266/365

This bug landed on my windshield. The picture doesn't really show what kind of bug she was. It kind of looked like a flying ant. Anyway, I was stopped at the light and she just kind of RIPPED her wings off one by one... Like she was saying - I - Just - Can't - Stand - These - Things - And - Must - Get - Rid - Of - Them! It was very, very strange. I was just like what the heck is going on??? Finally, the person behind me beeped because the light was green and she "flew" off the car when I started moving.

<<< UPDATE: Some newly mated queens will still have their wings attached but most will tear them off pretty quickly as they start to look around for a new nest because wings make the queens an easy target for predators to find. >>>

265/365

EXHAUSTED

You and me both, pup.

241/365

POT... MEET KETTLE

Remember when I talked about this? I take it back... I left my laptop charger at home while at my Dad's. My goodness gracious I didn't know what to do with my self. My battery percentage kept dwindling fast and when it got to 5% I knew my beloved screen was going to turn black soon. It was almost 24 hours before I was reunited with it. It may be nice to be dis-connected from time to time but it's nicer knowing you can be connected when you want to be too.

240/365

They don't call it yard WORK for nothing...

239/365

No one would let me turn out of the gas station this morning so I had to go around the block... passed by the antique store and got a little sad. :-(

238/365

NATIONAL DOG DAY
Today is National Dog Day.

Give your dog a hug and a kiss and thank them for being your friend!

.

Pets of the Homeless

{Homeless man and his dog on Queen St. W. in Toronto on a freezing day in November 2006)

Lily got new treats to celebrate... wish we could give one to that homeless dog. :-(

237/365

SHHH, QUIET PLEASE!

I used to go to the library a lot... Many years ago I was doing some "research" for some party stuff I was doing... I would go and sit in the little quiet cubicle rooms and spread all my stuff out - it was kind of fun. Suddenly, I don't know what happened but I had a big aversion to going to the library. I started thinking that someone was going to come in and start shooting. Just some crazy person doing some crazy thing... (not to steal all the books, Chrissy!) I kind of have the same fear in banks a little too - but that makes a little more sense. I don't know - look what happened at the gym to Jody and those other girls - it could happen. Anyway, I ventured to the library to try to print some things and actually went to one of the cubicles for awhile... This picture was my view from my seat - still creeps me out a little though. ;-)

236/365

CHANGE OF SCENERY

I had to put the seats down in the car today so the pupperoni had to sit in the front. She fell right to sleep as usual... she was very comfy - I was kind of nervous and afraid we were going to be in an accident and the air bag would crush her. I went to a drive thru a couple weeks ago and the girl was laughing and calling all the other workers over to look at the freak dog in the car seat. She was like - you don't have your dog in a seat belt do you? Umm - yes... yes I do, I said. She thought it was the weirdest thing ever.

Anyway, have you ever gone from point A to point B and had no recollection of how you got there? That happened to me tonight. I swear I pulled out of my dad's driveway - stopped for coffee - and pulled into my driveway... I have very little memory of the ride back home. Kind of scary. I have a busy day tomorrow and figured I'd let the bud have a sleepover so I'm all by my lonesome. The house is so quiet without her. I knew when it would come to bed time I'd miss her. :-(

Sleep tight puppy dog.

235/365

16 years ago today...

234/365

She's a silly puppy

and she misses home.

233/365

THIS LITTLE PIGGY

Every year I get the Wishcraft Halloween costume catalog from Chasing Fireflies and I see the squiggly piggy costume and say "next year will be the year!"

Still saying it. :-(

They have a cute baby chick one now too... bacon & eggs.

232/365

IT'S NOT GETTING MUCH BETTER...

Four days later... getting worse.

231/365

(not so LUCKY) RABBIT'S FOOT

Since I mentioned the circle of life yesterday I thought this photo may work for today... It's from a couple weeks ago. If you zoom REAL close - you can actually make out some ears and a little bit of a foot. Yes, it was a bunny. It lasted less than two days. Every size bird - from crows to the teeniest little ones had a piece of this poor thing. Sadly, this isn't my first dead animal post. I have to admit I was slightly mesmerized by it every time we would walk by.

I had a burgundy colored rabbit coat when I was a little kid. I loved it and remember getting lots of compliments on it. I always had a lucky rabbit's foot too.

Don't really know where I ever got them - was it the boardwalk??? Anyway, how terribly awful now that I think about it. I looked up the history of them - read here if you are interested.

RIP poor bunny. ;-(

230/365

RING AROUND THE ROSIE

I was reminded of this picture... I guess that's why I dreamt about her all last night. I've been without Lily the last two nights. It's not very often I sleep alone. I was happy to have snuggled with The Bud - at least in my dreams.

I've been thinking about rings and what they represent... You wear a wedding ring on your ring finger of your left hand - where a vein runs directly to your heart... You're supposed to wear your class ring with the insignia facing toward you when you are in school and away from you after graduation... Tradition. Each symbolic. All circles - round - whole - a union.

I came across this sacred geometry article and it talked about the significance of circles and their relation to the planets and sun... completion with renewal, the integrated self, change with permanence.

There's no beginning - no end... The circle of life. I feel like lifting baby Simba up now.

I was given a wonderful piece of advice by someone that knows, in a way, a lot about circles. I don't think I'll ever forget it:

WANT WHAT YOU HAVE.

229/365

AND THEN THERE WAS ONE

Kind of symbolic and reminiscent of Penn State.

Lost one of my earrings the other day...

228/365

I REALLY need to go through my email...

227/365

PSU PIG OUT

It was a bit of a FOOD day yesterday... We went to a new place Lizzie told us about last week - Nola's Joint. I had the Pistachio pizza, Lizzie had the Porchetta and Chrissy had the Margherita. Very good. They served water in wine bottles at the table... had old mismatched kitchen chairs. Cute - cute - cute!

Your check came in a little sugar pack holder with teeny Italian candy in it - they were gross but adorable. Nice bread at Gemelli's next door too.

There's a new place open on the weekends at night 10-3 called FRY... all fries: waffle, curly, sweet potato, tator tots (and hot dogs.) If they served mashed potatoes I probably would have considered applying for a job there. I seriously may want to move back here just to go get tator tots on FRYdays. ;-) $2.00 french fries for drunk people - spectacular idea!!!

We went to one of the two new cupcake places in town - ndulge... Check out the Collegian's Cupcake War article here. We were going to do a "cupcake off" and go to both but we just picked the closest one...

We needed to save room for this.

Then we stopped at CCPeppers to bring Cheesesteaks home... The wall menu! ;-)

I think we may have put on the Freshman Fifteen yesterday - many years later... ;-)

226/365

MOVING ON UP... to South Pugh Street

It was a pretty easy move today into Lizzie's new house...

Crepe Myrtle in the back (one of Mum's favorites.)

Totally hoping the house across the street with the orange garage and shutters goes up for sale so we can be neighbors. Loving that house!

Lizzie's mattress

and Kate's arrived at the SAME time.

And after a little trouble with the bed... the junk lady passed by - pulled into the driveway and redistributed all her metal finds...

and made room for a brand new or at least "new-to-her" queen bed! She was one happy hoarder!

We didn't have any cleaning today so we were good... We decided to fill the back of the car up with food instead... ice cream and cheesesteaks and pizza and Italian bread and cupcakes! More on that tomorrow. I'm going to bed - smelling like CCPEPPERS!

225/365

No matter how you SPELL it... it's good advice.

Happy Friday the 13th.

224/365

WILDCARD

There was a store in town called Wildcard... it's called The Roost now. I would go there a lot. Like all the time. They had the best cards and cute gift items - fun, unusual, crazy things. And they had an "adult" section in the back... They only have 2 little spinner racks of cards now - I was a little disappointed but I did find what I was looking for. They still have the adult section and some cute things... no matter what I would always find the perfect card or gift in that store... even if I wasn't exactly what I thought I was looking for. We didn't spend too much time in there since it wasn't exactly a PSU shopping trip but we did see this in the window on the way out. Maybe I should have gone back in for it.

Totally forgot about this when I was in there but just remembered now how there was a place to put your backpack/ book bag down at the door! My "unidentified flying object" named Jansport. ;-)

223/365

514-517-520

I slept in all of those apartments in Cedarbrook. I felt a little sad when we went up to help lizzie move out. I kept going into the bedroom and laying on her bed - partly because of the cleaning product fumes and partly because of my constant need to torture myself. It was pretty much the same apartment and she had the same "bed" I did. 20 years would flash through my head every time I would sit in there and I came out teary eyed more than a few times.

I took a picture of her first trash going down the shoot and here is one of her last...

We "pledged" 520 on Monday. I don't think I ever cleaned MY apartment like I cleaned that one. In fact, I'm not so sure my house is that clean!

A million things came back to memory while we were there... Getting mail and the big boxes for "packages." One of my favorite things.

The intercom. Did we use this? They don't even have PHONES anymore!

The study lounge. Did they always have computers in there? Why can't I remember these things? ;-) I do remember my computer in our room and the dot matrix printer and NO INTERNET!

The hallways and the undescribable feeling I would get walking down them.

The laundry room and hearing our clothes behind a locked door.

I lived there for most of three years... that was a long time. It seems like a million years ago at times and then it seems like yesterday. For a couple minutes I felt like I could be going there now - and I'm not just saying that because of "freeze pop guy" asking if we were moving in or moving out when Chrissy and I got on the elevator. ;-)

These are days you'll remember... Never before and never since, I promise... will the whole world be as warm as this...

222/365

MY HOW YOU'VE GROWN

221/365

GOODBYE, CEDARBROOK!

Chrissy and I went up to State College today to clean Lizzie's apartment... she's moving into a house next week. Lizzie was on the same floor - fifth floor. I raced Chrissy to the room - I took the steps and she took the elevator. I won. I only did it once, though. I was way younger and in better shape I guess back then!

We went to get a mattress for her new bed...

I tried some out too!

We had lunch (meshugana, again!) and had to drop Lizzie off at work.

Hail to the Chief!

Chrissy and I did some errands and tried to find the only liquor store in town that had boxes... We really didn't know where we were going and turned around on prison property - on more than one occasion.

We finally found it - never been in a liquor store back room. Kind of fun. We loaded the car with boxes since Lizzie really didn't pack up as much as we expected. That is an understatement - just for the record. ;-)

and then cleaned for most of the night. We left at 8:30 AM and I walked in the door at 2:15 AM the next day!