For the dreamers among you, my favorite web radio: Tag's Trance Trip.

Love and happiness,
MG

No posts yesterday as I was traveling all day long. I landed in Grand Rapids at 4:30 and had dinner with two old friends from college: Jill and Michelle from Grand Valley State University, where I spent the first, beer-saturated year of my college education. After that I figured out that college cost money and decided to stop drinking and start studying. Thank God, because I am now a viable member of society.

So I am staying here at my dad and stepmom's house - it feels funny calling her my stepmom because she is equally a parent to me with my own mother. They have a warm, inviting, cluttered old house that they have made many improvements on since I was last here two years ago. An absolutely gorgeous bedroom/bed. Beautiful paint colors. It's really nice.

I took pictures of the exterior today - it's been resided and now it's not a dirty, salt-stained white anymore. It's shiny and new.

Dad has an arsenal of old family pictures he's been showing me. As soon as I get the time I will post them on the web because they are so wonderful and fascinating. People didn't travel in the 30s and 40s they way they do today, so it isn't just a collection of snapshots of them in front of some tourist trap. Their houses, their cars, their everyday clothes - all are in these pictures and all show evidence of what these people were really like. Some of them were taken at events like the death of my great-grandmother, who was a tiny, elegant lady with an amazing face. You can tell in those pictures how each person is responding to the death individually - my grandfather isn't even looking at the camera but sort of staring off into space and his body language is amazing. There are scans of old tintypes and daguerrotypes, faded photos, sepia tones...all somehow show more about what the people were really like than our modern color-blasted photography.

Best of all, my father has the camera that Grandpa used to shoot these pictures, and he's told me he decided to give it to me. He wants me to have it. It has a bellows. One of my photog friends might be able to fix it. I hope so.

MG

I am still kind of hacked off at this washing machine issue. It's no big deal - maintenance gave me an old junker instead of the one they were supposed to install. :( Whatever.

In honor of washing machines, check out these links :

Antique Washing Machines

I started out looking for Disposable Clothing through Google but ended up here : Standarised Buttock Measurements. Here is my favorite quote:

       Clearly, you all know, the size of your "Arse" depends on the distance of you from the equator, subtracting how many days until the Vernal equinox (or adding if the equinox has already passed), all over the square root of your height (in millimeters). Here is the equation:   
       D - (T)   
       ------- = -ss size (moons, or Ms)   
       sqrt(H)   
       It's just that simple.

And 21 Laundry Tips from The Frugal Shopper. My favorite is #2.

I found some more people I went to school with online. Funny how I have no desire to reconnect with these people. Cold, I know, but then hey, I AM Mean Girl...

Find out your Star Wars name. I am Jensh Saman, Retbronco of Aspirin.

I am all finished. Scott and I moved everything heavy on Thursday night and saw Episode II.

Friday I moved over whatever I could and spent time unpacking stuff.

Saturday El and the girls came over and girls played with cats while El and I moved the kitchen.

All that's left is the ironing board, vacuum, air mattress, and cleaning.

Piece of cake. Thank God!

I leave for Michigan Thursday.

In the iPod today, after a full-on morning of Oasis at top volume...

Currently reading: Jane Hamilton which for some reason I think I have read before, or it at least sounds very familiar...

And a fun little bathroom book.

No, no, I changed my mind. THIS is my favorite.

Possibly my favorite Lego site.

Got the keys to new flat yesterday. Joan came over and we moved almost everything in two hours. She rocks! :)

What's left:
Living Room furniture
Bedroom furniture
Bathroom
Kitchen
Odds and Ends

Where did that phrase come from, anyway?

The new place is *actually* new - fresh paint, new carpeting and linoleum, and a lovely view out the east Wall O Windows.

I went to sleep last night thinking 'God, you are so nice to me. I don't deserve any of it.'

He seemed to say back: "The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it."

"I can hear those @#$%(&# radios blaring Mariachi music and Rush all day and night":U.S. Protests Mexi-Canadian Overpass

Beautiful Picture of the Day: Grrr...

Fiona jumped up on the toilet today for a drink, which gives me an idea...

And Hannah moved out today.

Decorating update: I redecorated the bathroom for $80, including towels. I bought them at Kohl's & got a good deal. I had good mats. Kirs gave me a shower curtain. At Pottery Barn I found a lotion dispenser, soap dish and toothbrush holder for $16 TOTAL. Light blue. And a good poured candle that smells like paperwhites. Tif brought a 'thankyou' shower gift for me yesterday - a GROOVY glass candle holder with a matching blue candle in it. So my bathroom is fully upgraded for the new apartment. And I cleaned all the junk out of living room. New candles: $50. (That's the only decoration now, really). Will hang art on the walls. Busted apart a director's chair I had and made it into a sling seat for the cats at the patio window.

It's wonderful. :)

And I've watched a zillion movies this week. My favorites - Rear Window and Babette's Feast. Thank God for cable. But what is the deal with Miss Torso?

THIS is what you need in your CD player. It's the best thing that's come in the mail for me in a long time.

HYMNS: I am tramping around the hallways today singing 'Glory to His Name!' with a Brooklyn accent.

I should be locked up.

My new favorite rock and roll site ('cause I designed it!)Codenames Rule!

Proof my kitten is a robot

My new favorite news site.

I am studying the atonement now. It's fascinating.

Shooting tonight at an observatory. That's about all for now.

MG

"You do not yet look as happy as I wish you to be."

The garage only charged me $71.99 for my brakes. I looked at the invoice - there is no charge for labor.

Go figure. I feel like a jerk about the Sprint issue.

I've been thinking today about the Experiencing God - names of God thing. That at different times in your life there are different names by which God reveals His character to you. For a long time it was Provider. Today it seems to be Advocate.

I don't need to fight for my own cause. I have an advocate with the Father in heaven who fights for me, and in far better a manner than I would fight for myself. Once again it all comes to expectations and trust.

Be still my soul.
MG

ahhhhh! a new look.

Sprint shut my service off anyway with a lecture about how I should expect a payment to take 12 hours.

I admit I did not handle it in star fashion. I said, 'Well, you guys really are committed to customer service, aren't you?' and hung up.

I need to go home. But funny enough, service now appears to be on. Maybe they are just nuts.

Have finished all Chronicles of Narnia. I guess God spoke to me best in The Last Battle:

"You do not yet look as happy as I wish you to be."

I thought about this for quite a while.

At first it seemed selfish - as if I was concerned only with my own happiness. But then I realized that to be happy with a gift from God is to make Him happy, to be a gracious recipient who happily views the blessings He's given.

It is far worse to receive blessing at the hand of God and not be thankful or grateful.

I am thankful for all I have. I hope to someday be as happy - and to look as happy - as He wishes me to be.
MG

Let me tell you how much I hate SprintPCS. First some old battleaxe calls me demanding a $117 payment. She won't give me any reason for why I owe that, just that I do. She refers me to customer service while admitting that they probably won't be able to help me either.

I call customer service.

I look up my account on the web while calling. Wireless Web was never reinstated. Total overcharge for WW minutes in April: $90. Total bill: $296. Evidently they didn't think I'd want to know this.

I was on hold for 19 minutes.

The rep came back. Verdict: no record of me calling SPCS to reinstate web on March 6. Result: They removed overcharge from May and 'best they could do' was split the $90 April charge with me. So I have to pay $45 because of their rank incompetence.

They have the worst customer service on earth. Except for this lady - she was amazing. Love her.

New brakes on the buggy today. $130. It will be nice to stop without grinding.

Other than that, police mistakenly let a convict loose downtown and helicopters are circling like sharks trying to find him. They brought the wrong dude downtown for a bus ticket home. They let a murderer go instead of a guy who'd quietly served his sentence.

Whoopsie.

Check out the perfume my hairdresser created: Fable Perfume Fragrance - the Hope Diamond Collection. Joseph's got a pretty cool story. His family used to own the Hope Diamond. His great grandmother got it as an engagement present and wore it everywhere. Then Harry Winston bought it and did fundraisers all over Europe with it. Now it's in the Smithsonian.

They had to get his permission for 'the heart of the ocean' in Titanic.

Plus, he does fantastic hair cuts and color.

Neat.