VernQuarBoWriMo v. 4.0 29%
Posted by admin on February 20th, 2010 filed in General, VernQuarBoWriMo, Writing2 Comments »
Now:
26154 / 90000 words. 29% done!
2/10/10:
24735 / 90000 words. 27% done!
Wedding pictures
Posted by admin on February 20th, 2010 filed in General, Neat things, Outdoors, WeddingComment now »
My brother and I both got married to our spouses the same year. I found some of the pictures today.
This is the mill we visited on our honeymoon in the mountains:
And here are the misty mountains outside our cabin. We battled orcs and ring wraiths right after taking this photo.
I hung up my wedding dress in the cabin:
Here is my brother’s groom’s cake. I hope I’m that good some day!
Here are my flowers from Nathan and Marguerite’s wedding, along with my pregnancy-swollen wrists.
This is the reception after Nathan and Marguerite got married. What a great day!
Have a reflective Lent!
Posted by admin on February 19th, 2010 filed in Food, General, Lent4 Comments »
It’s Lent again, which I observe every year. Read my thoughts from last year here, since I am unfortunately too lazy to type it all out again.
This year I am giving up the usual things: chocolate, baked goods and other sweets, and soda. That won’t be much of a challenge though, since I already abstain from most of those things due to their milk and/or soy content.
So for Lent 2010, I’m also giving up what I like to refer to as prepared or processed foods. This is tricky to define, but I’m talking about boxes of mac and cheese, anything with Kraft or Pillsbury logos on it, and fast foods. I believe this will be good for me because it will reduce added fats and sugars, high fructose corn syrup, and preservatives in my diet.
I have a long weekend coming up at the end of this month, during which Beren and Maggie will be visiting my mom. Since I won’t be nursing Maggie during that time, that means I can have dairy. That means I CAN EAT WHATEVER I WANT!!! So during those days, my Lenten sacrifices are off. I imagine it will go something like this: Cheese Day. Again, I am just too lazy to write all that over again, so you get recycled posts.
Sorry posting has been so light. There’s just not enough time. Anyone want to do a guest post so my readers stay interested in the blog?
What’s your peeve, Internet?
Posted by admin on February 13th, 2010 filed in General6 Comments »
You know what I really hate? When you are drinking through a straw and the straw has a little hole in it somewhere above the level of the liquid and air bubbles get in the hole and super bubblify whatever you are drinking. Stupid air!
I hate it when you are in the shower and the bar of soap has a little hair on it. First you hold the soap up to the shower head in hopes the hair will just magically wash away. Of course, it doesn’t. Then you turn the bar over and over under the spraying water, chasing the stupid hair around on there. Then you gouge out the chunk of soap with your fingernail hoping to remove the hair with it. Yet it sticks and stays. It just makes me want to get a fresh bar! I’ve mostly switched to body wash at this point.
Or how about when you are playing outside with the toddler and then come inside to wash your hands and eat. Inevitably it is some sort of finger food and you look down to see that there is still dirt from outside under your nails. *sigh*
That’s all. Mostly I wanted to know what peeves you have, so leave a comment!
My boy, the cartographer
Posted by admin on February 10th, 2010 filed in Art, Beren, General, Neat things3 Comments »
Beren has been the most challenging during the 4th year of his life. Yep, I think he has a case of delayed onset terrible 2s and they didn’t sink in until he turned 3. But I love this age because such incredible rays of sunlight come through the storm of toddler tantrums. Today Beren asked if we could make a map. Here it is. Follow the purple line and find out how to get from our house to Mum Mum’s house!
We started in the bottom corner with Beren’s house and he wanted to plot a course to Mum Mum’s house (that’s my mom’s house). So we remembered that Nanna’s house (Bert’s grandmother) was near here and Mark and Jody’s house and Abby’s house were on the way to Mum Mum’s house. Beren also suggested we make stops at ants (The conversation went like this: “Beren, how many legs do ants have?” Blank stare, then, “Ants have legs, Mommy.” “We’ll go with 6 each.”), a butterfly garden, a corn field, and the tallest mountain (some of those things are on Dora). Then he wanted the sun and the moon, which are both very important to Beren. He reminded me that we needed some steps, so I put them on all the houses. That wasn’t what he meant. He corrected me and told me the steps needed to go from his house to the ants and then to the sun, and also from Mum Mum’s house to the moon. How does he come up with this stuff? He did some coloring on the map too, but you have to push really hard with this kind of crayon, so his marks are very light.
VernQuarBoWriMo v. 4.0 27%
Posted by admin on February 10th, 2010 filed in General, VernQuarBoWriMo, WritingComment now »
Well, I’m still writing that book. Progress has slowed down since I started the new job. I think I’m finding a new groove though and hopefully there will be time in my life for writing the book, and maybe even for blogging.
Well, VernQuarBoWriMo is now in Version 4.0. Do you think I will finish with 25% of the book this month? No? Me either, but it’s okay to have goals. I got done with 9% last month, which isn’t bad. I also completed a lot of notes and decided some background information.
Although the Quar in VernQuarBoWriMo stands for quarter and I probably won’t get done with that much, I’m going to leave the title the same, VernQuarBoWriMo. Why? Because I have come to like it. I like the way Bert sighs and cringes every time he hears me slowly and painfully try to remember all the syllables and say them aloud. “Veerrrnnn…Qwuuaaarrrrr….Booooooooohhhhh…..Wrryyyyyyy….Moooooohhhhh.” I intentionally scrunch up my face and raise an eyebrow and look up like I am accessing the encyclopedia in the sky while I say it. It drives him crazy! Love it!
It’s funny. I was just telling Beren that one of the signs that you are in love is that the person has the ability to frustrate you in ways that no one else can, and you don’t really mind. Poor Bert. He knows I must have some mastery of the english language, yet he has to watch me say VernQuarBoWriMo like maybe someone dropped me on my head a dozen or so times as a baby. Then I point out to him that he voluntarily married me! Haha! Joke’s on him!
Today’s count:
24735 / 90000 words. 27% done!
Last month’s count:
22535 / 90000 words. 25% done!
A bunch of things.
Posted by admin on February 9th, 2010 filed in General5 Comments »
The next book I write shall be entitled Let’s Panic About Snow and it will be based on my observations of the locals this winter.
As customers, you should be aware that your friendly Target employees did not set the prices of merchandise and cannot change the prices for you. You wouldn’t believe how many people don’t get this!
Magdalena can now stand on her own for over 10 seconds! Go baby!
Everyone last weekend: Football Football Football!
Me: Go . . . uh . . . Team!
If I had three wishes, at least one of the wishes would be that every morning I would awake refreshed and with energy, regardless of how little sleep I had the night before. I am so tired all the time now!
As customers, it is unreasonable to expect Target employees to have extensive knowledge of every item in the store. A lot of people approach me and ask questions I’m not capable of answering (like how and why to use a medication). When I don’t know what they want me to tell them (which is usually some anecdotal information), they fling at me that I don’t know my own product and that they are going to Walmart. How intimate can you really expect someone who makes little more than minimum wage to get with the products, with the THOUSANDS of products? It baffles me that they think I would care if they went elsewhere. People really don’t think.
Well, Beren’s ready for me to be off the computer, which means it’s hopeless to even try to continue typing.
Pictures of some toys
Posted by admin on January 31st, 2010 filed in General, Neat things, What?!Comment now »
Happy belated birthday to my husband! Here is my treasured Bert doll, which Jill road tripped to McDonald’s to buy with me eight hours after Ron pointed out its existence nearly four years ago.
Bert has one month of beard growth, so he looks like his plush friend again.
The faucet in the bathtub has sharp corners, so I got this duck attachment to make it safe for the kids. The duck is a fireman, and I just watched Miss March, so I know at least some people find firemen funny. Especially firemen with axes. As you can see, this duck has an ax. Instead of holding it with his finger (feather?) tips, it is just growing out of his joint. It’s kind of like if Wolverine was a duck and could extend an ax out of his arm instead of claws. Yeah.
Here is Maggie’s favorite doll:
I recently discovered this under her clothes:
I realize that is an appendectomy scar, but at first glance it looks like maybe she mouthed off to one of the ax-wielding toys in the house…
We recently got this neat projector for the kids’ room. You aim it at the ceiling and they watch it and fall asleep (that’s the idea anyway…). It takes up like half the ceiling. I might like it more than they do, since I can do things with my shadow…
Here I am holding hands with the octopus!
Look! I caught a whale!
Oh no! Oh no! That starfish ate my finger!
Answer these questions for me!
Posted by admin on January 29th, 2010 filed in Books, General14 Comments »
Hello! Um, hello? Helloooooo? Anyone out there?
I haven’t been a very good blogger lately, have I? I’m still here. I took a trip up to PA and then Bert did some maintenance on my computer. My poor, frazzled husband reminded me that these things are supposed to be done every month, not once every 2 years and 3 months. I am hoping he’ll just do it for me. The big thing taking up my time is that pesky job I got. It has me exhausted, since I go to bed around 10:30, wake up several times with the kids, and then get up for work between 4:45 and 5:00am. When I’m not at work, I still seem to devote all my mental power to thinking about the job. I’d love to tell you about it, but I signed a thing about non-disclosure and privacy, and I don’t want to get dooced. Progress on the book has ground to a halt since I started working. I am assuming the kids are still getting meals as normal while I am not here, since they aren’t starving or complaining too much. I stay in touch with my house husband with text messaging.
It has come to my attention that not everyone reads the same way I do. For me, analyzing how a book as written is half the point, with the other half being the story. After talking to people about books we have both read, I am usually surprised at what a different experience we had of a book. Did you know that not everyone can tell you if a book was written in first or third person after they have read it? I always notice things like foreshadowing, themes, and other structural points. Repetition bothers me. Descriptions must be done masterfully. I pay attention to all this stuff and can often remember where to find the quotes in literature as if I needed to write a paper on the books.
So tell me about how you read. Are you aware of any critical thinking you are doing about the book as you are reading it? I mean, for you, is part of reading a book sitting there and actively thinking about how the book was written? Or do you just read it to get the story (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I am just curious.)? Do you remember which books were first person and which were third? Do you remember the style of the book (like lots of lengthy description, or was it short action sentences? Did most of the book deal with characters and emotions, or was it all events and reactions?)? How do you pick which books you read?
In which we meet my new friends, Splash and Max Disappointment
Posted by admin on January 17th, 2010 filed in General, Life List, Neat things, Photography, Projects3 Comments »
As you may have noticed on my life list, I would like to try out some lomography. The pictures from this style of photography are so surreal and dreamy, I just love them. To take these pictures, you get this stuff at the store and put it in your camera. What was it called? Hmmm… film? Yeah, I think that was it. Film. Part of the fun of lomography is that you never know what’s going to come out of your roll of film until you get it developed. I’m getting ahead of myself though.
The lomo camera that I really want is expensive, so I decided to build my own pinhole camera. You can make this out of any sort of box, even an empty juice box. Although I feel a little lame for doing so, I ordered a cardboard kit to make the box for my camera instead of making my own from scratch (Thanks, Lunar Groupe!). So meet my camera, Splash, who is made from cardboard, glue, double sided tape, a shiny piece of metal, and stickers. See the fish stickers?
Splash is a pinhole camera, which means there is no flash and all the light for the image is collected through a tiny hole. I can expose each shot for as long or as little as I like. One of the things that I really liked in college was when I did a semester in the observatory (back when I was sure astrophotography would be my life) and learned how telescopes and digital cameras work Well, this project taught me how cameras with film work (although it’s pretty much what I expected). So I finished the camera, loaded it up with film, and took a bunch of pictures. At the end, I had no way to rewind the film without taking the back off the camera. At night, I turned off all the hall lights, shut myself in the bathroom, turned the lights off in there, and took the film out in what I thought was complete darkness. The film was left with Walmart for development.
Yesterday we went to pick up the film and met with Max Disappointment, who is kind of in-your-face mean. See?
He put a smiley after the note explaining that none of my pictures came out because the film had been exposed to light! Do you think Walmart will give me free stuff if I complain that a smiley is not a considerate emoticon for someone who just lost all her pictures? Wouldn’t a sad face, with a little tear, and maybe a liquor bottle in which sorrows could be drowned, be more appropriate? At least he didn’t charge me.
The light exposure means one of three things.
1.) My dark bathroom extracting method is flawed and light got in while I was taking the film out.
2.) The employee developing the film decided that since the pictures looked different (lomo pics aren’t like what you would hope for if you were trying for realism), they were obviously a mistake and he would not develop them.
3.) Light is leaking into Splash somewhere and the film was exposed while it was still in the camera.
Numbers one and three are the easiest for me to try to fix. I think Splash has a date with a roll of black duct tape. That should help keep the light out.
Maybe next time I’ll get under a blanket in a dark closet to roll the film.
I bought a four pack of film and I have used one roll. If I don’t get this figured out by the end of three more rolls, I might have to call Splash a failed project and just wait until I can buy a camera. This stuff is expensive!