Show & Tell: My view

Earlier this week I posted about The View. Now, for Show & Tell, I'm posting MY view:

Day

Evening

I'm in St Pete Beach, FL, for a work meeting* I attend each Spring.

Yes, it's been sun-derful. And one-derful.

Beautiful and warm and wonderful as it has been, by the time this posts, I'll be on my way home to the truly beautiful and cozy and wonderful.

* I love my job.

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.





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Show & Tell: Ones

Melissa says, "Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers...This is Show and Tell 2.0."

Here's my entry this week.
I don't know why I pay attention to such phenomenon (and block traffic to document it), but I do. And believe it or not, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run was on the radio as the odometer clicked over.

As an aside, come on over to Adoption Angles on MomTV in 2 hours (7 pm tonight, MST). Tessa's first mom, Crystal, will be on with me, telling her side of the story. You can ask us questions from the chatroom.

And as aNOTHer aside, have you voted for the first flight of the Limerick Chick contest? The entries are all very clever and you can check them out here. The next batch will be up for a vote starting Friday.

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.







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Show & Tell: Limerick Chick 2010

**Ladies and Leprechauns!**

I hereby open the Limerick Chick Contest for 2010!

Valentine's Day has passed, and that means it's time for all things green and Irish. And what could be more Irish than wordplay that is eponymous with a county in Ireland?

Erica of ParenthoodForMe won in 2009

I once was scared of the gyno
Now I'll drop my pants for a rhino
When bad times are worse
There's blogs like the mrsch
Or instead I can just be a whino

~~~~~

Niobe of Dead Baby Jokes won in 2008.

A blogger whose name is Niobe
Said, "Look, my name sounds like Nairobi
It isn't ni-OBE
Doesn't rhyme with microbe
And if you don't like it, then blow me."

~~~~~

Kristen of Sticky but Sweet won in 2007.

There once was a group of ladies
Who set out to go and make babies
They became Stirrup Queens
Or so it would seem
Until they all wound up with scabies!

~~~~~

Who will be the winning limericist for 2010?

What you need to know:

1. Use the limerick form, as in Hickory Dickory Dock.
2. Mention at least one other blog or blogger, with a link to his/her blog.
3. Up to two entries per person. Please do not submit more than two.
   
4. Enter by 8 pm MDT on March 1. Entries will be divided into three flights. Each flight will have 3 days of voting to arrive at the top entry for each flight. Voting for these 3 finalists will begin March 12, and the grand prize winner will be announced on St Patrick's Day.
5. You don't need to be a blogger to enter. If you have a blog, please use MckLinky (below) to link to the limerick on your blog. If you do NOT have a blog, leave your limerick as a comment.
6. You need not be part of the ALI community (Adoption/Loss/Infertility) to enter. ALL readers of this blog are welcome to enter, and the subject matter is wide open.
   
7. Post the Vote Button on your sidebar as well as in your limerick post to encourage others to enter/vote.

There is a prize. The winner will get either a $20 contribution to the nonprofit organization of her/his choice or a $20 gift card at Amazon.com.

Go n'eiri an t-adh leat (luck o' the Irish to you).

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.

Show & Tell: Hallooo, Red Roques!

Whenever we have out of town guests, we take them to nearby Red Rocks amphitheater, climb down to the stage and pretend we are British rock stars.

We took visitors there recently and I took a couple of non-amphitheater photos of these breathtakingly beautiful geologic formations:



And for some context for the title of this post, here ya go:



See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.





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Show & Tell: Science project

Subtitle: How I ended up on the N0Fly List.

Reed, Grade 1, had his first Minds at Work Exhibition.

It was 99% self-directed (I insisted he change his focus from "weapons" to "military weapons") and 99% completed by Reed himself (I wrote the answers he gathered through an interview with his uncle so he could copy them; I googled for images). He was to choose a topic and run with it, resulting in a tri-part board that reflects his vision of his project.

Which turned out like this.

Click to enlarge

I'm hoping I can still get on airplanes, and worrying that men in black will arrive at my door to take me away. So if I should suddenly disappear, look for my habeas corpus at Guan.tanamo.

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.





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Show & Tell: Fashionista

Tessa's definitely got a flair for fashion. Here she is this morning before school.

Hopefully those gloves will keep her warm. Well, those or the flare from the color friction.

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.




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Show & Tell: Senior moment

Maybe it's the influence of my last post that triggered me to share this photo I took of a scene in Budapest many years ago.

Budapest was the consolation prize I mentioned here, which includes the bridge that first bonded me to Cassandra.


I wonder what the man is waiting for? What kind of life has he had? What has he seen? Has he loved and been loved?

The photo has been hanging on our wall for a dozen years, and the light has not been good to it. Still, I hope you can see the haunting quality in the image that I do.

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.





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Show & Tell: Gaggle

EVERY body flocked to Target last week.
.
.
.
.Darn Canadians.

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.

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Show & Tell: What's in my wallet?

Well, purse, really.

For no good reason, I've dumped my purse, arranged the contents so that they fit in the viewfinder's frame, and snapped a photo.

Purple much?
Animal print much?

I found the purse itself at a Chocolate Fair (does it GET any better!?). It called my name and forced me to buy it, seeing as how it was an animal print AND had purple accents. Seven months later, I found the smaller matching purse-let (right), in which I keep my camera, my pinktooth (the teeny-weeny thing in front, to be reviewed soon) and bloggy cards.

My wallet, made from the elusive purple snipe-snake, is on the left. I carry two cell phones, my purple personal one, and my plain work one.

My keys are attached to a yellow kubotan, a self-defense gizmo that gives me a "don't eff with me" air when I carry it according to the training that came with it.

The red rectangle is a Swiss Army kit that has stuff McGyver would drool over. But it's missing the nail file, which was confiscated at an airport checkpoint once when I forgot to leave it at home.

Lip balm, eye drops, a nail file, a crinkled up band-aid, three wet-wipes, and a bottle of flower essences (in case of illness) belong in the Singing Butler bag I got at a museum in Boston.

Finally, a purse-light and a comb.

Want the truth? This came out of my purse, too.

Runny-nose kids much?

(And the purse's attached coin bag.)

So. What's in your wallet? If you post about it (next week's Show & Tell?), come back and give me your link so I can snoop. In fact, I'll add a MckLinky so we can ALL snoop.

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.






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Show & Tell: Batter up

Thanks to the largess of my Father-in-Law, Yuke is now a fixture in our front yard.

(Jealous, Nancy? You can come visit.)

This guy I'd never heard of was my husband's favorite Christmas gift. Perhaps I should have gone with this instead of socks for his present.

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.







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Show & Tell: Threescore and ten

I took the kids to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science last week to experience Exhibition Health. It's a fabulous display, enthralling for both kids (school-age) and adults alike. I found out cool things like the fact that my stride length is 3 feet 2 inches and my wingspan is 5 feet 10.5 inches (which matches my somewhat generously measured height).

There were dozens of fascinating stops, but I'll share just a few.

To learn about the respiratory system, kids got to watch a dissection of the lungs of a sheep. I was afraid my children would be squeamish, but instead they were right in there, asking tons of questions and poking around.

There were long lines for the pièce de résistance, a photo booth that ages you up to 70 years. You can choose to also see a projection of your aging with one of three factors: smoking, sun damage, or the effects of obesity. The idea is that kids may not forsake smoking for health reasons, but they might for vanity reasons.

Here's me:
Yikes! Aging sucks, except for the alternative.

Would you like to see Tessa and Reed in another 6+ decades? These are the BIG shockers for me.

^^images removed^^

P.S. We were told not to smile. Now, get off our lawn, you young whippersnappers!

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.





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Show & Tell: Malaprop

Roger and I came upon this scene one day while touring the Syrian countryside, circa 1997:

Roger speaks to some travellers about the plight of their bus, the Happy Jurney.

Clearly, when this vehicle was christened, much was lost in translation.

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.






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Show & Tell: Royal Coil

Alternate title: "You are getting sleeeeeepy."

I've written before about my fascination with mandalas.

Coloring one causes a kind of planned zoning out, and takes me to a meditative place, even if I'm in a room full of family members and we are coloring and chatting together, as we did over Thanksgiving week.

I love this image. It's purple and it swirls both in and out. It's symmetrical and orderly, yet infinite. I might make it my Twitter avatar someday. Anyone know how to animate it? Make it rotate?

You can get your own blank copies of mandala designs here to color as you'd like.

See the cool stuff my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.





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Show & Tell: Name That Blogger! 2.1

I'm using Show & Tell this week to kick off Round 2 of Name That Blogger!

It's the accidental game invented when I got snarky awhile back with Lollipop Goldstein.

It's easy: based on the clues below, find the blogger and the post. Your universe is the ALI blogroll, something posted November 16-24. You get up to 2 guesses per day. A new clue will go up each day (dependent upon my Internet access) until we have the answer I'm looking for.

If you play, you are eligible to put this button on your blog. Please help spread the word!

Here's the first clue for Round 2:

Clue #1: Domesticity

Leave in a comment your guess that includes:

1. The blog name
2. The post title
3. The post's URL

Happy hunting!

Also: feel free to host your own Name That Blogger! contest on your own blog anytime you find a blogger/post you want to spotlight (in a diffused light kind of way).

A very happy Thanksgiving to my American friends. Gobble.

See what my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.






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Show & Tell: Better off red

The kids were both in school but Roger and I had Veteran's Day off. So we had a date in our city.

After lunch (which included acai sangria), we strolled over three of Denver's bridges toward downtown. On the way, we found this:

Photo by Jeffrey Beall (his is better than mine).

National Velvet is by artist John McEnroe (not the tennis player, I presume). The sculpture was dedicated a year ago today.

Denver does like its primary colors, doesn't it?

I have sudden urge to prepare kidney beans for dinner.

See what my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.






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Show & Tell: Tatt Two

We spent last weekend in Colorado Springs with 19 extended family members. Seventeen of them cheered at the Air Force/Army game (for the away team). But Tessa and I headed to nearby Manitou Springs for some girlie-girl time.

Manitou Springs is an earthy, small mountain town with an inviting personality. Tessa and I window shopped along the main street, played with toys in the toy store, sat on benches along the street, evaluated artwork in the many artisan stores, chatted with store-keepers, found a chocolate shoppe and had one of each (yum).

We weren't really looking for anything -- the ambling being the point. I just wanted to make some memories together. We got our chance at the last store.

The shop smelled of patchouli, and it offered tie-dyed t-shirts, peace signed clothing, Om symbols galore, silks from India.

And a woman who applied tattoos. Henna tattoos.

I didn't even debate it in my mind. Tessa and I were gonna get tatted.

Tessa chose vining skulls. With bows.

I chose a Tao symbol encased in the sun. With moon and stars to balance it out.

It took about 10 minutes each to apply the henna paste to each of us. Deb, our artist, blew on some very fine glitter to adorn this phase.

We were to leave the paste on for as long as possible -- 4 hours minimum, or even overnight. The longer we waited before flecking off the dried paste, the deeper the pigment would go and the longer our tattoos would last. Palms are especially good at holding in the dye.

Tessa went swimming in the hotel pool later that night, so her paste came off on the early side. But I kept mine on until the next morning.

My henna paste and Tessa's henna tatt

Tessa's beribboned skulls

My yin/yang

With luck, I'll still have a visual memory of this day on Christmas.

See what my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.





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Show & Tell: Wedding invitation

This past week, Roger and I marked the 15th anniversary of our engagement (click all images to magnify).

As longtime readers may guess, we are not the traditional type that would have a traditional wedding. Or traditional wedding invitations.

And before we had children, we were big film aficionados.

These were the RSVP cards.


And, as if out of a time capsule, our closing arguments in why invitees should attend our wedding.

See what my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's Show & Tell.




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Show & Tell: Red Deux

I'm not a big fan of Fall. I love warm weather, long days, summer clothes.

But. I like Fall colors.

Today it's all white (like you wouldn't believe!), but this past weekend, as I walked through my yard and took photos, I noticed the reds.

If you like these, you might want to see last year's.

See what my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's.

Show & Tell: Father-Daughter

Note: child pictured.

Tessa is now 8. This "show" is from when she had just turned 1.

I love this memory.

See what my classmates are showing and telling over at Mel's.