Your Mother Was Home When You Left, Your Right ~~

Ahhhh, shades of old memories of army days and Christmases past.  I’m not even talking about the days of Vietnam where my own friends served and many died, but instead, of one particular serviceman and one particular Christmas during the Korean War.  Here’s what happened:

We had a long time family friend, Ashby, that was the distributor for literally all the new records in the rock and roll era across America.  Now the neat thing was, he'd bring me giant boxes upon boxes of records (78's and then 45's when they came into play) that hadn't even made it to the radio stations yet and so I had all of them before they were ever played.  But the amazing thing was, Ashby KNEW all these artists, including Elvis. When Elvis went into the service, Ashby still kept in touch with him.  A Christmas came along and Ashby called Elvis and asked for a "real" photo and letter just for me for Christmas.  Would you believe, I got not only the HUGE Christmas card, but inside that was an 8x10 personal photo signed to me from him and then a 2 page letter in his own handwriting telling me what he did each day in the service and then wishing me a Merry Christmas and telling me to let Ashby know he followed through on his promise.  Wow.  My grandmother, who was the biggest fan he ever had would have keeled over at that very moment had she seen all that, and here I was just a so-so fan.  (She made me go to every single movie he ever made and most were the pits but she thought he was the greatest so that’s how our Saturdays were spent). Anyway, into the drawer the letter, the card, and the signed photo went and many years later I found out just how much they would be worth, so off I ran to dig through all the drawers in the house. I couldn't find it, not a trace.  I went to Mom and said, “Do you remember that Christmas card and letter and picture I got from Elvis when I was 10?”  She said of course she did, so I asked where it was, and she said, “Oh, I threw it all out. I didn’t think you were interested in it.”  I froze.  Then I showed her the estimates of it’s worth and then SHE froze.  And so, there went the lottery and the dream mansion in the sky.  She did however save all the “cute” little cards from her best friend in case she decided to frame any of them.  Wow. Go figure. Mom certainly had her moments , God bless her.  And that’s my pre-Christmas story for the day

XOXOXO   Sound off, 1, 2…Sound off, 3, 4 ~~

                                  

                                                 Merry Christmas, Jenny

                                        “KA-Ching, down the tubes”

I’m So Excited…And I Just Can’t Hide It…~~

I tell you, it doesn’t take much to get me all excited.  Nooooo, not like that!  I mean when I finally figure out something on this blog that I couldn’t get a handle on for the life of me before.  You know I visit all of you all the time, and when I’m there, I see all of these great, great layouts and header/banners, and even little gizmos that drive me crazy with desire…and I haven’t been able to figure out how to do the simplest of things – until last week and then, ta-daaaaaaa, today! I’m like a proud mama with a newborn.  Just look at that header. Woohooooo.  It’s my little car that I’d made and used on WLS but had no idea how to install it over here. I fiddled and fiddled until I thought I was going explode today and then, it worked!  I have Beth to thank for this. She put up a brand new header today that is just gorgeous and it had the site name on the side.  So I went there and they had a little place to click that gave instructions for the simple minded like myself.  What a find!  Now I can do headers and that means I can use all the ones I made myself for WLS.  All I have to do is resize them and bingo, done.

Next, I found this terrific little animation to go with it.  See the swirling Fall leaves?  Is that adorable or what?  Listen, I know this is a girl thing, so guys need not put in their 2 cents worth.  Lol, I’m just so darn happy!

You remember when I lost all of IE7, my webcam, and that VIA Raid thing? Well, “R” called me and we were talking about the whole mess. He said for me to shut down again and leave the computer off overnight and let the magic happen on it’s own.  So I did, and the next morning, 2 days ago, I fired her up and holy smoke, everything was back and working perfectly, except for that VIA thing. That’s just gone.  I looked up all the info I could find on that and apparently it keeps multiple drives all separate and clean running.  Well, I have 3 hard drives and they’re doing fine without the program. Still, it seemed to be a toss up whether the program was imperative or not.  Half said yes and half said no. I’ll wait it out.  What’s that old saying (that actually referred to commas but will do here; I just needed to clarify that just in case): “When in doubt, leave it out”.

I wish I’d taken a picture of my turkey. It was more beautiful than straight out of a magazine, and the taste? Ooooo, yowzahhhh!  It was only a small turkey of 10 lbs but that sucker is going to make a TON of soup and I can’t wait. My freezer is going to overflow with turkey/noodle, turkey/vegetable, turkey/rice, turkey/dumplings, turkey sandwiches, and then probably turkey to the neighbors and extra turkey to Sam & Lucy – can’t leave them out.  Man, that’s a lot of turkey. What was I thinking?

Signing out; I’m actually hungry, so I guess you know what that means

XOXOXO

Full of Blessings ~~

…and so here we are, another year has flown by, and Thanksgiving is just 2 days away.  Our mouths water at the thought of a juicy, tender turkey, the scrumptious stuffing, that green bean casserole that has become a staple, the mashed potatoes, and I could go on and on right through the pies.  It’s all so darn yummy and amazing that after days of preparation, the entire meal is consumed in about 30 minutes – and that’s including all the conversation. Thanksgiving is fun, no doubt about it.  Relatives you don’t get to see so often are all at the same table, and then there are those that have a dinner for friends that are too far from their relatives or have no family left.  A thoughtful time.  A sharing time.  A time to remember openly that it is Thanks-Giving.

                                                                   

…and so here I am, thinking back over the last year and how it was (and is) so hard being the last of my family, and how I miss Mom, but don’t feel sorry for me.  I am missing her, yes, but I am so very lucky.  I have friends in town that I love, and I have friends in YOU that I love.  Each of you has been so supportive and a listening ear when I needed it, and each of you has muddled through my less than professional blogs and photos and yet still took the time to post such nice comments. Don’t think that’s a little thing to me; it’s a big thing and it warms my heart.  Over the years, first on WLS and now here on BlogSpot, and even bookmarking and following others on word press, we have remained family and add to that table all the time.  Pity the people that do not blog and certainly never use a messenger service or anything else that the internet offers to get to know others so far away from themselves, as they don’t know what they’re missing and they don’t understand the concept of our “other family”.  They are missing so, so much. You are all blessings to me in every way, every day.  In my inventive mind, I can see this giant round table (because I like round the best), and around that table is every one of us with little monitors and keyboards, all linked in this world by the touch of a button and by the smiles sent through a universe of words.  I could not be more fortunate and I give thanks openly this Thanksgiving Day for each of you and how you have truly touched my life.  I love you, my around-the-world family.

                                                                

XOXOXO for always ~~

Books ‘aBillion ~~

Finishing up with my problems with IE, it’s dead and won’t even open at all to drop an error message on me.  I don’t care. I am now using Firefox and Chrome and tickled to death with both.  So IE, just keep to yourself and stay off my doorstep.

Fall is coming to an early close here.  Due to the drought all summer, we had a very, very early changing of the leaves and just as fast, they are dropping.  My favorite season, and all too short, I ran outside yesterday right before the grass was being cut and the leaves being bagged, and snapped just a few little last pictures of the back of my back yard.  Click to enlarge.

Who spilled the paint bucket?  The birds will have a heavy grocery cart of holly berries this year.  My hollies are huge and loaded for them.

This is just to show how giant my Leland Cypress trees are. See them next to the double feeder?  That’s the same feeder and tree that my olympic trampoline squirrel uses, and that feeder is very high.  I have to stand on tip toes to reach the loop to bring them down to fill.  I’m not a gnome but maybe close.  I’m 5’3”.

Happy little birds getting ready to bathe.  See that thing in the middle?  That’s a Water Wiggler and vibrates so that the water is always moving.  It keep mosquitoes from landing and hatching eggs, plus the birds are really drawn to it. Sometimes the entire birdbath is so covered with birds that you can’t see anything but the pedestal.

Let the baths begin.  They aren’t squashed, they’re just flapping their wings in the water.  I gave some thought to doing a little vid of them bathing, but….well, you know how bad my vids are, even worse than my photos!

Ok, next subject is BOOKS.  Some of us have been talking about them for a few days, and I agree with Arlene that there’s nothing like holding a real book in your hands, however….now we have Kindles and all the clones.  Really not bad at all. But check this out.  This is a free Kindle for your desktop!  Now if you don’t mind sitting at your desk and reading, or if you can pull up a comfortable chair, this is one nifty gadget, plus there are bunches of free kindle book sites where you do a quick download and then drag it into your new little kindle.  I LOVE mine.  On a lazy day I can sit at  my desk and read my book while I’m blog walking or writing at the same time.  That little gadget even folds a page for you so that you’ll never lose your place.  Add to that, that you can customize the color of the pages and the fonts for your own relaxed experience.  I took 4 pictures of what this looks like on your monitor.   Remember, it’s free and the download is at Amazon under free desktop kindle.  As usual, click to enlarge:

That is what the little icon looks like on your desktop

This is what it looks like when you have clicked to open it and it is initializing.  Cute, huh?

Once opened, all the books you have downloaded will show.  I am reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy at the moment. That is on the top row, 4th over. See the little blue dots below it?  That shows how far I’ve gotten on the read (it’s a VERY long book). At the top are all the clickable spots to change the layout, colors, fonts, everything.

This is the page I’m on for Anna Karenina.  See the bookmarked bent page top right?  When you open the book, it automatically goes to where you left off and had clicked “bookmark”.  To turn the page, or even go back pages, just click to the right or left of the page.  If reading only forward, click anywhere and the page turns.  I tell you, I just love my little desktop Kindle.

IF you decide to download one for yourself, Amazon also has free kindle books to load into it.  Get them;  get all of them as there is no limit.  Once you do that, from time to time Amazon adds more free ones along with those for sale.  Then, to get even more (and there are thousands), go to this site:  http://www.feedbooks.com  and you can browse through old classics, new books and independent authors.  If you enlarged my shot of the books, you’ll see one called The Cyberotica Box.  I know what it sounds like, but it’s not what you think.  What a great story!  (Penelope, it’s exactly your style!)You must download that from feedbooks!

So that’s my story for today along with a little review.  Time for lunch and my favorite soap (I only watch one) and then out for errands.  Gorgeous day out now with lots of sun, my clean cut yard, and a darn renegade squirrel trying to tear down the feeder.  Time to bang on the window :D

XOXOXO