I Am in 3 oz. Bottle Hell

It’s been some time since I have traveled and had to bring all of my personal toiletries with me. I leave for Atlanta in the morning and I have spent more time this evening than I care to admit to, trying to get everything that I want to take with me into a quart size ziplock bag. I have bought those delightful little 3 ounce plastic flip top bottles (the TSA has quite a thing for 3 ounce bottles, I must say!!) and have been squirting shampoo and conditioner and body lotion into each one. But now I’m wondering how easy it will be to get said lotions, etc. out of the bottles!! It seems silly to fill each bottle — I will be gone only 2 nights — then I would return and need to get said lotions, etc. back out of the little bottles and into my regular sized bottles. I don’t have enough room for my moisturizer and at my age, this will not be a pretty sight. And, those delightful little bottles take up a heck of alot of room! We’re talking about a bag that is about 7″ x 8″ and it sounds like alot, but it’s really not. So far, I have put in shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, anti-perspirant, toothpaste, hairspray, lip balm — but there’s no room for my moisturizer!! I wonder what I could leave at home — I suppose that I could chance it and hope that the hotel will supply a decent shampoo and conditioner — ye gods this is ridiculous — ARGHHHH!!!!!

Seven Random Things

I’ve been reading Deb Richardson’s Red Shoe Ramblings blog now for awhile because one of the things that I enjoy about her blog (besides the great, readable writing — go take a look!!) is that she often is tagged by other bloggers to do memes. The Seven Random Things sounded like fun, so I decided to do this one.

1. I cannot buy one of anything. Ever. Not sure why, but my sister has the same affliction. If I need one pound of butter, I will buy two. If I find a shirt that I like, I will buy two (or three, or four, depending on how many different colors/patterns there are) There’s always a little voice in the back of my head saying “extra, extra” and I have listened to it for years. On the up side, it’s very seldom that I ever run out of anything.
2. I cannot back up a car or truck just using the side mirrors. I’ve told Sweet Baboo for years that it’s something in the Y chromosome that females just don’t have. He, of course, says that’s silly, I just need practice. Hmph!!! I have practiced! It doesn’t help! I think I’m probably the first and only person to put a boat into Lake Meacham in Northern New York sideways, boat, trailer and truck!! With everybody around me yelling “turn right, turn right!!”
3. I can touch my nose with my tongue. Or at least I used to be able to. …… Yup, I still can. Just haven’t had to impress anybody with that feat for years!
4. I have 17 pairs of black slacks in my closet. Please refer to #1 above to explain why I have so many. I feel like I am on a neverending quest to find the quintessential pair of black slacks. Perhaps I’m a closet “grass is always greener” type of person? Truth to tell, I have black slacks for every slight weight gain or loss that I go through. Plus there are different lengths to go with the 8 pairs of black shoes that I own.
5. I would rather fold laundry than vacuum. Well, I wouldn’t rather fold it alot more than vacuum, but at least quite a bit more. It seems that every vacuum I have ever had will crash into my achilles tendons. Plus I trip over the darn cord and the hose constantly. I have said for years that I have a vacuum cleaner poltergeist that goes from one vacuum to the next. When I am Queen of the World, I will have subjects to do my vacuuming for me. For that matter, they will fold laundry too!!
6. I have been driving for 36 years and I have never gotten a ticket or been in an accident. Not even a fender bender. I’ve had a few close calls of course. Come to think of it, I’ve never been pulled over by a townie or statie either. When I was younger, it was because my ex-husband’s father was a desk sergeant with the NY State Police. When I got older, it was because I realized that I wasn’t indestructible and wanted to stay in one piece, so I slowed down.
7. The closest that I have ever come to breaking a bone was a sprained ankle. I consider myself extremely lucky. I have had to have several surgeries for different reasons, but never for a broken bone. I will probably stand up from typing this, trip over my sneaky vacuum cleaner and break my collarbone…..

So those are my 7 random thingys. If you are reading this blog and would like to list 7 random things about yourself on your blog, please do so and then leave a comment for me so that I can go read it. I have to go listen to the radio now so that I can be caller 10 and win 2 Kenny Chesney tickets. Wish me luck!

Josie’s Toesies

Our 8 month old granddolly was napping on my sofa today and her little feet were sticking out of the blanket — I went to the sofa to cover her up, and decided to take this shot first. It just makes my heart melt. There’s just something about those tiny little toes!!

Click the thumbnail to see the larger picture.

All You Can

I found this on InlandEmpireGirl’s blog and I really like it. I wanted to thank her for posting it and hope she doesn’t mind that I (ahem) borrowed it.

Do all the good you can.

By all the means you can.

In all the ways you can.

At all the times you can.

To all the people you can.

As long as ever you can.

John Wesley

More Front Yard Pretties

This shot of apple blossoms (?) was just so pretty I couldn’t resist putting it in.

Pic is clickable to see full size.

This is a small clump of violets that is growing in a nook of our rock wall. It is also clickable to see full size.

Sunday Scribblings #59: Second Chance

I’ve been playing with this writing prompt in my head since I found the Sunday Scribblings blog last night, with several different things I wanted to write about presenting themselves. My life as it is now is just where I want it to be. Because it is, I don’t think that I would want to change or do anything over that has come before.  The things that have happened in my life to make me what I am today have not always been things that I could control.

But — if I could go back and I could be sure that it would not affect my life now, it would be to something around the time that I was 15. Being 15, my sophistication level was extremely low, along with my sense of self esteem and/or self confidence. Essentially, this is the story:

• Girl meets boy #1
• Girl falls in love with boy #1
• Boy #1 breaks up with girl and girl is crushed
• Girl meets boy #2
• Boy #2 is very much in love with girl, but
• Girl thinks she still loves boy #1, so when boy #1 asks her to go back out again
• Girl breaks up with boy #2

And, son of a gun, it seems that she was just so used to wanting boy #1 that she didn’t realize that it was boy #2 that she loved all along!!!

I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t been that stupid. I wonder what happened to boy #2. I wonder if I screwed up his life in a major way. I wonder if he thinks of me, and if so, what he thinks of me. I wonder, I wonder….

More Signs of Spring

The spring peepers are peeping up a storm tonight!! I love when they first start — it’s usually in early to mid March here in CT and it’s really the very first sign that spring is on it’s way. The air is still chilly but starting to warm up and the peeper’s voices are kind of subdued, and they aren’t peeping very fast. As soon as the temperatures start to rise and the days start getting longer tho’, the peeping warms up too!! Now that they’ve emerged from the mud at the bottom of some pond or maybe from under some dead leaves on the ground somewhere, nature takes over and they start peeping to attract a mate. And with the racket they’re making tonight, there must be some real jostling for position among the males!!!

Signs of Spring

To me, spring is yellow — daffodils, jonquils, and forsythia. And spring is violet, crocuses poking through the ground. But the weather can’t seem to make up it’s mind, so even though these yellow and purple things say that spring is almost here, the one thing that definitely makes it spring is when our house wren comes back. We have a nesting box that Sweet Baboo made and the wrens return every year. I think that this is the fifth year. The male (we call him Jeffrey, for some odd reason) came back about 10 days ago. Early for him, he usually doesn’t show up until the first week of May. He arrives and immediately starts driving off any other birds that are thinking that they want to get into the nesting box. (It’s actually quite funny to watch — the hole in the house is just about 2″ in diameter — much too small for a sparrow to get into, but that doesn’t stop them from banging their empty little heads through the hole, trying their hardest to get in. I think to myself that Jeffrey is sitting in the hedge laughing at the antics.) Jenny Wren (Jeffrey’s wife) will be along shortly, after he’s gotten everything in order. He’s already built the nest in the box and has pretty much let every bird in the immediate area that he’s back and don’t mess with him.

This is a nice pic of the forsythia in our yard, very close up. Click for full size. If you enlarge the picture, it looks like there’s a bug or something on the right petal.

Camper Quilts Part 2

I finished this quilt top alot faster than I thought I would. I hope that it’s not too wild — the lady at the camp said to make them bright and happy. (I think this qualifies as bright and happy. I hope it doesn’t qualify as nightmarish!!) As always, this was my prototype quilt. I always make (and correct and make note of) my mistakes on the first one — the second one will go much quicker for me that way. This picture is clickable, if you would like to see it larger. The size turned out to be something like 50″ x 65″. I think that the next one I make will be just two colors in the main part and then another fabric to complement them for the sashing and borders.

Sunshine in the NorthEast

This is the kind of day that we New Englanders wait for all winter. Sunny, low seventy temps, low humidity. Did I mention the sunshine? Makes you want to get up and do stuff!! So I did, I went to the gym, walked my 3 miles, felt very accomplished about that and now I’m getting on with my camper quilt. I’ll be able to put a pic of it up later today. I did take some pictures earlier today of blooming things around my yard. These little garden phlox blooms are so precious. (click the pic for full size)