yet another blogthings

I spend six hours a week waiting while four of my kids take assorted chorus and band lessons. I have discovered, however, that there is a wireless internet signal in the parking lot. Don't think me too dull in the blogging department because you're getting another blogthings from me. You wouldn't feel too inspired if you were sitting here in the dark (bring back my daylight savings time!) in this parking lot, either.

So here's another one {sigh}...

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have high extroversion. You are outgoing and engaging, with both strangers and friends. You truly enjoy being with people and bring energy into any situation. Enthusiastic and fun, you're the first to say "let's go!" Conscientiousness: You have high conscientiousness. Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life. Most things in your life are organized and planned well. But you borderline on being a total perfectionist. Agreeableness: You have medium agreeableness. You're generally a friendly and trusting person. But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism. You get along well with others, as long as they play fair. Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism. You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is medium. You are generally broad minded when it come to new things. But if something crosses a moral line, there's no way you'll approve of it. You are suspicious of anything too wacky, though you do still consider creativity a virtue.

The Five Factor Personality Test

Awed

During the summer, I was very excited to learn that from October 2006 through 2009, Louvre Atlanta is bringing hundreds of works of art from the Louvre's collections to Atlanta through a series of nine exhibitions - many of which have never been seen before in the United States. I was thrilled when I received an invitation for a free Evening for Educators at the High on Friday night. I was allowed to bring a guest, so my 15-year-old son accompanied me, as well as a new friend from our fine arts program and her daughter.

A large crowd moved slowly through the three floors of the exhibit. I prefer to tour the High wearing a headset for the optional audio program. For me, the headphones block out other noise and make the exhibit much more intense and personal. It is difficult to put the experience of this exhibit into words; parts were almost indescribable.

The beginning of the tour was a room with three rows of marble busts. I was blown away to stand before a bust of a Roman emperor carved in the 2nd century A.D. Just think about that a minute. The detail of draped cloth, lace, hair, and eyes were amazing.

Here are a few other highlights:

Charles Le Brun
Monster Pierced with Arrows Drawing

My son especially liked this drawing.

Diego Velasquez
The Infanta Margarita

Samuel Morse
Gallery

Raphael
Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione

The audio tour told how when the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1913 and missing for two years, this painting was the one chosen to hand in its place. The crowd around it was awed; there was a large semi-circle of viewers, but no one stood within 10 feet of the painting. Those blue eyes were quite mesmerizing!

Alessandro Algardi
Jupiter Striking Down the Titans

There were many works centering around Greek mythology, which was very interesting to me since I will be teaching a Greek mythology class next semester.

Rembrandt
Saint Matthew and the Angel

This was definitely the highlight for me. The detail of skin and the pages of the book were incredible. Matthew's face and hands had a fascinating texture to them, the edges of the pages shimmered as if they were brushed with silver and gold, and the concentration in his countenance as the angel whispers in his ear - mesmerizing!

When I left, I felt I should thank someone for allowing me the priviledge of attending. It was truly an amazing thing to stand in the presence of these works of art. One of the most breathtaking things was the sheer size of the paintings, in many cases much larger than I would have imagined. The Samuel Morse painting was huge. I sincerely hope I am able to attend all nine of the Louvre exhibitions. I was awed.

The Big Picture

Y'all have been very gracious in answering my questions lately concerning your computer settings and habits. As a really nosy person webdesigner in training, I'm interested in such things. My husband, who refuses to comment on my blog but set it as his homepage at work, saw my blog last night and said, "So that's how [the new design] is supposed to look!" His screen resolution is set at 800 x 600 pixels (what I call kindergarten settings where everything is big and chunky, like those pencils that kindergarteners use), so he saw only the top of my new header on the screen, not even the "for the holidays" (without scrolling down), and certainly not the blue outer area with white snowflakes for which I downloaded a special set of Photoshop snow brushes. You didn't even see the blue area with the white snowflakes?!!!

This disturbed me all evening, so I asked him to consider gradually (so as not to go into shock) increasing his screen resolution. "Just think of all the other things you might be missing!" I said.

I have my screen resolution set at 1280 x 1024 pixels, so this is what I see:

Do you see something similar to what I see or what my husband sees? If you want to find your screen resolution settings, go to your desktop (no programs open on it) and right-click your mouse; choose "Properties" at the bottom of the list; choose the "Settings" tab and check the Screen Resolution slider bar on the bottom left. The further you drag that bar to the right, towards "More", the more you'll see on your screen. Admittedly, when my 15-year-old bumped me all the way to the right I thought things looked tiny at first; now I've grown accustomed and love it. I feel like I'm really seeing "the big picture." 

And the winner is...

not us. Code Yellow Mom won the Super Happy Girl; however, we were awarded Honorable Mention and the lovely unique SHG graphic on the left, which we are displaying with pride in our home on our blog.

Thanks, No Cool Story, for this bit of family entertainment!

and the suspense builds...

Once while visiting Code Yellow Mom, I noticed a blog called "More Cowbell" just above my link in her "Meet the Faves" section. Somehow, I had never seen or heard of the "more cowbell" SNL skit until Gail posted the video on her blog a couple of months ago. Since then I have seen it referenced more than once (and wonder what I've missed all these years). Obviously it's a matter of cultural literacy; not the first one that's sailed past me. [Speaking of which, I just discovered that The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy is available online!] But I digress...

Since I'm now in-the-know on the "more cowbell" thing, I expected the blogger, No Cool Story, would have a good sense of humor. I wasn't disappointed. I made occasional pitstops, linking off of Code Yellow Mom, and always had a good laugh. This week I added More Cowbell to my bloglines and started commenting and reading more.

From the very beginning I found Super Happy Girl strangely compelling. My kids, however, are completely fascinated with her. When I discovered No Cool Story posted a contest last week with the winner receiving a one-of-a-kind Super Happy Girl graphic, my kids decided that we have to win. Must have Super Happy Girl with the rolled penny hair! My 11-year-old son filled a 100 CD holder with pennies and counted them while we did school Tuesday. He would accept no help whatsoever, and even wanted me to set him up a blogger ID so he could go in and post a second vote, further boosting his our chances of winning. [Gee, I wonder where he got that competitive spirit? From me (see #30)? Nah. Never. And notice I didn't tell you about it until the deadline was almost past?]

My kids are obsessed with this contest and waiting with bated breath for the winner to be announced. Super Happy Girl has become table talk. Oh well, we'll see what tomorrow brings...

[10 - count 'em - 10 links in this post!]

Navbars: the new black

I have blocked the blogger navigation bar at the top of my template for quite some time, for aesthetic reasons. I realize, however, that I use it on other people's blogs to find old posts of theirs that I want to reread or reference. Tonight I realized that I needed it to find something on my own blog (I know, the mind is the first to go), so I put it back. It's a nice blue, so it blends with the new look.

Do you use the navbars? And are they really such an eyesore (lots of people hide them)?

you can't see the paper for the trees

Mommy Dearest, observing the site of a future shopping center: Wow! They've really cut down a lot of trees!

Drama Queen: They must have needed some paper.

New Holiday Look!

I've been itching to play with my template ever since I finished Doris's, but I just hadn't found the look I was after. I wore a powder blue sweater yesterday that had been my mother's. For some reason that sweater particularly inspired me, and I've worked around that color theme. How do you like it?

Just don't be surprised if you get scratched or bitten

Most of the craziest emails I get are from my Dad. I just had to pass along these zany costumed pet pictures he sent me. Enjoy!

Works-for-Me Wednesday: Can Storage Rack

Several years ago, I acquired this handy can rack which takes up almost no space and holds a ton of canned goods. It currently has 82 cans on it, and it isn't full. My hubby mounted it for me behind the door of my laundry room, where it is easily accessible but out of sight. Just think of how much room those cans would take up on pantry shelves! Plus, all of the cans are visible, not buried behind each other. I've had mine a long time, but I assume you could find one at Lowe's or Home Depot.

Visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer for more Works-for-Me Wednesday tips!

Who's your browser?

(WARNING: It is entirely possible that this post will put you to sleep. Don't say I didn't warn you.)

As I plow through my web development book, I am constantly reminded to test my pages in a web browser, more importantly, in multiple browsers. As I am reminded:

Every browser has differences in the way it displays Web pages, and although some of these discrepancies are slight, the differences can sometimes be significant. You might notice differences, even between different versions of the same browser.

Some people use whatever browser is available, and some are passionate about their personal favorite. Personally, I'm a bit of a Mozilla Firefox snob (you've gotta love that cute little fox), so much so that I was appalled in September when I realized that my blog didn't display very well in Internet Explorer. I rarely use it, so I hadn't noticed. I went in and tweaked the template a little until I was satisfied. Conversely, when I was trying to find information about our county fair on the city's website, I found that the pages about the fair were a jumble of code. On a whim, I tested the pages and found that they worked in Internet Explorer (shouldn't they have caught that one instead of me?).

I confess to having no experience or opinion concerning Opera or Safari.

Even if this is a meaningless discussion for you, please be a sport and let me know what browser you use:

What is your primary web browser?
	Mozilla Firefox
	Internet Explorer
	Safari
	Opera
	other
View Results

Along came a spider...

Drama Queen: There's a DEADLY spider in my room!

Mom (not really paying attention, grading math): It's probably not deadly.

Prince Charming, upstairs: NO! IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!!

Drama Queen: There's a LIVELY spider in my room!

What kind of intelligence do you have?

This is a fun little boredom buster quiz. What kind of intelligence do you have? Here's mine:

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Prince Charming

...right down to the strawberry jelly stain on the vest. Capable of wrapping scores of otherwise mature females around his little finger. Mamas, guard your daughters when this one gets a few years on him!

A Movie and a Meeting

Bryan and I went to see Facing the Giants on our anniversary Wednesday night. The night before, I was in line at Chick-fil-a and the manager, a dad in our music program, was saying it was one of the best movies he'd ever seen. He told a group of teens to go see it, and if they didn't like it to come back and he'd pay for their tickets. He said, "Whatever you're doing tomorrow night, cancel it and go see this movie."

I was disappointed at first because the film quality and acting were mediocre; however, what the movie lacks in polish, it compensates for in sincerity. It was filmed in Albany, GA, and appears to have been very much a community effort. My impression was not that some Hollywood types sat down and said, "Let's see if we can make a movie that the Christians will pay to see," but real people made a movie that they believed in.

I thought it was interesting that the movie received a PG rating "for some thematic elements" - in other words, it was a little too evangelical for the ratings board. What this movie gives you is a look at the transformation that occurs in a man who hits rock bottom and then looks up - way up - and dedicates his life and the high school football team he coaches to God's glory. I cried off and on all through it.

We'll be at a big church meeting all weekend. The kids are so excited - they've been asking if they can get dressed all day. I love big church meetings, even though I know I'll have a bad case of PAMS next week (Amber, you introduced me to that acronym). My cousin Lynn also put up a nice post this week about singing. I can't wait for tonight - there's nothing like Friday night at an annual meeting, when everyone is fresh and fired up for some good preaching. I'm also looking forward to spending the weekend with my dearest friends, my church sisters. Have a blessed weekend!

Child Psychology 101

I have been using the following bit of reverse psychology on my kids the past few months. I thought I would share in case you want to try!

Here is a fictitious sample conversation:

Child: Could we have ice cream for lunch?

Mom: No, we don't eat ice cream for lunch.

Child: But Dad says we can have ice cream for lunch!

Mom, looking stern and disapproving: I am tired of you bad-mouthing your dad like that!

At this point, I get blank, baffled stares; for one thing, they're trying to figure out when they were bad-mouthing their dad in the first place. So far, it has worked like a charm and no one has had the nerve to say, "But Mom, we were bad-mouthing you!"

Try this one on your kids and let me know if it works for you, too! 

Life Among the Drama Queens

First, I want to say that I will not traumatize my daughter by posting the photo on the left. She laughs hysterically whenever she sees it. I snapped it on a family outing a couple of weeks ago when she went into a dramatic crying session for no apparent reason. She is 100% pure emotion, usually at an extreme high (bouncing off the walls) or low (the depths of despair). She is truly a drama queen.

Yesterday afternoon while straightening my formal living room/school room, I discovered several spots of of neon pink ink splattered in the carpet. While grilling the kids for information, I learned that my 6-year-old daughter had done this two days earlier. I was not only upset about the stain, but that no one had told me about it.

I've found over the years that many people consider me to be very calm and even-tempered, in spite of our large family. Last night would have changed their minds. I was furious about the ink stains and not being told. I read a blog post recently where the blogger (unfortunately, I can't remember which blog - sorry!) was trying not to raise her voice with her children. Every time she did, she would place money (25 cents?) in a jar. At the end of the month, she would buy her kids something with the money in the jar. I'm not sure that I'm remembering this correctly, but I think that was the gist of it. If that were our household, I'd owe my kids a new PlayStation this month after last night.

My kids had gotten little neon-inked pens as party favors recently. Apparently my daughter had chewed on a pen and it broke in her mouth, and she spit the ink on the floor. While (unsuccessfully) working on the stain and venting about it, I realized that my daughter was repeatedly wailing, "But what was I supposed to do? I would have died!" In her mind, the ink would have killed her; therefore it was unfeeling and downright unmotherly that I was upset about the stain. "But why didn't you tell me?" I said. She countered with, "But you were on the phone!" For two days? I was on the phone for TWO DAYS?!!!!!!!!!! I don't actually believe I was on the phone when it happened, but it worked for the drama of her near-death experience story. How do you argue with this kind of logic?

After repeatedly hand and steam cleaning the carpet (here I go again), I finally found just the right stain remover and saved the carpet; however, somehow I still feel like the bad guy in this story. I was the queen bee in my household for the first eleven years of my marriage, when it was my husband, first three sons, and I. The addition of four daughters has added a whole new element: high drama. There will come a day when they will almost all be teenagers at the same time. Heaven help us.

Happily Ever After

I am really excited about a blog template design I just did for Doris at Living My Happily Ever After. Doris and I went to church together years ago. She recently joined an email loop I moderate, started reading the blogs of my partners in crime best buddies, and after a couple of months of cruising the blogosphere, bravely graciously trusted me to design her template. [Are you enjoying the strikethrough text trick, and did you notice that one was both "stricken" and linked? Cool, huh?]

I don't claim to be the most capable template designer around, which could be why only my crazy friends trust me to do it. As a matter of fact, I probably have just enough knowledge to be dangerous, but it's increasing daily. I never posted my Fall Into Reading list because I thought you would be bored to tears less-than-inspired by my current book list. After years of enduring barbs from friends and family, I've learned to embrace and feed my inner geek. I am currently working my way through Macromedia Dreamweaver 8: Training from the Source, and Adobe Photoshop CS2 Classroom in a Book is waiting patiently on the shelf for me. I am aware that this is not nightstand reading material (you actually have to read it with book in one hand, mouse in the other, and pen and highlighter close at hand), but it's me.

I am genetically wired to at least try to learn something new at all times. Actually, I was scared into action a few years ago by a commercial during the Rush Limbaugh show, which said you don't learn any new words (and it's hard to learn new things without the required lingo) past the age of 25. Obviously, that was before the days of Wikipedia and the Match Up game on The Free Dictionary, which is my daily fix.

Y'all go visit Doris and give her some encouragement as she begins her bloggity adventure!

Bow Peeps

My buddy Melissa makes beautiful girls hair bows, which she sells locally to children's boutiques. I'm working on a website to enable her to share these bows with little girls and their mommies everywhere! My girls (a.k.a. bow models) had a fun time at the park yesterday having their pictures made for bow shots. Felicity was hugging Lily today and I told her how cute they were. She said, "Do you want to take our picture?"




 

Speaking of cooking...

My cousin Lynn has an interesting post entitled "Chili Apologetics" (you're curious, aren't you?). You'll even get a recipe if you read the comments. It makes me hungry, and maybe a wee bit frightened... She's talking about some serious chili! Stop by and say "hey!" (and copy that recipe if you're really brave).

Pizza: it's what's for supper

When you take your supper out of the oven then snap a picture of it, you know there's a post about it in your future. That's what happened last week when we had homemade pizza. I seem to have a cooking blog this week. I've considered starting one - and even have a folder of photos put together for making a header - but I think it will wait until later. Melissa and I were talking yesterday and she encouraged me to post my pizza ideas.

Step 1: The Crust

For years I made a homemade crust from fresh-ground wheat flour. It was very healthy, but unfortunately involved a lot of prep and rising time. I found this quick and easy crust recipe at Full Bellies, Happy Kids; although not nearly so healthy as my former recipe, it is a real time-saver and enables me to make pizza much quicker (which means more often).

Quick Pizza Dough

1 pkg. Quick Rise dry yeast (I use 2 tsp. instant yeast)
1 c. lukewarm water
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. honey
2 1/2 c. flour

Mix yeast in water, then add other ingredients. Mix well by hand. Cover with dishtowel and let sit in bowl for 5-10 minutes. Flatten on greased pan. Add your own toppings. Bake at 450 degrees for about 12 minutes.

Step 2: The Sauce

Years ago, when first experiementing with homemade pizza, I bought ready-made pizza sauce. Unfortunately, we were never satisfied with the taste. I almost gave up on making pizza altogether until I found this sauce recipe in my cooking bible, The New Basics Cookbook:

Basic Tomato Sauce for Pizza

1 can (28 oz.) Italian-style tomato purée
1 large clove garlic, minced (fresh, not jarred!)
1 tsp. dried oregano or marjoram
4 fresh basil leaves or 1 tsp. dried
1 bay leaf
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Place all ingredients in a 3-qt. saucepan. Cover and bring to a boil. Uncover, lower the heat, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 30 minutes.
3 cups (enough for two 12-inch pizzas)
Note: This sauce may be made ahead and frozen.

With sauce, a little preparation goes a long way. It takes very little extra effort to multiply this recipe, just buy a bigger can of tomatoes and add more of the ingredients. I usually quadruple and freeze it, then thaw what I need the next time I make pizza.

Step 3: The Cheese

The simplest thing for me is keep pre-grated Kraft Pizza Cheese in the freezer. If you use straight-up Mozzarella, you may want to wait and add it to your pizza during the last five minutes of cooking, since it is a very soft cheese and over-browns easily. I also use Parmigiano Reggiano, located in the deli/specialty cheese section of the grocery store. It has a very distinct taste and smell, not to be confused with the much milder pre-grated Parmesan cheese. This is a very hard cheese, which seems to store almost indefinitely. I only use a small chunk of it at a time, which I grate with my Pampered Chef deluxe cheese grater (it makes me feel like a server at The Olive Garden). I store the rest in a ziploc bag in the fridge.

Step 4: The Toppings

Obviously, this is very much a matter of personal taste and ingredients on-hand. I use lots of fresh garlic. The pizza below is from last week, and was topped with a fresh, sliced tomato from our garden (oh, I dread it when they run out!). We even like a "white pizza" with lots of cheese, herbs, and garlic (maybe a little drizzled olive oil), and no tomato sauce.

Hopefully I've given you a little "food for thought," pizza-wise!

The Word Association Meme

I have come to realize that a meme is usually for the author, not the audience. For this tiny meme, I have recalled fond memories of my mother, my grandparents, and a comedian (he doesn't really count), all deceased. I have resisted jumping on this word association meme bandwagon, mostly because I hadn't seen words that tickled my fancy, but I liked these that Melanie posted:

1. Biscuit - This reminds me of the school year (in jr. high?) when every day after school my grandmother fixed a big pie plate of biscuits for me and my granddad, which we ate dripping in sorghum and butter. I always wanted the biscuit in the middle, without any darker cooked "edges." I always cook biscuits on stoneware where none are against an edge, so that I don't have to fight my kids for the middle biscuit (and give away my secret that in some ways I am possibly more childish than they are).

2. Crayon - This makes me think of my and my mother's particular fondness for school supplies, especially a fresh box of crayons. When I'm trying to describe something to my husband and I comment that it is periwinkle, or maize, or - well, you get the picture - and he looks at me with that bewildered look, I say, "Didn't you have the 64 box of Crayola Crayons?"

3. Warmth - crawling between flannel sheets on a cold night.

4. Flip - This one has stumped me. The two things coming to mind are Flip Wilson and the flip I try to achieve with my hair.

Here are four new words for anyone who wants to play:

Slush
Wing
Candle
Cinnamon

Dinner for the Uninspired

Ever have one of those days when suppertime rolls around and you are completely and totally uninspired? What's worse is those days when you are not only uninspired, you simply do not want to cook. You know, those days when it's all you can do not to just call in pizza or have your honey pick up carry-out on his way home from work.

I'm having one of those days, and I'm going to share with you one of my quick fix meals for the uninspired chef. It's cooking on my stove as we speak (so to speak). This is one where you basically open a bunch of cans that are already in your pantry and dump them together in a large skillet. Opening all of those cans even stirred enough culinary creativity that I threw a pan of cornbread in the oven, too!

Chili Pasta Skillet

1 pound ground beef
3/4 cup chopped onion
15-oz. can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
14-oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
8-oz. can tomato sauce (I usually have the regular 15 oz. cans, which is okay)
1/2 cup dried elbow macaroni
4-oz. can diced green chile peppers, drained
2 to 3 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese

1. In a large skillet cook meat and onion until meat is brown and onion is tender. Drain off fat.
2. Stir in beans, undrained tomatoes, tomato sauce, uncooked macaroni, chile peppers, chili powder, and garlic salt. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, about 20 minutes or until macaroni is tender, stirring often. Remove skillet from heat; sprinkle mixture with cheese. Cover and let stand about 2 minutes or until cheese is melted.

recipe courtesy of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

 

Fanta Orange

I've dedicated this post to Fanta Orange, which is running down the faces of my girls in these pictures from our day in the mountains yesterday. Coca-Cola probably doesn't produce Fanta commercials which show the sheer glee radiated by my girls in these photos! Aren't they cute?

Photo Scavenger Hunt: Sleep

Grab the Scavenger Hunt code. Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

This is my first Photo Scavenger Hunt; I didn't even know there was a weekly theme! This picture was taken when my Lily was 2 days old, the day we got home from the hospital.