happy birthday willie.

me and you...well...we are getting old.

peep show

This is really dated but I had to share. The Washington Post held their first Peeps diorama contest earlier this month. The winning diorama was a peeped-out spoof of "Diamonds are a girl's best friend." Fun...fun.

home is where the heart is...

i recently checked out the book "apartment therapy." the book is written by the guy who runs www.apartmentherapy.com. here is a little about the book -

"From not enough space and too many things to not knowing what color to paint the living room walls, many of us struggle with our homes. Now Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, frequent makeover expert on HGTV’s Mission: Organization and Small Spaces, Big Style, shares the do-it-yourself strategies that have enabled his clients and fans to transform their apartments into well-organized, beautiful places that suit their style and budget.

Week by week, Apartment Therapy will guide you to treat common problems, eliminate clutter, and revamp even the tiniest space. Here is an eight-step process that includes:

• A therapeutic questionnaire to help you get in touch with your personal taste and diagnose your home’s physical, emotional, and energy flow issues
• A prescription with recommendations for each room based on your needs and lifestyle–including tips on how to use color, lighting, and accessories
• A treatment plan, including regular maintenance schedules to ensure the ongoing health of your space
• Illustrations of floor plans and decorative examples that allow you to visualize concepts before you begin

With surprising ease and without elaborate professional help, Apartment Therapy will help you clear a path through disorder and indecision–to reveal a home you’ll love."

i've known about the blog for quite some time and have always been interested. it's funny because i very much believe that your environment affects you. whether you are in a cube, stuffy old house or bland school...you are affected by your surroundings. yet, i do very little to make sure my home makes me happy. between having limited disposable income (or at least after buying my thrift store finds and eating out), not knowing how to fix anything and simply laziness...i do little to better my home and often don't enjoy it. so i'm taking some steps to change that behavior or at least reading a book about it.

but the point of my post is...www.apartmenttherapy.com has a yearly contest for the smallest, coolest apartment. wow...people do some creative things. granted i don't live in a small apartment in a big city but i'm always amazed by people's creative. anyway, just passing it along - i figure we can all use a little inspiration.

me? a worry wart?

so the red flashing light...apparently it was telling me that my car was low on coolant because my water pump was leaking, therefore overheating my engine. sigh. $400. i know worrying doesn't help but i'm about to buy my ticket for the worry train.

image stolen.

saturday, april 21

so i think i needed to take a blog break. decompress a little. honestly, i was annoying myself. whining a lot, setting goals, not meeting goals, feeling nutty, telling you how nutty i felt...it was just getting old and depressing.

but i'm back today with a few comments/thoughts about my saturday.

• i went for a walk this morning. a lovely day really except for the 50mph winds...but on a positive note the winds made the walk about 50x harder than it normally would be.
  
• i saw a man smoke a cigarette while walking at the lake today.
• i think i saw a hooker at sally beauty supply. don't ask why i was there.
• my house is falling apart and we are the dumbest home repair people...seriously we can't fix anything. here's a list of things currently broken or only partially working. my oven (not the stovetop, just the baking part), my garbage disposal, a toilet (it is running every so often which means something is not right), my bedroom ceiling fan (we have a remote and it's not working and so i can't control the ceiling fan unless i disable the remote which requires taking the fan apart), and most importantly my air conditioner. oh and one other thing a flashing red light keeps coming on in my car so let's add the car to the list.
  
• despite the many broken things i'm doing ok.
• i love "this american life"
• last year at this time i was run/walking about 4-5 miles a day training for the half-marathon. this year i'm 5lbs heavier and can barely make myself exercise...and for some reason this makes me laugh.
  
• i really need to start buying compact fluorescent light bulbs...all this earth day talk has me feeling very irresponsible. i don't remember earth day being such a big media thing in the past. so i wonder...did al and his fancy pants movie start all of this?
  

happy weekending. recycle something.

wtf?

Fruity cocktails count as health food, study finds

Thu Apr 19, 7:41 PM ET

A fruity cocktail may not only be fun to drink but may count as health food, U.S. and Thai researchers said on Thursday.

Adding ethanol -- the type of alcohol found in rum, vodka, tequila and other spirits -- boosted the antioxidant nutrients in strawberries and blackberries, the researchers found.

Any colored fruit might be made even more healthful with the addition of a splash of alcohol, they report in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

Dr. Korakot Chanjirakul and colleagues at Kasetsart University in Thailand and scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture stumbled upon their finding unexpectedly.

They were exploring ways to help keep strawberries fresh during storage. Treating the berries with alcohol increased in antioxidant capacity and free radical scavenging activity, they found.

Any colored fruit or vegetable is rich in antioxidants, which are chemicals that can cancel out the cell-damaging effects of compounds called free radicals.

Berries, for instance, contain compounds known as polyphenols and anthocyanins. People who eat more of these fruits and vegetables have a documented lower risk of cancer, heart disease and some neurological diseases.

The study did not address whether adding a little cocktail umbrella enhanced the effects.

still here...barely...

i'm very interested in this book.

taken from amazon.com -
From Publishers Weekly
It could be the pilot script for a sitcom: a pastor hires an atheist to help him critique several Christian churches throughout the United States. For the authors, however, this experiment was no joke. Henderson, a veteran Protestant minister, truly believes that evangelism requires listening to the good, the bad and the ugly about Christianity in order to be a better minister. So he hired Casper, an atheist copywriter and musician, to serve as "fresh eyes" and observe how a variety of Christians engage the Divine through worship. Their travels took them to a mission-minded church, an Emergent church and to Joel Osteen's megachurch, among others. In the book, Henderson peppers his partner with questions about each service, and Casper comments on everything from preaching to music to the geographical location of the churches. The take-home point, which is simultaneously simple, profound and of great importance to Christianity is, "Why are there such glaring discrepancies among churches regarding what it means to be a follower of Christ?" The two authors include some banal dialogue at times, but this is a minor distraction. Anyone interested in contemporary evangelism, especially pastors, will enjoy and learn from this humorous and heartening travelogue. (Apr.)

i'm still here.

“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”
- Freya Stark

i think this photo is lovely so i stole it.

i think i'm on a hiatus...

i'm not sure why but blogging doesn't interest me right now.

i'm sure i'll be back soon.