I live in the city of Minneapolis, MN in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood.

I have lived in this neighborhood for most of my life. I live across the street from my parents in an 100 year old building facing Powderhorn Park:
Front of my building

I lived in one 430 sq ft condo for 6 years until I decided it was time to buy the one next door and expand into it. That was 5 years ago. It is a work in progress. My bedroom, office and bathroom are all mostly done. Eric's bathroom is close to being done. His bedroom needs a little bit of work. The living room and kitchen needs a lot of work because that is where the wall was that we took down to combine the units.

I am pretty sure I'll get the remodeling done just in time to sell the place.
I recently bought a brand new 2010 mazda6. I then crashed it when it had about 2000 miles on it. It now has a little over 3000 miles on it. Also, they did a really good job repairing it. I can't tell it was in an accident at all. I suppose that is because I was lucky on the accident I had and didn't hit anything important.

My mazda replaced a 2000 Saturn SL1 named Hoopty that had 135000 miles on it that once was hit by a bus while parked on the street and never drove the same after wards. Not that it was fun to drive before it was hit.

Before Hoopty I didn't own a car. I rode my bike everywhere and took the bus. It is funny to think that 10 years ago I was too cheap to buy a car. Then when I bought one I bought one that was cheap and just got me from point A to point B and now I have a car that can fit kids and is nice to drive.
I don't really carry a lot of extra stuff around. I have a purse, it has a phone, a wallet, a bunch a change on the bottom of it, a couple pens, usually coupons in it. I also have a pill box of various migraine medication which is the only weird thing in it.
I have three siblings. Jens, Serinia and Eric. My parents like old Scandinavian names but I am not sure why Eric doesn't have a K at the end of his name.

I am the oldest. Jens is 21 months younger than I am. He is married to Anne:
Europe

Jens went into the army right out of high school which is odd to think about. However, my parents told us they couldn't pay for all of us to go to college so they weren't going to pay for any of us. I got scholarships, the rest got the GI Bill. He used the GI Bill to become a kindergarten teacher in the Minneapolis school district. He is pretty much the ideal personality for a kindergarten teacher but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't end up on the school board in 10 years because he is the sort that takes action.

Jens has an old house that he is slowly redoing and so sometimes he does things like this which I forgot about.

Serinia is my only sister and as I said my BFF. She also joined the army after high school but it didn't go that well for her. She joined the army, drove big trucks and was stationed in South Korea. She also met her friend/hetro life mate Erica. Things happened and she was medically discharged from the army a month early to keep her from being deployed to Iraq. This also means she is a disabled vet and receives disability from the VA which is good because she has a hard time keeping a job. She keeps trying, which is the important part.

Serinia gets Glasses

A little over three years ago she moved to Joplin to help out her HLM Erica go through a divorce and Serinia has really gotten better in that time. I am hopeful that now she is back to decent VA system with a therapist that doesn't dismiss her.

The youngest sibling is Eric. He also joined the army out of high school then he joined the national guard when got out. He was deployed to Iraq for a year. He got out of the national guard last February and is not cutting his hair or beard for a year in celebration. Eric has been my roommate since he got out of the army 5 years ago but hopefully his house will be ready any time now. I am really hoping he will be out by spring.

Eric
Today I wore my skinny jeans, a brown sweater that flares out at the bottom and pink knee high socks. At dinner everyone complimented me on my jeans but made fun of my sweater because it was really staticy. Then I put on my coat and the teasing really began. Sigh. I love my poofy coat.


Family can be so hard sometimes.
If you want to know the nitty gitty of my belief system, I don't believe there is a god. However, I have no problem with anyone that believes that there is. Well... other than my mom but that is different and that argument comes up every once in awhile.

I went to church my entire childhood and I never really believed and I didn't know why. I studied the history of the church trying to figure out if I was missing something and then one day I realized I was. What I was missing was that I just didn't believe that there is a god out there. My world view clicked and I have been much happier since.

It is funny, I am always a little shocked and vaguely scandalized when someone mentions going to church. It is almost like being religious is the weird thing.

Other than that, I try not to be a jerk, I try to be kind and helpful and not stress myself out too much over things that should be fun.
I have been thinking about this one for a couple days and I just can't think of anything that I am attached to enough that I would label it "precious". I mean, there are my cats but they are animals and not items. I have some artwork that I would be sad if I lost but none of it is irreplaceable. If there was a fire in my condo I would grab my cats and the backup to my computer*.

What is funny is that 10 years ago I was attached to everything, I had a hard time getting rid of things. Then something changed a few years ago and I kept purging my belongings to the things that I loved. When Zach moved in I really did go through everything that I don't think I have much that isn't useful or loved. However, none of it stands out more than anything else.


I would also curse myself for not having a fire proof safe for some of my mortgage papers but I keep putting that off
I would be lame and say that [livejournal.com profile] gwangi is my best friend but you guys don't want to hear that. Anyways, it isn't completely true.

I would have to say my sister is my BFF. We get along, we do stupid things together, we laugh at dumb jokes, we make fun of each other and we guilt each other into "sister time".

Library Opening Day


I am very happy that she has moved home, I missed her while she was away.
My hobbies have changed a lot over time. I used to read a lot but I don't read so much anymore. I used to knit but it hurt my hand too much so I don't anymore. I used to go to school aimlessly but that was expensive. I have start quilting but I am not sure if it will stick. I like to bake, I like to remodel my house. I like to watch TV shows. I like to hang out with people and see things. I like to travel to places I haven't been to before. I like to read wikipedia learning random information.

I am a person that likes taking action so many of my hobbies are about learning how to do something. "Learn how to make cheese" "Learn how to make beer" "Learn how to make a quilt" and so on. I don't always master how to do these things because for me it is about the learning.
My definition of love is pretty broad and I am pretty sure I overuse the word. I love my family. My parents and siblings are people I like to hang out with and enjoy their company. I love my friends and I think of them often even when I don't hang out with them as much as I want.

However, I have a feeling that the spirit of this day is about romantic love. Romantic love for me is someone that I can spend most of my free time with. Someone that supports me in life and who I support. Someone that I can share either the best day of my life, the worst day of my life and any day in between. Someone that returns these feelings, makes me laugh when I am happy and hugs me when I am having a bad day. Someone that I can take care of and share my life with.

I have found this person and that is why I am marrying him.
I am not really that into music. I listen to a lot of techno while I am programming. I like Mike Doughty and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. I listen to The Current on my way to work in the morning but I mostly listen to the news when I am in the car.

I am not sure why I don't listen to music. I am pretty sure it is because I have a talent for tuning out sounds when I am concentration on things and I concentrate pretty often. Plus when I have a migraine I don't like loud noises so I never think to turn on the radio.

I only have owned one mp3 player and it is the original iPod shuffle. It still works wonderfully because I never remember to use it.
My parents are pretty awesome.

My mom grew up pretty poor in western Minnesota on the border of South Dakota. She didn't move to the cities until she was 16. They moved here because this is where my grandparents could find work. She had various office jobs though her 20s until she had children. She was a great stay at home mom, she always had some project going on and pretty much headed up remodeling the house through my childhood. She also would cook dinner for anyone that was at our house at dinner time even though we didn't have that much money ourselves.

My dad grew up in St Paul. He was both very middle class and very Catholic. He rebelled against both. He didn't like college so when he was drafted he went into the Army. After his two years were up he didn't go back. He spent the next 10 years working in steel factories until the 80s recession when he went back to school to become a surveyor. After this he would work insane hours in the summer but all winter long we knew he wouldn't miss anything that we had going on. He would coach my basketball teams which was very fun.

My parents aren't really afraid of any project. Even before the internet they would go to the library, check out a book and figure out how to do something. I love that they have passed this on to me because I know that almost anything is doable.


BTW, my parents are having some plumbing problems which my dad thinks has to do with sewer pipe connection with the street. Instead of hiring a plumber, which is what I was pushing them to do since my dad is weak and everyone is pretty stressed right now, my dad researched one of those cameras that plumbers have and bought one. It came on Friday and him and my brothers used it. My mom thinks this is very silly but she also is okay with this because it is the first thing he has been really into for 6 or 7 weeks. So, if any of you ever need a camera for a sewer line, I have access to one. Ha!
This one is hard because I am not sure. I am not sure I ever had a "first love" in the way that many people did. I was painfully shy and withdrawn until my mid 20s so I buried myself in schoolwork and then work so I didn't really date much. What dating I did wasn't very productive and just reinforced my belief that I shouldn't try. So, I am going to tell you about my first crush.

My first crush was on Gary. I was in elementary school with him from K-6 grade. He was blond and had freckles. He was smart yet had this bad boy vibe. In 6th grade he would wear this fake earring to look tough, I thought it was so cute. This ended when we went to different junior high schools.

A couple years ago I looked him up on facebook. He is a minister in out state Minnesota with a couple kids, which stuck me as weird. I didn't friend him since that seemed creepy and stalkerish.
For those of you that don't know me by now, my name is Bertine. Yes, that is my actual given name. I am engaged to marry [livejournal.com profile] gwangi, his given name is Zach. I live in Minneapolis, MN with Zach and our three cats. I program websites for a living and I tend to be crabby about it often but that doesn't mean I don't love it. I get migraines pretty often and complain about them more than I should but there isn't much more about them that I can do. I have random hobbies, right now it is quilting. I have a MA in History which is not useful at all for anything now that Wikipedia is around, before Wikipedia people would call me to ask me about facts on the popes.

I try to be pretty open about myself. Feel free to ask me questions on anything if you have always wondered something.
Lately I haven't been posting as much because I have been busy with other things. So starting tomorrow I am going to do this meme to give myself something to post about! Exciting!

(I totally stole this from [livejournal.com profile] frozenrhino since he is cool)

Day 01 - Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Your first love
Day 03 – Your parents
Day 04 – Your music
Day 05 – Your definition of love
Day 06 – Your hobbies
Day 07 – Your best friend
Day 08 – A precious item
Day 09 – Your beliefs
Day 10 – What you wore today
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – Your mode of transportation
Day 14 – Where you live
Day 15 – Your childhood
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – Your morning routine
Day 21 – Your job and/or schooling
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – Your sleeping habits
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your favorite foods/drinks
Day 30 – Your aspirations

April 2017

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