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And oldie but a goodie! I will update it with the new podcasts I listen to later in the week!

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Sarah asked me to post about some of my favorite podcasts and I love to oblige requests!  🙂

I don’t know when I started listening to podcasts – probably sometime after the purchase of my first iPod in 2005.  As I blogged about before, I am an avid audiobook listener and so listening to the radio is not how I like to pass my time in the car.  I am not opposed to music – maybe sometime I’ll blog about my music listening habits – but I am purposeful about what I listen to and the radio can be too random and unsatisfying.

Probably the very first podcast I ever listened to was The Satellite Sisters.  I used to try to listen to their radio show whenever I was in range (which wasn’t often at all – a few times a year?) and I loved their book and blog…

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Remember, Remember

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How have I never heard this poem before?  My brother and my aunt have their birthday on the Fifth of November, so it’s a day that has been celebrated in my household as long as I have been around.  So how have I never heard this poem until this year?  One of the benefits of the internet?  Is it because I’m not English that I’ve never heard it before?  Is it because I now follow a lot of British folk on Twitter that I heard it finally this year?

Anyway, its in reference to Guy Fawkes, a traitor who was publicly and horrifically executed for his treason in 1605.  Yearly they burn effigies of him to remember the biggest traitor in their history.  I’ve heard of Guy Fawkes day and now I will forever put the two together.

A 1606 etching by Claes (Nicolaes) Jansz Vissc...

A 1606 etching by Claes (Nicolaes) Jansz Visscher, depicting Fawkes’s execution (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The version as reproduced from the Tower of London archive

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
’twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!

What’s Making Me Happy This Week…

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A few things from last week:

  • The feeling of a weekend from the “olden days.”  Not sure what I mean by that, except that since I’ve started a crazy work schedule, real weekends are rare and haven’t included much baking or cleaning or just relaxing in front of the TV.  Last Thursday and Friday I had a “weekend” just like that!
  • Relaxing and hanging out with friends and family Thursday night while the Vikings game was playing in the background – good food and wine included!
  • The movie “Argo” was quite a flick! Very suspenseful with good humor and the hottie 1970s Ben Affleck.
  • A big MAYO FB win over John Marshall! I worked til just after game time and hustled to the field – the wrong field! – so by the time I arrived at the game it was 22-0 in the 2nd quarter!  Yay Mayo for the decisive win!  Excited to be able to go to the game in Owatonna on Friday!
  • The delicious Pumpkin Streusel Coffee Cake I made on Friday is going to continue to make me happy throughout this coming week!  I doubled the recipe and have shared it with family and friends, but there’s still some left for breakfasts this week and the flavor hasn’t changed day by day!  Yummy!
  • The Lighthouse Blend coffee I bought at Door County is truly delicious!

Looking forward to:

  • Choir tonight! Yay!  Singing is Good…
  • Working overnights this week… not sure I “look forward” to it, but it means I will be able to make the Section Championship Football Game Friday night!  Working overnights also means that I have an attitude of extreme self-care.  I ordered Seattle Sutton meals so I don’t have to think about what to eat, I will sleep as much as I can and watch a lot of TV and read in bed when I’m not sleeping.  Some of you may think that doesn’t sound atypical for me!

Marissa inspired me to start this week’s list by sending me a link that is making her happy lately:  Emergency Compliment gives you a quick boost if you need it!  

Which reminded me of something cool we found shopping in Door County: Song lyrics on canvas!  Lyricology is a new brand from Demdaco and for sale in stores that sell cute things.  Jennifer bought one and it was hard to choose!  I kind of want a bunch!

Candy corn and peanuts mixture also making me very very happy this week!  Yummy!

So that’s a list of things that make me happy – from last week, for the week ahead, and in general!

What is making you happy?

Happy Monday!

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Ah.  A great break from work has almost come to an end, but I really like the shift that I am working this week (2:30pm – 11:00pm) so I still get to stay up a little later and sleep in a little bit, so it fits my natural cycle.  I have a suitcase out and started filling it with a few things, and have a list going of other things I need to think about and plan before next weekend!

Halftime @ Mayo vs. Winona – Friday Night Lights

But this weekend was awesome…

  • Book club and Mexican food and catch-up time with the FC gals Thursday night
  • Pampering with free gifts at the Estee Lauder counter Friday morning
  • Mayo Football at Winona Friday night – their Homecoming game, but Mayo won the exciting game
  • Trajan’s football game Saturday morning – a perfect fall morning for football!
  • A singing “gig” in Winona Saturday afternoon
  • Pizza and a DVD (OT: Our Town) at Judy’s in Winona Saturday afternoon
  • Dancing to Hitchville at the Wicked Moose for Kristine’s birthday Saturday (until the wee hours of Sunday morning!)
  • A great sleep-in and matinee of “Trouble with the Curve” on Sunday afternoon
  • Girls’ Night In hair coloring party at Angie’s Sunday night
  • and now… muffin baking and blogging before heading to Rushford for choir and the How I Met Your Mother season premiere!

I just re-watched the double season finale of How I Met Your Mother this morning so I’m ready for this season – is it 8? The final musical selection got me searching the internet to see what it was and I’m delighted to say that I have it in my iTunes!  It ends with “The Wind” by Cat Stevens.  Such good music in that great show – and several Spotify playlists to prove it!

How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother (Photo credit: tchuntfr)

Back to work tomorrow, but I’m armed with a list of things to do and think about and plan for.  Maybe I’ll have time to blog my itinerary for the fun that begins on Saturday!  It’s all so self-indulgent!  I love it!

I also have a birthday coming up next week (hence the fun schedule to come!) and it’s kind of a cool number, I think.  I’m kicking around some inspiration for lists – nothing as grand as the 40 things to do before turning 40.  But maybe 4 lists of 11 things?  I will see.  I also read somewhere someone was putting together a list for 10/10 – like 10 things to say YES to and 10 things to say NO to.  That’s do-able, too.

Other stuff:

  • I subscribe to a Timehop email and daily I get a re-cap of my Twitter and Facebook posts from one year ago.  It’s been fun to look back at that time and see what goodness was going on.
  • I read a few old blog posts of mine.  I have blogged 225 posts since February 2010.  Crazy, eh?  225 isn’t a lot when you think that I’ve been blogging for almost 3 years (yikes!) but I guess that’s more than a blog a week.  I blogged a lot and was kind of clever when I was unemployed!  For example, I did 40 days of blogs with another blogger who was celebrating her 40th birthday.  I also blogged daily using the Satellite Sisters Uncommon Senses as a theme.  I liked that.  Maybe I’ll reprise it monthly or something.
  • I don’t get any (or many) comments on my blog.  I don’t know why that is.  Probably because the people who really read it get it via email and it’s not as easy as commenting when you’re on the website.  If you do read it via email, I hope that you clicked that dance video that I posted after I saw The Intouchables.  What fun it is!!!

Well, enough for today!  Must get ready and get myself to Rushford!  It’s a beautiful sunshiney Monday!  Enjoy!

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It also was National Day of Relaxation and Julia Child’s birthday.

We celebrated with lots of relaxation and good food, good drinks, and good laughs!

Life is good!!

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Ferragosto 2012 – August 15 was a perfect day.

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Another great read-along hosted by Wallace at Unputdownables! Glad I can “play along”!

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Welcome to the The Importance of Being Earnest read-a-long! We’re reading this book through August. You can see the reading schedule and guidelines on the Starting Post Page.

Week One: Read Act One

Discussion:

How do I start? I put a sticky note or two (or three) on almost every page, so apparently that method of keeping track of what I like isn’t going to work for this book. Can I just say that so far — I LOVE Oscar Wilde? I’ve seen two of his plays acted out, but never read anything by him. I already knew he made funny stories, but I wasn’t sure how much was the actors’ performances and how much was the writing. Now I’m tempted to say that it would take a pretty terrible actor to make Wilde’s work unamusing.

Favorite character: Algernon (aka Algy). Brilliant. So funny, just the kind of biting…

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I got a text this evening from a friend who said she thought of me when she heard the news of Maeve Binchy’s death today.  I hadn’t heard the news yet, so I was thankful to hear it from a friend!  I’ve written before on my blog about how Binchy’s books make me feel and even chose one of her books as my favorite read of 2011.

I have vivid memories of discovering her books in the Rushford Public Library and devouring all that were on the shelf, and years later finding comfort in their presence in the corner where we sat for library board meetings.  When I’m asked for a book recommendation, I always ask if they’ve read her books.  If I’m asked to pick out a book from the library for someone, her books are top on my list.  I know that her books have greatly influenced my…

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Again with the lists!

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For the lists

I was at Barnes & Noble the other night with my niece and I was captivated by these little notebooks.  It was a pack of four made to look like “dance cards” from Jane Austen novels.  I’m a sucker for things Austen and also like to have something to write on at any time, so I bought them (and shared with my niece).  I have one by my bed and it has turned in to another place to keep lists.

 

I’ve never written a “Bucket List,” per se, but have created many lists in my day.  So far my book contains lists for potential blog posts (a list for movie blogs, book blogs, and blogs about random topics), as well as lists for places I want to visit – in the United States and the World.

 

I read many blogs and one that I recently found and enjoy immensely is Lesley Carter’s blog, Bucket List Publications.  She is FAR more adventurous than I am, but also quite a list-maker.  After moving to South Carolina, she started and posted a list of the things she wants to do there. It’s a fun read.  And she has thousands of followers!  She hopes to share the wealth, so if you follow my blog, you should check out her blog -and I hope that some of her followers do the same!  (I may need to step-it-up a bit, if that’s the case!)

 

So check out Bucket List Publications for a great blog about Travel, Adventure and New Experiences – Indulge!

 

http://lesleycarter.wordpress.com/

Bucket List word cloud #3

Bucket List word cloud #3 (Photo credit: mccmicb)

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Dickens & other Discussions

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photo of Charles Dickens

My brain power is waning… I’m loving the new job but it’s exhausting learning so much!  It’s such a good thing!! Yay!  Earlier today I had so many thoughts about what to say in a blog… and now it’s kind of gone!  Oh well… I’m enjoying the learning so much that I don’t mind if I aren’t as creative as I want to be right now!  It’ll come again.  🙂

But I wanted to recognize the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth with a short blog post.  I loved A Tale of Two Cities and am going to put it on my list of books to re-read in 2012.  It’s been a long time since I first read it, so it’ll be fun to read again.

In other news…

  • I have really slowed in my reading.  I’m plugging away on “A Moveable Feast” but behind in the assigned reading for last week and this.  Some aren’t enjoying reading Hemingway, but I think it’s fun to read after reading “The Paris Wife” and hearing the author speak.  I’ll keep on trucking…  It has been easy to read it on the iPad.  I tried to look up a word within the book, but it wasn’t in the dictionary.  He must have made up words!
  • The blogs I read daily really are taking up a lot of my reading time.  I must figure that out.
  • I’ve been enjoying old episodes of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix instant.  How fun to meet these characters in the beginning!  I just started watching (and loving) the show a few years ago and it has many seasons under its belt!
  • I love love love Downton Abbey!  I’m going to watch a bit of Sunday night’s episode tonight.  It’s hard to believe this season is almost done!  Love the fast pace of the British series.
  • Book club is coming up on Thursday!  We read “The Center of Everything” and I’ll have to refresh my memory, since it seems like I read it a while ago!  I look forward to seeing those peeps!
  • And SocialICE is this weekend!  The ice bar downtown.  It has been a fun event every year and I can’t wait to participate in another!  It’s fun to see the fur hats, coats, and boots that come out, but I’m afraid I won’t be sporting any of that!  Uggs and wool for me!

Off to read!

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Half-Full

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Factura Electrónica 2011

Here comes the second half! Image via Wikipedia

It’s hard to believe that 2011 is half over, now that July (and some steamy summer weather) has arrived.  I know that writing my “end of 2010 letter” in February probably makes mid-year creep up sooner, but nonetheless, it is amazing how fast the time goes.

I set a goodreads reading goal for 2011 of 55 books.  I’m happy to say I’m ahead of the game, with 30 books read at the halfway point!  And much summer reading time still to come!

I’m half-done with book 7 of Harry Potter.  Unfortunately, the library audiobook was missing a disc (ugh) so I’ll be reading a little bit of the book again.  It’s just so good.  And I’m so excited to make the deadline of getting all the books read before the movie comes out halfway through July!

I’m still reading way too many book blogs.  It can overwhelm.  And it impinges on book reading time!  I’ll have to start culling my blogger feed.  And the book blogs only make my to-read list longer on goodreads!  Not a bad problem, I guess, but I think for now I’ll work on the pile of books by my bed.

I just finished my third book by Katie Fforde, and they were fun but not the best fluffy British books I’ve ever read.  I love Jane Green books; Marian Keyes is light and fun; and you know of my love for all things Binchy.  I’d put them all before another Katie Fforde book.

I’m looking forward to a great second half of 2011 – the first half has had some downers so it can only get better, right?  Since my glass is always half full, I know it to be true!

Happy July, all!
Off to read…