EXSENO

I'M BAAACK!!! IT'S ME EXSENO

2011-07-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

How is everybody?? Fine I hope.

One day on my way to my blog, I took a short detour and found my way to a game site by the name of 'Pogo.com'. So of course being a woman of curiosity I had to check it out.

Some games you have to pay for to play and some are free to play. I found that with a hundred and fifty some odd free games, why would I want to pay to play a game.
The free games are more then enough to satisfy me.

And so it began.

I became so addicted to playing the games that I could hardly wait until it was my turn to use the computer. But in doing so I totally neglected my blog and all of my friends in Blogs ville.

I sincerely hope that all of my old blogger friends are still blogging and that some of you will still remember me.

But even if you don't remember me, I will certainly be enjoying reading your blogs tonight and in the immediate future.

HELLO THERE

2011-02-15T07:15:00.000-08:00

Hi Everybody,

How is everyone in Blogsville? It feels like I've been out of the loop for a very long time and I have missed all of you so much.
I hope to get back to blogging on a little more regular basis.

We have had a very interesting winter this year. We don't usually have snow, but this year we had more then our share.
The first snow was in December, it didn't last long one snow day is all. But it was fun for my grandson who is now in his late teens and the neighborhood kids that gathered in my back yard to build a Snowman. Teens and Children gathered together to create and enjoy day.

They had a ball, but when they were through and got finished admiring their work they all went home and my grandson came indoors. However after a few minutes of thought my grandson (the perfectionist), decided that the Snowman could be a little bit better and he went back out to make Mr. Snowman a little rounder, a little bigger, a little smoother and a little more detailed.

Engrossed in his work he didn't realize just how cold it really was. I tried to get him to come in but all I could hear was, "when I'm finished Granny."

When he finally came in the arches of the bottom of his feet were black, not with dirt, not with bruises, he had a bad case of frostbite.

Thank God my daughter was home. It was her day off. She knew just what to do. And suddenly she was no longer Mom, she was the professional Emergency Technician that she trained to be.
She flew into action. Just as calm as the professional that she is.

As for myself, I was in shock-- not over what happened, but at how much I did 'not' know about frostbite.

If I had been there alone with him, I would have put his feet in a nice warm/hot, pan of water or had him relax in a nice warm bath.

Guess What--Wrong thing to do!!! Very wrong.

Ask me why and I will tell you.

A BRAND NEW YEAR

2010-12-31T06:48:00.000-08:00

2011 Appoaching and I am not prepared.

I have to rush to the store and get the usual munchies and goodies to snack on.

It is a must for me to bring in the 'New Year' with junk food.

You know the kind. Chips and dips and those little sausages that you stick on toothpicks.

Yum, Yum!

Hope to visit you in the 'New Year'.

Here's wishing you all good things in the year 2011

GOOD MORNING EVERYBODY

2010-12-05T06:17:00.000-08:00

How are all of my blogger friends doing? Hope all is well with each and every one of you.

Here it is a warm 37degree's, feels more like 27, and I am freezing.

Oh joy, as luck would have it, nothing is working properly. Some stray cats got under my trailer and tore up everything they possibly could, so there is almost no heat coming through my vents. Thank God for blankets!

Needless to say I refuse to let it spoil my Christmas cheer. I tend to be a bit of a Pollyanna and I'm glad that I am because when things go wrong my daughter tends to be the Grinch so it sort of even things out, ha, ha.

I went shopping yesterday and got my grandson his Christmas gift, but I'm still stumped on what to get for some relatives.

I'm afraid Christmas is sneaking up on me way to fast this year. I'm not prepared for it mentally.
My daughter-in -law already has her tree up and decorated and I am still dragging my feet wishing someone else would put mine up this year. I'd love it if my daughter would do it this year but I doubt that's going to happen so I may as well jump in with both feet and get it over with.

So it's time to put my happy face on and get busy.

And to you, my blogger friends,
I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

HI TRACIE

2010-11-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!

WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS THAT ???

2010-10-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

I read about Halley's Comet coming through sometime between October 19Th and October 22nd or 23rd, and since it only happens every fifty years or so I really wanted to get a glimpse of it.
After all I certainly won't be around long enough to get a second chance.

Fifty years from now, I would be a hundred and sixteen years old a miracle in itself and frankly as forgetful as I am already, I doubt very seriously at that age, even if I did make it out the door to sit on the steps I would probably forget why I was out there.

Supposedly the best time to view the comet was just before dawn, so I took my one and only chance at viewing this once in my lifetime Sky watchers dream.

I also read that in the south it would probably be viewed best between the twenty-first to twenty third. So I played my own little Russian Roulette and picked the twenty second.

So on the twenty-second at about 5:30a.m. I went outside and sat on my front stairs and waited.

I didn't bother to drag out a telescope.

It was so beautiful and the sky was so clear I couldn't have cared less if a saw a comet or not.

I was consumed in the beauty that I was starring at, at that moment.

The moon was to my right. It was a full moon and it looked extra large, putting off a glow that in itself consumed a good part of the sky around it.

I looked away and turned to my left. Without the glow of the moon in my eyes I could see how full of stars the sky was. I also saw a pattern of some sort made of stars. They were far apart but very definitely a zigzag pattern.

And then it happened, zooming through the sky and right through that zigzag pattern and then on it's way across the sky went something that looked like, what I call a shooting star. I'm not knowledgeable enough about star-watching to know what it was, so I pose the question to you.

What do you think it was?

Was it just that, a shooting star?

Could it have possibly been Halley's Comet?

Or Perhaps even something else?

RUBBER GLOVES

2010-10-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

Next time you use a pair of rubber gloves, you're going to smile when you think of this:

A dentist noticed that his next patient, a little old lady, was
nervous, so he decided to tell her a little joke as he put on his
gloves.

' Do you know how they make these gloves? ' he asked.

' No, I don ' t, ' she replied.

' Well, ' he spoofed, ' there ' s a building in Canada with a big tank
of latex, and workers of all hand sizes walk up to the tank, dip in their hands, let them dry, then peel off the gloves and throw them into boxes of the right size. '

She didn't crack a smile.

' Oh, well. I tried, ' he thought.

But five minutes later, during a delicate portion of the procedure, she burst out laughing.

' What ' s so funny? ' he asked.

' I was just envisioning how condoms are made! '

(Gotta watch those little old ladies! Their minds are always working!)

Be afraid of old ladies!

Be very afraid!!!!

They have been there and done everything!

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

2010-08-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

Boy do I have a story to tell you. It's one of those believe it or not things, only this is for real and it happened to me.

You almost lost Me a few weeks ago. I almost bit the dust and died. What a hell of a scary moment that was. Let me tell you the crazy kind of luck that I have.

My son and I are both out in our yards at the same time, early evening and we are just making idol chitchat about how extra hot it seems to be this summer no air circulating and that kind of conversation.
There has been no wind blowing at all lately, suddenly one big gust of air came flying bye from behind me hit me in the back and past by my son and as quickly as it came it just disappeared and all was very still again.
However sometimes that's a sign that there is more to come. So I told my son, I think I'm going to run in the house, there might be a storm brewing and I want to be inside before it hits.

Unfortunately I tend to breath more through my mouth then through my nose, so I turned to run the few feet to my house and another big gust of wind came flying through my yard from the same direction but since I had turned around it hit me in the face and in my big fat mouth that air went and down my throat and immediately I felt some trouble breathing.

I ran in the house gasping for air and ran to the kitchen thinking drinking some water would clear my throat. But it didn't, in fact I stopped being able to swallow the water and my breathing became more and more shallow and then it stopped. Just like that I couldn't breath any more.

My daughter hit the phone and the ambulance attendance were running into the kitchen with some sort of breathing equipment, I swear, she called and they were here it seemed like no more then two minutes, they must have been right up the street. It's a good thing too because I was going down, it was like when you hold your breathe for as long as you can and you just have to give up and stop holding your breathe and breath, but I couldn't breath. It had stopped completely

In my head I had made my peace with God and told him I was ready. God must not of thought I was ready (or maybe that's not where I'm suppose to go ha, ha), because the next thing I know the emergency tech shoves this big tube of white wonderful feeling steam in my mouth, they made me keep it in my mouth for almost an hour, tell they were sure I could breath on my own. I had been struggling so, that I didn't even know that when the ambulance pulled up in my yard my son and my daughter-in-law ran to my house and they were sitting in the living room watching all of this go on.

The next morning I started to go out the door to check my mailbox and my grandson yanked me away from the door and held me captive. I asked him what the heck he was doing and he told me I couldn't go outside anymore. I said for the rest of my life? He said yes. I told him that if I have to stay in the house for the rest of my life just shoot me now, you know I'm an outdoor person, I said as I shoved him aside going out of the door.

I am still breathing on my own, but my throat still fells like the left side of my throat is still some what swollen or partly closed, it feels like there is something stuck in it. It's still a little difficult to swallow but I'm coping for now. My doctor had me on antibiotics but she has gone on vacation and I've run out of them, yet still not well.
It really is worrisome feeling like you have some object blocking half of your throat, it's very uncomfortable. Not to mention I have to chew and chew and chew and swallow very, very, slowly and carefully.

I don't know how long it's going to take before this condition gets completely well, but I sure am ready to be well.

I have learned one thing from this experience and you can quote me on this.
If you can't breath through your nose, you can still breath through your mouth, but if you can't breath through your mouth

'YOU'RE GOING TO DIE.!!'

Words of Wisdom from EXSENO.

HI EVERYBODY

2010-07-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!

See you soon.

A VERY BUSY TWO MONTHS

2010-05-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

,Where did all those years go.
At first I thought it was going to take forever,

but now it seems like I blinked and there it was

How did we get from point (A)
to point (B) so suddenly.

What I thought was going to take forever
suddenly came too quickly. I blinked and there it was.

Graduation Day had arrived

and it was lovely !

It was held in the evening indoors and it was huge. I had no idea that this was going to be such a large class of graduates. The best thing of all was at no time was it boring. There were several songs sung and many speeches made and all of them well done. And of course my heart swelled with pride to hear my grandsons name mentioned for the two college courses he had taken during his senior year.

And when the ceremony was over and all of the graduates were shaking hands and saying there good byes is when I got a big surprise.

I had no idea just how popular my grandson was with the girls. I noticed one girl come up to him and ask for a kiss, being the ham that he is he gave her the shy look then turned his cheek tapped his finger on his cheek and held out his arms with a big smile on his face to collect his kiss on the cheek. After that all the girls lined up for their kiss. I did not see that happen to any of the other guys. That was one long line and he was enjoying every minute of it.

And from afar -- so was I.

So what happened after graduation. Well it seems that there has been a tradition here for several years and that tradition is that right after graduation all of the graduates team up with so many friends to a car and head to Florida for a weeks vacation. And God only knows what else. And that is where he has been this week.

Panama City Florida

Don't you know when those country boys saw this they thought they were in heaven.

Day one had to be lounge around and watch all those sun bathers.

Or should I change that to watch all those Bikini's go by.

First time my grandson will have ever seen the ocean.

A little play time in the ocean.
Opps, I got a phone call,
he dropped his

cell phone in the
ocean water.

He retrieved it

but he thinks it's dead.

No doubt in my mind

that he loved that sunset

I'm sure they enjoyed checking out the night life

But as a grandmother I hope they didn't enjoy it too much.
They are do home sometime this week-end
I can't wait to hear all the details.

Well you know, what I mean

the ones he will share anyway.

I apologize for the messy post. I don't know if there was something wrong with the computer or if there was something wrong with the net or possibly something was wrong with my blog provider but I tried putting up this blog five times before I got it up at all.

The only good thing that happened today is that I'm happy to say it's good to be back in Blogsville.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

2010-03-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, California. Also nicknamed Sunny California. That is where I grew up.

We lived in a small house, in a small neighborhood called Harbor City. I never thought of it as a small neighborhood because everything else was so near by. It all seemed connected.

We lived very close to the ocean. To the right of us, perhaps twenty minutes away was Redondo Beach. Needless to say I kept a tan year round. I loved running into those breaking waves until I would get knocked down, then I would panic to pick myself up before the next wave hit because I couldn't swim.

To the left of us approx. thirty-five minutes away, was the city of Long Beach, with many shops and the Greek Orthodox Church, where we faithfully went every Sunday, whether we wanted to or not. Mommas rules!

Like many families do, we occasionally took summer time trips. I loved those fun trips. My Dad was the greatest about making everything fun.
Whenever we went on trips my sister and I would pass the time by singing. My Dad would sometimes join in, (those were the times when God did not answer our prayers).
Daddy was tone deaf. He had the most horrible voice, even our dog would run away when my Dad would sing. I'm not joking the poor dog would really run into another room.

I loved going on those vacations, but when it was time to go back home our favorite song to sing was, 'California Here I Come.'

I loved California. I never wanted to live anywhere else. There are so many things to do, so many places to go.

People come from all over just to walk down the street of the famous Hollywood Blvd and step on the stars.
What is really interesting about Hollywood Blvd is watching all of the weird and crazy people that live in the area. Scary!! Many I'm sure want a Be's, hoping to get discovered.

However there really are truly wonderful things to do there as well. I saw my first wide screen movie at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd and my first real Broadway play, or do they call them off Broadway plays? I think I was about fifteen or sixteen.

It was so exiting to see a real play with real Actors and Actress's performing on stage, right there in front of me. The name of the play was 'The World of Suzie Wong'.

There were other perk to living in California too.
I occasionally got the opportunity to run into an actor or actress a few times in my life.
Most of them many of you will have never heard of because you are not old enough to know about them. But there is one that some of you may recognize.

In 1950 or 1951 there was a weekly television show by the name of 'The Cisco Kid'. It was about two Mexican Cowboys that caught the bad guys in every episode.
The handsome Duncan Renaldo was Cisco and his frumpy side kick Leo Carrillo was Pancho. I watched that show faithfully.
I was about six or seven years old and we were just about to walk into a restaurant when the person coming out of the door and I nearly ran into each other, my mouth dropped open when I looked up to see a very drunk staggering Leo Carillo.
Yes my Pancho was drunk as a skunk, but he was kind enough to give a fan his autograph while swaying back and forth he somehow managed to do just that. Then he staggered out into the parking lot.

My poor Mother had a very hard life, she worked on Terminal Island skinning and boning fish for a cannery.
In 1954 she came home one day after work and told us there was a movie being filmed on the docks in front of the cannery that she worked in and she was going to take us there to watch them film that part of the movie. So that evening off we went. I was so exited, only ten at the time.

The name of the movie was 'On The Waterfront.' I didn't get to ask for any autographs but it was so exiting to watch the filming of the movie. Little did I realize at the time that the actors that were covered in big coats pretending to try to fight the wind and rain , while the water hoses and the fans were really what they were fighting to walk across the docks, could have been people like Dana Andrews and Marlin Brando. Oh just shoot me.

Do you remember the Perry Mason series and his cute little secretary Della Street, played by Barbara Hale.
I can't tell you what year it was but I was well in my teens and we had gone to visit my Aunt Mary, while we were visiting her she took us with her to pick up her daughters at this little place where they could ride horses. We got out of the car and walked up to the fence, this lady walked up to us on the other side of the fence and said Hi. She was so friendly and oh my gosh, it was Barbara Hale. I suppose she was there to pick up one of her kids too. I have no idea? I was just concentrating on how much she looked just like she does on the television. Wow she was tiny and cute.

In my memories of best things that have ever happened to me, this has to be one of the best.
In 1989 I was living in Burbank California. I was going to visit someone in the hospital. I drove into the parking lot at St.Joseph Hospital in Burbank and walked to the front of the hospital. What kind of luck do I have? There was a movie crew there, and it looked like they were just starting to pack up their stuff and who do I see -- Ben Gazzara. I ran up the front stairs called my sister and told her who was out there. She said get his autograph.
So dummy me runs back out the door and says Mr. Gazzara could I please get your autograph for my sister.
He says, love to sweetie but were leaving. Then he says We're just going up to the cemetery. Come on up there and I'll have a lot of time to talk to you., I'll give you my autograph too.

Oh I can't, I replied, I'm here to visit someone. He yelled back, visit them later, come on. His honey's and sweetie's seemed so genuine.
I was so tempted. I yelled back I don't know where it is. He yelled back, as the long train of vans and cars were beginning to role up the hill and out of sight. He gave it one last try as he stuck his head out the car window and waving his hand, come on sweetie and follow us.
And over the hill they went and inside the hospital I went.

You know there are some people that are pretty or handsome on the outside and aren't worth a darn on the inside. And there are some people that may not be as pretty or as handsome as others, but they are so obviously sweet and kind that you see them as a beautiful and caring person.

A personality can make a person beautiful or ugly in the eye of the beholder. And in my opinion Mr. Ben Gazzara is one of the most beautiful people I have ever met. He was not flirty, he was just an every day nice guy.

So several years have gone by and I haven't run into any celebrity's so I guess I've reached my quota. I guess I'm not a celebratey magnet after all.

In the meantime I divorced one man and later met another man and we got married.

We moved to a different area and rented a beautiful house. My husband made some friends there and eventually introduced me to a couple of the men.

In my attempt to try and make conversation with them I asked one of the men what kind of work he did. He said he had a little band and played in clubs every now and then until his regular job needed him.

Then I asked the other man what kind of work he did and he said he sometimes drove a truck until his other job need him.

By this time I am really getting curious about these two guys. So I just had to pop that question? Well what are your main jobs?

And they both said almost simultaneously,

We're stuntmen for the movies.

THIS POST WAS WRITTEN BY SAMRINA

2010-02-16T09:36:00.000-08:00

Last year a blogger friend of mine posted a true story that I really loved. I call her Sam. Her name is Samrina, she is a lovely person who writes a lot of little sanes and poems. Her blog title
is 'ALL THAT I'VE GOT' and this is her url -- http://charcoalgrey.blogspot.com/ I'm sure you will want to visit her site after you read this post. It is a true story. But it is a long story, stay with it you won't be sorry.

All of the credit for this post goes to Samrina. I'm only passing it on.

So without further ado here is Sams story.
_____________________________________

God does exist...

An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty.He asks one of his new students to stand and.....

Prof:

So you believe in God?

Student:

Absolutely, sir.

Prof:

Is God good?

Student:

Sure..

Prof:

Is God all-powerful?

Student:

Yes.

Prof:

My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him.

Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't.

How is this God good then? Hmm?

(Student is silent.)

Prof:

You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?

Student:

Yes.

Prof:

Is Satan good?

Student:

No.

Prof:

Where does Satan come from?

Student:

From....God....

Prof:

That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

Student:

Yes.

Prof:

Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?

Student:

Yes.

Prof:

So who created evil?

(Student does not answer.)

Prof:

Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things

exist in the world, don't they?

Student:

Yes, sir

Prof:

So, who created them?

(Student has no answer.)

Prof:

Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world

around you.

Tell me, son...Have you ever

seen God?

Student:

No, sir.

Prof:

Tell us if you have ever heard your God?

Student:

No, sir.

Prof:

Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God?

Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?

Student:

No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't.

Prof:

Yet you still believe in Him?

Student:

Yes.

Prof:

According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your

GOD doesn't exist.

What do you say to that, son?

Student:

Nothing. I only have my faith.

Prof:

Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.

Student:

Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Prof:

Yes.

Student:

And is there such a thing as cold?

Prof:

Yes.

Student:

No sir. There isn't.

(The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student:

Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white

heat, a little heat or no heat.

But we don't have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero

which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that.

There is no such thing as cold . Cold is only a word we use to describe the

absence of heat . We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy . Cold is not the

opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it .(There is pin-drop silence in the

lecture theatre.)

Student:

What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Prof:

Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?

Student :

You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can

have low light, normal light, bright

light, flashing light....But if

you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it's called darkness,

isn't it? In

reality, darkness isn't. If it were you would be able to make

darkness darker, wouldn't you?

Prof:

So what is the point you are making, young man?

Student:

Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

Prof:

Flawed? Can you explain how?

Student:

Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and

then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the

concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science

can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has

never seen, much less fully understood either one.To view death as the

opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a

substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it.

Now tell me, Professor.Do you teach your students that they evolved from a

monkey?

Prof:

If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student:

Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where

the argument is going.)

Student:

Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and

cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not

teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher? (The

class is in uproar.)

Student:

Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain?

(The class breaks out into laughter.)

Student:

Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it,

touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the

established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says

that you have no brain,sir.

With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face

unfathomable.)

Prof:

I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.

Student:

That is it sir.... The link between man & god is FAITH . That is all that

keeps things moving & alive.

I have received this as a forward e-mail and found it worth sharing so I

have posted it here at my blog and I do hope you have enjoyed the

conversation too...this is a true story, and the student was APJ Abdul

Kalam, the former President of India.

Best Regards

Samrina

SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

2010-02-11T15:03:00.000-08:00

Well I'll be. It's snowing here.

We don't get snow here very often. Every so many years 'Mother Nature' surprises us with some snow, so for us it's usually a fun thing something that we don't get to experience very often, but while I was picking up the kids from their various schools I thought I noticed some tiny snow flurry's here and there but by the time they hit the ground they dissolved. However by the time I got the kids home there were lots of little snow flurry's. No big deal, I thought they were still melting into nothingness.

About a half hour later the the little snow flurry's were coming down more and more.
Of course the kids were hoping for no school tomorrow.

Two and a half hours have past now and for the past hour the snow is no longer little flurry's.
The snow is falling in thick heavy sheets of snow flakes and they are no longer melting as they hit the ground.

I looked out my window and watched my yard slowly turning from greens and browns to patches of white that are becoming bigger and bigger and thicker and thicker. Soon my yard will be a bed of white snow.

If this keeps up I think the kids are going to get their wish.

And tomorrow, I can't wait for tomorrow, he he he ---

"SNOW FIGHTS!"

HOW COLD IS IT ?

2010-01-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

Hi Everybody. How cold is it where you live?

Our normal winters may get down in the forty's and we think we've got it bad.
This year we know we've got it bad. We have been getting temperatures as low as twenty-one degrees in the day and as low as sixteen degrees at night. today is one of those extra low temperature days.

Brrrrrrr. We are not used to this at all and to top it off some stray animals have gotten under our trailer home and torn the insulation trying to keep their selves warm. But all it has done for us is make us colder. Our heating vents are pumping in more cold air then hot. To top it all off we have all had our turn at being sick. I'm the lucky one mine doesn't want to go away. I'm still coughing my head off to the point that my ribs hurt and every time I feel a cough coming on I pray it won't happen, but it does.

I suppose I shouldn't be complaining, I'm sure some of you have it much worse then we do. Knowing where some of you live, I know you have it worse then we do, unless you live in Australia and if you do right now I jealous. lol

So tell me all about it. What's your story? How is this winter effecting you?

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL !!

2009-12-24T04:21:00.000-08:00

To all my blogger friends that I hold so dearly,

MERRY CHRISTMAS

AND

HAPPY NEW YEAR

TO ALL!!!

THIS IS SO SPECIAL HAD TO SHARE

2009-12-17T07:18:00.000-08:00

And the Lamb shall lie with the wolf

Polar Bear: I come in peace....Unbelievable

Norbert Rosing's striking images of a wild polar bear coming upontethered sled dogs in the wilds of Canada ' s Hudson Bay.

The photographer was sure that he was going to see the end of his dogs when the polar bear wandered in.

It ' s hard to believe that this polar bear only needed to hug someone!

The Polar Bear

returned every night that week to play with the dogs.

May you

always have love to share,

Health to spare,

And friends that care

THE POEM

2009-11-22T10:36:00.000-08:00

UNTITLED

Memory came today
And called for me by name

I stayed silent as he spoke.
Oh how he haunts me.

Darkness came today,
And called for me by name,

I answered with my tears,
each drop tasting bitter.

Death came today,
And called for me by name.

I raised my hand, told my name,
And said my silent prayer before I let go.

"I'm not real,
I don't exist,"
As I fell into,
The dark abyss,

And embraced it.

Author: My Grandson

LIFE HAS MANY TWISTS AND TURNS

2009-11-16T06:01:00.000-08:00

I met my new daughter-in-laws Mother before the wedding and ran into her coming and going a couple of more time after that.
She always looked so nice, very well kept. Her hair always perfect, lovely cloths, but if you said, 'Hi how are you', you would be much better off saying just 'Hi', because she never felt very well and was sure to tell you that. This hurt, that hurt, her back hurt all of the time I think?

My daughter-in-law thought her Mother was a hypochondriac.

Finally an answer was found to at least a part of her Mother's problems.
A doctor told her she needed her lower disk removed, that was what a big part of her problem was, and if she didn't get it removed it would eventually make her leg paralyzed.

The Doctor also told her that there was a very good hospital in Jackson Mississippi and the staff there was very familiar with that kind of surgery.

So they scheduled the surgery for last Monday and off they went across the state line and way down to Jackson. Just Mom and daughter.

The surgery went well. The Disk was removed and the doctor was just finishing sewing up her back and God intervened, and lowered the boom. Before anyone realized that something was wrong, -- something went wrong. She died.

Her blood pressure dropped and she bled out internally, her veins collapsed, so they couldn't even find a vein to try to pump some blood into her.

What would they say to her daughter? The surgery was a success but the patient died?
How could they explain this. Was the Anesthetist negligent? Isn't he suppose to keep his eyes on that blood pressure machine all through the surgery, so that he can catch something like that?

It was a shock to all, the Doctor, the Anesthetist and of course devastating to my poor daughter-in-law.
She had taken her Mother there all by herself. She had been told that the surgery would be done in the morning and by late evening she would be able to go home to recuperate.

My son got the dreaded phone call and he left and you can bet he burned rubber all the way there. Of course he did, wouldn't you?
To be there for her as fast as he could, to hold her, console her and bring her home where she could grieve in familiar surroundings with people who love her.

The funeral was yesterday.

I have no words of wisdom, I wish I did. And I don't know why things happen the way they do. But I do know one thing for sure.

God gives us life and many gifts along the way -- He also give us trials.
And no matter where you are or what you are doing, when it's your time to go,
God is there for you and He is going to take you 'Home'.

HALLOWEEN IS DEAD

2009-11-01T06:51:00.000-08:00

Last night was Halloween and my new step-granddaughter and her friend came by a little early to show me their costumes and make sure they got their goodies. Oh they knew they would get something good because my step-granddaughter made sure that she told me they wanted candy bars/ chocolate not any of that old hard candy. So I made sure that's what I had. They got their goodies and left to wait for the darkness and the fun of trick or treating.

Shortly after that my daughter-in -law came over to ask me to come over and see what my son had done to his four wheel drive. Well since they live right next to me it was a short walk and she seemed so excited, so I went with her to see what she was so excited about.

Much to my surprise he had decided to take the girls trick or treating along with his new wife and he had decorated the back of his old four wheel drive. He had strung a big high circle of lights over the bed of the truck, filled up the back of the truck bed with hay and had a huge cauldron with a big Crooked stir stick in it.
It was adorable but frankly I was surprise at his enthusiasm. He never did anything like this in his first marriage, I guess the second time around is the charmer because he certainly seemed happy to do it. All that was left now was to wait for the darkness which came soon and off they all went, and as they past my house on their way down the road, I yelled don't forget to go down Cherry Street, they always have good things there.

It wasn't long before I heard the familiar sound of that noisy truck coming back up the road. All I could think of was, Wow, the girls must have filled up their goody bags awfully fast. But in a few minutes the girls were at my door to share with me how broken their little hearts were and their disappointment that no one was giving out candy. They only found one lady that would open her door and she only gave them one tiny piece of hard candy. All the other houses had lights out and doors bolted and no one was answering to their knocks on the doors and their calls of trick or treat.
So I gave them some more of my candy and they went back next door.

In just a short while my grandson and I heard a loud noise, a huge noise.
It sounded like an explosion and we ran out the door to see if everything was alright next door. But it wasn't an explosion at all.

My son had built a big fire and he was setting off fireworks.

In addition to my daughter in laws nine year old girl, she also has a grown son and daughter who are both married and each have a child of their own.
They were both there with their families. In fact the back yard was full of people.

Adults and children, friends and neighbors from up and down our road were all gathered together in my sons back yard. Laughing and talking and making bets on how fast my son could run every time he put more firework into the fire.
The fireworks were absolutely beautiful shooting high up in the sky as though they had been shot out of a cannon then bursting into their vibrant shades of blues and reds and yellows.

What started out to be a sad Halloween turned out to be a wonderful night of fun and friendship for all. It was wonderful to see such camaraderie.

My son turned a very sad evening into a happy occasion.

So you see -- Halloween is not dead, it's just different.

I have a feeling that from now on Halloween is going to be a back yard party, maybe even with food and goodies for the kids, for sure, there will be lots of fireworks!

SURPRISE -- I'M BACK

2009-10-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

I fooled you didn't I? You thought you'd gotten rid of me didn't you?
No such luck my friends, I'm just like a bad penny, I'm always going to turn up.
The truth is I never intended to be gone this long.
In fact I never intended to be gone at all, a couple of weeks at the most.

I hope that no one thought that I was ill because I was not. The truth is I'm very healthy and if my outer looks were as good looking as my inside feels, I'd be a good looking twenty year old. But no such luck.

Ah but I'm grateful for any small favors that the good Lord chooses to send my way, I can live with a few (a few to many) wrinkles for what feels like a young healthy feeling body any day. But let me tell you why I haven't been blogging.

It all started like this, I have this huge yard almost two acres and all the way around it, it is lined with trees and bushes. Every winter Mother Nature sends us winds and storms and she reeks havoc with my trees and bushes breaking limbs and damaging bushes all over the place.
So when spring came and the weather got so lovely I started to clean up my yard. My son and grandson did a huge part of the work but there was still plenty for me and anyone else in the family, with the exception of one. My daughter.
I think she has glue on her derriere because when she is home she never gets up from the chair in front of the computer. It doesn't seem to bother her at all to sit there for almost twenty-four hours. She even eats setting at the computer.
And God forbid someone else might need to get on. If she gets up at all, she will stand by your shoulder and repeat every five minutes, are you done yet, are you done yet.
Well sure I'm done because I can't think with the constant echo of 'Are you done yet' ringing in my ears.

The longer I stayed away the harder it was for me to come back. I felt so lost, so out of the loop, so brain dead. Where would I find the words. I have missed all of you so very much.
Little did I realize that all I had to do was say 'Hello'.

I love this place that I like to call Blogsville. And I love my blogger friends, each and every one of you is like a part of my extended family. If I should never hear from you again you will always be with me, for each one of you has their own little place deep within my heart.

Ah yes, it feel so good to be back.

EMERGENCY

2009-06-14T18:56:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks before school was out I received a phone call from the school asking me to pick up my grandson and take him home. He was sick. But when I got to the school I found him not just sick but in excruciating pain. He was half cramped over, moaning, pale and clammy.
I asked where it hurt and he said here in my side. He put his hand on his right side.

I signed him out as fast as I could he had already gone to the car but he couldn't make it to get in and was waiting for me hanging on to the door handle with one hand and his side with the other. I knew he was in deep trouble.

This is one tough kid and he never complains even when he's very sick.

A few years ago a picture frame in his bedroom fell of the wall the glass had already been cracked and a piece of glass broke into a long sharp point and stabbed him in the back.
He had a huge deep whole in his back shoulder and he just came walking out of the bedroom into the kitchen and calmly said grandma the picture with the crack in it fell off the wall and cut me. He was so calm, so contained.

I walked over thinking it was just a little cut, but when I walked behind him to look at the cut on his shoulder I had to pretend to be calm. But believe me I was not calm.
He had a very deep wound, it was gaped open and about two and a half inches in length and blood was pouring out of it.
Wouldn't you know it was a day when I didn't have the car.

I tried to hold the wound closed with one hand while I dialed the phone with my other hand to call a friend to get him to the hospital. I made the call but the blood was pouring out around my hand.

She arrived within minutes and I grabbed a towel and off we went.
Using the towel to apply pressure didn't work so I tried to hold it closed all the way to the hospital but the blood was still escaping some between my fingers all I could do was hold it the best I could with one hand and use the towel to collect what was seeping through my fingers so that the blood wouldn't get on my friends car.

When we got to the hospital he had to have several stitches. He took it all like a man. Maybe better them some. My little hero, not a whimper, not a complaint.

So when he was whimpering at the school I knew he was in trouble. I rushed out of the school and found him bent over in pain by the car. We got in the car and started to leave the school and he was moaning terribly. We were only about a couple of blocks from the school and he started vomiting and he couldn't stop. I hit the gas like I was Mario Andretti determined to win the race. He vomited all the way home.

When I hit the long driveway that leads to my front door I started honking the horn like a crazy maniac to get the attention of my daughter. She didn't come to the door right away so I threw open the car door jumped out and yelled get your shoes on we have to get you son to the hospital. She came, we left. She did the driving to the hospital and I kept an eye on him. He vomited most of the way to the hospital.
I kept thinking it could only be one of two things a kidney stone or appendicitis.
But if it was his appendix it should be hurting more towards the front. It had to be kidney stones, but what had me fooled was the constant vomiting.

We got him to the ER. He had a kidney stone.
They couldn't do much for him except give him pain medicine and run a IV and try to flush fluids through him so that maybe he would pass the kidney stone that night.
We were there for hours but it didn't happen.
He didn't pass the stone, but the pain medicine made him very happy. Happy enough to keep teasing the nurses.
At one point he said he felt the stone move so he wasn't in any pain but still no luck getting him to pass it.
The next morning we were home and he still wasn't in any pain.

The day after that we were back at the hospital for the Urologist to evaluate what he wanted to do. He decided not do anything just yet except prescribe some more pain pills just in case and give my grandson four to eight weeks to see if he would pass it.

If he passes it were in good shape, if he doesn't pass it we have to think about surgery.

I am praying for the passing of the stone as though it is a religious ceremony.
A-men.

UPDATE:
School has been out for the summer, it's been much more then eight weeks and he still hasn't passed the kidney stone. The good news is that it is still lodged it's self in some way that he is still not in any pain.

My biggest concern now is where will he be when it hits again. I worry every time he gos somewhere alone.

BEHOLD WHAT I SEE

2009-05-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

The things some never think about,
are what's important to me.

The things that so many never see,
stand out in my memory.

The retarded child with happiness,
and sweet and innocent love.

The courage of the wheel chair bound,
and how they have overcome.

The blind who seem to see with their soul,
so much more than we.

All of these things I view with love,
for all humanity.

IT WAS LOVELY !

2009-05-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

The wedding came the wedding went. It is over! Done! They finally got married and I officially have a new daughter-in- law. Hooray!

It was a beautiful outdoors wedding and it took place in her Aunts back yard. Her back yard starts at the top of a hill and works it way down to a lake. At the bottom of the hill over looking the lake and a boat dock, the family had set up tables and chairs and the bride and groom stood in front of the boat dock to say their vows with a backdrop of the lake. It was really a beautiful scene.

I noticed that a lot of children ranging in sizes had walked up just to the left of them during the ceremony and when the preacher asked who gives this woman to this man, to my surprise, in unison all of her relatives children yelled, "We do"! I was so tickled I could hardly contain myself.

It was suppose to rain that day, but her aunt was fully prepared. She had umbrellas on her porch for all, just in case.

During the ceremony a drop of rain here or there dropped, but not enough to even make anyone take notice.

After the vows were said and done all walked back up the hill and
there awaited food and drink for all.

Everyone stood still and watched the bride and groom feed each other that first piece of cake, but no one suspected, not even me, that the groom would mash that piece of cake all over her face.
Bless her little heart, she ran into the house to clean up. When she came back out he apologized and leaned over to kiss her, she turn her head up to accept his kiss then -- wham! She smacked him across the side of his head with, yes, cake. He was digging cake out of his ear for the rest afternoon.

He, he, he. He has met his match! Little but mighty, just like her Mother-in Law.

With the exception of the cake episode, it was probably one of the nicest weddings that I have ever attended and I'm not saying that because it was my sons. It is because it was also a time for people to gather that hadn't seen each other for a long time. Old friends were reunited and caught up on old times.
And the good Lord held back the rain until it was time to go. How can you beat that gift.

When my daughter and I left, we found a little liquor store and bought a bottle of wine and a couple of wine glasses and snuck them in the bride and grooms home so that they could have a private toast and unwind.

On our way home it began to rain in sheets. It' rained so hard neither one of us could barely see anything out of the windows.

We were thankful that we made it home safely and we ended the evening with our own unwinding, with the bottle of wine that we bought for us. Oh yes we did.

Do you really think that a Greek person is going to walk into a liquor store and walk out without a bottle of wine of their own? Impossible.

ASK HER, HER NAME

2009-04-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

BE AFRAID -- BE VERY AFRAID

WE DON'T KNOW WHO SHE IS?

We don't know where she comes from and we don't know where she go's. She comes into our house at night reeking havoc with all in sight. She's mean and rude and evil. She uses vial words. But if you don't address her, she remains quietly unheard. So please don't say a word or she'll start a terrible fight. There is no way to win with her, in the dark-- in the night.

I have never met her she comes when I'm asleep, but I hear she's a holy terror, if you dare to speak.

She makes my daughter angry, my grandson terrified, of the women who curses threats to them, in the dark--in the night.

I fear one day she'll hurt someone, someone that I love. And yet she bothers no one if they just leave her alone.

She walks about my house at night and even eats my food, then she go's away, only to return once more in the dark --in the night.

My grandson is much older now and much braver too, so he has tried to confront her and he asks her who she is, but every time he asks her she gives the same reply. "You know who I am", she gruffly says with an evil look in her eyes.

Then one day my grandson said that she had been back and her name was Maria. I asked if she told him that and he said no that is what I call her. A few nights later she returned and he told her that he knew who she was and he called her Maria, she abruptly told him that wasn't her name that was the name he gave her, but she never offered to tell him what her name was.

How can I make her go away this someone I've never met, who comes into my home at night and terrorizes the ones I love.

And yet I know that I am the only one who stands a chance of making her leave, for you see I'm the only one who knows who she really is.

With my eye wide open I am very convincing that I am awake but,

I WALK

I EAT----------------------------I TALK

IN MY SLEEP

She is me. She is the other side of me. The side of me that I don't use or show in my daily life.

She is the 'Dark Side' of me and we don't know what she is capable of--in the dark--in the night.

BE AFRAID -- BE VERY AFRAID

WE STILL DON'T KNOW HER NAME?

I'M NOT LAZY, I'M JUST TIRED

2009-03-04T13:31:00.000-08:00

OK, I admit it, I've been a lazy blogger lately. But I have been busy, with my son getting married soon there has been a lot of things that needed to be overseen.
They bought a new trailer to replace the old one and since they both work they needed someone to help them out. So I was the designated someone.

Little did I realize just how much needed to be taken care of. Calling everyone to get the utilities cut off was a simple task, but when the new trailer was moved in, that was all together a different story.
Arrangements had to be made appointments for different things on different days and I had to make all of the arrangements and be there to oversee that everything was done by their specifications.

It was not as easy as I thought it would be. They needed things done immediately because they needed to get moved in as soon as possible. At this point none of these companies seemed to be as accommodating as they where at turning things off. After all it was a bit more complicated now.
New wiring had to be hooked up to the new trailer home. Water pipes had to be laid, television cables needed to be put in and I had to be there the whole time.

Through all of this my phone kept ringing off the wall, some days every few minutes. Here is a small part of some of the phone conversations. Him, Mom do this for me. Her will you please do that for me. Him, ten minutes after his last call, did you get it done? Me, yes. Her, did you get in touch with them? Me, Yes.
Him, will they be there tomorrow? Me, No not until Monday. Him, why not. Me, because they have other appointments first. And so it went on all day.

When each crew arrived on their designated day,I had to be there to make sure that everything was done right and that nothing in the trailer was damaged and that any holes that need to be drilled were drilled where they wanted them, not where the workers might have wanted to put them.

So to make a long story a little shorter. I ended up being, Secretary, Appointment Maker, Trouble Shooter and even Crew Boss and I might add a darn good one too.

Thank God it's done and all done to their specifications and they are now moved in
and stressful as it was, I was glad that I was able to help.

I went over there the other night to give them my sons bills so that they could start budgeting, his, hers and theirs together.

As I was about to leave, I was sweetly and properly thanked for all of my help and told how much I was loved and appreciated. Of course that made it all worth it.

I told them you're welcome, I'll send you the bill for my services in the morning. lol

Farmers

2009-02-17T12:46:00.000-08:00

Farmers come in all sizes with the keenest eye, the largest heart and the strongest back.

The farmer's eyes see the crack of dawn and the first stars that come out
at night. He sees in his mind's eye the harvesting before the planting even begins.
He sees rain before a cloud appears. His eyes are everywhere, yet they hold the
largest smile that covers many acres yet remain where they began.

A farmer's heart shows kindness to all creatures, understanding, compassion,
tolerance and has the patience of a saint.

A farmer's back carries many burdens.

He feeds America.
He is a farmer!

________________________________________________________________

A FARMER'S LAST WILL

I Leave:
To my Wife, my overdraft at the bank, maybe she can explain it.

To my banker, my soul ----- he has the mortgage on it anyway.

To my neighbor, my clown suit. He'll need it if he continues to farm as he has in the past.

To the ASCA, my grain bin. I was planning to let them take it away next year anyway.

To my county agent, 50 bushels of corn to see if he can hit the market ---- I never could.

To the junk man, all my machinery. He's had his eye on it for years.

To my undertaker, a special request: I want six implement and
fertilizer dealers for my pall bearers.
They're all used to carrying me.

To the weatherman, rain, sleet and snow for the funeral,
please ----- no sense having good weather now.

To the grave digger ---- don't bother, the hole I'm in should be big enough.

FRIENDS FOREVER

2009-02-02T10:30:00.000-08:00

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend.
I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy,to be extravagant.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4
AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes
of the 60 &70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love, I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging
body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set.

They, too, will get old.
I know I am sometimes forgetful.
But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers,or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face.
So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong.

I like being old. It has set me free.
I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever,but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day(if I feel like it).

MAY OUR FRIENDSHIP NEVER COME APART ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART!

MAY YOU ALWAYS HAVE A RAINBOW OF SMILES ON YOUR FACE AND IN YOUR HEART
FOREVER AND EVER! FRIENDS FOREVER!

Received this in an e-mail from a very dear friend.
I'm passing it on to you, all of my Blogger friends, that I hold so near and dear to my heart. You have all become my friends and I hold your friendship in the highest regard.
Thank You, for bringing such joy into my life.

WEDDING BELLS ARE RINGING

2009-01-25T06:26:00.000-08:00

I know what you're thinking and the answer is ------ NO, it's not me.

My son is getting married in the near future. I knew it was coming, I just didn't think it was going to happen so soon. It doesn't seem like they have been seeing each other but just a few months, then again to quote an old saying, '
"You never really know someone until you marry them."

The date is set for April 18Th. I know no details so I don't know if it's going to be a wedding with guests or if they are just going to go get married? No one offered so, I didn't ask. I figure they will tell me sooner or later.

They have both been married before and they are both in their early forties. My son has a son who is grown and he has a son of his own. My daughter-in-law to be, has three children of her own, ages nineteen, seventeen and nine and the seventeen year old just had a baby this year.

I wondered about my son. He's been living alone for a long time and I know he's been lonely, but how is he going to like a house with kids in it again.
Then I realized, he's going to love it.
He loves kids and babies and they usually love him too.
I really think this is just what he needs, a family to come home to will make him feel complete.

Now about my daughter-in-law to be. What do I think about her. I think she's great.
She's pretty, has a great personality, seems to be responsible and made it very clear to me shortly after I met her that she was crazy about my son and was going to love him forever.

Forever. What more could any parent ask for. I think I love her. I'm happy for them.

Did I mention that my son is my next door neighbor. Shortly after my husband past away, my son moved next door to me, for which I am eternally grateful.
He has been a blessing in so many ways. But soon there will be a new wife and family moving here.
They live kind of far from here so I'm assuming the little girl will have to leave her school before the end of the school year and what about the wife's job and what about the adjustments.
I'm not worried about my son and his new family adjusting, I'm sure they will be just fine. I'm worried about me. I have issues.

I have very mixed emotions. SELFISH EMOTIONS. Shame on me. I'm a terrible person.

I've been wondering how is all of this going to effect me.
Although I am ecstatically happy for them, I can't help wondering how this might change my life. My son and I knew we were always there for each other if needed but other than that we left each other alone.

After years of working I decided to take an early retirement. I became used to living alone, I enjoyed it, in fact I loved it. I liked the quiet serenity of being by myself. I began to read books, something I never seemed to have time for in the past. I learned to relax, a real luxury.

My property is very large and very private and I enjoy sitting in my back yard with a cup of coffee in the morning and a good book in the evening and sometimes I just love to sit outside and enjoy looking at the beauty of Mother Nature.

So what happens now. Am I still going to be able to enjoy my out of doors quiet time or am I going to have a little girl calling me granny and following me around?

Oh my, my grandson is finally almost all grown and here comes a little girl in the family.

But wait --- this could be fun.

We could have tea party's and I'll let her wear my high heal shoes and play dress up. Little girls love to do things like that.

A little girl, YES! I can't wait to spoil her rotten.

Wait a minute, my grandson did that too. lol

OLD FOLKS

2009-01-09T11:24:00.000-08:00

Remember, old folks are worth a fortune, with the SILVER in their hair, Gold in their teeth, and STONES in their kidneys, LEAD in their feet, and GAS in their stomachs.

I have become a little older since I saw you last, and a few changes have come into my life since then.

Frankly, I have become quite a frivolous old gal.
I am seeing FIVE gentlemen every day.

As soon as I wake up WILL POWER helps me get out of the bed. Then I go to see JOHN. Then CHARLIE HORSE comes along, and when he is here he takes up a lot of my time and attention.
When he leaves ARTHUR RITIS shows up and stays the rest of the day. He doesn't like to stay in one place too long, so he takes me from joint to joint.

After such a busy day I'm really tired and glad to go to bed with BEN GAY. WHAT A LIFE !!!!

P.S.
The preacher came to call the other day. He said at my age I should be thinking about the hereafter. I told him, ' OH, I DO, all the time. No matter where I am, in the parlor, upstairs, in the kitchen, or down in the basement.
I ASK MYSELF, NOW,
"WHAT AM I HERE AFTER?" '

Author Unknown

HELLO AGAIN

2009-01-02T06:18:00.000-08:00

It's a new day, a new dawn and a brand 'New Year'.
So what are you going to do with yours?

Are you one of those people that sit down and makes out your resolutions for the new year?
Do you accomplish any of them?

For myself, I stopped making a list of resolutions years ago when I realized I never stuck to my list so I never accomplished any of them.

But this year I did have a thought and for myself it is a great idea.

Instead of making a list of unattainable 'New Years' resolutions, I would give myself this little reminder.
Something I don't think of very often, but I certainly need to remember.
So I wrote it down and put it on my desk so that I would always be reminded of it.

It's a little prayer and I would like to share it with you. It's very short but very profound. I love it but tend to forget about it and it's something that I for one need to remember on a daily basis. It go's like this;

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. "

Wonderful words to live by aren't they.

Courage; Not a problem.

Wisdom; Sometimes I get lucky.

Acceptance; My downfall!

What is your favorite resolution or reminder for the 'New Year'?
Tell me the one that is most important to you?
Have you set a new goal to attain?
Do you usually stick to your resolutions?
If you do you certainly have more willpower than I do.

HO, HO, HO !

2008-12-21T07:08:00.000-08:00

Thought that I had better post this today just in case we have a blast of weather bad enough to put our power out.
Today as I walk across my kitchen floor in my stocking feet, it feels like I am walking on ice . With my central heat on all the way and a small electric heater it is still very cold .
Shivers are not fun.

It is suppose to get down to 19 degrees tonight, for us that means, must remember to drip the faucets so hopefully our water won't freeze even if we do.

My dear blogger friend ' Shannon ' who lives in NH , has had no power for a while now, but thank God she does have heat. (Little plug for Shannon she has a lovely blog.)

Unfortunately I am all electric so when our power gos out we will be in big trouble.

So we hope it doesn't .

To all my blogger friends, hope your weather is better then ours and Shannon's

Love to you all , "Merry Christmas !"

DID YOU SEE THAT FULL MOON

2008-12-14T06:14:00.000-08:00

It had turned into night but still, it was very early in the evening. I remembered that there was going to be a full moon and I wanted to see it.

I went to the door and opened it and looked up
into the sky. The sky was a dark, dark lovely shade of blue.
A few stars here and there but I didn't see any moon at all, let alone a full moon.

I leaned out the door a little and looked to my left
and there it was to my left. It appeared to be so close, almost like it wasn't up in the sky at all, but like a 3-D movie, with the sky for a back drop.

I was shocked. The glow coming from it was so bright that it hurt my eyes to look at it, but I couldn't stop it was amazing. I've never seen a moon that big or hanging so low.
I looked all over the net to find an exact picture of what I had seen, but I couldn't find one so I settled for this one because of it's brightness.

The moon that I viewed in addition to being blindingly bright, had three rings around it. No, not like Jupiter. The three rings were not through the middle they were around the outer perimeter of the moon. The rings had a slight haze to them but the moon it's self was perfectly clear.

The more I gazed at this moon the more connected I felt to it, drawn to it, even mesmerized by it. I felt soothed and calm and a warmth from within. I didn't even realize that it was cold out anymore. Which makes me wonder.
Was it the moon? Was the moon giving me a gift? Was it soothing my inner soul or energizing my body or maybe Thanking me for coming out to see him in his full glory.

Why not. If the moon can effect the 'Ocean Tides' , Why then can't the moon have an effect on humans as well?

Brrrrr ! WINTER IS HERE, LUCKY ME

2008-12-10T08:33:00.004-08:00

Last year we had the dreaded high winds, hail and tons of rain and flooding. So I was hoping for a better winter this year.

I suppose I should count my blessing prior to last year we had several years of really mild winters. I guess it made us all a little spoiled. But I fear that this year is going to be a real booger to get through.

Winter hit hard this year. October and November were so mild that we thought we had it made. Boy were we wrong. Yesterday we had such a down pour that it flooded us in. The good new is that my grandson still could get home from school by riding the school bus to the main highway and walking home through the back way thereby by-passing the bridge. The only problem with that is getting home through the back way can only be accomplished on foot. I walked through the back way to meet him with an umbrella so that his books wouldn't get all went.
Fat lot of good that did me.
The bus driver let him off the bus at a different spot thinking she was doing him a favor but by the time I got to him, he and his books were pretty wet anyway there was a big ditch that was filled with water and he had to jump across it to get to me. He was in such a hurry that instead of waited for me to get to him he threw his book bag across the ditch to make it easier for him to make it across. I could see him I just wasn't close enough to where he was so that I could catch the bag for him. The little stubborn stinker wouldn't wait.

The walk to get back home the back way wasn't much pleasure either as our path was so flooded we were walking in muddy water up to our ankles.
But we made it I guess that's all that matters.

I dread these kinds of winters because it is such a chore to get my grandson to and from school. It would have been a perfect holiday if the weather could have waited until Christmas vacation. Mother Nature has such bad timing. Drats
The good news is before everything flooded I was able to get to the store for some badly need supplies, I was drenched in the rain just getting from the car and into the store but at least for that couple of hours the streets were bearable.

Today it is only '37' digress and the weather prediction is that it will be getting lower not higher today.and snow is predicted.

Oh happy day.

I wish I had grown up in a state that always had freezing winters then maybe it wouldn't bother my so much, but I grew up in California. So all I can say is Brrrr.

Hope your weather is better the mine.

OH MY, IT'S A DISASTER !!!!

2008-12-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

It was a lovely quiet morning. My grandson at school and my daughter at work. What a perfect time to check my mail and talk to my blogger friends.
I checked my mail and went on the net and almost immediately I got a blue screen error report that read 'There is a problem and windows is shutting down to protect your computer from damage'. At that moment I didn't panic, but I thought perhaps it would be best to turn off the computer and check back later, so that's what I did.

But later when I tried to turn the computer back on, now that is when panic set in. The computer wouldn't turn back on. I tried again, nothing. When my daughter came home she tried to turn the computer on too, to no avail.

Sadly the computer had died. There seemed to be nothing we could do.

We rushed the computer to the 'Computer Hospital' as quickly as possible where the expert 'Technical Surgeon' was waiting for us. He took a look and said he needed to do surgery. So we left the computer with him and prayed for the best.

With his loving skillful hands he did heart surgery and gave our computer a heart transplant.
Yes, he was able to bring our computer back to life.

Recovery was swift and we were able to take our computer home within a couple of days.

It is so good to see our beloved computer up and running and
smiling again.

FROM MY FRIEND CAPT. C.

2008-11-23T06:42:00.000-08:00

HOW MANY ZEROS IN A BILLION

This is too true to be funny.

The next time you hear a politician use the
word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about
whether you want the 'politicians' spending
YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
but one advertising agency did a good job of
putting that figure into some perspective in
one of it's releases.

A.
A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were
living in the Stone Age.

D.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E.
A billion dollars ago was only
8 hours and 20 minutes,
at the rate our government
is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain...
let's take a look at New Orleans ..
It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator,
Mary Landrieu (D)
is presently asking Congress for
250 BILLION DOLLARS
to rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number...
what does it mean?

A.
Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans
(every man, woman, and child)
you each get $516,528.

B.
Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in
New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.

C.
Or... if you are a family of four...
your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington, D. C

<HELLO>
Are all your calculators broken??

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax <>Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...
and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt...
We had the largest middle class in the world...
and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?
Can you spell 'politicians!'

And I still have to
press '1'
for English.

I hope this goes around the
USA
at least 100 times

What the heck happened?????

'LIFE' THOUGHTS BY 'DUCKY'

2008-11-18T14:27:00.000-08:00


	How come we choose from just two people to run for president and over fifty for Miss America ?
Now that food has replaced sex in my life, I can't even get into my own pants.
	I signed up for an exercise class and was told to wear loose fitting clothing. If I HAD any loose fitting clothing, I wouldn't have signed up in the first place!
When I was young we used to go 'skinny dipping,' now I just 'chunky dunk.'
	Don't argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the difference.
Wouldn't it be nice if whenever we messed up our life we could simply press 'Ctrl Alt Delete' and start all over? AMEN, AMEN !!
	Why is it that our children can't read a Bible in school, but they can in prison?
Wouldn't you know it.... Brain cells come and brain cells go, but FAT cells live forever.
	Why do I have to swear on the Bible in court when the Ten Commandments cannot be displayed outside?
Bumper sticker of the year: 'If you can read this, thank a teacher -and, since it's in English, thank a soldier'

'LIFE' THOUGHTS BY 'DUCKY'

And remember: life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.
Ya just might want to pass this along....

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ?

2008-11-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

Elephant-shaped Ganesh growth cured my ills, Queens man says

BY NICHOLAS HIRSHON
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Wednesday, October 22nd 2008, 3:52 PM
Sam Lal, in his Jamaica, Queens yard with unusual amaranth plant that resembles Hindu god Ganesh.

Lal says arrival of the plant that's not native to area has cured his back ailments.

Separated at birth? The mysterious blossom and the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh (below)

To most people, the purple flower that sprouted between two concrete slabs in a Queens backyard would be just a hardy vestige of summer.

Sam Lal sees something more.

The Jamaica man is convinced the mysterious blossom is an incarnation of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh - and neighbors and friends are flocking to see it.

The nearly 4-foot-tall flower grew in June and began to resemble an elephant's head and trunk in August. Lal said that the ailments that had plagued him for months disappeared.

"This formation came to heal my illness," the 60-year-old Hindu man said of his relief from pain due to a bone spur near his spine and bulging discs in his neck.

"They say God comes in many forms. I figure this has taken the form of a plant to come into my yard to bless me," said Lal, who immigrated from Guyana three decades ago.

Experts at the Queens Botanical Garden identified the plant as a member of the amaranth family, which is native to Africa, India and southern Central America but not the U.S. Horticulturalists at the garden have never seen an amaranth take an elephant-like shape, garden spokesman Tim Heimerle said.

"For it to have that long trunk like this is not a natural thing," he said.

Lal believes the flower's position - growing through concrete, facing a garage he converted to a prayer space - is evidence of a connection to Ganesh, revered as the Remover of Obstacles.

A manager at a Manhattan uniform company, Lal hurt his back lifting a box and was in pain for 3-1/2 months - but no more.

"I felt that healing power that came with it," he said. "I've lived a religious life all my life. I feel my prayers have been answered through the deities."

Friends and neighbors have already streamed to his 90th Ave. home to see the flower, and Lal said he'd welcome pilgrimages by Hindu faithful.

He knows some people will be skeptical and insisted he did nothing to sculpt the flower.

Heimerle said that wouldn't be possible anyway, because the plant is too fragile.

"Nature is a strange thing, and it's possible it may have just done that spontaneously, but who's to say," Heimerle said.

With the fall chill in the air, Lal fears the flower may die like other amaranths, which are usually killed by winter frost.

"It's a little upsetting," said Lal, who covers the flower with plastic at night to protect it from cold. "It hurts me to know I'll lose it."

Do you have an incredible plant? An amazing animal? Share your photos with us HERE and we may feature your picture in the Daily News.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Here is my opinion.
Whether the plant cured Sam's ills, we'll never know will we. I think what is important here is , that Sam believes that the plant cured him.

Mind over matter, wishing or believing call it what you will, he is not hurting anymore. I think this kind of mental attitude alone can cause miracles.

Do you believe?

I'm a firm believer, in believing.

IT'S TIME TO SAY---

2008-11-05T07:07:00.000-08:00

Good Morning Mr. President.

By now we all know that Barack Obama is our new President of these United States America and people are celebrating everywhere.

Not just in the United States but people are celebrating around the world as well.
This morning I saw a video of our US soldiers in Afghanistan cheering for Obama when they got the news.
They are celebrating in Kenya, and if I had not been a blogger I would not have known that some of my blogger friends in India were also hoping that Obama would win.

Now, we all know that he has won.
Let us all pray that we have made the right decision and that he will make us proud.

Yet at the same time let us not expect miracles from a human being. He can not walk on water and he has a hard road ahead to deal with.

There has been many mistakes made in the past and many fences to mend.

Frankly even if I were smart enough to run for president, I wouldn't want to step into taking over during some of the worse times that I have seen in my life time.

LAST DAY TO VOTE

2008-11-04T08:17:00.000-08:00

I believe it was my Father who used to say on voting day, ' Well tomorrow we will know who the biggest crook in America is'.
Yet he would always vote.

So in memory of my Dad, I would like pick up the tradition.

Tomorrow who do you think will be the biggest crook in America?

Come on lighten up, a little levity here.

FROM MY GOOD FRIEND CAPT. C

2008-11-02T06:24:00.000-08:00

He talks about changes for the better in Iraq and he attributes at least some of it to McCain's idea for the power surge. I thought it befitting and fair to post this for those of you who are McCain fans. In all honesty there are things that I do like about McCain I regard him very highly, yet I made the decision to not vote for him for several reasons one being Palin. However I do believe in giving credit where credit is do and I agree with my friend the Power Surge was a good idea.
__________________________

Posted on September 9, 2008 by my dear friend Capt.C

When To Celebrate
A dictionary defines celebration as “a joyful occasion for special festivities to mark some happy event... any joyous diversion.”

Who defines “joyful” or “joyous”? Is it up to each individual? I believe that I tend to celebrate more than others. I clap and say “Yeah!” after I finish a delicious meal that my wonderful wife has made for me. I celebrate with my precious children all the time. Children will celebrate anything. If you have small children, then you understand what I am saying. A child will clap for joy when they put a toy in a pail. A child will laugh with excitement when they see a puppy. A child knows how to celebrate.

As we get older, for some reason we don’t find the joy of putting toys in a pail. We don’t see the wonders of life when a puppy wags its tail. We become so desensitized of the miracles of life. We have lost the joyful purpose of celebration....

I know you are thinking, “Where are you going with this?” I do have a point. I want you to take a deep breath, open your mind and just allow me to explain something to you that you will NEVER see on the news.

When I was deployed to Iraq in 2006, things were a little different. Hardly a day would go by when somebody wasn’t trying to kill me. This is especially true for the first few months that I was there. I know that some will argue that having a random mortar fired towards you is not “really trying to kill you.” Okay, but if you haven’t had a random mortar fired toward you, then what do you really know? And if you have had a random mortar fired at you, then you know that they are trying to kill you. So, I will argue the point.

Anyway, during my six and a half month tour, I did anesthesia for over 280 cases. For those of you that don’t understand case numbers, that is a lot of cases. Of those cases, I am willing to say that nearly 240 of those cases where trauma (or trauma related) cases. I did very little elective cases. I can not even begin to tell you how many units of blood and blood products that I pumped into those patients. I can not remember how many deaths I saw. I can tell you this, I pumped in more blood and blood products in that six and a half months than most civilians will pump in a lifetime. I probably saw more death than any of you will ever see (unless you have been here or you are a mortician). Slightly off the subject - I went to an anesthesia conference a year or so ago. I was attending a course that was being taught by a man that was at “the number one trauma center in the USA”. It sounds impressive doesn’t it? Well, when he told us about the most units of blood that has ever been given to an individual at their facility, I just had to smile. I was thinking, “Really? That’s it?? I have beaten that number on more than one occasion.” For the record, I gave over 120 blood products to a single patient in under four hours. You do the math - that’s kicking.

Now lets fast forward 18 months. I have once again arrived in Iraq. Grant it, I am still in the early stages of my deployment. I have been here for almost two months. But, let me tell you that things have changed. Things have changed in ways that I would not have dreamed.

First lets start with the random mortars. I can’t remember the last one. They are so few and far in between. Second are the cases. I have done a total of 23 cases since I have been here. Of those 23 cases, only four have been trauma. All the others have been elective cases.

Now for the real news, something that you will be hard pressed to see or hear about in the media. There are new schools, new hospitals, new training centers, new communities that HAVE BEEN BUILT. Not by the Americans either, but by the Iraqi people. There are almost as many Iraqi Army Soldiers as there are US Soldiers here. The number of Iraqi Soldiers is growing by the day. There is another HUGE piece of the pie. The Iraqi people are seeing and “understanding” the difference that is being made. Something I thought could never happen. I was wrong. That’s right - I admit that I was wrong. The Iraqi population understands that if they inform the authorities, not only will the bad guys get caught, they will also be protected. So, now the communities are stepping up to the plate. The bad guys may be able to threaten one person, but they can’t threaten them all. So, they are learning to stand up against them.

So, what does this mean? Well, it means that there is decrease in life being lost - on both sides. There is an exponential number of bad guys being caught and killed. The bad guys are getting desperate. Now, here is where I will have to stop giving details. But, I can say that they are truly getting desperate and it shows.

So, why have you not heard about this? Well, it is because that would mean that the media would be responsible for informing the public of the truth, not just its’ agenda. It would mean that the media would HAVE TO ADMIT THAT THE SURGE WORKED!!! Not only did it work, it has changed the community. The media doesn’t want you to know this. They want you to be ignorant of the facts. They want to push a certain person into the Presidential seat so they can have even more power and more money (yea, don’t full yourself - it’s all about power and money).

So, I have to ask. If a country that was full of blood shed just 18 months ago, is now relatively a peaceful country - is that something to celebrate??? I know the children are celebrating.........

WHO WILL IT BE

2008-10-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

Unless there is some miraculous new discovery I think that we all have heard pretty much all that these two candidates for President have to say and most of us have probably decided on who we are going to vote for. Some of you may have already voted, if that is available in your state.

We do have early voting in the state that I live in, so I will probably sachet my little self to the courthouse a little early and cast my big vote. Then I'm going to go home and pray that I have made the right decision.

I wouldn't dream of putting any of you on the spot by asking you who you are/or have voted for.

But here is what I think.

Frankly in spite of the polls that have been taken, I think it's a toss up.

Until the votes have all been counted,(if they are all counted), I don't think that we, the people can be sure of anything.

So I pose this question to you. When it's all said and done, who do you think we will be calling 'Mr. President'? I know who I will vote for but who will win,

I haven't a clue.

TWO WEEKS

2008-10-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

Only two weeks and it's all over but the crying. But who will be crying?

I still can't figure that one out. No matter what the poles say or what the map shows I think it could go either way. Simply because I feel like there will be a lot of problems (ya right problems, ha ha) with those darn voting machines.

I want a paper ballet. I wish there was some way that if a person insisted upon it, they could refuse to use the machines. I don't trust them and I don't trust the way that they can be tinkered with.

I have diligently watched the television every night since this campaign started. To learn as much as I could about each candidate and become as well informed as possible so that I could feel confident in the decision that who ever I decided to vote for would be the best one for the task before them. And during this time I do believe that I have come to one, and only one decision.

They are both crazy!

Yes, that has to be it. McCain and Obama, Obama and McCain are both nutty as fruit cakes. Crazy as 'Betsy Bugs' as the old sayings go.

With all that has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen for a very long time, who in their right mind would want to be the President right now.

Would you? Oh, come on, say yes and I'll stick you up there with Obama and McCain, in the Loony bin.

First of all Obama, although I think is a very intelligent and a ambitious young man, doesn't really have the longest political history to qualify him for the Presidency. He talks a good talk but I think he is going to need a lot of help from his fellow politicians, because all of the good intentions in the world are not going to get it here and he can't just go to his ranch every time there is a crises like Bush did because I don't think he has a ranch to go to. So God help us, I hope he is a fast learner.

McCain, on the other hand has many years of experience, but when I saw him get up and start walking around on the stage at the first debate all I could think of was, my God this man can hardly walk across the room.
I couldn't help thinking that if something should happen to him that leaves us with Palin and frankly I think she put the 'L' in the word Loony. So if she should by some unfortunate situation have to take over as President our only hope is that they quickly find some reason to impeach her and put someone else in there immediately. Anyone at all pleeeeese.

No matter which one gets it, they are not going to be able to fix what is going on in the United States. I haven't seen either one of them holding a magic wand.
Our economy is in the crapper and all the promises in the world are not going to fix it. Certainly not in the first four years, and I don't think a second term is going to do it either. But they both sure make it all sound good don't they.
So why do they want it so badly is it a power trip or are they both just plain crazy. Could be both? You decide.

I think the only reason either one of them got this far is because no one else in their right mind wants it. Well, almost no one.

Poor old Hilary. I feel her pain.

ALL ABOUT POLITICS. WHAT A READ

2008-10-14T22:18:00.000-07:00

A good read. Short and to the point.

545 People

545 PEOPLE By Charlie Reese [Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper]

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash.

The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House?

She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

They vote their own pay raises for themselves because they want it that way.

There are no unsolvable government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you, though you appear to have several choices.

1. You can send this to everyone in your address book, and hope 'they' do something about it.

2. You can agree to vote against everyone that is currently in office, knowing that the process will take several years.

3. You can decide to 'run for office' yourself and agree to do the job properly.

4. You can hit delete.

A STICKY, STINKY, BUSINESS

2008-10-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

Politics is definitely a stinky business and the Bailout plan is one of the worst plans around. I realize that our economy is in a great deal of trouble, but come on the funds have already been misused. It seems that some of the CEO's of 'AIG' got together and decided to take a vacation at our expense. A very expensive vacation at that.

Well why not. We're the dummies that are paying for it, for now and forever.
Then to add insult to injury, it was announced on the television and all that was said about it was that the public deserved an apology.

Well crap on their apology. This is how I feel about it and this is what I wrote to my congress and every public official that I could write to.
_______________________________
I am outraged that so soon in the game, the money that that was appropriated to help businesses is already scandalously being miss appropriated at the expense of the public and all that was said about it was that these CEO's that used this money to take a very expensive vacation need to apologize to the public? Apologize???? I don't think so!

Excuse me but since when is miss appropriations of funds ' NOT ' a crime.
So if this is going to be written off as ' they deserved their bonus pay ', I'm sorry but that is totally unacceptable.

This is blatant theft and I for one want nothing less then prosecution!
I don't want an apology, I want action!
_______________________________

Yes I think the Bailout plan stinks. As a matter of fact as long as I'm venting I may as well add that, I think this whole Presidential election campaign stink as well. I haven't seen this much 'mud slinging' in a long time. What's wrong with running on your own values instead of tearing down someone Else's.

This is the first Time in all my years of being a voter that I have had a problem making a decision on who to vote for.
I have never had trouble deciding who I wanted for President usually pretty early in the game I could tell without a doubt who I wanted but not this time.
This time I have a problem with both candidates. Obama, McCain, McCain, Obama. Which will be the lesser of the two evils.

When McCain came up with Palin I thought smart move, a woman for VP will get you a lot of women's votes and it looked promising for him when she first came on the scene. But frankly,now (Shush this is between you and me), I think she's proved herself to be a bit of an egotistical ding bat and I wish she'd take Mr. Six pack and go home.
Sorry but it's getting old. Frankly cutesy cutesy just doesn't get it. I want to see a smart well informed woman up there, not someone winking and blurting out nonsense.

Why anyone would even want to run for President with all these problems is beyond me. I certainly wouldn't want to take this mess on.

I wouldn't dream of asking you who you are going to vote for because I think it's a personal decision and I don't want to start any wars on my blog.
But I would like to know who you think is doing better in their campaigns and debates if you care to comment.

AH LAUGHTER , IT'S A GOOD THING

2008-09-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago or so, a fellow blogger friend 'Id it is' did a post on a movie that he had watched.
He did a wonderfully descriptive review of the movie titled 'Death at a Funeral' and remarked of his laughter. A comedy, in fact a British comedy . Well that's all it took I knew I had to see this movie.

It had three things in it's favor, comedy, British, and made him laugh a lot. I like comedy and I think the British are one of the best when it comes to comedy, that is one thing that my grandson and I are in agreement on. So last weekend I rented the movie.

Was it funny? Hilarious. Did I laugh? Oh God yes. But I'm not sure what I enjoyed the most, the movie, or watching my grandson red faced and gasping for air while laughing none stop from the very beginning to the very end of the movie. That alone was worth renting the movie.

Thanks Id it is for a very enjoyable Saturday. Those of you who don't know him might want to pay him a visit. 'http://iditis.blogspot.com/' .

O.K. I admit it. I stole part of the title from my idol 'Martha Stewart', so sue me.

IT'S CALLED "ANGEL FLIGHT"

2008-09-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

Angel Flight is something that every American should have to see, but no one should ever see.

The call came across the speaker that at least one Soldier was on his way with a severe head injury. Estimated time of arrival, 45 minutes. The emergency room (ER) begins its very well organized preparation for the arrival of the Soldier. Another call came across, saying that now there maybe two Soldiers arriving, then another stated three. About 20 minutes out, yet another call came saying that only one Soldier would be arriving and he was in critical condition. Standing in the ER anticipating his arrival were one ER doctor, two surgeons, two anesthesia personal, a hand full of nurses and highly trained medics.

The call comes across the speaker, “two minutes out.” What seemed like the longest two minutes were so quickly interrupted with the most dreadful regarded words of all, “He’s expected”. We didn’t know if this meant that he had already died or if the crew thought he was going to die. All we knew is that within two minutes we were going to do everything that was in our power to send this Soldier home ALIVE!!

Two minutes past, the doors open up and the Soldier comes in on a stretcher with his head covered. We knew then that he had died in route. An erie silence falls upon the ER. The hopes of stealing his life back, slipped right past our fingers without us even having the opportunity to try. His life was taken away from us before we were able to change the, sometimes, horrific course of nature. Your gut seems empty. You want to throw up, you want to cry...... but there is nothing that you can do to, it’s over!

Within 12 hours, the Soldiers from his unit are all out in front of the hospital. They are preparing to execute with precise military excellence their final respects to their brother - they are preparing for the Angel Flight.

I (along with my colleagues) am out on the runway. We are facing the flag bearers and the back of the C-130. The flag bearers are holding the American flag and their company flag high with pride. The entire airport is silent. There are no engines running, no planes coming or going. There is complete silence. I look beyond the plane to the other side of the runway and I see a line of civilian workers standing in a straight formation. There is nothing by silence and respect.

“Platoon. Attention!! Right, face...... Forward, march!” is commanded from behind the concrete wall. “Go left.... go left .... go left” is what you hear from the Platoon Sergeant leading the deceased Soldier’s brothers across the flight line toward the C-130 plane. “Platoon halt! Left face.” The Soldiers now passionately await for the arrival of their beloved brother. There are tears of sadness, emptiness running down the faces of these brave and very strong Soldiers. To the left we see the ambulance carrier the departed Soldier being escorted by one his brothers inching slowly and painfully toward the flight line. The ambulance positions itself so that the back of it lines up perfectly to the back center of the open C-130. As we wait for the next movement, the ambulance’s engine is turned off. Again, silence falls upon us.

To our right, we hear “Forward, march.” A group of eight Soldiers, the pallbearers, four long and two wide, being lead by a Sergeant marches them to the either side of the ambulance. The back doors are opened. The command is given “Present Arms!” Every Soldiers holds their salute and the civilians across the runway place their right hand over the left chest. Then, two Soldiers at a time with crisp, razor sharp movements take either side of the American flag draped coffin and gently remove the Soldier from the ambulance, one smooth motion at a time.

Once the Soldier is out, the order is given and the pallbearers with sharp, harmonic motion rotate the coffin 180 degrees. The Soldier is then walked head first up the ramp into the C-130. You can hear the Chaplain that is standing on the back of the plane saying “The Lord in my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil....” Then, the Chaplain is up at the front of the plane with the Soldier. I can no longer hear what is being said. After a few moments the command “Right Face” is given and the pallbearers march off the back of the plane.

In the still, peaceful morning the command “Order, Arms” is given...............

With the most respectful regards,

CPT Tom Chenowith
Mosul, Iraq

I am posting this for a dear friend of mine who I have the highest regard for. He has already done one tour of duty in Baghdad and has recently been sent back to Mosul, Iraq for a second tour of duty. I may from time to time put up one of his post for him. He has conveyed to me his willingness to have his words heard in the US. He has a lovely wife and three small children one of who is less then a year old.

My Love and prayers are with him. May God bring him home safely.

WHEN DID I REALIZE, I'M A JINX

2008-09-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

I have come to the conclusion that I have got to be jinxed. That's all there is to it, I'm a jinx. I can't plan anything without something or everything, going wrong and ruining my plans.

I've never had a yard sale and last summer I decided that I would have one. The best and the only realistic days to have a yard sale around here is on the weekend, so I began planning for it. It rained that weekend. Was that a sign not to have one?
Oh well I thought, I wasn't ready yet so what does it matter. I still have a lot of things to go through. I have to pick what will go and what will stay and I have a whole summer of weekends to pick from. So I continued getting things organized.

It rained the next weekend too. Then it rained the third weekend and the next and the next and the next. In fact, I think the rain made some sort of record last year because it rained every single weekend all summer long. Needless to say there was no yard sale. Oh well I wasn't to disappointed. I don't think I had enough things to make it all worth the effort anyway.

After that summer fall and winter just seemed to blend in together. You really couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. Although there was still rain it really wasn't very cold at all.
I remember opening my big mouth and remarking to someone about how wonderfully mild that winter was compared to the ones we've had in the past. You really didn't even need a heavy coat. Oops, Open mouth insert foot.
Soon after that we had that one day of beautiful snow, but it came down so fast that the school closed early. Oh well, we enjoyed it and by morning it had all melted.
But shortly it was followed by the big hail storm which was then shortly followed by that horrible wind storm that brought with it more rain and downed trees. Some of you will remember my post last year about me trying to get my grandson safely home while dodging limbs and flooded streets.

What is going on here why is it every time I want to do something, something goes wrong. Why is it when I bragged about how much I was enjoying the mild winter, the weather comes back to bite me in the butt. Surely it's nothing more then coincidence. Surely, yes, coincidence.

Want to bet?

This summer it was terribly hot. In the low hundreds. I swore if it rained it would probably come down bubbling like boiling water.
May son asked me to do him a favor. He has two long closets side by side in his bedroom. They take up one whole wall and he wanted me to go through them and get rid of what I think needs getting rid of because he has no room to squeeze in any more cloths in and he can't bring his self to throw anything away. Of course a mother is not going to say no, so I started the task little by little when I had the time and he was at work.

Oh my gosh I've never laughed to hard. He's in his early forties and he still had things from his early twenties. The only similarities then and now shirts and pants, Xtra tall. Suddenly I had this great idea. I can have my yard sale this year. He had so many things to get rid of I could make a killing.

As I was finally organized and ready to do this thing, it rained every weekend. This couldn't be happening to me. Well it not only happened to me but it got even worse. I can kiss that yard sale good bye.

We have been for the past few days getting the after affects of hurricane 'Gustav'.
Even though we don't live in Louisiana we are one of their bordering states. Our schools have had to close and trees have been falling down like they were made of paper and pulling electrical lines down with them. We just got our power back on and our town has had flooding here and there. For myself I have to be the dummy that lives near the creek with the bridge. We got a little more then our share.

We flooded in a big way. That creek overflowed everywhere and found it's way to my front yard where it sashayed it's way more then half way up my yard to my front door to say,
'Hi, It's been a long time Baby'.
He was right, it has been a long time. Five years ago he slithered his muddy slimy old self three feet deep right up to my front door and flaunted his bad self back and forth taunting me.

Now does this not read 'JINXED' all over the place.

IT'S BEEN TWO MONTHS OR MORE

2008-08-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

To be exact it's been 73 days since my last post. That's a long time. To long! To long to miss you, to long to be out of the loop. I never meant to be gone so long.

I feel like Lemony Snicket with my very own 'Series of Unfortunate Events', Except no one is chasing me. Well that's a plus anyway.

To begin with right after my last post our favorite little pet died. And between my son and I, we live on about two acres of land that badly needed tending two after last winter.
The weather wasn't as cold as it has been in the past but we did have a few bad episodes of some bad hail and some very high winds.
It really wasn't until the spring mowing started that we began finding out how much damage the winds had caused. We found large branches from some of our trees on the ground so there was a lot of clean up to be done.

My son did what he could when he wasn't working and I did my part. I spent many a day outside with the help of my grandson moving downed limbs to be hauled off and cutting down half broken limbs barely hanging from the trees. The bad news is when I was ready to come inside and put up a post the computer was always being used and like the good Samaritan I would end up saying oh that's OK maybe later. But later never came. Day after day later never came. In fact all summer long later never came for me. Ah yes, then I decided to have a yard sale and it has rained every week-end since I said those dreaded words 'Yard Sale'. I am truly jinxed.

My daughter is extremely selfish when it comes to the computer and when she is not here, my grandson replaces her on the computer. However he is a caring young man and he always asks if I want on, but who wants to take time away from a kid. I would feel like the Grinch. My daughter on the other hand doesn't seem to mind a bit, in fact there are times when she acts more like a child then her child. Perhaps at this point I should mention that she is Bipolar. Anyone familiar with that knows exactly what I mean.

When I couldn't get on the computer I could think of a million things I wanted to write about, but if the chance arose to get on the computer I couldn't think of anything to write at all.
I slowly became brain dead and thought that I would never blog again. The days ran into weeks and the weeks began to run into months and all the while I am telling my family that I am giving up my blog which by the way I think would make my daughter very happy. One less person to be on the computer.

Give up my blog? Am I insane? Why would I give up something that I love doing more then anything.
No way am I giving up my blog! I have been miserable without it.

I'm here to state that I'm back and I'm here to stay!

Hello, hello. Is anyone out there?? Hello.

That's OK I'll find you.

RECIEVED A HILARIOUS E-MAIL

2008-06-10T05:43:00.000-07:00

TRUE STORY
Black Robbers?

For anyone who didn't see David Letterman's take on this: (And it's a true story...) On a recent weekend in Atlantic City , a woman won a bucketful of quarters at a slot machine.
She took a break from the slots for dinner with her husband in the hotel dining room.
But first she wanted to stash the quarters in her room. ' I'll be right back and we'll go to eat,' she told her husband and carried the
coin-laden bucket to the elevator.

As she was about to walk into the elevator she noticed two men already aboard. Both were black.
One of them was tall...very tall...an intimidating figure. The woman froze .
Her first thought was:
'These two are going to rob me.' Her next thought was: 'Don't be a bigot; they look like perfectly nice gentlemen.'
But racial stereotypes are powerful, and fear immobilized her. She stood and stared at the two men She felt anxious, flustered and ashamed. She hoped they didn't read her mind but gosh, they had to know what she was thinking!!!

Her hesitation about joining them in the elevator was all too obvious now. Her face was flushed. She couldn't just stand there, so with a mighty effort of will she picked up one foot and stepped forward and followed with the other foot and was on the elevator.
Avoiding eye contact, she turned around stiffly and faced the elevator doors as they closed.
A second passed, and then another second, and then another. Her fear increased! The elevator didn't move.
Panic consumed her. 'My God,' she thought, I'm trapped and about to be robbed! 'Her heart plummeted.
Perspiration poured from every pore.

Then one of the men said, 'Hit the floor.' Instinct told her to do what they told her. The bucket of quarters flew upwards as she threw out her arms and collapsed on the elevator floor. A shower of coins rained down on her.
Take my money and spare me, she prayed. More seconds passed. She heard one of the men say politely, 'Ma'am, if you'll just tell us what floor you'r e going to, we'll push the button.' The one who said it had a little trouble getting the words out.
He was trying mightily to hold in a belly laugh. The woman lifted her head and looked up at the two men.
They reached down to help her up. Confused, she struggled to her feet.

'When I told my friend here to hit the floor,' said the average sized one, 'I meant that he should hit the elevator button for our floor. I didn't mean for you to hit the floor, ma'am.' He spoke genially. He bit his lip. It was obvious he was having a hard time not laughing.

The woman thought: 'My God, what a spectacle I've made of myself.' She was too humiliated to speak. She wanted to blurt out an apology, but words failed her. How do you apologize to two perfectly respectable gentlemen for behaving as though they were going to rob you?
She didn't know what to say. The three of them gathered up the strewn quarters and refilled her bucket. When the elevator arrived at her floor they then insisted on walking her to her room. She seemed a little unsteady on her feet, and they were afraid she might not make it down the corridor.
At her door they bid her a good evening. As she slipped into her room she could hear them roaring with laughter as they walked back to the elevator.
The woman brushed herself off. She pulled herself together and went downstairs for dinner with her husband.
The next morning flowers were delivered to her room - a dozen roses.
Attached to EACH rose was a crisp one hundred dollar bill.
The card said: 'Thanks for the best laugh we've had in years.'

It was signed;
Eddie Murphy
Michael Jordan

A WALK DOWN THE LANE

2008-05-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

It's a different year and a different teacher. A good teacher, a caring teacher can bring out the best in any child.
English assignment. Learning to write different types of poetry. I hope you find them interesting.
So won't you take a walk with me down ' Lane's ', lane.
_____________________________________

“Blueprints to Change the World”

Mothers and Fathers, children of all,
Brothers and Sisters, unite to the call!
Look around and see the city slums,
And listen to what is to come.

No weapons, just words profound,
Will be enough to shake the ground!
Can you hear the shuffling of feet?
An ocean of people, move through the street.

Rise like lions after deep sleep,
Listen to the sounds as your children weep!
Rise like the phoenix in rebirth,
Born from the ashes of our earth!

And when it’s all said and done,
The bells will sing “We have won!”
The dawning of a new day,
Fresh air after springs rain.

Though today we conquer,
This war is far from over.
Because the wind, it seems to say,
The storm is brewing for another day.

-----------------------------------------------

....... “All That’s Left”

A shining glimmer of light,
In the darkest of midnights,
The darkness of oppression,
The darkness of aggression,
Hope forever shines bright.

-----------------------------------
.......

...........“Hypocrite”

Who are you to judge?
To despise, hate, hold a grudge.
You’ll be here today, and tomorrow,
And though your words bring sorrow,
I will not budge.
-----------------------------------------------

“Fidel Castro”

When I see you
As brittle as a bird,
Longing to once more take flight
I think of when,

You lead from the front,
And they could not touch you
could not kill you,
could not break you.

A stone, a rock, solid, unchanged.
Though blinded by communism,
Like a man corrupted with sin,
Strayed away from the flock.

You are my enemy,
You are my idol.
Ideology and ways totally different
from me,

I still cry as you take your final bow.

----------------------------------------------

.... “Answer This”

What is this darkness?
That prey’s on our weakness.
Nature of man?
Or the grip of Satan’s hand?
Pray for deliverance.

ASSIGNMENT --- POETRY

2008-05-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

It was a poetry assignment. They had to write ten different poems consisting of various types of poetry such as haiku, limerick, Ballad, etc.
Extra points for making a front cover for it.

He didn't want any help, but he did read us one or two short haiku poems to ask if we liked it.

I woke up the next morning to find his homemade book of poetry sitting on the kitchen table complete with front cover of his own creation. A design that looked like a flag with a white dove in the center and he titled it -- 'Blueprints to Change The World'

As I read them I thought my God if I didn't know he had written these I never would have imagined my grandson, a young man barely 16yrs. of age had created this wonderful composite of poems filled with such depth such emotion.
Each one was unique onto itself. He even wrote one about Fidel Castro, but the last one - well the last one brought tears to my eyes. It was the ballad. A lovely and sad story of love, that made me want to throw away every poem I have ever written.

All I can say is ' Wow'. He never ceases to amaze me!

I would love to post some of my favorites, but I don't want to bore those poetry haters out there so I' ll just share a little.

.............“My Love”

I see you across the room,
Sometimes in a crowded hall,
And all the time I wonder,
What if you knew?

What if you knew I loved you?
Like the rising morning sun.
What if you knew I wanted you?
Needed you, oh so badly.

But I am me. And you, are you.

I sometimes think,
Would we ever workout?
I sometimes think,
Could we be a perfect couple?

But I am me. And you, are you.

One time I brushed against you,
And I thought the world stopped turning.
And Birds sang of my feelings.
“He loves you so!”

But I am me. And you, are you.

Make my mood swing,
Make my heart sing,
All the little things,
I remember of you.

But I am me. And you, are you.

Wish we could be together,
Like true love, grow old together.
Love, laughter, loss,
All I feel with you.

But I am me. And you, are you.

You put yourself down,
And I act like a clown,
While I wonder why,
You hate yourself so.

But I am me. And you, are you.

Ever loved someone and know,
They could never love you back?
Oh how cruel!
That I am me. And you, are you.

WHAT THE HECK

2008-04-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been awhile. A little over a month I believe.
Let me see, where did I leave off. Ah yes.

The weather was lovely after the beautiful snow storm and I thoroughly enjoyed the spring weather that followed for the next few days. Little did I know how fickle Mother Nature was.

A little over a week gos by. My grandson and I were spending a very relaxing evening at home together. He was playing a game on the computer and I, well at the moment I don't even remember what I was doing. Suddenly he said I just heard over the scanner that there is a storm coming our way with high winds, possible tornadoes and golf ball size hail. "What"?

Nothing was flashing across the television screen, and it always does when there is even the least sign of bad weather coming our way. No warning, no program interruption, nothing, but he kept insisting.
I walked over to the scanner and it was going crazy, police were calling each other and asking who had the keys to City Hall and people were rushing up there for safety.
The disaster warning started going off with that unmistakable take cover screeching sound. In a few minutes the television finally started blaring the same dreaded warning.

Then my grandsons fear factor kicked in, and he was wanting to know what we were going to do? So I broke the news, "We're going to stay right here and hang tight."
Somehow that just didn't sit right with him at all so I had to explain. His Uncle was away at his girl friends to far to make it back and his Mother was away at work in Louisiana, they had the vehicles and we were stranded. I did try to assure him that we would be just fine. About that time the hail hit and hit hard.

The phone rings and it's my daughter. Knowing that she can't possibly make it home she wants to know where my son is, not her son, my son. She makes me laugh, every time she's mad at him he's my son and not her brother.
I explain where he is and asked her if they are getting it too, but so far they have been lucky.
The phone rings again and it's my son. Mom are you alright! I tell him we're fine and it seems to be slowing down now and I asked how it was there, he said terrible they were in the middle of it as we were speaking.
So I told him, no actually, I demanded that he stay there. Knowing my son he would drive through fire to get home in an emergency, so I assured him that the worst was over here. It was suppose to hit again but it didn't, at least the hail didn't the wind and rain came next.
As soon as I thought is was safe enough to open the door I had to have a look at how big the hail was. What sounded like baseball size hail, was only about quarter size hail, but still it was the biggest hail I had ever seen. I thought to myself there is probably some roof damage and the next day I found there was a couple of cracked windows, one with a tiny whole in it like a Beebe gun would make. I consider us lucky.

Somewhere between week three and four another terrible storm comes our way. No warning. My grandson was in school, but this time it was high winds and horrific rain barreling down like the heavens had opened up and let it all down at once.
I thought we would surely need another Noah's Ark to save us from the flood that would follow. Well at least this time my daughter was home.

Since there is only one way in and out of our little road and it's over a bridge that floods fifty percent of the time, I decided to go to the school and check my grandson out of school an hour early while I still could get out. That is if it wasn't to late. I approached the bridge. The bridge is up a little bit of a hill. The water was moving swiftly just under the bridge. It almost looked like it was brushing the underside of the bridge. Little did I realize until I reached the top of the bridge the road on the other side of the bridge was flooded. Down the little hill I went thinking to myself how deep could it be, I'll be fine. Until I started going through it and it kept getting deeper and deeper. My first instinct was to speed up and get through it faster but then I realized the the best move was to go through is as slow as possible to try to avoid the water from getting into the motor and flooding it out. I looked down to see if it was coming in the doors yet but it wasn't so I crept through and made it to the school grabbed my child and headed home dodging falling limbs and debris everywhere. I wondered what I would do if I met an oncoming car as I was having to zig zag all over the place.

We made it home just fine and there we stayed, one more time waiting for it all to end, of course I can't say that I was at ease, not yet. Then I saw my sons four wheel drive racing past my drive way to his.

Now I'm at ease, all my chicks are safe at home.

In between the storms and even now all of my spare time has been spent trying to do damage control on my yard. There are a lot of trees around my yard.
Every time a storm passed through it left me with many gifts of leafs, pine needles and many, many broken tree limbs. Two acres is a lot of limbs.
Not to mention cooking, washing, ironing and cleaning for two house holds. Let us not forget raising a teenager. It has been a busy month in general. Report cards came out and there were teachers conference's and all of that good stuff. Can't wait to tell you about that.

By the way did you miss me? I sure missed you!

A special Thanks to 'AVIANA' and to ' Damsel Underdressed' , for checking on me to see if I was alright. I feel the love.

SURPRISE WEEKEND

2008-03-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday my son stopped by and found me fighting with a tape measure trying to figure out how to make a level line on my wall so that I could try to put up this big decorative shelf that I had just bought.
He asked what I was doing and I told him, all he said was, "Oh", then he told me that it was suppose to snow tomorrow and he turned around and left.

Well, I didn't believe that it was going to snow because we have had a pretty mild winter. The last time it snowed here was about nine years ago. But I did think that my son could have offered to help me with the shelf.
On the other hand I wasn't surprised either when he came right back with all of the proper tools to make the job easy and hung the shelf for me. It would have taken me forever to try to hang that big heavy thing, but he had it leveled and hung in about five minutes and I am not exaggerating. Then he looked at me and said, "That's just something for people to hit their heads on". My reply was "Maybe you, but I'll never hit my head on it" He laughed. You see I'm barely five feet tall and he is six-two, but I make up for it in strength.

I think what really worried him was when he saw the chair with a stack of books on it that I had been standing on to make me tall enough to make the marks on my wall, can't have Mom falling and breaking something, he'd lose his cleaning lady.

While I enjoyed how nice my shelf looked I noticed it was getting colder and colder, but I still had no thoughts of snow.

Fridays' sun came up and it was bitter cold and on my way to taking my grandson to school I made some silly joke that it was certainly cold enough to snow.
I dropped my grandson off, got settled in back home and in a couple of hours I hear on the TV that all of the schools were closing. Low and behold snow was falling. They announced all of the schools that were closing, but ours wasn't mentioned. So I called the school and asked if they were going to close as well and they said yes, but they hadn't decided when. So I asked if I could pick my child up now since I have only one way in and out of my road and it's over a steal bridge and it's very slippery.
Not to mention I wanted to beat the rush, because the people around here drive like crazy maniacs.

Getting to the school wasn't a problem the snow wasn't coming down very fast but the minute we got back home and parked the snow started coming down in sheets, I couldn't believe how thick it was. The ground was covered like a blanket in minutes.

My grandson went outside and disappeared for a long time. When he came back his face was bright red and frozen, but he could care less he had a ball. He explored every aspect of the two acres behind my home and the patch of woods to the left side of my yard.

We settled in for the evening. The snow never eased up, but since it was the weekend we just enjoyed the beauty of it.
The dark grey sky. The blanket of thick white snow on the ground and the beautiful contrast of the glistening covered tree branches against the dark brown tree bark was a sight to behold.
It all seemed to take on a glow as the sun started to go down.
So Serene, so calm, so quiet.

Nature is a strange phenomena, ever changing. We can try to predict it, but we can't control it, we can only accept what ever it brings.

There is nothing more dangerous and yet at times nothing more beautiful, then what nature decides to allow us to view.

HOW DO YOU COUNT IT ?

2008-02-29T12:21:00.000-08:00

Self-help guru Tony Robbins was only 6 years old when he published his first book, "Unlimited Power", or was he 26 years old?

Rapper Ja Rule was only 5 years old when his debut album, "Venni Vetti Vecci" went platinum, or was he 23 years old?

Actor Alex Rocco is best known for playing Vegas mob boss Moe Green in "The Godfather", is 18 years old, or is he 22 years old?

It all depends on how you count it. I suppose they could be either or?

No I'm not senile -- yet. So tell me how do you count your age? Are you a year older on the anniversary of your birth?
Or do you just pick a day each year and say I'm a year older this year and every year thereafter no matter what day you were born on.

How do you count your birthday?

If a birthday should be counted on the day of our birth like most of us do, then these people are out of luck, or maybe they are the lucky ones, because three years out of four they get to pick a day.
They are the 'leap year ' babies of the world, all born on February 29th regardless of the year.
Oh what a dilemma, If I had been born in February of 1944 instead of August of 1944 I could claim to be 18 years old instead of well --- none of your business.

Leap years, leap days and leaplings owe their existence to the peculiar way we keep time and lay out our calendars.
While we conventionally count a year as lasting 365 days, it actually takes our planet 365 days, six hours, nine minutes and 9.7 seconds to complete a single revolution in its orbit around the sun. Astronomers call that a sidereal year, and it's close enough to count as 365 and one quarter days.

So in order to get rid of that pesky quarter-day (and make the scientific facts reconcile with our regular calendar), we add a single day back onto the calendar every four years. So 2008 will last 366 days, not 365--and anyone born Feb. 29, 2008, will have to wait until 2012 for their next birthday --- Or will they?

IT'S OVER , STILL I VENT

2008-02-18T05:13:00.000-08:00

My grandson is in the 10th grade now, but still something bothers me and I sure could use the opinion of a English teacher right now.

Some of you may remember the essay my grandson wrote last year for his English class when he was in the ninth grade. He had just turned fifteen and he was pretty excited about it because this time they got to pick anything they wanted and apparently he had something on his mind that he wanted to get out so he used this opportunity to put it on paper. When he was finished he asked me to read it and I was so very impressed I decided to share it and so I posted it.

Some of you asked me to let you know what his grade was when he received it, well at the time I couldn't. This teacher always kept their papers for weeks and sometime months and many times the students couldn't find out what their grades were until progress reports or report cards came out. On the occasions when I would ask my grandson about it, he would say he asked her but she would reply she hadn't had time to grade them yet.

I'm posting his essay here again, with the second half in red only because I don't know how to make a big fat ' X ' across the whole bottom half of the essay.
He received his paper and the grade on it a day or two before report cards came out, he brought it home along with a ton of old assignments that the students hadn't seen in months.

My grandson received a ' D ' for that essay and the paper had a huge ' X ' across the whole bottom part of it. She didn't count the whole bottom half, it was unacceptable.

Finally he spoke up and asked her why? What was wrong with it?
Her reply was, " You don't have the right to try to make people think like you do.

So here it is once again, please tell me what you think, especially about the part in red.

Genocide: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

By XXXX XXXXXX

History, it seems, has a tendency to repeat itself. Genocide is the mass extermination or discrimination against an entire group of people based on ethnicity , religion, or political beliefs. The earliest form of a genocide can be seen in the bible when the Egyptians enslaved the Jewish people. The first major publicized was during WWI when the Turkish government, killed over two million Armenians and over one million Greeks. Then during the 1930’s and 40’s, a mass extermination of millions of Jews, prisoners of war , and any and all people deemed as “unwanted” by fascist Germany during WWII. Then during the 90’s, the Serbian government killed eight thousand male Bosnians. Today, millions of dafurian people are being slaughtered

The Point to get across is the fact that some people will omit any accusations that a genocide happened. Like today’s neo Nazis who deny that the Holocaust ever happened, Turkey denies any part in the genocide during world war one. Serbia denied ever killing those eight thousand male Bosnians. So it would come as no surprise that Sudan denies having ever done anything to the Dafur people.

When you turn on the T.V today, you see only the wars in Iraq, the war on terror, or how the stock market was down a few meaningless numbers. What you do not see is the men, women, and children that are being killed today in the dafur region. Haile Selassie once said that “Through out history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” We owe it to ourselves and for the sake of all that is good and great in this country, to tell the government of the United States to act now and declare a war on the true ‘Terror’.

Now close your eyes for a second here. Imagine you are just a simple everyday person, except for one thing. You are starving because your government denies your ability to buy food. Now imagine you are a woman who has been raped, yet you can do nothing because the police are against you. Now imagine you are a child, a child that walks alone because your parents were slaughtered by the government and there bodies burned so you can not give them a proper burial. Now imagine you are a refuge from dafur, just arrived in America, ready to finally have peace. But, you can never have any peace because of the nightmares that linger on, the screams of terror and pain, the smell of burning flesh, the cries of the children who are dying. Most of all, you can never have peace because the people in the city you are in are oblivious to what is going on in your homeland. You would never have peace because you would feel it is your duty to let it be known what is happening, for all those who never made it. For those who were born and killed in a world so cold and unjust.

So do not deny, and do not forget. History has told us before to be alert, to never allow for deaths of millions to happen again, yet we still do. Genocide still happens today, and I believe we should let history be history, and never let it predict our futures. And above all, do not let one death be a tragedy and a death of a million just be a statistic.

I'm posting it here again because, I need some opinions.

Excuse me, am I crazy? Is asking someone to imagine a situation so that they can get the full impact of the story imposing your will on them.

Is asking someone to imagine what you are describing so that they can mentally visualize what these people are going through, imposing your will on them?

Is asking someone to imagine, the same as asking them to agree with you or to have the same opinion as you?

I don't think so.

PIECES OF MY HEART

2008-02-07T07:26:00.000-08:00

These memories I share with pride
they are the way I feel inside.

My fathers hands, my mothers arms,
the way I feel when they're around.

The way we used to play at night,
brothers and sisters saying goodnight.

Remembering those teenage years
with all the laughter and the tears.

My first corsage, the senior prom,
the way I cried when things went wrong.

My wedding day, my child at play,
the happiness I feel today.

The friends that come, the friends that go,
the love I feel for all I know.

These memories that I hold dear,
are pieces of my heart for sure.

HOW'S YOUR WEATHER ? MINE SUCKS !

2008-01-25T11:31:00.000-08:00

It's only twenty-seven degrees here and I'm cold. What about you?
It seldom snows in the southern part of the state in which I live. It's usually reserved for the northern part. The few times that it has snowed it's been more like a fun thing because it's so rare. Run out play in it for a few minutes and it soon melts.

I suppose I shouldn't complain, we've been blessed for the last few years with some extra mild winters.
Snow is not so bad, but we've been having tiny beads of sleet coming down all day. There's nothing worse then an ice storm. The stairs outside are already covered in ice and there are no railings on the sides of my stairs to hang onto. Big mistake on my part.
The last bad ice storm we had was several years ago and it was treacherous.
It devastated not only our town, it engulfed a huge area.
It was right at Christmas and it brought everything to a stop. I've never seen anything like it in my life, except maybe on the news or in a movie.
That ice storm caused havoc everywhere it went. Some people had no electricity because the ice was so heavy lines were just snapping.

My children couldn't make it for Christmas that year, all of the roads were to dangerous for travel. My son lives next door to me, but at that time he was staying with a girlfriend. Knowing my son like I do I was so afraid he would try to drive back home because he thinks he has to take care of his Mom. Who do children think took care of us before they were born?
He called to ask how bad it was where we lived and asked me to stay at his place because he knew I was having trouble with my heater. I promised that I would, if he would promise to stay where he was.
It was no easy task making my way from my place to his. It's really only a matter of a few feet. A few feet of solid ice that is. And how do I get down the stairs. You know, those stairs with no railings. Well this is how I did it -- very carefully.

You know how some Mothers get all disappointed and upset when their children can't make it home especially if it's a holiday, well I didn't. They were safe and happy and that's what makes me happy. So I just curled up with a good book, that is after slithering back and forth several times to get some of that good holiday food transferred from my place to his before I settled in.

I have to say that even though the storm was very bad it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Everything was encased with a thick layer of crystal clear shimmery shinning ice. Every branch of every tree glowed with beauty.

It's strange the way I felt that week at my sons home. Alone, but not lonely, all toasty and warm, staring through his big glass doors at the beauty of nature.
I found myself staring out there a lot.I somehow fund it soothing. I felt so totally at peace, that kind of inner peace that we all long for. I felt embraced by that home, like there was a loving presence there with me that I can not explain.
Maybe it was the aura of my son in that house or maybe it was God. I don't know,
I only know that I never felt that way before, nor have I ever felt that way since.

PAPOO

2008-01-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how it should be spelled, but everyone has two.
Papoo is a Greek word for Grampa.

I was born in Detroit Michigan, but we moved to California when I was somewhere around the age of four or five. To this day I remember the trip from Detroit to California and how much fun it was.
I remember how hot the desert was and how I made a halter top out of an orange cloth that my Dad had picked up at a gas station. You are probably to young to know about that, but that many years ago (late 40's),almost all of the gas station attendance, had orange colored cloths that usually hung from their back pants pocket. I guess they were for wiping their hands?
Anyway my Dad had gotten a couple of clean ones from someone and my sister and I made tops out of them. I was so small all I had to do was tie a knot in the back of my skinny little self and I had a top.

My sister and I loved this new adventure. We sang songs to pass the time away. My Mom was just about the only one that never joined in, but every time my sister and I would start singing my Dad would always join in. He loved to sing along with us and even though we had to try to refrain from giggling between verses, we loved the fact that he loved singing as much as we did.
My Dad had a terrible voice, completely tone deaf. My Dad was the only male 'Pollyanna' that I have ever known.
For those of you that might not know what a Pollyanna is, it is a person that always looks at the bright side of things, even when things go badly.

As I was growing up I never remembered my relatives. As the years went by all I ever had was stories. My Mother was from Chicago from a huge family, twelve brothers and sisters. My Dad was from Detroit, a small family, three boys one girl.
Growing up all we had in the way of a relative was my Dads sister who made the move to California before we did. She was by the way, an awesome woman, someday I must tell you about her. My idol.

We did have a couple of visits from an uncle or two over the years on my Mothers side. On my Dads side we had many visits from one of my Dads bothers. He was crazy and fun and had a new Cadillac every year.

Anyway back to Papoo. Mom and Dad finally saved up enough money to take a trip and visit all of our relatives in Detroit and Chicago. My sister and I were both ecstatic. It was probably the only thing in our childhood years that we agreed upon as we were so far apart in age we didn't get along. I was ten and she was fifteen.

Detroit was nice. No Grampa there, he past away long ago. Grandma was something else. It was plain to see she wouldn't have had any trouble raising boys. When she talked they better jump.

I have to say for myself Chicago was the most fun for me. Some of my Mothers brothers were still living at home. Or maybe had left and come back home. Who knows? Greek people love their sons. I had a ball, most of them had boxed or wrestled at one time or another. My Uncle Louise pulled out a trunk and opened it to show me treasures from his Wrestling days.
I was in awe, he wrestled in the Navy and had all kinds of winning memorabilia trophies and 'the belt', that trunk was filled to the top.

But the one person that I will never forget was Papoo. He traumatized my sister and I still laugh when I think about the look on her face, Priceless.

Papoo was ill and he never came into the living room to visit, if you wanted to see Papoo you had to go to his room. I really think that is why so many of my Uncles were living there. It was probably to help Grandma (Yaya) more then for themselves. She was the total opposite of my Dads Mother. She was tiny, humble and soft spoken.

There was a room just off of the Kitchen about the size of a small bedroom that is where Papoo stayed and slept. But he would occasionally go from his bedroom to the kitchen and back again. He liked to cook a little, as long as his legs would permit him to stand.

He was a very distinguished looking man much better looking in his elder years then he looked in the old pictures my Mom had of him when he was young.
Tall slender, medium dark skin, with white hair and a mustache that seemed to complement his tan looking skin tone.

The kitchen, a crucial part of this story.

May sister had been outside and there was a pigeon that seemed to be in distress and she was able to catch it unharmed. She carried it to Papoo and showed him. He was laying in his room.
I remember it well, she said "look Papoo I caught a pigeon".
I remember what he said too. "Oh wonderful. Good Girl, give it to me and I will take good care of it".

The next day the three of us. Momma, me and my sister Georgia, went to visit Papoo in his room, Georgia was a couple of steps ahead of us, but when we entered the kitchen Papoo was up and he was in the kitchen. He had just opened the refrigerator door and was looking down into it When my sisters mouth fell open and Momma was nudging me not to laugh. She turned her head towards Momma and poor Mom just put her finger to her mouth to sign to her to hush and she kept saying but Mom. Papoo closed the door and turned to greet us.

My sister is trying hold back the tear, Moms face is bright red in fear that she might say something and I'm dieing here, I can hardly hold back the giggles as we all see this plate in the fridge with this fully plucked dressed to cook little tiny bird that my sister once called pigeon.

Apparently, pigeons are a delicacy in Greece, so Papoo took care of it the best way
he knew how.

Taken from an old News Paper Photo.

My Uncle Louise (Pronounced Louie)

If you like this story about my Grampa, you will love the one that I wrote only about Grampa , when he made wine
in the basement during prohibition days and got busted. He was much younger then.
It's called 'SWIMMING IN WINE'

Click the title

IF MY BODY WERE A CAR...

2008-01-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

If my body were a car, this is the time I would be thinking about trading it in for a newer model. I've got bumps and dents and scratches in my finish and my paint job is getting a little dull ... but that's not the worst of it. My headlights are out of focus and it's especially hard to see things up close.

My traction is not as graceful as it once was. I slip and slide and skid and bump into things even in the best of weather. My whitewalls are stained with varicose veins.

It takes me hours to reach my maximum speed. My fuel rate burns inefficiently.

But here's the worst of it --

Almost every time I sneeze, cough or sputter.....either my radiator leaks or my exhaust backfires!

FIVE DAYS TELL THE NEW YEAR

2007-12-27T11:08:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A CHRISTMAS STORY

2007-12-21T05:40:00.001-08:00

One beautiful December evening Pedro and his
girlfriend Rosita were sitting by the side of the ocean.
It was a romantic full moon, when Pedro said,

"Hey, mamacita, let's do Weeweechu."
"Oh no, not now, let's look at the moon!" said Rosita.
"Oh, c'mon baby, let's you and I do Weeweechu.
I love you and it's the perfect time," Pedro begged.

"But I wanna just hold your hand and watch the
moon," replied Rosita.

"Please, corazoncito, just once, do Weeweechu with me."

Rosita looked at Pedro and said, "OK, one time,
we'll do Weeweechu."

Pedro grabbed his guitar and they both sang.....

"Weeweechu a Merry Christmas, Weeweechu a Merry
Christmas, Weeweechu a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

(NOW GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!!

YOUNG vs. OLD

2007-12-15T09:06:00.000-08:00

I took my dad to the mall the other day to buy
some new shoes.
We decided to grab a bite at the food court.
I noticed he was watching a teenager sitting
next to him.
The teenager had spiked hair in all different
colors: green, red, orange, and blue.
My dad kept staring at him. The teenager would
look and find him staring every time.

When the teenager had enough, he sarcastically
asked,
"What's the matter old man, never done anything
wild in your life?"

Knowing my Dad, I quickly swallowed my food so
that I would not choke on his response;
knowing he
would have a good one. And in classic style he
did not bat an eye
in his response.

"Got drunk once and had sex with a peacock.
I was just wondering if you were my son."

A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE

2007-11-29T10:25:00.000-08:00

I promise you I won't bore you anymore on the subject of going 'Green', but I did have a few last thoughts on the subject that I would like to share with you.

As we do our small part on trying to help this planet to live on, who else is helping? This has to be a world wide effort or there is no point in trying at all, is there?
I know some people in England are taking it seriously, but what about the other counties around the world, Italy, Greece, Spain, Russia, Bulgaria, Cuba, India, Iran and the list gos on. So where does that leave us?

And if we are responsible for global warming, for the most part I don't think the average everyday family should bear the brunt of the guilt. I think the worst part of our contribution is the cars that we drive, I agree they do pollute the air.
I think the big companies and factories should bear most of the blame with their waste and their big smoke stakes vomiting on us as we drive by in our own little pollution makers.
So how do we remedy this mess? I don't think we can. If there would be any hope at all, I think we would have to give it all up and go back to the horse a buggy and start doing things
'Au Naturel'. But we're not going to do that are we?
Perhaps the Amish have the right idea. Perhaps they understood all along that one should not get used to those convenience's that the rest of us do so enjoy.

Did we pollute our own planet? Of course. Have we ruined our own planet. perhaps to some degree.
However my mind reels just thinking of the possibilities. I find it all so interesting, so intriguing. I wish I could see it to the very end because I think there is one more possibility for what is happening and I wonder how crazy all of you will think I am when I tell you what I really think.

I think we may just be one small part of evolution and our era is ending.
Why not? It all makes sense to me.

Sea creature, Dinosaurs, Prehistoric man and now here we are. We've done our part, our time is ending.
But what comes next? Is this planet coming to an end? The ice is melting, the climate is changing. Is this planet burning up and will it become just another dead planet floating around out there for some other life form to explore.
Are we the last of life on this earth or are we just making way for another life form. A whole new species. One that can live in the new climate change.

Why are scientist suddenly finding new species all over this earth. Are all of these new creatures going to be more adaptable to the new climate form that will exist in the future. Take a look, this is one of many.

This is a normal Squid, look at the eyes. Small and on the sides

This is a newly discovered Squid, look at the eyes huge. Maybe the earth is going to go through a period of darkness and the old Squid will die out and the new Squid will replace it.

With all of the different and new species of creatures that are suddenly being found, I can't help but to think that the earth is not through yet. I don't think that it is going to burn up and roam around space as a dead planet, I think it's just evolving to it's next level.

But if this turns out to be true, what about the human race. Will we die out or will there be survivors. Perhaps mutants like something that we would see in a horror movie. Or will our children's children be born with the proper internal and external physical properties to live in whatever the existing conditions will be in the future.

Think about it. Why isn't just plain old 'Evolution', a possibility?

I GAVE IT A TRY

2007-11-11T21:49:00.001-08:00

I must admit that I tried to do my small part for going 'Green'.
I saw a episode on the 'Today Show' on using products around your home that were considered safe and very effective for cleaning things in your home. They where simple every day things that you might already have in your home. Baking soda for polishing brass and silver, white vinegar for cleaning toilets and lemon juice for the toilet seats and bathroom sinks.
Well that seemed like a inexpensive starting point, so I decided to do my part and try some of these natural cleaning products.
I tried the baking soda first, on some brass. I started with a small brass item, I didn't care for the results. I scrubbed my a*s off. It took a lot of elbow grease just to get that dark film off so I didn't spend a lot of time tying to get that high shine I was hoping for and since this was an old antique I wasn't completely sure that some of the scratches on my brass item wasn't caused by the baking soda, so I wasn't about to try it on my silver.
Perhaps if I would have had the better part of a day to scrub the brass item it would have shined like a diamond but I didn't want to spend my day cleaning one item, I only wanted to try the 'Green way', so on to the next item.

Now comes the vinegar. I cleaned the toilet with the vinegar. I must admit it cleaned very well, in fact it was excellent. It even got a bit of old hard water rust off and the old toilet shined, better then the brass did, haha.
However, a bottle of vinegar where I live cost about a dollar and it took just about the whole bottle to clean the toilet because the water in the toilet bowl dilutes the vinegar.
A huge bottle of bleach also costs about a dollar, but it only takes a small amount of bleach. So do I pay a dollar per one cleaning or do I spend a dollar and get twenty or more uses. What would you do?

I went back to the bleach. But I might have continued to use the vinegar in spite of the cost, if I could have gotten the answer to one question.
You see the issue wasn't with the price of the vinegar, the issue was how much does the vinegar disinfect the toilet.
I looked for the answer everywhere. I went to all of the different green sites that I could find. I found one had the sentence 'it cleans and disinfects'.
But I wanted to know how much it disinfects. As much as bleach? Every site I went to gave me no answer, except for one, which I found very lame.
The answer was 'your home is not a hospital so it doesn't have to be 200% clean'. That's not a good enough answer for me.
The bathroom is the place where most family germs are exchanged, so I went back to my bleach. I want no less then 99% germ free.

As for flouriest lighting, buy a good brand. I bought a generic brand (Wal-Mart) and they blew out faster then my regular light bulbs.

Long before the idea of going 'Green' came along there are a few things that are natural that I have been using all along and I'd like to share them with you. Little did I now that I was green before it was fashionable.

Years ago when I would run out of other cleaners I have used baking soda for cleaning stove tops, ovens and kitchen counters. It cleans alright but it does leave a film so you have to rinse well.

White vinegar will dissolve that white hard build up from hard water. I'm sure many of you already know about that, it's often recommended to use to clean coffee makers.

My favorite, Lemon juice. My son introduced me to the many uses of lemon juice. His truck always shined like it was just polished. His secret, put some lemon juice in your bucket of soapy water and your vehicle will rinse without spotting. Clean home windows with lemon juice mixed with water in a spray bottle.

Here's a good one for you. If the ground in your yard won't grow the flowers you keep trying to grow, start this winter preparing that flower bed. Turn it into a rich flower growing soil by putting all of your coffee grounds and egg shells(crushed) in that garden spot. Saves room in your trash can, one less thing to throw away and your soil will be rich enough to grow anything.

DO YOUR PART , GO GREEN

2007-10-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

Would you dare go green to this extent?

Vegetated roofs, or green roofs have a layer of living plants on top of the structure and the waterproofing elements.

There are really two types of green roofs, intensive and extensive.Intensive green roofs often have a soil depth of a foot or more.
Extensive roofs are much shallower, typically only 2 to 4 inches deep.

Helps save on energy and makes a nice vegetable garden.
My favorite, nice flat roof and a fence too.

Different and Beautiful.

But I'm afraid if I tried it, mine would look like this.

You can read all about it here.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/26/green-roofs-introduction-with-pretty-pictures.html

I ADMIT IT, I'M A STUBBORN OLD COOT

2007-10-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to put up a new blog today but I couldn't get this relatively new and suppose to be better blogger through Google to post my picture's. So after wasting the better part of my day I finally gave it up.

I don't see that much difference in this blogger host and the original one. So why was I forced to move my blog here. I didn't want to move. I was happy where I was, even though Google kept saying this one would be better, I still didn't want to move my blog. I fought it, I resisted it for as long as I could.

They were nice at first. Like the pervert handing out candy to kids.
Transfer to the New Google blog. It's easy. It's better. It has more options. It's more dependable.
But I firmly resisted, until one day I found out it wasn't an option, it was a demand.
I got around it for a long time by having my 'manage posts' bookmarked, one click and it would pop me right where I needed to be to write my post.

I enjoyed by-passing their little demands until one day I was refused access to my own blog.

I felt like I was backed into a corner. I felt violated. Got ya, the pervert said, if you ever want to blog again you have to submit. So of course I did.
They have their occasional glitches just like the first blogger host did. So what is so great, so different?

When I first started using the computer, the Internet provider was 'Sbc' Then they were bought out by 'At&t', who promised that nothing would change. I don't know how your provider works but with Sbc each person that uses the computer has their own (what they called) home page, that you are able to fix , organize or design any way you want it.
I like the way I have mine organized. I don't want to change a thing about it. For me it's perfect.
However for over a week now there has been a message at the top of my home page flashing brightly,
We'll be moving you to the all-new AT&T Yahoo! home page soon. Get started and see what's changed now.

Oh, no. Here we go again. What kind of tyrants are these. I don't want a new home page and I don't want to see what's new. What happened to we're not going to change anything.
I like what I have and I don't want to change. I picked it out, not someone else. So I'm mad and I'm dreading it.

My point is this. We buy the computer. We pay for the Internet service, so shouldn't we have a say so in whether we want something or not. Shouldn't it be an option rather than a demand. It's our money so why don't we have a choice.

I'm stubborn when I like something and it's suppose to be mine and I want to keep it I should be able to have that option. What happened to, 'Would you like to change it?'
I don't want someone coming along saying, 'You have to change it'.
I thought I payed for that right. Boy was I wrong.

I guess I shouldn't complain. I never touched a computer until a few years ago. I shed many a tear feeling stupid.
If it wasn't for my daughter and my favorite tech guru, 'DIAMONDKT' , who I'm sure had many a headache banging his head up against a wall trying to teach me about computers and fixing all of my mess ups , I wouldn't be hear today. Love ya Mr. D.

HABIT OR ADDICTION

2007-10-10T06:03:00.000-07:00

What do you think? Is smoking a habit or and addiction?
Quite frankly I thought it was simply a habit, but now I am beginning to think that it's an addiction.

I'm sorry to say that I'm a smoker and what's more, I'm even more ashamed to say how much I smoke. Let's just say, excessively. Let me rephrase that, I light them excessively. I think about half of them smoke their selves by sitting in the ash tray while I'm doing something else, of course, like so many other smokers, when I then reach for my smoke I find it has burned up so I have to light another.

My daughter smokes too. Well of course why not, her father smoked, her mother smokes, I guess her line of reasoning was, so why not me.

My grandson hates it. He lives in a house with two smokers and he absolutely hates it. He doesn't seem to bother his mother about it. She doesn't want to hear it.
But he used to always tell me that he wished I would quit. I never promised him that I would.
He and I have this little thing, I never promise him something unless I am absolutely sure that I can keep that promise. He used to lay this quilt trip on me and say who is going to take care of me if you're not here. Over the years he finally gave up asking.

Why do I smoke? I'm not sure why I even started but it became my crutch when I was stressed. My pass time when I relaxed, my dessert after meals and I found pleasure in it.
But most importantly why didn't I take the plunge and quit? For a long time I simply didn't want to. Now I'm not so sure that's the only reason. In the back of my mind I always had that image of me after I quit.
I'm deathly afraid of the weight gain. That dreaded twenty pounds or so, I find it frightening. What if I can lose it?

Last month I looked my grandson in the eyes and said. "I'm going to try to quit smoking, but understand this, it's not a promise. I'm only promising that I'm going to try and I'm going to keep trying. Maybe I can at least cut back."
But deep within the hope was there that I could quit, I just didn't want to disappoint him or myself if I didn't.

I wrote down every pack of cigarettes that I bought but didn't keep track of them until the end of the month. I thought that I was doing great. The first week I smoked very little and I was so proud of myself, week two I could tell I was reaching for that smoke far to often, o.k. I thought I'll make up for it next week.
At the end of the month when all was totaled, to my profound disappointment I found that I had only smoked three packs less then my approximate normal. What a bummer!

So this month it continues. This month is even harder. I want more instead of less. My craving for them is running rapid.
We'll see what happens at the end of this month. At the end of this month will I be proud or ashamed.

I always thought smoking was just a habit, something that I could put down anytime that I wanted to. I smoked because I enjoyed it, but quiting would never be a problem. I'm not an addict, it's just a habit.

Now I'm not so sure? So I pose this question to you again, is smoking a habit or an addiction?

O. J. SIMPSON ARRESTED AGAIN

2007-09-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

Well it seems that the famous O.J. Simpson is in the news again.

Apparently this time Mr. Simpson supposedly took it upon his self to take the law into his own hands while in Las Vegas. He claims that he formed a sting operation to get back some sports memorabilia back that really belonged to him.

So why didn't he just call the police and tell them to arrest the man that had these stolen goods?? Why did he bust into this mans hotel room with gun in hand to retrieve what he claims is his? Beats me.
I suppose that if someone had stolen something from me I'd want it back too. But was it really stolen? Or did the man obtain these things legally and O.J. decided he wanted them back. Time will tell.

Getting something that belongs to you back from someone is not a crime, but forming a sting operation with gun in hand is a crime.

I would like to believe that maybe this is some kind of strange justice.

Gods way of finally getting the man that so many people thought killed two people years ago and walked away Scott free with that nasty little grin on his face.

When O.J. Simpson go's to trial this time, will the judge throw the legal book at him. Or will he do the crime without paying the time.

Frankly I fear he will get off with a slap on the hand. Or will this judge take this opportunity to nail his arrogant self, because O.J. seems to think he can do anything and get away with it.

What do you think? I'm interested in your opinion.

WOMEN IN HISTORY

2007-09-03T04:51:00.000-07:00

A Brave and Noble American Heroine

She was one of the most influential American Indian women in history,
respected by the Cherokee and the American colonists alike.

Known as "Nancy Ward" to early settlers, "White Rose" was
responsible for saving the lives of countless colonists during
the historic years of the Revolutionary War.

She was a woman of great wisdom and foresight, she earned
the respected position of "Ghighua" or "Beloved Woman"
with the Cherokee Tribal Council who sought her guidance
on all important matters.

I came across a small article about White Rose/Nancy Ward by accident, which made me
want to know more. I must say she was a fascinating woman who lead a fascinating life.
She fought wars and made piece. She was an extraordinary human being.

There seems to be much controversy about her date of birth, it varies somewhat from
person to person. So I'm simply posting this headstone, hoping that it is the most
accurate which says, 'Born 1738 - Died 1822. If this is at all anywhere near accurate,
she lived a full and long life and well deserved.

When she died "a light rose from her body, fluttered around the room like a bird, left through an open door and disappeared toward Chota. This was watched by those in attendance who were startled at this apparation".

" This statement made by her great-grandson, John Walker "Jack" Hildebrand (1818-1910) in 1908, is part of the legend of Nancy Ward, a full-blood Native American who rose to prominence in the tribe during war with the Creeks and whose assistance to settlers in Tennessee made her a popular figure.

http://www.nancyward.org/bio.htm

Credit for information of this post from, 'The Hamilton Collection', makers of
collectable plates. (Who would have thought?)

HEY, WAIT FOR ME FIDO

2007-08-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

Did You Know:
Since 373 BC when the ancient Greeks first noted that rats, weasels, snakes, and even centipedes fled the city of Helice days before the earth violently shook, people have believed that animals are able to predict earthquakes.

Did You Know:
The Chinese have long believed dogs and cats are able to predict quakes. In 1975, the city of Haicheng was evacuated days in advance of an earthquake based on the behavior of dogs and cats. An estimated 150,000 lives were saved.

Did You Know:
When the Tsunami of 2004 devastated the countries along the Indian Ocean, it took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, but animals faired remarkably well.

Stories like these lead many people to believe that animals have some kind of sixth sense.
Many scientists are still skeptical about the ability of animals to detect earthquakes.
Scientists who do believe animals can sense earthquakes don’t always agree on the animals’ “method.” Are they picking up electromagnetic waves the earth emits before a quake? Are they smelling gases? Can they feel early tremors too subtle for our senses? How do they know?

What do you think?

Dr. Coren believes that the dogs’ ability to hear at extraordinarily high frequencies allows them to pick up on the high-pitch sounds of rocks scraping and breaking beneath the earth, an event that precedes earthquakes. This idea was further supported by the finding that the dogs with floppy ears did not react as much as dogs with pointy ears. Floppy ears tend to block high-pitched sounds. Dogs with smaller head sizes were also better at picking up the sound than dogs with larger heads. It’s the same with other animals – elephants pick up low-frequency sounds well, while bats are better attuned to high frequencies.

So why do dogs become agitated when they hear rocks scraping underground? Do they understand its meaning? Do they know danger is imminent? Dr. Coren says no. It’s more likely that the sound to them is like nails on a chalkboard and they want to get away from it.

I think Dr. Coren, has a pretty good theory. I can believe that Dogs may be able to hear or possibly even feel the movement before we do. But I don't agree with her theory that they are only annoyed by it. I think they sense there is a real danger coming and that is why they leave.

Hmmmm. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen the racoons that come around here lately and the bunnys haven't been in the yard and I haven't even seen a snake.
Very strange, maybe it's time for me to gather up my family and take a little trip. Come on Missy, Micky, Kitty, oh can't forget my grandson. Boy get in the car.

TWO POLICE KILLED, TWO EMT'S WOUNDED

2007-08-11T21:42:00.000-07:00

You may have heard it on the news. Friday there was a terrible shoot out in Louisiana.

This horrible disaster started about noon and lasted most of the afternoon with the suspects held up in a hotel room.
Apparently the police had a tip that something was going down. The story for the most part is that they were from Texas. No one knows why they were there, or at least they are not telling at this time. Seems strange to me that they were at a hotel that was right next to a courthouse? Makes one wonder?
But once they reached that hotel room they were apparently willing to kill or be killed, and that's exactly what happened.

When it was over, some of the suspects were dead and one,a female got away. Two police men also died at that scene and the two EMT's were wounded while trying to save lives.
What a reward for their dedication of wanting to save lives. The ambulance personal consisted of one man and one woman. The man was shot three times in the arm. He lost a lot of blood and his arm is badly damaged.
The woman was shot in the back of the head but her head must have been at such an angel that the bullet grazed the back of her head. She was on the ground with one of the police officers who had been shot in the mouth, when one of the gunmen came running out of the hotel and ran straight at her with two guns shooting at her, She laid on top of the downed officer while another police officer intervened. The officer shot the gunman and wounded him, but he fell on top the poor female EMT that was laying on top the other officer. So the officer yanked her out from between the two men and shot and killed the gunman. Not any to soon either. I'm sure she was glad to see that officer but can you imagine how much shock she must have been in. She didn't even now that she had been shot and no one else noticed either. She noticed it much later, on her way home, when she touched the back of her head and got blood on her hand so she headed for the hospital.

As of today they haven't caught the woman that got away, but they have arrested three more people that live in LA, that apparently were somehow involved.

My daughter is an EMT,(Emergency Medical Technician). She works in Louisiana. In fact the people that I have just written about was her boss and a co-worker and a lot of the officers have worked with her too. They are all like family.

I think I now know the meaning of the phrase 'But for the grace of God.'

My daughter had just finished her shift that very morning and left the state of LA to come home, Shortly after she got home we received a call telling us that there was a shoot out in progress and that her fellow employees were injured.

But for the grace of God, that could have been my daughter.

I don't think that medical personnel should be called right in the middle of a shoot out. They should be near by but not right in the middle of it.

I think it's a sad day when people dedicate their life to saving lives and they have to fear for their own life while they are doing the life saving.

What is in store for their future. Are medical personnel going to have to start carrying weapons for their own protection. Are they going to end up occasionally having to take a life to save a life. I know my own daughter has been in some pretty dangerous situations her own self.

I can picture it here is my imagination a vision of the future.

.Grab the weapon of your choice

We have to save some lives today.

I AM ASSUMING THAT I AM STUPID

2007-08-01T05:39:00.000-07:00

One thing, one simple little thing, run a search. That's all I wanted to do and it became the task of horror. I just wanted to look for a couple of songs that I liked in an old movie. What could be so hard.

I typed in the movie and I asked for the songs in every way I knew. All I could get was the DVD of the movie for sale.
I don't want the movie. I have the movie.I want the sound track. I made that clear but the search engine apparently didn't understand. I tried Google. I tried Yahoo. I tried 'Ask', which by the way I hate, even when it was 'Ask Jeeves' it never gave me a decent answer. I even took a look at the Webopedia, all it gave me was information on the movie.
At this point I'm yelling, I have the movie stupid, like it could hear me. Yes I admit it, I throw temper tantrums at the search engines. Tell me you don't at least feel like it sometimes?
Come on admit it.

Anyway, I kept typing it in until finally one of them got the message, I wanted something in the way of music,but all it would offer me was the title song.
I wanted all of the songs but I would have taken that one song for starters just one problem all I could get there was the music. Not even the original music and no words.
I wanted the words. I wanted the whole shebang, the lyrics, the music all of it and I still wanted more then one song. So I decided to try a different strategy.

I first viewed the movie many years ago at a theater here in the US, but it was a Greek movie made in Greece titled 'Never on Sunday', so I thought I would go to some Greek sites. That didn't work either. So to my disappointment I had to give up.

I'm satisfied that I'll be able to get the songs on a Greek site by just typing in the names of the songs individually. But I didn't want to wait.
My CD player works fine but my VCR has been tearing up my old tapes or I could have solved the problem today by putting the tape in and getting the title of the songs that I wanted. That's why I had to try to find them by using the movie title.

Oh well you know how it is when you get something in your head that you want to do right now, it's frustrating and I'm stubborn. I wasted the better part of my evening, well all of my evening.
Let's call it impatient. It sounds better then stubborn. And you know what I say about impatience.

Impatience is like curiosity, it'll kill you, so I'm going to take my blood pressure now and go relax.

ME AND TINA TURNER

2007-07-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

Does the title intrigue you? I hope so. I have a true story to tell you, but to get to the part about Tina, I think I need to start at the very beginning.

It started about three and a half years ago, I noticed that my hair was growing so fast that I had to trim it just about every month or so to keep the same hair style and suddenly I had one of those light bulb moments. I actually had what I thought was a good idea.
I decided to let my hair grow before it started to turn grey so that I could donate
it to 'Locks of Love', so I stopped cutting it. After all this might be my only chance, I was doomed to be grey some day, in fact I was over due the rest of the women in my family turned grey at fairly early ages and here I was still dreading that day.

My hair not only grew fast but it seemed like it was getting thicker and thicker. I used to wear my hair long a lot when I was young but as an older woman I felt silly so I would wear it up.
Then out of laziness and the fact that I never really go anywhere but to the school, store and back home, I began wearing it in a ponytail even though I think that looks silly on a older woman too, but it was fast easy and it kept it up and out of my way.
I wore it that way for those three years every day and every night too. I would take it down to brush it and wash it, then I would brush it again at night and put it right back up in that ponytail so that it wouldn't fall on my face when I was sleeping.

Now that you are bored to death I'm sure you are wondering what this could possibly have to do with Tina Turner, well I'm getting to that. Even though we have never met we now have something in common. So back to my hair.

I have very straight hair, straight as an American Indians, straight has a board.
Then I noticed at about eight months into my third year of growing my hair I had a strange looking wave or you might call it a kink, right across the top of my hair, it went from ear to ear and over the top of my head like a head band, just one wave and once it appeared it stayed. When I took my hair down to brush it, it was still there but the rest of my hair was still straight. It puzzled me?
Then the worst happened I began to start getting some grey hair, it seemed like it was coming in all at the same time but it was only on the very underside of my hair the new growth was on my neckline and at the side of my ears and no where else.
My ponytail didn't appear to have any grey yet so I decided it was time to cut it.
I already had several inches more growth then what they required so it wouldn't be a problem.

So I stood in front of the mirror and began to cut my tightly bound ponytail off, but it was a lot harder to do by myself then I thought it was going to be so I got my daughter to finish it.
The ponytail came off and what was left of my hair fell free and here is where Tina comes in.
My grandson came running to see what the commotion was about my daughter was trying to keep a straight face and I was screaming in shock "Oh my God, what happened to my hair, what could have caused this?"
My daughter is trying to calm me down while at the same time trying not to laugh and telling me she likes it, she thinks it's cute. I can't believe what I am seeing in the mirror and I'm screaming "It's not cute, I'm Tina Turner. This is Tina Turners hairdo. You don't believe me look, here it is on this CD" and I show her a picture of Tina on one of my CD's.

Do you see this picture of Tina she's not singing, she's pointing at her hair and she screaming what a mess.
And now it's my hair. Well it was my hair, mine has already grown a great deal, but it's no

longer straight, it's very curly, when it's wet it's at its best the curls look like lovely ringlet but the minute it drys it becomes wild and frizzy,bushy and ugly like an Afro gone bad.
Let's face it people Tina could pull off anything and look good but an ugly old white women with a big nose does not look good with a frizzy Afro.

I need a hair dresser but if I go to a hairdresser, do I go to one that fixes white peoples hair or do I go to one that fixes black peoples hair I don't know what kind of products to put on it to make it look decent.

I need some help. I need some information. I need a hug!

NEVER GAVE IT ANY THOUGHT

2007-07-12T07:13:00.000-07:00

When it comes to thinking, the one thing that I never gave much thought to is the dictionary.
I use it profusely but I guess I always thought that the words I looked up were in it since its beginning.
So when I read about the dictionary being updated this year I couldn't help thinking, well of course how stupid of me.

The new dictionary is adding 100 new words.
Ginormous. What do you think about that word?

Here is a part of the article.

There's "crunk," a style of Southern rap music; the abbreviated "DVR," for digital video recorder; and "IED," shorthand for the improvised explosive devices that have become common in the war in Iraq.
If it sounds as though Merriam-Webster is dropping its buttoned-down image with too much talk of "smackdowns" (contests in entertainment wrestling) and "telenovelas" (Latin-American soap operas), consider it also is adding "gray literature" (hard-to-get written material) and "microgreen" (a shoot of a standard salad plant.)
No matter how odd some of the words might seem, the dictionary editors say each has the promise of sticking around in the American vocabulary.
"There will be linguistic conservatives who will turn their nose up at a word like `ginormous,'" said John Morse, Merriam-Webster's president. "But it's become a part of our language. It's used by professional writers in mainstream publications. It clearly has staying power."
One of those naysayers is Allan Metcalf, a professor of English at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., and the executive secretary of the American Dialect Society.
"A new word that stands out and is ostentatious is going to sink like a lead balloon," he said. "It might enjoy a fringe existence."
But Merriam-Webster traces ginormous back to 1948, when it appeared in a British dictionary of military slang. And in the past several years, its use has become, well, ginormous.

Well the first thing I thought of when I read this word 'ginormous', was slang and that is what the article says too.
So why can't these words just go into a book of slang and leave my dictionary alone. I have enough pages to thumb through looking for the words that I really need.
However if they are going to put 100 new words in the dictionary, some of which they consider slang, then I better see the words 'Blog and Blogger' among them or I think we should all protest, because we are not a passing fancy.

You and I may come and go, but the ' blog ' is here to stay!

HI EVERYBODY

2007-07-04T04:54:00.000-07:00

I'm back, but it sure wasn't easy getting here.
When I put that last post up and said that I would be back in a couple of days, I really meant a couple of days, but a storm came our way and knocked out our internet connection. So there we sat like the little tech dummies that we are, trying to see if we could fix it. Well not really trying to fix as much as arguing over what was wrong.

So we did the logical thing and called our provider but they were so busy they couldn't send anyone out right away so we were given an appointment and we eagerly awaited our turn, day after day.
He finally came late yesterday. He was able to diagnose the problem. It seems our poor old modem died. Funny thing is the man could find the problem but he wasn't tech savvy enough to get us back on the internet. He tried and gave up, so I fixed it after he left.

So I'm finally back, just in time to say ---

"HAPPY JULY 4Th ! "

And now I'm going to try to say hi to everyone before someone else wants on,
so bye.

I AM MISSING YOU !

2007-06-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

Since this computer is shared by three people and since the last two weeks of school were so stressful, I decided to step aside for a while and give most of my time to my grandson so that he could enjoy and get his fill of it.

Little did I know how much I could miss people I have never seen, but I do.

It seems that the blog is not only a way of communicating and learning new things, there seems to be one more benefit of the blog, bonds are formed and a community of friends is born.

I miss you, each and every one desperately. I will be returning in a couple of days. I hope that you will be here with me.

Thank you for giving me such pleasure and joy. See you soon.

IS NESSIE REALLY REAL ?

2007-06-01T06:24:00.000-07:00

She's back!
The Loch Ness monster is back in the news. It's been a long time since I have read anything about Nessie being spotted, but here she is again.
A 55-year-old lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, spotted her and got her on video Saturday.

Have to give credit to 'Associated Press' for this story.

"I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45 feet long, moving fairly fast in the water," said Gordon Holmes, the 55-year-old a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video Saturday.

Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine viewed the video and hoped to properly analyze it in the coming months.

"I see myself as a skeptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen," said Shine, of the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake.

Holmes said whatever it was moved at about 6 mph and kept a fairly straight course.

"My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years."

Loch Ness is surrounded by myth. It's the largest inland body of water in Britain, and at about 750 feet to the bottom, it's even deeper than the North Sea.

"There are a number of possible explanations to the sightings in the loch. It could be some biological creature, it could just be the waves of the loch or it could some psychological phenomenon in as much as we see what we want to see," Shine said.

While many sightings can be attributed to a drop of the local whisky, legends of Scottish monsters date back to one of the founders of the Christian church in Scotland, St. Columba, who wrote of them in about 565 A.D.

More recently, there have been more than 4,000 purported Nessie sightings since she was first caught on camera by a surgeon on vacation in the 1930s.

Since then, the faithful have speculated about it is a completely unknown species, a sturgeon — even though they have not been native to Scotland's waters for many years — or even a last surviving dinosaur.

Real or imagined, Nessie has long been a Scottish emblem. She has been the muse for cuddly toys and immortalized on T-shirts and posters showing her classic three-humped image.

On Thursday, a group of Scottish business owners launched a bid to nominate Loch Ness for World Heritage site status — though they cited its natural beauty, not Nessie. The Destination Loch Ness consortium must submit the nomination to the British government, which would decide whether to forward it to UNESCO.

The Scottish media is skeptical of Nessie stories but Holmes' footage is of such good quality that even the normally reticent BBC Scotland aired the video on its main news program Tuesday.

Imagine, not just a picture but the man got a video of her. Oh I do hope it's not a fake. I'll still believe in her even if it is. There have just been to many sightings of her over the years.

Perhaps she is some sort of left over prehistoric sea creature. With so many recent new finds lately maybe global harming has something to do with it. Maybe it's making all of these creatures that have been in hiding for so long resurface.

IS IT A FLOWER ? ?

2007-05-17T07:25:00.000-07:00

No, it's not a flower -- it's a sponge. Not just any sponge it's a predator, a carnivore. Light, feathery and colorful, what better way to capture your prey then to look like a harmless flower.

Once again more finds in the dark waters around Antarctica.

But the article says it better then I can, so read their words here:

'Carnivorous sponges, 585 new species of crustaceans and hundreds of new worms have been discovered in the Antarctica, suggesting these depths may have been the source of much marine life, European researchers reported on Wednesday.
The team, who scooped samples from as deep as 20,000 feet , found unexpectedly rich diversity of animal life.

Many belong to species found around the world, notably in the Arctic, while others appear to be unique to the deepest Antarctic waters, the researchers reported in the journal Nature.

The unique species tend to be the kind that do not spread easily, which suggests the deep, cold southern oceans may have been the source of many types of marine life, the researchers conclude.

"The Antarctic deep sea is potentially the cradle of life of the global marine species. Our research results challenge suggestions that the deep sea diversity in the Southern Ocean is poor," said Angelika Brandt of the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum at Germany's University of Hamburg.

"We now have a better understanding in the evolution of the marine species and how they can adapt to changes in climate and environments," Brandt, who led the expedition, said in a statement.

Among the new creatures they documented are a gourd-shaped carnivorous sponge called Chondrocladia; free-swimming worms and 674 species of isopod, a diverse order of crustaceans that includes woodlice, also commonly called pillbugs, sea lice or sea centipedes.

Of the isopod crustaceans, 585 species had never been seen before.

Between 2002 and 2005, researchers sampled water and the sediment from 2,500 to 20,000 feet in the deep Weddell Sea and adjacent areas.

Their catch was surprisingly rich.

"What was once thought to be a featureless abyss is in fact a dynamic, variable and biologically rich environment," Katrin Linse, a marine biologist from the British Antarctic Survey, said in a statement.'

In the last few years I have been reading about new ocean finds more then ever before.
Looks like we are finally getting around to exploring our oceans. Maybe some day we will find that Mermaids and the Loch Ness really did (or do) exist.

I LOVE YOU MA

2007-05-10T07:59:00.000-07:00

If you are still a lucky one
Who has your Mother near,

Then put your arms around her neck
And show her that you care.

For there will only be for you
One Mother that you'll know,

So tell her every single day
Of how you love her so.

Don't be like me so quiet and shy
That you can't say the words,

Of love that helped you round the clock
And carried you through the years.

I know I said a million times
I love you, deep inside

But never said it to her face
So she could fill with pride.

And now I rush there to her side
To say the words out loud.

I love you Ma, but it's to late
She can not hear a sound.

And to this day I wonder
If she ever knew,

That all the love I feel inside
She made, so pure and true.

COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET

2007-05-06T06:48:00.000-07:00

I was in my kitchen and my TV was on. I heard something that caught my attention in a big way. The narrator said something about parents using computers to keep their small children occupied (babysit), so they could do other things around the house.

What?

Then I heard the age group, four, five and six year old children and I dropped everything to see this show.
There they were showing segment after segment of different family homes, each with a tiny little person sitting at a computer, with short little legs dangling from a big chair clicking away playing computer games.
And they know how to get on the computer find their game and do their own thing. Then the narrator said that there is going to be a new 'My Space' just for four to six year old children, of course he mentioned that it would have to be closely monitored.
Ya right.
The more I watched this show the more upset I became. Maybe I'm just an old dinosaur in a fast pace world, but I found the whole idea disturbing and alarming, not at all healthy and dangerous.

What happened to just playing with a toy when mommy is vacuuming the floor?
What happened to talking to the child or playing a word game with the child while you're doing the dishes? Your mouth doesn't effect your dish washing does it?

And most alarming of all, how long before these internet predators find a way into this new 'My Space' site that they a thinking of making for these tiny little people.
What then Mommy?

When my grandson was a preschooler, I was always worried about him getting to close to me when I was cooking, so I bought two sets of the alphabet, magnetized and I let him put one of those sets on the refrigerator. Then I showed him some one and two letter words and when I would cook I would ask him to pick out the words that I would ask for and we progressed from there. It wasn't long before we needed the second set of the alphabet.

He loved it. For him it was a game, for me it was a blessing. We talked we laughed a we were both benefiting from it. I got my work in the kitchen done and he learned to identify words long before he started school. What more can I say.

Well I can think of one more thing to say, he is now fifteen and I sometimes have to ask him how to spell a word or two.

WHY DO THEY DO IT?

2007-04-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

April 16, 2007, Cho Seung-Hui, 23,an intelligent young man who seemed to come from a solid home with two parents, Went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech University. When he was done 33 people were dead, including the gunman, and 12 people are in hospitals wounded. He was a student there.
In the year 2005 he was accused of stalking two female students and had been taken to a mental health facility after his parents worried that he might be suicidal.
It is said that he wasn't very social in school and even through he lived in a dorm with two roommates he never really spoke with them, if they tried to strike up a conversation he would answer with one word and not respond very much at all. What bothered this young man so deeply as to cause him to do something so tragic, so drastic, so horrific.

Why did he do it?

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, two intelligent young men who came from solid homes with two parents, enacted an all out assault on Columbine High School on April 20, 1999.
Their plan was to kill hundreds of their peers with guns, knives and bombs.
The two boys walked the hallways and killed. When the day was done, twelve students, one teacher, and the two murderers were dead.
These boys seemed to be doing just fine. They did normal teenager activities. They worked together in a local pizza parlor, liked to play Computer games in the afternoons, and even worried about finding a date to the prom.

So why, why did they do it?

They left behind for others to find journals, notes and videos,telling of how they felt. Klebold had been thinking of committing suicide as early as 1997 and they both had begun thinking about a large massacre as early as April 1998 - a full year before the actual event.

In high school, the two boys' found it difficult to fit into any of the cliques.* As is too common in high school, the boys found themselves frequently picked on by athletes and other students.

Could this be the Why?

What could cause such drastic measures? Is it peer pressure? The longing to be one of the group? The rejection by others? The feeling of inadequacy that others bestow upon you through their stares and jeers as you walk by.
Will we ever know?

Can you answer the question--Why?

A WEEK AT THE GYM

2007-04-11T06:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Diary,

For my 40th birthday this year, my wife (the dear) purchased a week of personal training at the local health club for me.

Although I am still in great shape since playing on my college football team 25 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try.

Called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Belinda, who identified herself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swimwear. My wife seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started!

The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress

Monday:

Started my day at 6 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Belinda waiting for me.

She is something of a Greek goddess, with blonde hair, dancing eyes and a dazzling white smile.

Woo hoo!

Belinda gave me a tour and showed me the machines. She took my pulse after five minutes on the treadmill. She was alarmed that my pulse was so fast, but I attributed it to standing next to her in her Lycra outfit. I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which she conducted her aerobics class after my workout today.

Very inspiring. Belinda was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time she was around. This is going to be a fantastic week!!

Tuesday:

I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door.

Belinda made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air, and then she put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made the full mile. Belinda’s rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel great! It’s a whole new life for me.

Wednesday:

The only way I can brush my teeth is by lying on the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals.

Driving was okay as long as I didn’t try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a Geo in the club parking lot.

Belinda was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members. Her voice is a little too perky for early in the morning and when she scolds, she gets this nasally whine that is very annoying.

My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Belinda put me on the stair monster. Why the hell would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators?

Belinda told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. She said some other stuff too.

Thursday:

Belinda was waiting for me with her vampire-like teeth exposed as her thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn’t help being a half an hour late; it took me that long to tie my shoes.

Belinda took me to work out with dumbbells. When she wasn’t looking, I ran and hid in the men’s room. She sent Lars to find me, then, as punishment, put me on the rowing machine — which I sank.

Friday:

I hate that bitch Belinda more that any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. Stupid, skinny, anemic little cheerleader. If there were a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat her with it.

Belinda wanted me to work on my triceps. I don’t have any triceps! And if you don’t want dents in the floor, don’t hand me the *&%#@? barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich. (Which I am sure you learned in the sadist school you attended and graduated magna cum laude from.) The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher. Why couldn’t it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director?

Saturday:

Belinda left a message on my answering machine in her grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing her made me want to smash the machine with my planner. However, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching 11 straight hours of the Weather Channel.

Sunday:

I’m having the church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank God that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my wife (the bitch), will choose a gift for me that is fun — like a root canal or a vasectomy.

My thanks to ' hot 'nSWEET ' for always posting something that makes me laugh and never getting mad at me for stealing from her.

NO MORE DESEGNATED DRIVER

2007-04-03T07:41:00.000-07:00

DUI - UPPER MICHIGAN STYLE

Only a person in Upper Michigan could think of this. From the county where drunk driving is considered a sport, comes this true story.

Recently a routine police patrol parked outside a bar in Escanaba , Michigan after last call the officer noticed a man leaving the bar so apparently intoxicated that he could barely walk. The man stumbled around the parking lot for a few minutes, with the officer quietly observing. After what seemed an eternity in which he tried his keys on five different vehicles, the man managed to find his car and fall into it.

He sat there for a few minutes as a number of other patrons left the bar and drove off. Finally he started the car, switched the wipers on and off--it was a fine, dry summer night--, flicked the blinkers on and off a couple of times, honked the horn and then switched on the lights.

He moved the vehicle forward a few inches, reversed a little and then remained still for a few more minutes as some more of the other patrons' vehicles left.

At last, when his was the only car left in the parking lot, he pulled out and drove slowly down the road.

The police officer, having waited patiently all this time, now started up his patrol car, put on the flashing lights, promptly pulled the man over and administered a breathalyzer test.

To his amazement, the breathalyzer indicated no evidence that the man had consumed any alcohol at all! Dumbfounded, the officer said, "I'll have to ask you to accompany me to the police station. This breathalyzer equipment must be broken." "I doubt it," said the truly proud Yooper.

"Tonight I'm the designated decoy."

WHAT IS MIGHTIER THAN A COCKROACH

2007-03-27T06:51:00.000-07:00

A new type of organism discovered in an Arctic tunnel came to life in the lab after being frozen for 32,000 years.

The deep-freeze bacteria could point to new methods of cryogenics, and they are the sort of biology scientists say might exist on Mars and other planets and moons.

The existence of microorganisms in these harsh environments suggests that we might one day discover similar life forms in the glaciers or permafrost of Mars or in the ice crust and oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa,"

Other microbes have been discovered in similar frigid environments, sometimes clinging to pockets of liquid water in ice packs. And some microbes survive in ice as spores, but they need to be cultured to bring them to life.

NASA described the newfound critter as "the first fully described, validated species ever found alive in ancient ice."

"They immediately started swimming when the ice melted," and the cryopreserved bacteria were instantly ready to eat and multiply.

The creatures found might be able to survive in their suspended state for millions of years.
Just think about it millions of years.

Seen under a microscope, the live bacteria are stained green. Dead ones are red.
Credit: NASA/MSFC/R.Hoover

The Most Extreme Creatures.

Extremophilic microbes are a wild bunch. They can be found thriving in some of the most hostile environments imaginable – swimming in near-boiling water, eating rocks, lounging in sub-zero temperatures, and hanging out where radiation levels rival nuclear reactors.

They’re tougher than duct tape, boldly going where humans dare not and cannot.

Extremophiles are also a multimillion dollar-a-year business – some of them are employed to eat oil and help clean up spills. Others have important applications in medical research. But for many scientists, these hardy microbes are interesting because they suggest the potential for life on other planets.

Do you know what is Mightier than a cockroach?
Toxitolerant organisms can withstand high levels of damaging agents. They can be found swimming around in benzene saturated water or in the core of a nuclear reactor.

One species of bacteria, Deinococcus radiodurans, can withstand a 15,000 gray dose of radiation – 10 grays would kill a human and it takes over 1,000 grays to kill a cockroach. Extraterrestrial life forms would most likely need to possess similar tolerances to radiation, as the atmosphere on other planets, or lack thereof, filters out much less radiation than Earth’s.

You can read more here: 'Live Science'. Enjoy!

THE ESSAY I WILL REMEMBER

2007-03-18T20:19:00.000-07:00

Pick a subject, any subject at all and then write about it. You will have all week to prepare it and the next week you will present it to the class .That is the project the teacher gave her class.
For fourteen and fifteen year olds, deciding what to write about as a school project can be a difficult task, but one young man knew exactly what he wanted to write about.

Well he wrote his essay and he presented it to the class, but the grades have not come back yet and he is worried about whether or not it was good enough so he asked me to post it on my blog. He's a bit of a worry wort and he would like your brutally honest opinion. So here it is exactly as he wrote it.

Genocide: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

By XXXX XXXXXX

The Point to get across is the fact that some people will omit any accusations that a genocide happened. Like today’s neo Nazis who deny that the Holocaust ever happened, Turkey denies any part in the genocide during world war one. Serbia denied ever killing those eight thousand male Bosnians. So it would come as no surprise that Sudan denies having ever done anything to the Dafur people.

When you turn on the T.V today, you see only the wars in Iraq, the war on terror, or how the stock market was down a few meaningless numbers. What you do not see is the men, women, and children that are being killed today in the dafur region. Haile Selassie once said that “Through out history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” We owe it to ourselves and for the sake of all that is good and great in this country, to tell the government of the United States to act now and declare a war on the true ‘Terror’.

Now close your eyes for a second here. Imagine you are just a simple everyday person, except for one thing. You are starving because your government denies your ability to buy food. Now imagine you are a woman who has been raped, yet you can do nothing because the police are against you. Now imagine you are a child, a child that walks alone because your parents were slaughtered by the government and there bodies burned so you can not give them a proper burial. Now imagine you are a refuge from dafur, just arrived in America, ready to finally have peace. But, you can never have any peace because of the nightmares that linger on, the screams of terror and pain, the smell of burning flesh, the cries of the children who are dying. Most of all, you can never have peace because the people in the city you are in are oblivious to what is going on in your homeland. You would never have peace because you would feel it is your duty to let it be known what is happening, for all those who never made it. For those who were born and killed in a world so cold and unjust.

So do not deny, and do not forget. History has told us before to be alert, to never allow for deaths of millions to happen again, yet we still do. Genocide still happens today, and I believe we should let history be history, and never let it predict our futures. And above all, do not let one death be a tragedy and a death of a million just be a statistic.

CAFFEINATED FOOD, WHAT'S NEXT ?

2007-03-09T12:21:00.000-08:00

Scientist develops caffeinated doughnuts Fri Jan 26, 7:40 AM ET

DURHAM. N.C. - That cup of coffee just not getting it done anymore? How about a Buzz Donut or a Buzzed Bagel? That's what Doctor Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina, molecular scientist, has come up with. Bohannon says he's developed a way to add caffeine to baked goods, without the bitter taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the equivalent of about two cups of coffee.

I can't imagine why, but to each his own?

STRANGE SEA CREATURES FOUND

2007-02-27T06:54:00.000-08:00

If you have read my blog at all then you must know how I love it when there is a new scientific find. On land or sea, it doesn't matter to me. Show me a new found sea creature or a new fossil and I'm ex-static.
Fossils are exciting because they give us one more link to the past and I love that.
But I think that finding a new species of sea creature intrigues me even more, because they are living in the 'here and now'. It's like the earth is our world and the sea is theirs and only theirs.

Who knows what really lurks in the deep or what else is yet to be found. How can we really know that the sailors of long ago didn't really see Mermaids and Gigantic sea creatures and how do we know that they are not still there, smart enough to no longer show their-selves to the barbaric land dwellers that have abused their territory in the past.

Have a look at these new finds. The 'link' to the article is below.

Antarctic octopus (Paraledone turqueti). Credit: E. Jorgensen, NOAA 2007

A new species of Shackletonia, an amphipod crustacean sampled near Elephant Island, Antarctic Pensisula, during the Polarstern expedition. Credit: C. d'Udekem, Royal Belgium Institute for Natural Sciences

These fast-growing sea squirts were found at Larsen A. This can be an indication of a first step towards a biodiversity change after the collapse of the ice shelves. The animals in the foreground are colonised by two crustaceans and a brittle star. Credit: J. Gutt, Alfred-Wegener-Institute

These deep-sea sea cucumbers are abundant in the Larsen B area. Interestingly they are all heading in the same direction. Credit: J. Gutt, Alfred-Wegener-Institute 2007

The researchers catalogued about 1,000 species in an area of the Antarctic.

Read more about it here: 'Strange New Creatures Found in Antarctica'.

THE BOY AND THE ICE CREAM

2007-02-13T07:39:00.000-08:00

A little boy went into a restaurant and sat at a table. The waitress asked him what he wanted to order.
He asked the waitress how much a large bowl of ice cream was. She said fifty cents. Then he asked her how much the small bowl was. She was a little aggravated because she wanted the table for other customers, still, she was not rude to the boy and replied thirty-five cents.
The boy ordered the smaller bowl of ice cream.

When the boy left the restaurant the waitress went over to clean off the table, neatly stacked on the table was two nickels and five pennies.

The little boy didn't get the ice cream he wanted because he wanted to leave the waitress a tip.

There is no better tip, no greater gift, than an unselfish kindness.

A SOLDIERS SPEAKS - PART 2

2007-02-05T06:56:00.000-08:00

When I asked this soldier if I could borrow his post, he left me his permission in my comment section along with his opinion on the situation in Iraq.
He was stationed in Iraq,I think more accurately Bagdad and lived with the caos around him. I think he is intitled to his opinion and frankly I would rather hear some first hand opinions then a lot of hear say.
**************************************************
Capt. C said...

I have been in the room with the current President of Iraq and only one other person was with us. I have spoken to him one on one. He (at that time - which was about 6 months ago) had no intention of doing much. WE (the US) are paying him a ton of money. As soon as we leave, he will either be killed or loose the election (whatever that means over there). So, why miss up a good thing?

The people of Iraq (for the most part) understand only one thing - DEATH! Saddam understood this. Those people did what Saddam said out of fear. Weather you like it or not - doesn't matter. The people of Iraq obeyed him. When we took Saddam out of power, the people of Iraq converted to the only logical thing (for them) - KILL!

Look at the facts - Saddam in power = no car bombs, no deaths (except what Saddam and his sons did). Saddam out of power = caos!

Of course, there is so much more, but I don't want to take up all your space! ha! Also, feel free to use any of my stuff (you can even use my name. I am not a shame)

A SOLDIER SPEAKS

2007-01-29T16:19:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who recently got back from Iraq. He is in the medical profession and has seen it all first hand. Below you will find his words.
I hope in the future to bring you more from him, as he is a very outspoken young man and has a lot to say.
*****************************************************

Not Today!!!!
I was looking at some of the thoughts that I wrote when I was in Iraq and I came across this one. Until now, I have not been able to allow others to read this because of the emotional turmoil that I face each time that I think about it. To be honest with you, my eyes are tearing up right now as I think about this case and the internal struggle I had (still have).

To put this in perspective, every time a Soldier dies on your table or shortly after, you are always asking yourself if there was something that you could have done better so that you can save the next Soldier. This particular day was really, really hard (sorry, starting to cry again) - we lost a few Soldiers in the last 48 hours. The fighting was very intense and our government has so many restrictions on the behavior of our Soldiers that many of them are dying in vain. I had had enough....these were my thoughts

Not Today!

I have grown so much being here in Iraq. I have learned that war is not pretty. War is not something that should ever be taken lightly. I am not the Soldier that is out in the "red zone" blowing people up or getting blown up. I am the Soldier that tries to sustain the life while the surgeon tries to save it - good or bad. Some days I am able to sustain the life long enough for the surgeon to do what he/she needs to do. Some days, I can not.

Some of things that I have learned here is that although we may change the minds of some of the people here, we will not change the minds of most. This culture of 3000 years will not change because of our "nice" presence. A culture that will dip their children in boiling oil to see which is the strongest, or a culture where they will kill their own child and place a bomb in the child just to kill another person will not or cannot be changed in this lifetime.

However, that aspect of the war is not my job. It is not my job to look at things from a right or wrong view. It is not my job to bring troops here or to take them home. It is not my job to make any decisions in this war.....at least not yet!

My job is to stare death in the face - look at her eye to eye. Nearly everyday I have to face death and plea with her. To be totally honest with you, there are times that I request her presence (like the day the man walked into the orphanage and blew it up) - I wanted that man to die (which he finally did). But most of the time I have to fight with her. Sometimes I pray for her not to see what is lying on the table (like the day we had a 19 year old kid (US Soldier) that was burned over 90% of his body) - but she saw him.

I have seen the face of death and she is not pretty. I have touched her, held her devastation in my arms. I have cried because she took a green eyed, two month old little girl. But today....today was different. I stood toe to toe with her as we fought each other for the life of a 23 year old US Soldier. I refused to let him go and she refused to let me have him. But enough was enough. Before I realized it I said, "NOT TODAY!!!" Death, you will not take him today. For today - we have fought and I have won....Not today, Death - not today!

THE KOALA BEAR AND THE LIZARD

2007-01-26T13:16:00.000-08:00

One day a small lizard was walking through the forest. He smelled pot and looked up to find a koala bear sitting in a tree.

The little lizard looked up and said, "Hey koala bear, what are you doing up there?"

The bear replied, "I'm getting high, come on up." So the lizard joined the bear in the tree.

They continued to smoke joint after joint until finally the little lizard said, "My mouth is dry like cotton."

The koala bear agreed and told the lizard to go down to the river and get a drink and in the meantime he would roll another joint.

The little lizard attempted to lean over to drink water from the river and was so stoned, he fell right in and started splashing around.

A crocodile saw this and swam over to help the lizard to shore. He said, "Lizard what is wrong with you?"

The lizard replied, "I've been getting stoned with the koala bear. I needed water and fell in the river."

The crocodile said, "I don't believe this. Take me to the tree you were in."

So they walked through the forest and they come to the tree where the koala bear was sitting. The crocodile looked up and said, "Hey koala bear, what are you doing up there?"

The koala bear looked down and said, "Holy crap dude, how much water did you drink?"

My thanks to 'hot n'SWEET' for this one.

BUSH AND CONDI

2007-01-17T04:21:00.000-08:00

Oh my, I'm a thief. I stole this from my daughter, it was just to good to pass up.

If you need a good laugh today click on the link below and watch this. It will definitely give you the laugh you need. I bet this goes on at the White House all of the time.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1629816203

PRESIDENT BUSH HAS SPOKEN

2007-01-12T06:21:00.000-08:00

Well the word is out. President Bush has made his big announcement, more troops. I think I've heard that before. So what's new.
Some are for, some are against and I'm-- well I'm just totally lost in the whole thing. I don't have any idea what is right and what is wrong in this war. Is there any right? Will anything really help at this point?

In the beginning I thought that our troops were going there to help and I'm sure that what the troops thought too. But as time went by it began to look like they didn't just want help they wanted permanent protection. And we can't stay there forever.
They don't seem to be willing to fight for their selves and their leader doesn't seem like a very strong leader either. If the police run when trouble comes, what does that say for them. How are we going to train people that don't want to be trained.

I'm not saying that I was for or against going there. In truth I was leaning more toward against, but I think that if we were determined to send troops in at all, it seems to me that the time to send a lot of troops was in the beginning. Enough to be able to make a bigger impression, a bigger impact.

Frankly I have to be honest, I do admit freely that I have never liked Bush and I don't see him as a intelligent person. I see him as a spoiled brat that always has to have his way no matter what the cost to others. I think he is irresponsible and I wonder why no one has thought about trying to impeach him. I think he is more of a danger to our country then anyone else and I wonder how we will survive one more year with him.
I don't wish any human being any physical harm, but I do wish someone would find a way or reason to impeach him. Frankly I don't think anyone would want to step into this mess right now.

So you tell me. What do you think? All comments are welcome. I'm sure they will be varied and I am very interested in hearing all of your views.

So come on enlighten me, I need it. Just do me one favor, let's don't get mad at each others comments. Let's agree to 'agree to disagree' politely on this one. I want to hear what you have to say. At this point I'm not even sure that I understand what is going on.

WHAT'S THE PLAN, WE'RE WAITING?

2007-01-05T07:30:00.000-08:00

Politics is not something that I talk about often. It's one of those taboo things that usually only cause trouble if you open your big mouth, but today I'm venting so bare with me.

Every day since Christmas, all I have been hearing on the news is that President Bush is coming up with a new plan for the problems in Iraq.
Yet every day he has yet to present it. I am beginning to think that is because he has no 'new' plan.
However, now it has come down to the bottom line and he is pretty much being forced to get with it and present this new plan.
The only thing that anyone has been able to get out of him so far is that he will be putting a different General in charge in Iraq. Hmmmm, he must have found one person that agrees with him. The other General in fact none of the Generals from any of the forces have agreed with what he was wanting to do.
So I'm guessing that it's pretty much going to be the same plan, different General.
Frankly, at this point I don't think any plan is going to be a good plan. I think it's one of those situations where your damned if you do and your damned if you don't.

What do you want to bet it will be the same old thing, President Bush throwing his little tantrum, saying come on people it's my way or no way, like he did with the elderly on the medical insurance plan.
I remember seeing that on television and I couldn't believe it. He was speaking to a group of elderly people and they really didn't like this new plan.
They were confused by it and upset and Bush said,'
Come one people it's all you've got, you have to accept it. You have no choice.
I remember thinking, the arrogance, you ass. You sound like a big bully.

SOON IT WILL BE A NEW YEAR

2006-12-30T06:21:00.000-08:00

Soon it will be 2007 and many people are hoping for a brand new start.
Making out their New Year of resolutions and hoping that they will be able to accomplish what is on their list this time.

For Myself, I don't make New Years resolutions. I found out years ago that for me they just didn't work.
It was far more disappointing to make a resolution list and fail to do anything on the list, then it was to just wait and see what the New Year brings.

So 'Happy New Year everyone'. I hope to hear from you in '2007'.

HO, HO, HO !

2006-12-23T07:12:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!

A BIT OF TRIVIA -- IS THERE A HELL

2006-12-16T01:36:00.000-08:00

Yes there is, and it's right here on earth. Hell, Michigan that is, and although it does get very hot there it never freezes over, but in the winter it does get snow.
It's located in southeast Michigan.

Hell, which is more of a site than a town, would like to become a tourist attraction. The good news is that visits to this Hell would be temporary and even if you are a little devil you get to leave.
Hell got it's name in 1841, but no one in town seems to know why or how.

And this isn't the only Hell on earth, there's the Hel Peninsula, a small area that wraps around northern Poland and a province in the Cayman Islands called Hell that prints stamps that say 'BEEN TO HELL AND BACK'.

Ah, but Hell Michigan, has one up on its Polish and Caribbean counterparts.
When this little town's residents get IRS notices the envelope says-
'GREETINGS FROM HELL'.

DID YOU TRY TO LICK YOUR ELBOW ?

2006-11-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

In the 1400's a law was set forth in England that a man was
allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb.
Hence, we have "the rule of thumb!"
-------------------------------------------

Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented.
It was ruled "Gentlemen Only ... Ladies Forbidden"...
Thus, the word GOLF entered into the English language.
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The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV
were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
-------------------------------------------
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the
U.S.Treasury.
-------------------------------------------
Men can read smaller print than women can;
women can hear better.
-------------------------------------------
Coca-Cola was originally green.
-------------------------------------------
It is impossible to lick your elbow.
-------------------------------------------
The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work:
Alaska
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The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% (now get this...)
-------------------------------------------
The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
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The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The average number of people airborne over the U.S.
in any given hour: 61,000
--------------------------------------------------------------
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile
National Monuments.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents
a great king from history:
Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander, the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar
----------------------------------------------------------
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
----------------------------------------------------------
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs
in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg
in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle.
If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of
natural causes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th,
John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on
August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most
popular boat name requested?
A. Obsession
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go
until you would find the letter "A"?
A. One thousand
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Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil?
A. Honey
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Q. Which day are there more collect calls than any other day
of the year?
A. Father's Day
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In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames
by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened,
making the bed firmer to sleep on.
Hence the phrase......... "goodnight, sleep tight."
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It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that
for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply
his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a
honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based,
this period was called the honey month, which we know today
as the honeymoon.
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In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England,
when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them
"Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down."
It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"
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Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked
into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill,
they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the
phrase inspired by this practice.
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~~~~~~~~~~~AND FINALLY~~~~~~~~~~~~
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At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow!
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Don't scroll past this just because it looks weird.
Believe it or not, you can read it.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid!
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Amzanig huh?
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YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2006 when...
1. You accidentally enter your PIN on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is
that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see
if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the
screen.
8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't even
have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic
and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward
this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on
this list.

AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.