★ April 28, 2012 ★

 2 completely perfect days in a row? How did THAT happen?! I'm not complaining, it was great! I had a great day yesterday. The seeds are looking good ... the peas are growing so fast! The herbs have sprouted  look great too. I got some of my books cataloged & put away on the shelf, my sim got a lot done & ended her day by enjoying the beautiful lighting in the dining room, I started a brand new lot & house & it's in Sunset Valley next to a beautiful house that I didn't even know existed! I thought I had lived in all of them in Sunset Valley, but I missed one apparently. Maybe they snuck it in in a recent update, who knows ... but anyway, it's beautiful. I've built & decorated the living room so far. I have a nice fenced yard with yellow lilacs lining the front fence & a beautiful arbor gate.

Adust:

Scorched, burned.

The adust landscape of volcanic rock & sand can be particularly beautiful at sunset.

Adust comes from Latin adustus, the past participle of adurere ("to set fire to"), a verb formed from the Latin prefix ad-& the verb urere ("to burn"). It entered the English language in the early 15th century as a medical term related to the 4 bodily humors - black bile, blood, phlegm, & yellow bile - which were believed at the time to determine a person's health & temperament. "Adust" was used to describe a condition of the humors in which they supposedly became heated or combusted.

Gas grills:

Burgers, brats, BBQ ribs - flame - cooked food is possible even in winter (just turn the grill so the wind is at its back & cold gusts don't lower the cooking heat).

In each family there's a nerd & a free spirit. The nerd is good at keeping track of things & putting everything in its place. The free spirit is just the opposite. This doesn't make them irresponsible or mean that they don't care. It's just that they aren't blessed with a gift for administration - they are not detail-oriented. They want things to be good & right just as much as the nerd, but they don't get a rush when the checkbook balances out.

Into what sports hall of fame was fashion designer Vera Wang inducted in 2009?

The United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame. Wang, a competitive figure skater in her youth, hung up her skates in 1968 after she failed to make the U.S. Olympic team. She won admission into the hall of fame through her costume designs for skaters Michelle Kwan and Nancy Kerrigan.

Jaycee Dugard's kidnappers plead guilty (2011):

On this day in 2011, Phillip Garrido, 60, and his wife Nancy, 55, plead guilty to the 1991 kidnapping of 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard. The Garridos held Dugard captive at their Northern California property for 18 years, during which time Phillip Garrido fathered two children with her. The 29-year-old Dugard was rescued, along with her daughters, then ages 11 and 15, in 2009.
On June 10, 1991, Dugard, then a fifth-grader, was abducted while walking to a school bus stop near her South Lake Tahoe, California, home. Witnesses saw Dugard being forced into a car and driven away, but were unable to stop the kidnappers or identify them. A massive search effort failed to locate the blonde, blue-eyed girl.
For nearly two decades, Dugard was forced to live in concealed tents and sheds in the backyard of the Garridos’ home in an unincorporated area outside Antioch, California. She was sexually assaulted by Phillip Garrido, and as a teenager gave birth to his children in the hidden backyard compound. Neither Dugard nor her daughters ever visited a doctor or attended school while being held captive, although Dugard spent time working at her captors’ printing business.

The events leading to the rescue of Dugard and her girls began on August 24, 2009, when a police officer at the University of California, Berkeley, became suspicious of Phillip Garrido, who was at the school that day with his two daughters, seeking a permit to distribute religious flyers on campus. Police later ran a background check on Garrido, learned he was a convicted sex offender and contacted his California parole officer to express concern about his daughters, who, according to the officers, looked unnaturally pale and had odd, robotic responses when spoken to. Garrido was called to a meeting with his parole agent on August 26 and brought along his wife, as well as Dugard (whom he called Allisa) and their two daughters. The parole agent had been to the Garridos’ house in the past but had never seen Dugard and the girls. After Dugard confessed her true identity to the agent during the meeting, Phillip and Nancy Garrido were arrested.

In July 2010, Dugard and her mother, with whom she was reunited following her rescue, were awarded a $20 million settlement from the state of California. It was determined that state officials failed to properly monitor Garrido, who was released from prison in 1988 for a 1977 kidnapping and rape conviction. 
The Garridos initially pleaded not guilty to the charges against them, which included kidnapping, sexual assault and false imprisonment. However, on April 28, 2011, they changed their plea to guilty. On June 2, 2011, Phillip was sentenced to 431 years in prison and Nancy received a term of 36 years to life.

Life is a banquet - why should you starve?

MOG:

Get nearly all the music in the world, and listen to it anywhere you go. Jam-pack your iPhone / iPod Touch with all the downloads you can handle. Hear your music everywhere. MOG has all your favorite albums, plus all the music you’ll discover you love. Get more music than you can hear in your lifetime.
For under $10 a month, MOG subscribers get the deepest, most powerful, and easy-to-use music service on the planet, with:
★ Unlimited downloads to your iPhone / iPod Touch.
★ Instant access to all the music you’ll ever want – find your favorites with blazingly fast searches and discover millions more.
★ Recommended music tailored to your tastes.
★ Highest quality audio on the web: 320 kbps — better than any other music service.
★ Revolutionary radio: Truly personalized, with simple and amazing ways to discover new music, like artist-only radio, exclusive to MOG.
★ Instant sync between web and mobile.
★ Built-in Airplay support.
★ Playlists created by your favorite artists, and tons more!
Love music? All you need is MOG. Take it from the experts:
TIME.com
Top Music App of 2011
FORBES
Like Spotify? MOG is even better
* MOG is on Sonos, Roku, MINI, BMW, Samsung, LG, Jambox and many more devices.
** After your initial stream and download, you can play your music everywhere you go.

Outdoor space:

Looking to sell your unwanted items? Many neighborhoods offer an annual tag / yard sale. Contact your neighborhood community center or your home owners association for information.

Red Violin:

When the long-lost "red violin," a rare instrument crafted during the Italian Renaissance, shows up at a modern auction, it reveals its mysterious history -- and the lives of its previous owners -- in a series of flashbacks spanning three centuries. Samuel L. Jackson co-stars as a curious connoisseur in this acclaimed production that won an Oscar for Best Original Score and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.

Tip for stress-free gift giving:

Keep a running wish list.

Ask loved ones for gift ideas. Keep lists & ideas in 1 place & accessible. (I do this on both Amazon & Kaboodle. Amazon has their regular wish list PLUS it also has a facebook recommendation list for all your facebook friends which has proved extremely useful for me already this year).

When it comes to building, what is Plyboo?

Which food delivers the most, 2nd most, & 3rd most energy?

A. Carrot

B. Apple

C. Banana

CBA. Bananas are rich with amino acide &, in Africa, they even make banana beer. Love to try it.