Orbiting The Moon

Happy Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T08:15:00.001-05:00

Here's another lovely country duet perfect for Valentine's Day. I don't care much for Carrie Underwood myself, but Brad Paisley is sexy, funny, talented, and best of all, he was born in that stellar year 1972. You know how I dig my birth year peers.

Current Moon Phase: Third Quarter 52% of Full

I Forgot......

2012-02-13T18:37:00.000-05:00

....how much I love Jason Aldean. Total hottie.

I think I feel a new country music phase coming on.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 58% of Full

Gen X Is Stoked Some More

2012-01-30T15:16:00.003-05:00

If Honda wanted to start a successful viral video campaign, I'd say they've done it. Ohhhh yeah.

Generation X is FREAKING Stoked

2012-01-28T11:00:00.000-05:00

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 27% of Full

Technophile

2012-01-20T18:43:00.000-05:00

I love technology. Whether it's the latest social media sensation (I am still afraid to try Pinterest for fear of obsession), or the possibilities of cell phones, smart phones, net books, and tablets, I marvel at it all--and embrace all I can afford.

Anything I can do online is better than anything I can do in person.

Yeah......I'm that girl.

Awkward, reclusive, shy.

I do not care. I embrace that. I'm the one who thinks online pizza ordering is maybe the greatest thing to come out of the 21st century.

In this spirit, I recently decided to divest myself of all physical compact discs. My collection was probably modest compared to most. I had about a hundred CDs--not accounting for multiple disc sets--and the discs themselves ran the gamut from circa 1990 to circa 2007 when I started using iTunes. When imported into the latter, it amounted to about 2,100 songs.

After performing the aforementioned import, I took the CDs to Half Price Books where they gave me $75.00 for the lot. That's what your old CDs are worth (unless you go the ebay route and target people who are actively looking for something)--less than a dollar a piece. I'm not complaining. It was $75.00 I didn't have, and the removal of clutter in my home is--as Visa says--priceless.

Still, how freaking old am I? I was already on my way to college when I got my first CD and CD player, and now the technology is practically obsolete. OLD! (Are you sensing a theme emerging for my blog this year?)

I write all this to say that in the wake of this physical music divestiture, I've got another project brewing. Alongside the Great DVD Rewatch (or DVDs Revisited in the side bar), I'm going to try to listen my way through all of the 2,000 odd songs on my iTunes. This comprises music I've purchased digitally since 2007 and all those CDs I carted around from place to place over the last 22 years.

It won't be a quick project. I use my iPod almost exclusively to listen to pod casts on the bus during my work commute, so music is reserved for when I'm cooking or doing dishes or performing other household tasks. (For those of you thinking, "judging by the state of your house that's not much time devoted to music," just go right ahead and Shut. It.) Even so, I can get a few songs in a night and somehow, someway make my way through the list.

I've sorted it alphabetically by album title. I have too many mass collections of one artist (DMB, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Dashboard Confessional, Bowling for Soup) to keep it an interesting mix. Sorting by number of times played results in the same since so many of the songs have never been played. So alpha by album title was the best compromise. I'll keep track of the albums I've revisited on the side bar under Digital Music Project 2012.

Right now I'm making my way through Across a Wire: Live in New York City (Disc 1), Counting Crows. Think I'll get through all of these songs in a year?

Rusty

2012-01-20T14:11:00.000-05:00

What is life like right now, you ask? It's a question that requires some thought, but if it won't offend the whims of fate, I hope I can say that it's actually fairly good.

It's not a secret that 2011 was an absolute shit year for me. The worst I've been through in my almost forty years. A year like that takes recovery. Even when the immediate Bad Stuff is passed, you're left a little broken and a lot bruised, and this concept of A New Normal becomes really......well....real.

Fortunately, life does go on and breaks and bruises heal. I'm certainly not the same, but if only through the miracles of modern medicine (read: anti-anxiety meds!), I think I'm a happier person on this side of things. It's true that I was disengaged and pretty uninvested in most things through the second half of last year--both work and play--but I think I've finally begun to come back around. I haven't made it through an entire book yet, I've not been able to stitch consistently, and I still watch too many Cooking Channel shows and reruns of Mad Men, but there has been progress. I started a new stitching project. I've gotten about half way through a romance novel. I'm keeping up with most of my DVRed shows.

Progress.

And work is actually better than ever. Busier than ever maybe too, but I'm happier there than I've been in a long time. Maybe it's because the bleak financial picture is a little brighter. Or because we've got some bright and shiny new technology endeavors that keep me happy. Maybe it's because I've discovered I enjoy updating web sites (not designing them, mind you; I suck at graphics and art of any kind). Or maybe it's just because I'm going to be forty-freaking-years old, and when you find yourself almost half way to your pension you realize you better start enjoying what you're doing because this is probably all there's going to be career-wise. Don't think I mean that in a negative or bleak way either. I'm thankful for my job, and there's not a whole lot more I've ever wanted. I'm just trying to point out that impending middle age does change your view point in unexpected ways, and for me, finding a renewed joy in my work has been a bonus.

So. Yeah. Forty. Middle Age. Could this actually prove to be a new adventure?

We shall see.

Current Moon Phase: I don't know. It seems my cable is out. JOY. First time I've felt inspired to blog in a while, and that happens. Not a good sign, eh?

New Year Resolutions

2012-01-10T10:02:00.000-05:00

Everybody's busy making them, and even busier blogging about them. I could make a resolution to blog more.

But I think this sums it up much better:

Just as a side note: I could care less about the show that sponsored that particular card, but you gotta love someecards. They are way better than Hallmark at expressing what I'm thinking.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbou 98% of Full

Testing 1,2,3.....

2011-12-26T12:39:00.000-05:00

We had a very nice Christmas here in The 'Burbs. I'm not gonna lie, Marge, this year has not been kind to us or David's family in general, so it was nice to spend a quiet Christmas Day with his mother, sister, & his sister's kids.

Probably my favorite gift is a Kindle Fire which brings me to this post. If I can blog from this wonderful device, my contentment will know no bounds. Maybe I will even get my blogging mojo back.

I hope you all had equally wonderful holidays, and let's hope next year is a better one.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 5% of Full

Sent from my Kindle Fire

The Best Christmas Post EVER

2011-12-24T13:41:00.000-05:00

So my brother has posted a truly heart warming pictorial history of Christmas Family Christmas's Past. If you want a huge laugh at our expense check it out: Serene Musings Blog.

Enjoy!

Current Moon Phase: New Moon 0% of Full

So Cincinnati

2011-12-08T08:10:00.001-05:00

My absolute favorite guys from the Local 12, WKRC TV news team have been at it again. Take a gander and see why I love Best Traffic Dude Ever Bob Herzog and Best Weather Dude Ever John Gumm. Plus there's a great surprise at the end!

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous 96% of Full

DVDs Revisited.......AGAIN!

2011-11-30T08:49:00.001-05:00

If you were to search through the labels on my blog you would find not less than eleven posts about how I'm going to get my shit together and watch every DVD in my collection. There are five posts labeled DVDs Revisited (and a page on my blog found here), and there are another seven posts about the Great DVD Rewatch of 2010 which didn't turn out to be all that great after all.

The upshot of this is that while I've been writing about pursuing this DVD project for almost two years, I have managed to actually accomplish very little in the way of.....you know......WATCHING THE DVDs. Part of the problem, of course, is that I am Bat Shit Crazy. (And yes, that is a professional, clinical diagnosis!)

In this instance, what being Bat Shit Crazy means is that part of what has been holding me back (other than being bone idle and unable to ever fully commit to a course of positive action) is finding a METHOD by which to go about watching said DVDs.

I know what you are thinking? What sort of person needs methodology to guide her in doing something that is by it's very definition supposed to be an enjoyable, care free, and slacktastic endeavor???

Please see Bat Shit Crazy above.

ANYWAY, long story short (too late!), I recently received the wonderful gift of the 8 DVD box set of all the Harry Potter films, and I have commenced watching them all in preparation for finally viewing the last movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. This has set me to thinking--again--about the whole DVD Rewatch project, and one night a random thought about randomness randomly popped into my random brain:

RANDOMIZE!

I'd been struggling to come up with a way to watch the DVDs in a completely random order rather than be bound by alphabetization--especially since the latter only makes me watch the A movies over and over every time I start and stop this stupid project. I've puzzled and puzzled and even sought input from others (thanks for NOTHING, MOPH!), and in the end, it only took me 730 days to come up with the bright idea of..........using the Internet.

I know, I know--my ingenuity knows no bounds.

So, I Googled "randomize" and came up with random.org. I took a minute to scribble down the fifty four movie titles in my collection*, popped them into the text box on the site, and hit RANDOMIZE. Voila! I copied the results, deleted the meager contents of my DVDs Revisited Page, and posted the list.

Finally! I can actually take a real stab at doing this thing!

Well, as soon as I get through the 8 Potter movies.

And, if I don't confuse things by feeling obligated to watch my traditional Holiday Season Movies--Bridget Jones and Love Actually--right out of the gate.

Or, if I don't get bogged down in the fact that my DVR is 70% full.

So........stay tuned!

I think.

*This does not include any of the television series DVDs I own. That will just have to wait for another project. (HA!)

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 31% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-10-16T12:50:00.002-04:00

Here we are again in Status Symbol Land. There's so much to say that I haven't been saying lo these many months that it's a little hard to get my footing and know where to start. I guess I could start with the fundamentals--my kitchen Window to the World. The view from there has changed a bit since I last typed about it.

Landscapers came during the summer and made over our yard. They pulled up the railroad ties that cordoned off the huge vegetable garden that has been more a huge garden of weeds during our tenure in the house. They did some complicated earth moving maneuvers with big machines to level out the land and then laid down weed killer all over that part of the yard and planted grass seed over that. Now, some two months later, you can't even see the ghost of that old garden. (The symbolic implications of that being a little sad to me, but that's for another post.) Our yard is just one big stretch of lawn all the way to the back fence that borders on Hillbilly Slim's place.

Speaking of whom, the landscapers also cut down all the weeds that were growing along the fence line we share with him and took out a hardy but gnarled tree that had spontaneously taken root and grown up through the links of the fence. They cut down a big old tree that sat along the River Road side of the yard, trimmed all of our bushes, power washed the house and the patio and carport concrete slabs, and did some trimming work in the old tree out front that had previously sheared partially off in The Wind Storm. The upshot of all of this is that the old homestead is looking pretty good right now, even two months in, and when I look out the Window to the World, there's grass and grass and more grass.

Plus, in a really weird turn of events, my green plants have died and come back this year. I'm talking about the two hosta pots and the clematis in the old barbecue grill. I think it will come as no surprise that I failed to do the proper amount of watering in late May and all of June. I was no great shakes in July either if we are being really honest. And the truth, of course, is that I'm not the most diligent waterer even in a good year, so that it's not unusual for my hostas and the clematis to have seen their better days long before the heat of August sets in. This year, they were as brown and dead as dead could be 'round about the time the landscapers came. Getting into the spirit of the thing I went out and pulled and snipped and generally pruned these plants back to the verge of death and figured we'd start again next year as we always do.

Only.....both hostas and the clematis came back--just up and started re-budding/blooming/leafing (whatever the eff green plants do) like it was May 15, not the dog days of summer.

So here we are in the middle of October and I've got green plants, bursting up out of their containers like it's nuclear spring.

Symbolic much, Elissa?

In other news, I have been woeful about just about everything lately. I couldn't tell you the last time I finished a book. I've picked up and discarded a library's worth of them, but nothing engages. If you check out the Reading list on the side, you will see that the last book recorded was at the beginning of August. Since then I did re-read Stephen King's Carrie, but other than that, I've borrowed and returned library books without number, having completely failed to crack more than the first page of any of them. Right now I have The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian sitting on the coffee table. I got it a week ago and haven't gotten past the inside blurb on the dust jacket.

I've not been any better about television or DVDs. I didn't pick up too many new series this Fall TV Season (Pan Am, Suburgatory, Last Man Standing, American Horror Story--which is so gruesome, I don't know if I can stick with it--The Office, BBCAmerica's Bedlam, and Grimm and Once Upon a Time which haven't actually started yet), but I'm not managing to keep up with any of it. I'm several weeks behind on almost everything but the few half hour sit-coms Ky and I watch together. Part of the reason is that I have finally really committed to getting the amount of sleep I actually need, which for me turns out to be a pretty consistent nine hours a night. This means that I've been going to bed on work nights no later than nine o'clock, and often, even earlier than that. When you factor in the hour commute from work, dinner, dishes, and anything else that needs to be done on an average night, that doesn't leave a lot of time for television (or reading or DVDs I don't guess!).

The news on the cross stitch front isn't a whole lot better. I haven't consistently picked anything up for ages now, and I have plenty of projects that need attention!

Then there's the house cleaning bit. HA! Don't even ask me about that. If my leisure pursuits have fallen seriously fallow, you can place bets on how the housework has gone lately.

BUT, it's a new day isn't it, and I think I'm ready to get myself back in the groove of things. The Boyfriend is well, the school year is sufficiently underway to have gotten past the madness, and I'm ready to take any mid-life crisis to which I might be trying to succumb by the horns. All of this moodiness, anxiety, and introspection has got to be worth some sort of I'm-Almost-Forty Renaissance, and I'm here to declare its beginning. I'm going to refashion my DVD Rewatch program (don't know how, so suggestions are seriously welcome), plant my ass in a chair for some reading time, think about seriously taking up walking on a daily basis, spend some quality time--cross stitch in hand--with my DVR, and clean this fucking house!

How's that for getting back on the horse?

Horse, bull? So what if I'm mixing my metaphors.

And I'll try to take some pictures for the next post to break up all this monotonous text.

Can't make any promises about the monotonous content though.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous, 88% of Full

PS: Just a quick comment on Blogger's new posting interface--if a random set of mistaken key strokes can cause the deletion of large chunks of text in the blink of an eye, I think someone needs to rethink some things or feel my wrath.

Just sayin'.

This Blog is Not Dead

2011-10-02T15:17:00.001-04:00

I hope that the fact that I have to write a post with such a title isn't an indication that my years of blogging are coming to an end. I certainly do not want that to be the case. Still, it's hard to ignore my lack of posting or the dearth of ideas that tap me on the shoulder and say, "Hey, blog me, please."

All I can say is that when something huge happens like The Boyfriend's accident and hospitalization, it takes a lot longer than I would have predicted to get back to a baseline of normal. Don't worry for him. He's doing great--really completely recovered--but I guess my own sense of balance has taken some time to level.

With the economy in the toilet, lots of people are throwing around the term "the new normal", but I've been working on getting back to the old normal these last months. The good news is that I feel like I've turned a corner. Maybe it's the dawning of my favorite month, October, or the cooling of the weather or the arrival of new network TV shows or the fact that I fixed my broken bedroom television all by myself (by plugging it in--genius!).

Really, who knows why, and I don't care about reasons, I just hope this is the real deal, and I'll be back to Pleasant Valley Sundaying soon.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 36% of Full

New Year Resolutions

2011-08-20T17:54:00.001-04:00

I know that just last week I said that I wasn't going to bother with birthday resolutions this year, but as it turns out, you can't teach an on-the-cusp-of-middle-aged dog new tricks. The thing is, because I was born in late August, birthdays didn't just mean a new year of my life, but also always meant a new school year.

And I'm a sucker for the start of a new school year.

Freshly sharpened pencils, pristine notebooks of blank white paper.....the whole thing. Growing up, every year I was determined to be the best student ever. Sure, it wore off by mid-September, but I still live on an academic calendar, and I'm still making resolutions to myself about how I can be better.

I say all this to explain why I have done the following so far today:

washed two loads of dishes
thrown three loads of laundry in the washing machine
baked eleven chicken breasts
made a double batch of tuna salad
made a single batch of chicken salad
cleaned the floor
wiped down the fridge
put out the Autumn decor
watered the house plant
fed everyone in the house
blogged
caught up with my Twitter stream

Not bad for someone who didn't get up until almost 2 pm, eh?

But lest you are underwhelmed, here's what is still on my list:

put another load of dishes into the dish washer
complete six more loads of laundry
change the sheets
clean the bathroom
organize my bag for work on Monday
prepare lunches and breakfasts for next week
load my iPod with my back log of pod casts so that I will have something to listen to when I take my inaugural bus ride to work next week

Now I'm not a particularly energetic sort, so the fact that I'm brimming with all this cleanliness, organization, and self preparedness must mean that I'm ready for a new school year, Autumn, and another birthday.

Some things never change.......even when you're on the edge of forty.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 60% of Full

P.S. Yes, you read that right. I am committing to taking the bus to work this school year. There's a shuttle that runs between the campus that's about three minutes from my house and the one where I work. I've talked about doing this before and chickened out, but this time I've even scouted out the bus stop where I'll need to catch the bus in the mornings, so wish me luck!

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-08-14T12:35:00.000-04:00

It seems that it's harder than I thought to get back into the blogging groove. This summer seems to have been characterized by time getting the best of me--though in some respects that has not been a bad thing--and that has extended to my taking the time to jot down things here. Even now I'm sitting here a bit stymied as to how to proceed, and that rarely happens when I blog.

Oh well. Enough navel gazing.

Like it or not (I like it!), Summer, she does wane. At work, first semester starts up a week from tomorrow. Fortunately, I'm always all about Autumn blowing in because otherwise I feel like the the months since school ended have been a blur. It's certainly been plenty hot, but otherwise--understandably--this season has barely even registered with me.

Summer's end always means another birthday for me, and this year I'll be 39. In the spring, I spent not a little time thinking about that number and feeling like I needed to come up with the ubiquitous things-to-do-before-I'm-Forty list. It seems to be the fashion these days to approach Forty with this focus on renewal and personal growth, but I wonder if that's not just a massive rationalization in order to cope with aging and all the unfortunate associations our culture places on this one thing that is universal and inescapable?

But there I go navel gazing again. My point is that I've abandoned the introspection for now (this massively introspective post aside), so check back with me in about a year, and we'll see what is what.

I've not been very consistent with my stitching or my book reading this Summer, and re-watching Mad Men still is about all the television I manage to get in. I've been going to bed early (I guess self renewal isn't completely crossed off my to do list), and it's amazing (and perhaps depressing?) how little time there is for anything when you come home from work, take care of dinner and its clean-up, and then go to bed by nine o'clock. It would be one thing if the early-to-bed routine made the early-to-rise ritual easier, but after nine hours of sleep, I still hate getting out of bed in the morning. How is that fair? But I'll keep doing it because I've finally gotten to a place where I worry that staying up will make me feel the worse for wear the next day. I think this might be yet another sign that I'm OLD!

Anyway, I am stitching--and on quite a large number of things--so I need to get some pictures up here. I'll make that my goal for the week, and we'll see how that pans out. It's the same story with the reading. As I posted yesterday, I'm trying to carve out more time to do that, so that my 2011 Reading List doesn't look so pathetic in another four months.

To sum up, I guess I'm not going to be Forty and fabulous, but at least I managed to post today. It's the little things, right?

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 99% of Full

Book Update

2011-08-13T14:57:00.000-04:00

I haven't done much reading this year. 2011 is on the wane, and I'm still clocking in at under 20 books. Pretty pathetic. I'm trying to remedy that and get some of the half-read things languishing on the coffee table finished, so I figured it was past time to update my 2011 Reading List. Check it out if you're so inclined.

Current Moon Phase: Full Moon

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday: I'm Still Here

2011-07-17T14:38:00.000-04:00

Did you miss me? Wonder where I'd gone? Even notice my absence?

Whatever the answer, here I am. I certainly didn't mean to be gone so long and have had a bit of a struggle figuring out how to get started up again.

In late May, The Boyfriend had an accident here at home and ended up in the hospital for an extended period of time. For six weeks I pretty much lived at the hospital, dined in my car, and was only home long enough to sleep and shower. The good news is that he has recovered and has been back home for several weeks now, and I can't adequately describe to you what enormous joy I find in the boring, mundane, and monotonous aspects of life these days. It's amazing how crisis will turn your perspective on things right around, and if I take anything from this awful experience, I hope it's the ability to hold on to the enormous appreciation I currently have for things like getting up early for work, laundry, and dirty dishes. These are a few of my least favorite things, but I'll take them any day over institutional air conditioning, hospital gowns, and IV poles.

But enough about that. While our life was On Hold, Summer arrived, a very dear friend moved away, The Boyfriend's mother got Legionnaire's Disease (!!!), and Yours Truly finally succumbed to the siren song of the anti-depressant. Can you blame me?

It's been a positive decision though, and one that was a long time coming. Last winter was fairly rough for me and left me on the verge of seeking some professional help. The Accident was really just that proverbial straw, and while I'd undo the struggles of the past two months for both of us if I could, I can't regret the positives that have come from it, and starting on a regimen of Lexapro is one of those. (Take note, Peeps: this is as close as you'll ever get me to saying something about closing doors and opening windows and all that happy crap. Enjoy it while you can!)

My hobbies have, of course, fallen into decline lately. I read very little, stitched not at all, and couldn't summon the enthusiasm to do more than watch episodes of Mad Men (thank you, Mama, for all four seasons on DVD!!!) and Food(ography) on the Cooking Channel. (What can I say? I ADORE Mo Rocca.) I'm getting back into the swing of things though. I've decided to reread the Harry Potter series, and I'm currently working on a book about a serial killer who killed twenty-four patients at the hospital where The Boyfriend and I just spent a month of our lives. (What's strange is that I never thought much about that fact when we were there. I was fully aware of it, of course. The story was the hottest news going in this town when I moved to Cincinnati twenty three years ago, and at the time, my family lived right across the street from the hospital in question. I guess I just couldn't allow myself to think much about it while spending so much time in the place. Since The Boyfriend's discharge, I can't stop thinking about it. CREEPY!) I also seem compelled now to start five hundred new stitching projects, so I've pulled five new things out to add to the pile of works in progress. And, I'm finally working my way through the things that have accumulated on my DVR, so these are positive signs that life is returning to normal.

That's about all I've got for now. It's kind of a short post, but here's hoping that this is the most exciting things will be for a while.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 93% of Full

Tough Times

2011-06-07T23:15:00.033-04:00

If you've ever been through something hard....something traumatic....something you can't quite even wrap your brain around....then you've probably experienced the sensation of being alone in a crowd. You're watching people on television, fellow diners in a restaurant, co-workers in the office, or even your closest friends navigating their lives, and you think that there isn't a single problem on their horizon. At lease not a problem that even comes close to yours. You're separate....marked....alone with whatever beast has darkened your door.

I've been struggling with that beast for a couple of weeks now. How serendipitous (with a wink to MOPH) that one of my favorite bands has released a video this week that demonstrates what a fallacy of thinking that is. You may think that everyone around you is care free, but the reality is that you are less alone than you imagine.

Or at least, that's how I see it. Judge for yourself.

With thanks to Roy, Mama, Daddy, Cat Nip, and The Good Witch for holding me up right now.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 39% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday: Mother's Day Edition

2011-05-08T15:00:00.000-04:00

I've been MIA around ye olde blog lately, but it would be terribly remiss of me to miss a Mother's Day post. My mother is part of the reason that I haven't posted in a bit, as she and Dad were here last weekend, and I was spending time with them rather than my usual weekend wasted on the web. Mom was here through the week as well, so we had a very nice extended visit, found a cute little bakery/cafe in Glendale, and sold some poor sales lady at Ethan Allen a bill of goods when Mother engaged her extensive assistance in brainstorming couch ideas and failed to ever mention that she doesn't even live in Ohio. On Wednesday, Mom made a wonderful home cooked meal at my brother Roy's house. There is nothing quite like having your mother cook for you, so on this Mother's Day, I am thankful that I was able to have that this week.

I'll also send a shout out to the other mothers I know, and a double happy, happy to my friend Scarlett who is a mother and a birthday girl.

The academic year has come to a close once more, and as always, it sped by. Now the quiet of summer break in The West Wing and getting up a half an hour earlier to go to work. It's a nice thought--Summer Hours--and I won't complain about getting to leave work a half an hour earlier, but at the end of the day......well, the beginning really.....I'd rather have the extra half an hour of sleep in the morning. I have a hard enough time making myself go to bed at night. It's no fun trying to do it even earlier.

I just finished Rob Lowe's new book, Stories I Only Tell My Friends. It was very interesting to read this book after just having read Melissa Gilbert's autobiography last year. For those of you not in the know, the two had a very lengthy relationship in the 1980s. It was six years of on again/off again, mass infidelity, a broken engagement, and a miscarriage. It was such a prominent relationship I was even aware of it at the time. Gilbert spends a lot of time on it in her book. She is very in depth about the struggles of the relationship, layering the whole thing with lots of emotion. Rob Lowe barely even mentions it. He spends time describing some of his other affairs, but only off handedly mentions that, by the way, he was dating Melissa Gilbert for a while.

It's hard to know what to make of that. I'm flat out puzzled. How could you be with someone for six years and treat is as an afterthought. He's a recovering alcoholic who's pretty straight up about a lot of things and definitely a believer in the twelve steps of AA (which is interesting since he practically grew up with Charlie Sheen), so it surprises me that he's not more up front about a relationship that was a big part of his young adulthood.

Then again, it's not my life or my book, so who's to say what another person should or will dwell on when reflecting on his or her life. I did find it interesting that he appears to be a life long Cincinnati Reds fan, having grown up in Dayton, Ohio before moving to California when he was in middle school. It's also so funny to discover that Martin Sheen was a father figure to him growing up, and they somehow ended up playing the same sort of relationship out as President Bartlet and Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn on The West Wing. He has some very interesting stories not the least of which is his connection with JFK, Jr. at the very end of the latter's life or the fact that he flew back to California from Washington DC at the end of August 2001 on an airplane that would be flown into the Pentagon on September 11 with the same flight crew on board. He later found out that the terrorists were on his flight. That had been their dry run.

So, overall, a good but slightly perplexing read. Although, had I not stumbled onto Melissa Gilbert's book and read it first, I guess I would be none the wiser.

There's not a lot else to report. I saw The King's Speech, and it was fabulous; I've stitched on Village of Hawk Run Hollow, but I don't have a picture to show the progress; it has continued to do nothing but rain in the Ohio Valley; Derek and Meredith pulled the trigger and got legally married on Grey's; and it turns out that Patrick Dempsey can even make holding a baby look cute. He's something.

That's about all I got.

Except this. Happy Mother's Day, Mama!

She really is the best mother ever. :)

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 28% of Full

Very Sad News Today

2011-04-24T19:14:00.001-04:00

I am very sad to report this news taken from Miami University's News and Public Information site:

Miamians mourn the passing of Phillip R. Shriver, president emeritus of Miami University
04/24/2011
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Phillip R. Shriver, president emeritus of Miami University
Decades of students, staff and faculty are saddened to learn of the death of Phillip R. Shriver, president of Miami University from 1965-81 and professor of history from 1947-98, Saturday, April 23, in Oxford, at the age of 88.

The much-beloved Shriver was known for his deep fondness for Miami, respect for students, incomparable knowledge of history, and, over many decades, remembering the names of everyone he met.

Shriver taught at least one class every year except one during his 52-year career in the classroom, including the years during which he was Miami’s president. His first years in academia were at Kent State University, where he was a professor of American and Ohio history from 1947-65, becoming dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1963.

He is survived by Martha, his wife of 67 years, of Oxford, daughters Carolyn, Susan, Melinda and Darcy, and son Scott, and extended family.

An extended obituary will follow soon in the e-Report, as well as details on services or memorials.

I had the extreme pleasure of taking both his History of Miami course and his Ohio History class as an undergrad and am honored to now work in a building named after him. I think it's fair to say that he embodied the spirit of our institution for all the years he was with us, and his loss is felt keenly. Thank you for your warm smile and endless enthusiasm, your wonderful stories of Miami, and your always gracious manner. Rest in peace, Dr. Shriver.

The Ghost and Mrs. Smith Part The Second

2011-04-24T15:08:00.002-04:00

I know I'm missing my usual Pleasant Valley post for a second week in a row, but there's not a lot to say except that it's rained for forty days and forty nights, and I'm looking for an ark. (I know....wrong Bible story for today, but it is what it is. Whatever that means.)

Still, in looking back on previous years' posts I realize that I never really finished posting about my friend Cat Nip and the haunted house she lives in. If you don't remember or never read the original Ghost and Mrs. Smith post you can find it here: Part the First

I'm afraid I'm probably taking the lazy way out here but rather than attempting to regurgitate the next part of what Cat Nip shared with me, I'm going to quote what she told me in an email instead. I've edited it a bit for clarity and changed some names.

In the corner of our living room, which used to be the porch, we can smell pipe smoke. My mom actually pointed it out first. I had never noticed it before, probably because we used to smoke in the house. After I got pregnant, I quit smoking and Tom Cat quit smoking inside. In preparation for the baby, we pulled up all the carpet, got new furniture, and painted every wall. In my pregnant nesting phase, I even cleaned every piece of furniture and every closet--inside and out--with Murphy's Oil Soap, so I am confident that there was no residual smoke smell. Also, pipe smoke is very different from cigarette smoke, and this phantom odor is distinctively that of a pipe. My dad, who is also a skeptic, has smelled the pipe in the same spot. Tom Cat has smelled it, and I have smelled it a time or two. It is mostly noticeable when my folks are here to visit for some reason.

Before we had Cricket, we frequently had friends over on the weekends, and we would all hang out at the bar in the basement. On one of these evenings, the bathroom in the basement was occupied, so my friend, Lynn, went to use the bathroom upstairs, which is footsteps away from the spot where the ghost likes to stand. We had never discussed the ghost, because at that time, I had not had any real experiences in the house. When Lynn came back downstairs from the restroom, she said to me, "Who is Robert?" I heard her, but was trying to put what she said into context, so I asked her to repeat herself. She told me that there was a man upstairs standing near the bathroom, and he told her his name was Robert.

A year or so passes, and Tom Cat and I are attending a wedding. Afterward, we went to a local bar where I met the sister of the groom. Tom Cat had met her once or twice before, but he didn't really know her, and she certainly didn't know Lynn. She also had never been to our house. After the bar closed, we invited The Sis and her husband over to the house to hang out at the bar in the basement. The same scenario unfolds. The basement bathroom was taken so I told her where the upstairs bath was located. When she came back down, she said that there was a man up by the bathroom who told her his name was Robert.

Now it's getting weird, so Tom Cat and I started to do some research. This is when we found out that the house's original owner was a man named Robert. We have called the ghost Robert ever since.

Well, until Cricket [Cat Nip's daughter, who was one at the time of this recounting] started staring into the hallway and laughing and pointing to the blank wall where Robert likes to stand, saying, "Bob, Bob, Bob."

Spooky stuff, eh? Cricket recently turned two years old and has pretty consistently talked to Bob, waved at Bob, and run up toward his "spot" in the hall and babbled at him for her entire life.

I don't have nor do I offer any explanation for these events, but I still got chills when Cat Nip texted me the following a couple of months back:

I just picked up my phone, looked at it, put it back down, saw it light up again like I had a message, picked it back up, and discovered the mobile web browser was open. Typed into the search bar, it said: BbbObb.

Current Moon Phase: Third Quarter 53% of Full

Origins

2011-04-23T14:54:00.001-04:00

I just finished Sarah Addison Allen's book The Girl Who Chased the Moon. It was a nice enough read, but I only comment on it here because I was taken by the description of the August Full Moon and how its purported affect on people matches up with some of my own struggles. This prompted me to search the Internet to determine if I happened to be born during an August Full Moon.

On the night before I was born in 1972, there was a full August Sturgeon Moon. According to Allen:

Native American lore says that the sturgeon of the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain were most easily caught during the full moon in August. This full moon tends to make people feel restless and overwhelmed.

That says it somewhat, no?

Nevermind that I wasn't born anywhere near the Great Lakes........or even on this continent actually, but whatevs. I'm not completely immune to fairy tales. ;)

Fairy Tale Deja Vu

2011-04-23T11:45:00.001-04:00

I recently DVRed the latest made for television mini-series about The Kennedys. This version stars Greg Kinnear as JFK, Barry Pepper as RFK, and Katie Holmes as Jackie. There was some controversy surrounding the project. I'm not going to bother to Google it, but my understanding is that this was intended for a pay television channel like HBO, but after screening it, the Whoevers passed on it, citing some instances of the thing playing fast and loose with known fact. It ended up being picked up by the Reelz channel--a station I'd never even heard of--and I had to search by the title of the mini-series to even find it. Was it worth it?

Eh.

The most remarkable thing about it for me was to gauge my response to this story now versus my response to another made for television mini-series that aired when I was in high school. In that incarnation of Camelot titled simply Kennedy, Martin Sheen (in a foreshadowing of his later role as Josiah "Jed" Bartlet *squee*) played JFK to Blair Brown's Jackie, and that's about the extent of my memory of the thing except to remember how enamored I was of it--how much I believed in the fairy tale. That's what being sixteen will do to you. (Side note: IMDB says that this program originally aired in 1983, opening opposite The Day After. I definitely did NOT see it then--I don't think. I was only eleven at that time, and I don't remember being as caught up in the whole thing as I would become in 1988 when the media blitzed the 25th anniversary of JFK's assassination. I can only assume it re-aired then.)

JFK died nine years before I was born, but I became interested in him as an older child when my mother made me read a biography about him. (I suppose it's actually possible that this spring-boarded me into watching the mini-series when it originally aired, but that just doesn't ring true with me.) When the 25th anniversary of his death brought a lot of new programming and media attention in 1988, I completely fell into the thing--even seeking out the old copies of The Courier Journal and Louisville Times that my grandmother had squirreled away from that dark weekend in 1963. I thought it all so sad and tragic and terribly, impossibly romantic.

Poor Jackie! Poor beautiful Jack! Poor darling little saluting John John! (Depressingly, all dead now.)

Fast forward twenty three years, and it was definitely with a completely different sensibility that I watched The Kennedys on Reelz. I'll preface by saying that the acting was wonderful. If I can watch a movie with Mrs. Bat Shit Crazy Tom Cruise in it and not once think about that as I watch her on screen, then somebody is doing something right. This was primarily a story about Jack and Bobby, and Greg Kinnear, who I once wrote off as a fluffy talk show host, pretty much nailed the voice and mannerisms and schwooping locks of hair that defined JFK. Barry Pepper has been impressing me with his acting for years and while he was a little over the top intense in this, maybe Bobby Kennedy really was like that. Certainly many aspects of his character rang true with what I learned of him from Ted Kennedy's last book, True Compass, and good lord the man had eleven children! I'd call that pretty intense. (Aside: as much as I've read about the Kennedys I never absorbed the fact that Ethel was pregnant when Bobby was killed.)

Perhaps I was biased by the media surrounding this film, but while the acting was top notch the ability to suspend disbelief was not. There's a clear effort to cast Jack and Bobby as the devil and angel respectively in this thing. Bobby is such a shining saint it's almost painful. I get that Bobby really was very religious and very.....well.....intense about crusading for right and standing up to wrong, but in this instance the portrayal just makes him seem one dimensional. Jack on the other hand is this sort of impossible not to like guy who can't keep it in his pants, but on some level we are expected to understand that he's just weak and in pain and constantly needing conquest to validate himself. When he gets into hot water over it, it's all good because Saint Bobby is always there to bail him out. The same is true for his actual leadership in office. He's drawn as almost a puppet to his father--the back up quarterback who has to step in when his older brother is killed in World War II--and a prop of a president who is constantly having to be led in the right direction by his baby brother. Ultimately, I believe these real life people were much more complex than this.

Characterization problems aside, the smarmiest of the smarm comes toward the end. By some miracle of surely divine fate--a veritable deus ex machina--the marital problems that ensue from JFK's endless philandering are all neatly sewn up on the morning of November 22, 1963. Before going to speak at a luncheon in Ft. Worth, Jack tells Jackie that his hound dog days are done. He's devoted to her and her alone, and he'll spend the rest of his life being the husband of her dreams. Later, on the plane to Dallas, she looks at him with her big doe eyes and gushes that she's the happiest she's ever been in her entire life (REALLY??? After he's promised to keep it in his pants HOW many times? When she just lost a child three months before?). And, finally, in the height of saccharine cinematography, in the limo in the Dallas motorcade as it turns toward Dealey Plaza, Jack impulsively grabs Jackie's white gloved hand--the clasp picturesquely placed atop a bed of roses she was given at Love Airfield. She turns to him in surprise, and they share a long, smoldering glance of love and purest connection seconds before he is shot dead. This latter is left off scene, but nobody who has seen the Zapruder film in all it's gritty intensity could fail to place that grim image up against this farce of a shot. Blood and roses indeed--capped off with LBJ calling Bobby from Air Force One to discuss taking the oath of office while practically rubbing his hands together with maniacal glee. I get that LBJ and RFK hated one another, but even I can't imagine old Lyndon was that callous just hours after the president had died.

In the end, as something of an amateur Kennedy buff, what do I take from all this? I've come to understand that it is no surprise that Joe Kennedy was a Hollywood man early in his life. It's no accident that there is this image of the Kennedys of Hyannis Port ingrained on the American consciousness. All those home movies of beautiful young people throwing footballs around on a lawn of endless green, beach picnics where chubby babies are bounced in the air, couples with their arms around one another in poses of seemingly endless adoration--was any of it real? Or was it all just the creation of the family patriarch who was determined that if he couldn't achieve the highest office in the land then by God his son(s) would?

Perhaps. But the take away seems to be that Joe Kennedy Sr. succeeded in making the world his stage. Whatever the good or bad or just plain sad there is in the Kennedy story, Americans--myself included--remain fascinated and willing to keep watching. The fact that an eight hour miniseries about the thing is still deemed worthy of producing all these years later is a testament to that. As is the fact that I watched it at all--jaded and fairy tale fatigued as I am now.

One last interesting parallel: like seemingly everyone in the world, I was up before daylight on the morning of July 29, 1981 to watch Lady Diana Spencer marry a prince. I remember the media coverage of their honeymoon, the day she left the hospital with her first child in her arms, and continued to follow the saga that was her life for good and for scandalous until she died in 1997. The eight year old me who watched that wedding with starry tears in her eyes, grew up in a world where the flaws beneath the fairy tale facade were played out for all to see. Much like my reexamining of the Kennedys, here I am at 38 with another royal wedding in the offing. Will I watch? Yes, I think I will......but I'm going to DVR it. Fairy tales are not cause for getting up early anymore.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 65% of Full

This is Me Sucking at Life

2011-04-10T17:26:00.000-04:00

It's true. I really am a terrible human being and an even worse friend and sister. So here are some belated shout outs.

My brother Roy took inspiration from my Psycho Van Creeper tale of woe to revamp his Twitter feed with hilarious results. He posted about this HERE, and the picture alone is worth the click through, Peeps. Take a look and get on board the Free Candy Van. You won't regret it.

Also, my BFF from college, Laura, recently jumped on board the Twitter, and I am thrilled to have her. Not sure if she intends to do much tweeting or, like some do, will just use it to keep up with others, but you can follow her anyway HERE.

My other BFF's daughter turned two two days ago, and I completely forgot about it because, as I've stated, I am a terrible friend. The worst. So here is a belated shout out to Cricket on reaching the ripe old age of twenty four months as you parent types are so fond of putting it.

Lastly, in a completely unenivromentally friendly move I just turned on my air conditioner in April. It's 81 farking degrees in the house, and I can't take it. I won't be winning any Al Gore awards this year I'm afraid. Does it count that I voted for him?

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-04-10T10:28:00.001-04:00

It's that time of year again when cars line up on Saturday and Sunday mornings all along River Road waiting for their turn to get into Joyce Park. The Boy Scouts are selling mulch and the dandelions are popping up every second on the lawn and I expect I'll stumble over our resident rabbit's nest of new bunnies any day now.

What this means is that I need to get to work feeding the roses and weeding the front bed--potting the pansies The Boyfriend's mother gave us and hosing off the patio furniture. That's why this will be a short post today, as I have yard work and laundry and a thousand other things to do.

I did want to take a moment though to point out one major failing of my character that I just discovered. I have a triumvirate of movies that I watch, without fail, every year: Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and Love Actually. All of these films star one Colin Andrew Firth with whom one has been in love since approximately 1997 when one presumably first saw Mr. Darcy jump into the lake. (Come to think of it, he jumps into the lake in Love Actually as well. Bless him, really!)

Also, it is important to note that I fell equally in love with the play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde in the Spring of 1993 when I was a junior in college and read the piece for my Victorian Literature class. (Little did I know that my professor had left his first wife for a younger model and was raising a new family! Oh the things one learns when one works for one's alma mater for a decade and more!) I thought Wilde was wildly amusing and still do. Such a shame that such an absolutely brilliant light with such legendary wit lived a life of some tragedy, but there it is.

At any rate, this play was made into a movie in 2002 starring.............Colin Firth!

I was ecstatic at this turn of events, and got the DVD as soon as humanely possible, so why oh why oh WHY have I let this languish on the shelf and rarely watched it. Silly Bridget! Well.......no longer. It is going in the pile of Must Watch Once a Year movies as will The King's Speech as soon as I get it in my hot little obsessive hand.

Mr. Darcy

Or Mark Darcy......I'll take him either way.

And the man continues to get better looking....not fair to all us mortals but very pleasing.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 41% of Full

And Because I've Been Remiss.....

2011-04-03T12:36:00.000-04:00

This:

With many, many thanks to alexoloughlinonline.com for the photo from the Australian version of GQ Magazine.

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-04-03T12:25:00.000-04:00

It's been my habit lo these two years or so to go back each Sunday and re-read any blog posts from previous years that fell within the date range of the upcoming week. Usually I've done this AFTER posting the day's blog, which is how I discovered last week that I am so circular I even post about French bread at the same time every year.

Today I thought I'd break with tradition and read previous years' posts first! Novel! In so doing I think it's fair to say that Mother Nature is a bit behind this year. The flowering trees and The Boyfriend's clematis don't seem nearly as mature yet as in years past. However, looking out the window, there is new growth now on the shrubs, and the hosta that I thought might have bit the dust from sharing space with a SKULL finally is emerging, and the grass is suddenly very green. Also, there is a man over at the Produce Stand with a metal detector fusting about in the grass. WHAT?? WHY???

Also from today's reread, I discovered that I was talking about Jerry O'Connell at this time last year or the year before much as I did last week when posting about the twenty fifth anniversary of the release of Stand By Me. I didn't mention him by name, but he's obviously a member of the cast and present in the picture I posted.

So once more I ORBIT!

The other thing of significance I found in last year's posts is that it's essentially the one year anniversary of my work on Village of Hawk Run Hollow. I'm not going to be winning any awards for stitching diligence, but I still manage to get some stitching in each week. Here's where I started:

And this is where I am after a year:

Kind of not a lot of progress for a whole 365 days, but there were lots of other things that I stitched during that time, and I always knew this would be a slow go. It's no less beautiful and enjoyable for it even if my usual crappy picture-taking doesn't do it justice.

In News from the 'Hood, I'm not really sure if Hillbilly Slim actually still lives in the house behind us or not. If you will recall it's his mother's home, and she's definitely not gone, but there was a Uhaul in the driveway a few weeks ago. I can tell you that there is a family of large plastic, pastel Easter bunnies currently living in the front yard.

A catalog of industrial parts was mistakenly delivered to me yesterday. The address was that of Old Man Jenkins, but it was addressed to a COMPANY. Now I know why he has all those appliances in his garage!

Meanwhile Grumpus or someone in the family has done a number on his SUV. The front passenger wheel is sitting at a very unnatural angle, and the car has been stationary for a week. But there I go CAR STALKING. Still, I don't think it counts when you're talking about the people who live around you. It's hard not to see what's right outside your window every day. And I can assure you that Psycho Van Creeper is not one of my immediate neighbors.

I'm reading Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe for probably the third time. And just like all the times before, I need a box of Kleenex on hand to get through it. I watched the movie again last Sunday as an accompaniment, and it holds up too while also requiring much tissue. I put some quick comments on it up under my DVDs Revisited file at the top of the side bar.

That's about all I've got. I've had this weird stomach thing going on the past couple of days. It was acute yesterday morning but then subsided, and now today it's back only much more minor in nature. I'm trying not to panic, but I rarely have stomach complaints. Roy has been having some prolonged stomach issues as well, so what's happening here?? Do I need to be concerned? Will I be whether I need to or not? Probably. The Boyfriend has actually taken to telling me that every symptom I complain about is cancer. His reasoning is that it's the first conclusion to which I always jump, and after a decade of living with me he's indoctrinated and a believer! I do see his point.

Current Moon Phase: New Moon 0% of Full

Stop Looking at Me!

2011-04-02T16:51:00.001-04:00

Several months after The Boyfriend was first laid off, we received a letter in the mail. Inside the business sized envelope with just our address on the front was a lined piece of notebook paper with essentially this message:

I notice that no one ever drives the SVT Focus in the driveway. Is the owner out of the country? If you're looking to sell, please email me.

What the living fuck? Who does this? Who watches people's cars and then offers to buy them when there's no For Sale sign anywhere in sight? Still The Boyfriend thought it was great fun. Then again, he once followed a complete stranger in an SVT Focus into the man's driveway to chat about the car, so I figured this was just more evidence that the insanity went beyond him.

Fast forward to two weekends ago. You'll recall that there was something wrong with my car. I finally quit driving it about a month ago--maybe six weeks at the most. It's Saturday and I'm going to the car--the Ford--to get in and go to the grocery when I hear someone yell, "Hey, Lady!"

I look up and there's this guy in an old mini van stopped at the end of the drive. He proceeds to tell me how he noticed that the "red car" never gets driven, and might I want to sell it? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK? First of all, I didn't know that "NEVER" was as short as six weeks, and second, why would you offer to buy a random person's car in a random person's driveway when it is not for sale???????? Why are you looking at my cars and making any sort of note of ANYTHING, CREEPERS????

I told him as politely as I could that the car was my car and was simply in need of repair and no, it was not for sale.

"Alright. But I sure would like to have it. It would be perfect for my daughter."

I'm really, terribly glad for you, Creeper, but I don't care. What does "not for sale" mean? Are you going to sit there idling at my curb and try to talk me into selling a car I OWN! ADORE (it's my third Accord)! AND NEED?

In the end, I didn't go with that retort and told him something benign about it not being for sale and soon to be repaired.

"Alright. But you let me know if you change your mind."

WHAT? How am I supposed to do that? Jot down your license plate??? Are you thinking about coming BACK??? UGH!!

Does any of this sound NORMAL TO YOU? Why are people stalking our vehicles? I can honestly say that no matter how many times I pass someone's driveway--unless there's an emergency vehicle of some sort sitting there--I don't pay any attention! Double UGH!

Still, I have to cop to the following. I got my car fixed last week, and when I went to get in it this afternoon for my trip to the Kroger, I couldn't help wishing Psycho Van Creeper might drive by so I could be all like, "Yeah, this is MY HONDA, Bitch!"

Yes, I'm a small human being lacking in character, but at least I'm not a stalker.

Witness Protection Program!

Disclaimer: Neither of these cars are for sale!!!

Many, Many Moons!

2011-04-02T11:39:00.000-04:00

So I just couldn't resist sharing this link with you to Kathy Barrick's blog. Kathy was the original designer for the many Carriage House Samplings pieces that I love (including Autumn and Village of Hawk Run Hollow). She's handed the reins of Carriage House off to her sister now and has taken up jewelry making. My mother has bought several very unique pieces from her and has been delighted with them. At any rate, the post linked above is a rundown of the meaning behind all the full moons of the year! Apparently this is derived from the book The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen.

I know what someone just requested from the library!

Anyway, if you love La Luna, check out the post and see what each full moon of the year portends.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 1% of Full

WTFBBQ???

2011-03-27T13:40:00.001-04:00

I know I've mentioned this on the blog before, but it's comical bordering on frightening how often I will look back on posts from the same time in previous years and find that I was writing about the exact same things I'm writing about now. This makes a certain sense when you think about the cyclical nature of things like the seasons and the school year and dental visits, but I shit you not: on this very Sunday LAST year I was writing about French bread. What are the fucking odds?! Yes, I like French bread, but I'm hardly obsessed! I don't think!!

What is at work in my brain that things are constantly coming around on me like this? Hell, I put ORBITING in the title of this blog without even realizing at the time that that is apparently exactly what I constantly do! How preciously prescient of me!

On another note, this story about my post man is just really worth reprinting:

Also, you can see over in my Twitter Feed that our Neighborhood Postal Worker was out and out NICE to me today. This is so completely fucked up! We've lived here for EIGHT YEARS, and he has never, not once for even a fraction of a nano-second been nice to me. I suspect he hates us because we have a door slot for the mail rather than a mailbox. He hates me double because on nice days I'll open the door but lock the storm door, and thus he can't get to our mail slot. He hates me triple because I've never given him Christmas money. (Do people still do that?) Today, I was almost guilty of pulling the locked storm door trick on him, but I happened to pass through the living room and see him coming. He actually smiled at me and made a comment about the weather! This is a far cry from the grim stare and barely audible grunt I'm normally afforded. I was quite surprised until I remembered that it's April Fool's Day, and I'm probably his idea of a pretty big one. As I posted on Twitter, he's probably hatching a plot to return and hatchet me later on today.

Original post found HERE.

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-03-27T13:03:00.000-04:00

I gotta tell you all, I'm not feeling particularly inspired today. I've got a back ache that I'm hoping isn't really cancer, and I'm pretty peeved about how cold it is. It looks so bright and sunny out there, and all sorts of green things are rearing their heads, and yet it's all just a great big almost-April-Fools-joke because it's only 34 bloody degrees.

Still the only New Year's Resolution I've kept is to blog at least every Sunday, so you're just going to have to deal with it.

I found a new to me product in the refrigerated section of Barney Kroger's Grocery Store yesterday. I really don't hang out enough in the refrigerated section it seems because I was a bit taken aback by all the varieties of cinnamon rolls and crescent rolls and biscuits. And, as it turns out, even Rustic French Bread. Like so:

I like French bread quite a bit more than is healthy, so I figured why not? Still, as I was unrolling the scary under pressure tube and cutting the obligatory gashes in the top of the dough and throwing it into the oven to have with this morning's scrambled eggs, I couldn't help but think about Julia Child. More specifically, I couldn't help remembering the section in her memoir My Life in France where she talks about the endless, endless, ENDLESS rounds of French bread she attempted in an effort to create a good recipe to be added to Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Since the book was aimed at teaching American women how to cook French cuisine, Julia had to come up with a way of getting French bread to cook properly in an American oven. There was apparently a big difference between the bread ovens used in France and your basic American Hotpoint. I think it had something to do with steam. Anyway, Julia and Paul struggled with trying to simulate the conditions of a French oven using American technology. It eventually boiled down to using cooking stones and figuring out which kind of stone was best (the one that worked best was an asbestos paving stone, but WHOOPSY that turned out to be carcinogenic!), and it was really something of a gargantuan struggle before they finally got it right (and cancer free).

So I was a little bit ashamed of myself for throwing a big old processed roll of tube dough into my American Frigidaire Self-Cleaning Oven when Julia worked so hard to make the perfect recipe for doing it yourself. If it's any consolation, Julia, I'm sure yours tasted one thousand infinities times better. It wasn't horrible, but it tasted like crusty............Pillsbury bread. You know--the same basic taste of their biscuits or crescent rolls. It was not the crunchy, light taste sensation that you get even from the grocery store bakery. Would I buy this product again? Survey says: No. Why would I when I can get fresh baked and better tasting bread by walking to the other side of the grocery store?

I started a new book this week, The Resurrection of the Romanovs: Anastasia, Anna Anderson, and the World's Greatest Royal Mystery by Greg King and Penny Wilson. Though they don't spend too much time on it, reading about the life and death of the last Russian tsar and his family is pretty brutal. I was somewhat familiar with the tale, but reading about it in detail was actually rather frightening. Which is an odd thing to say about something that happened a century ago in a very different world, but there it is. Maybe it's the swiftness and brutality of it all--how, in some ways, things can change on a dime. One day you are this splendidly wealthy royal family, living an unimaginably lavish lifestyle where gold and jewels fairly drip from the ornate ceilings and there's nothing much to do but vacation and feast and count your Fabergé eggs, and the next your gunned down in a dank, dark cellar without anyone in the outside world--even your royal cousins around the globe--doing much to stop it from happening. "Fragile as blown glass, we all are," as Stephen King once wrote in The Green Mile.

Speaking of whom, this:

This is the (living) cast of the wonderful 1986 coming of age movie Stand By Me based on the Stephen King novella The Body. This might have been a story written about Baby Boomers, but it hit us Gen Xer's right where we lived, since we were the twelve and thirteen and fourteen year olds watching the movie when it came out. This picture (and the very idea of the cast reuniting for the special edition blu-ray release of the film) fills me with all sorts of happiness and sadness all rolled up in one. Nostalgia, I guess that's called.

Plus I'll take any excuse to feature fellow 1972er Wil Wheaton on the blog. He is made of awesome.

There's little else to report. It's Reds Opening Week 'round these parts, so I'm sure that we'll have some pictures from our Reds Reporter in the Field, although he has his own blog to picture populate now, so we'll see how that shakes down. He's been cheating on the Reds with The Ministry video gaming club lately anyway, so let's hope Opening Day snaps him out of it! 'Til then......

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 38% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-03-20T12:49:00.000-04:00

Just some quick updates this week.

Television
Well, I finished the last episode of the last season of Thirtysomething. This show definitely hit its high marks in the the third and fourth seasons. Then again, by the time you get that far into a show, you are probably pretty invested in the characters, so that might be a factor as well. Still, I feel like things really got REAL in those last two seasons, and there were numerous times where I completely related to what was going on with a given person or situation. The very last episode was a little anti-climactic (and not really how I remembered it actually), but the truth is that this series didn't end with one big bang of a final episode or even two, but rather, it sort of closed itself down in all the episodes of the second half of the fourth season. On reflection, I think it was better that way.

As a side note, I don't think I saw Season Four when it originally aired. I have struggled over the last months to figure out how I could have. I was a freshman in college that year, and I didn't watch television almost at all over the course of that time. Unless my mother taped them for me, and I watched them at home during breaks, I'm starting to think that the only time I saw this season was in 1995 when Lifetime ran the series in syndication. If that's true, and if I didn't know about the tragedy that happens in the second half of Season Four, then my reaction in the summer of '95 must have been the longest-delayed "they did WHAT???" in the history of scripted television.

All that aside, this series stands up very well to the passage of twenty years time. Sure there are some fashions to giggle at and lots of techno nostalgia (answering machines, archaic computers with huge dot matrix printers, mobile phones as big as your luggage) and a real obsession with dangling earrings on the female cast, but aside from that the themes, the characters, the writing all still fit with post twentieth century sensibilities. As I have said before, re-watching this now as a thirtysomething myself has been revelatory in how much I can relate.

Finally, as I've alluded before, the one character with whom I most identified as a teenager and imagined was most like the person I'd turn out to be, Hope Steadman, is the character whom I cared the least about in watching this series again. She's also the character from whom I saw the most minimal growth. To my mind she really didn't change much at all from beginning to end and was ultimately kind of boring. I am much more of an Ellyn with a dash of Melissa's neurosis thrown in. Conversely, the character whom I HATED as a teenager, Gary Shepherd's wife Susannah, struck a lot of familiar chords with me. I totally got her this time around and recognized myself in some of her attitude. Funny the way it is, eh?

Super Full Moon
Not a lot to add from last night, but I did want to share this wonderful link to the NASA Flickr stream and a photo of the rising moon at the Lincoln Memorial in DC. This captures perfectly that red cheeked moon I was describing last night.

Books
I'm reading a Fannie Flagg book called Standing in the Rainbow that's been in my To Be Read pile for a long time. I can't even remember where I got it as I haven't really bought anything but romance novels in the last decade and even that has ceased in the last few years as I get everything from the library. My guess is I picked this up at a used book sale because I was such a fan of Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at The Whistlestop Cafe and Daisy Fae and the Miracle Man. Still, I hadn't read anything by her in years, and am delighted that this book is as funny and heartwarming and tear-jerking as what I remember of her other books. I'll be requesting her whole back list from the library.

Skeletal Heads
Well, the hostas are finally poking up out of their pot, and guess what? Remember the HEAD that was haunting one of the pots? It's gone! GONE! Not laying on the asphalt or in the grass as though knocked from the pot. JUST GONE! One explanation is that The Boys are having a laugh after all, but what if that squirrel--our squirrel to whom we feed peanuts--has buried that HEAD down in the pot!!!??? He spends a lot of time perched on the edge of it eating his peanuts and littering the soil with shells! Is it possible that my poor hosta pot is also a squirrel burial ground? And if so how much else has he buried there?

This Old House
Let's review our list, shall we:

washing machine
furnace
plumbing under the kitchen sink
shower/tub fixtures
fluorescent light over the sink
fluorescent lights in the laundry room
fluorescent lights in the downstairs bathroom
The Boyfriend's car
My car
the freezer door on the refrigerator (which I fixed in a fit of righteous anger by hurling my entire body weight dramatically against one side and tugging furiously on the other)
shutters on the front of the house
broken banister bracket on the stairs
HOT WATER HEATER

That's right. The hot water heater began leaking this week--the latest in a litany of home disrepairs to befall the household since August. I'd throw some hopeful statement in here about this being the last for a while, but I'm not tempting the gods or fates or whatever else because I think my clothes dryer is probably close to done for.

The Proposed Budget for the State of Ohio, Japan, Libya

I'd rather not spend the rest of this day in a slobbering anxious heap on the kitchen floor, so let's just pass on those topics, m'kay?

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 99% of Full

Live Blogging the Super Full Moon Part II

2011-03-19T23:33:00.001-04:00

Once the moon moved up a bit in the sky tonight, Ky and I both tried to get some pictures. He hasn't emailed me his yet, but I don't know that he was able to get anything that was much better than these shots:

These somewhat craptastic pics don't really convey just how eerily beautiful La Luna is tonight. There turned out to be some cloud cover after all and when those tatters of water vapor go drifting over that big bright light it makes for a stunning visual effect. Hopefully, wherever you might be, you can take moment to see it for yourself.

Oh, and my brother Roy is working third shift at St Mungo's Hospital tonight. Do you know what an emergency room can be like on the night of a full moon?? So far he says all's quiet, but I'm expecting a full report tomorrow!

Live Blogging the Super Full Moon

2011-03-19T20:30:00.000-04:00

I had about given up on being able to see the Super Full Moon as it rose, but it turns out I was just looking too early. It's almost full dark here now, so on my fourth trip out the front door, I ventured a little further down the driveway before looking east, and there it was fat and red as a rosy cheek. It's still fairly close to the horizon (from my vantage anyway) and is obscured some by trees and light poles and the other detritus of suburbia, but it's breathtaking. I tried to get a picture, but it's still too far away for Ky's iPhone. I will check again later!

Moooooooon!

2011-03-19T19:02:00.001-04:00

I suppose it would be remiss of me not to remind you all about the super full moon tonight. According to NASA, this is a rare perigee moon that only occurs every eighteen years and will be about 14% bigger than usual. The article goes on to say that full moons look naturally larger at the horizon as they rise, so dusk will be the optimal time for viewing.

Best Weather Dude Ever John Gumm said earlier in the week that the skies should be clear tonight, so step outside and gaze a while.

Current Moon Phase: Super Full Moon

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-03-13T12:48:00.000-04:00

Something is rotten in the state of Ohio.

Well, lots of things are fairly rotten all over the place right now, but I'm talking about the HEAD I found in my hosta pot!

Lemme 'splain.

Several years ago, my mother came to visit me and cleaned up my front flower beds, pulling out some things and planting new rose bushes. One of the things we pulled out were some hosta plants that had been along the borders. We threw some of them away, but I replanted some of them in two big ceramic planters that I put out on the back deck. They have faithfully come back year after year because even my indifferent gardening cannot kill them.

The other day, Ky was speculating that they would not come back this year. I scoffed and told him that if I went and looked I'd probably see the new shoots peeking up through the soil already.

I was wrong.

But there WAS something in one of the pots.

It was not a hosta.

It was a HEAD.

Okay, it was what had once been a head. It was the skull of some small animal--too big to be a bird, but maybe the right size for a squirrel. AND THERE WAS NO BODY!!!!!! This skull was just laying there upside down in this pot. How did it get up there???? And where was the rest of it?????

I had no answers to this, but when I instructed Ky to DO SOMETHING WITH IT, he informed me that he didn't DO bones. UGH!!!!!!!!

So I tipped the pot over and let the foul thing roll out. I couldn't bring myself to touch it, so I left it there laying next to the pot.

Several weeks passed, and I got it into my head that I should have Ky take a picture of the skull with his iPhone for blogging purposes. When I first suggested it, he ignored me and went on about his business--whatever THAT is--but yesterday he came in from the back yard where he had apparently gone to take the photo for me. He forwarded the picture to me:

Do you see what I see, Friends and Family??? THAT MOTHERFUCKING HEAD IS BACK IN THE HOSTA POT!!!!!!

I said to Ky, "Did you put it back in there??" He was all innocence. I asked The Boyfriend the same and got nowhere. They both claim they didn't do it.

Do I believe them?

Well, they both have a tendency to break into giggles when they have pulled one over on me, and I've caught onto them, and neither exhibited that particular tell when I asked them about this. So, I just don't know. But if they didn't do it, who or WHAT did????? AND WHY???? DOUBLE UGH!!!!!!!!!

Also, if anybody out there is an expert on skulls, do chime in on what this might be (with apologies for the bad contrast on the picture).

In other news, I managed this:

Lizzie Kate Stamp Flip It Months

I also finally realized that if you behave like a normal person and don't subscribe to every blog in the universe and therefore can actually keep up with your Google Reader without having to devote every minute of your life to it, then you can actually read books! And so I have done.

Not much else is worth sharing today, except for this: my brother wrote an absolutely beautiful but heartbreaking little blog post this morning. It is really, really worth taking a moment to read. Check out They're Sending the Old Man Home.

Current Moon Phase: First Quarter 57% of Full (And it was so bright yesterday I could see it in the sunny and clear sky of the afternoon from the parking lot at Barney Kroger's grocery store.)

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-03-06T11:44:00.001-05:00

First things first, even though he refuses to read my blog, a very happy birthday to Ky.

And to Jaret from the band Bowling for Soup.

Oh, and to my old neighbor at the Cocktail Condo, Pat Davis.

They don't read my blog either, but it's all good. Happy happy to you all.

Really other than that, I'm not sure I've got a lot to share today. I did finish a couple of books this week which I've thrown up on the reading list on the side bar. I also finished the witch block of Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow:

So I will finally be moving on to do some work on some of my other projects. I don't think I realized how prolific I was at stitching finishes last year until the slow pace on these bigger projects reminded me. Oh well. Still enjoying these Carriage House pieces too much to care.

Hollywood has left The Ministry. Friday's report from Romeo (my co-worker's husband who was actually on set working with the crew) brought news that Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, and possibly Marisa Tomei were on the scene. Romeo didn't actually know who any of these people were, so he couldn't have been less star struck! Anyway, that was the only day that particular segment of the cast was there, and when they were done doing their thing the trucks packed it all in, and Ryan and George and all the rest headed out into the sunset.

For something completely different (to badly quote Python), last night I discovered that an episode of American Experience about the 1918 influenza outbreak that I thought I had recorded was actually a non-American Experience documentary about TB. It put me in mind of my eerie obsession with the Louisville TB hospital Waverly Hills, and that sense of weird connection that I felt about the place. Then I started thinking about the similarly weird feeling of belonging or coming home that I have always felt for the town where I went to college and now work. This led me to remember that at one time there were not one but TWO sanatoriums on what is now the campus's East Quad, one of which is an extant residence hall today. If past lives exist, I speculated, is this the common thread that is bringing it all together??!!! I dashed off an email to The Griswolds about it and went to bed.

Only I got that kind of wrong.

Yeah.

The Retreat and its annex The Pines was a sanatorium alright, but it wasn't a TB hospital, rather it was (per Wikipedia) a "private hospital for the treatment of mental and nervous diseases, alcoholic, and narcotic inebriety". Hmmmmm.......

That puts a bit of a different spin on that whole theory, no?

By the way, I see you all nodding your heads and thinking " 'mental and nervous diseases' makes a lot more sense to this theory," and to you all I say, "SHUT IT!!"

Aside: what IS the difference between a sanatorium and a sanitarium? Apparently nothing, so why do we need two words? It does nothing but baffle the already confused mind of your average serious scholar doing all their research in a hurry on the Internet!

ANYWAY, the moral of the story is that perhaps my affinity for Waverly Hills and my affinity for northwest Butler County don't spring from the same past life after all. What a lovely theory it was though, right?

If you even believe in that sort of thing......which I really sort of don't, but this is one of those instances where I like to throw out that line from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, "Isn't it pretty to think so?" Or, for my fellow alums, "To think that in such a place, I led such a life," as Dr. S. would say.

But enough pointless babbling. I'm off to pick up some Chinese carry out for Ky's birthday lunch, and maybe I'll add another mile or two to that walking resolution at which I have, so far, failed parlessly, to quote Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones.

Toodles.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 3% of Full

Happy Meteorological Spring!

2011-03-01T18:51:00.001-05:00

I should also tell you that The Ministry is ALL aflutter (aTwitter, perhaps?) this week as George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, Paul Giamatti, and probably some other leading lights are in town filming a movie. On a campus our size in a town that's not much bigger, this is a BFD, IF you know what I mean (Money Pit Movie Mantra). My co-worker and I wandered the few blocks to today's filming location, and while we didn't see any of the pretty people, it was still exciting and surreal to see all the cables and spotlights and electrical trailers and catering trucks and the general hustle and bustle of a major motion picture set. I'll not labor on about it, but let's just say that it's quite the event in our little corner of the Northwest Territory.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 7% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-02-27T13:00:00.000-05:00

Not a lot to share this week, so we'll just hit the highlights.

Weather
We definitely seem to have turned some sort of corner now, and the weather continues to be mild. We're expecting severe storms overnight though with the dreaded word Wind thrown in for good measure. I think I'll sleep on the couch.

Books
Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing to show for my sorry ass self. I STILL have not finished the Julia Child book. I gave up on The Winds of War entirely. And even the romance novel I started is languishing. What am I doing with my life?! Spending way too much time on the Internet for one.

Movies
Same story here. We recently began subscribing to Netflix, and my M.O. is to get a movie in the mail, let it lay neglected on the DVD player for about two and three quarters weeks, then mail it back unwatched. What SENSE does this make???? The current film is Toy Story 3. Will I watch it today? I wouldn't place any bets!

I did watch a little bit of the Money Pit last night using the Netflix streaming feature. I forgot how much I love that movie. "Usually when a woman calls a carpenter she's looking for the old hammer and nail.....if you know what I mean." Gotta love the Shirks.

Oh, and tonight is the Oscars which I will be DVRing so I can fast forward through nine tenths of it because I could give a fuck, but I do want to see Colin Firth, and I do want him to win for a movie that I have not seen but am convinced I will adore!

Television
I don't even remember the last time I watched an episode of Thirtysomething. Another area in which I suck. Though to be honest, I am getting mighty short on unwatched episodes of this. The final season is winding down and the unspeakable is about to happen, so maybe I'm just scared.

Stitching
The one area where I actually have progress!

M O O N

Walking

Well I've put in 2.07 miles so far this year. How's that for fitness??

Car

Still needs to be looked at. Hope to get it in this week.

Google Reader

I finally had to do the difficult and mark a lot of what was in there as read without reading it. I also had to unsubscribe to a lot of things because it was just out of control. When you are neglecting everything else in your life to read blogs, and you can't even keep up with that, then you've got a problem! Find me a twelve step support group!

Blog Background

I've changed it again. Not sure I like how dark it is, but it's more fitting to the theme of the thing I guess than changing it with the seasons. I don't know if I'll keep it or not.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 23% of Full

Pimpin' Ain't Easy

2011-02-26T10:51:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've sung the praises of my favorite blogs, so I thought I'd take a minute to direct you to some of the content that I always look forward to when I'm stomping 'round the Internets.

First up, my BFF Cat Nip is revamping her blog. She's on a mission to save money and eat clean, and she's going to share that journey on her blog. We're still working on a new name and look for the site, but stop on by in the interim. She's put up a great recipe for cheesy chicken, and if you have an idea for a new blog header, comment and let her know. Cat's Got My Tongue: http://catsgotmytongue.blogspot.com/.

If you're interested in academic discussions of theology, history, Egyptology, or just want to hear him bitch and moan for a bit, visit my brother Roy's blog. He's recently moved into a new house where he's set up a "man cave" in the basement, the better to completely alienate himself from his family. Hopefully this means that he will start blogging a bit more before he ends up in family court for being completely out of touch. Serene Musings: http://serene-musings.blogspot.com/.

One of the most uplifting blogs on my Google Reader is written by a friend from high school. The Rev was in a church youth group with me and Roy back in the day, and now he's.....well.....a reverend. Thus the name, right? Anyway, his posts always give me a better perspective on the trials and tribulations of Being with a good dose of humor thrown in as well. His Ketchup posts are some of my favorites. Sincerely Christian: http://adiaphthoria.wordpress.com/.

She doesn't post enough, but if you want to see some beautiful needlework, lovely pictures of the the stormy British countryside, or catch up with the adventures of one seriously fat and spoiled cat, don't miss my own dear Mama's blog. My Needle and Thread: http://anniesneedlework.blogspot.com/.

For any romance readers out there, I've been reading Super Librarian Wendy's blog for years and years now. She's actually pretty famous as fame goes in the world of Romancelandia blogs and other on line things, but I'll pimp her anyway because she's just that good. The Misadventures of Super Librarian: http://wendythesuperlibrarian.blogspot.com/.

If you like knitting, cross stitching, or all things generally crazy pants, I've got two blogs for you. Read about the misadventures of a spinster stitcher and her dog deep in the heart of Hoosier country or the zany antics of a Southern Bell transplanted to LA who once styled herself as "drunk, divorced, and covered in cat hair". Spinster Stitcher: http://spinsterstitcher.blogspot.com/. Crazy Aunt Purl: http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/.

Finally, here are some blogs from friends who don't post often enough, but it's worth checking it out when they do. Like movies, pop culture, gaming, and the Cincinnati Reds? A Single Short of the Cycle: http://asingleshortofthecycle.blogspot.com/. Want to learn more about Marlowe's adventures as a baseball widow and nontraditional student? A Bump in the Road: http://abumpintheroad-jennifer.blogspot.com/. What's life like when you've got two boys and a brand new set of triplets, plus you have to endure being related by marriage to my brother? The Pearce Peeps: http://pearcepeeps.blogspot.com/.

So that's the items of note today. I read some other blogs as well, and you'll find those listed in the blog roll on the side bar. Happy reading!

Novice Blogger

2011-02-26T10:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, MOPH approached me about a little project involving ring tones that I had set him on a couple of weeks ago. For reasons that shall remain unstated, I realized in the course of the conversation that MOPH often knows me better than I know myself.

One of the outcomes of said conversation was that I jumped on to You Tube to search for a video of Arthur's Theme. When I found it, I realized that I am a lousy blogger. Several posts back I talked about my childhood love of the song, and if I was any sort of professional I would have searched for a video then and there and posted it.

But I suck.

So I failed to do that.

Better late than never I guess.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 33% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Working Sunday

2011-02-20T12:02:00.000-05:00

Confession time! My house is a WRECK. Dishes, laundry, the garbage can--all out of control! I have no excuses except to say that the Winter Blues have been a little more difficult than usual lately. Still it's been unseasonably warm in the Ohio Valley over the last week, and the trend seems to want to continue through the five day forecast, so it's time for some serious Spring Cleaning.

That's on the agenda for today. Normally Sunday is the day I devote to doing nothing, but not today. I was gone all day yesterday helping my brother and his family move into a new house. By the time I got home, I was too exhausted to even think about Mount Dishmore or Mount St. Laundrypile, but today they both get scaled.

My parents were here this weekend to bring some furniture for my brother's house, and they brought lots of stitching from Mother's vast collection for me, so there will be picture hanging to do today as well.

On the reading front, I still have not finished a second book for the year and February is on the wane. That's pathetic. I don't know what it is that I'm doing with my life because clearly the house work isn't getting done, the DVR is edging toward sixty percent full, I can't remember the last episode of Thirtysomething I watched, and stitching progress has been minimal! Let's all hope that if I get my chores done in a somewhat timely fashion today, I'll be able to get some reading done.

And speaking of reading, don't even get me started on my Google Reader! I'm so far behind in catching up on blogs that I may have to do the unthinkable and empty a lot of it out without reading the posts. :(

Here's the truth. I don't know how you people with children, or jobs that require more than forty hours a week from you, or BOTH do it. I'm a shambles over here, and I don't have overtime or kids to lay it on. You all must be super heroes.

Either that or I am hopeless.

An explanation that has some merit, I'll admit.

Either way, I shall attempt to remedy that today--scale the mountain, slay the dragon, be the change, and all that rubbish.

Here's wishing you all a week of accomplishment.

If that's your thing.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 92% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-02-13T12:53:00.000-05:00

The biggest news of the day is that I just looked at ye olde weather gadget on my Google homepage, and it said that it was FIFTY DEGREES in the 45014. YAY!!!!!! As much as I acknowledge my tendency toward SAD in January and February, it still always amazes me what a difference a warmer, sun-shiney day can make in the depths of winter. And this year I can use it more than most. I don't like to bring much of the doldrums to this blog, but suffice it to say that it's not been an easy couple of months, and this last week was a bit of a bear, but this warm up started on Friday and really turned things around for me. I even managed to be productive yesterday, taking The Boyfriend's glasses for a long overdue repair and getting our tax stuff done.

And a tax refund could come none to soon since I think there's something wrong with my car!

It's always something. This has been the year of broken things so far 'round here. One of the banister brackets is broken in the basement stairwell. The fluorescent bar light over the kitchen sink burned out. We're down to one working fluorescent bar in the laundry room, and I think The Boyfriend's bathroom is completely in the dark at the moment. There's the aforementioned broken glasses, and the freezer door was out of alignment for several days before I somehow managed out of pure frustrated fury to hurl my body weight against it in just such a way as to fix it! We've got a bad pipe under the kitchen sink that is being held together with duct tape and a plastic bag and some plumber's epoxy that isn't working very well, and there's an ominous ticking in the water tank on my toilet.

Do you get a glimpse at why it's been a bit of an extra rough winter?

But the good news is that I replaced the kitchen light, and the sink isn't currently leaking, and the glasses are fixed, and a trip to the hardware store will light up our lives once again, and now there's some money on the way with which to fix the car. None of this will help when the next disaster strikes, but I'm living in the moment here so leave me alone.

On the books, stitching, entertainment front, I finished Downton Abbey last week, and what am I gonna do now?!!! I've got to wait a whole 'nother year to see what happens???? WHAT? That's truly not cricket, English Film Making Person!

I did not finish a book this week--AGAIN--but I am very close on My Life in France. I should be able to finish it today if I don't get distracted by the bright and shiny that is a number of romance novels languishing in my library pile. No promises.

I didn't do nearly enough work on Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow this week. I tend to vegetate when I'm a little (or a lot) blue. I do have some progress since last time, but even I couldn't bring myself to put up the appallingly lit photo I took with my phone, so best to wait until there's more progress on that one.

I guess that's about all I've got for today. Let's hope I make this a true Pleasant Valley Sunday by getting out and walking 'round the neighborhood a bit. Couldn't hurt, right?

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous 74% of Full

If You Get Caught Between the Moon and New York City

2011-02-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

I never saw the movie Arthur with Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli until I was an adult. Since it came out in 1981, when I was eight/nine years old, that means that it was at least twelve years later that I saw it.

But, while that would place me solidly in adulthood at 21 in 1993, that's not an accurate tally either.

I'd actually venture to say that I never saw the entire movie until recently.

Recently being very relative and, in this case, meaning within the last eleven years. (The Boyfriend and I moved in together eleven years ago, and we've lived in this house for eight and a half years, so those are the time stamps I use to measure my memories these days.)

ANYWAY, failing to ever see the movie didn't stop me from being over the MOON (tee-hee) for the song Arthur's Theme way back when. As I have mentioned before, we were a church going lot when I was growing up, and until I was about eleven that meant that we didn't listen to anything but contemporary Christian music, classical, or all news/talk stations on the radio. Yet somehow, somewhere, someway I had heard Arthur's Theme and had become fixated on it.

Long story short (TOO LATE! Clue Movie Mantra!), one fine (probably Friday) evening I'm sitting at the local Pizza Hut with my parents and brother when the juke box shifts itself into Christopher Cross's Arthur's Theme. My song! The Moon! The embodiment of my sure to materialize future adulthood where everything is smoky, jazzy, night-time-y New York City-y!

(And boy did THAT soooooo happen! *sarcasm*)

So, as is appropriate for such an occasion as foresight (or in this case complete dementia), I immediately start singing along to the song.

Problem is, this is before I was even allowed to listen to secular radio (much less sink into my soon to emerge Mtv addiction), so when my mother hears me singing along to a tune about the moon she sharply interrupts with, "How do you know this song?!"

I didn't really have the answer. Maybe I'd heard it in the background of a segment on WHAS, the local talk station. Or maybe they'd played it over the sound system at the roller skating rink at a recent school skating party (or even at the skating rink at our church! YES....our church had a roller skating rink!) But the bottom line was, I didn't know.

Still, I was nine or ten years old going on forty-five-year-old-lounge-singer, and I now knew I LOVED the moon AND was destined to be a socialite in New York City, so I was determined that MOM not be allowed to harsh my buzz!

Quite calmly and with much cool, I informed Mother that "everyone knows this song. In fact, it's my favorite."

Astronomical falsehood, but I pulled it off. She looked at me skeptically for a few moments, then went back to her menu.

*PHEW*

Dodged a rocket-to-the-moon-sized bullet that time!

Upshot: I've ADORED all things moon ever since.

Hence this blog.

And those permanent, ink-filled scars on various of my body parts.

But......most importantly........now you know..........

.......the stupid rest of the story!

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous 59% of Full

P.S. I really started this post to vent my outrage at the idea that Russell "Disgusting" Brand was starring in a remake of Arthur. I seem to have fallen out of "orbit" (heh) on that one. Still outraged though!

36 Years Ago Today.....

2011-02-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

.....my baby brother was born in Lexington, Kentucky. He was kind of a pain in the ass, but I loved him anyway. After all, he's my brother. He's known me longer than everyone but my parents, and we share all that DNA crap.

I could have done without all that geneological research he's been doing lately. You know......the research that revealed we're not just brother and sister........but eighth cousins or something! Talk about DNA crap!

Ah well.

I love you anyway, Roy! Have a fabulous birthday!

Lest my parents protest, this isn't them. This is my brother and I with Memaw and Papaw circa 1978 or '79.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 29% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Super Bowl Sunday

2011-02-06T14:54:00.000-05:00

Go Steelers!

I mean.....I guess.

The truth is that I used to really like the Steelers. And then I liked them even more because they drafted the star quarterback from my alma mater and employer. Then they won the Super Bowl even--probably the first time a team I liked had won since 1986!! But then that fellow alum got accused not once but twice of some serious douchebaggery, and even though he was never charged with anything and even though people are innocent until proven guilty and even though I totally recognize that some women intentionally try to cry foul about something when there's an athlete or celebrity involved, it still impacted the way I feel about him and, by association, the team. Dumb? I don't know, but that's why I say I'm rooting for the Steelers, but only sort of.

What's actually the funniest part of this Super Bowl Sunday is that my friend MOPH, who loathes football almost as much as he delights in bragging about that fact in season and off, is going to a Super Bowl party!! Earlier this week he was proudly telling a co-worker what a non-event the SB was for him and how, with the advent of You Tube, he didn't even have to watch it for the commercials anymore. Then on Friday afternoon, I hear his wife Marlowe talking to another co-worker about their plans to come over to said co-worker's house on Sunday for the game! HA! To be fair, MOPH is doing this to make his wife happy and to be sociable with a work colleague and friend, so I shouldn't out him so harshly. But I still think it's hilarious! Sorry, Jeremy!

The truth is, I probably won't actually watch the Super Bowl. Growing up, we were a church-going lot. And by church-going, I mean Sunday morning and Sunday night with Wednesday night thrown in for good measure. That said, obviously we were never home to watch the Super Bowl (or The Wonderful World of Disney either!!!! :( Thanks, Parents! I'm still not over it!). In fact Super Bowl Sunday would often be approached with an outright campaign from the pulpit to make sure you were at church that night. Still, for reasons completely unknown to me (maybe my brother and I were finally old enough that my parents quit feeling the need to set an example? maybe Dad was disenchanted with his fellow deacons always being in a dither over something or other?), we stayed home from church to watch the Super Bowl in 1986. Bears versus the Patriots. It was a slaughter. Dad was outraged that the showboat Jim McMahon hadn't given Sweetness Walter Payton an opportunity to score. For my part, I was a Bears fan from that day forward and have always hated New England.

Of course, I eventually moved to a town with an NFL team. (Don't laugh.) And that team actually went to the Super Bowl the first year I lived here. (Don't laugh.) And Mom and Dad eventually quit always making us go to church on Sunday nights (too late to keep me unscarred FOR LIFE over DISNEY!). All of this is to say, that I have been a football fan, and I have watched football on and off over the years, but lately it's been mostly off which is why I'll probably be finishing up Downton Abbey on the DVR whilst the game that is the centerpiece of this American holiday rolls.

Still, I'm always up for Super Bowl snacks, so the menu today is looking like chicken dip, reheated Ro-Tel/Velveeta dip from the freezer, and chicken wings. I had to wake Ky up to have him get the crock pot down for me, and when he saw the semi-thawed orange gunge (Movie Mantra: Bridget Jones!) that is the Ro-Tel/Velveeta dip, he announced, "I am not eating that." He has an aversion to cheese and dips that baffles me. Having said that, if I were to spread that dip on a piece of cocktail rye and broil it in the oven, he'd eat three pounds, so tell me what the diff is? Millennial!

That's all I've got, Folks. Whether you are Super Bowling or not Super Bowling or perhaps even Church Going, enjoy your day!

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 12% of Full

P.S. Some day I'm going to write a full blog post on why rarely getting to watch The Wonderful World of Disney in an era when there was no cable or Disney Channel or Nickelodeon is the reason for all my personal failings. Do stay tuned.

Can We Predict the Future?

2011-02-06T01:16:00.000-05:00

Many moons ago, The Boyfriend and I, along with his parents, visited Kent, Ohio for a hockey tournament in which Ky was playing. The tournament was at Kent State over a Saint Patrick's Day weekend, and we stayed at a family appropriate hotel near, but not on, campus. Driving through the area, I was a little astonished by the plethora of residential houses that had fortune telling, palm reading, and other ESP type activity shingles hung from the proverbial roof. I remember thinking how run down, sad, desperate the area seemed.

Fast forward about eight years, and not one, but two new fortune tellers have hung out their shingle here in Our Town--both having taken up residence in what was once a family home. I say "new" fortune tellers, but to my knowledge, these are actually the FIRST fortune tellers to set up shop 'round here--or, maybe, just to do it so conspicuously.

Before you get outraged about what I have said or am going to say, then let me douse (or fuel) the fire a bit by stating what I have said here subtly before. I am Agnostic. What that means to me is that I don't necessarily believe that there is anything beyond what we can actually feel, know, experience. But at the same time, I DO NOT KNOW. I cannot stress this enough. I DON'T KNOW! Maybe there is a God. Maybe there is Not. Maybe there is something beyond death. Maybe not. Maybe some people see ghosts, the future, the way a crime they did NOT witness went down, but I personally have never experienced any of these so I DON'T KNOW.

What I am saying is that, basically, to me it's all on the table.

BUT.........

all else aside, these are the facts: I'm the daughter of a chemist and a nurse, so my grounding in the scientific method is pretty rock solid. I believe in proving your hypothesis, modern medicine, and not arguing with proven fact (hello Birthers and Anti-Vaccination peeps!). Still, I seriously love a woman whose mother has seen ghosts and predicted the future through dreams, and I have no reason to think that she or her mother is a liar. This same woman, my BFF, has had some first hand supernatural experiences of her own, and her toddler daughter might just be the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter and so on in a very good witch manner. I'm not about to call her or her toddler a liar!

So when I say that the sprouting of fortune tellers in my little area of the world seems to be a sign of how desperately afraid we are, don't call me a hater. I'd like to believe. I really would. BUT, at the end of the day, my gut tells me that we've simply hit some sort of critical depression, fear, loss of hope. We don't know where to go from here, and that's when the people my father would call charlatans swoop in and seize the opportune moment.

What's really funny is that when I came upon this second local fortune teller, I had just driven a little bit of an unusual route for me through southeast Hamilton and had been struck anew by the horrible blight of what was once such a prosperous area that it spawned my relatively new bedroom community in some ways. Funny how these prognosticators have not set up there where the economy has been depressed for twenty years or more. Why do we think that is?

Happy February!! (But could we lose the ice, please?)

2011-02-01T14:40:00.001-05:00

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 2% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-01-30T12:25:00.001-05:00

WINTER STORM UPDATE

It looks like this storm might miss us by a bit. The worst of it seems to be tracking just north of here in the Indianapolis/Dayton/I-70 Corridor region. However, Best Weather Dude Ever John Gumm is still very concerned about the northern counties of the Local 12 viewing area, and that would include me. I live in southern Butler County, but I work in the far northwest corner, and it's looking even worse for that area. I am, of course, monitoring the situation minute by minute via Twitter.....

AND NOW YOU CAN TOO!!!!

That's right, boys and girls. I have added a second Twitter widget to the side bar, and this one feeds through all the tweets from the meteorologists at Local 12 WKRC! Yay! Isn't technology grand? Now, when you find yourself wondering what the weather is like 'round here, all you have to do is visit my blog! Yay, again!

STITCHERY

I've revamped my stitching schedule once again. Since the three pieces I am working on all involve blocks, I've decided that I'll work on each one until I complete a block and then switch to another. So, I'm still working on Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow. I finally finished the graveyard block--why did that take forever.......because DEATH is forever??--and now I am working on what is Block Nine, the witch and the MOOOOON!!!!!!

Just started on the witch there. Those are her feet. I have not started it yet

but behind her is a big, bright crescent moon sitting fat in the sky. SQUEE!!!

BOOKS

I still suck. Might be that I'm trying to read too many books at once. I should finish at least one today if I'm not a degenerate.

MUSIC

I recently bought Pink Floyd's The Wall and a Monkee's greatest hits compilation from iTunes. When did I become brain damaged like this?

THE MENU

I tried in vain to get the male members of this household to tell me what they wanted for Sunday Dinner, and they both just looked at me and grunted. So, I think I'll pick up some Chinese take out after I brave the panicking hordes at Barney Kroger's local green grocer's shop. After that, they are on their own, although I need to make up another cheese burger pie to freeze for lunches. That worked out quite well.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

Still blogging on the Sundays and packing my lunch. I think I will make it through the whole of January without buying lunch or swiping my swipey card at The Ministry!

LIFE WITH KY

He's sick. But that is absolutely NO excuse for his apathetic attitude toward the news of my Local 12 Weather Twitter feed blog gadget thingie. Thankless Millennial!

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 11% of Full

Don't I Have Enough Problems, Mother Nature?

2011-01-29T12:43:00.000-05:00

This morning Best Weather Dude Ever, Channel 12's John Gumm, tweeted the following:

JohnGumm John Gumm

One model is showing enough warm air into the system for a change to rain. Another shows a catastrophic ice storm. Either way, I'm worried

When The Gumm is worried, I am worried. Sure, he went on to say the following:

JohnGumm John Gumm

All that said, it's not time to hit the panic button yet. A lot can change in the next few days. Let's hope it all trends warmer.

But I'm afraid the die was already cast, My Friends! He had me at "catastrophic", and there was no going back. I mean, sure, this particular worm could turn, but in the mean time I'm going to be nothing but worried about all the varied possible outcomes such as trees down, power lines down, roof down, no electricity for days!!!!!

All of which makes it clear that I shall never recover from The Wind Storm. *sigh*

Let me also say that I had the first Walking Man sighting of the New Year. I think I probably only saw him two or three times in the whole of 2010, so I had more or less quit looking for him, but there I was sitting in the Taco Bell drive through waiting on an order, when along he comes. He was bundled up in a big red parka style jacket, complete with the hood part pulled up over his head and face, but it was him. He had his satchel. There's no mistaking when you see The Walking Man. He was cutting through the parking lot at the bank and heading on over toward the KFC. He was close enough this time to get a good photo, but my brain was half way engaged with wondering why the cashier was taking so long with my check card (was it being rejected, why would that be, had I forgotten something, was there some sort of fraud, would they take the card away!!!!!!!!!????? panicpanicpanicpanic at the drive through!!!), so the opportunity 'twas missed.

Mystery Question of the Weekend: Will I clean my filthy house or will I waste another forty-eight hours of my life on the Internet. Time. Will. Tell.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 18% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-01-23T14:35:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling a little under the weather today, but I didn't want to neglect my Sunday posts so here goes, but do not expect brilliance.

Right. You never do.

ANYWAY!

New Year Resolutions

Well, they're all rubbish at this point, aren't they? Every one of them out the window. Well maybe all but one. At The Ministry we have this sneaky and destructive perk called Payroll Deduction. With Payroll Deduction you can swipe your Ministry issued ID card at a number of places and charge your purchases to your forthcoming pay check. For me, this means I can grab lunch in the food court in the building, purchase Diet Coke from the vending machine in the basement, or even buy things I don't need at the in-house bookstore without actually having cash or debit card in hand. I just swipe my ID, and I have been doing so blithely for eleven years. I would venture to say my swipe habit has increased as our finances have shriveled, but I never really took the time to track how much I was spending until I logged into my bursar account after Christmas and saw that the little bite here and the little bite there that had been coming out of my check was NOT indicative of how much I was spending. I don't know if they are now saving up charges instead of taking them immediately, but I owed a lot more than what had been coming out of my check. I figured with the holiday off work and taking my lunch in the New Year, I'd have no more charges. WRONG. I'm still into them for things from last semester. *sigh*

So, anyway, I had already resolved to ban the swiping of the card, but looking at how much I spent last year doubled my resolve. That's the one resolution I have kept three weeks into 2011. I am freezing all left overs in lunch size containers the minute the meal is done, and so it is working out splendidly.

Television

I finished Season Three of Thirtysomething as I wrote here, and I'm now working on Season Four. Elliot (Timothy Busfield) changed dramatically in appearance between the two seasons, but I'll be damned if I can put my finger on what it is exactly. Other than that, I'm not far enough in to comment much.

What I can comment on is Downton Abbey, a series that is currently airing on Masterpiece on PBS. This is British costume, upstairs/downstairs drama at its most glorious, and Mother informs me that they are making a second series. JOY! You can read more about Downton Abbey here.

Stitchery

I worked on Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow this week, but I only picked it up twice, so I don't have enough progress to warrant a picture. Normally I cycle to something different each week, but since I did so little on this, I think I'll stick with it this week as well.

Books

Well it took over twenty days, but I finally finished a book in the New Year--information in the Book link on the side bar. I am still slogging through The Winds of War. It's not that it isn't a good read, but it's so very, very long and so slow going that I feel compelled to stop and read other things. At this rate, I'm going to exhaust my ration of library renewals before it's done.

McHottie of the Week

Colin Firth. Mother and a stitchy blogger I follow just reminded me how delicious our Colin is! Not that I needed much reminding. Since The King's Speech was released, I've been glorying all over again in how beautiful this man is. Cannot wait to see the film. It's one of those that goes right on the DVD Wish List even though I haven't seen it yet.

And on that note, let's end with a movie picture and a Movie Mantra. From the final scene of Bridget Jones's Diary:

Bridget: Nice boys don't kiss like that.

Mark: Oh yes they fucking do.

SQUEE! :)

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 80% of Full

Thirtysomething Season Three

2011-01-16T23:03:00.000-05:00

I finished this up tonight, and while I know that my DVD Rewatch project doesn't include television series, I'm still going to add this one to this list since I did, in fact, finish it this year.

As with the previous seasons, this show continues to be a revelation to me. I've said before that one of the real eye-openers about rewatching this show is how different my reaction to the characters is now versus when I originally watched the series as a high school student. Hope--whose life I imagined I'd emulate--is probably my least favorite female character with her constant moral rectitude and tendency to look down her nose at the mere mortals around her. But like any really good television show, the characters are not one dimensional and season three saw even Hope's belief in some picture perfect, white picket fence American dream tested--in a good way......in a way that offers growth for her.

There is one character though who is exactly as I remembered him. It's just possible that Miles Drentell* is even a bigger and more unpredictable, complete and total son of a bitch than I even understood at age 17. The double episode season finale of the third season was masterful in showing his almost lethal will pitted against Michael's fledgling sense of his own power. Great television, my friends.

So what I take away from season three is how much more complex and poignant and REAL this show got as it matured. Unfortunately, it's about to get really real in season four when the unspeakable happens. I may have forgotten many things about this show and rediscovered much from a totally different angle as a thirtysomething myself now, but I've never forgotten the blow Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick are about to deal their unsuspecting fans. :(

*BTW, Miles Drentell apparently went on to be a character on a later Herskovitz and Zwick series called Once and Again and died of pancreatic cancer in what must have been the second season. You see. He's so ruthless and cunning and unforgettable that he's a television character who shows up a decade after his debut. Not bad. I'd even say that's almost unheard of.

Oh, I Forgot!

2011-01-16T14:13:00.000-05:00

I forgot to point out the edited reaction buttons on my posts. I changed up the choices by adding a "that guy is HOT!" option. It seemed appropriate.

Kevin McKidd

Rupert Penry-Jones

Alex O'Loughlin

Kevin McKidd AND Patrick Dempsey

Nathan Fillion

John Hamm

Henry Cavill

And this last is all sorts of wrong. I know it is. He's a baby! But I cannot help it. Ron Weasely turned out to be a babe.

Rupert Grint

My brother Roy will accuse me of courting the Google Image Search hits with this post, but I had to give you ample choices for using my new reaction button.

And my apologes to The Rev! Didn't mean to trick you again! :)

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-01-16T13:56:00.001-05:00

I am at the half way point of the four day extended long weekend, and I've devoted way too much time to blog reading. What a massive time suck! No wonder I never get actual books read anymore. I am determined today that I SHALL read some on my books in progress!

But first, to blog.

Here's a quick update on my stitching projects. Don't think I've done one of these in a bit, and the progress I have to show is sort of lamentable, but here goes anyway.

Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow

I wish I had more progress done on this! I love it so much, and I don't know why it seems to be so slow going. I am only actively working on this and Village and a Lizzie Kate piece right now, so hopefully things will pick up. It's my week to work on this so we'll see how far we get by next Sunday.

Village of Hawk Run Hollow

Didn't I start this at the same time I started Autumn? Why do I have so much more progress here? Who knows.

Lizzie Kate Stamp Flip Its--Winter

This is the only other piece I'm actively working on right now. This is another set of months from Lizzie Kate, but I'm stitching them together by season rather than individually this time around.

Below is what is left in the stitching basket at the moment. I'm not actively working on either of these until the Flip Its are finished. Then I'll add one of these into the rotation. Probably Spring.

Lizzie Kate Spring Sampler

I think that the reason I have so few Spring pieces completed is because the colors are almost too much for me. Everything is very neon and/or pastel, and I don't care for that much.

Prairie Schooler July Sampler

Not sure I've actually done anything on this since the last time I showed it, but it's in the basket so......

On the home front, I'm celebrating the half way point of my mini-break with a little dip:

We do live large.

Not a lot else to report today. The sun is out. That seems unusual. It's been a cold and grey winter for sure. We had a warm up on New Year's weekend that likely put paid to all the snow--I don't actually remember--but other than that it seems there's been snow on the ground every day since the beginning of December. Today is no exception though it is finally beginning to thin down. Still there's enough that I can see the tracks of some large hooved animal creeping up toward the garbage can. Loverly.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous 88% of Full

And Since It's My Favorite Song Ever.......

2011-01-16T02:06:00.000-05:00

For Roi...Without a Trace We'll Be Gone....

2011-01-16T01:34:00.005-05:00

Without a trace we'll be gone.....the moon and the stars will follow the car....

I still miss me some Roi even though I'm thankful for some Tim goodness in this video. Either way I'm still not okay with LeRoi being taken from us way too soon. :( You can read more about him here. If there's any fairness in the world he will NOT have left us without a trace.

"You and I, we're not tied to the ground, Not falling but rising like rolling around, Eyes closed above the roof tops, Eyes closed we're gonna spin through the stars, Our arms wide as the skies, We're gonna ride the blue all the way to the end of the world....."

Bacon Experiment

2011-01-14T13:43:00.001-05:00

If there's one thing we can all agree on in this mixed up, contentious world, it's bacon! Everyone loves it, right?

Well, okay. My BFF Cat Nip actually hates it.

But otherwise, we are all fans aren't we?

Well, I guess not the vegetarians or the vegans.

Or people of certain religious persuasions.

BUT OTHERWISE? I think it's safe to say that many people do, in fact, love bacon. I'd even go so far as to say that bacon is one of those foods that's so beloved it's become this sort of pop-culture phenomenon with people blogging about it and creating odd bacon flavored or infused permutations of otherwise non-bacon products. I know it's a popular recurring topic on Best Traffic Dude Ever Bob Herzog's morning Cooler reports on Local 12.

I too love bacon. I would not classify myself as a fanatic, but it's a tasty garnish for a scrambled egg sandwich any day of the week. However, there is an ongoing feud in this household about how bacon should be cooked. The Boyfriend would opt for frying it up in a pan on the stove. I have a co-worker who always makes it this way even though she is cooking for a household of SEVEN (insanity!) many weekend mornings.

I, on the other hand, haven't cooked bacon in a pan on the stove in over a decade. There were some lean years when I did not own a microwave oven, and I suppose I partook of my bacon the traditional way back then, but I grew up on microwave bacon, and I see no reason to abandon that practice now.

My biggest objection to stove cooked bacon is the mess. I may not remember whether bacon cooked this way tastes better, but I sure as FUCK remember burning the crap out of myself in a torrent of popping, spurting bacon grease and the aftermath that was left to be cleaned up.

But this morning, I found myself up alone with The Boys still sleeping, and seeing as I am on one of my four-day extended holiday weekends, I had a bit of a hankering for a scrambled egg sandwich on a bagel with a bit of bacon to garnish. And for some reason, I got it into my head to fry the bacon up on the stove just to see what all the fuss is really about. Best to do this when I'm making one slice of bacon for myself, I figured, than to endure it with The Boys around--a circumstance that would necessitate cooking about a pound of the stuff. (And that's another point! Who has the cookware square footage to cook that much bacon without doing it in batches? I ain't cooking bacon in batches for anyone!)

SO! All of this build up to say that I made one and a half strips of bacon in a frying pan on the stove a bit ago.

The verdict:

eh.

The bacon itself was delish, and I was able to get the texture just perfect--something that can be hit or miss in the microwave. I don't like flabby, underdone bacon, but I don't like it burnt either, and finding the happy medium can be difficult in the microwave. But taste and texture aside, one little serving of bacon generated a decent pool of grease and splattered a bit on the stove top. The latter wasn't much of a big deal, but times twelve it would have been a nightmare.

Also, it left the most foul reeking smell in the air. I'm not gonna lie, Marge, (Simpson's Movie Mantra!) as I set about cooking this small feast for myself, I was trying to be super quiet. I didn't want to wake up Ky or The Boyfriend and have them up in my business demanding I cook something for them too. I am uber-selfish like that, and I do not apologize for it. (SEE! I don't have children for a reason, Folks, so save your "you just don't know what you're missing" speeches for someone who gives a fuck!)

ANYWAY, I did not want to wake either of them up, but as I set about my task, I had visions of the bacon-flavored aroma wafting down the hallway to the bedrooms, slipping cartoon-like under the closed doors, and awaking The Boys who would come charging into the kitchen with ravening bacon appetites.

I need not have feared.

Mostly the kitchen was just overwhelmed with a rancid grease smell (and no the bacon was not old or bad but fresh from an unopened package!) that made me contemplate vomiting in the garbage can for the sliver of a moment.

In the end though, I was not deterred by the smell, which dissipated rather quickly when I turned off the burner, and I very much enjoyed my scrambled egg, bacon, and cheese sandwich on whole wheat bagel with neither male resident of this house the wiser.

Verdict:

Bacon fried in a pan is very tasty, and the new cookware I got for Christmas cooks things so well, I feel like I've been a blind cave woman for the last decade. Nevertheless, I will not be abandoning my microwave bacon cooking any time soon, and The Boys will just have to be in the dark about my secret stove top bacon hoarding ways.

That's what they get for refusing to read my blog. :)

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous 72% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-01-09T13:11:00.002-05:00

It's shaping up to be one of those winters where snow is on the ground for most of the season. We didn't get a whole lot of it this week, but just enough every day to keep the ground covered. Cincinnati rush hour was apparently a thing of apocalypse Friday night, but I live to the north and work even farther to the north, so I didn't have any issues. Still, Best Weather Dude Ever John Gumm says there's another storm shaping up for Tuesday that could be large or not so large, but either way bound to cause a mess around here.

I was planning out my vacation day schedule for the year last week and wondering where all my vacation days go since I only had five of the 15 days actually planned out. This then is the thing I'd forgotten: Winter Weather. Oh well.

The work week started out rocky. I had a full on panic attack early Tuesday morning. That's unusual for me. My anxiety generally simmers at a low to moderate level just below the surface, but I woke up at 4:30 am on Tuesday and went into a full on melt down. After that though, things settled down, and the week was much better and pretty productive too. I think the truth is that I hold things together and manage my anxiety and low-level depression fairly well most of the time, but every once in a while I just hit a wall and end up in a panic attack or a crying fit. Neither are pretty, but once that's done, I'm purged for a while and can pretty much find my place of satiric serenity for a while. (Satiric serenity meaning that my serenity is probably a pretty hilarious spoof of anyone else's, but I gotta be me. *shrug*)

Stitching
A lot of stitchy bloggers, including my mother are embarking on this fifteen projects in fifteen days insanity where you start a new project every day in the first fifteen of January. No thank you. My stitching goals for this year are actually the opposite. I'm not going to try to juggle so many pieces and instead focus on Hawk Run Hollow--Village and Autumn. I've got three seasonal pieces that are already in progress, so I'll keep at those, but after that I may not start anything at all. We'll see.

Books
Not a lot to say here other than to point you once again to the new 2011 Reading List on the sidebar at the top if you care to keep up with what I'm reading. I've not had a finish yet this year.

Television
As I've said all season, there's just not a whole lot about television that's flipping my switch this year aside from Alex O'Loughlin finally having a hit show. And that show hit a major stumbling block in this week's episode, if you ask me. This week's installment opened with a scene where he was in bed asleep.....with his shirt ON! Come on! Someone needs to get with the continuity here! Otherwise, I do continue to enjoy his repartee with Scott Caan, even if I could do without scenes like the one where they chase down the bad guys' car by landing a helicopter in the road. 'Cause that happens all the time *eye roll*.

Grey's is hitting it out of the park this year as well, but for me that's nothing new so not a lot to say there.

I did break down and buy the first two seasons of Mad Men on DVD and have the third and soon to be released fourth on my Wish List. When I am through with Thirtysomething, I may have to start a Mad Men Rewatch, although I've half decided to go back to Grey's Season Five and watch everything since Owen showed up in the ambulance bay having trached a guy with a pen in the field. We will see how that pans out.

DVDs
The Great DVD Rewatch of 2010 turned out to be mostly a bust. I got through the As, I think. So I've got a new approach. First, I'm using these tiny little stickers that are supposed to go on floss bobbins for tagging your stitching thread like so:

I'm placing one of the blank labels on the spine of each DVD I watch to mark it with the date, so that I can keep track of when I last watched it. In this way I hope to be able to Rewatch all of my collection without feeling compelled to go in a certain order. I don't know that I'll get through them all this year, but discounting television series on DVD, I have 55 films to potentially watch. That might not seem like a lot to some people, but it is basically one movie a week, and for me that's a challenge. Shall I shoot for half then? Either way, I think I will follow through with yesterday's idea of creating a page to track my viewing and put it up there under the Reading List in the sidebar.

On a side note: while I was writing that last, The Boyfriend came upstairs and asked me what I was doing. When I explained to him what I was writing about he said, "You need a label to tell you whether you have watched something or not? You don't KNOW that you just watched something? Why do you want people to know that you're insane?"

Little does he know. Little. Does. He. Know.

On a side, side note: no, he doesn't read the blog. He lives with the Lunacy in real time. I don't think his heart could take any more.

And on that note, that's about all I've got. Next time I'll tell you about how the house is falling apart all around us and all at once. It's like This Old House--if Bob Villa had just stood and stared gape-mouthed at every new malfunction without a clue as to what to do about it.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 25% of Full

The Year of the Book

2011-01-08T18:13:00.001-05:00

2010 was one of my worst reading years in a decade. At one point, mid-way through the.....what??.....'10s???.....'00s??? How is it that we are now moving out of this decade, and we still don't know what to call it????

ANYWAY, in the years that filled in the middle of the decade, I was probably reading upwards of 150 to 200 books a year. I don't have actual numbers because--like some complete lunatic--I kept my book lists on my old laptop without giving even five seconds of thought to backing them up. Alas, older and not much wiser, I have been keeping my lists in a Google document on The Cloud ever since, and while my reading has been in decline for a while with less than one hundred books read in 2008 and again in 2009, 2010 was when the bottom completely dropped out, and I read only 38 books the entire year. Additionally, what that number fails to show is that I started and then DNFed (Did Not Finish) probably as many books as I finished. To use a completely tired cliche, I've clearly lost my mojo.

Now I'm not exactly resolving to get it back this year. So far I am ZERO for ALL of my New Year's resolutions, so that's not what this is about. No, what I'm going to do is simply examine my reading habits over the next twelve months, just to see what I shall see, AND, as it turns out, what You shall see because I've created a new page for the blog called 2011 Reading List. A link to it is right there at the top of the side bar, and if you click on it, it will take you to a simple list of what I am reading, what I have read, and what I DNFed.

I don't intend to use this or You to try to hold myself accountable or any of that happy crappy, I just think it's another aspect of the journey that might as well be slogged through on here as well as all the others. Who knows, I may end up adding other lists as well--what did I stitch, what DVDs did I watch, which horrible illnesses did I imagine ailed me? You know, all the important things to take stock of in one's life.

Oh! And the answer is, yes. Yes, I do read mostly romance novels. Better just go ahead and accept that one up front. It will go better for all of us if You do.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 19% of Full

Will the Real January Please Stand Up

2011-01-03T18:37:00.000-05:00

January is the REAL April Fool of months, debuting with parties and midnight kisses and all the hopeful resolution chatter.

But then all that is over as soon as it has begun, and it's back to waking up in the dark and the cold. At first you're freezing, so you take a hot shower, but then when you go at yourself with the hair dryer and the flat iron, you're suddenly perspiring and don't even want to put a coat on before venturing into the frosty air.

For me it also means flairs of agoraphobia. I think I have mentioned before that I self-diagnosed myself with this one several moons ago when watching an episode of the A&E series Obsessed (which, btw, I had to QUIT watching because it made me squirm with equal parts incredulity and fear). Through one of the episodes I discovered that agoraphobia in it's broader form is not just being incapable of leaving your house or living for months in your bathroom. Agoraphobia also manifests as an inability to go very far from home or allow much of a break in your daily routine. It's habituating the same few comfortable places, and not always being willing to branch out, and it definitely means no real travel or flexibility when unplanned things occur. Spontaneousness need not look for me. Anything out of the ordinary has to be planned well in advance and even then the slightest thing can make me back out.

I know. I'm a mess.

But you're still reading!

Having said all this, when I've been at home for an extended period of time, like, say, a ten day vacation, it can be hard for me to to get going on that first day I have to venture out. So I didn't sleep well at all last night--not normal for me--and I was awake for an hour before the alarm was due to go off--super not normal for me. I didn't feel well, had an unsettled stomach, and caught myself gripping the steering wheel in the car with whitened knuckles.

I decided I was getting the flu, and thought about stopping any number of times and turning back home, but this is a really busy time of year for me, so I pushed on through. I didn't feel great for the first part of the morning, but realized that once I was back into my "work routine" I felt okay, so here's hoping that's behind me now. It's just so hard in the cold and dark months sometimes.

But they do make for some cute stitching designs.

January the Trickster in falsely cozy disguise!

New Moon 0% of Full--which might explain a lot too; clearly I'm more of a crazed Full Moon kind of girl on a number of levels!

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2011-01-02T12:37:00.000-05:00

There's not a whole lot to report today. It's never much fun being on the backside of a holiday, but I doubt it's much fun reading about my Post Holiday Blues either. Still, I've resolved to try to get a post in every Sunday this year. I imagine I will miss a few here and there, but that's why I'm not making any promises.

For good or for ill, it's back to work tomorrow, and as ever, I am thankful to still be employed.

I've made plenty of resolutions for the New Year, but there's no sense in all of you knowing I'm a failure, so I'll keep them to myself and cry over my short comings alone.

What I am going to do today is take down the Christmas tree--which has just been depressing me for the last few days anyway--and make a cheeseburger pie. Cheeseburger pie is a Bisquick concoction that I used to make when we lived in the condo. By the time we moved to the house, The Boyfriend and Ky suddenly decided it was the most disgusting thing ever, so I quit making it and don't think I've had one since. But I like it, and since one of my resolutions is to stop buying my lunch--oops! that one slipped out--then I figure I can make a cheeseburger pie, portion it up, and freeze it for future lunches. I'm doing this with leftovers as well. We waste so much left over food it's criminal. There are very few things that we make that seem to come out in the right proportion to be eaten on the spot. I put things in the fridge thinking we'll eat them later in the week, and there they languish until more than a week has passed, and I feel compelled to pitch them. Well, no more. Leftovers are going straight into the plastic containers and into the freezer, and I'll not have to worry about packing lunches.

I watched Julie & Julia again last night and was struck anew by how fascinating Julia Child was. Do you realize that she was practically fifty years old before her career really took off? The first time I saw this movie I was compelled to read Julie Powell's book by the same name, but this time around I've requested My Life in France, Julia's book that was the other inspiration for the film.

And that's about all I can muster up today. I know that getting back to work and back into a more normal routine will ultimately be good for me but these long last months of winter do always drag on me. Let's hope for the best though.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 3% of Full

Dance Party Friday Part Two

2010-12-31T16:56:00.000-05:00

Part the Second:

Dance Party Friday Part One

2010-12-31T16:54:00.000-05:00

I know, I know. You are getting way more from me today than you ever wanted. Your New Year's resolution is going to be to stop following my blog if I keep this up. But I just couldn't let the year end without sharing the goodness that is a Dance Party Friday Year in Review with Best Traffic Dude Ever Bob Herzog. Blogger doesn't seem to want to allow me to post both part one and part two in one post, so I'll have to make two.

Part the First:

Goodbye 2010

2010-12-31T16:29:00.000-05:00

So as not to end the year on such a sad note as was my earlier post, I thought I'd try again. The consensus on Twitter and around the Blogosphere is that 2010 was fairly crappy for a lot of people. (Facebook status updates don't count. Have you noticed how everyone is always upbeat and happy and bright and shiny on there? It kind of makes me want to vomit.) I can't say it's been a wonderful year for me either, but things could have been worse.

After all, I did get to keep my job for another year. The Cincinnati Reds went to the playoffs. My cupboards were close to bare a couple of times, but nobody starved, and as we go out of 2010 they are full to bursting. I got a new HVAC, so Furnace Fears could be put to rest. I got a shit ton of stitching done--maybe my most prolific year ever on that front. I finally fulfilled the resolution I made LAST Winter Shutdown to clean up the library. I discovered Mad Men, and Alex O'Loughlin finally hitched himself to a television show that's not going to get cancelled.

All in all, it was not an all bad year, though I will join those who hope for better in 2011.

What began as a bright, sunny, and warm day has now turned sullen and stormy. We shall choose not to see that as an omen of any sort. Happy New Year!

P.S. Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

Looking Back

2010-12-31T13:29:00.001-05:00

I was driving back from McDonald's and Taco Bell a moment ago, when I started thinking about sleeplessness, which put me in mind of my maternal grandfather who was a cat napper. I started wondering what it was he thought about during those long, silent vigils in the night, which in turn made me realize that he's been gone for twenty-two years now--most of my life. This in turn made me think of my other grandparents--all lost now since Memaw died last year. Then The Boyfriend's dad. And my first boyfriend's dad as well. Both died this year. I thought as I walked into the house that life is so unbearably sad sometimes, I don't know how we keep going.

Then I sat down to eat, and I was doing something as inane and mindless as opening up a package of Taco Bell cheese sauce and suddenly I was fourteen years old, sitting in a Taco Bell across from my high school in downtown Louisville with Becky eating nachos beside me. I was RIGHT THERE in the moment with her scraping the last of the cheese from the container, but she's gone too.

I don't know why all these old ghosts (and new ones) are moving around me today. For the most part I usually approach a new year with a lot of hope and optimism in spite of my basically pessimistic nature. But I guess the message is that you have to look back even as you go forward. And you have to remember. For someone to cease to exist even in memory is unbearable to me, so I guess the sadness just has to be embraced. That's how we keep going, and how THEY keep going.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 14% of Full

It's That Time of Year

2010-12-27T13:48:00.000-05:00

Christmas is over for another year--always a bit of a downer. Ky asked me what he had to look forward to now that his chocolate advent calendar is demolished. I suggested he go to school or get a job, but I think that's about the time his selective hearing kicked in.

Still Post Holiday Blues can get to all of us, even the sort-of gainfully employed. It won't hit me too hard for another week though, as The Ministry is always closed between Christmas and New Year. I think what's bothering me is lack of motivation. In usual Lady Elissa the Neurotic fashion, I am already worrying about the things I'll fail to accomplish this week. Every year in the frantic weeks that lead up to Ministry Shut Down, I make lists of all I'm going to accomplish during my holiday. I even give myself license to ignore household and other tasks (blogging, anyone??) with the sure knowledge that I'll take care of everything during my week off. Also, every year, I get to the Sunday after New Year, and I've done nothing.

So here it is Monday morning.....er......afternoon, and I've not started on cleaning the house or straightening the library (which has somehow devolved into a dumping ground) or taking down the Christmas tree or becoming a cheerful and skilled cooker of home cooked meals or done anything really except read some books and stitch. To be fair, my reading this year has been ABYSMAL, and it was one of my goals this holiday to try to put a dent in the library pile, so there's that.

And, I did finish block three on Village of Hawk Run Hollow. That IS an accomplishment:

But I've also eaten like a little pig, watched way too many episodes of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and am sitting here blogging while my house trembles under the weight of the dust and dirt collecting faster than snow on the East Coast.

Still, it IS only Monday. There's still loads of time to become My Perfect Self--she who is organized down to each strand of hair. She eats right and exercises and gets enough sleep at night. She cooks lavish meals each night, cheerfully grocery shops, never allows a single crumb to languish on the kitchen floor, and nary a disgruntled thought ever enters her head.

She also sounds like a rather boring bitch, but since I'm never gonna accomplish all that anyway, I might as well have some unattainable ideal to reach toward.

As Jake says at the end of The Sun Also Rises, "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

Current Moon Phase: Third Quarter 55% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2010-12-12T14:48:00.000-05:00

It's a snowy Pleasant Valley Sunday here in the Ohio Valley......er......the Pleasant Valley.....or whatever! I've been following Best Weather Dude Ever John Gumm and his meteorological buddies discussing this storm on Twitter since Friday night, and it looks like there are a lot of "what ifs" with this one pertaining to fetch and lake effect snow bands and where exactly in the Tri-State you actually live, so who knows what exactly is in store. Odds are it is going to be a messy commute in the AM regardless.

The temperatures and wind chills are no picnic either so it is with great thanks that I announce that the Fiery Furnace of Death is no more, and we now have a 21st Century, high tech HVAC system that I'm not afraid to leave running when we are asleep or out of the house. The new thermostat makes clicking noises, and that had me in a bit of a panic for a while, but it seems that this is normal, and I can finally put the Furnace Fears to rest.

Right?

The Christmas decorations are up for the most part. I'm going rather low key this year, but the tree is lit, so there's that.

Things are winding down for the semester at The Ministry. We had The West Wing Holiday party this week and now there is just Finals week to get through.

Mom and Dad will be here later in the week for their Christmas visit. I'm really looking forward to being able to spend a few days with them and Roy and his family.

I have rather a lot of stitching finishes to give to Mother when she is here. I usually mail her a bundle when I've collected a bunch of completed things, but somehow between her last visit and now, I never managed to ship anything off to her. I think it's because shipping things involves a trip to the USPS, and I hate that shit. Regardless, the following are what I have rolled up and waiting to give to her this weekend. (Some might have been posted here before.)

Pretty productive, eh? In the last few weeks, in anticipation of the 'rents visit, I have been concentrating on one piece at a time instead of doing my rotation, so that's why I've got several pieces to show for it since November's stitchy update. I am still working on Lizzie Kate Spring Sampler, and I may have that finished by the time the visit is done, but we will see. After that, I may hold off on starting anything else and just work on my Hawk Run Hollows which have been totally neglected during this finishing spree. I miss them.

On a completely different note, Elizabeth Edwards was buried yesterday. When I heard news of her death last week, I struggled with how to feel. At one time I had greatly admired her and her husband--hell I voted for him--but I read The Politician earlier this year and found myself seriously soured on both of them. Intellectually, I understood that this was a book written from one person's point of view--and a disgruntled ex-staffer's at that--but it was still hard not to feel cheated in some way by people who you had held in high regard. It wasn't until I read NPR's Scott Simon's weekly essay about Elizabeth Edwards yesterday that I was able to put things back into the correct perspective and acknowledge that this was just a human being after all. It's unfair to distill a life of sixty-one years into a few anecdotes in a book of several hundred pages and then assume we have the whole measure of a person. What she might have said or done in her bad moments certainly shouldn't be held up as completely defining of who she was and what her legacy will be. Anyway, if you are interested in reading the essay, you can find it in this week's Simon Says column.

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...." Not really but I'm reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I guess this is probably the third time I've read it. It never disappoints.

Still working on Season Three of Thirtysomething. It's sooooo good. There is so much I had forgotten. LEE! How did I forget about Melissa's twentysomething boyfriend LEE!? He was so cute. Here's a funny story though. I have long known that Patrick Dempsey--aka Grey's own McDreamy--married a woman who was almost thirty years older than him when he was just 21. I also knew that the woman was his best friend's mother. A little strange, but they divorced in the mid-90s, and life goes on. So, when I'm watching the episode where Lee is first introduced to us--he has come to paint Melissa's fabulous urban apartment--I keep thinking that he looks familiar to me and wondering where I might have seen him before or since this show. He reminds me of a young Patrick Dempsey, but I knew that was not who it was. After the episode was over, I do a little poking around on the Internets to find out who this guy is. He's an actor named Corey Parker, and when I do a Google Image search, pictures of Patrick Dempsey start popping up. I thought that was funny--clearly I wasn't the only one to see a resemblance between the two when they were younger.

Only that's not WHY pictures of PD were showing up!

Wait for it!!!!!!!!!!

Patrick Dempsey was showing up in a Google Image search for Corey Parker because Corey Parker was the best friend whose mother married Patrick in the late '80s! How completely bizarre is that?

I think I've said before that I was never a Patrick Dempsey fan when he was younger (some forget that he was briefly a Gen X teen heart throb when we were growing up), but adulthood has been VERRA kind to him!

I suppose I have gone on long enough now. I should think about doing some housework and getting myself in gear for another work week. We'll see how that goes. Don't hold your breath or anything.

Current Moon Phase: First Quarter 43% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2010-11-28T16:42:00.003-05:00

Current Events:

Well, here we are on the backside of another holiday. I've had a nice four day break from the hustle and bustle, and as of yet (KNOCK ON WOOD), I have not succumbed to the post-holiday blues. I think there are several reasons for this: this is my second long weekend this month, we're heading into one of the slow times of the year at work, I'm anticipating a visit from my parents in a few weeks, I'll be off for over a week less than a month from now, and perhaps most significant of all, Monday morning will bring not just a return to work but also a brand new furnace! After eight long years of Furnace Fears and just as many summers spent with my foot in front of the bathroom vent trying to gauge (ever so scientifically) whether the A/C needs a freon charge, we are finally replacing the thirty-five year old behemoth in the basement with something brand new, high tech, and presumably not given to starting fires or randomly exploding. (In reality, the guy from Bartels said that furnaces don't do that, but I've done a fine job of angsting right on through logic for lo these many years, so I'll not be dissuaded that easily! Who do you think I am?!)

Another Famous 1972er:

Doritos--Nacho Cheese Style. There's a series that airs on the History Channel every year around this time called American Eats. Apparently there were originally something like 13 episodes, but I've had this series set to always record on my DVR for many years now, and there are only four or five episodes that typically air. ANYWAY, I was watching one this week and caught a fact I had not digested (HEH!) in earlier viewings. Doritos original flavor was NOT nacho cheese. This was a bit of a shock to me. Doritos started out as simply toasted corn flavored and then taco flavored, but the Nacho Cheese Dorito was not released until 1972! (So the Fiery Furnace of Death is almost as old as Nacho Cheese Doritos! And me!)

Maybe if Mother had given me a Nacho Cheese Dorito, I wouldn't be eating the keys.

(You will also note that the moon pie face was already in effect!)

Blog Shout Out:

Speaking of Mother, she's got something awful and dead in her house. You really should go see what it is. You can visit the post HERE.

Learn Something Every Day:

While we're on the subject of my birth, I was born in Nurnberg, West Germany, and in honor of that fact, I've had a picture of Neuschwanstein Castle on the wall of my bedroom--and now my living room--for most of my life. I always knew that Neuschwanstein, located in my birth state of Bavaria (Bayern), was a castle that was commissioned by King Ludwig II, also known as Mad King Ludwig. Some years ago, my brother pointed out to me that Mad King Louis and I actually share a birth date, but I didn't bother looking into him any further until this week when my mother sent me a picture of her very 1970s-fashion-clad self sitting in the shadow of the legendary castle. So, I looked old Ludwig up and discovered that I not only share a birth date with Ludwig II but with his grandfather, Ludwig I, AND August 25 is also St. Louis Day, St. Louis being the patron saint of Bavaria! Pretty cool, huh?

Except Ludwig I had to abdicate because of pesky peasants who thought maybe the idea of a monarch was old hat (and he'd tried to tax their beer besides!), and Ludwig II lived in misery trying to resist his own homosexual nature and drowned himself at forty.

So there's that.

Family Tree:

Still, I needn't worry about any ethereal birth date connections to tragedy, when Roy has managed to trace our own bred-in-the-bone insanity down!! He's been doing a shit ton of genealogical research on both sides of our family and has found out some fascinating stuff. Among these: one of our great grandmothers's cause of death was listed as "dropped dead in the street", a Civil War veteran ancestor died of "melancholy and diarrhea" (that sounds like lots of fun), and my great aunt shot herself in the chest with a shot gun. Merry Family Mental Illness Christmas, Everyone!

To Go Out on a Brighter Note:

Guess who won the MAC Eastern Division? (If you can't see the video, click HERE.)

Current Moon Phase: Third Quarter 50% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2010-11-21T15:24:00.001-05:00

I did not intend to blog today, but I use Sundays to go back and peruse old posts (I like to tinker with the labels since sometimes new labels are created long after older posts that should have had them have been published), and I decided that I should at least check in with The Readership. I think this one might be quick and random, so here goes.

The Wonderful World of Harry Potter: The big news is, of course, that part one of Deathly Hallows cinema-style premiered this week. I haven't seen it yet, and probably won't get out there for another couple of weeks. The lesser publicized news, though, is that the Quidditch World Cup was held in New York last weekend, and our Reds Reporter in the Field MOPH was there as advisor of the Ministry's Quidditch team. I'm still waiting for his blog round up on the event, but you can read a quick picture post he did HERE. Also, this is a picture of the moon over New York whilst he was there:

The really funny thing about him sending me this photo is that one of my all time most favortist songs in the whole world is Arthur's Theme by Christopher Cross which might be more aptly named When You Get Caught Between the Moon and New York City. I haven't thought about that song in a while until MOPH sent this along. I wonder if that's where my obsesh with the moon started?

Moon Quote: "Funny when you're small/The moon follows the car/There's no one but you see/HEY! The moon is chasing me/I wondered if I looked away she'd be gone...." You Never Know, Dave Matthews Band

Childhood Treasure: Some of you will remember my adventure in finding a long lost book from my childhood. (You can read about that HERE.) In a similar vein, I have often wondered about a movie I saw as a child that scared me so bad that I think of it to this day. Only, like my search for Witch Owl Pond, I couldn't remember the movie's title or actors. I only had a few clues: well, doll, dead girl, and the nursery song Frere Jacques. That latter still gives me the creeps to this day. Again through the power of the Internet, I was able to track the movie down using Google search, and I've been watching it on You Tube. It's a little known Disney movie called Child of Glass that first appeared on television in 1978 (presumably on the Sunday night show Wonderful World of Disney which Roy and I rarely got to watch because we had to go to church and I for one have been scarred for life by the loss! But there's fodder there for a whole 'nother blog post so.....). So far it is distinctly un-frightening to my 38 year old senses, but put in context, it seems very dark for a Disney movie. Maybe that's why it's obscure.

Television: I am well into the second season of Thirtysomething. This show is so terrific. It really got better as the second season progressed. I love me some Gary Shepherd as played by the brilliant and easy on the eyes Peter Horton. It's so funny watching this series now and gauging my reactions to it now versus my feelings when I watched it as a teenager. The characters that were of the most interest to me then--Michael and Hope probably--are the least interesting to me now. I'm all about Ellen with her fear of commitment and baby-phobia and Gary with his failure to get tenure and the accidental pregnancy of the prickly Suzanna. I hated Suzanna when I watched this as a kid, but I almost can identify with her now. In some ways I've turned into a person much like her! How weird life is.

Peter Horton in the Thirtysomething era

Movies: My love for Alex O'Loughlin knows no bounds, so I sucked up my irritation with JLo and Netflixed The Back-up Plan. This was actually a really, really cute movie from the romance to the humor to the sweet little dog that was JLo's pet. This was Tom Bosley's last movie and boy did Linda Lavin get old, but it was still great to see her again. Alex is, of course, endlessly sweet and endlessly beautiful in the film. You can't go much wrong with a movie that includes shots like this:

Plus this is just sweet:

The Walking Man: I finally, after many, many, many moons got a good picture of The Walking Man. Cat Nip and I were returning from a trip to a Habitat for Humanity Restore and brunch in Wyoming (that would be the Cincinnati suburb NOT the state), and there he was on the usual corner in Our Town while we were stopped right next to him at the light. I got so excited I fumbled my phone and spoke in tongues for about five seconds before I was finally able to snap a shot. It was the clearest picture I've ever gotten, and alas, too clear to share on the blog. Still, I have PROOF!

The Ministry: Another three day week ahead, and then sliding straight into a long holiday weekend. Should be quiet around The West Wing over the next few days as well.

Current Moon Phase: Full Moon 100% of Full

Picture Pages, Picture Pages, Time to Get Your Picture Pages

2010-11-11T12:40:00.000-05:00

Many Gen Xers and perhaps their Boomer Parents will remember Bill Cosby's Picture Pages, a segment that I guess I probably first watched on Captain Kangaroo when I was a wee one. Apparently it went on to be a part of Nickelodeon's daytime programming in the 1980s, but I don't know if I remember that or not. Roy was more of a Pinwheel fan than me.

But this is not really a post about that. I just stole the title, as I seem wont to do, for my latest stitching picture update. If you will recall, I am working on seven pieces: Village and Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow Samplers, a piece for every season, and the Lizzie Kate Monthly Flip It Stamp Series. So let the picture posting commence. I think I'll do Before and After shots.

Village at Hawk Run Hollow, Carriage House Samplings. I LOVE stitching these houses. As I said in a previous post, I know these are slow going as my progress will show below, but every single stitch looks beautiful to me.

Next up is Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow, Carriage House Samplings. Again, really loving every stitch, but I wish I had more progress to share as this is going to be gorgeous when it's finally done.

On to Fall with the small piece from the November Sampler by Prairie Schooler.

The Winter piece is Winter Boxer by Lizzie Kate.

For Spring we have the Spring Sampler by Lizzie Kate.

Rounding out the seasons I actually have a finish. This is Lizzie Kate Summer Button Up ready to be ironed by someone else!

Since I finished a Summer piece, I had to choose another one to add to the rotation, so here is the very first look at the July Sampler from Prairie Schooler.

And finally, I am working Lizzie Kate December, January, and February Stamp Flip Its up as one piece.

So there's my November stitching update. I'm on day one of my four day mini-break, so hopefully some of that time can be used to make more progress.

Since this is a picture post, I'll leave you with this one. For those of you new to the blog, I try to keep track of a man who ambles around Our Town quite frequently whom I have dubbed The Walking Man. (If you want to catch up and learn more about him THIS was my first post about him, and the label at the bottom of it will take you to more.) The Walking Man has been my elusive prey lo these many years, and as I was scrolling through my phone last night looking at old pictures, I found one that I don't think I've ever posted here. I'm not sure why I never did because it's probably the best picture I've ever gotten (which is not saying much), but here it is, from June 14, 2009:

I should add that Walking Man sightings remain scarce. I have only seen him twice since last Winter--once in the Spring and once this Summer. On the latter occasion he had a reusable grocery bag full of something or other slung over his shoulder and was walking South past the UDF.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 31% of Full

Double U Tee Eff

2010-11-07T18:08:00.000-05:00

How is it humanly possible that I do not have the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp version of Sleepy Hollow on DVD??? How in the HELL has this come to pass?

I do have it on my computer for my iPod, but I don't have the DVD??? SERIOUSLY?? What the absolute FUCK? I've been obsessed with this story since I was a tot, so how could this have passed me by? Maybe the furnace HAS been poisoning me for years!

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2010-11-07T14:43:00.001-05:00

Having a blog is certainly a funny thing. Funny in that it proves you never remember anything correctly. At least I don't.

Two examples:

I finally broke down and turned on the Fiery Furnace of Death when I got up today. So far it hasn't killed any of us, which--if you know me--is a yearly and pretty constant fear of mine. I've been THINKING about turning on the furnace for at least the past week--checking the thermostat periodically to see if the temperature drops below sixty, the threshold at which I figured I'd have no choice but to court death and destruction by flipping the on switch. As October gave way to November, I've been sort of congratulating myself for my restraint, and when I finally caved today (it was fifty-five degrees in here when I got up), I figured this was probably the latest in the season I'd waited to fire up the death machine.

Only reading last year's post from this very day, I hadn't turned it on yet then either.

On a similar note, I've been thinking about putting up the Christmas tree already and reveling in the fact that I seem to have more holiday spirit than in the past few years.

Only I don't. Turns out I was contemplating putting up the Christmas tree on this day last year too.

So in the end, the lesson that I take from this is that I pretty much do the same damn things over and over again, year in and year out. I'm just too brain damaged to remember it.

One thing that I am for sure doing again this year--same as the last eleven years--is taking off Veteran's Day. As it turns out, however, this will be my last go 'round with that particular holiday. As a public employee, I am paid for all federal holidays. Most of the time I'm off on those days as well, but there have always been a few exceptions: Columbus Day and Presidents Day. We work on both of those days, but we are off on the day after Thanksgiving and paid for it as Columbus Day. Similarly The Ministry is shut down completely every year between Christmas and New Year's Day, but some of those days are paid for as holidays. There's the obvs ones, and then we also get paid for one of those days as Presidents Day. The rest have to be covered by vacation or personal leave time. For some reason, Veteran's Day has never been one of these floating holidays even though The Ministry is actually OPEN on that day, so classified staff have always had that random day off.

Alas it will be no more. The Ministry petitioned the state to change some obscure clause here and there and elsewhere so that they can now make Veteran's Day a floating holiday, and we will get paid for an additional day during Winter Shut Down as Veteran's Day. I thought it was a pretty craptastic move to make that change.....like.....last month instead of waiting to enact it next year, but it's not the first craptastic thing to happen at The Ministry lately, and it won't be the last. Nevertheless, I decided back in May to make a four day weekend out of all our random one day holidays, and I'm not going to let a little thing like the fact that it's no longer a holiday stop me. I'll just use two vacation days instead of one--after all I'll need one less for Winter Shut Down now.

I say all this to point out that I have a super short three day week ahead. Yay, Me!

And yes, I did just take two longish paragraphs to tell you something I could have said in a seventeen word, one line sentence, but I'm on my third Diet Coke so give me a break.

I have been stitching, but I don't have current pictures of all my projects just yet, so the monthly update on that progress will have to wait. I would like to state for the record though that I am enjoying the big Carriage House Samplings pieces (Autumn and Village of Hawk Run Hollow) more than anything I've ever stitched. When you see the progress report you'll marvel at how slow I'm going, but every stitch on these things is a joy to me for some reason, so I do not care that it's slow going.

I haven't done a television update in a while, and that's primarily because not much about this television season is blowing my skirt up if you know what I mean. There are only three new shows I opted into this year. One of them is already canceled (Outlaw), and another--Shit My Dad Says--I would opt out of if Ky didn't enjoy it. It's okay, and Shat is mildly funny, but it's not must see t.v. for me. The third show, Hawaii 5-O, is highly enjoyable for the eye candy (although I just watched an epi where Alex failed to take off his shirt, and THAT is not acceptable!!), but at the end of the day, it's just another police procedural, and I don't like police procedurals. The car chases and the slick fight sequences and the other random action scenes bore me to tears, and I find myself sitting there wondering why people are into that. Get on with the shirt removal and let's be done with it! Fortunately, Alex usually obliges in that department, and one hopes the epi mentioned above was an aberration. I do so admire the mans tattooed arms and.....er......other parts.

There has been on very bright spot in the fall television line up for me though, and that is the new Sherlock Holmes series that has been airing on Mystery. It is hands down the most divine thing I've watched in a long time. It's funny and smart and the chemistry between Holmes and Watson is off the charts! I've never purchased any of the Mystery series on DVD, but I think I'm a gonna have to have this one. (Right, Mother?) This latest incarnation stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson. I've seen Cumberbatch in other things and not been impressed, but I ADORE him here. Freeman is the sweet guy who plays a porn star body double in Love Actually, and he is wonderful in this role as well. And while we're on the subject of British actors: Benedict Cumberbatch?? Seriously??? What the fuck sort of name is that? It's like something from Beatrix Potter. And what's with all the Ruperts? Rupert Grint, Rupert Penry-Jones, Rupert Graves who plays the always clueless Inspector Lestrade this time around. It baffles, really.

So that's about that I guess. I've gone on much longer than I did intend. I think all this Diet Coke has given me the shakes and damaged my brain a little more, but the fearsome furnace has yet to get me. (Unless it's not the Diet Coke but carbon monoxide flooding the house that's making me feel weird!! UGH!!!!)

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 3% of Full

Election Day

2010-11-02T10:16:00.000-04:00

I grew up in a state where Mitch McConnell is the Senior United States Senator and has held the position for most of my life, and now I live in John Boehner's congressional district.

Fuck My Life.

I keep voting anyway. You should too.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 17% of Full

Happy November!

2010-11-01T19:37:00.000-04:00

Every year around my birthday (August 25 just like Tim Burton!), I start waxing on about how it's the beginning of my favorite time of the year.

I follow this up with approximately two months of motherfucking Mother Nature to just get the fuck on with the changing of the season.

So what I've come to realize is that the most wonderful time of the year doesn't really come to these parts in late August or September or even early October. No, what I really like about Fall is LATE Fall. This time right now when cool air is finally filtering in and staying put and the days draw in on themselves. Post Halloween, everything is starting to look a little more like Winter than Fall, the skies stay grey for more than just a day or so, and wood smoke flavors the air. That turning in is what I really crave about the Fall. Tuckling up, as Dave Matthews might say.

And I stay really content with the shortening days and the quickening wind all the way through New Year.

After that all bets are off. Come January, you can bet I'll be cursing the darkness in which I constantly live and slitting my wrists from Seasonal Affective Disorder.

But for now, I'm at my most content cozying up and waiting for Time Change Weekend. In fact, everything about this time of year would be perfectly, perfectly lovely if only I didn't have to turn on the furnace and possibly kill us all.

Oh well. Can't have everything.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 23% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2010-10-24T14:32:00.001-04:00

Not too much to relate today. I could tell you that my two year blogiversary is coming up this week. That's semi-exciting I guess, but the truth is that I find the whole idea of a blogiversary sort of asinine and stupid, so.....

We could talk about the huge and deadly poisonous spider that just ventured into my house and tried to kill me, prompting me to wake Ky up so that he could come kill it. He actually made me leave the room while he did it because he said he couldn't stand my squealing every five seconds. As if.

Then there's The Wind. Is very bad today. VERY bad. It is giving me flashbacks.

Oh, and here's a funny quote from the week in television. On 30 Rock, Liz Lemon was flashing back to her Generation X childhood. She was telling Jack that at the time she had a hair cut "which everybody thought was a Dorothy Hamill but was actually a Pete Rose". HA! That's classic--especially if you remember the post chronicling the horror that was my own Dorothy Hamill haircut which you can read here. It's doubly classic if you are in the know enough to know that Pete Rose is a former Cincinnati Reds player and manager and one of The 'Nati's favorite if ever so slightly notorious sons.

Other than these few things, I have a whole lot of nothing I'm afraid. I'm still holding on to my job at The Ministry in the Department of Magical Games and Sport. It was Homecoming week 'round there, and MOPH showed up on Friday looking like the Minister of Magic himself.

Can you guess which one is Jeremy?

In closing this very random post, I figure it's time to share with you the song that inspired the title for my Sunday posts. I've said before that I cannot walk around my little 1960's suburb of a weekend without being forcefully reminded of this song. In 1967, when this song was popular, this probably was Status Symbol Land.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 97 % of Full

PS: Someone just called my cell phone from an extension at The Ministry. I didn't answer it since it wasn't my extension or any of the others in The West Wing, so I'm going to assume it was the Office of Development trying to part me from the little money that I have in (love and) honor of the spirit of Homecoming and all that. If I'm wrong, and it was a co-worker in a dire and emergent situation? Oops. Sorry about that.

PPS: The West Wing is the wing of the building in which I work where the Department of Magical Games and Sport is housed. Not sure I've ever clarified that. So if you are monitoring me Mr. Federal Agent Man and Mr. Spook, I don't work in The White House--just in case the seven foot tall red hawk mascot above didn't make that clear.

Who Has the Best Mother in the World?

2010-10-18T17:43:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately for all of you--except my brother Roy--that would be ME!

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not one to buy just anything that comes out on DVD. I know people who will see a movie once, be mildly entertained, and throw it in ye olde collection, but I have to know that it's a film that I'm going to watch over and over. In fact, a lot of my DVD collection is made up of movies that I had on VHS at one time, and I love them so much that I have to keep moving forward to the new technology. (Which is, of course, a ginormous consumer products purveyor conspiracy to get every last dollar from us then, now, and later, but that's a post for another day!) When it comes to television series, I'm even more selective. I can count on one hand the number of television shows of ALL TIME that I have any interest in having at my beck and call, so the ones that I do adore, I A-DORE.

Still, at the end of the day, I'm just a humble clerical worker at The Ministry with a co-starring role in this latest edition of Hard Times, so my mad money expenditures have been curtailed dramatically--which is to say, halted all together, and which led to my canceling a number of DVD pre-orders at Amazon.com earlier this summer. (How's THAT for a run on sentence, Charles Dickens?!)

So, imagine my surprise and giddy delight when I came home this evening to find a PRIZE on my porch!!! I took it inside and tore it open and found THIS:

That's Grey's Season Six, Thirtysomething's final Season Four, and Community Season One!!! All sent winging my way by the wonderful woman that spawned me. Thanks, Mama!!!!!! You are the bestest, EVER!

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous 85% of Full

The Walking Man

2010-10-16T15:50:00.002-04:00

First sighting since April. Where has he been all this time?

Moon Quotes

2010-10-16T13:24:00.000-04:00

.....and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant..... e.e. cummings

I like this one so much I added it to the blog header.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous 67% of Full

Blogs, Blogs, and More Blogs

2010-10-12T19:30:00.000-04:00

If you know me very well, you know that I don't really do a thing half way.

Well, unless you count housework and laundry and getting the oil changed in my car (which I sorta, kinda haven't done in ANY way for too long; oops).

I'm talking about the important things though. Hobbies, hot men, books, whatevs. If I like something, I REALLY like it whether it's The West Wing or Jon Hamm as Don Draper or the latest ever so slight obsesh I might every so slightly have for Maroon 5.

But I digress, for the last year or so that list of favorite things has included blog reading. I am never so happy as when I can add another good blog to the endless queue in my Google Reader, and I'm even happier when an old friend becomes a new blogger for me to enjoy. First it was MOPH, and now it's MOPH's wife Marlowe. Check her out at http://abumpintheroad-jennifer.blogspot.com/, and you can always find her on my side bar.

Blog on!

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 31% of Full

An Homage to the Men of Hawaii 5-O: Or the Kind of Post my Brother Most Likes to Read

2010-10-11T19:37:00.000-04:00

So yesterday, I stumbled across THIS older picture of Alex O'Loughlin:

Yowzer.

Anyway, I have been watching and enjoying his new show Hawaii 5-O, and I find his partner, the iconic "Danno", not very hard on the eyes either. Turns out that the person in question is actually James Caan's son Scott. I looked into him today because it struck me in several scenes from last week's episode that he is terribly short next to Alex, who tops out at a pretty run of the mill six feet. Turns out Scott's only 5 feet 5 inches tall (if you believe what you read on the Interwebs) and is also only one day older than Alex whose birthday is only one day before mine.

Aren't you glad you took the time to read this?

Book ME, Danno--Sorry, I HAD to say it

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 22% of Full

Good Luck Redlegs!!!!

2010-10-10T20:32:00.000-04:00

So the third play off game between the Reds and the Philadelphia Phillies is just underway. It's a big one. Not only because the Reds have to win it, but because our intrepid Reds Reporter in the Field is attending his first ever post season play off game, and if you know MOPH, you know that this is probably one of the ultimate experiences of his whole existence. I'm excited just imagining how stoked he is, and he does stoked well with all the giddy abandon of a 12 year old. Our immaturity is our bond, don't you know.

I don't know which way this game is gonna go, but I wanted to post some pictures that MOPH sent from the field today just in case this is the last hurrah of the season.

Whatever happens tonight, enjoy every damn moment, Jeremy! You've earned it!

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday: Window to the World Edition

2010-10-10T14:21:00.000-04:00

I haven't done one of these Window to the World posts lately. It's possible I've only ever done one once, but if this is a subject of my blog that you've been missing terribly, this is your lucky day.

Which means no one is feeling very lucky today, but whatevs.

To refresh your memories, the Window to the World in question is the large, picture window in my kitchen. When I'm at home and not sleeping, I am almost always either in my kitchen or in my living room, so the picture windows in both are my favorite places to watch the world go by. Of the two, however, the kitchen window is the one I'm most likely to be staring through. This is how I keep tabs on the neighbors, monitor the goings on at the Produce Stand across the street, and gauge whether the power is actually out for everyone or whether someone is maliciously targeting just my house because they are getting ready to bust in and terrorize me. (I do this latter by looking out the window and up the street to see if the stop light is out.)

So what do I see today when I look out my Window to the World? It's very, very sunny. My hostas and the clematis are looking scraggly. There is a huge weed growing out of the bush on the left of the patio that Ky failed to weed eat this week even though I SPECIFICALLY told him to pay attention to the edges of the car port.

The steeple on the church up the street is very white against the sky. The parking lot of the church is empty. Hillbilly Slim has some raggedy ass old hoopty of a car parked in his driveway, and it blocks my view of the church's sign with its ubiquitous and often asinine proverb of the week.

The Cultist Birds are staying holed up in the bushes and out of the dirt and occasionally take wing over to the wood pile to sit a spell.

The Produce People have a big wagon positioned next to the road. It's loaded with happy orange pumpkins and purple, yellow, and orange mums, and it's surrounded by corn stalks and hay bales.

Farmer Smith's dog, who is perpetually out in the back yard, is strangely missing today, and it look's like no one is home at Hillbilly Slim's place--the presence of the hoopty aside.

The leaves on the trees that are visible from my house are still in that unsettled, in-between stage of color. Driving through the neighborhood yesterday, I saw that some houses on my street have trees that are dripping with gorgeous orange and red leaves, but I don't see any of that right around here. Everything visible is either faded green, dull red, or sickly yellow. The bush on the side of the house that flames up into a beautiful, bright scarlet at this time of the year is still mostly just green though a quick check of it just this moment shows that it's beginning to tip out in color.

Excuse the electric meter

Obvs, I can't actually see that bush from my Window on the World but who needs to be a purist about these things? And since I'm reporting on things outside the WoW view, I'll tell you that not a creature is stirring at Old Man Jenkins's place or Grumpus's house or even at the Cultist's house where things are usually rocking and rolling on Sundays.

Not today. Today there are just a lot of yards littered with election posters (mostly for Governor Strickland, thank the whatevers that be) and miles and miles of bright blue sky. That'll do.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 12% of Full

Random Picture Post

2010-10-09T16:56:00.000-04:00

I don't have anything terribly exciting to share today, but I've spent the last week taking pictures here and there and forwarding them on to my blog email account, so I guess it's past time to share.

First up is stitching. Since I'm working on so many pieces I guess I'll post a progress picture of each once each month, so that surely by the time another 30 days have passed, I'll be able to show something that looks like it's actually been worked on. Here goes:

I think I already posted this but it's Prairie Schooler November Small

Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow

Lizzie Kate Spring Sampler

Really terrible picture of Lizzie Kate Summer Button Up--excuse the leg

Lizzie Kate Winter Boxer

Village of Hawk Run Hollow

Winter Series of Lizzie Kate Stamp Flip It Months--this is December

So that's what I've got going stitching-wise.

I've also taken some random pictures of a few other decorations I've placed about the house in honor of the season.

What you can't see is my dead cat Duchess in her burial urn behind the Autumn picture

I'm having a bit of trouble letting go. It's only been 2.5 years, People.

Miss Kitty waiting under the Halloween Tree for The Great Pumpkin

Decorate with fruit!

Any guesses on what I'm gonna do with this?

And that's about all I've got this time around. My adult psuedo-step-son is making Spaghettio's and singing a song about candy mountain. One of us needs to be committed.

Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent 6% of Full

Look Who's Blogging Now!

2010-10-07T15:46:00.001-04:00

Way back in the early days of this baseball season, I challenged Cincinnati Reds Reporter in the Field, MOPH, to get a picture of Mr. Redlegs for me. You can read that post here. He went me one better and actually got a picture WITH Mr. Redlegs on the last home game of the regular season.

If you will recall, I also tasked MOPH with getting a picture of Joey Votto with his shirt off. I suppose a girl can't have EVERYTHING.

All of this is a very apropos lead in to some more exciting news. Our intrepid Reds Reporter now has his own blog! It's about baseball and baseball and maybe some more baseball with a little bit of other stuff thrown in for seasoning. Please do check it at http://asingleshortofthecycle.blogspot.com/. Hopefully, this new development will not prevent him from continuing to be this blog's link to all things Reds. (Even if I wouldn't go along with his plan to call in sick to The Ministry today with SCARLET Fever. Sorry, Jeremy!)

I'm just back from the biannual trip to the dentist. Nothing tragic to report. Next time around I'll have some stitchy pics, but for now, I'm off into the wildly blue yonder of this very pretty Autumn afternoon.

Peace, Bitches.

Current Moon Phase: New Moon 0% of Full

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2010-10-03T12:59:00.002-04:00

Weather: Chilly at just 51 degrees. I had to cave and close the windows. Also, bi-polar, meaning one minute it's overcast and looking like rain and the next it's bright and sunny. Windy--windy enough to make me nervous. Although to be fair, it doesn't take much of anything to do that. I'd also observe at this point that I don't think we are going to have a very colorful leaf-turning season. Our area has been in Severe Drought condition for the past few weeks, and little rain usually translates to leaves that just turn brown and fall off without any of the usual fanfare. Looking out the kitchen window at our trees and those across the street, I see mostly anemic yellows and dull browns--nothing promising there.

Books: Still have not found my reading mojo. I ended up returning unread every library book I had. I'm going to give The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova a go, but I haven't started it yet. I did get it into my head last night to look for an old favorite from my teenage years, but I couldn't remember the title. Luckily, I was pretty sure it was a Newberry Medal winner, and that hunch turned out to be right, so I've requested Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt from the library. One of the few things I remember about this book--other than it was my favorite, favorite, favorite book in high school--is that the main character's uncle drinks Old Grandad and hides it in the cellar.....or something like that. I'm sure this book is lying around my parents' house somewhere, and if you know where it is, Folks, do send it along, but for now I'm getting it from the library.

Movies: Well, we tried to watch Hot Tub Time Machine last night, and that didn't end so well. It is really, really, really, as-in-almost-never, rare for me and The Boyfriend to watch something together, but last night we gave it a go with very poor results. The DVD was from the library, and as often happens, it locked up on us. Unfortunately, it didn't start doing this until the last quarter of the movie, so we watched the whole damn thing and were completely unable to see the ending. The Boyfriend was HIGHLY displeased and had a whole slew of unfortunate things to say about the library AND my insistence on getting my movies from there, so I think I'll just rely on Netflix from now on. We are new to Netflix, so I've never had any problems with the DVDs, but it strikes me that Netflix isn't really all that much different is it? I mean, you are still using a DVD that has probably been used by a cajillion other people, so what is the diff exactly? We shall see.

Television: Nothing is blowing my skirt up at the moment. Pretty standard fair. I'm enjoying Grey's more than some other long time fans seem to be, but that's about it. Still working on Season One of Thirtysomething. In last night's episode, Melissa and Ellen meet a man at the video store, and he waxes on a bit about the video store being the hot new singles scene of the 1980s. Ha! How archaic. I'm surprised Blockbuster can even keep its doors open.

Stitchery: Remember how I was gonna work my way through the seasons by working solely on one season at a time? Yeah. Well that's not working out. I didn't want to give up my Fall pieces, so now I'm actually working on one piece from EACH season all at the same time while still doing my big Hawk Run Hollow pieces. So, yes, I have like seven projects all going at once. Couple this with my failing to stitch at all some nights, and I'm getting nowhere fast. Still, I'll post some progress on each as I have them in my lap, so this is from last night--Prairie Schooler November Small Piece:

Reds Reporter in the Field: Today is MOPH's last regular season Reds game, so he sent in some pictures to commemorate it.

Sunday's Menu: I have some Velveeta that I need to get rid of and a shit ton of cocktail bread in my freezer that I want out of my way, so I'm going to make Hanky Panks. These are little cocktail bread slices topped with sausage and Velveeta and browned in the oven. The Boyfriend hates them (yell at me about a DVD some more and see what happens!) but Ky loves them, and I'm rather a fan, so that's that.

Current Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 23% of Full