Variations on a Theme

I just played the word "strip" by adding an 's' to 'trip'.  It  woudln't have been a good play, except that I got to play the 's' on a triple word block. That made it a decent score. I stripped down a rocking chair last week and painted it green. It had been an ugly, outdated rocking chair, but now it's adorable. I also cut up a giraffe print throw blanket and recovered its cushions with them. The cushions in my diningroom chairs are not soft enough to allow them to be used as desk chairs, but the desk chair is at the desk and I'm in the diningroom, so I'm using a diningroom chair as a desk chair.

Which brings us to the question, why is a raven like a writing desk?

"Yules" is not a word, and yet, scrabble allows it? Why is that? they also allow "Jo," which is my nickname, so I can't think of a use for it where it does not qualify as a proper noun. That should disallow it, but it doesn't. I wonder how many fake words are allowed to break the scrabble rules?

If  I were a fake word then I would break a lot of rules. I would carry extra pixels so that I could change my letters to make higher scoring words. I might even use the pixels to make my vowels have 10 points instead of 1.

I need sleep. I'm tired. I should be working but I'm not.

Caffeine Content

Quinn says there's less caffeine in a shot of espresso than there is in a 12 oz cup of regular ol' joe. I believe him. People feel the espresso because they tend to drink it either as a shot, which is tiny and goes down quickly, or in a sugary concoction that they chug all too quickly and end up with a massive buzz, whereas people who like to enjoy a cup of coffee actually enjoy it...slowly.

I'm becoming something of a coffee addict...again. I was throughly addicted when I was a teenager, but I got over it when I was pregnant. It wasn't worth the leg aches and lack of sleep that it caused. Now I'm getting back to the cup-a-day status and enjoying it very much. I picked up some flavored creamers last week and I think they're making me fat. As if it isn't bad enough to have every snack available loaded with calories- I now drink my calories as well!  Darnitall. I'm gonna have to research sugar free liquid creamers- or maybe go the half-and-half with flavored, sugar free syrups route. Either way, I'm glad for the warmth and the buzz now that fall is here. It goes well with my chunky, cable knit, burnt orange hooded sweater that I'm rocking.

Happyness is falltime full of apples, crunchy leaves and cinnamon sticks.

Runny Babbit

My mother bought my son a book for Christmas. it's a billy sook by Shel Silverstein. Everything Silverstein writes is pretty silly, but this one is an entire book of spoonerized rhymes about a bunny rabbit. Or rather, a runny babbit.

Last night we had some young people over for a movie and game night and ended up with a competition going on to see who in the group could read through an entire poem without stuttering or losing their place. It was hilarious. Nobody made it, but we all laughed ourselves silly. Here is a sample of what we were dealing with:

Runny babbit knearned to lit,
And made a swat and heater,
And now he sadly will admit
He bight have done metter.


Runny be quimble,
Runny be nick,
Runny cump over the jandlestick.
But now- what smells furning bluff?
Guess he didnt' hump jigh enough.

BLARG!

“Do you like vegetables?" Sophie asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards a slightly less dangerous kind of food.
"You is trying to change the subject," the Giant said sternly. "We is having an interesting babblement about the taste of the human bean. The human bean is not a vegetable.” 

Roald Dahl- The Big Friendly Giant

I. Am. Exhausted. Emotionally and physically spent. I'm waiting here for Quinn, who is waiting on Tabbi to get out of the bathroom so that he can use the bathroom and he and I can go for a walk.

It's beautiful outside. It's shifted to fall and the air is clean and cool. The house got too warm this afternoon, but I didn't dare turn the air on so I've just been...warm. Very. Warm.

The neighbor's little girls were going to come over tonight, but I don't think they are coming afterall. I'm going to go get G-man into pajamas and we'll have devotions. It's time for us all to be getting ready for sleep.

“I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony.”
-Roald Dahl- Danny, The Champion of the World

My work server has been out of tasks so much lately that I've been getting up earlier and earlier to try and beat the East Coast to the computers and get my queue filled before all the work is gone. 6:15 didn't work this morning, so I'm gonna shoot for 5am tomorrow. It's a little crazy, but we're at a point in life where we're free to work hard. Really hard. And since that point probably won't return until we retire, I want to make the best of it.

We're cutting back on movies and other free time twaddle. We're working longer hours, going to bed earlier, getting up earlier, eating less cheese and meat and getting the debts paid off. It's exciting, really. This weekend I get to pay a credit card entirely off. Next month we get to eliminate a hospital bill. The month after that we're on track for paying off our last credit card, then we'll only have the student loans and car payment. The car is owned, debt free, and we have a budget that will allow us to save as soon as we have the three less monthly payments. I can't wait. I love my life, and I love how Q and I can synergize and accomplish goals. It's thrilling to be a part of something so active and progressive as our life!

On the other hand- trying to decide what the G-man will need for his second Christmas...

Falling Behind

It has been too long since I've updated. The fall air is infectious, and Quinn and I have been trying to get on top of the yard. We've been going along the fence line, cutting out all the little baby trees and vines and piling all the brush into my Mom's little trailer. As soon as we finish we'll take it out to her farm and burn it.

The falling leaves are beautiful. The neighbor across the street has a couple of birch trees that are full-yellow and have filled their yard with color, while my maples are still green. We need a nice hard frost so that we'll get some beautiful reds going on in our yard.

I'm excited for fall- I'm very much looking forward to French Apple Pie, Pumpkin Pie, cheesecakes and coffee galore, and an entire host of other spicy, warm treats. I keep thinking I'll start making my own pie crusts, but it turns a pie into such a drawn out task that I always end up buying them pre-packaged.  Pilsbury loves me.

Skeptic at heart

Skeptic at heart

Authored by Rickey Combs

I’ve always been skeptical of things that seem too good to be true on the internet. My brother called me one time and swore to me that he had won the Spanish lottery and all he had to do was e-mail the number on the screen from the pop-up ad that had appeared on his computer. He was not calling to ask if I thought he should do it, he was calling to ask what one thing I wanted from his fortune so he could check me off the list of people he had to buy things for now that he was rich. I talked him out of e-mailing them, but I think he still halfway believes that he was tricked out of a small Spanish pile of gold, and he probably resents me for it. However, I finally talked him out of it when I told him it was probably spam. What’s not spam is if you’re trying to get a great deal on satellite, you should Click Here. You can ask my brother- I know what I’m talking about!