Tempest, I lied to you on the phone last night. TV Without Pity doesn't recap Farscape. I have found you a 1/2 way decent link to check out what happened & get some of the best one liners. Also check out Farscape World. They don't have the ep info up yet, but they do a good job describing the action. I expect last Friday's ep will be up any time now.

We kinda gave up the house hunt thing over the weekend, favoring instead some serious relaxation and alone time. Friday night after work, I paddled out to hang with Toad & Blixx for a bit and have a couple of pops, then back home to air conditioned splender for this chickie! I stayed up until 3am ish watching the first 4 episodes of Buffy Season 2. Good stuff. Saturday's weather didn't lend itself to outdoor activities, so we actually did the grocery shopping that we've had to do for weeks, & I made stuffed sole with mixed veggies for dinner. We watched Farscape & SG-1, which we'd taped from the night before. What is the consensus on the new red head?

For those of you into alternative movies, check out Donnie Darko. I rented it blindly on a recommendation and it was really trippy cool. Two thumbs up.

Yesterday we paddled the Assabet River in the late afternoon. I saw about 100 muscrats, at least 1000 turtles (both painted & snapper) and even a blue heron taking flight right over our head. It was a naturific afternoon and I even managed to NOT get a sunburn. What started as a quickie trip ended up being an all day thing, with us getting out of the water with just a little bit of light left in the sky. Good thing we left when we did, because it started to rain when we were driving out.

Today Blixx is checking out some houses in Brookfield, MA. If you check the map, look for the middle of nowhere, cuz that's where it is. We've expanded our search outward from the Worcester area in hopes of getting a decent house without needing vasoline to pay the mortgage. There's THISor THIS OTHER or ONE MOREor if we go smaller, for lake access there's THIS SMALLER ONE . Anyone getting any good vibes from any of these? I like the stone cottage, but I'll hear more when Blixx comes back with his notes. I'm sending him out on a nice day to a lake region, with 2 boats on the car. Hmmmm....

Blixx's old company had a reunion of sorts at John Harvard's last night. I just love that place! The beer is awesome. Good company, good food, good beer = good time. I'm a little tired today, but no hangover. Woo Hoo!
This evening Blixx & Toad are sleeping under the stars to celebrate the Summer Solstice. I've been invited, but have declined. It's just not a good time of the month to be out in the woods with no facilities. Saturday I want to go paddle somewhere that we've never been before. I feel a nice sun burn coming on, as the weather is supposed to be out of this world. I also want to go check out some houses out toward western MA - they are bigger & less expensive out there. Kinda a haul if I stay here at work, but F it! There's one in Southbridge that is promising, so maybe we'll check it out. No plans as of yet for Sunday, but one of my friends here at work just lent me the 1st disk of Buffy Season 2, so at some point I'll be plugging myself in to the dvd player. Yeah!
Have a great weekend, all!

We put in an offer on that house I mentioned yesterday. Went to realtor this morning & offered $5000 less than asking price.

Just got a call back - they accepted another offer for the full asking price of the house.

I'm crushed.

The Pond House that Blixx was so enamoured with is off the market, so he'll be all upset about that. The Spencer house is still available, which makes me wonder what's wrong with it, other than the small kitchen and dampness in the basement. Hmmm.

Anyway, it's back to the drawing board for us. Nothing promising came on the market today.

So, I called our realtor to say that we want to put an offer in on the house.
Now I think I'm going to shit my pants waiting for him to call back, confirming that it's still available.

Blixx kayaked around back in the pond today and says it's awesome back there!

I'm not sure if it's nerves or just my ovaries trying to escape, but I'm so jumpy & freaked & nervous & anxious....

AND, one of the sales reps came to me today to tell me that there's an opportunity at Monster that I might be good for. He and his manager were talking in the car at lunch and my name came up.

Today is a good day, despite Mother Nature and her cursed curse.

Blixx & went to see some more houses last night, and we think we might have found The One. Click HERE to see a picture. Pardon me while I type out loud.

Pro's: Abutts Pond, 1 car garage, full basement that is partially finished & dry & tall enough for Blixx to stand up, walk-up attic for expansion later on, built in china cabinet in dining room, enclosed front porch, great highway access, close to pizza & chinese & is within walking distance to DuDo's, pantry, room in the dining room for plenty of folks AND the piano.

Con's: It's on a busy road (we could build a fence or plant shrubs to deaden noise & for asthetics), only 2 bedrooms - both of which are off the kitchen (fine for now, attic expansion for later), small closets (get a nice armoire for bedroom & store clothes in attic), VIVID yellow kitchen (painting party, anyone?), VIVID scarey green carpet in bedroom (rip it up! rip it up!); sink is in pantry...no counter near stove & fridge wiring on other side of room (move fridge near stove then get a cool rolling chopping block topped cart thing

The only real hang up I've got with the place is that the bedrooms are off the kitchen's eating area. It just looks kinda wierd. I was worried that we wouldn't have a guest room (cuz I plan on having you all over at some point) until I figured that we could make the office in the basement. Eventually, when the master bedroom is on the 2nd floor, then the office would be downstairs and the Wreck Room would be in the basement, and Blixx could build his bar out of TV's.

What would have to be done before we could move in? Not much. I'd like to replace the bedroom carpeting, but I suppose we could live with the ugly green for a while. Painting the kitchen wouldn't take hardly any time at all. The carpet on the porch would need to be replaced, but is fine as is for now. So, other than painting I'm thinking it's ready to move in.

What would we have to buy? Bedroom furniture...I will NOT sleep on a mattress on the floor any more! I want a nice matching grown up bedroom set, but I LOVE this headboard. Dining room - we've got stuff for now, but I'd love my grandmother's set, which my mother has now. An entertainment center - we have this big black ugly one that is great for the apartment, but I want something that looks a little nicer for the living room. A kitchen table - unless Grips wants to get a new dining room set for his house like Teacher wants, then we could have the old one.

The Yuck Award of the day goes to Busybody. I'm in her cube talking about work, trying to get an answer to a pending issue that's been going on for months. As I (again!) make my plea for an acceptable answer, she goes in to her desk drawer & pulls out 2 q-tips. As I'm speaking with her, she's nodding appropriately...and CLEANING THE WAX FROM HER EARS! She took the time to inspect each q-tip too, as if looking for brain matter. Ewwwww!!!

This is the same girl who wears these 2 white t-shirts with pit stains on them that rival any of Blixx's used, not leaving the house just doing dirty work t-shirts. No, I take that back. Blixx has the common decency to pitch out anything that revolting and repulsive. I mean, these are nasty dark yellow pit stains and she's one of those girls who likes to put her hands on her head for no good reason.
Ewww again!

Please click HERE for an important study that just well may effect you.

Some news the peeked my interest:
Arrest Made In Colorado Wildfire
6/16/2002 Colorado authorities have arrested a 38-year old forestry technician for starting one of the wildfires that have burned a total of more than 100,000 acres so far. Terry Barton has admitted starting the fire, claiming it quickly got out of control before she could put it out.

A firefighter started the fire. Damn, there's a Darwin Award winner for ya!

A black bear was shot within miles from my apartment in Worcester Saturday night. I guess they couldn't find anyone to tranq it so they blew it away. While certainly in the wrong place, there were no reports of violetn actions by the bear. I'm outraged that the only solution was to shoot it. It seems a waste. Then again...perhaps it prevented a catastrophe.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - A Canadian teacher has been suspended after shocking a small northern Manitoba school by distributing a math exam that included questions about pimps, prostitutes, machine guns, cocaine trafficking and getting "knocked up."

I survived the weekend. For the most part, it was uneventful. Not that we didn't do stuff, but not a lot was blog worthy. Friday night Grips came over for a few pops, as usual. Saturday I slept in while Blixx went over to Charlie's birthday party early to get the grills rolling and such. I had the morning to myself and for whatever reason, I was totally bummed out all morning. I think it's the house/work stress, but I found myself bauling my eyes out like all morning. I was an emotional wreck. Crying for hours. I do have to say that I feel a little bit more centered after the fact, but it was wierd to just break down like that with no provocation. Ok, the PMS train has something to do with it too. I'd pulled myself together by the time Toad picked me up at around 3 and we meandered over to the party, to find Blixx in full 'Director' mode. That is, he'd been helping out and in chanrge for so long, it was a hard transition to make back to being just a party guest. He never really did...always involved in something. I was a little alienated with 100 or so folks, only about 5 of whom I know, but the smoked ribs were YUMMY and I had deep fried turkey for the first time. I certainly wouldn't serve it for Thanksgiving, since I'm quite the traditionalist when it comes to a holiday bird, but it was suculent and juicy and delicous none the less. Thumbs up. The party was at Ralph's Diner in Worcester, which is a really cool spot. It was unfortunate that it rained all day, since the grills were outside, which meant that Blixx was outside, which meant that if I wanted to talk to him I had to be outside. I got a little damp and the cold I've been flirting with seemed to enjoy the weather to the point that I have this nice phlemby cough now. Poor Blixx got it too.

After Charlie's party, we drove to Framingham to stop by a party given by BigBen from my work. Not a lot of folks from work were there and it was a pretty sedate crowd that did show up, so we had a few beers and were social, then ditched. As we're leaving, some of BigBen's buddies from 'back in the day' started keg stands. I haven't seen anyone do a kegstand in...crap like 10 years! The fact that the dude was 30+, already drunk & a touch overweight so his buddies had a tough time holding him up made it funny. That was our cue to go. Normally, we would have stayed and endeered ourselves to the drunken fools playing Asshole, but Blixx had to work early. And besides, I had to be sober to drive him home.

So, at 4am Blixx was up and by 5am on his way to Newburg NY for a shoot. Poor dude was beat. I slept in until around 10ish, then rolled my lazy ass downstairs to the couch for more dozing. I watched some bad tv, dyed my hair and cleaned the house. Yep, that's what I did ALL day. Granted, I was so lazy that when Blixx called at 9pm to tell me he was almost home (Hartford) I wigged and realized that I still hadn't vaccumed or done the dishes. I just kept starting projects then getting distracted. Oh well, napping was good. When Blixx did roll in after 10pm he was a mess. Couldn't finish sentances...couldn't eat the bachelorette mac & cheese w/ salsa I'd made for dinner. Nope, he was up & in bed & out like a light in about 15 minutes.Poor thing has this nasty cough now & is miserable. He's working today, but it should be a short shoot. I imagine he'll be crashed on the couch when I get home.

No decent homes came on the market over the weekend, so we're totally stagnant on the home search right now. I know that Tempest's advice 'don't settle' is true, but how long do we wait looking for a 3 bedroom garaged basemented home over 1200 sq feet before it's OK to drop expectations to a more realistic level? What we 'really' can afford right now is a townhouse, but I don't want to buy an attached home. I think I'm going to expand our search even further out into the sticks to see if we can find what we're looking for in the country. Too bad that will put my commute into the hour + range. I hate my job anyway.