Clip for Bobs Burgers

I don't watch this show, but I see this clip on TV and it always makes me laugh - I don't know why!

The Road

Almost 7 years ago I visited the Waitomo Caves in New Zealand for the first time.  It’s a lovely cave and half way through you get into a boat and sail through the pitch black, but above you are glow‑worms.  They are quite something to see.  Glow‑worms are the larvae and they glow to attract insects that get captured in their sticky threads and become glow‑worm food.  Once the glow‑worms mature, they become flies without mouths their purpose is to mate and make more glow‑worms.  This is the most depressing thing I have ever heard.  Born – Eat – Mate – Reproduce - Starve to death.  How pointless.  Then I started to think, well I suppose this is what all life is about really and this sent me to a dark place.

I recently watched a movie called “The Road” starring Viggo Mortensen, adapted from a novel by Cormac McCarthy.  Its set after some undisclosed disaster has happened to the Earth and is about the Man and his son, the Boy.  They are travelling south to the coast where they hope it will be warmer, but since all animal and plant life have died out and even the trees are dying, they are starving.  Many families have committed suicide, others have turned to cannibalism.  The main dangers are starvation, exposure, or being captured by a gang and eaten.  I haven’t read the book but I did read that it is more graphic and bleak than the movie.

In this movie human life has been reduced to trying to survive in a dying world.  There is not much eating, mating or reproducing going on, it’s just straight to starve to death.

For 2 days now my mind has been busy contemplating these things.  I’ve dreamt about it.

Today I remembered Viktor Frankl.  He wrote “Man's Search for Meaning” based on his experiences as a Jewish slave labourer in a Nazi concentration camp.  He believes that meaning can be found everywhere, even in extreme suffering.

Perhaps then the life of a glow‑worm is a happy and purposeful one, controlling the insect population and giving New Zealand tourists something to wonder at.  And perhaps the love between a father and son is reason enough to not just survive but to seek out a better existence despite the unimaginable dangers and to cling on to their humanity.

A Story

I heard this story yesterday. It made me laugh out loud in places and made me think too. A very good story indeed.

 It's called Adams by George Saunders, and here is a link to its publication in the New Yorker> www.newyorker.com

Enjoy,

Blanket in Progress

I'm making progress with this blanket, it's the first time I've tried cabling :)

Inspiration for my house

When we were looking for somewhere to live, dear hubby and I made up wish lists.  I always wanted to live somewhere like the holiday park in Dirty Dancing.  I loved the lake, trees and the little chalets.  When I saw The Simpsons episode, "You Only Move Twice" (the one with Hank Scorpio), I really wanted to live at Homer and Marge's house in Cypress Creek!

Ceiling Completed

Whilst I was away for a lovely girls spa weekend, dear hubby had painted the ceiling.  It's a skillion roof we have so in our upstairs rooms it makes up a sloping wall.  It was great to come home to a nice white ceiling.  Some parts had needed up to 5 coats of paint! 

I also got some very nice chairs from a friend of mine and they look fantastic in what is becoming our reading room, although I think I may have to fight the cats for space!

So here is white sloping roof and new chairs.  Still to do: flooring and shelving.

Home Improvements in the Planning

We have been in our house for about 9 months now and finally inspiration has struck! I have a plan for how to decorate and have been gathering stuff to make it happen.

We bought some wallpaper and paint and ordered up some new furniture items and I'm quite excited about how it's all going to look when it's finished. However, there is a lot to do before that happens and the following weeks are going to be pretty busy!

For amateur decorators like ourselves, I think the whole project will be challenging and we might need to call in the professionals for some parts but I'm quite keen to give it go.

The first two jobs are to strip off the wall paper and to paint the ceiling. The ceiling is cathedral style with wooden beams so that's going to be fun!