Unmitigated

Mini Banner Replicas are here...they make great gifts!

Some Silliness from Joanie

Adapted this from a post Joanie put up...

1. REAL NAME: Mary 

2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother and fathers middle names) Rose Bowman

3. NASCAR NAME:(first name of your mother's dad, father's dad) Charlie John 

4. STAR WARS NAME:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name) Wyama (meh)

5. DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal)  Blue Dog

6. SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, town where you were born) Lillian Redford* 

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning) The Green Tonic

8. FLY NAME:(first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name) Matt (boring!)

9. STREET NAME:(fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie)

Mint Chocolate Chip Oreo (doesn't really work, except to make me hungry)

10. SKANK NAME: (1st pet's name, street you grew up ) Leroy Nathaline (sounds more like my pimp name) 

11. GOTH NAME:(black, and the name of one of your pets.) 

Black Perky (that, my friends, is a serious Goth name)

12. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav candy)

Lovely Mounds (THAT one worked)

*Tenn Lady: Yes, I know I was born in Garden City. Work with me here. Hometown will do.

Farewell, Brook Lodge

I have been scrapbooking for about four years with a group of a dozen or so women, most of whom are somehow associated with the school where I used to work. Every year, since November of 2005 (I joined them in 2006), they have been travelling a couple hours west of home to a little town called Augusta, Michigan. 

That's where Brook Lodge is. Brook Lodge was a gift from the Upjohn family to Michigan State University, and became part of the Residential and Hospitality Services program. Future chefs, hotel managers, and restaurant owners learned the trade at Brooklodge. The food is incredible.

Unfortunately for us, Brook Lodge is closing on December 31st. While it is the most beautiful, restful, serene place I've ever visited, it only features forty-four guest rooms on the grounds. Not enough to continue through hard times. And because it was a gift to the University, it can't be sold to new owners. I think it will be sitting vacant and sad for at least two years before someone else can try to make a go of it. 

Here are some of my favorite pictures.

 

Top, L to R: Brookside Cottage, autumn color, Upjohn Hall
Bottom: Doctor's Cottage

I didn't get a picture of the Mill Pond, which is what you see while you are in the Dining Hall. You can see a tiny corner of it in the Brookside Cottage picture. Across the pond from the Dining Hall is a beautiful little Japanese garden. 

I have some food shots from last year...

I was very sad to leave on Sunday. I'm going to miss Brook Lodge.

Totally in the Budget

I have been running a feature here lately called Not in the Budget. It satisfies my shopping jones without me spending any actual cash. Today's stuff, though is totally in the budget. Gorgeous, and really inexpensive. Let me share....

A bracelet, three keychains, and two pairs of earrings, plus shipping for less than $15!

Now you are asking yourself, "Self? Where can I get me some of this beauteous bounty?" 

Good thing I am here to answer, "At MamaDawg's and LOML's etsy shops!" Yes, those links go to separate pages. LOML has her own etsy site; just another piece of evidence of her budding genius. 

LOML made the bracelet and earrings, MamaDawg made the key chains. MD specializes in lanyards for ID badges, so if you are looking for a Christmas/Hannukah gift for a special teacher, please, please, please, no more hand lotion or coffee mugs! Pick out a beautiful lanyard so she can feel pretty even while wearing that clunky badge.

Random Tuesday Thinkifyin'

If you read that title in Dubya's voice, I have done my job here.

  

• There's a ribbon of RTT badges there, because Typepad was f*cking with me. It's easier just to leave them. At least they are evenly spaced and centered, satisfying the an.al-retentive in me.
• My back sucks right now, and has for the past ten days. I have a radio-frequency ablation coming up. On December 9th. So it's GOING to suck for at least three more weeks. Oh, yeah, then for ten days after that.
• I feel like I have lost my writing mojo. Or maybe I am distracted because my back is driving me up a wall.
• I'm getting pretty good at the whole 'cooking dinners' thing. I've made dinner at home five-six nights per week since the last few days of August, and only had one dinner come out really bad. Like, shoe-leather bad. I took some pretty good notes from the Mayor, last time we met for coffee and conversation. I'm going to try a red wine reduction this week. She showed me pictures and everything!
• I'm also acquiring the necessary tools. Today, I bought a cheese slicer. Now I can buy brick-cheese instead of pre-sliced. Much better deal.
• I also want a salad spinner and a garlic press and a small food processor. Dear Santa...
• You should go here to see a promo for Live at Wembley, the new Eddie Izzard DVD. Besides being hilarious, he's totally hot, in a transvestite kind of way.
• I think I want some of these for Christmas:

The purple and aqua ones. Although I like both. They have orange/forest green ones, too.

• I just spent more than an hour looking for the perfect socks. Now it is time for pain meds and bed. 
• Go visit Keely for more random stuff today.

Google Why Meme

I want at least partial credit for this...Jenny, the Bloggess posted about this after someone let her know about it. I am taking something totally hilarious and turning it into an annoying meme. Your welcome.

1. Go to Google's search screen.

2. Type in "Why" and wait for auto-suggestions.

3. Take a screen shot, if you know how, and answer five of the questions, like so:

Why is the sky blue? The sky is blue so that people who are high can ruin your buzz with some stupid existential question about perception.

Why do cats purr? They don't. They are doing kitty-construction behind the couch. That's a jack-hammer*.

Why did I get married? The spiders forced me into it. Once you have them trapped (the spouse, not the spiders), they have to kill the spiders for the whole marriage, day or night.

Why is there a dead Pakistani on my couch? The pantry was full of Hindustanis?

Why did Michael Jackson turn white? Wait. That wasn't his natural skin color?

* That one is for Sal.