June 2006

Daily Dose of Stuff – Monday

6 Comments / Monday Meme /

June_003These are tins.  Lots and lots of tins.  There are more tins in various places around the house.  Far too many to photograph.  I really should put them all in one place and take another photo just so you can see what happens when I say I like something.  What happens is TW goes into acquisition overdrive.  No tin was left unacquired, simply because I said I liked tins.  I’ve begun throwing out tins, slowly and quietly.  I am hoping to get rid of some more, a little more quickly and a little less quietly, at a yard sale sometime soon. 

Tins.  I like them but I don’t need or want 500 of them, ya know?  Even if it is sweet of her to acquire them for me.  What weirdness do you have in your house? 

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I am not a foodie….

2006, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I am not a foodie. I’ve said it before and I’m going to have to keep saying it in case some people get the wrong idea because of all of the foodie type books I find myself reading, and of course my workday spent talking about food and encouraging people to talk about food. I’m fascinated by foodies and food talk is what pays my bills. I am still not a foodie. But, I do like a good foodie type book.

Tummy Trilogy – that’s a good foodie book. I liked the first two books of the trilogy better than the third. Maybe I was all foodied out by the third book? By the third book I was tired of hearing about the guy with the naugahyde palate. I was also tired of hearing about Alice and her three meals a day mantra. A wee bit tired of hearing about Sarah and her bagel… “just in case”. Yea, I think it was just foodie overload for me.

Good book – just a wee bit too much of a good thing, for this non-foodie, at least.

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Daily Dose of Problems – Fruits & Vegetables

5 Comments / Foodie /

We are having a problem.  This whole going to the farm and getting fresh vegetables and organic vegetables (so we know the name of the man who knows the name of the man who picks our carrots – or would if we hadn’t forgotten the name of the man who knows the man… uhhh sorry, you probably are confused ’cause you didn’t read my blog a couple of months ago… oh I clicked that, his name is Don!)… has led to some problems.  First problem.  We dont’ really cook or eat vegetables.  Or fruit even.  Next problem.  The refrigerator is so full of fruit and vegetables that we have no room for things we do eat (and drink) like coke, pepsi, mt dew, Hawaiian Punch Brown, juice, eggs, cheese, salsa, cream cheese filling, and sour cream. 

We either have to stop ordering fruits and veggies – or reduce our order significantly, which makes me wonder if it is worth ordering at all – or start EATING the stuff we are ordering.

It’s a problem

Anyone want some tomatoes? Or green beans? Or snow peas?  How about spaghetti squash, blueberries, strawberries, peaches and broccoli?  We have a lot of broccoli.

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Bullshit

4 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

When I was a kid, I didn’t hear much profanity at home. I had to learn my profanity at school like a good 70’s child. I was always fascinated when I’d come across adults who used “those words” and felt I had been born to the wrong family – I needed cool parents who cursed a blue streak, not my geeky, boring parents. Oh sure, my mom let a ‘damn’ slip every now and then, (and as TW says, she’s grown up to be a woman who can, and does, say FUCK – much to the horror of me and my siblings), and she always seemed shocked at her behavior when that happened. There was one tiny exception to this profanity-free household.

Bullshit.

My father said this. He said it a lot and I believe he learned it from his father since my family often tells about how I said “bullshit pappaw” to my grandfather when I was two – and that I learned the word from him…. In fact he said it so often and not really in the way I was used to hearing profanity used. He said it laughingly, mostly at himself, or if he was teasing someone about something. He still says it at least once everytime I talk to him on the phone.

Bullshit.

I don’t know how or why this tiny little book, On Bullshit, appeared on my library list. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing TW would pick up on a whim. I don’t remember reserving it but I guess I must have. It is here and I read half yesterday because I was too exhausted to read a “real book” and finished it today while recovering from an annoying phone call – a bullshit phone call, actually.

What IS bullshit? You probably know it when you hear it – but maybe not. Some people are good at spewing bullshit and making you believe it’s the honest to goodness truth. On Bullshit was a little dry, a little boring, but also just a wee bit interesting.

On Bullshit … my father’s Christmas gift this year. I hope he likes it.

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Psycho Bums er Butts

2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Reading Lists /

In May, I saw this list of books recommended for kids, by kids. The list comes to us from Australia which made it extra interesting to me. I like all book lists but book lists from interesting places are the best. I scrolled the list and “The Day My Bum Went Psycho” caught my eye. Okkkkk, never heard of it but I decided I really needed to check it out.

I went to Amazon and discovered “The Day My Butt Went Psycho“. Of course it got a name change for the US market. Bum is not politically correct. Americans must say BUTT. I clicked my little library search tool, never expecting our library to have it, and they did have it. I reserved it and found myself number THREE on the list. Sheesh. Two people ahead of me for this book. Interesting!

Ten days later, I picked it up from the library and presented it to RJ, our 10 year old bookaholic. She started reading it on Memorial Day Saturday as we drove to the Corn Festival. She pretty much didn’t stop reading ’til she was done (except to eat fair food and ride fair rides). She read one page and announced, “Yep, his butt went psycho”! There was all sorts of interesting discussion about psycho butts as we drove toward the corn. When she finished, RJ said it was good – weird but in a good way.

TW read it next and said it was funny in that 10 year old butt humor sort of way. I didn’t think I wanted to read it. I have enough butt humor in my life already, thank you very much. But, I changed my mind after making it through The Moonstone (yea me!). I needed some butt humor after all.

And butt humor was what I got. We know butt humor but the author has gone above and beyond the call of butts err duty. If you have a kid who likes butt humor, this is your book. If you know people who find phrases like “cluster butt” and “butt-catcher” funny, then this is your book. If you know some folks who walk around with their butts where their heads should be (like bosses or idiot ex husbands or something like that) then this is your kind of book.

Butt humor. Sheesh.

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Daily Dose of Cupcake Toppers – Little Dude

3 Comments / Cupcake Toppers /

target.gifToday is Little Dude’s birthday so our cupcake topper ideas are especially for him. The easiest and most obvious toppers would be Battlestar Galactica (stick a trading card in each cupcake?) or Star Wars (top each cupcake with a miniature?) oriented. I’m thinking he deserves something extra special though – how about Target Bullseyes instead?

We could print the Target logo on cardstock and put one on each cupcake? Or better yet, how about grabbing a bunch of white poker chips and painting the Target bullseye on there? I think they’d be a hit!

Happy Birthday, Little Dude. Enjoy your movie and your cake and your presents!

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Traditionally Built Women ROCK!

7 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

I love the No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books. I really like listening to them on audio more than reading them. I think they’re the perfect audio book. (If you haven’t tried it, check one out from your library on cd or cassette. I bet you’ll like it.)

Blue Shoes and Happiness is my favorite in the series. Feminism! Shoes! Cobras! Ostriches! Diets! Lots and lots of feminism. Heh.

When is the next installment coming out? I don’t want to wait a year (or more? gasp!) for the next one. Get to work Dr McCall Smith!

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The Moonstone

8 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Don't Read This, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery, The Moonstone /

Well ladies, and gentlemen (surely there are some men lurking), I did it. Finally. It took me 10 years and many, MANY false starts but I did it. I. Finished. The. Moonstone.

I didn’t ever think I’d be able to say that. But now that I have said it, I’m quite pleased with myself. I’m not really pleased with my mother who purchased the book for my daughter 10 years ago. I’m not really pleased with my mother who rambled about how much she loved the book when she was a teenager. I’m also not pleased with my mother who has generally recommended really fantastic books in the past. I’m also not pleased with my mother who on one other occasion recommended a book in a similar way, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, and that recommendation was so RIGHT that it led me to believe that any such recommendation would also be RIGHT.

The Moonstone. Not right.

I like Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White is a very good book. I’ve actually read it two or three times and enjoyed it everytime. I would happily recommend that book to you. The Moonstone. Not so much. In fact, except for 3 pages very near the end, I wouldn’t really recommend it at all. Except of course, there’s my mom. She loved it when she was a teen (or so she said, 10 years ago – she’s waivered a bit on that over the years – that’s the dementia though, so we expect that from her now).

Anyway, I’ve finished it. I’m proud of myself for having finished it. I’m proud of myself for being able to cross book #1 off of my summer reading challenge.

Now onto bigger and better things…. The Day My Butt Went Psycho… gotta be bigger and better than The Moonstone, right?

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