Corn; it's not just for breakfast anymore!

So let me tell you all about this past Sunday.

Ever since Fall officially arrived, the Kiddo and I have had a bug up our collective butts - we wanted to go to a corn maze! I have enjoyed them since I was a kid, and Kiddo was excited about giving his first one a try. So after checking online, reading reviews, and using the time-honored approach of going to great-Grandma and asking her where to go, we wound up lost in corn on a gorgeous sunny Sunday. It is a huge, fabulous maze, filled with dead ends, spirals, paths that cross over on themselves, and trivia about the towns around the farm, and, of course, corn. Each little signpost also includes a "Corn Hotline" that you can call to get help out of the maze if you get hopelessly lost.

We didn't wuss out, nor did we take the easy way (marked, hilariously enough, with easy Buttons from Staples); the Kid and I (and the Grandma Patrol, who came in hopes of a farmers' market) plugged our way through the maze and made it out on our own, in only half an hour. You should go. It was at Etsch Farm, in Monroe Township. There's a haunted version of the maze on Saturday, the 27th, but my butt will be firmly partying by then.

In other news; who else likes zombies? I am both amused and appalled by them, a sort of a sick fascination. I can't watch zombie movies without getting nightmares, but on the other hand, they are a source of unending sick jokes. New internet pal Max has actually written up an online course - complete with tests! - on Zombie Survival Techniques. Also, noodling about on Facebook has led me, though a series of links, to the Living Dead Girlz dance troupe.

Have fun...

Rock candy, baby!

Since last Friday morning, I have been boiling, re-boiling, sitting, waiting, checking, starting anew, and generally wasting sugar and ruining mason jars.

But it's paid off. Ladies and gentleman, I have finally created some mighty fine and tasty rock candy! Yaaaaaaaaaaay!

It's a lot smaller than I thought it'd be. And more delicate. Oh well. There's another batch ongoing in the kitchen, which seems to be making bigger crystals than the last two, but I think I've boiled the syrup down as far as it'll go and may have to toss it once this one's finished hardening.

But I made candy! This is so cool for me! :-D

Now I can justify owning a candy thermometer! Which I didn't use this time! But next time maybe! Also, I need more food coloring.

Music Video!

Stop whatever you're doing, and spend a few moments to enjoy some Mesopotamish action, animated by Chris Timmons, directed by David Cowles.

I still need to order myself the t-shirt. Someday....

Weird coincidence?

So last night, I had an odd dream about an old high school flame. It was extremely bizarre and largely incomprehensible, but it had something to do with my mother buying his family a dvd player? I think? Anyway, it was so weird to see him in the dream, that I decided to Google him today (he has an unusual last name, so I figured, what the heck, should be easy to find).

Guess what, he was on a reality/cooking TV show fairly recently. Awesome! And got eliminated/left fairly early. Boo! I'm going to go see whether they're running the first season of Hell's Kitchen on my cable's On Demand service, and see if he still sounds/acts the same as he did fifteen or sixteen years ago.

So yeah. That's today's weirdness!

Photos out the wazoo

So, it's about time there was more than Just Plain Text all the time.



From New Hope: the first pic is on the bridge through town, the girls were looking at the ducks in the river, and it was just perfect, the way everyone was lined up. So, "Hey, look over here!" *click* The second one was at our dinner at Wildflowers. The very charming maitre'd snapped that photo for us. I was rocking pigtails for the first time in a long time. :)



Ah, spaces in faces..... the loss of the Kiddo's second tooth was widely celebrated. He lost it just before breakfast, and insisted I take his picture right away! I don't know why he wanted his glasses off for the photo, but he does look adorable anyway. The second was just fun with sprite manipulation. Kiddo and I made avatars of ourselves (modified from a Capcom Cards game, I forget which one, but I had the sprites saved in a misc. folder in my pictures) and printed them out.


And Also - the socks I designed for the Kid are finished, he wore them to school (before the current unseasonal heat wave, wtf with that) and told me they were comfy. Yay! I shall post the pattern.... eventually.

Walking with Dinosaurs. If you get a chance to go, GO. It is simply amazing. Even if you can see the little go-cart thingies that make the dinos move about the arena. Don't care. Still magical. Go go go go gogogo. It's informational, it's scary(ish), it's funny, it's sweet (Baby T-Rex gives many AWWWWW moments), it's great. The Kid and I LOVED it. We also spent far too much on t-shirts and toys, but really, everyone does need a T-Rex head with fiber-optic lights coming out of the top.

That should be enough for now, don't you think?

Do Not Call.... please....

So, we submitted my cell phone number to the National Do Not Call registry this week. I have never received any unsolicited calls on my phone, but we figured we would take that precaution. It takes 31 days for the service to "take", at which point phone solicitors are not allowed to call.

Today - my phone begins ringing at 8:51 with a number I don't recognize. I research the area code online - Los Angeles. Hm. I know it's not my brother, because he would leave a voice mail, and he wouldn't be up that early in the morning in his timezone. Between that time and noon, I get calls from this number 10 times. Four times the first hour, three an hour afterwards. So, I look up the number online, and apparently it's a VERY aggressive telemarketer, with multiple complaints against it. Finally, I pick up, and they're looking for a Nicole somebody. The noise in the background sounds like a busy call center, too. So, I tell them it's the wrong number (I am not, nor are any of my family members, a Nicole.) and hope it's the last I hear from them.

Which is all well and good. But I just got another unknown number on my phone (area code search this time leads to Staten Island) and if this keeps up I may just turn the phone off.

I should also point out that, aside from a few wrong numbers (there's this one person who repeatedly wrong-numbers me. I could kill, especially that one time he called after midnight. You just don't do that.), I have NEVER, until this point, recieved any calls from telemarketers/phone solicitors/etc on this number. They all started when I signed up for the Do Not Call registry.

Kind of makes you wonder.

Here's the update you've been clamoring for

...or have you?

Atlantic City, while fun, was a drain on the wallet - even though I only spent the money I set aside for spending. Perhaps I was too optimistically hoping for a decent win, or to at least break even? Bad planning on my part, at least.

Rusty, my grandfather's cat, passed away on Monday. His cancer, although it was a treatable variety, was too aggressive, and he was in pain. Poor fuzz. The worst part was that this happened the day after Grandpa was admitted into the hospital himself, so he couldn't even be with him. Now he's really upset, and is in no hurry to get back home.

The kid is, as always, awesome. But that's constant enough, isn't it?

I really, REALLY miss Z. I still haven't figured out when I'll be going to Georgia to visit him, and the particulars behind that. But I desperately want to see him. There's certain things that only one person can take care of, you know? ^.^

Tonight, we're going to go to Walking with Dinosaurs, which we're all very excited about seeing. Kiddo especially.