Advice

People are often unreasonable and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you.
Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It never was between you and them anyway.
~Mother Teresa~

A Wandering Mind

Just letting my mind do a little bit of wandering:

--Our cat is showing her first signs of getting old: she's starting to drool when she's content.

--At the last minute, K. decided to plant a garden this year. It doesn't seem as if it really matters one way or the other 'cause the chipmunks have taken and chewed on all of the green tomatoes. No BLTs with home grown tomatoes this year.

--There are two movies I REALLY want to see: Serenity (scifi) and March of the Penguins (documentary). Unfortunately, I probably won't get to see either one for almost a year, or whenever they make it to HBO, Showtime, etc.

--I am always battling different kinds of bugs in this house, but this year is really something. We have an infestation of tiny moths, beetles of all sizes, and spiders on steroids. Yep, those spiders have been doing SOMETHING, 'cause they are bigger than they ever have been before.

--The construction continues. What I don't understand is this: Why can't people obey signs? Big signs declare "ROAD CLOSED" and there are barricades across 2/3 of the street, yet people drive right through as if everything was normal. The road is down to (barely) one lane and is open to residents only, but some people seem to think signs don't pertain to them.

--C. and her family were in town and stopped in today. While I love seeing them--the kids are adorable :)--having six extra people in this house is something I am not used to. K. and I lead a very quiet life, just the two of us and the cat, so it is a little unnerving to have that many extra people around. Our place is not child-proofed, so I have to make sure the babies don't get into anything to hurt themselves. K. does his part by carrying whichever little one wants to be carried, just as he did with our kids. By the time they leave, we are exhausted! (And, no, I don't follow the kids around so they don't destroy any of my "precious" stuff, I just worry about them getting hurt.) It would be nice if we could just put things away from their reach, but that is an impossibility--at least we can close doors to SOME of the rooms they don't need to be in!

--We finally had a good thunderstorm today. We really haven't had many storms this year--we are in drought conditions--so it was nice to have rain for a change. Unfortunately the weather is supposed to get hot again this coming week, so we'll have to see if the drought continues.

Reason #3645 For Staying Away From My Family

While talking to C. the other night, I mentioned I was getting the guest list together for the up-coming wedding, so that I could send it to A. (Sidenote: I cannot for the life of me understand why I don't have the guest lists from C.'s first wedding or either of the graduation open houses. I don't EVER throw that kind of stuff away! I have MY wedding guest list and 3/4 of THOSE people are dead--no chance they will show up if invited, I hope.) Anyway, I said how my list will be rather small: just close friends and closest relatives from both sides. I figured it didn't matter if I left some relatives off the list because A. will have to go over the list with The Mother for her approval, and she can let it be known who else needs to be invited. I DON'T want to be the one with final approval and be blamed if someone isn't invited! Then C. told me her latest story from up there: She had a Pampered Chef party. She invited my first cousin's wife to come to the party. This took place while they were waiting to pick up their kids from the same swimming lessons. The party came and went and C. got reprimanded by my aunt (the cousin's mother), through The Mother, for not inviting the sister of the cousin (her daughter). Did you all understand that? Never mind if you didn't--this just goes to show how utterly screwed up my family is and only one of the reasons I am happy to have almost nothing to do with them.

(For full disclosure and total truth purposes: I don't actually have a list of the reasons to stay away from my family--3645 just seemed like a fairly reasonable number. Without a doubt, I am sure there are very many more reasons than 3645!) :)

Games...You Say You Want Games?

Unfortunately, I waste time way too often. And I must admit one of my favorite ways to waste time is by playing games--electronic games. I love the Zelda series and own every one of the Nintendo machines so that I can play each of the games. I always thought I would become a computer gamer if I got a powerful enough system, but that just never happened, even though I had a "cutting-edge technology" machine--I guess I have too many other things I like to do more on the computer. However, I do have two games (other than solitaire) I love to waste my time with on the computer.

I got addicted to Snood the first time I played it. It is a great game to play if you don't want to think too hard for awhile--although, you can also plan strategy if you want to have a bit of a mental workout, too. This is something you can play for hours or just play a game or two if you have a few free minutes. As I said, I find Snood to be highly addictive. You can download a 30 day trial version here, and it only costs $15 to buy the game. I have received every upgrade for free since I bought it several years ago.

The other "game" I play is the Living Scenes jigsaw puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles on the computer are fine--I have done them for many years on Shockwave. However, these puzzles are very different: they are puzzles of moving scenes--for example: a picture of fish swimming underwater. It is quite unusual and I might not be explaining it very well, but the "moving" puzzles are quite challenging and very fun. A 30 day free trial of Living Scenes puzzles can be downloaded here. The cost for this program is $29 for volume 1 or $44 for both volumes 1 & 2. Seems a bit pricey, but you can download a free (motionless) puzzle every week, so that kind of offsets some of the cost.

Groucho Marx Was a Genius

So many times I have wished to be intellectually clever. It would be so nice to be able to cut someone down to size without yelling, threatening, or using vulgar language, right? I know, I know, that is not a good attitude, but there ARE times when you just have to "zing" someone--it's much better than punching them out! Groucho Marx was capable of using words to show how utterly ridiculous something was--and he used humor with a sarcastic twist. Some people might have been able to appreciate his cleverness and seen the error of their ways, and others could not. Here is a great example of "zinging" someone with words when, I'm sure, he would have wanted to do some slapping upside the head, and the response of someone not finding Groucho the least bit funny. Enjoy!

Quote

Since light travels faster than sound, people appear bright until you hear them speak.
--Anonymous

Start the Week With a Laugh

Q: What do you call a woman who knows where her husband is 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
A: A widow.


Q: How do you make a blonde laugh on Wednesday?
A: Tell her a joke on Monday!
(I was born blonde, so I can tell blonde jokes.)


Have a fun week!

Construction Woes

In this part of the country we have two seasons: winter and construction! Right now we are smack dab in the middle of construction season. Usually I don't mind the construction very much--it doesn't affect me unless we are doing a road trip. This all has changed this year. And the story goes like this:

We live on a dead-end street. The city decided that the sewer, water, and storm sewer pipes had to be upgraded on the main street we turn onto when we need to get ANYWHERE. Now, I agree this is something that needs to be done--in other parts of town they discovered WOOD "pipes" when they upgraded! (Not the case in this section, but the pipes are still OLD.) For someone not living on a dead-end, this would prove to be an inconvenience--for me, it is being trapped with no way out. It has to be understood, the intersection at the top of the street has not been completely closed off except for short periods of time, but that does me no good. Example: The other day I had an appointment and (thankfully) K. was on night shift, so he was home and offered to drive me. As we were told, the road WAS passable, just not by me! As we were turning the corner, we had, barely, the width of the Jimmy to drive on. On the right there was a huge mound of sand, a huge mound of gravel, and a HUGE mound of the dug-up road--so, that had to be maneuvered around. FINE, but on the left side, there was a hole dug--a 20 foot deep hole that had to be avoided! I am not the world's best, or most confident, driver--not that I'm a BAD driver, just not as confident as some--so there was no way I would ever be able to drive around that corner. The only way I would have attempted that turn was if I had been driving a Hummer, and I don't have one--yet! (I KNOW Hummers are gas hogs, but there ARE some advantages to owning one.) Of course, turning the corner wasn't the last of it. We had to wait for trucks and people to move out of the way and drive on a barely drivable road, JUST to get to the detour, which takes you blocks out of your way. All-in-all, a normally 5 minute drive took 15 minutes. Such fun.

So, beyond the holes to be avoided, we have to NOT: run over any workers (DUH!), get stuck in soft sand, hit any vehicles, or get crushed by heavy equipment. And this will not be completed until some time in October. (I can't WAIT till the university begins fall classes--it will be SO much fun, as the street is a main throughway.) I have figure out one good thing about all of this--NO UNEXPECTED COMPANY DROPPING IN! Hope your summer is not inconvenienced. (Thanks for "listening" to my rant.)

Register To Use...

Some of the sites on the Web have been requiring registration before you can access all areas of the site. Newspapers online are big on requiring registration; i. e., The New York Times, New York Post, etc. A lot of people, myself included, don't feel it is necessary to register and give personal info to every site asking for it, but that means not being able to surf some sites. Well, there is a little program called BugMeNot that can help. If you are using IE, just copy the address of the site you want to enter and go to the BugMeNot website and have a login name and password generated for you to use. It is a whole lot easier to use than it is to explain. The site has a tutorial, etc., to explain how to use it. There is no download required.

There is also an extension for those who use Firefox and the whole process is even easier! All that is needed is to right click on the login box and choose "Use BugMeNot" and you are automatically logged in to the site. Just another good reason to use Firefox: ease of use!

Hopefully this will stop anyone from grumbling under their breath at me when I post a link that can't be opened without a login name! (I have the tendency to do that every so often. SORRY!) :)

New News

C. went to see the high-risk pregnancy specialist last week and it has been determined that she is having another girl. She was CERTAIN that it was boy--I don't think there is any disappointment on her part, just total surprise. They still gave her a due date of November 25, but they will never let her go that long. The doctors will be happy to have her go till the week before Thanksgiving before they induce her--they are just absolutely thrilled if she goes 35 weeks or longer! (The doctor said everything is going well with both C. and the baby.)

Our other daughter, A., let us know that she will be getting married. The only plans so far are that the wedding will be in May and will take place where she is living: eight hours from us! I don't know how much help she expects from me--or how much I can give from this distance--but I already said I would do the flowers. Now all she has to decide is colors, types of flowers, and style of wedding. Thankfully she wants silk arrangements, so I have plenty of time to do things as slowly as I want. I'm so happy Michaels just opened here!

Must See

If you haven't done so yet, you have to go to the blog PostSecret. This is a site that posts pictures of postcards people send in. The postcard is to be homemade and it is to contain a person's "secret." This could have been very trivial, but reading through the cards I am amazed at some of the things revealed. Some secrets are inspiring, some funny, some lovely, and some are plain horrifying. One minute you can be smiling and the next you are crying over another person's pain. We never know what is going on in someone else's mind or life and reading this site reminds us not to judge too severely.

I HAD To Laugh

Was reading the letters on the site TomCruiseIsNuts.com and came across this. I just found it to be hysterical!

"Someone told me there was a website dedicated to Tom Cruise's Nuts. I haven't been this disappointed since I saw the closing credits to the movie, The Neverending Story."

I guess you can see what types of things I find funny! (And no, I am not obsessed with this Tom Cruise thing--it's just that you can't get away from it! AND I do too much surfing.)

Being Right-handed With A Left-handed Brain

I began my life as a left-hander. I was encouraged (I won't say "forced" because I have enough to be pissed off at The Mother about) to use my right hand so as not to be "different." The trouble is, I still think left-handed in many ways. When we played baseball as children, I found it just as easy to bat left-handed as right. Whenever I pick up a guitar (I don't play), it seems more comfortable to hold it as a lefty than as a right-hander. Whenever I do any hand sewing, I seem to sew in the direction of a lefty. I am slightly ambidextrous and know I could be much better if I practiced, but I really have not had the need till now. Just another slightly interesting fact about me. :)

You Go, Girl!

Brooke Shields answered Tom Cruise today in the New York Times. (May need to login.)
You can find a shortened version of her article here.

Advice to Tom (as if he needs ME to tell him what to do!): DO NOT speak about things you know nothing about. ONLY women can know what post-partum depression is. Enough said.