On the fly again, ya’ll! Running late to church. And yes, I really do look this bad today.

Here is a shot I took of some cypress knees on the edge of the canal at Lake Waccamaw. You can read more about cypress trees in general here and cypress knees in particular here. I did a little research and found out that these are used to make art. They are highly desired for carving statues and such as this. The purpose of cypress knees has not been determined. Some think they serve as anchors for the tree, and some think they serve to provide oxygen to the underwater roots.

There are several species of wildlife that are only found there in the entire world. Unfortunately, it’s a little difficult to get pictures of them, since you find them mostly in the murky depths. That doesn’t require Delta machinery, but it does require a wet suit and a fancy-dancy camera, so I will continue to content myself with top-side shots.

You’ve just reached the end of a book . . . what do you do now? Savor and muse over the book? Dive right into the next one? Go take the dog for a walk, the kids to the park, before even thinking about the next book you’re going to read? What?

(Obviously, there can be more than one answer, here–a book with a cliff-hanger is going to engender different reactions than a serene, stand-alone, but you get the idea!)

It really does depend on the book and my reaction to it. If it’s one that has grabbed me and I have sped through it, then I don’t want to read another right away. I have to finish reading the one I just put down. That sounds weird. I mean I have the words, but my mind and heart have not processed the story yet. It was like that with TTW that I talked about last week. I finished it and went to sleep, and over the next two days, my heart finished it. It was the same way with the Gabaldon books.

And I think I have mentioned that I no longer read books that aren’t good, although I am learning to be more patient again, because I have broken my own rule a couple of times and ended up with a good read. Like now. I am still reading Matrimony and I didn’t think it was a great book when I was just a little way in, but now I am over half way, and I am so drawn in. There is something so poignant about reading this particular book in bed at night as dh and I make strained conversation.

There’s a new razor in my shower, ya’ll. For years, I have had a Silk Effects Plus, and it had done an adequate job of removing the forests from my legs. Recently, I needed to buy some new blades for it, and so there I was in the women’s shaver aisle. Let’s just pause for a moment and reflect on the length, depth and breadth of that section of Wal-Mart shall we? It boggles the mind that there are so many ways to get rid of what is essentially a normal part of being human. Of course, BO is also a normal part of being human, and we attempt to get rid of it, too, but there I go again, digressing. Anyway!!

So, I found the blades, and then from the corner of my eye, I saw the Intuition. “Well, that’s intriguing”, I thought. See, I’ve quit buying shaving cream. I like the good stuff and it’s a little spendy, and with 2 teens in the house, I got just about sick and tired of buying my favorite scent just to have it all used up before I ever hit the shower door. Why must they shave every day? 5 times? With more and more of my cucumber melon shave gel?????? Since all I ever got to use was soap anyway…. that’s what I bought. Muhahahhaha. Oh wait. I digressed again. Sorry.

Ok, so there I was and there they were, and do you know??!!?? They have a cucumber melon scent! Let me explain a bit about what the Intuition is, in case you haven’t seen one. Or paid attention. Maybe you’ve just been buying blades for your old razor and not paying much attention to the new products. The Intuition is a 3 blade razor with a thing around it. The thing is a shaving gel type stuff, and when your leg is wet and the thing is wet, it provides a glide that is most excellent. Also, it smells good. And when I used it, my legs were slick and they were smooth and when I was done, they were not dry. And that right there is what sealed the deal: I have a new razor ya’ll. And the best part is that since the idea of using someone else’s razor gives my girls the heebie jeebies, I have it all to myself!

Those of you on the feed may have seen the notes for this post come through when I hit publish in a moment of distraction. For that, I apologize. I have started taking notes for posts while the thoughts are fresh in my mind, and it’s bound to happen now and again that I hit publish before I mean to. I think the advance prep is making for a better blog, and so I will continue to do it, and we’ll just muddle through together, k?

Fergie

Now that I have the MP3 player, I am listening to a lot more music. I’d had Fergie’s Dutchess sitting on my desk for several days and I finally opened it last week. Now, I ended up with the explicit version, and I was kinda embarrassed when I listened to the cd, and I had my earphones on at the time! Lest you think I have never uttered a cuss word, let me just tell you now that this is untrue. But I don’t do it gratuitously.

I first realized that there might be a problem when London Bridge came on, and I was treated to several repetitions of “oh shit” before the actual singing ever started. And then during the wonderful reggae Mary Jane Shoes some weird/wild/crazy music comes on, and the mother of all expletives is dropped for no apparent reason. If you think for a minute, you can figure that out, but I’m not typing it, mostly because I don’t want that word to ever appear in a search on this site.

M favorites on this CD were Big Girls Don’t Cry, Mary Jane Shoes (yeah, it’s a great song except for that one tiny bit), All That I Got (The MakeUp Song) and Finally. Also, everyone should hear her rendition of Here I Come at least once. I have to get up and dance each time it comes on. But then, I dance a LOT and for no apparent reason.

Final upshot: I still like Fergie, and most of this album ended up in my player. However, it’s Radio Fergie I enjoy. Explicit cd Fergie? Not so much. In my opinion, the wonderful potential in songs like Mary Jane Shoes and the compelling Finally has been denied by a quick grab for ratings. I was hoping to find pure distilled sex here, like Marilyn singing to JFK. Instead I found good music semi-spoiled by raucous ranchiness. I did find a work around for it, though. Keep reading.

LimeWire

If your musical tastes are as rich and varied as mine, you must go immediately to download LimeWire. It’s quick to get, quick to install, and super easy. Want a song? Type in the name or the artist and hit search. Then download. Using LimeWire enabled me to put wonderful old songs like He Stopped Loving Her Today right next to clean versions of Fergie’s songs. That’s right! I used the program to find clean versions of some of the songs on my Dutchess cd. Now, you can’t find everythig with it, much to my dismay (I’ve been trying to find the Elvis/Celine duet of Somewhere with it, but I have not had much luck. If any of you know where I can get that, please drop me a note in the comments.) You can find an awful lot with it though, and it’s now an indispensable addition to my desktop.

Print Ads

This week, I also read a magazine, and while the subject matter of the mag is not germane to this blog, the Saturn Ad I saw inside certainly is. It was a full page ad, and that page was red. Hard to miss, especially when you remember how I love red!! In part, it said, “How about a little single tasking…..when did we multi-task the joy out of driving?” This made me pause. I can’t remember the last time I slowed down to just enjoy the drive. Or the shower. Or the feel of hot dishwater. Or the sound of the broom across the floor. I’m thinking I ought to slow down just a bit and live on purpose. And also, fill up the tank and go for a spin, just me and my thoughts.

Technorati Tags: Dutchess, Fergie, LimeWire, Saturn Ad

If you could have any music group or musician play at a party, who would you hire?
Name three things to be happy about today.
How do you release frustration?

1.Oh, if I could have any musician it would be Elvis. Do dead ones count? If it has to be someone living, then Fergie. But she would have to be radio Fergie, which we will discuss tomorrow.

2.Three things to be happy about:
I figured out how to delete tracks from the MP3 player, so I can get rid of listened-to-podcasts without hooking it up to the computer.

I woke up this morning with strength to do the tasks at hand, and the wisdom to tell myself to get off my lazy tail and do them.

I’ve laughed at least three times in the past hour.

3. Mostly by throwing fits.

Mature I know.
Doesn’t work very well for me, either.
The truth hurts sometimes.

Welcome to Self Portrait Sunday at Midlife Musings. You get a two-fer from me today. First, here I am with that new mp3 player. Despite the fact that it took me two days to screw up the courage to load it, I was happy with it from the get. (I’ll also note that I looked at it the night I bought it, but SomeLittlePerson kept talking to me, and so that ended with my holding said SomeLittlePerson instead of playing with the player.)

And here I am this morning, hiding behind my coffee cup. Why am I hiding? I am hiding because DifferentLittlePerson kept me up until after 2, and a NeighborKid arrived at 8 to catch the church bus which runs at 9:30. Good times! But the child is excited because he wants to be baptized tonight.

And, yes, I was a Klingon in a former life, thanks for noticing.

How to Play:
All you have to do is take your picture, then post it along with the code below. Come back and leave a comment so we can find you.
<a href="http://www.midlifemusings.com/self-portrait-sunday/"><img src="http://www.midlifemusings.com/buttons/midlifeportrait.gif" alt="" /></a>

Have ya’ll been enjoying the extra pictures? I’ve tried to remember to include one if I had one even remotely related to what I have talked about. Some subjects lend themselves to that better than others, of course, but I have tried. And remember that massive to-do list? One of the items on it is to organize the two 1 GB cards I have, and when I do that, I’ll be uploading a lot of shots, and that will in turn lead to blog posts.

One of the things I have been wanting since I got involved in digital photography is a digital photo frame. It seems wrong somehow to leave all those good pictures on an itty bitty card, yk? But I’ve not had a place to put a digital frame until just recently, and so while I have looked, it’s been cursory. Now, though, we have re-arranged the furniture and that has opened up a large expanse of wall space over the loveseat. I’m planning to fill it with cross-stitch, and one digital frame to show off some of my artier shots.

I have to say that looking over these reviews of different digital photo frames, I am still amazed at the very concept of one frame and multiple pictures– an entire photo album hanging on the wall. Some of the pictures I mentioned above are shots I took of old family photos. I’ve showed you a couple of those, but I have lots more. What a treasure that would be for my mom, uncle and cousins! I have another set that I took at a family birthday party that would make a good gift for Granny.

Hmm, now my brain is churning with ideas…… time to pull out a paper and pen to take some “notes to self”.