Category: Spiffy Stuff

Téléfrançais – L’ANANAS!!!!!

Oh. My. GAWD. YouTube has EVERYTHING.

We watched a kids show that taught basic French to students, and with some help from The Google, I found Téléfrançais, the zany adventures of a talking pineapple in French class for years when I was in high school. When I tried to describe it to my daughter, all I got was funny looks.

But HERE!! PROOF of the PINEAPPLE! L’ANANAS!

AHhhhhhhh nostalgia 🙂 Now I have to rip the vid so she can take it to school and show her French teacher, who also gave funny looks.

Read More

Roadtrippin’

Today was one of those days when you just say, “Ahhhhh, what a lovely day.” at the end of it 🙂

It seems like every time we make plans to head into Lincoln to visit the Voelkers, something happens to keep that from happening. One time was spent in a snowy ditch after we drove right off the interstate exit curve during white-out conditions. Just before Christmas, the kid was sick and the weather was crap. But today we finally made it in and spent a delightful day hanging out with Jo and Tom, Günter, Beca and Hannah. And the kitties 🙂 Even got a call from dad during it, so that was lovely 🙂

We brunched, we chatted – well, Shannon and I mostly sat giggling away at listening to Günter and Beca riff off each other, and Hannah telling Zoo bar stories. Jo put together a huge spread for brunch as usual and it was full of awesome. I showed off my mad juggling skillz with some Clementine oranges to hehehe. Yes, I can juggle. A little. I’m a constant surprise.

And we all walked to a couple of Asian markets… one possibly just a front for something else judging by the scant products, compelte disarray and general… oddness of the place. They did have this stuff in freezers called ‘Jews Mellow’ which prompted a few inappropriate jokes – my favourite of which was Shannon blurting out, “Jews Mellow is people!” I lost my shit laughing at that. I have looked it up though, because the name is so weird to this very white chick, and have learned it’s a leafy green vegetable popular in the Middle East, and is thought to be a sexual stimulant that makes women stray into the arms of strange men.

The other markets we popped into were loads of fun and I ended up with some Rose tea – never had it so hope it’s nice. Actually I hope it’s loaded with caffeine, but at the least it should smell nice 🙂 Also saw some frozen squid heads, and I’ve had Barnes & Barnes stuck in my head ever since.

Then after some more lovely hang time, in which Tom helped me pry the cap off my anti-freeze thingie in the car so I could fill it up, we left for a stop at our favourite import place, Eyes of the World. There is always a lot of fantastic, beautiful, funky and just plain weird stuff in there and we try to go whenever we’re there.

I bought yet another funky box thing that folds out into a clock and a shiny new silver Claddagh ring. I’ve been looking for a silver one for years actually. I was given a gold one with an emerald heart one by an old boyfriend, ohhhh about 12 years ago and it just became one of those things I wore. Not because of who gave it to me, but because I love Claddagh rings, and that one came from Ireland. Must be my Irishness I guess. I’m not really a fan of gold jewelry though. Much prefer silver so while I wore the gold one, I’ve always been on the lookout for a nice silver one. And silver ones that won’t break or turn your finger green are hard to find.

All this just to say I felt it was time to replace that one, and I’m digging being able to wear it the proper way when one’s heart has been captured 🙂

After that, it was an uneventful drive home, apart from letting Shannon take over the drive at York. Just before she got her license, she drove once on Interstate between North Platte and Ogallalla. And that’s it. She’s only ever driven here in town. As she will be going off to college *sob* in the Fall, and the one she wants to go to is 40 minutes away by Interstate, I figure she better learn it. It’s a bit different from town driving. She did well 🙂 We will practice some more this spring.

And so now we are home, with our swag from Jo and Günt and Beca (thank you again guys!) and EotW. And it was a perfectly lovely day. Thanks Voelkers 🙂 Love you all!

Read More

Rambling about

Today I decided I wanted to go shoot some pix outside of town. The weather’s fairly nice, if brisk 🙂 and I’ve the day off from work and it would feel good to get out of the house for a while.

Instead of just driving out into the country though, I thought we’d go back to Witch’s Bridge. The problem with just driving around here is a lot of land is private farmland and probably wouldn’t appreciate a couple of chicks wandering around their land. So I went with a place I knew 🙂

We first went to Witch’s Bridge a couple of years ago with some friends from the paper as we attempted to produce our second annual trip to someplace creepy at Halloween and “investigate” hauntings 🙂 The first one we did was spend an evening at the downtown movie theatre after closing. I wanted these to be like Most Haunted, but kind of failed 🙂

Anyway, the kidlet and I, after getting a bit lost and asking Scott for help, we found it, and well, here are some pix from our ramble today.


Clicky 🙂

Read More

Byebye 2008

This was a good year. I actually can’t think of anything too bad, personally, that happened this year, so that’s a good thing. No, this year was peppered with very nice things. I think the only trauma that stands out to me was when the paper laid off my lovely friend and coworker, out of the blue and actually quite shockingly. In the morning, everything was fine, tra-la-la, and by the end of the day she was in tears, cleaning out her desk, tra-la-fucking-la.

But she landed on her feet, as I was sure she would and is doing well, liking her new job and mostly happily in love with her new boy 🙂 So that turned out okay.

We got to travel a bit thanks to my awesome cousin and his lovely wife who helped us be there for my baby sister as she got married at the coolest wedding I’ve ever been to – not that I’ve been to a lot of weddings, mind you 🙂 And apologies to dad and his new wifey whose wedding was also very lovely. But Kelly’s rocked it bigtime 🙂 hehehe.

That’s my gorgeous sister in the pic there, just before the ceremony but after a little Kaluha 🙂 Pictures from our entire trip are here. And I mean all of it 🙂 From above the clouds to below the sea. From San Jose to Big Sur.

It was a brilliant trip back to the homeland, where I gained a brother,  I saw old friends, watched Kelly marry the man of her dreams, and who shares her love of ghost-themed TV shows, took the kidlet to some old haunts, played with otters, chuckled at the door to nowhere, reflected a little at the beach where my parents’ ashes were scattered, and stressed over rain on wedding days 🙂

This year we also got to hang with Dad on a couple of visits which we always love. One visit he brought the lovely wife with him and it was wonderful to see her too. I would really like to find the time to go back to Montana in the new year. Such gorgeous country.

Close on the heels of one beautiful, perfect wedding, we got to attend another, way cool, loads of fun wedding when my cousin married his longtime girlfriend in a sort of pagan, Wiccan handfasting ceremony followed by much beer and loads of German food. We stayed in a gorgeous freaking mansion, and ended the weekend with an awesome Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert.

This year saw my daughter really grow into an even more beautiful, intelligent, awe-inspiring young woman. She rocked her ACT score and after years of wondering how I was going to get her through college, she turns around and does so well in school that she may get a full ride at a nearby Uni. She wants to be a teacher. Isn’t that fantastic? I’ve never met a more talented, funny, charming teen in my whole life, and luckily, she belongs to me 🙂

Looking back at the year at the paper, despite the layoffs, and some drawbacks, we are doing really well and remain on the “cutting edge” according to one reader as far as online goes. I’ve learned so much this year alone about how to grow the paper. I really still love what I do and can’t believe I get paid to do this stuff. It’s awesome.

And there there is one more thing that makes 2008 memorable. This is the slightly mushy bit, so feel free to skip ahead 🙂 That one more thing is my honey. That’s the back of his head up there in my uhh, header, hehe, at the top of the page. I don’t know how it happened, I don’t question my luck, I just enjoy it. But I love him. I really do, and here’s hoping 2009 is even more wonderful for us.

For you, dear readers, I wish you life, health and love in the new year.

Read More

Blog-Blocked

I’m trapped between having an urge to post, and then not being able to think about anything I can write about. Someone said to me today that they like the “I Write What I Like” philosophy of Steve Biko. I like that too. I should be able to write what I like, within reason of course, I mean my family reads this thing, hehe. So I should probably at least keep it clean.

Ah fuck it, maybe I won’t. You guys know what I’m like, so you can skim past the bits that might bore you 🙂

I’ve had some ‘splaining to do on my last post. What it boiled down to is I’ve met someone. I wasn’t looking. A relationship was the furthest thing from my mind, for many reasons. But something wonderful happened one day, unexpectedly, and these days I could not be happier. He makes me absolutely soar in ways I’ve never known before and well, at the risk of sounding like a.. like a girl, I love him. Plain and simple. I never expected to feel this way again, I mean I’ve had my shots at the love thing and they were all wonderful, and I’m a lucky girl for getting to have those feelings for someone more than once.

But this time something’s different. Something’s just better and I’m positively jangling with so many overwhelming emotions, constantly, that it’s hard to keep a lid on it sometimes.

And hopefully that’s more of an explanation that some of you cared to hear, but I write what I like 🙂

Aside from the love thang, there are other parts of my life that aren’t too shabby either. My brilliant daughter may be able to go to a good university on a full-ride scholarship where she can pursue her dream of being a teacher. She’s extremely passionate about it and I’m so proud of her.

Work is fun. Stressy stressy fun but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Never have I had such a fulfilling job and I’m damn lucky to get to do what I love to do, and to have the freedom to do it.

And soon (too soon, I still have to shop!) it will be xmas and we get to go to Lincoln this weekend to see Aunty Jo and fam whom I have not seen for aaaaaaaages. I can’t wait.

You know, now that I think about it, this is sort of a rundown of things that I’m happy about, which is an exercise Wil Wheaton posted yesterday. Basically you think of something that makes you happy right now. Then another and then another. You can get on a roll, so the challenge is to just pick three. Ok, so I listed four here, but man, prioritizing happiness is haaaaaaaard. It’s just all good right now.

Ok my fingers are frozen (very cold in NebbyLand past few days) so I’m off to bed. Blogging regularly will resume because I FEEL the mood upon me, hehe (TESTIFY!) 🙂

Read More

Coffee good

I haven’t been sleeping much lately. Not because I’m still all broody from my last post though. No, I’m good. Holidays can be wonderful things, but they can also make you a bit sad, but it’s only now and then. No, I’m not sleeping much due to excessive elation.

I seem to have found myself in a situation I never expected to be in. I wasn’t aiming for it, it just happened. In fact, I was just minding my own business, going about my days, doing my thing. You know how it is. And then wham! Everything flips, life changes, and suddenly all things are different. All things are better. The days seem brighter, things that should make you angry just don’t (I’m looking at you kiddo and your first warning from the cops who pulled you over tonight), food tastes better and so help me, coffee is the nectar of the gods.

Ahhh I wish I could go into details, but now isn’t the time. I am happy. Happier than I thought I could ever be, and before I make everyone reading this throw up, I will shut up 🙂 I just wanted to write it down so I can look back one day and remember this amazing feeling.

Read More
Read More