welcome to purge-atory. (part 1)

day one of the purge was less than remarkable. just like those sad folks on hoarders, i got sucked into a microproject that yielded limited results. to my credit, i did clean out an entire file cabinet of old bills and pay stubs.  (on a side note, if anyone wants to steal my identity, this upcoming trash day might be a good time). also, my house is not going to be condemned if i don’t finish my purging by the end of the second day.

yesterday was also further complicated by the boyfriend deciding that he wanted to join in the purging by bringing up 7 fully packed storage bins or childhood crap  from the basement to the living room and starting to dig through them. he is definitely the hoardier one of the two of us, and i got really stuck on trying to get him to throw his shit away. i actually at one point uttered the phrase “why did you just put that kite string in the ‘keep’ pile? you don’t own a kite.”

the fact that his stuff was all over the living room (making it impossible to move or clean) stressed me out horribly, and i became very mean. apparently, the boyfriend also becomes very mean when other people hover over him and try to force him to get rid of his stuff. it was a brutal afternoon.

after some vegetables and a full 9 hours of sleep however, i am looking at my shelves with renewed scrutiny, and am surprising myself with how much i am willing to give away.  today will be better, i’m sure of it (i’m not sure of it).

look for and update on the results of day 2 later today.

long weekend pickthrough- FULL REBOOT edition.

you know when you have a crappy old computer, and if you keep it on without restarting it for a while, it starts to run slower and slower and slower and fills you with increasingly more and more and more rage? well, that’s where i was last week. trying to remain functional without shutting off and getting less and less effective with every passing day. like that shitty gateway laptop your grandma gave you for college graduation.

this week, i decided it was finally time to reboot. i unapologetically shut my laptop on tuesday evening, and didn’t open it up again until today. i slept. i ate. i read! i even went to yoga like a fully functional human being. it was awesome. it’s not that i didn’t do anything while i was out, i just didn’t put any pressure on myself to do anything about it other than to maintain a state of general alive-ness.  here’s what you missed:

weekend pickthrough- recalibrated edition.

i would like to thank you all for being patient with me this week. my spring fever has shown no real signs of waning, but i am becoming accustomed to it in a way that is making it possible for me to function again. the answer appears to be the swingset on the eastern promenade. if it’s been a while since you’ve had a good solid swing, i can not recommend it highly enough. don’t forget to look up. it still feels exactly like flying.

along with a series of small naps with my dog and and the consumption of an entire bag of pepperidge farm chessmen, i also managed to finally organize and update my coupon stash for the first time since february. it was really tragic to have to recycle so many great deals. i really do need to pay attention again- for a while. my preble street donation bucket is looking very bare these days.

maybe this week i’ll even crack open my walgreens cherry now that the new marginal way store is open… has anyone out there been yet?

chances are that all your easter candy is gone now… except for one of these. thank sweet jesus that the folks at the hairpin are problem solvers.

the sadistic truth about women’s clothing sizes. (i do love an infographic, even when it fills me with rage).

who is this mysterious asian woman?

how did i make it past 30 without ever reading this?

i’ve got 2 tickets to paradise. and by paradise, i mean the former yugoslavia.

ooh, free local music.

you had me at “cupcake stuffed“.

18 clues you’re anti-feminist piece of crap.

a hearty high five to the person who wrote this truly inspired review of paul’s food center on yelp.

drop off times for SWAPmaine have been released! (early drop off= FREE ADMISSION).

did you know that chicago dogs has a veggie dog?

thus solidifying her place in the pantheon of awesome moms, my mom sent me this link this morning.

vacation all i ever wanted.

when i was a little girl, my dad would take two weeks off of work every summer, stuff all of the kids (4 girls, all roughly 1 year apart in age) into the station wagon, and go camping all up and down this great state. did i mention that it was an un-air conditioned vehicle? with burgundy leather interior? and wood paneled sides? oh, and then there’s that part about my extreme predisposition to car sickness… yeah, it was a LOOOOONG drive to acadia every summer. but once we finally arrived, it was all sorts of magic. i’m pretty surprised that the blackwoods campground never blacklisted my boisterous/insane family, because we tore that place up from echo lake to thunder hole. not in a vandalism kind of way, but we experienced the crap out of that national park.

well, it’s time to put on my exploring pants again, because i just booked myself a real life vacation on long pond for later this summer (view exhibit a- tiny charming cabin at left). thankfully this time around, i have a vehicle with AC, a good supply of dramamine, and the aid of a little sexy modern technology. the chimani company contacted me a few weeks ago with an offer to review their acadia national park informational/navigational app for the iphone. so just in case there was any question: no, i’m not getting paid to write this, but yes, chimani did give me the product for free (a $9.99 value on itunes). but don’t worry, i’m a merciless reviewer not swayed by swag. i promise.

now i won’t be able to really see what it’s made of until it’s time for summer vacation fun, but i figured i could screw with it for a while and see what i could learn. here’s what shook out during my first poke around:

1. it’s pretty intuitive. the navigation screen has a series of big buttons that say nice and obvious things like “map”, “hiking”, & “auto tour”. which is good, because there is no big button that says “directions”. (the app info button was shockingly less informational than i would have preferred).

2. it’s crazy full of information. (well, except for how to use it) take the auto tour and learn everything you ever wanted to know about acadia but it never occurred to you to ask. who knew that the bubble rock parking lot had such a fascinating history?  if it’s vaguely notable and inside the confines of the park, chimani can tell you about it. looking for the only fjord on the east coast? CHECK.  need to get your hands on a copy of the beaver log newspaper? DOUBLE CHECK. um, did i mention that there are AUDIO CLIPS?

3. it knows i have a tiny bladder. the auto tour makes heavy (and specific!) mention of restroom locations, all are well marked on the map, AND there’s even a big  happy button devoted entirely to the subject. chimani even takes this function to the next level by providing DESCRIPTIONS of said restrooms. “restroom oasis” anyone?  it’s comforting to know that i can spend my vacation confident that i won’t have to be squatting behind any nationally recognized boulders or shrubs. which is good, because i always end up peeing on my shoes.

4. it makes sure i don’t miss the bus. i actually had no idea there even was an acadia shuttle. this program not only shows all of the designated island explorer pick-up points on the map (although it also taught me that you can just flag them down wherever), but tells you exactly when the next shuttle will arrive at each stop, and how much longer you have to wait.

5. it doesn’t discriminate against the chronically out of shape. all hiking trails are listed by length and graded by difficulty. this assures that asthmatic fatties like me don’t end up way over their heads when they just want to go for a brief mountain jaunt. sorry perpendicular trail, i’ll be sticking to the wonderland path. although the bike trails are not similarly color coded by how much they’ll kick your ass, they are described in enough detail that you can easily avoid anything involving the words “steep” or “recommended only for experienced cyclists”.

6. it knows where i am even when i don’t. it took me slightly too long to figure out how to do it, but when you hit the little bullseye icon on the map… BAM there’s that comforting little blue GPS dot telling your exact location. knowing my proximity to the restrooms at all times is tantamount; as is knowing exactly how much longer the slightly too hard hike i picked out is going to last, or if i’m about to wander into some sort of tragic gorge accident.

7. it makes sure i’m never bored. fishing, swimming, biking, hiking, birding, boating, camping, picnicking, and even HORSES all have their own big shiny buttons on the chimani app. considering that it costs $36 bucks to get into funtown for one day- the $20 7-day pass (per vehicle) to acadia is a way better value, and there’s just as much stuff to do- all of it better for you/more fun than eating too much funnel cake and puking on the thunder bolt (not that i know from experience or anything).

in short, it’s a pretty incredible app (more incredible than i could reasonably cover in one review). it’s economical, information packed, extremely efficient, and takes up a lot less space in my backpack than a map and/or guidebook. however, despite the general coolness/utility/awesome informational factor, i can’t give it my total 100% thumbs up. there were a few minor quirks and missing pieces that i feel could be improved over time:

1.i can’t figure out how to un-favorite things, and it’s filling me with rage.

2. maybe it’s just my older version iphone, but the program crashed 3 times while i was using it. not a huge deal, but inconvenient none the less.

3. i ran an update and it took FOREVER to load. and then the program crashed again.

4. does anyone know what the cell coverage is like in acadia? how much  functionality do i lose if a wander into an area with no bars (which seems likely the further downeast you go)?

raising the roof.

i wish i could raise the roof all 1998 style (can a get a woot woot?) about the process of getting a new roof, but it’s been all sorts of suck since day one. we hadn’t even had our condo for a full year when the water damage started. sure, they told us during due diligence that we would need a new roof in the next 2-5 years, but we figured we would have at least one recovery year before the giant assessment of doom descended upon us. but then *BAM*, 1 giant shingle ripping windstorm, and everything falls apart. our beautiful (and stupid expensive) brand new professional paint job reduced to a bubbly saggy mess in 24 short hours.

now not only was my heart broken about the paint job, but with one of the 5 units in our tiny little condo association undergoing foreclosure (meaning that the guy hadn’t paid mortgage or condo fees for 6+ months), i was also wicked pissed. why you ask? well, because when a condo association needs a new roof, and one of the units is in foreclosure… everyone else just has to pick up the slack and pay jerkface’s share of the bill. which isn’t so bad when it’s a $75 heat bill, but when it’s a $15,000 new roof- it becomes significantly more pricey. and thus, i become increasingly more filled with rage.

i suppose we were lucky enough to get that big chunk gifted to us by the boyfriend’s parents (although that too came with it’s own “complications” [ahem, demon dog anyone?]). but that still left us with $1,375 each to come up with by june 1st. the crazy thing is, i actually had it. there was almost $2,300 in my savings account, and for the first time in my life ever (i’d never been able to keep more than about $25 in savings at any given time), my emergency fund was actually ready for the emergency. so why did it feel so bad when i had to write that check? last night as i transferred the cash over to my checking account, and saw my hard earned savings dwindle down to less than $900, i felt a huge sense of hopelessness and loss. i had been doing so well. i had made real progress. i had felt so successful. and here i was again, back down to an almost empty tank.

i automatically have $100 a month put into savings from my paycheck, and then any other outside earnings, single check rebates, or other miscellaneous income have been getting thrown in there to boot. this was a good year, and between tax returns and freelance jobs, i was able to come up with almost another $1000 of miscellany to stuff under my savings mattress. i’m just afraid that this next year won’t be as kind, and that my race to have 2 months worth of living expenses in the stronghold could take another 2 or more years to build. i was so close.

i think i get it now. saving money is like taking prozac. it takes the edge of worry off of working and living in a world where expensive emergencies can streak across the road like a spooked deer at any time. sure, my new roof looks nice, will add resale value to my home, and will most hopefully prevent any future water damage… but it took a little bit of my security with it, and i think i’m going to be in mourning for a little while. *i’ll be in my room*