Love it when you can do this

I read a story the other day about endangered toads being rescued in Nevada.  Then I lost the link.

This is what I googled:  endangered toad br*thel nevada

Not often you get to put those words together!

this may just be stream of consciousness blogging.

Did you know that Fox news also owns the Wall Street Journal?  Am I the only one who finds that...alarming?

Another question, what is it with the huffington post?  I see it referenced often enough, and I have scrolled through a bit, but cannot quite get a feel of the thing.  I don't know how much more often they could put *gag* palin up, and it looks generally kinda trashy, but some pieces look better written, and certainly some of the writers are well enough known.

Anyone?

On another note, I found a place to play tetris on line for free.  I think that was not a good thing for me.

Can you say hypnotic?  Goodness.

Am I the only one?

I imagine not, but am I the only one that gets almost...fearful...when choosing the next book to read when in the middle of a run of really good books?

Just finished a great one.

You know the kind, you don't want to read another for a bit so you can let it settle.

Now, I am kind of worried about what to read next.  Standing in front of the bookshelf, not wanting to jinx this run of wonderful reads.

Isn't it a delightful kind of fear?

Thoughts on running

Not like I'm any kind of expert or anything, but it does interest me how a fair amount of it is a head game.

My head wasn't really in the game today.  I went the distance, in reasonable time, but I kept finding myself walking, even when I really wasn't out of breath.  Kinda like my heart wasn't quite into it.

I also kept wanting to check out the scenery, which is a good thing, but risky to do when running on trails. Then Chuck wanted me to throw pine cones....

then then then

I was walking again.

Weird.

It wasn't in the legs or lungs. A whole lot of it is in the head.  Certainly the same can be said for racing sailboats, though in quite a different way.  And not, there is a certain element of single-minded focus that wasn't turning up today.

Try again later, no?

MUST get the wifi locked, and it is super complicated, and I need a repeater, I get a completely crappy signal up in the painting room and it makes it all super s-l-o-w.

To do list gets a little longer!!

Terrace painted.

The blue, I adore.

The green is wAAAy more pistachio than I was thinking...I had considered something a wee bit more muted and rather sage-y...

but

it's cheerful and that's good.

The architect's gonna hate it.

Too. darned. bad.

Painting painting painting

Not what you were maybe thinking...I was painting the walls of the terrace!

One is mostly done, a lovely rich deep blue.  I do adore blue.  I didn't realise this quite so clearly till the kids pointed out that every time we're at museums or art galleries I consistently exclaim over paintings with a lot of strong blue in them.  What can I say.

There is also some green going up.  I was thinking a sage kind of green, but it is coming out of the can rather more pistachio.  Putting it on anyway, better than concrete grey and it is cheery.  At our house in TO we got one colour that was not quite what we had in mind and it turned out to be our favourite, so we'll have to wait and see.

You can just see a corner of the blue in this picture that youngest took today!

Gonna go check the forecast and see what my chances are.

Oh, and I rearranged my painting space again...the man built some shelving in our pantry - that sounds grander than it is - and so now I have more storage...and a space for tea.

Ahhhh.

It's odd isn't it

It strikes me as weird that things seem to run in batches.

I recently went through a run of so-so books.  They were fine, but my enthusiasm was...low.

Now I have had a lovely run or wonderful books.  Hope this keeps going.

It has just occurred to me that the end of my run of , meh, mediocre books coincides with the end of the massive battalion of anti-histamines, and more, that I have been taking.

Possibly the end of drug-induced comatosis (does that word exist? It should) is related to my newfound enthusiasm.

Did you also know that in Spanish a ? and a ! do not necessarily end a sentence?  You can get the most amazing masses of punctuation, for example, "¡Hola! ¿qué tal?, ¿bueno?"  See?  All that punctuation and there is only one official sentence there and only one capital!  The accent may be in the wrong place.  I can't remember and I am too lazy to go downstairs and check.  Ah well.

Hope you're reading a book you're loving.

Cheers,

O

Goals for education today

I found this somewhere floating through the internet.  Sadly I cannot remember where - which certainly means I am not a knower entirely.


“In times of change the learners will inherit the earth, while the knowers will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. ” –Eric Hoffer


That said, I am not sure I entirely agree, there are things that we need to know.  Multiplication tables come to mind, languages follow closely.  Mathematics skills, reading and writing.  Poetry, geography and history. 


We need a certain world knowledge that we carry around in our heads.  We cannot forever google it to find out, there lies ignorance.


That said, knowers who cannot learn sit on a shelf like an outdated encyclopedia gathering dust and being ignored - one hopes.


As usual, something somewhere in the middle falls into what is most useful, no?

One thing I love about Spain

The window guys are here fitting the mosquito screens.  More construction guys in the house.  Different construction guys in the house.

One of them is cantant!


He's singing flamenco in my house.  How do I love that!

Honestly, I do adore going past construction sites where someone is singing, happens more often that you would think.  I think I am becoming a fan.  May have to find me some good flamenco music...mostly the men singing is what does it for me.

Brrr

Back in Spain, the sun is shining and the days are warm/hot.

The butane has run out though, so the showers are cold and we can't cook.

Still have the oven though, so we'll just have to plan around that till the canisters get refilled.

Dang.