Me: I hope I wasn’t snoring!
Mack: Only a little.
Me: Really!? I’m so sorry!
Mack: I’m joking. You weren’t.
Me: Oh good. If I was you’d have been like ‘Dear God! What is that sound? It sounds like an angel!’
Mack: Yeah, if angels snored and drooled on their pillows.

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Me: Pretty much kicked everyone’s bejeweled score (on my facebook friends list) by 30k. lol
Mack: Noice
Mack: Well done
Me: I feel it ranks up there with world peace
Me: Or at least rubbing my victory in their FACES

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Apparently Garrett had found our push lawn mower that had been left in the shed and decided it’d be fun to mow the lawn. I wondered aloud: “Is this the only fun thing to do at our house at 9PM on a Monday?”

I mean, I definitely wasn’t complaining that the lawn was getting done but the amount of amusement that the brothers and sister got out of it? Kind of funny in a weird way. Mack and Garrett were running laps up and down the backyard trying to “beat each other’s times”… until Garrett went back into the shed and found something interesting.

“Hey Garrett, what’s up?”

Mack was intrigued. What was Garrett doing?

“I think we can do more damage with the one Garrett found!”

Of course Mack went over to play around with the potentially deadly object. As Garrett put it: Dumb and Dumber.

It was all going well until apparently they figured it out enough for Garrett to shock himself while trying to start it.

His older brother, as you can tell, was obviously very sympathetic.

You’d think this would make them stop trying to get it to work?

Of course not. That would be admitting defeat!

While Tweedledee and Tweedledum continued trying to lose a limb, their sister was finishing the job they had started on the rest of the lawn with the push mower. That is until it got stuck full of grass for the millionth time.

Emily has more of a sense of self preservation than her brothers. This was made abundantly clear as Mack and Garrett, tired of trying to get the Death Machine to work, reminisced about childhood stories messing with the nerves in each others arms.

Boys.

Technorati Tags: brothers, siblings, mowing the lawn, this is how we roll, fun times, family, sibling bonding

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Me: Here, hand me the pants. You fold them wrong.
Mack: I do not! You fold them department store style! I fold them right!
Me: One, hello? I worked retail in college thus you are doing it wrong.
Mack: So what? You fold them wrong and I am right!
Me: You know what? This is one of my OCD issues. You should understand these little ticks well enough.
Mack: Ugh, fine. You know I finally learned your way of folding underwear ‘right’.
Me: I have noticed! Shows that you are trainable after all!
Mack: Never mind. Put aside stuff that you think I can actually fold.
Me: There’s a pile of socks over there with your name all over them.
Mack: Thanks.

Technorati Tags: conversations, convos, boyfriend, tidbits, relationships, laundry, you’re doing it wrong

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… and Mack just informed me it’s Pyrex Cookware.

My point remains.

They’re really smart so it makes them harder to tune out

The women in Mack’s family are really good at gardening and have a real passion for it. Their passion and skills are so impressive that they make a lazy sloth like me who seriously dislikes dirt go ‘Huh, you know, I really want to have a garden someday.’ Especially when Mack and his sister get in long discussions about organic foods and the art of growing your own “farm fresh” vegetables.

Cue a few weekends ago.

Mack and I are in the process of looking into renting a house which is a process and a half. Plus, it’s been a year since we’ve moved and those of you who know us know we make a yearly habit of moving. For those of you just “met me” can read category of “moving” or the months of June and July 2008 to know we are insane and obviously love the stress. I bring up this fact since, as many you gardeners would point out, a few weeks back (and even now) is like the prime time to get our planting on.

What are these twenty-somethings to do?

After doing some extensive research Mack found that the best solution for our problem would be the Earthbox. Now, we could have ordered this product which has raves reviews but you know what? We’re impatient and cheap so decided it would be fun to try out making our own version of the Earthbox. Of course there is plenty of websites out there devoted to making them and guess what? WhoahGirl just became another one.

You lucky people!

While I will go into more detail in a more extensive post here I’ll give you more background as to the preparation, the effort that went into it, and why I was on photography duty since for some reason Mack doesn’t trust me with a box cutter.

First off it required a trip to a store where we could find a lot of our supplies (the tote, soil, etc). Unfortunately the place we decided would be the best solution would be Walmart. Mack and I have very mixed feelings about Walmart since the last few times we went there while still living in Florida everything we bought came broken. Like, it would be understandable if one bookshelf unit had damage on it but three? And a broken lamp straight off the bat? Needless to say we tended to avoid Walmart like the plague unless I was in a mood to do some people watching and enjoy the people of walmart.

What can I say? We were feeling frisky and cheap that particular Saturday. And boy, did we have fun when we hit the gardening center.

After the joy and frustration of being at Walmart (where I ended up wandering to the “entertainment center” to calm down since DVDs always have that affect on me) we went over to Home Depot. This, of course, saved Mack the effort of teasing me of how I pronounce “Lowe’s” as “LOLS!”

Two art degrees. Remember that.

Now, when it comes to “Home Improvement” I think it’s pretty safe to say that the only thing safe for me to handle would be painting the walls. Maybe. One time Mack came back to Florida from a trip and found that I had tried to build one of the shelving units and done so wrong. Three times. I don’t like reading instructions which is probably why I’m still learning how to work my Nikon D90.

I’m stubborn. I think you already knew that though.

Back to Home Depot: we went into the lumber department since we needed to get some wood “legs” for this contraption of earthy goodness. Finally, after finding a long thing of wood (I’m so technical) we were able to find an associate to cut the wood. Unfortunately he misheard Mack and cut a few pieces to the wrong size which caused him to have to start over with the right measurements. By this point Mack and I were more amused that we saw the “security code” to start the machine which was far from a secure four-digit number. As the associate cut the pieces to the right side I decided to walk around (since I hate standing in one place for too long) the huge oasis of Home Improvement in search of piping for the boxes.

Once the wood pieces were cut Mack and I managed to track each other down and found an associate to cut the pipping. Now, this part is truly frightening to the girl who attempted to cut off her finger with a razor: the associate pulled out a saw and just started cutting the pieces right there in the middle of the aisle! I held back flinching, expecting a limb to fall off, while Mack and the associate just went to town on the pipe cutting the three pieces to exact size. After all this was done and paid for we headed home with our supplies and a feeling of excitement of starting a garden.

Next post: the actual building of the Earth box by Mack since, let’s be honest: I hung back and took pictures. I like my limbs where they are, thank you very much.

Technorati Tags: earthbox, building, home improvement, do it yourself, gardening, garden, walmart, home depot, crafts

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Afterwards when the alarm was off and we were back inside Mack went about making lunch again (round 2, fight!) while I sat on the floor working.

Mack: You know, setting off the fire alarm is a great way to see what all your neighbors look like.
Me: Oh, so everyone evacuated?
Mack: Yeah, except this one woman who stood on her patio smoking a cigarette. She was all like [raspy voice] ‘Eh, fire’s gunna kill me one way or another.’

I won’t tell you how long I was laughing at the voice in which he said it but I can admit it was longer then was really appropriate.

Technorati Tags: fire alarm, false alarms, conversations, smokers, fire, awesome neighbors

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Mack: We should see if we can track down some vodka tonight.
Me: Heh.
Mack: Why the snicker?
Me: Nothing… you alcoholic.
Mack: What?
Me: Nothing! I was joking.
Mack: You bum!
Me: Why do you call me a bum? (pauses) Oh wait cause I have no job! (cracks up).
Mack: You said it, not me.

Technorati Tags: tasteless, bad humor, unemployment, sarcasm, conversations

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Mack: What are you doing?
Me: Folding the laundry.
Mack: Do you want help or just want to do it right yourself?

___________________________________________

Me: I love you.
Mack: And I love you.
Me: You make me happy.
Mack: You make me happy, too.
Me: Well, excellent! It’s like a field of happiness!
Mack: I’m sure that is what the Beatles meant with ‘Strawberry Field Forever‘.

___________________________________________

Me: We need to go do preparation work for the garden. Also we need to get fence supplies so the deer won’t eat the garden.
Mack: True, we wouldn’t want deer eating our food and drooling on what was left. [cracking up] I’m imagining what a drooling deer would look like. Ha!

Technorati Tags: convos, conversations, relationships, boyfriend, girlfriend, couples, couples talking, couples talking, quotes

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Mack: It’s okay, I can afford bandaids for you.
Me: Shut up. I’ve been stressing and nervous so I’ve been picking at my fingers more.
Mack: You know, we should install some sort of shock collar that zaps you each time you even think about destroying your fingers.

Technorati Tags: nervous habits, unemployment, stress, convos, conversations, boyfriend, relationships, amusing conversations

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Now, as you remember, I have horrible road rage and get stressed out very easily when I’m the one behind the wheel. These fun adventures wouldn’t be fun if I was behind the wheel since I’d be convinced we’d both die and the cats would be alone and then pain and suffering would ensue… all because I was lost. I can’t handle getting lost in the car. I don’t know why. This drives Mack crazy since, often, when I’m lost instead of consulting my iPhone I’ll call Mack and demand to know where the hell I am and how do I get to the location I am seeking!?

This is why he got me a GPS before we moved to Florida. Best anniversary and graduation present rolled into one EVER.

Mack and I love to drive around or get out and walk around in new areas. It’s all part of my emerging from my shell of awkward shyness and getting to know people. Pushing past my shell of indifference and cynicism and know that yes, sometimes people do suck and hurt you but why shut out the world and the possibility of meeting new awesome people because of those few shitheads?

Sunday after we got all our stuff together and picked up my brother we headed up to Mount Rainier for the day. There is a lot of vast open spaces in western/central Washington and it was a marvel and joy to get to see and experience it. I think hands down the best part was seeing the alpacas tied in front of the fire station in this small town before we got to the park. Why were they tied in front of the fire station? There had to be a story behind that and boy you know we made up our own stories.

We managed to (eventually) got up to Paradise almost in time for sunset despite my brothers insistence that “if we keep stopping you’re going to loose the light.” I was thrilled with all the snow on the side of the road leading up to Paradise and kept exclaiming “SNOW! LOOK! SNOW!” much to Mack and Mark’s amusement. I mean, SNOW people! I won’t go into the depths of my disappointment that we didn’t really get snow this year… while on the other hand I remember what a giant pain driving in the snow is.

So conflicted.

As the sun started to set and I felt like a block of ice after climbing up onto the snow to get some beautiful shots of the mountain. On the way down the mountain we pulled over to look at a random water fall we’d passed on our way up and you know I wanted pictures of it. Unfortunately, there was a huge blockade of ice that stood a good six plus feet between me and the view of the water fall below. Normally I am tall and get some pretty nice shots due to my Sasquatch-esk genes but this time I was pretty much S.O.L..

… until Mack suggested I climb up the ice bank with my $1000+ camera. Trust him, he’d hold me up while I got my shots.

Awesome idea? Or potentially bad one? I blamed him for what happened but he argues that he didn’t force me to do it.

I, of course, thought at the time it was a good idea. So here we are, my converse shoes shoved into the ice bank as I leaned over to get a view of the waterfall with my expensive piece of equipment as I simultaneously hoped the ice wouldn’t give way and I’d fall a few hundred feet to my death.

Gulp.

Taking my last shot I told Mack I was done which was very fortunate since I lost my footing and started falling/sliding down the little ice bank into Mack who was still supporting me. Naturally my instinct was “SAVE THE CAMERA” and I held it away from the ice and my body as the other side of my body took the brunt of the impact.

My rationalization? My body will heal. Thus far I haven’t found the Nikon’s self-heal function. Guess that means I really should read that manual…

Now, a few days later, I have bruises the size of tennis balls on my left legs. Was it worth it? So long as you don’t touch my left leg I’d have to say yes. It was so worth it.

Technorati Tags: photography, day trips, exploring, photos, mountains, mount rainier, ice, snow, bodily harm, washington state, washington, cascades, adventures, nikon d90

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