Turn Off TV Week

Gardening...Or Not.

Jason dumps his coffee grinds on the rose bushes. My mother did recommend this, and it does appear to make the roses happy – or at least the roses are growing and whether this is due to Jason’s coffee or other reasons is unclear. However, Jason has declared this an ACT OF GARDENING. I argue that it is merely recycling coffee grounds and possibly in a stretch composting (no, not really) but hardly gardening. I mean, he doesn’t even leave the porch! He just leans out the door and pours. So readers, what do you think? Is Jason gardening? Please share your opinion and settle this issue for us.

Nora Today

Nora has been suffering from a cold, so we are suffering too. From lack of sleep. From mucus explosions. From grouchy outbursts. From nap boycotts. But then she smiles and it's sunshine again. She'll be 16 months on Sunday and really even the not so good days are still pretty wonderful.

Kitchen Redux

As I mentioned below, we moved around the kitchen last weekend - and it seems like we have lots more space. The pottery wheel/island was in front of the stove and the pantry shelves were split up. One was on the wall next to the sink and the other where the fridge is now. Next to the fridge is a little vintage cabinet. For the most part, I've loved living in the old city houses despite the sometimes cramped quarters and outdated kitchens, because, I can actually move them around and reconfigure them in different ways. My favorite kitchen was in the little shotgun house on Missouri. It had an old iron sink with built in drainboard and only built in cabinets above and below the sink, sort of like the more modern version in our house now. Also like in the kitchen now, that one had the built in butlers pantry with glass fronted doors. That pantry and the entire kitchen was half again the size of our current one and despite the bad paint job (why do so many landlords go though that sponge paint stage?) it was my all time favorite kitchen due to the abundance of light and the lack of built in cabinets. Our current kitchen was not the draw for me when we took this apartment, but increasingly, its growing on me.

Zoo Visit

Curtain

Moving Furniture

There's something about spring that always makes me want to take on a big project like painting or redecorating, when really what I need to do is spring cleaning. These past two weekends, I've tormented Jason into moving around furniture in the front room and kitchen. Somehow, we managed to do it with Nora in tow and without dropping furniture on any of us or breaking anything. And, it has forced us to vacuum behind things and dust, so some cleaning has actually been done. I'll post pictures later, but now Nora has a much more difficult time reaching the TV/DVD/VCR and the kitchen has a little bit more room. I should have done a video panning the rooms before so those of you far away could compare better the before and after, but it's too late now - we're not moving anything back!

Now if only I could convince Jason that we need to paint all the furniture in the bedroom...

One of those weeks...

So I've been trying all day to upload some video, and for some reason google video isn't playing nice right now, so I have no video to share with you, but I promise you it would have been really cool. I really shouldn't be surprised, nothing this week is going as smoothly as it should, but that's the way it sometimes is.

It's sort of been odd downtown today. The NRA, with its billboards for Acres of Guns, is visiting our fair city. It's the largest convention since the Red Hat Ladies and possibly just as visible. Everywhere there have been NRA hats, badges and vests. It also seems that security is much higher - which is sort of odd, since that is one of their selling points. I don't know if I feel more or less secure on my way back to the parking lot which is right next to the convention center.

So if anyone needs an automatic weapon, come on down...

Guest Rant: On the purchase of Girl Scout Cookies

A friend of mine calls to see if I want to buy Girl
Scout cookies from Andrea (her 9 year old). I tell
her that I would be happy to buy cookies from Andrea,
when Andrea calls me herself and asks. Last time I
checked, my friend is WAY past GS age. Of course, I
am the horrible witch that expects 9 year olds to call
me directly when they have something to sell me.
Seems like that's one of the points of selling GS
cookies--learning responsibility, etc. Isn't that
even mentioned in the GS promise or something? So,
later Andrea calls me back and I ask what the flavors
are. Her mother yells them to me from the background.
I then ask Andrea to please read them to me from her
order form, which she is more than happy to do. I
give her my order and tell her to call me when they
arrive. I know from past years that Andrea's mother
(and many other mothers) simply buy the GS cookies in
bulk themselves and then personally distribute them to
friends/neighbors/etc. without having the GS herself
do anything at all!! Naturally, this appalls me and I
will only purchase from the GS herself. I also expect
the GS (not her mother) to call me when they arrive.
The mothers laugh at me and give the impression that
they think that my demands are over the top, but they
humor me by having their daughters assume this minute
amount of responsibility for the cookie selling. Oh
well, I feel that in some small way I am attempting to
ensure that the youth of today learn to accept responsibility.

Today's Guest Rant is brought to us by my cousin Laura, an ex-Girl Scout. We share a love for Girl Scout cookies and a belief that it is best to buy them from the Girl Scout, herself. Thank you Laura, for Guest Ranting on my blog. This is a first in a series of Guest Rants, if you have a rant to share, please feel free to submit me to it. I reserve the right to only share guest rants that 1. I agree with 2. find very funny or 3. all of the above.

For a history of girl scout cookies and a listing of the life skills their selling is supposed to support, visit here.


Most Favorite Cookie, the Peanut Butter Sandwich, previously called the Tagalong.



2nd Favorite GS Cookie - the Thin Mint


What's your favorite and do you believe that Girl Scouts should sell their own cookies?

Joust

It's a cold and dreary day here, so I thought I'd give you a picture of Nora to cheer you up. Here she's clearly considering the benefits of jousting on rockets instead of horses. That's my 21st century girl.

Bridge 87

Dad and Jack just returned from their visit down south this weekend. They re-visited parts of some trips that Jason and I did with Mom and Dad two winters ago and also during the time we lived in Arkansas, checking out Oxford, MS and parts of southeast Arkansas around McGee. But this time the two of them were also searching for some places where they spent a summer while their Dad, my grandfather, was working on Bridge 87 near Watson, AR. They never did get to the bridge - the spring rain had left the old road impassable. But later at the hotel in Jonesburo, Dad was looking through the 2007 Arkansas State Parks guide and he found it. I'm happy to report that the bridge will be preserved as part of a new rails to trails project - the new Delta Heritage Trail State Park. Arkansas has some of the best state parks in the nation, and I'm pleased as punch that this bridge will now be part of one of them.

New Nickel?

I think I remember hearing something about a new nickel a few years back in conjunction with the Lewis and Clark commemoration. But apparently, I wasn't really paying attention, because we've got lots of new nickels, which I discovered when I pulled one out of my pocket didn't recognize it as our nation's currency.

I don't think I like this 2006 Jefferson as much as the 2005 Jefferson.
What do you think, Dear Readers? Which Jefferson is your favorite?