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Showing posts from July, 2004

Run, don't walk...

to your nearest DVD store or website and buy Firefly . This wonderful SF series by Buffy creator Josh Whedon was a shortlived series on Fox, whose suits had their heads so far up their asses they would need a window in their belly buttons to see out (hmmmmm, what is it about network execs? Chief requirements seem to be the ability to insert their heads in places left unseen and screw up great shows) and couldn't understand it so they refused to run the 2 hour pilot which introduced the charactors, instead making Josh and Co come up with an "action-packed" first episode that, while good, left a lot of folk going 'HUH!!!!" since we had no idea where these people were coming from. Luckily the show did develop a loyal following and stuck with the show, even tho those idiots at Fox did their damnedest to keep us from watching it (prempting it for other shows, moving it all over the place, etc). Fox cancelled Firefly and tried to keep the final unshown 3 episodes,

I HAVE PEAS!!!!!!

WEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! I was out watering my garden last night and I noticed a sugar pea, then I noticed more sugar peas and it finally sank in that I GREW FOOD!!!!!! I got hubby to come out and look. There is probably about a handful all together at the moment, but I'm going to pick them tonight and enjoy eating something I grew myself. So I am now anxiously awaiting the long beans to go from flowers to beans and it looks like the cucumbers are starting to put out flowers also. I've some little gnats covering my tomatos, but they don't seem to be hurting them any, but I sprayed them with my homemade bug spray to make them go away, just in case. Most of the tomatos are now bearing blossoms, so hopefully I'll see signs of tomatos soon. I'm now in the process of creating a webpage for our coven, I'd a page created a year ago, but all my work has since disappeared in multiple system crashes and wipe and re-installs of WinDOZE, so I am starting over from scratch. W

Thank the Goddess for iced coffee

It is the only way I'm getting thru the heat this weekend, today is going to be another scorcher. My tomatos are loving it tho :) I didn't cook dinner until almost 10 pm last night, it was when I finally got hungry. When the weather heats up my appetite goes bye bye. Of course this isn't good for hubby, but thank goodness for the microwave. Did get the lawn mowed and more of the strip dug up. Sprayed my garden down with the homemade insect spray. That stuff seems to be working well, there are a lot less holes in my rhubarb now. I'm planning on moving it in the spring. I've plans for the front of the shed and I think the rhubarb will look good in that space, it will be better seen from the road and as big as it gets it will look spectacular Broke the news to hubby that Nicky may be a he and not a she. His comment "WHY can't we ever have a NORMAL kitty!" hehehehehehe I told him that wasn't what the dieties have in store for us. He did mention t

YIPES!

Currently the temp in the house and outside agree. It is going to be a scorcher today. Saw the new kittens last night, markings are the same as the last batch, so we know who papa was again. One of the kittens is a tri-color like her mommy, there is one ginger and white and the rest are gray tigers and white. Speaking of kittens, we are beginning to think Nicky is not a she, but a very late blooming he. She is developing what appears to be a "package" and is definately not looking female-like in that area. She is due for her next set of shots, so we'll have the vet double check (she thought Nicky was female the last time we were in in May). Male or female, we won't love her any less (tho if she is a he, we may be talking the neighbors out of the calico kitten as we KNOW it is a she and we can finally get this lot balanced evenly). Wouldn't be the first time I've had a kitty do this too me. When I was in high school (actaully just graduated), we went to the

Oh dear, I'm DOOMED

LOL :D Hubby re-installed Diablo II on my 'puter last night and I FINALLY got to play it again after several months. I didn't get to bed until almost 11:30. Had fun tho, even tho I couldn't remember all the key commands, so it took a while to get back in the swing of things, so to speak (I was playing my 8th level Amazon charactor). Currently extremely pissed off at our landlord (he owns the property our mobile home sits on) he came tromping thru on his quad runner and started spraying my lawn. I had to run around chasing kitties to get them in the house. He's got this thing about weeds (which is what my lawn is made of since he won't allow us to water and the grass is pretty much dead now) and insists on spraying even when I've made clear I don't like him doing it. So as soon as he was safely out of sight I grabbed my hose (I'd been out watering my gardens) and commenced to seriously spraying down as much of my lawn as possible to dilute the poison. Pe

Just going over my last post

and I noticed some paragraphs looked a bit wonky. I thought I'd fixed all of them. I was using my home computer with the wireless keyboard and I think it wasn't picking up keystrokes as well as it should. So if you see things that don't look quite right, that means it was the home 'puter and I haven't quite got the hang of the new keyboard yet :D New technology, gotta love it hehehehehe Got to bed fairly early, about 10:30 and I'm still exhausted, I really didn't want to wake up this morning and I had a heck of a time getting hubby up. Still braindead this morning, luckily I'd gotten lunch and coffee set up last night so I didn't have to think about it, just grab and go. Pulled chicken out of the freezer last night to thaw in the fridge. We've an electric grill I'll plug into an extension cord and cook the chicken outside on the deck (we're running low on charcoal) so I don't have to turn on the stove. I still have to figure ou

My weekend

We had a blast and the car behaved itself (then again, once we got to our friends, it only went out once and that was to take another friend to lunch. Our hosts drove us around the rest of the time). Friday we got up, threw everything in the car and then waited for the bank to open and then did a little bit of running around town. Picked up road munchies, paid a couple bills and then headed out. We went via Lewiston as gas is cheaper and the drive via highway 12 is prettier then the route via Colfax and across to highway 385 and then south. Hit Wiatesburg and we were going to take the 124 cutoff, but they were doing road work, so we turned around and headed back to 12 and went via Walla Walla. Got to see karma in action just past Walla Walla. Some idiot passed us and a semi together and almost ran an oncoming vehicle off the road. The idiot kept trying to pass vehicles up ahead, but never could. We eventually saw a cop coming our way who flipped a U turn behind us, hit his lights, and

Almost ready

We are pretty much packed, all we still have left to do is toss stuff in the car, grab the cold packs out of the freezer, hit the bank, hit the store for road munchies and off we go for our 5 days away from home Neighbor has the key to the house to feed the kitties and the other neighbor will water my garden. The house plants got a good drink last night. So onward ho! See ya all on Tuesday and hope you all have a good, safe weekend :)

Neat Stuff

No Moose Left Behind "Drive into downtown Coeur d’Alene this summer and you can’t miss the herd of colorful moose that has taken up residence in the city. Each life-sized piece was decorated by a local artist for the No Moose Left Behind Public Art Project, and they'll be auctioned off at a fund-raiser in September. Our online poll is closed (results here), but you can still browse our gallery. Click on a picture below to see a larger version. The winning moose and artist will be featured in print in July." Check out the pics, there is some really great talant out there. Unfortunately, the moose have been subjected to vandals and some have had to be repaired (you'd think in a city on a lake with LOTS of opportunities to swim or head up to the mountains for good outdoor fun that kids would find something better to do then try and destroy things).

Interview with Paul Campos

Keep Yer Flab On By Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet. Posted July 15, 2004. We're at war and the enemy is obesity – or so warn the doctors. U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona has declared obesity "the terror within because it is every bit as devastating as terrorism." It allegedly affects nine million children and two out of three adults, and claims the lives of 400,000 Americans every year. It takes a brave man to speak out in favor of flab today – and that man is Paul Campos. The Obesity Wars are nothing but a big lie about fat, says the author of a provocative new book titled "The Obesity Myth: Why America's Obsession With Health is Hazardous to Your Health." Campos argues that Americans are in fact only a mere 15 pounds heavier than we were 20 years ago. What have become more stringent in that duration are public health standards for ideal weight, which now define the vast majority of us as "overweight" or "obese" – and that includes

The trip is on!

FINALLY got a mechanic to give us an almost definate answer to our car problem. He said there was a 90% chance it is the center differential as he's come across the problem before. As long as we don't make lots of tight turns, he says going over to Portland and back will not be a problem. YAY!!!!!!!!! We can deal with replacing things when we get back. Since we are going, I dropped our friend a note asking if she can check around her local gardening shops to see if they sell, or know where I can find the right kind of composting worms. I really want to get my bin up and running before winter. You'd think that finding the darned things locally would be easy, but either they've never heard of them, got out of the business a couple of years ago or just hand you the URLs for places in California or Texas. Temps are getting up there, slept with the window open and I didn't need more then a sheet at most. Dinner last night was steak on the grill, salad and corn heated

Yah, right

Listening to my little FM radio at break when CNN news came on and some guy was blithering on about how SHOCKED he was that there were coaches who we've entrused our precious youth to who advocated steroids by their charges. Well...DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I was growing up, it was "It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the game". NOW, it is "Win at all costs!" So don't give me some whiney BS about kids using steroids to bulk up for whatever sport they are playing, becasue it is we as a society who have been telling them that they are worthless human beings if they don't win all the time. Time was, there was no shame in losing if you played well. Now we have kiddie sports teams where they don't keep score and no one wins becasue they don't want to hurt someone's feelings and lower their self esteem. SIGH! Great way to prep them for the real world. So we now have kids all over the country who are using ster

Car problems

We've been having car problems with the 99 Subaru Forester we bought last year for hubby. Apparently the previous owner did shit for maintanance (someone had replaced the recommended sparkplugs with cheap autolites, which were burnt beyond recognition when we took it in for a tune up) and we are paying the price. Once the car has been running a while, when we go to make a tight turn, like out of a parking space, it feels like it is grabbing somewhere and making thunk thunk noises. It is starting to do this when we make a tight turn forwards. I think it is from the back, hubby thinks it is from the front and our mechanic thinks one of the axels needs to be replaced, but no one knows which one. Unless the car has been run a while, we can't get it to duplicate the problem at the mechanics. Hubby is out now driving all over the place before heading to the mechanics. We are supposed to be heading over to the Portland/Vancouver area for the weekend (part vacation, part money maki

Yesterday

Was definately a don't do much day. Dropped by a friends house to drop off a mirror we had and an old coffee table top that needs legs. Those are now out of my house. While there I got jealous in regards to their garden, then again, she has a very green thumb and they also have the room for a large garden. Came home with a bag of lettuce greens, some cabbage leaves and edible nasturcium leaves for salad for several days. Got some great tips from her garden-wise. Spent an hour or so at Moscow Building Supply looking for a few things, asking about paints (we need to repaint the toilet and the bathroom sink. Also figure out how to make the bathtub look nicer), checking out lumber prices for a floor to ceiling book shelf down the hallway to replace the bookcases I have stacked there. They are getting old and take up a good 1/4 of the hallway space, so are looking at 1X6s as shelving. Then wandered around Tri-State and priced out a few things we'll be needed a little later in the

Thank goodness for good friends

Hubby got his 'puter up and running on an old hard drive, managed to get a bunch of stuff backed up onto my machine. Our neighbor who happens to be a very good friend loaned us the money to get a new hard drive, so hubby has been doing that. The company that makes the new hard drive, the better business bureau and the local prosecuting attorny are going to get a rocket on Monday. The shop we bought the hard drive from refuses to give us the manual and other things that are supposed to come with the hard drive (which has been making hubby's life miserable this afternoon trying to get thrings running). They WILL sell us the stuff, but since that is supposed to come with the hard drive, that ain't gonna fly (it is a great way to screw folk out of extra money. If we could have waited to order it online, we could have gotten everything for the price we paid for just the hard drive alone. Then again, this shop has a history of screwing folk, bad management and incompetent techs

Oh dear!

Plans for this morning were to get up, have coffee, pull on some grubbies and then start hauling stuff out of the shed and off to the dump so we have some room in the shed to store stuff from the porch (like the dining room chairs we have no room for in the house which are now wrapped in plastic and duct tape for storage). Instead, hubby is in his office attempting to convince his hard drive which puked this morning to come back to life enough that he can get things backed up onto another drive. All the pics I've been taking are stored on his computer and I was working on them via the network. May have to rethink that idea and go back to having backups stored on my computer. There are some nice pics I still need to work on and put up on my gallery page. Sigh! Oh well, surf around a bit this morning and then see about braving the shed myself. I HATE going in there, there are WAY too many things with too many legs living in there and the yellow jackets have been building nests aga

ARRRGHHHHH!!!!

That's it, next year I am taking EVERY Friday off during the summer. Sitting here, looking out at the nice day and being stuck at my desk is driving me nuts. It WAYYY!!! too nice a day to be indoors. Since it is a 2 day weekend, I don't plan on doing much by way of housework. Do a little straigthening up, but I want to spend time outside. Maybe look at clearing the shed out and hauling somethings off to the dump so I have room in the shed to store a lot of what is sitting on the porch. Definately want to get out and see if I have any worms under my compost pile. I really want to get my worm bin up and running and am still having problems finding the right worms locally. I may have to break down and just buy those red wrigglers that Wally World is selling in their sports dept as fishing bait. Not sure how many are in a container, but I'd be starting with a very small amount of worms. Will work on finishing the Thursday Next novel this evening. Hubby is anxious to get his

Might As Well Dance

The piece below came thru via email, followed by the story behind the essay. I'm posting them both: Last Tuesday, The Times profiled Ann Wells of Laguna Niguel, whose 13-year-old newspaper essay about loss and cherishing each day has been reborn on the Internet. Wells, 76, penned the column a couple of years after her sister unexpectedly died, and several years before she would lose her husband. Her work somehow made its way to the Internet, where it moves by e-mail and chain letters, compliments of the forward button, and has been renamed "A Story to Live By." Wells, a retired secretary and occasional freelancer, was stunned that the essay, first published in The Times in April 1985, has been zipping through cyberspace. She doesn't even have e-mail. "I'm as surprised as anyone," Wells said. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Nov 22, 1998 -- Dear Bertha, I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting in the yard and admiring the view wi

Justice denied

As much as I loathe Martha Stewart, she is getting a raw deal by the courts. I just read that despite a government expert witness being nailed for perjuring himself during her trial and a juror who stated afterwards that he got on the jury for the sole purpose of finding her guilty, she is being refused a new trial. That is patently unfair and REALLY shows how f&%$ked up our legal system is :mad:

Women friends

This came today via email so I thought I'd share: When I was little, I use to believe in the concept of one best friend, and then I started to become a woman. And then I found out that if you allow your heart to open up, God will show you the best in many friends. One friend's best is needed when you're going through things with your man. Another friend's best is needed when you're going through things with your momma. Another when you want to shop, share, heal, hurt, joke, or just be. One friend will say let's pray together, another let's cry together, another let's fight together, another let's walk away together... One friend will meet your spiritual need, another your shoe fetish, another your love for movies, another will be with you in your season of confusion, another will be your clarifier, another the wind beneath your wings... But what ever their assignment in your life, on whatever the occasion, on

blah

Didn't get to sleep until after 1 am and I am so bagged today. Weather outside is cool and windy, the cool is a nice change for the hot we've been having, tho I wish it would rain so I don't have to water the garden all the time. It just needs a good soaking rain so the water can go deep into the soil and my garden won't dry out quite so fast. One of my tomato plants has definately bitten the big one, I didn't think it was going to make it, but I hoped. Have to figure out what I'm going to plant in that space. My new roma seedlings aren't doing too terribly well. I'm giving serious consideration to direct seeding some romas where the big boy tomatos failed, moving a couple cages on top to keep kitties out (staking up the tomatos that lost their cages) and seeing if the romas prefer that instead. I'm saving my coffee grounds in a seperate container from my kitchen scrapes. I'm going to work the grounds into the soil around my plants. Just read

No Daleks?!?!?! Say it ain't so!!!!!

They are finally bringing Dr Who back to the air, but the show will be Dalek-less! The menacing salt shakers shouting "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" were the cheesy charm that sold the show to me. I am however awaiting the show with trepidation. The statement that "the BBC was "reinventing Doctor Who for a 21st Century audience with a fantastic writing team and exciting new challenges"." has me extremely worried that the charm of the series has been destroyed by those who feel they need to fix something that ain't broken.

Whew!

Didn't realize how many pics I've taken. That's the hazards of having a digi-cam I guess hehehdehe, no worries about running out of film :D I've started my gallery page . So far I have the Market Day, flowers in my garden and the early stages of my gardens. I'll be adding pics of my garden as it goes along when I get more :)

A good weekend

It has been an enjoyable long weekend. Got a bit done, Sat I figured out where the leak in the roof may have been coming in and climbed the ladder and blackjacked the heck out of it. Should hold until we get up there with the proper materials. We want to snow coat the roof this summer. Sat I also went out to the first ever Market Day out at Mary Jane's Farm . It was great. I've some pics I'm processing and will be getting up soon. I put them up on a gallery page on my website. Finally got the cages on most of my tomatos. The rest I'll stake up. Dug up a bit along the back fence, just this side of the channel for the little streamlet. Planted some seeds for native plants. Not sure what they are called, but one has a yellow umbel and the other is white. I also sprinkled in some poppy seeds for extra color. Didn't dig up too much, I do want to keep it as natural as possible. I'm hoping the natives will seed themselves and spread out a bit back there. The idiot c

4 day weekend....MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

I'm NOT re-typing what I just lost. Suffice to say, I'm going to have nice weekend :D

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends and visitors