This quiz is for Grace

You Are Chai Tea

There are many subtle sides to your personality. You are difficult to decode. You are a complex and deep individual. You have many nuanced beliefs, and your mood frequently changes. You are a creative and expressive person. You draw your inspiration from the whole world. You enjoy exotic food, music, and travel. Your tastes are very international.

What Kind of Tea Are You?

This week we will answer some crazy questions brought to you by Berleen, the color Cotton Candy Pink and the number 3,333,333,331.

1. You are driving down the road and there is a puddle in the road. A big puddle. Not one that will really wreck your car or anything, but a big puddle. There is no other cars in front of you or behind you - do you drive through the puddle or drive around it? I will admit to driving around the puddle. I am actually irrationally nervous of puddles. I have some issues seeing how deep some puddles are. At one point in a 2 month period I got caught in a mini-flood on my way home from work (different home) The first time it is 1:30 am torrential rain, I had got off work at 1am , I saw the water it looked to me to be about 3-4 inches deep. Well it came up to just short of the bottom of the door, something got wet, car died. I walk 4 blocks home (did I ever mention I DON'T USE umbrellas?) Wake up my husband, to help me get the car to the side of the road. Fast forward a few weeks, another torrential rain, I detour to a different street ( to this day I won't take either street if it's even drizzling) because it is way uphill. Well there was a dip in the road that had filled with water, and I HAD TO GET CURT AGAIN!!! Amazing I'm not divorced.
2. Go to Google Images, type in any word that comes to mind and post the 1st picture you see.


3. A college calls you up and says that you have been selected to take get any degree that you want on their dollar.... what do you choose? Astro-physics
4. Are you blogging on a laptop or desktop? laptop - MAC
5. Which store, excluding a grocery store, do you shop at most often? TARGET
6. My daughters tried out for the school musical last night. Were you ever in a school play/musical? Which one? Yes, South Pacific, Fiddler on the Roof, The sound of music, Pippn
7. I read yesterday that a school PTA group wants to try to ban white bread, cakes, brownies or any other "treat" from their lunch menus... plus make kids' lunchboxes brought from home not include any "junk food". Thoughts on that one? My daughter's school doesn't even sell gatorade because it's made by pepsi. I think that turning into the junkfood SS is not how we are going to end childhood obesity. Many of the same school groups trying to ban all this stuff are also the districts cutting back on sports and gym. I would have a SERIOUS SERIOUS problem if I was ever told what I could or could not put in my daughter's lunch. My daughter doesn't really eat junk food and let's face it something like a cannoli is not very packable. But there were times when I had to work an overnite or something which made me miss her kiss goodnite and I wouldn't be home in time to give her a kiss in the morning and I would pop a hershey kiss in her lunch to make her smile. Trust me I am a pretty easy going parent about most things, I let the school do what it is going to dom but every once in the while I will go in with both guns blazing. I once told a principal that I was going to do X and she couldn't stop me because it is MY daughter and I have the pink(her Birth Cert)
8. How many people can your kitchen table seat? 2
9. What time is it right now? 3:49 PM on Wednesday
10. Walk out the front door of your house/apartment, turn right, walk 2 blocks. What do you see? My daughter's school.

GOT THIS FROM THE THURSDAY THUNK FOUND HERE

Inspiration

Yesterday I ran into a former co-worker and stopped to chat for awhile. As someone who knew me almost 20 years ago, she knew me not as a knitter (I have only been knitting for 5 years) but as a watercolor painter and ceramic/glass mosaic creator. ( I had made for her housewarming a large abstract watercolor and a co-ordinating mosaic top cast aluminum side table, which she apparently still uses as I saw them in the background of the pictures on her i-pod of her daughter's bridal shower) She was wearing a GORGEOUS beaded necklace/earring set. It turns out she turned the beads herself and then created the necklace and earrings. ( I knew her as an amazing embroidery/needlepoint/cross stitch artist) She will be coming for dinner in 3 weeks and I can't wait. In the midst of our conversation the topic of colors came up. And how she decides on the colors of glass she blends for her beads. What inspires the choices. She always wondered about my color choices especially with my mosaics. Most of her inspiration comes from the world outside her windows. She retired to a cabin on a lake in Colorado. (seriously jealous) she takes slide pictures of sunsets over the lake, the trees and mountains, deer in meadows etc etc. As you can imagine she is in no short supply of amazing photo-ops. She then pics things from the pictures. Clear blue glass for the lake, an opaque brown for the tree trunks, sparkling green for dew on the leaves a spot or 2 of red for birds or flowers etc. Sometimes she projects the pictures blurry on purpose so all you get is the colors.

When I was in high school and college I was a serious space geek. really. I had the walls of my bedroom painted an almost midnight blue, the trim in chrome. vinyl floors that looked like diamond plate metal. I had all kinds of space shots and posters framed in the same chrome painted around the trim ( my portholes) Yes serious space geek. A lot of the pictures from Astronomy, and Sky and Telescope, as well as the prints and posters I had served for my color blends and inspirations.

When I got home, I was telling Curt about seeing B. and our conversation and I realized that many of my current color choices and mixes as well as the handpaint/handdyed yarn I just have to have , are in the same color blends that inspired me almost 2 decades ago. Here are 4 of my favorite nebulae courtesy of various NASA telescopes/sites.



The Eagle Nebula



The Pillars of Creation ( a serious hotbed nursery where new stars are being born)



The Orion Nebula ( my personal favorite, as on a clear winter night away from city lights you can see it with the naked eye)



The Horsehead

Tony's Press Conference

Tony came in third last night. Totally awesome!! Remember folks, this is the first time out with a new team that only had a couple months to get everything ready for this season to start. The first race with a new crew chief ( I miss Zippy:( Zippy had his hands full, Tony likes a loose race car. If he's complaining about his car being too loose, most other drivers would have wrecked. Without testing this year I guess Zippy loaded the car up based on his notes from last year - with Tony in the car. Logano spent the practices complaining about being way too loose. Zippy fixed it and Logano wrecks in the begining part of the race anyway) First live pit stop with a pit crew ,that while the guys practiced all off season, have never serviced a car together under race conditions before. Tony had an amazing crew over on the 20 team - most of them have been together for the 10 years the team had been in existence - and they fired off some crazy fast stops. He managed to avoid the big wrecks - and judging from the shootout and the ARCA race, the 125's are going to be really interesting. There may be some really fast cars not in the 500 due to wrecks in the duels. 57 cars showed up for the 500, only 43 get to race so 14 are going home.

Here's the link to Tony's post race press conference

I wish I could find the link to his interview right after getting out of the car. He totally had the twinkle he gets when he's happy with a race. Last season was such a struggle , we didn't see that twinkle often.

Speedweek!!!

So tonite - in a few minutes the green flag will drop on the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway. The format has changed from previous years. It used to be the pole winners from the previous year, and any previous year's shootout winners still racing. However since Budweiser no longer sponsors the pole, they changed the rules. It was the top 5 drivers ( by owners points) from each manufacturer. The owners points is an interesting catch. It meant Tony, who is now driving for himself, was out of the shootout for the first time in 9 years. It also meant that Joey Logano the 18 year old "phenom" A ROOKIE is in the shootout. And Rookie Scott Speed as well. Then all of the sudden ( I believe with pressure from Chevy who did a lot of lobbying to get Tony back in a Chevy) there was an amendment. Thbere was a "wildcard" position open. Either a past champion or the next highest in owner points. The only real "big name" that put in the race was Stewart. Hmmm.
Mind you Tony has won it 3 times previously. The weird thing is Ryan Newman ( who now drives for Tony in the 39 Army car, whose nickname is Rocketman because of all the poles he wins) is not in the race. And Matt Kennseth and Jeff Burton - both notorious qualifiers are in it. And Paul Mennard??
OK, granted Tony is not really a hot qualifier himself, but once he won the first Shootout, it really didn't matter because he was in. So this should be an interesting shootout, especially watching the ARCA race this afternoon, there are a bunch of drivers in the shootout who have NO restrictor plate experience at all. The race is always interesting because this race is only for the Pride and the Ego and the Bragging rights and the $$, since it doesn't come with any points. So all the drivers are just out to win, playing it safe for the points is not a factor. Most of the cars are not really in this years "stable" so if they get wrecked its no big deal. The starting lineup was determined by random picking of budweiser bottles with flags in them on Thursday night. So the front row is highly questionable, Tony is in 6th ( along side Denny Hamlin) the first row with any experienced drivers. Some really good drivers are in the back of the field - Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon are the last row.
Well enough of this - time to watch racing!! ( Ok started Thursday night) tomorrow is Daytona Pole qualifying, Thursday afternoon are the dual 125s that set the field for the 500. The truck race is Friday night. The Nationwide race is Saturday and the 500 - the start of the season is next Sunday. Woohoo!!! Happy Happy Happy!! Tony is looking good with his brand new team out of the box - he was fast in all the practices so far. YAY!!

Great Blogger Contest.

Check out inspired mamamusings blog. She is having a contest from now until Feb 11. The prize is a $100 blog redesign by summer. GOOD LUCK if you enter. BTW: Curt found out about my blog the other day. Not found out found out, but happened to come up behind me when I was working on it. I wasn't keeping it from him because I had anything to hide or didn't want him to know what I was posting (pretty much anything I post here is only what I would tell my friends at work, so nothing overly juicy) But because he is a network manager computer/internet guru nerd. I was kind of afraid that since I basically just use a blogger template and don't do anything fancy and since sometimes my blog is pretty sad even to me, I thought he'd make fun of me. Yes mockery, and sarcasm are 2 activities we have in common. But he was actually impressed ( not sarcastically, genuinely) that 1. I have a blog 2. I figured out how to create a blog 3. It has colors and pictures and links and things. I was momentarily all happy and warm and fuzzy, when I realized hmmm, so he didn't think I could figure this meager amount out? His answer is well the internet is not really your thing and you really aren't interested in learning more about technology than you need to. Hmmm, but I use a computer at work and can get more info out of it than anyone in the building. His answer - because you need to be the best at work, at home you tend to get your teenage daughter to do stuff for you. He said next time he thought of it he'd pick me up a book I could understand and use. ( so written ala Dr Sueuss?? ) So he said he was proud of me and gave me a kiss. You really can't argue with the man when he kisses....