you are the "you suck, and that's sad"
happy bunny. you're truthful, but can be a bit
brutal.


which happy bunny are you?
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Santa arrived today. And guess what? I actually saw Christmas in some kids' eyes. Surprised the heck out of me. Where does the wonder go?

Right Brain or Left Brain?

Eclipse of the Moon coming Saturday night.

Can be seen in Eastern North America, South America, Europe and Africa. Also perhap another big flare. We've had cloud cover forever (well maybe not tonight). Has anyone seen the big auroras??

Survivors Ready?

Any thoughts on the returnees or possible bootees?

Michelle had it and I 'tole it.

"Some people tap their feet, some people snap their fingers, and some people sway back and forth. I just sorta do ‘em all together, I guess."


-Elvis in 1956,
talking about his way of moving on stage.

Well darn. Got home, made a little supper, put up the Christmas lights below, and thought I would lie down for a few minutes. I just woke up. This is really going to screw up my NaNo count.

Snagged it at Bryn's:


You are the Christmas Lights.


What Christmas Ornament are you?
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Maybe there's hope. Swiped from Onyx.

31.25 %

My weblog owns 31.25 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

Waiting for Mayoral Results.

In January our elected Mayor left his position to take a post under our new Governor Granholm. This left the head of City Council as acting mayor, with an election to fill the remaining years of office held today.

This became an interesting battle. The Acting Mayor was born in Mexico, has been involved in Lansing politics for over thirty years, and is older. English is not his first language and it is apparent. His opponent was just elected to the State Senate, but has decided that being Mayor is his new calling.

I saw the two men at the Chili Cook-off held in the spring. The present Mayor was walking amongst the people with little fanfare. He looked like someone's grandpa. People would walk up to him and speak and then go on their way. The Senator dude was at the head of the entrance to the Chili Cook-off. As we were leaving, he grabbed our hands and asked how the chili was. "I'm just tooo busy to get down there and have some." Did he really think that he was hosting the thing???? (Can you see where my loyalties are???)

Anyway, it's a dead heat now. I guess I'll have to go to bed and see the results in the morning. (Or get back up around 2:00 am and peek.)

Lynn's developing a postcard collection. Check it out and send her an update!

David Letterman's son. Somehow I find that very touching. Maybe I'm just touched.

NaNoWriMo Word Count: 5103 words. I'm about 1500 words down from where I should be (ack, after only 4 days!) but things seem to be coming along easier the more I get into the story and I suspect I'll pick the lag up in the next few days.

Roscoe, Mz, Onyx, Ferro are all participating, and I enjoy reading their tales of how their writing is progressing. And what can I say about dearBryn who is coaching this year. She's right on target with her advice of today.

Just a reminder:

The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.

Monday Madness, it is. . .

1. What is your most artistic accomplishment? The photograph albums I have of my nieces and nephews
2. What is your favorite method of artistic expression? photography and playing the piano
3. Name one form of art that you haven't yet tried but would like to. I would like to learn to play the flute.

SUNSHINE

Uhoh. It's a rainy day AND a Monday.

Some places to visit culled from today's newspaper.

Has anyone checked out bloggingnetwork.com? Pay to play, but you can win prizes. Same article references blogger.com, YAY.

Ty Pennington of Trading Spaces has his own website. He also has a new book just out: Ty's Tricks.

Margaret Cho has a blog. (The paper notes a foul language warning.) Anna Kournikova has one also: it looks produced.

perhaps more will be coming . . . or perhaps not. . .hope you're having a relaxing day!

Mr. Frog's Omelet Recipe. Found at Sugar-n-Spicy.

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?

Taboo:: A perfume
Poison:: Pen
1983:: Boo graduated
Tim:: Regal
Groovy:: Feelin'
Italy:: Rome
Think:: Feel
Penthouse::Playboy
Shelter:: Storm
Twinkie:: Hostess

**whisper, arck, whisper** Voice is slightly gone. I wish the outcome could have been different, but it was an exciting game right down to the last second.

27 - 20

And now it's time to prepare to head to Spartan Stadium. I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Go Green!

Just about a perfect Halloween night.

I live in an apartment which doesn't get any trick-or-treat traffic, so on Halloween I head over to my brother Boo's house to share in the fun there. Boo has three daughters. This year they morphed into: a 40's movie star, a pickle, and Sponge Bob-ette. Boo and I walked with the girls for the first half-hour or so, while his wife Ruby passed out goodies. (Her parents had stopped by.) When we returned to the house at about 6:45, Sponge Bob-ette had to remorph: her box was getting too hard on her shoulders. So she became something else. We're not sure what. She swathed herself in several velvet articles of clothing and she was good to go.

The night was perfect: in the high 50's, windy, dry leaves rustling and falling throughout the night. A good time was had by all.

And a Happy Halloween to All!

May your treats be many, and your tricks be few.

And my treat came early. Yesterday at about 10 a.m. the boss called me into his office. "So we're going to hit xxx in billings?"

"Yep."

"Would you like my Michigan State/UofM tickets?"

"Omigoshomigoshomigosh."

So tomorrow, at 12:10 Eastern Standard Time, I'll be in good old Spartan Stadium, shouting:

Go Green!!!

Oh man! I've been treated!. Can you guess? Have you been here enough times that this color is a clue? **BIG HUGE GRIN**

NaNoWriMo.

Yes. November is almost here. I'm participating this year, along with Roscoe, Mz, Onyx, Ferro and anyone else? Bryn is going to coach this year, supplying words of inspiration.

Roscoe's enthusiasm is inspiring. He even went to the kick-off in his area! (Of course, that deal was sweetened by the other participants, I do believe *evil grin*). And Mz completed her novel last year: that is inspiring.

And my other point of inspiration would be Rune's post about working out more. The spirit of that post translates to how I need to think about NaNo. She writes: And I need to be able to say, I'm ready for a change, and to drop the I think part. I need to say I'm going to write 50,000 words in November, and drop the I think part also!

Busy busy busy.

We ran end-of-month figures at work yesterday and it looks like we're going to have the busiest month we've had since July 2002. Now I feel a little better. The going to sleep by 9:00 and muscle spasms just MIGHT be caused by hammering away at the keyboard throughout the day.

Well gosh! I guess if I had $900.00 I could get tickets for Saturday's game! Prices tend to rise when the football game is between #9 and #11. Whoa.

We are talking about the Michigan State/Michigan football matchup here in East Lansing on Saturday. Let's hear it!

Go Green!!!!

Survivors Ready?

All righty now. This week it appears that a new twist has been added. Edited: Ack! I screwed up. I forgot not everyone watches the previews as closely. Sorry about that! My bad.

L

E

T

Me OUT!

One of my favorite things to do to impress people is whip off the value of e to the 15th decimal place. 2.718281828459045. Isn't that funny???? Aren't you impressed??? Don't I need a life???? (Can you tell what kind of day I had?)

What Irrational Number Are You?

You are π Of all the irrational numbers, you are the most famous. You have many friends and fans. Like many people, non-Euclidean geometry makes you feel uncomfortable. You are involved in so many things that it seems like it would take two of you to make ends meet. You are particularly close to the rational number 22/7. However, you and e have been called "remarkable." Your lucky number is approximately 3.14159265

Shiny Lemur Straif's Blog

I match my blogging twin Bryn! But I secretly have always wanted to be e.

Back into the trenches.

It was hard going back to work yesterday. Really hard. And I think "why?" And then I remember, oh yeah...to pay the rent, for the insurance, all that good stuff.

I think work basically is a 4-letter-word. I try mightily to find the good in the days, but some days are just too rough to overcome that feeling of prison.

But on the bright side: today is Tuesday, so it can't be a Monday, and it's Charity Day! That's the day we dress weird at work and have a bake sale for a charity we've chosen. We're not too weird today, just fall-related apparel. I do have to pay an extra $20 if Amy, our new dispatcher/clerical assistant, comes in a vest of wax-papered leaves. Hmmm. We'll see.

Thanks for letting me moan, and hope your day goes well! See ya.

Dang! I missed three on this spelling test. Good exercise. (Spotted at Green-Eyed Monster.)

Late autumn fern

Let's start the week out with a little Monday Madness.

1. Do you watch any 'reality shows' on television? If so, which is your favorite? If not, why? I watch two reality shows, Survivor and Amazing Race. And I actually like both of them about equally.
2. If you were offered a chance to be a part of any of the reality shows, which one would you choose? Why? Probably the Bachelorette show. Can't you just see it now . . . an other-side aged woman as the bachelorette? That would go over just ducky with the marketing people, I would think. *grin*
3. If you could pick your own team on 'Survivor' what qualities would you look for in the 7 people you would choose? That would be hard to decide, because that is the beauty of Survivor: you are judged both on how well you play with others and how well you play the game and ack! If I picked a dream team, how would we ever boot each other off after the merge? Basically, I would like honest, hard--working people on the team. Good looking men. Ugly women. Something like that.

And I'm a day late . . . but Happy Birthday, Cindy!

Lingerie, of course, is designed to make us feel sexy, but what do you put on just for you, that others may never notice, to make yourself feel sexy? Tell your readers about one particular item (or set of items) that you put on to impress yourself rather than the outside world, to inspire sensuality in yourself. Is it a particular set of under garments? Perhaps wearing your hair a new and provocative way? Does an expensive perfume, worn on only the most important of occassions, make you feel sexy?

Okay, okay, I know.....WAY too much information, but: garter belt and stockings. Nothing, but nothing, makes me feel so privately sensual as having them on. And what a hoot that is. . . because pantihose are SOO much easier, but still....

College Football.

You may have noticed that there was no Go Green! yesterday. This was because Michigan State had a bye week, so we were off raking leaves.

However, good stuff still happened. University of Michigan beat Purdue, leaving MSU in first place in the Big 10. This, after the disastrous season of last year, is nothing short of a miracle and a sure testament to the skills of our new coach, John L. Smith. This also sets the stage for next week's pivotal game. Michigan State hosts University of Michigan here. Last year we were trounced so badly by UofM (49-3) that my UM buddies didn't even want to tease me about the game. This year . . . is a whole different ballgame.

And so, I let you all off the hook yesterday for this, but you'll probably see it many times here on the "other side" this week:

Go Green!!

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?

Roadtrip:: Montana
Honey:: Moon
Flanders:: Molly
Vampire:: Dracula
Justice:: for all
Marine:: Soldier
Protractor:: Compass
Rubber:: Baby Buggy Bumpers
London:: Bridge
Jerry:: Lewis

Yum! The second day of an at-home vacation. Life is good.

One of the projects for today is to finish a small scrapbook for my latest 16-year-old niece Violet. Her birthday was actually in August, but this weekend is the first time we've gotten together with her family (they're the up-north bunch and are sooo busy). Of course, I could have finished it up in August . . . or September . . . but no. Procastination, thy name is Shirl.

I've used the mosaic method on one page. Photos are cut into one inch squares and then placed on a grid. A page of examples is here. It's an interesting experience to view one inch fragments of pictures.

Added about noon-thirty: If you're using eyelets or rivets in your paper works, get the little hammer that is for those projects! I tried to make do with a regular hammer: the balance isn't right. I've been having absolutely too much fun!

This afternoon I'm going to get a walk in, and then this evening I'm meeting a friend to see Veronica Guerin. Oh, how I love days off!

C O M M O N

Yum! Days off are so delicious. So far I've given myself a Burt's Bee Green Goddess Facial, done a foot massage, washed hair, took rent letter over to the rental office, paid some bills. And I've been able to do this in a calm, breathful way. It just seems like I've been running like crazy lately, and getting nowhere. Part of it is the work hours: 7:45 - 6:00 or later. Must work on reducing those. Somehow.

This afternoon I'll take the car in for an oil change (oh yay ~~ no waiting in the Saturday long line), take some stuff to the printer for work (okay, so I'm a glutton for punishment), do a little mid-day shopping (I always envy the women in the mall mid-day who look like that's when they ALWAYS shop...they look so relaxed) and then meet Carol at 4:00 at the Red Cross.
If I don't freak out (Carol's a good buddy, she won't tell on me if I do) we'll go have a bite to eat, then it's home to Survivor!

Don't forget to choose your bootee!

Uhoh. The Niagara falls guy is from Michigan.

I have two days off! Yippee!

My work friend Carol gives blood regularly. She has been talking up the experience and the value of donating, so tomorrow I'm going to the Red Cross with her. This will be my first-time. Eek!

BROCCOLI FREE ZONE

**waves** Hi Bryn!

Whoops! I fell off the caffeine-free wagon, but am climbing back on as we speak. End of confession time.

Playing with the boxes at Mandarin:

Time to pick your Bootee!
That's your Survivor Bootee, you understand.

Coming up on 72 hours caffeine-free. Helloooo, headache!

Just stumbled onto Andy Foulds Photography and Web Design. Sweet navigation!

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?

Country:: Farm
G:: Spot
Offer:: Help
Connection::Phone
Quest:: Man of La Mancha
Lighthouse:: South Manitou
Sycamore:: Zaccheus
Inhumane:: Treatment
Sneer:: Bad guy
Weapon:: Gun

Monday will never be the same.

Karen pointed to Daisy's list of Office Dares. Heck, lots of those are just SOP for us *grin*.

Wow! I am tickled green. Michigan State won today, and at present is #1 in the Big 10. No one would have believed it at the beginning of the season. So very much of the credit has to go to Coach John L. Smith and his staff for making this gang into a fine team.

We've a hard schedule left ahead of us, but for right now, we're #1!!!!

MSU 44 - Minnesota 38

Edited Sunday: Oops, my bad. I'm talking about U.S. College Football here and never said so. **hangs head in shame** Also, from what my friend Roo tells me, way different than "Aussie Rules Footie". Ah well.

New Lunch Time Experience
Yesterday I treated myself to a buffet lunch at the newly renovated Capitol Grille. When I was finished, I had a few minutes before I had to return to work, so I walked up to Michigania.

At the corner of Michigan and Washington (with the Capitol building looming to the west) was a stopped car, with a police car behind it.

On the way back from Michigania, a second police car had pulled up behind the vehicles. The officer was approaching the first officer and said, "Looks like we got lucky today."

My car was parked just a little way down Michigan, so I had to drive by the corner to get back to work. The young woman driver (probably no older than twenty-five, blond) was out of the auto and was being cuffed. One of the officers was holding her handbag, a dainty little gold thing.

I had never seen such a thing. Of course, I'll probably never find out what it was all about, but it made a good water-cooler story.

What is your favorite rainy day activity?
When you don’t have to work, when the day is all your own, what do you choose to do on a rainy day? Do you: build a fire? Pop in your favorite DVD? Read the latest bestseller? Play board games with the kids? Clean the house? Just what is your favorite rainy day activity when the day belongs entirely to you?

Oooh, good question, because it looks like that's what I have today, a rainy day. And the day will consist of:

Revamping the little broom closet into a crafts closet.
Reading Full Speed by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes. One of those quick reads that should be done in a couple of hours.
Scrapbooking Montana pictures. (I need to finish that book!)
Listening to the MSU game on the radio.
Preparing a bunch of packages for mailing.
And of course, hopping on and off the net to visit i-friends.

Should be a great day!

It's Michigan State at Minnesota at 12:00 noon. Here we go now:

Go Green

Scott has developed an interesting tax plan. Check it out here.

Jann's CD came. Yay!

Lots of folks doing NANO this year. I see Mz and Roscoe and Onyx signed up so far. Cool!

Which Dr. Seuss character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Swiped it at Jennifer's.

The Empty Bowls supper last night is a simple dinner of soup, bread and water. The Potters Guild donates bowls, and you get to choose a bowl to bring home.

These suppers (this is my sixth) always make me want to simplify my life, to have better stewardship over my stuff. What sorts of things have worked for you to simplify your life? I'd love to hear!

Very extreme pumpkins. Beware.

There is a story about a man who left this earth and was taken on a tour of the inner realms. He was shown a room where he saw a large group of hungry people trying to eat dinner, but because the spoons that they were trying to eat with were longer than their arms, they remained frustrated. "This," his guide told him, "is Hell". "That's terrible!" exclaimed the man: "Please show me Heaven!" "Very well," agreed the guide, and on they went. When they opened Heaven's door, the man was perplexed to see what looked very much like the same scene; there was a group of people with spoons longer than their arms. As he looked more closely, however, he saw happy faces and full tummies, for there was one important difference; the people in Heaven had learned to feed each other.

Tonight was the Annual Empty Bowls fundraiser for the American Red Cross here.

T H E R E

Survivors Ready?

Time to be considering your bootee for tomorrow's episode.

On Milkweeds.

Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on milkweed plants. My mother is developing a butterfly garden. She actually transplanted thistle and milkweed from the country to her garden. (She can't imagine what her father, a farmer, would think. Times do change.) The thistle took off; the milkweed did not, so now I'm looking for a way to purchase milkweed seed. I bet I'll find it!

Bingo! The Milkweed Farm is here.

Picture is from yesterday's evening walk in the sunshine at the MSU 4-H Children's Garden.

And there was music
And there were wonderful roses,



Quick, quick . . . what are those lyrics from?

Saw it at Cybertoad's:

May


Which month are you?
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Last of the flowers at the MSU gardens:

Mmmm. I love Nick Bantock and the Griffin and Sabine books. This weekend I splurged on the Morning Star. I'm taking it a little teensy bit at a time. Must be savored.

Monday Madness

1. How often do you change or add to your blogroll list? If you don't use blogroll, how often do you add or change links to your 'favorite reads' list? Oh, I probably change it once a month or so.
2. Do you visit your blogrolls regularly? If so, how often? Definitely visit the blogroll regularly. It varies a bit, but everyone gets at least two visits a week.
3. Do you visit other people's blogrolls or 'faves' list? Definitely! If I really like someone's blog I'll often run their blogroll too to pick up new faves.
4. About how many blogs have you blogrolled (or have linked on your blog)?About 40
5. Do you change your layout or color scheme regularly? If so, how often? If not, have you thought about changing the look of your blog? Feel free to elaborate! I like the format so I stick with that. I change the header depending on what I've been taking pictures of and how much time I have.

Great Autumn weekend up here in Michigan.

The trip to the country Saturday morning was a perfect autumn drive. My mom, sis-in-law, and two nieces headed out to the country school craft sale. The weather was perfect! Tree colors are at what I would consider 50% (am I close, otto? deb? LA?) and the sky was a perfect October blue with a bit of moisture in it . . . the colors of the trees bled into the sky.

Rose, 10, and Tulip, 11, had been to the country school before, but this time it sunk in that this was where their grandma had gone to school. They asked all sorts of questions about how classes were held. We had sloppy joes and then the girls played on the merry-go-round and swings. (Same equipment their grandma had used.) Lots of fun.

Michigan State did win! Thanks for all your Go Greens!

I saw the $100,000 Trading Spaces today. Wow. That is a lot of money and a lot of Italian silk!

Also saw Intolerable Cruelty with George Clooney and Mrs. Douglas. Ummm....perhaps not the best of movies as the most noteworthy thing I can say about it is that Geoffrey Rush reminded me of Rageboy.

I am thoroughly recovered from inventory.

And how was YOUR weekend?
meg made me do it!

Have you heard about Letterman's Bear?

I just happened to catch Dave the night he was telling about the bear in his home in Montana. He didn't mention where his cabin was, but googling shows that it is in the Choteau, Montana area. I'm not surprised. Glory Bear is sitting by a menu from the restaurant we always stop at in Choteau as we drive down from Glacier to Great Falls. They have a guestbook there and his signature was in it.

Glory Bear is not the bear that visited Dave.

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?

Timeshare:: Florida
Accounts:: Receivable
Temptation:: Sinful
Hack:: TV show
Shadow:: Lands
Infection:: Antibiotic
800:: Number
Infidelity:: Loss of trust
Springfield::Illinois
Gardener:: Great job

Feels kind of like the telephone line is down with blogrolling down at the moment. Ah well, all for better in the future, eh?

October Skies ©


Saturday, I saw in the sky a moon, a balloon, a jet.
The balloon, floated off to anyone's guess - Lansing?
The jet, too, climbed into the blue.
A predetermined destination; probably not Lansing.
The moon's vestige face - a reminder of more glowing times.
Saturday, I saw in the sky, a moon, a balloon, a jet.

Lee House

I was googling "October Skies" because we had some beautiful ones today. I smiled at this poem that included "Lansing". I smiled even more when I looked at their home page and realized they were referring to Lansing, New York.

Oh yay, Susan is up! She does a cute Saturday Morning Me.

Early morning start today: it's the craft sale at the one-room schoolhouse I attended in first grade. I'll pick Mom up at 9:30 and we'll head out. Hopefully the weather will be the same beautiful stuff we've had all week. Pictures at 11:00 *grin*.

This afternoon I'll be listening to an away game of the Michigan State Spartan football team. All together now:

Go Green!

Good Saturday Morning!

I've now recovered from Inventory. Inventory is a three times a year process that has three-phases. There is the prep work which entails setting up the count sheets and deciding who counts what. (I work for a heating and air conditioning company: our installers and technicians do the counts. We try to place the right person in the right area.) Next is the count. I like this day. I count fireplaces surrounded by all these hunky construction guy types. Not bad. The last step is adjusting the counts in the computer. That part gets a little hairy sometimes, but the last few years the office staff pulls sweetly together and the total comes together fairly easily.

There was one bug. Our comptroller is a verbally abusive person who doesn't like to do "grunt" (her words) work. Her husband also works with us. Unfortunately he has the same attitude. The rest of us (including the owner and the general manager) work around that and "grunt" along. In one of her tirades this month she fussed about a "double standard". Wrong choice of words for her, because we all know where the double standard lies.

It has been twelve years with this ditz. I keep thinking things will get better, but they don't. Well, I guess it is a little better in that I now know everyone else in the place sees through her too. However, that's maybe a little worse, because if the big bosses aren't going to change things, what chance of change is there?

Thanks for bearing with me if you made it this far. Sometimes seeing something in black and white and blog helps me clarify things. Sometimes it doesn't. And bottom line: Inventory is done! Yeah!

Note to self:

Agus dún do focan clab.

W H Y

Huckleberries or Blueberries.

What is the difference? Is one wild and the other cultivated? Is it regional? They're a big product in Montana, and I brought back lotion and vinaigrette. Looking for replacement product sites now. This one looks interesting. Oh, but wait. This one is in Montana. And this one is in the Flathead valley. Oh great, now I'm REALLY hungry!

Survivors Ready?

Who is going to get booted tomorrow night?
(My answer is in the comments.)

Ilana at Sugar 'N Spicy lives in Israel. Her site has awesome links to artistic and photographic sites throughout the world. She seldom discusses living under constant terrorist attack. Today she does and her words are eloquent.

Calling all political junkies . . .
Have you caught K Street on HBO yet? I don't have HBO, but a dear friend who knows how much I enjoy watching the machinations of politics has invited me to view the first two episodes. I hope to see all ten.

The show features James Carville and Mary Matalin (my heroes) as themselves and heads of a fictitious public relations firm. Real and fictitious characters are intermingled. There is a lot of handheld work and extemporaneous stuff. The show is executively produced by Stephen Soderbergh and George Clooney.

If you have a chance, give it a peek. I'd be curious as to what you think about this "other side" show.

Monday Madness

"What is your LEAST favorite..........."

1. food: brussels sprouts. I give them all to bryn.
2. type of music: Gosh, I like most kinds of music
3. subject of discussion: bathroom habits
4. time of day: dusk
5. time of year: gray november
6. fragrance: Smell of cooked cabbage
7. actor/actress:Meryl Streep
8. commercial:Ut-oh. I don't watch enough TV
9. television sitcom: Ditto.
10. singer: Luciano Pavarotti

Under the Tuscan Sun.

I saw Under the Tuscan Sun last weekend. I had been looking forward to it. Diane Lane is an immensely effective actress. The previews had looked good.

Maybe that was too much build-up. I didn't care for the movie. The characters didn't matter that much to me. Their fantasies didn't jibe with mine. I guess I'd rather be in Kansas. Just call me Dorothy.

The Big Five Personality Test

Extroverted	||||||||||||||	54%
Introverted	||||||||||||	46%
Friendly	||||||||||||||||	70%
Aggressive	||||||	30%
Orderly	||||||||||||	42%
Disorderly	||||||||||||||	58%
Relaxed	||||||||||||	42%
Emotional	||||||||||||||	58%
Intellectual	||||||||||||||||||||	88%
Practical	||||	12%

Take Free Big 5 Personality Test

Unconscious Mutterings

Coat:: Winter
Allowance:: seventy cents
Mist:: plants
Disorder:: mood
Scheme:: Color
Dick:: Jane (okay, so that wasn't the first thought)
Homework:: healthy
Milton:: Berle
Shampoo:: hair
Z:: nighty-night

It's Sunday now, October fifth. Go wish a very special person a happy birthday, please. Susan is the real deal.

You may have heard of BloggerCon. Now meg brings us BloggerNoCon. Mandarin rules.

Yep, Susan, I'm tickled green!

Perfect football weather: how did that happen? Great food and company: I know how that happened. And Michigan State University won again: thank goodness THAT happened.

My sister and her family picked me up at 9:30 a.m. We met Boo and his family out at the commuter lot and set up our tailgate. Breakfast pizzas from Ruby, cheesy potatoes and pickle roll-ups from Crystal, baked beans and fruit/cheese tray from me. Brats on the grill by Boo and Bull. The girls blew balloons up and tied them to chairs.

Parking at the commuter lot is free, but you pay to ride the bus to the stadium. Headed for the buses at 11:15. Got to the stadium in time for Baby Bull/Bull/Crystal to stop at the Spartan Spirit shop and for Boo's girls to affix green face tattoos and for me to start the trek up to the top deck where our seats were *grin*.

Poor Indiana. Michigan State has a habit of screwing up the game after we've upset a highly ranked team. (We upset Iowa last week.) We have a new coach now, John L. Smith. We didn't screw up today. 31-3. Yeah!
(Oh, and why do I find it ever-so-funny that John L.'s master degree of science in physical education is from . . . ta da . . . University of Montana!) What a combination of my favorite things.

Weather allowing we walk from the stadium back to the commuter lot. Weather allowed. And it was fun for me to see the kids lead the way back to the car. Who knows, maybe one of them will go to MSU. (Though two of Boo's kids want to go to . . . University of Montana for the paleontology program.)

It was a mighty fine day.

Just a quick morning stop to say hi before the Michigan State - Indiana homecoming game. MSU is 4-1, Indiana 1-4, so it sounds positive (don't smack me, Roscoe!) I have to get the fruit and cheese tray ready and do a load of clothes, so I won't be surfing this morning. Have a great day!

Our weather:
Mostly cloudy with a slight chance of rain showers. Highs in the lower 50s. West winds 5 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.

Oh yes, and one more thing:

Go Green!

Sheesh, but I'm jealous of the food they serve at Cybertoad's office! Wow!

Ilana at Sugar-n-Spicy finds wonderful artistic links. In her most recent post she points to John Copeland Journals. Yum.

See samples of Deb's Altered book here. Hmm. I was altering Civilization this summer, but Deb has the real deal in altered books.

Cool. Someone stopped here looking for the etymology of dagnabit!

Found at Ferro Lad's:


You are a Folkie. Good for you.


What kind of Sixties Person are you?
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Someone's having a birthday. In two days.

And the weather outside is . . .

Tomorrow is Michigan State's Homecoming, and our family is tailgating and having a party. Normally we go to a November game (Purdue or Penn State) because those are the only tickets available, but this year we were able to get October tickets.

We THOUGHT the weather would be more congenial.

Doesn't look good right now . . . but we'll still have a ball.

Anything for our buddies at Blogger . . . I just took their 15 Minute Survey. (Took only about five minutes.)

As much as I grouse about blogger when it goes down, there is something solid and egalitarian and fun about the system that I like. Or maybe I just like the name. Anyway, here I am.

Hurrah for Obsessive-Compulsiveness!

I have finally seated all 8 tables in RSVP. Now I can go play a different game.

Survivor Bootee Recap: (tonight's the night)
Susan : John
Cindy : Osten
Bryn : Andrew
Shirl : Shawn

Any more guesses? Have a great day! Or a good day! Or an interesting day! Or . . . a day **grin**

WHEN

Happy October!
No flurries here . . . yet. Sounds like Joni and Lynn are still digging out from the hurricane in Halifax. Yikes. And Susan might get a freeze. Brrr!

Inventory day today. Send numbers. Thanks!

Update: Lynn was able to post for a moment, but Noah is sick. Sending good thoughts that way!