I haven’t done this in a while, so I thought it might be a good post for today–a day when I really have nothing to say. 

Like probably everyone on the planet, I sick of election news so I thought it would be fun to find some stories that don’t normally make the headlines.  I’m pulling these from MSNBC.com so I’m about 80% sure they are legit.

First off, you may want to visit this museum the next time you are in Iceland.

Of course, you probably don’t want to fly Jet Blue there.  (Does Jet Blue go to Iceland?) 

I’ve made posts in the past saying that I didn’t have a whole lot of respect for the current Pope (I have nothing against Catholics, though).  First he says that the US Sex Abuse cases are fiction made up by the press, but Harry Potter is real.  Then he says we’re all going to hell.  Well, apparently, not all of us…(just, apparently, humans of non-Catholic faiths).

I don’t even know how to introduce this story, so you’ll just have to read it yourself!

….grabbing my hiney.

It looks like hot weather is finally arriving here (albeit for a few days).  The temperature in the Rose City right now is 70 and it is supposed to be in the 90s for the weekend.  This spring has been brutal as far as colder weather.  True, we were not hit with snowstorms and such, but there is only so much gray even an Oregonian can take.

I will admit that Summer is not my favorite season.  I do prefer it to Spring and Winter, but I love Autumn.  To me, Summer is something I must get through to get to Autumn.  So, to put myself in a “Summer” mood, I’ve put together a list of 10 things I’m looking forward to this summer.  Here we go, in no particular order:

1 - Going to Arizona for Father’s Day.  Okay, that’s technically still Spring.  However, since it will be 100+ degrees there, I’m going to count it as a summer event.

2 - Going on our Road Trip.  Yes, my Studmuffin and I are hitting the interstates for a couple of weeks to visit family in Montana and Minnesota.  And to fish.

3 - Hiking Season.  It has been too cold and wet lately to do much hiking. 

4 - The 4th of July.  My Studmuffin’s family really lives this holiday up (unlike my family, who has never been that much into the day.)

5 - Not having any classes.  Due to our road trip, I’m unable to take any classes this summer.  Darn!  And, yes, I’m still working part-time!

6 - Grilling.  Of course, this depends on us actually getting an outdoor grill.

7 - Not wearing socks.  ‘Nuff said.

8 - Pedicures.  A girl has to look after her feet during sandal season!

9 - Eating outside.  Although we can’t do this at our house (since we do not yet have a yard, just a mud puddle), many restaurants around us have outdoor seating.

10 - It’s almost Autumn!

Yep, I’m still feeling nostalgic.  I suppose this would have passed had I not accidentally discovered that my childhood home is up for sale again.  It’s not that I want to live there again (that would mean moving to Salem, which I left for a reason.  Plus, it would be very inconvenient for my Studmuffin and I to live so far from his job), but I did spend a huge portion of my life there.

If you are interested, you can see the listing here.  For any good house hunters looking for a deal and willing to live in Salem, this is a great buy.  When my parents sold it 3 or 4 years ago, it was in fabulous condition for a 30+ year old house.  My friend, whose parents still live next door, has told me that the new owners have not taken care of the property as they should.  Still, it’s a great place.  It’s over 3000 square feet on a quarter acre lot.  The listing says 5 bedrooms, but that’s not exactly true.  The fifth “bedroom” was created by my father as he was putting the finishing touches on the basement.  There is not a built-in closet, which I think disqualifies it from being an “official” bedroom.  However, we had a free-standing closet in there and used it as another bedroom.

At less than $300,000 it’s a steal - and I believe the pool table comes with it.  The pool table came to us from the owner before us and we left it for the owner after us.  I can only hope that those owners follow suit. 

My Studmuffin was wondering why it is so cheap and I have 3 possiblities:
1 - Salem is cheaper than the Portland metro area (where we live)
2 - The house is 30+ years old in a neighborhood that is 30+ years old.  Many of the other neighborhoods in that part of town are less than 10 years old and full of McMansions.
3 - The most recent owners have not put the care into that my parents did for over 30 years.

I’m watching to see if they have an open house soon and, if so, I may just have to go see how the old homestead is holding up!

Skipping Rocks, originally uploaded by wmgrad95.

This is one of my favorite pictures among the ones that I ran across today. It was taken less than a week before our wedding last summer. My parents were RV’ing at Pacific City and my Studmuffin and I had driven over to spend the day with them.

So, I need some help.  When my Studmuffin and I moved into our new house, we also got a new phone number.  Along with this phone number came the bad credit of Rebecca Wilson.  I don’t know who Rebecca Wilson is, but she apparently never pays her bills.

At least 3 times a day, we receive calls from collections agencies for her.  I’ve answered some of the calls to explain that Rebecca Wilson is no longer at our number.  I’ve even called a few of the agencies back.  Yet, the calls keep coming in at the same rate.

Does anyone have the secret to getting someone else’s creditors off your back?  We’ve already put our number on the federal Do Not Call list, but that seems to have no effect.

On a completely different subject, but one that also ties to the title of this post, I’ve spent most of today loading pictures onto our Flickr account.  While most of the pictures were rather recent–within the last year or so–I still ended up feeling a little nostalgic.  I’m sure that state will intensify as I start to add older and older picture.   I’m not complaining, I don’t think nostalgia is a bad thing.  But a nostalgic mind tends to be a quiet mind. 

….Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run is the best workout song ever.

 

A little humor for everyone:

 

 

I had to take Carmel to a new vet today.  The old vet diagnosed him with asthma, said the office would call me back to schedule a “training” on how to administer medicine (as well as what medicine he needed) and then I never heard from them again, despite countless calls.  So, onto a new vet.

This new vet is great.  Since it is a cats-only clinic, Carmel doesn’t go spastic because he smells dog everywhere.  And the vet said two very interesting things.

1 - Based on the examination, he doesn’t think Carmel has a severe case of asthma.  In fact, it may be that no gas mask contraption will be needed as an inhaler!  Of course, the old vet’s office never faxed over his records like they said they would TWO WEEKS AGO, so that may change once the new vet sees Carmel’s chest x-ray.  In the meantime, he gets Claritin. 

2 - Apparently, Carmel needs to be eating at least half a can of wet food a day, along with his dry food.  I had always been told in the past that cats needed to eat only dry food to keep their teeth clean, but apparently that has changed.  The vet explained that wet food was far too high in carbohydrates and that, over time, a dry food only diet will damage their livers.

So, Carmel got his first “legal” wet food tonight and the scene was not unlike this clip (click to watch…dang wordpress!):

 

Hello, I’m a facebook addict.

I really, really hate to say that, but it’s true. It started with MySpace. Some of my family members have MySpace pages and I signed up to see their pages. Then a friend said she had a Facebook page and I should try it. When I signed up, I saw that OTHER family members had Facebook pages.  At this point, it was nothing more than just checking in for a few minutes once a week or so to see if there were any updates.  It was all perfectly harmless.

And that was all fine and good until…..

….I realized Facebook has games. So, there it is. It wasn’t the social networking that snared me. It wasn’t the ability to look up old classmates. It was the gosh darn Bingo game! Well, actually it was Text Twirl and then Mental Blocks and finally Bingo. But still, it’s truly pathetic. Snickollet has been suggesting Scrabulous, so that may be next.

So, if any of my loyal readers would like to look up my page–which really has little more than my games and a link to this blog–just look me up under mdh1973-facebook@yahoo.com (and leave a message saying you are coming from this blog. Otherwise I’ll just think you’re some strange stalker.)

On the same note of silly cyber things that I find addictive, I’ve been having trouble effectively loading pictures up on this page.  That is until I loaded the picture below from Flickr.  It’s official.  I now love Flickr.  Expect to see more photos!