Well, who wants ice cream?

Your Icecream Flavour is... French Vanilla!

You're a smooth and silky suave type! You exude class and you believe in tradition. A classical taste who doesn't like things to be too flashy or showy. Climb the Eiffel tower of taste with a spoonfull of you! Oui Oui!

What is your Icecream Flavour?

Find out at Go Quiz

When I was your age....

Christmas Greetings!

Merry Christmas - Midwinter Greetings!

Midwinter Greetings
December 2004

Here’s hoping this letter finds you in good spirits and well. We’re enjoying fairly busy lives here, and have just begun a breather from routine. Let’s cut to the chase and bring you the latest ….


NEWER BUT NOT BIGGER
Kitchen floor. Bad idea to watch Home and Garden television as it leads one to believe renovations take only three days. Took three months. Still married.

Swimming Pool: Winter ce, pool liners and fragile walls bad combination. The pool guy (when they eventually arrived) tried to electrocute himself. Also took months too. Thank goodness for crappy weather.

“EXOTIC” TRAVELS
Jamie and I swam with the dolphins in Cuba. I ruined the film. Thank goodness for a fortuitous exchange of email addresses and a 5 year old with a good eye for photography.

A rather expensive car repair the day after the final pay day of the school year put the kibosh on my trip to King Arthur’s England so…. I went to the movie instead.

There was enough leftover change to get to New York City for the first time. Now I have photos from the Empire State Building in the rain and zero visibility. More importantly, I have photos of firemen taking their clothes off. (okay, so it was just one of those heavy NYFD jackets) The rest of the weekend was around 30 degrees and humid - me with hot flashes, wondering why the hell I’d left the backyard pool. To top it off, the powers that be declared a Code Orange Terrorist alert, so it was just as well to head back home for a camping trip with the boys.

Sure enough, we set up tent and laptop in Fitzroy Harbour just in time for a tornado alert.

It will be nice to enjoy an alert-free holiday some day.

PERFECT KID ??
Jamie and I had a huge fight an hour before his Graduation ceremonies because I tried to stuff him into a goon suit. An hour later, I’m making mental notes of the fashion statement of a young lady wearing Giant Plastic Butterfly Wings and a pair of combat boots. And silently apologizing (or was it squealing?) when Jamie won the Math Award and made the Honour Roll. I’m sure he’ll grow into those trousers one of these days.

Four months later, the Power Ranger controversy was brought back to mind (with a grin) as an imaginative reporter covered Jamie’s silver medal win at the North American Taekwondo championships. You can read the rest for yourself – (provided you have a magnifying glass)





ARTS AND CULTURE:
A tournament I had to miss because I was directing a comedy for South Shore Theatre. And a comedy of errors it was…try casting eight parts with six people showing up for auditions! Some never did manage to learn all their lines, one had nasty temper tantrums, the theatre was full of smoke one evening thanks to a lamp that exploded….

Also did a show “Infidelities” in the spring where I played a couple of small parts (female, for a change) including an Old, Nagging Married Woman and a Fat Broad. If I say so myself, it certainly didn’t take much rehearsing.

Fortunately, a good friend convinced me to take Second City improv courses with him, where my most recent role involved being a model for an infomercial selling low-carb edible underwear that helps you quit smoking and lose weight.

Also have been taking sculpture courses and have made a teapot heavy enough to provide traction for an 18-wheeler with bald tires, a couple of slightly off-key whistles, a wire insect and a bowl that John responded with “50 years of art school and you’re making ashtrays?”

I really wonder about my hobbies sometimes.

John is still very active with the Libertarian Party and Jamie has taken to rock guitar, and they’re both quite sane.

EARNING A LIVING
Well, John does, anyway. He gets a break from ATI to teach Taekwondo with Jamie in Mount Albert, while I’m enjoying my third year at the Aurora Montessori School teaching art and drama.

I’m pretty much keeping my mechanic earning a living too as my car died again last night. Tried to convince John to take his motorcycle to work, to no avail, claiming there was snow on the ground. So, with a rather convenient day off, I took the dysfunctional dog for a walk under a bright blue sky and thought how best to wish you all the best of the season.

On behalf of John and Jamie, may you all find warmth in your soul, humour where you least expect it, and may you stay forever young –

I'm a song! (Song sung blue)

You Are "Joy to the World"

Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, And heaven and nature sing, It's not about what you get under the tree But sharing love with family, friends, and strangers

What Christmas Carol Are You?

You Are Socks!

Cozy and warm... but easily lost. You make a good puppet.

What Crappy Gift Are You?

Merry Christmas? Yeah, right.

Two days before Christmas, and we don't have a damned tree yet. I am really pissed off about that.

And I spent a week trying to write a cheerful Christmas letter, and it hasn't been photocopied for a week! So now I'm trying to coax a recalcitrant printer into operation. And guess who's bank card is the only one that works at Costco? MINE (not his).


And the car is going to cost about $500 and I still don't have it. It will be a full week.


So much for being the only one who used to have any spirit here. I don't see why I just don't spend $1000 on the kid and call it a day.

Twenty years ago, who'd a thunk it?

You Were Nice This Year!

You're an uber-perfect person who is on the top of Santa's list. You probably didn't even *think* any naughty thoughts this year. Unless you're a Mormon, you've probably been a little too good. Is that extra candy cane worth being a sweetheart for 365 days straight?

Were You Naughty or Nice This Year?

Ralph Waldo Emerson on Success

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love to Find out what I already Know

Free report for: D

Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self -- always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.

Idealists are sure that friendly cooperation is the best way for people to achieve their goals. Conflict and confrontation upset them because they seem to put up angry barriers between people. Idealists dream of creating harmonious, even caring personal relations, and they have a unique talent for helping people get along with each other and work together for the good of all. Such interpersonal harmony might be a romantic ideal, but then Idealists are incurable romantics who prefer to focus on what might be, rather than what is. The real, practical world is only a starting place for Idealists; they believe that life is filled with possibilities waiting to be realized, rich with meanings calling out to be understood. This idea of a mystical or spiritual dimension to life, the "not visible" or the "not yet" that can only be known through intuition or by a leap of faith, is far more important to Idealists than the world of material things.

Highly ethical in their actions, Idealists hold themselves to a strict standard of personal integrity. They must be true to themselves and to others, and they can be quite hard on themselves when they are dishonest, or when they are false or insincere. More often, however, Idealists are the very soul of kindness. Particularly in their personal relationships, Idealists are without question filled with love and good will. They believe in giving of themselves to help others; they cherish a few warm, sensitive friendships; they strive for a special rapport with their children; and in marriage they wish to find a "soulmate," someone with whom they can bond emotionally and spiritually, sharing their deepest feelings and their complex inner worlds.

Idealists are rare, making up between 20 and 25 percent of the population. But their ability to inspire people with their enthusiasm and their idealism has given them influence far beyond their numbers.

The Four types of Idealists are:

Healers (INFP) | Counselors (INFJ) | Champions (ENFP) | Teachers (ENFJ)

Carter goes to the Nets

It's going to hurt to lose him, but then we lose when he's hurt.

Procrastination: Some thoughts

They took a photo of me at work with three plates of food in front of me and me clowning around with my rolly polly tummy.

Then someone in the desert line thought it was pretty funny that I ate so much..."someone said..."

Although I laughed on the outside, I was pretty pissed off.

With myself for putting off until tomorrow what I could do a little about today. Two months ago I started this thing with the thought that keeping track might keep me mindful of what I'm putting into myself.

I hit the snooze button on an email I've been meaning to do something about (art related) and it said 10 weeks overdue.

So there you go - two months later, still smoking, still eating too much of the wrong stuff, still miserable about it, guilty for not having done something about it, and most of all, wondering - What do I need to do to stay motivated????



Mind you, I was also pissed off at the small-minds and mouths who have nothing better to talk about than what's on someone elses plate.

But that's another story.

And your holidays are....?

Your Christmas is Most Like: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

You can't really get into the Christmas spirit... But it usually gets to you by the end of the holiday.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

Go figure.....

Your Dominant Intelligence is Spatial Intelligence

You've got a good sense of space and how the world around you looks. You can close your eyes and "see" images. You have innate artistic talent. An eye for color and shapes, you're also a natural designer. Since you think in pictures, visual aids and demonstartions help you learn best. You would make a good navigator, sculptor, visual artist, inventor, architect, interior designer, or engineer.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?