Category Archives: working mom

The Evolution of a Painting

Posted on January 30, 2012 | 10 comments

Good morning everyone!

I finished my latest painting, a landscape watercolor, which is the first landscape painting I have ever done.  I took pictures of the painting throughout the process, so I thought you might like to see how the painting was done.

First, you must start out with an idea or a model of what you wish to paint.  This was my model.

The picture I chose as my model

Next, you take the surface you are painting (for watercolors, there is specially developed paper) and draw the main lines of the painting on there. Once the main lines are drawn, you start filling them in. Here, you can see where I have started to fill in the main set of mountains. If you look closely, you can also see the drawn lines for the meadow/valley below.

The Beginning of the Mountains

The next step was to add depth and color to the mountains. Getting the mountains right was probably the longest part of the process.

The Mountains

The next step was to fill in the meadow and other land in the foreground.

Foreground Filled In

A closer view:

A Closer View

Then it was time to start the detail work in the foreground. Here is the detail after my first session on working on it:

Part but not all of the detail

A close up of the detail close to the left side of the mountain:

Close up of the left side of the mountain meadow

The next painting session let me finish the details, and the painting.

The Finished Product

Here’s a closer look at the finished painting:

Close up of Finished Painting

And here is a look at the painting, and the picture that started it, side by side:

Comparison

The hardest part of painting watercolor is the need for patience – patience as you try to mix the colors in exactly the right, patience as you try to build up the right sets of color and patience to go back and try again if the colors don’t quite work the first time. I’m please with the final result though.

Have a great day!

Nancy

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The ABC Award

Posted on January 26, 2012 | 7 comments

Good morning everyone!

My friend, Drusilla Mott, in her blog at www.drusillamott.wordpress.com, awarded me the ABC award a couple of days ago.  Like most blogging awards, there are certain rules.  The first is that I need to put the ABC Award Icon on my front page permanently somewhere; I’m still working on that, but I’ll figure it out.  The third requirement is that I nominate other blogs for the award.  I’m thinking through that one, too.  I’d really like to nominate all of the blogs I follow, but some of them don’t care for awards and others may not have time to worry about the second requirement.  The challenging part of the ABC award is the second requirement, which is where you use each word of the alphabet to tell your readers something about you.  That is my challenge for today, so here we go! 

A pastel I did of Tyra

A – Artist

Mandy

B – Boo, one of Mandy’s many nicknames

C – Courage – the courage to continually battle my depression every day

D – Dogs – If you read this blog regularly, this doesn’t need any more explanation!

E – Everyone – I believe that we should have an innate respect for the worth of every human being.

Our Family, Early in 2005

F – Family – My first and primary human priority.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

G – God – My first and primary priority.  I am so grateful to Him for so many things!

Plastic Canvas Ornaments, in a "folksy" style

H – Hobbies – I have many hobbies besides writing, which is turning into a quasi-profession.  Some of my hobbies are reading, counted cross-stitch and, occasionally, working with the scroll saw.  I’d like to start jewelry making, too.

I – Introvert – You might not guess it from this blog, but I am fairly introverted in person, unless I know you.  Of course, since I am introverted, it takes a while for me to get to know you!

J – Justice – What I hopefully am pursuing in my career as a lawyer.

Kitten

K – Kittens – Yes, they’re cute, but never will we have one in our house!

L – Love – Yet these three remain – faith, hope and love – and the greatest of these is love.

M – Mom – my second most favorite role of the many roles I play in my life.

Darwin aka No-No

N – No-No.  The words most commonly used to admonish Darwin, and hence one of his many nicknames.

O – Oliphant – Something that appears in one of the scenes from one of my favorite sets of books of all time, The Lord of The Rings.  I’m pretty sure I’ve read it over 50 times.

P – Patient.  Most of the time, I am very patient.  Except when my 10-year-old pushes my buttons.  She is the only person who can pierce my patience in three words or less!

Q – Quiet.  (See I – introvert.)

R – Risks.  I am not one normally to take many risks, but the few times in my life when it has really counted, I have taken some big ones.  For example, see my post on why our family celebrates December 15. 

Science

S – Science.  One of my favorite subjects to read about. 

T – Tardy.  My sister says that, unless Mark is in charge of the expedition and she doesn’t count those, I am at least 10 to 15 minutes late to everything.  I’m not always convinced, but sometimes I have a sinking feeling that she may be right!

U – Umbrellas.  I never have an umbrella handy when I need one, and if I have one handy, you can be sure that it will not rain!

A picture from one of our vacations

V – Vacation.  I love vacations!  I love traveling on vacations.  I love staying home on vacations.  I love sleeping in on vacations.  I love eating out on vacations.  I love…. (You get the idea!)

W – Wife – My first favorite role in my life.

X – Xerxes/Xenophon.  (Ha!  Bet you didn’t know how I was going to get around “X”).  This represents my interest in ancient Greek and Roman history, which includes reading English translations of some of the ancient sources, including Thucydides, Herodotus and Xenophon.  And Polybius.  Polybius is way cool!  See my post on my bookshelves.

Y – Yaks.  I don’t really have any particular affinity for yaks, but it was the only “Y” word that popped into my mind. 

A picture from the zoo!

Z – Zoos.  I love to visit zoos.  It’s fun.  

Well, that is it; odds and ends about me from A-Z.  If you’re still awake, I’d love it if you would pick one or two letters and use them to tell me a little bit about yourself, too!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Heeeerrrrreee’s Tyra!

Posted on January 24, 2012 | 6 comments

Good morning Everyone!

Tyra, on January 20, 2012

Today’s post is about our oldest dog Tyra.  Tyra, whose nicknames include Tyra Belle, Big Dog and occasionally The Saint (refer to the many posts about Mandy and Darwin to understand why), does not exactly receive equal time in this blog so today I wanted to focus on her. 

Tyra, looking up from the love seat

The main reason Tyra doesn’t receive more time on this blog is not that we love her any less than the other two dogs, but simply because she is the best behaved of the three dogs so she often gives me the least to write about.  To be honest, she is the best behaved of all five dogs we have ever owned, and that is saying something!  Tyra’s main goal in life appears to be to please us, while Mandy’s goal in life is to be happy and maintain her excellent self-esteem, and Darwin’s centers somewhere between playing and getting really good back scratches whenever possible.

Tyra, October 1, 2006 in the back yard

Tyra, 10 years old now, is an Australian Shepherd mix, we think, and came to live with us on February 14, 2004, about 10 1/2 months before Kayla came.  She was three when we selected her from the Humane Shelter.  The sign on the run she was sharing with another dog said that she was a Rottweiler mix, but I have lived with this dog for almost eight years now, and there is no Rottweiler in her anywhere.  We weren’t sure what she was until one day when we saw a picture of an Australian Shepherd, which was spot on to what Tyra looks like when we let her hair grow out.

Second Picture, Tyra backyard, October 1, 2006

Tyra was taken to the Humane Shelter by the first family that adopted her and left, the reason being that they had a baby and “didn’t have time to care for her anymore.”  I always have thought that to be incredibly sad for Tyra,even if incredibly lucky for us; I don’t know how you could do that to a dog as loving as she is.  She still has nightmares occasionally, when she will start to moan in her sleep – whether it is about that experience or something else, I don’t know – but a soft touch and just a whisper that everything’s okay and she’s safe with us at home soothes her, even if she doesn’t wake up. 

Woof, Back Yard, October 1, 2006

When we got Tyra, our first dog, Shadow, had been dead for over a year, and I was starting to worry about our second dog, Woof, and how lonely she seemed to be getting.  Mark and I went to the shelter that day to select a dog, and as we were looking over the runs, we came across a pair of medium-sized dogs kenneled together .  One of the signs on the run said, “My name is Tyra, and I can sit!”  Mark said, “Sit,” Tyra sat, and the rest is history.  I haven’t seen her sit on command too many times since then, but bless her heart, the one time in her life it counted, she pulled it off! 

Tyra and Woof Camping in the Travel Trailer

Woof and Tyra had a cordial, not necessarily close relationship.  Or at least that’s what I thought until the day we went camping and I was walking both of them, and Tyra thought another dog was about to attack Woof.  Tyra immediately went into defense mode, and there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Tyra would have done anything possible to defend Woof. 

Kayla and Tyra, 12 days after Kayla came to live with us

Tyra and Kayla have a sweet bond.  Kayla took to Tyra almost as soon as Kayla moved in with us.  When Kayla learned that Tyra had only been with us since February, (remember, Kayla came December 1, 2004), something clicked and the two of them have for the most part had a rapport ever since.  Kayla does not boss Tyra around like she does the other two dogs, but is always sweet and gentle with her.  When she plays school, using the dogs to populate her pretend school world, Tyra is never a student.  Once, Tyra was the school nurse; another time, when I was unavailable, Tyra was the principal. 

Kayla's First Visit Ever To Our House With Mark, Tyra and Woof in the Picture

We learned quite by accident that Tyra also is prepared to do whatever it takes to protect Kayla.  One day when Kayla was four, Mark was grilling outside in the back yard and Kayla was with him.  Kayla heard the door bell ring, but Mark didn’t, so she went to open the door.  (That was a whole separate conversation.)  When she opened the door, there was a teenage boy there that she didn’t know, and Kayla got scared and screamed.  Tyra flew from the back yard down the hall to the front door, pushed Kayla to the side, and chased the teenage boy and his three friends (all of whom, bless their souls, were only asking for directions) onto the hood of their car in the 10 seconds it took Mark to realize something had happened and get out there as well. 

Our Family, Early in 2005

Tyra is not, however, without her quirks.  After all, she is only human canine!  She absolutely loves camping, and bananas.  All the dogs like going for a ride, but when we had our travel trailer, she would absolutely lose her mind as soon as she realized that we were going on an expedition.  She would laugh from the time we got in the car until we returned home.  I had never seen anything like it.  As far as bananas go, they appear to be a miracle cure for her for everything from arthritic hips to fatigue.  The mere sight or smell of a banana will start her prancing like a three-year old dog again. 

Why Won't They Give Me My Spot?

Tyra’s evening routine requires that she be given a seat on the couch beside Mark.  We got this picture of her on the sofa recently, when I was on one side, and Kayla was on the other side of Mark.  She does not look happy!

About time!

All was well, though, once she was placed in her favorite spot.

It's all good!

Tyra also gets extra privileges now that she has attained the status of the official geriatric dog in the household.  See, Life with a Geriatric Dog.  These include elevator service onto our bed every night and occasional joy rides in the car with Mark, Kayla and I while the other two dogs are left at home.  She also is indisputably the leader of the three dogs, although they all three of them ultimately defer to Mark.  She is a benevolent leader, fortunately, and we have been amazed at the restraint she has shown towards both Mandy and Darwin.  They really have to work at it to hack her off.

You will notice in some of these pictures that one of Tyra’s eyes is much larger than the other.  That is due to a condition called canine glaucoma.  There is no cure, and both we and our vet believe she can’t see out of that eye any more, but it doesn’t seem to have slowed her down one bit.  I watch her when she play wrestles with Darwin (they have their own version of mouth wrestling; I have yet to figure out any of the rules besides the cardinal rule, which is that Tyra wins.  Always.  No matter what.) and she just seems to look at him out of her other eye with a twinkle that says, “I can still beat you, even with one eye tied behind my back – but I won’t take advantage of you, even so.”

That’s my dog.

Have a great day !

Nancy

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The Benefits of an On-Site Hotel at Universal

Posted on January 21, 2012 | 6 comments

Good morning everyone!

Some of this is going to sound like a commercial; I apologize in advance, but when something is enjoyable, it doesn’t make any sense to try to find something negative to say!

As you know, Mark and I took a trip to Orlando last weekend. Mark and I hadn’t been to a theme park in a lot of years (since Kayla was 4) and we were a little unsure how he would do with the walking and the standing in line given his rheumatoid arthritis, which is one reason we wanted to take this trip with just the two of us – if we ended up only being able to stay in a park for one or two hours, we wouldn’t have to worry about disappointing our daughter.  There were about 500 other reasons to have some time for just the two of us, so that wasn’t the only reason, but it was one.

Picture from our Porch the Other Day;It has nothing to do with anything I am writing about but it is pretty!

Then, as I was going through our options for a hotel room, I started looking at the three Loew’s  hotels that are “on-site” Universal Studio hotels – the Portofino, the Royal Pacific and the Hard Rock.  They are not cheap, but by staying at the Royal Pacific, we picked up a lot of extras that were worth their “wait”  in gold.  (You’ll understand and be able to groan at the pun later.)

The most important of those benefits was the fact that every guest at one of those three hotels has automatic “Fast Pass” entry to every ride that has one, which basically is every ride except for Harry Potter’s Forbidden Journey.  Granted it was January, with Fast Pass, we hardly had to wait in line at all (okay, go ahead and groan now); often we were able to walk right onto the ride as soon as we got up to it.  (The lines at Universal are astounding labyrinths; as we walked through them we tried to imagine what it would be like to have to wait if all of the labyrinth was full and came to the conclusion that it would not be fun.)  For those of you who, like me, have stood in line somewhere like Disneyworld or Universal for over 45 minutes to an hour for a ride, you can just imagine the feeling of soaring into the ride immediately!  I would have felt a little bad about it if the Fast Pass option wasn’t available to everyone if they choose, but if you are not staying at the hotels, you can buy Fast Pass privileges.  It costs $87 per person per day on top of the entrance fee, which is already over $80 for a single park, single day admission.  (In other words, it ain’t cheap.)

Hogwarts at Universal

Even though the Harry Potter ride does not have a Fast Pass entrance (yet, anyhow), staying at one of the three Universal Hotels also allows you to enter Islands of Adventure one hour early to go down to Harry Potter’s Wizarding World, so instead of waiting over 60 minutes to ride the Forbidden Journey, we had a wait time of about 10 minutes.  The second day, Harry Potter’s Forbidden Journey was one of the only two rides we decided to ride twice.  We waited 60 minutes in line for the ride that day, and easily came to the conclusion that the Fast Pass and early entry was what had made the trip possible.  The other ride we rode twice was the Spiderman ride.  It is one of the best rides in both parks!  Since Spiderman has a Fast Pass entry, it only took about five minutes each time to go through.

Hogsmeade at Universal

Another benefit of staying at an on-site hotel at Universal is proximity and transportation.  We were only a ten minute walk away from CityWalk and the entrance to both parks, and if we didn’t feel like walking, there was a water taxi that would carry us to and from the hotel along a canal Universal has constructed.  The hotel or the parks, I’m not sure which, also provide shuttle buses if you prefer.

We walked along the hotel path several times; it is a well-designed route, with landscaping that has a pan-Asian flair, including stands of bamboo and small stone statues hidden around, and lots of flowering plants, some of which were still flowering even in mid-January.  We tried the water taxi too; it was basically just a ride in a boat but the drivers were very friendly and after all of the hours we had spent walking, being able to sit down was fantastic!

The Water Taxi Pulling Up At CityWalk

Another benefit was the ease with which we picked up our tickets.  There is an automated “Will Call” Kiosk that you go to in the lobby, swipe the credit card/debit card you used to make your payments originally with, and out pop your tickets for your entire stay.

Staying “on the park” really made a difference in how much we enjoyed our short stay.  Hopefully, you will get the chance to do so soon!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

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Smart Marketing

Posted on January 19, 2012 | 8 comments

Good morning Everyone!

What a week!  I’ve been trying to write this post since Tuesday, which was the day we got back from a mini-vacation to Orlando.  Tuesday for whatever reason my internet didn’t want to load pictures (and how can you talk about a trip to Orlando without pictures?) and then I ended up working until extraordinarily late to get a brief filed.  (By extraordinarily late, I’m talking about times I haven’t seen since I was in college!)  Then yesterday I had an 8 a.m. check-up which involved fasting beforehand (nothing to eat from 12 until 8 – I am not exactly Miss Merry Sunshine in the morning anyhow, but me without food in the morning is an unhappy combination!)  Then, the check-up over and breakfast procured,  I went to work to recover from my late night session Tuesday, which translates to trying to get enough papers moved to see the wood of my desk top and pushing forward with other projects.  It felt good last night just to come home and collapse – I was in bed by 8:30 and asleep by 9:20, which was great!

A visual depiction of my week so far!

But now we have reached Thursday and I have yet to post for this week, so I better get started.

As I’ve already mentioned, we spent this weekend traveling – Kayla went to visit my Mom, who had bought the two of them tickets to see the Broadway musical “Wicked” this past weekend, and Mark and I decided to take advantage of the weekend to go to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.

Mark and I did have a good time, but I want to talk today about our first evening there, where sunny Florida was not sunny (but only because it was night) and COLD! The night-time temperatures when we were out and about walking were down in the high 30’s. (For those of you from colder climes who think the high 30’s is downright balmy, I suggest you try coming down here to Alabama or Florida in July when our temperatures are in the mid-90’s or higher with 200% humidity, and you will understand.)

All right, I admit it wasn't as cold as this!

It was so cold, in fact, that I had to pull out The Squash to wear. The Squash is a bright yellow fleece that I have had for ages; I used to wear it often with green gym pants which made me sort of resemble a summer squash, which is how it got its name. The Squash is one of my favorite fleeces – brightly colored and extraordinarily warm, with sleeves that are too long – just too long enough so that I can pull my hands into them and let the sleeves double as gloves when I need them too. Long live the Squash!

Me in The Squash at Islands of Adventure

But I digress (I can hear the shocked gasps!) We didn’t want to go to either of the parks in the evening, because they weren’t going to be open that late, so we decided to go to City Walk, an entertainment area Universal has constructed in an area between Islands of Adventure (their second theme park) and Universal Studios (their first theme park.) After we got lost trying to find the walking path from our hotel, the Loew’s Royal Pacific, to City Walk, then finally retreating to the lobby where, starting from the point of origin we finally found the path, we had been out walking in the cold for about 25 minutes and were glad for a chance to sit down in the warmth at the restaurant we had chosen for dinner, called Pastamore.  At least, it started out warm, but once someone decided to open some large panels in the front, the temperature quickly plummeted.

The Beginning of the Islands of Adventure Theme Park

When we finished eating, we decided to walk around CityWalk and look at some of the shops. There are a lot of nightclubs there, too, but we were planning on an early day at the theme parks and didn’t want to stay up that late. The shops were interesting, but they were all cold. I think they had heat, but the fact that they left two doors open at all time caused most of the heat to float away in the night sky. Because they were cold, we didn’t really want to linger.

Until we came to the Fossil Store. For those who don’t know, Fossil is a company that makes watches, wallets, purses, some jewelry, belts, and some briefcases/satchels. Mark and I like what they sell, but at first we just intended to make a brief sweep of the store and go on. That is, until we entered the store and found that someone had the good sense to close one of the two doors to the shop and keep the heat in. It was blissfully warm in there! Nor were we the only tourists who had a sudden penchant to linger around the store that evening; I counted about 15 or 18 tourists sharing the shop with us while we were in there, and the store is not that big.

Mark ended up buying a watch for me; it is a nice, somewhat dressy watch for work. It is made out of my favorite precious metal, rose gold, and has Swarovski crystals embedded around the rim of the front.

Had the store not been warm, we never would have stayed in it long enough to find the watch, so kudos to the manager at the Fossil Store at City Walk at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida for extraordinarily smart marketing – with heat!

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Mandy has a brother?!

Posted on January 12, 2012 | 3 comments

Good morning Everyone!

As some of you know from some previous posts, I have long wished that the over 50 people who have searched for variations on the term “husky-basset hound mix” would let me know why they are looking for the information;  I have always thought that Mandy is probably the most unusual dog I will ever come across, both in looks and in personality.  Well, two days ago, I got an e-mail from a woman named Needa in Nashville, who has a dog named Sawyer who is – wait for it – also a husky-basset hound mix.  Pictures were immediately exchanged, and the two do look very much alike, especially when they both have been recently groomed.  Sawyer has a little bit more of the red/brown coloring of a basset hound, while Mandy has picked up more of the silver/white/gray of the husky, but still, the resemblance is amazing.

Guess who is who?

You can see how much alike they look in the two pictures above.  Sawyer’s most obvious difference from Mandy is that he is a male and she a female, but there are other differences.  I think Mandy is a little more solid than Sawyer, although I haven’t yet met Sawyer to have him jump on me with all of his weight concentrated in his front two paws.  Sawyer has two blue eyes, instead of Mandy’s one brown eye with a hint of blue in it and her other completely blue eye.

Sawyer almost in pageant pose

There are a lot of similarities, too.  Sawyer has a “pageant pose” similar to Mandy’s, although Needa and her husband call it the “noble pose,” which makes sense since Sawyer is a boy.  Sawyer likes to chew – Needa says the first day she had him he demolished her digital camera, which made me grateful for Mandy’s preference for light cords – and does so on about the same four-hour schedule that Mandy holds.  Mandy and Sawyer can be trusted alone in the house for about four hours, then they get anxious about their owners being gone and start demolishing something.  At least they have a good reason; Darwin chews sometimes just for the pure joy of it.  To be honest, Mandy chews handkerchiefs for the pure joy of it also, but the more destructive chewing comes after four hours!

Mandy: Caught with a handkerchief

They have somewhat similar nicknames, too.  One of Mandy’s many nicknames, well-earned, is “Bad Dog.”   Sawyer’s nickname, Bitarbriat, was given to him by one of Needa’s uncles.  The word is Persian for “Spoiled Brat.”

Sawyer dives for something

Sawyer does not have to be bossed around by a child of any age, let alone a ten-year old girl – Needa and her husband just got married three weeks ago!  Congratulations to them.  Here is an engagement photo they took with Sawyer in it.

Sawyer's Engagement Photo!

Sawyer was adopted in Huntsville, Alabama at The Ark; someone found him wandering around the roadside there.  Mandy is also an Alabama dog; as you know from a previous post, she was adopted at the Montgomery, Alabama humane shelter, where she had been taken after she had been found digging in the dumpster for McDonald’s.  They both are very independent; I am not sure if that is the basset hound temperament coming out, or if part of that comes from surviving “on the street” for a period of time.

Mandy, awakens from a nap

They both are very loving dogs, too; they just have very high self-esteem.

Sawyer on his dog bed

One day, we hope maybe to get the two of them together, but that won’t happen for a while.  Either way though, welcome to Sawyer as a potential cousin, if not brother of our own Mandy, and thank you to the many friends and relations of Needa who have stopped by this blog in the past two days to look at pictures of Mandy.  I hope you’ve enjoyed your visits!

Sawyer gets ready for the wedding

If anyone out there stumbles by this blog and has a husky-basset hound mix, please let me know.  I’d love to hear about him or her!

Mandy in the kitchen

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Inappropriate O’Fences

Posted on January 10, 2012 | 8 comments

Good morning Everyone!

Kayla is at an age now where one of our joys is listening to her thoughts and vocabulary expand.  Of course, she doesn’t always get every word right the first time, but the things she says can really surprise us.

This weekend, we went to the hospital to visit someone, and on the way into the hospital Mark was roughhousing with Kayla, just a little bit.  She looked up at him and said sternly, “Playing in the hospital like that is inappropriate.”  Both Mark and I had to stifle a laugh.  (Somehow, laughing out loud in the hospital waiting room also seemed inappropriate.)

Sunday night though, I laughed out loud.  While we were eating spaghetti and bread on trays in front of the TV (it was the playoffs, after all!), Mark started teasing Kayla about something.  She informed him that doing so “while I’m eating is O’Fences.”  I started to laugh, and had to calm down enough to explain that the correct word was “offensive.”  Mark thought it was funny, too.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Memory

Posted on January 9, 2012 | 12 comments

Good morning Everyone!

I’ve been thinking lately about memory and how differently it functions for different people.  I have a good memory for numbers and odd facts I’ve run across, but if I ask you in the den whether you’d prefer cream of chicken or vegetable beef soup for lunch, I’m likely to have forgotten your answer by the time I take the ten steps to the kitchen. 

I have a sister who has an excellent memory for things that happened in our past.  Sometimes, when we’re talking and she mentions something that happened when we were children, I wonder whether we, in fact, shared the same childhood.  (Yes, Stacy, I know that we did and that your stories are true;  I just remember so much less than what you remember; you’re amazing!)

I have an excellent memory for phone numbers, of all things.   I can remember many phone numbers off the top of my head, which means I’ve never really bothered learning how to program many numbers into my cell phone.  I find it interesting though that when I am trying to remember a number I am not that familiar with, I usually get 6 out of 7 digits correct, and the 7th is pretty close to what I need, although not exact.  That 7th number that I miss will a) be within plus or minus one digit of the correct number, and b) will be somewhere in the middle of the number, not at the end. 

I can remember all kinds of odd facts from things that I have read; those facts pop up in association with other things.  Sitting here now, I can’t really come up with a random fact to share with you, but if we were having a conversation and something you said struck up some kind of association, I would have a plentiful store of facts to share related to whatever topic I have associated with our conversation at the time. 

If I am going through an exceptionally unhappy time, I will blot memories of that time largely out, even the happy memories.  I have two years of my life (grades 9 and 10 in high school in Fairfax, Virginia) that I have only the spottiest memories of.  I remember more and more about those years, though, the older I get, which is interesting to me as well. 

The hardest things to remember sometimes, unless you are just lucky enough to have the event become one of those stories that gain the status of “family-sharing memories” that are trotted out frequently because they really are very funny, are the little day-to-day events that make life a pleasure and a gift.  I am fortunate there; I don’t remember them better than anyone else does, but between early e-mails I sent when we got Kayla, a series of letters I wrote to my aunt, uncle and cousin and my grandparents for about two years, and then this blog, I have a treasure house of recorded memories I can go back and read about at my leisure. 

All humans have memories of one sort or another; it is interesting when talking to Kayla to see what she remembers and what she doesn’t from the early years of her adoption.  I find that over the years I have gradually acquired the status of institutional memory for my firm, simply due to the number of years that I worked there coupled with the positions I have held as I worked my way up.  I am one of only two people with the longevity to be able to do that.  It always amazes me when I am able to pull up facts from a case that is somewhere between 10 – 20 years old; somehow, after a little bit of thought, the memory I am searching for just pops up from the depths of my storage banks. 

How does your memory serve you?  Are you one of the very fortunate few that has a photographic memory?  Do you tend to remember physical things, such as dance or sports moves, better than thought type memories?  (My physical memory is close to non-existent, making activities such as golf a never-ending adventure!)  Are you the family historian who can remember events no one else does, or are you the number cruncher or walking encyclopedia able to pull random, or not-so-random facts out as needed?  Whichever type of memory you have, I do hope that, unlike me, you are at least able to remember what type of soup someone wants for the ten steps it takes to get from the den to the kitchen!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Too much alike!

Posted on January 5, 2012 | 4 comments

Hi Everyone!

I have a bone to pick with the Coca-Cola company today.

It was really cold yesterday morning, and I was sleepy, so stumbling out into the garage to obtain my diet coke for my caffeine starter for the day was more of a shock than usual.  I grabbed two cans off of the refrigerator shelf – we have an extra refrigerator in the garage we use for storing drinks and other stuff – with my eyes half-open, stumbled back into the house and got ready to drink my drink, when I discovered that the winter design for the Coca-Cola can was too similar to the Diet Coke can.  I know this, because I had grabbed one of each. 

Here is a picture of the “normal” Coke can: 

And here is a picture of a Diet Coke can with the winter Coca-Cola can:

That is just too much alike for people who are sleepy in the morning!  Even half-asleep, I can tell the difference between the silver Diet Coke can and the bright red Coke can, but the silver and the white, not so much.  I am hereby pleading with Coke to revert to the original red can.  Does anyone think they will listen?

I hope so; we have a whole shelf in the refrigerator full of white Coke cans.  I can’t decide if that was by design, or if someone else in my family also thought that the white cans were diet coke cans and not regular Coke.

Have a great day !

Nancy

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My New Office

Posted on January 3, 2012 | 6 comments

Good morning Everyone!

We’ve successfully reached the  3rd day of 2012, and life comes back to normal in our household today, with Mark and I back at work and Kayla back at school.  I know things are back to normal for the following reasons:  1) after repeated assurances that she knew where her book bag was and everything was in order in it, Kayla still had to scramble to find it and get out the door in time, 2) we had a discussion as to how a gym suit jacket is not sufficient to keep you warm in 25 degree weather and 3) after Mark and Kayla left, I heard odd chewing noises in the bedroom and called out, “Darwin, you better not be chewing anything important!” and he happily trotted around the corner out of my bedroom.  (You will be relieved to know that it was nothing more important than a plastic toothbrush holder.) 

Corner Office

I spent a couple of days last week working on setting up my new “office.”  (“Working on” translates to “shopping for.”)   This corner of our bedroom is now the headquarters for all of  my writing, both blogging and the freelance , with the potential to do some art work at it as well, especially with graphite and watercolor pencils. 

Open Desk

Leaving the chair against the wall until I’m ready to write takes up a little less room on a regular basis.  Once I am ready to write, I can just pull the chair over to the open desk, since it’s not very heavy. 

I found both the chair and the desk (I’m really, really proud of the desk!) at a flea market/antique store in Montgomery (my Montgomery friends will know immediately where it is when I tell them I went to EastBrook). 

closeup of desk

 The desk was called a “ladies writing desk” but it is what I have always thought of as a small secretary desk. The ribbon tied to the right hand drawer knob was what the price tag was tied too.  Sooner or later I will cut it off. 

It hasn’t escaped my attention that a new year, 2012, has started, but I have no words of wisdom to offer.  I have had only one New Year’s resolution for about the last five years and that is not to make any New Year’s resolutions!  It’s harder to do than you might think, but I am holding steady so far.

 Have a great day!

Nancy

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