Happy 2011!

Looking back at 2010, I'd say it was a good year.

I managed to do some small "budget" renos to the house and, in the process, became a DIY landscaper, gardener, painter and electrician and, although I ran into some snags and swore at them like a sailor, I enjoyed 99% of the process.
My hubby got to work for a company than not only cares for their employees and the clients, they also show it, and they show it frequently.  How often can you say these days that your employer values and appreciates you?  How often can you say these days that your employer even gives a shit about you and you are not just a(n employee) number to them?
Our furry kids are all healthy and thriving.  And our grown-up human kids are staying out of trouble.
That's most than a lot of people have these days...  and we all feel blessed with and grateful for what we have, and what we are.  We also hope the good fortune will keep rolling in during the 2011.

Happy New Year and best wishes  - may only the good stuff take place in your lives in 2011!
Be healthy, wealthy and wise - eat the right foods, take vit.D supplement, and laugh as often as you can.
Dress for the weather, eat raw garlic and fresh fruits, and avoid flu shots like a plague.
Drive slower and be mindful of all the people you share the road with, and never, ever, EVER drink and drive.
Be thankful, be grateful and keep dreaming - if you dream it, it will come, eventually.  Have faith and patience, and... in the epic words of Bill and Ted:
Be excellent to each other and... Party on, dude!!!

Love always,
jedikitty

Dr. Andrew Jones is my hero

Don't get me wrong, I like living in Canada.  I have lived in Poland and Germany before and, although there will always be things I will  miss about both of my "old homes", given a choice - I'd still pick Canada but...
Seems that, no matter where one lives, the so-called freedom of speech is either, too strict, too lenient, too distorted or, sometimes, non-existent.  And what if I told you, any single country can have a combination of many of the above flavors of "free speech".  To make the long story, uhm, shorter...

Meet Dr. Andrew Jones - a smart, level-headed vet from Nelson, BC, who is pro-holistic and against bad veterinary practices.  By bad veterinary practices he means: advocating bad pet food, bad animal medicine, and unnecessary and/or excessive animal vaccinations and over-medication. 

The sneeze

A man and a woman were sitting beside each other in the first class section of an airplane.
The woman sneezed, took out a tissue, gently wiped her nose, then visibly shuddered for ten to fifteen seconds.
The man went back to his reading. A few minutes later, the woman sneezed again, took a tissue, wiped her nose, then shuddered violently once more.
Assuming that the woman might have a cold, the man was still curious about the shuddering. A few more minutes passed when the woman sneezed yet again.
As before, she took a tissue, wiped her nose, her body shaking even more than before.
Unable to restrain his curiosity, the man turned to the woman and said, "I couldn't help but notice that you've sneezed three times, wiped your nose and then shuddered violently. Are you OK?"
"I am sorry if I disturbed you, I have a very rare medical condition; whenever I sneeze I have an orgasm."
The man, more than a bit embarrassed, was still curious.
"I have never heard of that condition before" he said.
"Are you taking anything for it?"
The woman nodded, "Pepper."

Dec.20/21, 2010 - total lunar eclipse!

This is what I saw at 1:00am on Tuesday, Dec.21, 2010 - a glorious, reddish full Moon due to its total eclipse. It was far up in the sky so I used binoculars for a "closer look" but it was most amazing, regardless of the distance.  I love looking at the night sky to begin with but this was just one of those things I had to stay up late to see... 
If you missed it, you won't see another one of those until 2014.

Pharmacy vs Health Food store, where do YOU want to go?

I love this and decided to quote right from the website (credits: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger for http://www.naturalnews.com/):

• People who visit pharmacies tend to have toxic livers, poor kidney function (because drugs damage the kidneys), wild mood swings, terrible digestion and elimination capabilities, poor skin health, poor posture, low energy, sleep disorders and sexual dysfunction. They tend to be suicidal while living in chronic pain. They have huge medical expenses that often send them into bankruptcy.

• People who visit health food stores tend to have healthy skin, happier outlooks, better energy, better sex lives, healthy sleep, healthy hearts, healthy liver function and greatly improved brain function. They are more creative, adaptable and optimistic, and they tend to enjoy their lives. They spend relatively little on health care expenses while investing their money in organic foods, green products, medicinal herbs and nutritional supplements.Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/028789_pharmacies_health_food_stores.html#ixzz18ikerDmE

Taking flu vaccine shots as ludicrous as inhaling mercury vapor!

Before I say anything, here is an educational link for you:
http://www.NaturalNews.com/030788_herbal_supplements_marketing_fraud.html

Now, that's out of the way, I urge you to read the whole article.  Yes, I am a firm proponent of getting healthy the natural way, not the Big Pharma way.  The Big Pharma (BP for short), and the "modern" western medical doctors, have failed me over and over, and over again.  All they ever do is treat the symptoms, not the disease causing the symptoms.  And all they do to effect that is push, push, push the BP's creations (prescription drugs) for everything you have, or had, or might have in the future.  Look at the cancer, for example - the association's name is American Cancer Association, not American Anti-cancer Association, as you imagine would be the proper name for them.  And why do you think they are not "Anti-cancer"? Because being a "Cancer Association" is truly what these people are all about - treatment not prevention.  And massive government grants, and neverending whining for more money for their "research", money from gov. as well as various charities like "Run for the cure"... OMG, what a giant scamola that is!  So, you would think, after decades of getting millions, if not billions, in various funds, they would have found the cure(s) for at least your "basic" kinds of cancer, the most common ones, right?  If you actually believe that then you are a bigger idiot than I expected.

Our cat loooves presimmons

You know how cats sometimes just love to eat something that is not a common item in their diet? Well, here we have another fine example of such odd eating habit: out cat, Stinky, loves persimmons.

Stinky Jarvik Gil

Over a number of years, we have had cats that were crazy for peanut butter, canned sweet peas, sliced cantaloupe, bits of pears, and vanilla pudding, so this one is really not much of a surprise but, still, persimmons?!?
Every time I have one, Stinky comes over and wants some, and he will not stop bugging me until I give him some of my persimmon.  Same happens with fresh cantaloupe and cooked shrimp; Stinker will just appear out of nowhere and meows until he gets some.

Modern take on "where did I come from"

A little boy goes to his father and asks:  "Daddy, how was I born?"
The father answers:

"Well, son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway!
Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo.
Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe.
We sneaked into a secluded room, and googled each other.
There your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive.
As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared that said:
You've got male!"

PayPal can be fun to talk to. Srsly.

Today was a hell-day in jedikitty's finance world; nothing seems to go right: transactions that were not supposed to happen, happened; package that I was supposed to receive was "raided" (contents stolen, all I got was a wad of bubble wrap), and then my PayPal subscription to something crapped out... again.
I checked all the odds and ends related to it, and all seemed to be in order yet, I was still a recipient of a "your payment failed" email. WTF?!?

Know thy finish!

Heya grrlz and girlies :)
As you know little "old" me, always trying to find that perfect nail polish for the season... as I look at countless swatches online, once in a while I find a real gem of information on the subject. Today was no exception - the search netted this  (Right-Click and Open in New Tab, so you can come back here when you're done looking):

http://theedgeofsanity.org/?p=3780

It's called "And the Finish Is...", very nicely crafted by Gabrielle, and it's got to be the best little tutorial on nail polish finishes I have came across to date.

I washed my UGGs...

... and they lived!

A couple of years ago, when the Classic Cardy first came out, I gave into temptation and got me a pair of those in a color called "raisin" (rich medium purple). I'm curious why they called it "raisin" since raisins are more brown than purple but, I guess, if they called it "grape", people would get confused as, generally, there are purple, red and green grapes.

Personally, I am a very visual person (it can be a curse; I'll get to that in a moment). If you tell me that something's color is "grape", I always see it as some shade of purple but, not everyone out there will visualize it as such. Calling something's color "raisin" is definitely more creative than calling something "purple", despite the fact it might actually mean the same... and you know what the funny part was? I actually wanted them in a color called "moss"! But, by mistake, or maybe some dumb luck, I have selected "raisin" and submitted the order, and then I realized the error.  Immediately, I fired away an urgent email to UGG Australia, asking them to help me correct my booboo and change my order to moss instead of raisin, and they responded that they are unable to change my order, and that I should wait for the UPS and refuse delivery so the boots get sent back, and then, after I get a refund, I can reorder them in moss.
What an absolute horseshit, don't you think?
Anyway, I resigned myself to receive boots I would not like and... was delighted with them when they arrived! The raisin color was actually very lovely and very wearable and, on top of that, purple became the "it" color so everything worked out perfectly. There must have been some wicked karma at work here... and, a year later, purple continues to be the "it" color for fall/winter 2010; how cool is that?

Ahh, but back to my UGGs, and no, they are NOT UGGly as some people out there call them.  To these schmucks I say: f**k you.
Since my "raisin" Classic Cardy UGGs got quite dirty over time (I also wear them indoors when my feet are extra cold), I gave them a "bath" in the washer, on normal cycle, cold water, and guess what? They came out like new, incl. the shearling padding inside.

I tried to dry them in a dryer but, since they clunk a whole lot when they spin around, the dryer door kept popping open and the cycle would never complete... until I just "padded" the dryer with a bunch of bath towels thus making it more of a balanced load to spin. This worked surprisingly well, and my Cardy's came out perfectly dry and ready to wear, again. 

The shearling padding was the trickiest part but the drying cycle took care of fluffing it back up to brand new condition. I'm not sure I would venture this far with a full suede/shearling UGG boots but the Cardy's are definitely a good candidate for wash-and-dry when they get dirty.

OK, the digression of me being "visual":  normally, I'd say I love it because if you were to  describe something to me (the shape, the color, the size, whatever), I would literally "see it" in my mind. For the most, that's an awesome thing but, if you were to describe something nasty like excrement or vomit, I would also "see it" the moment you talked about it. So, you see, sometimes being visual is not so pleasant...

PS. I <3 my UGGs! http://www.ugg-classic-tall-boots.net/ugg-australia-boots-classic-cardy-5819-purple-p-531.html

"This house is clean"

Do you recall that famous line from Poltergeist: "This house is clean"? Well, that's what I did not say but, rather, felt after we got our heating ducts cleaned recently. 

The difference in air quality became pretty evident as, upon cranking up the thermostat and pumping some warm air around, all I could smell is ... warm clean air!  No more of that musty, "old" smelling stuff coming at ya from the vents.  During the procedure, Paul listened to the sounds of "stuff" getting sucked up via giant pipe into the service vehicle, and he said it sounded like pebbles... Well, I'm not surprised; when I tried to use just the regular vacuum hose to clean as far the ducts as I could reach, there were nuts, pennies, M&M's and other candy, tiny stones, pieces of broken glass, paper clips, buttons, dead bugs, dried chunks of what might have been food... or dead mice, not exactly sure on that one, and piles of hairy, sticky dust. YUCK!!! 

Unstoppable

Pauly and I watched a new movie tonight - Unstoppable.
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477080/. 
It is about a runaway freight train carrying dangerous chemicals, a train that "got away" because of the operator's gross negligence, a train that will annihilate a town if nobody stops it in time.
Two mega-hunks star in: Denzel Washington (The bone collector, Deja Vu, Out of time - just to name a few) and Chris Pine (the latest and, by far, the funniest Star Trek of 2009) and they entertain from start to finish. The movie will keep you at the edge of your seat pretty much the whole time, [here be spoilers!!! read past this point only if you don't mind them]   

Food neophobia - fact or fiction?

OK, let me be prefectly clear from the start: I don't believe in "food neophobia".  At all.  I think, the psychologists out there are bored and, to find something to do at the moment, they go around inventing phobias, for a variety of reasons:
1. so people can have a name for the behavior of their fussy-eating-habits children;
2. so children have a "blanket excuse" to tell their parents when they (children) don't want to eat something; and
3. so the doctors/psychologists/shrinks out there have a new thing to "treat", and made good income of.

Let me tell you this: every, and I repeat: every kid out there will be, or at least try to be, fussy with their food, at least once in their life.  How do I know? I've raised two and, yes, they were fussy on occasion.  Would I call it a phobia?  Not a chance.  Why?  No, not because I'm unreasonable but because I'm a realist, and I tell it like it is, whether I'm making any friends, or not, by doing so.  I simply do not care for all these "phobias" being invented by the medical profession, which they seem to do at will, to name any behavioral challenge they encounter. 

worst effin' migraine in my life, so far

Today I thought I was dying. Gaain. At least, for nearly a whole day I wished I was.  I've had the worst migraine I have had in many, many years... it took TWO Zomigs, a small coffee, and a bottle of yucky yet effective homemade electrolyte (my own recipe: 500ml spring water, 1 Tbsp pure glucose, 1/2 tsp salt).  Zomig is the only thing that relieves my migraines; at roughly 17 dollars a pill it better f*ckin' work.  Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor for the enlarged thus painful arteries in the brain.  Electrolyte solution is: water for hydration, salt (sodium) to balance blood pressure, and glucose is a brain food that bypasses blood-brain barrier and feeds the brain directly from bloodstream, without having to be "digested" into anything else prior.  Well, maybe weird but it worked; my 'graine is 85 percent gone, and I'm yet again well enough to tidy up the kitchen (there is a man in the house, ya know, LOL), and type away a short post for today. 

Very Short Story - cute joke from Allison

Man driving down road.  
Woman driving up same road.  
They pass each other.  
Woman yells out window, PIG!  
Man yells out window, BITCH!
Man rounds next curve.  
Man crashes into a HUGE PIG in middle of road and dies.  
Thought For the Day:
If men would just listen...

I got a microscope!!!

... and been playing with it for several hours now.   It is a Celestron Deluxe LCD Digital microscope, model 44345, and it is an awesome starter microscope for a nut like me :) 

I always wanted one, ever since elementary school when we got to look at some interesting plant mitochondria and animal skin cells.  Paul, my awesome husband, turned Santa and bought me this wonderful thing, and some cool slide sets, and now I can only imagine all my housework (not just the basement painting) will be mysteriously delayed, LOL.

test for "smarts"

During a visit to my doctor, I asked him, "How do you determine whether or not an older person should be put in an old age home?"
"Well," he said, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the person to empty the bathtub."
"Oh, I understand," I said. "A normal person would use the bucket because it is bigger than the spoon or the teacup."
"No" he said. "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"

Disco elves for your viewing pleasure

Here is a link to Paul and me (well, digital copies of us) "elves" dancing to the disco version of some xmas music, disco ball and all...  Take a gander:
http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/sBXRKsqaLXYH9qY3UTQ2