Lord of the Pounce

I like cats and Celtic music. How could I resist when I heard of a song called "The Lord of the Pounce". It's from Marc Gunn, a very talented bard in Austin Texas. Enjoy.

Negativity

In my quest to focus on what's positive in life these days, I'm noticing that's not at all difficult to find something good about each day. Overall, I am an optimistic person and try not to hold on to negativity. In my life, there is a family member who is totally opposite. I think she actually enjoys misery and if there isn't any will go out of her way to create it. She wants company in her experience, acting like a big vortex trying to pull everyone in.

I try to limit my exposure to people like that. When sometimes it's just not possible, the best I can do is try to stay true to myself and not get sucked in. I try to remember that there is someone I care about underneath the facade. I try to remember that I am a generous, kind person who does not need to identify with the negativity in order to try an understand it. I try to stay in touch with my sense of who I am, and know that in this too, is a lesson for my own growth. I try to remember that I do believe in love. And love does not judge.

Sometimes, I just remember that nothing lasts forever. And that can be something good.

Spring Green

Living in farm country has been interesting for me this year. Every day I pass fields where crops are grown. There are more subtle changes to the land, and the crops than I would ever have imagined. Today was the first day this year that there was green in the fields again! I don't know what's growing, but it is just high enough above the ground to form a green haze. A very welcome sign that the cold, white winter is truly leaving. Oh, there may be more cold and even more white, but it will be fleeting and soon there'll be more lovely shades of spring green surrounding me.

Good Morning Vibes

I didn't forget to notice what was good yesterday - just got sidetracked at the posting part. Yesterday morning I saw a brilliant celestial display that made my whole day better! As I was driving to work in the morning, the pale pearl moon was in my front windshield and suddenly in the rear view window, a firey tangerine sun appeared. It was the best part of a workday Monday.

I'm Worth It

Something happened last night that feels damn good this morning.

A hard drive decided to spew out error after error creating panic in someone's heart. So an hour later we're at electronics mecca, Best Buy. While the Viking is intently studying hard drives, I found myself wandering innocently toward the beckoning glitz and siren song of iPod land. I had no choice but to acknowledge the deeply buried lust in my heart. I had a perfectly good player in my desk at work. I don't need a new one. We bought the new drive and headed to the car.

Like many mothers, I've always put the desires of my family before my own when it came to material things, especially indulgences. I still do most of the time even though it's just the Viking and me at home these days and has been for a long time. I think it is just a mother-thing;pop psychology often says that behavior is connected to a whole slew of feelings that all revolve around self worth and what you do or do not deserve. Maybe it's both.

At the sound of the ignition, I knew I couldn't resist. Back to the store. And right there and then, I decided that it was ok to get something just because I wanted it. Buying it wasn't going to cause financial collapse or the earth to stop spinning. I took a step further and went into really dangerous selfish territory and bought outstanding earbuds to go along with the shiny new toy. Just because I love the nuances of music. For me. Just me. It feels great.

What did I buy? A Sandisk Sansa View, 16GB of wonderment and Bose earbuds. When I heard the difference between the included Sansa earbuds and the Bose, I no longer felt any sense of remorse over that little upgrade. The commercials are right. You should hear what you're missing.

Coffee Art

Have you seen the email going around with really beautiful cups of coffee ,artistically embellished with frothed milk or cream? Real or photoshopped? I don't know,but I thought it would be fun to see how it's done. In in my neck of the woods, coffee is either black or with cream, froth? What's that? Weirdo for even asking.

Here's a Youtube video of someone actually making art in their coffee. How fun would it be to get this in the morning?


And this actually realtes to my good things in life project. Today is Saturday,and all week I look forward to weekends for 3 things: a really long shower,leisurely waking up and being able to take the time to revel in the cozy warmth of bed and the third is making a pot of excellent coffee and being able to savor every flavor and aroma. Sometimes it's on Saturday, sometimes Sunday that I get to have "my morning".

Today was my morning.The coffee was freshly ground dark Kenyan. No cinnamon rolls, but that's ok. It was still a wonderful morning. Do you have any special rituals that make your hectic life better?

57 Cars

I've decided to start posting about the good things in my life. I've been stuck in a rut and it seems like a way to move ahead. So... day one.... a good thing about living in rural Nebraska is the lack of traffic.

I've been counting cars that I see on my way to work for the last week, from door to door,each day. It's 57. Including farm vehicles.

To give you an idea of what this really means, I drive about 30 miles one way to work. People here actually complain about the traffic. Really. Having driven in the Atlanta and DFW metro areas for many years, I just shake my head. This is a live shot of the main section of my drive, at noon today. I see more cows than cars on a daily basis. Definitely a good thing.

My Quirky Word Fixation

This is driving me nutty today. In my local newspaper, there was an article regarding a widow and a widower who married. The article stated that they were " both widowed in 2006". Seems to me the better sentence would have been "both lost their spouses in 2006", but since they went with widowed, it's bugging me.

So I looked up "widow" in my spiffy new dictionary, Merriam Webster Collegiate, 11th edition. Much to my surprise, "widow: to cause to become a widow or widower", so maybe it's not all that big a deal. But it still is bugging the daylights out of me.

What about you?

I found this video, I wanted to share with you. It's Lyle Lovett's version of Flying Shoes, written by Townes Van Zandt. The first time I heard this song, it took root in my heart and refuses to leave.

Memory

It's been a month since my dad passed away. His passing began on Christmas Eve and was completed just after midnight on Christmas night. Most of the hard things about a loved one's passing, fell to me to cope with. Making phone calls and decisions. Supporting my mother through it all. Helping my husband through his own unsettled memories of a death at Christmas long ago, suddenly raw and aching. It's been a somber month and I've just begun to feel like I'm coming out of a blanket of fog and numbness that enveloped me .

What I'll remember is how truly joyful he was about a year ago when I accepted a job and decided to move close by. The summer sunsets we watched together from the porch, the time spent talking about the variety of birds at the feeder. He told a lot of stories in the last months, about times he was a boy and then a younger man in the service. He was loosing touch with small daily things, but remembering clearly things from 70 years ago. He talked about his mother canning food during the war years and how his father's shoe shop smelled. He talked about some choices he'd made in life and things he might have done differently. He reconsidered some of his relationships and wished to make ammends where he could.

He wasn't always the ideal father and there are many things better left alone. But in the last years, he became a better man. And I was so blessed to have the last 10 months to know him.

Handmade Pay It Forward

I have a very creative niece who recently gifted me with a lovely handmade tote bag. It has become the perfect place to keep my current crochet project. She sells her lovely bags and card wallets on her blog, and I'm always checking to see what she's been up to.

Today, she snagged me into an interactive, totally Internet art project called the Handmade Pay It Forward. I firmly believe in totally unencumbered acts of kindness and try to " pay it forward" at any given opportunity. Sometimes I even make up the opportunity! And that is the premise behind this project.

There's lots of other creative people playing in the universe; if you'd like to investigate further, just Google "handmade pay it forward" and I hope you'll want to play along, too.

In a nutshell, it's about sharing love through our collective hearts and hands. So, if someday you'd like to receive a random token of happiness, just agree to the few conditions and keep the faith.

Here's the deal...

• anyone with a blog can join.
• the first three people to leave a comment with a valid email address (I need to be able to contact you!) on this post will receive a handmade gift from me.
• I will send your gift within 365 days. in return, you have to pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog (whatever you want to make, no rules or limitations.)

I've been known to dabble in many crafty areas, so I have no idea what I might come up with to send you!. I can only promise that it will be executed to the best of ability and hopefully will be something you'll enjoy.

Number 1 Reason To Not Drive After Dark

It was a dark and lonely night. No moon. Just me and then a deer. It ended worse for the deer. Fortunately, I wasn't speeding and I saw the deer in time to move almost all the way into the other lane, but I still hit the poor huge animal.

Guess my first stop in the morning is a body shop.

Update... Lucky for me, the car is driveable. The estimate for total repairs is $5 more than the Blue Book value on the car! Other than the headlight, I think I'll turn a blind eye to cosmetics. It's running pretty rough this morning, so I dropped it off at the shop to have them check it out.

As far as collisions go, this could have been much worse. At least the deer didn't come through the windshield and I was able to drive home.

Ashes of Christmas

The holiday season is officially winding down. Trees are appearing on the sidewalks and 70% off ads are plastered everywhere as we face the drudgery of January. It's always been a long, hard month for me with days of routine nothingness made worse by the excitement of the holiday season. I was always one to decorate the house, even the bathrooms got some festive touch. I collected Santas. In financially good or bad times, there has always been a happy little girl anticipating the Santa season living inside me.

It was different this year. Everything related to the holidays seemed like just one big chore that I was happy to avoid. I didn't bake. Didn't buy gifts. Only sent a few cards to elder relatives out of obligation. Even the music of the season which I usually start playing in late November held no interest for me. There was no real cause, it just didn't feel right.

And then my father unexpectedly died late Christmas night. The drama started unfolding in the wee first hours of Christmas morning and less than 20 hours later, his soul went home. It went too fast, yet it all seemed like slow motion at the time. Time has still not fully adjusted for me.

There had been one occasion this fall when he and I were talking, and I told him about my work in hypnosis. He wanted to experience it, so I lightly hypnotized him. While he was floating in the haze, I spoke to him and encouraged his body to be healthy. I also told him that whenever his soul knew it was time to go home, he should go and find peace. We never spoke again about it.

He overcame a life threatening aorta aneurysm crisis and was in better health than at any time in the last year. And then on Christmas, it was time for him to go home. I wonder if his soul had told mine the time was close.

Snow Day

It's looking a lot like this picture where I live these days. The snow is pretty as it falls on evergreen trees and a twilight purple skies are beautiful against the snow covered corn fields. Christmas lights are especially pretty as they shimmer through the snow. Winter, seen from the inside of a cozy, warm home is lovely.

In reality, it's not so great. The white stuff comes associated with a lot of COLD. Morning temps in the single digits as I leave the house. Ice that takes 10 mins to get off the car windshield. Ruts in the parking lot that are 10" deep of packed ice and snow. Ugly black sludge on the sides of the road. White residue building up on the car. White knucles clutching the steering wheel driving in the dark on ice. Horizontal snow and lip chapping wind. There's more, but you get the picture.

On the up side, the state of Nebraska has some pretty cool real time video of road conditions in many locations, so you can see the winter wonderland you're going to have to drive through. I was told this is an unusually snowy December and it doesn't usually get like this until mid January. This must be a special treat just for me. Lucky me.

Life Rule: Never Give The Drunk The Camera

Here's proof of why one of the Life Rules is "Never give the drunk the camera." Never mind the designated driver; I think we should have had a designated photographer at the Christmas party.

Internet Today

This week, the sister I consider the least web savvy sent me an invitation to Facebook. In itself, this seems like a normal event, but it really surprized me. Why? Because for years I have thought of myself on the cutting edge of most things internet and although I knew of Facebook, I hadn't seen the need to get my face booked. I think my grasp on new and exciting is slipping away....and I don't really care.

When it started, sampling every new toy in the internet toybox was great fun. There were ideas and visions I'd never dreamed, and the first time I wrote code and it became a visual reality was a thrilling moment. I completely embraced the vitual communities, pets and places. I managed a solid business without ever seeing most of my customers, and when I did see them, it was ok if they didn't look as I'd imagined, but when the conversations weren't as scintillating
as the email exchanges, I'd feel a little let down. They probably felt the same about me.

Now, my internet use is vastly different. I use it as an everyday item, like the cup I drink my coffee from. It's always there, does it's job as a coffee cup but if I tried to make it be a champagne flute, it might not do so well. If I want to know anything, Google is my first thought. I get annoyed when the info I want is buried by layers of thoughtless navigation. I am happy when I find my answer in seconds. And although my main contact with most of my family these days is via the internet, I don't turn to it for friendship any longer.

Which brings me back to Facebook. I went and signed up out of curosity. I can't see myself getting too excited about it. Sure it's cool in a hot sort of way, but not in the way that sitting in a bookstore cafe with a friend is. If you're lucky, you might meet that friend on Facebook, but unless you move out of that realm, that's all they are -- faces. And until more people get out from behind their screens and actually come to the MeetUps or other meet and greets , its all they can be.


I

Top 100 Movies

The AFI released its Top 100 American films; the teal ones are the ones I’ve seen. What have you seen?
1. Citizen Kane
2. The Godfather
3. Casablanca
4. Raging Bull
5. Singin’ in the Rain
6. Gone with the Wind
7. Lawrence of Arabia
8. Schindler’s List
9. Vertigo
10. The Wizard of Oz
11. City Lights
12. The Searchers
13. Star Wars
14. Psycho
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey
16. Sunset Boulevard
17. The Graduate
18. The General
19. On the Waterfront
20. It’s a Wonderful Life
21. Chinatown
22. Some Like It Hot
23. The Grapes of Wrath
24. E.T.
25. To Kill a Mockingbird
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
27. High Noon
28. All About Eve
29. Double Indemnity
30. Apocalypse Now
31. The Maltese Falcon
32. The Godfather Part II
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
35. Annie Hall
36. The Bridge on the River Kwai
37. The Best Years of Our Lives
38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
39. Dr. Strangelove
40. The Sound of Music
41. King Kong
42. Bonnie and Clyde
43. Midnight Cowboy
44. The Philadelphia Story
45. Shane
46. It Happened One Night
47. A Streetcar Named Desire
48. Rear Window
49. Intolerance
50. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
51. West Side Story
52. Taxi Driver
53. The Deer Hunter
54. M*A*S*H
55. North by Northwest
56. Jaws
57. Rocky
58. The Gold Rush
59. Nashville
60. Duck Soup
61. Sullivan’s Travels
62. American Graffiti
63. Cabaret
64. Network
65. The African Queen
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark
67. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
68. Unforgiven
69. Tootsie
70. A Clockwork Orange
71. Saving Private Ryan
72. The Shawshank Redemption
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
74. The Silence of the Lambs
75. In the Heat of the Night
76. Forrest Gump
77. All the President’s Men
78. Modern Times
79. The Wild Bunch
80. The Apartment
81. Spartacus
82. Sunrise
83. Titanic
84. Easy Rider
85. A Night at the Opera
86. Platoon
87. 12 Angry Men
88. Bringing Up Baby
89. The Sixth Sense
90. Swing Time
91. Sophie’s Choice
92. Goodfellas
93. The French Connection
94. Pulp Fiction
95. The Last Picture Show
96. Do the Right Thing
97. Blade Runner
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy
99. Toy Story
100.Ben-Hur

Got Cats? You Gotta Get This!

I am a cat girl. Always have been. Always will be. Right now, I have 5 living with me. And you know what that means....the little darlings shed everywhere and although I vacuum, it's never enough. Meet the Furminator! A cat lover's secret weapon against the shedding.

All that hair came from 2 small cats in one short grooming session. I used the Furminator on them about a month ago, and this is all the loose hair that's accumulated since. Can you believe it?

The Furminator cuts only the dense undercoat, leaving the top coat smooth and silky feeling. You use it just like shaving your legs and my cats don't mind it a bit. A couple words of caution... Furminate first, then vacuum your room and don't wear clothing you expect to leave the house in shortly after the grooming session!

At first it seemed a bit pricey, but it really is worth twice the price. So, I don't make a dime on it, but you gotta get a Furminator!

Life in a Cubicle Was Just Not Interesting To Me

Last night on 20/20, John Stossel was interviewing some NY socialite named Fabian Basabe whose life seems to consist solely of parties and more parties. He's the son of some wealthy guy and married to some wealthy daughter of a wealthy family. He apparently tried working once and didn't like it. He said(as closely as I remember) , " I saw a cubicle once, and it just didn't seem all that interesting to me". The thought of " sitting in there all day, and eating lunch at the desk" was just not interesting to him. Well, DUH!!!!

As much as anyone may like their job, spending 8 hrs a day in the cube farms of corporate America is generally not going to be all that stimulating. But we do it . Lots and lots of us do it. And wish we had windows. Or doors.

So, I thought I'd share my own little corner of of the farm. I'm lucky at my current job, the color scheme suits me. I've worked in much worse daily conditions. I have a very nice, soothing blue and light gray environment. The walls and desktops are in nice condition and nothing appears to be falling apart. The walls are actually high enough to give everyone some privacy, but we really need to work on the whole door thing. Speaking of which, have you guys seen the CubeDoors site?

So here's my daily view. See the lovely ergo keyboard my employers got me on my first day? And my very nice large monitor? I am well cared for. The little corridor leads to the break room. My cohorts in marketing and web design are all clustered nearby. We spend more time with each other than with our families. I think it's fair to say each of us would prefer it the other way around, but the electric company has NO sense of family values. So it's hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go!

World Most Expensive Free Green Bean Recipe

I got this great recipe card in a teaser mailing this week. Gorgeous recipe cards for all the courses of a wonderful meal. Doesn't this look awesome... it really tastes great too. I happened to have farmer's market fresh green beans the day this came in the mail, so I tried out the recipe. It was almost enough to entice me to sign up for the convenient every 3 week mailing of wonderful recipes. Almost.

There are "more than 1000 recipes" and each mailing will include 12 of them. Yum- o you may be thinking. Each mailing is just under $9 when you include to postage. You do the math....you could buy one hell of a lot of cookbooks of your choosing for around $750! Of course, you won't get the nice little plastic storage box to keep them in that you do get with the cards. You're on your own when it comes to storing that many cook books. I use to collect cookbooks. Now my recipes are in my computer and I've kept only a handful of my very favorite actual cookbooks. I kind of miss them, but space becomes an issue sooner or later. But I have wandered, so back to the recipe cards.

When I was a new bride, I joined one of these clubs and I really learned a lot about cooking, I made almost every recipe. But it seems to me that they were around $3 a pack and there was a finite number that you agreed to at the beginning of the club. Times have changed.

Anyway, here is this really great recipe. Make it before the cold winds blow.

Herbed Green Beans

• 1 lb green beans
• 2 teaspoons butter or olive oil
• 3 large thinly sliced shallots
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves
• lemon wedges for garnish

1. Bring 1/2 inch of water to a boil in a large 10 inch nonstick skillet. Add the beans, simmer, covered over medium heat for about 8 minutes. You really should cut off the tips of the beans, they can be unpleasant to eat. Drain in a colander.

2. Heat butter in the skilet unitl melted. Add the shallots and sugar. Cook about 2 minutes or until softened and a pretty golden color. Add salt, pepper and the green beans. Stir gently and cook another 3 minutes to heat through.

3. Remove skillet from heat, add lemon zest and basil. Spoon onto serving plate, Garnish with lemon wedges and serve immediately.