pecking order

the new fad here in hicktown, as you may have guessed, is chickens.

apparently, my neighbors are all about staying cool so two of them (behind and beside) have decided to purchase a flock to live in the comforts of their converted garages - one of which is disturbingly close to my living quarters.

high-larious.

don't get me wrong, i'm not completely against nature. i love willa cather novels and hope i'd make a good pioneer woman who can identify every plant and tree by its leaf and do any number of nimble tasks with freakishly gnarled fingers. hell, i even love plunging my hands in the dirt to start a garden every year. and when i visit friends on their farm i love it - i love the whole 'fresh egg, walkin the cows, findin kittens in the loft' thing. but somehow, this seems a smidge invasive. see, in daily life, i'm not exactly out-doorsy and i'm certainly not someone who loves the smell of...life (and by 'life' i mean animal feces).

so who knows what this will turn into. maybe it'll be completely normal where i won't even notice the stench or clucking - kind of like i don't always hear the church bells or the train pass by. and maybe i'll even be completely charmed by one and name it delilah and this sweet lil thing will change my life.

or not.

on a related note, i'm looking into getting a pet fox.

taking control

a couple weeks ago i got a file cabinet and a bookshelf, both in an attempt to better organize. i pulled everything out of drawers and off of shelves. i made piles of what to throw away, what to give away, and what to keep. i set out to organize the hell out of this place.

...and then i got sick. and i'm never sick. but when i am, the daily upkeep of my home goes downhill and fast. so now i'm living in the midst of the general disorder that arose as a result of my recent illness and on top of that i still have all these piles of crap everywhere (that no longer resemble neat piles since i've gone through them in search of lost items). the only thing keeping me from appearing on 'hoarders' is that there are no singed, dead cats hidden behind the sofa and the mess has not yet seeped into the surrounding yard.

and all this, obviously, made me remember a sad time in my life and a pbs telethon.

in north carolina i had only three channels so i watched many, many programs i otherwise would not have - the nanny, children's craft-making shows (i learned how to make homemade ornaments), infomercials, and pbs telethons. - if anyone has ever witnessed a pbs telethon, one knows that they go on for about eighteen months and replay the same specials over and over and over again and i watched it all - everything from an old john denver concert to some 60s band reunion, to wayne dyer, to suze orman. and i saw each of them about 2,334,563,453 times.

***side note: to explain why i insisted on watching television instead of doing anything (anything!) else, is really way too difficult to go into here.***

but i got home late last night and stepped over piles of books and sweaters on my bedroom floor and i knew that i had to do something. i thought of suze orman and 'the 8 qualities of a wealthy woman' she spoke of and remembered the one that one currently applies to me:

Cleanliness

Removing clutter and chaos from our lives brings clarity, which makes it easier to achieve what we want. From emptying closets of unused stuff to streamlining your wallet, cleanliness is a sign that you're in control.

makes sense. and i completely agree. i believe in the whole 'a place for everything and everything in its place,' but now it seems like such a huge undertaking that i would rather just watch tv (sad, but true). oh, and it's not lost on me that this is an issue i face in many aspects of my life - that i'm just too exhausted and overwhelmed to take control and get things done and would rather neglect it all and go on complaining about how things aren't as they should be.

so i've decided to attempt this whole control thing. to step up to the plate. to take hold of the wheel. to grab a bull by the horns. and to clean...to clean like the wind.

get in shape girl

my goal is to be one of those healthy people that just naturally craves fruit instead of a 4lb bag of m&m's (see my sister). i swim a few times a week, but i'm not a swimmer. i look like a dying land animal in the water, and flailing is a good workout, but i'm searching for other options.

i chose kickboxing. never tried it, but i felt it will make me a certifiable badass. i researched all the gyms and classes in town and found a small and reasonably priced club. i called and got some info and tonight i headed to my first class.

found the address rather easily. the name on the door was a bit different than what i remembered, but the address matched, so i went in. got a tour and a schedule of classes (the class started at 7, not 8) and when i asked about the women's friday and saturday classes, i was told that they were actually on tuesdays and thursdays. the monthly price they quoted was about fifty bucks more than what i was told on the phone, and the school doesn't even offer kickboxing. i wondered then if i had talked to the 'uncle billy' of the establishment who gave me all the wrong information. but i signed up for a private jiu jitsu lesson (free) for this thursday and went on my way.

arriving home, i looked up the school again, and, well, i went to the wrong place. i had googled so many schools and clubs that apparently i just willy-nilly picked one out of the blue, googled the directions, and showed up.

this actually happens quite a bit. i do something completely wrong, but stubbornly question the validity and intelligence of others.

wonder if i should still go to my free jiu jitsu lesson...