my illogical brain

so (background) my laptop is making a super funky noise whenever i move it.  as i have a lot o' pictures and music on there that i'd like to not lose (as in my last laptop's 4 hard drive failures in 2005-06), i was just researching pricing on big flash drives vs. external hard drives.  yes, i do feel a little bad now that when scott wanted to get an external hard drive last fall, i said no and got him 4gb and 8gb flash drives with a giftcard.  best buy has some multi-terabyte networked external hard drives (i fully realize that i don't need that much storage, but they're so cool) which reminded me of the pioneer woman talking last year about how many external hard drives she'd gone through backing up pictures while she was shooting in RAW.  as they're pricey little suckers (but nothing compared to her amazing cameras and lenses!), that prompted me to ponder how much money she makes blogging.  that's a logical progression, right?

apparently i'm not the only person to wonder that since my google search bar filled in "how much money does the pioneer woman make" by the time i got to the "pi" part of the question - and the answer is a lot!  based solely on ad revenues from her pw site, she probably grosses around $1m/year.  not to mention her cookbook sales, endorsements, or any revenue from the tasty kitchen - but obviously she pays for her giveaways and for her contributors out of that, too.  from the same search, there's also a lot of speculation on the web about how much she and her husband are worth - estimates vary, but consensus is that they're pretty well off.  some people said $15-20m, which seems high, but if they are - hey, go them for still working and living in the middle of oklahoma and not relocating to a beach in hawaii.

speaking of pw's giveaways, though, i struggle with them and here's why: i don't want my affection to be bought.  (or feel bought to my crazy brain.)  i genuinely liked her website before i saw her first giveaway, and while i don't enter each giveaway she has, i wonder sometimes if i continue to like her website because of the possibility of winning a sweet stand mixer or a shiny new nikon d90 (which i really don't need thanks to my loving parents, but still enter giveaways for anyway).  i want to like her blog because i enjoy the recipes and pretty pictures and funny stories - and i do like it for those reasons - but i don't like feeling as though there's the possibility that my affections are being bought.

goodbye spring

we had a very productive weekend if i do say so myself: we actually installed both of our new toilets ON OUR OWN relatively quickly and with no problems - wow!  we took scott's truck in to get the snow tires taken off and squeaky brakes checked out.  we got our outside water turned on so that our roof guy could come fix the masonry on top of our chimney (that was supposed to be monday, but it's on hold for now due to cold and rainy weather - not great for what he needed to do).  we installed my new bird feeder "kit" that i got with birthday money (thanks, mom and dad!) and hung up my also-newly-acquired seed feeder and hummingbird feeder.  we got another estimate for landscaping work, and while the whole project is going to be a little pricier than we initially realized, no better time for it than now, so i think we're going to go for it.  i spent yesterday examining the landscaping plan we had done last year and trying to figure out how much plants and trees cost.  we also enjoyed the lovely and sunny spring weather with a walk, grilling, and much relaxing and movie watching.  please note that as i write this, our lovely spring weekend has disappeared into a chilly and overcast week - complete with a snowstorm last night/today.

the drive-in on friday night was fun in my mind and a little disappointing in scott's.  it was chilly on friday night, so we took wally, laid down the seats, and camped out in the tailgate ... but unfortunately that means that we were looking through the rear window which has big black defrosting lines across it.  it didn't bother me at all, but scott wasn't thrilled with the situation.  scott thought the theater was dumpy and the radio quality staticky - i thought it was a normal drive-in.  combined with the 40 minute drive and our 1:15am return home, i don't think we'll be making the drive-in a weekly destination, but i relatively sure i'll be able to convince scott to take me back by next summer.  movie reviews: "how to train your dragon" was cute, well done, fun, and i highly recommend it!  "iron man 2" wasn't quite as amazing as the original, but it also started after 10pm and both of us were falling asleep by the end, so i don't know that i can give a realistic review.  (saturday night's movie-at-home - thanks to our blockbuster rewards card and a free old-movie monthly rental - was john grisham's "the firm" from 1993, back when tom cruise was successful and un-crazy, and 17 years later the movie is still pretty fabulous.)

drive-in date night

so excited that it is once again drive-in season!  there is only one drive-in movie theater left in the metro area, about 40 minutes away, but since we haven't been to a drive-in in two years (three?), we're going to brave the drive on friday night.  we were originally aiming for saturday night to go with friends, but everyone has other plans so we moved it up to be our regularly scheduled friday night date night entertainment.  on the docket is how to train your dragon and iron man 2 (both of which we were already excited about seeing, and make for a pretty rockin opening night at the drive-in if you ask me) and approximately 15 blankets and pillows in wally's tailgate.  even if it is mid-50s and rainy today, summer, here we come!

scott had originally wanted to do a full on 50's date night and go to sonic or culver's for hamburgers and custard before the movies, but in reading the drive-in's website, i saw that they ask you to eat at their snack bar because that's how they make a profit and stay in business.  since i'd like to not start having to drive 90 mintues each way to get to the next closest drive-in, i voted for giving the snack bar a shot at least.  i may still whip out my thick-rimmed-and-rhinestoned 50's cat-eye glasses that i wore to a costume party last halloween, though.  :)  yes we do have fun together, why do you ask?

mulch, take two

my wise husband listened to my mulch research and reminded me that we have a few trees yet to be taken out this year and were hoping to have a landscaper pull out the existing rock and weed barrier (and dirt covered rock and weed barrier along the wall in the back yard), which is going to add up.  so, the mulch plan is that we'll clean up the rock in the front, put the rock back in over new weed barrier and potentially add some fresh rock over top, and do mulch in the back yard without weed barrier (to make it easier to have lots of plants and flowers growing there).  whew.  i think it'll look better, particularly once we actually have bushes and living things in the midst of our rock, and have everything cleaned up a bit.  price-wise i do like the plan better than paying $1000 just for mulch ... especially when our tree guy came back with an estimate of $1100 to finish taking out our russian olives and dead aspens!  sheesh.  we'll be getting some second opinions.

soapbox

so we were taking a lunch break from housework, flipping through the channels to find something to watch and there is seriously some crappy tv on.  we watched a show called "basketball wives" on vh1 for a few minutes, and the wives are just so catty and trying to create crazy drama!  they were talking about the tiger woods scandal, saying that they find it hard to believe that there is any professional athlete who remains faithful to his wife (these are nba wives saying this - yikes!).  anyway, it reminded me of one of my latest soapbox thoughts: can we please stop making women famous for having sex with married celebrity men (john edwards and tiger woods' mistresses, i mean you)?  i'm sure there are plenty of famous men who are out there propositioning women with no provocation, but sadly i'm also quite sure that there are women who see a guy like tiger woods come into a bar, think, "hmm, he's married ... but he's also famous and if i get with him i could totally sell my story someday and be famous too!" and go for it.  (maybe tiger woods is a bad example here ...)  it is ridiculous, and makes me sad for the state of marriage in our culture.