Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Breaking up with Kismet
Well, I've moved this sad little non-interesting blog to a new site. Here is the location of my new digs. I'll be playing around with things for the next little while but all my future posts will be there so please change any bookmarks, subscriptions etc. to the new address. It's been nice knowing ya, Kismet but it's time to move on!
Labels: announcement
Friday, April 20, 2007
I'm pretty scattered so this works
Yesterday I wrote something to post here that was so witty, so brilliant I would've had you all singing my praises to all your acquaintances. However, due to an unfortunate series of keystrokes I deleted the entire thing. Ah-well, you are now missing a wonderful and potentially life altering bit of writing from you life. Sorry.
Instead of trying to recreate that bit of divinity I'll just post this that I stole from Jess.
SCATTERGORIES...it's harder than it looks!
Rules: Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...They MUST be real places, names, things...NOTHING made up! If you can't think of anything, skip it. Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T USE Y0UR NAME for the boy/girl name question.
1. Your Name: Karen of course
2. Famous Music Artist: Korn and/or The Killers either of which I wish I was listening to right now
3. 4-Letter Word: Kiss - something else I wish I was doing right now
4. Street Name: Kings Cross Road
5. Color: Khaki is the only K color coming to mind which is really too bad
6. Gifts/presents: Well I'd love to receive a Klondike Bar and this K would be great too!
7. Vehicle: Kia Mentor which I suspect teaches you how to drive -- we should get one for everyone in Idaho who is traveling to Logan
8. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Key Chains with cartoon characters and/or national park logos lasered on them
9. Boy Name: There is a kid in storytime with the name Kalum
10. Girl Name: His twin sister is Kiya -- for the record I don't believe in giving twins matchy names
11. Movie Title: Kung Fu Hustle
12. Alcoholic drink: A Kamikaze -- gotta love vodka, triple sec & lime
13. Occupations: Key Master -- okay maybe that is more of a hobby
14. Flowers: There are none -- I googled it so lets go with Kulips and Kaffodils
15. Celebrities: Kris Kristofferson -- I enjoyed his performance in Blade
16. Magazine: Knives Illustrated
17. US city: Who wants to take a trip to Kalamazoo?
18. Pro Sports Teams: Knicks
19. Something Found in a kitchen: Knives, just like the ones featured in my recent issue of Knives Illustrated
20. Reason for Being Late: I'd like to suggest something kinky but my mother reads this
21. Something You Throw Away: Oh, please throw away your kleenex when your done blowing your nose
22. Things You Shout: kawaii, kita, and kamikaze if your in Japan
23. Cartoon character: Kanga, mother to Roo
24. Author: Kieko Kasza who writes great children's picture books, seriously you need to read Wolf's Chicken Soup!
Labels: random
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
"I wish you wouldn't bring trades people to the house. They carry dust."
I went to the most enchanting film last night. Miss Potter is about the life of Beatrix Potter and was absolutely charming. There were little animated segments that were wonderfully done and there were things in the film that really touched my soul as a single woman.
The film was set in the early 1900's and Beatrix was an "old maid". These older single women really had a tough time finding a place for themselves in world. Beatrix however, was determined to become an author and have a means of taking care of herself. She was able to do it too.
One exchange between Beatrix and another single woman was particularly true for me. They had discussed how it's so much better to be a single woman. Married life brings nothing but trouble. It's full of babies and husbands, pain and a loss of independence and the single life is such a better choice. Later in the film, when one of them had a chance at marriage, the other confessed that she would throw over all her friends if she had a chance at being loved. Claiming that the single life is better is just what single women say to make things bearable but, deep in their hearts, that's not what they feel.
Isn't it the truth!
I'm looking for a biography of Miss Potter now because I need to know more about her! She was amazing and the film was just beautiful. If you get a chance I highly recommend it!
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
duh, you can't seek things without a hat!
S o... l i t t l e... t o... s a y... m u s t... t y p e... s o m e t h i n g...
Here is a list of all the things that are too boring to blog about today but that are on my mind:
- I have got to get some significant headway on my summer reading program materials. Unfortunately I've decided that Microsoft Word is of the devil. I miss my Word Perfect!
- A person can sleep while Pride and Prejudice plays in the background for the 200th time but it's not the most restful sleep.
- I almost forgot that I get paid this week which says a lot about the state of my finances.
- I have confused at least 36 little kids this week by telling them that this is "Y" week and we're reading books about "you". Y is for you. That's not too confusing!?!
- Kids don't like yams. Thus when you sing "If you think that yams are yummy, yell out "yes!"" to a group of preschoolers you can hear crickets chirping.
- I need a Sherlock Holmes type hat to wear in the Smithfield City Health Days parade. I'd better start looking for one.
- I think I have a superficial crush on someone. It's been a long time.
- I have several ninja pictures I haven't used yet. I'll use one now.
click on the ninja pic to see the dialog!
Friday, April 13, 2007
No need for a 12 step program, I'm just a wanna be
Okay it's time for me to confess... I'm a wanna be scrapbooker. I enjoy playing with paper, ribbons, brads, stamps, photos and the like but don't take much time to do it. I've got piles of materials and I've made lots of pages. I've created ABC albums, paper bag albums, a scrapbox, a wedding album. I'm part of a stampin' up club and was part of a scrapbook club but I still don't sit down and put things together very often. And even though I don't scrapbook very often I still look at scrapbooking sites quite a bit. Here is a new one I found via my Aunt, the scrappin' queen. Little Book of Sketches has tons of sketched out layouts and so if I ever sit down and actually use all the stuff I have, I'll have some good ideas to get me started.
Labels: hobbies
Thursday, April 12, 2007
let's bake some cupcakes!
Sorry for the lack of posts lately but I've had a lot on my mind the past week or two and it's mostly non-bloggable stuff.
It's funny how occasionally I get overwhelmed by the things life decides to throw at me. Things I would be able to ignore if they came at me one at a time but when served up together make my brain hurt. One of these things has only just begun and I'm already feeling the pressure--I hate to think what will happen once it really begins.
Last Friday I was asked, by the incoming district PTA President, to serve as the secondary level Reflections Chairperson for the district. Reflections is a program that encourages student's artistic talents and while I like to think that I too have artistic talents, I don't have kids! But apparently that is not a requirement. I said "yes" but the more I think about it the more worried I'm becoming. I think what is most alarming is the shear amount of work this will call for. I will need to find and coordinate all the volunteer judges for each school, train them, take care of advertising, solicit donations & support from local businesses and make sure all the student submissions are completed and sent on to the state in time. I was warned that this is, in many ways, the busiest of the PTA positions and I'm jumping in not at an individual school but at a district level. What was I thinking!?!
I've been reading up on the PTA so I can seem informed and it's a bit alarming to find that Utah is in the midst of a PTA controversy. I don't usually publicize my political views, mostly because I hate conflict (I'm not sure I even want to post this) and don't want to deal with the almost always heated & uncomfortable discussion that is involved (I'm terribly inarticulate), but in this case I must say that I think it's shameful that the local organization is taking this stance.
The PTA is not a religious organization nor should it be deciding for everyone what is and is not a valid lifestyle choice. Rather it should be protecting, promoting and encouraging the education of all children. Frankly, I don't think the are "legitimizing" alternative lifestyles by allowing an organization to advertise in their national publication a scholarship offered to gay, bi, trans, etc. students. There are scholarships offered to minorities, pregnant teens and a myriad of other 'alternative lifestyles' which are not seen as offensive and the mere act of allowing an organization to advertise in their publication is not a formal endorsement. I realize that the gay lifestyle makes a lot of people uncomfortable but the fact is there are gay students in Utah schools.
This whole thing makes me think of one of my best friends in high school. He was/is *gasp* gay. I didn't know it at the time but since then we have talked and I know that he felt terribly alone and maligned. It's hard enough to grow up and actions like this are just going to cause students like my friend more pain.
Okay, back to my original thought. It is going to be a lot of work and a fair amount of stress but I think overall it will be good for me. I've been feeling a little stagnant professionally and this may be just the kick in the pants I need to begin networking again. Let's all hope it goes well!
Monday, April 09, 2007
Eat them up. Yum!
My family moved to Utah from Wyoming when I was in the 6th grade so they could go back to school. Those 3 years in Utah had a tremendous impact on me and I can trace a lot about who I am now back to those years. The friends I had, the way we lived, the neighborhood we were in all had significant influence on me. One of the things living in Utah introduced to me was cable television and MTV.
Utah was kind of cutting edge in the 80's music scene and New Wave was really big. MTV was almost all British new wave in the beginning, consequently my musical tastes have always ran towards the alternative. Even now
at 33 I prefer alternative rock to all other music. Early MTV was weird as well and they featured bizarre video shorts and music videos. I remember watching an odd little film short about cockroaches and thinking it was like totally cool n' stuff. I also remember seeing the fish heads video by Barnes and Barnes. It had such a strong impact that I can still remember the words and considering my terrible memory that is saying something.
Their not good dancers, they don't play drums.
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads.
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up. Yum!"
This weekend my sister reintroduced this little gem of a song to me. She had loaded it onto her 6-year-olds mp3 player and found it for me to hear. Ah, the memories! So in the spirit of being nostalgic and sharing I found the Fish Heads video for you to enjoy. It takes about 2 minutes to get to the song so skip ahead if you wish. Your welcome!
Labels: quirky