Ugh

Well, this weekend was our anniversary and my birthday ( I'm 54 yes I am old as dirt for those who were wondering) and we were trying to think of something fun to do that didn't cost a lot of money.

And we came up pretty much blank.

It was way too hot to think about taking a long drive anywhere, so thought maybe we could have lunch out and go to a movie or whatever. So, we went to the movies Saturday evening and saw Shorts, which was a complete waste of 21.00 to get in. Boring and stupid and we almost left in the middle of it. I guess if I were 12 it might have been fun, but since I'm not 12 it was just dumb. The trailers look amusing, but you know how trailers can make a movie seem pretty good, when in actuality you've just seen the only good parts of the movie in the trailer.

So, yesterday we decided to have an anniversary breakfast out since it's cheaper than dinner out and we had errands to run anyway, like buy stuff for lunches this week. So, Coco's for breakfast, then we stopped at the nursery down the road to see what was new (not much, it's the wrong time of year for new when it comes to plants and gardens) then got gas, went to the grocery store, and were going to go to walmart but after looking at the crazy parking lot said forget about it. By then it was already 100 degrees outside and I was getting hot and cranky and not feeling good at all. I took a shower to cool off and spent the rest of the afternoon reading and trying to take a nap but I'm not one for being able to sleep in the daytime.

Maybe by next year's anniversary the economy will be looking up and we can do a little better than a crappy movie and breakfast. Getting out of this town for a day or two would be nice, so if we start planning now and putting aside a few dollars here and there, maybe we can celebrate in much better style.

Scary Etsy Girl

No words needed.

New Stuff

It's really hard to get excited about making new stuff when the old stuff just sits in the shops on zibbet and etsy, but I did get some fun new digital collage sheets yesterday to make more small reversible soldered pendants. I haven't done any of these for a while and thought I'd give them another try.

Bird and nest reversible pendant:


Party reversible pendant:



Other than that, nothing much going on up in these parts. We are waiting for summer to be over with, hoping that Keith doesn't melt out there in the hot sun first. They were going in at 5am to try and beat some of the heat but the sun is coming up later in the morning and they can't see what they are doing in the dark very well so they're back to the 6am start time now. At least he can sleep for an extra hour in the morning. I'm just trying to keep busy, I haven't heard a thing from any of the places I applied to. There is a new super Target opening up here in town and we heard that they were taking applications but like I told Keith, how am I supposed to get there, I need work within walking distance. Not that I really want to go back to cashiering, of course! We are just trying to hang in there in the hopes that this economy will turn around within the next few months.

The kitties are fat and sassy, eating sleeping and pooping like usual. Buddy is his usual rambunctious self, chasing the other cats around and Pepper is her usual cranky self. Bear is her usual sweet self please rub my face and Mimi is still her usual I'm going to jump on your shoulders and drool self. Lucy is just Lucy, she only wants attention when you are trying to cook dinner or take a shower, and Harri is always nervous about all the other cats. She does get her special time with Keith most evenings when he lays on the bed and she gets on his chest for her pets. That is if Buddy doesn't get there first. Speaking of kitties, I'd better go clean their cat boxes. Again.

Why The Years Go By So Fast

I'm sure some of you already know this, but hearing this explanation of why the years seem to go by faster and faster and faster as you get older and older was one of those 'duh' moments for me. I actually heard this from a comedian on a talk radio show, Bob and Tom, a show that both Keith and I enjoy listening to in the mornings. Yes, listening to talk radio is another sign of advancing age.

Anyway, the comedian whose name I can't remember because I'm too fat and my brain is degenerating (see yesterday's post) was saying that when you are a child, a year out of your life is a very long time, such as a five year old's year being one fifth of his entire life so far. So a year takes forever to a five year old, and that is why it was so hard to wait for Christmas or your birthday when you were little. Then as you age, each year becomes a smaller portion of your life. You are twenty and a year is now one twentieth of your life, so it still seems like a long time, but not quite so long as when you were five. Now you are forty and a year is one fortieth of your life, so it goes by a lot faster. And so on. And that is why every year we say things like it can't be Christmas already, we just had Christmas. Or it definitely can't be my birthday already and I really can't be this old, can I? I just had my birthday!

So if you live to be one hundred, a year will only be one hundredth of your life and will seem very very short in comparison to the length of your life.

So, now, something that has puzzled me for so long was answered by a comedian.

Not Only Are We Fat

But a new study shows that us fatties also have diminished brain capacity.

The headline reads:
Obese People Have Severe Brain Degeneration

A new study finds obese people have 8 percent less brain tissue than normal-weight individuals. Their brains look 16 years older than the brains of lean individuals, researchers said today.

Those classified as overweight have 4 percent less brain tissue and their brains appear to have aged prematurely by 8 years.

The results, based on brain scans of 94 people in their 70s, represent "severe brain degeneration" said Paul Thompson, senior author of the study and a UCLA professor of neurology.

But, wait a minute, the study was done on only 94 people in their 70's. Maybe these 94 fatties have severe brain degeneration because they are IN THEIR 70'S?!? And how can a control group of only 94 people really determine anything?

Maybe they should do this study on younger fatties?

Maybe this is why I can't remember anything?

The Weekend

Was not all that exciting, but we did go to the movies yesterday afternoon. We were both bored and tired after spending the morning grocery shopping and really had no energy for doing much of anything, and it's been so long since we've done anything fun on the weekend, so we treated ourselves to a matinee and saw District 9. Very good sci-fi alien type movie, way better than what I expected, and unusual in the way they filmed it documentary style. We both gave it big thumbs up!

We did a dine and dash on Friday evening, but without the dining part. It was payday so we went to run a few errands after Keith got home from work, the usual go to Target for cat food and toilet paper type running around and since there wasn't much in the way of food at home, decided to go to Denny's to get something to eat. We get seated in the mostly empty side of the restaurant, look at the menus for a while, and finally the waiter comes ambling over. I was asking about the $5.99 dinners that Denny's has been advertising, and he kind of looks around to see if there are any specials menus laying around, which there aren't, so he lazily names three dinners that are the $5.99 specials, none of which sound good and since there is no menu to look at, none of which I can remember two seconds after he names them.
So, we order iced tea and Keith wants a chocolate shake. And we wait. I notice three people in a booth across the way with a coffee pot on the table but no coffee cups and no food. Then some more people come in and are seated near us and their drink orders taken after they sit for a few minutes . Then another group of people whose drink orders are taken. So, we are still waiting for our iced tea and shake, which I know takes a few minutes to make, but not the going on ten minutes that we have been sitting there waiting. I hear someone in the kitchen saying 'those people are still waiting for their coffee' apparently meaning the three people in the booth with the coffee pot but nothing else on their table. And, we wait some more, and finally here comes the waiter with a tray of drinks. For the tables of people that came in a good five minutes after us. Not our drinks. By now we had been sitting there for at least 15 minutes, and no drinks and we hadn't even ordered our food yet. So we got up and left. I think the coffee people may have finally given up, too.

We went down the road to Spencer's to eat, which is where we should have gone in the first place.

One of Those 'DUH!' Moments!

So, Oprah has her 'aha' or 'O' moments or whatever, where you have a life-changing epiphany or whatever. I have those 'duh' moments where I think of something so simple and obvious that I wonder what my brain does most of the day. They are not exactly life-changing or spiritual or all that Oprah crap, but they do help simplify.

My latest 'duh' moments (two for the price of one) came to me while I was working on my new suncatcher things. I had been soldering up a bunch of tiles, marbles, glass fragments, etc., and then playing around with them and putting them all together into the suncatcher. I found that it was taking a long time to solder up all the pieces and then having a bunch extra laying around or not enough of the right color or whatever, so I thought 'duh!', why not solder up just what I need by laying out my suncatcher first, then soldering all the pieces?' Duh, indeed.

So, I started doing that, saving a lot of time and work. But, after I was done soldering all the pieces, I couldn't really remember where they all went in the layout, so 'duh!' why not TAKE A PICTURE OF THE LAYOUT FIRST. Duh, indeed. How simple, and why didn't I think of that before?

So, pictures first, then soldering, then referring back to the picture still captured in the camera (love digital cameras), then soldering the whole bunch all together. I still might move around some of the pieces, but at least the picture reminds me of what I was planning in the first place, because things like that go by the wayside in my mind so quickly.

So, layout first:


Then, solder and layout again:


Then, solder it all together and it's done!:


I really like the way this next one came out, I did play around with the layout and change a few things after soldering:



Duh.

Don't Go Outside!

We're having an air quality alert today. Unhealthy for everyone, so don't go outside! Last night we were sitting at the dinner table asking each other what our reason for moving to Bakersfield was in the first place. It's hot and the air is unbreathable, but the houses are cheap! Ugh. I really miss the nice ocean air in Ventura, but the possibility of moving back there is like slim and none. The place Keith worked before we moved here is laying people off right and left, and the ones that are still there are on a 4 day work week, soon to go down to 3, so it's not like he could get his job back or anything.

And we're a little ticked about this cash for clunkers deal that's going on right now. It's really annoying that we bought a car in January and missed out on this deal, but our clunker wouldn't have lasted this long and we really needed a car so Keith could get to work. I was wondering why they have to destroy the clunkers, why they couldn't have refurbished them (creating some refurbishing jobs along the way) and given these cars to low income people who don't have a car or something. Also, think about it, the government money for the clunkers is not free money, it's our money that we paid in taxes. Nothing from the government is free, somebody (us) has already paid for it.

I had the most bizarre dream about going back to work at walmart last night. Not that they've called me to come back to work, which also ticks me off. I've noticed that the applications these days all ask if you or your family has received any welfare or other government (again, our tax dollars) money, and I'm thinking that businesses are being pressured to hire these people first, so if you haven't been on welfare, you're not going to get hired. Anyway, the dream was that I was going to my first day at work but didn't have any pants on and had to buy some walmart khaki pants and was running around the store trying to buy some pants, then was like an hour late for work trying to find pants, then went into the bathroom at walmart (I always have weird bathroom dreams when in reality I really do need to get up and pee) and there were big fat rats in the bathroom and cats trying to catch the big fat rats that were eating people's plates of food that they had left in the bathroom. There were also big piles of cats in the garden section of walmart and they were sorted by orange cats on this side and silver tabbies on the other side. In part of the dream I was also like miles away from walmart and trying to walk as fast as I could to get to work on time. I think I still didn't have pants on at that point.

I do have some odd dreams sometimes and while they make perfect sense when I'm dreaming them, I always wake up and kind of go 'huh?'. I don't always remember much of them, but this one I did because I did indeed wake up and go to the bathroom.

Just Stuff

I haven't blogged yet this week, not because I'm just so very busy, but because there really wasn't anything to blog about. It has not been a real productive week so far, but today I did start cleaning and doing laundry early and have actually gotten quite a bit done.

As I was cleaning, I was thinking about how when you live with someone else, it's not the big things that annoy you, it's the little tiny things, like a t-shirt left laying on the couch, or the cereal box left on the counter, or the hairbrush on the sink instead of in the drawer. I'm sure everyone knows what I'm talking about here. We all have our little things that we do that are guaranteed to annoy someone else. Not me, of course, I never annoy, ha ha.

What else? Oh, yes, Buddy got himself stuck in the washer/dryer closet in the kitchen. He had jumped onto the dryer, saw a toy mouse between the dryer and the wall, then jumped down in between the dryer and the wall to get his mouse, and then couldn't get his big head out from between the dryer and the folding closet door.

Please excuse our nasty kitchen floor in these photos, we still don't have a floor down and I'm beginning to wonder if we ever will. Not to mention the hole in our bathroom wall from the plumbing repairs that will probably not be covered up for months and months and months.


Here's Buddy stuck behind the door. After moving the door around, he finally figured out how to get out.




You can see the tailless toy mouse in the photo that caused all this, that little blue thing on the floor. We had rescued about twenty of these from under the stove last weekend. Buddy was in mouse heaven when he saw them all and couldn't decide which one to play with first.

And, Harri has this phobia about the kitty door into the garage. She absolutely will NOT go through the door by herself but will sit there and look at the door, look at you, look back at the door, look at you, hoping that you will open the door for her so she can go hide in a dark spot in the garage. Then she will repeat the process when she wants back in the house. You'll be walking into the kitchen and see Harri on the other side of the door looking in, patiently waiting until you come open the door for her. We've tried pushing her through so she gets the idea, but to no avail.



Open, open, open.

Separated at Birth?

This is our neighbor's little Boo Dog, who was bitten by another dog on his head, totally messing up his jaw and face. Our neighbor, Nathan, rescued this little guy after the fact, and he is the sweetest little thing and likes to come visit sometimes. The dog, not the neighbor, although the neighbor is pretty cool, too, and likes to hang out with Keith and drink beers in the garage.


His tongue is permanently out and he's a little cockeyed. His jaw got all smashed up and kind of fused together, he's able to eat and drink but that tongue is always hanging out to the side.


The first time I saw Boo Dog, he totally reminded me of the koolaid drink mix rip off from my childhood:

Lefty Lemon!


I've thought about getting a little baseball hat for Boo Dog to complete the look.

Front Page!

I was just on the front page of etsy! That hasn't happened in about 2 years or more. I had just logged on and don't always look at the front page, but when I saw hearts I thought, hmm, maybe I should check it out since my other shop's theme is hearts. And sure enough, there was one of my little peg doll necklaces!

I was scrambling around trying to figure out how to take a screen shot, and saved the page as some kind of html document first, which was good because when I clicked on the front page of etsy again, it was already on a new bunch of stuff. That's my little doll in the bottom corner, I couldn't figure out how to get the entire page in the picture, and who cares about what was below that anyway, right?

So, that was exciting, and when I went into my shop this necklace had been viewed 186 times and gotten 3 favorites on it, which etsy calls hearts, so that's probably 180 more views than it had since it's been listed. My shop also got 26 new hearts from it!

Maybe somebody will actually BUY SOMETHING now! ha ha!

New Stuff

I got me a big old roll of solder, some silver backed foil (after discovering that the copper back really sticks out like a sore thumb through glass if you don't get it wrapped just right), some glass tiles and chunks, some mirrors, and I've been soldering away these past few days.

It's hard to take photos of mirrors, you have to make sure nothing ugly shows in the mirror. These start out with 3" mirrors, so the whole thing isn't really huge, more of a little wall accent or suncatcher.


I've been having fun with these little mirrors, the possibilities are endless in how you can arrange all the glass stuff.

This is a simple glass chunk, it's sold as 'beach' glass in a bag, but they are just big pieces of tumbled glass.


This pendant is made with little iridescent glass mosaic tiles soldered together. It looks really big in the picture, but is actually only about 2" long. I like the colors and the simplicity of it.


And, this one is made with stained glass scraps that they sell for use in mosaics.


And that's what I've been doing. And nothing else, no housework, no laundry, nothing! And my house definitely looks it.

Random Stuff

I thought my computer had died this morning. Obviously it didn't or I wouldn't be sitting here typing, but I did figure out the problem and fixed it so I'm very proud of myself.

You see, when we bought the computer they sold us all kinds of stuff for it, anti virus software, spy software, and a back up battery. I've always had issues with the computer freaking out in the middle of the night and freezing up all on it's own and to get it going again, I've turned off the battery and turned it back on. Whether or not this is the proper thing to do, I don't know and don't care because all I wanted was to unfreeze the computer.

So this morning I go to get on the computer which I never really turn off, just leave it to go to sleep, and my screen is frozen at 'windows is shutting down'. So, I turn off the battery, and it won't come back on! EEEEKKK! Computer withdrawals start up immediately as I check all connections and plugs and all that, to no avail. So, then I get to thinking, hey is a back up battery like a car battery and after a few years it just goes dead? I don't know, but that makes sense to me, so I call up the Geek Squad over at Best Buy and finally get through to someone who doesn't know and has to ask, and then comes back and says yes, they do go dead, so I ask if I can use the computer without it, and she doesn't know but she'll transfer me to the Geek Squad, who don't answer the phone and it rings and rings and then finally disconnects. So, I call them back up again, get a real Geek Squad guy, and he says, yes, just plug all the plugs into an alternate power source. Okay, so I realize there are three plugs in the back of the battery, and only one available plug on the wall, so I go over to Home Depot to get a power strip, come back, unplug, replug, and once again have computer capabilities. Except there is still one weird plug in the back of the battery that I have no idea what it is and will have to tug on it so I can figure out what it's plugged into and unplug it since it doesn't seem to be doing anything anyway. It's one of those weird computery plugs, not a regular electric plug. So, hopefully when I unplug it everything will still work okay. I'm not going to replace the battery right now because I'm really doubting whether we really need one or not.

In other news, Kaiser Permanente is laying off a bunch of office workers and such because their enrollment in their health program has gone down. No kidding. Think about it, Kaiser, when people lose their job, they also lose their insurance and while, yes, you can get cobra coverage, if you are living on unemployment benefits, the last thing you can afford is four or five hundred dollars a month, if not more, in cobra insurance premiums.

And, Bakersfield is going to break a record they set in 1994! The record number of homicides, that is. Whoo-hoo!!

So far this year (as of last weekend, so the number is probably higher by now) there were 66 murders, which is one every 3.3 days or something like that. And, surprise, surprise, 90% of the murders are gang-related. Doesn't that just make me so proud to live in this city!

Fun New Site

I love looking at all the fun picture sites like icanhascheezburger, failblog, cuteoverload, all that kind of stuff. Nothing is funnier than humans being humans, I guess.

Anyway, while blogging around yesterday, I found this site, called myfirstfail, with cute and funny kid pictures. I'm sure all of us have a picture or two in our albums that are as embarrassing as some of these.

Some are just downright adorable, like this one:


I'm just wondering which came first, the baby or the cabbage patch kid.

Others are the kind that make you really glad that your kid never did anything quite as bad as this:


Note to all parents: kids + sharpies=not a pretty sight.

And a few others are just a little rude, but innocently so:

Haha! The caption on this one was 'what's this?'

I'm Taking The Challenge

The Activia challenge, that is. Jamie Lee Curtis will be so proud of me.

When we were doing our shopping at our new favorite cheap grocery store, Winco, Saturday night, they had the four-packs of Activia yogurt for $1.79, so I got the vanilla flavor and the strawberry in the light versions to try out. They also had peach, but peach yogurt is something that for some reason just doesn't sound good to me.

Sing along with me...activiaaaaa!

Anyway, it tastes okay and there's only like 70 calories in one, mainly because the little tubs are tiny and there's only like five spoonfuls of yogurt in each one.

We keep seeing the commercial with the two women at the swimming pool and the one doesn't want to swim because she's 'a little irregular', and Keith says why can't she swim even if she's irregular, and I had to explain to him that when you are constipated your stomach hurts, and you don't feel like swimming. Ever since they took a foot of colon out of his body, he's incredibly regular, like four times a day, so he's forgotten how cranky it can make you when you are not.

So, we'll see if I feel as good in two weeks as Jamie Lee has promised that I will. Just think, her legacy will be bringing relief from constipation to us all.

I'm Tired

I actually got a lot done this morning, surprise, surprise. We did our grocery shopping last night, so today I organized all the stuff we had crammed in the fridge, cooked chicken for salad, made deviled eggs for Keith's lunch box this week, cut up celery, washed the lettuce and put it in a bowl to stay crisp, made the chicken salad, vacuumed the living room, did laundry, even the bed sheets, and made these granola bars.

A while back I searched the internet for a granola bar recipe without quite so much sugar and weird palm oils and whatever else they put into the commercial granola bars, which, by the way, have gone up in price this week. I found this recipe and tried it out, but on the next go-round added a little more honey because these bars crumble a lot and I thought more honey might make them stick together a little better.


Here's the recipe:
4 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup butter, softened (really soft works best)
2/3 cup honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar ( I use the splenda brown sugar blend)
2 cups mini chocolate chips (or whatever you want, I've used white chocolate and cinnamon chips, and this time I used some trail mix that we had)

Preheat oven to 325. Lightly grease one 9x13 pan. I use the big glass rectangle casserole pan thing, not sure if it's 9x13 or what, it's like what you would make lasagne in, if you are one of those that actually makes lasagne.
In large mixing bowl, combine everything but the chocolate chips and mix, mix, mix, mix, mix with a big wooden spoon-this takes a little while and a little elbow grease.
Add the chocolate chips or whatever and mix them in.
Lightly press mixture into the prepared pan, bake at 325 for 18-22 minutes.
Let cool a little while, cut into bars.
Eat.

These still come out kind of crumbly, but they taste pretty good, and I guess you could doctor up the recipe with added spices, coconut, whatever.

Anyway, after all that kitchen stuff I was hot and sweaty and had to go take a shower.

Now I'm ready to do what Buddy and Mimi (and all the rest of the cats) are doing.


Buddy is laying right in the doorway to the bathroom. So that we have to step over him if we want to use the bathroom. I think they do this on purpose.


And Mimi is smack in the middle of the bed that I just put clean sheets on. Apparently the light is just a little too bright, I love the way she covers up her eyes!

It's Official

Not only am I OLD but apparently I am also at DEATH'S DOOR WITH ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE!

Here is what arrived in the mail yesterday, a seemingly important piece of mail that I must OPEN IMMEDIATELY! DO NOT DELAY!



So, I immediately opened it only to find that I am now considered a senior and a funeral advantage program can assist me, as they are so very pleased to announce.


Nice.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Something strange is going on with our weather. After weeks and weeks of hot hot hot and more hot, and weeks and weeks of doors and windows shut and air conditioner running at full speed, today feels like spring, with a cool breeze, sunshine, birds singing, windchimes chiming, and the high for today is only supposed to be around 80. This time of year, 80 is positively chilly for us.

So, I was able to turn of the a/c and open up the windows and doors this morning, causing the cats to run in wonder from window to window and door to door, feeling the breeze on their faces and smelling all the wonderful smells in the air.

Harri was enjoying the sights and sounds from the front window.


That is, until the gardeners started up the power mowers and leaf blowers next door and I had to shut the window because the noise was deafening.

America's Got Talent

So, I got sucked into watching the new season of America's Got Talent, which I would much rather watch than American Idol any day, because the Got Talent show isn't quite so discriminatory with people having to be a certain age, a certain weight, and a certain look. I've enjoyed watching the preliminaries, and watched the first semi-finals last night.

Last week the shows were kind of boring, with these poor people being dragged out to Vegas only to be told, sorry, go back home, and this thing with them dragging out who gets to stay and who goes trying to make it all dramatic and full of suspense and what not was just irritating to me. I felt really bad for some of them who came all the way out there and had to turn right around and go home.

But, last night was kind of fun to watch, actually getting to see the full performance of each act rather than just a few seconds or none of it at all like in the try-outs. There were a couple of acts that I wasn't all that impressed with, but most of them were pretty outstanding and it would be tough choosing who gets to stay and who goes, because I think almost all of them should get to stay.

The only ones that I didn't like were the diva whatevers, the drag queens, they're good and all, but the number they did was just not that great, and Grandma Lee, while charming and it's nice to see an old lady on TV was just not all that funny.

My favorites are probably the little 14 year old singer girl from Tracy, CA, who could certainly give Miley Cyrus a run for her money, the chicken catcher country boy, who I hope someone in Nashville is paying some attention to, and the Acrodunk guys, who were totally amazing. Oh, and the magic act was pretty good, too. And the 13 year old Billy Elliot dancer kid. I'm rooting for the chicken catcher and the better than Miley Cyrus any day girl, myself, so it will be interesting to see who gets to stay on tonight's show.

And, in other exciting news from the Central Valley, we are getting a big break on the weather this week, with temps in the 90's today and down into the lower 80's tomorrow! Much better than 105 like we had last week!

The doves that were nesting on top of the ladder had left the nest, and no eggs were in the nest, so Keith took the ladder down so that he can use it, but today I noticed a lot of flying around outside the back sliding door. The cats were watching the doves fly up to the outside light, fly down to the ground, and back up again. One of them was picking up sticks and grass, so I went out back to see if they were trying to build a nest on the light, which they've tried to do before. I guess doves don't remember nest building failures and will try, try again.

They were just sitting there on the light, so if they were trying to build a nest, it wasn't working very well. Or maybe they were sitting there in total confusion wondering where their home on the ladder went to.

That's NOT A Marble

I got inspired (finally) to get back to soldering and making something new for my shop. I have a huge collection of beach glass from when we lived in Ventura-nothing better than beachcombing to clear your mind and relax. There are no beaches here in this hot smoggy place that we live in now, unless you count the ones along the river, but you have to go way up the river, because here in town there is no water in the river. Why the water disappears before it gets into the city I have no idea, dams or something I guess. And you don't want to go swimming in our river because people drown there on a regular basis, like five or six in the past few weeks, but that's a whole other story.

Anyway, I was going through my jars of beach glass:


looking for pieces to solder and a few dropped to the floor, where I left them because I was too lazy to get down from my chair and go look for them. So, later on Keith finds Buddy playing with this beach glass marble in the bathroom, where he likes to take things like this to play with because they clink against the walls and roll on the linoleum so well. I had forgotten about this marble, but this was quite a find, and the only beach glass marble I've ever seen, so I was glad that Buddy found it on the floor for me.


So, I go back to work and Keith is watching me from the doorway and says 'hey, there's another marble or something under the window bench', so I reach under the bench to see what it is, pick up something that's hiding against the baseboard, something that I can't see but can only feel, and it's something hard and brown, maybe a brown piece of beach glass, but no, it isn't a marble, it's a piece of PETRIFIED CAT POOP!

Ewwww.

This is one of my other most prized pieces of beach glass:


And, this is what I've been making with my beach glass.


These are beach glass combined with vintage paper glass charms:


And this one is made with the glass marble gems that are intended for vase fillers or whatever.


So, other than picking up petrified cat poop with my bare hands, it was a productive few days, and I've got lots of ideas swimming around in my head, now.

I WANT PANCAKES!!

And make it snappy!