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Snorkeling with Manatees
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Apr. 27th, 2008 @ 08:27 pm
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Recently, Jay and I got a chance to snorkel with wild manatees in Crystal River, Florida.
Please take a look at Jay's entry to read more, see pictures, watch video, etc.
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Maple syrup thingy
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Mar. 29th, 2008 @ 08:29 pm
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News flash: In Vermont, they make maple syrup!
And once a year, there's this Vermont Maple Open House Weekend when you can visit a bunch of local sugarmakers and they'll be expecting you. Jay likes doing this kind of thing (like the Vermont Maple Festival, for instance) , so I agreed to go on the tour with him today.
Details here.
Current Mood:  amused |
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Personal goals
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Jan. 23rd, 2008 @ 09:30 am
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Personal growth goals:
Control moods (Instead of letting them control me)
Less negative thinking. Count blessings. If necessary, think about how it could be a lot worse!
Accept change more readily, and without stressing out.
Figure out some of the things I want out of life.
And, equally important...
Begin to bend my actions toward getting some of those things.Current Mood:  contemplative |
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2008 Penguin Plunge
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Jan. 13th, 2008 @ 09:24 pm
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Hi! My friend Adelie, who, as you can see, is a penguin, is here to help me tell you about the 2008 Burlington, Vermont, Penguin Plunge!
On February 9th, hundreds of people will take leave of their senses and go running into the icy waters of Lake Champlain. And I'll be one of them! (Adelie will not be, she wants you to know. She only goes swimming when there are fish to catch!)
Why do we do this? I'm glad you asked, because it isn't only because we're insane. It's also to benefit Special Olympics Vermont, which provides year-round sports training and athletic competition for children and adults with intellectual disabilities at events throughout Vermont! You probably already know what a great cause this is, but if not, you can read about it at their website: Special Olympics Vermont
I am asking for donations to sponsor me in the Plunge. Please consider making a pledge of any size. Pledges of $20 or $50 are wonderful, a pledge of $100 would be like a dream come true! ... but pledges of $5 or $10 are equally welcome. Every little bit helps! You can contribute online at my fundraising page, http://www.firstgiving.com/carolefurr, or if you prefer to write a check, please make it out to Special Olympics Vermont and give it to me by Friday, February 8th.
Oh, and by the way, please help me by wishing for really cold weather! The Penguin Plunge is especially fun when they have to cut a hole through four feet of ice to get us in the water!!
Adelie says: Yeah, we likes the ice! Fwee!
Current Mood: laden with enthusiasm Current Music: Older, by They Might Be Giants |
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Blonde highlights
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Jan. 13th, 2008 @ 08:55 pm
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Last Saturday night, Jay and I were sitting around watching a video when he turned to me and said, "Tomorrow we'll go to the hair salon and get your hair dyed ash blonde." I stared at him for a minute, then said, "Okay!" It was totally random, but it seemed like a good idea. I've been wanting to do something to make a big change.
So the next morning, we called my salon, Haircuts Plus (because I'm a cheapskate), and got a fairly early appointment. When I showed up, my hairdresser Celine sat me down and went to get the color book. I pointed to a light-medium ash blonde, but Celine said we couldn't do that, because with my light-brown hair, peroxide just brings out a lot of red undertones, so we'd have to go with more of a golden blonde. But I was set on ash. I believe ash colors, which have gray or black undertones, flatter my true coloring more than golden ones. Apparently, though, the treatments they had available would not work to make my whole head that color.
So Celine suggested highlights in ash blonde instead. Okay, I said, sounds fine. Celine then asked me whether I wanted to do it with foils, which cost more, or with a cap, which hurts more. As I said before, I'm a cheapskate, so I went with the cap. If you haven't seen highlights done, it involves fitting a tight latex cap over the hair, then pulling small locks of hair through the cap. Then the locks on the outside get bleached, while the rest of the hair is left alone. Sort of like tie-dye or batik for the hair. Here's a picture Jay took when I was almost ready for the bleach:
After that, Celine put bleach on my hair, sat me under a bonnet-style hairdryer for a few minutes, and then rinsed me off at the sink. Then the cap came off, and it was time for cutting, drying and styling. I was really startled by the look at first, but Jay said it looked great! The highlight color was the shade of blonde I'd wanted, and I didn't understand at first why we couldn't have dyed my whole head that color, but Celine said this process used a kind of bleach that you couldn't use right next to the scalp, because it would burn the skin.
For the first few days, every time I looked in the mirror, it was a shock. But I've had time to get used to it and now, I really like the look. Here's a picture taken by Jay of the final result:
I don't know if blondes have more fun, but I do like it!
Current Mood:  giddy |
| » Mama Furr's Miracle Tea |
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Since it is cold season, I thought I'd publicize my general cure-all for the common cold, sore throat, or cough. This is a recipe handed down from my mother-in-law, known to my husband's family as "Russian Tea" or "Tang Tea," but, the first time I tried it, I liked it so much that I renamed it "Mama Furr's Miracle Cure-All Tea."
Here's the recipe:
2 cups orange Tang powder
1 cup sweetened lemonade powder
1/2 cup instant tea powder (unsweetened)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Mix well; use 2 heaping tsp to 1 cup hot water.
Don't try to substitute another orange powder (like Hi-C) for Tang. The Tang is what makes this drink effective: it's so high in Vitamin C that it feels like you're getting a nice vitamin bath on your throat, and it also tastes good. The spices cut the sweetness to a palatable level. Also the steam clears your nose, if you're clogged up.
When I've got a cold, I make a batch of this at home, then put half of it in a Tupperware container to take to work. Then mix & drink all day long at work. You can use the hot water from a water cooler with red & blue taps; you don't need proper boiling water like you do when you want to steep a tea bag.
It's good stuff. Give it a try, if you're curious.
Dec. 13th, 2007 @ 09:31 am
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| » Cube farm noise pollution |
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Know what I hate? I hate those ring tones everyone's using lately which are percussion-heavy, so that they make a high frequency, penetrating sound that you can hear from ANYWHERE IN THE CUBE FARM.
I also hate people who work in cube farms but have *no* *concept* of the idea of modulating their voices so that other people won't find their conversations drowned out. I can deal with them drowning out my thoughts, but when someone else comes to my cube, and we're talking in moderate voices, and a blaring voice comes over the wall from that clueless person, so that I have to raise my voice to hear myself think, that bothers me a little bit.
Dec. 3rd, 2007 @ 10:24 pm
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| » Halloween fun |
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Maybe you have exciting Halloweens where you live. Maybe you go to parties, or you have a local street parade that's worth going to. Or maybe you at least look forward to meeting trick-or-treaters at your door, that is if you aren't leading your own rugrats around.
Not us. We aren't cool enough to get invited to parties. I'm too crowd-phobic for the parades. We don't even get trick-or-treaters ... we were crushingly disappointed the first year we moved to this neighborhood, when we had decorated the house to the nines, and laid in twenty pounds of candy, and then didn't get A SINGLE ONE.
But this year, we had Halloween fun. We entered an Underwater Pumpkin Carving Contest. Yes, really! Follow the link if you don't believe me.
Oct. 29th, 2007 @ 07:01 pm
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| » Dumbledore is gay! |
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If you haven't heard about it already, let me be the first to tell you: Dumbledore is gay. Jo Rowling announced it in a public appearance at Carnegie Hall. You can read about it at this link:
Dumbledore is gay, 'Harry Potter' author reveals
I heard about it on Saturday morning, when Lemur brought me a printout of that article. My reaction: Equal parts surprised and thrilled!
I'm thrilled because it's wonderful to expose millions of readers to the idea that somebody whom they've "known" for years, who is a wonderful, wise, kind, brilliant person, can also be gay. And that doesn't change what a great person he is.
I'm surprised because I never thought she'd do it.
( More about my speculations behind the cut )
I really didn't think she had the guts. I underestimated her. Way to go, Jo!! She actually said that if she'd known it would make fans so happy, she'd have announced it years ago! Can you imagine the impact that would have had?
My only regret about this revelation is that now, the people who have always claimed she was satanic and anti-religion will think they've been proven right. Yeah, that's right -- she believes in tolerance, she must be anti-Christian. Right. I think the last book in the series showed her Christian beliefs pretty darn clearly.
Oct. 21st, 2007 @ 10:47 pm
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| » Alaska Cruise, Day 3: Juneau |
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We've fallen behind schedule a little (ha, a lot) on our vacation photos, but finally, here's our first port of call: Juneau, Alaska.
This day is worth looking at, because we went zip-lining. If you do nothing else, watch the videos!
Juneau, September 9, 2007
Oct. 18th, 2007 @ 10:44 pm
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| » Hiking on Mt. Mansfield again |
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I posted a couple weeks ago about this year's big mountain climb for me and Jay. Unfortunately, that climb fell short of the summit.
Jay didn't want to let that go, so last weekend, he drove me up to the top of the Mt. Mansfield Toll Road, from whence we hiked to the Forehead. (Mount Mansfield's profile looks like the face of a man lying down. Its various peaks are called the Chin, the Forehead, the Nose, the Adam's Apple. The true summit is at the Chin.)
Anyway, Jay's posted a page of nice photos of our hike here: To The Forehead!
Oct. 18th, 2007 @ 02:17 pm
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| » Driveway repairs |
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About a week ago, I posted about the fun of having our driveway repaired. I said I'd taken photos and "maybe I'd add them later."
Well, hubby put them up on a page of our website, so if you're really bored, have a look:
http://www.furrs.org/images/driveway/default.htm
Oct. 18th, 2007 @ 01:33 pm
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| » My birthday (October 8, 2007) |
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I had a birthday a week ago. Happens every year. Can't seem to stop them.
Hubby posted an entry with all the details, see here: birthday
Oct. 14th, 2007 @ 10:50 pm
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| » Volunteer Punkin' Patch |
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If you've been a gardener for many years, you know what a "volunteer" plant is (whether you know you know, or not): a plant that grows where it wasn't planted, because some other plant dropped seeds there the year before. For example, this year I moved my tomato garden, because last year's didn't do very well (they say tomatoes are vulnerable to viruses in the soil, and you should rotate the crop every few years). We planted roses where the tomatoes used to be, and we got this impressive volunteer tomato vine:
Damn tasty tomatoes, too ... which was a surprise: volunteer plants are the mutts of the plant family, and you don't know what you're gonna get.
But the real volunteer success story this year was due to another type of plant littering. :) We belong to a CSA (if you don't know what a CSA is, follow this link: What's a CSA?), which means we have a lot of surplus vegetables sometimes. Last year we had a lot of winter squash that we never got around to cooking, all kinds. Well, another thing about country living is that we have to pay for all our garbage, so we're a little ... creative about trash when it's biodegradable. Some folks create a compost heap. We've never been that organized. We just heave everything over our porch rails (yep, I'm blushing) where at least some of it isn't wasted: the meat scraps are taken by skunks and foxes; the leafy things by the bunnies. But the squash, well, it just rots under our hedges.
Surprisingly, as this summer wore on, a really healthy pumpkin plant emerged from the squash graveyard. It grew ten-foot vines in every direction, and I'm sorry to say I don't have photos of it when it was alive. Last night, we finally had our first frost (it's never this late up here) and it was time to pick the pumpkins. Here's our harvest:
We have six pumpkins that are orange or partly orange, and five that are yellow or partly yellow. (I don't think the yellow ones are going to ripen well, but they had to be picked once the vine froze.) The biggest pumpkin is 4 pounds, 14 oz. (They are from a pie variety, not a jack-o-lantern variety. My husband makes a damn fine pumpkin pie -- recipe here.) To give you an idea of the vine, here's a photo of it today, after being frozen and harvested and otherwise pulled out of the grass:
So, I was just thinking: Everyone knows volunteers are sincere about what they do. Everyone knows Vermonters are sincere. D'you think that when the Great Pumpkin goes looking for the most sincere pumpkin patch, he might look our way?
Oct. 14th, 2007 @ 06:17 pm
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| » Birthday rescheduled for driveway repairs |
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Monday was my birthday, if you haven't already heard. I believe Jay passed on the news. My company offers one's birthday off as an official benefit, but Monday is billing day at my office, so I had to work. Today I got to take my day off in return.
Today we had a contractor come to repair several patches of our driveway which were broken up due to frost heaves. I took a bunch of pictures, maybe I'll add some to this post later. It's nice to have that done.
*sigh* When you own property, I'm beginning to realize, you always need to have something fixed. When I was outside talking to the driveway contractor, he pointed to a part of our roof that apparently really needs to be re-shingled. That's going to cost us, but he said if we don't get it done, we might be seeing leaks this winter. That would suck. So I guess the next project is, find a roofer or two to give us estimates.
Oct. 11th, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
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| » Cruising right along ... Alaska Cruise, Day 2 |
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Day 2 of the Alaska cruise was a day at sea. Here are a couple dozen photos of us roaming around the ship.
Alaska Cruise, Day 2
Oct. 5th, 2007 @ 11:07 pm
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| » Alaska Cruise, Day 1 |
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Here's the second page of photos of our trip, featuring the first day of the cruise. It's not very exciting, but you get to see our tiny stateroom, decked out with anniversary decorations. And me eating a strawberry, if you're bored enough to watch the videos. :)
Alaska Cruise, Day 1
Oct. 4th, 2007 @ 10:08 pm
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| » Vacation photos |
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Two weeks ago, Jay and I returned from our 10th anniversary cruise to Alaska, which ran seven nights, September 7-14. What with work and other things to keep us busy, we're just now getting our photos edited and posted.
We are trying to complete one day's photos each day over the next week. Tonight, we are publishing photos and videos from "Day 0", the day before the cruise, which we spent in Seattle.
To follow our postings day by day, click the following link: Alaska Cruise 2007
To go directly to Day Zero's posting, click this link: Seattle, September 6, 2007
These links will open in new windows.
Enjoy!
Oct. 3rd, 2007 @ 11:02 pm
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| » Hiking the Rock Garden Trail (Video) |
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Video from Saturday's hike on Mount Mansfield. Yes, they call this a "trail".
Sep. 30th, 2007 @ 10:32 pm
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| » Climbing Mt. Mansfield |
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About once a year, Jay gets me to agree to a major hike up one of the local over-4000-foot peaks. This weekend was that time for this year. We hiked up Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest mountain. Sadly, we did not summit. That's because (1) we picked a harder trail than we've done most times, (2) it's rained a few times this week, so there were slicks of wet leaves all over the trails, and (3) we're pretty out of shape.
Me especially. Between these big mountain climbs, I always forget that on the ascent, my heels spend a LOT of time rubbing the back of my boot. Luckily, I had molefoam (and scissors) in my pack, which made me good for a few more hours after I put it on. And I caught the hot spots before they became blisters.
We did manage to visit Butler Lodge, a camping cabin maintained by the Green Mountain Club for people who spend a night on the trail. My husband is so taken with our new WhisperLite ultralight camp stove, and the discovery that I will eat reconstituted camp food, if it tastes good enough and I'm hungry, that he brought the essential gear and foil packets for a hot lunch. So while we were visiting Butler Lodge, we ate Katmandu Curry and Chocolate Mousse for dessert. Not bad stuff. Jay's been trying to talk me into doing an overnight hike sometime, and now that I've seen what Butler Lodge was like, I'm much more likely to agree. It was really nice -- not just a lean-to, it had four walls and a roof, and a porch out front. Really nice!
One other fun thing about Saturday: EMS held their 40th anniversary sale, and we dropped in before we went out to the trail to use the coupon they sent us. I got a pair of gaiters, which you'll see me wearing in our photos from the day, at this link: Butler Lodge Hike.
Sep. 30th, 2007 @ 09:43 pm
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