"Masquerading as a normal person day after day is exhausting!"
Halloween Sky
He wanted to be a tractor...
TA-DAH!!
Abby & Allison
Gatsby Girl & Pirate Wench
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Coming soon...
The Powerscourt Hotel
Just a short stroll down the drive…
And you will discover Powerscourt Hotel, a Palladian style palace which brings together natural beauty and dignified accommodations to offer its guests an unforgettable retreat.
NOURISH
The Sugar Loaf Lounge offers Traditional Afternoon Tea and light fare throughout the day. With an emphasis on local excellence and seasonality, Sika Restaurant at Powerscourt Hotel offers the best of Irish contemporary cooking against a spectacular backdrop of Wicklow's hills and mountains. Mc Gills, a traditional Irish pub, offers a tasy menu of wholesome, traditional dishes, prepared and served with imagination and style.
RESTORE
Escape to ESPA at Powerscourt Hotel for the ultimate Spa experience - one of pure luxury.
REST
After a day soaking up the exquisite surroundings, return to royal accommodations, with the resort’s 200 opulently furnished guest rooms and suites.
GATHER
Carefully manicured gardens and idyllic country woodlands create an unforgettable backdrop for special occasions of all kinds in the Powerscourt Hotel's diverse range of meeting and conference space.
ENQUIRE
Powerscourt Hotel, Powerscourt Estate, Enniskerry, County Wicklow
Tel: +353-1-274-8888
Saturday, October 26, 2013
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Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Sunday, October 20, 2013
How rumors get started...
From: J.B.
Sent: Saturday, October 12, 2013 6:42 PM
To: M.S.
Subject: Contact Information on Sarah Hill Mulkey
Now, my crazy reason for trying to find Sarah. (You can laugh out-loud when I'm finished.)
S. participates in Facebook. I don't. It's a tool of the devil! S. is "friends" with someone who is friends with Rob Mulkey. A couple weeks ago she told me that on Rob's Facebook page it said that something like "married in 2010". Weird, we thought. So, we wondered if he and Sarah were divorced. I put my keen internet search engine in high gear. My sister in Abilene asked someone she knew about Sarah and she said they had moved to Lubbock to care for an aging relative.
I did a search on 411.com to find them, knowing that they had moved to Lubbock. What appeared was their house in Lubbock with the names of Zach (age 35-39), perhaps Zach's wife, Rob, Sarah, and an Elizabeth Mulkey, age 45-49, I think. So, I thought. Okay, Rob has married a younger woman. So, what happened to Sarah. So, I began my search for Sarah. I found a Sarah H. Mulkey living in Greenville, SC, about 3 hours from us. (My mind was thinking we could contact her and invite her to come visit and we could help her through her difficult time of the divorce and then living so far from Zach.) I then, on Ancestry, looked through the Texas marriage and divorce records through 2011....no sign of Rob's marriage to the younger woman or the divorce of Rob and Sarah. So, then, maybe Sarah died. Nothing in the death records. I found Ken Hill's obituary from 2008 and they were still together then, so Rob remarried sometime after Ken Hill's death.
So, in desperation I thought I'd try to find you, knowing ya'll have been close friends forever. That was pretty easy since you are famous and easily found on the internet. You were my last hope short of having a Lubbock police officer go to the house and ask Rob what he did with Sarah.
I now think, since you have confirmed they are still together, that Rob caused the entire mess. I think he must have perhaps joined Facebook in 2010 and his profile page was meaning that he was "married in 2010", which apparently he was, and still to Sarah.....and not "newly" married in 2010.So, the above tale tells you what old, disabled, foolish senior citizens do with their time. But I'm happy to know that they are still married.
And anytime you, Mary and Rob/Sarah ever want a free vacation in the mountains just let us know. We would enjoy visiting with all of you. And thanks for reading all this and for solving this mystery. I can now return to my search for dead relatives.I can't hear on the telephone so feel free to send this e-mail on to Rob and Sarah so they can also realize old people do strange things, but with the best of intentions. They can e-mail me at _____ if they care to. Or Sarah can call S. and offer her condolences for living with a strange person with too much free time on his hands.
Best regards,J.B.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
How to Help
One thing we all eventually learn, the hard way:
Never try to help someone unless they are ready to be helped.
Until help is asked for, until there is that readiness to listen and receive and let go of old patterns, your attempt to help will be felt as manipulation and control - your issue, your need, not theirs. Defences will go up, positions will become hardened, you will end up feeling frustrated or superior or powerless, and the mirrored roles of 'victim' and 'saviour' will make you feel more disconnected from each other than ever.
How to truly help? Meet them where they are right now. Let go of your dream of their immediate healing. Slow down. Validate their present experience. Don't try to impose your own agenda or assume what is 'best' for them. Perhaps you don't know what is 'best'. Perhaps they are more hardy, intelligent, resourceful, and full of potential, than you ever could imagine.
Perhaps what is 'best' for them right now is not to want - or need - your help! Perhaps they need to suffer or struggle more. Perhaps they are aligning and healing in their own unique way. Perhaps what this moment requires is trust, and deep listening, and profound respect of where they are in their journey. Perhaps you are only trying to help yourself.
Perhaps real change comes not from trying to impose change on others, but by aligning with where they are right now, unlocking all the creative intelligence of the moment, honouring their unique path and their mysterious process of healing.
When you try to change someone, you are communicating to them that they are not okay as they are, that you reject and resist their present experience and want it to be different. You may even be communicating that you don't love them. When you stop trying to change them, and meet them as they are, and align with life as it presents itself, great and unexpected change is then possible, for now you are an a true friend and ally of the universe.
Stop trying to change others, and they change in their own way, in their own time. Perhaps you help the most when you get out of change's way. ~Jeff Foster
"Whatever it is, stop trying to figure it out right now.
Let it remain unresolved for a little while.
Stop trying to fast-forward
to the 'answer scene' in the movie of your life.
Trust the present scene
of 'no answer yet'.
Allow the question itself space to breathe and be fertilised.
Relax into the mysterious ground of Now."
- Jeff Foster
In so many different ways, throughout our lives
we receive the same basic invitation:
to come out of our complicated 'story',
and remember what is essential -
our own sacred and obvious presence,
here and now.
and remember what is essential -
our own sacred and obvious presence,
here and now.
Here and now is where all life is.
As Dorothy says in The Wizard of Oz:
"...if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again,
I won't look any further than my own back yard.
Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with!"
Friday, October 18, 2013
These two young artists quit their jobs to build this glass house for $500 By Ilyce R. GlinkOctober 16, 2013 4:45 PM Spaces
Plenty of natural sunlight isn't an unusual quality of a dream home. But what about a home built completely of glass so the light would never be hidden? For a pair of young artists, a beautiful sunset and a thoughtful conversation led to the construction of a breathtaking retreat in mountainous West Virginia.
Photographer Nick Olson, 27, who works with old-fashioned labor-intensive photographic processes, and designer Lilah Horwitz, 23, who makes "site-specific clothing," met at an artist’s residency in Pennsylvania. Early on in their relationship, Olson invited Horwitz to join him on a trip to his family’s property in southern West Virginia. One evening, the two went on a walk in the woods that resulted in an artistic vision.
As the sun sank behind a hill, the couple began talking about how amazing the light appeared at that moment. What if, they pondered, there could be a living space where light changed based on the time of day?
“Light is so different in the morning, at noon and at dusk. We wanted to somehow build a house so that change happened in our living space,” Olson said. “It’s about being closer to living with the elements.”
Both Olson and Horwitz had summer plans to work at their current jobs, but agreed they had suddenly discovered a project worth pursuing.
In what Olson calls a “spur-of-the-moment decision,” the new couple quit their jobs, rented a U-Haul and began driving state to state to find the right windows for their retreat.
The couple's unique cabin was featured in "Half Cut Tea," a Web video series that explores artists and their works. (Their episode is at the bottom of this blog post.) Olson is friends with one of the series creators, Jordan Wayne Long, a performance artist originally from Bald Knob, Arkansas, who interviewed the couple and showcased their cabin.
Most of the windows the couple collected were found or scavenged, Olson said. Some were purchased, but not many. The first the couple found was in a big stack of old windows at an abandoned barn in Pennsylvania. Horwitz describes finding that window as “serendipitous.”
When they had collected enough glass, the two began constructing the cabin on the family land near New River Gorge National River park. The closest town to the property is Hinton, West Virginia, Olson said.
The building process was sometimes frustrating, Horwitz said. The two built the entire structure themselves – their only audience was the occasional curious deer, rabbit or fox. The home’s front window wall is about 16 feet high, but the base of the structure is another 4 feet off the ground, Horwitz said.
“It was just the two of us trying to put up these gigantic posts. It was scary and hard,” she said. “Looking at it now, it’s just totally insane. It’s huge. I realize now that’s what makes it so amazing.”
Olson credits an artistic vision and frugality with their success. While living on a diet of rice and beans, the two used nails, wood and anything salvageable from an old barn on the property to piece their structure together. They estimate they spent $500 in total on the project.
“Even the roofing we took from the abandoned barn,” Olson said. “We were able to make it a reality because we are first artists and creators. We had to be resourceful to do it cheaply.”
After months of work, the home was completed in December. On what was once a pile of old windows and a patch of wooded land stood a beautiful glass-faced building. Though there is no plumbing or electricity, the two artists said they enjoy the space as an escape.
Horwitz described her favorite time of day inside the home as the “nighttime sun” – just as dusk falls.
“That’s when everything inside is on fire,” she said.
Olson said he’s awestruck after the sun goes down.
“The house is an experience at night,” Olson said. “The fireflies start at the ground and merge to the stars up above. It’s really like you’re sleeping under the stars.”
Someday Olson and Horwitz hope to build onto the home and add an outdoor kitchen, solar power and a wood-burning stove, they said. But for now, the Milwaukee-based couple said, they’ll enjoy the home as a picturesque retreat.
[Yahoo Homes editor's update, Oct. 17: Some commenters felt that we exaggerated the characteristics of the retreat that Olson and Horwitz built. We've made a few edits throughout to clarify that the cabin is not made "completely" of glass -- though we left that phrasing in the first paragraph because that was the original inspiration that the couple discussed, even if they built something humbler. The structure is also not meant for year-round living, as a number of commenters have noted. We simply think that the glass cabin and the video are an inspiring story about youth and dreams.]
Thursday, October 17, 2013
This & That
Real-World Art by Baby-Starfish
I laugh every time I see this on my daily elevator rides.
Hmmmm...
Although I've yet to encounter a flasher,
it does give me peace of mind.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Remembering
The first time I remember hearing this song was 1964.
I was on a tennis court in Abilene, Texas, with three friends:
my best friend, Stephanie,
my former boyfriend, Richard,
and my new boyfriend,
Robert.
We were "playing at tennis", as an excuse to be together.
Stephanie and Richard were a new "item",
and Rob and I were just on the verge of having
a "relationship".
Thanks to the Beatles,
the pleading lyrics and pulsing beat of
"I Want to Hold Your Hand"
communicated clearly the message of the day,
without us having to say a word.
Hand-holding followed soon thereafter!
(Thanks, guys...)
The Backstory
On February 9, 1964, the Beatles played that song and three others for Sullivan and tens of millions of home viewers ... and barbers across America wept. The No. 1s hardly stopped for the Beatles after that point ... with "She Loves You," one of the songs Capitol had passed on and let go to a lesser label, being reissued and becoming their second American chart-topper.
What was it about this song? Some say it could have been any Beatles tune at that moment — that the depression and angst caused by the Kennedy assassination in November had created a vacuum just waiting to be filled up by something euphoric.
But any musicologist would point to how extraordinarily well-crafted the song is — especially for something that went from germ of an idea to completed project in about a day and a half. And then there's that essential mixture of puppy love and not-so-innocence. New York Times critic Allan Kozinn contended in his book on the Fabs, "The song is actually quite subversive. The innocent declaration of the title was exactly the sort of thing that would assure parents that the Beatles were safe and wholesome; yet for anyone listening closely, the music tells a different story."
Bob Dylan thought the lyrics were much more subversive than they were. Like some other listeners, he thought that the repeated "I can't hide" line actually said "I get high," so he assumed the Beatles were extolling pot, only to find, when he met them in '64, that they hadn't even tried it yet.
Guns Up!
When we moved here four years ago,
TTU football,
under the leadership of Mike Leach, was a big deal.
Well, we all know the rest of that story.
Lo and behold,
it looks like TTU football is once again becoming a big deal,
with former TTU quarterback Kliff Kingsbury at the helm.
Today's a BIG GAME DAY against Iowa State,
and Dr. Z will be on the field.
GUNS UP! GO RAIDERS!!
Our views from the skybox restaurant yesterday at lunch
My Placemat
Friday, October 11, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Great...just great!
Kabul (AFP) - Taliban militants fighting US troops in Afghanistan taunted Washington over the government shutdown on Wednesday, accusing US politicians of "sucking the blood of their own people".
The Islamist militants issued a statement describing how US institutions were "paralysed", the Statue of Liberty was closed and a fall in tourist numbers had hit shops, restaurants and hotels in the capital.
"The American people should realise that their politicians play with their destinies as well as the destinies of other oppressed nations for the sake of their personal vested interests," the Taliban said.
The insurgents accused "selfish and empty-minded American leaders" of taking US citizens' money "earned with great difficulty" and then "lavishly spending the same money in shedding the blood of the innocent and oppressed people".
"Instead of sucking the blood of their own people... this money should be utilised for the sake of peace," they added.
The US embassy in Kabul has said that it expects "to function normally in the short term" due to the shutdown, though its Twitter feed would not be regularly updated.
Embassy press staff were not immediately available to comment on the rebels' statement.
The Taliban, who were ousted from power in a US-backed offensive in 2001, often use their website to issue colourful verbal attacks on Washington and the Kabul government.
About 57,000 US troops are deployed in Afghanistan, with most of them set to pull out by the end of the next year.
The US shutdown has seen hundreds of thousands of workers sent home without pay after Congress failed to pass a budget for the 2014 fiscal year that began October 1.
November 26, 2007
"If a Cluttered Desk is a Sign of a Cluttered Mind, What's an Empty Desk a Sign Of?" -Albert Einstein
“Mess is complete, in that it embraces all sorts of random elements.
Mess tells a story: you can learn a lot about people from their detritus,
whereas neat—well, neat is a closed book. Neat has no narrative and no personality.”
“When things are carefully arranged and kept in their ‘proper’ time and place and done in precisely the ‘right’ way every time, you lock out some highly useful qualities—such as improvisation, adaptability, and serendipity.”
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Untethered!
This 25-Year-Old Hasn't Owned a Cell Phone in 4 Years, and Loves It
By Megan Rose Dickey | Business Insider – 22 hours ago
Who knew?
10 Ways to Wear Fall's Hottest Hue
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By Connie Wang, Refinery29
You know the color. A juicy red with a slight orange lean, the exact shade that's been your go-to lipstick hue all summer long. Why? It's pretty much perfect. Feminine yet never heavy-handed, quirky without looking clownish, and bold enough to make a statement without overpowering your look.
Guess what - the trick applies to your clothes, as well. You just need one item, be it a clutch, an earring, a shoe or a shirt to throw into the mix. With neutrals, graphics, or even other bold hues, this cherry-lipstick red is our pet color this season.
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