Am I blue

blue lamp 2


Am biting everybody's head off this afternoon. I need a nap. The above picture is an iridescent lamp shade that I received as a gift. The blue part in the background are my drapes. The lamp shade is cellophane.

Since my niece has moved out, I plan to regain control over my basement. One side is a fireplace/t.v. room/ sofa area with a full bar. I have asked for beer lights/signs. I have a lot of stuff to put up. The other side of my basement is where my niece was, but I am thinking of turning it into my own art/craft area. Creativity abounds. However, my daughter wants a pool table. We'll see. Can I wait another four to five years for the art/craft area? Probably.

And, ergo; stress, worry, and pressure creates a headache. I feel like I am moving in slow motion. Zombacized.

Daisyloo wanted to party

daisyloo


This is Daisyloo. She stood just off the patio (most of the time the rain was pouring down on her) and I think she wanted a beer. But, we never gaver her one. She just kept smiling. We laughed at her and we admired her. She never said a word. She never complained about the music being too loud and she never had to go to the bathroom. Not once!

We think Daisyloo makes a great party guest.

Sun spray through the trees

sun spray


This picture is from the Atwood dam on Wednesday. I lost a day somewhere this week. I am not sure which day I blocked out, but it must have been a very hot one. I think it may have been Monday. That is the day that I bit someone's head off.

I hate that. I get hot, irritated and frustrated. They ask me a "why" question and I just go off on them. "Why does this equipment keep doing this?"

Me: "If I knew the answer to that, I would fix it! Do you think I enjoy coming out here in 90 degree heat and sitting here? When I have a lovely air conditioned office I could be sitting in?"

Oh, there was a lot more to it, and they didn't deserve it. I must apologize to them the next time I see them. But, that could be weeks or months, depending on when the equipment decides to flake out again.

To quote a line from the Berenstein Bear books "Lizzy, Lizzy in a tizzy!" My name isn't Lizzy, but I was sure in a tizzy. Supposedly the word "tizzy" refers to an old time radio character named Tizzy Lish who was always in an agitated state. Some people twist it and say "Lizzie Tish."

Sigh, breathe, calm down. Cool down. And this too, shall pass.

My lunchroom

picnic table


Well, just for today. I was working next to Atwood Lake. I grew very hot and tired sitting in the stifling wiring closet. I headed out to the open air. There is a small dairy bar near the entrance to the Lake/campsite. I grabbed a good old American hot dog and a Pepsi.

Even the outside air was a relief from the intense heat inside the building.

After the hot dog, I headed a quarter mile on down the road to the dam. I regained some of the pictures I lost last fall. A father/son or grandfather/grandson was fishing on one side of the little park, and I didn't want to disturb them so I focused my picture taking to the other side.

The lake was beautiful, calm and peaceful. I do so love this state.

Take a closer look

moonflower upclose


Getting a little closer look at my moonflower. The bloom only lasts one night, but there are many, many on the plant. I have one entire side of my house (the west side) blooming with this delicious, sweet smelling flower.

My daughter goes to Kings Island with her friend and their family tomorrow. I hope she enjoys herself. She and her good friend do not like rides. Neither one ever did. They may spend their time on the water park side. I'll make sure she packs her sunscreen.

While browsing my news sites, I came across an article about certain states having a tax-free day for sales. What is this? I am starting my letter to my state representatives as soon as I finish this blog. Although, Pennsylvania is tax-free on clothing. If I feel up to it, I may drive my daughter there for some school shopping. But, what I save in tax, I will spend in fuel. So, maybe not.

Here is an interesting site that lists taxes by state. Rhode Island comes in with the highest gasoline tax at .31 cents per gallon, and Georgia comes in with the lowest at 7.5 cents per gallon. Yowza!

Don't start smoking if you live in Rhode Island or New Jersey. Not only did RI have the highest tax per gallon of gasoline they have a whopping $2.40 tax per 20/pack of cigarettes. NJ was the same. Cheapest cigarette tax was found in North Carolina at .05 cents and SC at .07 cents. I don't know why my sis goes to WV to purchase her cigs, the tax is the same as Ohio at .55 cents per pack. I don't smoke. I can't stand second-hand smoke.

It is also an interesting site to see what states determine to be tax exempt. My state does exempt food, and prescription drugs. I'll never forget when I went to Yellow Stone National Park. We flew into Montana. I think it was Billings? I bought a pair of sunglasses and there was no sales tax. A new experience for me.

Well, I'm off to Staples to purchase a new USB cable with a mini B port for my daughter's Zen. We lost her other one. She wants to download music to her mp3 player for the trip tomorrow. Cheerio!

Moonflowers blooming

two moonflowers


After the torrential rains last week, my moonflowers did some blooming. Here are two of them from one evening this past week-end. Their fragrance is very romantic.

The only other romantic evening flower smell that I recall, was in Flordia when I caught a whiff of the orange blossoms. Sweet!

Fire in the sky

sky fire


The sky over my neighbor's treeline this evening was spectacular. If I had more time, I would have taken a drive to my grocery store where there are less power lines. I get a really good view of the western sky there.

My moonflowers were blooming away, also. More pics of them can be found here.

Still many beautiful scenes and scents expressing the summer.

Tubular!

tube1


It all happened so fast, I barely had time to grab my camera. A huge thunderstorm hit my town early this morning. My daughter was taking our dog outside and lightning hit so close to her she nearly jumped out of her skin. She came rushing in to tell me that there was a cyclone or microburst.

I grabbed my camera and headed for the front porch.



The pictures are blurry, but I figure that was because I was barely awake and probably shaking from the intensity of the storm.



I could make out just the outline of it through the tree break in my neighbor's yard. This is the area where I get most of the pink for my sunsets. The object would appear to get closer and then retreat. I couldn't see any lights.



It didn't stick around long. And, I didn't really like being outside in my robe.

What was it? Or, what is it?

........

........

My bad. It was a pine needle hanging from my front porch on a spider web. Okay. What can I do? My sister cancelled on me today. She was bringing her pre-schoolers down for a lunch/picnic at our town park. People come from miles around to visit our park. It is quite nice. Since it was such lousy weather, she was forced to cancel. And, I am forced to relax and goof off for the day since I took a vacation day from work. Ahh, the life!

A meme from Tabor

eyes


Here is a meme that came from Tabor's site:


1. What are the three stupidest things you’ve ever done in your life?

i. Imbibe in alcohol

ii. Not continue my education

iii. Enabled losers


2. At the current moment, who has the most influence on your life?

My daughter, of course.


3. If you were given a time machine that functioned, and you were allowed to pick up to five people to dine with, who would you pick?

i. Jesus Christ (the man that was)

ii. My daughter in the future about fifteen years

iii. My maternal grandmother

iv. Benjamin Franklin

v. Jules Verne (with a translator)


4. If you had three wishes that were not supernatural, what would they be?

i. More wisdom in life

ii. Job security

iii. To write a book that would change people's lives for the better


5. Someone is visiting your hometown/place where you live at the moment. Name two things you regret not having in your city, and two things people should avoid.

i. A nice art museum

ii. A Japanese Steakhouse

Avoid:

i. Wal-Mart

ii. The Flea Market


6. Name one event that changed your life?

Becoming a parent.

Twirly

blue twirl


I chose the kaleidoscope option for the picture above. It came from the one below.

twirl blue


Tired, getting over a migraine. Mentally, I can't think straight enough to write anything worthwhile.

I wanna go back

girl


When we dropped my daughter's boyfriend off at his house, his little sister was sitting on the porch steps. I couldn't resist taking a photograph of her.

Turn back the clock to when my daughter was that age. Sigh.

Coming from the speakers: I Wanna Go Back by Eddie Money

We are family

family


I am the one in the middle. This was taken in 1993. My father passed away in 1976 so he is not in the photograph. My Mom was a tiny thing. She weighed less than eighty pounds when she passed away in 2000. On my father's side we are Austrian. On my Mother's side, Irish, Scottish and English. To the best of our knowledge. My eldest brother - top right, did all the leg work on the geneology. I would like to pick up where he left off and run with it. Time, time.

We are extremely blessed.

Coming from the speakers: We Are Family by Sister Sledge.

Kaleidoscope burst

gold burst


The couple of times I have had to re-build my computer I get Paint Shop Pro for sixty days. I am wondering if I can just remove it after 59 days and re-load it. Might work. I was having fun with it this evening, and from a sunset on the lake created the kaleidoscope above.

golden sunset


It came from the above sunset picture above. If I only had more time to play with them. But, after chores, I am just too beat.

I was awaken at 2:22 a.m. last night by my cell phone ringing. I looked at the number and did not recognize it. I "googled" the number and I came up with a blank. Possibly the number is unlisted.

I was explaining to my sister how to "google" a phone number. If your caller i.d. pulls up a number, but you don't recognize it, just punch it into the Google search bar and if it is listed anywhere in a public phone book, you can get a result as to who it is and where they live.

Here is an example. I pulled this number/name randomly.

I punched in the number 212-784-9846. No parenthesis, just dashes. Here is the result:

Heather Hunter, (212) 784-9846, 1 West St, New York, NY 10004

While speaking to my sister, I googled her number. She is listed, so it appeared with the address. Just goofing off, I began to advance one number at a time. Her ending number is 4080, so I punched in 4081. Nothing. Next one was a name I didn't know, 4083 brought nothing, as did 4084. But, 4085 brought up our nephew! How weird is that?!!! We didn't even know he had obtained his own phone number! His Mom and Dad divorced and he lives with his Dad. His Dad must have done away with his telephone and my nephew got one for the house. Just five numbers higher than my other sister. The prefixes are the same, but they live about ten miles apart. It just weirded me out.

Now, this isn't fool-proof. My phone number that we had when we were growing up was in place for over thirty years. It still appeard in Google for an entire year after my Mom passed away. It has since been assigned to someone else, and they get calls for my wayward sister. Probably bill collectors and old boyfriends. The person who has my Mom's old number works with my other sister. I have way too many sisters. I would sort them into the letters to the beginning of their first names, but three start with S. Except for me and my eldest sister. That is five girls. Three boys. I suppose I could do it this way.

Eldest brother = Pa
Eldest sister = Na
Next sister = Sh
Next brother = Gr
Next sister = Ba (nickname, she is also a Sh)
Next sister = Sa
Next brother = Br
Me = Me That is too funny. Me = me. I never realized that before. I am way too tired to be writing in this blog. I must retire.

Coming from the speakers: auf Wiedersehen So Long, Farewell from The Sound of Music

Half way there?

solar tree


Solar Power. I should have remembered not to drive through the main square in town on a Friday. Holy cow, the traffic! And, the local businesses were holding sidewalk sales. There were people everywhere.

As I sat at the red light a little longer than usual, I looked around at the square. I always liked our town square. The city did a nice job of making it look nice. Two young boys were proudly standing by their display.

There was no sign to say if they were with the local boy scouts or any such organization. They wore no uniforms. One sign read "solar power". Next to that was a huge solar panel tilted to face the beautiful sun beating down on the town square. A couple feet next to that panel was a small water fountain. Very small. But the little fountain was pumping away with it's little spout of water.

I thought to myself. 'Okay. Good job. They were young. They were out there demonstrating solar power. Did they understand what they were representing? Did they fully understand the limitations we were facing on fossil fuels, and what choices we have for our future power sources?'

I soon got my answer. It was a long light. I noticed one boy pointing to something in the intersection and tapping the other boy on the shoulder. They started talking excitedly between themselves, looking and pointing. I followed their gaze to see what they were looking at. Sigh. Yes, I got my answer. Pulling up to the light in all it's shining glory was the young boy's dream vehicle. The Hummer.

I did my homework. The SUV is better than some, worse than others. In the mpg range.I guess boys will always like the muscle cars. And, some girls, too.

Coming from the speakers: Living On A Prayer by Bon Jovi.

We are all just dollar signs

bar mill


Growing up in the Ohio Valley most of our fathers, brothers, brother-in-laws, husbands, father-in-laws, and friends work or worked in the steel mills. They managed to escape the hard life of working in the coal mine and moved up to working in the hot furnaces of the steel mills.

The economy bottomed out and a lot of men and women lost their jobs. Those that did manage to keep their jobs or were mercifully called back to work, put up with the constant yo-yo-ing of the job market. Rumors of the mill(s) closing circulated on a regular basis every other year or so. Leaving families, providers and all the rest wondering if they were going to have a job next month. The unemployment line became a familiar fact for a lot of people.

I realize that this did not happen only in the U.S. (As can be seen in one of my favorite movies The Full Monty - where a lot of mill workers lost their jobs in Great Britain).

After reading this paragraph in the Sunday paper, I begin to realize what is happening to us. Maybe I am naive and a little slow to catch on, but this really made me gnash my teeth.

Here is a paragraph about a local steel mill being sold to some Mexican-based company:

Bradford sees nothing ominous in the deal. "The previous owner had it for a year and a half, which is about right for a financial investor," he said. "You want to maximize your return, fix it up, get it profitable - and run."
Perry "doesn't want to run a steel business," Bradford said. "He wants to make money, that is why he's an investor."

As Bob Seger would say. "I'm not a number! Damnit, I'm a man!"

Man on the sun

running man


Here we go. Instead of Man on the moon or man in the moon, how about a man running on the sun? And, how do they know it's a man? Maybe it is a woman.
Anyway, you can read more about it here.

Evening Scents

my moonflower


My moonflowers are blooming. This is last years' picture, but they look the same. I just don't seem to have as many this year, because of the dry weather. I didn't water. Between migraines I was finally able to get out and mow some of the jungle outside this evening. That is, until a bumblebee stung me. I have not been stung in years. It is nice to know that I am not allergic.

It got stuck inside my shirt, and I hopped around looking like an idiot. I almost tore my shirt off outside, but my senses got the better of me. I tried to go back out after five minutes, but there were about five buzzing around my back porch. Sigh. The jungle grass is going to have to wait a little bit longer. I was making good progress, too. Darn bees!

Daughter's incision is feeling better. She still has a little soreness in her shoulder/arm area. She finishes up her punishment today. I told her she is on thin ice with me. No more slip ups. I wanted to send her to the Y.M.C.A. teen camp for the remainder of the summer, but I just cannot swing the $100 per week. That would get her out of the house from 8 to 5 during the day. She is bored and the only thing in town to do is the teen park place from 5 to 10 each evening. They won't let you pay by the day. Week by week only. Grrrr. Maybe I can swing every other week until school starts.

I am not real comfortable with that park teen place, because teen means thirteen to nineteen year olds. I don't care for nineteen year old boys hanging around my daughter and her friends. As my therapist says, "They should be doing stuff with other nineteen-year-olds. She thinks they are possibly social outcasts that didn't fit in with their own age group, and never grew up." My niece is 18 and she wouldn't dream of being caught there with the 'little kids.'

Visions of Elton

myra


One of my dinner partners this evening. What a charmer.

Here she is last summer.

My daughter and I went to see "The Longest Yard" with Adam Sandler. I don't know. Will Burt Reynolds ever get over himself? My daughter confused William Fichtner with Paul Bettany. I can see the resemblance. In this movie, William was more clean shaven and blonder than usual. But we are talking a difference of 15 years here.

I am not sure that I saw the original movie. I never cared for Burt and I am not a football fan. Well, maybe - sometimes. I would hardly call myself a fan, though. Which stems from the word fanatic. I certainly am not that.

I just looked over the entire list of movies that Burt did, and I have to admit. Not one did I like. I may have liked Mad Dog Time just a smidgeon. And, I do mean smidgeon.

And, Cloris Leachman - naughty, naughty.

Coming from the speakers: Honky Cat by Sir Elton John.

Meow

as a cat


Here is my daughter dressed in a bit of CATS make-up before the show about three years ago. Maybe it was four years ago. I don't recall. It was in Cleveland.

My daughter awoke me at about 2 a.m. The incision hurt more than before. This is her fifth one, so I guess she should know. Maybe the doctor cut a muscle this time. She did mention that my daughter was rather fit during the surgery. Which I guess meant she didn't have much fat on her back.

I pulled out the 500 mg Tylenol and gave her two with milk. I scratched her head until she fell back asleep. At 3 a.m. one of my cats knocked a glass over in the kitchen sink. I jumped straight up off the couch and of course woke my daughter back up.

By that time the pain had abated and we could go back to bed. I took the day off to stay with her. She is doing much better, but I worry that a muscle has been nicked. The pain radiated through her shoulder and upper arm.

Wearing my nurse/Mommy hat today.

Jester on the sidelines

jester


My daughter in one of her sillier moods. Taken about eight months ago.

Which wasn't the case last night. It was more like nightmare on Elm street. Much fighting over her restrictions.

And today, after our two month sabbatical, we had another mole removed. Again the scalpel, not the punch-out tool. Or whatever they call it. At work we use a punch-down tool for the telephone lines and that is the only punch-whatever tool I can think of in my exhausted state.

We made the mistake and went school shopping too early before the doctor appointment. We were exhausted. We were gone for over eight hours. A small pit stop at Starbucks did help, but my daughter became very tired and agitated after the mole removal. It didn't help her that she was in the middle of a six-day punishment. She is sad and lonely. She misses her friends, her computer, the telephone and her boyfriend. It was very hard to watch her cry on the way home.

The needle numbing is the most painful part. And, she looked this time when they removed the snail-sized piece of skin off her back. The doctor told her not to look, that it would be over soon. But, she looked and I looked. I used to get queasy. Once I worked for a veterinarian and they brought in a dog that had been hit by a car. I almost passed out. I was seventeen at the time. I have avoided any blood, guts and bones since then. I can't watch movies with that in it. One time in school we were watching a movie and they showed a guy with his bone sticking up out of his arm and I winced. I will never forget it. That stuff really bothers me.

Tomorrow at eight p.m. she gets the computer and her telphone back. She still cannot have friends over or visit anywhere without me for the next three days. She is upset (which is expected).

She came home and played with the dog. I told her to take it easy. The numbing should wear off in an hour or so. Then the pain and soreness sets in. Eight inside stiches and eight on the outside.

Hopefully, just two more moles after this one. And, hopefully the doctor won't need to re-open one up.

Sigh. I , too, am tired. Exhausted. Spent. Emotionally, physically and monetarily. Whew. School shopping. They have Christmas clubs, maybe we should start up school shopping clubs. Yuk, yuk, yuk.

Coming from the speakers: American Pie by Don McLean