Sailor Soldier of Love and Justice

Productivity was had today!

First I went to yet another laser hair appointment. The groupon deals for these things are crazy. I'm having my underarms done again because the last place didn't do a good job. This place seems more responsive though. I told them how the last place did it and they said it sounded like they weren't increasing the power each session, which is why I saw poor results.

After that, I went to the fancy bra store. I had not been fitted since before my wedding and felt fairly confident my size was off again. Surprisingly, my band size got even smaller! I have a teeny rib cage. I left the store with 3 new bras that fit wonderfully plus a free bra bag so I don't destroy them in the wash and a $50 gift card to a local spa because I spent far too much money there.

When I got home, I finished boxing up holiday gifts, then headed back out to mail them. I got to the post office just as the main desk closed so I had to use post-o-tron again. There were several old people baffled by the machine so I helped them. One of them said the post office should hire me and that if all their employees were this helpful, maybe the post office wouldn't be going bankrupt.

Once I was done helping old people buy stamps for their christmas cards, I went to the library to return The Last Man and pick up Deliverance. Several weeks ago I was shocked to discover my library didn't have a copy of Deliverance. I felt fairly certain it was a very popular book. So I put a request in for the library to buy a copy, pointing out it was at the top of several librarian best book lists. And they bought the book for me! Yay! I think this is the first time I've ever taken out a totally brand new, never been touched book from the library before. It still smells new.

My last stop for the day was the grocery store. I decided I was too tired to drive to far away ones, so I was going to risk going to the safeway in the super sketchy strip mall. I had been there once before, and it was scary. Low lighting, sickly produce, dented cans on the wrong shelves.... But ben just wanted me to pick up some soda, so I decided to take the risk. Which was rewarded by the delightful surprise that they have remodeled and improved! It looks so much nicer now. Everything was clean and well-lit. The produce was still a little sad, but not sickly at all. The shelves were well stocked and organized. It was like a totally different store. They even have a real bakery section now. I'm rather pleased. Now I have a much closer grocery store to go to for the basics. I'll probably still avoid it at night though. Super sketchy strip mall is even sketchier at night.

Right now I am roasting acorn squash in order to make squash and tomato soup. I hope it turns out tasty. I am using a recipe from a website for people who hate squash. I am using the "fight it with acid" strategy. We'll see tonight how well it works.

Today was a day of productivity.

In the morning, I took care of the dishes and laundry.

Then ben and I paid a visit to our local library to pick up my new library card. I was horrified, to say the least. The library was ONE ROOM. There were hardly any books! I wanted to cry!

Looks like it's fairly easy to order books from the other branches and have them delivered to the local one though. My library is only a mile away, so I thought I could get a bike and ride there. That will only work if I order the books I want.

After that disappointment, ben took me for lunch. We got burgers. Then we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things we ran out of during the week.

When we got home, I attempted to trim one of the hedges in front of the house. The previous owners must have never trimmed them. Ever. There is no other way the bushes could be that overgrown. So when I tried to fix that...it did not go well.



At first I tried to just cut back to the edge of the garden so that it wasn't sticking out onto the sidewalk. That's where the giant bald spot on the bottom came from. It quickly became evident that if I wanted the bush to have any leaves on it, I was going to need to be a little bit less aggressive. But there was nothing I could do about the top of the hedge, which was reaching up far too high and really needed to just be cut down to size. Honestly, I would have trimmed it shorter, but I was trying not to be too aggressive.

The bush to the right should be a bit easier. It has more leaves on it, so I should be able to cut it back as far as I need to. I'll attempt that tomorrow. I have a blister today, despite my gloves. And maybe next weekend I'll tackle the bushes on the side of the house that are so big they are falling over.

No more books at UT Austin.

I, personally, think this is a bad idea. I only graduated a few months ago and I relied heavily on books for my research. There just wasn't enough free, reliable information on the internet for my research. And yes, I know, they are actually moving the books to specialty libraries. But I think that's not too smart either. I have never had a research project that stayed within one subject. I often had to go to four or 5 separate sections to find all the books I needed for my papers. I can only imagine how crazy I'd get if I had to go to four or five separate libraries to get all those books.