Roc Rebel Granny

My life at this moment

2012-01-25T07:18:00.000-08:00

Just received a notice that this blog will be deleted soon. Perhaps I can save it somewhere.

Meantime, I'm on FB. Just look for Ann Adams in Merced.

For anyone who is still around here, Rebecca is now 16, Rochelle is 17, and Elcie will turn 19 in March. She's going to City College in Fresno and the other girls will be high school seniors next year.

Elcie spends every other weekend with us and R & R have dinner with us every other Friday. They've all grown very tall.

Ray and I are okay but not enjoying the cold and wet too much.

Elcie

2011-03-08T18:49:00.000-08:00

Elcie will be 18 tomorrow. She's doing fine - working on eventual independent living and continuing her education. She's so beautiful.

Happy birthday dear great-granddaughter.

Rochelle a Year Later

2011-01-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

She is now 16 - as of yesterday.

I'm obviously not posting much here but I can be found on Facebook.

Happy Birthday

2010-01-05T07:15:00.001-08:00

I know Rochelle checks this blog once in a while so

Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday dear Rochelle
Happy Birthday to You.

She's now 15. Amazing.

What's Happening

2009-11-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody. Yes, I'm still around but we seem to be keeping up with each other via FaceBook & Twitter.

Chilly here, I think fall has arrived in November and tomorrow will begin winter.

We're doing well for the most part. I'm trying to plan Thanksgiving dinner if I can decide when it will be. Jim is busy with the National Guard and Tim's work schedule is up in the air. Meantime, I have the ingredients ready to go but may have to move the date.

Other than that, not much news. The girls are doing well. Rochelle is living separately from her sisters and quite involved in cross-country running. Has won a medal. I don't hear quite as much from Rebecca (now 14) and Elcie (almost 17) but know they stay busy.

Not that I'm posting much over here but I've reluctantly enabled "verification" and am no longer allowing anonymous comments. I hated to do it but I've had a rash of spam, mostly unprintable and I'm getting tired of deleting. I stopped reading it a week ago so my apologies to any "anonymous" person who posted a legitimate comment.

Take care, Happy Thanksgiving to all in the USA, and I'll try to keep up on FaceBook.

test

2009-05-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

~~misteak~~mistake

Nice lady just emailed me asking how to "strikeout". I hadn't done it in so long I had to test to make sure.

He's Home!!

2009-05-04T14:56:00.001-07:00

Jim, Zachary, Melissa

Back: Jim, Zachary, Me, Juan, Tim
Fron: Melissa Jonathan

Tim and Jonathan

These will be much more clear if you click on them.

Jim finally got home Friday night so on Sunday we all (except for Ray - I brought him home a plate) got together at a local family style restaurant for dinner.

The boys are adorable and they were so good. More of Zach's mac and cheese landed on the floor than in Zach but he's only 18 months old. Jonathan is almost 3 - doesn't seem possible.

Jim's doing okay - still doesn't have any idea how he injured his arm; just that the damage is inoperable, service incurred, and permanent. It won't necessarily keep him out of the Guard but he'll be limited as to lifting, etc.

It's so good to have him home. Hope he stays for a while.

Not much else to report - we stay the same, the weather is pleasant so far, our garden hasn't died. Tim is working part time in a vetinarary clinic (can't remember if I told you that before).

The opera was wonderful - I'm wearing my "Faust" t-shirt in the picture but not sure how well is shows up.

Hope all are well - I'm heading for a nap before cooking dinner.

Take care everyone.

2009-04-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

Tim, me, and several friends.

Ray of course. He can't stay in the sun long so we brought him his dinner.

The monkey in the back is wearing a San Francisco Giants uniform with #1 on the back of his shirt. That's the number of catcher and my current hero Benjie Molina and my birthday gift from Tim & Juan. The monkey is sporting a fielder's glove intead of a catcher's mitt but that's okay.

My friends brought me batches of flowers, knickknacks for my shelves, a stuffed animal assortment, a lightweight quilt, and a lovely lavender candle. I may never light it - it's too pretty.

We had a wonderful time. I made a bunch of baked chicken drumsticks which just needed a short time on the bbq, potato salad, deviled eggs, baked beans (from a can with a little cooked bacon) and cole slaw. Took a loaf of my banana bread out of the freezer and cut it in small slices. Did most of the work the day before (with Ray helping) so on Sunday morning all I had to do was the chicken and cupcakes (see next paragraph).

Dawn was in charge of the grill. We did hamburgers, hot dogs, the baked chicken, and boneless country ribs. We'd started off planning a small party for Dawn and her family, Ray and me. It expanded rapidly and we counted at least 20 and I think we had a couple of drop-ins (kids) I've forgotten. I kept thinking of people I didn't want to leave out so we ended up with my extended family, Dawn's extended family (plus the extra kids), and my friends John (my computer savior), his wife, Michelle, David (my coffee drinking buddy), and card playing friend Reno as well. Wish Jim could have been here but maybe we can do the whole thing again for Memorial Day. He should be home long before then. Or maybe we'll throw a party before then in his honor. I'm usually flexible.

Oh, and birthday cake naturally. Dawn baked a chocolate cake and I made a small batch of vanilla cupcakes for anyone who didn't do chocolate. (It boggles my mind that there is anyone who doesn't do chocolate but that's okay you know who, I love you anyhow.) I was joking to some on-line friends that if they heard about a fire in Merced, CA it would be the result of me trying to blow out 71 candles at once. We settled for 9 on the cake.

Does anyone except me frost cupcakes by dipping them into the frosting? Ray had never seen it done before. Color me lazy but it works. When I try to frost them the "right" way, they end up a mess.

It was a little warm, but otherwise a wonderful day. The kids played in the small pool, the rest of us pigged out. Other than the cooking I'd already done, I didn't have to lift a finger, even to take the pictures. I handed Rochelle the camera. I think the only person she missed was David who arrived after Rochelle had put the camera away. My fault; I forgot to get the camera back out. I didn't get all the pictures on the blog. A few turned out a little dark, even with some editing on my part. It's enough of a cross section though so you can get the idea.

Leave it to me to write nothing since Christmas and then cover you up with words.

Take care, all you wonderful folks.

More Birthday BBQ

2009-04-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

Dawn, Destiny, & Friend

Rochelle - that is not a blacked out tooth, it's her hair hanging down her face (I don't know why).

Juan, Reno (both blending into fence), Tim, & I (with young friend). Tim and I are wearing matching La Boheme shirts from our afternoon at the Fresno Grand Opera. No, we didn't consult ahead of time.

Rochelle once again. Why does she cover up those beautiful eyes?

Birthday BBQ

2009-04-20T19:41:00.000-07:00

Rebecca, John, and Michelle's back (sorry Michelle)

16 year old Elcie in her fancy scooter

The guest of honor stuffing her face.

The one below is me, Tim, and friends. For some reason, silly blogger isn't letting me write below the picture this time.

Can you Believe an Update?

2009-04-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

Elcie, Rochelle, Rebecca, & Destiny

Rebecca @13-1/2

Rochelle @ 14

These pics were taken the day before Easter when the girls came over to help Destiny and her younger friend color eggs. I have more from yesterday's picnic which I'll add in a separate post.

So, what's new from me? We're still here, Ray stays about the same although the trips to the hospital are not as frequent. He putters about in the yard now that spring has arrived with a vengeance. Our temps yesterday and today have hit 90 (F).

We're planting flowers and veggies. I have tomatoes, leeks, bell pepper (capsicum), strawberries, and one lonesome okra. It was my experience when I lived in Arkansas that okra would overwhelm everything except the zucchini so I'm starting slowly. I don't want more okra than I can possibly give away. I'm not going to let a zucchini anywhere near this yard. We have some flowers already planted and two packages of zinnias yet to be put in the ground next week. We didn't have a lot of luck last year with our flowers but zinnias are sturdy and I have hopes. They're my favorite flower.

Friend Janet and I took the girls to see the new Monsters/Aliens film last week. We all enjoyed it. I usually wait for videos but with 3D, large screen made more sense.

Jim is safely home from Iraq but somehow injured his right arm while he was there (non-combat - it's a mystery). They think he may have permanent nerve damage. They can do something for the pain but he may lose partial use of the arm (heavy lifting, etc.) We'd expected him home a couple of weeks ago but they're keeping him at Ft. Dix, NJ and sending him back and forth to Walter Reed Army Hospital to consult with the experts. At least he's safe and we connect by phone. I know Melissa is anxious to have him home as am I.

Tim is employed at a veterinary clinic in Fresno as a receptionist. He's good with people and is fond of animals so it should be a good fit. Part time for now but that may change. Considering the unemployment in this part of CA hovers around 20%, any work is better than none. His hours are flexible so he can keep up with his classes.

Our Easter dinner was just the two of us but the girls showed up the next day to help us with the leftovers (after the movies). I did ham, sweet potatoes, potato salad, cole slaw, and a key lime pie (my first attempt).

Elcie will be having surgery later this week so will appreciate your thoughts. She's a trouper about it but shame she'll be in casts and miss much of the lovely spring weather. Each of her prior surgeries have helped her and trust this one will as well.

Let's see, what else? I went for coffee with friend David this morning at a cafe which is part of one of our local market/delis. I picked up one order each of chile rellenos and chile verde and an order of ceviche for dinner tonight. After all the cooking Dawn and I did for the bbq yesterday (see other post), I didn't feel much like cooking today.

Oh, and we've discovered long lost family. Tim went on a Facebook search and found a cousin. It snowballed from there and the other day I connected not only with my two nieces by marriage (to Tim and Jim's dad) but with my favorite in-law who I've always thought of as a sister. We're all so excited. Jim and Tim are thinking about a trip to Memphis later to connect with all of them and meantime there's the telephone, email, and Facebook.

When I lived in Arkansas (hi Diane, Karen, etc), my Aunt (by marriage), my sil, and I used to call ourselves the "outlaws". My beloved Aunt Clarice died several years ago but sil and I are still going strong. I think she and I are close to the same age - she might be 6 months older but I still picture her as young and so beautiful. We were both still in our mid 30's when I saw her last. Her oldest son and my daughter Carol were the same age.

Next weekend I head for Fresno and the opera. They're doing Gounod's "Faust" with soloists from the New York Metropolitan Opera. I have a good video but there's nothing like seeing it live especially with having a family member (Juan) in the chorus. I'm so looking forward to it. I think I may have mentioned seeing "La Boheme" last winter. In the pictures on my bbq/birthday post, I'm wearing the La Boheme t-shirt.

I'll be back with the other pictures shortly. Hope all of you are doing well. I'm sorry about my vanishing act but I'm back (sort of). Even if I don't post much here, I can be found hanging out at FaceBook and Twitter.

Take care everyone.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-23T13:48:00.000-08:00

Or whatever greeting of the season you prefer.

Here's a link to a card my local buddy Janet sent to me. It's adorable.

Merry Christmas

All is well here. Ray chugs along and so do I. I'll be cooking a simple Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve for Tim and his partner who will be coming in from Fresno. As far as I know, the girls will be joining us for dessert, eggnog (and presents), and then spend Christmas Day with their honorary grandparents down the road. Extended families can become rather confusing but they'll have a good Christmas however it works out. Hard to believe they're all teens.

We're having long overdue rain off and on this week along with what, for us, is cold weather. We've hit freezing a couple of nights. I shouldn't complain though when I look at what most of this country and Canada are dealing with. My friends in Australia should be enjoying summer.

Warning - Once again I'm assaulting your ears with classical music for Christmas.

Have a wonderful holiday and, if I don't get back before then, a blessed New Year.

Fisher House

2008-12-11T07:52:00.000-08:00

My friend Chris at Rude Cactus is donating $0.50 for each comment he receives in the next 24 hours (probably 21 hours by the time I post this at around 8:00 PST) to Fisher House.

Fisher House seems to be similar to Ronald McDonald houses here and provides free or low cost housing to families of veterans or troops receiving treatment at military hospitals.

So, if you have time, drop in and say hi to Chris.

I'll try to get back with some kind of Christmas update - meantime hope you all are enjoying the season.

Way Overdue Update

2008-10-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm still alive.

Where to start?

Most of the hot summer is behind us but we're still having air quality problems. Ray's been in and out of the hospital a few times - he's home right now.

Jim's so called desk job in Iraq has turned into flying here and there. I heard from him yesterday - he spent last week in Baghdad. He says he's staying very busy.

Tim and I are hanging out whenever we can. His friend in Fresno is in the chorus of the Fresno Grand Opera so we went yesterday to see him (and the rest of the cast of course) in La Boheme. I took the train down (Tim was already there) and we all had breakfast. Then we saw the opera which was wonderful. I was so surprised to find that kind of quality in the middle of the farming area. They do two major productions a year and I'm already planning on Faust next June. They import the leading singers; all of whom are young, extremely talented and on their way up.

We were planning to attend a pizza party for the cast later but decided on a quiet dinner instead. I still met some of the cast in the parking lot and that was enough.

Tim may move to Fresno next year. He's been busy with college here but his credits will transfer to either the Junior College or Fresno State so no problem. And the job market may be a little better in the larger city. It's awful here. Businesses are closing down almost every day, houses are either standing half build or empty. We made the New York and London Times as one of the most depressed cities in the country. I can think of better ways to be famous. Of course it's bad everywhere.

And, now that the court hearing has been held, I can say that the girls are back in town and living with their dad - right around the corner. I see quite a bit of them - they show up to raid the refrigerator and I've tried to have them over for dinner most weekends. It's great to have them close.

I've been somewhat involved in local politics which is nothing new. I haven' t been able to do much but I've helped with phone banks. I just can't seem to walk or even stand for any length of time without paying dearly. We did get to one rally at the University and I'll do a little more this week.

Our tomatoes are still producing. For some reason they turned from plants into very tall bushes. Strange. We had a few bell peppers too.

Oh, and my kitty died last month. She'd been slowing down a lot so it didn't come a shock but still we were sad. Spunky had been part of our family for around 10 years or so. Now I have a visiting cat. He lives in the front house and used to visit us often. Then I didn't see him for months. He turned up a couple of weeks ago so I went and bought a small sack of cat food. He comes in each morning for a snack and water, visits for about an hour, and then leaves. Sometimes he repeats in the afternoon. He's a beautiful, neutered male, mostly Siamese and mostly while with streaks of light orange on his ears and tail. Great cat - much more affectionate than most Siamese I've know. Dawn's daughter named him Sally when he first started turning up months ago. We explained Sally was a boy but the name stuck. It can always be short for Salvatore.

I should go back and read from I wrote in the last post - I may be repeating.

I've been doing some baking - experimenting with different kinds of bread. We decided we like the banana the best and it's certainly the most economical. I can get day old bananas at half price and friend Janet and I picked up large sacks of walnuts and pecans at Costco.

I'll be cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year. My friend, the computer geek and his wife, will be here, possibly Tim and his friend later in the day, and possibly the girls with their dad. As usual, I'll cook for an army. Melissa (Jim's wife) and the kids are always invited of course.

Baby Zachary is walking and Jonathan is talking a blue streak. They're adorable.

I think that's about it from me for now.

Take care everyone. It's cooler now so maybe I can start spending a little more time at the computer. I've missed keeping up with all of you but it's been almost impossible.

SPAM ALERT - Corrected and Updated

2008-08-20T08:23:00.001-07:00

I deleted the first one - it was all messed up.

Brief update first though.

Jim is doing fine so far and thanks all who sent cards, etc. He and I chat almost daily on MySpace.

Ray spent a few days in the hospital with bronchitis but is now home.

Girls will be back in Merced with their dad and, if all goes well, will stay.

Weather continues hot but the last couple of days have been almost bearable. I'm leaving in a few minutes for coffee with friend Janet, the grocers, and then card playing with friends Reno and Lyman and son Tim. We went to a bbq/swim party there with the girls last weekend. I have pictures on the Kodak gallery. They didn't turn out too well but you can see how they've grown.

More later - now the SPAM alert which I should have posted sooner since I've been getting some of the emails they're discussing. I subscribe to a daily "computer tips" newsletter and this appeared this morning.

The "CNN" emails look legit; the MSNBC are phony at a glance but they look like a spoof; not a virus. I opened one of the CNN by mistake but once I saw the content, marked it as spam and deleted. I never did open the MSNBC (or don't think I did).

==========

I have received several phone calls this week from readers saying they have been getting a ton of spam e-mail from CNN and MSNBC. The e-mails have headlines indicating they are breaking news alerts from either of the very popular news companies. Now, I'm sure all of you are smart enough to know that CNN and MSNBC would not actually send out spam, but where are the e-mails coming from?
Well, the e-mails are an attack from a botnet. Currently, several Web sites have been taken over by the worm and they are sending out millions of e-mails a day. While the e-mails look like they are from CNN and MSNBC, they're not.

If you receive an e-mail from CNN or MSNBC, do not read it! You should immediately delete those messages and mark them as spam. Reading those e-mails and clicking on the links inside will put your computer at risk. You will be prompted to install a file that says it's an update for the Flash player. That's actually a virus. Installing that program will infect your system and turn your computer into a spam machine.

Usually, I would say you should report the issue to the company that is being spoofed, but in this case, they're already very aware of the issue. Just hang in there and the messages will stop once the offending computers are taken offline and disinfected.

If you have been fooled into installing the "Flash Update," you should run a full virus scan immediately. Until next time, stay safe out there, my friends!

Not Much Going On

2008-07-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

But I wanted to post this since a couple of my friends asked for Jim's address.

I finally heard from him today. Brief and to the point.

"Jim Clark
to me

show details 11:38 AM (2 hours ago)

Reply

Hey mama,
Got to Iraq just fine pretty nice post, cant complain. our address
is as follow.
Line 1: SGT Jim Clark
Line 2: 40th MP Company
Line 3: FOB Sykes
Line 4: APO AE 09351
Cookies are always welcome=)
I will try and call you this week at some point, love you much."

Brief Update

2008-07-18T05:31:00.000-07:00

I have lots more pictures on both galleries. Haven't had time to edit so some are very silly (especially when Rochelle was taking pictures of herself) but you can get an idea.

The girls have spent much more time in town lately and I've seen a lot of them; especially on the weekends.

Joy!!

On the other hand, if nothing changes, Jim is still Iraq bound as of tomorrow.

Tim is just finishing up two summer classes at the Junior College and will take more in the fall. Once he decides what he wants to pursue, those credits will transfer and he can probably do part time at University of California, Merced. He's still talking about nursing eventually.

I'm sorry about not writing more. It's been hot and miserable and I don't spend a lot of time in this tiny room. Our cooler doesn't stretch this far and, even with a fan, I don't hang out long. I've been reading all your emails, answered some, but then I leave for a cooler part of our little house.

Birds love tomatoes. We can't seem to stay ahead of them. Any ideas other than building a greenhouse? I may start picking them green and letting them ripen indoors (or make fried green tomatoes out of them).

Some of the many flower seeds we planted in early spring are blooming but it's been a very dry season as you may have noted from the news and water is somewhat rationed. We water 3 days a week and try to not use too much.

The California fires haven't reached us and probably won't; however, Ray and I have friends in Paradise, CA which has been all over the news lately with the forest fires. So far as I know, it's been largely property damage but the town was evacuated. We can't exactly smell smoke from the closer fires but the air quality has been awful. We stay indoors as much as possible.

Other than that, all is okay around here.

As for the private blog, what I may do instead is write an email and try to cover everyone who reads this. If I do that once in a while, I can keep you up do date without worrying who might be reading. Now all I have to do it get it written.

The girls are so tall. Even tiny Rebecca looks down on me.

Tim came over for lunch today and stayed through dinner. Elcie was here and we all watched Prince of Egypt and part of my Celtic Woman dvd together. It was fun.

I apologize again for not keeping up with all of you. Maybe I'll do better in cooler weather. Thanks to all for the emails and comments, take care, and have a good weekend.

P. S. I just took a look at my guestbook and noticed Rochelle signed it - probably from this computer last time she was here. Smart kid finding the blog (although I have an icon on my desktop and it's never been a secret).

Let's see if this works

2008-06-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

Yes it does. It only took me 3 years to figure out how to do a slideshow. Here are the pictures of Jim and family referred to in the post below.

There is some duplication. I was getting a little glassyeyed by the time I figured it all out.

There are still a couple of great pictures of Zachary over on the Picasa gallery which I didn't get on with this group (his daddy took them).

Pictures

2008-06-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

Melissa's granddaughter Angie and Zachary (which makes Zachary Angie's uncle).

Tim, Jim, Melissa with Jonathan, Zachary, & Angie

Ann with gang

Angie with both of her young uncles

Jonathan saying cheese. That's a brand new haircut - his first. His mom tells me he was very good. He's stopped being a baby and is fast growing into a little man. He knows several words now and understands most of what we say to him.

These were taken this afternoon at Jim's (we got together for cards - Melissa and I trounced the guys soundly - one of the few times it's happened). There are others on the Picasa and Kodak galleries (see sidebar).

Jim's leaving was postponed until Tuesday so we'll try to get together on Monday sometime for coffee. Meantime, he has lots of other pics on his camera but I think it would be easier to bring the camera to my computer than to email them all. Most are better than these but I didn't want to procrastinate.

Thanks to all of you who replied about the public/private blog situation. Of course I plan to include all of my regular visitors and I think I may have figured out a way to do it that will be simple (sort of).

More later. Hope your weekend is going well. BTW, I got through the letter "H" on Bloglines today and even left a few comments. My eyes are doing a little better. I think part of the problem is that I'm sitting facing a window and it's the glare from the window that bothers me. I notice that if I do my reading early morning or after dark (or on a cloudy day) I do better. Duh.

Take care everyone.

Finally An Update

2008-06-03T06:35:00.000-07:00

To start with, we're all okay.

My eyes are still bothering me when I stay here too long. Typing isn't a problem; reading is.

Other than that, the last few weeks have had both good and not so good news.

The good news - my son Jim is home until next week. His birthday (40) is tomorrow and we held a bbq this weekend in his honor complete with a Sponge Bob birthday balloon. He brought his oldest daughter (almost 19) and both babies. They're adorable and had a great time. My pictures didn't turn out well but I'll be seeing Jim, Tim and family later this week and maybe get some better shots. What I have are in the Kodak gallery (see sidebar).

The not so good. Next Monday he'll be leaving for Fort Dix, NJ and thence to Iraq. Unless he fails yet another physical, he'll be stationed there for a year. He tells me that as things go, his assignment will be relatively safe.

The good news - Tim has signed up for college courses for summer and fall. The not so good - he lost his job. Hopefully, he won't be unemployed for long.

My daughter would have been 52 yesterday. It doesn't seem like more than a year since she left us.

I haven't seen the girls lately but now that school is out for two of them, I'll schedule some visits for the summer. We talk often.

The garden was damaged but not destroyed during a two day windstorm. We replanted the tomatoes and propped them back up. We have a few small, green tomatoes but some were blown off the plants. The peppers and strawberries are still doing well but I haven't seen any results yet from the flower seeds.

Today is our second Primary election of the year here in CA. I almost forgot to fill out our ballots but they're done and I'll drop them off when Janet and I go for our usual coffee and shopping. It's goofy - we had the early Presidential primary and then turned right around and did another for our Representative (running unopposed), State Assemblyperson (running unopposed), two local offices (also unopposed), one recall (which should have been removed from the ballot since the initiator changed what passes for his mind), and two Propositions (which contradict each other). There should be a better system.

The weather dropped from very hot to chilly back to quite warm again. Disconcerting to say the least.

I've been thinking about taking the blog private. One of the reasons I haven't written much is that I have to be much more careful these days about what I say. It wouldn't affect any of you - I'd send out an email letting you know how to access it and I'd be free to say more without worrying about anyone local reading it that I'd prefer not. I haven't decided yet.

I woke up at 3:00 this a.m. and used the time to make some order out of the collection of paperwork. It's the easiest time to work on it - no distractions. I'll probably take a nap this afternoon. I find myself most days getting sleepy right after lunch.

Dawn should be here any minute now so I'll close this out for now.

Thanks again for hanging in with me and take care everyone.

More On Mother's Day

2008-05-09T10:13:00.001-07:00

The painting was created by one of the few female impressionists - Mary Cassatt. I've had one of her prints (probably cut from a magazine at some time or another) hanging in my bathroom. I love her pictures of mothers and children.

Anyhow, after I wrote the earlier post today, I spent some time trying to catch up with my blogging friends and found this post on Josie's blog. She led with another Cassatt painting - the rest of her post was devoted to children's opinions of mothers. It's both funny and touching.

P. S.

I turned on the news a little while ago. Praying my friends in Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas are okay after the storms they've endured. It's been one of the worst years for tornados that I can remember.

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

This is my Mother's Day plant from Ray. Purple of course - it's a delphinium and doing nicely. My one thriving rose bush has a bud. The others - we're not too sure - they may just be slow. The other flowers a little slow too but the labels said 30 to 60 days - I must be patient. One of the California department stores has a commercial showing a woman with her nose pressed against the store window saying "open, open, open". That's how I feel about our garden. It's the first time in many years I've had garden space.

The strawberries are doing beautifully, the tomatoes are flowering, and the bell pepper plants have one tiny pepper each - so far. Soon I hope there will be more berries than Destiny can pick, wash, and eat. Meantime, I'm picking up a flat of fresh berries today or tomorrow (Dawn and I will share) and we'll have shortcake this weekend with homemade biscuits and whipped cream. Yum.

Thanks to Lynette for the card. Jim and Lynette have a blog just full of ideas, crafts, etc. I think all you clever people out there would enjoy it. I'm not crafty at all but it was still fun to look at.

A very happy Mother's Day to all, whether you celebrate or not.

This was taken yesterday. The sun was working against us but you can get the idea. Even our tiny Rebecca is taller than I and I think Rochelle has passed Elcie by a wee bit. From L to R - Elcie, Rochelle, Ann, Rebecca, and Ray. We had a wonderful time together.

This coming Sunday will be Mother's Day here in the States. It will also be my honorary granddaughter Destiny's 8th birthday. We're doing a joint family party here (my yard is larger than Dawn's) to celebrate both occasions. Should be fun.

Our weather continues to be lovely but we could use a little rain. Just not on Sunday, please.

Not much else going on at the moment. Please take a moment for the people of Myanmar (Burma). There are times when politics seems very unimportant. This tragedy, to me, is one of them.

Thanks to all for the comments and have a wonderful weekend.

More Pictures

2008-05-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

Kodak Gallery

These are some of the pictures I took in April. A few are of the birthday party, the rest are various people posing in Ray's sombrero (I, fortunately, was holding the camera). If I remember correctly, it's friend Dawn, her husband, and their daughter Destiny, and Ray of course.

The post below has a link to the rest of the pictures on a Picasa gallery. As soon as I figure out how to combine the two, I will.

Birthday Party

2008-05-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

I have more pictures - you can see most of them at online gallery now that I've finally figured out how to do it. I won't try to identify everyone; some you'll recognize and others you haven't seen before. It was a good mix of friends and family. My computer geek friend John (the one with the new blog) took over at the barbecue, Reno and Lyman brought potato salad, extra chairs, and took most of the pictures. I took a few but not as good. The girls' mom and dad both dropped in; Tasha brought a couple of her friends. Dawn and family were there of course - she planned the whole thing.

If that gallery link works, I'll add it to the sidebar and refer to it whenever I have new pictures. It's certainly simpler than trying to post them all here.

This one (at top of blog) is 3 generations. Me, son Tim, grandson Wesley (girls' dad), and granddaughter Samantha (Jim's oldest). The only generation missing is the girls and I plan to see them next Thursday. Actually, there's still another generation; my mom will be 96 in July but it's a little far to travel from New York to California for a barbecue. Of course my oldest, Carol, wasn't there and she's still missed. Today is the one year anniversary of her death.

Jim's leave was postponed at the last minute. He was home by the Monday following and we managed to squeeze in coffee together (I didn't bring my camera because I didn't know I'd be seeing them). He left the next day to take his wife, Melissa, on a well deserved short vacation. His two youngest are growing like weeds. Zachary is a very mellow kid. He smiles constantly. Jonathan is about what you'd expect of an almost 2 year old. Adorable but active doesn't begin to describe him.

I'm seeing quite a bit of oldest granddaughter these days. She's busy with work, school, putting purple streaks in her hair (on her it looks good), but still managed to join Tim and me for a late breakfast yesterday.

Our garden is doing well. Destiny's strawberry plant has produced three berries which she has eaten. It's her plant although we may steal a couple for ourselves later on. It's doing so well I may pick up a few more - enough for a shortcake later on. The tomato plants are growing and the bell pepper has two tiny peppers.

Our weather continues beautiful but erratic. High 80's one day and down to mid 60's the next. Typical spring.

Much of the country is not so fortunate. Southern California is once again dealing with fires. Maine is flooding. The entire mid-country is going through more tornadoes and there have been fatalities in north central Arkansas. CNN ran a clip of a tornado very close to our friends Karen H. and Diane and her sisters. So far as I know, they weren't affected but it did touch down fairly close to all of them. More are expected today. I heard that Arkansas has now passed Oklahoma as "tornado alley". Please keep all of them in your thoughts and prayers.

I'm now working with a newer computer. I'd forgotten that I had the girls' machine. John took it home with him, performed his magic, and swapped it for the one I'd been struggling with. This is much better. It had never worked well for the girls but we think it just needed a thorough housecleaning. I'd bought it used and it was probably full of viruses from the beginning.

We're leaving in a few minutes to go shopping and maybe have breakfast out somewhere. I'd better close this out, put my shoes on, and finish getting ready.

Thanks to all for hanging in with me all this time.

The Avatar Should Explain My Absence

2008-04-11T20:15:00.001-07:00

The avatar may not work but the little guy, borrowed from my friend sheanc, is supposed to be banging his head on the keyboard. (Update - it worked once I posted it).

The computer is working, I replaced the mouse which helped a lot so far as being able to read my email goes, but the processor is slow. It means that it takes forever for a blog to load and even longer for the comment box. I'm back to trying to stay caught up with at least some of my friends in the Bloglines feeder but commenting has been difficult. I'll keep plugging away at it.

I have several new signers on the guestbook whom I haven't met. To my visitors from Kenya, China, and Malaysia, hello, thank you, and best wishes to all.

To any of you who have sent me Facebook messages. I finally have my password back and tried to catch up somewhat. Unfortunately, it's as slow as Blogger at the moment. I'll go through them a little at a time - meantime I tried to send most of you a hug or a flower.

Dawn and I were out shopping the other day and spotted a yard sale half a block from here. I've been looking for living room chairs to replace our small couch. You can see it's a tiny room and the couch took up most of it. The two chairs were sitting in the yard begging me to take them home. I got the two for $55., a real bargain since they're in almost perfect shape and exactly what the Ray, the cat, and I wanted. Both of them rock and recline and they're so comfortable. Spunky has never been a lap cat but suddenly she's turned into one. She'd prefer to have the chair to herself but will settle for flopping down on Ray.

Ray is continuing with his gardening. We've added fresh herbs, chamomile, several varieties of peppers, one okra plant (for me), a strawberry plant for Dawn's daughter Destiny, and lots of flowers. The strawberry has two tiny berries already and one rose bush has a bud. The cucumber didn't survive but everything else is doing fine so far. The weather here has been beautiful but they're predicting 90's (about 33 C) for next week. Mornings stay chilly still.

I stopped off at Goodwill the other day looking for pillowcases. Found them, several small plates I've been wanting, three pretty coffee cups (mine weren't fit for company, poor things), and a sombrero for Ray (from Chevy's). He doesn't need to be out in the yard without some protection and that will do it nicely. I should take his picture. (Just did - see above). I caught him watching the ball game in the living room while I'm doing the same thing in here. Should have had him change that shirt first - he was mowing the yard in it.

He's doing well although his leg was swollen last week. I think he overextended himself with the planting and weed digging. I nailed him to his chair for most of the next couple of days with his foot elevated and it looks normal now.

Dawn is planning a barbecue here for my birthday a week from Saturday. Should be fun. I know she's making a triple chocolate cake and we'll keep the rest of it simple. Hot dogs, hamburgers, etc. At last report, Jim is supposed to be here from Southern California. I think it was supposed to be a surprise but Tim told me and then forgot that he had.

Can't believe I'll be 70 although some days I feel much more than that. Somehow my two sons thought I was going to be 74 until one of them finally stopped and did the math. Let's see - 1938 - 2008? That's not 74, kids.

Not much happening out of the ordinary. Friend Janet and I are going to a play at Merced College (our Junior College - the other is University of California - Merced) on Sunday. I can't remember the name but I'm sure we'll enjoy it; just for the company if nothing else.

Hope all of you are well. Again, I apologize for not being around more.

Have a good weekend and take care everyone.

How's Your Spelling?

2008-03-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

Your Spelling is Perfect

You got 10/10 correct.

Your spelling is excellent. You also have a great memory and eye for detail.

How's Your Spelling?

I admit I guessed at one of the words and I was glad it was multiple choice - I didn't have to actually spell them. I always have problems with the word ~~mispell~~misspell.

Thanks to "J" at Thinking About for this one.

We have our first rosebud on one of the climbers. Had to transplant the small bush; I don't think it was getting enough sun underneath my window. I hope we got to it in time. It was looking rather forlorn. The tomato plants are growing - I'm still waiting for the first tomato.

The Easter dinner went off without a hitch except I cooked far too much food, even allowing for the amount my son can put away all by himself. Tomorrow I'll make spread/salad out of some of the ham and freeze the rest until later.

To those who left comments about the "menu" and the amount of work, much of the food came from boxes and cans this time rather than scratch. I didn't have the time, energy, or ingredients on hand to do a lot of last minute preparation. My sweet potato casserole is better than Betty Crocker's (even after I doctored it up) but it was okay. The music did help although I decided Beethoven (Emperor Concerto) might be a little much.

Tim and I met for coffee earlier today; his treat since he wasn't working. I came home to a phone call from the Social Worker. She was in the area with the girls. They stopped by for a few minutes so I was able to give them some of the things they'd asked about. It was so good to see them and I think it was good for them to see Ray and our little house. We keep telling them we're fine but better they could see for themselves. It was one of the best surprises we've had in a long time.

Our weather continues to be lovely. The forecast calls for rain this weekend but that's normal for March and April. We're far more fortunate than much of the country which is still digging out from blizzards and floods.

Bloglines is still acting up and so is Blogger, at least for me. I think I've gotten around to most of you but it's difficult to tell who has new posts and who doesn't. Blogger is being stubborn about comments sometimes but at least I can keep up with what you're doing.

For anyone out there who is also a Facebook friend. I'm not ignoring you. I lost my password in the great computer crash. I'll get a new one - just keep forgetting to do it. Meantime, thanks for thinking of me with the Superpokes, etc.

Other than that, not much is new. I'm waiting for baseball season to start. The American League played their first game today from Tokyo (started at 3:00 a.m. our time) but the Giants don't open until next Monday.

Take care everyone and thanks for the visits.

The Best Laid Plans, etc.

2008-03-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

My friend emailed me last night that he and his family have the flu. No barbecue for us. Hope they're feeling better soon. It's much more of a bummer for them than for us.

Here's the comment I left for Diane on her Sunday Dinner post:

Our plans fell through (friends have the flu) so I'm scrambling to get a late dinner on the table. Luckily I have a canned ham and boxes and cans of stuff since I have no time to prepare much from scratch, do laundry, mop the floor, take a shower, - whew!! Oh, and put on clean clothes - that might be appropriate. I invited Tim - he's working but he'll come by around six.

So - ham, sweet potato casserole, scalloped potatoes au gratin, deviled eggs, Bush's baked beans, three bean salad, honey glazed carrots, sourdough bread, and banana pudding.

I didn't even have to go the store.

Wish me luck - I'm going to need it.

Ray just left for church and I'm taking ten minutes to sit down while the eggs are cooling. I put on a CD - Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2 and Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor. If that doesn't keep me enthused, I'll switch over to Beethoven - or perhaps Sousa marches.

Happy Easter everyone.

Happy Easter

2008-03-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

I've been a social butterfly this week. The weather has been lovely and, except for the remnants of a cold, we're both feeling well.

Both my coffee dates are back in town (or were). Wandering Dave returned (as I think I mentioned before) from his year long odyssey through the USA and lower Canada. Janet came safely home from Israel. We met on Tuesday morning and things seem more normal with both of them around. Now Janet has left again to watch whales off Baja. We had lunch (Thai food and quite good) the day she left to fly south. She'll be in something that looks like an oversized rowboat in a lagoon and roughing it at a camp site the rest of the time. I do admire her energy.

Tim and I played cards with our friends on Wednesday and I took part in a candlelit vigil that same evening. Yesterday I did a little shopping (we were almost out of fresh fruit) and stopped off for coffee before heading back home to cook Ray his beloved liver and onions.

And, speaking of liver, I've been cooking it for years even though it's about number 3 on my list of least favorites. This time, I googled recipes and found one which suggested soaking the nasty stuff in milk for about an hour before cooking to remove any bitterness. It works and even I enjoyed it. Much simpler than blanching it before cooking which I'd always done.

The girls are doing well. Rebecca read off her grades to me. She passed everything.

I can't remember if I mentioned it but no cooking for me tomorrow. We're invited to a barbecue in the afternoon with the friend who fixed my computer and his wife, . They have a toddler and we'll be watching him hunt eggs. This is the first time in years we haven't had an egg coloring party at my house. It's been a year of firsts I could have done without. We're adjusting of course but it's still a little hard sometimes so it will be fun to watch Trenton discover the Easter Bunny.

Before I forget, a friend of mine (Ilona Peltz) has started a new blog (she already has several and I don't know how she keeps up). She'll have a grand opening this Monday (tomorrow) and has asked her friends to let everyone know.

It's called Mid-Century Modern Moms and is written by her and several other women around the age of fifty who are or have been raising older kids. She's one of the funnier writers around. They've already put together a few posts in anticipation of opening day. Here is their first, an introduction.

Bloglines is being stupid again. It highlights when there is no new post. I finally marked them all as read and now I'm starting over. Sometimes of course it goes the other direction and doesn't highlight at all. I suppose I should switch to google reader. I've heard good things about it.

I have an absolutely lazy day today. Maybe I can catch up with most of you.

I seem to be ending almost every post by saying something about the weather. Our mid-west is experiencing heavy flooding and some of it may be affecting our blogging friends back there. Please keep them all in your thoughts.

Thanks for the visits and take care everyone.

Oops - I Forgot to Give This a Title Yesterday

2008-03-12T18:30:00.001-07:00

My friend Janet and I had lunch with our mutual friend and coffee date Wandering Dave at the senior gracious living facility where he resides. He's part of a Writing Club here and he'd invited the whole club along with me and Janet to hear and see his travelogue. It was fun, especially this takeoff of "My Generation" which led off his presentation.

Here's the original from the WHO

(if you don't like the WHO, you can skip this but the senior version might make more sense if you hear the original.)

And here's what Dave played for us. I was one of the younger attendees and it was great fun watching the reaction of the other guests. Proves we're not old until we think we are.

You Tube was being contrary so I hope the links work. If not, let me know.

We had raisin pie for desert. It was wonderful. Tasted like it had a layer of custard in the middle or maybe very light cheesecake. I'll see if I can find something like it online. If it sounds familiar to anyone, I'd enjoy the recipe.

Later on, Jim, Melissa, and Tim came over for an hour or so and played cards. Jim will go back to Southern California tomorrow. Right now it looks like his tour of duty will end in June and he may be job hunting. Who knows though what will happen between now and then. Certainly not I.

Elcie turned 15 on March 9. How do they grow up so fast. Happy Birthday (belated) to our Elcie.

Ray has been mentioning how much he'd like some roses around the yard so a couple of days ago I purchased two climbing bushes; one a medium pink, one bronze, and a shrub with small white roses. Also bought compost, rose feed and aphid stuff, an edger, and a digging implement. He planted the roses the same afternoon. Two are along our fence and the shrub is under my kitchen window. They don't look like much yet but I have high hopes. The other plants seem to be thriving (I don't get too close) and I'm looking forward to tomatoes and cucumbers later on.

That's about it from the San Joaquin valley for now. We've had lovely weather but it's supposed to drop down almost 20 degrees by weekend with the possibility of rain. Perhaps that will be the last gasp of winter and March will leave like a lamb.

Glad you enjoyed the blogging meme. My 72% was a little high. I misinterpreted one of the questions. I do not have five or more blogs. Diane holds the record so far with our regular visitors I think but I have a new visitor from Wisconsin (hi John) who scored higher yet.

Thanks for the visits and thanks as well to all who stopped by to visit my friend John on his new blog. I'm still trying to catch up with reading. Blogger has been giving me fits with access and this computer has a few minor glitches; especially with the script on the page running slower than my fingers. Disconcerting to say the least.

And I've been a little busy lately. Nothing major but the days seem to go by quickly and I'm not the insomniac I once was.

Take care everyone.

Am I Addicted?

2008-03-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

According to this, there's no hope.

72%

Welcome New Blogger

2008-03-05T18:41:00.000-08:00

You've heard me talk about my friend John, the one who keeps bailing me out with my computer?

I introduced him to the wonderful world of blogging and now he's started his own blog which will be full of computer tips. I'm sure he'd enjoy it if you'd drop in and say howdy.

In other news, I purchased 1 cherry tomato plant, 1 Roma tomato plant, 1 cucumber plant, and one Alyssium. I will never touch them again; not even to pick a tomato. Ray planted them on Monday; I'm staying as far away from them as possible. He was a landscaper/gardener in his distant past so the plants are probably safe around him. I, on the other hand, am the kiss of death. His next goal is a rosebush; probably along our fence.

The weather here is lovely. I played cards with Tim and our friends this afternoon and granddaughter Samantha joined us for a while It's always a pleasant surprise to run into our Sam. She's 18 now, working, and attending Community College.

Anyhow, I came home to Ray cooking dinner for the two of us. Another pleasant surprise. Every day he seems to feel better. He seldom needs his oxygen during the day although that may change with more pollen in the air. He smiles and jokes which he hadn't done much of the past few years.

Thanks for the comments and emails and take care everyone.

What a Week!!

2008-03-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

First I fried my entire computer and yesterday I killed my cell phone. However, it's spotless. Dead but clean. I tossed my clothes in the washer and forgot to check my pockets. Guess what was in there. My friend John (the computer genius) was able to dry the phone and get it running but meantime the LCD melted. It doesn't help that there is no longer a screen.

Update: It doesn't actually work. It will ring and people can here me but I can't hear them. I do have a landline now; the number is at the bottom of my emails. If you want it, let me know.)

I'll replace the cell today. I'm not comfortable leaving unless Ray has a way to contact me (or I him for that matter).

I have a draft with pictures of Tim's and my trip to see Jesus Christ Superstar but Blogger isn't letting me edit at the moment. (Update - I was able to edit and the post should be a couple of posts down after my "crashed" post. I didn't add much - just hit post before something else went wrong.) The pictures are there and I'll try again later. Meantime, I'll just say we had a wonderful time. Loved the production. We cut our trip a little short because of the expected bad weather. Skipped San Francisco and came straight back on last Saturday morning. I just had a bad feeling about being caught downtown in the city with high winds and flood warnings. Tim thinks I'm a wimp but he was okay about me asking to change our train tickets and come straight back.

Anyhow, the computer. It must have been some kind of surge. It tripped the breaker in this room and when I tried to turn the computer back on, I had nothing. It destroyed the tower and everything that goes with it and even the mouse. Fortunately, my friend John came through for me once again with a tower he had at home. He took everything with him yesterday and brought it back today. I had to buy a new hard disc but other than that everything is working. I still have to fix a few things but not much.

I had it plugged into a good surge protector so I don't understand it at all.

He said he was going to leave a comment about the dust inside the tower. In my defense, I didn't know I could open it to clean it. Now I know. Okay John, now you don't have to tell everyone what a slob I am. I did it for you.

In other news, there isn't much. I've talked to the girls several times. They're doing well. I'm not sure when we'll have another visit but hopefully soon.

We've had some beautiful spring days but are expecting rain today or tomorrow. I'm going to run out in a little while and try to do a little shopping.

Oh, Ray is now able to mow the yard - a little at a time but it gets done. The yellow flowers (weeds) I was talking about in an earlier post are mustard according to a friend of mine and they're everywhere. He mowed some of them down but I bet they'll be back.

Our fruit and almond trees are blossoming. I had a picture for you but it's on the post I couldn't edit along with the pictures of our trip. We have one main street here that has the flowering trees for several blocks. Beautiful and the first sign of spring.

Merced is having a bicycle race today. It's evidently quite well known - people come from all over the world to participate and much of downtown is blocked off.

Don't know if I mentioned son Jim may be back on the Iraq list. His wife and I are crossing our fingers.

Thanks to all for the comments and well wishes. I didn't have any computer access before Wednesday (when I was at a friend's house) so not much I could do about the silence. I know many of you were worried and if I'd been thinking I would have had Tim write something.

I must have 500 posts to read from all of you so if I don't comment, please know I'm at least trying to read. I'll be back with pictures when I figure out what I'm doing.

We're Back!!!

2008-03-01T08:59:00.000-08:00

My friend is here right now putting it all back together.

Talk to you later.

Computer Crash

2008-02-28T17:04:00.002-08:00

To any visitors I have left. My friend is trying to fix it again. I'll be back with pictures, etc. when I can.

Okay - it's letting me edit again.

2008-02-23T14:14:00.000-08:00

Here are the pictures of the trip. If you can't see them (hi Naomi) let me know and I'll try it with email. You can click and enlarge a little but they're still small.

Visit With Girls Today

2008-02-14T18:20:00.000-08:00

Everything went well, they loved their presents, had Valentines, candy, and an artificial rose in a vase for me. Lots of hugs all around.

Rebecca is now taller than I. Or I'm shrinking. Or both.

I'll be back but I wanted to get the pictures up. I know they're tiny, but if you left click on the first image (or maybe any of them), it will bring up the entire collage.

Ray - Looking Good - February 2008

2008-02-13T08:59:00.000-08:00

I did this to test my Picasa 2. Not a bad picture though. It's almost a smile.

I changed my previous caption when one of my visitors thought he had died. Once I read what I'd written, I can see where she got that idea.

I had said Ray - February 2008.

See previous post for Valentine greeting.

Happy Valentine' s Day.

2008-02-13T07:49:00.001-08:00

Yes, I know I'm a day early for most of you. For my many friends on the other side of the date line, however, I'm right on time.

P. S.

Hey there Alice and thanks for signing the guest book.

You moved to Worcester?

Key Lime Pie (ala Jennifer)

2008-02-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

My online friend, Jennifer Graf Groneberg, is one busy lady.

She has three young sons, including a set of twins. The older twin (middle child) was diagnosed with Down Syndrome and much of her beautiful writing, both on her personal blog and at Parent Dish, concerns her life with her children. She has the loveliest spirit and reading her posts fills me with joy.

While doing all that, she's recently moved to an older style house, complete with a Chambers stove. We've had some interesting email conversations back and forth about the stove since I used to cook on one many years ago. Rachel Ray's stove is a Chambers.

Anyhow, one of her recent posts included a recipe for Key Lime Pie. With her permission, I'm sharing it here (see the link to her blog in the first paragraph). I liked this recipe because it's simple and even I don't think I could mess it up.

Note: The link to her blog is her name. I should have been more specific.

In other news, I picked up some presents for the girls today in the hopes of seeing them this Thursday. Elcie will have books on Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and Marian Anderson. Rochelle has two decks of cards and a book of magic trick to play with them. For Rebecca, I found a nice origami kit. I know she can do the cranes and hope she'll enjoy learning more. And they'll have a small box of Godiva chocolate to pass around to all for Valentine's Day.

We're having lovely, sunny, weather except for some early morning fog. Ray & I defrosted and inventories our outside (because there is no room in the house) freezer after I came home from a little grocery shopping, coffee drinking, etc. It was long overdue but the weather was just too cold and wet to get out there and become even colder and wetter. Didn't take long with two of us and now I have an idea what's in there. I'm making a spread sheet of the contents and will keep up with it, I promise.

I have a couple of "joke" posts under this one for any who haven't seen them.

Thanks for the comments. I've finally caught up with all of you I think although I may have been a lurker on a few. My computer is running beautifully and now I know why some things weren't working before. It was on its last legs.

Take care everyone.

Any Other Senior Citizens Out There?

2008-02-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my friends Worried American and Gadfly for this one.

I'll be back later with a yummy recipe. If I don't forget, that is.

Joke Time

2008-02-09T16:23:00.001-08:00

This is especially for my Australian friends but I hope the rest of you will enjoy it as well.

Not Exactly a Scam But --

2008-02-08T18:29:00.000-08:00

My online friend, Foster Abba, had a frightening encounter with a pair of door to door salespersons the other day. You can read about it by following the above to her "home school" blog.

These days, we can't open our mail, we must beware of text messaging and our phones, and, for heaven's sake, let's not answer your door unless we know who's on the other side. I'm not fond of dealing with traveling salespersons but this is the first time I'd realized they could be dangerous as well as pesky.

I made connections with friend Dave and his 100 year old friend for coffee this afternoon. He's (Dave, not the 100 year old friend) back safe and sound, if a little exhausted, after his year long travels around the USA and the lower part of Canada. While I was out, Ray decided to mow the lawn. He said he did a little, rested, did a little more, etc. He did a lovely job (electric mower - I would have thrown a huge fit if he'd done it any other way). Now he's talking about planting a rose bush for me and I've been thinking about setting out a few bulbs. I'm no gardener but possibly I can keep from killing a daffodil or two. I might even think about a cherry tomato plant. We love them. Right now, all I have growing is mint.

The girls talked to their mom last night. They were disappointed about missing our meeting but are already excited about next week. I'll have pictures for them of the house, us, and some of their old friends as well as some Valentine's Day treats.

Hope all of you are enjoying your weekend.

Car 54, Where Are You?

2008-02-07T22:04:00.000-08:00

When I was finally able to access my email, the message in the title, sent by one of my newer online friends, was awaiting me. For those of you who don't know, "Car 54", was an American situation comedy (in black and white). Lucy and I are truly dating ourselves (although maybe she caught up with it in reruns somewhere). She sent it and I knew exactly what she was referring to.

Anyhow, "Car 54" (aka granny) was bemoaning the loss of my hard drive which crashed (long story) early yesterday morning. John, a friend of mine who I met through Free Cycle here, came over, replaced it with a spare that he had, and while he was at it presented me with a new monitor along with installing a good firewall and anti-spyware program.

That's the short version of my absence lately. The whole computer thing was a little more complicated but bottom line - no hard drive until a couple of hours ago.

What would we do without our friends?

I'm almost afraid to check Bloglines to see how many posts are stacked up. Maybe tomorrow I can get to some of them. There are a few I'll check tonight though.

I was supposed to see the girls today but arrived to find the visit had been postponed until next week. Darn it but I'll have something to look forward to until next Thursday.

For those of you interested in what I've been serving for dinner, yesterday was lasagna (invited son Tim in exchange for his putting together two bookcases) and today was leftovers from yesterday. (I did actually cook breakfast today but much of yesterday and part of today was spent trying to figure out what was wrong with this infernal machine. My friend finally took my tower home with him and that was when he discovered the hard drive was fried.) Tomorrow, who knows but I'm thinking about some kind of easy chicken and noodle thing. Maybe teriyaki with the special noodles?

Oh yes, and I have all our books, videos, etc. now neatly arranged on the shelves and my tiny computer/music/reading/tv room is in much better order. It was beginning to resemble a closet.

Anyhow, this is brief. It's late, I was up very early, and I'm "tard" as friend Diane would say.

Please keep the folks in Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama in your thoughts and prayers. I've experienced tornado devastation firsthand and it's terrifying. Other parts of the country are having a rough go with their weather as well - excessive snow, flooding, etc.

Thanks to everyone for the comments. Take care and have a good weekend.

Not So New Scam - Jury Duty

2008-01-30T11:09:00.000-08:00

Some people must lie awake nights thinking of new ways to defraud honest folk.

My San Francisco buddy "L" just forwarded this to me. The Snopes warning was issued in 2005 the FBI warning in 2006. It's been around for awhile but it's legit.

=======
From the FBI warning:

The phone rings, you pick it up, and the caller identifies himself as an officer of the court. He says you failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant is out for your arrest. You say you never received a notice. To clear it up, the caller says he'll need some information for "verification purposes"-your birth date, social security number, maybe even a credit card number.
This is when you should hang up the phone. It's a scam.

=========

Of course it is. The caller now has all your personal info and will steal your identity. The Court will not call you. They will send you a letter, on their letterhead which you can verify with a phone call.

In other news, not much. I spoke to the girls the other day (two of them at least) and they seem to be doing well. Rebecca was grounded but that's nothing new. Rochelle enjoyed her birthday.

We've had rain and wind, and a small city a couple of counties to the south of us even had a small tornado. It seems like they always head for the trailer parks and this one was no exception. It was strong enough to remove some roofs (rooves?) and knock down a few trees but no injuries.

Why is the plural of hoof hooves but I think I was right the first time about roof. I wonder how people who were not born to this language ever learn it.

Enough of that. Life continues uneventfully around here. One of my coffee date friends is leaving for NYC and then Israel later in the week and will be gone until late February. I'll be watching the news from there closely. On the other hand, my friend Dave who's been traveling around the country for a year will return in a couple of weeks. I've been following his journey on his blog ever since he began and occasionally wish I'd stowed away. He's safely in Southern California so now all he has to do is navigate the next 8 hours and hope most of our snow will have left by the time he heads for home.

He emailed me to ask if I was interested in coffee. Of course I am. We have a lot to catch up on and email isn't quite the same as sitting in Barnes & Noble chatting back and forth.

Son Jim, currently on the Mexican border with the National Guard, may be heading for Iraq. It's up in the air. He was scheduled a couple of years ago but an old, service incurred back injury kept him here at the last minute. Now they can't quite make up their minds (at least the last I heard).

Son Tim and I are planning on a trip north to meet one of my blogging friends in late February. Her sister is directing a performance of "Jesus Christ, Superstar" (in Concord at the Willows Theatre for any of you who are familiar with the San Francisco Bay Area). It should be fun. I know the film but I've never seen the live production although Tim has. And it will be wonderful to meet yet another blogging friend and one I've felt a very special link with.

We'll go down on the train early Friday the 22nd, spend the night, and come back sometime Saturday. I am so looking forward to it. We probably won't leave terribly early Saturday so if anyone's in that area and wants to try for a coffee date, we're up for it. My phone # is on the bottom of my emails.

Thanks to all of you for the comments. Sorry I haven't posted more but, as I was saying to an online friend, I wonder how interesting it can be to read about, the weather or the roast I prepared the other day and the salmon loaf from yesterday (turned out real well - one of the few things for which I had to google a recipe). Mine had always turned out a little dry in the past - this one was okay.

Or it may be just the wintertime blahs.

Have a good weekend and take care everyone. Perhaps I will finally update the blogroll again. It's not too out of date but I can think of a couple of friends I've missed.

New Scam

2008-01-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

It's early morning and I have CNN (our biggest cable news channel for those of you outside the USA) on while I was reading email. I wish I'd been recording but I wasn't so this is what I remember of what they said.

Details are sketchy but apparently bank customers in our Midwest are receiving cell phone messages (text?) telling them their account has expired. To renew it they must log on to some web site.

When they do, all their banking info is captured.

I'm sure none of us would fall for it but whenever I see these things, I like to pass the word along. We're all accustomed to internet scams by now; apparently the cell phone gimmick is something new.

Still cold and damp here.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Our Weather Can't Make a Simple Decision

2008-01-16T18:17:00.000-08:00

Day before yesterday was springlike in the afternoon. Yesterday started out foggy and stayed cold most of the day. Today, more of the same but it warmed up a little. Tonight? Just above freezing. By Monday, we'll be blessed with a little more rain.

The rain and our one or two days of early spring caused yellow flowers to blossom in my yard. I have no clue what they are. I know they're weeds but I'm leaving them for now. They are bright and pretty. I found some toadstools as well. (For any of you who don't know what a toadstool is, it's an inedible mushroom that grows wild). We've also attracted a gathering of small birds. About the size and shape of a sparrow but yellow breasted. The cat stares out the window from her spot on the computer in fascination. We've always had a few birds but these are closer to a flock. The cold doesn't seem to bother them nor does the hard ground. They just keep pecking away. (Janice, you have any idea what they might be? You probably have them too). They're so cute and singleminded. It's all about food for them.

I spent the early part of the week taking down the tiny tree and wrapping my Christmas decorations while unwrapping the bell collection, etc. to go back on display. This time around, I found room for all my non-Christmas bells although they're rather crowded.

I have washed all the linen, area rugs, small blankets and afghans, rearranged the kitchen once again as well as my pantries and a couple of the cupboards. Oh, and I cleaned all the drip trays on the stove. Not my dirt, it was there when I bought the stove but I was too frazzled then to notice. They're much better now.

And I made a fair sized pan of lasagna. We're eating the last of it tonight, Tomorrow I'll start cooking again; probably a pot roast or stew in the crock pot. And biscuits? I'm used to my oven by now so probably.

It's great to be feeling a little more human. Ray's pretty much over his cold as well.

I stopped by Barnes & Noble on Saturday afternoon to treat my friends and their little girl to a hot drink and so Destiny could shop with her gift certificate (my Christmas present to her). I was reading and waiting when this voice behind me said "what are you doing here". It was number one son, home on an unexpected long weekend off. He has a friend that lives about 60 miles further north and they've been sharing expenses and riding together. I think there are 4 soldiers all in this same general area so they all get to come home more often. It was good to see him; even briefly.

This morning I went out for my usual Tuesday coffee date with friend Janet (postponed to Wednesday). We always have a great time.

I came home and started reading blogs. Unless some of you were removed (not by me of course) from Bloglines, I'm caught up (although I may not have commented on all). My eyes are finally behaving. I couldn't read for more than few minutes with that darn cold.

I haven't heard from the girls since the first week in January. It's the longest they've gone between calls. I'm not exactly worried but it would be good to hear from them. Hoping it's just because they started back to school and are very busy.

Thanks to all of you who surfaced on Delurking Day (or week) and to all my other faithful friends who've stuck with me for so long.

Take care everyone.

Show Yourselves Please (Figuratively I Mean)

2008-01-09T18:13:00.001-08:00

It doesn't seem to have received much notice this year but I was just informed by my friend Chris over at Rude Cactus (the same one who's so attached to Haiku) that tomorrow is Delurking Day. He would like to not be the only one participating. Usually it's well publicized - I don't know why this year was such a well kept secret.

What's that, you may ask? It's a request to those of you who read but don't leave comments to drop by and say hi. Tell me a little about yourselves if you wish.

Or you can just ignore it and keep on lurking. I read several blogs without ever leaving a comment. That makes me a sometimes lurker too.

I've done Delurking for the last couple of years and met some very nice people that way. I know from my site meter I have visitors I've never met.

Hope to meet a few of you tomorrow or the next day or the next. There's not really a time limit.

This One Is Real

2008-01-09T10:22:00.002-08:00

I've received a couple of emails from a site called Fanbox.com lately. I didn't recognize it so deleted. I received another the next day. My local friend, Janet, sent this to me today from Spam Huntress

I couldn't find a Snopes listing but it looks real enough to me.

================

sms.ac turns into fanbox

When I got the second e-mail from someone I didn’t immediately recognize, inviting me to answer a question at fanbox, I thought it was one of those irritating invitations from some application I haven’t installed at Facebook.

But when I got the second identical e-mail, I got irritated enough to check it out.

Turns out it’s from fanbox.com, which is a new incarnation of sms.ac, which I’ve blogged about before:

sms.ac abuse

sms.ac continues to send invitations

By now it’s not visibly centered around text messages (which to me looked like a scam that would quickly result in huge cell phone bills if you were unlucky), but rather a desktop application.

But I kinda doubt this person I got the e-mail from actually tried to send me a question. I might find out, because I’ve figured out the e-mail address (which isn’t in the e-mail from fanbox).

I think the same caution goes now that it did before: Do NOT give them the password to your webmail account, if you decide to join. Because they’ll spam your friends to death, and they’ll get angry with YOU for it!

Come to think of it, they’ll most likely get your webmail password no matter what, because this is a desktop application! The point is storing important documents, mail and passwords (presumably, I haven’t actually tried it, but it’s what I’d want to use a desktop app for, if I found one I trusted). Geez, I would NOT trust them enough to use them as a desktop app, based on their history!

Wait, I forgot to include the actual letter I received:

xxxxxsomeoneyoumayormaynotknowxxxx asked you a question. View the question and answer it.

FanBox.com is the web-based desktop that instantly turns every computer into your computer. It includes over 10,000 web applications and games to choose from, including the Question It application.

This email was sent by xxxxxsomeoneyoumayormaynotknowxxxx while using the Question It application on FanBox. Go here to learn more or stop receiving emails from friends using Question It. FanBox: 255 G Street #723, San Diego, CA 92101, USA

Update: I heard back from the person who supposedly sent those messages. She said she’d gotten starting yesterday too, and didn’t know why. But I also found I’d gotten another message, supposedly from her, and this time to a Yahoo groups listowner address. She’s on AOL, and I’m guessing she has a setting adding all senders of e-mails she receives to her address book automatically.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 3:20 pm and is filed under Mail spam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

17 Responses to “sms.ac turns into fanbox”

Steven Burn Says:
December 15th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Cheers for the heads up …….. I actually wrote about sms.ac back in 2005. Stupidly thought they’d have “gotten it” by now

http://mysteryfcm.co.uk/?mode=News&date=22-07-2005

Trying My Hand at Haiku (and Happy Birthday to Rochelle)

2008-01-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

Football ad nauseam
Sniffling and sneezing continue
Cold rain drizzles down

======

Ann, for heaven's sake, don't quit your day job. I wrote that on a friend's blog (Rude Cactus) who'd asked us to describe our weekend in Haiku form. He may already regret his request.

Ray is still sleeping, the cat is perched above my head, it's not quite 7:00 a.m. and I'm expecting my friend Dawn in about 20 minutes.

Our colds seem to be winding down. Mine was worse than Ray's but I worry more about him. For me, it's just a week of misery - his could have been more serious. Somehow I managed to do the first of the month shopping but I canceled almost everything else including, for the most part, even trying to read posts. Everything ached, including my eyes.

The storms which struck California last week did no real damage here. We had quite a bit of rain but no flooding, wind but nothing blown away, and one extremely brief power outage. Other communities, including Fresno just 60 miles south, weren't so lucky. I'm concerned about my San Francisco area friends as well as some in Southern California.

I've been cooking comfort food - my solution to everything. I made a big pot of clam chowder on Friday; by Saturday it was history. Yesterday, we had grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, and applesauce. Oh, and pancakes, eggs and tangerines for breakfast. Today, I think I'll reheat the leftover oatmeal for breakfast with English muffins and throw together a meatloaf for dinner. Probably mashed potatoes and some kind of veggie and fruit. I try to cook double batches of most things; partly to save on utilities and partly to save my own energy. Many things taste better the second day anyhow.

Rochelle turned 13 on the 5th of January. She's a teen!! Happy, happy birthday to my sweet girl. Rebecca will be 13 on Halloween and Elcie will be 15 in March. I know that just yesterday they were all babies.

Thanks to all of you for the comments and the concern. My eyes are finally focusing somewhat so perhaps I can get around to reading and commenting on some posts. I think I have something like 1500 entries on Bloglines I haven't seen. (Not all are friend's posts; some are news, etc. but it's still a little overwhelming).

Take care everyone.

Happy New Year!!

2007-12-30T18:54:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the anonymous person who posted this in 2007 on Google Image.

This is short. I spoke too soon about getting through the holidays healthy. Ray and I are both sniffling, coughing, and sneezing and I've been too miserable to do very much.

Other than that, all is well. I've read a few of your posts but haven't commented much. This room is a little chilly and I wanted to get back to warmth and covers.

Ray and I will open our bottle of Martinelli's sparkling cider tomorrow evening and toast the New Year although we may do it a few hours early - I'm not sure I can hold out until midnight.

Have a safe, peaceful, and Happy New Year one and all.

I Was In Luck!! (the missing pictures are found - see below)

2007-12-26T12:10:00.000-08:00

Jim, Michael, Tim, & "little" Jim

This was taken while we were playing cards at Jim's early the day before Christmas. If you look very closely, you can see Jonathan peeking between the feet. At least I think that's what they are - I have no earthly idea how they got that shot (or how I did if I did it).

This is a wonderful picture of beautiful Samantha (now 18). Her boyfriend is a cutie too and a very nice young man. She was born 9 days after Ray and I married. Where does the time go?

I did get a picture of Melissa but I'll wait to post until I have a better one. I think she wasn't feeling well even the day before Christmas and she was sick on Christmas day. Bummer.

One joke, one picture post, and my day after Christmas (Boxing Day) post follow.

My Sentiments Exactly

2007-12-26T11:45:00.000-08:00

Christmas pictures and my post follow but my local friend Janet just sent me

this

Christmas Pictures

2007-12-26T11:14:00.001-08:00

Back row - Samantha and her friend, "little" Jim, and Michael.
Front Jim and Jonathan. All in my back yard.

Jonathan looking for more food

Those two bald heads again. That's Zachary with his daddy.

Grandpa and Jonathan who loves eggnog. He needed a little help with the cup.
Spunky, my constant companion and editor. She's learned how to get down and across the keyboard without stepping on the keys as she goes. Right now she's sleeping off the turkey from yesterday - still on top of the computer.

I finally learned how to write between the pictures. It only took me 1-1/2 years (or more). This is Tim and Jim (the one with no hair).
Self explanatory. I was using the washer top for storage.

Part of my table (before food)

I think we were playing with Jonathan. Jim was running around with my camera and caught us unaware. I usually hide.

I had a couple of other pictures and now I can't find them. Don't think I erased them from the camera yet so I'll go back and check. One was a wonderful picture of Samantha. I'd hate to lose it.

Check below for my day after Christmas (Boxing Day) post.

Happy Boxing Day!!

2007-12-26T10:43:00.000-08:00

A little late for my friends "down under" of course and almost too late for the British Isles but it's the thought that counts, right?

Boxing Day here in the States involves returning "boxes" to the stores from whence they came and knocking each other down to get to the sales. I'll pass, thanks. I wonder if anyone gives presents to their servants the day after Christmas anymore.

Also Happy Birthday to Ray (and to my friend Dawn's husband as well). Dawn's making a cake for the two of them and we'll celebrate together later.

I have pictures, both of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I went over to Jim's for a while the afternoon of the 24th and played cards with them. The Zachary pictures are from that day. He and his mom were both a little under the weather the next day so Jim and Tim came over with Jonathan and Jim's kids. Melissa's three girls and her little granddaughter were spending the day with other grandparents. Extended families can be very complicated.

And I have a picture (actually a couple of them) with Ray looking happy and healthy. It will top my gratitude list for the New Year.

I'll put them on a separate post - it's simpler.

Elcie and Rebecca called right before all their cousins arrived. They were having a good Christmas and wanted to know all about ours. I'll probably hear from Rochelle today or tomorrow.

We had a good time - far too much food. Maybe by next year I'll have learned how to scale down. I kept a little ham and turkey out (enough for the next few days) and froze the rest. No cooking today or tomorrow at the very least. We'll be using up the leftovers.

Jim came over in the morning to borrow a potato peeler. I'd sent him home the other day with the ham and ten pounds of potatoes. Somehow their peeler disappeared. Threw us all a little behind schedule for dinner but he showed back up with a lovely batch of mashed potatoes and the perfectly cooked ham.

I did send a care package home to Melissa. Turkey, ham, and whatever else we thought she might like including one of the pumpkin pies. Too bad she couldn't make it but it was far more sensible to keep Zachary home if he wasn't feeling well, especially if she was a little puny herself.

It was good to see the grandkids. I see Samantha (Jim's oldest) fairly often but not so much the boys. Michael is a sophomore, "little" Jim a junior, and Samantha (Sammy) graduated last year, is working and going to school (I think I said that in an earlier post but oh well). They lead busy lives. I couldn't believe how the boys had changed from little kids into young men. You'll see why I refer to "little" Jim when you look at the pictures of the kids with their dad. The sumo wrestler is "little" Jim.

Ray slept in until almost ten this morning so we had a late oatmeal, toast, and fruit breakfast. Should hold us until we start in on the dressing, green beans, and sweet potatoes. And more turkey of course. I was up early sorting through, editing, and labeling pictures.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas day. Thanks for all the comments. Pictures should follow this post so you'll see them first (if Blogger doesn't have a snit).

From Handel's "Messiah"

2007-12-22T23:09:00.000-08:00

Let's hope this works. They were supposed to be part of my Christmas post but somehow the code wasn't working.

Yes, they do. My actual post is right below.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-20T15:36:00.001-08:00

To Jarneo in Finland and Jaya in Richmond, VA, thanks for signing the guest book.
I've been hanging on to those two cartoons for several days trying to find time and energy to post.

Tonight, I've spent the last few hours catching up with as many of my online friends as I could while listening to Handel's Messiah on CD. Meantime, Ray is watching the BYU channel with their glorious Christmas music.

The YouTube is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "For Unto Us a Child Is Born". (Or maybe not, I'm having problems with YouTube). I'll try it on a separate post and see what happens). Update: It worked as a separate post (see above) and I added the Hallelujah Chorus while I was at it.

I finished up the last of my Christmas shopping today (there's always one last thing I forgot) and dropped by Barnes & Noble to say hi to Tim. To my surprise, my older son, Jim, was there with his wife Melissa and their two youngest. I didn't expect him until tomorrow. We had coffee (or tried to with Jonathan blowing kissed, trying to drink from a straw, and being generally cute while little Zachary slept through the entire thing). I never thought to take my camera along but I'll have pictures on Christmas day. They took me home and picked up the ham and potatoes Jim always cooks for me for holidays. It's really hard to juggle ham and turkey with one oven and having someone do the work on homemade mashed potatoes is a huge help.

It looks as if his three older kids will be here too. I hope so. I don't see nearly enough of them now that they're almost grown. I'll make a few extra deviled eggs and hope they still gobble them up like they did when they were younger. Melissa's 3 girls will spend Christmas with their grandparents (I think). I'll prepare plenty of food just in case.

For the Man (or Woman) Who Has Everything

2007-12-15T07:27:00.000-08:00

When we moved back in early September, I went through my husband's collections of tools. Unbelievable the stuff we accumulate over the years but still we didn't have a set of these. Thanks to Phila for an early morning giggle.

It's around 7:30 on Saturday morning, Ray is still sleeping (as we both should be but I seem to have a built in alarm clock), and the cat is staring at me over the top of the computer. It's like sharing space with a vulture.

Anyhow, I was trying to catch up on some of my blog reading when I ran across the above. Stopped because I knew if I didn't post it right now I'd forget where I found it.

It's cold here for California; nights are down to around freezing, but I can't complain when I look at what's happening in the midwest and now on the east coast. I hope all of you who live in those areas are getting through it. So many have lost power and/or are snowed in.

Ray had his first regular medical appointment since the surgery and it went well. The doctor simplified some of the prescriptions and wrote them for 90 days rather than the month at a time he'd been doing. It will save us about $50/$75 per month and every little bit helps. The best thing is that many of the symptoms he'd had before the surgery have disappeared along with the medication he'd been taking for them. He can go without the oxygen much of the day as long as he's indoors. That alone would make me feel much better. Amazing the difference a properly functioning heart can make.

Still talking to the girls 3 or 4 times a week and it's good to hear from them. There's a lot going on in their lives than I can't talk about here (or maybe I can but I don't want to take the chance). There's always email.

I think I'm almost ready for Christmas. I'll go through the menu and figure out what I still need (like the ham which I'll buy this week because they went on sale), cranberries, cherries, and possibly pineapple. I ran out of cloves and almost fainted when I saw the prices. My friend Janet brought me a few whole ones from her stash and Dawn will share her ground cloves. I don't use them often or I would have been watching for sales but they're almost mandatory with ham. Tim is bringing a cheesecake from Barnes & Noble, we'll make our usual pumpkin pies (no pecan this year I don't think), and I get a free Sara Lee pie with the ham. Should be plenty. I think we'll have six people not counting Jonathan and Zachary although I hear Jonathan eats as much as his dad these days. Of course, I'll probably have a few dropins, at least for dessert.

The hardest part will be scaling down on quantities but we love leftovers, I'll make turkey soup out of the carcass and white beans from the hambone on New Year's (yes I know black-eye peas are traditional, Diane, Karen, and my other southern friends, but I like white beans).

I've figured out I can seat 8 if I have to and I can put up a card table in the kitchen (biggest room in the house). The guys will probably take their plates to the living room anyhow. Or I can put a cloth over my washer and dryer and use them to hold the food. I always do a buffet anyway and my family is accustomed to my improvising.

I'm managing so far not to catch my usual holiday cold but my back has been bothering me a little lately. Nothing serious as long as I don't sit too long in one place; even here. Probably just the cold (relatively speaking) weather.

The cat got bored with staring and is now sleeping. It's hard work being a vulture. I should go start some sort of Saturday morning breakfast. We're careful with Ray's "diet" but about once a week I cook a few pieces of bacon, poached eggs, and maybe pancakes. We make up for it with a light lunch.

Thanks to all for the comments, have a good weekend, and take care everyone.

It's Beginning to Sound Like Christmas - Update

2007-12-10T17:00:00.000-08:00

Went shopping this morning with Dawn and couldn't resist the two decorations above. Nothing like bobbleheads to add a little Christmas cheer.

Jim just called. Still looks like he'll be home for Christmas and for Ray's birthday the day after. I hope the Army Nat'l Guard doesn't change their mind at the last minute. He thanks you all for the kind words about the photos even though I was making fun of his bald head. We're coordinating our holiday plans.

I tried three times to post this direct from YouTube. Trying again this way. Let's see if it works. Click on the link.

This song isn't as well known as some of the traditional Christmas music but I love it.

In red, Kathleen Battle; in green, Frederica von Stade. They performed a Christmas concert together years ago and I still have my video tape.

Update: It occurred to me that they're not singing in English. See end of post for translation.

That works but this may too. Yep, take your choice. It may be a little clearer copy from the link.

I was going to write a longer post but just looked at the time. I need to feed my starving husband (and me too).

Take care everyone and thanks for the comments.

Gesu Bambino Lyrics (English)

When blossoms flower eer mid the snows,
Upon a winter night,
Was born the child, the christmas rose,
The king of love and light.
The angels sang, the shepherds sang,
The grateful earth rejoiced;
And at his blessed birth the stars
Their exultation voiced.

Chorus:
O come let us adore him
O come let us adore him
O come let us adore him
Christ the lord.

Again the heart with rapture glows
To greet the holy night,
That gave the world its christmas rose,
Its king of love and light
Let evry voice acclaim his name,
The grateful chorus swell
From paradise to earth he came
That we with him might dwell.

More Pictures

2007-12-06T10:49:00.000-08:00

If you have a cat, does he or she sleep all over the house?

Spunky sure does but she's become especially fond of the top of the computer now that the weather is colder.

Merle asked for a picture of the "new, improved" Ray.

Here it is.

See the post below this for more pictures.

New Pictures

2007-12-06T08:00:00.001-08:00

You can hardly see the first one for the glare from the top of Jim's head. The second is a little better. Tim said it took 6 tries to get that second shot and yes, Jonathan was kissing Zachary, not biting him.

"Enchanted" was wonderful. Tim and I had lunch at Home Town Buffet, went to the movie, and then walked over to Michael's (arts and crafts store). They had the perfect tree for me and it was on sale for $14.00. Dawn, Destiny, Ray, and I just finished decorating and lighting it. (Peter, you were right about a 12" tree. Remember the Charlie Brown Christmas? One ornament and it tried to fall over.

The top picture was the $1.00 12" tree. I kept looking at the pathetic little thing and becoming more depressed. You can see why. I think my second choice made more sense.

While we were at Michael's Dawn spotted tiny Christmas bell ornaments. One says Ann, the other says, Ray. Maybe by enlarging you can spot them toward the very top of the tree.

Today we're going over to my friends where I learn to play a new version of dominos while Ray watches t.v. Should be fun.

And now Dawn and I are going to goof off while she does laundry.

Talk to you later.

Guest Book

2007-12-04T14:44:00.000-08:00

Does anyone out there know how to delete signatures/pictures on the Guest Book? I'm no prude but there's one I could certainly live without.

I blocked what I hope was the site and not the entire Guest Book but haven't found the way to remove one image. I'll keep looking but meantime would appreciate advice.

Back Once Again

2007-12-04T06:44:00.003-08:00

Thanks to those of you who emailed asking if we're okay. We are. Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful, the food was spectacular, and I enjoy my friends but the first holiday season without the girls and my daughter has been a little more difficult than I anticipated. I haven't been able to think of much to say here. I sit down to write and nothing happens. Also, now that Ray is feeling better, I've spent more time hanging out with him and less time in here clicking away.

I have Christmas decorations in the living room but no room for a real tree. I picked up a 12" (.30480 meters) fake tree yesterday and some mini ornaments. Possibly I can make space for it and a small wreath on the door. As far as I know, I'll be cooking Christmas dinner for us, Jim and family, and Tim. Very low key this year. I went shopping yesterday and it was hard to go through the stores. I kept thinking about what we'd normally be doing.

On the bright side, Ray feels better (except for some residual pain from the surgery) than he has in years. I talk to the girls 2 or 3 times a week and they're doing well. And I still love this tiny house. We're making it. I'm not sure the sadness over the events of the past year will ever completely leave but it isn't constant.

My friend Janet's roommate went through her closet this weekend and I now have four bags of clothes that she no longer wears along with some luxurious looking items for the bath. She's taller than I but otherwise close to the same size. I'll go through them today or tomorrow. Janet and I are having coffee this morning and tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, Tim and I are going to see "Enchanted". Ray thinks it might be a little difficult for him to sit that long and I don't think it's his type of movie anyhow. I'm not sure; he'll watch almost anything. I walked into the living room the other morning to catch him watching an infomercial. It should be fun. My kid, a good movie, and popcorn. Who could ask for more. I haven't been to a movie in a couple of years. It's hard for me to sit that long and theaters don't come equipped with a "pause" button.

It's a little after 7 a.m. here and my friend Dawn just called and told me to look out my door to the north. I did and saw the rainbow I added to the top of this post. The sun isn't really shining this early, it's overcast and cold, and we didn't have rain but there the rainbow was. Perhaps it's a sign.

And, while I'm talking about the weather, sending good wishes to my friends in Seattle, WA and vicinity who are experiencing severe flooding and in the Minnesota/Iowa area which is dealing with heavy snow. Hope all of you are okay. By now the snow is hitting the east coast as well and the same good wishes to any of you. Arkansas had storms and tornado watches/warnings but I think it's settled down by now. Our temperature right now is in the mid 40's (F) (4.4444 C)but it's been down around freezing in the late night/early morning. We took the trash out wearing heavy jackets. I put a pair of socks on my hands as our gloves didn't seem to have survived the move. We'll have a couple of days of highs in the 60's but expect rain (snow around Yosemite) by the end of the week.

(Update around 9.00 a.m. - the rain has arrived. Thanks a lot to San Francisco for sending it our way. The rainbow was a result of the rain in the next town down the road but I still think it's a sign).

My friend Lyman just called. His printer is being contrary (thanks to Vista) so he's going to use mine. Fortuitous. I bought two new ink cartridges yesterday and haven't installed them yet. The printer ran for an entire year on the ink that came with it and I got a bargain on the cartridges (or they're just less expensive than my old Lexmark). $16 for black ink, $17 for tri-color. The Lexmarks were $35 each. Anyhow, I'd better close this out.

Word of warning to any of my friends who use Facebook. Beware of an application called Fandango. According to information I received, once you sign up it publishes whatever you've purchased in the way of books, games, videos, music, etc. directly to your Facebook page. It's in the fine print which not all of us read.

I haven't signed up for that particular application but it's good information to have. If you want to know how to access the Facebook page to protest, email me and I'll send what I have.

Thanks to all for the comments and Tim thanks you for the birthday wishes. I've been getting around to some of you and once again will catch up. I have a meme I've been trying to get to (haven't forgotten you Michael in England) and I'll finish that up as well. It will be a little different than what usually appears here.

Take care everyone.

I Almost Forgot

2007-11-21T20:36:00.004-08:00

My youngest son and I have a running joke about his birthday. If I get the year right, I forget the day. If I get the day right, I try to make him a year younger.

November 22, 1972. I think. No, I'm sure - I was there.

Happy Birthday to Timothy. He was born the day before Thanksgiving, weighing in at a huge 2 lbs. 15 oz. (1.32 kilograms). If you haven't seen his pictures scattered around the blog, he's now around 6' (1.83 meters) and right at 200 lbs. (90 kilograms?)

Obviously he grew but we had a couple of scary days when he first arrived.

Love you sweetie. I know you hate it when I say you'll always be my baby but you'll always be my baby.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2007-11-20T15:25:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.
Erma Bombeck

Tomorrow may be busy so, just in case, I'm wishing all my online friends a Happy Thanksgiving now. If you don't live in the States, have a wonderful next Thursday.

Ray saw the surgeon for the last time yesterday. Clean bill of health and no more insulin or horrid testing four times a day. He'll still have to careful for a while and stay with some medication but the worst is behind us. Right now, he's trying to get a dvd/vcr player hooked up for me in here and has almost succeeded. He has audio (ABBA - Waterloo) but no picture. Or did. Now he has a blank screen but it's still better than I could do.

I'm going to leave him to it and go prepare dinner. Take care everyone.

P. S. 15 minutes later. I left the room for a few minutes, came back and he has audio and video. We had the wrong cable. Now happily watching (more listening to) Marriage of Figaro which I can see from the kitchen.

This Is So Funny!! (In Dutch)

2007-11-19T09:13:00.000-08:00

Or at least I thought so and I don't pay much attention to ads as a rule. The language isn't English (maybe German - I'm not sure) but you won't need it; it's a visual.

Update: Thank you mijk for letting me know it's Dutch. I flipped a coin between the two languages because I wasn't sure. I looked it up (which I should have done in the first place). The "H" in Hema stands for Holland, it's a large and very well known company over there.

Delilah, from whom I swiped the link, says it's not over until the last confetti falls.

(Hint - keep your eye on the radio - I almost missed it).

We had a peaceful weekend. It's getting chillier by the day but the sun is now shining and I didn't need a jacket in the few minutes I stepped outside this morning (to dump the trash - I have such an exciting life).

Rebecca and Rochelle called. They're still doing well with track and field and Rebecca tells me she's being good. No soon had she said that than she and Rochelle began squabbling about something while I was sitting there with the phone to my ear. In a minute though they were laughing again. So was I; it was all so familiar.

And I may have already said Ray has what I hope will be his last surgical checkup today. He doesn't look like his old self; he looks better. Still a little discomfort; it was major, major surgery after all but he's well on the way to recovery.

Hope all of you had a good weekend. Thanks for the comments and take care everyone.

How Did I Manage This?

2007-11-16T18:35:00.001-08:00

I've been trying to post a lovely video from YouTube but either YouTube or Blogger isn't cooperating. Maybe I can get it on over the weekend. While I'm at it, thanks to Karen H. for the Community Blogger Award. My other project for the weekend is to add buttons to my sidebar. It's not that I can't do it; I can but silly blogger gets cranky.

Right now it's double spacing between paragraphs.

Aha!! It's fixed. I think. No, it isn't.

I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend. My friend Janet brought me some of these persimmons from her tree today. She tells me they're milder and sweeter than the usual persimmons and they can be peeled and eaten like an apple. I'm looking forward to trying them.

CALIFORNIA FUYU (Oku Gosho?):

Medium, round with a slight point, orange to deep red-orange color, sporadic male blossoms, often seedy, non-astringent, firm-ripe.

I ran into Jim's oldest child today at Barnes & Noble. Samantha turned 18 in July, is working, going to Junior College here in town, and has a Driver's License. She's as sweet and beautiful as ever. I know it was just yesterday that she was born. Where does the time go?

Not a lot going on. Ray continues to improve and the girls were doing well when I spoke to Rebecca a couple of days ago. Perhaps they'll call tonight.

Our morning temperatures are supposed to drop to right above freezing around Thanksgiving. Brrr!! At least we don't have snow. I have our summer clothes put up and our winter clothing sorted, washed, and on hangars. We'll be needing the warm sweats before long.

And I've been cooking more "comfort food" as the weather cools. Tonight was just soup, sandwich, and yogurt because I was a little late getting home but tomorrow I'll do better.

I think I've finally caught up with most of you even if I didn't comment on all. Thanks to all of you for your comments and have a good weekend.

What Should You Be When You Grow Up?

2007-11-14T06:34:00.001-08:00

You Should Be a Doctor

You are practical, sharp, and very intuitive.
Optimistic and energetic, you are a problem solver who doesn't get discouraged easily.
You are also quite compassionate and caring. You make people feel hopeful.
You're highly adaptable and capable. You do well with almost any curve ball life throws at you.

You do best when you:

- Are always learning new subjects
- Use your knowledge to solve problems

You would also be a good therapist or detective.

What Should You Be When You Grow Up?

Thanks to Illahee in Japan for this one.

What Should You Be When You Grow Up?

2007-11-14T06:34:00.000-08:00

You Should Be a Doctor

What Should You Be When You Grow Up?

Thanks to Illahee in Japan for this one.

Barbie Ages Gracefully

2007-11-13T13:38:00.001-08:00

Tammy and I share several readers so some of you may have already seen this hilarious post.

For those who haven't, click on the link. It made my day. I thought Tammy had originated it but she mentioned in the comment box that it came from an email that had been circulating for a few years now. No matter, it's still funny.

(For some reason, the link goes to her entire blog instead of the post. Right now, it's the second post from the top - easy to find.)

Delurking Day and Pictures of Jim, Melissa and Two Youngest

2007-11-13T05:45:00.000-08:00

Zachary James Kent Clark - 5 days old. Look at those cheeks!!

Jim and Melissa

I don't know why this is so fuzzy but at least you can get an idea of the little porker's size

Jonathan showing off for his dad. They're playing pass the pacifier.

More Jonathan showing off

Melissa and Zachary - once again fuzzy

It's my opinion that Jonathan put a hex on my camera for all the pictures he wasn't in.

They took me to brunch yesterday and I remembered to bring the camera. I had the pictures yesterday but by last night I was too fuzzy myself to do much. Blogger was down until six and by then all I wanted to do was relax. I have a couple of cute videos too, maybe for my next post. Jonathan and his dad were playing games. Jim's on leave for the rest of the week and that boy will sure miss him when he heads back to the border.

Melissa looks great. She and I are much alike in that respect. Have the baby, get up, and plow another acre. I've never had a nine pounder though. My biggest was seven pounds (3.18 kilograms or 1/2 stone) even.

Zachary woke up just before we were ready to leave. Great set of lungs on the kid!!

Jonathan is 18 months old. He's talking a little and understands most of what we say to him. He's as much of an imp as he appears to be.

Jim's oldest child, Samantha, is now 18. She has a driver's license, a car, a job, and has started Junior College. Her two brothers are both in high school. Little Jimmie (not very little anymore) is a junior; Michael a sophomore. He's six months older than Elcie.

All is well here. Ray was supposed to see the doctor yesterday but our friend's car broke down in our driveway so I rescheduled for next week. I think it will be better timing. His leg is almost completely healed and I have a feeling the surgeon may discharge him when he sees him next. The nurse will be here this morning and I'm sure he'll be pleased too. The worst wound has healed to the point where I can no longer "pack" it. By next week, they may even take him off the insulin. No more finger sticks 4 times a day and no more jabbing of needles. Yippee!!

The car is fixed. One of the cables shorted out the battery. Of course I feel guilty.

I've had a burst of ambition the past couple of days. Put our summer clothes away, hung the winter things, sorted our dresser drawers and made more space, redid the closets and the two pantries. I'd done a fair job when we moved in but now that I've been here for a while I have a much better idea of space. It's amazing how little space the two of us use. Music, books, and videos are the biggest culprits and, even with that, we're doing fine thanks to the extra shelving my friends installed.

Dawn and I did our grocery shopping for the month on Saturday (I went a little overboard) and then I snuck out for coffee. I'd been housebound all week and was going a little stir crazy. It doesn't seem to bother Ray; he'd rather be home.

The girls call often. Rebecca had a good Halloween and birthday (same day) and she told me the last time we talked she was good all day. She and Rochelle had a case of the giggles for some reason.

I woke up a little after 4 this morning. I had the alarm set for 5:45 so I could take out the garbage. Last week I took it out after dinner and by morning my next door neighbor had piled my "wet garbage" can so high sanitation wouldn't pick it up. Dawn and I unpiled it into a huge trash bag and left it on the neighbor's front lawn. Once I could close the lid (still with a bunch of the neighbor's garbage inside), I called sanitation and they came back. It's the second time it's happened. Sanitation suggested that I put them out early in the morning; the theory being be that people who do that sort of thing aren't apt to be up at the crack of dawn.

I'm glad I hadn't put the recycle can out. Heaven knows what that would have looked like. Recycle is "clean" trash (paper, cans, bottles) and I usually can skip at least one week. She doesn't bother with the recycling - just jams everything in however she can. She didn't even put her own overflowing cans out. I don't know what she did with them but the last time I saw them they were both spilling over.

I know it was the neighbor because we found pieces of her junk mail which should have been in recycle anyhow. She's moved since but just one door down. She won't have curb pickup where she is now because she's in an apartment, not a house. The dumpsters on the back alley are big and maybe that will give her enough space.

I was not happy but in a few more weeks Ray will be able to help or go back to his old "garbage job". The cans are on wheels and not all that heavy but I'm short and they're not so I struggle.

Sorry about that. I got a little obsessed about garbage, didn't I.

I have country style boneless spareribs in the crockpot. They'll be done by dinner. This morning should be my usual coffee date with friend Janet. I haven't heard from her yet so don't know if we're on or not. Hope so - we had to skip last week.

I've fallen behind on so many things lately. Reading your posts, welcoming new visitors, the blog roll, adding banners to my sidebar. I'm ashamed. Some day I'll catch it all back up.

Meantime, welcome to Karen H. of Caraway, AR which is right up the road from Jonesboro where I lived for eight years. That brings my J'boro metropolitan area friends up to 4 I think. Diane and her two sisters (Cecil and Donna) and now Karen. Oops, it's 5. I omitted Diane's daughter Jessica who has her own blog.

And to Naomi, Old, Old Lady of the Hills (in Los Angeles). I think I mentioned her wonderful blog before and may have included a link.

I'll go back through the comments and see who else I missed. I have several new names on the guest book. They haven't commented so I'll thank them here for signing. I need to have a "delurking day". Now is as good a time as any. If you're reading and not commenting, drop by and say hi (if you want to - there are no rules).

Carmen's husband, Mike, left a last post on her blog thanking everyone for their support and prayers. I thank you as well. I wish the outcome had been different but, since it wasn't, may she be pain free and at peace.

And now I must go deal with the garbage. Thanks for the comments and take care everyone.

Veteran's Day 2007

2007-11-10T18:17:00.000-08:00

These few lines were written by a home schooled girl named Beverly Hernendez.

Today we salute our heroes,
We pray for all the ones we have lost,
We pray for all the ones who are still alive,
We rejoice for the ones that come home,
We are happily rejoicing for all our loved ones,
So on this day we do all these things for our loved ones.

And from Wikipedia:

Remembrance Day (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom), also known as Poppy Day (Malta and South Africa) and Armistice Day (France, New Zealand, and many other Commonwealth countries; and the original name of the day internationally) is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War. It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918. The observance is specifically dedicated to members of the armed forces who were killed during war, and was created by King George V on 7 November 1919 (possibly upon the suggestion of Edward George Honey to Wellesley Tudor Pole, who established two ceremonial periods of remembrance based on events in 1917).

The name was changed many years ago here in the States to Veteran's Day.

I couldn't get all the flags on there so will those of you from Scotland, New Zealand, and elsewhere please forgive me.

It's a Boy!!

2007-11-07T18:27:00.001-08:00

I just talked to my son.

Zachary (Jim forgot to tell me his middle name) was born about an hour ago. Weighed in at 9 lbs, 1 oz. (about 4.17 kilograms). That's a big baby.

Melissa doing fine but I imagine she's exhausted. Hope to have pictures in the next couple of days.

San Francisco!! Updated

2007-11-05T12:16:00.000-08:00

Home again after a great day and a restful night. I headed home a little after 7 this morning and came in about 10:30, just in time to chat with Ray's home health care nurse. Ray did fine without me which is good since I'm invited back for birthday party in early December.

I may try to get back with more later and maybe a few pictures. Meantime, here's what I wrote to a friend of mine(Chris at Rude Cactus) who was asking about weekend statistics. The picture at the top is the infamous porta potty. It came out a little dark but you get the idea. They have them scattered around downtown. If you're not out in 20 minutes, the door opens and you will be embarrassed. It's sanitized automatically between uses. They seem to be working well but I knew eventually someone would figure out how to beat the system.

"Trips to San Francisco - 1

# of crazy bus drivers on Bay Bridge - 1
(next time I'll get off the train early and catch BART in).
He wanted to look at my camera (to count the pixels) which was fine until he took both hands off the wheel to do it. "Excuse me sir, shall I drive while you play with the camera?"

# of toilet stories to almost compare with your's - 1
(the person who successfully got around the time limit on the free porta potty at Powell & Market (the cable car turnaround in the postcards) by opening the door long enough to throw out an article of clothing; thereby extending his time another 20 minutes. I didn't hang around for the entire striptease.

Note: My friend Chris holds the record for weird things happening to him in and around public bathrooms). It's a running joke as any of you who read him will know.

Perfect line by a train conductor - 1
"would the person who left his bike parked upside down in front of the luggage rack please contact the conductor? I'd like to tell him were he can park his bike".

Time spent with my two blogging buddies and their families eating takeout Chinese and yakking - priceless!! (Even though the other two out of towners couldn't make it).

Update:

Several people have wondered about the porta potties and the 20 minute time limit. Or, for that matter, why anyone would want to homestead them.

Here's the story from what I remember when SF was first talking about installing them. (They're French, by the way).

I should have explained that the porta potties were installed for two reasons:

Because it's very hard to find a public bathroom in downtown SF (or at
least it used to be). Tourists were becoming desperate.

Market Street (especially the part that I mentioned) has more than its
fair share of homeless. The porta potties were installed partly as a
humanitarian gesture and partly to give them somewhere other than the
bushes to relieve themselves.

So what happens (and what the time limit was trying to prevent) is
some of the homeless would spend the day in the porta potty away from
the cold and wind. I'm sure that's what was happening when I was
there. An hour off the street.

Happy Birthday to you!!

2007-10-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

Rebecca is 12 today.

I talked to her last night. She's excited about her birthday and trick or treat which of course always happen on the same day. We'd hold her birthday celebration on the closest weekend so it wouldn't get lost in the Halloween flurry.

If you ever have a chance to read this, Rebecca, I hope your birthday was everything you wanted it to be.

I love you.

Yes, we felt the 5.6 quake last night. No damage - just surprise. I was relieved to see from the news this morning that there was no serious damage and no reported injuries at the epicenter (near San Jose).

I Haven't Dropped Off The Face of the Earth!! Update 5:30 p.m.

2007-10-30T14:47:00.002-07:00

But it's been a busy week.

First, the news about my friend Carmen is not encouraging but she continues to fight. Her husband thanks all of us (on their blog) for our prayers and asks us to continue. For those of you who don't know about her struggle, my earlier post is here

Update: I'm so sorry to let you know that Carmen died this morning. Thank you Susie for letting me know about the later post. Your thoughts and prayers for the family are needed more now than ever. For further information, check Mike's latest post.

Ray came home from the hospital Friday afternoon. His leg is better (yes, it was staph but one of the varieties which responds to antibiotics). It was not the "superbug" which is terrorizing so many communities. The home care is a little more involved than it was but I've learned and we're managing. Other than the infection, he's doing quite well.

Saturday I attended the "celebration" of the life of one of my good friends from church. It was a wonderful service complete with a bagpiper in kilts and lots of memories of my friend. I have my own, often funny, memories of Betty. The two of us laughed a lot. If I could choose my own death, there are far worse ways to go than at the age of 78 busily planning my next three projects. That was Betty. She left an amazing legacy.

Sunday and Monday I had the "blahs" (not exactly sick; just tired I think) and did very little except care for Ray, watch the '49ers lose to the Saints (my older son was happy enough to call me from El Centro to gloat), and watch the Rockies go down in flames to the Red Sox. Congratulations to Boston even though I was hoping for Colorado (National League, same as my Giants and they'd never won a World Series). Monday I spent lying down some of the time in between preparing meals and doing what was necessary.

Today has been much better. Friend Janet and I went for what is becoming our Tuesday ritual of coffee and grocery shopping. Now I'm waiting with an empty refrigerator for someone to pick up the fridge and drop off a loaner. Nothing serious; just the seal (or lack thereof) on the door. It stays cold but I know it's gulping down electricity. Still under warranty so no problem if they ever get here. They said between 1 and 3 - it's now 2:12.

I've talked to all the girls, mainly Rebecca, several times. Her birthday is on Halloween (she'll be 12 - the same age as Rochelle for a little over two months) and she's very chatty about that. They seem to be doing well.

Rochelle will turn 13 in January. I don't know where the time goes.

If all goes well with Ray, I'm headed for San Francisco early Sunday morning and coming back on probably the first train Monday. I'll set up meal menus (microwavable) and medications ahead of time, my friend Dawn can handle wound care on Sunday afternoon, and he should be fine. The home health nurse didn't see any problems. So far, each day seems better than the one before. He's certainly well enough to make toast, pour cereal, and put a sandwich together. I have lots of what in the military would be called MRE's (meals ready to eat).

Dawn will bring him Sunday dinner so we're talking about one lunch, one bedtime snack (because of the insulin), and Monday breakfast. I should be home before lunch.

It should be fun. I'll be meeting up with either two or three bloggers I already know (hi there) and another friend from out of state. The two of us have been trying to get together for over a year and something always happens. Maybe this time is the charm.

We had a loud, but short lived, thunderstorm last night complete with enough wind to take down trees (or parts of them)all over town. Dawn has an entire tree down in front of her apartment. Fresno (60 miles south) had hail the size of golf balls. Many folks love thunderstorms. I'm not one of them. I don't panic but the cat and I were both somewhat uncomfortable. She sat at my feet and looked offended. Then, it doesn't take much to offend a cat. Today the sun is shining, the weather is warm for late October, and it should continue for the rest of the week.

Thanks to all for the comments and support. I'll try to get back here a little more often. November is the "post a day" month. I haven't decided yet whether to try for it. I did it last year but there were several days I cheated with a meme, jokes, or pictures. I'll make up my mind at the last minute I suppose.

Take care everyone.

Southern California Fires (cross posted)

2007-10-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

Again from Emily and Cooper.

These two women started blogging as a response to Katrina by establishing a clearing house for information. Their blog has evolved into a political forum with the primary focus on women's and children's issues (although they write about other things as well).

Now they're involved in a group on The Motherhood (to which I belong) which is serving as a clearing house for those interested in helping the people of Southern California.

You can find the link to The Motherhood on their blog.

Blog Hers Act - Post Partum Depression (cross posted)

2007-10-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

I didn't know about this until this morning when I was reading my friends Cooper & Emily at Been There.

If BlogHer emailed me, I didn't see it and I hadn't checked the site lately. I admit, I'm not their most active member.

I left a comment for Emily telling her I was going to cheat and copy her post because time was so short.

It's also probably too late to ask others to post today but we still have time to contact our Senators and ask them to support S. 1735.

Here is Emily's post (I updated to show today's date).

Katherine Stone appeared ~~this morning~~ yesterday? on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet to talk about Blog Day for MOTHERS Act -- happening this Wednesday -- and did a wonderful job. Go to the Mike and Juliet site to watch Katherine talking in the Green Room after her interview and see what a natural she is on camera.

We're getting behind Blog Day for MOTHERS Act tomorrow because as Katherine says,

Postpartum depression is a serious and disabling condition that affects up to 20 percent of new mothers -- as much as 800,000 American women each year. Yet only 15 percent of these women will receive any assessment or treatment. Let me repeat. With all we know and as smart as we are, only 15% of 800,000 women will get diagnosed and treated. That is so wrong on so many levels. Women are not being diagnosed because they're not being educated and they're not being screened. Untreated, the consequences of maternal mood disorders range from chronic, disabling depression to death. The impact of untreated maternal depression on infants/children ranges from behavioral and learning disabilities to depression and, in the worst case scenarios, death from infanticide."

Here's what Blog Day for MOTHERS Act is all about (thank you again, Katherine):

On Wednesday October 24th, BlogHer, Postpartum Support International and Postpartum Progress are joining together to host Blog Day for the MOTHERS Act. We're asking bloggers from around the country to write about the MOTHERS Act for postpartum depression on the 24th and to encourage their readers to pick up the phone that day, call their Senators and urge them to endorse this critical legislation. I hope you will join us in this effort, which is part of the overall BlogHers Act 2007-2008 initiative to improve maternal health.

What is the MOTHERS Act? The Moms Opportunity to Access Help, Education, Research and Support for Postpartum Depression Act, or MOTHERS Act (S. 1375), will ensure that new mothers and their families are educated about postpartum depression, screened for symptoms and provided with essential services. In addition, it will increase research into the causes, diagnoses and treatments for postpartum depression. The bill is sponsored by Senators Menendez and Durbin.

So,

1. Blog it on Blog Day for The MOTHERS Act ~~tomorrow~~ today, October 24, 2007.

2. Share your link at BlogHer.

3. Proudly display the badge in this post stating you're going to do the above.

(I can't display the badge - Blogger is being contrary about images again.)

4. CALL YOUR SENATORS AND ASK THEM TO SPONSOR AND SUPPORT THIS LEGISLATION!!!

5. Go to Postpartum Support International to get all the contact info you need.

We're hoping a LOT of bloggers will get in on the act on ~~Thursday~~ Wednesday?. Your post doesn't have to be long. Just let everyone know you support the bill, and you hope they'll agree with you, and call their Senators.

And every one of us, let's pick up the phones tomorrow. Even if you've never ever called your Senator before, give it a try. It takes a couple of seconds, and all you need to do is say to the person who answers the phone that you're calling because you want the Senator to vote for the MOTHERS Act, Senate Bill 1375. Telling him or her that you vote and you live in the Senator's state. That's it. They'll make a note of it, and you're done. And you'll feel great because you've been heard and because you could make the difference in getting this bill passed into law.

Falling Asleep

2007-10-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

I have a cat sleeping at my feet, CNN on the t.v. as I try to keep up with the disastrous fires in the southern part of California, and I'm close to asleep myself.

I meant to get back with an update over the weekend but Ray wasn't doing too well and I was spending time with him.

First, thanks to all of you who responded to my friend Carmen San Diego. Her husband's latest post was quite positive considering how serious her illness is. He also said that so far their home is safe from the fires. Let's hope it stays that way. He thanks all for their prayers and good wishes and said he's been reading them to her.

Another southern California friend reported 85 mph winds outside her home last night and no electricity. Being a true blogger, she wrote her post from the local library. Seriously, as of this morning, she and her family were okay.

The fires are fanned by high wind and spreading rapidly. Please keep all those families and the firefighters (we even sent some from here), in your thoughts.

A friend emailed me to ask if we were in any danger. No, Merced is a couple of hundred miles to the north and east of the fires. My son is in southern CA but he's almost on the Arizona border surrounded by desert.

Ray and I have had what might be called an interesting day. His leg (the one they removed the vein from for the bypass) began acting up a little on Saturday, a little more on Sunday, and by this morning was scaring me enough to call the home health care nurse. (You don't need the description; trust me, it was yucky.) We had a scheduled appointment with his doctor in Modesto this afternoon so we agreed to wait rather than send him to the emergency room here which would mean missing the appointment as well as trying to explain the whole thing to the e.r. personnel.

The doctor decided to admit him to the hospital there for a course of broad spectrum i.v. antibiotics "just in case". Only problem? No beds. We agreed the hospitalization could wait until the next morning and we came back home (50 miles more or less). At 4:30 they had a bed. Naturally. If we'd known, we could have hung out in the hospital cafeteria for an hour. Nobody at the hospital knew it was supposed to be tomorrow and nobody at all called me until 7:30 when the hospital wondered where we were. They insisted it had to be tonight - they couldn't guarantee a bed tomorrow. Don't these people ever talk to each other?

I managed to get there, it got even crazier when they couldn't find an admitting order. Finally, someone figured it out and I left him there after answering the same questions at least four times to four different people. Got home around 11:00 p.m., too tired to sleep.

Almost 200 miles in one day. My coffee drinking friend Janet made the last run and we chattered the whole way and back. Good thing - we might have fallen asleep. Bless her heart, she thought it was the local hospital until she went the wrong direction for the northbound freeway and I mentioned it. Oops. I shouldn't have assumed she knew it would the same hospital where he had the surgery. She was a very good sport. We're not sure about coffee tomorrow (our usual day because it's also senior day at the market). Might both be too tired.

Anyhow, it should be no more than a few days. He might be out by Thursday or Friday. It's common with this surgery for the leg to cause more problems than the chest but I was hoping it wouldn't happen.

Mary and Merle, I had a draft partially prepared with those award buttons but Blogger wouldn't cooperate. I haven't forgotten and I thank you both. Friday's Child, I think I have one from you as well. As soon as life calms down around here, I'll try to post them.

I spoke to the girls on Friday and they were doing well then. Not since so they're either busy or grounded.

Now I'm going to try for some sleep. Take care everyone.

Prayers for a Fellow Blogger - Update Saturday Night

2007-10-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

I'd started a post earlier today and put it aside to catch up on some of you.

I just found this post from Mike, "Carmen San Diego's" husband.

Some of you may know she's on the waiting list for a lung transplant. Her husband just let us know she's in the Naval hospital in San Diego battling a serious lung infection.

If you pray, please pray for my friend Carmen and for Mike. If you don't, please hold her in your thoughts. She needs all the support she can get right now.

Thanks - I'll be back tomorrow with an actual post and an update about Carmen if I know anything more.

Update

She's doing better. For those of you who want to read it, here is the link to Mike's latest post.

Thanks to those of you who have responded. We'll hope the news from San Diego continues to be good.

Candle Lighting Tonight

2007-10-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

I saw this on Msfitzita's blog this morning.

It speaks for itself.

Blog Action Day (cross posted)

2007-10-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

Today is Blog Action Day during which we've been asked to sign up and write about the environment.

I got it half right. I tried to officially sign up and obtain a button to post on sidebar. I'll try again for the button but they wanted an RSS number, whatever that is. I know it has something to do with feeders like Bloglines, but I sure couldn't find it.

So unofficially, I'm doing it anyhow.

Here, from the New York Times and reprinted in Truthout, is something a little out of the ordinary. We all know Al Gore won the Nobel and I think most of us believe global warming is a reality. Hopefully, we're all doing what we can as individuals to combat it.

Here's what the Congo Republic's pygmies are doing.

When Congo Republic's northern pygmies go out into the forest these days, some will be carrying hand-held satellite tracking devices along with their traditional bows and spears.
Using GPS handsets to pinpoint sacred sites and hunting areas, the nomadic forest dwellers are literally putting themselves on the map to protect their livelihoods and habitat against the chainsaws and bulldozers of commercial loggers.
Through the scheme, northern Congo's Mbendjele Yaka people and the central African country's largest logging company are working in an unusual alliance to ensure the forest areas crucial to the pygmies' daily lives are left standing.
"It's essentially a process by which the traditional rights of the pygmies can be respected and protected," Scott Poynton, executive director of the Tropical Forest Trust, which works to promote responsible forest management in the world, told Reuters.
With training and technology provided by the trust, logging company Congolaise Industrielle des Bois (CIB) owned by Denmark's DLH group, and other international partners, the Mbendjeles are using the GPS (Global Positioning System) to mark out forest areas and even specific trees they want preserved.
"The sets have icons on them, so they don't have to be able to read and write. They basically go out and say OK, click, here is a sacred site, and a GPS point is taken and links up to the satellite," Poynton said in an telephone interview on Wednesday.
"They can wander through the forest and map all of the areas -- the tombs of their ancestors, hunting grounds, sacred areas, water holes, areas of medicinal plants -- these are all captured on GPS points, all downloaded on the computer," he added.
"And suddenly, you've got a map."
These maps were being used by CIB to guide its logging operations on its concessions in this part of the Congo Basin rainforest, the world's second largest which conservationists say is under threat from indiscriminate illegal logging.
CIB is using the GPS scheme to extend certification of its Congo concessions by the Forest Stewardship Council, which recognizes responsible, sustainable logging that takes into account the rights of indigenous peoples.
"It's a wonderful partnership between very poor, disenfranchised traditional people and a large company that's saying we want to do things the right way," Poynton said.
"LIKE KIDS WITH A COMPUTER"
CIB turned to anthropologist Jerome Lewis of the London School of Economics, an expert on the Mbendjele pygmies, to help design the pictorial icons that allow the forest dwellers to click and identify on the GPS sets their important sites among the towering tropical hardwood trees of the forest.
For example, a syringe represented an area of medicinal plants, a pygmy with an arrow a hunting area, while an image of a typical pygmy leaf and liana home indicated a living area.
"We've been working with them about six months and honestly, they're like fish to water, they're like kids with a computer game ... We're finding they can map very large areas very, very quickly," Poynton said.
The project was also receiving funding from the World Bank's Development Marketplace program.
Among the trees being marked out by the pygmies for preservation are the giant sapelli, many of them more than 40 meters high and more than two meters in diameter at the base, from which the Mbendjele gather caterpillars to eat.
"OK, trees are falling, but they are not trees deemed to be traditionally important by the community. These are marked with paint and the bulldozers go around them," Poynton said.
The project is also setting up a local community radio station, named Bisso na Bisso or "between us" in the local language, to help spread the word about pygmy issues among communities scattered across the vast forest.
"It's about getting their voices heard," Poynton said.
He said the GPS mapping scheme had set a benchmark for conservation partnerships and the Tropical Forest Trust was already working on a similar project in neighboring Cameroon.

Spirit of Christmas (Addition)

2007-10-13T05:53:00.000-07:00

Tammy has presented me with the Spirit of Christmas award you see at the top of my sidebar. You can check out her other winners by clicking on her blog. Most of us know each other.

Thanks Tammy; I'm honored.

Now I'm supposed to pass it on to five people. I always struggle with this part - as far as I'm concerned, we all live up to the Spirit of Christmas with our love for each other. If we have nothing else in common, we have that.

I've decided to thank the foster and adoptive parents I've come to know and love. I'm going from memory here so if I miss someone, please consider yourself included. Or drop me a comment and I'll update. Obviously I didn't stop at five.

These men and women have become online friends. Some I knew before I started the blog; others I've come to know later. We have shared many of the joys and challenges in our day to day lives. I know none of them want to be considered "special" but to me they are and I hope they accept my gratitude in the spirit it's offered.

I know from reading your blogs and from our emails some of my other friends have adult adoptive and/or foster kids as well. Some might be raising adoptive/foster kids but not talking publicly. I can't remember how much is public information and how much I knew from private email so I'm not naming you. You know who you are.

I listed the friends who blog about their lives with their kids.

I tried to do links and for some reason Blogger is turning them into illegible garbage. They're all on my blogroll.

Foster Abba (yes, I know - I couldn't find a Chanukah button - I looked. Please consider the spirit.)

Baggage

Cluttergirl

Gawdess

Yondalla

Melodee

Bacchus

Daddy, Papa, and Me

Jo

Darn it. I forgot Lion Mom.

Each is unique but the one thing they share is a love for children. Their stories are on their blogs.

Happy Birthday to Pea - Update

2007-10-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

Pea has invited all of us to her online birthday party. She'll be celebrating all day tomorrow. I just dropped by and came away with the memento above.

Pea's blog is always great fun to visit and today she's outdone herself with the party preparations.

Happy Birthday Pea. Fifty is Nifty!!

(Update - It occurred to me this morning that I should give credit for "Fifty is Nifty". It's not mine. The first time I heard it was on a t.v. special celebrating Dame Kiri Te Kanawa's (the pride of New Zealand) 50th birthday in 1994. At the time, she looked around 30 if that. She is drop dead gorgeous and my older son, Jim, is in love with her. I just heard she's retiring. I'll still have her videos and cd's.)

And to all who have had birthdays recently, I hope I got around to you. A Happy Birthday to all.

How Dumb Are You?

2007-10-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

I was surfing around earlier looking for memes, recipes, etc. to save for the occasions when I have nothing to say.

I found one called "How Dumb are You"? I started taking the quiz. I answered 20 tricky questions, most of which I'd seen before in one venue or another. Then I hit "submit".

I had to work my way through at least five pages of ads inviting me to sign up for this, that, or the other. I kept hitting "skip". On the very last page was a list of at least 40 offers to which I had to answer yes or no. I answered "no" all the way down, hit "submit" again and up popped a little notice telling me I had to answer "yes" to at least one.

I don't know about you but I'm not that dumb. I was dumb enough to invest 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back though.

Ray is still doing quite well, I'm about to cook dinner, and I'm watching Boston beat up on Cleveland. My National League game comes on later. Other than a drizzly rain for much of the day (accompanied by a welcome cooling), life is good.

For those of you who asked, I'm doing well too. Having him safely home makes a difference and we've settled in the "old marrieds" routine once again. There is much to be said for knowing each other so well. And no, I'm not wearing myself out. I have time to play on the computer, watch baseball, and even do a little reading. Ray is working his way through his old Babylon V videos now that we've located them. I'm going to surprise him with the season by season dvd's one of these days.

He walked all the way around the outside of the house yesterday. Twice. He may have picked up a slight infection in his leg. They're not sure but it was slightly red and swollen so they added an antibiotic to the mix as a precaution.

Glad you enjoyed the meme (which was copied with no strings attached). Thanks for all the kind words and welcome to my new friends. You know who you are.

Have a great weekend and take care everyone.

Change of Pace

2007-10-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

All is still going well and it's time for a change of subject for a little bit.

Here, from Peppy Lady, is a meme. I'm not too sure about the results; some of the questions could have been answered another way I'm sure.

She published all the verses of Robert Service's "The Cremation of Sam McGee" as well. My sons' dad was a huge Service fan (he liked Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour as well) and he could recite Sam McGee all the way through. It took me back seeing those lines.

You Are 2: The Helper

You always put on a happy face and try to help those around you.
You're incredibly empathetic and care about everyone you know.

Able to see the good in others, you're thoughtful, warm, and sincere.
You connect with people who are charming and charismatic.

At Your Best: You are deeply giving, altruistic, and humble. You devote your life to others while caring for yourself too.

At Your Worst: You are manipulative and enjoy making other people guilty.

Your Fixation: Rejection

Your Primary Fear: Being unworthy of love

Your Primary Desire: To be loved unconditionally

Other Number 2's: Mother Teresa, John Travolta, Princess Diana, Dr. Phil, and Mr. Rogers.

What Number Are You?

Another Good Day

2007-10-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

First, a note to new visitor Lynne and anyone else who hadn't read my earlier posts about Ray's surgery and the insulin.

He isn't diabetic. This is a relatively new concept in the promotion of healing and prevention of infection after a coronary bypass. The theory (and I finally found it on Google) is that high blood sugar may lead to infection and/or slow the healing process so the testing and insulin are prescribed temporarily.

I know, I thought the same thing until it was explained to me. I found one link to a hospital in Boston (Beth Israel Deaconess which is associated with Harvard) and another to a hospital in Toronto, Ontario that have had good results. There may be others. The discomfort is a small price to pay. (Easy for me to say of course, I'm not the one sticking a lancet in my finger 4 times a day and a needle in my stomach first thing in the a.m.). His leg is healing nicely even though it still looks awful and the other incision (the one from his neck almost to his navel) looks even better. They tell me the leg is more apt to cause grief.

He made it down my front step and out to the yard 3 times today while the physical therapist was here and also managed to get into our shower. He's in a little discomfort so may have overdone a little. We'll try for the actual shower tomorrow now that we know he won't need the bench which has been on order since last week. It's a little after 8 p.m.; I sent him to bed and will wake him later for his final test and the mandatory bedtime snack. I found yogurt on sale today and picked up ten little cartons, all with the fruit on the bottom. He hasn't seen it yet.

Dinner was a reprise of yesterday. It's easier with some things to cook 4 servings than it is to cook two. It saves energy too; mine as well as the other kind.

The best news of all is that our Elcie initiated the phone call last night. Those of you I've been in contact with by email will know how pleased I was. She was cheerful and updated me on everything that had been going on with her. It was so good to hear her voice. R & R sang a duet of one of their favorite songs (sort of karaoke thing - I could hear the cd in the background). Now I can't remember the name even though Rebecca sang it again for me tonight.

Tomorrow I'll probably keep my weekly coffee date with my friend Janet provided Ray has as good a day as today. I'll be five minutes from home (in a car) and it will give me a chance to see son Tim who just returned from a weekend at Disneyland. He said it was awesome. (Tim, for anyone who doesn't know, is almost 35 but still a kid at heart in some ways). Amusement parks have never been my thing but I'm glad he enjoyed it.

Tuesday is senior discount (5%) day at the local supermarket. I noticed a couple of things today when I ran in after milk, bread, and juice that I may pick up tomorrow. Janet qualifies too and she likes to go on Tuesday so it works out well. Those nickels on the dollar add up eventually.

My local friend, Wandering Dave, who set out on a long journey from here, up the west coast to Canada, across the prairie provinces, Ontario, part of the Maritime Provinces, Quebec, and back down the east coast, is now in Gettysburg (unless he's moved on today - looks like he might have made it to Manassas, VA). He's interested in the Civil War battle sites among many other things. It's been fun reading of his travels. He'll go down to northern Florida and then come back through the southernmost states back home. Janet and I are keeping a seat warm for him for coffee.

I'm keeping one eye on the Cleveland/Yankee game. Bottom of 9th, 1 out, 6-4 Cleveland. As an old Brooklyn Dodger fan, my distaste for the Yankees knows no bounds. There is no logical reason; the Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1957 or 1958 but old resentments linger on. Sorry Yankee fans, I can't help myself.

Anyhow, I'd better close this out and check on my sleeping beauty.

Two outs.

Three outs.

There is joy in Cleveland tonight. Their last World Series was in 1948, the first World Series I remember. My uncle and I listened on the radio as they defeated the then Boston Braves. That year was probably the beginning of my love of baseball. I was 10.

Thanks, as always, for all the kind words and take care everyone.

The Worst Seems to be Behind Us

2007-10-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

Ray is doing better each day. He's able to be by himself for short periods. I got out to the store and for a quick coffee break yesterday. He's getting around our little house without the walker and we're still maintaining his blood sugar levels with just one insulin dose in the morning. He washed his own couple of breakfast and lunch dishes before I could gather them up. Good for him!!

He's done so well I surprised him with a scoop of ice cream for his evening snack on Friday. Been saving it until I was a little more sure of what I was doing with diet.

I'm noticing that many of the mysterious symptoms that kept sending him back to the hospital seem to have left. Of course it's too soon for anything except cautious optimism but not too soon to tell you how encouraged I am.

I've taken advantage of the calm to catch up with most of you. His LDS Conference has been on t.v. yesterday and today so he's been engrossed with that. I wander in and listen to the music and wander back out.

I have a few minutes before starting dinner. I'd thought about clam chowder but the weather turned back warm. Plus I'm a little low on milk and don't want to make a trip out just for that. I have some very lean pork chops and I'll cook them with some au gratin potatoes and some kind of vegetable. A little high in sodium (the cheese in the potatoes) but other than that, not bad. His blood pressure is fine so I'm careful but not obsessive. I have plans for a small peach cobbler; maybe later in the week. Another surprise I won't tell him about.

It's been a couple of days since I've heard from the girls. Maybe tonight.

Hope all my Canadian friends are enjoying their 3 day holiday. They tell me that the actual feast is any day they want it to be so some have already feasted; others are holding off until tomorrow.

Our turn will come on the 4th Thursday of November and I still haven't decided what we're going to do this year. I'm so used to cooking for a mob but with Jim probably on the border, Melissa (Jim's wife) with a brand new baby (due November 10) in addition to Jonathan (around 18 months old now) and her teenage girls, and my girls not here, it may be just me, Ray, and possibly Tim. Maybe we'll splurge and go out but then I wouldn't have all those great leftovers; the turkey soup and the white beans and ham. I'll think about it later.

And then Christmas of course. I have room for a tiny tree (maybe) and I'll swap the knick knacks on my corner shelf for Christmas decorations and my small creche. Perhaps a wreath on the door. It will be different from Christmas past, that's for sure.

Wow, I get sidetracked easily, don't I. Already thinking two months ahead. Whatever happened to one day at a time?

It's almost 5 in the afternoon so I should go start dinner. As always, thanks for the kind words, welcome to my new visitors, and take care everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-10-06T06:48:00.001-07:00

Quick Note

2007-10-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

We're settling into a routine of sorts around here. Ray had a barely okay day yesterday but a very good one today. He's walking a little more and they've cut back on his insulin as along as his test results are at acceptable levels. What that means is one long lasting shot in the morning but as long as the test levels don't dip too far during the day, that's the only shot (except for that nasty testing) he'll need each day. I'm crossing my fingers. He's eating well, his breathing seems better already, and he's very glad to be home. He still can't get into the shower but Physical Therapy has ordered him a bench which should make it easier. We've been doing the sponge bath thing, especially on the incisions.

I've learned a lot just in a couple of days about blood sugar. He seems to have a tendency to have low levels which is why they cut the insulin back. The first day it really dipped and tonight before dinner it was a little low but it went right back up again.

I can't hang around the computer too much because, even in this small house, it's hard to hear him with the kitchen separating us. I've read all your comments and emails but may not get back to you until I'm sure he's stable enough for me to be in here for any length of time. Same thing with all your blogs. I'll read when I can but a little at a time.

Right now, we're watching the Cubs and the ~~Rockies~~Diamondbacks (oops - Rockies played earlier today) and since I have online friends in both cities, I'm a little torn. Arizona has won a World Series - Chicago still suffers from a jinx, so deep down I hope Chicago pulls it out.

I've been talking to Rochelle and Rebecca almost every night and now they can talk to Grandpa too. They were both worried. They've been running the mile. Rebecca came in first in her class yesterday and Rochelle did today. Rochelle has always been the athlete but tiny Rebecca is catching up fast. Rochelle made the Honor Roll and Rebecca came close. She missed one science project and now that she's made it up, her grade may go up.

Rebecca wrote me a poem and wrote an essay about me for her Language Arts class. Rochelle sang me a song she'd composed.

Elcie hasn't had much to say. I hope eventually that will change.

We're doing well, all things considered.

Thanks again to all of you for the support. I'll be back around visiting as soon as I have a little more time.

Take care everyone.

It's Not Diabetes After All

2007-10-01T20:03:00.001-07:00

They never actually said it was. I'd just never heard of any other reason for insulin.

It's a short term thing. They say after this extensive surgery, the insulin promotes healing and prevents infection. Okay, I can understand that.

I spent most of the day at the hospital learning a bunch of stuff. We finally got home at close to 3 in the afternoon and then it took at least another hour at the pharmacy and still could only fill the insulin and syringe prescriptions. First they didn't get the fax from the hospital (took 3 tries before it came through) and then their billing computer was down. When I told them the other medication could wait; the insulin couldn't, they managed to work around the computer. I'll go back tomorrow after the rest.

I don't do the shots; I just fill the syringe. He does everything else although I did learn in case I need it.

So now I just gave him some dinner and I'll try to hold out until his last test at 10:00. Then I'll try to convince him it's bedtime because it's certainly mine.

Rochelle and Rebecca called a few minutes ago and were surprised and happy he was home. Rebecca was sorting crayons by color into separate boxes (very Rebecca). I'm not sure what Rochelle was doing.

Anyhow, I'm exhausted but wanted to get this short note up to let you know that he's home and all is well so far.

Thanks to all for the comments and the blogiversary wishes. Still can't believe I almost forgot it.

Take care everyone.

Two Years

2007-09-30T14:34:00.001-07:00

And one week. I totally missed my Blogiversary. I was thinking I started in October 2005 but nope, my first official post was on September 24, 2005. I had two visitors; one was Jen C., a former writer for Parent Dish, who insisted I start a blog and set it up for me. She hasn't been "anonymous" for some time now and she's still up there on my sidebar as a co-administrator (along with several other people who have bailed me out everytime I painted myself into a corner). Hi and hugs to Angela, Andrea, Alice, and Tim.

Thanks as well to all my other visitors who have either emailed helpful hints or have stepped up and quietly fixed some of my glitches. Too many to name but you know who you are.

And to all of you who've supported me over the last couple of years. You've hung in with me through the good times and the not so good. This blog and yours have been lifelines for me.

I think my counter said 1,097 posts. Certainly not one a day but not too bad. I'm not obsessed with my stat counter but I checked just now and it's a little over 66,000. Wow!! I do look at it once in a while because I'm interested in the number of countries and a few other things. Of course many of those hits are from folks who are looking for something else. Still, I have many friends out there. I've met a few of you, I've spoken to others, and the rest? I feel as if I know every one.

Merle had a photo on her blog the other day. She and 3 of her blogging buddies had gotten together in Australia. I recognized all of them and, except for living in a different hemisphere, I would have fit right in.

Two months ago, I was thinking about calling it a day on the blog. So much of my writing was about the girls. What could I find to say now that they're living elsewhere? I changed my mind, at least for the time being. I probably won't be posting as often but I'll be here and I'll still be checking up on my friends who live in my computer.

Take care everyone.

P. S.

To Mary K. in Arkansas. Thanks for signing my guestbook. If you feel like it, drop me a comment or an email. I lived in Jonesboro for 8 years and I always perk up when I see a former neighbor and I'm a little curious about you.

Diabetes - Another Update

2007-09-28T20:12:00.002-07:00

If you haven't read the post below this, you should. Otherwise you'll be wondering about this one.

As I said to a few of you who've already left comments or emailed, when the going gets tough, the not so tough (that would be me at the moment) heads out to Barnes & Noble for a hot caramel macchiato and a chocolate chip scone with whipped cream. And, of course, some TLC from son Timothy. He took his break while I was there and quickly demonstrated how to do the shots (without the needle of course). It looks much easier than I had envisioned and from what some of you have said it's not too bad.

By the time I came back home, I was feeling much better.

Ray called right before I left. He was relieved the hospital had already phoned so he wouldn't have to try to explain all of it. I was relieved too and was able to tell him about the Monday discharge (if all goes according to plan), the visiting nurse, etc. He hadn't heard that part of it. It was good to hear his voice. He was reassuring me while I was reassuring him.

Anyhow, while I was at B&N, I picked up a couple of mystery novels from the sale table to get me through the weekend. I've done about as much with the house as I can except for minor daily maintenance (how dirty can it get with one person and a very polite cat?). The pictures are hung, the closets (all 2 of them), cupboards, Ray's dresser, and shelves are organized, and I've found places for almost everything.

I even sorted out his tools which I swore I would never do again. How can anyone possibly use 5 or 6 identical claw hammers, one ball peen, and a tack hammer? The only one we'll ever need is the tack hammer. I won't even discuss the screwdrivers, pliers, Allen wrenches, regular wrenches, crescent wrenches, and miscellaneous tools I can't identify but which must serve some purpose, but I can tell from looking at the assortment that we'll have every size except the one Phillips or wrench we need at the moment. It never fails. Too long, too short, too wide, too skinny. We then pick up another cheap set and eventually end up with 40 of them.

And while I'm ranting, why do we need both slot and Phillips? Plus another I don't know the name of but it's funny looking. And of course, in the USA, we have to have both linear and metric. Why can't we join the rest of humanity with our temperatures and measurements?

When he's home and rested, we'll go back through them together. Right now his tools are taking up 4 small toolboxes in the back of the closet; one just for the hammers.

It's feeling much more like home now and will feel even more so when he's back to share it with me.

DIL Melissa (Jim's wife) was working her last day at B&N until after the baby arrives. She's due November 10th and she's been experiencing a little discomfort. Not surprising; she's on her feet all day. I hope she will get some rest while chasing her toddler all over the house.

I'll try to get around to most of you over the weekend. My eyes have been bothering me a little when I stay online too long. Nothing painful but they start closing, even when I don't think I'm sleepy.

Once again, have a good weekend.

Diabetes? Update

2007-09-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

To any of you who clicked on and read only the title, I accidentally hit publish instead of save when the phone rang. - again.

The diabetes expert from the hospital just called to tell me that Ray has diabetes and will be on insulin "for a while". How long, I wonder, is for a while? She didn't say. She did say that before they release him, a responsible person has to learn how to do everything involved with his care.

That means giving shots which I've never done in my life but it's never too late to learn. My friend Reno will drive me and Dawn up there on Monday morning and we'll both (at least Dawn and I) learn how to do it. She's been a professional caregiver but has never done it before either.

I think Tim already knows how. I don't even know where the shot goes so I guess my next stop will be online to find out. I do know it will be 4 times a day unless they're talking about the testing.

I also know that many diabetics live alone and do their own maintenance. I went to school with a girl who learned how to do her own shots when she was very young. I'm not sure if they think he can't or what's going on. Not that I can't do it but I think if I had to be stuck several times a day, I'd rather be the one doing the sticking. I also wonder about oral insulin. Oh well, what do I know? I'm sure I'll find out.

The diet shouldn't be a problem. I hope. He'll probably have to give up his occasional Snickers Bar but we don't use much sugar and now that I'm cooking for only two, I can avoid it almost completely.

They have tested for diabetes on every hospital admission here just as they presumably ran all the heart tests each time. How do these things suddenly appear?

I'm trying not to rant but it's hard. He's been chronically ill for years now. They have never been able to pin anything down except the COPD and possibly congestive heart failure.

So now, on top of COPD (lung problems), the bypass, epilepsy (dormant but he takes Dilantin just in case), and whatever else is going on, we now have to deal with diabetes.

And we will. Somehow.

On a brighter note, he called me yesterday afternoon and sounded good. Healthier than he has in some time. He thought they'd release him over the weekend but now he can't come home until we've done the "training". I'll take his clothes in case they're releasing him the same day - I think he has everything except a clean shirt and he may even have that. I'll ask him - I'm sure he'll call me at some point. The clothes he wore to the hospital were clean, I do remember that. When he was admitted, he ate dinner and cleaned up and changed his clothes before we took him in.

I am grateful it's not worse and I know many families have it much harder. I'm trying to be positive but right now I just want to bang my head against the wall or possibly curl up in a ball. It will pass; it always does.

Thanks to all of you who commented on the domestic violence post. It's a little different than what usually shows up here but it's an important issue and one I know quite a bit about.

Have a good weekend and take care everyone.

Update - right after I hit post again.

Five minutes later. The hospital called back. They're arranging for the visiting nurse from Merced as well as a physical therapist when he's released. I feel much better already. They will discharge him, if all goes well, the same day as our training and they'll send him home with a collapsible walker. It may even have a seat.

The wheels are turning quickly and I'm no longer as panicked.

Bloggers Against Abuse and Violence

2007-09-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

My online friend Sometimes Saintly Nick has asked his readers to "blog against abuse" today. He has his post up, full of images of the many forms abuse and violence can take.

I often write about the news in my small central CA city. The local paper has begun a series of articles about abuse. This is the first of a series and far from the only incident of violence to occur here. We've had far worse and it sickens me.

I've had personal experience with A Woman's Place here. They're wonderful people, working on a shoestring to do what they can and they're making a difference.

I've heard people say "why didn't she just leave"? This woman did everything she was supposed to do. Sometimes it doesn't matter.

(Personal note: Ray is still doing well and has been transferred from the CVICU to a regular bed. I'm hoping he'll call today. I'd call him but don't want to wake him if he's having a chance to rest between needle pokes and medication times.)

From the Merced Sun Star last week:
Reporter Corinne Reilly

Excerpt from a 911 call made to the Merced Police Department, Dec. 4, 1999: "There's somebody at my house that won't leave and he has a gun. He's standing outside and he's trying to get back in. He's breaking the window right now ... His name is Lucio Rivera ... He's trying to open the door. Oh my God. He's in my room.

He's coming in. He's coming in. Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Stop! Lucio, stop! ... Oh my God. He just shot it. He just shot the gun ... (screams, then silence) ... He shot her! He shot her! Oh my God! He shot her!"

Eight years after Elida Rodriguez's ex-husband dragged her from the closet where she hid and shot her in the neck, they still feel the pain at A Woman's Place.

In 1999, Elida and her two-month old daughter sought refuge at a shelter run by the nonprofit, which provides an array of services for victims of domestic violence across Merced County. Though Elida stayed only a few weeks, those who worked with her say they watched her turn from a battered victim into an independent single mother.

The transformation proved to be her fatal mistake.

A month after Elida left A Woman’s Place, the 23-year-old was dead. Her ex-husband, Lucio Rivera, discovered where she was living. On an early December evening in 1999, enraged by her show of grit and strength, he broke into her apartment through an unlocked window. He found Elida crouched in a bedroom closet, pulled her out by her shirt and shot her at close range with a .22-caliber handgun.

“Hold your baby for the last time,” Rivera told Elida, her roommate later testified.

Eight years after her murder, Elida remains a nonprofit’s call to arms.

AN ICON WITH ONE NAME She is widely known to the staff at A Woman’s Place by just her first name, even to those who joined the organization long after Elida’s death. Her photo has appeared on the organization’s brochures. Its Westside shelter is dedicated to her memory. Her case is cited during most new-hire trainings and her murder revised the way A Woman’s Place evaluates risk to victims.

"Elida changed the way we do business," said Diana Almanza, executive director of A Woman’s Place. “She left us with some very important lessons.”

Along with a photo of Elida, Almanza keeps in her office a copy of the 911 tape from the night Elida died. The tape holds the frantic screams of Elida’s then-roommate, Victoria Beltran. It is played whenever Almanza wants to impress upon someone -- a funder, a newspaper reporter, or a new staff member -- the urgency of the nonprofit’s work.

Almanza can recall many news reports about women in this community who have died because of domestic violence. In fact, about 60 percent of female murder victims are killed by their husbands or male partners, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

But Elida is one of only two clients that A Woman’s Place has lost at the hands of an abuser since Almanza started at the organization in 1991. And her death hit close to its heart. "We all remember Elida,” said Susie Bubenchik, public relations director of A Woman’s Place. "Even the staff who never met her.”

A SISTER’S MEMORIES To Lidia Rodriguez, Elida isn't a poster child. She is a sister. “She loved to draw, and she had a really good voice so she was always singing,” said Rodriguez, 28, who works as an aide at Farmdale Elementary School in Merced. “And she loved her baby. She was so excited about buying her clothes and watching her grow up.”

Elida was born in Hollister in 1976 to immigrant parents who came to the United States from Mexico in search of a better life. She was the oldest of three children. Rodriguez recalls her big sister as a responsible child, always more concerned about the rest of the family than about herself. “She always helped me with my math,” said Rodriguez. “She would stay there with me, showing me until I got it. She never got frustrated.”

Elida moved with her family to Dos Palos as a teenager and graduated from Dos Palos High School in 1994. She met Rivera there, but Rodriguez says the two weren’t friends at the time. “They didn’t like each other in high school,” Rodriguez recalled.

Elida moved to Fresno for a short time after high school, where she took classes to become a dental assistant, though she never finished. She eventually returned to Dos Palos, where she began dating Rivera in 1997.

“It was a relatively short relationship, but it was violent right from the start,” said Almanza.

Twice before Elida came to A Woman’s Place, Rivera was criminally charged for abusing her. The second time, Almanza said, Rivera had pulled a gun and smashed Elida in the face with it because she couldn’t quiet their baby as the family drove to a welfare appointment. “He was ruthless,” said Almanza.

The couple eventually married, though Rodriguez says there was no big wedding or celebration. According to news reports published in the days after Elida’s death, Rivera’s relatives said they didn’t know he’d been married.

Before she died, Elida had filed for divorce. “I think that was the real trigger for him,” said Almanza. “It was the ultimate stand for her independence, and he responded with the ultimate punishment.”

A BATTERED WOMAN SEEKS SHELTER Elida came to A Woman’s Place with her baby, Jasmine, in October 1999. She stayed at an emergency safehouse run by the organization for about a month. She received counseling for the abuse she’d endured and obtained a restraining order against Rivera.

“She made a lot of progress in a very short time,” recalled Almanza. Elida decided she’d go back to school. She hoped someday to become a nurse. While living at the safehouse, Elida kept a journal. In an entry dated Oct. 25, 1999, she wrote that she dreamed of having her own home, a job and of her parents feeling proud of her again. “I feel like I’m ready for anything that comes along,” she wrote. “... He’s no longer in my way. I just want to be who I used to be.”

The following month, Elida moved out of the safehouse and into an apartment on K Street with Beltran, who’d also sought refuge at the safehouse. A month later, Elida was dead.

Rivera, now 30, fled on foot after the shooting and was captured a short time later. His court-appointed attorney argued during his 2001 trial that the gun accidentally went off. A jury found Rivera guilty that December. The following March, a judge sentenced him to 66 years in prison. He remains at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga.

The couple’s child, now 8, lives with Elida’s aunt in Mexico.

“When the call came in that night, all we knew was that Elida had been shot,” said Almanza. The news of her death, which came a short time after A Woman’s Place advocate responded to the scene, struck a paralyzing blow to the organization, said Bubenchik, the public relations director. “A lot of us knew her, and we knew the baby. It was incredibly difficult for the whole agency,” she said.

BREAKING THE TRAGIC NEWS Almanza was among the three A Woman’s Place staff members to accompany a Fresno County sheriff’s deputy to tell Elida’s parents, who lived in Firebaugh at the time, that their oldest child was dead. “We didn’t want strangers to show up at their house in the middle of the night, so we went,” said Almanza.

Rodriguez says she knew what had happened as soon as she saw them at the door. The sheriff’s deputy didn’t speak Spanish, so someone had to interpret for Elida’s parents. The deputy asked Rodriguez to tell them. “I told him, ‘I can’t do that. I can’t tell them that,’” said Rodriguez. So Almanza, who is fluent in Spanish, stepped in. “There’s no good way to say that to a parent,” said Almanza. “So I just said it as plainly as I could.”

A Woman’s Place helped the family make arrangements for Elida’s funeral, which many of the organization’s staff attended. Many also attended Rivera’s trial.

After Elida’s death, A Woman’s Place conducted a “death audit” -- a thorough review of Elida’s case to determine what the organization might have done to prevent her murder.

Among the measures A Woman’s Place added as a result is its now-standard lethality assessment, a series of questions that determines the degree to which a domestic violence victim’s life is in danger.

If the organization had used the assessment when Elida came to them, Almanza said, “she would have been off the charts.” Her abuser didn’t have a job. He’d been in and out of jail. He had access to a gun. And he’d been arrested before for domestic violence. “Those things are all huge,” said Almanza. “Today, we would have probably advised her to move out of the county for her safety.”

Genevieve Bardini, who began working at A Woman’s Place two years after Elida’s death, is well versed in her story. “Our training was saturated with Elida’s case,” said Bardini. “She was always the example that was used. She’s a constant reminder of the need for safety plans and lethality assessments. She’s a reminder that we have to think about things like access to weapons ... and that a restraining order is just a piece of paper.” Camila Cortez, who now oversees A Woman’s Place’s two safehouses, says she’s told Elida’s story to countless other victims to impress upon them the importance of remaining vigilant, even after they’ve escaped a violent home.

Elida’s legacy for Cortez: “To me, she is the answer to the question, ‘Why do we do all of this?’”

Reporter Corinne Reilly can be reached at (209)385-2477 or creilly@mercedsun-star.com.

About A Woman’s Place

A Woman’s Place is a nonprofit organization that provides a wide range of services to local victims of domestic violence and rape. Among its programs are a 24-hour crisis line, an emergency safehouse, temporary food and housing, counseling, a variety of legal services, transportation, support groups, training for law enforcement officers and treatment programs for batterers. Its services are among the most comprehensive in the state, and they are free to all victims.

Update on Ray

2007-09-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

I meant to write this yesterday but I came home and fell asleep. Then I just forgot although I did answer some comments and email.

I was in Modesto by around 10:30 yesterday. He was awake and somewhat alert but still in considerable discomfort (read pain). He was glad to see us though. Turned out he'd been worrying about me while I was worrying about him. Now we both feel better.

I don't know how long he'll stay in the CVICU. Hopefully he'll be transferred soon. I figure about a five day stay altogether if all goes well and then home. Poor guy - he ate two real dinners here (from my new stove) before he went to the hospital and hasn't seen the house at all since I have it pretty much in order. You know more about it from my pictures than he does and I've done a lot more organizing since I took the pics. He won't be able to find anything.

We had our rain on Saturday but not too much. The storms seemed to stop at the Fresno county line. Fresno and Tulare counties, both further south, had flood warnings.

Thanks to all of you for your kindness. To the couple of you without a blog or email address, I'm thanking you here.

Take care everyone.

Good News - At Least So Far

2007-09-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

It's around 11:00 a.m. Saturday here. Ray went into surgery around 6:30 this morning. The hospital said to call back around noon. No need - the surgeon called me a few minutes ago. Triple bypass, all went well and he's in recovery.

He'll be out of it most of today. The doctor said it made more sense for me to wait until tomorrow to visit so that's what I'll do.

Thanks to all of you who've responded so far.

Barbra, I did get your comment and thanks. Evidently you don't have a blog so I'm thanking you here. I'll try to get back to everyone else later. For now I didn't sleep a lot last night so I may try for a nap.

Update on Ray

2007-09-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

First I googled "stents" and bypass surgery to have a better idea of what I was talking about. The article is from the New York Times and was written in February of this year so it's up to date. If you don't want to register with the NYT (it's free including their archives now) but want to read the article, let me know. I'll do a copy and paste and email it.

Ray went in for the relatively minor stent surgery this morning. Once the surgeon took a look, he reconsidered. They're now planning coronary bypass; probably tomorrow but possibly as soon as tonight.

I did some checking with friends who have lived in this area far longer than I. The Modesto hospital has a reputation of being the best in the area for heart surgery. That's reassuring. It's also reassuring that bypass surgery has become almost commonplace these days and that most patients recover and are much improved.

I tell myself all this but I'm still frightened. We were convincing each other on the phone that it will be fine and that we're glad they've finally put a name to his ongoing illnesses. I asked if he wanted me to come in before the surgery and he said no. They haven't set a time, Modesto is 45 miles from here (probably 50 because the hospital is on the north end of town) and it made no sense for me to sit in a hospital waiting room for a day. He's right of course and I'm glad it's Modesto and not the small hospital here but I wish we were closer. I haven't had a vehicle since June (hadn't mentioned that before) and I'm depending on friends for rides when I need them.

I do have transportation lined up on short notice if I need it; otherwise I'll wait until after the surgery unless the hospital calls to come in sooner.

On a somewhat brighter note, I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with Rebecca right before Ray called me. She was her usual chatty self; telling me all about her semi-permanent grounding. I could tell them grounding doesn't work terribly well with her; she enjoys hanging around the house. Once again, Rochelle was out - at the laundromat this time. Elcie was there.

Oh, if you notice a deleted post it was just a weather report which I zapped because I looked at the post and it didn't publish like it appeared in the draft. It just said rain tomorrow and then a steady rise in temps to the high 80's by the end of next week. Don't they know it's the first day of autumn in this hemisphere?

Not much else going on here. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and have a good weekend everyone.

Spam Warning

2007-09-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

This isn't as insidious as the bank scams but it could be a nuisance if we fall for it.

An anonymous blogging friend (I won't put you on the spot if you're reading this) "invited" me to join an online social group called Quechup. I emailed her to say thanks but the blog and Facebook are all I can manage. I don't even keep up with MySpace except to answer messages. She wrote back and said she was so glad I turned it down and directed me to Here in the Hills written by a funny and interesting woman in Los Angeles.

You'll have to scroll down about three posts because I couldn't find her perma-link but it's worth it. She has a lot to say about Quechup and spam and her graphics are hilarious.

Quechup will use your address book to automatically send out invitations to everyone. Then it covers you and your friends with spam. I'm not sure if she means spam that comes into our mailboxes or those dreadful pop-ups and hijackers which are even worse. I don't need that aggravation and I'm sure you don't either.

Incidentally, Facebook has a similar system but it's not automatic. You can say no or you can restrict the invitations it sends to include only Facebook members. I've never seen any spam attributable to them.

=====

Ray may be the hospital for a little longer and may require some relatively minor surgery which could involve a trip the the larger hospital in Modesto. I'll know more tomorrow when I see him again. Meantime, I'm hanging in here.

Update: I'd no sooner typed this than he called back. They're transferring him at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow and he'll call as soon as he's settled. I've been without a vehicle for some time now but I'm sure friends here will drive the 45 miles if I need to go. It may be a one day stay - I don't know yet.

More when I know more.

Glad you enjoyed the pictures, Pirate meme and Constitution Day. Thanks for the comments and take care one and all.

Pirate's Day - Yesterday but Who Cares?

2007-09-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

My pirate name is:

Mad Anne Cash

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You're musical, and you've got a certain style if not flair. You'll do just fine. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

U S Constitution - September 17, 1787

2007-09-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

Today is Constitution Day here in the USA. Parent Dish has an interesting post on teaching the Constitution in our schools.

I posted about this last year - how many of us have ever read the entire thing? How many kids know the first ten Amendments comprise the Bill of Rights? How many know what our rights are?

Here's a start.

Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Bill of Rights

The Preamble to the Bill of Rights:

(Ignore that strange little "edit". I don't want to delete any of Wikipedia's code.)

Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.^[27]

[edit] Amendments

First Amendment – Freedom of religion, speech, press, and peaceable assembly as well as the right to petition the government.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment – Right to keep and bear arms.

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Third Amendment – Protection from quartering of troops.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Fourth Amendment – Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Fifth Amendment – Due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, private property.

No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Sixth Amendment – Trial by jury and other rights of the accused.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

Seventh Amendment – Civil trial by jury.

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Eighth Amendment – Prohibition of excessive bail, as well as cruel and unusual punishment.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Ninth Amendment – Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment – Powers of states and people.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.