Watcha Doin' - 2017.1 edition Showing 1,701-1,750 of 5,020

[Travis]

Stress makes me listen to more music and less books. Although, I'm not positive, but I think when there is a lot on my mind I tend to read a biography or something non fiction. I don't want to have to follow a complex plot and a lot of characters. Instead it's just a lot of information thrown to you and quite frankly if your mind zones a little it's not the end if the world

[KimeyDiann]

Thanks for the kind words.

That article is very true, Lisa. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Typically when I'm really stressed or depressed, I try to go for light books. Romance or something funny. Charley Davidson is usually a really good one for me in these times. I also like fantasy books, something completely different from the world we live in that allows me to escape. But then sometimes, I do want an emotional or heavy book. Sometimes it helps to feel someone else's emotions, it can remind me that my problems aren't that bad. But usually, it is light, low stress books that I gravitate towards.

[Sarah]

We have a recommendation section and a chit chat about books section where you can ask for a recommendation and let us know what kind of thing you like so we can tailor the recommendations to you better. You'll get more joy over there. Here we chat about everything but books. :-)

[jaxnsmom]

That's Janet, one of the librarians at South Charleston Public Library. She's helping Flat Charles decide what to check out.

Yes, FC is absolutely ugly, creepy, and probably dangerous with those swords. See, he can't even blend in with the cute clocks.

[Janice, Moderator]

Did I miss something? Who is Flat Charles?

[Peggy]

I'm wondering the same Janice.


I just bought tickets to a Royal Blood show. It's already next month, looking forward! It's in Amsterdam, and we're going to combine it with a visit to the World Press Photo exhibit and stay the night there.

[Sarah]

I didn't know until I saw the pictures. I think kids draw a picture of a man (or woman) and it's called flat charles and they have to take it places and have pictures taken with it. Kind of like having one of those pretend dolls you have to look after. I remember someone mentioning it on here once before.

That's exciting about Royal Blood Peggy. I would quite like to see them too.My sister in law has seen them a couple of times but she commented after the last time that they need to realise another album before she sees them again.

[Sarah]

I'm off to a funeral today for my Great aunt who died age 100! I don't like funerals. The only nice thing is seeing family you've not seen for a while. Actually, a few of them I've not seen since my Grandad's funeral and that was some while ago now.

[Tejas Janet]

Janice wrote: "Did I miss something? Who is Flat Charles?"

Not sure, Janice. I somehow leapt to the conclusion that Flat Charles must be a flat, life-size photo of Prince Charles. Have no idea tho!!

[Tejas Janet]

Don't know what it means, but i feel that i can relate to "Flat Charles." I feel that way about myself and my life, lol!

[Peggy]

Sorry to hear about your great aunt Sarah. 100 is a very respectable age though!

We were supposed to see Royal Blood when I bought us tickets for the Foo Fighters in Wembley (they were one of the opening acts) but that got cancelled. Another chance :)

[Sarah]

Thanks Peggy. Yes a respectable age indeed. My nan is the last remaining sibling now. She is 97 this year!

[Tejas Janet]

Is your nan who is age 97 another great aunt, Sarah? Wow!!

[Sarah]

My nan is my nan. Grandmother. Do you not use the term nan in the US?

[Margo]

sorry to hear about your gran aunt Sarah, but didn't she have a long life.
I'm in a hospital day ward waiting to have a procedure to ease my sciatica. Nervous :-0

[Sarah]

Thanks Margo. And good luck. I had a nerve block a few years ago to help with sciatica. It was much better than expected and the team were really friendly. Much better than having sciatica! I hope it all goes well for you.

[Peggy]

Good luck Margo!

[Travis]

I had a friend who had a nannie. (Nah ney) and another with a Nana (nah nah). Basically grandma's are grandma's over here

Sorry for your aunt Sarah but a good run she had at it to see 100

[Travis]

Good luck Margo

[Margo]

All over now and pain much relieved - of couse the local hasn't worn of yet!

[Lisa]

Sorry to hear about your Great aunt, Sarah. I hope the funeral goes as well as it possibly can.

Margo, good luck with your procedure.

[Sandra, Moderator]

I remember J'mom saying a few days ago Flat Charles was visiting! Can't see the pics in the app, though. I'll see them later in my computer.

Sorry about your aunt, Sarah. 100! It is impressive. In some way I'd rather see her go than decay badly...

Margo, glad to know you are feeling better already.

[Kristie, Moderator]

I thought Flat Charles was something like Flat Stanley, the children's book. But, I was just guessing.

Sorry to hear about your aunt, Sarah. 100 is an excellent age to live to. And your Nan is 97. Great genes in your family! I knew who you meant when you said Nan. We call grandparents all sorts of different things in the US. I had a Memere and a Grammy when I was young. My grandson calls me Nonna. Some of the titles are based on family nationality (Memere is French, Nonna is Italian), but many others are terms of affection. And yes, there are many that use the term grandma, but most of the people I know go with something less formal.

[Sandra, Moderator]

Now I see the pictures! Love Flat Charles! Tell him I highly recommend Monster Science: Could Monsters Survive (and Thrive!) in the Real World?. It is a great book.

[Rusalka, Moderator]

Sorry to hear about your Great Aunt, Sarah. A 100 is a pretty good innings though! I do understand though, my cousins and I only really get to catch up all together at weddings and funerals. And talk about good genes if Nan is 97!

[KimeyDiann]

Good luck on your procedure, Margo. I hope you get some relief!

Sorry about your Great Aunt, Sarah.

I understood nan to mean grandmother. It seems everyone around here calls their grandparents something different. Most common is mawmaw and pawpaw, which I have really never liked. I am about the only person I know who had a grandma. Even all of my cousins called her Maw instead of Grandma. Of the friends with kids, the grands are called things like nana and mimi for the ladies or some variation of pop for the men (poppy, poppop, pops).

[KimeyDiann]

I'm off to spend the weekend with my husband shortly. I took off work Monday so I could drive back then and have all day Sunday to spend with him. I'm excited. This is the last weekend for quite a while he will have a day off. They have a deadline to meet and it is mandatory after this weekend that everyone work 7 days a week until they are done. It actually starts this weekend, but his boss didn't tell him until after I had made plans to come out there, so he is letting him take Sunday off to spend with me. :)

[Kristie, Moderator]

So glad your husband was able to still take Sunday off, Kimey! I hope you have a wonderful weekend together.

[jaxnsmom]

Janice wrote: "Did I miss something? Who is Flat Charles?"

Flat Charles is the really ugly paperdoll (but don't call him that to his face) that my 7 year old nephew sent me. His second grade class is doing this as a project. The kids send out the Flats and those of us who receive them take them around where we live and take pictures, which we e-mail back to the teacher. The pictures can show how I spend my day, things of note where I live, touristy stuff. Flat Tim was here a couple of years ago from my niece's class.

[jaxnsmom]

Hope your surgery goes well, Margo!

Glad you're going to see your husband, KimeyD - especially since he won't have any time off for a while.

[Janice, Moderator]

jaxnsmom wrote: "Janice wrote: "Did I miss something? Who is Flat Charles?"

Flat Charles is the really ugly paperdoll (but don't call him that to his face) that my 7 year old nephew sent me. His second grade class..."

What great fun for the kids. It's super that you are participating with your nephew.

[Janice, Moderator]

Sorry to hear about your Great Aunt, Sarah. What a grand age to reach!

I hope the procedure helped Margo. I had an episode of sciatic pain about 10 years ago and still have some episodic numbness in my toes as a result.

[Mariab]

Rusalka wrote: "Jerusalem artichokes :D"
Oh. I see...

[Tejas Janet]

Oh, of course! Nan, like Nana, which some grandmothers go by. Mostly seems to be Gran and Mimi any more around here. I like Nan, that's nice.

[Sarah]

Thanks guys. The funeral went well. It was a nice service.

[KimeyDiann]

You've been a quiet group the last few days. I hope everyone is doing well.

I got back home from spending the weekend with my husband yesterday afternoon. We had a great time, even though he ended up having to work till lunch on Sunday. We didn't do anything overly exciting, it was just nice to spend some time together. We did finally manage to make it to downtown Charleston, SC Sunday, but we just walked around and visited a few shops. Next time I want to go on one of the historic tours of the area.

[Sarah]

We had a bank holiday here in the UK this weekend. I've been busy for most of it. We went out with a friend on Saturday evening and back to theirs for dinner. The on Sunday we went to an open day at a local animal sanctuary - the place I went to with my dad a few months back for the owl experience. It was a nice day. Yesterday we went for a walk and stopped off at the pub on the way home where we met some friends by accident which meant we stopped for an extra pit :-) Then we got caught in the rain walking back to our boat. So we didn't really get a huge amount done on the boat this weekend but it was nice nonetheless. Today we went shopping in Bath. It's only a couple weeks until my cousin's wedding so we had to get something suitable for my partner to where. It was relatively painless.

Glad you had a nice time with your husband Kimey.

[Travis]

This was too random not to share. There is an online site I buy fasteners and masonry bits to fasten things to yes you guessed it. Concrete. It's concrete fasteners .Com or something near to that. They send me emails of sales all the time. Today they sent me email that said poem of the day. And had a copy of a poem about a man slaying a dragon.

I'm not sure why that poem would make me want to buy concrete fasteners. Or was it a ploy to open the email. I'm not in marketing so I don't know what the idea was.

[Cherie]

Travis - I cannot imagine why a cement fastener company would want to send a poem, but maybe they are trying to give their advertising more of a humanizing feel, or their fasteners will make you feel like the guy slaying your cement block project, or heck - I don't know.

Speaking of poems though, the one at the bottom of the May Goodreads newsletter I received today was really, beautiful! I always go to the bottom to see the poem first thing, before I read anything else.
----------------
I have two more days at work this week and I will officially be on my sabbatical from work. It has been very stressful, trying to make sure everything is going to be covered and answering everyone's last minute questions before I am going to be gone. Meeting after meeting with people. I had a guy demand for me to give him a copy of some instructions I wrote for someone who is going to cover for me. He said he might need them because I would be gone and he would not know who to go. My out of office email with the list of everyone who has been coerced to do a part of my job while I am gone is going to be a yard long.

[Janice, Moderator]

I imagine it is stressful wrapping things up at work, Cherie. You'll be able to relax soon.

[Travis]

Huh. I've never read the Goodreads newsletter so I know of no poem included in them. They always head to unopened email. I don't know why people email me I never open them. Of course I often wonder why people call my phone I never answer that either. Why won't people just leave me alone. Lol. I text, that's something anyway

[Tejas Janet]

I'm not signed up for GR newsletter or poems included. I'm with you, Travis. I rarely answer any phone calls unless i know for sure who is calling. Ditto with email.

Cherie, I feel your pain. It's tough to get ready to leave work, and then you know there will be work piled up when you get back to sort thru and deal with.

Don't let it spoil your time away!!!

[Peggy]

Yikes! There are ads in my GR app! When did that happen?

[Sarah]

I'm off to get my bridesmaid dress altered this morning. I've put the strapless bra on that I bought to wear with the dress so that the dress can be adjusted properly. But I can hardly breath now. Why do women put themselves through this kind of thing? I better get some bra wearing practice in before the wedding otherwise I don't think I will be able to make it through the day!

Then I'm off for a swimming lesson and then it's down to Bournemouth for another weekend of my course.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Strapless bras are even worse than regular bras. They are tighter so they don't slide down. Is it a dress that you need to wear a bra with? Sometimes, more formal dresses do the job for you once they are fitted properly.

Have fun at your swimming lesson.

[Rusalka, Moderator]

And if they have that grippy, pinchy, plastic tapey stuff. Urgh. Do you have to wear heels as well? I wore my heels around work for a week before being a bridesmaid, and all the academics taunted me. Jerks.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Rusalka, that must have been uncomfortable too.

[Rusalka, Moderator]

It was more amusing as I had to stand in mud. So throughout the ceremony I was sinking, so it negated the heels. I had sore feet for no reason, and then when I had to move, I had to extract myself without face planting in front of everyone.

[Laura (Lclwags)]

Sarah - that sounds awful. I hope you don't need too many alterations! I just went with a friend to her alteration appointment for her wedding dress, and it ended up costing almost as much as the dress! I swear they make you order the dress too big, so you need more alterations.

[Kristie, Moderator]

Rusalka wrote: "It was more amusing as I had to stand in mud. So throughout the ceremony I was sinking, so it negated the heels. I had sore feet for no reason, and then when I had to move, I had to extract myself ..."

Oh geez! Hahaha. Glad you were able to extract yourself without face planting in the mud!