I've had a fantastic day so far, and I still have a lot to accomplish before bedtime. But I didn't want to miss Music Monday, and I thought you'd like this Sammy Davis Jr. song, "Love Me or Leave Me" and its swingin' beat to keep you going!
I know technically this should be cast as a "Video Wednesday", since it IS video as well as audio, but I couldn't keep this amazing clip from you. This is what happens when two world class, insanely talented dancers start showing off! The fact that a GUY is doing the follow is completely awesome!
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I found this whilst doing costume and character development research for Dragon Con, that eventually derailed into link-chasing on YouTube. (I'm honest.) I do NOT listen to, nor do I advocate, the music of the band LMFAO. Note that some of the lyrics in this clip are PG13. You know that I strive to keep this blog 99.9% family friendly. Just please understand that with the Marvel/Iron Man kick I've been on recently, and how well this fits the superheroes (and their egos), it was just way too good to not share! :) (Especially the ending!)
My Gran has a large garden every year. And just down from that garden, she used to keep chickens. We live across the street from a horse pasture/stables, so I see horses every day. Just down the road not even 2 miles, our neighbors have a herd of dairy cows. So I see cows every day too. I used to think "It would be so nice to own a couple of goats." Right? I could sell the milk, or use it to make soap and lotions and sell those. You know, going back to the land and homesteading and all that. It seemed like a good idea. I mean, look at this face and how cute they are!
Our poor mailbox. It has sweetly and patiently stood vigil at the road in front of Gran's house for many years. It has withstood hail, tornados, scorching summers, several floods, and the baseball bats of stupid punk teenagers who don't have anything worthwhile to do on a Saturday night than destroy other people's property.
It's so pitiful, I don't even have the heart to show you a photo of it. The door is missing, the flag rusted into place ages ago, and the numbers are broken and falling off of the post.
Of course, now that the weather has a few nice days thrown in, we are looking to fix it up replace it with a pretty new one.* This got me thinking on some designs and I thought I would share some fantastic mailbox photos I found around the interwebs. :)
For those who just can't let go of technology...
For the Hobby Enthusiast:
For the Geek following their Fandom...
For the Northerner who is sick of the snow and a bit stir crazy...
*Have you seen how much some of the prettier ones go for at places like Home Depot and Lowes?? $400+! God Save The Queen, I could send each of my pen pals a letter a week for that! (Maybe.)
And I am still making up my mind on the "to get a P.O. Box or to not get a P.O. Box" question.
How's the state of your mailbox, my dear reader?
There are a lot of postal related things out there that fall firmly into my "Just Plain Silly" tag/category. Here are a few for your entertainment! :)
THE WORLD'S SMALLEST POST SERVICE KIT
Seriously cute!!! You can get more info and order your own HERE.
SURPRISES IN THE POSTBOX...
I'm not typically a fan of practical jokes, but I thought this was great! You can get your own lizard HERE and then have some laughs. Just be sure the person whose mailbox you leave it in has a good sense of humor too! :)
Some of my absolute favorite inks (and ink pens) to write letters with.....
Excellent for historic character letters.
I don't own this inkwell yet, but I want one.
Good for writing and drawing.
The "Blue" is the one I use the most. Hobby Lobby has them for sale individually. I like the "Teal" too.
As with the one above, I don't actually own this peacock glass inkwell. But I want it. :)
Perhaps not "accurate" for historic character correspondence. But sooo pretty. :)
Again, less practical- but so fun!!
Swirl click ball-point pens by The Write Dudes
Gelly Roll Stardust pens by Sakura
For dark papers. I like to use this on a dark blue shimmer finished cardstock that has been cut to the size of my card, when I need a couple more "pages" for my letter. I'm long winded. :)
Pretty and smooth gel ink in very bright colors.
Same as above, but slightly different feel.
I usually keep the pink one and give the purple one to a friend.
What inks and pens are your favorites to write letters with, my Loves?
God Save the Queen, I have SO FREAKING MUCH to do this week, and it's going to be AWESOME! More details after this little gem...
... I think that about the birds outside, too!!!
So, CGtY is officially 5, which means she's promoted herself in her make believe play to CEO and Supreme Ruler of DisneyPrincessBarbieFairyLand. She's a gracious monarch, though. She lets me be in charge of the Mermaids, and CGtE is now the Head of the Department of Entertainment (a promotion from last year's Lead Servant and Scapegoat). He and I can't help but agree that the pay is lousy (we are rewarded for our loyalty with more and bigger messes to clean up), but the creative license perks are pretty sweet (I can make the Mermaids stage a rebellion and flood DisneyPrincessBarbieFairyLand unless Her Majesty meets their demands. Like, eating all of her dinner or getting her pajamas on, say.) Her subjects (who, among the masses, include Cinderella, Rapunzel, Merida, 5 of those Ty animals with the freakishly big eyes, and about a dozen Littlest Pet Shop critters that hurt worse than Legos when I step on them in the dark) adore her and have good cause to place their (inanimate) faith in her ability to rule; there hasn't been a flood yet. Unless you count the bathtub, which we don't- that's Her Majesty treating them all to a vacation at the beach.
Anyway, yeah, back to my metric ton of stuff to do this week:
Tomorrow is a full day of finishing the Spring Cleaning. Every blessed thing in the house has been disturbed, dusted, wiped down, disinfected and rearranged. I wish I had taken a photo of the area under the stairs before I redid it, to show the difference. It looks amazing now! I still have the dining room and downstairs bathroom to complete, as well as detail mopping the kitchen. (Detail mopping- on my knees with a cloth and bucket, a la Cinderella. Good time for prayer and worship, that!)
Aside from those couple of things, most of the stuff was done last week and just needs "touchups". Well, except for my room, which always needs to be done- but no one is going to see it, as it's in a permanent state of reinvention so it doesn't really figure in. And I'll have to repeatedly pick up the trail of toys that the CGs strew behind them as they go. Cleaning a house with young kids in it is like trying to file and organize papers on a desk while a fan blows on them. Or brushing your teeth while you are eating Oreos. Ok, no, ew. The first thing. The second one may be an effective analogy, but it's still a really gross mental image!
Tuesday evening, some friends of ours will be visiting from Leeds, UK. I can't wait to see them! It's going to be fantastic! Later in the week I'm going to be meeting another friend I haven't seen in a long while for a late dinner, so I'm looking forward to that as well. Nothing is better than good food and good friends gathering to visit! :)
Also this week, I've got to solidify my posts for the Annual A-Z! I'm doing a "Snail Mail" theme (well, of course I am! What else would it have been!) and I still have to come up with a few of the trickier ones. You know. Q, V, X, Y. Surprisingly, U, W and Z were all easy ones.
Lucy Jane has been hibernating for too long and has to get busy on some stock pieces for the upcoming Hydrangea Fest! Only 8 ish weeks to go! Yikes! More giraffes and hippos and sea turtles and stuff to make. The CGs think it's done by magic. Oh, they've seen the machine going, and they have seen the process from start to finish. But usually the main work is done while they are at school or asleep, so one minute it's a pile of fabric and then >POOF!< there is a shelf full of cuddly plush animals (that, ironically and maddeningly, they are not allowed to touch and/or play with! LOL!) I'm making them some of their own. CGtE hasn't decided what he wants yet, but CGtY is painstakingly choosing the fabric for her custom unicorn. Someone made a comment somewhere- the cobbler's children being barefoot... or something along those lines. Well, fine. Now my CGs will own Lucy Jane made Funky Friends. I can't wait to show Pauline (the pattern maker) when I get them done. :)
(Just so we are clear, it's not as if the CGs don't have a bunch of loved plushies already. They do. But somehow my love of sewing Funky Friends and my compulsory need to be a sometimes indulgent parent seem to have collided.)
And I'm working on my backlog of letters to answer. I have it down to around 30 now. This past week was awesome and brought letters in from as far away as Hungary, plus a stack from all around the US. I am loving the new friendships I have made through LetterMo, and the continued correspondence from long-established pen friends. It's a wonderful and important part of my daily life to send and receive letters!
Then Friday I'm hosting a 31 Gifts party! I LOVE 31 stuff. I have a demi purse in "peacock paisley" (now retired, sadly) that I use ALL the time, but I have my eye on that Cindy design, and that drool-inducing Organista bag... !
Ok... I've rambled on long enough! Time to crash in the bed and tackle that list of awesomeness in the morning at 6 a.m.! Goodnight, my dears!
Another night plagued by insomnia, but I'm finally getting sleepy. Before I crash- since it's technically Wednesday now- I'll post this wonderful video that will probably end up being the 64 seconds of your day that gives you the most warm fuzzies. Unless, you know, like a long lost family member and you are reunited or something like that, in which case, stop messing around and post your own dang YouTube video for cryin' out loud! The rest of us are going to go with this one:
So apparently we had mail last Saturday that included packages, because when a guest came to the front door (that we don't ever really use ourselves) yesterday, there was a little stack of post sitting on the bench. Really need to communicate with the delivery person about that. ANYWAY. My best friend of 20+ years sent me THIS:
I about fell over, I was laughing so hard!
In case you haven't discovered the wonderfulness that is the Hyperbole and a Half Blog, here is the post from whence this tea bling comes. (Read it, I'll wait.)
I hope Allie is doing well and recovering from her battle with clinical depression. The internet misses her dreadfully (as do I). In the meantime, we at least have the archives of past H&AH to keep us laughing. She is hilarious!
I'm going to fix a cup of caffeinated, sugared up tea in my new mug to give me a blast of energy and then take the Cute Gremlins to the parp park to play while it's blue skies and sunshine out! Happy random Monday in the middle of February, everyone! :D
If we'd lived in Scotland, this would SO have been my Daddy when Mum and I were butting heads because I was being a stupid teenager. He would have even made that face at the end. Awesomeness. :)
Following a random thread of thought down a rabbit hole, I found these gems sprinkled across the internets. Which are your favorites? I rather love them all. :)
This day, 12-12-12, won't come around for another 100 years. The next repeated date day won't come around for another 89 years, on 01-01-2101. So unless I live to be 120 years old, I shan't be around to see one. We will be doing some 12 Days of Christmas themed stuff this afternoon to celebrate the fun of 12-12-12 while it's here. :) But an added element of fun was shown to me this morning on my Facebook feed- broken down to single digits, this turns into:
I used to watch this movie with my Grandmother when I was around 10 or 12. The whole thing is funny, but this (starting at 3:40 on the YouTube video below) was my absolute favorite scene! I'm both grateful and disappointed that I never had a choir conductor quite like him. :) Enjoy!
All of this month's Music Mondays will be my favorite Christmas songs! :D :D :D First up, who doesn't love the Muppets? Muppets at Christmas is just the glaze on the figgy pudding (so to speak)!
And if that version of The 12 Days of Christmas isn't your style, try this one from the a capella group Straight No Chaser. (I like the Oberlin Obertones version better, but couldn't find any sharable audio. Drat it.)
I laughed until my sides ached! Enjoy these two, but here is the entire 2 hour show. Watch it with someone you love to laugh with and it will be 2 of the best hours of your life. :)
I hadn't seen this in a while and a friend happened to share it on my social streams. So now I'm sharing it with you. *Raises glass* To Lord Nelson! (And Russell Crowe. And Paul Bettany.)
Yesterday my friend Carrie posed a question on her Facebook wall:
"What is the best cheese for a grilled cheese sandwich?"
Almost instantly, there were well over 20 comments ranging from the classic (including my own suggestion of deli sliced ham and swiss) to the fancy ("marble rye and Gruyere") to the extremely creative that substituted cheese altogether ("melted banana, peanut butter, honey-cured bacon and cinnamon with fresh fruit"!). There was even a nice representation of the range from healthy ("hummus, bean sprouts, white sharp cheddar and tomato on wheat") to utterly artery clogging ("Velveeta...that block of uber-processed goodness").
One of her commenters mid-way through the thread made the good point that "ALL THE CHEESE" is the best cheese to grill (agreed!!!), which of course prompted me to borrow an Allie Brosh drawing (copyright hers) from a meme creator page and tweak the text to create this:
Pretty sure I know what we're having for lunch now... :)
