Thursday Tidbits
May 10, 2012

Just some odds 'n ends tidbits for today.

* Have you ever experienced the BBC Radio 4 dramatization of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit? Purely exquisite! I was fortunate enough to snag it from The Wisconsin Public Library Consortium digital library recently and just finished listening to it Wednesday night. What a treat!

* Am currently in Agatha Christie classic murder mystery season. I relish listening to and/or reading Dame Agatha's stories either on my MP3 player, or "really" reading on my Kindle Reader. Am feeling "veddy British".

*'Tis the month of May. What does this mean for me? I always watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies in May.

* Am discovering Joanne Fluke's cozy "Hannah Swensen" mysteries. When my Amazon gift card comes in from Swagbucks, I plan on buying more than a few of her books for Kindle.

* Went out in the country to buy some garden flowers at Britten's Greenhouse with my dear dad yesterday. It's always a festive occasion for us to shop for flowers. This year we were about a week later than usual getting out there, and with it being so close to Mother's Day weekend I thought for sure the grounds would be simply swarming with shoppers, but as it was a cool and breezy day we lucked out and mostly had the greenhouses to ourselves. We've been shopping at Britten's for the past 22? years. I didn't buy as many things there this year but did find some wonderfully lovely geraniums and double impatiens.

* Also went for a bit of garden shopping at Mill's Fleet Farm and came home with a load of kitchen herbs (3 rosemary plants, 3 sweet basil plants, 3 parsley plants, 1 dill weed plant, and 1 spearmint), and with some glorious Wave petunias.

* I have "Lilac Fever". *grin* This means I have a powerful urge to plant at least one lilac bush/shrub on the west side of the house, possibly near one of my bedroom windows. In the meantime, the (nice) neighbors two doors to our north shouldn't be surprised if they see me sniffing their lilacs. I like the really old-fashioned lilacs, not these fancy shmancy new hybrids which don't smell nearly as pretty.

* Have been enjoying a good deal of Vitamin L (laughter, for newcomers to my blog) as of late. I increased my Netflix to unlimited 3 DVDs out at a time each month. Currently, what is tickling my funny bone are the following classic American TV series: The Andy Griffith Show, My Three Sons, and Get Smart. Can we say TV Time Travel back to the 1960's?  And as always, it is necessary to my happiness and health to watch at least one Jeeves & Wooster DVD per month. I believe the DVD I currently have checked out is J&W season 3, disc 2. *Bonus Netflix note: I feel compelled to watch either some All Creatures Great and Small, or some Upstairs, Downstairs. I think I am done with Fawlty Towers for awhile, having overdosed on it, if you will, over the past couple of years.

* Ah, yes, but life can be Serious Business. I have not neglected spiritual reading, and have been digging into my Mother Angelica books, as well as two books of excerpts of letters from St. Pio of Pietrelcina. Mother Angelica is down to earth and her teachings are easy to grasp. St. Pio is steeped in the Apostle Paul, and is truly encouraging to read. I hear he [St. Pio] was a grouch. Isn't it encouraging to know that the Saints had quirks and failings, too?Yet they exercised their wills to respond to the grace of Jesus Christ with heroic generosity and love.

* Speaking of Saints, and speaking of gardening: Did you folks know that St. Catherine of Siena was extremely fond of gardening? Perhaps that is part of the Italian DNA!

* Speaking of Italy: I just checked out Frances Mayes' book Every Day in Tuscany (audio book, courtesy, once again of the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium) for the umpteenth time. I also checked out Dr. Blair's Italian in No Time audio book. Am feeling molto Italiano! Va bene!

* Speaking again of things (and people) Italian: Saturday, May 12, 2012 will mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of my Italian grandma, Nani. I plan on celebrating by container gardening (weather permitting), and baking cinnamon raisin bread. Nani loved to garden and to bake bread. And bake cookies. And bake the most delectable Swedish Tea Ring... Yep. If you're even the least bit Italian, you say "I love you" with food!

Well, this has been fun. I'll sign off for now as this entry is too lengthy already. Please do know that I truly pray for everyone who visits my blogs. The Lord knows who you are, He cares about you, and He knows exactly what you need at this time.  Many of you are, for one reason, or another, suffering because it will be Mother's Day this weekend. I know your pain in my own way. Let's point our hearts toward Jesus and ask Him to give us the grace to take courage and to hope hard in Him and His good plan for our lives - even though we don't understand why He has allowed heartache and broken heartedness to afflict us so sorely. God love you all.

Much love in Jesus! We shall all meet in Heaven someday! Hugs!

- Miss Chris

Currently Blackout By Connie Willis see related

Saturday Snippets
April 14, 2012.

Just some little nuggets of information from Miss Chris.

* I have not blogged here at Life Is a Polka in two months, and the blog editor (Ha! that came out "blob" editor the first time! Whee!) has been updated. Sooo, before I have Morning Coffee, I am being a wild and crazy Miss Chris and learning how to use the new editor sans the Magic Bean. Please laugh with me at my inevitable mistakes.

* This winter past and this current spring find me collecting a veritable ton of cookbooks for my Kindle reader. I believe I have 286 or 287 ebook cookbooks for Kindle format now. I love to cook, but I do not love to clean kitchen. I also do not love to gain the weight that I always gain when I cook. However, I do like to peruse the recipes for ideas. Some of the recipes are actually great ways to enjoy fabulous tasting food with fewer calories.

* I have decided that *drum roll, please* CHOCOLATE IS MEDICINE. Seeing as how I can't take Prozac or anything even remotely related to Prozac for depression, I now resume medicating with chocolate (in moderation). The past year and a half or so found me making myself (and everyone around me - in person or via the Internet) miserable because I was too dagnabbed stubborn to eat enough chocolate. Recently, I began increasing my chocolate consumption, and it's made things more tolerable for me. Weight Watchers be damned!

* Chocolate being medicine aside, I have increased my fruit and vegetables intake significantly over the past four months. It is safe to say that I am addicted to California navel oranges. Thank goodness Aldi carries them bargain price at the rate I consume them. Now if only I could get that excited about fresh brocoli and cauliflower - yuk barf!

* What am I going to do when my Kindle Reader's 4 gigabytes of memory is all taken up with books? I have at best 128 MB of memory left! So many good books to read and so little time free from migraines during which to read them. Fortunately for book junkies like me, Amazon has improved it's "manage your Kindle" section. So, I will be able to remove books from my device and be able to find them again in a jiffy. Why on earth do I feel I need 2,034 books (including several Audible titles) on my Kindle all at one time?! Do I kid myself that if I fall asleep reading, I will somehow absorb all of that vast knowledge and/or entertainment by osmosis?! *I am a librarian's granddaughter! There is no such thing as "too many books"*... Unless, of course, they are bad books. The phrase "bad books" is not an oxymoron. My goodness, have you seen the tripe that people are trading with each other on Lendle?

* The Migraine Fairy didn't take a vacation here in central Wisconsin during our "semi-winter" (I really mean pseudo winter). So, when life hands a bookworm lemons, the bookworm makes bookly lemonade. Meaning, I went back to audiobooks - everything from all things Winnie-the-Pooh to Great Expecations by Charles Dickens, to Rocket Boys (the abridged version of a memoir by Homer H. Hickam Jr.), to a number of James Herriot's books performed by Christopher Timothy. Oh, and any number of mysteries by both Dame Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, oh and Alexander McCall Smith.

* This weekend, I am starting on the unabridged audiobook version of Connie Willis's Blackout. Anything Time Travel, and anything Oxford are enough to get my attention.

Well, the sun is now quite up and I need to get in my brief morning workout on the Air-Dyne before I turn into a pumpkin. The pollen count is in the high category, so I sleep by day while the pollen proliferates wildly, and I'm up by night. Last night was peachy! It RAINED! Hoorah! Nature took a nice, noisy bath, as G.K. Chesterton was given to putting it.

Please know that I pray for everyone who stops by here! If you are looking for spiritually encouraging and edifying words from the Saints, may I humbly suggest that you visit my Catholic Christian blog at www.prayersofthesaints.com ?

Prayers and Hugs in Jesus, the Risen and Victorious Lord! We who follow Him are not trudging toward defeat! We are marching to the VICTORY He has won for us! Let's do our best to follow Him with all our hearts!

- Miss Chris

 

Visiting The Life Is A Polka Blog Archives

Once upon a time, before I started having to take Lyrica (pain medication) and before perimenopause threw me into two week long depression spells from Hades every month, I wrote a better blog. My mind was clearer, and my sense of humor was still with me.

Lately, upon checking the "footprints" in my Xanga feedback, I've been noticing that the same string of 16 or so blog posts from the past have been getting a second gander - from readers from Wisconsin to China to Poland and Germany. In light of the fact that I'm in need of a serious nap already today, I thought I would point my visitors to http://www.lifeisapolka.com/?uni38081815-direction=n&uni38081815-nextdate=9/8/2005%2B1:3:53.163 . This is a series - a potpourri - of things I wrote or borrowed from email from another in 2005. I hope some of it blesses and or amuses someone. I will never win a Pulitzer prize for writing, but I did use to write better. Please pray for me that the Lord would release me from my lack of humor. I'm not the only one who needs Vitamin L (laughter).

Happy Trails, and off with me to snuggle in my feather pillow fort while listening to John Michael Talbot music.

- Miss Chris