My Great Grandmother's Spice Rack

Sunday Morning

Flooding at Gaylord

Over the weekend Nashville had devastating floods that ripped through and destroyed many landmarks and tourist attraction in addition to taking lives. These are some pictures of the flood damage to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and mall.

Weekend is almost over :-(

Why?

Elin Nordegren is planning to return home. Sources say that this is strictly going to be a platonic partnership, she is doing it for their children and for his sponsors. Apparently they are more likely to take him back if the family unit appears to be intact because that's what the American people like to see. Personally, I think the guy is a jerk for having as many, many, many, many, less than desirable partners that he had as side dishes for the past few years, but I liked him because of his skills on the green, not his devotion to his wife. Yeah it sucks that the guy is an ass but he is one hell of a golfer. I don't understand why his handlers think it would be better for him to put on a farce to satisfy everybody. Sure the image of them staying intact may provide comfort and solace to those who are really heartbroken by his family man image being tarnished but I think I would take more comfort in a strong woman walking away. Irregardless of what happens, I will still watch Tiger play.

More Old Louisville

Old Louisville

I went to the St. James Art Festival this weekend in Louisville, KY. I am so glad that I did because I got to see some absolutely breathtaking architecture. I love restored old buildings!

Pondering the existence of a "soul mate"

I wonder if people really do have a soul mate. That one person that will compliment your life in ways you never anticipated it being complimented. I’ve never felt like I have met someone who could fit that bill for me and I don’t think I’m the only person who hasn’t. Sure I’ve been in love before but the whole time I knew that they were not who I considered to be my Prince Charming. Never a love so strong I felt as if I would take a bullet for them, that if they were gone from my life I would stop breathing. Some people never meet that one person they completely mesh with. They may marry and grow old with someone and they may in fact love them but they essentially just settled, holding true to the engrained belief that truly meeting the love of your life and having them captivate your heart is the stuff of fairy tales. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. Personally I’ve never met anyone that took my breath away the instant I first saw them, knowing from the moment that I locked eyes with them from across a crowded room that this was it. I have never felt like I was missing anything because of this and I’ve never felt particularly envious of those that had experienced those feelings. Honestly I have only crossed paths with a few people who have experienced this. The majority met their spouses in high school or college then went through the motions expected of marriage and children, watching them grow and leave the nest and then diligently watching their 401k until retirement. My older friends are currently at the retirement phase, my young friends are at the beginning of the journey but it’s essentially going to be the same resolution at the end. This doesn’t seem like living life to the fullest. I think that I would rather have just one day with someone that gave me the feelings described above; realizing that they were the one and no one would ever touch my life in that way again. Even if it was just for that one day, it would be better than spending a lifetime going through the motions expected by society with someone that may love me more than anything but they just aren’t that magic piece of the puzzle that is my life.

And along came a spider......

An unfriendly looking cloud

View from my favorite park

Saturday August 22, 2009

The weather was absolutely perfect yesterday! The temperature was in the seventies and the breeze was blowing just right. I stayed outside for five hours taking pictures around my house and reading my book, which I've almost finished now and I love it!

More of downtown Nashville

Starting out with Roland

I am a huge Stephen King fan. Huge doesn’t even begin to describe it. I would go so far as to say that I’m his number one fan if I didn’t think it would conjure up the vision of me as an overweight nurse who collects ceramics and the occasional injured writer in the minds those of you who actually read my blog. I have read most all of his books. I could even tell you the differences in his writing before his accident and his writing after if you were so inclined to listen. Some of his books I’ve even reread. I have an original The Shining hardcover first edition from that I can easily say is one of my most treasured collector’s items. He is really the only fiction reader I enjoy reading, any other books I read are usually non fiction since I’m a major knowledge junkie. There has only been one thing he’s written that I never even bothered trying to read, The Dark Tower series. It just never appealed to me. I don’t know why but I just couldn’t bring myself to start it, perhaps knowing it was an epic and realizing I’d have to wait for the next one to come out which with my patience level is not a good thing. I’m so bad about not wanting to wait for the conclusion to anything, books or television shows that since the days of TiVo I simply record the season finale of my favorite shows and wait to watch it until the next season’s first episode is released so I get to see the resolution to any plot mysteries that crept up in the prior episode. On top of hearing that the story was told against a mystic, western background I just didn’t really want to even try to read it. However, a few weeks ago I stumbled upon a story that was in a collection of short stories, one of the better collections of his short stories in my opinion, Everything’s Eventual, called the Little Sisters of Eluria. I read the foreword to it that it was part of the Dark Tower series. I read it simply because it was just another story in the book, after finishing it though I was thoroughly impressed and couldn’t believe what I had been avoiding all of these years. I was rather embarrassed that I had the audacity to say that I was a huge Stephen King fan when I hadn’t even bothered a glance at his epic saga. Perhaps it was meant to be that I wouldn’t stumble across it until this late date, because he did not finish the series until after his accident and I would have worked my self into an aneurysm or stroke waiting for the saga to conclude. I shall start the saga today and I have purchased all of the books from beginning to end so I won’t have to make an interruption between books to drive to the bookstore. I don't think I will be disappointed.

Downtown Nashville

View from pedestrian bridge

It's just around the corner......

I can’t wait for the season to change. Fall will not get here soon enough. My absolute favorite time of year is from mid Sept through early November. If I could pick any month to stay in forever it would be October, and not just because my birthday is on Halloween. The weather is perfect, the leaves are changing, and there is nothing I love better than sitting on my deck, reading a book while an autumn breeze blows against my skin.

Fluorescent, not sparkling....

It’s been quite awhile since I last blogged. I don’t really have a good reason why. I’m still following politics and the news just as intently as ever, just haven’t been much up to putting my two cents in about it all. Sarah Palin walked away from her post, not really walking away from a life of politics but instead to focus all of her energy on attaining a much higher political position a few years from now. I don’t think she’s going to be a shrinking violet fading back into a life of domesticity. Michael Jackson died. To say that was a big event would be an understatement. I can’t even think of a word to describe it. From his mock marriage to Debbie Rowe to the scary dermatologist that I wouldn’t even let close enough to me to remove a skin tag the whole situation is so crazy that it seems like it can’t be reality, yet it is. I’ve had a lot of projects that I’ve been working on this summer, some I’ve grown quite accustomed to (gardening) and some that are new (making jewelry and sewing). This has kept my attention pretty focused. I’ve also spent as much time as possible outdoors, in the hopes of becoming perhaps a darker shade, one resembling the tint of an actual human instead of a corpse, which just resulted in going from a shade of white to off white and developing a spitz nevus on my shoulder that I have to get surgically removed. I don’t know why I’ve been stuck with such pale skin. When Twilight came out and the actors in it were so pale I thought maybe the pasty white look would be trendy but I soon came to the realization that if sparkling in sunlight doesn’t accompany it then it isn’t that impressive. Sigh.

Greetings from Jurassic Park

On the way to Louisville, KY 4/7/09

Cyber Cop

If you have some idle time on your hands and want to do something constructive you can log onto www.blueservo.net and monitor the US/Mexican border. No joke. If you see suspicious activity you are supposed to report it. This takes Big Brother to a whole new level. Bored with Tivo? Become a cyber cop and bust a Mexican! The only requirement to do so is a valid email address to register (although I'm sure current members of any white supremacy group are strongly encouraged to apply). I wonder if you have the ability to speak into your webcam and have it broadcast on a loud speaker at the border. "HEY! I see you, the border patrol's on their way Pedro! You stop-oh now-oh!. Hang on a second, damn screensaver popped up again." Next they will be working on sonar with a live feed so bored civilians at home can do their part and watch for Cubans trying to make it to American soil, meanwhile Cuba will do their part to place GPS in any inner tubes and infant floaties they sell.

Where's Charlton Heston when you need him?

Chinese has managed to poison some more of their people with tainted food once again. I'm beginning to think that a conspiracy is going on. Poison in the baby formula, toxic paint on the toys, food with pesticide type chemicals.......China is filled with many intelligent people so to be this stupid and careless can't be an accident. I'm beginning to think this is a form of population control. First they started with the one child per family rule, now they are weeding out the population via other methods. Think about it. Those most susceptible to food poisoning are the elderly, those immunocompromised, and children. They are getting the elderly pushed into the ground that much sooner via tainted food, same with those that are sick, and those pesky little girl infants they don't like are exterminated as well via formula (or toys just in case mom is breastfeeding). This is perhaps China's stimulus recovery idea. Of course, there is another idea for population control all together. Remember Solyent Green? Wait a minute, they may have already thought of this..........

Homeless Octo Mom

A foreclosure notice was served on the residence where Nadya Suleman plans to raise her litter of children. She somehow managed to leave out this little detail when she was being interviewed. Not only will she be sucking up tax payer’s money via welfare, she probably will also try to benefit from the stimulus package with this. I thought her mother owned the house? This story just gets shadier every time it’s discussed because some new little detail pops up. She did mention that she was going to have to get a better house, so in her little messed up world inside her head it may make sense to her to just stop paying the mortgage on the current one. I remember a story I heard once about this old lady that had a bunch of children. She didn’t suck off of the taxpayers like a leach though, she just moved into a really big shoe.

Diabolique for Dummies

Thanks again to JB for yet another news story that I would have missed otherwise. A 41 yr old transexual female named Christine Newton-John exercised her 73 yr old husband to death. She accomplished this by dragging him through a pool and refusing to allow him to get out of the pool thus resulting in a heart attack, apparently right in front of a surveillance camera. I would think that a 73 yr old man is so close to death anyway that perhaps she could have thought of a way to make his death look more natural and perhaps choose a more private locale for the murder instead of right in front of a f#%&ing camera! Interestingly enough the local authorities haven’t figured out her motive. Hmmmm….let’s think about this for a minute, she’s 41, he’s 73, she’s a trophy transexual and chances are good she has a life insurance policy on him. Although I highly doubt she will see any of those benefits since she decided to off him in front of a f#*%ing camera.