People will pay anything for art

I swear I could make a mint off my kids school art work.

I am surfing the web and come across this in a folk art gallery. They wanted $125 dollars for this. Canadian...American same difference right now.

If an adult drew this cudo's to them for making some sucker pay for this. If you want something similar for your walls spend a $125 dollars on art supplies and donate this to a first grade class. You will get a far better quality and variety plus the $125 dollars will be put to good use.

I support art, I am not an artist, my renderings are stick figures and not much more. However I think in a pinch the artist borrowed their child's class assignment. "Draw what you did this weekend."

Timmy inspired by a road trip to the pettying zoo with Mummy and Daddy drew furiously with red and green but didn't have lots of black so used a number 2 pencil instead to draw mummy and daddy.
I'm partial to the 'chickens??" in the right bottom corner.

blah blah

smoking in the girls room

I am a smoker, I'm not proud of it but there you go.

I was thinking back to the days in high school before homeroom bell would go off. Its 845 and the girls washroom is a blue haze. Teachers rarely entered choosing to pick their battles. Green and purple eyeshadow was reapplied for the 4th time since leaving home that morning, bonnie bell lip gloss swirled on, cigarettes passed back and forth between co-conspirators against the man. Yes it was against the rules, yeah it was a perfectly sunny day with several smoking locations on site but... this one happened to have a mirror and it was the 80s. We were smoking in the girls room.

On any given break on any given day there were at least 50 girls in the bathroom sharing smokes, touching up gloss, hair and purple mascara (again this was the 80s). You were never alone.

Now... there are 3 of us left at work who smoke. We go outside, not daring to break the rules because since there are only 3 of us its easier to point the finger as to who did it. Now the city has passed a law you can't stand near a business doorway. So along the streets in our cold northern ontario town you will see people clustered in 2's and 3's sharing a smoke and warmth. We still know everything thats going on in the building. If you are out of the loop ask a smoker.

Mosquito Coil Chair

I want something in my decor that will remind my guests of all the good times they've enjoyed at my hunt camp. Can you help me?
(I'm over hearing a conversation a bit one sided here so humor me)

The decoys scream "dust me" so I'll have to pass on that.

The Moose head? No... that would be a nightmare with my cats. Someone would come a sit down in a cozy chair with a nice cup of tea and Fluffy perched on an antler will think she has spotted prey. The tea stains not to mention second degree burns would not make for a repeat visit.

Stuffed Marlin... Hello! I'm on a fresh water lake.

I know what was that thing we used to keep the bugs away. No not the citronella candles.

Oh I know - do you have anything that resembles a Mosquito coil?! It would even be better if you could get the authenticity of the scent.

What, you have one but its unscented. Well one can't have everything.

I actually think this chair is very cool and looks actually quite comfy. It reminds me of the old flying saucer chairs my Grandma had in her sunroom with the big ugly multicolored green flower overlay.

Modern Grandma with a cottage twist.

How to's from HR - coles notes on firing

I've acquired more space at work to keep valuable files on site. The only downside is that we have to clean the narrow cupboard out. Its hard to discern what is still practical for the organization after 20 years of 'shelving' but we've been making a go of it when our part time girl has some rare free time.

Today I asked her to archive and ship off all the documents from the back area. Many were boxed up already. She took most of the morning studiously boxing, sealing and filling the right forms to head off site. When the records manager learned the contents of the boxes they were sent back. Archival is for documents - not texts, binders etc. This is no fault to our girl - she is fairly new and did exactly what she was told. The fault is me for not checking the boxes myself.

Anyways, we started digging through the boxes and came across a group of booklets published by a little management group company that gives the coles note version on how to's. The one that really caught my eye was "How to Fire Someone".

I was actually surprised to see this tome because our organization rarely fires anyone. We believe in retraining and our recruitment group is pretty snap at getting an keep excellent 'talent'. For the ones that I've rolled out the red carpet for management to fire from pattern Monday Friday back door holidays (I'm cough sick), chronic specialist appointments monthly over years by a very healthy person, not showing up to work, skimming off the top by inflating training hours or end times... sigh - retrain - no firing. There have been lots of warnings over the years - I've skinned by without one but maybe I'm not a textbook coles notes case. So for an organization who does not fire as a first resort - why do we have this little gem.

Skimming through the index for "How to Fire Someone" I came across the section on Page 80 "What to do if they cry"; "What to do if they don't say anything"; and What to say if they get angry."

Believe it or not there is a script for a manager to use and the book makes if very clear to STICK TO THE SCRIPT.

If they cry... be prepared have tissues on hand and give them a minute or two but then "right... get back into it" Okay Juanita I totally understand you are upset but we must move on. Here is your settlement package.... blah blah blah." Pause every time they cry but get on with it.

If they don't say anything they give you options that you might be considering saying in the wall of silence

• wave your hand in front of their face to see if they are present
• wait them out
  
• give them a few moments of quiet to get over the shock but proceed
• bang your fist on the table to get their attention (yes that option was there)
• refer to your watch and say we must move on as the next restructured person will arrive in 20 minutes and there is a lot to cover.

There were a few others but I chuckled over the bullets. The tome of course said point three.

Thats as far as I got for today but I had a good laugh. It sounds like just the book that would be used in "The Office" to build morale during downsizing.

The next book I'm going to dig into is "The perfect Performance Review" Yeah those are swell.

Someone left behind the little golden book set of gutless management tools that I am going to have a ball deconstructing.

There just might be a desk drawer drinking game created from this for desktop pundits in the org. Every time the manager quotes "xyz" pull out the drawer and take a swig.

No I do not drink at my office... not yet anyways.

This will make your cat seek revenge

I have 3 male cats that take a lot of pride in their kingly image. They are a no nonsense bunch of men. They are happy with their food, their drinking fountain, some good cat nip and will occasionally humour us with some silly toys if it is to their benefit.

The don't like crap.

Over the years we have tried to incorporate the outside into their lives but to keep them safe we bought them a collar harness. My big male is a virtual Houdini and can get out of anything and will punish you for the indignity at some point during the darkest hour of the night by a single claw tapping into your head. Its as if he is saying...

Don't ...tap
ever ...tap
do ....tap
that.... tap
AGAIN... tap.

So this collar here I wouldn't even bother - collars are wrong in the eyes of our cats. Not only that, when our cats are definitely purring is when you have them up close and are petting the heck out of them, saying their name and telling them how handsome they are.


I don't need a light up collar to tell me they are enjoying themselves. What a waste of money. The only benefit this collar could be for is I guess if someone had a hearing loss but I am positive they would still feel the vibrations.

This next thing would wage a feline war.

I can only guess that this little outfit must have been inspired by Rather Good's Vahalla featuring Viking kittens.

Cute but you can see by the look in this cats eyes that you are going to experience the wrath of a viking kitten in the not so distant future.






They are also extremely embarrassed for us when we reach a complete low on the costume front.

Grandma was cool if not a bit evil

I'm coming across a lot of circa 1940-70s merchandise and textiles that scream Grandma. To be clear - they are screaming my Grandma who was a young grandmother (late 40s when I was born).

This may just be a running segment on here.

For example - my Grandmother was a pretty crafty and capable woman. She could sew and knit everything - which she did. She could also design and build houses but thats besides the point she was my grandma... these are some of the things she did to lovetorture me as a kid. Taste is a matter of opinion.


One Canadian Thanksgiving back in the early 1970s my grandmother was wearing an outfit roughly similar to this style. She was like Betty from the Archie comics. She would see something once and sew it from memory.
My mom and Aunt made the big mistake of making a huge fuss over the dress and how much they loved it. Maybe they were being kind and sincere, maybe they were just giving 'oh mom get a life lip service'.

Anyways I think my grandmother got the last laugh because that Christmas all of us women of the family - my mom, my aunt, and unfortunately ME. Got a similar jumper style dress given to us. To make it worse It wasn't the dress that so much jogged this little memory but the material I just came across in a textiles search.




Do you feel sorry for me... a little. Today I would be just as evil as my Grandmother (and by evil I mean God its fun to mess with your loved ones just a little) and I would have handed that jumper down to my daughter. Careful how you kiss ass ladies I think was the lesson.

This pattern was on the seat pads of my grandmothers black formieca kitchen table.
After years of use the vinyl started to break down and if you were wearing your swim suit or short shorts (hello 70's) the cracks would leave a lovely pressed pattern when you got back up.
This pyrex dish set was one of many my grandmother worked with to make pastry for pies, mashed potatoes, mashed squash, etc. Grandma and Thanksgiving meals went together for years.

Sadly this last image reminds me totally of my poor grandpa. Now remember... my Grandma did all the shopping and sewing. Tell me if she wasn't just a little bit of a joker.

Bad Day at Black Rock

Best Movie line

"You completely wrong. You're completely wrong at the top of your voice."*


Don't you just love Spenser Tracey. What happened next in this scene was the best 1 handed ass kicking in movie history.

Jackie Chan.... wannabe

Jean Claude Van Damme...... poser

Steven Seigal..... okay I can't keep from laughing maniacally at any comparison there.

Spenser Tracey was and is... The Man.

*Movie in reference is Bad Day at Black Rock