Stinky

Pepper is so stinky. I swear, she had toxic farts this weekend! I was almost going to call the Vet today because I thought certainly there must be something wrong with her!! Then, last night, she jumped up on the couch and when I looked at her, she had this hanging in her whiskers;

It's the wing off of a Cicada. Which means of course, she's eating them! In case you don't know what a Cicada is;

We have an abundance of them this year. Apparently, they are very tasty if you happen to be a dog. 

No wonder her farts are so stinky! Ick.

I love this so much!!

I tried and tried to find the image that I could post but it always came out too small - so click on this link;
IT'S SO AWESOME! You know why??? It's ME!!!! I especially love the hamster ball reference. I tell people, get out of my bubble, you're in my space, and if you're close enough for me to head butt you, you're too close! 


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/16/understanding-introverts-_n_5989656.html

I've known this my whole life!!!

Coloring is the best! I loved to color when I was a little girl, just ask my mom. And I never got over it! When I got older, I drew pictures on the walls! BIG ones. Then they came out with those Doodle Art posters and I had to have them all. Do you remember these? They used to come in yellow cardboard tubes.

I always bought my own markers though. I could never have enough markers!

Then they invented gel pens and EVERYTHING changed!!!! I love gel pens. No, I LOVE gel pens. I have 100's of them! I'm not exaggerating either. During 9/11, I doodled on graph paper. Sheets and sheets of it. I couldn't turn the TV off but I couldn't watch it either. So I would lay on the bed and listen to the TV and doodle...for hours and hours and hours. I didn't know it at the time, but apparently it was very cathartic for me and I actually needed to do it. 

Anyway, I found these AWESOME articles about coloring and I'm sooooo happy about it. Validation!!  One article says that 6 of the top 20 best selling books on Amazon are coloring books. One of them, The Secret Garden, I bought last year. And I just ordered a couple more - Christmas coloring books! It's the little things people :-) I have a couple dozen coloring books, easily.

Another one these articles says coloring is as good for your brain as meditation. I knew that. I just didn't know I knew that. Yep. I love to color. If you haven't done it in awhile, you should give it a try.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/coloring-benefits-meditation_55b7c9c1e4b0074ba5a6724f

http://mandalacoloringmeditation.com/mandala-coloring/mandala-articles/about-mandala-coloring-healing/

http://nautil.us/blog/is-coloring-within-the-lines-the-new-meditation

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/17/coloring-books-adults-therapists-opinions

And here is a link to Amazon so you can see what I'm talking about;

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_5?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=adult+coloring+books&sprefix=adult%2Caps%2C320

News ban

Well, I continue to want to ban the news/politics in my home and car. For the most part, I'm still succeeding. But with all the talk about Jared Fogel, I had to hit up a couple news sites to read the story. I also caught up on a couple other stories and then bailed! So, that disgusting pig. I don't for one second believe he feels bad for anything he's done. He feels bad because he got caught. Period. I feel sad for his family though. Yuck. I hope he's very popular in prison - I don't care that that's a mean though. 


I guess I need to revise this since they said today that the suspect was shot in the back. but my point still stands. Don't commit a crime!! But it's not cool to shoot someone in the back. 
The other bullshit story I glanced at, was about another black young man who was shot and killed in St. Louis. I say it's a bullshit story because he had committed a crime, ran from the police, was armed, and aimed said firearm at the cops. I fail to see what people think that cop should have done? Stand there and just hope the criminal wouldn't shoot him?? 

This was the part of the article that killed me though;

"Another youth down by the hands of police," Dex Dockett, 42, who lives nearby, told a reporter. "What could have been done different to de-escalate rather than escalate? They (police) come in with an us-against-them mentality. You've got to have the right kind of cops to engage in these types of neighborhoods."

Umm, dude, I'm pretty sure it IS us-against-them. Duh. What could have been done differently? How about stop committing crimes? That pissed me off so I immediately changed gears....did you know Jennifer Aniston got married?? And Len Goodman quit on Dancing With The Stars. That's ok, he was too grumpy anyway. More joy please!!

Amazing!!!

My fella's normal inclination is to say "no" to everything. It could be something big or something small. I'm used to it. So, imagine my SURPRISE when I said to him yesterday, "honey, I can get 2 round trip tickets to Washington DC, for $176!!! $88 per person! Round trip! Wanna go for a few days"? and he said, "sure"! What?!?!?!?! I told him I was serious and I wasn't just being wacky. He still said OK. Whoa. I booked the flight and hotel this morning. I'm so excited!! He's never been and it's been about 45 years for me. We'll only actually be there for 3 days but I bet we can cover a lot of ground in that time. Yessssssss!!! Really, it's so uncharacteristic of him to be so spur of moment, let alone say yes right off the bat. Yay!

Nuts!

It seems as though we are experiencing a bumper crop of hickory nuts this year! It is only the middle of August and there are a trillion million nut pieces ALL OVER our roof and deck!!! It's awful!

Those damn squirrels just sit up in the tree, chowing down. Grrrr. Bill said he's worried that it's a sign - you know, they're eating as much as they can now because it's going to be a bad winter. Uh huh.

 Little suckers.

Frustrations...

Government spending, now there's a frustration. Now that I'm a civil servant, I get to see first hand how frivolous government spending is. And I'm just talking about STATE spending! We step over dollars to pick up pennies, every day. It's ridiculous! I know you don't need an example but here are just a few anyway;
Apparently, every new Governor gets to make up his own 'slogan' for the state. Our new Governor picked, "Indiana, a State that works". It even has a logo;

I don't like it. Mainly because our state is always complaining about not having/keeping, high paying/high tech jobs. This logo/slogan makes us look like a manufacturing state. Which is fine. But then shut up about not having any tech jobs! Here's the frivolous spending part...They turned it into a big lighted sign along the top of a building across from the statehouse - at a cost of $50,000.00
I guess the Governor liked it so much, he commissioned TWO more, bigger ones, on the north and south facing walls of a building behind the statehouse. Yeah, we get it, gov. We don't really need 3 of them. And frankly, you didn't ask me if it was okay to spend my money on that! Humph.

Here's another example;
I rented a mini van for a group of 4 employees, traveling to Chicago for a couple days. The agency in charge of spending money for traveling said, no, get them a sedan. So 4 people, 4 laptops, 4 pc of some kind of luggage, were expected to cram into a sedan for a 4 hour drive, in order to save the state $32.00. BUT...another traveler wanted to take the train to Chicago, round trip cost $20. Saving the state the cost for the rental car, fuel costs, parking at the hotel ($63 a day) which totaled close to $300. You guessed it, the state said no to the train. 

Again, I don't appreciate you throwing my money away like that. FRUSTRATING! I have at least a dozen more examples but I know you know what I'm talking about.

knock it off...

Don't talk to people when they're peeing. I hate that. Unless you happen to be a spouse or a kid. Then it's sort of alright. But when you're at work, and we're in the restroom, don't talk to me while I'm peeing. I hate that!!

Maybe it's an invasion of my bubble? It's icky though. Also, stop taking your phones to the bathroom with you! That's gross. Especially if you're a man. I can't even tell you how many times someone has brought me a phone they found in the bathroom. (I'm the keeper of lost things) I guess I can see it if you're a woman, except why are taking your phone with you to pee? You can set it on the counter I suppose. But men, they carry their phones in their shirt pockets or on a clip. And you can't really talk hands free if you're a dude, if you get my meaning. Ewwww.

And while I'm on the subject of work, and I'm talking to those of you who don't, the weekend is my free time. Since my fella retired, every day is the weekend. Granted, he's getting a lot done during the week, and good on him! But he wanted to go somewhere last weekend. I go somewhere every day dude. And sometimes, when my free time gets here, I don't want to do anything and I really don't want to go anywhere! Poor guy. So far I think he's adjusting pretty well to not working...but there are still a couple areas that he's struggles with. 

...a week later

Well, I'm almost to the end of my first week of a self imposed media ban. You know what? I really haven't missed it at all. In the mornings, instead of the news, we listen to music. It's a MUCH nicer way to start the day. Anyway, I don't feel lost or like I don't know what's going on in the world - I don't care :-)  The few shows I've wanted to watch on TV, I've recorded, so when I'm ready I can watch them commercial free. I really thought I would miss it more. Turns out, I'm perfectly happy without the news, commercials, ads, the radio and most TV shows. The only thing I have watched this week that went against my ban, is the presidential candidate debates last night. I just knew it would be entertaining and I couldn't stay away! But when Bill has wanted to watch something, I just go to my craft room. I like it in there. He's been pretty supportive though. I noticed that he has a lot recorded on the DVR though. I guess he's watching those shows during the day when I'm not there. I think I'll keep going, with the ban. I'll just keep reading and crafting instead! 

Geesh!

Well, I had an almost media free weekend. For the most part, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I didn't miss the news at all! But I had to stay away from MSN and Yahoo, which was tricky a couple time. Other than that, my self imposed media blackout, went well. I liked it so much...I think I'll keep it up for a few more days. 

Saturday, I putzed around the craft room all morning, listening to the 70's. Saturday afternoon we went for a drive. We didn't have anyplace in mind, just someplace where other people weren't. It was nice. We found a lot of little tiny towns w/one stop light and beautiful old Victorian houses. We listened to Yani and talked a lot. Saturday night, we went to Holcomb Observatory. That turned out to be a bust - the big main telescope is out of commission right now. It was ok though, it was something to do :-)

Sunday, lots more putzing around the craft room and playing with the dogs and a little gardening, with a nap thrown in.

All in all it was a pretty successful weekend. 

Whew! I needed that!