This post should be locked into the top of my journal. Thanks, author_by_night!

( Ahavah's Emergency Contacts )

I love my daughters. Eden and I just had the best conversation about floss.

"Mom! Mom! Look at this! There's a pulley inside here. You see? And you pull the floss, and then it has this thing over here, which is kinda like scissors but you don't have to snip. You just pull and...Snap! Presto! You have a piece of floss! Isn't it amazing? It's got simple machines inside."

"That really is amazing! I'm glad you like flossing so much."

"Yeah, cause a pulley is a simple machine. And look, you stick it in your teeth and wiggle it, and it's kinda like doing the wedgie dance in your teeth."

I've had my bike for two weeks now, and it is officially my ride. I'm fairly good on it at this point. Other bikers give me the neato biker wave. I'm a happy camper, but she still needs a name.

They'll be coming out with new gold sprites soon, including an alt gold! Or so I heard.

Please let me know if anyone wants a pureblooded seasonal Ridiculous summer.



♥

The bike needs a name. I'm still a bit bumbly on her, so I don't feel we're really speaking to each other yet. Josh is threatening to name her out from under me. I'm improving though, so I think she'll have a name soon.

My learning-to-ride saga has been fun. I'll admit, I was quite scared. Everybody asked me, “Well, have you at least ridden a dirt bike or Josh's mini-bike or anything?” Nope. I never even got the hang of roller blades. Balance and me have never done well. I would have started learning on Josh's mini-chopper, but it's broken.

My bike is nice though. When I first sat on it to try everything out before we bought it, I was surprised at how light it is. It's a Honda Shadow just like Josh's, but Josh's is much heavier. We thought this was a pretty good bike for me to learn on. My feet sit flat on the ground when I'm on her, and she's all dented up so I don't have to be too afraid of learning on her (unlike Josh's mint-condition bike). I thought it was light, but boy, my upper body has been feeling the work-out of learning to hold her up and steer her!

The first day was, well, I sucked. By the time we got it home and got me out on it, it was already pretty late. I only had about half an hour or forty minutes to play around before it got dark. Josh taught me the basics, and I'm pretty sure he was surprised at just how basic my lessons needed to be. Josh had at least ridden one once and looked at magazines for years, so he knew pretty well much how they worked. He had to teach me how to turn it on, the brakes, I didn't even know motorcycles don't have reverse (which is why it's such a work out pushing that thing around). So yeah, my first day sucked hardcore, but at least Josh was nice and patient about it. Keia laughed a lot, but Josh said he didn't do much better the first time he road Josh's mini-bike, and he'd also ridden dirt bikes before.

So anyways, day one was a lot of start-stop, start-stop. I couldn't control how much gas I was giving her, so once I started going, I was going. Then I'd get scared and slam the hand brake, then I'd bow up like a dog taking one, then struggle to keep the bike up &/or not hitting anyone. Finally, we just kept it in neutral and Josh held on to the sissy bar like he had to do with Ivy on her bike, and I practiced trying to steer and keep her up as we went down the driveway. Then he'd walk me through turning her around, and I'd actually drive back up the driveway. I got okay controlling the gas if I was driving up our slight little incline, but since I couldn't really stop, I could not give her gas while going downhill. It wasn't bad for the first day though, even if I felt bad about Josh holding on to us. He didn't want me to crash first thing though, and I did eventually get better at steering.

The second day, we felt comfortable enough to practice on the long stretch of dirt road just below our house. I had to get better at stopping somehow, and I needed more room to work than our driveway gave. At first, I just practiced going slowly with my feet hanging down, so I could just stop with neutral & my feet. Eventually, I got comfortable enough controlling the throttle to be able to put my feet up. I even managed to stop on my own just before getting to the hilly part of the road. Then I put it in neutral so I could coast down the hill again, and that's when we went down. It had rained the night before and washed a little groove between some rocks on the dirt road (mountain dirt roads, for those not familiar with them, always wash out in even the slightest rain). I hit wet sandy dirt and lost control. I felt myself lose control and panicked, slamming the handbrake. I went down hard on my knee (on a rock), and the bike landed on me.

We hadn't even been out there an hour before I laid her down. Only problem is, she'd been laid down several times before (all those dents that made it a good “learning bike” ), so the foot peg was a little loose already. Well it did some funky bending thing into my gears and stopped wanting to go into neutral. I was hobbling and hurt fairly decently – although going down was not near as bad as I thought it was going to be, at least not at that speed – but Josh wanted to take it into the shop to make sure it was okay. I wanted to keep going, but even he was having trouble with neutral, and he flat-out refused to let me back on it til we were sure it was safe. I'm not normally the type of lady who lets her husband make flat-out refusals on my own things, but I actually found it incredibly sweet.

So I followed him up to the closest bike shop, where we'd bought supplies but, so help me, I will never take it there for work again. It had only messed up with neutral once on the way up, but Josh still wanted to get it looked at. It was pretty busy, so they guy said we'd have to leave it. It was 24 hours before they even put it up on their rack and looked at it, and I had stopped by and called to tell them I'd pay whatever for overnight shipping on parts or whatever so I could get my bike back right away. I was so pissed when I called the next morning and they hadn't even looked at it yet. We went to go pick it back up, because I'm not putting up with that shit, and they'd looked at it and said there was really no problem. Whatever. The guy's a punk. We took it across town to MR Honda and bought some of those crash bar things, just in case, and the guy there looked at it and in like two minutes of wiggling told Josh that the connector pad thing was just rusty. He came home to put the crash bar thing on and just had to take a little sandpaper to the pad before he put it back together. Bike worked fine.

I had no idea how expensive bike stuff is, either. Ten dollars for oil? Two hundred for the piece of metal you put on just to dent up, instead of the bike? Ridiculous. I'm glad Josh already had me a helmet, and I was able to find boots on sale at K-mart for fifteen bucks instead of a hundred and fifty. It's insane!

Anyway, my pretty little bike is back and wasn't even really messed up to begin with. And I'm barely limping, so back to riding! After Josh got my training wheels crash bar situated, we went up to a wee little community center over the mountain from our house. It's one of those tiny things way out in the boonies where there are rarely cars and I've never seen a cop that far. This is my practice lot. I practiced first gear and stopping, and the dreaded turning. I say dreaded because leaning over on those things really scares me. Since it's a small lot, too, I don't have any room to get out of first even though I now want to, so doing slow turns was tricky. I mastered that shit last night, though! I am now ready to find a bigger parking lot and move up to shifting. Hopefully I can still do all right stopping when I'm moving much faster. We're going on recon today to find a suitably large and abandoned lot, so wish me luck on that for 4th of July Saturday. Ha! I may have to just wait until next week, since I was unable to make it to the DMV for my permit yesterday like I thought I would.

That's where it's at. I've gotten exponentially better each day, and I've really only spent an hour on it most the longest time. Pretty soon I'll be ready for riding the road! We're both looking forward to being able to ride together. It's been a dream of ours for years. It's going to be another year or so before we can afford sidecars, which are also way more expensive than I expected, but at least Josh and I will get some practice riding together before we attempt to take out the girls. They're anxious too, though. We can't wait! I'm so glad we're actually on our way to getting goals accomplished. It's a good thing right now.

My facebook friends already know what I've been up to, so I thought I'd better share with all my friends. Guess what I did!

( I got a motorcycle! )

I really enjoyed Naamah's Kiss. I especially liked seeing Moirin's childhood with her mother, and getting more insight into the Maghuin Dhonn.

( Discussion – Spoilers!! )

I'm reading Naamah's Kiss! It's so far awesome.

( Spoilers )

Just shipped to me!

SQUEE!

This is too cool. It's on this week's postsecret.

Firefly egg to good home:

♥

X-posted to lineage_project


Here's my newest batch of approved dragons. My recent batch of Dorkfaces are named after Keller Williams songs. Where applicable, I've included a link to the song:

Best Feeling Dorkface

(My favorite - Best Feeling: YouTube)

Buddha Would Drive Dorkface

(from Cadillac: YouTube)

Double Dorkface

Elf Made A Ridiculous Dorkface

Freeker By The Speaker Dorkface

(with the WMDS Freeker By The Speaker: YouTube)

Kismet Dorkface

Ridiculous Bob Rules Dorkface

(Bob Rules: YouTube If you listen to just one, I recommend it be this one.)

Ridiculous Count Black

Ridiculous Dorkface Squared

Sally Sullivan Dorkface

(All I can find is a cover by Byron Soule, but he does a nice job. Sally Sullivan Cover: YouTube)

Spun Dorkface

(Spun: Mog.com preview)

White Album 1 – Dorkface Edition

White Album 2 – Dorkface Edition

♥

Finally, a blue stripe!

♥

This weekend, my good friends tru2myart and moonstone_fae are Blogging for the Cure.

Sunday, several folks are going to be blogging every hour to raise money for Relay for Life. Tru and her daughters will be doing a charity walk next month.

Please check them out. They're both awesome writers and a day full of their insight promises to be fun all around. If you can spare a bit for the cause, that would be awesome of you too. If you want to participate, better hurry! I'm considering it, but we'll be having a first slumber party so it may just be the wrong weekend for me.

x-posted to lineage_project & dragonbrood

I just wanted to remind everyone that there will be a Mass Dorkface Breeding this weekend. There is a breeder request list, if you want something special. Most of those folks just want to be sure the name is kept. Others will be doing random drops to the AP on Friday, Saturday, & Sunday.

You can monitor the forum thread, since some people will be announcing drops. Or you can use a nifty Lineage Explorer to check out the lineages of the eggs you find on the AP.

Happy hunting, and feel free to drop your own Dorkfaces if you feel like it!

Ordinarily, today would be my birthday. Not today though, not really. I renounced it.

It's unconventional, I know. I've gotten several wonderful birthday wishes, and I'm very grateful and surprised to be remembered.

Why would someone renounce their birthday? It started as a joke, really. When Josh and I were picking wedding dates, we were waffling between April and May. Now, my mom's birthday was always right before Christmas, and quite frankly she always got gypped on presents. I joked that with our anniversary, Mother's Day, and my birthday all within a couple weeks of each other, maybe I'd just change my birthday.

Then everything with mom happened. Happy, overly-celebratory May kind of soured. Now our anniversary and Mother's Day will always be tied with her death. There's no way out of that. I think I actually forgot my birthday last year until Josh wished it to me. It sucked. People called for well-wishes, but everyone was still crying. It was just another anti-climactic day. Mom had always said birthdays didn't really matter once you got older. They're all just the same.

So, something about that little joke stayed with me and I decided it was a damned good idea. Josh and I actually argued for several months about this. He says it's a bit idiotic and you can't just up and change your birthday. Legally, I suppose he's right. I look at it like changing my name when I got married, though. Everything did change, and I'm a new Amanda. May is so overwhelmingly sad. Our anniversary, and Mother's Day (which she actually died on) will never ever again be as happy as they should be. I renounced the whole damned month, really. If there's supposed to be one day that's supposed to be about celebrating and happiness and partying - for me - then I should get to pick a day that can be that.

It's liberating, really. Since I renounced it last year, I dedicated 2009 to The Year of the Birthday. I have to test-run these things to make sure I'm making an informed decision. Here's my criteria:

1. Not May

2. Nice weather, preferably grill weather (I got spoiled on Memorial Day weekend, what can I say? Of course, it's pouring today, so there you go.)

3. Can't use anyone living's birthday, unless they offer it

4. It has to gel astrologically – either with what I currently am, or with what I'd like to manifest into my life. For birth chart purposes, I'll still stick with having been born in Davenport at 4:20 pm.

So far I've had one test-birthday. I celebrated on April 27, which is a month early and was actually my due date. We had an absolute gorgeous day, and we went up to my sacred spot. I've considered myself twenty-eight since that first birthday this year.

I'm considering trying out June 3. It's just a week later, so still in the ballpark. Since I'm definitely very Gemini, I would just be switching months. I may try June 10, too, just to have another celebration. I was originally born on a Wednesday, which lines up this year, so I should try out the Wednesdays in my area. Lyz suggested I use Papa's birthday since he's not using his anymore. That was mom's dad, and his birthday was June 25 – right in between Lyz's and Josh's. I'm not sure if Josh wants me encroaching on his birthday, though.

My options are open. I'll be holding auditions through, I don't know, maybe October. I considered switching to my half-birthday, but it's too close to Thanksgiving and my ex-stepdad's birthday, so the Gemini-Sagittarius nemesis thing resonates for me. Better to stay clear of the holidays, although Halloween has always been my favorite, so I wouldn't mind snagging some of that.

So there you have it. And if I've inspired any of you to seek your own liberation, feel free to use May 27. It's open. There really is a benefit to having it both near Memorial Day weekend most of the time and at the end of the school year. It served me well for twenty-six years. I think I will do a little “thank you and goodbye” ceremony tonight, just to complete the circle. I'll let you know when we officially ring in the new one.

My first caveborn metallic! Nalyua, such a wonderful friend, went hunting for me since I can never catch any.


♥

As those of you on my facebook learned yesterday, Eden managed to stick her face into a patch of poison ivy on our hike. She woke up yesterday with her poor face covered in it. Lots of Calagel and reiki/prayers/good thoughts really made it look much better before she went to bed.

And in her sleep, she couldn't help but scratch. Not only is it still on her face, she also now has a small trail running all the way down her body.

Please give her a little more of that good healing energy. I'll be washing her sheets in hot water again, and heading to the store soon to get her some benadryl.

I need help finalizing the plans for my WonderSaga. I need someone who actually understands calculus. Does such a person exist? If so, will you please help me?

*beats the pink egg with a stick*

♥

Feel free to post yours. I won't beat them unless you want me to.