marvelous mediocrity

look! cali can be cute, too.

so, my life is just one big obsessive distractive series of worries these days. which i guess is ok, because, after all, worrying is what i do best.

i haven't been a very good blogger because i never know what to write and when i do attempt to write i am struck by the superfluous nature of everything i write about.

all in all, my life is very shallow. with the advent of tour rehearsals i have become increasingly obsessed with all those tiny little things that become huge dramas in the world of band camp that tour truly is.

my camera arrived and prompted me to become obsessive about what accessories i may or may not need to survive on the road. i needed a bag, but what kind of bag? how big a bag? and then i bought the bag and when i got it home decided the damn thing wasn't big enough....but do i really want to carry every tiny little thing around with me?

and what about storage? how many memory cards should it have, and how much memory should they hold? and what about hard drive space? the lappy's memory is totally full so i can't expect it to hold all my mp3s AND all the photos i want to take. we've already moved everything we can to the desktop to make room. i guess i need another hard drive!!! it better be an external one, but seriously, what external hard drive could put up with the demands of being thrown around in a backpack everyday?

ok, you get the idea.

i'm obsessive.

but for some reason, when faced with living out of a suitcase for 7 weeks, all those tiny little comforts of home that you take for granted become as important as any of life's basic needs, food, shelter, safety. your earth, wind and fire cd may not keep you alive, but it sure as hell may keep you from the brink of insanity.

and i guess, if you really do go insane on the road, you might not survive. who knows if they can keep an insane emily from wandering out into traffic?

but all this tour obsession, from being totally overwhelmed by six programs of music to learn and rehearse simultaneously to having the constant internal packing checklist in your head to being sad that you won't have kitties to greet you when you come home and snuggle and purr you to sleep at night, much less have a husband to serenade you to sleep with the sweet sounds of espn and online video game grunting, is really so petty in the scheme of things.

i keep telling myself that i'm not going to prepare for tour. that this year, the day before i'm going to open the suitcase and whatever i have at home is what goes with me. if it's important enough, i will buy it out there on the road.

but i keep buying things i can't live without. and making lists of things i think i need.

who knows what the answer is. in the end it doesn't really matter whether i carefully plan every tiny thing or take one change of clothes and my clarinet. tour is going to happen eventually and will probably be just as i expect it to be and nothing like i expect it to be at the same time. and while the world's problems are much more serious and important than my petty little concerns, tomorrow will probably find me wondering who i will be sitting near on the bus, whether i will find enough time to work on my book, if i will be able to get my butt out of bed and exercising every day or if i will just get really fat eating at too many restaurants....

i try way too hard. never a good idea....

i better boot up that earth, wind and fire cd...

blogger erased my post...... and i was finished, too!!!!

and i know why.

it's because i titled that post: "blogger is a b*tch".

blogger knew...

and it censored me.

i still think it's a b*tch, though.

but enough about me! what about you?

anyway, to continue on with the thrilling tale of our geocache adventure, i have the answer you have all been dying to know!

what was in the cache?!

sea monkeys!! and as you can see, someone was mightily pleased by this...



after we carefully nestled our virgin cache back into its secret location we headed onward to the next one...



and nate scored the find!!

what's inside this one?



That's whats inside this one!!



actually, this cache contained something really neat. a travel bug. i was sorely tempted to take it but i resisted. travel bugs are tags people place with items that allow them to be tracked so you can follow their journeys from cache to cache. this bug had a figurine of peyton manning attached to him, and while i'm not sure what mission his owner sent him out into the world to accomplish, i wished him well and left him for the next brave traveler to find...

and while our third cache was hidden too well for our amateur treasure hunting skills, we did find some nice scenery to enjoy...

i was going to take pictures of the run eddie and i were going to do together today. but i forgot it.

SO!

instead you get photos of last weekend when we went geocaching, for the first time ever, with our friend, Nate, who was visiting this past week.

and if you aren't familiar with geocaching, it is this bizarre little game that people with handheld gps systems have where people hide things, lol, post their coordinates online, and then other crazy people use their handheld gps to try and find the little "caches".

it's some good fun.

but i'm no expert. after all, i've only done two!



ed and nate play with his camera while we soak up a little historic scenery at a local park where our first cache is located.



i follow along as we drive to the location of the cache with our garmin gps.



some nice woodsy looking scenery.

wow.

i need to work on my picture titling, don't i?

how about this? "distressed wood bridge in serene woods" or perhaps "dirty old bridge overgrown with weeds?"



eddie scores cache #1!!!



and tomorrow i will tell you what's in it!

if shaft has missed anything about my blogging, it has been that he was so regularly featured as the star.

and since i know you have been dying to see some pictures of my cats!

he has completely fallen in love with this pillow. i like this pillow a lot, too, but he takes his affection for it to a whole different level. it might be his one great true love. and of course, we should never forget that it is the perfect size for cat naps.

First post of a new blog!

I'm excited to start this new blogging project, marvelous mediocrity. The goal is to make excellent use of my new toy, an Olympus Evolt E-500 DSLR camera!

sweeeeeettttt....

and of course, to chronicle this year's tour adventures, which will be beginning in less than a month.

but for now, i'm off to try and find a template i like! lol...