Bye bye Gameboy

Sold 

We release you from our home and expel you back into the universe.

This is the Christmas gift our son received. The giver was a person who knew well how we feel about little kids wasting time in front of video games. Our son is older now though, nine years old, and I decided not to return the gift, but let him keep it and see how it went. I even smiled gently as he admired the gift. Almost cracked my face. As I see it, by this age my work is done in that arena. Either he's got interests bigger than a handheld video game or he hasn't.

Truth is, I was very distressed by the gift. It upset me enough to email a good friend and cry about it in type. I was surprised when he opened it because even he had told the giver how he felt about video games! He asked me why she gave it to him and I said I didn't know, but that she must have thought he would like it. I suppose she didn't believe him? Answer unknown.

Hallelujah, last week he told me he wanted to sell it. So sell it we did at Vegsource. Bye bye Nintendo Gameboy Advanced SP in pearl blue. Sayonara and good riddance!

Good Hair Days hairpins

Plastic hairpins 

Today we rode the Trail of the Hiawatha. I'm too pooped to pop now so haven't looked at my days' pictures. It was exhilarating! Fifteen miles downhill at a 2% or 3% grade so anybody can do it. Got mud on all of our clothes, went through ten train tunnels and over seven train trestles. It was just fantastic! Wore my hair in two braids in front and so did about four other girls. I guess it's a good biker 'do. I wore my hair in a single French braid folded under last time we did a long bicycle ride but it bothered me underneath, by my neck, everytime I turned my head. Buns definitely do not work with a bicycle helmet, not even low buns.

Good night!

Good Hair Days Hairpins

I finally, but finally found a Sally's that has them in stock. I tried them out today! They held just fine. I wore a high braided bun and it didn't fall down and I didn't need to adjust it one single time all day long. I took a picture of the package but it won't upload. Maybe the Wifi connection here isn't strong enough.

Tomorrow we're riding bikes!

Ford washed

Toreador Red

I am really having to search for photo ops here. I kinda already took a bunch of pics of Idaho greenery and how much greenery can a person take? It's pretty here, but I took a picture of our truck instead. Husband bought a buffer yesterday so it makes waxing ever so much easier. He's cleaning and waxing the trailer too, a little at a time. It's a big job. We could have hired someone to do it for us but the guy wanted $600.00. I know it would have been gorgeous when he was done, as gorgeous as a 1999 trailie can be that is, but we decided to keep the cash and do it ourselves, little by little. We should be done with it by this time next year. Heh.

One of my favorite, favorite feelings, tactilely speaking, is the feeling of running a cloth over a smooth wax job on a b*tchen paint job on a beautiful car. You wash it, you vacuum it, Windex the windows and check 'em in the sun from every angle, use Q-tips for the nooks and crannies, Armour All on your tires to make them shiny black, clean the wheels, get the spots up out of the mats, polish your chrome with chrome polish, and my oh my, what a beautiful day. I love a paint job that looks like you can swim in it. We don't get to wash the truck like we used to at home so we rarely get that awesome feeling of accomplishment anymore. But we wash it up fairly.

Have you ever noticed that people who drive those giant RVs - that their rigs are always clean and even shiny? Yeah, what's up with that? You'd think someone would drive around in one all beat up and filthy with mud three feet high, but no. It's never happened to me. I always see 'em clean, maybe with a layer of dust, but that's it. So I thought it over and I figure peeps with that much money are used to nice stuff and are used to it being clean too. We've seen them cleaning the sides in the RV parks even when it's not allowed. They sneak a wash in if they can but they usually get busted too. I was glad just to get the billions of trillions of bugs off the front of our fiver this week. Those bug guts are stuck on like super glue. Ewwwwww.

Crazy long hairs

What's with the crazy hairs? The other day I asked my son to check my hemline and tell me if he thought it looked nice or not and he said he saw some hair that needed trimming. I said, "Great, get the scissors!" He trimmed about ten hairs. Some were about an inch longer than the rest of my hair and one was fully two whole inches longer. If only all my hair grew like that. I wish! He said he recognized that one super long one and said it always grows like that.

I've been content with my hair. I remember last year I wished and looked forward to the time when the length would be past the curve of my back. You know that curve? Well, it's totally past the curve now. Happy, happy! Now I'm looking at my bum and that curve is going to take more than a year to get by. Maybe a year and a half is my educated guess.

Something went awry with my measuring last month. It does appear as if I was not at 34.5 when I thought I was. I think I had slow growth and a boo-boo in the measuring but I don't want to make my dear official measurer feel bad. Hopefully I'll be 34.5 on July 1st so I don't have to make my measurement record go backward! Backward measuring is like the military command, "Advance to the rear." Pfft. That's no good.

Summertime

Outside, it smells like summer. I love summer! It's my favorite of all the seasons.

Woodpecker peckings

There's a pesky little woodpecker pecking on the top of our trailer every morning at about 5:00am. Every, single morning.

Hum

Hmm. I have so many things to write and I can't get them from my mind to my fingers.

Greta

My husband has been calling me Greta, rolling his r's heavily because I'm wearing two braids. When we're out and about I've taken to rolling my jeans up to my knees so I don't mess up the hems and he thinks it makes me look like a German tourist.

At the Grand Canyon there were some German tourist girly girls walking across the street and we just happened to somehow be walking the same speed and I ended up walking right next to them as if I was one of them. They were speaking German ya know, so I couldn't understand a word. They totally ignored me, but I grinned at my husband and he grinned back. I fit right in with them!

Those German girls are hard core. They know how to get around and be comfortable and see the sights. There ain't no moss growing under those feeties. They were wearing braids like me.

Who ate the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups?

It's a mystery. 

Phone booth in river

Wanna make a call? 

Next to the Coeur d' Alene bike trail. Too funny. I wonder if it really works!

Used cooling filter to blue up the water more.

Compliment on my hair today

A young blonde at the doctor's office, the doctor's assistant, was walking behind me this morning and told me I had pretty hair.

Last night I twisted two buns and pinned them atop my head to get some curl. I took the buns out at 9:00am and as I cannot control myself, I continued to comb and oil the curls till they were almost dead. I can't keep my hands off of waves and curls. Don't know why I don't just take them out and leave them alone. I rather liked the doctor so I tried to look semi-nice for my appointment. As it turned out, he wasn't working today. Oh well! He's married and has four children and last week we talked about traveling in Canada. I like nice doctors. He graduated top 5% of his class. Which reminds me. What do you call the guy who graduates last in his class in medical school? Answer: Doctor. Heh. Graduate first, graduate last, you're still a doctor. That's why you have to find recommendations and shop around for the best.

The doctor's assistant removed my two stitches and I barely have a scar. It'll fade fast. I was surprised she even remembered me but when she complimented my hair she also asked me if I'd worn it in a bun last time. Of course, I did.

Things that make you go, "Hmmmm." I was wondering recently if I am wearing buns too often. When I was twisting my hair into a cinnamon bun the other day our son whined, "You're not wearing your hair up again, are you?" Whuh?

And talk about annoyed. Son measured me at 34.5" a week ago and I asked him to measure yesterday, just for the ducks of it since I'd washed my hair, and he said it measured 34". Whuh? Is my hair shrinking? I'm throwing that stinkin' measuring tape out pretty soon. I didn't tell him he told me 34.5 last week because I don't want to influence his measuring. I don't think he noticed the great wailing and gnashing of teeth because I did it real quiet (on the inside). Either my hair is only 34" or it's 34.5. But on June 1 he said it was 34 and 1/4. Whatever. My hair's where it is and it is what it is.

Water lily

Water lily 

A pink one. Lake Coeur d' Alene, Idaho. We went on a bike ride and of course I took pictures! We love this area. I've always wondered who lived in Idaho and now I'm finding out. They've been keeping it a big secret. It's a bicyclist's paradise in this region. The trails are beautiful, long, and well maintained. Lake Coeur d' Alene bike trail is about 73 miles along and goes almost all the way across the Idaho panhandle. I should write more but I'm cold and I have to go to bed because tomorrow I see the doc to get my two stitches out.

Who doesn't love lily ponds

Lily pond 

Yellowstone fatality

A lady steps over a retaining wall to get a better picture, loses her footing a falls to her death. How horrible. I don't understand stepping over a retaining wall at the edge of a cliff. It's like standing on a railroad track when a train is coming.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/18/yellowstone.fatal.ap/index.html

Tomorrow is Father's Day

I bought my husband a ladder! And I'm treating him to dinner tomorrow at his favorite restaurant. Idaho actually has his favorite restaurant. What were the chances?

Iceland poppies and a mole on my lip

They're wild 

Found these across the street. It was windy so it wasn't the best day to get a picture.

I went to the dermatologist. You know, those 'barnacles of life' were catching up with me. Had to do something about it! Actually I made an appointment because I have this little mole on my upper lip, right on the lip line on the far left. I've had it most of my life. I have a love/hate relationship with it.

People are generally against moles. Well, my dad for instance. He's a good example of someone who is against all bodily imperfections, and he's definitely against moles. He told me once that it looks like third stage of cancer and he laughed heartily. Maybe I felt bad, maybe I didn't. But then there are people like my husband who has always liked it. Our son too, he said, "Mamma, don't get it taken off because it's you and I don't want you to take it off." In a nutshell, this is what you call unconditional love. It's a good buffer. It pops out all the kinks and dents of life, big and small, and makes you like new again. You're lucky if you have one person who gives you unconditional love. If you have only one, you're set because one is all you need. I count myself extra lucky though. I have two! If you take stock of your life and you see you have more than one, or more than two, well then, you are extra, extra lucky. Let's say richly blessed.

Anyway, I had the doc look at my mole because in New Mexico it had gotten kind of red and irritated one week and I never knew why. It was on my mind and I was a little concerned. Better safe than sorry they say.

Well the doc said, no problem, it's perfectly fine and no need to worry about cancer on this one. And then since I was already sitting in the doctor's office, I had some of those awful brown spots taken off of my arms. He used liquid nitrogen and froze them off! Actually right now they look worse because it blisters, then the skin sloughs off, then you're all healed in 7 to 14 days. It cost me $75.00 for the first spot and $10.00 for each additional. Insurance doesn't cover it you know. It's cosmetic. I also had this darn bump on my cheek. It was small, but I always noticed it and it seemed big to me every time I looked in the mirror. My husband said he never saw it. My sister said she didn't see it. What do they know.

It was a clogged hair follicle, ugh, properly called a sebaceous cyst, double ugh, and the doctor took it out. He had to cut it out. It was 7 or 8 mm. Small? That's not small in my book! I go back to get two stitches out in a few days. I'm glad I got it done. They don't cause a problem. They don't hurt and they can go away by themselves sometimes, but I had it for a year. I am glad it's gone because it didn't belong on my face, and that's that.

Take that on the chin, Life! Pow!

Standing outside R&T

She's a cool cucumber in Spokane, WA

Anybody who's beading knows about Rings And Things, one of the popular online companies that sells beads and findings. Their web site is horrid to navigate, but their merchandise is good. I bought some 4mm garnet nuggets and rectangles, and 4mm amethyst (A grade quality, woohoo), and teardrop fluorite beads. The store is full of everything in beads you could want. They gave me a free catalog and I'm like an 11 year old girl with the Sears Roebuck catalog with this thing. I can pore over it and dream for hours!

It rained. It rains and mists here a lot. I like it though I think the grey might make a person a mite crazy after awhile. But there are a lot of people living up here so I guess it's doable. Spokane's downtown was quite nice. It's a city with a small town feel.

Flying in to Rings and Things

Flying in to Rings and Things 

It's a pose and the employees on their break are sitting in the parking lot on the curb laughing and smoking their cigs saying what a great idea this picture is. :)

Rings and Things store and warehouse

Inside Rings And Things

This shows only about 1/4 of the store. There are tons of beads. And...all the rest of the stuff in the catalog is in the warehouse which is behind the counter. While I was waiting for my husband to pick me up (after my foray in the bead store!) I must have seen four or five different employees come out for their break time. It's a big company. Even my husband looked around at all the beads. He bought a Swarovski crystal to hang in the truck on the rear view mirror.

I miss the journals

I'm totally missing my regular reads at the LHS. What's Morticia doing? What's Elvea doing? How is CurlyBrunette feeling? And I've been wanting to read HarpGal because she's 53 and has awesome hair, but here I am. In limbo.

Neem for hair

I used neem and shikakai on my hair last week. Reflecting on the experience, a realization came to me.

I'm more enamoured with the idea of herbal hair washing products than I am of the actual washing of the hair with the herbs themselves. The powdered herbs are grainy. They require advance preparation. Mixing them with yogurt smoothes them out, but I find it still doesn't rinse as easily as store bought shampoos. Both times that I used herbs, my ends were dry all week long. My hair tangled more easily, more often. At 46 going on 47 I have to keep things moisturized because wrinkles and rumples and dryness and dullness look extra frightening at at this time of life, a time when I'm not used to my ever changing self yet.

Once a week I wash my hair so I can't add oils daily or as you can imagine, I'll have quite an unpleasant concoction of nearly three feet of hair, oil, dirt, and smell by week's end. I oil once, after washing and air drying my hair, using a blend of jojoba and sandalwook essential oil. That's got to do it. That's got to work. I need quick. I need convenient. I need soft and pretty and shiny. If it comes in pre-packaged 16 fl. oz. bottle - I'm taking it.

So my leftover herbs went into the trash today. It was fun but I'm back to my Body Shop Honey Moisturizing Shampoo and coordinating conditioner. I still have about ten different herbal teas leftover from my tea rinse experiment days. My ends were dry with the tea rinsing back then as well, but I can't bear to part with my little bags of herbs. They smell good and some of them are pretty. Maybe I'll drink them. Perhaps I'll double check with Google just to ensure I don't poison myself.

You will like this place. Come see. 

The dock

Chatcolet Lake in northern Idaho 

I come here after dinner and sit, and walk up and down, to see what I will see...

Tree Swallow

Tree Swallow 

This is his nest and the mama and daddy take turns checking on the babies. I took photos of him for a week and this one is pretty close. Mama bird was much more skittish and she never got used to me. I only got two pics of her, both lousy.

Free floating

Feather in lake 

I watched it float on the waves of the surface for a long while.

Criss cross

Water lilies 

I like that the stems cross against each other. Reminds me of love.

Time on my hands so I beaded

Dainty drops

Heyburn State Park in Idaho is full of millions of lodgepole pine so our satellite didn't work the whole time we were there. Yipes! Twelve whole days I've been offline. Seems like a month!

Got a few pics here of beading projects completed the past two weeks. This one is a seed bead, Czech crystal, and cube bead necklace, another project kit from the place in San Diego. It's strung on size D Nymo. The Czech beads shine but you can't see it in the pic. They're only size three, teeny weeny, but pretty. Of everything I've made I've worn this the most. The beads are a matte peacock color. It's 18 inches long. The coolest thing is it's got a magnetic clasp! Have you tried one? Very cool I think. Before I realized it was magnetic I was twisting and twisting twisting to no avail, all the while I was talking bad stuff about the store as I wondered aloud why they sold me a cheap, stinkin', lousy barrel clasp. Then, voila! I pulled instead of twisted and it came apart. Silly me. I had to take back all the bad things I said.

Eyeglass necklace

Blue!

I've been needing one for myself for three months. Our son picked out the cobalt blue eyeglasses way back in Elephant Butte, New Mexico. Such a pretty color of rims. I bought myself 12 eight mm Swarovski bicones in capri blue which I love and used two, plus various and sundry Swarovski crystals that I've just never used. I knotted the Soft Flex, glued, let it dry, and put knots in clamshell bead tips.

Memory wire bracelet

8 loops

Mermayd and I have both been itching to try Memory Wire. You have to use Memory Wire cutters to cut the wire or you'll ruin your side cutters. You can see I looped the end of the wire to hold the beads on. A lot of people add a dangle to the loop too. Another way you can keep the beads on is to use half drilled metal beads or cone ends and E6000 glue. Don't use Hypo Cement because it doesn't bond metal to metal. Anyway, glue just sounds like asking for a bead accident and I dont think I'd want to see that happen.

I was hoping it wouldn't bug me like most bracelets do, but it does. The loops fall down too low on my hand and that's what bugs me. I need littler loops maybe but Memory Wire is one size fits all.

A bracelet

Triangle and square and seed beads

This is the first kit project I've ever done. Bought it for $9.95 from a store in La Mesa, California. I was thrilled I was able to follow the instructions! The photo doesn't do it justice. It's size four cube beads, size three triangle beads, and size 11 seed beads. You don't see the seed beads, do you? There's one seed bead between each triangle bead. They're a delicious violet/purple hue. And the clasp is a ball and hitch type. This is the first time I've seen such a clasp. You put the little round ball through the circle side of the clasp and it closes nice and secure.

What you can't see is that light reflects the purple color of the seed beads and the yellow and bluegreen of the triangle beads, so it's awfully pretty in the sun. I find it's very tactile too. I like running my hand along the bracelet. I have a small wrist though so I think the end loops take up too much of the bracelet on my wrist.