artisticphoenix

There is nothing so enjoyable as a late August kayak trip down a river to a beach and a couple of hours soaking up the sun on said beach. We finally got a beautiful WARM day, after many overcast, not so warm days, to be able to scamper off for this last thrill of summer. I can still smell the sand, the salt and hear the waves.

I haven't posted in a while as it gets real busy this time of year when school is winding down and the train will run over you if you don't keep running.

Lots of things happening lately. School is over by Thursday am. I am currently proctoring a student taking a final exam while pretty much no one else (save a few hard core people) is left in the building. This is giving me time to collect my thoughts. This year has been an extremely difficult year, with budget cuts, increasingly difficult family situations and demands, standardized testing taking over 30 days of school instruction time and me worrying whether I would get tenure. The good news is that I have had some successes that I need to really remember and focus on. Professionally, things are okay.

Around the house, there is much construction. We dove in and decided to renovate the kitchen. A half a bath and a new kitchen is in the works. This means for the last three plus weeks our house has been destruction central. This was after new paint and wood floor for the bedroom upstairs. This also means we have been getting plenty of Pennsic practice, what with cooking outdoors, washing dishes al fresco and wearing flip-flops all the time to protect the feet. I am anxious for this to be over, but amazed at the amount of work, and how nicer and nicer it keeps looking every day. House wise - promising.

Personally, privately - really happy.

Kitten-wise. Finally decided to use soft paws (tm) on the cats to see if we could stop the clawing of the sheetrock. Placed them on Booger who was as sweet as he could be, sitting in my lap like he was getting a manicure. Edmund, on the other hand, was hell on wheels. Didn't like getting his nails clipped, didn't like having them put on, struggled, had Ogedei holding him down, while I tried to put the nail caps on. They are blue. And look really silly cute. However, Edmund didn't like them one bit. By this am when he was purring and mincing and looking for pets and love, I noticed that he had already removed a couple. Sigh. Maybe it will slow him down. We'll see if this will work. They are now almost a year old and probably aren't kittens anymore.

Okay, that was more wordy than I expected.

well, time to update.

France was wonderful.   Southern France is beautiful.   Once we got there.   We got stuck in Mordor (New Jersey) due to bad airline karma for three days.  Egad.  Good food, good wine, good sites, and good friends.  I didn't want to leave.

Back to the crazy grind of work and summer fencing. 

Now that I am back from my vacation, I'm now looking for what I should do for next year.  I'm interested in maybe a cruise to someplace warm, but I have never been and am interested in what people have done and what is a) reasonable price b) good value c) active - like beaches, historical places, etc.   Recommendations?

Developed Right Bias You scored 43 %Lefty and 73 %Righty!

With more artistic and creative flare, you are probably good at sports, and have good spatial awareness. Tempered with a pretty good ability to rationalise things. You are more of a big picture person, and less interested in the details. And you probably prefer spontenaity over careful planning. Its also easier for you to be hypnotised.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 0% on Lefty You scored higher than 99% on Righty You scored higher than 99% on Divergence

Link: The Left or Right Brain Test written by vincex on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

When we last left our heroine, she was standing amidst the wine stained
kitchen sighing heavily at her ill-fated words that "cats are easier
than children".

Oh, SOOOOO not so.

Several of you know that I have a lovely laptop which is my 30 pound
telephone. Two weeks ago, one of the kittens pulled a key (the 3 for
those of you keeping count)......OUT of the keyboard. Enough so that it
wouldn't go back in, and the little nubby thing is all that is left.
Chased after cat with water gun, bad kitty, bad kitty. Luckily it was
only the three, something that I don't use a lot .......

Well, apparently, that was just the start.

Today there was some sort of party.

I came home, fired up the computer and went about my afterwork tidying.
Finally got to the computer to find 6 additional keys missing. The
H, and " in addition to a F5 key I never use, plus c and n. Crap!!! I
swear. Loudly. Look around, turn lights on, and begin to find bits and
pieces of H and " and a little TINY piece of F5...... Finally found C
and N, not chewed and managed to reattach, however, typing is now fairly
.........laborious now that I have to push little rubber nubby things
(no comment thomas) rather than keys..... didn't realize how often I
used H. Damn it.....

I'm wondering who they were writing to???????

This is the current "thing" going around.  Now, I'm not good at this cut and paste stuff (and I just figure out how to do the strike-out thingee), so I will tell you to go see tracytris for the whole thing to pass along.  Me?  I'm just going to try and figure out what applies and what doesn't for my birthday month.  The weird thing is that a lot of this does apply, but only in a tangential way.  Pretty much if you put descriptions down for ANYONE, each person could pull out a few that describe them in some way. What is the difference between Sharp-minded and Sharp thinking anyway?  And we are so not even going to discuss fine and strong clairvoyance. :-)  I mean, c'mon, if I had that, I'm sure that I would use it for something cool.   So I edited the list with Italics that comments on some of these things. (smile)

So, whatever. :-)  And they didn't even include Passionate. :-)


NOVEMBER:
Has a lot of ideas (snicker, snicker, sure). Difficult to fathom. Thinks forward. Unique and brilliant (bwahahahahaha). Extraordinary ideas. Sharp thinking. Fine and strong clairvoyance (huh?  exactly what does this really mean???). Can become good doctors. Dynamic in personality. Secretive. Inquisitive. Knows how to dig secrets. Always thinking. Less talkative but amiable. Brave and generous. Patient. Stubborn and hard-hearted. If there is a will, there is a way (isn't this covered in the following two of "determined" and "never give up"?) Determined. Never give up. Hardly becomes angry unless provoked.  (sooooooooo off target) .   Loves to be alone. Thinks differently from others. Sharp-minded. Motivates oneself. Does not appreciate praises. High-spirited (again, I'm not really sure what that means.... I mean the last time I read the word it was in one of those bodice rippers to describe the heroine........). Well-built and tough (physical, mental, emotional????). Deep love and emotions. Romantic. Uncertain in relationships. Homely. Hardworking. High abilities. Trustworthy. Honest and keeps secrets ( this kind of runs counter to the previous, knows how to dig up secrets.......). Not able to control emotions. Unpredictable (goes with difficult to fathom, I mean, really, to myself, sure, I'm a constant mystery, to others, I have a feeling that I am a freaking open book and predictable like nobodies business.....)

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Happy Birthdayogedei :-)

Okay, slept better last night and no weird dreams. I'm letting stress leak out of me and try and let control slip from my fingers. Going to a friend's play and looking forward to it. Now if we could just get rid of the rain, I would be a very happy camper.