Extremely miscellaneous

First of all, I didn't realize Jars of Clay had done a cover of "Lonely People" by America. But I saw it on a CD I was thinking about buying and found this cute video someone made to go with it.



I like that song...although it really makes no sense. But then, what with the "Horse With No Name" song and all, America wasn't exactly known for making much sense. Although I find another song I like is by them too: Sister Golden Hair. At least that one makes sense. But I guess it's expecting a lot from a 70s band for them to sound sane very often. ;)

This is one of the Jars of Clay CDs I was looking at: Who We Are Instead

I find I have a bit of a dilemma. I could just buy CDs from iTunes as mp3 files, but then I don't have the physical CD. Some CDs look really neat too, like The Avett Brothers CD "Emotionalism" is silver with birds on it and looks really cool, and some CDs have lyrics in the liner notes (nowhere near enough of them do that though, I think there should be lyrics in all liner notes), but other than that, I don't do anything with the CD once it's uploaded to my computer. I guess if I lost my music files I would still have the CD and be able to upload them again, but it's cheaper to just get mp3s, and I could probably find free mp3s to replace any I'd previously bought but lost, unless it was something rare. So I'm not sure what I want to do. There are several CDs I want to buy, but I can't decide what form to get them in. Thoughts??

I also remembered that I never posted about last month's mail art postcards. I had two because I sent one both to Lauren and Caroline.

Lauren's:
"Flowers & Fashions in Pink and Green"
Mixed media collage
9/2009












Caroline's:
"Fashions and Shapes"
Mixed media collage
9/2009













And this is this month's (Carolyn's):
"A word of encouragement"
Colored pencil and ink.
10/2009












Quite honestly it wasn't my original plan to write on that, but I drew all the flowers and vines, and it still needed something so I decided it would be a background, and wrote as neatly as I am capable of. :P

This month I need to be thinking about my design a little earlier...last month flew by and I realized it was the last week and I hadn't started my postcard yet. So, I'll add that to my list of crafting stuff to figure out.

But right now it's Monday, I have cleaning to do, and one of those things to be cleaned is my desk...I lost my iPod somewhere under the piles and I want it before bathroom cleaning and such.

Have a good week! I shall really try to blog more often, but I make no promises. :/

No fair!

So, the fair is this week. None of us entered anything this year because we just haven't had much time in the past year to get things made, and if we have it's not been fair-quality things.
I usually enter some sewing, knitting, photography, and baking, but I've sewn things the way I'm happy with them, which is not always perfect; I haven't gotten any great knitting done; and the baking can be extremely last-minute and stressful. So no fair entries this year.

I kind of miss it. The rush of getting things done in time, the dropping stuff off and smiling at the ooo-ing and ah-ing of the ladies checking things in. The relaxing and not thinking about the judging going on on Thursday...usually we're too busy cleaning the sugar and flour off the kitchen to think about it too much anyway. And then going to the fair on Friday to see what you won, and figuring how much money you got from the prizes. Eating a funnel cake and some other over-priced fair food and wandering around in large crowds of people that you just don't see the rest of the year...(where do they hang out usually?) We don't usually go on rides because right now I'm the only one in my family that doesn't mind being spun around and flipped upside down on a ride. I'm hoping Colin will outgrow his fear of heights, etc., someday: it's a foreign concept to me. :)

We would have had to be getting things ready on Tuesday, and then drop them off on Wednesday. However, on Tuesday I worked and on Tuesday night I had time to go contra dancing. Then I was thinking about my friend who was getting back from Minneapolis at noon the next day, and then had to get her entries rounded up and taken to the fair. Plus her brother who I took to contra was saying on the way home that he still had ten things to finish that night (this was at about 11!)...and I wasn't feeling so bad about not having the stress that goes with all of this! :D

I'm thinking about what I want to do for next year though, because unless I'm really busy next year too, I want to enter things. I think since I took a year off, I should be able to actually focus on getting things done throughout the year as opposed to feeling burnt out and ready for a break like I usually do right after the fair. :)

I'm working on a knitting project right now, it's going to either be a dress or a tunic, depending on how much yarn I have. And so far I haven't made any mistakes on it either, which is very unusual with a knitting project! I'll post some pictures when I get enough knitted to be worth photographing. At the moment it's kind of a big lump on a needle.

As far as anything else, I don't have anything specific planned to work on this year. Oh, and my cross-stitch project I've had going for years. I should probably finish that this year. And I'll do some photography. I really should make a list of what all I could get done this year.

In other news...well, life as usual I think. I can't think of anything terribly exciting that's happened lately. :)

Stokes Stomp

My friend Amanda asked me after church yesterday if I wanted to go to an arts & crafts fair (the Stokes Stomp) with her that afternoon, so after deciding I could survive without a nap, we went out for lunch and then to the fair/festival.

We ate lunch at Qdoba, which I had never eaten at before, and I got some really delicious tacos. I highly recommend them; they were seasoned perfectly and the pico di gallo salsa I got on them was quite fresh and yummy as well.

I wished I had my camera with me because while we were eating there was a little mouse outside the window, looking for crumbs under a table on the patio. "It's Ralph!" said Amanda. We didn't see the motorcycle though. :D

The Stokes Stomp was fun. Like at most craft fairs there were lots of things I saw, but didn't want to pay as much as they were charging for them...that's the one problem with knowing how to make things yourself. I did buy a pair of earrings though, and Amanda found a bracelet. We got some really good ice cream too: Oreo, in a waffle cone. I managed to somehow drip ice cream on my shirt, from which it got onto the camera screen, because the camera was hanging around my neck, but it cleaned off the camera alright. In warm weather an ice cream cone can apparently get away from you very quickly. :)

The park where the festival was is right next to the Dan River, so after we finished our ice cream Amanda and I waded in the river. Or rather, she was going to just walk across the rocks to a little island in the middle, but I took off my sandals and got in the water, so she did too. :) I forgot she hasn't ever taken me on any outdoor activity before. If there's water to wade in, I will wade in it if it's warm outside, and I should remember to warn her before we ever go hiking together: I venture very close to edges and climb things. Haha. :p And yes, my parents are well-aware of my mountain goat ways.

So we waded...I think Amanda took a picture of me out in the water (from the island). We were a little dubious about taking our cameras out into the water.

I didn't end up taking very many photos at the festival, but we stopped and took pictures of a tobacco field and barns on the way back.






















































Dan River:











Barn with Sauratown Mountain in the background:


































Her car looked sort of out-of-place...I'm not sure what sort of vehicle one should have for pulling over and taking pictures, but that's not necessarily it. Maybe some sort of CUV, or compact SUV.

Wake me up when September ends

Nah, actually September's going great so far, I just needed a title.

My birthday was last Friday...I am now twenty. Yes. Twenty. I'm pretty happy to not be a "teenager" anymore, but on the other hand for the next ten years I'll be "in my twenties", which is sort of cool, but a little bit scary as well. To a certain extent it hasn't sunk in yet.

Singings of "Happy Birthday"? Grand total: 4. I'm not a big fan of being sung to, but it wasn't too bad. I went to contra on the 1st and everybody sang to me there...wow, that was a lot of people. It was fun though because people also wished me happy birthday during the next dance too. :) Then I got sung to by my family on Friday, got sung to after the canoe trip on Saturday, and because not everyone from church was there then, got sung to again Sunday night.

So, canoe trip. On Saturday I went canoeing on the New River with my friend Zoe and her parents, and we met up with the Beasleys who were already camping up by the New River. We just did the shorter 5-mile trip, instead of the 10-mile one I've done before. It was kind of cool up there; overcast when we started and eventually getting sunny, but not too hot. It did get sunny enough at one point that I know if I didn't have sunscreen on my arms they would be getting fried. (Made me glad I went ahead and applied sunscreen even though it was cloudy earlier.)

And the water was deep enough for a comfortable canoe trip...we only got stuck twice, and I only had to get out and push the canoe off a rock once, which I was happy to do because I got all the way in the water and got cooled off. :)

Group photo :) :Hannah, Maria, Zoe, and me.

















Zoe and me:


















Adorable photo of the pastor's youngest daughter, Lydia. Little gal should wear black all the time, with her red hair. In fact, I think 95% of people look really good in black...how nice it isn't only meant for mourning anymore:
















Best photo I got out the window on the way there:













I had a wonderful birthday. I did have to work on Friday, but then my grandparents came over for supper and we had Mexican food: tacos with all the fixin's, and rice, and all that good stuff. Well, Mom made that all at least, I just made myself a big plate of taco salad... (does it count as taco salad when there's technically no lettuce on the concoction?)












Rebecca got me two stuffed hedgehogs from Ikea. :)












This goes in the "You're...twenty...really?" file :P *cough*















Mom and Dad got me a camera bag. Hurrah, hurrah! I was toting my lovely new camera around in a purse...with not much padding. This is MUCH better.


















Grandma got me a neat scarf:


















And my Grandma Roth got me a set of glass bowls...this would be me exclaiming over the smallest little bowl in the set, while Grandma B....looks at the rest of them, I guess:











And finally, my birthday cake, which is actually frozen tiramisu from Costco, because I decided I wanted that instead of the cheesecake my mom was going to make. The cheesecake would have been really yummy too, but she can make it another time. :)












Then Sunday night I had a sore throat, pretty mild, mostly just an irritating lump in my throat, and I started worrying that I had strep throat. Normally I wouldn't have worried about it at all, or thought maybe I had allergies, or a cold. I get a sore throat whenever I have a cold, and this wasn't anywhere near as bad as some I've had. But my friend Zoe had had strep and I had been around her before she knew that was what was wrong, and it started out the same way I was feeling. Great. Just great. I felt worse Monday morning: sore throat, tired, so we went to the minute clinic at CVS. And waited.

It was Labor Day, so of course no other place was open, so there were quite a few people there. Including one little kid in there with his father, and I guess the kid must have been sick. He seemed fussy, but I kind of figured that was his normal temperament. :/ Will, his name was. It's never a good sign when you end up learning a little kid's name out in public. It means they're getting into too many things. :D As they were going into the room he was fussing, which turned into "No, no, no!!" as he realized he was going in to see the doctor.

I finally got in there, and started wondering if this had really been such a good idea after all. The nurse was...I dunno, of Russian descent or something. Russian, Greek, something like that...her name was Elena and she had an accent. Anyway, she asked me how to spell "ivy" because she was still filling out the information for the guy before me, who apparently had poison ivy on his face. Then she was going to swab my throat and was asking me if I saw the swabs anywhere... "They look like this" she says, holding up an unopened package. Um...maybe those right there on the shelf?? It was one of those situations where you start feeling like it must be some sort of test because surely the other person isn't really that loopy...? Hi, what's next, Rorschach tests?

Anyway, the strep test came out negative, so she said I must just have a cold. Okay...that's good. If it's just a cold I won't pass anything too dangerous on to the baby when I go to work. So I finally get out of there, after figuring out the insurance, which supposedly covered this, with no co-pay. I really have a feeling I'll be getting a bill in a couple weeks though. So, Dad and I spent the whole morning there practically, I took an Advil, soup, and a nap when I got home and felt a whole lot better when I got up. Tired? Well, I HAD been up late and on the go all weekend... To add insult to injury, or lack of injury, I felt pretty much well by that night, and completely well the next morning. I didn't even have a regular cold it seems.

Okay then....I feel like a probably slightly poorer hypochondriac. Sheesh. But, I had to do all that since I had been exposed to strep and I didn't want to get the baby sick. It just irked me because I don't go to the doctor at all usually. Oh well. :D

Anyway, that's been September, so far. Eventful.

Hugs?

Five types of hugs, or rather "church hugs" as defined by the Stuff Christians Like blog:

#613 Church Hugs

This makes me laugh, because I like giving hugs, I'm a huggy sort of person, except when I don't think my hug will be appreciated. In other words, I don't give unsolicited hugs, because there's nothing more awkward than giving or receiving an unwanted hug. (By the way, the more often you say or read the word "hug" the stranger it sounds/looks...)

But while different people definitely do get different types of hugs from me, I hadn't bothered to categorize them...nor do I necessarily use the categories as defined by the SCL blog. :D For instance I don't do "The Multitasker"...no, wait...I do occasionally. Okay, scratch that. I've probably done all those types of hugs, but never bothered to classify them. All the same, I found that post amusing. :)

And if you're a hug-liking person and I haven't ever hugged you, my apologies...initiate a hug next time you see me. I may not seem like a hug-giving person, but I've been told I give good hugs.

Tim Hawkins songs

Yes, three videos in one post...I apologize. They're just too funny. :)

Old rock star songs....what rock stars will be/should be singing when they're old. :)



"If you're a man who wants to live a long and happy life...these are the things you don't say to your wife" :D (Green Day's "Time of Your Life" if you were wondering about the tune...)



I Work at Subway (Set to the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way") :D

S.E.T.I. song

The latest Rhett and Link video, with help from Canadian animator Billy Reid.

And there's a twist at the end about where the alien is from that I couldn't stop laughing about. :D (No offense to anyone who lives there, I just found it funny.) :)

They really took this and made fun of the alien-searching people....and I'm not sure if that's the whole point of the show this aired on (Brink...on the Science Channel, I believe), or whether the whole rest of the show was serious and then they made fun of it. :)



And those outfits....oh my. :D

Wedding blog quiz

Several of my blogging friends have done this quiz, and since it's a little variety from the usual questions on a blog quiz, I thought I'd do it too. :)

1. What two qualities do you want most in your future husband (besides being a Christian)? Well, of course I want someone who loves the Lord and is striving to serve Him, and can be an encouragement to me in those areas as well. (Just to add to the "Christian" part.) And besides that...hmm...compassion and responsibility. Among others, but I guess I'd put those first.

2. Is there a fictional character you see as a model for your future husband? Well, I liked Lizzie's answer pretty well! :) Mr. Knightley and Mr. Tilney (both from Jane Austen novels). There are probably others, but those are the two I always think of first.

3. Where do you want your wedding? In a pretty church/chapel.

4. What are your views on courtship? That's a very open question! My views on courtship? Well...first of all, I think "courtship" has unfortunately got some bad connotations to it, in my opinion, so I'm kind of unsure about using that term. I think it's the mindset and motive, not what you call it that matters. You can call it dating and it still be fine. Basically, it's getting to know someone, with the intention or at least serious possibility of marrying them if it works out, not just to have fun, and have a girlfriend or boyfriend and "be in love" for a while, until you decide you're tired of them.

5. Do you have a purity ring/locket? No, I don't. And if you have one, that's fine for you, but personally, I'm afraid I don't see the point. It's a heart issue, and a decision you've made, and a ring is going to do nothing if you decide to go against that decision. I guess it's supposed to be a reminder, but once again, (and this is just my opinion, I don't mean to offend anyone) if that's all that's stopping you, there are bigger problems. And the lockets, well, my dad and I are not the sort to do the whole "I'm practically 'married' to Daddy until he finds a proper young man worthy of me! And Daddy is just a perfect saint, and he'll keep those scary boys away from me" thing. (Note, I'm not personally acquainted with anyone who acts like that, but they're out there. :) If you have a locket, but you and your dad aren't treating it that way, then that's cool, it's just not my thing.) However, I do think my dad is my protector and authority until I'm married, and I trust him to watch out for me, and not let me marry some cad, because I'm too smitten to see clearly. :)

6. Do you have or want a hope chest? I have stuff stored in boxes...so not exactly a hope chest, but I am collecting things.

7. Will you wear a veil at your wedding? I don't know...I'm thinking probably not.

8. What kind of wedding dress do you want? Either the one I have, or something fairly simple, probably with short sleeves. No train...too inconvenient.

9. What color bridesmaid dresses do you want? Something that looks nice on all of them hopefully, for their sakes! :D I'm thinking burgundy (I think most people can wear burgundy...), or maybe black. I do like black a lot...

10. What flowers do you want in your bouquet? Oh wow...I'm not sure. Lilies maybe. It kind of depends on what colors I pick.

11. What do you want to name one of your daughters? I don't know.

12. What do you want to name one of your sons? Don't know that either.

13. How many kids do you want? However many I have. I'm thinking 5-8 would probably be the limit on how many I could handle! :P I'm not that energetic of a person. Something like that.

14. What music do you want to play at your wedding? Well, two of my favorite pieces of classical music are Pachelbel's Canon in D, and Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring both a little typical perhaps, but that's what came to mind first. Possibly some hymns, or some Celtic music or something. I don't really know for sure.

15. Are you a hopeless romantic? Hmm, that depends on how you define "hopeless romantic". I'm practical, in the long run, but I also adore love stories that turn out well, and I want to be married...but I do know it's not always going to be easy. So, I dunno....does that equal hopeless romantic??

I liked this article on Boundless...in fact, I thought it was kind of funny. :) Basically it's about how there are so many suggestions about relationships, and how you have to do it this way or it won't work, and then someone else says "no, do this, or it won't work", and how it makes it all so overly complicated, and there end up being too many "rules". :D Avoiding Relationship Paralysis

"Spend time in the right places. Church is usually good. That seedy nightclub right next to the twice-raided meth lab? Usually bad." Oh really?...shoot. ;)

"Finally, if you actually manage to meet someone you find appealing, interesting and spiritually compatible -- at least as far as you can tell without instituting an FBI-style background check..." :D It was a refreshing article, I must say.

Julie & Julia

So...as you might have guessed by the title of the post (if you were aware of the movie) Mom and I went to see the movie "Julie & Julia".

It is a combination of the story of Julia Child, when she lived in France and decided to go to cooking school, etc., etc. and the story of Julie Powell who 50-some years later decided to cook her way through Julia Child's cookbook and blog about the process. (To kind of sum it all up anyway.)

I'll start by saying that it is a PG-13 movie, and while there's some passionate kissing, and...how shall I put it...implications of other things, it's nothing terrible. :) And hey, they're married at least. (Basically since it's nothing inappropriate and it shows how much in love they are, I think it helped the story, or at least pushed it into the romantic comedy genre well.) There is the occasional bad word too, so if either of those things will offend you, then maybe you shouldn't watch it.

Okay...disclaimers aside, how was the movie? Very good! (If you haven't seen the movie, this may include some spoilers.)
I don't think I would consider if very much of a biographical sort of movie merely about Julia Child's cooking, since it brought in so much about her relationship with her husband and how supportive he was of her, etc., and same with the Julie Powell portion of the story.













I must say I liked the Julia Child part better though. The part about Julie Powell was rather stereotypical, though still good, and they had a cute little orange cat. (And I can't seem to find a picture of the cat! Oh well...it looked like an orange cat...medium-sized.) That helped redeem that part. If there were no cat, or it had been a dog, I'm not sure I would have been able to stand it as well. :) The cat added a human touch to something that was a little too screen written. Basically, I didn't feel much sympathy for Amy Adams' rather feminist character. Feminist through cooking even (cooking to get recognition through her blog). A review I saw said this:

"Amy Adams made the best of a a clunkily written part with scenes set in 2002-03 New York that don’t seem to represent exchanges that could occur between actual human beings, saved those living in the imaginary realm of feminist writers. None of the men had lives or personalities outside of their relationship to the leading women. We didn’t even know that Powell’s husband Eric had a job until he walked out on her (for reasons that just didn’t seem believable.) In short, the tension between Julie and Eric seemed contrived. And their reconciliation fake."

"He [Eric] doesn't like being called a saint, the poor thing," says another review. :D

Yes, definitely there were things that didn't seem realistic at all about Julie and Eric though my general impression was that the movie was adorable. Let me put it this way, Julia Child was adorable in a way I could empathize with, Julie in a simply movie-ish way. Actually I found Julie rather annoying in a few spots.













On the other hand, I feel like there was a lot of work put into little details to make Julia and Paul's relationship and story and characters believable. And Meryl Streep is a very good actress as well.

First all the things thrown in about her height and how she and her sister are so TALL and Julia's taller than her husband. And they plan to introduce her sister to a man who's actually taller than her and she ends up falling for a much shorter man, and he for her with no difficulty, despite their planning. :) It amused me because I was thinking "Goodness, how tall was Julia Child?! She and her sister can't have been that tremendously tall..."
Turns out she was 6'2"! That definitely is tall...I tend to think I'm tall, but that's 7.5 inches more height than I have!

And then there is one scene where Paul mentions politics to sort of bait his father-in-law, and then when Julia takes it seriously and gets ready to start arguing with her father too, her husband pulls her out onto the dance floor shushing her kindly, while she laughs about how she never knows when to be quiet. I thought that was cute. :)

Anyway, I can't recap the whole movie, but Mom and I enjoyed it and laughed a lot. Meanwhile, Dad stayed home with Colin and played Candyland. :/ Poor Dad. I don't know if he would have liked the movie or not, though. He probably would have though. If you can stand to watch a Jane Austen movie you could watch this. :D

Here's the trailer for it, although I realized that I saw things in the trailer that apparently didn't make the final cut for the movie!: