Ch-ch-changes!

     Ok, now that the obligatory Bowie reference is out of the way, let's get on with the post. Fall is the season of change, and thus, appropriately, I've been making a few little changes here and there lately. Let's take a look-see. 

1. I did this to my laptop.

Should maybe have added a warning to grab a bowl for when your eyeballs pop out.

      I dunno why. Cause I'm a grown-up now and I can put stickers on WHATEVER I WANT, I guess. I was just randomly struck with the urge to make my laptop look like it belonged to a third grader, so I covered it in ponies and Batman and sharks and Hello Kitty and cupcakes. Such is my life. I'll be mature in the ways I have to be (like being punctual and honest and responsible and shit) but you can pry my stickers and cartoons and sugary cereals from my cold, dead, sticky-from-recently-eating-candy hands. But this explosion of chid-like glee isn't the only thing I did to my laptop...

     (On a side note, if you're wondering why my reading lamp is turned upside down like that, it's because when I turned it on the other day the light bulb went out, and when I tried to change the light bulb, it turned to shards and dust-clouds in my hand, resulting in a big debacle in which I was pretty sure I was gonna die from accidentally breathing the powdery stuff they put inside light bulbs, and the coroner would be sure I was some delinquent trying to huff light bulb guts, and my family would live in shame forever. After that massive freak-out I kind of didn't feel like dealing with getting the remnants of the bulb out of the lamp, so for now it's just a decorative vase of glass shards hanging above my bed. Stylish.)

2. I replaced the keyboard. 

     This isn't exactly an exciting accomplishment, but I was pretty pleased with myself for getting it done without somehow mutilating the computer beyond repair and having to blow my savings on a whole new computer. Why did i have to replace the keyboard, you ask? WELL. That's because my mom threw a pattern envelope to me for my perusal, but I wasn't paying attention, so I didn't catch it. Instead it went skittering across my keyboard, popping off and breaking (as in, it was not a matter of just popping them back on) a few of the keys in the process. If that sounds implausible, that's because you must not know that apparently my mother has been a secret ninja, practiced in the art of the throwing star, all this time. Yeah, I was surprised too. You can order replacement keys, as well as the little plastic mechanisms that hold them on and make them function, but with the cost of the keys themselves plus the shipping cost (not to mention the wait-time that comes with standard shipping -- I can only go for so long without parentheses keys, you know? Yeah, you know), it ended up making more sense to just buy a replacement keyboard from Amazon with two-day Prime shipping so it'd be cheap and get here quickly. After watching a Youtube video showing how to change the keyboard on a laptop similar to my own, it was a pretty simple operation. Aaah, nothing like a new keyboard, keys all present and functional, all clicky and new, with no food crumbs stuck in the crevices (I'm the worst).

     I also have a pink keyboard skin coming to a) prevent any more freak accidents like that from happening again, b) help keep the new keyboard clean and dust/crumb free, and c) to really take the pink-cuteness factor from the stickers on the front and just amp it up to 11. Whose laptop is this, Katy Perry's? Nope, it's mine. 

3. I dyed my hair again. 

Oh look, it's super blown-out on a white background; it's like Terry Richardson takes my blog photos. Just kidding, I just get overzealous with the flash sometimes. Also ew, Terry Richardson.

      It's basically the same color I had before, but it had faded quite a bit and my roots were growing in blonde, which had a weird effect where it looked like my hair was thinning or I did a crap job brushing out my dry shampoo. It's super dark now, but it'll lighten up after a few washes. Not that I mind. I quite like having my hair very dark; I think it enhances my eyes (which is why I'm making the crazy-eyes face above. I think. Maybe that's just my face). Plus it's kind of fun to be really really pale with really really dark hair, like maybe I'm just in black and white, on my way to go hang with Steamboat Willie and Lucy Ricardo. 

4. I reconfigured my bookcase. Again. 

      You may recall that the last configuration I had going on there was a curtain-type cover held up by tension rods. Well, full disclosure: it didn't work out. Turns out I had underestimated my cat's innate instinct to annoy the absolute shit outta me. She got into the habit of pawing at the curtain at ungodly hours of the night and morning until she pushed the tension rods back, making a loud metallic shuffly sound that drove me absolutely batty. So I had to rethink the situation. I sat in the floor staring at the bookcase for a good half hour, plotting and scheming, while my mom's face floated around my head, cartoon style, saying "Why don't you just clear out the bottom shelf and let her have it?" I hadn't wanted to empty the shelf because there were approximately a million cords hanging back there that I didn't want her to chew on and die or start a house fire. And because it would look stupid to have the entire bottom shelf completely empty. So after some frenetic late night crafting, this is the solution I settled on. All the cords got organized (half of them weren't even connected to anything, so I rolled them up into a box in case I ever need them) and put into one of the shoeboxes on the middle shelf. There's only four cords going in there into a power strip (it looks like more, but some of what you see is cords connecting the dvd player and cable box to the tv, and the cable wire loops around like eight times back there, so it looks like more of a mess. Whatever, I'll deal). I'd read that you don't need to worry about cords getting too hot and posing a fire hazard unless they have that block adapter halfway through the cord, but just in case, I cut the back off the box so it stays ventilated and un-explode-y. 

     Once I had the cord situation under control, it was time to tackle that bottom shelf. I wanted to put Bessie's water and food dishes on it so that I wouldn't kick them as I walked by and make huge messes anymore, but I didn't want to risk a spill ruining the wood. So I grabbed an old Ikea shopping bag, which is essentially a tarp, and pulled it apart, cutting the resulting material to cover the shelf. But that's ugly! So then I raided my scrap fabric stash and found some navy and white polka dot fabric to put over that. To keep it in place I just wrapped it around the back, then pushed the bookcase against the wall to hold it, then wrapped it under the front and slid empty videogame and dvd cases under to hold the fabric taut. If this is all sounding very jury-rigged and mad-scientisty, it's because it was. I couldn't stand another night of waking up to that God-forsaken tension rod slipping. But it's worked so far, and it could look a lot worse. 

5. I don't really have a number five, but I like having five items in a list. 

     I did change some diapers yesterday, this time without having any catastrophic flooding events, so I was quite proud of that. But I don't think you'd appreciate a picture of that very much, so instead here's a picture of cute little baby feet in the grass.