I’m the guest blogger over at Oklahoma Women Bloggers today. Go read about my Expandable Heart by clicking here! đ
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Category Archives: life
Laundromat
big silver machine
tosses tumbles eats quarters
dries the wet laundry
I won’t actually USE algebra in real life
This is the thought I had when I was in high school.
I liked math when I was young. Then came high school and my first algebra class. I had to work for it but still managed to get a B.
Geometry sophomore year was not good. I didn’t understand it, I struggled but managed to still get out of there with a B. I will never know how.
Enter Algebra 2 in my junior year.
Awful
Inexplicable
This stuff makes NO sense
I will NOT use it in my every day life. Why must I take it?
On the very last day I could declare, I decided to take the class on pass/fail thinking that I would pass it. Maybe with a D, but I would pass it and it wouldn’t hurt my GPA. I failed.
The spectacular crash and burn.
I got tutoring and I still couldn’t pass it but apparently I got something for effort because I did manage to get a Pass on my report card.
This morning, we were walking in the cemetery like we do every morning.
There were some guys preparing to dig a grave. They were measuring and remeasuring.
David said, “Can you imagine if you dug the wrong place? You wouldn’t even be able to hide your mistake.”
I had been talking with my friend, Mariam, on twitter this a.m. about math and who uses it in real life.
Well, in order to make nice clean lines like this
grave diggers do!
I’m so glad I’m not a grave digger. đ
Friends Friday – January 25
Every so often on a Friday, I’ll see the larger friends grouping that facebook has spilled out and there will be a collection of people that I want to tell you about. Today is one of those days.
Here they are:
First comes my friend Janice, or J as I like to refer to her. I love this woman. She is our neighbor in Bartlesville. I’d say that J knows me just about as well as anyone on earth. We spent a couple of years walking around the neighborhood every morning, getting exercise, picking up garbage and talking. We called ourselves the Old Bat Patrol and we even had t-shirts. In addition to being so amazing and grounded, J’s married and her husband Keith, is an equally fabulous person. With a great beer fridge. đ
Dan Gordon and I became friends on twitter and have become friends in real life. He’s a great guy and is the owner of Samuel Gordon Jewelers in Oklahoma City. Dan was very supportive of the pageant while I was running it and allowed us to shoot an end of the year video in his store when the weather turned bad outside. He let the girls try on hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewelry which they loved! Dan’s got a great family and one of my favorite things to see on facebook are photos of his little girl, Hadley, who looks from every photo to have such an amazing personality. I hope to meet her some day.
I have known Debbi Raffalli for a long time. Back in the day we were both Pampered Chef consultants. In fact, I even WAS Debbi when I crashed a Pampered Chef convention in Washington, DC. She had two nametags. All went well until we were at dinner one night and a girl at our table said, “Oh I know you! We email together!”. Oops. đ Debbi gets me and I wish she was my next door neighbor. Although we might get into a lot of trouble. đ
Mariam Kobras is another of my twitter friends who will become a real life friend as soon as we are on the same continent. Mariam is an author and lives in Germany. The next time she’s here, I’m going to throw her a book signing party so prepare to save the date. đ Mariam is another person that I wish lived right next door and she is another person who gets me even though we have never met in real life. To consider Debbi and Mariam and I as neighbors? Hmmmmm… BIG FUN! Mariam’s first book is The Distant Shore, and her second Under the Same Sun are both available to purchase and she’s writing the third!
Laura Webster. You know she was named after me, right? đ Laura is my cousin Cindy’s oldest daughter and I adore her. She makes me laugh and you know how I love to laugh! Laura is on the way to her first big gig as deputy director of Leg Up India. I’m excited for Laura’s new adventure and I know she’ll do a great job. Laura is almost an exact replica in looks to Cindy. Especially in this photo below!
Tiny little Alisha Loper is another twitter friend who’s become a friend in real life. She is so tiny and cute! She’s a new mom and looking at photos of her little boy make my heart happy. He looks like a mini-me of her husband and it’s awesome to watch her be a good mom. Alisha is a talented designer and I love when she shares her work so I can admire it. đ
I’m trying to remember how I met Dawn Allen. I think it was through the Real Housewives of Oklahoma of which she is one. Dawn is terrific. Fun and kind and she clearly knows the importance of a good tiara. đ
LeAnn is my daughter-in-love Nikki’s Aunt Lee. I think she may have been one of the first relatives of Nikki’s that I met and she welcomed me like I was a direct member of the family. Lee is so nice and friendly and makes me believe that “in-law” can be “in-love” as I like to call it. She has a cute little granddaughter, Brighton, and I love seeing photos of them together.
So that is how facebook shook it out today. I am again reminded how blessed I am to have these people in my life. Makes it FABU! đ
Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?
We stayed at a hotel on Sunday night in Dallas when Lyndzee and I went down to pick up the bridesmaids dresses for her wedding. It wasn’t too long after we checked out that I noticed an email from the hotel in my phone. I deleted it thinking that they would probably want my input on my stay and I would take care of that when I got home.
I was going through the email in my computer this morning and found that email again. This is what it looked like:
Say what? Even if you blow it up, it’s nearly impossible to decipher. I took a look at that and thought, “Okay, I don’t know what they are saying to me but I’m not interested. Next!”
There is a book by about just this subject by Colin Wheildon called of Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Just Making Pretty Shapes?
I think this woman was just trying to make pretty shapes because I had no idea what she was trying to communicate to me. More importantly, I didn’t want to have to slow down to find out.
When people have as much to look at as they do these days, you really have to work at getting their attention. Putting a clear, readable font into your email is key if you want to even have a chance at getting your message read.
The Harlow Solid Italic font that she used (some of the letters in SILVER?)
was so impossibly hard to even take in much less read. It looked like a mess. If I were ever going to use that font, it would be sparingly on a graphic design that was bolstered up with some other clear, readable font.
When typing email, it’s better to use a serif font. Popular serif fonts are Times New Roman, Palatino, Georgia, Courier, Bookman and Garamond. Almost everything you read – books, magazines, newspapers – are written in a serif font. They are easier to read, seeming to simply flow together.
I wrote a reply to the lady who sent me the crazy font email. I offered her constructive criticism on her choice of font. I do hope that she will take my suggestion as what it is – HELP! – and not just think I’m a witch and disregard my advice.
I did have a nice stay at her hotel but I’m not sure if that’s why she contacted me. I can only guess. Or spend way too much time trying to decipher her email.
Who cares?
You can’t turn on the radio or TV (twitter, facebook, etc. etc. amen) or open a newspaper today without hearing that Lance Armstrong confessed to Oprah that he used performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France seven times.
via Sports Illustrated
I don’t care.
Maybe if I were his competitor I would care but maybe I wouldn’t. Back in 1999, I competed in the Tampa Bay Natural bodybuilding contest. Note the word “natural” in the title of the competition.
There was nothing natural about the women who stood on the stage with me. You simply can’t get distended, cut, man abs and a strong jaw unless you take some sort of male hormone.
I came in last but I didn’t care. I had been working towards that show for 12 years. I was wearing the red posing suit I had dreamed about and my kids (and their friends!) and my husband thought I looked good and were proud of me.
The beauty of the bodybuilding stage is that when you are up there, and people are clapping, they could very well be clapping for you or not but it all sounds the same and you feed off of it.
So, get on with your cheating self Lance Armstrong.
Ding dong the ::sooobbbbb:: Ding Dong is dead
Today’s news about Hostess going out of business has got my facebook and twitter feeds all in a tizz.
There are stories of people buying up all of the Twinkies but settling for Ding Dongs and Zingers when the Twinkies can’t be found.
I think it’s all craziness. Except for the fact that the company has to go out of business or be dictated to by the union. I think that’s bold.
My parents never bought junk food for us. My mom was one of the original Weight Watchers leaders and she made sure that we ate very healthfully. I remember the rare occasion when we would have pizza and pop. Purple Passion was a favorite choice!
Without fun junk food, my school lunch was boring. And I will never eat grape jelly again. Have you ever seen a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich on white bread after a few hours in a locker? Eeuuww.
But this Hostess thing got me to thinking. When I was in fourth grade, I had a friend named Cindy Weller. Now her lunch was fun. It had a non peanut butter and jelly sandwich, potato chips and a Ding Dong. Like every single day she got a Ding Dong in her lunch.
I was envious. I had nothing to even trade her for it. But she was great and sometimes she would share her Ding Dong with me.
We would peel the frosting off, eating it little bit by little bit before biting into the cake and yummy cream.
That’s about my extent of Hostess knowledge. And it’s a sweet memory.
But I can’t help but thinking about the people who are buying the Twinkies today and how they will still be “fresh” in 100 years. Eeuuww.
And the winner is…
I haven’t blogged in SO long and SO much has happened since I have that I need to tell you. But not now.
Yesterday, Pantone put a question on facebook:
And I had to think about that one.
It reminded me of that interview question at the back of Bon Appetit magazine where they interview someone and ask, “If you could have dinner with any three people, alive or dead, who would you chose?”
If they asked me, I would say: Ronald Reagan, Princess Diana, and Mark Knopfler.
If you have known me for very long, you know how much I loved and adored President Reagan. My brother lives in Reagan’s boyhood hometown, Dixon, IL. Every time we go there, I take the same photos in front of the Reagan signs, the Reagan statues, etc. Same photos, different clothes. I have tons of them. đ
I really tracked with Princess Diana. I felt like I knew her and our lives seemed to run parallel courses until she died. And I felt like I lost a really dear friend.
So… when considering the Pantone question, I had to X out Ronald Reagan and Princess Diana because they are no longer in the world.
Which leaves… and the winner is… Mark Knopfler.
Mark Knopler is a singer, song writer, and guitarist. You probably know his work best from the band Dire Straits. He’s collaborated with Bob Dylan, Randy Newman, Emmylou Harris and Van Morrison. He has composed distinctive soundtracks for such classic films as Local Hero, The Princess Bride, Last Exit To Brooklyn and Wag The Dog.
I never got to see Dire Straits in concert but I did see Mark Knopfler with Eric Clapton at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin in 1988. I was so excited I almost hyperventilated! đ
I think he’s a musical genius. I love all of his work. I’d love to sit in the chair next to him (I’d take the turquoise one, Mark. I hope you don’t mind the yellow one) and talk about his work and his life.
How cool would that be? đ
Zapped
When I was a kid, our elderly neighbors had a bug zapper. I kinda thought it was a cool, old person’s tool.
A year or so ago, we started having a really bad mosquito problem. It was so bad we couldn’t sit on the patio, something I love to do above all else when it’s nice outside.
So we bought a bug zapper. And it made me so happy to hear the bugs merrily toasting. We even considered it important enough to bring on our new RV experience.
There are no mosquitoes here but the flies are awful. I detest flies.
While our immediate outside RV vicinity has less flies in it than inside of most restaurants in Amarillo, we were still having a problem with flies getting into the RV.
So I got one of these:
I. LOVE. IT.
In fact, I may be having way more fun with it than a normal, stable individual would have. It is like a game to me. You definitely have to hunt the fly. Then you have to catch it with the zapper. The resultant zaps and sparks just crack me up. Â The bigger the fly, the bigger the sparks. đ
This is truly the best $5 piece of entertainment I have ever purchased. LOL! I guess my love of the bug zappers means I’m officially old. đ
Sugar is a slippery slope
Last week, David asked me at the last minute if I wanted to bring the dog and come along with him on his build route. I was excited to be asked and hurriedly made sure that I packed healthy snacks for the car.
Since beginning to eat paleo, I’ve realized that I can eat in almost any restaurant and maintain the healthy eating style. Having good snacks for the car is important to keep from getting too hungry.
That first day, although I had no idea it was going to happen, or not happen as it were, we didn’t eat lunch. David told me that he’s often caught out, far from civilization at lunch time and often goes without eating.
Needless to say, by the time dinner rolled around – and it was a late dinner – I was beyond starving and any good intentions to eat right on this trip had flown out the window miles before. The healthy carrots and radishes we had brought along barely took up any space in my very empty stomach.
We saw the Dairy Queen.
What we’ve learned while driving around Texas is that even the tiniest little towns have a Dairy Queen. I could have even eaten right at the Dairy Queen but I ordered a patty melt, french fries and a Georgia Mud Fudge blizzard (medium sized thankyouverymuch) for dessert. I don’t think I took a breath until I had hoovered the entire meal and, the shocking thing is, Â I still felt hungry after I was finished. đ
The next day, forewarned by the previous day’s experience, we stopped by Walmart to get lunch. And some snacks. Â Some good snacks. Into our cart went cookies and Doritos and donuts and Wheat Thins and a bag of Snickers. I was NOT going to be hungry on that day.
And then the slide started. Oh, I put healthy things into the basket too, but basically I shopped as if I was still as hungry as I had been the previous day.
Breakfast came. Instead of some healthy eggs and fruit, I chucked it all over for pancakes, syrup (extra syrup, please!) and sausage. And down the slope I rolled. Faster and faster.
Sugar and flour make me feel AWFUL. First my knees ache, then  my hips ache, pretty soon all of the joints in my whole body ache and I can’t sleep. It’s bad stuff. So what on earth possesses me to EVER eat sugar and/or flour?
Especially when we’re in a restaurant.  That should be the epitome of easy healthy eating since someone else is preparing the meal for me. But that first little bite tastes so good. And  I don’t feel bad. Not right away. It takes about three days to start feeling really bad and I can tell myself it’s not that big of a deal.
Ha!
Several years ago, my friend was diagnosed with diabetes. We went to an anniversary dinner and she was drinking sweet tea. Her daughter was trying to get her to drink  water but she insisted on the sweet tea. I couldn’t understand why she would do that to herself.
And, yet, here I am basically doing the same thing. Â Although I just want to keep feeling good and flexible, I’m still hurting myself by giving in to that first bite that will push me over the edge and down the slippery slope.
I’m going to try really hard not to do that anymore. đ