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.