it's eight o'clock on a Tuesday. I'm sitting on my couch with a cup of coffee , Haüs on the TV, some laundry in the wash, and swaddled up in one of the sweatshirts I got for Christmas. I just thought while I watched TV, I could bang out a journal entry. I'm not going to go into anything deep, b/c I just don't feel like it, so NYAH!

I got a great surprise in the mail yesterday. I turned the photo my "fan" Carmen had taken for me:

and converted it to cards for JerseyCam!


I got them from a company called OvernightPrints. They came out great except that they didn't make Carmen's Flickr address bright enough. So I am going to goto my favorite stamp store, and get a stamp made so I can stamp the backs so people know where to go to see awesome photos. It's nice to have cards for the site, as I really don't have an advertising budget. Hell, I don't have a budget at all. When I re-order more cards, I will make sure to make the link brighter. Unless Carmen come sup with another design before then.

So tomorrow is New Year's Eve. For the first time, I will be venturing into NY for the celebration. I don't yet have everything fleshed out, but I'm close. I think I'll take the train, so I can drink more ;)

What else, what else. Ash Lee is getting better. She was limping very badly last week, so I brought her to the vets, as I didn't know what to do. I made the appointment and when I went to bring her in the night before, she was limping on another leg as well. I brought her in the next morning, and for some reason, they didn't have a record of my appointment. So I had to wait an hour for the next available slot. We finally got in, and Ash was a real good sport. They took X-Rays, but they showed nothing. I think she got into a scuffle with the new cat that started living in my neighbor Bob's garage. So the vet gave her antibiotics and also an anti-inflammatory. She doesn't like being inside, so all she does it meow at me when I let her out of the mud room bathroom. I hope she'll be all better soon.

Christmas was good, but draining. I seriously didn't get into the Christmas spirit like I have in previous years. I mostly seemed to have been coasting along. I am hoping next year will be better. This year was just a mad blur of running around and never seeming to catch up. My sleep has gone all wonky as well. It was really bad Sunday night. I had the dream again. It's the one I hate having b/c as soon as I wake up and roll over, I know it was a dream. Since it happened during my recent depression, I am hoping it's just result of it, and not my brain trying to get me happy, b/c it hurts more than it helps.

OK, on that note, I am hitting the sack, b/c I am über tired. Nighters all.

bTW, I will post pictures of the wedding/update about it very soon. But in the mean time:

under the sea I still need a comforter for this set. My other new set is cooler.	new sheetz! My new fishy/sea sheets.  This could lead to nausea if viewed while very drunk.

with the upcoming wedding of my cousin Amy, and the impending birth of my other cousin Jenny(not HER birth, her babies), I have been thinking about what I want from this life. Or at least what I want to happen before I shuffle off this mortal coil. I know lists are cliché, but I figure if you can write down what you want, it is easier for those goals/desires to come to fruition. So here they are.

1. I don't want to die alone
2. I want to be with someone who I can trust
3. I want to touch more peoples lives than I have hurt
4. I want to hear someone call me "Dad"
5. I want to realize why I'm on this Earth, and fulfill my destiny
6. I want to learn another language
7. I want to find the perfect blade/razor combo
8. I want to travel to places I've never been and then never go back there
9. I want to hike the Appalachians w/ someone.
10. I want to give the person in #4 a better life than I have

OK, that's all I have for now in the way of a list. Some are stupid, others aren't. It's getting late, and I'm getting tired. I have a wedding to prepare for Friday, then Saturday morning I have to be up early to go flea marketing. OK, I guess I'll leave it at that then. If anyone needs me, cell me.

it has been an awful long time since my last entry. I mostly blame my schedule for it. I barely get to sit down and relax except for the weekends, and then I'm usually to lazy to sit in front of the computer to type. So lets get up to date! Most important things first.

Skeeter and Cynder are still alive. They constantly try my patience and tempt fate, but come out on top. I am on step 2 of toilet training them. As of right now, the litter box is next to and level with the toilet seat, and they are using it just fine. Of course, my bathroom and toilet are now covered in loose litter, but it will all be worth it in the end. The next step is the litter box on the toilet seat, and finally a insert to go into the toilet. After that, the cats will be litter box free, and I will only have to flush the toilet! For their viewing pleasure, I have set up two suet feeders and one bird house on the gutter outside the windows of their room. It's so hilarious watching both of them perched upon a box with their tails twitching watching birds.

Ash Lee, Dizzy, Angel, and Crystal are also fine. The tom has made an appearance again, and he is messing with the cats at times. I really want to catch him and get rid of him proper, but everytime I set up the trap, I manage to only catch Angel. Ash has started to become lovey again, which is nice. Dizzy is as adorable as ever, but she's become a major pain in my butt at times. Since the weather is warming up, I will go outside to feed/hay/work w/o my heavy jacket on or sometimes my overalls. Thin clothing and sharp claws do not mix well. She also has been getting in the way when I go to target shoot in the gully behind the farm. But she's so cute, how can I stay mad at her?

Speaking of my bow, I did purchase a bow for myself. It's something I've been wanting for awhile, and it has a variety of uses. Besides geese removal(permanently) and also woodchuck removal(also permanent), it is also a good form of exercise and a stress reliever, will help me provide food if the world goes to hell, and considering actressGina Davis almost made the US Olympic archery team, it could a ticket to Olympic gold. I found a guy who sells/repairs them pretty reasonably at Englishtown Auction, so after coming into some money, I blew it on my bow. I set up some moldy hay bales(can't feed them to the horses) as targets/backstops, and take some shots now and then when I have time. It's also given me some chances to create things for the bow that I need, rather than buy them. I just made a quiver out of PVC last night while watching the Riches, so I saved some money there. I also am in the process of making a pro-style finger tab, which I based on a design I found online. After catching my arm on one of the first shots, which resulted in a nice little raspberry, I did fold and buy a nice pro bracer. I got it for half off, which wasn't to bad at all. I also got some new arrows, and have plans to get more, in case I lose any. I had thought I lost one already, but after hacking down a lot of thorn bushes this weekend, I found it!! Next to build is a bow rest for when I have to put down my bow outside. Inside I hung a hook from the ceiling in my office, and I hang the bow there when not using it. Since the bow has a 60lb pull, and a far let off, it's a great work out for my arm. Once I get my finger tab made, I can really start getting in some shots every night, as w/o it, 60lbs spread over 1/8" hurts a lot. My aim is slowly improving, and the only thing I seem to be able to hit repeatedly is the space between the two bales of hay, which results in a arrow disappearing into the (used to be)brush behind it. Since the bow has such a high draw weight, it was also putting arrows almost completely through the bales. I have since got some foam from Collingswood Flea Market for in between the bales, and also added some burlap to the back of the bales. Since I'm using target points, they don't go through the sacks, so it's way better.

Speaking of auctions/flea markets, as anyone who has checked out my away messages(you haven't? Shame!) has seen, I have been hitting them up pretty often. Since I started my new wet shaving/safety razor habit, I have been amassing a collection for myself, and also a small on for my Father. I will present him with a nice kit on Fathers Day, which I hope he will enjoy. In order to get some nice razors, I have had to get some bad ones also. I have gotten some razors on eBay and others at the flea markets/antique stores. The market razors tend to be cheaper, and you get a good look at them, so you get better quality. But the price you pay is quantity, and any you find are a treasure. eBay on the other hand, has more quantity, but less quality, and is very expensive sometimes. You also do not get to handle the razors, and are at the sellers mercy. I have only gotten burned once so far::knocks on wood::, so I am considering myself lucky. Antique stores are in the middle of two, and tend to be less expensive than eBay, better quality, but still low quantity. I now currently have over 30+ razors. I have six that I am evaluating for my daily shavers, and five in my "collection", which are for display. I have a few picked out for my Dad also. Once I figure out which ones will go to my Dad, the rest are going to slowly be put up on eBay. If I get $10-15 dollars for each razor that I sell, that will pay for all of the razors on a whole, which is good. I have no doubt I can get that much b/c that's what the market has been commanding. Even if I take a slight loss, it's still not that bad, b/c I will have gotten my Dad a nice Fathers Day gift. I do really enjoy the safety razors though. The shaves are great, and except for a few bad shaves due to bad blades or water conditions, I mostly end up very smooth. But about the flea markets. It's very refreshing to get up on a Saturday morning, take a quick shower in, talk w/ my Dad, then go out for a few hours and walk the markets. Never underestimate the intoxicating qualities of fresh air. Also, don't count out the food there, either. I found a guy who does nuts at Englishtown who makes some kick ass Butter Toffee Cashews that are to die for. The way I see it, I work off the calories walking around the market.

The farm is doing well. Since we got rid of our worst clients(whom have since started pulling the same stuff they did w/ us at their new place), we have less horses, but more owners/trainers. Everyone is happy with how their horses are looking coming from our place, which is great! My Dad's been down almost every day, and I think he's looking better and I think he's feeling better. If he would only take my advice about yogurt, I think he'd be all set. I have to admit I'm starting to enjoy working at the farm sometimes. This Sunday I put about 12 hours of work in, which I'm still paying for, but felt great. I burned a lot of stuff, and did some other things, like work on the firepit. I added stone dust into the holes of the cinder blocks I use to circle the pit, so they shouldn't move, and also not crack as much as they used to, because they are more solid. I also started breaking in my new boots, b/c the last ones went all crappy like. I got some Army boots, which are good, except that the top of the boots hits the bottom of my calf, and it causes some pain. Also, my Dad sold his trailer. He didn't have much use for it, and someone offered him a little more than he paid for it a few years ago, so he made out. Ironically, I spotted a trailer for sale the other day on rt. 33, and he's already thinking about buying it. I offered to front him some money if he needed it, and if we could find a truck, I think we'd be set to do run back and forth to the track. Maybe I finally can slap a bandanna on Huck and he can be my co-pilot.

Speaking of Huck, he's fine. He's been pretty well behaved lately. The only problem I have is his habit of coming up on the bed when I don't invite him. I don't know if it's a bad habit he picked up during the last few years, when he used to jump in bed to get attention, or if the cats are messing w/ him and he just decides that once he's out, and I don't say anything b/c I'm asleep, he can jump up. He's also re-registered for the year, so he got a nice new tag in addition to the new name tag I got him a little while back. I still think he's lonely since only Skeeter will play w/him, and not for that long.

Work is work, and that's pretty much all I can say. I did my taxes late this year b/c of hold ups w/ my Dad's returns. I got mine in early last week, but he got his in on the 15th at the post office in town. I should be getting a kick ass return check, so I'm psyched. Since interest rates are horrible, I think I'll enroll them in some 6 month CD's, so that if there is a up turn, I can take advantage of a better rate.

Family is doing OK. Easter was nice this year. My cousin Jenny is preggers, and it's so facisinating to me. Pregnancy is just so wonderus to me. My Aunts are already planning to spoil the child. Jenny is doing a good thing and not finding out the sex of the baby, which I think is cool. I know I am destined to have all girls for two reasons. One, I will be horribly overprotective parent, and two, I think fate will not give me the chance to ever have a SteveDave like I want. Also, my cousin Amy is getting married in about two weeks from now. It's at a nice place, so I can't wait. I must remember to pack my shoes this time. Luckily, I picked up a shoe shine kit at the auction this weekend($3), so I can finally shine shoes proper. I just have to pick out which suit to wear, and the most important thing, which tie. I think the $115 silk tie is the forerunner, as it is worthy of the event I am attending.

Really, that's all I can think of for now. It's been a semi busy day, and it's not getting any less busy. I still have to go home, go out for Happy Hour to unwind, come back to the house and start working on my bow rest, and do whatever else rears it's head to try and distract me. But then I get to sleep. Nothing beats throwing on a pair of wool socks and curling up under the wool blankets on my bed. And on that note, I am off to a night of busy work. If anyone needs me for anything, the important people have the important numbers. I almost always answer, except if I can't reach the phone, or it's too noisy out to talk. Nighters all.



Quote For Today:

Look to the past and remember and smile,
And maybe tonight I can breathe for awhile.
I'm not in the scene, I think I'm fallin' asleep.
"Feeling This" by Blink 182

i know, I haven't updated in like forever. Just been very busy. And when I work hard, I party hard, so most nights I'm in no shape to write entries. It's Friday, so I thought I'd take a few minutes away from the "real" work, and fill in some details.

Angel is back outside. She had healed up, and was just miserable inside, so when the weather warmed up for a few days, I kicked her out of the house. Ash Lee and Dizzy were cautious at first, but after some hissing and sniffing, it was a regular old family re-union. The inside cats are good. They are still trying to get themselves killed, but also stop me from doing it. Case in point. Sunday, I had to take my Mom to a wake. Afterwards, we went out for chinease food. During dinner, I dropped a piece of chicken on my tie. When I got home, I took it off, and left it on the kitchen table to clean on Monday. Monday night, I come home, and the tie is clean! Someone had licked the sauce off the tie. So I did some hand laundering in the sink, and the tie looks good. Needs some steaming though. Speaking of ties, my brand new order of 29 ties came in(only 26 are for me, the others are gifts). But yes, the cats are cute. This weekend I am using some advice I found online, and am going to try to teach them to use the toilet. It doesn't sound that hard. If I can help teach a dog to use bells to say he wants to go out, getting cats to use a toilet is child's play. Flushing and lighting a match, that's another story. As for the dog, Huck is Huck. He got a new tag, which makes him even more handsome.

What else.... Well, I stopped using my razor at home to shave. Wait, before you all picture me a la Tom Hanks in Cast Away, let me explain. I have been using my electric razor, and one day the switch broke. I was using my Fusion and Mach 3, but I'm not a fan, so I sucked it up, and bought a new one. Got a great deal, BTW. Well, while I was looking for razors online, I came across some old book marked pages I had saved when I was contemplating straight razor shaving(not for the nervous, faint of heart, or people w/little to no hand-eye coordination. I also came across some recent articles on wet shaving. For those "Not In The Know", wet shaving is not using the traditional can lather, but the old soap and brush. Even w/ a Mach3, the difference is amazing. The propellants in modern can stuff actually dry your skin. Companies fight this by adding crap in, but it takes its toll. Also, the modern razors are made with so many blades because they want you to shave w/ less strokes so you get less razor burn. Wet shaving fights this by using warm, moist lather applied with a brush, which exfoliates as well as opens the pores and softens the hairs. But after searching awhile, I realized something that has occured to me before. Yes, we have advanced as a society technologically, but perhaps we have gone forward when we had it good at a point. I discovered this before when I switched from chemical laden T-Fal to pure cast iron. From a computer controlled plastic sewing machine to a 50 year old Singer sewing machine. Also when I went from a modern car to my deer killing Oldsmobile. Sometimes simpler is better. So I went on Ebay, and bought a 1959 Gillette Adjustable Safety razor. It takes the double edged razor blades you occasionally see in the stores. Yeah, it's simpler, but it's so much better. The razor has a good amount of heft to it, so it essentially shaves all by itself. The blades cost about $0.17 each, which is way better than the ~2.00 for the modern throwaways. I'm about two weeks into shaving, and I'm close to a BBS(Baby Butt Smooth. Sorry, I like to use acronyms) shave. I have two razors that I use, and a few more I have been buying, but will sell later, as prices seem to be increasing. It takes a little longer in the morning, but it's so worth it. It's a very involved process, so it lets me turn off my brain while I soak my bowl and brush in hot water, build up a nice lather, spread it on my face, and then shave. True, it takes about 3-5 passes to get nice and smooth, but it's so sweet. Sometimes you can actually HEAR the hairs as they get cut. It's bad sometimes when I laugh at something Tony & Greg say on the radio, and end up shaving off part of a mole or cut myself. But I'm loving it. I also decided to make up a Fathers Day present for my Dad, so I am stalking the flea markets and auctions for a nice razor for him, as well as other accessories. He really took a shining to my razor(s), so I think he will enjoy this.

OK, enough about razors, what else? Not much else is really going on. I've been completing things around the house that need to get done during this recent spate of bad weather. For the first time in a long while, and maybe the 3rd or 4th time since I've moved in, we lost power the other night during the storm. It wasn't that bad, as I keep supplies around the house for such things, and I know where almost every flashlight is stored. The only reason I woke up was that the UPS on Juliet was beeping away like mad. After I got up and turned it off, I went back to bed, and was asleep for about 2 minutes when the CO alarm next to my bed started beeping b/c the power was off. The battery backup was low on it. One bad trait of Huck's is that in the event a smoke alarm goes off, he runs away and hides. So as soon as that starts beeping, he starts whining and clawing at his crate door, and I brought him downstairs to the mud room to ride out the storm. Went back upstairs to sleep for a bit, but feeding time was close by, so I went and did that. While I was feeding, the power went back on, and all was well. I did have a weird dream during the night though. From where I remember it starting, I was in a Drumline/Stomp the Yard type situation, and there were people competing. It somehow turned into a cheerleading competition(yay!). The team I was on was losing, so during the break, we went into the locker room. The head cheerleader was a Kirsten Dunst-esque, with nice blond hair, a sweet body, and a wet/sweaty top which showed off a nice set of nips. It was somehow decided that I could win the competition for my team. All that it required me to do was wear make-up/face paint and stare/intimidate the opposing teams so they would mess up. That's about as far as it got before the power problems, which upset me. I would have like to have known how it turned out. OK, that's about it for now.

but I'm not. I have been sleeping so crapily this past week for some strange reason. I don't think I've been dreaming again, because i can't remember any. The last one I had a good memory of was one from the weekend where I became a volunteer firefighter. So yeah, I'm tired.

I did almost fall asleep watching the storm last night. It was really relaxing. Even when the lightning was hitting nearby, I felt so relaxed. I wonder what a storm like that would be like out in the woods under the stars in a tent. There was a moment when everything was silent. No bugs, animals, wind, cars, etc... It was very profound. Then the wind started to blow, and you could hear the laves start to rustle. So I was sitting on my chair on he porch, and I found my eyelids getting heavier. I would have fallen asleep out there if I wasn't so concerned with the bugs. Wouldn't wanna wake up a pint low due to skeeters. and I mean mosquitoes, not the dumb orange cat. So after an hour or so, I went inside and unsuccessfully tried sleeping. I hope this clears up soon. I may be sick though. I don't know.

Other than that, I'm surviving. That's it for now, I'm gonna crawl into bed and try to find a place where I slept well, and try to re-visit there.

Quote for Today
“A thousand miles seems pretty far,
but they’ve got planes and trains and cars,
I’d walk to you if I had no other way.
Our friends would all make fun of us,
and we’ll just laugh along because,
we know none of them have felt this way.”
Hey There Delilah, by Plain White T's

CAFFIENE!!!!

Seriously, if anyone doubts the existence of a higher being, I have three proofs that there is someone up there.

#1. Caffeine, and of course, one of it's main delivery systems, coffee

#2. That today, March 21st, Dunkin Donuts is giving away FREE iced coffees, which are made with twice the amount of coffee to insure strong flavor

and #3. That in the great State of New Jersey, ad more specifically, where I live, there are enough Dunkin Donuts that I pass THREE on my way home.

So yes, I'm riding the high of the brown fairy. Kinda hard to type actually.

But anyway, what's happening. Well, I almost killed the cats today, especially the cute little gray lump on my lap. I returned some boots I bought, and the company thought I was exchanging them. So they sent out another pair. I called them after I got notice that they had shipped, and they couldn't recall the package. So when it was delivered yesterday, I tried bringing it to the UPS store to refuse delivery, but they wouldn't take it. I tried finding the hub in Lakewood, but that was strike two. So I called this morning for a pick up, and they said OK. I left the box in the kitchen, and when I came home from lunch with my Dad, the back door wouldn't open right. Well, someone knocked over the box, and ate a corner off of it. Now to return, I couldn't have opened the box. I saw the UPS guy drive up, and I threw the box and the shreds into the mudroom, as well as a cat. When the guy came, I opened the door, reached for the box, and put on a good act. The guy was cool with the fact that it had been eaten, mostly because I gave him a UPS safety sign I had found on the side of the road. The box is on it's way back to Minnesota now.

In nighttime news, I had a great/bad dream the other night. In it, I was in Target or somewhere, and I was walking through aisles, and there was a line. As soon as I stopped, I felt a pair of hands on my back. I literally melted. I still get weak in the shoulders thinking about how good it felt. It was this really cute girl, and we started talking while she kept rubbing my back. I could tell she was hitting on me(Let's hope so at least, it'd be sorry if girls didn't hit on me in MY own dreams), and of course, I proceeded to try to play the suave cool hip guy I am(in my mind, of course). Then the bad part happened. The damn alarm wet off, and I was actually holding Skeeter and trying to kiss him. OK, I lied about the Skeeter part. I just woke up, and that really bummed me out.

OK, that's it for now. I have to try and catch Time of the Essence, and then try to tease her. I think it would go easier if I used a baseball bat, but apparently, that's considered cruel. I really hate that horse. Cybil is better behaved than she is. And she has that cute baby I posted pictures of below. But not as cute as my Katie. Speaking of which, I need to go give her some mints. Nighters all!

OK, so last night was bad. Now to preface it, Zippo was missing for like a day and a half. But I spotted her last night, and checked her out and she was fine. But in my dreams last night, we were walking in the barn, and I heard a strained meow. I went searching through the barn, and in the corner of a stall, near the hay net, I saw something im the saw dust. I was Zippo, and she was hurt. I turned around, and I was alone. There was no one there to help me. And I didn't want to leave her alone. I was like cradling her, and I didn't want to move with her. I cried out for help, but no one came. I finally woke up, and needless to say I was upset.