Cruisin'

Here is a picture of Kate and some of her friends, waiting to leave on the cruise this morning. The other picture isn't so good, but it shows a line of luggage that is a block long! She's got so much clothing, formal, dress up, dress down, hot weather, cold weather, 100 pairs of underwear, i-pod, phone, journal, hair bands, jewelry, makeup, and get this: I needed to write up an inventory for every bag!

Well, at least now I can chill a little.

Thanks for the comments on my previous post. I am liking the textbook for my "Mass Communication and Society" class. I just read about the history of the book. Fascinating.

A Minute to Breathe

Well, my online classes have started. Needless to say, it takes up quite a bit of my time. I am already learning so many things, and I haven't gotten into any real subjects yet. My Mass Media and Society class is a little slow to start. The first week"s assignment has basically been to get the book. The UPS man just delivered it. The Professor should start posting lectures tomorrow. My other class is Strategies for Online Learning. This class has tons of articles to read, lectures to view, mini papers to write, and discussion boards to post to. I've been introduced to the concepts of critical thinking. Something we should all be doing more of.

I find my motivation is high, and because everything is online. I can view the course materials whenever I have a minute at work. All those times when I was goofing off on etsy or looking at blogs, I am now doing school work. I think it will be OK.

Kate is leaving for a cruise with the ARC on Thursday. She looks forward to it all year. Quite frankly, it is a pain in the ass for me, all of the preparations. Today was the day I had to drive to the ARC office and deliver her spending Money, her medications along with a detailed description of how and when the medicine is to be administered, and her medical form. We just went this morning for the physical, because that is when I could get an appointment. Kate was supposed to have today off, but she was scheduled at work, I guess because she is taking the next 10 days off. I had to rush her over to work after the appointment. I was to deliver the drugs and cash, as I just mentioned, between 2 pm and 5 pm. I was gathering everything, when I noticed that she only had 10 pills left of her allergy medicine. I know they would give me a hard time at the ARC, so I called the pharmacy, who informed me that I was a couple f days early to have the prescription refilled. You see what I mean? These little annoyances just grind you down to a nub! When I went to take money out of the ATM in town for her, the thing was broken, jeez.

I am happy to report that Joe and I are going away this weekend. We will be staying at a B&B in Hudson, NY. We came upon this town accidentally while on a motorcycle trip, and it looked so cool, I decided we should stay there someday. I'm pretty excited about it!

Young Victoria: Violence!

Apparently there was an attempted assassination on Queen Victoria early on, and in this movie, Prince Albert dives in front of her and takes a bullet. Don't worry, he was fine, plus that never happened in real life. Assassination attempt, yes, Albert getting hit, no. Otherwise, the movie was pretty much everything I want in a historical costume drama. We enjoyed it very much.

We had Thai food, which was great. At first we were afraid we wouldn't even get any food. Quite a few places in Doylestown were closed, and many more were booked up!  I had no idea. Shows you how I never really get out on New Years Eve. I went and picked up a calzone for Kate at our local Pizza Restaurant, and they were turning people away because the tables were booked!

Tomorrow we are hosting a big holiday family party. It was supposed to be December 19th, but was canceled due to snow.  Let me tell you how done I am with the holidays. I should be taking my tree down, but no, not till this party is over. I had to shop all over again, now I have to clean all over again...

Got Any plans?

I picked up this quilt recently, it had been half-done for at least 2 months. I still want to add some beads to it, kind of as a way to quilt the parts that are still puffy. I had not done any sewing in so long.

I am home today, using my very last vacation day. I'm glad, because it has been SO boring at work. Next year they are going to shut the whole place down between Christmas and New Year. It makes a lot of sense, because they are heating and lighting a giant office complex, mostly for nothing. There is hardly anyone there, and no one
is really doing anything. Just hanging around, surfing the internet and eating cookies. The down side is that you are forced to use your own vacation days for the shut down. Most of us have a lot of vacation time, but some do not. Those without are unimpressed. Who knows if we will even have jobs by then?

I start college on Monday!  I'm scared and excited. It's hard to guess how much of my time this will take up, but I assume I will have less time for blogging and such. I have already completed an on-line orientation which is designed to teach you how to use the software and the online library. I'm impressed with it so far. I hope all this makes a difference in my life, maybe opens some doors. I'm so burnt out on my job that I can't quit, it's brutal.

Kate has had her laptop for a week and I just figured out how to hook it up to our wireless network THIS MORNING! The first couple of days after Christmas were very busy and I didn't even get to look at it. Then I started the process. I am so friggin' lame at computer stuff. When there is a problem, I am usually stumped. Fortunately I have a supply of young tech geeks at work who can listen to me try to explain a problem and figure out what the heck it is that I am missing. Then I go home and I can't find the thing they told me about, or I misplaced the piece of paper with the instructions, or it just won't work... anyway, that is behind me now and Kate can do all the things she wants to do.

I am going on a date tonight!  This is what my husband told me. He has a friend whose girlfriend broke up with him because he never wants to do anything she does. I think this sparked Joe to offer to take me to the movies. I love to go to the movies but it is so hard to find one that he is willing to see, that we rarely go. Get this, I am married to a man who hates violent action movies! I can take a certain amount of violence for the sake of the story, but he can't stomach anything. It really rules out quite a few good films. On the other hand, he is very willing to see all manor of art house-foriegn-costume drama-chick flicks. Tonight we are going to see Young Victoria. We are also having dinner, most likely Thai food, which I love. I think I will get dressed up, even though it is freezing out.

It occurs to me that it is New Years Eve. I keep forgetting. We don't generally attend any parties. I assume we will be home in time to have some champagne at midnight.

You got any plans?

Longwood Gardens at Christmas

Here is what I did yesterday. Longwood Gardens is one of my favorite places in the world. I have been several times, but never at Christmas. My husband knew I wanted to go, and he suggested it. This is a big deal, because he hates the drive (90 miles to S. Pennsylvania) and he assumes that since millions of people go, it will suck. He did this for me!

The drive is long, but the place was wonderful, he even had to admit it. We had fine weather considering it is the end of December, and the beauty surpassed the experience of shuffling around amoung the unwashed masses. I've never seen so many wheelchairs and motorized rascals in one place before. i think most folks in wheelchairs don't really need them. I think that since there is a lot of walking, people just rent these things so they don't get tired. I saw children that had to be 8 or 9 years old in strollers.

Anyway, great fun, and it got even better once the sun went down. Pictures can not do it justice. How do you get that many lights on a tree? How do you get that many lights on hundreds of trees?

An Interesting Diversion

I was just visiting the Idaho Beauty blog and she sent me over to the Smithsonain Institute website to look at artist's home made Christmas cards. There are so many to see and I was fascinated!

I feel inspired to make my own, but I will wise up and do it all year. It's just folly to think that you will do this at Christmas time. For me, it's enough just to get the cards written and out the door.

City Scenes

Here are some scenes from The City yesterday. I'll be damned if I can figure out how to format with Blogger. I think it is really weak.

Anyway, we had fun, we began our march up 5th avenue and systematically saw all the store windows. We especially loved the Bergdorf-Goodman windows which were positively surreal. Kate and I are stamding in front of one of them. Unfortunately it is difficult to really get a decent picture of a store window. You usually end up with a better shot of the reflections behind you.

We are having  something like 15 people over my house on the 19th and I am so not ready. I just can't get that worked up about it.

Big City Day

Time has been whipping by lately. Cookie making, party going, shopping. Nothing that you haven't been doing. Today, however, I have a day off and Kate and I are going into the big city to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, and all of the store windows, and whatever else we come across. The schedule is loose, some excellent girl time. I'll take pictures.

In other news, phase one of the attic project is done. Just in time to get bins of stuff out of the porch. Now when people come over for Christmas it won't look so slummy.

It's been really slow at work, and, as you know, an idle mind is the devil's playground. With me that took the form of eBay. Wow, just in time, because I really needed some more funky old Christmas decorations. They now show up every day, plus I indulged some of my other collections, namely Hull Mirror Brown. Pictures of this stuff soon.

Finally, I had an Etsy sale. Sometimes I am amazed at what I sell. None of the little Christmas ditties I made, but a weird collage from way back called Saint's Breakfast. I should get it together to take picture of my older collages and get them up on Etsy. I need to make room for more Christmas stuff.

White Christmas

Here are some pictures of our tree. I like how you can see that it has snowed outside. That snow came heavy and wet on Saturday, but it is mostly gone now.

You can't really tell that the tree is turning yellow, right?

I used a flash on this photo. It doesn't look so nice, but you can see some of my fave ornaments.

Christmas Cards

Here is a post from Sunday that I never finished. Now it's Monday and I may as well just post it.

Hello! This morning I am writing Christmas cards. I bought my cards last year, on sale. I have Frank Lloyd Write Christmas cards, that are very cool. I was happy to find them. However, now that I am looking at them, I think that most of the people on my list will be baffled. They are not really all that traditional. Oh well! I actually went out an bought my parents a separate card.

Kate and I were talking about the big tree in Rockefeller Center in NYC. Her and I are going in next Tuesday to see the lights and windows and, of course, the tree. She has the day off and I am taking that day, so it will be a mother/daughter extravaganza. We just googled the tree to see where it came from this year.

A lot of people commented on my last 2 posts. THANKS! It seems that many of us don't care much for malls. I'm thinking that it is something in us, whatever makes us want to make art, makes us... I'm lost for words. Can't wait to start taking those communication classes in January!  We are a little out of the main stream, and the mall represents the main stream... with a really strong current?

I liked hearing how everyone does their decorating. I remember it being a way different thing with small children!

Doreen asked me if I went to college for art. Yes, I did. I wanted to go to college for art when I was finished with High School. "They" wouldn't let me. I didn't understand how I could make that happen for myself at the time. I went to college for art when I was 32 years old. I have an AA degree, plus a few credits. It would be great to finish that degree, maybe some day.