When All Else Fails . . .

... rely on someone else for ideas on how to keep this blog going.

I follow She Just Walks Around With It, who, I am happy to report (if only for my own consolation), has also been a little slow on the updating of the posts (granted, she has two kids, one of whom is a newborn). Anyway, this month, she was inspired by Fat Mum Slim to do a photo-of-the-day post on her blog. I too have decided to join in on this idea, albeit a few days late (surprise, surprise).*

[*Ed Note: I started this post on March 3 and tried to continue it on March 4. But I realized that a post all about photos would be a bit of a chore, since it just so happens that I accidentally deleted all my photos last month. So before I can finish the post, I have to scrounge up photos by stealing them off Mr. J's computer, Picasa, my phone, Snapfish, Facebook, and anywhere else I can get them. Then, on March 5, I came downstairs to start work, and EEK, my Mac wouldn't start. No fan. No Mac bingbong noise. No nothing. So off to MacLife I went. Now, more than a week later, I have my Mac back, better, stronger, faster ... but still no pictures. Time to scrounge together those photos so I can finally finish this post before the photo-a-day month ends. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.]

So without anymore further ado, my photos of the day(s):

March 1 -- Up, which happens to be one of Mr. J's favorite movies, so I chose his niece flying through the air during the Kite Festival at Bondi Beach (at least I think that's when this was taken).

March 2 -- Fruit: OK so there isn't any fruit right now. But these vineyards at Bittner Winery produced some mighty tasty wines, which we enjoyed during our 2nd Annual Post-Thanksgiving Snake River Winery tour ... which you would already know something about if I were ever to update this blog with our daily events.


March 3 -- Neighborhood: Mr. J, cruising the 'hood. Nuff said.


March 4 -- Bedside: This one was a stretch. If I actually took the time to charge the camera battery to go upstairs and take a shot of my bedside table, this post would never be done. So instead, it's me inside bed, taken after a flight from the US to Australia (that is my excuse for the ridiculously red eyes, and I am sticking to it).


March 5 -- A Smile: This photo will make my laugh until the day I die. My two darling nieces were both smiling and posing nicely for this photo, but as luck would have it, as I "clicked" the shutter on my phone, Miss Ella swung the umbrella bit, smacking Megan in the back of the head. Purely by accident. Of course. Can't you just tell by her innocent expression?


Since I am so far behind, I am going to do five photos a day until I catch up. If my math is right, which it probably isn't, I may be able to get these all in before March 31.

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda

I just wrote a long, bitchy, moany, venting blog post about my work and the woes of my work and how much I wish this project were over (one more week ... one more week). But it was boring and depressing, and I realized that this blog is turning into too much of a sounding board for when I'm frustrated, which, actually, is what most of my journals ended up being too. And that is all fine and good for a journal that no one will ever read, but it's not incredibly exciting or interesting for the international world of blogging (even if I do have only one follower ... HI!). Besides, after writing the long, venty post, I felt much better. So I deleted it. Whew for all of us.

So, instead I'm going to recap part of the phone conversation I had today with my beautiful niece, because it just makes me smile. She called because she had just received the two box sets of books I sent via Amazon (on sale, thank you very much). [I love the idea for the National Geographic map binder, by the way! Will definitely file that away for next time!] (The gift shipped yesterday and got there today at no extra cost, thanks to my free trial of Amazon Prime ... whatever that is and which I must go cancel right now before I get charged for it.) Anyway, she could have just said "Geronimo Stilton" over and over again in her cute, growing-up-too-fast voice, and I would have been perfectly happy. What a great name for a character! But we did have an actual conversation, and my favorite part was the discussion about The Dog, whom she met only once, four years ago. So, she was, what, ... 3? Wow, what a memory. Anyway, it won't translate nearly as well, but here it is for posterity's sake.

Beautiful Niece: Thanks for the books, Aunt T. How's The Dog? [This is usually the first question she asks after saying hello, so I felt honored to actually get a full sentence from her first.]
Me: He's fine. He's taking a nap. How are you?
B.N.: Are you going to bring him with you at Christmas?
Me: I wish I could, but he would have to ride underneath with all the luggage, and he wouldn't like that.
B.N.: Maybe he could ride under your seat, like that dog you saw on the plane. [Holy crap, what a memory this child has. Last Christmas, I told her about the full-size standard poodle that got to ride on the plane right behind us, because he was being trained as some kind of helper dog. I then told her the even weirder story that the same dog was on our flight back home, a week and a half later. Weird! She, of course, thought it was perfectly normal. I mean, we flew in together, so of course we'd be on the same flight home.]
Me: [After taking a few seconds to figure out what she was talking about--apparently I do not have the memory of a 7-year-old--I attempted to explain the intricacies of training seeing-eye dogs without completely losing her interest.] Well, we'd have to train him to be a helping dog, and then he'd be allowed to fly with us. But if we did that, we'd have to give him away when we were done training him so that he could be with someone who needs help.
B.N.: [Without a moment's hesitation] Well, that stinks!

I couldn't have said it better, or more selfishly, myself. That would stink, though I guess not for the person who needed help. And where did she learn that phrase, anyway? Too. Dang. Cute!

And now that I have taken this pleasant break from the horrors of editing a high-level tech book written by two professors and one student who do not speak English as their first language, I can go back with a calmer brain. And that calmer brain is not just the result of the vodka and OJ I guzzled while writing this. Really!