And The trophy goes to.....

Thanks guys for playing my where in the world is carmen sandiego. Mr. B. guessed correctly,I was in Findlay,Ohio. It's a little college town with a lot of mom and pop shops on their main drag. In addition to Dietsch and George house there was also Sour Flower which looked like a junk consignment shop,Finders Record and tape shop and many more oddly titled stores. I did have fun.


I've been taking some pictures at night. I wanted to capture the Forrest behind my house. Here's what happens when you need a better camera.



If only the camera would capture what I see. Oh well,you can't have it all.

Where in the world in Desiree Thomas

I used to love the game "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego". So I've decided to incorporate that love into this post. This weekend I took a road trip.

Clue #uno:
I was in Flag City USA. Home of George House


Which is a wonderful coffee house where you can get a "Nutty Irishman" along with various kinds of tea and spices. I loved the earth mother vibe I got from the cafe. It's like a library/coffee house/spice shop/art gallery/student hangout. My friends and I sat and knit and laughed our way through tea and danishes.

Clue #deux
The city derives its name from a fort erected on its site in 1812 as a local outpost in the War of 1812. It's also the hometown of Ben Roethlisberger,(Pittsburg Steeler's QB). We got ice cream from this wonderful place called "Dietsch"(pronounced "Deets") It's a candy slash ice cream place. The flavors of the month was peppermint and cinnamon. I tried the peppermint-lovely. They also have a lot of sugar free candy-I opted for the cashew clusters and malted milk balls-My mom loved them.

Clue # tre
This city was named a winner in the first-ever national competition to identify the 100 Best Communities for Young People in September 2005. It has a beautiful college campus and is about 70 miles west of mansfield.

I love road trips that are closed to home. I spent the day with my friend first driving around my home town. We looked around for photo opportunities. We found a couple but one we missed was a street called and I kid you not.. Tom Dick and Harry lane! It was a really long name for a short street. We had great conversations about life and what we wanted out of it. I'm still working on my list.

So.....Where do you think I went? Put on your thinking caps and if you went on this journey with me-you can't guess. One last clue 41°2′34″N 83°38′32″W / 41.04278, -83.64222 . Yep it's the geographic location-thanks wikipedia!. I promise there was no spelunking -although I have been thinking of doing a winter hike on my favorite trail at mohican-if it gets above 30 degrees that is.

Check ya later taters

des

Just a quick note

Now that I'm a more compact version of myself(still a ways to go yet but I'm making the journey)I've been reintroduced to something I like to call "Fun". I forgot how it feels to play. I ran around the church sanctuary as my god daughter chased me. Granted she's only three but she can move. It was like running laps at the gym. A member of our praise team said I should be shouting out hallelujah It was such fun. On Wednesday I stayed at my brother's house because of the storm and my nephew asked if i wanted to play star wars. I figured it was some new game for his xbox 360-it wasn't. He has two light savers(I hope that's the right term). So we battled for like 45 minutes. If you hit your opponent in arm-then he could no longer use that arm. It got to the point where we had to hold the light savers with our "arm stumps" as we battled on our knees. There was much trash talking and "you'll never take me a alive" and complicated moves where you had to jump up and put your hand out all while swinging your sword in defense. I also helped him with his homework. Part of his homework was to read a story called "Turtle Bay". When it was my turn to read-he critiqued me telling me not to read with so much expression. We then acted out the story-we pretended we were turtles burying our eggs on the beach-just a fun time. I might take another dance class soon. Now I just want to do something else fun. Maybe rock climbing or white water rafting-spring time activities I know. Sometimes you can get bogged down in the minutia of life and forget what real living is all about. Do something today that reminds you of yourself before (work,obligations,utter crap) took over. I'm bird watching(we have so many coming to the feeders in the back yard) and making the most of my day off.

TTFN

des

The library is the new mall

Hey guys,

Do you remember when you begged your mom or dad to drop you off at the mall so you could cruise the stores(and boys girls)with your friends. You'd look for the latest pair of Jordache jeans or try to find some new jelly bracelets or banana yellow fingernail polish to go with your banana hair clips. Guys would spend their weekly allowance trying to conquer space invaders or PAC man or donkey Kong. You'd go to the food court and bond with your friends over an Orange Julius and talk about who did what to whom. Everything was totally rad or awesome and you always wanted someone to gag you with a spoon. Well kids today have branched out. The mall is still a popular social gathering place. Malls have put in place curfews and the like to deter roaming bands of kids from window shopping heaven. So the kids had to find a new meeting place. Where can you go if you want to meet a secret crush and your parents won't be suspicious? Where can you go to create your own myspace page without your parents scrutinizing your every move? You guessed it the library is the new mall. It's like junior high all over again. Instead of battling it out with teachers-you're battling it out with library staff or trying to create your own west side story moment in the teen area. (cue the violins)"Rayshon, I just met a guy named Rayshon. And I know he's seventeen but he likes my applebottom jeans." The library turns into teen clickville around 2:30. You have your "I'm to cute to talk to you" gang "mean mugging"(this term means to give someone attitude with your expressions) the "let's take it outside"gang. It's quite hilarious-it makes work interesting to say the least. What happened to the good old days when the library was for studying and dare I say it ...READING. We used to be an institution of learning and resources. That is still our mission but we are now also taking the place of recreations centers that are closing due to budget cuts. We're also economical. Where else can you get free day care? What happened to after school specials and the Dare program. I've been thinking of starting my own Dare program. Here's a few slogans I've come up with "Dare to be quiet" "Dare to be normal" "Dare to use your brain" "Shut your mouth and open your mind" "A library card is a terrible thing to waste". This is not to say that every teen that comes into the library is inherently bad-just most of them(just kidding). I've had some really nice kids who come in and remind me that they are not all bad. Okay I've gotten that out of my system now. Tomorrow's post will be of lighter fare I promise. You'll see the softer side of des.

Not fit for man nor beast

The weather that is. I decided to make cocoa-yes from scratch-it's that kind of day. Top it off with an insane amount of marshmallows and you have ....
This is a perfect day for catching up on your reading. I'm reading...



It's good so far and very cute. I've also managed to finish a knitting journey i've been on the last couple weeks. Come with me to....






The land of double knits and not that horrible trend from the seventies. Here we aspire to inspire the daring and bold and warm. Hoping only to warm your heads and your hearts with toasty warm hats and scarves of the Jekyll and Hyde variety. Each item has it's own personality. All kidding aside it worked out pretty well. The next hat will be done on circulars-look ma! no seam!!!!. I'm also in the mood to make long scarf that will block out all the cold on Thursday it's supposed to be -3 degrees. While I love the beauty of winter and snow-I hate driving in it and I could do without the slip and slide to my car each day.

So keep on moving and grooving kids

see ya soon

des

Nuff said

Need I say more?

10 things I love about my mom.

10. She's not afraid of anything other than electric foot soaking machines and escalators. oh and snakes

9. She's funny without meaning to be. We were once watching a 20/20 episode where they were talking about the new requirements parents had to have to adopt a child from china. You had to be a certain weight,certain height,certain I.Q.,etc. My mom listened to all of this and said-why not just stay the hell out of china. I died laughing.

8. She is completely and faithfully off beat. She can't keep in time with the music. If you listen to her you'd start snapping your fingers off beat as well.

7. She's makes her own rules. Not just for life but in card games,paid parking,etc. She hates to be told where to park especially if she's paid you.

6. I love the way she talks to my dad. She has a great sense of humour. She's always told me she saw that my dad needed some help so she took pity on him. And of course his life was never the same. They go to bed talking and laughing and get up in the morning talking.

5. She's so earnest sometimes. One time she started telling me about a documentary she had watched about a lady who was a pack rat. She said" You know it really is a sickness- Do you think that maybe you're afflicted with the same disease?" She was totally serious-but i again was cracking up. Okay I can be a bit of pack rat-but not dr. phil in need of help pack rat.

4. She's amazingly giving. She always tells me that if she has it to give she will. I have had ladies I don't know tell of times where mom dropped off her kids at school for her-or made food for them,etc.

3. I love her wise counsel. Her motto is-if I see you doing wrong-or someone doing you wrong-I'm going to you about it. What you do with the information is your responsibility.

2. I love my mom's sayings.
1. They ate like dogs.
2. I wanted to slap the piss out of him.
3. Soap and water will clean anything other than a dirty heart.


1. I love my mom because she's my mom.

des

Super Trooper

My nephew was gracious enough to try on this hat for me. I knit it while I was waiting for my local SNB to start. I thought I was going to rip it but decided it's make a cool quick winter's day cap. I did this hat free flowing didn't have a pattern. Sometimes it work-other times well you know. At least it covers his ears.

des

What have I been doing?

I know it's been a while since I've posted and I'll be doing better soon. I went to Nashville 2 days after Christmas to see the lights at the grand old opry hotel. It is one of the prettiest displays that I've seen. I know you can't see it from above but those are hot air balloons in lights. I like traveling but this time it was great because it was all the girls-my mom,cousins,and aunt. We went down Saturday and came back Sunday. I know most people think of the grand old opry as country-and it is but is also beautiful. I highly recommend going there.

des

The post that never ends....

Hey Guys,

Happy 2009 to you. I hope you all are well and rang in the new years in a fitting way. I rang in the New Years with...

A. The wonderful Ms. B.
B. The glamorous Ms. P.
C. A drunk lady who liked to dance
D. All of the above

If you guessed D..You are correct and deserve a slushie!!! I went to a Prodigals concert at Promo West last night. I had a great time singing with my friends and dancing-one wee bit of a drink(one amaretto sour-delish-and half of the worst rum and coke in the world-should have taken my tip back..) That being said all was fine and dandy until we noticed a lady dancing to beat the band near us. My friend offered me 5 dollars if I would go and dance with the lady. I declined-her highland kicks and dropping it like it was hot looked like an accident waiting to happen and I didn't want to get in the way. I think sometimes I'm a magnet for planet weird. Because of course the lady had to come over and start dancing next to me. She then proceeded to tell me that she had been dancing alone(her boyfriend and or handler had went back to the bar for a little more liquid courage) and she realized she didn't have to dance alone. She introduced herself to me and my friends-then dragged me close to her and asked if I thought people weren't having a lot of fun." We should be happy-It doesn't look like their happy does it?" What can you do at that point-

A. Smile and Nod and edge cautiously away.
B. Pray that her handler oops I mean boyfriend redirects her attention
C. Make a break for the facilities
D. A and B

I know you all have your thinking caps on and if you know me at all you picked D.
her boyfriend did come back(thank you lord) and I created my own circle of friends-not unfriendly but definitely a circle with circumference and a radius. About that time they had the new years eve party in New York on the screen. Can I just say Dick Clark looks like and old Vampire. I know he's had a stroke and I should be kind but I was kind of afraid him. He looked like he wanted to bite someone or maybe it's just the way his mouth moved that creeped me out. We counted down and sang and I finished a benard(pepsi with grenadine and two cherries). We then proceeded to leave the concert-after it ended of course. It's 1:30 in the morning and Ms.P and I were starving. The only thing open we figured was taco bell-nope,Wendy's-nope,Tim Horton's-nope. I was slap happy and told my friends that I was going to called 6 on your side and complain about restaurants not staying open during their regularly scheduled hours. So we ending of getting combos and a doughnut for breakfast. The guy at the mini mart gave us the doughnuts for free-score! All and all it was a good new years.

Feeling Fine in 09!!!

des