Kingfisher Cove

If Women Ruled the World

If Women Ruled the World....

Beach Agates

Faith wanted to see what beach agates look like.

Yellow Brick Road

A few updates on things.

Dooce

She's doing well. Her husband, who sounds like one helluva guy, posted this update, as well as his views and feelings about everything on his own blog. (He writes very well, too). I'm so glad things are looking up.

Da Kid

He's been home for, what, three weeks now? As far as the list of goals and rules, I'd have to say he's making a half-assed attempt to address.....some of them. He still doesn't have his driver's license, which he pretty much blames on ME because I haven't taken him out to practice driving. However. He also hasn't been HOME much (horsing around with buddies), as I sharply pointed out to him. And, I refuse to HOP at his beck and call when he IS home. (After all, I'm tired when I get home from work!) The plan is, Nate will be home tomorrow and I will take him out driving when I get home. And then on Wednesday morning, I'll take time off from work and take him down to the DMV for his test. I'll be SO DAMNED GLAD when it's over. (And he'd better pass!)

There is good news -- he got a job. He'll be a bus boy again, this time for a different (and fancier) restaurant here in town. He starts this weekend. Whew! (He owes, he owes, so off to work he goes...)

My Stained Glass Address Stake

Huh. I haven't even begun it. At first I thought I'd have some time to transform Da Kid's room into a stained glass studio, but that ain't gonna happen any time soon. So.... where I generally do my stained glass (upstairs), it gets really, really warm up there in the summer, so I figure it'll be a good thing to work on in the coming months. I do have the pattern transferred onto sticky-back paper. Just need to do a little tweaking to match the size of the stake perfectly. And... I do have my glass. So I'm ready to begin! Now I need a block of uninterrupted time! Yeah, right.

Scenes from H*ars*tine

We spent the day at H*ars*tine, and for JDub it was a 100% work day. He got dinged on the electrical inspection for the power pole, so he needed to make corrections and also install the well pump so that the inspector can come back out Tuesday, and then (hopefully) the power can be turned on by Labor Day weekend. He was a Busy Bee all day, let me tell you. I "assisted" when I could, but mostly I just took a lot of pictures.

This little guy was hilarious because he was teasing the wiener dogs. He really had Bailey's number -- he knew immediately that "this silly creature cannot catch me." He'd scamper up a tree, but not very far, and peek around the corner at Bailey, who would be sniffing the bushes. (She knew there was a critter, but she's so low to the ground that she doesn't think to look UP). Then, little Chipper (I call him) rustled around on the ground and Bailey got wind of him and dove into the bushes, and Chipper scurried up this stump. Here he sits, peeking over the edge, watching Bailey. Reminds me of Snoopy the Vulture! Of course, Bailey was clueless. (And frustrated).

This is JDub installing the well pump into the well. It's a 100' ft. well, and it took quite some time to feed all the water pipe and wiring down into it. No, that isn't a hoola hoop JDub's messing with. It was basically like wrestling a 100 ft. anaconda!

It was a nice, sunny day, after a week of heavy rains. JDub hardly took a break. (I did! I found three agates on the beach!) On the way home, we stopped in Allyn and had our nummy favorite steamer clams and an Alaskan Amber. Here's a little collage of some of the pictures I snapped today.

Today's Menu

I borrowed this MENU from Karen over at Verbatim.

Appetizer: What is a word that your family uses that would not be considered common?
Wiener noises. The dachshunds make odd sounds at times (snorts, moans, groans, squeals, grunts, whines, yips, and snores). So whenever anybody makes a strange sound, he/she is making wiener noises.
Soup: What theme of calendar do you have on your wall this year?
Dachshunds. Of course!
Salad: Name 3 people you speak with on a daily basis.
JDub. Nate. And… hmmm, every day? Myself!
Main Course: If you could put a new tattoo on someone you know - who would it be, what would the tattoo be of, and where would you put it on them?
On my boss’s forehead. “Kick Me”.
Dessert: What is the last beverage you drank out of a glass bottle?
Sutter Home White Zin!

Movie Villain

Hmm. I'd better not get caught shaking hands with shorty in the same bathroom as Will Smith.

Found this over at Beancounter.

Grrrr....

Is it just me, or is Typepad being flakey tonight? So.....Very......Slow...... Images won't load. Blogs won't load.

I thought they'd remedied this problem? ARGH!! (Hey, when I wanna blog, I wanna blog!)

Serious Stuff

I've noticed throughout the months that I've been blogging that a lot of folks have Dooce listed on their Blog Roll. I remember I checked out her blog once, but the main topic of the post I read at the time had to do with mothering an infant, and although I think infants are way cool, that's just not part of my life at this point, so I recall skipping onto some other rabbit trail. Well today I was once again rabbit-trailing and came across a post that said, "I'm so sad about Dooce -- keep her in your prayers." My antenna started doing its waving thing, so I clicked on Dooce's blog and now I'm very sad. We are talking very serious depression and anxiety attacks happening with her, to the point of checking herself into a hospital. This makes me swallow hard. We are all potentially on that precipice, to some degree or another. And it's been a summer full of, well, difficult times for a lot of us.

I'm also just totally blown away by Dooce because I read through the last few months of her archives, and what a fabulous writer. She. Had. Me. Riveted. What a talent.

A common thread was the difficulty she was having with her new baby. A seemingly unhappy, screamy little thing whom you could tell she adored, but also felt a fair amount of animosity and frustration toward -- and probably guilt as a result. Sleep deprivation was another common thread. I ache for her! My gosh.

Heather. Her name is Heather.

Will Smith

OK! Wow! Here's something to make your Friday more, ahem, uplifting.

WILL SMITH CONCEALMENT TAPE IN SHOWER SCENE

"Will Smith was forced to strap his manhood to his leg for a steamy shower scene in 'I, Robot' - because it was so big.

Producers of the movie, which premiered in London on Wednesday (04.08.04), told the well-endowed star to cover up his private parts because it would draw attention away from the plot.

Even Will's attempt to conceal his member by putting one leg in front of the other reportedly failed - and crew resorted to strapping it down with gaffer tape."

Canned Beer

It just seems to me that this is a bad idea. Don't they know that beer tastes so much better in glass? Marketing-wise, I suppose it looks appealing what with the icy cold condensation clinging to the bottle can. But, eeww. Margaret, don't you agree?

Today I read an excellent article by Patty Davis (Ronald Reagan's daughter), and I highly recommend it. It's so thought-provoking, and, ultimately, frightening. Just where are we heading? Seems at times that "1984" is just lurking around the corner. I remember reading that book as a kid and thinking: "Pshaw! That'll never happen here! Maybe in the Soviet Union and East Germany, but not the U.S.A.!" Yeah, well.

Personally? I'm dreading this election "season" that's basically already here. I hate politics. The Golden Rule does not apply. The Ten Commandments do not apply. Any aspect of civility and integrity and maturity, yup, don't apply. I can't imagine what kind of person you have to be to have the interest and desire to run for office -- any office. I'm thinking of local campaigns as well as the presidential circus. Even if you start out with good and noble intentions, I think campaigning is corrupting. And what a thick skin you either have to develop or had to be born with. You have to prostitute yourself among businesses, special interests, and slimeball rich individuals with an agenda, in order to raise the obscene amounts of money necessary to have a fighting chance. And I do mean "fighting". Was this process imagined to be so ugly by our forefathers? Maybe so. I'm sure there was a lot of fighting and cussing and manipulation and back-stabbing and mudslinging among all of them, during the hashing out of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

I think what I hate the most about election season (besides the TV and radio ads that make me switch channels/stations and/or turn it off altogether to avoid the groan factor), are the damned eye-sore election signs that litter the landscape every f&$%@+!ing place you happen to be! Yuk.

I know.... it's our system, it's the way we do this, and it's our chance to have our say. But I honestly feel that in most every case, the very best person for an office is someone way too smart to even run for it in the first place. And you know what that says about the people who do.