thursday thoughts…

• we watched ‘The Book of Eli’ last night. i didn’t like  it, in fact i hated most of the movie. there were times when i would have to leave the room, take the dog out, pluck my eyebrows, or find any other mindless activity to take my thoughts away from the disturbing things that were happening on the screen. the last five minutes were the only five minutes i enjoyed and even then i had HUGE problems with the ending, like why did that girl leave the island? i think the best part of the whole movie was the credits when nick turned to us and said “that movie had NO point…”

• when i was younger i used to take everything very literally and my view on life was very literal. for example pickles came out of the ground pickled, there was no process involved, that is how they grew. you couldn’t argue with me any differently. since i have grown wiser over the years,  *cough cough*  i now accept the fact that there are steps involved for things like pickles to actually become pickles. i only bring this up because i am beginning to question it again, i am sure everyone is aware of the cucumber melon flavors/scents, well if my younger literal self were to look at my garden right now and see the cucumber plants combining with the melon plants that would just support the theory that things came out of the ground like that…this picture is from last week, the cucumber plant in the right hand corner has now combined with this melon plant, so much so that it takes a good ten minutes or so to de-tangle them, perhaps i could be on to something?

• my office has a chemical dependency on twizzlers. we went through a dry spell there for a while but the twizzlers have made a return with a vengeance, everyone here knows we have them, sometimes we don’t want to share…

• this past weekend, we made a trek to buttonwood we had amazing ice cream and were able to see the sunflowers, nick and i bought a bunch a piece to support the Make a Wish Foundation. it was such a gorgeous day and the sunflowers are amazing, unfortunately this morning i had to retire the sunflowers to the garbage, they were really really droopy and pollinating everything in the kitchen…i took this picture with my phone to send to my sister, it has cows (her favorite) and the sunflowers…

• did you know my sister can identify the 32 (?) different types of cows that are in the united states?

• because i planted the garden a wee bit late, we still haven’t harvested many things, we have tons of green tomatoes and we have been getting a few ripe cherry tomatoes everyday. i am hoping that next week sometime everything will just GROW and i wont miss out on the growth while on vacation for a week…far far far away from the garden…oh and everything else!!

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a meme…

what a great way to start a wednesday! i have been tagged by brandi to answer a few questions…

so here we go…

1. If you could spend the rest of your life doing only one thing, what would it be?– Thats easy, i would be working in a historical museum surrounded by old things. i would spend my days figuring out what the artifacts mean and how they affected the everyday life of the owners, then i would share what i had learned with anyone who would listen…

2. What’s the best thing you can bake/cook?– Chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips, my all time favorite growing up and a popular dessert with the boys now, although really? any type of desert is popular in my house and i am getting pretty good about following recipes, my one fail is oreo truffles, is it the fact we dont have microwave and had to resort to trying to melt the chocolate on the stove the reason for the epic fail? we just dont know yet…

3.What household chore is your LEAST favorite?– dusting hands down. i will wait until i just cannot stand being able to see a thick layer of dust before i do anything about it, vacuuming? no problem! dishes? sure! laundry? bring it on! but dusting is for the birds! that and trying to clean the shower that has no ventelation…but thats a beast unto itself…

4.If you could bring three things to a deserted island, what would they be?– that is a tough one…if i had to bring three things to survive on a deserted island it would be a water purifier, a never ending flame producer, and my husband (he can bring three things too!) but if it were a deserted island getaway…i would bring a swimsuit (duh), my ipod and my husband…

5.What’s the next big thing that you are thinking about splurging on?– well we are going on vacation in a few weeks, but that is already paid for, i would love to splurge on a macbook for the thesis, but that will totally not happen, so i am going to go with school clothes for the newly minted freshman, boy needs to look good on his first day of highschool!

6.What would you do if you won the lottery and you only had one day to spend your winnings?-only one day? no problem…pay off school debts, put money in an account for nicks college/future, pay off cars, buy new cars, buy a house that has land and a barn, buy a horse or two, new baseball gloves for nick and kevin, nokana brand of course, buy my parents a sail boat, buy my sister a dog, a new collar for hobbes, and finish off the day with an insane surf and turf meal on the beach, with fireworks, and sparklers…

7.Post a current photo. If you wish to remain elusive, an abstract or close up will do just fine.

i hate snakes, but i was volunteering at a community even for the museum i work for and decided to get over myself and handle a snake, this is a corn snake and the photographic proof that i, in fact, held one…

8.If you could have ANY pet EVER, what/who would it be?-i love my golden retriever and couldnt imagine any other pet. i mean really…Look at that FACE!!

those were some great questions and now i am tagging Mandy cuz i love her!!

and Nora because she makes me laugh!

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holy random friday batman…

• i am officially sick of hot weather, at least for me, its good for the garden though and i don’t want to jinx anything but we may have loads o produce very very soon…
• along with loads o produce we also have loads o weeds, ones with prickers and all that seem to grow to full size over night..
• vacation-almost here!!
• last night i went to the store and on my out i observed something, well, off… in the parking lot was a chevy aveo, a small car. and attached to said small car were a very large pair of truck balls. whats wrong with that picture? and what exactly drives that. i really wanted to take a picture but then i got to thinking that may be off as well…
• have you ever randomly thought of someone from your past? someone you haven’t seen or talked to in years and they just pop in your head for a brief thought and then you find them on facebook?
• my sister and i share of love of terrible tv, the shows that suck you in and wont let go, once you start watching you cant stop, a lot like crack actually. the other day i briefly got attached to toddlers and tiaras and called my sis just to say hi, well you know what? SHE was watching it too, so much so that the rest of the evening was spent sending text messages back and forth about the amount of money spent on a gown for a three year old ($2000) the thought mary had that one of the judges was a pedophile (she should know, she works with them every day) and about the dad who was a total flamer, he just hadn’t figured it out yet…
• of course i was able to step away from the train wreck, mary had to dvr the rest in order to go running. but in her defense she did NOT dvr the series…
• speaking of series, i just have to say that Deadliest Catch did a very nice job with the death of Phil Harris, brought a tear to my eye…
• lets just bring on the weekend now!!

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ten on tuesday…

what a lovely tuesday with questions brought to us from roots and rings…

1. What is the worst movie you have ever seen?– Recently? District 9, hands down, the worst movie i have seen a long time. we could only watch the first half an hour. and it was nominanted? curious…

2. Do you have a favorite Disney/Pixar film?– I LOVE the Pixar shorts… like For the Birds….

I also love Toy Story (all of them) Meet the Robinsons, and Finding Nemo…i guess you could say i am a bit of nerd when it comes to pixar movies…

3. Do you have a favorite movie from the 80′s?– I feel i should re-phrase that question to “Do you have a favorite movie from the 80’s that you didnt see until the 90’s because your formative years were very sheltered?” To which i would answer Breakfast Club, which i didnt see in its entirety until college, but the comment a subsitute teacher made to my 8th grade class about how we were the breakfast club, really made sense…Finally!

4. Are there any movies you saw more than once in the theater?– i dont remember, there are plenty of rollercoasters that we get off and immediatly get back on though…

5. What is one city/area of the US (or country you live if you do not live in the US) that you have not seen but would like to see?-i dream of seeing big sky country on horseback…

6. What are your favorite toppings on an Ice Cream Sundae?– chocolate topping with peanut butter and the whip cream stuff from friendlies…

7. How many proms did you go to? What color was your prom dress? If you went to muliple proms, what color was your favorite prom dress?– i went to my senior prom with friends, my dress was a darker blue, nothing fancy, i did have silver nylons though which i thought were HOT.

8. Is there a sport or extra-curricular activity that you didn’t get to try as a child that you wish you would have? (e.g. gymnastics, piano lessons, ballet, etc.)– i cant think of something, i was into all the above at some time or another. my tendencies were more towards the sports-rough-not-so-girly-things but my mom snuck some music and dance in the form of batton twirling in there for good measure…
9. How many silblings do you have? Are you the oldest, middle, or youngest?– I have one sister, mary, who is three years younger than me and the best sister anyone could ever ask for…
10. Do you feel like you fit in with your age group? Or do you feel younger/older than your age group?-i have never fit in with one age group. growing up i was always the youngest in my class, the youngest of most of my college friends and now the crowd i see the most are parents of high schoolers talking about their 20-25 year class reunions, i mentioned to one mother my ten year had just passed and she offered to poke my eyeball out with a fork…i think she was serious…

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ten on tuesday…

hello july! not only does it seem that this summer has gone by in a blink of an eye, its july and its hotter than you know where! when i was growing up my parents would drag my sister and i to church every saturday night (didn’t matter that we went during the week with class.) and given the church being very old meant there was no air conditioning. one priest started off a mass on one particularly hot evening by saying “you think its hot up here…” for some random reason that has always stuck with me, it also makes me appreciate air conditioning that much more.

once again we have questions brought to you by roots and rings. i can only imagine how someone in texas who is very pregnant could be dealing with the heat, she is a better person than i…

1. If given the opportunity, would you choose a mediocre job that paid well or your dream job that paid poorly?-I would totally choose my dream job that pays poorly. for me, money is not a motivator to get out of bed every day, i need to do something that i look forward to and enjoy, hence the future of non-profits!

2. What is your favorite thing about the 4th of July? (For the foreigners: What is your impression of the 4th of July?)-as generic as this sounds, fireworks. i love to go to a park with tons of other people, watch the glow up crap they sell for $100 and smell the carnie food. i love hearing the loud booms echo over the neighborhoods and have mastered the sprint back to the car to avoid (at least try) being stuck in traffic. the smaller fireworks you buy in other states or at roadside stands…not so much my favorite thing.

3. What’s the most random fact you know about American history?-i could do an entire blog on just the random things i know about history, anyone who knows me can attest to this. so here is something that i am working on…Noah Webster, the guy who wrote the dictionary, not only wrote dictionaries but was also activly writing about lots of things. like many of the founding fathers he dabbled in science, politics, and agriculture. he even wrote and presented a paper on climate change more than 200 years ago. granted i have not finished the paper and i am slogging through his ideas about the weather described in the bible and comparing it to his modern day, the idea that even our founding fathers were noticing changes is intriguing…

4. What is the best fireworks display you’ve ever seen?– That is a tie…2007 Sail Fest.  Kevin and i had been dating for a while and we decided to go into to new london for sail fest. it just so happened we parked in front of the house i used to live in, stopped at a store i used to go to, and used the back roads to the highway to avoid the traffic. it was surreal and perfect all at the same time. we found the perfect seats on the peir, had some great carnie food and saw the greatest fireworks ever! 2008 Seattle Washington, we were on our family vacation and had spent the day at the air show, after a nice dinner, kevin and i took a walk along the water where he proposed, when we got back to the house and shared the news we sat on the deck and watched fireworks across the puget sound going off where we had been earlier that day…

5. Who taught you how to put on makeup?– no one, which is why i only wear mascara, really the only makeup i can manage…

6. Have you ever gone through a financial planning process? Tell us about it.– does having a bachelors degree in history and then working as a finance assistant count? cuz that could be a whole post on its own…

7. What was your favorite outfit as a kid? Bonus points for pictures.– my osh gosh b gosh purple, cordroy, jumper with turtle neck…

8. Do you prefer a beach, lake, swimming pool, or no water?– i need water, much prefer large bodies of water in my vincinity, think i would go a bit crazy if i had to live in a land-locked state. not that i spend gobs of time at the beach, its just the thought…

9. Do you recycle? If not, why?-i try my best…but sometimes i get lazy and just throw that glass container in the garbage…

10. What are your thoughts and feelings about the Twilight Saga?-i have not read the books and have rented the movies, they are alright i guess, i never really liked the way edward treated bella and then i read an article about how its a classic abusive relationship and the article went on to question what the series is teaching young women and then i got really turned off by it.

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