Picture Update! (Now with text)

April 27th: Felix wants to know why the hell it's snowing

St. Louis Zoo, May 18 - Hippos are HUGE

But they have tiny tiny ears

Baby Elephant!!

This Grizzly was hot, and decided to hang out in the pool

Prairie Dogs are so cute!! Like little squirrels with shorter tails.

I was trying to take a picture of the Lion yawning, but caught the tail end instead. He looks like he's going to kill someone.

Always have to support the Lemonade Stand

Athens, Part 3

Everything is an archaeological site.  

For example, in preparation for the Olympics, and even still, the city began adding subway stops.  Except everywhere they started digging, they found old crap.

But what can you do in a city where you really can't dig anywhere without finding something?  

Simple.  Build over it and have glass walls and floors!

Other things are just nestled in regular areas.  Like these old columns in the National Gardens.  (I think that guy is doing Tai Chi.  We thought he looked like he was just pushing the air in front of him over and over.)

Or even better, this tiny church in the patio area of a Starbucks.

A similar thing happened when they started building the New Acropolis Museum (which wasn't open yet).  So it also has a glass floor.

In this picture you can see Hadrian's Library and the Temple of the Winds (and probably other stuff too).  Everything is completely built up around them as if they were just another building on the street.

The cool thing about it is you can eat outside and view awesome things, like the Acropolis.  Free of charge!

And in a city this big and densely populated, the archaeological sites are some of the few places to experience open space.

Though be careful!  If an earthquake hits, you could have gigantic columns falling on you.  DS and I made sure we studied the length of this one so we knew how far to run if things got shaky.

Things You probably don't know about Athens, Part 2

Athens is all about the strays.  We found adorable kitties everywhere.  And nearly all of them were snuggly and soft and very sweet.

These three little guys were hanging around the little zoo inside the National Gardens.

This one was particularly sweet.  She was in the Agora, and made little biscuits with her feet like Felix does.

This little cutie was in the Roman Forum.

Athens has dogs too.  Lots of stray dogs.  But they don't euthanize there, they just sterilize.  I have a theory that all the dogs we saw with the same blue collars were the ones the animal people had gotten already.  They just laid around and didn't bother anyone.  They didn't beg, or sniff you, or bark.  It was amazing really.  They also looked well fed, so maybe those weren't strays?  Who knows.  Regardless, there were dogs everywhere too.

Things you probably don't know about Athens, Part 1

Apparently, when the Sahara has a big sandstorm, Athens suddenly has smog.  Except it's not smog.  It's sand.  I was convinced that Athens was a dirty, nasty city.  DS kept telling me it was beautiful before I got there; sunny, clear, perfect temperatures.  All I saw was clouds and sand smog.  So here are some smog pictures, all but the last taken from the Acropolis*.  After looking at a map, I'm fairly certain we would have seen sea if not for that sand.  So that sucks, but how often do you get to come home and say you experienced the effects of a Saharan sandstorm??

That's Hadrian's theater, which is part of the Acropolis tour.

This is a view of the Agora from the Acropolis.

The Temple of Zeus, with the Olympic Stadium from the first modern Olympics in the background.

General city.  Pretty crowded!

* As it turns out, if you're short for time, you can see pretty much everything of interest from the Acropolis.  So go there with a camera that has a good optical zoom, and you're set!

Allergies Suck

It's been exactly two weeks since DS and I returned from Athens.  I have to admit that I've spent most of that time either sleeping, sniffling, coughing, or playing Harvest Moon Cute.  Tree pollen is crazy rampant right now, and it would seem I'm very allergic to whatever trees they have here.  It was like magic.  The Saturday after we returned, I attended a baby shower at a house that had its windows open.  As I'm leaving, I feel that icky feeling you get in your throat sometimes when you're catching a chest cold.  The next morning, I can't breathe.  Allergies are AWESOME.

So, the three different prescription medicines, plus the special steroid inhaler I take twice a day for my asthma, are doing squat.  To cope, I'm taking three times the amount of claritin I'm supposed to, and I can get by.  Benedryl does nothing.  Tylenol Sinus does nothing.  So far, the only thing that helps is rain.  I'm guessing it forces all that crap to stick to the ground.

At any rate, I haven't been feeling up to much of anything except lying around and doing things that don't require much thought.  Work is exhausting, and all I do is sit at a desk.  But the weather.com says the pollen levels are moderate instead of high now, so that's a good sign I guess.

Anyway, that's where I've been.  I haven't forgotten that some of you want info about the trip, and it is forthcoming.

Home at Last!

After 24 hours (no kidding!) of travel, we're finally home.  We missed the cats terribly, but they aren't even acting as if we've gone anywhere.  And here I was worried about them.

Pictures will have to come later, as I'm tired, and I think the batteries are dead on the camera.  But until then, I can tell you that we had a wonderful trip, and I saw some of the most magnificent things!  

Packing, Working, and Freaking Out

I leave for Greece tomorrow!!  I am both terribly excited, and terribly nervous.

Nervous:

1. Until about an hour ago, I was completely stressed about getting work done.  There's a deadline right after I get back, so I had to have my stuff finished before I left.  I managed to get enough of it done that no one should be upset with me for what's left.

2. Yesterday I made a list of odds and ends that I wanted to get done before I left (like making sure all the dishes were clean so my apartment doesn't smell awful when I get back).  Then I got home and found my new Hello Kitty crochet book had a

rrive from Japan... still have that whole list to get to.

3. The cats have given up on DS coming home.  They no longer run to the door when the outside fire door slams.  They do like waking me up at 4 in the morning because they're not getting enough attention...  So I'm a little worried about their sanity when I too leave them.  They don't know I'm coming home!

4. I think I'm going to have to close off half the apart

ment.. There are things I definitely don't want the cats around if they decide to punish us for leaving like they did for our last vacation..

Excited:

1.  I'm going to see the Parthenon!!!!  And lots of other things I studied in college!!  Being an art history major brings joy on every vacation :)

2. I get to see DS again!!  And he's promised to "put me to bed".  Because I'm obviously not capable of recognizing that I'm tired on my own.

3. I don't have to work for 7 days!!!!

So... I know there are more things in the nervous list than there are in the excited list, but I promise the excited things outweigh the nervous.  

Now I have to find a new book to put on my iPod, since I don't think there's enough left in The Count of Monte Cristo to get me there and back.  Some things about planning a trip are really fun!

Also, while I'm thinking about fun trip planning, let me tell you about my new suitcase.  I'm so in love with it!!!!

Is it not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?  It's purple, and has 4 swivel wheels!!  I can spin it around like a top!  AND it's HUGE!!!  I want to travel travel travel now. :)

Note:  I did NOT pay that much for it.  Turns out it's true what they say in the TJ Maxx commercials.. you can find some really good bargains (and also a lot of junk).

Punch-Out Freak Out!!!!

HOLY FREAKIN CRAP!!!! If I thought for one second that my husband would actually wear this, I'd buy it in a heart beat!

On a Roll!!

Man, selling things is AWESOME! I always thought that I would love living an artist's live, and now I know for sure!

This morning I had a special request to ship to Canada, and now I am happy to say that I've made my 3rd "stranger" sale. Woo-HOO!!! That's two in a row! I feel like, just maybe, I can actually do this when DS gets a teaching job.

I can't really explain what it's like to put your time and love into making something, and then have someone say, "wow, that's really cool, and i'll pay MONEY for it!". Sometimes it's hard to let the thing go, but I know that if I really want to keep it, I can make another. It's such a gratifying experience. I can definitely see why people opt to make things rather than go out and work for the man. :)

Scaredy Cat

Tonight the fire alarm went off around nine in my apartment building. The cats have been through fire alarms before, and it always freaks them out. They immediately disappeared when it started, and not seeing or smelling anything, decidedly to leave them when I went outside.

For once, this fire alarm was legit, though it thankfully didn't do any damage to anything I care about. It looks like one of the garage doors died in a blaze of glory. Or at least we found it open, hanging strangely, and the sprinklers on full blast. It was like it was raining indoors.

The fire department couldn't seem to get the sprinklers turned off, and it wasn't until one of the maintenance people showed up that they made any progress towards letting us back in the building.

When I came back inside, Felix came running right away. She must have been worried about me, because she even let me hold her for a while, and she never does that.

Winston on the other hand, hid under the bed for a long time. And now he's trying to stir up the courage to leave the bedroom doorway. For all his beefiness and fangs and tackling Felix, he really is a big wuss.

They're both getting lots of treats and catnip tonight!

The Mighty Hunter

Not too terribly long ago, I became interested in felt making, both wet felting and needle felting. So I have a small collection of natural and dyed wools that I keep in a tote. For a while, I would wake up in the mornings to the wool be strung throughout the apartment. I assumed it was Winston, because he's usually the bad one. Turns out, I was wrong. It was this one:

If this wool is anywhere even remotely close to a place she can reach, she will get it. I used to store the entire tote in my wire shelving, which is about 1.3 feet square or so, and stacked on top of each other. This was on the 5th shelf, so not close to the ground. And she got to it.

So I thought, if I can't beat her, I'll give her what she wants. I made a needle felted mouse toy.

I didn't keep it long. In fact, taking these pictures were difficult.

She's very happy, and is strutting around the house, meowing loudly to let us all know of her glorious kill. She's so tough.

Cats, Planes and Gyros

This morning I took DS to the airport yet again, this time on his way to Athens, Greece. GREECE!!! On one hand, I hate that his job is constantly sending him places. On the other, his totally sweet and awesome mother is sending me along with him! That's right, on April 9th, yours truly will be on a place to Athens. I CAN NOT WAIT!! Having studied architectural history all through college, I'm so excited to be able to go to the Acropolis myself.

On the way to the airport, we passed a gas station with one of those small eateries inside. This one was called "Athens Gyros: The Original". DS felt it important to let Athens know that the original is on the north side of Madison. I'm sure they'll be surprised to hear it.

The cats are already raising a fuss over DS leaving. They each took turns laying on his suitcase in the hopes that he wouldn't be able to leave without it. As soon as I got back home after dropping him off, Winston destroyed a roll of toilet paper (one of his favorite "I'll show you" past times).

Just a few minutes ago he found a box full of peanuts (I keep the boxes I get in case I need them to ship things myself; recycle!). Within moments the box was tipped over, peanuts everywhere, and he was nestled inside. If I had known that all they wanted was a cardboard box and peanuts for a bed, I wouldn't has spent so much money on this one. Oh well.. Felix is currently fast asleep in the box, and it is kinda cute. Though I'm not looking forward to cleaning up those peanuts.

Winston - enjoying his freshly made bed.

Felix attacking a peanut while Winston decides whether to attack her.

Felix, mid meow. She really is a pretty cat, but she's so black and silky that the flash over compensates and makes her look funny...

In other news, we were once again tricked into thinking that Spring was on the way. For over a week we had temperatures around 40, and the majority of our almost 100 inches of seasonal snowfall had melted. Then came the first day of Spring, which brought like 12 more inches of snow. I guess that one week was enough to make people forget how to drive in it, because there were a lot of abandoned cars. The roads weren't even that bad! I mean, we drove almost a month straight on 3-4 inches of ice! Crazy northerners.

Update 3/23 9:43pm - It's snowing again....

Obsessed

Today, EA launched its "hype" site for the Sims 3. Last I heard, it's slated for a March of '09 release. Yeah, that's right. An entire year from now. But there have been articles talking about this came since 2006. This is a very long time to anticipate a video game. It's almost not fair.

Needless to say, I'm already drooling. Come on 2009!! (And damn you EA, for getting me excited a year early! Did you really need to do that? You knew I was going to buy it already. You've known since I bought my first expansion pack....)

Happy St. Patty's Day!

What Your Shamrock Says About You

You are charming, witty, and larger than life. At times, you can be a bit impatient and inflexible. You don't like to be distracted. You don't really consider yourself a lucky person. In your view, people create their own luck. You are stylish, in a classic sort of way. You are particular about how you like things.

The Shamrock Personality Test

Home Alone

DS left for New Orleans Tuesday morning to give some talks since he's a fancy pants doctor and all. I went to New Orleans once in high school with the family of one of my friends (well, really, all of my vacations have been with friends; my parents don't go places). So I've been home alone, and I've learned some things.

1. The house is much easier to keep clean with him gone. Not sure if that's because it got into the 40's this week (hello Spring!) which triggered the neat bug, or what.
2. My body has not concept of bedtime. He is my reminder that one must sleep. I'm quickly slipping back into my night owl ways, going to sleep around 2 am. Good thing he comes back tomorrow.
3. I'm way more motivated when he's not around. Weird. But I strongly believe that it's because when he's home, all I want to do is curl up next to him. Without him here, I've made tons of new jewelry, cleaned the kitchen, put away the Christmas stuff that stayed up this long due to never ending snow (seriously, did you expect me to extract that garland out from 4 inches of continuous snow??), and lots of other stuff.
4. I'm horrible about spending money. That's a definite positive to staying curled up next to him all night.. can't go to the bead store and spend a fortune.
5. The cats seemed to be more sedated. By which I mean Winston isn't doing his non-stop meowing, expecting DS to throw his mouse. Though he does try to wake me up at 6 am when he realizes his daddy isn't getting up to play with him. And he did accidentally puncture my wrist with his huge snaggle-tooth because he'd decided that watches do not belong on mommy's wrist.

All in all, I miss him, and am ready for him to come home. Even though he'll only be back for a week before taking off on another school excursion. But I need to find a way to hold onto this productivity while he's here. Maybe not quite so much, since I do want to see him from time to time. But a little would be nice.

Inspired by Patrick Henry

Having DVR, I don't always watch things as they air, so it's no surprise that I'm a few weeks behind on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I know, I know. It's a sappy show, and the preservationist in me has real issues with their demolish and start over philosophy. But it's not just about how cool of a new house they can build. The people they're helping are so inspirational.

The show has been spending the last few seasons hitting each of the 50 states, and a few weeks ago the Kentucky episode aired. The recipient was Patrick Henry and his family. Patrick Henry was born without eyes, and cannot straighten his arms or legs. He's spent his life in a wheel chair, but he's never let anything keep him down. In fact, I could easily say he's accomplished more in his 18 years than I have in my fully functional 26. He was playing piano at the age of 2, and has gone on to be in the University of Louisville's marching band playing the trumpet. He's simply amazing. He plays piano better than I could ever dream of playing, and he writes his own music. I just can't believe it.

To see him do the things he can do was amazing. But he also goes to the school I graduated from, and I could help but be touched by what he's brought to the school. And I have to admit that it was really nice to see my home state shown in such a wonderful light, without the slightest hint of the jokes and teasing I get (not necessarily meanly) from people who find out where I'm from. I'm proud to say this man and I come from the same place, and I can only hope that some of you caught that episode and could feel the inspiration and joy that he spreads to everyone he meets (and even those he doesn't).

My iMac Got Sick

Yesterday, I'm playing around online. Nothing dangerous or bug infested, just normal safe websites. Suddenly, Firefox dies. But not your normal everyday crash and is gone variety. Nope, it froze, and then took 30 minutes to completely crash out. And this is with me using force quit.

This didn't seem to have any affect on the rest of the computer, so I just opened Safari and went about my business. Then, about an hour later, Safari crashes. And then Mail crashes. Repeatedly.

So, I think it's time for a restart. Everything seems good with that. Oh wait. WRONG! It never finished restarting, it just looks like it did. The clock, airport, and other little fancy icons are missing. No programs will start, and the dock is gone. So I try restarting again. Now the computer won't even shut down.

Several forced shut downs later, and much time spent surfing the net for troubleshooting tips (from my laptop of course), I give up and try running the Leopard disc. No luck there either. It won't run, boot from, or even remotely act like it knows it's there.

So this evening I had my first "Genius Bar" experience. I have to say, they're pretty good. I didn't have to wait too long to be seen, (though you'll most likely need an appointment, which you can make online), and my guy worked very quickly. Not much on the explanations, but he did stop and tell me what he was doing when I bothered to ask. 45 minutes and several dual boots from unknown sources later, my baby was back!

And it's a good thing too! Do you have any idea how devastated I would be to lose over 2000 digital photos? Or the 50 Gb of music on there? Or even just the smaller things, like my website back up files? It looks like it's time for a back up hard drive!

The up side, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that he doesn't think it was a virus. And should it end up be a hardware failure, it is most likely related to the RAM or video card. So if he's right, and it poops out again, it doesn't look like my data loss risk is actually very high. Still though, I am sufficiently "scared straight". New back up system will be in place as soon as I can afford (which may be a little while...)

Let's Celebrate!

Yesterday I had my first "stranger" sale at my store!! I'm so excited! I've sold lots of things, sure, but to people I know. This may be a subtle difference to you, but to me, it means that my things are good enough to attract the interest of people with a complete lack of sentimental obligation or charity or any other emotion of the sort. That's not to say that I don't greatly appreciate those sentimental purchases. I wouldn't be doing this today if I hadn't been bolstered by that support for the last 3 or 4 years.

So let me say thank you to all you wonderful people who have supported me thus far. Do a little dance, where ever you are, and celebrate with me! :)

Ice Storm

A while back, we had an ice storm, followed by snow. I love the look of trees covered in ice. Sparkly!

Moon Watching

Most of you probably heard talk of the lunar eclipse that happened last night. DS and I stayed up to watch it, and I even convinced him to drive me into farmland so I could get better pictures without the light pollution of civilization. I didn't have a telescope, but it would seem that a 10x optical zoom on a digital camera wasn't half bad. In fact, zooming in on Saturn shows what I imagine are rings, though it's hard to tell.

The image below is zoomed out, and the light has been tampered with to find the stars not quite bright enough to be seen in the photo above. There was only one star missing from the constellation Leo! (at least, in my photo; you could see it otherwise, but my camera couldn't quite catch it)

How cool is that? I was so fascinated, and even Winston and Felix spent quite a bit of time staring out the window (they're copy cats).

*The smudge of white to the left of the moon is a reflection caught in my double-paned windows.

To Do: Finish Table - Check!

I finally finished the mosaic I was working on for the top of our coffee table. This table was a hand me down (several times over I believe). At one time it had a glass top, but it was broken before DS became the owner. It wasn't the nicest table in the world, so it made a good experimental surface for trying out a new art form.

Never having done mosaics before, but knowing something about general tiling, I headed to the hardware store for tile adhesive. The grout I picked up at the craft store because it came in small amounts and different colors. The tiles were bought from the seller cocomo on Etsy, who finds really sweet ceramics and cuts them up for tiles.

Lesson #1: Unless you're doing a small project, do not do all of the tile adhesive work first. Despite needing a week of drying time before grouting, it will lose its ability to hold tile much faster.

Lesson #2: You should probably do this on days you can open a window. That stuff stinks, and is a great headache causer.

Lesson #3: If you're going for a cohesive look, you should probably plan it out ahead of time. And make sure you have enough tiles in the colors you like.

Lesson #4: Grout is dusty. Also, it looks a lot better if you let it sit for a while before doing the wet sponge part. A "float" helps too.

Lesson #5: Despite all of the other lessons, chances are you're still going to end up with something much cooler than your original ugly table.

I tried to do a series of little scenes rather than try to plan out one big one. See if you can figure them out. (Don't worry if you can't, DS couldn't really tell what they were without explanation either.)

Close up Left

Close up - Middle

Close up - Right

Anyone have some grout?

So the table isn't finished, but not for lack of trying. It took a lot more grout than I anticipated, and I've run out. DS tried to get more for me the last time he was running errands, but the store was out too. So, now I have a half grouted table top. Hopefully they'll more in stock this weekend.

It rained slush all day yesterday, and I was able to see actual road again for the first time in a long time. (I don't know if you've been keeping count, but I'm pretty certain I haven't seen actual ground since Thanksgiving.) Of course, now we're in the middle of a winter storm warning expected to dump 6-10 inches of snow by tomorrow morning. So bye-bye roads again. It's a good thing Wisconsin drivers know how to drive in snow, or we'd all be screwed.

But yeah, I think the 10-day forecast has snow from now until next Monday. Probably not straight snow, but snow that many days in a row none the less. I'm pretty excited about it. There is talk among my friends of going snow tubing this weekend! I hope it pans out. (Come on Cathy, ask for a snow tubing party for your birthday!!)