zippity

so, i send this to the city:

"I'm looking to start a new photography business to be operated from my home and would like information on what licenses or permits I would need to obtain from the City of Tampa in order to make this happen."


and i get this:

"Good Afternoon,

Your application is being processed. An inspector will either contact you first with follow up questions, or a bill for your City of Tampa Business Tax will be mailed to you as soon as possible. The inspector in charge of the area where your business is located is --- : office phone: 813-999-9999.

Thank You For Your Inquiry,
---, City of Tampa Business Tax Representative"


they move fast! guess i need to as well.

goal setting

last week, anthony and i agreed that we'd try to limit ourselves to 2 episodes of bones a night, starting monday.

FAIL.

we watched 5.

our only consolation and reason for the absolute disregard of our goal was that when we got home, we actually did a lot of work! we immediately changed and headed out back to tackle the blase' and dying shrubs behind the band room.

you can sort of see them here:



kim: 1
baby snakes: 0

we snipped the shrubs down to the earth and then used a shovel to dig out the root balls. i slammed the shovel down into the earth and suddenly... a hyper squirmy snake tail erupted from the ground. it was just the tail end - maybe 4 inches long; you think it's still alive? i hope so! it definitely distracted me, much as a bird might have been, giving the front end time to slither painfully away. poor little thing. i even picked it up; it was incredible that i could still feel the tiny muscles moving as it whipped back and forth.

better luck tonight. the good is that we're down to season 4; the end is nigh!

"I may be cynical when I say that very rarely is the beloved more than a shaping spirit for the lover's dreams. And perhaps such a thing is enough. To be a muse may be enough. The pain is when the dreams change, as they do, as they must. Suddenly the enchanted city fades and you are left alone again the windy desert. As for your beloved, she didn't understand you. The truth is, you never understood yourself."

- Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson

grow, little babies

last night (while watching bones, season 2, of course), i planted a bunch of little seedlings.

basil, eggplant, leeks a plenty, tomatoes. i splurged and bought the burpee $20 seed starter kit because it came with a little watering mat. i know my weaknesses. remembering to water plants is a serious downfall of mine. when the raised garden is complete, i'll be installing a micro-sprinkler system (free from the county!) on a timer.

at the housewarming party, my friend amy gave me a strawberry and tomato plant. and while they are both still alive, they have both gone through the throes of desert dry wilting and turgid revival a number of times. partly they need to be re-potted/planted, but i was waiting until the raised garden was complete. saturday is scheduled to be sunny. *crosses fingers*

i also have a bunch of carrots and beets, but i've read that they can just be sown outdoors. we'll see how it goes! did you know that you can plant 50 carrots in 1 square foot? i have no idea how to do this - do i plant them all at once? will they all be ready all at once? guess we'll find out!!

adorable godson, owen

owen, playing in the yard, pulling weeds and tossing them into the air.

do you remember such freedom and carelessness?

*urgle*

so, i'm in this total rut.

and i'm not sure how deep it is or when i'll be able to claw myself out of it.

it's not a bad rut, which makes it even worse.

what is it, you ask? all my nights have been taken up by the tv and the couch, maybe with the addition of a beer.

or two.

netflix is the new cable. our new cable, sans commercials. it's the future, no lie. (for us, at least.) we've been engrossed by movies and by the tv series 'bones'. it's not bad. so far, not great. kind of funny, interesting characters. the story is almost always predicable and while they tackle "big" issues like dead children and sex abuse, it feels heavy handed. also, anthony had made a comment about the main character's super square face and every time i see her in frontal view, i resist the urge to put my hands into L shapes and frame it.

i want to work on photos, on websites, on getting my shit together to start a wee little photo business, but my motivation is close to nil.

ugh.

little b

2/3rds complete!

IMG_2015.JPG, originally uploaded by gimchi.

the hood and fan are installed!

now just the vents to the roof need to be installed, hopefully on thursday.

*crosses fingers*

so... close....

oooooooooo, we're halfway there.....

(oooooooooooo OOOOOOOOOOOO)


so, the dude didn't have all the parts he needed and he couldn't find them at home depot. *sigh* the only reason why i'm not pissed is because i think we're getting a really good deal. and i'm hoping it turns out ok, since they are highly rated on angie's list.

*crosses fingers*

happy housewarming!

belatedly, i offer the housewarming and birthday excitement that went on march 13th:

it was a fabulous gathering! our little house pulled through like a champ. as mentioned, i completed the craft room floor and was able to unpack all my boxes in less than 5 days. it was incredible how fast it finally came through once that floor was done. and the dining room! i had a dining room again!

anthony's parents came by in the afternoon - we made salami sandwiches and had coffee while we ran around finishing last minute stuff. then my parents and my brother's family came by to ooh and ahh a little later in the afternoon, closer to the start of the party. they brought a huge flat of strawberries and some delicious take-out (very strange food groups, i realize).

and they all loved the house! i mean, what's not to love? it IS a really awesome house. i'm constantly falling in love with it all over again. and, not only did we have a mini-keg and delicious food from our friends (it was potluck style), i was lucky enough to have two cakes! (and to have people sing to me twice.) the first cake was a chocolate cake from publix (chocolately goodness....) and the second was a transcendent rainbow cake made by amy. unassuming white on the outside, surprising and delicious riotous rainbow of colors on the inside! here's a little slideshow with captions via pictobrowser:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

flavor explosions. in my mouth.

while in orlando, i met up with a high school friend, bona, for a meal at the ravenous pig! isn't she gorgeous? she's absolutely super and we had a really great meal together. lots of catching up and laughing.

the ravenous pig is a gastropub and it was amazing how delicious it all tasted. it was a little fancier than i thought it would be, with white tablecloths and all; the term 'gastropub' makes me think of gritty and seedy bars. apparently, it's been featured on the food network. the menu changes each day, though there are a few staple items, such as the truffle fries and the gruyere biscuits with smoked sea salt butter.



here's the octopus appetizer. i have no idea how they prepared it, but the texture was less like octopus and more like chicken. it. was. divine. *whimper* now. i want some now.



bona had the mussels and truffle fries - seriously delicious.



i, of course, had the maple duck (i am SO predictable).



and i LOVED IT!



for dessert, we each got 3 scoops of ice cream (for bona) and gelato (for myself). or was it the other way around?! either way, again, FLAVOR EXPLOSIONS IN OUR MOUTHS. they were so good! (ant and i recently went to the refinery here in tampa and their mint sorbet was a huge watery and overly extract-y disappointment.)




like all meals, it had to come to a sad end.



bona with the adorable and perky emma.

thank you, bona, for the lovely meal and wonderful time together! i'm really hoping to see more of my friends in orlando and sarasota - 1 hour drives are nothing compared to austin, tx.

damn straight i can lay tile

i finally finished the flooring in the craft room! well, finished it before march 13th, which was the big housewarming date.

if you recall, the floor looked thusly:



kind of ugly, kind of grimy, kind of housing a few dead roaches under it. the carpet and padding came up easily, but the carpet wood nail things (carpet strips? tacks? what the hell are they called?) were a pain in the butt to pull up as they were nailed into the concrete. we didn't even splurge on a quality pry bar, but bought one that, i believe, cost less than $5. it was also the size of my hand. we are that ghetto. baby pry bar + hammer + a few hours a day and the floor was empty! we did a quick sweep and were so stoked when the special order vinyl composition tile (vct) came in from lowe's just in time for us to install it.



vct boxes are HEAVY. they look so small and unassuming until you try to pick one up fast and are stopped short by its full 60 lb weight.



so here's the room with the 4 boxes of vct. i'm laying it out just to check how it looks. this is also where i fucked up and flipped some of the tiles upside down. DO NOT DO THIS. they are slightly different on both sides - you'll see the result in a bit. the door to the left opens to the alleyway thing (i've GOT to come up with a better name for it) just next to the garage.



here's my ghetto method for determining the center, along with right angles to start laying the tile. something to do with point A and point B, and then using twine to make an arc. then make a second arc and where they intersect is the magic spot, blah blah, i'm putting myself to sleep. twine, tape and a sharpie. it sorta worked. the little tool on the bottom right is the razor scraper to remove carpet and glue leftovers from the floor.



the laying of the tile started at night in very low lighting. sometimes, i just can't wait to do things! i get all in a tizzy and i can't stop until i've started and realized... hey... maybe i should have waited until daylight. oh well! couldn't stop, since the tile had to be laid within a certain time frame of the adhesive troweling.



completed! as you can see, some of the tiles are darker than others. *sigh* those are the tiles i accidentally flipped. once i realized it, i tried to place them randomly so it looked like it was on purpose. either way, i don't care. it's done and looks damn good! and by "good" i mean, it wasn't the old carpet and it wasn't utterly eff'd up. we even used polish on it - we were hoping that it would even out the tone of the tiles, but no luck.

in fact, i was able to lay the tile, polish it and move all my craft stuff into the room in a total of 4.5 days. i rocked it and i love it sooo much. now all that's left is figuring out how to attach curtain rods to the concrete walls.

we've still got some huge gaps near the wall - trim is very much needed to hide the edges, but that's not even on the agenda at present. we've moved on to the band room and keeping our laundry clean. at some point i'll take some photos of the completed craft room - perhaps when the curtains are up.