Now THIS ticket I can stand behind! (But where will my values be at lunchtime?)

A partisan guest post

I think since we are getting so close to the election, I'm going to feature my dear friend Becky's blog today.  I tend more toward flibbity fluff when I open my mouth to communicate my feelings.  And I find it extremely hard not to be silly and light-hearted when safely inside Shansland, because that is my default modus operandito.  

So, rather than try to express it in my words, I'll link her recent post here and you can take it as my shared (though much better spoken and thought out) opinion.  Or, this is perhaps where you'll want to quickly look away as to not chance getting frothy at the mouth. That being said, I'll now direct you to my favorite English professor and bosom friend Becky, of Pith, Marrow, and Coffee Spoons:

FIND HER HERE

Friday Photos: Red Rock Canyon, Hinton Oklahoma

This is where we went last weekend for my family reunion on my Mom's side.  It started the year I was born so we can kind of guage how long our family has been meeting by counting the lines on my face.  Fortunately we don't actually do that though.  Isn't this a beautiful place?  The sky is always so blue here this time of year, and it plays off the rose colored canyon so nicely.  

Those pointy things are the A-frame cabins we sleep in, boys in these, girls on the other side.  This is about as rough as I tend to get.  They have no bathrooms or heaters!  I usually sleep with one eye open always on the look out for daddy long legs and other spiders that might want to crawl inside my sleeping bag with me. Eek!  Not restful.

Here,  Beck'sboy and Ratchet  are scaring me with their boy antics. And of course Dandy below that, just living the dream.  He is never more content than when at Red Rock. :)

This is a picture of the boys and a couple people in my family that I took from the ground at the low spot in the corner of our area where the young and nimble can scale the foot holes in the canyon. Jamey of course counts in that category.  I always chose a safer way to go up as a young lass and still do.

Here's my cute little mom  standing with me, safely aground below the others.

We rent out this whole area each year.  It's a U-shaped part of the canyon.

Here's where I usually hang out with the lady folk turning out giant pans full of food to a hundred or so extended family members that come through on Saturday.  I don't ever know them all but I always give 'em a good look them in the eye when I ask which casserole they'd like a scoop of.  heh heh

Here are the kiddos again exploring the canyon.  This is Becksboy's third year to join us at R.R!  He is officially a regular.  It will be quite the crew once Dandy starts to bring a friend!  This year he brought dinosaurs instead.

So that's it, the hole in the middle of Oklahoma that nobody ever seems to have heard of.  I know it was quite a shock to the people who found it during the Oklahoma Land Run.  It would have been a treacherous discovery for a covered wagon caravan! My pictures don't show the highest walls but it is really an amazing site in the middle of such flat and windy lands now only a few miles off a major interstate.  

Happy weekend everyone! 

RICK ROLLin' and written hurl!

I don't know who you're voting for ( I'll not be voting for this particular candidate though I imagine you care not to hear political stances from moi) but, either way this video is a crackup! 

You see, I'm an eighties girl.  So, naturally, I love the Rick Roll phenomenon that has made its way through Youtube!  If you don't know what I'm talking about then you probably have an actual life outside your computer. K-kee-kee.  

Apparantly, what's happened is people have been listing links to things that sound really interesting or "alluring" ,  and then when someone else clicks on the link, they instead find  Rick Astley or some form of him singing 'Never gonna give you up' in all his one-hit-wonder glory.  And then, of course, the pranks have developed from there.

 Actually I usually only know about stuff like this because Jamey is a big time tech-know kinda guy who works best while being constantly inundated with entertaining youtube clips or web finds, all the while doing his job and watching a movie, composing a song or listening to music on the side. Whew!  This is a fine piece of writing I'm doing here folks.  Do not look away now or you will be dizzy! ;) 

That multi-tastic style Jamey tends to thrive on would give me a huge case of  Stimulus Overload Majoras!! For I am the type that must take on absolutely one thing at a time if I am to be able to apply my brain properly to it.  Unless... I'm on the phone. While on the phone, I could probably parasail while having an uninterrupted convo if I had a hankerin'.  Does anyone share this ability?  I love it when a friend of mine-who I often find myself having long phone conversations with-says "Well, I guess I'll let you go so you can get that dessert made for the blippity blank."  and I say "Oh, I finished that and already ran it up to the school.  Now, I'm home again and about to start the mower so I guess I should get off this phone now or we won't be able to hear each other."  

And it's the same when I'm listening to an audiobook.  I know I've talked about this before but it still amazes me what menial tasks I surely could accomplish if I just didn't think about them too long.  "Hey, look everyone!  I just refinished all of my floors and I don't remember a lick of it!  Isn't that great?!!"
I think I'm meant to be a drone.

But for reals.  When I have to listen to more than a couple voices at a time (i.e. music and a human talking to me) and actually make sense of what I'm hearing , I get nothing but static.  I can be quite the textbook case of A.D.D. on most days to be honest.  I tend to fail at receptionist catchall types of jobs that most mother types would have a natural affinity for. 

 

I'm also the ding bat who starts cooking hamburger meat and then decides to change out the seasons in one of my kid's dressers upstairs.  "Ooh, someone's grilling!  Wait a minute, that's me!" And when there's lots of stuff coming at me at one time, typical family style, I tend to start shaking my head like I have a flea in my ear and then my arms immediately want to start flapping myself out-a there!  This (and the fact that I am mental) is why I will never be a kindergarten teacher, or say, a stockbroker.  I'd be running for the emergency exits after the first couple of days of either job, and they'd find me hours later in a field chewing on grass or worse- Lord preserve me!!!

I don't know why you've allowed me to go on this way when I only meant to post that video and give a brief explanation of the Rick Roll.  You'd think I had all the time in the world and might as well go ahead and post some pictures of our weekend at Red Rock Canyon while I'm sitting here blithering.  Nope, I'd like to share those, but I've taken up enough of your time.  I will instead leave you with this one... parting... thought .

  

I'll choose Places you find terrorists for $500, please Alex

Well, just when I thought I might never post again....I did something blogworthy!!  Yes!  And it was smack in the middle of the week to boot!  I might even do you dear blog friends the favor of skipping all the warm up material and getting right into the photos of my trip DOWN UNDER!!  

What?  did you think that I, the two-state traveler, actually managed Australia?  No, no, no, that kinda thing would take much more than a mental whim and a Wednesday to pull off.  (And yes Mme B. I would definitely have mentioned such a thing to you ;)

This was the sort of down under that you read about (or let's face it, see, in the movie theater) in Journey to the Center of the Earth .  Ok, nope.  I just watched the trailer and remembered that the movie had WAY more dinosaurs, special effects, and appearances by Brendan Frasier than this place did so I can't totally go there with my analogy without feeling just a wee exaggeratory (Wow, I didn't make that word up like I thought I might have).

So even though we didn't get anywhere near the center of the earth, we did go to this really fabulous cave in Eureka Springs!!!  It was such a last minute plan in our otherwise busy outing but it was one of the coolest (exactly 58 degrees year round-I listened) places I've seen in quite a while. 

I took tons of pictures of stalactites and stalagmites along the way but what I couldn't capture was the awesome old fashioned feel this whole place had.  We were each handed gigantic headphones upon entering the Onyx Cave and were instructed to line up carefully along the yellow lines at each listening station so we could hear the commentary after pushing a tall flashing button straight out of a Dharma training video from an episode of LOST (sorry if I actually lost you non LOST watchers there).  The recorded voice playing on the headphones was so dated, he actually reminded us not to leave anything but our camera "flash cubes" behind in the trash receptacles provided along the way.  Remember those?  haha.

Welcome to the 60's dear children.  It's not quite an i-pod but these things get the job done when you need to know what to do when in an underground poorly lit natural dwelling!  

Ok, that's all for now.  But, that's only because it is getting quite late and I've got a pumpkin patch requiring my presence in the morning plus a hugely busy weekend ahead.  I just wanted to share a tiny bit of our day today and hopefully I'll get to more of it in the next couple days- barring a total blog rebellion- as lately I've been prone to pulling.  

Please take care all.  I'm thinking of a special few of you tonight as you are dealing with especially difficult times in your lives.  You know who you are and if you are reading, know that I am praying for you all along the way dear friends.  Much love. 

Does this mean I should work in a museum?

I saw this personality test on Sarahcool's blog and thought I'd give it a shot.  It's pretty accurate except for the part that says something about me being a daredevil.  That may have  been true in the early days, but anymore, I won't chew gum while walking briskly because I'm afraid I might choke on it.  I'm not exactly risk-ay in that way.  ;)  I posted my whole descriptive here so you can see how thorough it gets, but don't feel like you have to read it in its entirety(unless you simply MUST study up on the Shan before our next get together).  I just thought you'd like to see what you get for your test taking troubles.  Please come back and let me know if you took this yourself because I want to know what kinda crazy's I'm dealing with that read my blog.  Barhar.  Click on this Personality DNA and see what you get!

P.S. I'm stuck in a non-capping font in case you were wondering.

you are a faithful curator.

personalDNA

about you

you are a curator

You are straightforward and real, down-to-earth, and have a healthy respect for order and stability. These attributes, complemented by your desire to be surrounded by things of beauty, make you a CURATOR.

You don't feel the need to try everything new that comes along – you know what you like and what you want.

You are a no-nonsense person, not someone who falls for pretensions.

Being strongly grounded in the here-and-now, you are practical and realistic about yourself and your life.

You find comfort and calmness in your habits and routines.

Although others might not know this about you, you strongly appreciate aesthetic qualities, noticing whether something is well-designed and stylish.

You have a refined sense of taste, and you want your environments to reflect your preferred style.

There are times when you feel insecure and vulnerable, even though you know deep down that you are a good person.

You aren't narcissistic – you allow yourself to be realistic about your positive and negative qualities.

You're not one to force your positions on a group, and you tend to be fair in evaluating different options.

You're not afraid to let your emotions guide you, and you're generally considerate of others' feelings as well.

Your sense of adventure is supreme - you're up for anything, anytime. Making plans in advance isn't necessary for you: you'd rather figure things out on the go.

You have a strong sense of style and value your personal presentation - friends may even seek your style advice from time to time.

You tend to believe that things happen for a reason, and that not everything is under our control.

If you want to be different:

It wouldn't hurt to indulge your imagination and creativity sometimes. These are skills like any other, and develop with practice, so try to carve out some time for them in your life.

Try to quiet your inner feelings of doubt – you will be more successful if you can overcome these worries and focus on your many strengths, such as your responsible and honest nature.

how you relate to others

you are faithful

Your trust in others, respect for tradition, and caring nature make you FAITHFUL.

Maintaining a few intimate relationships is more important to you than knowing a lot of people, and you share a lot with your close friends.

Those who have managed to get close to you value your camaraderie, and they know that they can trust you with anything; you're a good listener.

While you can usually see several sides of an argument, you often have a strong opinion as to which side is correct—the order of things is usually clear to you.

Your perspective on the world is based on careful observation, and you know a lot about how people feel in—and react to—many situations.

Your exploration of others' feelings has led you to believe that although people generally act appropriately, having clear social rules is very important to a functional society.

Time alone for reflection is important to you—you are introspective and aware of your own feelings.

Faithful is as faithful does—you expect those with whom you are close to be loyal to you, and you take betrayal of your trust very seriously.

If you want to be different:

Some of the alternate perspectives that you understand may have more value than you give them credit for—keep in mind that right and wrong aren't always so clear-cut.

While you are able to reap the benefits of your time alone, and may see interacting with a lot of people as more tiring than exciting, remember that there is a lot to be learned from experiencing things and not just reflecting on them.