Exactly

"what do you have to do with Jesus?"

Template all screwed up

Well I thought that moving to the new blogger would be so easy - but everything is screwed up now.  Even when I take all my sidebar info out and re-enter it using the "Add and Arrange Page Elements" forms nothing ends up where it should,  Very annoying and the main reason I haven't bothered finishing the story of the trip to Denmark - but I will soon - I think :)

So - where have I been

Well most lately in Denmark! Took the old lady there as she has been talking about it for a long time and I have been thinking about it since last year. So when we went to see her gerontologist, Dr Juergen Bludau at Brigham and Women's ( who I highly recommend) and she talked about wanting to go but waiting to feel stronger he said "what are you waiting for." Then when she was in getting blood drawn he passed me in the hallway and said "Really! What are you waiting for?" and he was right so the plan was put in motion. Called my sister to discuss - she needed to wait until her baby goats were grown enough to be sold - so we determined that mid-June would be best.

Got air tickets (IcelandAir) and travel insurance thought Triple A. I used Rick Steves site for train passes - you get a discount on his travel items when you purchase passes so I also got a couple of small suitcases and carry-ons from him as well as roll-up plastic bags for packing. I found though that the largest one of these was TOO large. I would only end up using it if I was traveling in winter with a large coat or sweaters I think.

Looked on-line for booking rooms - the two hotels we had used when the old lady and I traveled to Denmark before were listed as full in all online booking sites for the days we wanted! Little bit of panic there - but I decided to email them directly as I also wanted to make sure we were on a lower floor and had the right kind of beds - 2 singles for sister and mother. Turns out that was the best thing to do - rooms were indeed available and I got exactly what I needed.

In the meantime I was researching how to travel with someone who couldn't walk very much. Tried to locate somewhere to rent a wheelchair once we got to Denmark - I did not have any luck. So even though I had heard of problems with bringing a wheelchair with you - mostly baggage handling problems, I went ahead and looked into buying one. Found one online and found a good price on EBay - Medline Freedom 14.8 lbs Transport Chair Wheelchair from Bethman Sales. I would definately recommend both the chair as a sturdy and compact model. I bought the bag to carry it in as well and it came through the flight there, many miles of pushing over cobblestones and other interesting terrain and the flight back in good condition. And now we own a chair that we can take more places and make the Old Lady more comfortable. For about $155 plus shipping for both items I don't think we could have made a better purchase.

So with that all arranged we were left with just one big problem - Ken's passport! I shall tell you about that in the next installment.

I was hoping we wouldn't reach this point...

but we're here and it's still 2006. I am worried about the new year - I hope that things will get better but don't have any cofidence that it will happen.

3000 soldiers dead

I am still here

No, I haven't disappeared totally.  I have been playing around over on Vox.  
Come on over and see My New Vox Crow Blog

One less bastard to deal with...

 Bolton's out, thank goodness.

WASHINGTON - Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, the White House said Monday.

Bolton's nomination has languished in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for more than a year, blocked by Democrats and several Republicans. Sen. Lincoln Chafee (news, bio, voting record), a moderate Republican who lost in the midterm elections Nov. 7 that swept Democrats to power in both houses of Congress, was adamantly opposed to Bolton.

Critics have questioned Bolton's brusque style and whether he could be an effective public servant who could help bring reform to the U.N.

President Bush, in a statement, said he was "deeply disappointed that a handful of United States senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate."

Wha.

So you want to vote Republican

Well- Here are a few good reasons why you should:

Two or Three Reasons to Vote GOP on November 7

Elections coming up, folks

Here are some interesting articles about some of the races

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Old and grey and full of sleep

So very tired
Originally uploaded by Storm.
But Saturday she stopped eating - and all she was doing since then is sleep. She didn't seem to have any acute pain - but something was not right. So we have decided to put her to sleep last evening It was a hard decision but I think my responsibility was to make sure she is not suffering and although she wasn't in terrible pain you could tell something was wrong.

I am happy that she got to have a little of a normal autumn - her favorite time of year. Even though she wasn't an "outdoor dog" and preferred the comfort of the indoors - she did love the fall and she had a few pretty good walks through the fields. Even got a little silly now and then and tried to hucklebutt even though her old legs really couldn't take it any more.

The house was very quiet this morning - no one to talk to while I made my breakfast and no one to make breakfast for. The old lady will be very lonely during the day without her companion.

2.5 Years

Ken Mosaic
Originally uploaded by Storm.
On Monday Ken and I will have been going out for 2.5 years and so in honor of the 2.5 anniversary I thought I would pick out 10 things I love about Ken for the occasion.

10) Ken is almost always happy - he so rarely has a "bad day".
9) When I first started going out with him I thought he was very cool - and I still do.
8) He gets me to do things I never would have done on my own - like ride a roller coaster or go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
7) He is in touch with his feminine side - it makes him a wonderful and true companion - not just a lover but also a real friend.
6) He can laugh at himself but has a good sense of self-worth.
5) He gets along with my mother - One of the things that made me love him was that he came over and played Crazy Eights with me and the old lady. You are NOT going to find a man like that every day.
4) He reads a lot!
3) He enjoys my bitchiness and helps me through my bad days.
2) Enthusiasm! He makes everything better - a movie, a dinner out, a walk, being lazy, exercising - anything is better with Ken there. Remember Ac'cent the flavor enhancer? That's Ken - he makes everything more flavorful.
1) He sees many things about me as I see myself and that is so unbelievably rare - that each time he says something that shows me that he really does understand how I think and feel - I am astonished.


On top of it all he is also unbelievably cute - How can you resist him? I said when we first started going out it was like finding a rare jewel that had been thrown out by someone who did not value it. I will never make that mistake.

Randoms

Have you seen this crazy flower at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden? They even have a Corpse Flower webcam . This is one of those thing like whale sharks and the cave of Lascaux that make me just love this world. People wake up - how can you NOT want to protect and save this world with things like that in it?

Went to see Talladega Nights last night with the old lady. Sorry - I thought it was distinctly un-funny. Not because of the subject matter surprisingly - but because I feel like they missed the mark with almost every joke. There was potential there and they blew it. I think they didn't go far enough to the satirical side and so some of the lines came out too straight. Too bad as the old lady really want to laugh I think. We did see a preview for Night at the Museum with Ben Stiller that looks awesome.

There are a bunch of things bothering me lately about the world but I am going to refrain from mentioning them here and now.

So instead I am planning to go to the Brattleboro Farmer's Market - one of my all time favorite places that I have not been to yet this summer. They have all kinds of good food - a woman from Mali makes this really good chicken and rice and serves it with a wicked hot sauce! Or maybe some nice Thai noodles. who knows!

Oh and Ken reminded me that this weekend is the Springfield Moonlight Madness so we will probably be stopping over there to look around this evening.

Crazy Hot

It's 80 degrees.
It's 6 a.m.
in Vermont.

I don't think I have ever woken up to this kind of heat here.

There are no air conditioners to be found. I know two friends who were out looking yesterday and nothing.

I am worried how my chickens will make it through they hate the heat.

The house has not cooled down at all at night. Thank heavens I have air-conditioning in the living room for the old lady.

An Inconvenient Truth

See it.

Kari's first jump

Kari's first jump
Originally uploaded by Boered.

whoo hoo! Get your butt in the air!

My namesake

Kari
Originally uploaded by Boered.

Finally I have a baby named after me! Took a while and much nagging but here she is. Little Kari

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

The old lady, who had been dong so much better lately - even getting out and gardening - fell down our front steps yesterday morning. Backwards. Onto her walking stick. Damnation.

Well it could have been worse - she did crack a vertebrae in her lower back probably right where she hit the walking stick. But she didn't break a hip, or shatter the vertebrae so badly she needs an operation.

However - this means a couple of months of pain. A couple of months of me doing more. And a couple of months of not going anywhere.

Oh well. Ken was out of vacation anyway. I will use my remaining days taking the old lady top the doctor and maybe just working around the house - which I admit is a big giagantic mess.

Crap though, you know? So rather than getting my hair cut this weekend and going down to Tangle wood to see the BSO - we're sitting home. I am going to clean and work in the garden. Oh and drink margaritas in the evening. What the hell!

Friday Chicken Blogging

Just because I was getting tired of the cat blogging.

  

Yippee

My Boye Needlemaster knitting needle set arrived! Got it on eBay for a total (including shipping) of $30. Took me about 20 auctions to get it that low but I fianlly made it. I probably could have gotten it a bit cheaper if I wanted to keep trying - but I want to start my cabled ruana soon and I really needed this set. Think about it $30 for all those needled sizes/lengths when I could have spent over $10 just for one circular needle. Well worth it!

Am also waiting for a delivery of the best shoes I have ever seen - but I will wait and talk about them for when they arrive so I can model them.

Catch up

OK let's see... rain rain rain, more rain, warm rain, a downpour, sprinkles, some rain and a wee glinpse of sun. Then rain and rain and wind and rain and more wind and now clouds and wind and a threat of rain. That's about it.

Tulip is getting very old - just calculated th other day and it is as iff she were over a hundred. So the fact that her back legs are going shouldn't be a surprise. She spends most of the day sleeping but then at hight she wanders around and bumps into things. Crazy old girl. Won't eat much of anything anymore either.

I figured out a cable pattern for the ruana I am going to knit - I am basically making this up on my own - just taking the measurements from Big Girl Knits. Going to use Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Winter Night. It is brighter than I orginally thought about the ruana but after swatching that and the Ink color of Elann's Highland Wool I decided that the cables would benefit from a lighter color. And hey - the price doesn't hurt. Anyway hoping to get started this week - if the old lady will give me a break from digging and planting!

Life moves along

I know - I haven't been around lately. I think there have been so MANY things I want to blog about that I felt overwhelmed to even start.

So I am checking in with the world with some non-important things. I bought the "Big Girl Knits" by Jillian Moreno and Amy Singer, based on comments about its first section telling you how to change a pattern to match your own shape. It is a great book and I suggest for almost every shape. I also fell in love with the BluebelleRuana - I had never really know about ruanas and I like them so much more than a poncho.

So I decided that I would make this - but then there was the price of the suggested yarn - too pricy for me! And then I began to sketch out the pattern as there is no diagram for this pattern and i realized there was no way I would get through all that i-cord. Just not gonna happen. So I decided I would take the idea of ruana and design my own using cable patterns from the Viking Knits book from Elsebeth Lavold.

I have ordered two skeins of yarn from Knitpicks and two from Elann so I can swatch with 4 different colors and two types of yran to see what I like best. I may or may not ever finish this project but I am excited about it. It will be fun to see what I can design myself and since the ruana is basically a big rectangle with a slit in the middle I will end with little sewing.