Movin' On Up

Peace, Blogger. I'm moving to Wordpress. My blog is now found at http://fentressferny.wordpress.com/ . Hope to see y'all there!

That's No Picnic Table. THIS is a Picnic Table!

The life of our picnic table is an ever-changing one. When we moved into our country home, there was a table already provided at our part of the river. Then one day, it was gone! It had been stolen! Someone had climbed out of the river, pushed our table into the water, and floated it down to a popular river spot downstream.

In our stolen table's stead, a large work table that was already on our property was moved into place. After Handy Dandy Drew installed a sturdy bench, it was almost something to be proud of and certainly something to protect; thus, Catrin chained it to a tree.

Months later, I got the itch to improve it just a bit more. Unfortunately, without any way to run electricity to the river, I sanded that sucker by hand! With just a glove, sandpaper, and determination, this behemoth started looking presentable.

^Amish-style results. Ignore battery powered radio.

Once sanding was over, the lovely Michelle helped me prime and paint this sucker [with swim breaks in between coats]. I stenciled on the finishing touches and BAM! Those thieves may have won a battle, but we won the war! I really hope this one doesn't get stolen.

Exhausted. Filthy. Thrilled.

Tables, Stools and Second Chances

Inspiration has struck! This past Tuesday night, I started perusing Martha Stewart's site and turned regular ol' humpday into Craft Wednesday!I set off in my environmentally unsound, yet functional, SUV and headed to Goodwill. This step was critical to Craft Wednesday. What if Goodwill had no workable furniture? What if all the legs were wobbly? What if everything was beyond help? I would have to scrap the whole idea!

But I was in luck. Stool and table be my booty!

Pretty ugly, right?

While Catrin worked on crafting her handmade cards, I sat on behind-numbing concrete, painting my table Olympic Shortbread color. Pedo watched...creeper.It's strange how projects evolve. More often than not, I start without a clue as to how the end results will look. And if I have an idea, it will be wrong. After four hours, my excitement had turned to backache, so I scrapped the stencil idea, decided against upholstering a seat cushion to the top, and just decided to finish the stool.

^I'm about done with this.

Seven hours, a desperate need for a pillow, and less than $40 later, I am the proud new owner of a shabby chic table and stool!

Another example of a project's evolution was the case of the Catstle. First it was hideous, but kind of blended into the background.

It was when my enthusiasm for the table and stool projects bled over onto this, that my success streak took a nasty turn. I suppose that since the Catstle was splintered and found in a dumpster that anything I did to it would be an improvement. After I finished painting the legs, I grabbed my staple gun and started covering up the stained carpet. I am not entirely sure what happened, but the final product was a 90's Tribute Shrine to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

^Lookz mean nuffin.

^I had a pair of platforms that faintly resembled this.

I took the beastly thing downstairs and removed the layers of failure from the Saved by the Bell monument. Now we have a shabby chic corner and Tiny look just so sophisticated in it!

Oh, sweet satisfaction.

Memorial Day Weekend

So, I think last time I said I was going to be better about writing in this. I forgot.

So memorial day weekend began Saturday. We had a bunch of friends out and, I can't speak for anyone else, but I had a fantastic time. Mike, whom we haven't seen in months, brought karaoke. Like big speakers, for real karaoke. Late in the afternoon, I managed to twist my ankle. How? Let me tell you, revealing just how foolish I am. I jumped from a 15 foot ledge into four feet of water. Sometimes one hears the question, "If all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you do it too?". Well, that answer is, "Yes".

*Action shot of the event.

With a little too little sleep, I awoke Sunday morning and hobbled to wear I had thrown my brace. It took some time, gasping, and grunting to get that thing over my swollen ankle, but I triumphed and headed off to work. I haven't been off my feet much since, and surprisingly, it's worked. I may have walked off a sprained ankle.

All this is fine and good, but what I really want to talk about is today. After saying goodbye to 2K before his two-week Korean adventure [you can guess which side], Cat and I met some friends [including my former Physical Geography teacher] in San Marcos, where we rented a 2 person kayak and a 3 person canoe. This trip was an overall victory and we enjoyed our success, but it came with grave failures. We realized quickly that canoes are incredibly difficult to maneuver and easy to tip. After bumping into a good number of tubers, we realized that CaNOes can just suck it. After four miles, the San Marcos meets the Blanco river. The beauty of this area is incredible. I could go into detail about the roots of the Cypress trees and the grumpy green heron; however, I am tired.

At County Rd 101, thee hell that is Don's Fish Camp began. The people all looked the same, the battling stereos were too loud, they were all LITTERING!, they were taking up SO much space, and their comments were incredibly rude. Luckily, I was in the kayak for this section, so when coming upon a big pack of tubers, Cat and I sped past. During one of these personal races, a guy shouted, "Bitches, slow your role." I was already perturbed, but this sent my blood boiling. I couldn't go crazy because we were moving so quickly, but I did some hollering. I bet he treats his mother like garbage too.

I only saw one snake and it was a couple inches from my hand. I also found huge disappointment in the sogginess of the pizza I had packed for lunch, which I thought was going to be the greatest idea of all time.

After taking the first turn of some rapids well, I cheered, "We like professionals!" We immediately tumped over. Yeah, sponsors are banging at the door. Our flip lost a one gal's shoe, while her husband simultaneously lost his wedding ring. We couldn't feel more terrible, but we were surrounded by Don's "fish", so we had to abandon the search for the needle in the haystack.

At some point today, I was stung on the face by a yellow jacket. As I was holding my forehead and repeatedly stomping on the mean creature against the bottom of the canoe, we went through some low-hanging branches. The leaves lashed at my face, the twigs caught in my hair, and then a thick Ent arm thudded against my head. In this moment of fury, I slammed down my oar and announced, "Now, I am not having fun!" The stinger was pinched out and the moment passed, but I frantically kicked at myself when another later landed on my leg.

After seven hours and twelve miles of rowing, mostly upstream, we finally finished our trip from Sewell Park, in San Marcos, to 1979, in Martindale: Home of Cottonseed Cafe and some other things. Yeeehaw!

Bed time.

Schruel

As you all know, school has started, sending landscaping and blogging right to the backseat. I feel like I'm already behind, despite the "cold days" we had off last week. We were affected most by the rolling blackouts in central Texas this past Wednesday. Our electric went out at 7 am for about 40 minutes. Then it went again at 11...until 7 that night. This 1920's house just couldn't keep us warm, plus Cat and I had homework to do online, so we vacated and went to the Coffee Pot. Luckily, Michelle and her puppy Bana (pictured in the last post) have been staying with us one or two nights a week, since she's commuting from North Austin, so our school cancellations caused a great slumber party.

A lot has been happening lately. I am jacking my resume up on speed and Mountain Dew. (I'm not on speed or Mountain Dew, the resume is the one with addictions.) I have been helping to found a grass-roots non-profit which enforces communities, adaptive reuse, beautification and restoration to rural locales. I have been working and schooling. I made, but am yet to give, a presentation over GRACE, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, which has a mission to observe and gather data about our oceans and our planet's gravity, among other things. I feel that this will be well received, as I am finally in some upper level courses.

Now, on the other hand, I also switched my major, which suddenly leaves me with a few additional basic courses left to take. One of these is world geography, a highly interesting class. Unfortunately, I am surrounded by young'ns again. One guy said, "I'm going to sleep through this semester," while another exclaimed, "I'm only taking this class because I HAVE to." Michelle told me that a guy in her philosophy class complained that the course required, "too much thinking." This is obviously not the right attitude and they are not college material. Unfortunately, I feel that some poor kids may have the right attitude, but bring the wrong know-how. For instance, the W Geo class is calling for a forum, basically asking for posts describing which technology (used in a particular area, other than the US) your research paper will discuss. Below is an unfortunate post about...something. I desperately want to help her, but, not only do I lack the time, but some folks are just lost causes.

---And so it begins---

I choose to write my technology over something that my own mother is handelingr ight now. I have seen first hand through her eyes how hcanging electronics within such a large company can effect not just the company but all the people that work for it, that effects eventually a entire community or town.
My mother works for A and M and has been working lond hours to implement an entire new technology into her branch of one of the services A and M offers. This willl eventually effect everyones time sheets, all the man that work in the field sign in and out, and everyone within the entire A and M system. They noticed a need for this when people where not useing time wisely throughout there days. Many people were "stealing" time. Yes you wouldnt think of this as being an issue usually but, if you have ever been to College Station you can see that the college it what runs the town. With something such as time being off for all the people that work for A and M this can cost the college much more monay and essentially costing the students more in tuition. It is good for me to see this step being taken I think it will help college tuition at A and M go down eventually and maybe reach out to other colleges that are having the same problems.
Theis will help the cost for college to go down hopefully and we all know that will reach out all around America. I hope to eventually have interviews with people hire up in A and M to know there side and why and how they took these steps.

---

I am not making fun of her, so much as pointing out a huge flaw in our education system. She is a high school graduate? She was accepted into a university? There is a problem here and I look forward to fixing it. When I'm a social studies teacher, I will still put a percentage of grade emphasis on grammar, spelling, and clarity. I will tutor and I will fix this problem! My poor, sweet friend Kelly is a grad student in Michigan, where she also has to teach a lower level English. I desperately hope she saves some good stories for me. Oh, and I am her maid of honor. HOOOOOT!


My paper is about biomass incinerators and I am incredibly excited about all that I have to learn. The teacher requires us to respond to at least one peer's post. Of all the discussions, mine is the only one yet to receive feedback. I'm going to take this as a good sign, maybe even a compliment.

My friend Tiny Cat just made a firetruck sound in his sleep.

I wrote everything I have to say to my Aunt Linda on paper, so there's no need to repeat it. You are missed.

I went to bed at 8 o'clock tonight. It obviously didn't take because here I am, awake and missing my cats. Pedes and I cuddle every night, but yesterday it was too cute. We slept with our foreheads together and our feet/hands atop one another.

I want my critters! (Pedes thought Bana (dog) was his mama and nursed on her neck so much that it balded a spot on her throat.)

I'm spending the night at my uncle's house because his kiddos need babysitting. I picked them up from daycare and sent the girl off to basketball practice. Her younger brother, of course, cried when she left, but I've found the way to stop the crying. I held him for about a minute, put him back down, and then walked away. I've noticed that if I fawn over a kid when he or she cries, that kid will not stop crying ever. Anyway, he's a clever little guy. He wanted me to switch on the TV in the car, but I'm not the TV kind of person. He kept repeating, "Mommy said yes! Mommy said yes!" I buckled him in, gave him a kiss on the noggin and replied, "Cousin Bethany says no." I think he forgot about the TV once we started driving and laughing the entire trip home. Later, he pulled the "Daddy said yes" card when he wanted to go outside to play baseball. Let's see here...cold, rainy and outside playing catch or warm, dry and on the couch, snuggled under a blanket. Cousin Ferny is gonna have to say "no" again.

After playing "football" on the kitchen floor, he wanted to feed the fish. I was afraid we may overfeed it, which has killed some fish of mine in the past, but then I saw that it was already dead, sucked against the air pump. I wasn't prepared to deal with death in front of a toddler, especially one so sensitive. So, when he asked me where the fish was, I told him that the fish had gone out to get some milk.

Yeah. I refuse to turn on TVs in cars, ignore superfluous crying, and lie to kids about their dead fish. I am a bad, bad babysitter.

Yeah, I write long entries.

Oh! I just had such a fantastic day that I have to write about it. Maybe you think I'm putting off mopping my floor, but what do you know? Let me tell you about it.

The morning started off badly. I worked so hard yesterday and my shovel is so short, that my back was throbbing by early morning. I tossed this way and that. I put pillows here and there. Nothing was working, but I'm dedicated to getting my sleep, so there I snoozed. Around 10, I grumbled out of bed, used the restroom, opened my bedroom door, and there was my friend Catrin! She's my roommate and I'm glad of that. (I'm glad of that? Does that sound right? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've heard that before.) Anyway, her being there flipped my day around.

I went to San Marcos to hit some nurseries. First, I went to Gardenville, which is the compost/mulch/rock/sand/soil aspect of Texas Disposal Systems. Boomin' business there, with those 10 trees out front. The future father of my children was working there, and he told me that they would have more selection come Spring.

Confused, I asked, "But isn't the time to plant trees and shrubs now?"

His deep flickered, in true Edwardian style. He lips parted and he told me that if more people knew that, they would have more to sell in Winter. Get that? Edwardian. That's absolutely Twilight/Harlequin styled-writing...terrible. Anyway, I get it. It's poor business to sell plants in the winter. "Interested in a large stick in a pot?" He gave me the name and number to a guy who specializes and sells trees. I'm buying a rare ornamental called a Rusty Blackhaw from him next week. This tree is beautiful year round, ranging from white, to green, to red and purple and it's so valuable that it's often stolen. I will fight you if you try and steal my Rusty Blackhaw *lowers voice*, and I fight dirty.

From there, I headed to Garza's Greenhouse, even though I heard a rumor that it was all disassembled and had possibly gone out of business; but I spaced out during my drive and wound up at Lowe's instead.

There, this guy with bad hair followed me/helped me hardly. Another man working mentioned a deal on sand. 1 TON for $17.99. Even though I have a beef with that whole ".99" scam, $18 is half off! Apparently, they were trying to get rid of them. Lowe's is great at cutting deals. My stepmom got really expensive outdoor Christmas trees and an entire load of goodies for knock-you-over cheap. Back to the sand, I had to think it over at Bueno.

Which brings us to Bueno. As I was walking in, a man behind me said, "Let me get that." Sweet, but I had left my coat in the car, it was cold and letting him open the door required me to wait for him to catch up...at the door. My hand was already outstretched, but I won't let chivalry die.

Of course, then we stood in line together. He tried to make jokes about my young age and told me about their need for hangover food. I told him about the chicken nacho salad that I've been hooked on since I was twelve or so. He heard the word "salad" and went with some fajita nonsense. He has no idea what he is missing.

As I was putting salsa on my salad, he saw the pile of magnificense on my plate and we struck up another conversation about the scarcity of Taco Buenos in this area. His friend said pompously, "Well, I'm from Abilene, where they originated, and they're all over the place there." That is JUST how I would've said it! I shouted, "North 1st, baby!" and we high-fived. Yeah...that really happened.

But the story doesn't end there. Shortly after I sat down, an older man, giving off the presence of a truck driver approached me.

"Excuse me. I overheard you say that there is a Bueno in Austin. Where is it?", he croaked.

I told him poor directions, so after he sat down, I looked it up on my phone and drew him a map. Isn't technology's ability to provide endless information to fingertips worldwide amazing?!

Taco Bueno did it's job and I decided that a deal like that couldn't be passed up, so I headed back to Lowe's. When I got there, I ended up having about six or seven employees helping me. Me and my small army, discovered that there were only two bags left. That sealed the deal. Plus, as my friend Drew mentioned, it is pretty awesome to own two tons of something.

I wasn't planning to create the sandbox for another several months, maybe even a year, but it seems I'll be doing that Monday. I'll answer your more pressing question first. Yes, I'll be sure to put a cover over it when not in use, to keep the cats away. Second, also yes, I'm 23, but there are kids that come here often. I should do this first, while they're young and can enjoy it. I'm going to hide things in there for them to find. Like dinosaur bones! Not only that, we have this old playscape. It's sturdy, but the slide is steep! The onomatopoeia of descending kids goes something like this: WHEEEeeeFwunk* It's best if you make a guttural sound for the Fwunk part.

Then I went to Target and bought NEW things, which is rare, and I got a peppermint mocha at the Starbucks. I saw Cat briefly, followed by us talking on the phone briefly. I talked to my mom twice! I went to work, where I made Vinaigrette dressing (more work than it sounds like) and broccoli salad (fairly easy, but I have to wear lab goggles so I don't cry when I'm cutting onions).

Now I'm home. I cleaned the stove, kitchen surfaces, the inside of the microwave (boy, did it need it), and changed the kitty litter (always needed...nasty creatures...it's really too bad we live so close to the highway). I grabbed the pine kind this time, not Yesterday's News. Well, time to sweep, vacuum, and mop. Old houses, especially the ones with cats residing within, get dirty in a flash. It would be a disastrous thing if I didn't like to clean. What a boring last paragraph. Hrm....

New last paragraph! Writing is so fun. I hope that you enjoyed reading about my day. Bye now!

Changeling vs. Lemming

Not only am I undeniably a cat lady, since moving into this house, I have become the escaped-dog lady. A rott mix named Max jumps over his 10 ft, barbwire-topped fence and crosses the street to come see me. The other day, his owners weren't home, so I brought him inside like always. He immediately jumped on my bed and we watched a samurai flick. Today, while working outside, a blue heeler mix came over, made friends with me, and then took a nap in the freshly dug soil.

Yes, I was digging today. It may be cold out, but it was a perfect day for manual labor. You wouldn't think so, but in summer, you sweat and wince. In winter, you work harder, warm up slower, and still usually end up removing some of those layers.

Redoing the outside of this house is even more befuddling than the inside. So far, I have discovered an action figure screwed to a fence post, bottles in trees that require bamboo to break off the branch, a rim still attached to an axle, and in a bed near the side entry...well, I can't decide which is better, the plate, the hand spade, or installation CD for AOL 6.0.

(This is where I found AOL 6.0! I destroyed all that Wandering Jew, which is ironic because I researched Adolf Eichmann, The Ovitz family, Mengele, and the Nuremberg Defense earlier today. Yikes. What a creeper. Anyway, that stuff is so uncreative! I think daffodils or tulips would be perfect in there.)

So remember in the last post, I mentioned that I'm working on the side entry and my plan had to be redone because of an unexpected strip of concrete? Well, the plan is changing again. When I started digging for the pathways, I found that I could hardly break up the dirt. That's because there is about 1/4" humus, 1/4" topsoil, and beneath that, rocks. Rocks and rocks and some sand and some more rocks. Apparently some previous resident had the entire area covered in stones, making the driveway heinously long. Anyway, back to the drawing board, I go. How interesting it is that things are ever-changing.

(This is the side entry before we moved into the house. It already looks 100x better than this.)

Yesterday, Cat made spaghetti squash spaghetti with brussels sprouts "brusselballs". It was a kid's nightmare, but a delicious dream for my mouth. Fooood. Yesss!

School starts again on the 18th. I'll be taking World Geography, some English class, Environmental Hazards, and Location Analysis (Where and why or why not to build in a given location, I think.) Sounds fun, yeah?

I am going to kick 2011's butt.

Forgotten blog

Oh dear, how the mighty blog has fallen. Sometimes, breaks are needed and I have been going a mile a minute in this life. We have a lot to catch up on.

At the end of the summer, I moved into a house. Not just any house. THE house. Catrin and I had an image in our combined heads and we wouldn't settle for anything less. We searched high and low, searching for good points to some of the crappiest places. "Well, I'm not sure why a sofa cushion is nailed to that fence post, but I'm sure it's for good reason!" Or, "If we get some tall plants, criminals won't even know there's a window here."

Instead, when we said, "Well, there's no wall whatsoever, but there ARE 5 Carolina Wren chicks living in this built-in shelf" it translated to, "This house is nothing but possibilities. It's perfect!"

Well, perfect until it gets filled with 8 feet of water. Why is that a risk? Because we just so happen to have the San Marcos river in our backyard. It's a great feature, until it gets out of hand. We have insurance and will cross that bridge when we come to it. If it's not underwater too...

I am back at TX State, studying English, Geography, and minoring in Education. The past semester was great with easy classes. I am currently working as a prep cook at Cottonseed Cafe, which is adorable with delicious, homemade food.

So one of my New Year's Resolutions is to get the outside of this house looking as cared for as the interior. Now that it's winter and things are dreary, people in our small "town" have probably noticed by now that the flowers in the front yard are fake. I'm betting, come spring, they'll look just fine again. Anyway, I am starting with the side door that everyone enters through. I have grand plans for every area of the yard, but I have all this space, it would be a shame not to dream big and do the place justice. I'll be using only native, hardy, non invasive plants and, hopefully, little money. Today, after I hauled away some junk and raked a hundred pounds of leaves, I found that there is a strip of concrete slab covering a foot from the house. So, I threw my plan out and started again. The project has now doubled in size, but it is going to be amazing once it's done. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a bobcat for this.

Another resolution is to start coming up with other sources of income. I am broke always, now that I'm a college kid again. Another is to learn the piano. 2011 is going to be a busy year.

I'll try and post in here more frequently, but I'm making no promises.

Restart!

So, I am back in Austin, Texas, United States of America. I guess I forgot to tell you. Actually, I've just been putting it off for a while. So here's what you've missed out on, in summary and in order:

* Got back to the US in February. Spent a few days in Pearland, then came back to Austin.
* Tyler and I split. Depressing, but needed to happen. :(
* I hung out for a while and then got a job in a coffee shop in March.
* I lived out of my car, while sleeping on my friends' couches and beds.
* I started to casually date a guy, but then I ended things there. I also started to watch Lost, but didn't end that relationship.
* In April, a friend of mine flew me to Colorado for a couple days!
* Tyler came to visit me.
* I turned 23 on the 23rd. Golden birthday! It sucked hardcore. I suppose 1/23 isn't such a bad statistic, but if all my birthdays from here on out are going to be like my 23rd, then I don't want to celebrate them anymore.
* At the beginning of this month, my second step-mom had her gallbladder removed and that's been an ordeal that she hasn't recovered from yet.
* I moved my suitcase into my friend Michelle's house. So I mostly live there. That's fun and free! Great friends rock my socks.
* I caught up with all the other Lost fans. I powered through 6 seasons in less than 2 months. That's dedication.

I'll go into more detail about some of these things later, but seeing as how it's 2 in the morning, I'll wait.