11-hour workday

By , October 31, 2007 5:04 am

When I’m feeling low, the most unintentional things pick me up – praise from my boss, a thoughtful email from a friend, a smile or compliment from a stranger…

It doesn’t take more than a second to go from feeling calm to feeling crummy, but just as quickly, the simplest things can turn that crummy mood into a chipper one again.

Happy Halloween!

On a side note, please visit psuedotherapy.com and participate in SJ’s Halloween Meme. It sounds like it will be a lot of fun!

Just can’t compete

By , October 29, 2007 5:53 am

Steven and I were really excited about handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters yesterday. Okay, that is a bit of a stretch, I was really excited, and he was excited to help me pick out the candy.

But we only had thirty-five people come to the door. A lot just walked by. We had our porch lights on, our pumpkin head lights on, and I put a lawn chair outside because I saw other people doing that (okay, they actually sat in the chair, but I had work to do! I at least opened all the shades downstairs to make the house seem inviting). I suppose it didn’t help that the trick-or-treating was from 1-5 in the afternoon.

Oh, and our neighbor’s set-up probably didn’t help either. Kids ran to get candy from their house, then walked right past ours.

Ha ha. I am not really upset. We just have a lot of candy in the house now…

I hate parking lots

By , October 28, 2007 10:10 am

As if wasting time on your weekend to run errands isn’t annoying enough, you have to deal with navigating your car through parking lots as well. This is a very arbitrary thing to complain about, but it drives me and Steven nuts every weekend.

We do most of our food/supply/entertainment shopping at SuperTarget. It is only 7 miles away from our home, and it has just a big enough selection to keep us from shopping at the over-priced, “club member only” grocery stores. There is something nice about knowing exactly what you want, where it is in the store, and just going in to purchase it (of course, when they are out – of Ice Mountain water, Baker’s Inn Honey Whole Wheat bread, Prairie Farms low-fat cottage cheese – it drives us nuts. But that is an entirely different post).

But every weekend – and I try to avoid using absolutes (only a Sith deals in absolutes), but it applies here – we encounter the same issues. And it drives us nuts. Every time.

Why…

…Is the parking lot littered with carts, every weekend, nearly every day as well?

The carts are not in their corrals – they are in parking spots, propped up on the curb, in the grass… Steven has complained to the manager more than once, and they don’t seem to care. They told us to complain to corporate Target, which we did. Obviously, it’s a problem, when there are no carts in the store, and you have to bring one in from the parking lot if you want to use one!

My advice is a simple four-step process. 1. Push cart to car 2. Unload purchases into car. 3. DON’T BE A LAZY SMACK – PUSH CART TO CART CORRAL 4. Return to car, and drive on… which leads me to my next question…

…Do people drive through the parking lots with disregard for the designated “roads” and lane directions?

It is NOT OKAY to drive through parking spots, even if you are “in a hurry,” “trying to get the best spot,” or “an effing moron.” Please see the image below of something Steven and I actually witnessed, at the SuperTarget/Strip Mall complex (we are the blue line, the other driver is the red line).

Bad Target Driver

…Do people feel the need to speed up, driving dangerously fast, just to get what they think is the “best” spot? And also… why sit and wait in the parking lane forever, for someone to leave their spot?

Don’t be a jerk, and wait more than thirty seconds, and clog up the whole lane. What difference does it make if you have to walk ten extra car lengths? Steven and I always park very far away from the store, even if it is raining. (We do this to avoid door dings – and yes, I always take the cart back to the corral from these “middle of nowhere” spots).

…Do people ignore stops signs and common pedestrian courtesy?

If you are in your car, and I am walking to the store, I have nothing to protect me if you hit. Except, maybe a shopping cart.

…Are some parking lots designed so poorly?

This has nothing to do with humans driving, just poor design that makes a parking lot confusing. I bet you’ve all experienced one and thought, “what the hell, where am I supposed to go now?”

Enough of that; this post has become entirely too long. Congratulations to anyone who made it this far. I just had to share a bit of our “every” weekend experience.

Ta-da!

By , October 27, 2007 9:23 am

Presenting the new ilaxSTUDIO.com… fully equipped with rss! Feel free to add me to your feed, wink wink. (As if that is not the entire reason I switched over to wordpress!)

Momentarily, I am only pretending to understand wordpress. Please bear with me as the blog changes over the next few days, weeks and months.

I am leaving the old ilaxSTUDIO.com up for the stragglers. Eventually, I will shut it down (except the archives).

As always, give me your comments, feedback and complaints!

Oh, and welcome!

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