1. What inspires you?
2. What blocks your creativity?
3. Do you do anything special to get your creative juices flowing?
4. What time of day do you feel most inspired?
5. How do you like to express your creative energy?

Silence, and time alone, whether actually alone or just alone in my head inspires me. Noise that I have to pay attention to stops me dead in my tracks. I don’t do anything to get the creativity flowing: When the muse strikes, I just try to type/write/make/do fast enough to keep up. To express my creative energy these days, I type. When I am more heavily into knitting, I design. I also have other hobbies, and it just depends on which one is the focus of the time. Ideas tend to pop into my head fully formed, and it is a struggle against time and distraction to get them down in some form before they go away.

Technorati Tags: Five on Friday

1. How many unread books do you have in your house, right now? (Your own books, that is–not ones that belong to other family members–and not counting things like school books, if you have them.) Clearly, an estimate will do.
2. To the best of your recollection, what is the OLDEST unread book in your collection? How long has it been waiting?
3. Do your TBR books (that’s “To Be Read,” if you didn’t know) haunt you, make you feel guilty that you haven’t read them yet?

Oh boy! I am so hesitant to list a number. Including all the books I want to read-fiction, non-fiction and those I feel like I should read, it’s probably well over 100. But I am not sure.

The oldest book is one I have had since my teens. At least, I think I haven’t read it yet. I say I have had it since my teens, but in truth I lent it to my aunt probably 20 years ago. She was culling her books a year or so ago, and gave it back to me in a sack of books. The funniest part is that she probably doesn’t remember I lent her the book in the first place. It’s The Lives of Rachel by Joel Gross.

They did, yes. Right up until the day I wrote this post. The books will still be there, after all, won’t they?

Technorati Tags: booking through thursday

I live in a tourist state, as if you did not know that. Many, many people are familiar with the beaches, but North Carolina also has mountains. The width of the state means that it takes the better part of a day to cross it, and we’ll meet you and greet you at either end. Well ok, maybe not the east end, because you can’t come here that way unless you walk on water.

One of the things I would like to do but never have is to take a vacation at home. I’ve never been to the mountains of North Carolina except to drive through them on my way home from Colorado or Kansas. Pretty sad, huh? I’d like to get a house instead of a hotel when I do that. There are many companies that have North Carolina vacation rentals, but VLBO appeals to me, since the owners themselves are listing the properties.

My family never took vacations when I as growing up, believe it or not. My parents would have time off work, yes, but rarely at the same time, and we never went anywhere. We haven’t traveled as a family recently, but when we lived in Kansas, the children and I would sometimes go with DH when he went out of town for business. We had lots of good times seeing the museums and other attractions in St. Louis and Chicago. I ought to do that here, yk?

When I was a little girl, Granddad had a job at the sawmill. He’d farm during the day, and he worked second shift at the mill. I spent a lot of weekends with him and Grandmother. Now, Grandmother and I would sit up and wait for Granddad.

I don’t know what he did when I wasn’t there, but when I was, he brought home a treat. It was often a moon pie and a coke. As an adult, every time I see them in the grocery store, I think of my granddad.

So moon pies became a comfort food for me. My husband and children all know that I can be bribed into just about anything with a moon pie and a coke. DD#1 brought me one just a few nights ago, in fact. They know that if I am sad that treat-ful combination will lift my spirits. No matter how bad it gets, a moon pie will help.

But here’s the funny thing. As an adult, I don’t really care overmuch for moon pies. And yet I buy them. And I eat them. And each time I remember the man who thought I was just about everything. And I thought he walked on water.

I’m submitting this post to Southern Fried. Why don’t you submit one too?

Technorati Tags: moon pie, granddad, grandmother

So, what was the adventure that led to the stories I’ve posted? We’re still trying to get tags for that new van. First, I signed the title, so I had to be there. DH went alone the first time. Oops.

We also had to have an “executor’s paper”, so when I went with him this morning, it was with a copy of the woman’s will, naming the executors of her estate. Nope, not good enough! It’s a different paper.

However, after I explained to the woman how I have 8 children, and just getting DH and I in the same place at the same time required an act of Congress, she did whatever it was to the title so that I at least do not have to go back.

We now have a different paper, which I sincerely hope is the right one. This is getting rather tiresome.

Note to self: 3 young boys are a handful when taken to the DMV.
Note to others: Sell all your possessions before you die. It’s a big old pain in the rear to try to do so from the grave.

I was reading today about the Dubai Marina. It’s man made, and oh, is it beautiful.

Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, but oil accounts for only 6% of it’s GDP. The economy relies heavily on tourism, and that’s not a surprise given the beauty of the place. In addition to the Marina, the Palm Islands are fantastical. These are also man-made, and visible from the moon.

The World Islands are another man-made feature of Dubai, but I’ll let you Google for your own picture. I am impressed that the government of Dubai has invested so much into creating these appealing features, especially in an area most people think of as austere.

Oh, one more thing: guess how they attract people to work/live/build in Dubai? Minimal income tax!

Here’s another little story prompted by Thursday’s adventure.

DS#1 has (had) a fear of bridges. We live, of course, where drawbridges abound. He has had a fear of being on the bridge as it lifted. We ended up stopped at such a bridge today, and we could see what was happening with it, which allowed to opportunity to explain how they work, and how it is indeed impossible to be on it as it lifts.

Now, DS#1 is 8 years old. But I vividly remember having incredibly detailed dreams of being stuck on the old bridge when I was his age. I never told my mother about those dreams, and I still hate that bridge that haunted my dreams.

Technorati Tags: bridges, drawbridges, son, dreams

Google is finally pushing out the page rank update. Looks like this blog is going to a 4. I am thrilled with that. Oh, I know PR doesn’t mean all that and sliced bread, but still………I’m a competitive sort, and ZERO really gets my goat!