keeping busy

Yesterday was a craft day, more or less.  I'm working on a new journal...not due until September, but I'm having too much fun with it and keep thinking of new ideas.  Anyway, I got a lot of the journal done and then started sifting through the piles of stuff on my desk to see what new things would work for the journal -- looking for one particular thing.  I found the one particular thing, but was so far into the cleaning of the stacks and I kept going.  It took 2-3 hours to get from the top of the stack to my desk, getting everything organized into boxes and drawers so things will be easier to find.

When Walt came in, I proudly showed him my desk, which you can now see, and he couldn't figure out what I was showing him, so all of my work I guess never showed because it was all a pile in one space.

But it's so much better now...and I wonder how many (days/hours/minutes) it will take me to get it back to looking the same!

Ned fixed cheeseburgers for dinner, which we haven't had in a long time and which tasted so good.  I expected my blood sugar reading this morning to be high, but it was lower than it has been in a long time. Go figure.

I had a movie night.  Nothing on tv because of the writers' strike, so I read an article in the New York Times about good things to watch on Netflix.  I choses The Imitation Game, which is the story of Alan Turing and which was excellent.  I kinda knew his story, but definitely not in the depth that this movie goes.  Turing pretty much won World War II and invented the computer, then committed suicide because he was so shunned for being homosexual.

The movie ended early so I chose another movie, St. Vincent, with Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy (who I always figure should play ME in a movie).  In truth, I chose it because it had a picture of a little kid in it.

But it was good...sorta predictable but got me crying toward the end.  And it was 10:30, so time for bed and the movies had taken my evening.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Jeri & Phil went to opening night
of the show she orchestrated.

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Visits

 Before our visitor came to visit, Ned got the living room looking more like a living room and less like a bedroom.  He took the cover off the couch and somehow found a place for the voluminous soft quilt and did lots of other things, so when she arrived, you'd never know it wasn't a living room.

Only he was exhausted, having spent a day working at Lake Tahoe, then driving home at the crack of dawn and having to work at the facility that he takes care of.  By dinner time, he was ready for bed and went upstairs with Marta to watch TV.  When it was time for me to go to sleep, I went into the living room and he had forgotten to turn the room back into my bedroom.  No problem.  I had a pillow and it was too warm for a quilt, so I just lay down and was asleep pretty much instantly.

When I woke up in the middle of the night, as I always do, I napped for an hour in my recliner and then decided I wanted to go back to the couch, only what I was missing was not the warmth of a quilt, but the feeling of something on my shoulder, so I took a towel that was in the laundry basket and covered myself with that.

When I woke up, I was covered with the quilt.  Ned said when he saw me sleeping there it was the most pathetic thing he'd seen and he made sure I had a cover.

Our visit with our friend was so nice.  I can't remember when if ever, we have had someone come by just for a visit, other than family.  Maybe not since Paul died!  But we had such a good time.  I was disappointed that she didn't bring the Starbucks coffee she planned to bring, but the line, she said, was too long. Probably just as well.  I shouldn't have one of those fancy coffees anyway.

But we just got caught up.  We got all the information on her recent trip to Yosemite with her daughters, which was a lot of fun.  I'd seen pictures on Facebook.  We haven't been to Yosemite since the kids grew up.  We were remembering when we were there with the kids.  Tom was probably 3 or 4.  We had a nice dinner around the fire and made smores.  I remember a marshmallow fell on the ground and Tom stepped on it, so there was marshmallow on his shoe.

In the middle of the night I heard a bear snuffling around our  tent.  I was terrified and lay there stiff as a board listening to the bear move from one side of the tent to the other, wondering whether or not he could smell the marshmallow on Tom's shoe.  He eventually moved off but when we got up later in the morning, the bear was in the truck of a camper across the road from us.

Anyway, it was such a nice visit.  Now that I can't drive, I can't just "drop in" and visit someone, but she promises to come back and visit with us again sometime.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Jeri & Phil went to opening night
of the show she orchestrated.

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Sunday Stealing

 

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves.

Stolen from SwapBot

1. Does love come from the brain, the heart or elsewhere?
Definitely from the brain.

2. Have you ever given a shot?
No.

3. Can you lick your elbow? (Come on, didja try?)
I didn't try...I saw a contestant do it on Jeopardy this week and knew that I couldn't do it.

4. If I was going to be talking to you for 10 minutes, what would be something really interesting you know a little bit about but would like to know more??
I know a bit about elephant families. s I'd love to know a lot more.  I'm pretty much interested in everything and would find most topics interesting.

5. What do you think of the Sopranos?
It's a show I should not have liked as much as I did.  Brutal, violent, profanity,...and I loved it.  I loved the "family" story...probably because I grew up in an Italian neighborhood (even tho I'm not Italian)

6. Have you ever had a crush on your teacher?  How about your boss?
Yes to both.

7. Have you ever seen a movie in 3D?
A few

8. How difficult do you think it is for immigrants to come into your country?
If you watch the news, apparently quite difficult for most of them.

9. Do you have what it takes to go live in another country, maybe for years, where you don't speak the language as your first language?
At this stage of life, no, but if I were younger yes, definitely.  I could pick up a language (especially if it were a romance language) fairly easily--I have a working knowledge of French and Portuguese and passing interest in Spanish, from living in California.

10. Have you ever died in your dreams?
No.

11. What book should our political leaders read and why?
I don't have a clue

                                                                                                                                                                     12. What is your favorite glass object?

This isn't exactly glass, but it's my favorite "glass-ish" thing.  It was from my godmother's house, when she died, when I was 10.

13. Do you like to window shop?
I would rather window shop than really shop.

14. Are you more likely to buy one really nice expensive outfit or a couple of cheap outfits?
It is so difficult to find something that fits me that if I could find two outfits that fit, I would buy both, no matter the cost.

15. If you could, would you wear everything once, throw it out and buy something new?
Good grief, no.  I have my clothes for years...the only cardigan sweater I ever wear is about 30 years old!

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

We had a visitor today!
She made friends with Bubba

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Saturday 9

 

Welcome to Saturday: 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love to answer questions, however, and here are today's questions!

Saturday 9: I've Got Your Number (1965)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

Chosen in memory of Tony Bennett, who passed away on July 21.

1) In this song, Tony sings that he recognizes his lover's insecurities because she's a lot like him. Are you unsure in social situations? Or do you meet new people easily?
Unsure in bold letters!!!  I do not meet new people easily and, in all honesty, am not entirely comfortable with people I know right away.

2) While singing was his livelihood, painting was Tony Bennett's passion. What hobby do you participate in with the greatest enthusiasm?
Writing pen pal letters and creating journals to share with others on Swap Bot.  I'm not particularly artistic, but I do love putting those journals together.

3) Tony was a proud son of New Jersey. Many singers hail from The Garden State, including Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Frank Sinatra. What heroes, heroines or celebrities hail from your home state?
LOL.  I'm in California.  How many do you want???  How about from my town.  We have Tony Fields, who danced with Michael Jackson on a couple of his videos and was also in the movie A Chorus Line and Jan Gan Boyd, who was also in A Chorus Line.  Then there are authors John Lescroart (who wrote the Dismas Hardy books, among others), Derrick Bang and Michael Goodman.  Goodman wrote "The Midllife Bible" (which I typed).  Bang wrote a couple of books about Charles Schultz and also helped organize the Peanuts museum in Santa Rosa. And then there is David Breaux, who wrote the book "Compassion" and was recently murdered.

4) Though Tony dreamed of becoming a commercial artist, he had to drop out of school in his teens to help support his family. Looking back on your teen years, what did you want to do for a living? Is that what you ended up doing?
In my senior year in high school, I was planning to enter the convent, but ended up becoming a secretary and then a wife and mother.

5) During WWII, Tony served in Germany. The first time his voice was broadcast was during an aircheck for Armed Forced Radio. For the occasion he sang "St. James Infirmary." That was Tony's first. Let's contrast it with your last. What's the most recent song you sang?
I used to be a singer...not a good singer, but I was in choruses for most of my younger adult life, but at some point a few years ago -- I don't remember how many.  More than 5 -- I lost my voice.  Literally.  I can no longer sing more than 2 or 3 notes.  Very frustrating when I can't even hum to familiar tunes!

6) After the War, Bob Hope saw him perform under his real name, Anthony Benedetto. Hope told him that, no matter how great his talent, his name would hold him back because it was too long for a marquee. And so, Tony Bennett was born. Tell us about a marquee in your town. Is it announcing a movie, play, or concert performance?
This is too small a town for a big marquee, though there is a small lighted sign outside the Veterans Memorial Building, where there is a theater.  I don't know what's playing there now, though. 

7) In 2006, he recorded his Duets album, partnering with a variety of singers he admired. Tony said he enjoyed working with Paul McCartney at London's Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles created their classic recordings. If you vacationed in London, what would you be sure to visit?
I've been to London several times.  We always get tickets at Leicster Square for cheap theater tickets.  I love visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum and I'd love to go on the new Ferris wheel, which had not been built the last time we were there.

8) "I've Got Your Number" was performed by Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore on The Dick Van Dyke Show. According to Dick, they were so believable as a married couple that he received glares from a hotel clerk while checking in with his real-life wife, Margie. What TV or movie couple do you feel had "chemistry?"
Tony DiNozo and Ziva David; of course Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

9) Special summertime random question: Would you have more fun at a pro baseball game or an art museum exhibit?
If I could climb the stairs to get into the seats (which I can't now), a Giants game.

Check out other entries....

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

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As You Wish

I've read a lot of books about movies and how they are made, about the actors in them, etc, but perhaps none has interested me as much as "As You Wish," by Cary Elwes, who plays Wesley in The Princess Bride.  The movie has become very special in Hollywood history, but other than knowing what it was about and remembering that I had enjoyed it, I really didn't have any special feeling about it.

When I saw the Elwes had written a book about the making of the movie, I thought it might be interesting and put it on my Amazon wish list.  Ned and Marta got it for me...for Christmas or for my birthday and other than barely starting it, I hadn't really picked it up until this week.

It quickly became obvious that before I could read the book, I'd have to see the movie again.  Fortunately it was on Disney, and so I got it and watched it.  When I picked the book up again, it was a whole different experience reading it with the movie fresh in my mind.

What a fascinating story.  I was midway through the book, reading about the training for the sword fight between Elwes and Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya (3 months, 8 hours a day, 5--sometimes 6--days a week!) and I had to watch the movie again to see not only the sword fight but all the rest that I had read about up to that point.

I simply couldn't put the book down.  I sat and finished it this afternoon and now I have to go back and watch the movie again, to see the things he talks about toward the end of the book -- like breaking his big toe and having to film the last scenes in great pain and the scene where Christopher Guest as Count Rugen is supposed to hit Wesley over the head with his sword.  Guest, Elwes explains, is such a gentle person that he didn't want to really hit him and so was trying to barely hit him, but it wasn't coming across as believable on film.  Finally Elwes told him that he should actually hit him...not hard, but definitely make contact with his head.  So they tried that and Guest accidentally hit him too hard and Elwes passed out.  He says he woke up in the hospital!  When you watch the movie and see him pass out...he really did!

Like The Wizard of Oz this movie did not make a big impact when it was released, partly because of poor publicity and people feeling it was a kid's movie.  It was several years later, when videotapes came out that it began to acquire the fame that it has now, and has become as beloved a film as Wizard of Oz.

I am so glad to have read this book..and now I have to watch the movie for the third time.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Marta harvesting basil

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Listen!

I have had my audiologist appointment.  I've been having difficulties with one of my hearing aids and wrote to her about it and she suggested an appointment.  When I told Ned about it, he showed me a setting where I could change the hearing level of the aid I was having trouble with and that helped, but there were still a couple of things I wanted help with.

Turns out that I am supposed to have a visit with the audiologist once a year to check my hearing aids and every two years to check my hearing, so actually this is was an appointment I should have made whether I was having trouble with my aids or not.

She checked both hearing aids and both seem to be working fine but she says if my problems continue, to let her know and she'll have them repaired.  Both Ned and I had questions to ask her, tho.  I mentioned that everyone is complaining that I speak too softly now and she laughed and said this is a common thing.  Now that I'm hearing myself through the hearing aids, I tend to speak more softly.  I also asked her long a battery should last in a day.  I have been not wearing the hearing aids in the mornings when I'm here all by myself, thinking that I need to save the charge for nighttime, when I really need them.  She says they should last about 12 hours, depending on what you are using them for, so I'm OK.

Ned talked with her about changing the filter, which she said should probably be done every couple of weeks (we have let it go much longer...and I do notice the difference in clarity when it's been changed), I am so lucky Ned is here to change the filter.  It is so tiny there is no way I can do it and with Walt's essential tremor there is no way he could do it. 

So we left feeling good and ready to make an appointment for a hearing test next year.

# # # # #

We have a land line but never answer it because with very few exceptions all we get are sales calls on it.  We use our cell phones instead.  There is a recording for the land line and most of the time the salespeople don't even leave a message.  But there is a company called Sunrun, which is a company that makes solar panels, that has started calling.  They must call a dozen times a day, leaving a recorded message. I'm wondering how much longer we're going to have to put up with them.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

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Nice to be at the P.O.

 I feel like a normal person.  I actually went out today.  To run an errand!

I had several oddball things that needed to be mailed and supplies to pick up and it was just too complicated to try to ask Walt (who has been doing my post office runs for me) to do it, so I asked him if he would take me to the post office.

I had a regular package to mail, a thick letter I stamped, thinking I was mailing the swap in the U.S. only to discover that it was to be mailed to France and so needed international postage, and I also had my latest journal to mail and needed a flat rate box to put it in.  I also had other things that just needed to be slipped in the mailing slot.

The weather was so nice.  After 2 days of 100+ degrees, it was only high 70s/low 80s when we left the house and I was pleased.  When we entered the post office I noticed new things.  When was the last time I was actually there?  Two years?  Possibly.  But the one thing was was the same was the crowd waiting in line.

I got my business done in no time and then came home to lunch, enjoying checking out all the houses en route, and to continue the work I was doing on the computer.

I recently found a new photo software (paint.net) which is enough like PhotoShop (which I miss so dearly!) that I felt I could work with it, if I could figure out how to make it work.  I'm just starting to learn how to do it, but I did manage to come up with the Photo of the Day, which required cropping and pasting two crops onto a new blank sheet and then sizing it all.  I would have been SO much easier in PhotoShop, but alas, that can't be, so maybe I can learn how to perfect paint.net.  Thank goodness I knew PhotoShop so well and know what can be done, what to call the things I'm trying to do and how to work around the confines of paint.net.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Walt fell asleep
while eating a banana

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Leavenworth

This is the house I grew up in on Leavenworth Street in San Francisco.  I found this great picture today and I liked it because if you look at the woman climbing up the hill, you can get an idea of how steep the street is.

Also, there were no trees on the street when I lived there, and there was no diagonal parking; you had to park parallel and my father would not let me get a driver's license until I could parallel park with a standard transmission on the hill.  

Where there is a garage door used to be the basement and there was just a normal door.  My father did a lot of work in that basement, which technically went with the landlord's apartment and my father had a smaller basement, but the two connected and the landlord never used his basement.  They must have done extensive work to turn this into a garage because it was a deep basement with steep stairs from the street down to the floor.

I don't know what it's like now, but we had the downstairs flat.  My sister and I shared the room to the right of the door.  It was designed as a dining room, but we used it as a bedroom. I was terrified of the dark and my father insisted that our door be closed at night, so I would pull the curtain aside so the light from the street would fall on my face.  My mother didn't want people walking down the hill knowing we were there.  Now I see there are bars on the window...we should have had that done!.  We had a teeny closet that my cousin locked me in once.  I had claustrophobia and I can still feel how terrified I was to be locked in that closet!

The two windows to the left of the door were to my parents' bedroom and the windows over the garage are bay windows in the living room.  There was a seat in front of the windows, like this

(from the internet)

We had great fun sitting on the seat watching cars trying to drive up the hill, especially on rainy days!  There was a TV in the middle to lean against.

In addition to the 2 bedrooms there was a living room/dining room, one bathroom (bath, no shower), a kitchen with a pantry and a back porch.  

I've checked the property out and have seen what it looks like now and I can't even imagine what it's like because none of the rooms look the same.  I actually wrote to the occupants awhile ago, but never received an answer.

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My mother with baby Jeri

in what was my childhood bedroom

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The Princess Bride

 The Princess Bride is a classic movie that everyone loves, including me...I thought.  I put the book "As You Wish," about the making of  the movie, on my Amazon wish list, and Ned and Marta got it for me for Christmas....or maybe it was for my birthday.

I started to read it then, but got involved in some other book(s) and didn't really start it until yesterday.  And I realized that I hardly remember the movie at all, other than the sword fight with Mandy Patinkin (“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”) and watching Andre the Giant.  I didn't even know any of the stars in it (including Cary Ewes, who played Westley and who wrote the book!).  I didn't remember that Rob Reiner directed it or that Billy Crystal had a small part.

So I started the book again yesterday and after only one chapter, I realized that I couldn't read the book without seeing the movie again.  Thank goodness we have Disney, because Disney is showing it as part of their service (and thanks to Ned and Marta, we can get Disney).  

Adapted by William Goldman from his 1973 novel of the same name, it tells the story of a swashbuckling farmhand named Westley, accompanied by companions befriended along the way, who must rescue his true love Princess Buttercup from the odious Prince Humperdinck. The film preserves the novel's metafictional narrative style by presenting the story as a book being read by a grandfather (Peter Falk) to his sick grandson (Fred Savage) .

So instead of reading the book, I spent the afternoon watching the movie and what fun that was!  So much I had forgotten (didn't remember the Rodent of Unusual Size at all!) and when the movie was over and I picked up the book again, it was an entirely different experience because I understood everything that Ewes had written.

** “There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in the world. It would be a pity to damage yours.” – Westley

Grandfather: “In my day, television was called ‘a book.'”

“Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I’ve got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.” – Buttercup**

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8349

Sunday Stealing

 

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves.

Stolen from Swap;Bot

Would you rather....

1. Live on a boat or in a treehouse?
It might be fun to live on a boat for a short time, just for the experience, but a treehouse would definitely be my preference, assuming I didn't have to actually CLIMB the tree.

2. No computer use for a year or no sweets for a year?
Well, I'd hate to give up sweets for a year, but I'm not supposed to eat them anyway, and I can't imagine no computer use for a year.

3. Have $2,000 right now or be given $100 every month for the rest of your life?
Heck, of course $100/month for the rest of my life.  

4. Be an astronaut or an athlete?
Neither.  Definitely have no desire to go flying off into space and I can barely walk to the mailbox, so "athlete" is out of the question.

5. Have 50 good friends or only one best friend?
Only one best friend, which is pretty much what I have now.

6. Have bright blue teeth or bright blue hair?
Neither, really, but if I have to make a choice, I'll go with the hair.

7. Have the power of flight or the power of invisibility?
What fun it would be to be invisible!  (assuming I can choose when I want to be invisible)

8. Have a fun friend who is snarky or a boring friend who is kind?
How about a snarky fun friend who is also kind?

10. Have a freezing cold shower every day or a pleasant hot shower once a week?
No desire to have a freezing cold shower ever!

11. Be an only child or have many siblings?
I was a sibling for nearly 30 years until my younger sister died and then an only child for the rest of my life until my parents were dead.  I never had a close relationship with my sister, but I sure wished she were around when I was making difficult decisions about our mother.  My mother was from a large family (10 kids) and I always thought it would be great to have lots of siblings.

12. Quit video games forever or live in a desert for a month?
Since I never play video games, it would be quite easy for me to quit video games,  though I have no desire whatsoever to live in the desert (especially now when it is getting up to 130 in Death Valley!)

13. Go on a one week trip to a foreign country of your choice or a month long trip in your own country?
Two weeks is about my maximum for travel...and at the end of 2 weeks I'm getting antsy to get home, so a month long trip in this country holds no interest for me.

14. Celebrate your birthday every day or go on your favorite holiday once a year?
I can't think of anything less pleasant than to have a birthday celebration every day.  

15. If fish could talk, what would you ask them?
"How much does it hurt to have a fisherman catch you with a sharp hook and then have that hook wrestled out of your mouth and then have you tossed back into the sea again?"

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Our new puzzle

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Saturday 9

Welcome to Saturday: 9. 

What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love to answer the questions, however, and here are today's questions!

Saturday 9: You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To (1943)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) In this song, Dinah Shore goes on about listening to the breeze. Is it windy, breezy, or still where you are today?
Very still.  It's predicted to get up to 106 degrees this afternoon.

2) The August moon is bright in Dinah's musical fantasy. Let's look at your calendar. Is anything special coming up in August (birthdays, anniversaries, vacation getaways ...)? 
Our son's birthday, our daughter's aniversary. 

3) Dinah was one of TV's pioneers. Her first show was a 15-minute variety show that ran two nights/week in 1951. What's the most recent show you watched?
Monk (I usually watch the 3 morning reruns every day)

4) She followed that in 1956 with the Dinah Shore Chevy Show. It was an hour long and sponsored by the car company. At the end of every show Dinah encouraged her viewers to "see the USA in your Chevrolet ..." Today Chevrolets are still the most popular cars manufactured by General Motors. Tell us about your car.
It's not a Chevrolet!  We have a Hundai.

5) From 1970 to 1991, Dinah hosted daytime TV talk shows and found tremendous success, winning 6 Emmy Awards and repeatedly appearing in the Gallup Poll of America's most admired women. Do you remember her?
Definitely.  I often watched her show. 

6) Dinah was such an avid golfer that, in 1972, she founded one of the LPGA's major tournaments. Though now officially titled The Chevron Championship, it's still often referred to as "The Dinah Shore" in her memory. Do you golf? If not, would you like to learn?
I don't golf.  I have no desire to learn.  My brother-in-law is good golfer; so is my son Tom.  My husband never learned how to golf.

7) In 1943, when "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To" was popular, so were tablecloths. It was common to have cotton tablecloths for everyday use, fun and festive ones for 4th of July and Christmas, and linen for formal occasions. Do you use tablecloths in your home?
No.  Sometimes we use placemats (we have lots of placemats), but haven't in awhile. If we have guests for a holiday dinner, we'll probably use a tablecloth.

8) Beatle George Harrison was born in 1943. Which of the Fab Four is your favorite?
I don't know the Beatles well enough to have a favorite.  

9) Random question: Would you rather live on a houseboat or in a trailer?
Trailer.

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Vol 1 of the 2 books I just bought

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Check the description

Despite having 50 bazillion return address labels sent to me free from many organizations  (they seem to have stopped doing it now), I make my own return address labels.  And I have a good time making return address labels for SwapBot partners or pen pals.  Where else can you find happy elephant labels?  

But with all the labels I've been making, I am getting low on blank labels so I went to reorder some from Amazon.  They come in a package of 25 and I had the product number, so just ordered that number.  But I didn't check exactly the description and when the package came, I wasn't getting 25...there's no number, but it must be at least 100.  At 30 labels per page, that's 3000 labels.

Anybody want labels made?  LOL.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Our new puzzle

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Creativity!!

What a busy, creative day I had today.  For one thing I slept in until after 8, so I was starting out well rested.

I wanted to work on the swap I've been putting together, the "Getting to Know You Magpie Journal" which I've been putting together for the last several days -- I'll explain it a little later.  But first I wanted to write the letter for the swap "Questionable letter??"  In this swap, you're supposed to write a letter of at least 2 pages in which you not only talk about yourself, but also put in several questions for your partner to respond, if she feels like it.

When I checked the profile of my partner, I discovered that other than the fact that she's in her 30s, we had so much in common.  When I looked at the list of the swaps she is doing (and hosting), we are doing several of the same swaps and, in fact, the "Getting to Know You" journal swap is one that she is hosting.  She also says in her profile that she likes long letters, so I just let myself go and ended up with a 5 page typed letter that asks a lot of questions, many of which came from the journal.  I got the letter finished around lunch time.

Then I came back to the journal.  In this journal you are supposed to answer 20 questions (out of a list of 100) and illustrate the answers.  I started the journal by handwriting, but gave up quickly and typed the whole thing and pasted it in the book.  But I had such fun.  With all my stickers, I had to write about my hobbies (collecting stickers) and that page was easy to decorate.

There was a question about my favorite family tradition and I always remember the years that we had Thanksgiving at Lake Tahoe and always played charades after dinner, when Walt's mother was still with us...and how much we laughed at her inability to act out anything without speaking.                                                                                                                                                                     

and I was tickled to find a question about whether or not I was related to anybody famous, which gave me the chance to tell the story of Ben Kilpatrick, who was a member of Butch Cassidy's Hole in the Wall Gang.

I had so much time putting this all together that it took all afternoon and the book is now finished except for some graphics that I will add when my next Temu order arrives.

At the end of the day I am feeling very creative!                                                                                                                   

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Silver Linings

There is supposed to be a silver lining for every dark cloud in your life.

I've found a silver lining to the frustration of the writers and potential actors strike.  There is virtually nothing new to watch unless you're into game shows (which I'm not, except for Jeopardy...and will THAT be on when the new season starts?)

I record a lot of shows -- all my doctor shows, shows like NCIS, special shows coming up but when I look at the DVD list for what is going to be recorded each day it seems like all that is on the list is The Office, which Ned records because he likes to watch the reruns.

(This pretty much looks like the DVD recordings daytime and nighttime.  All of those are Ned's recordings, except for one of mine...with nothing new to watch, I'm watching the old Major Crimes reruns from 2012)

It used to be that I would stay awake until Colbert came on and when he finished his monologue it would be close to midnight, so I'd stay awake until midnight so I could work the Wordle before going to sleep.  Sometimes I would stay up longer to watch Monk.

For the last several weeks, I've been letting myself go to sleep at 10 or 10:30 and I have been finding that I'm getting more sleep.  And then I'm also getting my 1-2 hour nap each day.

Do you wish nap time was a regular part of adult life, just like in kindergarten? There might be a good reason to incorporate it into your daily routine, according to new research. A study published in the journal Sleep Health suggests short snoozes might help protect the brain against age-related shrinkage, which is associated with cognitive decline and neurodegenerative conditions like dementia.

Last night I went to sleep around 11 and only woke up twice during the night, both times going right back to sleep and sleeping until 6:30.  I don't know what's going to happen when/if the writers settle their strike.  I'm enjoying having sleep and may just stop watching Colbert at night.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

They are in Hawaii for a soccer tournament

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Marta

 Today is Marta's birthday.  She and Ned drove to Sacramento for breakfast and then to a movie.  But first there were presents.  We got her a hat from her Amazon wish list (thank goodness for Amazon wish lists!)

And then Ned gave her a painting of Bouncer that he had his friend Brad Terry do.

Not surprisingly, it was a big hit.  The two of them went off to Sacramento and returned home around 3 with the report that the new Mission Impossible was very good.

For dinner we'll be having Marta's favorite pizza.

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Google

 Are you old enough to remember before Google?

There were several search engines, each designed around a specific area of information.  When Google came along, it combined all these search engines and you could search for anything.  It was great.  No matter what you are looking for information about, all you had to do was to check Google.

If you wanted to know about, say, Sacramento, you could type in "Sacramento" and it would bring up a link to a page that has information about Sacramento.  But NOW if you type in "Sacramento" it brings up a whole page of links, most of which are from travel agencies who want to arrange tours before you ever get to a link that is about Sacramento...if you can find it.

I saw a recipe for overnight oatmeal on the internet but didn't copy down the instructions, which I knew were quite simple.  It used to be you could type "overnight oatmeal, recipe" and get the recipe, but I got several pages, most of which gave me a list of links, each of which took me to the same page, which had no recipe for overnight oatmeal.  And if you actually find a page for the recipe you are looking for you have to go through page after page after page of background information before they give you the ingredients.

I wanted to find out what the current price is for a cable car ride and I ended up checking something like six different links before I finally found out the price (on Wikipedia) ... and now when I go onto Facebook a lot of the links offered to me are from tour companies that want to give me a tour of San Francisco.

A pen pal I was writing to requested that mail sent to her have many stamps on it.  I have lots of stamps in various denominations but I have so many "forever" stamps that I couldn't remember what the actual postage was (especially since it just increased).  I tried EIGHT links and couldn't get the answer.  Even going to USPS I had to go to two different sites before I finally found my answer.

A friend just returned from a vacation where she visited the Storm King Art Center.  She said the sculptures were amazing and suggested we Google the site.  there were twenty two entries for "Storm King Art Center" and none of them took me to the actual site.  Not even the supposed link to the address or the hours.  I gave up by the time I got to page 2 of links.

Google has obviously learned how to make money selling to advertisers whose links go above the site you are looking for, but in so doing the ease that we found when Google first started is gone and it's almost worse than it was before Google came to exist.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

If you live in a hot climate, try
setting this up for your delivery
people.   They will be very grateful.

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Sunday Stealing

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves.

Stolen from Live Journal

 

What are three important things people should know about you.

* I'm terribly shy

* I post a daily journal and have done so for 23 years.|
* I hate liver and beets

2. What is the strangest thing you believed as a child?
There were snakes under my bed.  

Dragonflies could sew my lips together.

3. Thinking of school classes, which were your favorite and least favorite?
Favorite were English, French, Latin and typing.  Least favorite math and chemistry.

4. What is your favorite fast food?
I rarely eat fast food.  I like plain cheeseburgers (no sauce or anything else on them), orange chicken from Panda Express, and burritos.

5. What song comes closest to how you feel about your life right now?

"For Good" from Wicked

6. Have you ever taken martial arts classes?
No.

7. Does your life tend to get better or worse or does it just stay the same?
These days, life pretty much stays the same.

8. What arts/crafts have you tried & decided you were bad at?
I'm terrible at knitting and haven't tried crochet in decades.  I can't sew.

9. What is the truest thing that you know?
Climate change is scary.

10. Are you more of a giver or a taker?
A giver.

11. Do you make your decisions with an open heart/mind?
Open heart.

12. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you?
Probably childbirth (can you say childbirth "happened"?)  

13. What is the most emotionally painful thing that has ever happened to you?
Being ghosted

14. What is your favorite line from a movie?
"I always think there's a band, kid."  - The Music Man  I don't know that it's my FAVORITE line, but it's the one I use most often.

15. Can you eat with chopsticks?
Yes. Not proficient, but I can make it through a meal.  I can even eat rice.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

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