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.