Fresh and Light and Green

It was laundry day today. I love laundry day. The smell of clean clothes, the feeling of everything being clean, neat, and in its place, knowing that I can open up my dresser tomorrow and select anything that I want to wear, because all of my clothes are clean... Somehow having all of the laundry done has the same effect on me as something like all of the floors being clean, and the dishes done. I just love how clean I feel (ok, that was redundant). All I know is, since college when I would set aside an entire Saturday morning every couple of weeks, go to the laundromat, do 10 loads of laundry all at once (I wish I was exaggerating), and then go back to my dorm and watch Dave the Barbarian while folding and putting away all of my clean laundry, I've LOVED laundry day.
So today was laundry day, and to make it extra special, it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day (yesterday was gross an wet), which means... CLOTHES LINE!!! As much as I love laundry day, I must admit, the fact that I finally have a real clothes line makes it so much better. I just feel fresh and light, and green when I use my clothes line.

So that's my story of today, my laundry, and my clothes line; with pictures.

Only Slightly Awkward...

This is the stalk of the Man-Eater as it stood a week ago (it's probably grown another two feet or so), three weeks since we first noticed it. It's huge. You can't see it as much in this picture, but it's easily higher than the peak of our roof. So, until further notice, our house is the one with the giant phallus in the front yard. Oh well :/

Hellooo!

These are our boys. Guinness is on the left, and Murphy is on the right. This isn't the greatest picture ever, but I just really loved the way the sunlight was coming through the window. It's also a pretty good indication of their personalities *grin*. Guinness is pretty mellow, and doesn't really care what anyone's up to unless he thinks that he can benefit from it. Murphy, on the other hand, is totally curious, and has to know what you're doing all the time. Every time I sit down, Murphy has to come crawl all over me to see what I'm doing. It'd be cute and funny if it weren't so annoying ;)
Anyway, these are the puppies :D

I'm trying to design a signature... I think I like it.

Man-Eater

This is the giant man-eating American Agave that lives at our house. Josh's grandmother planted it 40 years ago. It is also called a "Century Plant". This is because it only blooms once "every 100 years" (by this I mean, it doesn't bloom very often, and when it does, it's a really big deal). When they bloom, they grow a stalk that can get up to 25' tall (yes, feet, not inches). Our plant, being somewhere between 30 and 40 years old has never bloomed before. Until now. About two weeks ago, Josh and I noticed a stalk sticking strait up from the center of the plant. It was at that time, barely level with the lowest point of the roof. It is now above the roof.
Pictures to come.

My Job

My official title (the one that I give to all of my friends' parents and people that I randomly meet and want to impress) is Consultant for the Safety Management Department at Graphic Packaging International through Innovative Training Solutions.
What I actually do is not quite so big. I sit at my desk, blog-surf, sometimes fill out a form or two, go to meetings where they give me free food, my boss tells me that I'm awesome, play on the internet, and call it a day. I also schedule all of my own hours. I come in when I want, and leave when I'm ready. To top it off, my co-workers are all pretty great. All in all, it's a pretty awesome gig.

Go Forth and Kick

Before I left for the pool on Wednesday, I mentioned to my boss that I was going to start swimming for fitness. Turns out he was a competitive swimmer until he was like 25 (I swear, there's nothing that he hasn't done). So, I casually mentioned my lack of umm... skill. Wouldn't you know he started giving me a workout schedule. Now, I am supposed to use a kickboard for the next month or so to perfect my flutter kick before I even start trying to learn the arm strokes. Now, having been an athlete, I acknowledge the importance of the basics. After all, "fundamentals are the building blocks of fun". So I've accepted that I should follow his recommendations.
I leave for the pool (still Wednesday), get there at 3:30ish, ask for a kickboard, change into my swimsuit, and go to the pool. Well, the two lap lanes are taken (it's not a very big pool, so there are only two lap lanes), but there's only one lady in the free swim area, and she's staying in one place doing water aerobics. So I make my way towards the part of the free swim section that is closest to the lanes so that I can pretend like I'm a real swimmer in a lane. I get my kickboard out, and I start kicking. Long story short, I'm glad that I'm not an overly prideful person and I don't tend to care what other people think, because I'm pretty sure I looked like the biggest nerd ever hugging my kickboard, kicking from one end of the pool to another.
Today is a new day, though, another swim day. So I will go, and I will kick. Look out world, here comes my flutter kick!