Haiku Friday 1/30/09

俳句の金曜日

(click pics to enlarge)

State of Grace

About a week ago, dear Lotus invited me over to Grace in Small Things. I'd never heard of it, but I immediately fell in love with it, and I've been doing one quick and dirty blog post over there each day since. Each post is a short little snapshot of something that crossed my mind that day for which I am grateful. There are just so very many things, really. Even on a truly terrible day there is at least one thing that is good. Often it's just a matter of remembering to remember. For many years in my life I had reason to remember pretty much daily, and it's kind of nice to be back in the habit again. It's not that I'm farting sunshine and pansies with the fresh scent of spring drying on the line, but it does kind of feel that way for just a moment when I stop to take the time to smile, and that's way better than the not so fresh feeling that comes from focusing on the negatives with poopy pants.

If you haven't been over there and think you might be interested, come check it out! There are a lot of great people over there, and you are welcome to start any time and do your thing however you'd like, whether a list of 5 things each day or a little blurb about one or whatever makes you smile.

If you want to add my Grace in Small Things posts to your reader instead of bouncing all over the place to read my drivel, this is the link for the RSS feed.

Off to smile.

A is for...

Wonderful Shadow over at 1 Door Away From Heaven assigned me the letter "A" to play along with the 10 favorite things about a random letter game. If you'd like a letter to play along, just shout in comments that you'd love to join in on the fun, and I'll shoot you an email with a randomly assigned letter, assuming you also provide your email (which you can do by emailing me) if I don't already have it or if it's not easily findable on your blog.

A is for... Avocado

1. Avocados, creamy but healthy, served plain, made into guacamole, done up Fusion Avocado style like above or just sitting on the counter dreaming of possibilities.
   
2. Afghans knitted and given by someone's grandmother, the warmest and coziest kind of all.
3. Accents from a few states away or a few countries away, fascinating and fun and sometimes contagious.
   
4. Alone time, just for me, because I'm comfortable in my own skin these days.
5. Autumn, a season I spent too many years dismissing as just the precursor to winter until it became my favorite season all its own with its crisp browns and warm sweaters.
6. Arches and other doorways build anticipation and sometimes curiosity about what comes next.
   
7. Artistry, a quality I've never had a lot of but one I've come to appreciate in others and am finding a bit of in myself sometimes when blogging in haiku and in pictures.
   
8. Acrobats, truly amazing to watch with slack jawed wonderment at the grace with which they can do things I'm sure my body would never allow me to do.
   
9. A-frame houses because they just look different from the other suburban cookie cutter abodes and are so brightly full of windows.
   
10. America, my home sweet home, even though I do love to roam and visit and sometimes even live other places.

Wanna play? It's fun!

Weekly Winners Sunday 1/25/08

Weekly Winners, hosted by Lotus.

Click pics for better looking larger images or take a peek at the entire album and/or watch as a slideshow at this link.

A reminder that I'll always link to recipes if I post a yummy food picture and that you can find all of my (currently 171!) recipe reviews in my I Made It Cookbook over on Recipezaar.

Also, and not to be chatty on picture day, but it occurred to me today that it was almost one year to the date that I posted pictures of our visit to Tulsa for Weekly Winners. And now here we are living here. Just, um, wow.

K, on with the show.

Happiness is a Bouquet of Kitchen Utensils


Curry and Rice
(scroll down for recipe)


My Japanese Curry Recipe ;)


Niku Jaga (Japanese Beef Stew)
(Not quite the real deal, but still tasty)


Curling Tree


Got Water?


Good Morning Tulsa
Bright But Crisp Edition

Haiku Friday 1/23/09

俳句の金曜日

Mom was in my dream
said she loved me and was proud
woke with teary smile.

Almost an Okie

At first I wasn't going to say anything because most of you are not in Oklahoma, so that means you couldn't vote for me anyway, but then I kept getting more stoked about even just being nominated for a 2008 Okie Blogger Award for best looking blog, and so soon after my arrival in my new home state, too, that I couldn't not say anything. I mean, really, that's just kind of cool to a girl like me. I'm honored. Too honored to be quiet about it. I'm starting to feel like home, like I'm almost an Okie or at least an Okie in training. Or something. And I like it here.

Just looking at some of the other nominees I'm finding some really great blogs of all kinds and have already added a few to my reader. Good stuff here in OK. There's still some I haven't gotten to yet, but I'm hoping to see them all by the end of the week so that I'm an informed voter and all that jazz.

Of course, if you do happen to be an Oklahoma blogger and do happen to like the look going on over here (and, yes, I had help making it exactly how I wanted), consider voting for me?

Hearts and Feet Revisited

Today is HEADS *OR* TAILS - "Feet" *OR* "Feat"

How can it be that I haven't done Heads or Tails since early December? In any case, a really neat thing has happened to me since blogging, and it fits in here, definitely under "Feet" and even kind of under "Feat" in the sense that it is a fairly bold achievement for a girl like me, and it involves my feet.

See, back at the start of February 2008, just a little over a year ago, I did a little bloggy meme thing that was going around related to body image and to basically quit hating and start loving. For the first time in 30+ years, I looked at my feet in a different way, and I realized today that I haven't hated them since that day. Today my feet are mine, a part of who I am, and I love them for why they look as they do, where they have taken me and where I hope they'll lead me next.

Here, then, is a re-post of what I wrote then, the day I decided to love all of me:

Kelly over at Ordinary Art [updated link] issued a challenge that Secret Agent Mama accepted, and I was inspired to go for it, too, and so I share my feet with you.

They are just feet, for goodness sake. Living in the parts of the world where I mostly have, they are covered for over half the year anyway, so it's not like anyone can see the macaroni toes that I've always hated so much. Then even in the winter months I'd shop so carefully, hoping to find shoes that make my feet look smaller. If I were taller, my feet would seem more like the right size - I've always been fine with my height, but just wanted smaller and cuter little feet that were a better match with the rest of the package. Why they are so sensitive (physically and mentally) is beyond me, but they are that, too.

Guess what? It doesn't matter.

Kelly and Mishelle said far more eloquently all the good stuff about body image that women often struggle to remember. I just know that in the grand scheme of things, what my feet look like or what size they are in relation to my body is just fine.

My feet are mine, and I just realized that my pat explanation always given while complaining about my feet (something I've said more times and to more people than I can count) is actually not a negative but a positive. Being able to say that I got my tall dad's bigger feet and my short mom's shorter height means that I have something silly but tangible to remind me of them both, for as long as I live, and I do not have to consider these two aspects of me to be somehow incompatible. I hope I'll never look at my feet as being so "ugly" or "too big for my body" ever again because I am grateful for the life my parents gave me, which happened to come with a 5'2" height and a size 8 shoe. So be it. Even as my mother has passed on and my dad grows older, I'll always be a part of them, and I'll always carry them with me, along with the humor they taught me, in my clown-sized shoes, macaroni toes and all ;)

Thank you to Kelly for the challenge, Mishelle and others for taking part so that I saw it and for all in general who make the blogosphere go round so that we can connect and learn and grow in some really cool ways. This one changed me, and I'm grateful.

Not My Valentine

Valentine's Day items have been on the shelves since approximately the day after Christmas, and I've generally steered my cart right on past until last night when I was at the store and feeling extra lovey about my sweet Tom and wanted to see if there might be a little something to bring home to make him smile.

My mind was kind of wrapped up browsing bubble gum scented heartshaped items we don't need when a guy with a bit of a gangster-ish look came into the aisle and said "hi," to which I replied "hi." Next he asked me what I was going to buy him, and even though I'm sure he was joking, it was kind of weird, so I replied something about "sorry, nothing this year," and I started heading out of the aisle now heavy with the weight of awkward and uncomfortable. As I headed out of of the short but claustrophobically narrow aisle, his friend appeared in front of my cart, grabbed hold of the corner held onto it just long enough to further add to the uncomfortable atmosphere going on in the aisle and to creep me completely the hell out before he let go. It was probably nothing, but I'm glad I left the aisle.

A few minutes later they appeared where I was again and joked about me following them. I smiled weakly while I wanted to throw up in my mouth because I just felt so very much not at ease. It was probably nothing, but I'm glad I didn't engage them in chat.

I wandered around the store a bit more, but when I realized that I was spending too much energy wondering if they were going to appear again, I decided that I'd just call it done, check out and leave. It probably saved me a few bucks anyway by doing so. I paid for my less than 20 items, smiled at the guy at the door who makes sure you aren't stealing anything and started to walk out the door, except that there they were. The same two guys, just standing there talking to one another all nonchalantly. It was probably nothing, but I'm glad I didn't walk out the door.

I called Tom immediately and let him know what was going on and that I just didn't feel safe. He offered to drive over there just to walk me out safely, but I wanted to give it some time. I watched moms with their babies cruising right on past and thought it was maybe kind of silly of me to hang back in fear. These guys hadn't talked to them, though, hadn't made them feel afraid of Very Bad Things happening. I wouldn't have thought twice about it either in their shoes. And so I waited. I waited and watched as tons of people left and plenty more came in. I waited and watched until I saw the two guys finally leave. Then I waited just a bit more until a big and strong looking man with just one small plastic bag was headed out, hoping he'd get involved if need be, and I kept my eyes peeled while I made a beeline to my car. It was probably nothing, but I'm glad I erred on the side of caution.

Maybe I'm over paranoid after that one time that I'm sure wasn't just probably nothing. It's not like I live in complete fear and never leave my house, but maybe I think about scary possibilities more than some people and try to listen to my gut in defense of those possibilities. I appreciate good men who do things like literally going out of their way, such as sometimes crossing over to the other side of the parking lot row instead of right behind a woman just to help a woman feel more at ease, but I'm not sure how many most guys think of little actions like this, and I wonder how many women even notice. I notice, and it makes my life easier. Looking thuggish and acting creepy and then loitering just outside when I'm about to exit is the opposite of that. And I notice. It was probably nothing, but Tom was glad for my gift of being cautious more than something heartshaped from the Valentine's Day aisle (well, he doesn't know they also had his favorite chocolates in that aisle - still, I bet he'd pick me safe in his arms than those melting in his belly, right Tom?).

I brought me home, and Tom smiled.

Weekly Winners Sunday 1/18/09

Weekly Winners, hosted by Lotus.

Click pics for better looking larger images or take a peek at the entire album and/or watch as a slideshow at this link.

Tuesday Morning


Behind Every Strong Latte


All a Blur in the Wee Hours
Wednesday Night/Thursday Morning


Pork Chops with Quick Mushroom Gravy
(So good that Tom almost cried a little. Crazy easy, too.)


All Because He Mentioned Cupcakes
(Did you know that Betty Crocker has a Butter Pecan flavored cake mix? I just found out, and my whole life just feels sweeter.)


Casa Bonita
Tulsa, Oklahoma
(The atmosphere inside of this recently re-opened restaurant is seriously so very awesome and amazing. The food not so much. Still, I see why so many people remember it being special growing up with all the fun that it is, and I'd go back.)

The Continuing Joys of Apartment Living

It's me. I'm here. Back posting on my own blog and on a Saturday morning with coffee. Thanks for following me to read while I was out flitting around, and here's what was going on here in the meantime.

The Noisy Update
When I last left, the neighbors had called security on us for no good reason and for the second time in a month (and the only two times of my life), and I was pretty honked off. That morning, I did go into the apartment office and raised some hell about how we don't even feel comfortable even breathing in our apartment and that we felt a bit harassed and that we are really concerned about the idea of doing nothing wrong but possibly facing eviction at some point if it continues. Apparently the security guy didn't seem to think it was us (hmmm, maybe because of the silence he heard upon arrival since we were, um, not doing anything wrong or loud?), and the apartment office isn't at all concerned about it since they wonder if it could have been someone else. Oddly, even if it was someone else, we heard nothing, and since we could barely even hear the tv and had the subtitles going, we would have heard something unless it was the sound of bullshit piling up around us... In any case, the noise complaint doesn't go in our file, the apartment was going to call the person who complained to try to find out more information and hopefully tell them to back off, and if there is another call, I have zero qualms about going back into the office every time. We are pretty sure (but not positive) which neighbor complained, at least this time, but we don't feel it's safe to deal directly with the neighbor for a few reasons and are afraid that a confrontation could make it worse, at least at this stage. We'll see if that stage changes.

The Enflamed Update
So, all was as it was when we went to bed Wednesday night, quiet as the little mice we've become, and then Tom woke up a little after 2AM to make tinkle (just a test to see if he still reads) and then woke me up and invited me into the bathroom to see if I also thought it kind of smelled like a match. Yah, kind of it did, but I found it barely interesting and not so alarming. I mean, the smoke alarm goes off when I boil water, so if my ass was on fire, I'd probably hear about it. I started to kind of doze off when I heard the sirens likely headed to where someone else lives, and evidently those other people lived very nearby because the sirens were getting closer, not further.

When I could see the reflection of the flash of the lights on the wall, I flew out of bed, suddenly very awake and much more concerned about that harmless little "someone lit a match" smell that was now also in my living room. Even my cozy purple monkey pajamas couldn't keep my legs warm in the ridiculously cold air (and, yes, if you read my guest post, wearing pajamas outside to check on an apartment fire falls under the guidelines of appropriate use of bedware). At our place in Oregon, they would have had half the police, all of the firetrucks and a few ambulances because they loved to over-dispatch, but here there were just 3 firetrucks.

And our building. On fire and smoldering.

A few or nine observations:

1. Firemen really do tend to be such a kind bunch. When I walked over to one of these kind faces in a fireman's hat while pointing at our unit and asking if we needed to be concerned or should start evacuating the cats, he kindly leaned in and put his hand on my back while he listened and told me that we'd be fine because they had it, thankfully, contained. It was just a nice gesture, and there is a lesson in there somewhere about how to comfort people.
   
2. While worrying about whether the fire would spread, it was a nice reminder to check on the status of the transfer of my renter's insurance so that it would cover Tom's stuff, and the next day I talked to the agent. Again. It's still not transfered, but I lit a fire under his ass a bit. Horrible pun intended.
   
3. Apartment living scares the hell out of me because it only takes one dumbass to destroy 20+ homes with one act. I've always known this, but I've never actually had firemen spraying at my apartment building until now and have always just tried to tell myself it wouldn't happen. I'm not sure what to tell myself other than that hopefully it won't happen twice?
4. The fire was started by an errant cigarette butt, which I find kind of ridiculous, considering I smoked from the age of 12 to 35 and always managed to put them out without offending Smoky the Bear or calling forth fire trucks, but maybe I'm exceptionally brilliant. And judgemental because mistakes happen, but still. Come on, people.
5. Oklahoma is quite a bit behind the hippy Northwest (I say that affectionately) on the smoking thing, which I knew just from seeing how very many more people here still smoke but also because of the reaction I got whenever I even mentioned the trend in Oregon toward apartment buildings going non-smoking (which I've written about here a few times back in 2007 when it was kind of new). I'm still not one of those asshole-ish reformed smokers, but I do think this experience kind of tips me more into that camp after that whole waking up to the building on fire thing. One of the ladies in the apartment office kind of laughed and said they'd have very few tenants if that was a rule here, and I bet she is right.
   
6. There is always time to Twitter and Plurk, even when there is a fire.
7. I'm grateful that our unit was completely unharmed other than a smoky smell that went away in a day, and my heart goes out to the person that was careless because I'm not sure what happens to the person from here (eviction? paying for damage? other?), but I bet it sucks, and mistakes do happen as long as we keep being human, and things are tough enough right now for so many folks and possibly that folk.
   
8. Tom's sense of smell is to be trusted, and he might have been right about how much better it would have been to have rented a house (another test to see if he's reading).
9. I need more coffee, just in case anything of any sort happens because being caffeinated brings joy in the face of a wide assortment of bad things.

Haiku Friday 1/16/09 (Guests Still Have Yet More Fun, Times 3)

俳句の金曜日

Once more I'm not here
nope, not just some metaphor
come see my guest 'ku!

I'm at Rachael's blog,
The Scientific Nature
of the Whammy, y'all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

(apartment update:
building on fire edition
might post tomorrow)

Guests Still Have More Fun

The dear and lovely Lotus over at Sarcastic Mom has allowed me to do a little ranting over at in the form of a guest post over at her place. Come check me out over there?

Church Mice

Once in awhile I have a rant raging inside of me enough that it actually spills out over here, blog-style. All those other times, poor Tom is subjected to the maniacal rantings of his crazed woman (though I try to look cute doing it, and then I usually feed him a sandwich or something, sometimes).

So, a little over a week or so after we moved into our new apartment, something happened that had never happened to me alone or to us together.

Someone called security on us for noise.

We are both super conscientious about noise level because we really do attempt to be considerate people in general just on principle and also because a couple of apartments ago we had some serious trouble with noise from the neighbors to the point of asinine. I won't even go into how ludicrous to the point of jaw gaping wonderment it got, but I'll just say that at least one of them was unhinged in a possibly scary way (you know the kind of folks who could go either way on the whole harmful/harmless kind of nutty?), and it was almost a blessing when the rent was increased by well over 20% (whoowhee, that was back when nobody ever read my blog, but I was pissed the hell off), a rent increase that essentially forced a lot of us out of the place. We try really hard to never be those loud (or unhinged) kind of people. We walk softly. We make use of subtitles on the tv - seriously, my hearing is complete ass, so subtitles are always on at my house. We don't yell or shout. Even when we squabble, we don't yell or shout; we both just put on our asshole voices instead. You know, inflicting "that tone of voice" upon one another. We annoy each other, maybe, but it's quiet enough to not annoy other people since they aren't the ones who were insensitive or did or didn't do blahdiblahdiblah. We don't run the dishwasher after about 9PM. If we actually had a washer and dryer in this somewhat ghetto-ish craptrap, we wouldn't run either of those after about 9PM, either. Instead, I go to the laundromat with WiFi and pretend like I love it, and I know for sure that I'm not bothering the neighbors.

After the neighbors called security on us around midnight however many weeks ago, we got even quieter, scared to make any noise, afraid of them calling again for some reason and for us getting in trouble. I went to the apartment office and apologized profusely and asked that they be sure to pass our apology along to whomever called because we truly do not want to be "that neighbor," and we didn't realize that we'd been so loud but would certainly do everything possible to ensure that we not disturb them again because that's the kind of good neighbors we are and want to always be and because we know how tough it is to actually make that call after deliberating on whether it's really that bad (which was why we were mortified). Maybe the tv was a little bit loud that night because the heater had kicked on, and the heater is ridiculously loud, and I turned it up a bit, not realizing that it was really all that loud. I remind myself to be grateful that I live in a heated home when the sound of the loud ass heater drowns out my tv, and I keep my eyes more closely glued to the subtitles until the heat goes off and generally get on with being quiet as snow falling gently upon itself on a clear night or some other poetic bullshit.

So imagine our surprise last night when we were sitting ever so quietly on the couch, tv volume on about 3 while we watched Friday Night Lights on DVD (oh my gosh, we both just *love* that show way beyond what we even expected, and it's so nice to not be apart but to be under the same roof again and to be watching tv together like old times, yay!) with the subtitles blaring silently so that my feeble eared ass could read along, and we hear a knock at the door after 10PM.

It was security.

Apparently there was a complaint that we were up there beating the shit out of each other or just yelling or fighting or something really loud and obnoxious. I've had those neighbors, too, and I've had to make that call.

Except that we weren't. We weren't doing any of that, and we also weren't being loud. At all. Tom had a coughing thing going on, but coughing doesn't really sound like two people fighting, does it? Do you call security if you happen to hear someone coughing?

And now we have TWO complaints against us within about a month. The first two I've had in almost 20 years of apartment living since about age 18.

And it's our word against theirs. And I feel powerless. And I'm not sure that we have any recourse. And I wonder why they are calling security on us for no reason. And I wonder how uncomfortable it's going to be living in our own home always worrying even more than we have been. And I wonder how soon we could realisitcally afford to pay for another move that would cost another $1000 or so on top of the nearly $3000 already spent getting here from Oregon, not including lease breaking and deposits and whatnot. And what if we get evicted and ruin the perfect rental history we have? All of this ran through my head last night as we were awoken by their screaming baby who went on and on forever, if that was even the same neighbor, but it might have been another neighbor, but either way you can't call security on a screaming baby any more than you could call if someone was coughing, if that's even why they called, unless you are a complete asshat like the people that called on us for, um, likely no good reason whatsoever.

I'll be going to the apartment office today to express all of my above concerns, and I really hope that my mind is being insanely paranoid and completely overreacting, but I have a feeling the writing is on the wall on this one, and I'm pretty sure it says:

Show Me Yours?

Thanks to Beth over at Wack-a-do (thanks Beth!), I've been made aware that today is the Official Delurking Day of 2009. That means that it's a great time for visitors old and new, those who always comment and those who never comment to spread a little comment love and just let a body (in this case me, mine) know that you were here! No commitments to love me forever and nothing fancy, just more kind of quick and dirty. Sometimes I like it that way, and I'm curious about who reads my drivel. So, please don't be shy - just say a quick "hello" maybe and then let all of your bloggy friends know to go flash someone celebrate this great day in the blogosphere.

Weekly Winners Sunday 1/11/09

Weekly Winners, hosted by Lotus.

Click pics for better looking larger images or take a peek at the entire album and/or watch as a slideshow at this link.

My Chicken Parmigiana
(nope, not mine but that's the title, and it's different from the One-Pan Chicken Parmigiana I've made and photographed in previous posts - both are yummy!)


My Neighbor is Still Squirrely


We Eat Rice & It Tastes Nice
(old rice maker tragically broke during the move, this fancier dancier one was on sale at Amazon, and I had online gift certificates burning a hole in my monitor)


Shave and a Haircut (Two Bits)
Saturday Drive - Inola, Oklahoma


God Loves All the Little Cities (All the Cities of Oooh Kaaay)
Saturday Drive - Inola, Oklahoma


Farm Toys (and Toy Box)
Saturday Drive - Inola, Oklahoma


Signs of Battery
Saturday Drive - Inola, Oklahoma


She Wondered Why We Would Take Pictures of Such a Building
Saturday Drive - Inola, Oklahoma
(True Story. A woman walked over to us and asked "what are y'all doin'?" and looked completely puzzled that we weren't even from the newspaper or some other reasonable explanation for wanting to take pictures of this building. The Oregon license plates on my car probably just make us that much more curious on our little Saturday trips to the small towns.)


Unkempt
Saturday Drive - Inola, Oklahoma



Roofless on the Inside, From the Outside
Saturday Drive - Inola, Oklahoma


Cracked Out
Saturday Drive - Inola, Oklahoma


Imagining What Was (Taken by Tom!)
Saturday Drive - Inola, Oklahoma


Weathered (Taken by Tom!)
Saturday Drive - Inola, Oklahoma


Stillwater Milling Company (Taken by Tom!)
Saturday Drive - Claremore, Oklahoma

Haiku Friday 1/9/09

俳句の金曜日

Love breeds love, my love
upwardly spirals passion
feeding on itself.

Logs longest burning
are the hottest and the heart
of a glowing fire.

Kindling's best friend is
an open conversation
hearts, minds meet again.

More kindling on top
keeps the passion growing strong
as old ignites new.

As new twigs of now
become part of fire's core then
sands of time stand still...

...waves of heat quiver
blurring breathing, curling toes
shimmering inside...

...wake up more in love
craving more talk and more touch
delicious cycle.

Love breeds love, my love
upwardly spirals passion
feeding on itself.

I've Got Answers

Maria at Immoral Matriarch decided to do a little 5 question thing for anyone wanting to be interviewed, and I love the questions she asked me. I kind of ran with it a little on some, but you can't expect someone like me to give all one sentence answers, can you?

1. What's your guilty pleasure? The Hills (link down below on the right if you want to be addicted to such silliness, too), yummy gimmicks like the McRib (most locations stopped these again a few months ago, but yesterday I found one Mc Donald's that still had it!), really obnoxious dashboard karaoke outsinging the radio, reality shows like Wife Swap or Joe Millionaire, Average Joe, My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, Momma's Boys (currently) or Beauty and the Geek (which is actually quality TV, ahem) or generally trashy dating shows with eliminations. Except for The Bachelor, especially this season when I think it's utterly disgusting to involve a child, and I'll just be hushed now and leave that one at that.

2. If you could be an celeb, male or female, for a day, who would it be? There's not really any one particular celeb I'd truly want to be, but if I had to pick, off the top of my head I'd go with Drew Barrymore just because I like her, and I bet I have a cool day alternating between being kind of deep and having fun or something. If I could have the influence and money of any celeb for a day, though, I'd start the day with a giant latte and loving on some yippy little lap dog, then go be really helpful in a life changing way somehow to as many people as possible, and then I'd love to go on Jay Leno before having another latte before bed with the cats and my sweetie.

3. What foreign language would you like to speak fluently? Japanese. I've studied it long enough and lived there long enough that I kind of thought I would be fluent at this point. I am comfortable ordering beer, finding a toilet, doing a self-introduction, saying a few really disgustingly bad words that make me blush in English and doing a lame apology, so at least the basics are covered. After Japanese, then Spanish and a whole bunch more languages after that. I love languages.

4. Are men more trouble than they're worth? Not if you've picked the right one.

5. What's your dream job? Stay at home wife and mom extraordinaire. Seriously. I'd go all 1950's with that shit, and I think I'd be damn good at it, too, if only it was in the cards. Otherwise, if latte tasting and caffeine induced flitting about from here to there with nothing more than wings and a smile was a real job and included decent pay and health insurance, that'd be my next pick. It would need to be warm where I'm flitting, though.

Want to be part of it? Follow these instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions - I'll need your email address! I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Weekly Winners Sunday 1/4/09

Weekly Winners, hosted by Lotus.

Click pics for better looking larger images or take a peek at the entire album and/or watch as a slideshow at this link.

We took a small road trip on Saturday to Checotah, Oklahoma since it was such a warm and sunny day (75F/24C) before the cold sets in again overnight. I'm a Carrie Underwood fan and have always wanted to visit her hometown and to see what firsthand the place she sings about in her song "I Ain't in Checotah Anymore" on her Some Hearts album.

Downtown Checotah


Hometown Girl Made Good


Watertower
(Tom took this one)


You Are Here


Derilect Dock at Lake Eufaula


Boat Ramp at Lake Eufaula


Quiet Lake Eufaula


Unraked


Remnants of Pop a Top Camping Trips at Lake Eufaula