Thursday, August 26, 2010

What I found in my phone

So I own a Cliq phone, which I hate, save for the fact that is an android phone, which I love enough to make up for any other shortcomings the phone has.  I got the phone in December and I have just now FINALLY figured out how to upload photos using my usb cable.  I had tried in the past and failed, but for whatever reason, today it worked.  So I went thru and found some photos that I either wanted to share for a while now or some that I thought you just might enjoy seeing.  
This photo was taken today.  It is me & my kitten, Lunos.  Remember when I found this adorable kitten and it's littermates in the middle of the road?  And we named her "Luna"?  Well, last week Luna's testicles decided to descend, thus making a name change necessary.  Sparky calls him "Lunock" when he is evil -- what a good evil sounding name!  We also call him "Teeth and Claws" when he is being evil and "Fur and Purr" when he is being sweet.  Obviously this morning he was being his sweet snuggly self.


Speaking of Sweet & Snuggly, this is my middle son, Alex, commonly referred to as "medium" or "Calvin" or simply "A".  He is shown here with a girl he dated for about 10 minutes.  He seldom lets me take his photo, so this will have to do.  And yes, she IS wearing shorts, although it is hard to tell from the pic.


And this is my oldest son, O.  We really do call him O most of the time, although his given name is Orin.  He is also commonly referred to as "large".  He does indeed have a red afro & it is indeed epic.  It's actually even bigger now than it was in this photo -- believe it or not!


This is me; showing off a necklace & earring set that was given to me.  Sadly, the boo broke the necklace shortly thereafter.  But it's a pretty good pic of me -- well save for my hand in the photo.  


This was a fun night -- my first (and only, so far) fishbowl!!!  Sparky & I went to Maewyn's Irish Pub in downtown York, PA.  We met fantastic people and had a great time.  Any bar that has a frozen rail to keep your beer cold & has all the the brand specific beer glasses is good in Sparky's book.  And let me tell you about the fishbowl!  What fun!  They take the bottoms of all of the bottles and dump them in this HUGE glass dispenser thing. I should have taken a photo of that, since it was much more impressive than the fishbowl.  Next time, I promise.  Anyway, they dump the bottoms of the bottles as they get emptied (save for the scotch, which would be nasty) and then mix it with fruit juices and such.  Who knew want amounts to "bathtub juice" could be so delicious!  Oh, and the best part, $5.  That's right FIVE DOLLARS.  For the ENTIRE fishbowl. Now even I have the potential to be a cheap date!




So, the WikiReader.  Have you seen this thing?  I am thinking about getting one for my father-in-law, the king of curiousity.  If you have a computer, it's silly, but since they don't (nor do they want one, trust me, we have tried), I think he would really enjoy this.  From the WikiReader website:

Why Take Wikipedia Offline?
Because how can knowledge equal freedom
if people need a modem to get it?

People don't go to Wikipedia because they want to be on the Internet; they go there because they want to find answers and discover new questions. Of course, the best answers are never ends in themselves. They raise our curiosity and lead us down new avenues. They don't stop conversations but, rather, sustain them.

Similarly, each WikiReader experience is the beginning of something new. With more than three million interconnected articles in a completely offline, handheld package, the WikiReader is discovery, investigation, entertainment, and inspiration all rolled into one.

In keeping with Wikipedia's stated goal of:

“Providing a free encyclopedia to everyone on the planet.”

it has a touch screen that accommodates international keyboards, and uses widely available AAA batteries. And since the WikiReader never requires an Internet connection, it can deliver all of this to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Turning a WikiReader on is easy. Turning it off is a different story.


SO, what do you think?  Do you know someone in your life who would benefit from something like this?  







More random; this is my not mounted in-dash GPS.  I love my car, I really do.  But it is a 2007.  Which means it doesn't have any of the built in fancy-schmancy that today's new cars have.  But I have solved the problem but jamming my GPS where my fuel gauge is located.  And since I am very conscientious about my gas tank levels (don't laugh, I really am!), it's not a problem living there.  I am sure I am not doing the cord any favors jamming it in there like that, but for now, it works for me!




And finally, a photo of waiting for the bus, Day #2.  As you can see, my ability to get a good photo still is lacking, but at least he is having fun waiting.  I am going to try to take one of these photos every day and send them to daddy in the morning.  Plus I just like all of his new back to school outfits!

Pheww!  That's a lot of sharing for one post!  If you made it this far, yay!  Go get yourself a cookie -- you deserve it!!!


Wednesday, August 25, 2010

First Day of School -- 2010



I actually tried to get a good "first day of school" photo this year.



Taking photos of the boo is tricky at best.



Doing so by yourself when he is much more interested in the outside world makes the task nearly impossible.




Dozens of shots similar to this one, where he is on the verge of a run; undoubtedly running to find another mommy, one who will not pester him with countless requests of, "Boo!  Look at mommy Boo-Boo! Smile!  Look!!!"



Finally, a halfway passable photo of my pensive little boo, ready to tackle another school year.  Go get 'em boo-boo-man! We love you!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Smashed Penny Envy

Everytime Sparky & I go to a museum or place of amusement we snag ourselves a couple of smashed pennies.
Generally they end up in the coordinating shotglass for the place we visited, but after the blog post I just finished reading I can totally see me making smashed penny jewelry.

Go see the amazing that Jen at EPBOT has created!  (as if the CakeWrecks girl crush wasn't enough, she has to be terrifyingly talented & crafty too!)

Here is a sneak peek:



But since I am working on using up everything I have on hand before tackling new messes  projects, I am going to content myself with doing some crafting on some hemp jewelry kits I picked up (I think at wal-mart) ages ago.  If all goes well, I will have photos to share soon!

See that leaf? It really is turning over!

I just realized yesterday was my 100th Blog Post!  In a way, that's very exciting.  But in another way that's very lame when you consider exactly how old this blog is -- so old I don't even know.... let me research...

October 3, 2005.

Wow; I'm almost to my FIVE YEAR BLOG-A-VERSARY!

We will have to do something fun to celebrate.  Anyone have any suggestions?  A link party? A giveaway? Cake? (there should always be cake, in my opinion.)

Hit up the comments with your suggestions and we will see if we can come up with some sort of shindig.

At any rate, today was the boo's last day at summer camp.  Hooray!!!  No more spending 2 hours a day in the car driving back & forth and back & forth to Hanover.  No more putting 500 miles per week on my baby-car.  No more being on the road at 8am.  Hooray for school!!!!!!!

Yes, I am a little excited.

The Girl with the Dragon TattooI also bought another book today.  That's TWO real live foldy page books now this summer.  My thought  process was this:  I've been wanting to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for quite some time.  And then I heard a comparison on NPR between Bella from the Twilight series and Lisbeth from the Millennium series.  And from that point I've been determined to start on Larsson's trilogy.  And the paperback was only $5.97.  That's a bit cheaper than on the kindle, so hence, the foldy page book.  Plus I think my oldest son may enjoy reading this one when I am finished.

However now I just want to go climb into bed and snuggle in and start reading.  It's one of those climb in bed with a good book slightly dreary days.  And the boo's new evening nurse has just taken him outside to play.  Hmmmmm; okay, the temptation is too great; I'll let you know how far I get into the book on the next post.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Summer Wrap-Up

Another month without a post.  Bad, bad blogger.  Although as way of an excuse, it has been even crazier than usual around here:
1) Husband left his job and took a new one working for a cyber security firm outside of Washington, DC.
2) Husband now lives in DC Monday - Friday and is only home on the weekends
3) Beastie (who from here on out will be called "The Boo" to more accurately reflect what we call him here at home) started speech therapy at Johns Hopkins weekly --- this means we leave at 11:30am and get home at 4pm or so
4) I had ANOTHER abdominal surgery; hopefully this one will resolve the problems I have been having since the hysterectomy did not resolve them
5) My surgery recovery has been slower than I expected it to be
6) I am preparing to sell my house, however I have found it is much more fun to search for a new house than to prepare to sell the old one

At any rate, with all of that explained, I now hope to get back to more or less (but hopefully more) regular blogging.  The Boo goes back to school on Wednesday, so life should quiet down a bit and blogging should go back to being part of my daily routine.

Since I have been in 'recovery mode' I've been reading a ton of blogs again.  So freaking inspiring.  You guys have me awestruck.

That being said though, I am going to do my best to impart my little bit of sunshine and wit to the bloggy-world.

I thought we would start by partaking in Admirer Monday, since I admire so many of my fellow bloggers.




Question of the Week: If you could have one talent what would it be?


I've always said if I had one magical power it would be the ability to teleport.  I spend (read: waste) so much time in the car traveling from place to place, appointment to appointment.  While I don't mind if I can use this as knitting or crocheting time or even time to have nice chats with my husband, I loathe when I am the one driving.  I am really looking forward to moving to the city where hopefully I can utilize mass transit or at least have the world a bit more at my fingertips.

But alas, a magical power is not a talent.  If I could have one talent I think it would be to be an amazing singer.  I can sing -- but I'm not amazing at it; I wouldn't call it a "talent" more like an "I don't suck too bad".  If I could make my living at a microphone, belting out the blues, I would consider myself a very, very lucky woman.