Spirit

My Mittsy was a black lab.  She was the best dog in the world. 

I think she has come back reincarnated…

 

 

Yep.  That’s Mittsy’s spirit in another dog 

Tuesday Bullets

• All set for the storm when it comes… it’s just a matter of how bad it’s really going to be.  Will I be going to work in the morning or not?  – that is the question.  Nothing is happening around here yet, so I guess we’ll see… 

 

• Have you seen Carrie Fisher in the latest Jenny Craig commercial?  I didn’t recognize her…  Yikes.

 

 

• I went cross country skiing this past weekend for the first time in a looong time – I had a blast.  No pictures tho’ – my camera is too big to carry around for something like that.  My next phone is going to have a camera.

 

• Other that, it’s been a busy week – nothing earth-shattering, but I’ve been getting a lot of little stuff done.  And that makes me happy 

Top Gear

When it comes to cars, I am by no means a gearhead.  I don’t understand people who spend their evenings at car shows, wandering from car to car looking at engines and fenders and the like.  Boooooooring 

That being said, I enjoy watching Top Gear.  I don’t watch it regularly, but when I do, it has never failed to make me laugh.  And of course I’m talking about the original BBC version, not the crappy US remake.  I tried watching the new version on the History Channel and it was pretty awful.  The cast just doesn’t have the charisma of the BBC guys…  they weren’t very entertaining to me.

It amazes me sometimes (most of the time?) how remakes can totally ruin something really good.

I would love the chance to have a go around their track and see where I would rate on their board.  I have a bit of a lead foot and I’d like to think that I would end up at least somewhere in the middle of their ranking board.  I guess we’ll never know, tho’  

This is the first part of one of my favorite episodes.  If you get the chance to watch the whole thing – do it… the last part is soooo funny    

Unfortunately, the only place I can find the whole episode is on iTunes… but it’s totally worth the 99¢ – just search for Top Gear US Road Trip.

Thursday Bullets

So the holidays are over - routine will hopefully fall back into place and I will start posting more regularly…

 

• I don’t know if it’s just the stress from the holidays or it’s just my turn, but I’m getting whatever it is that’s going around.  I hope it comes and goes quickly 

 

• What is it with the guys that have the plows on the front of their trucks – why do they have to ride the center line all the time?  I always feel when one is coming from the opposite direction that I have to move over until I’m practically in the ditch or it’s going to take out the side of my truck…

 

• What don’t guys understand about ‘No’ when you don’t want to go out with them?  If I’m not interested, I don’t want to waste my time and energy playing games.  Don’t try to pressure me – it makes me not want to go out with you even more.

 

• As I alluded to a couple of weeks ago – I’m getting my garden catalogs already…  I am itching for spring to get here already     I can’t wait to get my garden growing again.

 

• So I had the chance to work on my tractor.  I found the damaged hoses, but there was absolutely no way I could access them to get them out and replace them.  The hoses were cut by one of the fan belt pulleys that was rubbing against them. Why would anyone design an engine like that?  I managed to temporarily patch them up until the warmer weather, when it will be easier to take the radiator off to get in there and properly make the repair.  They still leak a bit, but I think (hope) that I will be able to get through the winter, barring any other disasters.

 

• Someone did something for me that I did not need and did not want.  I (thought I) was gracious and a few days later sent over a thank you card and a some cookies.  Is it wrong for me to be aggravated that I was reprimanded for not calling that same day to say ‘thank you’?  Do me a favor and don’t try to be nice if have expectations.

 

• If you haven’t seen this yet, they did a great job as usual… but what’s even more interesting is seeing how the clip was made – so creative!

Wordless Wednesday

Christmas Can-Can!

Wordless Wednesday

New Favorite

I have a new favorite commercial 

 

This ‘n That Thursday

Man.  The past bunch of days have seemed to be perpetual non-stop sea of motion for me.  A communion party, a couple of appointments, Mother’s Day and committee meetings plus the work from the committee meetings - the days have been flying by like a blink of an eye!  I am so far behind in my TV and blogs it isn’t even funny.  And I really need to go grocery shopping… and get to sleep a bit earlier.

 

• I mentioned earlier that I had volunteered to be on a town committee.  Progress is being made and the project will hopefully come to fruition shortly.  I don’t want to jinx anything (I’m superstitious like that!), so I won’t give any details until I know everything is in place.  I’m learning a lot about politics and stuff that goes on behind the scenes, which isn’t always what you think it would be, but the project is kind of exciting 

 

• I broke down and entered the 21rst century and got myself an mp3 player.  I got it for £22.50 (about $34.00 USD) off of EBay.  That was the first time I’ve bought something off of EBay using foreign currency – it was weird because of the whole ‘Am-I-really-sure-about-what-I’m-spending?’ thing, but it was all good.  The unit is kind of neat – along with playing music, it can take pictures and movies and can let me read Ebooks. The movie thing is neat.  The quality isn’t the best, but good enough for me – and now I can now upload movies to YouTube.  Like this one of The Ladies (Banana, Cocoa and Pumpkin) enjoying a nice dust bath (they don’t seem to care too much about kicking dirt in each other’s faces!):

 

  

• I have a shed-thing out back that I use for storage.  Last year I had a robin’s nest in it – this year I have two!  They are built pretty much right over where I keep The Ladies’ feed, so every time I go out there, the robin missus’ get all upset.  I’ve learned that if I announce that I am coming instead of just walking in, the stress of the birds seem to be a lot less.  So if you happen to be near my house and see me walking through my yard saying in a not-too-quiet voice “Cheep!  Cheep-cheep!”, that’s just me letting Mrs. and Mrs. Robin know I’m around    I really wish I could get the outdoor webcam I bought working – I would love to have one of these nests online.  The webcam itself works fine, I just can’t get it to broadcast over the internet.  I don’t know why – I had the other one figured out when I had my Baby Chick Cam working 

 

        

 

• My sister called me today all excited: the light bulb may have clicked on for my nephew - he used the potty all by himself for the the first time  Here’s hoping that he got it!! 

Day of Failed Experiments

Today was the day I decided to try and hypnotize one of my chickens.  I wasn’t very successful -  they make it look a lot easier in the video than it actually is. 

I chose to use Cinnamon for the experiment…

…and it is a whole lot harder than you would think to get a chicken to put her head under her wing.  After trying for a few minutes, I gave up – I didn’t want to stress her out too much.   But I did ‘swing’ her a bit before letting her go and she didn’t seem to mind that at all.  Either that, or she didn’t fuss because she was scared out of her mind 

I’ll try again, but with a different chicken and see if I can get it to work…

 

And last week, a friend sent me this video:

 

I thought it was pretty cool and wanted to give it a try, so today I did.

It doesn’t work 

Pi Day

Happy Pi Day to everyone!  Today is Pi Day…

I was introduced to Pi Day a couple of years ago, and I think it’s a really fun idea.  I got to go to a Pi Day party, which was pretty much just a really fun night of friends, games and lots of pies (everyone was supposed to bring one).  I wouldn’t mind going to a Pi Day party again.  Maybe someday when I get my house fixed up, I could host one of my own 

 

It’s been a pretty busy week.  Not a lot of interesting things going on, but just a lot of running-around-need-to-take-care-of-stuff busy which didn’t leave a whole lot of time for fun things like blogging.  I am sooooo far behind on my reader – it’s going to take a while to get caught up again.  A little more extra running around to do next week, but then hopefully things will get back to the normal old boring routine…

 

The Ladies are soooo happy that the snow is gone and can they can now wander the yard at their leisure looking for tasty treats to eat.  They figured out that worms are very easily found in and around the biggest puddles in the yard.  I watched one of them chomp down a worm that was way bigger than any I would have expected to see this time of year…

 

As my friends and family all know, I am a big fan of OK Go.   I love their innovativeness and quirkiness.  I love their first two albums.  I discovered them years ago when I came across their Backyard Video of A Million Ways, which became viral (this was a video of the band practicing for a concert that was never meant to be seen by anyone but themselves, but somehow made it out on the internet – people all over copied the routine for talent shows and weddings and stuff like that).  Their famous Treadmill Video was supposed to be something that could top that, and top it, it did!

OK Go has a new CD out, but I’m not so sure if I really like their new stuff.  I haven’t been crazy about what I’ve heard so far, but we’ll see.  However - they have a couple new videos out with their new songs, and I have to say that the one for This Too Shall Pass is pretty impressive.  I don’t think I would have liked the song without the video, but the video is making me like the song – if that makes any sense.  I know it took months to put their contraption together, but it was worth it - it is AWESOME! 

 

Peeved

I like to watch Bravo TV, but I’d like to know what’s up with the foreign hosts they’ve been using for the shows lately?

When Project Runway was on Bravo, they had Heidi Klum (she still hosts the show on Lifetime).  I like her as a host – she has a heavy German accent, but she is still perfectly understandable… and she’s pretty.

Then they have Tabatha’s Salon Takeover hosted by – well, Tabatha.  From Australia, she too has a big accent but is still very intelligible.

But then they bring along Chef Academy with Jean Christophe Novelli, who had a thick French accent… while I liked the show, I had a hard time understanding anything the guy was saying – thank goodness for the subtitles.  And the people on Shear Genius – I have no idea where they are from, but they speak English like they have marbles in their mouths.  They couldn’t find someone that speaks clear English for the host?  Fortunately none of these, except maybe Project Runway, is “must see TV” for me, but I sure hope this won’t be a continuing trend.

 

And while I’m complaining about TV – I hate Verizon’s ‘Big Red’ commercial…

 

It illustrates perfectly why I hate texting.  Everyone I know who texts, does exactly what you see in the commercial – ignoring the real people around them while they are busy tapping away at their phones texting to lord-only-knows-who.  Texting is one rudeness I have no tolerance for.  While I may not say anything directly to the person who’s texting while they should be paying attention to something/someone else, they drop way down on my Respect List.  My blood pressure goes up every time I see this commercial.

This ‘n That Thursday

• Today is Parade Day.  (March forth (fourth) – get it?  )

 

• I had the chance to attend an event at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in downtown Buffalo.  I haven’t been there before and it was really nice.

 

• What’s up with the move to get governor Patterson out?  I’m not a fan, but sheesh – he’s not being accused of anything that every other politician isn’t guilty of.  Let the guy stay in office until December…  nothing more or less will get done if he’s there or someone else.

 

• Chickens prefer to walk in squishy mud than on crisp, clean snow.

 

• I haven’t tried the chicken hypnotizing thing yet – I want to wait for nicer weather…

 

• Got my taxes done.

 

• Spring must be getting close – I’m smelling a lot of skunk while driving around the past few days and I’ve been seeing a lot more lady bugs around the house…

 

• This was on Jennifer’s site and I feel soooo bad for Misery Bear 

 

Smart Dog

This is good!

 

Harvard

So homemade Harvard beets are absolutely-fantastically-wonderful!  They are just as good, if not better than the stuff from the jar.   And I discovered that they are even better warm.  I’ve always had them cold before, but because I couldn’t wait for mine to cool down, I ate some right away.  Mmmm-Mmmm Good!  For sure I am going to I plant a lot of beets in the garden next year… I’ll have to figure out if there is a way to can or preserve them if I make a lot next fall 

 

 

And I need to update my commercial list – I was remiss in omitting a series of commercials I love:  The Free Credit Report.com commercials.  I liked the first ones better, but I still can’t help but sing along with any of them when they come on    I think that there are supposed to pirate hats in all the commercials…Kind of like a Where’s Waldo.  I’ve found them in four – possibly five - of the commercials.

Commercials

This weekend we had a conversation/debate on the best TV commercials showing now. There are a lot of really dumb ones out there, but there are a few that are classics in my book. The funny thing about the commercials we were bringing up was the fact that we could describe the commercials, but a lot of the time we had no idea what they were advertising. I’m thinking that kind of defeats the whole purpose of the commercial

My top commercial picks are:

My sister wanted to have a ‘Steve’ on her front lawn for Halloween

I think this commercial is just brilliantly executed

This commercial is good in an annoying kind of way…

Monster!

My two Red Stars have been faithfully laying an egg a day each for the past few weeks. The Red Stars are the ones that look like this:




I think one of my New Hampshire Reds is getting ready to start laying too - I've been getting a third shell-less egg every once in a while lately, which is always quite interesting. Today however, I came home to find a behemoth of an egg in the nesting box. One regular egg and one egg which is the biggest egg I have ever seen (not counting goose eggs or ostrich eggs - you know what I mean). The first thing that popped into my head when I saw it was: "Wow! That must have hurt coming out!". I tried taking pictures to show the enormousness of the egg, but it is really hard to convey how big this egg is in a photograph...


This is a side-by-side comparison of the ginormous egg next to a normal size egg...



And to give another reference, here is a side-by-side comparison of me holding each of the above eggs...


I weighed the two eggs. The normal size egg weighed 1.8 oz. The gargantuan egg weighed 2.4 oz. That's a big difference when it comes to an egg! I want to crack it open and see if it has a double or triple yolk in it, but I can't bring myself to do it quite yet... Usually I use two eggs when making myself an egg sandwich - I'm betting that Monster Egg will be a sandwich all by itself :)

And to go along with some eggs - how about some fruit...





... and then after squishing your fruit, I'm sure you'll need a napkin :)





I love these things!

Blue

I can't believe my nephew is two years old this weekend. It seems like he's been in the family forever :) Happy Birthday JJ!

Do you see all the blue frosting? The blue doesn't come off. What are the cake-making people thinking when they use that stuff? Is there no blue frosting around that doesn't stain? I don't even want to think about what all of our insides looked like after eating that cake - I was never a fan of the Smurfs. I'm betting next year he's getting a white cake :)

Friday I hit a dozen eggs from my chickens. I was getting two a day for a couple of days, but then production went back down to one a day. Today I got two eggs again...


My sister has ten chickens from the batch we ordered, and she just got her first egg yesterday. Unfortunately it wasn't laid in a safe place and it was trampled - she wasn't too happy about that :(

On another bird-related note, the Blues Brothers is one of my most favorite movies. No matter how bad a day I've had or how crappy things are, this movie can never fail to have me bouncing and singing to it's music. Evidently I'm not the only one - this video is great!

OCD?

So when I woke up yesterday morning, the sun was shining and the birds were singing.

Too bad it was because I woke up an hour and a half late. Someone forgot to set her alarm the night before.

Fortunately, I was still able to get the garbage out and get to work on time. Last night I checked the alarm about five times before I went to sleep to make sure I set it. Does that count as OCD?

I'm gearing up for an exciting, action-packed weekend. If everything goes according to plan, it will involve hiking and geocaching both Saturday and Sunday. I haven't gone geocaching since my old GPS died and I bought my new one. I can't believe it's been so long :(

For those of you who like to hike, Parks & Trails New York has a new page on their website - it's a Trail Finder for more than 1,200 miles of multi-use trails in New York. You can search for trails for walking, biking, horseback riding - even snowmobiling. I think that it's a really good resource for people who like to hike and don't know a lot of what's available in the area or state.

I thought this was an interesting video... I'm not too sure about the editing, but it's definitely entertaining and an original idea - What a lot of work!

Friday Miscellany

Someone needs to invent a smoke alarm that won't let the battery wear down and start chirping incessantly at four-thirty in the morning.

Crockpot potato soup does not freeze well. I thawed out the bit I saved from my Crockpot Experiment. It wasn't so good. The potatoes turned kind of gritty :(

My two cents on chickens and farming in the city:

I say let the Stevens' buy the lots in the city of Buffalo. An urban farm is a great idea for the area. I think it will be a great inspiration for an area that has a reputation for being a scary part of town. If it doesn't work out, the Stevens' had said that they would give the city the first option to buy the property back. How can the city lose? From what I can tell, there isn't even a definite plan or time frame for development of the land. My prediction? They will deny the Stevens' the chance to farm the property and it will remain vacant for at least five years.

As for city chickens - I think it's also a great idea. Before The Disaster, I had chickens for over a year and I have replacement chicks coming next month (I can't wait!). I think that as long as there are clear rules in place, there is no reason for people not to be able to own a few chickens. They are very entertaining, very easy to care for and they lay eggs. I love animals, but I moved from my last house because the neighbors that moved in next door let their dogs bark outside 24 hours a day. Animal control didn't do anything about it and I couldn't take it anymore. I won't even talk about my other neighbor's cat, who liked to use my garden as it's litter box - ugh. Presently my next door neighbors have chickens as well as many people in my area. Chickens don't bother anyone (I'm talking about hens... roosters are on the noisy side - but I like the crowing). If people can't have chickens, they shouldn't be allowed to have dogs or cats either. Here is an excellent article that examines residential urban chicken keeping.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is in the top 5 of my all-time favorite movies. I thought this was absolutely brilliant:





Camelot - what a silly place!