To The Little Red Pontiac Behind Me

Riding my bumper is NOT going to make me drive faster. If my driving ten miles an hour OVER the speed limit is not fast enough for you GO AROUND.
If you knew how to drive, you would have already been around me. But, clearly, you DON’T know how to drive, or changing lanes wouldn’t be such an issue for you.
If you had the fortitude to NOT have to hit your breaks at EVER. SINGLE. CURVE. then perhaps you would have been able to go around me when I changed lanes to pass a slower moving vehicle. But you don’t.
So, in a nutshell, you are a bad driver and a coward.
And THAT is why you are now stuck behind the white Honda Element who is going ten miles an hour UNDER the speed limit.
All I can say to you is learn some patience or learn how to drive.
Oh, and also, HA HA!

Friday Quote (On Saturday)

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
—William Arthur Ward

Mine Now!

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Just a bit of levity until I get a new post up.  Lots to say, just haven’t had time.  Will try to update tomorrow or Friday.

Christmas Presents!

If you want a hand made Christmas present I need to know NOW.  (Read: painting, hat, scarf, or blanket.)  I generally try to think of stuff all on my own, but it has been a stress filled year, and my brain hurts, so I am taking requests.  But if you don’t have your request in by the 10th of November, you get what you get.  Sorry, I am not killing myself this year to get gifts done.

That said, I am pleased to say that I already have all of my niece, and two nephews presents purchased, half of my sister’s presents, and the Raccoon Goddess’s gift (Technogypsy’s wonderful wife).  I also have odds and ends for three other gifts, AND what I am going to get for one other all picked out and lined up.  It is just a matter of getting it done.  So, here it is almost the end of October, and I am moving right along.

Now all I have to do is B and Spacie’s two paintings before the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I will have nothing but Christmas to focus on.

And now that the update on that is done, I have a question.  Why is it that, whenever you ask someone what they want for Christmas they say, “Oh, I don’t know” ?  Or “I’ll have to think about that”?  Don’t they know how ANNOYING this is?  (And yes, I am SO guilty of this, too.)  So everyone should have a standard answer ready.  My standard answers are art supplies, gift certificates to book stores, and socks (I love getting just plain ol’ package of white socks.  I have boney feet, and am ROUGH on socks, so I need new ones all the time.  And.  I lose them.  I maintain that the dryer eats them and that is why it still works so good, NOT that it is still pretty new, and that I don’t lose them, but, really, I do).  Standard answers people.  They are good things.

Brains…

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Friday Quote

“You cursed brat! Look what you’ve done! I’m melting! melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? Oooooh, look out! I’m going! Oooooh! Ooooooh!”

-The Wicked Witch of The West, The Wizard of OZ

My Snacks Vs Pajamafin’s

This was a learning weekend for me, and, so, was busy.  There was learning of power points, going over lesson plan stuff, going to the Farmer’s Market with the Bunny and the Bunny Baby (that is affectionately known by her mother has Peanut) where I got the most wonderful apples (and now I feel like the wicked witch from Snow White, pushing my poisoned apples, mwa haha), general cooking fun, and movies.  Lots of movies.

I would like, at this time, to point out that the Marmot made a wonderful stuffed pork loin thing with some rosemary potatoes that I love, and roasted corn, but I, in my infinite wisdom, did not think to take pictures of it until AFTER the lovely meal was all gone and digesting.  So, sadly, even though it was really VERY good, it doesn’t get to enter the competition (that no one even knew about until last night when I decided that it was, in fact, a competition).  Totally my fault, apologies all around.

So.  I decided that I NEEDED decorative corn for my walls.  The store didn’t have any of the large variety so I had to get a bunch of the smaller ears.  And, lo, did the instructions say that we could POP said ears after we are done decorating with them (needless to say, this prompted the buying of three more ears).  So home again, home again, where I got a paper sack and proceeded to pop three of the ears.

This first picture is of the yellow corn, stunningly modeled atop a Carnation Instant Breakfast tin, before popping.

This is the multi colored corn, modeled blurrily (because you couldn’t see without the flash and it wouldn’t focus well with the flash) in a lovely paper bag, ready to pop.

And this is the red corn after popping, stunningly modeled over a bowl of popped corn whilst being held in my left hand.

All I did was pop the ears of corn into the paper bag (they work better if you do them one at a time, even though, technically, you CAN double up but they tend to scorch easier that way).  I then dropped popped corn into a bowl, added salt and melted butter and off to the couch we went for fine dining and What Dreams May Come movie watching.

Pajamafin was up next with his sticky buns.

I was not with it enough to get pictures of the preparing of the dough (as I was on a mission to clean out the cat box) but I did get the cooked dough, the making of the glaze and the finished products.

This is the full tray, lovely modeled on tin foil atop my stove, after baking.

A close up to make your mouth water.

Pajamafin making the glaze.  I believe he called this double boiling, but I am not swearing to it..

Glaze being applied.

So good I should work for a food magazine.

And the mouth-watering close-up (if, by now, you do not all wish you were here, you don’t know what good is. :-p )

And the finished product ready to eat, being modeled by the cook.  Who, hands down, totally won the snack competition.  These things are WONDERFUL.

Friday Quote

“Unfortunately, life is not fair:  Occasionally the bad guy wins.  People DO play favorites.  Good people die young.  More people than you expect will, in fact, let you down, and not everyone believes in honesty.  While this may be hard to accept it should never hinder us from always trying to do the right thing-Integrity is what you choose to do when no one is watching.”

-Unknown

Tyler State Park

This past Friday, the Marmot and I packed up the car and went on the annual camping trip.  Usually, Pajamafin comes too, and, usually, we go to Padre Island National Seashore.  This year, however, Pajamafin had to stay home to grade and because it was going to be very hot and humid at the beach, and because I wanted trees, we went to Tyler State Park instead.

The plan was to leave about noon to try and get there after the rain had stopped.  Brilliant plan, really, except for one small problem.  The Marmot’s car battery suddenly decided that it needed replacing.  So off to the battery store (really.  It is a place over by target that sells tires and batteries).  It was supposed to only take 30 minutes.  Over an hour later we were good to go.  But first, we had to stop at Target as yours truly didn’t have a jacket.

So, in reality, while we were aiming for noon, we really didn’t get on the road until around 2.  Which put us getting at the park at a little after four.

But, let me tell you, it was so worth it as the park is BEAUTIFUL.  It is a big, huge pine forest a couple of hours from home, and it just so happens that the Marmot and I got the best camp site ever.  Here are some views from the campsite:

And if you walked down the path that led out of our campsite down to the lake you got views like this:

Needless to say, exploring happened while the Marmot went to the store and got fire wood.  For dinner we had hot dogs over the camp fire, and, while it was misty and cold, it was pretty nice.

That night, around 2 am, a church group showed up and it turned out that it was the youth minister and a group of 10 teen-aged boys.  I was already awake (because I never sleep good the first night, I want to go DO stuff ) so the fact that they were being SUPER loud didn’t really bother me.  It did bother another woman, though, who began to SCREAM at them.

Then at about seven in the morning (I know because I had fallen asleep at 6 and it woke me up) that same lady started SCREAMING at this group again telling them that they had to leave and that none of us wanted them here anyway and we were all mad at them.

First off, for those who have never been camping, this is not good camp etiquette.  Yes, they were loud and obnoxious past quite time (10 pm to 6 am for those interested) but you don’t scream out across the camp ground at someone.  You walk over and, very politely say, “Hey, I’m glad that you are having a good time, but we are trying to sleep, so could you be a little quieter, thank you so much, oh, and I am going fishing tomorrow if you guys would like to come” or some other variant on it.  This keeps everyone from being embarrassed, keeps you from looking like an ass, and makes the camping experience SO much nicer.  I have been camping my entire life, most people who are camping are friendly and will respond well to this.  Most people who are camping will do the exact opposite of what you want if you start screaming at them from across the camp site.

Secondly, since SHE is the one who is acting an ass and has just woken me up, SHE is the one I am mad at, not this church group.  Again, YES, they were loud, but it is 10 teenagers, all  boys, and they are excited to be out in the woods.  I don’t think they were TRYING to be rude, I think that they were excited and would have responded better to polite (please to note, they were very quite the rest of the time EXCEPT for when the same woman called the police the second night on them when they weren’t doing anything, and so they were very loud until ten o’clock when quite time started, just to show that woman.)

Despite this, the Marmot and I got up and went fishing and generally had a good day.  I caught five fish and a turtle, (mostly perch, but a couple of bass too small to keep) and the Marmot caught four fish.  All of them were either perch (which are small) or were bass that didn’t meet the size requirements so everything got thrown back, even the turtle who bit through my hook when I was trying to take it out of its mouth.

We then went hiking through the woods, and it was LOVELY.  As WordPress is messing up a little at the moment I am not going to post any more pictures, but you can see all of them at my gallery on my deviant art page here if you are interested.  It was BEAUTIFUL.  I took lots of pictures of trees and the different types of mushrooms and toadstools for painting references.

We had steak and rosemary potatoes and roasted corn that the Marmot cooked for dinner, and then off to bed.  It was ALMOST raining and misting and sprinkling all day, so we were a bit damp by days end but nothing too bad, and it was a good day.

It rained Saturday night, and Sunday was cold and wet, too, but we got up and went fishing again (I caught two fish and Marmot caught one, again, all too small to keep), and then we came back and tore down the campsite.  By this point it was still damp, but there was no actual precipitation falling so we went on one last hike around the woods (by this point, though, I was freezing) and I took more pictures.  Then we got in the car and drove home.

All in all, a wonderful trip.  Can’t wait to do it again.

Friday Quote With Pictures

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Today is Friday Quote, and I got nothing, soooo, enjoy Dr. Horrible.

“A lot of guys ignore the laugh, and that’s about standards. I mean, if you’re gonna get into the Evil League of Evil, you have to have a memorable laugh. What, do you think Bad Horse didn’t work on his whinny? His terrible death-whinny?”

-Dr. Horrible, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

And, for all you Bad Horse Fans: the letter…

With Lyrics!

Bad Horse
Bad Horse
Bad Horse
Bad Horse

He rides across the nation
The thoroughbred of sin
He got the application
You just sent in

It needs evaluation
So let the games begin
A heinous crime, a show of force
A murder would be nice of course

Bad Horse
Bad Horse
Bad Horse
He’s Bad

The Evil League of Evil
Is watching so beware
The grade that you receive
Will be your last we swear

So make the Bad Horse gleeful
Or he’ll make you his mare….

Get/You’re saddled up
There’s no recourse
It’s Hi-Ho Silver
Signed Bad Horse