I've begun the painfully tedious task of converting my journal to (mostly) friends-only. Pretty much anything pertaining to my personal life will be under friends-lock. Random silliness, religious/political views, and other posts that do not relate to my personal life will remain public.

So....uh....who wants to volunteer to make me a purty friends-only banner thing-a-ma-jig? *puppy dog eyes*

The other change that will take place is that all updates related to my band will be moved to gingerpresley, and will be public. If you'd like to keep tabs on my band, feel free to friend that journal. I recently discovered that a google search for my band's name leads to my personal journal, and I'm just not comfortable with that. This is my solution. I hope it works. (I'll probably have to remove that from this post when I get this transition complete, or make this post friends-locked.)

*sigh*

Oooooh! It's been a while since I've had a Nasty Anonymous Comment.

I ARE POPULAR!!!!!

There are two purposes to this entry.

One is to acknowledge that I have a done a friends cut, and that none of the reasons were personal. I didn't necessarily want to announce the cut, but I know people often feel hurt and confused upon losing an LJ friend with no hint as to why. The majority of people cut were usernames that I looked at and thought "Who the heck is that?". If you were cut and feel it may have been in error, please feel free to bring it to my attention. I will admit that I'm not of the most sound mind right now, so I may have clicked somewhere I didn't intend to. Also, please know that I do not require/request that you remove me. If you enjoy reading my journal, please continue to do so.

The second is to declare de-friending amnesty, or whatever. If you've been toying with the idea of removing me from your friends list, please feel free to do so, either with or without explanations. I will not take it personally and will not hold it against you.

Oh, and I'm still alive, and all that stuff, though you may not know it from my participiation in the internets in the near future. If you're the praying, or thinking good thoughts, or vibing good vibes type, by all means, knock yourself out.

*looks for a button that says "delete LJ"*

Aaaarrrrggggghhhhhhxoichawsdogahpsogiawheopa!!!!

I'm only irritated, I'm not seriously considering deleting my LJ, so don't panic! Though I will say that I can now completely understand why people decide to just delete their journals and start new ones. If I wasn't so attached to having a record of the past couple years of my life, I'd be awfully tempted!

( Read more... )

I think I had something else I was going to piss and moan about, too, but I guess I forgot. Lucky you.

*****

Since I know a lot of people have been lax about reading/updating LJ over the holidays, I will probably mention a couple more times that if you are my mutual LJ friend and haven't done so already, you might want to check out this poll and select which of my shiny new filters you'd like to be included on.

Heh, what do ya know? I started a hot new meme! :p

If you haven't done so, please select which, if any, of my new filters you'd like to be included on HERE. I've got a couple of posts planned for a couple of them, and I'd hate for anyone to miss out on any of the boring crap excitement.

In pet news, Anka somehow injured her leg yesterday. Yes. The same leg she had surgery on in June. :(

She was not putting any weight on it all when I let the dogs in from outside yesterday morning. She's putting a little weight on it today, but is still limping. Ryan tried to sneak an anti-inflamatory into her dinner last night, so of course, she wouldn't touch it. It didn't stop Sadie from gobbling it right up after she finished her own meal, of course.

Anka doesn't appear to be in pain, but then, she never does. If the limping keeps up, we'll have to take her into the vet. I'm imagining we'll have to drive the 45 minutes to the vet that did the surgery. *sigh* I'm afraid my baby is doomed to have a bum leg for the rest of her life. :(

Dude. What happened to the LJ updating window? o.O

Is it all wacky for anyone else?


Anyhoo, just a quick note that I'm leaving this afternoon to visit adudeabides for the weekend, so you probably won't be seeing me 'round the internets til Monday-ish. Miss me! :p

Have a great weekend, all y'all.

( Silly Meme )

My goodness, I'm post-y today.

I came across this in daily_gems and it made me feel tingly. (No, not down there, sickos.)



CHOOSE A DIRECTION

There is energy available to you in every situation, every encounter and every moment. And you can direct that energy in whatever way you choose.

That's how it is possible, and can even be quite likely, for a tragic situation to give rise to a beneficial opportunity. Once the energy is flowing, it can be directed toward any purpose.

Though it certainly takes effort and commitment, illness, for example, can provide the springboard to improved health. Injustice can similarly be transformed into caring and compassion.

A highly adversarial relationship can be changed into one filled with love and respect. The most bitter of enemies can become the greatest of friends.

The energy is always there. What you do with it and the way you direct that energy can make all the difference in the world.

No negative outcome is a foregone conclusion as long as you have the will to redirect the energy of life toward positive purpose. What energy can you redirect on this very day?

~Ralph Marston~

Also, if you ever need some comic relief, check out what the kiddies in sextips ask about. This post in particular is giving me the gigglies. Seriously, how did I come to know about such things when I was beginning to explore my sexuality, without the aid of LJ Communities?

Wow, the screwing around on the internet to actual work done ratio goes completely berserk when my supervisor keeps going back and forth past my desk all day!

There are a couple things going on on my friends page that I'd appreciate if you'd take the time to check out.

adudeabides is running a contest for the musically inclined. He will be very happy (and the winner will be rewarded in LJ goodies) if someone does a cover of the song "Suicide is Painless" that rocks his socks. A happy adudeabides puts a smile on my face, so consider it a personal favor to ME if you participate. :p Details for the contest are HERE.

Elsewhere on my friend list, sinisterscorpio is helping a friend with a fundraiser to benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Even if you can only spare a dollar or two (Give up your daily Starbucks or Mc Donalds? Just for one day?), every little bit helps. Breast Cancer has affected the lives of nearly everyone I know, either directly or indirectly. Details for that are HERE.

Elsewhere, elsewhere, and this is actually quite the little trail to a friend of a friend, This Poll can use your input.


And now that I've asked favors on behalf of friends, I have a favor to ask for myself, but I'll save that for another post. I need help from someone who's able to use photoshop (or something?) without wanting to kick their computer, for something work-related. (Perhaps then I can justify the amount of work-time I spend on LJ?) :x

Does anyone know of a relatively quick/easy way to search a community for posts I've made in it?

Check out dailybrainwave.

Another adudeabides journal creation, dailybrainwave, intends to provide a fact a day, every day, about that day. adudeabides is the creator and primary poster; I've been authorized to post when he is unable to. (Today was my first go at it!)

Read it, friend it, pimp it!

My back hurts. Like really hurts. And I don't even care, because it hurts for a good reason. It hurts because I spent about 6 hours working outside today. I constructed a (hopefully temporary) makeshift fence out of chicken wire and bamboo stakes to help train the dogs to stay OUT of mama's flower beds. (That took up the bulk of the 6 hours, and caused the bulk of the back pain.)

I had to make a trip to the hardware store for more mesh and more stakes, and strolled through the garden center and treated myself to a some more (purple!) creeping phlox and some dianthus (which look SOO pretty together), and resisted going hog wild and spending more than I could afford on many, many pretty perennials.

I weeded out the flower bed on the boulevard, which was a lot more work than I anticipated. But now, it looks awesome, and it is evident that there is room for plenty more flowers there. While I was weeding that, a lady walked by and stopped to chat with me. She said that she always walks after dinner, and that she loves walking by my house in the summer and looking at all the flowers. She said that she can't grow anything, and she doesn't understand how "you young girls" have so much energy to do all that. I'm not sure if I was more flattered that she complimented my gardening prowess, or that she refered to me as a "young girl". ;)

Shortly after she moved on, Ryan came home, and admired how "hot" I look when I'm sweaty and dirty. I think he just says that to make me feel good, but whatever, it works. Then he told me that I HAD to stop, because I had been working too hard all day, and needed to rest up, because he wanted to...[do sexual things to me] later.

Then he was off again (and is still gone) to meet with a patent agent, to take the next step(s) in patenting his invention. You might be asking "What invention?!?". Well, I don't think I've mentioned it, because if I did, I'd have to kill you all, and I can't afford all that airfare. Once the patent stuff is all taken care of, I'll mention it, though it's probably not all that exciting to most of you.

Well, I took his advice, and came inside and took a nice long bath and had a glass of wine. Then I made falafel for dinner (might I recommend Fantastic Foods' falafel mix? So simple, and so delish!!), which I ate on a multi-grain tortilla with some of the black bean and roasted red pepper hummus I made (from scratch) this weekend. I expected it to be a rather "blah" meal, but I was pleased that it was amazingly tasty. The fact that I was starving half to death may have had something to do with that.

Perhaps I should have started with this part, but I've made a decision about this journal. I haven't necessarily been writing in it for the right reasons. I am now, once again, writing for ME. If you like reading it, great, but my purpose is not to have a fan club, or to impress people with what happens in my life. It is to keep a record of things that matter to me and to grow and learn from my experiences, just like every paper journal I've ever had has been for. The added element to an internet journal is that I'm able to get feedback and advice from (hopefully) non-biased people. That's one of the things I love most about livejournal. Some of my LJ friends have become very near and dear to me. There are many other people who are virtual strangers to me reading my journal. That's all well and good, I just need to make sure that I'm journaling in a way that is effective for me, and not for the entertainment of others.

Last week, I wrote a private entry. I debated back and forth, forth and back, about making the entry public. It was a rather disturbing entry, actually, about some dark stuff about me that not very many people know. I've decided to keep it private, because that feels safer, at this point.

Anyway, I guess what I want to say is, there might days when I post about the most fucked up, un-attractive parts of myself, and there might be days where I ramble on for far too long about what I did in the garden today and what I ate for dinner. Stick around if you're cool with that, don't if you're not.

Next post will be lots of pretty flower pictures.

If you're someone who I just appeared to randomly add as a friend, don't be afraid.

I found you via an offer at iiiinterests which produces a list of the LJ users that have the most interests in common with you.

If I added you, it means that I checked out your journal and found it (and or found you) interesting.

I was taken a little aback, at first, by the types of interests we have in common, and by how similar to me some of you seem. So of course, you must be awesome. :p

Last night, it dawned on me that I've had my LJ for a year now. I had realized, a couple of weeks ago, that it was coming up on a year, but I forgot all about it until last night, when I was sitting on my sister-in-law's couch at her birthday party, and remembered writing an entry after attending her birthday party last year.

A small handful of you have been here since the start of my LJ. One of you is responsible for introducing me to LJ.

All of you have touched my life in one way or another. I want to thank you, each of you, even if you're new to my journal, for everything you've done for me. You've given me support, advice, friendship, smiles, laughter, knowledge, courage, strength, silliness, love, and friendship. I'm often humbled, and so grateful, by the friendships I've made over such a medium. Most of you, I'll never meet in person, and yet, here you are, sharing my experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

It's been quite a year. Thanks for being a part of it.

LJ can suck a turd out of my ass.

It won't let me do anything I want to lately! I WANT TO POST A POLL DAMMIT!!!

More happily, I've had my first experience with Tempeh tonight. I posted my adventure in i_ate_that, which, if you haven't been paying attention, is my recipe journal. If you like to cook or eat (especially if you like to cook or eat things that don't contain dead animals) you should add it.

Have I totally lost it, or has the option to post polls disappeared on me?

There will be some changes happening with my journal, mostly to protect my privacy, security, and employment status.

The most notable will be that I'll be going back through all my journal entries and making many of them "Friends Only". Going forward, many of my entries will be "Friends Only". Pretty much anything relating to relationships, sex, work, and also any posts including pictures of me, my family, or my friends will be limited to LJ friends. Photos of non-human subjects (my pets, my garden when the season arrives, etc.) will likely be public. Light, humorous, non-personal posts will be public. Anything remotely juicy will not.

If you're a lurker, now's the time to friend me (which will mean creating an account if you're someone who knows me from somewhere else but doesn't have an LJ). Otherwise, what you'll see of my journal will be rather limited.

I may do a friend cut of some sort, though I'm not sure on that yet. I hate "cutting" people, but I have far more journals friended than I can keep up with. I feel bad that I miss out on important things posted by people I care about because I can't keep up with my friend list.

I want to thank everyone for your kind comments to the entrie about my uncle's death. The shock is starting to wear off, and I'm working through my grief. They were vacationing nearby, in Madison, and my aunt is having the funeral there on Thursday. I'm sure it will be an emotional day....don't really wanna talk anymore about that right now.

I also want to thank yayheaven for making some really gorgeous icons. (This is one of them, as is my current default icon.) :) I love them SO much!

I think that's all the thank you's I have for today (well, I could go on and on, actually) so how about an introduction? I want to introduce a friend who has started using LJ. LJ, meet salemwitchchild. You may have seen her commenting in my journal. She's awesome. Check out her journal! She's been an online friend of mine practically since I started using the internet, and whe is very supportive, and honest and passionate.

( other stuff )

adudeabides made me some new icons. They make me smile. :)





I also upgraded, so now I can have up to 100 Userpics. Because everyone needs about 100, right? That said, if anyone feels like using your imagination to make me icons (and make me smile) I would be most appreciative. (I don't have anything specific in mind. I'm curious what people will come up, what they think makes a fitting icon for lil ol hippiecritter.)