Porcupine Philosophy

WISDOM OF THE PORCUPINE

It was the coldest winter ever. Many animals died because of the cold. The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm. This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions.


After awhile, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth. Wisely, they decided to go back to being together.

They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the heat that came from the others. This way they were able to survive. The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities.

The moral of the story is: Just learn to live with the pricks in your life!

School Days

Labor Day/end of summer is a time of year that brings back good memories for me. I suppose as a kid, it wasn't as endearing, but it is now - school supply time! I'm sure when I was a kid, I started to get anxious about school starting, new teachers, scary subjects, etc.......but now I just get to revel in the good memories about all of the fun stuff!

For some reason, I am obsessed with school supplies and office supplies - they are just so fun and bring joy to my pathetic little world. :( haha All of the folders, notebooks, pens, erasers, glue sticks, etc.

Oh, and we couldn't forget Crayola crayons! You knew you were SOMEBODY when you had the 64-pack with the built-in sharpener. I can just smell the fantastic aroma of a box of crayons......

Sometimes I just wish I had kids so that I would have a good excuse to color in coloring books and play with markers, colored pencils, and construction paper. So to put that love to good use, my co-workers and I adopted some underprivileged students and bought all of their beginning of the year supplies for them (part of a backpack program at work). We had a blast!

Anyone else remember desks like this? Where you lifted up the desktop and stored your fantastic supplies inside? And you could spin in the chair?

When I was shopping with my work friends for school supplies, the lists we were given just asked for "glue" or "glue sticks" - not PASTE. I was HIGHLY disappointed, as I love the smell of paste and it brings back so many fond memories. Office Depot didn't even SELL paste - WHAT?! Not acceptable, if you ask me.

Or how about these lunchboxes? I didn't have a Pac-Man one, but I think I probably had Strawberry Shortcake or Care Bears or something. But they were metal with a plastic thermos inside. AWESOMENESS.

Oh, and who could forget the hard cardboard pencil boxes? I always loved mine and had it all organized like a total geek.

Whether I ever have kids or not, I will always love this time of year - and I can help kids in need by indulging my obsession of shopping for school supplies!

A Year In Time

Recently I thought of a fun new series for the blog and I call it "A Year in Time." I thought it would be fun to pick a year of my life and remember as much as I could about it. So this first time, I am going to pick:

1995

I thought I would grab at low-hanging fruit and make it easy this first time. 1995 was a busy year and an exciting one as well. Here goes!

• 
  
  I graduated high school in June


• 
  
  I got my wisdom teeth out two weeks after high school graduation


• 
  
  I worked a summer job at Norwest Bank over by the U of M, processing mortgage papers in the evenings. It was such a fun job and I got to drive by 4th Street every day - where Bob Dylan penned "Positively 4th Street." :)


• 
  
  My Dad let Becky and I go up to our travel trailer at a campground up north all by ourselves for some weekends.


• 
  
  I left for college (University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire) - Dad drove me and helped me move in. I was so excited!


• 
  
  I joined Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority - one of the best decisions I would ever make!


• 
  
  I met some of my best friends ever in that first semester of college (still to this day): Allison, Renee, Claire, Shauna, Jamie, etc.


• 
  
  I experienced sweet independence at school and I was having the time of my life!

List Friday

Top 10 Places I Would Rather Be

1. On a massage table, getting a deep tissue massage

2. Anywhere in Europe

3. Driving out in the country with the sun shining, an open road and good tunes playing

4. At a Vikings game (preferably a game in which the Vikings are WINNING)

5. Touring old restored homes

6. Boating out on a lake in Minnesota

7. Snuggling with my pups Maggie & Owen under a blanket

8. In a hammock on a sunny, breezy day with a good book in one hand and a frozen margarita in the other hand

9. At a Bruce Springsteen concert in a tiny dumpy venue, with a whole set of acoustic renditions of his less popular stuff

10. Horseback riding (and not being afraid of it) on a big sprawling ranch

Thankful Thursday

This week I am thankful for a recharge/reboot weekend all by myself. Last week was horrible and I was just SO DONE with the world, so I went out to dinner on Friday with some good friends (and we drank a big pitcher of sangria - YUM), then I went home and didn't leave the house until Monday morning to go to work. The only exception is that I ran my car over to NTB to get a quick oil change that was WAY overdue.

There are many benefits to having a reboot weekend:

1. I spend a ton of quality time with my pups who are by themselves during the day all week long.

2. I catch up on sleep and get to take lots of naps.

3. I catch up on shows in my DVR.

4. I get a lot of stuff done around the house -cleaning, laundry, organizing, etc.

5. I don't spend any money!

6. I don't have to deal with people - and after the week I had, I am very happy about that.

7. I have time for phone calls with far-away friends that I get to catch up with (this past weekend it was Beth and Allison - many more to go!).

8. There's no possible way that I can have car trouble since my car is parked in the garage! (damn tires!)

9. I get to do some reading that I have been meaning to do.

10. I get just enough cabin fever by Sunday night that I don't mind going to work as much on Monday morning.

Wow - I am more thankful for these random reboot weekends now than before I wrote all of the benefits! Maybe I should schedule one every quarter or something. :)

Corsicana Dining

OK, last post about the blueberry roadtrip from a few weeks ago. This one is dedicated to the town of Corsicana - southeast of Dallas. It was kind of sad because most of the old downtown was shut down, boarded up and empty.....but we still found a few gems. :)

Here's one of the buildings when we first rolled into the downtown area.....

The old general store......I was all excited to go in and shop, but it turned out to be like a tack store for horses. Dang!

I just loved the decorative top of this building - looks like it was built in 1927. Things were so much more unique back then - every building had it's own markings and character. I wish things were still like that today.

This next one was my FAVORITE building in downtown Corsicana - look at the fancy detail!!

I wonder what it used to be?? It didn't look like a church, but rather a business/office building in its shape, but it was so ornate?? Maybe it was the newspaper building?

After a little while, we were ready to eat lunch, but there were only about 2-3 places to choose from. We decided on the old 50's-style diner. Here's the side of the building - Dr. Pepper is a BIG DEAL in this area.

I love it - a soda fountain! (or I would say POP fountain - haha)

Here's the front window - too funny......

This is the view of the front of the diner from our booth - so cool!

They even had straws in one of those old straw holders!

I think the pop was coming from a regular modern machine, but they were bringing around pitchers of water that they poured from these old soda (pop) handles - I love it!!

I'm not sure if this used to be Hashop Drugs, but the sign was cool either way. :)

Just an amazing little step back in time for lunch - even the floor was original.....those white octagon-shaped tiles with black tiles to make designs. AWESOME.

Small Town Obsession!

I have really found something that I love lately with these daytrips out to random small towns around north Texas. We've gone west, we've gone east - doesn't matter, I love them all. It's just getting out of the hustle and bustle of DFW with the traffic, noise and fast-paced life. Don't get me wrong, I love city life and I like all of the conveniences that comes with that lifestyle......but with as stressful as this year has become, these daytrips out of town have been crucial to my sanity! It just reminds you that there are other things in life besides work, errands, cleaning, etc. And I'm a huge history buff, so it's fun to see the old buildings, monuments, courthouses, cars, ranches, etc.

Look at this old theater - The Texan!

And could the name of this tiny little bistro be any cuter??? "Winnie & Tulula's"!

You know you're in Texas when you see a truck like this in front of you......(PS - aren't the green rolling hills pretty in the foreground??)

On this particular trip, I wanted to make a point of passing through Gun Barrel City, TX. I had seen it on a map many times, but wanted to check it out since it was such a weird name.....I love their logo!

We have definitely arrived.......

It's REALLY a name of a town - here's City Hall to prove it!

Gotta love it - a little part of me wanted to steal this sign and put it up outside my front door at home......maybe a theft deterrent system?? hahaha

There were lots of murals on the sides of buildings out in these little towns - must have been popular to do that in days gone by??

Um...OK, I got really excited about this photo op! The first time I ever heard someone called a "tool" was on The Golden Girls - by Sophia, of course. I love that old broad!

And since it was so hot during the 'cow nap time', all of the cows were smart and found a tiny little speck of shade and plopped down!

Blueberry Madness

On my birthday weekend, Jenks and I took I-20 east out of Dallas about an hour and a half to Edom, Texas to pick blueberries on a blueberry farm. Picking wild berries was an item on my 33-list, so I got this one done just under the wire. :)

When I saw the Texas sign above on the side of the building when we arrived, I knew I was going to have a good time.....and I also loved this sign (below) that welcomed us and told us we were in the right place!

"It's a berry good time" - yep, they were right......

When we arrived, we went in the main building and picked out our basket......we were ambitious and got a big one!

Since the end of July/beginning of August is the hottest time of the year and temps were in the 103-108 range that day, we got up really early and arrived in the morning to avoid the crazy heat. Here I am, ready to go with my basket and Diet Mountain Dew!

I got the hang of it pretty quickly and was on a mission to fill up the basket!

Blueberries grow on big bushes and have berries all throughout the bush, so there's lots of bending and reaching. And the branches are not kind to your arms - I looked like I was clawed by a cat when I was done.....

I never thought about what a blueberry bush would look like, but here it is!

Here's a view of the blueberry bushes with the big red barn in the background. And I got some good tips from the lady in the picture too. It turns out that her daughter lives just a mile or two from me in Grand Prairie!

I always thought that Siamese cherries were cool, but look at these quadruplet blueberries!

The best ones to find were ones like these - a big bunch all together - you just gently pull on the berries and they all come off in your hand at once. Perfect!

I'm not sure about these red blueberries....not sure if they are something good or bad, or if they are just not ripe??

They had these soaker hoses/irrigation lines down the middle of each row to water the bushes. It is definitely needed in this crazy Texas heat....

This place was so serene and quiet - it was very peaceful. There's just something about getting out of town and doing something totally different from what you do all week. And picking blueberries is TOTALLY different than financial analysis!

All done - look at this bad boy!

This was one of my favorite pictures - a job well done. Jenks and I filled that big bucket up!

They were yummy and straight from mother earth.

Here's the store (the big red barn in the pictures above) - you go in and either pay by weight or pay by the bucket. Our big bucket of blueberries was only $10! I made some blueberry crisp with 4 cups of berries and froze the rest. It will be nice to have free blueberries during the winter when they are a fortune at Kroger. :)

They bag your blueberries for you - and we also bought some blueberry preserves, made from berries from their farm.

Ummmmmm - this sounds disgusting!

Apparently this blueberry farm is very famous around the area - they had a million newspaper/magazine articles about this fantastic place on the wall....

They had all kinds of products made from their fresh berries - you could buy a million blueberry flavored items!

This was so much fun! And we found out that they have a whole section for blackberries and they are ripe earlier in the year, so I'm going to head back out here next spring for some of them. Thanks, Edom - I'll be back!