Sunday Sundry - Vol. 51

Can you believe I've been doing these Sunday Sundry posts for a year already?  Wow, time does fly!

Friends, I am so tired right now, having worked two of my jobs for a chunk of the day, that I'm not sure I can make sense anymore this evening.  And yet here I am, so I guess we'll give it a go.  This will be particularly random.  In fact, perhaps I will just do a list of 10 various and sundry things, in no particular order.

1.  My African violets are so blooming happy right now!  I just ignore them, maybe water once every 7-10 days, and they do what they do.  Awesome!

2.  Something else that made me happy this week was this post about the Veggie Market Quilt over at Three Old Keys.  I loved her writeup about it!  The auction is slated to happen on eBay in January, with the proceeds going to Japan quake relief.

3.   How many episodes of Parks and Recreation does it take to put a single string of 100-bulbs on a 4-foot pre-lit tree which is no longer pre-lit?  Two.  And two not-at-all-enthused older adults to share a pair of needle nose pliers to cut and twist the pre-lits off, and attempt (twice) to wind the new ones on. If it weren't for Ron Swanson and Andy Dwyer to distract us with comedy, we'd have been in a foul mood.

Did you know that pre-lit just means some worker in China did what we did in probably under 60 seconds on a moving assembly line, fastening every other bulb to a branch with the equivalent of super-strong green plastic bread closure tabs and lightning fast reflexes?  Yep, you can probably Google it.

4.   I just found this picture on my computer as I was uploading Ron Swanson above.  It's from Christmas 1982.  That's my brother Russ and I in my parents' kitchen, back when he had hair and we both had perms.  I love this picture.

5.  That blouse I was wearing reminds me that I've always liked that color red.  In fact, I just bought a red wool coat from JCP.  All the reviews said the sleeves ran super long...meaning I could hold out hope that it might fit my monkey arms.  And it did—score!

Then I scoured the internets for a black and white houndstooth scarf to go with it, because that neckline makes me cold just looking at it.  It is the land of frozen tundra here, folks (and how about those Green Bay Packers, hey? 13-0!).  I found and ordered this one from Amazon.com.

6.  A coworker's Americauna chickens started laying and she gave me one of the first dozen.  Their eggs are such a beautiful shade of pale blue-green, almost a cement color.  This picture makes them look more brown than they are.  Sorry, it's late and I had to use flash.

7.  A really good movie just out on DVD now is called The Debt, starring Helen Mirren.  It's a suspenseful tale of espionage that flashes between the mid-1960s and 1990s.  I was really into the story.  It's probably one of the best movies I've seen in awhile.  (Yes, better than Twilight: Breaking Dawn, and I can't believe I just said that.)

8.  Speaking of vampires, I started the audiobook Dead Until Dark on Friday, and ugh.  I.So.Don't.Care.  A lot of people loved these books, and the "True Blood" TV series is based on them, I believe.  But meh.  For one thing, the reader, who is female, makes every male character sound exactly the same, flat, monotone, and uninteresting.  The story takes place in Louisiana, and the reader affects an inauthentic sounding accent for the heroine, Sookie Stackhouse, that also puts me off.  I will finish the book, however, while I'm waiting for a Lee Child audiobook to come in at the library.  Maybe it gets better [edited to add: it did] , but I have a feeling I may be done with vampire stories, unless Stephenie Meyer writes another one.

9.  Here's a handy household tip for using batting scraps.  I cut mine into rectangular pieces about 5 x 10 inches and use them as dust cloths or cleaning rags.  They work great wet or dry.

10.  Young the Giant is a new music discovery for me.  Here's one I like.

 
Have a good week, all!