BIG THANKS!...

A big thank you to Mr. T for being such a great sport with his senior pictures. (No relation to the A-Team.) Mr. T will not actually read this but I'm putting out good karma in the air.

If I can cook it, you can too...

I've decided to start a new regular feature on this little blog o' mine. I figure I'm bored of most food these days so maybe if I share you will too. I'm not a cook, so I stick to simple, yet have a difficult time following a recipe.

Simple Potatoes...

Clean potatoes, for a variety use red and yellow ones.

Chop into small squares, not too small, but small enough they will not take forever to cook.

Add a bit of olive oil in a skillet

Add potatoes and a bit of salt and pepper (I'm really enjoying sea salt these days.)

Chop up a bit of onion--throw in in with the potatoes. Cover and cook until tender.

Add a bit of blue cheese when done. YUM!!! Tasty!

It's a new quarter...

It's Monday and a new quarter. Busy, but trying to take a moment...

Friday, Friday, Friday!!!...

It is if you haven't guessed it already FRIDAY! Boy am I ready for 430pm. What to talk about today. Fun stories from the past week, ok great.

Story 1: I was asked by one of my students, "Do you have a Hallmark card." I didn't tell any of them, so I cautiously answered, "Yes?". She responded with a story of how over the summer when she was home in New Jersey her boyfriend noticed that some from Columbus, Ohio had a card and he asked her if she knew the person. She said the card was sold out, so she didn't get to see it, but she thought it was "neat".

Story 2: My freshman think I'm a big dork. I had the first class today. Nothing brain stretching, just an ice breaker and syllabus review. The ice breaker involved them answering the following.
*Roomates-love'em, hate'em ,want send them back to their planet?
*If you were a super hero, what would your powers be?
*Best/Worst part of the first week of classes?
*If we made a movie of your life, who would play your character?
*Dream Job?
There were some really amusing responses.

Ok, sorry, more later, maybe, students gotta go.

*Grin*...

In the event Sarah Palin got to name me....I would walk this earth as Bash Budweiser Palin. Now if I enter Allie instead of Alison, I would be Stake Shed Palin. I think I'll stick with the first one.

Find your Sarah Palin name: http://politsk.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah_13.html

Sorry, I have no idea how to embed the link, you will have to copy and paste.

It's almost 430pm right?

Brain Fried...

It's only 2pm. My brain is fried. My office has been a revolving door all day. There was a student waiting when I walked into the office this morning. I knew it was going to happen, but the past two days have not been that bad, so I was hoping. The crappy part is, I have a class tonight. I don't know how I'm going to focus. I did hide in my office for 18 minutes and grabbed a bite to eat. I'm crossing my fingers everyone has gone home and it will be very light this afternoon. Opps-gotta go.

ICK! ARGH! UGH!

I just had one of those; I’m going to throw up moments. ICK! I was headed to the ladies room to wash my lunch container out and find myself trapped-and I mean trapped in a conversation with a lady that is nice, but well you know. I’m forced to have a conversation with her as I’m washing my container at the sink and she’s in the stall. I hate this, hate it! I really don’t want to have a conversation with you while I know what you are doing. I had just almost escaped. I was finished washing and decided I would return later to actually use the facilities. All my being was SCREAMING—GET OUT, get out NOW! I had one hand on the door ready to make my escape when suddenly she was standing right beside me. In my personal space, I have a little bubble around me; I really, really dislike close talkers. Then to make my stomach churn, she was walking out with me, there was no hand washing, and then, oh dear goodness then, she touched my hand as I was holding the door for her. ICK, BARF, UGH! What was I to do? I was just barely keeping my stomach in check. Thank goodness there was someone else in the hall to distract her as I made an escape to my office. I dumped the plastic container on my desk-- it was save yourself time. Rushed back to the hallway, looked before actually departing into the hall, and then rushed back to the ladies room for an intense washing of my hands.

Now, there were three major personal policies broken during this 5 minute interaction. Thank goodness for soap, hot water, and an office door to hide behind for a few moments.

Why do I have so many random issues when it comes to the ladies room? *sigh*

--Post 300-can you believe I have committed to this for so long. I know, me, imagine.

The simple things...

I can now boil water to cook pasta. I can now watch the Packers loose on my "big screen". I can now fall asleep to the hum of the ceiling fan. I can shower with lights on.

Kids, I have electricity! YEAH!!!!!!!!

Guess What...

No power! 114 hours without and still counting.

Last night was pretty random. I went to the Southern Theatre for the first time, cute little old theatre, I should find myself there more often. I went to see the High Kings and they gave a wonderful performance. 2 hours of trad Irish music was just want the doc ordered. Ms. T thanks again for going with!

I was driving home from the concert and noticed the red light at the end of my street was working. Yeah, tons of excitement, the pizza place had their power too. I thought, yes, finally. I turned down the street to find the rest of the block still dark. No power. Oh, it was sad, like watching your parents assemble a brand new cherry red bike Christmas Eve when they were not watching, then waking up Christmas morning, only to find there was no bike under the tree. Sad, very sad.

Now, picture it Sicily, 1am, or my apartment, either one will work. Loud shoots of expletives. Tremendous repeated thuds against a door. Glass breaking. Was I being robed? Panic, throw on cloths in case a mad dash is required.

Nope, the fun guys that live next door were apparently having guests who were pretty trashed, I'm guessing, and since they could not get the key to open the door thought they could break it down or just break the window to get in. I have to tell you my heart was going to pop right out of my chest. I could not decide at first if someone was breaking in or what was going on. Once I realized they were just a bunch of idiots, I started to calm down, but the adrenaline had kicked in so it was a couple of hours before I went back to sleep. Now I don't know what to do, give my landlord a call and say, hey just fyi, your idiot tenets have trashed your apartment or keep to myself.

It is Friday, yeah! Enjoy if you can kids!

86 and counting...


"We need men who can dream of things that never were."

John F. Kennedy, speech in Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 196335th president of US 1961-1963 (1917 - 1963)


"I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances."

Martha WashingtonUS wife of George Washington 1759 (1732 - 1802)

62 hours...

Ever been in a room full of people and yet felt completely alone?

38 1/2 hours…

I have not had electric for 38 1/2 hours. This morning was the 2nd morning of taking a shower in the dark. I really wanted to shave my legs this morning, but was not willing to risk doing it on the dark. I soon will have a jungle on my legs; soon cheetah will be stocking prey in the tall grasslands. Ok, so it’s not that bad yet, but seriously AEP can you please bring me power? If this is a test to see if I can survive in a 3rd world country, I could have told you without the test, no, no I could not. I like my modern conveniences.

I want to send a big thank you to Mr. A and Ms. A. They provided me shelter last night, feed me, and even allow me the use of their television. I could have stayed the night, but was wish’en, wish’en upon a star that my electric would be back on by this morning. Well my star was a dud I guess. I had to make a trip to Mr. A and Ms. A’s home because I had some very important beer in my fridge and I could not allow it to go bad. I’m “renting” space in their fridge for my beer. Do you remember back in May I went to Canada? Well, I did. It is the longest b-ee-rr-u-n, beer run that I have ever been on. The beer I enjoyed while living in Ireland is sold in Ireland and Canada. Weird, I know. Anyway, I bought a few packs of the beer because I knew it would be awhile before I would make it back to Ireland and likely Canada. I’ve slowly been working my way through the beer, savoring each one. The beer was pricey and there is no way it was going to waste. I knew I wasn’t in a mood to drink it all last night, so a fast trip to the far outskirts of Columbus was a necessity. Of course, seeing the two A’s is always a delight. Ah, Kilkenny!

Back to this morning…

I got really pissed this morning driving into work. I cursed, literally, the people on the other side of the street that were wasting their electric. Why have your porch light on all night long, most of them. Now all of them could not be waiting for a loved one to come home in the dark and they are not Red Roof Inn. I got really pissed at the parking garage in the big fancy new condos at the end of the street that had every single light on. Not just security lights, no, lit up like Rudolph’s nose. Now for me, often the only glow of light in my house is the TV. I don’t tend to have every light on the house on when I’m home. I may have one light on if I’m doing something besides watching TV, but I don’t think I have ever, ever turned on my porch light. Ok, nope, I sit corrected; I did turn it on during a party one night so others could figure out where I lived.

A stream of non child friendly words escaped my mouth as I drove through Victorian Village. They did not have electric yesterday, but now have electric. What, what, why don’t I? I could almost deal until a neighborhood so close to me got their electric back and I didn’t!

I have concert tickets for Thursday night. Will the theatre of have electric? I certainly hope so, because if not, I may completely loose it and I’m barley keeping it together now.

I’m a wimp, I admit it. Uncle! Now please bring back my lights, my tv, my stove, my ice, my sanity.

**Let me say, I understand many others are in the same predicament that I'm in. However, blogging gets some of my frustrations out. If you don't have a blog and need to vent, feel free to share your experiences in the comments.

The Power of Wind...



Well folks if you are reading this you are lucky enough to have power. I do not have power at my house, but of course the university has power. I found out this morning we have our own power station. Of course we do.



Anyway, the wind has created havoc all over Ohio. A large tree across the street from me lost two large limbs.

The tree directly in this shot was swaying so much you could see the roots moving even. I was beginning to wonder if I should sleep in the spare bedroom last night, but the wind finally stopped, tree still standing.

A better shot of the downed limbs. See how it's on the curb. That's often where my car is sitting. Thank goodness I was at Ms. H's when the thing came down.

An evening without power can be very boring. I didn't want to go walking in it like many others were. For the love of Pete, there were flying branches and stuff everywhere. Did they think they were immune and not going to get hit? I know how accident prone I am, better not to risk a visit to the ER.

I read for several hours by candle light. Had a few brief conversations on the phone, but didn't want to run my battery too low. I finally decided Lou was bored too and needed his photo taken, but there was little in my house to photograph.

It got rather dark in the house before many candles were set a flame. One could barely see Lou.

Thank goodness for flash.

Lou yelled at me for never taking this picture to work and hanging it up. I tried to explained that we were supposed to be getting new furniture and I was waiting on that, but he just refused to listen. He kept referring to me as a lazy tart.

I think it's going to be another long night with Lou and his mouth. I ran home during my lunch crossing my finger the entire way hoping for electric. Nope, not to be found. There was a sewer truck at the corner, I'm hoping that was a planned event and has nothing to do with last night. I could have bigger problems on my hands.

AEP is reporting it could be 5-7 days before everyone has their power back on. Please, please, please let me be one of the ones soon. The crappy part is the other side of the street has power. They got theirs back about 8pm last night. Little tarts! Oh, Lou is such a bad influence. I just don't want to shower in the dark again. I guess I should be happy I have a gas hot water heater. I really don't want to drag my curling iron into the office yet another morning.

I did bring my laptop in and charged it up. Last night I powered on and had 5 whole minutes until the battery died.

Whatever did people do before Ben started flying his kite?

Do Others Do This?...

I often wonder if other people do or think about some of the random items that go through me brain.

Do “normal” people use their keys to push the button on the elevator? I see many people do not, but I just think of all the germs from so many fingers and who knows where those fingers have been. ICK!

Do “normal” people have as many nightmares and I have? I average about 4-5 good nightmares a week, some of them less horrible than others. However, I wake up clinching my chest because I can’t breath or I wake up trying to scream and can’t or I wake up and fall back asleep in the same horrible dream. I used to have a couple of reoccurring ones, I don’t really have those anymore and there is no specific in the ones I have now. I just have them and I just don’t think it’s normal. I’ve tried many things: not eating close to going to bed, having a drink before bed, and yet nothing seems to faze them much.

Do “normal” people refuse to answer the phone in the ladies room? I know some people do talk on their phones in the ladies room. However, I just can’t. I think there is a time and place for a phone call, but in a public restroom is not one of them.

Do “normal” people often think about the idea that we are all programmable robots? When we are sleeping, giants program our minds for what will happen the next day and we are simply in a really long movie. I mean this would explain why I do some of the stupid stuff I do and don’t learn the first time it’s not a good idea.

Do “normal” people always wonder if their drinking glass is really clean when eating out? I don’t know if I did this as much when I was able to use a straw. However, now that I can’t, I obsess about it the entire time I’m drinking. I have to kinda force myself to just drink it and assume I’m not going to contact some horrible germ from an unclean glass.

Do “normal” people think their car is making them fatter? I often wonder. I know there are several other contributing factors. However, when I lived in Ireland I didn’t have a car and I dropped several pounds. I was also eating butter and cheese and these little chocolate muffin things like it was my job, so my eating habits were not the best. I would love to live where I didn’t have to have a car. Financially it would be great and I think I would walk more and therefore be healthier. However, I live in Ohio and with limited mass transportation I just don’t see me giving up my little car just yet.

These are just random things I think about. Not all the time, well most of the things not all the time.

It is Friday, so try to enjoy your weekend. Go BUCKS! Please if all possible, please, please kick some USC butt. I’m so tired of the crap talk that the Big 10 is horrible and OSU can not play a real team. Please, please show them they are full of shit!

Creatures of Habit...

People in general are creatures of habit. In general we do not like change. There are several examples from my life that I can pull from that really bring this idea home.

In college for a psychology class, I had to take an elevator ride and when I got into the elevator, turn and face the back of the elevator. This of course, made me facing all the others in the elevator with me. Thankfully there were only two others at the time. I was supposed to observe the reactions of the others riding the elevator and then document them for the psych experiment. The other two on the elevator looked very uncomfortable and avoided making eye contact. Of course this could be because I smelled or looked funny, but my guess is-and the point of the experiment-there is an understood way to ride an elevator and changing that creates a disturbance in the "norm".

I have changed jobs several times in my life and many times I was super excited to leave the job I was abandoning. However, there is was a little bit of fear starting the new job. It was different, would I adapt to the change. Most of the time it took a few weeks to develop a comfort level to where I was not tiptoeing around the new office trying to avoid conversation for fear of being judged and deemed unworthy.

These are just a couple of examples. Last night proved to be another example that people do not like change. I made what I hope to be a quick trip to my local Kroger. If you are a regular Kroger shopper, you let me know, there's a certain French group that may need your assistance. Anyway, I'm buzzing around the store, avoiding all the yummy sugary snacks, trying to be a good girl. I'm just ready to head out with my few items, when I realize I forgot foil. I turned around and headed back to the aisle to get it. MISTAKE!!! You can not go reverse in Kroger. You must, must begin in produce and end in alcohol and proceed directly to the checkout. I could not believe the rude people who refused, refused to move their carts out the way in order for me to make my way through. I was a change from the "norm", the other shoppers could not handle the change.

Next time I need toilet tissue, I will just get that and avoid the cart. I normally just have my little basket. Ah, love the basket.

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Frankly It's Not Monday...

So, it's not Monday, it's Wednesday. I've been a busy person and have had little time to think of random issues to rant about. I could start on Palin and lipstick or cowhorseohio.com, but nope not today, maybe another day.

Since there were no questions, ok one, I'm guessing all the readers fled for the hills or I have revealed too much information about myself. The sole questioner who inquired about the holidays, man it's September and all I would like is a grand autumn, can you provide that? Great, thanks in advance.

So, instead of thinking of fun stuff to blog about, I have a random quiz.

Got a guess?

No guesses or did you figure it out?

Does this help?

If you guessed George Frankly and Kate Monday, you are a super genius and watched too much PBS in the late 1980's. If you guessed Joe Howard and Beverly Leech, then I want you on my next trivia team--I'm impressed.

I got to thinking about Math Net yesterday after my little reference to the "Pac Man" Math Man. Thinking sometimes is not really a great thing. On that note, it's Wednesday, enjoy!

At a Loss...

I don't have anything to blog about today. I have no rants to provide you, no random stories, no Lou photos, nothing. It's sad, very sad. Maybe my mind is numb from the extraordinary cold front that has taken over my office.

Since I have nothing for you faithful readers, I invite you to ask me anything. Go ahead, I won't bite, well, nope won't promise, not this time. Ask away, maybe you will spark a memory from my random past that is blog worthy or you will bring on a tremendous rant, it could happen.

I await your questions, comments, concerns.

Until then... MATH MAN, MATH MAN, MATH MAN.

The End Is Almost Here...

The hallmark contest is soon coming to an end. The voting ends September 14. I know I'm not going to win, but I've been pushed out of my 35th spot. If you have stopped voting, no worries, I know it's been going on forever. However, please make an effort to vote every day this week. Move me back up to 35th, pretty respectable out of 5000 plus entries, I think anyway.

Forgotten how to vote? It's easy-promise. Go into the website. https://www.hallmarkcontests.com/, click on pets, type in "pig" in the search, then cast your vote.

Look how sad I look at 36th...

I need to get back up to 35th. Please help.

More Fair Pics and a Few Farm Ones...



These are in no particular order.

Ma---We're Hungry!

Are you talk'en to me?

Let me out!!!!! Pork Chops be damned!

You make me laugh, so I will kill you last.



Come on...Pick ME! Pick ME!

Staying warm during cool fair evenings.

What? I like mud ok!

Fair in the evening. Cooking, corn hole, good times.

Fair chips. Yep they made their own potoato chips.

I'm all ears.

Hey, I got a secert to tell ya.

It's Friday--Enjoy the weekend, but don't be a ...

The Fair, The Fair, The Fair...

Yep, get ready for fair pics, here they come...

Every good county fair need a Demo Derby. I don't have a clue what they do with it, but guys come into the store buy a specific kind of wire for the cars.

The crashing, clashing, and smoke all add up to a good time!

I don't know if you can tell, but all the trucks line up in the background of the picture have large groups of people in them watching the derby. They can't easily take the beers into the grandstands.

My parents-King and Queen of the county, hobnob with the state politicians. (I don't remember his name or his position.)

The animal sale has a lot going on. There's tons of lemon shake drinking, bidding, and bullshitting going on.
See, I told you there were tons of lemon shakes. Often when you buy a kids animal they bring you one of these. The first couple are tasty, then not so much. Some kids even bring candy.

Remember the bullshitting. It starts right here. These guys can keep up with the best of them.
After awhile the sale starts to drone on and on. Even the sale workers have to make a call for pizza, in hopes of getting a break at some point. (10am-7pm--long day of sale.)
Of course, there are the champions. My parents and a couple of other businesses brought the Reserve Grand Champion hog. Check for their picture in the newspaper this week!

More pics tomorrow. I don't want to overwhelm you. *grin*

A Million Apologies...

I haven't blogged since last Friday. I do apologize. I know the days are not complete without a little slice of my world.

What was the issue?

A. I was at my parents all weekend with only dial up, mind numbing internet.

B. I was focused on my new photography business and getting stuff ready for fall.

Answer: A and B--not great excuses, but true.

I was at my parents all weekend. Working at the mill, going to the fair, taking photos, building displays, and getting photos printed. So are you ready for fair photos?

Ready?

Really ready?

Well, that's great, but you will have to wait until tomorrow, hopefully. I haven't had time to pull them off the camera yet. I'm sure there are some really grand ones. We must all have patience. I don't have many, so will have to get them off the camera tonight, no exceptions.