Funny Fun Monday

Our host this week is Peter who would like to end the year on a light note. He would like us to share our favorite cartoon and/or joke. Here you go.

I could swear that I first heard this story/joke from Mel Tillis on an old talk show, like Mike Douglas or something. I cannot find any corroboration, though, and my mind is not what it once was. The host asked Mel if he had always stuttered and Mel said that he didn’t - that he only started stuttering after his grandma told him this story one too many times.

There were four little rabbits. They were named Foot, Foot Foot, Foot Foot Foot, and Foot Foot Foot Foot. One day, Foot Foot went to visit Foot. He found Foot at home, very ill. Foot Foot asked Foot what was wrong and Foot said he thought maybe he had eaten a bad carrot. Foot Foot asked Foot where he got the carrot and Foot told Foot Foot that he got the carrot from Foot Foot Foot. Foot Foot made Foot as comfortable as he could and then Foot Foot went to warn Foot Foot Foot about the carrots.

Foot Foot ran to Foot Foot Foot’s house, pounded on the door, and yelled, “Foot Foot Foot, Foot Foot Foot, come quick. There’s something wrong with Foot!”

Foot Foot Foot answered the door and asked Foot Foot what he was talking about. Foot Foot told Foot Foot Foot that he had been at Foot’s house and Foot was sick. Foot Foot Foot asked Foot Foot why? And Foot Foot told Foot Foot Foot that Foot told Foot Foot that he thought the carrots that Foot Foot Foot had given him were bad. At that, Foot Foot and Foot Foot Foot went back to Foot’s house.

Foot was dead.

Foot Foot and Foot Foot Foot buried Foot.

Then Foot Foot and Foot Foot Foot went running to Foot Foot Foot Foot's house. Foot Foot and Foot Foot Foot pounded on the door, yelling, “Foot Foot Foot Foot, Foot Foot Foot Foot, Foot Foot Foot Foot, open the door quick!” Foot Foot Foot Foot opened the door and told Foot Foot Foot and Foot Foot to come in quickly, as he, Foot Foot Foot Foot, was cooking stew. Foot Foot Foot asked him where the carrots were that he, Foot Foot Foot, gave to Foot Foot Foot Foot earlier. Foot Foot Foot Foot said they were in the stew. Foot Foot and Foot Foot Foot told him about Foot eating the carrot and getting sick and then dying and that they, Foot Foot and Foot Foot Foot, thought the carrots were bad. Foot Foot Foot Foot thought about this for a minute and then said that he was gonna take his chances.

Foot Foot, Foot Foot Foot and Foot Foot Foot Foot argued and argued but Foot Foot Foot Foot didn’t think the carrots were bad. Finally, Foot Foot Foot put his hands on his hips and said, “Foot Foot Foot Foot, you can’t eat the carrots! We’ve already got one Foot in the grave!”

How to Forward Email Appropriately

I know that this is a blog and not an email. However, I received this last week from a friend and it says, so much better than I could have, exactly what I have wanted to say all year long. Mind you, this is a bitch, and not a whine.

A friend who is a computer expert received the following directly from a system administrator for a corporate system. It is an excellent message that ABSOLUTELY applies to ALL of us who send e-mails. Please read the short letter below, even if you're sure you already follow! prope r procedures. Do you really know how to forward e-mails? 50% of us do; 50% DO NOT.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it?

Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses and names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every e-mail address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit.

That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel!How do you stop it?

There are several easy steps:
(1) When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward" button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message! . If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.
(2) Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or cc: fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address. If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients" in the "TO:" field of the people who! ;receive it.
(3) Remove any "FW:" in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.
(4) ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you sent.
(5) Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses. A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a perso! nal l etter than a laundry list of names and email address on a petition. (Actually, if you think about it, who's supposed to send the petition in to whatever cause it supports? And don't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced, it just aint so!)
(6) One of the main ones I hate is the ones that say that something like, "Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen." Or, sometimes they'll just tease you by saying something really cute will happen. IT AINT GONNA HAPPEN! (Trust me; I'm still seeing some of the same ones that I waited on 10 years ago!) I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed.
(7) Before you forward an Amber Alert, or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that's been circling the net for YEARS! Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at Snopes.com. Just go to http://www.snopes.com/. It's really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, please don't pass it on. Let's stop the junk mail and the viruses.

Finally, here's an idea! Let's send this to everyone we know (but strip my address off first, please). This is something that SHOULD be forwarded, or at least thrown out into cyberspace.

What I did on my Christmas vacation

Someone I used to work with asked me today what I really do at home. I lied and told him that I watch soap operas and play on the computer.

I also take some pictures now and then.

She was right!

I was re-reading some of my recent posts and was reminded of this story from when Julie was little, somewhere around three.

I used to talk a lot to my kids and not always appropriately. This was brought home one day when my mom was going on and on and on about something and Juls piped up with, "Bitch if you want, Grandma, but don't whine!"

Yeah, I took the mouthwashing and now I think I'll take the advice. So, sorry Wisconsin, but I'm think I'm through whining. Not through bitching, you understand, but hopefully through whining.

Things I Never Learned as a Child

My husband has always said that I grew up in an ivory tower. He is wrong. I evidently grew up in Camelot.

Let’s put aside the family dynamics (ooh, I'm regressing, that's standard issue Marin County psychobabble right there) - I am speaking here about weather.

I grew up in northern California - not the far northern part, where it snows, but the just over the bridge from San Francisco part.

Don’t get me wrong. We, as kids, whined about the weather then the same way kids do now. My mother used to sign us up for swimming lessons at eight o’clock in the morning every summer of my life. We complained so much about having to go swimming when it was 60 something degrees and that she was trying to kill us.

It did rain where I lived but it JUST rained. There were no torrential downpours. There was no thunder. There was no lightning. There were very few STORMS. It just rained. Rain fell.

There was fog. There was a lot of fog but it was soft and moist and enveloping. It crept in like a pet who has been out and about and is trying to be unnoticed until it is already there. I just reread that sentence and my apologies to Carl Sandberg.

From http://www.usacitiesonline.com/, I copied this:
Climate:
The county generally has a temperate, marine climate during the entire year. The winters are not cold, but with rain falling often. The summers tend to be warm and dry with fog along the coastal areas, particularly near the Golden Gate Bridge area. If traveling to this area, you will probably need a light coat or jacket in the evenings during the entire year.
Average Low: 46.0 (Kentfield)

Average High: 70.9 (Kentfield)

Average Temperature: 58.5 (Kentfield)

Average Rainfall: 48.5 inches (Kentfield)
Here is a weather page for Marin County

I did not grow up in Kentfield, but I did go to high school there.

So, fast forward a few years. OK, not a few years, just a few husbands. I moved to the Mojave Desert. Married my sweetie and he moved us to Nevada, near Lake Tahoe. Ooh, weather. For the first time in my life, I actually had 4 seasons.

Then he moved us to Texas. Texas - I was thinking dry, hot, warm - you know, like the cowboy movies, right? Sure, baby, whatever you think.

I still have 4 seasons. There is windy with rain showers, there is hot and windy, there is windy and hotter, there is windy with scattered snow and ice and sleet and frozen fog. Frozen fog? Who the heck even knew that fog would freeze? Not me!

I understand that my weather is not nearly as bad as those folks in the actual Midwest or Northeast or Rockies or even Scotland, for pity’s sake. But I am in Texas!

So, add to the things that I have learned since I moved to Texas this:

FOG FREEZES!

And not after it has become condensation on something - it freezes in the air!

The Christmas Story 2007

Most bizarre Christmas ever - and that’s going some!

Lil man was at his dad’s. This ended up being very good!

As previously reported, my sweetie was ill on Thursday and Friday. I was ill on Saturday and Sunday. We ventured out on Monday to pick up the last few things necessary for dinner.

Julie was supposed to be off Friday and Saturday, work Sunday and Monday, and then be off Tuesday and Wednesday. She ended up working 8 on Sunday, 16 on Monday, 16 on Tuesday and I don’t yet know what she’s doing today.

I had not planned on cooking Christmas dinner, just for Shorty and me. Not being pathetic - we had planned to spend the day going to Mass and then working on the house (the skirting is still not on!).

We decided that since Julie had to work so many hours over the holiday and since her lil man wasn’t home, the least that I could do was to, as a Christmas gift, make her the “softy salad” that is part of her Christmas tradition. It is my ex-mother-in-law’s recipe - not my favorite.

The salad led to the ham which led to the potatoes which led to the pineapple stuffing which led to the pumpkin pie which led to the raspberry pie…you get the idea.

I had a relapse Monday evening.

This led to me, lying in bed, trying to explain to my sweetie how to pull recipes out of the computer. I love my husband AND he is not the most adept at anything but the most basic of computer crap. He finally found the file and then

The power went out.

Our house is 100% electric.

So, 2 hours later, the power came back on. I was lying in bed, trying to explain to my sweetie that mixing butter and sugar together is CALLED creaming them and there is no cream involved and no, it is not supposed to be the consistency of cream and…

I got up and we cooked dinner together. Shorty then took dinner to Julie and came home. I went back to bed.

As long as I don’t move and don’t put anything in my stomach, I’m fine.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Y'all from Me and Mine!

Christmas Program

Friday morning, lil man had a Christmas program at his school. There was a "grandma" reading the Christmas story from the Bible. Originally, the other 19 kids were supposed to just sit and listen. Uh huh. They're 2nd graders. In the end, parts were assigned and lines were given. However, and this is a stroke of genius which I totally failed to capture on film, no costumes were required. Signs were made with the characters drawn on them. The Holy Family was there, the wise men were there, the shepherds were there (lil man was shepherd #1) and of course, there was a plethora of lambs and sheep and cows. When it was time for a particular character's line - the sign popped up, the line was spoken, the sign popped down. It was very cute.

The best line of the entire production, in my opinion, was NOT lil man's but was Joseph's. Mary explained to Joseph that God had come to her in a dream and said that she was to bear a child who would be the Savior. Joseph said that that was all well and good and maybe when they'd been together a couple of years and had a little money set by, she could do that. She said that she was already 'with child'. Joseph said, "YOU'RE WHAT?"

Sick

We had an uneventful trip to Abilene with the lil man on Friday (except for that self-inflicted tour of Lubbock) and a safe drive home.

It snowed Saturday morning or so my hubby says. I have been in bed with the creeping crud and have just surfaced for some "sick noodle soup".

If I don't blog before, Merry Merry Christmas to y'all!

Busy, busy, busy

We just finished opening our Christmas presents! Lil man has a "Christmas Theatre" presentation at school this morning and will then be dismissed at noon. His mom and I are then driving half way to his dad's house and meeting his dad for the 'Christmas vacation swap'.

So, since lil man will not be here till next year! we opened our gifts this morning. It is the only time that Grampits, Mom, Lil Man, and I could all be awake at the same time!

My poor hubby was sick all last night and insisted on going to work this morning, so he was not much in the gift-opening mode. Lil Man took him his presents while he was still in bed and Julie and I, such empathetic souls we are, started giggling and comparing him to the grandparents in the Willie Wonka movie...lol. Thank goodness he laughed, too.

It was a great morning, all in all, and I will post pics later but today I am at sixes and sevenses and just wanted to let y'all know where I disappeared to.

Worth Searching For

I love Christmas. I love Christmas movies. This is my all time favorite movie. It is Nestor, Long-Eared Christmas Donkey.

I first saw this movie in a truck stop, probably about 13 years ago. I fell in love with it but could never find it to buy. My husband, who never remembers what I want, tracked it down and bought it for me for Christmas the next year. It was, and is, the sweetest and most romantic Christmas gift he has ever given me.

It was on TV the other night and lil man and my daughter got to see it for the first time (Julie was already out of our house the first time I saw it). It is still a wonderful story, true to the Christmas story.

I love Christmas.

Heartbreak and Pride

**Tissue Alert**

When my girls were small and displaying a singular lack of compassion for each other, I made them sit down and watch Old Yeller, just to see if they were capable of crying. They were. I know that sounds horrendous but I am the mother of a child who rooted for the hunters in Bambi because, after all, Mom, it’s just part of God’s food chain.


On Tuesday, I spent the day Christmas shopping with my daughter in the “big town”. We shopped, had lunch, made it back in time to pick up lil man from school and take him to the dentist. We finished at the dentist with nothing other than a suggestion of waiting and letting nature take it’s course. We all went back to my house, since that’s where my daughter’s pickup was.


We got home and our neighbor pulled in behind us. She needed to talk to us about the 2 strays who hang around my house. They, along with the St. Bernard who actually lives at the scrap yard next to us, had been seen leaving the scene of a calf slaughter. Bad enough to have killed any calf, but this was a child’s 4-H project calf. This was some kid’s college money, pride, hard work, money, hard work, love and consistent attention to detail.


The dogs were not hungry. They killed strictly for sport. Unfortunately, now that they knew where penned up toys lived, it was even worse. They had to be destroyed.


Our neighbor, a truly gracious lady, asked lil man to go inside so that he would not be privy to any of this. Juls and I told her that we could catch Maggie but that lil man was the only person who could catch Mae. She went to get the necessary equipment and we went inside to talk to lil man. Julie explained to him what had happened and his eyes immediately welled up. He knew what was coming - we have never pulled punches about the value of livestock in a rural area. He toughed up and listened to his mom.


We got a leash around Maggie’s neck with no problem and sat on the stairs to wait for our neighbor. Lil man tried to get Mae but she just knew something was up. She was having no part of it. Finally, Juls had to leave for an appointment and asked lil man if he wanted to go with her or if he wanted to stay and help me. He chose, and God bless him for this, to stay and help me.


We got a dish of food for the dogs and Maggie ate some. Our neighbor returned and I carried Maggie (she didn’t fight the leash but she wouldn’t walk on it either) out to our neighbor.

Lil man sat quietly and waited for Mae to come out. She did and he slipped the leash over her head.


Have you ever seen The Man from Snowy River? There is a scene where they try to break a horse and it goes bonkers on them. Jumping, leaping, sun fishing, running, screaming. That was Mae. Mae and lil man weighed about the same. She freaked. He held. She dragged. He held. She went under the house. He held.


My neighbor and I ran to help lil man. I grabbed the leash and dragged Mae out from under the house. She was, needless to say, frantic; snapping and snarling. I held her around her middle while my neighbor loosened the leash which had, during the struggle, tightened. She calmed immediately. I picked her up and carried her out of the yard.


My neighbor took both dogs into the yard with the St. Bernard and did what needed to be done.

Lil man and I were talking about it. He said, and I couldn’t agree more, that as hard as this was, it was better than someone else trying to chase her down, scaring her and shooting her. We discussed the difference between pets and dogs. We discussed the value, in a rural community, of livestock and of dogs. We discussed how incredibly proud I was of him and what a man he was. Not a little boy any longer, but a man.

I used to watch old Westerns on TV. You know the ones - the Dad would ride off and leave the kid in charge, telling him that he was the “man of the house”. I always thought, yeah, sure, that poor Mom just got stuck with everything!


My opinion has changed. Sometimes little boys can be men.

PPL- Cinquain and Celebration

Want this button?Please scroll down for Fun Monday! Thanks.

What is Pensieve's Poetic License? A monthly carnival designed to encourage EVERYONE to exercise their poetry gene. Everyone is born with one; sometimes you just need "permission" (or a kick in the behind) to use it.

December: Form: Cinquain Theme: Celebration

Post poem week of December 17th

Here are my two (yes, I am an overachiever) contributions for this month on theme.

Celebration
Joyously happy
Singing, smiling, giving
My heart is overwhelmed
Salvation
Celebration
Sacred solemn
Observe, perform, honor
We participate in ceremonies
Christmas

Here is one I wrote before I knew this month's theme. It is a gift for my sweetheart.

Passion
Strong emotion
Surging retreating recharging
My soul sings entwined
Marriage

RIP - Dan Fogelberg

Fun Monday - My House and the Roads It Is On

This week, Kitten is our hostess. She would like to know the history of our house and the street we live on. My house doesn't have a whole lot of history. The best thing, the very best thing, about my house is that it's paid for. Whoo hoo!

We actually live in a part of this great country that is still implementing the 9-1-1 emergency response system. We lived for 17 years, almost to the day, in a field behind the company we worked for. There was no street address. My voter registration card actually read “US Hwy ** between FM **** and Progressive Rd”. It didn’t fit real well on the little line.

This last May we moved our house. No, we didn’t move into a new house. We moved our house. We now live on a real named Road with a real house number. I can actually have UPS and FedEx shipped to my house. I am so excited.

Here are some pictures of the move itself.

Our old address

Enroute

Our new address

The Suckiest Christmas Ever

The Irish have “the troubles”. In our family, we have “the bad times.” There were a few years, ok, more than a few when all was not goodness and light.


One of those years, my oldest daughter was at boarding school and my youngest daughter was living with her grandparents in a different state. I took time off of work to drive to my ex-in-laws to deliver Twidge’s Christmas presents.

About 2 hours from home, on the lovely drive (it really was) through the snow-covered mountains, I noticed smoke coming from the engine compartment of my car. I pulled over, popped the hood, and voila! My car was on fire.

A very nice trucker (at great personal risk) stopped his rig, hopped out with his fire extinguisher, and tried to put out the flames. The police came, the fire department came, a lot of lookie-loos came and, when it was over, my car was totaled, the gifts were burned, and I was in shock.

The very nice (I am surrounded, at all times, by very nice people. I think it’s part of that whole “God protects fools and drunks” thing) highway patrolman did tell me to not just use the on-call tow service since then my car would be there - 2 hours from home. He suggested that I call my local tow service. It would be a longer wait but at least the car - or should I say car-cass - would end up at home. I took his suggestion and he stayed with me as long as he could, but he got another call.

So, there I was. December, lovely snow-covered mountain road, smelly hulk of a burned-out car, sitting on the side of the road waiting on a tow truck. To say that I was feeling sorry for myself, and for the Twidge, who was waiting for me without any way of knowing what had happened, is putting it mildly. I was sitting there, just sitting there when, apparently out of nowhere, a very nice man appeared. He had walked up from his residence down the side of the mountain to bring me a cup of coffee and to make sure that I was all right. Angels among us.

The tow truck arrived and they had a cell phone - this was back in the day, y’all. Cell phones were a rarity and generally possessed only by those people who needed them for their jobs. Mort, the tow truck driver, asked if I wanted to call my husband. I did. I called and told my sweetie that there had been a problem with the car. Yes, I am the Queen of Understatement. His response? “What did you do to it this time?”

Not our most pleasant holiday, trust me.

Christmas Past

This is a picture of the Nativity scene in front of the City Hall in the town where I grew up. This picture, taken from the local newspaper, is from around the mid to late 70's when my girls were small. Attached to the City Hall was the Fire Department, where my girlfriend's dad had worked for as long as I can remember.

My parents lived in the same house, the house they built in 1941, until my dad died in 1998. At the time of this story, the girls and I lived in the neighboring county but visited my folks a lot, especially during the Christmas season.

I was driving home one evening with the girls and the 37 imaginary bluebirds that accompanied my oldest daughter everywhere. Thank goodness I had a pickup truck. It was raining and the weather was as close to winter as it ever got there. We were driving past the City Hall when my daughter screamed for me to stop. I did, you know that graceful way you stop when a 3 year old is screaming?

She was crying because the Baby Jesus was getting wet.

We took one of her sister's receiving blankets and covered the Baby as best as we could and went home.

I did not tell anyone this story but the word got out when my girlfriend's dad returned the blanket, washed and folded, to my mom.

All of the years after that, the Baby had his "swaddling clothes" when He was laid in the manger.

I have always been nurtured by small towns and the good folks who live in them.

7 Random Things

I was tagged by Robinella and Meg the Megnificent for 7 random things. I discovered doing this that, at my age, there are very few things left unknown!

The Tag Rules

1) Link to the person who tagged you.

2) Post the rules on your blog.

3) Share 7 facts about yourself.

4) Tag 7 random people and include links to their blogs.

5) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.


Here are my latest 7 things.

1. I am well loved (my husband told me to put this)

2. I got my first tattoo at 31

3. I came in 2nd in the county spelling bee in 7th grade

4. I have a black thumb

5. I was lost but now am found

6. I had read through the entire children’s section at our local library by the time I was in 4th grade

7. I love snow. I grew up in a part of the country that had NO weather. The sun shone. The rain fell. Once every two years or so, the wind blew. No thunder, no lightning, no hail, no snow, no ice. So, as sick as it seems, I LOVE living where there are at least two seasons - hot, dry wind and cold, rainy, icy, snowy wind.

That's it. And as my Christmas gift to all of the folks I would have tagged, tag - you're not it!

Can You Identify This? Update and Winner(s)

I actually had two winners on this. No, the answers did not come in simultaneously but they were both right and both specific - just specific in different places.



The megnificent Meg correctly identified this picture as:

"So Clay and I have been studying this picture for a greater part of the night. Clay has identified it as some sort of rare caliche from around town. Big dummy. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's rocks in your washing machine."


So true.


Then Laurie from one of my favorite blogs sent this:

"hmmmm.... it looks like a small dish of rocks.possibly agates. i'd venture a guess that they'resomething the l'il man found and you dug them out ofhis pants pockets when you were doing the laundry."



So true.



It is the rocks from ONE load of the small boy child's laundry, which I found after the load was done. It is, according to lil man, a rare form of caliche and he must save it. Anyone need any stonewashed denim?



Thanks to everyone for playing and, if that's what gallstones look like, I don't want any!



Laurie and Meg, if you could please email me your addresses, I will get your lovely parting gifts in the mail.

Tagged!

I was tagged by Debs for a meme.

The rules are: Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given below (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better:

Family: Blood Banks - Depositing and Withdrawing. Not too many graphic descriptions for the faint at heart!

Friend: Friends. Now how perfect was that title?

Yourself: Things Get Stuck in My Head. That's how this post came about.

Your Love: ...and so it began. This is the tale of how I met my husband who is my best friend. Our meeting was brought about by the girl (we will always be girls) who is my best friend. Y'all know you don't have just one best friend because then who the heck are you gonna talk to when you're mad at your best friend?

Anything: Why I Love Small Towns. Where else can you be held hostage and write about it the same day?

OK, I love this meme because a) it let me revisit some of my favorite posts and b) it reminded me that I write a lot of "oftentimes not" (please refer to header for meaning).

In the interest of the busy Christmas season, I am going to make this one a gift. If you want to do it, please do. Like I said, I really like it. If you are too busy and want to do it later, just stick it aside. If you just want to never do another post like this, just don't. And Merry Christmas!

Can You Identify This?

**********UPDATE**********

We have a winner. Y'all are more than welcome to keep guessing because you amuse me...especially, you Swampy, but we have a winner!

OK, I'm a little bored today so I thought maybe I would start a little contest. OK, I'm not bored, I'm on cold medication.

Here's the deal - between now and 24 hours from now (that would be 8:47 p.m. CST 12/14/07), please email your entries to me at sandy.swopes@gmail.com and I will let y'all know who the winner is shortly after that.

Here is a photo. Please identify, in detail, what it is. That's it.

Pity Party

This is a "poor me" post. I have a cold. I ache. I accidentally used the vicks-infused kleenex I had in my hand to wipe my bum while I was on the toilet (evidently I cannot blow my nose while peeing when I am on Thera-Flu!). There is a dead mouse somewhere in my house that only I (who cannot breathe) can smell. Lil man came home from school yesterday with lines to write.

And then there is my back. I have had a backache for the last couple of days.

Do you suppose this is why?

Every time I sit down, Buddy makes a flying leap from whatever perch he is on and LANDS right here, where he stays. I suppose I should just thank God that it's not Holly.

Does Good = Not Bad?

My husband and I actually escaped for a while today - just the two of us. We had to go and get my military ID card renewed before it expired next week and since the weather was not conducive to work today, it was a good day to go. I had to take my husband with me because he is my "sponsor". That always sort of makes me feel like a foreign exchange student or something, but there you have it.

Anyway, mission accomplished and on the way home, we stopped for brunch. We are restaurant newspaper readers. This makes my daughter nuts. She thinks it is rude. She wasn't there and we know we're not being rude to each other. I was reading the funnies and got to my very favorite:

One of the reasons I love this cartoon is because it is twisted and it makes me think. Lil man has been having behavior problems at school. His grades are excellent. His conduct is not. I was talking to him about this last night and asked him what the consequences were when he was bad. He said, "swats". His school gives swats, although how he has escaped thus far this year is beyond me. I asked what the consequences were when he was good and he did not know. So - this week, if he gets no bad marks at all, not even a warning, he and I and his Grampits are going to the movies to see the Alvin movie. If you knew my husband, you would know how surprised I was when, after he heard me make the deal with lil man (for just lil man and me), said that he would go also.

Today - no bad marks, not even a warning. Keep the lil man in your prayers, please, for success this week.

His school does give marks also for good behavior and his mother rewards him for those. I don't think he had ever put actions and consequences together in his mind as being something good also.

His behavior recently, combined with the cartoon strip this morning, makes me wonder: Is not being bad the same as being good?

I don't think so. I think that good is an action. I think that if you want to raise a good person, you cannot settle for a child who is just "not bad". I think that in order to be good, there are things you must do - that you cannot settle for just being not bad.

The Church that I belong to recognizes sin and guilt, repentance and forgiveness. It also recognizes both corporal (bodily) and spiritual works of mercy. I am not sure that the lil man is learning this at school. So, thanks to Non Sequitur for reminding me of my actions and consequences.

More Christmas Baking

The other day, lil man and I made Magic Cookie Bars, using the recipe on the magic. They were wonderful and everyone loved them.

The next day, lil man and I were watching Miss Paula on the Food Network and she made "5 Layer Bars" with exactly the same ingredients. However, she put them together in a different order and hers came out of the oven looking just wonderful.

Yesterday, lil man and I made Miss Paula's "5 Layer Bars" and they absolutely knocked the socks off the original recipe.

So, if any of y'all were going to make these for Christmas or a church bake sale or whatever, do yourselves and your eaters a favor and use Miss Paula's recipe.

Ornament Swap

I participated in the ornament swap orchestrated by Julie at AbbilyEverAfter. The other day I picked up my mail and, lo and behold, not only were there 10 trees from the Arbor Day Foundation (who knew you could mail trees?) but also a manilla mailer. Hurray!

I opened the manilla mailer when I got home. Inside was this lovely wrapped box (I forgot to take a picture before I took the card off. Sorry, Julie)



Yep, my ornament was from Julie herself. She enclosed a lovely note explaining that her family gets the annual Christmas ornament from the White House Historical Society and she thought I might like this year's ornament also.


She was right!


The ornament box itself is lovely.


Inside is the ornament along with a booklet explaining the event depicted, in this case Grover Cleveland's White House Wedding, and the history leading up to the event.


Here is the ornament on my tree, where it will be AbbilyEverAfter!

Thanks, Julie, for this lovely ornament and for organizing the ornament swap!

Fun Monday - Favorite Ornament

Our hostess this week is the lovely Lady K, who

In the spirit of the season I would like to see your favorite Christmas tree ornament. Not to be confused with the WHOLE tree. I want you to zoom in and show me one or a few(you know I can't choose just one!) of your favorite ornaments. If you don't decorate a tree, show me your menorah or dreidel, Kinara, or Yule Log. I want to see your favorite decoration for this holiday season.

I have had several favorite ornaments through the years that are either misplaced or broken, but this

is an angel that I made myself. She is patterned after an old window shade pull. She has travelled well through the years and is aging gracefully.

what do you think?

I know there have been some problems at blogger with commenting. I have set up a new blog at www.myanderings.wordpress.com Please check it out and let me know which you prefer.

Thanks.

Simple Pleasures

We recently bought a new mattress and box spring set that are MUCH taller than our old ones (which went into lil man's room). This necessitated buying new linens which in turn led to buying new curtains.

I normally favor the cool colors in my bedroom but this time, the comforter I bought is earth tones. My curtains had been sage green but they were just not gonna work.

I went to the local WalM*rt and bought brown curtains. I hung them at night.

At night they are brown.

When you turn the lamps on, they are brown.

I got up the next morning, stumbled into the kitchen, made coffee and breakfast, got the lil man up and going. I went into my bedroom to make the bed and...

The color is bad in this photo but sunlight turns my curtains into the warmest cinnamon color. It makes me smile every time I walk into the room.

This one is warm and fuzzy

Thursday night, while my daughter was at work, LilMan, Grampits and I went to the big town. We had dinner first at The Cattle Call. Wonderful barbecue and they DO deliver. We had dinner delivered once to us when we were at Julie and RJ's in San Diego. It was awesome.

My two favorite guys.

Word search (the pork was in a spork)

There are no pictures of the ribs, etc. but this is what was left of the JackDaniels Bread Pudding. Oh my gosh, it was GOOD!

The Angel Tree

What we bought for an 8 year old little boy.

Mittens

Mud Bogger T-Shirt

Glow in the dark Spiderman shirt with toy

Levis (even though our lil man wears Wranglers like Dale Earnhardt, Jr.)

My husband could not believe I payed good money for pants that were already "worn out".

We also bought a set of Magnetix toys that I forgot to take a picture of.

Then LilMan got to see Santa

Santa told LilMan to go to bed early on Christmas Eve so he (Santa) could get to work early. You might want to pass this on.

We had a wonderful time.

Reindeer Pizza

My daughter offered to buy pizza for dinner tonight.

I gratefully accepted.

She went out and got a Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza (Grampits' favorite) and a Cheese Pizza with nothing but black olives on it (lil man's favorite).

Everybody had firsts and when asked if he would like seconds, lil man said that yes, please, he would like another piece of reindeer pizza.

His Grampits gave him the look and lil man said, "you know, olive, the other reindeer."

It will probably always be reindeer pizza now.

Day of Infamy

Headline from CNNPolitics.com

"Kennedy aide: Romney's views on religion very different from JFK's"

You think? Catholic? Mormon? Views on religion different?

Happy St. Nicholas' Feast Day

St. Nicholas

(the 1st Santa)

O good holy Nicholas,

you who brought joy to children,

put in my heart the spirit of childhood

about which the Gospel speaks.

Teach me how to sow

happiness around me. Amen.

Image and prayer courtesy of the Franciscans (www.americancatholic.org)

12 Questions of Christmas

For the holiday season, Hootin' Anni started a meme. "The Twelve Questions of Christmas" If you'd like to participate, she'd be honored to have you join in the fun. If you'd like, you are welcomed to use the meme header graphic!

1. Christmas is MAGIC. [fill in the blank with ONE WORD]

2. In memories, what was the best part of your Christmases past? Midnight Mass when it was still at midnight, singing in the choir, and getting to stay up SO late.

3. Was Santa ever good to you? I hate to do this to my Mom and to Santa, but I honestly cannot remember a spectacularly great Christmas when I was a kid.

4. Do you open gifts on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or both? When I was little, it was one on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas day. Nowadays, a lot of it depends on who is at which parent's for which holiday.

5. Is there something you make each and every year? Fudge, always.

6. What is your favorite five[5] Christmas songs/hymns? God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlmen; Silent Night; Angels We Have Heard on High; Adeste Fidelis (in Latin); The First Noel

7. Is there a new tradition for Christmas since your childhood days? Baby Jesus' Birthday Cake

8. Describe one of your Christmas trips. My husband and I used to drive truck cross country. We were on the road for a whole lot of Christmasses and spent a lot of them with friends we had made on the road (special waitresses, customers, etc.) One that particularly stands out was when we got snowed in at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO. We were there so long the truckstop ran out of food! The snow was so deep that our boxer, Holly, took one look outside (the snow was over the running board of the semi), turned around and stayed inside for 3 days!

9. Do you have a special Christmas outfit to wear for the day? Jams

10. Have YOU or any of your family members sat on Santa's lap? Lil man did just last week

11. What is/or will be on your Christmas tree this year? A conglomeration of storebought, handmade, old, new, pretty, crafty, clunky.

12. Do you/or have you decorated your yard for Christmas? I tried. The dogs ate the wreath.