Imagine waking suddenly at 12:30 am to the sound of small furry animals reenacting a Jackie Chan movie in your bedroom. Last we knew, Nike was the only four-legged in the house, and she could have just been energetically tossing a toy around -- but when we heard the squeaks, the lights went on. There's our warrior princess repeatedly slam-dunking ( Read more... )

Now I've been bitten by the urge to do things with wood. ;-) I promised HJ I'd make her a hanging pot rack for her kitchen, which is so tiny that she currently stores her pots piled up on the stovetop. I also thought it would be cool to have one in my kitchen, too. So after seeing the simple prototype in an old catalog (a 3-foot piece of maple, ( Read more... )

Often there's a rabbit grazing in our yard these days. This morning, there are two. I can't tell from inside the house whether they're opposite sexes or not. I watched them graze around for a few minutes (they were about six feet apart, each in their own patch of clover) and then one came up to the other and examined it at both ends. Then they ( Read more... )

Today was my first real workday in the yard. It was warm and sunny for awhile, and I was out there almost three hours. Leaves were scraped up and bagged, hedges, roses, and grapevines were pruned, daylilies were thinned out (and some moved to a spot where there needs to be something holding the earth together, all the better if it's pretty). I ( Read more... )

I went out on a couple of minor errands this morning (cat food, milk, spring water) and got hit upside of the eardrums by the wave of Xmas music now blaring out of almost all commercial sound systems everywhere. Sorry, O Wise Marketing Department, it doesn't make me want to buy anything, just leave as quickly as possible ( Read more... )

On Sunday night, R. and I rented and watched "The Corpse Bride". It was beautiful -- I think Burton and Elfman outdid themselves. The ending was exquisite ( Read more... )

Being perennially out of touch with the world at large, I'm wondering... is Daylight Savings Time still on for this weekend? I could really use an extra hour of sleep...

That's how I felt today -- another photo shoot 70 miles north, and lots of teams of very small children. One group just couldn't be talked into smiling, no matter what. It was all I could do not to do something silly like make faces or weird noises -- it probably would have just backfired, so I decided they were just in a collective funk. The other ( Read more... )

This morning I picked up some great eating apples at a local orchard farm stand. They're called Stayman Winesap. I am writing about it so I can remember the name, which I keep forgetting otherwise ( Read more... )

My optometrist says I've got presbyopia. Does that mean I see Presbyterians everywhere ( Read more... )