The Rio Grande

Here we are standing in the middle of the Rio Grande.  It's dry during the winters and fast flowing with water in the summers.  A number of miles up stream is a dam.  Right now they aren't letting any water through.  It's been a dry year, until this last week.

I knew we couldn't move without getting our picture taken in the middle of the Rio Grande.  We were surprised by the very soft sand and clams in the sand!

It was very cold that day and it started to rain while we were in the middle of the river.  We took a few goofy pictures and hopped back into the warm van.

Then on Monday, it snowed!  Tuesday was a snow day!  The kids loved that.  Today the world is back to normal, except for some snow left unmelted in the shadowed places of the city.  Pretty cool.  Actually, it's pretty cold.  Today, when my son left for school it was 20 degrees.  I wouldn't let him out of the house to go to school until he had put on long pants.  Monday, the day it snowed, he went to school in shorts and a t-shirt.  He was so mad at me today and told everyone about the cruel and unusual punishment that he has endured because his mother made him wear long pants.  He still wore a t-shirt and no jacket....

Teenage boys..... what can you do?

The Lamp

We are quite practical when it comes to furnishing our house.  I don't have a decorating gene in my body.  My sister got them all!  We have a black sofa.  We have a black rocking chair.  We have bookshelves that hold books.  The pictures on the wall are family photos.  I've tried to match all the frames, but that's about all the decorating I do.  I would like to decorate.  I would like to make cozy corners with a side tables, comfy chairs, and a gee, I don't know.  A knick knack?  What do you do with a cozy corner with a table and chair?

See I'm really not talented when it comes to decorating.

Last week, my son's employer (and a good friend of the family) gave our son a family gift.  It is a lamp.  The lamp is shaped like the Eiffel Tower!  I love it!  It's so art deco.  Now I know what to put in that cozy corner with the table and chair - my Eiffel Tower lamp.

Too bad I don't have that cozy corner.  For now it sits on my kitchen counter.  Hey!  Maybe the next house I can have a cozy corner. Now I just need a comfy chair, a side table and a house to put it all in....

Trans Siberian Orchestra

Last Tuesday, my husband's work's Christmas party for the employees, were tickets to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra.  I wasn't terribly familiar with their music.  I only knew a couple of songs.  If you aren't familiar with TSO, they are kind of an electric guitar rocking band.  They have an electric violinist, two pianist, a drummer on a huge set, and a small string ensemble.  They really rocked the house!  I'm not a head banging, electric guitar rocking fan, but their music was quite awesome.  I had a fun time.  The show lasted for about three hours.  The first half of the show they told a sweet Christmas story with the spoken story being in prose and inbetween the storyteller's tale, they had their music.  Some of it was original music and some was new versions to old tunes like Carol of the Bells (one of their more famous songs.)  The second half of the show was their own oringinal music and showing off their tremendous talents.

The light system was incredible and their were lights in time with the music, laser show, pyrotechnics, and everything you would expect of a rock concert. It was a lot of fun.

Sadly for me, that's the night I got sick, so I was cold, achy and not enjoying the experience nearly as much as I might have otherwise.

I was really amazed to see, among the concert goes, a lot of gray and white haired people.  I was kind of surprised to see so many older folks at the show.  I mean, this was head banging, loud electric guitar music.  But then I got to thinking about these gray haired folks.  These guys were teens or young adults in the 60's and 70's.  This was the generation that went to Woodstock.  This is the generation that saw the Rolling Stones and The Who.  They were the first to go to ear-bleeding, head banging concerts.  Why wouldn't they still enjoy it now? 

This is my 3rd concert I've been too.  If you know anything about me, you might be able to guess who two of my favorite bands are.  Can you guess?  The Monkees and The Beatles.  I was a kid when the Monkees had their 20th anniversary tour and I got to see them when they went to Dallas.  I sat out in the grass for hours, drinking Gatorade and being so excited I could hardly sit still. Then the thrill of seeing Peter, Micky and Davy was beyond anything I had ever experienced. The funny thing about that concert was "Weird Al" was the opening band.  At the time I didn't know who Weird Al was, but it was not a full year later that I was introduced to his music and became a big fan.  All I remember of Weird Al's part of the concert was the "Addicted to Spuds" song.  He had people dressed as potatoes dancing on the stage.

My other favorite band, The Beatles, broke up before I was born, but in the 90's, Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band came to Dallas and I went to see him.  Awesome!

Now I can can Trans Siberian Orchestra to my list of concerts.  It was so much fun.  Next time, though, I need to remember ear plugs.  It was a little louder than I was comfortable with.  I'm such an old fuddy-duddy.

If you've never heard any of TSO before, I recomend this - Carol of the Bells: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vNcGlM8O3I

if you like that, you should also listen to Wizards in Winter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFLOh44P5z0&feature=related

Almost empty: a family tradition

There's a joke in my family among my parents and siblings that when it comes to food you can not finish anything.

Imagine a plate with pancakes on it.  The family eats the pancakes, but then as dinner is finishing, there is one pancake left on the plate.  Who gets it?  Well, it's not polite to take the last one, so everyone just leaves it and dinner is over.

What do you do with the one pancake?  Do you just eat it?  Do you throw it out, even though it is good food?  Do you save it?  Saving it would involve using a baggie or a Tupperware for just one item.  Is it worth it?

During that same meal, everyone has a drink of milk.  But, the tradition is, you must leave a tiny bit of milk in the jug.  You must leave too much milk in the jug just to throw out, so you have to save it.  An entirely empty jug, except for about 1/8 of a cup is stored back into the fridge.

Do you see how this is going?  The family tradition of leaving just the tiniest amount, but too much to throw out has managed to be passed onto my own children.

It's too much food left to throw the container away, but it seems so ridiculous to store an almost completely empty container.

Same with the syrup here.

Must leave a little in the jar.  Now the entire jar must be stored until the next time we eat pancakes.

I have learned over the years that the next time we eat these foods or drinks, I put the mostly empty container out first.  If I set that jug of syrup out AND a brand new jug of syrup, the family will open the new jug and use it, never touching the jug that is almost empty.

Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just my family?

Just some food for thought.  :)

PS: Check out my son, Stonehelm the Wise's, latest blog entry.

An update on the almost empty situation in our house:

Last night we had pickles as a part of our dinner.  There was one lonely pickle slice the size of a nickle left floating in the jar.

The Scary Hotel

A favorite blog inspired me to write this little story:

A little over a year ago I got to go to Detroit.  I spent four days and three nights there.  I was several blocks away from the downtown area.  Now, I’ve heard a lot of bad stories about downtown Detroit, but I have to say, the actual downtown area was very nice.  The skyscrapers were impressive and the streets were nice.  Now, you leave the immediate downtown area and things get pretty scary pretty fast.

I was about three blocks away from the downtown in a cheap hotel. 

There is no way to really describe the hotel and do it justice. I didn’t feel entirely safe.  The room was quite large, painted pink and had one 60 watt light-bulb in it.  It was dark.  In one corner of the room was, from what the manager told me, a Jacuzzi.  Yes, a Jacuzzi right in my room!  However, as I checked in, he told me the Jacuzzi didn’t work.  It was in a corner of the room and it was so dark in that corner, I couldn’t even see the bottom of the dark green tub. For all I knew, there could have been a dead body in there.  Even though the Jacuzzi didn’t work, I was probably charged extra just for the pleasure of having the view of one in my room.

There were bugs in the shower and I saw several on the bed.  Thankfully for me, the room had a couch.  I prefer to sleep on couches anyway, but after seeing the bugs in the bed, I wasn’t sleeping there.  The couch probably wasn’t much better, but I never actually saw a bug on it.

The last night I was there, there was a lot of activity going on in the halls.  I didn’t sleep well.  I kept the door locked and bolted, but someone tried to get into my room about three in the morning.  I think the people were quite drunk because I finally heard one of them say, “oops, wrong door!”

The only thing that room had going for it was Wi Fi.  I was able to hook up to the Internet and write a bad review of the hotel.  Stay Away!

The super pink hotel room

The dark corner with the mysterious Jacuzzi.  The flash from the

camera makes it look lighter than it actually was in the room.

This summer, as a family, we ended up stopping quite late one night in Flagstaff on our way to see extended family.  Some huge motorcycle convention must have been going on.  Every hotel we stopped at was full and the parking lots were filled with motorcycles.  We finally found a motel that was probably built in the 50’s.  Judging from the décor in the room, it still had its original furnishings.  I think the bedding and pillows were original too.  Our entire family slept in one room on the beds, and all over the floor.  Now, this was in July and the window A/C didn’t work.  As Flagstaff is high elevation, the outside air did cool down, but not in our room.  I hardly slept.  It was too hot.  I should have slept outside in the open air, but I was afraid of some motorcycle gang from the hotel next door might see me sleeping on the patio.  Hubby wasn’t impressed with the room at all, but I have to say, I never saw a bug in the room during our 10 hours in the motel. (Except for the dead one smashed on the bathroom wall next to the toilet, but hey, at least it was dead.)

Flowers on the Move

Our garden among the rocks was quite successful this year.

We had about 50 onion plants.  My hubby loves onions, but even that was a lot for him.  He made a lot of French Onion soup and put onions on just about anything he could.  We ended up freezing a lot and we dehydrated and froze the rest. 

Our one little strawberry plant produced four strawberries.  They were little, but so good.  After we removed the rest of the plants that were sharing the bucket with the strawberries, they just started to spread.  They are still alive and well and we will care for them over the winter so they can begin again next spring.

We also had a few small planters with flowers in them.  They were the only color around our house.  We had them away from the rest of the garden and put them on our front porch.  They did fantastic and we had lovely blooms all summer.

In August, I noticed something unusual; we had flowers blooming in the rocks next to the porch.  Somehow, the flowers had spread.  They left the fertile plant box and have thrived in the rocks.   I’m so pleased with our little garden we had this year.

The flowers migrated from their box and into the rocks.

more scrat attack

Here are more of my daughter's amazing scrat creations!

Army Scrat

(don't you love his camo helmet?)

Ballerina Scrat

So lovely on her tippy toes.

Howday y'all, it's Cowboy Scrat.

"This acron is highly illogical," says the Vulcan Scrat.

Stay out of his way, young whippersnappers, it's Grandpa Scrat.

Scrat Attack

Have you ever seen the movie(s) Ice Age?  If so, you are familiar with the little character known only as "Scrat".

There he is.  Well, several months ago, my 7 year old daughter saw a short episode about how to draw Scrat.  She developed and perfected her own version of Scrat.  I would like to present, for your enjoyment, several of her Scrat characters.

Sherlock Holmes Scrat

Mummy Scrat

The Pink Panther Scrat

Indiana Jones Scrat

Then, today I found one more page of her scrat drawings.  We are Whose Line is it Anyway? fans.  So, finding this page was too funny.  Among the Whose Line Scrats, you can see:

Ryan, who is often seen drinking his glass of water through out the show.

Colin with his amazing crazy shirts.

And Greg with his totally awesome hair.

This daughter has drawn so many of these fantastic scrat characters.  There are princess scrats, grandpa and grandma scrats, a Hobbit scrat, a Spock (Star Trek) scrat, a Sith Lord (Star Wars) scrat, a Boy Scout scrat and many more.  What talent. Who knows... maybe she will do art for animated movies when she grows up.  Until then, she keeps us very entertained with all her many scrats.

(Picture of Ice Age Scrat from http://desktopia.net/cartoons/cute-scrat-ice-age-desktop-wallpaper)

Toilet Paper

My children are a major source of my personal entertainment.  They are also the source of my biggest frustrations.  What is really incredible, though, is how the kids can be entertaining and frustrating at the same time.

Do you know how much water 5 brand new rolls of toilet paper can hold?
A LOT!
How do I know this?  I found 5 new rolls of toilet paper, heavily laden with water, resting at the bottom of a full bath tub after my youngest son’s last bath.

It was so funny and so frustrating at the same time.  I hate the waste of all that toilet paper, but I certainly found it amusing enough to take a picture of it.

Enjoy!

Four of the rolls have had most of their water squeezed out, one is still full.

Can you guess which one?

More great products for you

 Don't you wish you had this patio?  It's filled with all sorts of amazing things.  Zoom in and you will see all the brilliant things I had to say about this set up.

I hope you enjoyed today's section of the Amazing Products catalog, put together by yours truly.

Great Ideas

I’m a fountain of great ideas. They are all amazing, really.

Unfortunately, there are more ideas than time to do any of them. I don’t know that I’ve completed many of these ideas. Most of them are ideas for stories to write, business to start and weaving projects to try.

If I wrote down every great idea I had, I would have a book the size of the Oxford Dictionary.

(This is my dictionary with a penny, to give you scale.)

LOL

When I thought about that, I got a little depressed. All those great ideas and nothing being done with any of them.

Then, I started to think about all the journals I’ve kept over the years. Doing a quick calculation, I’m sure I’ve written over 2000 pages of journal entries. That’s written in books alone. That doesn’t include the 400+ journal entries I’ve written on my blog and the many bits and bytes in my computer of more writing and journaling.

These are my journals I've kept over the years.  After taking this picture, I realized that

the journal I kept as a kid and teenager aren't in this picture.  All you see

here are journals I've kept since 1994.  They are piled next to the dictionary with the penny.

You know, for scale.

That’s a whole lot of writing. I guess most of my ideas will remain nothing more than ideas, but that’s OK.  Great ideas are fun to think up whether you get to do them or not.

However, when I build my Hobbit-like house and open my themed bed and breakfast, I’ll let you know so you can come to see it.  I'll autograph copies of my latest published work for you. 

See you in dream-land.

Random photos: Sept 2010

Once again it's time for random photos!  I know everyone is celebrating at the news.  The title of the photos on display  is "What in the World?"

Enjoy

What in the world is this? It's a drawing by me.  I know, it's pathetic.  I would love to be able to draw, but I just can't.  Zero talent.  At least, you are able (I hope) able to tell what it is.

It's a cottage in a thick forest with a river running along side it.  I don't think you can see the river well in the left corner.  Do you hear the first song when my blog comes up?  If you look at the player at the bottom of the page, the song is called Explore 5.  It's real name in the soundtrack is called "Separation".  It's one of my favorite songs.  It's really quite sad, but this is the image that comes to mind when I hear the song.  At one time, in a life long, long ago, I must have lived in this cottage.  It was small, surrounded by trees, grasses, and flowers and a stream ran close by.  I feel like I've been torn away from that life and am currently in the one I have now.  This image is a part of me and for now I'm separated from it.  I hope heaven looks like this (but better than my silly drawing).

Next picture:  Again you are probably asking, what in the world is this?  They are cookies.  As a younger person, I was able to make the most wonderful cookies.  Now, they are flat, flat, flat.  It's hard to properly bake cookies when they come out flat, because they are usually always too crispy.  Baking friends, what am I doing wrong?  I just can't make cookies anymore.  Other baked goods turn out well, but not cookies.

Last picture:  What in the world?  They are fried pickles.  Yes, I said fried pickles.  It is late September, and the greatest state fair in the USA recently opened: The State Fair of Texas!  Among their culinary delights is this nifty treat, fried pickles.  Oh how I love them.  I pulled out our deep fryer recently.  Every time I've fired up the fryer, I throw in a hand full of flour-battered pickles.  Yummmmmy! 

I hope you enjoyed today's show.