Blog 'Pages'

Have you noticed the tabs that are underneath the header image?  Home, My Relatives, Home Movies, Favorite YouTube Videos, Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?, and The Soundtrack of My Life?

Blogger now gives you the option of creating up to 10 pages on your blog (analogous to webpages on a website).  Take a peek at them when you have a chance.  You should be able to comment on each page, too, if you wish.

• 'Home' is, uhhhh, my blog.
• 'My Relatives' is a place for, uhhhh, my relatives to send me their information for the family history I so love to work on.
• 'Home Movies' is, uhhhh, some home movies that I've taken.
• 'Favorite YouTube Videos' are, you guessed it, some of my favorite YouTube videos!
• 'Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?' is a listing of the movies I've most recently watched and the books I've most recently read.  I may split this page into two.  Stay tuned.
• 'The Soundtrack of My Life' is the music I'm currently listening to and loving.

Join in the fun!

October 1st?!

Happy October 1st!

So, based on my To-Do Summertime List, I'm ready for it to be about, oh . . . JUNE 1st! CERTAINLY not October 1st! ACK!

Thinking about October makes me think about fall weather, though, and we DO need a good frost. Why? The bugs. After a summer of Alaska-worthy bugs (i.e. BAD!), we had a late-season gnat hatch, and we STILL can't be outside during the day without them flying all 'round our faces, up our noses, and into our mouths. And that's pretty much unheard of this late in the season. So in respect to that, a frost can't come soon enough. Since I started keeping records in 2001, we've never NOT had the first frost happen in September. So, we're definitely "behind". Is it Global Warming or just a funky year? Only time will tell.

Looking at my digital pictures waiting to be posted here, I have a backlog to April 20th. Yikes, that's bad. (And just another indication of how B-E-H-I-N-D I am on everything!) So, before I get any more behind, I'll finish the post about this past weekend. Here goes!

One small addition to the excitement of the weekend was the DELUGE we got on Friday night. Just as we had finished cleaning up the tent from the big dinner and readying it for the contra dance, the heavens opened and it POURED! Did I say it poured? No, let me rephrase: the folk school boat builders started to build the ark. FORTUNATELY, the timing was "good" as the majority of folks were under cover listening to Per's (see previous post) presentation. But, as they were comfortably ensconced in what is commonly referred to as The Red Building, the rest of us were frantically battening down the (not so proverbial!) hatches of the tent. The wind was WHIPPING the heavy plastic wall panels, and the rain was RUNNING down the hill and into the tent. Having been preparing for the live music for the contra dance, the floor was littered with extension cords which were now threatening to float in the rivers of water. So, besides tearing around to snap and tie plastic window and walls panels together (getting fairly soaked while doing this), we were also snatching up power cords and winding them around the backs of chairs in an effort to keep them dry. We got something like 1.39" of water in those first two hours of the storm. Whoooeeee! There's never a dull moment!

Here's a pretty hysterical picture that was sent to me last night. Obviously, it's of me at the wine/cake table. But, what you CAN'T see . . . and which makes me look like I'm psychotically eying the booze, is the little peanut who's running to me from below the angle of the camera!


Here she and I are together . . . although I like the angle of the first picture 'cause you can't see my double chin in it! ;) (This is the little girl I first nannyed for . . . starting when she was 3 months old.)

But, I digress(ed) . . . . After the concert on Saturday night, there was a private party at the local art gallery for the folk school "family" and the artists. Disappointing but understandable, Kathy (Mattea) went right back to their motel room and skipped the party. At the beginning of the concert, she'd apologized for her voice, saying that her performance was being "brought to you by prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, and the Neti pot". And, for those of you who don't know what a Neti pot is . . . it's just as well. :)

I was supposed to go down early to help host the gathering, and so I did . . . but everything had been taken care of! So, instead, the staff (at the art gallery) - friends, all of 'em - and I just drank wine and looked at the new pieces of jewelry that had recently come into the gallery until the concert was over. We stayed there until about 12:45 AM . . . at which point I was sitting, rather un-ladylike, smack on the floor of the gallery! I was P-Double-Ooped! As Tom and I drove out of town and towards our little Hafweh Haus cabin that we'd built on my folks' property, I was OVERWHELMED by the oddest sensation. I NEEDED TO GO HOME! Home! Not the cabin, but HOME! It was as if I was a 9-year old again, trying to spend the night over at a girlfriend's house . . . and I suddenly got scared and wanted to go home! V-e-r-y weird. Then, to top off the weirdness . . . .

As we drove into the yard at my folks', we were greeted by a folding step stool set SMACK in the middle of the driveway where we couldn't miss it! There were two lanterns on it: one lit. We wondered, "Hmm, why'd they leave that out for us? I mean, NICE that we have lights now to walk up to the cabin, but . . . ?" The answer was written on a note placed underneath one of the lanterns. Mom had written, "You may want to sing and make extra noise as you walk up to the cabin tonight. A mountain lion was spotted on our driveway, headed towards the house, just past 10:00 tonight!" (And, yes, a mountain lion is the same as a cougar.) Hmph! Well! Good advice!

(Mountain lion sightings are infrequent up here, but not altogether entirely rare. Still, neither Tom nor I have ever seen one. When my parents moved up here in the early 70s, there was one last black panther still roaming the woods . . . but that was long ago now.)

So, with my "needing to go home" feelings even STRONGER now (we'd left Annie Blue outside), Tom asked if I minded if he stayed at the cabin, as planned. No, of course not! After all, he'd get 2 more hours of sleep (driving time still that night and then back again in the AM) than I would, so I was happy for him to enjoy that extra shut-eye. So, with lanterns in hand, he trudged up to the Hafweh Haus, hollered the okay when he was safe and sound inside, and I hopped back into the Yaris for the ride home. I was home at 2:00 AM and set the alarm for 7:00. Not the longest night of sleep I've ever had, but I felt good having followed my instincts. (And, no, I have no idea what prompted them. There was no sign of anything amiss around here. I guess the weekend was just "too much" for me, and I NEEDED MY HOUSE!)

Sunday morning found us heading down to the opposite end of the county (about 60 miles, one-way) for the first in a series of fund-raising brunches for the folk school's new 'Raise the Roof' campus expansion campaign. The couple that hosted it have a small little (ah-hem: NOT!) house tucked into the side of the local ski hill (they own - part of? - the resort). As you can see, the view was just lousy from their deck!


After the brunch and presentation, the previously mentioned Little Pumpkin and Tom and I opened her birthday presents since the day coincided with her 3rd birthday!



And, to quote P-p-p-porky Pig, "That's all for now, folks!"

Wanted: Alto Sax

Before I forget . . . a dear young friend of ours has just begun Band in middle school (6th grade), and she is unbelievably talented. She's been playing the sax for less than two weeks and can already play full songs like she's been playing for a year (most would be struggling just to get the scales down at this point).

But . . . she's playing on a borrowed sax from the school. So, anyone out there have an alto sax sitting in a closet somewhere?

If so, please let us know (and how much you want for it).

Thanks!