Yep, I'm a rock dork

This weekend is the Portland Gem & Mineral show - and I'm all over it! It'll be me and a bunch of 85 year old rock hounds in their walkers and rascals. It's kind of sad...lapidary is really a dying (or at least shrinking) hobby. I guess it doesn't hold a candle to xboxes and myspace. Anyway, my primo primo rock guy's going to be there - so hopefully I'll excercise just a little bit of restraint with the credit card. I'll post photos of the goodies I come back with. Rock dorks unite!

It's alive....ALIVE!!!

Farmer Dave's new site, that is >> Check out Dave's new site...tons of cool bead photos...a video of Dave making beads...a new blog (which surprisingly looks like a fall colored version of the page you're reading right now - what a copycat!) Actually, I built the site for him, so there's no reason to reinvent the wheel (call me lazy). I'm going to steal a bunch of his cool little gizmos for my site too. Not to be outdone, my site's going under a major overhaul too. But you won't be able to see most of it, all hiding behind the scenes. I'm putting in a new shopping cart system. Yippee - no more broken links and yucky stuff. And what a concept - I'll be able to spend more time making jewelry. Stay tuned! oh, and go visit Dave's site. Good riddance to neon green and hard to read white text on a black background. Hello streamlined. I'd love to hear your feedback - oh and I'd really like to hear if you found something broken or typo'ed.

Where a kid can be a kid...

It's scary that I even remember that jingle. So, we're leaving the parking lot of Home Depot with a trunkload of pansies to plant in the yard along with the shipment of 18 gazillion tulips that I vaguely remember ordering in the spring...anyway, we're pulling out of the parking lot and completely covered by trees except for maybe his little glossy nose...Devera starts crowing "Chuck E Cheese, Chuck E Cheese!!!!" It sent shivers up my spine. Now, Devera's only been there once (with her Daddy, I "unfortunately" had to miss the outing) and it was like a year ago. But good god, this kid sure knows who good old Chuck is. SHE'S 2!!! I guess Chuck made an appearance at her preschool carnival a couple of months ago, and now he's completely imprinted on her brain. I'm glad they didn't invite the Marlboro Man or she'd have a 2 pack a day habit by now! It's crazy what things stick in their head. She still talks about going to the fair, and that was a month ago.

I was surfing around this afternoon, and came across this product description that made me giggle...

Now that you're four, life is really starting to force responsibility on you, making you begin to work through some tough decisions like "toilet or my pants?," "pet the kitty or bite the kitty?," "Cheerio in my mouth or up my nose?" Thankfully, not all choices are that difficult - take these lovely sky blue Snap Tees for example -all you have to focus on is, "Do I feel like a kitty or a monkey today?" Easy, right?

These shirts are really cute And the site's really well written. There...I've fueled your random surfing for today. Oh, and I go for the cheerio up the nose any day!

Yep that's my kid.

We went to the Oregon state fair yesterday. What fun! We just happened to enter by the livestock section...and Devera got her first up close and personal glimpse of the barnyard animals Old McDonald's always singing about. The cows kind of freaked her out...they look a lot smaller in the picture books. The pigs kind of freaked me out. They're awfully big too. But yes, this is a child after my own heart...we couldn't drag her away from the horse show that was going on. She was just fascinated, and couldn't stop talking about it after we left. In fact it's still a hot topic of conversation.

I hope my customer satisfaction's just a little better...

I found a really interesting map showing Starbucks and McDonald's effects on the world. I think the line that's most interesting is that McDonald's customer satisfaction ranking is below all the major airlines and the IRS. Wow! I didn't think that was possible. These guys have a whole bunch of interesting maps: International Networks Archive

I knew there was I reason we switched...

So, I was reading my favorite site today, and I feel better dishing out that awful lot of money for organic milk. It's has finally been proven--organic milk really is healthier. It looks like the cows that are able to munch on grass have 68% more omega 3 fatty acids in their milk - I guess that makes sense. That's a good consolation for a milk junkie kid and a milk junkie husband.