Category Archives: Music, Photography, Art and Hobbies

Sep 9 2011

Waxing Rhapsodic About Nebraska

On a day like today when you the clear blue sky started to fill with clouds, I had some choices.  I could be anxious about whether or not it would rain, I could be grouchy that the sun kept disappearing…or I could get in my car and drive straight out 15 miles to some dirt roads southwest of the city and take pictures.

Guess which choice I made?

While I was on the roads looking for great cloud shots (my brothers were notorious for photographing clouds when they were in high school), I parked by the side of a road and walked about half a mile, where I came upon some very friendly horses who began to follow me from their side of the fence, just a few yards away.

I’m so lucky to live where I do.  Fall in Nebraska is absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous.  The weather today was balmy, the grasses outside of town are turning golden, and the skies of late summer are vivid and pure.  The clouds today were amazing.

I loved how the cloud shadows rolled across the hills.  I loved the gentle plumes of dust that rolled out behind my car as I bumped down the dirt roads.  Most of all I loved the peace of getting out of the city and the concrete and the billboards to see open skies, seas of undulating grass, rustling dry corn fields and shimmering cottonwoods and silver Russian olive trees along the roads.

I love the ability to drive for 30 minutes and see something like these pictures and then be back in town in time for dinner.  I just love being in Nebraska.

Sep 8 2011

Photographing Nebraska Scenery

Rabbit and I went out on Monday, after retrieving the cabinet I’d gotten, to enjoy some fresh air and take pictures.  Rabbit has her little digital camera and likes to take pictures through her car window of the blur of trees on the side of the road, and also apparently enjoys photographing parked cars, gas stations, and rocks.

I don’t have any of her pictures to share, but here are a few of mine from Monday, which was one of the most gorgeous and perfect days I’ve experienced in a very long time.

We had been traveling the back roads between Lincoln and Waverly, loving the trees and the grapevines growing over fences, clusters of goldenrod swarmed by bees.  We coasted through a tiny town called Prairie Home and rolled down dirt roads with the windows down, our hair fluttering and a trail of dust floating out behind us as we trolled for scenery to capture.

My favorite piece of scenery, however, is in the following pictures.  And I get to look at it every day, no matter what the weather is like outdoors.

Sep 6 2011

For the Record

For the record, my sister and my niece and I invented Pinterest years ago, but we just called it “Hey, Ang, look at this” and it consisted of any visit from my sister where she’d open her suitcase and I’d haul out stuff from the office or the junk drawer or makeup box and we’d show each other new makeup or a recipe or something in a book or a new shirt, shoes, pants or new perfume.   You know, just getting caught up after being away from each other for months to a year.  Or pretty much every phone call with my nieces or my sisters. Verbal Pinterest.  Where do I register my copyright complaint?

If you don’t know what Pinterest is, for the love of GOD, do not find out.  Because it has elevated time-wasting to a beautiful art form.  It makes facebook look like AOL.

It’s nothing more than a virtual pinboard where you post pictures of things you like or are interested in or that interest you or that you would like to buy or that you just bought or love or would like to have or build or do or be or wear someday.  Or pictures of things from your past, or food you would like to cook or eat.

Or, as in my case, you can have multiple boards including one that is entitled “Creepy Sh*t That Gives Me the Skeeves” and has pictures of weird toys and claw footed furniture and bizarro fashion.  Or “Helpfulness” which has pictures of things like “Make Your Own Orange-Scented Vinegar for Cleaning” or innovative wall outlets or new ways to tie scarves or how to hold a nail in such a way that you don’t hit your thumb with the hammer.

And then you log on and there’s a board with all the stuff your friends or the people you follow have posted and you find out about things like a French Onion Grilled Cheese Sandwich or a picture of two bottles of “Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific” shampoo.  Or a picture of a kitten with a baby chick on its back, or a picture of tea tins turned into fridge magnets.

I see a lot of what I call “OCD Porn” which is essentially a series of pictures graphically displaying very well organized pantries, cabinets, closets, bookcases or home offices.  I have found boards devoted to Danish modern furniture, or sofas, or Ikea furniture hacks, or cute shoes.

Guess what doesn’t come up with a result, at least in my searches anywhere on Pinterest?

“Comfy dress shoes.”

Not one.  Not a single one.

Jan 12 2011

New Year, New Goals

For the past couple of years, my resolution in January has been to post daily on this blog, and then there have been other goals I’ve set for myself that I either haven’t talked about or have forgotten.

I kind of gave up on the daily thing right at the end of last year, but I will still be posting here regularly.

However, I did want to talk about the things I’ve set as personal goals/resolutions for 2011.  Some are big, some are trivial, some are kind of gross (fair warning: if you are a male reader, you could just skip this whole post and be better for it).

1.  Be nicer and more patient with my husband and daughter.

2.  Get up 1/2 hour earlier on school days for Rabbit, thereby helping achieve goal #1 by not being over-rushed. So far, this one has been a big winner.

3.  Reduce our carbon footprint in the following ways:
a) Cancel trash pickup service and use curbside recycling pickup instead.
b) Use our barrel compost tumbler for kitchen food waste, dryer lint, cheap paper towels, etc to break down and use for fertilizer for plants and the garden we hope to plant this year.
c)  Switch to re-usable products in as many ways as possible (and more on this later in the post).

4.  Make the bed every morning. [It's ridiculous how much stress this reduces, and how nice it is to pull back the covers on a neatly made bed at bedtime...]

5.  Take better care of myself.  Notice I’m not talking about weight or anything like that.  It’s about the little things:  wash my face every night before bed, put lotion on my feet twice a day (I have the world’s gnarliest heels and that madness has got to end), eat less gross food, etc.  It’s easy to let things slide, but I feel so much better when I make a conscientious effort to just be good to myself.

6.  Find some new diversions or hobbies.  Hence, Sudoku, which has become an obsession.  I’m also dusting off some of my art supplies and starting off slowly by relaxing with colors.  I got a Scrabble flash word scramble game and spend a few minutes with that during the day.  The goal is to keep my mind occupied and clicking away, because I start to worry about Alzheimer’s and whether or not it’s preventable.  I also need to dust off the camera and start taking pictures again.

7.  Be more focused, which will help me improve my business, my interpersonal relationships and other things I am involved in.

8.  Say no when I’m not really interested in taking on an activity, commitment or challenge.  Stretching myself too thin over the past few years has been disastrous and, as Oprah has started saying: “That just doesn’t work for me.”

9.  Get back in the kitchen and cook more from scratch.  I’ve been pretty good about this over the years, but this past year has had so much upheaval that my family has not gotten as many good meals as they should have.

10.  Be grateful. Every day.  I’ve tried this and it works:  to find moments of joy, to find the good and let go of the things that make me unable to embrace happiness.

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OKAY, and here’s the part related to goal 3.c….so if you are a guy, just seriously click away.

Reusable products – the main reason is practical: since we don’t have trash pickup any more, I have to load the one or two weekly bags of garbage in the trunk of my car and then I throw them away at the dumpster behind my office building.  I rationalize this by the fact that I pay a fee to have my office there every month, so I can use the dumpster.

Anyway, things like plastic bags, etc. don’t need to be part of our lives unless completely necessary, so I’m shopping around for small reusable produce bags and things like that.  One thing I’ve had to throw away in the past has been feminine hygiene items because we can’t flush them.  The idea of this is so repellent to me now…I thought for a long time about the alternatives and finally last month ordered a Diva Cup.

I’m not going to describe it here, but am including a link for anyone who wants to learn more.  And I promise, I’m not going to be (in the words of one of my dear readers) a “hairy-toed yogurt weaver” and post regularly about my alternative menstrual hygiene practices, unless this turns out to be a nightmare and I think you need to be warned.

:::shudder:::

 

Jan 11 2011

Snow Day Update

Not much new here, other than the fact that we are on our second snow day in a row and I no longer have a sense of which day of the week it is or even, sometimes, the time of day.

We got about 7 inches of snow on Sunday, and it’s bitterly cold and windy outside.  Rabbit played outdoors for about half an hour yesterday while Grandpa Bob was snowblowing our driveway and sidewalks, bless his heart.  PC had to work yesterday, but had today off.  We all have a touch of cabin fever.

Since Christmas, I have spent the majority of at least ten of the days wearing pajamas.  On a few of those days, I didn’t even shower.  Scraping my hair into a clip, not putting in contacts, just shlumping around in baggy flannel pants, a t-shirt and a fleece jacket (it’s COLD here!) and fuzzy socks, my glasses sliding down my nose and no makeup on my face…it’s just that kind of animal sex appeal that’s helped our marriage persevere for almost 23 years.

On Saturday, when I knew I had to go out in public to take Rabbit to her friend’s slumber party, I showered and let my hair dry fluffy and wavy.  I put on jeans and a nice black blouse, and put on makeup and a little perfume.  I looked in the mirror and thought “WOW!  Look at you all fancy!”  That’s when I knew I’d let things slide too far into casual territory.  Casual, no.  Slobby?  Yeah, pretty much.

Tomorrow, though.  Tomorrow school is supposed to be back in session, and I have to take a second look at a house some clients out of state are thinking of writing an offer on.  So I will need to look human so I don’t scare the general public.

Meanwhile, we’re housebound.  I’ve done about 80 sudoku puzzles and am just about cured of my obsession with it through sheer overexposure.  I got some coloring books for grownups in the mail, with pictures so ornate (paisleys, tile pattern designs, reproductions of medieval tapestries) that I will have to use fine point colored pencils on them.  I did get myself a fresh box of 64 Crayola crayons for Christmas, and have been working on a picture in the tile design book.  It’s so soothing.

This afternoon or this evening, we’re going to sit down as a family and watch “Despicable Me” and then I have to help Rabbit find her digital camera, since it somehow got lost in the room cleaning this weekend. It’s likely in a box of books at the top of her closet.  The laundry is all done, Rabbit’s room is still clean, and we had turkey enchiladas for dinner last night.  That’s about all from here.

Dec 17 2010

Recent Developments

Recent Developments:

1.  I started watching the TV series “Damages” on Netflix today and I’m hooked!

2. Yesterday I discovered that the last time PC watered the Christmas tree, some of the water spilled and soaked the tree skirt, which in turn soaked through the paper on some of the presents under the tree.  I had to open and re-wrap about half of  them. Only one had damage to the box; none of the items were harmed, thank goodness.

3.  I went to the doctor today and she put me on an anti-depressant, and she gave me eight weeks’ worth of samples to get me through until our medical insurance kicks in since there isn’t a generic equivalent.  Right now I feel like my head is stuffed with cotton and I can’t stop yawning.

4.  I am utterly addicted to Sudoku, although I’ve only played online and never on paper.

5. Rabbit felt sorry for me that none of the presents under the tree had my name on them (she and PC are shopping Sunday) so she gift wrapped one of her toys and put it under the tree for me.

6. I finally mailed out our Christmas cards and when I got home from the post office, there were two cards in the mail from people I’d taken off the list.

7.  I can’t stop yawning (and neither can you, at this point).  I’m logging off.

Oct 27 2010

Blasting Music and Hanging On

Everything lately has been so random.  One day is the trough of icky and the next day it’s all la-la-la-la-laaaa and making soup and bread and dusting the living room.

When I am alone in the house, I start to sink.  Unless I scrub the sink.  And the floors and then move on to laundry and a seventy-five minute session trying to get all the cat hair off the sofa.

Yesterday I realized that I hadn’t been listening to music, except one station that was so positive and encouraging and filled with wholesome music that my teeth were starting to ache.

I fixed my iTunes and put the earbuds on this morning and cranked up Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks.”  I think I either gave myself (or cured myself of) brain damage from the decibels, in addition to giving a great show of seat dancing in the car to others near me on the road.  But I was singing right along with my friend Robert Plant, who seldom disappoints.  Then I cranked up the drug-withdrawal song “Nothin’” from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s “Raising Sand” collection, and howled along with the relentless electric guitar and drums.

It was sunny outside, with gale-force winds.  I drove around town, putting up a sold sign in front of a house, delivering flyers to others.  While driving, I saw patient elderly men walking small, vigilant dogs.  I saw high school kids trying to light cigarettes in a wind that wouldn’t allow them to pollute their lungs, guttering out their lighters before they could puff up.  I saw crowds of autumn leaves rushing across the street to meet their friends in another lawn.

I forced myself out of the house, after a great outing yesterday when two wonderful young friends treated me to a matinee showing of “Paranormal Activity 2.”  Screaming in a theater, clutching my coat up to my chin, my legs shaking in anxiety and my palms sweating copiously….and then walking outside to the windy blue and yellow Nebraska afternoon was like those saunas where you roll in snow first and then jump into a hot tub.  Exquisite discomfort first, then a beautiful comfort afterward.

These days are going to come and go. Bad ones and good ones.  And when it’s a bad one, I need to crank up “Hash Pipe” by Weezer on the iPod, or some other completely loud and un-mom-like music and let it throw me around.  I need to get out of doors. I need to stand up from what I’m doing and take a break.

I took a break yesterday and may take more.  What I do know is this:  if I stay inside and don’t leave the house, I won’t see those old guys or their little dogs. I won’t see the leaves or the sky or the fact that the world is, in fact, still spinning.  And that I’m still hanging on.