Down to Earth

Well, both NY baseball teams are losing, so it's a good evening to watch the crew of Artemis II splash down in the Pacific off the coast of San Diego. Everything was so lovely and precise! I'm both elated that we're exploring space again and disappointed that it took us this long. Without a made-up international rivalry things just don't get done, I guess. But we're certainly trending in the right direction there, and I hope the same for my personal and professional life...

Of Costume Jewelry and Sushi

My earrings, which I usually only wear as part of my work ensembles, have a tendency to pile up in front of my two acrylic earring holders until I bite the bullet and re-hang them. This morning, after doing my usual Saturday morning stuff (shopping list, comics ordering, pill organizing for the coming week), I decided to tackle said earrings, with a twist. I made up my mind to get rid of all the ones I have no intention of nor desire to wear again. All the chunky ones, many of the heavier post earrings (I much prefer danglies), even the Batman hoops I used to wear during my convention-going days, all tied up in a green jewelry pouch and ready to... well, I don't know exactly. I hate throwing things out but I'm not sure putting these in my local Buy Nothing group is even worth it. In any case, I wanted to reward myself for a work week and earring job well done, and my Kura coupons expired today, so off we went for a lovely sushi lunch, followed by a relaxing afternoon. My hallux hardly hurts (Hereford Hartford and Hampshire) at present, which is a good thing as I carefully worked on lessening the callous last night. Hoping tonight's shower helps as well. And I managed to get on the bike again after a few days off, so that's good as well!

Silly Site o' the Day

The holiday table is festooned! So far the only edibles on it are the mince pies and Christmas puddings I purchased online from the British Food Depot, but we've decided to do a bit of holiday grocery shopping tomorrow (now that the leftovers have been largely consumed and there's room in the fridge) so who knows what we'll find. My knee is just about 100% again, I actually climbed both flights upstairs like a normal person so I'm much less exhausted than I was taking every single one of the 28 steps at a time. We'll see how it goes with driving and supermarket strolling tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm in the mood for some holiday beauty, so let's start with some magical eyelids, shall we?

Silly Site o' the Day

What a spectacular weekend. We decided to take a different route to Reading, down the NJ Turnpike to the PA turnpike to state roads, so much better than previous journeys down that one-lane not-so-super highway. I was a little disappointed at the prospect of not seeing enough nature down the turnpikes, but I needn't have worried - along both NJ and PA it seemed to be peak foliage, and the trees were absolutely gorgeous for the entire two and a half hour trip each way. We stayed at a lovely hotel in a not-so-lovely bed so I didn't get the sleep I would have liked, but Anna's company and the activities (we petted alpacas!) more than made up for it. On the way back we even spotted tons of hawks flying amongst the trees. Really majestic and very cool. But as I had to keep my eyes on the road I didn't really look for shapes in the clouds like this guy who likes to illustrate them (via Brand Flakes for Breakfast).

Silly Site o' the Day

Whew! I feel like the weight of the world is off my shoulders. I finally activated a new smartphone, with Robin's help, and it's like going from the Dark Ages into the Renaissance. All the apps from my old smartphone that used to have to go on an SD card now fit on my new phone with tons and tons of room to spare. And the battery doesn't wear down constantly, and actually recharges while the phone's on! Really, I can't believe how much I was struggling with the old one, all to save a measly $10 extra on my monthly charge (and, um, the cost of the new phone, it must be said). So I'm an extremely happy camper now. And my car passed its yearly inspection, and the Olympics are still going on. I think. I mean, I tuned in tonight only to find an hour-long Brokaw-narrated documentary on World War II. As I wrote on my Facebook page, "not only has NBC decided to not bring us so many Olympic events live, but they spend a half hour in prime time yesterday with a 'Dream Team' documentary and a full hour tonight on WWII and Hilter v London? Yeah, nothing gets me in the mood for men's platform diving like a stroll through memory lane featuring the Blitz. Way to foster the spirit of international harmony and cooperation through sport, NBC!" Will someone please make an Untergang meme video of this outrage? Thank you. In the meantime, if you're Olympic'ed out, you might want to try Olwimpics, the Olympics blocker (via BoingBoing). How can I be sick of the Olympics if NBC never seems to show them properly? Now if you'll excuse me, it's back to my smartphone!

Official Spring 2011 Blossom Post

These are all the spring photos I posted below plus the ones I took today at VE Macy Park in Ardsley. This is the first time I've uploaded a Flickr set of mine that's playable as a slide show (except if you're Mom in the Land of Dial-Up, of course). I tried to be somewhat amusing with the captions so I'd suggest, if you have the capacity, that you click the Play button and then the icon at lower right with the arrows to view it at full size, then turn on Show Info toward the upper right of the frame to read the captions and descriptions.



Thanks again to Robin, who happened to remark, "Say, did you know you can upload directly from iPhoto into Flickr?," making the creation of this set and slideshow that much easier.

First Fall Foliage Footage

So we went to Bear Mountain today, and all we got were a few photos. Their so-called Oktoberfest was a little lacking, and the famed Bear Mountain Inn was closed for renovations, so we pretty much just walked around Hessian Lake and the carousel and snapped some pictures. Not that much more foliage up in the Rockland County mountains than down here in the big bad city. Here are a couple short videos I shot:





Still photos to come. For whatever reason the strolling and the drive exhausted me more than I thought it would.

Repurposed

I've given up on the Earamid. It's pretty but just not practical. Got me a couple acrylic earring holders, much better for both post and hook type earrings. Just the thing after my major jewelry-shopping with my coworkers on Friday. Here it is with everything hung up on it:



Meanwhile, I've taken the plastic thingie that my supervisor gave me, fitted it with some tiny curtain hooks Rob had in his toolkit, and created something on which to hang my combo necklace-earring sets:



I also organized my health insurance files yesterday; still a lot to throw away before I can close the accordion file properly, but at least it's all in categories now. And I've located my most recent eyeglass prescription, so there's a bonus. Now, on to this weekend's ironing!