the Diva

And now your most recent nominee for Best Picture of the Year!

I really do feel that she's ours now.

Sunday, Sunday

Despite a cold, dreary day that started with a light dusting of sleet, the crocus were doing there thing during brief glimpses of sunlight today. We're now seeing a little bit more variety, and the blue and yellow one in the photo "up top" made first appearance today and is especially beautiful when viewed as a close-up.

Crocus are such great little flowers - they survive all kinds of cold weather and come back year after year after year. As a general rule, the cheaper they are the longer they last!

Jack and I are settled in to watch the Oscars tonight... It may be hateful and cruel and all kinds of bad things, but we have a wager going on the number of times a recently-deceased, gay-cowboy-movie-actor will be mentioned by name during the ceremony. I say 43 - Jack says 50. A friend of ours that's a professor at Vanderbilt is in for 30, so we'll just have to wait and see. The only prize is braggin' rights, but if you're on-line, reading and want to throw in your bet, please feel free to do so in the comments.

Jack is cooking a wonderful chicken dish - spicy, healthy... He's fixing a sweet potato for himself, a baked potato for me and "asparagus somehow". A perfect Academy Awards party menu!

OK - It's getting started. In the meantime, please enjoy my submission, posted above, for Best Picture - "the Diva".

She's beautiful, and everyone LOVES that music by The Cranberries.

Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video

Jack and I don't normally "go political" here on the blog, but we've discussed the importance of this year's elections and everything that's at stake.

We've decided that the time is right to officially "come out" for Obama.

Please enjoy this video.

It will be available on the sidebar throughtout the election season, and we will add anything else we feel relevant and meaningful.

Change rocks, ya'll!

Another week is underway, and for a Monday, today wasn't bad at all.

With it being Presidents' Day, both legs of my commute went smoothly with very low volume. I guess I've never considered how many people have workplaces that observe federal holidays until I started commuting to the city to work. Seriously, as easily as I was able to get into and out of town today, I could easily agree to letting federal and bank employees work from home 100% of the time just to keep them off the road. I know that isn't feasible or reasonable, but boy, it would make my travels SO much easier.

I got a goodie at work today - brand new dual 19" monitors for my computer. Happy Presidents' Day to Me!!! I have no shortage of desk space and having this set up will make it much easier for me to get work done, respond timely to e-mail, compare documents -- I love them! It's nice to get good-goodies, especially when they're unexpected.

Jack played tennis this evening and won his men's doubles match - HOORAY!

Goodnight all!

In reviewing the blog, it's amazing how many times I mention the weather, which to most people seems boring and mundane, but this IS Tennessee, after all - The Land of Constantly Changing Conditions.

Lately Tuesday seems to be the day of the week for the enchiladas to hit the air conditioner. Three weeks in a row we've had weird things going on - torrential rain with thunder and lightening one week, the worst and most destructive single tornado in state history the next, snow and ice earlier this week. At least we don't have to deal with hurricanes and tsunamis - at least not yet... With the pace of global warming and some folks' denial of the solid science supporting man's contribution to climate change, Hurricane Pamela will probably demolish the entire Tennessee/Kentucky coastline in 2030.



Today was a gorgeous mid-February day - your typical "mostly cloudy" day, with pleasantly seasonal temperature. The crocus have recovered from getting snowed-on and bloomed nicely today. Other stuff is starting to come up and we should have some daffodils happening in a week or two. I don't see any sign of hyacinths yet and am afraid that the chipmunks may have gotten them. Oh well...





Jimmy and The Girl had a nice long visit with some weekenders down the circle from us ... what appeared to be a pack of Titans cheerleaders took a power-walk a bit earlier in the day with a beautiful golden retriever. I think they're Titans cheerleaders because not only were they a gorgeous group, the pregnant one stopped in front of the house, not realizing that Jack and I were watching from the kitchen window, and launched into a dance routine using a stick she'd picked up from the ditch for balance.

It was the craziest thing I've ever seen and had the camera in hand for my best shot ever at winning big money on "Funniest Home Videos", but it seemed wrong to do that. Lord knows how thankful I am that the two women on Quiet Lane that I noticed WAY too late into one of my little dance routines didn't have a video camera. Today was just karma - Jack and I got a really good laugh.

The dogs required dual car retrievals today, which has become the regular routine. When we got home from the grocery store today, Jimmy and Dudley escaped for what appeared to be a planned romp to the marina, but thanks to push-button start, Jack was quick to intervene and rescued Dudley from the middle of the road, which is his preferred place to run - either there or through underbrush out in the woods.





Dudley easily loaded-up, but Jimmy resisted, and he spent the better part of the afternoon with a posse of aerobics instructors and enjoying a girls' weekend at the lake. He's quite the little operator. After a few hours, we cruised the car around the circle and finally managed to coerce both he and Diva into the back seat.

Now Diva is dying to go outside for her night romp, but we've decided to keep both dogs on house arrest this evening, walking them on leashes, but she's still not entirely satisfied. We've given her a chewie and engaged her for a few minutes with a tennis ball, but she seems to be missing her evening run with Jimmy.



Jack is making us a goodie for dinner - his famous chicken tacos!!! I can't wait! They're always yummy, and he does them from scratch, grinding chicken breast fresh with the Kitchen-Aid. It's one of our favorite dinners, and it's beginning to smell absolutely delicious...



I'm adding pictures of the crocus to Picasa every few days, so check the slideshow to see what's new!



Good Saturday night, everyone!

Snow Day

Frozen stuff is falling... It looks like mostly fine snow at this point, but the road has white, slick patches on it, and I'm "using my discretion" in deciding if/when I leave for work today. I have nothing major on my calendar today and talked to my boss a little while ago, so I'm good. There are some things I can work on here at home today to prepare for a big meeting next week, and that will keep me busy. I need to study some of our compliance monitoring reports and prepare handouts for everyone based on what those look like, and luckily for me, they "live" on a web-based application that I can access from home. I can even export them to Excel and play there, which is something I'd never have time to do if I was at the office, so this snow day may actually end up being a good thing as far as being prepared for my big meeting is concerned....

Jack and I have had a nice weekend so far, but he has to work today, and that's the pits. At least I was able to take Friday off, so we did have two whole days together, which feels like a splurge, considering how difficult it sometimes is for us to find time together. It seems that his schedule has maybe been a bit better in recent weeks, but we think that's more a matter of luck than purpose.

I have a busy week with a lot of meetings, but that's par for the course and only serves to make the work-week pass more quickly. I'd much rather be running my legs off than bored out of my skull like in my last job. I actually brought a couple of work-things home with me that I need to get finished today... Both things that need the kind of thought and concentration that I can't seem to achieve at the office with ringing phones and something always happening. I guess that's a good thing about Jack working today - I have time to get a few things done without the temptation of getting sidetracked by fun!

Both boy dogs need baths today, expecially Dudley, who has recently picked up on one of Jimmy's behaviors, laying on the hearth right in front of the stove where it's nice and warm and DIRTY. This morning he spent a particularly long time napping there and now both looks and smells like he's been sleeping in an ash-pile. At least he's little and enjoys getting bathed (as long as it's in the tub with warm water instead of on the deck with the hose)...

One fun thing I'm doing today is planning Jack's Valentine's Day surpirse. We were in Georgia at his folks' house for his birthday last month, so we didn't really have a chance to celebrate much, so I'm planning to do something extra-special for Valentine's Day.... I'm still not sure what all that is going to involve - we agreed that we're going to order ribs from Rendezvous in Memphis again. That's what we did last year for Valentine's Day, and it was wonderful - convenient and tasty and doesn't require a reservation, dealing with crowds, harried restaurant staff or dragging ourselves home late on a "school night". The ribs are just as tasty as they are at the restaurant - delivered by FedEx; no trip to Memphis required! That's a good start on a wonderful evening - now I just have to figure out the rest, but he's given me some ideas...

Up, Up in the Sky

Taking Friday Off

Happy Friday everyone!

I took the day off today, just for the fun of it... Jack didn't have to work, so I took a personal day to spend some time with him knocking about the house and just catching up on some "home time". It's been great!

The weather was nigh perfect for this time of year - the sun was out, and I had an opportunity to catch up with two of our neighbors that I haven't really seen to more than wave-at in months given my schedule.

I encountered Harold first... Harold had bypass surgery a few months ago and actually "coded" the day he was to move out of ICU when they removed his pacing wires. He was quickly resuscitated and suffered no ill effects from the experience. I was playing fetch with The Girl in the yard and taking dog and flower pictures when he came by, so we had a nice conversation at the end of the driveway. Harold commented that The Girl looks an awful lot like a young Beulah, and said that it's nice that Jack and I have taken her in since "that boy down the hill doesn't seem to care about her unless his boy's here."

Later Miss Billie drove by -- she'd been up the hill to use her cell phone. We had a nice catch-up and she was in a big way. With the nice weather she's planning a trip to the city to shop and visit with her daughter & grandson tomorrow. She also commented that she's glad we've taken in "that dog" , because she's such a sweet dog and is good to be in a better home than the one she came from .

Then a bit later, Jack was leaving for the store when we heard strange bird noises coming from somewhere. I asked Jack if it was doves or turkeys or what - then we noticed that it was two big bunches of migrating cranes. I'd had the camera hanging around my neck most all day because the dogs were in such playful moods and the crocus were in such gorgeous bloom (notice the new slideshow to the right) --

I managed to get a fairly decent little clip of them doing their migratory thing overhead. Of course there's the nerdy conversation between Jack and me, but I didn't want to do music or anything, since you can really hear what the birds in the background, even though they were WAY up there.

I'm posting the video here on the blog, but I encourage you to go to YouTube and view it there, using the "full screen" option so that you can actually see the birds most of the time. A lot of the time we could hear them a lot better than we could see them. It was a really neat experience!! We have seen these cranes migrating in the past, but this is the first time I've had a camera handy, much less anything that can capture video.

Signs of Spring - The Very First

I'm feeling better today...

After struggling with cold symptoms for a few days, it seems I'm more "normal" today - I still have a bit of a cough and snotty nose, and my shoulders have been painful for two weeks, but some of that may be muscular.

As far as the shoulders are concerned... I noticed they started bothering me after I moved into my new office, so there may be something not adjusted correctly with my desk chair or computer keyboard. We have a physical therapist that only does employee ergonomics, so I may give her a call this week to come and make some suggestions on my set-up. If that doesn't work, there's a masseuse in the fitness center, and a 30 minute focus on my upper back may be in order. Jack does his best to rub the soreness out, but he's afraid he's going to break me or something.... I want to hear stuff pop and crack!!! Just because I scream doesn't mean it's bad, you know?

Today's photo is further proof of the progress of spring - a baby trillium that I spotted while out with the dogs. I can't remember what variety this is, but I'm excited that it's planning a return appearance this year. We have lots of the plain ones that come up in the woods around the house - some quite large. I look forward to tracking those, and our other wildflower friends, as the season progresses.

I'm planning to do another Season in Bloom for 2008 and plan to start early to have a full range of photographs. Last year I didn't get the camera until my birthday in late April, so the start of the season was abbreviated. In case you've forgotten this one --

This is the first time I've used this particular blog feature - uploading a video directly without using an intermediary like YouTube... Hopefully it works as well as the other -

The dogs had a great time playing outside today. Even though the sky was overcast, the temperature wasn't that cold, so they were able to enjoy a nice romp in the neighbor's yard. Even Dudley got in on outdoors, running-around action.

Looking Toward Spring

As you can tell by the new title picture, we have things happening in the yard, despite the fact that it's cold and February.

The little yellow crocus always start to bloom about this time every year, and today while I was out chasing Dudley, I noticed that ours have started doing their thing. We had some that were getting ready to bloom about a week ago and then the temperatures really dropped and they froze despite their hardy nature. Now just a few days later, this is what we've got.

It only gets better from here...

We have all kinds of crocus that will bloom from now until about mid-April in a steady stream. Later on we'll have more yellows in different varieties, purples and blues, some nice big white ones that are almost as big as tulips.

And then there will be daffodils and our trout lilies always bloom nice and early, and oh MY, spring is right around the corner!