Blogtober

SunDarla has inspired me. There's no way I'll keep this up - I'm so much busier than I was back when I blogged regularly. But I'm going to at least try to post every day in October. You may have noticed that I'm three for three so far. Go me! Anyway, since I missed Monday Miscellany & I know you really need to hear the minutia of my life, here is a list:

1. The other evening I tried Sparkling Ice Orange Mango Naturally Flavored Sparkling Mountain Spring Water (yes, it has the word "sparkling" twice in its name). It has 50 mg of green tea in it, and I looked it up, and they say there's no caffeine, but when I went to bed I tossed and I turned and turned and tossed. Urgh. Of course it could have been because of this next point...

2. Oh the feet, they are HOT! I do not know what to do about this - I've always had such cold feet. Now I remember fondly the days of cold feet - running an inch deep bath to warm them up before bed - turning on my electric blanket & piling on an extra blanket or three plus a stuffed dog... Sigh. Anyway, my hot feet are keeping me awake at night. What to do? Ice packs?

3. Dr. M & I decided to upgrade my computer hallelujah and amen. I had an older desktop and a not quite as old cheap laptop, and neither of one of them were working very well. It was taking me three hours or more just to get my Project 365 post completed. I got a discount through work on a new Dell laptop and so far I am VERY happy with it. Speedy, reliable, replaces my desktop & other laptop... It's nice to have everything in one (portable) place. Reminds me of one of the reasons I was so excited to get married - I could finally move all my stuff in with Dr. M instead of basically living in two places :)

4. I have some sort of mange or some such on my face. A rash that reminds me of the acne rosacea I had years ago. I don't know - it's unattractive. BUT now I'm finally checking off one of those things on that list of 50 that I didn't quite get done last year. I'm going to a dermatologist & having a full skin scan done. I expect to either find out that none of my suspicious moles are suspicious or that I should have 10 removed. Oh, & hopefully she can take care of this mange thing.

5. I can't think of a 5th thing, and it's almost bedtime and I still have to finish this chapter of the Harry Dresden book I'm reading. Harry is in dire straits. Will he get out of the current pickle? Magic Eight Ball says "Reply Hazy, Try Again." Hmm...

Reader Appreciation Award

Nance over at the Dept. has given me a reader appreciation award! And since I appreciate being appreciated I’m answering the questions & passing it on. Thanks Nance!


::Where do you do most of your writing/blogging? Shh… Are we alone? Come a little closer please. I do most of my blogging at work. In between my actual, you know, work related tasks. I’m a good employee. Really!

::What books were your childhood favorites? Well, obviously, Old Black Witch, because of the pancakes. And Nancy Drew & Encyclopedia Brown because oh MAN HOW COOL WOULD IT BE TO BE THEM! But really, the one that tugged on my heartstrings every time I read it was Heidi, (et al.) Sigh.

:: Who is your favorite fictional character? I’ve thought long & hard about this & I’ve decided that it’s a type, not a particular person. And, despite my desire to appear to be Woman Hear Me Roar, this type reveals a deep seated fantasy that I’ve always had: I like a guy who is really nice, seems normal (& is probably a wine seller or a history professor), but knows How to Get the Job Done no matter what, even if the IRA is involved. You can find this guy in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, or the hero of any Dick Francis novel. Yes, I want someone who can take care of me & get the bad guys. Dr. M does pretty well at the first part – time will tell about the second part!

::What is your favorite time of day and why? Wow I have no idea! I’m not a morning person, but because I have to be at work at 8:30 a.m. I can’t be much of a night person either. I kind of like my morning & evening commutes because I can listen to my audio books, but I also like dinner time because I can catch up with Dr. M about his day. But my very favorite time is on Saturday morning around 5:00 a.m. when I wake up & need to go to the bathroom – I know I can go back to bed and sleep for 3 or 4 more hours!
::Have you ever Googled yourself and been surprised at what you’ve found? Yes I have. And no I haven’t. It’s all the usual stuff – LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogger…

::Who would play you in a movie of your life? Janeane Garofalo. Except she’d probably have to dumb it down a little bit lot.

OK, who would I like to see answer these questions? Hmm. Well, it would be cool if all of you would. But I’ll just pick on name a few in particular.

Altar Ego at Reverent Irreverence

Carolina Linthead at Child of a Frosty Morning: Musings of a Dislocated Southerner

Still Magnolia at Karen's Korner

Don't Feed the Pixies at Don't Feed the Pixies

Robin at Be Still and Know

Brenda at Days of My Life

Sunshine...

Low & Slow over at Flight Plan has nominated me for an award (thanks Scott!) - & this one is pretty easy. The instructions are that you need to link to the person who gave you the award (done!) & then answer some questions. Then you're supposed to nominate other people, but this is where I always disobey the rules - just know that you're all sunshine to me :)


OK, here are the questions:


Favorite color: Purple, unless it's red. Or maybe blue. Sometimes it's yellow. 

Favorite animal: Penguin!

Up with Penguins! Down with Bears!

Favorite number: 3/3 because that means it's my birthday.

Favorite non-alcoholic drink: Diet Sundrop.

Facebook or Twitter: Facebook. I don't have a fancy phone & don't have time to check twitter once I get home from work.

My passion: The Atlanta Braves! And my new passion is crocheting. And maybe someday I'll figure out what I'm doing.

Favorite flower: Peonies.

Favorite movie: Joe vs. the Volcano. Although lately I've been thinking about Blazing Saddles a lot.

Favorite painting: There are a lot of paintings I like, but I think that my favorite is the one that Dr. M painted for me.

I Got Tagged!

FOREVER ago a couple of bloggers tagged me and I completely forgot that I meant to respond. The first person who tagged me was That One Girl from Life Along the Way. I was supposed to tell you 11 things about myself, then answer 11 questions, & then tag other folks. Then later Bruce from Oddball Observations gave me the Versatile Blogger award. In that one I’m supposed to list 7 things about myself & then tag other people.

Well, I’m not going to tag other people. Instead I’m going to insist that you go visit That One Girl (either here or at her gardening blog) and Bruce, here. Thanks guys!

OK, first 11 things about myself (or, as a versatile blogger, 7 things PLUS 4):

1.       I recently taught myself to crochet (using youtube videos mostly) and now yarn bag is out of control. It’s getting heavy!

2.      I’m pretty worried about what the summer will be like since spring started so early.

3.      I’ve mentioned this on here before, but since I have some newer readers, I’ll mention it again. When I was a little girl & didn’t like boys, all my Barbies had illegitimate babies because I’d heard that that meant they didn’t have fathers. So my Barbies didn’t have to mess around with boys. Oops.

4.      I had tubes in my ears as a child & never learned to swim properly.

5.      I had a crush on Encyclopedia Brown and the Colin kid from The Secret Seven books (I think – I just spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to find a children’s mystery book series with a character named Colin in it – but this is a British author & I don’t remember knowing that the kids were in England. Would these books have been in my North Carolina library in the 70s?).

6.      I’m afraid of dogs.

7.      In my head I’m a no nonsense plain jane, but in reality I’m kinda girly.

8.     I’m having trouble coming up with more stuff to say.

9.      I’m really sad that I’m almost at the end of the Barbara Holloway book series, & I’m pretty sure that there won’t be anymore.

10.  La la la la…

11.   Oh! I used to be a decent ping pong player. I haven’t played in years though. 

Whew! OK, now to answer the 11 questions:

1. If you could go back and do something in your life over, would you? Sure there are things that I might wish I had done differently, but I like where I am & would I be here if I’d majored in English instead of Accounting? Here’s something that probably wouldn’t have changed the course of my life: If I’d known better I would have asked the caterers at my wedding to pack TWO baskets of food since sleepy little Lake Lure was already in bed by the time we got there for our honeymoon & there wasn’t anywhere to get dinner.

2. What is your hidden talent? I’m a blogger - do you honestly think that I would still have a hidden talent? Ha! Well, ok, I can make origami cranes – the kind where you pull the tail & the wings move.

3. If you could change your name, would you? If so, what would you change it to? When I was in the 2^nd grade I asked to go by my middle name – Marie. But I’m ok with Dana now.

4. What is your favorite childhood memory? Wow this is a hard question! Hmm – that Christmas that Mom didn’t write any names on the presents & Joe & I had a free-for-all – that was fun :)

5. What is your favorite adult memory? My wedding day.

6. Do you have any pets? Dr. M! (I know, I say this every time – but it never gets old to me- ha!).

7. What size shoe do you wear? 6 ½ US Women’s

8. If you could meet one person, past, present, or future, who would it be? The historical Jesus.

9. What is your biggest fear? Not having enough money to pay our bills.

10. What is your favorite meal? This is totally not fair! It depends on what mood I’m in. Maybe it’s pizza, or Mexican, or livermush & eggs. You just never know.

11. Which is better? Chocolate, Vanilla or Neapolitan ice cream? Yes

OK, go visit my friends. Heck – check out all the blogs I follow :)

The Post In Which I Reveal My Boring Accent

My friend Jayne posted this vlog (video blog post) last week & I thought it looked like too much fun to miss. Of  course, Jayne with her Georgia accent was more fun than mine will be. I still have a twinge of a southern accent, but it’s mostly gone now. I remember when I was a child visiting my aunt & uncle in West Virginia (this was the trip where I learned that North Carolina fought for the south – devastating to me! Why were we call North Carolina if we were rebels?) the local kids loved to ask me to say things like “rice” and “pocket book.” Apparently I sounded pretty southern then. Perhaps I lost my accent while giving speeches in high school. Or maybe it was in Zambia where I was trying especially hard to articulate. Whatever, the following vlog is going to be pretty boring with my mostly Ohio accent now.

Here’s the prompt:

Say these words:
Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

Answer these questions:
•What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
•What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
•What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
•What do you call gym shoes?
•What do you say to address a group of people?
•What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
•What do you call your grandparents?
•What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
•What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
•What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

And here is the vlog:

So, I’d like to challenge my readers from other countries to do this – it would be a lot more interesting for those of us on this side of the pond!

Dr. M just listened to the video & the last word got cut off - I'm not going to edit it, so I'll just say that the word is "remote."

Don't Look Now - It's a Meme!

I have been tagged for a meme by Rita at Meemaw Moments. I might be typecasting here, but she’s not very Meemawish to me – with all her running & biking & teaching Spanish & such. She’s definitely got more going on than I do! She has given me the following 7 questions to answer...


1. Do you have a "bucket list"? Not an official one. I’m not very good at lists – I get all annoyed that someone (me!) is telling me what to do & I ignore it.

2. If so, what is at the top? If I had a list I think that travelling “out west” somewhere might be on top. Mount Rushmore, Grand Canyon, the Redwood forest…

3. What news story stood out from those you heard today? The story that grabbed me was the one in our local paper about how the Board of Elections was staying open later for early voting. I’m going tonight! I’m really thankful that our local republican committee sent a postcard listing all their candidates. I can take it with me & then vote for the other people. Heh.

4. What are you most thankful for this year? That Dr. M & I have jobs. That we’re (relatively) healthy.

5. What small thing always makes you happy? Using our back scratcher when I have an itch on my back. Ahhhh…

6. What is your favorite old movie? This is tough! But right now, with mid-term elections next week, I’m going with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

7. Was there a surprise in your day? I tackled a dreaded task & not only did I complete it, it ended up not being as hard as I thought it would be. I was taking a complicated spreadsheet of information and making a streamlined powerpoint presentation from the data. Blech. But I think it turned out just fine.


Now I am supposed to come up with seven different questions and tag seven people, which I always hate doing. And you are not obligated to participate - & if you want to just answer the questions & not pass it along that’s fine too. And if I don't tag you, you can grab the questions and play along, or answer them in the comments! [Note: I mostly copied this straight from Rita’s blog because she said what I thought!]

OK, here are my questions for you:

1. What do you consider your hometown to be?

2. What’s the hardest part of your average day?

3. The easiest? Why?

4. What beverage do you reach for to quench your thirst?

5. What is one not-so-secret goal you have for your life? I’ll let you keep your secret ones to yourself.

6. What physical pain do you fear most? For example, I’m trying to decide how bad my jaw pain needs to get before I risk a potential needle from my dentist. So, for me, throbbing is preferable to jabbing.

7. Where do you find solace?

I’m tagging the following folks:

Kim at Prayers for the Oft Traveled Road

Katy at What a Great Place to be a Cow

Anne at reverent irreverence

Carolina Linthead at Child of a Frosty Morning

Bekah at Reflections…on Living Creatively

Jayne at Journey Through Grace

Bella Rum at Cul-de-sac Chronicles

I'm a Versatile Blogger!

Don’t Feed the Pixies has given me an award! Well, I think I got it by default. But since I really enjoy talking about myself I’ll play along. I’m supposed to tell seven things about myself & then pass along the award to seven people. As I’m typing this I’m fairly certain I will be skipping the second part, but we’ll see after all that nice talking about myself.


1. I used to carry my lunch when I was in high school. I didn’t want to figure out what table to sit at. I’m not sure I was afraid of rejection, exactly, but I WANTED TO BE LEFT ALONE TO READ MY BOOK IN PEACE. I always had the same thing (or at least I did my senior year) – a livermush sandwich. Wonder what I took to drink? I certainly never touched the everclear the yearbook photographer (another senior – not an adult!) would bring in for his lunch.

2. I once worked as an admin for an agency that provided services to rape & domestic abuse survivors. And I was a square peg in a round hole in that place – it is very hard working with a lot of touchy feely women if you’re a non touchy feely woman. I was forever offending someone. That said – these were some of the best people I ever worked with. They used their energy & empathy to help other women, so they didn’t have any left to combat me.

3. My mother is forever invading my dreams. Sometimes it’s just ordinary stuff & other times I wonder what in the world my subconscious is trying to tell me. Just over the weekend I dreamed that she was sort of Joan Crawford-ish & she spoke in that fake British accent that people seemed to have back then. Ya’ll, my mom was from North Carolina. And she was probably the opposite of Mommy Dearest. Very odd.

4. My dream home would have a living room large enough to hold a table for a jigsaw puzzle. I would quit blogging & just work puzzles every evening.

5. I am working really hard to embrace fall this year. I try thinking thoughts like, “surely everyone is tired of pictures of hummingbirds and finches,” and, “aren’t these cooler days fabulous?” But, really, what’s playing in the back of my head is dark commutes on the way to & from work, having to wear my coat, and driving in the snow. Sigh.

6. Aren’t we to seven yet? I’m counting this question as revealing something about myself.

7. Just now I was looking at the Ohio flag flying outside my office window & remembering all the brouhaha about how Obama had created his own flag for his Obamanation – and the picture they showed was of the Ohio state flag. Oh I laughed for many days about that one.

Well, as I suspected, I am not going to pass this award along. Although, frankly there are a number of you about which that I would enjoy reading more. So, feel free to take this award & run with it if you’re so inclined.

Bug's Eye View - What's it all mean???

I wrote this bit of fluff before we heard our news about Dr. M's mom. I decided to go ahead & post it anyway.

I’m joining a group of people from Ruth’s site in telling the meaning behind our blog names. I assume we’re still on? Hello? Anyone else out there?


Well, anyway, I don’t have anything else to talk about so I decided to tell my little story.

My Aunt V always calls me Danabug. Well, lots of my relatives do, but I think she started it. I originally didn’t want you guys to know my name (I was shy!), so I decided that my blog title would just have Bug in it. I wanted the blog to be about my point of view, so – Bug’s Eye View.

The End.

That was it folks – why are you looking down here? Now let’s go see where synch.ro.ni.zing came from!

P.S. Happy Birthday Josephine! Heh! Love you brother - and I'm proud of you too!

I Know What you Meme - A Random Dozen

Linda over at 2nd Cup of Coffee created a meme & I decided to participate. Aren't you glad? If anyone else would like to join in the fun, you can post your answers in the comments or on your own blog & just let us know that you did it.

1. When you go to Wowmart, what one thing do you get every single time, besides a funky-wheeled squeaking cart full of frustration? I don’t really have anything – we used to NEVER go, but now that we’ve moved we go much more frequently. It’s close & cheap. But wherever I go, if there’s food, I usually get some form of chocolate.


2. What is something that people are currently "into" that you just don't get or appreciate? Reality TV. Meh.


3. What is something that really hoists your sail that other people might feel "ho-hum" about? Baseball!


4. Favorite song to sing in the shower or car? I’m such a dweeb – I don’t really sing without music on because I can never remember the words. Except for “Dime a Dance” which was on the flip side of Vicki Lawrence’s 1973 single of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.” I sang it incessantly as a child (I was 9 when it came out) – which was a bit of a concern to my parents since the chorus goes: “Hey mister, take a chance – it only costs you a dime a dance. And if you’re looking for romance, I’ll be nice to you…Hey mister it’s so cold if you don’t have someone to hold. I’ll do anything I’m told to do…”


5. A really great salad must have this ingredient: almonds


6. Advice in a nutshell to new bloggers (one or two sentences): I’m still new myself, but I’ll say that if you want to experience the blogging community you should comment on other blogs you like – they might visit you & then you can get a dialog going.


7. What was the alternate name that your parents almost named you? Do you wish they had chosen it instead of the one they gave you? I don’t think there was one (was there, Daddy?). When I was a kid I didn’t like that boys and girls could have my name (Dana). Today I don’t care.


8. What in your life are you waiting for? To get out of debt.


9. You get a package in the mail. What is it, and who is it from? The new boots I ordered today (hence the getting out of debt problem). But I need new shoes for the more extreme winters we’re going to have now!


10. Today--what song represents you? White-Wheeled Limousine by Bruce Hornsby (I’ve been in a mystery frame of mind lately).


11. What is one thing that blogging has taught you about yourself? I’m a little more vain & a little less daring than I thought I was.


12. How are you going to (or how did you) choose the clothes you're wearing today? What do they say about you in general or specifically how you're feeling today? I’m in normal office attire today – except that I’m wearing this particular pair of black pants because they have an elastic waist-band so I don’t have to deal with zippers & buttons with one hand. So I’d say my clothes say I’m practical!