Ramble

(If your eyes glaze halfway through, at least read the last bit, okay?  Pinky swear you will.) So, I wanted to make a clarification after yesterday’s post. No one emailed me or commented anything to move me to do so, btw.  I just tumble things around in my head a lot, and sometimes lots of things occur [...]

To celebrate the return of my bike from the bike shop for minor wheel truing, I decided I’d take part in a C+ training ride sponsored by the Bicycle Club of Philadelphia (where C+ designates a ride of duration between 15 to 75 miles and a 12 to 15 mph average on flat terrain). My [...]

Well I haven't handed in my notice, stupid as it sounds I don't have enough money to move out so another month will go by with my things in one place and me in another, paying rent for somewhere that I don't live. I'm in this situation because I won't ask him for help and I have to help my mum. Life is *%$* sometimes. Tonight I find myself alone at 1:45am as he's gone to do a spot check on the n

I thought it might be interesting to share the fact that I am now officially out of an income. I do have a small research position that I’m working on in between breaks from my other project and posting here and fixing this site up. But I’m totally broke - no money in [...]

After leaving my temporary office in the Shakespeare Garden, I walked up to Belvedere Castle, a "folly" in the world of Victorian gardening, and then through the natural ecosystem known as The Ramble. Without any predetermined path, and that's the only way to walk here, I wandered through this intentionally natural part of the park. Still, several people were squirreled away in The Ramble, mainly birders with binoculars around their necks, and I came across several solitary souls sitting on benches. Many were dressed in pastel sports shirts, so they seemed like Easter eggs.Because the Ramble works in mysterious ways, I wandered over the Azalea Bridge, near the area you see here, and then made my way east. I emerged at the southeast corner of the Ramble at the Loeb Boathouse. Once there, I

Today was my only day in the office after the magical vanishing Bank Holiday (gone before my very eyes!) as I am here, there, and everywhere this week, attending workshops and conferences. This is tiring, but does mean that I will have a few hours on the train for some quality book time with no distractions, which will be very welcome. I hope to finish both books I'm in the middle of - Pandora in the Congo, and How to read a Poem and fall in love with poetry by Edward Hirsch.The latter I picked up after reading about it on Fiske's blog. It is a good follow-up to the Stephen Fry book; I was anxious not to have my newly reawakened passion for poetry peter out and to fall back into the lazy habits of only occasionally picking up a poetry book on a rainy afternoon. I want poetry to be a perm

.......1st secret.i did try to go to sleep.it did'nt work out.think i'll watch wrong turn 2 :dead end  again.then i'm gonna watch borderline cult ......or maybe i'll watch it 1st.fuck cable bs.fuck jay leno and all the stupid late night bs on.i'm to wide awake.no one to talk to.pooch under the damn bed.maybe if i just ramble out loud anyway and fuck my neighb's tonight,then butch will come out to see wth is wrong with me this time.and shit.why is it when i'm at my loudest while talking to myself-either person next to me is either going in or out,same with ppl below me.person next to me scared as shit of the pooch they leave my Avon books down in the mailbox.but whatever.wait....i'm gonna just ram a dvd in here in my bedrm..          &

Well, the brown rice was fine with the boys, too. Since rice is one thing we all eat and we all share the cost, it was important to me that we all like it. I was glad to know that they were ready to make that healthy choice with me. We really like it mixed with the Jasmine, so for now I think we will go with the mixed version. I think one of the reasons I love Jasmine rice is the smell. It's one of the few things my nose can still really smell. I think it's really odd that I can smell the rice, but not ammonia or several other strong smells around the house when I'm cleaning. But if I had to have one over the other, I'm glad it's the rice I can still smell. My next goal in the grain department is to try barley again. I hate barley from when I was a kid and my mom used to put it in soup. S

Let me start out by saying that I have no idea where this post is going.When I started studying world religions, I began with Hinduism. I had no intention of my new hobby appearing on my blog. But as I read and mulled and steeped, I started feeling things, thinking thing. Things I couldn't quite put into words, yet things I wanted to share and sort through outside of my own head. I sat down to type one day, and this came out. From then on, this has been a collective journey, and I like it better that way.But recently, I've been feeling cramped, almost as though I had deadlines to achieve or that this meandering journey of mine has become full of expectations I must meet. I've read and contemplated and learned so much in the past months; I think I need to change things up a bit. Up until no

Quantum Physics is a confusing topic for many. One person who makes a living out of understanding and explaining it is Professor Tony Sudbery.I spoke to Professor Sudbery at the York Science Festival about all things quantum and his talk at the Festival entitled Alice and Bob in the Quantum Wonderland. Frankly, I was baffled by much of this conversation, although it was a thoroughly enjoyable chat!You can listen to this show hereSponsor for this week's show - GotoMeeting: Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcast.

Do not judge a book by its cover Everyday I am very fed up with him. On the outside, he looks so gentleman, he looks so nice in front of everybody. But at home, you would not be able to see… Drinks spilled and not clean up. Coffee cups, plates accumulated on his desk. When told, he would say he was merely trying to lure all the ants out. He wants to be a rich person from the day I know him. However, what is rich in his eyes? Having more money which is not his or acting ‘rich’? Do not trust anybody For knowing him, I got to know that things are not just what you see. Things are not just what you say. Do not believe what you see and what people say. Is it for show or is it you care He said money is so easy to earn. He told me to go facial, go massage and buy nutritional supplements. I do not know if I should believe what he said. Are those from the bottom of his heart. He said those words in the shopping complex, in the store. Perhaps that is just anothe

Tonight I had a great time talking to Lizzy! I hope you don’t mind me calling you Lizzy, I have a friend named Megan and she does not like to be called Meggy because it reminds her of Peggy and then that reminds her of Piggy which reminds her of a fat pig, lol. I’m going to whip up some chili in a few, I know it’s late, Greg ate the last bowl that we had. We will be heading up north to our parents on Wednesday for Thanksgiving and I am so excited! I actually miss home and I can’t wait to eat! When we arrive, I’m going to grab a few Maxwell polishes (yes a FEW) to keep me from getting into the Thanksgiving stash. I’m guilty for cutting into the caramel cake then turning the cut part to the back so no one notices, lol. Back to the Maxwell polishes, they are so good, they are like the Philly Cheese Steak of Chicago. I know they are like a heart attack in a brown paper bag, but I cannot resist them! You just can’t get food like that in Southern Il

Photo by mandolin davis on FlickrI recently read Peter Walsh's book, It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff. Peter is an organizer on TLC's Clean Sweep, one of the few shows that could make me consider having cable tv in our house. I love watching people clean out their homes and get rid of stuff that just weighs them down and gets in their way. Peter is a master at not just showing you how to declutter, but explaining why you save the things you do. Knowing why can help you let it go and prevent the collecting of it in the future.Even though most people say our house is not cluttered, I think it is. We just do a good job of hiding and STORING the clutter. Those people also don't look in our closets, cabinets and drawers. Like so many people in America, we have too much stuff.So, I'm in the middle of a major clean sweep of our house. I've done this before as the boys outgrew toys and our needs changed, but I'm going even deeper now.

I learned something new this weekend. You can do jigsaw puzzles online. I feel like a whole new world has opened up for me. My addiction to jigsaw puzzles started when I was a little girl and I helped my grandmother put 1000 piece puzzles together. When our sons were younger, I took a break from puzzles. When you have very young children, it's difficult to keep a puzzle out on a table. Little hands reaching up to grab the pieces, maybe putting the pieces into their mouths. It isn't a good situation.But now you can go to JigZone.com and choose from hundreds of puzzles that you can do on your computer. My boys are older now and they no longer eat puzzle pieces, but the option of playing online is still worthwhile. No missing pieces, no worries about where to set it out. I also like that I can do a puzzle in a short amount of time.JigZone lets you select an image, choose how many pieces (up to 247), and what shape you want the pieces to be. I checked out the travel section an

I promise that I will delight and entertain you. Tomorrow. For now, I feel the need for a quick ramble and an early bedtime. Check back later for an amusing travelogue. In the meantime...I had an incredible time last night catching up with an old friend. It was one of those conversations that leaves you feeling thoughtful and introspective, and hoping like heck that you can hold onto those feelings long enough to do something with them. There seems to be such a short shelf life on those sorts of experiences. Someone says something that makes you think, the dusty old light bulb goes bling-bling for the first time in longer than you care to admit, and then the light fades. Something goes fizzle and there's a funny smell in the air (okay, perhaps I'm taking the metaphor too far). And then, you forget.Then there's the moment, days, weeks, or years later, when you remember. And you feel like a bit of a schmuck for having lost sight of whatever vision or motivation had once grip

I received a long comment on my previous post, Oh America the great huh, and I wanted to respond to it in this manner. It is something that has been pressing on me for a while and is something I must consider. All expats have these options provided they follow the proper rules to get there. All things being equal why would you want to return there? And why not give up your American citizenship. Homeland security isn’t finding out who is and isn’t gay in Europe to pat you on the back. It’s because they eventually intend on rounding you up pretty much the way Hitler rounded up the Jews, in 41. So, whether or not you go back there, for me, in my perspective isn’t something that should even be a consideration. All things being equal, if you’re a Dutch citizen, and your families’ were sincere in their desire for your safety and well being, they would visit you and not be so concerned about you visiting the USA to see them. Think things through for a bi

I received a long comment on my previous post, Oh America the great huh, and I wanted to respond to it in this manner. It is something that has been pressing on me for a while and is something I must consider. All expats have these options provided they follow the proper rules to get there. All things being equal why would you want to return there? And why not give up your American citizenship. Homeland security isn’t finding out who is and isn’t gay in Europe to pat you on the back. It’s because they eventually intend on rounding you up pretty much the way Hitler rounded up the Jews, in 41. So, whether or not you go back there, for me, in my perspective isn’t something that should even be a consideration. All things being equal, if you’re a Dutch citizen, and your families’ were sincere in their desire for your safety and well being, they would visit you and not be so concerned about you visiting the USA to see them. Think things through for a bi

I don't make any promises that it will make sense. It is so good to be back in my own bed. My dog was so excited to see us this morning when I picked him up from the doggie spa boarding place, I thought he was going to have a little doggie heart attck. My normally ticked off cat is even happy to see us, see being gone even makes animals hearts grow fonder (hehehe).I know I have just got back from a wonderful vacation, and to be honest I needed the change of scenery. Life has been hard in the Laruel household. Not one particular thing, just many things. God working on my heart (which left me feel like I was having open heart surgery), dealing with some stresses of having a teenager, and then normal every day problems that seem to catch up to you and sometimes try to overwhelm you. I wish I could sit here and say "I handed it all over to God and it was all fine." But then I would be lying through my fingers (hehe like that "lying through my fingers")well anyways where was I... I did end

No videos this time.The epiphany about math as a kid has kind of sunk in now. Makes sense. Always wondered how the hell I was able to spend a summer of game theory and not have some skill at math. I wonder if it was the the same sort of distillation I had come to see in Meteorology. My love of Meteorology has always been about concepts,variation, complex structures and how some prime ones are downright elegant and like complex concepts can almost be simple in a sense when really complete, layered and clear. I have always seen art in science and barthean narratives (looser sense of narrative as change, shift in perspective, sometimes realization ..) and now more and more see this in math. It has narratives, poetry, music.....in the sense of shadings, poignance, variation like those in language and sentence and their transport and portent and variation like music in its tones,tempo,volume, degrees of tonality and atonality, abrasive to smooth ways of playing textures into instru

So I have nothing of absolute importance to blog about, but I have some time I want to kill before doing some other things, so I figured I would just update here in rambles, for my own sake. :pThe last two days we have fought of three swarms of ants. We told the landlord the other day and let him know they need to spray inside. So maybe monday they will come and get 'er done, I'm hoping anyways. The swarms were in the upstairs bathroom. This is all new to me, I thought ants only like sugar and sweet things. But these ants are weird. The first two marching lines, were from our shower faucets, up to the ceilings, around the corner over the sink then across the ceilings to our light in there. The third swarm was just all along one wall and around the light again. I of course having no bug spray at the time, decided, I would use glass cleaner, and spray the bitches instead of trying to chase them all down and squish 'em. Took me an hour to get the first swarm, about a half hour to get t

Today’s service at St Andrew’s in Blantyre was great.  Nice people.  Warm and friendly.  I did most of the service with Pete, the minister, an I shared communion (he did the magic, I’m not allowed ; ) )  I’ve stuck the sermon in the Box in the sidebar with some others.  I’m not sure what I think of it.  It’s ok in bits but could do with a good edit!  Any feedback would be appreciated. It turns out that trying to say something coherant about wisdom isn’t that easy!

In the past four months, I've had several people find my site through a google search for "montbresia" or "picture of montbresia". Although I mentioned montbresia in my post on the Dingle Peninsula, I didn't include a photograph. I was going to suggest trying the image search function of google, but when I did the image search, there were very few pictures of montbresia in the results.I couldn't do anything less than post some of my pictures of the montbresia we found growing all along the roadsides in Ireland, especially on the Dingle Peninsula.

(I think.) We spend April and most of May enjoying every ounce of nice weather we get up here but we dont' hold our breath that winter is over until there is a snowfall sometime around the last week of May. Since that happened a week ago things have steadily improved and yesterday and today have been downright Summerlicious.We woke up with the sun this morning, ate our breakfast, did some dish washing and laundry duties, took a morning walk, planted (with help from our same wonderful friends who always help us) the very last of all of our plants -- a columnar spruce tree, a rose bush and several more flowers, ate tuna sandwiches for lunch, then the boys played on a slip 'n' slide that I got for $12.99 at Winners (Canada's version of Ross Dress for Less), (lathered ourselves up with sunscreen a couple of times in between all of these activities), ate dinner on the deck, headed out for soccer practice/game, came home to eat popsicles on the front porch and the kids played with the

Coffee's On! And for the first time in over a week it's at my own house! To celebrate, it's awesome Gevalia Breakfast Blend, fresh ground. Come in! Have a seat. FIRST: Huge thanks to all of you who were gracious enough to read my blog and leave comments this week. Thank You! When I would get on computer at night, in the hotel, it was so nice to see my friends... kind of like a little bit of 'home' while away. This morning I tried to enjoy being home by making my coffee and opening the patio door so I could enjoy the birds singing, the sun shining and the scent of fresh air.... only to be greeted with the sound of a lawn mower and the vision of my neighbor trimming his grass along the driveway with his two screaming and running kids all over the place. Ok. It's 8:00 am on a Sunday morning. Hello? Put the freakin' lawn mower away you jerk! At the very least, please wait until 9:30 or so, k???As I mentioned last night, we were only home about 20 minutes before B

The Freemasons have worked their magic again - no sooner have we put their remix of Beyonce et Shakira's 'Beautiful Liar' in the now defunct TRW Chart than it's been added to Radio 1's playlist. Edit Bowman even likes it.... ...earlier today when I was in the car she said (in Scottish) "it's amazing how much better you can make a song when you add a dance beat". Yes Edith, that's all that the

The year is ending. Time to reflect. Soon will be the parades of shrink wrapped micro-nostalgia highlight reels that fuse the breadth of a globe and 365 days into something as small as a postage stamp or something on a spoon to spread across bread. Words fail. There is so much to say. It all forges only platitudes. The year for me personally has been a soup of highs and lows (as it was/is surely for everyone). There have been incandescent small moments, pastoral calm, moments of dread,fear, a creeping feeling of history in books as yet unwritten to paint great ugliness of parts of this time, these days, of paragraphs as yet hanging astronautic........feelings of being small as an atom or dust mote ........and yet of hope born of the seeming imminence of a pendulum swing, of the countless invisible ghosts that read blogs and letters, pass each other on the street...those strangers that you glance at in passing .....those whisps of being...those other lives passing.....maybe the

        Well, another year rapidly draws to a close... I know I should count my blessings but that isn't the way I feel inside. The main reason I'm afraid to complain about 2006 is that it is clear that 2007 holds no guarantees. It's all relative though. At least I don't have a major disease and I'm not dead. The present time presents a golden opportunity for me to practice what I preach about the yen and the yang and the karma and optimism conquering the pessimism and self creating the future.  I must rise to the occasion. 2006 was without a doubt the most unpleasant 12 month period of my life in every aspect. If every negative thing imaginable happens in the New Year I doubt it will be any worse.If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger, according to Nietzsche. One thing clear to me is that we must stay focused on life and not death. The fact that tomorrow isn't promised gives the maximum value to our lives. AOL posted a photo list of over 30 celebrities that passed away o

Just some updates before we leave for Texas tomorrow. **First...The baby has continued to do well. I was a little concerned that he had lost weight, and hasn't seemed to have gained it back yet. He is down to 3lbs 14oz. right now, but they say that is OK and is nothing to worry about. Today, he has his brain scan to make sure all there is OK...I am sure it is, as this little guy is as feisty as they come. The Dr. laughs about his personality that is shining through. He is a little jaundiced and is on the UV lights. He doesn't like the blindfold they put over his eyes and he constantly reaches up and pushes if off..He also pulled his IV out of his little hand...He wants this shit off of him! I think he smiled at me yesterday! His breathing is really good! They are taking away the oxygen today. He was only getting 20% yesterday but they said he is really breathing 100% on his own, and that was just a little added punch for him. He is still on limited holdings so I haven't gotten to ho