As for us - we did not get one of the places we wanted to go - but I can't complain too much because even though our family is mostly in the South - I do have family in California. Also, I am thankful we are going somewhere it does not get too cold - I don't like snow (for Christmas and around the holidays is fine, but after New Years it's depressing - and I would freak if I had to drive in it). Your best bet is to start talking about it now before he goes that way he has an idea and can make a decision on the spot if he has to that you both can live with.

USAREC Map: http://www.usarec.army.mil/bdemap.html

-Tyler

As I watched my friend reach for a knife in an attempt to dig the stuck piece of bread out of the toaster, I stopped him and suggested ...

"I think a fork might work better."

note: I'm helpful like that sometimes.

double note: image from here.

triple note: You are correct; that is a coin bank cleverly placed in the wall. When you put coins in to it something happens, but it's a surprise!

http://humor-blogs.com/

next thing you know he'll be winning gold medals in the olympics as the worlds best gymnast ever.  by that time, china's team will be at least three years old so luke stands a good chance of kicking some three year old butt in the olympics.

he woke up before the alarm went off, came downstairs and got into bed with me about 5:50 a.m.  he was chattering away to me, very excited to start school today.

i had back to back appointments.  an 8:30 a.m. blood letting to test my thyroid levels, an 11am to check my mental levels with my therapist that is da bomb, and a 12:30pm to straighten out  my physical kinks with my most favorite chiropractor ever.

after all that excitement of my day, i came home and took a nap.

about an hour later, luke came home, jumped into bed with me, and exclaimed, "MOMMY!"   it was one of those times when you are completely in the moment and the love you feel for your child is the closest thing to "god" i will ever get to on earth.

he started telling me about his day, stating that his teacher is NICE!  he summed it up with, "i think this going to school thing is a great idea".

that kid, has me by the mommy balls.

i did a lot of podcast listening today in between appointments, and learned something about the facebook apps that i wasn't pleased about.  evidently, those facebook apps will have the same access to your friends' stuff that you do.  even if that friend has their profile marked private.  i was not pleased by this and i tweeted it out as soon as i possibly could to warn "the others".

as well, i learned that the reason scrabulous was mysteriously removed from facebook is that the hasbro scrabble people were pissed at the potentially lost revenue, booted scrabulous developers and began legal action against the scrabulous developers.  i'm not sure how i feel about all that, but i will tell you the new scrabble app on facebook SUCKS compared to scrabulous.

i guess no one had any idea how successful scrabulous was going to be on facebook.

the tech guys got into the newer version of facebook and how those "app icons" are less visible now.  i still need to go in and remove many of those apps b/c i don't think it's worth it to invade my beloved FRIENDS' privacy b/c i need to know what kind of fucking pirate i am.  from now on when i play around with those, i'm not going to to let it access anything.

that's about all i got for now.  working on a new project, consuming my time hope to have something to show for it soon.

]]> http://squealingrat.wordpress.com/?p=98 Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:47:06 +0000 squealer http://squealingrat.wordpress.com/?p=98 80 Days Around the World, a free audiobook from Audible.com. Note that audible.com/twit will get you one free audio book for new customers.

Audiobook

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/854503

Anyway, stay tuned. Maybe my new digs here will encourage me to be a little more active. Time will tell friends, time can only tell.

I had a dream.

A bad dream.

My dream is a premonition saying that they disapprove of my blogging.

And the first thing I do when I get up from that bad dream?

Write something in my blog.

I don't feel any anger.

No, just sad.

I'm sorry to those I have offended.

I never meant any harm.

Maybe it's because of my style of writing?

I do not know.

My darling doctor said, "I'm concerned and I'm going to write you a prescription...want to know what for?" 

At this point I started to sweat thinking he discovered something wrong with me.  "Yes, what for?" 

"Alone time!  And yoga!  By yourSELF!   AND regular dates with your husband."

"But.."

"Take my hand, get a babysitter and jump off the cliff of separation...it'll do you both good."

"But!"

"No buts."

"BUT!!"

"NO BUTS!"

At which point I pouted like a baby.

"And I'll be checking."

I have no doubt he will too.

See, the thing is, I need to get into better shape before I embarrass myself attending my public yoga class.  I know...it's like cleaning before the maid comes, but it's the way I operate.  I had been doing yoga for almost two years before I was pregnant with Mister...couldn't attend during the pregnancy, and didn't feel like it after.  I went back last fall, attended three classes, and hurt my neck.  (I pushed myself too hard out of shame, and got injured...dumbass.)  So I never went back, thinking I'd start up again gradually at home.  (Yeah, right!)  Now here I am, skinny, but pathetically out of shape. 

There is hope though.  Zan had Wii Fit delivered to our doorstep a week ago, hoping it would help him on his path to weight loss and fitness.  (I'm in mind of the nursery rhyme Jack Sprat.)  I think I love it more than he does!  So, I've begun a journey of a thousand miles with my first two steps.  And I'm signing up for yoga again...even though I refuse to leave Mister in that babysitting room at the YMCA.  It will have to be a night class.  And I just *might* be able to arrange a date with my husband...but it will have to be after Mister goes to bed the first couple of times.  You know, due to "the baby's" separation anxiety and all.  ;)

Admit it, I had you going for a second there.  ;)

Although, a real truckload's worth of yarn would be how I'd describe the LYS's monthly knit night yesterday.  The month before we had all talked about bringing in any yarn we didn't want to hang onto to see if the yarn couldn't find a new home with somebody else.  Anything that didn't get scarfed up could be sent to school with Gillian (being an art teacher means there's very few materials that can't get decoupaged/glued/weaved/painted/shredded/sculpted for a class art project).

I showed up at the LYS early, carting a big basket of odds 'n ends; mostly dishcloth yarn and a few leftover ends of things.  I was convinced that I had brought too much, and that everyone was going to take one look at the basket then look at me and go "Holy cow woman, you're really cleaning things out aren't you?".  I found a note on the counter that said "Amanda, there's a white paper bag of yarn that got dropped off for tonight's meeting."  I immediately start looking around the whole register area for this little bag of yarn, before opening the front closet door and BAM! - there's this GINORMOUS bag of swap yarn that put my basket to shame.  Then the others arrived, bringing equally huge piles of yarn.  

It was a yarn smorgasboard folks, and I walked away with some really nice stuff (including 575 yards of DK alpaca tweed, and  2 skeins of teal Cascade 220 - because swap yarn totally doesn't count as part of my yarn diet since I didn't purchase it, right?).  It was another one of those moments where I wish I had my camera with me, so I could have captured the sea of yarn spread out on the shop's floor and the half-dozen of us wading through all of it.

A couple of Penny shots from this morning...

Is your heart made of stone?  How could you leeeeeve me penned up like this?

Don't worry, I'll respond to this email... you finish knitting that row.

On a not so happy note...I'm PMSing like mad right now, and that really sucks!  (sorry to any male readers that really don't care about anything in this post)  I woke up cranky, and headachy, and crampy, and bitchy...WTF??!!  I never, ever suffered from PMS symptoms pre-babies...is this yet another wonderful gift of motherhood??

People from at least four cultures attended my brother's funeral because they genuinely loved him. They were friends who were also neighbors and co-workers.

For those of us living in Lexington, how many cultures will be attending our funerals?

I had made note of the diversity in my brother's life back in 1992 when his daughter married and her wedding party was generously sprinkled with ethnicity. It wasn't just black and white. It was all shades, all combinations, all good.

I think we all need that. My children have no problem with it, bringing home friends of all cultures. Before our pool sprang a leak, our home was fast becoming a small piece of the United Nations on weekends, complete with Caribbean, Japanese, Hispanic, American whites and American blacks.

I really enjoy that.

The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Mashantucket, Conn., seems to believe we all should be enjoying the richness of diverse cultures.

Officials there are featuring a new exhibit of film, still photography and various other components through which visitors can explore the historical concept of race and racism as seen through the lens of science and our own experience. "Race: Are We So Different?" has been showing since May and will end on Sept. 6.

Because not many of us can visit the exhibit before it closes and get a true sense of what it is trying to project to us, I'm including a link to an article in the Hartford Courant, written by Susan Campbell, that goes beyond the exhibit. She talks with experts who say how we define race and cultures eventually serves to limit people and ourselves. And there is no basis for it. Check out the article at http://www.courant.com/entertainment/museums/galleries/hc-aboutrace.artaug20,0,578735.story.

It will be worth your time and may prompt us to get more diversity of all kinds in our lives.

With the U.S. Census Bureau recently projecting that minorities will be the majority population by 2042, we need to jump on that boat before it sails.

That is especially urgent when, in the article, we learn that our children are seeking diversity only in public. Privately they seem to be isolationists and as narrow-minded as we, their parents, are.

Mark Twain said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness."

I believe that includes not only visiting other places, but also expanding the boundaries of our minds and our hearts.

Let's do it for the sake of our children.

Now to my post.

We were in England for the first ten years we were away, and in Spain for the following five, and things are a lot different there than here, for sure. (Duh!--I thought that since they speak English everything would be pretty much the same. Shows you how naive I was!) Lots of things are different. Little things. For example, especially in the early days of our time there, when I wanted to buy a box of cereal, I only had about six or eight to choose from. The choice was pretty easy. Or ketchup. Two or three brands in one or two sizes. And it was all red. What's this green ketchup that's available here anyway? Or popcorn. Microwaveable or not. This frustrated me at first, not having a lot to choose from, but I soon got used to it and realized that it really made life pretty easy. There also weren't any big-box stores, at least not in our early days there. You want batteries? Go to the battery store and choose what size. Alkaline or not? One or two brands and that was it. Light bulbs? Go to the light bulb store. Underwear? Go to the underwear store. Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration, but things were much much different than I was used to. I grew to love it. I loved getting my produce from the green grocer and my bread from the bakery. I got used to living like that: living simply.

There were times that we stocked up on certain products when we found them because the stores didn't necessarily stock these things regularly. When I found Betty Crocker cake mixes, for example, I bought them all because finding them was a rare occurrence. A side note: I learned to make a lot of things from scratch, but cake wasn't one of them. They always turned out dense and heavy. Or when I found Reese's peanut butter cups...I bought the whole stock because they only had them as a promotion and Reese's peanut butter cups are my BFF of all time! I was doing a happy dance that day! I know. I'm shallow.

When I would visit home I would wander around Target or Walmart or even the grocery store admiring all the stuff; all the choice, and wishing (or thinking I wished!) that we had big box stores in England. They are more common now, but when we were first there that wasn't the case. I used to think that life would be nicer and more convenient if I had more to choose from; more products available. I found though, that when I got back to England (and later Spain), that I was very content with less available. It freed up time for more important things. Not that I didn't have my moments. Every now and then I felt the need for some retail therapy and it really wasn't to be had.

Now that I'm back on home turf I'm having to readjust, and it's taking longer that I expected. I knew I'd have to make adjustments and re-adapt, but I am finding myself extremely frustrated when I want to just pop in and out of the store for something real quick. Like popcorn. We had been invited to some friends' house after church one evening and we were all feeling sort of munchy so I said that I'd pick up some popcorn on the way. I stopped in the grocery store, which was open late. That's something I LOVE by the way...that the stores are open late...not so in Europe. The big cities, yes, but not where we were. They rolled up the carpets. In Spain the restaurants are open super late, and that's fun, but that's for another post.

I made my way through miles of aisles to the popcorn aisle. And it was just that. The popcorn AISLE. A whole aisle of popcorn. Nearly, anyway. Probably twelve or fifteen feet of shelving, from the floor to above my head, of popcorn. Not just any popcorn. Oh, no. I could have popcorn for my air popper. Old fashioned kernels to pop on the stove. I could have it in a jar or a bag. I could have anywhere from a hundred and fifty pounds to a few ounces. I could have microwave popcorn. Butter flavor or caramel? Chili flavor or movie style? Low carb? Low fat? Sugar free? Upside down? Right side up? Diagonal? Spotted, striped or rainbow colored? I grabbed the closest thing I could find to plain old popcorn and barely avoided a panic attack on my way out to my car. For crying out loud, why couldn't I just go in, buy some popcorn, and leave? What was wrong with me? Had I become so unsophisticated and backward that I couldn't even navigate the grocery store and do the simplest of shopping trips? Why did I freak out at so many choices? What the heck was wrong with me? I felt un-American!

That was some time ago. Then I went to the other extreme. We went to Costco and stocked up . I mean, we stocked UP! There are only three of us in the household, but we needed to have that 40 tons of laundry detergent. Yup. Never mind that I don't have a place to put it. Nor do I have a place to put 150 rolls of toilet paper. Or 50 packages of Top Ramen. (Yes, my son eats Top Ramen for lunch. Chemicals and junk and zero food value and all. So sue me.)

I think I'm finally coming to a point of balance. I realized, just the other day (bear with me. I know it's been several months that I'm back home. Old habits die hard), that I don't need to buy 12 boxes of cake mix at a time, because the store will have cake mix tomorrow. And next week and the week after. I can buy one or two to meet my current needs and go back next week if I need more. Ditto with toilet paper. It took MONTHS to get through all those rolls! We don't NEED to buy 96 ounces of shampoo at a time. There isn't going to be a shampoo shortage any time soon.

I'm still frustrated in the fabric store, though I'm getting better about it.

Maybe I need to join a rehab or a twelve step program. Or maybe I just need to be me, rethink what's important and what's not, and accept who I've become as a result of my experiences living overseas, not trying to fit into the current American mold of having too much stuff.

This idea of stuff is something I've been thinking about, but more on that later. This post is already too long. Back to your lives citizens, but stay tuned. In the immortal words of one of my favorite radio talk show hosts, "Don't touch that dial!"

The news anchor is having a bad hair day, that sucks.  i think she know's it too.  she just said that mccain is ahead in the presedential polls.  looks like the republicans might win it.  i must be stuck in some sorta time loop, or something.  the cold war climate is brewing.  that's usually the perfect republican storm, right ronnie.  rice said it's silly for russia to be threatned by our presence in poland, as we set up missel shops. *ugh* here we go. 

i used to be really scared of nuclear war.  it was a combination of that move, red dawn, and thinking perhaps that the russians didn't love their children too.  I had an evacuation plan outta the city and everything.  not too mention multiple bad dreams, which ended in escaping and running to the mountains.

yup, the cold war.  and now it's time for work.  i really don't want to go.  i'd rather watch a movie and go for a swim.  doesn't that sound nice.  maybe make love on a patch of grass, under a shady tree.  yup that's the life.

Was jetzt nicht heißen soll,  dass man selber so nen Theme erstellen soll ( da weiß auch keiner wie das geht ), sondern die Aufgabe war es in seinem bevorzugten Grafikprogramm einfach eine Art "Sreenshot zu erstellen". Also selber ne eignene Takleiste, Fester, usw. erstellen ... Arbeitszeit hierfür war eine Stunde ...

Nach ca. 45min dann der Schock (zumindest für Muuusch) ... Sein Programm hat den Geist aufgegeben  ==> Alles was er bisher gemacht hatte war weg 

Verständlich, dass er dann keine Lust hatte, das alles nochmal zu machen ...

So blieb am Ende mein Bild konkurenzlos  .... Trotzdem möchte ich euch es nicht vorenthalten! Hier ist es (draufklicken, um es in voller Größe zu sehen) :

Es sei nochmals dazugesagt, dass ich da wirklich alles (bis auf den Hintergrund) selber gemacht hab ...

Nach diesem (wenn auch nicht so glanzvollen) Sieg bin ich dann ins Bett und hab erstmal 11 Stunden geschlafen

---------------------------------

Nachmittag kam dann da Steff für 2 Stunden vorbei ... Wir haben dann n'bisschen Beijing gegeneinander gezoggt, wobei sich gezeigt hat, dass des mit dem xbox Controller echt besser geht! Ich hab sogar neue olympische Rekorde im Diskusswerfen und Speerwerfen aufgestellt!

Für den Abend steht dann noch das Benifizspiel Deutschland gegen Belgien an! Was mich daran ein wenig verwirrt ist die Regel, dass die Spieler nur mit Rückennummer und ohne Namen auflaufen müssen (soll anscheinend die ganze WM-Quali lang so sein). Denn Sinn hiervon soll mir bitte mal einer erklären

---------------------------------

Bevor ich dann Fuba guggn geh, hier noch der Song of the Day: "We Might Fall Apart" von Disco Ensemble ... ne klasse Nummer!

Best advert on tele at the moment... ha ha ha, trumpets!

More Natrual Confectionery Co. ads after the break...

These are also pretty awesome though not quite as silly as the previous...

2) Raphael The Scary Bear

3) Posh Dinosaur

4) Mumble

If kidney stones are the result of not using your kidneys enough, can this happen in other parts of your body as well?

Because a lot of people have rocks in their heads.

note: kidney stones are usually not related to not using your kidneys enough. It's just a long held misconception of mine.

double note: If "kidney" beans are good for the kidneys; then I'm loading up on "pork n'" beans.

triple note: stay away from those gall beans.

quadruple note: Mr. Bean is full of ... you know.

quintuple note: image from here. It's not related to anything, just not too many nice kidney stone images.

http://humor-blogs.com/

Our decision: Well, we crunched the numbers (and when I say we, I mean F and his spreadsheet), and found that we could afford it (just about) if we live in the big beautiful house. We have made our decision, but that is not all that has to happen.  Now we just have to wait and see if the girl who has the lease will still come to Switzerland after all. We just have to wait and see if it is meant to be ours....

In other news, I talked to my new head teacher today. She gave me directions to where the temporary school is being set up. Get this – they have cleared vineyards to build the school. So basically the whole school will be surrounded by beautiful vineyard in each direction. When I went running this morning, I ran to the exact area and I just could not believe my eyes! It is on a bit of hill, facing the lake and it just sits in the middle of lines and lines of grape vines. It really is the prettiest place ever and I can hardly believe that I will be working in such amazing surroundings. Not only that, I will only have 10 students in my class, so hopefully that means a little less marking at the end of the day and a little bit more time to chill out in this fantastic place.

Love the shopping here.  We went to the market on Saturday and bought loads of veggies and it was really cheap.  All the stalls are run by people and families who have farms in this area.  So this means super fresh food.  That night, F asked me if the carrots we were eating felt extra crunchy to me too.  Nope, that is just what fresh food tastes like - we just haven't ever had it that fresh before!  I think we will be eating at home more than we used to in London, cuz eating out here takes quite long - you have to make an evening of it.  No Nandos here!  I will have to peri peri my own chicken!  Anyway, with all that fresh food on our doorstep, why wouldn't we learn to cook with it?  And finally F is going to get the barbeque that he has been wanting :)

I am off to find out about the gym and to do lots of praying and putting intentions out into the universe (as a special person I know likes to say) that the house we love will be ours. If you like, could you do the same, since you will be coming to visit and trust me, you want to come to the pretty house J

Oh yeah, and I am going to put some pictures of this place up soon....

No no no.

I don't have any to share.

And neither do I intend to share them here.

Gilo apo.

Well, speaking of secrets.

Everyone has one or some.

I have a few.

Good ones they are.

Scorpions are born with a secretive nature.

Sometimes I blurt out things to everyone, but I only let them know what they're supposed to know.

And sometimes I just divert their attention and lead them on to thinking whatever they want to think.

Just as long as my secret is safe with me.

I carry the burden of keeping secrets about my family, about myself and of course my close friends.

And I do not blab them out like some people would.

Especially when one gets in a fight, they tend to expose the secrets entrusted to them.

Well, I am not that sort of person because I don't make it a habit to bad-mouth people.

And compared to Kak Tey, I am much better at keeping secrets.

Contohla kan, she would say, "Ko jangan bagitau Mak ngn Abah Kak Tey bla bla bla."

And so I wouldn't.

Sampai bila-bila kalau aku gaduh dengan dia pun memang aku tak kan bagitau. 

Tapi, kalau secret aku, tak lama lah sangat dia nak simpan mesti terkantoi jugak.

Sengal betul.

"Alah, mana Kak Tey tau. Ko tak cakap pun."

Hahah.

Nasib baiklah SECRET tak besar mana pun.

Jadi, apa tujuan aku bercerita tentang secret?

Saja nak brag about how good I am at being secretive.

Hahah!

You got no better things to do lah Adlene Aris.

Esok, aku nak buat quiz for my students.

Masaklah korang.

Miss Ad dah buat 30 questions.

Alah, senang kacang goreng je bak kata Iwan (my nephew).

Korang semua kan pandai.

:)

Aku nak tengok siapa yang score quiz ni esok.

Heheh.

• Dressed up like a lady bug and helped little kids decorate wood elf masks
• Cut out over 1,000 of those wood elf masks
• Gone on the occasional photo shoot to get pictures for our newsletter
• Participated in a food tasting at Bambara Restaurant where the chef sat across the table from me and told me his inspiration and preparation techniques for everything I was eating
• Sat through several hour long meetings where we discussed little else but whether or not babies breath can stand on its own in a centerpiece (which, by the way, it cannot)
• Set out hundreds of lawn chairs for VIP concert seating, taken them down, and repeat the process every couple days.
• Brought home concert sponsor blankets to wash. Sometimes those blankets have vomit on them.
• Listened to Jeff Tweedy do his sound check while I set out sponsor blankets 15 feet away from him
• Did the same, only this time with Garrison Keillor, who waved at me
• Driven a Jaguar and a convertible Saab
• Learned how to take care of fish
• Learned what to do when you see a rattle snake (I saw at least 4 in my first month of work. I don't count them anymore)
• Hammered at granite step in the old amphitheater with the intention of turning the pieces into sentimental paperweights and plaques for people that wanted a "piece of the old amphitheater." (The pile of broken granite has been sitting in my office for 11 months now.)

..just to name a few. It's been an interesting year, but a good one overall. I still feel lucky to have my job.