Remember how I said just last week that fall has finally arrived here in the Small Town?  Yeah, well Mother Nature apparently decided to do one last gasp of heat and humidity this week.  I think she’s mocking me.  Good thing we didn’t take the air conditioners out of the windows yet – when it’s sticky humid it’s hard to sleep. 

Speaking of sleep, I really need to have a chat with myself about my bedtime.  I keep finding things to do, getting a second wind, and staying up until after midnight.  If I didn’t have the alarm set for 5:30 am, it wouldn’t be as much of a problem as it’s been, but when I finally fall asleep after 1am, being rudely woken up by the alarm 4 hours later tends to leave me with a very foggy brain.  It’s hard to concentrate and be creative when there’s fog swirling around in there.  Just sayin’.

In other news… Did you watch the big event on Sunday – the Red Bull Stratos sponsored event where Felix Baumgartner jumped from a balloon at 128,100 feet? He had planned to break the longest free-fall record, but missed it by mere seconds.  He did, however, jump from a height that no man has jumped from before, and became the first human to break the sound barrier without an aircraft.  It took 2-1/2 hours for his balloon to ascend the 24 miles required for the record, but only 10 minutes for the descent.  I grabbed a couple of screen shots for you as it was happening:

I bet he was just as relieved to make it back to solid ground as we were.  Apparently there were around 8 million people watching via YouTube while it was broadcast live – the hubby and I were two of those 8 million watching.  He stayed out of the limelight yesterday as he was recovering from his phenomenal jump.  No doubt snugging with his girlfriend:


They’re both cuties, aren’t they?  After the jump he was quoted as saying, “I’m retired from the daredevil business, I want to find a nice decent job as a helicopter pilot. I’ll fight fires and rescue people. No e-mails, no phone calls.”  Good call, Felix.

Moving on… Do you pay attention to the Google page?  I didn’t realize until recently that they do creative stuff to comemorate special events, holidays or people – yesterday’s tribute was to a guy from way back when who was a comic strip artist in the early 1900’s, Winsor McCay.

Yesterday’s creative Google logo commemorated McCay, and was cleverly titled “Little Nemo in Google-Land.” It was set up like a comic strip and borrowed images from McCay’s work. You click your way from panel to panel as the story unfolds through several levels.

The first panel featured a sleeping Nemo falling from his bed into Slumberland. He’s rescued by Princess Camille, who joins him on a brief adventure before he falls out of the dreamworld and back into his bed. It was very creative and pretty cool.  If you missed it, I found it for you:

Speaking of fun and games… Bet you’re wondering how my first week went with the 30-day challenge put forth by Travis and Ashley from Body by Vi? Remember I got this in the mail to try:

So far, so good.  I must confess I was pleasantly surprised that the powdery stuff is actually tasty – I even added it to my morning coffee since I tend to forget to eat breakfast anyway, but I never forget to have my morning coffee.  I had to refrain from putting it in every cup (you know, because that would defeat the purpose) because it really does taste good.  And I don’t have the side effects I tend to get from other ‘meal replacement’ drinks – no annoying gas.  Ahem. 

I have noticed that having some twice a day has helped curb my appetite, which is a good thing.  Especially since I’m not on a consistent schedule, so when I get ravenously hungry, that’s when I tend to overeat and regret it.  After my first week, I’m down four pounds.  And that’s in spite of Aunt Flow wreaking havoc during that time, too.  I’ll let you know how week 2 goes next week, and share some yummy recipes.

Speaking of recipes… Did you know you can overcook Sculpey?  I found that out first hand when I forgot Princess Nagger’s newest creation was in the oven:

I was going to cheat and only show the picture with the dark background, since it doesn’t make it look as bad.  But here you can see how toasted it really got:

I can’t help but giggle hysterically because it’s kind of ironic that her imaginative ‘Draco Bird’ (which is her own creative invention and is a dragon-type creature), was toasted.  You know, like it had a run-in with a genuine fire-breathing dragon.  Princess Nagger was not amused. 

In my defense, though, had it been baked in my old oven, it never would have gotten toasted.  This is just another example of how my shiny new oven actually cooks like it’s supposed to.  I’ll be adjusting all my cooking time to ‘normal’ vs. ‘abnormal’ in the future.

And with that, let’s call it a week – link up and join in the fun. Everyone is welcome, random or not.

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Keeping the random alive – feel free to snag a badge and play along – one for my wino friends:

Stacy

And one for my non-wino friends:

Stacy

 

 

I’m also linking up with two stellar ladies, Shawn and Impulsive, the lovely hosts of Talk To Us Tuesday. There are no rules so link away.

Seriously Shawn
 

Once again I’m hopping aboard this fun friendly train – if you’re traveling on the train, be sure to leave your link so I can follow you back!

TuesdayTrain

 

More Tuesday hops – if you’re stopping by here from there, please do me a favor and follow via LinkyFollowers – since I was robbed of my GFC followers when the cads at Goggle decided to boycott non-Blogger blogs.


friendandfollow Flock Together

28 Comments

  3. I regularly burn just about anything that gets put into the oven, so my kid wouldn’t notice a difference if he were to request that I bake a figure for him!

    I am certain that Mr. Fabulous stunt pilot needed a long nap after his grueling ordeal of a jump. He will need the sleep, what with all the publicity he is going to have to deal with now!
    Tina would like you to read ..RandomMy Profile

  9. I loved yesterday’s Google doodle but had no idea about the background story, so thanks for sharing that. And it’s good to know your new oven is getting things nice and toasty!

  12. I totally missed out on the Freefall stuff on the weekend… had I known Felix was such a hottie, I would have made more of an effort to tune in! HOTTT!!! 😉

    One time, Google had this little guitar thingy on it’s page, and you could actually play real songs on it if you were talented enough. (I was not. But some of my facebook friends had figured out the sequences and were playing real songs!! So cool!)

    Lol’ing at the toasted dragon. I can just picture PN’s non-amusement!!

    Hope you’re having a wonderful Tuesday 🙂
    Jill would like you to read ..The Tuesday RandomMy Profile

  13. I hear you on the sleep! I hate the fog. Lack of sleep makes you gain weight too! That guy’s a cutie! I glanced at the sculpty figure and thought it was some kind of gross sausage before I read. Always fun to read here!

  15. I would gladly trade you the cooler weather we have here for your heat, since apparently a certain husband didn’t quite fix all out leaks. Ahem.

    That jump was incredible, wasn’t it? I would so do it. After I stopped quaking in my shoes, of course. But oh, how wonderful it must have felt.

    That is one very crispy Draco Bird. I hope he has learned his lesson that he shouldn’t fly too closely to the volcano when it’s erupting hot lava next time. 😉
    Storm, the Psychotic Housewife would like you to read ..Random Thoughts Tuesday – TIN ROOF! RUSTED!My Profile

  16. Wow, it’s been a while since I last paid you a visit, glad to see things are great over at your end. 🙂

    Anyway, I know what you mean about getting that second wind right after midnight, I get that too, it’s already 2 am here and I feel pumped and just want to blog hop but the husband is nagging me to go to bed. I said this’ll be the last blog I visit for the night. 😛 LOL 😀

    Don’t you just hate it when Mother Nature mocks you? I feel that she mocks me all the time too!

    How cool! Too bad he didn’t break the record though, I’d retire too if I were him. 😛

    Wow, it did get pretty toasted. 😛 I can understand why PN wasn’t too happy about it, hehe 😛
    Ane would like you to read ..Random Tuesday Thoughts: Psycho Copycats and Random Sh!tMy Profile

  19. That jump was amazing! Yep, they’re a cute couple. And, yep, it’s a good call and do more boring stuff now. My fav Google was PacMan. Love that little guy. Thanks for a really fun post.

  20. I totally missed the jump until after it happened.
    You know what was funny? When I scanned down through your post before actually reading it, and just saw the sculpy dragon. It looked like some kind of freaky Halloween recipe. I did more than a doubletake. “What the stink is she cooking??” Or maybe it just looked like a freaky Halloween recipe since I’d been researching them for my husband’s “scary” potluck tomorrow. In the end I’ll send him with a bag of chips – I do not have time to sculpt goat cheese spiders covered in poppyseeds.
    Sarah at 32Flavors would like you to read ..RTT: A random rantMy Profile

  22. Ok, first and foremost, that CREATURE is disgusting looking! I am very pregnant and very queasy and that almost made me run to the bathroom in a heap of puke!!!

    I think it’s awesome that the cutie pants broke the sound barrier! I heard about it yesterday. I hardly ever watch the news. It’s so depressing on most days!

    I LOVE the Vi shakes. I add fruit to mine and it’s delish! Maybe after I have this babe, I’ll start getting them again. I have 2 bags waiting for me!

    Thanks for linking up, friend!
    Impulsive Addict would like you to read .."Tooting" on TTUTMy Profile

  24. I had the same problem with my new oven, where the food was getting cooked a lot more quicker than I am used too and I ended up burning a lot of things, however you will get used to it. I did not know that about the Google creative page, thank you for sharing this.

  25. Personally it looks like something prehistoric, and kinda creepy!!! LOL Sorry so late it was just one of those days! As far as that guy that jumped…. I cannot say what I really think LANGUAGE!!!! hahaha I think he’s bonkers! Have a great night~! Love your Post thought extremely interesting!~ Good show my friend!
    Xmasdolly would like you to read ..SHOW OFF TUESDAY! YOUR GIVE-AWAYS & REVIEWSMy Profile

  27. I tried the Vi shakes and just missed actually eating something. I do enjoy them for breakfast, when I actually eat it that is, and for an afternoon snack every one in a while. I love adding a little peanut butter, a spoonful of chocolate pudding mix and a half of banana! Delicious!

    Poor Draco Bird got a taste of his own medicine…

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