Upgraded Again
by Lynn Daniels on Monday, March 16, 2009 at 12:37 am
~*~
I’ve just finished upgrading my WordPress installation to Version 2.7.1. I’m not sure yet what changes that makes, but if you notice anything’s gone wonky here on the website, please give me a shout in the comments so I can get it fixed.
(Notice I show no doubts here that I would be able to fix it. Confident. Yup, that’s me.)
Thanks mucho!
Saturday Shot 14 MAR 2009
by Lynn Daniels on Saturday, March 14, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Happy Pi Day, everybody! Earlier this month we had Square Root Day, and now today’s Pi Day. It’s a mathematician’s dream!
It’s also Saturday Shot Day, and for today’s Saturday Shot, we’re going back to Yellowstone Country. Back to the Beartooth Scenic Highway (US 212), to be more specific. I know people in snowier climes are tired of seeing the white stuff, but pictures like this still blow my mind. Granted, we were at a higher elevation, but c’mon. It’s snow. In June!
One of our favorite websites ( Cooke City Sinclair ) which has webcams of our favorite vacation homebase (Cooke City, Montana) tells us that they’ve had almost as much snow up there this year as they had last year.
I really really really would rather be there than here. I want to go back. Big surprise, right?
That Time of the Month
by Lynn Daniels on Friday, March 13, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I know what you’re thinking. I know the mental image my title phrase evokes. I know you’ll be glad when I tell you that’s not what this post is about. No, it’s time to check in on those leaves! The beginning of the month, time to take a look at my front yard.
First, let’s link past check-ins for comparison’s sake: February • January • December • November
We’ve been slowly but surely trucking along, getting rid of those leaves. I think this year, they’ll once again be all gone just in time for the trees to start growing new ones. You may notice there’s snow on the ground in these pictures. That’s because I took the shots on March 3rd — two days after our snow event.
You know what? I just looked back at my February post, and there’s actually been huge changes since then! Probably because of that snow event. The snow was very wet and heavy and took out a bunch of tree branches and trees and stuff all over Atlanta. Why wouldn’t it strip those clingy little suckers in my yard, right?
Anyway, here we go. First shot (images should be clickable if you need a larger view):
exhibitionist tree
Take a look. Ol’ Huey’s (foreground tree) stripped off his dead leaf skirt and gone all exhibitionist on us. Add to this the wind we have today, and it’s like Huey’s doing a naked hip bump: ba-BOOM ba-BOOM ba-BOOM.
Cue cymbals.
Dance of the Seven Veils?
Ahh, but if we look closely, we discover Huey’s not the only streak in the bunch. Take a gander at Dewey here on the left, still clinging to just a few strategically placed leaves. Like a stripper. I’ve never actually been to a strip club, but I’ve heard stories. Of course, none of those stories ever included exhibitionist trees, but I have an imagination. A pretty sick imagination at this point and time. But an imagination nonetheless.
I’m expecting the stripper pole to appear in the center of my yard any day now.
the curse of middle age
Last, but most certainly not least (I had to say that to spare his feelings, don’t ya know), we have Louie. Still the lone holdout, although if you look closely, you might see that despite his Star Trek tendencies (Get it? Star Trek? Klingons? ba dum PUM) that storm did a little number on him, too. He kind of looks like he’s balding. Like a middle-aged man (apologies to any middle-aged men out there that might have offended — it’s all meant in fun). At this rate, any day now he’ll be buying spray-on leaves and a Corvette.
Actually, he’s there at the strip club watching Huey & Dewey, the exhibitionist trees. Yes, they’re all guys names, but I don’t judge. To each his own, right?
So the big question remains: What will I find come April 1st? Will all my trees finally be naked? Or will there really be a stripper pole in the middle of my front yard?
I’m Such a Girl…
by Lynn Daniels on Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 7:14 am
~*~
…and I’ll never win a Cy Young Award**.
Okay, so I know the fact that I don’t play MLB is actually what precludes me from winning that award, but go with me on this. At least for the sake of this post, let’s pretend that sometime, somewhere, in some alternate universe, there was always a minute chance that I could actually win the Cy Young Award.
Remember — we’re pretending.
As I said in the title, I’m very much a girl. I like to keep my fingernails long and painted. I like to wear my hair long, although that doesn’t necessarily indicate girlyness. I wear makeup — again, see last statement regarding girlyness. Pink isn’t my favorite color, but I do like romantic comedies. In general, I like girl things.
And I can’t throw.
The throwing thing is something I’ve always known. I can honestly say I’ve never been an athlete. My joke has always been that MiniMe gets her athleticism from SoundGuy — at her age, my idea of exercise was lifting my arm to turn the page of my book. That’s exaggerated, obviously, but you get the idea. But a couple days ago, it became painfully clear that I’m aiming-and-throwing-deficient.
My house has a two-story foyer, and upstairs there’s this landing area that looks down over… Here, let me show you:
My two-story foyer as seen from near the front door
It’s tall, it’s open, and we quite like it. It’s also handy for shaking out comforters — just hang them over the railing and whammo! Anyway, there are also times, in my dealings with my children, when I’m just too damned lazy to walk all the way up the stairs to give them something or get something from them.
“Toss it over the railing,” is the occasional cry in my home. It’s probably confusing to my kids, since as a rule, they’re absolutely not allowed to throw things over the railing.
A couple days ago, I had to get something up to MiniMe. I honestly can’t remember what it was (darn my swiss cheese brain, anyway!), but it was something she needed. Or forgot. She was already upstairs, and I was downstairs with the thing (whatever it was). I didn’t want to run all the way up the stairs (although I admit I could absolutely use the exercise), so I decided to toss it up and over the railing. I instructed MiniMe to be prepared to catch it.
If you look back up at the picture, you’ll see the beginning of a ledge up there on the right-hand side. That ledge extends all the way to the wall the front door is on. In other words, it’s very long. And the part of the ledge that’s by the front door, well, we just can’t get to it without a very tall ladder. Or a really really long stick.
Whatever it was I tossed up to MiniMe didn’t land on that ledge (thank heaven!), but it did bounce off the front of that ledge. Came very close to landing in No Man’s Land. Close enough that I held my breath. Close enough that SoundGuy — let’s just say he was very entertained.
Yeah. Just my luck. My husband was there to see my pathetic tossing attempt. He picked the whatever it was up from the floor. “Here, let me do that,” he said, and alley-oop, it was up and over the railing and in MiniMe’s hands.
The good news is, I learned my lesson. The next day, when MiniMe left her TKD belt downstairs, I made her come downstairs to get it. “Sorry. I can’t toss it up to you. I throw like a girl.”
Like I said…I never claimed to be an athlete.
_______
**Yes, I know a basketball award would actually be more appropriate for this story, but I honestly didn’t know of any basketball awards, so the Cy Young Award it is. I’d heard of that one..
The Hodge and the Podge
by Lynn Daniels on Monday, March 9, 2009 at 5:49 pm
~*~
While my Chicken Cacciatore is simmering (tonight’s dinner), I thought I’d hop online and post a quick update while I had the chance. So, here’s what’s been happening here:
LittleDude had his first sleepover with a friend from school. He’s slept away from home before, but it was always with neighbors who were really good family friends. This time, LittleDude spent the night at the home of a boy he calls his “very best friend”.
It was a little tough for me — I didn’t get my usual Sunday morning LittleDude wakeup, but I didn’t fall apart. And he had a wonderful time, so I guess that all worked out. Unfortunately, they didn’t sleep much, and it was the night of the time change. He was still excited last night, so he couldn’t get to sleep. You know what that meant? Yup, we were miserable this morning. SoudGuy and I finally gave in the the “upset stomach” and let him stay home. But he wasn’t allowed to play video games. So there.
I hit the Publix Buy One Get One Free sale today. Between coupons and sales prices, I paid $87, and saved $100. WOO HOO!
I got some writing done today, which is very exciting for me. I finally figured out the secret to fitting it in. I add writing to my To Do list.
My FlyLady To Do list is comprised of Post-It notes stuck to the front of one of my kitchen cabinets. It’s a system that works well for me; as something is completed, the Post-It is removed from the cabinet and thrown away — that way, I can see my progress.
Everything on the cabinet is allocated 15 minutes. Today I added writing and coupon clipping, and actually got to both things! So from now on, writing and coupon clipping go up on my FlyLady To Do list cabinet.
I actually got to write twice today, so it was doubly good. I snuck some George Randy time in while waiting for the end of MiniMe’s soccer practice. Unfortunately, that’s also when I got my BIG SCARE. You see, I had done my timed 15 minutes of writing earlier, then put George Randy back in his case. When I took George Randy out at the fields, I turned him on and was faced with a readout filled with EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I think there might have been a stray SSSS in there, too, but mostly it was all EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. That, and a 1/2 sentence.
I quickly hit the “home” key to back to the beginning of the file, hoping the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSEEEEEEEEEEE was just tacked onto the end and I didn’t lose anything. I might have sworn out loud when I saw the beginning of the document was solid EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I panicked. Switched files.
George Randy has the ability to hold eight separate files, so I checked each one. I’m only using three of the others, and those all looked fine. No EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. So I went back to “file 2″, the file holding Chester and Rube. You know what I saw?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Eventually, I decided to try hitting the “end” key to take me to the end of the file. You know what I saw? My file! Apparently the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSEEEEEEEEEEEEE was tacked on to the beginning of the file, not the end.Chester and Rube are safe. Whew!
This may make people in colder climes upset, but I had to turn on my air conditioning today. I didn’t want to. I held back. I prayed the temperature would drop again before I had to hit the switch. It didn’t happen. I finally went to SoundGuy about an hour ago and told him I was going to have to break down and do it. He laughed at me. Nothing new there.
The high temperature’s hovered around 82 here today, and it wasn’t much cooler indoors. It supposed to stay pretty much the same for the next couple days. But come Thursday we’re back to the upper 60s, and my air condition goes back off. I just wish I could open the windows, but it being springtime with LittleDude’s allergies… that ain’t gonna happen.
There you go. The hodgepodge that is my life. And the timer for my Cacciatore just went off. Talk about timing! Gotta go uncover it. Have a great week!
Saturday Shot 07 MAR 2009
by Lynn Daniels on Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 9:15 am
I took a mini-break from posting Saturday Shots (unintended), so I figured why not return with a photo from home? Yes, it’s a picture from the BIG NEWS day in the Atlanta area — our snow day. I’ve gotta say, I’m lovin’ the way this photo turned out. I showed it to SoundGuy right after I finished processing it.
“Look at this,” I said. “Isn’t this a cool picture?”
He bent over to peer at my computer screen. “Yeah. But it looks weird. What did you do to it?”
“Nothing. That’s the way it looked that day.” I looked back at the computer. Weird? Has he lost his mind?
“It looks weird.”
“Do you mean it looks like a black and white photo that I went back and selectively colored to make the streetlight stand out?”
“Yeah. That’s it,” he said.
“I didn’t. It’s a full color picture. I didn’t do anything. That’s really how it looked that day.”
And it really is. When I looked out the window into the woods, it really did look like a black and white picture. It was weird. And cool. And I got a picture of it.
Go me!
Just Another Day
by Lynn Daniels on Friday, March 6, 2009 at 4:32 pm
~*~
So, after my bangin’ screwup the other day 
things have actually been relatively uneventful. The snow from earlier this week is almost gone, although we still have a little piece of the snow fort the kids built in the front yard. I have awakened in the middle of the night a couple more times, but I really did learn my lesson the other night. I looked at the first number on the clock instead of just the last two numbers. A 2am wakeup means Lynn goes back to sleep and doesn’t bother her kids.
I had a doctor visit at the end of last week — just a checkup. They did a full blood workup on me, including thyroid. I’m sure everything’s fine, but it would sure be nice to find out my thyroid is slow and that’s why I’m having so much trouble losing the weight I put on after the accident (yes, it’s still hanging around). In the meantime, I’ve started counting calories on my doctor’s advice.
He was quick to point out he’s not saying I need to lose weight, but if I want to, he recommended counting calories as the way to do it. That’s even what he’s been doing. So I’m counting calories. I started this past Monday — we’ll see how it works out.
With that in mind, what the heck do I order at the Mexican joint down the street tonight?
It Finally Happened
by Lynn Daniels on Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 7:48 am
~*~
I’ve completely lost my mind.
My alarm went off. I reached across to shut it off, and I saw the time.
“Crap!”
I hopped out of bed and started running. I wasn’t horribly late, but still late enough to throw everything off. Through the house I ran, systematically turning on lights: first the foyer, then the bathroom, then MiniMe’s, and lastly, LittleDude’s. I rousted LittleDude. “Hurry!” I said. “Momma’s running behind. We have to move.” My son dragged himself from his bed, wrapped himself in a blanket, and shuffled to the bathroom.
It’s my habit to sit on the landing outside the bathroom and read a book while LittleDude brushes his teeth. Right now, the book is The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule, and that book was downstairs in the kitchen. So I raced down the stairs to grab my book. As I hit the bottom of the stairs on my return trip, I saw SoundGuy in the bathroom doorway.
“Go back to bed,” he was saying to LittleDude.
Huh? What was wrong? Was my child sick? A surge of panic hit me. I can’t have sick children today. I have too much to do! Then he turned and looked down the stairs at me.
“It’s three-thirty,” he said simply before moving on to tell MiniMe to go back to bed.
I stood there, dumbfounded. It’s three-thirty? What the hell did that mean? SoundGuy was kind enough to come back and explain.
“It’s three-thirty in the morning,” he said. “Go back to bed.”
I walked back upstairs in a daze, still not understanding. SoundGuy could see it. “Look at the clock,” he said. I looked at the clock. Big red numbers glared at me. Big red numbers saying 3:41.
How could this have happened? I could swear the alarm woke me! The alarm went off, I shut it off, looked at the numbers, read 6:38, and knew I was late. Why the hell was I up at 3:30 in the morning?
SoundGuy laughed at me. “Go back to bed,” he repeated.
I did.
This morning, we figured out that when he came back from stoking the woodstove, it must have woke me up. The sudden jolt of him getting back into bed must have registered to me as my alarm, which set the whole stupid thing in motion. Plus, I don’t exactly remember seeing 6:38 on my clock. What I do remember seeing is 38. Just 38. But since I thought I’d been awakened by the alarm, the only 38 it could be was 6:38.
But it wasn’t.
So now I’m up, but I’m going back to bed. This broken sleep is hell on me. I hope I didn’t mess my kids up too badly.
Thinking Random
by Lynn Daniels on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 3:09 pm
~*~
The snow’s melting. The kids went back to school today, and SoundGuy and I ran a couple errands. During today’s travels, we could clearly see that our area was more seriously hit than others; one town we went to had almost no snow left at all! But then we came home, turned in to our subdivision, and it was like entering a different land. Suddenly there was snow everywhere. At least the roads are clear. Life is slowly returning to normal, and this weekend will be a warm one.
There’s so much normalcy returning, I’m even back on the ‘net! Is it weird that once I manage to stay off the internet a couple days I start to think of it as a badge of honor to wear proudly? I’ll look at Frankie, think about opening him up, then decide I can make it another day. And another. And another. And another. I start to test myself. Then I start to feel bad.
I feel bad for not blogging. For not posting my Project 365 photos (which I have continued to take, BTW). For not tweeting. For not updating my Facebook page. It’s sad. Yet still happy.
It’s a blessing. And a curse. (Sorry — I had to add that.)
The good news is that during my time off the internet, I learned a couple things. The first one I just discussed. (Seriously, is it really weird?) The next thing is writing related.
Even though I’d set a daily word quota, I’ve discovered that my schedule doesn’t allow for it. Some days, I don’t get the opportunity to write at all. Other days, I’ve got plenty of time to dedicate to my story. So I’m changing my quota thing. Not 500 words/day anymore. For the month of March, my quota will start at 3000 words/week. We’ll start there and see how it works out.
And I did discover what that conversation between Chester and Rube was to be. I’m still in the process of writing it, as Chester can be quite daft at times. But it’s been great fun.
I think there was another thing I’d discovered about myself, but since I took a break in writing this post, I’ve long since forgotten. Ah, well.
Life is back to normal. I’ve got a crochet project to finish. Photos to process (Cub Scout Pinewood Derby was this past Saturday!). A story to finish writing. A house to clean. Laundry to wash. Dinner to cook. And a budding headache to stem.
Excedrin, here I come!
How ‘Bout That Snow?
by Lynn Daniels on Monday, March 2, 2009 at 1:09 pm
How ’bout this winter storm? I know it’s old hat to most of you, but here in Atlanta, we don’t get a lot of snow. I happened to catch a mention on GMA this morning where the reporter pointed out that 2-4″ of snow is big news in Atlanta. And it really is.
LittleDude had just recently been complaining that we never get snow, and then we get dumped on yesterday. The official amount for my area was 4″, but SoundGuy and I went out and measured 6″ about three hours before it was all over and done with. We figure we finished out with somewhere between 6.5″ and 7″. Either way, that’s a heckuva lot of snow for us. Of course, I’ve taken lots of photos, which I’m in the process of downloading as I write. In the meantime, here are some of the photos I sent to TwitPic while my internet service was out:
This was the view from my front porch at about 3:41pm. The snow was really coming down, and if you look closely (you might have to click on the photo to see the larger version), you might be able to catch the tiny little snowman my kids put up in the front yard. (Twitter text that didn’t show up: The view from my front porch near Atlanta, GA. I wonder if the kids’ll have school tomorrow.)
4:47pm (according to my phone), also the view from my front yard, just in a different direction. The large view of this photo shows the kids had destroyed their old snowman and put together a new one. (Twitter text that didn’t show up: Update: View from my N GA front porch.)
At 4:50pm, I offered a different view. This is my backyard during the snowstorm. There in the center of the photo are steps that lead from my patio up to the yard. They’re nearly buried at this point. (Twitter text that didn’t show up: How about a different view on this snowy day in N GA? My backyard.)
At 5:46pm, the snow on the brick pillars on my front porch measured 6″ deep. We were still a couple hours away from the end of this snow event, and we even experienced thundersnow. I’d never heard of thundersnow, but we had it. (Twitter text that didn’t show up: We just measured 6 in accumulation on that brick pillar on my front porch & the snow’s still coming.)
Last but not least, this is a photo of my patio steps at 5:48pm. It’s still snowing like mad, and that bottom step is gone. (Twitter text that didn’t show up: My back patio steps have almost disappeared.)
I wish I could figure out how to edit the photo titles at TwitPic — I’m not even sure it’s possible. Unfortunately, the text I sent through with the photos didn’t seem to make it. I’ve taken the liberty of adding that text in italics below each photo.
So that was my March 1st. The funniest part? Current weather forecasting calls for a high of 71 degrees this coming weekend. Welcome to Georgia!
Random Photo
Twittering
NaNoWriMo
