GADD (Geographic Attention Deficit Disorder), 5 residences in 12 months

Well, this past year has given me many different experiences with housing. I never expected to be this 'ungrounded' and nomadic. My sister created a name for it: GADD (Geographic Attention Deficit Disorder)! I am truly grateful to people who have let me stay with them through this unemployment phase, and have learned so much about myself by living with different people. I thought I would share the different styles of housing, because they seem vastly different to me!

I am skipping my friend Doug's place, where I stayed for 11 months, because I don't think I have pictures. The same goes for someone's house where I stayed for 25 days, here in Bloomington.

1. Garland's Fabulous Apartment!

Garland took me in when my other friend said I couldn't stay. Everything for a reason, yes? We seem like unlikely housemates, but ended up having a wonderful time. If I ever have to go through unemployment, bankruptcy and food stamps again, I want my Garland there with me!! We spent a lot of time pulling each other up and looking forward. We also joked about his 'adopt a homeless librarian' program. Luckily, I was the only one he adopted. The apartment wasn't big enough for more of us!


The Wonderful Bed 

This made me feel like I was in a fancy hotel.
I felt like a queen, and it was also a good safe place to nurture my wounded ego from job hunting.    
I still can't believe Garland put me in his room and slept on the couch for a year. A year....wow.


The Fabulous Dresser

Style, baby, style. Well, maybe not with all those boxes..
There usually wasn't this much stuff on it. This was taken during packing up/moving time.
Usually it was just those fantastically happy red poppies!!!


Lynn Boxes in the Corner....

Nobody puts Baby in a corner....but my stuff goes there....

I did actually have the hall closet, but these were in the room.

I made Garland watch George Carlin's routine on 'STUFF'. Every time I looked at my boxes, I could hear George Carlin talking about smaller versions of your STUFF. I have stuff in storage in Colorado. I took the most important STUFF with me to Bloomington. Then I left Garland for 3 months to go to the alpaca farm, taking only the MOST important STUFF.

It's all just stuff. Too much stuff. Yes, Mike, I know..."garage sale"


The Famous Red Flowers

This was on the counter the entire time I was in Garland's apartment. Every person who came in commented on it. Very striking. Very bold. Very Garland. :) It makes me smile to see them again.

So Garland took me in for a little bit, as a temporary measure. A year later, he left Bloomington and returned to New Orleans. I did not really have a good backup plan, and no steady work. But that's the next chapter.....

Life after Garland...a Lesson in Trust

Hi. This is about my hair.

Garland is gone to New Orleans.  He was my friend who let me live with him for a year, but he was also my stylist. The joy of living with your stylist is that every so often he looks at you with raised eyebrow and says "girl, get in that chair".  Usually this is accompanied by a sad shaking of his head, at what a mess is on my head.

Now, even though he did a final farewell cut/style on my hair in July, it was getting a little crazy on one side. That's the joy of curly hair. Just when you think it's all fine and looking good, one side (or piece) decides to do its OWN THING. It gets poofy, or it sticks flat to your head. Sometimes it grows out in a completely different direction, just because it can.

Very independent, this curly hair.

So. The right side of my hair was trying to stick close to my head. The left side has somehow gotten LONGER than the right. Garland suggested this is perhaps because I'm always tilting my head questioningly. Nah.....

I have a friend with curly hair who tried a new stylist. Her hair was cute and she liked the stylist, so I made an appointment. Let me tell you, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this salon!! It's very urban, like a man cave. The owner stylist is a straight guy (is that still what we call them?), and the salon has got some funky style. It feels like a garage, as he's using Craftsman tool carts at each station. There's 50's wood paneling, but with lots of funky art and a fun couch. It's all KINDS of retro chic, with a manly flair.

Anyhow. I really liked the stylist, and we had a great time laughing and talking. What I FAILED to remember, though, was that I had wanted him to just TRIM the cut that was in place. I liked talking with him and felt comfortable that I said the dreaded words:

I TRUST YOU

I forgot he had never worked with my hair. I told him I wanted it a little shorter and we agreed upon an amount, but I forgot he doesn't know how much my hair 'springs' back up. The only person (with scissors) to touch my hair for 5 years has been Garland.

Now, where there was one length, there are now layers. This makes it lighter, and hence curlier. This is not always good, especially when it is this short and independent.

For some reason, the left side still seems longer than the right, and the right side is still sticking close to my head. WHY?? Why, hair? What's going ON on the right side of my skull? Is there a party??  And YOU, random bit of hair on the LEFT side of my head....why are you still LONGER?? You were longer before the cut, and you are longer now. Are there growth hormones in that set of follicles? What gives?  Why still longer even after the haircut? AARRRGH.

The layers make it CURLIER, but not really in a controlled way.

And for the first time in years, I just want to cry when I look in the mirror.

I don't want to blame the stylist, because, really, I did not communicate what I wanted. I trusted too soon, and too much. Not a good idea in any relationship.

The funny part? I wanted it trimmed so it looked 'neater and cleaner' for a wedding I'm attending next week, as the guest of a friend. It's the first fancy thing I've done in a few years and wanted to look nice.

I may just take scissors to hand and try to even it up. Yeah. I'm sure that will go well. That's a whole different post....

Where, you ask, are the photos of this hair silliness? Not here. Not now. Too much sadness. Maybe after it grows out a bit I'll share.

Off to find those scissors....

Oh, and yes, I DID wake up at 6 a.m. so upset about my hair that I could not go back to sleep and had to write about it.  So there.

OH, and THANK YOU

I forgot to post a big THANK YOU to all my friends who loaned me money this summer. I am truly truly grateful, and it allowed me to cover expenses for that month. I have been (not very patiently) waiting for my new salary to kick in so I can repay everyone.

Without our friends we are nothing. Thank you.

Life after alpacas

Well, as many of you know, I completed my alpaca internship on July 14th. A lot has happened since then, but I never really wrote a conclusion to that adventure. I was trying to keep it all in some sort of chronological order, but that went by the wayside with the extraordinary heat of the summer. I really lost my ability to put two thoughts together by the end of the day. I am going to try and add my ponderings here as I can.

The most important thing, though, is that I will never regret my decision to go learn about and care for alpacas. I very much needed to not be sitting at my computer, feeling the continued rejection of the job hunt. I also very much needed to be outside, doing something physical. I learned a lot about myself, and a lot about daily farm life while caring for alpacas. I did not become an alpaca fanatic, but I am not really fanatical about anything anyhow. I enjoyed working with them, and have a better understanding of how and why they are so popular. Do I need to own some? No, probably not. I have no land, and they need land. I'd forgotten how animals need daily care; especially exotic animals. That's a lot of commitment. I seem to be a nomad of sorts. I keep thinking I want to settle down in one place, but never seem to.  I don't think I'm 'running' from anything; I just haven't found a place to settle yet.

Here's the overview of what's happened since July 14:

August:
Garland (my roommate who took me in for a year), moved back to New Orleans to regroup.
Another friend let me stay with him, in his new place, while his roommate was out of town. The roommate came back a month earlier than planned and I had a panic to find a room to rent. I got a part time job in a kitchen (minimum wage!) making tamales for the gourmet tamale catering place that sells at the Farmer's Market. Even though I had re-registered with all temp agencies when I returned to Bloomington, I never got any calls. That means that this tamale job is the most reliable, steady work I've had in a while. Scary!!

I also finally got on at an online university's library and got started in August. I was supposed to only be 10 hours a week, but within two weeks turned into 30 hours a week. However, the paperwork has not caught up to the right people, so they've been paying me for 10/week. It should all be worked out this week, though. That will be a relief. It doesn't feel real until you see the money...

I found a room to rent in a house RIGHT behind the restaurant where I'm working. Talk about Serendipity! He also let me sign a short term lease, since I don't know how long I will be here. I may move with my friend to Ft. Wayne in January. It's all up in the air.

So my world has now shrunk down to two buildings. It's very odd. I've always been bad about leaving the house without a purpose. Now I really really need to find reasons to leave the house. I'm sure having a regular ('real') paycheck will help with that too.

Since I got sick the week after I moved in, that has made adjusting more difficult. I was working 70 hours a week between both jobs, with a sinus infection, ear infection and ruptured ear drum. Sheesh! But  HEY, at least I combined it all into one big stupid illness, therefore making it only ONE uninsured trip to the PromptCare place!  Only $110 instead of $310!  YEAH!!! Much better now, by the way. Yeah for antibiotics!!  Go SCIENCE!  :)

My new landlord is a 2nd year law student, with a fiancee in Ohio and a 7 month old Golden Retriever puppy named Bailey. Since I am home the most with Bailey right now, I have decided to try training him. We are working on walking on the leash, and going to the 'mat' (a carpet square). He's doing really good for only a few 'lessons'. He IS still a puppy, though, and distracted by things like....LEAVES!!! OMG, what IS IT?? Right now his owner has been gone for 4 days, and he keeps looking at the door and whining. I am no substitute for the Doggy Daddy,  Pack Leader. I do not play with the rope right, and I don't play rough enough. The Landlord will be home today, though, so Bailey should be happy.

Well I guess that takes care of September too. How did it get to be October?? I really feel like I am just in limbo, waiting for my paychecks and whatever is next. I am very glad to be working in my field.

So now I can write about making tamales, in what we call "TamaleLand"! This is also something I never  had in the plans (like AlpacaLand), and yet am enjoying it quite a lot.

Will try to post pictures too.

Alpacas and caulking guns

What, you may wonder, does one do when an alpaca needs medicine? Is it EASY to give them medicine? Well, I guess that depends on your definition of 'easy'.

This past month there were two pens of animals that needed medicine, so out came the caulking gun!

That's right, they use a caulking gun to shoot the meds down the animal's throat. As you can imagine, the alpacas aren't all jumping into line for this experience. It worked out well with four people, though. You get all the animals into the pen, with the false promise of grain, and then catch and 'caulk'.

One or two hold the animal
One holds caulking gun
One has the paper with list of animals and number of 'clicks' it should get of medicine

Sadly I have no photos because there really was no practical way to take pictures as a participant.

A cria is born at White Violet Farm Alpacas

This was added a few weeks ago to the YouTube channel. This little guy is one of the ones we moved to the "Little Boys" pen in late May. I won't be here for any births, but they have two crias (baby alpacas) due in the fall. :)

Day 65. 14 days left: I work in the garden and forget I'm a redhead

One of the garden volunteers wanted to work with the alpacas today, so I switched with her and got to work in the Garden!! So while I did NOT rake poo today, I DID get to do the following:

1. Help make 9 rows of 11 mounds of dirt, in which to plant pumpkins.
2. Weed the onions
3. Weed the onions some more.
4. Harvest things for the Farmer's Market (some squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and peppers)
5. Weed the onions again
6. Help pick up compost from the bins around the property

In the course of the day, I had many gnats fly into my ears/nose/mouth. Almost as many as during alpaca duty! Ack! I also got compost juice on my shirt, which is ultra-sexy. And smelly.

AND I got to see the worms rotated from the 'old' compost bin, to their new digs, in a new bin. I was very happy. I love worms.

However, somewhere in there it seems I FORGOT I am fair-skinned. I wiped my face off with a wet towel before lunch, in order to get the anti-bug stuff off me. It really wasn't working on the gnats, since I had so many in my ears and up my nose.  After lunch I merrily went out to pick and weed things, completely forgetting to REAPPLY the sunscreen.

Why? Why does this happen at least once a year? You would think that by now I would remember. I dutifully slather every area of exposed skin every morning before leaving the house.

Here's the thing: I think there is still some inner core of my being that refuses to recognize that I am a redhead and burn. That same core insists I should be able to work outside in the sun for 8 hours, and not get sunsick. Perhaps that core is the 1/36th (or whatever) amount of Native American blood in me, insisting the fair-skinned redhead can DO THAT.

Now, since I was wearing a hat, and a long sleeved shirt, I now have a weird sunburn on 1/2 of my face and some of my collarbone/chest area. Oy. Seriously, I have to just roll my eyes at myself. I should know better by now. Oh well. Aloe is a good friend of mine. You should buy stock in that aloe company.