I love a good bio

I'm fond of people who don't take themselves too seriously especially when you know they're fully qualified to do so. I've visited 3Quarks often but never looked up the contributors till today. From 3QuarksDaily:

Ram Manikkalingam
Ram Manikkalingam is currently gainfully unemployed. He has been a physicist, a radical activist, a political analyst, a political theorist, a presidential advisor, a beggar, a funder, and of course a slacker. He speaks four languages badly (and none of them are Urdu, Hindi or Punjabi). He likes to think he is a black New Yorker and a leftist Sri Lankan, but his friends and enemies say he is really a WASP from Boston. He writes for 3QD because he is unemployable.

Hey, I'm gainfully unemployed! I can't wait to say it when the opportunity arises. I already know what my husband will say. "And how long have you been waiting to use that one!"

Girls need help coping with media sex machine (link)

Article at Mercury News.
"In the end, it's up to parents and girls to take a hard look at the "Britney-ization" of girlhood and talk about it. Are these pictures telling you how you should look? Or, as Tolman suggested asking Britney-bewitched girls, "What are the things Britney Spears is good at? Does she have a good relationship with her family? Is she happy?"

Missed appointment

Can't believe it. The girl who scheduled me was supposed to tell me to come in early to fill out forms. Luckily I remembered her name and she was embarrassed. Fat lot of good it did me though because they still wouldn't see me. Okay, I was five minutes late. But still, the receptionist said I should have been told to arrive early. Oh well.

They sent me next door and next door was able to fit me in tomorrow at 3:00pm. I get to have a burning sensation until tomorrow.

I found a funny Bible verse. What? Humor in the Bible? Yes indeed, and in Jesus' own words. It's a good one for people who are pointing out your shortcomings when they have their own selves they ought to think about. Check this...

Book of Luke 6:41 - Amplified Bible
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice or consider the beam [of timber] that is in your own eye?

or

Book of Luke 6:41 - King James Version
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Hahahahahaha! I love it. I found it for myself to remind myself not to get puffy with my sister.

The Man from Snowy River

I have a bladder infection. Can't see the doc until tomorrow at 9:00am. Thank heaven for that AZO over the counter medicine. The discomfort is not so bad. I can wait till tomorrow in relative (not perfect) comfort.

So since I wasn't feeling too hot, after my husband went to the store and bought me the AZO yesterday I decided I wanted to lie in bed and watch tv. Well, we don't have a tv so the closest we have is watching the computer. It works great though! My son set up the machine and popped in the Aussie film The Man from Snowy River for me. It's a fantastic movie. It contains a couple bits of profanity but my son didn't care to watch it so it was just me, myself, and I. The braided bun on the aunt is fabulous. I love it. I want one! (Yeah, in my dreams.) And the horses running scenes are all magnificent. My husband sat with me and watched that part. There's a love story too and I like that a lot. Young love. Impetuous love. It's one of the best movies ever made. And those dusters all the cowboys wear too. Yes!

Cute link

Photo at Post Secret. Postcard picture of a girl saying she's never said a curse word in her life. See, there's hope for everybody!

English braid

It's ridickerous, as Tigger would say. I know not to brush my hair too much when it's beyond four days postwash, but I read about a girl who brushed hers daily and was doing NW. So what did I do? I brushed mine. Upset the status quo of my scalp and needed to wash my hair that evening. The good news is, for once, I did a successful scalp wash. I used the plastic hook (it's on a suction cup so I can move it) for my washcloth and hooked my braid up to it instead and it held my hair up high enough so I could wash just the top of my hair without wetting the whole length. It worked. lol! Usually, no, always, when I try to do a scalp wash with a bun and put plastic over it, my hair still gets wet. Frustrating. My bun just wicks up the water like crazy. I'm going to try the hook again and see whether it works a second time or whether it was a fluke incident.

My hair is in an English braid today. It feels nice. Son measured me last night and I'm 36" now. One more inch and I'm where I left off a couple months ago. Yay.

Lent is going pretty well. My husband hasn't cursed a single curse since Wednesday. That's what he gave up for Lent. I was having a tizzy and said I couldn't believe he'll be not cussing for 40 days. Every day I tell him how many days we have to go. Haha! Not cursing is very hard to do. I went for a few months once, then one popped out of my mouth all by itself and ruined my perfect record. More recently, I'm starting anew too often. Seems I get tripped up at about the two week mark. That's twice a month. If I make a boo-boo I start over again. I don't say "Fudge" or any substitute words either because I know what the substitute word is substituting for, so I don't do it. It's majorly hard. It's highly challenging. Once I even cussed in front of my computer, all by myself, as in alone, in the middle of the night. Couldn't blame it on anyone but myself. Then I was really perturbed. It almost nearly made me curse aloud even worse a second time! Almost, but not. I know a guy in Tennessee, he's in his 40's. Never cusses. Ever. The worst he ever says is "Mercy!" He gives me hope.

Nita, thanks for the borax tip! Husband bought some and we'll see if it whitens up our whites.

Three for Lent

Somebody joined us in Lent last night. My husband. This is a first. This is historical!

Here we are

It's the beginning of Lent. Besides staying off of my computer after 6:00pm every night, I'm also staying off a stinkin' celebrity blog called Faded Youth. It's such trash. Since I'm embarrassed to admit to anyone that I read it, it's not in my bookmarks. I'd google it to view it. Well it's makin' my soul odiferous! Time to freshen up my heart.

Yesterday I bought two cute tops. One is black and has a little peplum, small front buttons, v-neck, 3/4 sleeves, and was on sale. I only wish it were cotton, but it's polyester I think. I like black though. The other top I got is actually a vest and I got a top with one of those built-in bras to wear underneath. I got some cute bras. Turns out the skivvies don't look that great on me. Pfft. What I need to know is how to keep my whites white. My step-mom was able to make whites blindingly white. Me on the other hand, I buy cute white unders and in two months they're gray. I hate that. Can't stand to wear them if they're not white. We use bleach. What's up? I'm at my wits end.

I wanted some Levi 519s but they are still out. I forgot about the craft sticks completely. Got the avocado oil, more shea (not a tester jar even), and the Giovanni shampoo and conditioner I wanted.

My husband got Sirius! It works super duper. He said he got it for me. I didn't know I wanted it, but I like it. Haha! I'm listening to "Turn the Page" by Bob Seger. I didn't realize how much I'd missed radio. It has no commercials too. You can't beat that.

There are grackles in the front yard, a few quail, and one bunny. I love them so.

Wednesday begins Lent

I think I'm going to give up computer time. I think from 6:00pm on, I will stay off my machine completely. That will be hard! Son is giving up candy but he says he wants to think of a second thing to do also because last year he gave up candy and it wasn't that difficult for him. I was surprised. I thought he'd have a challenging time with it but he didn't. I guess he's like his daddy that way. My husand is a beer drinker and always has been. Even when he prepared for a marathon he drank beer. People couldn't believe it! When he was in a car accident he couldn't drink of course, and he didn't have a bit of a problem not, so, go figure.

The best thing about yesterday is that we decided to add a prayer time to our day. All three of us. That means my husband included. At church our pastor said the average Christian prays 45 seconds per day. My son insisted we have to increase our prayer time. But when to do it? We had to decide. We can't do it before dinner because we say grace and my husband is a real stickler for eating dinner hot. He has a fit if we pray too long before dinner already. So we three settled on after dinner. And not only did we pray after dinner (together, woohoo!) my husband said he wanted to do a Bible reading. And he did. He chose to read a chapter from Job. Remember John Kerry? News media set him up so bad once. Asked him what was his favorite part of the Bible, New Testament or Old. He says new. Okay. Then they asked him what his favorite book in the Bible was. He says the Book of Job. lol! Job is in the Old Testament of course.

We're off to Las Cruces for the day. Each of us has a list. I need Oil of Olay SPF moisurizer, a few clothes, some avocado oil, and Giovanni hair products, and craft sticks.

Monday

Boy, my post on multitasking yesterday stunk.

Choked a little

This morning, I've no idea how, I swallowed my coffee wrong and I had to run to the sink and spit it out and then I was coughing really bad and trying hard to catch my breath. I'm completely lame. I accidently spit, forcefully spewed really, half of my coffee onto my computer screen and keyboard. It was really disgusting. My son was sweet and wiped up the table while I was in the bathroom coughing up a lung and when I walked out my husband says, "Went down the wrong pipe, huh?" He was unfazed. So now he's seen me have a baby, have the flu really bad, and choke on a miniscule bit of liquid. He still kissed me today too. Man, I'm glad I was at home at least. It would be terrible if that happened in front of people. The last thing I typed before my incident was xklxldkj so you know I went completely out of control. I'm going to swallow very carefully now. Later in the morning I tripped over the heater cord in the living room while carrying my coffee and spilled some on the carpet and the kitchen cabinets. Anything the opposite of dainty, that was me today.

My child, except for the action stated above, has been, how do you say, haughty and ill-behaved this week. This afternoon I grabbed his hand and smacked it several times. I really wanted to yank him by the ear, hit his knuckles with a ruler, spank him, and make him kneel on beans, but he's too big. Afterwards, he bucked up and was a different boy. When you're in an small space, and one person is mean and nasty, it makes the whole family and the whole trailer upset. He has been so unpleasant lately with the back talk as in always having one more thing to say. I must have impressed him today because after school he said, "Mamma, I'm going to be better next week. I've been rude this week." He surely has. I told him the proof is in the pudding. This evening he cut his own fingernails and toenails and laid out his clothes for tomorrow neatly. I asked him where my son is because there is a pod person here who looks exactly like him. He laughed. It disappoints me to see my good boy behave badly. He does it at home, not out and about as far as I know. I think like most of us, he saves his worst for his family.

We saw one roadrunner give another roadrunner a stick today. Well, my husband saw it, not me. You know what that means in roadrunner language? Love. It means the male is asking the female to make a nest with him! But she didn't accept it. I sat in the yard (we call the sand in front of our trailer our yard) and the female sat on a pile of wood only three feet away from me for a long time. We were communing. It was cool. We had a watermelon sky sunset. Haven't seen a real good one for awhile. The day was warmish and beautiful.

I have to get up early for work tomorrow. Blech. We need a vacation. Haha!

I almost forgot. I can make a logroll now. I just couldn't understand how to do the twisty thing to make a logroll even though I read the instructions and have tried many times without success for the longest time. Suddenly it came to me. It stays up very well with a stick and feels very snug. Good hairdo!

Sandhill crane coming in for landing

He's a very big bird! Cute legs! They have a six foot wing span.

I saw a few snow geese today

And they were magnificent. They're so small in the picture but there were hundreds and they were all making noise. They flew right over our heads. It was like National Geographic on tv but a hundred times better. They fly from the north end to the south end of the lake every night to roost. They're safe from predators in the water.

Thanks for helping me fix my pixels Lee Jay. :)

It's chilly

Today I'm going with friends to Bosque Del Apache to take sunset pictures. It's cold though so I'm going to have to dress warmly. I'm torn because I don't know my new camera as well as my old one. I can get better pictures with my old one, except for sports shots. I can't freeze anything in place with my S2IS but my dSLR does it superbly. But then maybe I should do a short movie when we see the birds take off to roost for the night, instead of photos. It's supposed to be quite a sight and sound. I think I will go and enjoy the experience and take some pictures, instead of telling myself I'm going for pictures. Yeah, I'll use reverse psychology on myself. Sometimes I can take a whole set on my dSLR and none are good because I've used a wrong setting, but then how will I improve if I continue to lean on my old one because I know it better.

Our son got 100% correct on his spelling test today. It's the first time this year. A few times he's been close but made a thoughtless error, such as transposing letters, so he'd get one wrong. Those are the kind of mistakes you hate most of all! He's pretty proud of himself.

I received a wonderful, long email from my daughter-in-law to be. She's working a second job to save money for the wedding, so she's working a full time job plus a part time one. This young lady is not afraid of work. She shared with me all the stuff she's gotten done for the wedding day and all the stuff she still has to do. My gosh, I had no idea there was so much to do for a wedding!

I'm cotton headed today. Having to clear my throat often, but coughing rarely. I feel like an old person reporting on my health. It's so boring but I have a new appreciation of how good it feels to feel good and how I take feeling good for granted. Say, how often do you think of your pinkie toe or your gall bladder? Never. You don't think of them at all unless they stop working. Well, my pinkie toe is fine and my gall bladder too, I only have generalized malaise. It makes me think.

Wednesday

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to volunteer I go.

I could feel better, but I could feel worse!

In any case, Bank of America is now issuing credit cards to illegal aliens. People in L.A. are closing their accounts.

Money, money, money, money!

I'm almost better

Today my husband said, is the first time he's seen my smile for a week. Was I that bad! All through the night last night and today I had a really bad headache. It hurt so much. I think it was a sinus headache? I did a shortened homeschool day because my head just hurt too much. I didn't even feel like getting on my computer because my eyeballs hurt too. I wanted to pop them out and place them in a cool stream of fresh, clean water, like a babbling brook with icy mountain water, then plink! plink! put them back in my head all cooled off and refreshed. That would feel so good.

I took a nap from 3:00 to 5:00pm and suddenly I felt a lot better. My headache was gone and my head some cleared up. So I took a walk to the lake. My ears got cold. It felt like a dog was biting my ears they got so cold! But there were no dogs, of course. It was the cold wind.

My dad's wife called soon as I walked in and wouldn't you know it, I sounded like death warmed over.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I'm so happy to not be ill. A week seems like a very long time when it's a bad week.

Mwah! to my readers. (That means I blew you a kiss, minus the evil virus.) You're the best!

I'm still sick

I have one of those morphing viruses. Now I have a stuffy head and the coughs and runny eyes. I'm working yesterday and today. Yesterday I got through work pretty well but when I came home I was wiped.

We have some chores to do before we go in to work so I can't type much now. Am working on reading an article at the L.A. Times about the Riverside area in Southern California. That's where we're from. What happening there - is gonna happen everywhere. It's only a matter of time.

A lesson in change

Mexican illegal immigrants are turning the education system upside down. And what do you think will happen with these youngsters. Many are going to drop out of school. They are bringing nothing of value to our country. They come here and have many children. Our president is failing at protecting our borders. Check out the Roman Empire and you can read the future. The Mexicans aren't like previous immigrants from Austria, Ireland, Germany, England, Italy, Poland etcetera, who wanted to assimilate and wanted to learn Engish as soon as possible. They don't want to be Americans, they only want to take what America has to offer because we take care of, or try to take care of, our poorest poor. The Mexicans are driving our country down.

Common sense lesson from Science of Life 101 when I was in college in the '80s. Two Americans have two babies. Two Mexicans have 4, 6, 8 or more babies. What's the future look like?

Well, it ain't the future anymore. It's now.

Gotta love Ronnie

And the evil empire!

Soviet monument to make way for Reagan: report

Vickie aka Anna Nicole

She was a Playboy bunny and that was her claim to fame. CNN is headlining of all things, an email titled Anna Nicole charmed us. One of MSNBC's related headlines is Why we liked Anna Nicole Smith.

Surely the definition of charming is being misconstrued. Anna Nicole was repugnant. She was graced with physical beauty and even that, she wasted. When she spoke, no beauty came out of her mouth. She was self-misogynistic and played herself out. I watched part of her show on tv once. Five minutes of her was all I could take even when I watched tv a lot. But millions watched her I guess, and laughed at her self-destructive tendencies. Or maybe they marveled at her fabulous celebrity life.

She took a wrong road, one of several in her life, when she decided to pursue money. She married for money and I think she should have gotten some, but the amount she seemed to want was far too much. Extended litigation is not good for human beings. It makes the bad all the more rotten. I think she harbored guilt over her son's death five months ago. She knew she done him wrong, and she would have enjoyed the money if he was alive but without him to share it with, she let go. I think her baby girl wasn't with her because she was feeling like letting go. I think the other man is the baby's father. I have nothing to base that on, just a guess. DNA and time will tell. She was such a pig of a woman and she shamed her poor son so badly when they were alive!

I don't know why I feel sad about her being dead. I. Just. Do.

A hair compliment

Aw, I got one today. I was outside drying my hair and one of the rangers drove by and waved to me and later in the office he told our son that he didn't know my hair was so long and beautiful. Golly gee. It was so sweet of him to say and so nice of my son to tell me. It's a wonderful world.

The chicken soup turned out well. I feel okay. Tomorrow I expect to wake up and feel pretty good. My voice has been low for three days and it would be nice to have my voice back. We washed the bedsheets and dried them outside and I took a long shower at the comfort station, so all those bad viruses are washed away!

My hair did turn out pretty today. Very straight. I'm happy with it today and I love to dry it outside in the sunshine. I haven't been able to do that for a couple months.

Sick still

Am I the first one up? I didn't sleep very well last night because every time I'd fall asleep my thoat closed a little and made me make a noise, and that would wake me up.

We're only doing spelling and handwriting today. That's all I can do. When I do something simple like shake out the rugs I'm completely spent afterwards. Sheesh. I have no idea how I avoided this bug both times when my husband and son had it, and then I pick it up somewhere all by myself in February.

I dreamt of roadrunners. I like the two roadrunners a lot.

Sore throat

I'm still sick. Boo. It's turning into a teeny bit of a cough too. I have to teach anyway.

Big news in the city, and I use the term city loosely. It's a little larger than a village. I think I've mentioned that meth is a problem in the community? Well it's a problem everywhere in the U.S. but the paper ran a story about a person who was busted for laundering a check and rewriting it out to herself for a lot more money.

We volunteers knew something was going on but had no idea what. Apparently money and checks were getting stolen from the metal state park pay tubes but employees have remained tight lipped about it. The whole story is in the newspaper now!

A cancelled check was returned to the bank and then to the rightful owner who recognized it (even though it had been washed) as being a check he wrote to a state park. Big break, but not the biggest. The woman who cashed the check, she wrote her actual driver's license number on the front of the check. Police found her, and a whole lot more. Police credit cards and debit cards and checks at the house. Turns out more people are involved and they've been doing this statewide and these fine people live right here in this tiny little town. Wow. Don't ever think criminals are not in your state and national parks. They're everywhere. The group here is even credited with stealing a dually and trading it straight across for meth.

Our son just received an impromptu geology lesson outside from a camper who who wrote a book about gems and minerals and goes to schools to talk to kids sometimes. He has some grandkids who are homeschooled. Did we luck out or what. He gave us some big old pieces of mica. I love mica! He also gave our son a piece of amethyst and black tourmaline. Tourmaline is cool too. The guy is from Maine and he says there are lots of gems and minerals to be found in Maine.

Uh oh, sore throat

Oh no, I have a sore throat today. I came down with it yesterday late morning. It's small but not that small. I feel tired too. I'm not homeschooling because I can't talk very well. Son is a happy pappy about that piece of news. You'd think he's a prisoner set free for the day or something. He gave me a kiss and a hug and everything. Why I oughta...

Refund coming

I found my Canon camera rebate papers! They were right where I left them, in my notebook in the back. I called Canon to ask for a fax number to send in another copy of the warranty card they say they never received. I told them I'm sure I sent them a copy and it's no problem for me to send them another. It's the funniest thing. Then the guy said he approved my rebate and there was no need to mail in the duplicate. I should receive my check in 4 - 6 weeks. It's supposed to be $240.00. I have to call again to confirm that amount because while I was on hold my cell phone went dead.

Now isn't it peculiar that all I had to do was say I had a duplicate to mail them, and then the clerk said nevermind? Just think...had I never phoned, I'd have never received my rebate. Canon would have kept my rebate. I think something stinks in Canon's rebate department.

And thank goodness for the Web. I read how a lot of people were having trouble getting their rebates from Canon so I was real careful, dotted all my i's and crossed all my t's, before I submitted my paperwork. They asked for a copy of the the warranty card, rebate form, original UPC code from the side of the box (I had to use a box cutter to cut it out), and a copy of the sales receipt. A whole lot of customers had paperwork lost or never received by Canon. Yeah, right. A few people, sure, I can understand that, but there are too many complaints from customers. Canon just doesn't want to honor all the rebates. It's definitely a good rebate and worth follow-up for the customer.

Week-end done

Yesterday I wore my hair to work in a high pony tail. I got two comments! One was from my husband so okay, that one doesn't count. He gave me a compliment and he's biased. The other was from a camper who said she'd remember me because of my long pony. That one was a comment. I think the pony tail style was good for my face. Pulling all my hair high up on my head is like a face lift. Yeah, yeah. I need only a leetle bit more pull to get rid of my under-the-chin-waddle and I'll be set! I just need one super power pony tail. Tomorrow I'll give it a go.

Today I wore my hair in a modified pretzel bun. Very twisty and it turned out kind of pretty. I wished I could have washed it for church, but oh well. I could barely get out of bed at 8:45am as it was. I have to wake up an hour before I go anywhere anymore in order to give my face time to de-puffalize. It's tough being 47. I'm not kidding.

My hair is 35. 75" long. I need to put my hair data back on my sidebar. Don't know if I can place it next to my profile pic like I want to. I'm waiting to get back to 37" then I will be back where I was before I trimmed it.

Today a lady came in to buy an annual camping pass. It's a real good deal in New Mexico. I noticed her birth year on her driver's license was exactly the same as mine, 1959. But egads, I wondered if I looked that old. I don't know. I hope not, but I don't know. I also sold a day pass to a young woman who had her neck tattooed all the way around - and it wasn't hearts and flowers either. Another vehicle had four young people in it. The girls in front were hitting each other about the head and face while arguing about the $5.00 admission fee and then the passenger grabbed at the br**sts of the driver. They both looked at me and laughed as if they were really funny. Can you say, offensive.

At church today I gave $ to the offering. Truthfully, I don't tithe. A tithe is giving ten percent of your gross income. I don't have an income, but my husband does. I give $80 to $100 a month. Today I also gave an offering though. Tithing is your 10% and an offering is anything you give above that amount. My offering to the Lord today was the cash I had planned to use to get my nostril pierced.

I've wanted a piercing for a long time. Since last summer seriously, and since the 90s for reals. I thought, why not! I think they're beautiful. I'm not getting any younger. I've always been shy about my big nose and now that I've accepted that it's mine and it's not getting any smaller, I figured I'd celebrate it. Put a diamond in it! But it's not exactly a Christian thing to do. I did a little research and in fact, it's a totally pagan practice. This made me angry actually because it caused me to think more deeply about poking beautification holes in my body. I really wanted to poke some holes in it. It's a rush. But it temporal, isn't it? The rush of getting pierced, or getting a new tat, is fleeting. It fulfills the fleshly desire, yes. Absolutely. But it passes too quickly. Soon you want one more piercing and another tattoo. I know this. It's much like material possessions. You get some. You like them. You want some more. You get more. Then there's something else you want. Newer, bigger, better than what you already have. And it goes on and on. It goes on and on because things, much like body modifications, do not satisfy.

And so I decided, with some biblical backup freely donated by my grrrlfriend, Fox, to opt out of the piercing. She's brutal with the Bible knowledge, you know. She's so well educated in the books of the Bible and very familiar with Holy Scripture. She never did thrust it in my face, she just put it out there and let it set, that was all. There's an art to doing that, I think.

Now, every time I think of my decision not to pierce, I get a little rush. Don't know how long it'll last, but I like it.

In my home I have almost no religious items. No crosses on the wall, no Jesus sayings on the fridge, no angel figurines, no holy pictures, but I have one thing. In second grade our son made a pencil holder which has a 2"x3" picture of Jesus glued on it. It's one of those stereotypical European Jesus pictures? Looks like Jesus has some blond highlights in his hair! Well, I said it was stereotypical. It's dear to me because our son made it. It's in the living room on his school books shelf. I bought myself a 3" sterling silver crucifix that I love but I haven't made it into a necklace or anything so I've never worn it. I also have a cross inside a key necklace (Jesus is the key, get it?) and the cross is about 1/4" of an inch in length. You have to really look to see it. I used to wear it all the time, but I never do anymore. From time to time I have wanted to get an ornate cross or something religious for our home, usually after I've seen something at someone else's house, but my husband was not for it. Actually, he said no. But then, I agreed with him. I realized that the religious decorations I'd seen often were displayed in homes where spiritual nourishment was not a part of daily of family life.

And so I hope readers are not put off by the obvious religious leaning in my blog design. Honestly, I wanted to use little red crosses for my sidebar icons but I held off. lol! 1Thessalonians 5:17 is my life verse. In my everyday life, I bear no outward signs to draw attention to my religiosity; no veil, no religious jewelry or tee-shirts. I'm just me. I hope the I AM that is within me will be enough to show through.

My letter from Jules

This is the email Jules wrote to me (and I asked her if I could post part of it here). It fits me to a tee! I keep a very tight heart. But lots of people keep a tight heart, don't you think? After reading this, I suddenly felt less at loose ends.

There was something you wrote recently that prompted me to reply, but I've just not got around to it. You might have already resolved it - or perhaps it didn't bother you as much as I thought - but I just wanted to respond anyway.

You mentioned that you couldn't pinpoint a day and time when you were saved. I had a friend who grew up in the church and for a long time this used to bother her too until someone pointed out that for some there is a slow progression from unbelief to belief that's not apparent until afterwards and then it's impossible to pinpoint the exact moment it occurred.

I think C. S. Lewis is one 'famous' Christian who also had a similar experience. The important thing is knowing that we are saved and the Holy Spirit testifies within ourselves that we belong to Him. On the other hand, it's also important that we don't deceive ourselves and say we're Christians when we're not.

(((Thanks Jules.))) Thank you for the assist. I've taken a big step, a giant sized leap forward. And I am still on my feet.

Finished book

Last night I finished reading The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks. Good ending, a little unexpected, but I have to say the rest of the book was too sappy and predictable for me.

Took a few more roadrunner pics and learned to take them in RAW format and how to open them and make minor adjustments. Am struggling with learning to do depth of field. It includes some math you know. I only took algebra about six times in college until I passed. I kid you not. If nothing else, I have determination.

We're working this afternoon and Blogger is have a scheduled outage at 11:00PST so I have to write quick. I'm feelin' a lot of love today. I feel good. On my 'puter (with new modem!) I went to K-earth 101 in San Diego, a station I used to listen to now and them. Got it streaming now. Crystal Blue Persuasion's on now.

I went to sleep last night thinking about universal truths. Jules wrote me the other day and, man, she rocked my world. She made something about being saved, so clear to me. See, most people have a specific time when they know they were saved. It can be a specific date or like a calendar year, say in 1975 or 2004 or whatever. Me, I got nuthin'. I don't have a date, a time, a month, a season, or even a year when it happened. So what do I do about this, I've been wondering.

Shoot, I have to get ready to go and post this before the outage too. I haven't combed my hair or anything. Will finish later. Jules is letting me post part of her email too. It's short. Short and sweet!

Have a splendid Saturday day, all day.

Oh and also, I renamed my 'Religion' labels to 'DyNaMiC Christianity.' Good?

The modem. Works.

And

all

is

well.

:)

New modem goin' in

Today will be either very good or very bad. It's a long, nightmarish story (our satellite connection doesn't stay online and we really don't know why) but we finally received our new, improved modem yesterday. It was delivered on the 18th to the BOAT MARINA. Duh. And no one down there bothered to bring it up to the office. We have no idea why the Fed Ex man delivered it down there nor why no one down there ever tried to find where it belongs. They just signed and kept a box that wasn't for them. The tracking number from Hughes (the company that used to be Direcway) had a digit missing so we were never able to track the package. My husband, he's the man! He found out who signed for the package, got in the truck, and tracked that thing down. He was gone an hour. I'm saying nothing about the clerical help at Hughes.net. One supervisor helped us, she rocked, but my husband placed, I exaggerate not, a dozen or more calls before he insisted on speaking with a supervisor. He read all the instructions yesterday and is installing the modem today. I'll either be back...or I won't.

I hope it works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh please, please work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wind advisory

It's still and quiet outside now. The weather report says we're supposed to get gusts up to 40mph. I like the wind mostly, but I learned to stay out of 40 mph winds. The first year we were here there was a windy day and unfazed by the wind I hiked down to the lake. On the way back I got my face sandblasted!

Had some winds come up yesterday and it blew the awning up over the roof. That's kind of like getting your leg bent the wrong way. We were lucky because we can replace a part and it'll be all fixed. Awnings are expensive if you have to replace the whole thing. I was standing outside thinking how to get the awning down and Judy just happened to be driving by. She's got a new dog! Cute brown little girl dog with two different colored eyes. Judy had a dog before we met her and it died. She didn't talk about it much but we knew she was pretty broken up about it. Judy helped get the awning down for me. She just pulled one side down with the rod and I got the other side. My husband drove up right then too.

The roadrunners didn't come by yesterday. Drats! But I figured out how to take a photo in RAW format and how to open it and fiddle with it. Photoshop has Bridge and Bridge can open them. Photoshop by itself doesn't open RAW. Also my software that came with the dSLR has RAW post processing software and I tried it out too.

Son learned a new word last night. Putrid. I'm sure we'll be hearing it all day today. Everyone will be hearing it.

Jules shared a thought with me about when I was wrestling with the question of when I was saved, or rather when was I saved and she shot me an email about it. I'll blog it later this week.

I almost forgot. Happy February!