Writely, one of my favorite online apps, was purchased by Google awhile back, and now it’s integrated into Google Spreadsheets, which I also use quite a bit to collaborate with my girlfriend on planning household projects and household inventory.
I haven’t played with it in the new Google interface yet; I’ll have to see how it does. I hope that the spreadsheets adopt some of the functionality of writely.
We put a few decorations out for Halloween, including the fun bucket below for our mums.
But we pale in comparison to our neighbors, who have an entire cemetery set up in the yard next to their house.
See all the photos of Halloween Decor.
I’ve also taken quite a few photos around Indianapolis lately. See the whole set here.
We’ve been crazy busy, and we’re still at it — Stephanie is showing her house to people to rent, Mine is still for sale, we’re mowing all three lawns every week, and the gardening attempts are ongoing. In addition to the ball room dancing and the water aerobics, Stephanie is teaching basic skills in figure skating, and she’s nominated for the treasurer’s position for the neighborhood association. And our house is still half packed, and we need to clean. And I’m supposed to write a novel in November. Heh.
We’re pretty nuts.
“Here it is… first day of college. What do you say Veronica? New school, fresh start, how about you try not to piss anyone off this time around.” Heh.
Barely made it home to watch the season premiere after water aerobics last night — which I must repeat, I am really enjoying. We managed to watch an episode of the Amazing Race and the Daily Show before it got too late to stay up.
This plan I have, where I watch all these shows… not working so much. Our DVR is 88% full and we seem to be falling further and further behind, what with the gardening, house repair, house rental, ball room dancing, dressing up like pirates, etc. Curse you, real life, for getting in the way of my television!
It’s hard to read while wearing all of your pets.
Last night I went to water aerobics at the YMCA with my friend Chi. I’ve taken swimming classes (years ago) but I’ve never done a water aerobics class – it was excellent. It’s high-impact but low stress; you get lots of exercise but you don’t put stress on your joints, or sweat, either. In fact, you don’t really realize what you’re doing is that hard. Until you get out of the pool after an hour and gravity takes over; suddenly every muscle in your body is very, very tired.
I’d forgotten how much I enjoy being in the pool; it’s been years. Like 1994, actually, when I lived in the Marott Apartments, and swam in the pool in the basement in the mornings before going to work.
I’ll definitely be going regularly. The only drawback is that I’m afraid I’ll suddenly start doing water aerobics moves in ballroom dance class, or vice versa. After all of the moves for water aerobics, the steps of ballroom dance went completely out of my head.
I’m not sure what it is, but whatever is hiding under our back deck has turned my dog in Barkley McBarkerson, and he never used to be one of those annoying dogs. Lately he barks all night long, and when he’s outside, he tries to climb under the deck. We’ve seen a bunny in the yard, so I hope that’s what’s under there. Because if it’s a giant snake or something, I don’t want my 5 pound dog out there trying to get it.
It’s now three in the morning, and I had to get up and let the mutt out because he spend a solid half hour barking his fool head off. Grrrrrr.
Friday night we went to Hogeye Naavy’s concert for “International Talk Like a Pirate day” at the German Liederkranz Club on Washington Street.
See the concert photo album
Hogeye Naavy is a really fun band that plays sea shantys and traditional folk music of Ireland, Scotland, England, and North America. Their instruments include concertinas, bagpipes, Citterns, Pennywhistles, Irish Flutes, Irish Tenor Banjos — things you don’t hear much in a traditional concert setting any more. Their fans tend to be really interactive with the band; singing along, banging beer bottles and steins on the table in time to the music. It’s impossible not to have a great time.
The German Liederkranz Club is a German singing society with mixed choir founded in 1872. Originally a male singing society, it now has a men’s and a women’s choir with 20-25 members in each. The public is welcome to join the choirs, which maintain German culture through music, food and dancing at each program. It’s tucked back off the street next to the Fraternal Order of Police building on Washington Street.
On Saturday, Stephanie went to work on her house with her dad, and I worked on the flower beds in front of the house. Last weekend, Stephanie’s dad helped us rototill the beds because the dirt was too tightly packed to do by hand. I’m not sure they’ve been worked on anytime in the last ten years or so. This Saturday I bought another load of compost for the beds and started spreading it out, and working on putting in edgers to keep the dirt in. It was pouring rain while I was working, and at some point in the process, I gashed open my finger, but I didn’t realize it until I noticed the blood. So I stopped for the day and worked inside the house instead.
See the gardening photo album.
I finished up spreading compost Sunday morning and washed the truck, then drove all over town looking for a swimsuit, because I’m starting water aerobics classes at the Y with my friend Chi. Of course I’m looking out of season, so there wasn’t much left, but I finally found something. So we’re ballroom dancing one night, and I’m taking aerobics the next. That should be good for me. Stephanie put the “For Rent” sign out in front of her old house. Yay!
And Sunday night we helped Stephanie’s friends move a couch, and they provided us with pizza and great conversation, so we had a pleasant evening. Busy weekend, but fun.
Stephanie and I went to our first ballroom dance lessons last night. There were about forty people there, and the instructor was a very nice older gentleman. We learned to waltz, and we started learning the east coast swing. Over the next several lessons we’ll do more with the waltz and we’ll add more to the east coast swing as well.
It went really well, but it was much like my previous experiences taking dance lessons — way too fast for me. My feet are S-L-O-W and I need to repeat steps many times before I get them down, and the instructor blazed through to “learn the next thing” before I had learned the first steps. Then he’d turn on the music, and Stephanie would dance perfectly, and I’d trip over my feet. There was a section in there where I felt hopelessly behind and was ready to throw in the towel, but Stephanie went over things with me several times in between, so at the end, I got it.
The swing was a bit easier for me to pick up than the waltz was, I think, although he had us doing triple-steps, and it’s really hard to move your feet that fast. But I had the movements down.
I definitely enjoyed it, despite my stress at picking things up, and I want to do it again next week. I’m not sure Stephanie had such a fun time (I didn’t want to switch partners and pair up with other people because I was so far behind) but she wants to go again, so hopefully things will go more smoothly next week.
In the minutes of our neighborhood meeting, I noticed that our neighborhood has a “Back Streets and Alleys Committee.” Hee. I picture the committee slinking around in leather jackets like West Side Story.
“When you’re a Jet,
You’re a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette
To your last dyin’ day….”