The dimming light over Lake Michigan,
The dimming light over Lake Michigan, factories on the horizon, vestiges of the Rust Belt.
My current diary/journal, #120. This one has a unique cover, it's one of 90 prints, by a Chilean artist whose name I already forgot, sorry.Babalon per mentis imaginem manu sinistra
Narazil jsem na pardn die!
11/2/2005
Michigan Avenue, Chicago
DiaryWhen we were living in Winchester Halloween became great fun once our son was able to participate.
The first time round in 2006 it completely caught me by surprise. The door bell rang while I was trying to get my baby son to sleep and I wasnt happy with the noise, so I simply switched the bell off. The next day I found someone had thrown an egg at our window: the infamous trick part of Halloween trick and treating. Dried egg is horrible to remove. Luckily, the following years when we still chose to ignore the event, there was no more tricking.
When our son was old enough to take part with friends we taught the children to be considerate as not everyone in the neighbourhood was happy with this event. The rules were as follows:
- only go to houses with Halloween decorations.
- be polite when asking for treats.
- do not ever think of tricking someone.
Every Halloween started with carving pumpkins. Our son of course wanted to carve his own one every year and got used to handling a kitchen knife safely pretty quickly.
As far as I remember the first time(s) round he wanted to dress up as Optimus Prime (from the Transformers movies). One year he was a Dalek (from Dr Who). Later he was always the Grim Reaper. I also dressed up to walk around with the children.
Among many other people who kindly indulged the children, we met the friendliest old lady witch possible who gave out loads of sweets and was very chatty. We saw many great pumpkin carvings. One time was especially memorable, there was an angler with a foot on his hook (bone sticking out), and a huge spider coming down onto our group of kids while they were distracted by a smoke machine! I think much screaming ensued.
The weirdest thing happening was finding a fake bloody lower arm behind our bin.
Each time I had great fun decorating our place, I really liked spiderwebs with spiders and balloon ghosts that were dimly glowing from the inside. Our door bell could play sound files, so I set it to things like witches laughing and put it in the shed right next to our main door. We also had our own Halloween party for children once, with lots of grisly food.
Here are some photos from those years:
Here's a video to spice up
"3 True Scary Halloween Stories for a Creepy October Night"
Today, on a walk through our neighbourhood, I found a little wooden flower bench which was sitting on the pavement with a sign that it was waiting for a new owner (zu verschenken). How did the kind person who put it there know that this was exactly what I was looking for as I had lost the space for my plants in front of the window because of my rearranging the furniture I had put two small tables there temporarily and was looking on Amazon for ideas of what to get. Problem now solved!
#Diary #HomeImprovements #Serendipity
You can read the whole article even if you don't have a subscription by using this
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It is well worth reading the article and seeing the photos for yourself. This war between the terrorist group Hamas and the corrupt occupying govt of Israel is hurting and killing average everyday people who just want to live their lives.
"There is no sign of this war ending. No one in power speaks of a cease-fire. On the news, theres discussion of a few hours truce for humanitarian purposes, to let in a little and .
I find it unbearable to listen to the way they talk about us, decide things for us, without ever asking any of us."
Atef Abu Saif
"I asked Yasser 15 yr old son to stay in his grandparents house. The logic is that in wartime, we should all sleep in different places, so that if part of the is killed, another part lives.
The UN are getting more crowded w/ displaced families. The hope is that the flag will save them, though in previous wars, that hasnt been the case."
"The city has become a wasteland of rubble and debris. Beautiful buildings fall like columns of smoke. I often think about the time I was shot as a kid, during the first , and how my mother told me I actually died for a few minutes before being brought back to life. Maybe I can do the same this time, I think."
Atef Abu Saif
"Memories of war can be strangely positive, because to have them at all means you must have survived."
Atef Abu Saif, author
Abu Saif was visiting family in , where he grew up, when bombs began to fall Oct. 7. He began sending voice notes to friends abroad.
The following excerpts, which have been edited for length, clarity and style, track roughly three weeks, from Oct. 7 to 26.
the application is seeding in / 17.2 according to macrumors:
Waiting for the medicine to kick in so I can breath again. /sinus allergies
I need a new library card. Can't find the old one.
But its not all bad, the cat is here.
A little personal post for a sad occasion. About how one sitcom was able to safe my life for a little while.
October 15th
NBC News publishes detailed maps of the they found on the bodies of some . They include a detailed map of Saad, marking the primary where they planned to kill the or take them . I cry for the first time.
Yesterday we sent out our rental termination notice.
Last year we bought an apartment in the same building where we are renting a place since we relocated from the UK in 2018. There was so much to do, nothing much had been done there for nearly 50 years. We had to get most of the pipes replaced and almost all of the electrical and telecommunications/network installations had to be redone to be fit for our needs. Some old walls were ripped out and new walls put in. Bathrooms and kitchen were completely stripped and redone. Internal doors were replaced. A huge cupboard/wardrobe was fitted in one of our hallways. It all took its sweet time as tradespeople and material werent always available and on top of that the prices kept rising. The neighbours probably hate(d) us, despite me trying to give them some warning every time when it got really noisy.
The place is now at the point that only a few minor improvements need finishing before we can properly move in. A number of bigger things are still missing but they are not essential right now and can be done next year with us living there.
We have three months for moving and while we had already moved a wardrobe from the cellar to our sons new bedroom some months ago, today marked the first day of more serious moving. The reason for this was that there is a pipe leakage in a service shaft in our rental which last night made itself known in our sons current bedroom. It is high time we are getting out of here before the plumbers make our life hell as it probably means that they have to rip open our one and only toilet from where the water seems to originate.
We borrowed a small trolley for moving heavy items and it was really useful already. We did several trips to move a small wardrobe, a bigger shelf unit and all of their contents. Its great to be able to do this with plenty of time as we can sort out at the same time. The best thing is that my son is all grown up this time round and is able to lug things around with us!
For quite a while it seemed like this day would never come.
10/28/2016
Power Of Three
Made up these three layouts last night. I'll be heading on a trip soon, wanted to at least get those weeks drawn up before I leave. :)
Spooky Month Is Almost Over!!
Updated Spooky Editions of My Whimsical Notes are available on Amazon!
Edition 1:
Edition 2:
Grab your copy or copies and stay spooky!
MK
I take a pic of this same tree every year in mid-October, usually on a weekend. Photographing something even only twice leaves an emotional residue on both the object and on memory. Both have been transformed.
Well, here we go! Its less than a week to the start of November, and will begin soon! Its the same story as always - 200 words every day in November in a language that is not your mother tongue. It can be anything! A post, , or an all of your own! If 200 words a day seems like a lot, then adjust it - if youre using a language that makes counting words more difficult, you could do 400 characters a day instead. Its entirely up to you!
Eman Basher diary
Diary entries of Eman Basher, a schoolteacher and writer from Gaza, a mother of four.
Screenshots:
Nobody wants to read it
10/26/2002
Went to peace rally in Federal Plaza at noon. Could be historical.
10/25/2009, Chicago (Ist iPhone)
Tell me about your Journalling experience. Physical or Digital is it a diary or something entirely different How often do you write Are there particular items you make sure every entry has
I kinda like the idea of a journalling (I even wrote a first entry last night), but the logical mind is still trying to understand it
I finally found a real-world use for : public . I will note daily every noteworthy thing to keep track of them and estimate how often they happen.
I found in without this week. I miss being able to ethically eat all the cookies I want, but it's better for my .
10/22/2011
Newpapers used to be memorabilia.
I've started a new blog on and a series about my utterly useless journey in writing a UI ( to be accurate) SDK for my module: the pygamelib. If you're interested in the programming diary of my failures, frustrations, and hopefully success, you can read the first installment here:
Out of Tune, 8"x10" inkjet overprinting on rice paper (10/2013)
I'm just banging these out, haha! Trying to get ahead of things because I'll be doing a lot of travel in the next couple of months. This is my monthly summary layout for November.
Worked on next week's layouts a little early. More fun with color schemes!
The Operation was most orgiastic, but I formulated the God well and called aloud after his name. The Gluten of the Eagle was not very plentiful, and the Lion was not very thoroughly dissolved therein. Still, I think the Elixir was formed well enough.
Chiudiamo il capitolo riccio.
This is what my husband brought us home yesterday. Luckily its only the windscreen. There was glass in the car too but nothing thats bad enough to injure him!
From all he can gather it was a bird (possibly a pheasant) that hit the car at full impact on the middle of the busy M3. This could have gone terribly wrong, he was quite lucky.
Our son was most enamoured by the recovery vehicle delivering our car and his dad. He was allowed to move the ramp back (using the little levers on the real thing) and was mightily impressed. Here is his rendition of it: