A very merry un-birthday to me!

Yesterday, Saturday, we celebrated my early birthday (as I will be heading Utard-way next week to visit/care for my Oma and that will be coinciding w/ my big three-five)
**just got invited to Burt's for my b'day!!! perhaps I won't be sitting alone in the dark after all!?!?**
anyhoo, yesterday....
Had a lovely breakfast, complete w/ facon bacon *Yumm*
Went to see Hellboy II *AWESOME*
and received some loverly gifties from the fam including:
A "slightly sinister" crafting/knitting book



a GIANT bottlecap shaped tin bar sign (soon to be painted with my logo and used as a sign for my booth!) proof that you really CAN find anything on the ebays.

a couple a DVD's; ONCE and SWEENEY TODD

A new red "swade" slipcover for my beat up old wingchair

and a badass customized pair of extra high top Chuck Taylors...(black, with red leopard print tongues, red laces and b/w skully insides!!!) that LGK designed and had custom-manufactured for me here
KEWL!!!

and then we had SLURPEES!!!!

What more could a gal ask for for her birthday I asks you!?!?!

anyhoo...that's the update for the weekend. I'll be offline for the next week. Headed to PDX bright and early Monday morning, flying to SLC and I'll be back NEXT monday. Oma's house is actually still "hardwired" - so absolutely NO internet connection - not even modern telephones...she's got these crazy old rotary phones from the 40's...can't even hook up an answering machine to those bad boys...they're Old School!
Thanks for the happy/healing thoughts kids...see you next week.

Introducing.......Big Mobey!!!

I know he'll take this picture and photshop the hell out of it (perhaps adding a fur coat?) but can I just say *swoon*?!?!

isn't it ironic?

doncha think?
no black flies in my chardonnay today...but a couple of things that strike me as silly/ironic
My daughter, who is not much of a "self entertainer" is trying very hard to keep herself occupied while her big bro' is at grandma's house...Mom & Dad are both working on business/crafty stuff so I asked her to find a game to play. What does she choose? The Planet Earth DVD game - cool game but it definitely assumes that you've just watched the documentary...and it's on a highschool level...did I mention that she's 8? So, yeah, she doesn't know any of the answers...so, she's constantly asking for help and telling the TV that it's stupid.
And another thing?
strangely enough, I sell more dogtags than just about anything on etsy. And I'm in negotiations to do a line of dog tags for karmacharms.com...
so, I thought if I'm going to be a dog accessory designer/manufacturer my dogs should probably sport some right? Ringo, good boy that he is, is dutifully wearing his (doesn't even notice it to be honest) Fergie on the other hand? HATES IT!!! he's growling at it, biting it and frantically rolling about as if he's posessed, trying to get it off.
(have I ever mentioned that some of my main reasons for gettting a "Wergie" or a little dog were that I wanted to pretend to be Paris Hilton and dress him, and carry him in a fashionable handbag? (maybe it was a biological clock thing now that I think about it...) Yeah, he won't wear clothes either. And when I tried to put him in the gorgeous gold-tone carryall that I got for him last summer (for my birthday no less) he screamed like a demon and bit me. I gave the bag to my friend Ashley for her ferretts. pooh

And on another note, thanks to the friends who've shown support & positive vibes regarding my family/Oma issues. We're still waiting and seeing. Thanks though.

the fourth of July and trying to relieve sadness with baking...

a day of celebration...a day when the locals have an excuse to lounge in their "yards" (and I do use the term loosely...does a conflagration of cynderblocks, burrel wood statuettes and a Chevy Nova bumper qualify as a yard or garden??) wearing naught but their Walmart shorts, Curslite (that's Coors Light) in hand, as junior sets the county ablaze with contraband fireworks...the neighbors are playin' horseshoes and subjecting the entire neighborhood to their "classic rock"....A day when free candy is to be had by the grocery bag-full at the local "parade" (again I use the term loosely...not a float to be seen, but MANY log trucks, tow trucks & rodeo queens from far and wide) and a day when the best view of the local fireworks is from the highway..sitting on the hood of the car and watching the heavens 'splode...
OK that last part is actually kind of cool.
While I find it hard to get too jazzed up about this, Independence Day...(I've been reading some revisionist history which has illuminated for me the fact that the revolution as well as most of our country's exhalted history has perhaps been skewed in the telling...really it's all been about rich whitey all along - SURPRISE!)
I DO get a kick out of the fireworks, and surprisingly enough our little corner of nowhere has one of the better displays I've ever seen.
We'll be bbq-ing at the in-laws this afternoon...not necessarily because it's the 4th but because relations (a cousin and the great grandpa) will be in town. I'm making split pea/low-fat guacamole and the house smells great right now...Oatmeal cookies in the oven too. Thank goodness it's not too terribly hot today 'cause I had a sudden onset of domesticity and I was gonna turn the oven on regardless...
The past few weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster. My Oma is not, as some of you may have gathered, doing well. And I'm far away. And helpless. I don't know what's actually going on with her and while all I want to do is fly there (on a metaphorical white steed) and play Florence Nightengale....there's nothing I can really do. I feel some kind of need to "see her one more time"...but as my mother lovingly pointed out, maybe it would be better to keep happy/healthy memories? It's been weeks of tests and unanswerable questions. Weeks of "wait and see" and we still don't really KNOW anything and it's making me crazy and OH SO tired (yes, I am generally a tired girl but this is REALLY draining).
My son wants to know what's going on. I don't know what to tell him. I don't want to be alarmist but he knows I'm crying several times a day so he wants to know what's up. He's so mature in so many ways...but he's also SO empathetic/sympathetic and I don't want to put him through too much....Much in the same way my mom is still trying to shelter me.
I've never been exposed to much death. I've been very blessed and very sheltered. I was protected from my Opa's passing when I was 12 and I have only happy memories of him really. There was a girl in highschool, a casual friend, who committed suicide and I went to her services...that really hit a lot of us kids hard...and it definitely influenced my attitudes about mental illness and suicide (that's another post maybe). Our friend Scott took his life several years ago now...and I didn't get to say goodbye. Nobody did. My friend Gina's husband died unexpectedly last year and while it made me very sad for her...I was more than a little bit appalled by the vultures and drama-whores that surrounded her..I couldn't be a part of that, and as a result I don't think I was "there" for my friend. Something I will always regret a little.
Part of me wants to say goodbye to Oma. I've been calling her more often and trying to stay cheerful when I'm on the phone with her. I've run the gamut of emotions off the phone though. I started practicing telling myself that she's "dying". It could be days, it could be months... so much depends on whether she'll take treatment or if the treatment works. I don't think my mom was really willing or aware of how bad it was until she went to see her.
She may have to go to a care center or a hospice or whatever they are called.
I hate that idea. When I did CNA training I swore to myself that noone I loved would ever be in one of those 'horrible places'...but in reality, what can we do? I used to think the families of those poor old people were so heartless, letting strangers care for their family...but again...what else can we do? I can't take care of her. Neither can my mom.
I wish that my romantic ideas of death and passing could come true...but I just don't know it that will be the case.
I think she's ready to go. I think she'll see Opa and that makes her (and me) happy.
I'm very glad and lucky that she and I don't have any issues. I don't have to "make peace" with her about anything before she goes...I just wish I could help. But I can't so I'm making cookies.

my early birthday present

I've been told that I have an uncanny ability to "spoil" my birthday/holiday gift surprises because I always do one of the following: buy myself the thing that's already been purchased for me...go into the garage for the first time in a year only to discover my "hidden" present....or....become single-mindedly obsessed with an item and hint about it unceasingly until LGK just takes me to the hardware store and says "fine".
so now....I have this



and I can make my own holes in my bottle caps at my own table wheneverIdamnwellplease!! (no more trips to the mil's to use her drill press!)

mememe

One of them there meme things...I’m not sure what the implied significance of any of these books might be (or why there is SO much Jane Austen on the list) and at just about half of them read I can’t decide if I am woefully under-read or relatively well-read (typical level of self-imposed mediocrity I’m guessing :o)
100 Books

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.



1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I have read many, but not ALL)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (yawn!)
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt (one of my all-time favorites)
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Indiana Jones and the Really Bad Decision

my son, is a genius! look what he made!!!!
I can't wait to see this on the montage of his career when he is presented with a lifetime achievement in film award!
this is just his first attempt - and he assures me there is more to come :)