yesterday was cookie baking day

now there is a huge apple crisp in the oven...I put carmel over the apples before putting the topping on...and, I added some crushed ginger snaps into the topping...if it's not a disaster, it should be quite tasty...there is a whole array of apples, and a few of some heirloom pears just for good measure...

fall cooking has taken over this weekend...I look forward to acclimating to the season change so I can stop!

and. on. we. go.

I need a better travel agent, since I seem to be missing out on the cruise to fantasy land.

An article and video featured on the PBS website
 

I was up late tonight and reading online at the PBS website about a Portland couple who lost their long time business and are selling off their possessions, just to keep their home. What drew my attention was a comment posted by a person going by the name of "Doug" (on Oct. 13th). I've excerpted his comment for this post and I'm leaving a link to the video and article about their situation.

I can identify with this person in so many ways! Unlike Doug spending the last years looking for work and 450 applications out, I've put out nearly 400 applications in 8 months; and his most poignant and profound insight, parallels my situation of late: "without one friend, I'd be homeless; without the other, starving." And, like Doug, I'm not eligible for unemployment: I'm a skilled tradeswoman and cannot find a suitable job in my former professional field and seemingly like Doug, I'm 51 and it appears that I cannot find a job due to my age. I might be 51, but I'm still young enough to work, I've got miles of experience, and I don't need an exhorbitant salary (a living wage is fine with me) - you'd think I could find a job, but I hold faith that the universe will help me, him and cajillions of others like us out there, to find suitable work with equitable pay.

I don't know about most of you here, but I wonder what it will take for people to realize that our country is in more than just a recession.


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know...s-crisis/4172/

"In 2005, I had a $45,000/yr job in beautiful Oregon (I had worked up from $25,000/yr just four years before). It was more than enough to support my wife and two high-school age children. But then I lost the job, partially due to illness. Soon I couldn't pay the rent, and I had to give most of my stuff away because I didn't have time to sell it.

We moved to Wisconsin to be near my wife's mom. The kids went on to college. For a time, I was making enough from self-employment work to support us, but then I lost my main client. Then I got ill again. In September '09, my wife went to live with her mom; I moved in with a friend.

I've been looking for work (something like 450 job applications in the last two years, but no one wants to hire a fifty-year old guy). Then my wife started divorce proceedings in February of this year. I then found out she put $15,000 in charges on our credit card. Then she broke her leg and charged another $15,000. The judge allocated $6,000 of the debt to me because of her medical expenses. Meanwhile, my son graduated in biology last year, and has been working since as a barista at a coffee shop (the same job he did in college). My daughter also works while putting herself through school. The only money I get is from a friend in Oregon who sends me small writing projects to do. Without one friend I'd be homeless; without the other, starving.

Since high school, I've worked hard, paid for college and graduate school, and supported my family. I used to have excellent credit, but that's gone now because of the debt my wife sprang on me. Now, I have a sizable negative worth, feel like a burden on my friends, and worry about my future, my kids' future, and yes, even my ex-wife's future. The upside is I have more time for self study and improvement through tools like the library and Internet (and W3C courses, GIMP, Kompozer, Inkscape; you get the idea). As far as our two major political parties go, one never seems to propose a program to help someone like me (I'm not eligible for unemployment, not a construction worker, not a minority, not a homeowner, and so on) while the other only cares about the rich (guess which one). Without my faith, my friends, and my family (what's left of it), I would not be able to go on another day. May things change in this country for all the decent, hardworking people like the Crandall's; this I pray." ~ Doug, October 13th, 2010 (12:43am)

Keep your passport current. You never know when you'll want to get the hell out of Dodge for a bit.

I think I might hate silly string

Saw 3D. I think i must actually see it in the theater.

Because it's morning ...
 

.. And I'm sipping coffee from my Cinderella mug.


P.S. You know you want to sing along ; )

Rule No. 666: Three people who know what you did: God, Santa and Jiminy Cricket.

GLEE is doing a Rocky themed show tonight...


I am now a GLEE fan. :blink:

Art
 

It happened two days in a row. Will I be lucky enough for a third day?

Andrea

well...that answers that question...
 

http://camarojones.files.wordpress.c...2nocussing.jpg

Just so we're clear. Use Celcius.

I have a secret stash spot for stogies.

Apparently..it also stashes cupcakes.

There is a higher power of some form out there to give such sugary delights to mere mortals.

I am drinking coffee.

I am out of creamer. :|

The tears are a-threatening.

Bob was very bad today. When I left the house this morning, he took it upon himself to stand RIGHT outside my roommate's door and bark. Like something was wrong. And then, after being woken up from a deep sleep, when she opened the door thinking there was a fire or earthquake or something equally horrible....................he ran back to my room and jumped under the covers.



He has been banished to my room for the rest of his life.


So sayth the roommate. Who normally has a really good sense of humor about things like that.

*giggling*


Sooooo, since this is the "posting random stuff cuz you feel like it" thread, shouldn't it be the Random Fuckery thread?? Jusss sayin..... :byebye:

My wonderful geeky son makes me proud... he's actually excited about staying an hour after school, two days a week, in order to participate in Mathletes and Odyssey of the Mind. :)

Sign the guestbook.

When you drive across the border into the United States from Vancouver, B.C., at Blaine (the main passageway), this is what you'll see.

http://www.thestranger.com/images/bl...810-364631.jpg


That's a digital rendering of the new Lead Pencil Studio artwork Non-Sign II, which is just what it says: A non-sign. The sign part is empty air; the rest is a web of metal pieces.

I talked to the artists recently about this piece, which they were commissioned to do by the federal government as it renovated the border-crossing station. Placing an artwork on a border is a great opportunity, but a weird one, too, since something like 90 percent of people will be driving by and not able to stop for an extended look. (The piece is situated on the American side of the border, just after you cross back in, along your route back onto the highway from the checkpoints.)

They noticed the way the area is packed with signs—advertising billboards, and then, closer to the border, a proliferation of government signs. Their hope is that their sign, flying by enigmatically ("What was that?"), will add a little bit of awareness to the whole signage landscape in the border zone. Just open up a free space, really. How very American. The empty rectangle frames only a view of sky as you drive by, nothing else.*

The artists are giving a talk about Non-Sign II at 4 pm on Thursday, October 28, in the Old Main Theater at Western Washington University in Bellingham. The lecture's free.

*Trivia: The Peace Arch at the border was designed by Sam Hill, the creator of the Maryhill Museum of Art, which Lead Pencil Studio created Maryhill Double in homage to back in 2006. They can't seem to get away from Sam Hill.