Domesticity, Part 2

Before

After

But I don't feel any older.

Your Birthdate: November 28

You have a Type A personality so big it makes other Type A's shrink away in shame. You never shy away from adversity - and you love to tackle impossible problems. Failure is not an option for you, and more than a few people are put off by your ego. You tend to be controlling, and you hate leaving anything up to chance. Your strength: Your bold approach to life Your weakness: You don't accept help Your power color: Bronze Your power symbol: Pyramid Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Who needs flickr, anyway?

I'm trying to learn how to work all the bells and whistles of my new toy. It has an anti-shake feature which has proven handy so far, since I prefer not to use a flash whenever possible.

This is the front of a 1931 Ford Roadster, part of the Car Crazy exhibit at the Virginia Historical Society. Admission is free on Sundays and Mondays, if you're ever in the area.

Coming Clean

Okay, the previous posts were a bit of trick photography. We actually took a Falconry class while we were on our honeymoon. It was well worth the money, and I highly recommend it.

Falcons and Hawks and Owls...Oh My!

P.S. - They're still wild animals, even though they have been raised in captivity. Never try to pet a wild animal, even if it's a cute little falcon named Lexi.

And then...

it eyed the bride...

Film at 11.

"In a bizarre honeymoon accident, the groom was attacked by a Cooper's Hawk. Investigaters believe the hawk may have been attracted to his luxurious red hair. The hawk could not be reached for comment."

Another Reason Mammograms Are So Great

My breasts were huge* today! Huge, I tell you.

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*Sure, it was only during the mammogram, and only from a specific angle, but it was a nice change of pace to look down and think, "They're huge!" I even said it out loud.

Late to the Party

1. Show up.
2. Smile.
3. Try to be present.

I seem to be having a problem with #1 lately. Instead, I get sidetracked watching the most witty 22 minutes of television ever produced.

Cheers!

Just Married

If you look closely at the dirt on the back of my car, you'll see that someone has written "Just Married" there, and they also drew a few hearts. At first I thought my husband was the culprit, but he denies it.

I guess we'll never know, then. But I think I'll leave it for awhile.

Seven

A few days ago, Dayli from Known Knowns, Unknown Unknowns tagged me with the 7 meme.

This meme has been quite thought provoking, especially the piece regarding the things I wish to do before I die. When I started to list those things (so many more than 7), I realized there was no reason, no reason whatsoever, why I haven't done several of them already. So it led me to actually kick start one of them, and it's no longer on the list. (And no, I haven't started writing a book.)

More about this when it's finished, maybe. It has been a great day, though.

Thank you Dayli. If you hadn't tagged me with this, it would have just continued to be one of those things I'd get around to eventually (or probably not). But now, I am actually doing it.

The Seven Meme

7 Things I Can Do:
1. Remain focused on a particular task until its completion, regardless of other distractions.
2. Remain true to my word; if I say I'm going to do something, I do it. I'm dependable.
3. Listen. Not just to people's words, but listen to what they're saying with their body language, hand gestures, and eyes, too.
4. I can shower, dress, and do hair and make-up in 20 minutes. That's quicker than some men (ahem) I know.
5. Disagree tactfully and respectfully, assuming you can do the same. If you can't, I'll just keep my mouth shut.
6. A split, but only with my left leg in front. I've never been able to do it the other way.
7. Fit my whole fist in my mouth, but only my left one, as my right hand is slightly larger. And I have a big mouth. (Take my word for it, this is not a pretty sight.)

7 4 Things I Can't Do:
1. Whistle, although I have recently started practicing and can sometimes successfully whistle loudly using my tongue. So maybe this one can come off the list eventually. Never say can't.
2. Part with the jeans I wore when I weighed 115 lbs., even though I'm pretty sure I'll never wear them again.
3. Shop at Wal-Mart.
4. C'mon, let's be honest. There is nothing I can't do, and the same goes for you. It's just that I won't shop at Wal-Mart. And maybe I will throw out those jeans after all.

7 Things I Have In My Life Now That I Am So Incredibly Grateful For:
1. A good memory and capacity to learn
2. My health
3. My husband
4. My family, especially my parents
5. An overabundance of modern conveniences that many in the world do not enjoy
6. My career
7. Paco

7 Things I Hope To Do Before I Die:
1. Trek to Everest Base Camp, but Base Camp is as far as I'd like to go.
2. Live in Texas.
3. Live in a large city, with an actual urban address, not in the suburbs.
4. Have a child if I can, and if not, adopt.
5. Travel for an extended period of time with no set agenda. Just roam.
6. Own my own business.
7. And of course...write a book.

7 Bloggers I Would Like To Infect With This Meme:
I think I have subjected all of you to enough of these, so I won't name names here. But I'd love to see some of your responses. I won't tag anyone, but if any of my regulars wish to do this, please do! (Especially you, Lillie!)

And here is the traceroute for the meme:
Karl » Jen » Z » Mirty » Rav Fleischmann » Steg » Orthomom » Krum » Brooklyn Wolf » Daas Hedyot » Dayli

"Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."
--Miriam Beard

The Scariest Halloween Ever

"Scarlett, can it be possible that...that you've grown a woman's heart?"
--Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind

My reputation is intact, and possibly even enhanced, as we had exactly zero trick-or-treaters last night. We seemed to be the only house on the street with our porch light on and a pumpkin out front, in any case. Oh well.

So we settled in on the sofa in search of a scary movie, and as we scrolled through the on-screen guide, I said, “Hey, look – Bridges of Madison County is on.” We had discussed this particular movie before, establishing the fact that Husband had never seen it, and I had, a few times.

We started watching it, missing the first 10 minutes, so we came into the story right as Francesa’s family drove off to the State Fair, and Thomas Kincaid appeared. It was right about then that I sprang a leak.

It was quite ridiculous actually. For the next hour and a half I was like a silent dripping faucet that just couldn’t be turned off, no matter how hard I tried. I even tried to talk myself out of it logically, chastising myself because – for heaven’s sake – we hadn’t even gotten the parts where the audience is supposed to cry.

I knew they were coming though. And I knew the words, and the expressions, and what their eyes would look like, and I couldn’t help but think about all of that when I finally told him, “I’m not sure I can watch the rest of this.”

And yet, we did.

I surprised myself by retaining my composure through the rainy scene. I thought I was home free. Then, of course, I remembered what was coming next…the part where Francesca and her husband are older, he’s bed-ridden and she gives him his medication, and he says those words that bring his character to life, “I know you had dreams of your own, too.”

My husband had to ask me what was said, because he couldn’t hear the words over my sobbing.

My Halloween costume this year: Blubbering Idiot.

"The truth is that neither sex, without some fertilization by the complementary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor. Man, without a saving touch of woman in him, is too doltish, too naive and romantic, too easily deluded and lulled to sleep by his imagination to be anything above a cavalryman, a theologian or a stock-broker. And woman, without some trace of that divine innocence which is masculine, is too harshly the realist for those vast projections of the fancy which lie at the heart of what we call genius. Here, as elsewhere in the universe, the best effects are obtained by a mingling of elements."
--H.L. Mencken

A Rose by Any Other

We label everything, don’t we? We tag it, name it, label it, put it in a category, and assign it a subject. It’s necessary, I know, and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing that we do this, at least not all of the time. It’s how we describe, how we differentiate. It’s one of the primary means of how we communicate with each other.

November is National Novel Writing Month. Good fortune and best wishes to those of you participating. I personally think that January or March would be much better months for it. They give the author an additional day to squeeze in those 50,000 words, and, at least here in the Land of Consumerism, we wouldn’t have to contend with the preparation of the holiday season. So here is my sentence that you can label as excuses for my lack of participation: I’m busy this month. I have a new job to settle into, friends to catch up with (some don’t even yet know I’m married), husband’s belongings to move, a giant competitor-destroying robot to build, and, oh – well, you get the picture. I have a whole list of things to do. I have lists of my lists. I kept lists before they were fashionable. I inherited the list gene from my parents.

Speaking of husbands and names and to-do’s, I have a bit of work to do there, too. Changing my own, that is, at least legally. I’m not sure whether I’ll change it at work or not. I think I’ll at least wait until I want to be invisible in the online directories, and then I’ll do it. Label me a Missus. Funny how we women change our names and our titles when we marry, and men, of course, do not. Like a wife is a man’s property or something. Of course, I wouldn’t change my name if my husband had that attitude.

Actually, I wouldn’t have married him in the first place if he had that attitude, but I think that goes without saying.

I didn’t mind so much, actually, because Husband agreed to tattoo the word SLAVE on his forehead. So we’re going to do that this weekend.

Even more interesting is the fact that Mrs. is an abbreviation for Mistress. Of course, like most words it has more than one definition, but interesting all the same.

There are two men at my company that share my husband’s name, and I have been known to accidentally send email messages to one of them when I forget to select my private address book. Luckily it’s never anything overtly personal (it is company email, after all). Through these little accidental exchanges and the apologetic and conversational ones that follow, I have discerned that he’s a good guy with a wicked sense of humor.

It must come with the name.

A Few Comments re: Comment spam

Okay, I'm tired of permanently deleting those buggers (and I'm leaving the last one there, on the Halloween post, just because I think it's so funny and highlights the sheer stupidity of the people that do it).

Word verification in place, but you no longer have to be registered to comment.