Category Archives: Just stuff…

Please stop improving my life! (Part I)

Posted on May 26, 2011 | 9 comments

Hi Everyone!

How many of you are, well let us say, youthfully challenged enough to remember the VCR?  I could handle the VCR – I couldn’t program it, but at least I could use it.  You pushed the cartridge into the machine and hit play. 

Then came the DVD player – I still couldn’t program it, but as long as it was just the TV and the DVD player, I still could use it.  You put the disc in the machine and hit play.

DVD Player Photograph from http://www.wikipedia.org

Then came surround sound – and everything came to a screeching halt! 

I admit that I am technologically challenged, but once the time arrived where it took more than one remote to accomplish an entertainment task, I was in trouble.  After years of struggle, my husband finally took pity on me last year and bought a universal remote that is supposed to work by simply pressing a button on the remote that says what you want to do (for example, “watch tv” or “play a movie”), pointing the remote in the general area of the AV equipment, and everything that needs to turn off or on does so.  It works great for my husband, but I really don’t think it likes me, because I have a 50/50 shot of being successful with it.  Still, 50/50 is much better than a 100% chance of not being able to do it.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Now the DVD player companies are beginning to introduce DVD’s and televisions that can show movies and programs in 3-D.  Enough!  I have yet to see a 3-D movie that would be incomplete if I saw it in 2-D.  Let’s think for a minute people – isn’t being able to watch 100+ channels, download the movie of your choice from the internet or place your disc in the DVD player and watch it on your TV in super-duper high-clarity High-definition with surround sound comparable to that in a theater sufficient?  Do we really need something else to keep us glued to the TV and away from more profitable activities such as reading, writing or playing games?   I say no, and that it is high time for the technologically challenged people of the world to stand up and unite!

From Print Shop Professional 2.0 with edits by me

Please, please write your local DVD manufacturer now and plead with it to stop the march of entertainment technology immediately!  Let’s draw a line in the sand and stop with Blu-Ray.  Period.  Then the innovators and inventors of this world can turn their attention to more important topics, such as energy, medical research and the riding vacuum cleaner.   

Tomorrow’s topic:  Software manufacturers that improve my life, and why they shouldn’t.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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New story published on Yahoo!

Posted on May 26, 2011 | 8 comments

Yesterday, I learned that Yahoo Contributor has published a very short, funny science fiction story I submitted. Here is the link:

The Model 3300 Robotic Clone Return

Please read it, and if you like it, please forward the link to others! Thanks!

Nancy

P.S.  This is not my post for the day, just an announcement!

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The Non-existent Mom Cave

Posted on May 25, 2011 | 10 comments

Morning All!

The post yesterday over at The Big Sheep Blog  was about “The Man-Cave Classifieds.”  After reading it, I started wondering about the concept of the Mom-cave, and decided it could never work.

Wikipedia has a page long entry devoted to the definition of the man-cave, its purpose, and its design.  According to Wikipedia, “A man cave, sometimes a mantuary or manspace, is a male sanctuary such as a specially equipped garage, spare bedroom, media room, den, or basement.”  (To my friend over at The Big Sheep Blog – I know you don’t like the phrase “man cave”, but “mantuary” to me is even worse!  Just the sound of it is jarring, like nails on a blackboard.)   Over at The Urban Dictionary, where apparently people supply their own definitions, one particularly thorough definition was listed as follows:

A room, space, corner or area of a dwelling that is specifically reserved for a male person to be in a solitary condition, away from the rest of the household in order to work, play, involve himself in certain hobbies, activities without interruption. This area is usually decorated by the male [who] uses it without interference from any female influence.

Having read through some other definitions, there seem to be two key components to  the “man cave” – 1) it is decorated solely by the male, and 2) no interruptions.    I find one of these requirements peculiar and the other unenforceable.

The decoration part is confusing to me because, in our house, decorating decisions are arrived at (mostly) jointly.  It may take us a while to agree but once we do, we can be certain of two things:  1) whatever it is will look really, really good, and 2) it will be one of the more expensive of the class of items we have been reviewing.  We don’t deliberately go for expensive; it just seems to happen that way.  We each have two areas which are supposed to be off-limits to others, too – Mark’s is the garage, where he keeps his tools, although both Kayla and I could be cited for trespassing on a continuous basis and mine is my craft closet, which Kayla visits at least once a week during the Sunday nap ritual and anytime else she needs something she knows I keep in there. 

I wondered whether, since the concept of the “man-cave” seems to be on the rise, the time has come for the invention of the Mom-cave, but decided that it would never work.   The second component, non-interruption, is where the concept of a Mom-cave would fall apart.  (In our house, with three dogs and one child, the Man-cave would not fare any better.)    

I know this because I tried to imagine how a Mom-cave for sewing might work in my house, picking a Sunday afternoon session for two hours while my husband was taking a nap.  In doing so, I counted three interruptions and one final forced entry with intent to stay by Kayla, two forced entries by the three dogs, and numerous stops and starts to retrieve any scrap of fabric, needle, or other sewing appliance that either of the Twins of Trouble (Darwin and Mandy) thought looked attractive enough to chew.  At the end of the two hours I was supposed to have in isolation to sew, the small room I would be using (the guest bedroom) would contain myself, sewing stuff spread over the bed, one 9-year-old daughter, one very long dog, one very large dog, and a sweet old dog who will not have given me a particle of trouble the whole time, and my grand accomplishments would be limited to the set-up and threading of the machine, and the sewing of one or two seams. 

That, my friends, is why the concept of the Mom-cave will never take root. 

In the interests of full disclosure, I can take a weekend nap without interruption if I bring Tyra and Mandy into the bedroom with me, and lock the bedroom door so that Kayla can’t slip in for us to argue about whether she has to let me sleep or not.  At least, that is, until Mandy decides it is time for me to get up, which usually ranges anywhere from two to three hours or sooner if she senses anyone else eating anywhere in the house, at which point she starts walking on my hair.

Have a good day everyone!

Nancy

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Blast from the Past: 2008: Stories, Spell Check and Scorpions!

Posted on May 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

Good morning everyone!

This morning I thought I would share some stories I wrote down in some letters back in 2008, when Kayla was 6 and in kindergarten.

From April 2008:

One morning, Kayla burst out into tears in the bathroom. Mark caught that call. When he went in to check, she told him that she was crying because she had brushed her hair but it didn’t look like she had brushed it at all! (Item: the hair looked fine.)

Two Sundays ago, she and I were awake and watching TV in my bedroom because Mark was asleep on the couch and I was trying hard to keep everyone (child and dogs) quiet in my room so that he could get a full nap in. I had to go into the other room to get something, and when I came back, Kayla was just walking away from my bathroom sink. I asked her what she was doing, and she said brightly, “I was going to get into your makeup, but then I decided that I didn’t want to get into trouble!”

From April 2008:

I did the funniest thing on spell check on one of my briefs the other week. I had to use the name “Schnitzler” a lot in the brief.  Schnitzler was one of those words that, to save my soul, I could not type correctly the first time, so rather than re-type it over and over, I used “SS” as an abbreviation, with the thought that when it was finished, I would use “find and replace” to replace the “SS” with Schnitzler.  FN.  It worked like a charm, except that I got slap-happy pushing buttons and ended up telling the computer to change every “ss” to Schnitzler, which left me with lots of words like “Congreschnitzler” (Congress), “ischnitzlerue” (issue) and “paschnitzler” (pass.) Spell check almost had a nervous breakdown before it was over with!

From June 2008:

The past week has been a week of weird wildlife encounters. Last Thursday, I looked out of the window after Mark and Kayla left, and saw a huge turtle on the side of the road – its shell had a diameter of at least 16 inches. I couldn’t help it; I took a picture of it.

Turtle, 2008

Yesterday, which was Wednesday, I started my day being stung by, of all things, a scorpion! Mandy, who has decided that one of her missions in life is to be my little alarm clock, waking me up by 5:20 whether I need it or not, harassed and harangued me until I got up, fed her and the other two dogs then went out into the garage like I normally do to get my Diet Coke. When I walked back in, something bit/stung my toe, and it really hurt! I couldn’t see what it was but jumped around and started screaming , which woke Mark up in a flash (Kayla slept through it) and brought him into the den to check on me. We sat down and looked at my foot, but unlike a bee sting, we couldn’t see anything. Mark announced that it must have been an ant that bit me, and went back to bed. I walked back over to the area where I had been stung, turned on the light and saw a brown form on the brown wooden floor that looked like a scorpion. I looked again, because I thought maybe it was just a leaf that the dogs had drug in from outside, and realized that it really was a scorpion.

 So next I did what any reasonable woman with a husband at home would do – I went back into the bedroom and got Mark! He looked at it, and not only agreed that it was a scorpion but also realized that it wasn’t dead yet, so he killed it for me. Never having been stung by a scorpion before, I was not at all certain what I should do, so I went and looked it up on the Internet. The information I found said that most species of scorpions in the United States are not poisonous, except for one species in Arizona. However, even so, you can have a reaction to the bite of one if you are allergic, and some of the symptoms of that type of reaction are an elevated heart rate and anxiety.

That symptom list was not helpful;  I already had an elevated heartbeat and anxiety because I had just been stung by a scorpion! It all turned out okay, although it will be a very long time before I walk anywhere in the house without my slippers on.

And on that unusual note, I will bid everyone good day!  Have a great weekend!

Nancy

FN.  To prevent any unpleasantness, the name “Schnitzler” is  changed from the actual name, but you get the idea.

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Latest Art Picture

Posted on May 19, 2011 | 2 comments

Hi Everyone! This is just a quick note to show you the latest painting I finished in art.  It was my first acrylic.  I will add it to my art page shortly.

Nancy

Blue Birds

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My Kindle

Posted on May 13, 2011 | 8 comments

Hi Everyone!

I am running late today, not aided by the fact that neither Kayla nor the dogs have come up with anything interesting to talk about the last couple of days (besides Darwin losing his collar outside, we don’t know how, but we did find it again!)  So, the time has come to talk about my Kindle.

First of all, I love books!  I have shelves and shelves of books at the house, and a few of my office shelves devoted to some personal books also.  I had loaded books onto my phone before, but never did enjoy reading them that way.   

I got my first Kindle two Christmases ago.  I think Mark decided that I was incapable of not purchasing books (and that’s true – I still can’t go into a book store without buying something!)  and was looking for a space-saving option.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that I lobbied for it for months, too. 

The first one’s screen broke about four months ago, so I purchased my second Kindle then.  I cannot tell you how much I enjoy the Kindle!  The best things in my life are my husband and my child, the best gifts my husband ever gave me were the dogs, but the best non-living gift he ever gave me was my Kindle. 

The Kindle is small enough to fit in my purse (granted, I like really, really large purses, because then it is harder for them to camouflage themselves when I lose them somewhere in the house), and the one I currently have is holding 112 books on the device, with 10 magazine issues.  The books include books on science, children’s literature (for me, not for Kayla), science fiction, books on Christian living, history and computers.  Because I like to read such a wide range of books (and I usually am reading 2 or 3 or 4 at a time, depending on my mood), the Kindle gives me a welcome anonymity, so that if I want to read a book on the Franco-Prussian war or re-read Little Women, I can do so unapologetically and without needing to explain.  I used to feel a little self-conscious walking into a restaurant at lunch with some of the books I like to read, but now I don’t. 

Oh, and I have another 61 items in the archives, which include both magazine issue and books I have read and removed from the device, but which I can re-load any time I want. 

Reading my Kindle feels very much like reading a book; the type is made of ink that is electronically arranged, and for those of us whose eyesight is, shall we say, in a state of flux, the type can be re-sized up to a very large font, which is nice. 

Book shopping on the Kindle is fun, too, because I can do it any time of day or night.  There’s nothing like sitting in bed at 10:00 p.m. at night and book-shopping in the privacy of your own home!  In fact, book-shopping is a little too easy; I have to work to restrain myself a little bit.

The Kindle will also let me connect to the internet, although navigating the internet on the Kindle is a little cumbersome, so I only use it as a last resort. 

Because I purchased the cover that goes with the Kindle (and the cover for the new Kindle includes a built-in reading light that runs off the Kindle battery itself – way cool!), it feels very much like a book when I read it.  There is a button you click to turn the page, which feels much more book-like than scrolling on a screen like you do on the computer. 

Do any of you use a Kindle, or another type of e-reader?  How do you like it?  Do any of you have a version that has color?  How does that impact your reading?  What kind of back glare do you get with your reader?  (My Kindle has virtually none, but then it is not color, either.)  I would love to hear from all of you on this subject, because I am curious. 

Well, that’s enough for today.  Have a great weekend!  I hope all of you get a chance to read something good!

Nancy

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Why are the birds so happy? Don’t they know it’s morning?

Posted on May 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Hi Everyone!

It’s morning again, and I am still trying to shake off the tiredness that comes just from having to wake up before 6 (or 7 or 8 ) in the morning, in between rescuing various articles of clothing from Darwin this morning – so far I have rescued a shoe (in time to prevent damage) and a sock (already crippled for life, but just as a matter of principle I don’t think I should let him keep it.) 

Darwin

But outside, even with the windows shut, I can hear the many birds that inhabit the woods around our neighborhood chirping at the top of their lungs.  It’s a pleasant enough sound, but it does cause me to wonder, WHY DON’T THEY EVER SLEEP IN? 

Exhibit A: The Rooster That Crows at Dawn

If you are up early enough (and I try very hard not to be) they are even happier and louder immediately before sunrise.  WHY?  They don’t have to be anywhere at any particular time, although all that foraging for food certainly does take a lot of time, but always are up at the (pre-)crack of dawn anyhow.  They must have a lot of the foraging done before noon, because by that time of the day, at least our suburban birds have grown for the most part silent, except for the occasional red-winged black bird that likes to sit on telephone polls and make sporadic cries all afternoon.  The mocking birds will occasionally get into a spat around mid-day too, but other than that it gets pretty quiet. 

The Red-Winged Blackbird; Photo by Alan D. Wilson

Are they able to get up so early because they get to take a nap mid-day?  If that’s the case, how do I sign up for the whole mid-day nap thing?  I lost the right to take a mid-day nap somewhere around kindergarten and would really like to re-claim it at some point!  I kept begging Kayla to hold onto her nap privileges as long as she could when she was in pre-school and kindergarten, but alas, like most short-sighted 5 and 6 year olds, she couldn’t wait until she didn’t have to take one anymore!  The birds get to keep nap time; why can’t I?   

 All of which proves yet again that I am NOT a morning person.  I’m not the only one  – I suspect the Owl inherited the night because he didn’t hold with all this bright and perky morning stuff either!

The Great Horned Owl, taken by Peter Manidis (AKA falxius)

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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A Triple A Day: All of the Above and Art Work

Posted on May 10, 2011 | 6 comments

Good morning everyone! 

  • All of the Above

Kayla’s grades from the week before come home in a red folder every Monday.  Yesterday, she came home with one of the few not so good grades that she gets from time to time.  I never get upset at what she makes if she was trying, but I do get frustrated when she earned her “not so good” grade because she chose not to study the study sheet conveniently provided to her at the beginning of the week. 

When I had the temerity to suggest that she should have studied more, Kayla got quite cross with me.  The test was multiple choice, and Kayla snapped out, “Well, she (ie., the teacher) should have explained what ‘all of the above’ means.”  I asked if she had noticed that more than one answer was correct.  She told me yes, so I explained that “all of the above” meant that all of the previous answers in the question were correct.  She said, “Oh.  I kept looking above me trying to figure out what the answer was talking about.”  So, she either gets credit for creative thinking, or creative excuse making.  My vote is for creative excuse making; what’s yours?

  • Art Work

I got caught the other day.  Usually, I wait until the dark of the moon in the dead of night, put on dark camouflage and rubber soled shoes, tiptoe carefully through the den to the kitchen, past the three or four creaking spots on the wooden floor, gingerly place the articles in a plastic garbage bag, ferry them to the outside trashcan while I hold my breath and then breathe a sigh of relief as I re-enter the house unnoticed.

What am I talking about?  The multitude of paper that Kayla brings home from or creates during school, day care, and nap time at home.  It doesn’t take long for a parent of a child in school or pre-school to realize that at least some of that paper must to be disposed of, or you will have to buy a new house with a room solely dedicated to storing paper.  By now, we would need a house the size of the Biltmore estate!  Don’t misunderstand me; I save some of her stuff every year, and take pictures of other items but at some point something has to go! 

Sunday night, however, I got in a hurry and when she wasn’t looking slipped some posters she had pulled out of a coloring book  (they were just posters, folks; she hadn’t colored on them, or done anything to them, just pulled them out of the book) into a garbage bag.  I thought I had them well camouflaged, but didn’t realize they were face up pressing into the side of the plastic where she could see them.  She tried to tell me they were in there; I tried to tell her she was mistaken (yes, I know that was wrong of me, but I was desperate); ultimately she pulled them out of the trash bag to prove to me that I was wrong.  Sigh.  The upshot is I have two posters sitting on my kitchen counter that probably will be there until the year 3000, or at least the next night without a moon! 

Art Work from 2007 That I DID Save!

Have a good day everyone!

Nancy

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Zoo Day and Pictures

Posted on May 9, 2011 | 2 comments

Hi Everyone! 

I hope your weekend went well.  Both zoo day and Mother’s Day went well, so I am now awake, rested, refreshed and ready to face the new work week.  (All right, at least I am awake!)  For a change, I managed to wake up and start writing before the sun rose – the birds appear to be much more enthusiastic about this whole “pre-dawn” thing then I am.  Morning people, how do you do it?

The trip to the zoo was fun.  Basically, the school buses pull up to the zoo and let the kids off, the kids are distributed to assorted parents and then all of us are turned loose for the day with instructions to return at 11 for lunch and 1:00 for bus loading.  In addition to Kayla, I had her friend Rebekah with us.  There is a walk through aviary in the front part of the zoo that Kayla wanted us to go through (twice), so that’s where we started.  Kayla found a feather in there, so I took her picture holding the feather.  I took Rebekah’s picture holding the feather, too.  To forestall any issue about whether Rebekah or Kayla got to keep the feather, I told them they needed to leave it in the enclosure.

We then worked our way around South and North America, including a visit to the reptile house (not my favorite place), the spider monkeys, several tamarin species, the jaguar and the ocelot.  I had to explain to both girls that the “cute” ocelot was not the kind of cat one would really wish to have in their house!  We also saw a sloth bear and several Patagonian capys (imagine something that looks like a cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo, but about three times as big as the rabbit.)   The girls had the chance to go by the otter exhibit also, which is always popular. 

The giraffes and lions are at the very center of the zoo, so you really can’t miss them as you travel across the zoo, and the female lion, the only one out on Friday, was roaring.  With just a little imagination you can see what an eerie sound that would be out in the wilderness. 

After lunch, we rode the train, and then I succumbed to the same temptation that seized most of the other parents at the zoo – I took the girls to the playground, turned them loose and found a comfortable bench.  I was certainly not the only parent found on the park benches around the playground! 

Of course, Mother’s Day was this weekend, and Mark and Kayla had a special surprise planned.   They had gone to Sears and gotten their portrait taken for me.  In addition to having several photos in various sizes printed out, they also purchased the disk of their photos, with a full release of copyright, so I can share some of the pictures with you (Hang in while I go see what Darwin is tossing up and down in his mouth…..ahhh, it’s one of my headbands, but I got it before too much damage was done.  He’s not too happy with me.) 

Anyway, here they are:

I am thrilled with them and am a lucky woman to have such a wonderful family! 

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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6000+ views, Style and Dog Update

Posted on May 6, 2011 | 4 comments

Good morning everyone! 

I am really excited to have passed 6000 views yesterday; thank you for reading this blog!  A view happens every time someone comes to this blog to read something, not the total number of readers, so some of you have done a lot of reading to help me get here.

Kayla just announced that she had her own style; Mark told her that with respect to grammar that wasn’t entirely true.  They are joking with each other as they leave the house, which is always a fun way to start the morning.

Kayla with "her own style" for herself and her pumpkin last Halloween

 

Today is the 3rd grade field trip to the Montgomery zoo.  I am one of the chaperones, and very much look forwarding to it.  I am (again) very grateful to the people at work for their flexibility with a working mom.  I also am lucky about being chosen as a chaperone; for some reason, whenever there is a field trip and I ask to be a chaperone, I get chosen.  I don’t know if that says something about me, about Kayla or both! 

Kayla's First Train Ride at the Zoo (age 4)

I haven’t written much about the dogs lately.  I cooked hamburgers for supper last night on the George Foreman grill, and Mandy came to the kitchen and parked herself between the counter where the grill was and where I was standing in the hopes that a stray speck of meat or fat might fall her way.  When she parks somewhere like that, you can’t move her – it’s like trying to move Mount Rushmore! What she really was hoping was that I would leave so she could lick the fat that drips off from the grill into a special holder, but I was aware of this plan (having observed it in action before) and so put everything out of her reach when I was done, much to her disgust.  That did not stop her from investigating the issue, anyway. 

Mandy, the immovable object

 

I left two pair of shoes out in the bedroom the other morning, and while I was blogging Darwin entertained himself by bringing them out one at a time and “plopping” them down on the floor in front of me to get my attention.  When it didn’t work, he then considerately only chewed one of them, on the place where the shoe manufacturer had sewed on a loop to help you pull the shoe on.   

Please let me go chew something else!

As the weather warms, Tyra is starting to feel a little better; she has twice been able to jump on the bed at night this week without being lifted.  She looks so proud of herself when she does so, but is even prouder when she manages to get one of us to lift her up! 

Tyra Happy

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there, and have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

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