Any Similar Revival

A picture is worth a thousand words.

I apologize for the graphic nature of this photo, especially to all my vegetarian readers.

The next one is worse:

TWO cavemen, sharing a smoked turkey leg at the Yankee Peddler. I did NOT eat the turkey leg, eewww.

Inside every item made of styrofoam lives its spirit. It abides there until someone breaks the item, and all those pollutants rise to wreck the ozone layer and fall to eternally litter the ground. You can only see these spirits if you anger them. And what is the best way to anger them?

You burn them.

Arrgghh! See its malevolent face, scowling and growling! This is what appeared after I placed a sizzling hot reuben sandwich on the styrofoam, thus angering the plate's spirit.

The moral of the story is: don't use styrofoam!

Don't you think a story like this is much more convincing than all that talk about pollution? I think the environmentalists should use it.

Oh, Aidan. . .You really ARE the world's cutest baby!

It's so fun having them close enough to drive up to visit us! And of course, I LOVE having such an adorable photography subject. . .I took about 150 pictures. . .somebody, please stop me.

Still no power for us today, hooray, huzzah, woohoo! Actually, it's not all that exciting, although it was GREAT for getting my fridge all roomy and clean! Let me tell you, cheese can get very stinky very quickly.

We grilled tea this morning. Yep, put the kettle on the burner on the gas grill and boiled water. I was so happy to have my tea this morning–yesterday I did without, and that didn't go so well. I'm kind of addicted to caffeine. Chad also toasted bread on the grill, which was different. I'll be glad when the toaster oven is back in operation.

Several good things:

We still have hot water. God bless gas water heaters.

We have good friends to babysit the frozen food in our fridge-freezer.

Our big upright freezer in the basement should still be frozen–we haven't opened it at all.

It's not cold OR hot outside, so we don't need A/C or heat.

We can afford to eat out when we need to, and to refill the fridge once the power is back on.

The tree is gone, and there was a crew working on the power lines this morning. I'm hoping to go home to lights and music and the hum of the sump pumps.

It's kind of like camping, but inside, in our own bed, with hot water.

Our power has been out since 6PM Sunday night. A huge tree blew over and broke right over the power lines down the street. It's still there this morning, and so I am at the library, checking email and getting a techno fix. I wouldn't really mind except that I can't make tea. Or vacuum. Or get the house clean for our fire inspection tomorrow. Or see in the basement. Or cook anything. Or get online at home. And that our fridge is warm, and I'm worried about the many many dollars worth of food in my freezers. And the sump pumps in the basement-no more rain please! OTherwise it's kind of fun to read by candle light and not have to cook anything or vacuum or get the house clean for our fire inspection tomorrow!

Anyhoo, we've been busy, so I haven't been posting, but I will HOPEFULLY have something up tomorrow.

Until then, enjoy your electricity!

I started this blog three years ago today, when I was feeling blue and lonely and bored. Here is a link to that first post . Since then, I've posted 544 times, which is roughly every other day. It's better than a traditional journal in some ways, especially in that it is so neat, tidy, accessible, and photo-friendly. Keeping this blog has done wonders for my photography skills. When I started, I only had my faithful little Canon point-and-shoot camera, which I still use. I graduated to my beloved Nikon D70s and Adobe Photoshop later, and I have so enjoyed sharing my pictures with you.

Some people have asked me where the name of my blog comes from. It's funny that I've never really talked about it here! A few years ago, I participated in an online art journal class, and after I made my journal, I found the name, "Any Similar Revival" within the definition of renaissance.

kind of goofy looking, but it served its purpose at the time. I figured that this blog would be a kind of art journal, and it has been.

I know I've written about the joys of blogging before, but I want to say again how much I love blogging–staying connected, sharing my life, feeling the love. You have all been great, bleaders! If you want to give us an anniversary/birthday present, I would LOVE a comment, especially if you've never commented before. I KNOW you're out there!

Football, that is.

We went to the Browns-Cowboys game today. It was my very first time at an NFL game, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. We had great seats–got them from a season ticket holder we know, so we were just 8 rows back on the 15 yard line. With my long lens, we had fun looking up close at the players that hitherto had just been TV sports stars. Darren and Stratton, our college friends from Columbus, came up for the game, and Kristen came with us as my friend. (As an aside, her husband, Mike, was also at the game. But his tickets weren't so good. Think nosebleeds. Yeah, he was a little jealous, but we DID offer him the seat first!)

I have a lot more pictures.

Like 156 more. But I'm too tired to edit any of them right now, so expect another football update this week sometime.

Tomorrow is Any Similar Revival's third birthday!

It's my third Blog-aversary! Three years of blogging! We should have a virtual party or something! I was trying to come up with some fun way to celebrate such a milestone, but then I thought it might be kind of dopey to celebrate a blog anniversary, but then I thought, But I like parties. And so there I am. At a stand-still.

How do YOU think I should celebrate?

The first thing I'm going to do is post some pictures of food. These are some lunches I had this week, and they were so pretty on my plate I had to take photos. You know me: any excuse to snap that shutter.

Grilled chicken, tabouli, home-grown carrots (oh there I go showing off again, Heidi!), feta-walnut dip, kiwi and blueberries.

Mmm, hard boiled eggs, and stir-fry with broccoli, cashews and chili-garlic sauce. Way yum!

Ok, I know you're all rolling your eyes at me because I'm posting my lunches, but I don't care. You could post your own lunches and I'd enjoy it.

Can you tell that it's late and I'm way too tired to be posting anything? I'm getting punchy.

Oh, and I'm serious about suggestions for the blogaversary party. Maybe I'll make a list of my top ten favorite posts over the past three years. Or maybe not. You tell me.

Good night!

Olivia and I have one major thing in common: we like parties. Any reason, any excuse and BAM, party time. Going back to school? Let's have a party! First week of school finished? I know, let's have a PARTY. We were supposed to have this party last Tuesday, but I didn't really have my act together on Tuesday, so we had it today instead. The twins and I baked pumpkin chocolate chip muffins after nap time, and then we decorated the patio with fun stuff I made yesterday with my new sizzix/stampin up toys.

I am super-proud of those crowns. Super. Proud.

Don't let that stoic face fool you: she enjoyed her party. She just doesn't want anyone to know that she's enjoying the party. It takes away from the Olivia Mystique.

I love this shot, she looks like a princess surveying her domain, eating choice morsels:

And this guy. I love this guy.

I love this boy. I am so happy he's only two hours away now! ( I love that big boy too, and I always have.)

And, I really can't answer for these two. But I love the looks on Sarabeth's and Olivia's faces!

(Thanks to my dear Erica for helping out with taking photos)

Whew!

We had a crazy party here tonight, which I only found out about this morning. Heidi and Kristen, those great and wonderful women, decided to throw us a surprise foster/adoption card shower tonight. It was doubly special because today is also my Mum's birthday, which is usually a hard day for me. But being surrounded by all that love and fun really made today fabulous.

Here is how it all went down. This morning, Heidi, Cynthia and Liz were over for family stamping day. I've been moving pretty slowly since returning from NYC, and the house looks like it. I was sitting there in my comfy tee and yoga pants, looking at the mounds of paper, stamps, and other paraphenalia, gaily telling them how I planned to sit around and do nothing the rest of the day. So Heidi says, "Well, we're having an adoption shower for you tonight, so you need to get ready." I said, "Oh!" and I probably teared up a bit, and then I asked, innocently, "where is it?"

"Here," she answered.

Oh.

So I got my rear in gear and cleaned and straightened and changed my clothes. They decorated, brought wonderful food, and people began to arrive. And then something funny happened. All the people who were from church kept walking in and saying "Happy Anniversary!" And I was like, "Thanks?" Finally, it came out that the invitation email that went out to the ENTIRE church said we were having a surprise anniversary party and please get us gift cards.

I am so mortified. Yes, please come to our party (for our eleventh anniversary, big whoop), and we want gift cards. Yikes. I am cringing just thinking about it.

Everyone there laughed when we got it all straightened out, but still, all I can think about is how tacky people must have thought us! Anyways, I am putting it behind me and we are sending out another email explaining, because I can't live with it otherwise!

I will have photos tomorrow from our otherwise fun and wonderful party! Thanks to all our friends and loved ones who came!