mammogram

I go in for my first mammogram today. The anticipation is making me nauseated. I am not sure why. The horror stories of boobs flattened to pancakes are fleeting in and out of my head when I KNOW that it can't be that bad. I also have no money which adds to the anxiety..it always does. Shouldn't I be used to that, too.

The weather should be nice and it is Saturday after all. There is enough money to put some gas in the car and get some bean leaves from my favorite grocery, Hmart on Georgia Avenue. There is a level of rudeness in the clientele and I can't help but be a little turned off by the seafood department, but the produce is lovely and the staff members cooking in the store is also nice. Often, you have to wait for their delicious samples, but it is usually worth it.

Maybe my kids will want to go to a park or something...free.

Today I am going to make another pot of the lovely red lentil soup and a stir fry with the bean leaves and some kind of seafood.

Barack

I just received a ticket to see the president tomorrow. My day is shot. This level excitement is tantamount to any excitement I have felt before, ever. Well, maybe not..giving birth was pretty exciting. I am having a real hard time thinking about work right now.

I hearby swear.......

to not put frivolities on my charge cards, to cancel my cell phone contract and to not sign a contract with another cell phone company, to shop at Aldi for just about every damn thing I need, to shop at the thrift store instead of Target and Walmart, to walk to the train instead of taking the bus, to stop buying movies through on demand and use the Netflix subscription like its my job, to save money to fix my car, to not go on vacation this summer, to SAVE SOME MONEY SO I DON'T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE I MAKE HALF OF WHAT I ACTUALLY MAKE. btw, Sprint and JMS.com are some you know whats.

portrait of a youth

He is hanging on a wall, downtown, right now. What I would give to see this painting in the middle of the night. A private tour of the NGA. Oh my.

http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/tinfo_f?object=22

Iron Beds

I love iron furniture and have two of the Meldal day beds from Ikea. That is the Meldal bed above. One day I will have a house full of them. One in every room. These lovelies below, I found them on http://www.antiqueironbeds.com/.

www.cathousebeds.com has fabulous beds, too.

something interesting to think about

Black Bashi Bazouk by Jean-Léon Gérôme, French. 1869

A bashi-bazouk or bashibazouk (Turkish başıbozuk, "damaged head", meaning "leaderless", "disorderly") was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army. They were noted for their lack of discipline. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashi-bazouk)

Hall at Shinnecock. William Merritt Chase - 1892

A hall is fundamentally a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age, a mead hall was such a simple building and was the residence of a lord and his retainers. Later, rooms were partitioned from it, so that today the hall of a house is the space inside the front door from which the rooms are reached.

Deriving from the above, a hall is often the term used to designate a British or Irish country house.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_house

About "Cranford"....

Wow. I was not prepared for the death and unahppiness. So often, I find myself offended by brutal manipulation of my emotions, but in the case of "Cranford", I am going to be forgiving. Being a single woman (who considers herself single-by-choice) I felt the pain of the women of Cranford who remained unattached. As a person who has found and lost love, I really felt the pain of those women who remained unattached when that was not their choice. I wondered throughout the episodes why these women didn't speak up when I would have. Why didn't she tell her father she was in love with major whoever and why didn't the rector's daughter just say to the doctor that she needed some space to process her brother's death. Why why why? Because that would have ruined the story, duh.

So, I loved it. Immensely. I loved the familiar faces (Willoughby-yum), the town, the country side, the clothes, the animals, the etiquette....all of it. I want to visit the town of Lacock and go to a May day festival like when I was a kid.

Ooooo. "Little Dorrit" comes on tonight. :)

beautiful foggy morning

I think this was last Friday when we walked out into this thick fog. We should have fog like this at least once a week. I know it is hard to drive in this kind of weather, but it isn't too much to ask drivers to be a little more careful. As I waited for the bus people and cars emerged from the fog like magic. It was a perfect morning to NOT be waiting for a bus and to NOT be going to work. I should have walked to enjoy the cloud on earth, but I didn't. Lazy much?

the soup

Here is the red lentil soup I made from the NYT.com. I did change it slightly, adding fresh ginger and using beef broth instead of chicken or vegetable broth. Next time I will definitely use a different broth, but the beef really added heartiness.

Yeah, that is me enjoying the soup. Seriously, I am going to make this stuff again very soon. My parents might appreciate a pot of it.

A few of the reasons I want to move back to York, PA