Book Meme

Jennifer tagged me!

It's been a while since I've done one of these!

Here's the rules:

Pick up the nearest book.

Turn to page 123.

Post the 5th sentence.

Tag 5 other people.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

He concentrated on the relief of the mirror's cooling touch, wondering how one
went about forcing one's mind into blankness, particularly after a lifetime
lived on the axiom that the constant, clearest, most ruthless function of his
rational faculty was his foremost duty.

Wow.. what a sentence!

Now for the tagging. If you read this, feel free to do it! I know, I know,, it's much more fun to get tagged so consider yourself tagged! LOL

Please rain, hold off one more day!

I can't wait to get the garden tilled. Last night as I was tromping around barefoot in last year's plot, it finally felt like it was dried out enough to till. We have such a soggy backyard. It works out well in the summer because they veggies stay moist but it's just really hard to get dug up in the spring.

I'm going to start some seeds today. I know,,, I should have done it weeks ago but just like so many other things right now, I've slacked.

I'm a slacker... what can I say?

Here's the thing....

(beware... I think I'm fixin' to dump a bunch of psychobabble here)

Deep down, I want to get a bunch of stuff accomplished every day. I do. What would happen if I did though? Then people would expect it out of me all the time. I think I've done this my whole life. If I do it once, then I'll have to do it all the time.

I have to get over this,,, I really do. I MUST.

Because that's just stupid. That may have worked for me when I was younger and I couldn't say no but I think I've mastered the saying no thing so this protecting myself from getting too stressed out thing isn't really working for me anymore.

Do I appear to be someone who's not stressed out? LOL

The definition of stupidity or insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So,, I'm not going to do that anymore.

If only I could resolve to do this with my diet!

Ok, inner reflection is over.

About the garden.

I'm only going to plant stuff that will be worth canning this year. Tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, and potatoes.

I don't expect to can the potatoes but they will keep for quite a while. Maybe I can do some little tater's with the beans?! Yummy!

So I'm off. Off to make a list of things to get done today and start working on it! Wish me luck!

---------------------

When my really nice Ott stitchery light broke I was devastated. It had the best magnifier on it! I may just have to look into getting a new one! I miss it!

---------------------

New River Gorge

We took a road trip (probably one of our last) to New River Gorge today. The weather threatened but never really followed through. I'm glad it wasn't 80 degrees, I most definitely would have been miserable. It was more hiking than this old fat bod is used to! ha ha.
Fayette County is a juxtaposition of beauty and squalor ridden poverty. It saddens me. This is a nationally protected state park/river area and undeniably one of the most beautiful places in the entire country. To go from awe inspiring wonder to repulsion and embarrassment from the trash and filth is just a shame.
We had a good time though. The bridge (of "Bridge Day" fame) is impossible to take a bad picture of. I took the above picture, it's not a postcard! I flatter myself, no?
After coming down from the scenic overlook, we stopped off at the side of the road to hike out into the river. It was not a trail for the faint of heart but we did ok!

It was so rocky in that part that we were able to climb right out in the middle of the river! How cool is that? There are many random waterfalls along the side of the road on Rt. 16. We couldn't resist stopping and getting our feet wet!

We also stopped at Hawks Nest. That's a nice stop too.

Somehow I managed not to get a decent picture of Hawk's Nest but I don't think I could have taken a prettier one than I found at Amanda Haddox's website.

I'll try and write more tomorrow but tonight? I'm beat. Have a great weekend all!

--------------------------------------

I wish I'd had some Dansko shoes on today!

--------------------------------------

I'm one of "those" people.

So I told you yesterday that I would tell you the stupid white trash thing I did. I aim to deliver but just a heads up, I feel a long drawn out post coming on with lots of "he said" and "she said" and profanity involved. This story is not suitable for all audiences.
Get a drink, perhaps a stiff one, it'll make the story better.

Ok, cozy? settled in?
good.

Anyone who knows me knows that I've been in feud for blood with my neighbors for some time now. It was bound to come to a head,, we all know this, right? Well, Wednesday morning was that day.
Just to catch you up, they got a Beagle. Now I have nothing against Beagles per Se but Beagles are not exactly neighborhood dogs. When they can't roam, they bark and bark and bark and screech, and bark and whine and bark and... and... and... you get the idea. Cute dogs, Beagles,, but wow,, are they noisy. I put up with it because it wasn't really reasonable for me not to put up with it,
until Wednesday morning.
Come about 7am, I awaken to the screeching of the beagle dog right outside my bedroom window. I try to put a pillow over my head and go back to sleep because I'm feeling a little unwell.
No dice.
The barking gets louder and more obnoxious and UGH! I'm desperate for it to stop. Well, I get what I think, is a genius idea. We'd had pot roast the night before and we had quite a bit left. I went in the kitchen and broke off a large chunk. I then stepped out on my balcony and lobbed it at the dog.
Oh! What a happy puppy!
She was quiet, I was happy, I went back to bed.
For about 5 minutes.
Then just as I was drifting off, I awaken to BANG BANG BANG BANG.
OMG, what is it?
Well it's Mr. Jerkface and he has an attitude.
"DID YOU FEED MY DOG?!"
"yes, I gave her a chunk of potroast"
"DON'T FEED MUH DAWG" (he yelling mind you)
"then shut your *^$@#^* dog up, it's 7am!"
"DON'T FEED MUH DAWG"
"I did what was reasonable to get her to be quiet for a while so I could get some sleep"
"DON'T FEED MUH DAWG"
"I heard you @$$#*!%, Stop talking to me like one of your kids"
"YOU DON'T FEED A DOG MEAT"

Yup, I stood there,, blank stare on my face, "WTH?"
He proceeded to threaten me and my animals and I told him that he'd better take as good care of mine as I've taken of his. I've done nothing wrong and he's just got an attitude because he knows I'm pissed at him.
Then he started in with "DON'T FEED MUH DAWG" crap again. Oh yeah,, literary scholar this one. I told him that if she barked under my window, I would feed her again, if you don't want her fed, then muzzle her.
"BARKING'S NOT MY PROBLEM"
me- "I'll make it your problem, you'll have the cops up here 24/7 " and he proceeded to threaten and posture again. This is when I called him on it and came out the door at him.
"I cannot believe that you are up in MY YARD at MY DOOR on MY PROPERTY threatening me!, you'd better back the $%^& up before I call the ^%* *&^% cops"
Well, now he started to back up.
While I was standing in my yard in my housecoat screaming at the top of my lungs at 7am on a Wednesday I figured I'd go all out. You know,, there's not really any turning back now, there's no redeeming myself so I cut loose.
I let him know just exactly what he could do to get rid of me. Clean his nasty nasty yard up. I let him know exactly what he was doing to every one's property value (houses on all three sides of him are for sale) and do you know what he said???
"I don't know what your problem is? What do you want me to pick up?"
By now I was furious.
"LOOK THE *&#@ AROUND DUMB @$$" "If I can see it,, CLEAN IT"

There was a lot more to the story but it's mostly a blur now. I couldn't calm down and I was feeling sick. I figured I'd get cleaned up and run some errands and spend the day out at a friends house to calm myself.
My last errand was Walmart. Don't you love shopping Walmart in the early morning? Isn't it great? No one... I mean NO ONE is there! But I digress.
I stopped off at the automated blood pressure cuff because my headache felt like a blood pressure headache. I waited as the evil thing put a blood blister on my fat upper arm and I was shocked. I turned to the pharmacist, who was on her elbows at the window, and asked "when was this thing calibrated? Is it pretty accurate?" She said "It usually is, let's hope that reading is wrong!"
She came out with a bp cuff and checked me herself and the machine was pretty close. My BP was 183/110. No wonder I felt like crap. She advised me to go to the ER and I told her I would. I went directly to Tarah's instead. I took a BP pill and in an hour or so I felt much better. So much better in fact that I called the nasty neighbor and apologized. I got his answering machine but just the same, I did apologize.
Later that evening, I'd calmed down quite a bit more and I came home to find Mr. C quite perturbed. Nasty neighbor had left a note of apology on our door.
Well, now that should have been it, shouldn't it have been?
You and I both know it's not. Mr. C was very ticked that I had apologized. He was furious that another man had come to our house when he wasn't home and threatened me, the kids and our property.
He paced the floor until nasty neighbor pulled in the drive way. Man, did he ever cut into him! He totally called him out and nasty neighbor totally tucked tail like a beagle that had been kicked for eating pot roast!
I won't go into details here. I'll keep that between me and Mr. C.
He's my knight in shining armor.

----------------------------------------------------

I won't have to strangle anyone with CAT6 cable after all!

----------------------------------------------------

long time no blog.

I just haven't been in the mood. The kids are finishing up their grade appropriate work for the year and all of their extra curricular activities. I've got spring fever, we all do.

I'm old.

I mean seriously. My bod is wearing out long before it should. If I named my ailments you'd think I was 70 years old. I try really hard not to bitch about them, no one wants to hear it. Not only is my body failing me and I feel old, I've just got an old soul. I knit and crochet, I play cards, I do crosswords, I don't sleep much, I like to feed ducks at the park, I get chilly, and finally, I yell at the neighborhood kids to get out of my yard. Before you know it I'll be shopping for the top wrinkle cream. I'd need it now if my face wasn't so fat.

I'll have to tell you all about the white trash old lady thing I did yesterday but not tonight. Soon, I promise.

Roadtrip!

Yesterday we went to the Lucasville Trade Days Flea Market. IT'S HUGE! We were there for hours despite the freezing cold winds and our overly optimistic clothing choices. (read, we didn't know it was going to be cold) There were bunnies, and goaties, and chickies (by the thousands) and calfs, and heifers, and horses, and donkeys, and burros, and peacocks/peahens, and guinee foul, and turkeys, sheep and Alpacas and Llamas! and OH MY! We had such a good time looking at the animals. As for the actual flea junk? Nothing. Total junk, nothing worth having at all. I did come home with the book "Living with Chickens" which has been on my Amazon wish list for ages. We had big fun on the way home making fun of it.

"WHO LEFT THE TOILET SEAT UP?"

"Chicken?"

"WHO LEFT THE MILK OUT?"

"Chicken?"

What would the chicken watch on TV? The Discovery Channel? The Farm Report?

Seriously though,, you don't know how close we came to living with a baby goat. I don't mean out in the yard, I mean, sitting on the couch with me.

There's NOTHING CUTER.

I thought better of it though.

Chris is acutually out at Lowes right now getting some supplies so he can start building a chicken coop! YEA!!!

I can't hardly stand it! I'm so excited to not have to pay $3.00 a dozen anymore!

T2 wants a Silkie, T1 wants a giant Leghorn Rooster. I told them that we don't really need a rooster yet and wow.... poor Silkie! They are LITTLE birds and Leghorn can get VERY large. Some of the Leghorns we saw yesterday totally freaked me out, I don't think I've ever seen a chicken that big! I'm going to push for some Barred Rock hens. I think we can make everyone happy though and everyone can have their own bird. We won't get many,,,, yet.

After we left there, we drove over to Shawnee State Forest. Our original plan was to have a picnic but did I mention how cold it was? YIPES,, we went to Bob Evans instead.

There are many dams and spillways at this park. The funniest part is, there are no real safety precautions around them! This first spillway had a hand rail but that was just so you could have something to grab as you were trekking up the steep hill.

We're a sucker for dams. I don't know why,, we're just facinated by them. We have to pull over and look at every one we see.

At one of the larger ponds/lakes there is another spillway that empties under a land berm and into a dam structure on the other side. We called it DANGER HOLE! LOL Really, don't let loose of your children.

You can't really tell by the picture but the whole scenerio made my stomach hurt.

Why not just walk right into the lake? Sure. And then you can get swept directly into the undergroud spillway. Sounds like a plan!

This is where it came out on the other side. Again, you can't tell by the picture but it's a LONG DROP off the side of that little concrete edge there. Just beyond that is another one of those neat waterfall looking things which is also a long way down.

Safety is for SUCKERS!

The whole day was a good experience and I'm glad we went even if we didn't score anything all that great at the flea market. We may go again next time. Hopefully by then, we'll be prepared to bring home some animals.

-----------------------------------------------------

How do you Repair Credit?

There are many companies out there that are in the business of credit repair. It can be very confusing. Picking the right one can mean the difference between starting fresh with great credit and digging yourself deeper in a hole.

Bad Credit Repair can be a long tedious road. It seems that credit reporting agencies are constantly working against you. The truth is, they make more money if your credit is bad! This seems very wrong to me.

Repairing your credit is vital in today's day and age. If you choose to use credit repair services, please choose wisely! Ask your finacial institution how you can receive free or reduced counseling from Consumer Credit Services. This post was brought to you by your friends at repairyourbadcredit.com

-----------------------------------------------------

Natural Dyeing.

This past weekend I spied a cool book about Dyeing with plants. It was called Wild Color. Amazon wants like 80 large for it because it's out of print. Guess what I just found online? The book for FREE! I love Google Book Reader! Lots of the pictures are missing but that's ok, the information is there. Isn't the interwebs a wonderful thing? Before I found this interesting little tidbit though, I experimented with dying my own wool with the violets from the yard. Aren't they pretty?



It didn't come out the color I expected but I think it's nice! There is just something very elemental about taking something from nature and putting it to good use.
--------------------------
Looking for excersize equipment? Try a Precor elliptical from eonfitness.com!

Tired.... I has it.

Two weekends in a row of going out and doing cool stuff is enough to exhaust a person. Yesterday and today I went to a Spinning Retreat. Now mind you,, I don't spin. I want to spin with all of my heart. Apparently having heart isn't enough though because I really REALLY suck at it.

See that to the left? My first skein. My sad, pathetic skein. My sheep are embarrassed to be modeling it.

See that thick and thin look? The over spin? The parts that aren't spun at all? Totally on purpose. Yeah, I meant to do that!

What are the many fibers? Heck if I know. The kind ladies just kept handing me stuff in hopes that I'd take to something.....anything. I call this colorway... Cat-Hack.

"Here, try this, it has more tooth"

"Those fibers are too short for a beginner, try this"

"It's not bad!! at least it's consistent!"

Yeah, consistently bad!

Then I tried a drop spindle. Better than the wheel at first. Here's how that went down. A very nice lady brought her spindle collection. Trish says "go pick on of her's out and try it!" Ok, so I did. I was bugging along thinking "wow! I might be able to do this!" and then it happened. I dropped her spindle! I just about had a heart attack. It hit the floor with such a clunk. About the same time she said "here, let me get you a loaner, take it home and practice" What she was saying in her head is "oh dear God, she's such a giant oaf,, she's going to break my spindle!"

So she had me to wind what I had onto another spindle. I hate it. I'm spoiled. I can't use the generic one. So guess who's spindle shopping!

Again, the overtwist, the thick -n- thin? I was totally going for that look. Not. It's funny how the sheep on the left looks like she's looking very disapprovingly at it.

I've dishonored them!

I want to do this so bad. I'm just going to have to keep at it. It took me forever to learn to knit. I was telling my mother this evening and she said "you know, it also took you forever to learn how to pedal a trike and then when it came to a two wheeler? that also took you way longer than the other kids"

I guess I just have a hard time with the "muscle memory" thing. Or maybe,, it's like my jr. high school science teacher said "your coffee pot just drips slower than others, you'll get a full cup eventually, just keep pouring it on"

I took Flat Glenn with me. Flat Glenn (for those I haven't told yet) is our version of Flat Stanley. Flat Glenn started when a friend who is a fellow home schooler and Glenn Beck fan wanted to start a Geography project with her son. We all thought it would be a great idea and it caught on like wildfire! FG's been all over the world and it's finally our turn to host him here in West Virginia.

FG decided to try (to no avail) and help me at the wheel today.

Well, I know more now than I did. Perhaps there is still hope. Maybe I'll get better each time I try it.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be nice so we plan on taking FG out to tour the local hangouts. Stay tuned for more pictures!

WSAZ

A small group of us (homeschoolers) went to WSAZ yesterday to watch a newscast. They were very accomodating to us and answered all of our questions. Rob Johnson and Marina Jurica even posed for a picture with us! You can see Flat Glenn in the front row there.
Speaking of Flat Glenn, expect lots of misadventures from him real soon!

I took a bit of a break!

I took a bit of a break. It wasn't intentional. I was just beat after my trip!
I had a blast. It's always fun and it was great to see everyone again!
(hope to see you in June!)
I came back to a very busy week.

• Monday- unpacking, recovering the house, and band of course.
• Tuesday- co-op, lunch and shopping with friends
• Wednesday- WSAZ field trip, lunch and then afternoon at the park
• Thursday- Some book work and again... recovering the house (it's always in recovery it seems!)
• Friday and Saturday- A spinning retreat. As in... wool, wheels and staying over night. Beware dear understanding husband of mine... this could get ugly. ($$$$$)

I also came back to one of the ceiling fans making a terrible noise. Like, some otherworldly, it might burn down the house kinda noise. Poor husband. It seems he'll be working over his head again. Yuck.

So I was looking online at fans. I came across Farreys.com . What a cool website! You can practically build your own. They have them in just about every price range too! They even have one called a Candelier that's $4999.99! Casablanca Ceiling Fans are really neat fans.

You have to check out this cool fan from Fanimation! Wouldn't that be nice in a Florida room or on your porch? I love it!

After looking at them all, I think I like this one the best. It's by Monte Carlo. The price is reasonable and it has that Art Deco look that I like. Maybe someday, we'll build a new house and the ceiling fan won't be the prettiest thing in the room! ha ha.

Well, I'm off to pack my bags again, school the kids, and get ready for tonight!