Monthly Archives: October 2011

October 12, 2011 · 12:05 pm

baby hedgehog

I have a Pinterest profile.  Yeah, I know.  Old news, right?

Anyway, sometimes people repin stuff that I’ve pinned there.  And it feels kind of like what it used to feel like when your tweets got favorited and you’re all “gold star for being cool!”

In other words, it’s kind of awesome when someone else takes note of something you’ve found, some gem off the interwebs, and decrees it worthy of a repin.

Except that my most repinned pin is not one of the lovely dresses I’ve posted in my scourings.  It’s not the neat robot shaped crayons.  Or the Liberty fabric rain boots.  Or the amazing vacation cottage built like a treehouse.

It’s a baby hedgehog.

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October 12, 2011 · 8:51 am

little facts

you know that game where you list three things about yourself and everyone else has to guess which one of them is a lie?

well, this game is sort of like that, but no lying.

less of a game then, really, and more of an opportunity to absorb random little snippets about maggie.

this opportunity brought to you by Rebecca, who’s orchestrated a little stampede of little facts.
Photobucket

1.  I am never sure how to answer when people ask where I’m from.  I grew up in Eastern North Carolina, from the age of 4, and lived there until I was 13.  I went to high school and college in rural, western NJ.  And I’ve been here, the SF Bay Area, the longest – almost 12 years now.

2.  I used to work with autistic kids and did one-on-one respite care with this one guy named Danny.  Danny’s family got us both season passes to Six Flags and over the summer, I took him there most weekends.  Because of his disability, we got a go-to-the-front-of-the-line pass and could get on the rides dozens of times in a single day.  Amusement parks will never be as good for me again.

3.  My lip balms always develop a significant curving slope to them.  I do not do this on purpose.  

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October 11, 2011 · 9:40 am

fat tuesday

I am too fat for my snow pants.  Again.

As a lovely example of my contrariness, when everyone else is getting all twitchy about readying their bikini bodies, I’m very busy eating a lot of cheese.  Instead, I get all worried about being winter wear ready for ski season, because of these stupid snow pants.  I refuse to buy new ones.  I will use the ones I have!

This year, I ran a half marathon at the end of March and another at the end of July.  Which seems like something that would encourage thinness, I know.  But I get all tangled and weird, using these herculean physical endeavors as excuses to have treats.  And hamburgers.

And then!  After it’s over?  Oh, THEN!  That dreamy period of sloth we call “recovery.”  You’re supposed to do it.  Take a little break after you do something so taxing!

Me?  A break?

Mmmm.  Yeah.  Ok.  That sounds delightful.  I think I need to make some popcorn to go with this recovering.

So Sir Isaac comes along and he’s all “You’re at rest!  Stay at rest!”

Next thing I know, it’s been a month since I’ve put on my sneakers.

Twice this year, then, I’ve gone through periods of it’s-ok-to-eat-too-much-cause-I’m-in-training followed by I’ll-start-exercising-again-soon-but-right-now-I’m-in-recovery.

Which means that now I’m fat again and I can’t fit into my snow pants again.  (Yeah, this happened last year, too.  Not because of the marathons.  Just because of natural proclivities for fatness.)

All of which is to say that I’m on the wagon again now and have about 20 pounds to lose before Christmas.

Hence, there should be a “fat tuesday” post every week, while I try to regain my former levels of svelte-like chubbitude that mean I will be able to fit into my size Large snow pants.  Because Large is large enough, dag nabbit.

Week 1 -3.4 pounds

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October 10, 2011 · 11:53 am

write you a letter

 

 

I just learned about a year long challenge to send out one card or letter, once a week, starting on October 9, 2011 and ending on October 7, 2012.

October 9 is apparently World Post Day.  Hooray for mail!

It’s also a Sunday, so we can’t actually make use of the post on the actual day of celebration.

 

Anyway, starting today then!  A Monday and a day in which the postal service is in full swing!

It’s 52 Weeks of Mail!
I like the interwebs as much as the next gal.  But I’ve also got a big love for paper products and ho-boy, do I love mail.  I always participated in those wacky chain letters I’m sure everyone got in our younger days.  I even sent some stranger a new pair of underwear in the mail once because of a chain letter.  I think I even got a few sent to me, as well, but not the 583 pairs I was promised for participating.

I don’t send people panties so much anymore, but I sure do like sending mail.  I’ve got a handy stack of cards at my desk at work (where my job is not related to sending letters in any capacity) just in case I have a correspondence emergency.

handy stack

So, Etsy Greetings Team, I accept your challenge!  I will send mail!

However, I do snort at you ever so politely.  You are a group of people selling cards, issuing a challenge for people to send more cards.  It’s a wee bit self serving, no?

But whatever.  We all must serve the selfs and cards are nice.  Good luck to you and to anyone else who decides to take the challenge, as well!

 

 

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October 9, 2011 · 11:16 am

redesign

I’ve had this plaguing sentiment that my blog didn’t look very nice, but wasn’t really sure how to fix it.  I knew that the prefab Ocadia theme on WordPress was part of the problem.

I really didn’t like the look of the page on top of a background.  Or the round edged colored boxes.

I knew I wanted something cleaner and better, but the gargantuan number of theme options available on WordPress, while commendable, is kind of challenging.

But then I saw a blog on the Freshly Pressed page that I liked, discovered that you can find out what theme they’re using, and then I swiped it.  Immediately, things were looking much better.

Although, this new theme comes automatically with a header with an image of some book spines.

Books are definitely nice.  I read books.  Sometimes I write about books.  But it’s not really the right header for me.

My books aren’t leather bound.  They are much more likely to have gamboling bunnies or wizards on the spines.

Thankfully, there were options to replace that image with one of your own.  I thought that I’d really like to have a collage sort of image there, so first I tried to find myself a collage making tool.

But I didn’t like that at all.

So I pulled up my boot straps and I opened PhotoShop.  After several attempts and a lot of googling for instructions on how-to, I finally got something that I liked.

And now I think that the whole thing is just much prettier.  I like looking at me at lot more now.

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October 8, 2011 · 8:37 am

boo

I can not stop cracking up over these photos from a haunted house in Canada.  There’s an entire Flickr feed, which hopefully will continue to be updated for all time because I will never get tired of these.

scared conga line bros

i REALLY wish i knew what was in that corner

a lot of scared in one place

woah my god!

booby grabber

this one is my favorite

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October 7, 2011 · 7:17 am

the sky is falling

One evening this week, I came home after some post-work socializing to an empty apartment.  This was to be expected, since the david was in Vegas for a work conference.

What was unexpected, though, was the COLOSSAL mess I found in my bathroom.  Chunks of plaster and grit and dirt and dust in piles on top of the toilet and scattered everywhere… in the tub, in the sink, resting on top of the wee pit of space created by the molding on the wall…

I stared at it.  And in retrospect, I wish I could have videotaped myself staring at this mess in the moments in between discovering it and realizing that I should look up.  Where a large chunk of ceiling was missing.

my bathroom ceiling

I did not snap a picture of the mess.  I went into autobot mode and started sweeping it up immediately.  Also, I really had to pee and the potty was buried in an archaeological dig.

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October 6, 2011 · 2:03 pm

time in the woods

We went camping!  It did not involve a tent, though, but a “tent cabin” so it was really Camping Lite.

tent cabin #15

We had a whole double bed (largely made of foam and plastic canvas covering).  We brought sheets and blankets and pillows, so it was cozy and sans sleeping bags.  And there was a little wood stove inside the cabin!  We had fire in the night time while we were sleeping!

And there was a fire pit with a grill, so there was some cooking food on open flame.  Which is obviously the #1 factor in labeling something “camping.”

best sausages ever

We also had s’mores and baked potatoes with cheddar cheese.  And during the day time whilst traipsing about in the woods, we ate turkey jerky and apples and nuts and berries.  It was very squirrel-like.  Except for the jerky.  I don’t like to think about squirrels eating turkeys.

And there were trees.  Very big redwoods, as redwoods are wont to be.

big old trees

So even though it was actually a really gorgeous weekend, we didn’t see much sky and there was ample shade.  And since I go scurrying for the nearest cover whenever exposed to direct sunlight, it was a very good spot for me.

 

We did some hiking both days that we were there, but failed to achieve our über plans.  We had sights set on a 12 mile hike on Saturday, but we got a bit of a late start to our day and then we made some errors in navigation,  like choosing to ignore a trail closure for mud slides.  So our results for the day were less epic, but still largely spent in the trees enjoying the outside time.  And Sunday’s hike mysteriously took us about an hour and a half instead of the posted 3 hours.

the david in the woods

Even still, I got sweaty and I panted going up hills and I also pointed out a lot of stuff.  I am a very good noticer.

noticing the david taking my picture

I immediately wanted to go back again, before we’d even left.  So I’d say that this scientific experiment was a success.  If properly outfitted with bratwurst and she doesn’t have to sleep on the ground, Maggie will like camping.

 

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October 3, 2011 · 2:02 pm

“one day i will have your tongue ripped out with hot pincers, and that will be hilarious”

I just finished reading A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in this epic series of books.  And even though there are still two books and so many unanswered questions left, I am just so glad to be free!  Finally!  Free from the madness of thousands upon thousands of pages.  The entirety of August and September were monopolized by this saga of a billion pseudo-medieval characters.  Characters, who George RR Martin had no qualms about viciously murdering on a regular basis.  By the end, I was all “Yeah.  You’re dead?  Right.  Who’s next?  Whatever.  You’ll probably just end up being a zombie anyway.”

I’ve so over glutted on these books I can’t even form an opinion about whether or not I liked them.  They were addictive, that’s for sure.  I absolutely could not stop.  I read into the night.  I read first thing in the morning, before I could spur myself out of bed.  I read while walking through downtown San Francisco to get to work.

There’s a tv show of the first book that I’d love to watch, but it’s on one of those fancy channels.

So in the interim between now and the availability on Netflix, I will make do with these fancy illustrations from the Fire and Ice wikipedia:

Probably these images can really help you to visualize just how awesome the awesomeness is.

 

 

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