Thursday, August 21, 2008

The World Needs the Pack Rats

Many years ago I read The Agony and and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone. It is the fictionalized biography of Michelangelo. I loved it. I was thinking about the book a while back and thought I would see what other books Stone had written. Which proved to be my downfall. I wanted to read several but all except one was out of print. So, I started trolling the used book stores on line.


I found everything I was looking for at a used book store in St. Cloud, MN called Books Revisited. I have ordered books from them before. And one day I will head out there to check out the store. St. John's University is there and it is one of my favorite college campuses. Not to mention the best college football games in the nation. It's an all boys school so the cheerleaders are boys. And the monks that live there sell amazing bread.





Anyway, back to the point of all this: If it wasn't for the pack rats of this world we may not have the ability to find some of these out of print items. The book I am currently reading is Lust for Life which is the tale of Van Gogh. The book that I ordered is a beautiful hardback printed in 1953. It has wonderful illustrations through the book.

And because I am now curious to see more of Van Gogh's work I went to my book shelves to see if the art books my parents gave me included his collection. Sure enough:I also picked up Origin - A biographical novel of Charles Darwin. And Passions of the Mind - A novel of Sigmund Freud

Both the hubster and I are pack rats which gets to be a problem as I see my house fill up more and more. But it's times like these when I am glad we don't chuck everything. With the internet we could easily have decided to donate the art book collection to the library but since I am of the age when we still looked information up in books and used a library card catalog I just couldn't bring myself to toss such beautiful reference resources.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

WWC

Bitter
Bitter Lemon - my favorite treat from Germany
and a Sweet glass I found for the hubster


Sweet


Sweet Pup

The new camera takes Sweet pictures of the moon

Monday, August 18, 2008

Weekend Recap

We went to Renaissance Festival on Saturday. The Hubster added to my collection of works by Randal Spangler. This one is titled "So many books So little time" I have 4 prints now from this artist. All of them are from his dragons and books collection.

This is a shot I took a few weeks back and forgot to take off the camera. It had such a dreamy quality to it.
We buy a vacuum and look who enjoys the packaging:

Friday, August 15, 2008

Just Scattered

I have a deadline at work that might kill me

I feel like summer is rapidly approaching its deadline

I haven't seen my front yard in weeks let alone watered it or weeded it

Lord knows if I have any plants left

My house hasn't been cleaned in months

I don't even know where my dining room table is

Rumor has it we own one

For that matter, I'm not sure where any clean underwear are either

There is something in the fridge that smells really bad

But considering there is nothing but condiments in there I don't even know where to start looking

I have several WWC pictures on my computer

Somewhere

For what week I no longer know

I have stuff I would like to blog about

Blogs I would like to read

But deadlines are looming

Like big ugly monsters with giant sharp teeth

If I didn't love my job

I'd be playing in the freeway right now

The children are coming

There is no bed for them to sleep in

Gotta clean

Gotta pick up and put away

Gotta gotta gotta

I must sound scattered

Maybe a little stressed

A little over a month from now I will hit my deadline

Will I coast into it?

Or do a head on at 70?

I guess we will see..................

But also

I have a print out on my desk that tells me that 82 days from now

I can breathe

I can relax

I can spend time with a very good friend

I can meet a very good friend for the very first time

And we can celebrate

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Our weekend up north and a question



Monday I had an email from my boss. Tragically he lost his son during labor. We had been receiving messages from him updating us all on the progress but late Friday the messages stopped. We all assumed they were celebrating the arrival of their son and hadn't had time yet to update us. I mean, we are after all just the co-workers. But sadly we learned why there was silence for so long.

On Wednesday they had a beautiful service for him. Their church is huge, modern, and absolutely beautiful. The congregation resides in the wealthiest 20 mile radius in the state. And the size of this new church and all its amenities shows it.

Which leads me to my question. At what point in modern times did it become acceptable to wear shorts, flip flops, and dirty stained t-shirts to church. Actually to a funeral for cry'n out loud???

Where has our sense of decorum gone? Is it simply a case that if we can get the freak'n kids into a church we don't care what they wear? Just so long as they are there? I mean seriously folks. Would it kill them to put on a pair of pants and a button down shirt for 1 lousy hour? Or for the girls to wear a skirt that actually covers her underwear????

What am I missing? Am I that out of touch? What happened to Sunday best?

And what is wrong with parents these days?

I'd love to hear from you.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

WWC

So, it should have been a no brainer, but it took till I was loading my pictures for the week for me to come up with the ultimate High and Low. Well, at least as far as this chick is concerned. I mean, true Newtness would allow no other picture:

High
Low
(Oh, wait, I don't do low)
**********
And now, the pictures I took before it dawned on me the Newtness of this weeks WWC
High and Low - balance of nature
(ok, this didn't come out as good as I planned but there is a bird on the roof and a cat in the grass)

High

Low