jan 30, 2011

today was one of those lazy sundays. we had some stuff we wanted to get done, but not much motivation to do it. boyfriend and i decided to go to a new diner for a very late breakfast around noon. they had so much to choose from i couldn't decide what i wanted! i ended up choosing a veggie fritatta with home fries and a biscuit. boyfriend got two eggs over hard, bacon, hash browns and a biscuit. we even got some honey to go with the delicious grilled biscuits, yum! my meal was huge, so i ended up bringing half of it home. i think we'll be going back there again soon to try their chicken fried chicken...

on our way home from breakfast, we stopped at home depot to buy an air purifier for our bedroom. we have a lot of dust in our house, thanks to forced hot air heat, five birds, and our lack of cleaning skills, so the dust has been bothering both of our allergies lately. unfortunately, we didn't notice the fact that it had an ionizer until after we got it home and had it running for a half hour. ionizers give off ozone, which is deadly for birds and not nice for humans. so we went back out to walmart this time and picked out a hepa filter air purifier. this one was louder, but safer.

after lazing around on the couch for awhile watching tv, boyfriend heated up a delicious shepard's pie from trader joe's for lunch/dinner around 6pm. after that, we both played on our computers for a few hours, then it was back to the couch to watch the final night of the winter x games. we were cheering shawn white on to his fourth snowboarding gold in a row for superpipe, and weren't surprised when he walked away with the prize. he is a snowboarding god! oh yeah, there was a late night run to mcdonalds for a small snack around 11:30pm. i got the southern chicken sandwich and boyfriend got some burgers. : )

jan 29, 2011

i worked today. seven out of the 14 hours i work per month. i don't work at this job for the money, but for the discount on parts. there is a lot of upkeep with eight cars. after work, i came home and snoozed on the couch for about a half hour. it was tough getting up at 7am after almost a month of sleeping until 10am.

i also finished the host by stephanie meyer. it was ok. the first 1/3 of the book was slow, the next 1/3 was ok, and the last 1/3 was pretty good. i don't think i'd read it again, but it was nice to see what else she'd done besides the twilight series.

i washed a load of jeans and folded some clothes, then ate my leftover chicken parm from last night. boyfriend came home at 8:30pm and we chilled on the couch for the rest of the night. pretty exciting saturday night, huh? ; )

jan 28, 2011

i actually applied for some jobs today! once boyfriend went to work at 2pm i called a local dealership to see about a service writer job i found online. the woman said to come down and fill out an application, so i printed out my resume and drove down. i filled it out and left the resume. we'll see if i get a call back. i figure it's time to look for something else besides temp jobs, and there's not much in the way of design jobs up here.

on the way back home, i got a call from my friend a. since i was driving past her house, i stopped in to say hi. it was unusual that they were home so early. we played rock band 3 for a few hours until k. arrived. then we all went out for dinner at an italian restaurant they like to go to every friday night. it was very busy, but we got a table within 15 minutes. i got the chicken parm and french onion soup, which was very good. i had a huge amount of chicken parm to take home. it will be good for dinner tomorrow!

i didn't wait up for boyfriend because i have to work in the morning. it will be hard getting up early after going to bed at 1am!

jan 27, 2011

yuck. we woke up to another 10-12" of snow this morning. this has been such a snowy winter! i am so ready for spring!!! once we shoveled it all up, it was time for boyfriend to go to work. i managed to do just about nothing for the rest of the day, because i'm good like that. boyfriend came home early again tonight, two nights in a row. we stayed up for a while watching a movie. i like waiting up for him on nights he doesn't stay too late at work.

jan 26, 2011

today i planned to get up at a reasonable hour and get out of the house. i woke up at 9:30am and was out before 10:30am, so not too bad. i had to return some box thing to the cable company because i have apparently been paying $70 for this thing we don't use anymore every month since last september. i need to pay more attention to my bills, i guess. so the lady at the counter was very nice and she refunded all my $70 fees. i now have an almost $300 credit, so i don't have to pay this bill for quite a while! plus, i was eligible for a higher cable package for less than what i was paying for the next six months. cool!

then i went to the craft store to use my $100 gift card my friends gave me in thanks for taking care of their house for the past week. it sounds like a lot, but i earned every penny! i snowblowed their huge driveway, fed their fish, and even fixed their furnace! i was looking for perler beads, those plastic tube beads that you iron together to make animals and pictures and stuff. i found a tutorial on how to make the weighted companion cube from the video game 'portal' out of the perler beads. it looked so cute that i had to make my own! so i ended up finding a 22,000 piece tub of beads, along with a few pegboards. i used a 50% off coupon, so i got everything for under $17, which was less than the tub of beads cost on it's own. i love craft store coupons!

boyfriend went to work and i accidentally fell asleep on the couch with all of my birds out of their cages. whoops! luckily no fights broke out. later on i got a text from my friends inviting me out to dinner at the place down the street. it had started snowing, so they picked me up. i got the citrus chicken and a sweet potato, with sauteed mushrooms and a salad. yum! i took half of it home for tomorrow. it was nice to get out of the empty house for a little while.

jan 25, 2011

i didn't too much today. i spent some couch time with boyfriend until he went to work. then i hung around and watched some tivoed shows until it was time to pick my friends up at the airport. i drove to their house and picked up their truck, since they would not all fit in the nissan! the ride to the airport was much better today than last week since it was 7:30pm and there was no traffic. i got there at 8:20pm and had to wait until their plane landed. it was about a half hour late. i drove them home and hung out with them for about 15 minutes. they gave me a cute smurfette lunch box with an adorable little pink and white hamster toy, plus a $100 gift card to a craft store!

jan 21, 2011

i slept so soundly last night that i didn't hear boyfriend come home from work, or snore and toss around in bed. i didn't wake up once until after 10am! i guess i was tired. when i looked out the window, there was about 7" of new fluffy snow. just what i needed, more snow on top of the 1 1/2 feet we already have on the ground! since i had to use up the package of stew beef in the fridge, i decided to make my beef stew before breakfast. i chopped up some carrots, potatoes, butternut squash, onions, and the beef and threw it all in the slow cooker along with a package of beef stew seasoning. i know, that's cheating. but it comes out really good!
so it was time to shovel. and shovel. and shovel some more. boyfriend snowblowed the driveway while i shoveled the path (almost a tunnel at this point!) and around the cars. then i cleaned off his car and moved onto mine. i hadn't driven my car all week due to my illness earlier so under the fluffy 7" was a nice, hard crust of another 5" or so. i had to hack and scrape and brush for a good 15 minutes to uncover the whole thing. when i went to back it up to snowblow the huge piles that now lay around it, the damn thing wouldn't start. grrrrr!!! on went the battery charger.

boyfriend went to work and i stayed outside to shovel his space out some more. it was getting pretty tight. i also chipped away at the huge snowbanks that were at the end of the driveway. you know, the ones filled with ice and dirt from the city plows? yup, that was super fun. once that was done, i had to go inside to rest for a while. i was still pretty weak from not eating for four days.

after laying there for a while, i realized it was almost 4pm and i had to get to my friend's house to snowblow their driveway while they are away. luckly my car was charged so i was off. of course, the first corner i took, i spun the car halfway around. i didn't hit anything, though, and managed to get it straightened out. i guess i need some practice driving a rear-wheel car! i made it to her house with no more trouble. i parked at the top of the driveway and slogged through the snow to get to the house. i was able to get the snowblower started pretty easy and managed to get the whole huge driveway done in about 45 minutes. it wasn't great, but better than nothing! then i went inside and fed the fish before i left for home.

when i got back home, i was finally able to clear the area around my car. then i remembered i was supposed to scrape off some of the snow from our shed with the collapsing roof. by now, it was dark, so that job really wasn't pleasant at all. not that any of the days' work was pleasant... it was now almost 6pm and i realized i hadn't eaten lunch, so i had a big bowl of my beef stew. it was delicious! it was my first real meal since getting sick on monday and i am happy to say there was no tummyache after! just a little heartburn. i pretty much zoned out for the rest of the evening. i will have some sore muscles tomorrow, that's for sure!

jan 14, 2011

whew, i got in some cardio today! i shoveled the remaining snow from the path and driveway so it wouldn't turn to ice like the car tire tracks already had. plus, i had to run some errands, so i really needed to dig the nissan out of it's snowy blanket. well, that took forever! it was at least 10 minutes before i could see any glass or paint. i actually had to use the shovel to get the center of the roof. after i was finished clearing it off, i had to shovel all of that fallen snow off the ground! i think it took me 45 minutes to get the whole job done so i could back out of the driveway.

after that ordeal, i stopped at the library to see if they had a sewing book (which they didn't, but i put in an inter-library request) and to talk to the childrens' librarian about possibly hosting a crafting class. maybe learning to crochet, or some scrapbooking class or something...i haven't decided yet. then it was off to kolhs to return some clothes that didn't fit. i was planning on stopping at the grocery store too, but decided to wait until sunday.

boyfriend and i got some chinese food from the new asian place down the street. it was pretty good, much better than the existing chinese restaurant a few buildings down. we also got some bad news that his uncle was in the hospital with a serious medical emergency. i hope to hear some better news tomorrow night.

jan 13, 2011

i didn't step out of the house at all today. that was quite an accomplishment, don't you think? i did get the office partially cleaned up though, and some dishes and laundry done. yup, that's about it. we had leftover steak for dinner and boyfriend was in bed by 8pm. sigh.

jan 12, 2011

holy snow, batman! i woke up to at least 10" this morning, and it hasn't let up at all! it is right around noon, and boyfriend and i decided to have a go at reaching the snowblower in the driveway to clear up the worst of it. it took me almost 10 minutes to dig out the stairs and a shovel-wide path to the driveway. boyfriend spent the next 20 minutes or so on the driveway, while i followed behind and did clean up shoveling. the snow is above my knees right now! some trader joe's peppermint hot chocolate is definitely in order, i think.

i managed to get the kitchen partly cleaned up today. the counter is mostly cleaned off and i scrubbed the stovetop. boyfriend cleaned the microwave, which hadn't been done in, well, i can't remember! it looks good now. i also started unearthing the table too. i may even see the top of it tomorrow! we had a friend stop by for a few minutes as i was making dinner, which was steak with mushrooms and onions, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. he was having fun playing in the snow with his wrx ; )

it's now about 11:30pm and the snow has finally stopped for the night. this was a really bad nor'easter, with thundersnow in some places that dropped 2-4" of snow per hour! crazy! thank goodness for our snowblower because it would have sucked to shovel the entire driveway.

there is 18" of snow on our railing and the wind has been blowing it off all day. tomorrow i will measure the snow in the yard to see the true total. i'm guessing around two feet!!!

jan 11, 2011

1.11.11

almost as cool as november 11 : ) i took it easy today (no surprise there!) and managed to do some dishes and laundry. i also cut out little squares from all the christmas cards i received so i could make a little collage out of them for my december daily album that i will hopefully be finishing one of these days. then boyfriend called and said he was coming home to pick me up for dinner with his step-dad. yikes! i had to jump in the shower and get ready in a half hour. i made it though, and it was a very nice night out. this was the second night of mexican and this time i loved my meal!

jan 10, 2011

i was determined to get an appointment at the unemployment office today! after a few attempts last week with no success, i decided to get to the office before they opened at 8am. i figured that way, i would not have to wait in line. well, that didn't work out quite like i hoped. the line waiting to get in went around the block! i don't ever remember this many people trying to get appointments in the past few years i've needed unemployment. so after standing outside in the cold for 10 minutes, i finally got to the front of the line to sign in. by that time, they were taking appointments for after they reopened at 1pm. i was the second name on the sheet, so i could go home for a while and then come back at 1pm which worked out great.
i got back there a little before 1pm and i had to wait for 15 minutes. then i was called in and was done within five minutes. finally!

boyfriend came home a little late and we decided to try the new mexican place by our house. it had calmed down since opening a month ago and we were able to get a table right away. he ordered a burrito with seafood and i tried a tamale and a chimichonga (sp?). my order wasn't that great but boyfriend loved his. i'll have to try something else next time.

jan 9, 2011

after staying up late last night playing halo reach on xbox live, i woke up kind of late this morning at 9:30. boyfriend was in the basement playing starcraft 2 because he got up much earlier than me. that was fine for a while. i packaged up the baby shower gift and played online for a while. it started getting later, so i took a shower and finished getting ready to leave at 11am. boyfriend still hadn't come upstairs yet. finally, with five minutes left he came up. of course i was a little upset that he stayed down there for two hours without even saying good morning. he tried to placate me but i was having none of it. i will be glad when he finishes that game!


so the shower was a typical baby shower, only with more guests than usual. i found some of boyfriend's family to sit with, so at least i wasn't by myself. there was a mountain of gifts to open and it took a hour and a half! at least my quilt went over well, and everyone oooohed and aaahhhhed over it, which was nice. i was glad to leave however. there will be another one to go to in two months for his family.


after that, i took a drive to salem willows. it was very cold and windy, and i was wearing a dress and a thin coat. silly me! but i got to see the ocean for the first time since the summer so that was good. i miss the sound of the ocean. i took some photos, then got back in the car half frozen. then i drove down to winter island and took some more photos, although i didn't get out of the car this time. it was relaxing to enjoy some of the places i used to visit often when i lived nearby.


i visited with my mother for the rest of the day. we made a tasty roast pork and homemade applesauce, with mashed potatoes and roasted butternut squash. she was also making homemade chili and beef stew for the week so the house smelled wonderful! we chatted for a while, took down the christmas tree decorations and decided to send out a facebook invite for a game night in a couple weeks.

a view of the lighthouse at winter island...

jan 8, 2011

boyfriend worked today, so i had the house to myself again. i watched little miss sunshine when i woke up, then set off to work on the baby quilt i was making for a baby shower tomorrow. that movie made me uncomfortable from beginning to end although i loved how it ended!

so on to the quilt. i found the cutest pre-quilted baby fabric at joann's yesterday, and no one will know that i didn't quilt it! it was shades of blue with flannel polka dots, puppies, and white minky fabric. so cute! i found another blue polka dot flannel for the back, added some batting, and joined it together with some dark brown satin blanket binding. what a pain that was to work with! after i was done sewing it, i had to go back and hand sew some sections where it didn't catch on the reverse side. good thing i'm not a quilter.

i also made up four burp pads from a cute criss-cross flannel. i couldn't pass up the fabric for only $1.50, especially when packs of four thin burp pads go for $8 at the stores! i also got two newborn jumpers with bibs and hats, and the cutest sweater knit jumper in grey and red stripes! plus a bird toy to hang on the bag. i just hope she likes them...

jan 7, 2011

today i went to a friend's wedding! she was marrying her step-brother's best friend, and they had to throw a last minute wedding together because he is shipping out to germany next week. it turned out quite nice though. it was only 15 minutes from my house (yay!) and it was held at a very pretty function hall. the ceremony was less than 10 minutes long (another yay!) and then we went to the next room over which was the function room.

the only person we knew was seated at a different table, so boyfriend and i went to sit with her once we saw that there were two extra seats. the bride was lovely, and so smitten with her groom, it brought a smile to my face every time i saw them kiss!

the best part of the night was when boyfriend and i, and our friend, went out into the hall and got our pictures taken at the portable photo booth set up for the wedding guests. there were hats, boas and masks to take silly photos. boyfriend picked the pirate hat, i got a purple boa and a peacock feather mask, and our friend chose a red hat and big black plastic glasses. what fun!

jan 5, 2011

uuugggg...woke up at 9am with a headache this morning after not being able to fall asleep until after 2:30am. i didn't do much besides lay on the couch and watch tv, including the little princess with shirley temple from netflix. i slept for a bit while my lovebird made a nest on my shoulder and slept too. thank goodness i didn't squish him! i hope i feel better tomorrow so i can get some stuff done.

jan 4, 2011

i had a hard time sleeping last night. for some reason, my asthma started up and i was coughing and wheezing for a long time. i actually moved out to the couch for a few hours and then went back to bed once boyfriend got up for work at 4:45am. so i ended up sleeping until 10am! not a good habit to start on my second day off work. i ate breakfast and played online for a little while then headed out for the day at noonish. bank, old navy to return some jeans, borders to get a 50% off calendar (or two!), petsmart and petco to return birdie gifts that didn't fit in cages, then to the mall to look for a dress for a wedding i just found out about last night that is this friday! i was unsuccessful. there may be some great sales right now, but there isn't much left to choose from. i'll just have to use a dress she has already seen me wear at a wedding. i got back home a few minutes before boyfriend did. farmer brown's soup for dinner, then some starcraft 2 for him while i dismantled the christmas tree.

can you believe that old navy is selling shorts on january 4? really?!! i know stores like to stock the next season's stuff early but the beginning of winter was two weeks ago!

jan 3, 2011

today i decided to be lazy. it is my first work day off, and i didn't want to do anything! i wasted some time on facebook, read my current book, wideacre, for about an hour and a half, and browsed my favorite blogs, which are listed to the right. at around 3:45 i got in the shower, then i unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. you know, to make it look like i did something by the time my boyfriend came home from work! we made taco rice (rice topped with taco meat and cheese) for dinner, then watched tv until he went to bed.

jan 2, 2011

today was great! i was visiting some family in northern vermont this weekend. it was really nice to see them again, since i don't see them more than a few times a year. we had a second christmas today, along with some really good 'visiting', or hanging around the kitching table talking about anything and everything! i've only been home for a little while and i already miss them!

jan 1, 2011

hi.

my name is bunny, and i'm an unemployed designer.

it's been one day since i've been employed.


so, i'm starting off another year with no job. awesome. this is not the first time i've been layed off, nor will it be the last. time are tough, jobs are scarce, blah, blah, blah...the hard truth is that i haven't had a full time job since november 2009. which means no health care insurance since then either. terrific! i've been bouncing back and forth between temp jobs and unemployment checks for the past three years to pay the bills. sometimes they get paid on time, sometimes they don't!

i'm not poor by any means, but i'm not well off either. i live in an area where there are not many graphic design jobs. probably not the best place to buy a house, but at the time, i had a good job! most of my temp jobs have been 25-40 miles away, so that means an hour and a half to three hours of commuting a day, depending on the traffic.

this is a blog about my daily activities while not working. i don't know if it will interest anyone, but it will be a good record of what i accomplish (or don't!) during the next few months of staying at home. let's get started, shall we?