JCEarrings.com Supports Spay and Neuter for Adopted Stray Cats

Through the kind donation of Charleen Larson at JCEarrings.com, Faramir (the mom), and her little boys William (grey) and John (orange) are on their way to healthy, long lives at their forever home with the HippyGeek!

Thank You, Charleen!

TV Shows Loved: Past and Future

DH and I watch TV shows in serial order together as our main shared activity. We usually download an entire series and work our way through them. When we finish a series, we grieve briefly and move on to the next on our list. It’s fun to plan out which series comes next.

The hardest part is waiting for a new series to get its groove on - usually shows don’t start out great.  Buffy, Angel, Xena, X-Files, Torchwood, DS9, B5 and Farscape all had rather rough starts. Every iteration of Star Trek took a few seasons to find its way. I expect most shows take a while to get good.

Only Firefly and BSG were great right out of the gate. And maybe Heroes, even though it is now unwatchable.

I am merely documenting what we’ve seen here and what we are looking forward to next:

Currently Viewing

• Torchwood
• House
• Burn Notice

What We’ve Seen Together (in no especial order)

• Xena
• Firefly
• Buffy
• Angel
• Veronica Mars
• Deep Space 9
• Farscape
• Battlestar Galactica
• X-Files
• The Lone Gunmen
• Northern Exposure
• Enterprise
• Dollhouse
• Sara Conner Chronicles
• Bionic Woman (but gave up on it before it was cancelled due to boringness - current iteration)
• Reaper
• 30 Rock
• New Amsterdam
• Robotech (Macross)
• Heroes until it began to utterly suck
• V Miniseries (1980s)
• Cleopatra 2525
• Jack of all Trades
• Dune Miniseries

What is on the List to See Next (also in no especial order)

• Babylon 5 (we started it and stopped after a few eps since it was so boring. But we hear it gets excellent so we intend to try again)
• Alias
• Castle
• Stargate
• Fringe
• Caprica
• V (current iteration)
• How I Met your Mother
• Voyager
• Sanctuary
• Special Unit 2
• Dresden Files
• True Blood (I am a little nervous about the violence though)
• Pushing Daisies
• Eureka
• Bones
• Profiler
• CSI
• Dark Angel
• Big Bang Theory (maybe)
• Jericho
• Dexter
• Doctor Who (current iteration and maybe past)
• Knight Rider (current iteration)
• The Lost World
• The Vampire Diaries (maybe)
• Chuck
• Andromeda (maybe)
• Hercules (maybe)
• Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

What might we be missing? You can gather we enjoy Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Supernatural, Medical and Forensic, and also shows with a slightly Gothic or Steampunk bent. Should youth-based shows like Roswell, Supernatural and Smallville be on our list?

We prefer a show to have clever dialogue and long tern story arcs that don’t become too ridiculous (which is why we gave up on Heroes and why we are afraid to watch Lost). We are also on the fence about Flashforward, The Office, Mad Men, Boston Legal, Parks and Recreation, Ugly Betty, Arrested Development, Monk and Mentalist. Shows about mafia gangsters are NOT on any list I am interested in. I’ve heard good things about Glee.

So - what are we missing? And Is there anything on our “to watch’ list that is unbearably lame?

House Buying - the signing papers phase

When you buy a home all by your lonesome, there are many papers to sign. And you have to run all over town to do everything - the realtor needs another signature. The title company needs you. The insurance company. The water company wants to see you in person, for some reason, unlike the electric company or my cable internet provider. My phone is ringing and ringing with different things I need to do RIGHT AWAY, every day, before escrow is fulfilled and I hand over a large check to get house keys in return.

Now it’s the last weekend before the close of escrow on Thursday. I hope that by Monday I will know exactly how large a cashier’s check will be needed.

Since I have my water and electric already on, it feels real. I spent a few hours watering the trees, bushes, yuccas and bamboo in the yard. I can’t have my plants dying before I even more in.

One dead pine will have to come down - but a small one. And it’s removal will improve my already wonderful view. The dead pine will give me firewood. It’s all good.

I am already looking into chickens. I can get three laying hens at any time. All I will need is some kind of dog house for a roost and some chicken wire fencing.

I’ve been looking into organic heirloom seeds for my garden. I know it’s starting late, but I can still get some tomatoes and radishes going.

Too many dreams going already for my eco-home, but I can’t officially get started until enough papers change hands.

Recurring Dreams of Houses

I have recurring house dreams. I know exactly what they are about. When they start cropping up I know exactly what is going on. This has been going on and off for decades, depending on where I am living and what I am doing.

The houses are always different-sometimes the house is a train, or a cave, or treehouses, an undercity sewer system in New York, castle, a mansion, or shanti-shacks in the tropics… or something equally odd, but usually they are an old rambling farmhouse with many rooms, and I am always looking for MY ROOM.

I find secret rooms and odd spaces and always wonder if they are my room. I know I will know my room when i see it.

I was wondering I was alone in getting recurring house dreams? Does anyone else have these?

Earn Money Selling Scrap Metal at a Recycler

Okay, here is my breakdown of selling recyclables in the Prescott area of Arizona, trip number two:

• 100 lbs steel - Called Tin and White Goods - $7.70 (all kinds of neat stuff - horseshoes, a vintage metal tennis racket, old garden implements, random steel bricks, rebar, wire hangers, nails/screws/washers, steel cans, car parts, pulleys)
• 16 lbs Aluminum Cans - $8.80
• 2 lbs Painted Aluminum - .95 (this was a washing machine door i found on the side of the highway)
• 4 lbs Aluminum Breakage - .75 (aluminum window screen panes)
• 1 lbs Insulated Copper - $1.02 (this was old cords/wiring found on the side of the road)
• 5 lbs Yellow Brass - $7.98 (fittings found in an old lot, under the duff under some bushes)
• 4 lbs Tin and White Goods - .31 (small random steel objects i didn’t unload from the first weighing - this was mainly bottle caps I’ve been picking up along the roads)

So my total was $27.51 in cash that I received from Yavapai Metal Recycling in Dewey, AZ. I had another coupon for an additional 10%, so the total would have been less without that coupon (which came in the mail).

I have a birthday coming soon and I asked DH for a metal detector. Let’s see if I get one! I would love that. Not only could it help me collect small metals (and hopefully more brass and copper), I might find gold and silver jewelry, or old coins.

Along these lines - when you constantly scan the ground for metal, you also find a lot of coins. Not just pennies! Yesterday I found a quarter and a penny, and another day I found several dollars worth of nickels, dimes and pennies. In this dirt/gravel driveway alone I usually find a penny or dime around every other day (the rains keep stirring things up).

I have a jar I keep just for found money. When it gets full, I roll the coins up and bring them to my bank. Finding even a penny makes me feel happy!

Talking Wine in a Light Beer Town

Here in the Verde Valley in AZ, if you don’t live in Sedona then you *must* be a Budweiser/Miller Light/Keystone drinker! I say this with affection for my cowboy town.

I visited a booze drive through last night. I parked and went inside to look for some wine. While I was looking the clerk girl asked me if I knew about wine. I said, “a little bit.”

What followed was fascinating to me. By this town’s standards, i am an expert. lol. She never had any idea what to recommend to her drive-through clients. We talked about easy-drinking wines, what Champagne actually is (and found a single bottle of it, all dusty and $50 on the shelf), discussed how to drink port, what is a bold red and what isn’t, and how much wine vs light beer it takes to get someone trashed. How to pick something out that will go over well on a romantic date without spending a fortune (there is no money in this town unless you are a cattle baron).

We spent a fun hour going over everything on the shelves while I selected a nice Penfolds cab for myself that was only $8!

She’d never had wine and was curious, so I recommended she start with the Barefoot Wines, which are very easy and drinkable -  starting with either a White Zin, Merlot or Chardonnay. I even found a White Merlot on the shelves for her to try. She said she likes sweet mixed drinks, so I wanted her to try wines that were easy for beginners. We talked about trying port, on a romantic date, with some nice rich chocolate.

She was very avidly interested in all of this and I felt good passing on what I knew - which granted, is limited. I hope she discovers a few wines.

Moving Back into the RV, update

I have found homes for my books and my camping gear in the RV. Books are now in upper cabinets (where they should NOT be b/c of the weight, but that is really most convenient for me). Gear is under the bed. Painting/art supplies are under the couch. Dog things now have a bathroom drawer all their own, plus more dog things live inside the doggie staircase near the bed.

Office supplies was tough. I have two upper cabinets near my desk, and then the hole where the passenger’s legs go in the RV, all full of office stuff. Dan made my desk cubby to hold my printer.

DVDs are in my favorite antique pie chest by the door. We still need to make some kind of support for it to make sure it won’t fall over when we drive.

We added tons of hooks for clothes and jewelry. My Cookie Lee stuff is problematic. Lots of weight and space, plus I had to randomly stick things in various places.

We hung a cable wire with curtain hooks to create a privacy screen in the cab area, and put up some nice chocolate brown canvas curtains I had.

Food in current use is in the pantry inside and I have a deep storage for the rest in one of the basements.

Dan still needs to make a recycling center on the rear platform.

We are looking to order a new side mirror from an RV salvage place. The people are searching for us and that will take a few days. I hope it’s not hugely expensive.

The yoga/workout gear is still kicking around and in the way. I want these things easily accessible so I use them. But tripping over them isn’t going to make my life serene, either.

Does helping others also help you?

After college, I fully believed I would save the environment, with all my good ideas, my commitment, my knowledge and energy. I really believed that all you had to do to explain what the reality was to people and they would go, “OMG I need to recycle!” or “Right, we will stop dumping fabric dyes into our oceans!”

I thought it would be that simple. The latter half of my 20s was characterized by learning that most people simply do not care. Much disillusionment. It was a very hard learning experience for me.

But helping the environment and helping animals DOES help me. It makes me feel happy. Helping people is nice but not my primary interest. I want to “speak for the trees.” I want to live lighter on the planet, reduce my carbon footprint, create a No Net Waste Goal, see less cruelty and suffering in this world.

When I donated my Seattle car and previous RV to a cause, it was to the Humane Society.

I get a nice glow whenever I think about that.

Do you give to a cause or help others in some way? Does doing so help you back?

Caring for myself with a Healthy Habits List

I have this deal worked out that if I do everything on my Healthy List, I get a treat. If I do a few things on the list a get a smaller treat.

I created this idea of the last four days because I realized I work best on a rewards-based system. My first thought was that I would get one dollar for accomplishing at least one thing from my list, a dollar a day. Or that I would get $5 if I did EVERYTHING on my list that day.

That way I would earn either $30 or $150 in a month, give or take, if I stay with this.

The problem was, where would the money come from? I couldn’t pay myself - i have no money. So then i asked hubby if he would pay me. He said he would if he had any money, but he didn’t either. I thought of my mom but didn’t want to bother her with this.

We decided I needed a sponsor.

I didn’t feel like asking people to give me money so I could give myself incentive to do good things for myself, so I had to wrack my brains for some other reward.

I settled on massages. Dan agreed that he would do one minute of massage on the body part of my choice if I tackled some of the things on my list, and five full minutes (timed) if I get everything checked off.

So far I earned (and received) a one minute jaw massage for yesterday and a five minute foot massage for the day before. Today I am working on getting my entire list accomplished and will be able to earn my five minutes - maybe for a neck rub.

Here is my Healthy List: (daily tasks)

• Pushups
• Hanging on the chinup bar
• Crunches
• a Yoga sequence or stretching
• 5 minutes Meditation
• at least 15 minutes of something that lifts my Heart Rate
• Hydrate
• Take my Vitamins
• Take my Medications
• have Veggies in at least one meal
• have Protein in at least one meal
• have a serving of Fruit, or the equivalent of antioxidants
• Put powdered Fiber in at least one beverage
• Floss teeth
• Exfoliate and Moisturize face and neck
• Do one thing to Pamper myself or provide Me Time

So far this has been a very good list for me. I make sure to set my timer to go off every half hour when I am working at my desk, so I can remember to get a few of these things done.

The One Thing For Me item is variable. One day I read a book in bed during the day. Today I took a nice long bath with scented salts. It could also be getting a pedicure, buying myself something nice, going to a thrift store or walking around down town, being artsy or crafty, working on my Vision Board, enjoying a sunset or looking at stars…whatever little item that isn’t otherwise on any to-do list that will help decrease my stress levels.

What do people think of my idea? I am really hopeful this will encourage attention and accountability to healthy habits for me.

Addicted to Stress - weaning yourself from adrenaline

I’ve been reading about how people these days are addicted to stress. Our society encourages it. I always considered myself an ‘involvaholic’ - too many things going on all the time, until I read somewhere about how this exhausts our adrenals and burns us out. Our bodies are not meant to run off adrenaline and cortisol except in true emergency situations.

I decided to stop living on adrenaline. One of the things I did was get away from caffeine. I drink decaf coffee, for one thing. Caffeine stimulates the adrenal glands. I know decaf is not totally devoid of caffeine, but it doesn’t get me jittery at all, and I don’t get a headache if I miss a day. And there are tons of yummy brands of decaf these days.

Weaning oneself off full-caff coffee and caffeinated sodas is one of the first steps to getting away from needing adrenaline to get through the day. And it’s a much easier one than getting into the nitty gritty of examining one’s life.

The next step is to take a look at what you do each day that gives you a ‘kick.’ Waiting for deadlines to approach is definitely one of these things! As a ex-journalist, I lived for deadlines. There was an exhilaration to it all.

Then eventually I burned out. Now I resist anything that requires me to write by a certain date. It bugs me to even have a deadline; just having one gives me anxiety. I don’t think I ever would have developed a clinical anxiety problem if I didn’t live on adrenaline for so long.

So everyone should take a look at the things you do, on a daily basis, that bring you stress.  Make a list of the things you can eliminate from your life, and don’t be afraid to make a big change to protect your health and sanity. Learn to ask for help if you need it, and learn to say no to more tasks. Decide to spend more time in relaxing activities - make a daily prescription of it!

I am trying to find peaceful contentment and creatively joyful activities to pursue these days. I want to live on proper fuels, like glucose and amino acids, and reserve adrenaline for its intended emergency use. You never know when you will need to have that adrenaline reserve ready to go, instead of having burned out adrenal glands.  :)