Computer Glitch

O.K. not really a glitch, more of a death. The hard drive on my laptop crashed last night. Totally and completely. Thankfully I saw it coming and had backed up all my photos and such. I was trying a recovery move, you know, F11 and all that. It never restarted after the disc wipe. When Todd called this morning and they walked him through a diagnostic my computer told him to replace the hard drive.
Praise the Lord that I have 36 days left on my warranty. Seriously.

And I'll try to blog all about Christmas when I get my computer back.

:-(

Christmas Card, etc.

Merry Christmas everybody!

and Happy Anniversary my Love!

Ah the wonders 17 years hath wrought.

I love you!

At my house:

What do you think he's looking at?

P.S. The only editing I did to this photo was to crop it. He really did have that look on his face. What are the odds?

What Daddys Do....

...while the family is out shopping and the snow is falling and the Mommy is fussing at the kids, "Don't touch other people's cars! Leave that snow alone! Hurry up, it's cold!"

No, that's not our car. No, I have no idea whose car it is. Yes, I'm glad the owner didn't walk up while my husband was drawing on his or her car. Yes, Todd is now a super-hero in my kids' eyes. Again.

8^D

Snowball

We had a little snow here last weekend. A very little. It was technically just a "dusting" but it was enough to get the kids (and parents) excited. It was really pretty and if you looked real hard for a large flat surface, you could maybe even scrape together enough snow for a small snowball to stow away in your mom's freezer.

Just so ya' know...

It's 24 degrees Fahrenheit according to Weather.com and it feels like 18.
I tried to copy and paste the little box from the page but it won't let me. It will only let me take the little clouds. And what's up with there being no "degree" symbol on the keyboard? I hate that.
I have so many blog posts in my head to share with you. sigh. Unfortunately, I also have 3 kids to get to school and a job to get to. Hopefully I'll have some time this afternoon.
Later....

Happy Thanksgiving

Interns. A blessing and a curse:

We did get the sign fixed within 12 hours.

Sorry the greeting's late. It was a busy day for us then I pretty much crashed the rest of the weekend. It was fabulous!

Here's the before and after of our at-home feast:

From home we went to some friends' and had a really fabulous meal/visit. It was a really great Thanksgiving!

Thankful.

As Thanksgiving aproaches I feel like it's appropriate to mention some of my favorite things. That fire in the last blog is one of them, but even more than that is Unique Thrift. It is an amazing wonderland of affordably priced cast-offs all neatly organized.
Far off the the right there is another whole section of Flea Market-type stalls.
Truly, it is a wondrous place.

New Fire Video

While I'm hoping this is a nice video, it's also a test. I made it with my phone. It looked great on the phone's screen. We'll see how it does in Blogger.

I had some lovely Bach playing in the background but it didn't make it into the video. I'm not sure if that's because the phone won't record it, the sound is too far away for the phone to record it, the email transfer lost the sound or the Blogger Video option won't do it. Who knows? Just put in your Bach CD when you watch.

Sorry there's no Josiah head in this one. I am slightly appalled that my phone makes nicer video than my camera..... but only slightly.

Brrrr....

Hey! It's cold out there!
And none of this, "You don't know cold until you've lived in....." I don't wanna hear it. It's 27 degrees out there in the November daylight and that is stinkin' cold enough! And yes, my fire is blazing, thank you very much.

I didn't even try to break the ice for the birds, it's frozen completely solid and if I poured water on top of it, it would just refreeze before I got back into the house.

Spotted in my yard earlier this Autumn:

Ike's eye view.

The county recently repaired a stretch of sidewalk in front of our house. I sent Isaac out with the camera to get a few shots of the action. He was a big hit with the workmen and got some pretty good shots, in my strongly biased opinion.
I love the shot through the fence pickets. I know it's how he sees the world most of the time. :-)

More reasons to wonder....

So the main reason my neighbor thinks I'm a nut may be this racoon....actually "these", there were two of them. I heard something in my trash and looked out to check. I saw that there were 'coons in my yard (a first for me, btw. how come I had to move into the CITY to get racoons in my yard?) and stepped out in my jammies to take a couple of pictures. After flashing a few shots I started trying to scare them away, you know, yelling, jumping, carrying on. It's cold. I'm up on my porch. I look up and on the other side of the fence from these racoons is my neighbor trying very hard to ignore me. I start trying to explain, but he won't make eye contact and hurries into his house.
Sigh. He's trying to sell his house and I wonder if sometimes he feels like Squidward in the Spongebob episode where he tries to sell his house.
And FYI, racoons do not care if you yell and jump at them. They look at you as if to say, "So?" If, however, you throw walnut shells at them, they will leave.

So will your neighbor.
Just sayin'.

And here we are cavorting in the leaves:

Catching up...

Seriously, I have like 75 photos to show you. I take all these photos all the time thinking I'll blog them and then...... well, obviously I don't. As much as I'd love to put all 75 into this particular entry, I'm thinking I may have to settle for 4 or 5.

These are just a few of the many reasons our neighbor thinks we are insane:

Home Fire

We got a nice fire going today. It's just chilly enough for a warm fire to be comforting ..... and the marshmellows don't hurt either.

This is a really poor quality and long video but hang in there, there's a surprise at the end if you can see it.

:-)

Happy Birthday.....

.....to Josiah.

How I see him:

How he sees himself:

I think reality may be somewhere in the middle.

12.

whahappen'?

Redirecting.....

You know how sometimes when you google something you get all these web sites and every one you click on just seems to be a link to a list of links which will take you to another list of links which will supposedly eventually take you to information on....well, whatever? I hate that. I am, however, redirecting you.

Some pretty good stuff has been posted lately on the web about the elections and current policital climate and I'd like you to read it.



It's found here and I'll give you some teasers from the two posts I'd like you to read.



From Sometimes Jesus Does Drive an SUV... :



I’ve seen that sometimes Jesus does drive an SUV.

Sometimes he drives a hybrid or even rides the bus.

He’s also been known to ride her bike to work.


Sometimes Jesus has her hands so full just trying to pay bills and raise a couple of strong-willed kids that she really doesn’t have time to think too much about the big, global questions out there.



and from Why I Probably Won't Vote for McCain or Obama.... :



And talk about a mess… I heard an author underscoring a good point just a couple of days ago: we have four people, all very admirable and diverse in their public service, all claiming to be followers of Christ, and all of them divided into teams bent on the ridicule, defeat and public destruction of the other. Nice! If only all the Christians could rip each other like that! Oh wait…
.....
.....I listen to both sides, and they both say the same things! The other side is bad, evil, racist, stupid, elitist, ignorant, liars. The other side wants to kill children, neglect the elderly and wreck the economy. And both sides think I’m a fresh cucumber who will just nod and chuckle and be so grateful they’ve enlightened me. I switch channels back and forth on the radio and the only thing that changes is who is doing the talking.

*Sigh* So, here are my party platforms as they currently stand…



No, it's not all a big downer. It is, however, quite thought provoking. Don't let the fact that I sleep with the author sway you. It is worth reading. If nothing else it'll give you something to rant about at the office tomorrow.

Once again, here's the address: http://afaithfulpath.wordpress.com/

Visiting Friends

She's not yet 18 months old. She's the child of some friends at church and we were visiting for dinner. He wanted so badly to hold her and carry her around. We talked him into sitting down with her and he ended up reading her this entire book. Not a long or wordy book, but I can't even get him to read two sentences at home (unless it's a comic book)!
It was painfully sweet and I want to not forget.

Visual DNA

A Brief Encounter

My Dad forwarded me an email. It's a picture of a woman in Gardendale, AL at a Flea Market outside of Wal-Mart. Come on. Does it get any more redneck than that? I'm not knockin' it. I love me some Flea Markets and I really, really miss Wal-Mart. (Bethesda is too pretentious for Wal Mart....and we don't have the space for one.)
This, however, is taking it to a whole new level:


As the email said, "Who looks at a pair of men's briefs and says...hummmm....I can make a nice summer top from these!"?

And don't say, "Teresa," 'cause that's just tacky!!!
........would the boxer-briefs have sleeves?

Hmmmm.........