I'm alive.

Really, I am. Just swamped with work and vacating. Well, on my vacations, I don't go anywhere. I've heard of these type of vacations being called "staycations." I think cutesy terms like that are stupid.

I'm on holiday. Not stupid, and doesn't need a cutesy term to define it.

I only have a few days left, though. I have to go back to work on August 13. Gack. I have been catching up on soap production, though, which is good. Sitting outside on the weekends in this heat is a bizarre existence, let me tell you.

Oh, and want to hear about bizarre? I set out to make a double-batch of liquid soap yesterday. Rule number one in soaping is to avoid aluminum tools. The pot I was using was aluminum, and I didn't know it.

Um. Now I know. For those of you who don't know, this means my batch of liquid soap reacted with the aluminum, and began crawling out of the pot at an enormous rate. I hollered at my husband to open the back door, and I trotted outside with it, placing it on the corner of the patio. There it sat, boiling and puffing of its own accord, fumes shooting 10 feet into the air.

I got the garden hose and diluted it. But damn. Talk about an adrenaline rush. I don't need that kind of excitement on my holiday.

So I took the rest of yesterday off. Today, I'll try to make soap and also go downtown to get some paperwork settled for my new business. If I manage that, then I can open my bank account tomorrow, and really get the ball rolling. Considering I've only got one week before school starts, now is my chance.

I think deadlines help me.

He's done it again.

Prepare to laugh.

The Return of the Lappy, Dysentery, and Why The White Pioneers Died

Point the first: I got my lappy back. Hooray! It appears that all my information is still intact, etc. etc. I'm thrilled!

Point the second: I haven't been around much because I caught the dysentery that my daughter had, then my husband had. Saturday morning around 3am is when it hit. I couldn't go to my Saturday farmer's market, which was a bummer, but I wasn't even bummed out about it, because I could barely move. I was in pain from head to toe. I didn't do anything but lie on the couch and watch tv, or sleep, or moan. Then, at about 3am the next morning, it was like a switch had been turned inside me, and I knew my stomach was better. I had to do the Sunday market, which was BRUTAL, because I was wrung out from the illness. It was good for my muscles, though--they were sore from all the vomiting and stillness. Moving around in the heat is good for muscles, apparently.

Point the third: The white pioneers died from dysentery because they didn't have Alka Seltzer or bananas. Or clean water, much of the time. They just writhed around on the floors of their dugouts, vomiting and shitting themselves and moaning.

Ask me how I know.

Expert, Shmexpert

If you are an entrepreneur, and also crafty, you might check out indiepreneur.org. I shared some info with a friend on a group, knowing it was for an article there. The "article" is my entire contribution! I had no idea.

Click here to read the very short article that makes me sound like an expert in photography of products to be sold online. I do not consider myself such, but whatever! :)

*sniffs*

My lappy! It's in "the shop." Apparently, it has a defect from its manufacture. The Apple gods are fixing it for no charge, which is nice, but they have my lappy!

I walk into the kitchen to sit down at the table, and no lappy. *sniffs* I feel very vulnerable. What if all my info is lost? I backed it up, but still! I want my lappy back!

Add to that the fact that I woke up before 6am today, prepared the coffee, wandered around, waiting for the water to boil, and then realized that I hadn't turned on the stove. This is the sort of behavior that is remedied by coffee! Hefty helping of irony, anyone?

*blinks slowly* *sluuuuuuuurps*

I made it, eventually. But not before discovering a puddle of pee by the back door. Happy Wednesday!

Millionaires Who Don't Feel Rich

I found this article to be an object lesson in living well. It's not an instruction manual, but rather a warning. When your stock in your company shows your net worth at $50 million? Yeah, sell it.

Sell it while you are ahead.

I mean, really! These people have 2-5 million dollars in the bank, and are lamenting, "Oh, poor Charlie, he'll never be able to retire." What? Poor Charlie? How about poor Public School Teacher, who has a negative net worth, and will never be able to retire? She'll fall dead on the floor in the middle of class.

Poor Charlie? In his million-dollar home in Silicon Valley?

I.
Don't.
Get.
It.

Beef on sale (Vegetarians look away)

My public service announcement of the week:

In Denver, in the Albertson's sale pages, there is a misprint. Family packs of bone-in ribeye steaks were $4.88/pound. But on one page, they printed the price as $3.97/pound. That's the best price you're gonna get on ribeyes, people. Go to Albertson's this week, and buy the limit! (They limited us to 10 pounds--even though it didn't say that in the flier. I don't think. I'll go look.)

Pack that freezer, people! It's summer, and time for grillin'!

Phones that are better than mine, Volume Only

WANT!

iPhone 3G comes out on July 11. I still can't afford it, and Kitt tells me that AT&T/Cingular sucks.

But I still want one! When will TMobile hook up w/iPhone? Ever?