Well, as the saying goes, March has come in like a rabid wildebeast. It was massively windy last night. Still blustering today as well. While this is good in a "The weather is finally acting normal again for a bit" kind of way, it makes sleeping difficult because the neighbor has an exhaust hood - thingy - on his roof that rotates like a tazmanian devil on crack, and the windows all rattle because they go <---> instead of up and down.
And it's cold in here! Seriously, if the appliances and health will ever let me get ahead a bit, I do need to get the AC fixed and probably get the entire house HVAC system balanced properly.
Right now, however, I am going in search of toast and coffee. Have a good day.
709 days
Friday, March 02, 2007
Thursday, March 01, 2007
An interesting thought
15 minutes really isn't all that long. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, 15 minutes is nothing, really.
Sure, it's "Something" if you're 15 min. late to work, or if you get to the movie 15 min. after it starts (although these days you'd probably just miss only 5 or 6 really pathetic trailers for pathetic other films).
But in general, 15 minutes is something you can "spare" in your day-to-day life.
And so, with this in mind, I've been giving the "fish quilt" 15 minutes of undivided and quality time attention. And to my surprise, I'm making some significant progress. Now, granted, I don't have even an entire square done yet, as I've only been doing this for 2 days now, but it's progress non-the-less, and at this rate sometime next winter I'll have yet another turquoise-based quilt in my repetoire. I'm thinking of putting it on the bed in that room, as the current bright orange spread does not go even slightly with the pastel blue walls.
If only I could organize the rest of my world this easily - and I know I should be able to do it, but I'm not quite ready to go there yet, I'm afraid. There are too many other bits of mental baggage to get past before I can actually do that.
710 days.
Sure, it's "Something" if you're 15 min. late to work, or if you get to the movie 15 min. after it starts (although these days you'd probably just miss only 5 or 6 really pathetic trailers for pathetic other films).
But in general, 15 minutes is something you can "spare" in your day-to-day life.
And so, with this in mind, I've been giving the "fish quilt" 15 minutes of undivided and quality time attention. And to my surprise, I'm making some significant progress. Now, granted, I don't have even an entire square done yet, as I've only been doing this for 2 days now, but it's progress non-the-less, and at this rate sometime next winter I'll have yet another turquoise-based quilt in my repetoire. I'm thinking of putting it on the bed in that room, as the current bright orange spread does not go even slightly with the pastel blue walls.
If only I could organize the rest of my world this easily - and I know I should be able to do it, but I'm not quite ready to go there yet, I'm afraid. There are too many other bits of mental baggage to get past before I can actually do that.
710 days.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Why?
Why does my "French Vanilla" cappuccino taste like cinnamon?
Why can oranges sit for weeks in bags on a heap in the middle of the produce dept. in the market, but as soon as I bring them home, 2 days on the countertop and they look all bruised and sad?
Why does every community around mine have mass transit - EXCEPT mine?
Why is it that every time I get within a stone's throw of having enough money to fix my air conditioning, something goes wrong and I have to use the funds for car repairs or health issues?
Why do I feel like my last name should be "Murphy"?
711 days
Why can oranges sit for weeks in bags on a heap in the middle of the produce dept. in the market, but as soon as I bring them home, 2 days on the countertop and they look all bruised and sad?
Why does every community around mine have mass transit - EXCEPT mine?
Why is it that every time I get within a stone's throw of having enough money to fix my air conditioning, something goes wrong and I have to use the funds for car repairs or health issues?
Why do I feel like my last name should be "Murphy"?
711 days
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
WooWOooWoooWoooHOOOONNNKKKK - Hey Kal?
So I'm driving home from work tonight and I hear sirens.
Now, unlike in Scotland where the emergency vehicles go "MeeMaw" according to my dearest Scots friend Kal, who should know, since he drives an ambulance and all that, our sirens all go WoooWoooWOOOWooo and then when they get to where there's someone in front of them, they honk like 30 times louder than a regular honking horn honks.
Now, when one is travelling at 45 mph down a busy street and hears sirens in the distance, if one is me, one looks first in front to see if there are flashing lights. Secondly to the rear - to know if one is coming behind me. Next to the left side, then to the right. If one cannot see the flashing lights, it is often exceptionally difficult to tell from which direction the sirens are blaring, even driving as I do without radio or other distractions.
What one also cannot do is see flashing lights THROUGH buildings and large piles of snow. I'm sooooooo sorry about that.
What had happened is that an ambulance was coming from a small, almost visually invisible side-street, which has buildings and snow-piles blocking visuals until one is almost directly on top of it. At 45 mph, this happens very quickly. To be 100% honest, I never even SAW the farking ambulance until it was HONKINGHONKINGHONKING in my right ear.
JEZUS PETE. I pulled over and stopped as quick as I could. I wasn't the ONLY one who couldn't see the bloody bastard, however, as another 4 cars behind me got past the intersection before the ambulance could pull out.
Now, I'm sure they teach something about this kind of crap in Ambulance Driver School, seeing as Kal had to go through all kinds of odd driving things and get a special license and all and even though he's in Scotland, I'm sure it's fairly similar here because they ARE just huge fucking trucks and all that, but you would think, being a rational individual as I'm sure you all are, that said Ambulance Driver Guy (and I am sexist-ly assuming this PERSON was a guy, since I don't know any Ambulance Driver Girls from Scotland or from here either) would have noticed on his way INTO the side-street that it had limited visual access and perhaps have gone ONE BLOODY FUCKING BLOCK TO THE EAST where there is, in fact, a HUGELY VISUALLY LOVELY AND OPEN intersection with a stoplight...
Then again, perhaps I should have just jammed on my brakes and caused a 4-car pileup in the intersection, thereby delaying the asshat even longer maybe?
712 days
Now, unlike in Scotland where the emergency vehicles go "MeeMaw" according to my dearest Scots friend Kal, who should know, since he drives an ambulance and all that, our sirens all go WoooWoooWOOOWooo and then when they get to where there's someone in front of them, they honk like 30 times louder than a regular honking horn honks.
Now, when one is travelling at 45 mph down a busy street and hears sirens in the distance, if one is me, one looks first in front to see if there are flashing lights. Secondly to the rear - to know if one is coming behind me. Next to the left side, then to the right. If one cannot see the flashing lights, it is often exceptionally difficult to tell from which direction the sirens are blaring, even driving as I do without radio or other distractions.
What one also cannot do is see flashing lights THROUGH buildings and large piles of snow. I'm sooooooo sorry about that.
What had happened is that an ambulance was coming from a small, almost visually invisible side-street, which has buildings and snow-piles blocking visuals until one is almost directly on top of it. At 45 mph, this happens very quickly. To be 100% honest, I never even SAW the farking ambulance until it was HONKINGHONKINGHONKING in my right ear.
JEZUS PETE. I pulled over and stopped as quick as I could. I wasn't the ONLY one who couldn't see the bloody bastard, however, as another 4 cars behind me got past the intersection before the ambulance could pull out.
Now, I'm sure they teach something about this kind of crap in Ambulance Driver School, seeing as Kal had to go through all kinds of odd driving things and get a special license and all and even though he's in Scotland, I'm sure it's fairly similar here because they ARE just huge fucking trucks and all that, but you would think, being a rational individual as I'm sure you all are, that said Ambulance Driver Guy (and I am sexist-ly assuming this PERSON was a guy, since I don't know any Ambulance Driver Girls from Scotland or from here either) would have noticed on his way INTO the side-street that it had limited visual access and perhaps have gone ONE BLOODY FUCKING BLOCK TO THE EAST where there is, in fact, a HUGELY VISUALLY LOVELY AND OPEN intersection with a stoplight...
Then again, perhaps I should have just jammed on my brakes and caused a 4-car pileup in the intersection, thereby delaying the asshat even longer maybe?
712 days
Friday, February 23, 2007
Raspberry Pink
Bright, shocking, eye-popping raspberry pink.
And bright canary yellow.
But that's too "girly cute" - I need something to balance out all the sugar and spice and everything saccarine... Besides of which, I've already got the triple irish chain variation in the works with raspberry, lime, lemon and bright fucking orange.
Somebody had trash bags at the curb this morning with different colored "cinch sack" pull-ties, bright pink and bright yellow. They looked so delicious waving in the cold breeze, and I want to use those two colors, with something else to give it "heft" for a quilt top. Something that isn't mint, turquoise or baby-yellow - my current 3 favorite colors to use.
I'm not usually a "pink" kind of person. There's some of it in my house, but I prefer yellow roses to pink or red - I prefer mint green to rose or pink sheets or pillows.
Pink yellow and mint is too infant-like. It needs something "meaty" - but not depressing. I don't do browns, although I'm sure those 2 colors would look nice with a tan or beige. Black is too hard to work with, and I'd worry about color bleeding.
Dark teal is a possibility, although that has color bleeding issues too. But that's pretty close to turquoise, and I'm trying to avoid that.
This is going to take more thought.
(Oh and for those of you who are about to make a snarky comment about this coming so soon after my post about UFO's - I already have the fabric!!)
716 days
And bright canary yellow.
But that's too "girly cute" - I need something to balance out all the sugar and spice and everything saccarine... Besides of which, I've already got the triple irish chain variation in the works with raspberry, lime, lemon and bright fucking orange.
Somebody had trash bags at the curb this morning with different colored "cinch sack" pull-ties, bright pink and bright yellow. They looked so delicious waving in the cold breeze, and I want to use those two colors, with something else to give it "heft" for a quilt top. Something that isn't mint, turquoise or baby-yellow - my current 3 favorite colors to use.
I'm not usually a "pink" kind of person. There's some of it in my house, but I prefer yellow roses to pink or red - I prefer mint green to rose or pink sheets or pillows.
Pink yellow and mint is too infant-like. It needs something "meaty" - but not depressing. I don't do browns, although I'm sure those 2 colors would look nice with a tan or beige. Black is too hard to work with, and I'd worry about color bleeding.
Dark teal is a possibility, although that has color bleeding issues too. But that's pretty close to turquoise, and I'm trying to avoid that.
This is going to take more thought.
(Oh and for those of you who are about to make a snarky comment about this coming so soon after my post about UFO's - I already have the fabric!!)
716 days
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
UFO's in my closet - or... Procrastination and Aging
I have closets full of UFO's - UnFinished Objects. There's a lovely baby wall-hanging latch-hook rug that has never even been started, (the daughter is now 24 yrs old and married), the four or five embroidery kits that I have in various stages of completion, the 2nd of 2 counted cross-stitch pictures of rabbits and flowers for the downstairs bathroom, the current quilt on the frame, which has made it to I believe 2/5 of the rows completed, 3 other quilt tops waiting for sandwiching and quilting, along with fabric for another 8 or so tops, yarn for sweaters and baby clothes, the list goes on and on.
And the monstrosity - the quilt that refuses to get finished because it has a bad case of "Murphy's Law" Everything that can possibly go wrong with a quilt has with this one - including my having pinned it wrong and now having the top being about 10 inches too long for the backing and batt. (Don't ask)
I've made dozens of lists of the UFO's - trying to find a way to force my mind to work around the concept of actually FINISHING them before I start new things, or buy new yarn/fabric/whatever. It has thus far proved a futile effort. I can only take comfort in the thought that I am not alone. For every UFO in my closet, there are as many women just like me with a closet full of their own UFO's.
The big deal is, I really WANT all the things I "plan" to make with the yarn and fabric and kits and stuff. (Bunny picture 2 will look adorable in the bathroom once it's finished!)
I'd love to hear from anyone who has suggestions on how to begin to cut this down some. For heaven's sake, I'm 50 years old - I've got to stop acquiring and begin finishing or I'm going to end up being one of those women you see their houses when they die and they're all full of some sort of bizarre collections.
And the monstrosity - the quilt that refuses to get finished because it has a bad case of "Murphy's Law" Everything that can possibly go wrong with a quilt has with this one - including my having pinned it wrong and now having the top being about 10 inches too long for the backing and batt. (Don't ask)
I've made dozens of lists of the UFO's - trying to find a way to force my mind to work around the concept of actually FINISHING them before I start new things, or buy new yarn/fabric/whatever. It has thus far proved a futile effort. I can only take comfort in the thought that I am not alone. For every UFO in my closet, there are as many women just like me with a closet full of their own UFO's.
The big deal is, I really WANT all the things I "plan" to make with the yarn and fabric and kits and stuff. (Bunny picture 2 will look adorable in the bathroom once it's finished!)
I'd love to hear from anyone who has suggestions on how to begin to cut this down some. For heaven's sake, I'm 50 years old - I've got to stop acquiring and begin finishing or I'm going to end up being one of those women you see their houses when they die and they're all full of some sort of bizarre collections.
Tony Blair Grows a Pair
Oh my my my
Tony seems to be pulling his head out of King George the Deciderer's ass!
First this - Blair to announce Iraq withdrawl plan - WHAT A CONCEPT!!! A PLAN!!! A plan with a definitive exit stratergy!!! Bush must be having spaz attacks in his cushy little oval office (wonder if he had the carpets steam-cleaned before he moved in, just in case of any lingering ... um... DNA... *giggle*)
Of course, Tony Snowjob at the Whitehouse is saying that Bush is trying to spin this as "proof of success" of his disasterous "plan" which is in fact no plan at all.
Then - no sooner does Tonyboy Blair get on that, than the UK reports Blair bypasses Bush to build a consensus on climate change Oh, Tony... Tony... Tony... Too little too late.
No wonder Laura looks like she's doped to the eyeballs every time she appears - you'd HAVE to be in order to live with what must be a raving, drooling, slavering madman 24/7.
718 days
Tony seems to be pulling his head out of King George the Deciderer's ass!
First this - Blair to announce Iraq withdrawl plan - WHAT A CONCEPT!!! A PLAN!!! A plan with a definitive exit stratergy!!! Bush must be having spaz attacks in his cushy little oval office (wonder if he had the carpets steam-cleaned before he moved in, just in case of any lingering ... um... DNA... *giggle*)
Of course, Tony Snowjob at the Whitehouse is saying that Bush is trying to spin this as "proof of success" of his disasterous "plan" which is in fact no plan at all.
Then - no sooner does Tonyboy Blair get on that, than the UK reports Blair bypasses Bush to build a consensus on climate change Oh, Tony... Tony... Tony... Too little too late.
No wonder Laura looks like she's doped to the eyeballs every time she appears - you'd HAVE to be in order to live with what must be a raving, drooling, slavering madman 24/7.
718 days
Monday, February 19, 2007
Dancing Silhouette people
Some mortgage place has them. On seriously annoying animated banner ads. DeadEye used to use one for an avatar on the message boards. Now MickeyD’s has them on their burrito stickers. Another stupid banner ad for a Singles Service . They’re all over the net, on billboards – and now on my freaking BREAKFAST.
What is with these anorexic silhouette dancing people? Why all the silhouettes? Why no features? Whatever ad agency thought this one up needs to be deported. Rubbish. Utter Rubbish.
720 days
What is with these anorexic silhouette dancing people? Why all the silhouettes? Why no features? Whatever ad agency thought this one up needs to be deported. Rubbish. Utter Rubbish.
720 days
Friday, February 16, 2007
CHARGE!!!!
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.
Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else. "
Theodore Roosevelt
Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else. "
Theodore Roosevelt
The Power of Bloggers
Yesterday's post had to do with a subject dear to my heart - how many (usually men) view women in positions of authority and power as being whores and bitches. This disgusts me on many levels, not the least of which is that most of those women had to work three and four times HARDER than any man, to attain the same level of authority.
Today, I am partially pleased.
The offensive card has been removed from the American Greetings "Blue Mountain" website.
Too little, too late, however. I will still boycott their products and have letters in the mail to their advertisers.
The only place you can hit a neocon and have it "hurt" is in the wallet.
723 Days
Today, I am partially pleased.
The offensive card has been removed from the American Greetings "Blue Mountain" website.
Too little, too late, however. I will still boycott their products and have letters in the mail to their advertisers.
The only place you can hit a neocon and have it "hurt" is in the wallet.
723 Days
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