Fibber McGee's closet it's not.

I'm a rush and wear kind of gal. There is nothing I hate more than dithering in the morning about what I'm going to wear. Then again I'm not a 10 year old child that needs to lay her clothes out before she goes to bed. (Of course, I do lay out my clothes or I pack what I'm going to wear in my gym bag but this is totally beside the point.)

Since, I still want to maintain the illusion that I can pick out what I want to wear in the morning I've devised my COS (closet organizational system). OMG! Am I a fricking librarian or what? I have a psychological need to organize my surroundings. Then give it some fancy name. Then only use the acronym. Please, someone stop me. I need help.

Since, I have this system I feel the need to tell you about it. Let's call it a public service. That sounds better than I need to justify my OCD tendencies. We all know that is what it is. Just shut up.

All my shirts are organized by the major color. Black and blue are on opposite sides so when my eyes are not quite open I don't grab a navy shirt to go with a black flower skirt. Left to right; Blue goes with blue. Red and pinks go together, then white/beige, then green, then purple, then brown and black. I don't even have to wash the sleep out of my eyes to pick out a shirt. I just have to know my right from my left. Which I don't but I do know that my wedding rings are on my left hand.

On the right are patterned skirts. From right to left (just to mix it up a little); browns, to purples, to greens, to reds, to blacks. All the solids go together. Same crazy need to put like colors together. Yada, yada. Gawd, I'm a nut job.

I don't seem to have the same need when it comes to shoes. Oh sure, they have to go in the shoe hangy things but they don't have to be obsessively organized. Weird huh?

Last but not least of my closet craziness is the hangers. Right to left; skirt hangers, then those plastic hangers that you get when you buy a new top, then tubular hangers. Usually I put those in like color order but sometimes JR puts them up there. And, he never puts them in the right order. I think he's trying to mess with my head.

There you have my closet insanity. I'm sure this is some kind of syndrome and I should see someone about it but I have to go put those hangers in the correct order now.

Love,
M

Wordless Wednesday - My Mother-in Law; The Porn Queen?

Ernie and his camera strikes again.

Love,
M

PS: Thank you, Captain Dumbass for the suggestion of using the word porn in the titles of my posts to increase my stats. How long do I have to do this?

Rtt - Paintings and such

Keely and friends play this little game called Random Tuesday Thoughts. It's all about taking bits and pieces of posts that just don't warrant a whole post by themselves put them all together and pretend they are a whole post. Want to play? Go here to link up.

Here are a few paintings I've been working on.

First my Tuscan House.
Yeah, the perspective is off but I've decided that this is folk art.
Folk art doesn't have to be right on.
The perspective can be off a bit.
Trees that don't look quite right.
You know, sort of native and simple.
That brings us to.......

Here's my poppy field.
JR likes this one.
I think it will look better framed.
I didn't get this in the photo but the sky turned out really well.

These two I like a lot.
JR likes the daisy one and I like the tulips.
Aren't they arrow straight?
I like that about them.
I'll probably fix that but for now I'm enjoying the dichotomy of the crazy background and the soldier straight tulips.
Isn't that awesome?

I've also got a sailboat painting started but I'm waiting for the base to dry a bit before I paint the sailboats.

My friend Candy suggested this t-shirt for me. It has two of my favorite things, wine and books. There are others here.


Our peach tree has a dozen little peaches on it. They are fuzzy and sweet looking. The lime tree is just setting fruit. Our herb garden is going crazy. I'm going to start thinking about drying some of it. I think little bags of dried herbs would make great Christmas gifts. What do you think?

Go visit all the players in this crazy game.

Love,
M

PS: I'm feeling pretty insecure these days so if you wouldn't mind clicking the little stumble upon button below maybe my stats will go up and I can stop obsessively checking them. Because I do. All the damn time. What is it with me that I've got this crazy competition going with which days of the week get more hits and which type of post gets more hits over another type of post? I'll spend all day today thinking is Tuesday random post going to kick Meatless Monday's butt? Don't even get me started with wordless Wednesday.

Roasted Tomato, Spinach Linguine with Warm Goat Cheese Rounds.

Gawd, that's a mouthful but an oh so yummy one!

This dish has a little sugar and red pepper added to it that gives you a lovely range of flavors. It balances really well with the tanginess of the goat cheese. I prepared the goat cheese in the morning and refrigerated until dinner. Another time saver is to roast the tomatoes ahead of time.

Roasted Tomato, Spinach Linguine with Warm Goat Cheese Rounds.

Tomatoes
2 cups grape or cherry tomatoes
2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil
salt, pepper, garlic powder, dried basil and dried oregano

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spread tomatoes on a cookie sheet, coat with olive oil, sprinkle with spices. Bake for 20 minutes or until tomatoes split open, get all prune wrinkly and are sweet and awesome. Set aside while making the rest of the meal.

Linguine
1/4 cup dried Italian breadcrumbs
1 (4 ounces) package log shaped goat cheese
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup coarsely chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
roasted tomatoes - from above
1 (10 ounce) bag fresh baby spinach
1 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste
6 cups hot cooked linguine (about 12 ounces uncooked) I made my own so I don't have an exact number.

1. Preheat over to 400 degrees
2. Place breadcrumbs in a flat dish. Slice goat cheese crosswise into 4 rounds of 1/2 inch. Press into the breadcrumbs. Coat on all sides. Place on a baking sheet, chill.
3. While the goat cheese rounds are chillin' in the fridge, start a huge pot of salted water to boil for the pasta. Heat oil in a large non-stick pan over medium heat. Toss in onion, cook for a 3 to 4 minutes then add the garlic. After another 2 to 3 more minutes add the spinach. Sprinkle the sugar, red pepper, basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Toss to distribute. Add roasted tomatoes with all the juices. Take off the heat as soon as the tomatoes warm back up.
4. Bake the cheese rounds at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or until soft.
5. Cook pasta. When done add to tomato and spinach mixture. Add about a 1/2 cup of the pasta water. Toss to combine. Serve topped with one or two of the goat cheese rounds.



According to JR this was so good that I would be doing all of you a disservice if I didn't blog about it. It was wonderfully blog worthy, healthy, low in fat and calories (about 360 calories and 12 grams of fat for that huge serving above) and it's pretty too! If you use whole wheat you could make this even healthier. It's a perfect Meatless Monday meal.




Love,
M

Friday Fun - dress up a librarian

Am I the only one that feels like this week has gone on for over a month? Feeling the way I do about this week I thought we all needed some fun on a Friday. And, what's more fun than playing some dress up, especially if it's librarian dress up. What? Doesn't everyone think playing librarian dress up as fun? See it has been a long week.



Click here to dress up a librarian. I personally wear outfits like these to work everyday. The Lady Liberty outfit always goes over big. After you play with it a bit come back and tell me what you think of her underwear. I wear stuff like that too. Was that TMI?

Love,
M

PS: still working on the latest episode of My Misspent Youth. Mid-next week for sure.

What's in a quote?

This weeks Spin Cycle is about quotes. I'm going with the assumption that it is favorite quotes. I know it is going to sound odd but I like quotes about books, libraries and librarians. If those quotes include libraries, librarian, books and booze I am in heaven.

One of the reasons I love quotes about librarians (besides the fact that I am one of course) is that they break down the hair bun, sensible shoes, glasses wearing stereotype of librarians. Most of us are not like that.

Here are some of my favorites.

~Louis Stanley Jast~ Perhaps the two most valuable and satisfactory products of American civilization are the librarian on the one hand and the cocktail in the other. (JR is getting a T-shirt with this quote on it)

~Spider Robinson~ Librarians are the secret masters of the world. They control information. Don’t ever piss one off. (This is the truth. We can make things very difficult for you)

~ Joseph Brodsky ~There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

~ Emilie Buchwald ~ Children are made readers on the laps of their parents. (Very true. Please read to your kids)

My all time favorite quote was one that was given to me after having a lovely dinner and visit with The Stiletto Mom. A truly lovely evening made even better with this ending.

Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by someone I do not know.

~ John Keats ~

Everyone please go visit Sprite's Keeper for all the other spinners.

Hey Jen, how about this? 2 weeks in a row. What are the odds?

Love,

M

Wordless Wednesday - Ernie got a new camera...Grrrlll

Proves the theory that when your boyfriend says, "Let's do some character studies with my new camera"
Don't say yes.

Love,
M

PS: Coming Soon! A new episode of "My Misspent Youth" The screwball adventures of a 70s flower child wannabe.

RTT - Yeah, so I'm out of town again

It's Tuesday. Which makes it random. Yada Yada Yada After you've read my brief and probably bitchy post, leave a comment then go visit all the rest of the gang that plays, "Let's Make Random" over at Keely's place.

Here's the view out of my hotel room in Austin tonight.

It's much better than this view in Austin.

and not as good as this one in San Francisco.

Why is it that when you mention to the waiter that you don't eat meat they act like they are doing you a favor when they bring you a big plate of over cooked veggies mixed with pasta and no seasonings? None! Zip! Zero! Nada! What do you do when your dinner is sub par? I've lived in the south too long and it's only been a year. I didn't say anything. I just poured a little of my wine on the meal. Instantly dinner got tastier. I need to write a book for traveling vegetarians.



Chatted with The Boy tonight:
The Boy: do you guys still get hbo?

8:42 PM me: no

8:43 PM why?

The Boy: theres this show about new orleans called Treme

its great

i'll bring it with me

8:46 PM me: I've got 5 channels of hotel tv crap, 4 of sports and 3 news channels and that does not include Fox which I don't consider news

The Boy: oh you're in austin?

me: my hbo channel has some sort of wwii thing on

yeah

8:47 PM watching pbs

blogging

The Boy: nice

8:48 PM me: well, what can you do

The Boy: what are you there for?

8:49 PM me: I'm going to chair the first meeting of the Texas Digital preservation meeting

The Boy: congrats on that

me: thanks

The Boy: how big a meeting we talking about here?

me: we'll see if I totally fuck it up

8:50 PM The Boy: haha

you'll do fine

you're quick on your feet and you can bullshit pretty well

8:51 PM me: turns out to be a blessing

Special Days this week:

Today is Garlic Day. You would have never know it from my dinner. The cook must not have gotten the memo.
Tomorrow (or really today) is National Upside-down Cake Day. Can't we have a cake kind of day everyday?
Wednesday is Kindergarten Day, everyone go visit VodkaMom. She's the only kindergarten teacher I know. Well, I don't really know her in person but I feel like I know her in a totally unreal blog sort of way. That does too count.


The wildflowers blooming along side the road on the drive here were just lovely. In fact, so pretty I was even more distracted while driving than I usually am. Ranging in colors from soft pink to violent magenta, gorgeous yellows, blues, and oranges. Where are the pictures? It's well you should ask. I forgot to bring my camera. I contemplated sneaking out one of my D300 Nikons (yeah I have access to more than one) but decided that with my luck I'd break it. This is not the time to break an expensive camera. Tomorrow is my one year anniversary. I'll be out of my probationary period tomorrow. Breaking things will have to wait until Wednesday.

Best Recommendations for Napa Cabernet Sauvignon's under $100

I am totally sure that this person is happy to find a wine for under $100 but I have to tell you that I'm pretty happy to find one for under $10



Well, I think that is probably enough out of me today. You all have a great day. I'm going to try not to make a fool of myself and then drive home.

Love,
M

Le Petit Prince - learning the words

As a high schooler I was required to take a foreign language. I'm not sure if that is the case now but it was when my boys were in high school. If they wanted to go to college that is. Which they did. Because we said so.



The languages taught at Auburn High in the mid-seventies were Spanish, German, and French. I took French. Why? Why, does any teenage girl take French because it's romantic. Because maybe, if the moon is the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars our mothers will let us go backpacking through the French countryside after high school. Yeah, right! That happened.


I can't remember the French teacher's name because we were never allowed to call her anything except Madame. Madame was a stout old woman. Well, we thought she was old. She couldn't have been too young because 30 years before she was in a concentration camp in Germany. She proudly displayed the tattoo that the Nazis stamped onto her wrist. It made us afraid of her. Very afraid. I think she liked that.

One of the assignments was to pick a French children's book to read. I choose Le Petit Prince.


It turned out to be my favorite book. I read it over and over again for many many years. I took special care to learn all the words, all the meanings of the words. This one book helped me to speak French better than any of the 4 years of French classes I'd ever take. Learning the words would have been harder if I hadn't had this book to learn by. Those French, they have different words for almost everything.

And the illustrations aren't too bad either.



If you are trying to learn a new language my advice would be to start watching children's shows and start reading children's books in that language. It worked for me. And while I am no longer fluent in French I can still read it fairly well.

I'm fairly lame when it comes to participating in the Spin Cycle but I think this qualifies. That right Jen?


Love,
M

PS: The book has been translated into English if you don't want to have to learn French to read it but what I will say is that reading children's book in a foreign language is the best way to learn.

My Life in 1494 Moralist Poetry Images

If you all wanted to know what I look like this is a pretty good representation. Surrounded by books, glasses perched on my nose, and jingle bells hanging off my coat. Just exactly like me. With the exception of the broom. I don't sweep. Sweeping is too closely related to housekeeping. By doing any housekeeping it gives people the impression that I should be cleaning house. Now, we wouldn't want to give anyone that impression.

I do love to garden. Maybe, not stand behind a plow or anything type gardening. More like Gentlewoman type gardening. You know, little plots of dirt with salad fixings, herbs and maybe a zucchini plant or two. We are definitely not talking production gardening. I went out of the "puttin' up for the winter" stuff years ago. But if I ever got a wild hair and decided to stand behind a plow I would always wear my hat with the bells on it. One has to have standards.

That would be me standing at the table cooking. Obviously, things like manners have been pretty lax in my kitchen. From now on I want everyone that comes into my kitchen to tip their hat at me. Smiling would be nice. Clubs are optional.




This looks vaguely like every party I've ever given; lots of eating, drinking and talking. I'm okay with that but what I object to is the wearing of silly hats. We don't wear silly hats when we drink. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be convenient. They would fall off. Into our drink and that is what is wrong with wearing silly hats while drinking.



Disclaimer: It was agreed that the images below should be shown for entertainment value only and should not be taken to reflect any type of behavior on the part of the blog owner, blog owner's spouse or blog owner's family. Any correlation to the blog owner's life, real or imagined, is flatly denied. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

The blog management does not condone the use of torture. Especially while fools are looking on. The use of bondage should be kept in the confines of your own home. If you are into that. Not that we are saying you are or aren't. Or that you should or shouldn't be; we just don't want to know about it. (fingers in ears....lalalalala)

Timmy! I've fallen in the well. Go get Lassie!

Any of these images parallel your life? Except the torture one. Remember...fingers in the ears.


Love,
M

Try to remember Bill, hell and houston both begin with a H

April 19, 1875
Houston, Texas

Dear Bill,
I have been here for 2 months now and think this to be a bad place for any kind of shop that you have in mind. Only a fool would build here.

We are leaving here a week from today so don't reply to my letter. Even Edna don't like it because of the climate. I don't like it because its to far from home. Try to remember Bill, hell and houston both begin with a h.

Your friend -
Albert & family
Houston


some days I couldn't agree more.

Love,
M

RTT - He's not Corpulent; he's big boned

Ahhhh...it's Tuesday.
I'm pretty blank right now. I barely have thoughts let alone random ones. If you want to play along, grab the button and head straight to Keely's to link up.

This is Tripper under our bed. Now, you wouldn't normally think too much about a smallish sized dog crawling under the bed but this is an overweight (big boned) Corgie. Let's take a moment to do some quick calculations.

The clearance here is 7 inches from floor to the bottom of the frame. The dog is 34 inches from nose to stubby little tail. He stands 14 inches tall but his legs only make up 5 inches of the number, making his body height 9 inches. He is a rather stout 9.5 inches wide across his tummy. If I've done my math right (and that is not a given. I'm a librarian we're not known for our math skills) that is 4522 cubic inches of furry contrariness.

I'm no mathematician (see above librarian disclaimer) but it doesn't seem like those sort of numbers would lead to him being able to crawling under the bed but there he is. Of course, JR has to rescue him because once Tripper gets under the bed it is almost impossible for him to get back out from under the bed. It's a matter of lifting the bed and pulling the dog or a combination there of. I tend to laugh while inside I weep for him when watching the going under and getting out maneuvers. It's funny in a tragic way.




Got this email from a friend on Saturday:

On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 11:32 PM, Candace wrote:
clicked on your FEEDJIT Live and saw that someone was searching from google.com for how to hide the smell of marijuana and brought up your site. Interesting. Whatever it takes to get more hits on the site, man.


Tallahassee, Florida arrived from google.com on "It's a Dog's Life: Rosemary, Lavender and Thyme" by searching for hide marijuana smell rosemary lavender.

JR's response was: haven't they ever heard of incense?
Me: Honey, it's been a long time since the 70s.


There is something for most everyone to celebrate.

April 2010

• African-American Women's Fitness Month, Natl
• Alcohol Awareness Month
• Cancer Control Month
• Car Care Months
• Card and Letter Writing Month, Natl
• Child Abuse Prevention Month, Natl
• Confederate History Month
• Couple Appreciation Month
• Customer Loyalty Month, Intl
• Decorating Month, Natl
• Donate Life Month, Natl
• Emotional Overeating Awareness Month
• Fresh Florida Tomato Month
• Grange Month
• Holy Humor Month
• Humor Month, Natl
• Informed Woman Month
• Jazz Appreciation Month
• Kite Month, Natl
• Knuckles Down Month, Natl - This one I need to work on
  
• Landscape Architecture Month, Natl
• Month of the Young Child
• Occupational Therapy Month, Natl
• Pecan Month, Natl
• Pet First Aid Awareness Month, Natl
• Pharmacists War on Diabetes
• Physical Wellness Month
• Poetry Month, Natl
• Prevention of Animal Cruelty Month
• Rosacea Awareness Month
• School Library Media Month
• Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, Natl
• Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) Education and Awareness Month, Natl
• Soyfoods Month - I'm celebrating this one
  
• Straw Hat Month
• Stress Awareness Month
• Twit Award Month, Intl - Where's my award?
  
• Women's Eye Health and Safety Month
• Workplace Conflict Awareness Month
• World Habitat Awareness Month
• Youth Sports Safety Month, Natl

Which one are you going to make special this month?

Love,
M

Zucchini and Sweet Onion Gratin

I've always been a big fan of French cuisine and what are the French known for? No not for loving Jerry Lewis; though they do. It's for creamy sauces. The only bad thing about French food is that it tends to not be vegetarian friendly. This is veggie friendly.

Creamy gratins are traditionally made with potatoes or veggies so there is no need to worry about those pesky meat and are wonderfully filling. I've made this one as light in fat as I could get away with and keep that delicious richness that French food is known for.


Zucchini and Sweet Onion Gratin

3 tablespoons olive oil or butter
2 large sweet onion, cut in half and sliced
3 small to medium zucchini, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dill weed
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup hot skim milk
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/2 cup Havarti w/dill cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degree.



Heat olive oil or butter in a very large saute pan and cook the onions over low heat for 20 minutes, or until tender but not browned. Add zucchini and cook until tender. If you slap a lid on the pan these till cook a little faster. Add the salt, pepper and dill. Cook for another 5 minutes to meld the flavors. Stir in the flour. Add the hot milk. It should thicken up.


Pour into a square baking dish. Top with bread crumbs and cheese. Dot with bits of butter. Bake for 20 minutes or until browned and bubbly.


Substitutions for Havarti w/dill & dill weed
Cheese = Swiss \ spice = Dijon mustard
Cheese = Gruyere \ spice = nutmeg

I served mine with roasted broccoli. Yummy! This makes a great meatless meal for Meatless Monday or as a side dish. give it a try. I think you'll be happy you did.

Love,
M

PS: this is my 500th post. What better way to celebrate than with food?

4 Cookbooks and a How-to

I've got a bit of a thing for cookbooks. Mostly, I have a bit of a thing for books in general but cookbooks in particular. My theory on cookbooks is that one can never have enough of them. JR has yet to buy into my theory.

1. Cookin' Southern Vegetarian Style. I have to tell you I've been a lot of places in the South and have yet to find a southern vegetarian style. Want an example of a vegetarian meal in New Orleans? For dinner I had a side dish of green beans (requested no bacon) and a baked potato (requested no bacon). In Charleston, South Carolina I did have the most fantastic mushroom risotto. Now, if that is in this cookbook I'll be buying it.

2. The Moosewood Cookbook. I have heard nothing up but good things about the Moosewood restaurant and cookbooks.



3. the Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without. This is another cookbook by Mollie Katzen. I would hope that this one and number 2 don't have the same recipes in them. I think I'll start with the Moosewood one than work up.



4. The Hippy Gourmet's Ouick and Simple Cookbook for Healthy Eating. Why do I need this one? It goes without saying but it will match the first vegetarian cookbook I ever bought 30 years ago. From the age of 18 to 23 I was a vegetarian. This is pretty typical behavior. Most vegetarians become vegetarians in their late teens to early 20s. Then they stop then start back up again when they get older. I've kept the same cookbook all these years. And if I'm going to buy this one I seriously have to buy the one below.




5. The Hippie Handbook: How to Tie-Dye a T-shirt, Flash a Peace Sign, and Other Essential Skills for the Carefree Life. Enough said.


So I think I'll be buying 4 out of the 5 books on this list. Yay! It's about $50. I qualify for free shipping. Just don't tell JR. He seems to think that 150 cookbooks is enough.

Love,
M

Sometimes you just have an epiphany

A while back *cough 8 years ago cough* I had an epiphany. I was sitting at my desk doing that crazy bookkeeping/office manager job that I had been doing for the last 3 years when it hit me.
This was as good as it was ever going to get.
This was the most amount of money I was ever going to make.
This was the most amount of respect I was ever going to earn.
And this was the most amount of fun I was ever going to have at my work place.
This was not a passion.
This wasn't even a purpose.
This was a job, a chore, a task to be completed over and over again.

Life was looking pretty bleak. I didn't want to be a low paid bookkeeper. Not that there is anything wrong with bookkeeping but it just wasn't me. It didn't excite me. It didn't make me feel good about myself. I didn't take any pride in it.

My kids were in high school. My husband was coasting along at his work. And, I was just stagnant. It sucked.

So at the age of *cough 42 cough* I decide to get a college degree. I figured this was the way out of my boring job. It was my mid-life crisis. Hey, I could have bought a sport car or had an affair but no, I got a college degree.

I found that if I went to Washington State University I could get a complete college degree in an accredited program online. The bonus was that I could pay in state tuition. I worked full-time, took care of my kids, (yeah, so they ate a lot of prepared foods. They were high school students. They thought that was cool) kept my relationships with my husband, friends and family all in one piece (no easy task on a good day) and went to school full-time. It was not easy. It was a lot of stress. If JR wasn't the wonderful man that he is I wouldn't have made it.

Two years into school I decided that a degree in Social Science (back in the day we called this a liberal arts degree) wasn't going to get me anywhere. I needed a real degree.
A degree that could get me a real job.
One that would pay my student loans.
What did I do?
I applied at universities all over the country for a masters degree in library science. Yeah, because that's a real degree, HA!

Armed with a pretty good GPA (grade point average), a couple of nice letters from friends and a personal statement that was loaded with more bullshit than a presidential campaign I was accepted to Indiana University.

Three years after I started school I graduated. In fact, I graduated from WSU at the same time as my youngest son, The Boy, graduated from high school. I'd like to state that I had better grades. Not like it was a competition or anything but I got better grades than you did, I got better grades than you did, HA! Take that!

JR, the wonderful, quit his job. I quit my job. We sold the house, the travel trailer, and a whole bunch of other junk. We shipped The Boy off to college. The older Boy was already away at college so he was set. We packed up the house and off we moved, from Seattle, Washington to Bloomington, Indiana.

One year and 3 months later I graduated from Indiana University with a masters degree. I was eye balls in debt but I had found my purpose. Not my passion but my purpose. My passion would come after my first library job.

Six months after I got that first library job I went into a tattoo parlor to have the WSU logo permanently affixed to my body. Why? Because for 4 1/2 years my family put up with cold meals, dirty clothes and a mom that spent most of her time in her office getting those degrees. Because I worked my ass off. It meant something. It was important. It needed to be commemorated. What better way to commemorate an extraordinary achievement than a tattoo on my hip? That's what I thought. I love that tat. Why didn't I get IU's logo? Because it's crappy looking. I have standards.

I've only been out of library school for just over 4 years now and I've found my passion. I get to work with old stuff yet in a new technological way. You have all heard it before but I have the coolest job in the world.

And, it all started with an epiphany.

If you haven't found your passion or your purpose I would be remiss to not tell you to go for it. Sometimes it just takes shaking things up a bit. A boatload of money never hurts either but shaking things up is the best.

Love,
M

Lantern Slides of Russian Life, 1917

Street repair.
And you thought road construction took forever now!

For your viewing pleasure I present a small sample of the images we developed from our glass plate negatives and lantern slides collection. I know little to nothing about glass plate negatives so I won't be spouting useless facts and figures like I normally do. How about, for a change, I let the images speak for themselves.

This one is titled poor man's funeral.
I wonder if they meant poor as in economically disadvantaged or poor as in woes me my poor friend Vlad died. It's these sorts of questions that trouble me.

Yeah, that is so not going to happen. Maybe it's the librarian in me or maybe it's the historian or maybe it's my compulsive need to entertain however badly but whatever I can't seem to let an opportunity to instruct pass me by. Tedious, I know. You should try living with me.

Olive Trees in the Crimea.
Looks like peasants picking rocks. Or a scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail. Except I can't tell if the peasants are dirty.

I can be a real dog with a bone when it comes to knowing the whys and wherefores of things. It's a good thing the JR is so easy going. I wouldn't put up with me. I research crap all the time, I paint whenever the mood strikes me, I avoid doing housework until it becomes a health violation and I.don't.cook.meat. Feel very very sorry for JR.

Milking sheep - southern Russia
Now, THAT looks like a good time. Did those women drug all those animals? How did they get them to be so passive. Maybe, the one on the left is a mesmerist? That's a skill that would have come in handy when my kids were younger.

You didn't think you were going to get away without a bit of history did you? You silly person. Though we don't know a lot about these negatives (i.e. who took them and why) I can tell you that the photographers used a silver nitrate process to produce these negatives. What's a silver nitrate process. I haven't got a clue but I'm sure I could look it up if you'd care to know.

Circassians in park at Moscow
Do you think that those guys are wearing those high Cossack boots? I find those oddly sexy.

These negatives would have been hand colored. Someone knew what he was doing. Pretty nice colors for over 90 years old. I doubt if I'll have much color when I'm that age. Unless of course the funeral director paints me up. Then I'll look like a curly haired circus clown with wrinkles. Excuse me while I cry for a moment.

Camera shy peasants
Look at all that heavy clothing. My endocrine moments would never allow me to wear all that. I don't care how cold it is in Russia. One hot flash and all those clothes would be laying in a heap at my feet. Wouldn't that freak out the natives?

I picked some of the nicer, as in pleasanter, scenes from Russian life around 1917. During that time Russia had some rather ruthless people coming into power. Let's just say that the Bolshevik Revolution was a bad bit of business and leave it at that.

A Farmer's Team in Russia
I'd love one of those aprons. I think it would look lovely hanging on my wall. Yes, I do hang goofy things on my walls. What? A ukulele is goofy.

These are our lantern slides. They would have been put into a "magic lantern" or early slide projector and viewed projected on a white wall. Entertaining and educational. Want more info? Check out the Syracuse Archives webpage. They have got a whole write up about glass plate negatives and lantern slides.

Now, that wasn't so bad now was it? A little history and a little snark; all in all a good day.

See you all around,
Love,
M