Better Virtual Living - The ReHash

Jolly Snowflake Day!***

2017-12-25T17:39:52Z

May Snowflake Jake bring you spices upon spices!

Also, happy anything else you might be celebrating right about now. Hope you have a terrific festive season.

And never forget Jake's wise words: Specificity be the enemy of unity!

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***Snowflake Day is celebrated with the exchange of care-satchels, the ceremonial lighting of the snowman, and the celebratory Snowflake Day cabbage-patch dance. Traditional foods include lamb tacos, bite-size wieners, and jerky balls. The central figure of the holiday is Snowflake Jake, a cheery pirate who gives spices upon spices to good little boys and girls, traveling the world on a pirate ship. Children listen for the cannonballs that signal his arrival. Obvs.

And if you have never seen this episode of Clone High, I pity you. Truly.

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Happy Birthday....

2017-12-15T12:19:51Z

...to franthewndrhrse !!!!! Hope it's great!

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nablopomo 2017 - FINISHED

2017-12-02T04:15:06Z

Thanks for listening to me prattle.

Your comments are much appreciated.

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Nablopomo 2017 - Day Thirty

2017-12-01T03:24:51Z

It's been rainy. I guess that's better than snowy?
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I had to drive my kid and her boyfriend to the airport in Toronto today. How do people do that commute EVERY DAY?!?!?!?! Ugh.

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I saw this at the store:

Yes. It's a kit to make ugly sweater cookies... for your dog. It confuses me on a lot of levels.
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I have been trying to take some decent quilt pictures and I am really getting no where. Look at these and imagine the pictures are better, because they are really cute in RL.

Sigh. Trust me, It's pretty cute.

This is the one I had to do all the tying on (the little pink tufts in the middle of the squares are quilter's knots). It looks lousy here. It looks better in reality.
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I have come to the conclusion that my house has lousy lighting. I get why quilters display their works on the sides of buildings now.
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Hubby brought home festive specials for dinner!

He wins!
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"Wolf? Who? Me? Shucks no!"

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Nablopomo 2017 - DayTwenty-Nine

2017-11-30T02:24:33Z

I have been boiling cinnamon and water all day. It has masked the bad smell, whatever it is. Thanks for caring.

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Garrison Keilor? And the pussy grabber still has his job? What gives?

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Woman asked to leave Abbotsford mall stabs security guard, police say

Being asked to stay IN a mall makes me feel like that...

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Look at this dream kitchen:

I bet you could make all kinds of gawdawful jello things in there.
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These guys probably wouldn't stab anyone at the mall. Probably.

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Nablopomo 2017 - Day Twenty-Eight

2017-11-29T01:28:08Z

Sunny! Windy! Beautiful day!
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What is it about Wal-marts? Is there some law that says they have to build in the windiest part of town? If no customers get hit by flying debris as they cross the enormous parking lot, is the corporation forced to pay higher taxes? Or treat their employees decently? Just wondering.

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Something smells awful in here. It's like a cross between onions and milk and UGH! I cannot find the source. It is driving me to distraction

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I am SO out of stuff to prattle on and on and on about. How do people DO this?

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Nablopomo 2017 - Day Twenty-Seven

2017-11-28T03:46:41Z

Same ol' Monday night song!
Watch Travelers!

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it was sunny and cold today. But sunny! I like the sunny bit!
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So the guy who was going to launch a rocket to prove the earth is flat (because B follows A, obviously) has not been able to live his dream yet:

Flat-Earther 'Mad' Mike Hughes forced to delay launch of homemade rocket

The Bureau of Land Management apparently doesn't want him launching his gizmo on public land. Thereby proving (to him at least) that the earth really IS flat, and that there is a government conspiracy to cover up all that flat flatness. Way to go, BLM!
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Except for a woman in New Brunswick finding a lot of headstones on a beach, Prince Harry getting engaged to Meghan Markle, and that idiot doing something idiotic, the only big news today is Dictionary.com picking its word of the year, which is:

COMPLICIT

Okay then.
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I feel you, guy.

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nablopomo 2017 - Day Twenty Six

2017-11-27T02:06:14Z

It's cold. Blah.
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Spent most of the day tying knots. Doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would take hours and hours, and yet, it did!
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Forgot I had to make dinner tonight. Luckily the husband is pretty easy-going. Bacon and pancakes for all!
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I have been perhaps unnecessarily cruel to jello the past few days. But look at this:

Holly Jolly Jello Shots

These look quite festive. And boozy. So there you go...
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I have to go tie some more knots. This guy totally gets it:

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nablopomo 2017 - Day Twenty Five

2017-11-26T03:10:38Z

One month.

ONE MONTH!
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wendelah1 asked for it, so here it is!

Even worse jello!

Oh, I think we can all agree, this is pretty awful.
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Another episode of When I am Hired as an NHL Coach

It's 3-2 Washington vs Toronto, with one minute to play, so OF COURSE Toronto's pulled the goalie.

I've seen this work ONCE in 50-odd years of watching hockey.

Bet it doesn't work -- oh wait - now it's 4-2

Why does no one listen to me? Why??

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The light bulb on my sewing machine blew. I have had that machine almost 30 years. This is the first time its gone. I should not complain. I still might.
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Facebook thinks I care - and care deeply - about the upcoming Fifa World Cup.

Facebook is very, very wrong.
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Here's a puppy!

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Nablopmo 2017 - Day Twenty-four

2017-11-25T01:50:18Z

How was you BLACK FRIDAY!!!???

Mine was sunny and warm (for November) at 12C. I also avoided any place that might be full of crazy people i.e malls, stores, places outside my home. My strategy was most successful :D
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Today there was a moose roaming around near Buttonville Airport (and really, it's not the most attractive of mooses) where no moose had reason to be. There was also a tiger loose in Paris. I haven't watched it, but is this how that show ZOO started? Just wonderin'...
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In light of my recent foray into JELLO THINGS THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED, aud_woman_in put me on to this gem:

Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise

(Sorry, I can't figure out how to embed things)

If you don't find anything awful enough in that song, contemplate this for a few moments, won't you?

Not just a sauerkraut mold - and easy sauerkraut mold.

Inviting, it says. Inviting, indeed.
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Today is both Black Friday and Buy Nothing Day. I can't be the only one who sees some conflict here.

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Speaking of bizarre foodstuffs:

Lucky the translucent lobster may be 1 in 100 million

I glad they got him (her? it?) rubber bands to go with the total ensemble.
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This guy is so over the mall:

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nablopomo 2017 - Day Twenty-three

2017-11-24T02:59:00Z

I can't remember which numbers get hyphens. Maybe none of them any more. Nothing seems to have commas anymore either.
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Happy Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating!

How was your day? How was the food? Any of you get to eat this?

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How did olives get to be a Thanksgiving thing? Just a California marketing triumph? Or something more?

If you know, please tell.
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My daughter and son in law showed up with Mexican food! No cooking! Woo!

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Three coffees a day linked to more health than harm: study

I should be as healthy as a well-caffeinated horse. And yet...

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This poor dog:

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Nablopomo 2017 - Day Twenty Two

2017-11-23T01:43:10Z

Cold. So cold. Stupid weather.

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Okay, when was it decided that women's eyebrows just weren't working? Why are we supposed to look like we've got woolly bear caterpillars crawling across our foreheads? Have they run out of other body parts to make women feel insecure about? That seems unlikely somehow....

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David Cassidy died. There goes another chunk of my childhood.

My copy of this album is somewhere in my mother's house....

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Awesome headline:

Flat-Earther to take off in homemade rocket to prove theory

Hoping to prove that dubious theory (that the earth is flat) is correct, Mr Hughes said his goal is to eventually ascend high enough that he can gather evidence that disproves the widely accepted fact of a round earth.

Okay then. Makes perfect sense.
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So many of you are Thanksgivinging tomorrow? I hope you have a fantastic day.

So obviously does this guy:

That poor dog. You just know he's hoping the none of the other dogs see him.

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nablopomo 2017 - Day Twenty-One

2017-11-22T01:42:10Z

It was sunny and surprisingly warm (12C). It was also crazy windy. How windy? My backyard is full of oak leaves. The nearest oak tree is almost two blocks away. That is crazy-windy.
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Don't these look cool?

They are music boxes you build from bits. (Awesome description there, Amanda. Why didn't you go into technical writing, again?)

I wonder who in my life desperately needs one of these for Xmas. I wonder if it is me.

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IKEA was the usual rollicking good time adventure of excitement and fun it always is ... when it's not the weekend. I went to get a duvet and some storage boxes I got a duvet, some storage boxes, and three new toilet brushes. I somehow resisted all their holiday stuff, which I've never managed before. It's probably because they didn't have Christmas trees for sale in the parking lot yet. The smell of evergreens is fairly intoxicating.
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Alton Brown in on the tv making delicious-looking chicken and dumplings...in 2010. Yes he's making me hungry for food that is at least 7 years old. TV is a time machine.

Now he's making catfish ceviche. The man is a wizard.
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I did inventory of my cookie making ingredients so I'd be prepared. I have 6 bags of icing sugar - 6 kilograms! Why???? I cannot imagine.
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Puppies gossiping about me having 6 kilos of icing sugar.

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nablopomo 2017 - Day Twenty

2017-11-21T03:49:26Z

It's Monday, so I feel it is my duty once again to tell you

WATCH TRAVELERS!!!

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It was beautiful and sunny today.

And frickin' freezing, Mr Bigglesworth.

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I needed some company today while I was doing sewing stuff (the granddogs were here, but they are remarkably uncommunicative unless they want to (1) pee (2) get a cookie out of me) so I put on the TV. I landed on HGTV, specifically some back-to-back episodes of Good Bones. I generally enjoy that show because it is not absolutely exactly like every single other reno show out there in that they buy disaster houses in Indianapolis for crazy cheap (like $4000.00 - taxes, I'm thinking) and fix them up, usually by ripping them down to the studs. But I noticed today that in just about every place they tear down to studs, those studs show extensive fire damage. Ditto the floors, roofs, etc. I thought to myself, "Self," I thought, "I don't think I'd like to live in a house that's got extensive fire damage, remediated or otherwise."

Then I thought it's entirely possible that I actually am. How would I even know? ..

The world is full of mysteries.
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Speaking of mysteries, have you ordered your copy of this book yet?

You totally should.

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Tomorrow I have to go to IKEA.

My life is one thrill after another!
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Baby bulldogs are pretty adorable. Just sayin'

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nablopomo 2017 - Day Nineteen

2017-11-20T03:01:18Z

It's been trying to snow all damned day. I have a feeling it will eventually succeed.
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Best headline of the day:

France wrestles with the line between seduction, harassment

You don't say? That's a wrestling match that's been going on a long time now. I'll be sure to let you know when they've got a clear winner.

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I really want to make this. I am not going to, but I sort of want to.

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Tomorrow is the 70th wedding anniversary of Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip. 70 years. That is a lot of years. That is a lot of married.

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I am hosting a Make, Bake, and Take cookie party again this year. I started two years ago because I thought it might be fun to be involved in a Christmas activity where I was not in charge of EVERY DAMNED THING+THE CLEANING UP. While looking for inspiration, I ran into this simple step-by-step guide to really cute cookies.

They are simple the way that sub-atomic particles are simple, but they are super cute, nonetheless. Also, I often find the issue with heavily iced cookies is that the icing is too sweet or really unpleasant to the taste or both. There must be a happy medium.
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Apparently the must-get must-give gift of the season is an electric vegetable spiralizer.

It's so versatile! Not only does it spiralize your vegetables, but it turns your vegetables into spirals! How have you lived this long without one? Are all your vegetables lumpen clumps?

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Hubby is off to a week of business meetings in Montreal. Which is where they generally keep the snow. I will miss him, but not enough to want to be where the serious snow is.

This guy's expression perfectly captures my feelings re: snow.

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nablopomo 2017 - Day Eighteen

2017-11-19T02:24:19Z

The rain came back, the very next day...

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I've been trying to take a decent picture of the quilts I am working on to show you guys, but ugh, each is worse than the last. Phone weren't really meant for taking pictures.

Speaking of phones...

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Today in History:

1963 Push button phones are used for the first time

Bell systems started replacing rotary dial phones by push button phone in the United States. Push button phones use keys or buttons to dial a number.

The first time my kids saw my grandmother's rotary phone they were utterly baffled and found the notion of having to move that wheel all the way around over and over seven whole times (the olden days, before the 10-digit fad) in order to make a phone call exhausting. I guess they'll never really understand why we 'dial' a number when we dial a number.

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Also speaking of baffling

Leonardo da Vinci painting sells for world record $450 million despite lingering doubts over its authenticity

When something is considered a copy at best, a fake at worst, for 300-odd years and then SUDDENLY someone says, "no, wait, I think it's real," and then it is real? How the hell does that work? And even if it is authentic, 450 MILLION dollars? Several somethings are wrong here.

But then the art world is bonkers (watch EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP on NetFlix if you have any doubt. Then watch SOUR GRAPES so you'll be sure everything is bonkers.)

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So I'm watching hockey (because it's Saturday night, duh) and the CBC has a commercial for their new show, The Stats of Life.

THE STATS OF LIFE is an entertaining, fact-filled, graphic-packed format that drills down on a range of population statistics, to reveal the surprising truths about the family next door, giving unique insight into who we are as a nation.

Or, We Conducted That Census, We Better Do SOMETHING With All That Information

It has the potential to be the single dullest thing ever.

I'm not planning to watch it, but that doesn't mean I won't.
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It's chilly in here. Winter - bah.

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nablopomo 2017 - Day Seventeen

2017-11-18T03:41:15Z

Sun! There was sun!

Of course it was cold, too. Weather, so fickle.

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My husband forced me -- FORCED ME, I SAY -- to eat this.

It's good stuff.
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I am not excited about the new Star Wars movie. Are you? (This conversation feels familiar - I bet I said the same thing the last time there was a new Star Wars movie. And the time before that. I see a pattern.

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Speaking of patterns:

so cute! But why is one sad? Cookies cannot be sad! Unless they are gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free, taste free...

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How do people blog for a living? They must DO stuff or KNOW stuff or SOMETHING.
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nablopomo 2017 - Day Sixteen

2017-11-17T03:36:27Z

There was some sunshine at 7 am...I thought it was a hopeful sign...but no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Duchess of Cambridge reveals Princess Charlotte’s favourite colour

Really? Really really?

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I love mid-century modern design. I want to make a gingerbread house that looks just like this:

I especially like the Life-Savers curtain wall. Or whatever it's called.

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I have nothing good to say today! I mean, even more so than on the other days!

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Have a contemplative puppy in leaves!

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Nablopomo 2017 - Day Fifteen

2017-11-16T03:01:02Z

Happy Ides of November!
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I was interviewed for XFiles News.

Read my words of wisdom! Go on, read them!!!
And then read some of the archives. So much wisdom!
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Today was another day without sunshine. UGH. I am a solar powered machine.

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After 37 years, rule of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe appears to be ending

If only they'd had oil someone would have gotten rid of that bastard a long time ago. I hope things improve for the people of Zimbabwe post-coup, but that is so rarely the case.

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Google Docs just ate your homework

Google says a Wednesday outage has been resolved. Guess you'll have to stop binge-watching and get back to that essay instead.

I was editing some stuff today and had the pleasure of hitting refresh over and over and over and...Why is Google Docs so bad? Why do people use it? I miss plain text. .txt files weren't fancy, but they worked. Google Docs? Not so much.
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Bose is crowdfunding noise-cancelling earbuds that can help you sleep

My husband has offered to buy me these if they go into production. He snores like a buzzsaw. It is a gift I would accept happily.

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I wish I enjoyed snow 1/135 th as much as this guy.
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nablopomo 2017 - day fourteen

2017-11-15T02:20:43Z

Sunshine! I need sunshine!!!!

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See this?

It's very cool.
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FDA approves digital pill that tracks when patients take it

I can see the potential positives, but am I the only one who thinks this sounds like a dangerously slippery slope?

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It's the 131st anniversary if the hole punch!

Imagine what life was like before...go on, imagine it!
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nablopomo 2017 - Day Thirteen

2017-11-14T03:46:40Z

Travelers is so good! Watch Travelers. WATCH IT!

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It has been cold and wet here all day. You know what sucks? Cold and wet days.

But they are good for keeping the oven on for four or five hours...

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Speaking of keeping the oven on for four or five hours, do you need a good recipe for an all purpose tomato sauce?

This is it:

The Best Slow-Cooked Tomato Sauce Recipe

So good. So delicious. So easy. So much better than canned/jarred.

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What's your favourite Christmas Book? I need some recs.

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Autumnal Puppies!

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naplobomo 2017 - Day Twelve

2017-11-13T04:29:22Z

Thanks, spotify. Now my husband has super easy access to all the crap music he likes to ~~torture me with~~ listen to.
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So yes! We went to the Corning Museum of Glass! It might sound boring to you, but (1) it's not and (2) it's totally not - there's beautiful stuff too! They demonstrate, among other cool things, glass blowing, glass moulding, and glass breaking! Yeah, that's right - glass breaking. If you've been doing it wrong all this time, they've got you covered. (As my readers will know, I am super geeky, and I'm married to a materials scientist, who is also super geeky, so between to two of us, we have mad super geekery skilz.)

The buildings themselves are beautiful and none too surprisingly incorporate a lot of windows. The grounds are beautiful too and would have been great to explore had it been less chilly. My favourite display was... the Christmas tree! It's comprised of over 2000 hand-blown ornaments and is very impressive. I also really liked this Tiffany window, which is stunning. The gift shop, through which one must obviously exit, is huge and full of very pretty and very breakable stuff, much of which I'd like to own but none of which I bought.

My only quibble with the place? Corning, whither the CorningWare/Pyrex? There was some mention of it, and I know you spun/sold a lot of it off, but COME ON! It's iconic! It's friggin' CorningWare.

Anyway, if your are ever in the Corning part of the USA, make a visit. Not only is the surrounding area picturesque and full of cows, but the museum is filled with fascinating objects. And glass. Lots of glass.

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Didn't do too much today - it was dark and cold out and my get up and go had gotten up and left. Hard frost last night turned everything left in the garden to mush ( cuz, you know, it's NOVEMBER and you should have cleaned everything up A MONTH AGO!) so I helped get some of that cleaned up. There is, not exactly unexpectedly, more to do.

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I am going to go to bed. This being awake stuff is for the birds.

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nablobomo 2017 - Day Eleven

2017-11-12T03:54:29Z

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We went to The Corning Museum of Glass. I will tell you about it tomorrow.

I, too, am tired.

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NaBloPoMo 2017 - Day Ten

2017-11-11T02:23:50Z

There was snow out there this morning.

Why does it come as a surprise every damned time?

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Tomorrow if all goes according to plan (vis the weather and the border patrol) hubby and I are going here to see this:

I expect it to be amazing. I will let you know.

I may also be late.

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Today's episode of "who saw that coming?":

O.J. Simpson booted from a Vegas casino for drunken belligerence

Go fig.
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And also this:

Small knives will be allowed on planes, but baby powder banned: Transport Canada

Reminds me of the time they confiscated my folding sewing scissors that looked like this:

But let the guy ahead of my with the five inch hunting knife through because, and I quote, "It's a hunting knife."

Makes perfect sense.

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My page of Xmas recommendations is having some issues, and I think it's been hacked because I can't get in. Internet, you are one damned disappointment after another.
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Who decided Unicorn SPiT would be a good name for a product? It appears to be cool stuff, but the name? no...

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Basket of puppies!

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nablopomo 2017-Day 9

2017-11-10T02:30:16Z

The horror, the horror:

Issued at 16:28 Thursday 09 November 2017

Winter Weather Travel Advisory in effect.

Snowfall and rapidly falling temperatures could affect road conditions this evening.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

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The stores are full of Christmas, but I still have little chocolate bars calling my name. What hellish limbo

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Had lunch with cinvidiosa . As predicted, it was AWESOME.

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There don't seem to be new prompts, and I have used up all my original -- cough cough - ideas, so I have gone to past prompts!

Tell us about a food that reminds you of your childhood:

KFC. Only then it was called Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was a super big deal treat, suitable for birthdays and the last day of school (or when dad came home super "happy" with a bucket under each arm, but those are stories for another time.) Having a left-over leg or breast or even a thigh you could take for lunch the next day made you the envy of every other kid. I don't really eat KFC anymore because I am old and it is not so good for you, maybe, and my gut is like "Ha!No!" But whenever I smell those 11 herbs and spices, I'm a kid again.

A kid with a cast iron stomach.

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Puppy!

Super tiny puppy in fact.

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