Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
me

simplifying

In 2018, I am trying to cut things out of my life that take too much time or cause stress and concentrate more on things I enjoy doing.

As a first step, we sold our rental property in May. That place was just one more building to upkeep. When you look at the bottom line, it was not worth the effort. Plus, having one less building has renewed our interest in finishing the basement at the office, so now that project is underway and making some good progress.

Secondly, I put my bike up for sale. You might wonder how a motorcycle is complicating my life. As it turns out, I just don’t enjoy riding as much as I thought I would. I mean, it was fun at first, but lately it has seemed like another thing that “has” to be done. The bike’s bought and paid for, but there are ongoing costs (insurance, upkeep) that make me feel like I need to put it to use, when I’d really rather be doing other things. Who knows if it will sell or not, but I haven’t even been out on it this year. Worst case, I can probably just trade it in when we get a new car in a year or two (or if Brian takes me up on my offer of a new bike for him). Jake was all interested in motorcycles last year and I thought he was going to be riding it, but he quickly lost interest when motorcycle season started up again.

Thirdly, I’m closing Everyone Drinks. While I still enjoy making crafts, I haven’t been able to get my sales up to a level that makes it worthwhile, so I’ve decided to hang it up later this year. I’ve been waffling on this for a while now, but Etsy made some changes this year that are making it all but impossible for a small company like mine to sell anything, so that was like the last nail in the coffin.

The thing I’m looking forward to the most is cutting my paperwork load in half when we merge our two companies down the road. But, that is still a ways away.

live entertainment

foo fighters again

Brian, Jake, Jake’s girlfriend (Megan), and I went to see the Foo Fighters at PPG Paints Arena on Thursday. What a great show! They are such a fun band to see live. Much like the first time we saw them, they played for almost 2.5 hours–way longer than most bands. That was our first show at the arena. I thought the acoustics were really good–I’d definitely go there again. We made it in and out of Pittsburgh without a hitch (plus we found a $5 parking lot just blocks from the show). After 20+ years of going to Pittsburgh for shows, I think we finally have things figured out.

miscellany

improvising

While we were getting packed for vacation on the 4th, a storm rolled through and knocked out the power for the better part of the day (12:30pm-10pm). Brian had to hook up the generator so we didn’t lose any food in the fridge and freezer. Good thing the power outage didn’t occur while we were away! The power being out kind of put a damper on packing–we kept putting it off because we thought it would come back on at any minute (and things would be easier to see in the light).

Another problem was that I prepared some sourdough pizza crust before the power went out. Without a stove, I didn’t have a way to cook it. A quick Google search told me that my baking steel would work on the grill, so we tried it out and had pretty good results. I feel like it would have been even better with regular pizza dough, but it certainly did the trick. I think that’s something I will be trying again in the future.

 

books

the outsider

I read this book from Stephen King while we were on vacation. It was quite good. It had a really interesting concept–I don’t want to give anything away so I’m not going to try to explain it. The only negative was that I felt that most of the characters were one-dimensional (I really had problems visualizing them). But, the story more than made up for that.

My rating: 4/5

trips

austin, pa

For vacation this year, we visited Potter County. Specifically, we stayed in the town of Austin, which is near Cherry Springs State Park. The park is known for its dark skies–due to its remote location–and is ideal for star gazing. While we didn’t go to the park, we had our own star gazing field at the cabin. And, the sky was spectacular. Thank goodness for clear weather!

Brian, Jake, Jake’s friend (Tanner), Esme, and I all went on the trip. The boys mostly hung out in their hammocks and slept. Connectivity was sparse, so it was a mostly electronics-free affair. It’s always good to disconnect. We went from Thursday to Tuesday to lessen the amount of days out of the office, which is always a concern when we can’t check in via telephone/internet.

I did a lot of knitting and reading. And, I mean a lot. There wasn’t much to do up that way, but we did visit the Austin Dam Memorial Park and Sinnemahoning State Park one day. Given that we’re from Johnstown, home of the floods, the dam was interesting to see. Unfortunately, we visited the wildlife watching area in the afternoon so there wasn’t anything to see (dawn and dusk are the best times for wildlife viewing), but it still made for a nice walk. Another day, we drove up to Coudersport and visited the Potter County Artisan Center. There, Brian and I picked up some pottery–coffee mugs for each of us and a tea light holder for the living room.

We did the usual campfires and such, but that was really about it. Entertaining Esme took up a lot of time as well, but she was so good–you could just let her out and not have to worry about her running off the property. She got plenty of exercise, but still was not tired by the time we got home. Her store of energy is boundless.