what is this pulse thing and why do I want to use it?

 

Normanly I like to write with my tongue firmly inserted in my cheek - it is more difficult to speak that way, but writing is not so difficult.  I fear today's chatter will be on the less silly side (until the end when I eggspecially have egg on my face - or at least my arm and my dog's face.)  So Ladles & Gelly-mints let me get started on a cereal note:

Egg puns just CRACK me up!

(OK, NOW I'll be serious)

a rainbow of eggs - I gather these beauties daily -

well, not THESE eggs, but ones very much like them.

After the events of the day - which I shall relay in a bit - I was reminded of an old tip I learned as a child.  Since I have chickens and lots of eggs I thought I'd pass this tip on.  It surprised me to learn that not a lot of people had heard how to tell if an egg is fresh.  So without further ado (and what is an ado anyway?) my tip:

 

If you put an egg in water and it sinks to the bottom it is fresh.  If it floats on the top it is rotten. 

***warning, do not throw your eggs in the deep pond unless you only want to gather the bad ones back*** 

I looked this up as my knowledge was unsure as to why, but I found out it is because as an egg decomposes water vapor and gasses are released through the porous shell and the air cell increases.  The larger the air cell, the more the egg floats.

 

The egg on the right is older than the egg on the left.  It is tipped up higher.

If your egg is lying flat on the bottom, it is very fresh.  If it is touching the bottom but is tipped up, it is less so, but still not rotten.  The latter eggs are great for hard boiling as the older eggs are easy to peel after being boiled.

 

NOW for my 'event' today.

(actually it was yesterday if you want to be technical)

In the gathering of eggs, my husband found one outside of the hen house on the ground.  Since the birds are young, this is fairly normal, the younger girls haven't cleaved to the nesting box readily so I didn't think much of it.  When I went to wash it, it literally exploded with a loud pop.  Shell pieces hit me hard in the arm!  The yolk was definitely on me!

The smell was incredibly horrible and I ran out into the back yard with what I could gather of the mess and threw it into the woods.  Of course, this was the best time for company to show up and I greeted my guest by running out the door and laughing at the situation (because what ELSE could I do?) yelling over my shoulder, "Nice to meet you, I've a bad egg to deal with.  Hahaha!"

Upon entering the kitchen with guest in tow, I opened the windows and started to scrub the mess up.  I passed the visitor off to my husband, since it was his thing any way and got to work.  Now, they say that the 'rotten egg' smell is added into the gas line to let you detect a gas leak.  Let me tell you, that gas scent is not the 'real' rotten egg smell.  What I had a whiff of was much stronger - to the point of my eyes tearing up.  It smelled like a skunk had hit me dead on; not the after smell, but the sharp smell.  Then the 'lesser' smell was more like really rotten potatoes or onions, which is gagging.

Meanwhile I sent my daughter out to bring the dogs in as it was their supper time.  While she knew about the rotten egg, she didn't know I'd thrown it in the woods and (you know where this is going, right?!) didn't stop the dog from going into the wood to roll around in the fresh smell.

Now the smell in the kitchen was REALLY bad with the smelly dog, so out the dog went again until I could bathe her.  It took a long time for the smell to dissipate and then I had to deal with it again to wash up the dog.

 

One very contrite, but clean dog.

Omelette you make your own conclusions for this story.  Did you know there are two ways to spell omelet?  I didn't   Any egg puns are welcome in the comments.

********any pictures of this event have been withheld from this blog to protect the young and stupid ignorant*********

Let me start by saying that I've been recently cleaning out and boxing up my eldest daughter's room.  She is now in college and hasn't been home for over a year.  Her room is a shrine to middle school as she went away for high school, and the angst that oozes from that place is difficult to live in so I take this cleaning out in small doses.  (I am excited to have a sewing room though, so I go up there frequently to wade through the stuff.)

Let me start by saying that many people tell me they'd love to be young again, "knowing what they know now."  Re-live Middle and High School?!  Not. Me.  Isn't the point of being young that you DON'T know much.  Plus you're dealing with tons of changing hormones and uncertainty.  I may be achy and slow, but I wouldn't EVER want to relive that stuff.  My calmer demeanor is a much happier place to live.  Being settled and balanced is a Libra thing.  And did I mention it is my birthday today?

Let me start by saying that the Middle School dance my poor, patient, sweet husband and I chaperoned for our youngest daughter, Seeta, last night was LOUD.  The kids were hysterical to watch.  The music was LOUD.  The kids were sad to watch.  The music was REALLY LOUD.  Of course I don't really understand the working mind of the average 12 to 14 year old and, oh - did I mention that it was LOUD?!  A much needed glass of wine greeted me when we got home - or was that whine?  I thought so.

Let me start by saying that it wasn't really a DANCE, per say, as much as it was a three hour recess in a dark gym with really loud music (I'm sure I've mentioned that before) and for the most part, the kids were bored, so they found ways to entertain themselves that mostly bordered on mischief.  I can see why kids feel compelled to attend (one must see & be seen after all) and why they would not want to be there (the social pressure is huge.) 

OK, so I'm not really just starting any more, but I am stuttering my start since this was such a traumatic event for me!  I might take days to recover and I might even have to do some of my own dancing the funky chicken in my kitchen (and singing loudly) to recover... and that would not be a pretty thing.

Since our school hosted this dance, all proceeds went towards the eighth grade trip and graduation expenses and Seeta's class earned about $300.  The one thing I liked was that is wasn't my daughter's class (or even kids from our school) that misbehaved, it was their so called guests from the next town over.  So, the observations about this age group start with my inability as an adult to understand why kids pay money to socialize and then immediately start texting on cell phones, listening to ipods or playing gameboys - something they could have done alone and saved money on by not attending a social function.  I do realize that as an adult I will never understand this kind of thing.

As a casual observer I noticed that the popular kids are doing a lot of posturing.  It's hard work making sure that you keep your status of 'hot stuff' or 'cool dude' or however it is referred to these days.  The unpopular kids were buzzing like insects around the popular kids trying to get their attention, and either annoying the populars and almost starting fights or getting teased badly.  This figuring out how to fit in stuff, is hard!

As a parent observer, I was appalled at the lack of manners/respect the kids showed.  I felt obliged to pick up after the mongrels who dropped lollipop sticks, food wrappers and water/gatorade bottles so our gym floor wouldn't get ruined.  I know these kids don't go around dropping garbage on the floor at home or anywhere else, why do they lose civilized practice in this circumstance?  Perhaps it was the over-consumption of sugar.  There were lollipops, jolly ranchers, and twizzlers - to name but a few kinds of candy sold - by the giant bagfuls... how else do you suppose we earned all that money? 

So our school's kids have to host a dance every other month and there are 4 more scheduled this school year.  The question I have is... can I bring my cell phone/ipod/gameboy/ (or more realistically) knitting project with me the next time I have to chaperon? 

In a very few minutes I leave to chaperone my daughter's Middle School Dance.

I'd rather eat worms.

But it should give me much fodder to blog about - especially stuff to embarrass her, which is my job after all.

OK, I'd rather NOT eat worms.

So get out the cotton for my ears and tylenol for my head...  I'll let you know how it goes.

For me, this is an interesting question, since my birthday is just around the corner - literally hours away.  Being that I am a Libra (scales - always balancing everything) my answers always have a 'yes & no' quality to them for these big/thoughtful questions.  I like to look at many sides.

In some ways I had little reason to think about me at 49.  No one thinks about what they'll be like when they are 50, unless they are in their 40s.  So on the one hand (say, up until my 30s), I am NOT the person I thought I'd be, because I couldn't even imagine it.  Not that I thought I'd be dead, but who the hell even thinks about that kind of thing when so young.  Fifty (ok, ok, 49) is just so, so... OLD; until you hang out with folks in their 70s like I do now, and then not so much anymore.  At that time, I was full of anxiety, stressed and full of angst.  Aside from that, I didn't have a thought, never mind a clue; I was trying to survive from day to day and didn't think about the future.

But in some ways, I am exactly where I wanted to be, what I wanted to be - something I've striven for.  A decent mother.  A wife in a good relationship.  Contented... (Hmmm sounds like I'm cow-like here) dare I say, happy.  I've trained to do several things career wise, but not stayed with any of them.  A Jack/Jill of all trades, master of little.  I've decided not be filled with regrets and so I've done what I wanted.

Normally I like to add humor to my posts but this was not done in that vein - maybe I'll forgo the Featured Question in the future.

I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

...Hate me because

 

I wear penguins on my sweaters.

My children don't turn out like I want them to

I love my small yappy lap dogs.

I don't drink beer.

I sing the wrong words to songs, on purpose..

I am a reading/book addict.

I've been known to keep small farm animals in the bathroom.

I am a terrible correspondent.

I am allergic to laundry.

By night I am a totally different character.

I can't say 'no'.

I will dance the funky chicken in my kitchen.

I knit in bed.

I love raw seafood.

Even though I can cook, I don't.

 

I mean, if you're going to hate me at least make it for a good reason.

 

So, with what we call "Franksgiving" coming up (and I wonder what he - my hubby - will be giving?)  I am revisiting my vacation post.  It was the last time my family got together.  I have an amazing family.  We pretty much get along and enjoy each others company.  I purchased a lot of items in Alaska just for this holiday - mostly smoked Alaskan salmon.  We'll be revisiting our trip - the pictures are amazing, but not as amazing as seeing that stuff in real life - and I am mooley excited.  Don't know what 'mooley' is?  I guess I'll have to explain in a different post.

 

My parents decided that they wanted a family trip to commemorate their 50th Anniversary.  They chose to go on a National Geographic/Linblad Explorer Cruise in south east Alaska with the family.  My parents, my family, my sister's family, my brother's family, my father's brother & his wife, and my mother's brother and his son attended.  There were 19 of us on a boat that has room or about 60 passengers.  To the rest of the guests we were known as "The Family."  Very mafia(ish) if you ask me!

 

Here we all are (sans the sick uncle) on the bow of the Sea Lion.

 

On our second day we went to South Sawyer Glacier.  Here we saw harbor seals galore and really cool icebergs:

I love the color of this ice!

The girls get their own 'pet iceberglets'

 

and this contrast from the red iron of the mountain to the blue ice was beautiful.

 

The next day was our only foul weather day.  The mood fog looked like this:

We saw humpback whales in the fog, which was cool, but the pictures aren't good enough to post.

 

By the way... we were told that in the three months of summer, there were 10 sunny days.  We had five of them.  I credit my parents for this as they live a charmed life!

 

On the fourth day in the morning we saw Orca:

It was a pod of five whales, one male, two female and two calves.

On the fourth day, in the afternoon we took a zodiac out to view the wildlife:

Sea Otters are usually very shy.  Today, however, we were studiously ignored.

Don'tcha just love the size of those feet!

 

Stellar Sea Lions - love to lay in a huge pile and complain.

 

A curious boy checks our our zodiac.

 

In the afternoon we saw more humpback whales:

The neatest part about this encounter was that we were in an area of about 40 whales that were trumpeting back and forth to each other surface feeding over an area of several miles along the coast.  Even the naturalists on board were impressed.

  The whales were so close it was amazing!

 

We call this a rain-blow.

 

Day 5 is Glacier National Park.  John Hopkins Glacier calved for us very frequently. 

There was a noise like thunder with each calving and a huge set of waves that accompanied the bigger ones.

John Hopkins Glacier is one of the few glaciers that isn't receding.

 

I admit I can't remember where this was taken, but it was so beautiful I had to put it in.

 

The next two days were dedicated to looking at nature:

 

Mergansers

 

Tufted Puffins

 

Mama Griz & her two cubs

 

finally a pod of 9 humpback whales 'bubble-net' feeding.
This was really amazing as a microphone was put underwater and we listened to the calls of the whales as they coordinated their feeding efforts.

 

The trip was an incredible experience.  I thank my loving parents for the adventure of a lifetime.

The happy couple

Thanks again, Mom & Dad, I love you!

 

P.S.  I tried to get these pictures to be larger than you see them, but I don't know how to do that.  I'm sorry for it, but if you know how, let me know, O.K.?