Is it better to toss anything at all up on your blog in the interest of keeping people around or is it better to let some time go by until you either a) have time to really tell a story or b) actually have something worthwhile to say? And how do you decide what is worthwhile?

Discuss.

Seriously.  My comments section is lonely, yo.

Pictures like this are what happens when you sit in Starbucks on a rainy afternoon with your web cam enabled netbook and know that all you want to do is blog but you can’t decide where to start with your blogging self.  Also? The Fussy shirt? Yes kind of makes me a poseur/hipster/nerd but I’m okay with that.  I figured it was appropriate for my first foray back into the world of coffee shop musings after taking a week and a half off from such things.

Speaking of which, what a blogging failure I was this last week!  You would think with my husband gone on a camping trip and nothing to stop me from staying up all night blogging that I’d be all verbose and witty and, well, a blogging badass.  As it turns out I need my husband around to remind me to sit down and do fun things once in a while or I’ll spend all of my time doing chores and trying to get work done.  And I’ll stop to get a drink and realize “holy crap it’s two in the morning, maybe I should go to bed!” and then I’ll realize that even though I’ve been cleaning like a madwoman and trying to get enough work done to take a few days off for peoples’ visits I still won’t have accomplished a whole lot.

And, true to form, Will has been back for only a few days and my super clean apartment now looks like I haven’t picked up in weeks.  At least I’ve kept the computer room mostly clean and untouched (and thank god because that thing took a day and a half to clean up and out).  I had originally taken pictures of our mess before I cleaned it in the hopes of taking “after” photos to show you just how hard I worked.  I actually did take some “after” photos of the computer room but then I realized that to truly understand the difference, you’d have had to see the room close up and in person to really appreciate the work I did.  The photos don’t show the two years of filing that got sorted and put away.  They don’t show the insides of the drawers that were cleaned out.  You get the idea.  But trust me: that room is the cleanest it has been since before we moved in and it was empty.

What else is there to catch up on?  So much!  Health care passed, Will was camping for a week, my sister in law came up to visit, my Mom came for a visit and I learned that I really should not be allowed out of the house without adult supervision because I will talk myself into buying things that we need for the house but that are not exactly what you would call a priority.

What have you all been up to?

I had a plan.

It was a simple plan.  Will left for Arizona camping last Friday morning.  I was going to spend that Friday, Saturday and Sunday cleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaning our apartment.  Like even scrubbing the oven (which hasn’t been scrubbed since…you know what? Let’s not get into that).  Like finishing the filing that I’ve been letting pile up for months and months and kind of since we moved here.

Then, starting Monday I’d work a regular work schedule–at least 8 hours a day if not a little more to get ahead on a freelance project and then I’d spend the evenings sitting on the couch, snuggling the cat, reading, watching tv, knitting or crocheting and missing my husband until later in the week when my sister in law and then my Mom came to visit.

Yeah.  Guess how much of that has happened.  Almost none of it.

I got distracted by what was supposed to be a quick book selling trip to Powell’s Friday.  Then I spent the weekend working on last week’s freelance project so that I could concentrate on this week’s freelance project.  And then Sunday I got caught up in the politics on CSpan (apologies non political twitter followers, the live tweeting had to be irritating) and ended up staying up until 1 finishing the project.

Monday I went to the store to get food for the week, which I forgot to do when I went to the store on Saturday (got distracted by the cleaning supplies and my having to actually ask for help in locating the buckets).  And then worked later than I planned, which meant that I didn’t get started cleaning the office until later than I planned.  And then it took longer than I thought it would.  So since then I’ve had to kind of implement a “good enough” cleaning policy–especially since my plan to totally bleach our bathroom went awol after I spent more than an hour on the bath tub and just barely got it looking okay again.

So I have scrapped my plan and will just be happy getting done what I get done.

I have done exactly zero relaxing so far this week–I gave myself permission to take the rest of last night off (after cleaning out the kitchen cupboards took until 10PM) but still I kept thinking about all of the things I wanted to get done.

But that’s okay.  That’s the way life goes sometimes, right?

Today I:

Had my first book selling experience at Powell’s.  They only took 4 of them and only gave me $15 for them but that’s $15 more than I had this morning.  Except, well, I kind of put the money towards a couple of cookbooks that I’ve been eyeing and, um, ended up spending $50 of my own money which is why you don’t let me go into Powell’s unaccompanied.  Seriously. But I am now the proud owner of Julia Child’s Way to Cook and The Pioneer Woman’s Cookbook.  I’d normally link to Amazon pages for those, but since I referenced Powell’s right here that seemed a wee bit…inappropriate.

I went to the bank to update my savings account (I had a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally old one) and to order checks.  I realized today that even though I’ve had the account for 13 years I’ve written only a couple hundred checks.  And then I realized that, thanks to online bill paying,  if it weren’t for having to pay my rent, I probably wouldn’t ever write checks at all.  Which, for reasons I really can’t begin to explain, makes me feel super old.

I went to the grocery store to buy ingredients for dinner.  And wow–I made a yummy dinner (mesquite flavored steak sandwich with onions and bell peppers).  Ho-ly COW it was tasty.

I did three loads of laundry (which makes five altogether if you count the two loads of laundry I did of Will’s clothes last night).

I met my writing deadlines.

Yowza.  No wonder I’m so tired and it’s only 10:30.

It is a beautiful sunny day here in PDX.  I’ve been to the library already.  I’ve eaten lunch at Panda Kitchen (my favorite spot to eat right now, their beef and broccoli is frickin’ addicting) and met one of my writing deadlines (while working at the usually crowded Seattle’s Best.  Go me!).   Now I’m sitting in one of the comfy chairs at Starbucks and I am falling out of love with the beautiful sunny day because it is causing the worst glare/reflection on my laptop screen.  I can’t see a friggin’ thing.

I know.  Woe is me–with my awesome weather and awesome lunch and awesome trip to the library and awesome comfy chair and awesome caramel apple spice drink and awesome netbook with a not so awesome reflection.  Life is soooooooo hard.

People I am staring down the barrel of a hell of a busy evening.  Will finished his last final today which means that he is leaving for his spring break trip to Arizona tomorrow.  I’m not going because I have work to do.  And because I have people coming to visit who are staying with us.  And because of other reasons that are kind of personal and familial and don’t need to be discussed on a blog that certain people will probably soon have access to (dammit).  So yeah–that means that tonight we have to run errands and do laundry and get him packed up and ready to go in the morning (he plans on leaving early in the AM).  So I’m taking these few moments to sit in my comfy chair with my yummy drink and blog.  And maybe read.

Don’t worry about me though–it isn’t like I’ll be spending the next week at home all alone… my Mom is dropping in for a visit.  My sister in law might be coming to hang out for a while.  Who knows who else will pop in.  I feel very popular lately.

Side Note:  I am getting an education I never thought I would get while sitting here.  Seated next to me is a sorority chick who is conducting interviews for potential new sorority members.  My college didn’t have a greek system so I never got to do the whole “oh I’m WAY to cool for sorority life” thing and never got to see what a rush or selection process or whatever it is that these places do to…recruit.  Is recruit the right word?  ng things like “Like, so…. like we do stuff right?”  All I know is that this girl? Is giggly.  More giggly than I get (I prefer to think of myself as happily wry but apparently that doesn’t always get across).  And… oh wow.  It sounds like these things are so much work.  It is hard to not just blatantly stare and eavesdrop.  Wow.

Let’s see.  What else?

That’s it!

Trust me I totally feel the irony of a giant pause happening just when Wendy gives me a prolific blogger award!

This week is Will’s finals week so our schedules are tossed totally out of whack.  We’ve been staying up too late and getting up too early and, just, wow.

So, since I don’t have a lot to blog about because my brain is a little fried by all of the changes and unpredictability, here’s a slightly blurry picture of the cat.  Because she’s cute. And this photo makes her look kind of cross eyed.

Twice in the last month I have had to send my iPhone off to the great Best Buy repair shop in the sky.  Once was because I dropped it in water and once was because the replacement phone had a wonky internal microphone so I couldn’t actually use the thing as a phone unless I had the headset plugged in.  Both times I sent it out I got a replacement phone within a few days.  Both times I sent it out the replacement phone was given to me at zero cost because we have the kick ass Best Buy insurance.  Both times I sent the phone out I fell woefully behind on…just about everything.

Before I had this smartphone that I love so much, I kept up with blogs and twitter and facebook the regular way: with my computer.  During those times when I could not be attached to a computer I did what any normal person would do: I read books or magazines.  I kept up with tabloid headlines while waiting in line at the grocery store.  I read books while at home and…indisposed (oh whatever, you know it’s your favorite place to read too).

Once I got this beautiful example of technology, though, I began spending my “down” time keeping caught up with things: blogs (I read a lot of blogs, yo), twitter, facebook, checking my bank balance, reading and answering e-mail.  Which meant that my “in front of the computer time” was used far more productively and I got used to not using the computer for those daily “keeping abreast of the greater convo” things.

Which means that, when I had to send my phone out I would totally forget about reading blogs or any of the rest of it.  Which means that I only JUST NOW caught up on everything.  I had posts in my Google Reader that were over a week old.  I’ve been so busy catching up I haven’t been able to participate, which is most of the fun of these social things.

You know, you’d think I’d have a larger purpose to this post but? I totally don’t.

Welcome to Friday–the day I venture out of the house into the wide world and enjoy being amongst the people.  And figuring out how to work the webcam on my netbook.  See?

That’s me, sitting in the back corner at the Starbucks at PSU.  It is loud as frack in here right now.  That’s what happens when the rain comes back.

So.  Last night I made baked potatoes in the oven for the very first time.  And I made baked chicken.  And some canned corn.  And got so stuffed I had to change into looser pants.  I used this recipe for the potatoes and this recipe for the chicken (except for the 12 pieces of chicken part, I only used two chicken breasts).  Usually I’m not abig fan of lemony chicken but this turned out pretty good.  Tonight’s menu is round steak, more baked potatoes and, probably, salad.

It’s funny but I was never ever ever ever into cooking (I didn’t learn how to make mac and cheese or brown hamburger until high school.  Spaghetti eluded me until I was in my 20s).  Since moving out on my own and becoming responsible for feeding someone else (and getting thoroughly sick of fast food) I’ve gotten more into it.  I actually kind of look forward to the cooking part of my day, even though I know it will inevitably result in a sink full of dishes for me to do.

In other news, today I went to the library and returned a book.  I did not check out any other books since I am currently building a ginormous stack of books from two different libraries at home.  I was extremely proud of myself for not giving in and checking out at least one or two books or videos.  I might have even said (inside my head, of course) “congratulations self, you’ve learned how to exercise some self control!”  And then when I was leaving I stopped to browse in the used bookstore…and spent eight bucks.  I bought some crochet pattern cards (for $5) and a paperback copy of Chasing Harry Winston (for $3).  Um.  Whoops.

Happy Friday!

Since the last few days have been on the crazy cold, wet and windy side I decided that tonight I wanted to make something hearty and thick and filling.  The result was my very first “stick to your ribs” stew.

Basically what I did was buy a couple of “beef stew” spice packets and follow the directions on the back.  Basically.  I used a pound and a half of stew meat, two packets of beef stew spices and then a crap ton of veggies and potatoes.  Mmmm.  Spuds.  I also only used four and a half cups of water which created this great gravy for me to dip my bread into after I fished eating the “body” of the stew.  Tonight my bread was a hamburger bun because I forgot to get better bread when I was at the store (after I searched all over for bread bowls I got distracted by the super awesome potato sale and forgot about getting any sort of thick rolls to go with the stew).

My stew/pot roast veggie collection is pretty standard: potatoes, carrots, celery and an onion.  Will has asked a few times that I add some variety to the veggies but I’m not sure where to start.  I wandered through the produce section at Fred Meyer this afternoon looking at all of the different vegetables and thinking “radishes? good idea? bad idea?  green beans? yes? no?  peppers? yay? nay?”  and in the end stuck with what I know.  I am contemplating tossing in some chunks of red and green pepper next time.

Have I mentioned that I’m falling a little bit in love with red and green peppers?  The more I use them the more I like them, which means that pretty soon I’ll be adding peppers to everything just to see how the taste will change.

In other news I spent the last couple of days doing laundry and today I discovered that Will’s super thick Columbia Sportswear pants do not lend themselves nicely to ironing.  Martha Stewart says that it is best to iron stuff while it is still a little bit damp so I decided to iron Will’s pants today after I pulled them out of the washer instead of just tossing them into the dryer or hanging them up to air dry and then ironing them later.  I was so smug.  I was all “look at me! I’m thinking ahead!  I am an ironing rock star!”

I should never think so highly of myself because? It only leads to disaster.  I spent almost an hour trying to iron the creases out of the Columbia Sportswear pants and you know what?  I think I ironed more creases into those mofos than out of them.  I finally gave up and decided to just let them air dry the rest of the way.  Will said he doesn’t care of those pants are wrinkly anyway since they aren’t really for dressing up.  His dress pants, however, were perfectly ironed in a matter of minutes…and then smashed into the closet with the rest of the clothes so I’ll probably just have to iron them again anyway.

Oh well, it’s good practice right?

So: what is your favorite stew for cold wintry nights?

I wonder why the quiet at the library is so much more peaceful than the quiet at home.  In terms of actual “quietude” the library is, believe it or not, far more noisy.  There are people shifting in their seats, people coughing, sighing, whispering conversations to each other (last week I listed to two girls get very creative with their use of the word “bitch” instead of, um, working) and getting directions to books from the librarian.  Carts trundle past, clothes rustle and it’s pretty much a cacophony of “sshhh!”  in here.  At home there is the sound of my typing and every once in a while the cat will sneeze and that’s about it.  Perhaps the refrigerator will hum extra loudly for a second.  But somehow, that quiet does not really lend itself to thinky thoughts the way the library does.

By the way: I have all but tossed out my ability to do serious work in a coffee shop–at least the ones I go to.  I love hanging out in the Starbucks up on….whatever the street is before the Max turnaround and at the Seattle’s Best on 6th and somewhere near Hall but those are, without a doubt, college coffee shops so the level of noise and bustle is pretty high.  So I usually spend my time in there reading blogs and daydreaming.

Do I need to even tell you that I talked myself into coming downtown with Will again today (this time it was totally my idea)?  I’m starting to get spoiled on the library here peeps.  I’m very close to buying a monthly transit pass (next month ’cause this month’s are all sold out) and coming here every damned day.  I am strung out on the out of the houseness.  It makes me almost want to get a regular job. Except then I’d have to, you know, work on stuff instead of waxing poetic about the library and coffee shops and downtown.  Though I have been daydreaming about going back to work for a bookstore if for no other reason than the ability to read new releases without having to either a) sit on a wait list at the library for forever or b) get stared at by employees who are thinking “seriously you’ve sat there for six hours, just buy the damned book already!”  (I know they think that because that’s what I used to think of people who would come in, sit down and read through a whole book without buying it.  I now have more sympathy for the shopper.)