Mary's Ramble

I'm moving...to a new blog!

2013-07-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

Blogger has been a nice home, but I've finally decided to move to a self-hosted blog. I'll leave Mary's Ramble here as an archive, but it won't be updated anymore. I hope you'll follow me to http://permanentmarysue.com/ for more of my randomness.

A couple subject-specific blogs are on their way, too. Keep an eye on Permanent Mary Sue for news about those.

This is what Neil Gaiman signing 1200 books looks like

2013-06-20T13:16:00.002-05:00

My hand cramped just watching this.

Happy Towel Day!

2013-05-25T14:53:00.000-05:00

It's Towel Day once again and I nearly forgot, which would have been a shame since I got this nifty new towel for Mothers Day.

Do you know where your towel is?

Three random words [funny]

2013-05-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

This cracks me up:

via Twitter

Nothing to see here. (Cookies!) Keep moving. (But...cookies!)

2013-05-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

Random, anonymous cookies in the student lounge.

I'm just going to tell myself they're booby-trapped and move along.

If you look closely, you can see there's even a doily underneath.

These are elegantly booby-trapped cookies.
(Keep telling yourself that, Mary.)

Isn't this a great purse?

2013-04-26T09:25:00.003-05:00

Some of you may know about my purse ~~addiction~~ ~~obsession~~ ~~habit~~ collection. I've mostly given up buying purses in the pursuit of creating the perfect purse myself (updates on that as warranted), but I have to say this one was certainly tempting:

I mean, what's better than a purse that shouts to the world "Yes, this is a huge purse! But when you need a band-aid, a gadget charger, ibuprofen, stain remover, an umbrella, entertainment or one of a couple dozen other things, you'll be glad I've got 'em!"

Don't have time for Lord of the Rings? Gotcha covered!

2013-03-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

LilGirl shared this video with me so I thought I'd pass it on (aren't I nice?).

(I think she only watched it...oh, 500 times last weekend)

Check out this Zeppelin-themed apartment

2013-03-01T09:00:00.000-06:00

This is a very interesting apartment:

Watch "The most unique apartment in all of New York City - OffBeat Spaces Video" on YouTube

Appreciating "Enough"

2013-02-24T15:43:00.001-06:00

I loved reading this today.

"It's very important to notice when there's enough. We often have a habit of scarcity, even in times of incredible abundance and wealth. We forget that there's often enough, more than enough, to meet our needs, and to be happy, and to find appreciation, and to give some away. May this be so for you today and every day."

When a Package of Still Warm Tortillas Is Plenty and Enough Weekend Meditation | The Kitchn

Still looking for Valentines? Here, let me help ;)

2013-02-14T07:00:00.000-06:00

I've seen quite a few fun Valentines over the last few days, so I thought I'd round up some of my favorites here:

Wesley Crusher, from Flying Armadillo Productions

Captain Malcolm Reynolds, from Chelsea Davison

Lydia and Lizzie Bennet (doing costume theater as Lizzie and Darcy),
from The Hills Can Be Quite Unforgiving

More Lizzie Bennet Diaries Valentines here
(I was tempted to post half of them here, but I restrained myself)

And my favorite:

Richard III (no, I'm not tired of him yet), from Medium Aevum

Interesting OED facts

2013-02-01T19:00:00.000-06:00

Very interesting bit about the Oxford English Dictionary from today's Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor:

"The longest entry in the 1989 edition is the word "set" in its verb form: There are more than 430 listed ways the verb "set" is used. The entry for the verb "set" is 60,000 words long, the equivalent of a modestly sized novel. The Bible is quoted more than any other work in the Oxford English Dictionary, and Shakespeare is quoted more than any other single author. Of Shakespeare's works, Hamlet is quoted the most — there about 1,600 quotations from Hamlet alone in the OED."

A cookie (in a cup) for my hubby

2013-01-31T20:22:00.001-06:00

Today is hubby's birthday, and he loves chocolate chip cookies, so tonight I tried this recipe to make him a special dessert: a chocolate chip cookie in a cup. Surprise, it turned out! (Yay me!)

This was far better than making a whole batch of cookies, which takes up too much time for a weeknight and involves me eating way too much dough. Since you mix the dough in the cup you "bake" it in (in the microwave), there's not much clean-up, either.

I think I'll be hanging on to this recipe. Definitely a good one for when you just HAVE to have a cookie, but don't want to make a whole batch.

no. 2 pencil: Chocolate Chip Cookie in a Cup

Mitch Resnick: Let's teach kids to code [Recently Watched]

2013-01-29T13:00:00.000-06:00

I watched this over my lunch break today. I think Mitch Resnick says a lot of important things in here. People do seem to have the impression (and I fall into it now and then myself) that you only need to learn to code if you're going to be a programmer or a web developer or something along those lines. But Resnick points out that learning to code helps kids (and adults) learn other skills through coding.

Great video. Take the time to watch it.

Watch "Mitch Resnick : Let's teach kids to code" on YouTube

This is so sweet

2013-01-28T18:00:00.000-06:00

Lizzie & Darcy on their 200th anniversary. :)

Source: martinacecilia.deviantart.com via Vic (Jane Austen's World) on Pinterest

A 200-year-old book and a current web series that make me squee

2013-01-28T13:01:00.000-06:00

Pride and Prejudice was published January 28, 1813 and the world has been reading it non-stop ever since. It's one of the few books I have re-read multiple times.

To mark the day, let me point you (once again) to my latest obsession: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. This is a web series which follows a modern-day Lizzie through the (slightly altered) events of P&P. If you want to jump in from the beginning, you can find a handy playlist here (and don't forget Lydia's videos here - of course, Lydia being Lydia stopped adding videos to her playlist some time ago, so you have to just poke around and try to watch them in order).

If you'd like to dig further into the goings-on of the story (many of the characters have their own Twitter, Tumblr & Facebook pages), check out the webpage, which will lay it all out for you (including Lydia's vids in the proper order, folded into the bigger story). The story is set to wrap up in March (after which I plan to go back and re-watch and re-read everything to catch the cues & clues I missed the first time). It's interesting to know more-or-less where the story is going , but to have no idea exactly how this version is going to pull it all off, plus there's the added fun of watching the characters interact outside the videos (for me, this is mostly on Twitter).

Have you been watching? If you haven't, do you think you'll give it a try? What's your favorite adaptation of Pride and Prejudice? (I think this one's up there, but it's not complete yet, so I'll withhold full judgement until it is. I think so far, it has my all-time-favorite Georgiana and possibly the most adorable Mr. Collins ever. Yes, adorable.)

Frank Conroy on irrelevant details [Writing]

2013-01-15T12:00:00.000-06:00

Writer's Almanac mentioned Frank Conroy today and included this bit:

He once scolded a student for using irrelevant details in her short story. He said: "The author makes a tacit deal with the reader. You hand them a backpack. You ask them to place certain things in it — to remember, to keep in mind — as they make their way up the hill. If you hand them a yellow Volkswagen and they have to haul this to the top of the mountain — to the end of the story — and they find that this Volkswagen has nothing whatsoever to do with your story, you're going to have a very irritated reader on your hands."

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways by William Wordsworth | The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Something I needed to read tonight

2012-12-02T19:00:00.001-06:00

A Wannabe Writer or a Wannabe World Traveler?:

Pantsing works. Outlining works. Whichever method feeds your need, write, write, write. Don’t just sit there over-thinking it. You can’t finish if you never start.

There's a yellow rose in...Nebraska...

2012-10-17T11:09:00.000-05:00

(if you're old enough to remember that song, you're welcome for the earworm)

It seems my rosebush has decided to put out one last (humongous!) rose for the season, but it's trying to keep it all to itself, letting it bloom way back in the branches.

This thing is bigger than a softball, and sooo pretty.

Recently Read: 92 days til’ 13 [plus a declaration about the rest of my year]

2012-10-01T14:10:00.001-05:00

So weird. Why does 92 days sound so short but 12 weeks sounds do-able?

A bit from "92 days til’ 13" at Jon Acuff's Blog, which I read today:

"We've got 92 days til’ 13.
Get your finish list back out.
Cut the whole list down to one thing....
Pick a day and time you’ll work on that goal at least once a week for the next 12 weeks.
That’s it."

My goal for these 92 days is to finish my book. Obviously, I'll be working on it more than once a week. Ideally, I'll work on it every day. Realistically, I have to work on it more days than I don't.

I'm not allowed to scrap the entire book halfway through and start on something else, which is my biggest hang-up. I am not allowed "Oh, it just wasn't working" excuses. This may not end up being a publishable book, but it does have to end up being a finished book. I must remind myself that perfectionism is not the point at this point. It will be ready to be read and critiqued. Then I'll go from there.

I will not take on any other big projects before January 1. This ONE project is my priority.

You can all bug me about it if you want. You have my permission.

[Taking a big breath as I post this]

There was life before Google??

2012-09-27T10:06:00.001-05:00

Google has a cute animated doodle for their 14th birthday today.

On one hand, it's hard to believe Google's only been around 14 years. What did we do before we could just look up anything anytime anywhere? I shudder to think.

At the same time, I often forget that Google is older than my daughter. For her, Google has always been there, like light switches or doorknobs. A few weeks ago we were discussing her Spanish class and I mentioned a time in college when a friend and I sat around trying to figure out what a certain silly English phrase would be in Spanish, and how we only ever got about half way through the phrase. She looked at me with an eyebrow up and said "Why didn't you just Google it?"

"Google didn't exist yet."

Her eyes grew big. "What? I thought it had just always been there."

A minute later she grinned. "I guess I thought when cavemen wanted to find something out they just went over to the cave where the caveman called Google lived and asked him."

She has a sense of humor, that one.

Recently read: "With trying, comes mistakes"

2012-09-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

A couple highlighted passages on trying new things (and those who don't try), from a post I read over the weekend:

"They could join in, but then they might fail, and they wouldn’t be able to sit at home [and] bitch."

"...with trying, comes mistakes...but that’s the nature of trying new things, failing."

via Lefsetz Letter » Blog Archive » The Amanda Palmer Kerfuffle via Neil Gaiman - I Interned for Amanda Palmer

Happy Hobbit Day!

2012-09-21T13:00:00.000-05:00

Warner Bros via Hero Complex

Happy Birthday to Bilbo & Frodo! It's TolkienWeek, so there are no shortage of pics & clips from the upcoming movie across the internet. I found one with some nice portraits of the cast.

Click through for some great images, a trailer & a clip from The Hobbit: ‘Hobbit’ trailer: Radagast, wargs, a lighter look at Middle-earth.

And check out my friend *lizzie starr's blog for a great video of Leonard Nimoy singing "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins."

I would not want to feed this cat...

2012-09-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

...or clean its litterbox {shudder!}

But cozying up to it like that might be nice.

via I Can Has Cheezburger?

Be Awesome [Inspiration]

2012-09-05T12:37:00.000-05:00

Source: Uploaded by user via Jon on Pinterest

Imagination without heart work = a daydream
Hard work without imagination = a chore
Imagination + hard work = awesome
Be awesome.

Ooooh, a pen "just for her!" [Sarcasm...funny, funny sarcasm]

2012-09-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

Perhaps BIC should have done a leetle bit more market research...or are there long-suffering women out there wishing, hoping for something to write with other than all those "manly" pens?

As the product description at Amazon says, "BIC Cristal For Her has an elegant design - just for Her! It features a thin barrel designed to fit a women's hand. It has a diamond engraved barrel for an elegant and unique feminine style." (On top of it all, they have no one to proofread their product descriptions - or maybe the proofreader was just so overwhelmed by the idiocy of the description that "a women's hand" flew right by her)

I don't think I've ever used a pen and thought, "Gee, I wish this was designed for a woman." Judging from the reviews, not many other women have, either, but those reviews sure brought a smile to my face. :)

Here's just a sampling:

"Someone has answered my gentle prayers and FINALLY designed a pen that I can use all month long! I use it when I'm swimming, riding a horse, walking on the beach and doing yoga. It's comfortable, leak-proof, non-slip and it makes me feel so feminine and pretty! Since I've begun using these pens, men have found me more attractive and approchable. It has given me soft skin and manageable hair and it has really given me the self-esteem I needed to start a book club and flirt with the bag-boy at my local market."

"The women in my life love these pens. If you manage to use all of the ink before you lose it, it magically turns into a tampon."

"The 'for her' label is not just a gimmick exploiting archaic gender constructs, it's a WARNING. ...I don't know why they didn't put a clearer warning on the label, they really should have because if you are a boy and use this pen you put yourself at great risk. My little brother turned into a unicorn after I lent him one, and my friend told me that a boy in her class grew fairy wings in the middle of a test."

"Ermagerd. Pernz with glitterz!" (Had to throw that one in just for being written in Gersberms)

The guys are getting in on it, too:

"As if men hadn't been stripped of everything good already, BIC steps in and piles on by encouraging women to learn to write, just like their male counterparts. "

"PROS: I started using them in the privacy of my home and saw a real improvement in my skin tone: rough-n-swarthy to fragrantly delicate in five shopping lists or less. Side benefits included the irresistible urge to stock my fridge with yogurt, and a genuine desire to be a better listener. Perhaps we can chalk this up to Bic's proprietary oxytocin-kitten ink technology?"

For more (and to buy if you've really been waiting for this pen all your life): Amazon.com: BIC Cristal For Her Ball Pen, 1.0mm, Black, 16ct (MSLP16-Blk): Office Products:

via PR Daily