two more days

Straight to the funny today:

Let’s talk about my week, shall we?

Monday

• Three meetings – literally half of my day

Tuesday

• A meeting with the Vice President of my department regarding my interim job status (No updates or end in sight; just “keep up the good work and thank you very much.”  Alrighty then.  Will do.)
• My department’s holiday party
• A quick shopping trip to pick up gift bags and a specific gift before it went back to full-price
• A fun-filled evening of tearing up 50-year-old linoleum (A task which, frankly, sucked.  A lot.  I’m bearing the consequences today in the form of severe back pain.)

Wednesday

• Granite company came to make template of kitchen counters!
• An appointment during my lunch hour
• Quick food shopping to pick up and then prep the ingredients for a pot of chili
• Wrap gifts for my co-workers

Thursday

• Holy crap, the floor crew arrives at 8:00 to begin sanding and refinishing the kitchen floor!  I would be excited, but I kind of don’t believe it’s actually going to happen.  If I wasn’t already a bit of a total skeptic, this kitchen renovation has certainly made me into one.  I’ll let you know how it goes…
• Two-hour software training at work
• Assemble chili to cook overnight in crockpot
• Nothing else!  Thursday night is sacred!!

Friday

• Day Two of floor refinishing (final day?)
• One meeting, thankfully very low-key
• A holiday potluck lunch with my co-workers (now you know what the chili was for)
• College President’s holiday reception

Bear in mind this is just the stuff that’s happening in and around my regular daily workload and personal obligations.  Oy.  But after all this?  Say it with me now:  two whole weeks of vacay!  Woo, hoo!!

Next week maybe I’ll actually be able to think straight in order to plan and organize my Christmas gifts and wrap them in time for Christmas…

Hey, what about you?  What’s stressing you out during this season of universal insanity?  Please tell me I’m not alone…

Read Full Post »

white irises and news

white irises on black

I am really proud of this picture.  Normally, I’m not nuts about irises – they’re pretty and all, just not one of my favorites.  But these – that pure white of the petals?  So dreamy.  I’m guessing these blooms had just opened when I discovered them on campus and I photographed the heck out of them.  I managed to narrow down the many shots to my two favorites – this one, obviously, and another one which is posted on Flickr.

So.  It’s Tuesday.  Yup, it sure is.  …  Hm.  Yeah, I don’t have much to say today.

Oh!  Here’s some news:  I recently won a really cool giveaway on a really cool blog.  Raya of The Paper Pony held a drawing in celebration of her 300th blog post (Congratulations again, Raya!) and I won!  I never win anything (I guess everyone says that) so I was really excited to get the news.  Now all I have to do is figure out what to get with my gift certificate…

And some other news (not quite as exciting as the last news): in continuing to work on my backlog of photographs, I’ve managed to get caught up through the end of May.  That doesn’t sound like much progress, but it is, trust me.  I’ve dated all the pictures from June and, with any luck, I should be able to finish titling toninght and get started editing.  Then it’s on to July, August, and September which are still hanging out on my camera — I haven’t wanted to download them for fear of overwhelming myself and ending up paralyzed.  I’m getting there…thanks for bearing with me.

Ok, this is turning into an exceedingly boring post, so I’ll stop torturing you.  Have a great day!

Read Full Post »

miscellany monday

single tulip, Lewiston

~ In case you haven’t already read it on his blog, I thought I’d let you know that Joel’s car was recently vandalized (albeit in a pretty minor way).  Presumably by some nutjob who considers himself a member of “the party of tolerance” or some garbage like that.

~ I heard a good joke the other day.  At least, *I* thought it was a good joke, but I like puns and I’m a bit of a word nerd.  There’s no accounting for taste, is there?  Anyway, here it is:

A font went into a bar.  The bartender took one look at him and said, “Hey, we don’t serve your type here.”  And then he called the Serif.

Hee, hee, hee!  See?  I still think it’s funny – even re-telling it made me laugh right out loud.  And now my officemate thinks I’ve cracked…  Ah, well, she’s probably right.

~ Good news: Joel re-installed the kitchen cabinet on Saturday morning (not the sink cabinet, but the one to the right of it) and…wait for it…installed the dishwasher!  The dishwasher!!  Perhaps you didn’t hear me.  I said, he installed the DISHWASHER!!!!!!!  My very first dishwasher, ever.  I’m pretty excited, as you can tell.

~ Joy visited over the weekend.  For lunch on Saturday, we all went to Silly’s in Portland and it was so good!  They have tons of vegan options on the menu.  Oh, and the french fries were super yummy.  Hey, It’s all about the french fries for me – if they’re good, I’m a happy girl.  Joy and I shared a tofu appetizer and then we each ordered meals with tofu as well.  Joel had pulled pork.  You know, just to make waves. Then we spent the afternoon shopping – some outlets in Freeport and then the antique place at Fort Andross in Brunswick – it was a blast!  Although I didn’t buy anything.  Not a single thing.  I must be off my game…  We ended the day with dinner at El Camino in Brunswick (also really good, but hello? no website?) followed by a showing of Sweeney Todd at home.  I’ve been wanting to see it since I first saw the preview and it totally lived up to the hype.  Stephen Sondheim just kicks a whole lot of a$s in general.  And on this particular movie, Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter killed it.  It was awesome.  It also brought back a bunch of good memories – Sweeney was the mainstage show during my first semester at the Conservatory – so that was a nice added bonus.

Joy left on Sunday morning and Joel and I went back to…you guessed it…working on the kitchen.  Such is life during renovation, I guess.  I will try my darnedest to have some pictures for you very soon.  Which brings me to my next topic:

~ That lovely tulip above?  I took that picture on May 2nd.  Today is the first day of autumn.  (Happy Autumn, little chickens!)  This is how behind on I am on uploading pictures – both here and on my Flickr page.  It’s gone way beyond sad, sailed past slackerly, and is quickly approaching utterly ridiculous.  I am going to make a concerted effort to catch up over the next couple weeks, which is why you might see many more pictures and much less text for the next week or two.  Please bear with me while I try to dig out of this horrible hole of my own making…  Don’t feel sorry for me – I don’t deserve it.  (I’m being facetious.  Of course I want you to feel sorry for me.) 

Have a great day!  Later…

Read Full Post »

more random

What’s up with me these days? It seems like every post I write is “random” — it’s like I can’t keep a coherent thought in my head for longer than half a second…

annie c. – hope cemetery, kennebunk, maine

You may remember my mentioning a while back that my department at the College has been without a Vice President for quite some time…almost a year in fact. Well, the administration hired someone earlier this summer and he started this week. We had a departmental meeting on Monday where New VP was welcomed to the College and introduced to the staff. He seems great — genuine, humble (but not so much that it makes me doubt his sincerity), relaxed but still enthusiastic, very approachable. Frankly, I’m encouraged. I have my first one-on-one meeting with him tomorrow — wish me luck!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, you know, just to torture myself, I visited the Anthropologie website yesterday — the New Fall Collection is out. The blouses. The blouses!! They’re all so pretty. I want the whole collection, per usual. Not that I would EVER in a million years spend that much money on clothes, even if Anthropologie carried clothes that fit me. (Would it kill them to add one more size? I mean, really. Almost half of American women wear a size 14 or larger. That’s about half of Anthropologie’s market and they only carry clothes up to size 14. But I digress.) Anyway, I’m especially loving the Buckle and Sway Skirt in gray. Oh! And the sweaters! The Santa Rosa Cardigan in pink — so adorable. And the Humbug Hoodie in slate — how cute is that? Even the name is cute. Ok. I’m done talking about clothes. And here’s my penance for being so vain as to devote the largest paragraph in this weird, rambling post to clothing. (I love her writing. She’s so cruelly honest. But whatever you do, don’t call her a genius.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh my gosh, why am I not going to this?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ah, The Shins. What did we ever do before The Shins?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And this (sorry about the ad that precedes the video). I know I’ve mentioned Once (the movie) before, but I’m telling you again: if you haven’t seen it yet, go out right now and rent it. Seriously. Even just these short little clips make tears well up in my eyes. It’s so beautiful.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok. Last thing. I need your opinion on something. I recently discovered this rug on the West Elm website. Normally, I’m not at all into “faux bois” (that’s the Martha Stewart way of saying wood grain… I’m sorry, when I said snooty, it sounded like Martha Stewart…), but for whatever mysterious reason, I immediately loved this rug. I think it would look really great in my dining room. What do you think? Is it just too…I don’t know…rustic? Somehow I think the deep, espresso brown color classes it up a bit. And I like that it has a pattern, but that it’s a tone-on-tone pattern — it’s not too busy. I also like the idea of the wood grain contrasted with my fancy-schmancy china (inherited from my Mom), which is a very busy Wedgwood pattern. What do you think?

Wow, this was really random. Thanks for bearing with me…

Read Full Post »

sushiesque and polyvore

Patience, my little chickens — that wacky title will become clear in good time.

I took this lovely photograph on the day that we met up with Joel’s family in Portsmouth to celebrate my birthday:

portsmouth buds, Portsmouth, NH

My birthday was way back in April. This is how backed up I am in the whole downloading / dating / naming / editing photographs department. I seriously need to get my a$$ in gear and get caught up.

Remember when I recently posted about how Joy won the Beantown Bartender Battle? Well, that picture of her that I posted was linked back to where I found it — on Bostonist. It was posted there by Bostonist contributer, C. Fernsebner, a.k.a. Sushiesque, who took the picture. She has hilarious posts on that there blog of hers — I think this is my favorite.  And this one is funny, too.  Ok, I’ll stop now.  She also has a bunch of great photos of Boston on her flickr page. In addition to Sushiesque, she contributes to Adorablog. See? It’s such a small world on the internet. Isn’t that cool?

By the way, just thought you should know that Polyvore is the new crack. Seriously. It’s pretty near the top of the list of excuses perfectly reasonable explanations for why I can’t seem to get anything done these days. You should try it. You know you want to.

Oh! I recently uploaded some new pictures to my flickr page if you want to check them out. Hm, I guess I’m not a total slacker…just mostly.

Read Full Post »

monday miscellany

wise, Hope Cemetery, Kennebunk

Life has been a little crazy lately…so crazy, in fact, that I’m forced to resort to bullet points:

• I’m having quite a bit of trouble with Leo the laptop these days. (What? You don’t name your computer?) He is slower than cold molasses in January works at his own pace and doesn’t seem to think it’s important for me to access the internet. Fortunately, my friend Matthew is a computer genius and is very graciously and generously helping me clean up Leo’s act. (Thank you, thank you, thank you, Matt!) He’s also planning to install some new memory soon — with any luck, that should take care of the most pressing problems.
• Last week, I attended a work-related event at which the granddaughter of my all-time favorite painter, Andrew Wyeth, gave a slide presentation on her grandfather’s work and told some of the stories behind the paintings. It was amazing. At one point, she talked about his final painting of a dear life-long friend — the painter’s response to the friend’s death and the painting that resulted from it — and it made me cry, right there, during the presentation. It was a great evening.
• The next night, Joel and I had dinner with Kim and Tim (Kim is a.k.a. The Recovering Protestant). They were vacationing in Wells with Tim’s family and took an afternoon detour to Portland to meet us at The Great Lost Bear. Um, of course. Because get-togethers with Kim and Tim always involve good beer. I think between the four of us, we sampled six different brews. Good stuff. (Thanks again, you two!) This is the first time we’ve seen them since their wedding back in January, so it was great to catch up and visit with them!
• After I blogged last week about Joy’s big win in the Hendrick’s Gin Beantown Bartender Battle, LUPEC Boston did an even better write-up. I’m still so excited for her — yay, Joy!
• Not much going on in the way of renovation lately. I think we may be a bit burned out… But. BUT. Joel moved the dryer into the laundry room last week and I got to use it over the weekend. Woo, hoo! (Oy. I’m excited about using the dryer. How sad is that?) The washer is still in the kitchen, but I got a little taste of what it’s going to be like to have a laundry room and, let me tell you, it was pretty frickin’ amazing. We’re hoping to get the washer moved next weekend and then we should be able to continue work on the kitchen.
• Holy crap, the sun actually came out over the weekend. Seriously folks, it’s been, like, three weeks straight since we’ve had sun for any appreciable amount of time. It was really nice.
• We took Saturday off (off? what’s that?) and continued the Wyeth extravaganza with a trip to the Farnsworth in Rockland. The aforementioned Wyeth granddaughter gives three tours there daily. We took a stroll around the museum and then headed out to the Olson House (site of the famed Christina’s World) for her last tour of the day. Just like her slide presentation earlier in the week, the tour was amazing. Seriously, you can’t do much better for insight (and inside information) than the painter’s beloved only granddaughter. We even took a walk down to the Olson family cemetery after the tour — it was such a gloriously beautiful day.
• And then after the loveliness of Saturday, I spent Sunday doing, like, a zillion (okay, just seven) loads of laundry. But, hey, now I have a linen closet full of clean sheets and towels and tons and tons of clean clothes. It’s a beautiful thing.

Ok, when I start talking about laundry, it’s time to go…

P.S. Has anyone seen last week’s flickr friday? She’s usually very reliable and punctual… I can’t imagine why she didn’t show up. Well, we’ll see what happens this week — I’m sure she’ll be back on schedule.

Read Full Post »

random

You want to be the next Barry White, don’t you? I knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for those macrame classes.

~~~~~~~

I am totally loving the Vampire Weekend album these days and Oxford Comma is my new favorite song (warning: the boys of Vampire Weekend are a bit foul-mouthed, so this video is NSFW):

If you’re anything like me (which you’re probably not, because hi, I’m a grammar geek) you are now thinking to yourself, “Hm, what is an Oxford comma? Truly, I must know.” Well, fear not, intrepid reader — I looked it up for you. You’re welcome.

~~~~~~~

If you haven’t visited Story People yet, you should. Here are a few “stories” that resonated with me:

• There are some days when no matter what I say it feels like I’m far away in another country and whoever is doing the translating has had far too much to drink

• I think my life would be easier, she said, if I could just get my selves to agree on something.

• It took me a long time, she said, to stop confusing safety with love.

~~~~~~~

My house is not modern. Not in the least. But I’m consistently drawn to the clean, crisp lines of modern design. It’s a conundrum. However, I think my laundry room might turn out to be just spare and modern enough to get away with hanging these funky, modern-ish curtains in there:

Yay! They have birch trees on them. They perfectly suit my recent obsession with birch trees. Now I just have to drag my butt to the nearest Ikea to get them…

Oh! Speaking of the laundry room — huge shout-out to Aunt Alice, who offered a while back to do some painting for us and is probably painting the laundry room as I type this. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Aunt Alice!!

Ok, sorry about this post — I can’t seem to keep my brain on one subject for very long. Anyway, I think I’ve pinged around enough for one day… Have a great afternoon!

Read Full Post »

monday miscellany

A true Monday miscellany. Nevermind that it’s Tuesday — it feels like Monday. Anyway, several totally unrelated things by bullet point:

• I finally (finally!!) finished editing my photographs from my early-April trip to San Francisco — read about the trip here; view the pictures here.
• The College where I work had its Commencement over the weekend. And now campus will be quiet for a while. This is a good thing.
• Memorial Day being the unofficial start to summer and all, I got out and did some planting over the weekend — four window boxes of red Geraniums and some containers of herbs on the back porch. I am bound and determined to grow my own herbs for cooking! But because I am not naturally good at gardening, I’m also trying to be realistic about my expectations — just five herbs to start: Basil, Cilantro, Dill, Orange Mint, and Rosemary — we’ll see how it goes.
• After our local Memorial Day parade and ceremony at the town park, we headed off to my friend Mark’s house for a cookout. Mark’s daughter and son are visiting from Florida, so a small crew of family and friends gathered to visit, eat hot dogs and hamburgers, and toast marshmallows for s’mores. Good times, good times. (Just a note, the pictures I linked to are from last year, so the kids are taller…and cuter, if that’s even possible.)
• And now I have a short, four-day work week — woo, hoo!

Read Full Post »

quick and dirty

I should probably warn you in advance: this is going to be quick and jumbled, so bear with me. This is the way my mind is working these days — just kind of all over the place. Maybe it’s the arrival of nice weather, maybe it’s the recent weird circumstances of life… I’m not sure.

First of all, thanks to those of you who wrote or spoke to me off-blog about my friend’s nephew’s sudden passing. She and her family are beginning what will surely be a very long and difficult grieving process, so if you can, please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Here’s a picture I took weeks ago (gah! I’m so behind with the pictures…) of magnolia buds before they exploded into bloom. I think the buds are almost as pretty as the flowers:

> As if things weren’t already crazy enough at work, my boss announced that she’s leaving in less than six weeks. This is devastating news. My department is already operating without a Vice President and my group within the department has been operating under an Interim Director. It’s the Interim Director who is leaving. So now we are without a VP and a Director…yikes. But more importantly, it’s just really sad to see my boss leave — she’s one of the best bosses I’ve ever had and I consider her a good friend. I will miss her a lot.

> I recently saw the movie Once and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It instantly became one of my all-time favorites. If you haven’t seen it yet, go get it right now. Seriously, go. And then get the soundtrack because the music is kind of the whole point of the movie. And it’s so beautiful:

I’ve been listening to it (and singing along with it) in the car a lot lately.

> Speaking of music, I recently got a couple new CDs which I’m pretty excited about:

and

The Vampire Weekend album is great — fun and interesting. But let’s be honest, I’m really only interested in talking about the new Portishead album, titled third — their first album in eleven-frickin-years. Joel and I heard them play live in Worcester, MA back in the day and it was AMAZING. Sorry to shout, but seriously, it was amazing! They’re the kind of band that you just wonder, “Are they going to suck live?” and then you show up and they blow you the hell away. Great show. So of course, when they disappear into the woodwork for a decade+, it’s natural to be skeptical about their new release. But the new album is really cool! Joel aptly described it by saying, “Ba-BAM!” There’s a more verbose (and perhaps a bit less onomatopoetic) review here. And for all you audiophiles out there, if you buy the vinyl, it includes a free download. Woo, hoo! (Any bets on how long it will take Joel to realize that, theoretically, he never has to actually play the vinyl if he doesn’t want to? Yay, for free downloads.)

> If I use the term album, does it make me sound old?

> Ok, who said it was okay for Memorial Day to be here already? Holy smokes, where did May go?! Is it just me? Or are the days passing faster and faster all the time? See what you can do about that, ok?

See you tomorrow for flickr friday!

Read Full Post »

random: subway porn

Is it just me or does anybody else find this commercial more than just a little bit porny?

Read Full Post »