Adventures In Bus Riding

Okay, I need to preface this post with - I brought this day upon myself. You see, last night I posted a comment in Facebook about being happy that I'd be on the bus today because I had icky traffic driving home Monday night. That'll teach me...

I live about 18 miles from my main office. I'm at that office 3-4 days a week and with gas prices and my SUV I try to take a "Fast" (aka commuter bus most days. Since the weather is cooling down and the road construction is clearing up I decided to walk the 1/2 mile to the bus stop this morning. I left a skooch late and then had to quickly talk to my neighbor. Guess what, I missed my bus. So I turned around and started walking back to the house.

During my walk to the bus my daughter texted me to let me know she had left her lunch cooler at her bus stop. So, I decided to walk to her bus route and just take the Max bus (less stops than a typical bus) to the light rail. So, I trudged along back the almost 1/2 mile and then another almost 1/2 mile and up hill mind you. Just before I made it to the big intersection I see the westbound bus, I need the eastbound so I'm fine with that. I got my daughters lunch cooler - amazingly no one took it.

It arrived at the stop about 7 minutes early and the bus comes every 15 minutes. Or, well, it's supposed to. I'm listening to a book on my MP3 player and I hear a crashing sound. I turn back to look at the intersection and there was a crash. One car t-boned another. I'm not sure exactly what happened, the impact had to have been pretty good because the car that got hit on the drivers side has spun 180 degrees. Eeek! Traffic was having a hard time getting through the intersection because the cars were blocking it a bit.

Just before the bus arrived (9 minutes late I might add) several Sheriffs showed up and were able to get the least damaged car out of the intersection. I hop on the bus and should have known things weren't going to go well - it was a trainee driver. He pulls into the intersection stutters a little and then goes. Well, he apparently ran a red light and the Sheriff actually pulled us over. Just gave the driver a talking to but that added about 3 more minutes to our tardiness.

Within a few miles, the traditional bus (the route that stops every 500 feet) catches up with us. A minute or two after that the bus that should be 15 minutes behind us starts catching us. I was in a seat facing backward and was quite entertained. Eventually, we stopped picking up new riders and just let the bus 1/4 mile behind us handle that job. Then, the "trainer" started asking people where they needed to get off, she was hoping to trim some of the stops but wasn't very successful. We actually ended up getting "lapped" by the other Max bus. It arrived at the Trax (light rail) station about 2 minutes ahead of us and I missed the Trax by about... 2 minutes.

Needless to say, I was a little nervous to take the bus home tonight. I was worried that things could only continue downhill. But, my worries were unecessary. The ride home was markedly uneventful. Thank heaven!

Bathing Suits are Evil

I got this from a friend and thought I'd share. Just another reason to be glad that summer is quickly coming to an end.

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When I was a child, the bathing suit for the mature figure was boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift and they did a good job.

Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice-she can either go up front to the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippopotamus who escaped from Disney's Fantasia or she can wander around every run of the mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of florescent rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room.

The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which give the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you are protected from shark attacks as any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash. I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place, I gasped in horror - my boobs had disappeared!

Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib.

The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature woman is meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view assessment.

The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fit those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom, and sides. I looked like a lump of play dough wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, 'Oh, there you are,' she said, admiring the bathing suit.

I replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two piece which gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard skin bathers with ragged frills and came out looking like Tarzan's Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a rough day.

I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fit...a two-piece affair with a shorts style bottom and a loose blouse-type top.

It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured. When I got home I found a label which read -- 'Material might become transparent in water.'

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this year and I'm there too. I'll be the one in cut off jeans and a t-shirt!

Summer Vacation

This summer I took a little vacation with my friend, Kathy, and my daughter, Nicole. We went to Cedar City to see the Shakespeare Festival. We enjoyed seeing five plays in 3 days. On day four of our trip, we drove up the canyon to Cedar Breaks and hiked out to the point.

That's Kathy on the left and Nicole's backside on the right.

We then went on another hike to a waterfall. The water is actually coming out of an old lava tube. The photo on the left is part of the trail we hiked. As you can see, at times it was no more than an animal track on the side of the mountain. It was an adventure, but it was fun. I'm out of shape, so I kept up moving at a slower pace.

Then, after we were sufficiently sunburned, we drove to St George and saw Les Miserables at Tuacahn. Tuacahn is an outdoor theatre. The "back wall" is a large red rock bluff. It's beautiful but in July it's also quite hot.

Card Candy

This is another swap I created for VC Rocks. The "candy" is adhered to a 5.5" x 8.5" sheet of transperancy film. They're adhered with glue dots. My mistake? I used major sticky glue dots so once I stuck them down there was no moving them. (hee hee) Lesson learned!

These were lots of fun to make but they were a bit of work as well. I ran out of supplies so I couldn't even make a set to keep. I plan on recreating them though, 'cause I love the way they turned out.

I used lots of different punches, and stamps and lots of dimensionals. The item in the bottom center has 1/16" holes punched into each scallop. The scallop in the top right corner has notches cut out of each scallop. The leaves were cut freehand. I first folded a strip of paper in half and ran it through the crimper diagonally. Then cut the leaf shapes and inked them to emphasize the "texture".

Recipe:

Stamps: Paisley background, Stitched background, Always, Boho Backgrounds, Little Flowers, One of a Kind

Papers: Regal Rose, So Saffron, Certainly Celery, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla

Punches: Five Petal, Scallop Circle, Large & Small tag, lots of circles (I can't remember the exact sizes)

Bookmarks

This summer I joined a Stampin' Up! Yahoo group called "VC Rocks". They are a very crazy and CHATTY group of Stampin' Up! lovin' women. Part of the fun with this group was participating in swaps. Since this was my first year, I decided to be restrained and only joined two swaps. I also participated in the Virtual Hotel and made a new friend named Cheryl who lives in Virginia.

I created these bookmarks for one of my swaps. I stamped the So Swirly wheel in Tempting Turquoise on the Tempting Turquoise cardstock. I then stamped it again in Craft white, offsetting the image a little bit. This technique is called faux dry embossing. You'll have to wait a while for the craft ink to try. I then stamped the flower from Baroque Motifs into Versamark and then into Basic Gray and then sprinkled with clear embossing powder and heat set the powder. The Tempting Turquoise ribbon is threaded throughthe hole and then a piece of Basic Gray taffeta ribbon was tied around it to secure it to the bookmark.

Recipe:

Stamps: So Swirly Jumbo Wheel, Baroque Motifs (flower)

Papers: Tempting Turquoise, Basic Gray

Ink: Tempting Turquoise, White Craft, Basic Gray, Versamark

Other: Tempting Turquoise 1/4" inch grosgrain ribbon, Basic Gray taffeta ribbon, 1/4" hole punch, clear embossing powder

Hello Big World!

I've "had" this blog for a couple of years, but I never got any further than coming up with a name. So, I've decided to jump in to the land of bloggers. In the imortal words of Tommy Pickles, "Hold on to your dipeys babies we goin' in".

(In case you don't know who Tommy is, he's one of the stars of the cartoon series Rugrats. Any time they're headed into an adventure he uses this phrase. My daughter can attest that I use this phrase a lot myself.)