We finished up painting the neighbor's house last week. It was good to be done with that, and I don't think I want to paint another house any time soon.
Today the mum-in-law and I went up to Limestone County, Texas where her family is from to do some research. Some of her ancestors were here when Texas was a Republic. We went to the county clerk's office and looked through probate records. We wound up with more questions than we answered.
We went to Big Hill. That's where her ancestors lived, but there's not really anything there any more. She wasn't sure where the houses had been, as she'd been a little kid when she was out there last.
Then we went to Fort Parker Cemetary and got chased around by a swarm of mosquitoes. We went to Mexia to get some deet and then went back to the cemetry. The deet worked for about twenty minutes, long enough to find all the graves we were looking for, and then the mosquitoes got bold so we got the heck outta there.
The drive was long, but we want to go back again... supposedly, there's a deep dark family secret that caused two previous researchers to stop doing genealogy. I'm not sure which side of the family it was on though, so maybe it's not the side we're researching. All I know, is I don't care about pretenses, and want to know everything.
I know why I like history and genealogy so much. Because it allows the dead to speak.
* Life * Food * Money * Travel * Fun *
Monday, June 30, 2014
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Outrage vs. Faux-rage
I've decided that we have a new concept, given birth to by the internet: Faux-rage. What is faux-rage you ask? Faux-rage is outrage without direction, purpose, and sometimes without a firm grounding in reality. For examples of this, see the comment section of almost any news article.
Back in the 60s, when people were protesting the Vietnam war (while my father was risking his life there in the Marine Corps, right or wrong or indifferent, the way the people who went there were treated when they returned home, was horrid, but I digress), one couldn't just sit in their house and protest. You actually had to go outside and risk getting injured or arrested or even killed.
Nowadays however, the youth get to "protest" from the safety and comfort of their own mother's basement. And there's plenty of things to protest too. Lots and lots of things that are unjust. Mind you, they don't cause injustice to any particular person, but rather injustice to amorphous ideas or entities. You see, the real injustices are ignored because they're difficult, if not impossible, to deal with and actually opposing them could get you in trouble, or dead as the case may be. I mean, dealing with actual homeless people or trying to help victims of human trafficking isn't the safest thing to be doing. It's so much safer to sit at your computer and have faux-rage over the name of a football team or what some celebrity tweeted on twitter.
Stop it with the faux-rage. It's asinine and ridiculous and makes you look like an idiot to anyone with half a brain. If you really care, and really want to help people, then get off the computer and go do that. Otherwise, shut up. As my brother was fond of saying, "put your money where your mouth is."
Back in the 60s, when people were protesting the Vietnam war (while my father was risking his life there in the Marine Corps, right or wrong or indifferent, the way the people who went there were treated when they returned home, was horrid, but I digress), one couldn't just sit in their house and protest. You actually had to go outside and risk getting injured or arrested or even killed.
Nowadays however, the youth get to "protest" from the safety and comfort of their own mother's basement. And there's plenty of things to protest too. Lots and lots of things that are unjust. Mind you, they don't cause injustice to any particular person, but rather injustice to amorphous ideas or entities. You see, the real injustices are ignored because they're difficult, if not impossible, to deal with and actually opposing them could get you in trouble, or dead as the case may be. I mean, dealing with actual homeless people or trying to help victims of human trafficking isn't the safest thing to be doing. It's so much safer to sit at your computer and have faux-rage over the name of a football team or what some celebrity tweeted on twitter.
Stop it with the faux-rage. It's asinine and ridiculous and makes you look like an idiot to anyone with half a brain. If you really care, and really want to help people, then get off the computer and go do that. Otherwise, shut up. As my brother was fond of saying, "put your money where your mouth is."
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
What it means to be an artist
Today I helped change the pump on my sister/brother-in-law's aerobic septic tank. (The sister-in-law was calling it Pump Day instead of Hump Day. Get it? LOL Don't boo me!) I volunteered to do this so I'd know how it's done. Why? Because when you're an artist, you don't make a lot of money, and add to that our debt from school, and you have a recipe for really not having any money. Sure, we're paying our debt off as fast as we can, but we might need to know how to do something like change a pump on an aerobic septic system one day. It wasn't too hard, just a little dirty and there was a slight learning curve and it was hot as blazes. If we do it again, I'm sure it would go faster. Before doing it, I was joking about starting a business changing pumps, after, I wished I had gone to school to be an oil and gas engineer, so I'd just have to fork over the money for someone else to do it.
My husband and I are also painting our neighbors house. I think I mentioned that before. It's taking way long than we imagined, but we'd never painted a house before. I think we should have it done in a few weeks. We need the money, and basically, freelance is just that. Unpredictable and unreliable. And lately I've had a good bit, but that could change at any moment. Which is why if you want to be an artist, you should NEVER go into debt to do it. Not for any reason, no matter what anyone tells you to the contrary. No. Matter. What.
In our over-sensitive whiny PC world, stereotypes are usually unacceptable, but whether you like it or not, stereotypes are often stereotypes for a reason. And in this case, there's a reason why starving artist is one of them.You want to be an artist? Plan on waiting tables, changing aerobic septic pumps and painting houses while you're at it. I've actually never waited tables. I'm too much of a klutz, I'm sure I'd spill stuff all over the diners.
Anyway, I haven't written in a while because finals were pretty busy, I went to visit family in North Carolina on May 20th and the Friday before that fell and hurt myself pretty badly. I had the worst bruise I'd ever seen on my lower stomach. I was grateful though that I didn't break anything or hit my head or knock my teeth out. The plane ride was amazingly horrible on the way, but the TSA was very nice. Maybe I'll try to write a little more often now that I'm feeling better. I hurt like hell for over a week. Did you know that you can dent dog food cans with your chest and not break a rib? LOL
My husband and I are also painting our neighbors house. I think I mentioned that before. It's taking way long than we imagined, but we'd never painted a house before. I think we should have it done in a few weeks. We need the money, and basically, freelance is just that. Unpredictable and unreliable. And lately I've had a good bit, but that could change at any moment. Which is why if you want to be an artist, you should NEVER go into debt to do it. Not for any reason, no matter what anyone tells you to the contrary. No. Matter. What.
In our over-sensitive whiny PC world, stereotypes are usually unacceptable, but whether you like it or not, stereotypes are often stereotypes for a reason. And in this case, there's a reason why starving artist is one of them.You want to be an artist? Plan on waiting tables, changing aerobic septic pumps and painting houses while you're at it. I've actually never waited tables. I'm too much of a klutz, I'm sure I'd spill stuff all over the diners.
Anyway, I haven't written in a while because finals were pretty busy, I went to visit family in North Carolina on May 20th and the Friday before that fell and hurt myself pretty badly. I had the worst bruise I'd ever seen on my lower stomach. I was grateful though that I didn't break anything or hit my head or knock my teeth out. The plane ride was amazingly horrible on the way, but the TSA was very nice. Maybe I'll try to write a little more often now that I'm feeling better. I hurt like hell for over a week. Did you know that you can dent dog food cans with your chest and not break a rib? LOL
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Debt (of any kind) is Slavery
I'm originally from North Carolina, and so I had no idea what Juneteenth was. I'd never heard of it. It's pretty big in Texas. For those of you who don't know, Juneteenth, is derived from June 19th, and that was the day the Emancipation Proclamation was read to the slaves in Galveston, Texas, informing them that they were free.
It is one of those great coincidences that June 19th is the day that I decided that we were going to get out of debt. I didn't even realize the connection until some time later, but that is the day that I compiled for the first time a list of our debts. When we graduated from college I knew we had a lot of debt, and I had a rough idea of how much, but not an exact amount. I was actually afraid to add it all up. On June 19th last year, when I added up all of our debts, and saw the huge number on the screen in front of me, I cried. I knew it was bad, but seeing the number, and making it therefore real, hit me like a ton of bricks.
Now, we're not quite one year out and we have paid off our car and two of our small student loans. Small student loans that I once told my mother-in-law that I would just keep paying on because there was no way we could ever pay it all off. Now, I'm looking at having everything paid off in two years. There's more than one type of slavery. There is the obvious physical slavery, but there is another kind of slavery, one that is possibly worse than the physical kind, and that is slavery of the mind. If you believe that you will never get ahead, that the deck is stacked against you, that there's no use in trying, then you might as well consider yourself a slave. In that case, you are a slave to your mind.
Yes, we may have limitations. Maybe the deck is stacked against us. Maybe we have to work within the framework of what we've been given, but to just give up? To accept that there are no possibilities? That's not an acceptable option. Not to me anyway. And maybe that's why I am where I am.
"If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything." -Marty McFly, Back to the Future (my favorite movie of all time)
It is one of those great coincidences that June 19th is the day that I decided that we were going to get out of debt. I didn't even realize the connection until some time later, but that is the day that I compiled for the first time a list of our debts. When we graduated from college I knew we had a lot of debt, and I had a rough idea of how much, but not an exact amount. I was actually afraid to add it all up. On June 19th last year, when I added up all of our debts, and saw the huge number on the screen in front of me, I cried. I knew it was bad, but seeing the number, and making it therefore real, hit me like a ton of bricks.
Now, we're not quite one year out and we have paid off our car and two of our small student loans. Small student loans that I once told my mother-in-law that I would just keep paying on because there was no way we could ever pay it all off. Now, I'm looking at having everything paid off in two years. There's more than one type of slavery. There is the obvious physical slavery, but there is another kind of slavery, one that is possibly worse than the physical kind, and that is slavery of the mind. If you believe that you will never get ahead, that the deck is stacked against you, that there's no use in trying, then you might as well consider yourself a slave. In that case, you are a slave to your mind.
Yes, we may have limitations. Maybe the deck is stacked against us. Maybe we have to work within the framework of what we've been given, but to just give up? To accept that there are no possibilities? That's not an acceptable option. Not to me anyway. And maybe that's why I am where I am.
"If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything." -Marty McFly, Back to the Future (my favorite movie of all time)
Thursday, May 1, 2014
I take back what I said...
I said that painting a house couldn't be too hard. Famous last words. I don't think I had any idea what I was getting myself into. We started painting the porch yesterday, and I thought we could finish the whole thing before the end of the day, well, we got close but not finished. And that was only one porch. There are three. Our neighbor's son is going to paint the very high part of the eaves for me, and I didn't argue with them because, while I'm not afraid of heights, being sixteen feet up on a ladder isn't my idea of fun. Anyway, I think they offered to do that because we spent a week caulking everything really well, and so what they're paying us didn't consider all the caulking that needed to be done. At any rate, I'm about whooped after yesterday, I went to bed at 9pm and slept until 8am. On the bright side, I'd rather paint a house than work for a certain big-box-retailer-that-will-not-be-named. I'm not really sure that painting pays all that much better when you consider the hours put in, but I get to be outside.
Mamas, don't let your children grow up to be artists. Or at least not artists with massive amounts of student loans. It's not a good idea. It's easy to be an artist when you don't have Sallie Mae sleeping in your guest bedroom. We're working on kicking her out of our lives, it's just taking so long.
A flashback...
"This night will pass just like all the others." That's what I used to tell myself when I worked at a grocery store in high school. I really needed to grow a backbone then, and ought to have told those jerk faces to go to hell. They paid me minimum wage for two years, and I'm not entirely sure why I put up with them. The first two days on the job should have been a huge red flag. My drawer was short those first two days, and so I told my mother about it, wondering what I had done wrong with counting change. She asked me if I'd counted my drawer beforehand, and I'd said no. She said, 'you should always count your drawer before you start your shift.' The third day I demanded that it be counted before starting. It came up short by a lot.
Also, it's not like I liked working for them. I could have gotten a different job somewhere else that probably paid more, but I didn't. And looking back, I have no idea why. All that time wasted with assholes. The moral of this story? If you're not happy with things, then change them. Life is too short to be unhappy.
Mamas, don't let your children grow up to be artists. Or at least not artists with massive amounts of student loans. It's not a good idea. It's easy to be an artist when you don't have Sallie Mae sleeping in your guest bedroom. We're working on kicking her out of our lives, it's just taking so long.
A flashback...
"This night will pass just like all the others." That's what I used to tell myself when I worked at a grocery store in high school. I really needed to grow a backbone then, and ought to have told those jerk faces to go to hell. They paid me minimum wage for two years, and I'm not entirely sure why I put up with them. The first two days on the job should have been a huge red flag. My drawer was short those first two days, and so I told my mother about it, wondering what I had done wrong with counting change. She asked me if I'd counted my drawer beforehand, and I'd said no. She said, 'you should always count your drawer before you start your shift.' The third day I demanded that it be counted before starting. It came up short by a lot.
Also, it's not like I liked working for them. I could have gotten a different job somewhere else that probably paid more, but I didn't. And looking back, I have no idea why. All that time wasted with assholes. The moral of this story? If you're not happy with things, then change them. Life is too short to be unhappy.
Monday, April 21, 2014
House painters
I have a new respect for people who paint houses. It's only 9:14pm and I'm just about whooped. Maybe I'll manage to write a post about what we've been up to at some point soon. I'm going to bed now.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Oh noes, it's teh XP-ocalypse
I have spent far more money this month than I would have liked, but I suppose it was inevitable.
I went down to Altex on Tuesday and special ordered a new computer. I had saved up some for it since late last year, but not quite enough to cover the actual cost. I have extra right now though, so it's not a problem. I guess it was wishful thinking that I could get a computer for the amount I had saved that would nicely run the software I use. Anyway, it cost less than the one I'm on right now, which is almost six years old, and the manager knocked some off the price because I had a quote for something similar from Dell. They came in $200 under what Dell was pitching. I hope it lasts as long as this one. I also decided since there's really nothing wrong with the computer I'm on, except that the OS is no longer going to be supported, and it is 32-bit and Autodesk, in their infinite wisdom, er, I mean them being in bed with Microsoft (I told that to some students and they giggled, and then I laughed at them because it was funny) not creating 32 bit versions of their software, despite all that, that I would like to keep using it, maybe as a render farm. I'm not sure how to set that up, but I might can figure it out.
At any rate, I have no space on this little rickety computer desk that I'm currently using. It came from the Wal-Mart about seven or so years ago, and is really a waste of space. The shape makes it so that you can't really put anything but a monitor on it, and it takes up a lot of floor space nevertheless. Right now, my tower is on top of my short bookcase, because you seriously cannot fit a tower on this computer table. So, I got to thinking I'd like some raw furniture that I could stain myself that might be sturdy enough to put two towers and a monitor on, but the stuff is like $300. I had the brilliant idea of looking on Craigslist yesterday, and lo and behold, I found a desk for $80 that was real wood that came from the store I was looking at. I went over and took a look at it after class this evening, and it looks great. And they knocked $5 off the price because the lower shelf was a little loose, and the guy said I'd need to reinforce it. They were very nice. This is actually the first time I've ever bought anything off Craigslist, and I gotta say, if I need furniture I should look there first. Anyway, it fit in the back of my Mazda Tribute, and so I have it out there now. Maybe I can get it set up tomorrow. I don't know when Altex will have my computer ready, but I'm looking forward to it now. When I realized that I really needed to just go ahead and get a new one, I was kinda sad about it. But maybe the VPN won't jack up my IP address when I log off of it on Windows 8.1, and maybe explorer won't randomly decide not to load when logging in.
Now, no more spending. Next up is hopefully writing a nice check to hubby's student loan servicer.
I went down to Altex on Tuesday and special ordered a new computer. I had saved up some for it since late last year, but not quite enough to cover the actual cost. I have extra right now though, so it's not a problem. I guess it was wishful thinking that I could get a computer for the amount I had saved that would nicely run the software I use. Anyway, it cost less than the one I'm on right now, which is almost six years old, and the manager knocked some off the price because I had a quote for something similar from Dell. They came in $200 under what Dell was pitching. I hope it lasts as long as this one. I also decided since there's really nothing wrong with the computer I'm on, except that the OS is no longer going to be supported, and it is 32-bit and Autodesk, in their infinite wisdom, er, I mean them being in bed with Microsoft (I told that to some students and they giggled, and then I laughed at them because it was funny) not creating 32 bit versions of their software, despite all that, that I would like to keep using it, maybe as a render farm. I'm not sure how to set that up, but I might can figure it out.
At any rate, I have no space on this little rickety computer desk that I'm currently using. It came from the Wal-Mart about seven or so years ago, and is really a waste of space. The shape makes it so that you can't really put anything but a monitor on it, and it takes up a lot of floor space nevertheless. Right now, my tower is on top of my short bookcase, because you seriously cannot fit a tower on this computer table. So, I got to thinking I'd like some raw furniture that I could stain myself that might be sturdy enough to put two towers and a monitor on, but the stuff is like $300. I had the brilliant idea of looking on Craigslist yesterday, and lo and behold, I found a desk for $80 that was real wood that came from the store I was looking at. I went over and took a look at it after class this evening, and it looks great. And they knocked $5 off the price because the lower shelf was a little loose, and the guy said I'd need to reinforce it. They were very nice. This is actually the first time I've ever bought anything off Craigslist, and I gotta say, if I need furniture I should look there first. Anyway, it fit in the back of my Mazda Tribute, and so I have it out there now. Maybe I can get it set up tomorrow. I don't know when Altex will have my computer ready, but I'm looking forward to it now. When I realized that I really needed to just go ahead and get a new one, I was kinda sad about it. But maybe the VPN won't jack up my IP address when I log off of it on Windows 8.1, and maybe explorer won't randomly decide not to load when logging in.
Now, no more spending. Next up is hopefully writing a nice check to hubby's student loan servicer.
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