They laughed, and they laughed, and they laughed!

I am watching part of Iconoclasts. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Sir Richard Branson are on it, and it is just the most wonderful program I have ever seen. I hope they play it again soon, so I can see the whole show.

They both laugh constantly, and to see Richard Branson teaching the Archbishop to swim, and, the Archbishop laughing about it and everything else, well he must be the happiest man on the earth. And, both of them laugh about everything and, they both have a fantastic philosophy of life.

When the Archbishop asked Branson, “Why do you have so much money.” They laughed.

When Sir Richard Branson answered that it was more important to fulfill your dreams than to be rich.” They laughed.

Gosh, what a great way to be. I think Branson had a great point though; and I am paraphrasing here, but If you do not live your life, so as to fulfill your dreams, you have not lived.

So, please follow your dreams and laugh while you are doing so.

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Web Design

I have designed my own web page for years and, believe it or not, I HAVE redesigned it several times.  When I was creating little eight inch fairies, and selling them on eBay, I realized it was time to again redesign my page.  However, that web page, that was up there then and still is up now, has not been redesigned yet.  I did it for my painting, pottery and sculpture. 

I use Coffee Cup Web Design and I could show you at least two dozen starts at a new web page for my site.  And, now, like the paperwork in the Rubbermaids, it is time to again redesign my redesign I never did.  My new focus is on my YA Fantasy Novel, and I am here to tell you exactly why this has become such a problem for me. 

In fact, I will do better than that.  If you click on this link, you will see just exactly why nothing I do lives up to this designer, in California:  Welcome to Avalon Arts Studio!.  If the textural quality of these web pages don’t blow you away, nothing is going to impress you.   Just click on the Web Design tab about avalon arts web design and then click on their Porfolio. portfolio 

Some of my favorites are Enchants by Christine Ruggle  Enchants – faery sculptures by Christine Ruggle  and the Fairy Crossing  The Faery Crossing-All Faeries, Sidhes, and Elfins Welcome!   These present the true art of the miniature fairy artist.  And, if I was still designing my web page for that, I would be working on a design even half as rich as that forever, I am afraid.

So, it’s a good thing I’m going for a site for my YA Fantasy Novel.  I have finally confirmed the design in my head and am gathering my own graphics to do it.  I’ll keep you informed.

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Tagged by Pollyanna and the Meme from AntiM and Kinky Boots

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and put the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 weird or random facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and link to their blog.
4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a note on their blog.

My Tagger – Pollyanna Rainbow Sunshine and the Needles of Doom

Why is it that when you get something like this, your mind just freezes up.   Me?? Weird?  Random perhaps!  Weird definitely.

1. I actually like to organize.  You would never know this by my house; where I organize my desk by throwing it all, the paper, not the desk, in a rubbermaid, when the paper piles up too high.  Two years later, you can just toss almot all of it.  But, when I am done working in my studio, I like to put everything back in it’s place, so the next morning, I go out and I’m ready to roll.  This is perhaps why, I cannot work now, because both studios look like a hurricane hit them.   I do dream of having a decent office, some day, where I can file, yes as in file in alphabetical order in a cabinet, all of that paper and have a place for extra office supplies.  AND, a cork board wall to hang all my information for my book:  drawings of characters, things not to forget, etc, etc, etc.
2. I too am a fan of What Not To Wear : TLC and, if Lyda will nominate me, I will nominate her.  We’ll have to take secret photos of each other though and that could get embarrassing.  At the present time, my wardrobe is one pair of good dress pants, one polyster suit my mother gave me and I refuse to wear because polyster is just plain YUCK!!!  The rest of it–they can have all of the jeans and t-shirts they can carry.  I would follow you anywhere for $5,000 worth of decent clothing, a good haircut and what makeup to wear.
3. I really enjoyed working as a security officer in a grocery store.  I would get off the train from Chicago, where I was going to college, grab a shopping cart, put some shopperly items in it and troll the aisles.  I did not like to bust the little old men who pocketed $3.00 bottles of aspirins, while buying $200 worth of groceries.  But, I loved it when I found someone loading up their purse with higher end items.  They were wise to security too and once I got stiffed when I missed them dumping the items before I could bust them.  But, that happens to everyone once in a while.  Those bikers with cartons of cigarettes in their leather jackets were a real trip too as they just did not want to stop.
4. I really want to spend two hours a day practicing my violin.  I love playing it and want to get back to the level I was at, while living in Wyoming and taking lessons.  Well, actually, I want to get way better.
5. I too am a pretty good dancer, like Anna-Liza.  I can follow just about anyone and often do.  Opps! That was meant for dancing.  However, I am a bit rusty.  Note to next romance, you are not even in the running unless you will learn to dance.  Twenty years without dancing is more than enough in one lifetime!
6. One of my favorite all time movies is Kinky Boots (film) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The last ten minutes of that movie is worth watching over and over and over.  I just love it.  It’s such a study in thinking outside the box for success and a great message on acceptance.
7. And finally, I love the realism I paint, and I can’t wait to get back to painting, where I hope to go off in a new direction and really free up my work to show more emotion. 
8. I’m throwing an eighth one in that I just thought of.  That is that, I spend an inordinate amount of time daydreaming (Of love, what else?).  I dream of a relationship where we sit in a gazebo with swing each evening, under the stars with a glass of wine or Bailey’s and talk about the day and keep our relationship close.  A relationship where one of you comes in the kitchen and the other grabs you and starts dancing, see # 5 above, to our own music.  Where we are comfortable with the silent times together.  Where we can critique each others art work and make, not just the artwork better, but where we have the affect of making each other better people.  That would be a perfect match.

On that note, I’m not sure I can find seven people I feel comfortable tagging, but I shall try those I read on a daily basis.  I am trolling through my daily blog reads and finding that those who write only about their son, or cooking (and don’t ask why I read that.  I have an aunt who reads cookbooks for entertainment — it’s another hereditary thing), or those who write about fitness or their upcoming nuptuals, or the two who you cannot post back to.  In other words, I’m coming up blank here. Of course, Pollyanna Rainbow Sunshine and the Needles of Doom  and XUP  are on my daily blog reads but they are out-of-the-question. 

Oh, heck with it, now I’m losing my stuff.  What stuff you ask?  Brain matter!  Web pages! you name it.  If you are willing to be tagged, please let me know so I can tag you.  I mean we all need ideas for blogging, right?

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Thanksgiving is NOT about food! It’s friends and family.

In case you are taking a break from basting, I thought I would write to say Happy Thanksgiving, just one more time this week.

Our table will not look like the one in this banner; which, by the way, I stole from someone on the net.  Since I noticed a dozen other people had “borrowed” it, I figured I was safe.  I try to only use my artwork in the banner; whether it is painting or photography, but in all the albums I have scanned so far (my project for preserving the family photos), I do not have one good one of a turkey laden table.  And, this year, ham is our centerpiece.

We are taking an easy Thanksgiving.  I am doing so much better, physically, but my husband isn’t.  He has been sleeping late, going to bed early and taking a nap.  Sometimes I think he is not getting enough oxygen either (he is going on twenty years with COPD) as he will make a point and get angry that I do not understand; but whoever is in the room, will kind of whisper to me as they leave, “I don’t get it either.” 

 So, instead of our usual Ham and Turkey, we are having Ham, in honor of mom.  Not that she is a ham or anything, she is just a lover of ham.  We have also cut out the sweet potatoes and dressing; thus eliminating a big part of the left-overs.  And, you would not believe how much less stress this meal is.  Even with the additions of guacamoli and chips, and deviled eggs.

The house is vacuumed, dusted and not spit polished.  The tree is up and a little decorated.  Lights are strung outside. 

The tree and lights are also for mom, although we thought it would be nice for Gaffer to see them when he gets home.  So, I am off to get dressed (ohhh! all kinds of images in your head now, right?), get the ham in it’s pan and then go to pick up mom.

So, don’t forget, folks, that Thanksgiving is NOT about spit polish nor the amount of food you serve.  It’s about family and friends, and appreciating them and enjoying their company.  So, save your energy, have a “bring a dish” meal, or just downsize.  You will enjoy the day more.  You will be better company for your company and it will be a day to remember for laughter and not arguments.

Have a great day.

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Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all–less arguments!

I have noticed a strange thing.  Since I have begun blogging, I have begun to sound like a “Valley” Girl, but only on my blog.  I blog things like, “I so agree with you.”  What is it with that?

 

I have also discovered why you’all, and I am not southern either, even though I live in an area they typecast (for good reason) as Southern Indiana.   But, I have discovered why everyone uses those freaky/funny names for their blogs.  It is so you can write the truth about your relatives without them getting mad at you.

 

Since I am ‘branding’ my name.  Cool, huh?  It’s writer’s speak, although I am not really positive I am using it properly.  I know you can ‘brand’ your look/logo.  But, whatever, I am using my real name and am only offending the relatives I can do without.   

 

Right now, in my family, I have a great-niece and great-nephew who cannot be in the same room, two nephews who are arguing, and one of my mother’s sister’s and her chidren and grandchildren are never talking to each other; at least, not all at the same time.  Makes for a fun Thanksgiving.

 

My mother writes me, this morning, and says, “Why can’t families get along?”  Obviously, she has not yet realized that relatives are given to you, you do not pick them.  If you picked them, you would still fight, just over different things.   Heck, if you picked them, you would have picked Bill Gates or, better yet, Viggo Mortensen.  Opps! No, take Viggo off that, I may live in Southern Indiana, but I do not marry my relatives.  Hey, a woman’s gotta have her fantasies.

 

So, have a great Thanksgiving.  Let the arguments roll off your back.  Ignore the ‘Valley’ girl and tell everyone: you know this blogger who is writing the most awesome YA Fantasy novel and, when she finishes editing it and finding an agent, who will find a publisher, they just gotta buy it.  But, in the meantime, tell them to buy books for Christmas.  We would all appreciate it.

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Fall cleaning and rabbits

I do not do spring cleaning.  Frankly, I think that spring is a time to be outside; cleaning up broken limbs, tilling, planning, plotting and getting ready for all those unspoken promises your yard has for you, but your time and energy fail to finish.  Okay, maybe I’m just talking about me here, but I start spring with big plans and finish with some tomatoes.

 

This is fall and holidays and visitors and time for the fall “de-clutter” cleaning.  I have unchained myself from my computer.  My final book edit is in Chapter 6 and while I do remind myself, daily, that the last two chapters are but a shadow of their selves-to-be, I am taking time to get my muscles moving again to de-clutter and clean.   Before I get back and figure out how to make my homepage be what I envision.  Then there is my writing blog, MySpace, and something called Twitter.  All of which must match the look of the website. Will I ever catch up?

 

Where does all this crap come from, anyway?  I mean the junk in my house, not all the stuff on the internet, although that is a good question.  I still have things mom left here, for me to go through, when she moved into her apartment three years ago.  Since she is talking about coming back, she is very ill, with all four of her heart valves leaking and her veins giving way from the pressure, she will need some help. I think I had better make some room around here.  EMT boy will be moving on to college or the military come spring, so we might just use that as a time to move mom back here.  It’s up to her.

 

But, first, I have clutter to evaporate.  Just why do we need two monopoly games?  Actually three if we count the wall of stuff Gaffer has stored here yet.  Or, an antique, ripped satiny sleeping bag?  Or three scanners?  Or these antique computer towers?  No one watches the VHS tapes anymore.  And, I literally have 10 Rubbermaid’s of paperwork that I have swept off my desk to attend to later.  Most of that will probably be burnt.  And, then there is that irksome visiting rabbit. 

 

Just when I was getting attached to her, she up and bit me.  She likes to do her own interior decorating and had worked tirelessly to put her blanket in the ceramic bowl she likes to sit in. Ceramic bowls are cold on rabbit’s butts..  I imagine they would be cold on anyone’s bare butt.  Stupid me, I was going to give her some lettuce, carrots and alfalfa, so I took the blanket out of the bowl and got bit.  I think a simple sneeze, like irritating little Chihuahua does when she is irritated with you, would have sufficed.

 

So, we shall let the rabbit have her clutter and I will concentrate on the human’s clutter. 

 

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Baby Boomers, Generation X, and now Generation Overexposed

First, I am trying to enlarge the font on this blog.  My eyes are having trouble with the tiny font it normally shows, so I am working on making it user friendly.

I fell in love with  Got Milk:  Margaret and Helen  during the election.  Helen, and somewhat Margaret too, but more Helen is an outspoken lady who ‘tells it like it is.’  She was asked, by the La Leche league, to do a blog on breast feeding.  I’m not sure they have ever read her blog before, because I think they got more than they were bargaining for. 

Helen’s main point was:  “Breastfeeding is fine by me.  But putting it out there for everyone to see is like chewing with your mouth open.  It’s just not polite.”

Having spent the day with mother yesterday, got me thinking about all the differences in generations.  Mom complains about all the exposed parts of this generation. 

She does not like girls midriff’s showing.  I guess she objects to belly buttons.   But, her biggest complaint is breasts hanging out, and I’m not just talking about Janet Jackson’s either.  Cleavage isn’t just cleavage anymore, it’s designing a dress with band aids. 

I’m not sure why anyone would really think that I want to see their thong either.  I’m not talking about the shoe type here.  One girl had her thong so high and her pants so low that she put plumbers everywhere to shame. 

Dating myself, but when I went to school we were occasionally forced to kneel on a chair on our way into school to prove that our skirt was long enough.  (The way around this was to leave home with your skirt worn normal, kneel on the chair, then go into the bathroom and roll up the waistband.  We all had abnormally thick wastes but cute legs showing.)  And, just think, we would not have seen Brittany’s “all” if she had to kneel on a chair before she left the house.

Another side of this is that I grew up when you had teachers with chairs in the school entryway, as opposed to metal detectors.  But, that is another discussion.

Seeing a bit of a man’s boxer shorts above their pants doesn’t bother me, it’s when he has to walk like he has a load in his pants, in an effort to show off the seat of his boxer’s that it is disgusting. And, don’t get me started on a relative of mine who I had not seen since he was little.  He was at one of this summer’s weddings and I took him around to introduce to other relatives.  After the third introduction, I quit.  It was either that or tell him that he was not black, and we were not in the hood, and none of the relatives wanted to watch him grab his penis, nor shake hands with him after he did.

I know!  I know!  He grabbed it through his pants.  It’s just the idea of the whole thing.  There are things fine between lovers and not between aunts and nephews.

I am a baby boomer and I have not heard a term used yet for this generation yet, but my vote goes to the name, generation “overexposed.”

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The music in my head

I grew up in a “women don’t sweat” type of family.  My dad did not watch sports on television and neither did my brother.  The closest we got to physical activity was once we played badminton.  We did not go to the beach.  We would do a ‘walk’ on our vacation. It certainly wasn’t a hike. I was hardly allowed to ride my bike because I might get hit by a car.  Mom was a bit overprotective, but, then again, I never got hit by a car. 

 

We had an empty strip of land on the side of our property.  Dad had planted a garden on it early on, but when he found other hobbies, it became my dance stage.  The neighbors were probably all going, “What is that child doing?” as I pirouetted, jumped and did a version of jazz moves down that strip.  When I had the occasional playmate over, they told me that you were supposed to repeat those dance moves every time. 

 

Not me, no way!  I was “original.”  I danced to the music in my head and it was never the same. 

 

I’m still dancing to that music in my head. 

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“SHUT UP!” She said.

In reading blogs this morning, it’s how I start my brain, I came across The Window Seat: Ssshhhh, Quiet Please!.  It is a blog about all things travel.  Holly Burns had just taken a flight from San Francisco to London (well, last month).  That’s ten hours in a metal tube.  Let me repeat, ten hours trapped in a chair surrounded by strangers.  And, in her case, strangers who like to talk. 

For years, I worked in Chicago and commuted from northwest Indiana.  I have been trapped on trains and buses for the hour and a half journey (or near that).  I have sat across from men who were doing things you should never do in public, let alone with your clothes on, and people who wanted to talk, when all I wanted to do was sleep or read.  But, ten hours????

Anyway, three women sat behind Holly Burns and talked and talked and talked so loud that even earphones would not drown them out.  You know what happens next.  We’ve all been there.  You give them the look, over your shoulder.  Then you turn and stare the look for a minute.  Then, after two hours, you finally lose it and pummel them with your seven dollar pillow.  Oh, that was me, not her.  She did finally say something and she said they did lower the volume slightly. 

My worse experience with this was when Schindler’s List came out in theatres.  I was in a full theatre and there were two women behind me.  One of them was talking.  The other could not have gotten a word in edgewise if she wanted to.  I must have turned and looked a dozen times, then turned and shushed.  Why I did not just say, “Would you please take your conversation out to the lobby?”  I will never know.  Schindler’s List is an intense movie.  You want to be involved with it and not with the idiot behind you and their conversation. 

Eventually, they did go out and the one woman came back alone.  I cannot imagine what she said to get her friend to leave but bless her heart, she got rid of her.

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What’s so funny?

Remember the Dick VanDyke show?  There was a great episode where he went to his son’s school, probably a “What does father do?” day. He was bombing.  Telling kids you write for a sit-com that is on later than they are allowed to stay up, did not impress them.  Then, he slipped and fell, and they laughed.  So, he started a monologue about what humor is.  It boiled down to one word:  the unexpected.  Okay, that’s two words but the first one doesn’t count.

 

My humor has been on hiatus lately.  I have exactly twenty-seven blog entries started.  I go through them every day; and edit and try to make them either more interesting or funnier.  But, lately I’m just on a dry spell.

 

I should be happy.  I think the world is going well and that leaves me without funny things to complain about.  Maybe, the starving artist that I am, just needs things to go wrong? 

 

My garret is too full of food.  I can have the heat up as high as I need as we are switching companies and have to empty the propane tank.  Since we will lose that propane anyway, it’s almost like having free heat; even though I break out in a sweat when I remember just how much that tank cost to fill.

 

I have health insurance now too, and I went to the cardiologist the other day and he said my heart is good to go.  There was no permanent damage done and I am clear to get running and lifting weights. Now, that might be funny once I get going.  I have been on the treadmill all week, except I forgot yesterday.  That’s the trick now, to get in the habit.

 

Gaffer is scheduled to come home for Christmas, which is always a joy.  And, he is taking visiting bunny back home with him.  At least that is the plan, for now.  That’s what they thought last visit too.  Also, news from him is that he is buying an upscale wardrobe.  Last Christmas EMT bought Gaffer a really nice leather jacket.  I think it influenced him to upgrade from “Charlie Harper cargo pants” to jackets and even a tie.  Perhaps he is getting ready to go out in the world now.  We will know if he ever gets his hair styled. 

 

EMT may join the Army.  He took some type of test and got 100% on it.  They have been courting him ever since. They pick him up in Nashville and take him to Bloomington, to their office, where I think they conduct secret experiments on him.  From my understanding, no one gets 100%. 

 

And JRock starts his guitar lessons today.  He is doing MUCH better in his classes.  The teachers tell me that a lot of kids have trouble when they start high school but a year and a half is a bit much.

 

So, life is going well.  But, tomorrow is always another day. 

 

 

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