Second year in a row!

Oiche Shamhna Shona!

That's "happy Halloween" to all you non-Gaelic speakers.

Teaser picture

A banshee, a scarecrow and a headless horseman...

Sounds like the beginning of a really bad joke, doesn't it?  :-)  Well, close.  Those are my Halloween decorations again this year.

And I do actually hope to have them done before Halloween this year.  Just to be different.

Fall is the in the air

The nights are colder, the days are getting shorter, and the trees have changed and started dropping their leaves.

Hearken to me, lords and ladies!

If you crave adventure, I'll take you on a journey to a land of knights and chivalry, acrobats, magicians and fantastical creatures.

Come with me, if you will, to the land of Bristol.

Foray into the World of Sewing

In a previous post I had some pictures from the Bristol Renaissance Fair that my friends & I go to every year.  My outfits have consisted of items I purchased at Goodwill; a couple blouses, a couple skirts, and a "bodice" that was originally part of a two-piece suit coat combination by Bisou Bisou.

Nothing handmade.  Until now...

Word for the Day

Today's word is a real doozy.  Not only is it a big, fun word, but it has three definitions!

A series of shifting illusions, deceptive appearances or phantasms that you experience in a dream, a changing scene made up of many elements, or the optical illusion made by a magic lantern where the figures cast grow larger or shrink, dissolve or pass into each other is a phantasmagoria.  (fan-taz-muh-gawr-ee-uh)

Party With the Pack!

As the song goes, I love my Green Bay Packers.  Have ever since my father got me into watching the games way back when Don "Majik" Majkowski was the quarterback.  (From 1987 to 1992)

Ten years later, Green Bay went to New Orleans to face the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI.  The Packers scored first, and never looked back, defeating the Patriots 35-21, and bringing the Lombardi Trophy back home to Green Bay.

Double Dose

If you're in a state of suffering or distress, you're probably facing a tribulation (trib-yuh-ley-shuhn).

And "I Swear It's True": I was walking the campus of a local technical college and passed two classmates discussing an upcoming exam.  "Remember," one of them advised the other, "you need a #2 lead ink pencil."

Memorial Day, 2012

I promised myself I wouldn't do it.  This year I'd be strong.  I'd go out in my front yard and watch the parade and not cry.

I didn't listen to me.

I don't know what it is, but every year since I moved here I've cried during the Memorial Day parade.

Live Showing (being a conclusion to the Breyer series)

"Say what?  You show plastic model horses?"

Yep.  I live show them, in point of fact.  Allow me to explain...

OF vs CM, part 2 of the Breyer series

In this post I'll explain the differences between OF (Original Finish) and CM (custom) models, including the types of customizing, and the various methods artists use.

Breyer Horses, part one of two

I thought I'd do a post about one of my hobbies, model horse showing.  But I realized things would make a lot more sense if I explained just what these plastic horses are that I collect, customize and show.  So...here's a brief history of Breyer, the company that produces them:

So Very Happy

When I pull up the driveway, she's sitting in the window waiting for me.  As I get out to open the garage door, she calls out, but I can't hear her through the glass.  And yet just seeing her makes me smile, and everything of the day just...melts away.

After I park the car and go up on the back porch, I can hear her going to the door.  "Hi honey," I greet her, as I unlock the door.

Epic Night of the Horse

This weekend is the 33rd annual Midwest Horse Fair at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.  My friends and I go every year.

The fair is described as: "...one of the top 3-day horse fairs in America. Hundreds of clinics, seminars and educational events are presented by some of the top horse professionals from around the country. Over 500 vendor booths offer shopping opportunities with something for everyone."

Word for the Day

With such an overabundance of good words to choose from, it was hard for me to make my choice, but I finally decided on plethora [pleth-er-uh].

As I said before, I love words.  I don't use "big, fancy" words just for the sake of using them, though.  If I'm writing about someone facing several choices for the style of a dress, for example, I'd probably say "Kristin was overwhelmed by all the different combinations of length and sleeve style."  It all depends on the tone of the story.  And, often, the character themselves.  A well-educated British librarian, for instance, would be more apt to say "There's a virtual plethora of fairies in Irish mythology."


Which...brings up something a dear friend of mine once said when reading one of my "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer" fan fictions.  She said I "write British very well."  Meaning I had captured the "voice" of the character Rupert Giles (played by Anthony Stewart Head) perfectly.  And that's a fantastic thing for any writer to hear - that their reader(s) can "hear" their characters as they're reading, whether they're "borrowed" characters (writing based on someone else's creation) or the writer's own inventions.

Dreams vs. reality

People always ask little kids "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

I never answered that question with "I want to work in a dead-end, part-time fast food job for minimum wage."

I don't think any kid would, to be honest.  Kids always aspire to something grand - astronaut, ballerina, fireman.

When you wish upon a star...make sure it's not a planet!

Many of us stargaze.  There's something...humbling about going out on a clear night and looking up at those little tiny dots of light and realizing...there's billions of them in the galaxy.

Two new features

I decided to add a couple new features to my blog.  One is "I Swear It's True!" and the other will be a "Word of the Day."

The first feature will be weird little occurrences that might be hard to believe, but I can guarantee happened.  Like, for example, one night when I was living in Mill Valley, CA, with my aunt, I overheard a cop who had pulled a lady over at the foot of the hill we lived on.  She was being belligerent and the cop was doing his best to keep his patience.  She'd gotten out of her vehicle to confront him, and he asked her several times to get back in the car for her own safety.  Finally, in exasperation, he requested, "Would you pretty please just get back in your car?"

And your "Word of the Day" will come in handy if someone you're with just won't stop talking.  You can tell them they're being loquacious (lōˈkwāSHəs).  That should shut them up for a while! 

A picture is worth...

One of my many hobbies is photography.  I've been taking pictures for years; my first camera was a Kodak where you had to manually advance the film after taking a picture.  I believe the roll of film was 12 pictures.

My current camera is a Canon PowerShot SX20IS - the IS stands for image stabilizer.  I got it three years ago as a Christmas gift from my parents and grandmother, and I take it everywhere!  It is a fantastic camera - among the many options it has are settings for black & white pictures, stitch assist for taking panoramic pictures, and a 80x digital zoom.

Halloween...in March?

I love Halloween.  I love dressing up, I love decorating my yard.  I love seeing what creative things other people come up with for costumes and decorations.  And I really love trying to create my own costumes.

Ichabod's Fate

My love affair with words

"You're such a writer!"

Years ago a college friend said that to me.  Simply because I'd used the word "blustery" to describe the day's weather.  "Normal people don't say 'blustery'," she insisted.

Well, then, I'm not very normal.  Because I use "blustery."  And also words like "trepidation" and "parse."

I can't help it.  I love words.

Why am I here?

"What's the reason for this blog?  Who's behind it?  And why should I care?"

As one of my favorite characters on one of my favorite TV shows once said "Three excellent questions."

The reason for this blog is simple - I wanted a personal place to share my musings, ramblings and thought streams with others.  I was just using email to share new pictures and little tidbits, but sometimes I'd forget to include someone, and some folks don't check their email all that often.  And some things I can't share via email, like videos I've taken.  Hence the blog.

Who am I?  There really is no simple answer to that question.  I could tell you my name, age and where I live, but that doesn't really tell you who I am.  I could give you a family background, the story of my childhood, and other "ho-hum" facts, but you still wouldn't know me.  Hopefully this blog will give you a better idea of what makes me me than I could by giving you my life story.  (And, really, who wants to read that?)

Why should you care?  Well...I can't tell you that.  It's up to you to decide if you want to continue reading my blog or not.  Fair warning - this is going to be a fairly eclectic blog.  I'm not going to only stick to one type of post.  Some days I might ramble on about an idea for a new story I had, while others I might post updates on a current project.  Some might be brief, and some will no doubt go on and on.  But I can promise I'll never discuss politics (can't stand them), religion (don't have one) or work.

So...stick around, and we'll see where the next thought stream takes us.