links

I'm so grateful for people who can express themselves clearly and without excessive sentimentality. I found a couple of great ones. One by Lars Walker on brandywine.net (click here to view), and the other by Andree Seu from World Magazine, but also found through a link on brandywine, on the certainty we are promised. (click here to see the article) Take a look at both of the, you won't be disappointed.

Merry Christmas

May your day be merry and bright, with only a taste of fruit
soup.

house (camera) cleaning

Dad has let me pull some pictures from his camera. thought you might like to see some of these.

Remember way back in October when it was "too hot to sleep on the bed"?

but never too hot for white socks and black shoes... (she's never going to let me near the computer again :-)

I've looked at lakes from both sides now

I flew out of Minneapolis a little after 9:00 yesterday, and it was a really clear cold day. I think perhaps the first time I've seen all of Minnesota so clearly in the winter and the daylight. You know how we used to look at clouds and try to find the shapes, well looking down at frozen lakes and picking out shapes is way more fun. The shapes are much more distinct than clouds, and when they are frozen they are really well defined by the snow. I saw dinosours, birds, lots of colons and stomachs, and even a Dilbert reading a book coming out of a genie bottle. i did try to get pictures of some of these, but of course while I'd had the insight to put my camera into my carry on bag, I put the extra batteries in my checked luggage, and my camera just would not co-operate. Have you ever had the fun of seeing frozen lakes from an airplane? What shapes have you seen?

Personal ad

SWF seeking SM for conversation, long walks, and dinner by the fire. Must have strong back and like spending time with snow and ice. Own snowblower a plus. All interested parties please contact Essie at this blog, preferably before the next wave of snow hits tomorrow.

Carol

If you're reading this, there's a good chance your name is Carol as 3 of my 9 readers have that name. Since one of you had a birthday this week, I thought I could dedicate a post to some of my favorite people with this name. Carol, it implies a woman of a certain age, doesn't it? Definately baby boomer, definately too young to be a grandma, although all three of you have at least one grandchild. Never playing the role of "hippie" yet with a streak of the fringe always trying to sneak out. I've known Carols who have ground her own wheat for bread, slaughtered her own pigs, and sewn their own clothes. 1 Carol introduced me to Suzuki music, 1 to Paul Revere and the Raiders, and I hear 1 is quite a Pink Floyd fan. All three are very fun and great to go to for a conversation, a glass of wine, or a game of cards. And Carol is definately a people person. She can talk for hours, but has a special way of drawing you into the conversation so that you feel it's really more about you than her. On top of it all she has a great sense of humor. Loves to make a joke and can take one too. My world is definately a better place because I know the Carols I do. Thanks for being the wacky, caring, delightful women you are.

Uff Da!

I did a quick google image search for "lefse" to come up with this picture. It is surprising all the variations that come up, most of which don't actually look like "real" lefse. This one does, but it has the heading "potato lefse rolls" Anyone who has to call it that, doesn't really know what it is, do they? My German Russian friend, Reese, recently made lefse with some friends and told me that while no on in her or her husband's family is of Scandinavian descent, she still served lefse at Thanksgiving. We had our annual Fall Festival at church a couple of weeks ago, and while it was the kringle that brought in the big bucks, the fresh lefse brought in a very good price as well. Unfortunately the only lefse I've had in the past year came from the store and would have been better as a tortilla than lefse. I was fortunate to have Thelma Bang from church show me how to make lefse a couple of years ago and tasting the fruits of her labor brought back a flood of memories of fresh lefse at the farm in Minot. My Pennsylvania Dutch grandmother was also not Scandinavian, but she learned to make a wonderful lefse. I have no point to this entry, just thought that this food of the Norsk gods deserved a little time on my blog. That, and I read a comment today regarding "ole miss" meaning, I assume, the school in Mississippi, but it truly took me till the end of the paragraph before I realized that it wasn't the set up to an Sven and Ole joke. (also, fyi, googling "Ole" brings up a lot of Mexican restaurant/recipe sites before you get to anything resembling my great uncle).

How bout you, did you get any lefse this Thanksgiving? I know Mom will make fruit soup (frutsoppa? that looks more scandinavian and definately more polite than what my brothers and I call it) for Christmas, and krumkakke will appear lots of places, but does anyone have plans to make fresh lefse, or rommegrot, or kringle, and if so can I come?

Thanksgiving

The kids helped me decorate the Thanksgiving table today. Just a few shots of them decorating and games and pie later

And guess who else likes my shelves?

Bible Quizzing

I kind of didn't want to write this post, because it means relegating the pictures of the kids from Nov 4 to "archives." However, I had to share that the Rochester Post Bulletin did an article of the Bible Quizzing that went on last week in Stewartville. If you can still see the video, the first group of kids (in blue) is the team that Jama and the other 4 boys from Gethsemane went up against at least twice. Our boys did a great job. Jama is the youngest participant (there is one other first grade girl on another team), and still got some answers in against these older kids. It is so great to see these kids memorizing scripture. Take a look if you can

Rug, the final chapter

Last night after work, I drove up to the Cities and met my friend Reese who chauffered me around and gave me much needed advice. We went to Pottery Barn and got a rug and wandered around Ikea and gots lots of stuff I didn't really need. Thanks Reese for your help and also for the conversation. It's always good to catch up with you. We really need to do so more often. Anyay, for Reese and for any of you who care, here are some shots of the rug in my living room, as well as the shelves with my stuff up on it. It really is feeling like my place now. Thanks to everyone who gave an opinion on the rug. I'm really happy with it and will let you know how it holds up after using it for awhile.

In good (or at least bountious) company

Can you guess what all these people have in common?

David Bowie, English musician
Laura Schlessinger, American psychologist and radio talk show host
Nolan Ryan, baseball player
Farrah Fawcett, American actress
Dan Quayle
Princess Christina of the Netherlands
Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts
Ry Cooder, American guitarist
Glenn Close, American actress
Elton John, English singer, pianist, and songwriter
Emmylou Harris, American singer
Tom DeLay, American politician
Tom Clancy, American author
David Letterman, American entertainer
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, American basketball player
Salman Rushdie, Indian-born author
Dave Barry, American writer
O.J. Simpson,
Arlo Guthrie, American singer
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
Carlos Santana, Mexican-born guitarist
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Kjell Magne Bondevik, Prime Minister of Norway
Stephen King, American author
Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday), singer and actor
Michael McKean, American actor and comedian (AKA Lenny (aka not Squiggy)
Kevin Kline, American actor
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Richard Dreyfuss, American actor
P. J. O'Rourke, American journalist and satirist
K Wood Carlson
David Mamet, American playwright
Tom Daschle, U.S. Senator
Christopher Parkening, American guitarist
Ted Danson, American actor

Love & Wrestling

Since NB is now making me pay to suggest names (see 3c's blog), I decided to post some I found here. These are the names of the children (under 13) who were at the first Thanksgiving in 1621.

Bartholomew, Mary & Remember Allerton,

Love & Wrestling Brewster,

Humility Cooper,

Samuel Eaton,

Damaris & Oceanus Hopkins,

Desire Minter,

Richard More,

Resolved & Peregrine White.

Love and Wrestling Brewster were brothers. How do parents decide which son to name Love, and which to name Wrestling? There's the whole nature versus nurture debate about names, but it seems like having either of those names is going to affect your personality somehow, isn't it?

Gotta love some of those other names too. Remember. Resolved. Humility. All seem like good Puritan names. Desire on the other hand...seems like her parents may have been the hippies of the group. And Oceanus, didn't they want to forget that trip?

Didn't I hear somewhere that one branch of our ancestors may have come over on the Mayflower? So these are actually family names. nota bene NB

Anyway, I love these names and as you all know, love coming up with pet names for those I love. I'm definately going to have to add these to my aresnal.

p.s. I pulled these from the Pilgram Hall of Fame website, which you can view here

predicting panic

It's that time of the year again. Last week we were all "urged" to get a flu shot at work, both to keep us healthy, but also so the Mass Dispensing Clinic could run a simulation of "an emergency vaccination situation". I was reminded of this when I read an article in the latest Futurist entitled "Predicting Panic" and came across this quote

"Training public safety and security professionals is difficult because scenarios involving groups of people are extremely hard to simulate realistically, according to Paul M. Torrens, an assistant professor at Arizona State University's School of Geographical Sciences. "You couldn't stage a realistic rehearsal of an evacuation because people are not going to panic appropriately," Torrens says, "or you could never bulldoze large sections of the city to see how it affects pedestrian flow." And creating a riot in midtown for training purposes is obviously neither practical nor safe."

The article goes on to explain how they are using computer simulated models to analyze and anticipate the dynamics of a crowd based on both emotional and environamenatl situations.

But what I latched onto was that "people are not going to panic appropriately". I know that I work in an area that is dealing with this more than some, and in fact there is a whole group in my department who are looking at safety and emergency preparedness. I'm certainly not advocating doing nothing, but people not panicing appropriately in a test of our response system has got to be a major hinderance to developing a useful plan. It's entirely likely that we were told that we were helping to run a simulation just to get us get a flu shot, but in an actual disaster, there would be such a different feel/attitude for both the dispensers and the dispensees, that I don't know how much value there is there. In the same way that the "test of the emergency broadcasting system" on TV is probably a good thing to do, but also dulls us to the sound/annoyance so that if you're anything like me. As soon as you hear it, you turn the mute on and don't pay any attention assuming it's "just another test".

OK, things I want you to comment on

1. Is emergency preparedness worth stressing when you can't simulate an actual emergency?
2. Did you get a flu shot?
3. How do you spell "panicing"? "paniking?" "panicking?" "panic-ing"?
4. Give me your opinion on people who pull a random quote from a random journal to try to support a point they have neither researched nor thought through fully (or at all).
5. Should I have used this picture instead, or does it give you the willies?

for all you Engineers

Dilbert Engineer

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walking

Oh yeah, and guess who's going to be walking soon?

Nov 4

Don't you just love fall?

True Love

I have not given too much thought to what my wedding would be like if I ever have one, but I know for sure it would not be like this one. I know I've made fun of some wedding albums from the 70's and early 80's, but it's really hard to belive that these will hold a cherished position past January. Thanks to Andrew for sharing the shots.

Old Logo

New Logo

May 25 Birthday Bash

I've started a new blog (click here, or first link on the right) for Grandma Wood's extended family to keep in contact about what's happening with the reunion/birthday party next May. I'm hoping you'll help me keep it useful, so please let me know either what you'd like to see on it, or any changes I can make to it.

rug part II

OK, as promised here are the three rug swatches on my floor. I took these at 4:30 today with some sun shining in. You probably can't tell too much from these, but those of you who haven't seen my furniture yet, might get some idea of what I've been talking about. What do you think?

How to tell if you're mom's favorite

A friend at work sent this to me. I think we all know who's who...

Rug

I think I may have found a rug I like, but need some opinions. I have a "welcome to the neighborhood" coupon from Pottery Barn and ordered 3 swatches. 2 of them came yesterday, and it looks like the third will come tomorrow. Once I get all three, I'll take pictures of them on the floor so you can get a sense of what they look like in my living room, but I'm leaning towards the "leaf" pattern (click here to see the pottery barn description/more pictures). It's the dark brown one, and at least in yesterday's end of the day light, it made the chairs in my living room look more brown and less green, and stood out nicely against all the colors in the floor. The "fern chenille" swatch that came, was nice, but the green border kind of blends into the floor color, making both of them look a bit washed out, but it does go nicely with the green of the chairs. I'm including pictures of all three so you can see what I'm looking at. I'm also open for other suggestions. Thanks!

"leaf" wool

"fern" chenille

"jarrett" wool

Honesdale PA

OK, I just think this is the funniest thing. Don't the Williamsons live very close to the Schrute Farms B&B? See the trip advisor comments here. Has anyone been to the "number one beet-related agrotourism destination in Northeastern Pennsylvania" I'd love to hear of your experience.

Happy Birthday Dad

Yesterday was Dad's birthday, and to celebrate he and Mom started a blog. See "Olympic View" under my links on the right. I appreciate my dad more than I can say. He's always been a constant in a sometimes topsy-turvy world. I've always known that he is right there for any questions I have on anything from what to do when I flush a sock to what to do when I'm questioning the role of baptism in the modern church. (I worked hard to get a sprinkling/dunking/immersion joke in there, but nothing came. Feel free to leave your efforts in the comments) We all know he has great people skills and truly thrives on being around people, both old friends and new acquaintences. It's a gift that was not passed down to me, but I have been able to learn from him how to approach people and situations with an open heart and an open mind. I can not remember a time that Dad has spoken a judgemental word against anyone. Something very hard to do in a family like ours where most of us drop sarcastic remarks like leaves in fall. I know we sometimes joke that he "doesn't get it", but as I've gotten older, I've realized that it's a good thing not to "get" some of the biting remarks that have come out of my mouth, and an even better thing not to try to one-up those remarks for the sake of a laugh.

I also really appreciate Dad's technical skills, from carpenter to electrician, painting, field work, to dry walling, to car repair, he does it all. His artistic take on Christmas lights have become the stuff of legend in our family. I took this shot last year when I helped Dad put up the lights on the big evergreen trees outside the house. I think it captures the feelings of excitement and joy he feels, and the chaos and slight trepidation I was feeling too.

OK, I've blabbered on too long. I just wanted to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!! Thanks for all you do every day.

kids

Just some pictures of the kids that TC took this summer. Thought you might like to see some. I see I made JAC look a bit jaundiced. He's not really quite that color.