The simple pleasure of collecting stickers. I completely missed out on the sticker collecting phenomenon. I have boys and they were never into it. At least once a week it seems like, one of them would come home with a sticker on his shirt and inevitably I would forget to take it off before putting [...]

I don’t know what these “weeds” are called. Some people around here call them Maypops ( but that’s not right. These are Maypops) They pop up all over the place in April. (I suppose “Maypop” sounds better than “Aprilpop”) I had never seen them before we moved here and I immediately thought they were rather [...]

…while I was eating breakfast but I forgot it by the time I sat down at the computer. Look! A Baby Wolf! is one of my favorite blogs. It’s very funny but it’s not often that I find something there that I can describe as sweet. This is sweet. H is as addicted to Lord [...]

Ah, what a lovely time of year. It’s skunk suicide season – that time of year when multitudes of smelly little black and white martyrs head for the roads and highways to throw themselves under the tires of speeding cars. Oh, you didn’t know that there is a season? I know, we see dead skunks [...]

I instantly fell in love with this dress pattern because of the yoke – that shoulder detail – but then I almost immediately decided that, overall, I don’t like it so well. I don’t like the wrap style or the big flowing sash. I thought, it looks like a fancy housecoat. And then I realized [...]

I will be so glad when the kitchen is finished. It won’t be a dream kitchen. We didn’t set out to make it a dream kitchen, just to make better use of the space we have, but I feel like this will probably be my last chance to get any of the things I want [...]

We celebrated Easter mainly by the sinful overindulgence in candy Easter eggs – Reese’s, Nestle’s, Whoppers and jelly beans. Saturday my older son and his wife were here. They’re always fun to hang out with. It rained Saturday night, all day Sunday and is still raining this morning. We’ve had over two inches of rain [...]

I finally bought some flowers and planted them this afternoon. Usually this time of year gardening is one of the main things on my mind (The enthusiasm only lasts until the high temp reaches the low 90′s.) but this year the kitchen project is taking up most of our time and energy. But I have [...]

I’d like to think dear old Johann Sebastian would have been amused, perhaps even delighted.

R2D2 hot tub party Ads of the World – Like we don’t have enough of our own, here you can see ads from all over the world. Interesting and fun site. But Does It Float – Odd, fascinating and awesome modern art blog Contrary Brin – David Brin’s blog New car engine – Engine of [...]

Last week’s Fringe was awesome. I can’t think of anything to say about it that wouldn’t be at least a bit of a spoiler but I can say, about the last several episodes, that I have been rather enjoying Anna Torv’s impersonation of Leonard Nimoy. I just discovered this past Monday night that Stargate: Universe [...]

I finally finished reading Moby Dick late last week. Moby Dick is a short story interrupted by a book length digression on whales and nineteenth century whaling. Other than that I don’t have much to say about it. My second reading was more enjoyable than the first because I knew what to expect – very [...]

One of my email spam subject lines this morning contained a new word: attemption. They said that it was their “second attemption” to contact me. Well at least this time they got my attention with the word “attemption” but they still didn’t get me to read it; I just deleted it with all the rest. [...]

It’s been raining, yesterday and today. We needed it. Now the people on TV can stop going, “Oh no! Panic! Potential Fire Danger!” and instead go, “Oh no! Panic! Possible Tornadoes! Damaging Winds! Golf Ball Size Hail!” for a while. I really shouldn’t make fun of them like that because all those things are possible [...]

I even remember reading commentary on Usenet, back during the first couple of seasons, in which Mulder was made fun of for always having his cell phone with him! — here (It’s amazing how quickly we go from, “Can you believe those people?” to being one of those people.) The thing that frustrates me a [...]

From Posy Gets Cozy: What I like is randomness. I like quilts that feel like you threw a bunch of little pieces of fabric up in the air and then stitched them together sort of where they fell. I don’t like quilts that follow a super-dedicated color scheme or pattern or make a picture of [...]

I don’t think there has been any significant improvement in plumbing technology since the Roman Empire. Oh sure, we’ve invented a few fancy new gadgets to attach to the ends of pipes (toilets, dishwashers, etc.) and we’ve stopped using lead pipes but the actual plumbing hasn’t really changed all that much. What? It’s Wednesday already? [...]

We have countertops and a sink! Here’s a shot of the countertop being built by my husband. He’s using a roller to make sure the Formica is firmly glued to the board. The new sink was a problem. We’ve installed sinks before. It normally takes about fifteen minutes. This one took hours. The whole sink [...]

I find my day goes a whole lot better if I start it by reading only Cute Overload and LOLCats and blogs. None of this news bullshit. — here We forget that there are still those impulses in humanity that make us amazing. — there Hint: If you feel stupid, there’s usually a damn good [...]

I really love the photo in this post. It’s simple but there’s something about it that makes me wish I could literally step into it. Too good to be true – Sadly, this was only an April Fools joke. Mysterious tower – Fascinating. Bits and Pieces has a hilarious series of US Tax Forms for [...]

The Formica came in yesterday. We went to Lowes and picked it up last night and purchased a new sink and a shiny new single handle faucet. This part makes me very nervous. It’s not just that, if we screw this up we’ll be out another 60 dollars* for another sheet of Formica; it’s that, [...]

We didn’t work on the kitchen any last night. We’re still waiting on the Formica. There are other parts of the project we could have worked on but sometimes you just need an evening off. I am impatient for it all to be done. I guess that goes without saying, but it seems we go [...]

We got a lot of work done on the kitchen this weekend. For a while last week it seemed like everything was going really slow and we were making almost no progress. Hours were spent on the littlest details, worrying over 16ths of an inch, running into unexpected problems that had to be fixed and [...]

I’m not a big fan of April Fools day. I hate pranks that injure or embarrass anyone. I have to confess that I do often experience a certain evil pleasure in the kind of prank that is designed to catch large numbers of people who really ought to know better, for example, my all time [...]

Then again, it is high time I embrace my role as The Crazy Lady. Does that mean I can start wearing sequins at unexpected times of day? — here For those about to singe your eyebows, we salute you! — there The answer is 43, apparently the mice are wrong. — here It’s a lushly [...]