Ski Trip was COOL

Just got back from a great trip skiing in New York State. I don't ski, but the boys had a great time. It was the annual SPAS club trip -- SPAS club stands for Scouting Parents After Scouting, or it stands for the Society for the Prevention of Adult Sobriety, or something like that. (We named the club when we were drunk, and now we don't remember what it stands for.)

Basically -- it started out as some of my Boy Scout friends and I wanted to go on trips that were NOT scout trips. You can't drink on scout trips.

The trip is so much fun that we added other, non-scout parents. Actually, in this photo, the only scout is my son Nick -- all the way on the right with the camoflage helmet and red gloves. The other boys are Jimmy and Ray's boys.

Happy Anniversary, Frankie

It's the one year anniversary of the day that Frankie's guts exploded! (No, really -- is that too crude? But it's pretty close to what happened!)

On 2/22/06 I rushed Frankie to the hospital because he was in extreme pain. He was admitted, but then let go the next day. They said it was a stomach virus. It wasn't.

I'm not sure who has already heard this story, but you can skip reading if you have. I still keep talking about it because I still can't get over it. My brain is still processing everything that happened, and it's been a year already.

It turned out that Frankie's Crohn's disease caused trouble in his intestines -- they twisted themselves into a balloon animal and then the twisty part died. So Frankie was in SERIOUS trouble for quite a while. Months, in fact.

And it all started one year ago tonight.

Frankie thought I should have baked him a cake. I would have if I had thought of it earlier! It does really feel almost like a birthday. Some people are born again of the spirit -- born again Christians. Frankie was born again of the intensive care unit! They saved his life.

So Happy ReBirthday, Frankie!

The February Thaw

I'm truly enjoying the February thaw... although really, I don't think it will last long, it certainly felt like spring for the last few days!

I'm sure we're about to be immersed back into winter. We should start a pool about the likelihood of one more blizzard.

This picture is optimistically looking forward to summer. There is nothing even remotely resembling this anywhere in my garden right now.

Interpreting my cards

So, just so you know the way I'm interpreting those cards (previous post) -- I'm going to try for a job that I doubt I'll get, but I think would probably like well enough. And I'm not going to overthink it. I'm not going to let myself think of all the reasons why I shouldn't get the job, or of all the things that could go wrong if I do the job.

I'm also not going to worry too much if I don't get the job; I'm not actually EXPECTING to get it, I'm just going for it. I'm giving it a shot. Whatever happens, happens.

Wish me luck.

What will the future hold?

Laurie came over and I read her cards, and then she read mine. Sometimes, the fortune cards can be so real that they are scary. That was the case today, I think.

I won't write about her cards. I just want to write about mine.

Reversed spider -- stagnant, lacking creativity, the negative side of woman. (There's a lot of uncomfortable truth.) And my future, reversed weasel -- lying to yourself about something you know to be true, and doubting your feelings and intuition. Doubting everything, which becomes a barrier to your progress.
So I drew another card, to find out how to fix it. It's Swan, which means grace. It talks about swan flying through the dreamtime, looking for the entry point into the future. She doesn't know how to enter -- or if she wants to. Dragonfly tells swan, "You must be willing to accept whatever the future holds as it is represented, without trying to change the Great Spirit's plan." Swan answers and agrees to surrender to the flow of the spiral and trust.

So the answer to what will the future hold seems to be: just dive in, go with the flow, and trust.

(Sorry if this is too new age for you, Thor. :) I love this stuff!)

A Very Quiet Day

I'm sitting here by myself listening to old Springsteen. It's a very quiet day -- which isn't unusual lately, I've been more and more of a hermit, especially now that it's cold out. I hate getting up and getting dressed and leaving the house in the cold, it's been a lot better to just sit here and stay cozy in my pajamas with my cup of tea and my music.

But it's especially quiet today because the thundering horde of teenagers all went skiing -- they have no school, so Mike took the whole crew to a ski mountain like three hours away. So my peace and quietness won't be ending at 2:30 like it normally does. And since there is no school, I don't have work either. So there may be absolutely no reason to get dressed at all today.

Or, on the other hand, maybe I should make an effort to get out of the house for a while, because I don't have to come home until 5:00 or so for Thor.

It's beautifully bright and sunny out, but I think that the weather is faking it -- the sun isn't really too warm, I don't think. And I can hear the wind gusting around pretty fiercely. It seems to be just too cold to go somewhere outside, and the indoor places -- malls or whatever -- don't seem like much fun. I hope the boys didn't forget their ski gloves and face masks. If it's cold here, it'll be even colder skiing down a mountain!

I'm looking forward to warm weather, myself.

La Femme Chocolat

A very interesting, valentiney, chocolatey girl singing french, eating too many chocolates, and having trouble with what she sees in the mirror, video can be found on youtube -- I thought it was worth watching!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1JdNocbGAo

OH YEAH!
I should definitely mention that I found the video on Devilmood's blog, which you can see here:

http://devilmood.blogspot.com/

Also worth taking a look!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day, and Happy 19th Anniversary, Thor! This is the painting I started (ages ago) and I gave to my dearest husband for the romantic holiday today. It's hanging on my (lilac) bedroom wall.
I took 5 pictures of it to post on this blog, and every single picture came out slightly different, isn't that weird? The highlights and shadows in the painting are totally affected by the lighting in the room. It's quite changeable.

It's a painting of my back yard, where Thor and I spend a lot of time together. I like the way it came out, although it is never as good as my imagination... There is a some symbolism in the painting, but I won't go into that here... ;)

That 70's Show Again...

Remember that 70's party? Well, here I am at the party with (husband) Frankie K the DJ, in the shirt I made especially for the occasion.

Of course, you can't see the fine detailing I put into the shirt. It's not a great picture, taken with my phone because I forgot to bring a camera.

You can't even see any cleavage. Which was the main issue the night of the party. My 16 year old saw the shirt and was HORRIFIED because it had a low cut dip in the front (which was basically held shut with the tie at the neck) but sometimes gapped so you could see... cleavage. Nothing really exciting, but it was NOT ACCEPTABLE by 16 year old boy standards, at least not for a mom to wear.

It was actually rather funny. I don't think he was really as horrified as all that, I think it was more just joking around.

70's Party

Here are Frank and Laura, DJ'ing for the 70's party on Friday. It was groovy, man...
We had a really great time.

Mayor McCormac at our Meeting tonight!

Here is a snap of the Mayor speaking at the Boy Scout meeting tonight. The boys are working on "Citizenship in the Community" badge, which is an Eagle-required badge. We talked about the rights and duties of citizenship, and about specific issues around town that the kids wanted to address. Some of the boys brought up some pretty good issues. I was pretty proud of the group of them.

The Mayor is an Eagle Scout himself. Not to mention, a pretty good guy. I showed him the photos I took in Merrill Park. He's talking about trying to do something in April, on Earth Day. I'll let you know what we're doing. I have a bad feeling about that date on my calendar, though...

(Unfortunately, my OWN sons weren't at the meeting. They had tickets to the Devils vs. the Rangers game. Along with two of the other boys from scouts. They've had the tickets for ages, way before the Mayor was scheduled. And yup, Devils won, in a shoot out in overtime.)

The ice forming on the brook

 



This picture was taken on my walk with my husband the other day... when it was quite a bit warmer than today or yesterday!

It's a little out of focus, and I played with it a bit in the picasa program, but I really like it anyway. It's more abstract. Plus, you can't see the litter.

Tonight the Mayor attends our meeting, and so I'm going to talk to him about the brook (assuming I have the chance.) I printed out a few of the photos I took the other day. Not this one, though. :)

I also emailed our local councilman, and got a response. Of course, being a county park, everyone will be saying it is up to the county to take care of the problem.

But hopefully, my son the Boy Scout will also get involved. It might make a decent Eagle project. We'll have to see. 

Walking is NOT as good as sugar and fat.

Ok, to balance out the fudge factor, you all should know that I'm trying to walk, too. I refuse to give up sugar and fat, but I enjoy walking.

Laurie is good about that, because she pushes me sometimes when I would rather stay inside. Like today. You would not BELIEVE how cold it was out there today, even with the sun shining and beautiful. I didn't think it could GET that cold...

I walked 2.78 miles, and Laurie says so. She says we walk a 15 minute mile. She keeps track of these things because she is back on weight watchers. I refuse to join. She looks great, and she is walking a few times a day, but I can't do that. Mainly because I refuse to wake up before sunrise to walk, which is one of the main times she goes.

But I do like walking. I would do more of it if you all wanted to come over and keep me company. I'm a little slow, though, sometimes....

I walked yesterday without her, she was doing something else, but Frank was willing to walk down to the store and get a newspaper with me. Not 2.78 miles, but at least I moved a little.

Fudge Crystals

My recent (constant) (perpetual) cravings for sugar and butter resulted in a very nice cinnamon roll batch, which Grandma Rodgers would have been proud of, and a decent though not perfect batch of Fudge, which is about all Grandma ever hoped for, I guess. And I brought MOST (not all) of the Fudge to Marisa's for the Superbowl -- so I only ate a huge amount, not every single bit of it...

Making fudge is more like science than cooking. You can't make fudge on a rainy day. There are very precise directions that you MUST FOLLOW, to keep it from getting grainy. I remember Gram used to go crazy, complaining that the fudge didn't set, or it was too grainy, almost every time. Part of it was only Gram being Gram. She was self-depracating, is that the word? I think I spelled it wrong.

But I looked up the science of fudge, and it turns out that there is alot about the right kind of crystal formation to make fudge become fudge and not grainy. Even one small grain of sugar, dropped into the pot at the wrong time of the process, or even one fleck of dust, can give the sugar in fudge a nucleus for the wrong kind of crystal to form. So it's no wonder that it comes out too grainy a lot of time.

This fudge didn't seem like it wanted to set. It finally did, kind of, but it was a little too soft. But it wasn't too grainy (I didn't think -- but if Gram had made it, she would have thought it was too grainy.)

I have to look for pictures of microscopic fudge crystals. I'm gonna check Google images.

Cheesy Humor... :)

YouTube has a Star Trek version of "Knights of the Round Table"... If you like Star Trek or Monty Python, you probably should see this... (well, especially if you like Monty Python)

My Body, Myself

Right at this moment, I am having the most intense cravings for all combinations of sugar and fat!

Especially: Cookies -- cake -- fudge -- I'll even go for just the icing off the cinnamon rolls at the mall!!!

No kidding. I took Nicky to the mall the other day, and we got a box of Cinnabons to go. They had a whole tray of little cups of icing, and Nick asked if he could have a cup of the icing to go with them. The guy gave one to us, and he commented to me, "You have no idea how many people come in here and just get the icing to eat." I replied, "You've got to be kidding!" (Even though, you know, I can definitely picture myself doing that.) And then, probably realizing that I was gazing hungrily at the tray of icing cups, he started backpedaling. "Yeah! Well, it's probably good for you... there is cream cheese and butter..." I imagined my arteries hardening and my fat cells swelling as I walked away. And I ate two out of the nine Cinnabons out of the box, which I didn't think was TOO bad.

The fact is, I must have body dismorphic disorder. I think that's what they call it. When you look in the mirror and you can't process what you see. They usually talk about it in relation to people suffering with Anorexia. They see a fat person, even when they are skin and bones. Me, I look in the mirror, and I see a short, pudgy, middle aged woman. But I don't HATE it. When I get on the scale I can't believe the numbers I'm seeing. But I don't see it in the mirror. It's probably there. I probably have body dismorphic disorder in the opposite direction. I am huge, according to the scale, but actually, I look in the mirror and couldn't care less. My thinning hair bothers me more than my thickening butt.

Really, I know I should lose weight. Those numbers on the scale don't lie. Or the numbers on my pants size. (Even though the mirror does seem to lie.) But I am SO NOT motivated to stop eating.

I think about dieting on occasion. The minute I'm full and content, I decide that I'm going to start a diet, effective immediately.

And it lasts until I start craving the sugar again. And at about that point, I start talking back to myself. I get quite fresh. "But I don't WANT to stop eating! Why SHOULD I? I look FINE! Who cares how I look, anyway? I'm perfectly healthy! Besides,who are YOU to say I can't eat this candybar,"
I say to myself. I hate arguing with myself. And then I start daydreaming about cinnamon and brown sugar and butter...