Button pusher

What remote button are you?

This description is 100% wrong. I'm the exact opposite of every one of the above statements!

Maybe

Husband hates his job. He has hopes and dreams that he's been trying with every fiber of his being to pursue, but the economy hasn't been very cooperative lately. So he continues to go to a soul-suckingly uninspiring job every day, never losing hope that something better will one day come along.

A couple of months ago Husband applied for a job that was more in sync with his life goals. It was for a well respected, major international corporation. The only drawback was that it was in a different province. But Husband applied anyway. He applied on a whim, really, thinking they probably wouldn't even contact him.

Last Tuesday they contacted him! They wanted him to come for an interview on Thursday!

At first Husband planned to drive to the interview, figuring it would take him about 8 hours (and then 8 hours back!). I nagged at him for almost two days, reminding him that we live in Canada, that he would be driving through the mountains, and that it is still winter here. The roads could be unsafe or closed. He could get delayed by a storm and miss his interview entirely. It took some work, but I finally convinced him to fly instead.

He left here around noon on Thursday, met with the recruiters, and flew back on Thursday evening. He was really excited when he got home and it sounds like the interview went well. Apparently they had dozens of applicants and they interviewed only 5 (one of which was Husband). They'll let Husband know one way or the other by the end of this week.

So now we wait.

There's a very real possibility that by the end of this week we will have to decide if we want to sell our house, quit our jobs, and move to another province to start a new life.

I'm excited ... and terrified.

The power of beauty

What's your name's power?

Earth hour

We're getting ready to turn off the lights for Earth hour. The only thing more pathetic than me sitting home on a Saturday night is me sitting home on a Saturday night in the dark!

Seriously though, we're popping popcorn and lighting candles and we plan to spend the next hour playing board games by candlelight.

Have a great evening.

Filled with birthday goodness

I had a birthday this week. When you get as long in the tooth as I am, you don't really expect people to make a big fuss on your birthday. After all, I've done this little dance many times before.

But Husband and Child decided to make a bit of a fuss anyway (man, I love those two). The morning of my birthday they presented me with not one, but four gifts to open! I felt totally spoiled.

Here's what those sweeties gave me:


A Flip Video Camera (an orange one). This little guy is small enough to fit in my purse, it has no tapes to fuss with, it'll take up to 1 hour of footage, and it's uber-simple to upload the videos to my computer. This gadget geek is in heaven!!

Watch for some shaky, mundane, made-by-me videos coming to this blog soon.


A nifty cowgirl wallet. The snap finally fell off my all-time favorite wallet (it was a lovely pink silk embroidered one that Santa gave me one year), so I desperately needed a new one. This funky wallet is so cool! It reminds me of an old-timey cigarette case.


A reproduction of the original 1959 Barbie. I know I'm now probably what some would consider "middle-aged", but I've wanted one of the classy original Barbies since I was a little girl (they were expensive collector's items even then).

I guess now I'll have to stop accusing Husband of never listening to me — because he definitely heard me when I talked about Barbie!


The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I quite liked The Tipping Point and just recently finished Blink, which was fantastic, so I'm looking forward to reading this newest book by Malcolm Gladwell.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Husband and Child. I love you guys.

If you'll excuse me now, I have some serious shopping to do ... because Husband and Child both have birthdays coming up in the next couple of months!

Flashback Friday: Oops!

I'm participating in Flashback Friday!

Flashback to June 2008...

We have a clematis in our backyard that has got to be the hardiest plant on earth. No matter what happens to it, it will not die. Which is good, considering Husband and I have totally brown thumbs.

The year we planted the clematis, we got frost two days later. The plant didn't even notice.

Another year, Husband accidentally weed wacked it. It grew back fuller and more beautiful than ever.

The clematis is absolutely breathtaking in the summer. It climbs from the lawn, up the side of our raised deck, and then the purple flowers spill onto the floor of the deck. This year Husband decided to put in some extra bits of lattice along the deck railing so the clematis will keep climbing higher instead of spilling. But first he had to clear away some of last year's dried growth.

When Husband started to pull away the dried junk, he found a little bird's nest with an egg in it nestled among the leaves! He quickly stopped what he was doing and left it alone.

Hopefully he didn't disturb it too much so the birds get scared away.





(This is repost from June 2008. The eggs did hatch and we had happy little baby birds in our back yard for a few weeks.)

Happy birthday to me!

What does your birthday predict about you?

Exciting things are afoot at the Circle K!

I'll fill you in on the deets later.

Bonus points if you can tell me what movie inspired the title of this post (I know it's a paraphrase and not a direct quote, but close enough.)

Thought for the day

I knew it

In a delightful new study, which will be published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, psychologist Jackie Andrade of the University of Plymouth in southern England showed that doodlers actually remember more than nondoodlers when asked to retain tediously delivered information, like, say, during a boring meeting or a lecture. Read all about it.
(via: Neatorama)

I've been experimenting a little more with my doodling lately. This is a whimsical doodle of some flowers I did with a Sharpie on a page from an old dictionary. I then added some hand stitching with embroidery floss. (click on the pic to enlarge it)

Thought for the day

Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep. ~ Carl Sandburg

Today's horoscope

You may be mentally running into walls as your best ideas just don't seem quite good enough today. But it's not just in the real world where you feel blocked. You may be stuck -- even in your dreams. Instead of trying to force a breakthrough within your imagination, talk about your internal resistance with a co-worker. Change may not happen right away, but you should see positive results in a day or two.

This is me right now. I feel STUCK and I'm running into walls. Something's gotta give.

Flashback Friday: a flock of seagulls

I'm participating in Flashback Friday!

Flashback to January 12, 2007...

We were on our way to spend the day at Legoland and we stopped for a bit at a beautiful beachy spot along the highway to stretch our legs and take some photos of the Pacific Ocean. We were surprised when we stepped out of the car and were immediately surrounded by a huge flock of swooping seagulls. It was the first time we had ever seen seagulls in their natural habitat — and not in a McDonald's parking lot!

Child spotted a man a little way down the beach feeding the birds, so she quickly grabbed her snack crackers from the car, intending to do the same. As soon as the seagulls spotted her yummy offering, they clamored to become her new best friends. Child loved it. She held crackers in the air so the gulls could glide over her head and snatch them from her fingers.

Amazingly, even though Child and Husband and I stood amidst the seagulls for quite awhile, Husband was the only one who got pooped on (and even then it was only a tiny little spatter)!

Now, whenever we talk about travelling to California again, Child's main concern isn't whether we'll visit Disneyland, Seaworld, or any other amusement parks. She always asks if we can go back to the beach to feed the seagulls!

Obscene phone calls

Me: Hello?

Husband: I'm sorry about the meat.

Me: Pardon me?

Husband: I just wanted to apologize for the steak in your lunch today. I ate mine and it wasn't very good.

Me: You called about your meat?

Husband: Ya, I guess I did.

***************

Me: Hello?

Husband: This time I'm calling about your box.

Me: Excuse me?

Husband: I'm at Michael's and I couldn't remember what kind of box you wanted for your photos.

Me: First you called about your meat, and now you're calling about my box?

Husband: Yep.

It's scary how ME this is

What street sign are you?

ROFL!

What internet slang are you?

Oh my god, that's so shocking! Are you shocked too? I bet you are. I love that!

Don't be fooled

How many TV shows can you name in 2 minutes?

My low(ish) score doesn't mean I don't watch a ton of TV, it just means I don't think very well under pressure.

(via: Miss Cellania)

Doodle time

I've been experimenting again by adding stitching to one of the doodles in my moleskine. I think I might be improving.

Flashback Friday: snow

I'm participating in Flashback Friday!

These pics* are of my awesome wonderful Child, of course. Wasn't she the cutest (what you can see of her, anyway)? I forgot she had such a rockin' little snowsuit.



The second photo, of Child laying in the snow, always reminds me of A Christmas Story when the little brother fell down in a snowbank. He was bundled up in so many winter clothes he couldn't get up. The narrator deadpanned, "Randy lay there like a slug. It was his only defense."

* As you can no doubt tell, this is a page from one of my scrapbooks. When Child was a baby I decided I wanted to give scrapbooking a try. I really enjoyed it, but after my initial burst of creative energy (I filled 3 scrapbook binders) I never actually scrapbooked again.

Thursday thirteen: 13 things I hate about "springing forward"

(image credit: Natmandu)

I decided to try doing a Thursday 13 this week.

Daylight saving time (DST) begins this weekend. I despise the whole time change thing! Why?

1. I lose an hour!

2. For the first few days of DST I wake up ravenous, and I'm hungry an hour before scheduled meals.

3. On the Sunday evening after the time change, I'm not tired yet when I try to go to sleep at my regular bedtime.

4. On the first Monday morning of DST, I can barely drag myself out of bed. My body knows it's really only 5:00 AM, not 6:00 AM like the lying clock says it is!

5. I feel jetlagged for about a week after the time changes.

6. I have to re-learn how to reset the stupid clock in my car. Every. Single. Time.

7. We always forget to reset at least one clock in our house. Why do we have so many damn clocks???

8. It's tough trying to get Child adjusted. It's a bit easier now that she's older and understands the concept of time, but it was incredibly difficult when she was small.

9. As far as I can tell, it doesn't actually "save" daylight. It just shifts whether I see more of it at the beginning of my day or at the end of it.

10. It causes stupid things like this to happen.

11. It's just plain confusing. If I want to eat breakfast at 5:00, I will. Don't force me to call it 6:00. I know the difference.

12. I wonder if there's actually a point to all this time-shifting. I keep reading that there is little evidence to prove that DST actually saves energy. Plus, they don't do the DST thing in Saskatchewan, Arizona and Hawaii and they seem perfectly happy.

13. I will complain about my freakin' lost hour from now until November when I get it back!

Mini me

Child has been drawing cool little comic versions of all her friends. This is her drawing of me ... mini-mized!

We the children

I came across this commercial from the year Child was born (has it been that long?!?). After all these years I still think it's really cool.


We The Children

No pets allowed

Husband: Mommy's not allowed to have pets anymore. Her bunny turned wild ... her fish died ...

Child: Poor Mommy.

Husband: ... her pet rock ran away ...

Wanted: stacked rocket scientist

I found the sweetest list on Listable, entitled Qualities I am Looking for in an Ideal Girl. The guy who wrote it wants a girl who has such qualities as:

Smart
Funny
Nice
Cute
Worldly
Speaks a foreign language
Not too loud
Ticklish
Curly blonde hair
Blue Eyes
Good vision
Disarming personality
Nice teeth
Good handwriting that isn't too loopy
Willing to learn Esperanto with me so we can use it as a secret language
Likes my friends
Tall
Likes the snow
Not gullible
Has a good job that helps people
Ambitious but not overly so
Watches some TV but not too much
Reads regularly
Appreciates silence
Sexually adventurous
Good cook
Not pretentious
Smells nice
Cute feet
Willing to leave the house without make-up
Doesn't let me get away with too much bullshit
Would like to move to China for a few years
Easy to be around
Tolerant
Nice laugh

Awwwwwwwww! He sounds wonderful, doesn't he? If I weren't married, I might even want to meet this guy. I don't even have a problem with him putting "Sexually adventurous" on the list. Good for him!

But there are a couple of points that were buried in the middle of his list that bug the hell out of me:

Big breasts
Occasional marijuana user

He lists "Big breasts" right after "Good handwriting that isn't too loopy." I have to wonder, are they ranked in order of importance? Because "Occasional marijuana user" is immediately after "Not gullible" and right before "Educated."

So, what it all boils down to is that this guy wants a girl who is smart, cute, funny, has a great personality, and has big breasts.

Good luck with that.

Nerd humor

I LOL'd like a hyena when I saw this video. Husband just shook his head and muttered, "Nerd humor."

The geek calling me a nerd? Hello kettle, it's the pot calling. You're black!