Find Du Jour

Someone wrote these words on a white board here at the Day Job, so I had to investigate, of course.




And because I do not feel like figuring out how to make the image large enough to read without a magnifying glass, it says, "National Sarcasm Society ... like we need your support."

I just had to share!

ETA: Here is a link to a larger image.

Geography Lesson (aka: Creative Avoidance)

As I reviewed the last few pages of Book 1 of the Road Trip scrapbook, just to get my bearings on where I needed to pick up and continue, I got confused. You see, I am meticulous in my record-keeping, maybe even anal. I map out a route, then I have a book with the pages of printed maps and what I planned to do. Then I write all over these pages as I drive so I know where I deviated from my plan, and what roads I actually took so when I get to document it later, I can remember where I was when I took certain pictures. See: anal.

Then, when I get home, I write a Trip Report with the blow-by-blow of the whole trip. THEN, when I sit down to scrapbook, I just follow the Trip Report, and it is easy to fill in the blanks with photos, because I knew where I was at all times. (Is anal-retentive hyphenated?)

So imagine my chagrin when I discovered what I thought was a boo-boo on the last page of my effort from last year. I showed myself entering from Missouri into Iowa, then crossing a bridge to take a photo at the state line of ... Illinois? Wha?!?! So yes, I have been losing sleep over this. I mean - where had I gone wrong?!?! I finally looked it up and figured it out, and so, my dear readers, we have a geography lesson today.

Here is where the mystery began, somewhere during Day 4, when I crossed from Illinois into Missouri at Hannibal, boyhood home of Mark Twain.


After leaving Hannibal later in the day, I followed The Great River Road, to the best of my ability, all the way through Missouri until I crossed over into Iowa.

Once in Iowa, I was in a little town called Keokuk, and I drove along the river to a large bridge, walked half-way across it and took a photo of the state line sign: Illinois.

WAIT a minute! I just came from Missouri into Iowa, and now I am in Illinois!??!?!?

Yep, and here's why:

Check out this map (and please appreciate the state line labels. It took me forever to get that Missouri/Illinois one to stick.) Here we have a three-state meeting point (see that handsome red dot.) Who knew that these three states met?

So it turns out what I'd done was drive from Missouri into Iowa, then I drove along the river into town and crossed a bridge that went from Iowa to Illinois. I think it was that yellow line/road in the upper right of the map. Yep, that's what I did alright. Mystery solved!

Okay, now I really need to get to work on those holiday cards. I did have to make some Chanukkah ones last night, and I'll post those later, after I write them. I should be back up for air sometime on Tuesday.

Too Stinkin' Cute!

It is all Lydia's fault! She posted this, so of course I HAD to look. OMG, if you like baby animals, then this is the site for you: ZooBorns.com. You can get your daily fix; you can get a widget for your bog with baby animal pics; or like me last night, you can just park for a while to look at the pics and videos, and laugh and say, "Aaaaaawwwww!" for a long time. They do not get a lot of comments, but they told me (because I asked, of course) that they get a lot of happy traffic, emails and links, but as we all know, comments ROCK! Right?! Just check 'em out! You know you want to ... ;-)

PS: I put their link in my blog list over yonder in the right menu bar, too. Just in case you change your mind, later.

Rainy Saturday Ramblings

There's lots of stuff going on, so I think I'll post some ramblings. This is, in fact, a sneaky way for me to post a whole bunch of non-related blathering and get away with it.

First, Tropical Storm Hanna has arrived. It is raining big-time here, with local flooding already happening - road closures, etc., and it keeps on coming. The brunt of the storm is not supposed to hit until later today. Oh, boy.

I went to pick up my CSA share, and lo and behold, all three farmers were there and three of the crafters, too! We are a hardy bunch! Well, except for me, who totally wimped out. Farmer Mike said it had not even started raining yet when he left. Oh, well. I wished them luck and left, with just a little bit of guilt. We Jewish Mothers do guilt really well ...

I also made a pass at the local Transfer Station to recycle all my broken-down SU boxes in a probably-futile attempt to reclaim even a little space in here. Yes, we have curb-side recycling, but they want us to cut down boxes and wrap them in twine, and who has the time for that?! So I collect them and recycle them myself when I can.

I also dropped off my one and only dress at the dry cleaners so I have it ready to take with me next weekend.

I organized something! I bought a bunch of 5x7 photo pages in my last clearbags.com shopping spree. I found an old binder to put them in, then I put all my Nestabilities in the pockets. Nicely arranged and so very neat. Much better than tossing them into a box during the Clean Sweep! This way I have a chance to find them again! I put away the Cuttlebug, and I can see enough of the table to start cutting my card stock for kits for tomorrow. Later.

I got distracted and used the stamp sets I had out to maybe make some Sympathy cards. I was sorting through the scrap piles and found parts of some PTI patterned papers (purples), so I grabbed some virgin PTI purple card stock and made these:



Not too bad for an hour's work. So, is purple an appropriate color for Sympathy? For some reason I think it is ... I could look it up, I suppose, but that sounds like work.

Now for my discovery of the week. Hmm ... maybe I should have a new category for "discoveries". Mind you, these are discoveries for me. Most people probably already know about these things. But hey, if I find something new, I like to share. During my blog surfing - one of those activities where I find cool stuff but forget how I got there - I ran into Brenda's blog. What I saw reminded me of my stamping style, so I linked to her in my "Blogs I read when I have the time" list. While perusing her posts, I saw this one and I was WOWed by the stitched papers. They are done by Stefani Tadio of Pine Tree Designs, and they are fabulous. I recommend you take a few moments to check out her site and her etsy store. Beautiful work!

On a sad note, we lost the fabulously talented Don Lafontaine this week. Here is a good interview with him talking, a lot:

and I would be remiss if I did not include this one:

Okay, that's enough stuff for now. I think I'll go make up my kits for tomorrow while it is still light out, just in case the Big Wind comes through later and knocks out power. A girl's gotta be prepared!