Babyslime posted a YouTube clip (and I can’t for the life of me get it to embed without messing up the layout), and says “San Diego’s republican mayor has a change of heart on gay marriage – this conference that he held, explaining what had changed for him, is so incredibly moving. It’s long, but it’s worth it. I cried a lot.” Which is pretty much what I’d say too. Watch it.
Now, personally, I don’t (as far as I know) have any family members or close friends who are “members of the gay community” (not anymore, there are a couple in the vast group of people I’ve lost touch with, though), and it would be nice to see a politician have a change of heart simply because (s)he’d thought about it properly and come to the conclusion that it IS discrimination and it IS unfair and what the world needs more than anything is LOVE so why bother about the whom, where and wherefore? Still, a change of heart is a change of heart and daring to do the opposite of what you said when you were elected when you know a lot of your supporters are really not going to like it is quite admirable. It made me hum the line “What kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay” – watch (and listen) here if you don’t know the song – and that is something I ask myself whenever people argue against homosexuality.
Playing around with templates
Of the digital scrapbooking kind, this time. I really need to get the layouts for 2008 DONE as the grandparents seem to expect a follow-up to last year’s photo book. These literature fans are hopeless, you know, you release one book they like and they are on to you like veritable hounds. Really.
Anyway, to get me going (and boy do I need to get going) I’ve been looking up some challenges, and the first one completed is from Weeds & Wildflowers (specifically, this blog challenge). Since they happen to be one of my favourite design teams (the other one being Catscrap) finding products to use was not a big problem.
Credits:
– template from Weeds and Wildflowers template challenge 11-17
– Papers Weeds & Wildflowers, Gina Marie Huff, Being Me kit, the blue is the green paper recoloured
– green letters from Weeds & Wildflowers Gina Marie Huff, Being Me kit
– & from CatScrap Cathrine’s Traces of Print
– cardboard stars and paint from Weeds & Wildflowers GMH Super Stars set
– stitches from Weeds & Wildflowers GMH Believing in You Kit
Oh, and I know it’s from 2007, but since last year’s books were printed in early December, the last few weeks of 2007 have to be included in the 2008-book.
Now, if I can just persuade the administrator of the W&W forums/gallery that I am not a spambot so that I can get the layout posted, I might just win myself some more goodies. You never know. And at least I got one layout done. (One done, a trillion or so to go.)
News in briefs
…or shorts, if you like.
– If the parties that make up our coalition government were in agreement all the time they wouldn’t need to be three parties. Could the media please stop trying to make a mountain of a molehill? (No, I guess not.)
– If Ingrid Betancourt doesn’t want to talk about her experiences as a hostage, perhaps she ought to stop saying yes to appearing on talk shows? (Or: What the f was Grosvold supposed to ask her? “So, uhm, which celebrity would you most like to have sex with?”? No, I didn’t watch the show so I don’t actually have any idea of what I’m talking about.)
– Best line ever on Nytt på nytt this evening and now I’ve forgotten what it was. I might have to watch it again online just to find out.
– Does anyone (outside his and her immediate circle of family/friends) actually, seriously care that Peter Nortug has a new girlfriend?
– NaBloPoMo didn’t quite work out for me, did it?
Budgeting
Is not something I do well. I’m terrible with money. Ok, not so terrible that I need a tv-team to sort things out for me (well, not yet, anyway), but bad enough. However, I have ambitions, and this is probably a good thing, and to inspire me and perhaps give me a few tips (or a lot of tips), I’ve been subscribing to Simple Mom on Bloglines.
Oh, yeah, I started reading blogs through Bloglines lately. Didn’t I tell you? I love it!
Anyway, Simple Mom is having a giveaway, and we all love giveaways, don’t we? This one is for an Epson do-dah that basically does everything except make the tea. Head over and have a look.
In addition to Bloglines, I also started using Delicious lately, and I can no longer remember whether that was prompted by Simple Mom or whether I suddenly remembered that I’d been meaning to check it out all by myself. In any case, it’s great. I keep bookmarking all sorts of stuff. One day I’lll actually use it to find things I’ve bookmarked, too. Kidding, I already do that. If you’re curious about what I’ve been bookmarking (lots of recipies and digilayouts, basically, as well as a general mish-mash of other stuff), you can find me here. If you use Delicious, too, please add me to your network and share your own finds with me.
Get the kleenex out
Then read this.
Congratulations
Mr. soon-to-be President. May you acomplish all you imagined you might be able to do, and have fun doing so.
And congratulations to you, the people of the United States of America. You did the right thing. I am profoundly grateful.
Edit: You need to read this and this (via – yes, they made me tear up, too. Sentimental sap that I am.).
Another edit: Not all the news are good, though.
Show and Tell at Jordbærstedet with Natalie Bird
Of The Birdhouse.
Below, Kitchen Capers, a new BOM quilt which I might accidentally have signed up for. Because I don’t have enough projects, obviously. Ah well.
Tits!
Cheap joke, or what? Here they are:
Dear John
We need a break, my love and I. (No, not the husband. We, in fact, have had an involuntary break of a couple of days and it was horrible, so no more breaks there, please.) My other love, my first love, really: Fiction. We’re in a rut, s funk, the dumps. Peevishly glaring at each other. Finding faults. Niggling. It’s not pretty.
I don’t know what it is, precicely, but I can’t seem to find a novel I’m happy with these days. Ok, so it’s only a few weeks since I finished The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, and that was indubitably a wonderful experience and a book worth climbing mountains and fording rivers for (should such things be necessary), however, that is the only piece of fiction (unless you count what’s in the newspapers, which, possibly, you should) I’ve finished since August, and it’s getting me down. I tried reading Are Kalvø’s Nød and almost threw it across the bus. I tried Jan Kjærstad’s Kongen av Europa and considered writing to Jasper Fforde to ask if he could send a hired killer for the main character (or possibly the author, but that wouldn’t stop the book, so why bother?). I started Cornelia Funke’s The Thief Lord and put it away almost immediately because I really do want to read it so I didn’t want to get far enough to get mad at it. I’ve looked at the books in my tbr pile (the physical one) and I can’t find a single one that says “read me now!”. I’m in that mood where I crave a good nove, but every novel I try seems contrived and petty and full of silly mistakes that the editors should really have exterminated. I’m reading Anne McCaffrey’s Freedom’s Landing and I ought to love it but she used “specimen” twice when I’m pretty sure she means “species” and I get impatient with her for creating minor characters that are petty, ignorant, prejudiced and blatant fools, when all she is trying to do is portray human foibles.
What is a girl to do?
Well, I’ll finish Freedom’s Landing, and then I’ll take a nice long break from Fiction. I’ll see other genres, and I’m pretty sure he’ll see other people, and then in a few months we’ll fall in love all over again. I hope. Facing a future without Fiction is too bleak a scenario to contemplate.
First frost
Pictures from the Wednesday morning walk to work.
And this morning there was snow. Where did the autumn go?