Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Swiftly Pass the Days

Life is still busy for which I give thanks. I don't even want to think of life with nothing to do. Can you imagine??? A month or two of nothing in the world to do but pass away time might sound good to most of us...but I am sure it soon would be much worse than all the years of going to work week in and week out!!!

Check out this pic. This is of our youngest son scuba diving off the Bahamas. Now I don't know about you but I am quite content just to look at these pictures. I have no desire to go look a shark in the face! He also sent a beautiful video that shows him with 30 or more sharks swimming all around him while a fellow from the scuba tours was feeding them raw meat. Now to me that takes a person that perhaps is a little over the edge!! Obviously, when he was born and they passed out brains he thought they said trains and said let them go by!!! Just kidding! When I knew he was going to the Bahamas and was taking his scuba gear, I just tried not to think about it until he returned. But that didn't work very well. At the time he went, there was a hurricane headed straight at the Bahamas. We kept in touch to let him know what was going on...so he never failed to mention what he had seen on the day's dive. So much for the well laid plans!!!

I am busily working with my digi scrapping and he also wants me to do two hands-on pages from his trip. I have plenty to fill my evenings! I like it that way, though. At my age...if you aren't activly busy doing something it is the old snore away time in the chair as you try to watch TV!! Ahh...the joys of aging!!!

We went to Busch Gardens for a while Sunday and got to see this female lion up close.It is so awesome to get to look at these animals eye to eye! They have thick plastic or glass panes that allow the animals to come right up to the windows. I personally love the apes and gorillas the most, but have to admit this lion was something special, too. We have gotten to see the male like this and his size is quite intimidating!

I love having the passes to Busch. We are only about thirty minutes away so we will decide to run over on the spur of the moment. It is nice because we only go for as long as we like so it is a very nice get away!!

The weekend is here. Hope you all have time for family fun and take some special time for you, too. If you aren't contented, you can't be the person you need to be for your family. You are important, too.

My thought for the day.

Enjoy




Thursday, September 25, 2008

Thought for the Day

Inflation hasn't ruined everything. You can still use a dime for a screwdriver.

---Unknown---

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

I'm Just Wandering

It has been about two weeks of little irritations of which nothing was a big deal yet I could feel it wearing away at me. Just little work glitches and computer problems, software problems and unfinished projects that all want to be the proud winner of driving me over the wall. Not going to happen. I am holding my own!!!

But I haven't posted just for the fact that there has not been anything very interesting to post. But here I am with the wanderings of my life just because I am here!! I do have to boast just a tad about our wonderful Tampa Bay Rays!! They are just awesome! From worst to first!!! Can you believe it? I am now a baseball fan in the worst way!!! They are playing today at 1:00 and I sure am going to be listening. If they win this game they will be the division champs! Can't wait to see what happens!!

Election time is fast approaching. Everyone needs to vote. Please be sure to know the candidates and vote your convictions. We have the great privilege of voting so please don't just cast it aside.

Also I want to make you all aware of a wonderful blog. It is Demented Therapy. It is my daughter's blog and I think you will enjoy it. It is just her place to gripe or whatever about things that are...shall we say...getting under her skin. I find it delightful in the fact that it is therapy just because she can type it out...get it out of her system...and let it go at that. Maybe that is demented in a way...but hey, if it works!!! I don't know, perhaps there is a way you could write her about your pet gripes. Haven't thought about that before!

Hummm speaking of pets...LOL...I need to let you in on another wonderful site. It is called Sam Sezs. It is a site about cats written by a cat named Sam. There is a wonderful part where cats write in for advise. It is really cute. Look it up and enjoy a few minutes there where you can relax and just chuckle and laugh!

Well, Jim and I had to find someone new to cut our hair this week. Our beautician that we have had for about seventeen years is no longer working late enough for us to get to her shop due to the fact that she has had a baby. Do you know how traumatic it is to try to find someone new to cut your hair??? I mean...where do you start? Everyone has certain things they like and don't like done with their hair. How can you explain all this at one time to someone new?? Well, we bit the bullet and found someone. They really did do a good job...well sorta!?!! My hair is now parted on the left not the right (due to the fact that they cut your hair facing away from the mirror...thus you have no idea what they are doing!!)...LOL but I guess I like the change. I don't think my hair is thrilled about it. It still wants to part on the right but I just keep telling it...no, no...other side. Jim has beautiful waves in his blond and graying hair but he hates them. So he has them cut out. Well...until the other night anyway. She says you can't cut waves out. Hummm...we will show her you can. But all in all we are satisfied and lived through it. Technicalities will all come in time!!

I see that Mr. McCain has suspended his campaign until this economy whatever is settled. Isn't it terrible right now? I am sure that if we didn't have credit cards we all would be standing in lines to get food as many of our parents did. I am not sure that using the credit cards is the answer but....

I have rambled enough for you today. I hope to get some pics soon to share and get my flat Barbie going. All in due time. I am making progress. Hope you all have a good weekend coming up.

Just my thought for the day.

Enjoy

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Thought for the Day

"Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation."

---Anonymous---

Friday, September 19, 2008

First Week Back After Vacation


The first week back after vacation is not the best week of the year...especially when you work with a bunch of guys that don't even know how to put a purchase order on a hook!!! LOL All in all my return this year was pretty easy compared to all the others. I guess they believed me when I said you can use my desk and do whatever you want...BUT...when I return, I want everything just like I left it with all you need done in one stack...or there had better be a huge Starbucks sitting in the middle of my desk!!! Knowing they are pretty much on the...shall we say cheap side...not to mention would not be caught dead inside a Starbucks...I thought I was pretty safe asking for that!!! For some reason going inside one scares them. They say...I'm not going in there!!! But anyway, this week has been pretty uneventful for which I give great thanks.

However I sure am looking forward to that trip for my Friday Starbucks with Jim. Sorry to say we have had to cut out our daily trips due to the economy. Couldn't justify the dollars...but it sure makes Friday seem very special!!! LOL

I have been working on so many things at home right now and finally getting a few finished up. Mainly trying to figure out ACDSee to organize my digital scrapping so I can digi scrap again. I don't want to let it go any longer and get so bogged down that I feel like I will never get out! I am so thankful for help from Terry of Terry's Tales. She has been working with the patience of Job with a very slow learner!

I did take time to request our mail-in election ballots. They are urging everyone to use the mail-in ballot to eliminate the long lines at the polls. Never have done that, but our daughter has done it for quite a while and it has worked well for her. I guess it is better than lines standing in the hot sun!! Even the early voting had lines for the big elections. So we will give it a try!!!

Will be heading up next week to our daughter's for our grand daughter's eleventh birthday, so we will be finishing up the last present buys Saturday! Other than that no great plans.

Guess I need to close and finish up here so I can get ready to go home. In about an hour I should be sitting at our favorite Starbucks looking out the window at the beautiful sites of Florida. It is so beautiful here. Everyone landscapes so nicely! By the way...you do realize that I am helping the planet earth when I drink my Starbucks...right? They give away all the used grounds for you to put into you soil to help your garden. I knew there was a good reason I did this!!! LOL

My thought for the day.

Enjoy

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Thought for the Day

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day listening to the murmur of the water or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."

---J Lubbock---

Monday, September 15, 2008

Not A Waste of Time


I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Instead, I have been on a week of wonderful vacation. A vacation when not a thing was done except 'vacate'!! Vacate the entire body and mind of all the things we usually do day in and day out. NO schedule! NO plans! Well...only one. That was not to sleep in and waste the day by sleeping it away!

How wonderfully relaxing it was. However, I think more relaxing for me than for Jim. He is definitely the "goer" of the two of us but he said he enjoyed it, too! We ended up doing small 'jaunts' around home and they were a lot of fun.

Probably the trip we enjoyed the most was to Weedon Wildlife Preserve. This place was so wonderful for us. Oddly enough it is only about eight miles from our house and we had never been there in the seventeen years we have lived here.

You enter the preserve off a pretty busy street in a city of about 1/4 million! Yet as soon as you get there...almost utter silence! After living on a peninsula of about 2 million people for all these years the silence was at first almost deafening! But it sure didn't take long to adapt back to the peace and quiet of the country we had lived in back in Ohio!!

There was a beautiful new boardwalk of about 2 miles, where you could walk and talk and not hear anything other than your own voices and wildlife. You could feel your body just start to unwind and start to settle in to perhaps what God really had in mind for us. All of a sudden you forget about all the hustle and bustle of the busy city you just left and begin to feel a peace a body seems to seek. It almost makes you wonder where we went wrong. How did we end up destroying so much of what God gave us to keep us aligned with him? Something we will never get back!

As we walked on and saw the beautiful mangroves and more of the newly placed boardwalk we came to about the end of our trail. And there...as if we had walked into heaven, there was the most beautiful lake we had ever seen. You stand frozen in place as you see such a breathtaking scene. Such peace! Such beauty. Fish jumping in the lake, birds singing, crickets chirping. It is something you forget about when you live in a big city. We needed to be reminded of places like this. You want to prolong your time here.Vacation. Time away from all we do day in and day out. Time to disconnect. This was beautiful . I wish it for all of you.

My thought for the day.

Enjoy!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Thought for the Day

"If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim."

---Mom---

All Part of Life

Sorry I haven't been around lately. As the previous post said, another unwelcome turn appeared on scene. More computer woes.

On Friday last week, at least if I can recall correctly, it was Friday...our son who lives in New York/New Jersey surprised us, or rather me, by stopping in for the night on his way to the Bahamas (lucky him!) for vacation. He was actually staying with his friend in Ft. Lauderdale. He called father around 2:00 in the afternoon to let him know he would be in but not to tell Mom. They all love to play games with me! So as I was sitting scrapping...I see a car pull up front, the door open and all of a sudden I am getting a kiss from behind! DS #2! How nice that was!!! He took us out to eat a Carrabbas and we had a very nice time.

The next day DS was going to go to the gym and head back to Ft. Lauderdale. On the way he just happened to drop me off the best hot pressed Cuban sandwich...as he always does when he leaves. Our family is steeped in tradition! Friday proceeded as usual, looking forward to the long weekend...it had been a really hard week for both DH and me. They day over we proceed to our "traditional" Starbucks stop and head on home. Trouble on horizon we didn't expect. As I proceed to do the normal walk in the house through the kitchen and dining room I press the button for the computer monitor and then the computer. Nothing is happening!!! Only the blue screen on the monitor that says HP Invent. I asked "What is this? We don't usually get this screen!"

So right I was. As we got exploring, we had no computer, no televisions and no phones. As we found out, it was our lucking day to have been struck by lightning! We didn't even know there had been a storm. That is the good Florida weather! It seems that the surge came through our cable. (Suggestion...make sure your cable goes through your battery back up/surge protector. Our didn't!) Fried the computer, not the brand new printer. Got the cable boxes but not the televisions. Shorted the phone boxes outside...not the phones. Ugh.

Well, although the limping budget didn't like it...it was off Saturday to shop for a good, yet cheap computer *sigh* Not only was this a money concern...as you all probably know by now...neither Jim nor I am really high up on the computer hardware knowledge scale. So here we are going down the aisles of Walmart with darling daughter Nancy on the cell phone!!! I am reading boxes to her. Good...not good...fair...real good. Good price...bad price...oh brother!! Why do I have to be so stupid about these things???

Well, off to Best Buy. Start to look again. Then this young man comes up and wants to help. Seems nice. I like him. So as only I could do, I say to him, I really did say this, "Are you smart?" I didn't have to look at DH. Nothing I say ever affects him. He just goes on!!! The young man smiled and said to me, "Yes." I was impressed. Not too many people will really admit they are smart and not look cocky!! I said, "I knew you were...I could tell". We both had a chuckle. Ha ha...we bonded at that point!!

So our woes were discussed, along with what we would be doing on our computer, and he led us to the computer he thought would fill our needs. I was thrilled. Having gone over what I needed with DD and what was on this I was very impressed with him. And the price was unbelievable. It was on sale! Thank you, AGAIN, Lord!

I didn't bother to call DD. I knew this was right. You know...sometimes you just know these things.

LOL LOL I do have to add one more thing. Our darling daughter has been wanting a MAC in the biggest way for the longest time. So when I got in the car...mean Mom called her and said, "You are going to hate me!" "Mom," she said. "You didn't get a MAC did you?" "You are going to hate me", I repeated. "Mom, did YOU get a MAC?" I just laughed. "MOM, did you???" LOL by now I am laughing so hard. I finally had to come clean and tell her I did not get a MAC. She said,"I was just about to hang up on you!! LOL LOL"

Sometimes it is just fun to play!! Takes a lot of the tension out of doing something you really don't want to do. But in the end she was really amazed at what we had bought and the price we got. The end of what started out a pretty bleak aturday.

That was the start of a long few days. The next few days had been filled with learning how to set up a new computer...oh what a joy!!! Thank God we knew how to match colors!! Then cable repairman and phone guy! Wonderful fun!!! We are still putting bits and pieces back together but it is coming.

Now that we are out of the stupor of the shock of this all hitting at once we can look at what really happened. It really wasn't that bad. Oh, the budget took a very unwelcome hit...but a blessing that we could handle it. We had to deal with redoing a computer. So...we got some extra together time and got to work on something together. We missed the TV really bad...but...made us realize how addicted we were to it and even picked up books we had laid down and I got to scrap! That was nice. Now the phones...it was rather pleasant without them. We had our cells so family could still reach us. Bet we drove the solicitors crazy not being able to call...and we have the NO Call set up...doesn't work very well, does it. But life is getting back to normal slowly but surely. But this is all part of life.

And believe me, Jim and I both know we would rather have our problems of the past weekend than most anyone else's problem! We are always keenly aware that no matter what is happening to you...the person standing next to you is most likely dealing with a problem many times worse than yours.If all our problems were put in a hat we sure would be hoping to draw out our own!!

Life is not easy. But as they say...let's not sweat the small stuff. At the time I saw that blue screen on the computer...I didn't think it was a small thing...then coupled with the TVs and phones! But you know what...? They were small things. As time went on...we were able to laugh about it. All this at once! And after a few days of confusion and hassle...we are pretty well back to normal...or rather what we call normal!! LOL And I am pretty sure better off because of it!

We have a brand new computer...with no trash on it that downloads when you put a new program on your computer. The TVs are working great! The phones are back on...I missed all those solicitors on my answering machine. I do need to see why we are still getting those wonderful calls! And we sure had a break in the hum drum of our lives!! Had some good laughs together, especially as I was trying to tell Jim how the directions said to hook up that silly computer ! I was designated reader of directions!! Not always a good thing since men and women use opposite sides of their brains for that kind of stuff and see it totally different!

Remember. Life is good. Thank God for it. Enjoy it.

My thought for the day.

Just felt like sharing a bit of beautiful Florida with you all today. Take a close-up look. I think these are beautiful. Hope you like it!!