Silly Saturday - Best Duct Tape Story Ever!

My dad sent this to me in an email, so I'm not sure if it's actually a true account or not, but it is entertaining...

During a private "fly-in" fishing excursion in the Alaskan wilderness, the chartered pilot and fishermen left a cooler and bait in the plane.  And a bear smelled it.  This is what he did to the plane:

The pilot used his radio and had another pilot bring him 2 new tires, 3 cases of duct tape, and a supply of sheet plastic.  He patched the plane together, and FLEW IT HOME !

Duct Tape - Never Leave Home Without It

Friday Happy Hour VGNO Fragments - Moving, Movies, Messes and Madness

I thought Friday would never get here!  And yet, I kept thinking yesterday was Monday...because Princess Nagger was off school Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so yesterday was her first day back to school this week.  MLK for Monday, then Teacher Inservice for the other two days.  I was ready for her to go back to school yesterday.

Notice something?  I moved back to Blogger.  Last night.  Blueviolet (A Nut in a Nutshell) has been such an awesome bloggy friend with her encouragement and patience as I vented my frustration via email about broken feeds, lost traffic, page rank, and endless other issues.

I know there are a ton of Wordpress converts out there, but I ended up wasting so much time the past three weeks not being able to find solutions to the problems I encountered when I moved over there.  Since I started out on Blogger and worked hard to figure out all the quirks and idiosyncrasies, it  was better for me to move back than completely lose my sanity.  What was left of it, anyway. 

I may attempt a switch at a later date again, but only after I've educated myself on all the particulars rather than learn by trial and error.  More error which created trials and headaches.

My computer is still threatening to die on me, so I'm still working on backing everything up so I can do a complete reformat and reinstall - hopefully over the weekend.  Then I can hopefully be back to 'normal'.  I've had more Blue Screen of Death incidents throughout this week - which has really put a crimp in me getting caught up.  Or the house clean.  Or the Christmas tree taken down.

I did get the decorations off the front porch and all the ornaments stripped from the tree, so there's that.  Now I just have to deal with the muddy mess in front of the shed to move the tubs of decorations back out there, and retrieve the box for the Christmas Tree.  Hopefully this weekend.

Princess Nagger and I saw The Princess and the Frog on Tuesday - loved it!  Since PN's school was off for Teacher Inservice days Tuesday and Wednesday, we went to the theater in the next town over (where school was in session as normal).  We were the only ones in the theater except for one other mom and her two little girls.  That's the way I like it!

Of course when we got our popcorn and candy we didn't notice the kids combo comes in a cardboard dinosaur box - PN saw the other little girls carrying them and kept lamenting that we should have gotten one for her.  So after the movie we begged for an empty one at the counter and at first the girls were confused and thought they had to sell me a complete combo, but decided the boxes themselves probably weren't inventoried so they gave us (an empty) one.  Talk about a happy Princess Nagger!

What is it with homework?  Especially after reading Mrs. Bear's post - I'm having the same issue with Princess Nagger that she's having with her first grader.  PN resists doing her homework though she could probably get it done in less than a 1/2 hour, but four hours later she's finally done.

And mess?  She's queen of making messes.  Drives me batty!  Especially when she works her tornado skills in the living room...and dining room...and bathrooms...

No pictures this week - they're still on my camera.  Next week will be better now that I won't have to be spending valuable time searching out code to fix broken stuff.

Princess Nagger Conversation of the Week:

PN:  "You know the emory board you use to file your nails?"

Me:  "Yes, what about it?"

PN:  "Did you know they now have one for cats?"

Me:  "For cats?"

PN:  "Yes! Your cat can give itself a pedicure and is strong enough to support even larger cats.  It even comes with a cat toy!  It's really cool, Mama, we should get one!"

Me:  "I'm guessing you saw this in a commercial?"

PN:  "Oh yes, and if you call the 800 number before the end of the commercial, you can get two of them and only pay shipping and handling on the second one!  But we really don't need two, because we only have one cat.  It's really cool, Mama, it has a base, and you set the nail file thing in the base, then there's a hole to put the cat toy.  It even comes with a free de-shedder!"

Me:  "......."

And now, time for Happy Hour!

• I'm very happy for supportive bloggy friends like Blueviolet, Otin and Martha who boost me up with emails when I'm having a bad day.

• I'm happy that it's Friday.  I'm probably only going to have gotten 4 hours of sleep overnight, but at least it's Friday.

• I'm happy that I was able to hack the XML file to import the posts I had posted over at Wordpress so they'd be here intact with comments.

If you're just hanging out at home on Friday night (and blogging), feel free to join in on Ann's Virtual Girl's Night Out (boys are welcome, too!)

Don't forget to visit Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin' Time for fun Friday Fragments, Otin's and RxBambi's respective blogs for Happy Hour Friday, and Ann Again and Again for VGNO.

Spinning up a Recycled Opinion

Everyone has an opinion.  We're all entitled to our own opinions.  We're human (most of us), we're individuals, so having an opinion is par for the course.  Some people tend to be more opinionated than others, and some people like to deem their opinion as the opinion to have, and will try to strong arm convince you to change your opinion to match theirs.

I tend to be more introverted when it comes to giving an opinion about something.  However, if I feel strongly about something, I'll state my opinion, but be sure to follow it with "That's just my opinion" and am more than willing to hear what other opinions are.  I'm not one that is set in one way of thinking, I'm open minded and always willing to listen to alternatives.

Since I experienced yet another round of Blue Screen of Death incidents today, being able to write a coherent Spin Cycle post for this week sort of went out with the blue screen.  But since this week's Spin Cycle is all about Opinions, I remembered a post I had written long before I had an 'official' blog - one that I posted on TV.com during the whole fight to save the show "Journeyman" in early 2008.   It's a bit wordy, so for those with a short attention span, I apologize.

Originally posted on March 12, 2008 (radically edited):

Television, as we know it, is changing as we know it. Think about it. Talk to anyone who was born before Television even existed and they’ll tell you how much it’s changed since its inception. Talk to anyone who was born within the last 40 years, and they’ll tell you things have changed since even they’ve been around.

Color television was only introduced into households in the mid 1950’s early 1960’s, but very few shows were actually filmed and broadcast in color.  Although NBC’s ‘Ford Theatre’ became the first color filmed series in October 1954.

While all the networks were airing color programs by 1968, the television sales for black and white TV’s still outnumbered the color sets until 1972 – which, apparently, was just about the time that half the television households in the U.S. finally had color sets. 1972!

My grandfather would fondly recall the ‘good old days’ when his whole family would gather around the radio for their favorite weekly programs – it was something to look forward to each and every week, and the whole family enjoyed the entertainment together.  When television came along, it was again a ‘family thing’, where the whole family would enjoy an evening of television, amazed at this new technology, and even more amazed when color television came to fruition.

The rapid changes of television past are only changing more rapidly as more people and companies have the means to try new things.  My husband’s Electronics Engineering Technology class is astounded to hear about televisions that didn’t have a remote, television viewing before there was cable, DVR’s and ‘On Demand’, “because, like, that’s just wrong, man!”

We are in a fast-paced world, everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere, and no one has time to be mandated by a specific television schedule. More people are shifting away from sitting in front of the television for a block of time each evening or each week because it’s not ‘the good old days’ anymore. You have iTunes, iPhones, iPods and wireless computers. Who needs to actually have a television in their house anymore?

With how rapidly technology is ever changing (watching TV on your iPod, checking email on your coffee mug that doubles as a computer screen) networks have their work cut out for them. Gone are the true ‘ratings’ days – Nielsen hasn’t been able to keep up with the technology over the years and comparatively speaking, there aren’t enough Nielsen boxes in households to truly calculate actual viewer numbers.

Yet, the networks still rely on that old archaic method of deciding if a show should stay on the schedule or ultimately be canceled.  NBC is a prime example - a network that used to be the #1 network of all the original three.  They led the pack in new technology, they led the pack in programming, they simply led the pack.

Over the years NBC has slipped off their pedestal and have not been the #1 network in quite awhile. I can only speculate that part of that is due to their programming choices and how they promote – or don’t promote – quality shows. Instead, they’ve been the network that cancels shows in infancy, never looking back.

In this ever changing, fast-paced world, there needs to be a restructuring of how the ratings are calculated. There needs to be continuity across all the venues available today, and those that will be available in the future.

Television as we know it is changing rapidly. At some point we will come full circle and fewer households will physically have a television in their houses, because they’ll be carrying iPhones, iPods, netbooks and laptops - and yes, even coffee mugs with an interactive computer screen.

This Opinionated Spin Cycle was brought to you in part by Jen, whose opinion I greatly value and happens to be Sprite's Keeper.  Head on over and check out the other spinners - find out how opinionated others can be - in a good way!

Quick Note: If you're reading this is in IE7 or earlier, you won't be able to leave a comment - I'm still trying to find out why...meanwhile, if you insist on using IE as your browser of choice, upgrading to IE8 resolves the issue and comments can be left.  Or you can jump on the bandwagon of Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome and have way less headaches... ;)

Wordless/Wordful Wednesday - If You Hate Snakes, You Probably Don't Want to Check Out This Post...But You'll Miss Out!

As I was going through all my files to back everything up before I do a clean sweep on my limping-along laptop, I ran across this photo of Princess Nagger from 2008:

Yes, that's a real live snake, and yes, she's wearing a pair of my gardening gloves for 'protection'.

Hubby has always been a 'snake keeper' - when he was growing up, he used to have a pet Blue Indigo (Drymarchon corais erebennus, also known as 'Texas Indigo').  They're an endangered species, and the largest non-venomous snake in North America.   When we first met, he had recently purchased a new baby Blue Indigo since his original one was long gone.  He stays away from all venomous ones, and only likes to raise snakes from the King, Corn, and Pine families.

Over the years he's bought baby snakes, raised them into adulthood then sold them to fellow snake aficionado's.   He even made the great sacrifice of selling his precious Blue Indigo when we were getting ready to buy our house seven years ago, just so we could add that extra money to our down payment to reduce our monthly mortgage.

I'm not a fan of snakes - but over the years have learned what are 'good' snakes and what are 'bad' snakes.  Princess Nagger has shown great interest in the pet snakes hubby has had over the years, and asked for her very own pet snake.  Which is what you see in the picture above.  A Pine snake, very mellow and tame, he traded several other snakes in order to obtain that one for the Princess Nagger.

Of course, as usual for kids, Princess Nagger's interest waned as she focused strictly on Dinosaurs, so the Pine snake was sold at some point and there were no complaints from PN (or me) when that took place.  The snakes are (thankfully) not kept in the house, but in aquariums and plastic shoe boxes (with holes drilled, of course) in the Summer House.  Out of my line of sight.

Good thing there are no real live dinosaurs left.  We'd be nagged to get one for a pet.  Specifically a Pteranodon, Princess Nagger's favorite.

For Wordless Wednesday, be sure to visit Wordless Wednesday, 5 minutes for Mom, Go Graham Go, JollyMom and Momspective for more great Wordless Wednesday Posts.

Wordful Wednesday hosted by Angie at 7 Clown Circus - head on over there to check out all the fun wordy posts!

Quick Note: If you're reading this is in IE7 or earlier, you won't be able to leave a comment - I'm still trying to find out why...meanwhile, if you insist on using IE as your browser of choice, upgrading to IE8 resolves the issue and comments can be left.  Or you can jump on the bandwagon of Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome and have way less headaches... ;)

Random Tuesday Thoughts - Even More Random Trivia

If you read my post on Friday and yesterday, you'll know that my computer has been causing me some major headaches.  So I'm continuing the Random Trivia theme for this week's Random Tuesday Thoughts just so I can play along.  Trivia is Fun.  And I need some Fun right about now!  Enjoy!

The most played song on American radio during the twentieth century was You've Lost That Loving Feeling which was written by Barry Mann, Phil Spector, and Cynthia Weil.  Although recorded by different artists, the song is the only one in history to be played over 8 million times on the radio. That amounts to about 45 years if the song was played back to back!  Three songs were played 7 million times: Never My Love, Yesterday, and Stand By Me (in that order).

There are approximately ten million bricks in the Empire State Building.

From space, the brightest man-made place is Las Vegas, Nevada.

The most common invention of the 19th century was the washing machine.  Between 1804 and 1873, at least 1676 patents were issued by the United States Patent Office for various forms of this device.

The five most stolen items in a drugstore are batteries, cosmetics, film, sunglasses, and - get this - Preparation H. Apparently people are just too embarrassed to purchase the last item.  And, just in case you are curious, one of Preparation H's main ingredient is shark liver oil.  The oil not only helps shrink hemorrhoids, but will shrink any tissue.  As a result, many older women in Florida use the stuff to help reduce the appearance of wrinkles!

It's widely (or not) known that Alexander Graham Bell beat Elisha Gray to the patent office by a mere two hours with his application to patent the telephone.  However, ten years after Bell's patent was issued, patent examiner Zenas Wilber admitted in a sworn affidavit that he had taken a $100 bribe from Bell, had taken a loan from Bell's patent attorney, and had given Bell the complete details of Gray's caveat.

In four separate instances between October 1987 and February 1988, small pink frogs rained down from the sky on to various parts of Great Britain. Scientists are still uncertain as to where these frogs originated, although some have traced them back to the Sahara desert.

The Malaysian government decided to solve their disease-carrying mosquito problem by spraying the infested areas with DDT.  This worked, but the cockroaches then devoured the dead mosquitoes.  This was followed by the region's gecko lizards consuming the roaches.  The geckos did not die from the residual poison (surprisingly), but their central nervous systems were greatly affected, causing the lizards to slow down. Moving up the food chain, the cats ate the slow-moving lizards and started to die off in large quantities. Of course, fewer cats meant more rats, and the country's rat population soared.  As a result, the World Health Organization was forced to step in and ban the DDT.  In an effort to restore the ecological balance, they flew in plane loads of cats to kill the rats.

Two hundred and twenty six soldiers lost their lives way back in 1850 when they crossed a suspension bridge that spanned the Maine at Angers, France. It turns out that they were all marching in step and had caused an increased resonance (vibration) to the bridge. Ever since, troops are ordered to rout step (march out of step) when crossing a bridge.

The phrase "Often a bridesmaid but never a bride" actually comes from an advertisement for Listerine mouthwash.  The text was written by Milton Feasley and first appeared in 1925.  The advertisement was so successful that it ran for more than ten years.

Richard Milhous Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second? William Jefferson Clinton.

No piece of paper can be folded more than 7 times.

If you want actual Random Thoughts, head over to Keely's place for some Random Fun!

Quick Note:  If you're reading this is in IE7 or earlier, you won't be able to leave a comment - I'm still trying to find out why...meanwhile, if you insist on using IE as your browser of choice, upgrading to IE8 resolves the issue and comments can be left.  Or you can jump on the bandwagon of Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome and have way less headaches... ;)

It's Going to be Time to Cross Over to the Other Side and Switch to a MAC

Thank you to my awesome bloggy buddies who were concerned about me being AWOL over the weekend.  Your emails and comments were greatly appreciated!

So Friday's post gave you a rundown of the issues I was having the last couple of weeks - not just with my broken feeds (which are apparently still broken), but also with the Blue Screen of Death my computer suddenly decided it was tired of working and needed to reboot itself.  Always at the most inopportune time, and always when I was in the middle of something important.

Friday was no different.  I thought my System Restore antics of earlier in the week would have taken care of the uninvited Windows Updates that always like to make my laptop crash, but since Vista doesn't allow you to choose a date further than 4 or 5 days prior (unlike XP where you can go back almost a full month to restore), apparently some of those updates that snuck in stayed put.  Much to my chagrin and annoyance.

I was in the middle of reading an entertaining blog and getting ready to leave a witty comment, when my computer crashed.   The Blue Screen of Death yet again.  So I waited impatiently the terminal amount of time for my computer to boot back up, then did two more System Restores, trying to back track and eliminate the issues.  When it seemed to be working 'normal' again (and I use that term very loosely), I was getting back into the groove of blog-hopping when the Blue Screen of Death hit yet again.

This time I closed my laptop and walked away.  If I were going to maintain any semblance of sanity, I needed to do just that.

So I spent the evening playing video games with Princess Nagger instead.  A nice no-need-to-think-and-get-frustrated evening for sure.

Saturday morning I was all geared up to see if I could get it to function and do my usual Silly Saturday post.  Only my computer had other plans instead.  Yet another Blue Screen of Death moment.  I was about ready to toss my laptop right out the window in front of me.

Apparently it's going to be necessary to do an FDISK and reinstall everything.  For now I'm just going to let it limp along and do the best I can until I make sure everything that needs to be backed up is saved on auxiliary drives so as not to lose any important things that will be wiped out when I wipe the hard drive completely bare and start over again.

Fellow PC users are probably empathizing with me at this moment, whereas MAC users are probably shaking their heads and grinning at the fact they never have to deal with this kind of crap.

Hello, my name is Stacy and I've been a PC user since 1996.  I've been way too loyal to PC for my own good, apparently.  Friends that have crossed over to MAC are singing their praises highly, even my brother recently switched over and can't get over how much more efficient and easy they are to use compared to a PC.

Maybe my computer is telling me it's time to Cross Over to the Other Side.   The interruption to my 'normal' routine is getting annoying.  I have blog posts to write, blogs to read, and websites to master.  I need consistency.  And I need it now.  If only the money tree planted in the back yard would actually produce greens other than normal everyday leaves.  I'd be off to a MAC store in a heartbeat to make my life easier today.

Happy Hour Fragmented Friday VGNO - Lost in Cyberspace Searching for the Tooth Fairy

Is it Friday already?  It's been a long week, but at the same time it feels like it flew by extra fast.  Luckily  Mrs. 4444's is the doctor in the house for all the scattered fragments you have no idea what to do with.  Throw them in a post and call her in the morning.  Well, maybe you shouldn't call her in the morning... at least not too early, since it's Saturday and all.  I'm sure she'd appreciate a little sleeping in time.  Just be sure you don't drunk-dial her if you're out partying with the VGNO tonight.  I'm just sayin'.

I've been a bit scarce as I've been searching and hunting and searching some more for the magic code to fix my feeds so people know that I'm actually over here jumping up and down and waving wildly to let y'all know that I actually have been posting.  Not like what Google Reader shows as my most recent post being last Saturday.  I've been lost in cyberspace.  Literally.

I'm hoping I might have found the 'fix' yesterday - but I'm not holding my breath.  While I think the color blue is a lovely color, I don't think I'd like my face would look all that great in a blue color.   Although it might be a nice change of pace from the red-faced frustration I've had this week.

I apparently had the magic code at one point - my feed suddenly started working Saturday morning.  Of course that was after I killed my blog on accident the night before, when I was trying to catch up on blog reading and wanted very much to play along with the VGNO.  But my blog was dead.  For several hours.  I didn't think reenacting its death to see if it jump-started my feeds was a very good idea.  Although I was tempted several times this week, as I was feeling a bit murderous.

Meanwhile, if you have/had me on Google Reader, and if the last update shows my post from last Saturday - please unsubscribe and re-subscribe.  I tested that mode out yesterday, and that brought in the newest posts to my Google Reader.  I'll let you know if it adds this post after it goes live.  But I'm not staying up until midnight to find out.

Speaking of frustrating technology - if you're minding your own business and reading this blog on Internet Explorer 7 or 6 or something even more ancient - thank you for your dedication.  But while you'll be able to read with no trouble (well, unless you need your eyes checked, but that's not IE...this time), you won't be able to comment.

Along with trying to find out the why/how/what/who/dammit issues with the broken feed, I've also be searching out if there's some sort of secret code that can be added to the behind the scenes code of my blog to 'fix' IE created issues in order to enable you to leave comments and not simply skulk or sulk.  Unfortunately the IE Fairy is playing those cards close to his/her vest and not letting me figure out the next move.

But if you're feeling adventurous and insist on using Internet Explorer, if you upgrade to version 8, the comment error blockage is resolved automatically.  No special code needed.  Or, if you're feeling extra adventurous, you could switch over to Firefox or Google Chrome or Safari - where you not only eliminate the security issues that IE is rife with, but you won't have problems commenting on blogs in general.  C'mon, cross over to the other side - I double dog dare you!

Speaking of computer and security issues...well, more computer than security...I wanted to verify that you could leave comments on my blog with an updated IE browser.  I had IE7 installed simply for checking websites that I design and master, since so many people really do insist on using that as their browser-of-choice.  Since my laptop is running on Vista (gasp! I know!) I had to turn off the Windows Automatic Updates completely, because they were randomly installing updates for crap that I don't have or utilize on my computer - which would then would lead to the Blue Screen of Death.

I hate the Blue Screen of Death.  Not only does it suck and take forever to reboot to get back to where you were before, but if you were working on anything that you didn't save, *poof!* it's gone.  So, my little rabid IE user friends - if you still want to use IE and decide to upgrade to IE8, be wary of the secret and multitudes of Windows Updates that will get installed involuntarily with your upgrade.  Of course, if you're one of the fanatical ones that lets the updates happen on a regular basis, and you don't experience the BSOD (because your computer is probably way better than mine and you aren't running Vista on it) you should be fine.

Me?  Not so much.  After I upgraded to IE8 and tried to go merrily along my way by not opening IE unless I had to (and only to verify that you could indeed leave comments where you couldn't in IE7), not only did I get to experience the phenomenon known as the Blue Screen of Death, but it happened three times within two days!  Three times too many.

So I decided to perform a System Restore and get it back to where it was before I did the upgrade and wipe out the involuntary Windows upgrade I didn't need or want, either.

No problem, back to working order.

Except.

I had purchased/downloaded a game from PlayFirst - it's a great place to try out games for an hour to see if you get totally sucked in and hooked actually like the game before you buy it.  I had downloaded a game for Princess Nagger, but hadn't moved it to her computer yet (because she was being belligerent about getting her homework done in a timely manner, so she didn't get to play any computer games).  When I did the System Restore, the game inadvertently got uninstalled.

No problem, I'll just go to my account and utilize the download button in the 'purchase history' section.  Except when I click on that download button, I get a screen saying the game is 'No Longer Available'.  The very same day I decided to restore my computer, they were entering into a partnership with BigFish Games.  The game I had downloaded was now over at BFG - but my code key from purchasing at PF couldn't be input anywhere.  I'm still waiting to hear back from PlayFirst to find out what my options are.

Since I'm not keen on the 'hurry up and wait mode' and their contact form states it may take 5-7 business days to receive a reply, I decided to un-restore the restore.  That worked, the game was back, so I moved the pertinent files to an auxiliary drive, then unplugged the drive so it wouldn't be included in the re-restore process.  Now, if any of you have had to perform a System Restore on your computers, you know it takes forever.  It wasn't until my computer had finally rebooted itself that I noticed I hadn't restored it back to the beginning of the week.  I had re-restored it back to earlier the same morning, you know, yesterday.  Instead of before the IE8 upgrade.

I think I need a break from my computer.  Or serious professional help.

I did finally do a correct System Re-Restore-Restore back to before the IE8 upgrade with the hidden multitudes of Windows Updates that were causing the BSOD).  I'd breath a sigh of relief, but I don't think I'll be doing that until my feeds are functioning again.  At least I was able to retrieve the game I purchased for Princess Nagger, so when she's done with her homework, she'll get to actually play it.

Speaking of Princess Nagger, she still hasn't lost those two loose teeth yet.  Remember she had hoped to lose them over Christmas so the Tooth Fairy and Santa could hang out together?  Didn't happen.  She's still refusing to let me yank them out, and I'm a little worried about the bottom one, because the big tooth is growing in quickly behind it instead of forcing it out and taking its place.  I guess when we go in to see the dentist next month for a teeth cleaning, we'll see what she says.  Unless I surprise her and yank it out unexpectedly.

What's the 'going rate' for a lost tooth?  When I was a kid, it was cool to get a 50-cent piece for a lost tooth.  I made the grave error of leaving a $5 bill for PN's first lost tooth, because I was ill prepared and had no singles on me.  Now she's expecting $5 for the next lost tooth.  I only have a couple of twenties on me at the moment.  Better get change just in case.   Don't want to raise the bar even higher.  Maybe I'll write to the Tooth Fairy and she can write a note to PN about the correct 'going rate' for a lost tooth.

Princess Nagger Conversation of the Week:

PN:  "Mrs. S and I have a lot in common!"

Me:  "Really?  Like what?"

PN:  "Well, I love dinosaurs, and she always puts dinosaur stickers on my papers, so I'm pretty sure she loves dinosaurs, too."

Me:  "Maybe she puts dinosaur stickers on your papers because she knows you love dinosaurs."

PN:  "No, I really think we have that in common.  She loves dinosaurs just like I do.  She's even having me read a dinosaur book for homework."

And now, time for Happy Hour!

• Since it's been...... a week, I'm happy that it's Friday.

• I'm happy that I was able to salvage the no-longer-available game for the Princess Nagger.

• I'm happy that it only took 3 hours of procrastination and stall tactics for her to finally finish her homework yesterday instead of the 4 hours the day before.

• I'm happy that even though my feeds have been broken, you are being generous leaving me comments so I don't feel so lonely lost in cyberspace.  I plan to play catchup very very soon - broken feed or not!

If you're just hanging out at home on Friday night (and blogging), feel free to join in on Ann's Virtual Girl's Night Out (boys are welcome, too!)

Don't forget to visit Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin' Time for fun Friday Fragments, Otin's and RxBambi's respective blogs for Happy Hour Friday, and Ann Again and Again for VGNO.

Spinning up some Fear

Fear is a natural part of life.  It happens whenever we are threatened or feel threatened.  Threats can come in many forms - a snake on the ground in front of you, or being face-to-face with an angry person.  When we encounter them, we have that indescribable feeling in the pit of our stomachs.  Normally I would consider myself fairly fearless.

Except.

Spiders are one of the critters that will raise my hackles no matter what kind of spider it is, or how big or small it is.  Mostly because I’m not educated on species of spiders, therefore I have no idea if it’s harmless, or a potential threat.  So as far as I’m concerned, they’re all a threat.  Well, except Daddy Longlegs.  Those are cool.  Probably because I know they’re not a threat.

Snakes don’t bother me too much, unless I’m in an area that is rife with poisonous ones.  Then I’ll walk around on constant high alert.

I think the most significant fear I had to work through was during my marriage to my abusive ex.  He successfully instilled some major fear in me, but I was lucky to have had a great supporting group of friends that enabled me to escape with my life.  Every so often, even all these years later, if I see someone who resembles my ex, I’ll feel that fear rise up until my brain sorts out that it really isn’t my ex.  So I guess sometimes I walk around on high alert against that poisonous snake as well.

Another fear is being in unfamiliar surroundings with a large group of people.  I tend to be more on the shy side, so I'll be quiet until I become familiar with my surroundings or the people around me.  Then I have the fear that I'll say something dorky or talk too much.  I guess I better hurry up and get over that fear as I plan on attending BlogHer '10 later this year.

But my biggest fear?

Maureen over at Island Roar said it best in her Spin post about fear.  My biggest fear only surfaced after the miraculous birth of Princess Nagger.  The fear that I will die an early untimely death and leave her motherless.  Maureen outlined the exact thought process that goes through my head, too.

That fear is of course exacerbated by the fact that Hovering Hubby wouldn’t know the first thing about how to take care of Princess Nagger, since he works hard to support our household and rarely has the opportunity to be ‘in charge’ of the day-to-day basic stuff.  He’d be a fish out of water if I weren’t around to take care of that ‘stuff’.  And he’d certainly have his hands full.

I have every intention of living a long, full life.  If nothing else so I can be around when Princess Nagger gets married and has kids of her own.  I would love to watch her be a mother.  Especially if she has kids just like her.

This Fearful Spin Cycle was brought to you in part by Jen, one of the bravest women I know and Sprite's Keeper.  Head on over and check out the other spinners - find out who shares the same fears you may have.  It's nice to know we're not alone!

Wordless/Wordful Wednesday - Funny Gingerbread Man

Princess Nagger's Show-and-Tell project right around Christmas.  She needed to cut out a gingerbread man and decorate it, then write a story about it to read to the class.  This is what  she wrote:

"Once upon a time, there was a gingerbread man who lived in a gingerbread house.  He had buttons for his eyes, buttons for his nose, and buttons on his shirt.  He had ribbons for his sleeves and pants, and ribbon for his smile.  He was very happy and had lots of friendly gingerbread friends."

P.S.  While I was sleeping, Mama cut the hair off a Happy Meal My Little Pony and glued it to his head.  Purple is my favorite color, but I don't think hair on a gingerbread man is such a good idea.  I love my Mama, even when she's a dork.

For Wordless Wednesday, be sure to visit Wordless Wednesday, 5 minutes for Mom, Go Graham Go, JollyMom and Momspective for more great Wordless Wednesday Posts.

Wordful Wednesday hosted by Angie at 7 Clown Circus - head on over there to check out all the fun wordy posts!

Random Tuesday Thoughts - More Truly Random Trivia

I thought I had discovered the magical code for my transferred feeds to function like they should, but apparently I was wrong.  I spent the entire day yesterday scouring the internet trying to find that magical code to no avail.  I'll keep looking.  If you were signed up for my feeds via Blogger, you may have to re-subscribe over here in order to be current on my updates.  I would be forever grateful if you did!

Meanwhile, my brain is so fried I wasn't able to piece together any coherent Random Thoughts, only boring brain-fried ones, so I thought I'd toss out some Random Trivia instead.  Hopefully I'll find the magic code and be back to blog-hopping which is way more fun.  Enjoy the trivia!

Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.

1 in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.

You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.

Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.

The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

A Boeing 747’s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.

Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA."

Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

Betsy Ross is the only real person to ever have been the head on a Pez dispenser.

Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.

Pearls melt in vinegar.

Bill Clinton has been in 3 porno films from the waist down.

It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.

The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

Average life span of a major league baseball: seven pitches.

A duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why.

Did you ever wonder what the WD in WD-40 stands for? WD is an abbreviation for Water Displacer.

The Bank of Vernal, in Vernal, Utah (where else?) is the only bank in the world that was built from bricks sent through the mail.  Way back in 1919 the builders realized that it was cheaper to send the bricks through the United States Postal System (seven bricks to a package) than to have them shipped commercially from Salt Lake City.

Marijuana was not illegal in the United States until October 1, 1937, when Congress passed the "Marijuana Tax Act".  Total debate time on the House of Representatives floor concerning this issue: 90 seconds. This act did not actually ban the substance - it simply said that one could not sell marijuana without a license.  Of course, Congress refused to issue any licenses.  Congress finally banned marijuana outright in 1970.

Everyone knows that spinach is loaded in iron and makes you stronger - just look what it has done for Popeye's career. Apparently Popeye was wrong.  So were all of those parents that stuffed it down their kids' throats.  In reality, spinach has no more iron in it than any other vegetable. This spinach misconception dates back to the 1950's when a food analyst made an error while calculating the iron in spinach. His decimal place was off by one place, suggesting that spinach had ten times as much iron content than it really did.

If you want actual Random Thoughts, head over to Keely's place for some Random Fun!  I'll try to have my brain de-fried in time for next week's Randomness.

Cookbook History you Never Wanted to Know

If you've been reading me for awhile, you know that I love to cook and experiment with different recipes.  In between racking wine yesterday, I got side tracked by flipping through some of my cookbooks to look for any fun or unique recipes to make this week.  I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but I enjoy collecting unique cookbooks, particularly the antique ones that are hilarious to read.

Like this one:

Published in 1938 and specifically titled "The Way to a Man's Heart - the Settlement Cookbook".  I loved the description of Chapter 1:  House Rules, Kitchen Equipment, Directions for Serving.

I have a whole slew of these kinds of cookbooks.  They intrigue me.  And they're fun to look at how things used to be way back when.

Just about every home today has at least one cookbook in its kitchen.  I’m amazed at how many people like me collect them (though my hubby would probably roll his eyes because he thinks I have too many).  What I really enjoy is seeing the contrast between ‘new’ and ‘old’ cookbooks – especially the old cookbooks, since it's interesting to see how kitchens of the past were, and how they prepared their meals.  It’s amazing how far we’ve come.

The oldest cookbook on record is believed to be a clay tablet from Babylon, dating back to circa 1500 BC, which contains recipes for some elegant meals.   The ancient Greeks and Romans served exquisite dishes and included many forms of art in their fruits and vegetables much as we do today when entertaining.

Up until the 18th century, cookbooks were used by the wealthy only. Their servants were not supposed to know how to read a cookbook, so the mistress of the household would read the directions as the servant prepared the mixture. Later, cookbooks were written with the middle class in mind, so they started turning up in more homes.

Cookbooks came out in the mid 1700s in Colonial America.   A reprint of an English edition called The Complete Housewife by Eliza Smith appeared in 1742 in Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1796 Amelia Simmons, self-published American Cookery and it became known as the first American cookbook. This small blue book was the first self-published cookbook and the first cookbook to be written by a woman.  In 1796!  I think the oldest one I have is from 1890 - I'm trying to find one that was around the time our house was built, 1817.

At that time specific measurements were not that important and cookbooks gave directions like "add a pinch of salt", or "mix as for a rich pastry".  Then came an improvement in the accuracy of measurements, and Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School taught that exact measurements must always be applied.

Isn’t it interesting how we’re coming ‘full circle’ by many of us that really enjoy cooking actually don’t use exact measurements?  I live by the mantra my Great-Grandmother taught me – season to taste.  Of course there are some recipes I'll hold to that strict 'exact measurement' rule.

As the 19th century approached, cookbook sales began to increase dramatically.  Before the 1876 Centennial, over 1,000 cookbooks were published causing the authors to become quite popular. Female novelists such as Mary Randolph (distant cousin to Thomas Jefferson), and Sarah Josepha Hale (author of Mary Had a Little Lamb), even wrote a cookbook.

The 19th century cookbooks offered essays containing advice, or household tips. Women back then felt like they were getting a special treat - not only were they getting a cookbook, but useful household tips as well.  Like this one:

Published in 1934, it breaks it down by cost per meal, with suggestions on how to stretch the food purchased to save money.  And make sure the meals are 'wholesome' and 'attractive'.

The beginning of 20th century cookbooks were becoming extremely popular, so they were sold in all bookstores and department stores everywhere.  There are so many different types of cookbooks available now - and let's not forget the cooking celebrities that have their own cookbooks for sale as well.

But I really like unique ones, like this one:

The front and back covers are made of wood.  I'd say that was very unique!

Published in 1936, it has some interesting Wild Wild West type recipes in it, along with drawings throughout such as this:

Sure, I have a ton of 'modern' cookbooks, but I'll take an antique one over a modern one any day.  If nothing else, for the entertainment factor of reading the way people thought - and cooked - 'back then', and how very unique some of the recipes are.

This now concludes your History Lesson for the day.

Quotable Sunday - Hard Work Leads to Relief

I know I've used this image before in the past, but it's definitely appropriate for the headaches I've suffered this past week trying to figure out how to 'fix' my blog feeds.  I accidentally killed my blog for a few hours on Friday evening, but luckily was able to resuscitate it just before midnight.  And apparently found the right code at some point to fix the feeds - hence the reason some of you suddenly got a week's worth of posts in your reader yesterday!

This week for Quotable Sunday I decided to find some quotes about 'relief' and 'hard work' - since this week spent up to my eyeballs in code was hard work, and the relief I had when I heard from some of my readers that the links were actually working again.  Enjoy these eclectic quotes!

“In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.”
Mark Twain

“Sorrow comes to all...Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel better and yet you are sure to be happy again.”
Abraham Lincoln

“A woman under stress is not immediately concerned with finding solutions to her problems but rather seeks relief by expressing herself and being understood.”
John Gray

“There is certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place”
Washington Irving

“Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute.”
Mark Twain

“If a job's worth doing, it's too hard.”
Scott Adams

“If hard work were really a virtue, then mules would be saints.”
James Dee Richardson

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination."
Tommy Lasorda

"Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle and a victory."
Ghandi

"A resolute determination is the truest wisdom."
Napoléon I




Quotable Sunday is brought to you by Toni, from A Daily Dose of Toni - why don't you join us?

When You Thought I Wasn't Looking...

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you hang my
first painting on the refrigerator, and I immediately
wanted to paint another one.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you feed a
stray cat, and I learned that it was good to be kind
to animals.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you make my
favorite cake for me, and I learned that the little
things can be the special things in life.

When you thought I wasn't looking I heard you say a
prayer, and I knew that there is a God I could always
talk to, and I learned to trust in Him.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you make a
meal and take it to a friend who was sick, and I
learned that we all have to help take care of each other.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you take care
of our house and everyone in it, and I learned we have
to take care of what we are given.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw how you
handled your responsibilities, even when you didn't
feel good, and I learned that I would have to be
responsible when I grow up.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw tears come
from your eyes, and I learned that sometimes things
hurt, but it's all right to cry.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw that you
cared, and I wanted to be everything that I could be.

When you thought I wasn't looking I learned most of
life's lessons that I need to know to be a good and
productive person when I grow up.

When you thought I wasn't looking I looked at you and
wanted to say, 'Thanks for all the things I saw when
you thought I wasn't looking'.

This is for all of you out there that do so much for others, but think that no one ever sees.  Little eyes see a lot.  Each of us (parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, teacher, friend) influences the life of a child.

How will you touch the life of someone today?

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

When you thought I wasn't looking, you became my friend.

Friday Fragment Happy Hour VGNO Fun

It seems like forever since I've done a Friday Fragments post.  I've missed the Fragmented group!  Boy has it been a long week, I'm still trying to work out the kinks on my new digs here, so I've had my head buried in code that is true gibberish to my fuddled brain.  What better way to de-fuddle my brain than throw some random fragments into a post?  You can thank  Mrs. 4444's and de-fuddle your brain, too.  Try it, you'll like it!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year - we had a series of unfortunate events over the Christmas weekend but luckily no additional drama in this New Year.  Princess Nagger still hasn't lost those two loose teeth yet, the bottom tooth is stubbornly holding on while her big tooth is growing in behind it.

I keep offering to use pliers or tie a string to her tooth and the doorknob, but she resists both ideas.  Hubby offered to tie the other end of the string to one of the dog's tails, but she still won't buy into our potential remedies.  She keeps wanting to eat crunchy Cheetos since that's when her first tooth fell out.  Guess I better stock up!

Chuck is back!   This show is one of my absolute favorites - it was new last year, and there were ugly rumors going around that NBC was going to not bring it back, but they relented to the masses and it's back.  Sure, it's only coming back now, which is technically mid-season, but at least it's back.  Better late than never!

If you missed it last year, you shouldn't miss it this year.  It's that good.  It premieres Sunday night at 8:00 pm with a 2-hour premiere, then will resume it's normal Monday night slot at 8:00 pm.  So basically Monday we'll get a bonus episode.  I can't wait!

I still haven't taken down my Christmas decorations yet.  I didn't go 'all out' this year like I usually do, so there's really only the tree and a few extra items to take care of, but it's been so cold and windy that schlepping storage tubs to and from the shed wasn't an attractive prospect for me this week.

The wind is especially biting on the front porch, so that decor is still blazing brightly at night.  At least it's not so much 'Christmasy' as all that - white lights and green garland on the porch posts, and 4 lighted deer on the porch with hay bales, one group of hay bales is covered with a white tablecloth to look like snow.  If I really think about it, it's more of a 'winter scene' rather than a Christmas one, so I could technically leave it up until Spring.

We were supposed to get not-so-frozen temperatures this week and weekend, but the arctic blast from the North made sure that didn't happen.  And now we're expecting a few inches of snow overnight and biting cold temperatures and wind for the weekend, so that pretty much eliminates the desire to hang out on the front porch and take everything down.  I might tackle the Christmas tree this weekend just so I can have my living room back.

If you tried to access my blog on Wednesday morning, you probably saw the 'error' screen from Bravenet, where I have everything under the sun hosted.  Apparently they had a server or something major crash during the night, which rendered everything hosted there inaccessible.

I've had hosting there for about 4 years and this is the very first time anything major like that ever happened, but it sure stressed me out big time.  As if banging my head against the keyboard trying to figure out how to code my blog wasn't stressful enough.  Hopefully it'll be another 4 years or longer before anything like that happens again. *fingers crossed*

Princess Nagger Conversation of the Week:

PN's bus was late getting home yesterday - apparently the bus broke down.  She gave me a great big bear hug when she finally got home, and this is the little conversation that took place:

PN:  "I missed you too much!"

Me:  "I missed you, too!"

PN:  "That's funny that you missed me."

Me:  "Why is that funny?"

PN:  "I didn't think that you missed me when I was at school."

Me:  "Sure I do, most days."

PN:  "So I guess today was one of those 'most' days, huh?"

Me:  "Yes, it was."

PN:  "So what did you do all day, sit around and miss me?"

Me:  "Of course not!  I don't just sit around all day you know."

PN:  "So what did you do today?"

Me:  "Worked on trying to figure out how to finish setting up my blog and worked on other websites."

PN:  "What, you were walking around with your laptop and not sitting?"

Me:  "No, silly - I was sitting while working on my laptop."

PN:  "So you were sitting around all day!"

Me:  "OK, Literal Girl, I was sitting, but I was busy!"

PN:  "If you were that busy, how did you miss me?"

Me:  "What, you think I can't be busy doing stuff and miss you at the same time?  I'm a multitasker, you know!"

PN:  "I'm a multitasker, too - watch me eat my after school snack and watch a dinosaur show at the same time!"

And now, time for Happy Hour!

• I'm happy that I'm almost done figuring out how to code my blog so I can finally be done being cross-eyed and can get back into the swing of reading and commenting again.

• I'm happy that hubby is tolerant of the Christmas decorations sticking around a bit longer than normal.  He hasn't said anything about them still being around, so I'm taking that as a sign that it's OK.  He also hasn't said anything about the house being a mess right now, either, so I'm taking that as a sign that it's OK, too.

• I'm happy that Princess Nagger seems none the worse for wear in spite of having her ear drum burst over Christmas weekend.

• I'm happy that even though she got sick over the holidays, that she didn't share it with me.

If you're just hanging out at home on Friday night (and blogging), feel free to join in on Ann's Virtual Girl's Night Out (boys are welcome, too!)

Don't forget to visit Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin' Time for fun Friday Fragments, Otin's and RxBambi's respective blogs for Happy Hour Friday, and Ann Again and Again for VGNO.