Marriage License by Norman Rockwell
Click the picture for an unonbstructed view
Source: Art.com
Featured:

CC's Random Thoughts
Franklin, TN, USA Manila, Philippines

           Temperature:

As of :           

           Temperature:

As of :           
Click for Franklin, Tennessee Forecast Click for Manila, Philippines Forecast

Background pictures illustrate current weather conditions

               CC's Tweets


Sunday, April 30, 2006

Another baseball weekend

Current Mood:

Steve and I went to the park again today. Steve said we *had* to be outdoors--the day was just too pretty to spend just inside the apartment. This time I brought my camera :-).


The batting cage



Steve in the batting cage


Steve in one of the available baseball fields. I could've zoomed in closer on him, but I wanted to show you how nice the day was :-).



Posted by Unknown | 3:55 PM | 0 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry

Lookit!

Current Mood:

Remember the hanging flower baskets I put on the balcony? Well I noticed that a bird had taken a liking to one of the plants--every time I would come outside it would fly out of the basket. I just figured it liked hanging out there.

This morning I took the basket down to rotate it (the sun shines on only one side) when I found this:

I showed Steve and he said that I should hang it back the way I found it so the mama bird doesn't get worried.

I'm going to have to be careful when I water this basket :-).


Posted by Unknown | 8:46 AM | 3 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

My New T-Shirt

Current Mood:

Have you ever seen Family Guy? Steve and I LOVE that show :-). It's as irreverent as South Park, but a different kind of irreverent :-). It's definitely not a kid's cartoon :-).

My favorite episode (we have it on DVD) is an episode called "Wasted Talent." In it there's this one scene where Peter (the father) is running home after winning the last Golden Ticket to tour Pawtucket Pat's Brewery (yes, it's a Willy Wonka spoof :-)). He's running all the way home from across town and right when he gets to the front of his house he trips and slams his knee against the pavement.

I'm sure you've felt that kind of pain: it's like dropping a hammer on your foot. It's the kind of pain where you can't think straight and the only choice you have is to just let it pass.

You can tell it's that kind of pain that Peter's feeling as he sits there on the sidewalk, gripping his knee and going "Ahhh..." with every breath.

Steve and I went to the mall Sunday and just happened to be browsing the t-shirt racks at Hot Topic when I found this :-).

Naturally I got the t-shirt :-).


Posted by Unknown | 4:53 PM | 2 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry

We're going dancing!

Current Mood:

YAY Steve and I are going to start attending ballroom dancing classes soon :-)! USA Dance is sponsoring classes for May and June and dance classes are only $5 per person per session. That's WAY cheaper than the local dance studios which can charge up to $50 a session.

For May we'll be learning beginner's Foxtrot and Tango :-). Then in June it's going to be beginner's Waltz and Rumba :-).

I can't wait--I've always loved ballroom dancing, and having the chance to be able to learn it with my husband is going to be really cool :-).

Labels:



Posted by Unknown | 4:10 PM | 1 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry

Friday, April 21, 2006

Behind every silver lining...

Current Mood:

I was in a very blah mood earlier today. I'm never usually blah on a Friday, but for some reason I just felt melancholy. I guess it's a combination of the weather and my allergies and a bunch of other factors. For one thing, the trackball I ordered on ebay was late, and when it arrived it wasn't what was described on the site. Now I was going to have to deal with probably having to send this back.

When I got home and checked my email though, I got a nice letter from the seller. He apologized that it wasn't what was described; his supplier had assured him that it was the right item. He promptly refunded my money AND he said I could keep the trackball anyway. "Well," I thought, "that was very nice of him :-)." That's a $30 trackball that I essentially got for free. Now that's customer service :-). I made sure I left positive feedback because I certainly was satisfied with the way the issue was resolved :-).

Then I was able to buy software on eBay at a very reasonable price: about 80% cheaper than what it would have been if I'd bought it from the store. I was telling Steve about it, and he agreed that it was a great deal. I was talking to him and checking out the seller's other items when I said, "Oh darnit."

"What?"

"He's got ANOTHER listing for the exact same software that's selling for 10 dollars less than what I just paid for it."

I could almost see him rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. "MUST you look for every cloud behind the silver lining?"

I laughed. "...But gee, man, lookit the size of the cloud."

"Let it go, honey. You got a great deal on that software AND you got a trackball for free. Let it go."

He's right, of course :-). I'm letting it go :-).

...I *should* let it go...

...and I will...

...just let me think about it a few more times :-).


Posted by Unknown | 8:03 PM | 0 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Baseball weekend

Current Mood:

It was the strangest thing Saturday morning: I woke up and looked out the bedroom window, saw the lovely day and said to myself, "I want to play baseball." I was in the mood to do something sportsy outdoors :-). And I didn't want something that was passive like biking or walking. I wanted action.

That mood lasted even up to the next day, which was Steve's day off. We looked up batting cages in Memphis and found a few near where we live. We knew that it being Easter, a lot of the commercial batting cages were probably closed, so we drove around Germantown looking for a park that had a batting cage that we could use just in case.

We drove along Farmington and came across Cameron-Brown Park.

It just blows me away that the U.S. builds parks like these for public use, that it's FREE. And it's CLEAN. It's 55 acres and has:
  • four lit baseball/softball fields
  • one lit high school regulation baseball field
  • one lit combination football/soccer field
  • a batting cage
  • two lit tennis courts
  • 1.5 miles of paved hiking trails
  • a large pavilion
  • a three-acre lake
  • two playgrounds
  • 32 picnic sites with tables
  • barbecue grills and trash cans
  • electronic scoreboards
  • concession buildings
  • restrooms, and
  • water fountains
Anything remotely like this in Manila you'd have to pay membership fees for. And because it was Easter, the park wasn't full of people, but there WERE families that were there just enjoying the day. Fathers were barbecuing on the grills by the lake, children were squealing in delight as they frolicked on the playground, teenagers were jogging along the path--it was absolutely lovely.

We drove once around the park, then drove off to see if the nearest commercial batting cage was open. It wasn't. So Steve said we'd go to Walmart and buy our own baseball gear. We got an aluminum bat (I wanted the pink one but he wouldn't hear of it so we got the orange one instead :-)), a bag of baseballs, and a tee (it's kind of like a golf tee only much bigger for playing baseball). After we got our equipment we drove back to Cameron-Brown Park.

We went to the batting cage and Steve set up the tee for me to use. I haven't held a baseball bat since high school and knew I was out of practice.

It was embarrassing just how out of practice I was :-). At one point I asked Steve, "How's my form?" His reply was, "You don't want to know. Right now I just want you to concentrate on hitting the ball."

He and I took turns hitting the ball off the tee then Steve asked me if I wanted to try hitting a moving target. I said yes, so he took his position behind the pitching screen and started throwing me underhanded pitches.

That was MUCH more fun :-). And strangely enough, it hurt less than hitting the ball off the tee. I learned how it feels and sounds when the ball hits the bat just right and it whizzes into the air. Steve told me the sound coming off of a wooden bat was cooler, but I liked the "Tink!" sound the aluminum bat makes too :-).

We took turns doing that for about an hour and half, then we packed up and went home. It was a great way to spend a Sunday. I'm looking forward to us doing that more often :-). Next time we're packing a picnic lunch :-).


Posted by Unknown | 5:52 AM | 0 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry

Thursday, April 13, 2006

It always amazes me...

Current Mood:

I sit at my husband's desk to blog when I notice something that looks like two college textbooks. I pick one up, it says "Three Kingdoms--A Historical Novel."

I read on. "Translated from the Chinese with Notes...the Iliad of China...Complete and Unabridged." It's got a bookmark after the first few pages. I flip through the book. The whole thing's like, font size 8.

First feeling: disbelief. He can wade through this stuff?

Next feeling: envy. *I* couldn't wade through this stuff. And he's going to read TWO of these?

Next feeling: pride and affection. My husband's SO freakin' cool :-).

Labels:



Posted by Unknown | 7:15 PM | 0 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Lots more breathing space

Current Mood:

Today I bought extra storage for my laptop--it only had about 3GB of space left and I knew I wouldn't be able to manage it for much longer. I was originally thinking of getting a new laptop altogether, but an external hard drive is MUCH cheaper and I wouldn't have to deal with re-installing all the programs that I use :-).

So I looked around on the web for a good deal and external hard drives are still pretty expensive...but I found an 80GB one on the CompUSA website that was only $50 :-)! And it wasn't a bad one either--the hard drive had good reviews. It was on sale and after a combination of instant and mail-in rebates, the final price is $50.

So Steve and I went to CompUSA to check it out. It really was a great deal, except for one thing: it was an external drive for a desktop computer, not a laptop computer. Translation: the thing was half the size of my laptop and needed its own power supply :-). Somehow I felt it sort of defeated the purpose of portability :-).

We *did* find one that was for laptops, and reasonably priced--it was a 60GB drive. Normally 60GB drives cost around $130, but this drive was the same brand as the 80GB and thus was on sale that week too. After rebates, it'll cost only $99 :-). So we got that instead :-). I'm much happier with this one :-).

See how nice and small it is? It's the size of a 3"x5" index card and it's only half an inch thick.

And my laptop is very happy that it's got a LOT more breathing room now :-). After I moved things around a bit, it's now got a comfortable 8GB free instead of just 3GB.


Posted by Unknown | 7:29 PM | 0 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Balcony makeover in progress

Current Mood:

With the weather warming up, Steve and I decided to get lounge chairs for the balcony so we can sit outside more often. We saw two great ones at Target that we got for about $60 each.

It doesn't feel like anything extraordinary when you're just sitting in it, but when you recline, it feels REALLY good :-). Falling asleep in it is almost a guarantee :-).

When we got the chairs, Steve suggested we get a mat too. He said it would be nice to be able to walk barefoot on the balcony. I agreed that it was a good idea--the balcony floor is cold concrete.

Steve wanted just a simple outdoor mat that you can unroll...then I saw mats that looked like stone tiles. It looked incredibly real and I KNEW I wanted those. I've always wanted to put stone tiles on the balcony and I didn't know how I was going to do it--and here was the perfect solution! Very real looking yet very portable :-). It was like, $20 apiece and there was no way we could afford to cover the entire balcony floor with it having just paid for the chairs, but I got 4 mats for now to line a path from the door to the chairs. I'll buy the other 6 later :-) .

That same weekend Steve's mom wanted to go to the nursery to get some plants, and I went with her :-). While we were there I bought two of these really pretty hanging baskets that evoked images of an English garden.

I wasn't able to take a picture that does it justice. The colors are more vivid in real life, the vegetation more lush :-). I also bought a sage plant that I put on the table :-).

So naturally, after having set all of that up, what would be the perfect way to enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon? Well, with a spot o'tea and freshly made cinnamon rolls, of course :-).



Posted by Unknown | 6:17 AM | 2 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Daylight Saving Time

Current Mood:

I guess the good thing about usually waking up early is that it's not as difficult to adjust to losing an hour :-). I usually wake up at 4:30am so that means today I woke up at 5:30, which still isn't bad :-).

I still need that cup of coffee, though :-).


Posted by Unknown | 6:30 AM | 0 Comments |
Write or read comments about this entry