Heather Meadows – Page 165 – p i x e l s c r i b b l e s

Flawed design

For security reasons, I run my Windows XP under a user account the majority of the time, and only use the administrator account for installing things or changing settings. These rules were imposed by my husband, for whom everything must be “just so”. His methodical, meticulous nature is a good thing 99.9999% of the time (trust me), but this particular demand is irritating to no end.

Ultimately, it’s not Sean’s fault–it’s the fault of the programmers of all the software I want to use. Thumbs, for example, can’t make thumbnails under a user account. It just can’t. Why? Why wouldn’t you want to let a user create thumbnails of photos? Obviously, this was an oversight. The program was designed with the assumption of certain administrative rights.

The same goes for the majority of the games I’ve installed that have high score lists. The games will freak out and crash because they can’t save the high score table. :>

So, damn you, software developers, for so insidiously foiling Sean’s perfect plan for network security.

Cumberland Falls

On my way here, I stopped for gas for the last time and noticed that I was at the exit for Cumberland Falls. Why not? I thought. I followed the signs away from I-75, and drove for a long time on twisting mountain roads. Eventually I came to a beautiful stone overlook, so I stopped to get some pictures.

After that, I went on. By the time I finally got to the falls, I was twelve miles away from I-75. I drove past various entrances to restaurants and waterfront homes until finally I came to the park.

First I wandered around the area above the falls, looking at the rocky bed, the surrounding forest, and the beautiful bridge over the water.

Soon I reached a sign that said “DO NOT GO BEYOND THIS POINT”, so I headed off to the right and passed through between the gift shop and the snack bar to the main park area.

And finally, there was the first falls viewing site:

I moved along from there and found several other great angles.

Someday I’ll be as famous as James Archambault ;>

After a little more exploring, I was hot and tired and ready to drive the last 100 miles. I bought myself a souvenir, one of those neat paper storage boxes. My cousin Gabrielle gave me two hat boxes when I was in the hospital (which, of course, were destroyed in the fire); this box is made of the same kind of stuff, except it’s a cube. It’s beige with blue flowers. I also bought some homemade fudge. Then I headed home, fully satisfied with my little detour.

Total cuteness

Mom’s trying to get Logan to sing the Bob the Builder song, which goes something like

Can we fix it?
Yes we can!

So she said, “Logan! Can we fix it?”

Logan turned around in the highchair, beamed at her, and said, “Sure!”

Monday

I didn’t do much for most of Monday. After I got up I sat around and watched TV for awhile, eventually deciding to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I also ate a lot: cereal, more cereal, Pop Tarts, and a bagel with cream cheese. I was in a bad mood when Sean got home around 3:30, so once Chamber of Secrets was over I left the house to go to the Japanese grocery store.

Which ended up being closed.

So I tried to find a new way home, and ended up on Gordon Highway heading downtown. So I went to the Greeneway and took some pictures.

They put a new fence up around the trail closest to the golf course and the Hammond’s Ferry entrance. Also, it is really starting to look like fall, despite the flowers.

It’s a lot longer when you don’t have a bike and have to walk. It was also pretty hot. I didn’t make it very far before I turned around and left.

After that I went to Outspokin’ to look for a new bike, but they were closed too. (Judging from the parking, everyone was out on a ride.)

Finally I headed back towards Martinez. I stopped at Payless to look for some nice boots, but they didn’t have anything I liked. So I ended up returning home empty-handed, save for the pictures.

I guess I was pouting too much, because Cheryl gave me a lecture about depression, and wouldn’t leave me alone about it. She did say that I needed to go see my mom, but I already knew that.

I was more than happy to get up early on Tuesday, pack, and run away to Kentucky.

A name for my new bike

Whenever I get my new bike, and if I manage to get another Fuji Cambridge, I’m thinking I’ll name it Fujiyama, or Yama for short.

I don’t get it

The BoBs are accepting nominations. I wanted to nominate Somewhere on the masthead (because I’m such a fangirl), but the nomination page is totally confusing.

Look at this.

I basically can’t tell if the right column is supposed to be about me or the person I’m nominating. The Rules don’t clear this up, either.

So, sorry, Magazine Man…no nomination due to horrible site design.

(By the way, what is this? Two different awards with practically the same name, and the exact same abbreviation?)

I arrived safely

Hours and hours ago, as it happens. I did take a slight detour–I stopped for gas at the exit for Cumberland Falls, and decided to go to the park and get photos. This took me about twelve miles away from I-75. After I hiked all over the falls area, took pictures, reminisced about going there in my early teens with a friend, and basically satisfied my need to reintroduce beauty into my life, I decided to finish the trip on backroads, which took forever. But at least it was different.

I have a splitting headache and I’m very tired. More details and the photos will come tomorrow.

Night!

Home

I only really have one home at this point, and that’s my parents’ house. In a few minutes, I’ll be leaving for a visit. I’m coming back on Saturday, because David’s coming into town on that day, but I really think I need this. I think it’ll give me some perspective, and also room to relax. I love my in-laws, and they have been so great to us, but I’m not comfortable here, and I’m tired of feeling like a horrible ingrate. I think maybe if I go someplace where I am comfortable for awhile, I’ll be able to return refreshed.

So, I’ve packed the little old blue suitcase someone gave us, and when I’m done with this post I’ll pack the laptop bag, and I’ll throw some snacks and drinks into my lunchbox and be off.

I’m not strong

I don’t know why I always thought I was, but I’m not. I don’t know how to even begin to get to a point where I can deal with life.

Woo! I’m to the "I hate everything" stage

Things can only get better from this point, right?

Lost

I am realizing that I really haven’t built much of a life for myself.

What do I have that I can call a life? I haven’t owned any experience. The things I cared the most about and put the most effort into were all home-oriented. And now my home is gone. I have nothing else. I didn’t create anything elsewhere.

All I seem to want to do is have my own home, and to work to make it mine, and to fill it with children and care for them. I have no interest in anything else except returning to Japan. I don’t care about finding a new job. In fact, the idea of finding a new job just makes me feel like a loser. Can’t get a job, and when I do finally get one, can’t keep it. I don’t really want to go through it all again. Especially since I can’t think of one thing–one thing–that I would even want to do.

I’m just stranded, adrift, with nothing but Sean to cling to. And he’s got his own support structure, which, while it includes me, is not limited to me. He can sit in the bedroom for hours and play his game. Meanwhile, I wander from room to room looking for something to occupy my mind, and finding nothing.

Reflection

As you might expect, I’m going through a period of questioning. Is there something wrong with me? Do I truly have any skills? Is there any job at all that I 1) would be good at and 2) would enjoy? Do I care too much about enjoying my work? Why do I have so much trouble focusing on boring tasks? Do I need to be on medication? Is there any way I can learn better time management skills?

I’m really just shooting in the dark here, because I don’t know why they fired me, but I think it might have been that they were unable to see what I was accomplishing. Part of that is my fault for not showing them, but part of it is their fault for not asking. I was never given deadlines or any indication of expectations, and I (apparently foolishly) assumed this meant I was free to decide for myself what needed to be done and then present my work to them when I was ready for it to be seen. I would have had something ready next week, I believe.

Did they just decide that I must not be the right choice because I hadn’t managed to pull a website out of my ass in three weeks? That’s very possible. I’m sure there’s someone out there who could do it. Maybe they just wanted to get rid of me and find that person.

It’s frustrating that I wasn’t able to finish the project. It’s hard to just walk away from something that’s incomplete. I keep thinking of things to do that might help or make it better, and then remembering that I’m not working on it anymore. Creative projects are like that…inspiration seems to come at inopportune times, when you’re thinking about something else, rather than during normal working hours. I was hoping that if I plugged away at it for long enough something would come out, and I’m pretty sure something good was coming, but now I’ll never know.

At this point I am really turned off by the idea of web design as a career…mainly because I don’t want something like this to happen again. I feel that I’m slow at it because it’s not something I truly enjoy. I like making designs, but doing them all the time is so draining. I feel that I’d like design to be something I do occasionally–and web coding something I do very occasionally–rather than having those things be the primary focus of my job.

To be honest, right now I feel that I would rather have an easy job that doesn’t require much brain power. That makes me feel lame, but it’s true.

My job at 2go-Box spoiled me and made me egotistical. Maybe the purpose of this job was to knock me down about a trillion pegs, so I’d be on the same level as normal people.

I don’t really know what I want to do now.

Author: Heather Meadows