Sensational Haiku Wednesday

Welcome to “Sensational Haiku Wednesday!”

The basics: Haiku is simple! It is 3 non-rhyming lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively (a great way to use your fingers!)

Here are the rules:

Structure: While Haiku may be written by some in other styles, for THIS meme only 5-7-5 is acceptable. At least one of your haiku must be in this format.
Theme/Prompt: We have a new prompt each week, and your haiku needs to be related to it, if not include the actual word in it. Feel free to leave a word suggestion in a comment!
Linking: When you post your link, link to the blog post with your haiku, not to the main page of your blog.
Reciprocate: If you participate and post your link on my website, you must have a link back here on your post. It’s only fair.

Folks not complying with the above risk having their links removed. Don’t make me be all “Grrrr” and stuff, it makes me grumpy! Thanks for your cooperation!

P.S. This is a really busy time for me – I may not get around to everyone each week. Sorry about that, but unfortunately I need to attend to business before pleasure!

This week’s theme is: Landscape

Wrinkles, callouses
Thinning hair, thickened middles
Landscape of our lives

Trees in the distance
Earth, black as night, rich with life
Meaningful landscape

Roiling thunderheads
Seek parched land to weep over
Bringing forth new life

Soft drips of water
Residue of a torrent
Vibrant green springs forth

We’re celebrating 150 weeks of Haiku! Thanks, everyone, for making our haiku community a great one :)

*** Please read the 4 simple guidelines above before you post your link – thanks!

Next week’s theme: Fire

‡ Folks, a quick note about comments: A few of you don’t have Name/URL enabled on your blogs, and I CAN’T comment in that case. Take a moment to enable that, will you? There are other ways to combat spam and still allow people with their own domains to leave their homage to your greatness ;) ‡

Nothing makes me happier than to see new people getting “hooked on haiku”! Keep it going to make it to the Hooked on Haiku List (if you’re not listed and should be, please [politely] let me know!)

To participate in this week’s event, please use the following code in your post on your own blog (if you don’t have a blog, post your Haiku as a comment):

<a href="http://youknowthatblog.com/tag/haiku-wednesday"><img src="http://youknowthatblog.com/SHW/shw1.jpg" width="350" height="188" alt="Join the fun!" title="Join the fun!"></a>

You can also choose to use only a text link, or either of these additional images I made for your use! Use This one (dark), or This one (light)!

Our house is coming along – it’s still a semi-formed pile of 2x4s and concrete just now, but I was standing in my still-open-to-the-sky living room the other day, and that’s progress. Actually, the way they’re going we could be in earlier than our August 9th possession date (3 months, 2 days from now!). Time and weather will tell! We met several of our neighbours on Saturday night when we were there poking around, who I had spoken to online previously, but not yet met. One absolutely adorable couple who just found out they’re expecting their first baby, and one other gal. The adorable duo will be 2 doors down from me on the left, and the other gal and her husband will be 6 doors down from me on the right.

I’m both excited and disappointed in it. It’s far smaller than we’re used to, and that will be the biggest issue, I think. It’s exciting to be “in town” again, for sure. No more dealing with a well and septic system! Not excited to be having neighbors that close to me though. We have been spoiled living here in the country, and as much as most people think otherwise, I’m not a real people person. I like my privacy, and I like space. I won’t have much of either at the new house! That’s ok though; this is not our “forever” home, and we’ll most likely sell and move somewhere more ideal in a couple of years. In the mean time, we will make the most of it!

Been busy buying things – except for our bedroom sets, our furniture is too big to fit in the new space, so my folks will have a lot of it in their basement for the foreseeable future! I bought the central vac package a few weeks ago, some end tables, new dishes, cutlery, pots and pans… Hey, new house = new stuff, ok?? Besides, the Teen is going to be starting off on her own in a few years, and she can have all the still-great stuff we’re upgrading from. Totally makes sense to buy all new stuff! Shut up.

Now I have to think about paint colours. The ceramic tile from the front door/foyer through to the kitchen, powder room, and landing on basement stairs is a rustic brown. The hardwood floor in the living room and both stair cases is “cinnamon” stained oak. The cinnamon is a medium-dark stain that is neutral enough that I’ll be able to add other wood… like the espresso kitchen set I have my eye on, and the matching espresso island I am designing. Carpet upstairs and in the finished basement is grey. I have been thinking about maybe a “Silver Mist” grey (Benjamin Moore collection) or a darker blue-grey (like Benjamin Moore “Silken Blue”) with white baseboards, crown moulding, etc on the main floor and up the stairs, which would look lovely over the dark floors. I’m sick to death of the classic “beige and white” colour scheme that is so common these days! I like the coolness of the grey, which will look blue in bright light, and love the clean contrast between white and grey.

This is more or less what I’m thinking…

What do you think? I’m open to suggestions (and pictures!) although I’m leaning towards the darker of the two paint colours. Frankly, I’ve changed my mind so many times I’ve managed to boggle my brain!

“Of COURSE I went through a power cycle. We need to be repointed, because the dish was shifted in the wind storm we had last night.”

“Please try it again, Ma’am, while we’re on the phone together.”

“Seriously, I don’t want to try it again, I just did it. Twice. We’re wasting time doing this when I know it’s not the problem. Can I just speak to a Level 2 tech?”

“I can’t put you through to Level 2 without going through my manual first.” *silence, while he waits for me to come to terms with the fact that I’m a hostage to this nonsense*

“Ugh, fine. But it won’t make any difference. The dish on the roof was moved when we had a wind storm yesterday.”

We go through the power cycle once again, me fuming because I have a bad knee and have to crawl under the desk to get to the UPS/power bar, and him no doubt picking his nose and smiling because he knows I’m ticked, and he doesn’t care.

No difference.

“Ok Ma’am, now we have to see what your IP address is.” He starts speaking very slowly, like I’m a moron. “Go to Accessories, and click on…”

I’m miles ahead of him, and have already gone to the command prompt to punch in “IPCONFIG” to get my IP address. I rattle it off to him.

*click* It’s almost audible when he finally clues in that I might know what I’m talking about. “If you’ll hold the line, I’ll send you on to Level 2. I can’t do anything else for you.”

I often wonder if Level 1 is there simply to see if people have their computers plugged in.

Level 2 went much more quickly, and the girl I spoke to said “I’ll send someone out to repoint your dish, and make sure that’s all it is.”

See? How hard was that?? I asked her to make sure the work order went to the subcontractors close by, and not the people they sent it to last time… who are almost 2 hours away. Nope, not kidding.

Trouble is, I spoke to her in the morning on Tuesday, and immediately put in a call to the subcontractor. He knows me; he’s been here before. A lot. I asked them to watch for the work order, and get to me as soon as they possibly could. The guy in charge knows I run a couple businesses that depend on me being online.

So I waited. And waited. Called back several times and left messages, but they were out and couldn’t get back to me right away. Called Wednesday twice, and was told it hadn’t been sent through yet. I was on the road, and told the owner I’d call the second I got back and freak out on them. She agreed it was probably the best way to handle it at that point. “Squeaky-wheel gets the grease” kind of thing. I was on my way home mid-afternoon before she called me back and said she’d just gotten it. About, what? 30 hours after it was supposedly submitted? She also said that had she had it on Tuesday, they would have been there the next morning, no problem. They did show up first thing Thursday morning, and had me back up and running in short order. My thanks goes solely to the guy who was sitting on my roof, and the gal in his office that I spoke to the day before. At least I know I can always count on them! Oh, and they didn’t charge me for the service call either. In the tech’s words; “I could never charge you for their lousy service.” Thanks, buddy.

I know you’re thinking “Why haven’t you changed ISPs if they’re that bad?” Oh trust me, we would have had there been anything else in the area that would have been better. We’re considered rural where we are, even though there’s a shopping center 4 minutes from our driveway. The phone lines are old, so DSL isn’t possible. We all have satellite because there are no cable lines. We’ve tried other services, and either we have no line-of-site to their tower, or it wouldn’t have been any better. So essentially we’re screwed, and have to rely on this lousy ISP, with lousy speeds, lousy tech support (at least level 1) and even worse customer service.

On the bright side, our new house is being built as I write this, and in 4 months we’ll be in to paint and build a 4th bathroom before we move the furniture in. We’ll be “in town” then, and able to get a real ISP, with REAL high speed. Until then, all I can do is complain… and blog about it.

Xplorenet.com… YOU SUCK. Can’t wait to leave your sorry service behind.

Instead, I’m going to draw your attention to some other April Fool’s jokes I’ve come across today…

Broot alerted me to this one last night, being 16 hours ahead and knee-deep in April Foolery in New Zealand. (She also played a doozie on her facebook friends, announcing they were moving back to Canada. Brat.)

Air New Zealand announced “Standing in the Aisles” fares, where they could get an additional 89 people crammed onto each and every flight…

Then there was this one from George Takei, on Facebook;

Friends, I’m thrilled to share this news with you today. As announced at Emerald City Comicon, where I’m appearing this weekend, Paramount Pictures has green-lit a new Star Trek Movie entitled “Excelsior” in which I will play the captain. This announcement is part of Paramount Studio’s 100th-year anniversary campaign. The studio has acknowledged the fan enthusiasm for this concept ever since I appeared in command of the vessel in “The Undiscovered Country.” J.J. Abrams will direct, with Robert Orci again writing the screenplay.

My co-star in Allegiance, Paulo Montalban, has been cast opposite me to play the mercurial “Agha,” the grandson of Khan (played by Ricardo Montalban in the Second Star Trek Movie). Also featured are Gilbert Gottfried (playing a wily Ferengi First Officer) and Lisa Lampanelli (as a Bajoran security officer).

More to come on this breaking story soon. Thanks again for the years of support, and I’ll see you on the Bridge of “Excelsior.”

Finally, what would April Fools Day be without a good prank from Google? They went so far as to roll out an 8-bit version of their Google Maps, and called it Quest. Apparently it’s full of “Easter Eggs”, so you can spend some quality time-wasting and check out our world in “old-school” style.

So I’m going to go and hide out now, hoping that I won’t be further pranked by the fools in my life.

Here’s wishing any pranks played on YOU today are of the “good” variety!

See, I get all of these grand/grandiose ideas, and throw myself into them whole-hog. This is what I thrive on! But… while I work best under pressure, it isn’t too long before I figure out that I’ve over-extended myself, and I don’t have the time to devote to my newest “great idea”, and it either dies off, or I let something else go. Or I work myself into such a state of exhaustion that other really important things start to crumble around me.

I’ve got this great idea for a new meme, but given that I often can’t find the time to even visit the 25 or so participants in our beloved Sensational Haiku meme, I at least know that starting a new one would be a bad idea. Too bad, though, because it’s a fun one…

Same thing happens to me with craft or recreational projects, actually. I never do anything half way, so I usually end up completely outfitting myself with everything I’d need to be a master at whatever it is that strikes my fancy, do it for a while, figure out I don’t have time, and then it sits there and eventually gets packed up and put in the storage room. Sometimes it’s years before I even look at it again! Ask my knitting machines… all 5 of them.

So what does that make me, exactly?

I do the same thing with websites. Brainfart hasn’t been touched in months (wasn’t specifically just for me, though). My very first website is 14 years old and hasn’t been touched in years, and is uuuuuuuglyyyy!

I started Polite Canada a few months back. Now, the premise of bringing Canadians back to our fabulous “polite, cheerful, classy” reputation is solid, but the follow-through? Notsomuch. I knew going in that I wouldn’t be able to devote a lot of time to it, so I made it a team effort, and recruited a handful of people to do specific tasks. Sounds ideal, right? Well, as excited as they were to jump on board, actually submitting content was another story, and except for Broot, Sher, and Wee One’s Grade 2 teacher (who sent me a great project, but it’s not going up just to be wasted), most of them ended up ignoring it. With no time to manage it properly, I didn’t chase them too hard though, and I take the blame for it going nowhere. So it’s on the back-burner, unfortunately, even though I still think it’s a great idea, and I believe in it fully.

Main Street? Well, that one broke my heart, but at least I know I did everything I possibly could to keep it together. I have a few ideas for putting another group together running around in my head, but it really is too soon for that. Need to give myself more time to grieve the passing of the first. Speaking of Main Street though, I’m having breakfast with J-B tomorrow, and I can’t wait! It’s been weeks since I saw him last! I’ll say “hi” for you, shall I?

I think I’ve finally figured out that sometimes things just don’t work out, and that starting something new when I don’t have the time is just plain counter productive. Maybe, at 39-plus-almost-6 years old, I’ve finally grown up. yeah, right.

So… what about you? Do you have a habit of biting off more than you can chew? How do you handle that?