Sunday, April 29, 2007

Changing English One Word At A Time

Here are three new words for the English Language that I have heard lately. Not from George W. Bush either. First I will give you the word and then the sentence I heard it in.

REMODELMENT: "We will be closed for a few days because we are undergoing a REMODELMENT to our drive-thru."

FAVORITIST: "English was my FAVORITIST subject in school"

PROFUCIOUSLY: "My nose started bleeding PROFUCIOUSLY for no reason."


"Remodelment" is starting to grow on me, and I'm thinking that maybe it should be an actual word. Problem is, I don't know how to popularize it without sounding like George W. Bush. Wait, it's no problem at all! I just googled all three of these words and apparently lots of people use them already! So let's all jump on the Remodelment bandwagon! It's my new favoritist word and I am going to use it profuciously from now on!

Friday, April 27, 2007

I Love My Neighborhood, Spring Edition

I know I have said it before, and with each change of the seasons I realize it again. I just had the most lovely walk. Tulips are everywhere! I never had luck with tulips in California, the winter was not cold enough to make the tulips do whatever they have to do to bloom. But here, there was hardly a house I walked past that didn't have at least one if not many tulips of every color you can imagine, yellow and red, pink, purple, orange and everything in between. Come fall you can be sure I will be planting lots and lots of tulip bulbs! Other things in bloom were grape hyacinths, daffodils, and I saw the most awesome tree with giant pale pink flowers that smelled so good! I didn't think about getting pictures, this weekend I will try to take another walk, this time with my camera. I love Spring and I love my neighborhood!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

A Post About Feelings


That about sums it up.

Monday, April 23, 2007

On The Verge of a Major Life Decision

I guess it's time to tell you all why I have not been my normal bloggy self.

I have been knitting.

It started as a casual thing that I did once an a while, but lately it has been out of control. I am knitting a bathmat, for crying out loud! My hands and wrists hurt, but does that stop me? No, I just slap on the wrist braces and keep knitting! This knitting thing is taking over my life, and the last thing I want to do is to bore my friends and family with constant stories of my knitting misadventures. So here is my Major Decision:

I think I might start a knitting blog.

Do you know how many knitting blogs there are out there? About a billion, I know because I've read them all! The internet does not need another blog about anything, let alone knitting. But I probably won't let that stop me. And it's not like I'm even that good of a knitter. I can't even make a sock, and that's all I really want to learn to make. How many people want to hear me ramble on about how I made another scarf? Nobody! Unfortunately, that won't stop me either.

But in a last ditch attempt to save my sanity, I will let you, the reader, try to talk me out of it. Give it your best shot. And if I don't hear from you, expect the downward spiral into knitting oblivion to continue...

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Dry Spell

Sorry about the lack of posts, there's just nothing going on.

Oh Wait!

I am pleased to report that our local Target is now carrying the Archer Farms brand of coffee pods, this means that I no longer have to go to Target in Idaho for my coffee.

So that's good news.

What else.....

Well, I have been reading a lot of knitting blogs lately, and here is what I have found out.
1) Lots of people are making socks.
2) When a yarn is varigated, you don't use the word "color" to describe it, you use the word "colorway".
3) Knitters usually are my age, with my build, and have cats. Apparently, I was a knitter before I even knew how to knit.

That's about it. I wish it would be a little warmer so I can plant my seedlings outside.

Happy Birthday to my grandniece Eraya, who turns 6 tomorrow.

OK now I'm done.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Faythe, You May Want To Skip This Post

Because I am writing today about a thing that she really hates: the Granny Square. Now, normally granny squares do nothing for me, I have never crocheted a granny square and I figured I would live out the rest of my days without making one. Until last night. Last night I was browsing knitting blogs and I came across a crocheted blanket called Babette.



Wow. This is not your ordinary granny square blanket. The unsymmetrical symmetry of it all. And the colors! I found lots of pictures of Babette blankets with awesome color combos, and I am hugely inspired to do one of these myself. Maybe along the lines of these colors:



My grandma would be so proud of me! Faythe, not so much.

PS This is my 200th post--Yay, me!

Friday, April 13, 2007

And Now, A Bee Gees Moment



AH, AH, AH, AH, STAYIN' ALIVE, STAYIN' ALIVE



AH, AH, AH, AH, STAYIN' ALIIIII-IIIIIIII-IIIIIIIII-IIIIIIVE!

This has been a Bee Gees Moment. Thank You.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Easter and Morrissey

This post has two subjects:

1) Easter was strange this year. For about the past 20 or so years, every Easter we would go to my brother in law Dick's house. My role was to make a big bowl of potato salad and show up. This tradition meant so much to me that I negotiated the right to attend it in my divorce agreement. Well, obviously we were not going this year, which left me at a complete loss as to what to do. We ended up eating at a BBQ buffet at the Red Lion Pub (wonderful!) and watching movies. It was just not the same, though. Highlights of the day included melting a plastic egg that I had hidden in the oven when I was baking a breakfast casserole, and forgetting where I hid an egg with $20 inside. We did eventually find it. Good thing I didn't hide any real eggs. I miss my old Easter and I want it back!

OK, second subject.

2) Morrissey is coming to Spokane! Which presents a dilemma because I really really really want to go, but I can't afford to take my kids and I don't want to go by myself. So I am putting this out to you Spokane people, let's go see Morrissey! Seriously. If you are interested send me an email: spokarla@yahoo.com because it will be a great show and my theory is that if a really great act comes to your town, you should go if for no other reason than maybe more great acts will come here if shows are well-attended. So, let's do it for Spokane!

Friday, April 06, 2007

Smells From My Past

They say that certain smells can trigger memories, and that has happened to me twice lately.

1) We were at the Goodwill downtown recently, and Leo found this piece of electronic equipment called a transceiver. It's from the late 60's or early 70's and I was brand new still in the box. It looks like a giant handheld mobile phone with an antenna about 8 feet long when you stretch it all the way out. So I was looking at it and it reminded me of the old transistor radios that we had as kids. We listened to AM stations back then, KMBY 1240 and KDON. I could go off on a tangent about 70's AM radio music but I am trying to stay on track here. Anyway, if you had a transistor radio, you know that they had a smell to them, an electronic transistor smell. So I smelled the transceiver and it smelled exactly like that. So now every time I come across it in the house I pick it up and smell it and then sing K-M-B-YYYYYYY, Twelve-Fortyyyyyy, Music Powerrrr! I'm telling you, thrills come cheap in this family.

2) If you read this, you know that April is Honeysuckle month. So for the past few days, every time I take a shower and smell that perfumey fake honeysuckle scent, I know that I have smelled this before but I wasn't able to place it. But I remember now! It's Perfume Kiddles! Kiddles were tiny dolls that fit inside jewelery and other things. I had the jewelery ones and my friend Daura who lived across the street had the perfume ones. My Honeysuckle body wash smells exactly like the Honeysuckle Kiddle!! I rejoice in the knowledge that I leave my house every day smelling like a Kiddle!

So if you see someone walking down the street smelling a giant walkie talkie, smelling her arm and singing old radio station jingles, don't be alarmed, I'm harmless!

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Musings About MySpace

Maybe I'm just too old, or just old-fashioned. But I do not understand all the hoopla that is MySpace. I understand how younger people use it, they don't know a time with no computers, no cell phones, no text messaging. But I prefer my communication in a more conventional style, the telephone or in person. And if I call you, it is because I know you and you are my actual friend, not a virtual fake MySpace "friend".

Say you need a ride to the airport. Who do you ask? Do you get on MySpace and post a bulletin and hope some stranger who's part of your extended network answers the call? No, you call a real friend who you know and trust. I could go on with this rant but I will not.

That being said, I have had a MySpace page for a while. Does this make me a hypocrite? Not really. The only reason I have it is because there are people that I know, you know, in person, that the only way I can get hold of them is on their MySpace. My nieces and nephews, for example. And if you look at my MySpace page you will see that it is not personalized in any way. No pictures, no favorites, and no friends until recently. Now, another one of my human friends has gone MySpace, forcing me to use it yet again if I want to keep up on things.

So while I consider MySpace to be one way to communicate, it will never be my primary way. And I do understand that having a blog is not that far off from having a MySpace page. But somehow with the blog I don't feel like just another sheep with Tom as my friend. Who the hell is Tom anyway? Will he give me a ride to the airport?

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Gardening Fool or Fool Gardening?

I like to garden. At least I think I like to garden. I just really like the idea of gardening. And I have successfully gardened in the past, I have the pictures to prove it. But the past few attempts have been feeble at best. Oh, I plant the plants just fine, it's the watering part that gets me.

So the other day when I announce my plans to my family that I am going to have a small garden this year, Max tells me that my having a garden is like giving a five-year-old a pet rabbit to take care of. Neither one will live very long. Well, I am going to prove Max wrong! It is a new year and a new state and a new yard, and I can do it!

Yesterday Fred Meyer was having a sale on fuschias and I bought a bunch and potted them in hanging baskets and hung them on the porch. Then I bought some pansy plants and planted them in the flower boxes that hang from my porch railing. And this was in addition to all the seeds I planted in the mini greenhouse that now sits in my dining room.




Take that, Max!

And not only that, soon I will be ripping out bushes and planting more flowers and come summer I will be picking fresh tomatoes off my deck! So there!

(note to self: Water the plants!)