**Updated… I just realized that trying to view the slideshow right from here doesn’t always work, AND it doesn’t show any of the captions for the pictures.  So… if you would like, you can click the link to view the pictures larger, then it should take you to the Shutterfly slide show!

Finally!  A post.

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And some pictures!  Here is a slide show of our trip to Prague in November.  I wanted to wait until I got the pictures semi-organized to post about the trip, and I wanted to post about the trip before I posted a bunch of my other random thoughts, and now I have finally gotten through the pictures.  It may look to you, with over 120 pictures, that I did not actually do any sort of editing or organizing.  BUT – I did!  This is pared down from over 400 pictures – gotta love digital, right?  No worries about taking picture after picture after picture after picture.

So, Prague was awesome!  I got to go for free, to speak at a work-related conference, and Tina went along with me.  The speaking went pretty well… it was a bit more adventurous than the other conferences I’ve done – most of the audience was great, but 2 guys were kind of… confrontational!  It was crazy!  But I made it through and went on to do some sight-seeing.

Some of the coolest things we saw were pretty much accidental – mostly when we were looking for bead shops that we’d found online.  One was a lovely little outdoor Christmas market where we got some tasty treats and cute souvenirs.  Another was in a different area of town… we got out of the metro station, and it looked like there was going to be a big street festival – a band was there, the street was blocked off, lots of activity.  We turned the corner, and there was a huge crowd of people, yelling and carrying signs.  There were news cameras and lots of police too!  Being that the signs were all in Czech, we couldn’t tell what was going on.  I googled from my phone (I still had it at that point!) and figured out we were there for a reenactment and celebration of the student protest that kicked off the Velvet Revolution!  Big day for the Czech Republic!  Er… I guess at that point, it was a big day for Czechoslovakia.

We also got to see a police station.  I got pickpocketed on the metro – jerks took my phone and my wallet (only cards – no cash) – so I filed a police report in case I ever need it.

There are lots of pictures from Prague Castle and from Vyšehrad.  I won’t go into history lessons here (that’s why we have Google and Wikipedia!), but these were some of my favorite places.  The castle is amazing – and I was absolutely blown away by St. Vitus’s Cathedral there.  So beautiful!  Our hotel and the conference center were right at the Vyšehrad metro station, and one of my guidebooks listed a walking tour of the area that looked a little interesting, so we took part of a day to do that.  It was lovely – gorgeous views of the rest of the city, beautiful church, amazing cemetery… While we were definitely not the only tourists there, it seemed like a world away from the hustle and bustle of convention centers and major tourist attractions.  The cemetery was cool (does that sound disrespectful or sacrilege or anything to say that??) – we saw where Dvorak is buried, and I recognized lots of old Rock Springs names, which I thought was just fascinating!

Since this post is forever long already… I think I will save some for updates over the next few days.  I could devote days to just food…

I should look into being rich so I can hire myself a driver.

So, back in my younger days, I might have had a bit of a bad temper.  I know that will come as a shock to some of you.  And, back in my younger days, my temper may have once in a while translated into a tiny bit of road rage.  Again, shocking.  BUT – now that I am older and wiser, I have mellowed out.  Even when there are people out there driving like idiots, not merging, cutting me off… I don’t usually get mad about it anymore.  I mean, that would just make me then drive like a jackass, which would then make more people mad, and it doesn’t help anyone.  Plus, who knows, maybe that person had a way worse morning than I did – I don’t know their stories, so I should try to be as polite as possible!

Well!  This morning challenged me.  A big mean Buick driver on her cell phone (with no headset!) did bad things and made me MAD not even 2 minutes into my commute.  Then she yelled at me (one hand on the cell phone, and one hand gesturing at me).  Then she tailgated me.  So a couple of miles later, she’s still being a jackass, but I was calming down and trying to maintain my 2-second rule behind the Cavalier in front of me.  We’re all driving along, and everyone slowed down suddenly, but with my 2-second rule, I was in pretty good shape.  And in slow-motion (apparently I had a LOT of time for thought!), I thought, wow, that Cavalier will be lucky, it’s getting REALLY close to the Explorer, but the brakes are on, so no prob – BAM!!!!!!  She hit the Explorer.  Then the Explorer got all zig-zaggy and went off the other side of the road, and may or may not have clipped the big mean Buick!!  This may have been the first time I actually witnessed an accident that I wasn’t actually in.  I was feeling blessed!  But nervous.

When I went to grab lunch today, I realized after I grabbed my coat that I didn’t have my keys and they were probably in the car.  The locked car.  I almost got to try out my shiny new AAA card, but I keep a spare car door key in my desk.  In my almost 10 years there, this is only the 2nd time I’ve gotten to use the spare car key!  Yippee!

There’s a new kitty a couple of houses down from mine.  He’s an outside kitty, and I kind of want to steal him and give him a nice happy safe life indoors.  I was driving home from work, in the DARK (thanks to daylight savings), and saw this weird reflection at the end of my street (by my house).  Lucky for new kitty, his eyes reflect headlights really really well, so I was able to avoid him, since he had no intention of moving off of the street. 

So… I think it would be good to have a chauffeur.  That would make life easier, right?

Here’s what I did, learned, and observed in Vegas last week (at least the parts I can tell you, tee-hee!):

Did:

• Attended a work-related conference
• Presented a session at that conference
• Killed my BlackBerry battery twice doing conference calls with work
• Stayed indoors for about 2.5 days straight
• Talked to strangers
• Won $29 at craps at my favorite cheap casino
• Introduced strangers to my favorite cheap casino
• Drank a glass of grape-juice-like wine from a juice glass at my favorite cheap casino

Learned:

• We may or may not need to undergo a major or not-so-major project to comply with new accounting standards
• There are people in the US (actual grownups over the age of 30!) who have never eaten oatmeal
• Ginormous baked potatoes are a truly shocking site for people who live east of the Mississippi
• Sargento is a much smaller company than I would have thought! 

Observed:

• Being in Vegas right around Halloween, it’s a little challenging to tell who is wearing a costume, and who is just going to work.
• When the weekend plans involve replacing a bathroom floor and toilet, it might be a good idea to stay in Vegas.

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Here is Miss Madeline in her Tinkerbell Halloween costume that I made!  I love sewing Halloween costumes!!  She chose the pattern from a pattern book, and she chose the fabrics (with a little bit of guidance…).  The skirt is 4 layers of lovely shimmery pink organza.  It was supposed to be one layer of organza and 4 of tulle, but apparently I have a hard time reading instructions.  So… this way it’s not so itchy, right?  The bodice is one of those cute glittery satins… the kind that tend to leave little bits of shimmer anywhere they lay down!  If I have to iron anything soon, I’ll end up sparkly.  Or farkly, as Maddie would say…  The wings tend to shed some glitter too, so our sofa is pretty farkly too.  Fun!

Here is a video of her spinning in circles.  We wanted to see how the skirt would look – especially those awesome petals – when they were spinning as fast as she could spin.

Tomorrow… some of what I learned, observed, and did in Las Vegas.

So, I’m in Vegas this week.  Got here yesterday morning, attended a conference all day, went to bed early, got up early and presented, then spent all day attending more conference sessions.  I learned LOTS!  And found LOTS of cool software type stuff my company should buy.  But… I am a boring boring old girl.  I mean, it’s Vegas!  I should be rolling dice and shooting money into slot machines, right?!

I’m actually feeling just the tiniest bit gypped.  Yes, even with my most-expenses-paid trip to Vegas.  Yea, I’m a whiner.

So, for some odd reason that I’ll never understand, I’ve been dying for a massive snowstorm to hit.  We didn’t even have a normal hot summer, but I’m still dying for big snow.  Instead, I’m in a place that should be in the 70’s and 80’s now… but NO!  It’s cold, gray, and WINDY here.  Back home?  SNOW!  MASSIVE HUGE SNOW!!!  The kind of snow that calls for SNOW DAYS!!!  My work was actually cancelled today (which I learned via BlackBerry immediately following the session I presented) and starts late tomorrow (and possibly cancelled tomorrow), and I can’t even be somewhere hot and sunny to rub it in.  Do you all feel bad for me?

If I win a grand or so at the craps tables or penny slots, then I’ll feel much better about the whole thing.  :)

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My dogs got new treats today!

I’ve been reading (er, mostly looking at) Daily Coyote for a while now.  I absolutely love it.  And no matter what your feelings are about coyotes, the author’s photographs are just stunning and beautiful and cute and gorgeous.  Love!  Anyway… Shreve Stockton, the author, also has an Etsy shop where she sells various things she founds around where she lives in Wyoming.  Ever spend any time browsing around Etsy?!  What a great place to lose a couple of hours looking at things that you must have.  Or must make.  Someday Tina and I are going to open an Etsy shop for all of our various crafts, but we’re not there yet.  I’ll warn you all when it’s up!  (2012, maybe???)

Anyway… she’s been periodically selling dog chew toys made out of elk antlers.  (Yes, in theory I could go gather elk antlers in the wild and file them down and stuff, but… it’s easier to buy them.)  The antler toys got here today, and the dog reactions were exactly as I would expect!! 

Grover (Mini Schnauzer) immediately grabbed the big one, took it to his spot under the piano bench, and went to town.  SO HAPPY!!  If any dog can tear through these things, it will be Grover.  I’ve never seen a dog who can chew like he can. 

Tillie (Australian Cattle Dog) was much more hesitant!  She licked the toy in my hand for a few minutes, then finally took it from me.  It still took her a while to really start chewing on it… when it comes to new treats, she definitely takes her lead from Grover.  If he goes for it, she figures that she has to, even if it’s something weird like elk antlers or carrots or apple pieces.  She would drop hers periodically to go see what Grover was up to, though… It doesn’t really matter what either/both of them have (toys, treats, love)… she generally assumes that his is better, and it’s her job to take it away.  We think we heard him actually growl at her once, but it might have just been his teeth scraping his new treat.  He NEVER growls at her, no matter how bratty she is to him.  I’m pretty sure she’s the only person (ha ha) that he just lets do what she wants without ever the threat of growls or teethmarks.

After his teeth got tired, he left it there for her, so she could figure out that they BOTH HAD THE SAME TREAT.

Do you ever wake up with a song in your head?  (Not one of those annoying ones that you can’t stand to have there.  Just a song.  Usually a good one.)

We were listening to some tunes the other night while we were playing cards, and “Chevy Van” came on.  Awesome song, with some (probably unintentionally) funny lyrics, like “Get some sleep and dream of rock and roll.”  Plus, you have to love a song about a Chevy, right?  So, we’ve been cracking up and repeating that line around here every night for… a while.  So far, it never gets old!  We crack ourselves up around here.

So, I wake up with completely random songs in my head ALL the time.  There’s really no logic to it, either.  I’ve started paying attention to what I listen to at  night or hear in the car, and seeing if there’s any connection… there’s not!  Just in the last week, my brain has woken itself up to “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” (Bette Midler version), “Just Another Girl” (Pete Yorn), “Java Jive” (Ink Spots) and this morning… “Mighty Wing” (Cheap Trick), from Top Gun.  Sometimes it’s upbeat, sometimes not so much, but always with no connection to anything that I think I’m thinking about.  It’s like I have my own personal soundtrack in my brain.  But the soundtrack doesn’t always match up with the plot line.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring…

This has been one of those weeks where I really wish I hadn’t given myself this self-imposed rule about talking about work here.  Because, oh, there’s SO much I could talk about.  So much that it took me a few days to even think of something else to write about.

It’s getting cold!!  No snow yet here in Northern Colorado, though, even though my Wyoming & Utah people have seen it!  So today, I decided to clean out the garden.  I’m still shocked at how many tomatoes were out there, in every shade from bright green to bright red.  I got about 25 more jalapeños,  another ginormous zucchini, and lots and lots of herbs.

That’s most of what I picked today.  The jalapeños and the dill are under the tomatoes.  I froze most of the herbs in little snack size baggies, put the green tomatoes in a brown paper bag to see if they ripen, and made some yummy pesto with the basil.  My fingers are now looking this lovely shade of greenish yellowish brown – gloves would have been a good idea.

Lessons learned from gardening this summer…

• Plant zucchini in its own area about an acre away from everything else.  A single zucchini plant will tower over everything in its vicinity.
• I don’t really need 6 tomato plants.  One or two would probably suffice.
• Plant more basil!!  Pesto is the best pasta sauce ever invented, and I need more.
• Jalapeños turn red after a while!  Then they’re a little sweeter and not so hot.
• Coffee makes some of the bugs stay away.
• There is a far wider variety of bugs in our yard than I EVER imagined.  Some of them are LARGE!  And YUCKY!  And they like veggies!
• I should have spent more than $4 for a salad spinner.

In other food notes… Tina bought a pizzelle maker on Friday and made lots of yummy homemade pizzelle.  I ate them for most meals until they were gone.  Today… she made stroopwafels.  We had them in Amsterdam last year, and they are one of the greatest most delicious cookie snacks ever (along with the pannenkoeken and the amazing fries from the street vendors)!  And now… they are here!  In my kitchen!  Homemade!  So… yes, my sugar intake has been a little high… just makes me sweeter, right?

I’ve mentioned my new Knifty Knitter toys.  Well, like any time I take up a new crafty pursuit, I have to go all out.  It wasn’t enough to buy the Knifty Knitter set of 4 round looms.  I also bought a Knifty Knitter rectangular loom.  Then, after doing some things with big fat knits, I thought I needed something with a smaller gauge and smaller pegs and smaller spaces, so that I could make smaller knits!  Never mind that I haven’t made anything useful yet. 

So, a couple of weeks ago, I had a nice little Hobby Lobby coupon, and bought this.  (I didn’t pay the retail price you see there!  Yay, coupons!) 

First, I played around with it a bit, trying out different stitches on this.  It’s very cool, and makes much smaller stitches, which will come in handy when I start knitting fancy cashmere sweaters and things.  (Yea, I’m not holding my breath.)  So right now, I’m making a scarf.  (I can’t post pictures, cause someone might end up with it for Christmas or something.  I’m sorry.  About the pictures and the potential cheesy hand-made gift.  Not that hand-made gifts are cheesey – I LOVE hand-made gifts!!!  So much!!  I just think I’m not always as good at hand-making as I’d like to think I am, and therefore, my hand-made gifts end up cheesy.)  Anyway… scarf.  Tonight I finished row 40 of something like 18 thousand.  That’s my guess anyway.  So… no worries about Christmas this year.  2025, maybe?  (Ooh, I almost could have used a Zager & Evans song for this post.  Wrong century though.)

So, right about now, I really wish I could be one of you good vision people.  Even one of the decent vision people.  And especially one of you people who get to have cool surgery to fix your not-so-good vision.

I went to see my eye doctor the other day – like 4 weeks ago.  She’s very nice, and has cool technology & stuff, and I really like her and most of the people in the office.  We talked about my ridiculously dry eyes (did you know that rheumatoid arthritis makes your eyes even drier?!!), and my massive astigmatism, and why I will never ever ever ever be a good candidate for lasik.  After spending about an hour browsing, and making Tina come to the office to help me pick, I picked out some cute glasses frames, but didn’t like the color, so they ordered a sample pair for me in a different color.  Well… I picked a frame from a “slow” vendor, then the frame was back-ordered, so it took about 3 weeks to get them in.  So I went back (and dragged my glasses advisor along with me) when they came in, tried them on, thought they were okay… but they had a bunch of NEW frames for me to try on!  After I narrowed it down to 4 different frames that I liked, I took votes from everyone else that was in the office that day, and picked a very cute frame!  The day after I ordered them, they did call to tell me that my insurance won’t pay for a new frame until January, but I decided to get them anyway.

Today, they called to tell me my new glasses were in!  Yippee!  (Yea, sad.  I’m excited over new glasses.)  After a super crazy work afternoon, I went down there to pick them up.  So the optician makes some adjustments, I try them on a few times, then she comes back out and says “We’ll have to order you a new frame.”  I didn’t have my glasses on, so I couldn’t see her face, or the fact that she was holding one of the temples in her left hand, and the rest of the frame in her right!  It busted right off!  Not a good sign.

Luckily, they had another of the same frame in stock!  And they could just pop the lenses out of the bad frame, and pop them right into the good frame.  Piece of cake, right?  So, they go about moving the lenses around, and bring them back out.  I put them on, and got all dizzy!  They were all weird, like someone had switched sides or something.  She says, “Oh, they are just curved differently.  I’ll go fix it.”  Comes back, same thing.  With thumbprints all over the lenses, so I thought maybe they were just dirty.  After cleaning them three times, she figured out that there was now a problem with the lenses!  They looked kind of crinkly, like someone had wrapped them in plastic wrap.  So now, they are reordering my lenses. 

I’m a little worried though.  If they can do that kind of damage in an optometrist’s office in under 30 minutes… what do you think I can do to them just walking through my house?!