Ok, I am going to Finland in July and I want to document all the things I love there with a solid, dependable digital camera. The camera I own now is OK, but the damn rechargeable batteries keep fading out on me so fast! I typically have to charge three of them just to take photos for one day. Do any of you Voxers or Brunswickians have a recommendation for a good camera that has a decent battery life? I keep running out of power right in the middle of events I want to document. It's frustrating. I want something better to take with me to Finland. My budget is definitely $300 or below--I don't have the money for an uber-SLR right now, although that is certainly on my life's wish list.
]]>Well, I've been gone awhile from Vox due to being overburdened by work and personal obligations, but tonight I am trying to play catch-up a little bit.
It's wild rose and honeysuckle season here, and we have been blessed with a cool May instead of a hot, humid May like we usually get in the Mid-Atlantic, so I've been able to drive around with the car windows down, which lets me smell the wildflowers growing by the roadside. Yum.
I have finished a lot of work in my back garden recently, although if you eyed it today, you would wonder what I was talking about because the recent rains turned it into a bit of a jungle. Nevertheless, I got a lot of new stuff planted and tonight I harvested my first pint of strawberries from the backyard.
Tickets have been purchased for my July trip to Finland to go see the family. Yay! The only down side is I can't take my husband and son with me this time. But plans are being set in motion to go to Finland with them in 2010. I am trying to get back to Finland every other year to stay close with the family. Plus I just love the country, the food, the sights, the saunas, the strawberries, the cobblestoned streets of old Porvoo, the ice cream, the modern designs, the Karelian pastries, and the vivid colors of summer in Finland, among many other things. I miss Finland sometimes. I know in some ways, with me being a hybrid mutt like I am, I am neither a real child of Finland nor a real child of the USA, but in other ways I belong to both places at once. Identity can be perplexing.
I hope to blog about some of my favorite new stuff soon as well as the recent charities we have supported. But in the mean time here's a quick set of 3 new favorites I discovered recently:
1. Bath tea sachets from Lavender Moon in Leesburg, Virginia: affordable, handmade, yummy-scented and relaxing bath salt mixes in scents like ginger lime and lilac.
2. The mouthwatering Wild Berry Salad in season now at Lightfoot restaurant in Leesburg--a perfect balance of sweet and tart.
3. Flautas from La Paz restaurant in Frederick--finally, some non-spicy yet thoroughly flavorful Mexican fare for a Scandi-girl with a spice-sensitive stomach. Intense tomato flavor combined with the gooey texture I love. Look, you kids who adore painfully spicy foods have plenty of places to eat at, but what about a chick like me with a sensitive gut? The flautas at La Paz let me indulge my love of tomato without pain.
Anyway, I hope to blog more soon and get some of my photos developed and posted here to show how spectacular the spring/ early summer have been here in Brunswick.
]]>"Around on You" lyrics by Screeching Weasel:
you think you've got something over
some kinda thing over me
well there's gonna come a day
when i can leave it all behind
if you'd open up your eyes you'd see
that doing all the stupid things that you do
means there's gonna come a day
when you're gonna fade away
and it's gonna come around on you
]]>"There are men so incorrigibly lazy that no inducement that you can offer will tempt them to work; so eaten up by vice that virtue is abhorrent to them, and so inveterately dishonest that theft is to them a master passion. When a human being has reached that stage, there is only one course that can be rationally pursued. Sorrowfully, but remorselessly, it must be recognized that he has become lunatic, morally demented, incapable of self-government, and that upon him, therefore, must be passed the sentence of permanent seclusion from a world in which he is not fit to be at large."
]]>Some lyrics from Everclear:
]]>"It can come from out of nowhere,
hit you when you're safe and warm.
Take it easy, my star, your time is gonna come,
your time is gonna come.
Yeah, you got those crazy blue eyes.
You got those crazy blues.
All those pretty smiles.
I can see them laughing at you."
Argh, it's the dreaded "kitten season" (cats that have not been spayed or neutered are breeding right now) and on top of that, Brunswick suddenly seems inundated with stray homeless cats. Everyone I know has taken in as many rescues as they can, myself included. I just don't know what to do about this. My neighbors and I speculate that perhaps there are more strays on the streets now because of the spate of home foreclosures and people having to move due to finances.
Anyway, the latest stray on Brunswick Street has been nicknamed "Smoky" by the neighbors. He is 100% gray and male, and by appearances it looks like he has NOT been neutered yet. Smoky is very loving and friendly so obviously he used to have a home. Are you missing a lovable gray male cat? If yes, send a message to annamatt at g mail dot com and I will try to locate Smoky for you--he is roaming outside near the post office. Smoky likes to lie in the middle of the road, and he is the same color as the road, so all of us are scared he might get hit by a car soon. We affixed a reflective collar onto him in the hopes it will save him. If you are Smoky's owner, please claim him quickly! There is another urgent matter: he has a golf-ball sized mass in his belly that might be a tumor, and it will need medical attention soon, no matter what it is. Smoky needs your help immediately.
If we can't find Smoky's owners soon, we're going to start looking for someone to adopt him.
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