Superior Firepower

In spite of requests for pantsless painting pictures (say THAT 3 times fast!) I thought you'd all enjoy this. I was reminded of it by a post over at Michael's.



I actually bought this book for MuNKi after watching the vid. I ♥ Think Geek!

I See a Green Wall. . .

. . . and I want it painted black.*



Actually, I didn't know that this "magnetic paint" was going to be black. It's intended to be used as a primer and then covered. I just wanted to be able to use the magnetic poetry tiles on the wall with the kids.

The label says that this is "magnetic latex paint." I don't know what your definition of "magnetic" is, but mine runs something along the lines of "a substance that attracts ferrous metals." This paint, as I suspected, is not magnetic at all. It's simply latex paint with a ton of iron filings suspended (when you stir it long and hard enough) in it. So, yeah, I should have figured it was going to be black. And now I know why the guy at Lowe's said that a lot of people like to cover it with chalkboard paint (which, I hope, really does give a surface you can write on with chalk, and not just a chalk surface.) You couldn't actually cover this with anything else. Unless you used about 34 coats. And then it wouldn't be "magnetic" anymore.

So far I have, I think, four coats on the wall, and it will hold our bigger magnet words. It holds the little magnetic poetry words as well, but their attraction to my finger is still stronger than their attraction to the wall. I figure it's going to take two or three more coats, by which time that section of the wall is just going to be so heavy that it rips the underlying paint right off and falls to the floor.

This has been an interesting project, but I think that knowing what I know now (unless this stuff gets a lot better after a few more coats) I'd have been better off just nailing a piece of galvanized steel up there. :-P

I guess my wall can rust now, too. Here in Michigan all the outer walls rust anyway, due to the high content of iron in our water. Too bad I didn't think of just spraying water on this wall. I could have saved myself a lot of time and money.

*I'm not actually a Stones fan at all. I've never even heard that song. Weird things just tend to lodge themselves in my brain. Usually useless things. OK, time to take my pants off and get back to the painting again.

I Have Been

~Off the radar for a bit

~Afraid to open my email because of all the shit I have to wade through

~Not quilting, but I did buy some more hot pink fabric today

~Wanting to scrapbook without having the time

~Making sugar cookies way more than is normal for me (twice in the last week or so)

~Not reading A Breath of Snow and Ashes very much

~Watching Scrubs or films at night

~Enabling my kids' Webkinz addiction

~Sewing on patches for $, but turning down a chair-cover sewing gig for which there was no pattern (not my forte)

~Getting the kids back on schedule with schoolwork and stuff

~Shoveling (well, forking) goat mulch

~Teaching and taking classes and sparring and trying to figure out the new schedule that starts next week

~Hardly using the computer at all


What have you been up to?

A Prawnversation

"When I'm grown up, when I'm 10 or something, I don't think I'll have a baby because they don't even know how to eat, and every day I'd have to help it."

Picturesque

Two bees

or


not two bees


Wheeze the juice, bud-DY! (LMK if you catch THAT obscure reference ^_^ )


Yeah, I like bees


and attempting to freeze them mid-flight.


going to get Mollusc's ears pierced -- a little nervous


a little jealous :)


a little more nervous


"One. . . Two. . . FIVE!"


Happy :)


more not Susans


a random sticky note I found that I suspect was written by The Prawn, given the subject matter


I thought that MuNKi was insufficiently Star Wars Geeky until he surprised us with this. OK, he's still not all that Star Wars Geeky, but he sure knows how to make those of us who ARE very, very happy! ^_^


I found this particularly amusing, given one of the suggestions for Diesel's caption contest this week. ^_^


Utah is still morphing.


I used a random stripping technique my friend's mom showed us for this one.


I love the Autumn leaves fabric in the borders on this one. I keep finding myself drawn to fabrics by a couple of designers, even when I have no clue who did them.


Seeing a theme in fabrics here?






one of my faves

I have some four patch and nine patch blocks, too, but all those pics had some digital funkitivity going on.

And finally, the first book I chose at the library book sale yesterday. I cannot freaking believe they had this, or that it was even made. Some of you may remember my discussion of how the kids like to watch this movie when MuNKi is out of town -- primarily (I suspect) because our tradition is to start it at midnight, and it's a three hour movie. ^_^ Perhaps we'll be uploading some more YouTubes soon. . .

2 Flicks

MuNKi and I watched 2 flicks over the last 2 nights. The first was Wild Hogs. I'm not really sure what I expected of this, but I enjoyed it and laughed a fair amount. There are some good lines and a lot of great gags (like Dudley's tattoo. ^_^) Ray Liotta is a convincing bully, but when it comes down to it, putting a bunch of fake tattoos on him does not make him a convincing biker. At all. But as I said, he bullies well, so I guess he can get away with it.

The one we watched last night was Little Children. I really don't remember what I saw that made me want to check this out, since I had no clue what the plot was. I didn't even remember the name of it when we got to the vid store - just that it had Patrick Wilson and Kate Winslet. Fortunately, the guy at the vid store was able to figure it out based on that, so we were able to pick it up.

Right off, it was evident (because of the narration) that it had been based on a book, so that gave me hope that there would be an actual plot. As it turns out, there were two plots. Honestly, in this film, nothing in the story is furthered by the second plotline. Nothing. You could cut out the whole thing and it wouldn't make any difference. As it turned out, we did fast forward through some of that story towards he end. I can only assume that it's quite a different story in book format. But the main story is really very good -- nothing earth-shattering in terms of newness of concept or situation, but compelling nonetheless. And steamy. OMG. Did I mention steamy? Part of my brain was screaming "traitor" at me for finding Raoul hot in this. ^_^

I had a lot of morbid fears during this flick then never came to fruition. Knowing that, I'd like to see it again. And just fast forward through that whole other storyline. ^_^

If. . .

If we hadn't stayed for sparring, we wouldn't have left an hour later.

If we hadn't left an hour later, and then decided to grab a dvd from the rental place, we wouldn't have met the woman who had walked there.

If it hadn't been pouring buckets, we wouldn't have thought to ask if she had a ride home.

If we hadn't taken her home when we did, we wouldn't have seen that big bump in the turnout lane.

If we hadn't backed up and stopped, gotten out and looked, we wouldn't have known it was still alive. (It sure looked dead!)

If we hadn't flipped that big-a$$ snapper back over and carried it off the road, it would most definitely have been run over again and killed. Of course, when I say "we," I mean that I flipped it over and then, after it tried to kill me, watched from a safe distance as MuNKi braved life and limb to carry it off the road. ^_^

The moral of this story is twofold:

♦ life is a series of choices that all have an impact on something

♦ sparring saves lives. ^_^

Taking the "L" out of "Quilt"

I'm kidding, of course. Because if I did quit now, the quilt would look like Utah. ^_^

But I also don't have any pics, because MuNKi is doing brain surgery on the computer I need to use for picture uploading.

I have 34 squares right now. I'm still not sure how many I'm shooting for. I kind of figured I'd stop when I got sick of it. If I have to, maybe I'll cheat with wide sashing. (those strips in between) ^_^ And now that I see that frog quilt, I'm reminded that I have a bunch of those batik squares of my own from years ago, except mine are dragons and celestial stuff. Ooooh! I think I feel the next project coming on already!

Tomorrow we're off to a friend's house for sewing and swimming. The kids are very excited. :) And then it's class and sparring for MuNKi and me in the evening. I think all my testing pains are gone now. The only thing hurting now is my throwing arm from dodgeball. ^_^

How Appropos

~Today all but one of the adults who tested on Saturday came to class because it was our classmate Anna's first and last class as a black belt. She's off to college on Wednesday, and she will be sorely missed because she was a lovely addition to the class. Her dad will still do class with us, and her brother, too, when the soccer season is over, so at least we'll get to see her at the Christmas parties and such. Because it was a special day, after the initial kicking, the Master let us play Dodgeball - "Seniors" against the teens. This is ALWAYS a riot. And we always cream them, too, even though youth and speed are on their side. ^_^ They won only ONE of the 8 or so games we played. ^_^

~Yesterday, when I finally fired up my email, I had another acceptance for a (smutty) story. Woo hoo!! Appropriately enough, it is entitled "Sparring Partners." ^_^

~Today I made a bunch of quilt squares and additionally figured out that the line I've been using on my machine that I thought was the 1/4" line is actually the 5/8" line, hence all the math weirdness when I tried to construct blocks. The good news is that when I had to add bits on, the squares almost inevitably looked cooler than they had before.

Oh My Gosh

Honestly, I just never pictured myself with one of these. It just seemed so unattainable.

The test lasted 7 hours and most of that was kicking. At the end, we sparred and finally broke our boards. There are now 4 of these at my house. I have to come up with a new life goal to replace the one I knocked off my list today. ^_^ Oh, and I lost 4 pounds during the test.

Here I Am

as ready as I'll ever be.

*deep breath*

Holy Hannah!

It's time to get Mollusc's ears pierced!

Miss Herd (sister of Miss Scene and Miss Demeanor)

"Tomato Siren"

something purplish


something pinkish


Not Black-Eyed-Susans and purplish stuff


The Impatiens have filled in exactly as I had pictured them in my mind's eye.


And the climbing things are doing what I wanted them to, as well!


false sunflower (my absolute favourite right now) and echinacea


fields of gold


Mexican Hat? Something that sprouted from a perennial mat that I unrolled and "planted."


More of them


What's in the sling?


A bunny of course!


Rabbit Ears X 2. ^_^

We had a blast at the party tonight. I played Four Square for the first time in decades (decades, really?!? ooh, scary!) and Bocce for the first time ever. :)

Patchy

I had a quilting class today courtesy of a BG's mom. There were 3 of us there -- BG and I and another friend -- trying to learn stuff, and I think I did make some headway. I also found some cool fabric and decided to take a shopping day at BG's mom's house in the very near future. She used to own a quilt shop and has tons of gorgeous fabric that she's selling on eBay and is basically giving away at $2/yard. As a bonus, her tastes run along the same lines as mine, so she has lots of stuff I adore. Yummy. Additionally, she's a "who needs rules?" sort of gal, which is me to a T, so she had lots of cool suggestions for techniques I would like.

I made these to bring along, and they are pretty tasty!

Mollusc ran herd on my Littles and BG's Littles, which in truth meant that she hung out with BG's quail, kitties, swan, and wild Sandhill Crane family while the Littles all played with Legos. The cranes are extremely cool and will let you get within a couple of yards. BG's kitties are still only a few months old, and they like to stalk the cranes, but when they get too close, either the mom or dad crane will make crazy dinosaur noises and open its wings and march right at the kitten in question, sending said kitten bolting! Boy do I wish I'd brought my camera.

Mollusc is a huge bird enthusiast, and as icing on her bird-enjoyment cake, she found BG's quails' first egg ever today!

I felt so awful today (in my kidneys I think) that I tried to call the doctor but had the wrong number. I thought it was the right number because they never answer their phone anyway. BG gave me Acetaminophen, and it was miraculous how much better I felt. I did get an appointment for tomorrow morning, so I guess I'll suck it up and go even though I'm feeling much better now. Because you know if I don't, things will come to an ugly head on Sunday. :-/

It's No Accident

I can still vividly remember arguing with my older sister (when I was 7) that people had "accidents" not "accents." Ironically enough, this was outside of the hospital where we went to school at the time.

As it turns out, I do NOT have an accent. I know because my dental hygenist told me so.

So there.

Oh, and my dentist (who, as it turns out is Kevin Costner (at least from upside-down) - who knew? I suppose he fell in love with the area when filming here and I guess one of his movie roles must have prepared him for dentistry as a career) told me that I am "basically cavity-free by today's standards." Interesting. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice. ^_^

Tazy

It's going to be a bit of a crazy week. I have a dentist appointment today. (just for cleaning) MuNKi is having a bit of tooth pain again so he'll prolly get one soon too. There's a party at the house of another TKD family on Saturday. (That will be awesome!) A good friend of ours from MuNKi's Air Force days comes on Sunday to stay until Friday. Fishy's b-day is on Monday. And of course there's that big looming thing on the horizon that keeps waking me up with a knot of dread in the pit of my stomach.

I've decided that what will be will be and I need to stop being nervous about the test. We'll see how well that works.

Oh and I'm fighting off a UTI. (TMI I know) I'm polishing off my second jug of Cranberry juice. I laughed when I saw the slogan this morning: "straight from the bog!" Mmmmmm! Deelish! Fortunately I remembered the homeopathic Staphysagra at about 3 am and I think it's already helping.

I'm not sure how much I'll be around for the next week or so. . .

Shit

2 of the 4 kids are sick with a cold/fever thing. A third may becoming down with it. What are the odds that the 4 of us who are testing will be well in two Saturdays?

Shit.

We've gotten out all the big guns (zinc, ACF etc, etc) and are drinking tons of water.

Just ack.

Would You Put This in Your Mouth?

So I always try to get the Sunday Freep for the coupons, and every now and then I put my fingers over my eyes and peep through them while I do a quick scan of the articles. This one* caught my eye because it has pictures (at least in the paper it does) and, well, that's how I roll. ^_^

There are 3 recipes given in the article: Individual Zucchini and Cheddar Frittatas, Spinach and Black Bean Burritos with Salsa, and Brainy Brownies.

Naturally, I wanted to know what might confer intelligence on a batch of brownies, or, to proceed down a more frightening avenue of thought, what might turn a brownie into "brain food." (This is the point at which horrifying images of fish paste began to rear their disturbing heads.)

My sense of morbid curiosity was richly rewarded when I read on the list of ingredients: "1/2 cup Purple Puree (see note)." Of course I did immediately see note, because I know full well that, whatever ingredients Good Brownies are allowed to contain, none of them are purple. "Purple Paste" turns out to be made from blueberries, lemon juice, sugar, water, and -- wait for it. . .

spinach! Or, if you don't have spinach, you can use collard greens. Yum!

The point of these brownies is, apparently, to trick your kids by "hiding foods kids should eat in the dishes they will eat." (emphasis mine) I have an idea; how about giving real food to your kids instead of fast food and junk food, and leaving the sacrosanct realm of Brownies the hell alone?!?

Save the spinach brownies for Rehabbers, I say. ^_^

*If you look at the first comment there, it may have been left by me. I also may have typoed "frittatas." Imagine.

It's a Dog's Life, Well, Two Dogs and a Rabbit Actually

We went birthday shopping for Fishy at Tree Town Toys in Ann Arbor today. O. M. G. It's kind of reminiscent of J. T. Puffins back in Madison (though it will be hard to ever top that place!) and every nook and cranny is filled with FABULOUS things.

I nearly wet myself over the ginormous variety of darling Calico Critters stuff. They have that cool fuel cell car kit that I can't imagine anyone actually paying $150 for as a child's toy, but that sure is neat. They have tons of Plan Toys wooden dollhouse goodies, Playmobil galore, Legos, craft kits, and Schleich and Papo out the wazoo. They had darling sleeping puppies that just lie there and breathe. Silly, huh? So why did I keep going back to stare at and coo over them? ^_^ Corolle dolls and goodies, Animalz (soooo cute!) and oh so much more. As it was, I stuck to some Lego kits and marbles, bearing in mind the recent "going through stuff for the garage sale" experience. I have a marble shooter set coming in the mail for him that I imagine will get misused for a great number of things. ^_^ And I'll make him a snazzy drawstring bag to keep that stuff in.

We came home to an exciting message from Egan that BABY ANNA IS HERE!!! Welcome, wee girlie!! :)

Shortly thereafter, the Bigs and I were doing our pushups and situps to the headbanging noise of Creed when some of our friends from TKD called to let us know they were bringing the menagerie over for our week of petsitting while they're off at camp. Excitement! The kids have been looking forward to this for a long time. In addition to the original lhasa apso and rabbit whom we've babysat before, there is a new lhasa apso - a 6 or 7 month old little boy named Bandit. Ayla, the girl dog, has adopted me as foster mama, and as I type, she is lying on the couch next to me looking remarkably like one of those breathing puppies. Bandit is hanging out by the front door, enjoying the cool breeze wafting up his nostrils, and Patches, the evil rabbit ;) after spending some time alternately conjoined to Mollusc and Sluggie, is now in his hutch thinggy in the yard where he can mow the lawn and possibly continue to eat the baby's breath. (his mom said he usually knows what's OK to eat, but I should still look this up just in case) He really is a very cool bunny. We just need to make sure that all power cords stay well out of reach! So the current household animal count is: MuNKis: 5 (1 lg, 4 sm) , CATS: 4, BIRDS: 2, DOGS: 2, RABBITS: 1

I'm finally reading the last Outlander in earnest now. 100 pages down, 800 or so to go.

Meditations

The Celtic festival of Lughnasadh has come and gone.

Two days ago, a single yellow leaf fluttered down in front of us as we drove down 8 Mile.

I find myself looking forward to Fall with growing anticipation.

Random Update

~We went to the Teen Reading Party at the library and saw friends whose house had burned up several months ago. They're back in finally and unpacking, and they just bought a new (3rd) goat! Yay!

~Our green peppers were free at the co-op today, we got salt-n-vinegar Kettle Chips, and I saw a lady I know for the first time since learning she's been lying to friends about another friend of mine. It could have been awkward, but I let her feel that way and decided not to feel it myself. It worked. ^_^

~Red Belt Class was fun - poomse (forms - my favourite) in all different directions, and nunchucks. Does it get any better? I did do over 200 pushups today. But only the first 150 were close together. (at home) The others were spread out. Every time we drop our nunchucks or let them hit the ground we have to do 10, so yes, I dropped mine several times, and I threw in a bonus 10 when I actually kind of flung them and they hit another person who was already doing pushups for dropping his. ^_^

~MuNKi and I watched Derailed and were very pleasantly surprised after it looked like the movie was going south for the duration. MuNKi saw what I never expected.

Take a Pill

This one goes out to my favourite chemistry-type person, and also to a couple of people I know whose jobs are sucking their will to live. You know who you are.

And then no more Jonathan Coulton, I promise. (If I can find my Keeping Promises pills. . .)



I had a hard time deciding between this one and the stick guy version.

I'm Blogging This

I saw this game at Target today. It had to be blogged. ^_^

This evening we went to Kohl's ostensibly to get new work shirts for MuNKi, but in reality, he only got one, while the Bigs and I came away with 2 or 3 things each. :-/ This meant the joy of getting new stuff, but also the pure torture that is Trying Things On. Plus, MuNKi actually had the strange idea to make me try on a shirt that was not only a bizarre dark teal (OK, granted I may see things in this spectrum a little differently than he does, but still. . .) but had puffed sleeves to boot. I ask you. Puffed sleeves? Me?!?!?!? Clearly he's gone mad. I could not, would not, on a train, I would not could not in the rain. I will not shall not even with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle trained on me.

That is all.