Friday, May 29, 2009

Homeschool conference, etc....

No, I still haven't finished any of the long blog posts I promised...I must apologize. :(

Last week was rather full! I worked Tuesday and Thursday, helped some friends who were moving pack on Wednesday, and then I went to the NCHE homeschool conference Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I'm glad I went, it was a lot of fun. :) I got to see several people I hadn't seen for a while, and hang out with some friends.

I went to a line dance and swing dance class/dance thing Thursday night, which was amusing. I lost count of how many of the homeschoolers were wearing Converse tennis shoes...30-40 I'm guessing. :p And it was funny to see which of the guys had danced before and actually knew what they were doing, versus the ones who looked confused and wouldn't say anything apart from "oops" when they messed up. A fascinating exercise in people-watching... :D

Over the weekend I went to quite a few good seminars, most of them about worldviews and such, and also one about G.K. Chesterton.
The worldview seminars were given by John Stonestreet. I wasn't sure if I was going to like them or not, but he was pretty sound and I liked his speaking style.

Saturday I went to the graduation because my friend Laura graduated this year (actually, I knew several of the graduates). Then I went over to her house for a party afterwards which was fun!

Hmm....what else? Oh, we had a cookout after church on Sunday, lots of yummy food and funny conversations. :)

Went to a great contra dance on Tuesday...thought it was going to be the last one Laura would make it to before she left for a missions trip over the summer, but she's not leaving till later next week and she left her shoes at the dance this week. Uh-oh. So I'm not sure what we're doing! :D Maybe she'll get to go one more time. I don't generally keep track of whether my friends have rounded up all their belongings, but perhaps I should. ;)

See...I generally curb my oldest child/border collie mindset to avoid annoying people...which is probably a good thing. Now if I could just channel that to remembering things better for myself, that would be good. :p Hmm, it just hit me that maybe that mindset is just an inherent trait that is finally put to good use by being a mom. Yeah, I think that's probably it, but it still can annoy people to be "mothered" by people with no such right. Hehe. :D
(Mmm-hmm...feminists everywhere would probably yell at me for saying that. Too bad.)

It's been raining here a lot, so my garden is growing really, really well! I took pictures last week, but it's grown since then even, so I shall have to get some more recent shots. I'm happy it's doing so well...if it can get a good start like this everything should do better through the summer! Of course the weeds are also growing like...well...nevermind.

So anyway, I thought I'd let you know briefly what I've been up to. Some time...eventually...I will post something else. Maybe I'll just start blogging once a week. You know, so you're not expecting something more often? Set a day to post things...or maybe not.

Hmm, that post had a steady drip of sarcasm, I didn't even realize I was feeling sarcastic today. :)

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Hehe... :)

I thought this joke was pretty good...

At COMDEX Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

* For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

* Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

* Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

* Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

* Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but it would only run on five percent of the roads.

* The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.

* New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

* The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

* Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lift the door handle, turn the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.

* GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.

* Every time GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as in the old car.

* You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day...hopefully everyone knew that. If not, you may want to call your mom right now and apologize or something. ;) Though I'm not sure if I really have any room to speak, seeing as I didn't get my mom anything. Sorry Mom...I didn't know what to get you...since you don't really need a misc. Mother's Day gift, I kinda feel bad about that though. :(

Anyway, we went out to eat for lunch with my grandparents. We went to the Chinese buffet, which was really good...and really busy. We finally ended up sitting on the smoking side because there were tables there and no one was smoking at the moment anyway. We made all the way to the end of lunch before someone started smoking, and I managed to not start coughing too bad before we got out of there. :P Ick.

For the evening services at church right now, we're going to be going through A.W. Pink's book The Attributes of God, which the men have been studying on Wednesdays. Anyway, they're going to take turns speaking on Sunday evenings and Dad went first. And did a very good job of course. :)
I found it slightly amusing though...I'm thinking they must train pastors what to do with their hands while they're preaching so they don't lean on things, because Dad, and our music leader a few months ago, both did the same thing, which was to hold onto the far edge of the pulpit as if it was going to get away from them. :D Not a problem, it just amused me. :) Hmm...not quite a pulpit...shoot, what are those things called? Ah, a lectern.
Dad actually spoke on the last chapter of the book, because that's how they started their study. The Contemplation of God.

Even after saying I wouldn't get a Twitter account, I actually signed up yesterday to be able to follow people better. I was subscribed to several Twitter pages via Google Reader, but it was getting annoying to use. So I signed up so that I'll be able to keep up with news (I'm following several local and national news pages) and some personal Twitter pages as well. I don't, however, intend to Twitter much myself, and if I do I shall avoid telling people what I ate for lunch, etc. :) http://twitter.com/natcat89 Oh, and my dad even signed up for Twitter last night!!! I'm shocked.

Now I think I'll go see what I can get done today between blowing my nose every fifteen minutes. I have either an odd cold, or allergies, I'm not sure which. But I'm taking Tylenol and sinus medicine and wishing it would go away. I'm actually hoping it's not allergies because then it will last longer. I'm afraid it might be allergies though, because for one thing I can smell honeysuckle blooming everywhere, and that stuff's a killer.

Friday, May 08, 2009

Some more pictures, etc.

I actually have a few ideas of things to blog about, but they all require some thinking and organization before I write them, so you get some more pictures that I never got around to posting. Okay...I now that I stated that I'll have to remember to follow through on it... :p The post ideas, I mean.

Cat that came around while I was at work yesterday...a big sweetie:


















Iris, I think?



























Bean blend for soup:











Skirt I made. Colin actually took these pictures...and went way overboard on taking them. He was bossing me around telling me where to stand, and moving things around. All I did was ask for a picture! :D
























Necklace and earrings that I made for Mom:









The garden a few weeks ago, after I finished digging it all up. Keeping in mind some of that area was already garden that we had in raised beds. Those didn't work so well though, so Dad and I had to take them down, and then I dug up the rest. I need to do some more gardening tomorrow, and get some newer pictures.









So, I've been busy with work, gardening, reading, and actually did some cross-stitching again recently! I don't think I've been keeping up with my reading list on here very well...I've had/have about three or four books in progress, some of them going faster than others. I finished up the scarf I was knitting (I need to get a picture of it), so all I've got going right now knitting-wise is a couple dishcloths.

I went dancing again on Tuesday...it was much better than the last dance (which was about a month ago and all of....five posts ago. Ugh. I need to write more often). It was a good band and lots of people...which meant it was a lot more fun, but also more crowded. One girl and I hit our shoulders together because the two circles were so close. Another lady had shoes with some sort of heels, and she clipped the back of my ankle. Ouch. No bruises or sustained injuries though. :) For my part I accidentally smacked one guy in the jaw with the back of my hand (not very hard, I don't think) and stepped on another's feet and then tripped him...or he tripped me. I think maybe we were both to blame (it's happened before too!). :D

I think that's all for now...oh, I also finished sewing some cloth napkins today. I've got some more fabric ready to cut out and sew though, so I'll get a picture of all of them at once.

I'm looking at ING and HSBC's online savings accounts and seeing if there's any reason not to go with the one with the higher interest rate. Well, higher by .15%, so if it doesn't sound good I won't be getting much less for going with the lower one really. I've looking into ING before, so I know what they have to offer, but I hadn't heard of HSBC's savings before. Must do some more research. I'm thinking they sound pretty good though.

Mmm...rambling post there, but at least there's actually some text, right? :/ And now it's time for supper...pizza from Costco!