Kittens!

For your viewing pleasure and to buy us some room until GP posts….all together now. Awwwwwww!!!

2 comments July 4th, 2008 at 05:00pmtheresa

The Sound and the Blurry (photos) . . .

. . . a tale told by Lori, translated into coherence by BCB.

Okay, I think I’ve managed to break the code and translate the majority of this so it will make sense to everyone. It wasn’t easy. My translations are in [brackets]. You will see soon enough that it was necessary. I removed the reference to herding cats and the “just because BCB couldn’t make it work” comment. It’s better that way. Hey, no need to thank me. Anything to ~~convince you not to do this~~ make it easier to share photos. Really.

~BCB

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Post Category: Useless Fun, On-topic Only

123 comments July 1st, 2008 at 07:39pmBCB

Moot’s Excellent Adventure

Moot climbed into my luggage for the trip west. Smuggling an alligator through airport security was a lot easier than one would think. Perhaps they’d heard of her. Getting her into a restaurant was considerably more difficult. She startled a scream out of the waitress when she climbed in through the window.

Once inside she shared a drink with Me. Note the two drinks. Hence the fuzziness.

From there she hung out with Cerise and waited for Louis to come pick up the popcorn maker.

She claimed to have made this sign for the airport but I’m sure I saw OH’s hands in there more than once. She also helped GP with Merry’s garden. but that was exhausting work and she required a little more energy.

Scope found some snack food for Moot down at the market but she was more interested in Tanji’s Sweet potato treat. The dog refused to share so Moot wandered of to discover why someone would wrap a tree. I never did hear the answer to that one.

There were plenty more adventures that wonderful weekend in Oregon but as time wore on, and her energy wound down, Moot found a sign in the mountains that it was time to go home.

This just found in Scope’s purse. A self-portrait Moot drew depicting a lovely lunch at McMinimins. Weebils wobble but they don’t fall down.

Post Category: Uncategorized, CB Meetups

108 comments June 27th, 2008 at 07:01pmCherry Magic Sheryl

Stopping to Smell the Roses

I arrived in Portland late Friday night to be greeted by McB and Orangehands holding up a “Dr. T” sign. I burst out laughing. That right there just about describes the weekend for me. Lots of laughter and smiles and hugs.

After collecting Mary and my luggage, we headed back to Mary’s house where the guessing of who people are started and didn’t end until late the next morning. I’m fairly sure I failed this test of CBness, but they let me stay anyways. :+)

The rest of the weekend was full of good conversation, and lots and lots of the afore mentioned laughter and hugs. I didn’t take very many pictures until Sunday afternoon when six of us (Cary, GP, McB, Lou, Pam, JenB and me*) went to the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park. I could innundate you with pictures of roses, but I will try to restrain myself. They were beautiful and amazing! And a special thanks to GP for the lesson on roses!

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Post Category: Uncategorized, CB Meetups

90 comments June 25th, 2008 at 02:54pmtheresa

Whacked out in Oregon

I’m too tired to write a coherent post, but the comments are over 100 and inquiring minds want photos, so here’s one for you. Yes, that is our own darling Scope in Oregon with CMS! It was a wonderful surprise.

I think everyone survived, but it was a lot of work having that much fun. I don’t mean the cooking or housework, because that was all done by kind helpful CBs. I mean meeting friends that I’ve never seen before, and talking and laughing and hugging and talking and laughing some more, sometimes until two in the morning. That’s work! I loved it.

And yes, we did make it to Powell’s. In fact, I’m a little puzzled about that bookstore. When I walked in, I heard an announcement over the loudspeaker:

Attention! If there’s a minister or a wedding officiator in the store, would they please come to the Information desk in the Gold room? Thank you.

What the heck was that about? A woman was 9 months’ pregnant and suddenly realized that she really, really needed to get married right now because her water just broke? A man who got the love of his life to say “yes” and now wants to rush to the wedding before she changes her mind? It’s one of those things that you have to wonder about.

Too tired to write more. Later!

Post Category: Knitting, Shopping, CB Meetups

106 comments June 23rd, 2008 at 02:16pmMary

Surprises and Money

I opened my mailbox yesterday to find an envelope from my mortgage company. Not normal but not Earth shaking, until I opened it. Inside was a $75.00 check. It was one of those computer generated ones that uses an entire sheet of paper, and has lots of space for an explanation, but nothing. Well, there were some internal codes, but nothing that could be interpreted by a normal person. Got online last night to see if I could figure out what was going on and it was a refund on my escrow. I think I would have preferred that it be applied to my mortgage, but I’ll take it and recycle it back. Yep, the mortgage payment is going to be $75.00 bigger in July than usual.

I already pay more than my actual payment is supposed to be. I apply an additional $28.17 toward my principal each month. It’s not an enormous amount, and it won’t get my mortgage paid off ten years early, but it’s a little something, that at the end of the year actually saves me a couple of hundred in interest, which over the life of a thirty year loan can be big money.

I wish I could say that this is something I was so smart as to come up with myself, it isn’t. My parents have done something like it for years. In fact they managed to get their thirty year loan paid off in just over twenty years by applying a little extra each month to the principal. Does anyone else do this? Not just the mortgage, but other things that over time add up to big savings?

My current favorite blog is Get Rich Slowly a money management blog. I’m finding money management being at the front of my mind more and more since I bought the house. No one warned me of this.

Post Category: Uncategorized

111 comments June 18th, 2008 at 11:46amConscripted Cherry

Fame

My stupid moment this week was not writing my post on Wednesday. Totally blew through the deadline. Too bad because I had some great observations to share about fame.

I was looking up some stuff online about my favourite NASCAR driver. He lives in the same home town as Bryan and Cathy and I was concerned about his home. I clicked onto archives from his radio show and listened to his comments about the disaster. The radio webpage led me to a list of appearances he had this week. His homepage listed a few charity events he’s involved with. His personal webpage linked to a resort he’s part of, as well as his charitable foundations. For fun there were photos of fans’ creative driver support. The wedding cake decked out in the driver’s number and colours was a bit much even for me*.

How must it feel to be the object of so much attention? To have thousands of people want you to be part of their daily existence? To have complete strangers think that they know you, the private you, because of your public persona?

I was at the first conference that Bob and Jenny attended together right after DLD dropped. They circulated, mingled and networked like crazy. They were more than gracious to the few people who’d been reading along at home and felt like they knew the backstory of DLD, and by extension, His and Her relationship. I did a little ~~stalking~~ hanging back and watching before I approached either one of them. I didn’t want them to think I was “coo coo for cocoa puffs”. To their credit there was no eye-rolling on either one of their parts. At least none that I saw.

Bob and Jenny aren’t Brad and Angelina famous but they have their own fan groups, separately and together. People presume to know them (remember that chick in the bar in NJ? talk about eye-rolling but it was all from the CBs), to form friendships because of them and even to make travel plans around them. Bob only knows what that must feel like.
As an author you need to have your name out there, recognizable to readers or they won’t buy your books. There’s a certain level of fame required to be successful in any form of entertainment. To be known around the world, or to have celebrity status is another thing entirely. The length of your hair or who you date or whether you wash your own laundry has no significance to how you do your job as a writer or an actor or director or singer or dancer or fill-in-the-blank.

Yes I know I’m the woman who rushed over here because there’s only one degree of separation between me* and Gerard Butler.

But seriously, would you want to be that famous?