spruce pine mining district

this weekend, we're following the black urbanite road to see the wonderful wizard of the spruce pine mining district. yippee! this trip even includes a night-time trip to a mine in search of fluorescent minerals! the spruce pine mining district is a swath of the valley of the north toe river in northwestern north carolina that is home to one of the richest deposits of gems and minerals in the world. if you want to know more... this site has a great description and history: http://www.mitchell-county.com/festival/spminingdistrict.html BTW, for some reason my blog will not let me add photos or videos anymore... or hotlinks. if this has happened to anyone else, please let me know! too weird!

the world is so _________

i have been using facebook to reconnect with several of my old friends from high school and college. it always brings a smile to my face and a spur of excitement to my spirit to find someone that i adored in high school or college, yet upon graduation, we lost the 4 walls of an educational institution to bring us together. it always amazes me that i hear from all these people that STILL live within 20 miles of me, except i never see them anywhere. one of my old high school friends is a photographer now, although she got a degree in elementary education. it was not surprising to me that she specializes in photographing babies, kids, and families. (i.e. she does NOT do weddings.) she photographed kendal for his 1-year photos and our family/maternity photos. she did such a great job (for a VERY reasonable price, just a little more than places like sears and JCPennies with MUCH better quality!) - i'd recommend her to anyone. (www.blinsonphotography.com) weird enough, though, she actually lives nearby - close enough that we shop at the same stores - and i've never run into her! this amazement goes for college friends too, since my college roommate (one of them) lives only 5 miles down the road from me. The only place i see her is at the doctor's office (she is a nurse at kendal's pediatrician). last month as you know, nathaniel and i traveled out west for a vacation. about 5 days into our trip, we ventured to a tiny national park that was about 45 miles away from any major roads (or gas or food). it was there that i ran into richard spruill, who taught me all i know about hydrology (he was one of my favorite professors). he also happens to be one of kate's current professors, and also part-owns a hydrogeologic company that is our competitor. dr. spruill told me his theory of people.. he said that there are only 400 people in the world and everywhere you go, they go too. so you always run one of those 400 people. just the next week, my friend stephanie (another college friend) saw him in houston. stephanie lives in raleigh, and i never run into her anywhere around town. again, she lives close enough that we shop at the same stores. so is the world big or small?

my hair had a party last night

heard THIS song today on XMKIDS (by trout fishing in america)... i thought i was gonna pee in my pants from laughing. i think kendal has a hair party in his crib every night from the looks of that massive frizzy red knot on the back of his head. my hair often looks like it too... flat on one side, poofy on the other. anyway, i had to share. PS when i heard the song, the FIRST person i thought of was grace!

cravings

it is time to announce my first real cravings in this pregnancy: halloween peanut M&Ms and dole's new perfect harvest salad. not together though. i've eaten a 1 lb bag of m&ms already this week (since sunday) and i've had salad twice in the past week. i could eat a whole bag of it right now. YUM! (the salad one is weird because i'm not really a vegetable fan - i find it so hard to make kendal eat them becasue i don't like them myself! and this includes peas, beans, spinach, etc. i just don't like greens... or yellows, or oranges!) speaking of foods together, last week i very oddly enjoyed biting a dill pickle and chewing it with a mouth full of plain potato chips. no, not dill flavored chips, but instead pickle AND chips (at the same time). that was tasty, and the texture was unreal. YUM. (those of you who know me ALSO know that i don't like pickles! never have! especially dill pickles!) maybe i should try eating here the next time i'm pregnant in maryland...

ok, so we've both voted now. can we turn OFF the ads (on tv)???

white fashion???

got a few "white" questions in regards to fashion... no, not white people, white fabric. i'm sure you've all heard the rule about not wearing white after labor day... question #1: if you live in key west, can you wear white after labor day? question #2: have you ever seen a man wear white pants? i haven't. but recently while clearing out *somebody*'s closet... we came across some white pants. unless they were worn in key west, is white (pants) ever in fashion for a man? wait... maybe they are in style if you wear them like this... or, maybe not. black shoes? white pants? oh my my. looks like a brown jacket too. question #3: IS IT wrong to wear white pants/skirts/shoes for women? seems that when summer lingers into october, that some people (women) still wear white. is this bad? (just wondering what you think... i think white after labor day is like a sin!) question #4: i saw a woman today (driving the car behind me) wearing white framed sunglasses. hum. never really considered the "LABOR DAY" rule in regards to glasses. are these ok or not? i'd think not, especially since today it was NOT warm out... not summer like at all. so anyway, i'm curious what you all think. men too. (and just for clarification, i am talking about white white, not winter white.)

chilling announcement...

for the second time this fall, i'm cold! it is 66 degrees upstairs and i'm wearing no socks. my toes are icy! burrr~ think i'll turn up the heat a little!

creativity

it has really been a while since i made any cards, save for a few birthday and/or thank you cards here and there (which i tend to not mass produce). come to think of it, the last time i made a birthday card was in september, for jon and mark (birthdays). before that, it was probably during the summer when kate was here, i'm sure i had time to spit out a few ten to send to dulcinea to display and sell. so this weekend when i started making cards again... i remembered: I LOVE MAKING CARDS!!! it is as simple as that. i was amazed at how quickly my creative juices start to flow. this weekend, i made a flurry of thank you cards in anticipation of the upcoming baby shower. they are darling. i'd post a picture, but then everyone would know what kind of adorable yet seasonal surprise was heading their way! next, as the juices really got moving, i found a tutorial online of how to make what will be my baby announcements, and i have since picked out all the paper and ink and ordered it from my stampin' up! demonstrator! i've also started on my christmas cards. made 1 of 10 so far (need to assemble the remaining 9, everything is already cut and painted). i want to post a picture of the first one so bad... but it'll ruin someone's surprise! ...how frustrating...

where's the baby?

getting ready for bed! kendal loves to snuggle with his mama. and his mama loves to snuggle with him!

this past week, kendal has been having quite a bit of trouble sleeping in his own bed. he wakes up in the middle of the night and is very upset... can't get back to sleep (pacy or no pacy), so he kept ending up in our bed. in addition to kendal not sleeping well, nathaniel also has not been sleeping well. his insomnia is due to the constant coughing, hacking, and nose blowing that seems to be non-stop when he reclines. so he's been getting up and moving to another room so i can sleep without disruption. (which is really nice, except when i wake up and have no idea where he is!!!) so last week's nights went, in general, is by 8 pm, k is in the crib. by 8.30 (or 9.30 on thursday nights - THE OFFICE!) i'm snoring away. by (?) hour, nathaniel will wake up hacking, which may or may not be why kendal wakes up and cries - so nathaniel just gets him and puts him in the bed with me and then goes somewhere else to sleep (since once he starts the coughing, it takes him a while to st0p). long explaination to get to the really short story i wanted to tell... friday morning, kendal was in the bed with me. i'm not sure when he got there, but he was there - he likes to sleep sideways in the bed. so we rolled around for a while, i was trying to get comfortable with a head in my shoulders (or feet kicking my back) and eventually we both got to sleep ok. when nathaniel got up in the morning to take a shower, he said he walked in our room and looked for kendal. since he didn't see him, he figured i put him back in his crib. so he looked in his crib... no baby. where was he? upon further investigation, kendal was found wedged beneath my back. we were both sound asleep. well on friday, i noticed that he cut 2 new teeth (the two upper front). ever since then, he's had no problem sleeping through the night.. in his own bed. he still wakes up at least once and cries, but within 5 minutes he rolls over and gets right back to buZZZZZZZZZiness.

here is kendal after a good night's sleep underneath me...

ok, my second reason to blog. i've gotten in the spirit of purging my junk. this morning, i decided it may be time to start making my christmas cards (since assumably i'll need to also get my baby announcements done pre-christmas). this meant that i had to go through my stamp sets and see what i have... because i don't want to buy anything more (trying to save not spend)! well i noticed that i have TONS of stamp sets that i just don't use. maybe i used SOME of them (like 1 of the stamps in the set) one time or so, but for whatever reason, i just didn't use them like i thought i would. so, i decided to sell them on ebay. (rather, try to sell them.) one of the ones i'm selling is the FIRST set i ever bought! so, melissa, i'm pretty sure that you either already have the sets i'm selling, or you wouldn't use them either (hence why i didn't offer them to you in the first place). but please - anyone, everyone - go to ebay and buy some stamps! (and toys.)

neigh-neigh and woo-woo

i was listening to kids - xm today and heard a song that made me laugh out loud!!! it was called neigh-neigh and woo-woo. if you want to hear it too, you can go to this site and hit play on the song... it is #9. so now that i listened to some of the other songs... i want the CD!!! these songs are so stupid! peanut butter and jellyfish? pizza rocket? hockey monkey? LOL!!! Lyrics to Neigh-Neigh And Woo-Woo : Lost in the desert Without any water Nothing to drink but sand and rocks Lost in the desert Without any water Looking for the two horses I lost Neigh-Neigh and Woo-Woo Two horses I know Neigh-Neigh and Woo-Woo Here's how they go.. "Neigh! Neigh! Woo! Woo-hoo!" "Neigh! Neigh! Woo! Woo-hoo!" This song is stupid You told me so But Neigh-Neigh and Woo-Woo Here's how they go.. "Neigh! Neigh! Woo! Woo-hoo!" "Neigh! Neigh! Woo! Woo-hoo!" Lost in the desert Goin' out of my mind Walking in circles, hoping to find Neigh-Neigh and Woo-Woo Two horses I know Neigh-Neigh and Woo-Woo Here's how they go.. "Neigh! Neigh! Woo! Woo-hoo!" "Neigh! Neigh! Woo! Woo-hoo!" Up over the hill What do I see? Neigh-Neigh and Woo-Woo I guess they found me!

about my encounter with the late for work starbucks lady...

kendal and i ran errands this morning, which started with voting, then to lowes... to petsmart... to target... to goodwill... and to foodlion. oh, then the bank. while i was at target, kendal and i trolled around for quite some time. i mainly just had to get a few non-cold groceries there, plus kendal some athletic socks, so we just took our sweet time. i wanted also to check out their curtian selection since pretty soon here i'll be putting some in the baby2 room! anyway, we checked out and made our way to the car. i unloaded the groceries and socks i bought, and was putting kendal in his carseat. the car beside me was parked pretty close... so it was a tight squeeze for me and my monster-belly. anyway, this skinny late-30s woman with a starbucks cup (and nothing else) stood at the back of her car (the one that parked next to me) and started tapping her foot. i glanced up and said "this will just take a minute" at which time she proceeded to make her way between the door and her car (squishing me in the process). when she made it by, i stood up and just looked at her - thinking... maybe she didn't notice that i have a monster-belly and i just can squeeze but so much. maybe she doesn't realize that you can't put a toddler in a carseat and expect him to sit still while someone else walks by... when you put him in it, you have to BUCKLE him in it too. well anyway, the door was hiding my belly... and she didn't have a carseat in her back seat (so i'm sure she had no idea). anyway, she said, as she slinked into her driver seat, "sorry, but i'm late for work!" ok. so maybe you are late. but, you had time to stop at target and get starbucks! maybe you should have thought about that before you decide to stop! geez. we did have a really good interaction today in the petsmart parking lot. i just finished unloading the mega-size bag of catfood in the backseat, plus a 40 pound dumptruck of kittylitter, and i was pulling up my pants before i got kendal out of the cart. this older gentleman (about 60 i'd say) said "you get him and i'll take your cart." he had just come out of the store. he had a petsmart bag. he took my cart to his car, put his bag in his car, then walked BACK into petsmart with my cart. wasn't that sweet? i wish i could tell his mama what a nice man she raised... and i hope his kids got his manners!

Early Voting

For my NC friends and family... If you are interested in early voting, here is a website that has ALL the early voting locations (by county). http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/content.aspx?id=17 Kendal and I are going this morning to vote.

kendal's ride to school plus new room photos

nathaniel, as usual (because it is requested), called me this morning to tell me how the morning commute to kendal's daycare went today. of coarse, everything went well. he told me, though, that kendal got really quiet in the back seat. he had his blanket on his lap, and seemed to be doing fine... since he had a grin on his face. that grin is what we call his "shit eating grin" because he is usually up to no good when he's wearing it. this morning was no different. apparently, he had a great time taking both his shoes AND socks off *under the blanket* so when they got to school and nathaniel went to take him out of the car, he was barefooted... and had to search for all the goods! (in the searching, though, he did find a sock that was missing...) let me just tell you that one of kendal's favorite thing in the WORLD to do is take his socks off. shoes... eh. you just have to remove them to get to the socks. sometimes i put his socks on him like 10 times because he's pulling them off before i can get the other one back on... and we get in this cyclic game of sock on and sock off. ok, so today i've started painting the trim in the new room (baby #2 nursery). i picked a light pink to match the pink in her bed set, and i bought the paint yesterday. I HOPE TO GOD THIS BABY IS A GIRL!!! there is NO way of making this pink look at all masculine. it is so much brighter/darker than it seemed like it'd be with the little card. wow. and to think, i have another dark pink, a green, a brown, and a ivory to paint decor on the walls too. i can't wait to post finished pics! but until then... here are a few shots of the new color!

(paint is still wet in the last one)

apples and outlets

well this evening, we've had 1 kendalism and 1 near accident. first, i've been cooking apples in the crockpot all day... nathaniel and i peeled and sliced them last night (i'm making apple butter). anyway, i had scooped out some and put it in a plastic bowl for kendal to have with dinner. i fed him a little, he loved it. i put the bowl on a cutting board, out of his reach. while he was working on his turkey and bread (again, no veggies... it is hard to serve them when i don't like them myself!). i got my hand mixer blender thingy to smooth out the apples and as i was pureeing, he aparently wanted some more apples. so, this is what i think happened, because i know where i sat it and it was way out of his reach. he stretched and reached the cutting board, pulled the cutting board to him, then got the bowl of applesauce... and then dumped it in his lap. when i turned around, he had the bowl up to his mouth like a cup. it was a mess, thankfully nathaniel walked in the door so i could make him a bath... and then strip him. these pictures really don't show the mess because it was all on his bib and in his lap (and on the floor and the underside of his tray and in the seat...) and for the first time EVER, he didn't put his hands in his hair when they were dirty! guess he just likes to do that with mac and cheese. haha - not unusual for him to have crust in his hair, in the back and on the top of his head near his crown. (and yes, melissa, that is josh's old shirt!)

"yummy apples!"

note the spoon in the left hand... also placed there on his own.

"more!"

second, the near accident. kendal has been running around in his walker all morning and again this evening. usually when he is in it, i really don't pay that much attention to him unless he lets me know he is stuck on a rug or something. well nathaniel was watching him and he walked right over to the nearest outlet and reached out for it. SCARE!!! he didn't touch it, as thankfully he was stuck on the rug and it was just barely out of his reach.

needless to say, nathaniel is at this very moment putting outlet covers on all the outlets. ALL of them. on a sort of separate note... about the apple butter... i started with 2 crock pots full of raw apples, the apples were from uncle william's trees (picked about a month ago, they've been in the fridge all this time). i stewed down the first pot and added half the second pot of raw, stewed that down and added the remaining raw apples. after they were all soft and i pureed them, i added about a half a cup of brown sugar, 1 tsp of cinnamon, 3/4 tsp of cloves, (supposed to also have allspice, however all i've got is whole - i'm fresh out of ground allspice), and about 1/4 cup of a port we had in our cabinent. this is port that nathaniel said "that is an $80 bottle of port, don't waste it on applesauce!" haha - it did really add to the flavor, though. and i just added 1/4 cup, not the 1 cup the recipe called for... so they've been cooking now for nearly 24 hours. as i'm writing this, i'm trying the apple butter for the first time. these apples are awesome. they are so smooth and creamy... yum! i can't wait to share! (and i do plan to can these and gift them away for the holidays! maybe you'll get lucky!)

why motherhood is like a fairytale

i saw this in the most recent parenting magazine and had to share... 1. your kids insist that their expensive new beds are too soft or too hard. however, your overcrowded bed is just right. 2. though they eat neon fruit leather by the yard, your children act like you want to poison them if you offer a real apple. 3. each night when you return home, several waist-high people greet you. one is sleepy and one is grumpy.

a bit forced

i'm not sure whether i was forcing him to march... but just prior to this video, kendal took his first steps. three steps. left right left (and they were small steps, not like the high-kicking ones in the video). so cute.

dumb things overheard

well, there were a lot of stupid things we heard people say yesterday, but here are two: first at the doctor office with nathaniel, the nurse said to us "oh my gosh, look at that color. is that natural?" (while putting her hands in his red hair) no. we dye our 13 month old's hair. DUH! next we were in the farm animal area at the fair and this young man (teenager) said to his mom: is that a goat? (no) is it a camel? (no) what is it? (she was looking for the sign) it was a cow, a brahman cow - they have a hump. do we even have camels here? oh yea, we saw a dead one on the side of the road this morning on the way into work (haha nathaniel).

Our day at the Fair

This morning after Nathaniel (hack hack, cough cough) went to the doctor, we went to the fair. Like last year when we went with Melissa and the girls, we had a great time. Kendal was very interested in all the rides in kiddy land. Of coarse, though, he is too small - so he only got to watch. He was not as interested in the farm animals as I thought he'd be. Of all the time we were there, the only time he even whimpered was when one of the goats bleated. For lunch, I had a philly cheesesteak (which smelled better than it tasted, just like last year), Nathaniel had a turkey leg (he said it was good, it didn't look good to me though), and Kendal ate a container of ravioli. He loves that stuff. Later in the exibit halls, we got a bag of maple cotton candy and I ate most of it. Then we got some ice cream (vanilla and mint chocolate chip), Kendal helped me eat the vanilla. He liked it ok, but, again, I thought he'd be more into it. Nathaniel and I split an apple fritter on the way out the gate, which was kinda blah. It certianly did not satisfy my fried dough craving... SO we went to Krispy Kreme on the way home and got a dozen glazed donuts. We ate half the box (ah, I ate more than Nathaniel, you do the math...) and left the rest for Dad when he gets out of the tree tonight. So, that is our day! By the way, Nathaniel just has a sinus infection, although I thought it was going to be walking pneumonia again because of all the noises he's been making. I'm sure after the prescribed 10 day antibiotic regimen, he'll be all better! OK... so I have another blog to do, but FIRST I need to catch a Kendal action shot/video to post with it! You won't believe what he did today!

abortion rights for men

WOAH here is a heavy topic. the other night while we were watching the third presidental debate, nathaniel asked me if i thought that fathers should have rights when it comes to abortion issues. i don't remember what spurred that conversation, but... i've really been thinking about it since he asked me.

here’s what i've come up with: abortion rights for men? use a condom. there’s your abortion right. keep it in your pants, or use contraception. once those boys are in that egg — which is in the woman’s body, not the man’s — you have lost your say in the matter.

implicit in every act of intercourse is the chance that you might have a child. i agree that women should be using contraceptives (i.e. keep your legs clothes or take the pill). but men have to acknowledge that every time they have unprotected sex, or every time they take the woman at her word for it, they risk fathering a child. by not using a condom, they have assumed that risk and waived any right to protest about the outcome of their actions.

sorry. if you don’t want to pay child support, make sure you don’t father a child. not fair? right. neither is life.

call it harsh.. call it black and white... call it close minded, but that is what i think. (can you tell i am pro-life?)

i'm sure at least half of you will disagree. i'm not trying to start an argument, i just thought i'd blog about this to get YOU thinking about the question posed to me! do YOU think fathers (should) have any rights when it comes to abortion?

interesting quiz

i took this "who should you vote for" quiz on blogthings... and i thought i'd share both the link (so you can take it) and my results! (again, this does not mean that i'm encouraging anyone to vote for either candidate, nor does it mean i'm voting the way the quiz went! - just saying!)

Your Issue Profile: 28% Obama, 72% McCain

When it gets down to it, you tend to best match John McCain. But he's not the perfect candidate for you, and you may not be sold on him yet. Obama shares a good number of your views too, so you might want to give him a second look. It all comes down to which issues matter to you the most.

remember simon?

i used to love this game. we had one when i was growing up and i suppose as long as the batteries worked, we played with it. anyway, i loaded a widget with the game at the bottom of my blog page. so, scroll down and have at it! i only made it to 15 the first time i played it. i thought that kinda sucked. of coarse, i've not been up long... and i'm SUPPOSED to be working (which my brain is kinda gearing that way at the moment...) so that is my excuse. what was your first score? what is your excuse?

good cookbook

i got this cookbook when kendal started eating babyfood. ifound it online, it had 5 stars... and anyway, i bought it for like $5 or something off of half-bay. i just want to declare here that it is the most used cookbook in my house, save the joy of cooking (which is really in a different league). today, i made home-made graham crackers. no hydrogenated oils, no preservatives, no nothing. all it took to make them was 1 cup of all purpose flour, 1 cup of whole wheat flour (we have king arthur brand), 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 stick of butter (i had unsalted), 1/2 c. honey (i used the honey we bought last weekend at the farmers market), and 1/4 cup whole milk (of coarse, we use organic milk). you mix the powdered stuff together and cut in the butter until it is similar to grits (the texture). i got tired of using the fork, so i ended up using my hands which would have ruined it if it had been pie crust, because the goal is to keep the butter cold and not let it melt (that provides for that flaky texture). anyway, i mixed it all together, rolled it outas thin as i could on a floured pampered chef pastry mat, then i used a pizza cutter to cut it into squares. i brushed the top with milk and poked holes in it with the fork, then baked them on 400 degrees for about 12 minutes... they are delicious. kendal loves them too. i wish i could have rolled them out thinner because most of them are more cookie-like than cracker like. but.. maybe next time. so still using the cookbook... i found a recipe for meatloaf that turned out to be really easy to make (and it tasted wonderful). plus i made mashed potatoes... all these recipes have veggies hidden in them (since i don't really like veggies and kendal tends to go for the fruit and bread when he is choosing for himself...) anyway, the meatloaf had peppers (red and yellow), onions, and carrots in it, chopped very fine. the mashed potatoes (which i made in my pampered chef microwave steamer thingy - the one i told you about melissa) had in them 3 baking potatoes, 6 carrots - steamed together, then i put them in the food processor and added 1/2 stick butter, about a cup of plain yogurt, a little salt and pepper... and then some milk to make it the right consistency. YUM. i couldn't even taste the carrots in it, but they were orange colored. the book recommended making "colored mashed potatoes" for the different holidays... orange for halloween (carrots), green (asparagus) and red (peppers) for christmas, red (peppers) for valentines' day, etc. it really was tasty. so if anyone is in the market for a new cookbook, i highly recommend this one. i realize it is for kids (which may make some of you skeptical about it), BUT most of the "sweets" recipes in it are low in sugar and could easily be changed to be low fat (like the ricotta cake recipe it has, which is kinda like a creme brulee - but made with whole milk ricotta).

kendalism

i'm gonna have to call this kendal's first official "ism." and this has to do with a box of kleenex... which are in abundance in our house since he and i both have that non-stop runny nose type cold. the scene: it was 8am and time for breakfast. i sat k on the floor downstairs to play with toys while i went in the kitchen to cook eggs for breakfast. i was washing dishes while they cooked and cooled. from where i stand in the kitchen, i can't see any of him except the top of his head (which is important to know because when he cries, i can tell if he has fallen over or if he is just frustrated with the toy he has in arms). this morning, he was playing away, rather quietly. everything was done: dishes were clean, eggs were cooked and cooled. about 15 minutes had passed. his high chair tray was loaded with cheese and eggs and a sippy cup of milk. i walked into the living room to get him and he was QUITE involved with a box of tissues.. so involved that he didnt even see me come in the room. too bad i didn't have the camera. it was upstairs and if i had gone towards the stairs, he would have seen me and it would have ended there. so, i chose to just stand there and watch him in action. he was surrounded by white tissues (on both sides of him), kinda mounded up against him and the couch like snow during a dnow drift. as i watched him, i noticed him putting tissues back in the box (which was clearly empty by this point). i said "uh oh" and it startled him. he looked at me and started to cry. i said "uh oh" again and started to laugh, so he started to laugh too. i picked him up and he started saying "all done" as i walked into the kitchen to sit him at his highchair. (this picture obviously isn't him, but he was having a similar style good time!) let me just clarify here that these tissues were not pulled out by the handful, they were pulled out ONE by ONE! i started laying out a few of them that weren't ripped in half or balled up for using this morning, the rest i just picked up by the handfull. how do they fit all those tissues in one box? i had two arms full of tissues... and there was no way (short of turning them into ashes) that i could stuff all of them back into that little box. so there you have it. kendal's first ism.

wake forest autumn arts festival

today in efforts to enjoy the cool outside air, we ventured to downtown wake forest to stroll the streets during their autumn arts festival. there were lots of "artists" with their "art" on display. i use the " " signs because we definitely agreed that "art" is in the eye of the "artist"... as some of the stuff down there was both tacky and not very artistic (in my terms, anyway). there were some lovely paintings... some for sale for over $600... and i'm pretty sure i could make an exact replica in less than an hour ("abstract art") for probably a total cost of $50 which would include the canvas and paint and maybe a brush or two... anyway, there were also some neat metal art, BEAUTIFUL bird houses, wood carvings, and most importantly... jewelry. some of the stuff down there was absolutely gorgeous. i wanted so many pieces. there was this one lady, though, that still stands out in my mind. she had a beautifully beaded necklace framing a pieced of carved rutilated quartz. i picked it up to look closer at it and she said to me "that is rose quartz". i just looked up, politely said thank you, set the necklace down, and walked away... biting my tongue (did i spell it right mom?) rose quartz looks practically nothing like rutilated quartz. come on. ROSE quartz... the name itself implys that it is pink (rose) colored. this stone was not pink at all, it was clear with golden rods sprayed throughout the rock. lets see... can you figure out which of these rock/pendant pairs is ROSE quartz and which one is NOT rose quartz? the rock she had was rutilated quartz. the golden rods in the quartz are the mineral rutile (TiO2... titanium dioxide... now go check your toothpaste ingredients because many toothpastes have TiO2 in it!!!) anyway, back to the cool stuff we saw. there was this one lady that had birdhouses. the houses were made from "recycled" wood (i think more appropriately it should be reused wood). she had one house with keys (real keys) tacked all over the brightly colored house. on the side were the words "have you seen my keys?" and then on the back there was an empty nail/tack for you to put your OWN key on it (i.e. your spare key cleverly hidden on the birdhouse). i thought it was SO cute and had we the ca-zash to be buying birdhouses, we would have taken it home! another cool thing we saw was down at the farmers market they have every saturday... a hive of bees (behind glass, kinda like an ant farm - these bees were in the honey booth). nathaniel was pushing kendal and i saw the bees. i asked him to back up so kendal could see them, and when i pointed at the hive, i noticed how warm it was! i didn't even have to touch the glass to feel the heat. the beekeeper told me that the bees keep the hive about 97 degrees, and using a heat sensor is generally how he finds bees when someone calls him to get rid of them. interesting, huh? anyway, we bought some of his honey. $3 for about a 6 oz jar of it. i tasted it when we got home and MAN OH MAN is it good honey. tastes nothing like the brands they have at the grocery store. last words... we saw a sign for an oktoberfest in WF on october 25th. i think we're gonna try to go. maybe you will too!

funny short story i heard yesterday about the condensation on a glass of water

"recently, i thought that water came from inside the glass" "when i say recently, i mean like last night"

how about a funny story about my mom and nathaniel...

recently, as most folks have noticed, there have been an abundance of dead animals on the road. i suppose it is that time of year again when the deer run hard at night, as do dogs in heat and other random animals. anyway, because of a dead deer on the side of the road near our house, i have to tell you a funny(ish) story. it is about something that my mom and nathaniel have in common... a WILD imagination! (and, appropriately, they DO happen to both like the beatles!) i suppose i'm glad they both have this kind of imagination, it suits mom well while she is doing her job (teaching 3 year olds how to play and pretend)... and as far as nathaniel, well i'm sure that one day this imagination will come in handy (like when our kids want to play and pretend) for something other than just humor. first, my mom: long time ago, mom had maybe some teeth removed or a kidney stone or something and she was in the bed, doped up on codeine for pain. now the ceilings in my parents' house is made of wide tongue and groove wood. i guess it is pine, it has lots of interesting wood grain patterns. anyway, my mom swore that she saw jesus in the wood. she also saw a beaver and who knows what else. she pointed at the animals (and jesus) on the ceiling to nathaniel this past summer. i'm not sure if he could see them, but i'd say it was quite likely. (this is not the wood from our house, i found this photo online). now in her undrugged state, she has sworn to see bear in the field behind our house. now i'm not questioning her ability to identify animals from a distance, and in all reality it IS possible that there was a bear back there... but it just isn't likely. maybe once every other year some hillbilly redneck in some county north and west of raleigh spots a young male bear and kills it. but generally the eastern black bear is only found east of I95 (in the coastal plain). but i can remember more than once that she thought she saw a bear... even if it were road kill. for nathaniel: when he moved to franklin county, right after i moved in (or was it before?) he SWORE he saw a dead bear on the side of the road. turns out it was a dog. how do we know this? because my mom, in her ever-going desire to prove to everyone she DID see a bear, drove to it and looked. it was a big black dog, she claimed. nathaniel was disappointed it wasn't a bear. last fall, he got home and told me that he saw a dead pot belly pig on the side of the road (near our house). hum. where did a pot belly pig come from? well, i suppose it COULD HAVE been a PBP, but... the next morning (in daylight) it looked more like a beaver that had been hit maybe 2 days prior and it was quite swollen. one day last week he told me that there was a dog on the road... it was a trashbag (again, this was at night). this past weekend he told me about a dead pig on the road (all these road kills are along moore's pond road). he told me about how big it was, how pink the belly was, etc. well when we drove by it, it was a deer. so now anytime we (i) see a dead animal...i say something ridiculous like "oh my god, did you see that dead camel on the side of the road?" haha.