halt stop forget relax

I have come home from blog reading to post that Joanna Jenkins is having a contest over at the Fifty Factor . She is offering a generous $100 gift certificate to  CSNStores  on-line shopping. Very generous giveaway, Joanna. I think I know what I'll get if I win. I have been listening to The Widower's Tale , and the last two times I fell asleep, so I have been re-hearing it a lot. Silly me. I have also started on that Heirloom afghan featuring 63 different stitches. Square 1 is single crochet in a variegated  yarn with two shades of red, and yellow and orange; It's gorgeous. The afghan will be in red, two shades of pink, two variegated shades, and a dark lavender. So it will look very different from the pattern, but more pleasing to my eye. I have also gotten my Zentangles book Totally Tangled , and I've looked through it, but I haven't made any more Zentangles yet. Though I do get their tangle of the day in my e-mail and I practice that one and put it in my b...

First of all let me wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! Last Thursday, the 10th, I went to Michael's (arts/crafts supply) to get some yarn to start on an afghan project a friend gave me the pattern for, and to get a small notebook for Zentangles(r). Naturally, the yarn was in the furthest corner of the store from the entrance, and the fine art papers were in the back also. I knew it was going to be tiring, so I didn't allow myself to stop and browse through all of the many different things that I love to find at these stores. No. I was on a mission: yarn and a smooth art paper notebook and maybe a Sakura pigma micron .05 pen. Unfortunately, Michael's didn't have enough of any of my color choices in yarn, which shouldn't have surprised me if past experience was any indication. Since the throw is meant to be a sampler of 69 different crochet stitches, it doesn't really matter which colors I use, just so long as they go together. So I decided on a red...

I'll get this party started and see where it takes me. Thanks to Sherry I have made a couple of Zentangles(c). Call it doodling as an art form; call it a way to waste time in the doctor's  waiting room; call it an idea that made some people a LOT of money - a cash cow that keeps producing by selling quality products. I have just purchased two artist quality pens, and I haven't even thought of getting the tiles to draw on - much too costly in my  opinion, but I may end up getting a smallish notebook that I can take with me easily.  I wanted to post my first attempt which was done before I had read anything about it.          #1 IMPROMPTU  1.22.11 I don't know if you can see it clearly, because obviously I need to do some work reformatting it - cropping and resizing, etc. If you click on it you will get a better image. I used an outline of my hand as my "string."  These both were done on the front of a nice quality env...

Good  day everyone. Are you all bundled up in this chilly if not freezing weather? We're having a balmy 48* day today, but the sun may or may not show its face. This damp PNW weather gets into my bones and it seems I can't get warm!  I'd much rather be too hot than too cold, if you didn't already know that. Anyway ... With regard to my absence. I briefly mentioned that my computer was out of commission; so here's the thing. On Christmas day, while I was up in Anacortes visiting with my family, DH, who didn't want to go with me stayed home. He's been threatening to switch my laptop over to Linux for months now, and I have resisted because I don't much like change, especially to something totally unfamiliar. So, to my surprise, when I came home the afternoon of the 26th, my laptop wasn't in its usual spot in front of my chair; it was in the dining room on top of the printer instead. Dialogue ensued, and the gist was that I, or rather, MY   laptop w...

That's right, folks, I've been absent for  awhile from reading and  commenting on your blogs because   my laptop is, er, temporarily out of commission. It happened on Christmas day, and I  got it  back for three days, then DH decided that  since I can''t access the library from a  Linux OS he's going to put on a virtual Windows so I can read my beloved books. He's been running into   all sorts of problems with the factory installed Windows that came with my Dell, so he's working through them one at a time. In the meanwhile, I get to watch TV and crochet. I am typing this from his computer which is at the dining room table, and is not ergonomically set up  for my back. So I have to stop for now and promise to catch up ASAP. Damn, being without my computer is a bitch. I think I'm going through the DTs. When I hear his muttered swearing it's hard to remain optimistic, but there is no other option. At one point  he told me he...

Yes we've just passed that time of the year when all is jolly and cookies abound, but to me it has become a time of coping; coping with desires usually unmet, and with abilities long gone. I cope with trying to communicate sincerely with friends and family and am often still not heard. I have suppressed my former desires of this season which I used to love so very much, so deep within me that I can barely remember what it was I liked to do each December. Any counselor worth his salt would urge me to let it out, but instead I tend to stuff it. Maybe that's a blessing as now, for me, for several reasons, there is precious little I can do any more. What this time of year brings without fail is a  lot of negative thinking that I know is not good for me or anyone else, but there it is. So, suppress it I must until the holidays pass. In the meanwhile I try to do what I can to get through it all. My immediate (as  opposed to extended) family is having Christmas Day in Anacort...

Oops, I haven't been keeping up to date with my reading list. I just checked and I left off with The Girl with the Dr agon Tattoo in October.  Since then I have been reading these gems. After that I started Ken Follett's new book Fall of Giants . I had to return it to the digital library before I was done, so now I have to wait (I am #2 in line) to finish it. I forgot to write down which chapter in was on so I'll probably end up doing a little backtracking - but that's okay. It is an interesting look at England and Germany pre- and during WWI. This is also going to be a series, so shall be an interesting history lesson. Also, in November, I finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - book two in the Millennium Series by Stieg Larsson. and am currently smack dab in the middle of book three: which is a real page turner, or would be if digital books had pages. So, my reading has slowed down just a little, but the reading material is a bit...

I saw this on the television, and it made me laugh: Raisinettes   Not Working Technician Has Been Called Oh, look at them - those lazy raisinettes, laying down on the job again. Let's hope the technician can give them a  shake, or whatever it is they need to get the job done. Later, Gaters.

  Wouldn't it be loverly? I would like to be organized, I would like to be focused, I would like to remember my bright ideas for posts long enough for me to jot them down - but it seems that I just can't pull it together. I need a little life coach who will sit on my shoulder and whisper in my ear the things I should be doing every day, and a big life coach to sit on my depressed husband's shoulder so he will get off his butt and take advantage of a dry weekend to sweep the chimney so we can burn wood this Winter.* It just feels warmer than the gas furnace does, and I am cold all the time. Cold, I tell you. And the only thing worse for me than being too hot is being too cold. It definitely is more uncomfortable and, as you may be able to tell, makes me grouchy. I'll try to get beyond that for you all. We went grocery shopping last night, and I noticed two things: my walking is definitely getting slower since I went off the Copaxone and the price of groceries seems to...

I think I've been lost in a fog because I can't tell you where I've been. I finished two more hats, and gave them to my sisters to take to the craft bazaar which happens next weekend. Someone bought one of them at the meeting for $10! I said, "I'm only charging $7.50!" but I was told I couldn't lower an offered price!  So, I've sold at least one of the seven I donated. Lets see, on Nov. 7 there was a reception for my nephew who got married on Maui on September 12.  I couldn't afford to go, and probably couldn't handle the heat and humidity of Hawaii even if I could have gone. Oh well. It was nice to see the two of them. They've been living together for ten years, so it's about time they got married. Perhaps they're thinking of having a baby? That's what I'm thinking. Both his brother and sister have had their first kids this year, and his cousin had one too, so it's going around. Sometimes I wish we had chosen to hav...

I am so tired of the political TV ads. They are really nasty this year. And I throw so much over sized glossy card stock into recycling it's ridiculous. I'm so glad it's about over. I have the ringer off the phone and the machine picking up (so yesteryear of me), and still they leave these long-assed messages. Shut up, already! I have VOTED!! And there's another thing I just don't understand. Even from young voters, I don't get it. How can we elect a President, of either party, who comes into an office that is mired in chaos, being embroiled in not one, but two wars, with an economy that is on the verge of collapse, a national debt that was at its highest in history, to just name a few of the bigger problems that were facing us in November 2008, and expect the new president with the new administration, to get up to speed and learn ALL of the things that WE THE PUBLIC DO NOT KNOW, and solve all these (and more) problems in less than two years?  Those are som...

Here's the thing. I wasn't the first person to think of this. I am just one of many who quietly shake their head at the Christmas music playing in the stores and the decorations being put up earlier and earlier each year. So here's a little reminder, folks: Hell, I don't even know what I am going to be doing on Christmas this year, so let's give me a chance to breathe and figure out what to do with the holidays that precede it, shall we? I'll admit, there's not too much more time to plan for Halloween. If you haven't gotten started there, well, time's a wastin'. I have cajoled DH to make an artsy-fartsy mobile out of a little bag of plastic movable skeletons that were on sale at the grocery store for TWO BUCKS. I help them up, said "YOU could do something really cute with these, don't you think?" And I threw them in the cart, along with a skeletal ghoul that was dressed in orange burlap and mossy hair. A great outside door or...

Thank you Sherri, for becoming follower  #45!. If only I could figure out how, I would comment more over at your site, The Mess that is My Mind .  Just keep on keeping on without my pithy remarks. But if you have any suggestions for me, do let me know, Thanks. I have been awake all night - again. I got up late, and was going to go to bed early in the AM, but realized that I have to pick up my license tabs today, or risk getting a ticket.  DH FINALLY took the car in for its emissions inspection yesterday, and my the time we got over to  the county extension office, we found that they close at 4 fucking 30. So I'm heading over there in just a few minutes to get my tabs, I HATE putting this crap off  til the last possible minute, but that's what I get when I leave it to somebody else to take care of for me. I know. They say if you want something done right, do it yourself. I guess that as long as that is possible, I'd better stick with it. So, I'm off; just aft...

I just started to read Howling at the Moon by Zoomdoggies and she challenged me to make my list of 15 (favorite) books in 15 minutes, before reading her own posted list. So here it is: 1. Shogun    James Clavell 2. A Confederacy of Dunces   John Kennedy Toole 3. Saint Maybe Ann Tyler 4. The Falls   Joyce Carol Oates 5. Crime and Punishment     Fyodor Dostoevsky 6. Life of Pi   Yann Martel 7. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues    Tom Robbins 8. The Source   James Michener 9. Until Proven Guilty J.A. Jance 10. Ella Minnow Pea  Mark Dunn 11. The Shining    Stephen King 12. The Sparrow    Mary Doria Russell 13. Ecotopia     Ernest Callenbach 14. The entire Harry Potter Series  J.K. Rowling 15.  The Little Prince   Antoine Saint-Exupéry and just for sh*ts and grins I'll add one more 'cuz it appears I'm on a roll. 16. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society ...

Now that I've started, I have to collect my wits and try to remember which ends have been left loose! I know that one was my Tracfone. It turns out that once I recharged it with a 60 minute card, my phone still says I have  600 (or so) minutes on it which is good as they were the minutes that were paid for when the phone was purchased. It's just that after six months or so, I had to start regularly (quarterly) buying a phone card to keep it active. So I have, and it is, and that makes me feel beholden to another electronic gizmo that I might need some day. Like if I have to call THESE guys if I run out of gas or have a flat or my battery goes dead. Anything like that.     It's the ONLY reason I have a cell phone.     So all's good. Hubs and I never made it to Snake Lake - and I am afraid that the days of 70 degree weather are GONE for probably, say, seven months. Unless we're [very] lucky. It's dark at 6 PM now [Okay, 6:15 is sundown], but s...

Today I received the Prolific Blogger Award from Karen over at "Meandering ...One moment please." Thank you so very much for this, Karen. But I know that the only reason I got this is because I admitted that I will fart out loud if I need to, and I got her to own up to that as well. Still. I'm honored. As with almost all blog awards, this one comes with rules:  Link it to the person who gave it to yo u. Check; Link it to the person who originated it and that would be Hazra at "Advanced Booking." Check; Pass it on to seven more prolific bloggers, but Karen (another one who likes to color outside the lines) gave permission to opt out of this one, but today, I think I won't do that.  So I choose to pass this on to, in no particular order, these people whom I read religiously, but without piety.  Kmilyun (Jan) at Bifurcate in the Road Attila the Mom at Cheaper Than Therapy Zoomdoggies ( ) at Howling at the Moon Doug at Groping the Elephant Weeble G...

Welcome to my new followers! There is, in no particular order,  Karen , and Nick , and Laura , and Jane . What an eclectic and interesting bunch of people I have who read me. It is just wonderful. Thank you for reading. I'm happy to have you here.  Good Night, TTYL and Be Well, P.S. Though I may never have mentioned it, I am happy about all of you who follow me. I'm just flummoxed surprised at the recent influx of newbies!

I remember October 9, 1980 a little better than I remember most other dates from 30 years ago. It was a weekday, my day off, bright and sunny with a little Fall chill in the morning and in the shade. I had made plans with my best friend to meet in the University district where she could go to her bank, and then we would commence our trip for the day. After conducting her business at Rainier Bank near 45th and University Ave. we started walking down the Ave and browsing in a few shops along the way, chatting in the way only best friends do, finishing each other's thoughts and jumping from topic to topic in random fashion. First stop on campus was the undergrad library cafeteria for something to drink. This is where I got my instructions of what to expect of the day. This was my inauguration to the world of hallucinogens. Yes. This was my first (of just a few) acid trip. Looking out for me, and not wanting me to have too intense an experience, she gave me half a dose, carefull...

Come to see that I actually have a few new readers. This is nice to see. Thank you for following and I hope you will stay around for a season or two. I was given this award from Herrad yesterday.  Since she is such a great inspiration to me, I am a little chagrined, but I accept this with gratitude and much humility. Thanks Herrad! It was a bit cooler and spitting today, and I don't think I ever warmed up. Last night I crocheted a medium weight hat for the craft bazaar that takes place after Thanksgiving. It was the quickest hat to date. Just a little beanie/cloche with a brim in light blue. Do kids wear hats these days? On their way to school, or when outside playing? Or are they just interested in items that come with a label? I don't know. I guess if they don't sell, we can give them to a clothing bank. I mean, they are not the most stylish hats, but they are cute and functional. And they're made with love! I'm having cravings. I want some of tho...

Hi all. Lately I've been wondering if I was ever going to break the 39 mark. No, not my age. I broke that mark a looonngg time ago. But I have had 39 followers for what seems like ever. So you can imagine my surprise when I noticed today that I have 40. Welcome Laura! So far as I know, you don't have a blog of your own, or I would link you. But know that I won't take up much of your time because I'm typically not the daily writer. Actually that may be why my numbers remain so low; I don't know. In any case, I hope you stay and enjoy what you read. Today was a lovely Fall day with temperatures in the mid-70's. I had made plans with DH (dear husband) to go for a stroll around the Nature Center at Snake Lake. We last went there a year ago on a warm late Summer day. And unfortunately we read the map wrong and ended up on a narrow and rooted less than accessible patch of trail where DH has to muscle me in my chair over some pretty thick tree roots on a narrow pat...