Thankgiving Camping Trip

We decided to go camping Thanksgiving weekend. When we made the decision in late October, the weather was still pleasant. Thanksgiving weekend turned out to be COLD.

We spent the first night, Shane's birthday, at Lake Whitney State Park. It was very peaceful, only a few campers. Our campsite had an amazing sunset view. It was chilly but we managed. The bathrooms at Lake Whitney State Park are few and far between and in order to get to them you need to drive. That was a new experience for all of us. We also had a bit of trouble with our air mattresses.

The second night was the big event: Dinosaur Valley State Park. Dorothy is our paleontologist. She knows all the dinosaur names and where they lived and when and so this park was just up her alley. When we checked in, we asked the ranger where we could purchase a new air mattress. She gave us directions to the nearest Wal-mart and suggested we also buy a heater. I'd never thought about putting a heater in a tent but it sounded reasonable to me considering how COLD it was already.

After we set up camp, we set out for Wal-mart. It took us an HOUR to get there, an HOUR to shop (it was Thanksgiving weekend) and an HOUR to get back to camp. This was the first time I'd been inside a Wal-mart in YEARS and I quickly remembered why I avoid them. Blech.

We ventured out to find some dinosaur tracks. We found lots of people and a few tracks.

At dusk, Dorothy and I went to see a bird of prey show and actually TOUCHED a red tailed hawk. It was sooo soft!

The heater was an excellent idea.

The next morning, we went on a short trek down to the river and found LOTS of tracks and no people. We also found the old fashioned swimming hole. There are tracks lining the edges of the natural pool. We are definitely going back when it's warm so we can swim with the dinosaurs!

FYI - do not FREEZE potato salad, macaroni salad and coleslaw. I'm not divulging details.

We had a great time. Enjoy the movie!

Kandas Needs...

Totally stole this post from Liza over at A Diva and a Princess. Here is how it works. Google your name followed by the word needs then post the top ten results.

Kandas needs...

...a safe family environment.

...service for children.

...to be committed.

...help.

...to record facts big and small.

...city women.

...the Libertarian party.

...the special needs planning center.

...the 2009 NFL draft.

...looking ahead.

I swear! That's my top ten "Kandas needs" google results! Try it for yourself, it's quite silly. Silly is good.

Liza, the blogging diva/princess is giving away this gorgeous necklace to celebrate her 100th blog post. I soooo want to win it, isn't it yummy?



Go ahead and enter to win the necklace yourself, but don't you dare win it!

Secret Santa Sister

My Secret Santa gifts arrived last week and I immediately took photos but then my husband confiscated the camera and I could not access the photos until today! Without further ado, here is my Secret Santa package from KimU:

KimU must have gotten inside my head because I love everything! Included are:

• a very groovy vintage looking box stuffed with
• a knitted scarf which I have already worn
• a pair of adorable handmade beaded earrings which I have already worn (Only one is shown in the photo. The other fell out of the box and I found it on the floor after I took the photo.)
• a knitted dishcloth/coaster which I am already using.
• a sliver of handmade soap by MoonDance Soaps & More (yummy - put to use already)
• a jar of amazing shanti balm by Green Mountain Organics that leaves my skin smelling divine and feeling smooth and silky
• a box of my favorite scent - blonde sandalwood powder (though I'm not sure how to use it so someone please tell me)
• a groovy hula girl made from silk flowers
• a shell
• and some bobbles.

I sure hope the woman I shopped for loves her package as much as I love mine!

Motherhood Transcends All

My aunt emailed a series of photos featuring Anjana, the chimpanzee.

"When hurricane Hannah separated two white tigers from their mother, Anjana came to the Rescue. Anjana, a chimp at TIGERS in South Carolina , became surrogate mom and playmate to the cubs, even helping with bottle feeding, according to The Sun). But here's the truly amazing part: This is something Anjana does all the time, having helped raised leopard and lion cubs on several occasions."

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "monkey on your back," eh?

The Wisdom of Spock

On the Romulan Empire:

"...any system which fears new ideas as this one does is destined to self-destruct.
"New ideas are essential to growth. And growth is essential to the survival of any being or system. Not the sort of growth that the Empire pursues, with conquest after conquest, and world after subjugated world---but the growth of the spirit."

-from Star Trek: The Next Generation: Crossover by Michael Jan Friedman

"I am happy!"

It's Cold Outside!

Only TWO days left to Spot the Black Bat and Win!

I don't have much to blog about today other than how cold it is outside. Okay, so for those of you in the North, you would probably be wearing shorts and tank tops in this weather. But for us wimpy Texans, it's been quite chilly! I'm wearing wool socks and a hat in the house!

Opening Night Gala at the Conroe Symphony Orchestra

Spot the Black Bat and Win!

Conroe is a small town. You'd probably never guess that the city had a Symphony Orchestra. A rather decent one, at that. Last night was their openining gala. I dragged DH and DD kicking and screaming.

Here is a shot of DD and I before we left. Notice how happy she looks. Not.

The musical line up included Camille Saint-Saens Carnival of Animals. This was my first exposure to the work of Saint-Saens. I was disturbed that the movement entitled "The Tortoise" was just a slowed down version of Offenbach's "Can-Can." During the movement called "The Aquarium" I leaned over to DD and remarked, "Sounds like 'The Little Mermaid.'" To which she replied, "It's 'Sleeping Beauty.'" I stood corrected.

Before each movement, a narrator read verses from the Ogden Nash poem inspired by the Saint-Saens work. I've included my favorite verse here:

Fossils
from Carnival of the Animals by Ogden Nash

At midnight in the museum hall,
The fossils gathered for a ball,
There were no drums or saxophones,
But just the clatter of their bones,
Rolling, rattling, carefree circus,
Of mammoth polkas and mazurkas,
Pterodactyls and brontosauruses
Sang ghostly prehistorice choruses,
Amid the mastodonic wassail
I caught the eye of one small fossil,
"Cheer up sad world," he said and winked,
"It's kind of fun to be extinct."

DH's favorite peice of the evening was Hector Berlioz's "March to the Scaffold." I always knew he was morbid. DD and I both enjoyed the encore performance, "The Storm of the Century." Conductor Dr. Don Hutson, explained he selected this particular peice in response to Hurricane Ike. The storm was just a few weeks ago! Since the encore was not in the program notes, I do not know the composer. I'm going to have to do a little research.

Best Tortilla Soup Ever

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Diane wanted the recipe to my best tortilla soup ever. I do not usually follow recipes but this is what I believe I did:

4 chicken breasts

can of corn with juice

can of olives with juice

can of chili beans

2 celery stalks diced

1 carrot diced

1 garlic bouillon cube

1 tomato bouillon cube

2 chicken bouillon cubes

paprika

chili power

cilantro

mexican oregano

bay leaf

half a small jar of mild salsa

water to fill the pot

I threw it all in a crock pot on low for 9 hours. Garnish with grated cheese, tortilla chips, avocados and sour cream as desired.

What if it's true?

Spot the Black Bat and Win!

I belong to Toastmasters International. Toastmasters promotes public speaking skills. Members take turns practicing the art of speech craft at weekly meetings through short prepared speeches or 2 minute extemporaneous responses to questions (Table Topics).

Recently, one of my fellow toasties presented a speech entitled: "The End: Are you Ready?" He talked a bit about how the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world will be on December 21, 2012. Then he challenged his audience to live the next 1531 days (as of 10/12/2008 at 11:21 am CST) as if they really are our last days; To write our own eulogies and then fulfill our highest expectations of ourselves.

Then, yesterday, a potential client phoned to inquiry about a table. We ended up chatting about the current "economic crisis." This client is a financial advisor who has studied the history of economic depressions. His research has shown that the world suffers a depression every 50 years - in the 30's and 9o's. He says our current recession began in the 90's and that the US would be in a depression if the Feds hadn't played games with Social Security, etc. Those games have caught up with us. He gave me a little free advice: take my money out of the bank and store the cash in a home safe, buy a years supply of groceries, plant fruit bearing trees and a vegetable garden.

So, what if it's true? What if we really are about to have an economic meltdown? Does it really matter since the world is going to end in 2012?

I don't know if it's true.

I do believe that we should set high expectations for ourselves and then do everything in our power to exceed them. We could die at any time. Why not live each and every day as if it were our last?

Fun with Animals

Let's have some fun with animals today. On the 2nd Thursday of each month, I blog over at Design Style Guide. Each month I try to pick an interesting top, or I chat about furniture construction.

This month, in honor of Leonardo, the mummified duck billed dinosaur I blogged about on Monday, I choose Dinosaurs as my theme. The quilt pictured is Raptor by bbusbyarts. Click over to see the other groovy dino art I featured.

My very dear friend Gail, whom I have known for over 15 years, forwarded this photo via email to me last night. It gave me a chuckle, so I am sharing.

The original email read: "So, there I was . . . just relaxing in front of the T.V. and then the kids yelled, 'Hey Daddy, come see the kittens.' " Kittens, indeed! If you can't see what they really are, click on the photo and a bigger photo will magically appear.

And from my dear friend Diane, custom clothing embroiderer extraordinaire, came this beautiful video. See the copy below for the low down. I didn't feel like editing the poor grammar, so just bear in mind that I did not write it:

"The attached video is of dolphins playing with silver colored rings which they have the ability to make under water to play with. It isn't known how they learn this, or if it's an inbred ability. As if by magic the dolphin does a quick flip of its head and a silver ring appears in front of its pointed beak. The ring is a solid, donut shaped bubble about 2-ft across, yet it doesn't rise to the surface of the water! It stands upright in the water like a magic doorway to an unseen dimension. The dolphin then pulls a small silver donut from the larger one. Looking at the twisting ring for one last time a bite is taken from it, causing the small ring to collapse into a thousands of tiny bubbles which head upward towards the water's surface. After a few moments the dolphin creates another ring to play with. There also seems to be a separate mechanism for producing small rings, which a dolphin can accomplish by a quick flip of its head. An explanation of how dolphins make these silver rings is that they are "air-core vortex rings". Invisible, spinning vortices in the water are generated from the tip of a dolphin's dorsal fin when it is moving rapidly and turning. When dolphins break the line, the ends are drawn together into a closed ring. The higher velocity fluid around the core of the vortex is at a lower pressure than the fluid circulating farther away. Air is injected into the rings via bubbles released from the dolphin's blowhole. The energy of the water vortex is enough to keep the bubbles from rising for a reasonably few seconds of play time."

Wednesday Hump Day

If the week was a hill, Wednesday would be the hump.

During my morning walk, I was listening to Ayn Rand's Philosophy and then my phone went dead. I have a T-Mobile Dash. It's nifty. Plays music and audio books. Keeps my address book handy. Email. Camera. Yetta. Yetta. For some reason, the phone just started to spontaneously shut down a few weeks ago. It will be fine for a few days and then BAM. Shut down. I know. I know. I need to call T-Mobile. It goes on the to do list.

My friend Lynn, posts her to do list on her blog almost everyday. I think that's a great idea. I have a to do list in my planner, but posting it on the blog makes it visible to the world. I'd be more likely to "git'er dun" if I knew the whole world was watching! (Okay, so right now I have one follower, but you get the point.) BTW - Lynn is giving away one of her hand-poured hand-painted Piggy Banks at her blog. There isn't much time left to win, so hurry up and go enter!! (Click Here)

Oh - back to the morning walk! So, the city picked up all the hurricane debris in the neighborhood on Monday. Today, the street sweeper was making the street look pretty and kicking up dust in his wake. What struck me, as I walked around looking at the lack of branch and shrub piles, is that they have been replaced by dry patches of dirt surrounded by fresh white and yellowish-green shoots of grass. Only 2 days and the grass is already beginning to shoot up. Mother Nature is so amazing.

I need a better name for this blog. Any suggestions?

And in true copycat fashion. Here is my To Do List:

• Call T-Mobile
• Dispute Freight Invoices (from 3 different carriers, no less)
• Clean Master Bathroom
• Mail Presents
• Library
• Join a Book Club
• Contact FEMA for my aunt (she's out of the country and her home was hit very hard by Ike)

Smooches!

Shaka Studios is giving away $900 in prizes!!

Shaka Studios is sponsoring a contest over at SuperWAHMz. We are one of 7 sponsors. The prizes are very groovy and include a goody from my favorite pillowcase artist. Go to SuperWAHMz and enter.

And don't forget, we are giving away FIVE $150 gift certificates on November 1, 2008. Will you be a winner? Go to ShakaStudios to enter.

I just realized that 6 $150 Gift Certificates is $900 in prizes. I must be feeling generous this month.

Hurricane Ike Debris

I'm so excited! Right now, at this very moment, the city is finally picking up our Hurricane Ike debris! They are working on the larger of the two piles:
And then will move on the smaller pile:
Woo hoo! Our grass will be so happy now that it can breathe and see the sun.

Houston Museums

Sunday is family day. We try to do something together as a family. Usually, we just go to the park and play catch. Yesterday, we went Museum hopping.


Our first stop with the Houston Museum of Natural Science. We have a family membership and go quite often. Dorothy participated in the museum's bookclub this past year and was invited to a special event to celebrate the end of the bookclub year. We watched a special live animal show and Dorothy decorated (and ate) a cookie. We also saw Leonardo, a complete mummified 77 million-year-old adult duckbilled dinosaur. It was very cool. We were able to actually touch a sample of his skin!

Our second stop was the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. This musuem was not on our agenda. We took a different route than normal to the HMNS and as we passed the HMFA, we noticed that it was TARGET FREE SUNDAY. I guess Target sponsors museum entry the first Sunday of the month at MFAH. Very cool of Target. There were lots of children's crafts. Dorothy and I decorated picture frames.

We ended the day with dinner at Buca di Beppo. It was a good day.

A Girl & Her Dog

New Blog

Sometimes I feel like blogging about "stuff" that really isn't appropriate for my business blog, nor the other blogs for which I write. Sometimes I just want to get "stuff" off my chest.

I am a mom, a Girl Scout leader, a business owner, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a student of life, a reader, a crocheter, a Sci Fi fan, a walker, a Toastmaster, an American, a blogger.

I have not decided what to call this blog. Whatever name is thrown up there right now is only temporary. It will probably change half a dozen times before I settle on something.

Today, when I should have been working, I decided to make this penny rug coaster. I am teaching myself the art of penny rug making. I'm not sure if I'm doing it correctly. But, I'm enjoying it. Hopefully, my blanket stitches will improve with practice.

I also finished listening to The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams. It's a collection of essays and short stories that were compiled by his wife and editor after his death. I think my husband would really enjoy listening to it, so I'm going to share it with him. FYI - Adams is the author of The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy series.

Shhhh... don't tell my husband/business partner that I was crafting and listening to Douglas Adams on the job!