery:http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/news/local/Severe-Weather-Blows-Through-Fort-Wayne-160870895.html?gallery=y&img=0&c=y

margotvankapelle: (wiseass)
Item the First:

Took Awesome!Neice to Fox Island for swimming yesterday; the entire family (Awesome!Niece, Boe, Mel, and myself) went and made it an official Day At The Park with a cooler full of lunch stuff.  We all pigged out, swam a lot, pigged out some more, kept slathering ourselves in sunscreen, swam a bit more, and finally called it a day after everyone was tired, sun-pinked, and the worst of the heat had passed.  The breeze didn't even feel like a breeze -- more like opening the door of a blast furnace.  So I was grateful for the swimming and getting to spend time with Awesome!Niece.  She's a total hoot.  Now, this kid is 8.  She sings in a local band.  She plays piano, clarinet, flute, piccolo, and guitar (both my sister and my brother in law are musically talented).  Her local band even cut a CD (Awesome!Niece graciously signed my copy).  Most kids that age, especially if they have exposure to the music industry/entertainment biz, will tell you that they want to be a rock star, actor, etc.  Not Awesome!Niece. 

She wants to be a geneticist.  (Cue "She Blinded Me With Science")

Seriously.  She is deeply interested in DNA, cloning, all that stuff and when I sent her one of those microscope kits that you can get at educational stores a couple of years ago, you would have thought that she had died and gone to heaven.  When I drove her from my mom's house in Columbus OH to my dad's house in New Haven IN (a 3 hour drive), we didn't even bother turning on the radio -- we talked about science the entire drive. Discussed everything from Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells to CC the cloned kitten and even how tortoiseshell cats can't be cloned to have the same coat pattern.  I love that kid.

After dropping Awesome!Niece off at my dad's, we went home, showered, took naps, and once the temperatures started to drop, had fighter practice in the back yard.  That was lovely...a houseful of friends again, and a couple of people who are interested in joining Adria.  Boe's decided that 2 years is a long enough hiatus to garner enthusiasm again, so once he's working, we'll be rejoining Adria.  I won't be able to participate as much as I'd like because I'm in school, but it's good to Boe enthusiastic again.

Now onto my nursing final for the quarter -- I should wind up with a B in this class.  Not my favorite grade, but the instructor Has Issues.  Oh well.  Won't be my problem after today.
margotvankapelle: (internetforever)
Between work and school, I barely know which direction is up.  I really really want to sew, but can't really do that until the Tornado Room (so named because it's a disaster area) is cleared out -- I tried to clear it out myself, but my face broke out in hives and I began to wheeze about five minutes in.  Not good.  So I have to get The Spouse and The Daughter to do that for me...which means it might get done by the end of 2012.  If I'm lucky.

In other news, my sister Mel is driving up from Florida on a quick visit to drop my neice off with my parents for a portion of the summer.  Let's see if Bitz can learn to share Lennie this season.  Unfortunately, Mel is driving up on the weekend with the highest volume of cake sales for the year...Graduation Weekend for FWCS.  I tried to find a replacement (there's a coworker who doesn't normally work weekends), but apparently the only family that matters is the one this cow-irker has, not anyone else's.  Even after I explained that I haven't seen my sister in a couple of years.  I was delighted, let me tell you.  >:-/  So I'm going to have to call off one of the busiest sales days of the year and leave my coworker H screwed with no help.  H and I talked it over and we mutually decided that if I have to call off to see my sister, then Sunday would be the better day.  So that's the game plan.  At least 1 coworker is understanding.

Uh, other than that, school is going well.  One instructor has publicly stated on numerous occasions that she doesn't give A's ever...well guess what lady, you're going to have to change that stance.  *cracks knuckles*

I keep motivating myself by looking at real estate listings and home builders' websites.  Also looking at vehicles, since my poor Lumina will probably last me until I'm out of school (I hope!) but not much longer than that.  I'm kinda leaning in this direction, since that allows for some flexibility as far as cargo and stuff goes but is more fuel-efficient than an SUV or truck.  Or I'd like a Prius.  I'd like 40-odd mpg, you know?
margotvankapelle: (Default)
Had a nice Memorial Day, although the Saturday and Sunday prior were made of suck. Twelve-hour days are like that. Once I am a nurse, I had considered working 3 12 hour shifts a week to maximize time off...but I can guarantee I need to lose weight before doing so, as my back, hips, knees, and ankles were screaming in agony by the time I clocked out on Sunday.


Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Iz pooped.

Apr. 27th, 2012 10:39 pm
margotvankapelle: (Default)
Up at 5 am, in class by 7 am. Out of class at 1:30 pm. Clock into work at 2 pm, work until 8 pm. Do laundy, feed myself, take a bath. Post to LJ. Fall into a coma-like form of sleep.

Do it again tomorrow.


Posted via m.livejournal.com.

margotvankapelle: (fridaylove)
Boe and I went out to a nice dinner (our weekly payday ritual) tonight, then he went off to the game store to play in his usual Friday evening Magic: The Gathering tournament.  There is something to be said for predictability.

It dawned on me, though, that I really don't have friends I hang out with or go and see on any regular basis...not since [livejournal.com profile] cubsfan57 and her husband Brian-sans-LJ moved to Kansas.  To be honest, it doesn't freak me out the way that it freaks Boe out.  Bless him, he worries that he's just up and leaving me all by my lonesome, in which I will pine away in sheer loneliness.  But I'm far more comfortable being alone than he can imagine -- remember, he has Massive Hangups Indeed when it comes to being by himself, and it is difficult for him to imagine any circumstances in which he is comfortable being by himself for any length of time.  I mean that.  When we were first married, he used to follow me around a ~500 square foot 1 bedroom apartment.   Mercifully, I broke him of that habit about the time we moved into our house.

So anyway.  Being by myself isn't the awful fate for me that Boe seems to think it is.  I'm a bit of an introvert (although a very social one) and being by myself gives me an opportunity to function without being "on".  It's something that I do with every single person -- including Boe.  I am constantly "on", and Friday evenings give me the chance to drop the personae* just a hair.  It's quite refreshing.  Besides which, I DON'T have friends I can just randomly visit, or invite myself over for a cup of coffee, or invite over to our place to get mauled by the dog enjoy some conversation.  I'm pretty much a hermit.  School, work, the internet.  That's my social life.  And that's okay.  Between the social anxiety and constant failure on my part to measure up to how awesome my internet friends are, I'm not sure I could handle meeting y'all in the first place!

Can't convince Boe of that, though.  He worries for my mental health...but him getting that job was the best thing to happen to my mental health since I was put on Wellbutrin. 


*I have several.  At school, I am The Pendantic Wunderkind, at work, the Helpful Bakery Associate, at home, the Practical and Sacrificing Spouse, and on the internet, the Occasionally Witty, Often Bitchy Costumer Who Likes To Talk About Herself. Hence this post.

UGH.

Sep. 23rd, 2011 05:37 pm
margotvankapelle: (marie antoinette grumpy)
Yesterday at work, I noticed I wasn't feeling well.  As the day went on, the worse I felt until I finally gave up and went home early.  I hit the sack at about 6 last night, then woke up this morrning at 7 feeling like I'd been hit by a truck.  Naturally, I called off of work.



I went to the urgent care place and came out with a scrip for heavy-duty antibiotics and a handful of shiny new diagnoses: tonsillitis, otitis media (middle ear infection), oh, and my personal favorite, pneumonia.  Which is pretty much what I had assumed I had -- the quantity of vile-smelling, chunky grossness that I've been coughing up today has been truly epic.


Typing this pretty much wiped me out for the next couple of hours, so I'm off to nap.
margotvankapelle: (walmart)
My workplace is mentioned in my icon.  I am a cake decorator.  I am not a miracle worker.

So why do people expect me to make them a wedding cake for tomorrow?
margotvankapelle: (ooooooo)

So to recap:

Random Gamer Guy is gone...but not before stealing a pack of Magic: The Gathering cards Boe had picked up that Friday.  I don't care too much, except Boe is unhappy, and that makes me unhappy.

Boe's temp job is finished up, and now we wait to hear from the agency for another assignment.

I might have tied one on last Friday to celebrate Random Gamer Guy's departure; the hangover served to remind me that I am not as young as I once was, and that my liver hates me.

Boe and I held a little backyard barbecue on Saturday.  Everything was delicious and (as is par the course for me) since I bought too much food, we'll be eating burgers and hot dogs the rest of the week.  But they are delicious, and that's the important part.

My college's financial aid office is screwing around with me, and I don't like it.  My account has been flagged for verification Every. Single. Year. and this year was no exception.  I turned in copies of my tax return on July 18, and my account is STILL "pending, under review."  This means that they have not released my financial aid to the bookstore so I can get my books.  Because school starts in a week, I'm sure all of the used copies of the textbooks have been sold, so I'll either need to rent textbooks (which is what I'm considering) or buy brand new ones.  I am tempted to go to the financial aid office tomorrow and break some heads.

And the only paperwork I'm waiting on to complete my nursing program applications (yes, two:  one for the LPN program and one for the RN program) is my highschool transcripts.  I called my alma mater a week ago Tuesday to request 2 sets of official transcripts.  The said they'd be in the mail that same day.  I should have recieved them by Wednesday.  They are still not here.  I am tempted to go down there and break some heads too.

I am so excited at the prospect of being able to work on sewing projects!
margotvankapelle: (housekeeper from hell)

In my minor fit of productivity today, I sent out several applications on Boe's behalf.  One of them is for a charter school here in Fort Wayne, and THAT would be ideal, so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Oh, and I made our weekly bread:


That's just one batch -- there were 2 other batches as well, and the cell phone in the bottom right of the picture is for scale.  I decided to do up our bread as large rolls so I can freeze them individually instead of taking the risk of mold growth (hot, humid environment) after a paltry 3 days.  I must say, this is my best attempt yet at bread/rolls.  The crumb turned out very even and just ever so slightly sweet, and the crust was nice and chewy, but not painfully so.  I pretty much eyeballed everything, so there really wasn't a recipe unless you count 2 cups water, 1 package yeast (my starter got really gross and I was afraid of contamination issues, so I tossed it), 1 stick melted butter, 1 cup sugar, salt to taste, and then enough white flour to make everything come together nicely.  I thnk it might have worked out to 4-6 cups of flour, when all's said and done.  This was a single-rise bread, since I formed the dough into balls before letting anything rise.  Dough is done rising when it doesn't bounce back after being poked gently. 15 minutes per batch in a 350 degree oven, and they came out perfectly.  See?



And I just realized they look an awful lot like manchet bread loaves were/are supposed to be like... 
 


margotvankapelle: (cake)

Yep, graduation season is officially over. It was so lovely and peaceful!  I had a whopping 5 special orders to get done today as the sole cake decorator, along with the wedding cake. 

Which, by the way, turned out quite nicely. )
margotvankapelle: (Default)


Well, my mom called me this morning.  Apparently, she takes more ater my grandmother than either of us had thought.  The bad news?  She has cataracts (she's only 59!) and needs surgery.  The good news? The surgery can take place any time within the next 5 years or so.  But Mom wants   them gone ASAP so her field of vision isn't fuzzy around the edges anymore, and I'd like them gone ASAP because she does a lot of night driving when she visits here in Fort Wayne.

So she's getting that scheduled and I will take a couple of days off of work to be Mom's chauffeur (chauffeuse?), er, driver.
 

It is really really really weird watching my parents age.


margotvankapelle: (ooooooo)

I was feeling kinda down about being totally broke, so I went online a couple of nights ago and ordered us new phones from Verizon...my choice was the LG Cosmo Touch, which were offered on Verizon's website for free.  Yay!  It's a really nice phone with everything that I wanted on it, but since it's not a smartphone, it doesn't require the 30-bucks-a-month data package.  I'm pretty pleased with it.  Boe was totally surprised, too!

As soon as I finish Bluetoothing my pictures from my old phone (LG ENV2, if anyone cares) to the new one, I'm going to bed.  Tomorrow, er, today is the first day of six in a row to work.

In other news, I've signed up at a couple of paid/reward points sites.  One is Inbox Dollars, and one is Swagbucks.  Swagbucks is the reward point one, and I'd like to earn enough points to get gift cards for family for Christmas.  Then I don't have to stress so hard at the end of the year to stretch our meager budget for presents.  Shoot, if I earn enough points (I'm already at 447 for 1 week of messing around), I might just "buy" myself an Amazon.com gift card and purchase gifts that way.

*is ded*

Jun. 24th, 2011 10:57 pm
margotvankapelle: (cake)
Pulled another 12 hour shift today.  Graduation season sucks. I am beat.  Going to bed now.  *falls over*
margotvankapelle: (SEWALLTHETHINGS! by tonyadmay)

I've been working, as you can probably guess from my recent posts.  Sadly, this does not live me in a position to be able to do stuff for myself as far as Adria or really any reenactment goes.  Part of it is time, part is the heat in the doggoned house, and a lot of it is having Random Gamer Guy in my house.  How can I be completely myself when there is someone in my home with whom I do not feel comfortable? 

Let me tell you what sewing means in my home.  Generally, I get a wild hair at random, cut out whatever my new project will be, then spend about 12 hours at the sewing machine with my mp3 player plugged into my ears and singing at the top of my lungs.  There may or may not be a certain amount of undress, depending on what I'm working on and how many times I feel the need to measure progress or check fitting issues.  I might take crappy phone pictures to upload to Photobucket, might twirl around and act like a silly little kid playing dress up, but mostly it is just me, headphones in, sitting at the sewing machine, singing my lungs out and cranking out whatever my little heart tells me I need to make. 

The catch is that I am extremely self-conscious about it.  I generally don't even start a project when Boe is in the house -- it's okay if he's home once I'm actually working on whatever the project is, but all the anxieties and insecurities come out to play at the very beginning and it's better if I wrestle with those particular demons on my own.  Once I'm started, I can generally tune the rest of the world out, and it should tell you something that as a smoker, I can forget about nicotine cravings for those 12 hours (unless something is going Horribly, Horribly Wrong).  Naturally, I also forget to eat anything either, but Boe usually cuts me off at about 12 hours at the machine in order to make sure I eat something

But with a relative stranger in my home, in my safe place to be completely and utterly myself?   Well, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
margotvankapelle: (bouncing elephant)
Memphis TN wants Boe's complete paperwork in order to schedule several interviews.  Here's hopin'.
margotvankapelle: (cake)

I'm temporarily up to 40 hours a week, so that's pretty much all I've been doing lately.

This weekend was Attack of the Entitled People.  the one good spot was seeing[livejournal.com profile] cubsfan57 at Germanfest on Saturday -- I have missed her dearly!
margotvankapelle: (cake)
This past week has been the lead-up to our store;s Grand Re-opening after 4 months of remodeling.  Managers have been snappish, we have been horribly confused because mutiple managers are telling us different priorities, etc.  So yesterday I worked a 13 hour day in order ti impress the corporate bigwigs...stocked shelves, re-did all of our demo cakes, that sort of thing.  It was crazy busy in there!  I wound up getting out the door at 9 PM.  I came hime, crashed out, and got up at  4 AM to get to work by 5 AM since menagement asked me to cime in early.  I made it another 9 1/2 hours today.  I am so tired, my eyes are trying to cross as I type.  So if you don't hear from me, I'm just sleeping for the next thousand years or so.

Profile

margotvankapelle: (Default)
margotvankapelle

October 2012

S M T W T F S
 1 2 3456
78 910111213
141516 17181920
21 222324 2526 27
28293031   

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 7th, 2025 11:37 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios