Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Today's Word

Your word for the day is jentacular (jen-TAK-yuh-luhr) adjective.

What does it mean?

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Autumn

watching fall

Cookies!



swiped from Kwizgiver.

A Great Vocabulary Quiz

Like words? Think your vocabulary is pretty good? then head here, where your playing will bring contributions of rice to starving countries. Go ahead. . .

Yes. I am.

nano_participant_icon_large

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?

Inaugural :: Address
Pledge :: Allegiance
String :: Instruments
Trot :: Fox
Fitness :: Physical
Cinder :: Block
Edge :: of Night
31 :: Baskin-Robbins
Blue :: Lagoon
Leather :: Jacket

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Go Green!

And at the half it is Michigan State University 17, Iowa 3. We do need this win.

Edit: Oh gosh, I really wish I hadn't said that. It's the end of the third now, and 17-17.

Edit II: Drat. Lost in double over-time, 34-27. We still are lousy closers.

now THAT's Different







What Rose Is Your Soul Bound To?




Your soul is bound to the Rose Petals: The Wronged."'ve come undone and all hopes of mending me are gone because the pain took my soul. Can't you see? The only one who can put me back together again is me."The Rose Petals are associated with sorrow, reflection, and wisdom. They are governed by the goddess Persephone and their sign is The Teardrop, or Broken Love.As a Rose Petal, you are always self-reflective and may be hard on yourself. You probably have been hurt in the past by other people and can sometimes distance yourself, as a result. You don't usually let other get too close to you, but you are very good at mending your spirits back together by yourself.
Take this quiz!








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Thursday Thirteen on Saturday

13 words I like that begin with Z:

1. zoos (well, I waffle on them, but my niece has worked at ours for the last three years, so I'm glad for that)
2. zinnias
3. Zorro (the guy williams version. well, antonio wasn't bad either)
4. zest (for life)
5. zest (lemon, in cookies)
6. zaniness
7. zippers *smile*
8. zig
9. zag
10. Zeeland, Michigan
11. zone (end zone, with Spartan football players in it with a touchdown)
12. zero (a very important number)
13. zilch (it just sounds cool)

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Fall Wall Garden

fall wall garden

The fall wall garden is starting to slowdown, except for the sedum and that monster nasturtium in the back! I had no clue how big they grew.

Another nice side benefit of living here: Mom keeps filling me in more on my grands and great grands. Apparently Grandma Bea loved to grow nasturtiums. I never knew that!

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Need some snowballs?

Play here.

A Blank Slate, that is Me.

I am:
a stack of blank CD-R discs
The most cost-effective way to store and deliver large amounts of data.


Which office supply are you?

Two Years Ago I was a D+

I simply MUST become more aware!

Your Observation Skills Get A C

You tend to notice the big things in life...
But the details aren't exactly your forte

Fall Gardening

fall gardening My sister is such a sweetie. Not only did she give me canna bulbs, she came over Sunday and dug them for me! I think she knows I need a little nudge sometimes. That did inspire me, so after she left I dug the glad bulbs out and started spading a larger area in that bed. I have iris from my mother to plant, and as I can't use the old iris bed just yet(due to the poison ivy problem) the iris and the glads will be sharing a bed this year. I got half the iris planted too!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?

Las Vegas :: Tom Selleck. But I fell asleep during that show Friday night.
Linus :: Pauling, Charlie Brown
Struck :: Moon
Movie :: Cinema
Anxious :: Nervous
Bandit :: Robber
Picks :: Guitar
Lasso :: Rope, outWest
Dinner :: Supper
Bargain :: Sale

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Flickr Photographers

Once a month I like to share some of the pictures I've really liked on flickr. This is by no means ALL of the pictures I have faved, just the last 36.
Favorites Again!

Orionids Tonight

Meteor shower should peak tonight.

Thanks!

Thanks for the good wishes. I'm feeling better today. I had signed up for a lifetime ed class at MSU on grant-finding. I thought my friend Deb wanted to take it; she thought I wanted to take it. Fortunately, it was very interesting and we both got a lot out of it. If you know a non-profit looking for a grant in the U.S., or an individual looking for one, there is a great resource here.applebuttertheoldfashionedway

Dropped by the Nature Center to see how the Apple Butter Festival was going, then did a little grocery shopping and came home to watch Michigan State give Ohio a little bit of a worry before losing 24-17. (Ohio State is the school to beat this year.) Our showing there should scare the heck out of UofM. It was good to just relax with the kitties. (They're getting used to me hollering during the games now.)

When I cough I hurt. I think I strained some muscles the other night.

The weather was perfect fall today, and wonderful sunlight. The same expected for tomorrow.

And how is your Saturday?

Friday, October 19, 2007

Here I am

Last night I had dinner at the R Club with a friend. Every time we eat there we have nasty windy weather. I got home, lay on the couch watching TV, and the storm reports started showing on TV. Yikes. Tornados and high winds, two separate batches passing over us.

I dozed off, and woke about 11, not feeling well. Oh great. The next two-and-a-half hours were spent in and out of the bathroom. The tornado warnings were still sounding, but if one were to hit during that period, I guess the toilet and I would have blown away. Yuck.

So I didn't go to work today. But I'm up now. I've had some diet rootbeer as I'm out of Vernors. (If you're from Michigan, you probably know someone who believes in Vernors Ginger Ale as the cure-all for all tummy problems.) I've had some stale potato chips, as I'm out of crackers. And I think I'll survive.

I had one big branch down in the backyard, with more broken but stuck in the tree. I think I need to get the tree-cutters here. Sierra has been on the back porch for an hour-and-a-half, watching the leaves be tossed about by the remnants of the wind. Snuzzles says that is too boring for him, but my little warrior girl cat would love to be stalking today.

And the tornado did touch down on the other side of Lansing. I am so sorry. A couple were killed when their modular home was tossed into a man-made pond. It was their first night in their new home. How terrible.

Thursday Thirteen (on Friday)

Thirteen Y words I like.

1. You!
2. yellow
3. yelling at football games
4. yesterday
5. Yule
6. Yellowstone National Park
7. Yoopers
8. yes
9. yarn (that you knit with)
10. yarn (a good tale)
11. Yucca plants
12. yawns
13. youth

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Just a couple quick thoughts

1. I just cleaned my purse out. Wow! I feel so organized. I should do that once a week.

2. Did you know what FWB stands for? I just found out.

3. Have a good day

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Happy Birthday, Trykemom!

My oldest longest running friend, Sheryl, tried blogging for awhile, but then found flickr! It's her birthday today, so why not treat yourself to a visit to her wonderful photo stream, and wish her happy birthday!

Monday, October 15, 2007

Have a Good Day

have a good day

Lansing has too many road projects going this year. It is very hard to get from one place to another without seeing the great orange signs.

But Have a Nice Day!

Sunday, October 14, 2007

And another meme, this time from Susan

Borrowed from susan, who borrowed it from Tien:)

I am a cuddler - true
I am a morning person - false
I am a perfectionist - false
I am an only child - false
I am Catholic - false
I am currently in my pajamas - false
I am currently single - true
I am currently suffering from a broken heart - true
I am okay at styling other people’s hair - false, hahahahahaha
I am left handed - false
I am addicted to my myspace - false
I am very shy around the opposite gender AT FIRST - not very, just a little
I bite my nails - false
I can be paranoid at times - false
I currently regret something that I have said - false
When I get mad I curse frequently - not really
I like someone – true
I enjoy country music - false
I enjoy jazz music - false
I enjoy smoothies - true
I enjoy talking on the phone – true
I have a pet - true
I have a secret that I am ashamed to reveal - true
I have a tendency to fall for the “wrong” person - true
I have all my grandparents - false
I have at least one sibling - true
I have been told that I am smart - true
I got higher then C’s in school - true
My GPA is higher than 2.5 - Yeah, but that's kinda old history
I have broken a bone - false
I have Caller I.D. on my phone - true
I have bathed/showered with someone - false
I have changed a diaper - true. Even though I have no children, I am the oldest of six, and changed many a diaper in my day. I wonder if that is why I have no children.
I have changed a lot over the past year - myself no, my circumstances, yes
I have done something illegal - true
I have friends who have never seen my natural hair - false
I have had surgery - true
I have killed another person - false
I have had my hair cut within the last week - false
I have had the cops called on me - false
I have kissed someone I knew I shouldn’t - true

A Book Meme

Swiped from Julie

The books listed below are the top 106 books most often tagged as being unread by LibraryThing users (as of October 3rd).

The instructions are simple: Bold what you have read, and italicize books you have started but couldn’t finish. Add an asterisk* to those you have read more than once. Underline those on your TBR list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales (I read bits for school many moons ago.)
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: A Novel
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

And it is time to mutter

I say ... and you think ... ?

Illicit :: Love affair
Go :: a Japanese Game
Jacket :: Autumn
Blow :: the candles out
Coach :: Football
Effort :: Try try try
Leadership :: Skills
Snore :: Grandma
Fearless :: Valiant
Network :: Television

a challenge

How smart are you?
Am-I-Dumb.com - Intelligence Test

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Thursday Thirteen on Saturday

Things I like that begin with W:

1. Words
2. Wind
3. Water
4. Wordsworth (my favorite poet).
5. Watermelon
6. Windmills (a nod to my Dutch heritage)
7. Washington, George
8. Walker
9. World-Wide Web
10. West
11. Westerns
12. Walks
13. Wonderment

Julie did an awesome X this week, but I'm going to skip right over to Y next week.

Still Kicking

Just checking in. Busy weekend. Fall Island Festival in town, then visit Auntie N for dinner at the Independence Village. Will catch up with you all tonight!

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

No Smoking

I guess the farmers of the early 20th century were more concerned about their barns going up in smoke than they were about being polite.

no smoking

Egad. There's a song!!

Poison Ivy

Artist: The Coasters (peak Billboard position # 7 in 1959)
Words and Music by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller


She comes on like a rose but everybody knows
She'll get you in Dutch
You can look but you better not touch

Poison iv-y-y-y-y, poison iv-y-y-y-y
Late at night while you're sleepin' poison ivy comes a'creepin'
Arou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ound

She's pretty as a daisy but look out man she's crazy
She'll really do you in
If you let her under your skin

Poison iv-y-y-y-y, poison iv-y-y-y-y
Late at night while you're sleepin' poison ivy comes a'creepin'
Arou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ound

Measles make you bumpy
And mumps'll make you lumpy
And chicken pox'll make you jump and twitch
A common cold'll fool ya
And whooping cough can cool ya
But poison ivy, Lord'll make you itch!!

You're gonna need an ocean of calamine lotion
You'll be scratchin' like a hound
The minute you start to mess around

Poison iv-y-y-y-y, poison iv-y-y-y-y
Late at night while you're sleepin' poison ivy comes a'creepin'
Arou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ound

Measles make you bumpy
And mumps'll make you lumpy
And chicken pox'll make you jump and twitch
A common cold'll fool ya
And whooping cough can cool ya
But poison ivy, Lord'll make you itch!!

You're gonna need an ocean of calamine lotion
You'll be scratchin' like a hound
The minute you start to mess around

Poison iv-y-y-y-y, poison iv-y-y-y-y
Late at night while you're sleepin' poison ivy comes a'creepin'
Arou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ound


la da la da la da
la da la da la da
la da la da la da
la da la da la da

This is why

Why do you blog? I think that's something we all ask ourselves. I blog to create an online presence, to accentuate the positive (most of the time) of my days, to meet great people, and to read their stories. We follow each other through the ups and down, the moves both blog and physical. Susan-on-the-other-side-of-the-world and Ihave been blogging/flickr friends for many years now. She's had her ups and downs and her wonderful up post of yesterday was just fantastic! {{{hugs}}} Plus, she has a picture of the elusive Julie!

Sunday, October 07, 2007

The project and the problem

My October project WAS going to be to dig up the 50-year-old iris that reside next to the field north of the house. They have been there so long that weeds have grown up in and around them. I was going to make the bed nice.

Well, I've got to back up a few steps now.

Some of the weeds are poison ivy, and I'm again nursing welts and sores.

The life of a farmer. It's tough.

The project and the problem

Cheeriness From Sydney

Fall is probably my least favorite month. I do like MSU Spartan football, and the colors are great, but the loss of daylight is kind of a downer. I mean, in June it is light out until almost 10:00 p.m. Now the yardlight comes on at 7:30, and it will only get earlier.

I've also been a bit bummed about my knee acting up. It appears that old arthuritis is making an appearance there. I've had a spot of it in my hands for years. I just never thought he would appear in my knee. The knee is much better now, thanks, but it was a downer.

So I've been a little down lately. But this is where blogging and bloggers can often bring me back up, thank you all very much! I got home from work on Tuesday, and there was a package in the mailbox. I hadn't ordered any books. What could it be?goodiesfromsydney
I pulled it out and noticed the postmark. It was from the other-side-of-the-world.!!!

Susan and I became blogging friends due to the lovely little ladybird or ladybug, whichever you say. She had sent me some new ladybugs to keep me company, plus a stitched goosie, and a book on Sydney, showing where she works. (Except that a teaser on her site says she has a new job. C'mon, don't keep us hanging!)

So thank you, my dear friend, for the lovely gift and for the boost. Much needed, much appreciated.

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?

Cluster :: group
Announcement :: Public Service
Respect :: Aretha
Incident :: at Nuremburg
Accordion :: Uncle Her
Drunk :: Lots of folks at the football game
If :: only
Dexter :: Poin
Wedding :: Song
Gambling :: Las Vegas

Friday, October 05, 2007

Happy Birthday, Young'n!!

miz Susan, she of EasyBakeCoven and SusanJayne fame, is having a birthday!!! Welcome to the double nickels, girl!!!

Spotted at Chicken Scratch

Who Should Paint You: Gustav Klimt

Sensual and gorgeous, you would inspire an enchanting portrait..
With just enough classic appeal to be hung in any museum!

Well!!

I had planned a long post for this morning. I had lots to write about, with pictures. I received a wonderful package from susan-on-the-other-side-of-the-world. I had pictures of both the poison ivy in the yard and the poison ivy spots on my arm for kim. However. At 1:30 a.m. this morning the alarm went off. Not the alarm that someone was breaking in, or the get-up alarm. The alarm that said the alarm system was on battery back-up because we had a power outage. Said power outage continued until 7:30 a.m. this morning. *sigh* So now I'm peeking at work. And I probably won't be able to catch up with everyone until Saturday night. But party in the comments!!!

Wednesday, October 03, 2007