Warning: Fresh paint. Hard hats required.

I’m messing around with the blog’s look, and will be for a while.  It got a new background color yesterday, and today I may attempt to tile the sidebars.  I also want to do something cool with the header, and put in a raven picture, but that’s going to take longer. Please be patient if you

The Screwtape Letters

C.S. Lewis has the tongue of an angel, albeit a demonic one, in his affectionately signed Screwtape Letters.  The book is written entirely as letters from a doting uncle to his junior tempter nephew, Wormwood, who is out in the world on his first assignment.  It is Wormwood’s goal to tempt his patient into paths of sin and worldliness, and his dear old

Library Rant

I have always been a great patron of the library.  More so than the average tax-payer because I always have a fine to pay.  Sometimes only a few cents, sometimes (especially during the summer) in the five, fifteen, or twenty dollar range. But no more. As of now, I will buy my books from book sellers, either brick-and-mortar or ebay

Remembering 9-11-2001

I heard the news.  That morning will always be very clear in my memory.  I had just dropped our son off at preschool, and was headed to the gym.  I liked to work out in the water, as my six months pregnant bulk was never comfortable.  I turned on the car radio and heard the anouncers discussing

This week in words

As always (unless otherwise specified), I get my definitions from my sturdy Oxford American Dictionary.  Phrase of the week:  ” . . . as dizzy as a termite in a yo-yo.” Quote of the week: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein, (attributed) US (German-born) physicist (1879 – 1955) [Found on

A long look in the Blogging mirror

I’ve been blogging for one month.  Almost a month.  Okay, twenty-seven days, if we’re being exact.   With this illustrious track record to bolster my ego I paid a visit to my favorite blogging guru for some insights on how best to proceed from here.  I thoughtfully considered banning Harry Potter and going straight for world domination, but have

Disco light shirts

Philips has released a press release about their new Lumalive fabric.  You can see it here, and watch a blip about it here.  So, can you see this marvelous gyrating disco shirt in the light of day, or is it only intended for dark alleys?  And can you change the display on the shirt to say

Craft: Stress

Tuppin dropped her broom at the door and hurried to the stove.  She needed to get the cauldron on now or it wouldn’t reach the rich simmering point before conclave tonight.  She popped the toads’ eggs into the oven, flipped on a burner, grabbed her biggest pot and began filling it with hot water. “Merowrr!”  Her new black

Origami

I found the Extreme Sport of Origami a fascinating look at one of my favorite subjects.  I love to watch the creation of Origami, and I’ve always liked the idea of taking it up.  I almost certainly won’t progress beyond basic forms if I do.  It seems to require single-minded devotion from the practitioners, and I’ve never been single-minded

Re-found treasure

Our oldest computer has been threatening to die, so today we went searching on the hard drive to see what needed rescuing.  We found lots of old writing files, some which I’d been missing, but some I’d forgotten were ever written.  It was great to come across the titles of these old stories and fragments,