Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Happy New Year

Like the rest of the country we have frigid temperatures to ring in the new year. It was 22 degrees when I went to work this morning,  and 36 right now and will drop into the 20s again after the sun sets.

I'm going downtown to Steve & Naomi's for a party she is putting on for Steve's 60th birthday today. We were joking about it on Christmas Eve that she is having it early so they can get back out to Lummi Island and settle in before it gets too late!  On that note,  I found this meme and thought it summed my life up pretty well. Happy New Year everyone

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Munchkin

I'm sitting on the bed reading today's newspaper and Munchkin came and curled up on my lap. He had been curled up under the covers - he loves to burrow. So I decided to throw my scarf over him, and I thought he looks like he's wearing a Bubushka, so of course I had to take his picture.

I imagine I'm not going to want to get out from under the covers tomorrow morning. It's supposed to be in the 20's by then, and it's the first day back to work after the Christmas break. I turned my alarm clock back on for the first time in 10 days I think. Ugh.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Merry Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas 2014

The lone bloom on my big Christmas Cactus started to open yesterday, but I'm not complaining, usually it's not blooming at Christmas at all. This has been a very somber month for me, so I will take any small joys I can get. I am thankful for my health and the roof over my head, and my feline family that always accepts my love, no questions asked.
And special thanks to Steve & Naomi for inviting me over for a small Christmas Eve dinner last night on Humboldt Street before they headed out to Lummi Island for church. 

I've been saving up all these recent funnies for today. Earl in the Pickles comic could have been written about me and my deep abiding love for eggnog ☺

Merry Christmas




















The Duplex - November 30 2014


The Duplex - December 3 2014


Pickles - December 23 2014

Mutts - December 21 2014



Monday, December 22, 2014

Downton Abbey - Text Santa




It's finally out - The Downton Abbey charity parody with George Clooney. Oh, it's worth the wait, and I wasn't expecting the other guest actors, but honestly they are funnier than he is. Oh man this is good, enjoy!





R.I.P. Joe Cocker



Sad news today of the passing of the legendary Joe Cocker from lung cancer. My favorite song of his happens to be the song from this skit from Saturday Night Live back in the day. I remembered the parody, but am kind of blown away that this was the song; man that's like over 30 years ago. 

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Cookie Party 2014

WTA Christmas Bus 2014

I'm not sure when they started the tradition, but Whatcom Transit Authority decorates a couple of buses for Christmas, and I've managed to ride on one of them at least once these last two years since I've been car-less. Today I got to ride on this bus twice. It's kind of fun and makes you smile.


Susan & Don, Denise and Naomi (in the background) and Barb

Dot, Susan & Don and Denise

Denise, Naomi, Barb, Steve and Glenn

Naomi & Steve and Glenn

Jo and Maria take a selfie

Today was the Cookie Party at Denise's house. It was our normal crowd of Don & Susan, Steve & Naomi, Jo & Glenn and Jo's mom Dot. This year Barb made it again, along with Steve & Naomi's grandson's Chase and Sam. Jo is as camera shy as I am, but I pretty easily convinced her to take a selfie with me for a good cause - to send to Debra in Florida. We all miss Debra, she will always be a part of the Around the Corner Gang, but moved to Florida over a year ago to be near her mom.

We were talking a lot about old books and how they came to be acquired, when Denise told the story of buying an old trunk at the local auction house years ago, and inside the trunk were a couple of  local school annuals, one of which Steve had drawn an illustration in! Talk about serendipity, that blew me away. And of course, the end of our conversation ended up being about food! That's what brought us together, and keeps us together ☺

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Submarine Sandwich by PES



This is another great stop-motion animation featured on Colossal.com. Check it out

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Monday, December 8, 2014

Sit Stay Ride: Official Trailer



This was on I Can Has a Hotdog today. It's the trailer for a movie about 18 or so motorcyclists and their canine companions that ride in their sidecars. The filmmakers are a husband & wife team; Eric and Geneva Ristau. The story said that the movie was funded by a Kickstarter campaign and is available on DVD and Vimeo on Demand with a portion of the proceeds going to the Humane Society. 

TED Talk - Eduardo Briceno


The Power of belief - mindset and success is the topic. It's pretty interesting, and funny, because it dovetails with a Carolyn Hax column today about giving false praise to children, and the harm that it does.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Sunday, November 30, 2014

So Long Weekend-

Munchkin

I go back to work tomorrow after 5 days off, as usual it went faster than I thought it would. I made a whole chicken and stuffing in my crock-pot for Thanksgiving. It turned out pretty good, and it hit home that the stuffing really needs to be cooked with the bird. 

The temperature plunged overnight Friday to Saturday and the wind was really strong for most of yesterday. It was 23 degrees when I got up yesterday morning. I woke up at 2 o'clock this morning and it was 19 degrees! It's supposed to be below freezing for the next couple of nights, and then get back to normal by Wednesday. 

I have been working on my quilted pillow covers every day and am making progress, but am still cutting the pieces themselves as I go along. I am trying to be efficient and have somewhat of an assembly-line going so that I am ironing in one large group. It dawned on me when I was looking at this on the kitchen table a few days ago that the colors are the U of M colors ☺ Go Blue!



I watched the Thanksgiving Day episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee this morning. Jerry''s guest was a comedienne named Miranda Sings whom I'd never even heard of, but OMG it was hilarious. 

Sunday, November 23, 2014

I Can't Believe It's Almost Thanksgiving

My Christmas Cactus are being true to form and blooming in November - although quite often they are done by Thanksgiving. The first bloom opened up Friday. We also are getting some sunshine today which I didn't expect,  so have been enjoying it.

I completed the first square for the Bear Paw quilt patterned pillow covers I am making to go on my bed. The pillows are 20" square,  so will have 4 squares and borders. My quilt is royal blue and beige but the pillow covers are going to be royal blue and warm yellow. I think it's going to be a good combination.

I am only working Mon and Tues this week, so am hoping to make a lot of progress on them with my time off. I need to start getting ready for Christmas too. ...

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

The Maria Shriver Project: How The Genders Misunderstand Each Other

This morning I read this article from Maria Shriver and thought it was great and wish these conversations were happening all over, all the time-

As a gender intelligence expert, Barbara Annis has conducted thousands of workshops on how men and women interact, why they often misinterpret each other, and what they need to know to better understand and value each other’s differences.

As part of that work, women often discover that the way they have been interpreting male behaviors in the office -- from a male colleague skipping over their idea in a meeting to a male boss making an ill-considered joke -- is off the mark and that the ill intentions they sometimes assume lie behind these behaviors are often not there.

Annis sees a lot of aha moments in her work: men starting to understand why their behavior makes female colleagues feel excluded or dismissed regardless of their intentions, and women beginning to see a whole host of office interactions which have bothered them in a new light.

Here, Annis shares examples of male behaviors that are often misinterpreted and explains why women tend to believe they understand men more than men tend to believe they understand women.

We tend to draw a straight line between behavior and character. Why is that not helpful or only part of the story when it comes to communication between the genders?

Years ago, when I was studying psychology and gender differences, a women I was studying with said, “If a man’s behavior isn’t landing well, we often attribute it to his character and then we expand it across a spectrum of faults.” So, what that means is that we look at the behavior, and we say, “He is an awful person.” And then in our rumination, our inner dialogue, we tend to generalize it and expand it. I have seen this tendency in many, many women that I have coached. And I can see it now in the reaction to the CEO of Microsoft; he said something that didn’t land well and so now he’s an awful person. Men tend to stick to the situation at hand; they’ll look at the situation and say, “Well, no, he made a mistake.”

In your work, you do a lot of workshops where men and women learn how they interpret each other’s behaviors. Do you find men are often surprised to learn how their behaviors have been misinterpreted?

It’s a big surprise for men. Because for them, their rituals -- the joking around and bonding -- are just a trivial thing; it’s never occurred to them that it could be misinterpreted or that women would attribute it to their character.

So, they feel misread in terms of where they are coming from, and they’re right; they are misread. But once they start to understand why that is, the blame goes away, and it becomes a very freeing conversation. I’ve had one-on-one conversations with men who have attended these workshops, and their life has really changed. I talked to one man who was actually a psychologist, and he came away with a whole different way of viewing the world; he began seeing these misinterpretations everywhere.

Have you seen an example in a workplace where a male’s behavior has been interpreted in a way that does not tally with his intentions?

All the time. I’ll give you one example. There was a woman in Europe who was the first woman to join this top executive leadership team. She had been having trouble dialing in to join a conference call, so she was about six minutes late. Now, this team was very, very punctual, so they had all been sat there waiting for her to join. When she came on, she was clearly stressed out about being late, so the CEO, wanting to make light of it so that she would relax, made what he thought was just a little joke. He said, “So now that we have a woman on our team, does that mean we’re going to be late all the time?” And all the guys chuckled.

Now, this came up in a workshop about a month later. And when he heard how that comment had made her feel, how she had interpreted it, and how she had ruminated about it, he was completely shocked because that had not been his intention at all. And by the way, the two of them have gone on to have a very strong partnership now with very direct and clear communication.

Women tend to believe they understand men more than men tend to believe they understand women. Can you talk about how that can feed misinterpretations of male behavior?

Well, our tendency, and it’s a gender difference, is to really read and assess situations; we read the mood, the environment, we read how we relate to each other and to men. Because of that, we have the assumption that we understand men more. But in a workshop, very quickly, women begin to see that they don’t have men completely figured out. One assumption women have is that men don’t particularly care to talk about this type of stuff, that they just want to get the job done. They have no idea that men feel they need to be cautious around women or that they aren’t sure how to give honest feedback. Now, in the workshop women begin to see that men do in fact think about this stuff a lot, and they are thoughtful about it. Once women see that, it really opens up a whole new awareness for them in terms of how they view men.

What do you find is the behavior women most often misinterpret in men?

Women see that men are very direct with other men and that it’s very easy for them and very natural for them. And then they also see that men behave very differently with women and that their behavior is either more cautious or more trivial. Women tend to interpret that as men being less interested, less caring, more dismissive and more exclusive of women, when in reality, it’s just that men tend to bond more naturally with men. They just do; we don’t need to add anything more to it. And guess what? Women tend to bond more naturally with women. So, the boy’s club, the male dominated network, is about natural bonding, not ill intention. Now, does that mean that women shouldn’t be able to be a part of it? Of course not. We should be.

What do you find is the behavior men are most surprised or perhaps shocked to learn has been misinterpreted?

That they’ve been thought of as not having good intentions and that they don’t care. That’s a big shock for them. And for some men, that’s almost hurtful. It hits them in their gut. And when men first hear it, they can think, “Well, that’s just this group of women; they must be disgruntled.” But when we tell them that we hear this over and over again, regardless of where we are in the world, regardless of the industry we’re working with, then it gets really big for them. Then they see it as a problem that needs to be solved.

In your work, you have found that even younger, very progressive men can behave in ways that make their female peers feel disregarded. Can you talk about how that factors in here?

We’ll see younger men say things like, “Well, our generation doesn’t really have these problems.” Now, obviously the younger generation is socialized differently, but when we get to the neuroscience they begin to relate and they recognize that men and women are hardwired differently. What we see is that five years or so into their working lives, they start seeing these dynamics, and they’ll reach out to us. I had one young male executive at the VP level -- I think he was about 35 -- who had two women on his team, and he began to see some new challenges. He saw that the emails he got from them were different; he saw that they reacted to things differently. So, he reached out to me and asked for help. I knew him well, so I had to laugh, because we had had these conversations a few years earlier and he had said to me, “Nope, we’re good! We’re totally enlightened around here!” So, for example, one of the women on his team had expressed to him that she was upset about something, and he had said to her, “Just don’t worry about it.” Later on, she brought it up again, and he thought that was ridiculous, that she should just let it go.

Meanwhile, until she feels that he has understood why she was upset, she feels like she has not been heard.

Exactly. And once I explained that to him, he got it immediately. He just didn’t know what he didn’t know, because he wasn’t understanding the differences.

Let’s take a specific example. A common frustration women have is feeling like their ideas are being skipped over in meetings which they interpret as being disrespected or discounted.

Women will often say that when they bring up an idea that it’s discounted, reframed or rephrased, or that a male on the team brings up a similar idea a little later and it’s instantly recognized as being brilliant. It’s a huge frustration for women when they feel like they’re ideas are being dismissed. I spoke to one woman who said to me, “I just don’t bother anymore.” This is actually getting worse because of conference calls -- some women feel like even though they try to insert themselves into those conversations, they just aren’t heard.

When it comes to why it is that women feel dismissed in meetings, there’s a couple of things to consider. One, is that this could have to do with your communication style, in which case there’s equal learning on both sides. But men tend to do convergent thinking and women tend to do divergent thinking. So if all the men are converging on something, and the woman raises a divergent thought -- “Well, what about this?” -- it can be viewed as her derailing the meeting or trying to sidetrack them. When that happens, that’s a gender unintelligent meeting, because the “derailer” could be raising the thing that they need to know about. It could be the thing. I’ve seen it.

All of this, of course, is a two-way street; men misinterpret women as well, and a lot of what you do in these workshops is about getting people to stand in each other’s shoes so that they can better understand where the other is coming from.

Yes. And this is why having men in the conversation is so essential when it comes to fixing this. We will never, ever create a powerful, inclusive culture unless we have equal learning for men and women. When that happens, it’s so powerful, because you end up with a whole new level of understanding; you no longer make assumptions about people’s intentions. It just removes the blame, because when you engage, and you understand, you see that there is nothing to forgive.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Sunny Sunday

26° when I woke up today. Our sunshine in the fall & winter here comes with the caveat of cold temperatures usually. It's been like this for a week,  but the weather is supposed to get back to mild & wet in a few days.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Sunday Funnies - Daylight Savings Edition

Get Fuzzy - November 2 2014

Non Sequitur - November 2 2014


Oh how I love the word play in Get Fuzzy!

I thought the poke at Daylight Savings Time was good for a giggle.

I went to bed at a reasonable hour last night and woke up at 6:30 this morning, and was pleasantly surprised by how light it was. I know that I'm not going to be so happy walking home in the dark for the next 3 months though.

Chocolate Almond Ice Cream


Here is my follow up to the September 2nd post with my Vanilla Bean Ice Cream recipe.

The back-story here is that we (briefly) had a Vietnamese restaurant in a nearby shopping center that served Gelato. One day when I ordered it, I realized how expensive it was and was inspired to go online and find a recipe and see what made it so different from ice cream. I found this video from Giada De Laurentis and ended up modifying it slightly to basically combine her recipe and my vanilla bean.

In the video she talked about the cream to milk ratio having something to do with the difference, along with how much air is whipped into the two. 

When I went to Fred Meyer to look for Nutella, there was not a single jar on the shelf; they were in the early stages of a major renovation of the store, and were out of stock. But what I did find, was Hershey's Chocolate Almond spread, and a love affair was born ♥


So basically, to adapt my existing recipe, I use a 1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract instead of the Vanilla bean - and 1/2 cup of the Hershey's Chocolate Almond spread. I also now put all of the 1/2 & 1/2 in the pan and cook it with the sugar and egg instead of setting half of it aside. I think that alteration is making my ice cream come out better. I also will add approximately 1/4 cup of chocolate shavings, either unsweetened or bittersweet, and this instantly became my favorite recipe. It is so smooth and the chocolate is lighter than normal chocolate ice cream and the nutty flavor of the almond is a great compliment to the chocolate. 

Chocolate Almond Ice Cream


Saturday, November 1, 2014

Where Did This Year Go?

Baby Blues - October 31 2014


Dilbert - October 31 2014


Shoe - October 30 2014

Had a quiet Halloween and went to bed early, I can't believe it's November 1st already. Man this year has gone fast. We did have a beautiful summer though....

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Stormscapes 2: time-lapse film by Nicolaus Wegner


This is so cool, if you are like me and love, I mean ABSOLUTELY love thunderstorms, check it out. It was posted on Colossal.com yesterday.

Now today, there were photos of works by this amazing muralist named Rustam Qbic in Russia, check this out.

New Surreal Paintings and Murals by Rustam Qbic surreal street art painting murals
"Blossom" by Rustam Qbic

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

This n' That, Wednesday Edition

Dilbert - October 22 2014


Get Fuzzy - October 21 2014

Comic strips are my daily dose of humor to keep me sane. I've been doing a lot of reading, but not ready to post about the books that I've read recently because they have been in the self help category and helping me understand events that helped shape me, but I am still formulating in my head what and how much I am going to share in regards to that.

My friends Liz and Steve who both used to work for the same company as I until earlier this year, have turned me on to some good books. I just finished reading "Boundaries; Where You End and I Begin" which I think pretty much everyone could benefit from reading. I started "Man's Search for Meaning" this past week and it has also been very thought provoking.

Two weeks ago I finally finished "Motherless Daughters" and that really dredged up some stuff.But that was a good thing, because it helped me to see some of the baggage I've been carrying around for the last almost 30 years since my mom died.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

What a gorgeous day

It got up to 71° today - absolutely beautiful out this afternoon. Our mild weather has continued a lot longer than I thought it would. It looks like that may come to an end in the next few weeks,  but for now, I'm going to enjoy it!

I did a lot of laundry this weekend and had the doors open for the fresh air and warmth today. Half way through the afternoon Boo brought me a big surprise; a live snake. I was a bit shaken up until I was able to get it outside.

For a little history here;  when I first moved to Bellingham in 1987,  I lived in this house for 3 years while my brother Mark lived in Seattle. I had 2 cats at the time - Aretha and Ellwood. Twice in one summer Aretha brought a live snake into the house. The first time it didn't look alive and after I swept it out the front door it slithered away. The second time I knew better and I got that thing out of the house in less than a minute!

Boo & Munchkin have brought those teeny little green frogs into the house many times,  and I thought that's what she had today. She came into the living room and dropped something out of her mouth and started trilling like she does when she has a frog. This was no frog. ...

Is this a character trait of Tortoiseshell Calicos that nobody ever told me about?!

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

RIP Elizabeth Pena

Elizabeth Pena in John Sayles' film "Lonestar"
I was very sad to see in the news online tonight that one of my favorite actresses Elizabeth Pena died yesterday at only 55. The article said she died after a brief illness. She had a great voice and presence and natural beauty, that seemed to be inside as well as out.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Atul Gawande - author of Being Mortal


I thought this was a pretty thoughtful discussion about how much is too much in terms of health care efforts to extend our lives in the face of potentially terminal illness.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Sunday Funnies & Other Things

Sherman's Lagoon - October 3 2014
And Cat Said, Let There Be Memes
 We are having mild weather this last week and today is around 70 degrees and sunny. I was out working on the porch stripping the old finish off the drawing board portion of the drafting table and was wearing shorts! I can't recall it ever being this nice and warm enough for me to be in shorts in October before.

My niece Jennifer and sister in law Cindy came though town yesterday with a few other family members headed to Vancouver B.C. for the weekend. It was nice to visit even thought it was a short while. I haven't seen them in almost two years I think. Jennifer just turned 15 this summer and she is now about 5' 8", and her cousin Justin who is a year younger than her is at least 5' 9". Man they have grown so much since I saw them last!

I found out through the health assessment at work that I am an inch shorter than I thought I was. I thought my dad had measured me when I was around 20 years old, and that I was 5' 10". Apparently that wasn't accurate, and I am 5' 9". It was very demoralizing! It certainly didn't positively impact my B.M.I. index that's for sure.

I did remain in the same category as far as my overall health though in terms of the blood test results, so that's good. And my doctor's office called me and said that my annual blood draw from there the week before showed me in the normal ranges for cholesterol so I was pleased with that.

I updated the blog layout a little bit again by switching out the picture to Munchkin & Boo. I think I am going to switch out the picture more often, just for a little variety.

Friday, September 26, 2014

Time Lapse Cloud Video from Alex Schueth


Check out this time-lapse video of a cloud formation called Undulatus Asperatus by Storm Chaser Alex Schueth during a storm over Lincoln, Nebraska in summer 2014. It was over on Colossal.com today. It is just under a minute, and if you love thunderstorms like I do, I recommend taking a moment to watch. 

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Yesterday's Best Funnies

Bizarro - September 22 2014

The Flying McCoys - September 22 2014

Sherman's Lagoon - September 22 2014

Zits - September 22 2014