True Confessions

Ever go along with the crowd just so you didn't feel left out?
Yeah...we all have.
So, in the spirit of finally not going along with the crowd...here are my true confessions of the day:
First, movies, actors and actresses:
Lord of the Rings trilogy? Never made it through the second and third one. Fell asleep.Snooze-fest. First one was okay.
I liked "Willow" better.More entertaining. If I want Tolkien, I read Tolkien. See it much better in my head, anyway.
Meryl Streep. Can't stand her. I KNOW she has a million Oscars, Golden Globes, etc. It is just people look up at the screen and say "WOW! Look at her ACT!"  You shouldn't be doing that. You should be SO immersed in the story the cast of a film is telling on that screen that you forget they are acting. Besides, I think I have only seen her act like she was having fun or enjoying her self in one movie;  "Death Becomes Her".
The Godfather. And all the sequels, prequels, etc. Not a fan. The first was...ehhhh...okay. After that---suck fest.
Eddie Murphy and almost every other actor that has gone to work for Disney. Sell outs. Lost their edge in return for a paycheck. I know, they gotta eat, too, but still...puhleeeeze..there are some levels you just can't stoop to!
Movies being made of bad t.v. shows from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. Stop. By all that is sacred and holy, Just. Stop. It.
Movie remakes of other movies. Stop that, too. Don't the idiots in Hollywood have a single creative bone in their collective bodies? Some of the movies were done well the first time, so a second film is not necessary. Other films were just so dreadful in all facets that it is like that old cliche: Garbage in, garbage out.

On to Fashion:
Shoes...dear heavens, SHOES. Have you seen the prices socialites and Hollywood types and the wealthy pay for their shoes...600 bucks, 800 bucks, 2000 bucks...WTF!?!?!
C'mon people, they are *just* frikkin' S-H-O-E-S!
And the more expensive ones seem to be the ugliest.
Put me in a cheap pair of sneakers from K-Mart and I am happy. I'll pay a bit more for hiking boots, but those are footwear with a purpose.
Same for purses. Saw a picture of a young actress with a purse that she paid 14,500 for.
What. The. Hell.
And the darn thing was almost as big as she was and ugly as home-made sin!
Wear clothes that are neat, clean and comfortable and you are good to go.

Back to my true confessions:
Cars do NOT impress me. A guy driving a Ferrari or a girl behind the wheel of a Mercedes strike me as  endowed with more money than sense.
If it is a Mercedes diesel...NOW ya got my attention. Rig it so it can burn vegetable oil (recycled) and you'll get a big thumbs up from me!

Another true confession...I am a lousy driver. I will not drive in inclement weather or after dark unless it is a dire emergency. I KNOW I am a bad driver. I KNOW my eyesight is not the best. So, when I do have a vehicle, I limit my driving to the absolute minimum.

Other true confessions:
I love dark chocolate. Best edible thing on the planet.
I am a Science Fiction addict. Love Steampunk. (Look it up) Frank Herbert. Robert Heinlein.  Issac Asminov.
Yeah...a bit of a geek.

Well, I feel I have unburdened my soul enough for one day...

Mad Dogs and Englishmen....

So, I went walking to the store this morning. The store I was heading to is about 2 miles away, so I made sure I was quite prepared.
Water bottle: Check
Hiking Boots: Check
My Big Bag Purse: Check
So, I set off, enjoying a bit of a morning breeze before the sun got too hot.
Halfway there, I stopped to get a bag of walnuts at Family Dollar (they are HALF the price there that they are in the grocery store!). I dig into my bag for my wallet...and it's not there.
I FORGOT MY WALLET!!!
I had enough money tucked into the bottom of my bag to pay for the walnuts, but still...
So, back to the house.
A mile walk.
The breeze had stopped and the sun was gleefully beating down on me. I had also forgot a sun hat.
...sigh...
Everyone was rushing past in their air conditioned cars while I trudged homeward.
I made it home....sweating...a bit ticked off at myself...
Got up the three flights of stairs and there, THERE was my wallet, right where I left it on the kitchen counter.
Called a friend to get a ride later to the store.
Made a better checklist for my next trip up the road...

Shiny New Button!

If you noticed, or even if you haven't, there is a cute picture of a wee lamb over to the left.
<----------Thataway.
I am going to put up some items for sale in the near future and I may be making a major life change the End of August, Beginning of Sept. and I am going to need all the funds I can get to do it! (More about that in a post--coming soon!)
I used a *donate* button rather than a *merchant* button just in case some good hearted person out there feels generous enough to toss me a few bucks to help.(I know, I know, we are ALL broke right now--but I figured it wouldn't hurt!) No, donations are NOT tax deductible.



Some of the items I will be putting up for sale (no auctions, everything will be reasonably priced!) will be baby quilts, books, artwork, attractive (I hope to others!) wall decorations-room accents-bric-a-brac, clothes,fabric, first aid supplies for your FAK or BoB and gear. By "gear", I mean useful items for camping, hiking, hunting preparedness, etc. I will figure in the cost of shipping on each item when I price it. A few items I will send via UPS or Fed. Express due to their size or fragility.


The first items will be posted the second week in August. It will be first come, first served!
So wait and watch for the explanation and the items!

Experiments in self-improvement

Okay...I have bad habits.
Everybody does..
My current bad habits include :watching too much t.v., smoking and drinking soda to excess.
TV has now been moved out of my room.
I stopped drinking soda.
Now...I have not had any withdrawal symptoms from tossing the tv out of my room. If I want information, I go to my computer. I mainly watched History and Discovery Channel anyway and most of their stuff is available online.
On to the soda...that was a bit harder...and then, out of  pure damn desperation, I grabbed the lemon juice off the fridge shelf, pored a teaspoon in a mug added cold water and ice cubes and a couple of teaspoons of sugar...Lemonade! I made it a bit more tart than most people like it, but it works for me.
I sip on it every time I get a craving for soda.
So, for the past 40 hours now, I have been clean of caffiene....W00-H00!
Now for the worst habit...Smoking.
I have switched from name brand cigs, down to generic, and finally, I am now rolling my own.
They taste like shit and I can't roll worth a damn, so my smoking has reduced substantially.
So, there's my self improvement efforts..which seem to be going fairly well right now.

What the Hell?

So, I go out and about running errands today. A little shopping, dropping one of the computers off at the shop (needs a new fan), just a bit of this and that.

Sooooo...I am in a store, just browsing around and in comes a small gaggle of women. (Honestly, I don't think gaggle is the proper word...maybe a muttering of women...or a whisper --for a quiet group--or a screech of women--for a loud group...let me think on that...)
Anyway, 4 or 5 broads come in the store as a group. Ages between 35 to about 45 by my reckoning.
One, short, chubby and around 40, is wearing a belly shirt, "Daisy Dukes" and --dear Lord on toast---BODY GLITTER!
Body glitter? Really?
I thought women genetically out-grew body glitter at about age...oh...TWELVE.
Her belly shirt proclaimed her a "Baby Girl".
Hot pink lip gloss.
Belly button ring from which a pink crystal dangled.
Really.
REALLY?!?
The rest of the women in the group were similarly attired, though not quite as sartorially splendid as  "Baby Girl".
One wore "yoga pants" that had "Hot To Trot" emblazoned across the ass.
Since she weighed about 250, it was a LARGE statement on her part.

What the hell happened to people dressing their age?
Not to lay all the blame at these ladies (?) doorsteps....I see 40 something men trying dress like the Jonas Brothers and hanging around Hot Topic at the mall, hitting on the cute sales girls there.
Guys...quit that--it is embarrassing just to see!
Just as bad--if not worse--are 8 year old girls wearing clothe and make-up that makes them look like mini prostitutes.

Maybe I am just having a grumpy day...but I would LOVE to see men, women and children dressing appropriately for their ages.

And I would also like to see body glitter made illegal for women over the age of twelve.
Just my complaint for the day....

Heat

I live in southeast Texas, near the Gulf of Mexico.
It gets hot here.
DAMN hot.

I hate heat. Always have.
In my new place we have one air conditioner. Fortunately, it is located in a window in my bedroom.
UNfortunately, it does not function as well as it should.
It only cools the room down by a few degrees when it is working.
WHEN it is working, which is not all the time.
To me, if I don't have frostbite on my nipples, the air conditioner is not functioning properly.
Currently, my nipples remain unfrostbit.
Therefore, my ac is not functioning to the level that I expect for comfort.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why anyone would want to settle in this particular piece of real estate.
What did the pioneers think "Swamp, alligators, Jurassic Park sized mosquitoes and other bugs, hurricanes, flooding, poisonous snakes, heat like the 7th level of Hell...Yee-Haw, looks like home to me!"?
I have been here over 2 years, but I don't want to stretch it out to 3, although I may be forced to.
In the mean time, I am on the hunt for a decent air conditioner.
Oh yes, I KNOW I am a "survivalist" type gal. Don't care.
I NEED frosty Montana mountains on a February day, in my face, take my breath away, frostbitten nipples air conditioning!
Right now, I am looking at some used units, but I am not so sure I want to buy a used unit that was not enough for someone else---how the hell could it stand up to MY demands and standards?
Hopefully, I will find something that works for me at a reasonable price!

I hate heat.

Here in the treetops

After a short hiatus, I am back.
I moved in the interim, and am now in a third floor apartment
Although I am not the biggest fan of apartment living, I sort of enjoy being up here.
My most interesting neighbors are the squirrels that scamper around the trees that are next to my windows.
They also use the power and cable lines as a sort of interstate system to travel rapidly from yard to yard in their search for food.
They are entertaining little rodents, I must admit.
I can identify several individuals by sight now--no, all squirrels do NOT look the same.
One little squirrel seems to be the "merry prankster" of the local population. He races from branch to branch...chattering away at the others and seems to instigate chaos and fights where-ever he goes.
If there is a tail to be tweaked, he is there to tweak it. He ambushes other squirrels, pouncing on the others who wander past him.
A Squirrel of Adventurous Spirit, he also seems to love annoying the very large dog in the yard behind us.
The dog, a mastiff, doesn't have the speed or agility of our fluffy tailed friend, so it is a one sided battle. The little rodent will pilfer dog food from the bowl with cheeky abandon, knowing the large dog cannot possibly catch him in a genuine pursuit. When not pilfering kibbles and bits, our adventurous squirrel will wait until the large dog is snoozing peacefully in the shade and then creep quietly as close as possible and suddenly sit up and loudly chatter at the poor canine. The dog, so rudely awakened, jumps to his feet and looks for the culprit.
And then the chase begins.
The squirrel, to his credit, does wait until the mastiff lumbers to his feet before heading for a tree. Then it is a few circles around the tree before the squirrel starts his ascent. The squirrel ends up sitting on a branch *just* out of reach of the dog and chatters down in what I can only suppose is the squirrel equivilant of "Nyaah, nyaah, you can't catch me!"
The dog is left barking impotently at the annoying little rodent before lumbering back to his shady spot to continue his nap.

So goes the entertainment around here,,,