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Blogging Rocks!
Want to know why? In addition to getting to ‘meet’ all of you wonderful people, some of whom I feel like have become friends, all of whom I really enjoy reading and ‘knowing’ a bit, sometimes, you get cool stuff! I recently won a drawing over at Lotus Reads, and was awarded a book as a prize. The book I won is titled, My Name Is Red, and it turns out that it won the Nobel Prize in Literature, which makes it eligible for my Book Awards Reading Challenge. Double Plus Good! So, I’m adding it to my list as an alternate, which is pretty handy, since most of my books…
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Happy Father’s Day!
To all the dads out there, but especially to the three best dads I know, Ted (this picture is him the day Maya was born, and I’m thinking by that smile, he’s one happy, happy guy, huh?), Dad (My dad, Maya’s Gramps) and Danny (Ted’s dad, Maya’s Granddad). To all the dads out there, I hope you know how special you are, and how much you are loved by your families.
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Impressions from the Police Concert
(Photo courtesy of kk+, found on flickr) Yay! They opened with an AWESOME rendition of Message in a Bottle. That ROCKED. How is it that Sting still looks pretty good these days? Andy’s looking kind of old, but Sting really doesn’t, and he’s 55years old! Could it be that tantric sex thing? Or the yoga? Hmmm. Andy kind of acts like he would rather be playing a bit harder, what with all of the fancy fast fingerwork. Ted tells me when the Police were first forming, they were told that they played too well, and if they wanted to be accepted as ‘punk’ they needed to grind it out a…
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Drink me Wallaby Squash, Mate….
Does anyone but me remember Koogle? According to Wikipedia, it came out in 1971, and was discontinued sometime during the 70s. Gosh, I loved this stuff. Chocolate flavored peanut butter. What’s not to love about that? I’m not sure why we were allowed to buy this stuff, since we weren’t allowed to buy ‘sugar cereal’, but why ask? Just be happy and eat your Koogle. Look at the ingredients…is partially hardened vegetable oil the same thing as partially hydroginated vegetable oil? Hmmm. My mom and I were talking the other day, and we were remembering these raisin cookies that we used to like, but which are no longer available in…
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Separation Anxiety
This is Maya on her first day of preschool…before she realized that Ted and I were leaving… Ms. Mamma and her Snowflake are going through one of the more painful and poignant times in early childhood…first daycare. He’s missing her terribly, crying and sad, and she’s feeling like a horrid mother, guilty and like she’s doing something that will scar him for life. I remember that time all too well with Maya. When she was about 1, we started sending her to her Grandma’s house a couple of days a week, so Ted could work on his dissertation. Maya loved her Grandma (“Ma”), and loved going to her house…and even…
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Leonardo…
Yesterday, I was roped into driving on a field trip to Sacramento, to the AeroSpace museum, which is located at the former McClellan AFB. They are currently hosting an exhibit called The DaVinci Experience. It was pretty cool…they started out with a short video of DaVinci’s life, telling about his genius and some of the discoveries that he made. I was a bit concerned, thinking that if I drove an hour and a half at $3.32 a gallon to watch a video, I wasn’t going to be happy. Esp since I saw gas for sale in Sacramento at $2.99 a gallon, which made me madder. Anyway, I got over that…
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What a Shocker…
You Are Chardonnay Fresh, spirited, and classic – you have many facets to your personality. You can be sweet and light. Or deep and complex. You have a little bit of something to offer everyone… no wonder you’re so popular. Approachable and never smug, you are easy to get to know (and love!).Deep down you are: Dependable and modest Your partying style: Understated and polite Your company is enjoyed best with: Cold or wild meat What Kind of Wine Are You? I may (or may not) be driving on a fieldtrip today, as one of the people who signed up is ill. So no time to plan a long lovely…
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Safety
This week was the final week for the PEP program I’ve been teaching at Maya’s school, and the lesson was on health and safety. One of the exercises that we did was to write categories on a flip chart, and have the students (4th and 5th graders) give as many examples of how to be safe within that category as they could think of. The categories were: safey in the home, personal safety, water safety, bicycle safety, outdoor safety, and nutrition and exercise. One thing that struck me when they were brainstorming their answers is, these kids are pretty sure that they or someone they know is going to be…
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wins the Orange Prize for Half of a Yellow Sun!
Ms. Adichie, from the website for her book. Dewey over at The Hidden Side of a Leaf has interviewed me about my recent read, Half of a Yellow Sun. Coincidentally, I recently found out that Half‘s author won the Orange Prize for this book! She’s only 29 years old, so this makes her the youngest author ever to be awarded the Orange Prize, AND, I believe she is the first African to be awarded this honor. So, to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I say, CONGRATULATIONS!
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J Needs…
Here’s a twist on a meme I saw on Scarlett’s page, and thought might be fun. Here’s what you do: 1. Go to Google.com 2. Type your name and the word ‘needs’ in quotes in the search engine and hit the button. Give us 13 that make sense, if you can. (Scarlett used 10, but I went for 13, so I could make it a ‘Thursday 13’. 😉 ) Let’s see what “J needs”… J Needs Your Help! (This is true…sometimes, I do need your help.) J needs to work on her parenting (Sadly, this is often true. Actually, I think all parents need to work on their parenting, though.…
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My Thoughts on Paris…
In between Buy Me, the ever pessimistic view of the real estate market, and a repeat of the always charming Groundhog Day the other night, I found myself briefly watching the obnoxious TVGuide Channel, which was busy crowing about Paris Hilton checking into prison. For the first time ever, I found myself feeling a little bit sorry for her, as the vultures joked about what her roots will look like when she gets out of prison. Prior to this, I have never felt the remotest sympathy for Paris. She’s a spoiled brat media whore, famous for sex tapes, partying, and having a crappy attitude. She has more money than God,…
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Scarlett’s Trilogy
While researching my list for the challenge, I noticed that Gone With The Wind won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. I have mentioned a few times of my love for Gone With The Wind, how I’ve read it over and over again, how I can open it at almost any point in the narrative, and know exactly what’s going on. I have to say, though, that I have always felt a bit guilty for loving it, because of the racism of the writing, in addition to an overly romanticized view of the ‘gentility’ of the antibellum south. And yet…I’m sucked in. Sucked in so completely that I can’t resist a…
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Book Awards Reading Challenge
I discovered a new book reading challenge that I’m all over like a cheap suit…this one is called the Book Awards Reading Challenge. Coincidentally, Ted got me hooked last week on yet ANOTHER internet timesuck, which would be goodreads, where you can keep track of all of the books that you ever remember reading, look at what your friends are reading, compare your lists and ratings with them, and figure out what NEW books you might want to read. Fun, huh? Definately. (Mom, it looks like you can upload your spreadsheet maybe…if you want another time suck in your life. 😉 ) Back to the challenge…this challenge is to read…
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Top Blog Mag
Guess what? I wrote a post for this week’s issue of Top Blog Mag. Check it out!
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Town or Country?
Are you a town mouse, or a country mouse? That’s the question posed today at Sunday Scribbling. I could say either…I love the city, the lights and the vibrancy and the diversity and the culture. I lived in San Francisco for 7 years, and never thought I would leave. I loved the restaurants, the shops, the odd people on the bus (though not always their smells or habits), all of it. Of course, city living has its downside…parking is an issue, hard to find a place with a washer and drier hook up, and to buy rather than rent requires the kind of income that I will never attain. Country…