Sorry kids, but this journal is mostly friends only now. You can still see a few old entries without being friended, but believe it or not, there is more for the inner circle. If you'd like to be friended leave a comment here and I'll check you out and consider it. I'd like to make more friends through LJ, so don't be shy. Happy reading!

Well, I'm married now. Happily married. And back at home. Tired. And profoundly grateful to all my friends and family. The wedding went well. The honeymoon was awesome. I feel lucky for about a million reasons. Which is good, because I'm going to need to remember all of the positive things I'm thinking right now when I go into work tomorrow after my first two week leave of absence in. . . ever.

More as time allows. Much more. Life got pretty crazy in the few weeks preceding the wedding. I have much to relate.

Monsoon wedding anyone? Actually, if the showers hold ot the pattern they have been following, we should be A-ok at 6:30.

Wow do I ever need to be working right now.

Instead I recommend to all of you, but particularly to mother_thing, the mostly stagnant but still cool community alt_home.

Not sure I agree with the extroversion there. Also, I feel like I do a pretty good of being orderly when I need to and letting go when I need to. Still, an interesting test.

There's an interesting run down of links relating to Everest and the Chinese and crackdowns in preparation for the torch-carry up Everest from the alpinists perspective here.

So, I've been putting off making any updates until I can recap my trip to red rocks. That still hasn't happened. But today I shall update anyway.

Also, I need to get some newer climbing pictures of me as icons for this LJ.

Red Rocks was awesome. I really want more multipitch on my life. I've read some interesting climber stuff since then, too. . . But I need to do a more organized post on that. In addition to the pictures that I took, I made the official picture pages for the rendezvous! Apparently Amy and I's faces were camera-break-inducing at 7 AM after flying out to Las Vegas on the redeye, so here we are gazing off at the rocks. And then there is a whole series of me jumarring and rapping. . . with Beth Rodden! There's, um, a funny story about my awesome rappelling skilz under Beth's tutelage, too, but that's for another time.

Major Accomplishment: This weekend I sent out 44 official wedding invitations to individuals and families. They went out to 12 different states. Invites went to friends in Tallahassee and in Yankeetown where the wedding will be and to friends family as far away as Washington state and California. I almost have all of the invites done. Today is the 21st, so I get married in exactly two months! Excitement for that and for the honeymoon build.

Furthermore:

rings are selected and obtained

honeymoon tickets are purchased - still only one camping reservation made for that, but that's okay

photography is falling into place

Also: Wedding dress and corset are probably 80% done at this point. It feels good, although 100% will feel better. Also I've still got about 1.9 bridesmaids corsets to finish, and actually, none of those are actually finished although one is close (I'd say one is 80% done, one is 30% done, one is conceptualized only- and the fourth one is in Texas and out of my hands except for advice). Thank goodness I'm not going it alone on these!

This will be a good week, despite work stress. I will make things happen.

 

Ironically perhaps, this poem helps me feel good right now.

I'm not sure why. I think she's just right.

And I will keep on.

People's reactions to this whole LJ strike have been really interesting and telling. I just found another post made yesterday worth thinking about.

I think most people who jumped right on the bandwagon of, "Wow, the strikers are all a bunch of whiney babies," (insert creative juvenile profanity of choice as you will- most of them certainly did) were being really short sighted. I don't like being the voice of doom, but we are on a sinking ship here. The strike wasn't about people being mad that _they_ personally would have to either pay or see or filter ad banners. I didn't see any strikers saying that, anyway. Most everyone I know on LJ has some level of paid account, and they are happy to have them and pay for them, if only because paying up used to be a good way to get more than 5 userpics- the real key to LJ coolness. But I digress. I think that the strike was about the fact that the business decision to eliminate basic accounts (reasonable from a profit making standard though it may have been) was basically a business decision to stop trying to grow numbers of active accounts in the U.S. Or it was a nail in the coffin, anyway, since the numbers I saw show that those numbers haven't been growing for a while anyway. Go ahead and talk about how you love "your" lj as it is all you want, but every indicator is that "your" lj as you know it won't be around much longer. It won't be a smart business decision for the overlords you love to keep it.

And also, what shadesong said. Being an asshole about the strike just showed that, well, you're an asshole. Good showing, kids. Good showing.

It's only a gesture, but:

I support the LJ content strike of 3/21/08.

Yes, LJ is a privately run enterprise, free to do as it likes within the confines of user agreements, and unlikely to be impacted by such a strike. But I'll be happier knowing that I made a gesture, even one that is likely to be ineffective, rather than just standing by as things get worse.

Yes, active user numbers are actually dropping and have been for years, and that, I fear, is the real source of the problems for LJ. So, I'm keeping an eye on the sky to find whatever future platform is most likely to support my blogging needs and desires, because I'm afraid that even if LJ's current owners changed their minds and decided to try to turn around the stagnation in the active user community, they wouldn't have an easy time of it.

Go here, here, and here if you want an interesting smattering of opinion about the strike and it's causes.

And since Valentines is so close to Lincoln and Darwin's birthday, here is a card (which you BYOEers will know exactly where I got it from):





Friends, I hope this brightens your day!

I'm not dead. Just really tired and work backlogged.

But we did get some good pictures in snowy Colorado!

Okay, some is an understatement on the number of pictures provided there. But we had a lot of fun.

So, I have this plan that involves updating Taneland with an old picture page per day. I'll have my iphoto library on the web in no time, right?

Today's page: Bouldering at Elephant Rocks in Missouri on the way home from Thanksgiving. Roger managed to get some decent pictures of me fooling around on the sharp pinkish granite.

Taneland.net is back in action, friends and neighbors! Well, it has a prettier placeholder, anyway. And it is a placeholder that is several steps into being developed as a useable style and page. So, hooray for progress!

And also, here are pictures from MLK weekend up in the tiny mountains of North Georgia. Not too many people are aware of this, but we learned that Zoey is, in fact, a Snow Weasel while we were up there the weekend before last.

This is just a quick note among the mad mad madness to say:

I am really really thankful for my friends this holiday season!

Here is the much belated story of my first trad lead. I can't say enough about how great that class I took out in Colorado was. If you are ever looking for a guide or class in the Boulder area, Dave Walker is great!

Now here is my long narrative (not in my normal style- I was inspired by that Steph Davis book and tried to write a little like that): ( under the cut. )

Well, here I am: One jet-lagged, wind-burned, climbing-sore woman, back in bed with my laptop in Tallahassee.

It was an absolutely fabulous weekend. I wouldn't trade a minute of it. Hopefully I'll have time to post more about it all tomorrow.

My rental car was upgraded to a convertible mustang for free.

It was great visiting with Suzanna and eating at her restaurant picks. I think that Domo is the best Japaneese I've ever had. Also, Suzanna has a super-cute apartment! Together, we were top-down convertible ninjas, racing between Boulder and Nederland under the stars to eat Nepali food, despite the near freezing temperatures.

It was truly autumn up in Boulder Canyon. Yesterday, I got snowed on and wore all of my layers, while on Saturday I was uncomfortably hot climbing in fleece pants and a light base layer.

I led my first pitch of trad yesterday after finishing our course. It was awesome in all senses of the word. Truly awesome. It was scarier than I expected. It really is the sharp end, even at 5.6. I have got to find some more experienced people to climb with on this coast and do some more placing gear and leading this winter in the southeast. While I would lead super easy trad stuff with a lot of people as seconds at this point, I do still need to work on placing gear, and the only way to do that is to have a partner experienced enough to talk to about gear placement with (or hire a guide). Something to keep dreaming about. . . Because the experience was also sweet in ways that sport climbing and top roping aren't. I want more, despite the unexpected fear level.

Here are pictures from the weekend!

Also: Darn you REI for having camalots on sale right now! I need camalots, and 20% off is significant. But why did it have to be this month. . .

Okay, so here's another one to file under "vaguely scary, but possibly explainable," along with the mystery of the missing brandy snifters and Flying Monkeys cups:

Roger and I return from Yankeetown this evening while sunlight still shines in the yard. It is dry here. Doesn't look like it has rained all weekend. And my yard is mowed short. Very short. Roger and I look at the yard. He says, "You know I finished mowing on Wednesday, but I don't think I mowed it this short." I look at the lawn, and I have to agree that it looks a lot shorter than I remember it. But sometimes the yard looks crappier a few days after mowing, if we mow the grass from very long to short, because you don't bag the clippings with my mower, and the clippings lie there and dry up in the yard. I mean, it looks really short, but there is laundry to do and cleaning and e-mail and a million other things before tomorrow, and neither of us feels like worrying about the lawn. So, he helps me unload the truck and I don't think of the lawn again until I'm taking the trash out a little while ago.

I take out the trash and discover, lying on top of my recycle bin, the remains of the tie-out stake and chew-proof plasticized wire leash/tie that we bought to stake Zoey out in the yard with. And it is totally mangled and shredded and the whole rope isn't even there. It looks like someone mowed the whole set up, in fact.

This kinda freaks me out, so I take a closer look at the now dark yard. The side yard between my house and Mickey's has been mowed. Roger definitely didn't mow that. And Roger didn't run over the dog stuff, either.

I think I have a lawn stalker. An uncareful lawn stalker, who has quite possibly mowed part of my lawn so short that some of the grass will die, especially if it doesn't rain again soon, or I don't water the lawn. This lawn stalker doesn't bother to edge things, and they appear to have mowed using a big riding mower.

Just FYI, denizens of the world wide web: If someone tries to kill me with or without a lawnmower tonight, I will shoot them. I am not kidding.

And here are the pictures from the waterproof camera.

Here are pictures from Haven's Lady Luck Birthday Party (at really long last).