One of my all time favorite things is bourbon and coke. LOVE it. I don't generally drink it because, well, I don't want to be that girl. You know the one. The one who cringes when she puts the trash out because of all the glass clinking. My trash clinks (they don't do recycling here!) but it is wine bottles which makes me feel only marginally better about myself than a trash can full of bourbon bottles. Right?
I'll let that sink in a minute until you can wipe up the drool and get back to me.
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So, if you are anything like me, you immediately did this:
Is it worth driving 7 hours? Ummm....Yes! However that is a couple tanks of gas, a hotel room and food for an $8 (yes, I'm getting the large...don't judge me!) frozen bourbon and coke. We are currently in budget mode so this is going to take some convincing (of myself) on my part.
My birthday is this summer! I could use my birthday as an excuse to go and spend all that money. OR (light bulb moment) I could make my own! I immediately go to Craigslist to see how much a frozen coke machine is or a frozen daiquiri machine is. About $1500 is the answer. If I could buy one of those I could make them all the time!
Then I go to amazon because, well, amazon has everything. (hear the angels singing?)
Needless to say I will report back to let you know how these turn out.
I love to knit. Everyone who knows me knows this. However, I generally don't wear the things I knit. In an effort to wear more things I decided shawls were a good bet since I'm often chilly.
During the American Express Small Business Weekend, I purchase two skeins of Malabrigo Rasta. I've been holding on to them for the perfect pattern and basically just fondling them in the meantime.
Most patterns using Rasta are cowls and I'm not really a cowl kind of girl. Plus, lets face it, I live in Louisiana and we rarely have the weather for a cowl. Finally found a pattern that I liked called Ovate thanks to my friend Mitzi.
The Ovate is probably the first pattern that I completed that I love. LOVE! Here are some photos and I highly recommend the pattern. While it isn't mindless knitting, it isn't hard and the end result is fabulous.
Leave it to men to take the complete wrong points away from the Fifty Shades Series. I once repeated a friends mantra to my husband that "foreplay starts in the morning". Meaning, if you want sex later, be nice to me earlier. What did he take from that statement? He smacked me on the ass while I was making breakfast for the kids. Men, they just don't get it.
I read the Twilight Series and fell in love with Edward Cullen. Then I read The Black Dagger Brotherhood Series and realized that Edward is a toddler. :) I loved those books, but alas, I didn't fall in love with any particular characters. I read Outlander and absolutely love Jamie Fraser (although without the red hair).
My most recent main character that I'm obsessed with is Christian Grey. After reading message boards about this series, I found one particular comment odd:
Not only do I have to act like a vampire to get my wife's attention, but now I have to be controlling and abusive?
Ok. Men just don't get it. At all. I love this series, but not because Christian hits Ana. I don't like his overly controlling manner either. But E L James makes us have empathy for Christian because of his abusive childhood. (awwwww) We feel for the boy that he was, just like Ana does. But what makes him sexy?
I like that, first and foremost, he makes One Hundred Thousand Dollars an hour! That goes a long way into making his stalking tendencies a little easier to take. I think if we are being honest with ourselves, many will agree.
I sort of like his stalker tendencies. I mean, who doesn't want someone looking out for you and constantly worried about your welfare? I would love it if my husband bought the company that I believed in and that I was working for! She got the job on her own.
The sex. This is a harder one. I have the same hard limits as Ana, and probably more than she does. What we as women like about it is that it is spontaneous and they aren't doing the same thing over and over and over again. In talking to a lot of my friends, this is a common theme among them. The lack of spontaneity. The same old dance time and again. Throw me a curve ball every now and then. (I'm not talking about butt plugs or canes btw) Kiss me passionately out of the blue for no reason. Kiss me while standing up for a change. Things like that.
Ultimately, it is about feeling that we are cherished.
What is it about these characters that I like so much? It is their undying love for the woman they love. Their ability to handle any situation that is thrown at them. And, of course, they are all rich. Well, Jamie isn't rich, but he seems to be able to trade for anything Clair may need. And, they all absolutely cherish their women.
So it isn't the controlling and the abuse that we like about the books. It is the absolute devotion he shows to her and the spontaneity in their sex lives that we enjoy. Oh, and the idea of simultaneous orgasms doesn't hurt either.
I hope none of my teacher friends read this because I'm about to make them pretty mad. Alas, I'll revel in the fact that no one reads this but me so I can feel free to say what I want.
Before I start my rant, I'd like to go on record saying that I like teachers individually. I think they get a raw deal because their hands are tied. Society blames teachers, when in reality, teachers have little to do with the education outcome because they have nothing to do with the damage prior to the child entering the classroom. (I copied that last line from someone else in a message board)
I don't understand the need to save the world all at once. I'm a "one day at a time" kind of girl. Here in Louisiana, the governor is proposing a giant education reform bill and the teachers are PISSED! I get that not everyone is going to agree all of the time, but come on people, don't you think that we need to do something?
Standing around with your arms crossed and stamping your foot is doing no one any good. Teachers seem to always be against everything. There is always a reason not to take action. I don't get it. Try it, see if it works. Nothing is working now, so what's the problem with throwing several ideas out there to see what does work? Nope, they are against everything YET they say they want what's better for the kids.
I've had several discussions on facebook about it and they are like little parrots repeating the same party line. No, they can't do it. No, it won't work. No, it isn't fair. With attitudes like that, I can see why.
What they don't like:
1) Teacher accountability. HELLO????? Why wouldn't you be accountable for the minds you are shaping?
2) Teacher raises will no longer be automatic: I hate to repeat my self but.... Seriously? In what other profession are the raises based on longevity and not accountability? Welcome to the real world ladies. (I say that as a stay at home mom LOL)
3) No more tenure: I never ever agreed with tenure so I'm ok with this point too. Why should teachers, especially teachers, be able to get in a point in their career where they cannot be fired? Who in their right mind thinks this is ok?
There are more, but I'll stop there. The problems are so much more than two-fold.
1) Teachers appear to be against everything
2) Teachers take their cues from the teacher unions.
3) Teachers should pick their spokespeople more carefully. Case in point:
4) Here in America, we have an epidemic of poor parenting. They can only do so much with what they are given.
5) More bureaucracy is not the answer.
If you are going to hold teachers accountable via kids test scores, then test them in August and again in May to see how far they've come in a year.
I do not know what the answer is but I feel like we have to start somewhere. Just saying no to everything is going to change nothing.
Tipping The Velvet by Sarah Waters - this delicious, steamy debut novel chronicles the adventures of Nan King, who begins life as an oyster girl in the provincial seaside town of Whitstable and whose fortunes are forever changed when she falls in love with a cross-dressing music-hall singer named Miss Kitty Butler. When Kitty is called up to London for an engagement on "Grease Paint Avenue, " Nan follows as her dresser and secret lover, and, soon after, dons trousers herself and joins the act.
Anais Nin's Little Birds or Delta of Venus. Little birds are short stores. Also on my list from this author is one of her journals: Henry and June. I've heard Henry and June is very good and based on her own experiences while she was having an affair with a husband and wife.
Anne Rice's The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. I'm told this is pretty good. He wakes her but not the same way we've all read the fairy tale. :)
Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill. This one is about a woman who works for a guy (named Grey!) who spanks her one day and what happens thereafter.
Ok. I'm a new knitter (1 year) and sometimes I come up with these theories and they are crap. Sometimes, I come up with something that ends up working.
Here is another that I'm not sure will work, but I'm going to investigate and get back to you.
I don't mind purling. My tension is fine and I have no troubles with it, surprisingly since many people hate to purl. Tomato : Tomato. Currently, I'm sort of in a hurry to do some Christmas gifts which led me to a cowl. The pattern consists of 4 rows where 1 and 3 are knitted and 2 and 4 are purled. (P1, S1)
Here is my query: Could I just turn my work and K1, S1?
I've called my LYS and it was decided that in theory this might work but they really aren't sure. So, I figure if it'll save me some time on a Christmas Cowl for my mom, then it is worth a little effort to figure out. I mean, IN THEORY it should work right?
A friend of mine took this photo (and a bunch of others) a couple weeks ago. Of course this leads me to a dilema...because...well...I am me and I always over think stuff.
Who is the friend you ask? Some of you may remember (or not) my post earlier this year No Good Deed... . A person's (I knew peripherally in high school) son was in an accident around the New Year last year. This would be late Dec 2010. Several of my friends were rallying around and trying to do a fundraiser to help with potential medical expenses. I asked what I could do and was put in charge of the silent auction. It went off great and we raised a total of something like $25K total. "My" auction raised about $10K. His son has made a full recovery.
Everytime I see Fred he thanks me obnoxiously (in a good way). I get it, he's thankful but I don't do so well with the praise. I say "you are welcome. Now get over it". So when I asked him to do my family photos this year I expected to get a bill. He refused to tell me how much. I did eventually find out.
Now the dilema is, do I pay him or not, and if so, how?
If I don't we'll be "even" and he'll feel better. But that leaves me with a sense of having taken advantage of a friend. I know this is not the case but that's how it feels. If I send him something he either won't cash a check, we'll fight over handing over cash etc. So my only real option is a gift card. I was talking to another friend and they said to just let it be, to suck it up and live with it.
I still haven't decided. It bugs me to not have paid him for his time. He probably feels the same way about me doing the auction but x200 because of all the people that helped him at the time.
Either way, the photos are beautiful and I'm more than happy with them. Thank you Fred. You may or may not get a gift card in the mail. :)
