A New Year's from a person with issues

Do you need a good laugh?  I sleep late and usually miss all the dramas of life. But here I am up early on a Sunday morn and I came across, what?, a locked thread on one of the hair care forums. Locked threads draw readers like bees to honey. This locked thread is one for the history books. I'm still cracking up over it. I think even my husband will get a kick out of this one. Here it is:

Cleaning "house" for the New Year

The last post I made to this group was back in August. I was treated like troll, despite the fact that I've been posting here for a while. The biggest insult actually came from a moderator, (name deleted by Lil). The thread is entitled "a head shaving for real" It is closed now or otherwise I would've reposted it.

Since that day I've stopped coming here and now being New Years I am cleaning out my bookmarks, but of course I can't just bow out gracefully, that would be too good for you people.

I have never in my life seen such a bunch of rude, self-centered, and hateful group of people as there are here. You all got your head stuck in a bottle of conditioner you can't see straight! Most people I know grew their hair long, washed it, conditioned it and let it dry. You people with your $100 Hungarian Hair Food and your $200 Llama Hair brushes are insane!!! Get a freaking life for goodness sakes!! IT"S HAIR!! you bunch of wackos! The fate of no one's world, even your own, relies on the condition of your HAIR!

I know a post like this will get me thrown out of here and my IP banned, but I say don't bother! I am never going to post in this place again! People at a Pro-Islamic Fundamentalist forum are friendler than you people.

Farewell all you ****-tards!

WHAT? The fate of no one's world, not even my own, relies on the condition of my hair!? Any longhair knows there's not a lick of truth to that.

And now where do I find this $200 Llama hair brush!

Saturday, yay!

Free to do whatever I want today!

It's very cloudy outside. They've been forecasting weather coming in for a week, but it's hasn't materialized. Son is hoping for snow of course, but he hoped for snow in Southern California too. He hopes for snow everywhere! I heard there were a few flurries early this morning but I was snoozin'. My husband keeps telling me to look at the sunrise and I keep saying it's not the one, and his voice goes up a few octaves and he says, "What? That's not a great sunrise!" lol! Yeah, it's great, it's just not so photogenic.

My dad went home yesterday and was pale and weak. He slept for four hours and my step-mom said he didn't move. She was worried. Then he woke up and had his color back and ate some food and his spirits were up again. I guess he hasn't had any good sleep for a week. Today he woke up and asked for breakfast and that's a good thing there.

I've disabled comments because they've plum wore me out! I want to come to my blog for R&R and feel peaceful and be able to practice here. I'm the kind of person who takes forever to compose a simple comment. Isn't that pathetic. So since I cannot return comments I'm going to disable them, so I don't feel like I have bad etiquette.

I need some new colors around here too.

Did you know

It is impossible to lick your own elbow. Go ahead. Try!

You can lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska

Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 (This one's for Yr.)

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law
which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

These were in our local newspaper this week and I found them online too!

2:36 pm and it's a bit o' all right

Dad ate lunch, is upbeat and doing well. My sister talked to him. I'm gonna go call him now. She said they put in the biggest stent they make. Heh. I think he's lucky.

Back in '81 before the media was splashed with what all the symptoms of a heart attack are, he felt funny and left work and drove himself to the hospital. His left arm went numb on his way there - a classic symptom of heart attack. He's been on meds ever since. He has a good sense of how his body feels. At first the doctor sent him home with Previcid Tuesday and my dad said it didn't help and the doc told him to go to emergency the next day. I'm not overly thrilled with the doctor, but I'm thrilled with how my dad is in tune with his body. That's how you have to be. Doctors don't know everything. We each have to have a sense of our health ourselves.

10:24 am

My step-mom called. My dad is being prepped for surgery. They enter through the groin area and will look to see if there is any blockage. If they find one they'll put in a stent. Heart. Apparently he started feeling bad before Christmas dinner. Doc says he'll be fine and live to 101. Step-mom says my dad has not been feeling so well for a few months.

I have not one, but two herpes sores on my upper lip, one very big on the right and one small on the left. They're not scabs yet, just swelled up and white and ugly. It's either from having Christmas company or talking to my Dad on the 23rd (he sounded fine if not overly jocular). Or it could be from the formal wedding upcoming in April, or it could be that one day my husband will die and I will be alone. Not only alone, but weird because when I'm with him I'm normal and better than myself, and without him I'm just me.

21 days at half staff

When a president dies, flags are flown half staff for 21 days.

When we drove by our old house last year we saw the tenants left the flag up. They never take it down. My husband put up a 25' flag pole for me in about 2000. If you leave the flag up at night it's supposed to be lighted. If it's not lighted it should be taken down and folded nightly. If we go by again this year I'm walking right up to the porch and taking that flag down myself. It was tattered and faded and getting no love. I wish I had taken it down last year.

I don't think Ford was much as a president. He was pretty unremarkable as presidents go. He sure lived a nice, long life though. Ninety-three years old. Not bad!

I have yarn

Since we had to get up at 7:00am to feed the animals we decided to drive straight into Las Cruces instead of coming back home. I went to Hobby Lobby. Found no yarn I wanted. Went to Unraveled and found some pretty purple acrylic yarn for only $4.99 each for 100 yards, plus 20% after Christmas sale. I bought two. I've wisened up (I made up a word) and now know not to buy certain things like novelty yarns at Unraveled because their mark-up is ridiculous. Little did I know on my first visit that the $10.99 Eros ladder yarn could be bought online for less than half that. Ouch. Live and learn. But the hand dyed and animal fur yarns are probably worth the extra cost. I don't need fancy schmancy now though. This acrylic yarn I bought was going like hotcakes. People are making afghans with it and it's nice and soft. I touched this yarn by Plymouth called Oh My! and it's real soft. I'd like to use some of that for something sometime.

We ate McDonald's in the morning and I had a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings for dinner at 3:00pm. It's almost 11:00pm and I'm not hungry at all. We don't eat like this very often so it was kind of a treat.

I'm working in the morning so I have to go to bed now.

I got new reading glasses for $5.00. They're 1.75 power. Such a deal. I'm going blind. My night vision is gone. The other night I was walking with some friends and I almost fell down. I couldn't see the ground in the night time. It's disconcerting. I tripped but I didn't fall. Would have been very embarrassed if TIMBERRR, I fell all the way down. They got a flashlight when I had to go back to the truck. My new glasses are sort of a gunmetal color, brownish? I have to make an eyeglass necklace to hold them. I hope I have just the right beads.

Last night our guests brought us gifts. I was thinking, oh nooooo, because I didn't get them anything so it feels a little awkward, yes? But guess what they gave us: paper plates, paper bowls, plastic forks, knives and spoons - in a flower motif. Haha! It was so cute and I had fun opening each gift! They know we can't add weight and 'things' to our trailer - no space. So I acted excited and like each gift was exactly what I wanted and we all laughed! Pat is such a giver. She loves to give people presents.

I'm going to have really nice dreams of my yarn now. I'll take a photo of it tomorrow.

Yesterday morning

I'm putting up my practice shots till I get the one. Am kicking myself for being too cold to get my camera out on the day when the view was magical a week ago. I'm getting up early to get these morning shots. On this one I wish I'd done bracketing so I could brighten up the island. It's too dark. Uh, I don't know how to do bracketing yet.

I admit, I had a real nice Christmas. We had Turkey a la King over rice and fruit jello with whipped cream for the holiday meal. We had friends over and they brought the dinner. Good deal there. If you can find company who are good cooks who will bring food to your house and leave you leftovers too, go for it! I made the dessert. I forgot to buy whipped cream and the store was out so we drove to our guests house and got some from their trailer. It was real cream so I had to whip it with sugar and vanilla and I had to whip it a long time to get it fluffy. My arm got tired. I think I will never eat Dream Whip again. The real thing is much tastier.

I printed out a few Christmas songs like The Little Drummer Boy and everyone enjoyed a sing-a-long without music.

Tomorrow we're going to Las Cruces. I get to buy yarn! I want to make another scarf. My sister liked hers a lot. She emailed me and what she wrote made my night. Says she's going to wear it with the tag attached. Heh. I think I could get into giving handknit gifts.

My husband asked me what I wanted to get for our eldest son for a wedding gift. I've known from the beginning but I've been waiting for him to ask. And he said okay. I was surprised. He never tells me no, but I thought this might be the time he says no. I was prepared for a no, you never know when it can come, so I am happy with his answer.

Patches is smiling

This is Patches the dog - the dog I was scared to death to visit. He looks ferocious and ready to attack. But he isn't! Truth is, he's totally mellowed out here, sitting in the sun taking in the fresh air (it's windy), and his teeth are stuck on the outside of his lips. I thought it'd be a good photo to denote my initial fear!

He's getting used to us. Tonight when we brought him in the house for the night he was bounding about the kitchen with unmitigated happiness. It was so cute. I don't know why he was so playful and happy unless he's just happy to see our son. Patches is used to his family being home most of the day so he must be some kind of lonely.

I'm having an email fight with my sister about punctuation and quotation marks. Usually punctuation goes inside the quotation marks, unless the question or exclamation applies to the entire sentence and not just the quote. Told her I'm going to put her in my grammar zulu head hold if she doesn't quit placing her periods outside her quotation marks. I'll do it too. I'm bigger than she is.

Drove around and looked at Christmas lights tonight. Pretty.

Tomorrow is the day. I wish I could go from October 31 directly to January 2, but we have a kid. Have to do it. We didn't do Advent except for the wreath this year and husband and son both expressed disappointment. I should have done better. I got mad because I lost my file folder and I was too angry to find something else to use. I was angry because I feel my husband doesn't have any idea how much work I put into putting Advent together to make the verses and the songs and the reading and the ritual a perfect fit for us. Been doing some of the Book of Luke instead of my file folder stuff. I'm going to print out the Luke verses and use them next year. Fox shared it with comments and everything and it's really good and most of them are on my desktop already. I should have done better for this year though.

I'll be glad when plain days are back again.

Major cutback

Man, I have to cut back on my 'puter time. Yesterday I popped a tv dinner in the oven and forgot to turn the oven up to temperature (for the third time). I forgot to close the ceiling vent which caused the furnace to run a lot last night and uses up propane. Went to bed and left the space heater under the table. That might be a fire hazard, hmmm?

I must chop my forum time. That's all there is to it. Less time on photography talk, travel and rving talk, hair talk, news, email, amazon.com, theology, homeschooling, blogs, knitting and beading. Bummer. Huge bummer! But evidently it's absorbing my mind and attention too much away from tasks at hand. Notice I didn't list blogging. Surely I can blog and think at the same time?

Sunrise

Jack passed on last night. We'll miss him. From what Reta said when I visited her this morning, it was without pain. It was faster than anyone would have thought. When the medics said his pulse was gone she cried, "But he needs one."

I asked Reta if she sensed yesterday before it happened that it was going to happen last night, and she said no. He did not have time to be afraid and of that I'm glad. Jack didn't want to die in a hospital and that's why they're here. He had DNR 'Do Not Resuscitate' orders. I wanna go the same way - home, by the lake, with the desert, away from the hospital. They're Seventh Day Adventists.

It happened right after the Christmas potluck. Only ten minutes later we drove to Patches' house and saw the ambulance in front of Reta and Jack's motorhome. A park ranger was there. A few other cars too. I didn't stop because I didn't want to be in the way and I despise looky-loos. We prayed. When my husband was lying in the street after a car accident there were looky-loos crushing in a circle to see some blood and I wanted to thrash them all.

Reta looks real pretty today and she's all put together. I saw her this morning at 7:00am standing outside in her long red robe, staring into the air. We waved to her. As I write this now, I realize she must have been outside to see the sunrise; the first sunrise without her Jack. She got three hours rest last night and I think she expects a busy day. Reta's not a crier or a whiner. I want to be like her. She tells me I better learn to drive the truck and pull the trailer. She can drive their huge motorhome with a tow vehicle behind. She was out of Kleenex so my husband went to the store and bought her two boxes.

Mourning Dove

Keeping warm. That's why he's puffy.

Patches

Wednesday night I went over to meet the dog our son is dog sitting and get instructions about how to feed him, two cats and one kitten. I went home and felt sick to my stomach because I got scared of the dog! I worried about it all night long. I didn't sleep all night, I kid you not, and Patches grew bigger and scarier in my mind until by morning he was big as a horse.

He was really nice when I met him outside once about a month back. I petted him and he's a big dog but I didn't feel afraid. Then one day I went to their front door and Patches barked and lunged at the front window like he was going to eat me up. I didn't like that. I told the owners he scared me and they said that's what he's supposed to do.

I know how hard it is to get animal care when you go on vacation and when they asked our son to dogsit I easily said, "Fine!" I didn't think I'd have to do anything. Our son sees the dog frequently and they get along swimmingly and with two sons in Patches' family age 4 and 11, I considered him safe. Plus, with a doggie door what's the big deal? Just feed the whole crew twice a day and scoop the kitty litter box and our son has his first paying job with responsibility.

But when I went over to get instructions, Patches the dog was very standoffish. Nervous. He made me nervous. And he barks. He barks giant barks incessantly. And my greatest tactical error, there is no doggie door. Isn't there some saying about assuming things? I was dying on my way home thinking about what I'd gotten myself into.

So we're getting up at 7:00 am and driving over to feed him and the two cats (the third kitty is in the hospital for gall stones) and going back at 4:30 pm to feed them and going back at 8:45 pm to let them in the house to sleep for the night. It's a three minute drive, but geez. It's cold out and I'm never up this early anymore. This morning was 25°.

My fear has subsided considerably. Still, I don't make any sudden motions! He does bark a lot and he is scary and big, but they say he was abused before they found him. In just two days he's gotten used to me. I always tell him to sit and I give him a tidbit so he's cool with that. He waggled his tail and came by and let me scratch him this morning. He still barks terribly, but I think he's an angel of a dog. I wouldn't want to see him in a kennel because I don't think he'd do well, so I'm happy to do something that enables him to stay in his home. If ever imprecatory prayers are prayed I think it should be for animal abusers. This dog had to have been treated real bad, real bad before they found him at the shelter. I'm so glad this gentle, loving family has adopted him. He has an excellent home for life with them. Surely there must be a hot place in hell for animal abusers. There's just got to be.

No one at e-Bay has responded to tell me what the return policy is for that dress yet. I bet she's on vacation. I hope I'll hear from her!

Last night I dreamt about myself. That's weird. I dreamt I was sitting in a car and I was looking out the side window and saw myself at age 15 walking by outside. I said, "Look, look, it's me." Next thing I was holding the hand of my 15 year old self and looking at it. I thought the hand felt so small, looked so young, and the temperature of my younger self's hand was a little too cool. It should have been warm. I had the Farrah Fawcett hair style (which I really did have when I was 15) and I (my current self) started to cry. Don't know if it was about the hair or not. Haha! And I told my younger self everything was going to be okay - trying hard to impress her with my sincerity. She seemed empty and distant, not hearing me and she didn't look at me. End of dream. I'm sure I dreamt of that period in my life because I've been emailing with a newfound (refound?) friend from high school.

Tonight we're going to a potluck. My husband is making barbequed ribs and deviled eggs.

Gunne Sax

Remember Gunne Sax dresses. I had one. They were so pretty.

Tonight I've been informed that our son's April wedding is to be formal. That's not what it was going to be before now. Our youngest will be the ring bearer. The men have to wear tuxedos and I have to wear formal. I would run my regular three screams, but it will do me little good.

I don't think the bride will want me to wear a sari which I've wanted for a long time and is something I might wear more than once. I'm guessing she will rather I blend nicely. It's her day so I should oblige. Well, I can't wear polyester. I just can't. And I'll never wear anything formal a second time, so I detest the idea of investing much capital in a garment. I'd like to wear jeans and a Victorian punk jacket and lacy shirt, but that ain't happenin' either. So what about a vintage dress. Well even in vintage it's really hard to find something formal or formalish that covers up a lot of the top part. I'm a mother and I can't be wearing a sexy dress to my kid's wedding. It'll be April which may be cool weather, so I need to be covered. I found a possibility.

I found the perfect Gunne Sax dress at eBay. It doesn't tie in the back. Ties are too young for me now. It's not too open up top. I definitely look good in an A-line dress. I have not much waist and an A-line gives me a great waistline. I have reservations about the big ruffle on the bottom. It's the best I could come up with tonight. Sigh.

So did I ever say that my mom's best girlfriend in high school was a girl named Doris. Yeah, my mom and two other girls were the bestest of friends - a threesome. Lila was the other girl. Anyway, Doris's initial are DK as in DKNY. She's it. The real thing.

My mom said Doris was a talented seamstress and that an old lady saw her talent. The old lady, who rented a place to Doris and a roommate, paid to send her to some clothing design classes. Doris had no one else to lean on or to help her. Guess all the rest is history. Just goes to show how the action of a giving heart can blossom into something real big and pretty. My mom recently talked and exchanged photos with Doris. I asked my mom if she knew how big DKNY is and she said, yup. Doris is in the money.

Little gal from San Diego back in the day makes it big. I had one of her outfits once. Pink and white checkered culottes and a white tee shirt top with pearl edging and a coordinating suit jacket. Sounds ghastly now, but it was cute at the time.

I received a Kara Treatment Package!

Today I was gifted by my online girlfriend, Kara, with a box of her own homemade, natural beauty products. She makes these! Is that not the handwriting of a creative mind on those containers? If only I had a scratch and sniff page, then you could smell the fabulous fragrances wafting from these jars and bottles into my trailer when I opened them.

The face cream is lemony and I have some on my face now. I'm going to use the foot butter tonight. I don't know if Kara knows, but I'm a maniac about soft, smooth feet. The first time we went on an extended camping trip I went home with feet like chicken feet. I said to myself 'No more of this!" If I live in a trailer I am going to have the soft feet. And usually I do. I didn't know it, but my husband was watching me and I found out he put Vaseline on his feet a few times to soften them up. Heh. Yeah, they're watchin' ya all the time even when you don't know it, so look out. So tonight I'm slathering on my new foot butter then I'm putting thin cotton socks on to let the butter do its thing.

So you might wonder just what the ingredients are in these lotions and potions. Well, I know some of them:

Lavender Lotion: coconut oil, shea butter, aloe vera, grapeseed oil, lavender essential oil (and additional ingredients unknown except to She Who Formulated It).

Face Cream: same ingredients as Lavender Lotion, but a higher percentage of oils and butters used, plus Lemongrass essential oil.

Foot Butter: coconut oil, lanolin, cocoa butter, herbal oil, beeswax, lemongrass essential oil, tea tree essential oil, and peppermint essential oil. Excellent for use on dry heels and sore feet. May be used not only on feet, but extremely dry hands too.

Deep Condish: shea butter, coconut oil, jojoba oil and lavender essential oil.

I've admired the shine in Kara's hair for a long time, and now (wringing my hands together with glee) I hope to duplicate said shine by using this Deep Condish that she uses. I hope, I hope, I hope it works for me. The air is so dry that I applied a light bit already although she applies it on say, Friday, and washes on Sunday. I wash less often so I put on less, plus I want to see how it works in a small amount. Plus, I hate to use it all up in one application.

I'm working in the office tomorrow from 8:00 to noon. I have a new top to wear too. It's red. Usually I won't wear red but this top fit so well I had to buy it. Plus it was on sale.

Hopefully, tomorrow, shiny hair and a pretty outfit. Should be a good day.

If you read this, thank you Kara. I'm not worthy, but I am happy! You have email from me too. Mwah!!!

Windy today

It was really, really windy today. I like the desert wind.

My husband slept poorly last night. He was tossing and turning and breathing funny all night and kept waking me up, so that means I slept poorly too. I didn't want to go to church with bags under my eyes but as per usual, once I was there I was glad I went. This church meets at the crack of 10:00am and my eyes are barely open at 10:00am. I like my new home church so much! It's a non-denominational charismatic church.

I have a new kitchen faucet. Husband put it in this afternoon. It's shiny and makes me feel like I'm in a real house.

One of the rangers here has a talent for jewelry making. I just found out about it. His website is awesome. His prices are awesome. High! He works with silver and gold and his talent is remarkable. Take a look if you care to at http://www.benhoffacker.com/ He's a really neat guy and so nice. He has a new sailboat and he might take us out sailing one day, he says. Of course, today was very windy. I already said that. And I like the desert wind a lot.

Scarf for my sister

Taa daa! It's blowing in the wind. The tag I made to go with it is below. It's garter stitch which means all knit stitches. Reta said I better learn to purl soon.

Tag

Sun spots

Apparently there's a lot of radiation out in space the last couple days. Our satellite communication has been slim to none during the day and zip at night. The scientists have got to be informed that Liliana has a blog to keep up. I can't have sun spots, flares, solar wind, and coronal ejections interrupting and complicating my journaling activities.

Okay. A quick update. We went to Las Cruces on Wednesday. I found the cutest '70s style suede coat for the four year old daughter of our favorite park ranger. It's so cute. She's so cute. She says she's into 'fashion.' My, my. So I went to the girls clothes department at Dillards. I never get to buy little girls clothing! It was very fun and took me all of three minutes to find the perfect coat.

At the Luminaria I babysat her for about 15 minutes. I was worried because at age four my son would never be still. She sat next to me the whole time. Never got out of her chair. I was so surprised. We talked. She decided since I had no gloves on that my hands must be cold (they weren't) so she held my hands in hers and rubbed them for a few minutes. I was moved. Her mamma must do that for her. She told me Santa has chocolate cookies. Hehe!

And what's up with matching bra and underwear sets at the mall? Gorgeous, feminine brassieres with big, giant coordinating underwear. You can't wear giant waist high panties with jeans. You can't have panty lines either. And if you can't buy the set together, what's the point of matching? I didn't buy any. Drats.

I knitted a scarf for my sister for Christmas. This one I finished in three days. Fast, huh! It's just like mine but narrower and with fringe and no pockets. So, I guess it's not just like mine, but it's cute. Today I'm figuring out how to attach the fringe. I have to wait for Reta to come home so I can borrow a crochet hook hopefully. Seems I've lost mine and I haven't even used it once.

Today is Friday, December 15th, 2006. Something has to be done about this.

Our picture is in the paper!

One of joys of small town living is that you can be in the newspaper! I've never been in the paper before. My son and husband have been in the paper once in Southern California, but never, ever me. Our weekly edition of the newspaper was just delivered to our doorstep and we're in it! Here's the caption...

PREPARATION - With folded sacks in hand, the 20 plus volunteers of the local state park filled each with sand and a candle and then lined them up in preparation for Saturday's Luminaria Beachwalk and Floating Lights Parade. [Our son] is shown strategically placing each sack as the other volunteers, including his mother, Liliana, shown above, bring him the readied sacks.

How 'bout that. I'm famous! Well, we're famous. Heh.

Test shot numero uno!!!

Yeah, I finally took a picture. Got the circular polarizer in the mail today. This is outside our trailer about 4:15pm. We had unusual clouds today. I'm bowled over. I'm going to have a meltdown! Just think about when I find a really good view somewhere. Oh boy. Today I only used automatic. Soon I will learn to do my own settings. The click of the camera is much bigger than what I'm used. It's more solid. And there seems to be no shutter lag. No shutter lag? Oh happy day!

Now to figure out how to delete them. And I set the clock but apparently I didn't set set it because it's all zeros again. Only took me 20 minutes to do that. This dSLR is heavy compared to my S2 IS. I shall develop a very strong arm! I also have a cute backpack day pack that holds the camera and lenses at the bottom and you can put lunch or your jacket in the top part. I want to be self-sufficient you know. I don't wanna be saying "Honey, will you carry this for me, please?" all the time. My husband carries everything already. He says when we go hiking, "What am I? A burro?!" hehe!

The backpack is a good style I think because it doesn't look like a camera carrier. Once, at the airport, I saw a bag that was clearly marked "FECAL MATTER" DO NOT TOUCH. And you know what? I think it was camera equipment now. Pretty tricky person, huh? Well, I didn't realize how expensive camera things were. Now I understand why someone would do that.

Test shot #2

Wow. You can see the roughness of the paint at the base. You can even read the writing and this was taken handheld - no tripod! I'm learning to use Photoshop CS2 unsharp mask which is a digital darkroom thing. In the olden days (what, ten long years ago?) to sharpen a blurry photo they sandwiched the photo between an oversharpened image and a blurred image so the middle image came out sharper. Dunno how that works but that's what I read. Photoshop does it digitally. I overdid it a bit because you can see a bit of a halo thing going on at full size.

3,500 luminarias and I'm beat

This was the week-end of the Luminaria. They're big in New Mexico. A state park in the area puts out luminarias for a beautiful Christmas time celebration each year. Local businesses and families set up campsites and decorate their rigs with lights and Christmas stuff, they put out loads of home made foods, free food I'm tellin' ya (some people give donations though), and boats in the lake are dressed up in their Christmas finery and float in a boat parade. It's a sight to see.

Friday afternoon we and 20 other volunteers scooped sand into paper sacks, placed a candle inside each, pulled the wick straight on each candle, and set them aside. Saturday morning we set them out in the park along the roadway, around sites, and one mile in each direction outside the park approaching the entrance. Before dusk, my husband and I lit all the luminarias on the highway outside the park. 'Twas a bit of a walk and farther than I thought! Those paper sacks went way down the road as far as the eye could see. Saturday night we were at the state park campsite to dish out food and chat with visitors.

There were 3,000 visitors last year. More this year but I don't know how many yet. All totaled we volunteers put out 3,500 luminaria. Do volunteers rock or what!

Nothing exactly hurts but my back is achy what with all the bending over. I was lucky too. Instead of a butane barbeque lighter which is brutal for lighting a few hundred candles inside lunch sacks, I had a butane torch. Yeah baby! I torched those candles alight.

It was fun. I can't wait to do it again next year. But it will be fine with me if I don't see another paper sack until then!

Took a nap

Today I spent two hours reading the owner's manual for my new camera and looking at the lens, the camera body, the batteries and charger, all the buttons, and screens, and dials. Then I went and took a nap.

A fluffy bangs question from Sandra

I have lurked at your page for a while and I finally have to make a comment. Your hair is gorgeous! I have lots of gray that I choose to hide but your pics make me wonder if I should just let it all grow out.

I have to ask you though, I have read in other posts that you do not wash your hair everyday, so how do you keep your bangs looking so nice and fluffy? If I don't wash my bangs at least every other day, they start to get the greasies. Please share your secret;-)

-Sandra

Hi Sandra! Thank you for reading my blog and I'm so glad you commented!

My bangs get greasy too and though I don't wash my hair daily [drum roll] I do wash my bangs daily. I wash about once a week and when I wash I'm really ready to wash. But every morning I wake up and the bangs are going the wrong way. They look a fright. It's amazing how washing just the bangs improves the whole picture.

I blow dry them which takes about 60 seconds because my fringe is light. I use a round brush to give them a curve, but then I follow that with blowing them straight down because I don't like an obvious curve. One of the first things I did when I decided to leave my hair long is I thinned out my bangs. It was a drag at first but now that section has grown to about half of my full length. I sometimes wash the very front of my hair also - around my ears and top of head. Anything to avoid a whole wash.

I'm so glad you're questioning yourself about letting your silver show. Questioning is a good. I used henna till I just couldn't anymore because I had too much silver. Why I'm all for doing whatever it takes to feel beautiful. It's important. No one wants to walk around and feel ugly.

On rare occasion I've been the recipient of wonderful compliments on my silver from very young women. I think there are some young women who see something beyond the facade! I've also been snubbed once by a group of women my very own age, and at a Bible study no less. You can't let yourself be overly sensitive if you go silver, that's another thing. It's not the fashion, though I think there may be a wave of women changing that soon.

These are my thoughts on the subject. You have to have some power behind you to let your silver shine. My dad tells me I'd look better if I'd color my hair. I don't think so. I told him so. You only need one person to support you and for me that person is my husband. The hair boards are a great place for self-affirmation too.

There is one passage on Eowyn's blog that I found that you might find interesting. She typed in some parts of a book she read that were her favorite. Scroll to the bottom of the page and read the last two paragraphs that she put in bold. It's a great comment about grey hair!

I know you weren't expecting such a long answer. Heh.

~Lil

I got a one inch trim today

Messing around with new sig possibilities for 2007.

I got my hair trimmed today. Ivan did it for me. And he didn't charge me! Is that sweet or what. He took off an inch and sure enough it was damaged and needed to go. Good-bye and good riddance. I feel like a new woman. I feel like I have a brand new 'do! I could have spent $200.00 to feel this good but it didn't cost me a dime. I gave him a big tip though. Well, okay. I gave him five bucks. I sure like Ivan.

There was a kid about 13 years old getting a hair cut. Evidently he got the boot that afternoon from the public middle school for having long hair and his mom brought him straight to the barber. His hair was on the floor by the time I arrived. I sat down and then noticed he was about to jump out of his skin. He was upset about getting his hair cut. So the barber finished and when the kid got up, first thing he did was swish his hair (what was left of it) into his eyes. He's a skater and I'm guessing here, since I'm completely out of the what's-cool-teen-loop, that hair in the eyes is all the fashion. Seemed like a sweet kid. Thirteen is a tough age. In the school district we lived in (in Southern California) the parents would picket and call the newspaper and say their kid's right to freedom of expression was being obstructed for such a thing.

And today I broke one of my flip-flops. I hate having to find new flip-flops. My foot slipped on the parking brake and I hurt my toe...and broke the thong so it can't be fixed.

Today's hair by a tree

See? I need a trim. Been planning for a couple months to do it. I had my husband take all these 'before' pictures.

Unfortunately, no after pictures to share. We got a flat tire on the way home and he had to fix it. The light was gone by the time he was done.

Today's hair with happy arms and feet

I realized here I'm wearing tennis shoes. I don't like tennis shoes, I like hiking boots. They're much tougher. Like me. :)

I only slip on tennis shoes to go outside fast to feed the quail. I don't always know if they're going to come. After this photo I said "We have to stop. I'm wearing tennis shoes. Why didn't you tell me I'm wearing tennis shoes for pictures?" He said he thought I knew, but if I knew would I still have them on? No.

Today's hair in the house

My ends are straighter than this now. They feel softer. I think maybe I will have Ivan cut it back to this length next year. It feels like a good length to stay at for awhile.

Needing new leggings

Where do I start today.

I need new running pants. I guess I should say leggings. The ones I wore today - I had panty lines, and lint, and they're kind of high waters. They look really stupid on me. Note, I did not say I look stupid in them, but they look stupid on me. It's not my fault. Husband said I can order a new pair and he said I should get a whole outfit that's warm. My eyes are going bad and my last "outfit" is two different shades of black with two different styles of racing stripes that don't match. Well, they matched in the dressing room at the mall, they matched at the cash register, they just don't match in sunlight where you run in real life.

And what is up with legislating things that should be parental responsibility?

Inappropriate advertising contributes to many kids' ills, from obesity to anorexia, to drinking booze and having sex too soon, and Congress should crack down on it, the American Academy of Pediatrics says.

For us women here's an article from the Daily Mail in the UK. I see me to a tee in this one. Except for one thing. If my husband wandered...

Sorry, but women are dependent on men

I majored in anthropology so I found it very interesting. Feminists are going to have a complete melt down.

Lastly, I cannot locate my Advent prayers and Christmas carols. After five years, I finally have them whittled down to be a perfect fit for my family and now I can't find the folder with the contents. We've gottalottamanillafolders, but I can't find the one I need. I put it in a place that I wouldn't forget.

Serenity NOW.

New Mexico

I heard a good one today...

Most places have houses with pretty green grass in the front yard. But if a New Mexican has ten tons of rock in his yard he thinks he has a really nice yard. Haha!

Oh and if all the rocks in New Mexico were diamonds we'd all be rich! If only! New Mexico is a poor state. I saw poor in California, but it's more and worse in New Mexico. The housing stock is far more dilapidated. It's sad to see. I have a new friend and she's established a 501-c-3 (not for profit) organization and she distributes all sorts of items to those in need.

And people rake the rocks in their front yards here. For reals. We rake the campsites where we host and it looks so nice when we finish and makes the place look cared for. It gives a good impression.

Accidentally got a hair in my son's dinner tonight. He said "Yuk, what's this from?" and I said I was sorry and my husband said it's Mamma's hair. Sheesh. I had just redone it and I guess a loose one got away from me.

Speaking of long hairs, one time my husband ate a sandwich I made him and there was a long hair in it. Mine, ya know. He pulled the sandwich about a foot away from his mouth and there's this big, ol' long hair pulled like a tight wire, one end in the sandwich and the other end in his mouth. I was aghast. He was pretty calm. That was in 1990 so I've done pretty good keeping hair out of the foodstuffs till tonight.

Hope I didn't gross anyone out. Bwa-hahahaha!

Have a splendid Monday, this first day after the first day of Advent!

A new day

After much ado, I got up this morning and blurted out that I'd deleted the movies. My husband laughed. It was a great big belly laugh! Knock me over with a feather, will ya. I guess I look funny when I'm wringing my hands and explaining deleted files on the computer. Very matter-of-factly he said there was nothing to be done about it and if it's gone, it's gone. Which is true. He's very realistic. I lucked out! I do know he really enjoyed that Indian music and dancing and I rarely have him tell me to be sure to save a file. Usually he doesn't care much about dance/music productions presented for tourists.

Hey, hey, today is a new day!

And I like my husband's eyes when he looks at me.

And six months later I accidentally found those movies on my computer. Haha!

Maintenance

Ugh. I had to burn over four gigs of photos to CD tonight. Fun. Not.

But a bad thing happened. Of all the files I could have lost could I have lost the one my husband said to be sure to keep? That's exactly the one I've lost. I have a tummy ache.

The CDs only hold 700 megs each. I burned seven. I had one folder with three movies of the First Nations People in Manitoba dancing. Great costumes and the drums moved the earth. I've lost them. They're gone. I fancied uploading one of them to You Tube too. No chance of that now. I let them sit in the recycle bin (you see where this is going?) and figured when I was finished with burning everything in My Pictures I'd just restore the one folder with the movies. So I finished and I clicked Restore. Looked fine, my file folder for 7/18/06 disappeared, good...but it didn't show up in My Pictures...bad. So I restored all the folders and everything from January to July was gone and only August to December 2, 2006 got restored. Checked the settings for the recycle bin and it says my C drive is 32 gigs. Also says it's set to 10%. I don't know numbers very well but I know 4 gigs is more than 10% of 32. I think my recycle bin trashed it. I really don't feel too good. I didn't know the recycle bin had a limit!

Good thing my husband never reads my blog. Woe is me.

An unremarkable day

I did it. I kept Amazon.com in business for the day. Heh. Told my husband the price before I pressed Place Order and he just harrumpfed. He does that. He told me "Do it!" but I still checked with him half a dozen times. Then he walked by and asked me how long I was going to sit and look at the same thing on the computer. It's true. That's all I was doing! I can't help it. Finally, I was a man about it and I placed my order. I'm not worthy.

Other than that, I did pretty much nothing. We did sentence analysis today and son did better than the first session. He finished the unit on pronouns and next week he starts adjectives. I'd never have thought a fourth grader could absorb grammar so well. I didn't do science with him though. I should have. He loves it. But it was 3:00pm before I blinked an eye and that's quitting time for him.

I can't wait to see what the new camera can do! I ordered standard shipping and nothing will be shipped till next week what with this being Friday night.

We had 60+ quail come to our 'yard' and eat seed and drink water this morning. It's such a pretty warbling that they make. They're having a good year. They're all fat. They didn't come for a couple weeks and we thought we were blacklisted or something! Turned out there was a coyote or two prowling about so they were hiding a lot.

Advent begins Sunday. I'm not ready yet.

I'm going to knit for my sister now. I'm making her a scarf like mine only better and cuter and with fringe. Sister scarves.

Bad news of the worst kind

My size 7 blue jeans are officially tight. I'm having to wear my 9's. Why. Why, why, why does this have to happen? Dinner is so good and potlucks are so good and donuts before bed are so good. I admit my jeans were tightening up in the thigh a bit last month but it looked like the washer was shrinking them. Then I noticed the behind was stretched a bit taut but I figured things were still cool. Yellow flags only mean caution and I was cautious. Then I was getting ready to go to the potluck Wednesday and I had to change outfits three times because my buttons wouldn't button very well. Red flag! RED flag! RED FLAG! Clothes strewn all about the bedroom. My husband asked what was going on in there as I rushed to be ready at 6:00pm. I hate having to report this. Now I have to eat less. It's a cruel world.

Got cold in here and we had to buy a new heater. Our little heaters work fine down to 32° but it went down to about 17° Wednesday night and 22° last night and we got cold. I had to go to bed early the first night to warm up under the electric blanket. Plenty of sun outside though! This weather is common for January in New Mexico but not so much November. Which reminds me.

Happy December!

We got our flu shots, all three of us for free, yesterday.

Hooray for flu shots! It didn't hurt at all.

I found a home church for the winter. It's a charismatic one which is a first for me. I was very hesitant but when I went to a ladies prayer group there it was clear it was the place for me. How I love that feeling. One thing about traveling is, you can't get too hung up on denominations. Gotta pick from what's available. I still listen to Calvary Chapel online. Each denomination has its distinctives. The various churches created by man as they all are, have doctrine they adhere to and each tend to emphasize or de-emphasize different principles drawn from the Bible.

I admit I do not know when to capitalize the word "Bible" and this bothers me.

There are no ladies prayer meetings for the entire month of December. This is one of the things I don't like about holiday seasons.

I've decided, with thanks also to Michele and her son for the excellent summation of the 30D:

Canon EOS 30D digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex)
EF 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6. IS ISM lens
2 gig Ultra II CF card by Sandisk
Extra CR-2016 Lithium coin battery (not sure where to buy it yet)
Tamrac Adventure 7
Lens cleaning kit
Circular polarizer B+M 72mm

I missed the sale at Sandisk. Could have bought the CF card for $39.00, but noooo. I was too slow and last night they were sold out. I should have known better than to wait! Now I get to pay $76.98 at Amazon instead.

Most of the stuff is in my cart. I just can't pull the trigger. Usually my husband makes the big purchases and he's laughing that I'm having trouble. I think he enjoys watching me short circuit.

dSLR coming down the pike

I get to pick a dSLR for Christmas. Yippee! I've been beside myself with trying to pick between the Canon Rebel XTi and the 30D. Oh baby, baby! You have to get at least one lens too, ya know. When it says 'body only' it means no lens. Yipes. Well, I've done the research. I've decided on a Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS ISM as my walkaround lens. That means everyday, general purpose, standard use.

We're going to a potluck tonight. We had such a good time at the first one. Husband is making deviled eggs and he bought a HoneyBaked ham today to take over there. I better go do my hair. Yeah, right after I write a little more.

We had teeny snow flurries in the afternoon. It's going to go below 32 degrees tonight. We'll see how well our heaters work in here.

I'm so lucky because a guy here who does photography saw my calendar and he told my husband I was at intermediate level and that I should really have a camera I can grow into. Wow. I felt so complimented. Very. And I think that's what made my husband think that I'm worthy of an sLR.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Oh no!

I screamed in the shower today. Really loud. It was a full scream, not half a scream and it echoed. It was an involuntary reflex action.

When I wasn't looking my wash rag fell on the shower floor. It lay there for probably two full seconds before I could snap it up. Can you say, "Ewww?" Ewww!

I stood still and listened for a couple minutes, but no one in the campground came. Actually I was glad nobody came, so I didn't have to explain that I was fine - it was just my wash rag that fell on the cement floor near the plastic mat that e-v-e-r-y-body stands on. I wear flip-flops in there.

Ewwwwwwww!

Life. Paths. Knitting.

Life
is
like
a
hand knitted
scarf.

Ernie wrote me back today. I was fairly floating after I read his email. We were friends in high school. People are so interesting. It's fascinating to hear of their past and I marvel at the paths they have taken to get where they are.

Last week I finished knitting a scarf that I'm overall pleased with. It turned out, may I say, beautiful. It's colorful. It's useful. And best of all, it's one-of-a-kind. Heh. And when I ran up the street to show it to Reta (she taught me to knit) the first thing I did was loudly announce that there were a lot of mistakes in it and the chenille covered them up well, and also I thought the knot where I connected new yarn to the old yarn really stood out. To prove it I tried to find the knot to show her. I thought I knew exactly where it was but it took me a good minute to find it.

Reta, almost 20 years my senior, watched me patiently then she told me in a very no nonsense manner, that no one else will see my mistakes. "Don't worry about them!" she explained. She said only I see every mistake and that's how knitting is. Everyone else will think it's a beautiful scarf. It was she who told me to keep knitting and stop pulling it apart and starting over every time I knitted an imperfect stitch. I immediately felt better about the mistakes that I imagined detracted from my work of art.

And in the very same way, I immediately felt better after I read Ernie's email to me. Ernie is very smart and intuitive. He gave me clarity.

Isn't life like that? Our mistakes are woven in, our imperfections part of the garment, but we can continue and end up with a beautiful life anyway; a life that's colorful, useful, imperfect, and one-of-a kind.

Oh no, holiday almost over

Is there only one day left? Sure has gone fast. I spent the day shopping and comparing online. Didn't buy anything, just read and read and read. I did go over to a friend's place to talk with a couple who is considering going full time (traveling full time in a trailer or motorhome) and they asked questions and I answered a few. I enjoyed talking with them. I must be changing this year because last year I didn't talk to anyone. They acted surprised that I'm 47 and said I looked younger but I think they're pulling my leg. I'm lucky I don't look like I'm my husband's mom or something. People always, I'm not exaggerating, act surprised that he's 65.

Our son today informed me that he is not a little boy and I am to stop calling him my little boy. He said Deedah (he's called his daddy Deedah since he could talk) can say it but not me. Thing is, Deedah never calls him his little boy anyway. Sigh. He's growing up so fast. I will miss him when he leaves. The time is flying by.

Which leads me to one of the saddest articles I've read in awhile. Fox News, 10 is the new 15 As Kids Grow Up Faster. I saw a lot of it in California which is part of why we left. Parents think it's cute but it's not. Sometimes it's almost pornographic what people let their little girls wear. It's the parents' fault. I'm so glad our child is getting a genuine childhood. Apparently having one is getting rare these days.

I have a new friend. She's an author. A published author. And she's nice. I met an author once in Tahiti. She wasn't nice. She was a psychologist and she hit on my husband - right in front of me! My husband was just a little lamb and acted like he didn't notice (ignored her, that is). I could not believe it. And she's supposed to be helping people with their lives? Sheesh.

What shall I write

I need an update for today. Hmmmm.

The only thing I can come up with is this. I was thinking what could I send in to PostSecret (linkage removed due to adult content). I thought and thought, then I got hungry. So I went and got my delectable bag of Donettes which by the way is spelled 'Donettes' and ate some. Then I needed a drink of milk. But it was a lot of trouble to open the cupboard (recall I had a sore finger) to reach for a glass and then walk 1.5 feet to the fridge, so I drank straight out of the milk jug. And I'm the mom of the family. I'm supposed to be the example setter. Well, everyone was in bed.

So then I knew I had a perfect postcard to send in to PostSecret. I can take a picture of some milk and then type in anonymous looking courier style lettering, "I drank straight out of the milk jug tonight." "And I'm the mother!"

Thanksgiving 2006

It's been the best one ever.

For one, this is the first time I've ever said a prayer straight out of my head that came out beautifully. Usually I spend an hour hunting for the right prayer online, print it, practice it, and tape it to the underneath side of the dining room table. When everyone sits down my husband says "How about a prayer?" and when everyone bows their head I surreptitiously unstick my prayer from the table and read it from my lap. I've never been busted! My husband knows I do this. He supports me. Heh.

This year I was all ready. Had to put the prayer in my back pocket though since the picnic table is a metal grate material - no place to tape a prayer out of view. I wasn't too keen on having to pull out my planned Thanksgiving meal prayer in front of everyone but I figured, no choice in the matter. The table was see-through.

I had to run up the street to the campground bathrooms right before we sat down. And in there a prayer came to me and I grappled with the idea of winging it and thought it would be nice but, no, I better not. I went back. We all sat down. Husband asked if anyone wanted to do the prayer and no one did, so he asked me to do it. I didn't reach for my back pocket, I hardly thought a thought. My prayer just came right out. The lady said it gave her a shiver. And when we left in the evening she thanked me for saying that prayer. I felt well about this. It's a first for me.

Everyone loved the cake I baked. Yay. I always worry that the food I cook will make someone sick and I dreaded the thought that someone might get a stomach ache. But no one did. What a waste of thought processes, eh? Boy, I have to get over that. A long time ago I baked an apple pie. Everyone got stomach aches after the meal and the hostess said it had to be the pie. I felt awful. I felt really bad. I was about 25 at the time and she was about 35 and she was rather mean. Apple pie is just apples, butter, sugar, some flour and shortening for the crust. I believed it was the pie then but now I think it was something else and she blamed my pie. Anywho, I've been uncomfortable sharing food I make with any other people ever since.

I couldn't wait until tomorrow. I just ate a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce on it. Delicious.

Today I shall bake a cake

It will be my famous, though not beautiful, German sweet chocolate cake made from scratch. I make this once a year or twice a year if I make one at Thanksgiving and one at Christmas. However I have not made one for two years. I have my recipe that I cut out of the newspaper in 1999. It takes hours to make this cake.

It took me all afternoon and now I am in a bad mood. I try to like cooking. I did real good and had a very upbeat attitude. I made everyone leave the trailer because I need some peace when I make this cake. I have to concentrate!

.................................

We had a bit of excitement when the ranger came by today to let us see a baby beaver that she rescued. It was stuck in a pipe or something. She's so good with animals, and with children too. It was awfully cute and I've never seen a live beaver up so close. I heard its mother had been killed about two weeks ago. The baby has been okay to this point so I dearly hope that's a good sign for its survival.

Hmmm

What to do about the residual batter remaining on that spatula.

Ready, set, go

Wax paper is placed at bottom of each pan. In theory, this will make the cakes easier to get out of the pan.

Ready for the oven

But my oven is small so I had to cook one at a time. Fortunately the two layers that were waiting were just fine. Baking time: 30 minutes, but the last one I baked for 27 minutes and 18 seconds. FYI.

Done!

I hope everyone will like it. It's ugly, but it tastes really, really good.

We wait until tomorrow

Stored in a very fine top of the line plastic container. My nice crystal one is packed or got sold in a garage sale.

My friend Elke

I have a new friend, Elke. She is remarkable. She's a walking history book. She lived in East Germany when it was closed. Her mom snuck back two times under barbed wire to get some things from home, but basically they closed the door of their home and walked away. They rode in freight cars in the freezing cold and her mother's fingertips were open sores with frostbite. Her dad was an inventor, a physicist. I'm walking over to her place tonight to see her feed the birds. She gets a ton of birds over there.

She's highly in tune with nature. Even to an extreme, if that is possible. A bear once licked her on the cheek then walked away! It was a very big bear.

I'm making German chocolate cake tomorrow for Thanksgiving. This year we received three whole invitiations for Thanksgiving. That's never happened before! It was nice. I'm making candied yams too and husband is making mashed potatoes. I think I'm going to enjoy the holiday. There is a distinct possibility of this occurring. Highly unusual.

Late last night I dropped a line off to Ernie, a friend of mine from high school. Can't wait to hear back from him! He writes the best letters as I remember. We wrote each other a few times in the '80s, then lost contact. Or was it the '90s? He plays guitar, but he also played the drums in high school band and you know the guys who play drums are always the coolest. We girls would say "Ooooh, look at Ernie." Hehe! High school.

I must go wax my arms for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday now.

Snow geese wintering in New Mexico

I felt like I was in a National Geographic film. Never have I seen so many birds in one place at one time. The sound was incredible. Hundreds of birds. What you see in my lens is but a portion of what I could see at one time. They are to my right and left as well.

They winter in New Mexico at Bosque del Apache. I want to go there again! I could stay all day. The weather was nice. They were having the Festival of the Crane event and it was really nice. Lots of people were there and there were educational booths which is where I got some of the photos below.

When we walked down the ramp to the water I started to cry. The sight and the sound was such that I was momentarily overwhelmed. I had no expectations and so to set eyes upon all these birds. It was awesome. A Japanese guy (with a very fine camera lens) saw me and he moved and gave me his place to take photographs. I was all weepy and got a good photography location to boot.

One in flight

Barn owl

I had no idea this exotic looking creature is a plain old barn owl. All of these birds are rehabilitated and will never return to the wild. I think she has a wing that was broken and it didn't heal well enough for her to fly.

A burrowing owl! He is rehabilitated.

He was hit by a car and almost died. They saved his little life and now he goes to festivals and classrooms and teaches people about whoooo, whooooo, burrowing owls.

They live in old prairie dog burrows

A raptor

Red feathers on their head

Sandhill cranes in flight

If a picture paints a thousand words

Then this about sums up my day.

She's a tomboy

Anna, age 2. My friend and I took our kids to the park. Fed the ducks, played at the playground, ate sandwiches in the shape of bunnies, fish, and stars. She looks just like her mama.

This was my first best picture of a person outside my family. Snapshot taken with my first digital camera, an Olympus.

Photo taken Springtime 2002

The Wall in miniature

This one isn't made of black granite like Maya Lin's. It's a retired traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall made of black sheet metal and inscribed with all the names of the men and women who died in the Vietnam War. It was our history lesson this day. We'll go back sometime because behind the wall is a small park with granite podiums - each inscribed with a synopsis of every war the U.S. has ever been in. The one for Iraq/Afghanistan is still blank.

My cousin was going to go to Canada if he was drafted. He was/is a pacifist. He never got drafted. I was 11 so I didn't understand anything.

I knew a man who was in his late 40's and still had nightmares. He was a stout man, but he dreamt that he'd been injured in Vietnam, not killed, and that he was lying on the ground with dead all around him. The Vietnamese, in his dream, were going from body to body stabbing them with the knives on the end of their weapons (I forget the proper nomenclature) to ensure they were dead. In his dream he'd turn over quickly to his stomach so he could play dead, and in his sleep even as large a man as he was, he could turn to his stomach faster than you can imagine. Very quick. Quick like a dancer, but he was no dancer.

When he awoke from this dream he scared my friend sometimes. She was very careful to remain a few feet away from him until he was completely awake. It was a recurring nightmare he had.

Photo taken November 14, 2006
New Mexico

Roadrunner, the coyote's after you

That was such a funny cartoon. Our whole family would sit and watch it on Saturday mornings. Well, my mom, my sister, and me.

This was taken yesterday morning through the kitchen window. Luckily the window was clean! She was coming by every day for awhile, then we didn't see her for a few weeks.

At first she was sitting on the wood all puffed up and when she saw us she kept an eye on us and moved her tail up and down, then she took off. I want a picture of the male. We saw them both together at the Visitor's Center once. He has fluorescent orange markings next to his eyes!

I notice when you enlarge the photo her feet are cropped. I'm not happy about this.

Test

Humane Society

My fingers

Gosh, I have the most interesting subject titles in my blog.

My right index finger has been kind of sore. I was thinking, arthritis. I read about people having arthritis and I thought, maybe I have it too.

But I use one finger to pull on the handles of all the cupboards and since we're in a trailer which is built for bouncing on roads, the cupboards are hard to open. I don't know why I use one finger. I just do.

Husband said that's why I have a sore finger. He said don't use one finger anymore. So I stopped.

And now my sore finger is all better.

Flying Spagetti

This morning I received an email. It sounds fishy to me so I submitted it to Snopes.com. It's titled "What the Bible Says About Death." The HTML in the email is a nightmare of a mess, so I'm not pasting it. Basically it lists people who mocked God and how they died in awful ways, implying just and deserved payment from God for mocking Him: John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, and six other people whom I don't know. I don't like these kinds of email because I think with a little research another list can be composed naming people who mocked God and lived a life fantastic and went gently into that dark night. By a life fantastic I mean wealthy.

I did a search and didn't find reference to the email. Maybe it's new. Could that possibly be?! But in my search I tripped upon a very interesting site called Church of the Flying Spagetti! Very well done, lots of humor. The blogger is an athiest, I think. I would link to it but it does show a four letter word on the sidebar, and if it's there then there may be more.

Anyway, I have to go to a volunteer meeting though I'd much rather blog. My husband drove 70 miles and got me chocolate donettes this morning. I don't deserve such a good life.

I want to read more on the Flying Spagetti site later. The guy is a philosophy major (I think?) and his writing is spectacular. I want to discuss some of his ideas with our son. I have to think of how to make it the right size bite for a nine year old mind so he will understand the humor and the deeper issue as well.

Uh oh

I cannot upload any photos via Hello! tonight. This is not good. Maybe going with the beta version was a mistake. Oh noooooooo!

Today I went to the manager's office at the market. I had to walk through many hallways. I found him sitting at a desk and told him I need Hostess Chocolate Donettes. I told him I need them bad.

They only have powdered ones and I don't like those. There was one variety pack of regular size, three flavors (powdered sugar, plain, chocolate), and I was going to buy them. As I was holding the box I realized the cellophane was ripped. That's why they were the only ones on the shelf.

He wrote it down. He said someone else does the ordering and that shipments come in on Thursdays. I hope he wasn't shining me on because next time I may go mental.

Gordon Lightfoot - Canadian folk singer

Yesterday was the 31st anniversary of the downing of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Twenty-nine crew members lost in Lake Superior in 1975.

Star News Online

Lyrics. Read them here. Brutal and sad. >> http://gordonlightfoot.com/Lyrics/WreckOfTheEdmundFitzgerald.html

Totally

Can I possible waste an entire day any more thoroughly than I did today?

I don't THINK so.

However I did compose my bio for our alumni web site. Fantastic bio, if I do say so myself. The other peeps write one line as an answer. I can't possibly do that. Oh no. They'll be on the edge of their seats reading my bio.

I think I get to upload four pictures on my personal page too.

That'll take another day for sure.

Classmates.com

I had some spare time. Heh. Actually I have plenty of that after 3:00pm every day. So about midnight I googled my old hometown. Found the local newspaper online. What were the chances I'd trip onto an article written by a name I recognized. I never knew him personally but saw him around campus. He was a junior or senior when I was a freshman in high school. He wrote a long article about old times and referred to classmates.com, so naturally I ended up at classmates.com. My 30th reunion, egads, is in June 2007.

I wore a Mickey Mouse t-shirt on my first day of high school. It belonged to my best friend, Debbie, and I had to really persuade her to let me wear it. It was a very popular shirt. Or did she wear it and I wore the new clothes my dad and step-mom got me? Shoot, I don't quite remember. Anyway.

I signed up so now my name is there. Curiosity was killing me to see who was already signed up and the only way you can view names is to sign up yourself.

Some names made me chuckle and some brought back warm memories. High school includes some of the worst years of my life. I guess that's better than having them be the best years of your life because then life is all downhill from there, and how sad would that be! I went downhill, crashed and burned, then went uphill. Heh. Late bloomer. Strangely, I look back on the 70s with sweet nostalgia even though they were the worst years of my life!

You got to know when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em, when to walk away, and when to run. (What? Kenny Rogers already said that?)

I'm beta now

Hello, hello?

Okay, my links are still here. My posts are still here. My archive is fine. My pictures are still here.

I guess everything is okay.

I found a comment from June 13th that was never uploaded. After I changed to beta it was there.

New version of Blogger is ready?

Your new version of Blogger is ready!

The new version of Blogger now has all the original features you're used to, plus new post labels, drag-and-drop template editing, and privacy controls. And, it's a lot more reliable.

After you switch you'll need to sign in with your Google Account, but your blogs will stay the same. Their content and layout will not change.

Switch to the new version

What's this? I'm afraid to do it. It's on my Dashboard every time I go there. What if something bad happens. But, what IS going to happen when I do it? I haven't seen anybody do a changeover.

Workin' tomorrow

We're working in the afternoon in the Visitor's Center tomorrow. I think it might be busy with people coming in to camp for the Veteran's Day week-end.

Have to fix my hair nice. Husband bought me two roses when he went to Cruces and I think I'll put the baby's breath in my hair.

I trimmed a little off the tippy ends of my hair today at the very middle in back. Took off an inch or less. Just held it in a pony and SNIP. It doesn't particularly show but looks nicer in a subtle way.

Now I need a snack. Then I'm gonna go to bed.

Purple polish

I had a good time today looking at refrigerators! I love blogging.

Tonight I polished my fingernails. They're deep violet, almost a plum, with a layer of purple and blue glitter over the top and a clear top coat over that. The glitter is good because it hides any mistakes with the base color being so dark. I couldn't decide between the violet or blue. My nails are almost the perfect length. Yay. It won't last for long though.

Our son just woke himself up a minute ago from talking in his sleep. I gave him a hug and told him to go back to sleep.

When I was a kid I talked a blue streak in my sleep and sleepwalked too. Once when I was 10 I went all the way across the street to a neighbor's house in the dead of night. The father answered the door and could tell I was sleepwalking. He believed sleepwalkers shouldn't be awakened or some such thing and he talked with me and sent me home - watching to make sure I went in the house. My little sister heard me, woke up and told my mom there was a man in the house but it was just little me!

When I was a teenager I'd pull all the bedding off of my bed in my sleep. Everything down to the mattress cover. I'd wake up and be so mad because I'd have to make the whole thing or sleep with covers on a mattress for the rest of the night.

And I had a thing about ants. Still do, but back then I'd leap out of my bed and start brushing imaginary ants off of me. I'd thought they were crawling all over me.

My mom would laugh raucously when she'd hear me or see me. Slowly I'd wake up, realize why she was laughing and pointing at me and I'd get mad. I mean, I felt enraged as I awoke realizing how stupid I was being. It's not like I did anything about it. What could I do. It's good to have a mom and a dad together, as in married, not divorced, so they can correct and balance one another out.

When I first was married I jumped clear out of the bed from a dead sleep once, crouched on the floor, and told my husband to LOOK OUT THEY'RE COMING! He was was afraid he married a lunatic! We kid about it now. At the time I was terribly embarrassed. After a bad dream, if he tried to comfort me I'd get very irritated. He was bewildered with me. He was always very sweet to me about it though. I never felt bad with him. I never do feel bad with him.

If kids sleepwalk or sleeptalk they ought to be comforted back to sleep.

Contentedness

I had such a nice day. Didn't get out of my pajamas until 4:30pm. I did a search on the Web and found out my fancy-dan yarn is hard to knit. Duh. I was up till 3:00am trying to K1 *YO, K2tog* K1. I love doing yarnovers. They feel good. Knitting two together is harder though. Easy, but hard. Anywho, I blink my eyes and a slew of stitches slip right off my needle. That's not a good thing. So I had to change out of my pajamas and into real clothes to go to the store for knitting needles. Found out there are none to be had in this town. None a'tall. Well, it's a beeny (as in teeny) town.

So I have to get some wooden knitting needles to provide some friction and to slow down that lattice yarn. Also, I've deduced that larger needles are required. The size 9 simply will not make big enough loops for the pattern even if I knit loosely, so I'm having my husband get me size 17 (13mm) tomorrow. Hopefully he'll make a morning run to Cruces. It's only 70 miles away. Heh. Well, Mamma must have wooden size 17 needles.

On my drive to town some guys in a truck waved at me. I didn't know them. I'm from the city so I consider waving very suspicious behavior.

We have the shiniest truck in the county. I could swim in the shine of this truck. Husband washed and waxed it. I did the tires and wheels and put baby oil on all the black parts. I do miss city driving for showing off purposes. Yeah, that's really deep, I know. Here, we go driving and just get dusty.

Went jogging the other day and two guys said "Aye-chi-wah-wah" when I went by! Either it was a comment about the 1971 retrofitted camper van they were looking at, or 1959 me. I have no idea if it was a complimentary or derogatory exclamation, but it was said with feeling. In either case, my hair was in a bun held on by a sun visor. I run in a bun. :)

Son did a science experiment. He's studying the Rocks And Minerals unit. Crystals grow smaller if they cool faster and larger if they cool slower so he makes up his hypothesis (that means prediction) and he tests it. Husband spilled the glass with epsom salt that was in the fridge. Saltwater in my hiking boots, all over the inside of the fridge, down the outside of the fridge to the floor, and across the floor. Lucky for me I was gone when it happened. So now we have to do half of the experiment over again, not that our son will mind but I do.

Waning gibbous moon with craters

Send send send

Bloggerbot is giving me fits tonight.

Okay, I got a moon with craters tonight.

A knitter's prayer

I'm interested in making a prayer shawl. I found a prayer by Janet Bristow. This is the part I like best (it's not the complete prayer). It's good for knitting anything, not only shawls. I had a beautiful white prayer shawl once when our son was about three. He liked to sit and pray with me when he saw me use it. The dog chewed it up one day. It's not the same wearing your beautiful shawl after the dog chomps a few slobbery holes in it.

The idea of knitting prayers into a shawl appeals to me enormously. I like to find ways to incorporate prayer into our everyday life. Such a small thing like lighting a candle at dinner each night and saying "Jesus is the light of the world" keeps my family mindful in an everyday way that the soul transcends this earthly life. I want prayer to be everydayish for my family. I don't want it to be done only at night, in bed, alone before drifting off to dreamland. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I do it! Prayer is supernatural, but I want it to feel natural to my family.

When I get a cashier that I can't stand, like the one who rolled her eyes and spoke rudely to my husband, or when we got the cashier in the restaurant who rang us up and talked with her mouth full of food, I pray for them. It almost always works. I don't know how, it just does. At the very least it keeps me from having a minor meltdown! People sometimes behave awful because there's something bad in their life. Praying for them is like watching someone's mouth when they speak. Sometimes when people are speaking to us, we aren't really listening. We think we are, but it's not unusual to actually be collecting our own thoughts and forming our own reply while the speaker is talking, and thus we're not truely listening but thinking of how we will respond while we're listening. That's not really listening.

Tonight my son asked to learn how to knit! He adds depth and breadth to my everyday thoughts.

Good God

Guide me through the

knots,

kinks,

dropped stitches,

split yarn,

shredded fringe,

dye lot mismatches,

pattern mistakes,

errors,

and the myriad other “issues” that get in the way of my centeredness!

*

Help me to see that these annoyances:

knotted emotions,

kinked plans,

dropped dreams,

split relationships,

shredded hopes,

mismatched friendships,

mistaken assumptions,

errant goals

are actually metaphors of life!

Gull and moon

November's full moon 

Um, [cough] I still have five inches to go on my scarf. I don't know what happened to the day. Homeschooling took longer. I planned to visit Reta for a half hour and I was there two hours. Luckily my husband cooked crockpot stew and found fresh sourdough at the store so I came home to a piping hot plate. She's busy tomorrow and I don't know how to bind off. She can't see me till Wednesday.

The digital SLRs are coming down in price. They're looking mighty sweet. Do I want a sewing machine with serge or a camera? I don't know. The SLRs don't have 12X zoom though. I have to have big zoom. I took this moon pic last night since it was full and gorgeous and it called us to come outside. A gull was flying by. I barely (bang my head against the table) missed him flying past the moon. This is the best I can do with the moon. I'd hoped I could improve upon my moon pics of last year but this is it. My lil' camera, this is as good as she can do. I can enlarge it but at 100% it's slightly jaggy. I'm not a fan of the jaggies. I also missed a boat zooming through the reflection of the moonlight on the water. Bummerrrrr!

10:30pm - Knitting done! Now, how to bind off...

So close to done

I have five inches to go on my scarf! Of course I will take a picture of it when complete. At 3:30pm I'm goin' to Reta's house (that's Rita with an 'e') and she'll show me how to bind off and fold the bottoms up to make pockets. I'm so excited.

I already have yarn for my next scarf and I'm looking at it the whole time as I'm knitting this one. It's like candy in front of me. I think I will decide who it's for as I knit it. I will wait and let the knitting tell me who it belongs to. Perhaps it might be for my daughter-in-law-to-be?

Also, I'm going for my walk/jog now. I never do it in the morning. Hate the morning jog! But it's getting dark so early and I don't think I can visit with Reta, make dinner eat dinner, and jog all in the space of 4:00 to 6:00pm.

Going to give our son a 30 minute working break which gives me time to jog. All our campers are gone (we have ten in our row) so he and his daddy can go and rake and clean up sites for new campers while no one is here. It goes on his volunteer timesheet that he hands in each month!

This week we even had campers from Switzerland! Their English was good, with an accent. It sounded so neat. They had their rig shipped over here for $4,000.00. Wow! I'm disappointed that they left already.