I have always claimed to be so blessed by the friends I have made in my life. Some of them are only friends for a short time - a year or two - and then they wander away for a variety of reasons. They always leave me richer for having known them and whether we part in friendship or anger, I'm still grateful for their influences while we were ( Read more... )

So the Chex Mix is made (and happily being eaten), the prime rib is in the refrigerator awaiting cooking for Christmas Day, I'm picking up our ham this morning and DH bought his spritz cookies last night. Solstice has now arrived, the fires have been rekindled and the sun is beginning the return voyage to the heat of the summer. The lean ( Read more... )

There are a lot of you who were in the path of Hurricane Sandy yesterday. If you have power and if you possibly can, please check in here to let us know that you and your families are all right.


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So, it took almost three hours to get the budget together and what I got from my DH was an argument about the numbers. Well, the numbers are from the payments made and don't lie. I only have two years for comparison - next year will be better - but the reality is the amount I am given to operate the household is almost 40% too low. Basically, ( Read more... )

Yesterday was horribly busy, but I felt pretty accomplished by the end of the day. The only frustrating part of the day was towards the end of my weekly phone conversation with my friend aearwen2  when her phone suddenly cut off. Maybe it was Spirit telling me that I'd been on the phone long enough, but suddenly it was dead air. I phoned her back and left ( Read more... )

Look at the lovely postcard that just_ann_now sent to me.  It's a picture of the Space window at the National Cathedral in Washington DC.  The large red orb in the center actually has a piece of moon rock brought back by the astronauts of Apollo XI.  The stained glass artist is Rodney Winfield.  Pretty things like this from thoughtful friends like Ann just ( Read more... )

Assignments - So DH says to me last night as I was looking carefully through Spectrum 18 (one of my happy things to do - LOL) that he wants assignments. "Assignments?" I query in return. "What do you mean? Do you want prompts for writing, a goal for artwork, a media in which to produce something, a deadline to meet? What kind of assignments?" " ( Read more... )

Yesterday was one of those two steps forward and one step back kind of days. I got most of my errands completed in the morning, then went home and finished my SV piece. That's done and ready to send on now. It's not too bad :-)

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So, my auto repair people are pretty amazing. My DH did a total number on our car - after cleaning the throttle cable, draining the overage of gas from the engine, replacing the gaskets and spark plugs, and changing the oil (along with other things that were affected by DH's inability to start his car properly) we walked out of the repair shop ( Read more... )

 I was never the popular girl in school.  Oh, I had friends - I didn't sit in the corner without anyone else to play with.  But I wasn't one of the top dogs, the ones who always had a cluster around them.

( Pic and Names Below the Cut... )