freeing a soul
: october 2002
10.23.2002
secret journal
for those of you who haven't caught on yet, i have been cheating on
my blogger. if you are missing my rambling, try here:
www.livejournal.com/users/wanderinggrrl/
as soon as i have some time to spare (<snorts>), i plan on giving
belen.net a pretty big overhaul. new features will include:
pushing my personal site over to a subdomain of belen.net (probably
inside.belen.net)
-
bringing my portfolio and biz stuff up to the main url of belen.net
and snazzing up the verbage to flaunt myself a bit more
-
converting my journal a bit to shift over to the livejournal format.
i think my friends really appreciate the functionality that lj offers,
and i am a sucker for pleasing them ;)
its hard to conquer the world :) i need to clone myself.
posted by belen 8:45 PM
9.21.2002
randomness
mmmm....its the weekend. it is the first weekend back in my house in
over 3 months. <deep sigh of contentment>
i experienced a very strange and wonderful thing yesterday on my 28th
birthday. i opened a card with birthday money from a grandparent. this
was not my own grandparent...it was david's grandma Schneider. and after
almost 10 years of no contact (yes, friends, that includes no cute,
thoughtful birthday cards) with my own remaining grandparents, i sat
for a moment blinking. and then glowing...that i have a grandma again...sorta.
i guess she isn't really "mine" yet, but someday...
it really touched me.
so david and i decided to get each other a joint birthday present (since
his is in october) - we just ordered a pioneer 300 disc cd changer.
yeeee-haaa! all those cd's that were cast aside and didnt make the "cut"
will now rejoin us. and i get to write it off as office equipment. :)
no, i am not lying...it *is* in our office. it plays all day as we work.
:)
i have noticed in recent days that i find myself missing old friends.
those people i just don't talk to anymore...and i have to say that jonathan
and his mom always top that list. despite my resolve to try to emotionally
distance myself from him, i still miss him. and knowing that i am about
to live in the same city with him again - live within blocks of where
he works...and not hear from him at all - it makes me sad.
and there is hardly a day that something doesnt remind me of his mom
- making the strawberry pot in washington, eating scrambled eggs with
cheese and green onions, hearing a santana song, a million little daily
things. i often miss her place in my life. but somewhere along the way
i felt the wall go up between us, and i just don't feel like she would
want me in her life again. not that i know how to find her anymore.
<shrugs> i guess its for the best. i don't think i could be a
part of either of their lives without wreaking havoc...and that is unfortunate.
all in all, i find myself...deeply content. my career is fulfilling
and challenging, my friendships are deep and caring, my family is growing
and blooming, my partner is considerate, loving and nurturing. i am
living big dreams, remedying mistakes from my past and continuing to
push and learn and fly every day.
and all those annoying little problems along the way are so manageable.
and people laugh when i say i love getting older. it just keeps getting
better!
posted by belen 12:24 PM
9.2.2002
olympic national park - hoh rainforest pictures
here are the pics from the weekend...it was quiet and relaxing :)
so
our journey begins with dogdog donning the proper jungle attire and
crawling into his dignified travelling case :)
this
tree was pretty typical of the windy roots and large trees along the
trails. the roots get really crazy because trees fall over, start to
decay and become "nurse
logs", which new trees grow on top of. and if they succeed, the
new trees get these windy roots and stilt-like look to them bec they
have to get their roots
to the ground, and eventually the nurse log decays to nothing. dogdog
liked these trees a lot :)
this
is a picture of one of the trees in the Hall of Mosses. its rathr hard
to fathom, but the moss on that limb in the lower right corner is draping
down about 6-8 feet from the tree limb!
dogdog
tree-climbing
a ranger for playing in the moss. he had to promise not to remove it
from the forest, which he did. but he was a very dirty dog at the end
of the day :)
little
dog, biiiiiiiiiig tree :)
more
dog adventures
dogdog
talked me into the picture so you can see how big these trees are :)
after
a strentuous day of frolicking, dogdog sat down to a tasty steak dinner
and a good alaskan amber beer :)
this is the coastline to the west of the olympics. amazing that in august,
this is the misty cold coast.
posted by belen 9:16 AM
8.28.2002
deep satisfaction
there is something beautiful about spending 2 hours troubleshooting
a network connectivity problem on david's laptop and finally winning.
was it the dongle?
was it the network card?
was it his computer's pc card slots?
no driver disks? ok. we'll download.
no floppy? ok, we'll burn them.
no win 98 disk? ok, we'll download drivers and burn.
is it the card? is it the dongle? is it the slots? (this is sounding
dirty!)
in the end, it was a dongle that was bad.
and lo and behold, we had another card and corresponding dongle.
and i had the patience to get the drivers downloaded and installed.
while crashing constantly.
yup, i am a rockstar.
posted by belen 11:29 PM
8.26.2002
the newest member
meet the newest member of lish's household! he doesn't have a name
yet, but we are working on it :) he is about 3-4 months old and came
from the uhmane society. this should satisfy my baby kitty urges for
a while :)
posted by belen 10:47 AM
8.19.2002
doing my good deed
my life is such a balancing act :)
this morning i was posting porn to newsgroups to promote our pay sites...
this afternoon, i spent $500 supporting Planned Parenthood.
why? you ask...
well, here is the deal. i have insurance. but what that guarantees
me is that when i have to go for that wonderful annual gynocologist
exam that women *love*, i have to wait 6 weeks to get an appointment
with a dr i don't know (because i am always moving). i visit said dr
and have an incredibly impersonal experience. i pay the $30 copay, and
then somehow, i end up paying another $40 or so for tests that the insurance
won't cover. then i pay $25 for each pack of pills, and i can't get
more than 1 pack at a time without a hassle (for those of us who are
not always next to their local pharmacy).
and all that joy costs me about $400.
*OR*
i could call Planned Parenthood, get an appointment for next week.
i go in, fill out some forms, and meet a dr who is there donating her
time because she whole-heartedly believes in what she is supporting.
i talk with her about things like traditional medicine vs. homeopathic,
the various new things going on in oral contraceptives, and decide that
i would like to try the consecutive pills (which means i take active
pills for 3 months and then give my body a break). then i go to the
front, pay the $150 for her time and support of the clinic and buy 16
packs of pills (for my consecutive pill experiment) *all at once*, and
wha-la! i have my entire year of feminine health taken care of, as well
as having a pleasant experience at an establishment i feel good about
supporting.
in addition, instead of keeping my higher insurance that covers part
of my pills, i am dropping to a lower insurance (almost 1/2 the cost)
since i don't have to worry about getting my pills for the next year.
the whole thing just makes me feel better about the universe :)
posted by belen 4:56 PM
8.4.2002
st. helen's pictures
here are the pics from our camping trip. if you want the description,
you need to go see my
livejournal (since i am a cheating whore)
Mt. St. Helens pics
the trees in our campsite:
dogdog holding our camping pass:
camping belen, a self-portrait
posted by belen 10:52 PM
8.2.2002
the agony, the joy
so much today!
first, i had to endure the agony of doing something i *swore* i would
never ever do.
i put frontpage on my machine so i could work on a client's really
awful site.
and the thing was so fucked up and FP was SO FUCKING BAD that i stripped
the html of all tags and killed all reference to FP after fighting it
for 2 hours.
i hate fontpage.
but my day had the biggest perk ever.
dre is having a rather rough time of it, so we bought him a ticket
to come see us!!!
aug 10-14, dre is mine! <MWAHAHAHHAHAH>
we are gonna do some theraputic camping :)
i want to burble on, but i have work to get done before we head to
mt st helens to campr for the weekend :):):)
posted by belen 3:22 PM
7.27.2002
i create life!
my sunflowers are starting to poke their little heads out of their
fresh yummy soil :)
fear me, david and i have another great creative project for xmas gifts!
posted by belen 7:58 PM
7.26.2002
friday finally arrives...
i cannot even begin to express how stupid-busy i have been this week.
my average days have been 8am-5pm, grabbing dinner and then back at
it until 10ish.
but this has made up for the downtime last week...and i really needed
to get shit done.
so all is good. lots of billable hours this week, and lots of good
work done.
tomorrow i work a bit more and sunday we go into seattle to hang out.
this week's weather has been so wacky...mid-week, i was in a sundress
sweating my ass off, and today we have been so cold all day that we
actually lit a fire in the fireplace :) (mmmmm...roaring fire in july!!!)
i think its about time for a nap...then dinner.
perhaps i will have energy for writing later this weekend :)
posted by belen 4:04 PM
|