Being Thankful

Free Fonts (monthly) at Outside the Line

Wow.  Outside -the -Line, written by Rae, Justine and Nancy V., offers a free font of the month if you sign up for their monthly newsletter.

Here is the example page of their November font give away, called Holiday Doodles, found at this webpage.

A fun new free toy to work with !!

Happy Birthday to the Husband

Today marks another birthday for my husband. 

The dogs in our house gave him several presents: a box of fish crackers (they really like them), a pair of boxer shorts with dogs on them, and a new dog toy already named "Gramps" by the maufacturer:

Gramps has a cane, a hat, squeaks when you touch him on his belly, and comes with an attitude. Just like my husband when he takes the dogs on their daily walk!!

CharmingPetProducts put this on the label:

Grampa Gimpy Hip was born in the old country, although he can't quite recall which country that was exactly.  Most of his day is spent entertaining young chicken whippersnappers with stories of yesteryear, the vast majority of which are wildly inaccurate and historically impossible...(more)

This is my 500th post, and it seemed proper to mark it with Gene's birthday.

The Falling Leaves

My blogger friend Alina at the purple caravan showed this picture first.  I grabbed it.

Image from Bing

Here is some music to go along with it:



Knitting Conversation with Frida Kahlo



Frida Kahlo



(Nancy)

Graphic assistance and creativity by brother Chuck McCarroll.

The Sound of Onions Frying

I've become interested in sounds, thanks to Felix at her PhD blogsite.  She is studying sounds in Oxford, England.  She says, in part:

I am studying for my PhD at Oxford Brookes University. My PhD title is ‘The Domestic Soundscape and presenting everyday sounds to audiences,’ and my major interest is in our imaginative relationship with everyday sounds. I think of sound in a very material way, as a substance which is around us all the time, and a texture which can be played with, deliberately listened-to, framed, and celebrated.

I think the world would feel completely different without the constant wash of traffic, the chorus of birdsong, the snap of twigs when one walks in the woods, the happy pops that emanate from an open fire, the comforting drone of a boiler heating the house in Winter, the bubble of a stew when one is hungry, and the rasp of toast as it is being buttered. I love the busy murmur of the streets on a Saturday morning, the aggressive banging and hissing of a really good espresso machine in a coffee house, the pinging of pedestrian light-systems signalling that it is safe to cross a road, the strange noise my car makes when I drive over a cattle-grid, and the sizzle of pylons in a rainstorm.

Saturday nights are a favorite radio listening date night for my husband and me since we listen to Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion (PHC).  And this sound is one which makes me happy (click on arrow to listen):


Why does it make me smile?  Because the opening song for many productions of PHC contains the lyric "I smell the onions, I look around for you."  It is a familiar phrase, and I have been known to sing along with it as my husband often sautes some onions for a dinner sauce.

Go to the London Favorite Sounds website for more information about sounds.  (The project is also being carried out in Chicago, USA, Berlin, Germany and Bejing, China).

All 33 Miners Rescued in Chile

All Chilean miners were rescued by last night.  One miner said  "I met God.  I met the Devil. God won."

Sunday's Thought

Love your neighbor as thyself.

Photographs at Summer's End

SIL Jack has some great pictures on his Flickr account.  He sent one on email yesterday, so I'll show it along with some others from our garden.  (Go here to see more of Jack's photographs.)

This is a volunteer sunflower growing alongside morning glories.

These morning glories are also volunteers from seeds sown several years ago.

Can you see the spider web to the right of the head of the plastic iguana below?

This summer, 12 yellow finches were eating from their feeder at the same time!  Below, four were caught on camera a bit later

It feels like autumn in Colorado, although we still have three weeks of summer left.

Sistene Chapel Ceiling in Cross Stitch

This cross stitch of the Sistene Chapel ceiling by Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts took 2868 hours to complete.

From Concept to Creation is the website where information can be obtained about the background of this amazing project.

Extreme Craft posts this:

Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts is clearly touched. Think of the craft project that you spent the longest on. I once spent a solid month doing a single ceramic piece, and felt preeeeeeetty pleased with myself. Ms. Lopianowski-Roberts, a resident of Junction, Texas, spent a whopping 2,800 hours (over ten years) working on a cross-stitch reproduction of Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel Ceiling. That's almost 117 solid DAYS of work! The entire masterpiece measures 40 inches by 80 inches...

Too Hot to Pant

Weather today in Dallas from this site:   Mostly Sunny High 105°F

(Thank you, Ronn, for this picture)

New Tricks TV Serial

Being big fans of Netflix and BBC Television, the better half found a BBC television series called New Tricks.  The link from Wikipedia is here.  It gives a rundown of the stars, background of the show, etc.

The most interesting parts of the show IMHO (we saw just the first one hr. premier) were: 1) all the characters were at LEAST sixty years old; 2) the main character, Amanda Redman, is a woman with a few extra pounds on here, quite bright without being too cynical; and 3) the catchy lyrics in the theme song.

Take a look and listen:



The lyrics go something like this:

It's alright, it's OK, doesn't really matter if you're old and grey.
It's alright, it's OK, listen to what I say.
It's alright, doing fine, doesn't really matter if the sun don't shine.
It's alright, it's OK, make it the end of the day.
Hi-tech, low-tech take your pick, you can't teach an old dog a brand new trick.
I don't care what anybody says.  (Dennis Waterman)

This BBC series is a testament to all invisible older women:

Aside from the recent Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, there is a general absence of older women used in advertising, signifying a cultural obsession with youth and beauty, and reflecting a societal contempt for older women, affecting their self-esteem, and encouraging younger women to become petrified of ageing.

This is the finding of research by Dr Lauren Rosewarne of the University of Melbourne which looks at the portrayal of older people, and especially older women, in advertising. Her research will be presented on Thursday 6 July 2006, at the Annual Conference for Psychology Specialists Working with Older People (PSIGE) - part of The British Psychological Society - at the University of Sussex.

After analysing 177 outdoor advertisements, Dr Rosewarne found that less than four percent of the female characters that appeared were portrayed as being over 30 years old, and none were portrayed as being over 66 years of age. It was also noted that when older women are portrayed in advertising, their presentation is vastly different from that of younger women, with older women often being cast in stereotypical and negative roles such as the nagging mother-in-law, or brothel madam.

The research suggests that instead of being due to aspirational marketing strategies that don’t deem the older woman a figure of ambition, the absence is actually demonstrating the function of advertising as a mirror to society. While the mirror fails to be reflective of real age distribution in society, it is successful at reflecting contemporary societal contempt for older women more broadly.

Detective Chief Superintendant Sandra Pullman (Amanda Redman) is my new hero.

Crocheted Smart Car

But would it go through a car wash and not have its drawers drooping?

Flickr user, Start the Day, shares this fun sight caught out on the streets of Rome.

Faces in the Garden

Today's blog title was unabashedly stolen taken from a similar post by a fellow blogger who writes Awake with Charm & Spirit.  Please go to her link and see some beautiful photography in her garden.  I would show it here, but it is copyrighted.

Kiki's posting back in June made me think of the many faces in my garden, so with digital camera in hand, I searched  in my garden early yesterday morning.  This is what I found:

A Mother Mouse and Baby in a pot of flowers on the patio, and this:

A turtle and a toadstool in with ground cover.  And,

this Laughing Girl was with some marigolds was right out in plain sight.

In fact, I found so many faces (and even forgot to take a picture of the rooster's face on the weathervane), that I made this video of  Faces in the Garden:

Music: " Heavenly Day" by Patty Griffin

Happy Rush Day to the Blogging Sisterhood

According to Some Days are Diamonds, the sisterhood has almost 150 Bloggerettes from all over the world.  Join us!

Go here to visit women's blogs from around the world.

Nancy, Colorado, USA

Repurposing Used Books

Found this here the day AFTER I took a huge load of books to Goodwill:

There must have been a lot of glue involved.

Happiness is Cultivated

if you want to cut to the chase, go to about the 1.30 minutes into the video...

Confessions of a Jewish Mother:



At point 6.20 minutes, the secret is revealed....

Sisterhood - Rush to be in the Group!

Want to be part of the Blogger Sisterhood?  Some Days are Diamonds, a blog authored by Karen, is having a virtual party.  That means that Karen is inviting everyone to a Blogger Sorority Rush Party.

Here are the rules:

Take this picture:

Some Days says:

take the picture and create something with it. A banner, a hanging, an ATC,a piece of jewelry, a tag, a card . . . anything! Print the picture and place it in a frame - it doesn't have to be fancy! Just use your imagination. The possibilities are endless.You have inspiration all around you. After all . . . that's what our blogs do - they inspire us. This can be as simple or as elaborate as you like. Then take a picture of your creation.

There are no rules.

Well - except one. You must be in the picture too. You can always take a self-portrait in a mirror.Because we all want to see who our "Sisters" are!  Then post your picture the day of our Sorority party on Friday - June 25, 2010

Sounds like fun, eh?

Here is my contribution, shown before the deadline!

Tip of the Day

If you can't be a good example,  you'll have to be a horrible warning - Catherine Aird

Dolls Carved from Soap

A friend sent a PowerPoint slideshow that is amazing. Amazing because each doll has been crafted from a bar of soap. See below for the first slide in the series.

Here is the link to the slideshow of  15 intricately crafted soap dolls in its entirety:

 French Dolls in Soap