What's Been Happening and Where is Marcy???

Today is the day for a rhyme

And I've learned that I must take the time

To make this world a little brighter

And hopefully our burdens a little lighter.

The praying for others does not cease

Even when on my forehead worries crease

For I wish you all sweet peace

And from problems a prompt release.

If we our troubles all up to Him

Then we can sing nothing but a happy hymn

For even our most troublesome day

Will turn out so much better if we PRAY.

Now this post all all a messy jumble

And made me do a little mumble

As pictures went a tumble.

For those of you who have failed to be overwhelmed with snow pictures, I render a few from our backyard on snow day here in Georgia.  Just like us, Tinkabelle was amazed at those big flakes...

Here is the view from the other side of our back patio.  You can see our snow covered water barrel on the ground where the workmen took it and left it, along with the concrete blocks they removed and left in the front yard (all without even asking, sad to say) for whatever purpose when they were repairing our water main pipe...

Sadie Mae and Tinkabelle right before their trip out into the snow with shiny eyes (guess I should have removed the red eye here)....

Another view of the first picture....

Lovely falling flakes and the shed and our garden to the right of it, all decorated with snow....

Sadie Mae plowed out into the snow, more adventurous than Tinkabelle who had to see what would happen to Sadie Mae first....

Now here comes part of the goofiness, the jokes are in the middle and it took me a   l  o  n  g , long time to fix this up because it copied and pasted with about 17 blank spaces between every third or fourth word!!!  As I was finishing, I discovered that it ended up in the middle of my post and then I had to just "let it go" as there is no way to drag all those other pictures to the top.  If you like your laughs at the end then skip to the bottom then come back here...

"A 1st grade school teacher had twenty-six students in her class. She presented each child with the first half of a well-known proverb and asked them to come up with the second half. It's hard to believe that these were actually done by 1st graders. Their insight may surprise you. While reading, keep in mind that these are 6-year-olds, because the last one is a classic! (don't peek till you get there!!!)

1.  Don't change horses.......until they stop running.

2.  Strike while the.............bug is close.

3.  It's always darkest before......Daylight Saving Time.

4.  Never underestimate the power of.....termites.

5.  You can lead a horse to water but.....How?

6.  Don't bite the hand that......looks dirty.

7.  No news is.....impossible.

8.  A miss is as good as a....Mr.

9.  You can't teach an old dog new.......math.

10.  If you lie down with dogs, you'll.......stink in the morning.

11.  Love all, trust.......me.

12.  The pen is mightier than the.......pigs.

13.  An idle mind is.....the best way to relax.

14.  Where there's smoke there's.......pollution.

15.  Happy the bride who.....gets all the presents.

16.  A penny saved is......not much.

17.  Two's company, three's......the Musketeers.

18.  Don't put off till tomorrow what......you put on to go to bed.

19.  Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and.......you have to blow your nose.

20.  There are none so blind as.......Stevie Wonder.

21.  Children should be seen and not.....spanked or grounded.

22.  If at first you don't succeed.....get new batteries.

23.  You get out of something only what you.......see in the picture on the box.

24.  When the blind lead the blind.....get out of the way.

25.  A bird in the hand....... is going to poop on you.

And the WINNER



is . . . (now you can wait if you want because this also is goofy and the answer is after the end of these pictures)!!

Here comes some of the news around here....

This looks like what may have happened to Tinka (this dog even looks a little like her), but our cats' front claws are gone, so it could have been a wild animal in the backyard or her sticking her nose under the fence and it wouldn't fit.  We don 't know but the poor baby had three bloody scrapes on top of her nose.  We cleaned them and put some neosporin on them (which she promptly licked off).  So far it is slowly healing and looks fine and so is she (no swelling, no appetite loss and still playful)...

Except for not being three marks and not being vertical, this looks like her nose (also except more healed now)...

Now, for more excitement.  Here's where we had to take Michael a week ago and beside it (that anughty coffee) is the reason.  Not only did his defibrillator go off and shock him but the next day he was wracked with cramps down his back and his legs.  His muscles were cramped from dehydration (lots of coffee takes out water, causes his heart to race and the defribrillator to eventually go off)  ...

If he had been drinking lots of water and eating bananas, it certainly would have lessened any of these things, but his beloved and deadly coffee would still have caused his heart to race...

Now my Michael is being very cautious and not drinking coffee at all and also finally drinking plain water along with volumes of Propel.  Sad to say, though, the doctor once again upped his medications, not allowing him to see if these changes would adjust anything or everything....

This is what I found when I typed in "BAD COFFEE"....

Our Sadie Mae loves to roll around in the dirt outside, so she is our little 'pig' and it recently (the same time as Tinka's problem) got her a case of dirty ears and lots of head shaking which was 'cured' with hydrogen peroxide followed by neosporin.  Amazingly these dogs only go out for 10-15 minute spurts, yet look at all the trouble they can get into...

Here's another out of sync picture, but this does look like the ER where we waited for over four hours as they did tests and X-rays on Michael and had him all hooked up to monitors..

Last, but certainly not least among our "adventures", we discovered we had a leak in the main pipe from our front yard to the house!!  PLEASE learn from me and get at least three estimates before letting someone do the job.  Being stressed with a still problematic septic system and then some major leaks in the main pipe made me jump in and say yes instead of waiting.  I feel we were ripped off deeply on this, but it is fixed at least...

26.  Better late than......... pregnant."


Meanwhile I/we got lured into a thing called Farmville on Facebook which has kept our minds off the financial woes and medical issues, so it takes up alot of time but has kept us happy.

~~~Dear Lord, thank You for the blessings of friends and things that can ease our minds when we are stressed.

Want to know 4 Secrets?

Today's Internet entertainment/education is brought to you by four restaurant secrets.  I have been fortunate enough to have been in many restaurants in many places, so as you look at these restaurants, please let me know which one you would chose to go to for a night out if money was no object.

I can't believe that I almost forgot

For to rhyme words I must take a shot

As you take a gaze upon each spot

Below and rate it hot or not.

This is good for my brain I can feel it work

So try it yourself and try not to smirk

Or worry that maybe you'll twitch and you'll jerk

For I'm still doing it still and haven't gone beserk.

This one looks pretty elegant, doesn't it?....

A guy would never have to worry about his date walking out on him at this restaurant, unless she was a really great swimmer (bet their 'catch of the day' is REALLY fresh)....

This nice little quaint French restaurant reminded me of the ones we saw in Catalan, Spain which is a tourist spot and has signs transalted into hysterical English, like "If you like dogs that are hot to eat, please to come here to eat..."

This is somewhere not in the U.S. but it looked interesting and fancy schmancy...

Even though this restaurant is somewhere in the Arab Republic, it really reminds me of a restaurant that Mario and I went to in Poland, only there were booths all along both sides...

This is a restaurant overlooking the water but it looks as if it could be on a ship...

This one would be fun (and we both like oriental food)but Michael is afraid of heights so I would have to go alone!...

The neat thing about this restaurant is that you wouldn't have to dress up, you could probably even come in your pajamas, but if the food's good, I'm in....

Now here's some elegance (think this is in China) and it looks like there would be plenty of seating...

This one is sooooo romantic...it looks like a great place for romance or to take a good book and have a great reading time...

Michael will get the heebie jeebies just looking at this one in Germany but I'll bet it's wonderful...wish I could have gone to it when we (Mario and I and the children) lived in Germany.  Even though I don't have a special fear of heights (just a respect) I would never lean out the windows here whereas my son and late husband probably would have ....

Now here are the secrests you have all been waiting for....


"4 Must-Know Restaurants Secrets!
By David Zinczenko, with Matt Goulding

Eat This, Not That

by David Zinczenko, with Matt Goulding a Yahoo! Health Expert for Nutrition
.

If being an anonymous blip on a giant corporation’s assembly line makes you feel like a character in some bleak sci-fi movie, we’ve got good news. There are plenty of ways to fight back—to enjoy all the convenience of modern restaurants and all the foods you still like to eat without paying extra money every 6 months for a new pair of pants.



You see, all major restaurant chains—from the fast-food purveyors to the sandwich shops and coffee bars to the sit-down dinner joints with their vaguely Italian/Mexican/Chinese/whatever themes—operate with the same set of secrets, secrets they don’t want their customers to know. And if you know these secrets, well, guess what? The power to eat what you want and still stay slim is in your hands. Lucky you!



This list of sneaky secrets, straight from the book Eat This, Not That! Restaurant Survival Guide will help you start taking back control! And, even better, we’ve created an Eat This, Not That! iPhone app—it’s like having your own personal nutritionist at your fingertips!



Secret #1: Don’t get “supersized”

Sure, it feels like you’re getting a bargain because you’re getting proportionately more food for proportionately less money. But a “value meal” is only a value for two sets of people: the corporations that make the food and the corporations that make liposuction machines and heart stents. Because food is so inexpensive for manufacturers to produce on a large scale, your average fast-food emporium makes a hefty profit whenever you supersize your meal—even though you’re getting an average of 73 percent more calories for only 17 percent more money. But you’re not actually buying more food. You’re buying more calories. And that’s not something you want more of.



Secret #2: Remember, the waiter is a salesperson

A 2005 study published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services found that you’re more likely to order a side dish when the server verbally prompts you. (“Do you want fries with that?”) Restaurants know this, and now you know it, too. When the waiter makes a suggestion, remember his job is not to make you happy. His job is to extract money from your wallet and insert fat in its place.



Secret #3: Don’t get too excited

You eat out all the time. A 2008 study in the International Food Research Journal found that people are less likely to make healthy restaurant choices when they feel that they’re dining out for a “special occasion.” And as we said, dining out used to be special. But before you head out to your next meal, really take stock of how many times you’ve eaten out this week. If you’re eating every meal at home and dining out truly is a once-a-week splurge, then don’t worry about it so much. But if you’re like most of us, eating out is probably more like a once-a-day splurge. And if that’s the case, remember, there’s nothing special here. Eat smart today because you’ll have to do it again tomorrow.



Bonus tip: Download our free Eat This, Not That! guide to shopping once and eating for a week—and save calories, time, and money!



Secret #4: Start small

Here’s the good news: No one is going to stop you from ordering seconds. So be like any good businessperson, and start small. Here’s exactly how expensive it really is whenever you go for the “bargain”:



7-Eleven: Gulp to Double Gulp Coca-Cola Classic: 37 cents extra buys 450 more calories.

Cinnabon: Minibon to Classic Cinnabon: 48 more cents buys 370 more calories.

Movie theater: Small to medium unbuttered popcorn: 71 additional cents buys you 500 more calories.

Convenience store: Regular to “The Big One” Snickers: 33 more cents packs on 230 more calories.

McDonald’s: Quarter Pounder with Cheese to Medium Quarter Pounder with Cheese Extra Value Meal: An additional $1.41 gets you 660 more calories.

Subway: 6-inch to 12-inch Tuna Sub: $1.53 more buys 420 more calories.

Wendy’s: Classic Double with Cheese to Classic Double with Cheese Old Fashioned Combo Meal: $1.57 extra buys you 600 more calories.

Baskin Robbins: Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, Kids’ Scoop, to Double Scoop: For another $1.62, you’ve added 390 calories.

The bottom line on all this? For just a hair more than 8 bucks, you’ve bought yourself an additional 3,620 calories. If you ate each of these once a week, and you were to switch to the smaller size each time—again, still all your favorite foods, just in a more reasonable size—you’d save about $417 a year. It’s not going to buy you a new car, but it could put you on a plane to the Bahamas. But far more important than that is what it will mean to your waistline, because in saving that $417, you’ll also save 188,240 calories in a year—enough to shave a whopping 54 pounds of flab off your body! (Hey, take the 400 bucks and buy some new pants!)"

I even found some restaurant jokes for you....

SIGNS YOU’RE AT A BAD RESTAURANT:

The parking lot has a space marked “RESERVED—HEALTH INSPECTOR”


Their top breakfast special is Honey-Nut Oakios cereal with prune bran and a Geritol power shake on the side.


The main fare at noon is whale-meat sandwiches, and the name of the place is “Thar-She-Blows Lunchmart”


You complain about your dinner, and the waiter asks if you’d like to speak to the house lawyer.

*********

"I should have known better when I saw a sign in the window of the diner that said 'New! — Breakfast Burrito — Now with real Burro!'..."

~~~Lord, thank You for the blessings of restaurants where we can be delighted with new tastes that we would otherwise never know.

I know I can do this!

Well, this was supposed to be last Wednesday's post, but that didn't happen.  So this will now be called Marvelous Monday's post.

What has been happening is tons of more rain, in fact, there has been more rain recorded in the state of Georgia than has ever occurred in the history of weather reporting!!  Which means we are back to square one with our septic problems...rats!  Looks like our income tax return will be going towards an improved system but meanwhile we visit our local grocery store for restroom needs and showers are happening at Michael's workplace, although I can still do the dishes by throwing out the water, so that's a blessing...too bad my clothes washing effort didn't work.......although...I have been tempted to try a smaller load (shhh, don't tell Michael!)

Let's change this sad story to a picture or two.

Here's one of Michael and I taken in late December when we went to Fernbank museum...it looks as if I am falling into him with my eyes closed...well, a girl's gotta get sleep whenever she can!...

Remember me mentioning that there were still some nativities back in Arizona (sad to say, I only found three)?  Well, here's one I found when we were there this past November...

This is just a neat one I thought I'd share with you because it is just a wire silhouette...

You may be asking yourselves where the neat internet information is that Marcy usually supplies us with?  Well, it is bye bye for today as I need to get this post out and I need to go to the store!!!!!!!



Time for some smiles...

Assembly Line

Students in the adult French class I teach include quite a few health-care professionals. During one class, I was coughing so badly a doctor in the class raised her hand. "If you like, I could give you a prescription for that," she offered. Another hand shot up. "I could fill it for you," said a pharmacist's assistant. Not to be outdone, a paramedic added, "And I can take you there to pick it up!"
 

Unattractive

We brought our newborn son, Adam, to the pediatrician for his first checkup. As he finished, the doctor told us, "You have a cute baby."

Smiling, I said, "I bet you say that to all new parents."

"No," he replied, "just to those whose babies really are good-looking."

"So what do you say to the others?" I asked.

"He looks just like you."
 

Old McDonald

While waiting in line at the Department of Vehicle Services for my new license plate, I heard the clerk shout out, "E I E I O." "Here," the woman standing next to me answered.

Curious, I asked if she was married to a farmer, or maybe taught preschool.

"Neither," she replied. "My name is McDonald."

~~~Thank You Lord for the blessings of patience, please grant us LOTS of it (and I will avoid the temptation to say 'right now".)

Stop, Look, Listen and PRAY

Here's a nice prayer I found while searching the Internet the other day, so I thought I'd share it with you.

We need to STOP...this would be the 'silence' parts in this prayer...stopping is a good thing when praying because it should cause us to think about what we just read and/or prayed.

Then we need to LOOK at what we read one more time to remember.

Next comes the part where we 'LISTEN" to the good ways that this can help us make this world a better place.

Following all those steps means we have truly PRAYED!

"Litany for Peace

January 27, 2010



by Thich Nhat Hanh

from the book Prayers from Around the World and Across the Ages

by Victor M. Parachin


As we are together, praying for Peace, let us truly be with each other.

(Silence)



Let us pay attention to our breathing.

(Silence)



Let us be relaxed in our bodies and our minds.

(Silence)



Let us be at peace with our bodies and our minds.

(Silence)



Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves.

(Silence)



Let us maintain a half smile on our faces.

(Silence)



Let us be aware of the source of being common to us all and to all living things.

(Silence)



Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion, let us fill our hearts with our own compassion—toward ourselves and toward all living beings.

(Silence)



Let us pray that all living beings realize that they are all brothers and sisters, all nourished from the same source of life.

(Silence)



Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other.

(Silence)



Let us plead with ourselves to live in a way which will not deprive other living beings of air, water, food, shelter, or the chance to live.

(Silence)



With humility, with awareness of the existence of life and of the suffering that is going on around us,

let us pray for the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.



Amen."



You may need to click on this (or put it under a microscope) to enlarge this and read it as I am having trouble reading it now...

Every prayer should end this way, even those prayers where we are anxious or asking for help, hmm, maybe I should say ESPECIALLY those prayers should end this way for that is what love is all about...

Finally I leave you with a favorite photo that I seem to recycle because I just love it....

This was listed as humorous, but it is also very thought provoking...

"Memorial

Our church was saddened to learn this week of the death of one of our most valued members, Someone Else.

Someone's passing creates a vacancy that will be difficult to fill. Else has been with us for many years and for every one of those years, Someone did far more than a normal person's share of the work. Whenever there was a job to do, a class to teach, or a meeting to attend, one name was on everyone's list, "Let Someone Else do it." Whenever leadership was mentioned, this wonderful person was looked to for inspiration as well as results; "Someone Else can work with that group."

It was common knowledge that Someone Else was among the most liberal givers in our church. Whenever there was a financial need, everyone just assumed Someone Else would make up the difference.

Someone Else was a wonderful person; sometimes appearing superhuman. Were the truth known, everybody expected too much of Someone Else. Now Someone Else is gone! We wonder what we are going to do.

Someone Else left a wonderful example to follow, but who is going to follow it? Who is going to do the things Someone Else did?

When you are asked to help this year, remember -- we can't depend on Someone Else anymore."

~~~Heavenly Father, I thank You for the blessings of doing little and sometimes big things to make this a world that is closer to the loving world it was meant to be.

WE DID, WE DID....Well HE DID!

This is crazy...lately too much going on to get the other things done that I want to do, like finish today's post.

Prayer group went into overtime and then I had to go shopping at three different places and by the time I got back, Michael was already home so it was time to fix dinner and home made apple pie, so I am rushing to finish up this post.

You will all be delighted to know that Michael went immediately to the laundromat to finish the laundry (that is the 'we did, we did...well he did' title)which left me with the also delightful task of cleaning up the laundry room disaster.  It took me as long to do that as it took Michael to pack up the clothes, drive to the laundromat (which amazingly he remembered where it was from 7+ years ago when he moved in here but he can't remember 90% of what I say), finish the wash (it took four loads that our washer could have made in three loads) and drive back home.  Of course you could have eaten off the floor when I finished (by the way, why DO they say THAT when you clean so much??  No matter HOW clean, I would not want to eat off of anyone's floor in ANY room!)

How's this for a cute little cleaner?  Looks like it may only be dry cleaning, but they were clever advertisers...

Interestingly Michael said there were SEVERAL men there and only ONE woman using the laundromat!!!  Think this could be a new guy hangout??  That guy looks like he is just fascinated with the spin cycle on that washer....

I have no idea what our local laundromat looks like so I will have to have Michael take me there one day (did I ever tell you that he took me to see the local dump after we got married???...his idea of a fun time can be scary!!)....

Hopefully 'his' laundromat looked alot better than this one and it should since they charged $2.50 per load and the washers were small and didn't even have a good spin cycle (for awhile I thought we might have to re-wring them out!)...

Did I ever tell all of you about the time when I was a young new bride (18 yrs old) and my late beloved hubby, Mario and I were stationed in Alaska at a little town named Delta Junction?  Our trailer court had a laundromat in the middle of it and I would trek through the snow to do the laundry, often by myself.  One time there was a huge sheet under the folding table and it was covering something, so I made the mistake of peeking and there was a dead wolf!!  Boy did our laundry get done in record time that night!....

When I looked for pictures of flooded laundry rooms, I found TONS of them...which makes me wonder about the who and how of those many, many photos.  Somehow, I don't think Michael would have been too appreciative if I had said "Honey, just hold that hose and the soaked floor while I go look for the camera and take several pictures while you flounder around in the mess."

How do you like this lovely laundromat, complete with misspelling, a phone, an ATM and a weird soda machine??....

The adventure continued once Michael got back with all four loads of wet clothes as we (meaning me trying to convince him that this was indeed a great idea) decided to put them outside.  We have a bench, a secluded area of fence and two drying racks for putting the wet clothes to dry on this sunny but cool day, all of which succumbed to the unbelieveably gusty winds...winds that could probably take you parasailing (without the ocean, although we did have several puddles) to Guatemala, China and maybe even Australia!  So, you can now picture us chasing clothes aound the yard and watching the racks fall down...

If we had clothespins and a drying line, they would have looked somewhat like these only I think the clothesline might have blown up and away as well!  Once again Michael failed to let on to all the fun he was having (he must just be shy that way)...

One of the adventures you didn't hear about was the unique way I had to do the dishes.  Since NO water could go down the drains, I had to get creative (don't worry, THIS time it is not so scary).  I had to have a bucket nearby as I plugged the sink and washed and rinsed in the plugged area, then I had to bail out the water into the bucket with a glass or bowl, fill it then go to the back yard and throw the water out onto the grass, unlike this lady who is throwing it on a truck and some children...

Let's end these pictures with a totally adorable photo I found of a baby koala bear investigating a bucket of water.  Michael and I didn't do this, but then we didn't have big enough buckets either (or I might have suggested it)...

Now for yet a few more chuckles that I got in an e-mail....

"You can't read this and stay in a bad mood!

1. How Do You Catch a Unique Rabbit?

Unique Up On It.


 2. How Do You Catch a Tame Rabbit?

Tame Way.


 3. How Do Crazy People Go Through The Forest ?

They Take The Psycho Path



4. How Do You Get Holy Water?

You Boil The Hell Out Of It



5. What Do Fish Say When They Hit a Concrete Wall?

 Dam!



6. What Do Eskimos Get From Sitting On The Ice too Long?

 Polaroid's



7. What Do You Call a Boomerang That Doesn't work?

 A Stick


 8. What Do You Call Cheese That Isn't Yours?

Nacho Cheese.



 9. What Do You Call Santa's Helpers?

Subordinate Clauses.



10. What Do You Call Four Bullfighters In Quicksand?

Quattro Sinko.


11. What Do You Get From a Pampered Cow?

Spoiled Milk.


 12. What Do You Get When You Cross a Snowman With a  Vampire?

 Frostbite.


13. What Lies At The Bottom Of The Ocean And  Twitches?

 A Nervous Wreck.



14. What's The Difference Between Roast Beef And  Pea Soup?

 Anyone Can Roast Beef.



15. Where Do You Find a Dog With No Legs?

 Right Where You Left Him.



16. Why Do Gorillas Have Big Nostrils?

Because They Have Big Fingers .



17. Why Don't Blind People Like To Sky Dive?

Because It Scares The Dog.



18. What Kind Of Coffee Was Served On The Titanic?

Sanka.



19. What Is The Difference Between a Harley And a Hoover ?!

The Location Of The Dirt Bag.



20. Why Did Pilgrims' Pants Always Fall Down?

 Because They Wore Their Belt Buckle On Their Hat.



 21. What's The Difference Between a Bad Golfer And a Bad Skydiver?

A Bad Golfer Goes, Whack , Dang!

A Bad Skydiver Goes Dang! Whack .



22. How Are a Texas Tornado And a Tennessee Divorce The Same?

Somebody's Gonna Lose A Trailer

~~~Dear Lord, I thank You for the blessings of entertainment in unique forms when challenges arise.

It's started but no time to finish right now...

The Thursday continuation of what happened is started but, with today being prayer group day, I have no time to finish it up, but time enough to send blessings on all of you as I drive and pray my way to prayer group this morning.

Just like the little guy in the picture above, I stepped up to get some things done around here first thing this morning (among them my Bible reading) and YAHOO...using the sweet dishwasher for the first time in a week!!

I'll be back to finish up the 'real' post for today but until then, May the good Lord bless, be with and guide you all today!

~~~~Thank You, Lord for the blessings of septic tanks that finally empty out enough to take showers at home and wash dishes.

The Monday post that had to wait until Wednesday

We had rain for too many days

And now my poor brain is in a haze

And muscles are sore too

From having too much to do.

Yes siree, I did have a post started for Monday and I was all gung ho about getting back on blogging track, but life decided to de-rail me!!

In case you haven't read the news, we have had buckets full of rain and more rain here in Georgia.  I know the Indians did rain dances, so I was trying to figure out if a rain "walk" might stop some of these drops.

The rain is not so bad or sad, but what happens to our already stressed septic tank can cause a tear or two....

Our back yard had many spots like this, only this looks pretty and ours looked muddy or murky, sort of, kind of jerky...

So, on with this tale of woe that is still kind of funny too.  Since we could not use our water in the house, except for a rare flush or two or for brushing teeth (you haven't LIVED till you've had to go to the nearest store to go to the bathroom), I came up with a (potentially) nifty or (ultimately)dumb idea for the backloads of laundry that were piling up once the rain started.  Creative thinking for getting out of jams or repairing things or saving money has been my forte, so I thought about this and came up with a solution/catastrophic idea. 

Fortunately Michael decided to take Monday as a vacation day, so I said, let's do laundry and he said "What?"  For some reason doing laundry not only doesn't thrill him but the ramifications of how to do it also stunned him.  I said, "Let's just take the hose from the back of the washer, empty the kitchen garbage can and put the hose in there for the water where we can then take it outside."  Sounds  like a plan?  Of course the water comes out with lots and lots of force so one would have to be there to hold the hose when the washer started spinning.

So, let's play some cards and wait for this to happen is what I said to sweet and unsuspecting, but still unsure Michael.  AT the first pause, I go into the laundry room and hold the hose as it amazingly fills up the whole huge garbage can to the point where I have to stop the washer and have Michael help me bail out some water.  Michael disappoints me by failing to say "Wow this is fun and I am thrilled to use my day off this way."  We were both amazed at how much water came out of that tub, but we got rid of it in the back yard and away from the septic tank area, then we sat down to await the rinse cycle.  Sad to say, neither one of us has the ability to retain any short term memory so we heard the machine stop after the rinse cycle and went on playing cards.

What we heard next was the hose at it flew off of the top of the garbage can and started spewing water everywhere.   Michael's reflexes were amazing as he jumped up, knocking his chair to the ground to go grab the monster hose, with me sprinting behind him (he was closest to the laundry room).  He soaked the left side of his trousers as he wrestled the hose into the garbage can yelling "We are NOT doing any more laundry like this EVER!!"  Meanwhile I was spreading the flannel sheets that were next to be washed, all over the floor as I splashed my way around.

This is a little bit of what our laundry room looked like but you have to add LOTS more water, all the kitty litter that the cats toss out every day from their litter box along with the dust balls and toys they shove under the washer AND DRYER...

We are thinking that when we get our income tax refund we may have to face something like this...

Well, I need to get ready for my art class (which I have missed for over a month now), but there is more to this delightful tale, so maybe tomorrow will bring the rest of the story.

No need for jokes today as the laundry room provided that!!

~~~Thank You dear Lord for the blessings of a sense of humor to laugh and not cry about many things, please help me to laugh more and cry less.

Keeping our "Heads Up"

Sometimes we look the other way when life gets complicated, troublesome or challenging...and then

the 'stuff' we have 'swept under the rug' just grows bigger and ends up tripping us!

Before I go any further I would first of all like to ask all of you wonderful bloggers to please, at the very least, pray for the victims of the Haiti earthquake and the rescuers that goodness and kindness will be multiplied everyday.  If you can stretch your budget, maybe a donation to one of the many worthwhile agencies that are helping (fortunately our church even has a 'sister parish' in Haiti, so we are contributing almost directly).

Now, on to the more mundane but still important things that we need to not sweep under the rug.

I found this article (below) as the headline on my computer news site on Friday so it was worth sharing to hopefully help you and me and all of us.  It was all about hackers and the fact that we often use passwords that are too easy to access.

Remember that you never know who a potential hacker might be.  It could even be your own "innocent" kitty (after all most computers do have a mouse, hee hee)...

It would be a great help to us all if they would only wear their "uniform"...

Don't be fooled by a friendly face....

Now there are some non violent ways to deal with hackers and since I am a proponent of non violence, I find this to be one resolution....

Or you could unleash this little guy on the hackers computer and NOTHING would ever work right again...

So here is the article in its' entirety....
"If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It HackMe


by Ashlee Vance
Friday, January 22, 2010
provided by
Back at the dawn of the Web, the most popular account password was "12345."

Today, it's one digit longer but hardly safer: "123456."

Despite all the reports of Internet security breaches over the years, including the recent attacks on Google's e-mail service, many people have reacted to the break-ins with a shrug.

According to a new analysis, one out of five Web users still decides to leave the digital equivalent of a key under the doormat: they choose a simple, easily guessed password like "abc123," "iloveyou" or even "password" to protect their data.

"I guess it's just a genetic flaw in humans," said Amichai Shulman, the chief technology officer at Imperva, which makes software for blocking hackers. "We've been following the same patterns since the 1990s."

Mr. Shulman and his company examined a list of 32 million passwords that an unknown hacker stole last month from RockYou, a company that makes software for users of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. The list was briefly posted on the Web, and hackers and security researchers downloaded it. (RockYou, which had already been widely criticized for lax privacy practices, has advised its customers to change their passwords, as the hacker gained information about their e-mail accounts as well.)

The trove provided an unusually detailed window into computer users' password habits. Typically, only government agencies like the F.B.I. or the National Security Agency have had access to such a large password list.
"This was the mother lode," said Matt Weir, a doctoral candidate in the e-crimes and investigation technology lab at Florida State University, where researchers are also examining the data.

Imperva found that nearly 1 percent of the 32 million people it studied had used "123456" as a password. The second-most-popular password was "12345." Others in the top 20 included "qwerty," "abc123" and "princess."
More disturbing, said Mr. Shulman, was that about 20 percent of people on the RockYou list picked from the same, relatively small pool of 5,000 passwords.

That suggests that hackers could easily break into many accounts just by trying the most common passwords. Because of the prevalence of fast computers and speedy networks, hackers can fire off thousands of password guesses per minute.

"We tend to think of password guessing as a very time-consuming attack in which I take each account and try a large number of name-and-password combinations," Mr. Shulman said. "The reality is that you can be very effective by choosing a small number of common passwords."

Some Web sites try to thwart the attackers by freezing an account for a certain period of time if too many incorrect passwords are typed. But experts say that the hackers simply learn to trick the system, by making guesses at an acceptable rate, for instance.

To improve security, some Web sites are forcing users to mix letters, numbers and even symbols in their passwords. Others, like Twitter, prevent people from picking common passwords.

Still, researchers say, social networking and entertainment Web sites often try to make life simpler for their users and are reluctant to put too many controls in place.

Even commercial sites like eBay must weigh the consequences of freezing accounts, since a hacker could, say, try to win an auction by freezing the accounts of other bidders.

Overusing simple passwords is not a new phenomenon. A similar survey examined computer passwords used in the mid-1990s and found that the most popular ones at that time were "12345," "abc123" and "password."

Why do so many people continue to choose easy-to-guess passwords, despite so many warnings about the risks?

Security experts suggest that we are simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of things we have to remember in this digital age.

"Nowadays, we have to keep probably 10 times as many passwords in our head as we did 10 years ago," said Jeff Moss, who founded a popular hacking conference and is now on the Homeland Security Advisory Council. "Voice mail passwords, A.T.M. PINs and Internet passwords — it's so hard to keep track of."

In the idealized world championed by security specialists, people would have different passwords for every Web site they visit and store them in their head or, if absolutely necessary, on a piece of paper.

But bowing to the reality of our overcrowded brains, the experts suggest that everyone choose at least two different passwords — a complex one for Web sites were security is vital, such as banks and e-mail, and a simpler one for places where the stakes are lower, such as social networking and entertainment sites.

Mr. Moss relies on passwords at least 12 characters long, figuring that those make him a more difficult target than the millions of people who choose five- and six-character passwords.

"It's like the joke where the hikers run into a bear in the forest, and the hiker that survives is the one who outruns his buddy," Mr. Moss "

So, let's laugh about it a little bit (or byte)...

"If Life Were Like A Computer:

You could add/remove someone in your life using the control panel.

You could put your kids in the recycle bin and restore them when you feel like it!

You could improve your appearance by adjusting the display settings.

You could turn off the speakers when life gets too noisy.

You could click on “find” (Ctrl, F) to recover your lost remote control and car keys.

To get your daily exercise, just click on "run"!

If you mess up your life, you could always press "Ctrl, Alt, Delete" and start all over!



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I had been doing Tech Support for Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet division for about a month when I had a customer call with a problem I just couldn't solve. She could not print yellow. All the other colors would print fine, which truly baffled me because the only true colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow.




For instance, green is a combination of cyan and yellow, but green printed fine. Every color of the rainbow printed fine except for yellow. I had the customer change ink cartridges. I had the customer delete and reinstall the drivers. Nothing worked. I asked my coworkers for help; they offered no new ideas.



After over two hours of troubleshooting, I was about to tell the customer to send the printer in to us for repair when she asked quietly, "Should I try printing on a piece of white paper instead of this yellow paper?"
 
 
~~~Dear Lord thank You for the blessings of our creative minds and please help us to use them to make this world a safer and better place.