Have you ever entertained yourself by blogging in your head while doing a mundane task? Then find when you get the chance to actually sit down and write, the urge has passed, the moment spent? That happens to me a lot.

Somewhere in the confines of my brain, scattered among the silver dust and copper particles, live the most fabulous blog posts. Hidden from the world by just a fleeting moment, my brain keeps them all to itself.

Selfish pig.

This photo was taken for the photography challenge topic “Time, how it affects things”.

A sad, little periwinkle that lived a full life hanging from our front porch.

I think if we look hard enough, we can find beauty and intrigue anywhere.

If you eat beef, you should read this. It’s an article published in the New York Times several years back.

Discover How Your Beef Is Really Raised

As a current vegetarian, I assure you that my motive in sharing this is to not discourage you from eating beef. Definitely not. In fact, someday, I plan to eat beef again myself. I do love a good steak. However, I think here in this country and some others as well, we are too far removed from our food sources. All we think about when we eat is what we see and what we taste. Our hamburgers either come from a tube of ground meat we buy at the grocery store, or a fast food joint. Either option provides little to no real information about where our food comes from and how it reached us. Since health is something I care deeply about, and you are someone I care deeply about, I wanted to share more about why I feel so strongly about it.

I’m not an animal rights activist. I’m not a vegetarian for moral reasons. The above article is written by Michael Pollan (I’m sure by now that name is familiar as the author of the books In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Delimma) and is a biography of a cow he bought and watched grow from the rancher all the way to the slaughter house and his very own dinner table. I know, it sounds boring, and to some of you it really might be. But it offers insight into not only where our food is coming from, but also the ever growing problems associated with the industrialized cattle industry. You know that whole mad cow thing? And the e.coli thing? And the antibiotic resistant super-bug thing? Those would not be the massive killing machines they are today if it were not for the way cows are currently fed and raised.

I’ve been labeled “extreme” in my views of food. I’ve actually put a lot of thought into that recently because I like to constantly examine and re-examine what I believe and why. It helps me grow and keeps me open-minded. However, the more I think about this topic, the less open-minded I become on it. It only makes sense for cows to eat what cows were designed to eat. Who can truly argue with that? It’s not only for the sake of the cows, but for our sake as well. As Pollan says in his article, “We are what we eat, it is often said, but of course that’s only part of the story. We are what we eat and what we eat, eats too.” I’m far less concerned with labels such as “organic” as I am with getting back to common sense as it pertains to our food sources. What makes more sense for the food industry? Screwing up over and over and scrambling to cover up those mistakes and put bandages on them, or doing what we should have been doing all along? “Organic” shouldn’t be a concern. It needn’t be a regulated label. I hate that it’s a buzz word an the “in” thing right now. Give me a break. Let’s get back to real food grown the way it really should be grown. The way God designed this planet. It shouldn’t be hip and cool and “in” and a topic up for debate. It should just be.

If believing cows should graze on and eat the grass they were designed by our very Creator to eat (or if you don’t believe that way, then think of it as the way they “evolved”) because it’s good for them and, in turn, good for us is “extreme”, then what, exactly, is “normal”? The industry’s position that money and cheap food are more important than human health? Isn’t it funny how “extreme” used to be the norm and what is now the norm would have been extreme just a few generations ago? Are we better off with our new norm? With the ever rising health problems in this country, I think the answer to that is glaringly obvious.

So go forth and read the article. Then go buy yourself a nice, grass-fed steak. Just the way God (or evolution, or whatever)  intended for you to eat it. Yes, it’s pricey. But so is health care. Isn’t it better to pay a premium for that steak than pay for a triple bipass surgery? Or a hospital stay for MRSA? Or an e.coli infection?

Is that truly extreme? Well then, bloggy buds, “extreme” never tasted so good…

I dare you to try something new this week. Pick up a new veggie or fruit at the market.

I did.

I bought a starfruit.

See?

I did not like. It’s… weird. But at least I tried it. What new thing will you try?

This blog post is in response to a photo challenge group I joined on facebook. It was started by a few friends and I. We have a couple topics each week and post photos pertaining to the topics. Got a camera? Like to mess around with it? Want to get out of your shooting comfort zone and expand your shutter horizons? Think about joining!

One of the topics this week was “fruit”. I couldn’t decide, so I took two shots. This second one is much more tasty.

See?

Though still not my favorite fruit. I think that is reserved for those tiny little clementine oranges. Or sun kissed summer strawberries. Or seedless black grapes. Or…

What’s your favorite fruit?

I was standing in line at the post office earlier this week, and in walked a man with a wee little girl I am going to assume was his daughter. Cute little thing. Young. If I had to guess, I’d say maybe 4. Maybe. They took their place in line right behind me. About a minute later, I hear a conversation that went something like this…

Dad: *annoyed* Your nose is all green. What did you do at school today?!

Girl: *defensive* I didn’t do nothing!

Dad: Well, your nose and fingers are green. You did something.

Girl: *After long pause… shrieks* I was smelling the marker!

Dad: *freaked*  Ooh. No. Don’t do that. You really shouldn’t do that! Smelling markers is bad! It can… it can make you sick! Really sick! Your head will… get all dizzy… and you could pass out! And get really sick! And you could… you could… you could even die!! Don’t do that!

Girl: *defensive* But all my friends were doing it!!

Dad: Still! You shouldn’t do that! It can make you really, really sick!

Girl: *blink, blink*

Dad: You’d have to go to the doctor. And you know how you’re really smart right now?

Girl: U-huh…

Dad: Well, you wouldn’t be smart anymore. You… you wouldn’t be able to walk. Or talk. Or read.

Me: *trying to not bust out laughing*

Dad: You’d be like a baby!! And you could DIE!!!

Girl: *apprehensive* Okay… I won’t do it anymore….

Dad: I mean it!! You could die!!

Girl: OKAY!! I won’t do it!!

Me: *done with business, practically run to car to relay conversation to mom who is waiting*

Me & mom: *laugh butts off*

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall at her school the next day.

Little Johnny: *sniffing purple marker* Commmee oonnnnnn, Girl!!! Mmm, so yummy. You know you wanna smell it! Purple! YUM!

Girl: NOOOOO!!!! Dad says you’re gonna turn into a baby and DIEEEEE!!!!

Random kids, innocently playing in corner, sniffing yellow marker: *sniff* *bawl* don’t… wanna… die… waaaaah!!!

Boy, they sure do start young these days. Peer pressure is harsh.

It’s such a happy color. I used to not enjoy it much, but now it’s among my favorites. It reminds me of summer and joy and sunshine.

I was at the store the other day and decided to get some flowers and play around with my macro lens. Poor thing hasn’t been used much lately except for shooting jewelry. It was feeling neglected. Poor, sad, neglected macro lens. I found these gorgeous orange gerbera daisies and knew they were the ones. They shout pure happiness.

See more of the daisy photos here on my Flickr account.

I hope you enjoy.

I went to the gym this evening. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you. I joined the gym. There. Now you know.

I had just sat down on the machine that exercises your quads. I can’t think of what it’s called, but it’s a torturer of a machine that makes you raise this padded thing while your your legs start burning like a son of a gun.

I was adjusting the weight (cause it doesn’t take much to make my wimpy quads burn like a son of a gun), and while doing so, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and saw a blond, older man completely drenched in sweat. I mean he was covered in sweat beads from head to toe. He started talking to me. Only, it was more like mumbling to my ears because I could hardly understand anything he was saying. He had a very heavy accent, Russian or Romanian or something. I caught a little bit of it.  “… don’t have…” “… size machine here…?” At first, I thought he was trying to ask me if they had some kind of machine here. So I politely smiled and shrugged.

It was then that I think he realized he startled me because he said something like “Sorry…  big mouth!”  and pointed to his face.

As he started to walk away, he said, “you’re petite!”

Then it clicked. He was saying something along the lines of they don’t have smaller machines here. Cause I’m petite. Hardy har har.

Okay, Mr Foreign Sweaty Big Mouth. The adult sized torture machines work just great, thank-you. They still make my legs burn like a son of a gun. Though I can’t say they drench me in sweat. Thank goodness for that. Women don’t sweat, you know. They glisten. Or something.

That is all.

It’s not a secret that I love jewelry. Mostly I wear my own, but I’ve bought a few pieces from other artists in the past. My friend Jen makes fabulous pieces, as does Tess, a new acquaintance I met on Etsy. I just treated myself to a pinwheel pendant from Tess. Christmas gift to myself? Mmmmhmm. It’s so cool! And if only it fit me, I’d be verrry tempted to buy this ring from her second shop.

Even though I love jewelry, I was still very surprised on Christmas day when I opened a little blue box. My husband bought me a necklace! Oooh! Gemmies!! It’s a sterling silver dragonfly pendant with mystic topaz stones set into it. Very pretty. It caught my eye when I saw it at the mall a couple weeks ago, and now it’s mine!

In other jewelry news, I’m a busy bee these days. The holiday season has turned out to be a good one business-wise. I’m also participating in an earring swap with some artists on a jewelry forum, and a pendant/charm swap with some of the other fabulous metalsmiths on Etsy. Between that and doing inventory, I might not get any sleep in January.

But it’s all good. One of these days I’ll own a piece from each of my jewelry artist buds. A girl can never have too much bling, you know.

I like to buy things for our little furry monsters. I can’t help it, really. They’re the only children we have! I’m quite certain if we ever have real ones, they’ll be spoiled rotten.

A few months ago, I bought some cheap new toys for the fur girls. They used to go through about one a week, but aren’t quite so destructive anymore. Thankfully they take a month or two to dismember most of their chewies these days. I have this bad habit of buying things and then leaving them in the shopping bags on the floor for days, until I get around to remembering to put them away. The new doggie toys were no exception. I shoved the bags into the office and forgot about them.

Around this time, I decided to test leaving the dogs out while I ran errands. Trixie is trustworthy. Molly… not so much. Despite our best efforts, she still likes to think of our office rug as her personal potty from time to time. But she had been doing well lately, so I figured it was worth a shot.

I must admit, I was a little nervous to walk in the door when I returned home. One of them alone is not bad, but the two of them together could probably tear the house apart, small though they are. I put my key in the door and heard:

*sniff, sniff, sniff… snort. Sniff, sniff, sniff… snort.*

That’s Molly. She tries to inhale the door whenever we come home.

I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the worst. Torn up toilet paper? Garbage strewn about? Urine soaked furniture? Shredded socks? What horrors of doggie life were awaiting me on the other side of that *sniff, sniff, sniff… snort*??

I slowly walked in. Hmm. Everything seems to be in order. No foul smells. Okay, perhaps Miss Snort behaved herself.

It wasn’t until I let them out to potty and watched her as she ran back inside that I found it. Evidence that Miss Molly didn’t quite resist all of her deeply entrenched canine urges. Oh no. She had been in the office and had found what was rightfully hers. I wouldn’t have ever known had she been smart enough to rid her face of the evidence.

I of course followed the sticker’s instructions. You can’t help but love this cute little monster.

Good golly, Miss Molly. You sure can make me laugh.

Favorite Lewis Black bit.

He’s usually got a dirty mouth on him, but this clip is clean.