Take a Trip with Imagination

Logic will get you from A to B.

Imagination will take you everywhere.

Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

Theoretical Physicist, Author and Philosopher

I should have named the blog "Idle Pursuit of Pleasure" as my days seem to be more idle than anything else. I did do a bit of crocheting - I'm up to 31 squares now, and we took a trip into the village to look for a book shelf and pick up the car from its oil change. Oh, and a short little snowshoe. All in all a pretty idle day.

Today's word of the day is unctuous (UNK-chuh-wus adjective - 1a : fatty, oily b : smooth and greasy in texture or appearance ; 2: insincerely smooth in speech and manner). The first thing that comes to mind are politicians - how many can you think of that are not unctuous? I've known one or two people from work that have been unctuous - this is not the forum to talk about them though.

For supper we had Italian sausage, with a Greek Style Quinoa Salad (see another blog here for the recipe). It was a yummy salad that I will certainly be making again. It will be great when camping. The recipe makes a lot so the leftovers will be good for a quick and easy lunch. Because of what I had on hand I swapped the tomato for red pepper.

I gave the dogs whole fish tonight with their dinner. NOT a hit. They would barely even pick the fish up (although I was standing in the livingroom and turned around to find that Spike had dropped one at my feet). Even after I cut them up no one ate any. So I whirled it with my immersion blender to add with their breakfast tomorrow - fish smoothie anyone?

My pleasures today all revolve around the little drive back from the village I took in the truck (GMC HD 1 ton diesel): listening to the low rumble of the engine when I started it ; the feeling of acceleration when taking off from a stop sign ; the feel of the leather steering wheel. All pleasures that bring a smile to my face.

A Little

There's always a little truth behind every 'just kidding.'

A little knowledge behind every 'I don't know.'

A little emotion behind every 'I don't care.'

A little love behind every 'I hate you!'

A little uneasiness behind every 'I'm okay.'

A little pain behind every 'forget it.'

A little fear behind every 'leave me alone.'

A little hope behind every 'goodbye.'

And a little 'something' behind every 'nothing.'

Author Unknown

I need lessons!

Today's word of the day is torpedo (tor-PEE-doh noun 1a : a weapon for destroying ships by rupturing their hulls below the waterline: as b : a submarine mine c : a thin cylindrical self-propelled underwater projectile ; 2: a large sandwich on a long split roll with any of a variety of fillings : submarine). Aside from the torpedos in the interminable war documentaries that Carm watches, the only torpedo that I can talk about are the ones that we commonly call submarines. There's a chain in our area called Subway, and even one in the little village nearby. We rarely ever go - I'm just not a big fan of torpedo's.

Someone sent us this link to a YouTube video with a woman singing about losing her memory to the tune of "Memories" by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Its very clever and funny.

My pleasures today: getting my required 10 hours of sleep, even though it was a really late night - and not even feeling guilty ; seeing the fresh snow on the trees ; watching the dogs lie cuddled up in the sun (so cute) ;

Ancient Pastels

shovel the roof, shovel the deck -
repeat...

Today's word of the day is vicissitude (vuh-SISS-uh-tood noun - 1: the quality or state of being changeable : mutability ; 2a : an unexpected change or fluctuation b : a difficulty or hardship usually beyond one's control). We have a large selection of coats due to the vicissitude of the weather. One day its sunny and above zero, calling for a heavy sweater and a vest, the next day the temperature had dropped down to minus 20 something with the windchill so a big down winter coat with a hood was required.

I got into my closet today for some preliminary cleanup. I have a big problem - I cannot seem to throw out an old t-shirt, therefore I have tens, maybe even dozens, of worn out or partially worn out logoware, plain, pretty patterned, etc t-shirts, most of which are too worn even for Sally Ann. Both Carm and I have the same problem of wearing things until they absolutely cannot be worn again - its like we refuse to believe that things can wear out and don't last forever. And then there's all the old turtlenecks - which I no longer wear as they make my head look like a bowling ball, however there might be a really cold day when I need one. I did manage to throw out three t-shirts and one turtleneck though - gasp! Okay - I'll admit it, they didn't actually get thrown out, they got cut up and put in the rag bucket.

During all the closet angst I did find some ancient pastels from school, probably grade school. Which then reminded me that I had an old package tucked in the back of my desk that I got when I was 5 years old. I got out a piece of paper and had some fun making a couple of little drawings. The school pastels don't smear and smudge the way that proper pastels do, but the really old ones do. I'll play around with them over the next few days to see if I want to head out and get myself a new box and a book to go with it - it would be fun to try my hand at a bit of drawing and they are very portable so I could even bring them along camping.

My pleasures today: not getting out of bed as soon as I woke up ; finishing a crochet square with no mistakes ; finding a package of old pastels ; going outside to the raw wind and then equal pleasure coming into a warm house ; smelling roasting vegetables.